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Chinese President Xi Jinping's Special Representative Ding Xuexiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese vice premier, meets with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the sidelines of the World Leaders Climate Action Summit during the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 13, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang said Wednesday that China's resolve and actions to actively address climate change will not waver.

Ding, Chinese President Xi Jinping's special representative and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks in a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the sidelines of the World Leaders Climate Action Summit during the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Ding said that China firmly implements the national strategy to address climate change, making green and low-carbon development key elements for achieving high-quality growth. China has developed and implemented a series of policies and measures to achieve both ecological and economic benefits.

China's commitment to peaking carbon emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060 is a deliberate and serious promise, Ding said, adding that the key to tackling climate change lies in practical action, and China has always honored its words with deeds.

Regardless of changes in the international situation or policies in other countries, China's resolve and actions to actively address climate change will not waver, Ding noted.

He said that China firmly upholds multilateralism and always supports the international system with the United Nations at the core and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as the main channel of global climate governance.

China fulfills its responsibility as a major country, contributing significantly to international cooperation on climate change, Ding noted, adding that the country is willing to work with all parties to engage in practical and open dialogue, reject unilateralism, and strive for positive outcomes at COP29 to inject positive momentum into the multilateral climate process.

For his part, Guterres said that the United Nations highly appreciates China's efforts and contributions toward its "dual carbon" goals and thanks China for its longstanding strong support for the cause of the United Nations.

He affirmed the United Nations' readiness to strengthen cooperation with China to jointly uphold multilateralism, ensure the success of COP29, and better address the global climate change challenge.
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The RAM undergoes a juvenile-to-adult transition during normal development. This root phase change is typed by phenotypic (appearance of the middle cortex) and molecular (changes in miR156 and SPL13 levels) characteristics. The small molecule coral7 induces SPL13 expression levels. Modulating SPL levels allows discontinuation of actual time from developmental time and thus triggers rapid aging or prolonged youth in RAMs. Credit: Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.ado4298

Understanding how roots grow can help us develop plants thatfor exampleare more resistant to drought. Research by Prof. Bert De Rybel's team (VIB-UGent), in collaboration with the VIB Screening Core and Ghent University, uncovers how roots go through a "puberty" phase, which could have important implications for developing climate-resilient agriculture. Their work appears in Science.

Plants, like all living organisms, transition through various developmental stages, starting as seeds, becoming shoots, and eventually full-grown, fertile plants. They even go through a sort of "puberty" during which a young shoot changes its growth patterns, which is vital for survival and adaptation to the environment. By altering the direction in which cells divide, plants can grow more in width than in height, or vice-versa.

What happens below the ground

Between the first and third week of development, roots undergo a lot of changes. Researchers from Prof. De Rybel's team (VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology) and the VIB Screening Core, together with the Department of Chemistry of the University of Ghent, now provide molecular details on "root puberty." Their findings highlight the crucial role of SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE 13 (SPL13) in regulating oriented cell divisions, a process essential for proper root growth and morphology.

"Our research provides molecular insights into the age-dependent changes occurring in the root during this crucial phase," says Prof. De Rybel. "We discovered that a change in gene expression of SPL transcription factors, particularly SPL13, is crucial for this transition by regulating the orientation of cell division."

Complexities of growth

The transition that results from SPL13 activity is characterized by distinct changes in the morphology and molecular profile of the roots, which are critical for the plant's overall development.

Dr. Dominique Audenaert, head of the VIB Screening Core (part of VIB Technologies), explains, "We provided advanced microscopy-based screening technology that allowed us to screen for molecules that alter cell division orientation in cell cultures. By assessing the mode-of-action of the identified compounds, we could demonstrate that altering SPL13 production in the cells makes the root systems grow steeper and deeper."

Changing expression levels of SPL13 even allowed the scientists to speed up or slow down root aging.

"Our research," explains Prof. De Rybel, "not only presents a previously unknown fundamental mechanism of plant development, but it also opens new avenues for improved crop yields and plant resilience in changing environmental conditions."

As the global population continues to grow, optimizing plant growth and development will be crucial for food security. The importance of SPL transcription factors in plant biology highlights their potential applications in agriculture through changing root growth patterns, which may make crops more resilient to drought, for example.

By revealing the previously hidden complexity of root development, this study also identifies a gap in current plant research. Most studies use root samples that are one week old, but it is now clear that roots go through significant changes in morphology and gene expression, which means the way we look at root growth in lab conditions will have to be reconsidered.

More information: Baojun Yang et al, SPL13 controls a root apical meristem phase change by triggering oriented cell divisions, Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.ado4298 Journal information: Science
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Credit: Zootaxa (2024). DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5536.1.6

A new species of rock skink has been discovered in central Australia by Monash University researchers. Characterized by its orange, pointed snout, the Central Ranges rock skink, or Liopholis aputja, inhabits the hills of the Mann-Musgrave Ranges near the northern border of South Australia.

The findings are published in the journal Zootaxa.

Jules Farquhar, who led the research for Monash University's School of Biological Sciences, said "aputja" is a local Aboriginal word meaning "of the hills."

"The name recognizes that this is the only skink known to live in the mountains of the Mann-Musgrave Rangesthe other species are usually only found on the surrounding sand plains," he said. "In fact, we believe the species is unique to this region of South Australia."

Farquhar and his Monash University colleagues studied the skink during a 2023 field research trip alongside Aboriginal traditional owners from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. To determine its distinct genetic profile, they undertook more than a year of research to compare it with other known species.

In addition to its genetics, Liopholis aputja has fewer scales above its eyes and more ear lobules than its closest relative, a skink from the MacDonnell Ranges in the Northern Territory.

"There was some question around the relationship between the skink populations in the two regions for a few years, but we have only now been able to confirm these as distinct," Farquhar said. "The findings have important implications for the conservation of the Mann-Musgrave Ranges, as it further emphasizes the uniqueness of the region's fauna and the need to protect it.

"Australia is very rich in biodiversity but we still have a lot of species out there that we don't know about, especially in remote and understudied regions, so these discoveries are critical to protecting them."

Farquhar said working with APY Lands traditional owners highlighted the importance of cultural knowledge to conservation and habitat protection.

"It's amazing to see and learn from them about the land and how it changes throughout the year," he said. "The conclusions they draw about the landscape are insightful, founded on long term knowledge and their love of country. There is a lot of value in Western scientists and traditional owners going into remote regions and working collaboratively to understand more about our landscape and wildlife."

More information: Jules E. Farquhar et al, A new species of rock skink (Scincidae: Liopholis) from the Central Ranges bioregion of arid Australia, Zootaxa (2024). DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5536.1.6 Journal information: Zootaxa
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The Optical Telescope Assembly for NASAs Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which was recently delivered to the largest clean room at the agencys Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is one giant step closer to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. The mission has now received its final major delivery: the Optical Telescope Assembly, which includes a 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) primary mirror, nine additional mirrors, and supporting structures and electronics. The assembly was delivered Nov. 7. to the largest clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where the observatory is being built.

The telescope will focus cosmic light and send it to Roman's instruments, revealing many billions of objects strewn throughout space and time. Using the mission's Wide Field Instrument, a 300-megapixel infrared camera, astronomers will survey the cosmos all the way from the outskirts of our solar system toward the edge of the observable universe. Scientists will use Roman's Coronagraph Instrument to test new technologies for dimming host stars to image planets and dusty disks around them in far better detail than ever before.

"We have a top-notch telescope that's well aligned and has great optical performance at the cold temperatures it will see in space," said Bente Eegholm, optics lead for Roman's Optical Telescope Assembly at NASA Goddard. "I am now looking forward to the next phase where the telescope and instruments will be put together to form the Roman observatory."

Designed and built by L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York, the assembly incorporates key optics (including the primary mirror) that were made available to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office. The team at L3Harris then reshaped the mirror and built upon the inherited hardware to ensure it would meet Roman's specifications for expansive, sensitive infrared observations.

"The telescope will be the foundation of all of the science Roman will do, so its design and performance are among the largest factors in the mission's survey capability," said Josh Abel, lead Optical Telescope Assembly systems engineer at NASA Goddard.

The team at Goddard worked closely with L3Harris to ensure these stringent requirements were met and that the telescope assembly will integrate smoothly into the rest of the Roman observatory.

The assembly's design and performance will largely determine the quality of the mission's results, so the manufacturing and testing processes were extremely rigorous. Each optical component was tested individually prior to being assembled and assessed together earlier this year. The tests helped ensure that the alignment of the telescope's mirrors will change as expected when the telescope reaches its operating temperature in space.

Then, the telescope was put through tests simulating the extreme shaking and intense sound waves associated with launch. Engineers also made sure that tiny components called actuators, which will adjust some of the mirrors in space, move as predicted. And the team measured gases released from the assembly as it transitioned from normal air pressure to a vacuumthe same phenomenon that has led astronauts to report that space smells gunpowdery or metallic. If not carefully controlled, these gases could contaminate the telescope or instruments.

Finally, the telescope underwent a month-long thermal vacuum test to ensure it will withstand the temperature and pressure environment of space. The team closely monitored it during cold operating conditions to ensure the telescope's temperature will remain constant to within a fraction of a degree. Holding the temperature constant allows the telescope to remain in stable focus, making Roman's high-resolution images consistently sharp. Nearly 100 heaters on the telescope will help keep all parts of it at a very stable temperature.

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"It is very difficult to design and build a system to hold temperatures to such a tight stability, and the telescope performed exceptionally," said Christine Cottingham, thermal lead for Roman's Optical Telescope Assembly at NASA Goddard.

Now that the assembly has arrived at Goddard, it will be installed onto Roman's Instrument Carrier, a structure that will keep the telescope and Roman's two instruments optically aligned. The assembly's electronics boxessentially the telescope's brainwill be mounted within the spacecraft along with Roman's other electronics.

With this milestone, Roman remains on track for launch by May 2027.

"Congratulations to the team on this stellar accomplishment!" said J. Scott Smith, the assembly's telescope manager at NASA Goddard. "The completion of the telescope marks the end of an epoch and incredible journey for this team, and yet only a chapter in building Roman. The team's efforts have advanced technology and ignited the imaginations of those who dream of exploring the stars."

Provided by NASA
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Examples of Conversations on Movies. Credit: Journal of Experimental Psychology (2024). DOI: 10.1037/xge0001684

If you want to seem sincere and receive more responses to your texts, spell out words instead of abbreviating them, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

Researchers conducted eight experiments with a total of more than 5,300 participants using various methods. Across the experiments, individuals who used texting abbreviations were perceived as more insincere and were less likely to receive replies because they were seen as exerting less effort in text conversations. The research was published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

"In daily interactions, we often encounter people who could be considered good texters or poor texters," said lead researcher David Fang, BCom, a doctoral student in behavioral marketing at Stanford University. "We thought texters might like abbreviations because it would convey an informal sense of closeness, so we were surprised that abbreviations elicited negative perceptions about people who use them."

Texting has become a dominant form of digital communication, and most texters use some abbreviations, such as IDK for "I don't know" or GOAT for "greatest of all time." But people might not realize that abbreviations come with costs. In a preliminary survey by the researchers, 99% of respondents reported they used texting abbreviations, and 84% of them didn't believe that others wouldn't like abbreviations.

The experiments included an analysis of replies to Discord group chat users, dating scenarios, and Tinder dating app users' conversation histories spanning 37 countries. Other experiments included participants who rated their texting conversations with people who either were or weren't using abbreviations.

In the experiments, texters who used abbreviations received shorter and fewer responses and were less likely to receive contact information from the other texter. While young people tend to use more texting abbreviations, they still weren't fans of them, although the findings were inconsistent in some of the studies, Fang said.

"While our overall results on age were mixed, it's clear that younger people are not particularly fond of abbreviations, though the strength of this aversion may vary by age," Fang said.

Texting abbreviations could contribute to loneliness if people find that social bonds weaken over time because they receive less frequent or positive replies to their texts, Fang said. But he doesn't believe people should stop using abbreviations altogether.

"We often tailor the effort we put into conversations to match the significance of the relationship. In some cases, it makes sense to invest less effort and accept being perceived as less sincere, like quickly texting with a delivery driver," Fang said.

"However, our findings are especially relevant when we want to appear more sincere and strengthen social ties, such as at the beginning of a relationship or when we need to make a good impression."
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This handout photo taken on November 14, 2024 and released by Buguey Municipal Disaster Risk and Reduction Management Office via Cagayan Provincial Public Information office shows a rescuer carrying a young resident during a forced evacuation operation in Buguey town, Cagayan province, ahead of Typhoon Usagi.

Typhoon Usagi slammed into the Philippines' already disaster-ravaged north on Thursday, as authorities rushed to evacuate thousands of people from coastal areas.

Usagi made landfall in the town of Baggao in Cagayan province at 0530 GMT with winds of 175 kilometers (109 miles) an hour, the national weather service saidthe fifth storm to strike the country in just three weeks.

The brutal wave of weather disasters has already killed 159 people and prompted the United Nations to request $32.9 million in aid for the worst-affected regions.

The national weather agency had initially raised its highest storm alert, but downgraded to its second-highest as Usagi made landfall.

It said the winds could cause "considerable damage to structures of light materials", moderate damage even to structures otherwise considered "low-risk", and uproot large trees within the next 12 hours.

"Intense to torrential rain" and potentially "life-threatening" coastal waves of up to three meters (nine feet) were also forecast over two days.

President Ferdinand Marcos, visiting storm-affected areas to dole out emergency cash assistance, urged residents to comply with evacuation orders.

"We know that it is difficult to leave your homes and possessions, but sheltering could save lives," he told residents of Mindoro island south of the capital Manila, according to an official transcript of his speech.

"While we cannot prevent typhoons from hitting the country, we can take steps to reduce their impact," he said, calling for better infrastructure to cope with worsening storm effects he blamed on climate change.

This handout photo taken on November 14, 2024 and released by Buguey Municipal Disaster Risk and Reduction Management Office via Cagayan Provincial Public Information office shows rescuers fetching residents during a forced evacuation operation in Buguey town, Cagayan province, north of Manila, ahead of Typhoon Usagi.

'Forced evacuations'

In Cagayan, officials worked in driving rain Thursday to evacuate residents along the coasts and on the banks of already swollen rivers.

"Yesterday it was preemptive evacuations. Now we're doing forced evacuations," local disaster official Edward Gaspar told AFP by phone hours before landfall, adding 1,404 residents were sheltering at a municipal gym.

"There are many more evacuees in nearby villages but we haven't had time to visit and count them," he added.

Cagayan's civil defense chief Rueli Rapsing said he expected local governments to take 40,000 people to shelters, roughly the same number that were preemptively evacuated ahead of Typhoon Yinxing, which struck Cagayan's north coast earlier this month.

More than 5,000 Cagayan residents were still in shelters following the previous storms because the Cagayan river, the country's largest, remained swollen from heavy rain that fell in several provinces upstream.

"We expect this situation to persist over the next few days" as Usagi brings more rain, Rapsing told AFP.

Overlapping typhoons

After Usagi, Tropical Storm Man-yi is also forecast to strike the Philippines' population heartland around Manila this weekend.

This handout photo taken and released on November 14, 2024 by the Philippine Coast Guard shows coast guard personnel evacuating people to Buguey town, Cagayan province, ahead of Typhoon Usagi.

A high-pressure area in southern Japan will cause the storm to follow a more southerly track than Usagi, the weather service said.

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"Typhoons are overlapping. As soon as communities attempt to recover from the shock, the next tropical storm is already hitting them again," UN Philippines Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Gustavo Gonzalez said.

"In this context, the response capacity gets exhausted and budgets depleted."

A UN assessment of the past month's weather disasters said 207,000 houses had been damaged or destroyed, and nearly 700,000 people were seeking temporary shelter.

Many families were without even essentials like sleeping mats, hygiene kits, and cooking supplies, and had limited access to safe drinking water, it said.

The storms destroyed thousands of hectares of farmland and persistent flooding is likely to delay replanting efforts and worsen food supply problems, the report added.

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the archipelago nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people and keeping millions in enduring poverty.

A recent study showed that storms in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change.

 2024 AFP
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Chinese President Xi Jinping is embarking on a journey Wednesday to Latin America, where he will attend the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, capital of Peru, and the 19th G20 Summit in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro, and pay state visits to the two countries.

As he travels halfway around the globe, the world is witnessing a host of unprecedented and intertwined chaos and challenges: lackluster economic growth, rising trade protectionism and protracted regional conflicts. These pressing crises are demanding global unity, resolve and, most of all, effective actions.

Xi's visit is expected to boost China's efforts with Latin American nations to build a community with a shared future, bolster cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, and renew the world's commitment to improving global governance for an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.

A dragon dance is staged at a reception celebrating the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Brazil in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 15, 2024. ([Photo/Xinhua]

New milestones

Over the past three decades, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, has driven rapid development in the region, turning it into a powerhouse for world economic growth, an anchor of stability for global development, and a pacesetter for international cooperation.

As President Xi has put it, since the establishment of the economic leaders' regular meeting mechanism, APEC has always stood at the global forefront of openness and development. It has played a robust role in promoting Asia-Pacific trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, economic growth and technological progress, and the flow of goods and people. It has helped create the "Asia-Pacific miracle" that has staggered the world.

As the highest-level, broadest, and most influential economic cooperation mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region, APEC embodies the deep aspirations of partners to build a better future together.

The Asia-Pacific region has great economic potential thanks to its rich natural resources, booming tourism, dynamic markets with strong purchasing power, and fast-growing digital economy. In October, the International Monetary Fund predicted that the world economy will grow at 3.2 percent in 2024 and the emerging and developing Asia is expected to grow at 5.3 percent this year.

As Xi has pointed out, development in the Asia-Pacific region has been achieved not through provoking antagonism and confrontation, pursuing a beggar-thy-neighbor policy, or erecting high fences around a small yard, but by staying open and inclusive and drawing on each other's strengths.

Amid growing protectionism and calls for decoupling, APEC's role as a multilateral forum dedicated to economic cooperation is more crucial than ever in fostering dialogue, said Hans Hendrischke, a professor at the University of Sydney Business School.

An aerial drone photo taken on June 7, 2024 shows the Marangatu Solar Complex, invested by SPIC Brazil, a subsidiary of China's State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), in Piaui state, Brazil. [Photo/Xinhua]

True multilateralism

"'Sugarcane and lemongrass grow in dense clumps.' This Indonesian proverb well captures the value of solidarity. Division and confrontation serve no one's interest. Only solidarity and common development is the right choice to make," Xi made this metaphorical reference at the G20 Bali Summit in 2022 to urge G20 members to stay committed to its founding purpose of unity and cooperation, carry forward the spirit of solidarity, and uphold the principle of consensus.

In the face of a sluggish global economy, compounded crises in food and energy security, frequent geopolitical conflicts, and a severe deficit in global governance, the upcoming G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, with the theme of "Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet," not only responds to the call of the times but also reflects the aspirations of all nations.

During the upcoming G20 summit, his 11th attendance at the gathering, Xi will address key issues such as building an open world economy and improving global governance, and elaborate on China's positions and offer China's insights and solutions.

Within the G20 cooperative framework, China has, as always, been focusing on development issues. At the G20 Hangzhou Summit in 2016, development was, for the first time, brought to the fore within the global macro-policy framework.

"All G20 members should take the responsibility inherent in being major international and regional players, and should lead by example in promoting development of all nations, improving the well-being for the whole mankind, and advancing progress of the entire world," Xi said at the 2022 G20 Summit in Bali.

From being the first to explicitly support the African Union's accession to the G20, to striving to bridge the North-South "digital divide," China has always contributed to improving the global governance system and increasing the representation and voice of developing countries.

The global governance concept proposed by China meets the needs of the new economic and development environment, said Dora Isabel Gonzalez, a Mexican scholar.

An aerial drone photo taken on June 21, 2024 shows the Chancay Port in Peru. [Photo/Xinhua]

Supercharge development

The Chancay Port, 78 km north of Lima, is set to become a new shipping hub connecting Asia and Latin America, making the "Chancay to Shanghai" route a true path of prosperity, promoting the common development of China and Peru, Xi said.

Spanning across the vast Pacific Ocean, China and Peru have long-lasting sincere friendship. The two countries have witnessed increasingly close economic and trade cooperation as well as cultural exchanges in recent years.

Peru is one of the first Latin American countries to establish diplomatic relations and a comprehensive strategic partnership with China.

It is also the first Latin American country to sign a package of free trade agreements with China. Meanwhile, China has been Peru's largest trading partner and largest export market for 10 years in a row.

Brazil, the second destination of Xi's trip, is China's long-standing friend. The two countries have made substantial progress in their relationship.

As major developing countries and important emerging markets, China and Brazil are good friends sharing the same goals and good partners moving forward together, Xi said.

China has been Brazil's largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years, while Brazil is China's top trading partner and the largest investment destination in Latin America.

The two countries have closely coordinated and cooperated on multilateral platforms such as the United Nations, BRICS, and G20, safeguarding the common interests of both nations and that of developing countries.

Ten years ago, Xi first proposed in Brasilia the vision of building a China-Latin America community with a shared future, charting the course for the development of China-Latin America relations in the new era.

Over the years, Xi has focused on the shared future of China and Latin American and Caribbean countries, working for steady advancement in China-Latin America relations based on equality, mutual benefit, and common development.

Cooperation between China and Latin American countries on the multilateral stage will further unite and empower countries in the Global South, playing a constructive role in addressing global issues and reforming the global governance system, said Patricio Giusto, director of the Sino-Argentine Observatory.
Running Man is a band that requires a whole lot of compromise.

The Quad-Cities-based post-punk act is made up entirely of former or current front-men: Chad Gooch (guitar, vocals), Jamie Warren (guitar, vocals), Skip Greer (lead vocals), Pat Stolley (bass, vocals) and Dennis Hockaday (drums).

Between the five-piece group, there's decades of experience in a laundry list of bands like Mondo Drag, The Multiple Cat, Meth and Goats, Tambourine and Lord Green.

Greer is the only Quad-Cities transplant of the group. He moved to Mercer County three years ago with his wife. He's currently the frontman for influential punk group The Dead Kennedys, and formerly was a part of Bay Area band the Wynona Riders.

"I had their album when I was in high school," Gooch said, seated at a picnic table outside Devon's Complaint Dept. in Davenport.

Gooch wasn't alone in that fandom.

"That was more impressive to us than the Dead Kennedys stuff," Warren chimed in.

The guitarist recalled when the group first bonded over a trip to La Rancherita and Radicle Effect in Rock Island. The day started with a michelada and ended with several too many Bloody Marys.

The chemistry for Running Man was instant.

The band was officially formed soon after. They're almost three years old now. At their first practice together, the guys in Running Man were blown away by Greer's audacity.

"Some people are a little shy, especially doing the vocals and stuff," Warren said. "But he just went right up there and f*****g did it."

It helped ease the tension for a group of musicians who needed to establish their dynamic. Many members of the five-piece have known each other for years. But this is their first time all working together.

It's also their first time working with Greer. And Gooch was pleased to see that, despite his immense punk credentials, Greer doesn't have too much ego.

"You're just kind of one of us," Gooch says to his bandmate.

The band's chemistry has culminated in "Running Man," a self-titled debut album that releases on Friday. The whole thing was recorded in Stolley's Future AppleTree Studio in Rock Island.

The group is debuting it in a free listening party at Rozz-Tox on Thursday at 7 p.m. On Saturday, they'll perform the record in a release show at Raccoon Motel that starts at 8:30 p.m.

The band is as nonchalant about the name of the record as they are about the name of the band. Running Man, the band name was picked because it sounded cool. "Running Man," the album name, was picked because it was convenient. But the process to get there was a little bit meticulous.

Again, managing a group of frontmen requires some real diplomacy. Many band names were left on the cutting room floor.

There was CCTV, but a band in Chicago already got that one. There was ZZ Toxx, but Warren was the guardrail for anything that seemed too cheesy.

"Terrible band name," he said of ZZ Toxx.

Gooch pitched Cool Dudez. That one was nixed by Warren, too.

"For a long time, I would suggest these bad band names just to get on Jamie's nerves," Gooch said. "I thought with Cool Dudez  with a Z  people would come to our shows and be like, 'these guys are cool dudes.'...

"But Jamie doesn't like jokey names."

"I don't like dumbass names," Warren corrected.

The songwriting approach is fairly nonchalant, too. Many lyrics on the band's debut album started as nonsense and then found meaning along the way.

Greer and Stolley are the lead writers. They take a lot of inspiration from mondegreens, or misheard lyrics.

Several songs on this album started with the band riffing and Greer singing gibberish, he said. Stolley would then write down what he thought Greer was saying, and it stuck.

"It goes through a couple permutations," Stolley said, kicking back at the table across from his Running Man bandmates.

Some of the lines are more on-the-nose  "Why the hell was he in East Moline?" goes one on "Numbskulls."

Greer wrote that song hoping to mythologize the Quad-Cities a bit. As a transplant, he has an appreciation for the scene here. It's a whole lot different than the Bay Area where he spent most of his music-making life.

Greer said that track, in particular, is sort of inspired by the film "Mulholland Drive." It's as deep as you want it to be.

"Everything I do has a little bit of crypto-dystopia in it," he said. "But this song is really nothing more than a guy, hanging out with his longtime girlfriend in Tommy's, trying to convince her that he's not as much of a loser as she imagined."

Instrumentally, there's quite a bit of compromise for Running Man, too. The group brings a lot of influence to the table.

Greer, as a songwriter, name-drops Sonic Youth, Tom Waits, Bob Seger and kraut rock. Warren mentions Television, MC5, The Stooges.

Warren wants the songs to be faster.

Gooch uses the term "punk without the details."

The term "punk" is hardly a fit, either. Most of the songs on the new record sound different. Outro "The Art of Letting Go"  which the band once pushed to be called "The Art of Giving Up"  is a little bit pop-punk. At one show, Greer remembers getting a compliment on the band's "70's rock vibe."

"When push comes to shove, we call ourselves a punk band," he said. "But that's just because we want to say that we're something."

Still, a few punk outlets have given positive reviews to the "Running Man" lead singles, including the catchy "One Wrong Move," with locomotive guitar riffs and a slick breakdown, prefaced by a cathartic "ugh" from Greer.

Warren said the modest notoriety is nice, but it's not what they do it for. Gooch agreed. That's one of the things he's learned about making music after a few decades of performing: You have to do it for yourself.

In the case of Running Man, the ever-compromising punk band seems to be doing it for each other, too. "Running Man" is just the start.

"It is good to have people really excited, it makes all the work feel justified in a way," Gooch said. "But even if nobody liked us, we'd still be doing it."
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Agepro working on new Cancun highway entrance

Cancun, Q.R.  Within the plan of collaboration between public and private associations, the State Strategic Projects Agency (Agepro) is working on a new entrance to Cancun.

The plan is to build a new road from the Moon Palace overpass toward the Huayacan Extension. Agepro head Jose Alberto Alonso Ovando says significant progress has already been made in the project.

The Huayacan extension will be toward the old Fonatur through an expropriation process agreed upon with the owners. There are also plans to extend a section of Huayacan to the former Miami Herald facilities on Colosio, he says.

The project is in the executive design stage, in collaboration with the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) and the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT).

These institutions have worked on the release of rights of way and on the development of the executive project in conjunction with the Secretariat for Sustainable Urban Territorial Development (Sedetus).

Sedena is already finishing the bridge for the Maya Train at the Cancun terminal, so we are now moving forward with this new project, said Ovando.

Another key project is the Chacmool Extension, which connects with Colosio Boulevard. He says several overpasses are being requested at strategic points such as in front of the Honda agency, in Residencial Campestre and on Chacmool Avenue itself.
Atlantic disturbance forecast to scrape by Cancun, Riviera Maya as a Category 3

Riviera Maya, Q.R.  A disturbance discovered Monday by the National Hurricane Centre has already developed into a tropical depression. Nineteen developed Wednesday afternoon and, according to the NOAA, has a trajectory for Quintana Roo.

AccuWeather predicts the storm to pass Cancun and Riviera Maya as a category 3 hurricane early next week.

A hurricane watch has already been issued for parts of Honduras. According to AccuWeather, Nineteen will quickly develop further into a tropical storm before gaining hurricane status.

AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno says wind shear and warm waters remain plentiful which will help Nineteen organize into a storm.

Wind shear remains negligible over much of the Caribbean, and waters are plenty warm (in the 80s F), and now, with showers and thunderstorms beginning to gather, it will likely not be much longer until the tropical rainstorm organizes into a tropical storm, he said.

A hurricane watch has already been issued for parts of Honduras.

According to the NOAA, a broad area of low pressure over the central Caribbean Sea continues to produce a large area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms. Environmental conditions are conducive (90 percent) for development, and a tropical depression is likely to form within the next day or two while the system moves slowly westward into the western Caribbean Sea. Afterward, further development is likely.

Nineteen is forecast to slowly turn northwestward early next week. It is the second time this week the NOAA has said interests across the western and northwestern Caribbean Sea should monitor the progress of this system.

AccuWeather Lead Hurricane Expert Alex DaSilva is forecasting a major hurricane by next week. Not only does this have a high chance of becoming a hurricane by the end of this week, but it may become a major hurricane very quickly, this weekend.

AccuWeather has predicted Nineteen to gain hurricane status and scrape by Cancun and Riviera Maya as a category 3 between Monday night and Tuesday morning before making Florida landfall Wednesday as a category 2 hurricane.

The next named storm will be Sara. If current Nineteen forms into Hurricane Sara as predicted, it will be the 12th of the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season.
Officials hoping to list La Aguada as fishing refuge

Costa Maya, Q.R.  Net fishing in areas of Chetumal Bay still pose a threat. For this reason, local biologists are hoping to have the La Aguada area of Chetumal Bay listed as a fishing refuge.

Miguel Mateo Sabido Itza, who heads the Areas Naturales Protegidas Zona Sur, says while a lot of people practice catch and release through fly fishing, there are some that still net fish.

Fishing with nets is a threat to because they capture important species such as pomfret, juvenile tarpon, tarpon and black sea bass, barracudas and amberjacks.

Fly fishers do a particular kind of fishing where they catch the fish with flies and then release them. It is an important sector because many people from other places arrive to do this here, he said.

This type of fishing is considered one of the most important in the Bay. Up until now, there are no official regulations for the type of fishing.

In light of this, we saw the opportunity to declare a fishing refuge zon, where the area is fully delimited because what we are looking for is the recovery of the fish in question, he said.

It has been proposed to decree 49,000 hectares in the marine zone to conserve the populations.

The goal is to recover the species and to ensure that nets are not allowed within the fishing refuge zone, and also to ensure that there is a greater presence of the competent authorities to carry out surveillance monitoring, he said.

According to the Pescando Datos portal of Causa Natura, there are currently 14 networks of Fishing Refuges in the country on the coasts of Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Sonora, Quintana Roo and Yucatan.

In Yucatan there is one in Celestun, which protects species such as the red grouper, red octopus, Caribbean lobster, sea cucumber, sea urchin, carito, sierra, beaked, and abalone.
Sara gains tropical storm strength as it travels the Caribbean

Riviera Maya, Q.R.  Tropical Depression Sara has formed into a tropical storm and is on a new trajectory that will still affect a majority of Quintana Roo. While no longer expected to rapidly intensify into a major hurricane, at least not while over the Caribbean, it is expected to affect a majority of the Peninsula.

Local Civil Protection says Tropical Storm Sara is approximately 330 kilometers east-southeast of Guanaja Island, Honduras and 610 kilometers east-southeast of Puerto Costa Maya, Quintana Roo.

At the moment, Sara is packing maximum winds of 65 kms/h with gusts up to 85 kms/h while traveling westbound at 19 kms/h. According to Coordinacion Estatal de Proteccion Civil QRoo, a Blue Alert has been issued for the south of Quintana Roo ahead of Saras inevitable arrival.

The municipalities of Bacalar, Othon P. Blanco, Jose Maria Morelos and Felipe Carrillo Puerto will be the hardest hit by the storms passing. At least on its current forecast trajectory. According to AccuWeather, wind and rain from Sarah will have an impact on the entire state of Quintana Roo.

On Wednesday, AccuWeather had forecast Sarah to intensify into a major hurricane as it passed by Cancun and Riviera Maya into the Gulf of Mexico. On Thursday, that trajectory changed and now has Sara heading into the Gulf by crossing the bottom of the Yucatan Peninsula instead.

According to the National Hurricane Centre (NOAA), Sara is forecast to approach Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula early next week where there is a risk of strong winds. The NOAA says it is too soon to determine Saras full impacts.

However, the NOAA reports the likeliness of heavy rains for a majority of Quintana Roo and says residents in these areas should continue to monitor Saras progress.
Two boat passengers suffer extensive burns during Cancun Nichupte Lagoon fire

Cancun, Q.R.  Two occupants on a boat that caught fire in the Cancun Nichupte Lagoon Wednesday remain in hospital. The man and woman were rushed to hospital with extensive first and second degree burns due to a sudden fire.

A Colombian woman suffered second-degree burns on her legs, while a Venezuelan man was rushed to hospital with first-degree burns on his arms and legs. A third boat passenger, the Colombian womans Italian partner, was unharmed.

Other boaters on the lagoon reported the Wednesday afternoon fire to emergency services. The boat caught fire at kilometer 4.5 of Kukulcan Boulevard in the Hotel Zone of Cancun.

Emergency services arrived to put out the fire.

Emergency 9-1-1 sent police and fire responders to the lagoon. The three people on board were assisted, with two being transferred to Cancun hospital. There have been reports that a sudden explosion was responsible for the fire. Authorities continue to investigate.
Yucatan police arrest local suspect in Cancun taxi union murders

Cancun, Q.R.  A fifth arrest has been made in the murder of a Cancun taxi union member. On Wednesday, Jose Rosendo N was arrested in Izamal, Yucatan for allegedly colluding in the murder of another union member.

That union member, Jose Luis Morelos, was kidnapped in October and later murdered. His body was later found with more than 20 bullet wounds on the side of a highway. According to Cancun police, he was killed for disagreeing with the Cancun Taxi Union leader linked to drug trafficking with local cartel members.

According to a statement released by Cancun authorities Thursday, Jose Rosendo N was arrested in Izamal, Yucatan, the fifth person involved in the murder of a member of the Andres Quintana Roo Taxi Union.

Investigative agents executed an arrest warrant against Jose Rosendo N for his probable participation in events possibly constituting the crime of qualified homicide against a collaborator of the Andres Quintana Roo Taxi Drivers Union, which occurred in this municipality.

According to field and technological investigations, the now detained mans participation in the aforementioned homicide was to watch the victim, to notify his accomplices when he left the union and went to his home where he was intercepted and put into a vehicle.

Likewise, investigators learned that Jose Rosendo N was in a social media group through which the accomplices organized to deprive the victim of his life. After his arrest, he was transferred from Yucatan back to Cancun.
Its commonly noted that the Western world is showing signs of decline. With historically high rates of depression and anxiety, low trust in institutions, and rapid population decline, many fear the consequences if nothing changes. Amid the ever-growing list of books and podcasts diagnosing and offering solutions to the problems, one idea seems to be gaining steam: enchantment.

Popularized by the German philosopher Max Weber, disenchantment describes how the West stopped seeing the world as sacred and magical in light of the Scientific Revolution. (In other words, we no longer see lightning as a display of Gods wrath.) Philosopher Charles Taylor further developed this idea in his seminal book A Secular Age, and now theres a growing movement for re-enchantment as a cure for what ails us. Think Justin Brierly leaving the apologetics podcast Unbelievable? to host the Re-Enchanting podcast and author Aaron Renns call for Protestant Re-enchantment. Even authors who dont use the word engage with those ideas, such as Spencer Klavan in his Light of the Mind, Light of the World and Jordan Peterson in We Who Wrestle with God.

So Rod Drehers Living in Wonder: Finding Meaning and Mystery in a Secular Age has been hotly anticipated by those following this conversation. Dreher, author of The Benedict Option and Live Not by Lies, is well-versed in enchantment as a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, whose traditions are far more mystical than those of most other Western churches. Dreher notes this explicitly in his framing of his purposes for his book:

The Christian churches of the Eastthe Orthodox, and the so-called Oriental Orthodoxhave maintained a distinctly more mystical character than their Western brethren. And now, at the end of the Christian age in the West, an infusion of authentic, time-tested mysticism is a gift from the Eastern churches to the suffering West.

Dreher defines enchantment as the belief that God is everywhere present and fills all things and that we live in a world of beautiful and terrible thingsthings that fill us with awe and call us out of ourselves into a higher and greater reality. It is to believe and live as if the spiritual world is real and active in our material, visible world; that the world is objectively meaningful; and that we are part of a cosmic drama in which we get to be free actors. Its to see the world as sacred and sacramental. Its to acknowledge that the world is full of demons and angels, that dreams can be visions, and that an unexpected thought might be God speaking. This perspective was the norm throughout history, and its only in the West (and places like China and Japan that are touched by its influence) that we have rejected this. And that, in Drehers view, is the source of our woes.

Dreher traces this disenchantment to the influence of medieval Catholic thinkers who argued that the natural world and the supernatural world were separate. This allowed us to imagine a world that wasnt God-infused, leading to secular sciences (again, the Scientific Revolution), economics (capitalism), and technology that ignored God and treated the material world as just stuff we could use however we wanted. But because our lives are lived in that stuff, this made life itselfincluding relationships and workfeel meaningless, and therefore something not worth investing in if it took too much effort (which it so often does). We therefore detach from relationships and work, making us lonely and nihilistic and unable to support our shared institutions. Dreher warns that, if this continues, society will collapse or be taken over by a tyrant or witchcraft- or AI/aliens-led demonic forces. The only solution is to return to Christian enchantment through religious art and ritual that, for example, Eastern Orthodox traditions steeped in. But most importantly, we must embrace a mindset shift so we can once again see the mystical in the material.

Theres a lot thats worthy here. Dreher is right to note that individuals and societies fall apart if life is not experienced as meaningful. Hes also right that modern societythrough, in part, narrowly scientific ways of looking at the worldtrains us to distrust our meaningful experiences as subjective and emotional, which makes them unsatisfying. Hes therefore correct that theres something in the enchanted worldview worth recapturing. Much of his advice for how to do thatgo to church, pray regularly (both alone and with others), enjoy religious artis hard to object to and backed up by plenty of data. (Jonathan Haidts The Anxious Generation argues some of these things from a sociological perspective.)

One of Living in Wonders biggest strengths is it doesnt just tell us to restore sacred wonder to our lives but gives us the experience through its prose. Dreher writes the book poetically, describing the thin spaces of the world, where the veil between the seen and the unseen is porous and a world pregnant with power, waiting for the occasion to act. Reading this, you can feel how fulfilling it is to imagine the world the way he does. And because its so attractive, it makes you think, If Im built in such a way that this calls to me so deeply, maybe thats the way the world really is. It reminds me of reading C.S. Lewis Narnia books growing up, or his Weight of Glory essay. Those baptized my imagination and are a big reason Im a Christian today.

But Dreher is clear that he doesnt want merely to instill in his readers an ordinary religious imagination but instead wants to change our way of thinking completely. Enchantment wont work if we keep it abstract; we must experience it ourselves in our daily life. This looks like regularly interpreting reports of aliens and things like AI as demons, strange dreams as if theyre messages from God, and coincidences as sorcery or miraclesnot in every instance, of course, but such interpretations should be a normative disposition toward events in our lives.

What prevents us from doing that? Analytical reasoning. Dreher spends a lot of time talking about the difference between right-brain (intuitive, experiential, empathetic) thinking and left-brain (analytical, logical) thinking, drawing largely on the work of British neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist. Its the right brain that makes us see the world as spiritual, and the left brain that says, Whats your evidence for that? Its the left brain that considers a dream and wonders, How do you know that was from God? or Whats the evidence that AI is a demon? Dreher argues that we need both: The left brain takes things apart to analyze them and the right brain puts them back together. The problem is that weve made the left brain supreme. To restore the transcendent in our lives, we need to give the right brain the ability to tell the left brain to shut up sometimes.

The trouble is that Dreher never gets around to explaining when exactly the left brain should pipe down and when it should speak up. When is it good to demand evidence and when do we just trust our gut? When is analytical reasoning a useful tool (a good servant) and when is it a source of harm (a bad master)?

This is a pretty big problem for Drehers case for a couple of reasons. First, he openly admits that the rise of such analytical reasoning is responsible for some of the Wests major contributions to the worldstuff like modern science, capitalism (which he acknowledges has lifted countless millions out of abject poverty), and free democratic societies. He assures us that he doesnt want any of these things to go away. But he also wants to go back to the worldview we had before that, even though he just told us that rejecting an enchanted world is responsible for the development of those very materialistic goodies. So how do we keep both? He never says.

Second, its unclear why elevating intuitive reasoning will lead people to Drehers preferred perspective. By his own admission, the same practices that shape us to feel the presence of God also make pagans and New Agers feel the truth of whatever theyre told to believe about life. Witches and astrology fans use coincidences to justify the belief that the stars control their destiny and that crystals get you in touch with your true self. Female friend groups started rethinking their marriages when they read this years Miranda July book All Fours, which elevates trusting personal feelings as a way to justify open marriages. Social media shapes us to customize our beliefs just like our algorithms. Listening to our hearts wont all lead us to the same truth but, rather, to the truth shaped by whatever environment weve spent the most time in.

Funnily enough, the Bible endorses using something approximating left brain tools to help verify the validity of truth claims. According to biblical scholar Dru Johnson, one of the innovations of the Bible was that it demanded predictive evidence for prophetic validity. While Israels prophetic contemporaries would predict the future with entrails without being concerned when their prophecies didnt come true, God told the Israelites to evaluate a prophet by whether the things he predicted came to pass. This is also how scientists debunk astrology today, by demonstrating that it has no greater predictive power for personality and life outcomes than random chance. The problem is that these rational tools can often be turned against Christians who claim supernatural experiences as well, hence why Dreher blames them for our disenchanted world.

Despite Drehers claim that in our society science, mathematics, and empirical reasoning (left brain) have crowded out poetry, art, and religion (right brain) as ways of knowing, it seems clear that both forms of knowing have run amok today, just unintegrated. After all, how many people love doing math over watching movies? Even one of Drehers interview subjects says a big problem with the evangelical church is its emotionalism.

There are segments of Living in Wonder in which Dreher hints at what an integrated heart and head could look like, such as when he describes exorcists checking for natural explanations before assuming demon possession or explores how the social sciences affirm cross-cultural agreement on what architectural designs look beautiful to people. But these arent consistent. And more importantly, he doesnt highlight examples of when hes allowed his left-brain reasoning to disprove something his right-brain told him was true. This suggests that an equal partnership between the two brains isnt what hes after.

It doesnt help that Drehers arguments often lack a helpful measure of self-awareness and charity to opposing viewpoints. He tends to characterize pushback to his claims of the supernatural as being driven by discomfort or closed-mindedness rather than good-faith skepticism. He mocks Westerners as WEIRDos (a play on the Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic designation) because of their bias toward analytical reasoning, and scoffs when people point out that they have that bias because theyve seen the amazing historical results. He blames every modern Western evil on Catholic and Protestant deviations from Eastern Orthodoxy, but never explains whyby that logicOrthodoxy shouldnt take responsibility for things that happened under its tradition (like, perhaps, Soviet communism)or that didnt happen, like much of the quality-of-life goods the West has produced and that he says he appreciates.

Because of this, I dont see this book substantially changing the direction of the West (whose influence extends far beyond literal Western borders). Analytical types will reject it and continue slouching toward nihilism, while intuitive types will continue to spin off toward increasingly sectarian/superstitious nonsense. The enchantment project to restore the West may succeed eventually, but it will be because of someone elses model, not Drehers.

My own disenchanting of my worldview was a slow and often painful, process. It happened as I watched loved ones die despite other loved ones claiming God would heal them. It happened in the face of my certainty that I knew what role God wanted me to play in his cosmic dramathen turned out to be wrong. These experiences didnt make me lose trust in God, but they did make me lose trust in peoples ability to discern Gods plan. Iand people I trustedhad misread so many signs before. How could I trust them now?

Instead, Ive come to a trust but verify spiritual view of the world. Christian apologetics and social science give me confidence that the Bible is reliable and that what it says about how to live in the world is true. So I can look at my life as part of a transcendent, epic adventure story that God is still writing. And if I follow his commandments as he has already written them in scripture, I can be confident that I am actively participating in that story. I can look at every moment in my life that way, without having to embrace individual, subjective interpretations or magical claims made by other people. In other words: I can be enchanted in my worldview while skeptical of individual claims about discrete events.

Even so, in the day-to-day trenches, without constant reminders, its easy to stop experiencing the transcendent in everyday life. Thats what I appreciate about re-enchantment advocates like Dreher. They highlight our need for wonder in our daily lives and to re-engage with sacramental awe.

There may be a path forward toward the enchanted world Dreher wants to see. But it wont be found here. Still, while Living in Wonder may not give you the best roadmap to a new land, it is an important reminder of what were missing in the one we currently inhabit.
When he was hauled in for questioning by the British military in the early 1970s, Gerry Adams, then the head of the Irish Republican Armys Belfast Brigade, had a simple tactic: claim he was not Gerry Adams. As absurd as that denial might have been, it prevented his interrogators from asking anything else, because as long as Adams maintained that he was someone he was not, he could claim not to know any of the things that Gerry Adams knew.

The purest act of resistance was to deny that he existed at all.

Say Nothing, the nine-part FX miniseries adapted from Patrick Radden Keefes bestselling book, is built around a similar absence: the disappearance of Jean McConville, a single mother of 10 who was abducted at gunpoint from her Belfast flat in December 1972 and never seen again. The taunts of neighbors who McConvilles children had once considered friends led them to understand that Jean had been identified as a tout, a snitch for the British occupying forces. But rather than make a public example of her supposed treachery, the IRA chose to simply have her disappear, leaving her family in an excruciating limbo for what ended up being almost 30 yearsuntil her skeleton was found, in 2003, with a bullet in her skull.

Jean McConvilles story occupies a relatively small slice of Say Nothing, which focuses primarily on the story of sisters Dolours and Marian Price, who spent seven years in prison for their part in a 1973 car-bomb attack that wounded more than 200 Londoners. But as in Keefes book, McConvilles disappearance serves as a thematic throughline, an illustration of the harm that sustained conflict can do even to those who escape physical injury.

Framed by a series of taped interviews given by an older Dolours (Maxine Peake) and her former comrade in arms Brendan Hughes (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) in the early 2000s, the series spans more than four decades, roughly overlapping with the period of especially bloody armed conflict known as the Troubles. In 1972, the young Dolours, played by Lola Petticrew, is a champion of nonviolent resistance modeled on the American Civil Rights Movement, despite growing up in a household with a long history of dedication to political violence. She and Marian (Hazel Doupe) take turns caring for their aunt Bridie (Eileen Walsh), whose hands were blown off and eyes blinded while she was handling explosives. But when Dolours takes part in a protest march that is savagely attacked by Protestant loyalists, who come at them with bats and pipes while the police either stand by or join in, she loses her taste for the way of peace and joins Marian in the IRA, now under the local command of a gawky fucker named Gerry Adams.

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Say Nothing captures the youthful exhilaration of the sisters entry into a world where, prior to their arrival, women had traditionally been allowed to hide guns but not to fire them. An IRA bank robbery is scored to Tones on Tails infectious dance track Go!, and in the following episode, the Price women take down another bank while dressed as nuns, hiding shotguns under their habits. (Reading this scene in Keefes book, it seems a miracle it took six years to come to the screen.) Dolours frets about potential blasphemy, but she has no second thoughts about armed robbery, in part because it plays out like a kind of ritual in which everyone knows their part: They draw their guns, the tellers hand over the money, and the IRA replenishes its coffers. But the situation escalates when the British bring in Frank Kitson (Rory Kinnear), a veteran of putting down revolts in the British colonies. He shows one underling a photograph from his time in Kenya, where hooded informants would identify suspected revolutionaries as they passed in the street. If innocent people suspected of being those informants ended up getting executed, as far Kitson is concerned, so much the better. Were either getting vital information or were driving them to murder their own men, he explains proudly. Either way we win.

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Keefes book is elegantly structured, interweaving decades of Irish history with personal stories, but in the series, much of that history is gleaned or omitted altogether. An entire episode is devoted to the Price sisters 206-day hunger strikeprolonged by force-feedingdemanding that they be treated as political prisoners and not ordinary criminals, but we dont see anything of the 10 men who starved themselves to death in 1981 after the British government withdrew that status, nor of the schisms within the IRA itself. Showrunner Josh Zetumer wisely avoids placing the Prices, Forrest Gumpstyle, at the scene of every important political development, but the series wobbles in how much assistance it wants to provide to viewers unfamiliar with the history of the conflict, or of Ireland itself. Its definitely designed to be more ruminated over than binged, although FX is releasing all nine episodes as a single drop. (Its hard to imagine someone getting to the end of the hunger strike episode and asking, One more?)

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Gerry Adams floats in and out over the course of Say Nothing, to the extent that its surprising when, in its final few episodes, he emerges as the storys designated villain. While Dolours, over the years, suffers increasing doubts about the violence she committed and abetted, Adams washes his hands of the IRA, denying his past involvement the way he once denied his own name. Every episode of Say Nothing ends with a disclaimer noting Adams has always denied any affiliation, even though reams of reporting attest to it, as well as any connection to the murder of Jean McConville. As an older Adams, now a respectable public figure as the leader of the political party Sinn Fein, prepares to sit for one TV interview, he looks down at the notecard where he has jotted down an important talking point: regrettable violence. On an island where some date the beginning of present injustices back 800 years, perhaps the past is best, or at least most easily, forgotten. But that erasure is its own kind of violence, leaving wounds that can never heal because no one knows where to find them.
Trial began this week in another major abortion case, Adkins v. Idaho, that highlights the immense challenges new bans have created for patients and doctors. It may be that Adkins is a long shot: The case will likely end at the Idaho Supreme Court, which already seemed to reject constitutional arguments against its state law. But win or lose, cases like Adkins make a difference by dramatizing some of the harshest effects of state abortion laws. These are the stories that may give Republicans pause about a potential backlash if they consider aggressive new federal limits on abortion.

Idaho has one of the most stringent abortion bans in the nation. It allows abortion only if the life of the patient is threatened, and even then, doctors have to prove that they were justified in proceeding rather than prosecutors having to do so. That medical exception is even stricter than usual for state laws in applying only to threats to life.

Thats why the Biden administration challenged it under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (a lawsuit that is likely to come to an end when the Trump administration reverses course on the issue of emergency access). Now a trial judge is hearing the stories of four women and three physicians affected by Idahos Defense of Life Act. Jennifer Adkins and three other women were pregnant when they received almost certainly fatal fetal diagnoses. All four were told that if their pregnancies continued, they could face severe health threats. They and the physician plaintiffs seek to establish that Idahos law allows an abortion whenever a patient has a physical medical condition or complication that makes it unsafe to continue a pregnancy, has a condition exacerbated by pregnancy that cant otherwise be easily treated, or is told about a fetal condition that is likely to be fatal after birth.

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Adkins builds on a line of cases involving women like Kate Cox, a Texas woman who traveled out of state to seek an abortion after receiving a diagnosis of trisomy 18, a fetal condition that is usually fatal; and Amanda Zurawski, also from Texas, who suffered the preterm rupture of membranes, a condition that led to a severe infection that almost killed her. Coxs and Zurawskis cases failed in the Texas Supreme Court, and there is reason to think Adkins and the other plaintiffs will meet a similar fate. But the impact of these cases remains.

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The Idaho Supreme Court is one of the most conservative in the nation. And more revealingly, in 2023, the court issued a stinging rejection of a previous constitutional challenge to the states abortion ban. In conservative states, abortion-rights supporters havent expected judges to establish sweeping constitutional protections, even as they prepare to push for the eventual recognition of rights broader or more enduring than the ones recognized in Roe. Theyve sometimes relied on a more modest backup option: asking judges to acknowledge rights to access abortion in cases of threats to life or health. That tactic has paid off in a number of surprising places, including the supreme courts of Oklahoma and North Dakota.

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But the Idaho Supreme Court isnt likely to bite. In 2023 a Planned Parenthood affiliate and a physician challenged the states ban under the state constitution. The Idaho Supreme Court made absolutely clear that it would follow the U.S. Supreme Courts method to answer the question: asking whether such a right was deeply rooted in the states history and tradition. And the court understood history and tradition narrowlyespecially when compared with other conservative state judges in places like North Dakota and Utah.

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There are additional foreboding signs for Adkins and the other plaintiffs. They argue that the states exceptions require clarification and should be interpreted more broadly. The Idaho Supreme Courts earlier decision didnt exactly foreclose that argument, but it came close. The court asserted that future plaintiffs should show specific examples when the state exceptions were too vague to understand, but as a general matter, the Idaho majority seemed to think the states law was perfectly clear. The states bans had a medical-emergency exception, as is the case with every other state prohibition (and no coincidence, given that many of them were written by the same advocacy groups). The court suggested that Idaho had provided physicians more than fair notice.

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The Idaho Supreme Court also seemed convinced that patients had no right to access abortion under state law, even if their lives or health was threatened. None of the parties stressed that argument, but Justice Colleen Zahn acknowledged the majoritys emphasis on it in her dissent. She reasoned that for as long as Idaho had criminalized abortion, the state had also allowed access in cases of threats to lifea category that sometimes applied to certain other health crises. Most of her colleagues were not sold. The Legislature, the majority reasoned, had the power to make any policy decision it liked and had simply chosen, in its generosity, to allow women to ask for help if they would die otherwise. The legislatures decision to redefine an exception, the court explained, does not necessarily mean that the framers of our Constitution intended to enshrine the excepted conduct as a fundamental right. These arent the words of judges convinced that there is a right in cases of threats to life or health.

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So why does Adkins matter? In part, the answer is that we cant ever be certain how state judges will react. Abortion-rights litigators might not have expected to have success in courts in Utah or Oklahoma or North Dakota, but they did.

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But in part, cases like Adkins matter even if the plaintiffs lose. Hearing stories like the ones in Adkins paints a stark picture of the effects of Dobbs. Jennifer Adkins was pregnant with her second child when she was told that the child had multiple, likely fatal conditionsand that if that pregnancy continued, she was at high risk of suffering mirror syndrome, which could lead to life-threatening edema and eclampsia. Kayla Smith, another plaintiff, learned at a 19-week scan that her child had an inoperable and likely fatal heart condition. Smith was at high risk for developing preeclampsia, as she had during her first pregnancy. To afford an out-of-state abortion, she and her partner had to take out a loan and borrow from their loved ones.

Without the stories of real people like Jennifer Adkins and Kayla Smith, abortion bans may strike most voters as abstractions. In principle, for example, does a 15- or 12- or six-week ban sound fair? In the abstract, does a ban sound better with an exception for sexual assault? Plaintiffs like Adkins break down these abstractions. Their stories show that bans have profoundly painful consequences, even for people who may not see themselves as abortion seekers.

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And despite Republicans control of Congress and the White House, these stories can make a difference. Donald Trump may not be able to run for office again, but Republicans in the House and Senate will have to. Public support for abortion rights wasnt enough for Kamala Harris, but theres no reason to think bans like Idahos are any more popular than they were before. (That seven out of 10 abortion-related ballot measures passed, even in states like Arizona and Missouri, bolsters this point.) Women like Adkins remind voters why they dont want to live in the world that the Supreme Court created in overturning Roe. So, whatever happens to Adkins case, patients like her are on the front lines in the next four years of conflicts around reproduction. The courts arent likely to constrain Republicans, but fear of voters might.
One of the concerns that Democrats and other observers have raised about a potential second Trump administration is that it would be staffed by MAGA loyalists rather than the kinds of establishment conservativesJeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, even William Barrwho ignored or pushed back on some of the more unlawful and ludicrous orders the president-elect issued during his first term.

A kind of subconcern underneath that was that these loyalists, unlike so many of the advisers Trump kept around him during that initial term, could be hardworking and knowledgeable about the operations of government, enabling him to actually, successfully carry out his most impulsive and punitive schemes: having enemies arrested, shutting down CNN because Jake Tapper made him mad, overthrowing the government because he doesnt like the outcome of an election, that sort of thing. Will those kinds of destabilizing gambits be on the table, or is Trump instead going to be stocking the administration with incompetent charlatans who, like him, are really more interested in posting on social media and seeing their faces on TV than in doing the nuts-and-bolts work of instituting authoritarianism in America?

Well, the early results are in, in the form of Trumps first Cabinet nominations, and they are  well, wow, the early results are a lot. Lets go through them in rough order of LOL/Oh God.

 Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general. During the early years of the 42-year-old Gaetzs career in politics, he was pulled over on suspicion of DUI while driving his dads BMW out of a nightclub. He was also recently identified in court documents and investigated by federal prosecutors for having allegedly attended a sex party that involved cocaine, ecstasy, and a nude 17-year-old. (He was never charged in the DUI case or an investigation related to the latter allegations, which involved a former friend of his who was convicted of felony sex trafficking and is serving a decade in prison. Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing, although until he resigned from Congress on Wednesday night, he was still the subject of an open investigation being conducted by the House Ethics Committee into whether he committed sexual misconduct or used illegal drugs. This committee, it should be emphasized, is controlled by members of Gaetzs own party.) Gaetz, who led the group of right-wing Republicans who voted out House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023, also voted against awarding congressional medals to the police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. According to the watchdog group Media Matters, which tracks appearances by political figures on weekday broadcasts of Fox News, he has appeared at least 347 times on the network since 2017.

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 Fox News host Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense. Hegseth, a Fox personality who served in Iraq with the Army National Guard, was involved in successfully lobbying Trump during his first term to intervene in the cases of three members of the armed services who had been convicted or accused of committing war crimes. In 2020, he has said, he was forbidden from serving with his National Guard unit during Joe Bidens inauguration because he has a tattoo of a symbol, the Jerusalem cross, used by white nationalist groups. (He denies that the cross, one of many tattoos he has of symbols and sayings that have been adopted by right-wing Christian groups, connotes white nationalism.) He has been married three times, shares a total of seven children and stepchildren with his third wife, and once said on television that he doesnt wash his hands because germs arent real. In 2015 he accidentally threw an axe over a wall during a Fox & Friends segment, striking a member of a nearby marching band.

 Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. Until 2021, Gabbard actually served as a Democratic member of Congress, and she ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. She, like Hegseth, served in the National Guard. After leaving Congress, she became a frequent guest on Tucker Carlsons Fox News show, where she was critical of U.S. support for Ukraine. In 2022 she posted a video in which she claimed that the Biden administration was attempting to cover up the dangers posed by pathogens at U.S.-funded biolabs in that countrya sort of mild version of claims about secret Ukrainian biological-weapons development that were being circulated at the time by Carlson, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and the Russian state. A 2019 New York magazine story outlined Gabbards longtime family connections to a Hinduism-derived group called Science of Identity, which one source described as a cult and others said is run by an individual who is attempting to use Gabbard to secure influence with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She has appeared on Fox News at least 282 times since 2018.

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 South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for secretary of homeland security. Noem is a former member of Congress who was elected governor of South Dakota in 2018 and became a frequent Fox News subject during the COVID pandemic for generally declining to require that residents of her state take any precautions against the spread of the disease. (Her Fox appearance total, per Media Matters: 135 and counting.) She does not have any evident experience related to border and customs enforcement, which is one of DHSs main responsibilities, although as governor she has directed responses to natural disasters. (The Federal Emergency Management Agency is part of DHS.) In a book published earlier this year that seems to have been designed to raise her national profile and sort of succeeded, she claimed to have shot a 14-month-old dog in a gravel pit because he wouldnt behave, as well as to have stared down North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during a meeting that, it would later emerge, never took place, because she made it up.

 New York Rep. Elise Stefanik for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik is a born opportunist, a onetime moderate who took a turn toward MAGA politics in the Trump years and started saying, for instance, that George Soros and other radicals were attempting to take over the country by (among other things) importing illegal immigrants to become Democratic voters. The antisemitic overtones of those statementsJews using immigrants to dilute white populations is the great replacement theorywere noted when she pivoted again, earlier this year, to becoming an anti-antisemitism crusader (because the ostensibly antisemitic behavior in question was anti-Israel activism by leftists on college campuses). Shes made at least 108 Fox appearances.

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 Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state. By Trump standards, Rubio is massively overqualified, being an actual senator who has served on the foreign relations committee. He is, however, reportedly quite lazyhe had a 2.1 GPA in high schooland famously said, during the 2016 Republican primary, that Trump has a small penis.

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Long story short here, television readiness appears to be priority No. 1 for these folksperhaps not surprising given that, according to Axios, Trumps Cabinet selection process involves watching clips of different candidates appearances on television. It is, so far, clown town rather than competence town. Stefanik and Rubio are conventionally credentialed and will probably have basic familiarity with the issues theyre working on, but theyre also being put in the jobs that have the least potential to turn the U.S. into a failed state, which is good, I guess.

This all doesnt, though, preclude the possibility that these secretaries will have effective deputies, or that Trump will have advisers or czars within the White House, like far-right anti-immigrant figures Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, who can conceive and carry out extreme plans. There could also be a constitutional crisis over the mere appointment of figures like Gaetz and Hegseth if Trump, as he has reportedly considered doing, tries to install them in the Cabinet during congressional recesses rather than through the traditional confirmation process. Lots to wait and see about here! Ha ha ha, oh boy.
In anticipation of his second term, President-elect Donald Trump has already revived the good ol flood the zone with shit strategy, dropping daily announcements about the bonkers Cabinet picks (e.g., Tulsi Gabbard, Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth) he wants on his team. It may be tough to single out any particular ones as the worst of the bunch, but allow me to suggest two contenders: tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who have been tapped as co-chairs of a proposed new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE for short. (Yes, as in Elon Musks favorite meme cryptocurrency, and its valuation has been taking the recent news quite well. Pump up the volume!)

To be clear, though, its not exactly a full-fledged department, or a government agency at all. Per Trumps press release, it amounts to a basic report of recommended job cuts. Specifically, DOGE will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget  making changes to the Federal Bureaucracy with an eye to efficiency. This makes sense for Musk, who wanted to retain control of his myriad companies while simultaneously providing input on all the regulators that contract with and ensure legal compliance from SpaceX, Tesla, and Neuralink. And if Trump is to be believed, Musk and Ramaswamy will merely pave the way for Trumps administration to implement the recommendations and dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies. Their deadline for this modern-day Manhattan Project (their words) will be July 4, 2026, to mark the United States 250th Independence Day.

There are a lot of issues here. Theres the matter of why two more random people must be appended to a government agency (specifically the Office of Management and Budget), in order to  increase efficiency. Theres the question of why exactly Trumps advisers think he should ask Congress for up to $50 million in taxpayer revenues to fund this thing. Plus, theres little clarity on just what this federal partnership will formally resemble, how the DOGE entity itself will operate (nonprofit? Obnoxious account on X? Private corporation? Federal advisory committee? Dogecoin-branded merch table? Mirror of an already extant OMB office? Blockchain ledger?), and how the powers Musk and Ramaswamy think theyll have square with what theyll actually have.

From the sound of that press release, it sure seems like theyll just be turning in a glorified recommendations report, written by a combination of A.I. chatbots and underpaid interns, to present to Trump on the occasion of Americas semiquincentennial, represented alongside the Dogecoin Shiba Inu. (RIP to a sweet Japanese pup who deserved so much better than this.) On Thursday, the X account for DOGE put out a call for super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting and invited interested applicants to message the account (even though its DMs are not open).

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The way Musk and Ramaswamy have been talking, they clearly have the idea that theyll be cleaning house from Day 1 onwardjust like Musk did when he bought Twitter in late 2022, brought his friends and cronies on as consultants for cost cuts, ousted the companys executives, and went on to lay off thousands more staffers. In September, speaking on The Lex Fridman Podcast, Ramaswamy posited what he called a glib thought experiment:

Anybody in the federal bureaucracy who is not elected  if your Social Security number ends in an odd number, youre out. It ends in an even number, youre in. Theres a 50 percent cut right there. Of those who remain, if your Social Security number starts with an even number, youre in, and if it starts with an odd number, youre out. Boom. Thats a 75 percent reduction.  Not a thing will have changed for the ordinary American other than this size of their government being a lot smaller and more restrained, spending a lot less money to operate it. 

So now imagine you could do that same thought experiment, but not just doing it at random, doing it at a large scale while having some metric of screening for those who actually had both the greatest competence as well as the greatest commitment and knowledge of the Constitution.

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Vivek Ramaswamy's thought experiment for reducing the size of government on @lexfridman:



"Day 1, anybody in the federal bureaucracy who's not elected, whose Social Security number ends in an odd number, you're out. [Day 2], of those who remain, if your Social Security starts in pic.twitter.com/mHpbvModRv  Pirate Wires (@PirateWires) November 13, 2024

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Folks, welcome to running the government like a business in the age of mass tech-industry layoffs and tyrannical bossism, as proposed by someone who himself was not elected to govern. Set aside the preposterous contentions that government agencies are no different from corporations, or that mass-eliminating people by SSN would not cripple necessary everyday government functions like air traffic control and emergency relief and weather monitoring, even after screening them for constitutional knowledge or something.

You cant blame the guy for getting excited, though. All this deep slicing-and-dicing was a core feature of Ramaswamys campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, in which he promised to abolish the Department of Education and the FBI, gut the Food and Drug Administration, and narrow the Federal Reserves mandate. But a lot of that stuff is just GOP orthodoxy now, with Project 2025 calling to scrap the DOE, sap the Feds powers, and return this country to the gold standard.

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So Ramaswamy may feel the need to go even more extreme with it in order to keep up with his extremely hardcore partner and give DOGE a reason to exist at all, much less command tens of millions of public dollars. Thats where you get tech-bro-manual proposals like making federal staffers work inside their physical offices all day and all week. (As Donald Moynihan, professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University Michigan, told me: Only about 15 percent of federal employees live in the D.C. region. The vast majority of federal employees, about 85 percent, live across the United States.)

Ramaswamy has still gone further, asking to retract appropriations to programs whose congressional authority has lapsedwhich include resources like veterans health careand basically do a sort of Twitter Filesstyle expose of budgetary allowances. The latter doesnt sound bad at all, until you remember that Marc Andreessen is one of Trumps tech-world advisers, and that one of his big things these days is threatening to prosecute government/university/business officials who apparently coordinated to censor Elon Musks X by pulling advertising. (In reality, private entities didnt like all the Nazis on X, but now that Musk is so close to the president-elect, they may relent out of fear of retaliation.)

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Ramaswamy and Musks bid for maximum transparency will also likely include straight-up lying about what various government offices do. For example, take Musks unfounded conspiracy theories about the Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agencys responses to Hurricane Helene.

So dont expect this duo to magically be able to get an actual Pentagon audit through. Do expect them to pressure agencies that contract with Musks companies, and to intimidate those offices that are either investigating or suing said companies. (Vice Presidentelect J.D. Vance has even suggested withdrawing support for NATO if the European Unions digital-platform regulations force X/Twitter to change its business in any way.)

Lets also be real here: Elon will probably hold much of the authority, as he is just too much of an egomaniac to cede any public control. Hes already sticking close to Trumps side at Mar-a-Lago, advocating for more presidential control over the Fed, asking that the government hire some SpaceX executives, and butting in on an official phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Musk isnt influencing everything so farhis preferred Senate majority leader, Rick Scott, lost that bid to South Dakotas John Thunebut its clear wholl be wearing the pants at DOGE.

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The most baffling part of DOGE, though, is that Trump already has plans in motion for firing lots of generals, and his Project 2025 masterminds already have a good clue as to how theyll unilaterally trim things down, as Moynihan told mefirst and foremost, by reauthorizing Schedule F, an executive order from Trumps first term that granted him authority to reclassify the employee status of federal staffers (namely, as political employees) and fire them accordingly. Within six months, I would expect that executive order to be back in place, Moynihan said. The more conservative estimates about how many people that will incorporate are in the neighborhood of 50,000. Thats an enormous amount compared to the current number of actual political appointees, which is 4,000.

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Thats hardly the number that Ramaswamy must have been thinking of with his Social Security exercise, but its still quite a hefty one. There are, still, 2 million civil service employees, a number that seems ginormous until you remember, as Moynihan told me, that that number hasnt grown appropriately in relation to the population, economy, and other factors since 1960. The majority of those employees who wouldnt be hit work with agencies whose DOGE-style reorganizations would require congressional approvalwhich isnt inevitable, since Republicans command only small majorities in the legislative chambers.

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Still, there are ways Trump could weed out other government workers, including by making the job and surrounding environment more unpleasant, like by freezing hiring and requesting cuts to employee training and travel funds in the annual budget. Zoe Schiffer, a tech journalist and the author of Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musks Twitter, told me that such acts would be especially appealing to Musk. He was willing to endure a certain amount of pain if it meant that he wasnt going to have to pay a premium in terms of peoples salaries and equity, Schiffer said of his approach to Twitter.

The desired effect? Pushing people out or only attracting supplicants. Providing a long-term guarantee of work encourages employees to think about building up expertise in their very nuanced areas, which could be things like environmental regulation, disaster response, or workplace safety, said Moynihan. If you hire too many political hacks, you might get a lot of responsiveness, but if you cut organizations to the bone, its going to be harder for you to achieve your core goals.

Cutting to the bone does seem to be a shared goal between Trump and Musk. As the New York Times reported, Mr. Trump has told Mr. Musk that he wants him to bring the same scalpel to the federal government that he brought to Twitter. What would cutting to the bone really mean, in practice? Well, to look back at that infamous Twitter takeover is to recall that it involved roping in Musks most trusted yes-menDavid Sacks, Steve Davis, Joe Lonsdalewho are also advising Trump at this very moment on how he should regulate the industries they work in.

The circle of people who will tell Musk the truth and be honest is a lot smaller than it was when he was building Tesla, said Schiffer. If its like Twitter and Musks other companies, theyll want lean staff heavily weighted toward technical hires, carry an expectation that people be in the office all the time, not offer a lot of expectations of benefits, and expect longer work hours.

In other words: shrink the government, and make it work more for the presidents men and less for the American people. What could go wrong?
Welcome to The Sprudge Twenty Interviews presented by Pacific Barista Series. For a complete list of 2024 Sprudge Twenty honorees, please visit sprudge.com/twenty.

When I started roasting coffee in the early 2000s, there were very few places to turn for information and insights. I am an educated white man in America and coffee roasting as a career was still hard for me to break into. To learn the craft of roasting, most people had to get a job with a company that was willing to take a risk on them and train them from the ground up. This kind of training was almost like becoming an understudy or a journeyman. Roasting was still treated as though it was some kind of magic trick. You had to convince a magician to share their secrets with you before you could learn to do it yourself.

It is easy how this can quickly become a boys club. After more digging into the history of coffee roasting, I learned that this was by design. On October 18, 1864, Jabez Burns, the nephew of a very famous evangelical circuit riding preacher by the same name, was granted the patent for the rotating drum roaster. Jabez wanted to spread the gospel of roasting, while also making money from his design. His design informed all drum roaster styles going forward and was eventually purchased by Probat. He was the go-to person for all things roasting during his time, selling equipment, educating, giving speeches, and growing a new industry. However, coffee was not the only gospel he spread. Everywhere he went he would share that coffee roasting was not a job for women, a roasting plant should be free of women, and that women should be excluded from the trade.

This set things in motion for how our industry would develop. If only men know how to roast and they are actively only teaching other men, well It is kind of hard for a woman to break in.

Trish Rothgeb is a trailblazer. She is not only a trailblazer because she is a woman who broke into a mans industry during a time when that was almost impossible. It is also not only because she has worked hard to lower that barrier of entry to other people who self-identify as women and all sorts of other cross-sectional and marginalized identities. It is also because of her focus on quality, education, and professionalizing our industry her entire career. We are all better at coffee because of Trishs influence, whether we know it or not. Her influence has broadened our doors to people with new perspectives and ideas. She has inspired a generation of coffee educators. She has challenged the status quo in ways that has brought lasting impact.

Trish is an educator. To spend time with her is to learn, be challenged in your thinking, and to see more clearly that we are all working on something that deeply matters. As an educator myself, I have been incredibly grateful for her influence. It is hard to hold a high bar for quality while lowering barriers of entry. She manages to strike this balance with ease and dignity. Her legacy deserves to be in the spotlight and her model deserves to be a lasting example to us all. Thank you, Trish.

Nominated by Joe Marrocco

How many years total have you worked in the coffee industry?

Ive been in coffee since 1985so next year it will be 40 years!

What is your current role in coffee?

I own Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters in SF, which is currently a single cafe with wholesale and web subscription following. I also work for The Coffee Quality Institute as the Quality Evaluation Specialist. In that role, I focus on the Q Grader program, its content, and the educators who teach it worldwide. In 2023, I started a small company with Dan Streetman of Bird and Bear Coffee here in SF called Good Form Coffee. Good Form is an education firm that aspires to train coffee pros as well as non-pro coffee lovers.

What was your first coffee job?

I was a barista at a local cafe right out of high school and throughout my college years. I began roasting coffee at a tiny in-shop roastery in 1990.

Did you experience a life-changing moment of coffee revelation early in your career?

Early in my roasting career, my boss acquired one of the first green lots marketed as relationship coffee from La Manita in Costa Rica. This was early 90s and nobody was used to any farm making a point of their quality or setting their own prices. We knew of Jamaican Blue Mountain and some coffees from Hawaii as expensive and exclusive back then. We seldom could taste a huge difference in the cup from other good quality coffees, to be honest. But when I was given the La Manita, I noticed the beautiful green and I was struck by its amazing fragrance before roasting. I roasted it carefully to a medium (at a time when my boss only wanted me to roast very dark and deep) and tasted the most gorgeous cup Id ever had. I went around the cafe pouring our little tastes for all the regulars like the true nerd I was.

What facet of the coffee industry has changed the most during your career?

I cant pinpoint one thing only that has changed over the years. Changes are represented in a number of ways all the way through the value stream. Roasting lighter was revolutionary around the turn of the millennium when I was living and working in Oslo, and then coffee quality and service at the bar was elevated quickly after the advent of green coffee and barista competitions (also pioneered by Norwegians). The industry really couldnt stop the momentum if it wanted to. Now you can go to any city in the world and find a world-class coffee bar. That was certainly not the case back in the 90s.

Is there a person or persons who served as your mentor early in your coffee career? How did they impact you?

I didnt really have any particular mentors, per se. I had people who gave me jobs and opportunities that were not usually available to young women, and for that I thank Fred Naggar, owner of the company I first roasted at, and the membership of the 2003 SCAA Roasters Guild, who elected me to their council. You might say the entire industry mentored me.

What still surprises you today about coffee, or gives you joy?

I am not surprised so much anymore, but I continue to find joy in the innovations we see at all points of the value stream. I love tasting new things everyday in coffee. Literally every day I taste something new and interesting in coffee.

Whats something about the coffee industry youd most like to see change?

Id love to see a stronger commitment to sustainability from the boutique specialty crowd. We need to do a better job connecting coffee quality to its growing lands. The stories of environmentalism and producer livelihoods still takes a distant back seat to the stories of esoteric cup profiles. Storytelling has to get better about the entire value stream.

What is your most cherished coffee memory?

There was a certain few years at the Wrecking Ball Roastery where I had an extremely focused and talented group of roasters and production staff who absolutely loved their work. From selection of lots, to roast profiling and production cupping, to curiosity around the maintenance of machinery, to the resulting customer experiencethey were digging it all. It felt as if the planets had all lined up and I had the full engagement and support of the team to make the best coffee possible.

Do you make coffee at home? If so, tell us how you brew!

I make pour-overs in various ways at home. Ive accumulated a million different manual brewers over the years. I also have a home espresso machinemostly for Wrecking Ball quality controlbut also for selfish reasons. Fun fact, to this day I have never made myself an AeroPress.

What is your favorite song/music to brew coffee to?

Currently, Kate Bush or Muna

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

Sitting incognito at the bar in my cafe and eavesdropping on the guests comments about their visit.

If you could drink coffee with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

I would love to have a coffee with Colleen Crosby, founder of The Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company. She passed away too soon and just as specialty was coming into its own. She was a pioneer for women in this business and an advocate for producers. Her ideas were well before their time. I didnt know her very well back in the day, but she was always a beacon of positivity and light. I would love to meet up with her now, in 2024, and cup a whole table of fine Robustas and carbonic macerations or any number of one-of-a-kind coffees representing different processes. Id want to ask her what she thinks of how weve evolved since we lost her.

Whats one piece of advice you would give someone getting their start in the coffee industry today?

You might not get a position at your favorite coffee company or in that exact job that you covet. Dont give up on coffee. Continue to buy your favorite brands for home and then go to the larger coffee companies and learn how they run. They are more apt to teach you something about the entire industry instead of what youll find in the high-end specialty bubble. Learn about how they buy coffee and maintain their supply. Learn about the commodity trade, learn about supply streams, learn about large scale production..learn about big business. Get your 401K started and acquire business acumen as well as learn about coffee. There is more to learn about coffee if you go outside your comfort zone.

Thank you.

The Sprudge Twenty Interview series is presented by Pacific Barista Series. For a complete list of 2024 Sprudge Twenty honorees and interviews, please visit sprudge.com/twenty.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20241114/cia-veteran-trumps-foreign-policy-team-may-double-down-on-stupid-in-ukraine-middle-east-china-1120881081.html

CIA Veteran: Trump's Foreign Policy Team May Double Down on Stupid in Ukraine, Middle East, China

CIA Veteran: Trump's Foreign Policy Team May Double Down on Stupid in Ukraine, Middle East, China

Sputnik International

Days after his election victory over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, Republican President-elect Donald Trump began filling Cabinet positions and other key roles inside his future administration.

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republican

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Donald Trump's foreign policy appointments for his incoming administration show that he didnt learn a thing during his first term, Larry Johnson, retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official, told Sputnik.In his opinion, Pete Hegseth, Trumps pick for secretary of defense, is just an absurd joke. Florida ongressman Michael Waltz, tapped as Trumps national security advisor, is also a disaster, Johnson argued, underscoring that he represents everything that Donald Trump said that Donald Trump stood against. New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, tapped to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations, comes in with a very strident pro-Zionist point of view, the expert remarked. He doesn't understand that the world has changed. They still believe, foolishly, naively, that they can easily split Russia from China, that there's no natural alliance between Russia and China so that we can we can manipulate Russia into joining with us to defeat China. They just don't get it, the ex-CIA analyst underscored. President-elect Donald Trump started out by naming Susie Wiles as his future White House chief of staff, and then proceeded to make other potential hires for his incoming administration. He has so far named Pete Hegseth as his defense secretary, Mike Waltz as national security advisor, Tom Homan as border czar, Elise Stefanik as US ambassador to the UN, John Ratcliffe as Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy as co-leaders of the newly formed advisory Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), besides other appointments.Regarding DOGE, Trump said in a statement that these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies."Special envoy to the Middle East is to be Steve Witkoff, and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee will serve as US ambassador to Israel. Trump said that Huckabee loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about peace in the Middle East.Moscow is ready to work with the administration of US President-elect Donald Trump, and the ball is in Washington's court, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underlined.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20241113/trump-says-musk-ramaswamy-to-lead-department-of-government-efficiency-1120870025.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20241109/rfk-jr-could-pose-existential-threat-to-big-pharma-if-he-joins-trumps-cabinet-heres-why-1120834692.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20241114/civilians-targeted-israeli-airstrikes-hit-residential-areas-in-syrian-capital-1120886817.html

Civilians Targeted: Israeli Airstrikes Hit Residential Areas in Syrian Capital

Civilians Targeted: Israeli Airstrikes Hit Residential Areas in Syrian Capital

Sputnik International

Israeli aircraft hit one of the central districts of the Syrian capital of Damascus, Mazzeh, Syrian state news agency SANA reported on Thursday.

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Another strike hit a residential building in the Qudsaya district, the news agency said.Since October 1, Israel has been conducting a ground operation against Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, while launching airstrikes not only on Lebanese territory but also on Syria.The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have also targeted infrastructure along the border between the two Arab countries, claiming it is used for supplying weapons Hezbollah, as well as regularly striking Damascus.In October, the IDF also attacked the Iranian-owned Saba Machinery Manufacturing Plant in the industrial town of Hesya in Syria's Homs province, along with many other targets.Other civilian infrastructure targeted in the attacks included a residential building in the Sayyidah Zaynab area in the Damascus suburbs, where an attack on November 10 killed seven civilians, including women and children, and injured 20 others. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia condemned Israel's aggression against Syria. He noted that the scope of hostilities in the Middle East was expanding, leading to further destabilization in the region and escalating tensions.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20241104/israel-strikes-civilian-objects-in-southern-damascus-1120772434.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20241114/from-vt4-tanks-to-swarm-munitions-what-russias-shoigu-saw-at-airshow-china-2024-1120884444.html

From VT4 Tanks to Swarm Munitions: What Russia's Shoigu Saw at Airshow China 2024

From VT4 Tanks to Swarm Munitions: What Russia's Shoigu Saw at Airshow China 2024

Sputnik International

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu inspected Chinese-made tanks, electronic warfare systems, self-propelled howitzers and light buggies at Airshow China-2024.

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world

sergei shoigu

china

russia

zhuhai

russian security council

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Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu inspected Chinese-made tanks, electronic warfare systems, self-propelled howitzers, and light buggies at Airshow China 2024.At the China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) stand, he was shown a VT4 tank, several wheeled electronic warfare systems, and a PLC155/52(SH15) self-propelled howitzer.China South Industries Group (CSGC) showed the Russian Security Council secretary a short-range SAM system, vehicle-mounted UHF UAV countermeasure system, and several CS/UR5 swarm-launched barrage munition systems based on the Mengshi wheeled platform. In addition, several types of lightweight buggies were demonstrated. Russia's fifth-generation Su-57E multirole fighter was also showcased at the exhibition, immediately impressing attendees. Shoigu noted that the fighter has proven itself excellently in the special military operation zone. "An outstanding machine, performing wonderfully. It proved itself very well during its first combat use," Shoigu said in conversation with a test pilot. China's largest international airshow is held every two years in the coastal city of Zhuhai. It features military and civilian aircraft, space, navigation, and radar equipment, aviation weapons, rocket engines, fire control and air defense systems.Russia is a traditional participant of the Zhuhai Airshow.

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20241114/hezbollah-attacks-israeli-general-staff-in-tel-aviv-with-drones-for-1st-time-1120880493.html

Hezbollah Attacks Israeli General Staff in Tel Aviv With Drones for 1st Time

Hezbollah Attacks Israeli General Staff in Tel Aviv With Drones for 1st Time

Sputnik International

Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah said on Wednesday that its fighters for the first time had attacked with drones the territory of the Israeli Defense Minister's General Staff in Tel Aviv.

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"For the first time, Islamic resistance fighters attacked with a group of kamikaze drones the HaKirya base in Tel Aviv, which houses Israel's Ministry of War and General Staff, as well as the command headquarters of the air force directorate," the statement said. The movement also carried out a drone attack on the Amos logistics base in the Israeli city of Afula, 55 kilometers (34 miles) from the Lebanese border. Later in the day, Hezbollah said it carried out a second attack on the Israeli Defense Minister's General Staff in Tel Aviv. The statement added that the target in Tel Aviv is located 12 kilometers from the border with Lebanon.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20241112/lebanese-hezbollah-targets-israels-tel-nof-airbase-with-multiple-strikes-1120868506.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20241114/iran-supports-russian-efforts-towards-israel-lebanon-ceasefire---adviser-to-foreign-minster-1120881277.html

Iran Supports Russian Efforts Towards Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire - Adviser to Foreign Minster

Iran Supports Russian Efforts Towards Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire - Adviser to Foreign Minster

Sputnik International

Tehran supports Moscow's efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, Ali Asghar Khaji, a senior adviser to the Iranian foreign minister, told Sputnik on Thursday.

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The Russian president's special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, said earlier that Moscow was working to stop the violence in Lebanon, including a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the country and the withdrawal of Hezbollah behind the Blue Line. Asked whether Tehran is in talks with Moscow about a ceasefire in Lebanon, where it supports Hezbollah, he said consultations with Russia are underway on all issues and that "none of the issues is an exception". Khaji also expressed doubts about the sincerity of Israel's intention to reach a ceasefire agreement, as public statements by its officials suggest otherwise.Iran will exercise its right to self-defense in response to Israeli airstrikes when it deems necessary, Ali Asghar Khaji said.On October 1, Iran launched a massive missile attack on Israel for the second time in history, calling it an act of self-defense. According to the Israeli military, about 180 ballistic missiles were fired, most of which were intercepted. According to Israeli authorities, the shelling did not cause any casualties among the country's citizens. Several media outlets reported the death of one person, presumably a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank.The Israel Defense Forces said in late October that it had struck military targets in Iran in response to the attacks on the Jewish state on October 1. The CBS News broadcaster reported, citing sources, that the Israeli attack on Iran was limited to military targets and did not include nuclear or oil facilities.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20241105/us-warns-iraq-against-allowing-iran-to-attack-israel-from-its-territory--reports-1120788197.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20241114/israel-informs-trump-of-intention-to-speed-up-lebanon-ceasefire-deal---reports-1120882062.html

Israel Offers Trump Early Foreign Policy Win With Proposed Lebanon Ceasefire

Israel Offers Trump Early Foreign Policy Win With Proposed Lebanon Ceasefire

Sputnik International

Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer informed President-elect Donald Trump during his visit to Washington that Israel intends to accelerate the achievement of a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, the Washington Post reported, citing current and former Israeli officials.

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During his visit to the US on Sunday, Dermer reportedly stopped at Trump's residence in Mar-a-Lago, after which he proceeded to the White House and briefed officials from the administration of outgoing US President Joe Biden on the progress of negotiations regarding Lebanon. At Trump's residence, the parties discussed Israel's proposal for a ceasefire in Lebanon with Western and Russian mediation, in an effort to give the president-elect an early foreign policy victory. An Israeli military official also revealed that plans are being developed to intensify ground operations in Lebanon if negotiations fail. Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces reaffirmed the day before its intention to achieve its objectives in Lebanon, despite progress in the ceasefire negotiations and Trump's victory in the US presidential election. Since October 1, Israel has been conducting a ground operation against Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon. Despite losses, the Lebanese movement has been fighting Israeli troops on the ground and launching rockets across the border. Israel says its main objective is to create conditions for the return of 60,000 residents who have fled shelling in the north.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20241107/israel-uav-strike-near-lebanese-sidon-kills-3-people-4-un-peacekeepers-injured-1120807516.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20241114/japanese-government-says-not-planning-to-abolish-death-penalty-1120882356.html

Japanese Government Says Not Planning to Abolish Death Penalty

Japanese Government Says Not Planning to Abolish Death Penalty

Sputnik International

The Japanese government does not plan to open a discussion on revising the issue of the death penalty and possibly abolishing it, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Thursday.

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"The majority of the public believes that the death penalty is inevitable for extremely heinous crimes. Murder of many people, murder for robbery - these heinous crimes are still not a thing of the past, the death penalty is inevitable for those who have committed such vicious offenses. Therefore, the government does not consider it appropriate to abolish the death penalty system at this time and will not open a debate on the abolition of the death penalty," Hayashi told a briefing. In Japanese judicial practice, the death penalty is usually applied in cases of multiple murders, and there are about 10 such sentences each year. The condemned person may wait for years to be hanged, only to be informed on the morning of the execution. International human rights organizations are calling on Japan to abolish this form of punishment as inhumane.

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20241114/kremlin-confirms-putin-saudi-crown-prince-discussed-ukrainian-conflict-1120883835.html

Kremlin Confirms Putin, Saudi Crown Prince Discussed Ukrainian Conflict

Kremlin Confirms Putin, Saudi Crown Prince Discussed Ukrainian Conflict

Sputnik International

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did discuss the conflict in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

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dmitry peskov

crown prince mohammed bin salman

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saudi arabia

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"The topic of the conflict was touched upon. We have nothing more to comment on this," Peskov said, answering a question about whether any specific proposals and initiatives to resolve the Ukrainian conflict were expressed during the conversation. On Wednesday, the Kremlin said that Putin held a telephone conversation with Mohammed bin Salman and discussed OPEC+ cooperation, as well as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Later, the Saudi state agency SPA reported that the leaders also discussed efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin personally oversees all the issues in the Ukrainian direction, there is no special envoy for this matter, Dmitry Peskov said."Putin personally oversees this direction. The special military operation is underway, and he is the supreme commander. We do not have any special envoys," Peskov told reporters, answering a corresponding question about whether the Kremlin plans to introduce a post of special envoy for negotiations on the Ukrainian conflict.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20241016/kremlin-real-peace-plan-for-ukraine-will-be-to-realize-futility-of-policy-it-pursues-1120572574.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20241114/rheinmetall-plant-in-ukraine-may-serve-for-provocations-against-russia--german-politician-1120882214.html

Rheinmetall Plant in Ukraine May Serve for Provocations Against Russia  German Politician

Rheinmetall Plant in Ukraine May Serve for Provocations Against Russia  German Politician

Sputnik International

The plant German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall opened in Ukraine could probably be used for provocations against Russia, especially given the alleged possibility of a Russian attack on it, chairman of the German Council for Constitution and Sovereignty Ralph Niemeyer told Sputnik.

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world

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sergey lavrov

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Niemeyer said that the alleged possibility of a Russian strike on the plant is reasonable, since it produces weapons used against Russia. However, the German public would be shocked in such a case, the politician said, not ruling out that the plant could be used for provocations against Russia. In October, Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said the company was planning to build four ammunition and equipment plants in Ukraine, with the first one already being operational. He added, that the plant was performing maintenance services for Ukrainian infantry fighting vehicles and tanks at the moment, but he expected that by the end of the year, it would be possible to assemble Lynx infantry fighting vehicles at its facilities. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that the Rheinmetall plant would be a legitimate target for Russian troops. Russia has repeatedly said that arms supplies to Ukraine hinder the conflict settlement and directly involve NATO countries in the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that any cargo containing weapons for Ukraine will be a legitimate target for Russia. He said that the US and NATO are directly involved in the conflict, including not only by supplying weapons, but also by training personnel on their territory. Senior Russian officials have said that Western weapon supplies to Ukraine do not contribute to the negotiations and will have a negative effect.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240315/merchants-of-death-rheinmetall-turns-massive-profit-from-ukraine-conflict-1117352392.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20241114/ukraine-not-planning-to-develop-nuclear-bomb-amid-reports-stating-opposite---foreign-ministry-1120879940.html

No Nukes Here: Ukraine Rejects Claims of Plutonium-Based Weapon Plans

No Nukes Here: Ukraine Rejects Claims of Plutonium-Based Weapon Plans

Sputnik International

Ukraine does not possess nuclear weapons, does not intend to create them, and closely cooperates with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said commenting on media reports that Kiev could develop a nuclear bomb.

2024-11-14T04:19+0000

2024-11-14T04:19+0000

2024-12-23T17:35+0000

world

volodymyr zelensky

ukraine

united kingdom (uk)

international atomic energy agency (iaea)

nato

nuclear non-proliferation treaty (npt)

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"Ukraine is committed to the NPT; we do not possess, develop, or intend to acquire nuclear weapons. Ukraine works closely with the IAEA and is fully transparent to its monitoring, which rules out the use of nuclear materials for military purposes," Tykhyi said on X on Wednesday. Earlier on Wednesday, a UK newspaper reported, citing a report prepared by Ukrainian researchers for the Defense Ministry, that Ukraine could develop a nuclear bomb within a few months if the United States reduces military aid to Kiev. The bomb could be reportedly created from plutonium obtained from spent fuel rods of nuclear reactors. According to the newspaper, similar technology was used to create the Fat Man atomic bomb, which was dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the EU summit in Brussels in mid-October that Kiev would either get an invitation to NATO or a nuclear weapon. The Bild newspaper cited an unnamed Ukrainian official as saying that Ukraine could make a nuclear bomb within weeks to use it against Russia if NATO did not invite it to join the alliance.Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier that creating nuclear weapons in today's world is not difficult, but it remains unclear whether Ukraine is capable of doing so. He also described reports suggesting that Ukraine might acquire such weapons as another provocation. According to him, any steps in this direction by Ukraine will be met with an appropriate response, and Russia will not allow Kiev to develop nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Furthermore, Putin assured that Moscow will monitor any attempts by Western countries to transfer such weapons to Ukraine. At the beginning of November, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian Armed Forces' Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense troops, claimed that Kiev might resort to a provocation using a "dirty bomb" to counter Moscow and its objectives in the special military operation.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240904/nato-helped-ukraine-plan-dirty-bomb-blast-at-russias-kursk-nuclear-power-plant-1120009270.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20241114/what-does-russia-expect-from-trump-20-senior-russian-lawmaker-explains-1120882629.html

What Does Russia Expect From Trump 2.0? Senior Russian Lawmaker Explains

What Does Russia Expect From Trump 2.0? Senior Russian Lawmaker Explains

Sputnik International

Russia has no illusions about Donald Trumps return to the White House, Konstantin Kosachev, Vice Speaker of Russias Federation Council, told Sputnik.

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Im sure that Trump will be very uncomfortable for Russia. I use this word on purpose, an uncomfortable interlocutor, partner, opponent  whatever you want to call him, because he will fiercely defend his vision of the national interests of the United States. I specifically say that he will advocate not for the national interests of the United States, but for his own vision of what those national interests are, which in some respects would be reasonable, and in others, in my opinion, would be erroneous, he said.What explains Moscows pessimism about Trumps second term? Two issues stand out in particular, according to Kosachev. The first is that Trump is a difficult interlocutor on arms control negotiations due to his certain internal repulsion to treating other countries as equals to the United States. The second area of concern is that Trump is likely to put pressure on Russia to distance itself from China and Iran, two important strategic partners.This will be a very big problem for Russia, because of course we are interested in solving some problems through cooperation and dialogue with the United States of America, he said. But I am confident that we will never be willing to turn our backs on our current partners, who let me remind you once again have behaved with the highest degree of quality and decency towards Russia in these difficult times, for the sake of purely theoretical gains.There is also skepticism in Moscow on whether Trump will be a meaningful improvement over Biden on the issue of Ukraine. Last week, The Wall Street Journal published a Ukraine peace deal blueprint that is reportedly being discussed by Trump advisors. The main points of the plan include freezing the current front line and declaring a demilitarized zone along its length, sending European troops as peacekeepers to Ukraine, and delaying the question of Ukraines NATO membership by 20 years.Such a deal would be a nonstarter for Moscow, Kosachev told Sputnik. He explained that the root of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a fundamental divergence in values between the two countries. Russia cannot accept a Ukraine that persecutes its Russian minority and glorifies Nazi collaborators during World War II. Unless and until there is a paradigm shift in Ukrainian politics, there can be no lasting peace between the two countries.This is precisely how it will erupt over and over again in Russian-Ukrainian relations, if we reduce the whole thing to a ceasefire, establish de facto control over the areas where the line of contact now runs, and leave everything else for later. Freezing the conflict works exclusively for the benefit of Ukraine, he added.Trumps victory has sparked a media frenzy about the future of NATO. For example, NPR ran an article with the headline Trump's second term could force NATO into a reckoning with its relationship with the US, while some Western pundits have gone so far as to suggest that Trump could pull the United States out of NATO if other member states dont radically increase their defense spending.Such a scenario seems highly unlikely from Russias perspective, KosachevI say this with great regret, Kosachev added. I would very much like to see the collapse of NATO for the sake of global security, global stability, and global peace.

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Full Video: Interview with Konstantin Kosachev, Vice Speaker of Russias Federation Council Sputnik International Full Video: Interview with Konstantin Kosachev, Vice Speaker of Russias Federation Council 2024-11-14T13:00+0000 true PT25M58S

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Faze left from post six in the $184,861 Matron Stakes for two-year-old pacing fillies on Wednesday evening, Nov. 13 at Dover Downs and the daughter of Sweet Lou-Darlinonthebeach followed the pocket trip before succeeding at the wire over the favourite.

Tim Tetrick and the Nancy Takter student went off at odds of 7-2 in the featured race as they left swiftly from the gate. Rose (Yannick Gingras), the heavily backed favourite, left from post seven with equal intent for the lead. The pair of leading ladies duelled to the quarter in :26.4 with Rose pulling ahead to click the timer first from the outside. Rose settled in on the front from the pylons and Faze tracked her from the pocket.

After the half in :56.1, Pilar Hanover (Allan Davis) made her way up to second from the outside through the three-quarters in 1:24.3. Her efforts stalled, leaving Faze and Rose to duke it out towards the finish. Faze pulled ahead at the finish line to win by a neck in 1:53.1 while Rose had to settle for second. Lyons Benz (Corey Callahan) completed the show ticket.

Diamond Creek Racing, Farhi Standardbreds Corp., and Spreydon Racing co-own Faze, who won her fourth race in seven starts, lifting her earnings to $165,813. Diamond Creek Farm, Shmuel Farhi and Spreydon Lodge bred the filly. She returned $9 to win.

'Peyton' Wins Sixth Straight In DSBF Filly Pace

Donna Messick's homebred Little Miss Peyton rolled to her sixth consecutive win, posting a 1:55.1 score in the second of three $27,778 first-round Delaware Standardbred Breeders' Fund events for two-year-old pacing fillies on Wednesday at Dover.

Little Miss Peyton and driver Corey Callahan tracked a :28 first-quarter duel between Mornin Merle (Pat Berry) and Im Won Last Wiser (Montrell Teague) before brushing from third to the lead with a circuit to go. After being strung out a bit through a :56.2 half, the Papa Ray-Armbro Cashmere filly rated a :30 third sectional and began to pull away from her six rivals midway on the far turn. Little Miss Peyton handily defeated Mornin Merle by a widening four lengths. Immaculate Inning (Tim Tetrick) circled the stalled cover of Im Won Last Wiser to narrowly claim third.

Les Givens trains Little Miss Peyton, who has won six of her nine career starts and banked $141,334. She paid $2.10 to win.

Givens completed a DSBF double when Bella Artiste and driver Jim Morand scored in a lifetime best 1:55 in the third division. The Badlands Hanover-Arts Bid filly clicked off splits of :28.1, :56 and 1:25.3 before evading pocket rival Tilted Crown (Russell Foster) by 1-1/2 lengths. Banana Cabana (Tony Morgan) finished third.

Nanticoke Racing, Arthur Feeney and Chad Tate campaign Bella Artiste, a four-time winner from nine starts who paid $2.20.

Valentina Station and trainer/driver Eddie Dennis kicked off the DSBF proceedings with a 1:57.1 win in the first division, reeling in Sweet Samsara (David Rearic) by a neck. Proper Lady (Carlo Poliseno) was third.

A daughter of Badlands Hanover-Village Artist, Valentina Station posted her second win in eight starts for owners Rodney Wyatt and Kevin Peck. She returned $2.20 to win.

(Standardbred Canada with files from DSBF)
The Ohio Standardbred Development Fund will meet on Monday, Nov. 18 at Scioto Downs in the Three Diamonds Room. The meeting will begin at 2 p.m.

The meeting is open to the public and horsepeople are encouraged to attend.

(Ohio Harness Horsemens Association)
The sale roster and catalogue are now available online for the the first annual North American Standardbred Mixed Sale, which will take place on Tuesday, Dec. 17 at the Mount Hope Event Center in Mount Hope, Ohio.

With 332 horses consigned, the mixed sale includes a selection of racehorses, broodmare prospects and broodmares in foal.

Horses will move into the building at Mount Hope Event Center on Monday, Dec. 16 and sell on Tuesday, Dec. 17 starting at 10 a.m.

The sale roster and catalogue are available at northamericanstandardbredmixedsale.com.

(With files from North American Standardbred Mixed Sale)
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Jorge Menjivar, from El Salvador, stands outside the Northern Bus Station in Mexico City, Sept. 22, 2023, during his journey north to the U.S. Credit: AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File

As the International Rescue Committee copes with dramatic increases in displaced people in recent years, the refugee aid organization has looked for efficiencies wherever it canincluding using artificial intelligence.

Since 2015, the IRC has invested in Signposta portfolio of mobile apps and social media channels that answer questions in different languages for people in dangerous situations. The Signpost project, which includes many other organizations, has reached 18 million people so far, but IRC wants to significantly increase its reach by using AI tools.

Conflict, climate emergencies and economic hardship have driven up demand for humanitarian assistance, with more than 117 million people forcibly displaced in 2024, according to the United Nations refugee agency. As humanitarian organizations encounter more people in need, they are also facing enormous funding shortfalls. The turn to artificial intelligence technologies is in part driven by this massive gap between needs and resources.

To meet its goal of reaching half of displaced people within three years, the IRC is building a network of AI chatbots that can increase the capacity of their humanitarian officers and the local organizations that directly serve people through Signpost. For now, the project operates in El Salvador, Kenya, Greece and Italy and responds in 11 languages. It draws on a combination of large language models from some of the biggest technology companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.

These undated screenshots provided by the International Rescue Committee show a chatbot using artificial intelligence responding to a test question that refugees or other displaced people could potentially ask. The IRC is testing artificial intelligence tools in a project called Signpost.AI to try to increase the number of displaced people they can reach with critical information. Credit: International Rescue Committee via AP Photo

The chatbot response system also uses customer service software from Zendesk and receives other support from Google and Cisco Systems.

Beyond developing these tools, the IRC wants to extend this infrastructure to other nonprofit humanitarian organizations at no cost. They hope to create shared technology resources that less technically focused organizations could use without having to negotiate directly with tech companies or manage the risks of deployment.

"We're trying to really be clear about where the legitimate concerns are but lean into the optimism of the opportunities and not also allow the populations we serve to be left behind in solutions that have the potential to scale in a way that human to human or other technology can't," said Jeannie Annan, International Rescue Committee's Chief Research and Innovation Officer.

The responses and information that Signpost chatbots deliver are vetted by local organizations to be up to date and sensitive to the precarious circumstances people could be in. An example query that IRC shared is of a woman from El Salvador traveling through Mexico to the United States with her son who is looking for shelter and for services for her child. The bot provides a list of providers in the area where she is.

Survivors and relatives of victims walk, Feb. 26, 2024, at the site where a migrant boat capsized a year earlier in Steccato di Cutro, on the Italian southern tip. AP Photo/Valeria Ferraro, File)

More complex or sensitive queries are escalated for humans to respond.

The most important potential downside of these tools would be that they don't work. For example, what if the situation on the ground changes and the chatbot doesn't know? It could provide information that's not just wrong, but dangerous.

A second issue is that these tools can amass a valuable honeypot of data about vulnerable people that hostile actors could target. What if a hacker succeeds in accessing data with personal information or if that data is accidentally shared with an oppressive government?

IRC said it's agreed with the tech providers that none of their AI models will be trained on the data that the IRC, the local organizations or the people they are serving are generating. They've also worked to anonymize the data, including removing personal information and location.

Winnie Keben gives water to her son at Meisori village in Baringo County, Kenya, July 20, 2022. Keben lost her leg to a crocodile attack, and that accident plus the loss of her home to rising water drove her and her family from their village. Credit: AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File

As part of the Signpost.AI project, IRC is also testing tools like a digital automated tutor and maps that can integrate many different types of data to help prepare for and respond to crises.

Cathy Petrozzino, who works for the not-for-profit research and development company MITRE, said AI tools do have high potential, but also high risks. To use these tools responsibly, she said, organizations should ask themselves, does the technology work? Is it fair? Are data and privacy protected?

She also emphasized that organizations need to convene a range of people to help govern and design the initiativenot just technical experts, but people with deep knowledge of the context, legal experts, and representatives from the groups that will use the tools.

"There are many good models sitting in the AI graveyard," she said, "because they weren't worked out in conjunction and collaboration with the user community."

People gather outside the Migrant Assistance Office on Oct. 9, 2019 in San Salvador, El Salvador. Credit: AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File

For any system that has potentially life-changing impacts, Petrozzino said, groups should bring in outside experts to independently assess their methodologies. Designers of AI tools need to consider the other systems it will interact with, she said, and they need to plan to monitor the model over time.

Consulting with displaced people or others that humanitarian organizations serve may increase the time and effort needed to design these tools, but not having their input raises many safety and ethical problems, said Helen McElhinney, executive director of CDAC Network. It can also unlock local knowledge.

People receiving services from humanitarian organizations should be told if an AI model will analyze any information they hand over, she said, even if the intention is to help the organization respond better. That requires meaningful and informed consent, she said. They should also know if an AI model is making life-changing decisions about resource allocation and where accountability for those decisions lies, she said.

Degan Ali, CEO of Adeso, a nonprofit in Somalia and Kenya, has long been an advocate for changing the power dynamics in international development to give more money and control to local organizations. She asked how IRC and others pursuing these technologies would overcome access issues, pointing to the week-long power outages caused by Hurricane Helene in the U.S. Chatbots won't help when there's no device, internet or electricity, she said.

Survivors of a migrant shipwreck stand outside a warehouse at the port in Kalamata town, southwest of Athens, Greece, on June 15, 2023. Credit: AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, File

Ali also warned that few local organizations have the capacity to attend big humanitarian conferences where the ethics of AI are debated. Few have staff both senior enough and knowledgeable enough to really engage with these discussions, she said, though they understand the potential power and impact these technologies may have.

"We must be extraordinarily careful not to replicate power imbalances and biases through technology," Ali said. "The most complex questions are always going to require local, contextual and lived experience to answer in a meaningful way."

 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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A new white paper from Monash Business School has confirmed the essential role large-scale electricity storage will need to play if Australia is to reach its stated clean energy future.

"The storage imperative: Powering Australia's clean energy transition" is authored by Associate Professor Guillaume Roger from Monash University's Faculty of Business and Economics. His analysis shows that how we trade electricity today, and the financial instruments that support such trade, are inadequate to deal with intermittent energy and storage.

"The problem is that renewable energy must be stored to really be useful; there is too much of it when we don't need it, and not enough when we do," Associate Professor Roger said.

Australia's ambitious clean energy targets of 43 percent emissions reduction by 2030, 82 percent renewable energy generation by 2030, and net zero emissions by 2050 hinge on a critical yet often misunderstood element: large-scale electricity storage.

Launched in conjunction with the Monash Energy Institute, the research-based white paper says that without storage, these goals remain out of reach. "Electricity storage on a large scale is the perfect, and very timely, complement to sporadically available renewable energy generation," the report says.

"Storage enables the intertemporal shift of electricity production to make energy accessible when required rather than when available."

According to Associate Professor Roger, "Storage is very complicated to understand and operate, and the manner in which the National Energy Market (NEM) is currently operating is not conducive to efficient storage operation, nor of storage investment, and as a result Australia is stalling."

The research presents a range of policy recommendations and reforms for policymakers, market operators, and industry stakeholders, emphasizing a combination of simple reforms that are already in operation in other markets.

These include the introduction of adequate financial instruments to support investment, and further investment in research to design a market that can cope with the complete retirement of fossil fuel generators including:

No-Regret Policies: Implementing Locational Marginal Pricing (LMP), a day-ahead market (DAM), and promoting forward contracting to enhance price signals and grid efficiency.

Investment Incentives: Reevaluating schemes like the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) to better align with storage asset realities, encouraging full utilization to minimize taxpayer burdens.

Financing Reliability: Developing new approaches to ensure system reliability in a storage-dominated grid, possibly through long-term contracting or innovative procurement mechanisms.

Research Investment: Funding further research to explore the limits of revenue generation through arbitrage and market design in a renewable-centric landscape.

"An important dimension of these reforms is that they do not cost much to taxpayers, unlike much of the subsidies various governments, state and federal offer now, and they can be enacted rapidly. Australians should demand them," Associate Professor Roger said.

"As Australia seeks to transition to a robust and sustainable energy future, addressing the complexities of electricity storage is crucial. The insights provided in this white paper lay the groundwork for effective energy policies and regulatory frameworks, giving us a chance to meet Australia's clean energy goals."

Monash Energy Institute Director Shreejan Pandey said the release of the white paper marks a significant step forward in addressing one of the most pressing challenges of our timeefficient energy storage to support Australia's transition to clean energy.

"At the Monash Energy Institute, we're committed to addressing energy transition challenges through pioneering research. Our independent, evidence-based insights are well suited to inform impactful policies that benefit all Australians," said Mr. Pandey.

"This white paper underscores the urgency and opportunities in scaling up storage solutions to ensure a resilient and renewable-powered grid."
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A new study from AI experts at the University of Oxford and University of Melbourne reveals that men are much more likely to support the idea of being cared for in their homes by a robot when they are infirm or elderly, than women.

The study, published in the journal Community, Work and Family, assesses people's attitudes towards having robots caring for oneself, providing services and companionship, when one is infirm or elderly. The study draws on data from 28 European countries, factoring in local determinants such as GDP, women's labor force participation rates, and spending on elderly care.

The lead author, Professor Ekaterina Hertog, Associate Professor at the Oxford Internet Institute & the Institute for Ethics in AI, University of Oxford explains, "In our study we investigate three key questions: Are women more comfortable than men with being cared for by robots in their old age? Are those with greater time pressures and higher opportunity costs more supportive of receiving care from technology? And do macro-level factors inform individual attitudes to robotic care?"

The researchers find that individuals differ substantially in how comfortable they are with using technology to fulfill their care needs, with local context and personal factors shaping attitudes towards being cared for by robots.

Key findings of the study:

Overall, people are not very enthusiastic about being cared for by robots.

European men are more open to adopting robotic technologies for their own care than women when they get infirm or elderly.

More educated men and women are more supportive of using robots for their own care.

People working in professional, managerial or white-collar jobs are more supportive of using robots for their own care than those in non-professional occupations.

Younger people and those with experience of using robots in work or domestic contexts are more open to using them in the future to help with their own care.

Those living in local communities with higher levels of female employment and low levels of spending on adult care more likely to accept robots as part of their care package in old age.

It is also not all about personal characteristics, the researchers find. Their analysis highlights how peoples' attitudes are informed not only by personal experiences, such as ability to pay, and shortage of time, but also, crucially, by local context, for example, by welfare provision available for older adults.

"A key finding of ours was that local context really matters," stresses study co-author Professor Leah Ruppanner, University of Melbourne. "Those living in communities with higher levels of female employment and lower levels of spending on old age support were generally more comfortable with using robots for elderly care.

"Conversely, we find that when governments invest more heavily in elder care, people report (on average) being less comfortable with relying on robots in the home to provide care for the infirm and elderly."

For policymakers, the research flags that they should be aware of are "tensions between a desire to meet adult care demands with human or technological labor. Technology should not be an inevitability. Rather, any investment into technological solutions needs to be evaluated against investing in support for paid or unpaid caregivers," adds co-author Brendan Churchill, University of Melbourne.

Looking ahead, the researchers stress the need for policymakers to evaluate the opportunity costs of any adult care technologies against human care provision. "When such digital care technologies are adopted, it is crucial we consider how adult care technologies can be integrated in a way that preserves, and ideally amplifies, the ability of human caregivers to maintain the connection with those they care for," maintains Professor Hertog.

"Care technologies will only become more salient as populations age, women's workforce participation increases and technology advances. The questions we need to ask are how comfortable are individuals with letting AI-powered technologies like robots take care of them? And what might be shaping their preferences?"

More information: Ekaterina Hertog et al, Silicon caregivers: a multilevel analysis of European perspectives on robotic technologies for elderly care, Community, Work & Family (2024). DOI: 10.1080/13668803.2024.2423019
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Three decades ago, the first Eurostar train carrying paying passengers set off from London's Waterloo station for Paris. While many of the headlines on November 14 1994 focused on the historic journey, others speculated about what the tunnel would mean for business and trade. Eurostar was "set to steal the airline show," with ferry companies "bracing for the fight." And there were hopes of a trade boost for the UK.

The predictions were part of a long history of imagining a tunnel under the English Channel and what it would mean for both Britain and France. (The first proposal was reportedly made to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802, with the engineer behind the plan believing it could end the Napoleonic Wars.)

Later proposals pointed to the number of people who crossed by boat train as evidence of the profits that a tunnel could make, and a government survey in 1883 highlighted the benefits for transporting perishable or fragile goods.

In 1919, the question of the likely consequences of a Channel tunnel was set to a group of French students in their final exam before graduation. One answer imagined the trade and economic boost it would bring, and predicted that it could even "spell the end of tariffs between Britain and France."

In 1929, when the British government launched a survey of hoteliers and travel agents, many predicted that a tunnel would lead to a decline in tourism in Britain, as holidaymakers would head to Europe.

By 1986, when the then UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher and French president Francois Mitterand signed the Treaty of Canterbury, paving the way for a tunnel, commentators imagined the end of air and ferry travel to Europe, as well as the advent of short services to allow commuters to travel between Kent and the Pas-de-Calais for work.

A Eurotunnel tea towel advertised trains linking all corners of Britain with Copenhagen, Warsaw, Naples and Madrid. Thatcher herself had high hopes for the tunnel, which she was optimistic would cement the single market and bring economic benefits to Britain.

The arrival of the tunnel

But many of the predictions did not come to fruition. For the first decade of Eurostar's operation, passenger numbers were around six million per year and in 2013 it finally reached its target of ten million passengers annually.

Taking Eurostar (the company behind the high-speed passenger service) and Eurotunnel (the company running the freight and vehicle shuttle between Folkestone and Calais) combined, passenger numbers were relatively stable between 2012 and 2019, ranging between 20 and 21 million per year. But then numbers fell sharply to 5.8 million in 2021 as they were hit by the combined impact of COVID and the Brexit agreement, and in January 2023 Eurostar announced that its passenger numbers had dropped by 30% compared to pre-Brexit numbers.

Passenger numbers have since picked up, and in 2023 almost 19 million people traveled by Eurostar. The company has responded to growing interest in sustainable travel with plans to increase its fleet by up to 50 trains. But things are likely to be difficult with the imminent arrival of biometric checks for passengers entering the EU.

In truth, the fortunes of Eurostar have always been bound up with politics, and with its history.

Thatcher had stressed that the tunnel's construction had to be paid for by private finance. This meant that the companies involved needed to recoup the costs of the project (4.65 billion, or the equivalent of 12 billion in today's money). This resulted in high charges for passengers and freight trains.

Elsewhere, fears that the tunnel could be a target for terrorism led to strict safety regulations that made it difficult for short commuter services to run. And, while many had expected Eurostar to kill off air travel between Britain and Europe, deregulation in the aviation sector has meant that competition with low-cost airlines ensured that planned long-distance night trains never materialized. The rolling stock for Nightstar (as it was to be known) was instead sold to the Canadian railways.

While November 14 is the paying passengers anniversary, May 6 1994 was when the first train traveled between Britain and France carrying Elizabeth II to meet President Mitterand.

In May this year, French president Emmanuel Macron marked that anniversary by posting on X (formerly Twitter): "Thirty years ago the Channel Tunnel finally linked the United Kingdom and France! This feat brought people closer together, gave new impetus to our trade and confirmed the strength of our political relationship." In contrast, British prime minister Rishi Sunak was silent on the matter.

Britain now has a new government, one that says it is determined to "reset" its relations with Europe, as signaled by foreign secretary David Lammy's attendance at the EU's foreign affairs council in October.

But the government is dogged by the same issues that affected its predecessor; notably the attention devoted to small boat crossings, and the question of what the UK's relationship with Europe will look in future. It's a question that has been made all the more pertinent as both parties assess the implications of the next Trump presidency in the US.

The anniversary of the Channel tunnel's first paying passengers offers a crucial opportunity to signal a reset of relations and for the UK to demonstrate leadership on the central issues of trade and migration. This will have implications for Eurostar's financial fortunes too.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
After a month with no rain in Bryan-College Station, water has made its way to the forefront of topics Bryan city councilors discussed this week  water transport permits, that is.

According to city staff, the city of Bryan relies on water wells in the Simsboro Aquifer as the citys sole water source. Current predictions suggest that the city has a reliable water supply for approximately 50 years. In order to protect and conserve the groundwater resources for Brazos and Robertson counties, the Brazos Valley Groundwater Conservation District (BVGCD) works closely with the city for hydrology studies and more.

In May 2024, the city received notice from the BVGCD that seven transport permit applications had been submitted with the goal of exporting water from Robertson County to locations near the I-35 corridor. This would include wells connected to the Simsboro Aquifer and in the general vicinity of wells providing water to Texas A&M University and the city of College Station. This could have a detrimental impact on the supply of water, according to Bryan city staff.

[The applicants] are in the water-selling business, which implies they are a profit-driven water supply company. In contrast, the city of Bryan is governed by local community leaders, does not have stakeholders who expect a profit from water and is committed to and invested in protecting the areas water resources, Bryan city staff said in the agenda. In short, the city of Bryan is concerned with protecting the sustainability of an invaluable natural resource.

To protect local water resources, Bryan city councilors approved appointing a law firm, Mathews and Freeland, P.C., to represent Bryan, College Station and Brazos County. College Station city councilors and the Brazos County Commissioners Court will consider the same agenda item for possible approval at their next meeting.

If approved by all parties, Mathews and Freeland, P.C. will represent the cities and the county in discussions, state hearings, lawsuits and other interactions involving local water permits, according to the city. The interlocal agreement would also split costs among all parties regarding protesting the water permits.

City staff recommended approving the plan and said, failure to take this type of action may result in the city of Bryans 50-year plans being changed to 10-year plans, which comes at significant cost in both a natural resource and monetary expenses much greater than planned, forecasted and projected. Consequently, the result could be significantly higher rates to water ratepayers in the near future.

Search is on for lead pipes

Bryan city councilors also met for a workshop session Tuesday where Jayson Barfknecht, public works director for the city of Bryan, gave a presentation. In October, the Biden administration issued a final ruling across the country that required every community to identify and replace lead pipes within the next 10 years.

Lead pipes were used back in the 1800s all the way up until the 1980s until 1986 when Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act, which banned the use of lead, Barfknecht said. Theres no indication that there are any lead issues with the water supply in Bryan so I dont want anybody to take away from this [presentation] that there are any problems with lead in the water within Bryan. Theres not a Flint, Michigan, situation.

Due to a switch in the water supply in 2013 and local governments inadequate treatment of the new water source, Flint residents dealt with foul-smelling, discolored and off-tasting water piped into their homes for 18 months that caused skin rashes, hair loss and itchy skin.

As per the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, the city of Bryan provided the initial service lines inventory. Currently, the city knows of 15,910 lines being definitively non-lead, but 17,759 lines are unknown. Two galvanized lines have been identified and will require replacement. The city confirmed it does not knowingly have any lead service lines at the moment.

When somebody comes in and there is an unknown status at their address, the customer has to be notified that the status of their service line is unknown, Barfknecht said. A lead service line is a line thats made out of galvanized lead and requires replacement.  The default is, if I cant prove that it was not lead, I have to assume that it was lead.

City staff drafted a letter that will be sent out to around 17,000 customers detailing the process as they begin attempting to identify the unknown service lines.

There are a lot of places where we have gone in and replaced the water main since they were first built, and we replaced them, but now theres a copper service line. But that line may have been put in in 2005 while the house has been there since 1940. The chances of me having a record of that original service line is going to be pretty low, Barfknecht said. Were going to go out and physically locate [the line], dig it up and verify what the material type is.

Staff will meet personally with the citizens who have galvanized metal lines, Barfknecht said.

If lead is found in the water, city staff will notify the state and the customer and then replace the service line immediately. Barfknecht said the water in Bryan is currently safe, but some ways to reduce lead exposure include using only cold water for drinking, cooking and in baby formula, using a water filter that is certified to remove lead and regularly cleaning your faucets screen, also known as an aerator.
A multi-vehicle accident near the coastal town of Badagry, 70 kilometres from Lagos, Nigeria turned fatal, claiming the life of a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) staff while several others were rushed to nearby hospitals with various injuries.

In a statement posted online, YWAM said a bus with 15 team members returning from a regional gathering in Benin was involved in a multi-vehicle accident near Badagry on November 2, 2024. The mission organization reported that Jean Serge Mienahou, working with YWAM Congo Brazzaville had lost his life in the accident adding that the family and friends had been notified.

Two other YWAM staff with serious injuries had been admitted to hospital. Doctors assessed Tchando Matthieu from Benin and found that he was bleeding in the brain, which is very serious. He was put into a medically induced coma which doctors had planned to bring him out of it.

It is a matter of life and death that he wakes up, so please pray urgently, posted YWAM on its website.

Evariste Gbejihounde, also from Benin, was being treated for internal bleeding in the abdominal cavity and for two broken ribs. The team asked for prayers hoping that a scheduled CAT scan would reveal the source of the internal bleeding. At the same time, Togos Tomsuwa Cosme had what initially appeared like serious injuries, but he was treated and his condition downgraded to stable.

Some of the remaining passengers required minor treatment and ongoing medical diagnosis, but we are grateful that all others involved are safe and on their way home, reassured YWAM.

In February 2024, a road accident in Tanzania claimed the lives of 8 missionaries attached to YWAM. Several others were hospitalized, treated and discharged. Christian Daily had earlier reported that Sub-Saharan Africas fatality rate from road crashes stands at 27 per 100,000 inhabitants, three times higher than Europes average and well above the global average of 18, according to the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

Jean Todt, the UN Secretary-Generals Special Envoy for Road Safety, highlighted Africas disproportionate vulnerability to road accidents. He emphasized that road accidents are the leading cause of youth mortality in Africa, underscoring the urgent need for action.

A recent report by the Africa Development Group (AFdB), titled Mortality in Africa: The Share of Road Traffic Fatalities, revealed that road traffic accidents constitute 25% of all injury-related deaths in Africa. Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco experience particularly high rates of fatalities.

The AFdB report outlined strategies to reduce road fatalities, including improved road infrastructure and enforcement of road safety measures. However, enforcement remains weak across the continent.
As persecution of Christians continues to rise globally, churches across India joined an international prayer initiative during the first two Sundays of November, with strong participation reported from cities and towns nationwide.

The International Days of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP), coordinated globally by the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and promoted in India by the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), gained particular significance this year in light of increasing incidents against the Christian community in the nation. EFI has documented nearly 570 cases of violence and hate crimes against Christians in India during the first nine months of 2024.

These numbers tell a story of communities under pressure, Rev. Vijayesh Lal, General Secretary of EFI, told Christian Today. Yet, what we're witnessing through IDOP is remarkable - when we unite in prayer, we're not just supporting our persecuted brothers and sisters, were demonstrating the resilience of the global Church. Despite these challenges, we find hope in Gods promise that He will never leave nor forsake us.

The scale of global persecution remains alarming. WEA Ambassador for Religious Freedom, Godfrey Yogarajah, revealed that the past year saw approximately 5,000 Christians murdered for their faith, while over 14,000 Christian properties faced attacks. More than 4,000 believers were detained under harsh conditions. Current estimates indicate around 316 million Christians worldwide face severe persecution.

In Nagpur, Maharashtra, a gathering of over 180 people marked IDOP on November 3. The response was beyond our expectations, Rev. Amit Manwatkar, the events organiser told Christian Today: "Many participants were encountering these realities for the first time. Were now seeing commitments to monthly prayer meetings and practical support initiatives for affected communities. Some have expressed desire to visit affected areas, while others have indicated that they would be organizing clothing drives for believers in need.

The response in Chandigarh was equally significant, where Robert Masih coordinated an IDOP gathering where around 80 Christians joined for prayer. This initiative goes beyond awareness - it's about sustained prayer support for persecuted believers, Masih emphasized, highlighting plans for regular prayer meetings throughout the year. The commitment shown by participants reinforces the importance of continuing these prayer efforts beyond just annual observances.

Indian churches also marked IDOP on November 10th, with numerous congregations dedicating their Sunday services to prayer for persecuted Christians. In West Delhi, Surender Pokhal, who coordinated a special service, observed, The unity we witnessed transcends denominational boundaries. These testimonies of persecution arent just inspiring prayers - they're strengthening our own faith commitments and reminding us of our responsibility to stand with those who suffer for their faith.

Rev. Jitendra Rathor, who led another IDOP gathering at his Church in Delhi, emphasized the growing urgency of such initiatives. When we hear testimonies of persecuted believers, it shakes us out of our comfort zones, he said. This years participation shows that churches are becoming increasingly aware of their role in supporting persecuted Christians through prayer and practical action.

EFI, as the national alliance of the World Evangelical Alliance in India, has been providing resources including prayer guides and information materials to support local church initiatives. This years theme, Courageous Faith, draws from Deuteronomy 31:6, resonating strongly with current challenges faced by Christians worldwide.

The widespread participation in IDOP 2024 reflects growing awareness among Indian Christians about persecution. As reports of challenges facing Christian communities continue to emerge globally, these prayer initiatives are increasingly moving beyond annual observances to become regular features of church life. Many congregations are now implementing ongoing prayer and support mechanisms for persecuted Christians.

Originally published by Christian Today India
Only weeks after the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization concluded in Incheon, Korea, the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is about to announce plans to hold its next General Assembly in Seoul from October 27-31, 2025. Even before the official announcement ceremony scheduled for this Friday (Nov. 15), however, the news has been met with criticism by several Christian groups in the country who have called for the plans to be put on hold.

According to reporting by Korean Christian media, the groups have taken issue with what they described as secretive planning, which excluded the representative Christian member bodies in Korea that the WEA used to work with. They also point to long-standing unresolved theological concerns among Korean churches about some of WEAs leaders, which they say must be resolved before planning for a General Assembly can begin.

Concerns about months of discussions behind-the-scenes

According Christian Today Korea (CT-K), Rev. Junghyun John Oh, Senior Pastor of SaRang Church in Seoul, is expected to lead the preparations for the next WEA GA with support from Yoido Full Gospel Church, the largest Pentecostal church in the world.

In a note to Christian media on Sunday (Nov. 10), SaRang announced a thanksgiving worship service to mark the launch of the 2025 WEA Seoul General Assembly Organizing Committee to be held this Friday (Nov. 15), with Yoidos Senior Pastor Younghoon Lee delivering the sermon.

The official announcement and ceremony follow what CT-K describes as months of behind-the-scenes negotiations between the WEA and SaRang.

Initially, Bp Efraim Tendero, former Secretary General and current Global Ambassador of the WEA, together with then-Secretary General Dr Thomas Schirrmacher met with Rev. Lee to see if Yoido would host the WEA GA in Korea. When these discussions failed to lead to an agreement, the two WEA leaders reportedly approached Rev. Oh of SaRang with a request to provide a venue and financial support, which was met with a favorable response.

CT-K points out, however, that the decision to work with a local church without the involvement of its national member body did not follow WEAs regular procedure and could open it up for criticism.

As a global association, the WEA is comprised of 9 regional and 143 national Evangelical Alliances, with international denominations and ministries as Affiliate members. National membership with the WEA is usually reserved for a single representative evangelical association made up of denominations, churches and/or ministries. Individual churches and national denominations cannot directly be part of the WEA, according to its bylaws.

In the case of South Korea, the Christian Council of Korea (CCK) became WEAs member Alliance in 2009. A few years later, internal divisions led to the formation of the Communion of Churches in Korea (CCIK), which was officially recognized as WEAs member body in 2022. (It was the division within the national member body that led WEA to cancel its General Assembly that was planned in Korea in 2014.) Additionally, the Korea Evangelical Fellowship (KEF) has been a long-time affiliated member of the WEA.

However, CT-K reports that sources indicate that neither CCK, CCIK, nor KEF has held official discussions with WEA on hosting the assembly, and that talks were exclusively between certain WEA leaders and SaRang Church. It cautions that excluding these organizations from such major decisions could lead to significant backlash.

Some have reportedly also been critical towards Rev. Ohs premature decision to push ahead with the hosting of the WEA GA given the prolonged transitional leadership in the WEA and questions surrounding the financial support expected from the Korean church.

After Schirrmacher resigned from his role as Secretary General on March 31 citing health reasons, the WEA announced that the Chair of its International Council Goodwill Shana would take over leadership of the WEA as Executive Chair for an interim period not exceeding six months.

On Sept. 18, however, the WEA announced that Shana would continue in his double-role as board chair and acting Secretary General / CEO for more than one year longer, up until the GA in October 2025. Meanwhile, the WEA has yet to announce the search for a new Secretary General.

The uncertainty surrounding the WEAs leadership and the financial strain raise further questions about the feasibility of hosting the event, CT-K reports, adding that Rev. Ohs term as Senior Pastor of SaRang is set to end within a year after the proposed GA.

Resolving theological concerns before hosting the General Assembly

At least since some WEA leaders, including Schirrmacher, participated in the World Council of Churches General Assembly in Busan in 2013, there have been concerns among the largely conservative Korean evangelical churches about what they perceived to be WEA tendencies towards liberal theology.

SaRangs own denomination HapDong, the largest denomination in Korea and rooted in the Presbyterian tradition, has previously criticized Schirrmacher and other WEA leaders for alleged religious pluralism. While there have been moves within HapDong to officially reject WEAs perceived liberal tendencies, CT-K reported that the denominations General Assembly in 2021 adopted a proposal to withhold a decision on WEA until its stance becomes clearer, and to avoid unnecessary disputes.

But it cautioned that hosting the WEA assembly may reignite dormant controversies within the denomination regarding WEA.

CT-K also noted that the next HapDong General Assembly is due just before the planned WEA GA. Therefore, if the denomination bans any participation in the WEA, the fallout could become complicated for both the WEA and the Korean Church.

Mere hours after the CT-K article, a group of 1,000 pastors, elders and professors published a full-page advertising in Kukmin Daily, a Korean church newspaper, on Monday morning (Nov. 11), with a statement titled Reasons Why the Korean Presbyterian Church HapDong Cannot Engage with the WEA.

Authored by leaders from HapDong-affiliated Kwangshin Theological Seminary, the statement outlined the issues they consider incompatible with the Reformed faith. They specifically pointed to WEAs close proximity to the Pope and the World Council of Churches as well as its engagement with Muslim leaders which they view as potential sign of religious pluralism.

A few hours later, still on Monday, CCK President Rev Seo-young Jeong also went public with his opposition to the WEA GA, saying the planned event risks increasing division among the Korean churches.

The strongly worded statement called for all the preparations to be put on hold until the concerns about WEAs theology and allegations of religious pluralism can be addressed.

When the CCK previously attempted to host the WEA General Assembly [in 2014], the WEA sought a united Korean church for the assembly, not one marked by division. With the WEAs pluralistic tendencies now even more pronounced, hosting the WEA Assembly in a way that risks further church discord is undesirable, and we cannot stand by and watch as division deepens, Jeong said.

The WEA normally holds its General Assemblies every six years. The last three were held in Indonesia (2019), Thailand (2008) and Malaysia (2001).

Christian Daily International reached out to the WEA and to Dr Schirrmacher for comment but has yet to receive a response.
Indiana Jones and The Lord of the Rings star John Rhys-Davies believes a great, enduring story  like Tolkiens classic trilogy  has two elements: right vs. wrong.

A good story, the 80-year-old actor told The Christian Post, is one that challenges us with the fundamental conflict between right and wrong, and shows us the redemptive power of change.

This is precisely what drew the veteran actor to narrate SCROOGE: A Christmas Carol, the audio drama from screenwriter P.G. Cuschieri and creator-producer Mark Ramsey that reimagines Charles Dickens classic tale for the holiday season.

Presented by Hope Media Group and Compassion International, the four-part adaptation brings Dickens timeless message of transformation and compassion to life with an all-star cast that includes Sean Astin, Rhys-Davies Rings co-star, as the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge.

For Rhys-Davies, whose career spans several decades, Scrooge reveals the potential for goodness within every individual, even when burdened by past mistakes.

I suppose the whole thing is about that time of year when we reassess ourselves and reassess our lives, when we see how we failed, and yet, there is hope. It affirms hope, and it affirms the possibility that we can change, he said.

After a stellar debut in 2023  garnering accolades like Christian Music Broadcasters' "Podcast of the Year" and an Ambie nomination for "Best Performance in Audio Fiction"  the reimagined Christmas Carol is set to hit podcast platforms on Nov. 22.

The podcasts immersive format is enhanced by soundscapes, capturing the iconic clank of Marleys chains, the eerie footsteps of Christmas spirits and the poignant moments that mark Scrooges internal struggle.

It's got all the great trappings of a gothic story: the clatter, the heavy foot beats on the floor, the clunk of chains, the chains that we have built in our own lives, the chains that we will have to carry, Rhys-Davies said. And these are the chains that you will carry unless you change. And that change, of course, involves other people, our relations with other people, our willingness to be compassionate, to see where there is a need and meet that need. And the story really works, because it is about redemption. It is about hope, the belief that no matter how bad we were this year or last year, there's still the chance that we can be saved.

The actor, who played the dwarf Gimli in The Lord of the Rings, told CP that both Scrooge and Gimlis journeys underscore the timeless themes of transformation, redemption and the human hearts capacity to overcome prejudice and embrace compassion.

In some ways, the most human character of all is Gimli, the dwarf, he contended. He is the most human of us. He has some of our vices. He is hostile, aggressive, xenophobic and distrustful. He is a bigot. He is, in his mind justified: Never trust an elf. But he also has virtues that we aspire to, the capacity for friendship, for being protective, for knowing the difference between right and wrong, for being willing to be courageous.

In A Christmas Carol, Scrooges path is one of gradually opening his heart to the needs of others, evolving from a miser into a man of warmth and generosity.

This change, catalyzed by encounters with the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come, is, in Rhys-Davies view, not so different from Gimlis transformation in The Lord of the Rings.

Gimli, too, carries his own chains, he said, referencing Scrooges haunting visions of the chains forged from selfishness and cruelty. He begins as someone who mistrusts others  particularly the Elves  but through friendship, courage, and his own sense of honor, he ultimately breaks free of his own shackles  the parallel is there in the end.

Rhys-Davies  who told CP that through his work, he aims to defend the values of Western European Christian civilization, because they are the great and glorious life of mankind  said that the story of Ebenezer Scrooge is one that reminds listeners of the essence of what it means to be human while providing the Gospel message.

None of us are good enough; we all are not kind enough or generous enough," he said. "We all make snap judgments. We all say hurtful things. But there is a chance that next year or now, actually, this day, this night, after that night's experience, there is still the chance that I will get out of bed and be a human being, be a decent man, that we can, through love, be changed.

This year, The Worlds Biggest Small Group "In A Christmas Carol," is also releasing the free companion piece, SCROOGE: A five-Day Devotional based on the story. The study invites people to reflect on choosing joy, embracing contentment and extending mercy. Created for families, the devotional also includes activities for children.

Watch the trailer for Scrooge below.

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Originally published by The Christian Post
Gia vang the gioi sang nay ap sat moc 3.000 USD/ounce  muc ky luc chua tung co trong lich su. Trong nuoc cung khong ngoai le, khi lan luot tang tu 700 en 1 trieu ong/luong. "Vang ang trong thi truong tang gia dai han. Chung toi du bao gia se giao dich trong khoang 3.000-3.200 USD trong nam nay", Alex Ebkarian, giam oc ieu hanh tai Allegiance Gold cho biet.
The Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. (U.S.) is currently displaying the earliest known inscription identifying Jesus as God in the form of a mosaic found in ancient Megiddo, northern Israel, dubbed the Megiddo Mosaic.

On display from last September until July 6 next year, 2025, the mosaic adds much to our understanding of early Christian communities in the Holy Land, according to the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS).

The 16ft (4.87m) by 32ft (9.75m) mosaic had been laid over the floor of a Christian worship hall.

It was found by Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) archaeologists digging at Kfar Othnay between 2003 to 2005, the BAS outlined, a Roman-and Byzantine-era settlement identified within the grounds of the modern Megiddo Prison. They cleaned and conserved the artifact before it was transported to the museum.

Astonishingly, this hall formed a wing of a large residential building used by Roman soldiers, namely the Sixth Ironclad Legion stationed at the nearby military camp of Legio, stated the BAS. Dating from around 230 CE, the hall is the earliest monument in Israel dedicated to Christian worship.

Called The Megiddo Mosaic: Foundations of Faith, and in partnership with the IAA, the exhibition reveals Greek inscriptions in the mosaic alongside decorative motifs. Experts believe the inscriptions refer to believers in a local ancient church, including five women.

These inscriptions for the mosaic include The god-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.

Museum experts believe this to be an early confirmation of Christs divinity, about a hundred years before the Council of Nicea.

The inscription tells us Akeptous donated the table, the focus of the room. She may have been a woman with financial resources and social standing. She is called Philotheos, God lover. The table stood at the center of the room and was likely used in the celebration of the Eucharist, or Lords Supper, reads the museums online description.

The other mosaic inscriptions are: Gaianus, also called Porphyrius, centurion, our brother, has made the mosaic at his own expense as an act of generosity. This Latin name, used colloquially as Porphyrius, hints the mosaic funder came from an eastern province and may have personally dedicated the mosaic.

Also, "Brutius has carried out the work. This likely refers to a tessellarius (Mosaic floor maker) who did the work. These craftsmen in mosaics were considered highly skilled in the Roman Empire.

Finally, Remember Primilla and Cyriaca and Dorothea, and lastly, Chreste, showcase an example of the importance of women in the early church.

The wording of this inscription is unusual in that, typically, the request is that God remember individuals, notes the museum description. Here, the community itself is called to remember these women. Nothing else is known of the women mentioned here. While they were clearly important to the community, the inscription does not tell us whether they were patrons of the community (like Akeptous), or martyrs, or honored for some other reason.
A group of leading multilateral development banks (MDBs) have shared an estimate of their annual collective financing for low- and middle-income countries on the first day of the World Leaders Climate Action Summit (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

For low- and middle-income countries, the annual collective climate financing contributions from the group of MDBs is set to cumulatively reach $120 billion by 2030, including $42 billion for adaptation. The MDBs also aim to mobilise $65 billion annually from the private sector.

For high-income countries, this annual collective climate financing is projected to reach $50 billion, including $7 billion for adaption, and the MDBs aim to mobilise $65 billion from the private sector.

MDBs have exceeded their 2025 climate finance projections set in 2019, with a 25% increase in direct climate finance and mobilisation for climate efforts doubling over the past year.

The estimates were presented during a high-level meeting in Baku hosted by COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev. He was joined by Heads of States and Governments as well as senior executives from the lenders and other major financial organisations, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Sweden also pledged approximately $19 million to the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage. This brings the total pledged funding to more than $720 million.

The COP29 Presidency thanked Sweden for answering the call to action and continues to urge further pledges to the Fund to better meet the needs of communities on the frontlines of climate change.
Natuzzi Italia, an Italian design brand, and Peace Homes, a Dubai-based real estate company, have launched Natuzzi Harmony Residences by Peace Homes in Dubai.

The first residential project created by a design brand brings the epitome of bespoke living to Dubai, blending high-end Italian design with an architectural marvel tailored for discerning homeowners who seek not just a home, but an immersive experience of quiet luxury and harmony.

Located on the Dubai Islands, the Natuzzi Harmony Residences by Peace Homes are designed to integrate seamlessly with the landscape, symbolising the fusion of Arab and Mediterranean cultures. Each apartment within Natuzzi Harmony Residences by Peace Homes is individually crafted to reflect the personal aesthetics and lifestyle preferences of its residents.

Harmonious experience

A place where every architectural and interior element stimulates a harmonious experience through sinuous forms that shape, create, and envelop. From the selection of materials to the tailored interior designs, every home is a masterpiece that captures the sophistication of Italian artistry and the warmth of Mediterranean influences.

After several years since his last visit to Dubai, Pasquale Natuzzi, Executive Chairman of the Natuzzi Group, stated at the Dubai launch event: We are a company with 65 years of history that has been able to constantly evolve, guided by the values that have always distinguished us: respect for human rights, love for work, sustainable growth, transparency, and harmony.

Today, we are a lifestyle brand, recognised and appreciated worldwide, and the Natuzzi Harmony Residences by Peace Homes represent a new step in this evolutionary journey, as they offer the opportunity to experience the uniqueness of Natuzzi Harmony, which, for the first time, permeates every internal and external space of this incredible residential project.

Natuzzi, along with its team of architects and interior designers, has designed a building spanning over 10,000 sq m across 9 floors, with a total of 50 apartments. A project that comes to life with Peace Homes Development a distinguished name in Dubais luxury real estate market, known for its visionary approach to creating spaces that are not only architecturally innovative but also embody the essence of elegance and refinement.

Natuzzi Experience Centre

Going beyond the boundaries of residential design, a dedicated Natuzzi Experience Centre within the Peace Homes Development showroom allow visitors to explore the heritage, philosophy, and unmatched quality that have made Natuzzi a hallmark of Italian luxury worldwide.

Pasquale Junior Natuzzi, Chief Trade & Contract Officer, said: The Natuzzi contract division was created with a clear vision: to become the first design brand in the world to fully conceive a residential project that could embody the essence of the Natuzzi Italia lifestyle. Today, we celebrate this extraordinary achievement accomplished through meticulous and dedicated work that has allowed us to push beyond all imagination and create something unique. Dubai will have a new landmark where the splendid Arab culture merges with the Mediterranean one.

The Natuzzi Harmony Residences by Peace Homes architectural concept redefines the notion of luxury, with exteriors celebrating organic forms and reflecting the sophisticated allure of the interior spaces, where Natuzzi Italias furniture design brings Italian tradition and timeless aesthetics to their chosen settingan exclusive and desirable environment that celebrates quiet luxury.

Striking in its visual impact are the large floor-to-ceiling windows, through which natural light, a key element of the project, flows into the interior spaces, enhancing their smooth, unbroken shapes and eliminating harsh angles and colour contrasts.

The Natuzzi Harmony Residences by Peace Homes have been conceived to be customisable, both in terms of interiors and the layout of the spaces, offering a made-to-measure experience that creates environments reflecting the tastes and sensibilities of those who have chosen them.

Redefining luxury

Natuzzi Harmony Residences by Peace Homes stands as a symbol of Peace Homes Developments commitment to redefining luxury living in Dubai. By merging the heritage of Natuzzi Italia with Dubais modern architectural ambitions.

A dedicated team from Natuzzi Italia is on the ground in Dubai, designing a model apartment that exemplifies the brands commitment to, elegance, harmony and beauty. This model apartment will serve as a window into the exclusive Natuzzi Italia living experience, allowing prospective homeowners to envision the extraordinary lifestyle that awaits.

To complement the Natuzzi lifestyle, a range of exclusive services is available, including swimming pools, a gym, a wellness centre, a childrens area, and a cinema room, all designed to foster social interaction and harmony in everyday living.

With a global network of more than 1,100 showrooms and galleries and a flagship store in Dubai, Natuzzi Italias presence in the city marks a new era where the charm of Mediterranean living blends with the innovation and majesty of the Middle East.--TradeArabia News Service
Fitch Group, a leading global financial information services provider, today (November 14) secured the approval from the Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia (MISA) for licence to set up its regional headquarters (RHQ) in the kingdom.

This RHQ will help expand Fitch Groups long-standing presence in the Middle East, which includes having opened offices in the capital Riyadh by Fitch Ratings in 2017 and by Fitch Learning in 2023, said the ratings agency in a statement.

On the key licence win, Paul Taylor, President and CEO of Fitch Group, said: "Fitchs RHQ will be the next exciting chapter in our Middle East story. We want to bring our heritage of excellence to support the evolution of Saudi Arabias financial markets and broader economic goals."

Fitch, he stated, will now phase in the provision of strategic direction and management functions for the RHQ over the next six months, with related support services becoming operational.

Nejoud Al Mulaik, General Manager, Fitch Ratings, Saudi Arabia, said: "Against the backdrop of Vision 2030 and similar regional initiatives, local capital markets and financial services have a pivotal role to play in helping deliver the economic and business transformation that will future proof the region for many years to come."

"This next exciting step underlines our commitment to being the partner of choice in Middle East capital markets," added Al Mulaik.-TradeArabia News Service
More than 1,000 industry professionals from over 50 countries will convene at Fastmarkets Middle East Iron and Steel 2024 conference next week to discuss the evolving role of steel in the regions ongoing transformation.

The regions progress in energy transition and economic diversification creates an unprecedented emphasis on developing manufacturing industries, particularly steela sector crucial to fulfilling the Middle East's future aspirations.

Against this dynamic backdrop, Fastmarkets, a leading price-reporting agency (PRA) that is renowned for its cross-commodity market analysis and price data, will deliver an expert-led agenda at its Middle East Iron and Steel 2024 conference, which kicks off on November 18 at the Madinat Conference Centre in Dubai. It promises an in-depth exploration of market trends, legislative developments and technological advancements, both regionally and globally.

Industrial vision

Omar Ahmed Suwaina Al Suwaidi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MoIAT) in the UAE, will open proceedings by sharing insights into the regions industrial vision and the pathway to sustainable and resilient manufacturing.

Coinciding with the UN Climate Change Conference COP29, Middle East Iron and Steel 2024 will feature keynote addresses and panel discussions led by prominent figures in the region, including Saeed Alghafri, CEO of Emirates Steel; Rewant Ruia, Director of Essar Group; Ravi Singh, CEO of SULB Company; Hassan El Marakby, CEO of El Marakby Steel; Ahmed Al Musawa Al Hashemi, CEO of Hafeet Rail; and many others.

Raju Daswani, CEO of Fastmarkets, highlighted the crucial role of the Middle Eastspecifically the UAEas a global hub for green steel and sustainability within the steel industry. Reflecting on the conference's theme, "Transform Tomorrow Together", he emphasised the region's growing commitment to sustainable practices and its potential to lead green steel innovation.

As we gather in Dubai, it is evident that the Middle East is positioning itself as a frontrunner in sustainable steel production and a key driver in the global energy transition. With strategic investments and a forward-thinking approach, the region is setting a compelling example for the world to follow. We look forward to fostering dialogue and collaboration that will help shape a sustainable future, Daswani said.

460 companies to take part

With participation from over 460 companies, more than 100 speakers and over 50 exhibitors, Fastmarkets Middle East Iron and Steel 2024 conference will offer essential market insights, strategies for building resilient supply chains and updates on sustainable steel initiatives.

Attendees can look forward to three days of thought-provoking content across three stages, complemented by more than 25 hours of networking opportunities. This event, an exceptional platform to connect with leading suppliers, industry figures and potential partners, guarantees unparalleled opportunities to gain knowledge and forge collaborations critical for navigating the sector's future.

Saeed Alghafri, CEO of Emirates Steel, part of EMSTEEL Group, commented: As regional host of this esteemed event, we are honored to welcome key decision makers in our industry to explore the potential for innovation, sustainability and collaboration. With the regional and global steel industry facing new challenges and opportunities, Emirates Steel, as one of the leading steel producers in the Middle East, is proud to be at the forefront of driving change across the construction and manufacturing sectors. Our commitment to sustainable practices, technological advancement and operational excellence is more resolute than ever as we work to contribute to the growth of both regional and global steel markets.

This years conference is an important platform for all stakeholders in the iron and steel sector to exchange knowledge, discuss emerging trends and explore solutions that will shape the future of our industry. From optimizing supply chain dynamics to exploring the impact of new technologies, I look forward to game-changing discussions with fellow leaders, experts and innovators as we define new avenues for collaboration and progress.

Platinum sponsor

Commenting on his companys participation, SULB CEO Ravi Singh said: We are pleased to take part in one of the regions largest iron and steel trading events as a platinum sponsor. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region presents remarkable opportunities for growth in the steel industry, driven by significant infrastructural development and sustainability initiatives. This conference allows us to engage with industry leaders, share insights and build valuable partnerships that will shape the future of steel production in the Middle East, positioning us all for success in a dynamic market.

Andreas Rathhuber, Vice President, Sales Middle East & Africa at Primetals Technologies, said: The Middle East is a vibrant region with many ongoing and upcoming major industry projects. As a plant builder and engineering company, we are thrilled to participate in one of the regions most prominent trading events. This gives us an opportunity to connect with stakeholders across various sectors. Primetals Technologies is currently involved in several large projects in the region, and we look forward to discussing new opportunities at MEIS.--TradeArabia News Service
The Saudi Green Initiative (SGI) has announced that the 2024 edition of the SGI Forum will take place from December 3 to 4 December under the theme Action is in our nature.

The 2024 SGI Forum will coincide with the sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The Riyadh COP16 (December 2 to 13) will be the largest-ever UNCCD conference, the first to be held in the Middle East region and the largest multilateral conference ever hosted by Saudi Arabia.

At this years SGI Forum, hundreds of policymakers, business leaders and subject matter experts from across the world will convene in a dedicated SGI Pavilion in the UNCCD COP16 Green Zone. Dozens of tailored sessions will explore best practices, innovations and progress against SGI targets, with the goal to deepen collaboration and scale up action for a greener future.

Since the launch of SGI, significant positive impact has been achieved, with 4+ GW of renewable energy capacity installed; 95+ million trees and shrubs planted and 1,660+ endangered animals rewilded across the kingdom.

Activities in the SGI Pavilion at UNCCD COP16 Riyadh

For the duration of COP16, the Saudi Green Initiative will welcome the public to a 4,000 m2 SGI Pavilion, where visitors can enjoy an interactive journey through Saudi Arabias whole-of-society climate and environment efforts in the SGI Gallery.

A multimedia showcase and broad range of experts will enable guests to learn more about the 80+ initiatives that have already launched as part of SGI. Visitors can also attend and exchange ideas during daily SGI Talks, an expert-led speaker series that launched in 2023.

SGI was launched by the Crown Prince in 2021 to drive climate action across all levels of society and achieve Saudi Arabias ambition to achieve net zero emissions by 2060. The initiative demonstrates the kingdoms dedication to improving quality of life for current and future generations and addressing environmental challenges facing the region including high temperatures, low rainfall, dust storms and desertification.-- TradeArabia News Service
Dubai Chambers has signed MoUs with the National Chamber of Commerce, Services and Tourism (CANACO) in Mexico City and the El Gran Bajio business promotion agency to support expansion of Mexican investors into Dubai.

Under the terms of the MoUs, Dubai Chambers will provide comprehensive support to members of the El Gran Bajio business promotion agency and the National Chamber of Commerce, Services, and Tourism to strengthen their investment capabilities in Dubai and enable them to leverage the emirate as a platform to expand into regional and global markets.

Companies operating in Dubai will also be supported to expand into Mexico and build promising business partnerships.

Enhanced cooperation

The agreements also encompass enhanced cooperation to strengthen the connections between the business communities in Dubai, Mexico City, and the Bajio region in Mexico and promote bilateral trade and investments.

The parties will focus on diversifying areas of collaboration to broaden economic relations, with increased coordination in arranging trade fairs, investment missions, conferences, and exhibitions, as well as the exchange of information and economic data.

Salem Al Shamsi, Vice President of Global Markets at Dubai Chambers, commented: We look forward to further developing economic relations and enhancing cooperation between the business communities in Dubai and Mexico. These two agreements will contribute to new avenues for the growth of trade and investments and help build promising partnerships across key sectors.--TradeArabia News Service
Infracorp, a leading infrastructure and international sustainable developer, has signed a new partnership agreement with Mena Aerospace to develop dedicated aircraft hangar facilities in Bahrain.

The agreement was signed during their participation at the Bahrain International Airshow (BIAS) 2024, held under the patronage of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

The new hangar will serve as a foundation to establish a regional platform for advanced aircraft services in the GCC region, a statement said.

This partnership signifies a strategic step aligned with Infracorps goal and strategy to expand its investment portfolio across various sectors, reflecting its ambitions for further developing sustainable ventures and enhancing the kingdoms capabilities in the aviation sector. The agreement is expected to contribute to the establishment of advanced facilities for large and private aircrafts, thus strengthening Bahrains position as a leading regional destination in this sector, it said.

Majed Al Khan, Board Member and CEO of Infracorp, stated: Our partnership with Mena Aerospace is a key part of our vision to broaden our investments across several sectors, but particularly in aviation, which is witnessing significant growth and holds a key position in the governments plans to diversify sources of income. We are committed to advancing high-quality infrastructure that meets market needs, and we trust these projects will have a positive impact on the local economy and attract more foreign investment to the sector.

He added: We see this partnership as an opportunity to expand our business horizons and enhance our collaboration with a range of partners in the Kingdom of Bahrain and the region. Developing world-class dedicated aircraft facilities in the Kingdom is a vital step towards achieving our strategic objectives, solidifying Bahrains role as a regional aviation hub. We are confident that this partnership will improve customer experiences and meet the growing market demands.

For his part, Dr Mohammed Jaman, CEO of Mena Aerospace, commented: We are excited to collaborate with Infracorp in this fruitful partnership, as we believe that developing specialized aircraft facilities in the Kingdom of Bahrain will enhance its competitive edge in the sector. Working alongside Infracorp, which possesses extensive expertise and robust investment in infrastructure and logistics, will enable us to realise our shared vision of delivering high-quality services in this vital field.

Ali Al Mudaifa, Chief Business Development Officer at the Economic Development Board, stated: We take pride in witnessing the fruits of this partnership, which aligns with the strategic vision of the Kingdom of Bahrain and its commitment to expanding the logistics sector, particularly within the aviation industry. The development of dedicated facilities for aircraft enhances Bahrains position as a regional aviation hub, offering competitive and advanced services that meet the evolving needs of the market. This collaboration also reflects our commitment to supporting sustainable growth and innovation within this sector in Bahrain and the wider region.

Infracorp continues to enhance its role as a key contributor to infrastructure development and support for the national economy through innovative and sustainable projects that meet the needs of communities and achieve comprehensive development, the statement added. -TradeArabia News Service
e& enterprise, the digital transformation arm of e&, has signed an MoU with Sergas Group, a UAE-based gas system solutions provider, to enhance the safety and sustainability of the gas distribution network in the GCC region.

The three-year partnership will focus on developing digital solutions to improve safety in line with Authority regulations.

Leveraging advanced technology, e& enterprise and Sergas Group will co-develop a suite of solutionsincluding smart meters, digital payment platforms, IoT-enabled systems, Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services, multi-cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, and custom software developmentfor both existing and new gas distribution networks across the region.

Early detection

These solutions have been developed by closely working with the civil defence authorities that will enable early detection of incidents, allowing for a quicker response to enhance safety and contribute to the overall security of gas utilities.

Moreover, the integration of these smart solutions will also facilitate transparent measurement of customer contributions to driving sustainability in gas consumption, empowering both providers and consumers to actively engage in sustainable practices.

Ragi Magdy, Chief Commercial Officer, e& enterprise, said: The future of energy lies in building intelligent, sustainable networks that extend beyond traditional utility frameworks. By harnessing advanced technologies, including AI, were set to enhance safety and overall operational efficiency across gas distribution systems. Through smart solutions, we aim to democratise consumer participation in sustainable energy practices. This collaboration with Sergas Group will result in solutions that set new benchmarks for safety and environmental responsibility across gas networks in the GCC.

Mohamed Damak, CEO, Sergas Group, said: Sergas Group is committed to pioneering advancements in gas filling systems that prioritise safety and sustainability. Our collaboration with e& enterprise reflects the valued guidance and support from UAE Civil Defense and the Abu Dhabi Department of Energy, along with Civil Defence bodies across the GCC.

State-of-the-art technologies

Through this strategic partnership, we are introducing state-of-the-art technologies that empower authorities to remotely monitor and control gas filling operations, significantly enhancing safety standards. By embracing digital innovation, we are not only raising the bar for safety but also contributing to a more sustainable energy future for the region.

This partnership enables e& enterprise to expand its expertise in the gas sector, building on its established presence in electricity and water utilities through collaborations such as with Etihad Water & Electricity. It also empowers Sergas Group to provide more differentiated and safer services to both existing and new customers.

Through this partnership, both e& enterprise and Sergas Group aim to set a new standard for safety, transparency, and environmental accountability, creating a resilient gas infrastructure while fostering a sustainable future.--TradeArabia News Service
QatarEnergy has signed a long-term sulfur supply agreement with OCP Nutricrops, a subsidiary of OCP Group, a leader in plant nutrition solutions and phosphate-based fertilizers.

Under the terms of the 10-year agreement, QatarEnergy will supply up to 7.5 million tons of sulfur to OCP Nutricrops beginning in the third quarter of 2024.

OCP Nutricrops is a Morocco-based company responsible for developing soil nutrition solutions to address global challenges in food production and sustainability.

Saad Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy, said: We are pleased to sign this agreement, solidifying our business relationship both with OCP Nutricrops and the Kingdom of Morocco. This agreement marks a significant step in advancing cooperation between our two companies and fostering mutual growth and value for both sides.

This agreement highlights QatarEnergys strategy in establishing enduring relationships with reliable leaders in the fertilizers industry, as well as QatarEnergys commitment to support the global agricultural sector and greater food security.

Qatar is one of the worlds largest exporters of sulfur, with a total annual production capacity of around 3.4 million tons, which will further increase with the commissioning of new gas production projects in the coming years. -TradeArabia News Service
An 18-year-old Catholic woman in Pakistan said police have refused to arrest a Muslim who abducted and raped her at gunpoint last week.

Imaan Khurrum of the Kot Ranjeet Singh area of Sheikhupura District, Punjab Province, told a Christian news channel on YouTube that Ansar Shah abducted her on Nov. 7 as she was returning home from a shoe factory where she worked. Shah took her to an abandoned brick-kiln that was closed due to the recent dangerous levels of smog in the province and tortured and raped her, she told National News Nama.

Khurrum, who released her name to the news outlet, said Shah seized her on a deserted street and forced onto his motorcycle, and when she resisted, he pulled out a pistol and threatened her and her two younger brothers.

He threatened to kill my brothers and forced me to sit on his motorcycle, she said, her voice shaky and face veiled in the video. After reaching the kiln, he dragged me into a room, tore my clothes and raped me. During this time, he repeatedly slapped and beat me up.

For more than four months Shah had been harassing her as she made her way to work to support her family; her relatives complained to Shahs family, but the harassment continued, Khurrum said.

Her mother, Sana Khurrum, identified herself to the news outlet, saying that her drug-addicted husband had abandoned the family two years ago, casting them into severe financial crisis.

My daughter was targeted because we are poor and weak Christians, she said in the video.

Imaan Khurrum and her mother said that despite repeated pleas to police, officers have not arrested the suspect. Imaan Khurrums uncle, Morris Nazir, said the suspect was roaming freely without fear of arrest.

A week has passed since the rape, but the police have not arrested Shah, Nazir told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. They briefly took his two relatives into custody but released them after taking a bribe.

Nazir said Shahs relatives were using various tactics to pressure her family to withdraw the First Information Report, and that police inaction indicated Shahs family has influenced officers.

We demand immediate legal action against Shah and protection for our family, he said. We are poor people and do not have the resources to hire a good lawyer. It is the governments responsibility to give justice to our young daughter.

Police have added insult to Imaan Khurrums trauma by failing to arrest Shah, he said.

The Punjab chief minister and inspector general of police should take notice of our plight and order immediate arrest and prosecution of the accused, Nazir said. Shah must be punished for his crime; failure to do so will put other Christian girls also at risk of being attacked.

Costs and lack of resources are the most prominent barriers for minorities in obtaining justice in Pakistan, according to rights advocates.

It is the responsibility of the state to ensure that all citizens have instant and inexpensive access to justice regardless of their faith affiliations, Christian attorney Lazar Allah Rakha previously told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News regarding a gang-rape of a Christian in Bahawalpur District. The majority-versus-minority rhetoric has forced Christians and others to believe that they will not get the same treatment as Muslims. Therefore, its very important that the government should act to remove this impression.

Pakistan ranked seventh on Open Doors 2024 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian, as it was the previous year.
Lulu Retail Holdings, the largest and fastest growing pan-GCC full-line retailer, has started trading on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) after its record-breaking Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Lulus IPO raised gross proceeds of AED6.32 billion ($1.72 billion) making it the largest offering in the UAE in 2024 to date. The offering saw aggregate demand of over AED135 billion from local, regional, and international investors, a record for a non-Government UAE IPO over the past 10 years, and an oversubscription level of more than 25 times across all tranches (excluding Cornerstone Investors). Cornerstone investors included leading sovereign and institutional investors from across the GCC.

A record 82,000 retail investors subscribed for shares in the IPO, demonstrating consumers' awareness and connection with the Lulu brand across the GCC, with around 50,000 individuals registering for an ADX National Investor Number (NIN) in the sixteen days between Lulu announcing its Intention to Float (ITF) and the close of subscriptions. This compares to 50,000 NINs being issued during the entire 2023 calendar year.

Successful listing

Ghannam Butti Almazrouei, Chairman of ADX, said: The successful listing of Lulu Retail Holdings on ADX underlines the UAEs economic resilience and dynamism, bolstering ADXs diversified sector offerings and paves the way for more consumer and retail issuers to tap into ADXs platform. Lulus addition to ADXs growing portfolio reflects the UAE's strides in cultivating a robust, multi-sector economy.

As this years largest IPO in the UAE, Lulu drew incredible demand from a global investor base, solidifying ADXs role as a premier gateway for capital flows. This milestone aligns with ADXs commitment to sustainable economic development, reinforcing Abu Dhabis position as a leading financial hub and advancing the UAEs long-term vision. We are proud to support Lulu Retail and all our listed companies as they drive our nations financial growth and prosperity, contributing to a brighter and thriving economic future.

Yusuffali MA, Chairman of Lulu Retail, said: Our listing on ADX marks a day of great pride for the entire Lulu team. Many of our 55,000 employees have been with our Company for decades, demonstrating their commitment to providing for our customers and to growing our business, and this achievement would not have been possible without them.

Our journey has been guided by the aspiration and vision of our regional leaders and their commitment to supporting the growth and success of businesses like ours. Were delighted to list Lulu Retail on ADX in our home of Abu Dhabi and to provide an opportunity for local and international investors to benefit from the opportunity in our region and the growth and ambition of Lulu Retail.

Setting a record

Abdulla Salem Alnuaimi, Group Chief Executive Officer of ADX, said: Lulus landmark achievement, underscores the robustness of the UAE economy and ADXs role as a growth enabler and listing platform. As the 100th listed company on ADX, Lulu has set the record as the largest private sector IPO for a home-grown company in the UAE. Its inclusion in the ADX family adds an additional AED21 billion to our market capitalisation. We are particularly pleased that international investors, from ADXs Tabadul exchange members, have also successfully subscribed to Lulu Retails offering via their home-based brokers.

This demonstrates the growing attraction of Abu Dhabis capital market and the exchanges commitment to fostering cross-border investment. At ADX, we will continue to introduce more purposeful initiatives and innovative market solutions to drive a thriving marketplace, expand investment opportunities for investors, and support the long-term success of our listed companies today and well into the future.

Saifee Rupawala, Chief Executive Officer of Lulu Retail, said: Im incredibly proud that the strength of the Lulu brand and the Companys growth story connected with so many people during our IPO, resulting in record demand of $37 billion and 82,000 retail investor subscriptions.

Whilst today marks a historic milestone for Lulu, our listing does not change our primary focus of delivering exceptional service and products to our loyal customers, ensuring Lulu is where the world comes to shop. Our commitment to investing in growth is stronger than ever, evident in the opening of 16 new stores so far this year, with a clear plan to further enhance and grow our store network and customer base across the region. Were confident in meeting our guidance targets for 2024 and beyond and are excited about sharing our journey with our many new shareholders around the world.--TradeArabia News Service
Wego, the number 1 travel app and one of the largest online travel marketplaces in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), has announced a new co-marketing campaign in collaboration with Costa Del Sol to promote tourism at this stunning Spanish destination.

The campaign is in partnership with Turespana, the official Spanish tourism board, and aims to captivate travellers with the charm, culture, and natural beauty of the iconic Costa Del Sol.

As part of this campaign, Wego will leverage its extensive platform to showcase the best of Costa Del Sol to its millions of users across the Middle East and beyond.

From the stunning beaches and vibrant cities to the rich history and world-class gastronomy, this region of Spain offers a perfect blend of relaxation, adventure, and cultural immersion for all kinds of travellers.

Costa Del Sol is recognised as one of Spain's most alluring destinations, offering a year-round sunny climate, beautiful coastal scenery, and a host of attractions ranging from luxury resorts to historic landmarks and natural parks.

Through this partnership, Wego will help inspire travellers to explore Costa Del Sols many facets, offering tailored travel deals, flight options, and curated content to enhance the travel planning experience.

Speaking on the collaboration, Mamoun Hmedan, Chief Business Officer of Wego, said: "We are excited to partner with Costa Del Sol and Turespana to bring this incredible destination to the forefront of travel plans for our users.

Spain is a top destination for travellers from the Middle East, and Costa Del Sol offers an ideal blend of leisure, culture, and adventure. Together, we aim to make travel to Costa Del Sol more accessible, providing users with the best travel options available."

Turespanas involvement in the campaign further strengthens the collaboration, reinforcing the commitment of Spain to boost off-season tourism from the Middle East, a statement said.

Through joint efforts, this co-marketing initiative will deliver rich content, special travel insights, and increased visibility for Costa Del Sol on Wego's platform, allowing travellers to discover the diverse experiences awaiting them.  TradeArabia News Service
Dubai is rapidly establishing itself as a leading global destination for medical tourism, blending cutting-edge healthcare with world-class luxury, attracting international patients by providing innovative, personalised, and holistic care.

The city's vision for its healthcare sector, aligned with Dubai's Health Strategy 2021 and the UAE Vision 2040, is propelling the city's rise as a hub for medical tourism.

A recent report by the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) highlighted remarkable growth in the health tourism sector in 2023.

Dubai welcomed over 691,000 health tourists, with spending on healthcare services exceeding AED 1.03 billion ($280 million). These figures surpassed 2022 when 674,000 international health tourists spent AED 992 million.

The upsurge reflects Dubai's success in attracting global health tourists with its cutting-edge medical facilities and luxurious recovery options, cementing the city's position as a leading destination for medical care.

Dubai's Strategic Healthcare Initiatives

Dubai's healthcare initiatives aim to position the city as one of the most advanced medical hubs globally.

Central to this vision is the development of a globally competitive healthcare system capable of delivering high-quality medical services that meet international standards.

The city has invested significantly in infrastructure, attracting top medical professionals from around the globe and continuously improving access to advanced technology in fields such as surgery, rehabilitation, and specialized therapies.

Dubai's medical tourism landscape is defined by its commitment to offering innovative, patient-centred care.

The city's healthcare facilities provide a range of personalised, holistic treatment protocols that cater to diverse medical needs.

While many treatment centres across Dubai offer world-class services, some specialise in advanced protocols such as Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT), which enhances the body's natural healing processes.

These specialised treatments, tailored to individual patient requirements, play a significant role in addressing conditions like traumatic brain injuries, post-stroke recovery, and Long Covid. Through this personalised approach, Dubai is not only attracting patients for recovery but also for those seeking peak cognitive and physical performance.

Unique Appeal of Healthcare Offerings

Dubai offers something very few medical tourism destinations can match  the perfect fusion of top-tier medical care and a luxurious environment for recovery.

Patients benefit from personalized medical care in state-of-the-art facilities while enjoying access to the luxury and privacy for which Dubai is renowned. Whether its post-treatment stays at world-class resorts, wellness retreats, or private recovery accommodations, the experience is designed to cater to the comfort and well-being of international patients.

Additionally, Dubai's healthcare sector is supported by initiatives such as the Dubai Health Experience (DXH), which aims to create an unparalleled healthcare experience for medical tourists.

This initiative provides a comprehensive approach to medical tourism, offering attractive packages that integrate both treatment and luxury experiences. By connecting healthcare with wellness and hospitality, Dubai provides a holistic healing journey that few places in the world can rival.

A Holistic and Personalised Approach to Care

A key factor behind Dubai's growing success in medical tourism is its strong commitment to personalized, patient-centred care. By delivering holistic treatments that not only address physical health but also prioritize long-term cognitive and emotional well-being, Dubai sets itself apart as a destination for comprehensive healthcare.

This approach aligns with the citys broader vision of creating an integrated healthcare system that caters to the diverse needs of patients from around the world, reinforcing its reputation as a leader in global medical tourism.

Dubai's Long-Term Vision for Healthcare

As Dubai continues to invest in its healthcare sector, the city is positioning itself as a future leader in medical innovation. Under the UAE Vision 2040, healthcare is critical in shaping Dubai's future as a global destination for tourism and high-quality medical services.

The city's leadership has set ambitious goals to expand healthcare offerings, ensuring that Dubai remains at the forefront of medical advancements for years to come.

Dubai's ongoing efforts to promote wellness, preventive care, and specialized treatments are central to its strategy of attracting international patients.

Healthcare providers are working closely with government agencies to create a streamlined, patient-centric experience that combines top-tier medical expertise with the unparalleled luxury for which Dubai is known.  TradeArabia News Service
Kleindienst Group, a leading global business conglomerate and the master developer behind The Heart of Europe on Dubais World Islands, has announced a major expansion that will see the addition of 5,000 five-star hotel rooms to Dubai's hospitality sector.

With a total project value of $6 billion spanning six islands on The World Islands, Kleindienst Group is set to deliver over 20 hotels and resorts featuring 5,000 luxury rooms. The project solidifies Kleindienst Groups status as a key player in Dubais hospitality sector.

This represents a significant 10% increase to Dubai's current five-star hotel room inventory, which stands at 52,750 rooms according to the Dubais Department of Economy and Tourism.

With this expansion, Kleindienst Group is set to become Dubai's largest five-star hotel developer, highlighting the company's significant contribution to the government's vision for a thriving hospitality sector and its role in strengthening Dubais position as a premier global tourism destination. This landmark development represents one of the most significant hospitality expansions in the emirate's history, said Kleindienst group.

Meanwhile, Kleindienst Group celebrated the 20% construction completion milestone for the AED500 million ($136.6 million) Hotel London. This property will combine timeless British elegance with modern sustainability, offering guests a unique blend of heritage and innovation.

Josef Kleindienst, Founder and Chairman of Kleindienst Group, said: Achieving a position where we constitute 10% of Dubais five-star hotel inventory and becoming the largest five-star hotel developer is a significant milestone for us. It reinforces our commitment to cementing Dubais position as the worlds leading luxury tourism destination. This accomplishment reflects our dedication to delivering projects that not only elevate Dubais hospitality sector but also provide our investors with extraordinary value and lasting returns.

Our strategies at Kleindienst Group are closely aligned with the Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan, which emphasises sustainable development by diversifying attractions and enhancing visitor experiences.



Additionally, we support the goals of the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 to boost tourism by developing world-class infrastructure, including hotels, resorts, and attractions, while shaping the future of tourism and hospitality in Dubai. -TradeArabia News Service
Seven years ago, Emirates and flydubai embarked on a partnership that would give travellers extraordinary access to an unrivalled network, unlocking connections and opportunities, and shaping the future of travel from, to and through Dubai.

Heres seven ways the partnership is paying off for travellers:

1. By joining forces, Emirates and flydubai offer customers access to a combined network of more than 225 unique destinations in more than 100 countries.

2. Emirates customers can explore more than 118 flydubai destinations, while flydubai passengers can access more than 136 Emirates destinations. Top destinations for customers include Baku, Krabi, Naples and Zanzibar.

3. On average, customers can choose from 275 codeshare flights each day which means expanded schedules and more flexibility when choosing departure times.

4. Together, both airlines operated more than 1.5 million flights since 2017, carrying more than 19 million passengers across the joint network. Thats equal to the combined populations of Paris and New York City.

5. Customers continue to benefit with seamless on-ground experiences including a smooth check-in process, efficient baggage transfers, optimised flight schedules and enhanced connectivity at Dubai Airports with access to Terminal 3.

More than 300 weekly flights operated by flydubai depart Terminal 3 to popular destinations including Kathmandu, Krabi and Zanzibar. flydubais Business Class passengers can also enjoy the new Business Class check-in area at Terminal 2 which offers a unique and smooth check-in experience with a personalised Meet and Assist service, seated check-in and a Fast Track service through passport control and security lanes.

6.Passengers also benefit from access to world-class airport lounges, including Emirates signature lounges in Terminal 3.

Over the past seven years, more than 250,000 flydubai passengers have enjoyed access to Emirates lounges.

7. Emirates Skywards, the loyalty programme of Emirates and flydubai, continues to offer members one loyalty currency and fantastic rewards. More than 2 million unique members, from more than 190 countries continue to earn and redeem Miles through the partnership.

All Platinum, Gold and Silver Tier status members also enjoy additional perks including extra baggage allowance and priority check-in on Emirates and flydubai.

The loyalty programme also recently revised its Cash+Miles rates on flydubai flights  making redemptions even more appealing and allowing members to enjoy significant savings.

Looking ahead, the two airlines remain committed to expanding the reach of their partnership and elevating the travel experience to and through Dubai.

Emirates has expanded its retrofit programme for a full nose-to-tail refresh of over 200 aircraft, including adding Premium Economy seats.

flydubais investments in a premium experience both in the air and on the ground continue at pace with 15 aircraft retrofitted this year as part of its own retrofit programme in addition to the launch of its dedicated Business Class check-in area at Terminal 2.

From world-class on-ground services in Dubai, to adding new bucket-list destinations, and offering better loyalty experiences  Emirates and flydubai said their customers are guaranteed the latest and greatest in air travel.  TradeArabia News Service
Gulf Aviation Academy (GAA), the training arm of Gulf Air Group, and Export Facilitators Limited have signed a strategic partnership to bring a cutting-edge Boeing B737NG Level-D Full-Flight Simulator to Bahrain.

This agreement marks a milestone for GAA, as it takes on the management of its first full-flight Boeing simulator, further cementing Bahrain's position as a leading aviation training destination.

The signing of the agreement took place on the second day of the Bahrain International Airshow, held under the patronage of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, from November 13 to 15, 2024.

Cutting-edge simulator from CAE

Under the agreement, Export Facilitators has acquired the cutting-edge simulator from CAE, the world's leading civil full-flight simulator manufacturer. This advanced device will be housed within GAA's state-of-the-art facility, where GAA will deliver comprehensive training services to a global clientele. GAA will be responsible for client acquisition, daily operations, and maintenance, ensuring the highest industry standards are met.

This B737NG Level-D Simulator is one of only a few globally and boasts the latest technology, including a Heads-Up Display (HUD) and Enhanced Vision System (EVS), making it a unique and highly sought-after training asset. This acquisition positions GAA as one of the few Approved Training Organisations (ATOs) worldwide to offer training on such an advanced platform.

Gulf Air's Chief Operations Officer, Captain Qasim Ismaeel, stated: This partnership represents a significant milestone for GAA and the Kingdom of Bahrain. By hosting this state-of-the-art B737NG Level-D Simulator, we are not only enhancing our training capabilities but also contributing to the growth of the aviation industry in the region. This will undoubtedly attract pilots from around the globe to train in Bahrain, contributing to the national economic growth.

David Meyer, Director of Export Facilitators Limited, added: Export Facilitators Limited, is very excited to announce the launch of our state-of-the-art Boeing B737NG Level-D Full Flight Simulator, together with Gulf Air and GAA we are striving to provide the best training facility for pilots regionally and globally. We look forward to working with GAA.--TradeArabia News Service
WHITE candles were yesterday placed on the side of the road in Sennon Village Number Three, Siparia, where the severed head of 59-year-old Joanne Estick was found in a bag on Thursday.

Estick, a mother of one and grandmother of three, was last seen in the village earlier this week.

A senior police officer of the South Western Police Division said they are yet to officially confirm that the head is that of Estick without the rest of the human remains.
Former New Braunfels police officer Patrick Akers confers with his attorney Steve Dunbar during an arbitration hearing in New Braunfels in August. Akers was fired from the department in January, but an arbitrator has ruled that he must be reinstated. Ricardo Delgado/Express-News staff

A New Braunfels police officer who pulled over and detained a woman after she made a rude gesture at him will return to work for the city after an arbitrator ruled he must be reinstated.

Patrick Akers was fired in January after an investigation into the September 2023 incident involving New Braunfels resident Brittany Trevino. He appealed the decision, seeking reinstatement and backpay, and the hearing examiner ruled largely in his favor last week.

Trevino, who filed a misconduct complaint against Akers after he arrested her in a separate incident in 2021, made the gesture as she drove past Akers last fall while he was assisting another officer in a traffic stop, and then changed lanes without signaling, according to police documents.

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Akers alleges Trevino has been harassing and stalking him since the first arrest, and said she flicked him off to try and bait him.

Akers got into his patrol car and chased Trevino, pulled her over, told her she was under arrest for the failure to signal and had another officer handcuff her, according to the New Braunfels Police Department's investigation. Trevino was released with a citation, under the advice of a third officer, who later reported the incident as a policy violation.

READ MORE: Fourth man charged with murder in New Braunfels shooting death

This is everything that were not about. We dont use our authority to take out personal grudges, then-Police Chief Keith Lane said at Akers appeal hearing in August. Lane retired in October.

However, arbitrator Ruben Armendariz ruled that while Akers' action was inappropriate, it didnt justify his firing.

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Armendariz wrote in his ruling that handcuffing Trevino for failing to signal a lane change is not appropriate under any given circumstances. He agreed with the citys allegation that Akers used his position as a peace officer for a personal grievance because Trevino had been harassing him in the social media, and said his action gives an appearance of retaliation to a reasonable person.

But Armendariz said Akers' actions warranted a lesser form of discipline, such as a written warning, and said Akers actions did not constitute actionable serious misconduct. The decision to fire Akers was too harsh or severe, Armendariz wrote in the ruling.

He wrote that Akers is to be immediately reinstated to his former position, with backpay, and should receive a written warning for improper detention of Trevino.

The city of New Braunfels has received the decision and is working through the process for reinstatement and backpay, city spokeswoman Jenna Vinson said. Because this is an ongoing personnel and legal issue, we are not able to provide any additional information at this time.

Akers will receive about $71,000 in lost salary, as well as vacation and sick time credit, for a total of about $80,000 from the city, said Steve Dunbar, an attorney with the Texas Municipal Police Association who represented Akers.

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In his ruling, Armendariz said the citys determination that Akers was insubordinate during the investigation was incorrect. He also said Lane, the former chief, improperly referenced past disciplinary issues in his termination letter.

READ MORE: Texas Rangers investigating after New Braunfels officer shoots at suspect

Lane's letter cited Akers' disciplinary record, which included 13 complaints filed against him since February 2021. Eight of those complaints resulted in some form of discipline or reprimand, according to police records.

Included was an incident in which Akers was suspended for 30 hours in March 2022 for buying a firearm from a woman who called the police for assistance. After the womans husband was taken into emergency custody, Akers offered to buy her husbands guns from her on behalf of his father-in-law, according to police documents.

The history of complaints indicate that Akers had been given opportunities to alter the negative behaviors documented, Lane wrote, and demonstrates a complete failure to respond to the progressive disciplinary principles practiced by both the departments first-line supervisors as well as the command staff.

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However, Armendariz ruled that using those previous disciplinary issues was incorrect because of a state statute that puts a 180-day limit on conduct complaints.

Listing disciplinary acts as progressive discipline that occurred more than 180 days to buttress an indefinite suspension is a violation of the Civil Service Act, he wrote in the ruling.

Akers and Dunbar met with the New Braunfels city attorney, human resources department and interim Police Chief David Blevins on Wednesday, Dunbar said. Akers will be given time to leave his current job before returning to the New Braunfels Police Department, he said.

Dunbar said he agreed that Akers response to Trevinos gesture was an untoward reaction, but said his actions were lawful. He pointed to the history of interactions between the two, and said Akers' actions were "probably the softest reaction" to seeing someone who had been allegedly stalking him for two years.

He alleged that Trevino has violated state law, including trespassing. A criminal complaint is pending at the district attorneys office, but no charges have been filed in the case, according to Comal County court records.

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Dunbar said the New Braunfels Police Department let bad optics dictate its response to the situation.
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.
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The Department of Public Safety is shutting down its collection of data regarding officers intentionally hitting fleeing drivers in chases  a maneuver used by its state troopers much more than all other law enforcement agencies in Oklahoma combined.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported 581 legal interventions in 507 cases from 2016 to 2022, according to data provided by Service Oklahoma in response to an open records request.

The next closest agency reported 53 legal interventions in 49 cases. OHPs 581 reports were more than three times as many as the 165 legal interventions in 156 cases documented by all other 37 agencies that reported at least one.

DPS is moving all law enforcement agencies in Oklahoma to a new collision reporting form that no longer has the specific data element to track when police intentionally hit a vehicle.

More commonly known as a pursuit intervention technique (PIT) or tactical vehicle intervention (TVI), some legal interventions previously reported by the OHP could be the agencys documentation of a smaller agencys vehicular use of force. That distinction cant be discerned in the raw data obtained by the Tulsa World and Lee Enterprises Public Service Journalism Team investigation.

Why the Tulsa World reported this series on fatal high-speed pursuits Throughout these stories, leading contemporary policing experts characterize the vast majority of these chases as unnecessary or not worth the risk.

The maneuver is one of many chase practices that the U.S. Department of Justice and Police Executive Research Forum in a 2023 report encourage police to rethink, which is difficult to examine across Oklahoma without uniform documentation. DPS for years has been rolling back policy and transparency pertaining to its troopers TVIs.

The PIT or TVI concept is for an officer to nudge or hit an eluding driver in a rear quarter panel of their vehicle to spin them out, hopefully ending the chase. But the consequences can be deadly  even more so at the high speeds sometimes reached during pursuits involving the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

OHP troopers intentionally struck vehicles in five high-speed chases that killed seven people from 2016 to 2022, according to a World and Lee database.

Three of those who died were passengers in eluding vehicles, and none of the chases was prompted by a violent crime. One involved a likely intoxicated person who fled after initially stopping for a speed violation and talking with the trooper. Two TVIs were done at speeds exceeding 100 mph.

Angelo Brown, an Arkansas State University criminology researcher and professor, said PITs or TVIs should be a policing tool subject to regular training but very rarely used, and even then only under strict protocols.

Brown characterized crashing into someones car at a high speed as a last resort, similar to how officers have a firearm available but most never shoot a suspect in their careers. He called hitting someones vehicle at faster than 100 mph extremely problematic, except for perhaps an active shooter or terrorist.

Police shouldnt be the executioner, Brown said.

Who is killed in Oklahoma police car chases? 1 in 4 deaths are innocent motorists. In a state ranked 8th highest for pursuit-related deaths, traffic infractions or property crimes prompted the vast majority of chases  reasons not worth deaths or even pursuits, experts say.

Brown said the state should be as transparent as possible in documenting force, such as hitting cars, to be accountable to the public and analyze whether problems or discriminatory practices exist.

There should be transparency, which is a big issue, Brown said. Thats one of the reasons why weve had protests throughout the United States for many, many years  because of police withholding public information.

Subject matter expert group requested removal

DPS is migrating to an updated uniform collision report form in conjunction with a new computerized crash data collection system.

More than 100 agencies are using it so far to capture about 60% of all crashes electronically, according to Oklahoma Highway Safety Office records.

The office said a subject matter expert group that helped develop the new crash report requested removal of the data element that had documented legal interventions since at least 2011.

Theh office, a division of the Department of Public Safety, referred further questions about the matter to the OHP and DPS.

Sarah Stewart, director of media operations for OHP and DPS, didnt respond to questions about who chose the expert panel, who was on the panel, or the panels reasoning for requesting the change.

Legal interventions arent listed in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria reports, which help guide development of basic standardized collision reports.

The last legal intervention to be reported by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol in collision report data was in May 2023, although the maneuver is still being used.

The Tulsa World and Lee Enterprises deadly police chase investigation The World and Lee focused on the 2016-2022 time frame because the newspaper began tracking and investigating Oklahoma Highway Patrol vehicle pursuits in 2016.

DPS is making it increasingly difficult for the public to learn about anything involving its OHP troopers hitting vehicles.

A February 2020 update to OHP pursuit policy erased a warning that serious damage or injuries are more likely to occur when a trooper intentionally hits an eluders vehicle at faster speeds because the maneuver is less predictable as chase speeds increase.

A March 2024 policy update deleted all references to TVIs  completely leaving the public in the dark on a use of force that has devastated and killed.

It wasnt worth losing lives at all

Video appears to show Trooper Nick Mills using his cruiser to nudge an eluding pickup into a violent roll  ultimately killing two passengers  but Mills told his agencys investigators that he didnt cause the crash.

Mercedes Martinez, 26, died 17 days after receiving critical injuries in the crash that night, Aug. 15, 2022, on Interstate 35 in Norman. Ethan Mestas, 22, died at the scene.

The chase began in Oklahoma City because of two minor traffic infractions.

Family members questioned why Mills was so aggressive and reckless, pointing out that his life wasnt ruined, unlike their two loved ones who were killed unnecessarily.

For what they were trying to stop (Alex Carpenter) for  it wasnt worth the chase like that. And Alex should have stopped, as well, said Priscilla Mestas, Ethans sister. It wasnt worth losing lives at all.

On July 15, 2020, Trooper Steve Meredith hit the rear of a stolen car at 109 mph and spun it out toward an approaching vehicle at night on a highway west of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, despite having positively identified the person in a toll violation stop  with the mans drivers license still in Merediths pocket.

Casey Don Bailey was killed, thrown over the troopers car and onto the pavement, with Merediths superiors advising him to try not to talk about it.

On Jan. 13, 2021, Trooper Tanner Eads, at about 115 mph, set up to spin out a driver fleeing in an SUV with a stolen license plate, killing the 17-year-old driver and hospitalizing two other young occupants after a violent rollover.

Vinnie Hamlet, who was pronounced dead at the scene, had been joyriding in his grandmothers SUV. His brother, Chris Hamlet, who suffered injuries likely to last his life, lamented that Vinnie died so young and before the teen could get his footwork in life while dealing with a personality disorder.

(Vinnie) wasnt armed.  I know hes not the only kid  17 years old  who takes off in his parents car, Chris said. It just ended badly for him.

On April 29, 2020, Trooper Darren Potter nearly lost control of his cruiser in rural Creek County while spinning out a driver who fled a traffic stop for speeding  with a passenger Potter knew was inside.

The fleeing vehicle hit a concrete bridge railing at a high speed before violently spinning down into a creek, where it burst into flames. Joshua Kyle Priest, 33, and passenger Nicole Ann Stephens, 30, were both killed.

Man in crisis said he wanted to die by cop in high-speed chase. Oklahoma police obliged. JR Williams death spotlights a pursuit loophole in state crash reporting and demonstrates how chases can be unnecessary, not worth the risk, and create more public danger than safety.

The 2023 report by the DOJ and the Police Executive Research Forum details how best to manage the dangers of chases.

The PIT or TVI maneuver  despite its variable names  isnt precise or predictable and is never without risk, according to the report. Its working group cannot without serious reservation endorse its use, in part citing limited scientific research.

Given the substantial risks associated, the extensive training necessary to use this tactic, and the lack of empirical evidence to show under what conditions it can be performed safely, the PIT maneuver should be prohibited under all but very narrowly defined circumstances, the report states.

The report also encourages law enforcement to reconsider pursuing erratic, reckless or possibly intoxicated drivers.

Rethinking reckless driving or DUI pursuits

Speeds exceeded 100 mph in heavy rainfall overnight  for at least some of the nearly 40-mile pursuit  from Washita County into Beckham County in western Oklahoma.

Four agencies played parts in chasing an SUV after 2 a.m. on Dec. 4, 2022. Cordell Police Officer Corey Armfield had observed erratic driving in town. He thought the motorist might be intoxicated.

The SUV ultimately smashed through the wall of a law office near the courthouse in Sayre. Its engine soon caught fire.

A 13-year-old girl lay dead in the passenger seat from the crash as flames began to lick the cabin.

Amid a haze of smoke and extinguisher spray, deputies and officers worked to pull the 15-year-old driver from the wreckage.

First responders asked the young teen if her age was why she had fled.

M.A. stated that she was running because she didnt want to go home, Armfield wrote in his report.

Oklahoma police chase deaths surged. One agency curbed pursuits; another erased policies Two agencies headquartered in the capital city reacted to growing chase deaths in opposite ways that might spur to action some lawmakers who have studied or regularly discussed pursuit issues.

The Police Executive Research Forum and DOJ guide works to change two common policing mindsets illustrated by this chase.

One dispels the myth that people flee only because of serious crimes. The other reframes pursuit of reckless or possibly intoxicated drivers as not mak(ing) intuitive sense because doing so makes a bad situation worse.

The Police Executive Research Forum and DOJ highlighted a California Highway Patrol analysis from 2020. The most common top charges after apprehension in the state that year were stolen vehicle, DUI, resisting arrest, and suspended or unlicensed driver  combining for 37% of apprehensions.

The most serious charge, attempted murder, accounted for less than 1% of arrests.

Geoffrey Alpert, a criminologist who has been a foremost researcher on high-risk police activities for more than 30 years, chaired the DOJ and PERF working group.

Alpert wrote that a reckless driver probably will only become more erratic once distracted by pursuing officers in the rearview mirror. If a person isnt driving recklessly until a chase begins, he wrote, then police own the behavior and share responsibility for the outcome if they dont discontinue pursuit.

Alpert often cites what a woman at a Mothers Against Drunk Driving conference told him: The only thing worse than a drunk driver is a drunk driver being chased by police.
Randy Krehbiel Tulsa World Staff Writer Follow Randy Krehbiel 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

Families sometimes reunite in the most unexpected ways.

For two sisters from Orlando, Florida, and three siblings from Newnan, Georgia, it began 18 months ago with calls and emails telling them they shared DNA with a man they had never heard of who was buried in an unmarked grave in Tulsa.

Not surprisingly, they were all suspicious.

I was just waiting for how much this was going to cost me, Stacy Daniel Brown said with a chuckle.

But these calls and emails were legitimate. Researchers with Rocky Mountain Forensics, working for the city of Tulsa, had connected the five to remains exhumed from the potters field section of Oaklawn Cemetery, and further work would lead to the identification of the remains as those of C.L. Daniel, a World War I-era Army veteran believed killed in Tulsas 1921 Race Massacre.

Daniel is the first person identified through genetics and genealogy during a long-running project by the city of Tulsa to locate and identify unmarked burials from the massacre.

Daniels body was among several dozen exhumed from an area of Oaklawn Cemetery long believed to have been the final resting place of at least 18 massacre victims. Not all of those exhumed are thought to have died in the massacre, but efforts are being made to identify them.

Daniel is believed to be a massacre victim because of a 1937 letter written on behalf of his widowed mother, Angela Daniel, seeking assistance. The letter says C.L. Daniel was killed in the massacre, although his name had never surfaced in previous research.

It is believed he was passing through Tulsa on his way from Utah to his home in Georgia.

Brown and her sister Ida Daniel, both of Orlando, are great-nieces of C.L. Daniels through his brother Stacy  Stacy Daniel Browns namesake.

Siblings Angela Poythress, Monteen Herron and Andrew L. Poythress Jr., all of Newnan, are Daniels great-great-nieces and -nephew through his brother Eddie.

The two branches of the family had lost touch with each other until researchers connected them.

Brown said a researcher told her, You have family in Newnan, Georgia, I said, I used to have family there, and she said, No, you still do.

We knew that our grandfather had five, six brothers, and we had names for most of them, said Ida Daniel. C.L. was not one of those that we had a name for.

All five family members were in Tulsa for a memorial service at Oaklawn for Daniel and others whose remains were reinterred there over the past few years. All said they were pleased with the service and with the way the situation has been handled.

Andrew Poythress said he could not say enough about Mayor G.T. Bynum.

Weve actually seen his heart, said Poythress, noting that Bymum had to get his composure a couple of times during Tuesdays service and took time to speak privately with the family.

I heard him say that the (City) Council voted unanimously to fund (the grave search), and they didnt have to do that, said Brown.

The family said recent finds indicate that Daniel may have joined the Army at only 15, which means he would have still been in his teens when he died. According to a letter Daniel wrote to the War Department, he suffered a disabling leg injury while in the service and had difficulty working.

The family said other letters from both Angela and C.L. Daniel have since been found.

If not for her, we would not know what happened to C.L., said Brown.

The family said the link to their family seems to have been an unknown descendent of Thomas Daniel, C.L.s father, who contributed DNA to a public database. From there the researchers were able to find other descendants, including Angela Poythress.

She took the information to her brother Andrew, who had previously submitted a sample to a commercial DNA testing lab for his own information.

The upshot of all this activity is that a long-forgotten family member has started to take shape and current family members have gotten to know one another.

He was just a number, but now he has a name, said Andrew Poythress. He has an identity. And this is almost like hes alive right now. They have allowed us the opportunity to introduce ourselves to our uncle.

The family said they have found the graves of Thomas and Angela Daniel in a long-forgotten cemetery in Georgia. Eventually they hope to place C.L.s remains next to his parents and complete the journey he began more than a century ago.



The Tulsa World is where your story lives
In early October, the Federal Highway Administration unveiled its latest round of annual funding for highway bridge improvements across the country, including $115 million toward Texas bridge repair and replacement.

This funding comes from the Bridge Formula Program which relies on state-run agencies, like the Texas Department of Transportation, to inspect and rate every bridge on their roadways.

Bridges are rated as being in good, fair, or poor condition. Ratings are assigned based on the physical condition the major components of each bridge. If all components are in top physical condition, the bridge would receive a good rating. If at least one component is deteriorating or in disrepair, the bridge would receive a fair or poor rating depending on the severity of the issues.

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Bridges in poor condition are eligible for replacement funding, those in fair condition may receive funding for rehabilitation and bridges in good condition may receive dollars for preservation to help ensure they will last for their full design life, which means how long it can function safely before needing replacement.

About 3,660 bridges dot the eight-county San Antonio metro area, spanning rivers, roads and rails. While the majority of these bridges, about 56%, are in good condition, nearly 1,540 are eligible for repair and replacement funding, including 17 bridges that are in poor condition.

Some of these bridges in less than optimal condition are already on TxDOTs radar. Over the next decade, the agency has identified nearly 1,500 Texas bridges for repair, replacement or maintenance that will keep them in good condition. Of those projects, 51 are in the San Antonio area.

San Antonios worst bridges

Among San Antonios lowest-rated bridges are also a few of its oldest. On average, San Antonio has some of the states oldest bridges.

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While a bridges age isnt necessarily a reflection of its condition or safety, older bridges can require extra scrutiny to ensure they are safe for the number of vehicles and pedestrians that use them each day. According to TxDOT, any bridge that remains open to traffic has been deemed safe for travel. By default, most bridges are inspected every two years regardless of condition. Some bridges 20 feet or shorter have a four-year inspection requirement.

Older bridges and those in poor condition are inspected more frequently, sometimes as often as every six months. The vast majority of bridges statewide and in San Antonio are inspected every two years.

TxDOT considers a number of factors when prioritizing which bridge projects will receive federal dollars.

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The condition ratings play a factor in those bridge projects, but its one of many that we use to prioritize funding as the agency works to address mobility needs throughout the state, said TxDOT spokesman Julien Devereux.

San Antonio has 17 bridges rated in poor condition. Not all of them are currently slated for federal funding in the coming decade, according to TxDOT.

The agency estimates that in the next two to 10 years, it will receive replacement funding for these bridges:

Loop 410 southbound bridge over S WW White Road, which sees nearly 29,000 vehicles a day

Evans Road bridge over a drainage channel in Encino Park, which sees 7,700 vehicles a day

Three downtown bridges over the over the San Antonio River, at Augusta Street, Crockett Street and South Presa Street

However, that list is subject to change, Devereux said, as TxDOT officials review the list every year and update it with new information.

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The nearly 1,500 bridges marked for programmed future construction dollars for the next decade are subject to annual review and re-prioritization based on funding, project costs and other project needs, Devereux said.

Funding bridge projects

The Bridge Formula Program was established by Congress in 2021, and lawmakers at the same time created the Bridge Investment Program. Unlike the formula program that apportions money annually, the investment program is a competitive grant program open to cities, counties and other governmental entities.

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As part of the last round of funding in July, the city of Boerne was awarded $600,000 from the Bridge Investment Program to address the condition of 18 of its bridges. At the end of October, the same program allocated $32 million to the city of Austin to replace the 100-year-old Barton Springs Road bridge.

Dedicated funding for bridge repair and maintenance has become a staple for the federal government in the past 50-plus yeas. After a bridge collapsed under heavy traffic in West Virginia in 1967, killing 46 people, the federal Department of Transportation in 1971 published national bridge inspection standards. Seven years later, the Federal Highway Administration created its Highway Bridge Program to provide dedicated funds for bridge repair, maintenance and replacement. That program has been a regular feature of transportation funding bills ever since.

On the state level, funding for bridges and other road-related construction comes from fees related to motor vehicle registration, vehicle-related taxes, and taxes on gas sales. Locally, bonds and competitive grant programs are used to fund bridge projects.
Over 10 Chinese car brands, especially electric vehicle (EV) makers, have entered the Vietnamese market, providing plenty of options but also sparking concerns over safety and charging infrastructure.

Among the Chinese automakers to hit the Vietnamese market are BYD, Geely, Chery, Great Wall, SAIC, and Wuling.

In early November, the Wuling Bingo EV, assembled by Vietnamese auto firm TMT Motors, made its debut in Vietnam at a starting price of just VND349 million (US$13,740) each.

Vo Van Hoang, an expert on Vietnams auto industry, said that the influx of Chinese cars has led to serious competition in the local market.

In order to stand out from the competition, several brands have been offering discounts and promotional programs.

Despite the affordable prices of Chinese cars, there is a relatively widespread sentiment that these vehicles might not be safe or compatible with Vietnams charging infrastructure, where the GB/T charging standard is not available.

The GB/T charging standard is a set of GB/T standards for AC and DC fast charging electric vehicles used in China.

In Vietnam, electric vehicles use CCS2 (combined charging system combo 2) charging adapters.

Vo Minh Luc, CEO of BYD Auto Vietnam, said that the firm had yet to plan the development of a separate charging system.

Instead, it is cooperating with a few partners to provide customers with charging systems.

Some auto experts said that the inconvenience of charging infrastructure could deter customers from buying Chinese cars.

On the other hand, Vietnam has set a target of shifting to green energy-powered vehicles by 2050, opening a wider door for the expansion of the electric car industry, according to these experts.

However, the country will also face challenges in the management of low-cost EV imports from China.

Several experts hinted at adopting effective measures to protect domestic firms from foreign competitors, including the imposition of steeper taxes on imported Chinese autos.

Moreover, the national government should set clear standards on battery, charging infrastructure, and after-sales service to safeguard the benefits of customers.

Prof. Dr. Dam Hoang Phuc suggested Vietnam develop a standard ecosystem of after-sales service for vehicles.

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BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN -- Vietnam Airlines, opens new tab will issue requests for proposals to aircraft manufacturers next year to purchase 50 narrowbody jets, its CEO said on Wednesday.

The carrier last year signed a provisional deal with Boeing, opens new tab for 50 737 MAX planes that has yet to be finalised.

"In Vietnam we have to go through the bidding process, we have to open to others... The door is still open for everyone," Vietnam Airlines CEO Le Hong Ha told Reuters on the sidelines of an Association of Asia-Pacific Airlines event in Brunei. "Boeing is one option, they have a very good offer for us."

Airbus, opens new tab and Boeing are the main global manufacturers of single-aisle aircraft, with Airbus' A320neo family competing against the 737 MAX, though Chinese planemaker COMAC is trying to make inroads with its C919.

Vietnam Airlines' current narrowbody fleet consists of only Airbus planes, its website showed.

The airline needs 170 new aircraft by 2035, its CEO said.

The requests for proposals leave open a possibility for COMAC to offer the C919. China has increasingly been marketing its planes to Vietnam.

Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh met a senior COMAC official last week in China who said the Vietnamese market had strong potential, Vietnam's state news agency reported.
For centuries, hammams were central to Ottoman society, and while they mostly fell out of use with the advent of running water, many in Turkey are being restored to revive an ancient ritual bathing tradition.

A mainstay of old Turkish films, hammam scenes were highly entertaining, a free space where women would socialise, eat, drink and even dance.

Last year, Istanbul's 500-year-old Zeyrek Cinili Hammam -- built during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent by the celebrated Ottoman architect Sinan -- reopened after a painstaking 13-year restoration.

Alongside a functioning hammam, it also houses a museum explaining its history and the Ottoman ritual of bathing.

"The restoration somehow turned into an archaeological dig" that gave insight into how the hammam once looked, museum manager Beril Gur Tanyeli told AFP.

"Around 3,000 pieces of missing tiles were found which helped solve the puzzle of why this hammam was called Cinili" -- Turkish for "covered with tiles".

The beautiful Iznik tiles that once lined its walls were exclusively produced for the hammam. No other bathhouse had such a rich interior, museum officials say.

Although most were damaged by fires or earthquakes, or sold off to European antique dealers in the 19th century, some are still visible.

The restoration also exposed several Byzantine cisterns beneath the hammam.

"Sinan the Architect is believed to have built the hammam on top of these cisterns to use them as a foundation and as a source of water," Tanyeli said.

From cleansing to celebration

In ancient Rome, bathing culture was very important and it was "traditional for traders to wash before entering the city, especially in baths at the (city) entrance," archaeologist Gurol Tali told AFP.

During the Ottoman empire, a golden age for bathhouses, the ritual symbolised both bodily cleanliness and purity of soul.

In Islam, a Muslim must wash before praying, in an act known as ablution.

Hammams were also a place for celebrating births and weddings.

"Baths were used not only for cleansing the body but for socialising, relaxing, healing and even celebrating important life events," with special rites for brides, soldiers and young boys before they were circumcised, Tali said.

Since households at the time did not have running water, hammams were an essential part of life until the 19th century, with census figures from 1638 showing there were 14,536 public and private baths in Istanbul, the museum said.

And that tradition has survived until today.

"You come here to get clean and leave handsome," said Zafer Akgul, who was visiting a hammam in the city with his son, telling AFP he visited often, particularly during religious feasts or for a wedding.

"We don't want this tradition to die."

'Passing on cultural heritage'

That is where Istanbul's ancient hammams can serve a bigger purpose, Tali said.

"Restoring historical baths in Istanbul and putting them to use may be the most effective way to transfer cultural heritage to future generations," he said.

Another nearby bathhouse from the same era, the Bayezid II Hammam, underwent years of restoration and reopened as a museum in 2015.

One of the largest hammams in the city at the time, some historians believe it was where a notorious male bathing attendant, or "tellak", called Halil plotted an uprising in 1730 that overthrew Sultan Ahmed III.

For Manolya Gokgoz, who does publicity for Cemberlitas Hammam, another 16th-century bathhouse built by Sinan, the connection is more personal: her grandmother worked there as a "natir" -- a woman's bathing attendant.

"When I was two or three years old, I would go to the baths in the morning, wash and play by myself until the evening without getting bored," she told AFP.

For Gokgoz, the tradition lives on -- although mostly among tourists, which for her is a shame.

"In the past, we used to go to the hammam with our mothers and grandmothers. Now 70 percent of our customers are foreign tourists and 30 percent locals," she said.

These days, the full hammam experience -- which lets bathers relax in hot, warm or cool pools alongside extras like massages or peeling -- is expensive, with the basic service costing around $100.

Celebrities, both Turkish and international, often visit Cemberlitas, with the last being Spanish actor Pedro Alonso -- the character Berlin in the Netflix hit "Money Heist" -- visiting in September.

"Hammam is not a luxury, but a need," Gokgoz said.

"Yes, it's not like in the past because we have hot water at our fingertips, but we need to keep this tradition alive."
Representatives from Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) Vietnam on Tuesday afternoon visited Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspapers office in Ho Chi Minh City to donate CHF25,000 (over US$28,000) via MSC Foundation to support residents affected by typhoon Yagi in northern Vietnam.

MSC Vietnams chief commercial officer Truong Anh Kieu explained that as soon as MSC Foundation -- the nonprofit arm of MSC Group -- learned about the typhoon, which ravaged several provinces in northern Vietnam in early September, they quickly looked for a reliable way to provide support.

They ultimately chose Tuoi Tre, recognizing its strong reputation.

MSC Vietnam representatives visit Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on November 12, 2024. Photo: Yen Trinh / Tuoi Tre

On behalf of MSC employees, Kieu extended her best wishes to the northern Vietnamese communities, hoping that their contribution could help stabilize the lives of those affected.

We wish for the people to overcome these challenges and focus on rebuilding, she said.

With its shipping expertise, MSC also expressed its will to assist in delivering relief supplies to the impacted regions, or providing containers for building essential facilities such as healthcare centers and classrooms.

Le Xuan Trung, deputy editor-in-chief of Tuoi Tre, expressed the newspapers appreciation for MSC's contribution.

He assured that Tuoi Tre would channel the assistance promptly and effectively to where it is needed.

The newspaper will prioritize support for educational infrastructure, including repairs and construction for schools and classrooms for teachers and students, he added.

MSC Vietnam representatives visit Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on November 12, 2024. Photo: Yen Trinh / Tuoi Tre

MSC representatives also stated their willingness to work alongside Tuoi Tre in future charity efforts.

Over the years, MSC has partnered with Operation Smile to offer free cleft palate surgeries, bringing smiles to children in need.

With a focus on key shipping routes across Northern Europe, North America, South America, and within Asia, MSC is collaborating with Vietnam Maritime Corporation to accelerate the research and development of an international container transshipment port in Can Gio District, Ho Chi Minh City.

The Can Gio International Transshipment Port will be developed as a 'green port,' incorporating smart technology to ensure economic and social efficiency while protecting the environment, particularly the Can Gio mangrove ecosystem.

Asia's strongest storm this year, typhoon Yagi, caused damage estimated at VND81.5 trillion ($3.31 billion) across northern Vietnam, the Vietnam News Agency on September 28 quoted Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan.

The typhoon, which killed 299 with 34 missing, devastated export-oriented industrial hubs, destroying factories and facilities, besides flooding farmland, damaging homes, and tearing up a bridge.

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Police in Hoa Binh Province, northern Vietnam busted an infant trafficking ring, arresting four women hailing from Ho Chi Minh City, Gia Lai Province, and Ha Giang Province, an officer said on Wednesday.

These suspects were identified as N.L.T.T., 29; D.T.T.S., 33; D.T.H.V., 33; and B.M.P., 29.

According to a police report, they rented two rooms at the Binh An 2 Hotel in the provincial city of Hoa Binh, where they operated the ring from.

While staying at the hotel, they allegedly took turns visiting the maternity ward of Hoa Binh Provincial General Hospital to meet with B.T.T., a 35-year-old mother from Lac Son District in Hoa Binh, to negotiate the sale of her newborn son.

Local police quickly intervened at the scene where the women were negotiating the deal.

Officers rescued the baby and apprehended the suspects.

An investigation into this baby trafficking ring is now underway.

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What you need to know today in Vietnam:

Politics

-- Peruvian President Dina Ercilia Boluarte Zegarra hosted a solemn welcome ceremony for Vietnamese State President Luong Cuong and a high-ranking delegation from Vietnam at the Government Palace (Casa de Pizarro) in Lima on Wednesday afternoon (local time), reported the Vietnam News Agency.

Society

-- A female teacher at Le Quy Don Middle School in Duy Xuyen District under Quang Nam Province, central Vietnam has been suspended from work after beating a sixth-grade student with a ruler, causing several bruises on his legs on Monday.

-- Police in Hoa Binh Province, northern Vietnam busted an infant trafficking ring, arresting four women hailing from Ho Chi Minh City, Gia Lai Province and Ha Giang Province, an officer said on Wednesday.

-- The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health said on Wednesday evening that the 115 Emergency Center had won the gold emergency medical services (EMS) Angels Award for prehospital stroke care.

Business

-- Vietnam Foodexpo 2024 kicked off at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday, featuring more than 500 booths of nearly 400 enterprises from Vietnams localities and more than 20 countries and territories such as Germany, Spain, the EU, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China, India and Thailand. The event runs until Saturday.

-- Vietnam will experience significant wind power growth driven by its untapped offshore potential, which is estimated at 475GW according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade, as well as investment from foreign developers. Vietnams wind capacity is forecast to double between 2024 and 2033, from 7.5GW to 14.7GW, with an average yearly growth rate of 9.2 percent, according to a recent report from BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions.

Lifestyle

-- Authorities in Soc Trang Province, southern Vietnam opened the Oc Om Boc Festival of the Khmer ethnic people, or the moon worshipping festival, on Wednesday night.

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Vietnams Ministry of Health has proposed banning new-generation tobacco products (NGTPs), including electronic nicotine delivery systems (e-cigarettes) and heated tobacco products (HTPs), amid rising concerns over the associated health risks.

Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan on Monday announced the proposal at a grilling held in conjunction with the ongoing eighth session of the 15th-tenure National Assembly (NA) in Hanoi.

The health ministry proposed that the government call on the NA to ban the use of e-cigarettes and HTPs, Lan said.

Vietnam joined the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and promulgated the Law on Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harms more than 10 years ago, prior to the arrival of NGTPs in Vietnam.

We hope that there will be an NA resolution banning e-cigarettes and HTPs before the Law on Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harms is amended and submitted to the NA for consideration and approval, Lan said.

According to Lan, e-cigarettes and HTPs pose grave health risks to Vietnamese citizens.

In 2023, the country recorded nearly 1,300 hospitalizations due to health problems directly associated with NGTPs, including acute lung injuries and strokes.

Approximately five percent of these patients experienced long-term health issues following treatment.

Notably, last year also saw 86 cases involving 155 people who added drugs to NGTPs.

A 2020 survey on tobacco use among adults in 34 provinces showed that the rate of e-cigarette and HTP users surged to 3.6 percent in 2020 from 0.2 percent in 2015, a striking 18-fold increase.

This rapid elevation in tobacco product use brings significant health risks, especially for young people.

In 2019, around 2.6 percent of the Vietnamese students aged 13-17 used NGTPs.

By 2022, the usage rate among the students aged 13-15 had climbed to 3.5 percent, with 4.3 percent of the boys and 2.8 percent of the girls using these products, according to health ministry statistics.

The Ministry of Education and Trainings Physical Education Department said that e-cigarette usage among students has spiked significantly, to eight percent in 2023 from 2.6 percent in 2019.

Dinh Thi Thu Thuy, deputy director of the health ministrys Legal Department, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the ministry has begun disseminating information about the harmful effects of NGTPs.

A brain-damaged patient is in treatment at a hospital after using e-cigarettes in Vietnam. Photo: D. Lieu / Tuoi Tre

At a May hearing held by the NAs Committee for Social Affairs, the health ministry presented evidence from World Health Organization and health experts highlighting the clear dangers of e-cigarettes and HTPs.

Based on this evidence, the ministry proposed that the government urge the NA to pass a resolution regulating the production, trade, import, and advertising of these products.

According to Thuy, the ministry is now planning draft amendments to the Law on Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harms to include specific provisions on NGTPs.

The sooner we ban e-cigarettes and HTPs, the more we reduce the number of new users of these products, especially among minors, Thuy concluded.

The health ministrys proposal has been lauded by several other ministries.

Lieut. Col. Nguyen Duy Trung, from the Ministry of Public Securitys Investigation Police Department for Drug Crimes, said that the ministry agreed with the health ministrys proposed prohibition of the production, trade, import, and advertising of e-cigarettes and HTPs.

The ban would establish a legal basis for police to handle the illegal trade of NGTPs in Vietnam, the official said.

Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien stated that e-cigarettes and HTPs are not currently regulated by the existing Law on Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harms.

Theres a large legal gap in state management, he said.

In 2019 and 2020, NGTPs started to become popular in the Vietnamese market due to a lack of legal controls over their proliferation.

We're pushing for a legal framework to prohibit these products, Dien said.

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A large beltway in Da Nang City, central Vietnam has been rocked by recurring landslides and mud build-up following heavy rains, prompting local officials to seek long-term erosion control and infrastructure solutions to ensure safety.

Officially opened on May 13, Da Nangs 19.2-kilometer beltway cost nearly VND1.5 trillion (US$59.18 million).

It begins at the National Highway 14B intersection and ends at the main road leading to the citys Information Technology Park.

Construction workers have been instructed to clear mud that has flowed onto the beltway in Da Nang, central Vietnam. Photo: Doan Cuong / Tuoi Tre

As one of the most important infrastructure projects in Da Nang, the road connects with the southern beltway, National Highways 14B and 1, the Ho Chi Minh Road, and transverse routes, completing the city's beltway network and fostering growth in its western areas.

Caused by last weeks heavy rain, mudslides have rocked the western part of the beltway near Hoa Tho Village in Hoa Phu Commune, Hoa Vang District.

Mud trails, landslide markers, and visible hillside cracks still clutter the route, with thick deposits of mud lining parts of the road.

Authorities in Da Nang, central Vietnam have proposed long-term solutions to address the issue. Photo: Doan Cuong / Tuoi Tre

Despite a rock-cage fence running along a long stretch at the hillside base, water and mud continue to flow onto the roadway.

Landslides in several areas have also deposited large amounts of soil and trees onto the road.

The Da Nang Project Management Board of Transport Works, responsible for overseeing the project, has directed the contractor to clear the mud and install additional rock-cage retaining walls along the slope to help reduce soil erosion.

Large portions of soil are cracking, poised for landslides in Da Nang, central Vietnam. Photo: Doan Cuong / Tuoi Tre

In the event of future landslides, the agency plans to close the right lane and allow two-way traffic in the left.

The Da Nang Peoples Committee has charged the Department of Natural Resources and Environment with working with the Hoa Vang District officials and other relevant entities to finalize documentation for mineral extraction rights by 2024-25 for sustainable mitigation.

This effort is meant to prevent further erosion and secure land for local socio-economic development, with minerals from the extraction utilized for key public projects, supporting Da Nangs growing infrastructure needs.

Eroding areas on the hillside threaten to slide down in heavy rain in Da Nang, central Vietnam. Photo: Doan Cuong / Tuoi Tre

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Measles cases are surging in Ho Chi Minh City, with four deaths reported among local patients and those transferred from other areas in 2024.

Health authorities are urging vigilance, particularly for unvaccinated children in schools and residential areas.

During the 45th week of this year, from November 4-10, 167 measles cases were recorded among residents in the city, 29 percent higher than the average of the previous four weeks, taking total local infections until then to 1,635 cases, including three deaths, the department said on Wednesday.

From early this year to November 10, the city also treated 2,565 measles cases transferred from other localities, with one of them dying.

During this period, Ho Chi Minh City treated 4,200 patients, with a total of four deaths. The health department partially attributed the rise in cases to unvaccinated students in schools and residential areas.

The agency cited a recent survey as showing that several students at 15 city schools were unvaccinated for measles, despite reports from these schools that all students had been immunized.

Even worse, two schools had not implemented any vaccination program.

Another survey of 51 local children aged one to 10 who contracted measles in week 44 found that 32 had not been vaccinated against measles.

Notably, 14 of the children surveyed were not vaccinated because their parents refused to take them to vaccination points, even though their kids were eligible for immunizations.

Among the group of 35 children aged one to five included in this survey, six had their addresses, as shown in the city's immunization information system, belonging to localities outside the city.

In addition, 23 percent of these children could not be found in the same system.

The health department noted that population movement and relocation may have impacted Ho Chi Minh City's recent measles immunization campaign, launched on August 31 for children aged one to 10.

The agency advised authorities across every district and in Thu Duc City to ensure local health centers work with educational offices to closely monitor vaccination efforts in all schools.

In parallel with continuing to vaccinate children aged one to 10, the department said it is preparing to inoculate those from six to under nine months old.

The agency also called on parents to have all their children in these age ranges vaccinated against measles.

As an acute viral infectious disease, measles spreads easily when a sick person coughs, sneezes or breathes, warned Dr. Pham Ngoc Thach, deputy director of Children's Hospital 2 in the city.

Symptoms usually begin 10-14 days after exposure to the virus and include a runny nose, cough, red eyes, watery eyes, and small white spots inside the cheeks.

Rashes usually appear about 7-18 days after the exposure, usually on the face and neck, eventually spreading to the arms and legs.

Measles complications can include blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhea and associated dehydration, ear infections, and serious respiratory problems including pneumonia, among others, Dr. Thach said.

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A row of rare Sua trees on Nguyen Van Huyen Street in Cau Giay District, Hanoi has been enclosed in iron fences for over four years, hampering their growth.

The Sua tree, scientifically known as dalbergia tonkinensis, is a species of legume in the Fabaceae family.

The trees are currently being strangled by metal enclosures around their trunks, causing both their trunks and limbs to rot.

I feel heartbroken as these trees are damaged and dying, said Nguyen Van Tuan, a 35-year-old resident of Cau Giay District.

They are unable to grow naturally because they are caged, he explained, adding that he hoped local authorities would consider removing the cages and provide rehabilitative care for the trees.

A representative from the Technical Infrastructure Management Center under the municipal Department of Construction told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the unit had planned to dispatch staff to the street to evaluate the situation and health of the trees.

Metal enclosures stunt the growth of trees in Hanoi. Photo: Pham Tuan / Tuoi Tre

In 2020, during the construction of an overpass at the intersection of Hoang Quoc Viet Street and Nguyen Van Huyen Street, the municipal department appointed the Transportation Works Construction Investment Project Management Board of Hanoi, the projects investor, to care for and relocate over 100 trees along the affected section of Nguyen Van Huyen.

Among the over 100 trees were 34 Sua plants, considered a rare and valuable plant species.

After being relocated, these trees were enclosed in order to prevent people from cutting them down illegally.

The investor also installed cameras in the area to better monitor the trees.

As such, the trees have remained in their cages for the past four years.

The Sua trees in Hanoi are enclosed in metal fencing, hampering their natural growth. Photo: Pham Tuan / Tuoi Tre

The branches of many Sua trees have begun to rot due to metal enclosures. Photo: Pham Tuan / Tuoi Tre

The trunk of a Sua tree is constricted tightly by a metal enclosure on a street in Hanoi. Photo: Pham Tuan / Tuoi Tre

The branches of some Sua trees in Hanoi have begun to rot due to metal enclosures. Photo: Pham Tuan / Tuoi Tre

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A man faces murder and aggravated assault charges following the deadly shooting of two of his family members in a Stone Oak neighborhood in San Antonio on Wednesday. He also shot himself. Xinhua News Agency/Xinhua News Agency via Getty Ima

A man faces murder and aggravated assault charges in the deadly shooting of two family members at a Stone Oak home.

San Antonio police said a person called to report gunshots shortly after 5 p.m. on Wednesday in the 17000 block of Winter Hill, near Huebner Road. They also claimed to have seen a body in the front of the home.

A 25-year-old man shot a 59-year-old man in the head while inside the home, according to a police report.

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The man then followed a 59-year-old woman outside of the home and fatally shot her in the head.

He then turned the gun on himself, police said.

The woman was pronounced dead at the scene. The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office has not released the name of the deceased woman.

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The shooter and the wounded man were taken to a local hospital in critical condition.
As southern Vietnam has shifted from the rainy to dry seasons, residents are experiencing a transition from heavy rainfall to more frequent sunshine, with occasional hot spells.

Unlike the northern region, which has four distinct seasons, the central and southern regions typically only experience the dry and rainy seasons.

The rainy season in southern Vietnam typically lasts from May to October.

Le Dinh Quyet, head of the forecasting department at the Southern Regional Hydrometeorological Center, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the region is currently undergoing a seasonal transition.

He noted that from now until the end of November, rainfall will decrease, signaling the close of the rainy season and the beginning of the dry season.

While rainfall will decline in the coming days, Quyet said that there is still a risk of sudden heavy showers and advised residents to remain cautious, as rain during this period tends to be brief but intense, often accompanied by thunderstorms, lightning, and gusty winds.

He explained that storm systems draw moisture into the air, elevating humidity levels.

This weather pattern leads to clearer skies, stronger sunlight, and increased temperatures in the region.

The effect is especially noticeable in the evenings, as high humidity persists despite rainfall.

According to the expert, the rain is not from storms but rather due to atmospheric disturbances in the area.

Quyet also mentioned the October full-moon tide, which, although not as high as the September tide, still causes flooding in low-lying areas such as District 7, District 8, and Nha Be District in Ho Chi Minh City.

The Southern Regional Hydrometeorological Center forecast that by weeks end, cold air, storms, and disturbances will diminish, bringing partly cloudy skies with sunny days and morning fog.

Afternoon and evening hours may see moderate rain, showers, and isolated thunderstorms in some areas.

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Dr. Su  a cardiothoracic and lung cancer surgery expert from O2 Healthcare Group (Singapore) who performs an average of nearly 350 surgeries each year  said that he has not had a holiday in over six years. However, Dr. Su always radiates energy. Its not just his extraordinary skills that draw admiration, but also his wittiness and the ever-present smile on his gentle face.

Since embarking on his journey as a professional surgeon in 2007, Dr. Su has successfully carried out around 7,000 surgeries involving the lungs, heart and oesophagus. Impressively, more than 95 per cent of these procedures have been performed using Video Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery (VATS)  a minimally invasive technique requiring incisions as small as 1.5 to 3cm.

This cutting-edge medical technology has consistently achieved high success rates in treating a range of thoracic conditions, including lung cancer. Remarkably, Dr. Su has maintained an extraordinary record, with a post-surgery mortality rate of 0 per cent in all elective surgeries.

While he is renowned as one of the regions top thoracic surgeons, many may not realise the immense sacrifices and years of study and dedication it took for Dr. Su to reach these heights.

If someone were to inquire about how I balance my personal life with my professional responsibilities, I must confess that it is an unattainable goal. I cannot simultaneously seek to rescue every patient in need and pursue personal leisure, such as traveling the world. When faced with the choice between an unforgettable holiday in Beijing and a surgery that could save a life, my decision is obviously predictable. I consistently remind myself that saving a patient equates to helping a whole family, Dr. Su candidly expressed.

FV Hospital opens new chapter in lung cancer treatment

Dr. Su Jang Wen has observed firsthand the struggles of patients traveling from Viet Nam to Singapore for cancer treatment. These patients endure significant hardships in their quest for survival, navigating a long and financially burdensome journey that is as emotionally taxing as it is costly.

Due to these concerns, Dr. Su sought opportunities to collaborate with healthcare institutions in Viet Nam to bring his expertise to treat Vietnamese patients in their home country. It was through this fortuitous opportunity that Dr. Su chose FV Hospital as the place for him.

The first time I visited FV Hospital, I knew I wanted to work here. The infrastructure and operational processes at FV are similar to some of the worlds leading medical institutions, meeting international standards in patient care, Dr. Su said with confidence.

This vision, mission and set of values laid the foundation for the partnership between O2 Healthcare Group  where Dr. Su is based  and FV Hospital, as they work together to develop a regional center of excellence in thoracic surgery in Viet Nam.

According Dr. Su, while Singapore is renowned for its advanced healthcare, the cost of medical care can be prohibitively high. Through this partnership, Vietnamese patients can receive treatment directly from Dr. Su at FV Hospital, with costs reduced by up to 40 per cent compared to treatment in Singapore.

As an international hospital, FV has built its operations and treatment standards based on the best practices of top global medical institutions. These efforts have earned FV a solid reputation and the capability to meet the needs of specialised treatments, particularly advanced cancer therapies such as those for lung cancer. Dr. Su also expressed his trust in the team of doctors at FV's Thoracic Surgery Centre, led by Dr. Luong Ngoc Trung.
HCM CITY  Meeting green standards is no longer optional but it is now a key requirement for Vietnamese businesses to maintain and expand access to the EU market, a workshop heard in HCM City on November 13.

Speaking at the workshop Green Transition in Agricultural Production and Food, Promoting Exports to the EU, Jean-Jacques Bouflet, vice chair in charge of advocacy at the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (EuroCham), said the EUs Green Deal sets an agenda for a sustainable future.

Central to this are policies such as the Farm to Fork Strategy and the EU Deforestation Regulation, he said.

Compliance with these regulations is mandatory but also offers Vietnamese businesses a valuable opportunity to integrate further into the global supply chain, he said.

To align with these evolving standards, businesses must first focus on enhancing sustainability in their production processes.

Another crucial step is obtaining internationally recognised certifications for good agricultural practices, environmentally friendly farming and social responsibility, he said.

These certifications not only open doors to the European market but also build trust and confidence among buyers and consumers, who are more conscious than ever about the origins and sustainability of the products they purchase.

The EU places great emphasis on transparency and traceability across the supply chain, and Vietnamese enterprises must establish robust systems that enable them to track their products from farm to fork, he claimed.

Leveraging modern technologies such as blockchain can enhance this traceability, ensuring that every stage of the production process is transparent, which is particularly important under the Deforestation-Free Products Regulation, where proof of sustainable sourcing is mandatory, he said.

He called on Vietnamese businesses to prepare for future requirements related to carbon reporting, saying that, while the EUs CBAM currently targets industrial sectors, it is likely to expand to agriculture in future.

While the challenges posed by these new green standards are significant, they also present an incredible opportunity, he said.

Enterprises that embrace sustainability can gain a competitive edge in the European market, where consumers are willing to pay a premium for products that align with their values.

Beyond compliance, adopting green standards enhances brand reputation and positions Vietnamese products as leaders in sustainability, not just in Europe but globally.

Laurent Lourdais of the EU Delegation to Viet Nam referred to the stringent standards the EU applies to imported agricultural and food products, saying Vietnamese businesses need to constantly innovate production processes, ensuring environmental and social criteria are met, to maintain a presence in the market.

He suggested that they should build sustainable supply chains and strengthen traceability to meet the growing expectations of European consumers.

Le Hoang Tai, deputy general director of the Viet nam Trade Promotion Agency, said the EU is one of Viet Nam's leading trade and investment partners.

He highlighted the role of the Vietnam  EU Free Trade Agreement and the EU-Viet Nam Investment Protection Agreement, which facilitate trade and investment with and technology transfer from the EU.

In the first three quarters of this year, bilateral trade topped US$50.34 billion, with Viet Nam achieving a trade surplus of $25 billion, a 20 per cent increase over the previous year.

Its agricultural exports to the EU exceeded $840 million, up 50 per cent year-on-year.

Tai also said Viet Nam is actively fulfilling its COP26 commitments and aiming for Net Zero by 2050 through the National Green Growth Strategy.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade will help businesses adopt ESG standards, promoting trade, investing in green technology, and advancing sustainable production models to enhance competitiveness and deepen integration into the global value chain.

Executives from two local firms, Vinasoy and Betrimex, spoke about their employers strong commitment to sustainable development through high-tech applications and resource optimisation.

Vinasoys investment in a zero-waste production process (Okara) has enabled it to optimise soybean use and minimise waste in plant-based milk production while meeting green standards.

Betrimex has focused on maximising the value of coconuts, minimising waste, implementing carbon offset projects, and renewable energy. The company also promotes sustainable and digitalised farming models to support farmers, aiming to increase their incomes and generally improve rural livelihoods.

These efforts not only help reduce environmental impacts but also enhance export value, strengthening the position of Vietnamese products in the international market.

The event also witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Centre for Information Technology Application and Digital Transformation in Trade Promotion under Vietrade, Tridge (South Korea), and Vietnam Omnichannel Trade Promotion JSC for promoting the export of Vietnamese agricultural and food products through modern digital platforms.

The workshop was organised by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in collaboration with the European Commission as part of the Vietnam International Food Industry Exhibition 2024 being held in HCM City.  VNS
STOCKHOLM  The worlds leading container shipping company MSC announced the expansion of its Swan service starting in 2025, which will establish the first direct route between the Swedens Port of Gothenburg and Viet Nams southeastern province of Ba RiaVung Tau.

The announcement was made at a roundtable discussion and Viet NamSweden business forum in Stockholm on Tuesday, with the participation of Viet Nam's Vice State President Vo Thi Anh Xuan and representatives from nine major Swedish companies.

The service is expected to increase trade flows between the two regions, offering an efficient transportation solution that shortens transit times and reinforces bilateral economic ties.

The initiative follows the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) recently signed between the Port of Gothenburg and the SP-SSA International Terminal (SSIT) of Vung Tau. This agreement reflects a mutual commitment to deepening cooperation in the logistics and maritime sectors, positioning both ports as strategic trade hubs in their respective regions.

Vice President Xuan said Viet Nam is transitioning toward a digital economy, green growth, and sustainable development in response to climate change. In this process driven by science, technology and innovation, Viet Nam looks forward to receiving support and cooperation from global partners, including Sweden, with whom Viet Nam shares a strong and positive relationship, particularly in economy, trade, and investment.

According to her, Viet Nam is undertaking institutional reform to improve the business environment, and create favourable conditions for both global and domestic companies, particularly those with long-standing cooperation like Sweden, to invest in Viet Nam.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hoang Long expressed his hope for support from Swedish companies to strengthen capacity building and share expertise in the power market, particularly in integrating renewable energy sources into power systems.

Jacob Wallenberg, vice president of Ericsson Group, underscored the transformative potential of 5G technology and Viet Nam's growing interest in it. He expressed his confidence in the prospects for continued partnership in this area, stressing that adopting 5G technology is crucial for Viet Nam to become a more attractive investment destination.

With a legacy spanning 150 years, Ericsson is proud of its leadership and strategic vision, and the cutting-edge technology it has delivered to partners, he added.  VNS
HA NOI  Vietnam International Bank (VIB) has announced a partnership with Flywire, a global payments enablement and software company based in Boston, to enable Vietnamese payers to digitally pay international education-related fees in their local currency to higher education institutions all over the world.

The partnership between VIB and Flywire allows customers to optimise the payment experience with just a few simple steps on a single sign-on secured online platform, the Vietnamese bank said in a statement.

Customers can complete their transactions without needing to visit a bank or incur additional fees. Through VIB, customers can settle payments to thousands of Flywires customers who constitute education institutions and travel companies, all around the world.

Deputy CEO cum Head of Retail Banking of VIB, Ho Van Long, aid that with the vision of becoming the most innovative and customer-centric bank in Viet Nam, VIB is always focused on providing comprehensive and superior product offerings along with personalised, innovative service solutions for customers.

Long said through the collaboration with Flywire, VIB has integrated the modern technology of a leading global fintech partner to digitise 100 per cent of its international payment services, delivering a seamless, fast and convenient experience for customers.

We are thrilled to partner with VIB to combine their comprehensive banking network and Flywires payment technology with the goal of transforming how international payments are made for students and travelers, said Mohit Kansal, SVP of Global Payments & Payer Services, Flywire.

Viet Nam is an important outbound market for Flywire and we are committed to enhancing our offerings for payers while strengthening our presence in the region, he said.

Established on September 18, 1996, VIB is now one of the leading joint stock banks in Viet Nam. As of June 30 2024, the banks charter capital surpassed VN25.36 trillion, while its shareholders equity hit over VN38.24 trillion and total assets topped VN431 trillion.

Currently, VIB has 189 branches and transaction offices in 29 key provinces and cities across the country, recruiting more than 11,500 employees.

Meanwhile, Flywire is a global payments enablement and software company. The US company leverages its vertical-specific software and payments technology to deeply embed within the existing A/R workflows for its clients across the education, healthcare and travel vertical markets, as well as in key business to business industries.

Flywire also integrates with leading ERP systems, such as NetSuite, so organisations can optimise the payment experience for their customers while eliminating operational challenges.

Flywire supports more than 4,000* clients with diverse payment methods in more than 140 currencies across more than 240 countries and territories around the world.  VNS
HA NOI  The ChinaViet Nam Border Economic, Trade and Tourism Fair will take place from November 26 to December 1 in the northern provinces of Lao Cai (Viet Nam) and Yuannan (China).

This is the 24th edition of the fair that the People's Committees of the two provinces have co-organised.

Themed on 'Mutual development  Mutual benefits', the event aims to strengthen economic co-operation and cultural exchanges in the border region between the two countries and provide opportunities for businesses to showcase their products, seek partners and expand their markets.

The fair will be divided into two sections, the China Pavilion covering an area of nearly 5,600 sq.m and the Viet Nam Pavilion of 3,800 sq.m.

About 500-600 booths will be installed to showcase specialty products from both countries.

Apart from product exhibition and sales activities, the fair will also feature other events such as meetings between Chinese and Vietnamese delegations, economic and trade development discussions, cross-border logistics and business cooperation forums, and a joint investment promotion conference.

According to the deputy director of the Lao Cai Department of Planning and Investment, Nguyen Viet Cuong, there will be designated areas for national products from Viet Nam, local products from Lao Cai Province, as well as for local co-operatives and businesses to display their own.

Participating businesses will get support with customs procedures and have all booth fees waived, he said. The organisers will prioritise businesses that export or have the potential to export to the Chinese market and those that hold national brand recognition.  VNS
Miguel Gonzalez, a Brandeis High School senior, used the lifesaving training he received in an online health class over the summer to rescue his friend and bandmate Leah Carlin, who was choking during a snack break at band rehearsal Oct. 21. Gonzalez was honored with the Northside ISD's Citizenship Award. Courtesy / Northside ISD

A Brandeis High School senior named one of the best musicians in Texas is also a local hero, having used a lifesaving technique he learned in health class over the summer to rescue a choking bandmate.

Miguel Gonzalez was awarded the Northside Independent School Districts Citizenship Award this week for coming to the aid of Leah Carlin, a fellow senior and head drum major of the Brandeis marching band. Carlin had a piece of food stuck in her throat during a snack break at evening band rehearsal at the school on Oct. 21.

Carlin, who was distraught during the break over the loss of her familys pet dog a day earlier, recalled crying a little bit when she suddenly began choking and couldnt breathe at all. She ran to Gonzalez, a friend and the bands trumpet section leader, using her hands to signal she was choking. She recalls losing my vision just a little bit.

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Gonzalez remembered what he learned in an online health class offered by the district over the summer.

In my head, it just clicked, he recalled. I just went over to her, and I wrapped my arms around her and performed the Heimlich maneuver.

His fast actions dislodged the food from Carlins trachea and she immediately recovered, shaken but grateful. They both said the fleeting emergency strengthened their friendship.

A lot of people wouldnt know what to do or have the confidence to do it, Carlin said.

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Miguel Gonzalez was honored with the Northside ISD's Citizenship Award for performing a lifesaving procedure on Leah Carlin, a fellow Brandeis High School senior and bandmate. Superintendent John Craft (right) and the Northside school board presented the award. Courtesy / Northside ISD

Northside Superintendent John Craft said the award, given to deserving groups and individuals whose actions are above and beyond the normal days scope of activities, has been awarded 24 times  the last time was in 2017  since it was created in 1999.

Recipients include an OConnor High School student who performed lifesaving CPR on a heart attack victim at a 5K run; five students who aided a real estate agent being attacked by a client; a Hobby Middle School student who rescued a 4-year-old child from the Pedernales River; and a female bus driver who rescued a woman trapped in a car.

Gonzalez and Carlin are exceptional students, Brandeis principal Dana Gilbert-Perry said.

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Gonzalez excels academically in his advanced and AP courses and was just named to the Texas Music Educators Associations 2025 All-State Jazz Ensemble, passing auditions that had him competing against trumpet players throughout the state, Gilbert-Perry said.

After graduation, Gonzalez plans to attend the University of Texas in Austin, majoring in architecture.
TEL AVIV  Viet Nam-Israel trade, propelled by the current growth momentum, is expected to surpass US$3 billion this year, Vietnamese Trade Counsellor in the Middle Eastern nation Le Thai Hoa has said.

According to the diplomat, the values of Viet Nam's exports and imports with the partner are projected to reach about $850 million and more than $2.15 billion, respectively.

In the first nine months, bilateral trade turnover hit $2.28 billion, including $614 million worth of Vietnamese exports.

With over $153 million in foreign direct investment, Israel is Viet Nam's second-largest Middle East investor, following Turkey, and stands 44th among the 146 countries and territories investing in the Southeast Asian nation. Meanwhile, Vietnams investment in Israel has so far exceeded over $40 million.

Set to take effect in November, the Viet Nam-Israel Free Trade Agreement (VIFTA) is expected to enhance their bilateral trade and investment ties.

Speaking at a meeting with Vietnamese Ambassador to Israel Ly uc Trung on Monday, Israeli Minister of Economy and Industry Nir Barkat praised both sides for their seven-year efforts, which included 12 rounds of negotiations and a year of finalising legal procedures to bring the pact into force.

Barkat also highlighted the vast potential for cooperation in the Vietnamese market, which he considers a strategic gateway for Israel to access other Southeast Asian markets. Noting the prospect of establishing a direct flight route between the two countries, he pledged to support aviation businesses in realising this goal.

The whats good for Europe is good for Israel bill, which will take effect in early 2025, will align Israeli import standards for consumer goods with European Union regulations. Vietnamese exports to the EU have already met these standards under the EU-Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), positioning them for smoother entry into Israel once the VIFTA comes into effect.

Currently, Israel is Viet Nam's third-largest trading partner, fourth-biggest export market, and second-largest import market in the Middle East. Last year, bilateral trade stood at approximately $2.68 billion, with Vietnamese exports totaling $631 million.  VNS
PARIS  A Viet Nam-France Investment and Trade Promotion Seminar took place in Paris on Wednesday to strengthen connections between the Mekong Delta province of Long An and France.

The event was part of Long An's investment and trade promotion programme in Europe to seek collaboration opportunities.

At the event, vice chair of the Long An Peoples Committee Huynh Van Son spoke about the provinces trade achievements and advantages.

France ranks second in the European Union (EU) and the 12th out of 41 countries and territories worldwide in terms of investment in Long An, with 12 projects worth over US$161 million, operating mainly in shipbuilding and mineral water production, he said.

Son emphasised that France is currently the fourth-largest trading partner and the second-biggest investment partner of Viet Nam in the EU with many large investors and many projects across the Southeast Asian country.

Especially after the working trip of Party General Secretary and State President To Lam and a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation to France in early October, Viet Nam and France became comprehensive strategic partners, helping to firmly consolidate the foundations of the two countries relations, and explore new co-operation areas.

Son noted that the provincial delegations visit to France aims to build and develop co-operative relations with French localities and businesses in various fields, especially economic development.

Christophe Bellanger, vice president in charge of international affairs at the Paris - Ile-de-France Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI), said that the agency will help promote the potential of Long An and other Vietnamese localities to French businesses so that they can explore opportunities to invest or export their products to Viet Nam in general and Long An in particular.

Meanwhile, Secretary of the Long An Partys Committee Nguyen Van uoc said through the seminar, Long An wants to promote its image and introduce its planning, orientation, and priority investment areas to CCI Paris Paris - Ile-de-France and its members. Green and clean energy, industrial production, and hi-tech are potential areas for the two sides to co-operate.

Earlier, within the framework of a two-day working visit to France, the Long An delegation visited and worked at the Soletanche Freyssinet Group, which specialises in infrastructure construction. The company operates in more than 60 countries with 7,300 employees, implementing more than 10,000 projects each year.

In Viet Nam, Freyssinet participated in many large projects such as Thu Thiem 2 Bridge, My Thuan 2 Bridge, An ong Bridge, Bai Chay Bridge and Cua ai Bridge.

The Vietnamese delegation also visited and learned about the Metro Grand Paris Express construction project, a major project of the Paris Region to solve traffic problems in this large area.  VNS
HA NOI  In September, Viet Nam's exports of rattan, bamboo, sedge and carpet products totalled US$50.43 million, a 4.5 per cent decrease compared to last year, according to the General Department of Customs.

Cumulatively, exports of these products reached $594.8 million in the first nine months of 2024, a year-on-year increase of 10.3 per cent.

Regarding markets, the US remained Viet Nam's largest export destination for these products in the first nine months. Exports of these items to this country reached over $247 million, up 21.4 per cent year-on-year and accounting for 41.6 per cent of total exports.

In September alone, it generated nearly $20 million, an increase of 12 per cent compared to last year.

Japan ranked second, with $45.4 million in exports, a decrease of 11 per cent year-on-year, representing 7.6 per cent of the total.

The UK was the third-largest market for Vietnamese exports in this category, generating $31.6 million in the first nine months, up 8.9 per cent year-on-year and representing a 5.3 per cent share.

The UK is among the most crucial export markets for Vietnamese products and serves as their gateway to Europe.

The UK-Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement signed in May 2021 is an important continuation of trade facilitation between the two countries after the UK exited the EU.

The agreement has enhanced opportunities to export Vietnamese products through increased access to the UK market.

Positive signals from major markets including the US and the UK indicate that Viet Nams rattan, bamboo, sedge and carpet export industry is experiencing strong growth.

This development enhances economic value and contributes to promoting the country's image and strengthening the position of Vietnamese handicraft products on the international market.

Currently, Viet Nam is among the leading exporters of these type of products. Experts suggest that it is entirely feasible for Viet Nam to capture 10-15 per cent of the global market share in this field, with the country having an extensive bamboo area of up to 1.5 million hectares, spread across most provinces.

Out of 63 provinces, 37 have over 10,000 hectares dedicated to bamboo.

Viet Nam's bamboo resources are abundant and diverse, with hundreds of species, including economically valuable types.

The country is also home to over 1,000 traditional craft villages specialising in rattan and bamboo weaving, accounting for 24 per cent of the total craft villages.

According to the Forestry General Department, rattan and bamboo weaving represents the highest export value among non-timber forest products in Viet Nam.  VNS
A NANG  The establishment of a Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in a model of an integrated economic urban area linked to a deep-sea port, a logistics zone and a production, trade and service zone will help a Nang become a national and ASEAN regional centre of logistics and transhipment.

Vice chairman of the citys peoples committee Tran Chi Cuong made the pledge at the Forum on Free Trade Zone  a new driver of the development of a Nang Ciys logistics sector. He stressed the important role of logistics and multi-transport service, as well as an attractive target for global investment in the future.

Cuong said the city now has a green light from the National Assembly on urban governance and specific mechanisms-policies for the development of a Nang City, building it as a prototype of the first ever FTZ, before applying the model in other provinces and cities.

The city has been awarded advantage implementation rights in boosting dramatic economic growth in history, turning it into a key attraction of investment, logistics, production and export base for giant international investors and domestic groups, he said.

a Nang will take it all the way to accelerate the long-term economic growth on the basic power of the on-going construction Lien Chieu deep-sea port, airport logistics centre, and a series of industrial parks and inland depots.

Vice minister of Industry and Trade, Truong Thanh Hoai said the a Nang FTZ has been designed as a first sample, a magnet for attracting global investment and production, helping the citys logistics industry integrate deeper in the global logistics chains.

The city experienced stable growth from 2011-21, averaging between 7 to 9 per cent, responsible for a share from six to 9 per cent in the Gross Regional Domestic Product, he said.

a Nang has a natural advantage situated in an important gateway to international maritime routes, he said, adding that the city has developed a logistics ecology of more than 1,000 logistics service businesses.

Bui Quang Binh, a member of the a Nang FTZ consultancy group, said that the FTZ will be developed into a key base for foreign direct investors setting up their factories in related to global exports with available deep-sea port and airport logistics service.

Binh said global brand logistics groups including DHL, FedEx, DB Schenker are operating well in Viet Nam, but the a Nang FTZ should be luring them (logistics groups), expanding investment and logistic bases for global booming demands in the city.

Tran Thi Hong Minh, director of the Central Institute of Economic Management, suggested that the a Nang FTZ should look at low carbon, green and digital transformation technology industries for long-term sustainable development.

The city should streamline procedures in customs, administration and paperwork, giving priority to investment in hi-tech and renewable industries in the FTZ.

Deputy general director of a Nang Port joint-stock company Le Quang uc emphasised the important role of deep-sea ports in the development of the FTZ.

uc said the growth of the sea port service and logistics will be a key driving force for the FTZ because it was designed as a centre of export-related manufacture.

The under-construction Lien Chieu port should be included in the FTZ as the port will be a key transhipment site for the ASEAN and Asia Pacific region. The port will deliver smooth access to the global maritime route through east-west economic corridors that connect Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Viet Nam, he explained.

a Nang Port handled 750,000 TEUs per year, and it would receive 55 per cent of total commodities through the port in 2050.

Tran Quang Huy, from the Dubai-based DP World logistics company, said the a Nang FTZ will need infrastructure investment from the State agencies in creating smooth traffic, while customs procedures should be digitalised for investors and businesses.

Nguyen Nghiem, from the Mabuchi Motors company, said the a Nang FTZ needs an extraordinary investment policy and mechanism that make it different to the other regional FTZs.

The citys FTZ should call for investment from giant groups that would help attract the other suppliers in manufacturing. The FTZ could form a mega storage centre of material for production and emerging new investment and distribution chains, he said.

Our company, which invested in the city 20 years ago, often exports from 180 to 200 TEUs of local-made products, contributing to our production chains for 70 per cent of the global market, he added.

a Nang City has been looking for strategic investors with an investment fund from VN2 trillion (US$80 million) to VN8 trillion ($320 million) in the FTZ.

Different locations of key function sites including manufacturing and services, over an estimated area from 1,000ha to 1,500ha, are in the planning stage.

Vice chairman of the citys Peoples Committee Cuong said the FTZ project plan will be submitted to the Prime Minister for approval by the end of 2024, and the FTZ would be officially introduced in the first quarter of 2025.  VNS
HA NOI  The exhibition 'Ho Chi Minh's Footprints in China' showcases 200 documents and artefacts from President Ho Chi Minh's revolutionary career in China, showing the growing close friendship between the two countries.

It is not just an important collection of memorabilia about President Ho Chi Minh's time in China, but also an invaluable heritage, symbolising the passing of the partnership between Viet Nam and China.

The exhibition aims to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the day leader Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh) first set foot in China on his revolutionary journey (November 11, 1924) and the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Viet Nam - China diplomatic relations (1950-2025).

Director of the Ho Chi Minh Museum Vu Manh Ha said: "We believe that the exhibition is a practical cultural activity with wide influence, contributing to fostering Viet Nam - China friendship."

The exhibition is arranged in three parts, with Part I: 'Revolutionary Footprints  Source of Friendship', looking back at Nguyen Ai Quoc's early revolutionary career in China.

In the 1920s, he went to Guangzhou and Hong Kong to participate in the activities of the Communist Party of China and to build up the Vietnamese revolutionary forces.

"Throughout his revolutionary career, President Ho Chi Minh visited China many times, formed many lasting friendships with the Chinese people and left a profound impact," Ha said.

"Several places in China still bear his mark, serving as powerful symbols of the friendship between Viet Nam and China."

Part II is entitled 'Across the Land of China  Deepening Friendship' and on display, artefacts given as gifts by the leaders and people of China.

After the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, especially in the last years of his life, President Ho Chi Minh often visited China and worked with the leaders of the Chinese Party and State.

He also visited farms, factories, schools, scenic locations and resorts in China.

The final part, called 'The Footprint of Ho Chi Minh  The Eternal Friendship', offers a comprehensive view of the Viet Nam - China friendship, a relationship founded by President Ho Chi Minh and Chairman Mao Zedong and diligently nurtured over time, continuing to be inherited and developed by subsequent generations.

Today, the locations that take the strong footprint of President Ho Chi Minh's revolutionary activities in China are still preserved by the leaders of the Party, State and local governments, as well as the people of China.

These have become important sites for educating tradition and hosting exchange activities for the people of both countries, especially the younger generations.

The exhibition is on at the Ho Chi Minh Museum, 19 Ngoc Ha Street, Ba inh District, Ha Noi until the end of April 2025.  VNS
QUANG NINH  The northeastern province of Quang Ninh, home to Ha Long bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is actively working to reach its target of 19 million visitors in 2024, including 3.5 million international arrivals.

By the end of October, the province had welcomed 16.8 million visitors, with over 3 million from abroad, looking to an ambitious goal of around another 3 million by year-end.

Deputy Chairwoman of the provincial Peoples Committee Nguyen Thi Hanh asked the tourism sector to exert more efforts to achieve this goal, enhance its appeal through diverse events, popularise new products such as cruise and comprehensive travel packages to key destinations within the province. Since domestic tourism typically slows at the years end, the focus has shifted to increasing international visitors.

Positive signs are emerging from the Republic of Korea (RoK) and Chinas Taiwan markets, with numerous bookings for Ha Long Bay, approaching pre-pandemic peaks. The Chinese market, a significant source of tourism for Quang Ninh, is also showing potential. Chinese authorities may soon allow one-day tours to Mong Cai and resume the BeihaiHa Long cruise route.

According to Deputy Director of the province's Tourism Department Nguyen Lam Nguyen, on November 16, Quang Ninh is set to welcome its first international cruise ship from Beihai, China, with another scheduled on November 18, and more than 10 others are expected by year-end.

Additionally, a Vietnamese-Chinese transport venture is operating a bus route from China's Nanning to Bai Chay in Quang Ninh, facilitating greater visitor flow.

European and American visitor numbers remain low, influenced by regional conflicts, though interest in overnight cruises in Ha Long is increasing. Meanwhile, emerging markets such as India, the Philippines, and Malaysia are showing strong growth, suggesting continued demand in the upcoming months.

Quang Ninh is expanding its tourism offerings by opening three new beaches on Ha Long Bay, organising cultural performances within selected caves, and designating exclusive areas for ultra-luxury tourism.

With these efforts, the province remains optimistic about reaching its year-end visitor targets and further establishing itself as a premier destination in Viet Nam.  VNA/VNS
The draft Revised Law on Value-Added Tax (VAT) is scheduled for a vote in the National Assembly on November 26, proposing an increase the VAT rate on goods and services in the cultural sector from 5 to 10 per cent.

This change has raised concerns among lawmakers, who are urging the Government to reconsider. Bui Hoai Son, a Standing Member of the National Assemblys Committee for Culture and Education and an NA deputy representing Ha Noi, talked with the press about the tax rise.

What is your perspective on this change and how it might affect efforts to preserve and promote cultural values?

I believe that the VAT hike would severely hinder efforts to preserve and promote cultural values. Higher taxes will create financial challenges for cultural organisations, businesses and artists, making cultural products like books and music more costly and less accessible, particularly for low-income communities.

As cultural products become less affordable, fewer people will participate in cultural activities, leading to the fading of traditional values. This trend also weakens intergenerational ties and diminishes cultural expressions, such as festivals and folk arts, which are essential parts of national identity.

Additionally, the VAT hike would hinder cultural preservation projects, which often require significant funding. With higher tax burdens, securing sponsorships and partnerships becomes harder, risking the neglect of heritage sites that embody the nations rich legacy.

We need favourable tax policies that support cultural development rather than create barriers, ensuring that traditional values remain vibrant, rooted in everyday life, and a foundation for sustainable growth.

Reducing or exempting VAT for cultural products could lower costs and broaden access, allowing books, films and exhibitions to inspire and enrich lives instead of being luxuries.

By promoting public-private partnerships through favourable tax policies, we can attract private investment in culture. A collaborative cultural environment will generate meaningful products, ensuring a vibrant cultural foundation and inspiring future generations with a shared sense of pride and identity.

Given these concerns, what solutions might replace the tax increase while still supporting the budget and fostering cultural growth?

To promote cultural development without raising taxes, we need innovative and flexible solutions that support budget needs without placing a burden on cultural businesses and individuals. One key approach is to encourage private investment in culture through tax incentives for donations, fostering financial resources and stronger community ties that fuel cultural growth.

Another effective strategy is establishing cultural funds. These could be set up by the Government and NGOs, allowing donors to support heritage conservation, cultural events and arts projects. This creates stable funding while encouraging community involvement in cultural preservation.

Cultural tourism is also a valuable avenue. By launching cultural tourism programmes, we can attract local and international visitors, generating revenue for the budget while supporting heritage conservation.

Public-private partnerships can also be powerful, enabling joint sponsorships for festivals and major cultural events. This model reduces the governments financial burden while giving businesses a chance to strengthen their brands through cultural support.

Finally, increasing public awareness and education about culture is essential. When people understand the value of culture, they are more likely to contribute and engage, forming a strong social foundation for cultural development.

What tax incentives might help increase public access to cultural products and activities? Could you share any successful international examples?

Festivals, exhibitions and community programmes allow people to experience and connect with their culture. Imagine a country where concerts, plays and exhibitions are accessible to all, a society rich in unity and pride.

Exempting import taxes on technical equipment for the arts can boost the quality of cultural programmes, creating more memorable and impactful experiences for audiences.

Specific tax incentives for community art projects and cultural nonprofits are also essential. This support acts as an investment in lasting cultural values, turning art and culture into a bridge that enriches society. When cultural activities are free from financial barriers, they become a natural part of life, nourishing minds and fostering national pride.

Many countries have successfully used tax incentives to promote cultural growth and accessibility. Their strategies provide valuable insights for Viet Nam.

Canada, for instance, exempts many cultural products from taxes, including books and music, to foster creativity, which has led to a vibrant, internationally recognised culture.

Sweden has encouraged private investment in the arts by offering tax breaks and creating cultural funds. This approach has fostered a dynamic cultural environment, strengthening national identity and pride.

New Zealands flexible tax system for artists and creators has enabled the preservation and growth of Maori culture, adding to the countrys cultural richness and diversity.

Viet Nam could start by creating a clear legal framework for tax incentives, as stakeholders must understand the available benefits to feel motivated to invest in the sector.

Close collaboration between the government and the private sector is also vital, as partnerships can mobilise diverse resources to support cultural sustainability.

Lastly, its crucial to listen to the community. Forums and discussions with artists and businesses can help shape effective policies, ensuring that Vietnamese culture thrives as a source of national pride. VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nam considers the US a key strategic partner and prioritises expanding cooperation with the American country at the global, regional and bilateral spheres, with a higher degree of mutual understanding and trust, National Assembly Vice Chairman Nguyen uc Hai said.

During a reception in Ha Noi on Wednesday for California State Treasurer Fiona Ma and a delegation of California-based businesses, Hai said Viet Nam welcomes the USs efforts to strengthen cooperation with the Indo-Pacific, thereby making a more active contribution to regional peace, stability, cooperation and development.

Viet Nam hopes that through new strategies and initiatives, the US will continue to demonstrate a strong commitment to supporting ASEAN's central role, the ASEAN-US comprehensive strategic partnership, and the Mekong-US partnership, he said.

The comprehensive strategic partnership between Viet Nam and the US is poised to unlock new opportunities for deeper economic, trade, and investment cooperation, with a longer-term vision, larger scale, stronger ties, and higher quality and effectiveness, he noted.

"Viet Nam always strives to improve business environment, ensuring all possible support for businesses and investors, including those from the US," he said, wishing that the US would continue to support the maintenance of stable and long-term trade relations between the two countries.

As the comprehensive strategic partnership is expanding in a substantive and effective manner, Hai expressed a desire for their legislative bodies to further strengthen cooperation through dialogue mechanisms and policy exchanges at various levels, contributing to raising understanding and trust, and fostering friendship between their people.

According to him, Viet Nam attaches importance to cooperation with California, the leading economic, financial and sci-tech hub in the US. It is also home to a large Vietnamese community and a preferred destination for thousands of Vietnamese students.

Viet Nam and California still hold vast potential for further cooperation, particularly in sci-tech and innovation, he said.

Fiona Ma, for her part, vowed to further boost the friendly and effective cooperation with Viet Nam in areas where California excels, such as green growth, climate change mitigation, sustainable development, renewable and new energy.  VNS
LIMA  State President Luong Cuong had a meeting with President of the Supreme Court of Peru Javier Arevalo Vela in Lima on Wednesday morning (local time), within the framework of his official visit to the South American country.

Expressing his delight at his first trip to Peru and meeting with the highest-level leader of the judicial sector, Cuong congratulated Peru on becoming a Development Partner of ASEAN earlier this year as well as hosting APEC 2024 with a wide range of meaningful and important activities. He showed his belief that the APEC Economic Leaders Week will be a great success, contributing to enhancing the nation's role, position and reputation in the region and the world at large.

Highlighting the Vietnamese State leaders visit is taking place in the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic ties (November 14, 1994-2024), Javier Arevalo Vela said he believes the trip will contribute to consolidating and enhancing the two countries relations in the coming time.

Cuong said he is pleased with the positive developments of the two nations' relationship in all fields, especially in trade and investment. At present, Peru is Viet Nam's largest investment partner in Latin America, while the latter is the former's number one trading partner in ASEAN.

He said that in his visit, the two sides leaders will exchange specific measures to strengthen collaboration so as to create important momentum to lift the bilateral ties to a new height.

Regarding the judicial sector, the head of state highlighted that after 40 years of implementing the oi Moi (Renewal) process, Viet Nam has gained remarkable achievements in building a legal system and a rule-of-law state. However, in his capacity as head of the Central Steering Committee for Judicial Reform, Cuong said that Viet Nam needs to continue to promote the perfection of its legal system to meet the new situation and serve the country's development.

Recognising that in that process, learning and referring to the experience of international friends is very important, the State President showed his hope that in the coming time, the Vietnamese and Peruvian courts will have more cooperation activities and delegation exchanges to learn from each other's experience.

In addition, he proposed the Peruvian judiciary will actively create favourable conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to increase investment in the country, and coordinate with the Vietnamese side to strengthen coordination at inter-regional and international judicial forums.

Javier Arevalo Vela affirmed that Peru in general and its judicial sector in particular always attach importance to and are ready to promote cooperation and friendship with Viet Nam. He confirmed that his country consistently considers Viet Nam a leading important partner and a reliable bridge in its overall foreign policy in the East Asian region.

He proposed that the judiciaries of Viet Nam and Peru soon sign a cooperation document guiding specific collaboration activities in the coming time.

The chief justice affirmed that Vietnamese enterprises investing in Peru will always be protected by local law, and emphasised that cooperation between the judicial agencies of the two countries still has much room and potential, as Peru and Viet Nam are both law-abiding countries.  VNS
LIMA  Peruvian President Dina Ercilia Boluarte Zegarra hosted a solemn welcome ceremony for State President Luong Cuong and a high-ranking delegation from Viet Nam at the Government Palace (Casa de Pizarro) in Lima on Wednesday afternoon (local time).

This is the first-ever official visit to Peru by a Vietnamese State President. It takes place at a time when Viet Nam and Peru are celebrating their 30th anniversary of their diplomatic relations (November 14, 1994-2024). This is an important milestone, reflecting the positive development of bilateral relations from politics-diplomacy to economy-trade, a historic opportunity, and a driving force to further deepen the friendship and cooperation between the two countries.

Over the past three decades, despite the geographical distance, the two countries have made significant progress in promoting their political, diplomatic, economic, trade and investment relations. High-ranking leaders of the two sides have regularly held bilateral meetings and contacts on the occasion of attending international conferences. In addition, Viet Nam and Peru have established bilateral dialogue mechanisms, such as the political consultation at the deputy foreign minister level, the Intergovernmental Committee on Economic Affairs and Technical Cooperation at the deputy minister level. They have signed many agreements and memoranda of understanding on cooperation.

At multilateral forums, both Viet Nam and Peru are members of the United Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and the Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC).

Regarding economic, trade and investment cooperation, Viet Nam always considers Peru one of Viet Nam's important partners and leading investment destinations in Latin America. Bilateral trade reached nearly US$500 million in 2023 and nearly $300 million in the first seven months of 2024. The Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group (Viettel) and the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group have two investment projects in Peru with a total capital of $1.24 billion.

After the official welcoming ceremony, the two Presidents had a private meeting and then held talks to discuss measures to consolidate the foundation of good political relations between the two countries, enhance the effectiveness of cooperation in potential areas, and lift the relationship to a new height.

On the morning of the same day, President Cuong and the high-ranking Vietnamese delegation laid a wreath at the monument dedicated to Peru's heroes in the Heroes of Independence Park in Lima.  VNS
LIMA  Vietnamese State President Luong Cuong held talks with President of Peru Dina Ercilia Boluarte Zegarra in Lima on Wednesday afternoon (local time), with the framework of his official visit to the Latin American country.

The two leaders informed each other about the recent situation in their respective countries, and discussed directions and measures to further promote the bilateral friendship and multi-faceted cooperation, as well as international and regional issues of mutual concern.

Welcoming the President and the high-ranking delegation of Viet Nam, Dina Boluarte emphasised the special significance of the visit, as it marks the first official visit by the head of state to Peru on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations (November 14, 1994 - 2024). She expressed her belief that the trip will provide strong impetus to bring the bilateral ties into a new phase of greater and stronger development.

Describing Peru as a close friend and a key partner of Viet Nam in the Latin American region, Cuong emphasised that Viet Nam treasures the role and position of Peru and is committed to deepening the bilateral relationship in the coming time.

He affirmed that Viet Nam continues to implement a consistent foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, and multilateralism and diversification of international relations, including attaching importance to developing its friendship and cooperation with Peru.

The Vietnamese leader also congratulated Peru on hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum for the third time, expressing his confidence that the summit will be a great success and contribute to the development, integration, and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region, as well as further enhancing Peru's role and position.

Both leaders expressed their pleasure at the development of the bilateral relations, reflected through the continuous exchange of high-level visits and meetings via the Party, State, Government, National Assembly, and locality channels. They also emphasised the effective implementation of existing cooperation mechanisms, such as the Deputy Foreign Minister-level Political Consultation, the Intergovernmental Committee, and close and effective cooperation at multilateral forums.

The two sides also showed their satisfaction with the growth in bilateral economic and trade relations, despite the challenges posed by the global economic situation. Peru is currently Viet Nams sixth largest trading partner and the most important investment destination for Viet Nam in the Latin American region.

The Vietnamese President stressed that there remains significant potential for further cooperation between the two countries, especially with the advantage of many products benefiting from tariff exemptions as both countries are members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). He urged the Peruvian government to create favourable conditions and specific policies to help Vietnamese businesses cooperate and invest effectively in the country, contributing to its continued development and prosperity, for the benefit of its people.

Acknowledging the substantial contributions made by the Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group (Viettel) to Peru's sustainable development by creating jobs and improving living conditions of local people, Dina Boluarte affirmed that the Peruvian government will create favourable conditions for Viettel to expand its business activities in Peru through its Bitel telecommunications project, particularly in digital transformation projects and smart city development, among others.

She briefed the Vietnamese leader on Perus socio-economic development orientations and policies in the coming time, highlighting the significance of the Chancay port connecting Latin America with Southeast Asia via the Pacific Ocean that will be inaugurated during the APEC Economic Leaders Week. Dina Boluarte expected that Vietnamese businesses would invest in logistics, industrial, and technological development projects around the port.

As the two leaders affirmed their resolve to upgrade the bilateral ties, they reached consensus on bolstering cooperation across the areas of their strengths and interests such as economy-trade-investment, with a focus on opening markets for agricultural products, defence  security, agriculture, telecommunications, digital transformation, energy, education  training, and climate change response, culture, tourism and people-to-people exchanges. They were also unanimous to promote negotiations and sign bilateral collaboration documents to perfect the legal framework for the sustainable development of the relations.

The two leaders pledged to create favourable conditions for the business communities to increase bilateral trade turnover and agreed to enhance coordination, cooperation and mutual support at international organisations as well as inter-regional and multilateral forums.

Dina Boluarte also expressed her hope that Viet Nam will establish a diplomatic representative agency in Lima soon.

The two sides also exchanged their views on various regional and international issues of mutual concern and concurred to ensure the principles of the UN Charter, step up multilateral coordination, promote common values regarding peace, cooperation and settlement of disputes via peaceful means and based on the respect for international law.

President Cuong took this occasion to invite the Peruvian leader to pay an official visit to Viet Nam and the latter accepted the invitation with pleasure.

Following the talks, the two leaders announced the joint statement on strengthening the bilateral relations, witnessed the signing of trade promotion agreements, and met with the press.  VNS
LIMA  Peruvian President Dina Ercilia Boluarte Zegarra presented the Grand Cross of the Order of The Sun of Peru to State President of Viet Nam Luong Cuong at a ceremony held at the Casa de Pizarro, the Government Palace, in Lima on Wednesday afternoon (local time), following their talks the same day.

Addressing the ceremony, the host leader expressed her honour in awarding the prestigious order to Cuong, recognising his significant contributions to strengthening the friendship and cooperation between Peru and Viet Nam.

She emphasised that this high distinction reflects the Peruvian States appreciation and deep affection for the country and people of Viet Nam, particularly when the Vietnamese Presidents visit coincides with the 30th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic relations. The Peruvian President expressed her confidence that the relationship between the two nations will continue to be deepened in the future.

For his part, Cuong said he is moved to receive the Grand Cross of the Order of The Sun of Peru" on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic ties (November 14, 1994 - 2024) and his first visit to Peru, a country renowned for its beauty and hospitality.

The State leader of Viet Nam noted that the order is a special token of affection from the Peruvian State and people to Viet Nam, as well as to the friendship and cooperation between the two countries.

He described the order as a great encouragement for him to work even harder, alongside friends in Peru, to further develop the Viet Nam-Peru partnership, making it more substantive and effective towards new heights, for the benefit of the people of both nations as well as for peace, stability, and prosperity in the two regions and the world.

Cuong extended his heartfelt thanks to Peru for its support and solidarity during Viet Nams struggle for national independence and reunification. He expressed his belief that the two nations will continue to unite and support each other in the years to come, thus growing bilateral cooperation across all sectors, and contributing to the development goals of both countries for the prosperity and happiness of their people.  VNS
LIMA  Viet Nams State President Luong Cuong and his Peruvian counterpart Dina Ercilia Boluarte Zegarra shared the view on the development of the two countries relations, with increasing high-level dialogues and political trust, and progress in economic-trade ties, during their talks in Lima.

Speaking to the press following the talks on Wednesday afternoon (local time), the visiting Vietnamese leader congratulated Peru on assuming the role of APEC 2024 Chair and expressed his belief that the APEC Economic Leaders' Week will be a success, contributing to fostering cooperation and connectivity in the Asia-Pacific and elevating Perus role and position on the international stage.

Cuong said the two sides should make greater efforts as there remains significant untapped potential for economic cooperation, in both traditional spheres like oil and gas, mining, infrastructure, and agriculture, as well as emerging fields such as digital transformation, renewable energy, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), to which Viet Nam and Peru are signatories, provides a vital framework for even closer economic integration, he noted.

The State President emphasised that the two sides agreed on major directions and measures to further deepen bilateral relations across various fields. These include increasing high-level exchanges and meetings, strengthening cooperation mechanisms and legal frameworks, expanding diplomatic and consular presence, and facilitating business connections, trade and investment promotion, and transport and logistics links. They also consented to enhance cultural and educational collaboration, and people-to-people interactions.

According to Cuong, the two sides issued a joint statement on strengthening the Viet Nam-Peru relations, saying they now have the conditions necessary to advance their relationship to a higher level. With strong political determination, they will work together to soon announce the new framework.

He showed his confidence that this visit will provide momentum for the two countries friendly and cooperative relations to grow further, meeting the interests and aspirations of their people, and contributing to peace, cooperation, development, and integration between East Asia and Latin America.

Cuong used the occasion to invite the Peruvian President to visit Viet Nam in 2025, emphasising that the trip would mark another historic milestone in the bilateral relations.

For her part, Boluart affirmed that over the past three decades, the two countries have steadily strengthened their friendship and cooperation, as well as mutual understanding, built on consensus across a range of bilateral and multilateral issues.

They have become important partners of each other, the host leader stressed, saying she and the Vietnamese State President concurred to beef up and deepen the relations.

She said the two sides held important and productive discussions covering various bilateral cooperation areas, along with regional and international issues of shared concern. They also explored new avenues of cooperation for the benefit of both nations' people.

Following the talks, the host leader presented the Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun of Peru to the State President of Viet Nam.  VNS
LIMA  Viet Nam's State President Luong Cuong and President of the Congress of Peru Eduardo Sanjuana agreed on the need to strengthen parliamentary cooperation, a key pillar of the two countries' diplomatic ties, at their meeting in Lima on November 13 afternoon (local time).

Sanjuana stressed that Cuong's ongoing official visit to Peru is of great significance as it coincides with the 30th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties.

Cuong appreciated the solidarity and support of the Peruvian people for Viet Nam in its past struggle for national defence, as well as in the current cause of national construction and development.

The Vietnamese leader affirmed that Peru is one of Viet Nam's key partners in its overall foreign policy toward Latin America and noted confidence that his visit will provide momentum, ushering the relations into a new phase of stronger and more dynamic growth.

Congratulating Peru on its recent socio-economic achievements, the State President expressed his belief that the APEC Economic Leaders' Week 2024 hosted by the country will be a great success, contributing to promoting Peru's role, position, and reputation in the international arena.

Sanjuana also expressed his admiration for Viet Nam's remarkable socio-economic achievements in recent years, emphasising that thanks to the efforts and development aspirations of people and the sound leadership of generations of leaders, Viet Nam has overcome challenges to transform itself into a rapidly growing nation with sustainable social welfare policies and friendly and cooperative relations with other countries, including Peru.

The host leader said despite the geographical distance, the two countries share many similarities, and expressed his hope that they will enhance exchange, mutual consultation, and experience sharing across all areas in the time ahead.

Regarding parliamentary cooperation, both leaders emphasised the need to promote collaboration between the specialised agencies of the two countries' legislatures in various areas such as training and capacity building, along with the exchange of experience in research, policy advising, and organising parliamentary activities. They also consented to continue optimising coordination mechanisms at multilateral forums, such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and other multilateral parliamentary organisations, and to support each other's stance on regional and international issues of mutual concern.

On this occasion, President Cuong conveyed an invitation from National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man to the President of the Peruvian Congress to visit Viet Nam at an appropriate time.

Cuong said he hopes that the Peruvian Congress would take special interest in facilitating the implementation of Vietnamese investment projects in telecommunications and oil and gas sectors in the South American nation, contributing to both countries economic development.

The host leader affirmed that the Peruvian legislature fully supports and will work to create favourable conditions for the existing investment projects of Vietnamese enterprises in his country. He also called for more Vietnamese investments in Peru.

At the end of the meeting, in recognition of the Vietnamese State leaders contributions to the bilateral relationship over the past 30 years, the Peruvian Congress decided to award State President Cuong the Grand Cross Order of Honour, the highest honour of the Peruvian legislature for foreign leaders.

Cuong expressed his honour to receive the Order, affirming that this noble award demonstrates the importance the Peruvian legislature attaches to the bilateral relationship. He also described it as a very meaningful recognition of the development of the friendly and comprehensive relations between the two countries on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties.  VNA/VNS
HAI PHONG Party General Secretary To Lam has urged Bach Long Vi Island District to transform into a strategic fortress, safeguarding the Gulf of Tonkin, developing it into a leading fisheries logistics centre and a base for aquaculture and sustainable tourism.

The Party leader on Thursday visited the district as part of a working programme in Hai Phong City, surveying the lives of officials and residents in the nations most remote offshore island.

Bach Long Vi lies 15 nautical miles from the maritime boundary between Viet Nam and China, approximately 110km from Hon Dau (o Son, Hai Phong). Established in 1992 as part of Hai Phong City, the islands population primarily engages in fishing and fisheries logistics, with the islands harbours offering essential refuge for vessels during rough seas.

Over its 31-year development, Bach Long Vi has made substantial progress in Party-building, governance and community engagement, bolstered by investments in more than 60 infrastructure projects that have contributed significantly to socio-economic development, national defence and maritime sovereignty.

The islands essential services continue to improve.

Freshwater systems provide clean water for residents and offshore vessels, while power is generated by diesel, wind and solar sources totalling over five MW, ensuring stable supply and meeting energy needs for the next 10-15 years.

Industries on the island have shown steady growth, focusing on fisheries logistics, seafood processing, agriculture and gradually developing tourism. The districts armed forces have fulfilled their defence responsibilities under the guidance of local and central authorities.

Following reports from local leaders and armed forces on the islands development and protection, General Secretary Lam acknowledged the significance of visiting this remote outpost, commending the contributions of officials, soldiers, youth volunteers, and residents who have transformed Bach Long Vi from a barren island into a vibrant community with thriving infrastructure. This transformation, he said, reflects the spirit of volunteerism, dedication and close military-community bonds.

Citing the 8th Central Committee Conference on Viet Nams Marine Economy Development Strategy to 2030, with a vision to 2045, the Party leader reiterated Viet Nams goal to be a strong, prosperous maritime nation.

To this end, he called on Hai Phong City and Bach Long Vi District to develop specific plans to transform the island into a fortress safeguarding the Gulf of Tonkin, a centre for fisheries logistics and a base for aquaculture and tourism, in alignment with Politburo resolutions.

He recommended zoning the island for military, economic and ecological purposes to guide infrastructure investments in energy, transport, telecommunications, military facilities, fisheries, climate resilience and storm shelters, fostering the integration of socio-economic growth with national defence.

Bach Long Vi was also encouraged to bolster maritime security and defence capabilities, with cohesive defence arrangements among islands. Training and combat readiness should be prioritised, along with regular rescue exercises to maintain high preparedness levels among soldiers.

Hai Phong should establish Bach Long Vi as a bastion of political stability and social order, with the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Public Security, and other agencies tasked with developing integrated economic-defence strategies for the region.

The Party General Secretary underscored the importance of enhancing the islands vitality through tree planting, freshwater reservoir construction, environmental protection, and biodiversity conservation. He recommended initiatives to attract volunteers, educators and healthcare professionals to the island, strengthening social structures and solidarity among officials, military personnel, and residents. Improving the material and spiritual quality of life for the islands residents, he noted, is crucial to ensuring social welfare.

Regarding proposals for offshore wind power and land expansion, he urged the Government to direct relevant ministries and departments to assess and continue developing infrastructure for both military and civilian needs to meet socio-economic objectives and ensure maritime security.

For economic development, he reiterated the need to follow Resolution 45, issued on January 24, 2019, by the Politburo, which outlines Hai Phongs development through 2030 with a vision to 2045. He called for Bach Long Vi to become a leading fisheries logistics and rescue centre for northern Viet Nam, with a focus on high-end aquaculture and sustainable tourism tied to marine ecosystem conservation.

Earlier, General Secretary Lam met with residents, praising the unity and cooperation between the islands people and military in building a prosperous and secure outpost for the nation.

During his visit, the General Secretary and his delegation laid wreaths and offered incense at the Bach Long Vi Island Martyrs Memorial, presented gifts to personnel at Radar Station 27 and attended a groundbreaking ceremony for new facilities at the islands Military-Civilian Medical Centre. VNS
CA MAU  Ca Mau Province is boosting the development of a collective economy, especially co-operatives, to promote its potential and strengths for socio-economic development.

Under its plan of developing its collective economy in 2024-30, the southernmost province aims to develop 30 new co-operatives and 100 new co-operative groups next year, focusing on establishing agricultural co-operatives in new-style rural and advanced new-style rural communes.

It targets an average annual income of workers and members of co-operatives of more than VN50 million (US$2,500) in 2025 and for co-operatives to earn average annual revenue of VN1 billion ($40,000).

It aims for about 50 per cent of co-operatives to operate highly effectively and for 30 per cent of co-operative managers have certificates of tertiary education.

It also aims to increase the average co-operative membership from 15 in 2023 to 70 in 2030.

The province is mobilising more than VN726 billion ($29 million) from various sources to implement the plan of developing its collective economy in 2024-30.

Le Van Su, deputy chairman of the province's Peoples Committee, said the plan will strengthen the collective economy, especially co-operatives in various sectors, to attract farmers, households, companies and organisations to co-operate and develop production linkages.

The plan will improve State management of the collective economy and create favourable conditions for developing the sector, he said.

The Peoples Committee has targeted to develop the collective economy in general and co-operatives in particular in combination with meeting the demands of the market and implementing the national programme of building new-style rural areas and One Commune - One Product (OCOP) programme.

The province has more than 1,200 co-operatives and co-operative groups in various sectors.

In the agriculture sector alone, it has 187 co-operatives with more than 3,749 members and 939 co-operative groups.

Up to 77 per cent of its population live in rural areas.

Effective operation

Many co-operatives in Ca Mau have operated effectively and expanded their operations.

The Tan Hung High Productivity Shrimp Breeding Co-Operative in Cai Nuoc District has increased its members from 44 to 70 after establishing eight years ago.

The members breed 300ha of shrimp, including 50ha of super-intensive white-legged shrimp farming.

Huynh Xuan Dieu, director of the co-operative, said the initial successes of the co-operative are due to many factors, including the assistance of local authorities with advanced breeding techniques.

Water supplied for the co-operatives shrimp ponds is recycled and reused and this helps reduce production costs, he said, adding that the co-operative can breed four to five shrimp crops a year.

Many co-operatives in the province have average revenue of VN1 billion ($40,000) and a profit of VN300 million ($11,800) a year, according to the province's Co-operative Alliance.

The province has provided financial and other support to develop new co-operatives. These co-operatives have helped promote local specialty products, improving their value and income for local people.

In am Doi Districts am Doi Town, the Ca Mau Salt Co-operative was established with six members early this year. The town's Peoples Committee granted VN100 million ($4,000) for the co-operative to buy machines and facilities for production.

Tien Y Nguyen, director of the co-operative, said: I see shrimp and salt as two abundant products in the town and I have an idea of producing food made from them to develop their production and increase their value.

The co-operative specialises in producing products from salt and shrimp such as shrimp salt, red chilli salt, and green chilli salt.

Le Ngoc Lam, a worker of the co-operative, said: I have been working for the co-operative since its establishment and my work is packing products. My income is based on my work productivity.

Tran Quoc Tuan, deputy chairman of the town's Peoples Committee, said the co-operative has directly contributed to reducing poverty in the locality and created jobs for local people in their free time.

The co-operative is newly established but it secures stable product output and continues improving product quality, he said.

Co-operatives in the province have increased selling their products, especially those recognised under the OCOP programme, online through websites, social media and e-commerce platforms, and by introducing their products at tourism destinations.

After OCOP products are sold online, their sales have increased by 20 - 30 per cent compared to traditional sales, according to their producers.

The Tan Phat Loi Co-operative in Ngoc Hien Districts Tan An Tay Commune has set up its website to sell its products made from shrimp such as dried shrimp, shrimp salt, shrimp flake, shrimp chips and fermented sour shrimp.

Bui Van Chuong, its director, said online sales have helped the co-operatives OCOP products reach consumers more easily.

The co-operative sells 2-3 tonnes of products a month, with up to 90 per cent of them sold on the website, he said.  VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nam Authority of Information Security (AIS - under the Ministry of Information and Communications) on Thursday signed a cooperation agreement with the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA - under the US Department of Homeland Security).

The signing of this memorandum of understanding (MOU) marks the official partnership between the two agencies, with the aim of ensuring network security and contributing to the strengthening of the comprehensive strategic partnership between Viet Nam and the US.

It also demonstrates Viet Nams ongoing efforts to protect critical digital infrastructure and ensure a secure cyberspace.

At the ceremony, AIS acting director Tran Quang Hung underscored the importance of the partnership in enhancing Viet Nam's cybersecurity capacity.

Currently, cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated and unpredictable, he said.

Hung added that cooperation with an experienced organisation such as the CISA helps Viet Nam strengthen its ability to protect national interests and contributes to a safer and more prosperous future globally.

Trent Frazier, deputy assistant director of the Stakeholder Engagement Division at CISA, said that cooperation and collaboration are key to successfully protecting critical infrastructure and further enhancing cybersecurity capabilities.

The MOU is expected to strengthen the existing partnership between the US and Viet Nam, while also helping the US promote innovation and secure digital infrastructure as well as countering the growing cyber threats.

Both sides are committed to working together to realise the objectives set out in this MOU.

They also looked forward to a more sustainable and robust cooperation between the two cybersecurity departments, in line with the comprehensive strategic partnership between Viet Nam and the US.  VNS
BAKU  As countries around the world struggle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a group of four carbon-negative and carbon-neutral countries has launched a new forum at COP29, aimed at advancing global climate action. The initiative, called G-ZERO, was launched yesterday at the ongoing climate summit in Baku.

The founding members of the G-ZERO coalitionBhutan, Madagascar, Panama, and Surinameare among the few countries that have achieved status of being carbon neutrality or negative emissions.

Each has a proven track record of reducing emissions while promoting sustainable practices, with an emphasis on balancing economic growth and environmental responsibility.

The forums central goal is to prove that carbon neutrality is not only possible but essential, advocating for intensified climate action and greater international cooperation, particularly between developing and developed countries.

The term G-ZERO refers to a state where a countrys greenhouse gas emissions are fully offset by the amount it absorbs from the atmosphere, or where emissions are lower than absorption levels.

The G-ZERO initiative aligns with the Paris Agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and the world leaders Pact for the Future. It urges nations to increase their ambitions for cutting emissions in line with the 1.5 degree Celsius target by 2035 and to address the pressing planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, who is credited with founding the coalition, emphasised the strategic significance of G-ZERO at the launch.

The launch of G-ZERO is a historic milestone and a testament to the strength of global partnerships, the Prime Minister said. In the pre-industrial era, all nations had negative carbon footprints. Today, only a few of us remain carbon-neutral or negative. G-ZERO embodies the possibility of economic growth coexisting with environmental sustainability.

The Prime Minister said that carbon neutrality and negative emissions were not accidental but rather the result of intentional choices to conserve natural resources.

He called upon larger economies to recognise that smaller nations could set powerful examples of environmental stewardship: Our message is clearsmall nations can be leaders in sustainable growth. G-ZERO demonstrates that what we have achieved on a smaller scale is within reach for others as well.

The G-ZERO founding members also highlighted the urgent challenges that carbon-neutral countries face due to climate change, despite their negligible contributions to global emissions.

Leaders from the coalition shared the devastating impacts of climate change in their regions, from biodiversity loss to intensified natural disasters, and stressed the need for sufficient financial support to address these growing challenges.

In addition to advocacy, G-ZERO aims to foster mutual support among its members by sharing policy solutions, technical expertise, and sustainable strategies. The coalition calls for increased global funding for climate action, technology transfer, and inclusive policies that empower developing nations and protect vulnerable communities.

The launch of G-ZERO brought together heads of delegations from the four founding countries alongside high-level representatives from key partners, including the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the UN Secretary-Generals Office, Global Environment Facility, and Planet Labs, among others.

The founding members have extended an open invitation to other countries to join this coalition, encouraging global participation in the mission to create a truly carbon-neutral future.

The G-ZERO will operate with a rotating presidency, supported by a permanent Secretariat based in Bhutan.  KUENSEL/ANN
SEOUL  South Korea's National Assembly on Thursday passed a revision to permit undercover investigations of digital sex crimes targeting adults, in a move to curb the spread of deepfake sexual images rampant online.

At a plenary session of the 300-member National Assembly, the bill to revise the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes earned 272 votes in favour out of 273 lawmakers present.

The bill expands the range of undercover police investigations from those targeting children or juveniles to women of all ages.

A revision of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilisation and Information Protection also passed the parliament giving law enforcement the authority to request the deletion of deepfake sexual images to the Korea Communications Commission, the top media regulator.

The bill obtained 281 votes in favor, of all 281 lawmakers present.  THE KOREA HERALD/ANN
Climate change is one of the most urgent and complex issues of our times. The stakes are especially high for Vietnam, where coastal communities are increasingly susceptible to rising sea levels, storms like Septembers Typhoon Yagi, and the countrys agriculture sector is severely impacted by shifting rainfall patterns, among others. Addressing these concerns is crucial for the nation.

Thomas Jacobs, country manager for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos at the International Finance Corporation

With its goal of reaching high-income status by 2045, Vietnam has made strong commitments to reduce methane emissions by 30 per cent from 2020 levels by 2030, phase out coal power by 2040, and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Achieving these goals will require significant financial investments, estimated at $368 billion from 2022 to 2040 per the World Bank Groups Country Climate and Development Report for Vietnam.

This means around $20 billion per year in investments, with at least half of the funding expected to come from the private sector due to constrained public resources.

While climate finance is key to the countrys clean energy transition, progress has been slow. As of June 2024, only 5.4 per cent of the banking sectors credit balance was allocated to climate-related initiatives, around $27.6 billion and green bonds worth only $1.16 billion were issued between 2019 and 2023.

This can be attributed to several challenges, including the absence of a clear taxonomy, inadequate capital market infrastructure, and limited capacity of banks to finance green portfolios.

Against this backdrop, banks in Vietnam have a key role to play. While waiting for guidance from the government, it is imperative they are proactive and stay ahead in the emerging climate finance market. By doing so, banks can contribute to Vietnams green transformation and seize the new business opportunities that climate finance offers.

BUILDING CAPACITY

Equipping the domestic financial sector is key so that it can assess opportunities and roll out the instruments  from green and blue bonds to sustainability-linked and transition finance  that are needed to scale climate finance.

As a starting point, banks can set up their own systems and frameworks. While helping them align with international best practices, it will enable them to scale up their green finance portfolio. A framework refers to a set of policies, guidelines, and procedures that outline a banks approach to integrating climate finance and environmental, social, and governance considerations into its lending, investment, and risk management practices.

Such an approach, especially in the absence of a national taxonomy, will allow banks to balance sustainability goals and economic targets, align internal performance with public commitments of greening the economy, and guide credit decisions. Also, banks will be able to define eligibility criteria for green projects while referring to other taxonomies such as ASEAN taxonomy, the International Capital Market Association guidelines, and using common frameworks of multilateral development banks. Going forward, this will help local banks to adjust and adapt quickly once an official taxonomy is in place.

From developing sustainable finance frameworks to boosting green finance capacity through training, in partnership with the Australian government, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) is already technically supporting several banks including ACB, OCB, HDBank, and VPBank in Vietnam depending on their needs, setting a trend.

RISK MANAGEMENT

As banks prepare to scale up their green lending operations, it is crucial they upgrade their internal procedures to monitor new types of climate risks  transition and physical. The first includes risks related to policy shifts, technology changes, and others, and the latter includes risks related to extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, and landslides.

By establishing clear metrics for assessing the environmental impact of their loans, banks can ensure their funding is channelled towards projects that genuinely contribute to decarbonisation and sustainability. Additionally, identifying potential areas of risk early on will allow them to take proactive measures to tackle any unexpected challenges.

Such a systematic approach not only facilitates effective scaling of green financing but also ensures banks can drive their growth strategy in the right direction, enhancing the overall impact of green financing, not only towards environmental sustainability but also in terms of the banks bottom line.

For instance, Amsterdam-based ING was one of the five international banks in 2018 that pledged, along with BBVA, BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, and Standard Chartered, to develop an open-source methodology to gradually align their lending portfolios with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

By partnering with various climate think tanks, the bank developed the Terra approach, which combines a portfolio-level approach to the carbon-intensive sectors to measure and steer their loan book towards preset decarbonisation targets. In 2022, the bank successfully mobilised 101.3 billion ($109 billion) to support clients transition to sustainable business models.

DIVERSIFICATION OF FUNDING

Tapping into new funding sources can help alleviate the funding pressure on Vietnams traditional loan markets. By diversifying financing instruments, banks can mobilise new sources of capital and spread the risk associated with funding green projects. A strategic expansion of capital markets can foster a more robust and flexible financing landscape, vital for Vietnams climate and sustainability goals.

Sustainable bonds are a good example. They are financial instruments which raise funds specifically for projects with environmental or social impact. In Indonesia, the IFC invested up to approximately $200 million in the countrys first privately placed sustainable bond. This was the nations first gender bond, setting an example for future gender and green finance markets.

Similarly, the IFC supported BDO and TTB in the Philippines and Thailand, respectively, on their inaugural blue bond issuances. In Vietnam, the IFC has played a crucial role in introducing sustainable bonds to local financial institutions. This includes the collaboration with SeABank to launch the first-ever blue bond in the country.

Another new funding avenue gaining traction are green deposits, where banks commit to channelling capital into environmental-friendly projects. Globally, several banks offer this product. In Vietnam, BIDV became the first local bank to offer a green deposit product. By August 2024, in just over two months since the launch, BIDV successfully raised $200 million equivalent in green deposits.

Development finance institutions (DFIs) play an important part in creating markets, especially with those committing to increase their climate and green lending in emerging markets. For the IFC, we committed ourselves to align 85 per cent of all new investments starting July 2023  and from July 2025 to align 100 per cent with the Paris Agreement. As Vietnam focuses on green transformation, DFIs, along with foreign investment flows, can play a pivotal role in providing funding for green projects.

Climate change is one of the defining challenges of our time, and Vietnam has prioritised sustainable development as central to its path towards a more resilient and greener future. Given the critical role the banking sector has in channelling capital to productive, green and sustainable investments, we are all banking on banks to step up and help lead the way.

Green consumption trends on the rise in Vietnam Green consumption is rapidly gaining momentum in Vietnam thanks to increased awareness of environmental protection and sustainability, impacting consumer purchasing habits and presenting both opportunities and challenges for businesses, particularly small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Sustainability commitment deemed key for businesses to break barriers Pioneering companies from various sectors shared their journey in spearheading green and digital transformation at a VIR sustainable development conference on November 12.
According to Bui, dual transition will present many challenges, but it will also create new opportunities and momentum for businesses.

Truong Bui, partner, general director of Roland Berger Vietnam

For large companies, digital transformation is more manageable due to dedicated budgets and clear corporate strategies. For small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the dual transition remains a challenge, Bui remarked.

However, Bui advised SMEs not to view energy transition as an insurmountable task, but rather to leverage available resources within their value chain.

In terms of digital transformation, companies should start by identifying current bottlenecks and finding solutions for the most basic issues. By adopting renewable energy and integrating digital tools, businesses can transform themselves, he explained.

He added, Clear vision and direction in digital transformation are essential for companies to capitalise on emerging opportunities.

With this integrated dual approach, Vietnam can strengthen its position as a prime destination for high-quality foreign direct investment (FDI), signalling a strong commitment to sustainable, tech-driven economic growth.

This strategy will also allow Vietnam to elevate its place in the global value chain, further solidifying its competitive edge in the international market.

Bui noted that the Vietnamese government is advancing renewable energy through the Direct Power Purchase Agreement, an important step towards a competitive electricity market. This allows manufacturers to select green energy providers, addressing the growing global demand for sustainability. Meanwhile, foreign-invested enterprises are embracing digitalisation, and incorporating advanced technologies like AI and automation to boost operational efficiency.

Leading foreign companies such as Samsung exemplify this dual transition, combining renewable energy sourcing with digital transformation efforts, Bui continued. These initiatives align with Vietnams economic goals, positioning the country as a top destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) that prioritises sustainability and innovation.

When asked about recommendations to attract more FDI through the dual transition, Bui highlighted five key elements, including encouraging green investment, strengthening digital infrastructure, streamlining regulatory frameworks, promoting public-private partnerships (PPPs), and focusing on skill development

Implementing policies and incentives foster FDI attraction in renewable energy and sustainable technology. Meanwhile, investing in robust digital infrastructure, including high-speed internet, cloud computing, and cybersecurity helps to support digital transformation initiatives. Additionally, when simplified and harmonised regulations take effect, foreign investors will adopt green and digital technologies more easily, Bui suggested.

And of course, it is non-negotiable when talking about promoting PPPs since they boost collaboration between government, local businesses, and multinational corporations to drive innovation and facilitate knowledge transfer. The final recommendation sticks with workforce capability, as only skilled workers can support the green and digital transition.

VIR sustainable development conference opens in Hanoi VIRs annual sustainable development conference, themed Taking the Lead in Dual Transition for a Greener Vietnam, opened at the Pullman Hanoi Hotel on November 12. The event brings together key stakeholders to explore innovative solutions for achieving Vietnam's dual transition of green and digital transformation.

Takeda honoured for contributions to Vietnam's sustainable development With over a decade of groundbreaking innovative solutions in Vietnam's pharmaceutical sector, Takeda has been recognised for its contribution to sustainable development.
What do you think are the key nutritional challenges of Vietnam?

Vietnam has considered food security, defined as accessibility and affordability of food, a national priority for decades, resulting in greatly increased food availability and affordability, and contributing to Vietnams overall progress in improving its populations health.

Corine Tap, president of FrieslandCampina Asia

However, stunting or chronic malnutrition remains a key concern, as Vietnam is among 34 countries globally facing the highest burden. It has 1.8 million children under five years old who suffer from the condition and are at risk of permanent physical and brain damage. It shows that Vietnams nutritional security - access to safe, nutritious, and affordable food that enables people to live a healthy life - has not benefitted the country equally.

The recently completed Southeast Asia Nutrition Survey, a study of nearly 14,000 children aged six months to 12 years that we conducted in collaboration with universities and institutions in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, highlights an important issue known as the triple burden of malnutrition. This is the coexistence of undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and being overweight or obese.

The study shows that stunting and anaemia affect 10 and 24 per cent of children, respectively. Being overweight or obese affects over 30 per cent of children aged 7-12 years. Calcium and vitamin D deficiency occurs in over 70 per cent of children aged six months to 12 years in Vietnam.

This triple burden is clear evidence of nutritional insecurity, and makes it a matter of great importance to fill nutritional gaps with proper nutrition interventions and nutrition.

What are the solutions that both government and businesses should and can provide to improve nutritional security?

In its national nutrition strategy, Vietnam set the ambition that by 2045 every citizen will achieve their optimal nutritional security, and all nutrition-related non-communicable diseases will be under total control.

To improve nutritional security, policymakers and businesses should focus on the following two critical tasks: accessibility and availability of affordable nutritious products and a whole-of-society approach requiring stronger collaboration among governments, non-governmental organisations, businesses, and society.

As I understand, these angles are also in alignment with the key tasks that the national strategy has urged relevant government agencies to implement, namely enhancing nutrition education and communication, including among school children; and enhancing inter-agency collaboration for better results; and enhancing nutrition interventions including improving quality of meals, ensuring food security and nutritional security.

How can FrieslandCampina in Vietnam help in this regard?

To achieve this goal, we have been focusing on technical and scientific collaboration with relevant Vietnamese agencies in the area of dairy and nutrition. The study that I mentioned earlier is an example of this.

Secondly, technical assistance to produce the best quality milk. Our Dairy Development programme, established in the 1990s in Vietnam, has worked and engaged with over 2,500 dairy farms across the countries, and provided technical training and assistance to many farms. This investment not only helps local dairy farms produce better milk quality, as good as our global Dutch quality standards, but also contributes to higher incomes and better livelihoods.

Thirdly, real nutrition accessible to and affordable for every Vietnamese. As mentioned, the nutrition burdens make it a matter of great importance to fill nutritional gaps for Vietnamese generations, and dairy is a part of the solution. We have been proudly serving Vietnamese consumers for over 27 years, and commit to offering a wide range of choices of real nutrition, in which the new Dutch Lady 180ml pack offers a high value of nutrition at the most affordable price, and is accessible for every Vietnamese.

Finally, under a strategic partnership with the Ministry of Education and Training, we have developed a digital curriculum on nutrition education, which equips millions of primary students with the fundamental understanding about nutrition and the importance of real milk.

We also invest in mass communication to raise awareness among Vietnamese mums of the benefits of real nutrition to help them develop good nutrition consumption habits, needed for the childrens long-term development.

What difficulties do you foresee during such a journey, and how do you personally maintain a balanced nutrition regime?

Vietnam has set the right ambition and actions for its nutrition strategy and vision. The most important task now is to quickly implement it on a larger scale for greater impact.

That will require all relevant stakeholders in Vietnam  the government, nutrition businesses, and communities - to accelerate collaboration so that Vietnamese people, especially younger ones, can have access to good quality nutrition needed for physical and mental development for generations to come.

As for myself, I love my job, but I am also a mother of four. Therefore, work and life balance is very to me. I have no special nutrition secrets. As I work for a nutrition and dairy company, milk is something I cant do without. I also love cheese, which is a good source of protein for maintaining your muscle mass.

Also, regular exercise for one or two hours helps as well. I aim for a balanced nutrition and exercise lifestyle, in harmony with my work schedule, as it is good for my physical and mental wellbeing.

FrieslandCampina Vietnam introduces nutritional solutions for childrens breakfasts FrieslandCampina Vietnam, which produces the Dutch Lady, Friso, Fristi, and Yomost brands, has introduced nutritional improvement solutions for Vietnamese childrens breakfasts.

Dutch Lady promotes its nutrition mission in Vietnam Vietnam has set the right ambition and actions for its nutrition strategy and vision. The most important task now is to quickly implement it on a larger scale for greater impact. President of FrieslandCampina Asia Corine Tap spoke with VIRs Thanh Dat about the companys mission as a world-leading nutrition company through its many brands familiar with Vietnamese consumers including Dutch Lady, Yomost, Friso, and Fristi.
According to Hanoi People's Committee, the competition has been underway since mid-October, with the final round scheduled for November 16.

The competition is open to officials, civil servants, public employees, and workers currently employed in departments, agencies, district, town, and commune-level people's committees across Hanoi.

This years competition aims to identify groundbreaking initiatives and solutions for administrative reform with practical potential for pilot implementation and replication throughout the city. It offers an opportunity to encourage creativity among public servants, raise citizens' awareness of administrative reform efforts, and inspire innovation, as well as the proactive involvement of individuals and collectives in the modernisation of administrative governance.

Photo: Phuong Linh

The competition also seeks to improve key indices such as the Administrative Reform Index, Public Administration Satisfaction Index, and Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index. These indices are vital measures to assess the effectiveness of reform efforts and, by extension, enhance the quality of public services for both citizens and businesses.

The final round will be held with practical and effective criteria, ensuring transparency and an objective evaluation process. Six teams, having advanced from the preliminary round with the most outstanding ideas and solutions, will compete.

Each team will have 10 minutes to present their ideas in various formats, followed by five minutes to answer questions from the judges.

Awards will be given in two categories: individual and group entries. For individuals, there will be one first prize, two second prizes, three third prizes, and five commendation prizes. For group submissions, the best teams will be awarded one first prize, one second prize, and one third prize.

The People's Committee has made significant efforts to accelerate administrative reform, aiming to build a modern, democratic, and transparent administration. The city views administrative reform as a critical breakthrough, and a key driver of government efficiency, with a focus on citizen and business satisfaction as a key indicator of the quality and effectiveness of governmental operations.

Through the 2024 competition, Hanoi reaffirms its commitment to stronger administrative reform, contributing to economic and social development and striving towards a government that is more responsive to the needs of citizens and businesses.

The winning initiatives are expected to boost quality and efficiency of one-stop-shop models at all levels, enabling online public services. In addition, they are expected to promote new solutions to improve the effectiveness of the enforcement of legal documents and the feasibility of laws in the city, thereby promoting investment attraction.

Hanoi pilots electronic health record solution Hanoi has announced plans to implement an integrated electronic health record system, scheduled to begin in November.

Hanoi targets digital and high-tech investment with upcoming event Hanoi is enhancing efforts to attract investment in digital technology, high technology, and electronic industry products, along with related ecosystems through the Hanoi Digitech 2024 event set to take place in the capital city.
Representatives from Frasers Property Vietnam, local authorities and the school leaders cut the ribbon to inaugurate the computer lab at Phu My Secondary School, Binh Duong province

As part of its community investment initiative, the company donated 49 desktop computers and desks, with a total investment of VND700 million ($30,000). Employees from Frasers Property Vietnam also volunteered to renovate the computer lab, creating a conducive learning environment to improve students' access to information technology and foster digital literacy among the schools nearly 2,500 students.

Edwin Tan, deputy CEO of Frasers Property Vietnam and managing director for Industrial & Logistics in Southeast Asia, shared at the event, Frasers Property strives to contribute positively to the community wherever we operate.

The initiative aligns with the Singapore-headquartered Frasers Property Groups purpose: Inspiring experiences, Creating places for good. In Vietnam, Frasers Propertys community investment focuses on three core areas: Environment, Health and Wellbeing, and Education.

Through its education-focused initiatives, Frasers Property Vietnam aims to promote creativity and innovative solutions while nurturing talent to enhance societal resilience for the future.

Nguyen Thanh Triet, deputy manager of the Education and Training Department of Thu Dau Mot city, praised Frasers Propertys tangible contributions to education in the province. This initiative exemplifies how businesses can make a meaningful difference in the lives of young people and contribute to overall social development. It reflects the companys high sense of responsibility and serves as a great motivation for the younger generation, helping to create a brighter future, said Triet.

Pham Thi Bich Thuy, principal of Phu My Secondary School, expressed gratitude for the support. We are deeply touched by Frasers Propertys generosity. In todays digital age, equipping our students with computers is essential. These devices will help our students develop critical digital skills, foster independent thinking and creativity, and ultimately enhance the quality of education at our school, she said.

Creating a positive social impact

Frasers Property Vietnam continues to deepen its efforts in creating social value through expanding partnerships with tenants, partners, employees, and communities. The company mobilises employee volunteers for various causes, while encouraging partners and members of the public to join in initiatives to benefit the community.

In collaboration with longstanding partners such as the Vietnam Red Cross Society and the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee, Frasers Property has supported blood donation drives and provided financial assistance to families in need.

The company has also demonstrated its commitment to environmental sustainability through initiatives such as planting 1,100 trees at Cuc Phuong National Park, promoting greater awareness of sustainability. Additionally, Frasers Property has partnered with the NGO Saigon Children to invest in community education by providing laptops to disadvantaged students.

Frasers Property commemorates Frasers Community Month annually, rallying employees to contribute time and resources to support causes and beneficiaries across various communities.

Frasers Property Vietnam has been consecutively recognised as one of the top 40 sustainable businesses for the community by Saigon Times Magazine in both 2023 and 2024. This accolade underscores the companys commitment to sustainability and its contributions to the environment, health, and education.

Extensive operations in Vietnam

Frasers Property Limited is a multinational investor, developer, and manager of real estate products and services across the property value chain. Listed on the Main Board of the Singapore Exchange, the Group had total assets of approximately S$39.6 billion as of September 30, 2024.

In Vietnam, Frasers Property has a well-diversified portfolio across multiple asset classes. Its signature commercial developments include Melinh Point, a Grade A boutique office building in Ho Chi Minh Citys District 1, and Worc@Q2, a modern serviced office within the luxury mixed-use development Q2 Thao Dien in Thu Duc city.

The company is also expanding its industrial portfolio with nearly one million square metres of international-grade, green-certified industrial facilities in strategic locations across northern and southern Vietnam, supporting the countrys growing manufacturing economy.

Frasers Hospitality maintains a strong presence in Vietnam with properties such as Fraser Suites Hanoi, Fraser Residence Hanoi, and Modena by Fraser Vinh Yen in Vinh Phuc province, catering to Vietnams evolving needs in high-quality accommodation.

SPX and Frasers Property Vietnam open automated sorting centre in Binh Duong SPX and Frasers Property Vietnam started construction on a modern automated sorting centre for the southern province of Binh Duong on July 16.

Lower competitiveness affecting Vietnam's industrial parks The competitiveness of industrial parks in Vietnam is currently weak, at the same time as most need to evolve into specialised or green-oriented facilities.
HSBCs first green trade facility in the Vietnamese seafood industry

This marks the first green facility that HSBC Vietnam has arranged for Vinh Hoan, and also for the seafood sector, demonstrating the bank's support for the Vietnamese seafood producer on its sustainability journey.

As a tropical country with a coastline covering over 3,000 km and home to more than 1,300 seafood species, Vietnam has the advantages and potential for a prosperous seafood sector. The industry accounts for nearly one quarter of agricultural GDP, while Vietnams seafood industry is the worlds third largest exporter by turnover, and the fourth largest by output. However, Vietnams strengths in the seafood industry could rapidly diminish, as Vietnam is one of the top five countries likely to be adversely affected by climate change.

Dealing with climate change and protecting our economy from its impacts, including the seafood industry, is a priority for HSBC in Vietnam," shared Ahmed Yeganeh, head of wholesale banking at HSBC Vietnam. It is central to our strategy to support corporates in Vietnam who have a clear sustainability vision and plan like Vinh Hoan. As a strategic partner with a relationship spanning 24 years, HSBC is delighted and proud to be accompanying Vinh Hoan in its pursuit of a circular economy, transforming and inspiring others to join the green transition.

To receive short-term green trade loans to support working capital for sustainable seafood production, Vinh Hoan and its subsidiaries have gone through HSBCs stringent credit approval and management process for sustainable financing. The green facility must also meet the high standards listed under the international Green Loan Principles, jointly issued by Loan Market Association and Asia Pacific Loan Market Association.

Nguyen Ngo Vi Tam, CEO of Vinh Hoan, said, Vinh Hoans pursuit of a circular economy in aquaculture production for years, which enables value chain optimisation, waste minimisation, and value creation from by-products and substandard products, as well as our international certifications from the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, and Best Aquaculture Practices, are the catalysts that backed our success to achieve HSBCs green trade financing. I hope this first step will pave many more sustainable collaborations between both organisations.

Healthcare firm 315 Medical signs MoU with HSBC to improve services 315 Medical and HSBC, through its Hong Kong office, signed an MoU on August 2 to explore support for Vietnamese healthcare services.

Vietnam's 2024 GDP growth forecast raised to 7 per cent According to a report released by HSBC on October 11, Vietnam recorded stronger-than-expected growth in the third quarter of 2024, with GDP rising 7.4 per cent on-year.
Kyokuyo has completed its $13.5 million seafood factory in Vietnam. Photo: Kyokuyo

The move aims to accelerate production overseas and diversify risks of dependence on processing facilities in China.

With an investment capital of $13.5 million, this is the first facility of the Japanese seafood giant in Vietnam. The facility specialises in producing fillet, boiled fish, grilled fish, and processed crab products, among others.

The factory is slated to be put into full operation in February 2025 with an estimated output of 5,000 tonnes.

The investment is part of the companys new medium-term business plan, Gear Up Kyokuyo 2027. As part of this plan, Kyokuyo is ramping up expansion and business activities overseas to expand its platform.

Most of the products produced at the new factory will be exported to Japan. The company aims to diversify its seafood and frozen food processing facilities, which are mainly concentrated in China.

Kyokuyo is weighing a plan to develop a second factory in Vietnam as a manufacturing base in Southeast Asia to capitalise on the increasing demand for seafood, driven by increasing incomes and health awareness.

Japanese investors pour over 1.3 billion USD into Ha Nam The Management Board of Industrial Parks in the northern province of Ha Nam on August 30 held a meeting with Japanese enterprises that are investing in industrial parks in the province.

Japanese players take domestic demand into account Japan remains in the top five largest foreign direct investors in Vietnam so far this year. Matsumoto Nobuyuki, chief representative of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) in Ho Chi Minh City, talked to VIRs Bich Ngoc and gave his assessment on capital flows from Japan to Vietnam.
Ha Thu Thanh, chairwoman, the Vietnam Institute of Directors (VIOD)

Vietnams Stock Market Development Strategy, approved under Decision No.1726/QD-TTg on December 29, 2023, outlines a clear target: raising corporate governance standards above ASEAN regional averages by 2030. This goal reflects the countrys commitment to building a robust and sustainable capital market. However, achieving this target will require a focused effort, as Vietnams corporate governance scores remain among the lowest in ASEAN, recording just 57.6 out of 130 points in 2022.

The 2024 evaluation of the Vietnam Listed Companies Awards (VLCA) highlights progress in corporate governance among listed companies. These improvements indicate that efforts to enhance transparency and accountability are gaining traction. However, the preliminary results of the 2024 ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard (ACGS) reveal that Vietnam continues to lag behind the regional average. This gap underscores the need for coordinated efforts from individual companies and the broader market to drive meaningful change.

As the technical partner for corporate governance evaluations in Vietnam for both VLCA and ACGS, the Vietnam Institute of Directors (VIOD) stresses the importance of moving beyond a compliance-only approach. Doing the minimum required by law is insufficient to meet the challenges of todays competitive and dynamic global environment. Companies must strive for best practices as outlined in Vietnams Corporate Governance Code, adopting standards that go beyond compliance to ensure comprehensive and effective governance.

A fundamental starting point for advancing corporate governance lies in reshaping the mindset and understanding of corporate leaders, including board members and executives. Boards of directors have a central role to play in ensuring that corporate strategies are designed and executed with transparency, efficiency, and sustainability. This requires boards to move away from short-term thinking and focus on long-term value creation.

To achieve this shift, corporate governance and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations must be embedded into companies annual strategies. For example, as part of their 20242025 development plans, companies should establish clear ESG objectives that are actively discussed and monitored at board meetings. This approach ensures that governance and sustainability become integral to decision-making processes rather than secondary concerns.

Furthermore, this commitment must extend throughout the organisation, from the board to executive management and operational teams. Consistent actions on governance and ESG issues across all levels are essential for fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.

Corporate governance must evolve beyond written policies and declarations. Effective governance requires clear regulations and processes to ensure implementation. A cohesive governance structure linked to risk management is vital for ensuring accountability, transparency, and resilience.

Governance practices should be embedded at every level of management, with detailed procedures in place to identify, assess, and mitigate risks. These measures must flow from the executive level down to the operational front lines, creating an organisational culture that prioritises transparency and accountability.

Financial transparency is a particularly critical area of focus. Building investor trust and enhancing competitiveness depends on clear and reliable financial reporting. Vietnam must accelerate the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) to improve the quality and consistency of financial disclosures. Additionally, integrating English-language disclosures into reportingrather than merely translating from Vietnameseis vital for aligning with global practices and meeting the expectations of international investors.

Achieving these ambitious governance goals requires a supportive regulatory environment and capacity-building initiatives from policymakers. Clear and consistent guidance from regulators is essential to help companies navigate the complexities of adopting international standards. In addition, corporate governance training and capacity-building programmes are critical to equipping business leaders with the knowledge and skills needed to implement best practices effectively.

Regulatory bodies also play a key role in creating an environment that incentivises adherence to high standards. For instance, recognising companies with exemplary governance practices can encourage others to follow suit. At the same time, providing technical support and resources to struggling companies can help bridge the gap between compliance and best practice.

Vietnamese companies must prioritise financial transparency as a cornerstone of their governance frameworks. Reliable financial reporting enhances investor confidence and positions companies as credible participants in the global market. The adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards, coupled with improved English-language reporting, will bring Vietnamese companies closer to international standards.

To ensure meaningful improvements in financial transparency, companies must go beyond meeting basic requirements. They should invest in technology and processes that enhance the accuracy and accessibility of financial data. Additionally, regular training for finance and accounting professionals can help maintain the quality and integrity of financial reporting.

The development of strong governance frameworks is integral to achieving Vietnams aspirations for sustainable growth. These frameworks must be designed to address both internal and external challenges. Internally, companies should focus on creating structures that foster accountability and efficiency. Externally, aligning with international best practices is critical for competing in a global market.

A robust governance framework should also include mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation. Boards of directors must play an active role in overseeing governance practices and ensuring alignment with organisational goals. Periodic reviews of governance policies and processes can help identify areas for improvement and ensure that companies remain responsive to changing market conditions.

VIOD, in partnership with the International Finance Corporation and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, is collaborating with the State Securities Commission and stock exchanges to support corporate governance reforms. These efforts include training programmes, advisory services, and capacity-building initiatives designed to help companies adopt international standards, improve governance processes, and enhance transparency.

44 listed companies in Vietnam excelling in information transparency for 2024 will be honoured at the 17th annual Vietnam Listed Companies Awards (VLCA) ceremony, set to take place at the Merperle Dalat Hotel on November 16, 2024. The VLCA, an extension of the Vietnam Annual Report Awards, is co-hosted by the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange, Hanoi Stock Exchange, and VIR, with exclusive sponsorship from Dragon Capital. Supported by professional partners like ACCA, VIOD, IFC, and leading audit firms PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and EY, along with information from the State Securities Commission and both stock exchanges, VLCA 2024 results affirm the evaluation's accuracy and objectivity. Now in its 17th year, VLCA continues to support Vietnams stock market and listed company community.

(*) Ha Thu Thanh, chairwoman, the Vietnam Institute of Directors (VIOD)

Hanoi to host forum on corporate governance The 2023 Corporate Governance Forum on November 22 will feature the participation of representatives from banks, publicly listed companies, and associations.

SABECO receives VIOD certificate for corporate governance best practices Saigon Beer - Alcohol - Beverage Corporation (SABECO) has been honoured as having a Board of Directors that is committed to corporate governance best practices by the Vietnam Institute of Directors (VIOD).

Vietnam Wafer bolsters corporate governance and sets strategic course for growth Vietnam Wafer JSC approved critical corporate governance enhancements, appointed a new chairman, and outlined a strategic roadmap at its second general shareholders' meeting (GSM) on September 7, reinforcing its commitment to sustainable growth and market leadership in the semiconductor industry.
In its operations, PVFCCo adheres to sustainable development goals, promoting a corporate culture of sharing and the philosophy of integrating business with social responsibility. This ethos has been preserved and nurtured by generations of PVFCCo staff as a treasured asset. Over more than 20 years since its establishment, PVFCCo has consistently been recognised as a leading corporation in social welfare efforts within the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam). Every year, regardless of favourable or challenging conditions, PVFCCo continues to implement social welfare programmes nationwide.

Representatives from PVFCCo hand over sponsorship certificates for a classroom and functional building at Quang Tien Secondary School in Quang Binh

To date, PVFCCo has allocated over VND1.2 trillion ($47.3 million) to social welfare initiatives, including the construction of nearly 26,000 homes for disadvantaged families, approximately 300 healthcare and educational facilities, rural bridges, and distribution of hundreds of thousands of emergency aid packages, New Year gifts for the poor, and scholarships for students. Since the beginning of 2024, PVFCCo has sponsored the construction of 204 solidarity homes, organised tribute programmes, and supported healthcare initiatives. This year, the corporation has placed particular emphasis on educational programmes.

In the first nine months of 2024 alone, PVFCCo sponsored 20 educational programmes across the country, valued at over VND26 billion ($1 million). In August and September, PVFCCo inaugurated and handed over several major educational facilities that it sponsored.

The ceremony for a PVFCCo-sponsored project to renovate and repair My Xa Secondary School, with a total investment of VND5 billion ($197,000)

On September 28, PVFCCo collaborated to inaugurate and hand over a classroom and functional building at Quang Tien Secondary School in Quang Binh. This project, with a total investment of VND5.2 billion ($205,000), of which PVFCCo contributed VND5 billion ($197,000), was built on approximately 300 square metres. It includes a two-storey building with six function rooms, designed with modern facilities.

On August 26, PVFCCo inaugurated and handed over a two-story, six-room classroom building for Trung Vuong Kindergarten, in Viet Tri City, Phu Tho Province. The project, with a total investment of over VND 7.4 billion ($292,000), included a VND4.5 billion ($177,000) sponsorship from PVFCCo, as part of a shared initiative of the Petrovietnam. At the end of August 2024, the multi-purpose hall and auxiliary facilities of My Trung Primary School in My Loc District, Nam Dinh Province, a project sponsored by PVFCCo with a total value of VND5 billion ($197,000), were also inaugurated and handed over. This facility was entirely new, covering an area of 458.75 square metres, with functional areas to support physical education.

Modern facilities and teaching equipment at Quang Tien Secondary School provide optimal teaching and learning conditions for teachers and students

For many years, alongside other social welfare activities, PVFCCo has focused on supporting education. Numerous facilities have been built with modern teaching equipment, creating optimal learning environments for teachers and students, especially in underprivileged areas, contributing to the development of local education. Thousands of scholarships have also been awarded to students nationwide, helping them to achieve their dreams, inspiring them to excel academically, and making them valuable members of society and contributors to national development.

Recognising that investing in education and youth is the most sustainable and important investment, PVFCCo is committed to continuing its support of educational initiatives in the years ahead.

PVFCCo fostering responsible and practical sharing Recognising the countrys difficulties in combating the pandemic and the agricultural industrys challenges confronting farmers, PetroVietnam Fertilizer and Chemicals Corporation (PVFCCo) has endeavoured to maintain the tradition of responsibility and sharing through practical social security programmes.

Aramco and PetroVietnam sign collaboration framework agreement Aramco, one of the world's leading integrated energy and chemicals companies, has signed a collaboration framework agreement with state-owned oil and gas group PetroVietnam.
The event featured a capture-the-flag (CTF) competition for undergraduates, alongside a cybersecurity conference.

This year, 12 teams from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City represented Vietnam in the CTF competition, among a total of 72 teams from across Asia-Pacific. Each team consisted of students from leading technology universities such as Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, RMIT University, and FPT University.

The competition took the teams through seven hacking challenges, including identity, AI, cloud, red team and blue team, threat intelligence and incident response, web, and binary and reverse engineering. Students had the opportunity to showcase their skills as they researched, identified, and executed strategic attacks to capture as many flags as possible.

The champion of this years competition was the cipis042402k team from the University of Information Technology in Ho Chi Minh City, while the 404_Not_Found team from the Vietnam Academy Of Cryptography Techniques had the highest score in Hanoi. Additionally, cipis042402k and the blackpinker team from the University of Science - Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City secured two spots in the top 10 regionally. The winning teams will receive internship opportunities at PwC alongside attractive prizes, demonstrating the companys commitment to nurturing young talents, thereby contributing to the development of the IT and cybersecurity sector in Vietnam.

In parallel with the CTF competition, PwC Vietnam also hosted a cybersecurity conference during Hack A Day 2024, which included contributions from Fortinet, Alibaba Cloud International, Proofpoint, Cloud Ace-Google Cloud, and Netpoleon-Recorded Future. The conference brought together cybersecurity, IT, and cloud professionals, with the goal of enhancing businesses awareness about the importance of securing their digital identity, and updating the latest technologies and solutions to deal with related sophisticated cyber risks.

The conference offered a platform for industry experts to deliver insightful presentations on today's crucial cybersecurity topics, including zero-trust frameworks, identity governance, and threat detection and defence.

Pho Duc Giang, a partner of cybersecurity and data privacy services at PwC Vietnam, said, In today's interconnected digital world, safeguarding identities is imperative to mitigate potential risks and vulnerabilities. Through Hack A Day, we aim to not only address pressing challenges but also drive innovation and foster a collaborative ecosystem that accelerates advancements in the cybersecurity sector in Vietnam.

"Moreover, to ensure a sustainable cybersecurity future, it is essential to develop meaningful cyber playgrounds for the next generation of cybersecurity professionals to practise their knowledge and skills. We believe that by participating in the competition, students will gain valuable experience that will help prepare them for rewarding careers in IT and cybersecurity.

PwC offers young entrepreneurs the skills to succeed A cooperation agreement signed between the Vietnam Young Entrepreneurs Association and PwC Vietnam last week is expected to contribute to enhancing corporate governance efficiency and fostering a future of prosperous economic growth.

Digital solutions are crucial for Vietnams tax future Technology is transforming tax management in Vietnam, enhancing transparency and compliance. The adoption of advanced data analytics and digital tools is essential for efficient tax administration and fraud prevention. As businesses navigate these changes, it is crucial to stay informed and adapt to new regulatory landscapes effectively.
The Global Gateway is the key strategy supporting the EUs efforts to tackle global challenges such as climate change or digital transition and foster resilience and competitiveness in partner countries. It supports hard infrastructure as well as the enabling environment in a comprehensive 360-degree approach.

Myriam Ferran, deputy director-general for International Partnerships, European Commission

In concrete terms, this means that European support to infrastructure is accompanied by technical and financial aid to the overall business ecosystem. This ranges from technical assistance to establish relevant regulatory frameworks and norms; strengthening relevant administrative or regulatory authorities; loans or guarantees to strengthen the business environment and entrepreneurial development in the region, and providing specialised technical vocational training to develop a qualified local workforce.

The Global Gateway is driven by EU values such as respecting the highest social, environmental, and governance standards, the rule of law, and human rights. It is also fully in line with the United Nations 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the Paris Agreement. Through the Global Gateway, the EU plans to mobilise up to 10 billion ($10.8 billion) in investments by 2027 in the ASEAN region.

The implementation of the strategy in Vietnam follows a Team Europe approach, meaning that the EU is mobilising the assistance of its member states, their financial and development institutions, and its private sector, working together to support Vietnams sustainable development with great impact around effectively transformative interventions.

The European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus (EFSD+) is one of the financing tools we use under the Global Gateway to mobilise public and private financing by offering a variety of risk-sharing instruments. The European Investment Bank is the largest implementation partner for the EFSD+ Guarantee, alongside other European development banks.

One of the key initiatives under the Global Gateway in Vietnam is the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), which aims to mobilise 15.5 billion ($17.3 billion), from G7 and other countries to support Vietnams sustainable energy transition with an increased share of renewable energy while reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

The EU, alongside its member states and their financial and development institutions, will contribute over $3.1 billion in grants and loans to the partnership, significantly boosting Vietnams climate change mitigation efforts. In this context, there is a growing portfolio of investments that will be mobilised in the energy sector in Vietnam. At last years Global Gateway Forum in Brussels, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha signed an MoU with the European Investment Bank that agreed a 500 million ($540.5 million) framework loan specifically dedicated to JETP implementation. The facility will provide financing for projects supporting decarbonisation and energy transition.

ENGAGEMENT IN VIETNAM

One significant project supported by the EU is the Bac Ai power project, a 1.2GW pumped storage hydroelectric power plant under construction in Ninh Thuan province, where the EU is supporting the first-ever pumped storage facility in Vietnam. I had the opportunity to visit the works in May 2024 and believe the potential impact of this project on the region and country is impressive.

In addition, the EU is also promoting reforms in the energy sector on renewable energy, energy efficiency, and transmission lines/grid through our Sustainable Energy Transition Programme to the tune of just over $150 million. This initiative directly supports the government of Vietnam in its reforms.

But the engagement of the EU in Vietnam goes far beyond the energy sector. Under the Global Gateway, significant importance is given to human resource development in Vietnam. As an example, a 40 million ($43.2 million) grant is funded by Germany and France to support the development of green and digital skills.

This funding can be used to support private sector companies in developing new training programmes and capacity-building initiatives in areas such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable infrastructure. This is a concrete example of what Team Europe supports means: several member states joining forces to support a clear objective of a government policy.

As another striking example, the EU also stands ready to support Vietnam in adjusting to EU regulations which aim to encourage cleaner industrial production and protect forests thereby supporting climate change targets. Sustainable and legal supply chains for selected products and responsible corporate behaviour in companies operations are encouraged through EU deforestation regulations, the EUs Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and the corporate sustainability due diligence directive.

By focusing on these key areas, the initiatives not only encourage responsible resource management but also aim to empower local communities and create economic opportunities and jobs. This comprehensive approach seeks to balance economic growth with the need for environmental sustainability and social inclusion, ultimately contributing to a more resilient and equitable economy.

Vietnam has also set ambitious targets for the development of its transport sector, including the expansion of its railway network and the development of urban transport systems. The EU stands ready to support these efforts through the provision of technical assistance and expertise, that can lead to further investments in sustainable transport under the Global Gateway umbrella.

In addition, Vietnams ambitions towards the digital transition provide important opportunities for EU-Vietnam cooperation. The EU stands by Vietnams efforts to carry out its digital transformation, as well as to promote the development of AI and cybersecurity, high-speed internet, and mobile networks.

The EUs partnership with Vietnam is deep, comprehensive, and longstanding, based on our mutual interests. Our initiatives and programmes reiterate the EUs commitment to work with Vietnam in its journey towards sustainable and inclusive development.

EU nations ready to support ASEAN in green development As the European Union and ASEAN strengthen ties via a new biennial trade and investment programme, Vietnam is also closely working with the EU to further cooperation, while the countrys journey to a low-carbon economy is also receiving major assistance from the bloc.

France provides 10 million to build Hanoi Metro Line 3 extension The French government has pledged its support to help Vietnam accelerate metro projects, develop public transport, and cut carbon emissions.
Vietnam has been making efforts to pursue energy and environmental policies and improve social responsibility regulations. The country is also considering carbon taxation, which is generally considered a solid solution to limit emissions. Vietnams greening roadmap can also encourage businesses to develop more responsibly.

With nearly 65 years of experience in the lives of Vietnamese people through quality products, Tien Phong Plastic continues to strive for green production and sustainable development. The companys products have been accepted by demanding markets such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and some European countries.

Tien Phong Plastic adapts to a green future

Specifically, at Tien Phong Plastic factories nationwide, the company strictly implements national standards, national technical regulations, and international standards in operating processes, such as ISO management systems and improvement tools such as TPM, Quacert, and others.

Keeping up with international trends, Tien Phong Plastic has received technology transfer and pioneered in researching and manufacturing popular products in the international market, such as double-layer corrugated pipes or products specifically for drainage systems.

The company is also the first enterprise in Southeast Asia and the only one in Vietnam to produce large-sized HDPE pipes of diametre nominal (DN) 2,000mm, and double-layer corrugated pipes of DN 1,000mm, thereby providing new and more convenient technical construction solutions for the Vietnamese market.

Constantly expanding its product range, the enterprise also focuses on greening the production environment. It strives to implement energy-saving solutions and minimise hazardous waste to create a safe working space for workers and the surrounding ecosystem, as well as meeting environmental standards set by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

In recent years, Tien Phong Plastic has also invested in a synchronous, modern system to reduce electricity usage. The company has installed sensors to control low pressure in the pneumatic system, installed controllers to regulate electricity usage of equipment, and used thermal LED lights or installed transparent plastic panels to bring natural light to factories. Also, it has set a goal of reducing scrap rate and recyclability to reduce construction waste, as well as other materials.

Tien Phong Plastic is cooperating with Japanese company Sekisui Chemical to research and produce a line of CPVC plastic pipes and fittings for fire protection systems. This can replace galvanised cast iron pipes and cross-wave products to create underground water regulating reservoirs. They are reusable and flexible in many terrains, not only reducing flooding but also storing clean water for drought areas.

Tran Nhat Ninh, deputy general director of Tien Phong Plastic, said, Professional equipment helps us master technology, optimise work productivity, and pioneer in producing market-oriented products, serving consumer needs in many fields and opening up many cooperation opportunities with domestic and foreign enterprises.

In order to be chosen by domestic and foreign partners such as Battenfeld Cincinnati, Corma, Iplex, and Sekisui, as well as domestic partners such as Minh Phu Group, PC1 Group, and Shinec to use its green products, Tien Phong Plastic has been at the forefront of applying green solutions to move towards carbon neutrality in production.

For green and ecological industrial parks, it is necessary to invest synchronously from the beginning. To do this, Tien Phong Plastic has been trusted by investors to cooperate to use the best materials, ensuring quality for the entire project.

In early 2024, Shinec selected the company as a strategic partner, providing all plastic pipes and fittings for Shinecs industrial park and cluster infrastructure projects across the country. Currently, Tien Phong Plastic has provided products for Shinecs Nam Cau Kien Industrial Park with high requirements, closely following the sustainable development trend towards carbon neutrality.

Tien Phong Plastic will continue to strive to improve and innovate to reduce emissions and produce green products, meeting the development needs in industrial and commercial real estate towards sustainable development.

The company also vows that every product manufactured must have multi-layered value, in which the greatest value is to contribute to realising Vietnams net-zero and green growth commitments.

Tien Phong Plastic striving for sustainable development Many people associate the plastics industry with waste and environmental pollution. In a bid to combat that perception, Tien Phong Plastic, which supplies 100,000 tonnes of plastic to the market each year, is adopting several solutions to ensure a clean, green production process as it moves towards sustainable development.
Vietnam eyes nuclear revival to bolster energy security amid renewable push. Photo source: Unsplash

Under the socioeconomic development plan for 2025, the National Assembly has instructed the government to present a proposal to restart nuclear energy. During a Q&A session on November 12, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh confirmed that the government had secured approval to revive the programme.

Energy security is the primary reason Vietnam must reconsider nuclear power, said the PM, adding that the government plans to shift the countrys energy base from coal to gas, prioritising domestic production to sustain annual growth of 12 to 15 per cent, as outlined in a September government statement.

With power demand rising by about 10 per cent annually and expected to increase further to support GDP growth targets of 6.5 to 7 per cent by 2025, securing stable energy supplies has become a national priority.

Some experts estimate that for every 1 per cent of economic growth, electricity demand must rise by 1.5 per cent.

Meeting demand and avoiding shortages

In a September report, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) warned of potential power shortages between 2026 and 2030, particularly in northern Vietnam. Major power projects, including hydropower, coal, and gas, within the national power development plan, are unlikely to meet target timelines by 2030, the ministry noted.

Of 23 gas-fired projects totalling 30,424 MW, only the O Mon 1 thermal plant is operational, with Nhon Trach 3 and 4 expected to come online by May 2025, according to local media.

For coal, roughly 3,380MW is set to come online by 2030, after which no further coal developments are planned to meet net-zero commitments. Hydropower capacity is expected to reach 29,346MW, though its expansion potential is limited. Offshore and nearshore wind targets are also ambitious, set at 6,000 MW and 21,880MW, respectively.

The economy could stagnate without adequate electricity, said Prof. Tran Quoc Tuan from the National Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology at Paris-Saclay University and CEA Liten-INES research director. Sustainable and diverse energy sources must be prioritised in Vietnam.

Tuan added that nuclear power could support Vietnams energy independence. Existing power sources will eventually fall short, making energy imports potentially dangerous, he said.

Nuclear energy offers stability, low emissions, and environmental benefits. Following the Prime Ministers pledge at COP26 to achieve net-zero emissions, nuclear power has gained renewed attention among energy experts.

As of late 2023, coal accounted for over 33 per cent of Vietnams electricity generation, followed by hydropower at 28 per cent, renewable sources (solar and wind) at around 27 per cent, and other sources comprising the remainder.

Excessive reliance on coal harms the environment and contradicts Vietnam's carbon reduction commitments, Tuan said.

Experts note that nuclear power emits very low CO 2 about six grams per kWh compared to over 1,000g from coalmaking it a viable option to balance emissions reduction with energy demand to drive economic development.

Dr Pham Tuan Hiep, a former research engineer with Frances Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission (CEA), now with EDF, said nuclear powers lifecycle CO emissionsincluding installation, production, operation, and decommissioningare minimal, comparable to or lower than those of wind and solar.

A balanced mix of nuclear and renewable energy is essential for Vietnams net-zero goal, Hiep said.

Vietnam once planned a nuclear plant in Ninh Thuan, but the project was shelved in 2016. In 2022, the Economic Committee recommended revisiting nuclear power based on comprehensive assessments of energy supply and demand. While renewable energy dominates the eighth power plan, the inherent instability of solar and wind presents a significant challenge.

The main issue is meeting peak demand when renewable output is low, Hiep said, explaining that peak usage often occurs at 8pm, outside optimal solar or wind generation periods.

Although storage and transmission solutions are being developed to optimise renewable capacity, technical hurdles remain, especially as renewable capacity grows. Conversely, nuclear power can adjust output flexibly, meeting fluctuating hourly or even minute-by-minute demand.

Assoc. Prof. Vuong Huu Tan, former director of the Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute, said nuclear energy could stabilise the grid.

It provides essential backup for renewables and should be incorporated into national planning, Tan said.

By 2050, wind and solar are expected to provide the largest share of Vietnams energy at 63.8 per cent, with hydropower and gas at 15.7 per cent. As renewables increase, baseload capacity must rise to keep the grid stable.

Hydropower and LNG may serve as baseload options, but Tan estimated that by 2050, about 20 per cent of capacity would need to be reserved for baseload, leaving hydropower and gas insufficient as sole backup sources.

This situation would likely compromise system stability, affecting economic and social development, particularly in high-tech sectors, Tan added.

Hydropowers seasonal dependency and its role in flood control and agricultural irrigation limit its use as sole backup for renewables. Similarly, LNGs viability is uncertain due to fuel import dependency and high costs.

Economics of nuclear power

Economic considerations also play a key role in assessing nuclear powers feasibility. While nuclear plants have high initial investment costs due to stringent safety standards, their fuel, operational, and maintenance expenses are low. Nuclear plants operate around 7,000 hours annually, generating more power than other plants of similar capacity.

Nuclear power can be cost-competitive in certain contexts, Tan said, citing Japan, where nuclear remains the most affordable power option, as other energy sources rely on imported fuel.

Experts believe Vietnam has potential in nuclear energy, with foundational steps already in place. However, Prof. Tuan stressed the need for a clear strategy and consistent, high-level commitment for nuclear development.

The challenge of human resources remains critical.

Vietnam should revive prior training and research programmes and broaden international cooperation to gain expertise, Tuan said.

He emphasised that a skilled domestic workforce is essential, noting that relying on foreign experts is unsustainable. He proposed leveraging the expertise of Vietnamese specialists abroad to contribute to the safe operation and maintenance of future nuclear plants.

Once the workforce is prepared, experts recommend selecting appropriate technology and building infrastructure to support nuclear power, ensuring project feasibility, safety, and alignment with Vietnams energy security objectives.

Navigating Asia-Pacifics renewable energy landscape Despite starting from a low base, renewable energy is experiencing robust growth in Asia-Pacific, with installed generation capacity increasing at an average compound annual growth rate of 9 per cent. By 2030, renewable energy is expected to account for 30-50 per cent of the power generation mix across most Asia-Pacific markets.

Data packages take centre stage for Vietnam-Singapore offshore renewable energy project PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation (PTSC) and Sembcorp Utilities Pte. Ltd. (SCU) of Singapore held an awards ceremony on August 28 for wind and metocean measurement services and geotechnical desktop study packages.

Vietnam exploring nuclear energy development The government has directed the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) to study nuclear energy practices from other countries to propose its development in Vietnam.

High-quality workforce embedded in Ninh Thuan's renewable energy development Thanks to international cooperation and close collaboration with businesses, the quality of workforce training for the renewable energy sector is steadily improving, paving the way for Ninh Thuan to become a new renewable energy hub.
According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), national seafood exports in October reached over $1 billion, up 28 per cent on-year. This marks the first time in over two years that monthly seafood exports have returned to the $1 billion milestone. The cumulative exports through 10 months have brought in $8.27 billion.

Photo: baodautu.vn

Exports to China and Hong Kong surged 37 per cent, emerging as the largest and fastest-growing markets. Other markets showed similar dynamism, with the US up 31 per cent, Japan up 22 per cent, and the EU up 27 per cent.

Shrimp and basa fish show the highest growth potential this year. By the end of October, shrimp exports reached over $3.2 billion, up 13 per cent, while basa fish approached $1.7 billion, up 10 per cent.

In positive news for Vietnam's shrimp industry, the US Department of Commerce announced preliminary countervailing duties on shrimp imports from Ecuador, India, and Vietnam in late October, with Vietnam receiving significantly lower rates than India and Ecuador. This presents a crucial competitive advantage for Vietnamese shrimp in the US market.

With markets warming up and orders recovering, the seafood industry is confident in achieving its $10 billion target this year, exceeding the initial goal of $9.5 billion set at the beginning of the year.

According to baochinhphu.vn, Phung Duc Tien, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development said that despite the impact of Typhoon Yagi, both aquaculture and fishing have increased.

"With the current growth rate, the seafood industry will surpass $10 billion this year," he said.

To achieve the $10 billion export target, Tien advised seafood businesses to remain flexible with market conditions, diversify export markets to avoid dependence on a single market, and strengthen exports to newly opened markets while expanding domestic market development.

Addressing future challenges, Le Hang, communications director of VASEP, noted that beyond tariffs and regulations from major markets, the industry faces climate and environmental changes affecting raw material sources. Additionally, regional competition continues to intensify.

"Businesses need to enhance competitiveness through product quality improvement and export market diversification," Hang said.

Vietnam seafood exports to benefit from TPP With nearly half of its seafood exports going to Trans-Pacific Partnership member nations, Vietnam expects the trade deal to further boost exports to these markets, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (Vasep).

Demand for Vietnam seafood on the rise The domestic fishing industry should promote production of tra fish and shrimp by the end of this year to take advantage of the export potential of both commodities on the world market, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).
Given the ongoing climate crisis, how critical is the role of the logistics industry in combating climate change?

I believe that logistics plays a critical role in combating climate change. Were taking decisive action by investing in electric vehicle fleets and exploring hydrogen technology for long-haul transport.

Were also leveraging our strategic location to promote multimodal transportation systems, emphasising environmentally friendly options like inland waterways and rail. Our unique position allows us to influence regional and global supply chains, and were collaborating to optimise operations for sustainability.

Were committed to leading this charge, setting new standards for sustainable logistics in Southeast Asia and beyond.

Yap Kwong Weng, CEO of Vietnam SuperPort

Vietnam SuperPort has unveiled a goal of achieving net-zero by 2040. Why is it important for your company to do this?

Our commitment to achieving net-zero by 2040 is a strategic imperative that addresses multiple critical factors. This goal demonstrates our environmental stewardship, aligning with global sustainability efforts and positioning us as an industry leader. It helps us mitigate regulatory risks, drive operational efficiencies, and unlock new economic opportunities in the evolving green economy.

Our net-zero commitment gives us a competitive edge while meeting growing stakeholder expectations. By transitioning to net-zero, were building long-term resilience against environmental and market challenges, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, and adapting our infrastructure for future sustainability.

Ultimately, this goal reflects our vision of being a sustainable, innovative, and responsible leader in the logistics industry, ensuring our long-term success in a rapidly changing global landscape.

What are the critical steps you will take to achieve the net-zero goal?

We will achieve this mission in Vietnam through a multifaceted approach encompassing infrastructure transformation, energy transition, and transportation optimisation.

Key steps include integrating renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydrogen; transitioning to a fully electric vehicle fleet supported by expanded charging infrastructure; implementing multimodal connectivity to streamline logistics and reduce carbon footprint; and leveraging advanced digital tools to enhance operational efficiency.

We will also be designing sustainable port facilities, developing infrastructure for low-carbon fuels, installing shore-to-ship power systems, offsetting residual emissions through carbon credits, collaborating with stakeholders, and implementing robust monitoring and reporting systems. This strategy will position Vietnam SuperPort well in sustainable port operations, significantly contributing to the reduction of carbon emissions and setting a new standard for eco-friendly logistics hubs in the region.

Vietnam SuperPort is pioneering sustainability through digital transformation. Could you share initiatives to embrace this?

We will drive the green transition through a comprehensive digital ecosystem, capable of optimising routes

and reducing carbon emissions while tracking resource use. Our smart infrastructure investments will include intelligent lighting, energy efficient HVAC systems through a comprehensive digital ecosystem, and renewable energy integration, all of which contribute to substantial energy savings.

We will also develop a data analytics and environmental, social, and governance management platform that will continuously monitor and optimise environmental performance, allowing us to track carbon emissions, identify areas for improvement and measure progress against global standards.

What are the challenges of a net-zero transition, and how does Vietnam SuperPort overcome them?

We recognise the multifaceted challenges of the net-zero transition, including technological barriers, financial considerations, operational complexities, regulatory compliance, and stakeholder engagement.

To overcome these, weve implemented a comprehensive strategy that leverages strategic partnerships with technology providers and public-private collaborations to access cutting-edge green technologies. Our approach balances substantial initial investments with long-term cost savings through renewable energy infrastructure and digital optimisation tools. The key point is to enhance our operational efficiency and global competitiveness while significantly reducing our environmental impact.

Vietnam SuperPort marks vision of a connected future The recent launch of Vietnam SuperPort marks a critical hub connecting supply chains between China and Southeast Asia, with an ambitious goal of achieving net-zero by 2040. This milestone enhances Vietnams logistics capabilities while contributing to the nations climate change objectives.

Vietnam SuperPort to elevate supply chain capabilities Vietnam SuperPort, a joint venture between YCH Group (Singapore) and T&T Group (Vietnam), has launched the new vision to enhance the country's logistics capabilities. Yap Kwong Weng, CEO of Vietnam SuperPort spoke to VIR's Nguyen Huong about the launch.

Vietnam SuperPort unveils digital transformation plan to boost connectivity The ICD Vinh Phuc (Vietnam SuperPort), jointly developed by a T&T Group - YCH (Singapore) joint venture, announced plans to drive efficiency and sustainability in the logistics sector at the Vietnam Innovation Day 2024 on October 1.

Vietnam SuperPort lives up to name with sustainability drive Vietnam SuperPort, a joint venture between YCH Group of Singapore and Vietnams T&T Group, is at the forefront of sustainability and digital changes to build the first net-zero multi-modal logistics hub in Southeast Asia.
Vingroup plans to lend VinFast up to VND35 trillion ($1.4 billion) by the end of 2026. Additionally, Vuong has personally pledged VND50 trillion ($2.1 billion) in sponsorship. In a separate move, Vingroup will convert all existing loans, about VND80 trillion ($3.3 billion), to VinFast Vietnam into dividend-entitled preferred shares.

The support plan is designed to provide VinFast with sufficient financial resources to fund operations, investments, and other obligations. The goal is to achieve the break-even point and cash flow balance by the end of 2026. However, VinFast remains committed to independently raising capital to meet its financial needs. The support from Vingroup and chairman Vuong will be utilised only if these independent efforts do not reach expectations.

VinFast has concluded its initial investment phase, which includes the operation of a 300,000-vehicle-per-year manufacturing plant in Cat Hai, Haiphong. The company has also completed research and development of its product line, and is shifting its distribution model from direct-to-consumer to a dealership model. VinFast is now in its growth phase, focused on boosting sales across all markets and optimising its cost structure.

Vingroup's support agreement is based on a careful assessment of the potential impact on its cash flow and profitability. The goal is to maintain a balance between supporting VinFast and sustaining Vingroup's own financial health. Once VinFast achieves profitability and financial independence, Vingroup expects to benefit from its investments.

By converting loans to VinFast totalling about $3.3 billion into preferred equity shares of VinFast Vietnam, Vingroup aims to alleviate short-term financial pressure on the electric vehicle maker. This will allow Vingroup to maintain its stake in VinFast through dividend rights and the option to convert preferred shares into common shares in VinFast Vietnam Manufacturing and Trading Company or interests in VinFast Singapore.

The new loan of up to $1.4 billion will be funded through Vingroups business activities, dividends from subsidiaries, and, if necessary, strategic divestment from certain investments and subsidiaries at a fair market value.

Pham Nhat Vuong, as VinFast's CEO and a major shareholder, will personally sponsor $2.1 billion. This personal commitment will not impact the interests of Vingroup or its shareholders.

Vingroup establishes $150 million venture capital fund On October 28, Vingroup announced the launch of VinVentures, a capital fund managing assets worth $150 million, dedicated to supporting technology startups with transformative potential.

VinFast to secure $1 billion funding led by Emirates Driving Company VinFast Auto is expected to secure at least $1 billion in investments led by Emirates Driving Company (EDC), Abu Dhabis leading driver training and road safety institute, according to Bloomberg.
Chanel Maya Banks' cousin created a GoFundMe claiming the actor was missing. Screenshot / GoFundMe

A Los Angeles actor reportedly found safe by police in Texas took to social media to say she is "not missing," but family members say they're continuing their search.

Chanel Maya Banks, a 36-year-old actor seen in "Gossip Girl" and "Blue Bloods," was reported missing by family members Friday, the Los Angeles Police Department told The Los Angeles Times.

Chanel Maya Banks, a 36-year-old actor seen in "Gossip Girl" and "Blue Bloods," was reported missing by family members Friday. Phillip Faraone/WireImage

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The actor's cousin, Danielle-Tori Singh, said in a GoFundMe created Sunday that "our last contact" with Banks was Oct. 30. In multiple social media posts, Singh later said the family's last date of contact with Banks was Oct. 31.

On the fundraiser page, Singh wrote that Banks was not in her apartment when authorities conducted welfare checks last week. All her possessions except her phone and laptop were found in her apartment, including her beloved dog that Singh said her cousin wouldn't have left behind. The fundraiser has been taken down, but a page archived Wednesday shows it had raised over $3,000 toward a goal of $20,000 to hire a private investigator.

According to the LAPD, Banks was found safe in Texas and the case was closed Wednesday. The department would not provide any further details to the Express-News, but previously told the Los Angeles Times that she was found Monday.

Family members told ABC News that she was found at a home in Boerne.

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In a series of posts Wednesday, Banks alleged that she was abused by family members and had not spoken to Singh in over 15 years.

"I am not missing," Banks' Instagram account reads.

"For my entire life I have been silently carrying the pain of the ritual sexual abuse, manipulation, and outright endless torment I've endured since I was a defenseless baby, at the hands of my own so called family, whom are all so very 'concerned' about my current whereabouts," her statement reads in part.

The Los Angeles Times contacted Banks, who said she had verified her identity with authorities and did not want to be found. She claimed Singh and her mother were lying.

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Singh and Banks' mothers are still pushing ahead with efforts to find the actor, claiming that the woman identified as Banks in Texas was not actually her. Singh said at a news conference covered by the Los Angeles Times that the woman shown in body camera footage from police did not look like Banks and that the woman showed Banks' expired identification from New York.

Singh previously alleged on social media that Banks' husband, Carlos Jimenez, had not cooperated with the investigation. He told the Los Angeles Times that he shared the location of her AirPods headphones in Texas with police, after previously refusing to let them in his apartment at Banks' direction.

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Jimenez told the LA Times she left on a trip and decided of her own volition not to come back. She now refuses to speak with him, he said.

The GoFundMe Page was no longer available Thursday morning, but Singh posted on social media that the family plans to hire a private investigator.
The exterior of the Texas State Capitol is seen on September 05, 2023 in Austin, Texas. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Tuesday was the first day Texas lawmakers could file bills ahead of next years legislative session. There were more than 1,500 filed across a range of issues, including border security, abortion access, education and many others.

The Legislature meets biennially, meaning lawmakers have had a full year to brainstorm ideas for new legislation. Only a few hundred bills are passed each year by both the GOP-led House and Senate, meaning the vast majority of bills filed Tuesday will ultimately fall by the wayside.

READ MORE: Texas House shifts further right as Republicans dominate in tossup races

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However, they do provide an early peek into the priorities of Texas lawmakers.

In the 2023 legislative session, more than 8,000 total bills were filed by members of the House or Senate. Every two years, the House passes roughly between 500 and 1,000 bills, while the Senate has passed almost exactly 500 for each session in the past decade, according to information kept by the Legislative Reference Library.

Heres a look at some of the early bills.

Education

Rep. Briscoe Cain, a Deer Park Republican, filed one bill to create a program subsidizing private school tuition with state dollars  a top priority of Gov. Greg Abbott.

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The third-term governor recently boasted that he believes he finally has the votes needed to pass a private school voucher bill and break a decades-long blockade from allies of traditional public schools.

Its unlikely that Cains bill will be the one to move forward with Abbotts support, as it doesnt closely resemble versions of the program that the governor pushed in last years session. But it plants a flag on the issue for proponents of school vouchers.

Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, filed a new version of last years READER Act that would have required bookstores to rate the sexual content of their inventory before selling it to schools. The act was passed by the Legislature and signed into law last session, but the ratings provision was struck down by the federal courts. This years bill is crafted differently than the last version.

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Abbott has said he supports fully funded public schools and also wants to boost teacher pay, but only as part of a package deal that includes authorization of his private school voucher program.

A measure was also filed by members of the House and Senate to ban cities, counties, school districts and other local governments from using tax dollars to pay for lobbyists. Similar efforts have failed in past years, but passage could be more likely this year with a more conservative Texas House.

"We don't need an Austin lobbyist middleman between state and local elected officials, said Sen. Mayes Middleton, a Galveston Republican who filed one of the bills. We are elected to represent our constituents directly.

Property taxes

Dozens of bills have been filed related to decreasing or reforming the collection of property taxes, 88 in all. Last session, the Legislature earmarked about half of the states $30 billion surplus to reducing local property taxes.

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Abbott and others have said they want to continue that path.

Abortion and IVF

With Texas strict abortion ban on the books, lawmakers filed relatively few new restrictions on reproductive rights.

One bill, by Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, would ban the possession and mailing of abortion-inducing drugs and require internet service providers to block websites with information on obtaining abortion pills.

Democrats, meanwhile, are seeking to repeal Texas abortion ban or expand and clarify its available exceptions. Rep. Mihaela Plesa, D-Plano, filed a bill that would add to the exceptions by exempting from the ban women aged 35 and older, those with high-risk conditions, and patients who conceived through IVF.

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Though the state abortion ban currently provides an exception for medical emergencies, advocates and various lawsuits have said the laws language is so vague and the penalties are so steep that doctors are hesitant to end dangerous pregnancies.

A number of Democrats, including Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio and Rep. Vikki Goodwin of Austin, filed new protections for in vitro fertilization.

Culture wars

Lawmakers seem eager to once again wade into a number of national conversations on other social issues including sexual orientation, gender identity, social media and foreign land ownership.

Rep. Valerie Swanson, R-Spring, filed a bill that would prohibit changing minors gender identification on their birth certificates. Tacking in the opposite direction, Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, wrote a bill that would strengthen voting protections for transgender people by barring election workers from rejecting voters over a mismatch in their gender expression or identity and the gender listed on their identification forms.
Russian Defence Ministry reports on the progress of the special military operation (13 November 2024)

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.

In Kharkov direction, the Sever Group of Forces engaged formations of 113th, 120th territorial defence brigades, and 5th border detachment of the Ukrainian border police near Udy, Vilcha, Krasnokutsk, Odnorobovka, and Liptsy (Kharkov region).

The AFU losses amounted to up to 110 troops, three motor vehicles, and two 122-mm D-30 howitzers. One UAV workshop was destroyed.

The Zapad Group of Forces improved the tactical situation and inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of 28th, 43rd, 63rd mechanised brigades of the AFU and 119th Territorial Defence Brigade near Novoplatonovka, Zagryzovo, Petropavlovka (Kharkov region) as well as Serebryansky forestry.

Seven counter-attacks of AFU 14th, 53rd mechanised brigades, and 77th Airmobile Brigade were repelled.

The AFU losses amounted to up to 500 troops, three tanks, two armoured fighting vehicles, six motor vehicles, a 122-mm Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system, two Anklav-N and Kvertus electronic warfare stations. Five ammunition depots were destroyed.

The Yug Group of Forces improved the situation along the front line, hit 33rd, 54th, 56th, 81st mechanised brigades, 46th Airmobile Brigade, 79th Air Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine close to Yantarnoye, Druzhkovka, Dyleyevka, Reznikovka, Privolye, Minkovka, Kurakhovo, Dronovka, and Seversk (Donetsk Peoples Republic).

The AFU losses amounted to up to 720 troops, two tanks, eight motor vehicles, a 152-mm Paladin self-propelled artillery system and a 105-mm M119 gun made by the USA, four 122-mm D-30 howitzers, and two Anklav-N electronic warfare stations. Two ammunition depots were wiped out.

The Tsentr Group of Forces continued advancing into the depths of the enemys defence, inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of 100th Mechanised Brigade, 5th Mountain Assault Brigade 142nd Infantry Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 101st Territorial Defence Brigade, 1st and 18th national guards brigades near Andreyevka, Dzerzhinsk, Shcherbinovka, Petrovka, Sukhoy Yar, and Dimitrov (Donetsk Peoples Republic).

Russian units repelled ten counter-attacks of AFU 42nd, 117th mechanised brigades, 152nd Jaeger Brigade, 49th and 425th assault battalions, 35th Marine Brigade, and the Lyut Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian National Police.

The enemy lost over 480 troops, a tank, three armoured fighting vehicles, seven motor vehicles, two 152-mm D-20 guns, a 152-mm Msta-B howitzer, and a 122-mm D-30 howitzer.

The Vostok Group liberated Rovnopol (Donetsk Peoples Republic).

Russian units hit 33rd Mechanised Brigade, 128th Mountain Assault Brigade of the AFU, 113th and 129th territorial defence brigades near Velikaya Novoselka, Temirovka, Novodonetskoye and Zelyonoye Pole of the Donetsk Peoples Republic.

Two counter-attacks of the assault groups of 101st and 123rd territorial defence brigades were repelled.

The AFU losses amounted to up to 150 troops, an armoured personnel carrier, seven motor vehicles, and a French-made 155-mm Caesar self-propelled artillery system.

The Dnepr Group of Forces engaged manpower and hardware of 31st Mechanised Brigade of AFU, 124th, 126th, and 129th territorial defence brigades close to Pyatikhatki, Stepnogorsk (Zaporozhye region), Mikhaylovka, Antonovka, and Shlyakhovoye (Kherson region).

The AFU losses amounted to up to 65 troops, three motor vehicles, a 122-mm D-30 howitzer, and an Anklav-N electronic warfare station.

Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack drones, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have engaged the infrastructure of military airfields, engergetic facilities used for the operation of enterprises of the Ukrainian defence industry as well as clusters of enemy manpower and military hardware in 139 areas.

Air defence units shot down three French-made Hammer guided aerial bombs, a U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectile, and 85 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.

In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 648 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 35,707 unmanned aerial vehicles, 585 anti-aircraft missile systems, 19,188 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,487 MLRS combat vehicles, 17,805 field artillery guns and mortars, and 28,216 units of support military vehicles have been neutralised.

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Russian Defence Ministry reports on repelling AFU attempt to invade Russian territory in Kursk region (13 November 2024) The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the operation to neutralise an enemy group, which broke into the territory of Kursk region. The Sever Group of Forces continued offensive actions and inflicted losses on formations of 21st, 22nd, 41st, 47th, 61st, 115th mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 80th, 82nd, 95th air assault brigades, 36th Marine Brigade, 103rd, 112th and 129th territorial defence brigades of the AFU near Daryino, Leonidovo, Malaya Loknya, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Novoivanovka. The Groups units repelled six enemy counter-attacks in the direction of Aleksandria, Nizhniy Klin, Novaya Sorochina, and Novoivanovka. The AFU losses amounted to up to 80 people killed and wounded, a tank, two Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, two M113 armoured personnel carriers, three Humvee armoured fighting vehicles, and a motor vehicle. One AFU serviceman surrendered. Army aviation and artillery inflicted fire damage on 21st, 22nd, 47th, and 61st mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 80th, 82nd, and 95th air assault brigades, 36th Marine Brigade as well as 103rd, 112th, 118th, and 129th territorial defence brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and 17th National Guard Brigade in the areas of Aleksandria, Bogdanovka, Viktorovka, Guyevo, Daryino, Zamostye, Zeleny Shlyakh, Kruglenkoye, Lebedevka, Leonidovo, Loknya, Malaya Loknya, Martrynovka, Makhnovka, Mirny, Nizhni Klin, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Nikolskiy, Novaya Sorochina, Novoivanovka, Plyokhovo, Sverdlikovo, Staraya Sorochina, Sudzha, and Cherkasskoye Porechnoye. Operational-Tactical Aviation and Missile Troops have attacked concentration areas in the Sumy region and reserves of 41st and 115th mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 95th Air Assault brigade as well as 103rd Territorial Defence Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and 1st National Guard Brigade near Basovka, Belovody, Zhuravka, Ivolzhanskoye, Pisevka, Khoten, Yunakovka, and Yablovka. During the day, the AFU losses amounted to more than 450 troops, two tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles, including two Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, two U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carriers, 33 armoured fighting vehicles as well as five artillery guns, including a Polish-made Krab self-propelled artillery system, four mortars, a French-made Crotale anti-aircraft missile system, and 49 motor vehicles. Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk region, the AFU losses amounted to more than 32,150 troops, 202 tanks, 134 infantry fighting vehicles, 112 armoured personnel carriers, 1,146 armoured fighting vehicles, 907 motor vehicles, 274 artillery guns, 40 MLRS launchers, including 11 of HIMARS and six of MLRS made by the USA, 12 anti-aircraft missile launchers, seven transport-loading vehicles, 62 EW stations, 13 counter-battery warfare radars, four air defence radars, 27 units of engineering and other materiel, including 13 counterobstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, five armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle. The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress. Tags: Special Military Operation

WtR
Record levels of bullying in Welsh schools prompts concerns over students mental health

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Nov 14th, 2024

Rates of bullying in Welsh schools have reached record levels, with more than one in three children and young people reporting being bullied, the Senedd heard.

Gareth Davies raised concerns about a 6% increase in bullying between 2021 and 2023, according to a survey of more than 130,000 pupils in 200 secondary schools.

The Conservatives shadow mental health minister told the Senedd: These results are higher than ever previously reported in the survey, which is deeply troubling.

He said the latest survey showed regression on just about every metric of pupil wellbeing, including growing social isolation and a rise in behavioural issues.

Mr Davies, who worked in the NHS in north Wales for more than a decade, pointed to a 2021 legal duty to have regard to the mental health of children and young people.

Horrific racism

He said: The mental health of pupils has declined and reports of bullying in schools have only increased, so the Welsh Government have failed in that duty, unfortunately.

Plaid Cymrus Cefin Campbell called for an update to 2019 anti-bullying guidance for school governing bodies following a commitment from the Welsh Government eight months ago.

The shadow education secretary focused on the impact of poverty, warning the high cost of school uniforms can cause stress and lead to bullying.

Mr Campbell, a former lecturer, expressed concerns about penalties, such as detention, for pupils over non-compliance with uniform policies.

Raising a report on horrific experiences of racism in Welsh schools, he said one pupil was told a classmate did not want to sit next to them due to the colour of their skin.

Thats entirely unacceptable in our schools, said Mr Campbell.

World of despair

Labours Carolyn Thomas warned childrens mental health is at an all-time low, pointing to smartphones and social media as major contributing factors.

She said: They can be used to bully, manipulate and control, sending young people into an isolated world of despair, not thinking they can get out of it or go to somebody for help.

The North Wales politician highlighted a petition calling for a ban on phones in schools.

Rhys ab Owen, an independent who represents South Wales Central, stressed that bullying can impact people for decades to come after school.

But its an issue that doesnt affect learners equally, he said. In Cardiff, around a third of learners come from ethnically diverse backgrounds.

And I was staggered to read a survey from 2020, which said that 61.5% of learners had expressed stereotypes over skin colour, religion and nationality.

Concerning trends

In a statement on November 12 to mark anti-bullying week, Lynne Neagle accepted that bullying continues to be an issue in Welsh schools.

Pledging to prioritise the problem, Wales education secretary said new statutory anti-bullying guidance will be published for consultation after Christmas.

Ms Neagle pointed to concerning trends, including 42% of girls scoring high or very high in a questionnaire on psychological problems compared with 27% of boys.

She told the Senedd: I wouldnt want to be a teenager growing up today.

Ms Neagle stated the Welsh Government provided more than 800,000 this year for one of the biggest surveys of children and young people in the UK.

She said: The link between bullying and mental health is well known. At its most extreme, young people have taken their own lives as a result of being bullied. This is a tragedy for the young life lost, for their family and friends and for whole communities.

By Chris Haines, ICNN Senedd reporter
Supporters cheer for United States Senator Candidate Colin Allred at a Vice President Kamala Harris rally Friday, Oct. 25, 2024 at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston. Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer

Texas Democrats election losses last week are prompting serious self-reflection among some strategists over the decision to focus so much of the campaign cycle on the states new abortion restrictions.

President-elect Donald Trump carried the state by nearly 14 percentage points, the largest victory margin in a presidential race in Texas in over a decade. And U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who was nearly unseated by Democrat Beto ORourke in 2018, trounced his Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, by 9 points.

Democratic candidates for the Texas Supreme Court, who had tried to make their elections about accountability for justices who upheld the states near-total abortion ban, also lost by double digits.

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Renee Cross, senior executive director of the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston, said Democrats could have learned from the 2022 election when it came to zeroing in on abortion rights as a campaign issue.

That year, in an election just months after Roe v. Wade was overturned and after Texas instituted its near-total ban with criminal and civil penalties for doctors, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott easily fended off a challenge by ORourke with a nearly 11-point margin. Helped in large part by the GOP-led state Legislatures redistricting in 2021 that reinforced Republican strongholds, the party more than held onto its majority and gained a seat in each chamber.

There certainly wasnt any sort of backlash, Cross said. So to put all your eggs in that one basket in Texas in 2024 may not have been the best strategy.

While public polling shows most Texans support at least some access to abortion, it also shows that they tend to prioritize other policy areas more. A poll the Hobby School conducted in October, for example, found that the issue was the fourth-most popular behind the economy; immigration and border security; and the future of the U.S. democracy.

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Abortion just has not been resonating at the top of political concerns in this state for a very long time, Cross said. And just like nationally, this particular year it was all about the economy, all about immigration.

Ana Ramon, executive director of Annies List, a Texas political action committee that supports progressive female candidates, said internal polling showed that Texas voters, especially in the large, blue-leaning cities, are concerned about abortion access. It just so happened that they had a lot of other issues on their mind as well, like the economy and public safety, she said.

Ramon added that she thinks the issue helped Democratic state Rep. Mihaela Plesa win her 4-point reelection race in Collin County and tightened the margins in Texas House Districts 118 and 121 where Democrats lost by about 4 and 5 points.

Were still waiting for the full canvass, so it would be hard to make a determination right now, but I still wholeheartedly believe this is going to be an issue that stays and prevails, Ramon said. Its still a new issue. Its not something a lot of the population has had to come to terms with or been directly impacted by, so its on us to keep up this conversation because its not going away.

Neither Allreds nor Cruzs campaigns responded to requests for comment.

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Complicating the landscape is the fact that ballot measures protecting the right to abortion succeeded in seven of 10 states. About 57% of Florida voters were in favor of a similar measure, but it failed due to the states unusual 60% threshold for passage.

But in Texas, voters are unlikely to get a direct say in abortion access. There is no law or constitutional authority to put citizen-initiated measures on the ballot or to approve or repeal an act of the state Legislature. So the Legislature would have to vote overwhelmingly for a constitutional amendment to go before voters, which the Republican-dominated body hasnt shown a willingness to do.

I think if we had the same bite of the apple here, we would see the same results, Ramon said.

Laura Barberena, a Texas Democratic strategist, said the success of abortion ballot initiatives in five states in the 2022 midterms likely gave Democratic candidates the false impression that it was a very motivating issue for all women. But this election cycle, even some of the states that passed protective measures also elected Trump and other Republicans up and down the ticket, such as Missouri and Montana.

Barberena said abortion rights proponents might need to focus less on targeting white women, the majority of whom went for Trump this year, and more on turning out traditional nonvoters.

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The challenge now will be figuring out how to message to young women of childbearing age, she said.

I think we're going to be spending a lot of time and money over the next couple of years trying to determine: What can we do to unlock these women voters who stayed at home? she said.

Joe Pojman, founder and executive director of the Texas Alliance for Life, an anti-abortion group whose political arm donates to candidates, said this years resounding victories for Republicans across the ballot prove that the threat of losing a race on the abortion issue has virtually evaporated.

Allred had featured several of the women who sued the state over the emergency exception in the states abortion ban at his campaign rallies and spotlighted their stories in advertisements.

Pojman said those ads unfairly portrayed the issue and came off to voters as inauthentic. He argues, as the group has argued for some time, that incidents like those are rare, and if they were to become a major issue, women should file malpractice suits and complaints to the Texas Medical Board against the doctors who deny them care.

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Its still hard to say how widespread the problems are because the bans are relatively new and studies often take a long time to conduct and publish. Dozens of women have sued over their experiences, blaming the vagueness of the law, and reporting this month from ProPublica found at least two Texas women died as a result of the bans. A 2022 study of two Dallas hospitals found that pregnant patients faced almost double the risk of serious health complications since the ban.

With a strong majority in the Texas Legislature, Pojman said he doubts there will be any serious attempts to rewrite the states abortion ban or expand the emergency exception during the session that begins in January.

To make this issue more effective for Democrats in the next election, Ramon said they will need to work on educating voters about the specifics of the ban and making clearer how it could personally impact them. A 2023 poll by Resound Research for Reproductive Health found that 73% of the women, nonbinary and transgender Texans did not know abortions are not available at clinics in this state.

I think we need to still have honest and deep conversations around what it means to have abortion access in Texas, to have IVF  all of this I think is now in question, Ramon said. I think the strategy of having communication, deep communication, year round communication needs to be prioritized.
Interstate Highway 10 traffic is photographed from Washington Avenue Tuesday, March 12, 2024 in Houston. Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer

For years, activists have argued that the Texas Department of Transportation is flouting environmental laws as it pushes for highway expansions in cities like Houston and Austin. Thats because the federal government essentially allows the agency to regulate itself.

This month, the public has a chance to weigh in on whether TxDOT should be allowed to continue overseeing its own compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the state to document community and environmental impacts of road projects.

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The agency on Nov. 7 asked the Federal Highway Administration to extend its special oversight designation, which expires in December.

If the Highway Administration were to revoke Texas authority, projects that arent already formally approved would require review by the federal government, including a dozen planned in San Antonio and Houston.

The program exists to address a bottleneck at the federal agency, as environmental reviews, many spanning thousands of pages, piled up for approval. States in the program submit annual compliance audits, but otherwise are left to their own devices.

Adam Hammons, TxDOTs director of media relations, said TxDOTs environmental documents are presented to the public for review and comment, and that TxDOT has been regularly audited and monitored by the Highway Administration.

Critics say TxDOT has abused its self-certifying powers in the past to advance road projects that displace an increasing number of Texans from their homes, ignore input from residents and local officials, and worsen air pollution in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. It does so in part by sectioning off massive highway expansions into smaller projects that diminish the full environmental impact, potentially in violation of NEPA.

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The fact that TxDOT can certify its own projects leads to an unchecked system where the full impacts of transportation projects are not being shared with the public, said Addie Walker, advocacy program manager for the nonprofit Reconnect Austin and a member of Texas Streets Coalition, a group of 30 nonprofit and community organizations across the state.

Walkers coalition has asked the U.S. Department of Transportation to revoke Texas authority to approve its own highway projects. Seven other states, including California, have the same self-regulating ability.

Federal oversight of highway expansions typically falls to the Highway Administration, which reviews a states analysis of how a road project will impact the natural and built environment, including steps to mitigate adverse impacts. Since TxDOT was first allowed to bypass that check in 2014, residential displacements from highway expansions have climbed, outpacing the national average, according to federal data.

From 2009 to 2015, 563 Texas households were displaced for highway construction. Under the first five years of NEPA assignment, 807 households were displaced. Between 2019 and 2023, 1,407 households were displaced, nearly a quarter of all displacements nationally during that time.

Hammons pointed to the significant increase in transportation funding over the past decade, which has resulted in more projects being built.

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The most congested corridors throughout the state typically are located in the most densely populated areas, which has resulted in projects that have an increase in displacements, he said in a statement.

Last years Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act nearly doubled the amount of federal money available for highway projects across the country. TxDOT will receive $29 billion in federal funding by 2026.

But Kevin DeGood, the director of infrastructure policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, said the federal government has essentially no control over how that money gets spent  and the designation for states like Texas is a reason why.

It's one more way in which the ultimate outcome of this money is actually not in the hands of this administration, he said.

The designation also strips local officials of the administrative power to influence or stop projects they object to, DeGood said.

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TxDOT is the highest authority for these projects, Walker said. There's not a whole lot of recourse if there's an issue between a city government and TxDOT, because they are the ultimate decision makers.
Shown are the expected low temperatures across Texas on Friday morning. Most locations will experience lows in the 40s. Pivotal Weather

A cold front blew through South Texas on Wednesday, and if you blinked, you probably missed it. Thats because this particular front did not have polar origins and didnt cause a drastic drop in temperatures as it moved through the region.

While the front didnt bring cold air at first, it did bring a northerly wind shift and very dry air. These two components will come together to produce the coldest temperatures South Texas has experienced so far this fall.

Today's forecast

Our coldest temperatures are expected by Friday morning, but Thursday will produce some chilly conditions as well. Temperatures will drop into the low 50s across the San Antonio metro area between 5 and 7:30 a.m.

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Areas outside of the city will be even colder. The Interstate 35 corridor, from New Braunfels to San Marcos, will start in the upper 40s. The coldest area will be in the Hill Country towns of Boerne, Kerrville and Fredericksburg, where lows will fall into the mid-40s Thursday morning.

Skies will be sunny, and the air will be very dry. That means temperatures will warm up rather quickly throughout the day. San Antonio temps will climb into the low 70s by 11 a.m., eventually topping out in the middle to upper 70s by 3 p.m. Thats still about 5 degrees above average, but it will be a gorgeous day to spend outdoors, nevertheless.

Coldest morning Friday

With dry air and clear skies overhead, South Texas will cool off very efficiently Thursday night into Friday morning. Fridays low temps will be about 5 degrees colder than Thursdays lows. That means San Antonio will drop into the mid- to upper 40s for the first time this fall, and parts of the Hill Country may fall into the upper 30s or to around 40 degrees.

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Shown are expected low temperatures across parts of Central and South Texas on Friday morning. National Weather Service

The rest of Friday will be a near repeat of Thursdays weather. San Antonio will be in the low 70s by noon, rising into the upper 70s by the late afternoon.

Weekend forecast

Saturday: Quiet weather is expected, but temperatures will start to warm up. Morning lows in the mid-50s will transition to the low 80s by the late afternoon. Skies will be sunny and winds will be light, around 10 mph.

Sunday: As moisture levels increase, morning lows will be much milder, only starting in the mid-60s under increasingly cloudy skies. Afternoon highs will reach the low to mid-80s as mostly dry conditions persist.

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Projected weather radar images for 7 a.m. Monday show a line of showers and storms moving through Texas. Pivotal Weather

By late Sunday night and into Monday morning, rain chances will increase as a storm system approaches from the west. San Antonios rain chances will peak at around 50% early Monday, and a few storms could be strong.

Stronger cold front coming

High temperatures will come back down to the upper 70s on Monday and Tuesday, but a much stronger cold front is expected to surge through South Texas late Tuesday into Wednesday morning.

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Unlike the last front, this front will create an immediate drop in temperatures. On Wednesday, San Antonio can expect lows in the upper 40s, followed by high temps in the 60s.
The OTT industrys growth hinges on effective content strategy, driven by data analytics and personalized recommendations. This was one of the key takeaways from the fireside chat on Data-Driven Storytelling: How OTT Platforms Use Analytics to Shape Content Strategy, held as part of SCREENXX Summit and Awards 2024 organised by Adgully yesterday (November 13, 2024).

Industry leaders from Amazon MX Player, OTTplay, and Hoichoi discussed innovative approaches to customer acquisition, retention, and monetization, highlighting the importance of data-driven decision-making.

Moderated by Divya Dixit, Chief Growth Officer of One Health Assist, the panellists included Amogh Dusad, Head of Content at Amazon MX Player; Avinash Mudaliar, CEO and Co-Founder of OTTplay and HT Labs; and Soumya Mukherjee, Chief Operating Officer at Hoichoi.

Avinash Mudaliar began the session by explaining OTTplays approach to personalized recommendations through advanced data analytics. He shared insights into the companys strategy of leveraging data to create customized content packages, using a robust team of data scientists to analyse viewer behaviour across multiple parameters, including content type, watch time, and language preferences. According to Mudaliar, the platform categorizes users into cohorts based on detailed consumption patterns, which inform tailored content bundles that resonate with specific audience segments.

Mudaliar emphasized OTTplays cost-effective customer acquisition model. While digital acquisition costs can be steep, OTTplay mitigates expenses by employing a diverse acquisition strategy, including partnerships with telecom providers and local cable operators. He explained how these collaborations reduce customer acquisition costs by reaching users outside the crowded digital ad space. Additionally, OTTplay employs a hands-on approach to user engagement, assisting subscribers in navigating the platform and activating subscriptions, especially for customers less familiar with OTT technology.

Hoichois Soumya Mukherjee discussed the platforms success in monetizing content for regional language audiences, specifically Bengali speakers. Mukherjee attributed Hoichois profitability to a deep understanding of viewer preferences and a data-driven approach to curating content that appeals to regional and international Bengali-speaking audiences. Hoichois unique blend of content and a comprehensive in-house analytics team enable the platform to cater effectively to Bengali-speaking viewers in India, Bangladesh, and abroad. Mukherjee emphasized that localizing recommendations in regional languages is key, noting that Hoichois algorithms cater to language-specific content preferences, enhancing the user experience and fostering loyalty.

The discussion underscored the vital role of data analytics and targeted recommendations in engaging viewers while optimizing costs and driving revenue. Each speakers insights illustrated the industrys evolving landscape, where a combination of content personalization, strategic partnerships, and deep analytics is essential for sustained growth in the OTT sector. The session provided a comprehensive look at how platforms like OTTplay and Hoichoi are pioneering customer-centric approaches to meet the diverse needs of Indias vast digital audience.

These are edited excerpts. For the complete panel discussion, please watch below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQVbUTaX5aU
The International Advertising Association (IAA) India Chapter hosted the third edition of its Voice of Change summit, themed Gender Portrayal from 30 Seconds to 3 Hours, aiming to champion gender-sensitive and equitable content across media.

The event featured an impressive lineup, including Chief Guest Smriti Irani, Guest of Honour Taapsee Pannu, and prominent industry leaders such as Srinivasan K Swamy, Neha Barjatya, Eashwari Deshpande, Anushree Bhattacharyya, Mitrajit Bhatacharya, Neena Dasgupta, Anurag Agnihotri, Karthik Nagarajan, Zairus Master, Gautami Kawale, Janaki Amrite and Shreya Jain. The summit highlighted the critical role of thestakeholders of the industry in shaping gender representation and addressed the need to challenge biases.

The day began with a formal lamp-lighting ceremony graced by the chief guest followed by a welcome address by Srinivasan K Swamy, IAA Mancom Member & Executive Group Chairperson at RK SWAMY.

The summits opening session, led by Nina Elavia Jaipuria and Megha Tata, Chairperson and Co-Chairperson of the IAA India Women Empowerment Committee, discussed the evolution of the IAA: Voice of Change movement since its inception in 2021.

Reflecting on the initiative, Megha Tata shared, This journey began four years ago, and it has become a powerful movement in our industry. When I was President of IAA, we launched Voice of Change with the objective that, as communication professionals, we must be the change we want to see. She emphasized the significance of their partnership with UNICEF and Google, which has provided critical data on gender portrayal in media, underscoring persistent stereotypes and the need for progress.

Nina Elavia Jaipuria added, In the previous editions of IAA: Voice of Change, we covered advertising, television and OTT content, while this edition focuses on gender representation in Digital. Over the years, we have created awareness and sensitized stakeholders of the industry in shaping their perspectives and challenging stereotypes for a more equitable gender portrayal in content. Thus, having a positive influence on consumers and shaping the social narrative. We are delighted to have Google India continue to partner with us in this movement.

Former Cabinet Minister Smriti Irani engaged in a lively and insightful conversation with Neha Barjatya, IAA Mancom Member and Marketing Director at Google India. Together, they discussed the transformative role content creators play in reshaping the portrayal of women in media and society.

Smriti Irani delivered a compelling keynote address, stating the lack of visibility and acknowledgementwomen face despite their contributions. She remarked, Women do not have a problem speaking or showing up; what we lack is recognition for our contributions. Its crucial to continue these conversations and support women who strive for their rightful place. She also powerfully emphasized YouTubes societal impact and remarked the platform does not just provide access but by giving women in Tier 2 and 3 cities a platform and an audience, we democratize dreams.

She spoke passionately about how women have always been present and impactful, yet their contributions are often overlooked, challenging audiences to not only see women, but truly hear their voices. Addressing the pressure many women feel to downplay their achievements to avoid labels of arrogance or ambition, she urged women to own their successes openly. Irani noted a generational shift, celebrating young women today who express themselves boldly without apology, contrasting this with the constraints her own generation often faced. She underscored the responsibility that comes with content creation in the digital era, highlighting the need to dismantle stereotypes rather than reinforce them. Irani also reminded listeners that each womans journey is unique and deserves respect, calling for collective action to build a legacy where female voices are valued and celebrated, creating a world where all women can take pride in their contributions without reservation.

Neha Barjatya emphasized, At Google and YouTube, we are deeply committed to empowering women in the digital age. We have always fostered inclusivity across our platforms and as weve entered the AI era, our commitment continues. We are dedicated to building AI that unlocks creative possibilities and promotes economic opportunity for everyone. We are focused on developing AI responsibly, ensuring it is used to create a safe and equitable platform for all women. We believe that when women succeed, India succeeds.

In a special address, UNICEFs Geetanjali Master, Partnerships Specialist in Public & Private Sector Engagement at the UNICEF Delhi office, highlighted the pervasive impact of gender socialization on opportunities for girls in India, emphasizing the role of media and community engagement. She stated, Gender socialization creates visible and invisible barriers  manifesting as limited educational opportunities, early marriages, and fewer job prospects for girls. As UNICEF engages across India, we see the profound impact media can have. It has the power to reinforce stereotypes or to challenge them. Thats why were working with organizations like the Geena Davis Institute to generate real-time insights on gender portrayals, and we recognize the importance of connecting with content creators not only in metros but also in smaller towns and communities. By doing so, we aim to inspire inclusive storytelling that can shift perceptions and unlock opportunities for young girls across India with our continued partnership with IAA: Voice of Change.

Celebrating Gender Warriors

The event honoured remarkable industry stalwarts who have tirelessly championed gender equity and led by example as protagonists of change. The first recipient of the Gender Warrior award was CVL Srinivas, Country Manager of WPP India, recognized for driving transformative change in the industry. The second Gender Warrior, Smita Sharma, an acclaimed photojournalist and visual storyteller, was celebrated for her impactful work in human rights and gender issues. Through her powerful images featured in National Geographic, TIME and other publications, Sharma has brought dignity to marginalized communities while challenging societal norms.

The days events were marked by thought-provoking insights, particularly during the first panel, Conscious Creativity in Digital Content, moderated by Eashwari Deshpande, Head of YouTube Ads Marketing & Industry Advocacy. Esteemed panelists included content creators Gautami Kawale and Shreya Jain, alongside Janaki Amrite, Associate VP of Content Syndication and OTT Partnerships at Pocket Aces.

The discussion emphasized the transformative role of technology in democratizing both access to content and aspirations, creating a space where everyone has a voice. Deshpande shared YouTubes commitment to enabling creators to build sustainable careers, transcending barriers of language, literacy, and background.

Gautami Kawale, Founder of Slayy Point & The Crash Pad, highlighted the responsibility content creators hold when engaging with Gen Z audiences. Janaki Amrite spoke about Pocket Aces commitment to positive representation through channels like Dice Media and FilterCopy. Beauty influencer Shreya Jain discussed navigating stereotypes in the beauty and makeup industry, sharing her journey of maintaining authenticity while shedding light on makeups role as both an art form and a major industry.

The session underscored the importance of responsible creation and inclusion, inspiring attendees to reflect on their own creative roles and the potential of digital platforms to promote positive, diverse voices.

The second panel discussion, titled Digital Advertising through the Gender Lens, was moderated by Anushree Bhattacharyya, Editor, Education and Brand and Marketing, Financialexpress.com. This engaging panel featured industry leaders: Anurag Agnihotri (Managing Partner - Creative, Ogilvy West), Karthik Nagarajan (CEO, Hogarth), Neena Dasgupta (Founder & CEO, The Salt Inc.), and Zairus Master (Chief Business Officer, Honasa Consumer Ltd-Mamaearth).

Anushree kicked off the session by delving into how digital advertising is evolving with gender inclusivity in mind. Anurag Agnihotri discussed his approach to portraying women as strong, independent figures in advertising, especially in campaigns where the aim is to break away from traditional stereotypes. Zairus Master shared insights on Mamaearths consumer-centric branding, which places an emphasis on progressive storytelling that resonates with modern, urban audiences. Karthik Nagarajan tackled the topic of stereotypes in product marketing, especially within categories like beauty and personal care. Neena Dasgupta discussed how content creation on platforms like OTT and YouTube is contributing to a more nuanced portrayal of women. She noted that women-centric content often performs well on OTT platforms, reflecting a shift in audience preferences.

The panel closed with a shared sentiment on the importance of creating content that is aspirational, breaking stereotypes, and representing both men and women in roles that reflect todays society. The discussion provided valuable insights on how advertising can be a powerful tool in reshaping gender perceptions and promoting inclusivity in brand storytelling.

The event was infused with energy and laughter, thanks to a special performance by renowned comedian Neeti Palta. Her sharp wit and relatable humor based on gender portrayals, biases and stereotypes brought a fresh, lively vibe, engaging the audience and drawing waves of laughter from the guests. With her unique perspective on everyday life and her natural ability to connect with diverse audiences, Neeti turned the event into a memorable experience, leaving everyone in high spirits.

The event wrapped up with an engaging and deeply inspiring fireside chat featuring actor Taapsee Pannu, moderated by Mitrajit Bhattacharya, IAA Mancom Member and Founder of The Horologists. The session celebrated Taapsee's fearless spirit, impressive body of work, and commitment to impactful storytelling. Reflecting on her career from her Telugu film debut to her success in Hindi cinema, Taapsee shared insights into her journey, the challenges of taking on complex, women-centric roles, and her drive to explore diverse characters. She spoke about her memorable roles in films like Pink, Mulk, and Saand Ki Aankh, which echo her commitment to challenging societal norms and advocating for womens empowerment. In addition to her acting, Taapsee discussed her entrepreneurial ventures and her passion for breaking stereotypes.

Google India and YouTube were the presenting partners, while UNICEF the knowledge partner and TVS the associate partner for this event.

Republic Digital was the digital news partner and Crome Talkies, AdGully, Indian Television, Manifest, Mediabrief, MxM India were web media partners, whereas Free Press Journal & Hindustan Times were the print partners for this event.

This edition of IAA: Voice of Change summit included powerful voices that engaged in meaningful and inspiring discussions making it another milestone in the journey of the movement, reinforcing our commitment to a more positive and inclusive gender portrayal in media.
Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMBL/Kotak) has announced an RFP inviting digital creative agencies to redefine the face of financial communication for India's ambitious and aspirational consumers. With a focus on engaging, fresh, and digitally native content, Kotak is looking for a partner who brings bold, innovative ideas to make financial services more accessible, relatable, and impactful in todays digital landscape.

Kedarswamy Ravangave, Executive Vice President - Marketing at Kotak Mahindra Bank, shared, Kotaks vision is to reshape finance communication to be bold, data-driven, and digitally relevant for todays Indian consumer. We are looking for a partner who not only aligns with this vision but who can push the boundaries of traditional BFSI communication through creative, trend-driven, and innovative digital strategies. This is more than an RFPits a chance to lead the way in how finance is communicated and engaged with in India.

Seeking Agencies Ready to Push the Digital Frontier

Kotak invites agencies with expertise in the following key areas to join this mission:

Digital Innovation: Pioneering new ways to engage customers through dynamic digital platforms that bring a fresh energy to finance.

Pioneering new ways to engage customers through dynamic digital platforms that bring a fresh energy to finance. Social Media Relevance: Creating strategies that make financial services resonate on social media, transforming finance into a relatable part of daily life.

Creating strategies that make financial services resonate on social media, transforming finance into a relatable part of daily life. Creative Content: Developing compelling, boundary-pushing narratives that stand out and make finance communication engaging, current, and inspiring.

Submission Requirements

Agencies interested in partnering with Kotak should submit:

Vision for Digital Marketing: A forward-thinking perspective on the future of digital marketing in BFSI, aligning with Kotaks mission to make finance relevant and exciting for aspirational Indians.

A forward-thinking perspective on the future of digital marketing in BFSI, aligning with Kotaks mission to make finance relevant and exciting for aspirational Indians. Credentials Deck: A creatively curated portfolio showcasing work that demonstrates innovation, especially in BFSI or other relevant sectors.

A creatively curated portfolio showcasing work that demonstrates innovation, especially in BFSI or other relevant sectors. Case Studies: Successful campaign examples, with a focus on data insights, strategic creativity, and digital engagement that breaks traditional molds.

Join Kotak in Shaping the Future of Finance in India

Submissions should be sent to Digital.Rfp@kotak.com by [22/11/2024]. Shortlisted agencies will be invited to pitch their concepts in person. This RFP represents a unique opportunity to set new standards in digital engagement and content creation for the financial industry in India.

For more information about Kotak, please visit https://www.kotak.com/
Lubi Industries LLP, a leading name in India's pumps and motors industry, has joined forces with the Patna Pirates as an Associate Partner for the 11th season of the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL).

This strategic partnership is set to significantly enhance Lubi Pumps brand visibility within one of India's most beloved sporting arenas.

The collaboration provides Lubi Pumps with the opportunity to engage deeply with the passionate fan base of the three-time league champions, the Patna Pirates, and bolster its brand recognition in key regions like Bihar and Jharkhand, where the Pirates enjoy strong local support. With kabaddis immense popularity across urban and rural areas, the partnership allows Lubi to connect with diverse audiences and reinforce its position in the domestic and agricultural pump sectors.

Ronak Porecha, Director at Lubi Industries LLP, shared his enthusiasm, stating: Kabaddi is not just a sport; its a cultural phenomenon that resonates deeply, especially in regions like Bihar and Jharkhand, where the Patna Pirates have a loyal following. Partnering with a team that embodies local pride reflects our commitment to connecting with the lives of our consumers. This collaboration strengthens our bond with the communities we serve, celebrating shared values and promoting an event that unites people across markets. We are thrilled to support the Patna Pirates and wish them great success this season.

Echoing this sentiment, Pawan Rana, CEO of Patna Pirates, added: Were honored to welcome Lubi Pumps as an Associate Partner. Both Patna Pirates and Lubi Pumps share a drive for success and a substantial presence across the region. This partnership represents a powerful alliance, and we look forward to an exhilarating season filled with memorable moments.

With both Lubi Industries and Patna Pirates committed to pushing boundaries and achieving excellence, this partnership promises to create a dynamic synergy that benefits their shared audiences and fuels the excitement of the Pro Kabaddi Leagues 11th season.
Delhi Waqf Case: Court Orders 'Immediate Release' of Amanatullah Khan 2

A court on Thursday refused to take cognisance of a chargesheet filed against AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan in a money laundering case related to alleged irregularities in the Delhi Waqf Board and ordered his immediate release, saying his further incarceration in the matter would be illegal.

Special Judge Jitendra Singh said that after going through the supplementary chargesheet and the documents filed with it, including the statement of the witnesses, there was sufficient ground to proceed against Khan.

However, no sanction from the competent authority/government was placed on record against him.

Thus, cognisance against A-6 (Khan) is declined for the offence defined under Section 3 (money laundering) and punishable under Section 4 of the PMLA for the lack of requisite sanction, the judge said while noting that Khan was a public servant.

He further said that in the case, there is no legal ground to justify further detention of the accused in custody.

Keeping the accused in custody in these circumstances when the cognisance has been declined for the absence of sanction under section 197 (1) CrPC, shall tantamount to illegal custody. Under these circumstances, the accused has to be immediately released, the judge said.

Special Judge Singh further issued an order for the release of Khan in the case after accepting his bail bond of Rs 1 lakh and a surety of like amount for securing his presence in case the sanction is obtained and filed by the complainant (ED) in the future.

The ED on October 29 filed a 110-page first supplementary prosecution complaint (EDs equivalent of a chargesheet), claiming Khan laundered money that was allegedly generated through corruption in the Delhi Waqf Board.

The chargesheet had also named one Mariam Siddiqui, who was not arrested as an accused by the ED in the case. The court said there was no evidence to proceed against Siddiqui and discharged her.

The case against Siddiqui is apparently based upon surmises and conjectures, as there exists no evidence, whether direct or circumstantial, against her. The SPC (supplementary prosecution complaint) lacks grounds for proceeding against Siddiqui. Accordingly, she is not summoned in the present case, the judge said.

The ED had earlier urged the court to take cognisance of the chargesheet and said there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Khan and others in the case registered under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Khan was arrested on September 2 under the provisions of the PMLA by the ED, which conducting a search at his house in Delhis Okhla area. The AAP MLA was accused of being evasive when questioned by the probe agency.

The money laundering probe against him stems from two FIRsthe CBIs case in connection with the alleged irregularities in the Waqf Board and an alleged disproportionate assets case registered by the Delhi Police anti-corruption unit.
Its easy to see the charms that make Zekes Restaurant a Southern Living pick as one of the best places for summer vacationers to dine in Orange Beach. For starters, it offers an elegant interior plus plenty of sheltered outdoor seating with a marina view, and a mouth-watering menu thats heavy on seafood.

News flash: The same charms are on full display in the off-season, as a pair of recent visits show.

Lunchtime business was light on a recent November weekday, but you could hardly blame it on the autumn chill. The day was on the warm edge of comfortable, bright and breezy with patches of blue sky visible through broken clouds promising storms to come.

Fishing boats line the marina at Zeke's Landing in Orange Beach.Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com

It was, in short, a very pleasant day to sit outside and ponder the dozens of fishing boats docked nearby. Zekes Landing, right off Perdido Beach Boulevard on the southern shore of Cotton Bayou, boasts the largest charter fleet on the Gulf, with services ranging from deep sea fishing charters to a party boat, and on this day it was serene and shipshape: No dirty boats, no clutter, no marauding seagulls.

It helps that most of the outdoor seating is covered by a hard pavilion, giving a great view of the elements without leaving diners fully exposed to them.

The first impression of the lunch menu is that its short: Everything fits on one page. Zekes is not one of those places that cater to tourist tastes by putting everything up to and including the kitchen sink on the menu.

The Skittle Cornbread at Zeke's Restaurant is fine by itself, but it's really just an excuse to dig into the crawfish-and-Conecuh cream gravy.Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com

The second impression is that what the menu might lack in surface area, it makes up for in depth. Even something as simple as the Fried Grouper Bites ($18) comes with heirloom tomato and cucumber, served with eggplant aioli and herbed cornbread crumble. Other app choices, such as Etouffee Oysters (roasted with etouffee dressing, pickled Fresno peppers, gremolata and bread crumbs, $11), promise a different dimension altogether.

Once you get past the appetizers, things stay interesting. In addition to the usual wedge, Greek and Caesar, the salads include a Beet Salad with oven roasted beets, arugula, goat cheese, radish and lemon vinaigrette ($15). Theres a raw bar and seafood section that includes oysters, shrimp and seafood boils ($36-$48) and peel & eat shrimp ($16 for half a pound). The sandwich selection includes the poboys youd expect but also a lobster roll (market price) and a high-end burger option well get to in a minute. Entrees include Steak Frites ($29), a Classic Southern Fish Fry  but with grouper ($28)  and Moroccan Whole Fish (market).

For my lunch visit I decided to make a decadent start with the Skillet Cornbread ($14). The cornbread is a light, fine-grained disc ample enough to provide appetizer-size slices for four people. But the star is the bowl of Conecuh sausage and crawfish cream gravy that comes with it. Without it, youve got cornbread. With it, youve got heaven. The stuff could almost pass as a bisque, but its a bit too intense for that. As a sauce, its splendid  salty, exploding with Conecuh flavor and giving you a little more of a spicy kick than you might have expected.

The Surf N' Turf Burger at Zeke's Restaurant in Orange Beach pairs Wagyu beef with big chunks of Maine lobster.Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com

The lunch entree is always a tough call at a place like this. The quality of the burger provides a handy, universal benchmark. But its stupid not to get some seafood when youre this close to the water. Fortunately, Zekes offers the best of both worlds with its Surf N Turf Burger.

One could go for the basic half-pound Zekes Burger ($16) or upgrade to the Wagyu Burger ($26) with its burrata cheese, fire-roasted tomatoes, arugula, pickled red onion and pesto. But if you really want to clear the decks and go for broke theres only one choice. The Surf N Turf starts with local Alabama Wagyu beef and white American cheese, then tops that with Maine lobster and Gulf Coast aoli, all on a brioche bun.

If its a gimmick, its a gimmick that works. Theres an amazing contrast between the coarse-ground solidity of the high-quality beef and the sweet creaminess of the abundant lobster chunks. The choice of cheese is perfect to help meld them together in a unique spectrum of textures in every bite. Its $30 and worth it. Ever since finishing it I have wanted another one.

Paying $52.50 for a solo lunch with appetizer seemed a little steep, so I kept it simple for a subsequent dinner visit: No appetizer, just the Blackened Cobia, which the waitress assured me was one of the venues best sellers.

Blackened Cobia with dirty rice and crawfish-and-Conecuh cream gravy at Zeke's Restaurant in Orange Beach.Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com

Speaking of service: Its been a while since I ran into servers who were as knowledgeable about their menu as the staff I encountered at Zekes. They seemed to know their fish, and to know what went into every entree.

Theres no mystery as to why the Blackened Cobia ($30) would be a winner. The dish starts with a substantial allotment of flaky filets dusted with seasoning, then beds them down on dirty rice with plenty of that crawfish-and-Conecuh cream gravy. Its rich, its hearty, its spicy, and none of that covers up the essential quality of the fish.

We still havent covered all the menu: Dinner expands the turf side of things with filet mignons, ribeyes and an Old Bay-brined pork chop with succotash and white barbecue sauce. Theres also a Hook & Cook option, where you can have the fruits of your charter trip grilled, blackened or fried and served up family-style.

As you enter Zeke's Restaurant in Orange Beach, a display case lets you know that they take their seafood seriously.Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com

Southern Living says that Since opening in fall of 2022, Zekes Restaurant has quickly become beloved by both locals and visitors. Heres the thing that locals already know: The pleasures that draw in the visitors are there year-round.

Zekes Restaurant is at Zekes Landing, 26619 Perdido Beach Blvd. in Orange Beach. For menus and other information, visit www.zekeslanding.com.
A 16-year-old girl is among two people found shot to death in a vehicle in a Birmingham neighborhood on Tuesday night.

The Jefferson County Coroners Office on Thursday identified the victims as Alexis Elizabeth Wise and Joshua Wayne Parsons, 21. Both lived in Hueytown.

Birmingham police Sgt. LaQuitta Wade said police were alerted to a vehicle that was on the sidewalk by an abandoned house in the 1300 block of Princeton Avenue S.W. The caller reported multiple bullet holes in the car.

Officers approached the sedan and saw the victims unresponsive inside of the car.

Both were pronounced dead on the scene at 10:47 p.m. by Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service.

A man and a woman were found slain inside a bullet-riddled car on Princeton Avenue S.W.(Carol Robinson)

Wade said a passerby noticed the vehicle was moving slowly in reverse and came to a stop on the sidewalk in front of two vacant houses.

No one reported hearing gunfire, Wade said.

Mayor Randall Woodfin on Wednesday said it appeared the gunfire came from within the car.

Alexis is one of two teens killed this week in Birmingham shootings. Also Tuesday, 17-year-old Gerald Andre Lomax Jr., a Jackson-Olin High School senior, was shot and died the following day.

No arrests have been announced.

Anyone with information is asked to call Birmingham homicide detectives at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.
Alabama Power has filed a petition to purchase the rights to a natural gas power generating station in Autauga County, a move that the utility said could result in larger bills for customers.

Representatives for the company filed a petition with the Alabama Public Service Commission on Oct. 30 to acquire the Lindsey Hill natural gas power plant located in Billingsley from Tenaska Alabama Partners, L.P., a Delaware limited partnership.

Alabama Power said in the filing that it will need another 1,200 megawatts of power by the end of the decade. The Lindsey Hill station can generate up to almost 900 mW during the winter season, according to Alabama Powers filing.

More from Alabama Reflector

Our proposed acquisition of the Lindsay Hill generating facility highlights our commitment to deliver 24/7 dependable energy to customers, the company said in a statement sent Tuesday. We respect the Public Service Commissions review and certification process and believe the information we provided will demonstrate how and why the generation facility will benefit customers.

Alabama Power did not disclose, either in the filing or in questions posed by the Alabama Reflector, how much the utility plans to spend to acquire Lindsay Hill power generation site.

According to the filing, Alabama Power expects to recoup the cost of purchasing the new facility by increasing the rates it charges to residential customers by $3.80 per month on a typical residential bill. It is unclear how much the company will charge commercial and industrial customers.

Customers rates would not be affected until mid-2027 if the Alabama Public Service Commission were to approve Alabama Powers petition request, according to Alabama Power.

A message was sent to Tenaska Alabama Partners seeking comment.

Tenaska, based in Omaha, Nebraska, has developed more than 10,000 MW of natural-gas and renewable power projects.

According to Forbes, it was the 12th largest private company in the country in 2023. According to information obtained from the Tenaska website, the company formed a limited partnership to take ownership of the Liberty Hill generating station.

Alabama Power said in the filing that it has surplus capacity until 2028, at which point it will encounter deficits. The utility estimates it will have up to 650 megawatts in reserve in 2026, but expects a decline afterward, going to 390 megawatts in reserves in 2027 and 150 megawatts of reserves by 2028.

While not fully satisfying the indicated need, the acquisition proposed for certification represents a significant step towards meeting that need with a reliable and dispatchable resource, while at the same time affording the company flexibility to respond to possible changes in demand, even as it pursues other resource options to address the remaining shortfall, said Christopher Habig, manager of resource planning for Alabama Power, in testimony he gave to the Public Service Commission included in the filing.

According to Fred Clark, president and CEO of the Alabama Municipal Electric Authority, reserves from utility companies such as Alabama Power are decreasing because of increased energy demand in the state.

Data centers will consume significant amounts of electricity as they come online, and the state is expecting two in the near future. One will be based in Montgomery with the other slated for Huntsville.

Aside from that, parts of the state are increasingly becoming more developed.

Communities like Opelika, Auburn, are absolutely growing, Clark said. " Dothan is growing, Baldwin County is the second highest growing county in the state.

The state is also transitioning to different types of energy.

You have got a number of coal plants retired in the last five years, Clark said.

The increase in surplus capacity results primarily from the expiration of a wholesale power supply arrangement with the Alabama Municipal Electric Authority on December 31, 2025, Habigs testimony states.

Clark said that utilities continue to enter into different agreements as part of their regular business.

The company said in the filing that purchasing the plant outright would be cheaper than entering a power purchase agreement. According to Alabama Power, it would pay $355 per kilowatt-hour to generate power from the plant it owns, while a power purchase agreement will cost almost $600 per kilowatt-hour.

Upon the closing of a Purchase and Sale Agreement (PSA), Alabama Power will become the owner of Lindsay Hill, the filing states. At that point, the facility is expected to have a remaining useful life of approximately 17 years.

The filing also states the company considered other factors when deciding to purchase the plant.

Lindsay Hill also brings the intangible benefit of being a sister unit to central Alabama, which is in close proximity, the filing states. This creates opportunities for efficiencies in terms of inventory, labor force, supervision and other actions and activities involving the operation and maintenance of those largely identical units.

Alabama Power purchased Hills sister unit in 2020, so the company already has connections in the area. The facility can generate between 895 megawatts of power in the winter and 856 megawatts of power in the summer.

Currently, a third-party company has rights to purchase power from the facility until April 2027, after which Alabama Power retains the rights to the plant and the power that it generates.
Colorado celebrated keeping U.S. Space Command last year, but another fight over its location could be brewing as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office.

A senior GOP lawmaker from Alabama who wants the command headquartered in his home state said this week that he expects Trump will reverse a decision by President Joe Biden and relocate the command to Huntsville soon after the Republican is sworn into office in January.

Members of Colorados congressional delegation, however, said theyll mount a united, bipartisan front to oppose such a move, arguing that uprooting the fully operational command would threaten national security.

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told a local talk radio show on Monday that he anticipates Trump will make good on a campaign promise by issuing an executive order reversing Bidens directive in the first week that hes in office.

Rogers, who had been a rumored candidate to head the Department of Defense before Trump announced Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth as his Pentagon nominee, has been fighting for the headquarters for years from his powerful perch atop the congressional committee.

Last year, after Biden ordered that Space Command remain in Colorado, Rogers oversaw a national defense spending bill that withheld funding to construct a permanent headquarters for the command in Colorado Springs.

U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Crank, the Colorado Springs Republican elected last week, told AL.com that he plans to resist any attempt to move the headquarters to Alabama, adding that Trumps desire to build out Space Force and Space Command  two separate military operations  in the face of global threats requires keeping the latter where it is.

Cranks future colleagues from both sides of the aisle echoed the sentiment.

As Donald Trumps reelection to the presidency raises new questions about the permanent home of U.S. Space Command, here are six key things to know as its determined whether it stays in Colorado Springs at Peterson Space Force Base or moves to Huntsville.

Colorado is the rightful home for Space Command, a spokesman for Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said. Our states space and military assets are critical to Americas national security, and Colorado is the best place for our service members and their families to train, live, work and retire.

The Colorado delegation will work together to ensure Space Command remains here, said U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, an Aurora Democrat who represents Buckley Space Force Base, another of the states largest military installations.

Our national security relies on the workforce and space infrastructure of Colorado, and moving it poses unacceptable risks, Crow added.

U.S. Rep.-elect Gabe Evans, a Fort Lupton Republican and Army veteran, said his experience in the Colorado Air National Guard underlines his commitment to keeping the command in the state.

As a former military pilot who worked daily in Colorado with our Space counterparts, I know how critically important it is for operational readiness that Space Command remains in Colorado, Evans said in a statement. I will work with all members of the Colorado delegation to vigorously oppose any such move.

Democratic U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, a key player in the fight to keep Space Command in Colorado, chided Rogers for trying to steer the headquarters to Alabama for political reasons.

Its already been investigated, proven, and decided: Colorado Springs is the best place for Space Command because its already at work here, Hickenlooper said in a statement, adding that service members and civilians have been working around the clock at Peterson to keep the country safe.

Alabama couldnt win this fight on the merits, so hes trying to get Trump to overrule our national security and cost taxpayers an enormous amount for the sake of a hometown win, Hickenlooper said, referring to Rogers. We need leaders who fight for our national defense first, not just Huntsvilles economy.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Hurd, a Grand Junction Republican, cautioned against rushing to conclusions based solely on a politicians remarks on a talk show but emphasized that Hurd is on board with the states delegation.

Jeff has pledged to always be thoughtful and deliberative when it comes to policy initiatives, the Hurd spokesman said in a text message. Until the president makes his position known, we are all speculating. That said, Congressman-elect Crank is right, USSPACECOM belongs Colorado Springs.

El Paso County and Colorado Springs officials also would jump back into advocating to keep the command and its robust economic impact.

We will continue to make the case that Peterson Space Force Base is the best place for U.S. Space Command due to cost and our regions infrastructure, skilled workforce and strong community support essential to the mission, the El Paso County commissioners said in a statement.

Dani Bolling, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Springs Chamber and Economic Development Corp., noted in a written statement Tuesday that Colorado Springs is a strategic hub for protecting the United States and allied interests in space, and home to more than 150 private aerospace and defense companies.

An estimated 100,000 national security professionals are employed in Colorado Springs, Rep. Doug Lamborns office said previously.

Moving the command of about 1,700 people could also degrade the readiness of the command at a time with China is investing heavily in space, former Space Command leader Gen. James Dickinson warned last year in congressional testimony.

In my experience, such a move would pose unnecessary risk and uncertainty on retention and recruitment of our trained workforce. Based on the nature of the threat and the rapid progress in U.S. Space Commands operational capability, a move presented a high risk to our mission and force at a pivotal time, Dickinson wrote.

Government and business leaders from Colorado Springs and El Paso County said Tuesday they are committed to working with Trump and his transition team to discuss Colorado Springs role in national security.

The command reached full operational capability in December and recently celebrated its fifth birthday in July.

Two retired generals estimated a few years ago that it could cost $1.2 billion to move the headquarters and take years of work, The Gazette reported.

The command provides combatant commanders with support such as weather monitoring; space control; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; position, navigation and timing; satellite communications; and missile warning, The Gazette previously reported.

It is similar to the executive suite of a company, setting overall strategy and big-picture defensive plans, explained Auria President Tom Dickson. Colorado Springs-based defense company Auria was born out of the merger of Boecore, Ascension Engineering Group, Orbit Logic and La Jolla Logic.

Running the headquarters takes quite a few people, because it is so complex. But if the command moved, the units actually operating satellites, providing services like communications, would remain.

A move could take years, just as the Missile Defense Agencys move from Washington, D.C., to Huntsville did, Dickson said, and some employees probably wouldnt transfer.

It took them years and years to finally get completely moved, he said.

Auria wouldnt be affected by a move because it works largely on the operational side of space, but common sense would dictate the Space Command stay in town, Dickson said.

Its such a disruption to their mission, he said.

Mark Stafford, president and CEO of the company of Delta Solutions & Strategies, a prime contractor for Space Command, told The Gazette Tuesday, he wasnt feeling any uncertainty based on Trumps election.

We press ahead and do the mission, he said, and that wont change with a move.

The company is completing a $187 million contract for Space Command to provide military operations, intelligence, logistics, communications and exercises. As a prime contractor, the company employs numerous other companies to complete its work.

The company supports Space Command across its four locations in Colorado and one in California. One of those is a 100,000-square-foot secure building. Previously, Redstone Arsenal had set aside 60 acres of raw land for Space Command.

If the command moved, Delta Solutions & Strategies would expand its office in Huntsville, but would maintain its footprint in Colorado Springs. The company employs 250 people along the Front Range.

He also expects the local space and aerospace industry would keep growing, although at a slower pace than the past five years.

Its a thriving industry in Colorado Springs, he said.

Dickson said he expected continued business growth could continue as the Space Force develops in town.

There is a lot of need and there are a lot of threats that keep emerging, he said.

Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade and the Chamber of Commerces Bolling said they will work with Trump and the transition team to discuss the citys role in national security, adding they will continue to support Space Commands mission.

We ... are eager to share the great things underway in Colorado Springs, especially our citys strong history and contributions to national security, Mobolade said, in part, in a written statement Tuesday, adding that the citys robust ecosystem is a key factor in the early success of (Space Command), and we are committed to working together to support its mission to defend our great nation.

___

(c)2024 The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)

Visit The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.) at www.gazette.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
President-elect Donald Trump addressed a gathering of House Republicans in Washington on Wednesday morning ahead of his scheduled meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House.

Speaking to officials, Trump boasted about the decisive victories in key swing states over Vice President Kamala Harris in last week's election, emphasizing the significant shift of traditionally Democratic strongholds toward the Republican Party.

"We won it every way, all seven swing states, by a lot," Trump reportedly told the crowd.

Trump once again returns to the White House after a total of 312 votes compared with Vice-President Kamala Harris's 226. A candidate needs 270 to win the White House.

During his speech Wednesday, Trump suggested that "next time, if we go up even a fraction of what we went up," Republicans could flip states like New Jersey, New York and California.

Trump won the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Nevada.

Before the meeting, House Speaker Mike Johnson called President-elect Donald Trump the "comeback king" to House Republicans, CNN reported, citing a source in the closed-door meeting.

"We rode his wave" Johnson told GOP lawmakers. "The coattails are enormous."

Trump arrived at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Wednesday, preparing to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House. The visit marks a customary step in the peaceful transfer of power  a tradition Trump notably skipped during the last transition four years ago.

President Joe Biden has pledged to ensure a smooth transition to the incoming Trump administration, despite spending over a year campaigning for reelection and warning against Trump as a threat to democracy and national values. Biden exited the race in July, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as his preferred successor.
Trumps AG nom ...

At least one lawmaker from Alabama was already firing shots over the bow regarding President Trumps announced nominations for his administrations leaders.

AL.coms Howard Koplowitz reports that U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville warned fellow Republican Senators against opposing the confirmation of recently resigned Congressman Matt Gaetz for U.S. Attorney General.

Said Tuberville: If you want to get in the way, fine. But were going to try to get you out of the Senate, too, if you try to do that.

That doesnt mean Tuberville expected the Gaetz nomination any more than the rest of the Senate did. News outlets including the New Republic reported that upon learning the news Tuberville let out a surprised Holy cow.

The Tuberville threat might be another indication that Gaetz for AG could be the toughest confirmation immediately facing the Trump Administration.

Remember that in January 2023, during voting for House Speaker, Gaetz and Congressman Mike Rogers, a Saks Republican, looked as if they might square off in a fight on the House floor. Gaetz was among those blocking Kevin McCarthys Speaker bid.

Later that year, the House was thrown into more chaos as Gaetz led a successful effort to remove McCarthy from the position.

McCarthy has claimed Gaetzs motivation was a House Ethics Committee investigation over allegations of Gaetz paying for sex with a 17-year-old. The Justice Department dropped its related criminal investigation, and the House investigation was ongoing until Gaetz resigned the House yesterday.

... and the Senate majority leader

A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Katie Britt said she really did vote for Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader, reports AL.coms Sarah Whites-Koditschek.

After Britt said she voted for Scott, social media lit up with rumors that she was lying. John Thune won that election, which didnt sit well with a lot of Trump supporters.

The rumor seems to track back to Laura Loomer, who at times has been somewhat close to Donald Trump. She posted that a source told her Britt lied. Apparently, shes also had sources tell her things about 9-11, school shootings and even Ron DeSantis' wifes cancer that dont bear repeating here. So weigh that as you will.

Scott thanked Britt for her support, and Britt as well as fellow Scott supporter Tommy Tuberville both said theyd support Majority Leader Thune.

John Lewis statue

There is a new statue of John Lewis in Montgomery, reports AL.coms Heather Gann.

Lewis represented a Georgia district in the U.S. House of Representatives, but he was from Pike County, Alabama, and of course came to fame for leading civil-rights marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, when they were attacked by authorities.

The statue was unveiled at the Equal Justice Initiatives Legacy Plaza. It joins statues of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.

Hard time at The Kay?

A state board has passed resolutions on the transfer of property and construction contract for the new mens prison in Escambia County, reports AL.coms Mike Cason.

Thats the second of two prisons that are being built as part of the current plan. The one in Elmore County is under construction and expected to be finished in around a year and a half.

The same board also put a name on the Elmore County prison: The Governor Kay Ivey Correctional Complex.

Just think. One day you might be able to tell somebody you did your time at The Kay.

Ivey spearheaded the prison plan, which started out with a $1.3 billion price tag. Now, the cost of the Elmore County prison alone is approaching that, so paying for the Escambia prison is another hurdle to clear.

Still, State Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, a Greensboro Democrat, is on board with the Republican-led plan, considering demands from the U.S. Department of Justice that Alabama improve the state of its prisons.

Building prisons is not sexy, Singleton said. I would rather spend money on building schools or doing something else. But the federal government has said that we need to do something about our prisons.

By the Numbers

$300,000

Thats how much Birmingham City Schools Superintendent Mark Sullivan would make annually under a contract approved by the school board. That would have him making more money than the state superintendent and as much as Creshal Threadgill, Mobile Countys superintendent, who became the first superintendent in the state to reach $300,000 last year.

More Alabama News

Born on This Date

In 1954, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of Birmingham.

The podcast
Dont pull out the snowplows, but a snowflake sighting *could* be possible next week in parts of north Alabama.

Veteran meteorologist Jason Simpson, from Birminghams WVTM 13, was brave enough to mention the possibility in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday:

The bigger story is going to be the massive swing from the warm to the cold without a major risk of severe weather!



Oh, and the wind chill could drop to the 10s and 20s! pic.twitter.com/BaHhhvRbHm  Jason Simpson (@simpsonWVTM13) November 14, 2024

Simpson said the bigger story will be the possibility much colder air coming to Alabama about a week from now.

The National Weather Service only forecasts seven days into the future, and the possible cold spell is just outside their forecast range. However, meteorologists did mention the possibility in Thursdays forecast discussion, saying: Looks like some cold weather is coming as well, although the timing and magnitude of said cold is still to be determined.

NOAAs Climate Prediction Center is including a low probability of below-average temperatures in its temperature outlook from Nov. 21 (next Thursday) through Nov. 27:

There will be a slightly higher probability of cooler-than-average temperatures in Alabama from Nov. 21-27.CPC

According to the weather service, November snow in Alabama is very, very rare but not unheard of:

* The earliest snowfall on record in Huntsville was 4 inches on Nov. 2, 1966.

* Anniston also got 0.8 inch on Nov. 2, 1966.

* Muscle Shoals got 3.3 inches on Nov. 24, 1938.

* Birmingham had 1.4 inches of snow on Nov. 24, 1950.

* Montgomery and Tuscaloosa both have had trace amounts of snow in November: Montgomery in 2018 and Tuscaloosa in 2011.
Alabama saw a spike in infant deaths last year, reaching the highest rate since 2016, state health officials said.

Of the nearly 58,000 babies born last year, 449 did not reach one year old, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health. Thats a rate of 7.8 deaths for every 1,000 births and a big spike from 2022.

Many factors contribute to infant mortality, including race, poverty, educational levels, and access, said Dr. Scott Harris, the state health officer, in a news release today. It is discouraging that racial disparities remain in birth outcomes, and the Black infant mortality rate is twice the rate for white infants.

In 2022, the infant mortality rate dipped to 6.7. That was the lowest ever recorded in the state, though still higher than the national average of 5.6 deaths for every 1,000 births.

In 2023, 229 white infants died as the mortality rate rose to 5.7, up from 4.3 in 2022  a difference of 55 more babies who died last year.

The infant mortality rate for Black infants increased to 13 per 1,000 births, up from 12.4 in 2022. The 204 Black infants who died in 2023 was an increase of three deaths over the previous year.

According to ADPH, the three leading causes of death for babies in 2023 were:

Congenital malformations, deformations and abnormalities

Disorders related to short gestation and low birth weight

Sudden infant death syndrome

Harris said that where mothers live could be a factor in the higher death rates.

A possible reason is limited access to prenatal care and the proximity of hospitals to where these mothers live, he said. Challenges to improve the health of all mothers and babies continue.

A 2023 report by March of Dimes found that over a third of Alabama counties are classified as maternity care deserts, meaning they dont have access to birthing centers or maternity care providers.

On average, women in Alabama had to travel about 18 miles to the nearest hospital to give birth, the report found. The state has lost nearly a quarter of its birthing hospitals in the last few years.

Over half of the mothers who lost babies last year were on Medicaid, according to ADPH, and 2023 saw the highest number of births with no prenatal care.

The rate of teenagers giving birth, however, reached its lowest number ever in the state, at 3,467 births.

ADPH said they are implementing a number of approaches to bring down the states infant mortality rate, including:

Partnering with medical providers to provide prenatal care in nine rural counties

Providing cribs for families to prevent sleep-related deaths

Expanding access to a disease detection programs that help with healthier pregnancies from nine counties to 12

Increasing insurance coverage statewide for low-income pregnant women under the ALL Babies program.

There is no easy solution; we must follow evidence-based practices to save lives, Harris said in the release.
A Montgomery man has been sentenced to federal prison for selling fentanyl to a man who died after using the drug the same day.

Lawrence Coley III, 37, was convicted in August on charges of distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death and possession of fentanyl with intent to distribute the illegal drug,

Court documents did not identify the victim.

Coley on Thursday was sentenced to 20 years in prison, according to a joint announcement by Middle District of Alabama Acting U.S. Attorney Kevin Davidson and DEA New Orleans Division Special Agent in Charge Steven Hofer

On Aug. 26, 2022, Montgomery police responded to a report of an unresponsive person inside a vehicle at a Montgomery home. When they arrived, they found a truck in the driveway with the ignition still on and the doors locked.

A man was dead inside the truck.

A medical examiner concluded that the victim died due to the toxic effects of fentanyl.

During trial, the jury heard expert testimony stating that the quantity of fentanyl found in the victims blood was four to five times the lethal dose.

An investigation into how the victim obtained the fentanyl revealed that, for over a year, Coley had been supplying the victim with illegal narcotics.

The transactions occurred almost daily and sometimes even multiple times a day.

The jury also heard testimony verifying that the victim purchased narcotics from Coley on the very morning of his death.

Investigators obtained a search warrant for Coleys residence and found 70 blue pills with M marked on one side, and 30 on the opposite side.

The pills color and markings made them look like pharmaceutical oxycodone tablets.

However, lab tests determined the pills were counterfeit and contained fentanyl instead of oxycodone.

When officers arrested Coley during a traffic stop, they found him in possession of five additional counterfeit fentanyl pills.

In finding Coley guilty, the jury determined that the fentanyl sold by Coley to the victim caused his death and that Coley intended to distribute the fentanyl pills in his possession.

This case illustrates the tragic consequences that drug trafficking can have on our communities, Davidson said. Coleys complete disregard for the lives of others by continuing to sell his illegal drugs after causing a mans death is disturbing.

The harsh reality is that any pill not obtained from a pharmacy or doctors office could contain a lethal dose of fentanyl or other deadly drug, he said. This sentence should serve as a warning to drug dealers - if you sell a pill and it contains fentanyl, you run the risk of spending decades in federal prison with no possibility of parole.

The DEA and the Montgomery Police Department investigated the case, with assistance from the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences and the Alabama Attorney Generals Office.

Assistant United States Attorneys Brandon W. Bates and Christopher P. Moore prosecuted the case.
This is an opinion column.

Sometimes, the universe winks.

From above me came a noise I had heard only in movies  a shrill high-pitched announcement alerting onlookers below that the show was on.

Here I am! it seemed to say.

It couldnt be, could it? Here? Now? No, way! But then I looked up, and there it was.

Is that a %#*ing eagle? I said, hoping someone nearby would tell me I wasnt the only one seeing this.

And not just any old eagle, but a bald eagle coasting on the wind high above the U.S. Capitol.

It was the first time in my life I had seen one. And that it should happen the first time in my life I set foot in that place seemed a little too on the nose. Perhaps I was still in my hotel bed and didnt know it, sleeping through the hearing I was there to cover.

I tried to take a picture of the thing. I captured a tiny silhouette  enough to show folks back home I hadnt made this up  and then it glided away.

Well, that was weird, I thought.

I went back to the business I was there for, but I never quite put that bird out of my mind. Ive had a feeling ever since then I would be going back there someday to look for it.

As it turns out, someday will be early next year.

Recently, my wife accepted a job in D.C. Were packing our things and tidying up our home for someone else to live in. The Whitmires are going to Washington.

This, however, is not goodbye.

Beginning in January, Ill be what were calling the Washington watchdog columnist.

But Ill be leaving the place Ive called home since I was six months old.

Alabamian for life

Where are you from? In the South, that question means three things.

Where were you born? Where did you grow up? Where do you live?

I was born in Georgia  a fact my mother reminded me of every time Alabama acted out in some embarrassing, national-news sort of way.

I grew up in Thomasville, Ala., where my family moved when I was three. It was two hours from the nearest movie-plex and a great place to do a lot of reading.

Nearly 30 years ago, I moved to Birmingham to attend a small college that sadly no longer exists. This city is where I met my wife. Its where my children were born. Its where I covered the mad foibles of a lunatic mayor and chronicled the once-largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States. And its from here that I watched the poisonous politics of my home state seep into the national bloodstream.

Alabama has been good to me, although not so much for others. Ill be sad to leave it.

Alabama has been and always will be my home.

Alabamafication of D.C.

Theres a great change happening in our nation  that thing Ive nicknamed the Alabamafication of America. The epicenter of that shift, however, was never Montgomery, but Washington, D.C.

Hating on Washington has become a national pastime and a gimmick charlatans use to win public trust they never earned. What George Wallace started, long before I was born, now threatens our national character, our stability and our standing in the world. When a president-elect chooses a Fox News TV personality to lead the Defense Department, you know something has gone an Alabama sort of way. When Matt Gaetz could be our next attorney general or Tulsi Gabbard the director of national intelligence, the universe isnt winking anymore. Its pulling the fire alarm.

My wife and I made the decision to move to D.C. before we knew the outcome of the election, and since then, friends have asked if we were certain this was the right thing for us. Ive never been more certain of anything.

If someone is going to cover the Alabamafication of America, who else but an Alabamian?

There, I will follow around Alabamas elected officials, sit through their meetings, get my nose up in their business, and let folks back home know what theyre up to. What I once did at Birmingham City Hall, and then did for Alabama state lawmakers, Ill do on Capitol Hill.

Alabama has prepared me for this as only she could. For that and so much more, I am grateful.

Im excited to explore, examine and report back what I see there  not writing about Washington for Washington, but for Alabamians.

And just maybe, Ill find that damn bird.
Two teenagers are in custody after leading Jefferson County sheriffs deputies on a chase in a stolen vehicle, according to authorities.

Authorities said the 14-year-old boys hit two other vehicles during the pursuit, including a parked car, before crashing and fleeing on foot.

Just before 4 p.m. Monday, deputies responded to the 5000 block of Myron Massey Road to investigate a report of persons with guns, said sheriffs spokesman Henry Irby.

When they arrived, they tried to make a traffic stop but the driver of the Hyundai refused and a pursuit ensued.

During the chase, Irby said, the driver struck a motorist on Allison Bonnet Memorial Drive, causing minimal damage.

The pursuit ended in the 5300 block of Molton Gray Drive, where the driver struck a vehicle that was parked in a driveway.

Four suspects exited the vehicle and ran into a wooded area.

Midfield police officers immediately captured one of the suspects.

Jefferson County tracking dogs, as well as Bessemer officers, responded to the scene and captured a second suspect as he exited the wooded area.

Alabama State Troopers also responded to investigate.

Irby said one weapon was recovered.

Two other suspects are still at large.

One of the captured teens is charged with first-degree receiving stolen property, reckless endangerment, menacing, attempting to elude, certain persons forbidden to posses a firearm and two counts of leaving the scene of an accident.

The second suspect is charges with attempting to elude.

Both are being held in the Jefferson County Juvenile Detention Facility.

The investigation is still ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to call the Jefferson County Sheriffs Office at 205-325-1450 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.
The mayor thought he was right to fire his former fire chief.

But Jefferson County officials have overruled him, leaving the city of Tarrant with two men leading the fire department, a $500,000 bill and a quandary on what to do next.

Mayor Wayman Newton terminated Jason Rickels in 2021. The current chief is Patrick Bennett.

Jefferson County Personnel Board recently declared that the city improperly fired Rickels and ordered him back to work.

The town of 5,000 residents now has two fire chiefs and a $500,000 bill for back pay and legal fees after losing a longtime dispute.

As a result, Tarrant must contend with having two department heads and how to pay for more than two-and-half years of missed salary, benefits and lawyer bills.

The personnel board in its order Nov. 7, said the mayor failed to properly notify the city council of Rickels termination, which invalided the action.

Rickels now is back on the job and also seeking another $100,000 in legal fees.

The facts and the law were on our side, and it took a while to hash it out, Rickels attorney Scott Morro told AL.com. We are very, very pleased. Like anything else, it just takes time to do the right thing.

Morro said Rickels is not trying to lead the department but wants to remain on the citys books for about another year so he can retire.

Hes not looking to be a problem for the city of Tarrant. He was a good employee when he was there and hes looking to resolve this issue amicably, Morro said, noting that the relationship between the chief and mayor was tense.

He believes it would be best for everybody if he got his retirement and said cest la vie, Morro said using the French phrase for thats life.

The council has not yet met to discuss the order or Rickels request.

The city council has just received the personnel boards order and is considering all its options and wants to take actions that are best and fair to Chief Rickels, said Wayne Morse, an attorney who represents the city council.

However, Newton scoffed at the latest order, blaming politics and dishonesty on the part of his enemies on the council.

Newton maintained that he had notified councilors of the termination and that the council had time to act.

They were well aware that he was terminated. They chose not to do anything, Newton said.

The personnel board ruling is the latest in political and legal volleys that bitterly divided city hall in ongoing battles between the mayor and council.

The council also has clashed with Newton over his firing of the police chief, a move that also went to court and the Personnel Board several times before Chief Wendell Major was returned to work.

Morro is also Majors lawyer and he also represented the embattled former city manager John Brown, whose hiring by the city council was successfully defeated by a lawsuit from Newton.

Newton, who was already at odds with Rickels, fired him after the chief was arrested near Atlanta in an altercation at his property there.

Roswell, Georgia police claimed Rickels brandished a gun on the realtor and smashed her photographers camera. He was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a firearm during commission of a felony and second-degree criminal damage to property. The charges were later dropped.

The council in November 2022 even advertised a resolution to rehire the fire chief, but took no action.

Im tired of having to clean up their mess, Newton said. This is a mess that they created because they didnt have the balls to stand in front of a city full of black folks and say, we want to keep our friend as our fire chief despite him pulling out a gun on black folks.

Newton and the former fire chief had also previously clashed over hiring practices in the department.

Newton noted that while the council did not take action to protest his firing of the former fire chief, they did vote to hire his replacement.

Im calling them out, Newton said. All of this would have been a moot issue if they had gone in there and told the truth. This is a situation of their own doing and theyre going to have to atone for this.
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Wednesday threatened his Republican colleagues with primary opposition if they do not vote to confirm President-elect Donald Trumps choice of Matt Gaetz for U.S. attorney general.

Tuberville issued the warning during an appearance on Fox Business when asked whether the controversial attorney general nominee could be confirmed in the Senate, where the GOP will have a slim majority.

I dont know, youre finding all the swamp creatures coming out right now in opposition to Gaetz, Tuberville said.

"We're gonna try to get you out of the Senate if you try to do that" -- Tommy Tuberville threatens Republican senators who might vote against Gaetz pic.twitter.com/7hwjuZruaL  Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 13, 2024

Everybodys got an opinion up here but at the end of the day, President Trump was elected by an enormous vote, and he deserves the team around him that he wants. Its not us to determine that.

Tuberville acknowledged the Republican establishments reluctance to confirm Gaetz, but said Trump deserves to have his choice of cabinet members after last weeks resounding election victory.

Wait a minute -- you are not the United States of America. You have one vote in the U.S. Senate. You did not get elected president. Vote with President Trump. This is the last chance were going to have saving this country, he said.

And if you want to get in the way, fine, Tuberville continued. But were going to try to get you out of the Senate, too, if you try to do that.

The Gaetz pick was deemed so controversial that House Republicans thought the nomination was a joke, according to the Associated Press.

Gaetz represents much of the Florida Panhandle and became a conservative star when he joined Congress, appearing as a frequent staunch defender of Trump on cable news.

He irked fellow GOP members in early 2023 when he filed the resolution that successfully ousted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

McCarthy then helped fund a primary challenge to Gaetz that included commercials alleging that he paid for sex with a 17-year-old, an allegation currently investigated by the House Ethics Committee.

Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and the Justice Department ended its own sex trafficking investigation without bringing charges against him.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
There will likely be a new tropical storm soon, and its name will be Sara.

The National Hurricane Center on Wednesday designated a tropical disturbance in the western Caribbean as Potential Tropical Cyclone 19 and began issuing advisories and track maps on it.

The hurricane center calls storms potential tropical cyclones when they are not organized enough to be considered named storms but could bring some of those same hazards to land areas.

In this case, it would be Central America. The hurricane center warned that life-threatening flash flooding will be possible in Honduras later this week and over the weekend. Rainfall amounts of 20 inches wont be out of the question there depending on the storms track.

Its too soon to say if the potential Sara could eventually be a problem for the United States. However, the hurricane centers official track map shows the storm meandering in the western Caribbean through Sunday and possibly making landfall as a tropical storm in Belize on Monday.

Some longer-range forecast models suggest the storm, if it doesnt stay over land, could make it into the Gulf of Mexico and then, possibly, turn toward Florida. But that track only speculation at this point.

As of 6 p.m. CST Wednesday, Potential Tropical Cyclone 19 was located about 260 miles east-northeast of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Nicaragua-Honduras border and was moving to the west at 6 mph.

The storm had winds of 30 mph. It would need a defined surface circulation and winds of at least 39 mph to be classified as Tropical Storm Sara.

The hurricane center said the system could become a tropical storm on Thursday and continue strengthening, if it remains over water.

Theres a chance it could become Hurricane Sara. The intensity forecast hinges on whether the system stays over water. It is expected to meander very close to the coast over the weekend.

The amount of rainfall the system could drop on Central America is significant. The hurricane center said 10 to 20 inches with isolated storm totals around 30 inches are expected over northern Honduras through early next week.

This rainfall will lead to widespread areas of life-threatening and potentially catastrophic flash flooding and mudslides, forecasters said.

The storm could also bring 5 to 10 inches of rain with localized totals around 15 inches to the rest of Honduras as well as Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala and western Nicaragua.

Hurricane and tropical storm watches have been issued for Central America:

* A Hurricane Watch is in effect from Punta Castilla to the Honduras/Nicaragua border.

* A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect from the Honduras/Nicaragua border to Puerto Cabezas.

The Atlantic hurricane season is near its end but still has a few weeks to go. The last official day will be Nov. 30.
Tropical Storm Sara has been named in the Caribbean Sea, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Sara had winds of 40 mph as of Thursday night.

The hurricane center backed off on Saras potential intensity on Thursday, and hurricane watches have been dropped for Honduras. Sara is now not expected to reach hurricane strength.

However, Sara could still bring 20 to even 30 inches of rain to parts of Central America though the weekend, which could cause serious flash flooding and mudslides, according to forecasters.

Its too soon to say if the storm will affect the U.S., but its long-range forecast track as of Thursday night now suggests it will fall apart over Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula early next week.

The hurricane centers track shows the storm meandering in the western Caribbean very close to the coast of Honduras over the weekend, then heading northward and across Belize and the Yucatan.

As of 6 p.m. CST Thursday, the center of Tropical Storm Sara was located about 130 miles east-southeast of Isla Guanaja, Honduras, and was moving to the west at 10 mph.

Sara had winds of 40 mph, making it a minimal tropical storm. The hurricane center said some strengthening is possible if the center of Sara remains offshore of the northern coast of Honduras.

The big concern with the storm is the amount of rain it could bring to Central America. The hurricane center said 10 to 20 inches of rain with isolated totals of around 30 inches area expected over northern Honduras through next week.

This rainfall will lead to widespread areas of life-threatening and potentially catastrophic flash flooding and mudslides, especially along and near the Sierra La Esperanza, the hurricane center said.

Other areas, including the rest of Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala and western Nicaragua could get 5 to 10 inches of rain with localized totals around 15 inches through early next week.

* A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the northern coast of Honduras form Punta Sal eastward to the Honduras/Nicaragua Border and The Bay Islands of Honduras.

* A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the northeastern coast of Nicaragua from Puerto Cabezas northward to the Honduras/Nicaragua Border

There are no other systems being watched for development by the hurricane center as of Thursday. The Atlantic hurricane season will come to an end on Nov. 30.
Typhoon Usagi slammed into the Philippines' already disaster-ravaged north on Thursday, as authorities rushed to evacuate thousands of people from flood-prone areas.

The fifth storm to strike the country in just three weeks, Usagi made landfall in the town of Baggao in Cagayan province at 0530 GMT, packing winds of 175 kilometres (109 miles) an hour, the national weather service said.

The brutal wave of weather disasters has already killed 159 people and prompted the United Nations to request $32.9 million in aid for the worst-affected regions.

The national weather agency had initially raised its highest storm alert, but downgraded to its second-highest as Usagi made landfall.

It weakened to 165 kilometres an hour as it ploughed north to the municipality of Gonzaga and open waters beyond it.

Baggao police said no casualties or substantial damage were immediately reported, while 28 residents of a village were evacuated amid concern it would get flooded.

"It was weaker than we expected," a relieved police officer, Karen Ibarra, told AFP by phone.

President Ferdinand Marcos, visiting storm-affected areas to dole out emergency cash aid, urged residents to comply with evacuation orders.

"We know that it is difficult to leave your homes and possessions, but sheltering could save lives," he told residents of Mindoro island south of the capital Manila, according to an official transcript of his speech.

"While we cannot prevent typhoons from hitting the country, we can take steps to reduce their impact," he said, calling for better infrastructure to cope with worsening storm effects he blamed on climate change.

Elsewhere in Cagayan, officials worked in driving rain Thursday to evacuate residents along the coasts and on the banks of already swollen rivers.

"Yesterday it was preemptive evacuations. Now we're doing forced evacuations," local disaster official Edward Gaspar told AFP by phone hours before landfall, adding 1,404 residents were sheltering at a municipal gym in Gonzaga.

Cagayan's civil defence chief Rueli Rapsing said he expected local governments to take 40,000 people to shelters, roughly the same number that were removed from their homes ahead of Typhoon Yinxing earlier this month.

He said more than 5,000 Cagayan residents were still in shelters following the previous storms because the Cagayan river, the country's largest, remained swollen from heavy rain that fell in several provinces upstream.

After Usagi, Severe Tropical Storm Man-yi is forecast to strike the densely-populated capital Manila on Sunday.

This was similar to the path of last month's Severe Tropical Storm Trami, which accounted for most of the deaths tallied in the recent swarm of weather disasters to hit the country.

Local officials were ordered to convince residents of flood- and landslide-prone communities in Man-yi's path to move to shelters on Friday ahead of its landfall, the civil defence office said.

"Typhoons are overlapping. As soon as communities attempt to recover from the shock, the next tropical storm is already hitting them again," said Gustavo Gonzalez, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in the Philippines.

"In this context, the response capacity gets exhausted and budgets depleted."

A UN assessment of the past month's weather disasters said 207,000 houses had been damaged or destroyed, and nearly 700,000 people were seeking temporary shelter.

Many families were without even essentials like sleeping mats, hygiene kits, and cooking supplies, and had limited access to safe drinking water, it said.

The storms destroyed thousands of hectares of farmland and persistent flooding is likely to delay replanting efforts and worsen food supply problems, the report added.

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the archipelago nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people and keeping millions in enduring poverty.

A recent study showed that storms in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change.
By Dave Williams

Capitol Beat News Service

ATLANTA  State lawmakers exploring ways to foster safe firearm storage in Georgia have recommended a carrot-and-stick approach to an issue that has taken on greater urgency since Septembers mass school shooting in Barrow County.

A Georgia Senate study committee proposed legislation providing civil and criminal penalties for parents or caregivers who allow children access to a loaded firearm and lowering insurance premiums for homeowners who buy safe storage devices such as trigger locks or gun safes.

Having laws like this on the books is critical to us curbing this senseless act of gun violence, Sen. Emanuel Jones, the committees chairman, said.

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who presides over the Senate, created the Senate Study Committee on Safe Firearm Storage last March, but several of the panels meetings have taken place since two students and two teachers were shot to death at Apalachee High School near Winder in September.

Another student was arrested at the scene and charged with the murders, while his father, Colin Gray, also faces criminal charges for allegedly letting his son possess the AR-15 style rifle used in the killings. The two were indicted last month and are due to be arraigned next week.

The study committee also is recommending creating a director position inside state government to coordinate training and technical assistance to schools looking to create a safe and secure environment, review schools emergency operations plans, and produce educational materials on safe firearm storage. Jones said the position could be created within the governors office without the need for legislation.

The panel also suggested the General Assembly pass legislation requiring a 10-day waiting period before purchasing an assault rifle, unless the buyer has a state-issued license to carry firearms.

Sometimes in those 10 days, cooler heads can prevail, Jones said.

The study committees recommendations will be forwarded to the full Senate to consider during the legislative session starting in January,
This week, just after the election, my fine Rabbi gave a very conciliatory and compassionate talk. There was a lot to admire in it. He was speaking to a congregation where likely 95% of the congregants were passionate Kamala supporters. Most of them were deeply saddened, many despairing, some enraged by the election results. He spoke eloquently about how all of us American Jews are on a journey together. He argued we all basically have the same end in sight regarding our religion and our country -- being good Jews and Americans, striving to make our religion and country better. The Democrat Jew, he argued, takes a different path to those ends from the Republican Jew. We must respect each other's paths and love each other as fellow travelers on this journey. He, as our religious leader, was there not to judge but to embrace each Jew no matter for whom they voted.

I respect and admire his sentiments. However, I think it reflects in good measure of what deeply afflicts America and non-orthodox Judaism (as well as mainline Christianity). It is reflective of an America and religious traditions that have weakened due to focusing on the feminine aspects of human nature. In doing so it ignores, denigrates, or discards its vital masculine part. We hear it all the time now -- the trope of toxic masculinity. We see it in the irrational and intense hatred of the very masculine Donald Trump.

The majority of Americans know that compassion without strong standards is an America lost. The loving God without the judging God is no God at all. Americans let their thoughts about this be known in the landslide election. They demanded a return of the masculine, to standards. This they got in a Republican party chock full of standards -- and standards-oriented men like President Trump.

So, Id say, yes Rabbi, I can, and we all should, feel some feminine compassion for the suffering of our fellow American Democrats and Jews over losing an election. Compassion is fully present in the typical Republican mind just as it is in that of the Democrat. I, however, know that the return of standards is a great and necessary thing for our country. Civilization depends on it. I also know the ends we seek, the Democrat end saturated almost exclusively in compassion and the Republican one balanced between compassion and standards are irreconcilable. We were dying as a country until last Tuesday when the masculine trait of standards was revitalized.

So, indeed we can feel compassion for the poor souls that have caught this Democrat-induced and Democrat-spread malevolent social contagion of gender confusion, but standards demand that we assert that there are only two sexes and two genders; men do not become pregnant; boys cannot become girls; surgeons who cut off breasts and penises of young mentally ill people should be in jail; mothers who dress their boys as girls should be reported to CPS and guided to a competent psychologist; men should not be competing with women in sports, and they should not be in our girls showers and locker rooms.

Yes, we all can and should feel compassion for pregnant women struggling with not wanting to give birth to their child, but standards demand we give great moral weight to that living boy or girl within her body. That child is not her body. It is in her body. It is not her choice, rather it is a living human being. That fully alive boy or girl is not something abstract called reproductive healthcare. And standards demand that we not, as the Democrats demand, sanction a doctor who for religious reasons declines to kill a living unborn boy or girl.

And certainly, we can have lots of compassion for people who genuinely get irritated, insulted, and disgusted hearing or reading words they find problematic or offensive. But standards call for us to demand these Democrats get in control of their feelings because freedom of speech is one of our God-given rights not open for a vote, repeal, or debate.

Compassion does call each Democrat and Republican to feel and care for the poor. Most do. But standards demand we care for the poor in the right way. Standards say you do not build a Leviathan-sized, liberty-crushing government and welfare state, armed with soldiers of the State carrying hundreds of thousands of assault weapons who come to our homes and demand we hand over our private property to our neighbor because some Democrat bureaucrat or politician says he deserves our money. That started with the compassionate democrats under LBJ and his Great Society Program. Now, decades later, after stealing over 20 trillion dollars of private property and dispensing it to fight poverty, the average inner-city poor family remains in shambles, their boys left without fathers, their poverty rates unchanged.

I could go on and on about how the focus on compassion without standards leads to terrible ends. We could talk about intense compassion towards immigrants overwhelming standards of a secure border with it all this leading to deaths, poverty, sex slavery, child abuse, and social dysfunction throughout America. But as the Rabbi also mentioned in his talk, King Solomon had that ring which comforted him -- the ring that said this too shall pass. That has been my comfort for now 12 years of this compassion-driven Democrat party creating such chaos and regression in the American experiment. This too shall pass, I thought almost each day. And thank God it has passed for now with the arrival of a big dose of masculine standards.

Image: Ted Eytan
I have a very close Democrat friend of many years, going back to our teenaged years.

She is a lovely lady, kind, generous, intelligent, and caring. Our respective beliefs do not meet at many points, what with me being a Christian conservative Republican, and she being a liberal Democrat who believes in Universalism  all paths lead to god and god is not the God of the Bible.

She once proudly said, "I am so not a Christian!" She told me recently that she wants to live the life Jesus lived and do what He did, but is not willing to embrace Him as her Savior. I asked her why not. She had no answer. O.K., we can still be friends because we have history together.

She is fearful of what the liberal news media are saying about Trump; that he will do things to endanger "women's safety."

At first, I thought she meant sex-trafficking but she meant abortion restrictions. I reminded her that abortion is still legal in many states.

She is fearful of Elon Musk because he tried to bail out of the Twitter deal before he bought the platform, and thus cannot be trusted. I had to tell her why he bailed originally  he was lied to about membership numbers to the tune of billions of dollars.

She is scared that Trump will implement Project 2025. I told her that Trump has disavowed P2025 publicly. He has his own agenda.

She is afraid Trump will impose Christianity on the country in some way. I have no idea where she got that idea. Trump never once indicated such a thing.

She is afraid Trump will cut her Social Security payments. He will not.

Everything she is afraid of she has learned from the blue media. She thinks Trump is an amoral sexist and a bigot. Yes, he used to be a womanizer. It's in the past. He is not a bigot; that's a lie and he has no history that indicates that. Quite the reverse is true.

She is afraid he will be a dictator, a fascist. Again, there is nothing in his record to indicate that. Media comments about "very fine people" have been taken out of context. So have his other utterings. None of his actions during his first term indicate that he is even close to being a totalitarian but she is still afraid.

She is afraid he is a "white supremacist" who hates people of color. Has she checked out his history with same? Maybe he hates DEI. He should, and so should everyone  it is a racist anti-white, anti-Asian, anti-merit policy which promotes incompetence and mediocrity.

Nothing she has been told about Trump is true. She may not like his personality. Neither do I, but he is supremely competent and quite the genius when it comes to fixing things. The main reason for that is because he does not allow nay-sayers to get in his way. If he is told something cannot be done, he will do it.

Trump is all about fixing the woke and the broke. He plans to fix our security and our prosperity.

If only my friend would give him a fair chance. My prayers are to that end, but not just for my friend; for all those who did not vote for him. Democrats were so willing to give the supremely unqualified Kamala Harris a chance and she failed them. Now it's time to swallow pride and admit that the years under Trump were better. They will be again.

What puzzles me is why my good friend and other Democrat voters cannot connect their dire financial straits and cultural chaos with their Democrat votes. A quick look at California's problems, among other States, will show that everywhere Democrats are in power, the culture, the crime status, and the economy suffer.

Does my friend want America out of these wars? Does she want lower grocery, gas, energy prices? Does she want bodily autonomy where vaccines are not imposed on her and her abortions are still available? (I abhor abortion but that isnt the point right now.) Does she want an end to crime in her streets? Does she want lower taxes, lower prices, and more freedom?

Do you, my friend?

Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License
On these pages and elsewhere, writers have offered compelling evidence of another shooter and possible U.S. intelligence community involvement in JFKs assassination, while other writers have rejected this narrative because too many people would have had to know and someone in the know would have spilled the beans.

I dont know enough to comment on the former, but I do have thoughts on the latter.

There are at least five reasons why no one might spill the beans:

1. Those in the know are highly partisan to begin with

2. Fear of reprisal (including murder) against self and family

3. Major financial loss due to being sacked

4. Slander by government officials and compliant media

5. Not as many as one might think would have to know

Discussing the JFK case is timely now that Kash Patel has announced plans to release the JFK assassination files once Trump takes office (be on the lookout for files being accidentally deleted during the transition).

In the case of JFK, perhaps the someone would have spilled the beans has more merit given the long passage of time. But it may not always be so, and certainly not in the shorter term.

Take, for example, the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. Officials and employees at a whole alphabet soup of federal agencies (CIA, NSA, FBI, DoJ) knew, some federal contractors knew, the Mueller special counsel team knew, some members of the media had to have known, some foreign governments knew, and no one said anything for several years, hindering Trumps presidency and contributing to his ouster. So much for too many people. Incidentally, the Trump-Russia collusion plot used the premise that Trumps incoming team spoke (as is customary) to their Russian counterparts. It is alleged that Trump just spoke to Putin to back off in Ukraine. Deja vu all over again?

As another example, the evidence is now overwhelming that January 6 was a devious plot to frame Trump and his supporters as insurrectionists. If you need some reminders: refusal to call in the National Guard; Capitol police inviting the Stop-the-Steal crowd in through unlocked Capitol building doors; symbolic gallows erected by a surreptitious group at the foot of the Capitol under the noses of the Capitol police and not removed until after J6; fake pipe bombs the FBI knew were fake; Ray Epps; fake narratives such as of J6 police deaths; ridiculously long prison sentences for Stop-the-Steal supporters for what was at worst unintentional trespassing; etc.

Think of all the peopleFBI officials and personnel, members of Congress (certainly Nancy Pelosi but many others too), Capitol police, etc., who had to know. How many have spoken out to date that it was indeed a plot?

As yet another, lots of FBI employees knew the contents of the Hunter Biden laptop were verified and not disinformation. No one spoke up until after the election ousting Trump.

Another possible example is TWA 800, which may have been accidentally shot down by a U.S. navy ship missile and for which numerous eyewitness accounts of a projectile heading up toward the plane were discounted. Many employees across many government agencies and the military would know the false narrative, yet no one has spilled the beansand this after quite a decent interval of time.

Getting back to JFK, I dont think so many would have had to know. Just like we see in the movies, all it takes is a (possibly rogue) CIA official bypassing official channels who hires an assassin, so almost no one would have to know (the same possibility should at least be considered until ruled out with the U.S Secret Service in the Butler assassination attempt).

On the flip side, a commission (such as for JFK and TWA 800) whitewashing a conspiracy interpretation does not prove the conspiracy, because that could be political pressure to wrap things up with the preferred narrative so as to avoid feeding the conspiracy frenzy.

Now is the right time in our countrys history to release the JFK files. After witnessing what the CIA and FBI did to Trump, if it turns out they were involved in the JFK assassination, it will only reinforce the point that these intelligence agencies need drastic reform(ulation). Lest you think they can discern on their own what is good for our country, they let be a Marxist president who eviscerated the Constitution, but went after a president with traditional values who upheld the Constitution. Six ways from Sunday at getting back at you is six ways too many.



W.A. Eliot is a pseudonym.

Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License


Why should anyone care what a woman who stole a job from a legitimate minority at Harvard has to say about anything?

Elizabeth Warren is melting down, arguing that having Pete Hegseth as the Secretary of Defense would make the U.S. less safe. When you look at this in the context of our current woke Department of Defense thats unable to hit its recruiting goals, how would having a decorated veteran make us less safe? From an online report:

Elizabeth Warren says Trumps pick for defense secretary must be rejected Sen. Elizabeth Warren denounced President-elect Donald Trumps choice of Fox News host Pete Hegseth, a veteran, as his secretary of defense, calling for the appointment to be rejected. A Fox & Friends weekend co-host is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense, Warren wrote on X. Donald Trumps pick will make us less safe and must be rejected.

I never heard Warren complain about the disaster in Afghanistan. Not once did Warren admit that the disastrous withdrawal empowered the terroristic and anti-woman Taliban, making the world less safe and the U.S weaker.

She hasnt complained about the disastrous policies in the Middle East which have greatly escalated wars during Bidens years.

Warren hasn't complained about national security as the Biden team focused on the militarys carbon footprint (pretending they can control the climate), and diversity and sexual representation, while enemies like China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran focused on building weapons and beefing up their military.

She has not complained about the fact that Obama and Biden greatly contributed to Irans enrichment, giving Iran the cash that its been using to destabilize the world and the Middle East, and kill innocent civilians.

The current Department of Defense leaders havent done anything to deter Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea; instead, theyve focused on targeting Trump supporters and promoting DEI and CRT, which does not make the U.S more safe.

Warren just stood by as terrorists, cartels, gang members, and tens of thousands of Chinese men of military age flooded through our open border. Not once did she say she was worried about Americans safety, no matter how many people were assaulted, raped, and murdered.

Warren and others are not worried about safety. They are worried about power. They are worried that Trump and his team will succeed in making the U.S. and world safer where career swamp creatures, who only seem to be worried about their jobs, have failed.

It is a joke when the media and other Democrats, who have been completely loyal to Biden, complain about Trump surrounding himself with loyalists. Exactly who, in the Obama and Biden administration, was not loyal to them? Which one told the truth that Bidens brain was shot and others were running the show? Did anyone acknowledge that it was corrupt to take Hunter around the world collecting kickbacks? Didnt Obama lackeys lie to FISA courts for Obamas gain? Werent Lois Lerner and Susan Rice so loyal they broke the law?

Thank goodness we now have a president, and team, who will make an effort to drain the swamp and give the power and money back to the people instead of continually confiscating more money to make the swamp richer and more powerful.

Image: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, unaltered.
Just yesterday, Joe Biden welcomed President-elect Donald Trump back to the White House to kick off the transition between the current and the future administrations.

There were kind words uttered on both sides.

Well Mr. President-elect and former president, Donald, congratulations, and looking forward to having, like we said, a smooth transition. Welcome, welcome back, said Biden.

Thank you very much, and politics is tough, and its, many cases, not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today, and I appreciate very much a transition thats so smooth, itll be as smooth as it can get, Trump responded.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the meeting was very cordial, very gracious, and substantive and that Biden and Trump discussed important national security and domestic policy issues facing the nation and the world.

Few doubted that the meeting was cordial, because Biden seemed unable to restrain his beaming smile when the press covered their interaction.

This meeting resulted in some hilarity on social media.

Some pointed out the striking difference between the Trump-Obama and Trump-Biden meetings.

Spot the difference pic.twitter.com/rAVTTayQXD  End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 13, 2024

Kamala Harriss infamous quip to Joe from four years ago also made it to the memes.

Some inferred Joe and Jills voting choice based on his demeanor during the meeting.

This is really funny  pic.twitter.com/gW0C3KzUJE  Sameer (@BesuraTaansane) November 13, 2024

Some imagined the contents of the conversation between Trump and Biden.

TRUMP and Biden will meet today. Wouldnt mind being a fly on the wall for that conversation! Hmmmmm. 



Biden > Sorry I called you Hitler



Trump > Sorry I called you the worst President ever



Biden > You beat Kamala but good



Trump > Yes I did. Thanks for foisting her on pic.twitter.com/oUG1P7s5q2     (@DameScorpio) November 13, 2024

@caseythehost , here's my Meme of the Day.

Both having a laugh at #KamalaHarrislost expense. This is why Jill & Kamala were so cold; she keeps asking her for Joe to step down... for history's sake!#MAGA #TrumpAppointments pic.twitter.com/vuFPE3i7Gq  Lord Remo, "Trump's New Meme Czar" (@Lordremo) November 13, 2024

Trumps victory map also made it to the memes.

Haters will say this photo of Biden and Trump in the Oval Office is AI  pic.twitter.com/ePL9ZIqgXw  Politi_Rican    (@TheRicanMemes) November 13, 2024

Some wondered about the occurrences after the meeting:

Trump and Biden today vs tonight pic.twitter.com/1FHWr9Njqu  Tervis Scoot (@tervisscoot) November 13, 2024

Bidens ebullience, despite his word salad-making deputys emphatic loss, was noticed.

Ive never seen Joe Biden this happy. pic.twitter.com/TYkgY5mXkK  Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 13, 2024

Some deduced the purpose of the meet:

Time to meet my biggest supporter, Joe Biden, at the Oval Office in the White House! pic.twitter.com/OhLci31u9u  Donald J. Trump - Parody (@realDonParody) November 13, 2024

It's not every day that you get to meet the person you voted for.  Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 13, 2024

Some made changes to the pictures in the Oval Office.

I like what youve done with the place. pic.twitter.com/pTfEwa851y  ForAmerica (@ForAmerica) November 13, 2024

Some pointed to the mendacity of the Democrats comparing the claims made about Trump during the campaign and how he conducted himself during the in-person meeting.

Is this the type of photo you take with a man whom you believe is a fascist?



A threat to democracy?



Hitler and Mussolini were fascistswould you be okay with someone taking a picture like this with either of them?



If someone took a photo like this with Hitler or Mussolini, pic.twitter.com/7VmXIHVFNR  Yashar Ali  (@yashar) November 13, 2024

Joe Biden welcomes Hitler to the White House, smiles and shakes his hand, tells him how helpful he'll be as Hitler takes over.



Democrats believe none of what they claim. https://t.co/PdWdJoZwOz  Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 13, 2024

The conspiracy theorists were also engaged, noticing the disparity between Biden yesterday and years ago:

They say Biden is 6 foot tall and Trump is 6 3".

Now just for fun let's throw in Obama who says 6 2"



And you want to tell me this is Biden with Trump?

GTF0H pic.twitter.com/IdwT2P85SV  FinesseNYC (@alldaynightNY12) November 14, 2024

Joe Biden is 6 ft, Barack Obama is 6'2 ft and Donald Trump is 6'3 ft height.



How is this even possible? pic.twitter.com/FBOpVvRUrY  Dark Knight (@SKULSHADY) November 14, 2024

Some noticed the difference between Jill Bidens demeanor while meeting Trump and sitting beside her husbands bumbling deputy who became his replacement for the nomination.

Jill Biden 2 days apart. What a contrast. pic.twitter.com/AcTu0VcxXV  End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 13, 2024

The marvels of AI were also on display:

Haters will say that this video of President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden hanging out today is fake, but we all know whats up because it looks like the meeting was a success and that they are basically best buddies now.  pic.twitter.com/XCtgZUArCR  DEL (@delinthecity_) November 13, 2024

Trumps cabinet picks also resulted in some funny memes.

The following is a Shining example:

The creator of the creator of word salads became meme material:

When I forget to watermark a banger meme https://t.co/jIUmAN3lIn  Politi_Rican    (@TheRicanMemes) November 14, 2024

Tulsi Gabbards appointment also resulted in some humor.

We chose right, America pic.twitter.com/r2t980vhI7  Stephen Lloyd (@apparentlysteve) November 14, 2024

TFW you see Tulsi get your dream job because she switched sides pic.twitter.com/ZG6eLHwULq  Stephen Lloyd (@apparentlysteve) November 13, 2024

Finally, Trumps amazing journey back to the second term of his presidency was remembered:

The most incredible timeline ever pic.twitter.com/y737eCyvEh  End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 13, 2024

Image generated by AI.
Americans should be grateful that Israel had the courage and resolve to strike hard against the enemies of civilization. All free world democracies must salute Israels initiative when erstwhile allied media and politicians cautioned Jewish state leaders to de-escalate operations and refrain from actions that could lead to a wider war. Sunni Arab countries, especially those on the Arabian Peninsula who are targets for destruction by the Shia regime of revolutionary Iran and its allies, also have reason to be thankful.

While Israel acted resolutely in its own interest by launching crippling blows against Hezbollahs military assets and political leadership, the beneficent results reverberate around the globe. Israels government, aware that Hezbollah was planning an imminent Hamas-style attack against northern Israel (like what took place on 7 October last year), struck first in what could be described as a pre-emptive retaliatory attack.

Americans particularly owe a debt of gratitude to Israel for the targeted killing of the worlds leading terrorist mastermind, Hassan Nasrallah. The theological and political leader of Hezbollah was responsible for decisions that murdered countless innocents. Hezbollah was directly responsible for killing hundreds of American servicemen in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983 by dispatching a suicide bomber via a truck bomb that destroyed their barracks.

Image by AI.

It's to be hoped that US Department of Justice (DOJ) bureaucrats wiill notify their Israeli counterparts of their satisfaction that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also eliminated Hezbollah General Faud Shukr, who was the liaison from the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Lebanon-based terrorist group. Skukr was responsible for killing many US soldiers in Iraq and was on the DOJs wanted list.

Hezbollah is an avowed enemy of the US, as well. Hezbollah operatives have been active in several countries in Latin America, where their drug-pushing, money laundering, and other criminal activities have helped weaken support for US policy objectives. Hezbollah has carried out a host of anti-American and anti-Israeli activities in the Western Hemisphere at the behest of Iran.

Local US law enforcement and homeland security officials also should celebrate the targeting of Hezbollah, as the terrorist organization has organized several cells on US territory. Attendees at a Dearborn, Michigan, Shia Islamic Mosque and Youth Center shed tears for the Perfect Man, as Hassan Nasrallah was described at a memorial service for him on 28 September.

US friends of Israel need to make more people aware of the benefits from our alliance with Israel. The weapon systems sent to Israel have been tested in battle, with the US military incorporating the resulting lessons learned. A case in point is the F-15 and F-16 fighter Jets delivered to Israel. Their performance in Israeli hands has led to improvements in these aircraft.

Joint US/Israel investment, research, and development in air-defense systems have produced the most effective defense against drones, UAVs, and ballistic missiles, including the famous Iron Dome. Several European NATO member states are contracting with Israel to install the Jewish States various air defense systems. Israels arms industry has also contributed to the military prowess of US allies in the Indo-Pacific, such as the Philippines and India, which China threatens.

One additional benefit of the US/Israel alliance for which the American people should express some solidarity is improvement in border surveillance, the security of sensitive installations, and cyber security systems. The US effort to acquire an edge over China in new technologies is partly dependent on Israels highly talented human capital.

Perhaps the most valuable benefit that America derives from its alliance with Israel is Israels willingness to serve as the tip of the spear to defend civilization against the axis of barbarism. An America weary from forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should praise its good fortune in having an ally that has been collegial enough to support Western values and US interests despite the risks of seizing the initiative, and that is independent enough to ignore those who counsel defeatist caution.
In an era where global powers jostle for influence, the United States finds itself at a pivotal moment. The subtle yet persistent expansion of Communist China into North and Central America represents not just a geopolitical strategy but a direct challenge to American sovereignty and values. Its time for a robust counter-strategyone that upholds our democratic ideals while safeguarding our national interests. Here, I propose a seven-point plan that should resonate deeply with American conservatives and indeed all who value liberty and autonomy.

Economic Realignment

The first step is to reassess our economic ties with China. We must transition from a model of dependency to one of strategic independence. This involves the diversification of supply chains and an investment in innovation. We need to encourage businesses to shift manufacturing back to the U.S. or to allied nations, offer incentives like tax breaks and subsidies, and promote Made in America not just as a slogan but as a strategic necessity. We must also work to untangle the market from bureaucratic regulation and taxation, to encourage the private sector to boost funding for American technology industries, particularly in areas where weve ceded ground to China. This includes AI, 5G, and renewable energy technologies. By becoming leaders, we set the standards, not just follow them.

Strengthening Regional Alliances

Historically, the Monroe Doctrine has warned European powers against meddling in Western Hemisphere affairs. Today, it must be reimagined to include Chinese expansion. This involves security pacts, and forging stronger military and intelligence-sharing agreements with countries in North and Central America. This not only deters Chinese encroachment but also stabilizes these regions against other external threats.

We must also create trade agreements that benefit local economies, thereby reducing their dependency on Chinese investment. The USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) is a start, but we need broader, deeper integration.

Cultural and Ideological Counteraction

Chinas soft power extends through cultural exchanges and Confucius Institutes; our response should be the promotion of American values, education, and culture in Latin America and the Caribbean through our own cultural exchange programs. This isnt about cultural imperialism but about sharing ideals of freedom and democracy. We should also support academic freedom initiatives at universities in Central and North America to resist and counteract the narrative control attempted by foreign entities.

Cybersecurity Fortification

Implement a national policy that not only protects U.S. cyber infrastructure but also extends support to allies in the region. This includes tech transfer, or providing technology and training to enhance cybersecurity capabilities across the Americas, as well as legislative measures to prevent foreign entities from acquiring sensitive tech sectors or data in the U.S. and allied countries.

Infrastructure Investment

Chinas Belt and Road Initiative has made inroads by offering infrastructure development. The U.S. should counter this with an American infrastructure initiative, diverting a mere fraction of annual outlays for soon-to-be-slashed federal agencies to support critical infrastructure projects in Central America, focusing on energy, ports, and telecommunications. This not only aids development but also ensures that such infrastructure doesnt become tools of Chinese strategic influence.

Diplomatic Engagement

The U.S. must increase diplomatic presence and engagement in the region via regular summits. hosting or participating in summits that focus on mutual security, economic growth, and democratic governance, countering the allure of the Chinese model; we must also support sovereignty, both vocally and materially, to countries resisting Chinese overreach, making it clear that the U.S. stands for the self-determination of nations.

Strategic Communication

Lastly, we must win the narrative war. This begins by developing a media strategy and a robust information campaign that highlights the benefits of alignment with democratic values versus the pitfalls of authoritarian influence. This includes using platforms like Voice of America to broadcast the successes of freedom and democracy, contrasting with the often opaque operations of Chinese state initiatives, and encouraging transparency in foreign investments, making it clear where funds come from and what the implications are for national sovereignty.

This seven-point plan isnt just about countering China; its about reaffirming Americas role as a guarantor of freedom and prosperity in its own backyard. Its about ensuring that the Americas remain a bastion of democratic values and not a geopolitical chessboard for powers far removed from our values and aspirations.

For conservative readers, this strategy aligns with principles of national security, economic self-reliance, and the promotion of liberty. Its a call to action for policymakers, businesses, and citizens alike to engage in a long-term commitment to countering an expansionist power whose values starkly contrast with our own. This isnt about isolationism; its about strategic engagement in our sphere of influence, ensuring that the future of the Americas is written by those who call this region home, not by distant powers with a history of authoritarian governance.

The time to act is now, with resolve, intelligence, and a clear vision for an America that leads by example, promoting peace, prosperity, and freedom not just at home but across the hemisphere.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license.
From the first time I saw Tom Homan interviewed on Fox News, I was so impressed by his determination to protect the border of our country. For him, the goals were all about border security and national security, and nothing could excuse illegal migrants breaking our laws. His fervor about this invasion of our country was second only to President Trump, even in Trumps first term, and he is resolute about deporting those people who have been allowed to cross our borders illegally, thanks to the policies of the Biden administration.

Thus, we are fortunate that almost immediately following the November 5 election, Donald Trump anointed Tom Holman the border czar. He will not require Senate confirmation, and will rely on the cooperation of Department heads to support his plans. Since Trump just stated today that he will appoint Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, who is a stalwart supporter of border security, I foresee her working well with Holman, as will likely other Department heads.

Tom Holman has an in-depth background in border security and law enforcement:

Homan was [the] first Border Patrol agent to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Homan served 34 years with the Border Patrol before becoming acting director of ICE during the first two years of Trumps first term. He was the first rank-and-file agent to lead the agency that oversees immigration enforcement. Homan earned a bachelors degree in criminal justice and received the Presidential Rank Award in 2015 for accomplishments in immigration enforcement.

Hes also adamant about carrying out his mission:

As a guy who spent 34 years deporting illegal aliens, Ive got a message to the millions of illegal aliens that Joe Bidens released in our country in violation of federal law: You better start packing now. Youre damn right. Because youre going home, he said in a speech this summer at the Republican National Convention.

After leaving the first Trump administration, he has stayed engaged with this issue, frequently appearing on Fox News, giving his opinion with a no-holds barred attitude. He will be deporting aliens to their countries of origin:

Asked if mass deportations could be carried out without separating families, Homan said, Of course there is. Families can be deported together. One study shows roughly 4 million U.S. citizen children live with an undocumented parent.

He is also a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. and contributed to Project 2025, which the Left has tried to characterize as an insidious recommendation for authoritarian rule. In addition, he serves as the president and CEO of Border911, a nonprofit that warns of the threat posed to the U.S. by immigrants entering the country illegally.

The Left, of course, is trying to put the ugliest spin on the entire deportation process:

As Rachel [Maddow] explained on her show a few weeks ago, Homan is largely considered an architect of Trumps policy to tear children away from their parents at the border. He also happens to be one of the Republicans who helped write the right-wing Project 2025 blueprint.

As I stated earlier, Homan will be perfectly willing to send the children with their parents to their country of origin. And his contribution to Project 2025 was likely outstanding, since border security has been completely ignored by the Biden administration.

Several Republicans have stated that initially migrants who have committed crimes will be deported:

On CNNs State of the Union, for example, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said the incoming administration intended to focus on migrants here who have committed crimes. On NBC News Meet the Press, Senate Republican Conference Chair John Barrasso made a similar comment, telling host Kristen Welker, in reference to deportations, Were talking about people who are from criminal cartels, drug dealers, people on the terrorist watch list.

Starting with the worst offenders makes sense. But Im quite certain that Tom Homan plans to continue to go even further and re-instate the security and integrity of our borders.

Image from X.
Marissa Luck is a senior real estate reporter at Houston Chronicle. She can be reached at marissa.luck@houstonchronicle.com.

Previously, Luck covered commercial real estate in Texas for CoStar News; real estate for Austin Business Journal; energy for Houston Chronicle; and business news for The Daily News in Longview, Wash. Shes won awards from Society of Professional Journalists and National Association of Real Estate Editors, and her byline has appeared in numerous publications nationally. Originally from Hawaii, Luck grew up in the Pacific Northwest and studied international political economy at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. She now lives in Midtown Houston.
Amazon is well-known for aggressively battling out its competitors. Earlier this year, a report hinted that the popularity of Temu and Shein has been bothering Amazon and its mulling over something big. We now know what it was. Today, Amazon announced Amazon Haul, an e-commerce storefront that takes on competitors like Temu, Shein, and more.

Amazon launches Temu competitor, its called Haul

Amazon Haul allows you to discover and buy even more affordable fashion, home, lifestyle, electronics, and other products. The new e-commerce store offers a variety of products with ultra-low prices. All the products listed on Amazon Haul have a price tag of $20 or less.

You can access Amazon Haul in the Amazon Shopping app or the mobile website by searching Haul in the search bar. Amazon Haul can be also accessed by navigating from the main menu icon. If you have ever wondered about getting products for as low as $1, Haul is for you.

You can grab an iPhone 16 case for $1.79 or a three-piece trimmer razor set for DIY slim haircuts for $2.99. Well, these are just two of the examples, there are tons of products that you can grab. In the announcement blog, Amazon notes that orders of $25 or more are eligible for free delivery in one or two weeks. While the orders below $25 will require you to pay a delivery fee of $3.99.

The discount e-commerce store is available to select beta testers in the US

An order of $50 or more can get you a discount of 5%. In addition, youll be eligible for a 10% discount on an order value of $75 or more. Thats not all, Amazon Haul offers a native shopping experience, search, cart, and checkout options to the customers.

The mystery behind low prices is that Amazon Haul receives shipments for individual packages directly from China via airfreights. It is a similar practice Hauls competitor Temu has adopted for a long now. So, if you plan to shop on Amazon Haul, be ready for strict return policies and delayed delivery.

Amazon is now rolling out Haul to select beta users in the US. If you are an eligible beta tester, you should be able to access Amazon Haul after updating the Amazon Shopping app. Moreover, rumors are also there that Amazon is also working on smart glasses for its drivers.
There has been a lot of talk about the chip that will power the Galaxy S25 lineup. According to recent reports, Samsung tried until the last minute to use Exynos chips in its upcoming flagships. However, a new leak reiterates that the whole Galaxy S25 series will use the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip worldwide.

Samsungs initial plans were to implement the Exynos 2500 chip in the Galaxy S25. The company firmly believed that its new flagship SoC could successfully compete with Qualcomms most powerful mobile hardware. However, the critical situation on Samsung Foundrys 3nm GAA wafers threatened that possibility. Now, according to reliable tipster Ice Universe, the chances of seeing the Exynos chip in the Galaxy S25 lineup have definitely died. The same source had already said this before, so this is a reiteration of the news.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite chip will be in all Galaxy S25 models, tipster insists

Industry sources revealed that Samsung Foundrys 3nm wafer yield rates were between 10% and 30%. This made mass production of the Exynos 2500 chip unviable. After all, such devices typically sell tens of millions of units globally each year. While Samsung worked on improving the yield rate of its factories, the company was considering turning to an external supplier for high-end chips. Samsung must have all possibilities covered, including the worst ones.

Reports revealed that Samsung even considered implementing the Dimensity 9400 chip in the vanilla and Plus Galaxy S25 models. For reference, the company typically uses a dual-chip strategy in non-Ultra Galaxy S models. On the other hand, the Galaxy S Ultra relies on Qualcomms latest high-end SoC globally. That said, the price of the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite may significantly impact the production price of the device.

A research firm recently revealed the manufacturing cost of the Pixel 9 Pro. According to the source, the Tensor G4 chip costs Google around $80. However, leaks suggest that the Snapdragon 8 Elite retails for approximately $200. While the Exynos 2400 may cost a bit more to produce than the Tensor G4, the difference between using an in-house chip and a third-party chip is still noticeable. We are probably talking about twice the cost, approximately.

Even the Galaxy S26 series could rely on Qualcomm hardware

Now that the most reliable sources confirm that the entire Galaxy S25 series will use the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, it remains to be seen what strategy Samsung takes. The South Korean giant could maintain prices, absorbing the extra cost and reducing its profit margins. The other option might be to pass on the extra cost to the user by increasing the price of the devices. Some sources claim that even the entire Galaxy S26 series will rely on Snapdragon chips worldwide as well.
Google Maps is getting a new Product Search feature along with the ability to report delays. These new features should help travelers plan their transport arrangements and shop with ease using Google Maps.

What is the Products Search feature on Google Maps?

Google Maps is getting a new feature aimed at helping travelers buy products from nearby stores. The Products Search feature is rolling out to Google Maps and it will rely on search queries to direct users towards shops. Google Search does have this feature but it was limited to keywords. Moving forward, Google will be integrating product inventories from some stores into the search results on Maps.

The new feature should help travelers quickly locate and reach shops that sell their desired products. Moreover, Google Maps users should see the product listings from the stores where they might be available. Tapping on the listing would make Google Maps offer directions to the store from where buyers can pick it up. Besides apparel, the new Product Search feature in Google Maps will reportedly have listings for home goods, electronics, apparel, and grocery store items.

Travelers can report delays in Google Maps

In addition to hunting for products and shops that sell them using Google Maps, the app will also help travelers report and view delays on transit lines.

Google claims it will gather data from other commuters and local agencies. Google Maps will now reportedly offer helpful details like entrances to subway stations and alternate transit routes.

This feature is rolling out in the form of a button called Report delay. It will surface when Google Maps users are viewing a transit station. Using the same, travelers will be able to report any delays. This report will be visible to travelers who view the same transit station in the app. Travelers would also get a notification mentioning the delays.
Kau Ba chef and wwner Nikki Tran celebrates the restaurant being named one of the Bib Gourmand restaurants, which offer good quality food for a good value, during the Michelin awards ceremony Monday, Nov. 11, 2024 at 713 Music Hall in Houston. It was Michelin Guides first Texas awards. Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer

Unfortunately, the struggling Montrose restaurant hadnt been open for weeks.

Now, three days after Kau Ba was named one of the 15 Houston restaurants to receive a Bib Gourmand, the Michelin Guide announced Trans restaurant is no longer listed.

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Upon further investigation, our team has discovered the restaurant has been permanently closed since our Inspection team's visits occurred, Michelin stated Thursday morning.

HOUSTON EATS: The Chronicles top 100 restaurants

The outdoor patio at Kau Ba Saigon Kitchen & Bar in Montrose. Annie Mulligan/Contributor

Days before the awards ceremony, Kau Ba posted on Instagram that it was temporarily closed to rebrand. This Houston Chronicle writer had stopped by the restaurant at 2502 Dunlavy four times since late September; it was only open for business on one occasion.

Tran, who was recently in Vietnam because her father died, told the Chronicle in September that it was a struggle to run Kau Ba since the pandemic. She cited reasons ranging from food costs to the weather-related challenges.

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In late October, the Chronicle followed up on reports that Kau Ba was undergoing renovations.

We are waiting to fix the place since it's been six years already. The landlord finally approved the renovation. It will be transformed, Tran said in a text message at the time.

A day after the Tran stepped on stage to receive the Bib Gourmand, a press release announced the space would become a Vietnamese-Peruvian restaurant called Alora in December. There was no mention of Trans involvement in the new concept.

Alora co-owner Louis Lamson Quy told the Chronicle the team originally planned to work with Tran to consult on the restaurant but that she was no longer involved.

Quy and his business partners had purchased the assets of Southern Dandy LLC, which owned Kau Ba, according to a press release. Alora also took over Kau Bas Instagram page this week.

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"This is a heartbreaking situation, but we understand and respect Michelin's decision to remove Kau Ba from its selection," said Tran. "Exercising an abundance of caution from a legal position, I am not able currently to share further details of our situation but I do hope to follow up soon with more information. Until then, on behalf of the entire Kau Ba team, we want to thank the entire culinary community for the recognition and support. Kau Ba is proud of the dishes we created and look forward to sharing very soon what's next."

MORE FROM BAO ONG: Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant brings upscale conveyor belt sushi to Houston

Dishes, including Viet-Cajun ones, from Kau Ba.

Kau Ba, which has been featured on the Chronicles Top 100 restaurants guide in past years, made its mark with Vietnamese cooking Houstonians couldnt often find in Asiatown restaurants.

Tran would feature trendy Vietnamese dishes diners might find in Ho Chi Mnh City, where she also runs a restaurant. She had also started using the term Viejun to describe her Vietnamese-Cajun cooking.

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Kau Ba chef Nikki Tran in her restaurant on Wednesday, April 12, 2023 in Houston. Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographer

Over the years, Tran has been one of the citys biggest proponents of Vietnamese-Cajun fusion since appearing on celebrity chef David Changs Netflix series Ugly Delicious. Shes also appeared on Netflixs Street Food and Phil Rosenthals show Somebody Feed Phil.

Michelins mistake for inaugural Texas awards didnt just involve Kau Ba.

The French tire company, which has published restaurant guides for nearly a century, also issued a correction with the Charles in Dallas. It had incorrectly listed the Charles, which is owned by Duro Hospitality, when its review was for the groups other restaurant named Mister Charles.

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What is Bluesky and why are people leaving X to sign up?

Around one million users signed up for social media site Bluesky in the week following Donald Trumps election win  but what is it?

Here, the PA news agency explains how the social media platform differs to X and why people are flocking to it.

 What is Bluesky?

Bluesky is a social media platform where people can interact much as they do on X, posting, replying, as well as messaging one another on a vertical user interface.

It is perhaps unsurprising then that the site spun out of Twitter, now known as X, after its chief executive Jack Dorsey announced in 2019 that the giant would fund developers to create an open and decentralised standard for social media.

It officially launched as an independent platform in 2021 and is proving to be a popular destination for people who no longer wish to be on X.

 How is it different to X?

Compared to X, Bluesky offers users the chance to more heavily moderate their experience.

This includes the ability to select the algorithm that powers your experience, helping create custom feeds, for example a feed for mutual followers, a feed for cat photos or one for your special interest.

15M people on Bluesky!!!  The Verge beat us to our own announcement  that's the beauty of an open network with public stats!https://t.co/x6v5YW0WFT https://t.co/rFErQL6MpJ  bluesky (@bluesky) November 13, 2024

We aim to replace the conventional master algorithm, controlled by a single company, with an open and diverse marketplace of algorithms, the platform says.

Xs verification feature has also drawn criticism after it became possible to purchase a blue tick, which had been the previous signifier of an accounts legitimacy.

Bluesky allows users to have domains (website addresses) as their handles, which it anticipates could act as a verification tool for journalists, athletes and public figures who have a companys website in their handle.

Meanwhile, as X appears to deregulate the user experience, recently changing the block function to allow users to see the posts of public accounts who have blocked them for example, Bluesky proudly shows off its anti-toxicity features.

hello and welcome to the 1M people that have joined Bluesky in the last week!!! join Bluesky: https://t.co/x6v5YW0WFTpic.twitter.com/WNHvHh8SvN  bluesky (@bluesky) November 12, 2024

These include empowering users to detach an original post of theirs from someone elses quote post, preventing unwanted interactions.

 Why are people signing up to Bluesky?

If Elon Musks takeover of X made people uneasy, his use of his platform  on which he has 205 million followers  to support Donald Trump during the 2024 US election campaign only exacerbated that feeling for many.

Both X and Mr Musk have come under increased scrutiny since the businessman took over the site in late 2022, with the billionaire himself engaging with misleading content and accounts known for spreading misinformation on a number of occasions.

In the wake of the Southport stabbings, where three young girls were stabbed to death, he posted a number of images and memes linked to the anti-immigration protests and disorder in Britain.

X users have also reported an increase in bots making the site difficult to use, with comment sections often dominated by AI nonsense.

Several MPs have already made the move to Bluesky including safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, Liberal Democrat technology spokeswoman Layla Moran and Mother of the House Diane Abbott.

 How many users have signed up to Bluesky?

On November 13, Bluesky announced it had more than 15 million users.

The platform also said it saw one million users sign up in the week following Trumps election victory.

 Who has made the move to Bluesky?

US actress Jamie Lee Curtis has been vocal about her decision to leave X after she shared a screenshot confirming she had deactivated her account in a post on Instagram.

She can be found on Bluesky with more than 29,000 followers and has posted about her departure from X in a post which said: #WeDontNeedX.

TV presenter and naturalist Chris Packham, Irish comedian Dara OBriain and Countdown star Susie Dent are also among its users.
Resolving an air traffic control (ATC) meltdown in August 2023 was made more difficult because of delays in verifying the password of an engineer allowed to work remotely, an inquiry has found.

More than 700,000 passengers suffered disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports on August 28 last year after ATC provider National Air Traffic Services (Nats) suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.

An inquiry set up by regulator the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) found that Nats rostered a Level 2 engineer to be on call rather than on site that day, despite it being one of the busiest of the year in terms of flight passenger numbers.

Today, we published the final report into the NATS Air Traffic Control failure in August last year. The report was prepared by an Independent Review Panel chaired by Jeff Halliwell, with recommendations being made to several companies. Read more  https://t.co/cmncx7QhUW pic.twitter.com/AXLA8bzLBi  UK Civil Aviation Authority (@UK_CAA) November 14, 2024

A more junior Level 1 engineer, who was on site at Nats headquarters in Swanwick, Hampshire, began checks as soon as automatic flight planning systems failed at 8.32am.

The Level 2 engineer was contacted 34 minutes later but their password login details could not be readily verified due to the architecture of the system, the report stated.

After exhausting remote intervention options, it was agreed they would attend the control centre but it took a further one-and-a-half hours for them to arrive, which was three hours and 15 minutes after the incident began.

Nats should consider rostering a Level 2 engineer on site during busy periods such as the summer, the inquiry found.

It acknowledged this would be a significant expense, but insisted it should be viewed in the context of the overall cost to the industry and passengers from the August 28 2023 failure, which it estimated at reaching up to 100 million.

The report also noted that the assistance of Frequentis Comsoft, which manufactured the system that shut down, was not sought for more than four hours after the initial event.

A solution was identified by the company within 30 minutes of it being contacted.

The inquiry was led by Jeff Halliwell, who has served as a chief executive and non-executive director in roles across the private and public sector.

He said: Our report sets out a number of recommendations aimed at improving Nats operations and, even more importantly, ways in which the aviation sector as a whole should work together more closely to ensure that, if something like this does ever happen again, passengers are better looked after.

The report recommended that Nats should give earlier notice to airlines and airports of possible disruption.

Some aviation organisations said it took too long for them to be informed about the August 2023 failure, with several first hearing of it from media coverage.

Eurocontrol, which coordinates ATC in Europe, was not alerted until 10.43am, more than two hours after the incident began.

The report said: Most of the airlines and airport representatives agreed very strongly that earlier warning of a potential problem would have made a considerable difference to their ability to make precautionary preparations, which in turn would have reduced the negative impact on passengers.

There were also concerns over the quality and style of Nats communications, and considerable frustration about the inability to ask questions or to find out detailed information, it added.

EasyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren said airlines and passengers were severely let down by Nats, and a failure of this scale can never be allowed to happen again.

Ryanair chief executive Michael OLeary called on Transport Secretary Louise Haigh to take immediate action to fix Nats hopeless service, starting by sacking its overpaid and underperforming chief executive Martin Rolfe.

The inquiry found that an automatic flight planning system and its back-up shut down within 20 seconds after a plan for a flight from Los Angeles to Paris (Orly) was received.

This was because of a unique set of circumstances not previously encountered, including a pair of duplicate three-letter waypoints, which are used to identify locations.

The system had previously processed more than 15 million flight plans without this scenario being seen.

The failure led to flight plans being manually processed, decreasing the rate from up to 800 per hour to 60 per hour.

Restrictions on the number of flights allowed to take off from UK airports were in place from 11am until 6.03pm on August 28, but disruption continued for several days due to aircraft and crew being in the wrong location.

A Nats spokesman apologised for the inconvenience passengers suffered because of the very unusual technical incident.

He went on: Our own internal investigation made 48 recommendations, most of which we have already implemented; these include improving our engagement with our airline and airport customers, our wider contingency and crisis response, and our engineering support processes.

We fixed the specific issue that caused the problem last year as our first priority and it cannot reoccur.

We will study the independent review report very carefully for any recommendations we have not already addressed and will support their industry-wide recommendations.

The inquiry noted that a number of affected passengers waited many weeks, and in some cases months for airlines to refund their out-of-pocket expenses.

It recommended that the CAA is given the power to take consumer enforcement action without going through the courts, which could include the ability to fine airlines.

Ms Haigh said: My priority is to ensure all passengers feel confident when they fly.

Thats why my department will look to introduce reforms, when we can, to provide air travellers with the highest level of protection possible.
The European Commission has fined Meta 797.72 million Euros (663 million) for what it says are breaches of EU competition law related to the social media giants classified ads service, Facebook Marketplace.

The Commission said by tying Marketplace to its Facebook social media platform, consumers on Facebook were regularly exposed to Marketplace whether or not they wanted to be, and this gave the site a substantial distribution advantage which over classified ad platforms could not match.

The ruling also said Meta had unilaterally imposed unfair trading conditions on other classified ads services providers who advertise on Metas platforms, including allowing Meta to use ad-related data generated by other advertisers for the benefit of Facebook Marketplace.

It orders Meta to bring the conduct to an end and refrain from repeating the infringement, in addition to the fine.

The Commission said that while market dominance was in itself not illegal under EU antitrust rules, dominant companies have a special responsibility not to abuse their powerful market position by restricting competition.

Margrethe Vestager, executive vice-president of the Commission in charge of competition policy, said: Today we fine Meta 797.72 million euros for abusing its dominant positions in the markets for personal social network services and for online display advertising on social media platforms.

Meta tied its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and imposed unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers.

It did so to benefit its own service Facebook Marketplace, thereby giving it advantages that other online classified ads service providers could not match. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules.

Meta must now stop this behaviour.

In response, Meta said it would appeal the decision but would comply with the Commissions ruling in the meantime and would work quickly and constructively to launch a solution which addresses the points raised, adding that it would make announcements shortly to reassure our European users that Facebook Marketplace is here to stay.

In a lengthy statement on the ruling, the US tech giant said: Today, the European Commission announced a decision claiming that Facebook Marketplace has hindered competition for online marketplaces in Europe.

This decision ignores the realities of the thriving European market for online classified listing services and shields large incumbent companies from a new entrant, Facebook Marketplace, that meets consumer demand in innovative and convenient new ways.

We will appeal this decision to ensure that consumers are well served in the EU.

The firm argued that by creating Marketplace in 2016 and allowing users to buy and sell items for no charge, it had given consumers a new choice beyond the large incumbent online marketplaces that have dominated the landscape, and disputed the Commissions claim that tying Marketplace to Facebook was an illegal link.

The European Commissions decision claims that Meta imposes Facebook Marketplace on people who use Facebook in an illegal tie.

But that argument ignores the fact that Facebook users can choose whether or not to engage with Marketplace, and many dont. The reality is that people use Facebook Marketplace because they want to, not because they have to, Meta said.

While the European Commission could not find any evidence of harm to competitors, they claim the entry and expansion of Facebook Marketplace has the potential to hinder the growth of large incumbent online marketplaces in the EU instead.

But those very marketplaces are actually continuing to grow and dominate in the EU. Platforms like eBay, Leboncoin in France, Marktplaats in the Netherlands, Subito in Italy, Blocket in Sweden and Finn.no in Norway are formidable competitors and the market leader in many member states.

They have continued to report considerable commercial success, including strong financial results and growth, since Facebook Marketplace launched. Successful new entrants  such as Vinted  have also emerged and continue to grow and thrive in Europe.

It added: EU competition law is intended to protect the competitive process and consumers, not to preserve the established business positions of incumbent providers in the face of innovation.

Ironically, in the name of competition, this decision does just that at huge cost to consumers.
Evan Fergusons fourth senior international goal handed the Republic of Ireland a 1-0 Nations League victory over Finland as Caoimhin Kelleher saved a penalty to see them across the line.

The 20-year-old Brighton strikers header in the final minute of the first half proved sufficient to add three more points to those his side secured in the reverse fixture in Helsinki last month, but only after Liverpool keeper Kelleher had kept out substitute Joel Pohjanpalos second-half spot-kick.

Head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson has now won two of the five matches for which he has been in charge, but the fact that Ireland have tasted victory just eight times in their last 34 competitive outings fixtures serves as a reminder that they remain a work in progress.

FT | Three points and a clean sheet to secure third place in the group!#COYBIG | #IRLFIN pic.twitter.com/jOluJjSj0B  Ireland Football  (@IrelandFootball) November 14, 2024

However, a fit-again Ferguson, aided by the invention of winger Mikey Johnston and the movement and industry of Sammie Szmodics and a general tenacity in defence suggests a measure of improvement even if theywere grateful to the woodwork for two first-half escapes.

Kaan Kairinen produced the games first attempt with 14 minutes gone, but cleared the crossbar by some distance, much to the enjoyment of the locals, although Liam Scales had to throw himself into the path of the midfielders 16th-minute shot after Nikolai Alho and Robin Lod had exchanged passes down the right to open Ireland up.

They thought they had taken a 23rd-minute lead with their most fluent move of the game to that point when Szmodics rounded keeper Lukas Hradecky to finish after running on to Fergusons superb pass, but he has slightly mistimed his run and an offside flag ruined his celebrations.

Ferguson saw a long-range attempt loop over with Hradecky wrong-footed two minutes later with Hallgrimssons men warming to their task, but they were fortunate to escape 14 minutes before the break when Alho robbed Johnston and fed Lod, who curled a left-foot shot across Kelleher, but saw the ball come back off the far post.

Evan Ferguson (centre right) heads home the winner (Brian Lawless/PA)

Striker Benjamin Kallman acrobatically headed just wide from an Antman cross and was then denied one-on-one by Kelleher, and Hradecky had to tip over Szmodics well-struck effort after he had muscled defender Arttu Hoskonen off the ball.

Matt Doherty  back in the starting line-up after initially being left out of the squad  powered a free-header wide from Johnstons corner with four minutes of the half remaining, but it took Nathan Collins intervention to turn Antmans goal-bound effort on to the same post which had earlier denied Kallman, and the Republic made the most of their second escape on the stroke of half-time.

Johnston tricked his way past Alho once again and chipped the most teasing of crosses into the box for Ferguson to head home from close range.

If the first half had ended in explosive fashion, the start of the second was prosaic by comparison with Szmodics foraging runs and Peltolas willingness to drill cross-field passes out to Alho all it had to recommend it.

Johnston went just wide after cutting inside Lod from Dohertys driven pass, but Kelleher was relieved to see Pohjanpalo steer a first-time shot just over from fellow substitute Daniel OShaughnessy  his father was born in Ireland  with 22 minutes remaining.

Fergusons evening took a turn for the worse with 14 minutes remaining when, after a VAR review, he was adjudged to have blocked OShaughnessys hooked attempt with his arm and German referee Harm Osmers belatedly pointed to the spot.

But Kelleher guessed correctly as he dived to his right to save Pohjanpalos attempt from 12 yards before claiming the loose ball, and the striker further fluffed his lines in stoppage time when he fell over inside the box after being presented with a chance to redeem himself.
Suspects with diplomatic immunity allegedly committed offences including sexual assault, indecent exposure and child cruelty last year.

There were a total of nine serious and significant offences allegedly committed by people entitled to diplomatic immunity in 2023.

Meanwhile, foreign missions continued to rack up unpaid congestion charge debts in London, with the US embassy now owing more than 15 million.

The embassy refuses to pay the charge because it views it as a tax, which diplomatic missions would be exempt from.

In a statement to Parliament, Foreign Office minister Catherine West set out details of the nine serious offences allegedly committed by people with immunity in 2023.

They were: An Iraqi accused of possession or distribution of indecent images of children; a Fijian and a Pakistani accused of driving without insurance; diplomats from Ghana, Libya and Mongolia accused of assault; a Libyan accused of sexual assault; a Portuguese person accused of indecent exposure and someone from Singapore facing an accusation of child cruelty or neglect.

The minister said: Around 26,500 people are entitled to diplomatic or international organisation-related immunity in the UK and the vast majority of diplomats and dependants abide by UK law.

The number of alleged serious offences committed by members of the diplomatic community in the UK is proportionately low.

She said the Foreign Office does not tolerate foreign diplomats or dependants breaking the law.

She added: We take all allegations of illegal activity seriously. When the police or other law enforcement agencies bring instances of alleged criminal conduct to our attention, we ask the relevant foreign government or international organisation to waive immunity, where appropriate, to facilitate further investigation.

For the most serious offences, and when a relevant waiver has not been granted, we request the immediate withdrawal of the diplomat or dependant.

The minister also set out the fines and taxes owed by diplomatic missions, including 152,436,135 in unpaid congestion charge from its introduction in 2003 until the end of September 2024.

The US owed 15,160,275 of that total, while Japan owed 10,422,558 and China 9,303,180.

As of October 17, embassies owed 4,142,255 in business rates, with China topping the list with 646,183.22 outstanding.

And diplomats had racked up 1,489,618 in unpaid parking fines as of the end of June, with Saudi Arabia the biggest culprits with 196,630 owed.

Ms West said: Officials have regular contact with diplomatic missions and international organisations in the UK about outstanding national non-domestic rates (NNDR) payments, outstanding parking fine debt and unpaid London congestion charge debt, to press for payment of outstanding debt and fines.
B&B Butchers will offer a Thanksgiving to-go menu with brined or smoked turkey, prime rib, and classic sides and desserts. Jenn Duncan

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and while turkey and sides are traditions on the menu, not everyone wants to spend hours in the kitchen.

Houston restaurants are offering convenient dine-in and takeout options that include fully cooked turkeys, sides and desserts. Whether you're craving Cajun, Mexican, Southern or classic dishes, there will be plenty of hassle-free choices for the holiday, which falls on Nov. 28.

Here are some good takeout options to order now.

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Amrina

Amrina will offer their Royal Turkey Feast to-go for Thanksgiving. Jim Tripp

The Woodlands restaurant is offering a Royal Turkey Feast to-go ($350) that includes a 10-12 lb. roast whole turkey with old monk rum glaze, crispy Brussels sprouts with parmesan, creamy mashed potatoes with chives, cornbread and sausage stuffing, spiced maple and roasted baby carrots, Thanksgiving salad, bread rolls, cranberry chutney and classic turkey gravy. The turkey can be ordered a la carte for $200, and sides can be ordered for $150. Orders can be placed by calling 832-405-9921 before Nov. 24. 3 Waterway Square Place, The Woodlands. amrina.social

Artisans

Artisans is offering a to-go catering package for Thanksgiving. Shane Dante

The Galleria-area French restaurant's Thanksgiving to-go package (serves eight to 12, $350) includes slow-roasted turkey, whipped mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, apple cobbler and traditional sides. Extra side portions are available at an additional cost. 5745 Westheimer; artisansrestaurant.com

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Backstreet Cafe

Backstreet Cafes Thanksgiving feast options include a whole apricot and mustard-glazed spiral ham, available to-go. Backstreet Cafe

The River Oaks restaurant has a full to-go menu including roasted turkey breast ($120) and apricot and mustard-glazed spiral ham ($125); side dishes ($33, feeds 4-6; $48 feeds 8) including cornbread and sausage dressing, loaded cauliflower, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, corn pudding, macaroni and cheese, scalloped potatoes, Brussels sprouts and sweet potato gratin; plus wine-poached pears stuffed with bleu cheese and dried fruit ($42 for 6, $72 for 12) and pies priced between $34 and $38. Orders must be placed by Nov. 24 for pickup 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Nov. 27, Backstreet Cafe will be closed on Thanksgiving Day. 1103 S. Shepherd; backstreetcafe.net

Badolina Bakery and Cafe

Chocolate mousse from Badolina Bakery & Cafe. Ralph Smith Photography

Open on Thanksgiving Day, Badolina Bakery offers to-go options including smoked sourdough with sour cherry, blackberry poppyseed and classic baguettes, available on a first-come, first-served basis. Cakes in 7-inch, 8-inch, and 9-inch sizes, with flavors like Raspberry Rose, Chocolate Mousse and Orange Cake, can be ordered with 24-hour notice. Thanksgiving orders must be placed by Nov. 26 for pickup on Nov. 27. Orders can be placed by calling 832-649-5909. 5555 Morningside; badolinabakery.com

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THANKSGIVING DINING: 10 Houston restaurants open on Thanksgiving day that we recommend

Bayou Heights Bier Garten

Bayou Heights Bier Garten, a new beer garden from The Kirby Group, is now open at 3905 Washington. Dustyn Zenner

Thanksgiving to-go packages serve two ($120) or four to six ($240), and include turkey, sides, rolls and pie. Items are also priced individually: turkey ($18/pound), sides ($10-$14), and pies ($15). Orders are due by Nov. 25 via info@bayouheightsbiergarten.com or 346-519-0199, for pickup 2-5 p.m. Nov. 27. 3905 Washington. bayouheightsbiergarten.com

B&B Butchers

B&B Butchers will offer a Thanksgiving to-go menu with brined or smoked turkey, prime rib, and classic sides and desserts. Jenn Duncan

The restaurants on-site butcher shop has Thanksgiving to-go options including a whole brined and ready-to-cook turkey ($79) and pre-cooked smoked turkey ($99). The menu also features ready-to-serve roasted prime rib ($650 whole, $325 half), along with sides like cornbread and sausage stuffing ($45), candied yams ($50), whipped potatoes ($35), Brussels sprouts ($60), creamed spinach ($55), cranberry sauce ($24) and giblet gravy ($24). House-baked pumpkin, pecan and apple crumble pies are $35 each. Pickup runs Nov. 21 through Thanksgiving Day. 1814 Washington. bbbutchers.com

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Caracol

Caracol offers Thanksgiving feast options to-go, including Tamal Azteca. Caracol

Caracol's to-go Thanksgiving Family Feast (serves eight, $315) comes with a choice of Pineapple & Habanero Whole Spiral Ham or Roasted Turkey Breast, and is served with sides like coal-roasted sweet potatoes, jalapeno cornbread, charred Brussels sprouts and tamal Azteca. Dessert options include pumpkin pie, tres leches cake and pecan chocolate tart. A la carte items like ham, turkey breast, sides and desserts are also available. Orders must be placed by Nov. 24 for pickup 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Nov. 27. 2200 Post Oak Blvd; caracol.net



Dessert Gallery

Pan Apple Brown Betty, one of Dessert Gallery's Thanksgiving dessert offerings. Becca Wright

The Houston bakery is offering a range of Thanksgiving desserts, including pumpkin dream cake ($45) and a holiday pie selection with pie choices like fudge pecan, pumpkin spice, French silk with Oreo crust and Smores ($38.50). Additional options include double-crust apple pie and and Apple Brown Betty ($38.50-$62.50). A gift box of Thanksgiving butter cookies is also available. 3600 Kirby. dessertgallery.com

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Eunice

For Thanksgiving at home, Eunices catering will offer crawfish stuffing, sweet potato casserole and more. Duc Hong

The Louisiana-inspired, Texas-sourced restaurant in Upper Kirby is offering Thanksgiving catering available for pickup on Nov. 27. Options include crawfish and cornbread stuffing ($86), sweet potato casserole with pecan streusel ($82), chicken and sausage gumbo ($45), bread pudding ($60) and more. 3737 Buffalo Speedway. eunicerestaurant.com

Etoile Cuisine et Bar

Etoile Cuisine et Bar is offering a complete Thanksgiving dinner to-go with all the trimmings. Sean Rainer

Chef Philippes Uptown Park restaurant is offering Thanksgiving dinner to-go, with orders required by Nov. 25. Options include leek and mushroom soup (serves five, $25), Maine lobster bisque (serves five, $35), pork & duck pate (1 pound, $60) and foie gras au torchon (1 pound, $120, with brioche loaf, add $20). The Complete Thanksgiving Dinner ($245, serves 10-12) includes an organic oven-roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry jam, stuffing, Brussels sprouts, green bean and mushroom casserole and cognac gravy. Turkey and gravy only is $165, or $190 with stuffing. Dessert includes pecan vanilla bourbon pie ($38). Thanksgiving Special Feast includes 2 quarts soup, the complete dinner and pie ($290). 1101-11 Uptown Park Blvd. etoilecuisine.com

Feges BBQ

Feges BBQ is making Thanksgiving easy for Houstonians with heat-and-serve meats, sides and desserts. Jenn Duncan

The Houston BBQ spot's heat-and-serve Thanksgiving menu options include a whole turkey breast ($60), sausage links ($20), whole pork ribs ($45) and brisket ($150 for whole, $60 for sliced). A variety of sides are available, including pimento mac and cheese and loaded potato mash ($50 each, serves 10-12). The dessert option includes rum raisin bread pudding with caramel ($50). Extras include BBQ rubs ($12), sauces ($12) and cooking fats ($10). Orders must be placed by Nov. 22 on the Feges BBQ website. Multiple locations. fegesbbq.com

Goode Company

Goode Co. is offering Thanksgiving meal kits, with pre-orders open through November 21. Jody Horton

Goode Co.'s Thanksgiving kits include a choice of mesquite-smoked turkey (serves 6-8, $230) with sides like potatoes au gratin and green bean casserole. Brazos Bottom Pecan Pie is available for an additional cost ($22-$45). A la carte items are also available. Pre-order by Nov. 21 for pickup on Nov. 26 or 27. Mulitple locations; goodethanksgiving.com

Hugos

Hugos Thanksgiving to-go sides include coal-roasted sweet potatoes with condensed milk. Hugos

Hugo Ortegas Montrose restaurant is offering a full lineup of Thanksgiving to-go options including Family Feast packages ($325, feeds eight) with either whole pineapple and habanero spiral ham or roasted turkey breast with side dishes including signature tamal Azteca tortilla casserole and dessert. A la carte offerings include spiral ham or turkey breast ($125), and sides ($33 for 4-6 servings; $48 for eight servings) including sweet potatoes, roasted potatoes, corn pudding and tamal Azteca, as well as tamales and desserts. Order by Nov. 24 for pick-up 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Nov. 27. 1602 Westheimer; hugosrestaurant.net

J-Bar-M Barbecue

J-Bar-M Barbecue is offering Thanksgiving packages.

This Midtown barbecue spot's Thanksgiving packages feature whole smoked turkeys, smoked turkey breasts and smoked ham. Bulk sides available include green beans, mac and cheese, Brussels sprouts, charro beans, jambalaya rice and elote. Orders can be placed by calling 713-534-1024. 2201 Leeland; jbarmbbq.com

Kenny & Ziggys

Kenny & Ziggys to-go Thanksgiving meal special includes the Mile High Apple Pie. Kenny & Ziggys

Houstons New York-style delicatessen offers a Thanksgiving take-home menu featuring a complete Thanksgiving meal ($335.75, serves 10-12), including a 16-pound turkey, gravy, wild mushroom and chestnut stuffing, cranberry pineapple nut relish, Mile High apple pie and two additional sides. A la carte options include whole turkey ($150, carved for $20), brisket with gravy ($29.95/lb.), honey-glazed corned beef ($33.95/lb.) and sides like whipped sweet potatoes ($16.95/qt.) and truffle mac and cheese ($55). Desserts include 3-layer cakes ($65), pies ($44) and cheesecakes ($47-$75). Orders should be placed by Nov. 21 for pickup 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 27. 1743 Post Oak Blvd. 713-871-8883; kennyandziggys.com

Kriti Kitchen

Kriti Kitchen's butternut squash dish. Kriti Kitchen

The West University Greek cafe's Thanksgiving menu features sides like spanakopita, fasolakia, Pappou's stuffing and avgolemono soup ($10-22 small, $18-22 large). Mains include roast lamb shank ($25) and moussaka ($22 small, $44 large). Small portions serve two to three; large serve eight to 10. Orders can be placed online by Nov. 24 for pickup or delivery on Nov. 27. 4010 Bissonnet; kritikitchen.com

Liberty Kitchen & Oysterette

Liberty Kitchen & Oysterette are serving up a bountiful Thanksgiving feast to enjoy at home. Andrew Hemingway

Liberty Kitchen & Oysterette is offering a Thanksgiving herb-crusted roast turkey meal ($299, serves four to six) with sides like Boursin mashed potatoes, green bean casserole with oyster mushrooms, oyster stuffing with toasted baguette, Parker House rolls with bacon jam and house-made turkey gravy. A la carte items are available for $45 each. Pre-order by Nov. 24 for pickup on Nov. 26 or 27. Multiple locations; libertykitchenoysterette.com

Local Foods Group

Local Foods Group will offer Thanksgiving feast packages from Maximo, Miltons, and Local Foods. Carla Gomez

Local Foods Group is offering curated feast packages from Maximo, Miltons and Local Foods, featuring smoked turkey breast with brown turkey gravy, four-cheese mac and cheese, amaretto mascarpone tiramisu, rigatoni with braised oxtail, roasted root vegetable stuffing, and more. Orders must be placed by noon Nov. 24 for pickup at Local Foods Rice Village 10:30 a.m.-6:45 p.m. Nov. 27. 2424 Dunstan. form.jotform.com

Loro Asian Smokehouse & Bar

Pre-orders for Loro Thanksgiving To Go package are available now through through Nov. 24. Loro Asian Smokehouse & Bar

Loro's Thanksgiving to-go package for four to six people ($190), features smoked turkey breast, sage gravy, smoked apricot chutney, kale salad, confit marble potatoes, toasted brioche stuffing, creamed spinach and yuzu peach cobbler. A la carte options include turkey breast (serves 4, $65) and oak smoked beef back ribs (serves 3-4, $80). Orders can be placed online for pickup at Heights and Kirby locations until Nov. 24. 1001 W 11th; 5333 Kirby. loroeats.com

Mastros

Mastro's is offering Thanksgiving sides to-go. Courtesy of Landry's

Mastro's Thanksgiving sides to-go include garlic mashed potatoes, green beans with sliced almonds, creamed corn and creamed spinach. Orders must be placed by Nov. 26, with pickup available 5-9 p.m. Nov. 27 and 1-9 p.m. Nov. 28. 1650 W Loop S. mastrosrestaurants.com

McCormick & Schmicks

McCormick & Schmicks offers a Thanksgiving to-go option. Courtesy of Landry's

McCormick & Schmicks Thanksgiving to-go package (serves four, $132) includes sliced roasted turkey, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, butternut squash bisque, seasonal salad, green beans, sourdough bread and pumpkin pie. Orders must be placed by Nov. 25. Pickup is Nov. 27-28. Orders can be placed online or by calling the restaurant directly. Multiple locations. mccormickandschmicks.com

Montrose Cheese & Wine

Montrose Cheese & Wines Thanksgiving Pre-Game Kit includes seasonal cheeses, charcuterie, and accompaniments. Zachary Horst

Montrose Cheese & Wine's Thanksgiving Pre-Game Kit ($89.99), features seasonal cheeses like cider-washed Willoughby and Marieke Burning Melange Gouda, artisanal charcuterie and accompaniments like lemon almond hazelnuts and cornichons. Add-ons include Parker House rolls ($12), spice cake loaf ($40) and fig and ricotta pie ($55). Wine pairings include Turkey Wine 4-Pack ($125) and Tour du Beaujolais 12-Pack ($395). Orders must be placed by Nov. 24 for pickup on Nov. 27. 1308 W. 19th St. montrosecheeseandwine.com

Perry's Steakhouse

Perry's Steakhouse is set to offer a pre-order Family Style Thanksgiving menu for those opting to dine at home. Perry's Steakhouse

Perrys Family Style Thanksgiving meal (serves four, $149) includes sliced, smoked turkey breast with soup or salad, entree and sides and a family-style cheesecake for an additional $29. Pre-order for heat-and-eat or ready-to-serve with pickup Nov. 27-28. Multiple locations. perryssteakhouse.com

Saltgrass Steak House

Saltgrass Steak House is offering a to-go Thanksgiving Family Pack Courtesy of Landry's



Saltgrass Steak House's Thanksgiving Family Pack (serves four, $90) includes a roasted turkey breast, dressing, gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, salad, cranberry sauce and fresh bread. The meal is packaged cold to heat at home. Orders must be placed by 11 a.m. Nov. 28. Orders can be placed at Saltgrass locations or online. Multiple locations. saltgrass.com

State Fare Kitchen & Bar

State Fare Kitchen & Bar offers a Southern-style Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner to-go for Houstonians planning a cozy holiday at home. Andrew Hemingway

State Fare Kitchen & Bar is offering a Southern-style Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner (serves four to six, $250) with deep-fried turkey and four sides. A la carte options ($30 each) include mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, gravy and macaroni and cheese. Orders must be placed by Nov. 24 for pickup on Nov. 26 or 27. Multiple locations. statefaretx.com

The Union Kitchen

The Union Kitchen offers a Thanksgiving to-go menu featuring a Prime Rib Roast. Dylan McEwan

The Union Kitchen's Thanksgiving to-go options feature items like Cajun-style smoked turkey breast, roasted poblano and cheddar mashed potatoes, smoked gouda mac and cheese, prime rib roast, pecan pie and more. Orders must be placed by Nov. 24, with pickup 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Nov. 27. Multiple locations. theunionkitchen.com

Tonys

Tony's restaurant offers a full Thanksgiving to go menu. Tony's

Tony's Thanksgiving to-go menu includes beef tenderloin ($350, serves eight-10) with horseradish cream and yeast rolls. Classic sides and desserts are also available for an additional cost. Orders must be placed by 5 p.m. Nov. 24, pickup is 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Nov. 27. 3755 Richmond. tonyshouston.com

Uchi and Uchiko will be serving omakase for Japanese Labor Thanksgiving Day, which is celebrated Nov. 23. Hai Hospitality/Contributor

Uchi and Uchiko

These Hai Hospitality restaurants will be serving omakase for Japanese Labor Thanksgiving Day, which is celebrated Nov. 23 to honor the contributions of workers. Pre-orders are live and end on Nov 22. Pick-up is Nov. 23 during service hours.

Uchi will be offering omakase (serves two, $175) that includes Uchi salad, Zero Sen Roll, Masu Shimi, Veg Mushi with rice, BF Akami, Madai Nigiri, Kanpachi Crudo, Hama Kama, short rib and fried milk (pint). 904 Westheimer. sevenrooms.com/explore/uchihouston/ordering/thanksgiving

Uchiko will be offering (serves two, $175) Toro Nuta, Hamachi Maki, Masu Tataki (buttermilk zu, smoked trout roe, horseradish), choice of roasted duck or dry-aged wagyu; Lobster Tom Kha, pan-roasted scallop with tomatillo beurre blanc, Japanese sweet potato, charred butternut squash, Gem lettuce salad and S'mores pint of ice cream. 1801 Post Oak Blvd. sevenrooms.com/explore/uchikohouston/ordering/thanksgiving

URBE

URBE is offering to-go meats by the pound as well as sides for Thanksgiving. URBE

Chef Hugo Ortegas Mexican street food spot offers a variety of Thanksgiving to-go options, including oven-roasted turkey breast (serves eight, $115) and in-house smoked brisket (serves 10, $130). Taco kits include options like carnitas ($30), barbacoa ($50) and brisket ($35), as well as tamales ($28/dozen) in various flavors. Sides include esquite de coliflor ($33), papas bravas ($33), and elotes ($62 for 1 dozen). Enchiladas ($44-$53 per dozen), taquizas (serves five to eight, $150, or eight-12, $300), and desserts like pumpkin meringue pie ($32) and flan de queso ($55) are also available. Margaritas are offered by the quart ($46-$56). Orders must be placed by Nov. 24 for pickup 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Nov. 27. 1101 Uptown Park Blvd. urbeHouston.com

WILD Montrose

WILD Montrose is offering a Thanksgiving menu with a choice of THC-infused or virgin options, including cookies, pumpkin and vanilla chantilly pie, and holiday tamales. Steven Cromer
New coal mining schemes will be banned in the UK, the Government has said.

Ministers have confirmed that legislation will be introduced to restrict the future licensing of new coal mines, as they said phasing out the fossil fuel worldwide is a crucial step to limiting global temperature rises and improving air quality.

The move comes after Britain became the first major economy to stop burning coal for power in October, as the last coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire, closed.

With a few exemptions, the ban will cover coal extraction for all uses, such as for fuel and for coking coal for steel production.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said there may be limited exceptions to the ban for safety or restoration purposes while an exemption is also anticipated to protect the historic rights of freeminers to mine personal plots or gales in the Forest of Dean.

The Government also said there was a small number of licensed operational coal mines that would be unaffected and could continue mining in line with their current licences and consents.

Making the announcement about plans to ban new licence, energy minister Michael Shanks paid tribute to coal miners who kept the lights on for the UK, but said consigning coal power to the past would pave the way for a clean energy future.

The coal power era in the UK began in 1882 with the opening of the worlds first coal-powered station at Holborn Viaduct, London, though the fossil fuel had been mined long before that for uses such as industry and heating.

As recently as 2012, coal was generating 40% of UK electricity supplies, but that has fallen to zero with the closure of the countrys coal power stations.

But it is still the biggest source of climate warming emissions worldwide, with the latest analysis released as countries meet in Azerbaijan for UN Cop29 climate talks showing carbon pollution from coal continues to rise.

A scheme in Whitehaven, Cumbria, to produce coking coal for steel production was set to be the countrys first new coal mine for 30 years but has been beset by legal and regulatory setbacks.

A High Court judge quashed the decision to grant planning permission for the coking coal mine in a landmark ruling in September, after the government withdrew its defence of the decision, and the coal watchdog has refused to grant it underground coal mining licences.

Mr Shanks said: Coal mining powered this country for over 140 years and we owe a huge debt to workers who kept the lights on for homes and businesses across the country.

Now the UK is in prime position to lead the way in phasing out coal power around the world, which remains the single largest contributor to global emissions.

By consigning coal power to the past, we can pave the way for a clean, secure energy system that will protect billpayers and create a new generation of skilled workers.

Jess Ralston, head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) think tank said the UK had proved it was possible to phase out coal from the power system without interruption to supplies, and the courts had ruled against opening a new mine.

Instead of being stuck in the past, weve chosen to invest in kickstarting the industries of the future, like offshore wind, which is where economic growth lies.

This is the example that the rest of the world can follow, showing that what the UK does matters internationally.

Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Tony Bosworth said the move must surely be the end of the line for the coal mine in Cumbria.

And he said: (The Government) must work with councils, businesses and local people to make sure that areas like West Cumbria are at the forefront of the transition to a green economy, and the region gets the new jobs and opportunities it desperately needs.

Greenpeace UKs policy director, Doug Parr, described the move as momentous and urged the Government to follow it with banning new oil and gas development.
Ministers should weigh up the health and economic benefits of a Heathrow night flights ban, an MP has suggested.

Sarah Olney asked ministers for clarity over Labours position on the expansion plan for Britains biggest airport.

The Liberal Democrats Cabinet Office spokeswoman also called on ministers to consider a do nothing option for a Government-backed airspace modernisation programme.

Aviation minister Mike Kane did not say say whether he supported proposals for a third runway at the airport, to be built above the M25 motorway between Staines-upon-Thames and Slough, for an additional 260,000 flights a year.

Heathrow Airport (Steve Parsons/PA)

But he confirmed the Government has supported an ongoing observational study, monitoring sound levels in participants bedrooms, which he said would inform future policies for managing night-time aviation noise exposure, and assist with the management and mitigation of health impacts on local communities.

Ms Olney, whose Richmond Park constituency lies west of the runway, told the Commons night flights have a human cost.

She said on Thursday: Long-term exposure to nocturnal aircraft noise is strongly linked to sleep disorders and broader health impacts.

For each additional 10 decibels of night-time aircraft noise that communities are exposed to, there is an increase of between 14% and 69% in residents risk of high blood pressure, increasing the risk of strokes and heart attacks.

Other researchers have found links between long-term exposure to aircraft noise and an increased risk of obesity, depression and cardiovascular issues.

Ms Olney continued: I urge the Government to commit to commissioning a full independent analysis on the impact of night flights on our economy, residents physical health, and local peoples mental wellbeing, to inform a potential ban on night flights at Heathrow.

Turning to the third runway proposal, Ms Olney said: Despite the efforts of dozens of MPs, the last government resolutely refused to abandon the project.

Several opponents of the third runway have said it would add seven megatonnes of carbon dioxide to the environment annually.

Allowing the third runway, and the 260,000 flights it will add to Londons skies, is not only an annoyance to residents, it is a risk to their health, the Liberal Democrat frontbencher said.

She read comments made by now-Energy Secretary Ed Miliband in 2019, when he told the Commons: If we are so serious about this climate emergency, I do not see how we cannot look at all the things that the Government and the private sector are doing and ask whether they make sense in a net-zero world.

On airspace modernisation, Ms Olney said: When the proposed flight path systems are put to public consultation next year, I would urge the minister to ensure that residents can choose a do minimum option.

New guidance systems can be integrated and small amendments to current systems made, but ultimately there should be an option to maintain the path in a roughly similar location.

Responding, Mr Kane said: We need to strike a fair balance (between) the impacts of aviation onto the local environment and communities, but also the economic benefits that flights bring.

This is a challenge for aviation noise policy.

The minister said the Government had supported one study called ANNE (Aviation Night Noise Effects), a survey of 4,000 people who live near eight UK airports which looked at night flight noise annoyance, and a second probe to assess the association between aircraft noise exposure and objective sleep quality by noise monitoring in bedrooms, which is in the field.

These studies he said would influence future policy and cost-benefit assessments around night flights.

Our priority remains to deliver a high quality, robust evidence base and were all taking the necessary steps to deliver this, he said.

When he turned to the issue of airspace modernisation, Mr Kane nodded when Munira Wilson charged him with labelling Ms Olney a luddite.

Intervening, the Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham said: I did hear him from a sedentary position calling (Ms Olney) a luddite when she was making her point about airspace modernisation.

Im afraid so, and clearly hes making that point that we do need modernisation, and I do say to him, respectfully, that both I and my honourable friend and our constituents recognise the need for innovation and to move with technology as it changes and, of course, we want to reduce carbon emissions and, of course, we support a better Heathrow and not a bigger Heathrow.

We understand its important to the economy but on airspace modernisation, you can still achieve some of those benefits by adopting a do-minimum approach, so looking at how you can gain the benefits of modernisation whilst not coming up with lots and lots of new flight paths and really intensifying noise over certain areas that perhaps arent even overflown at the moment.

Mr Kane said: I think we can make life better for all people and a rising tide floats all boats, and it will be open and transparent.

The minister had earlier described aviation modernisation as a key plank of Labours manifesto.

We have an analogue system in our skies in the UK, in a digital age, designed closer to the time that Yuri Gagarin went into space (1961) than today, he said.
The Government is in a hurry to crack down on knife crime as a minister branded the issue a scourge.

Solicitor general Sarah Sackman told MPs Labour already introduced a ban on zombie-style knives after taking office in July, which came into effect on September 24.

She added that too many young people are senselessly losing their lives due to knife crime each year.

Ms Sackman was asked by Labour MP Harpreet Uppal how ministers were working with regional mayors on prosecutions for knife crime.

Labour introduced a ban on zombie-style knives after taking office in July (Joe Giddens/PA)

Speaking during oral questions on Thursday, Ms Uppal, MP for Huddersfield, said: The solicitor general will be aware of concerns around knife and violent crime in many communities, including Huddersfield.

In particular there are serious concerns of how children and young people are being criminally exploited in wider county lines gangs.

So how is the department working with regional mayors to improve prosecution rates for knife and violent related offences, and to ensure those at risk of offending receive targeted interventions?

Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows knife crimes recorded by the police rose by 4% in the year up to the end of June 2024.

There were 50,973 offences  1,876 more than the previous year (49,187).

The figure is still 2% lower than pre-pandemic levels, where 51,982 offences were recorded in the year up to the end of March 2020.

In the 12 months up to the end of March 2023 51 teenagers were killed, the ONS reported, with a knife or sharp instrument used in 80% of those cases.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said the party is aiming to halve offences in a decade.

In September Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer spoke alongside actor Idris Elba at an event launching a project to tackle knife crime among young people.

Ms Sackman said: Knife crime is a scourge, and one that particularly impacts on young people, too many of whom senselessly lose their lives or are injured every single year.

Mayors and councils are going to be essential partners in the mission to achieve safer streets, I have already met with the deputy mayor of West Yorkshire for example, to discuss these matters.

The prosecutorial piece is all part of this Governments review to crack down on the sale of offensive weapons.

The Government is in a hurry. We have already implemented a ban on the possession of zombie-style knives and machetes, but of course there is a lot more that we can, and should be doing.
The Technology Secretary said he is committed to boosting digital skills no matter where people live following the unveiling of new government-funded mobile phone mast upgrades in rural Wales.

Peter Kyle said many people still required support to get online in an increasingly digital world and more work is needed to ensure digital inclusion took place across all parts of the UK.

It comes as the Government announced seven new 4G mast upgrades across south, south west and west Wales had gone live, bringing more reliable connectivity to residents and businesses in these areas as part of the Shared Rural Network scheme, which aims to get those not yet online the connectivity they need.

Seven 4G mast upgrades are now live across Wales, giving local people & rural communities better mobile coverage. Faster internet access will make daily tasks easier, like:  Checking bank statements  Paying bills online  Making video calls pic.twitter.com/xzG9GSoBYy  Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (@SciTechgovuk) November 14, 2024

Mr Kyle said: From applying for jobs to staying in touch with loved ones, fast and reliable connectivity is an essential part of modern life and should be the digital reality for communities from Llandudno to Cardiff, which is why the upgrades announced today are a welcome step forward.

But we cannot ignore the fact that millions of people need support when it comes to navigating the online world. Thats why this Government is committed to boosting digital skills no matter where people live, to support people accessing essential services like banking, or education tools, helping them to get on with their lives and work.

The upgraded masts will bring better coverage to parts of Bontddu, Llanelltyd, Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog, Penmaenpool, Tabor, Snowdonia National Park and Bontgoch, the Government said.

Telecoms minister Sir Chris Bryant joined Mr Kyle in a visit to Ebbw Vale in South Wales, where they discussed the issue of digital inclusion at radio station BGfm.

We are working tirelessly to address the connectivity concerns of rural communities to make sure everyone has access to the opportunities of the online world, Sir Chris said.

These upgrades mean businesses arent constrained by the limits of their mobile signal, 999 services are better equipped to save lives and fight crime, and residents and tourists can get online whilst enjoying the Welsh countryside.

By focusing on bringing digital connectivity and access to communities in every corner of the UK, we will continue to break down barriers to opportunity and kickstart economic growth.
The King is celebrating his 76th birthday, marking the occasion with a visit to a surplus food festival.

Charles is treating the day as a normal working one and carrying on with his duties despite facing a personally challenging year in which both he and the Princess of Wales were diagnosed with cancer.

The monarch will open the first two Coronation Food Hubs on the first anniversary of the launch of his Coronation Food Project, designed to bridge the gap between food need and food waste in the UK amid the cost-of-living crisis.

The King meets Pedro Pascal whilst attending the Royal Film Performance of Gladiator II on Wednesday evening (Eddie Mulholland/The Telegraph/PA)

He will head to Deptford in south London to formally unveil the first hub, tour the centre with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and attend the surplus food festival being staged to celebrate the royal visit, before virtually opening another hub in Merseyside.

The event will be a solo one for Charles, with the Queen, who had hoped to join him, still recovering from a nasty chest infection.

The King, in black tie, walked the red carpet on the eve of his birthday, meeting stars Denzel Washington, Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal at the glitzy global premiere of Gladiator II.

The King at the Gladiator II premiere (Eddie Mulholland/The Telegraph/PA)

On Wednesday afternoon, he hosted a special celebrity reception at Buckingham Palace in honour of the UKs film and television industry, where he and Camilla, who attended for part of the event, chatted with a host of famous faces including actors Damian Lewis, Emily Mortimer and Lucien Laviscount, and Gladiator director Sir Ridley Scott.

Gun salutes will be fired in Green Park by The Kings Troop Royal Horse Artillery and at the Tower of London by the Honourable Artillery Company as part of the militarys traditional celebrations on the sovereigns birthday, and bells will be rung at Westminster Abbey where the King was crowned in 2023.

Charles, like his late mother Elizabeth II, has two birthdays, his actual one on November 14, and his official one, which falls on the second Saturday in June.

The King and the royal family during his official birthday celebrations in June (Gareth Fuller/PA)

Since 1748, the monarchs official birthday has been marked by the parade known as Trooping the Colour, which was usually held on the king or queens actual birthday.

Edward VII, who reigned from 1901 to 1910, was born in the month of November.

But he celebrated officially in May or June because there was less chance of it being cold and drizzly during the outdoor event.

Charless grandfather George VI, who was born in December, reintroduced the idea, and the late Queen Elizabeth II continued it, as has the King.

Prince Charles Philip Arthur George was welcomed into the world on November 14 1948 at Buckingham Palace, the first child of the future Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

Princess Elizabeth holds her first born Prince Charles after his christening in 1948 (PA)

As the Prince of Wales, he was the nations longest serving heir to the throne, and he became King on September 8 2022 on the death of his mother, the late Queen.

News of Charles cancer, undisclosed in its form, came in February, after it was discovered while he was treated in hospital for an enlarged prostate in January.

He cancelled all face-to-face public duties but returned in April and has since travelled to France for D-Day commemorations, hosted an incoming state visit for the Emperor of Japan, and undertaken a recent hectic tour to Australia and Samoa with the Queen, despite still undergoing outpatient cancer treatment.
Interim boss Lee Carsley felt the 3-0 Nations League win over Greece showed England are moving in the right direction.

Ollie Watkins justified his selection ahead of captain Harry Kane, who was dropped to the bench, with an early opener in Athens.

Jude Bellinghams shot went in off the post and Greece goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos before debutant Curtis Jones capped an impressive display with a fine finish late on.

Englands Curtis Jones (left) marked his senior debut with a fine goal (Bradley Collyer/PA)

England, who were beaten by Greece at Wembley last month, are now top of Group B2 as they head back to London for Sundays showdown with the Republic of Ireland in what will be Carsleys final match before handing over to new manager Thomas Tuchel.

It represents we are moving in the right direction, Carsley said on ITV1.

We wont get too carried away now, we have got a big game at Wembley on Sunday, so we are looking forward to that.

What a win that was then!  pic.twitter.com/KGu8vsKYMa  England (@England) November 14, 2024

Carsley, who saw nine players withdraw from his squad ahead of the match, added: It is just important the players play to their strengths. We have got a lot of outstanding talent.

The players who were not here, we concentrated on the ones that were.

We spoke yesterday about players getting an opportunity, and we have seen that tonight.

People were speaking about the inexperience within the squad, but these players play week in and week out in the Premier League at a really high level.

Even with so many players having pulled out of the squad through injury and Carsleys bold team selection, there were plenty of performances to be proud of.

Jude Bellingham (right) helped England to a 3-0 win in Athens (Bradley Collyer/PA)

Real Madrid midfielder Bellingham said: It was an important win.

A lot was made of the lads who werent here, but the lads who showed up were amazing. I am really proud of the boys tonight.

There would have been a million and one excuses if we didnt play well or get over the line, but the lads went out and did their business so professionally.

We are back to the top of the group, so back to where we belong.

Three debutants impressing for England #NationsLeague pic.twitter.com/Pb62lH9wAW  UEFA EURO 2024 (@EURO2024) November 14, 2024

Bellingham added: We had good defensive shape and showed character, the staff set up a game plan which was perfect for this game, with the ball (we were) trying stuff regardless of whether it comes off.

We are a young team. We are all playing very well for our clubs are all exciting players and want to get on the ball to be creative, so we are going to lose the ball.

So it was amazing no matter how many times we lost it, we kept on doing it, which was the most important thing in the end  perseverance.
One of Mohamed Al Fayeds brothers has also been accused of abusing women who worked at the Harrods department store, according to three ex-employees.

The women told the BBC that Salah Fayed abused them in London, the south of France and Monaco between 1989 and 1997.

One women alleged she was raped by Salah after she was drugged.

All three women said they were also sexually assaulted or raped by Mohamed Al Fayed, then chairman of the company.

Salah Fayed, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2010, was one of three Fayed brothers who purchased the luxury Knightsbridge department store in 1985.

Mohamed Al Fayed attending a party at the British Museum in 2015 (Anthony Devlin/PA)

One of the three women, known only as Helen, who waived her right to anonymity, said she was 23 and had been working at her dream job in Harrods for almost two years when Mohamed Al Fayed raped her in a Dubai hotel room.

When he offered her some personal assistant work with his younger brother a month later, she alleged she was drugged by Salah and believed she was then raped by him while unconscious.

She told the BBC: He (Mohamed Al Fayed) shared me with his brother.

Theyve stolen a part of me. Its changed the course of my entire life.

The BBC also spoke to two other women who say they were abused by both Mohamed and Salah.

They say they were trafficked abroad and tricked by Salah into smoking crack cocaine.

One of them said: He was trying to get me hooked on crack so he could do whatever he wanted to me.

Hundreds of women have alleged Mohamed Al Fayed, who died last year aged 94, raped or sexually assaulted them.

Police are looking into some claims and Harrods is also settling hundreds of claims.

Helen told the BBC she was raped by the billionaire while on a business trip to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in February 1989.

She claimed she was told to sign a Harrods non-disclosure agreement two months after the trip and that it was both this and the fear of reprisal that stopped her from speaking out for more than three decades.

Over the next few months she began to make plans to leave Harrods, and when Al Fayed asked her to do some filing work for his brother, Salah, at his Park Lane home, she saw it as a way out.

She said that after working with him for two days, she believed she was drugged and raped by both Salah and one of his friends.

Shortly after, Helen resigned from Harrods.

Two other women working at Harrods say they believe they were trafficked by Salah because they were lured with deceptive offers of work and sexually exploited.

Rachael, who was 23 when she started as Salahs personal assistant in 1994, told the BBC she was sexually propositioned by older men Salah introduced to her and that he encouraged her to smoke from a hookah pipe she later discovered contained crack cocaine.

She had been told that if the role with Salah did not suit her, she could return to Harrods. She went back, but Rachael says 18 months later she was lured to Mohamed Al Fayeds Park Lane home where he sexually assaulted her.

A third woman, who the BBC called Rebecca, said she was sexually assaulted by Mohamed Al Fayed at his home in 1997 when she was aged 19.

She was later asked by him to go to Monaco to work as a personal assistant for Salah where she claimed he sexually assaulted her in his apartment.

Harrods said it supports the bravery of these women in coming forward and urged them to make claims to the companys compensation scheme.

A spokesperson for the company added: These new claims point to the breadth of abuse by Mohamed Fayed and also raise serious allegations against his brother, Salah Fayed.

We encourage these survivors to come forward and make their claims to the Harrods scheme, where they can apply for compensation, as well as support from a counselling perspective and through an independent survivor advocate.

We also hope that they are looking at every appropriate avenue to them in their pursuit of justice, whether that be Harrods, the police or the Fayed family and estate.

The Justice for Harrods Survivors group said: As we indicated when speaking to the media on September 20, we have credible evidence from our survivors suggesting the abuse perpetrated at Harrods and Mohamed Al Fayeds other properties was not limited to Mr Al Fayed himself.

We are grateful that another abuser has now been unmasked and look forward to the others on whom we have credible evidence  whether abusers themselves or enablers facilitating that abuse  being exposed in due course.

Make no mistake, the abuse experienced by our survivors was facilitated and enabled by a vast infrastructure  an infrastructure that must be exposed and torn down.

We are proud to support the survivors of Salah Fayeds abuse and are committed to achieving justice for them, no matter what it takes.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed it was aware of the allegations against Salah Fayed.

Commander Stephen Clayman said: I want to continue to thank those who have placed their trust in us and come forward to share their experiences. Doing so requires incredible courage and we have specialist teams to ensure those victims who make contact with us are supported in the best way possible.

We understand the weight of these allegations and have committed to a review of past reports. Although we cannot pursue criminal proceedings against someone who has passed away, our priority is to ensure that every potential victim-survivor has a voice and access to the support they need.

We remain dedicated to explore all reasonable lines of inquiry, carefully reviewing new information, and identifying any allegations that could lead to criminal action.

Our commitment to those affected is unwavering. 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.
The incident caused chaos not only in the UK but for flights between Europe and the US - Liam McBurney/PA

A 100 million air traffic control meltdown last summer could not be fixed quickly because a vital support engineer was allowed to work from home.

More than 700,000 passengers were stranded when flights were grounded on Aug 28 last year after National Air Traffic Services (Nats) suffered a technical glitch that crashed essential air traffic control systems.

The four-hour outage was worsened because a software support engineer who could have fixed the problem was working from home.

An inquiry set up by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the regulator, found that Nats had rostered a support engineer to be on call working from home rather than on site that day, despite it being one of the busiest of the year in terms of passenger numbers.

The report detailed how, when the air traffic control systems failed, a junior engineer on site was unable to fix the problem. A more senior engineer, who could have restarted the crashed computer systems, was an hour and a half away, extending the incident. The systems are designed so that they can only be restarted on site.

Nats should consider rostering a level 2 engineer on site during busy periods such as the summer, the CAA inquiry found.

It acknowledged this would be a significant expense, but said it should be viewed in the context of the overall cost to the industry and passengers from last summers failure, which it estimated at up to 100 million.

Passengers were stranded at Gatwick Airport when the air traffic control meltdown hit on Aug 28 last year - Carl Court/Getty Images Europe

The report also noted that help from the software company Frequentis Comsoft, which made the Nats system that crashed, was not sought for more than four hours after the initial event. A fix was identified by Frequentis Comsoft within 30 minutes of it being contacted.

The CAA inquiry was led by Jeff Halliwell, an independent executive and former boss of Foxs Biscuits, who is now the chairman of the Governments Coal Authority board.

He said: Our report sets out a number of recommendations aimed at improving Nats operations and, even more importantly, ways in which the aviation sector as a whole should work together more closely to ensure that, if something like this does ever happen again, passengers are better looked after.

In the following days, the incident caused chaos not only in the UK but for flights between Europe and the United States. Such flights must pass through UK-controlled airspace over the Atlantic.

The software meltdown was caused by a flight plan submitted by the airline French Bee for a trip between Los Angeles and Paris that was scheduled to pass over the UK.

Cancellations at Heathrow Airport on Aug 28 last year - Alberto Pezzali/AP

Although the flight plan was valid, it contained two waypoints  one in the US and one in France  with identical names that confused Nats systems.

About 15 million flight plans had been processed without error before the French Bee flight plan triggered the bug.

There are about 3,000 aviation waypoints around the world with duplicated names. The international waypoint system was first developed decades ago, before the existence of aeroplanes capable of covering thousands of miles in a single flight.

Johan Lundgren, the EasyJet chief executive, said airlines and passengers were severely let down by Nats and a failure of this scale can never be allowed to happen again.

Michael OLeary, the Ryanair chief executive, called on Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, to take immediate action to fix Nats hopeless service.

The incident caused chaos at airports - Steve Reigate

A Nats spokesman apologised for the inconvenience passengers suffered because of the very unusual technical incident.

He said: Our own internal investigation made 48 recommendations, most of which we have already implemented. These include improving our engagement with our airline and airport customers, our wider contingency and crisis response, and our engineering support processes.

We fixed the specific issue that caused the problem last year as our first priority and it cannot reoccur. We will study the independent review report very carefully for any recommendations we have not already addressed, and will support their industry-wide recommendations.

The inquiry noted that a number of affected passengers waited many weeks, and in some cases months for airlines to refund their out-of-pocket expenses.

It recommended that the CAA is given the power to take consumer enforcement action without going through the courts, which could include the ability to fine airlines.

Ms Haigh said: My priority is to ensure all passengers feel confident when they fly. Thats why my department will look to introduce reforms, when we can, to provide air travellers with the highest level of protection possible.
Allison Pearson did not deserve a visit from the police

From Shakespeares Constable Dogberry to Gilbert and Sullivans policemen of Penzance, the comic potential of the British plod has long been recognised. It was clearly on display with the spectacle of two uniformed constables who turned up on Allison Pearsons doorstep this Remembrance Sunday.

They were there to request her attendance at a voluntary interview over a long-deleted tweet. She could not remember the tweet and they could not tell her what it was about, although Essex police have now divulged that they are investigating her for a serious offence under the Public Order Act.

There was outrage, from senior Tories blaming the Labour Government and Elon Musk (of all people) quoting George Orwell. It was reported that her tweet had been determined a Non-Crime Hate Incident which would be Orwellian indeed, as it would go down on her record without a fair opportunity for challenge.

Essex Police has said that they are pursuing her for the criminal offence of incitement for uttering words that were intended to cause racial hatred.

It should be obvious, if not to those who have already sprung to her defence, that any judgment must await the revelation of her actual words. Some social media racists have rightly been convicted over disinformation which actually stoked the recent riots outside asylum hostels.

Unlikely as it may be that Ms Pearson falls into this category, there is already quite reasonable disquiet over the processes thus far.

Essex has already tried to shift the blame to another force which it alleges asked for the investigation. Nonetheless, it has a duty, before sending uniformed police to her doorstep demanding she attend the police station, to decide whether there is a reason to suspect of her committing any crime.

Essex has also refused to identify the original complainant. If so, should it even be followed up, unless the post is obviously incendiary? Anyone who demands police action against another citizen for voicing an opinion should at least be prepared to be identified to the person being complained about.

The post was, the police say, in any event, quickly deleted  the right, surely of a writer to reconsider and withdraw before any damage is caused. And only if damage has demonstrably been done during the time it was up, should an investigation proceed.

It is silly to blame the Government, or the Home Secretary, for what may simply be a case of overzealous or under competent policemen. But it is right to watch closely and consider whether the quickly deleted opinion could be such as to justify the intervention of the state. If not, the senior officer who decided to take the complaint seriously should be brought to account at least.

There is, as American free speech law reminds us, no right to shout fire in a crowded theatre. Britain is much less protective of opinion, but nonetheless gives no right to the state to suppress it unless it is intended to incite violence or is so inflammatory that it is likely to do so.

Ms Pearson has now been asked to attend the police station and is minded to do so with a solicitor. There is no reason why she should be put to that inconvenience. She should ask the police to interview her in the Daily Telegraph offices, where they can be photographed and the interview recorded and broadcast for public interest, and probably for public amusement.

Geoffrey Robertson KC is author of Crimes Against Humanity, the Struggle for Global Justice, published by Penguin this month
A picture Malkinson says he had to send to the DWP to prove he was living at his address Photograph: Supplied

Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in jail for a crime he did not commit, says the Ministry of Justice has left him to rot after telling him he is likely to have to wait months before learning if he is even eligible for compensation.

Malkinson had his conviction overturned last year after he was wrongly convicted of a 2003 rape in Greater Manchester.

Since the conviction was quashed by the court of appeal 16 months ago, he has been struggling on universal credit and forced to turn to food banks.

Malkinson, 58, said new measures that were required to qualify for out-of-work benefits, such as uploading photographs of himself at his home address, had left him feeling he was having to prove Im not lying all over again.

Related: I started shaking: Andrew Malkinson on being told he is a free man

In an interview with the Guardian, he said: Almost every day Im having to jump through some hoops for the authorities. Im really struggling here. It really feels unjust on top of what theyve done, because they said all the platitudes: Its appalling, poor Mr Malkinson, blah blah blah.

OK, its easy to say that  but you dont mean it, because you do nothing, you just leave me to rot.

Malkinson applied to the official compensation scheme for miscarriages of justice in September. Last week he received a letter advising him that the average wait for a decision on acceptance on to it was 31 weeks, which would take him until April.

There would then be a further wait to see if any interim money could be provided before any eventual payout sum was decided on.

Im asking them to have some humanity, he said, adding that ministers can do something with the stroke of a pen to expedite a decision on his eligibility.

He said he had so little food in the flat two weeks ago that he was forced to use a food bank again and was left exhausted and very angry by the situation.

Speaking from his housing association flat in Bridport, Dorset, Malkinson said he felt triggered by the administrative hurdles put in his way to receive 346 a month in benefits after housing.

Everything comes out of that pittance theyre making me beg for, he said. Im jumping through loads of hoops like a performing monkey, like I was having to do in prison. Its very undignified.

To continue to receive benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions he was told to upload photographs of himself holding up a sheet of paper with the date on it  like a mugshot  by a plug socket in his flat and outside his front door.

Im simply not free, he said. Im having to beg and struggle every day to feed myself and pay bills and it really is the limit. Its affecting my mental health, which is a complex suite of problems  I find it hard to concentrate, Im sure Ive got PTSD and other things Im probably not aware of.

Malkinson said he was still paying back 5 a month of his universal credit for what was considered an overpayment because he was out of the country for more than 28 days fulfilling his long-held dream of travel.

He was recently given a budget airline flight and a rented house for a couple of weeks in Spain by well-wishers but is worried the trip will mean his benefits get stopped again. He is planning to go there this week and hopes a medical letter saying it is necessary for his mental health will help, but is still worried.

Theyre not cutting me any slack, he said. I feel like Im still under suspicion, and Im being treated like someone thats begging off the state. Hang on, the state stole an enormity from me, I think it should be treating me just a little bit better than it is doing right now.

They know very well Im destitute and they know very well I cant do anything without any money. So its stealth oppression, thats all I can think of, a kind of continuum of the oppression they havent stopped putting me under.

Stefano Ruis, one of the solicitors working on his civil claim, said: Quite understandably, Mr Malkinson does not consider [a 31-week wait] reasonable. It would seem straightforward in this case for the secretary of state to make an immediate decision, whereupon an interim compensation payment can be considered.

Malkinson was not able to apply to the scheme until September as he had to confirm that any interim payment would not impact on his ability to qualify for legal aid to sue the police.

He pushed through a change in the law: from next week, any interim compensation payments for miscarriages of justice will not affect a persons eligibility for legal aid to sue the police or other public bodies connected to the conviction.

That means a very great deal to have the law changed for the better, he said.

Related: I was wrongly imprisoned for 17 years. Then the state released me into a legal maze | Andrew Malkinson

It is not the first time Malkinson has forced a change in the law. After he spoke out about prison board and lodging costs being deducted from compensation to the wrongly convicted, the policy was abruptly brought to an end.

Next he plans to challenge the 1m cap on compensation for miscarriages of justice under the official scheme. By the measure of someone whos gone through what Ive gone through and only recently been released, a million is derisory, he said.

Emily Bolton, Malkinsons criminal appeal solicitor, said: Andys conviction was overturned on the basis of compelling DNA evidence, and the very authorities responsible for his wrongful imprisonment have now accepted his innocence. Given this, we cannot understand why it could take more than seven months for Andy to be accepted on to the miscarriages of justice compensation scheme.

Even after acceptance on to the scheme, Andy will face further waiting as he seeks interim and final compensation payments  while waiting for the compensation he needs to rebuild his life, Andy is being forced to jump through hoop after hoop to get a monthly universal credit payment which barely covers his rent, utilities and food. We sincerely hope the Ministry of Justice will move with the greatest possible urgency.

An MoJ spokesperson said: We have been clear that those who have suffered devastating miscarriages of justice like Andrew Malkinson should not have to use compensation to bring legal action against those responsible.

Thats why this government fast-tracked changes which will mean more people can access legal aid even if they have received compensation.

We are working to make a decision on Mr Malkinsons application for compensation as quickly as possible.
A native of Beaumont, J.C. Reid graduated from the University of Southern California after studying architecture and spent his early career as an architect in New York City. He returned to Texas in 1995, retiring from architecture but creating his own Internet business in Houston. As his business became self-sustaining, he began traveling Houston and the world to pursue his passion: eating barbecue.

He began blogging about food and barbecue for the Houston Chronicle in 2010 and founded the Houston Barbecue Project in 2011 to document barbecue eateries throughout the area. Just last year, Reid and others founded the Houston Barbecue Festival to showcase mom-and-pop barbecue joints in the city. The 2014 event drew 2,000 guests to sample meats from 20 restaurants.

You can view more of J.C.'s work at jcreidtx.com.
Apple said it rejected the Which? accusations and would vigorously defend itself against any legal claim. Photograph: James Manning/PA

Apple is facing a near-3bn lawsuit over claims it breached competition law by effectively locking millions of UK consumers into its cloud storage service at rip-off prices.

The legal claim is being brought by Which?. The consumer group claimed that about 40 million Apple customers in the UK could be entitled to a payout averaging 70 each if the action is successful.

However, Apple said it rejected the Which? accusations and would vigorously defend itself against any legal claim.

A similar lawsuit relating to this issue was launched against Apple in the US in March this year but has not yet concluded.

Which? has instructed an international law firm and said the class action involved all UK consumers who had paid for iCloud services since 1 October 2015.

Built into every Apple device, iCloud is the US tech companys cloud storage service that lets people keep photos, files and other data securely online so they are backed up and available when needed.

Users get 5GB of storage for free, but to get more, they must pay, with a range of plans costing from 99p a month to 54.99 a month. Plan prices were increased by up to 29% last year  a rise described by some media outlets as a shock price hike affecting millions of people.

The Which? legal claim was filed with the competition appeal tribunal  a specialist UK judicial body that decides cases involving competition or economic regulatory issues.

The lawsuit argued that Apple had breached UK competition law by giving its iCloud storage service preferential treatment, trapping customers with Apple devices into using iCloud.

It said Apples iOS mobile operating system has a monopoly  and it is incumbent on Apple not to use that dominance to gain an unfair advantage in related markets, like the cloud storage market.

Which? said Apple had been encouraging users to sign up to iCloud while simultaneously making it difficult to use alternative providers, including because Apple does not allow customers to store or back up all of their phones data with a third-party provider.

The consumer group also claimed that the resulting lack of competition had led to consumers being overcharged.

Monthly iCloud subscription fees for UK consumers were increased by between 20% and 29% in June 2023.

Which? said it was seeking damages for all affected Apple users, and estimated individual consumers could be owed an average of 70, depending on how long they have been paying for the services during that period.

The consumer group is making use of the so-called opt-out collective actions regime introduced by the Consumer Rights Act 2015, under which an organisation can represent consumers where large numbers of people have allegedly been harmed. All those eligible are automatically included in the claim unless they choose to opt out.

Which? has instructed the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, with the claim funded by Litigation Capital Management, a leading provider of dispute finance. But Which? said it was urging Apple to resolve this claim without the need for litigation by offering consumers their money back and opening up iOS to allow users a real choice for cloud services.

Anabel Hoult, the consumer groups chief executive, said: We believe Apple customers are owed nearly 3bn.

In a statement, Apple said: Our users are not required to use iCloud, and many rely on a wide range of third-party alternatives for data storage.

In addition, we work hard to make data transfer as easy as possible  whether its to iCloud or another service. We reject any suggestion that our iCloud practices are anti-competitive and will vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise.

The company said nearly 50% of its customers do not need nor pay for an iCloud+ subscription. It added that its pricing was in line with that of other cloud storage providers, saying that its monthly 6TB plan costs 26.99, whereas Protons costs 33.28.
Jeremy Deller: I dont think we should look to artists for answers. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

The culture war has made artists wary of discussing the Israel-Palestine conflict, according to Jeremy Deller, who has donated work to a charity auction to support Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

Deller is one of more than 260 artists, including Yinka Shonibare, Wolfgang Tillmans, Mark Wallinger, Mona Hatoum, Sir John Akomfrah, Jesse Darling and Dame Sonia Boyce, who have contributed work that will be sold at the exhibition and auction in aid of the medical charitys work in Palestine.

You have to be careful, because it is politicised and it shouldnt be, Deller said when asked if he thought artists feared repercussions. Its become part of the war  the culture war and the war itself have run concurrently. I think thats maybe made some people a bit fearful, wary.

More than 300 works will be for sale in an online auction that runs from 18 November until 1 December. An exhibition of the work will be held at 14 Wharf Road, north London.

Rana Begum, one of several Royal Academy alumni who organised the auction, said the event served a double purpose: a way for artists to raise funds and a safe space for them to discuss the conflict.

It just hasnt been easy for people to talk, to be able to have a dialogue, even to understand, even to learn. People are so afraid of doing or saying anything, she said. I think what this auction is doing, and something far beyond raising money, is also giving a space for voices, for diverse voices.

This year the Fossil Free Books campaign successfully pressed several book festivals to sever ties with the investment firm Baillie Gifford because of its investments in fossil fuel companies and companies with links to the Israeli state. Afterwards, some argued that art should not be political and that art should be for arts sake.

Deller said: Art for arts sake is a meaningless term. Its like saying writing should be for writings sake, or film-making for film-makings sake. It doesnt work like that. You cant unless you have an exalted position as an artist where you can just make abstract work and get paid handsomely for it. You know, there are people like that. But on the whole thats not how it works. I studied art history, its never worked like that.

However, Deller said art did not have to be political and that it was a mistake to expect artists to offer solutions.

I dont think we should look to artists for answers. Artists shouldnt expect artists to solve the problems of the world, because they tried it. It hasnt worked, he said.

Often very rich, powerful people think artists can solve the worlds ills. We can raise money for charities  Live Aid, basically. Thats the most practical, immediate thing that we can do and thats what this exhibition and auction is.

Dr Natalie Roberts, the executive director of MSF UK, said the organisation was deeply moved by and grateful for the generosity of the artists who had supported its work.

She said: Their creativity and commitment are a testament to the power of art to inspire compassion and solidarity. These funds will have a direct impact on our ability to provide immediate life-saving medical care to some of the most marginalised people in society.

 This article was amended on 18 November 2024 because an earlier version referred to the Fossil Free Books campaign related to Baillie Giffords investments in fossil fuel companies and Israeli state-owned arms manufacturers. This has been changed to investments in fossil fuel companies and companies with links to the Israeli state. Baillie Gifford contacted the Guardian to say that it has no investments in Israeli state owned arms manufacturers.
The Fulton county jail in Atlanta, Georgia, on 11 April 2023. Photograph: Kate Brumback/AP

Conditions in the Fulton county jail in Atlanta violate the constitutional and statutory rights of people incarcerated, a long-running federal investigation concluded on Thursday.

Killings, stabbings, and assaults are common in the Jail, according to a Department of Justice report. Contraband is pervasive, lethal violence goes uninvestigated  and is sometimes directly abetted by jail staff  and drug use is common, according to investigators in a 91-page report on Thursday.

Federal investigators began examining jail conditions after a sharp increase in the number of prisoners who died in custody there during the pandemic. The gruesome death of Lashawn Thompson in September 2022 made national headlines. Jailers found Thompson, who suffered from serious mental illness, covered in insects in his own waste with his face down on the cell toilet. A coroner described Thompson as neglected to death.

Thompson was one of dozens of people who have either been murdered, killed themselves or died in the jail in recent years. The report notes that even discounting deaths from homicide and suicide, the mortality rate inside the jail has been several times higher than the national average.

More than 1,000 assaults occurred in the jail in 2023, including 314 stabbings, according to the report. In 2023, the rate of stabbings at the Jail was 1.5 times the rate of stabbings in the New York City Jails and more than 27 times the rate of all incidents involving an edged weapon in the Miami-Dade County Jails, the report states. The Jail had as many stabbings in a single month as the Miami-Dade County Jails  which house 1.5 times more people  had all year.

The Fulton county sheriff, Pat Labat, who was re-elected last week, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. But he has discussed the problems with the jail he administers in public with county commissioners, calling for the construction of a $1.7bn new facility. County commissioners balked at the proposal and are planning a $300m renovation of the facility instead.

The report describes physical deterioration in the jail, with doors that do not lock and entire wards rendered uninhabitable, that has become so substantial that prisoners have repeatedly chiseled through the walls of the facility to attack other prisoners.

In May 2023, an assailant dug a hole through a shower wall to enter an incarcerated persons housing zone and stab[bed] him, the report states. Later that month, a fight broke out between 26 people on two different zones, and an incarcerated person told officers that he was lying on his bed when an assailant came through a hole near the toilet via a pipe chase and stabbed him.

Related: Georgia senate passes bill curtailing charitable bail funds for protest groups

Though drug use runs the range from marijuana to ecstasy and other narcotics, investigators noted how prisoners use strips  pieces of paper soaked in chemicals and unknown substances, then dried and smoked for narcotic effect. One incarcerated person told us that strips bring chaos to the housing units, likening the ensuing violence to war. While we were on-site for inspections, odor from people smoking unknown substances filled the air. Security and medical staff have reported getting contact high from breathing the air in the Jail. And we observed burnt and rolled papers left on the floor of the Jail  on more than one occasion, still burning  during our inspections.

Six people have been murdered at the jail since 2022  two stabbed to death by prison shanks that have become ubiquitous in the jail, two beaten to death and two strangled. The report notes that one victim in 2023 had been injured in three previous stabbings at the jail.

Investigators found no evidence that the Jail conducts meaningful investigations into security lapses after violent deaths in the Jail, the report concluded.

The Georgia senator Jon Ossoff released a statement following the report. Todays justice department report confirms that abuse at the Fulton county jail has been not just horrific, but also unconstitutional, Ossoff said. Each day these conditions persist is a failure to uphold Georgians human and Constitutional rights.

Federal investigators have given Fulton county 49 days to make changes or face a federal suit.
Cbus admits it let its members down, causing them unnecessary distress at difficult times. The fund says there was no intention to withhold money from its members. Photograph: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images

One of the biggest superannuation funds in the country responsible for $94bn in retirement savings has been accused of failing its members at their most vulnerable time and causing undue hardship.

The scandal  which Cbus has apologised for  has intensified scrutiny on the $3.9tn superannuation industry, with regulators warning other funds may be at fault too.

What has happened at Cbus?

Cbus has admitted to lengthy delays in processing its members claims for death and disability payments. These are lump sum payments that members were entitled to.

These delays caused financial hardship for grieving families who needed the money to clear debts or pay bills after losing an income earner.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) has lodged federal court proceedings that allege Cbus failed to process more than 10,000 of these claims within 90 days. More than 6,000 members had to wait more than 12 months for payments.

Asic alleges Cbus failed to act efficiently, honestly and fairly in the handling of claims for death benefits and total and permanent disablement insurance. It has accused Cbus of failing its members at their most vulnerable time.

Cbus is yet to file a defence in court.

What does Cbus say?

The industry fund admits it let its members down, causing them unnecessary distress at difficult times. The fund says there was no intention to withhold money from its members and has highlighted outsourcing as an issue.

Cbus chief executive, Kristian Fok, told a Senate inquiry on Thursday that he was sorry for the impact that delays in processing insurance claims have had on our members and our families.

We are committed to doing better, and we will, Fok said. Many of our members have high-risk jobs where injury and deaths are more common. We know that delays in processing claims can add to their distress at a difficult time.

Related: Pentagon stunned after Trump picks Pete Hegseth for defence secretary

Fok said about 80% of the more than 7,000 claims subject to Asic litigation have been cleared.

Cbus has established a compensation fund for affected members and says it is cooperating with Asic.

How did these delays affect Cbus members?

ASICs deputy chair, Sarah Court, believes these delays have caused real harm to families who may be relying on the payments to meet critical expenses.

This adds to difficult personal circumstances, whether grieving for a loved one or dealing with severe injury or illness, Court said in a statement earlier this week. The additional anxiety and pain these delays caused compounded the issues these members and their families faced.

The amount of payments subject to delays was around $20m.

Will Cbus members pay for any enforcement penalty?

Potentially.

If Asics claims are upheld, Cbus could face a fine of up to $49m. The regulator has acknowledged members could be forced to pay for some of that fine and wants this to be considered by the court.

On Thursday, the Liberal senator Andrew Bragg asked Fok whether members could be on the hook for a regulatory fine.

Look, I am not going to speculate on that, Fok replied.

As you know, speculation on that before we have even had the ability to look at the full detail is not going to be helpful.

Bragg told Guardian Australia that Fok should have ruled out making members contribute to any regulator fine. Members should not pay for the sins of trustees, he said.

What are death benefits and disability payments?

Members pay premiums for death cover to ensure that when they die, their family members can receive a lump sum.

This coverage provides reassurance, knowing your loved ones and dependants will have financial support if you die, the Cbus website says.

Total and permanent disablement cover works in a similar way. If a member is injured or becomes so unwell they are unlikely to ever work again, a member receives a lump sum payment.

Does this affect other funds?

Court, Asics deputy chair, said the regulator believed there were widespread customer service failings on death and disability claims across the super industry.

I think its fair to say that we do think this is a broader, industry issue, Court said. We are doing a deep dive surveillance of superannuation trustees handling of death benefits claims more broadly.

The watchdog has lodged court action to send a message to all funds that these type of delays  whether intentional or not  are unacceptable.

Related: Indigenous deaths in custody reach 22 in 11 months as advocates say numbers met with indifference

Asic is also writing to the chief executives of several funds about its concerns, with a report on their conduct due early next year.

We may well have further enforcement action to follow, Court said.

What is industry super?

Most industry super funds were established by trade unions to manage the retirement savings of workers in particular industries.

The Construction and Building Unions Superannuation (Cbus) is open to all Australians and is one of the countrys largest funds. But it does appeal directly to workers in that industry and tailor its services to them.

Cbus has a mutual fund structure, which means all profits are retained for members. Unlike retail super funds, it does not pay dividends or profits to shareholders.

What does the government say?

So far, the governments response has been relatively muted. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has said it was really important regulators do this work.

Those allegations are now before the courts, and the standard practice, which Im adhering to today, is that we dont comment on matters before the court.

But Im a strong supporter of our regulators, and when they find issues that concern them, they should test them, which is what theyre doing now.
Under the new rules, a pet passport will need to be presented by owners bringing their animals from Great Britain to Northern Ireland - Tim Ockenden/PA

Kemi Badenoch is facing criticism for ordering Tory MPs to wave through a scheme that will mean Britons with dogs have to show pet passports when travelling into Northern Ireland.

Conservative MPs were told by party whips to abstain on a vote on Wednesday setting up the Northern Ireland pet travel scheme, part of the latest post-Brexit deal with the EU.

Under the current rules, pet owners travelling from Great Britain into Northern Ireland have to secure a costly certificate to show their animal does not carry diseases. Under the new rules, voted through by the House of Commons, a pet passport will need to be presented by owners.

Supporters of the change  negotiated in the Windsor Framework last year by Rishi Sunak during his time as prime minister  have argued that it will make it easier for Britons travelling with pets.

However, Eurosceptics fear that the change further hardens the border between two parts of the UK  Great Britain and Northern Ireland  in a way that undermines the Union.

It has also prompted questions for Mrs Badenoch, the new Conservative leader, given that it means one of her first whipping decisions has been not to oppose the scheme.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader who voted against the changes, told The Telegraph: Secretly the Tories are ashamed of the Windsor Framework.

They know it was a dreadful deal. They know Rishi pulled the wool over everyones eyes and effectively Northern Ireland is cut off from the UK. Abstaining is a way to say: Id rather not talk about it.

The move has prompted questions for Kemi Badenoch, given one of her first whipping decisions has been not to oppose the scheme - Andy Rain/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Sir Roger Gale, one of three Conservative MPs who voted against the measure, raised concerns about the new pet passport scheme and its effect on the UK.

Sir Roger told The Telegraph: I voted against it because we cant have a border down the Irish Sea. Why should we have pet passports to take Fido from Liverpool to Belfast?

It is understood that the new Tory leadership decided to allow its MPs not to turn up for the vote in part because the measure was going to pass anyway, given Labours vast Commons majority.

It is the latest twist in the long debate about how to protect Northern Irelands position in the UK while limiting disruption from the countrys departure from the EU, voted for in the 2016 referendum.

Successive EU and UK leaders have agreed with the need to keep Northern Irelands land border open with the Republic of Ireland, which remains in the EU, in part owing to historic tensions.

But that has meant a series of checks being mandated on goods passing from the mainland UK into Northern Ireland, as, in theory, they could then easily be moved into the EU via the Republic of Ireland.

The new row is over what should happen if a Briton living on the UK mainland travels with a dog or cat into Northern Ireland.

Those rules were renegotiated by Mr Sunak in his Windsor Framework deal, unveiled in February 2023.

The old rules, put in place by Boris Johnsons Brexit deal, meant pet owners had to get an animal health certificate from their vet for each visit. Each certificate cost an average of 230.

Under the new scheme, owners of pets that are microchipped simply need to show the animals life-long pet travel document when entering.

Irresponsible to vote against scheme

But there was some Brexiteer support for the move. Steve Baker, the former Tory MP who led the European Research Group, backed the changes. He was involved in their development as Mr Sunaks Northern Ireland minister.

Mr Baker told The Telegraph: I am painfully aware that the Windsor Framework is a hard compromise for Unionists and Eurosceptics.

But unfortunately it was the best the prime minister of the day could do to move the relationship forward. It would now be irresponsible to vote against the pet passport measure.

A Conservative Party source said: The most important moment in Parliament yesterday was not a deferred division on a statutory instrument that Labour had already secured, but Kemi Badenoch forcing Keir Starmer to admit at Prime Ministers Questions that he had no answer as to how local councils will fill the 2.4 billion black hole in their finances.

Kemi is leading the charge against Labours unravelling budget, showing how local councils, care homes, GPs and charities are telling the government that the National Insurance hike is threatening their livelihoods.
The Church of England is in desperate need of reform

The survivors of the John Smyth abuse scandal should be at the forefront of the Churchs priorities. As the Church of England (CofE) prepares for Justin Welbys resignation, it is essential to ask what lessons can be drawn from this moment.

The delay in Welbys resignation underscores a structural problem: the CofEs lack of accountability at its highest levels and the glaring double standard that exists between the treatment of an Archbishop and a parish churchwarden. This imbalance has harmed the Churchs integrity and diminished its authority.



Meanwhile, Parliaments supervisory role is reduced to little more than token oversight, as demonstrated in recent comments from Sir Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband.

These statements reflect a misunderstanding of Parliaments responsibility and a broader trend of withdrawal, leaving ineffective scrutiny that has allowed the established church to mark its own homework. The CofEs top-heavy hierarchy is organised in a way that largely evades accountability, with no independent mechanism to hold its leaders responsible. This insularity is a profound weakness for a Church meant to serve Englands people.



Since I began covering the Church in 2021, I have witnessed its defensive posture. Initial feedback to my reporting was an attempt to control the narrative, followed by an aggressive response from the Archbishops.

I was dismissed as a rascally voice, rather than treated as a critical friend with valuable insights to offer. The Churchs secretive and reputation-driven culture has only served to exacerbate its crises, causing harm in the long run. The defensive response has been counterproductive, stifling meaningful engagement and hindering the Churchs mission.



While media interest in the Church is momentarily heightened, this attention provides an opportunity to reassess the rules of engagement and move beyond Welbys managerial legacy, which has brought a divisive and centralising approach to the Churchs governance.

We should avoid rushing to appoint a new Archbishop who would merely replicate the Welby model. If anything, recent years have shown the dangers of managerial culture in the Church: it has alienated parishioners, exhausted clergy, and sparked internal division.



Yet media speculation on potential successors reveals a troubling lack of understanding. For example, some have floated the Bishop of Leicester as a likely candidate. Though young and personable, he is currently overseeing a widely criticised reorganisation in Leicester that undermines the parish system and risks setting up a doom loop, according to his own implementation team.

Similarly, Graham Usher in Norwich is in the Welby mould. In contrast, only the Bishop of Chelmsford has demonstrated the courage publicly to voice concerns about the Churchs policy direction, which has driven away donors and overwhelmed clergy. Her recent statement stands out as a rare defence of parishioners and their vital role in the Church.



Ultimately, the CofE is its parishes, not its upper management. If the Church is to remain relevant, its leadership must shift focus towards serving the needs of parishioners, communities, and clergy.

Sadly, the current leadership trend favours a governance review centralising financial control over funds, which were originally intended to support parish priests, to finance vaguely defined projects with a Christian ethos. Bishops are, in essence, vying for control of the 10+ billion managed by the Church Commissioners - money donated to sustain parish life, not fund alternative initiatives.



As someone who has spent decades as a lay volunteer, running village church choirs, food banks, and Sunday Schools, my introduction to the diocesan political hierarchy has been sobering. I have witnessed bishops isolating themselves with paid diocesan officials while simultaneously pressuring volunteers for more support.

Diocesan authorities wield excessive power, largely unchecked, and clergy seem discouraged from dissenting. While I would prefer to continue my work at parish level, the Churchs upper echelons are in such disarray that they need to hear from front liners.



The lay donors and volunteers have been loud and clear: it is not the parish system but the bloated management structure that needs pruning for growth. Yet when this point is raised, bishops rely on the very diocesan advisers who benefit most from the current system - effectively asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.



This is tragic for an organisation whose contributions are overwhelmingly positive. The National Churches Trusts survey, The House of Good, recently found that UK parish churches contribute an astounding 55 billion in social and economic value each year, with additional research indicating they save the NHS 8.4 billion annually.

The Churchs focus should be on recruiting and nurturing clergy whose calling is genuinely spiritual - those whose unique selling point is their relationship with God, not political activism or administrative roles.

These are people who embody the Great Commandments to love God and neighbour, who serve humbly, and who radiate Christs light in a world that desperately needs it.



Real transformation wont happen through meetings or media attention; it begins in the quiet work of selfless service, perhaps in a parish hall or even a stable. Now, more than ever, the Church must refocus on what truly matters and rebuild itself on a foundation of genuine love, accountability, and service.
Major chains use their land holdings and shopping centre purchases to prevent independent supermarkets from doing business, ACCC inquiry hears. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Coles and Woolworths pick off large independent stores in a takeover strategy that prevents the smaller grocers from growing into more formidable competitors, an inquiry heard on Thursday.

Grant Ramage, an executive at IGA and Foodland brand owner Metcash, said the amount of groceries flowing through their network, which it relies on to build competitive supply and distribution chains, was threatened by the acquisition strategy used by Australias major supermarkets.

They typically arent interested in buying small independents, they would pick off the larger independents, the very successful stores that contribute disproportionately high volume to the total independent networks volume, Ramage told the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission inquiry.

Ive described it previously as decapitation; taking the big stores at the top away has a disproportionate effect on our network.

The testimony is part of a government-ordered examination into grocery prices and competition in the supermarket sector, where Coles and Woolworths have a dominant two-thirds share.

The major chains have faced intense scrutiny over their pricing practices and have drawn criticism from all political parties before an election expected to be fought on cost-of-living pressures.

Related: Could Trump really fire Australian ambassador Kevin Rudd  and how big a deal would that be?

Guardian Australia analysis has found that profit margins at the major supermarkets are now significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels, and have jumped ahead of most of their international peers.

Coles and Woolworths have consistently defended their business practices, and have described competition in the sector as strong, citing competitive pressures from Aldi, Costco, Metcash/IGA, Amazon and other independently owned stores.

Consumer advocates and executives at Aldi have already appeared at the inquiry, while representatives of the major chains are due to do so next week.

Ramage, who is chief executive of Metcashs food division which supplies IGA and other store networks, said the major chains also used their land holdings and shopping centre purchases to prevent independent supermarkets from doing business.

Metcashs business model differs from the big supermarkets given it acts as a wholesaler that distributes groceries to its networks, some of which licence the IGA brand. Its network generally operates smaller stores than the major chains.

Metcash-supplied stores often operate in more remote locations, contrasting with Aldi which told the inquiry this week it only sets up in areas with large population centres.

Ramage told the ACCC inquiry on Thursday that Coles and Woolworths use their financial clout and market power to secure supermarket sites, locking out smaller rivals.

When we investigate, we find that those sites were unavailable because theyve been land banked by one of the chains, Ramage said.

There are other examples where there are existing stores or opportunities that are not available to us because Coles and Woolworths have acquired the site or found another way to remove the IGA or the independent from that location.

Coles and Woolworths deny that they land bank, arguing that most of their undeveloped sites are in new areas and growth corridors.

The ACCC is scheduled to produce a final report for the federal government in February, with potential recommendations on how to increase competition in the sector.
The team who created the new snack said it was crunchy, tasty and healthy - Notes From Poland

Scientists have made crisps out of carp in Poland, where the freshwater fish is a Christmas delicacy but barely eaten at any other time.

Polish carp made up more than 20 per cent of the EUs total production last year, with only the Czech Republic coming close to rivalling the Poles.

About 90 per cent of Polish carp are sold in the two weeks leading up to Christmas Eve, where the barbel-mouthed fish is part of the traditional Wigilia meal.

Researchers wanted to change that by developing innovative new carp products to ensure year-round sales from fish farms.

The Notes From Poland website reported that the project was funded with 692,000 (576,000) from the EUs maritime and fisheries fund.

The carp crisps were crunchy, tasty and above all healthy, declared the faculty of food and agriculture at the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin.

A freshly fried batch of karpioki, a new use for unwanted fish - Notes From Poland

The recipe researchers said their products were healthier than traditional crisps because they had less fat, salt, carbohydrates and calories, but a higher protein content.

The fishy snacks were made with starchy tapioca rather than potatoes, stopping them from bursting when they were fried, the scientists said.

The other ingredients were carp meat, pepper, salt and a pinch of sugar.

The crisps  called karpioki, a portmanteau of the Polish words for carp and tapioca  are not yet being produced commercially.

Karpioki could be purchased fried or as a semi-finished product for self-preparation [frying] at home, said the scientists.

Carp has such a deep hold on the Polish Christmas that many Poles used to buy fish and keep them alive in the bathtub at home during advent.

The carp would be killed and prepared fresh to be eaten on Christmas Eve but the practice has fallen out of fashion because of, among other things, animal welfare concerns.

The deepwater fish, which is popular with British recreational anglers, was introduced to the UK in the 13th and 14th centuries and was a popular dish in medieval times.

Over recent years, there have been occasional accusations that people from Eastern Europe have poached carp in the UK meant for coarse fishing.
Donald Trump meets with Joe Biden at the White House on 13 November 2024. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Alarm over Donald Trumps suggestion he would be willing to serve an unconstitutional third term as president, made during his meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday, has prompted a Democratic lawmaker to seek a formal resolution rejecting the idea.

The president-elect drew laughter from the Republican caucus for his remarks about the possibility of remaining in the White House beyond January 2029, which would be prohibited by the 22nd amendment limiting a commander-in-chief to two four-year terms of office.

I suspect I wont be running again unless you say, Hes so good weve got to figure something else out, said Trump, who incited the deadly January 6 Capitol riot in 2021 to try to cling on to power at the end of his first administration.

On Wednesday Dan Goldman, the New York Democratic congressman, said he plans to file a motion this week specifically mentioning Trump and reiterating the two-term clause from an amendment approved by Congress in 1947, two years after Franklin D Roosevelts four-term, 12-year presidency before and during the second world war ended with his death.

A lengthy ratification process was completed in 1951 when 36 of the then 48 states gave their consent to the prohibition of any person who had been elected to the presidency twice from standing again.

Goldmans motion, according to NBC News, which saw a copy, features language highlighting the amendment applies to two terms in the aggregate as president of the United States and reaffirms that it applies to President-elect Trump.

The initiative, first reported by the New York Times, is unlikely to receive a scheduled vote in the House, which was projected on Wednesday to remain in Republican hands under the speakership of Mike Johnson, a vocal ally of the 78-year-old president-elect.

But the Democrat could seek to introduce it as a privileged motion, which would guarantee it floor time, a procedural tool previously used to force votes on the ousting of Republican former speaker Kevin McCarthy last year, as well as the expulsion from the House of his fabulist former colleague George Santos.

Goldman, the Times said, is attempting to draw attention to a number of anti-democratic and authoritarian comments Trump has made about staying in the White House in defiance of the constitutional amendment.

In July, he repeated an earlier assertion that if he was re-elected in this months presidential election you wont have to vote any more. Itll be fixed so good, youre not going to have to. Democrats and other critics called the remarks terrifying and interpreted them as a statement that there would be no more elections.

In remarks to the National Rifle Association in May, the Times reported, he told his audience: I dont know, are we going to be considered three-term or two-term? Are we three-term or two-term if we win?, which was a likely reference to his often-repeated big lie that he won the 2020 election.

And two days before the 5 November election, during a dark speech in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in which he suggested he would be fine with members of the news media being shot, he said he shouldnt have left the White House after his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden.

Despite Republicans having won control of the presidency, both houses of Congress, and the supreme court through Trumps first-term picks, the incoming president would face an almost insurmountable barrier to modify the term-limit rules and allow him to stand in a fourth consecutive election.

Proposed changes to the constitution require a two-thirds majority in both chambers, plus the approval of three-quarters of the states, either through their legislatures or at a constitutional convention.

The constitution has been amended 27 times since it was ratified in 1788, most recently in 1992 with a measure preventing lawmakers from setting their own salaries.
The US embassy in London. American diplomats are said to owe 15m in unpaid congestion charges. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Diplomatic officials and their dependents in the UK allegedly committed offences including sexual assault, possession of indecent images of children, and indecent exposure last year, a Foreign Office minister has said.

Catherine West told parliament of nine serious offences allegedly committed by individuals with diplomatic immunity in 2023, and gave an update on fines and taxes owed by diplomatic missions.

An Iraqi individual is accused of possession or distribution of indecent images of children. Diplomats from Ghana, Libya and Mongolia have been accused of assault. There was an allegation of indecent exposure against a Portuguese individual, and an individual from Singapore was accused of child cruelty or neglect.

The annual list includes other alleged incidents including driving without insurance and further accusations of sexual assault.

About 26,500 people in the UK are entitled to diplomatic or international organisation-related immunity. The Foreign Office defines serious crimes as offences that carry a jail term of a year or more, as well as serious driving offences.

Where diplomats are alleged to have committed serious crimes, the Foreign Office asks their government or international organisation to waive diplomatic immunity, and where this is not granted they can ask the diplomat or dependent to leave the UK.

The most high-profile case in recent years has been the death of Harry Dunn, a motorcyclist who was hit by a car driven by Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a US diplomat.

West said the vast majority of diplomats and dependents abided by UK law. She said the Foreign Office does not tolerate foreign diplomats or dependants breaking the law and added: We take all allegations of illegal activity seriously.

The Metropolitan police, the force most likely to investigate such allegations because Britains diplomatic hub is in London, have been approached for comment.

Between 2019 and 2022, 15 serious and significant offences were allegedly committed by people entitled to diplomatic or international organisation-related immunity in the UK. These included alleged sexual assault, common assault, domestic servitude and driving under the influence of alcohol.

West said fines and taxes owed by diplomatic missions included 152,436,135 in unpaid congestion charges from the schemes introduction in 2003 until September 2024. She said the US owed 15,160,275, Japan owed 10,422,558 and China 9,303,180.

Embassies owed 4,142,255 in business rates, with the Chinese embassy accounting for the most at 646,183. Saudi Arabia ranked the highest for parking fines as of the end of June, accounting for 196,630 of the 1,489,618 total owed by diplomats.

Transport for London has previously said the congestion charge is a charge for a service and not a tax and diplomats are not exempt from paying it.

West said officials had regular contact with diplomatic missions about outstanding debts and fines.
The $133 million taxpayer-owned Hyatt Regency Hotel and Convention Center in Conroe is expected to see revenue of $14.7 million in 2025, but after budgeting $12.6 million for operating costs, the city falls short on repaying its debt service. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer The $133 million taxpayer-owned Hyatt Regency Hotel and Convention Center in Conroe is expected to see revenue of $14.7 million in 2025, but after budgeting $12.6 million for operating costs, the city falls short on repaying its debt service. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer

The $133 million taxpayer-owned Hyatt Regency Hotel and Convention Center in Conroe is expected to see revenue of $14.7 million in 2025, but after budgeting $12.6 million for operating costs, the city falls short on repaying its debt service.

Council approved the budget in a 4-1 vote Thursday with Councilman Howard Wood being the nay vote.

Walter Peseski, senior vice president with Garfield Asset Management, presented the budget during Wednesdays workshop that showed the hotel would profit about $2.5 million, which wont cover the citys $3.3 million owed for debt in 2025.

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The city issued three separate series of revenue bonds to fund part of the hotel, and according to information from the city, the total debt on those three liens on the hotel total about $144 million, including interest.

Councilman David Hairel said while some of the profit is being applied to the first two liens on the hotel, he said the third lien will likely have to be covered by the city until 2050.

We are actually supplementing the existence of the hotel, Hairel said.

Hairel also pointed out that the city is required to refurbish the hotel after eight years. That, he said, will cost the city about $15 million.

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Ongoing financial issues

The hotel and convention center, which opened in May 2023, is the largest taxpayer-funded economic development project in the city. The 381,323-square-foot facility includes 250 full-service rooms and several large conference and event rooms.

However, due to missed economic projections, the project has been dogged by cost overruns and multimillion-dollar taxpayer bailouts.

In February, S&P Global Ratings lowered the credit rating on the citys first-lien and second-lien hotel revenue bonds to BB- and CCC+. In May, analysts with S&P Global downgraded the credit rating of the citys first lien two more notches to a B from a BB-. The ratings indicate the city's ability to repay the debt.

Analysts did not lower the CCC+ on the corporations second lien.

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Council members said the hotel will continue to be a financial burden.

Where the problem comes in is that when this was presented to us, the city of Conroe was going to make $6 million the first year, Porter said. What we have is everybody is making a little money but the city of Conroe and the city of Conroe is responsible for all the debt.

Porter said every decision the council makes revolves around the debt owed on the hotel.

That gets old, Porter said. It prevents us from doing things we would really like to do. We have this debt to 2050 when we might make $1 if we refinance.

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Occupancy rates forecast to grow

Peseki said the hotel's outlook is improving, and occupancy rates are expected to increase to 54.9% by 2025.

Our occupancy at the Conroe hotel is lower than we hoped at this stage but it is ramping up, Peseki said. This hotel is an anomaly. It is the only full service hotel in Conroe competing with full service hotels in The Woodlands.

Peseki said the Hyatt is as good as a hotel in The Woodlands at a lower daily rate. He said rooms in The Woodlands are in the mid $200s while the Hyatt room rate is slightly below $200.

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Humza Yousaf has said he is certain Elon Musk had access to his private communications on X, formerly Twitter - David Swanson/Reuters and Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Humza Yousaf has accused Elon Musk of accessing his private messages as part of a campaign to besmirch his reputation.

The former Scottish first minister claimed Mr Musk, one of the richest men in the world and owner of social media platform X, scours the confidential communications of people he sees as a threat.

Mr Yousaf told the Tortoise media podcast he was certain the billionaire had access to his private communications on the platform. The podcast said it understood Musk had denied ever accessing private messages on X, formerly Twitter.

He did not explain why Mr Musk, who has just been appointed by president-elect Donald Trump to dismantle bureaucracy in the US government, would consider him a threat.

One of the most dangerous men on the planet

The two men have been involved in an ongoing feud since Mr Yousaf was first minister, with each claiming the other was a racist.

Mr Musk alleged Mr Yousaf was a blatant racist in response to video footage of a speech the First Minister gave decrying the lack of prominent non-white people in Scotland.

During unrest in parts of England and Northern Ireland this summer, Mr Yousaf referred to Mr Musk as a race baiter and claimed he was one of the most dangerous men on the planet.

The Tesla owner replied by claiming Mr Yousaf is obviously super racist against white people. Mr Musk added: I dare that scumbag to sue me. Go ahead, make my day.

In a post on X in August, which raised eyebrows, Mr Musk said: Legal discovery will show that however big a racist hes been in public communications, he is vastly worse in private communications.

Elon Musk has just been appointed by president-elect Donald Trump to dismantle bureaucracy in the US government - Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images North America

Asked if he thinks Mr Musk had access to his private X messages, Mr Yousaf said: Im certain he absolutely does and Im certain he scours the private messages of those that he sees as a threat.

In fact, Im certain he has a whole team of people who are now looking at any information they can gather on me and try to use it to besmirch my reputation, and hell use any nefarious tactics in order to do that.

He wouldnt be able to shut me up

Mr Yousaf added: Let me be clear that Elon Musk could have trillions, let alone billions, and he wouldnt be able to shut me up.

But he admitted he had been caught by surprise by the billionaires reference to his private messages, prompting him to check their content.

Im thinking, Ive been on Twitter for a long time, have I made an off-colour joke? Have I said something in a private communication? he said.

Humza Yousaf suggested Mr Musk has a whole team looking for information that could besmirch his reputation - Jeff J Mitchell/PA

So, I thought I better do the belt and braces thing, and as I say there was nothing there, and unsurprisingly so.

But here is somebody who is basically saying to me by the way you better watch out. Im going to release stuff on you and its going to make your life hell.

Mr Yousaf was humiliatingly forced to quit as first minister in May after barely a year in charge, when his decision to kick the Scottish Greens out of his government backfired spectacularly.

X has been approached for comment.
Izzy Pinchen, 26, was living with her aunt in Colchester when they were burgled - PAUL GLOVER

A burglary victim has criticised Essex Police for not properly investigating her case but choosing to investigate Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson.

Izzy Pinchen, 26, was living with her aunt and her aunts partner in Colchester when tens of thousands of pounds worth of belongings were stolen by one or more burglars smashing through the back of the property.

The house was empty at the time of the afternoon break-in, as the family were out for a brief dog walk.

Among the valuable items taken during the July 2019 incident, such as antiques and jewellery, were others of high sentimental value  including military medals, which had belonged to her uncles grandfather.

Acting Cpl William Thomas Evans had served in the 7th Battalion Prince of Waless North Staffordshire Regiment.

However, after dusting for fingerprints and speaking to a direct neighbour, Ms Pinchen claims Essex Police rang the family to confirm their case would be closed around two weeks later.

The musician, who now lives in London, told The Telegraph: The police came, they dusted fingerprints and stuff  nobody was on their records  they took statements and that was it.

And then they said the likelihood of getting anything back that was taken was near to nought.

Ms Pinchen believes the case was not properly investigated adding: It was shut in around two weeks, it was quick. There was no follow-up or victim support.

The criticism comes after Essex Police launched a criminal investigation into Pearson for allegedly stirring up racial hatred in a social media post last year.

Two officers visited Pearsons Essex home on Remembrance Sunday as she was preparing to mark the day.

On Thursday, the Home Office confirmed it was reviewing how police recorded non-crime hate incidents to ensure they are proportionate and protect free speech.

Commenting on Pearsons visit by police officers, Ms Pinchen said: If they have time to follow up on a Sunday afternoon on someone that has no prior record for something  what are they actually doing with public resources because they are obviously not following up on major crimes?

Seeing them do that [Pearson investigation] is just ridiculous. Were a police state now policing peoples ideologies rather than actually holding criminals to account.

A deep sense of anger

In a statement on Thursday night, Essex Police said of the burglary at Ms Pinchens house: Our officers carried out house-to-house enquiries, sought CCTV from the area and any neighbouring properties.

A forensics officer visited the property to collect evidence in a bid to identify the suspect or suspects in this investigation.

Only after all lines of enquiry were exhausted was the decision taken to file this investigation.

While the family were able to make a successful insurance claim, Ms Pinchen said they felt saddened and angry when the case was closed so quickly.

There was a deep sense of anger, she said. I remember them [aunt and aunts husband] just being at a loss because it was a lot of things that had been handed down like family heirlooms  they had been taken.

So I think it was just a real sense of anger  firstly that someone could do that in the first place and take what isnt theirs, but also that there was just no follow-up and nobody being held accountable for what happened.

Its just extremely sad.

Police forces across the country have often been criticised for failing to attend all burglaries.

In 14 police forces last year, 6,568 burglaries did not get a police visit  according to a Telegraph freedom of information request.

Essex Police said its officers attended 99 per cent of all residential burglaries and had charged 130 suspected burglars in the past year.

We are bringing burglary down and we keep bringing burglary down, the force said in a statement.
Thousands of Australians remain stranded in Bali or have had their holidays cancelled after a volcanic eruption near the island created a dangerous ash cloud.

On Thursday morning Qantas and Jetstar resumed some flights between Bali and Australia, and Virgin was flying all scheduled flights. All three airlines had earlier cancelled flights to and from the island due to safety concerns from the ash which had spewed 9km into the air.

Some travellers tried to switch flights to Garuda Indonesia, which was still flying.

Amanda Mac, from Melbourne, arrived in Bali on Wednesday evening with her two daughters after their Jetstar flight on Tuesday was cancelled.

We sat on the tarmac for a couple of hours, then the pilot announced it was cancelled, Mac said.

She said she had initially re-booked with Jetstar, but then changed to Garuda Indonesia on Wednesday morning on the advice of someone she met at the airport. Jetstar gave her a full refund, she said.

However that flight was also rescheduled for later in the day  it took two bookings, and three trips to the airport, but Mac and family are now on holiday to celebrate the twins 18th birthdays.

I was so relieved, she said. Definitely owe my new friend a few drinks for giving me the heads up about Garuda!

She said everyone on board had been excited to get off the ground.

Most of us had experienced one or more cancellations. I wasnt worried about anything, I trust the airlines would have weighed up the risks.

Other Australian travellers were not so fortunate.

One woman said in a Facebook post that she had lost over $2,000 from flight cancellations and unrecoverable bookings.

Gardua Indonesia was contacted for comment.

The emergency began on Sunday when Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki volcano erupted, spewing an ash column 9km high.

The event in East Nusa Tenggara province, about 500km from Bali, killed nine people and prompted the evacuation of more than 15,000 close to the crater.

Related: Pentagon stunned after Trump picks Pete Hegseth for defence secretary

On Tuesday, Qantas and Virgin Airlines cancelled up to 10 journeys in total, according to their websites.

On Thursday morning, Qantas said in a press statement that conditions had improved enough to resume Jetstar and Qantas flights between Australia and Denpasar.

We will continue to monitor the changing conditions and volcanic activity and work on plans to operate more recovery flights, the statement said.

We are contacting customers directly to notify them of any changes to their travel plans. We appreciate the changing situation is frustrating and we thank customers for their understanding and patience.

A Virgin spokesperson said on Thursday it was resuming all scheduled flights in and out of Denpasar.

We will continue to contact guests whose flights have been cancelled to accommodate them on recovery flights in the coming days, they said.

 With AAP.
Decommissioned Australian destroyer HMAS Torrens explodes after being used as a torpedo target by an Australian submarine - AP/Royal Australian Navy

Attack submarines are arguably the decisive weapons in high-intensity warfare between foes separated by oceans. Mobile, stealthy and heavily armed, they can sink invasion flotillas, bottle up enemy combat fleets, cut supply lines and strangle economies by throttling trade.

And thats why the dire condition of the submarines in some of the most important free countries is so troubling. The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia are all struggling to maintain their attack boats at precisely the same moment they most need the boats to deter China.

The Australian sub fleet is the most recent to descend into crisis. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, just one of the Australian navys six Collins-class subs is fit for combat. The other three are beset by problems including corrosion, ABC reported.

Australia plans to replace the 1990s-vintage, diesel-electric Collins with second-hand nuclear-powered boats from the United States starting in the 2030s. New nuclear subs built under the auspices of the AUKUS alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States would later replace the used vessels.

Nuclear-powered subs present a hugely greater threat than conventional ones, as they can move fast and far while fully submerged. A diesel sub can only go fast and far fully surfaced, and needs to put up a snort air-intake mast for long periods at regular intervals to charge batteries when submerged. This places the sub in great danger when operating in an area covered by enemy radar, and a single maritime patrol plane can scan hundreds of miles of sea.

So the new nuclear boats will make the Australian navy a lot more dangerous. But the 3,500-ton Collins class are Australias only manned undersea capability for the next six years, if not longer. And while a new class of small robotic sub might complement the Collins, such vessels lack the heavy weaponry  Mark 48 torpedoes and Harpoon anti-ship missiles  that lend the manned subs their punch.

A 2023 war game organised by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC underscored what many observers have long assumed  that submarines could be the main line of defence between China and Taiwan in the event the Chinese Communist Party ever makes good on decades of threats and attacks the island democracy.

In that war game, US Navy nuclear attack boats sailing from Guam sank scores of Chinese transports and warships, ultimately defeating the invasion attempt  albeit at the cost of a fifth of the subs. If the US, Australian, British and Japanese fleets  and the Taiwanese fleet, of course  could muster most of their subs, they could present a powerful united front to the Chinese fleet. The nuclear boats could move in to attack Chinese vessels in the Taiwan Strait without worrying overmuch about Chinese air and missile power, and conventional ones might sneak in slowly and carefully

But at present, Taiwans friends by and large cant muster most of their boats. As recently as a year ago, just 60 per cent of the US Navys roughly 50 attack subs were ready for combat  significantly short of the Americans 80 per cent readiness goal. The Royal Navy has six nuclear attack boats, and plans to base one of them in Australia from 2027. But more than once in recent years, there have been zero British boats at sea.

If theres a silver lining in this maintenance storm, its that the powerful Japanese sub flotilla  24 diesel-electric attack boats  is in good shape. The Taiwanese navys two 1980s-vintage diesel-electric attack boats are also in reasonably good condition. But they couldnt make much of an impact on their own in wartime, and it could be more than a decade before Taipei acquires all eight new subs it has planned.

Overall, the Western allied undersea fleet is in trouble. There are lots of subs, but too many of them are too old or worn out. It might take scores of submarines to defeat China at sea. Can the allies sail enough subs on short notice  and keep them in action long enough to win a war?

Its hard to say. But its telling that Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the US Navys top officer, has prioritised the maintenance of existing ships over the construction of new ones. We will continue to prioritise readiness, capability and capacity  in that order, she wrote, tacitly acknowledging that the US fleet has a maintenance problem, and needs to solve it immediately.

Thats easier said than done, and not just for the Americans. The industrial side effects of the Covid pandemic, challenges associated with maintaining any skilled workforce, budgetary constraints and the overall advanced age of Western submarines owing to the peace dividend of the 1990s  during which many democracies built very few new subs  represent huge hurdles to near-term readiness.

Allied navies need to get their attack boats in shape. Whether they can, and how quickly, could mean the difference between victory and defeat in any coming Pacific war.
Steve Reed, the MP for the Arcadian vale of Streatham and Croydon North - Future Publishing/Wiktor Szymanowicz

For fans of topsy-turvydom, there probably isnt a better sight than a Labour Government answering Defra questions. The very air these people breathe is laced with contempt for people who grow their food, are responsible for the realities of conserving the environment; or just happen to live outside an urban postcode. Its like having the big bad wolf answer questions on housing standards for pigs or inviting Alastair Campbell to opine on integrity in public life. And in what mad, parallel world could that possibly happen?

Anyway, to business. Unsurprisingly many MPs with rural constituencies were hopping mad at the Governments recent raid on family farms. Answering them  which is a generous description of repeating the lie that almost nobody will be affected  were the Secretary of State, Steve Reed, the MP for the Arcadian vale of Streatham and Croydon North, and his two deputies, members for the leafy bowers of central Cambridge and Coventry East respectively. Like bankers wellies  although for this gaggle, perhaps a Spoonerised version is more appropriate  on a grouse shoot, there was not a speck of mud between them.

When the flak came, Reed dived for cover. Even the most vigorous beater might have struggled to flush him out. Instead the lamentable Cantabrigian Daniel Zeichner stepped into the field, and thence straight into a series of cowpats. When asked a very reasonable question about whether it might be possible to find an exemption for farms that had been in families for generations, Zeichner produced a word cowpat of his own  it was a complicated policy, but there would be further discussions. Well that clears that up then.

The minister has accused the Conservatives of scaremongering, began Scots Tory MP John Lamont. Is the National Farmers Union of Scotland also scaremongering? Zeichner boasted that he frequently met, and fully respected, the NFU. Doubtless he will be at the front of the queue to fully respect the thousands of furious NFU members scheduled to march in London next Tuesday.

In response to accusations from Labour, John Lamont asked if the National Farmers Union was scaremongering - Ken Jack/Corbis News

Keighley and Ilkley MP Robbie Moore complained that it had been difficult to examine the details when the Treasury and Defra couldnt themselves agree on how many farms would be affected. On Wednesday evening, Newsnight had reported Defra complaints at being blindsided over the surprise changes in the Budget. Would the Government release an impact assessment, pleaded Moore? Would they heck! The shade of his IT worker past still hovers over Zeichner; these were government answers by computer. And computer always says no.

No farms, no food. No farmers, no food. barked Dr Neil Hudson of Epping Forest. Will the Government please now admit they have got this catastrophically wrong? A brave attempt from Dr Hudson; but, alas, getting a straight answer out of this lot is like explaining integral calculus to a hen  both maddening and futile. Mr Zeichner loftily encouraged him to consult people who know about it. Listen to the experts, he cried, just not the NFU, the Country Land and Business Association, the Countryside Alliance, most British farmers, and, it seems, his own department.

Robbie Moore, the MP for Keighley and Ilkley, questioned whether the Government would release an impact assessment - PjrNews/Alamy Stock Photo

The rage wasnt just emanating from the Tory benches; Tim Farron was apoplectic. There was a masterclass in damning with faint praise from his Lib Dem colleague, Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael, who congratulated the Secretary of State, ominously, on the achievement of the Budget. Mr Reeds already-pink cheeks momentarily turned a deeper shade of puce. In 23 years in this House, continued Carmichael, I have never seen such a degree of unity between different farming organisations in their response to it. Farmer Reed suddenly resembled a sow with sunburn, both flushed and angry.
Allison Pearson Essex Police

The Home Office is reviewing how police record non-crime hate incidents to ensure that they are proportionate and protect free speech, Downing Street has said after the row over an investigation into a Telegraph journalist.

Sir Keir Starmers official spokesman said it was important that police record non-crime hate incidents where proportionate and necessary to help prevent serious crimes that could result from them at a later date.

However, he confirmed that the Home Office was reviewing the current guidance for police officers on recording non-crime hate incidents to ensure peoples right to free speech was protected and officers were not diverted from tackling other crimes.

The comments come amid a backlash against Essex Police for a chilling attack on free speech after it launched an investigation into Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson for allegedly stirring up racial hatred in a social media post last year.

Two police officers called at her home at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday to tell her she was under investigation and invited her to a voluntary interview. The officers refused to tell her any details about which post on X, formerly Twitter, was being investigated, or who had made the complaint against her.

Essex Police said the alleged offence was being treated as a criminal matter under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986, relating to material allegedly likely or intended to cause racial hatred.

Essex Police has faced a backlash for a chilling attack on free speech - Alamy

The force has insisted it is not being investigated as a non-crime hate incident despite Pearson saying she was told on Sunday that it was an alleged non-crime hate incident.

On Wednesday, the force issued a second statement accusing The Telegraph of presenting wholly inaccurate information as fact.

Asked whether Downing Street supported police chasing non-crime hate incidents, the spokesman said: Its important that the police can capture data relating to non-crime hate incidents where it is proportionate and necessary to do so to help prevent serious crimes which may later occur.

As we have previously said, the Home Office is looking at how to do this whilst also balancing the fundamental right of free speech, and ensuring that the police can spend their time dealing with the issues that matter most to our communities.

In September, the police watchdog warned that forces were recording too many hate crime incidents and getting involved in disputes that include hurt feelings.

The report found officers were having to take action that may appear to contradict common sense, according to Andy Cooke, the chief inspector of constabulary.

He highlighted police recording a non-crime hate incident after a man reported other passengers on a bus giving him funny looks because of his ethnic appearance, without considering whether the matter was trivial, irrational or malicious.

The Telegraph also revealed in September that police are recording more non-crime hate incidents than last year despite a crackdown on the practice, according to official data.

Last year, Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, told police they should only log reports of non-crime hate incidents that were below the criminal threshold if there was a serious risk of harm amid concerns that they were threatening the right to freedom of expression.

Under the change, officers are only allowed to record a non-crime hate incident if it is clearly motivated by intentional hostility and where there is a real risk of escalation causing significant harm or a criminal offence.

However, The Telegraph revealed in August that Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, is seeking to strengthen the guidance because of concerns that the crackdown has prevented police recording anti-Semitic and Islamophobic abuse.

She is believed to be seeking to reverse the Tories decision to downgrade the monitoring of non-crime hate incidents, specifically in relation to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, so they can be logged by police.

Home Office sources said at the time that the incidents would only be recorded where proportionate and necessary to protect Jewish and Muslim individuals and communities from abusive and hateful comments and behaviour while also preserving the fundamental right to free speech.

In August, a Home Office source told The Telegraph: We are carefully considering how best to protect individuals and communities from hate whilst also balancing the need to protect the fundamental right to free speech.

The criticism of Essex polices decision has been led by Tories and Reform UK but has also drawn in Elon Musk, the worlds richest man and member of Donald Trumps administration, who declared: This needs to stop.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary and former policing minister, said: It is completely wrong that the journalist was not even told about the particulars of the allegation when she was doorstepped by the police, intruding into her Sunday morning without warning.

I am deeply concerned this will have a chilling effect on free speech and free expression.

Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, tweeted that it was appalling, adding: Our police have their hands full of burglaries and violent crime. They are being forced to behave like a woke Securitate  and it has to stop.

Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, said: This is Orwellian in the extreme. Im absolutely appalled that Allison and others like her have to live in fear for months without ever being told what has been said against them.

People must be worried sick. We are very much in the territory of a thought crime here, where the accusers are called victims.
Protesters in London highlight the plight of a university student who was detained after stripping down to her underwear in Tehran in November 2024. Photograph: Martin Pope/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

The Iranian state has said that it plans to open a treatment clinic for women who defy the mandatory hijab laws that require women to cover their heads in public.

The opening of a hijab removal treatment clinic was announced by Mehri Talebi Darestani, the head of the Women and Family Department of the Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. She said the clinic will offer scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal.

Iranian women and human rights groups have expressed outrage at the announcement.

Sima Sabet, a UK-based Iranian journalist who was a target of an Iranian assassination attempt last year, said the move is shameful, adding that: The idea of establishing clinics to cure unveiled women is chilling, where people are separated from society simply for not conforming to the ruling ideology.

Iranian human rights lawyer Hossein Raeesi said that the idea of a clinic to treat women who did not comply with hijab laws is neither Islamic and nor is it aligned with Iranian law. He also said it was alarming that the statement came from the Women and Family Department of the Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which falls under the direct authority of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

The news has since spread among the Woman, Life, Freedom protest groups and female students, sparking fear and defiance.

One young woman from Iran, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: It wont be a clinic, it will be a prison. We are struggling to make ends meet and have power outages, but a piece of cloth is what this state is worried about. If there was a time for all of us to come back to the streets, its now or theyll lock us all up.

Related: Fears grow for rights activists jailed in Iran after 87 executions in one month

The announcement about the opening of the clinic comes after state media reported that a university student who was arrested after stripping down to her underwear on a in Tehran, reportedly in protest at being assaulted by campus security guards for breaches of the hijab law, had been transferred to a psychiatric hospital. Human rights groups including Amnesty International say there is evidence of torture, violence and forced medication being used on protesters and political dissidents deemed mentally unstable by the authorities and placed in state-run psychiatric services.

Human rights groups have also expressed alarm at the crackdown on women who are considered to be in breach of Irans mandatory dress code, saying there has been a recent spate of arrests, forced disappearances and the shuttering of businesses linked to perceived breaches of the hijab laws.

Last week, the Center for Human Rights in Iran highlighted the case of Roshanak Molaei Alishah, a 25-year-old woman who it said was arrested after confronting a man who harassed her on the street over her hijab. The NGO said her current whereabouts is unknown.
Palestinians inspect the damage after Israeli shelling at a camp housing internally displaced people in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. Photograph: Haitham Imad/EPA

Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the deliberate and massive forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which says the policy amounts to crimes against humanity.

The US-based group added it had collected evidence that suggested the war crime of forcible transfer [of the civilian population], describing it as a grave breach of the Geneva conventions and a crime under the Rome statute of the international criminal court.

The report was published amid mounting evidence that Israel is accelerating its efforts to cut the Gaza Strip in two with a buffer zone and is building new infrastructure to support a prolonged military presence, with an increased pace of demolitions and destruction.

Residents in northern Gaza said Israeli forces were besieging displaced families and the remaining population, which some estimated at a few thousand, ordering them to head south through a checkpoint separating two towns and a refugee camp from Gaza City.

Men were held for questioning, while women and children were allowed to continue towards Gaza City, residents and Palestinian medics said.

Calling for Israels policy of forced displacement to be investigated by the international criminal court, Human Rights Watch also urged targeted sanctions against Israel including the cessation of arms sales.

The report by the prominent international rights group, titled Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged: Israels Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, takes aim at one of Israels most controversial policies: the use of evacuation orders, which have driven mass displacement inside Gaza, with many people being displaced on multiple occasions.

That has led to the displacement of more than 90% of the population  1.9 million Palestinians  and the widespread destruction of much of Gaza over the last 13 months.

The HRW report is in stark contrast to the assessment by the US state department earlier this week that Israel had not breached American laws on blocking aid supplies after the lapse of a 30-day deadline it gave Israel to boost humanitarian aid access in Gaza or risk having some military assistance cut off.

The fourth Geneva convention stipulates that in territory occupied by a belligerent, displacement of civilians must only occur in exceptional circumstances for imperative military reasons or for the populations security and requires safeguards and proper accommodation to receive displaced civilians. The UNs guiding principles on internal displacement also state that, in all circumstances parties to conflict must prevent and avoid conditions that might lead to displacement of persons.

Despite those conditions, Israel has repeatedly used evacuation orders  in Lebanon as well as Gaza  to forcibly displace civilians even though that the evacuation orders have no legal status.

While Israeli leaders and the Israel Defense Forces have justified the use of the evacuation orders, arguing that their use demonstrates Israels adherence to protecting civilians in wartime, the group says that they have instead harmed Palestinians.

Israel claims that the displacement of nearly all of Gazas population has been justified for the security of the population and for imperative military reasons, and it has taken the requisite steps to safeguard civilians, says the report.

Because Palestinian armed groups are fighting from among the civilian population, Israeli officials claim, the military has evacuated civilians to enable it to target fighters and destroy the groups infrastructure, such as tunnels while limiting harm to civilians, such that the mass displacements were lawful.

[But] rather than ensuring civilians security, military evacuation orders have caused grave harm, the report finds. Demonstrably, Israel has not evacuated Palestinian civilians in Gaza for their security, as they have not been secure during evacuations or on arrival at designated safe zones. Nor has Israel convincingly claimed that it had a military imperative for forcing most Palestinian civilians from their homes.

Under international law, Israel  as the occupying power in Gaza  is under a legal obligation to facilitate the return of displaced persons to their homes in areas where hostilities have ceased.

Instead, the reports say, Israel has rendered large areas of Gaza uninhabitable by carrying out demolitions, intentionally destroying or severely damaging civilian infrastructure, including schools and religious and cultural institutions, including after hostilities had largely ceased in an area.

HRW added that the permanent displacement of civilians to create military buffer zones within the Gaza Strip would also amount to ethnic cleansing.

According to a report in the leftwing Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israeli forces in Gaza are clearing large areas with the apparent intention to remain inside the territory until at least the end of 2025.

The newspaper reported that a combat graph for 2025 distributed in recent weeks to Israeli soldiers and commanders in Gaza describes exposing large areas in the coastal strip: destroying existing buildings and infrastructure in addition to the construction of roads and preparations for building more permanent military facilities.

Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: The Israeli government cannot claim to be keeping Palestinians safe when it kills them along escape routes, bombs so-called safe zones, and cuts off food, water, and sanitation.

Israel has blatantly violated its obligation to ensure Palestinians can return home, razing virtually everything in large areas.

The Guardian emailed the Israeli military for comment.

Israels campaign in the north of Gaza, and the evacuation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the area, have fuelled claims from Palestinians that it is clearing the area for use as a buffer zone and potentially for a return of Jewish settlers.

The scenes of the 1948 catastrophe are being repeated. Israel is repeating its massacres, displacement and destruction, said Saed, 48, a resident of Beit Lahiya, who arrived in Gaza City on Wednesday.

North Gaza is being turned into a large buffer zone; Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing under the sight and hearing of the impotent world, he told Reuters via a chat app.

Saed was referring to the 1948 Middle East Arab-Israeli war, which gave birth to the state of Israel and saw the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their home towns and villages.

The Israeli military has denied any such intention, and the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he does not want to reverse the 2005 withdrawal of settlers from Gaza. But hardliners in his government have talked openly about going back.

Israeli airstrikes pounded Beiruts Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs for a second consecutive day on Wednesday, as Lebanon waited to hear Washingtons latest ceasefire proposals after a US official expressed hope a truce could be reached.

More than seven weeks after Israel went on the offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah, its latest airstrikes levelled half a dozen buildings in the Beirut suburb known as Dahiyeh and killed six people in a village south of the capital.




Labour have given out mixed messages on the importance of farmers to the Government - Henry Nicholls/AFP

I refuse to propagate the sort of political behaviour I have often denigrated, of claiming that a politicians poor choice of words in the heat of a debate somehow defines her  and worse, defines her as an unfeeling, heartless ogre in thrall only to the interests of her party rather than her constituents.

Rhoda Grant was one of the first cohort of MSPs elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, and she has served both her constituents and her party loyally and successfully in that time (she missed out on a seat between 2003 and 2007), serving in a series of various front bench positions under a succession of Labour leaders.

She is now Scottish Labours rural affairs spokesman but this morning she might be craving the anonymity of the back benches once more. During yesterdays debate on whether the recently announced change to farmers inheritance arrangements should be reversed, Grant was challenged by Conservative MSP Finlay Carson.

The Galloway MSP raised the plight of a constituent who runs the family farm with his son but, as a recent cancer survivor, is concerned that if he dies within the next seven years, he will bequeath a million pounds tax bill to his family.

It was a moment for calm reflection and an exercise in emotional intelligence, not to mention sympathy. This family are not alone in their concerns about how to sustain family farms in the wake of a tax change  subjecting farms to inheritance tax for the first time  that none of them saw coming.

But Grant chose instead to dismiss the farmers, and his MSPs, concerns with a regal display of Marie Antoinette-like disdain: He needs to put his affairs in order, she replied slowly and precisely, almost as if she had carefully considered her response and decided that this was the bon mot.

It was an unfortunate phrase that will haunt Labour candidates in rural seats up until the next Holyrood elections in 2026. Unfortunately, for those who yearn to see a pattern of Labour language that might betray the partys deep contempt for the rural way of life, it was only the second gaffe of the week.

As with Rhoda Grant, I have a great deal of time for John McTernan, who was Tony Blairs political advisor in Downing Street during the Great Helmsmans later years in office. McTernan is what you might call a political bruiser, one of those people who is forgiven his occasional ill-chosen phrase because he is so often on the money in his broader analysis of politics.

During a discussion about chancellor Rachel Reevess tax changes for farmers and the prospect of demonstrations against them in central London, McTernan responded: If the farmers want to go on the streets, we can do to them what Margaret Thatcher did to the miners, evoking images of armed battles between striking miners and police officers during the prolonged strike of 1984-85. This is not normally the kind of language that Labour  or at least the sensible parts of it  likes to use. Tony himself would certainly never have touched that class war blue touch paper with a naked flame.

But McTernan then doubled down, suggesting Britain doesnt need family farmers: Its an industry we can do without.

The Prime Minister himself, when challenged on the remarks, was obliged to distance himself from them.

There are two important lessons to be learned here. The first is that Labour still has some way to go to convince voters  and perhaps some of its own members  that it represents the interests of residents of rural areas as much as it does the residents of inner city and suburban areas. The fact that so many rural seats fell to the party in July should have achieved this, but apparently not everyone is convinced.

The second lesson is the more important one, and it is that class warfare continues to play a small though important part in Labours agenda. Apparently, there remain some comrades reluctant to emerge from the jungle and accept that the class war is over, terms of surrender agreed long ago and we should all be the happier for it.

But the class warrior on this occasion isnt McTernan, its the chancellor herself. Much of Labours defence of the so-called Tractor Tax has been based on how few family farms will actually have to pay it. And that is correct: the Treasury itself predicts that in five years time it will gather into its coffers barely half a billion pounds of extra revenue as a result of this change.

Which begs the question: why bother, then? If the sums to be raised are negligible  and in comparison with almost every other measure included in the Budget they are  why suffer a disproportionate degree of political damage? It makes no sense, until you realise that maybe thats the whole point.

This change will impact on relatively few people, but they are exactly the kind of people whom some in Labour deeply resent. This tax change is not being levied to raise crucial funds; its being levied as a punishment, just as when in the 1970s, higher taxes on the super-rich were an end in themselves, punishment for success, rather than a way of raising money to pay for services.

Rhoda Grant and John McTernan might be dismissed as fringe voices who are not accurately representing this Governments agenda. The problem for Labour is that they may be doing exactly that.
ATACMS Army Tactical Missile System

With Donald Trump returning to the U.S. presidency on Jan. 20, Europeans are asking what they can do to keep Ukraine armed if U.S. military aid were to be cut back.

At first glance, it might seem like not much; Europe has abdicated to the U.S. much of its security and industrial base since the end of the Cold War.

When I took a deeper look, however, I discovered that Europe can provide significant useful, albeit non-traditional, military aid even in this short time frame. But Ukraine cannot wait; Europe must act now.

Last May, I wrote about how much military materiel Ukraine needed and how much it would cost, reality-testing an analysis put out by the Estonian Ministry of Defense calling for member states to annually contribute 0.25% of GDP for four or more years.

My analysis calculated that without U.S. participation, an annual contribution of approximately 0.5% GDP by European NATO members would sufficiently support Ukraines annual munitions needs for a defensive stalemate. Double that or more would be needed to support military restoration of Ukrainian territory.

Here we are, six months later, and only a few European nations have reached that minimum level of support. Defence production has also not expanded sufficiently to supply Ukraine.

Ukraine crucially needs air defence, artillery, drones, and general equipment. The U.S. still has several billion dollars of support authorised. The best use of this would be to provide Ukraine with materiel European allies do not produce, namely air defence interceptors (PATRIOT, AIM-7, AIM-9. and AIM-120) and long-range strike missiles (ATACMS and GMLRS) with any remaining funds used for artillery.

Europe can begin meeting some air defence needs. Multiple non-US NATO countries produce 2.75/70 mm rockets in relatively large volumes. These can be quickly converted to short-range air defence systems like VAMPIRE to protect critical infrastructure from Russian cruise missiles and drones.

Ukraine also has proven skilled at developing electronic warfare systems to counter drones, and Europe can quickly support that with cash transfers or production of subcomponents for assembly in Ukraine.

Europes domestic ballistic missile defence system is the SAMP/T which uses Aster missiles. While low now, annual output of these could be accelerated with further investment. Europe produces multiple types of short-range missile and gun-based air defences whose production could similarly be increased.

Taking from active inventories could partially cover production shortfalls. Although donating materiel from active inventories and war reserves is risky, increased domestic production combined with a more effective Ukrainian force assuages this risk.

Ukraine still desperately needs artillery, and Western production and international procurement is lagging. More investment is needed, and schedules must be kept. Commitments to the Ukraine Defence Contact Group and to the Czech initiative must be greater and deliveries timelier.

Given Europes lack of HIMAR-equivalent rocket artillery and ballistic missile production, the Czech initiative could be expanded to procure equivalent systems from global producers.

Europe can quickly help with tactical and strike drones by expanding support to the existing drone coalition To be clear, Ukraine needs millions of tactical drones, tens-of-thousands of strike drones  and, of course, permission to use them against any military or dual-use target such as airfields, depots, and refineries.

To produce drones rapidly and in necessary quantities, Europes best option lies in either building Ukrainian designs outright or producing critical subcomponents such as cameras, flight controllers, motors, explosives, improved targeting systems, and batteries.

This opens up production to many small European firms that, with governmental help and financing, can nimbly integrate into the Ukrainian defence industrial base.

Finally, Ukraine still needs basic military equipment. Trucks, armoured vehicles, small arms, ammunition, mortars, medical kits, and body armour, among others, are in short supply. With Russias use of chemical weapons, Ukrainian forces also need gas masks. All of these are produced in Europe and can be ramped up. This equipment saves lives, and in a war of attrition, people are the most valuable resource.

I will be blunt: this task will not be easy. Ukraines backers will need to support Kyiv with equipment transfers and financial investments that could easily reach 1% of GDP annually. Bending rules and regulations will be necessary to speed up production; Ukraine cannot wait.

While supporting Ukrainian victory has a strong moral rationale, the fall of Ukraine would cast doubt on European promises writ large.

If Putins Russia succeeds in capturing Ukraine, it will continue its efforts to annex and terrorise its neighbours and the 21st century will be defined by force. If Europe sacrifices to guarantee Ukrainian victory now, Putins Russia will be stopped and the 21st Century will be defined by adherence to law.

Europe, now is the time to choose.

Michael Bohnert is an engineer at RAND, a US-based research institute. His research focuses on defense technology, acquisition policy, and industrial base management.
Octavia Johnson is a general assignment reporter for the Houston Chronicle. Follow her on Bluesky (@octaviajnews.bsky.social), TikTok (@octaviaj_news) and Facebook (Octavia R. Johnson).

Before joining the Chronicle, Octavia worked as a digital content producer at WATE-TV in Knoxville, Tenn., where she became a leader in producing fast-paced, audience-focused content.

Octavia graduated from UNC Pembroke with a bachelor's degree in journalism before earning her master's degree in media and communications at Norfolk State University.
Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain made the recording under the band name Z-Pain - Instagram

Mark Zuckerberg has joined forces with T-Pain, the rapper, to record and release a cover of the song that was playing when the Facebook founder first met his wife.

He has collaborated with the US music star on a version of 2002 track Get Low by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz.

The social media tycoon said the recording, under the band name Z-Pain, was a tribute to his wife, Priscilla Chan, 39, in honour of their dating anniversary.

Get Low was playing when I first met Priscilla at a college party, so every year we listen to it on our dating anniversary, Mr Zuckerberg said.

This year I worked with T-Pain on our own version of this lyrical masterpiece, the 40-year old wrote on Instagram, one of the social media platforms that he owns.

The post included a photo of lyrics, an album cover in which T-Pain and Zuckerberg are both holding up acoustic guitars, and several photographs of the pair in a recording studio.

The Meta owner told followers that the track was available on Spotify, signing off the post with Love you P in reference to his wife.

Zuckerbergs post about the track included photographs of the pair in a recording studio - Instagram

She described the gesture as so romantic.

She said: Twenty-one years later, I cant get quite as low, but it brings back a lot of fun memories.

Meanwhile, T-Pain, real name Faheem Najm, wrote on Instagram: Z-Pain has arrived  Get Low by Zuck and me out now.

Priscilla Chan described the gesture as so romantic - Instagram

Get Low, from Lil Jon & The East Side Boyzs album Kings Of Crunk, spent four weeks in the UK Top 40, peaking at No 10.

Mr Zuckerbergs version of the song is an unusual acoustic duet with T-Pain.

The couple first met at a college party - Instagram

The expletive-laden lyrics  including multiple references to twerking, the sexually suggestive dance move  make the song an odd choice for a love ballad.

Estimated to be the third-richest man in the world, Mr Zuckerberg has a net worth of $204 billion (161.4 billion). He attended Harvard but dropped out to develop Facebook.
Liz Kendall said she believed the bill was a really important step forward. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Reuters

Liz Kendall has become the first cabinet minister to confirm she will vote for the assisted dying bill since it was published, as the row intensified over the proposed law change.

Some supporters of assisted dying have expressed anger after Wes Streeting, the health secretary and an opponent of the plan, warned it could be a potential drain on NHS resources.

Asked if she would support the private members bill, led by Labours Kim Leadbeater and published on Monday, Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, told the BBC: Yes, I will be voting for the bill.

Ive always believed in giving people as much choice and control as possible, and with all the right safeguards which this bill has, I believe its a really important step forward on such a difficult issue, giving people that choice and control.

Related: Many NHS staff would use conscience clause if assisted dying legalised, say doctors

While Keir Starmer has warned cabinet members to not intervene in the debate, under rules set out last month by Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, they can give previously stated views if directly asked, but should exercise discretion and not directly participate in the debate.

Other cabinet ministers had, however, confirmed earlier that they support the bill, including Peter Kyle, Ed Miliband, Lisa Nandy, Lucy Powell and Jo Stevens.

With a number of MPs understood to still be undecided two weeks before the Commons votes for the first time on the bill, both sides of the fiercely contested debate are battling to seize the initiative.

Some supporters of the plan were angered by Streetings suggestion that pushing through with assisted dying as an option for NHS patients could mean other services were cut back.

The health secretary, who has ordered his department to carry out a review of any cost implications, told Times Radio on Wednesday there would be resource implications for doing it  and those choices would come at the expense of other choices.

Backers of the bill have pointed to an assessment carried out by the Scottish parliament last month, which estimated that a Scottish bill on assisted dying, if implemented, would eventually have a net annual cost of between about 140,000 and 340,000, or less than 0.002% of the NHS Scotland budget.

Margaret Hodge, the veteran Labour MP who is now a peer, said she struggled to understand Streetings argument about resources, telling the BBC that to argue that this is going to cost extra sounds to me a bit daft.

She added: Im a great Wes Streeting fan but I think on this issue he should do what the cabinet secretary said and just hold fire a little bit.

One supporter of Leadbeaters bill said some MPs had since expressed concern about the potential cost of the policy after Streetings comments: I was very, very surprised when he said he was going to look into this now. I dont doubt his sincerity, but we are getting some MPs saying that he must know something, when this probably isnt knowledge-based.

Another backer said Streetings argument was a bit inexplicable. They said: This is not some new group showing up to the NHS demanding services. By definition they are in the last six months of their life, so they will be entitled to end-of-life care.

I just dont understand the logic of what hes saying. And thats before you get into the risk that youre saying people might have to face an agonising death because otherwise it would cost money.

Asked if she and other ministers risked being drowned out by Streeting, Kendall replied: This is something people have very strong views about, but I am a lifelong champion of giving people power and control.

An ally of Streeting said: Wes has approached this issue in a genuine, thoughtful and considerate way, setting out his own view while respecting others views.

Leadbeaters bill sets out a series of safeguards, including lengthy prison sentences for coercion and powers for judges to cross-examine patients.

However, MPs opposed to the idea have expressed concerns including that the bill does not bar doctors from suggesting assisted dying as an option to patients.
Alexei Zimin photographed at his London restaurant, which has been donating 10% of its revenue to the Red Cross and Ukrainian refugees. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

Tributes have been paid to a London-based Russian chef, television presenter and writer after he was found dead in Belgrade.

Alexei Zimin, 52, died in the Serbian capital after travelling there to promote a book, Anglomania, in which he gave an immigrants take on Britains cultural history.

The father of three had been a critic of Russian president Vladimir Putins invasion of Crimea in 2014 and had spent his final years in the UK, where he was the cofounder of Zima, a restaurant in London bearing his name.

Authorities in Serbia said there were no suspicious circumstances related to his death and that a postmortem and toxicology report were ongoing, the BBC reported.

Zimin had enjoyed success in his native country as the face of a cookery show on the NTV channel, which was axed after he posted anti-war messages on social media following Russias invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Related: Gulag History Museum in Moscow temporarily closed for safety reasons

Mikhail Fishman, a prominent liberal Russian journalist and film-maker who is based in Amsterdam and was a friend, said Zimin was much more than just his literary and culinary talents.

He cooked, he sang, he wrote, he spoke  he embodied life itself, a zest for life. Intelligent, witty, joyful. Weve known each other for about 30 years, maybe even more, and I dont think I know anyone else who made things feel so comfortable and warm.

Amid speculation about the death, he said he did not believe Zimin had been poisoned.

Alexander Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said Zimin truly embodied the spirit of a renaissance man.

He engaged in everything  from writing to culinary arts  and did it all with remarkable success. His approach was deeply humanistic, driven by joy and a genuine care for people. Outwardly, he was just as warm and joyful.

He is survived by his wife Tatiana Dolmatovskaya, a costume designer who previously worked at Vogue Russia, and their three teenage children.

Related: Gas prices at one-year high in Europe amid Russian supply threat

Zimin had been GQ Russia editor in chief before training at Le Cordon Bleu London and went on to open Moscows first chefs table restaurant, Ragout, as well as a food magazine, Eda, and a Moscow fast food chain.

In a social media post three months after Putins invasion of Ukraine, Zimin said: Russia will be free, one way or another, or the third, more mysterious, way.

Zimin was in Belgrade to promote Anglomania, described as a personal take on the United Kingdoms cultural history, anecdotes and fables through the eyes of the immigrant.

According to his website, it covered British contributions including modern ideas about democracy, freedom of speech, human rights, capitalism with an inhuman face and socialism with a human face, science, literature, Christmas turkey and afternoon tea.
Emmanuel Himoonga shows the dried-out stalks of his maize crop on his farm in Zambia, which has failed in a drought. Photograph: Chiwoyu Sinyangwe/The Guardian

Emmanuel Himoonga paced his dry field, picking up stalks of maize that had been bleached almost to bone white.

The 61-year-old chief of Shakumbila, a mainly agricultural community of about 7,000 people roughly 70 miles west of Zambias capital, Lusaka, had seen droughts before.

But since 2010 they have been happening once every three to four years, instead of every five years. And, Himoonga said, he had never experienced a situation this bad before.

When you look at the last rainy season, I have never seen anything like it in my life. Every crop we planted in these fields failed, he said. I have lost everything.

Southern Africa is in the midst of its worst drought in at least a century, with 27 million people affected and 21 million children suffering from malnutrition, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

An unprecedented El Nino-induced dry spell, which lasted almost two months from late January in the middle of what should have been the regions rainy season, wiped out more than half the harvest in some countries.

Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe have declared national disasters, while parts of Angola and Mozambique are also badly affected.

The regions lean season, where small-scale farmers have to rely on stores of food to feed themselves until the next harvest, normally runs from around October to April. However, this year it started in August, said Eric Perdison, WFPs southern Africa director.

We have months ahead of us, he told a media briefing in October. It is also likely to further deepen the already high risk of chronic malnutrition.

Perdison added: If you look at rainfall patterns, if you look at drought patterns within the region, we cannot point to any other factor than climate change.

Average temperatures have risen 0.45C in the last century in Zambia and the situation is set to get worse.

Zambias very hot days, where temperatures peak above 35C (95F), are forecast to rise from 110 days in 2000 to 155 days by 2080, according to a German government study.

This year, hunger is already stalking southern Africa. People in one hard-hit rural area of Mozambique are relying on just one meal a day of wild roots and fruit, said Antonella DAprile, WFPs Mozambique country head.

Food donations from Zambias government and WFP, which has said it only has a fifth of the $370m (285m) it needs to feed people across the region, have not been enough, said Himoonga.

We cannot afford three meals a day and, me, I am better off, said the chief, a father of 13. You dont want to imagine what is happening to my subjects. People are starving here and merely surviving by the grace of God.

The drought is also pulling families apart. Agness Shikabala had not heard from her husband since August, when he left Shakumbila for Lusaka to look for work.

I am worried that my children will start getting sick due to lack of food. Our barns are completely empty and then I cant sell animals to feed the children without permission from my husband, said the 23-year-old, who has six children to care for  three of her own and three from her husbands previous marriage.

My business involves buying agricultural products such as groundnuts and maize for resale in Lusaka. But here I am, totally stuck. There is nothing to buy and there is nothing to sell.

Single and married women have resorted to selling sex to men who work at the nearby sugar plantation, Shikabala said.

I love my husband so much and I respect him even if he has decided to desert us, she said. I am very hopeful that the rains will come next season and I am praying to God to keep me away from the temptation of sleeping with another man over a gallon of maize.
The man was arrested on Wednesday after arriving at Schiphol airport, the European agency Eurojust said. Photograph: Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters

A suspected supplier of hundreds of small boat engines used by people smugglers to transport asylum seekers across the Channel has been arrested in Amsterdam, officials said.

A 44-year-old Turkish national was arrested on Wednesday after arriving at Schiphol airport, the UKs National Crime Agency said. The suspect was due to be extradited to Belgium to face charges of being involved in human trafficking as part of a criminal organisation.

The man is suspected of supplying engines and boats to cross-Channel smugglers, shipping the boats from Turkey and storing them in Germany until they were transported to northern France.

Hundreds of engines are believed to have been supplied by the man to gangs in France, a government source said, adding that he has been pursued by the authorities for months.

The arrest follows a joint investigation by the National Crime Agency and investigators in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Rob Jones, the NCAs director general, said: This arrest marks an important milestone in one of the NCAs most significant investigations into organised immigration crime.

We suspect that this individual is a major supplier of boats and engines to the smugglers operating in Belgium and northern France.

He said the vessels and engines used in Channel crossing were highly dangerous and completely unfit for open water.

Keir Starmer said the arrest was a significant piece of the jigsaw in tackling Channel crossings.

Criminal gangs have been getting away with this for far too long. I want to thank the UK National Crime Agency, along with their Dutch and Belgian counterparts, for all their hard work and their crucial role in this investigation.

Its exactly what we want to see and it shows that our approach of working with international partners to smash the people-smuggling gangs is bearing fruit.

So far this year at least 58 people are known to have died making the dangerous journey.

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said: We will relentlessly pursue the criminal smuggling gangs making millions out of small boat crossings that undermine our border security and put lives at risk.

This major investigation shows how important it is for our crime-fighting agencies to be working hand in glove with our international partners to get results.

Starmer dismissed claims that arresting an alleged smuggler might be futile because he would soon be replaced by others.

He said: I dont accept the proposition that none of this is worth doing because somebody else pops up. It is a step, it is an important step. Of course there are going to be other steps that will be necessary but it is a significant arrest.

If the boats and the engines arent available, it obviously makes it much more difficult for these crossings to be made.

Starmer has ditched Rishi Sunaks Rwanda deportation plan and the previous slogan of stop the boats and is instead targeting the smugglers using the slogan smash the gangs.

Some Home Office insiders have privately said he may struggle in the long run to dent the numbers of people crossing in small boats without finding a deterrent. Others have called for the government to instead open new and safe routes for people fleeing war and oppression.

The NCA is leading about 70 investigations into networks and individuals involved in top tier trafficking and immigration crime.

The operation to arrest the Turkish national was jointly coordinated by government agencies  a Europol operational taskforce with the assistance of Eurojust, through the formation of a joint investigation team.

A statement from the public prosecutors office of West-Flanders said: International cooperation is crucial in the fight against human smuggling, and the arrest of this suspect through close cooperation with our UK and Dutch partners demonstrates our ongoing commitment to partnership working.

Human-smuggling criminals do not respect national borders, and we will relentlessly pursue these criminals through working internationally.

More than 1,300 people have arrived on small boats over the past seven days, according to government figures.
David Randall, a renal consultant: Assisted suicide is not being driven by ethnic minority or deprived communities. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

A significant proportion of NHS medical staff in England and Wales are likely to exercise a conscience clause if assisted dying is legalised by parliament.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeaters private members bill stipulates that no doctor would be under any obligation to participate in assisted dying.

The British Medical Association (BMA), which holds a neutral position on assisted dying, has said doctors should be required to proactively opt in to an assisted dying process, and have a right to decline to carry out any activities directly related to assisted dying. It wants doctors to be given a genuine choice about whether, and if so to what extent, they are willing to participate.

Surveys by professional bodies have found a mixed response. In 2023, the Royal College of Surgeons found 53% of respondents to a survey were in favour of assisted dying and 25% opposed.

In 2019, a Royal College of Physicians poll found 31% in favour and 43% opposed; and a Royal College of GPs survey the same year found 40% in favour and 47% opposed. A BMA survey in 2020 found 50% backed assisted dying, with 39% opposed.

Related: Im glad the debate on assisted dying is forging ahead. But few understand why it frightens so many | Frances Ryan

Some NHS medical staff oppose assisted dying because of religious beliefs. According to a 2014 report, nearly seven of 10 NHS workers had a religious affiliation. An estimated 10% of current NHS staff are Muslim.

Prominent faith leaders including the archbishop of Canterbury (who announced this week he was standing down), the most senior Catholic leader in England and Wales, several imams, and the chief rabbi, have stated their opposition to assisted dying in recent weeks.

Christian Concern, an evangelical organisation that supports legal cases involving Christian workers including NHS staff, said it was planning to resist the bill at every stage but would do all we can to ensure conscientious objection should it become law.

Mark Pickering, a doctor and the chief executive of the Christian Medical Fellowship, whose membership includes about 4,500 doctors, nurses and midwives, said a conscience clause may provide only limited protection.

I dont foresee a situation in which anyone is forced to actually prescribe the medication for somebody to kill themselves. But, for instance in Canada, there have been significant problems around conscience.

A spokesperson for Leadbeater said: Christian, Muslims and others are protected and cannot be subject to any detriment from their employer for choosing not to participate.

Under Canadian law, healthcare professionals who object to assisted dying are required to make an effective referral to a medic who is willing to provide the service.

Many of our members would see that as morally problematic. Because if you say, I dont want to shoot granny, but Ill send her to someone who will, there isnt much moral difference, said Pickering.

David Randall, a renal consultant, said his Christian faith had influenced his opposition to assisted dying, but his primary concerns were about the risks to vulnerable people and the relationship of trust between doctor and patient.

The issue of assisted dying was so far away from what I experience in the multi-ethnic, deprived areas of London where I work. One of the biggest issues is the lack of trust in medicine.

Randall said he saw people presenting late with advanced kidney disease because of a reluctance to consult their GP. Some were suspicious about treatment and care, and were sometimes unwilling to engage in discussions about palliative care as they saw it as a way of rationing costly treatment.

These people already face significant health inequalities in our society. There is a lot of suspicion about assisted suicide among ethnic minority communities, some of it cultural, some of it religious. A lot of them feel this is a way of denying them health care. Assisted suicide is not being driven by ethnic minority or deprived communities, he said.

Even with a conscience clause included in legislation, he said: I cant see it taking long before doctors are required to open conversations with patients about assisted suicide, and thats not something Im willing to do.

A survey of members of the British Islamic Medical Association this year found that about nine out of 10 opposed doctors prescribing or administering life-ending medication, and 56% said the legalisation of assisted dying would affect their choice of career.

Nadia Khan, a palliative medicine consultant in Birmingham, said the vast majority of Muslim healthcare professionals were against the assisted dying bill because of practical and ethical concerns, quite apart from their religious beliefs. Many would face moral distress if assisted dying were legalised, even with the provision of a conscience clause.

Its one thing to allow conscientious objection on paper, but in practice its not easy, said Khan. For a proportion of Muslim health care professionals, assisted dying would impact their choice of career. And it would be likely to affect the specialisms people choose.

There are also healthcare professionals who support assisted dying, sometimes because of witnessing painful and distressing deaths. Six MPs who are also medics with experience of palliative care wrote to colleagues this month urging them to support a change in the law.

Sir John Temple, a surgeon and former president of the BMA, told a parliamentary committee last year that a change in the law was long overdue. There was currently an unsatisfactory and unsustainable situation where those who desire more end-of-life choice are in essence abandoned by the system and forced to seek control in dangerous, unenviable ways, he said in written evidence.

In July, members of the Royal College of Nursing narrowly passed a motion supporting the principles of assisted dying.

Cat Gibbons, an emergency care nurse from Oxfordshire, said during the debate: A nurse is somebody who is an advocate for a patient. No matter our own beliefs, I think we should support our patients decisions if they believe assisted dying is right for them.

 This articles main headline was amended on Friday 29 November to better reflect the opening paragraph.
It was not a paradox to see greenhouse gas emissions still rising while renewables also boom, said one climate scientist. Photograph: Matthias Schrader/AP

World leaders have promised to try to stop the planet heating by more than 1.5C (2.7F). But current policies put the temperature rise on track for 2.7C, a report has found.

The expected level of global heating by the end of the century has not changed since 2021, with minimal progress made this year, according to the Climate Action Tracker project. The consortiums estimate has not shifted since the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow three years ago.

We have clearly failed to bend the curve, said the lead author of the analysis, Sofia Gonzales-Zuniga, from Climate Analytics.

The expected level of warming is slightly lower when considering government pledges and targets, at 2.1C, but has also not changed since 2021. Warming in the most optimistic scenario rose slightly from 1.8C last year to 1.9C this year, the report found.

Changes in average global temperatures that sound small can lead to massive human suffering. Last month, a study found half of the 68,000 heat deaths in Europe in 2022 were the result of the 1.3C of global heating the world has seen so far. At the higher temperatures that are projected for the end of the century, the risk of irreversible and catastrophic extremes is also set to soar.

The findings were released as climate negotiators converge on the Cop29 summit in Azerbaijan for fraught negotiations over greenhouse gas pollution and the money needed to deal with it. The flatlining of progress comes despite the world seeing breakneck change in the rollout of clean technologies that can replace coal, oil and gas.

The report found fossil fuel subsidies have also hit all-time highs, and funding for such projects quadrupled between 2021 and 2022.

Prof Niklas Hohne, a climate scientist at the NewClimate Institute in Germany, said it was not a paradox to see rising emissions while renewables boomed. In recent years, fossil fuels have won the race against renewables, leading to increasing emissions, he said.

Still, he added, renewables surprise us each year with faster growth than expected. He said they would soon crowd out fossil fuels. It allows a much faster decline in emissions than we thought only three years ago.

Climate scientists say every fraction of a degree matters for the health of people and the planet.

The researchers warned their median warming estimate of 2.7C by 2100 had a wide enough margin of error that it could translate into far hotter temperatures than scientists were expecting.

There is a 33% chance of our projection being 3C or higher, and a 10% chance of being 3.6C or higher, said Gonzales-Zuniga. The latter would be absolutely catastrophic, she added.

A handful of world leaders at Cop29 expressed frustration at the slow pace of progress after 28 UN climate summits.

What on earth are we doing in this gathering? the Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama, asked his fellow heads of state on Wednesday. What does it mean for the future of the world if the biggest polluters continue as usual?

Others pointed to progress made despite the shortcomings.

Meetings like these are often perceived as talking shops, said the Belgium prime minister, Alexander De Croo. And yes, these strenuous negotiations are far from perfect. But if you compare climate policy now to a decade ago, we are in a different world.
The alleged incident occurred during a protest by the environmental activists Just Stop Oil Photograph: Just Stop Oil/PA

Two people have been charged in connection with an incident at Stonehenge when an orange substance was thrown at the ancient monoliths, police have said.

Rajan Naidu, 73, of Birmingham, and Niamh Lynch, 22, of Bedford, have been charged with destroying or damaging an ancient protected monument and intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance.

The pair were bailed to appear at Salisbury magistrates court on 13 December, Wiltshire police said.

The alleged incident occurred during a protest by the environmental activists Just Stop Oil in mid-June as thousands of druids and revellers prepared to travel to the world-renowned monument for the summer solstice.

Sophie Stevens, deputy chief crown prosecutor for CPS Wessex, said: The Crown Prosecution Service has authorised Wiltshire police to charge Rajan Naidu and Niamh Lynch with offences related to damage caused to the protected monument Stonehenge on 19 June.

I would like to remind all concerned that there are active criminal proceedings against these individuals, and they have the right to a fair trial. There must be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online that may in any way prejudice these proceedings.

After the protest, English Heritage said experts had quickly removed the orange powder from the stones, the first of which were put in place around 3000BC.

In a statement released at the time, Just Stop Oil said it was time for megalithic action and called for the next UK government to agree a plan to stop the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal by 2030.
Prince William climbed onto a stationary motorcycle in a virtual production training suite at Ulster University - Liam McBurney

The Prince of Wales took a special effects motorcycle for a spin through an Arizona desert as he tried out cutting-edge filming techniques on a visit to a video production training centre.

The Prince had a turn behind the camera to try filming, before climbing onto a stationary motorcycle to be filmed himself.

Saying he would take any excuse to ride one, he conducted part of his official royal engagement from its seat, peppering his hosts with questions about Northern Irelands world-leading creative sector.

The Prince is in Belfast for a one-day visit, originally due to take place in May but postponed for the general election.

William met a Catholic and a Protestant student at a workshop teaching them to operate software used in the creation of games, animation and virtual production - Liam McBurney/Pool/Getty Images

In the second of two engagements, at Ulster University, he was introduced to the virtual production training suite created to teach the next generation the skills to continue Belfasts reputation as a destination for the worlds film and television industry.

It is the first university in the UK and Ireland to have the in-camera visual effects stage, which provides a dramatic LED backdrop upon which any scene can be screened behind actors.

Studio Ulster, a 75 million development in the citys harbour, has built a full-scale version, which will allow film and television makers to appear to shoot in all climates and locations from their building  saving carbon, travel costs and eliminating the need to take a full crew to difficult or dangerous locations.

In a visit to the universitys studio, the Prince was given a short tour by Professor Declan Keeney, before being invited to take control of a large film camera.

A student looked quite smitten with the Prince as he recorded a video message for her friend - Liam McBurney

As student Lucy Rodgers played the part of the motorcycle rider, the Prince attempted to move the camera backwards and forwards, at one point telling her apologetically that he had cut off her head.

He was then invited to take a turn, saying: Any excuse to get on a motorbike!

I feel like someone needs to take this for a real spin, he added, asking if it was possible to move it from its gimbal.

As he dismounted, the Prince  who is known to have ridden his own motorcycle in his younger years  took a closer look, saying: I love that exhaust.

Its incredibly realistic, he said of the set.
Matt Gaetz at a Trump rally in Nevada last month. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

Donald Trumps decision to nominate the far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general has sent shockwaves through Washington, including the president-elects own party.

Trump on Wednesday announced Gaetz as his pick to be the nations chief law enforcement officer in the justice department, a role that directs the governments legal positions on critical issues, including abortion, civil rights, and first amendment cases.

Republicans were puzzled over this nomination, expressing this move was not on their bingo card.

I dont think its a serious nomination for the attorney general, Republican senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, told NBC News. We need to have a serious attorney general. And Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.

Related: Matt Gaetz resigns from Congress after Trump attorney general nomination

A rightwing firebrand, Gaetz was a thorn in the side of his fellow Republican and former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, eventually leading the successful charge to oust McCarthy from his role.

He was investigated by the justice department in a sex-trafficking case, though the department ultimately declined to bring charges. And was under investigation by the House ethics committee amid allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other alleged ethical breaches.

Gaetz has fiercely denied wrongdoing.

Amid consternation even within his own party, its unclear if Gaetz can win Senate approval.

Republican congressman Max Miller of Ohio told Axios that Gaetz has a better shot at having dinner with Queen Elizabeth II than being confirmed by the Senate.

Miller also told Politico that Gaetz is a reckless pick with a zero percent shot.

John Bolton, a former national security adviser, said Gaetz must be the worst nomination for a cabinet position in American history.

Gaetz is not only totally incompetent for this job, he doesnt have the character. He is a person of moral turpitude, Bolton said in an interview with NBC News NOW.

One anonymous House GOP member told Axios: We wanted him out of the House  this isnt what we were thinking. Another remarked they were stunned and disgusted.

Democrats, too, were left astonished by the announcement. Vice-President Kamala Harriss team said in a statement that Trump and Gaetz will weaponize the DoJ to protect themselves and their allies.

Congressman Ro Khanna of California argued that voters were not necessarily voting for these cabinet picks when they decided to elect Trump.

People voted for Trump to have lower prices and a secure border. I dont think they voted for the appointments that theyre getting, Khanna told CBS News. He is not moving to the center. Hes going to his Maga base, and well see if hes overreaching on the mandate he had from the American people.

Kate Maeder, a California-based political strategist, said the announcement should not come as a surprise, but wondered whether Trump trusts Gaetz will make it through the confirmation process. Its not a surprise that Trump is rewarding his political loyalists, Maeder told the Guardian. Its a shock to many that hes considering Matt Gaetz for attorney general. But is this a serious pick? I dont think so.

In this political climate, its definitely possible for Matt Gaetz to be confirmed, she said. But I think itll be difficult. Some of the more moderate Republican senators are already on record questioning this choice.
A Houston defense attorney has been arrested and accused of smuggling drugs into the Harris County Jail, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez announced Wednesday. Houston Chronicle

A Houston defense attorney has been arrested and accused of smuggling drugs into the Harris County Jail, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez announced Wednesday.

Defense attorney Hunter Hay Simmons was charged Wednesday with engaging in organized criminal activity and bringing a prohibited substance into a correctional facility. Charging documents alleged Simmons delivered synthetic cannabinoids to Joseph Dunn, an inmate at the Harris County Jail, who Simmons represented on a murder charge, court records indicate.

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We announced efforts to create a safer facility for all and those efforts are making a positive difference, Gonzalez said in a post on X. Great work by our Criminal Investigations and Security Division, Human Trafficking team and Warrants Division.

@HCSOTexas has arrested a defense attorney, Hunter Hays Simmons (4-28-85). Also arrested: Tanisha D. Butler (12-26-83) and Joshua J. Piper (10-17-02). All three have been arrested and charged with Engaging in Organized Criminal Activity and



1/3 pic.twitter.com/lxSzy7cC07  Ed Gonzalez (@SheriffEd_HCSO) November 13, 2024

Court records show Simmons represented Dunn after he was charged with murder in connection to the 2018 killing of Antonio Hogan. Dunn signed a plea agreement in that case and was sentenced to more than 26 years in state prison. Simmons represented Dunn at least one other time in a 2022 case that was ultimately dismissed.

Tanisha Butler, 40, and Joshua Piper, 22, were also charged for their alleged roles in bringing the drugs into the jail, Gonzalez said. A financial affidavit filed by Butler indicated she is the program director for a Houston-area nonprofit called the Every Child Counts Foundation. Charging documents were not immediately available for Piper.

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A Russian remote minelaying system fires towards Ukrainian positions, Nov 14 - Russia Ukraine/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service

The Ukrainian military insisted that Kyivs soldiers remained in control of Kupiansk and had successfully repelled all Russian attacks - Shutterstock

Russian soldiers wore Ukrainian army uniforms to fight their way into the frontline city of Kupiansk, Kyivs military has said.

Captain Andrii Kovaliov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, said that by disguising themselves as Ukrainian troops the Russian soldiers had committed a war crime.

Russian soldiers wore uniforms resembling those of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This violates the laws and rules of warfare and constitutes a war crime, he said.

Kupiansk lies on the northern fringe of the front line and is considered a vital stronghold for Ukraine to control on the banks of the River Oskil, a natural defensive line.

The town had a pre-war population of around 26,000 people and served as an important railway hub. It has already changed hands twice since Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Analysts have said that if Russian forces capture Kupiansk, they could use it as a launchpad to push further west into the Kharkiv region which is already under attack from the north.

Captain Kovaliov insisted that Kyivs soldiers remained in control of the town and had successfully repelled all the Russian attacks even though several military bloggers reported that the Kremlins forces had breached its defences.

The pro-Moscow Two Majors channel reported that two columns of Russian soldiers had entered the city at night marking the beginning of the battle for the city, an analysis backed up by the pro-Ukraine DeepState Telegram channel.

DeepState said: In parade formation, the enemy has broken into Kupiansk. This afternoon, two columns of enemy vehicles advanced from the Limanu Persho district.

It also said that Ukrainian forces had destroyed two Russian armoured personnel carriers as they advanced into the town.

Andrii Besedin, a city official, said Russian troops who entered Kupiansk on Wednesday failed to hold their positions.

Asked if Russian soldiers who had hidden in local houses had been neutralised, Mr Besedin replied: They were eliminated.

Kupiansk is considered a vital stronghold for Ukrainian forces to control - Shutterstock

John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia programme at the US-based think tank the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, also said Russian forces had penetrated fairly deep into the eastern section of Kupiansk.

Russians attacked in four waves, using a total of 15 vehicles, including a UR-77 mine-clearing vehicle, tanks, and other armoured vehicles, he said.

The Kremlins forces have been grinding slowly forward over the past few months across the long Donbas frontline, accelerating their attacks in October and soaking up an enormous casualty rate.

This has meant bearing down on Kupiansk where local Ukrainian officials have ordered a mandatory civilian evacuation.

Ukrainian forces destroyed two Russian armoured personnel carriers as they advanced into Kupiansk, according to military bloggers - Shutterstock

Elsewhere on the frontline reports said that Russian forces were pressuring Ukrainian forces in Kurakhove in the south, a battle that the Two Majors Telegram channel described as vital for the defence of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The Russian Army continues to storm Kurakhove and deploy a wide pincer around the city, it said.

Fierce fighting was also continuing in Russias Kursk region, where the Kremlin had launched an attack against Ukraines salient.

There, Russian forces claimed to have destroyed a British Challenger tank used by Ukrainian forces.

Credit: Social media/Telegram

On the accusations that its soldiers had dressed up in Ukrainian uniform, Russias military has not commented but warfare law states that any disguise needs to be limited to escape or infiltration. Soldiers are not allowed to fight in enemy uniforms.

Russian and Ukrainian soldiers wear combat uniforms with different patterns and different coloured masking tape around one arm or their helmets. These are usually blue or yellow for Ukrainian forces and white for Russian.

There are many examples of soldiers disguising themselves to fool enemy forces throughout history, from the Trojan Horse in Greek mythology at the siege of Troy, to the 1942 British commando raid on Saint Nazaire in France that knocked out German U-boat pens.

Nazi soldiers also dressed up in American uniforms during the Battle of the Bulge towards the end of World War II.

03:13 PM GMT

Todays live coverage has ended

Todays live coverage has ended. We will leave you with the latest from Europe editor James Crisp:

European Union governments will jointly buy arms and weapons for the first time in the blocs history in a step towards a closer common defence policy.

Pooling defence procurement is part of the EUs response to Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine but has now been given greater impetus by the election of Donald Trump.

For the first two years of the war, individual member states have bought their weapons separately, as they attempt to deliver supplies to Kyiv while maintaining the strength of their own armed forces.

But 20 member states will now put money together to purchase military supplies from manufacturers within the bloc.

According to the European Commission, the group including France, Poland, Belgium, and the Netherlands could buy defence products worth as much as 9bn.

That is made possible thanks to EU subsidies worth 250m which Brussels claims will encourage European defence manufacturers to ramp up production, boost the blocs defence readiness and help Ukraine.

By negotiating together as a bloc, governments would also be able to get a better deal and incentivise manufacturers to boost production of weapons in Europe, Brussels said.

The five projects announced so far involve joint procurement of air and missile defence systems, which protect against drones, aircraft and combat helicopters, modern armoured vehicles, and ammunition for artillery.

02:37 PM GMT

Russia open to negotiations with Trump, Moscow says

Russia will be open to negotiations with the US after Donald Trump returns to the White House in January, Moscows ambassador to the UN has said.

Gennady Gatilov however warned that Mr Trumps repeated pledge to end the war within 24 hours of taking office was unrealistic.

Trump promised to settle the Ukrainian crisis overnight, Gatilov said.Okay, let him try. But we are realistic people of course we understand that this will never happen.

But if he starts or suggests something to start the political process, its welcome.

Mr Gatilov added that any negotiations would need to be based on the realities on the ground, describing Ukraine as being on the back foot after Russias recent frontline advances.

02:15 PM GMT

Russia charges soldier for surrendering

A Russian soldier faces up to 20 years in jail for voluntarily surrendering to Ukrainian forces, Russian newspaper Kommersant has reported.

Roman Ivanishin surrendered to Ukrainian forces in July 2023 near the village of Stepnoye, the newspaper said, citing a recording of a speech made by Mr Ivanishin.

Mr Ivanishin, a former miner from Russias far east, was said to have spoken out about the war in Ukraine in the same video, claiming his comrades did not want to fight and were fleeing their positions.

He spent six months in Ukrainian captivity before being returned to Russia in a prisoner exchange in January.

Ivanishin will be tried by the Moscow military court in what understood to be the first case of its kind brought against a Russian soldier during the war in Ukraine.

He also faces a charge of desertion, which carries a potential 15 year jail sentence.

01:29 PM GMT

Ukrainian bonds surge as markets bet on war ending under Trump

The price of Ukrainian sovereign bonds has surged by 12% since a month ago, in a sign that investors are betting Donald Trump will push for a quick end to the war when he takes office in January.

The investors hope that Mr Trumps election will lead to a ceasefire and boost Kyivs ability to repay creditors.

The main part of the trade has really been based on the war ending, or at least the possibility of Trump pushing through the start of negotiations, Thys Louw, portfolio manager at Ninety One, which owns some Ukrainian bonds, told the Financial Times.

During his election campaign, Mr Trump pledged to bring the war between Russia and Ukraine to an end within a day of taking office.

Two senior Ukrainian officials said that Kyiv would prioritise securing Western security guarantees over retaking Russian-occupied territory in future talks with the incoming US administration, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

12:43 PM GMT

Russian bloggers share footage of drone strike on British Challenger 2 tank

Credit: Social media/Telegram

Footage of a British Challenger 2 tank in Ukraine service being hit by a Russian drone has been shared by pro-Russian bloggers.

Russian marines from the 155th Guards Naval Infantry brigade destroyed the vehicle during fighting in Russias Kursk region, according to prominent pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Rybar.

In a grainy video released by the Russian marines, first-person camera footage shows a drone about to hit the tank underneath its turret.

Rybar said the fact that the tank was operating in Kursk suggested that Ukraine intended to hold the line in the region at all costs.

It did not specify when the tank was reportedly destroyed.

A Challenger 2 was reported to have been destroyed by Russian troops in Kursk earlier this year.

Pictures broadcast by Russian state media at the time showed the tanks turret blown off, lying in a wooded area as a twisted heap of charred metal.

12:15 PM GMT

Russians setting up defences to bring fleet back to Crimea, Ukrainian partisans say

Ukrainian partisans have photographed new Russian sea defences in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, Crimea, which they say suggests the Kremlin intends to bring its fleet back to the occupied peninsula.

The group, called Atesh, said was it was seeing the construction of structures designed to defend against Kamikaze drones.

These measures suggest the invaders desire to bring their warships back, the group added.

One photograph shows a solid barrier across a harbour, which Atesh said is designed to prevent naval drones attacking ships docked in port.

Russia withdrew its last naval patrol ship from Crimea in July after a Ukrainian missile and drone campaign inflicted heavy damage on the Russian fleet.

11:52 AM GMT

Russian attack hits nursery in Sloviansk

Russian forces damaged a nursery and several other building during an attack on the town of Sloviansk on Thursday, local authorities said.

The city was attacked again. There were two explosions in the Lisnyi district, said Vadym Liakh, the head of Sloviansks city military administration.

High-rise buildings, administrative buildings of a pedagogical university, a kindergarten, a supermarket and private cars were damaged, he added.

Sloviansk was at the epicentre of fighting during the early stages of the 2014 war in the Donbas, when pro-Russian separatists captured the town and held it for three months. It has been in Ukrainian hands ever since.

11:25 AM GMT

Pictured: Ukrainian soldiers shell Russian positions near Chasiv Yar

Ukrainian artillerymen fire a howitzer towards Russian positions near Chasiv Yar, 13 Nov - 24TH MECHANIZED BRIGADE OF UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES/Shutterstock

Ukrainian soldiers load shells into an artillery gun near Chasiv Yar, Nov 13 - 24TH MECHANIZED BRIGADE OF UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES/Shutterstock

Ukrainian soldiers around an artillery gun at a position near Chasiv Yar, Nov 13 - 24TH MECHANIZED BRIGADE OF UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES/Shutterstock

11:16 AM GMT

Russian fish factory imports Indian labour due to wartime manpower shortages

A Russian fish canning factory in Kaliningrad has started importing labour from India to plug manpower shortages caused by the Kremlins war in Ukraine.

Sergey Lyutarevich, chairman of the For the Motherland fishing and canning company, said that foreign workers were now vital for keeping the economy of Russia Baltic Sea exclave running.

If there were no foreigners, then the Kaliningrad region would have a very difficult time with the economy and taxes, he was quoted by the media as saying.

Russian industry has complained that manpower shortages triggered by the Kremlins military recruitment drive are causing major production problems.

10:37 AM GMT

Watch: Russian soldiers riot because of lack of medical care

Up to 30 Russian soldiers in Novosibirsk rioted earlier this week because of a lack of medical care, Russian Telegram channels have reported.

The Astra Telegram channel said that soldiers from military unit 57849 smashed windows in their barracks and destroyed furniture.

At least 10 soldiers also escaped. Video showed one of the soldiers smashing windows and a noticeboard with a crowbar.

The soldiers told Astra that they had been injured fighting in Ukraine and didnt want to be sent back to the frontline without receiving proper medical care.

The unit commander treated us badly, said one of the soldiers.

Credit: Telegram/Astra

10:18 AM GMT

Russia says it has seized another village as its forces close in on Kurakhove

Russia has said it has captured another village in east Ukraine as its forces close in on the fortress town of Kurakhove.

The Kremlins defence ministry said troops had captured Voznesenka, which is around 9 miles north of Kurakhove.

Russian forces are advancing to the north, south and east of Kurakhove, enveloping the town in a pincer movement.

The Institute for the Study of war reported on Wednesday that Russian troops had carried out a series of mechanised assaults on the town earlier this week.

09:48 AM GMT

Pictured: Russian rocket minefield fires towards Ukrainian positions

A Russian Zemledeliye rapid minelaying system is pictured firing at an undisclosed location in Ukraine on Thursday. The Russian defence ministry said it was firing towards Ukrainian positions.

The system fires rockets that can scatter mines over a specified area within a 3-9 mile radius.

Russian media said the weapon can also fire conventional explosive rockets.

A Russian Zemledeliye rapid minelaying vehicle fires towards Ukrainian positions at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, Nov 14 - Russian Defence Ministry Press Service

09:23 AM GMT

Biden sending aid so Ukraine can fight on next year

The Biden administration is determined to use its final months to send every dollar at its disposal to Ukraine so it can keep fighting next year, amid fears that incoming US president Donald Trump will cut off support for Kyiv.

President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20, secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.

Donald Trump is due to be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on January 20.

During his election campaign, Mr Trump pledged to bring the war between Russia and Ukraine to an end within a day of taking office.

08:53 AM GMT

Russians attempt to take Kupiansk dressed in Ukrainian uniforms

Russian forces on Wednesday attempted to capture the city of Kupiansk dressed in Ukrainian uniforms, Kyivs military said.

The Russian invaders launched an assault to break through our defenses in the Kupiansk sector. Enemy assault groups attacked the positions of the Ukrainian defenders in four waves, the Ukrainian general staff said.

It added that some Russian troops were dressed in uniforms similar to those of the Ukrainian armed forces, which it said violates the laws and customs of war and constitutes a war crime.

Pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar said that two columns of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles entered Kupiansk, while infantry occupied houses on the citys eastern edges.

Kupiansk is located in the northeastern sector of the Ukrainian frontline. Russian forces seized the city shortly after the 2022 invasion. Ukraine recaptured it eight months later.

08:33 AM GMT

Ukrainian air force shoots down 21 of 59 overnight Russian drones

Ukraines air force has said it shot down 21 out of 59 attack drones fired at the country overnight.

The enemy launched 59 Shahed attack UAVs and unidentified drones from Russias Kursk Oblast on the night of 13-14 November (starting from 19:00 on 13 November). As of 08:30 on 14 November, 21 UAVs were confirmed downed, the force said in a statement.

Explosions were reported in the eastern city of Kharkiv, its mayor said.

Be careful as the enemy is launching guided bombs at the city and surrounding areas, mayor Ihor Terekhov added.

No injuries or damage has so far been reported.

08:17 AM GMT

Russia expected to advance 20 miles west by December

Russian forces are expected to advance 20 miles further into Ukraine by December, according to Kyiv-based security think tank Centre for Defence Strategies.

The front line will probably shift 30-35 km west of its current position [by December], the centre told the Financial Times.

Moscows troops are advancing at a faster rate than at any time since 2022, having captured a reported 463 sq miles of territory since August.

Fighting is particularly intense in the southern sector of the frontline, where Russia is inching towards the key logistic hub of Pokrovsk and rapidly enveloping the fortress town of Kurakhove.

08:07 AM GMT

Welcome to our live coverage

Welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. Well be keeping you up to date with events as they happen.
The soldiers, part of the elite Golani Brigade, have been named (from top left, clockwise) as sergeants Sharia Alboim, 21, Yitzhak Segron, 21, Yoav Daniel, 19, Captain Itai Markowitz, 22 and sergeants Nir Gofar, 20 and Dror Chen, 20

Six Israeli soldiers have been killed after a three-hour gun battle with Hezbollah fighters who ambushed them in southern Lebanon.

The killings made Wednesday the second-deadliest day for Israel Defence Forces (IDF) since the ground invasion of Lebanon began last month.

The soldiers, part of the elite Golani Brigade, were named as Captain Itai Markowitz, 22, and sergeants Sharia Alboim, 21, Dror Chen, 20, Nir Gofar, 20, Yitzhak Segron, 21 and Yoav Daniel, 19.

Their battalion was on a mission to clear the area of anti-tank missiles and launchers targeting northern Israel when they were ambushed in a village.

Initially confronted by four fighters around 10am, further Hezbollah reinforcements arrived during the three-hour gun battle.

The Hezbollah fighters were firing small arms, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The Kan public broadcaster reported that four of them were killed in the fighting.

The IDF has launched a military investigation in the aftermath of the incident questioning why there was no intelligence warning beforehand.

After Oct 2, when eight soldiers were killed, it was the second deadliest day for the IDF campaign in Lebanon.

In total, Israel has lost 793 soldiers since the Hamas attacks of Oct 7, 2023.

We will not take our foot off the pedal

Israel Katz, Israels new defence minister, met with troops on Wednesday night and insisted that the war will continue at full pace.

He wrote on X: We will not take our foot off the pedal and will continue to hit Hezbollah in Beirut and the rest of Lebanon until the war goals are achieved.

The primary objective of Israels ground invasion of Lebanon is to enable 63,000 Israelis displaced from the countrys north to return home.

Ceasefire talks, mediated by the US, are continuing in the background, but experts do not expect a deal until after Donald Trump formally becomes president in January.

Moty Cristal, a former Israeli negotiator, told The Telegraph: If before Mr Trump comes, there is a deal with Hezbollah, the hawkish approach towards Iran and its proxies wont be the same.

Its much harder to restart an aggressive approach if thats in place. If there is no ceasefire in Lebanon until January, that opens more military options for Israel and the US against Iran and Hezbollah.

These actions do not comply with laws of war

Meanwhile, advocacy group Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of crimes against humanity in its latest report on the war in Gaza.

Hamas claims more than 43,000 Palestinians have died in the war. Israel says more than 17,000 of those are militants.

Human Rights Watch said on Thursday: Israeli authorities have caused the massive, deliberate forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since Oct 2023 and are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The report, called Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged: Israels Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, claims the war has led to the displacement of more than 90 per cent of the population of Gaza (1.9 million Palestinians) and the widespread destruction of much of the Strip over the last 13 months.

The report said: Israeli forces have carried out deliberate, controlled demolitions of homes and civilian infrastructure, including in areas where they have apparent aims of creating buffer zones and security corridors, from which Palestinians are likely to be permanently displaced. Contrary to claims by Israeli officials, their actions do not comply with the laws of war.

Israel denies the allegations and has repeatedly pointed out that its operations were sparked by the Iran-backed Hamas attacks of Oct 7 that killed over 1,100 people, the majority being civilians, in a single day.

Israel has insisted its attacks are retaliatory and part of a mission to not only rid Gaza of the terror group but rescue those taken hostage in the initial attack, 101 of whom still remain in captivity.
The indefinite delay marks the latest in a series of retreats that John Swinney has made from Nicola Sturgeons policy agenda - Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Europe

SNP ministers have been accused of wasting almost 30 million of taxpayers money on Nicola Sturgeons botched plan for a National Care Service (NCS) after shelving it.

Maree Todd, the SNP social care minister, wrote to Holyroods health committee stating that the legislation creating the service would no longer be put to a vote this year.

She said the Scottish Government was still committed to the scheme, which aims to transfer responsibility for social care from councils to a new national body, and a new timetable would be produced next year.

But with less than 18 months before the Holyrood election, it appears unlikely that the National Care Service Bill will be passed in the current parliament.

Labour and the Tories used First Ministers Questions to accuse SNP ministers of having wasted 29 million, the estimated sum already spent on the scheme since Ms Sturgeon announced it in 2021.

The indefinite delay marked the latest in a series of retreats that John Swinney has made from Ms Sturgeons policy agenda, including kicking into the long grass her plans to allow people to self-identify their legal gender.

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.

Maree Todd wrote to Holyroods health committee stating the legislation creating the service would no longer be put to a vote this year - Ken Jack/Getty Images Europe

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. Scotlands council chiefs then appeared to deliver a fatal blow by withdrawing their support in September.

Russell Findlay, the Scottish Tory leader, said the SNP had refused to heed warnings for years that the scheme was a mess.

He said: In typically arrogant SNP fashion, theyve only now pressed pause on their pet project after squandering millions of pounds of taxpayers money on it.

They have wasted 29 million on a National Care Service that has not cared for a single person. SNP ministers have a reckless disregard for taxpayers money.

The National Care Service should not just be delayed, it should be binned, with investment put directly into frontline social care where its urgently needed.

An estimated 29 million has been spent on the scheme since Ms Sturgeon announced it in 2021 - Russell Cheyne/AFP

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said: So far around 30 million has been wasted due to SNP incompetence. That could have funded one million hours of care at home  instead, we have had years of chaos, delay, incompetence, and waste.

Mr Swinney accepted that there is a lot of opposition to the National Care Service from a variety of institutional stakeholders and the Scottish Government would take its time to ensure that we get proposals right.

He told First Ministers Questions: We are listening to the views of members of the public, and we listen to the fact that people from disabled peoples organisations, carers and service users are urging us to implement a national care service because they are dissatisfied  as I am  with the variation in care, and the postcode lottery, around the country.

Neil Gray, the SNP Health Secretary, emphasised that the part of the legislation setting up a national oversight body had not been dropped.

Cllr Paul Kelly, the health and social care spokesman for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla), said: We are pleased that the Scottish Government are finally listening to Cosla and the wide range of stakeholders who have expressed concerns about the Bill.
Tim Gallaudet, Luis Elizondo, Michael Shellenberger and Michael Gold are sworn in to testify during the House hearing on 13 November 2024. Photograph: Anna Rose Layden/EPA

US government employees have been injured by UFOs and the US government has conducted a secret UFO retrieval program, a former department of defense official told a congressional committee on Wednesday, though the hearing lacked any direct evidence to back up the startling claims.

The hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), which has become the more accepted term for UFO, also heard that the government had a huge amount of secret information on UAPs, including photos, video, photos, other information. But it also learned, following a query from the Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert, that there was no evidence of aliens having a secret underwater base on this planet.

The hearing came more than a year after the Pentagon was accused of running a secret UFO retrieval program by the whistleblower David Grusch, though no physical evidence has also ever emerged to back up these claims.

The lack of concrete proof has been a consistent thorn in the side of those who believe the government is harboring UAPs, with Wednesdays hearing again focussing on testimony from people who said they were aware of secret government programs, rather than witnesses presenting actual hard evidence.

A statement from a Pentagon spokesperson said the department has not found any verifiable evidence that any UAP observation represented extraterrestrial activity nor has the department discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.

It followed a blockbuster congressional hearing last year in which Grusch, a former American intelligence official, claimed that the US government conducted a multi-decade program which collected and attempted to reverse-engineer crashed UAPs, as members of Congress investigate allegations the government is hiding knowledge of alien craft and beings from lawmakers.

The two hearings reveal the remarkable extent to which discussions around UAPs  previously mostly the domain of conspiracy theorists and believers in aliens  have now penetrated the US military and the corridors of Congress.

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the Department of Defense agency that investigates UAPs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the Pentagon has previously denied the existence of any secret government programs to retrieve alien spacecraft and no evidence of these programs has ever emerged.

A standout moment on Wednesday came when Nancy Mace, the chair of the hearing, questioned Luis Elizondo, a former department of defense official who this year claimed in a memoir that the US was in possession of advanced technology made off-world by non-human intelligence.

Has the government conducted secret UAP crash retrieval programs? Yes or no? Mace asked. Elizondo, who was speaking under oath, said yes.

Were they designed to identify and reverse engineer alien craft? Yes or no? Mace said. Elizondo said yes.

Mace continued: In your book, you mentioned government employees whove been injured by UAPs placed on leave and receiving government compensation for their injuries. Is that correct? Elizondo said it was correct.

Nick Pope, who spent the early 1990s investigating UFOs for the British Ministry of Defence, said expectation management is important for those following the slow drip of claims about UAPs, but Pope said nevertheless the hearing had moved things forward  not least in creating more interest and more demand for transparency.

Its building up that critical mass. Some people will be coming to this fresh, he said.

Theres a whole bunch of people who probably havent heard of David Grusch because they missed that particular story, who will see this and say: Wait a minute. Theyre telling us that this is a crazy subject, no one takes it seriously. And [yet] theres hearings in Congress?

Wednesdays hearing heard from Michael Shellenberger, a journalist and founder of the news site Public, who has reported that the Pentagon has a secret UFO retrieval program called Immaculate Constellation. Shellenberger claimed that current or former government officials had told him that the program had maybe thousands of pieces of evidence showing UAPs.

What the American people need to know is that the US, military and intelligence community are sitting on a huge amount of visual and other information: still photos, video, photos, other sensor information, and they have for a very long time, Shellenberger said.

And its not those fuzzy photos and videos that weve been given. Theres very clear, high resolution [files].

Shellenberger told the committee he would not name the current or former government officials who had told him about the hidden evidence, but did share a 12-page report on Immaculate Constellation that he said was written by a whistleblower.

UAPs have not always been a topic for serious congressional debate, with most politicians seemingly not wanting to become known as a believer in aliens. But members of Congress have sought to destigmatize the issue over the past couple of years by also framing the debate as not just an investigation into whether aliens exist, but also an investigation into secret, and potentially wasteful, government spending.

If were spending money on something that doesnt exist, why are we spending the money, and if it does exist, why are we hiding it from the public? Mace said on Wednesday.

Nevertheless, alien investigation remains a topic fraught with obvious public relations pitfalls for politicians, and most of the committee members on Wednesday tried to avoid conspiracy theory-sounding language. Most, but not all.

Related: US conducted multi-decade secret UFO program, ex-intelligence official says

I think its about 5% of our ocean thats actually been studied by man, Lauren Boebert, a some-time adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, noted to Shellenberger at one point.

She continued: Are there any accounts of UAPs emerging from or submerging into our water which could indicate a base or presence beneath the oceans surface?

Shellenberger said he had not heard of an underwater alien base, but did say a source had described an orb coming out of the ocean and being met by another orb.

It remains to be seen how much Wednesdays hearing achieved  I hope this will open the door to more hearings in the future, Mace said  but there is some hope for those seeking UAP disclosure: in the unlikely form of Donald Trump, who told a podcast earlier this year he would love to release more footage of UAPs.

The elephant in the room here is that we have a new administration in a matter of weeks, and we have a president-elect who has dropped some heavy hints about this, who is a maverick, a populist, a second-termer whose not going to be careful not to upset the bureaucracy or the deep state, Pope said.

If [a secret government UAP program] is just very well hidden and under some sort of unique protection, the president, as commander in chief, can say: I am ordering the de classification of this information, the release of these documents or materials.
Allison Pearson Essex Police

Three of Britains biggest police forces were involved in the investigation into a Telegraph journalists social media post.

Allison Pearson, an award-winning writer, is being investigated by Essex Police for allegedly stirring up racial hatred in a social media post last November.

The force has refused to tell her any details about which post on X, formerly Twitter, is being investigated, or who made the complaint against her.

Two police officers called at her home at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday to tell her she was under investigation and invited her to a voluntary interview. She was told, however, that the officers were not allowed to disclose the specific focus of the inquiry.

The scale of the investigation has now become clear, with officers from the Metropolitan Police, Sussex Police and Essex Police all having handled the complaint over the past year.

The Telegraph understands that the post was reported to the Metropolitan Police as a potential breach of the Malicious Communications Act in November last year. The case was then passed to Sussex Police, which marked it as a possible non-crime hate incident (NCHI) as well as a potential malicious communication.

Sussex Police passed it to Essex, where Pearson lives. It is understood Essex made two assessments of the complaint before opening an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986, relating to material allegedly likely or intended to cause racial hatred, and visiting her house.

The move has prompted a major backlash from senior MPs, a leading barrister and Elon Musk, the worlds richest man, amid claims it is an Orwellian over-reaction and a potential threat to free speech.

Writing for The Telegraph, Geoffrey Robertson, a prominent human rights lawyer who founded the respected Doughty Street Chambers, said an investigation should only proceed if damage has demonstrably been done during the time it was up before it was quickly deleted.

He added: It is silly to blame the Government, or the Home Secretary, for what may simply be a case of over-zealous or under-competent policemen. But it is right to watch closely and consider whether the quickly deleted opinion could be such as to justify the intervention of the state.

He warned that the state had no right to suppress free speech unless it is intended to incite violence or is so inflammatory that it is likely to do so.

On Thursday night, Musk, who now owns X, described the investigation as crazy. He had weighed into the row earlier in the week, writing: This needs to stop.

Elon Musk, the X owner, described the investigation as crazy - Allison Robbert/Reuters

Priti Patel, the former home secretary and now the shadow foreign secretary, claimed Labour had allowed its MPs to post hateful and insulting content with impunity while journalists were falling victim to the sinister efforts of some to curtail free speech.

She made the comments after Dawn Butler, a Labour MP, shared a social media post accusing Kemi Badenoch of representing white supremacy in blackface. Sir Keir Starmer said she shouldnt have said what she did but resisted calls to strip her of the whip.

Essex has said Pearsons alleged offence is being treated as a criminal matter, and not a non-crime hate incident.

Pearson said she was told on Sunday that it was a non-crime hate incident as well as allegedly inciting racial hatred. Essex Police has accused The Telegraph of presenting wholly inaccurate information as fact.

On Thursday, day Downing Street confirmed that the Home Office is reviewing how police record non-crime hate incidents to ensure that free speech is protected and officers are not distracted from their core task of fighting crime.

However, the Prime Ministers official spokesman backed police recording non-crime hate incidents where it was proportionate and necessary to do so in order to help prevent serious crimes that could result from them at a later date.

In September, the police watchdog warned that forces were recording too many hate crime incidents and getting involved in disputes that include hurt feelings.

The report found officers were having to take action that may appear to contradict common sense, according to Andy Cooke, the chief inspector of constabulary.

Last year, Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, raised the threshold for non-crime hate incidents because of free speech concerns. The move meant non-crime hate incidents should only be recorded if they were clearly motivated by intentional hostility and there was a real risk of escalation causing significant harm or a criminal offence.

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, is looking to reverse this for anti-Semitic and Islamophobic abuse, which she is concerned is being overlooked because of the new threshold, which prevents police from recording incidents that could escalate into serious violence or crime.

The No 10 spokesman said: Its important that the police can capture data relating to non crime hate incidents where it is proportionate and necessary to do so to help prevent serious crimes which may later occur.

As we have previously said, the Home Office is looking at how to do this whilst also balancing the fundamental right of free speech, and ensuring that the police can spend their time dealing with the issues that matter most to our communities.

Fraser Nelson, the former editor of The Spectator, said the Pearson case was atrocious, adding: Why should the police ever be put in a position where they are having to speak to people about a crime that they cant mention?

Toby Young, the director of the Free Speech Union, a campaign group supporting Pearson, has criticised the use of non-crime hate incidents.

He said it was alarming that non-crime hate incidents can show up on your criminal record when you apply for a job, adding: The fact that you have committed a non-crime is quite serious.

An Essex Police spokesman said: As a police force, we investigate matters which are reported to us without fear or favour, no matter who makes a report or to whom the incident concerns.

The force said it was awaiting confirmation of Pearsons available dates to attend a voluntary interview on the issue. Pearson has said that she is minded to attend with her lawyer.
Matt Gaetz is a Donald Trump loyalist and a surprise pick to be attorney general - Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla

The videos Matt Gaetz is alleged to have shown colleagues were not the sort of thing usually associated with the staid halls of the US Congress.

One video allegedly shown by the Florida congressman featured a young woman hula-hooping. Other images are alleged to have shown women he claimed to have slept with.

At other times, Mr Gaetz was accused of boasting of his sexual escapades.

Markwayne Mullin, a fellow Republican and senator for Oklahoma, said last year: We all saw videos he was showing on the House floor, that all of us had walked away, of girls that he had slept with.

He would brag about how he would crush [erectile dysfunction] medicine and chase it with an energy drink, so he could go all night.

Mr Gaetz denied the claim, saying he had barely spoken 20 words to Mr Mullin.

The conduct of Mr Gaetz which was investigated by the House ethics committee is now under renewed scrutiny after he was a surprise pick as attorney general, one of the top positions in Donald Trumps new administration.

Mr Gaetz has denied claims he showed videos of his sexual partners to Congress colleagues - SHELBY TAUBER/AFP via Getty Images

The US president-elect has made his most controversial government appointment yet, by picking a firebrand loyalist who has faced investigation over a string of serious and lurid accusations, to be the countrys chief law enforcement officer.

Mr Gaetz was until last year embroiled in a sex trafficking investigation by the very same Department of Justice (DOJ) he is now tipped to lead, over allegations he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl in exchange for money.

In 2021, it was disclosed that federal investigators were looking into allegations that he and one-time political ally Joel Greenberg paid underage girls and escorts or offered them gifts in exchange for sex.

Mr Gaetz strongly denied any wrongdoing and said he was the victim of a politically motivated fishing expedition, because he was an outspoken conservative.

He also said the sex crimes investigation was part of an organised criminal extortion against him.

Last year, the DOJ told Mr Gaetz it was ending the investigation without charging him with any crimes.

In 2021, the House Ethics Committee opened its own investigation into some of the same allegations, as well as accusations Mr Gaetz had misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, wrongly accepted gifts, and shared inappropriate images or videos.

He again denied any wrongdoing and said he was the victim of a smear.

The committee later dropped some strings of the investigation, including on sharing of videos, but had been due to release a highly critical report into Mr Gaetz on Friday, according to reports.

Mr Gaetz however resigned from his House seat late on Wednesday, effectively ending the investigation and putting him beyond the reach of the committee.

It was not immediately clear if the committee would still release its findings.

Credit: C-Span

Mr Trumps choice of Mr Gaetz, if he is confirmed, would make the 42-year-old a key figure in the new administration, and put him in the hot seat for some of its highest political priorities.

He would oversee everything from the FBI to prisons, and make him the point man for overhauling a DOJ that Mr Trump claims was weaponised against him and other conservatives.

The new attorney general is expected to oversee radical changes to the department, which has been in Mr Trumps crosshairs after cases accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

In a statement posted on X, Mr Trump said: Matt will root out the systemic corruption at DOJ, and return the department to its true mission of fighting crime and upholding our democracy and constitution.

We must have honesty, integrity, and transparency at the DOJ.

Hours before the announcement, Mr Gaetz set out his own agenda, threatening to disband several of the law enforcement agencies he could oversee.

He said there needed to be a full court press against this weaponised government that has been turned against our people.

Mr Gaetz added: And if that means abolishing every one of the three-letter agencies, from the FBI to the ATF, Im ready to get going!

The choice of Mr Gaetz was widely seen as a reward for his fierce loyalty to Mr Trump but raised eyebrows among both the Republican and Democrat establishments.

Lisa Murkowski, Republican senator from Alaska, said she did not believe he was a serious candidate.

Credit: Youtube/Matt Gaetz

Dick Durbin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, said Mr Gaetz would be a disaster, in part because of Mr Trumps threat to use the DOJ to seek revenge on his political enemies.

Another Democrat called him a gonzo agent of chaos.

Mr Gaetz, a former lawyer, joined Congress in 2016 and has since earned a reputation as one of Mr Trumps most loyal foot soldiers. His fiery, combative approach has earned him enemies on both sides of the House.

Mr Gaetz was born to a wealthy family in the Florida Panhandle that he now represents in Congress. Classmates remember him as being devoted to the school debating team.

According to a lengthy profile in The Atlantic magazine earlier this year, while at university, he would offer friends advice on how to act if they were ever pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving. His advice was to refuse a breathalyser and down a beer in front of the officer to make it more difficult to tell if they had been drinking earlier in the night.

Most of us grew out of it. He made a career of it, one friend recalled.

A spokesman for Mr Gaetz said the profile contained verifiable errors and laundered rumours.

Later, Mr Gaetz reportedly had to take his own advice when he was arrested on charges of drunk driving after leaving a nightclub. Prosecutors dropped the charges.

As he began his political career, he was allegedly in a circle of young Republican politicians who competed to earn points for sleeping with women. Sleeping with a lobbyist scored one point, a fellow legislator scored three, and a married fellow legislator scored six.

Mr Gaetz has denied knowledge of the game, or taking part.

In 2015, as he prepared to run for Congress, he announced he would throw his support behind Mr Trump and became his fierce defender.

As Mr Gaetzs profile grew, soon the newly elected Mr Trump was calling him for advice, he wrote in his autobiography. Mr Gaetz claimed in the book that he once even took a call from Mr Trump while in the throes of passion.

In a resurfaced video now being widely shared, Mr Gaetz called pro-abortion protestors disgusting and claimed they were too unattractive to be impregnated.

These pro-abortion, pro-murder rallies? The people are just disgusting, he told a crowd at a Right-wing student conference in Florida in July 2022.

The Florida congressman, who has repeatedly voted against acts to protect access to abortion and contraception, continued: Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions?

No one wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb.

He later doubled down on the remarks, widely deemed misogynistic, saying in a separate interview that those at pro-abortion rallies are ugly on the inside and out and I make no apology for it.

In 2018, he faced criticism for bringing a Holocaust denier to the State of the Union and later tried to expel two fathers who lost children in a mass shooting from a hearing after they objected to a claim he made about gun control.
US President-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with House Republicans - Allison Robbert/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

When Donald Trump was elected, there was almost as much jubilation in Moscow as there was in Mar-a-Lago. Kamala is finished, said Dmitry Medvedev, now a senior Kremlin official. Let her keep cackling infectiously. The objectives of the Special Military Operation remain unchanged and will be achieved.

Leonid Slutsky, a senior Duma parliamentarian, predicted that Volodymyr Zelenskys downfall will happen in a matter of months, if not days. They thought that Trumps election meant an exhausted West will now abandon Ukraine.

Now, this is looking far less clear. Among his flurry of nominations this week we see Elise Stefanik for the United Nations, Marco Rubio for Secretary of State and Mike Waltz for National Security Adviser. All are believers in Americas role in shaping the world. All are derided as hawks by their critics. And while none have opposed Trumps strategy of brokering a deal in Ukraine, they are unlikely to do so on terms that the Kremlin now seems to expect.

Its not hard to see why there is so much bullishness in Moscow. Rather than being crippled by sanctions, Russias economy has become one of the fastest-growing in the world. A war economy has pushed unemployment to historic lows and sent salaries skyrocketing. Workers are spending, which in turn stokes growth even more. The World Bank ended up having to reclassify Russia as a high income country: one which has now overtaken Germany and Japan to rank as the worlds fourth-largest economy.

This helps its war machine: Putin is spending an estimated $170 in Ukraine for every $100 spent by Zelensky and his allies. The Kremlin hasnt even needed to resort to conscription: it can afford to offer new recruits golden handshakes of up to 24,000, more than twice the average annual salary. Russian casualties are high  estimates range from 1,200 to 1,900 killed or injured every day  but the Kremlin has shown that its autocratic model and repression of critics allows it to withstand such losses.

Ukraines lines have been thinned by casualties and, lately, desertion. In the summer, parliament passed a law forgiving first-time deserters  with calamitous effect, as soldiers fled positions they regarded as untenable. Russia is closing in on Kurakhove in Donetsk. Ukraines own conquests in the Kursk region of Russia, captured for leverage in any negotiation, are under attack.

This explains the hubristic tone of public debate in Russia: the television talk shows, Telegram social media and the various online commentators. All propaganda, of one kind or another, but not so far from popular opinion. The West has realised that it is small. Europe puffed out its chest for so long, now its rear is exposed, said Vladimir Solovyov, one of Russias more hawkish television commentators, recently.

No plan works. Where is the global dominance? They lost everything in Afghanistan. In Ukraine, nothing is working out.

Why do we, as Russians, need negotiations right now?, asks Alexander Sladkov, Russias most popular military blogger. Freezing the conflict now may be a bad deal, he says: a better settlement could be there with more fighting. If were going to divide Ukraine, it should be along the Dnieper River, so that Kyiv returns to Russia.

A poll by Levada, the closest Russia has to an independent polling company, found the war is still backed by 75 per cent of Russians.

Are we ready to negotiate? asked Putin two months ago. We have never refused to do so. But not based on some ephemeral demands: instead on documents agreed in Istanbul. This means his demands that Ukraine gives up four of its partly-occupied regions, declares neutrality, shrinks its army strength to a desultory 50,000 and lets Moscow veto its purchase of any Western arms. This would, in effect, reduce Ukraine to a Belarus-style puppet state. For good measure, Putin wants an end to sanctions.

Trump has not said much about Ukraine, other than to denounce Zelensky as a hustler who specialises in relieving American taxpayers of their money. He says hed do a deal to end the war on day one, but hasnt said how. The people he has just appointed, however, have said more.

Rubio says he wants a deal thats favourable to Ukraine, which he defines as retaining sovereignty and being in no way a puppet state. This would suggest being free, for example, to choose its own defence alliances. Like J D Vance, Rubio voted against the last US aid package to Ukraine, saying that Europe should bear more of the cost for its own defence. But hes also no isolationist  and is against a settlement that can be seen as an American defeat.

Waltz is a former US special forces officer who was appalled at Bidens withdrawal from Afghanistan and the message it sent about American resolve. Hell be mindful that a bad Ukraine deal could be Trumps equivalent of the retreat from Kabul. Before the election, Waltz was discussing another idea: giving Ukraine permission to use American missiles to strike certain targets (oil refineries, airfields, troop clusters) deep inside Russia.

This would be quite a break from Joe Biden, who banned Ukraine from such strikes. Trump may say he wont send more aid, but will let Zelensky do whatever he likes if Putin wont come to the negotiating table. Kyiv is unlikely to need much encouragement to take him up on such an offer.

So the contours of a Trump deal start to become visible. It would be a frozen conflict, where Russias conquests arent accepted by Ukraine but both sides agree to a ceasefire. Kyiv would agree if left free to make its own defence treaties with allies. Not Nato membership (which was always a bit of a stretch) but something that does not leave Ukraine exposed if Russia rearms then comes back to finish the job.

Such a deal is far from what Zelensky wants  and from what Ukraine deserves. But its also far from the worst-case scenario where an isolationist president walks away and leaves Ukraine to suffer what it must.

As ever with Trump, its hard to discern what method  if any  lies in his madness. But the rise of Rubio and Waltz  combined with a Senate with a pro-Kyiv majority  suggest that there may be hope for Ukraine yet.
Matt Gaetz in Washington DC on 22 September 2023. Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Donald Trump said he will nominate Florida congressman Matt Gaetz to be the US attorney general on Wednesday, tapping a far-right loyalist to one of the most powerful positions in US government.

Late on Wednesday evening, Gaetz resigned from Congress, ending the ethics inquiry by the House ethics committee over allegations including sexual misconduct.

Gaetzs nomination is one of the most significant to date. As attorney general, he would be the countrys chief law enforcement officer and oversee the legal positions that the government takes on key issues, including abortion, civil rights laws, and first amendment issues. The president-elect has pledged to use the justice department to prosecute his political enemies and there is little doubt that Gaetz will help him fulfill that pledge.

First elected to Congress in 2016, Gaetz represents a ruby-red district in the Florida panhandle and has become known as one of Congresss most showboating members. He reportedly sought a pardon from Trump over his efforts to overturn the election, and has embraced conspiracy theories about the attack on the US Capitol. Last year, he led a successful effort to oust fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy from the speakership, throwing his caucus into chaos.

Related: Loyalty the key as impulsive Trump picks team for America First agenda

Gaetzs nomination comes a little over a year after the justice department decided not to charge him as part of a sex-trafficking investigation that involved allegations he had sex with a 17-year-old girl. Joel Greenberg, a former friend and ally, pleaded guilty to sex trafficking and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Gaetz has denied the allegations.

Gaetz has vehemently denied wrongdoing in the House ethics committee investigation over allegations that he 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.

Meanwhile, Trump heaped praise on Gaetz.

Matt is a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney, trained at the William & Mary College of Law, who has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice, Trump said in a statement posted to his Truth Social media account.

He added: Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.

The nomination was immediately met with widespread criticism.

This guy has been on the run from the law for quite some time now, so hell think hes above it. Hell be corrupt as hell, said Olivia Troye, a former official in the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration who has become an outspoken critic of the former president.

Robert Weissman, the co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen said it was hard to imagine a worse and more unqualified candidate than Gaetz.

As a member of Congress, Gaetz has demonstrated contempt for the rule of law, truth and decency. He is singularly unqualified to lead an agency that enforces civil rights laws and environmental protection statutes. Under Gaetz, wed have every reason to expect an America where corporate criminals walk free but immigrants and people of color are harassed or rounded up with minimal pretext, he said in a statement.

In January, Republicans will take control of the US Senate, which will vote on Gaetzs confirmation. They appear headed towards holding at least 53 seats, which would give them enough votes to confirm the Florida congressman, even if a few Republican senators vote against him.

Gaetz also has a history of making derogatory and offensive remarks towards women. Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb, he said in 2022.

As a Florida lawmaker before he was in Congress, he opposed a revenge porn law, reportedly telling the bills sponsor that ex-lovers could do what they pleased with images their partners had shared with them.

Are you not entertained? said CNN political analyst and Trump ally Scott Jennings in the wake of the news.

Andrew Gumbel contributed reporting
A school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City was hit by an Israeli airstrike, 14 November 2024. Civilians have been indiscriminately and disproportionately killed en masse in Gaza, said the UN report. Photograph: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters

A UN special committee has said that Israeli policies and practices in Gaza are consistent with the characteristics of genocide.

The committee, set up in 1968 to monitor the Israeli occupation, also said in its annual report that there were serious concerns that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in the 13-month-old conflict, and was running an apartheid system in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

The international court of justice (ICJ) is investigating a claim put forward by South Africa that Israels military campaign in Gaza is genocidal, and has ordered Israel to take interim measures to prevent genocide taking place.

The new report is by the special committee to investigate Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories. The committee, set up in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, is made up of representatives from three member states: Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Senegal.

There was no immediate response from the Israeli government, which has portrayed the UN in general as obsessed with, and biased against, the country. The Israeli mission informed the body earlier this month that the government would stop cooperating with Unrwa, the main relief agency providing welfare services to Palestinians, within the coming three months.

The UN special committee said that its requests to visit Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and Israel had received no response, so its staff were not able to visit the areas it was scrutinising. It said its research raised serious concerns of breaches of international humanitarian and human rights laws in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including starvation as a weapon of war, the possibility of genocide in Gaza and an apartheid system in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

The developments over the past year had led the committee to conclude that the policies and practices of Israel during the reporting period are consistent with the characteristics of genocide, the report said.

Civilians have been indiscriminately and disproportionally killed en masse in Gaza, the report added. It also referred to the life-threatening conditions imposed on Palestinians in Gaza through warfare and restrictions on humanitarian aid  resulting in physical destruction, increased miscarriages and stillbirths.

The committee further accused Israel of deliberately using food as a weapon of warfare.

Related: Strong likelihood of imminent famine in northern Gaza, food experts warn, as Israel continues siege

Since the escalation of the conflict, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies depriving civilians of food, water, and fuel, indicating their intent to instrumentalise the provision of basic necessities for political and military objectives, the report said.

In January the ICJ responded to the genocide case brought by South Africa by ordering Israel to take interim steps pending the courts ruling, telling the Israeli government to refrain from acts violating the Genocide Convention, to prevent and punish incitement to genocide, to ensure humanitarian aid reached Gaza citizens and to preserve evidence of genocide.

Israel rejected the courts ruling, and the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed that his countrys commitment to international law was unwavering.

 This article was amended on 15 November 2024 because the penultimate paragraph said that in January 2024 the ICJ ordered South Africa to take interim steps to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. That order was directed at Israel, as the rest of the sentence went on to say.
Victorian premier Jacinta Allan says the error is really frustrating for those parents and teachers and students who have been working hard ahead of the VCE exams. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

The Victorian premier says people will be frustrated and disappointed that thousands of VCE students were given access to de facto cheat sheets that reportedly contained almost identical questions to those used in their final exams.

The cheat sheets, first reported by the Herald Sun, were for eight subjects including business management, specialist maths and legal studies. Those exams have already been sat.

Published by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) online, when blank sections of the cover pages were pasted into a Word document, it revealed a series of questions and answers.

Speaking on 3AW Radio Melbourne on Thursday, the VCAAs chief executive officer, Kylie White, said the material was inadvertently included in the sample cover sheets.

She said the issue was discovered in October before the first written exam commenced and the documents were pulled from the internet.

As a result, the authority reviewed all the exams to ensure that the example material and the exam questions were different, White said.

White told ABC Radio Melbourne while there were similarities between the cheat sheet questions and the final exams.

There are similarities, but theyre not the same questions, she said.

The VCE examinations havent been compromised and all students can be very confident about completing their exams.

However, the cheat sheets were distributed online, and the Herald Sun report suggests almost identical content was used on some exams.

The deputy premier and education minister, Ben Carroll, said he had hard questions for VCAA.

No student will be sitting an examination that will be a copy of the sample question that some of the students discovered, Carroll said.

There has been human error here. Its still not acceptable and I will get to the bottom of this.

Jacinta Allan said the incident was incredibly disappointing for students, their parents and teachers.

Anyone who knows a year 12 or a VCE student, they might have one in their family, they just know how hard those young people work  to get to this point of the school year to sit their exams, she told reporters on Thursday.

This is really frustrating for those parents and teachers and students and young people, and that is why the deputy premier is getting advice this morning and will provide further information off the back of that advice.

It comes after the government was forced to conduct a review into errors in last years exams, which included five mistakes in maths tests and one in chemistry.

Thousands of students were given bonus marks for the errors in specialist and general maths papers, while six Chinese language students at two schools were given the wrong exam papers.

The review, conducted by Dr John Bennett, recommended implementing more suitably qualified academics on maths exam developments panels and stronger examination review processes.

In October, Carroll said VCAA had implemented or was on track to implement every single one of the recommendations made by the independent review.

The oppositions spokesperson for education, Jess Wilson, said it was absolutely staggering VCE exams had again been compromised.

Students have been able to download these exam papers, and those students that have done so have an unfair advantage over those students going into exams who have not been able to do so, Wilson said.

The minister said last year that he was going to make sure that this exam period was foolproof, that he was going to make sure that the VCAA was held to account, and these mistakes would not happen again. But here we are today with tens of thousands of Victorian students having had their exams compromised.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim: Building of the Malaysia-China community with a shared future reaches new heights

People's Daily Online) 17:02, November 13, 2024

The building of a community with a shared future between China and Malaysia has scaled new heights, and Malaysia is ready to continue expanding exchanges with China in various fields such as trade, investment, communication, digital economy, and education and deepen mutually beneficial win-win cooperation with China, said Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Anwar made the remarks during an exclusive interview with People's Daily Online during his recent working visit in China.

Malaysia was one of the guest countries of honor at the seventh China International Import Expo (CIIE), which was held in east China's Shanghai from Nov. 5 to 10. Anwar attended the opening ceremony and relevant activities of the event.

The CIIE not only demonstrates China's own development achievements but also provides a platform for developing countries, including Malaysia, to showcase and sell their products, enabling Malaysian companies to access new cooperation opportunities, Anwar said, noting that the expo provides opportunities for Malaysian companies to expand into the Chinese market.

During Anwar's official visit to China in March last year, the leaders of both countries reached a consensus on building a community with a shared future between China and Malaysia, ushering in a new chapter of China-Malaysia relations.

Anwar believes that the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping is based on mutual respect and trust, which aligns closely with the "Prosperous Malaysia" or the MADANI governance concept launched by Malaysia's Unity Government.

"Over the past year, the building of a Malaysia-China community with a shared future has reached new heights," Anwar said.

The year 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia and the China-Malaysia Year of Friendship.

In the 50 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia, the two countries have adhered to the principles of mutual respect, equality, mutual benefit, and win-win cooperation, achieving significant results in various areas of cooperation and maintaining a positive momentum in bilateral relations.

Standing at a new historical starting point, Anwar noted that China and Malaysia are engaging in deep high-level strategic cooperation, and Malaysia hopes to further deepen consensus with China and work together with China to create cooperation opportunities.

Anwar highly praised China's unwavering commitment to high-level opening-up and Chinese modernization. He emphasized that China's achievements in advancing Chinese modernization demonstrate that a country can pursue its own path of development while achieving progress, sharing experience and achievements with the rest of the world, and bringing new development opportunities to other countries.

Malaysia also benefits from China's experience in the development of such fields as new technologies, digitalization, artificial intelligence, and green energy, according to Anwar, who noted that cooperation in these fields is beneficial for China and even more advantageous for ASEAN countries.

He added that Malaysia will leverage its role as the country coordinator of China-ASEAN relations and its upcoming chairmanship of ASEAN next year to strengthen ties between ASEAN countries and China, and work together with other ASEAN countries to enhance cooperation in trade, investment, and other areas with China.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Wu Chengliang)
Breaking news Houston Chronicle

An Alvin woman who threatened to kill a federal judge overseeing President-elect Donald Trumps trial in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, pleaded guilty to a threat charge in federal court Wednesday.

Abigail Jo Shry, 44, pleaded guilty to threat by interstate commerce for calling U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan's chambers Aug. 5, 2023, and leaving a threatening voicemail, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. An attorney representing Shry declined to comment about the guilty plea.

MORE FROM HOUSTON CHRONICLE: Homicides declined in Houston and nationwide in 2024 thus far, records show

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In the message, she used a racial slur to refer to Chutkan, who is Black, and "threatened to kill anyone who went after former President Trump," according to the complaint. The call also made a direct threat to kill Jackson Lee, who was running for mayor at the time, and "all Democrats in Washington, D.C., and all people in the LGBTQ community," according to the complaint.

"You are in our sights, we want to kill you," the caller said, according to the complaint, before going on to say. "You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it."

The call came four days after Trump was indicted on felony charges for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the weeks before the riots at the U.S. Capitol. Chutkan is the District Court judge who was randomly assigned to oversee Trump's case.

During a hearing in which she pleaded guilty, Shry alleged she didnt know it was illegal to make the call and that she thought she was protected by freedom of speech and hadnt planned to act on the threats, officials said. The First Amendment does not protect death threats.

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Shrys sentencing is set for Jan. 14, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office. She faces up to five years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine.
The Bureau of Meteorology says warm and humid conditions in the tropics will push wet weather over Australia this weekend. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP

Thunderstorms are expected to continue this weekend on both sides of the country. Warm and humid conditions in the tropics will push wet weather over Australia, with the possibility of severe storms in parts of Queensland.

Rain and thunderstorms have developed over parts of eastern Australia almost every day this month, with severe thunderstorms hitting parts of Queensland and New South Wales on numerous occasions in the past fortnight.

Northern Queensland, the Top End of the Northern Territory and parts of Western Australia have all been dealing with ongoing heatwaves, which are forecast to continue with patchy respite only for areas which will get rainfall.

Angus Hines, a Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist, said people in the southern states can expect warm weather over the next few days before temperatures drop on Sunday.

We are expecting extreme fire weather warnings hot gusty conditions before the cold front moves through, he said.

Related: Theyve been described as the fastest-growing fire risk  so why do lithium batteries keep exploding?

Its a different story elsewhere in the country this weekend, with thunderstorms expected in parts of Western Australia and northern NSW.

The weather bureau is warning of severe storms in the northern rivers and northern tablelands regions of NSW, with possible damaging winds and large hailstones.

Thunderstorms are also forecast for much of eastern and southeastern Queensland, with severe weather warnings for Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast, as well as several regional areas including the Darling Downs.

Hines said the stormy weather, expected to continue over the next month, wasnt unusual for this time of year as conditions were ripe for thunderstorm activity.

Were getting longer days, warmer days. That heating is one of the things that provides the fuel for [storms] to develop, alongside humidity, he said. There have been very humid conditions from the tropics and around the equator.

Another factor driving the stormy weather is the shifting of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) into a positive phase. The SAM climate driver refers to a belt of strong westerly winds that blow around the south pole.

When it shifts into a positive phase, the SAM contracts and moves away into the Southern Ocean, it loses its influence on Australian weather, Hines said.

When were in this positive phase, and those strong westerly winds move away from us, it opens the door for easterly winds on to eastern parts of the country, Hines said.

And its the easterly winds which often come in carrying a lot of humidity from the Coral Sea  from warm waters to the east and north east of Australia.

Brisbane was drenched by more than 50mm of rain in an hour on Wednesday night, and Hines said Queensland would continue to bear the brunt of the thunderstorm activity over the next week.

Forecasters say it will be an average cyclone season in Queensland with at least one to make landfall this summer, but the severity of the storm system may be higher than usual.

Queensland has also been dealing with bushfires after heavy rain earlier this year provided plenty of fuel. People have been warned to prepare for possible fires if they have not yet been affected by the summer storm cells ripping across the state.

The outlook for the next couple of months where we havent seen that rainfall, conditions are still ripe for very dangerous bushfires to occur, meteorologist Kimba Wong told reporters on Thursday.

Queenslands police deputy commissioner and state disaster coordinator, Shane Chelepy, said more than 1.25m hectares of land had burned since July.

There have been no deaths, but one residence was destroyed in Forsayth, in the states gulf country, in a blaze earlier this week.
Kim Leadbeater (centre) said: I have found it disappointing that some members of the Cabinet have spoken out very vocally on the issue - Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Europe

The Labour MP leading the campaign to legalise assisted dying has criticised Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, for very vocally opposing the move.

Kim Leadbeater said Mr Streetings repeated public comments against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill were quite disappointing and quite upsetting.

Mr Streeting has said he will vote against the Bill, which is due to be debated in the House of Commons for the first time on Friday Nov 29.

He has also warned that the NHS could not afford to implement assisted dying without making cuts in other service areas. Ministers have been told they should not take part in the public debate.

Ms Leadbeater told The House magazine: The important thing is that this debate happens, and everybody is absolutely entitled to their different views on the issue.

But I have found it disappointing that some members of the Cabinet have spoken out very vocally on the issue, and others have done as instructed and not expressed their views. So, Ive found that quite disappointing and quite upsetting. But equally, Im not the sort of person to stifle debate and have conversations. Thats really, really important.

The Government is remaining neutral on the issue, with MPs given a free vote, meaning they will not be instructed on which way to cast their ballot.

Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, wrote to all ministers in October, telling them: Though ministers need not resile from previously stated views when directly asked about them, they should exercise discretion and should not take part in the public debate.

Downing Street would not be drawn on whether Mr Streeting was right to suggest that the proposed law could come at the expense of other NHS services.

The Prime Ministers official spokesman said on Thursday: Ultimately this is a matter for Parliament to decide, and that is why it is going to be a free vote and Parliament will debate the principles and merits of assisted dying and the issues surrounding the Bill.

Mr Streeting said he will vote against the Bill because of concerns over the state of palliative care in the UK. On Wednesday, he said he had ordered officials at the Department of Health to assess the cost implications for the NHS should the Bill become law.

The Cabinet minister, who is a practising Christian, said: Now that weve seen the Bill published, Ive asked my department to look at the costs that would be associated with providing a new service to enable assisted dying to go forward.

Im very clear that, regardless of my own personal position or my own vote, my department and the whole Government will respect the will of Parliament if people vote for assisted dying.

Mr Streeting said the NHS would face choices and trade-offs, adding that any new service comes at the expense of other competing pressures and priorities.

An ally of Mr Streeting told the Politics Home website that he had approached this issue in a genuine, thoughtful and considerate way, setting out his own view while respecting others views.
Traffic backs up on Brooklyn Bridge - Getty/Charly Triballeau

Donald Trump has branded New Yorks congestion charge the most regressive tax known to womankind on the day the states female governor reignited plans to bring it back.

The President-elect said businesses will flee New York City, and that he strongly disagreed with Kathy Hochuls U-turn.

Gov Hochul has been accused of screwing the middle class with her revived plans for a congestion charge in Manhattan.

The governor was branded completely out of touch by New Yorkers Against Congestion Pricing Tax, a group of residents who are against the $9 per car fee.

The groups President Susan Lee told the Telegraph that Gov Hochul was jamming it through before Donald Trump takes office in January, amid fears the president-elect could quash the plan.

If the announcement comes Thursday, as expected, it means the mandatory 60-day public consultation period ends on Jan 13, just eight days before Mr Trump is inaugurated.

After that, the congestion charge is going to be much harder for Mr Trump to unwind, experts suggest.

$15 was too much

The governor had originally proposed a $15 charge for cars but scrapped it indefinitely in June, amid concern the extra cost was too much and would worsen the cost of living crisis.

In a statement posted online, Mr Trump said he had great respect for Gov. Hochul but strongly disagrees with the decision on the congestion tax.

He said: It has never worked, but especially so with a city, town, or village that is trying to come back from very rough times, which can certainly be said of New York City. It will put New York City at a disadvantage over competing cities and states, and businesses will flee.

Not only is this a massive tax to people coming in, it is extremely inconvenient from both driving and personal book-keeping standards. It will be virtually impossible for New York City to come back as long as the congestion tax is in effect.

It will hurt workers, families, and businesses, but in particular, anything to do with jobs. It is the most regressive tax known to womankind (man!)

Janno Lieber, the head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said that New Yorks congestion was insane and epidemical.

Mr Liber said that the basics of human existence are at stake here like ambulances getting to hospitals and police cars getting to crime scenes quickly.

In April a Siena College survey found that 64 percent of New Yorkers opposed a $15 toll to drive below 60th St in Manhattan, which is how the original plan was laid out.

Ms Lee said: The governor is completely out of touch. I think the governor is tone deaf.

She needs to read the room. We have grocery prices that are out of reach. I volunteer at a food pantry and thats the number one concern for everyone. People cant afford to put food on their table.

How is this $9 fee going to help?

Timing is everything

According to Ms Lee, it was a political move to bring back the charge after the Presidential election saw Mr Trump take the White House.

Ms Lee said: The timing is everything and thats why theres an urgency to get this through.

People who support this are saying its going to start at $9 and then go up to $15. Its screwing the middle class, and the working class.

Ms Lee cited the congestion charge in London which went from 5 to 15 in the space of 17 years.

But New Yorks would finish at 9pm instead of 6pm in the UK, and would be in place on holidays and weekends, Ms Lee said.

The new plan will likely be fast-tracked and will go for approval before the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees transit in New York, next week.

Earlier this year Mr Trump said on social media he planned to TERMINATE Congestion Pricing in my FIRST WEEK back in Office!!

But that wont be so easy once the programme is up and running, said Rachael Fauss, a Senior Policy Advisor at nonprofit Reinvent Albany.

She was unaware of approval for a toll by the Federal Highway Administration ever being rescinded.

She said: If that were to happen there would be lawsuits. If theres an approval for a programme theres a legal, regulatory basis for doing so.

Rescinding it is much less likely to happen, especially if courts uphold it before Mr Trump comes into office.

So, why now?

That explains why Gov Hochul is bringing congestion charging back now, Ms Fauss said.

The timeline is extremely tight and thats why were seeing it happen the week after the election, she said.

And Mr Trump himself would not be exempt from the charge, even as president.

The MTA did not respond to a request for comment.
Traffic enters lower Manhattan after crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on 8 February 2024, in New York. Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP

New York is reviving plans to introduce the USs first-ever congestion charge for vehicle traffic, with a reduced $9 toll set to apply to cars entering the lower half of Manhattan from January.

Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, in June halted a landmark plan to charge $15 for drivers entering Manhattans traffic-clogged streets, sparking a furious backlash from transport and climate advocates.

But a week after Donald Trump, who earlier this year vowed on the campaign trail to quickly terminate congestion pricing in his New York City home town, won the US presidency, Hochul announced she was resurrecting the charge, albeit at a lower price.

No New Yorker should pay a penny more than absolutely necessary and $15 was simply too much, Hochul said on Thursday, citing the rising costs New Yorkers face for rent, food and childcare.

Related: New York banished cars during Covid  could its open streets be preserved?

The revised system, to start in January, will generate $15bn to aid a major overhaul of New Yorks creaking public transport system, funding repairs to a decrepit subway and bringing a fleet of new electric buses online for underserved parts of the city. Low-income drivers will get discounts, Hochul said, and the fee will also drop after 9pm to encourage late-night deliveries.

It will drive down gridlock and emissions as intended, the governor, a Democrat, said. I might not always take the easy path, but I will take the right path for the people of this great state now and into the future.

The plan is expected to be approved by New Yorks Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the outgoing administration of Joe Biden, which has been supportive of the idea and needs to sign off on it before Trump re-enters the White House on 20 January, making it harder for Trump to kill it off.

Implementing congestion pricing will be a major win for the future of New Yorks transportation system, cleaner air, and the governors climate legacy, said Justin Balik, senior state program director at Evergreen Action, an environmental group.

The incoming Trump administration poses a serious and immediate risk to the countrys climate progress, and Governor Hochul is moving to safeguard New Yorks ability to meet climate goals.

New York state lawmakers first legislated congestion pricing in 2019, targeting Manhattan below 60th Street, with the aim of funding the ailing MTA and helping ease the dire traffic that routinely snarls the most public transport-rich city in the US. About 700,000 vehicles enter the lower half of Manhattan each day, often at a crawl  the average travel speed is now around 7mph, down from about 9mph 15 years ago.

New Yorkers want cleaner air, safer streets and public transit that works for them, said Janno Lieber, chief executive of the MTA. The basics of human existence are at stake here, he added, pointing out that ambulances and police cars are often held up by the traffic.

The city was seen as the ideal first American staging ground for an idea embraced by numerous other places around the world  about half of New York City households do not have a car, with 85% of commuters to Manhattan using the citys network of subways, trains and buses to get there. It was originally estimated that only 1.5% of all commuters under the plan would pay the full fee.

But congestion pricing has been unpopular within areas of New York where public transport is sparse, as well as farther-flung places where commuters into the city typically arrive by car. Phil Murphy, governor of New Jersey, has sued to halt the plan and opposition to the new iteration has already surfaced among New Yorks Republican representatives.

Congestion pricing is nothing more than a scheme to squeeze more money out of New Yorkers, said Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican whose congressional district includes New York Citys Staten Island.

This isnt about reducing traffic; its about funding a mismanaged and bloated MTA at the expense of hard-working families.
A cat which went missing in Scotland has stunned its owners by turning up more than 300 miles away in Coventry.

Beans, a ginger and white cat from Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, went missing from his home towards the end of October after going out as normal.

Owners Cara, 40, and Colin McBurnie, 51, searched the local area to no avail, but weeks later in November they received a surprise call from Cats Protection saying thanks to his microchip he had been found in Coventry.

Beans loves to be outside and in gardens, said Ms McBurnie.

Cara McBurnie reunited with Beans (Cats Protection)

He went out as normal because he likes to go for a wander but always comes home for some food, usually after a few hours.

We searched and searched, looking everywhere. Ive been out every day looking but thought something must have happened to him.

I didnt really expect to see him again but joined lots of local lost and found Facebook pages, then further afield in Scotland.

I didnt think to look in England, I didnt imagine he could have gone that far.

Beans, left, enjoying food at home with Missy (Cara McBurnie)

Beans had ventured further than his owner thought possible, somehow making his way to the West Midlands, where he was spotted by Kelly Ryan, who said: I have an outdoor cat box with some straw in it and started noticing a cat hanging round.

I didnt feed him straight away as I thought he was probably owned, then one night saw him sleeping in the cat box and he was still there the next day, then the one after that.

I just gave him a few biscuits to start with but heard he was going to visit other neighbours too and it felt like he was around too much and that something wasnt quite right.

Ms Ryan posted on Facebook about the feline and was contacted by Cats Protection, who sent someone out to scan Beans.

I was so relieved when he had a chip and a loving family who had registered him as missing, said Ms Ryan.

He really is a miracle and Im so grateful to the volunteers for helping him find his way home.

Wendy Harris at Cats Protection Coventry called Ms McBurnie with the good news and the next day, November 12, Beans owners completed a 600-mile round trip to collect him.

I couldnt believe it when Wendy told me, I was shocked out of (my) mind that he was still alive, and how he travelled over 300 miles, said Ms McBurnie.

When we got him back, we let him out in the car for a cuddle then put him back in his carrier for the long journey.

We were all exhausted and he slept in the bed all night by my husband. Even my other cat, Missy, was happy to see him, they usually keep a bit of a distance but had a nice moment and a sniff together.

Im so glad we had him microchipped and updated his record. Theres no way hed have come back to us otherwise.

It is not known how Beans managed to travel such a distance.

Madison Rogers, Cats Protection associate director of advocacy, campaigns and external affairs, said: Its a real testament to the power of the microchip that Beans could be reunited with his owners just 24 hours after being scanned.

Without a chip its unlikely Beans would ever have found his way back to the family who love him so much.

To find out more about Cats Protection Coventry visit www.cats.org.uk/coventry and for information on what to do if you find a stray cat see www.cats.org.uk/stray-cats which includes a downloadable guide.
The Gentlemen star Theo James has called on world leaders to act on escalating injustice for refugees as a result of climate change at the Cop29 climate summit in Azerbaijan.

James, whose grandfather was a refugee who fled Greece for Syria during the Second World War, spoke about his visit to Mauritania earlier this year, where he said refugees in the west of the country had asked me to personally from them, urge world leaders at Cop to take action.

He was speaking at the launch of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) Refugees For Climate Action group, which will see eight refugees come together to reinforce the representation of displaced communities in the global climate change debate.

James said he had been motivated to support the cause by his grandfathers experience as a refugee (Ian West/PA)

James said his grandfathers story had motivated him to support the cause.

Speaking at the summit, the 39-year-old said: Here at Cop, I want to draw attention to the concerns of refugees for climate action, because Ive seen that the people who contribute the least in terms of carbon emissions are often the hardest hit by the climate crisis, which is insanity.

I know its something that you can say in a press conference, but the reality of it is ridiculous.

This is a new, relatively, and escalating injustice, as weve heard of the 120 million people forcibly displaced around the world, 90 million of them are facing high to extreme climate change impacts.

Thats why more help is needed now, people displaced by impacts of climate change and conflict need protection, and they need help from climate financing, specifically, the people I met in Mauritania and refugees like them are urging our leaders to listen.

He said that refugees need action now, with many having to flee their homes due to war, they are being pushed to the limits because of climate change and lack of resources.

Theres nowhere left for them to go, he said. We have to act now to reverse these trends.

James went on to say climate shocks are frequent and getting more frequent in Mauritania causing seasonal floods followed by crippling droughts and extreme heat.

Speaking about the people he met on his trip to the African country, he added: They told me about how life was becoming completely untenable in the desert, and they asked me to, personally from them, urge world leaders at Cop to take action, and theyre the best people to do so because they are being affected on the ground themselves.

James recalled meeting a woman who had to flee her home in Mali because of the fighting that had ripped through the country.

She told me that the dry season had extended from three to nine months of the year, and she had seen that happen in the last five years, leaving the wells empty and parents frantic about how their children are going to survive.

I asked her what she wanted to say to people here at Cop and she said, tell them were thirsty, tell them we dont have enough water for ourselves and our children, our cattle and our vegetables, we cannot survive without water.

The actor, who has appeared in the Divergent film trilogy, The Time Travellers Wife and The White Lotus, said the current situation for refugees had shown him how short our collective memories are in remembering the stories of people like his grandfather.

He added: One of the reasons I am motivated to support this cause, specifically is because of my own family history.

My grandfather was a refugee who fled the Nazi occupation of Greece and found safe haven in Syria during the Second World War.

Later, he joined the UN refugee program when it was in its infancy, working as a doctor in Gothenburg, administering vaccines to displaced people of western Europe.

And I guess that showed me how short our collective memories are in terms of, you know when people are displaced, it was only very recently that Europeans were being forced to flee themselves.

My family history motivated me to become involved with the UNHCR, and Ive been privileged to meet incredibly inspiring refugees.

The UN talks, which take place in Azerbaijan until November 22 and are looking at securing climate finance for low-income countries, come in the wake of devastating weather extremes.

There have been warnings that 2024 is on track to be another record-hot year and the world is heading for a catastrophic 3.1C of warming on current policies.
Two-thirds of people living in private rented accommodation are worried about paying their rent, research suggests.

The Big Issue magazine said its study revealed a troubling picture of housing vulnerability.

The poll of 2,000 adults showed that one in two felt an increased risk of homelessness compared with last year.

Alongside the research, the Big Issue launched a new film, The 12 Days of Homelessness, highlighting the leading causes of homelessness across the UK.

Those surveyed said issues putting them at risk of homelessness included a loss of income or employment, mental or physical health problems and rising living costs.

The Big Issue said many of its vendors believed that the end of private tenancies, rising living costs and the loss of income or employment were top factors likely to force them into homelessness.

Most vendors report feeling more at risk of homelessness now than when the cost-of-living crisis began in 2019, said the report.

This years Big Issue Christmas advert aims to raise awareness of the diverse and complex reasons someone may find themselves homeless, and the many ways the magazine helps its vendors overcome these barriers.

Big Issue ambassador Daniel Mays, who provided the voiceover for the film, said: The Big Issue exists to help people living in extreme poverty rebuild their lives  not just at Christmas, but every day.

Selling the Big Issue gives people in the most challenging situations a way to earn, learn and thrive, plus access to the basic services they so vitally need.

Susan Alderman, a Big Issue vendor who sells the magazine in London, said: No two people that have been homeless are on the street for the same reason. Money could be one reason, another reason could be domestic violence.

If you havent got a proper job, for example, that that can push some people over the edge where they get in debt. They might have an alcohol problem or drug problem. A lot of people have got mental health issues which need addressing  it can be anything.

With the right sort of help, help like the Big Issue provides, anyone can get on the right track to bettering themselves.

Lord John Bird, founder of the Big Issue and a crossbench peer, added: With the cost-of-living crisis still biting and the country experiencing record levels of homelessness, many people  including our vendors  face a difficult winter.

The Big Issue enables people to earn an income and find work, and to access basic services such as housing in order to rebuild their lives.
The UK has condemned Israeli government minister Bezalel Smotrich for suggesting annexation of the West Bank.

The finance minister, a hard-line settler leader, said he hoped the election of Donald Trump as the next US president will clear the way for Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank in 2025.

The UKs Middle East minister, Hamish Falconer, said that would be illegal and would scupper any hopes for peace in the region.

He called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government to reject the ministers comments.

I condemn Minister Smotrichs comments proposing annexation of land in the West Bank. Annexation only undermines the prospects for peace, would lead to greater instability and would be illegal under international law. The Israeli government must reject this.  Hamish Falconer MP (@HFalconerMP) November 14, 2024

I condemn Minister Smotrichs comments proposing annexation of land in the West Bank, the Foreign Office minister said.

Annexation only undermines the prospects for peace, would lead to greater instability and would be illegal under international law.

The Israeli government must reject this.

Mr Smotrich said in a speech on Monday that he will push for the inclusion of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria  using the biblical term for the territory.

He said 2025 will be the year  of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

The territory on the West Bank of the River Jordan was occupied by Israel after the 1967 war.

It would form a key area of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine dispute.
Scientists have made an urgent call for research to establish the risks to health and the environment from particles produced by tyres which are the leading contributor to microplastics.

A new study has highlighted that tyre particles (TPs) account for nearly a third of all microplastics and the researchers say these could cause greater problems because they differ in size, chemical complexity and behaviour in ecosystems.

Henry Obanya, from the Institute of Marine Science and member of the Revolution Plastics Institute at the University of Portsmouth, said: Tyre particles are classified as microplastics, yet they contain hundreds of unknown chemicals, many of which leach into the environment and pose unknown risks.

Our study calls for TPs to be separated from traditional microplastics and recognised as a unique threat to environmental and public health. We need focused research to understand their pathways and impact.

He said TPs contain numerous additives  such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and stabilising chemicals that make them chemically unique and potentially harmful as they degrade in the environment.

He added that, while traditional microplastics are typically smaller than 5mm, tyre particles (TPs) can be larger and are dispersed across ecosystems through road run-off and wind, eventually settling in waterways, soil, and even entering food chains.

The research, which involved scientists from the UK, US, Norway, Australia, South Korea, Finland, Austria, China, and Canada, made recommendations for an intergovernmental science-policy panel on chemicals, waste, and pollution to tackle TPs on a global scale.

Mr Obanya added: This study is a clear call for co-ordinated international efforts.

By recognising TPs as a distinct environmental threat, we can drive meaningful research, guide policy, and ultimately work towards a healthier, more sustainable world.
A 74-year-old woman is in a life-threatening condition in hospital following a collision with a prison transport vehicle in South Yorkshire.

Police responded to reports of a collision on Doncaster Road, at the junction with Coppice Avenue, in Hatfield at around 3.30pm on Wednesday.

It is believed that a DAF GeoAmey prison transport vehicle collided with two pedestrians, South Yorkshire Police said.

We are appealing for witnesses after a serious collision in Doncaster on Wednesday (13 November).  3.34pm  Doncaster Road, at the junction with Coppice Avenue https://t.co/4k3rvn5k6a pic.twitter.com/DVK4VmTIGj  South Yorkshire Police (@syptweet) November 14, 2024

The woman and a 77-year-old man, who is in a non-life-threatening condition, were both taken to hospital where they both remain.

The force made an appeal for any witnesses of the collision and those with footage or information to come forward.

Anyone with information has been asked to call 101 quoting incident number 592 of November 13 2024.
Caroline Wilburn is a breaking news reporter for the Houston Chronicle.

A graduate of Texas A&M University, Caroline worked as an election stringer for the Associated Press and as a breaking news fellow at the Texas Tribune. At the Tribune, she got a crash course in interpreting data, distilling complicated policy and following statewide trends on a tight deadline. Shes also a skilled video editor and podcast producer.

She won a first-place award for audio news production at the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association.
Jacopo Raule - Getty Images



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Whether shes stepping out for a Lake Como date night, onto the red carpet, or a daytime stroll with her husbandaka actor George ClooneyAmal Clooney never ceases to inspire us with her effortlessly sophisticated style.

Earlier this month, she did so again when she dressed up for a lunch date during a luxurious Saint-Tropez vacation with George. Her Cote dAzur ensemble was boho style at its most elegant, as the highlight was a burgundy and navy sundress taken from Stella McCartneys 2015 resort collection. Up top, the sleeveless piece featured a blue zig-zag print, while the skirt was split into two color combinationsburgundy with royal blue and coral with chocolate brownin a scattered paisley pattern. (Sadly, the dress is no longer available to shop online, other than via some resale sites.)

Exclusive: George Clooney can't keep his hands off wife Amal as they enjoy luxury beach date https://t.co/C6miYAhxNX  HELLO! (@hellomag) November 7, 2024

Amal paired the 70s-inspired dress with some more classic accessories, including a black leather handbag, dangly gold earrings, and large square sunglasses with brown frames. She was pictured arm-in-arm with the actor, who kept things simple in a black polo, beige pants, silver aviator shades, and a silver watch with a black leather band.

The couples romantic French Riviera getaway came several weeks after they celebrated their 10-year wedding anniversary. The Oceans Eleven star and the British barrister and human rights activist married in a lavish wedding in Venice, Italy, on September 27, 2014. They now share two children, seven-year-old twins Ella and Alexander.

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By Matt Spetalnick, Michael Martina and Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trumps choice of Tulsi Gabbard as U.S. intelligence chief has sent shockwaves through the national security establishment, adding to concerns that the sprawling intelligence community will become increasingly politicized.

Trumps nomination of Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who lacks deep intelligence experience and is seen as soft on Russia and Syria, is among several high-level picks that suggest he may be prioritizing personal allegiance over competence as he assembles his second-term team.

Among the risks, say current and former intelligence officials and independent experts, are that top advisers could feed the incoming Republican president a distorted view of global threats based on what they believe will please him and that foreign allies may be reluctant to share vital information.

Randal Phillips, a former CIA operations directorate official who worked as the agency's top representative in China, said that with Trump loyalists in top government posts, this could become the avenue of choice for some really questionable actions by the leadership of the intelligence community.

A Western security source said there could be an initial slowdown in intelligence sharing when Trump takes office in January that could potentially impact the Five Eyes, an intelligence alliance comprising the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The worry from U.S. allies is that Trumps appointments all lean in the wrong direction, the source said.

Trump's presidential transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Inside and outside the U.S. intelligence network, much of the anxiety focuses on Trumps choice of Gabbard, 43, as director of national intelligence, especially given her views seen as sympathetic to Russia in its war against Ukraine.

While Trump has made some conventional personnel decisions such as that of Senator Marco Rubio for secretary of state, Wednesdays announcement of Gabbard, an officer in the U.S. Army Reserves, surprised even some Republican insiders. She is likely to face tough questioning in her Senate confirmation hearings.

Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022, has stirred controversy over her criticism of President Joe Bidens support for Ukraine, which has prompted some critics to accuse her of parroting Kremlin propaganda.

She also spoke out against U.S. military intervention in the civil war in Syria under former President Barack Obama and met in 2017 with Moscow-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with whom Washington severed all diplomatic ties in 2012.

The selection of Gabbard has raised alarm in the ranks of intelligence officers unsure of how tightly she holds some of her geopolitical views, whether she is misinformed or simply echoing Trumps Make America Great Again followers, one intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.

Of course there's going to be resistance to change from the swamp in Washington, Gabbard said in a Fox News interview on Wednesday night. She said voters had given Trump an incredible mandate to move away from Bidens agenda but offered no policy specifics.

ALLIES ATTENTIVE

A senior European intelligence official said agencies in European Union countries will be pragmatic and ready to adapt to the changes. No panic in the air for now, the official added.

A European defense official described Gabbard as firmly" in the Russia camp.

"But we have to deal with what we have. We will be attentive, the official said.

Some analysts said concerns about Gabbard could be tempered by Trumps choice to head the CIA: John Ratcliffe, a former congressman who served as director of national intelligence at the end of Trumps first term.

Though close to Trump and expected to offer little pushback against his policies, Ratcliffe is not seen as an incendiary figure and could act as a counterbalance to Gabbard in his post atop the No. 1 spy agency among the 18 that she would oversee.

But some analysts said that by attempting to install Gabbard with other controversial loyalists, including congressman Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Fox commentator and military veteran Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, Trump is showing he wants no guardrails to his efforts to remake federal institutions.

Democratic critics were quick to pounce not only on Gabbards views but what they see as her lack of qualifications and the potential the new administration could deploy intelligence for political ends.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks to fix what was seen as a lack of coordination between those organizations.

She isnt being put in this job to do the job or to be good at it. Shes being put there to serve Donald Trumps interests, U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told CNN on Thursday.

SUPPORT FOR ISOLATIONIST POLICIES

After leaving the Democratic Party, Gabbard became increasingly critical of Biden and grew popular among conservatives, often appearing on far-right TV and radio shows, where she became known for supporting isolationist policies and showing disdain for "wokeness."

Shortly after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Gabbard wrote in a social media post: This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia's legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine's becoming a member of NATO."

Rubio, a former Trump rival turned supporter, defended Gabbards nomination, describing her as a revolutionary pick that has a chance to really make a positive change.

But some other Republicans were more non-committal.

Asked about Gabbard's qualifications, Senator John Cornyn, a member of the Intelligence Committee, said: "We're going to do our job, vet the nominees and make a decision. That's a constitutional responsibility of the Senate.

To become director of national intelligence, Gabbard must first be confirmed by a majority of the 100-member U.S. Senate, where she could face headwinds.

Trump's fellow Republicans will have at least a 52-48 seat majority in the chamber starting in January, and have in the past been eager to back the party leader, increasing the likelihood that she will secure the post.

Our friends are watching as closely as our foes, and they are asking what this all means for the pre-eminent player in global intelligence collection and analysis, said one former U.S. intelligence officer who worked in some of the worlds hotspots.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Michael Martina and Humeyra Pamuk; Additional reporting by Sarah Lynch, David Brunnstrom and Patricia Zengerle in Washington, Jonathan Saul in London, John Irish and Lili Bayer in Paris; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Don Durfee and Alistair Bell)
We may earn money from links on this page, but commission does not influence what we write or the products we recommend. AOL upholds a rigorous editorial process to ensure what we publish is fair, accurate and trustworthy.

AncestryDNA kits are only $39 right now. (Uwe Krejci via Getty Images)

I'm going to clue you in on a fact I discovered a few years ago: My great-grandparents were first cousins.

Oh, and my mother has two secret brothers.

Uncovering the secrets of your past is downright fun, especially when you discover two uncles no one in the family has ever heard of. But aside from lost family members, there is so much you can learn from genealogy sites like Ancestry, and if you've been holding off on getting your own DNA test, now's the time to pick one up  the brand is offering a whopping 60% off AncestryDNA kits ahead of Black Friday.

AncestryDNA AncestryDNA Genetic Test Kit $99 with Prime Normally priced at $99, you can get an AncestryDNA kit for the lowest price we've ever seen ahead of Black Friday. For just $39, you can send in your DNA and learn a bevy of secrets, including hidden relatives and the exact regions your family hails from. with Prime $99 at Amazon Explore More Buying Options $99 at Walmart

Aside from connecting you with people in the Ancestry network that you're related to, the AncestryDNA kit breaks down your genetic makeup and shows you exactly where your relatives were originally from. I grew up thinking my grandfather was a quarter Cherokee  but turns out that's just family lore, according to Ancestry. My genes are 100% European.

You can see exactly where my ancestors are from on the AncestryDNA map. (Ancestry / Kate Ellsworth)

Once your DNA gets analyzed (which only takes a few short weeks), you can view a map that highlights each area that comprises your genetic makeup. My map says I'm 47% English & Northwestern European, and once I click into the UK, it breaks down what that means for me, and which of my relatives are most closely related to my English heritage.

After I tested my own DNA, I sent a kit to my brother and made him complete it as well, curious how similar our DNA would be. Turns out, pretty similar  the site knew immediately that he was my brother and noted that we have about 45% - 52% shared DNA. But while we we were so similar, his breakdown is actually pretty different from mine. If you've got a sibling, parent, or child, and you're curious about how similar you are genetically, it's a fun exercise I highly recommend.

Turns out me and my brother are pretty similar  who knew? (Ancestry / Kate Ellsworth)

I took my AncestryDNA test in 2019, and in the five years since, the site has continued to deepen. Every year or so, the site adds even more regions to its database, meaning your results are often changing, or becoming just a little more sharp. In 2020, the database said I was 70% Northern European  in 2024, I'm 47% England, 37% Scotland, 9% Ireland... etc.

If you're looking to dig deep into your own family tree, you'll want to subscribe to an Ancestry membership, which costs a bit more  $50 a month  which I don't recommend. I built a family tree and had an incredible time digging into my family's roots, but I did so with a free 30-day membership trial and managed to fit my entire research journey into that window.

But $39 for an AncestryDNA kit? That matches the lowest price I've ever seen. If you need a great gift for a parent or grandparent, or you're just curious about your own genetic makeup, this deal is definitely worth it.

AncestryDNA AncestryDNA Genetic Test Kit $99 with Prime Normally priced at $99, you can get an AncestryDNA kit for the lowest price we've ever seen ahead of Black Friday. For just $39, you can send in your DNA and learn a bevy of secrets, including hidden relatives and the exact regions your family hails from. with Prime $99 at Amazon Explore More Buying Options $99 at Walmart

If you're looking for any shopping advice, drop us a line at shopping.editors@aol.com and our Shopping Editors will be in touch!
Its smooth, balanced, and lets the brunch cocktails flavors shine.

Simply Recipes / Adobe Stock

The first time I tried a bloody Mary I couldnt help but be caught off guard by its thick consistency and spicy flavor. At the time, I was entirely new to cocktails, especially one whose lore had completely outgrown its original purpose. Once constrained to the limits of a brunch beverage that doubled as a hangover cure, the bloody Mary has since become a staple at cocktail bars and restaurants around the globe.

It took me quite a while to open up to this cocktail's robust concoction of ingredients. Depending on where youre ordering from, it might show up at your table topped with the likes of shrimp, crab legs, hamburger sliders, cheese, candied bacon, olives, peppers, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, horseradish, and more. And if that sounds like a lot to you, well, thats because it kind of is.

Ive become a fan of bloody Marys, but the basic kind. One without the burden of countless toppings and ingredients. Ive narrowed down the flavors I prefer most (savory, spicy, and salty), but Im still unsure of which vodka to use.

In search of an expert opinion and a reliable place to start experimenting, I tapped a few professionals in the mixology business. What I didnt expect was for them all to name the same brand.

The Bartenders I Spoke To:

Simply Recipes / Broken Shed

The Best Vodka for a Bloody Mary, According to Bartenders

According to Dostal, Choosing the right vodka for a bloody Mary is crucial, as it acts as the backbone of the cocktail. In terms of the best vodka to pair with a bloody Mary, these professionals all named Broken Shed as their top choice. Dostal credits Broken Sheds whey-based smoothness and texture, for making it the ideal base for bloody Marys.

Professionals prefer Broken Shed because it brings balance, body, and a creamy mouthfeel that traditional vodkas dont always accomplish, Dostal explains. In his opinion, this brand makes for a more satisfying and holistic cocktail experience, allowing the tomato juice and spices to harmonize with the vodkas unique characteristics. It adds depth to an often overlooked aspect of the drink: vodka.

Ehrmann describes the flavor as crisp and vibrant, with a brightness that elevates the savory characteristics of the drink. Broken Shed has all of that and more. It is extremely well distilled with a minerality that pops.

Broken Sheds bloody Mary-friendly characteristics come from its simplicity. The New Zealand-born brand is the region's premium vodka choice and is made with just three ingredients: spring water, mineral water, and whey. In terms of purity, it doesnt get any better than that. With no additives or GMOs included, this vodka is strictly business. And with only 15 years under the brands belt, being a top choice amongst the pros is a noteworthy accomplishment.

Morrison credits the bloody Marys popularity as relying on great ingredients, which is why he claims to only use Broken Shed vodka for his. In Morrisons experience, its minimal ingredient list creates the cleanest, crispest, and most refreshing bloody Mary youll ever taste.

The Most Popular Vodka Requested for Bloody Marys, According to the Pros

Compared to other vodka brands, Broken Shed doesnt necessarily break the bank at $35.99 per 750ml bottle. However, it is more expensive compared to one of our honorary mentions. Chamberlain names Titos as an easy to find, neutral vodka that works well in a bloody Mary as long as youre using a high-quality bloody Mary mix.

Titos can be found for just $24.99 per 750ml bottle and, according to Conway and Van Nostrand, is tied with Grey Goose as the most requested vodka at bars by customers. Chamberlain echoes Ehrmanns sentiments If you want to elevate your bloody Mary, I like to choose a vodka with character that complements the flavors in the rest of the drink, she says.

Whichever route you choose, Chamberlain explains that finding the right vodka for a bloody Mary is as easy as identifying which one allows the ingredients to stand out. She recommends finding one that has texture and no harsh burn, so it allows the other flavors complete the experience for you.



To learn more about our approach to product recommendations, see HERE.
Bangladesh's army has recovered 6,000 guns that were stolen during the student-led bloody revolution in August that forced prime minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee the nation.

The army on Wednesday said it arrested 2,500 people for allegedly looting thousands of weapons during the deadly protests and in the aftermath of unrest.

Intekhab Haider Khan, the Colonel Staff of the Directorate of Military Operation, said 6,000 weapons were recovered along with 200,000 rounds of ammunition. The operation to recover illegally held firearms was still ongoing, he told reporters.

The Bangladesh army in September had recovered 3,700 weapons of different varieties during an amnesty to surrender guns.

The military was given magistracy powers on 17 September to address instability across the country in the days following the month-long unrest.

The interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus said more than 1,000 people were killed in the violent agitation in capital Dhaka. The death toll included children, law enforcement agents and journalists.

Police in Bangladesh were accused of using lethal force to contain the protests before stepping back in the wake of the prime ministers ouster.

"More than 400 students and members of the general public have lost their sight," said Nurjahan Behun, the health adviser in the interim government.

Colonel Intekhab on Wednesday said the military has managed to control over 700 violent incidents, which included 141 instances in educational institutions, 86 in government offices, and 98 political conflicts. In most cases, our timely measurers had helped prevent many unpleasant situations including losses of life and properties, he told reporters.

He said more than 700 drug dealers or people associated with drug trading have been arrested and large quantities of banned substances have been recovered.

The army is highly conscious of upholding human rights and preventing extrajudicial killings was a top priority under orders from the government, he added.

Bangladeshs interim government last week said it would request Interpol to bring back the ousted prime minister from India to face trial for crime against humanity.

Those responsible for the indiscriminate killings during the mass uprising in July and August will be brought back from wherever they have taken refuge, law advisor Asif Nazrul said on Sunday.
It's impossible to imagine how one sweet baby didn't get adopted. He's soooo cute. The grey kitten is just the sleepiest, cutest, most lovable little guy. But sadly no one brought him home during an event for Smittens Rescue in San Diego, California.

Someone needs to go and bring Dijon home! A kitten is the perfect addition to the family before the holidays...just saying.

The shelter posted about the rescue cat in a heartbreaking video online. We swear Dijon is a cutie. Just look at the way he rests his head on his caretaker's shoulder.

Related: Kitten Has Most Inspiring Recovery After Being Paralyzed by BB Gun

"Dijon waited all day at our adoption day event to be adopted but no one adopted him," the shelter lamented in the text overlay.

Not even the shelter could understand why the cat remains in their care.

"His foster helped him become comfortable and he did so well and met so many people!" they explained. But yet he has yet to be adopted. Poor guy!

The comments section is hoping that someone comes through for the cat. "WHY? Hes beautiful and so sweet," wondered one commenter. "Dijon is so sweet. I hope his forever person finds him soon," someone else agreed. "Cats are literally my kryptonite. I want them all. I need to win the lottery and just rescue cats," added another commenter. "Please adopt this sweet baby this little one deserves so much love and a forever home," begged another commenter.

Adopting From Smittens Rescue

The commenters have it completely right this time  Dijon needs a new mom or dad. The kitten is still available and can come home with you today!

If you're really feeling generous and live in the San Diego area, you can adopt multiple pets from Smittens Rescue. Just go to the website and look through their available pets. It's worthwhile to book a visit with the facility so you can see if you and your desired animal are a match! There are lots of reasons why an adoption will or won't go through. But making sure you and the animal vibe is a good way to get the process off to a good start.

It's also a good idea to ask yourself some questions before adopting. Consider if you rent or own your property. Will you need to get permission to have a pet? Also consider your energy level and time you have available to commit to an animal. Some young animals, like this one, will probably need a little training. So only adopt if you have that time to give.

As we said, Dijon really is a good option for someone looking to adopt. He'll be the best company  we can already tell.

Looking for more PetHelpful updates? Follow us on YouTube for more entertaining videos. Or, share your own adorable pet by submitting a video, and sign up for our newsletter for the latest pet updates and tips.
The Ohio Senate on Wednesday greenlit a measure that would ban transgender students from using locker rooms and bathrooms associated with their gender identities.

Senate Bill 104 passed 24-7 on a party-line vote.

If signed into law by the states GOP governor, the Republican-backed legislation would require primary and secondary schools, as well as institutions of higher education, to designate separate bathrooms and changing areas for males or females based on gender assigned at or near birth. Multi-gendered facilities would be prohibited.

The ban would not apply to school employees, people with disabilities and children under 10 who need assistance from a family member or guardian, according to the legislation. Family restrooms and single-occupancy facilities are also permitted.

The bill, titled the Protect All Students Act, would amend Ohios existing college credit program for high school students. It is now awaiting approval from Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine - Carolyn Kaster/AP

DeWine is inclined to sign it but will conduct a legal review first, the Associated Press reported. We have no new comment, DeWine spokesperson Dan Tierney told CNN on Thursday. While the bill has passed, it has not been delivered to our office yet for signature.

In 2023, DeWine vetoed a bill to ban gender-affirming surgery for transgender minors, but the veto was overridden by the legislature.

LGBTQ advocates have for years worked to combat similar bathroom bills, blasting them as an unnecessary and harmful attack on transgender students humanity.

Senate Bill 104 is a cruel invasion of students rights to privacy, which could result in unwarranted governmental disclosures of private, personal information, Jocelyn Rosnick, policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, said Wednesday.

Ohios Center for Christian Virtue is among some advocacy groups backing SB 104 and has urged DeWine to sign it.

Today is a huge victory for children and families in Ohio, said the groups policy director David Mahan in a statement Wednesday, calling it common-sense legislation.

SB 104 is the first piece of legislation to pass following the November election, state Senate Democratic Leader Nickie Antonio said, adding she sees it as marginalizing students.

I am in disbelief that this is a top priority on our first session back from recess, said Antonio said in a statement Wednesday. This bill is not about bathrooms. Its about demonizing those who are different, and our children are watching and listening to the fearmongering.

In 2023, Republican-led legislatures in several states passed similar bills in what the Human Rights Campaign  the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the US  slammed as the biggest year for bathroom bills.

These bills will not accomplish anything other than to further alienate and stigmatize those already on the margins of life in this state, the groups state legislative director and senior counsel, Cathryn Oakley, said in a statement following legislation in Idaho passing in 2023.

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A semi-trailer truck smuggling more than $31 million worth of meth across the US-Mexico border in Texas was busted after authorities found the stockpile of drugs concealed in a shipment of green peppers.

The proof is in the pepper.

A semi-trailer truck smuggling more than $31 million worth of meth across the US-Mexico border in Texas was busted after authorities found the stockpile of drugs concealed in a shipment of green peppers.

The spicy discovery was made when border patrol decided to conduct a routine inspection of the vehicle after it attempted to enter the country at the Pharr International Bridge port of entry from Mexico on Sunday, according to the US Customs and Border Protection.

More than $31 million worth of meth was seized in a semi-trailer crossing the US-Mexico border in Texas. cbp

Utilizing x-ray imaging devices, officers uncovered 1,859 bundles of meth disguised in green packaging hidden among the shipment of serrano peppers.

Our CBP officers continue to remain vigilant and intercepted this massive methamphetamine load, preventing it from reaching American streets, Port Director Carolos Rodriguez said.

Officers uncovered 1,859 bundles of meth disguised in green packaging hidden among the load of serrano peppers. cbp

The drugs weighed 2,155 pounds with an estimated street value of $31,169,000, CBP said.

The hoard of drugs and the vehicle were seized by the Office of Field Operations, officials said.

Homeland Security has since launched a criminal investigation. Getty Images

Authorities have not yet released information about the smuggler.

Homeland Security has since launched a criminal investigation.
A Southern California man is accused of murdering a couple, setting their bodies and cars on fire in the desert and then stealing nearly $250,000 worth of luxury watches, handbags and clothing from their home, prosecuting authorities said.

The Orange County District Attorneys Office announced on Tuesday that Huangting Gong, 30, of Glendale, has been charged with two felony counts of murder, one felony count of kidnapping, two felony counts of arson of property and two felony counts of first-degree burglary.

Depravity does not adequately describe the callousness involved to kill a human being and then drive around in the victims own car with his body inside in order to carry out the rest of his plan, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a news release Tuesday.

No one deserves the fate of being executed and then set on fire in the middle of the desert in a desperate attempt by a killer to cover up his crimes," Spitzer continued. "We are committed to pursuing justice for the victims and their loved ones.

As of Wednesday, it is unclear if Gong has legal representation.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer listens during a press conference at the Ronald Reagan Federal building in Santa Ana, California, U.S., October 22, 2024.

What is Huangting Gong accused of doing?

Authorities learned of Gong's alleged crimes on Oct. 15, when a family member of 37-year-old Kuanlun Wang contacted the Brea Police Department after not hearing from him for multiple days, which "was very unusual," Spitzer's office said. The family member told police that Wang had disclosed that Gong, a business associate, owed him $80,000, the state government agency's release continued.

Due to the family member not being able to reach Wang, she contacted Gong on Oct. 12, who told her Wang and Wang's wife, 37-year-old Jing Li, did not show up for a trip to New York City to meet another business associate who could pay Wang the $80,000 he owed him, the DA's office said. Wang's family were unaware of a planned trip to New York, according to the release.

After surveillance video from Oct. 14 showed a man on Wang's patio, the family member contacted Gong again who denied that it was him in the footage, the DA's office said. Once the family member reached out to Gong, her access to the security video system was suddenly cut off, according to the state government agency.

Huangting Gong arrested at Los Angeles International Airport

Prosecutors allege that Gong met Wang on Oct. 12 in the desert, shot him in the head, placed the body in Wang's own Tesla and then drove the car to Wang's home in Brea, according to the DA office's release.

Once at the Brea home, authorities accuse Gong of attacking Jing Li with a hammer and striking her while he forced her to divulge her phone's password, the DA's office said. After allegedly attacking Li, Gong put her inside her own Tesla, took her to a desert area in San Bernardino, shot her there and then burned her body, according to the Spitzer's office.

After burning Li's body, Gong then retrieved Wang's body from the couple's home in Brea and disposed of him in a separate desert area in Riverside County, the DA's office alleges. Gong then burned Wang's body, took the couple's Teslas to a third desert area and set them on fire, the state government agency said.

Once Gong disposed of the bodies and two Teslas, he is accused of coming back to the couple's home on Oct. 14 and stealing nearly $250,000 worth of luxury items, according to the release. The Brea Police Department arrested Gong at the Los Angeles International Airport on Nov. 5 when he came back from a trip to Seattle, Spitzer's office said.

A sign at the entrance of the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is seen August 7 2006.

DA: Huangting Gong could face death penalty

In addition to the initial offenses, Gong has been charged with two felony special circumstances enhancements for committing multiple murders, another enhancement for killing during the commission of a kidnapping and two final felony enhancements for discharging a firearm causing death, according to the DA office.

In special circumstances murder cases, the Orange County DA's Office assembles a committee after the preliminary hearing is held to determine if the death penalty should be on the table. Spitzer will make the ultimate decision whether to pursue death following the process, his office said.

If Spitzer decides not to pursue the death penalty, then the maximum sentence for Gong would be life without the possibility of parole, according to the release. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Dec. 2 at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana, California.

The last execution to take place in California was of Clarence Ray Allen on Jan. 17, 2006, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Allen was sentenced to death in 1982 for plotting the murders of Bryon William Schletewitz, Douglas Scott White and Josephine Linda Rocha while he was behind bars for the 1974 killing of Mary Sue Kitt.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Huangting Gong accused of fatally shooting CA couple, burning bodies
A California school district was blasted for not firing the high school teacher who went viral for his profanity-laced, post-election rant against Donald Trump, calling the president-elect a rapist and comparing him to Hitler.

The Moreno Valley Unified School District board meeting on Tuesday turned chaotic when multiple parents called for the firing of AP history educator Maximiliano Perez because of his mid-class meltdown on Nov. 6.

Furious parents of all backgrounds took turns during Tuesdays board meeting to call out Perezs racist remarks and the school district that has yet to fire the problematic teacher.

The Moreno Valley Unified School District has come under fire for what a Valley View High School teacher said in a post-election rant against Donald Trump on Nov. 6, 2024. Google Maps

Perez, who also called the 45th and future 47th president a rapist, draft dodging coward, was placed on administrative leave as the school district investigated his rant.

It is time that the school district stops tolerating hate speech in class, there should be zero tolerance for hate speech, one mother argued according to video shared online by education activist Corey DeAngelis.

To say that a Hispanic man wants to be White .. Im offended. Yo soy Mexicana. I am Chicana. I am Indigenous, and my family voted for Trump .. [the teacher] should be FIRED .. You are put on notice, she said.

One father called out the students who gave their support for Perez after the teacher aimed his comments towards the Hispanic population, which makes up 75% of the school districts student population.

What [Mr. Perez] just did is make the most racist comment, to tell them that their fathers, that if they voted for Trump, that they only did it because they wish they were White. That is the worst of it all. Shame on him, the father said.

He said things that should have never been said. He used profane language .. He has a right to say those things, but not at our schools. That was just crossing the line .. there needs to be some major consequences.

Maximiliano Perez was placed on administrative leave by the school district after the rant went viral online. Change.org

The disturbing rant, recorded by one of the students in class and viewed over two million times, captured Perez calling out his students families saying they were the reason Trump was elected.

This st is not a fking game! the teacher said to the classroom full of students.

Can you end up with no human rights? Yes. Will it happen to you? Most likely not. Which is a good thing, but has Donald Trump quoted Hitler? Yes. Does he embody some of Hitlers ideas? Yes, Perez said in lecture-style questions to his students.

Donald Trump attends a campaign rally in Las Vegas on Oct. 24, 2024. AFP via Getty Images

The embattled teacher went on to claim Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump because she has a vagina and a uterus and melanin, and admitted to crying for a week when she replaced Joe Biden on the ballot in July.

Donald Trump won.. because Black men and Brown men didnt show up to vote for Kamala Harris, Perez allegedly said. I know a lot of Latino men on this campus that love Donald Trump and he has called their mothers rapists. He has called their fathers rapists.. and they did vote for him.

I know a lot of Latino men who wish they were White, and theyd never admit it to you, he added. A lot of your fathers. A lot of your uncles. A lot of your grandfathers. God they wanna be White so bad but they never will be. I hate that st. I hate Latino men that oppress the women in their family, their own daughters

The embattled teacher went on to claim Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump because she has a vagina and a uterus and melanin, and admitted to crying for a week when she replaced Joe Biden on the ballot in July. Google Maps

President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion at Mary D. Bradford High School in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Sept. 1, 2020. AFP via Getty Images

Students backing Perez shared the positive experiences they had of the educator, with one claiming her life was saved by the teacher during a battle with mental health issues, while another asked if her teacher was going to be fired over his one rant.

I believe that the way he approached it was a little unprofessional, student Ezell Moreno said before the board meeting according to the LA Times. I believe that he had good faith, but is he going to be fired for one incident when hes done so many good things throughout his time as a teacher?

Another student claimed Perez never forced his beliefs on the students with others urging the school board to keep the teacher working as he is an essential figure.

(He is an) essential figure for many students here, not just as an educator, but as a mentor, a supporter and a guide through some of the most challenging moments of our lives, student Damian Ayonn said.
A Houston man was arrested last week and accused of providing material support to the ISIS terrorist organization, authorities said. Caroline Wilburn/Staff writer

A Houston man was arrested last week and accused of providing material support to the Islamic State, the Southern District of Texas U.S. Attorney's Office announced Thursday.

Anas Said, 28, was arrested Nov. 8 and charged with attempting to provide material support or resources for a foreign terrorist organization, according to federal court records. Said pleaded not guilty in a federal courtroom Thursday afternoon. Said had also discussed plans to commit violent acts in Houston and a desire to use explosive devices to commit a mass killing, Doug Williams, FBI special agent in charge, said.

However, there is no indication he owned materials to carry out any kind of attack and has not been charged with plotting one.

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Said was arrested after a yearslong investigation by FBI Houston's Joint Terrorism Task Force revealed he made propaganda, including videos, for ISIS, officials said Thursday, according to Alamdar S. Hamdani, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas. Said is accused of creating and editing at least five videos and two images, and sending them away to be published and circulated, according to court records.

MORE ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Alvin woman who threatened to kill Jackson Lee, Trump trial judge pleads guilty

The videos depicted large groups of armed men, some of them participating in gun battles, as well as phrases glorifying ISIS and pictures showing the number of people killed and wounded in the groups operations, according to images provided in charging documents.

"Today is a great day, we've taken a suspected terrorist off the streets of Houston," said Special Agent in Charge of FBI Houston, Douglas Williams. Anas Said, 28, is accused of attempting to provide material support to ISIS. #HappeningNow #HouNews pic.twitter.com/xYMhgT9KsK  FBI Houston (@FBIHouston) November 14, 2024

"Those who create propaganda on behalf of a designated foreign terrorist organization are national security threats," Hamandi said at a news conference Thursday.

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Said entered Magistrate Judge Peter Bray's courtroom shackled and wearing a green jump suit Thursday afternoon. He listened to court proceedings through an interpreter. Said's defense attorney, Val Zuniga, waived an opportunity to argue for his release before a trial, which was tentatively scheduled for January.

After the hearing, Zuniga described Said as "basically a homebody," who made a living working at a pizza shop with his brother.

"He works and spends a lot of time at home," Zuniga said.

Said was born in Houston. His family moved to Lebanon shortly after his birth and returned to the U.S. in 2014. Said is not married and has no children, Zuniga said.

In addition to creating propaganda, Said frequently viewed ISIS literature and other online propaganda, Williams said. Said held a deep affinity for high ranking ISIS personnel, and even purchased custom propaganda to outwardly show his support for the terrorist organization, Williams said.

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Said's behavior began to "mobilize toward violence" following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, Williams said. Said claimed to have considered taking more direct actions: including buying a gun, scouting military recruitment centers or assaulting the leader of an unnamed Jewish organization, according to court records. Authorities did not provide information on how developed those plans were. The charge against Said is specific to the pro-ISIS videos and images.

"He offered his home as a safe sanctuary to ISIS operatives," Williams said. "He bragged that he would commit a 9/11 style attack if he only had the resources, and he expressed the desire to join the US military just so he could commit an act once he was inside their ranks."

Zuniga said while the government could possibly bring more charges against Said, the current charges against him don't allege he planned anything.

"There's no allegation that he had any type of firearms or incendiary devices, anything like that," Zuniga said. "There's no allegation or charges that he was planning any types of terrorist acts."

Officials said Said first came to the FBIs attention in 2017, when the agency received a tip about him buying stickers with ISIS imagery. He was interviewed at least four times in 2018, according to court documents.

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During one of those interviews, he claimed he started believing in ISISs ideology, according to court records.

The FBI continued to track Saids social media for years. In October 2023, the FBI received information about Facebook accounts used by Said that showed he continued to support ISIS and the violent attacks carried out in its name. Agents executed a search warrant at his home in February.

Agents said they found records of efforts to create and disseminate propaganda as a result of that search. When Said was arrested last week, he admitted to making images and videos for a person identified as the Designer, and disseminating the propaganda on encrypted channels, according to court records.

Said frequently communicated with the Designer, who claimed they were the number 2 designer for the Dawlah, a term used to refer to ISIS, according to court records. The Designer would often provide extensive feedback and edits to Said regarding the videos and photos he created, according to court records.

Moments before his arrest, Said allegedly attempted to destroy his cell phone by throwing it on the ground. However, Hamandi said investigators were still able to recover data from the device.

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Despite Said's years of contacts with authorities, Zuniga said the first time he contacted a lawyer was the day after his arrest.

"I'm still combing through a lot of information that the government had provided, including a four-hour interrogation that took place at the time of his arrest and previous conversations he's had with the government," Zuniga said.
Manson revealed the past killings in a phone call from prison in an upcoming Peacock documentary.

Serial killer Charles Manson confessed to murders before he became the leader of the notorious Manson Family cult, chilling new audio from a prison phone call reveals.

Theres a whole part of my life that nobody knows about, Manson, who died in 2017, says in a phone call from prison in a short teaser clip from Peacocks upcoming docuseries Making Manson.

I lived in Mexico for a while. I went to Acapulco, stole some cars, he continues in his chillingly calm voice.

Charles Manson confessed to murdering other people before the infamous Manson Family killings.

I just got involved in stuff over my head, man. Got involved in a couple of killings. I left my .357 Magnum in Mexico City, and I left some dead people on the beach, he said.

Manson spent more than 45 years in prison after he was convicted of directing his Manson Family clan of troubled, mostly female followers to kill at least seven people in California in the summer of 1969.

The dead included actress Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski, who was stabbed 16 times.

The cult leader did not commit the murders himself, but rather convinced his followers to kill.

The new three-part docuseries dives deep into 20 years worth of never-before-aired conversations in which Manson talks about his childhood, life of crime and his time as a commune and cult leader from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, according to Peacock.

Before the notorious slayings, Manson spent much of his teenage and early adult life in and out of institutions and prisons for various crimes, including rape and theft.

Manson revealed the past killings in a phone call from prison. Peacock

Manson said he left people dead on the beach in Mexico. Peacock

At a parole hearing in 2012, it was revealed that Manson had coldly told one of his prison psychologists: Im special. Im not like the average inmate. I have spent my life in prison. I have put five people in the grave. I am a very dangerous man.

I am crime, Manson proudly proclaimed during a collect call to The Post from prison in the mid-2000s.

His parole was denied.

The teaser trailer reveals part of an interview with Mansons former cellmate Phil Kaufman, who described what it was like to live with the killer.

Manson died in prison in 2017 at the age of 83. AP

Charlie was very good at being evil and not showing it, he revealed. Anything that detracted him from his game plan at that time, he would squash it, but he did it with velvet gloves.

In the decades since the murders, Manson has become an icon for troubled youth and a fixture in pop culture.

He died from natural causes behind bars in November 2017 at the age of 83.

The docuseries premiered on the streaming platform on Nov. 19.
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A 46-year-old double murder in Massachusetts has had its first break in decades.

Police have made an arrest in the West Springfield murders of 18-year-old Theresa Marcoux and 20-year-old Mark Harnish, who were found shot to death at a rest stop on the morning of Nov. 19, 1978. They were last seen alive at a friend's party two days before they were found.

Among the little evidence police found at the scene: a single fingerprint.

That fingerprint turned out to be one of the keys that led police to arrest Timothy Joley at his home in Clearwater, Florida, on Oct. 30, Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni announced on Wednesday.

Joley, 71, was being held without bond on two murder counts in Florida's Pinellas County Jail and will be brought to Massachusetts in the coming weeks to face the charges.

No attorney was listed for Joley in court records. USA TODAY left a message at his home phone number.

Here's what you need to know about the cold case that devastated the lives of two families.

A newspaper clipping from the now defunct Holyoke Transcript-Telegram about the homicide of Theresa Marcoux and Mark Harnish on Nov. 19, 1978 in West Springfield, Massachusetts. This clipping was published on Nov. 20, 1978.

The importance of a single fingerprint

West Springfield Police Department and Massachusetts State Police never recovered a gun from the rest stop where Marcoux and Harnish were found. They concluded that the couple had been shot inside their 1967 green Dodge pickup truck, which remained at the scene, and that their bodies had been taken to a concrete retaining wall.

The only key piece of information investigators had was one latent fingerprint on the passenger vent window of the pickup truck, Gulluni said. The fingerprint did not belong to Marcoux or Harnish and for years, investigators were unable to find a match.

That was until recently, when the Hampden District Attorneys Office got a tip from someone who provided Joley's name. Investigators found that Joley lived in West Springfield, Massachusetts, in November 1978, was a licensed gun owner and had bought a gun one month before the murders.

Two investigators with "extensive fingerprint experience" each concluded that the fingerprint found on the truck originated from Joley's left thumb, Gulluni said.

The Springfield District Court issued a two-count murder complaint and arrest warrant on Oct. 29 and Joley was arrested on Oct. 30.

As of Wednesday, Gulluni said investigators are unaware of a motive or relationship between Joley and victims. When asked whether Joley had any previous criminal charges, Gulluni said, "nothing of any real significance."

The 1967 Dodge pickup truck found near Theresa Marcoux and Mark Harnish's bodies in West Springfield, Massachusetts on Nov. 19, 1978. The truck was determined to be Harnish's.

Who were Theresa Marcoux and Mark Harnish?

Theresa Marcoux was murdered at the age of 18 in West Springfield, Massachusetts on Nov. 19, 1978.

Marcoux and Harnish both attended but did not graduate from East Longmeadow High School in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, according to 1978 reporting from the North Adams Transcript.

"Theresa ... was described as someone who loved to laugh and always had a smile on her face. Before her death, Theresa was working at a local hardware store as a clerk in their pet department," Gulluni said on Wednesday. "Mark ... was known as a quiet, polite young man who had been working at a car repair shop in town."

Mark Harnish was murdered at the age of 20 in West Springfield, Massachusetts on Nov. 19, 1978.

Investigators believe the pair had been living out of the 1967 green Dodge pickup truck, which was determined to be Harnish's.

Gulluni addressed the extended surviving family of Marcoux and Harnish at the news conference. (Their parents are no longer alive.)

"I admire and respect you for your patience, resolve and the faith that I know you've maintained over these many years," Gulluni said. "While we may have crossed a hill today and we can see justice, there are many more uphill battles ahead."

Greta Cross is a national trending reporter at USA TODAY. Follow her on X and Instagram @gretalcross. Story idea? Email her at gcross@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Cold case: Florida man arrested in 1978 Massachusetts double murder
WASHINGTON  A partisan standoff appears to be brewing over whether a House Ethics Committee report will be released before the Senate considers President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Matt Gaetz for U.S. attorney general.

Gaetz, who resigned Wednesday shortly after his nomination, has been the subject of a three-year investigation by the panel over allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, accepting improper gifts and giving out special favors to individuals with whom he had relationships.

The House Ethics Committee, which expanded its probe in June to include additional allegations, was to decide on Friday whether to release its report, but his resignation effectively ended the investigation.

On Thursday morning, the panel's chairman, Michael Guest, R-Miss., told reporters as he left the floor that he did not plan to make the document public.

What happens in Ethics is confidential. We're going to maintain that confidentiality, he said, according to a report in Politico. Ive given my statement yesterday and theres nothing new that has changed from then until now.

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz uses a microphone as Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump campaigns at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S. August 12, 2023.

Guest declined further comment when asked if he was even allowed to release the report if Gaetz was no longer a lawmaker.

Calls for the Gaetz report to be shared with other lawmakers escalated on Thursday when Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who also serves as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a statement called on the House panel to "preserve and share" its work.

More: 'The Hammer of Justice is coming:' Elon Musk defends Matt Gaetz

"The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetzs resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report," Durbin said. "We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people."

Durbin added: "Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetzs confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States and our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent.

Gaetz was previously under investigation by the Justice Department for allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel with him. The DOJ ended the investigation in February 2023 and did not bring charges against Gaetz.

More: 5 takeaways from Donald Trump's surprise pick of Matt Gaetz for attorney general

Trump's Gaetz nomination as AG sent shockwaves through Washington, stunning Democrats and Republicans alike. Gaetz, an attorney and hardline MAGA loyalist, has no experience as a prosecutor. The firebrand Republican has been a vocal critic of the Justice Department from his seat on the House Judiciary Committee, accusing Attorney General Merrick Garland of "weaponizing" the department by prosecuting Trump.

In nominating Gaetz to head up the Justice Department, Trump  who in 2023 was indicted in four separate criminal cases  said "few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System." Trump pleaded not guilty in all four cases and was convicted in one of them after a trial. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump vowed retribution against his political enemies.

Senate Republicans say the facts on Gaetz investigation will come out

The Senate Judiciary Committee has the power to subpoena the Gaetz report. While House Republicans, led by Guest, moved to keep the report confidential, Senate Republicans vowed the details will come out eventually.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who serves on the committee that will have oversight over Gaetz's nomination, told reporters Thursday: "I don't see any relevant information that should be withheld."

"We also have the resources of the FBI to do a background investigation. So one way or another, around here, the facts ultimately come out," he said. "I think it's in the president's best interest that he not be surprised and we should be fully informed of what the facts are."

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, agreed. "I am confident that whatever the information and findings are of the House Ethics Committee will eventually be brought out either through the FBI background investigation or the committee's scrutiny of the nominee or through questioning at the hearings."

It's unclear whether Gaetz has the votes for Senate confirmation as attorney general even in a new Republican-controlled Senate. However, Republican senators might be reluctant to push back at Trump's pick following his decisive election victory.

Durbin next year will lose his power, along with all Democrats, and it'll be the GOP-led Senate that handles Gaetz's confirmation hearing with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, expected to lead the chamber's Judiciary Committee.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin speaks during a hearing on Gun Conversion Devices at the US Capitol on November 13, 2024 in Washington, DC.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday he asked Gaetz for his reasoning for stepping down from his post, and he cited state law that outlines "an eight-week period to select and fill a vacant seat."

"If you start the clock now, if you do the math, we may be able to fill that seat as early as Jan. 3 when we take the new oath of office for the new Congress," Johnson said.

Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., a member of the House Judicial Committee, on Thursday demanded the Ethics Committee "come forward and transparently show us what they found, and then let the chips fall where they may."

"A takeaway from these appointments is that President-elect Trump is rewarding loyalty," Dean said in an interview on CNN. "It is open corruption. We saw in the first administration of Mr. Trump. He tried to surround himself, and he did surround himself with very credible Republicans to work with him, most of whom got fired, dismissed or quit. This time around, he's just going with loyalists."

Contributing: Bart Jansen and David Jackson. Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly Twitter, @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Democrats, GOP clash over release of Matt Gaetz ethics investigation
FILE - Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, left, and Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump attend a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

In picking billionaire Elon Musk to be our cost cutter for the U.S. government, President-elect Donald Trump won't be the first American president to empower a business tycoon to look for ways to dramatically cut federal regulations.

President Ronald Reagan tapped J. Peter Grace to lead a bureaucratic cost-cutting commission in 1982. Still, the chemical business magnate had fewer conflicts of interest than the world's richest man does today.

Musk's SpaceX holds billions of dollars in NASA contracts. He's CEO of Tesla, an electric car business that benefits from government tax incentives and is subject to auto safety rules. His social media platform X, artificial intelligence startup xAI, brain implant maker Neuralink and tunnel-building Boring company all intersect with the federal government in various ways.

Theres direct conflicts between his businesses and governments interest, said Ann Skeet, director of leadership ethics at Santa Clara University's Markkula Center. Hes now in a position to try and curry favor for those enterprises.

Musk is also more influential, having pumped an estimated $200 million through his political action committee to help elect Trump, made himself a fixture at Mar-a-Lago since the presidential election and is on regular speaking terms with like-minded political world leaders, from Argentinas President Javier Milei to Italys Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Trump has said Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE,  a joke name that references the cryptocurrency Dogecoin and appeals to Musk's sense of humor.

We finally have a mandate to delete the mountain of choking regulations that do not serve the greater good, Musk said Wednesday on X.

Trump has said that Musk and Ramaswamy will work from outside the government to offer the White House advice and guidance and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to drive structural reform  some of which could only be done through Congress.

"If its a commission, its outside the government and Musk could not have a White House office or official government title, said Richard Painter, a White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration. Then, the president takes the advice or doesnt.

If it were a true government agency, however, Musk would run afoul of federal conflict of interest laws unless he divested from his businesses or recused from government matters involving them, Painter said.

Trump could grant a rare waiver exempting Musk from those laws, a move that has been politically unpopular in the past, Painter said.

Tesla, SpaceX and X didnt immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday about whether Musk would recuse himself. The Trump transition team also didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

However it is structured, Musk's ideas are expected to have an influence.

Regulating auto safety

Tesla, the electric vehicle company that made Musk the worlds wealthiest person, has had repeated skirmishes with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which regulates vehicle safety. So any cuts to NHTSA funding or staffing could help Tesla.

The agency has forced Tesla to do recalls it didnt want, and it has opened investigations of Tesla vehicles, some of which raised questions about Musks claims that Tesla is close to deploying autonomous vehicles without human drivers. The agency also is working on regulations that cover vehicle automation.

Auto safety advocates are worried that a Department of Government Efficiency co-chaired by Musk could propose draconian cuts at NHTSA.

That could be incredibly problematic because that would impact every rule-making from all of the agencies that currently oversee companies that Musk owns, said Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, a watchdog group.

If implemented, Musks plan for efficiency at NHTSA could mirror what he did when he took over Twitter  draconian staff cuts, said Missy Cummings, director of the autonomy and robotics center at George Mason University and a former safety adviser to NHTSA.

While Cummings concedes there is room for much of the federal government to become more efficient, she said that NHTSA is already understaffed and she predicted that Musk would try to slow or stop NHTSA investigations or handicap the agency so it would have trouble enforcing regulations.

It would just leave it as a shell of the agency that it was, she said. Their whole job would be to put out commercials reminding people to just wear their seat belts.

Space exploration

Launching test flights out of South Texas, SpaceXs mega rocket Starship is how NASA intends to land astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than a half-century. NASA has awarded more than $4 billion to SpaceX for the first two human moon landings coming up later this decade under the Artemis program. Musk has been at odds with the Federal Aviation Administration for slowing Starship over what he contends is excessive bureaucracy.

SpaceX also has racked up multiple contracts with NASA over the past decade for launching supplies and astronauts to the International Space Station. The contracts for crew flights alone from 2020 through 2030 total $5 billion.

More recently, in June, NASA awarded an $843 million contract to SpaceX to provide the vehicle for deorbiting the International Space Station at the end of its lifetime in early 2031, directing it to a fiery re-entry over the Pacific.

SpaceX also has multiple contracts with the Defense Department, some classified and said to be worth billions. In addition, the Pentagon has purchased internet services in Ukraine from SpaceXs Starlink constellation. The militarized version of Starlink is called Starshield.

Social media and AI

The social media platform X is another Musk company that has drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The Federal Trade Commission has probed Musks handling of sensitive consumer data after he took control of the company in 2022 but has not brought enforcement action. The SEC has an ongoing investigation of Musks purchase of the social media company.

Musk has been forceful with his political views on the platform, changing its rules, content moderation systems and algorithms to conform with his world view. After Musk endorsed Trump following an attempt on the former presidents life last summer, the platform has transformed into a megaphone for Trumps campaign, offering an unprecedented level of free advertising that is all but impossible to calculate the value of.

Musk's strong interest in AI is also likely to play a role. He's in the process of building an AI supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee, for his AI startup xAI.

But environmental groups have raised concerns about pollution generated by the facility's gas turbines and its strain on the local power grid, prompting attention from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The facility is located near predominantly Black neighborhoods that have long dealt with pollution and health risks from factories and other industrial sites.

_____

AP reporter Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, and AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral, Florida, contributed to this report.
FILE - The Biogen Inc., headquarters is pictured on March 11, 2020, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

A European regulatory committee now recommends approval of the Alzheimers treatment lecanemab a few months after rejecting the drug.

Biogen said Thursday that the drug, known in the U.S. as Leqembi, received a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agencys Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use as a treatment for early Alzheimers disease.

The European Commission is now expected to make a marketing authorization decision in the next few months.

The committee had said in July that concerns about the drugs potential side effects outweigh the impact it has in slowing the fatal, mind-robbing disease. But Japanese drugmaker Eisai asked the committee to reconsider its decision.

Eisai developed Leqembi and is co-marketing it with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Biogen Inc.

Leqembi clears a sticky brain plaque linked to the disease. A large study has shown that it slowed memory and thinking decline by several months in those who received the treatment compared to those who got a dummy drug.

It also can cause brain swelling and bleeding, side effects that can be dangerous in rare cases.

The drug received full approval last year from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Regulators in several other countries also have approved it.

The FDA also approved in July a competing drug from Eli Lilly and Co.
After 24 senior suitors, Joan Vassos has found her one man on "The Golden Bachelorette."

More than that, the beautiful widow from Maryland received a fairytale proposal from a bended knee on a breathtaking Bora Bora beach (the luxury Conrad Bora Bora Nui resort) to cap off Wednesday's finale.

After the heartbreak of the Nov. 6 Fantasy Suites episode, it came down to two men vying for the 61-year-old bachelorette  Guy, 66, an emergency medicine physician from Reno, Nevada, and Chock, 60, an insurance executive from Wichita, Kansas.

"In every 'Bachelor' ending, there's a twist," Joan told USA TODAY before the finale. "There are tears and emotion. But there are happy tears, too."

So, who was the lucky guy?

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Road to the final two: Pascal left Joan's 'Golden Bachelorette' because he was 'the chosen one'

Who won 'The Golden Bachelorette'? Chock this up to persistence

Of course, it was Chock! Just one syllable, like Joan, or "Duh!"

Joan and Chock, as a couple, have been so obvious for so long. So much so that Guy was toast after Joan and her grown kids met with Chock in Bora Bora.

Before his fateful final meeting with Joan, Guy was happy as a bachelor in paradise, not fazed at all about getting caught in a sudden rainstorm earlier. (That's totally not a bad sign, he chirps to the mirror.)

But as Joan walks into his room, it's all tense without pretense. "Can we talk for a little bit?" Joan says, cutting straight to the chase as they sit down. "I'm here to tell you that my heart belongs to somebody else." Tough move, but well-handled.

Stunned and speechless, Guy cries into Joan's shoulder, feebly asking if she might change her mind. Nope.

The two walk out into the perfect cinematic rainstorm  and Guy continues to weep in the rain like he's auditioning for Ryan Gosling's role in "The Notebook" sequel. Joan throws open her umbrella and walks away.

Chock wins Joan's kids over in 'Golden Bachelorette' finale

Chock and Joan kiss on "The Golden Bachelorette." They are engaged with no wedding date set.

Chock, a widower who lost his fiancee Cathy to cancer in 2022, sails through meeting with Joan's four grown kids: Nicholas, Erica, Allison, and Luke.

Chock assures Joan's son, Nick, that it's not his intention to replace their father, John, who died from pancreatic cancer in 2021. "I'm just here to make your mom happy," Chock said earnestly.

It works on Nick, and Chock goes from stranger to getting the marital thumbs up.

Meeting with Joan afterward, Chock unleashes his love and lets her know he's fixing to propose  all sealed with a barrage of "I love you" declarations.

Joan cries tears of joy but doesn't say "I love you" back!

Chock is on the rack, even though he must know it's all about building up some kind of suspense. Joan has to throw Guy overboard first. And in true Bachelor Nation fashion, she'll try to wring out every ounce of drama to keep us through the commercial breaks.

Chock brought the bling with the engagement ring.

How did Chock propose to Joan?

On his way to his Golden Bachelorette, Chock looks at the Neil Lane engagement ring for Joan on the boat ride. Like an exquisite sea goddess, Joan is waiting at the sand-filled end of the paradise's open cathedral surrounded by turquoise water.

"I have a question for you. I've been waiting forever to do this," says Chock, getting down on one knee while opening his box of bling. "Joan, will you marry me?"

"Of course, I'll marry you," Joan responds giddily.

But first, Joan offers Chock the symbolic gold rose.

"I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you," she says. "Will you accept this final rose?"

Now it's his turn to say, "Of course."

"We're engaged," the couple happily tells the camera.

Chock proposes to Joan in "The Golden Bachelorette" finale.

What are the engagement ring details? It's a bling beast!

Chock comes packing heat with a handmade emerald-cut diamond platinum ring set with two tapered diamond baguettes. The Neil Lane original came with 56 round brilliant cut diamonds. The approximate total weight of all diamonds is 4 carats.

No one is going to deny that bad bling boy. Longtime Bachelor Nation designer Lane didn't get his moment of glory on the finale, but he was in the studio audience.

When will Joan and Chock get married?

In "After the Rose" of this season of "The Golden Bachelorette," Joan and Chock reunite. The two reveal they've spent some months secluded in Kansas, and now they can finally be out and about together.

Chock keeps his hand on Joan's knee with her hands on top. They are, as Joan's mother says, a "nice-looking couple."

An insurance executive from Wichita, Kansas, named Chock might be the most boring sentence in the English language, but Chock gets very romantic in the beach proposal.

In last year's "The Golden Bachelor," Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist announced they would get married immediately in a TV ceremony. But that primetime-reality marriage ended in divorce 100 days later. This time, there is no talk of setting the date, no plans for a reality show wedding, and no drama (Remember what happened in the last season of "The Bachelorette"?).

Host Jesse Palmer didn't even ask about the couple's future. Not one question. Will Joan leave her Maryland family to be with Chock, or will Chock leave his family in Wichita? Or can it be neither?

Both families are awarded a trip to Florida's Disney World, which will have to do.

Joan tells seniors and everyone watching at home to keep hope. "Everybody deserves to have love and give love," she says. "Take the leap of faith, find your person."

How did Guy feel about losing 'Golden Bachelorette'?

Guy seems OK during the "After the Final Rose" discussion, working up a white-toothed smile and looking tan (maybe a little too tan, but that might be the look these days).

"I thought I was the guy," he says ruefully before adding that when it comes to finding love, he knows he "can do it again."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Golden Bachelorette' finale: Chock and Joan Vassos get engaged
Halle Berry is throwing it back to the night she made Hollywood history 22 years ago.

On Wednesday night, the "Catwoman" actress made a surprise appearance in Saudi Arabia during the 1001 Seasons of Elie Saab runway show in Riyadh, which celebrated 45 years of the Lebanese designer's creations. During the show, she strutted down the catwalk in the iconic red Saab gown with a sheer bodice that she wore to the 2002 Academy Awards, where she became the first Black woman to take home the best actress Oscar.

After the announcer shared the backstory of her dress, Berry arrived at the end of the runway and patted her hand over her heart, seemingly moved by the moment as wind blew through the train, causing the satin fabric to billow behind her.

Halle Berry dons the Elie Saab gown she wore when making Academy Awards history as the first Black woman to win a best actress Oscar at the 1001 Seasons of Elie Saab fashion show.

Berry shared a video from her runway appearance on Instagram and added a message about what the moment meant.

"There are some moments in life that just happen and they change our lives forever! Winning an Academy Award in my @eliesaabworld gown was one of those moments for me!" she captioned the post. "Thank you Mr. Saab for being a part of the tapestry of my life as we have been inextricably connected for 22 years now! It was my honor to celebrate you and your 1001 Seasons. Heres wishing you many more glorious years of joy, creativity and glamour!"

Berry reportedly revealed that Wednesday was her first time meeting Saab, despite the role he played in her career.

Since becoming an iconic fashion moment at the Oscars, Berry's gown at one point was on display alongside other historic sartorial pieces from the Oscars at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

Jennifer Lopez, Celine Dion and Camilla Cabello perform at Elie Saab show

During the 1001 Seasons of Elie Saab event, Jennifer Lopez, Celine Dion and Camilla Cabello also graced the stage and performed their biggest hits.

Canadian singer Celine Dion performs during the 1001 Seasons of Elie Saab fashion show celebrating the fashion designer's 45-year fashion career in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Nov. 13, 2024.

Lopez, donning a high-cut silver bodysuit with a plunging neckline, was joined by a cadre of backup dancers as she performed "Let's Get Loud," "On The Floor" and "Una Noche Mas."

Wearing a sparkly pink mini-dress with a side train and matching thigh-high boots, Cabello sang "Never Be the Same," "Havana," "Shameless" and "Senorita."

To close out the show Dion  who is battling the rare neurological disorder stiff person syndrome  arrived on stage in a glittery, sheer cape and matching dress from Saab to belt out "The Power Of Love" and "I'm Alive."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Halle Berry re-wears iconic Elie Saab gown from 2002 Oscars
It has a secret ingredient that makes it irresistible.

Simply Recipes / Getty Images

Jeff Goldblum is a wholesome national treasure. I thought he was pretty cool when I gleefully watched Jurassic Park as a kid, but recently he stole my heart when I saw him giddily rave about sandwiches on Reddit. He wrote, Oooooooooh. SANDWICH. OH MY GOSH. Oh my gosh. I love sandwiches. Then he listed three of his favorite sandwiches, one of which caught my eye: ...turkey and Swiss [cheese] with Russian dressing."

Making Goldblums four-ingredient turkey sandwich drenched in Russian dressing was a cinch. And gosh, it was so delicious! I usually prefer prosciutto or ham in my sandwiches because they have more flavor. However, the turkey deli slices worked perfectly here as a backdrop to the more dominant flavors of the cheese and the dressing.

What Exactly Is Russian Dressing?

Although I grew up in South Brooklyn, fully immersed in Russian American culture thanks to having Russian friends and coworkers, I had no idea what the heck Russian dressing was.

As it turns out, Russian dressing, often confused with Thousand Island dressing, is an American creation. In the past, it may have included caviar, a Russian staple. These days, it is ketchup and mayonnaise-based. Sometimes, it also includes chili, herbs, horseradish, and spices, and I can see why people confuse it with Thousand Island dressingthe two are very similar in color, texture, and taste. The key difference is that Russian dressing tends to carry a bit of heat and spice, whereas Thousand Island dressing is sweeter.

If you buy Russian dressing from the supermarket, it often comes red, almost like a thinner ketchup, without mayonnaise. I bought Wish-Bone Russian dressing, though you can also find creamy versions from lesser-known brands. If you make your Russian dressing at home, however, don't skip the mayonnaise, as it adds a nice creaminess. Once you have gathered your ingredients, Goldblums sandwich comes together in a minute or two.

Simply Recipes / Kat Lieu

How To Prepare Jeff Goldblum's Turkey Sandwich

Atop a slice of sourdough bread, I added a slice of Swiss cheese, a slice of turkey, then another slice of cheese, and a final slice of turkey. You can fold the turkey slices if you like. I slathered a generous teaspoon of Russian dressing over the turkey and completed the sandwich with a second slice of bread.

One bite, and I raised my eyebrows, quickly going for a second. The sandwich was refreshing, thanks to the sweet, spicy tang from the dressing, the saltiness of the turkey, and the nutty, slightly buttery flavor of the Swiss cheese. Oooooooooh. SANDWICH. OH MY GOSH, indeed! My family and I now have another favorite sandwich in our lunch rotation.

As a recipe developer and cookbook author, I had to add my spin to this sandwich. I had ripe avocados in my pantry, so I added slices of avocado to the sandwich for color, fiber, and creaminess. And since Wish-Bones Russian dressing is not creamy, I mixed in some Kewpie mayo.

Other ways to elevate the sandwich include toasting the bread first, buttering the bread, or turning the entire sandwich into a panini or grilled cheese. For those who love greens, feel free to add some lettuce or baby kale to the sandwich. And, playing up the spice in the Russian dressing, a drizzle of chili crisp or a squirt of sriracha would do wonders, too.
Olivier Collet | Unsplash

(The Center Square)  A federal judge is giving New Hampshire more time to end its practice of 'boarding' mental health patients in emergency departments for extended periods while they wait for beds in mental health facilities.

The decision by U.S. District Court Judge Landya B. McCafferty is the latest extension of an order she issued last year requiring the state to end the practice by May 2024. Her initial ruling held that psychiatric patients shouldn't spend more than six hours in the emergency room before getting into treatment. McCafferty has given the state several extensions to implement the changes.

The ruling stems from a legal challenge by the New Hampshire Hospital Association, which intervened in a 2018 class-action lawsuit over the boarding issue, arguing that they were being forced to hold involuntarily committed patients and provide them with board, medical care and security. The association has agreed to the latest extension of McCafferty's order, citing ongoing progress by the state.

In light of the progress achieved and the work that continues, as well as our belief that the ED boarding crisis must end in order to provide our patients and their families with the care they need and deserve when in acute psychiatric crisis, we agreed to an extension of the compliance deadline into next year, Steve Ahnen, the associations president, said in a statement.

Mental health advocates say a shortage of beds in state-run facilities means that patients are often "boarded" in emergency rooms in private hospitals for weeks  even months  as they wait for an opening.

Under New Hampshire law, patients are already required to have a court hearing on their commitment within three days. However, the state Department of Health and Human Services has argued that that requirement meant the three-day period kicked in once patients were checked into a psychiatric facility.

A 2018 lawsuit filed in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire argued that the practice of involuntarily detaining people who may be experiencing mental health crises in hospital emergency rooms violates their civil rights.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling three years later that psychiatric patients who are involuntarily held in New Hampshire as a result of a mental health crisis are entitled to due process, including a speedy court hearing. The ruling, which survived an appeal, requires the state to hold court hearings for mental health patients within three days of being involuntarily committed for evaluation.

The state Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner rolled out a plan to tackle the boarding issue earlier this year, called Mission Zero, which seeks to address the roots of the problem by creating more inpatient beds in psychiatric facilities, improving community-based mental health services, and building more housing for people struggling with mental illness.

Despite the state's progress, psychiatric patients are still being boarded in hospital emergency rooms. As of Oct. 15, there were an average of 27 patients awaiting beds in state facilities, according to state data.
Police at a news conference Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024 ask for help identifying a second person who may be connected to several north Houston sexual assaults reported from August to November. John Lomax/Staff writer

Police have arrested a man who they allege is responsible for two of five sexual assaults recently reported at several north Houston apartment complexes, Houston Police Department officials announced in a Wednesday news conference.

Denzeill Sneed, 29, was arrested Wednesday in Acres Homes. Cmdr. Elizabeth Lorenzana with HPD's Special Victims Division said Sneed has been charged with burglary with intent to commit sexual assault in connection to a case reported Aug. 14 at 5454 West Gulf Bank Road, and aggravated sexual assault in another case reported Nov. 8 at 3434 West Little York Road.

Sneed appeared in court early Thursday for a probable cause hearing where his bail was set at $100,000 for both cases, according to court documents. He was expected to appear in front of a judge Friday morning in the 178th Criminal District Court.

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Lorenzana said investigators now believe a second person, who has not been identified, may be responsible for the other three assaults, which occurred in a similar time frame and around the same area.

"We have uncovered evidence, with the assistance of our partners at the FBI, pointing to the likelihood of a second suspect in the three incidents that occurred in October," Lorenzana said. "This new information is a critical focus for our team, and we are dedicating additional resources to explore all needs thoroughly. Our investigators are actively gathering evidence and following up on every available detail."

Police said they have increased their patrol presence in the area where the assaults were reported. Lorenzana advised residents in the area to take extra safety precautions while the second suspect is still at large.

"(Residents should be) locking their doors, walking with confidence and staying aware of their surroundings," Lorenzana said. "If somebody knocks on your door, be aware of who's on the other side before you open it."

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Sneed's arrest was the product of a collaborative effort between HPD's Gang Division and North Division's Crime Suppression Team. Sneed is a known gang affiliate, Lorenzana said, although she declined to name a specific gang or criminal organization. Police said the alleged victims in the three cases reported in October did not select Sneed from a photo array, leading them to believe there could be a second person connected to other sexual assaults.

Police said Sneed is the person identified through surveillance footage published in a Nov. 8 HPD news release. Investigators believe the second person is the individual wearing a ski mask in the still images published in the same release.

"Our belief is there might be other victims who have not reported sexual assaults for any number of reasons. We ask any victim to please call us," Lorenzana said. "Finally, we extend our deepest support to the survivors in these incidents. We recognize the courage it takes to come forward, and our priority is to ensure their safety and to seek justice."

Police are asking that anyone who was attacked contact HPD's Special Victims Division at 713-308-1180. Residents can also reach out to Crime Stoppers Houston at 713-222-TIPS to submit an anonymous report. Crime Stoppers announced in a Friday release that the organization may offer up to a $5,000 reward for information that leads an arrest.

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Key witnesses for Menendez brothers re-sentencing hearing are prison employees: report

The star witnesses in Erik and Lyle Menendezs upcoming re-sentencing hearing are two people who work inside their prison, according to a report.

The brothers attorney, Mark Geragos, is set to call six key witnesses to the stand at their hearing, set to take place Dec. 11, TMZ reports.

All six are employed by the California Department of Corrections, including two correctional officers, one education officer, a prison guard, a correctional lieutenant and another employee.

The star witnesses in Erik and Lyle Menendezs upcoming re-sentencing hearing are two people who work inside their prison, according to a report. ASSOCIATED PRESS

All staffers have had encounters with the brothers, who have been locked up for more than 30 years, and will testify that they have been changed significantly since being handed a life sentence at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility back in 1996, the outlet said.

In supporting evidence, Geragos has included a letter supporting the brothers release from prison. The letter was written by several relatives of their deceased parents.

He will also be vying to change their convictions from murder to manslaughter.

The Menendez brothers, now in their 50s, will not be physically present for the hearing, but will tune in via video link from prison, the outlet adds.

The Post has reached out to reps for the Menendez brothers for comment.

The Menendez brothers, now in their 50s, will not be physically present for the hearing, but will tune in via video link from prison. AP

The two brothers were sentenced to life without parole in 1996 for the brutal killings of their parents in 1989. ASSOCIATED PRESS

It comes as Los Angeles County district attorney George Gascon announced last month that his office was recommending the two brothers should be eligible for parole.

He proclaimed the highly-publicized parent killers had paid their debt to society and were no longer a threat to society.

If a judge agrees with Gascons recommendation next month, the brothers would immediately be eligible for parole under Californias youthful offender law if re-sentenced.

The Menendez brothers were handed a life sentence at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility back in 1996. APEX / MEGA

The two brothers were sentenced to life without parole in 1996 for the brutal killings of their parents, Jose and Kitty, in 1989.

Erik and Lyle, who were then 21 and 18, respectively, murdered the pair with a shotgun while they were watching TV at their Beverly Hills mansion.

The highly publicized trial that followed made them household names.

The attorneys argued at trial that they had acted in self-defense following years of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of their father, with testimony supporting the accusations from other family members.

Prosecutors argued they were after their parents $15 million fortune. The trial ended in a hung jury in 1994.

Erik and Lyle, who were then 21 and 18, respectively, murdered their parents while they were watching TV at their Beverly Hills mansion.

A second trial in 1995 ended with both brothers convictions on two counts of first-degree murder.

The case has largely fallen out of the spotlight during their prison sentence, but a recent Netflix series, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, brought renewed interest into the case.
xbrchx/istockphoto

These Are the Safest Countries in Europe

Whenever planning a vacation or a move abroad, safety is usually the top concern for both travelers and expats. When you venture into a foreign country there is a lot of unknown that raises legitimate safety and wellbeing concerns. To ease these fears, its best to know what are the safest places to go to.

To start off the year right, we looked at a recent report from Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection that identified the safest countries in the world to travel in 2024, using a methodology that focuses on traveler surveys about destinations and safety perceptions.

Ridofranz / Getty Images

Most of the top 15 safest countries in the world are in Europe:

Respondents evaluate the safety of countries theyve visited in the last five years. The company then enriches these evaluations with the Global Peace Index, State Department safety ratings, and average GeoSure Global scores for major cities. Finally, they calculate a weighted score to represent each countrys overall safety, combining traveler feedback with established safety indices.

Switzerland tops the list of the safest countries in Europe in 2024, followed by Norway and Ireland. The top countries boast a high standard of living, strong human rights, and robust welfare and healthcare systems that underline a healthy, safe society.

What are the safest countries in Europe in 2024?

Xantana / istockphoto

1. Switzerland

Known for its neutrality and political stability, Switzerland is one of the safest countries in Europe. It offers a high degree of freedom of movement, both internally and in relation to its neighboring countries due to its Schengen Area membership.

Switzerland prides itself on high standards of living and a strong commitment to human rights, although issues of discrimination can still be present, particularly towards non-native residents. The overall quality of life is excellent, with a focus on environmental preservation, healthcare, and education.

olegmj / istockphoto

2. Norway

Norway is consistently ranked as one of the safest and most peaceful countries in the world. It offers extensive freedom of movement and a strong legal framework supporting equality and anti-discrimination.

Norwegians enjoy a high quality of life, benefiting from excellent healthcare, education, and a robust welfare system. The countrys approach to social equality and environmental sustainability also contributes to its high living standards.

DepositPhotos.com

3. Ireland

Ireland is generally a safe country with low crime rates. It offers significant freedom of movement and has made substantial progress in protecting rights and combating discrimination, particularly in terms of LGBTQ+ rights.

Irelands quality of life is high, with access to quality healthcare and education. However, it faces challenges like housing shortages and healthcare system pressures.

f11photo / iStock

4. Netherlands

The Netherlands is known for its high levels of safety and social tolerance. It has a strong record on freedom of movement, anti-discrimination laws, and human rights protection.

The Dutch enjoy a high standard of living, with excellent infrastructure, healthcare, and education systems. The country is particularly progressive in terms of social policies and environmental sustainability.

Arsty/iStock

5. United Kingdom

The UK generally offers a safe environment, though some urban areas can experience higher crime rates. It provides substantial freedom of movement, although Brexit has impacted this with regards to EU countries.

The UK has strong anti-discrimination laws, but issues related to racial and social inequality persist. The quality of life is generally high, with access to healthcare (NHS) and a well-established education system.

Saiko3p / iStock

6. Portugal

Portugal is a safe country with low crime rates. It offers good freedom of movement within the Schengen Area and has made significant strides in promoting equality and anti-discrimination.

The quality of life in Portugal is generally high, with a focus on healthcare, education, and a growing economy. The cost of living is relatively low compared to other Western European countries.

Istock-dk / iStock

7. Denmark

Denmark ranks high in safety, and its residents enjoy a high degree of freedom of movement. The country is known for its strong welfare state, progressive policies, and efforts to combat discrimination and promote equality.

Danes benefit from an excellent quality of life, which includes access to high-quality healthcare, education, and a strong focus on work-life balance.

RUBEN RAMOS/istockphoto

8. Iceland

Iceland is one of the safest countries in the world, with extremely low crime rates. It offers great freedom of movement and is progressive in terms of gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights.

Icelanders enjoy a high quality of life, with a focus on environmental sustainability, healthcare, and education.

laraslk/iStock

9. France

France offers a high level of safety, though some urban areas can experience higher crime rates. It has strong policies on freedom of movement as part of the Schengen Area.

France is committed to equality and anti-discrimination, though challenges remain. The quality of life is high, with access to excellent healthcare, education, and a rich cultural heritage.

iStock/Vunav V

10. Spain

Spain is a relatively safe country with freedom of movement within the Schengen Area. It has made significant progress in terms of equality and anti-discrimination, particularly in LGBTQ+ rights.

The quality of life in Spain is generally high, with a focus on healthcare, education, and a laid-back lifestyle. However, economic challenges and unemployment rates can be concerns in some regions.

DepositPhotos.com

Top safety concerns when traveling and living abroad

Traveling to a foreign country often means encountering different languages, customs, laws, and environments. This unfamiliarity can make travelers feel vulnerable to risks like getting lost, facing communication barriers, or inadvertently breaking local laws.

Issues like theft, scams, or assault are big concerns for travelers and expats. They often seek information on how to keep themselves and their belongings safe while abroad.

They may be exposed to health risks not prevalent in their home country. These include tropical diseases, food and water safety issues, and inadequate healthcare facilities or services in certain destinations.

Concerns about crime rates, terrorism, political unrest, or civil disturbances are significant. Travelers want to ensure they are not putting themselves in harms way by traveling to areas with high crime rates or political instability.

Certain regions are more prone to natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, or wildfires. Travelers often seek to understand these risks to avoid being caught in dangerous situations.

The availability and quality of emergency services and infrastructure (such as roads, hospitals, and emergency response systems) vary significantly between countries. Travelers may be concerned about how well-equipped a destination is to handle emergencies.

Every country has its own set of cultural norms and legal regulations. Travelers often worry about inadvertently offending local customs or finding themselves in legal trouble due to ignorance of local laws.

This article originally appeared on MyDolceCasa.com and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.

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Are you a young, hopeless romantic like Sam or quirky and outspoken like Natalie?

Universal Pictures; Shutterstock (2) Which Love Actually character you are based on zodiac

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes! sings Billy Mack, the aging rock star who reminds us that love  and the holiday spirit  can be found in the most unexpected places in Love Actually.



Celebrating 21 years of the beloved romantic comedy, Love Actually never ceases to bring joy, laughter and just the right amount of holiday cringe, reminding us that love is indeed all around. This Christmas classic features a delightful series of interconnected love stories, each exploring themes of love and romance in many different forms.

From the sweet innocence of your first crush to the bittersweet idiosyncrasies of unrequited love, the holiday staple captures the highs and lows of love and romance with its iconic cast and adorable plot twists. Whether it's the Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) falling head over heels for a quirky staff member or the person youd least expect confessing their feelings through heartfelt cards, theres never a dull moment.



Just as each love story in Love Actually is unique in its essence, so too are the 12 zodiac signs, each embodying distinct qualities shaped by their elemental and planetary influences.



Read on for the Love Actually character that best resembles your zodiac sign,

Aries (March 21-April 19): David 'Prime Minister'

Moviestore/Shutterstock Love Actually, Hugh Grant

Charming and oh-so-charismatic Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant) embodies the traits of overzealous Aries through his innate confidence and natural leadership skills. This Mars-ruled sign is known for its ability to inspire and evoke a sense of passion, and everything from Davids playful banter to his fearless approach resembles Aries bold and fiery nature.

Taurus (April 20-May 20): Harry

Alamy LOVE ACTUALLY Alan Rickman

With his desire for comfort and stability, Harry (Alan Rickman) embodies Taurus slow-and-steady approach and sensuality in romance. This Earth sign is ruled by pleasure-seeking Venus, resembling Harrys appreciation for beauty, not to mention his tempting attraction to his secretary, Mia. His character reveals the tension between desire and commitment, which is very Taurean.

Gemini (May 21-June 20):

Moviestore/Shutterstock Love Actually, Colin Firth

As a writer, Jamie (Colin Firth) naturally embodies the adaptability and savviness of a Gemini, as it is a cerebral and Mercury-ruled sign. Despite not understanding a single word spoken by his Portuguese housekeeper Aurelia, Jamie still manages to communicate and eventually falls in love with her, highlighting this Air signs duality and clever charm.

Cancer (June 21-July 22): Karen

Alamy LOVE ACTUALLY (2003) EMMA THOMPSON,

Sentimental and maternal, Karen (Emma Thompson) resembles the Cancer sign with her caring and empathetic nature. She always puts the needs of her family first, naturally embodying this Water signs protective instincts. Karens desire for security and comfort in her relationships highlights the strength of her emotional core, which is very Cancerian.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22): Joanna Anderson

Mary Evans/UNIVERSAL PICTURES / WORKING TITLE FILMS / DNA FILMS/Ronald Grant/Everett THOMAS SANGSTER OLIVIA OLSON

A young performer who shines brightly on stage, Joanna (Olivia Olson) epitomizes Leos vibrant and theatrical persona. Leos are celebrated for their ability to command attention and entertain with their talents, and everyone in the audience (including Sam on the drums) became instantly captivated by her performance.

Related: Which Elf Character You Are, Based on Your Zodiac Sign

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Sarah

Moviestore/Shutterstock Love Actually, Laura Linney

With her compassion and responsibility, Sarah (Laura Linney) resembles Virgo in more ways than one. Shes not only tending to her brother as his caretaker and support system but also deeply in love with her swoon-worthy colleague Karl. This Earth sign can be quite mysterious, and Sarah is no different, especially in the way she navigates her conflicting feelings.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Juliet

Peter Mountain/Universal/Dna/Working Title/Kobal/Shutterstock Keira Knightley Love Actually - 2003

Charming and diplomatic, Juliet (Kiera Knightley) naturally embodies Libras grace and desire for harmony in her relationships. This Venus-ruled sign is known for its appreciation for love, partnership and justice, similar to how Juliet somehow manages to maintain her relationship with Peter, and still hold space for Marks feelings.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Sam

Everett LOVE ACTUALLY, Thomas Sangster

Despite being just a young boy enamored by his first crush, Sam (Thomas Sangster) exhibits the depth and complexity of smoldering Scorpio, as he is innately driven by his feelings and desire for emotional connection. Everything from the strength behind his gaze to his willingness to pursue Joanna resembles this Mars and Pluto-ruled sign.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22Dec. 21): Natalie

Moviestore/Shutterstock Love Actually, Martine Mccutcheon

Free-spirited and brutally honest, Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) embodies the adventurous and optimistic nature of Jupiter-ruled Sagittarius. From the way she embraces spontaneity to her straightforward approach with the Prime Minister, Natalie resembles Sagittarius in her honesty, sense of humor and desire for exploration.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

Alamy Andrew LINCOLN, LOVE ACTUALLY,

A reserved exterior with a deeply emotional world, everything from Marks (Andrew Lincoln) loyalty toward his best friend to his unrequited love for Juliet resembles Capricorns pragmatism and disciplined planetary ruler, Saturn. This Earth sign is often admired for its determination and ruthless focus, and Mark embodies these qualities with his serious demeanor and strong sense of responsibility.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Billy Mack

Universal/Dna/Working Title/Kobal/Shutterstock Bill Nighy Love Actually - 2003

Rebellious and unconventional, Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) exudes Uranian energy  chaotic, unorthodox and shocking  and doesnt have to try very hard to do so. His quirky humor and shameless candidness make him stand out, similar to how this Air sign defies societal norms and expectations while embracing individual freedom.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20): Daniel

Alamy LOVE ACTUALLY LIAM NEESON

Gentle and deeply empathetic, Daniel (Liam Neeson) epitomizes the dreamy essence of Pisces with his compassion and unconditional love for his stepson, Sam. Governed by Neptune  the planet of idealism and the dissolution of boundaries  Daniel has no problem guiding Sam in his pursuit of Joanna, even if that means being on the same journey of love with him. He goes above and beyond, resembling this Water signs intuitive and highly emotional nature.
David Knezevich has been charged in the kidnapping death of his wife in Spain (Broward County Sheriff's Office)

David Knezevich, the South Florida businessman accused in the February disappearance of his estranged wife in Spain, is now charged with her murder.

A federal grand jury in Miami indicted Knezevich, 36, Wednesday on charges of kidnapping resulting in death, foreign domestic violence resulting in death, and foreign murder of a US national.

Ana Maria Henao disappeared in February while living in Madrid. Since then, authorities in Spain and across Europe have searched for Henaos body, but have still not recovered it.

According to the new indictment, Knezevich traveled to Spain from Miami with the intent to kill, injure, harass, and intimidate his spouse and intimate partner and committed a crime of violence against her, resulting in her death.

Knezevich did willfully and unlawfully seize, confine, kidnap, abduct, and carry away Henao and did willfully, deliberately, maliciously, and with premeditation and malice aforethought, unlawfully kill Henao, according to the indictment.

Knezevich was arrested in May at Miami International Airport for his involvement in his wifes kidnapping.

Henaos family said the new charge confirms their worst fears.

This is a step in the direction to start to mourn while we continue to search for answers and honor Anas memory by advocating for her story to be told and for accountability to prevail, said Diego Henao, Anas brother.

We will continue to rely on the strength and love of our friends, family, and community as we try to process this latest information, said Anas mother, Aura Henao, of her familys well-being.

If convicted of the newest charges, Knezevich could face the death penalty.

Jayne Weintraub, Knezevichs attorney, called the superseding indictment a desperate attempt by the government to charge everything possible and see what sticks. There is no evidence that David Knezevich kidnapped or murdered his wife, she wrote in a statement to CNN Thursday. He will plead Not Guilty to these charges at the arraignment next week.

The FBI has presented overwhelming evidence that he is responsible for her disappearance, and I am happy the case against him is getting stronger, said Henaos friend Sanna Rameau, one of the last people to speak to her. Justice will be served.

The couple was in the middle of a contentious divorce.

Prosecutors said Knezevich traveled from Miami to Turkey and later to his native home of Serbia, where he rented a car and drove to Spain in late January.

They said he kidnapped Henao from her apartment and spray-painted cameras at her building in Madrid. He was also seen leaving the apartment building with a suitcase, court records said.

According to court records, surveillance cameras captured Knezevich buying spray paint and duct tape at a hardware store in Madrid the same day Henao was last seen.

The owner of the rental car agency in Serbia told investigators that when the car was returned in mid-March, someone had tinted its windows and added a new license plate frame, and it had traveled nearly 4,800 miles, the criminal complaint said.

Tollbooth cameras captured images of the same model Peugeot, with tinted windows, near Madrid in the late night and early morning of February 2 and 3. The complaint said the vehicles license plates were stolen from another vehicle on the street in Madrid where Henao was living.

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Rosanna Webster

When Lisa Weber, a 44-year-old saleswoman, married her second husband, Lee, in 2004, she already had three sons from her first marriage. Lee, meanwhile, had no children of his own and was keen to carry on his family name, so the newlyweds set about trying to add a fourth to their brood. But after two painful miscarriages, they halted their efforts.

Having another child would be nicethe icing on the cupcake, Weber remembers thinking. But it wasnt like if we didnt have a child, we wouldnt be happy. So, with the dream of having another child dashed, the couple continued on with their lives, content to raise their three active boys together.

By her late 40s, Weber was experiencing symptoms of perimenopause, including the occasional missed period. Assuming she was no longer fertile, she went off birth control. It was at a wine-tasting charity event, when she was 49, that she suspected something truly unexpected had happened. I love wine, and none of the wine tasted good at all, Weber says. She also felt exhausted and left the fundraiser at 9 p.m. I got home and thought, Oh my god I dont like alcohol, and Im unbelievably tired. I bet Im pregnant!

At the time, she felt (in her own words) a little embarrassed about the possibility of being pregnant given her age, so it was with the stealth of a jewel thief that she went to the drugstore to acquire a pregnancy test. I didnt say anything to my husband because I didnt want to get his hopes up, she says. She didnt need to worry: When the timer went off, the results were clearly positive. My husbands first words were, Ill never be able to retire,  Weber says.

All joking aside, Weberand Leewere thrilled that they were going to have a child. When she delivered son Blake in 2010 at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, at the age of 50, she was told by hospital personnel that she was the oldest woman to give birth there who had conceived naturally. Weber went into menopause soon after. (Breastfeeding and hot flasheswhat a combo!)

Today, at 64 years old, shes getting ready to send Blake, now 14, to high school. Its been such a blessing, she says. He absolutely helps keep me young.

The Pregnancy Age Bump

Though Webers experience of getting pregnant naturally at 49 is rare, it is emblematic of a cultural shift in the whens, hows, and whos of pregnancy. Indeed, while there used to be a time when the astonishing feat of a 50 something woman giving birth might get splashed across the cover of a supermarket tabloid alongside photos of Bat Boy and a slice of toast that resembles Elvis Presley, advances in fertility technology such as egg freezing and in-vitro fertilization (IVF) have now made pregnancy at 40, 45, and even 50-plus more possible. And not just for rarefied celebrities like Hilary Swank, Janet Jackson, and Halle Berry.

In the U.S., were delaying pregnancy even longer (the average age for a first-time mom has increased from 25.6 years old in 2011 to 27.3 years old in 2021), and the number of women giving birth in middle age, specifically, is on the rise. For women ages 40 to 44, the birth rate increased 4 percent between 2021 and 2022 (and has been continually inching up since 1985), while the birth rate for women ages 45 and over increased by 12 percent, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There are a number of socioeconomic, emotional, and physical drivers for this trend, according to Nicole Tchalim, MD, a reproductive psychiatrist at Columbia Universitys Womens and Reproductive Mental Health (WARM) program. For some individuals, the answer might be that they didnt feel they were at a financially stable place, Dr. Tchalim says. Perhaps [they] were wanting to have a more significant family relationship or partner relationship to feel comfortable bringing a child into the world. Or perhaps they were going through fertility treatments, and this is when they were able to get pregnant.

For women who already have children and want more, it could boil down to new circumstances at home, as in Webers case. Its a phenomenon that Mary DAlton, MD, department chair and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, sees in her practice. Usually, if someone wants to get pregnant in their 50s and their children are teenagers, theres been a life change, she says.

Rosanna Webster

Examining The Fertility Question

While births among middle-aged women are on the rise, the statistics paint only a partial picture of pregnancy at 40 (and beyond). For many individuals, the journey toward a plus-sign on that little test stick is long, uphill, and sometimes even verging on Sisyphean. Thats because our fertility drops precipitously in middle agethrough no fault of our own. Were out here living our lives, watering our snake plants, attending book club, and all the while, our eggs are quietly, and without our permission, declining and degrading.

Were born with all the eggs well ever have, says Alicia Ogle, RN, an advanced practice nurse prescriber at the Mayo Clinic Health System. To throw some numbers out there, at birth, a woman has 2 million eggs. At puberty, its 300,000, then it decreases to around 25,000 at age 37 to 38. At menopause, theyre nearly depleted. And just because a woman has, say, 100 eggs left doesnt mean theyre all viable eggs, as the quality of eggs declines over time. The result is rather bleak odds for conceiving after the age of 40 without the help of medical intervention.

This is how I counsel my patients: You have about a 5 percent chance of getting pregnant spontaneously at age 40its quite low, says Dr. DAlton. Its about 3 percent at age 43, and its very low at age 45. Less than 1 percent. Then, I would say close to zero after that.

For women ages 4044, the birth rate increased 4 percent between 2021 and 2022 (and has been continually inching up since 1985), while the birth rate for women ages 45 and over increased 12 percent. Source: CDC

How long a woman in midlife should try conceiving naturally before seeking fertility treatment is a question for her and her doctor. Dr. DAlton, for instance, usually advises her patients try for three to six months. It takes an average couple about four months to get pregnant, she says. Ogle takes a more conservative approach. For a woman in her 40s, I would recommend not waiting, and coming in for a consultation before they start trying.

What does a fertility consultation look like? Once again, it will vary from provider to provider, but Ogle will typically begin with a battery of questions to understand her patients menstrual cycle. Next, shell do a physical exam utilizing an ultrasound machine to look at things like the fallopian tubes, ovaries, and uterus to check for potential complications such as fibroids. Then shell discuss the possibility of conducting an ovarian reserve test to determine how many eggs the patient has left. This can be done with either a blood test or another ultrasound exam to visually count the number of follicles (i.e., the small fluid-filled sacs that hold one mature egg) on the ovaries. (Ogle will also perform a semen analysis for the patients partner, if the patient has one. Infertility cuts both ways!)

From there, Ogle will have a baseline understanding of her patients fertility and can advise next stepswhether it be trying naturally for a few months or seeking assisted reproductive technology (ART) right away.

While we often think of IVFin which a retrieved egg is fertilized in the lab with collected sperm and then placed inside the patients uterusas the gold standard, there are other intermediary options that might be available to a couple, such as intrauterine insemination (IUI), in which sperm is placed directly into a womans uterus during ovulation. That procedure, paired with follicle-boosting medication, may be enough to achieve pregnancy. Though, as you may have guessed, success rates once again drop after age 40.



Navigating A Bumpy Road

When Brooke Glass, a 41-year-old copywriter, got married in 2017, she and her husband, Jason, wasted no time scheduling a fertility consultation with a well-regarded provider in the greater Boston area. (She had known since childhood that she wanted to be a mother someday, and around the age of 37, she began to have that sinking feeling that time might be running outnot based on anything her physician told her but simply due to the societal expectations placed on women.)

The appointment, unfortunately, was a disaster.

The doctor said, Im not going to lie: At your age, its difficult. I wish I were a wizard and could erase a couple of years of your life, but Im not, so well work with what weve got,  she recalls him saying. I sat in our car sobbing for an hour. After a moment to reflect on our way home, I was like, Which years of my life did he want to remove? Because I thought they were all important, even the bad onesmaybe especially the bad ones. Does that imply that the goal of having children is more important than anything else Ive doneeverything that led me to this place where Im even in a position to have kids and be myself?

The experience left Glass rattled, even though her test results indicated that IVF could be a very plausible option. But she knew she couldnt go back to that physician, so she and Jason tried on their own for a few months to no avail. Eventually, she found another doctor.

The [second] doctor we met with was the loveliest, warmest man, Glass says. He was just so sweet and so confident about my chances and so supportive and had a really we are going to get this done attitude.

That attitude would be necessary as they faced multiple disappointments in a row: One round of IUI and two rounds of IVF proved unsuccessful.

It was more crushing than Id expected, she says. I went into it thinking, This cant work. So I didnt think I had that much hope to dash, but I still remember where I was sitting when I got the news each time.

IUI had never been part of her physicians plan, but when Glass began ovulating earlier than expected, they tried to salvage the round of treatment by switching from IVF to IUI. (While insurance covered her treatmentsexcept the outrageous copaysnot everyone is so lucky; without insurance coverage, a person can expect to spend an average of $12,000 to upwards of $25,000 for a single round of IVF.) The test results indicated that the procedure had resulted in something, but it didnt last long enough to develop into something more.

The first IVF procedure was a washher doctor wasnt able to do a transfer because none of the embryos ended up being viable after testing. The same thing happened with the second round.

By the third round of IVF, she and Jason decided it would be their last. The emotional and physical effects were taking a toll on Glass. She had already begun to console herself with the things they could do without a baby in tow: Go to Europe! Buy a beach house! Their hopes were hardly buoyed when the doctor delivered the news that only one viable embryo had been retrievable for implantation.

They usually want to implant multiple, but at this point, I was 43, and it clearly wasnt quite as fruitful as they were hoping it would be. And then that one fighter she says, trailing off, tears building in her eyes. Because that one fighter, that one embryo, latched on and never let go.

Despite the excitement of the successful transfer, the pregnancy itself wasnt any easier. Early on, Glass experienced breakthrough bleeding while at work and was sure she had lost the baby. Not long after, she fell, and while the baby, who was just shy of the age of viability, was fine, Glass started experiencing contractions. That was followed by preeclampsia (high blood pressure, which, left untreated, can lead to major complications for the mother and/or child), something that is more common among pregnant women in their 40s and 50s.

Women who get pregnant later are more likely to have medical or surgical complications, says Dr. DAlton (who was not Glasss physician). In addition to preeclampsia, complications can include miscarriage, gestational diabetes, and postpartum hemorrhage. Older women are also more likely to deliver via C-section rather than vaginally, and they have a higher risk for chromosomal abnormalities. For instance, the chance of conceiving a child with Down syndrome is 1 in 350 at age 35, and it increases to 1 in 30 by age 45. Studies have also found that likelihood of autism increases with maternal age.

Despite all of the hiccups along the way (and a raging pandemic), Glass delivered a healthy baby boy named Asher in 2020. My first thought was, Thank god he has a chin. Because in one of those 3D ultrasounds, it really looked like he had lip all the way to here, she says, pointing to the bottom of her face. I was like, I will love him no matter what, but oh, thats so much for a baby to deal with. They brought him over and I was like, Oh my god, that is a gorgeous face with all the parts where theyre supposed to be! 

Rosanna Webster

Looking At The (Older) Brain On Baby

For midlife mothers, the emotional rigors of getting pregnant can be just as profound, if not more so, than the physical. And for many, its the compounding grief of multiple losses and all those almosts that can ultimately cause them to questionor even endtheir fertility efforts.

Supporting individuals who are going through fertility difficulties in those 40s and 50s is becoming a growing area in our field, Dr. Tchalim says. People tend to underestimate just how much of an increased risk there is for some level of depressive or anxiety symptoms. Youll often see that the treatment itself, due to some of the hormonal changes, can have quite a bit of a psychological impact.

Even after a successful delivery, middle-aged moms are faced with unique challenges, including the possibility of stigma and criticism for having a baby so late in life. (Check out any Instagram birth announcement from any celebrity in her late 40s/early 50s and there will be at least one troll commenting on how she wont be alive long enough to see her son or daughter get married or have children of their own.)

Theres a lot of judgment made about women getting pregnant in their late 40s and 50s, Dr. DAlton says. Nasty comments are made in the office where theyre working or in their neighborhood. That can be very isolating for patients.

While Dr. Tchalim says that most of her patients friends and family members are supportive, she does sometimes hear about hurtful comments. Some of the things that have been unfortunate for them to hear is other family members saying things like, You should have started earlier or You were too career-focused,  she says.

For her part, Baltimore-based mom Weber has been mistaken for son Blakes grandmother on multiple occasions. In middle school, Blake sometimes got picked on by classmates for having old parents. In those moments, Weber remains upbeat, even defiant. When that happened to him in sixth grade, I said, But I could probably outrun most of their moms! Its the truth.

When Dr. Tchalims patients are faced with any kind of negative feedback surrounding motherhood, she advises them to focus on their why.

The people around you dont understand why you decided to wait for that child, and theyre never going to fully understand, but you do, she says. Feel comfort in that and know that you made the best decision for yourself and your family.

Indeed, while its easy to wallow in the negatives of becoming a mom later in life, there are plenty of positives to celebrate too.

Im sure there are people that have everything they need at 25 [to raise a child]I was not that person at all, Glass says. I didnt have the temperament, and I didnt have the wisdom, insofar as I have wisdom now at 47.

Weber, meanwhile, feels that with youngest son Blake, shes able to give more of herself than she could as a younger mom to her other three sons. I did not have the time for my other boys, as much as I would have loved to have enjoyed them, she says. I was a single mom for a part of their life, so I was really double-timing it. Now, I have more appreciation, I have more knowledge. Whoever wants to have kids when theyre older, more power to em.

NO EGGS, NO PROBLEM?



The first test tube baby was born in England in 1978, and since tracking officially began in 1985, more than 1.2 million babies have been born in the U.S. with the aid of assisted reproductive technologies (ART), according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. While IVF has helped millions of people have babies who may not have been able to otherwise, it isnt a panacea.



If a woman no longer has viable eggswhether due to menopause or to undergoing a medical treatment like chemotherapyno amount of ovarian stimulation is going to reverse that, and she may have to use a donor egg in order to conceive. But that could all change in the future: A team of researchers at Oregon Health & Science University, led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, PhD, director of the OHSU Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy, are working on a new technique called in vitro gametogenesis (IVG), in which a skin cell is repurposed into an egg. (Sounds like something from a sci-fi movie, right?!) The process works by stripping the nucleus out of a donor egg and replacing it with the nucleus of a skin cell from the mother.



A similar technique was used in 1996 when researchers famously cloned a sheep named Dolly. But this process is slightly different, as the nucleuss chromosomes are reduced by half, so rather than a direct clone of the mother, whats produced is an embryonic egg ready for fertilization by sperm. (FYI, this process can also be done with a male skin cell, meaning a trans or gay couple could have a child thats genetically related to both parents.)



Dr. Mitalipovs team has already produced offspring in mice using this technique, and they recently published their findings in the journal Science Advances. There is a lot of work to be done perfecting the technology and translating it to human eggs and embryos, says Dr. Mitalipov, who estimates another decade of research and testing is needed. And, of course, IVG will also have to go through all the regulatory hoops. Anything that relates to reproduction has lots of ethical issues, so that usually delays it, Dr. Mitalipov says. But for would-be mothers and fathers of the future, IVG could really deliver.

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Smoke plumes rising over the Chouaifet neighborhood in southern Beirut after an Israeli airstrike on November 14, 2024, during the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israels Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer met with President-elect Trump during a visit to his Florida estate on Sunday, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Sundays discussions at Mar-a-Lago centered on an Israeli cease-fire in Lebanon that involves Western and Russian cooperation, according to the Post. Dermer secretly visited Russia last week for follow-up discussions, after Russian officials visited Israel on Oct. 27 to discuss the plan.

The proposal calls for Moscow to prevent Hezbollah from resupplying via Syrian land routes.

Smoke plumes rise after an Israeli airstrike on the Chouaifet neighborhood in southern Beirut on November 14, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. AFP via Getty Images

According to Israeli officials, other details of the plan include moving the Hezbollah terrorist group north of the Litani River. The Lebanese military would then take control of the border area for a period of 60 days, overseen by the United States and Britain.

A source close to the Iranian terror proxy told the Post that Hezbollah would be willing to withdraw its forces north of the Litani as part of a temporary ceasefire deal. The terrorist group has yet to receive a formal proposal to end the fighting, according to the source.

Citing three current and former Israeli officials briefed on the meeting, the newspaper reported that Jerusalem is rushing to advance a ceasefire plan in Lebanon as a welcome gift to Trump. This would hand the Republican an early diplomatic victory upon his return to the White House.

There is an understanding that Israel would gift something to Trump  that in January there will be an understanding about Lebanon, an Israeli official said.

Hezbollah began launching thousands of rockets, missiles and drones at Israel the day after Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. Over 60,000 Israeli citizens remain internally displaced from their homes in the north due to the ongoing Hezbollah attacks.

Former President Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) as they pose for a photo within their meeting at Mar-a-Lago estate, in Palm Beach, Florida, United States on July 26, 2024. Israeli Government Press Office

Israel is closer to reaching a deal to stop the fighting with Hezbollah than it has been since the start of the war, but it must retain the freedom to act in Lebanon should any deal be violated, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen, a member of Jerusalems security Cabinet, said on Thursday.

We will be less forgiving than in the past over attempts to create strongholds in territory near Israel, Cohen told the Reuters wire agency.

A senior Israeli diplomatic official confirmed to Israel Hayom on Saturday that there has been a significant breakthrough in efforts to achieve a diplomatic settlement.

One potential sticking point, however, is the ability of Israeli forces to reenter Lebanese territory if Hezbollah attempts to rearm and reestablish itself.

Rescuers evacuate bodies of victims from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek on November 14, 2024. AFP via Getty Images

The official emphasized that the Israel Defense Forces will retain operational freedom to respond to any security threats from across the northern border, regardless of any diplomatic arrangements or paper agreements.

However, the source close to Hezbollah told the Post that the groups condition for progress remains clear: Israel must be prohibited from conducting operations within Lebanese territory.

Following his meetings in Florida with Trump and his son-in-law and former senior adviser Jared Kushner, Dermer headed to Washington to meet Monday and Tuesday with Biden administration officials, including Amos Hochstein, the presidents special envoy to Lebanon.

If the ceasefire efforts fail, an Israeli military official told the Post that there are plans in the works to expand ground operations in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Israel is continuing ground activities in Southern Lebanon and conducting aerial strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut and across the country.

Voices in Netanyahus coalition are also calling for the continuation of military pressure, including new Defense Minister Israel Katz, who said on Tuesday that In Lebanon, there will be no ceasefire and no pause. We will continue to strike Hezbollah with full force until our war objectives are achieved.

The Israeli public also supports the continuation of military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

A majority of Jewish Israelis back the continuation of IDF operations in Southern Lebanon, a survey published by the Israel Democracy Institute on Sunday shows.

A majority of Jewish Israeli respondents (54%) said they support a continuation of the fighting, while a minority (38%) expressed support for ceasefire negotiations with the Lebanese state.

A Trump official told the Post that Kushner is expected to play an advisory role in any future negotiations with Saudi Arabia on normalization with Israel, even if he isnt appointed to a formal White House position. Kushner helped broker the Abraham Accords during Trumps first term in office, which established diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.
The flavors of the African Diaspora are wide-ranging, touching every corner of the globe. This Thanksgiving, we were welcomed into the homes and one restaurant of four Black chefs in Los Angeles, who introduced us to their families and friends and shared the dishes that define celebrations year after year.

Their recipes and traditions are vastly different. Bridgetown Roti chef-owner Rashida Holmes makes a crispy-creamy macaroni pie that pays homage to her Bajan heritage. Lamb biriyani and collard greens sauteed with ginger and garlic are pulled from cookbook author Kiano Moju's "AfriCali" and honor the culinary history of Kenya and the Swahili Coast. For dessert, John Cleveland shares his family's holiday cookie, also offered on the menu at his South L.A. restaurant Post & Beam, and culinary artist Nia Lee bakes a carrot cake that celebrates the legacy of LGBTQ+ activist Marsha P. Johnson.

Every chef has their own concept of Thanksgiving and what it means to them, yet all are centered in an approach that feels uplifting to everyone who sits at their tables.

Make any of the recipes below for a soul-warming holiday.

Sign up for our Tasting Notes newsletter for restaurant reviews, Los Angeles food-related news and more.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
By Sergio Goncalves, Giselda Vagnoni, Gergely Szakacs and Charlie Devereux

LISBON (Reuters) - Until recently aerospace engineer Pedro Monteiro figured he'd join many of his peers moving from Portugal to its richer European neighbours in the quest for a better-paid job once he completes his master's degree in Lisbon.

But tax breaks proposed by Portugal's government for young workers - up to a temporary 100% income tax exemption in some cases - plus help with housing are making him think twice.

"Previous governments left young people behind," said Monteiro, 23, who is studying engineering and industrial management at the Higher Technical Institute in the Portuguese capital. "The country needs us and we want to stay but we need to see signs from the government that they are implementing policies that will help."

Monteiro cites in particular the cost of buying or renting a home amid a housing crisis aggravated by the arrival of wealthy foreigners lured by easy residency rights and tax breaks.

He is doubtful the government's new measures will be enough.

"Some of my friends are now working abroad and earn substantially more money... and have better career development opportunities," he said. "I'm a little bit sceptical concerning my job opportunities here in Portugal."

Portugal is the latest country in Europe to seek to tackle a brain drain holding back its economy. Tax breaks for young workers in the budget currently going through parliament will take effect next year and could benefit as many as 400,000 young people at an annual cost of 525 million euros.

Talent flight to wealthier countries of the north is a problem Portugal shares with several others in southern and central Europe, as workers take advantage of freedom of movement rules within the trade bloc. Countries including Italy have tried other schemes to counter the flight, with mixed results.

By exacerbating regional labour shortages and depriving poorer countries of tax revenues, it is yet another hurdle for the EU as it tries to improve its ebbing economic growth while addressing population decline and lagging labour productivity.

Donald Trump's victory in U.S. elections this month raises the stakes, with the risk of across-the-board trade tariffs on European exports of at least 10% - a move that economists say could turn Europe's anaemic growth into outright recession.

About 2.3 million people born in Portugal, or 23% of its population, currently live abroad, according to Portugal's Emigration Observatory. That includes 850,000 Portuguese nationals aged 15-39, or about 30% of young Portuguese and 12.6% of its working-age population.

More concerning still is that about 40% of 50,000 people who graduate from universities or technical colleges emigrate each year, according to a study by Business Roundtable Portugal and Deloitte based on official statistics, costing Portugal billions of euros in lost income tax revenue and social security contributions.

DEMOGRAPHIC HELL

"This is not a country for young people," said Pedro Ginjeira do Nascimento, executive director of Business Roundtable Portugal, which represents 43 of the largest companies in the nation of 10 million people. "Portugal is experiencing a true demographic hell because the country is unable to create conditions to retain and attract young talent."

Internal migration within the EU is partly driven by the disparity in wages between its member states. Some economic migrants also say they are looking for better benefits such as pensions and healthcare and less rigid, hierarchichal structures that give more responsibility to those in junior roles.

Concerns are mounting over the long-term viability of Europe's economic model with its rapidly ageing population and failure to win substantial shares of high-growth markets of the future, from tech to renewable energy.

Presenting a raft of reform proposals aimed at boosting local innovation and investment, former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said in September the region faced a "slow agony" of decline if it did not compete more effectively.

Eszter Czovek, 45, and her husband are moving from Hungary to Austria, where workers earn an average 40.9 euros ($29.95) per hour compared to 12.8 euros per hour in Hungary, the largest wage gap between neighbouring countries in the EU.

The number of Hungarians living in Austria increased to 107,264 by the beginning of 2024 from just 14,151 when Hungary joined the EU.

Czovek's husband, who works in construction, was offered a job in Austria, while she has worked in media and accounting at various multinationals. She cited better pay, pensions, work conditions and healthcare as motives for moving. She also mentioned her concern over the political situation in Hungary, which she fears might join Britain in leaving the EU.

"There was a change of regime here in 1989 and 30 years later we are still waiting for the miracle that will see us catch up with Austria," Czovek said of the revolution over three decades ago that ended communist rule in Hungary.

Since Brexit, the Netherlands has replaced Britain as a preferred destination for Portuguese talent while Germany and Scandinavian countries are also popular.

Many Europeans still head to the United States in search of better jobs - about 4.7 million were living there in 2022, according to the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, which notes nonetheless a long-term decline since the 1960s.

In 2023, 4,892 Portuguese emigrated to the Netherlands, surpassing Britain for the first time, which in 2019 received 24,500 Portuguese.

At home, they face the eighth-highest tax burden in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) even as house prices rose 186% and rents by 94% since 2015, according to property specialists Confidencial Imobiliario.

A single person in Portugal without children earned an average of 16,943 euros after tax in 2023 compared to 45,429 euros in the Netherlands, according to Eurostat.

Portugal will offer under 35s earning up to 28,000 euros a year a 100% tax exemption during their first year of work, gradually reducing the benefit to a 25% deduction between the eighth and tenth years.

Young people would also be exempted from transaction taxes and stamp duty when buying their first home as well as access to loans guaranteed by the state and rent subsidies.

"We are designing a solid package that tries to solve the main reasons why the young leave," Cabinet Minister Antonio Leitao Amaro said in an interview with Reuters.

'THINGS WON'T CHANGE'

Leitao Amaro said he did not know for sure if the tax breaks would work but that his government, which came into office in April, had to try something new.

"If we don't act ambitiously, things won't change and Portugal will continue down this path," he said.

The Italian government has already found that tax breaks used as incentives are costly and open to fraud.

In January, Italy abruptly curtailed its own scheme that was costing 1.3 billion euros in lost tax revenue, even as it lured tech workers such as Alessandra Mariani back home.

Before 2024, returners were offered a 70% tax break for five years, extendable for another five years in certain circumstances. Now, it plans to offer a slimmed-down scheme targeting specific skills after it attracted only 1,200 teachers or researchers - areas where Italy has a particular shortage.

Mariani said the incentives were key to persuading her to return to Milan in 2021 by allowing her to maintain the same standard of living she enjoyed in London.

"Had the opportunity been the same without the scheme, I would not have done it at all," said Mariani, now working at the Italian arm of the same large tech company.

With her tax breaks poised to be phased out by 2026 unless she buys a house or has a child, Mariani faces a drop in salary and she said she's once again eyeing the exit door.

($1 = 0.9381 euros)

(Reporting by Sergio Goncalvez, Alex Fraser, Giselda Vagnoni, Gergely Szakacs, Krisztina Fenyo; Writing by Charlie Devereux; Editing by Daniel Flynn)
A CIA official has been indicted on charges he violated the Espionage Act by disclosing classified U.S. documents about Israels preparations for a retaliatory strike against Iran for a missile attack earlier this year, according to court records and a source familiar with the charges.

Asif William Rahman was indicted Nov. 7 in federal court in Virginia on two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.

Rahman was arrested Tuesday in Cambodia and brought to Guam to appear in federal court, according to court records. A initial court appearance was scheduled Thursday in Guam.

The CIA had no comment on the case. A Justice Department spokesperson declined comment beyond what was included in court records.

An Israeli soldier stands next to the remains of an Emad ballistic missile at Julis army base, days after an attack by Iran on Israel, in southern Israel, on Oct. 9, 2024.

Authorities will hunt for motivation of leaker: expert

The indictment says Rahman gained access to a classified document marked top secret and secure compartmented information on Oct. 17 in Phnom Penh in Cambodia and delivered the document to someone who wasnt entitled to receive it.

The document dealing with Israel's strike, which circulated on the messaging app Telegram, appeared to have been prepared by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. It described U.S. interpretations of Israeli Air Force and Navy planning using satellite imagery from Oct. 15 and 16. Federal authorities investigated the leak.

Tracy Walder, a former CIA covert operations officer and FBI special agent, called the case very serious because Rahman held such a high security clearance.

"His leaking of the docs has confirmed that Israel has nukes as well as exposed our own collection methods," Walder said.

Javed Ali, who held a variety of senior U.S. intelligence positions across several agencies, said Rahmans arrest will set off a hunt for the suspected leakers motives and possible accomplices in obtaining and posting the information.

This is not a good-news story for the CIA, Ali, who is now a professor at the University of Michigan, told USA TODAY. Who is this person? How long had he been in the position? Was he an analyst? A case officer? What motivated him to leak the information that he had access to? Was he involved in Iran-related intelligence operations?

Ali said the case also underscores the significant vulnerabilities confronting the U.S. government in terms of how it keeps its most highly classified  and politically sensitive  secrets from becoming public.

The fact that it's a CIA person here shows again that every day there are tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of people in the intelligence community and the military that have access to the most sensitive intelligence information this government has, Ali said.

What happened during the Israeli strike?

Israels military announced it had completed a series of retaliatory airstrikes against Iran in response to an Iranian missile attack, a move that threatened to push the Middle East to a more dangerous and multifront phase of conflict a year after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish state.

Iran's state TV reported several strong explosions were heard around the capital, Tehran. Semi-official Iranian media said explosions also were heard in the nearby city of Karaj.

Israel's operation came after Iran fired almost 200 missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 in what Tehran described as a retaliation for Israel's killing of Hassan Nasrallah and other top Lebanon-based Hezbollah leaders. Most of the missiles were intercepted with help from the U.S. military. A Palestinian man was killed in the West Bank.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: CIA official charged with leaking records about Israel strike on Iran
North Texas social media influencer Brandi Botello is pleading for the return of her pet spider monkey, named Jorgie Boy, after he was confiscated by police when she was accused of driving while intoxicated. (Brandi Botello via GoFundMe)

A North Texas social media influencer has started a viral campaign pleading for the return of her pet spider monkey, named Jorgie Boy, after he was confiscated by police when she was accused of driving while intoxicated.

Brandi Botello wrote on a GoFundMe page that she was involved in a car crash in Dallas early Saturday morning, Nov. 9, and had the pet monkey in the vehicle with her. Botello disputes that she was the driver. Jorgie Boy wasnt injured in the accident, but Dallas police took the almost 3-year-old spider monkey, who was later sent to a wild animal sanctuary, Botello said.

Botello also has shared the campaign on her Instagram, where she has posted photos of the monkey dressed in cute outfits and gained over 40,000 followers. Some of her followers have started the hashtag Free Jorgie Boy.

These past few days have been the hardest days of my life Im devastated, Botello wrote on the GoFundMe page. I cant eat, I cant sleep, I cant sit still Im so use to waking up every morning with him hugging my face ... Im willing to keep trying my hardest to get him back home.

Texas law allows residents to own monkeys and some other types of exotic pets with a permit, but wild animals are prohibited in the city of Irving, where the spider monkey ended up at a shelter before being transferred to the wildlife sanctuary.
The mural is being painted to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Harvard Elementary School becoming an International Baccalaureate World School Elliott Lapin / staff photo

Harvard Elementary School's Parent-Teacher Association welcomed its new principal, Sharon Pe Benito, and assistant principal, Molly Lashway, with cakes decorated in the school's colors and "H" logo. The pair received gift cards to local restaurants as part of the welcome.

Shortly after, parents learned Pe Benito abruptly resigned. Houston ISD's Central Division Superintendent Luz Martinez emailed families Tuesday that "after extensive bullying on social media, she determined this job was no longer in her personal or professional best interest."

Harvard has been appointed an interim principal, Stefanie Spencer, for the rest of the year, during which the community will weigh in on a profile of ideal candidate characteristics for a permanent principal, Martinez wrote.

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While Harvard parents welcome Spencer and laud her experience as a former Goose Creek CISD and Spring Branch ISD principal, community members were bewildered by the principal shuffle that began when HISD put principal Shelby Calabrese on leave and has since been recommended for termination for reasons that have not been made public.

Harvard's assistant principal Alejandra Perez was also reassigned to Memorial Elementary, where Lashway was assigned away from. The school's magnet coordinator and executive director, who oversees the principal, were also reassigned.

'Disarray'

Parents were disturbed that Pe Benito's hiring process did not include community input, Harvard father Josh Brodbeck said.

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"Anyone who's worked for any organization that has had its leadership swiftly removed without warning knows that doing that really does throw that organization into a certain amount of disarray," Brodbeck added. "But then for the district to have handled it  or I should say mishandled it since they originally placed Dr. C on leave  for them to have mishandled it this way has only made things incrementally worse."

Parents are hoping for some semblance of stability so students can finish out the year, he said.

"This has gone beyond the matter of trust, and now it's about just basic competence," he said of the abrupt changes. "Are these people even competent of running schools? That's what has us really worried right now, because again, look at what's happened at Harvard in just the course of a month."

Harvard parent Ryan Sothen said the changes are a continuation of the anxiety and instability that began since Mike Miles was appointed superintendent. He noted that Harvard will now have its sixth executive director with the recent reassignment of their former executive director, Wendy Craft.

"That's quite a bit of turnover that directly impacts the principals," Sothen noted, adding the school also went through three principals within a month. "And the fact that the last one was in such rapid succession and seemed very disorganized  it really raises the question around the overall stability leadership strategy going into it." He added this creates anxiety in parents and teachers, permeating to the students.

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Martinez did not attribute the "extensive bullying" online in her Wednesday email.

PRINCIPAL TRACKER: Schools with leadership turnover since Mike Miles became supeintendent

Her email follows Community Voices for Public Education's online posting of emails by Pe Benito. The emails, provided as part of a public information request, showed Pe Benito's support for Miles' New Education System reforms. One email indicates Miles forwarded an email from Pe Benito to Chief of Leadership and Professional Development Sandi Massey and told Massey to give Pe Benito, seeking a school leadership position, "a second look."

Parent Quynhthy Marosi said Harvard parents tend to rally around their teachers and administrators, and they sought to welcome Pe Benito while hoping to safeguard the school's International Baccalaureate program.

"The only thing we can do is welcome her and hope that we win her over, hope that she sees what a wonderful program we have and the great teachers we have, and we hoped to win her over. We didn't feel like there was anything we could do but to welcome her," Marosi said.

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It is unclear why the assistant principal, magnet coordinator and executive director were assigned away from the school. Marosi noted two communities experienced instability when the district swapped Memorial's and Harvard's assistant principals. And the changes in executive director shake out to the principal seeing new leadership every couple of months, Marosi noted, raising the question how someone would do if they had a new boss every couple of months.

Parents felt positive after meeting with the new principal and assistant principal at a meet-and-greet Wednesday evening.

Holly Sothen said she and her husband, Ryan Sothen, feel hopeful after hearing Spencer present to parents. Spencer was asked to be principal Sunday, she said.

"After hearing Dr, Spencer tonight, she is definitely well-qualified, has a long, proven career in education," she said. "We definitely like the plan that she has laid out, especially given the fact she's only been in the role for 72 hours. We also like the fact that she's already started engaging with teachers. She met with our PTA this morning, and she's really around continuing to strengthen and grow our IB framework that we have at Harvard and finding the best ways to educate our students at Harvard."

Presenters acknowledged the school's International Baccalaureate framework frequently, Brodbeck said, however officials said Miles' reform elements such as demonstrations of learnings will continue.

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Community rallied in support for outgoing principal

The community rallied this week to support outgoing principal Calabrese with a GoFundMe that raised nearly $9,000 by Thursday morning.

Fund organizer Susan Sessions, a former Harvard teacher and local tutoring business owner, said she has been hearing recent experiences from Harvard teachers.

"They share with me stories and I literally cry when they tell me, because it's very stressful for them. I've noticed there's a lot of anxiety in the students that we're tutoring now, as well as the teachers," Sessions said.

Sessions said Calabrese loved her job and the children. The former teacher invited Calabrese to visit the tutoring business, and Calabrese called the business a "gold mine" upon visiting.
While visiting Northern Ireland on Nov. 14, the Prince of Wales hopped on a motorbike  albeit a stationary one  after he quit riding because it left his wife terrified

Liam McBurney - Pool/Getty Prince William, Prince Of Wales tries out a motorbike in the state-of-the-art Virtual Production Studio, where students are developing their skillsets in virtual production, during a visit to Ulster University's Belfast City Campus Centre, to hear about work that is being carried out to solidify Northern Ireland as a global leader of creative excellence and innovation by developing and upskilling the future workforce and expanding technological capabilities on Nov. 14, 2024 in Belfast, Northern Ireland

While visiting Northern Ireland, Prince William got a chance to briefly take part in a hobby he gave up years ago.

On Nov. 14, the Prince of Wales, 42, visited the Virtual Production Studio at Ulster Universitys Belfast City Campus, where he hopped on a motorbike and rode through what looked like the Arizona desert.

Related: Prince William Makes Surprise Trip to Northern Ireland to Highlight His Mission for the Unhoused

Liam McBurney - Pool/Getty Prince William, Prince Of Wales tries out camera equipment in the state-of-the-art Virtual Production Studio, where students are developing their skillsets in virtual production, during a visit to Ulster University's Belfast City Campus Centre, to hear about work that is being carried out to solidify Northern Ireland as a global leader of creative excellence and innovation by developing and upskilling the future workforce and expanding technological capabilities on Nov. 14, 2024 in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Any excuse to get on a motorbike! the future king said, according to Hello!.

I feel like someone needs to take this for a real spin, he said, asking if it was possible to move it from its stationary position.

As he hopped off the motorbike, William added, I love that exhaust before calling the virtual experience incredibly realistic.

Prince William considered riding motorbikes a hobby in his younger years, but in 2015 his wife Kate Middleton admitted that her husbands hobby was a cause for concern.

Hes still riding it, she said during a visit to Dundee, Scotland. It always fills me with horror when he goes out on it. Im terrified. Hopefully Im going to keep George off of it, referring to their eldest child, Prince George, who would turn 2 that year.

Three years later, while visiting the Isle of Man in 2018, William said hed given up the hobby. Im a dad of three. I have to tone it down, he said, in reference to he and Kate adding Princess Charlotte to their family in 2015 and Prince Louis in 2018. I miss the big trips. For me, biking was always about being with everybody else.

Related: Prince William Just Revealed What Kate 'Really' Thinks About Him Being at a Motorcycle Race Today

Shutterstock Prince William visits the Triumph Motorcycles and MIRA Technology Park in Hinckley on Feb. 20, 2018

Prince Williams trip to Northern Ireland was scheduled to take place this past May, but was postponed because of the U.K. general election. He made two stops while there, first visiting The Foyer, a temporary accommodation and support service for young people experiencing homelessness that is part of his Homewards initiative, aimed at eradicating homelessness in the U.K.

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Liam McBurney - Pool/Getty Prince William, Prince Of Wales meets staff and students gathered during a visit to Ulster University's Belfast City Campus Centre, to hear about work that is being carried out to solidify Northern Ireland as a global leader of creative excellence and innovation by developing and upskilling the future workforce and expanding technological capabilities on Nov. 14, 2024 in Belfast, Northern Ireland

From there, he headed to Ulster University, where he zoomed in on highlighting the work of creative industries. Ulster in particular has been a cornerstone in helping grow the creative industry in Northern Ireland, which is estimated to add over $1.7 billion to the local economy and employ over 24,000 individuals. Highlighted during the visit was the forthcoming Studio Ulster, a $91 million studio complex in Belfast set for completion in 2025.

While on campus, a cheeky Prince of Wales recorded a video message on a young womans phone for a friend who missed his visit to the university.

Leslie, Im very sorry were late, William said into the phone after asking, Are you recording?

Overlaid over the video were the words POV  Prince William gives you the best excuse for being late.
By Sarah N. Lynch, Andrew Goudsward and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, faced growing scrutiny from his fellow congressional Republicans on Thursday, with one saying he "absolutely" wants to review an unreleased report examining allegations of sexual misconduct.

A lawyer representing an alleged victim also called for the report to be made public.

Senator John Cornyn, who holds a top spot on the committee that will consider Gaetz's nomination next year, said he and other lawmakers should get access to the report by the House of Representatives Ethics Committee, which examined allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

"I don't want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate could consider," Cornyn told reporters. When asked if that means he wants to see the ethics report, he replied: Absolutely.

Gaetz, is one of a series of nominees tapped by Trump this week who lack the resumes normally seen in candidates for high-level jobs. He would need to be confirmed by the Senate -- where Republicans will have a majority of at least 52 of the 100 seats -- to get the job, and a handful of that number have expressed skepticism at the choice.

Gaetz, 42, resigned his House seat on Wednesday, which would end the Ethics Committee probe. He has denied wrongdoing. According to several news outlets, the panel had intended to release the report on Friday, and a source familiar with the committee's work said it is due to meet then. A committee spokesperson declined to comment.

Gaetz also was investigated by the Justice Department for nearly three years over sex trafficking allegations involving a 17-year-old girl. His office said in 2023 that he had been told by prosecutors that he would not face criminal charges.

A lawyer representing the alleged victim said the ethics panel should immediately release the report. "She was a high school student and there were witnesses," John Clune, the lawyer, posted on X.

'A LOT OF QUESTIONS'

Cornyn is currently the No. 2 Republican on the Judiciary Committee, which would handle Gaetz's confirmation. The panel's top Democrat, Dick Durbin, also called for the House panel to release its report.

"It's premature to count votes - but a lot of questions," Cornyn said of Gaetz's prospects.

Gaetz is widely disliked by his former colleagues in Congress, where he led an effort last year to force out Kevin McCarthy as speaker, which left the chamber without a leader for several chaotic weeks. Several have questioned whether he is the right choice to lead the Justice Department.

"He was not just disruptive - he was destructive," Republican Senator Kevin Cramer told reporters. "Matt Gaetz has a very long, steep hill to get across the finish line."

He predicted that lawmakers would be able to see the ethics report, even if it is not released to the public.

Other Republicans said they were inclined to vote for Gaetz.

"The voters of America voted for President Trumps agenda, and so he needs to be able to build the team he needs and wants to build," said incoming Republican Bernie Moreno, who was elected last week.

Trump has raised the possibility of circumventing the Senate to install his personnel picks.

Gaetz, who is known for making provocative statements, has never worked for the Justice Department or as a prosecutor at any level of government. On Wednesday, he mused about abolishing the FBI, which serves as the main federal law enforcement agency.

Trump's inner circle has described the attorney general, the country's top law enforcement official, as the most important member of the administration after the president, key to his plans to carry out mass deportations, pardon Jan. 6 rioters, and seek retribution against those who prosecuted him over the past four years.

Trump faced two federal criminal indictments following the end of his four-year term in 2021 and has vowed to radically reshape the Justice Department when he returns to power on Jan. 20.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Andrew Goudsward, additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Bo Erickson; writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis and Alistair Bell)
A Russian remote minelaying system fires towards Ukrainian positions, Nov 14 - Russia Ukraine/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service

The Ukrainian military insisted that Kyivs soldiers remained in control of Kupiansk and had successfully repelled all Russian attacks - Shutterstock

Russian soldiers wore Ukrainian army uniforms to fight their way into the frontline city of Kupiansk, Kyivs military has said.

Captain Andrii Kovaliov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, said that by disguising themselves as Ukrainian troops the Russian soldiers had committed a war crime.

Russian soldiers wore uniforms resembling those of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This violates the laws and rules of warfare and constitutes a war crime, he said.

Kupiansk lies on the northern fringe of the front line and is considered a vital stronghold for Ukraine to control on the banks of the River Oskil, a natural defensive line.

The town had a pre-war population of around 26,000 people and served as an important railway hub. It has already changed hands twice since Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Analysts have said that if Russian forces capture Kupiansk, they could use it as a launchpad to push further west into the Kharkiv region which is already under attack from the north.

Captain Kovaliov insisted that Kyivs soldiers remained in control of the town and had successfully repelled all the Russian attacks even though several military bloggers reported that the Kremlins forces had breached its defences.

The pro-Moscow Two Majors channel reported that two columns of Russian soldiers had entered the city at night marking the beginning of the battle for the city, an analysis backed up by the pro-Ukraine DeepState Telegram channel.

DeepState said: In parade formation, the enemy has broken into Kupiansk. This afternoon, two columns of enemy vehicles advanced from the Limanu Persho district.

It also said that Ukrainian forces had destroyed two Russian armoured personnel carriers as they advanced into the town.

Andrii Besedin, a city official, said Russian troops who entered Kupiansk on Wednesday failed to hold their positions.

Asked if Russian soldiers who had hidden in local houses had been neutralised, Mr Besedin replied: They were eliminated.

Kupiansk is considered a vital stronghold for Ukrainian forces to control - Shutterstock

John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia programme at the US-based think tank the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, also said Russian forces had penetrated fairly deep into the eastern section of Kupiansk.

Russians attacked in four waves, using a total of 15 vehicles, including a UR-77 mine-clearing vehicle, tanks, and other armoured vehicles, he said.

The Kremlins forces have been grinding slowly forward over the past few months across the long Donbas frontline, accelerating their attacks in October and soaking up an enormous casualty rate.

This has meant bearing down on Kupiansk where local Ukrainian officials have ordered a mandatory civilian evacuation.

Ukrainian forces destroyed two Russian armoured personnel carriers as they advanced into Kupiansk, according to military bloggers - Shutterstock

Elsewhere on the frontline reports said that Russian forces were pressuring Ukrainian forces in Kurakhove in the south, a battle that the Two Majors Telegram channel described as vital for the defence of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The Russian Army continues to storm Kurakhove and deploy a wide pincer around the city, it said.

Fierce fighting was also continuing in Russias Kursk region, where the Kremlin had launched an attack against Ukraines salient.

There, Russian forces claimed to have destroyed a British Challenger tank used by Ukrainian forces.

Credit: Social media/Telegram

On the accusations that its soldiers had dressed up in Ukrainian uniform, Russias military has not commented but warfare law states that any disguise needs to be limited to escape or infiltration. Soldiers are not allowed to fight in enemy uniforms.

Russian and Ukrainian soldiers wear combat uniforms with different patterns and different coloured masking tape around one arm or their helmets. These are usually blue or yellow for Ukrainian forces and white for Russian.

There are many examples of soldiers disguising themselves to fool enemy forces throughout history, from the Trojan Horse in Greek mythology at the siege of Troy, to the 1942 British commando raid on Saint Nazaire in France that knocked out German U-boat pens.

Nazi soldiers also dressed up in American uniforms during the Battle of the Bulge towards the end of World War II.

03:13 PM GMT

Todays live coverage has ended

Todays live coverage has ended. We will leave you with the latest from Europe editor James Crisp:

European Union governments will jointly buy arms and weapons for the first time in the blocs history in a step towards a closer common defence policy.

Pooling defence procurement is part of the EUs response to Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine but has now been given greater impetus by the election of Donald Trump.

For the first two years of the war, individual member states have bought their weapons separately, as they attempt to deliver supplies to Kyiv while maintaining the strength of their own armed forces.

But 20 member states will now put money together to purchase military supplies from manufacturers within the bloc.

According to the European Commission, the group including France, Poland, Belgium, and the Netherlands could buy defence products worth as much as 9bn.

That is made possible thanks to EU subsidies worth 250m which Brussels claims will encourage European defence manufacturers to ramp up production, boost the blocs defence readiness and help Ukraine.

By negotiating together as a bloc, governments would also be able to get a better deal and incentivise manufacturers to boost production of weapons in Europe, Brussels said.

The five projects announced so far involve joint procurement of air and missile defence systems, which protect against drones, aircraft and combat helicopters, modern armoured vehicles, and ammunition for artillery.

02:37 PM GMT

Russia open to negotiations with Trump, Moscow says

Russia will be open to negotiations with the US after Donald Trump returns to the White House in January, Moscows ambassador to the UN has said.

Gennady Gatilov however warned that Mr Trumps repeated pledge to end the war within 24 hours of taking office was unrealistic.

Trump promised to settle the Ukrainian crisis overnight, Gatilov said.Okay, let him try. But we are realistic people of course we understand that this will never happen.

But if he starts or suggests something to start the political process, its welcome.

Mr Gatilov added that any negotiations would need to be based on the realities on the ground, describing Ukraine as being on the back foot after Russias recent frontline advances.

02:15 PM GMT

Russia charges soldier for surrendering

A Russian soldier faces up to 20 years in jail for voluntarily surrendering to Ukrainian forces, Russian newspaper Kommersant has reported.

Roman Ivanishin surrendered to Ukrainian forces in July 2023 near the village of Stepnoye, the newspaper said, citing a recording of a speech made by Mr Ivanishin.

Mr Ivanishin, a former miner from Russias far east, was said to have spoken out about the war in Ukraine in the same video, claiming his comrades did not want to fight and were fleeing their positions.

He spent six months in Ukrainian captivity before being returned to Russia in a prisoner exchange in January.

Ivanishin will be tried by the Moscow military court in what understood to be the first case of its kind brought against a Russian soldier during the war in Ukraine.

He also faces a charge of desertion, which carries a potential 15 year jail sentence.

01:29 PM GMT

Ukrainian bonds surge as markets bet on war ending under Trump

The price of Ukrainian sovereign bonds has surged by 12% since a month ago, in a sign that investors are betting Donald Trump will push for a quick end to the war when he takes office in January.

The investors hope that Mr Trumps election will lead to a ceasefire and boost Kyivs ability to repay creditors.

The main part of the trade has really been based on the war ending, or at least the possibility of Trump pushing through the start of negotiations, Thys Louw, portfolio manager at Ninety One, which owns some Ukrainian bonds, told the Financial Times.

During his election campaign, Mr Trump pledged to bring the war between Russia and Ukraine to an end within a day of taking office.

Two senior Ukrainian officials said that Kyiv would prioritise securing Western security guarantees over retaking Russian-occupied territory in future talks with the incoming US administration, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

12:43 PM GMT

Russian bloggers share footage of drone strike on British Challenger 2 tank

Credit: Social media/Telegram

Footage of a British Challenger 2 tank in Ukraine service being hit by a Russian drone has been shared by pro-Russian bloggers.

Russian marines from the 155th Guards Naval Infantry brigade destroyed the vehicle during fighting in Russias Kursk region, according to prominent pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Rybar.

In a grainy video released by the Russian marines, first-person camera footage shows a drone about to hit the tank underneath its turret.

Rybar said the fact that the tank was operating in Kursk suggested that Ukraine intended to hold the line in the region at all costs.

It did not specify when the tank was reportedly destroyed.

A Challenger 2 was reported to have been destroyed by Russian troops in Kursk earlier this year.

Pictures broadcast by Russian state media at the time showed the tanks turret blown off, lying in a wooded area as a twisted heap of charred metal.

12:15 PM GMT

Russians setting up defences to bring fleet back to Crimea, Ukrainian partisans say

Ukrainian partisans have photographed new Russian sea defences in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, Crimea, which they say suggests the Kremlin intends to bring its fleet back to the occupied peninsula.

The group, called Atesh, said was it was seeing the construction of structures designed to defend against Kamikaze drones.

These measures suggest the invaders desire to bring their warships back, the group added.

One photograph shows a solid barrier across a harbour, which Atesh said is designed to prevent naval drones attacking ships docked in port.

Russia withdrew its last naval patrol ship from Crimea in July after a Ukrainian missile and drone campaign inflicted heavy damage on the Russian fleet.

11:52 AM GMT

Russian attack hits nursery in Sloviansk

Russian forces damaged a nursery and several other building during an attack on the town of Sloviansk on Thursday, local authorities said.

The city was attacked again. There were two explosions in the Lisnyi district, said Vadym Liakh, the head of Sloviansks city military administration.

High-rise buildings, administrative buildings of a pedagogical university, a kindergarten, a supermarket and private cars were damaged, he added.

Sloviansk was at the epicentre of fighting during the early stages of the 2014 war in the Donbas, when pro-Russian separatists captured the town and held it for three months. It has been in Ukrainian hands ever since.

11:25 AM GMT

Pictured: Ukrainian soldiers shell Russian positions near Chasiv Yar

Ukrainian artillerymen fire a howitzer towards Russian positions near Chasiv Yar, 13 Nov - 24TH MECHANIZED BRIGADE OF UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES/Shutterstock

Ukrainian soldiers load shells into an artillery gun near Chasiv Yar, Nov 13 - 24TH MECHANIZED BRIGADE OF UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES/Shutterstock

Ukrainian soldiers around an artillery gun at a position near Chasiv Yar, Nov 13 - 24TH MECHANIZED BRIGADE OF UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES/Shutterstock

11:16 AM GMT

Russian fish factory imports Indian labour due to wartime manpower shortages

A Russian fish canning factory in Kaliningrad has started importing labour from India to plug manpower shortages caused by the Kremlins war in Ukraine.

Sergey Lyutarevich, chairman of the For the Motherland fishing and canning company, said that foreign workers were now vital for keeping the economy of Russia Baltic Sea exclave running.

If there were no foreigners, then the Kaliningrad region would have a very difficult time with the economy and taxes, he was quoted by the media as saying.

Russian industry has complained that manpower shortages triggered by the Kremlins military recruitment drive are causing major production problems.

10:37 AM GMT

Watch: Russian soldiers riot because of lack of medical care

Up to 30 Russian soldiers in Novosibirsk rioted earlier this week because of a lack of medical care, Russian Telegram channels have reported.

The Astra Telegram channel said that soldiers from military unit 57849 smashed windows in their barracks and destroyed furniture.

At least 10 soldiers also escaped. Video showed one of the soldiers smashing windows and a noticeboard with a crowbar.

The soldiers told Astra that they had been injured fighting in Ukraine and didnt want to be sent back to the frontline without receiving proper medical care.

The unit commander treated us badly, said one of the soldiers.

Credit: Telegram/Astra

10:18 AM GMT

Russia says it has seized another village as its forces close in on Kurakhove

Russia has said it has captured another village in east Ukraine as its forces close in on the fortress town of Kurakhove.

The Kremlins defence ministry said troops had captured Voznesenka, which is around 9 miles north of Kurakhove.

Russian forces are advancing to the north, south and east of Kurakhove, enveloping the town in a pincer movement.

The Institute for the Study of war reported on Wednesday that Russian troops had carried out a series of mechanised assaults on the town earlier this week.

09:48 AM GMT

Pictured: Russian rocket minefield fires towards Ukrainian positions

A Russian Zemledeliye rapid minelaying system is pictured firing at an undisclosed location in Ukraine on Thursday. The Russian defence ministry said it was firing towards Ukrainian positions.

The system fires rockets that can scatter mines over a specified area within a 3-9 mile radius.

Russian media said the weapon can also fire conventional explosive rockets.

A Russian Zemledeliye rapid minelaying vehicle fires towards Ukrainian positions at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, Nov 14 - Russian Defence Ministry Press Service

09:23 AM GMT

Biden sending aid so Ukraine can fight on next year

The Biden administration is determined to use its final months to send every dollar at its disposal to Ukraine so it can keep fighting next year, amid fears that incoming US president Donald Trump will cut off support for Kyiv.

President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20, secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.

Donald Trump is due to be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on January 20.

During his election campaign, Mr Trump pledged to bring the war between Russia and Ukraine to an end within a day of taking office.

08:53 AM GMT

Russians attempt to take Kupiansk dressed in Ukrainian uniforms

Russian forces on Wednesday attempted to capture the city of Kupiansk dressed in Ukrainian uniforms, Kyivs military said.

The Russian invaders launched an assault to break through our defenses in the Kupiansk sector. Enemy assault groups attacked the positions of the Ukrainian defenders in four waves, the Ukrainian general staff said.

It added that some Russian troops were dressed in uniforms similar to those of the Ukrainian armed forces, which it said violates the laws and customs of war and constitutes a war crime.

Pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar said that two columns of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles entered Kupiansk, while infantry occupied houses on the citys eastern edges.

Kupiansk is located in the northeastern sector of the Ukrainian frontline. Russian forces seized the city shortly after the 2022 invasion. Ukraine recaptured it eight months later.

08:33 AM GMT

Ukrainian air force shoots down 21 of 59 overnight Russian drones

Ukraines air force has said it shot down 21 out of 59 attack drones fired at the country overnight.

The enemy launched 59 Shahed attack UAVs and unidentified drones from Russias Kursk Oblast on the night of 13-14 November (starting from 19:00 on 13 November). As of 08:30 on 14 November, 21 UAVs were confirmed downed, the force said in a statement.

Explosions were reported in the eastern city of Kharkiv, its mayor said.

Be careful as the enemy is launching guided bombs at the city and surrounding areas, mayor Ihor Terekhov added.

No injuries or damage has so far been reported.

08:17 AM GMT

Russia expected to advance 20 miles west by December

Russian forces are expected to advance 20 miles further into Ukraine by December, according to Kyiv-based security think tank Centre for Defence Strategies.

The front line will probably shift 30-35 km west of its current position [by December], the centre told the Financial Times.

Moscows troops are advancing at a faster rate than at any time since 2022, having captured a reported 463 sq miles of territory since August.

Fighting is particularly intense in the southern sector of the frontline, where Russia is inching towards the key logistic hub of Pokrovsk and rapidly enveloping the fortress town of Kurakhove.

08:07 AM GMT

Welcome to our live coverage

Welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. Well be keeping you up to date with events as they happen.

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A ball python was found curled up behind the toilet on the morning of Nov. 5, 2024.

A South Carolina woman got a terrible start to her Tuesday earlier this month when she found an unexpected guest behind the toilet.

The woman turned on bathroom light in her Columbia apartment around 5 a.m. on Nov. 5 and found a ball python behind the porcelain throne.

She screamed at the sight, telling Richland County deputies that she first called a friend to help take care of the snake, according to an incident report obtained by USA TODAY on Wednesday. The two then called police, and deputies were able to wrangle the python into a pillowcase and out of the bathroom.

No person or snake were harmed in the removal process.

The ball python wrapped in a pillowcase after it was removed from the bathroom.

Python moves on to 'forever home,' deputies say

The Richland County Sheriff's Department took to Facebook hours after the removal to share the news, briefly describing the situation and providing photographs.

"Deputies and snake wranglers?!" the agency wrote. "RCSD deputies responded to a call for service about a snake in the bathroom! Understandably so, this resident was ready to find a new place with no snakes and needed a report."

Deputies and snake wranglers?!  RCSD deputies responded to a call for service about a snake in the bathroom!... Posted by Richland County Sheriff's Department on Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Shannon Huffman, master deputy, "knew exactly what do" when she arrived, facilitating a safe removal, the sheriff's department wrote in the post.

"We were able to provide a solution to the resident quickly and save the snakes life," Master deptuty Alexandra Salrin told The State. This was definitely a unique call for service for us."

It was not immediately clear how the snake ended up in the woman's apartment, but the agency suspects it was a pet and may have escaped from a neighboring apartment, The State reported.

Another deputy at the department took the snake in because no one has come forward to claim the snake, Salrin shared with The State.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: South Carolina woman shocked to find python behind her toilet
Tropical Storm Sara formed in the Caribbean on Thursday, becoming the 18th named storm of the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season. The system, previously called Tropical Depression 19, developed in the western Caribbean earlier this week and intensified while traveling westward on a path toward Central America.

Sara had sustained winds of 45 mph and was located around 105 miles north-northwest of the Nicaragua-Honduras border and 105 miles east-southeast of the Honduras island of Guanaja, moving west at 10 mph, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said in a 10 p.m. ET update. A weather system is considered a tropical storm when its sustained wind speeds reach at least 39 mph.

The storm is expected to linger in the Caribbean through the weekend and slowly move into the Gulf of Mexico early next week. After that, its path is less clear. CBS News meteorologist Nikki Nolan said a lot of the models are now trending towards it dissipating either after it enters the Gulf of Mexico or over Mexico, but several still have it aiming towards Florida.

Map shows location of Tropical Storm Sara off the coast of Honduras on Nov. 14, 2024. / Credit: CBS News

"Florida residents should closely monitor the forecast updates as they come in," Nolan advised.

The Atlantic Hurricane Season officially runs from June 1 until Nov. 30, with activity typically peaking between mid-August and mid-October. An average season brings 14 named storms, seven hurricanes, and three major hurricanes, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which did predict the 2024 season would produce "above average" numbers.

What is the projected path of Tropical Storm Sara?

Sara was forecast to move closer to the northern coast of Honduras through early Saturday and then approach Belize on Sunday, the Hurricane Center said.

Sara could potentially bring catastrophic rainfall to parts of Central America. Between 10 and 20 inches of heavy rainfall are possible in Honduras early next week, forecasters warned, with up to 30 inches accumulating in some places.

Map shows the forecast path for Tropical Storm Sara as of Nov. 14, 2024. / Credit: CBS News

Forecasters at the hurricane center said they expected "life-threatening and potentially catastrophic" flash floods to hit Honduras and persist through the weekend. The hurricane center also warned of potentially disastrous mudslides caused by the storm, especially in the mountainous area along and near Sierra La Esperanza on the country's northeastern coast. They estimated those conditions would persist through the weekend.

The rest of Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala and western Nicaragua will likely receive between 5 and 10 inches of rainfall as the storm runs its course through that region, but up to 15 inches are possible.

Governments across Central America have issued various watches and warnings as people brace for Sara's effects. Honduras' northern coast and its Bay Islands were under a tropical storm warning Thursday night.

Will Tropical Storm Sara become a hurricane?

It remains to be seen whether Sara will grow into a hurricane. A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when its sustained winds reach at least 74 mph, making it a Category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

Forecasters also cautioned residents of Belize and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to be ready for possible impacts of Sara early next week.

Will Tropical Storm Sara hit Florida?

After entering the Gulf of Mexico, some forecast models suggested the storm could make a right-hand turn and heading toward Florida by late next week, though Nolan noted that conditions can quickly change. Other models had the storm potentially heading into the central part of the Gulf and possibly dissipating.

Air Force hurricane hunters that flew into the area to investigate the strength and structure of the developing weather system located Sara Thursday night along Hondruras' northeastern coast, the hurricane center said.

Forecast models take in the current environmental factors along with historical data to compute "spaghetti plots" of where systems may track. Each model uses different computations, and the forecast track is an output of the consensus from those models.

"It is too soon to determine what impacts the system could bring to portions of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, including Florida, the Florida Keys, and Cuba during the middle portion of next week," the hurricane center said Thursday. "Residents in these areas should regularly monitor updates to the forecast."

Sneak peek: The Suspicious Death of Megan Parra

The Onion buys Infowars out of bankruptcy in move backed by Sandy Hook families

Trump says he plans to announce Doug Burgum as Department of Interior head
President-elect Donald Trumps former lawyer Alina Habba made clear early Thursday that she is not in the running to be his next White House press secretary.

While I am flattered by the support and speculation, the role of Press Secretary is not a role I am considering, Habba, 40, said on X of the post she was widely rumored to be getting.

Although I love screaming from a podium I will be better served in other capacities, she joked.

President-elect Trumps former lawyer Alina Habba made it clear that she is not going to be his White House press secretary. Alina Habba

This administration is going to be epic! So proud of the Trump team, the latest appointments and 47!

It comes just days after Habba said she would very seriously consider the opportunity after being asked repeatedly during a Fox News appearance about recent reports that she was a front-runner for the role.

I leave it to the president and the three people that are on my board of directors  thats Luke, Chloe and Parker, my children. Everybody will know in time, the attorney told host Sean Hannity.

She refused to elaborate on whether shed had any discussions with the Trump-Vance transition team about serving in the incoming administration.

They are killing it on all fronts  Its time to have advocacy for America First, and whatever that looks like for President Trump and his team, I trust it. Its a decision for all of them to make. Not me, Habba told the outlet.

Follow the latest news on President-elect Trumps cabinet picks and White House transition

Habba, who founded the New Jersey-based law firm Habba Madaio & Associates, joined Trumps legal team back in 2021.

Habba was asked multiple times by Sean Hannity about a report suggesting that she is the favorite for the role and did not rule out the possibility of serving in the incoming administration. CNN

She has represented the 45th president in several of his high-profile legal cases  including E. Jean Carrolls defamation lawsuit and New York Attorney General Letitia James civil fraud case.

Trump hasnt yet revealed who will take on the press secretary role.

Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham and Kayleigh McEnany served in the role during Trumps first stint in the White House.
When Elisa Smithers was deployed to Iraq in 2005, there was a ban on women serving in ground combat operations.

Smithers was a female searcher with the National Guard and was attached to an infantry unit to help with searching detained Iraqi women, among other tasks. But she returned home to find she wasnt offered the same support by the US Department of Veterans Affairs that male combat veterans were offered, Smithers said.

Now, the 48-year-old veteran fears the progress made for women in combat since then will be reversed after President-elect Donald Trump announced Pete Hegseth this week as his pick for secretary of defense  a Fox News host and Army veteran who has criticized efforts to allow women into combat roles.

The ban on women serving in ground combat units was lifted in 2013 and, in 2016, all US military combat positions were opened to them, allowing women to fill about 220,000 jobs that were previously limited to men  including infantry, armor, reconnaissance and some special operations units. Women account for roughly 17.5% of the Defense Departments active-duty force, according to 2022 data from the agency.

Hegseth, who has a long record serving in the military in Afghanistan and Iraq, has not announced any plans to reinstate the ban if hes confirmed, but has previously accused the military of lowering standards to allow women into combat jobs.

Speaking about his book, The War on Warriors, published this year, Hegseth said in a recent podcast he was surprised there hasnt been more blowback on the book, because Im straight up just saying, we should not have women in combat roles.

It hasnt made us more effective, hasnt made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.  Weve all served with women, and theyre great, Hegseth said last week on The Shawn Ryan Show. But our institutions dont have to incentivize that in places where, traditionally  not traditionally, over human history  men in those positions are more capable.

Even if a combat exclusion policy is reinstated, Smithers said women will still be pushed into such roles in an unofficial capacity like she was, just with less recognition and access to benefits like before.

They will still need these women in these roles, Smithers told CNN. So, well go back to this, like, pseudo attaching them to the unit. And then this perception by the men that, you know, the women are not in combat roles.

US Army veteran Elizabeth Beggs said women in military service have already proven theyre capable.

Lets not get it twisted. Women have been in combat since the beginning of history, Beggs said.

But she does agree with Hegseth on one thing: Not all women are capable  just like not all men are capable, Beggs said.

Elisa Smithers recently retired after 21 years in the Army National Guard. - Courtesy Elisa Smithers

Vets say Hegseth is diminishing womens accomplishments

More than 2 million female veterans live in the US  and the number is expected to continue to grow, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The combat exclusion policy was lifted shortly before 27-year-old Beggs joined the US Army. She went on to hold several roles during her four years of service, including armor officer, tank commander and platoon leader.

I believe its incredibly divisive to water down and diminish the accomplishments that I and other women have made serving in these roles, not just to women, but to men whove gone through the same courses and hit the same standards, especially in a time where we should be unifying, Beggs said.

Lory Manning, a 25-year Navy veteran, takes issue with Hegseth accusing the military of lowering standards to allow women into jobs with the Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Army Special Forces, Marine Special Operations, and jobs such as those in infantry, armor and artillery units.

Hegseth has specifically criticized having women in roles where strength is the differentiator, he said on the podcast last week.

Im not talking about pilots Im talking about physical, labor-intensive type jobs, Hegseth said. Seals, Rangers, Green Berets, MARSOC, infantry battalions, armor, artillery.

Manning, also the former director for the Service Womens Action Network, said Hegseths assertion the military lowered their standards to accommodate women is a false, yet repeated one.

Sometimes, its said to protect women who dont need protecting, Manning said.

In a 2013 op-ed for the American Civil Liberties Union, Manning refuted the claim that tough combat training standards will be lowered by making them equal for both genders.

Women have already been integrated into air and sea combat duties with no lowering of standards, Manning wrote.

While the ban on women participating in ground combat operations wasnt lifted until 2013, women have been flying in combat operations and serving aboard US combatant ships since the early 90s.

Like Manning, veteran Smithers believes a woman should be allowed to serve if they qualify for the physical, labor-intensive type jobs that Hegseth has a problem with them taking on.

At the end of the day, in order for us to be a dynamic and agile force and the great military that we are, weve got to have diversity. And that includes women in our force, Smithers said. Diversity always makes us better.

Brandy Cottrill-Cox was stationed on the border of Kuwait and Iraq in 2004. - Courtesy Brandy Cottrill-Cox

Concerns about culture of sexual assault

Another female veteran, who identifies as a military sexual assault survivor and asked not to share her name out of fear of retaliation, said she worries how Hegseths rhetoric as the leader of the military, if confirmed, would influence the culture in the armed services, which is already grappling with issues of sexual harassment and assault.

Whenever a man does not see a woman as an equal, thats where youre going to see that kind of culture continuously get worse, the 46-year-old disabled veteran told CNN. Its going to hurt the military force.

Roughly 20% of women serving in the military reported experiencing military sexual trauma during their service as of 2021, compared to about 1% of men, according to the National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics.

The statistic, according to the Combat Female Veterans Families United, underscores the prevalence and impact of gender-specific challenges faced by female veterans during and after their time in service.

In August, findings from a Senate investigation into misconduct within the US Coast Guard were released, detailing systemic sexual assault and harassment, including a culture of silencing, retaliation, and failed accountability. And in 2023, a study by the US Army Special Operations Command showed how its women are facing significant discrimination including sexual harassment and sexism from their male counterparts, CNN reported.

Brandy Cottrill-Cox, a Purple Heart recipient who served in combat while stationed with the US National Guard on the border of Kuwait and Iraq in 2004, called Hegseths comments dangerous rhetoric to target women.

During her second tour in Iraq, Cottrill-Cox said she was given a rape whistle.

There is a rape culture that is not being addressed, Cottrill-Cox said. Women across the country who have served in the military are accessing resources for their trauma from experiencing sexual harassment and assaults while in service  many of which go unreported, she said.

Thats basically telling a woman shes not good enough to serve

US Sen. Tammy Duckworth speaks during a news conference at the US Capitol on February 27, 2024 in Washington, DC. - Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/File

Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran, said Hegseth is dangerously unqualified.

Earlier this week, Duckworth wrote about her Alive Day anniversary on X, commemorating the day the Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

As a result, she lost both her legs and partial use of one of her arms, according to her biography page. She remains proud of her service.

By choosing to put a TV personality with little experience running much of anything in charge of the Defense Departments almost 3 million troops and civilian employees, Donald Trump is once again proving he cares more about his MAGA base than keeping our nation safeand our troops, our military families and our national security will pay the price, she said in a statement.

Wendy Coop is a US Navy veteran. - Courtesy Wendy Coop

Wendy Coop, a 45-year-old US Navy veteran, called Hegseths comments on women serving in combat roles a very disturbing and potentially dangerous take.

Coop, who lives in St. Augustine, Florida, graduated from the US Naval Academy in 2001 before she went on active duty on a ship doing maintenance work which included painting and working with tools.

While Coop did not serve in combat while in the force, she said Hegseth shows a lack of understanding of the military complex, stressing the many other military jobs that support those who engage in combat  chaplains, nurses, logistics and doctors.

His comments open the floodgates to people who just say that women dont belong in the military at all, as though we are too weak, as though we dont have the personality to do the job, she said.

She also worries any course reversal on women serving in combat will have a sweeping impact on women serving in other government jobs.

We have to look at the individual and stop saying your gender determines your ability to serve in the military, Coop said. And then what happens is that people say, oh, well, they dont belong in the military? They also dont belong in the police force. They also dont belong as firefighters. They dont belong in the Secret Service.

The veteran who did not wish to share her name said the discourse around a potential rollback of women serving in combat roles is very disparaging.

Its a slap in the face for a lot of the women who have worked so hard to get to where theyre at, she told CNN. We served this country with pride, dignity and respect.

And when you have someone say that women are not good enough to be in combat, thats basically telling a woman that shes not good enough to serve.

CNNs Jeff Winter, Cindy Von Quednow and Jade Gordon contributed to this report.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon will not be invited to be a part of Donald Trump's administration, the U.S. president-elect said on social media on Thursday.

"I respect Jamie Dimon, of JPMorgan Chase, greatly, but he will not be invited to be a part of the Trump Administration," Trump said in his post.

A source told Reuters last week Dimon will remain at the bank and had no plans to join Trump's administration after earlier having been the subject of speculation as a Treasury secretary candidate in the run-up to the Nov. 5 election.

Trump, a Republican, beat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the election. Dimon said last month that his chances of taking an official post were "almost nil".

Trump is yet to announce a Treasury secretary pick. Billionaire banker Howard Lutnick and investor Scott Bessent are the top contenders for the role, sources have told Reuters.

Dimon, who is one of the most prominent leaders in corporate America, has run JPMorgan for almost 19 years.

Dimon and other members of the bank's operating committee congratulated Trump and other elected representatives, according to a memo to staff last week seen by Reuters.

The outspoken CEO travels frequently to Washington to speak with policymakers and has expressed views on everything from housing and the U.S.-China relationship to the economy. He continued his tradition of not endorsing any presidential candidate this year.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington, editing by Deepa Babington)
A version of this story appeared in CNNs What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

President-elect Donald Trumps Cabinet picks keep getting more outlandish, which may be part of the point.

Attorney general? Rep. Matt Gaetz, the right-wing provocateur who is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for allegations of sexual misconduct.

Secretary of defense? Pete Hegseth, a weekend Fox News host who served in the Army National Guard.

Director of national intelligence? Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman who has expressed sympathy for Russia.

Some of them are designed to shake up Washington, said Scott Jennings, a Republican and senior CNN political commentator who appeared on CNN after the surprising pick of Gaetz. Other Trump choices, like Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state, are more conventional.

Jennings said no one should underestimate Trumps ability to push some of these nominees through the Senate now that hes claiming a mandate after winning the presidential election.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat who served with Gaetz in both the Florida legislature and US House, said there should be no surprise that Trump would pick Gaetz, who has been one of Trumps most effective advocates in Congress.

Gaetz is known for scorched-earth tactics in the House and was instrumental in ousting then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year for negotiating with Democrats. He might be controversial enough to challenge even Trumps ability to get an attorney general confirmed.

Matt Gaetz knows exactly what to do with the attorney generals office, Moskowitz said, noting that Gaetz is loyal to Trump and competent. He added that Gaetz will be the most powerful attorney general in American history.

Trump has previously expressed a desire to drastically change both the national security apparatus and the Department of Justice, which he still blames for the investigation into Russian election meddling in the 2016 election.

Rep. Matt Gaetz speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 17. - Alex Wong/Getty Images

Trump wants power to get around Senate confirmations

Trump already demanded a fast track around the Senate confirmation process when he encouraged Republicans to back the concept of recess appointments for his picks.

It would be a major evolution for Republican senators to back such appointments, which can be made when the Senate is out of session. Ten years ago, Senate Republicans took the Obama administration to the US Supreme Court over this issue, winning a unanimous ruling and guaranteeing their constitutional ability to have input on who runs the US government.

Back then, Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who is now a major Trump ally, called President Barack Obamas attempt to use a recess appointment to make the National Labor Relations Board function an attempt to circumvent Congress and ignore the Constitution in order to achieve its controversial political agenda.

Now its a bit awkward that some Senate Republicans want to hand Trump the power to make recess appointments without their input after he demanded it over the weekend.

Recess appointments are temporary hirings that can last a year or two. The goal is speed since the clock is already ticking on Trumps coming presidency.

We know that President Trump will only have four years to reshape our federal government, Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, told Fox Business.

Four years may be optimistic. Each of the last three presidents  Obama, Trump and Joe Biden  achieved their major legislative wins in the first two years of their presidency before losing control of the House as part of a now-normal backlash against presidents in power.

Some Republicans were surprised at Trumps defense pick

Republicans are poised to have a 53-47 seat majority in the Senate if they win the race in Pennsylvania, where the Republican candidate David McCormick holds a slim lead. That should give them enough votes to push through any Trump appointment, although some Republican senators were scratching their heads at the Hegseth pick.

Wow, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Who? asked Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, according to NBC.

Interesting, said Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Others were supportive. Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma praised Hegseth for not being politically correct.

The requirement is that President Trump gets to nominate the individual and the Senate gets to confirm them. I trust President Trumps decision, Mullin told CNNs Jake Tapper on Wednesday.

Mullin was less convinced by the Gaetz pick.

Hes got to come to the Senate and sell himself, Mullin said. Theres a lot of questions out there.

Grasping for power

If theres a theme to this new Trump administration in the making, its that the president-elect wants to quickly go big, rewriting some of the rules in Washington, seizing more power for the president to get around Congress and to mold the federal bureaucracy.

Daniel Farber is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and author of a book on presidential power. He told me in an email that there has been a long-term trend of presidents trying to consolidate power in the executive branch.

One thing that has kept this from going to extremes is that most presidents understand that they need competent, experienced staff across the government to carry out their programs effectively. I dont think Trump has that view, he said.

Reports of a special committee to reassess the loyalty of generals is outside the norm and could place Trump-approved generals at the Pentagon.

Then theres the selection of Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, cross-branded with Musks favorite cryptocurrency, DOGE.

Many are wondering where these two businessmen will find $2 trillion to cut from the sprawling federal government. Trump promised they would figure out how to dismantle the federal bureaucracy, but they dont currently have any official power or mandate from Congress. Musk said there would be a suggestion box online and they also could show how government money is wasted.

Elon Musk joins Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on October 5. - Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

There are ways that Trump could give Musk and Ramaswamy official power or even officially hire them without forcing Musk to divest from Tesla and SpaceX  but its telling that Trump does not appear to be pursuing those options, according to Norm Eisen, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution who also served as ethics czar in the Obama administration.

Its the beginning of the end for them, Eisen predicted of their relationship with Trump, pointing to the many recommendations of government commissions that have long since been forgotten without any action. Trump doesnt really want to share with strong personalities who might be rivals.

Meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine skeptic who endorsed Trump, wants broad latitude over US health policy but apparently may not be given a Cabinet role.

Now in power, Thune notes constitutional role

On recess appointments, there are some indications that top Senate Republicans wont want to so easily give away their power to have input on appointments.

All of the candidates vying to be the Republican Senate majority leader when Republicans take the majority in January expressed some openness to the idea of recess appointments, including the ultimate winner, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.

But when he spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill after winning the position Wednesday, Thune pointed out that the Senate has an advise and consent role in the Constitution.

While Thune did not reject the idea of recess appointments, he was clear that senators arent giving anything up quite yet.

We want to make sure our committees have confirmation hearings like they typically do, he said, although he warned Democrats against gumming up the process too much, or Senate Republicans will explore all options.

Thune also pledged that Republicans will respect the legislative filibuster, the custom by which a minority of senators can squash most legislation.

The Senate, as you know, is by the founders design, a place where the minority has a voice in our process, he said.

Anyone who can remember all the way back to 2017  the first year of Trumps first term, when Republicans held the House, Senate and White House like they will next year  will recall that Trump routinely groused about the filibuster back then as an impediment to getting legislation passed.

CNN projected Wednesday that Republicans will hold a majority in the House, but it is sure to be much smaller than the majority Republicans held the first time Trump governed. That means it will be more difficult to pass legislation with only Republicans.

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, said on Wednesday that the country is not safe and criticized the previous president for a failed security policy and refusing to accept American assistance.

"The reality is that at the moment Mexico is not safe," Salazar said during a press conference at his residence in Mexico City.

The ambassador criticized former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador directly, saying security coordination between Mexico and the U.S. had suffered during his term.

"Unfortunately this coordination has failed in the last year, in great part because the previous president did not want to receive help from the United States," he said.

Lopez Obrador's attempt to address the root causes of violence, a strategy he called "hugs not bullets," did "not work," Salazar said.

He added he hoped that President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office last month, would have greater success in fighting crime and violence by investing more in security.

Sheinbaum, who belongs to the same party as Lopez Obrador, has stressed that her security policy will follow closely that of the previous president.

The comments come as relations between Lopez Obrador and Salazar have become increasingly fraught in recent months, after the ambassador criticized a judicial overhaul being driven by the former president.

It marks a distinct change from the earlier part of Lopez Obrador's presidency when the two were regarded as having a close working relationship - a proximity that some U.S. diplomats privately criticized.

Mexico has suffered a recent wave of violence with hundreds killed in intra-cartel warfare in the state of Sinaloa as well as massacres in other states such as Queretaro where 10 people were killed in a bar over the weekend.

(Reporting by Diego Delgado; Writing by Stephen Eisenhammer; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Megan Menchaca is a Houston Independent School District reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the co-author of The Report Card, a weekly newsletter diving into Houston K-12 education news. She can be reached at megan.menchaca@houstonchronicle.com.

Megan joined the Chronicle in 2023 after working as the higher education reporter for the Austin American-Statesman. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with degrees in journalism and government.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to pause their bid to revive the criminal case accusing President-elect Donald Trump of illegally handling classified documents, citing his election victory.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, in a brief court filing, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to "hold this appeal in abeyance" to allow prosecutors time to assess the impact of Trump's impending return to the White House on the case.

Trump was accused of illegally holding onto classified documents after he left office in 2021. A federal judge appointed to the bench by Trump dismissed the case in July after ruling that Smith was improperly appointed to the special counsel role, prompting prosecutors to appeal.

Smith's prosecutors asked to weigh in by Dec. 2 on how to proceed in the case. They have already secured a similar pause in another federal case accusing Trump of attempting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone)
The woman who was at the center of a yearslong Justice Department investigation into sex trafficking allegations surrounding Rep. Matt Gaetz testified to the House Ethics Committee that the now-former Florida congressman had sex with her when she was 17 years old, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.

President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that Gaetz had been tapped to serve as attorney general, overseeing the very branch of government that previously conducted its own investigation of him, which ended last year without charges being brought.

Gaetz resigned from office following Trump's announcement. This came as the House Ethics Committee was in the final stages of its investigation, said sources, who added that the committee was preparing to meet this week to deliberate over whether to release a final report on the matter.

MORE: Growing calls for House Ethics Committee to share report on Matt Gaetz

Over the summer, the House Ethics Committee subpoenaed the woman at the center of the probe -- who is now in her 20s -- and she sat for multiple days of testimony where she testified to the committee that Gaetz had sex with her when she was a minor in high school, sources close to the investigation said.

"These allegations are invented and would constitute false testimony to Congress," Gaetz said in response to ABC News' reporting. "This false smear following a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism."

The Justice Department spent years probing the allegations against Gaetz, including allegations of obstruction of justice, before informing Gaetz last year that it would not bring charges.

Gaetz has long denied any wrongdoing related to the Justice Department probe. In September, he released a detailed response to questions sent to him by the House Ethics Committee, which has been investigating allegations of alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, reiterating his denial of the allegations.

PHOTO: Rep. Matt Gaetz speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md., Feb. 23, 2024. (Alex Brandon/AP)

"Your correspondence of September 4 asks whether I have engaged in sexual activity with any individual under 18. The answer to this question is unequivocally NO. You can apply this response to every version of this question, in every forum," Gaetz said in a statement posted to his social media account.

"The Committees star witness, Joel Greenberg, is a felonious liar who involves others in his lies ... Greenberg was initially indicted for attempting to falsely smear a teacher at a local high school as a pedophile," Gaetz added regarding former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, who pleaded guilty to falsely accusing a teacher, who was running for office against him, of a sex crime.

The woman's allegation regarding Gaetz became part of the investigation following claims by Greenberg, a former friend of Gaetz who is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence after reaching a deal with investigators in May 2021 in which he pleaded guilty to multiple federal crimes, including sex trafficking of the woman when she was a minor and introducing her to other "adult men" who also had sex with her when she was underage.

According to Greenberg's plea deal, the woman, who ABC News is not identifying, met Greenberg online in 2017 and began meeting him in hotels and houses in the Middle District of Florida, where he "introduced the Minor to other adult men, who engaged in commercial sex acts with the Minor in the Middle District of Florida," court documents said.

At the time, the minor "represented that she was an adult" on the website where she met Greenberg -- and according to his plea agreement, he acknowledges that he "acted in reckless disregard of the fact that the Minor was less than 18 years old when he engaged in commercial sex acts" and had a "reasonable opportunity to observe" that she was underage.

Over the course of its investigation, the House Ethics Committee conducted interviews with at least half a dozen women who allegedly attended parties where the Florida congressman was also present, and who were paid by Greenberg, Gaetz's one-time close friend, sources told ABC News. Some of the witnesses had been subpoenaed by the committee, while others agreed to cooperate, according to the sources.

MORE: Trump's Gaetz pick as AG triggers audible gasp among some Republicans

The House Ethics Committee also subpoenaed Gaetz's former girlfriend for testimony, and said she sat for an interview earlier in the year, sources said. The former girlfriend previously testified to a grand jury in the sex trafficking probe, as ABC News previously reported.

The committee has also obtained a sworn written statement by Gaetzs ex-girlfriend where she lists the Florida congressman as one of the attendees at a party in July 2017 where drugs were present and which was attended by the woman who Gaetz allegedly had sex with when she was a minor, sources said.

ABC News previously reported that the committee obtained written testimony from a separate woman who said that in July 2017, when she was 20 years old, she attended a party in Florida that Gaetz also attended, and which was attended by the woman who was a minor at the time and where drugs including cocaine were present.

Greenberg, a key witness in the Justice Department probe, has been cooperating with the House Ethics investigation, according to sources. Earlier this year, while serving time in a Florida federal prison, he provided written testimony to the committee, the sources said.

Some witnesses were shown Venmo payments they allegedly received from Gaetz, sources said.

MORE: House Ethics Committee subpoenas documents from lawsuit brought by Gaetz's friend: Sources

As ABC News previously reported, one woman who said she attended a party with the Gaetz in 2017, who ABC News is not identifying, told the committee that a payment from Gaetz was for sex, multiple sources told ABC News. Others have said they were paid to attend parties they said Gaetz also attended, and that those parties included drugs and sex, the sources said.

Gaetz has long denied all of the allegations, including paying for sex, and previously dismissed them by claiming "someone is trying to recategorize my generosity to ex-girlfriends as something more untoward."

Earlier in the year the committee subpoenaed the Justice Department for records related to its probe into the Florida congressman, sources said. It is unclear if those records were turned over.

However, the committee had obtained some Venmo records from Gaetz after issuing the company a subpoena, sources told ABC News. During the Justice Department's investigation into Gaetz, public reporting, including by The Daily Beast, largely focused on Venmo records from Greenberg, who, according to his plea agreement, used his account to "pay for commercial sex acts" with women he also introduced to others.

Woman testified to House Ethics Committee that Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17: Sources originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
The federal investigation leading to the indictments of Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens and others has rippled through the local political ecosystem.

JACKSON, Miss.  For out-of-state developers hoping to bring a win to Mississippis capital, their pitch was flat.

The city had long been searching for someone to develop part of downtown Jackson, and when two men showed up expressing their interest in late February, City Council member Virgi Lindsay agreed to meet with them at an upscale steakhouse in a nearby suburb.

But they had no vision, Lindsay said in an interview, and they were short on details. She could not recall whether they even offered a business card.

Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens invited several City Council members, including Virgi Lindsay, pictured, to meet with developers.

She left the dinner  after having paid for her own meal, a personal policy that is a holdover from her days as a newspaper reporter, she said  not expecting to join them at a ribbon-cutting any time soon.

I just thought I would never see them again, because I just felt like they were so poorly prepared, Lindsay said. I certainly did not suspect they were connected to the FBI.

Now, Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, who invited her to the meeting and was present, is accused in a federal indictment filed in the Southern District of Mississippi of participating in and facilitating a bribery scheme that ensnared the mayor and members of the City Council. The out-of-state developers were FBI agents. As part of a sting operation, they sought support from officials in Jackson, the states largest city, for a phony hotel deal in exchange for cash and perks like shopping sprees and personal security details.

Owens, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and City Council member Aaron Banks were indicted last month on conspiracy and bribery charges. All have pleaded not guilty. A trial is set for early January.

Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba has been indicted on conspiracy and bribery charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

A City Council member, Angelique Lee, resigned in August and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery. Sherik Marve Smith  a relative of Owens who court records say conspired to give things of value, including cash payments and campaign donations, to elected officials in exchange for their support for the real estate project  also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery. Smith did not respond to a request for comment.

No other City Council members have been charged.

The allegations in the federal indictment paint a picture of people entrusted to public office in a city where roughly 26% of residents live in poverty being accused of receiving more than $100,000 in bribe payments while being whisked away to hobnob on private jets and yachts.

The bribery scandal is the latest in a series of challenges Jackson has faced in recent years. Last year residents went without garbage pickup for roughly two weeks amid a contract dispute.

That breakdown came on the heels of a water system crisis that left much of the city without access to running water for days in 2022. The problems with the water system persisted, with residents being asked to boil their water for safety amid reports of brown water, leaking sewage and low water pressure. The system is now under the control of an interim third-party manager.

People are tired; they just want some good stuff done, said Vernon Hartley, a City Council member for one of the citys poorest wards.

The indictment lays out a roughly eight-month period when two FBI agents, posing as developers from Nashville, worked with Owens to secure support they would need to win a development project in the city.

The undercover FBI agents arrived in Jackson in July 2023 looking for potential real estate opportunities and were put in touch with Owens, according to the indictment.

The city had received a multimillion-dollar loan from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2008 to be used to pay for development projects in the citys downtown, and the city struggled to find anyone to take up the project throughout the years. The city made another effort in July 2023 to find developers by issuing a public request.

Owens was campaigning for re-election when the developers flew him and others to Nashville on a private jet in October 2023 to discuss business opportunities in Jackson.

After that trip, the indictment alleges, Owens boasted to undercover agents that he and Smith had a bag of f------ information on all the city councilmen that allowed him to get votes approved.

A few weeks later, he would win re-election by a wide margin. At his victory party, he told developers that being the district attorney was a part time job that he used to get leverage for his full time job of real estate development, the indictment alleges.

This is the part time job to get the conversations and the access. Access equals the other sh-t were trying to do, he said, according to the indictment.

Owens, whose attorney did not respond to a request for comment, said after last weeks arraignment that cherry-picked statements of drunken locker room banter is not a crime.

The next day, Owens and Smith negotiated a $250,000 payout to be divided between them and an unidentified person, with Owens and Smith receiving $100,000 each for securing support for the developers project, according to the indictment.

In December, the developers flew Smith, Owens and an unidentified witness to Florida on a private jet for a meeting on a yacht. Owens is alleged to have accepted $125,000 in cash from one of the agents on the yacht, according to the indictment.

A federal indictment includes a picture of Hinds District Attorney Jody Owens holding what appears to be cash.

Owens boasted about his power to sway things, saying, Everybody needs something. Every file comes to us. Everybody needs something fixed, according to the indictment.

Roughly a month later, in a meeting at the DAs office in a room he had dubbed the war room, Owens gave the developers a heads-up that the city of Jackson would be putting out another request to solicit developers for a downtown development project that would include a hotel near the citys convention center, according to the indictment.

The request for proposals issued in July failed to secure any approved projects.

At that point, Owens and the developers alleged efforts to secure support for the proposal seemed to pick up steam, and Banks, then the City Council president, was brought into the alleged scheme, according to the indictment.

Banks is alleged to have told a developer at a meeting with Owens on Jan. 11 that fifty grand as soon as possible would help during a discussion about his support for their project, according to the indictment. The next month, Banks accepted $10,000 in cash from Owens, it alleges.

Aaron Banks is the second Jackson City Council member to be charged in the federal bribery case.

Reached by phone Monday, Banks, who is charged with two felony counts, said, I have nothing to say.

In February, Owens arranged a dinner to introduce Lumumba, the mayor, to the developers. The indictment alleges that during introductions, Owens said, Ive done background checks. Theyre not FBI by the way, and that he went on to explain their development interest to the mayor.

After the dinner, Owens promised the developers he would get them three more votes, in addition to securing Banks and Lumumba, according to the indictment. He went into detail about how to funnel funds through campaign finance accounts and explained how to first clean the money, the indictment said.

I dont give a sh-t where the money comes from. It can come from blood diamonds in Africa, I dont give a f------ sh-t, the indictment quotes Owens as saying. Owens said his job was to get this deal done.

We can take dope boy money, I dont give a sh-t. But I need to clean it and spread it, Owens said, according to the indictment.

At least one other dinner among Owens, the developers and a council member would occur, according to court records. In late March, developers gave a bag of $3,000 in cash to Lee, then a member of the City Council, according to the indictment. The next day, she would spend more than $6,000 on luxury goods using one of the agents credit cards, according to the indictment.

Angelique Lee, a former City Council member, resigned and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery.

In August, Lee pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery. She has not yet been sentenced. Lees attorney did not respond to a request for comment, and a call to a number listed for Lee was not returned.

Owens worked with the developers to concoct a plan by which he, Smith and Lumumba would travel to Florida for another meeting on the yacht, where Lumumba would receive $50,000, according to the indictment. They arranged for the money to be paid in five $10,000 campaign contribution checks in exchange for Lumumbas moving back the deadline for the development proposals, according to the indictment. The developers agreed to pay him another $50,000 later, the indictment said.

During the trip, Lumumba was recorded calling a city employee with instructions to change the deadline for proposals, according to the indictment.

A spokesperson for Lumumba declined to comment.

The same day, according to the indictment, Owens, Lumumba and the agents went to a venue identified only as a club in court documents. Owens is alleged to have made $5,000 in cash available for Lumumba to spend there, while Lumumba is alleged to have instructed one of the developers to pay cash to employees of the club for Lumumbas benefit, according to court papers.

In late May, the FBI searched Owens office at the Hinds County District Attorneys Office under a warrant. During the raid, they found that a book titled The Constitution of The United States was actually a lockbox, according to the indictment. Inside, officials said, there was $20,000 in cash. Almost half of it was traced via serial numbers to funds the developers had given Owens, according to the indictment.

A federal indictment alleges that cash was found in a lockbox disguised as a book during a search of Owens' office.

The indictment alleges that Owens had told developers earlier that he kept dope money and drug money and more than a million dollars in the office safe to avoid the risk of keeping it in his home.

Owens said in a statement that he was fully cooperating with their efforts.

At least three City Council members have confirmed to NBC News that Owens invited them to meetings with developers in January and late February.

On the day Owens and the developers first met with Banks, they had lunch with another council member, Hartley, Hartley said.

Hartley said in an interview that he declined their offer to pay for his meal at Walkers Drive-In, a restaurant often frequented by Jacksons business class and well-known for seafood and other Southern fare. As with Lindsay, the details of what they hoped to do in Jackson seemed scarce to him.

Hartley said Owens had said the developers had an interest in learning about his ward. The meeting itself, though, was lackluster, he said.

Ashby Foote, the councils sole Republican, told NBC News he joined the group for lunch at the Capital Club on Feb. 29.

City Council member Ashby Foote confirmed he also met with Owens and developers.

The restaurants location, the 19th floor of the downtown Capital Towers building, was a prime one. Its windows overlooked the property developers had their eye on.

Foote said that there was no formal presentation during the meal and that the businessmen talked in generalities.

But one thing stood out.

They said, How does Jackson work? I think, or something to that effect, or How do things get done in Jackson? or something to that effect, Foote said. I didnt really answer the question.

He initially looked at the meeting as a nothing burger.

Normally, you might at least get a business card, Foote said. He was frustrated. He did not catch their names, but he did write down the name of their group, the Facilities Solutions Team.

It never occurred in my wildest dreams they were undercover for the FBI, Foote said.

Now, the City Council is grappling with the aftermath of the latest developments, alongside routine matters of governance.

After the parade is gone, Hartley said, we still have to clean up the mess.

The first council meeting since the indictments is scheduled for Tuesday.
After years of infertility, I was finally pregnant. Then doctors said there was a problem.

Friction is needed for expansion.

For the past three and a half years, thats been my guiding principle: *Friction* is needed for expansion.

When the pills and the shots and the timing and the evaluations didnt work. When it felt like my body was failing me  again. When the test showed a single line, and another confirmed the same result, and another, and another, and another. A failure. Not pregnant.

I told myself: *Friction* is needed for expansion.

When friends announced new additions. When despite true joy for their growing households, my own disappointment and heartache throbbed like an open wound. A guttural longing rising. Why not me?

Dont answer. Just put the cage back around your heart. Just let the hurt fade into the background like a predator returned to its cave, biding time, waiting until hunger strikes again.

*Friction* is needed for expansion.

When the fertility clinics ultrasound showed something  off. This appointment, the nine-week check-in, was optional. My choice, they said. Two weeks earlier my scans were the picture of health. No problems. The heartbeat so, so strong. Hearing the rhythmic pulsing for the first time felt celestial, otherworldly.

I held the black-and-white screenshots by their edges, with an archivists tenderness. Could this be true?

A collection of fertility treatments surrounds a onesie.

I wanted to celebrate with the nurses one more time. After months of treatments, they felt like friends. Callie had danced  that sort of arms pumping wildly, jumping up and down bop that is happiness manifested  when delivering my results.

Pregnant  finally.

But now we spoke haltingly, the lumps in our throats too much of an obstacle for more than a few words at a time. The exam room seemed colder, the angles and instruments sharper than before. *Friction* is needed for expansion.

When the diagnoses piled up in the appointments that followed. So, so many for someone so, so small. At first I was told the baby might just have a short stature. Maybe have a wide neck. Might have vision issues. Maybe high blood pressure.

Fatality wasnt inevitable. And we were left to wrestle: Do you bring a life into this world that doesnt have every chance? Do you start your child off with less? *Friction* is needed for expansion.

When the ultrasound specialist pushed and pressed her wand, jostling and dragging it forcefully across my belly, in a final attempt to find a healthy heartbeat. Ultimately, a vain attempt. Staring at the dusty vent on the ceiling, I was thankful for that pain, that wands sting. The physical ache gave shape, finally, to the misery that had taken up residence in my heart.

The magic inside me was a mirage  just as I had feared. How could I have let myself dream that this might be true? How could I have let myself hope? *Friction* is needed for expansion.

When the doctor said, Shes very sick. The she landed on my ears like a thud. A girl. A daughter. I took notes, unsure Id retain the horrific realities: Malformed heart. Halo around brain. Fluid under skin. Swollen. Wont make it to live birth. *Friction* is needed for expansion.

I 'survived' infertility. But not before it shaped my perspective on everything.

Courtney Crowder and her husband, Scott Graca, on their wedding day in 2018. Two years later, Crowder and Graca decided to start a family and began trying to conceive their first child. Little did they know the difficult journey that lay ahead.

When the doctor told me that the baby in my womb  the baby we prayed for nightly, the baby we so desperately wanted  was incompatible with life. How clinical that language. How emotionless. *Friction* is needed for expansion.

Was there anything I could have done? Or shouldnt have done? Was this because of me?

You are not powerful enough to have caused this problem, the doctor said.

At home, I hung a Post-it emblazoned with this new psalm on my wall: You are not powerful enough to have caused this problem. *Friction* is needed for expansion.

When we took the medical advice to schedule an evacuation lest we wait an undetermined amount of time on a sure miscarriage. I could be showing by the time that finally happened. Obvious enough for people to comment, to assume I was planning for new life.

What are the right words to tell someone, no, I am planning for young death.

Courtney Crowder in recovery from dilation and evacuation surgery. After undergoing IVF, the fetus she was carrying was determined to be incompatible with life.

I wanted our story to end with peace, hers and mine. Or to at least a patina of peace  a papier-mache calm that betrayed the storm of despair, of anger, of jealousy, of wanting raging inside.

When the nurses at the outpatient clinic  where people usually go to get better, to get a new knee, to fix a tendon, to patch up a shoulder  paused, stumbling for the right words, as they read my chart. Im so sorry youre here *Friction* is needed for expansion.

When I climbed into Scotts arms and cried. Sobbed. Until my cheeks were raw from the wetness. How this became our routine throughout the winter, like having dinner or brushing teeth. The suddenness and completeness of the emptiness was itself a presence. A gaping maw, created to devour spirit. *Friction* is needed for expansion.

When we made the choice to try it all again. The pills. The shots. The early morning appointments. The surgeries The hope. *Friction* is needed for expansion.

When I made the active choice to let myself hope again. *Friction* is needed for expansion.

When Scott and I called the answering service, holding hands and our breath, and the nurse said in a bright singsong that we were pregnant. When the memories of what happened before snuffed out any joy fast, like wind to a flame. How hard it was to hang onto happiness when anxiety stood sentry in its shadow. How I wondered if the fear would swallow me up. *Friction* is needed for expansion.

An ultrasound of Courtney Crowder's son, Clark Graca. Clark was conceived using in vitro fertilization.

And when expansion finally came. The love when we told our families at Christmas. The love as, one by one, I told my dearests. The love made evident in texts and calls and showers and good tidings  how that love expanded from me to the baby. *Friction* is needed for expansion.

When I realized just how loved my baby was already. *Friction* is needed for expansion.

How could I have let myself forget: Love is a higher force. Love will always be a higher force. And love will forever guide you home  physically and figuratively.

In May, Scott and I welcomed Clark Graca into the world and into the tribe that helped me weather the friction and welcome the expansion.

The doctor who delivered the news that shattered me was the same one who delivered the baby that put the pieces back together, which felt like a cosmic righting, a course correction away from choppy waters for the first time in years.

Des Moines Register Iowa Columnist Courtney Crowder holds her son, Clark, at her home in West Des Moines, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024.

Clark was two weeks early, charging in with all of the Taurus energy. Hes so curious. Eyes searching inquisitively, arms seeking in a way that ignites and inspires and, yes, exhausts. And hes a dreamer  moving and mewing as he sleeps.

Sometimes I cry just looking at him because Im sure the warmth in my heart is powerful enough to burst a hole right through my chest. Most of the time I let those tears fall and fall  until my cheeks are raw with wetness.

The fear didnt swallow me. I bore the fear with longanimity  with the understanding that I wont just tolerate difficulties and delays and setbacks, I will know theyre coming, I will see them on the horizon, and I will hold the burden of their pain as I wait. And wait. And wait.

I know now that fear is like the tension on the string of an archers bow. Fear pushes back with equal force. Harder force even. But the pressure is needed, its build steady before the snap, to make the arrows path straighter, to make the release that much swifter.

Fear is a prerequisite to bravery.

Dont back away. Hold on long enough to see what all the unrest reveals.

Clark Graca plays with his grandmother.

The fear strengthened me. It clung to my bones like a metal skeleton. Preparing me. Allowing me to grow into the person I am now. The mother that I am now.

It revealed to me that having a baby is an act of hope  a deep belief in the tenets of optimism, the tenet that tomorrow will be better because we will make it better. The fear didnt steal my hope, as I once worried. The will to survive what was fearful restored it, stronger and more powerful than before.

I still lean on my principle: Friction is needed for expansion.

When my eyes burn with fatigue. When deciding whether to let Clark sleep or get him up for a bottle feels like life-or-death stakes. When I overnight that fourth pacifier brand because he keeps figuring out how to spit them out.

Friction is needed for expansion.

But there are two other mantras I find myself saying now: Whats meant for you will not pass.

And: The win is coming.

Clark is proof.

Courtney Crowder is a columnist for the Register.

Infertility facts and figures

Infertility affects millions of Americans every year, leaving many seeking assisted reproductive technologies, including in vitro fertilization, commonly known as IVF, to expand their families.

86,146 infants born in the U.S., or 2.3 percent, were conceived using assisted reproductive technologies in 2021, the latest year for which data was published.

Approximately 413,776 assisted reproductive procedures were performed at 453 reporting clinics in 2021, resulting in 112,088 pregnancies.

In Iowa, 823 babies born in 2021 were conceived through fertility treatments, representing about 2.2 percent of the states 36,835 total births.

Nearly 10 percent of married women ages 15 to 49 experience some form of infertility.

Nearly 10 percent of men ages 15 to 44 experience some form of infertility.

An estimated 1 in 8 women ages 15 to 49 have received some infertility services in their lifetime.

The average number of cycles needed to become pregnant through IVF is 2.5.

Costs for a single cycle of IVF can range from $15,000 to more than $30,000.

Two clinics in Iowa offer these services  Mid-Iowa Fertility Treatment Center and the University of Iowa, which has multiple locations across the state.

More than 69 percent of the 120,000 individuals of reproductive age diagnosed with cancer in 2018 required fertility preservation procedures, which are now considered a standard of care.

The use of assisted reproductive technologies has doubled and the number of infants born who were conceived using these treatments has increased by 50 percent from 2012 to 2021.

 Data and statistics as reported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Infertility: IVF, a baby incompatible with life. And then joy.
Innovation for Good recognises the work of industry leading organisations with demonstrated positive impact on society, putting words to practice through targeted impact in relation to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and Sustainability in the IT industry. Sponsored by Netskope

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Baidam Solutions is recognised for boosting Indigenous representation in ICT security and promoting DEI across the tech sector. Its founders commit over 50 per cent of profits to initiatives supporting Indigenous employment, cybersecurity training, and secure job opportunities. Baidam funds scholarships for Indigenous STEM students, runs a mentoring program, and launched Baidam Recruitment to further support Indigenous tech representation.

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NEXTGEN Group

Pax8

Schneider Electric

Winner: NEXTGEN

NEXTGEN exemplifies DEI through visible leadership commitment, structured policies, and community engagement, setting a high benchmark for DEI in the ICT industry. 66 per cent of regional managing directors are female and women represent 40 percent of its workforce across APAC. It has a commitment to zero gender pay gap for equivalent roles and diverse hiring practices and emphasis on leadership positions.

SUSTAINABILITY

Partner:

Araza

ASI Solutions

Blue Connections IT

Ricoh

Winner: ASI Solutions

ASI places a high focus on running its business to ensure that it meets environmentally and socially sustainable objectives, along with robust governance. Its Sustainability Director will be instrumental in driving forward a solid strategic position, together with demonstrating its impact. For example, it will look to replace its aging fleet possibly with EV or hybrid models.

Winner: Blue Connections

Blue Connections embeds environmental responsibility into the very fabric of its operations. It has taken significant steps to reduce reliance on non-renewable energy sources, including the installation of a 75 kilowatt solar panel array on its warehouse, with plans to increase capacity and add battery storage for a maximum capacity in excess of 170 kilowatts.

Vendor/Distributor

Comsol

Dicker Data

HP

Schneider Electric

Winner: Schneider Electric

Schneider Electrics Circularity Programme focuses on reducing carbon footprints, as well as, generating profitability for partners and end users through modernisation, recurring revenue, and commercial benefits. The programme also features a tool to calculate carbon-footprints and optimise hardware efficiency.

PARTNER

Recognises customer innovation and excellence across the key market segments of Enterprise, Mid-Market and SMB, in addition to pioneering Regional technology partners. Sponsored by CrowdStrike

Enterprise:

Adactin Group

Araza

ArchiTech

Baidam Solutions

Brennan

Cevo

Champions of Change

Data#3

Patient Zero

The Missing Link

Highly commended: Baidam Solutions

Winner: Brennan

Brennan wins this award in recognition of its work with health services provider, Cura Day guiding it through a transition from VMware to an Azure environment to support its broader digital transformation journey. The project significantly improved Curas overall operating environment and future-proofed its technology stack.

Mid-Market:

Arinco

ASI Solutions

Be Nimble IT

blueAPACHE

Cevo

Ericom

Platinum Technology

The Missing Link

Virtual IT Group

Wild Tech

Winner: blueAPACHE

blueAPACHE wins this award for its emPOWER reference architecture, ensuring complete control and accountability across application delivery supply chains. It recently used emPOWER on a project with a specialist workplace law firm to help it keep up to date with rigorous IT standards.

SMB:

Empire Technologies

expose

FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia

Fuse Technology

Kaine Mathrick Tech

Lanrex

Nueva

ONGC Systems

TechClick

Techwell

Highly Commended: TechClick

Winner: Nueva

Nuevas comprehensive cyber security solution, Nueva Protect, has helped it simplify cyber security for SMBs while managing costs and providing robust protection. The providers cyber security experts handle everything from real-time monitoring and threat detection to updates and incident response.

Regional:

Colton Computer Technologies (Orange, NSW)

Expose (Adelaide, South Australia)

Silverfern IT (Perth, Western Australia)

Highly Commended: Silverfern IT

Winner: Colton Computer Technologies

Based in the Central Western region of NSW, Colton Computer Technologies envisions creating better experience for its local community. The managed services provider has boots on the ground and conducts free virtual and physical cyber education events for locals. It also focuses heavily on offering career, training and promotion opportunities for employees and students via work experience.

TECH PARTNER

Recognises partners leveraging established and emerging solutions to enhance customer innovation levels, underpinned by deep levels of expertise and specialist services spanning Cloud; Security; Digital Transformation; and Emerging Technology segments. Sponsored by SentinelOne

Cloud:

Arinco

Be Nimble IT

Blue Crystal Solutions

Cevo & D6 Consulting

Evolution Systems

expose

FUJIFILM CodeBlue Australia

Linktech Australia

Oreta

TechClick

Winner: Arinco

Cloud specialist Arinco has been recognised for ensuring customers have the right foundations for sustainable and long-term innovation. Its customer case studies underline Arincos approach to building solid cloud infrastructure from the start, allowing technology to scale effortlessly and securely alongside organisational growth.

Security:

Baidam Solutions

Cevo

CompliantERP

Data#3

Empire Technologies

Exigo Tech

Nueva

Outcomex

TechClick

Techwell

Winner: Exigo Tech

Exigo Techs dedication to making technology simpler and eliminating accompanying complications has pushed it towards success, with it conducting regular assessments, continuous monitoring and timely updates. Its approach of tailoring security solutions with clients existing systems sees it minimise disruption and maximise protection.

Digital Transformation:

Adactin Group

ArchiTech

Atturra

Barhead Solutions

Blue Crystal Solutions

Bridged Group

Dynamic Aspect

Insight Enterprises

Kiandra

Tecala

Winner: Atturra

Atturra wins this award for its work with a long-term customer to build from scratch a best-of-breed school administration system. Hosted in the cloud, the system will be made available to Australian schools on a subscription basis, with institutions able to implement and pay for the technology on a module-by-module basis.

Emerging:

Arinco

ASI Solutions

Cevo

Data#3

expose

Infront Systems

Insight Enterprises

OutcomeX

SixPivot

Tecala

Winner: Insight Enterprises

Insight wins this award for its work with Tourism NT to develop ChatNT, an AI-powered chatbot, using OpenAIs GPT-3.5 model through Microsofts Azure. ChatNT engages users in conversational, interactive exchanges, highlighting Tourism NTs offerings. Based on ChatNTs success, Tourism NT is adopting an always-on AI strategy to continually improve customer engagement and streamline visitor planning.

START-UP

Recognises market-leading start-ups building unique businesses to bring innovative new technologies to the Australian market across Product, Industry and Entrepreneur. Sponsored by Ingram Micro

Product:

Cybermate

D6 Consulting

MyCISO

Omnata

TechClick

VirtualPlatform

World of Workflows

youX

Winner: Cybermate

Cybermate wins this award for its Psybersecurity app, which launched in 2023 to reduce cyber breaches from human behavioural risks. By providing awareness training, simulated attacks and real-time threat alerts, Cybermate helps create a secure environment that can adapt to rapidly changing threat landscapes.

Industry:

oSpace

TechClick

Virtualplatform

Winner: Virtualplatform

Virtualplatforms API-first approach and single-view wholesale aggregation platform are transforming the ICT services sector. It delivers value-add benefits to commodity products and enhances MSP operations to help them grow providing key innovations including streamlined service management, customer experience, proactive notifications and diagnostics, multi-provider connectivity qualification, rapid provisioning, white label solutions and native billing.

Entrepreneur:

Bardia Khalilifar  Conicio Advisory

Joanne Spencer  D6 Consulting

Dane Meah  MyCISO

Rob Neely  Securely Holdings

Regina Melamed  TechClick

Vaibhav Mittal  The Neon Labs Pty Ltd

Piers Tyler  VirtualPlatform

Winner: Dane Meah  MyCISO

As an accomplished entrepreneur, MyCISO CEO and company director Dane Meah has founded and led multiple businesses over the past 20 years. He launched the cyber security SaaS business MyCISO in 2022 and has quickly scaled to be a leading security program management platform.

VENDOR

Recognises vendors helping partners deliver transformative solutions and services to customers, operating market-leading approaches to engagement and enablement across the key technology segments of Cloud, Security, Hardware, Software, Networking and Specialist. Sponsored by FUJIFILM

Cloud:

Acronis

AvePoint

Cisco

Cloudian

Dynatrace

GoTo

HPE

N-able

Veeam Software

Wasabi Technologies

Highly Commended: Cloudian

Winner: Veeam Software

Veeams enablement and support strategies have empowered partners to deliver high-demand, innovative cloud solutions. Central to this approach is the Veeam Data Cloud (VDC), a SaaS solution that equips partners to deliver a full suite of cloud-based servicesincluding backup, disaster recovery, and data securitycustomised to meet the unique needs of their customers.

Security:

Arctic Wolf

Cisco

ConnectWise

eSentire

ExtraHop

Netskope

Palo Alto Networks

SentinelOne

ThreatDefence

Vectra AI

WatchGuard Technologies

Winner: SentinelOne

SentinelOne wins this award for its commitment to partner success by working together to maximise resources, drive customer satisfaction, sustain business growth and profitability. The vendors local channel team members have contributed towards building up its channel program and pipeline, engaging with distributors and focusing on partners.

Hardware:

Cisco

Dell Technologies

Dynabook

FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia

HP

HPE

Lenovo

Powershield

Highly Commended: HPE

Winner: Cisco

Cisco has been recognised for its platform strategy, ongoing innovation, developments in AI, and focus on sustainability contributing towards being the most comprehensive portfolio to date. Featuring breadth, scale and technology  with open architecture that allows partners to build on to help them differentiate and win with customers.

Software:

AvePoint

Cisco ThousandEyes

ConnectWise

Databricks

LogicMonitor

SolarWinds

Veeam Software

Winner: Databricks

Databricks channel-centric approach to software has generated significant ongoing benefits for its partners. Its symbiotic approach to its channel is underpinned by a business model that heavily favours partners, ensuring they are at the forefront of delivering value to customers. For example, its services-to-software ratio is a key driver of partner profitability.

Homegrown ISV:

iasset.com

MyCISO

SixPivot

Winner: iasset.com

iasset.com platform allows tech providers to offer a consultative approach and proactively manage customers IT investment and digital transformation strategy. This is across the entire customer lifecycle from initial sale, through to renewal or end of life or end of service.

Networking:

Cisco

Ericsson

Fortinet

HPE Aruba Networking

Netskope

Winner: HPE Aruba Networking

As a channel-first business, HPE Aruba Networking is focused on enabling partners to grow their business with new solutions and business models, systematically empowering them to be successful. It is also bringing in new roles to create better integration with channel partners to add further value to existing channel programs.

Specialist:

Access4

Cisco

ConnectWise

Hosted Network

HP | Poly

RingCentral

Schneider Electric

Winner: ConnectWise

ConnectWise has consistently demonstrated its commitment to the success of managed service providers (MSPs) and their support for millions of small and midsized businesses globally. With a 40-year track record in championing partner success, its offerings are designed to address the unique needs and challenges faced by MSPs.

DISTRIBUTOR:

Recognises distributors spearheading ecosystem innovation and growth through transformative approaches to vendor engagement and partner enablement, spanning the core categories of Hardware, Software, Specialist and Creativity. Sponsored by HPE

Hardware:

Dicker Data

Ingram Micro

Leader

Westcon-Comstor

Highly Commended: Ingram Micro

Winner: Dicker Data

Dicker Data wins this award in recognition for its market stance across a majority of the hardware brands it currently represents. Transacting with over 10,000 active partners and generating more than $3.3 billion in revenue purely from the SMB, mid-market, corporate and commercial segments. This is further backed by the support provided to partners.

Software:

Crayon

Dicker Data

Ingram Micro

Pax8

Westcon-Comstor

Winner: Pax8

Since coming onto the channel scene in 2022, Pax8 has been operating with the MSP toolset in mind and constantly seeking ways to innovate and enhance automation and integration. For example, the Pax8 Marketplace provides partners with access to a wide range of tools that streamline operations such as billing, provisioning, and reporting.

Specialist:

Bluechip Infotech

Crayon

NEXTGEN

Wavelink

Westcon-Comstor

Highly Commended: Bluechip Infotech

Winner: NEXTGEN

Founded in 2018, NEXTGEN has been on a mission to consistently innovated to live up to its name and bring next generation technologies to the Australian Channel eco-system. This is a critical and fundamental tenant to allow the channel to evolve, modernise, add value to their customers, and beat the bad actors, both nation state based and individual.

Creativity:

Crayon

Dicker Data

Leader Computers

NEXTGEN

Pax8

Tech Data

Wavelink

Westcon-Comstor

Winner: Dicker Data

Dicker Data has been recognised for its creative initiatives including collaborating with Cisco to create the Pursuit of Cyber Resilience event, held across five cities. The program featured cyber expert Ben Owen from The Hunted, who used simulated examples to highlight how cybercriminals leverage AI for identity theft, captivating the audience and underscoring the need for advanced cybersecurity measures. Over 500 partners attended and benefited from the event, which drove cybersecurity skills development and revenue growth.

PERSONAL INNOVATION

Recognises standout individuals who contribute to customer, company and channel success through a transformative approach to management, channel, sales, technical and marketing positions.

Channel Excellence:

Anna Christensen  Cloudian

Tanya Hovagimian  CrowdStrike

Bridget Maritz  HPE Aruba Networking

Karen Drinan  HP

Cameron Walters  NEXTGEN

Mihir Oza  One Identity

Ian Morris  Rubrik

Shabeel Shah  SentinelOne

Callum Meek  Veeam Software

Damien Richeux  WatchGuard Technologies

Winner: Tanya Hovagimian, CrowdStrike

Tanya has been recognised for her outstanding business acumen and creativity in crafting and executing a successful ecosystem strategy centred on recruitment, enablement, pipeline building, and channel management. Drawing on her deep market knowledge, Tanya uniquely positions each CrowdStrike partner within their respective markets, empowering them to leverage their distinct strengths for maximum impact.

Technical Excellence (Partner):

Paul Wilson  Blue Connections IT

Ana Silva  Empire Technologies

Baylin Ferguson  Ericom

Jong Dante  Linktech Australia

Dani Nikolic  Logicalis Australia

Josh Samson  Nexon Asia Pacific

Krithika Veeraraghavan  Nueva

Faizal Janif  Oreta

Daniel Siddel  TechClick

Tim OConnor  The Missing Link

Winner: Dani Nikolic, Logicalis Australia

Dani Nikolics technical expertise proved to be much needed when it comes to clients that require the equivalent of a triple back somersault with two and a half twists off the 10m tower. She has been able to navigate a number of significant obstacles, through sheer technical knowledge, passion for engineering and matching personal skills.

Technical Excellence (Vendor/Distributor):

Phillip Keswick  Access4

David Mcintosh  Acronis

Mark Thomas  Arctic Wolf

Heath Russell  Cisco

Andrew Underwood  Dell Technologies

Ariya Parsamanesh  HPE Aruba Networking

Riyaz Mohammed  RingCentral

Sivakuman Gurusamy  Schneider Electric

Aaron Jacobs  Sophos

Sheng Lan  Tech Data

Highly Commended: Mark Thomas, Arctic Wolf

Winner: Andrew Underwood, Dell Technologies

Andrew Underwood joined Dell Technologies a decade ago as high-performance computing artificial intelligence leader for Asia Pacific, Japan and China. Since then, he has been recognised for his expertise and leadership within the organisation on those topics. At Dell, he has also worked with many of Australias leading scientific research organisations.

Marketing Excellence:

Brooke Martin  Arinco

Kelly Hunt  Cisco

Vivienne Winborne  Colton Computer Technologies

Chantelle Stapleton  Dicker Data

Jessica Stark  GoTo

Alex Barbieri  HPE Aruba Networking

Karina Rozengurt  HP

Altynai Saralaeva  Oreta

Kathleen Grahame  Sophos

Winner: Chantelle Stapleton, Dicker Data

With a career spanning 18 years, Chantelle has delivered double digit revenue growth, triple digit return on investment and now runs a team of dedicated marketing resources who support Dicker Datas hardware business unit. She has been the mastermind behind numerous campaigns and initiatives, collecting several vendor accolades along the way.

Sales Excellence (Partner):

Marc Tricksey  Arinco

Dean Hogden  Baidam Solutions

Alex Danobrega  Champions of Change

Maurice Bonotto  Exigo Tech

Nevien Badawi  Nexon Asia Pacific

Jonathan Tandoc  Nueva

Paul Seymour  Patient Zero

Belinda York-Atkins  Tecala

Bassam Aoude  The Missing Link

Winner: Bassam Aoude, The Missing Link

Bassam brings exceptional performance and unwavering dedication to The Missing Links sales team, achieving astonishing growth and consistency across all performance metrics. His relentless pursuit of excellence, ability to consistently deliver high-value outcomes and demonstration of exceptional value to end-user customers have all contributed to his success.

Sales Excellence (Vendor/ Distributor):

David Hayes  Arctic Wolf

Simon Hickson  BeyondTrust

Leroy Daniel  BlackLine

Kelly Sabo  Cisco

Mila Fedynskaya  Schneider Electric

Angelina Liu  SentinelOne

Karryn Panoutsopoulos  Wavelink

Highly Commended: David Hayes, Arctic Wolf

Winner: Kelly Sabo, Cisco

Kelly has embraced being a dynamic sales leader, spearheading one of the most prominent and mature partner-focused sales segments in the industry. Her leadership has resulted in sustained growth and remarkable milestones, which is a testament to her ability to drive exceptional business results and manage high-performing teams.

Management Excellence (Partner):

Natasha Canov  ASI Solutions

Cassandra Eastham  Blue Connections IT

Haseeb Jamal  Be Nimble IT

Dinesh Aggarwal  CyberPulse

Niten Devalia  Exigo Tech

Mike Woods  Nexon Asia Pacific

Demelza Green  Patient Zero

Adrian Ng  Tecala

Mark Hallam  Techwell

Sam Grice  The Missing Link

Winner: Demelza Green, Patient Zero

Demelzas rise from product manager to Co-CEO is defined by her ability to lead high-profile teams, execute projects at scale, and drive transformative business growth. She has led numerous large-scale projects and long-term contracts contributing to 75 per cent of the companys revenue.

Management Excellence (Vendor):

James Wright  Cloudian

Nick Moran  ConnectWise

Jon Fox  Crowdstrike

Yvette McEnearney  GoTo

Chris Hewlett  HP

Astrid Groves  Schneider Electric

Jim Cook  SentinelOne

Craig Stockdale  Wasabi Technologies

Highly Commended: Astrid Groves, Schneider Electric.

Winner: Chris Hewlett, HP

Chris Hewlett has demonstrated a remarkable ascent in his career, culminating in his currently senior director role. His success stems from over 26 years of experience in the IT industry, with 24 of those at HP in various management roles, one his most notable achievements in FY23 was achieving the highest-ever enterprise sales revenue record in HP Australia history.

Hall of Fame 2024

Recognises long-standing leaders who have been instrumental in the development and enhancement of the Australian channel. Two individuals will be inducted into the ARN Hall of Fame in 2024, which will be determined by the shortlisting committee and current Hall of Fame members.

Norm Jefferies

Norms life and work motto is to Do something today that makes tomorrow better than yesterday.

A true survivor, Jefferies grew up on the family farm in rural Victoria. Straight out of university thirty plus years ago, he saw the importance and potential of technology for business transformation. Even then he took the message of transformation to his customers, rather than seeing IT as a business expense. He has focussed on the value of hard work, of treating his teams well and with immense respect, and on the importance of leaving a legacy to be proud of.

For 32 years this inductee has stayed within the same business at Computer Merchants, now rebranded as Truis. In 2020, he took a leap of faith rebranding and changing the 45 year-old business, displaying his impeccable strategic mindset, leadership qualities and determination. He chose a business name derived from the word Altruism, meaning the principal and moral practice of concern for the happiness of other human beings.

Leo Lynch

Leo honed the art of selling during the late 80s selling job ads at Fairfax prior to embarking on an illustrious IT industry career in 1989.

He has never wavered from his commitments to the partner community since that day. Often described as a key play maker Lynch started selling printers and throughout his impressive 35-year career has honed skills to lead teams with passion and energy, often admired by many that have had the opportunity to work alongside him.

Lynch has extensive and deep experience across all types of channels in infrastructure, storage, software and cyber security. He has risen through the ranks through many organisations he has worked for such as HP, EMC, IBM, Huawei, StorageCraft and now Check Point  managing all aspects of sales and channels.

His diverse background has equipped him with a wealth of knowledge and expertise in channel management.
A dear friend of mine died recently of a sudden heart attack. I discovered that the only music I found consoling was the slow movement of Rachmaninoffs Second Piano Concerto  the 1929 recording with the composer at the piano, accompanied by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

I am of course aware that many people find this piece maudlin. But Rachmaninoff the pianist is never maudlin. He projects sadness with implacable poise. His expressive inflections are never momentary inspirations; they are governed by a designated template of feeling. He projects a sovereign personality as admirable and imposing as any I can think of in the creative arts.

A new book of Rachmaninoffs essays and interviews  Sergei Rachmaninoff In His Own Words, edited by Geoffrey Norris  amplifies these observations. I even discovered Rachmaninoff writing about that 1929 recording. But nothing in the book stirred me as profoundly as its preamble. In 1932, Rachmaninoff was one of more than a hundred individuals invited to define music. He responded with seven lines in Russian. Translated, they read:

What is music? How can one define it?

Music is a calm moonlight night; a rustling of summer foliage; music is the distant peal of bells at eveningtide. Music is born only in the heart and it appeals only to the heart. It is love!

The Sister of music is Poetry and the Mother is Sorrow!

In the articles and interviews here assembled, Rachmaninoff also testifies that he approaches music from within. He writes: Music should bring relief. Conducting an orchestra, he experiences an inner calm; it reminds him of driving a motorcar.

The 1929 concerto recording with Stokowski is a supreme collaboration. Their exchanges are seamless, clairvoyant. Unlike the mix in many modern recordings, the piano is never an exaggerated presence  and Rachmaninoff delights in circulating under the orchestra, then mercurially arising. In the Adagio sostenuto second movement, the famous Stokowski legato  a lava flow  is an ideal medium of expression. The coda to the first movement is also exceptional, with Stokowskis hyper-sensitive cellos inspiring Rachmaninoffs sonic imagination. In Rachmaninoff in his Own Words, Stokowskis orchestra is repeatedly praised as nonpareil. Of the recording of his Second Concerto, Rachmaninoff says (in The Gramophone, April 1931):

To make records with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra is as thrilling an experience as any artist could desire. Unquestionably, they are the finest orchestral combination in the world: even the famous New York Philharmonic, which you heard in London under Toscanini last summer, must, I think, take second place. Only by working with the Philadelphians both as soloist and conductor, as has been my privilege, can one fully realise and appreciate their perfection of ensemble.

Recording my own [Second] Concerto with this orchestra was an unique event. Apart from the fact that I am the only pianist who has played with them for the gramophone, it is very rarely that an artist, whether as soloist or composer, is gratified by hearing his work accompanied and interpreted with so much sympathetic co-operation, such perfection of detail and balance between piano and orchestra. These discs, like all those made by the Philadelphians, were recorded in a concert hall, where we played exactly as though we were giving a public performance. Naturally, this method ensures the most realistic results, but in any case, no studio exists, even in America, that could accommodate an orchestra of a hundred and ten players.

Their efficiency is almost incredible. In England I hear constant complaints that your orchestras suffer always from under-rehearsal. The Philadelphia Orchestra, on the other hand, have attained such a standard of excellence that they produce the finest results with the minimum of preliminary work. Recently, I conducted their superb recording of my symphony poem, The Isle of the Dead, now published in a Victor album of three records which play for about twenty-two minutes. After no more than two rehearsals the orchestra were ready for the microphone, and the entire work was completed in less than four hours.

Two themes that pervade Rachmaninoffs public discourse are American music education, which he finds inadequate, and modern music, which he disdains. He praises American orchestras and audiences unstintingly. He calls New York City the musical capital of the world. He appreciates the bold private initiative of the Boks, who fund the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Curtis Institute. But gifted American music students, he finds, are underserved. They cannot even afford to attend important concerts, because no tickets are set aside for them. And there is no national conservatory, no institutionalization of the highest and the purest in music radiating from the center.

(In Russia  including Soviet Russia  an integrated musical community of performers and composers, orchestras and conservatories instilled tradition. Nothing of that sort ever emerged in the United States  although Jeannette Thurber, in founding her National Conservatory of Music and in 1892 naming Antonin Dvorak to lead it, had that in mind. Thurbers efforts to secure federal funding went nowhere. And Dvoraks complaints about American music education forecast Rachmaninoffs.)

In a 1925 Musical Observer article, we learn something pertinent about Rachmaninoffs regard for another radiating center  Konstantin Stanislavskys legendary Moscow Art Theatre:

Rachmaninoff is very devoted to the theatre. In his youth he was a great admirer of Chekhov. He is a friend of the players of the Moscow Art Theatre. I remember what a stimulating sight I saw one afternoon in the Artists room after a Rachmaninoff concert at Carnegie Hall, New York. There stood in a corner a huge glittering laurel wreath in green, gold and white, presented to the master pianist with the cordial greetings of the Moscow Art Theatre. The actors and actresses from the greatest theatre of the world led by stalwart and handsome Stanislavsky, almost surrounded him. Some of the men kissed him, and he them in real Russian style. They exchanged a few words in the tempo of a chant before an altar. Then for a minute or two they spoke not a word. The Moscow players simply looked at the great Moscow musician in reverent silence. Such devotion, such poise, such childlike sincerity, I never saw before, even on the stage of the Moscow Art Theatre. The actors surpassed themselves. Then they gently walked away one by one, like so many children, sad at parting from their playmate. The masters gaze was fixed on them, and he waved at the last actor who looked back as he went out of the door. I watched this bit of drama in life with breathless wonder, and I am not ashamed to admit that the sanctity of the scene moved me to tears. And from the quick movement of his eyelids I could notice that the masters eyes were not altogether dry either. I shall never forget this one act play of the Moscow Art Theatre, Rachmaninoff playing the part of the hero. It was more than a play, it was a sacrament.

But perhaps the most abiding motif in Sergei Rachmaninoff In His Own Words is Rachmaninoffs contempt for musical modernism. For him, beauty in music is an absolute criterion, and musics supreme ingredient is melody. In this regard, he pursues a polemic whose best-known manifestation, in English-speaking countries, was once Constant Lamberts Music Ho  A Study of Music in Decline (1934). Intolerant of Igor Stravinsky, Lamberts anoints Jean Sibelius his contemporary composer of choice.

But Sibelius wrestled with modernism in his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, anxious and insecure, trying to catch up. Serge Prokofiev, too, strove to be a modernist in competition with Stravinsky. Then he called it quits, returning to Russia and his own Russian Romantic roots.

In 1930, Rachmaninoff revealingly recalled meeting Tchaikovsky some three years before he died. . . . Tchaikovsky at that time was already world-famous, and honoured by everybody, but he remained unspoiled. He was one of the most charming artists and men I ever met. He had an unequalled delicacy of mind. He was modest, as all really great people are, and simple, as very few are. (I met only one other man who at all resembled him, and that was [Anton] Chekhov.)

Judging from his interviews and essays, Rachmaninoff was never tortured by modernism. He never wrestled with its challenge to tradition. A man of firm identity and principle, he simply waited it out.

And his music prevails.

Related blogs: Rachmaninoff the homesick composer; Rachmaninoffs valedictory Symphonic Dances.
by Mathias Hariyadi

Indonesia's president, who took office last month, signed a series of agreements with China. Despite advocating a policy of non-alignment between rival big powers, his signature appears to have implicitly acknowledged Beijing's claims. Prabowo discussed the issue with Joe Biden. For, analysts, this is a serious mistake by an inexperienced administration.

Jakarta (AsiaNews)  After an official visit to China on 8-10 November, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto flew yesterday to the United States to meet outgoing President Joe Biden.

This, together with the congratulatory phone call to Donald Trump posted on social media, show Indonesias desire to maintain a policy of non-alignment between the two rival powers.

Yet, perhaps without realising it, Prabowo appears to be turning towards China by signing a series of cooperation agreements, which he had to explain in Washington.

Son-in-law of the late Suharto and commander of the Indonesian special forces Kopassus, Prabowo was previously denied a visa to visit the United States following accusations of human rights violations in Timor Leste and Papua, a province with a strong pro-independence movement.

The change of course took place in 2020 during the first Trump administration, which had invited Prabowo when he was Indonesian defence minister, a position he held until last month, when he was sworn in as president after winning the presidential election last February.

Although Trump's return to the White House is imminent, Prabowo discussed strategic issues with outgoing US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and CIA Director William Burns, focusing on the South China Sea, where tensions between China and Southeast Asian countries are commonplace.

Biden expressed hope that the two countries could cooperate for a "free and open Indo-Pacific with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at its centre. This reflects bipartisan support in the US Congress for closer ties with Indonesia to curb Chinese ambitions.

In previous statements, Prabowo had claimed to respect "both China and the United States" describing them as "good friends", and that he intends to maintain the countrys traditional "non-aligned foreign policy.

However, Prabowo has been widely criticised for signing last week a controversial South China Sea cooperation agreement with China (as well as contracts worth US$ 10 billion) that some say recognises Beijing's claims to sovereignty over disputed waters.

Until now, all the other countries in the region (the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei) had always avoided signing joint development agreements with China, fearing that they would end up implicitly recognising the so-called nine-dash line, a set of line segments in the South China Sea that delineate an area over which the People's Republic of China claims sovereignty.

The joint statement issued after his Beijing visit stressed that the two countries had reached important common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims, including setting up an intergovernmental joint steering committee to manage the development, pursuant to their respective prevailing laws and regulations.

The problem in the statement is the reference to the "overlapping claims".

Indonesia had never embraced Chinas view that Indonesia's exclusive economic zone fell within the nine-dash line, with Jakarta simply exercising sovereignty over the area, which includes the Natuna Islands.

After the controversy broke, Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono was quick to clarify that Jakarta's position has not changed and Beijings requests are still deemed unfounded under international law.

Still, one of the economic agreements signed by Prabowo concerns joint development of fishing and oil and gas exploration near the Natuna Islands.

Some experts note that Prabowo (perhaps even implicitly) gave Beijing "a historic victory", and betrayed Indonesia's national interest".

The Indonesian statement makes it harder for ASEAN to sign a deal with China and could have repercussions on the foreign policy of other Southeast Asian countries.

For several observers, this was an unforced error by a green and untested administration. And Beijing is likely to ignore the Foreign Ministry's "corrections", and instead hold to its own interpretation of the joint statement.

Prabowo picked as foreign minister Sugiono,[*] who entered politics only in 2019, while his predecessor, Retno Marsudi, was a long-term diplomat.

This is starting to look like a giant mistake by a very inexperienced foreign minister, one analyst said, with a major impact on short-term relations with China (and the United States).

[*] As is customary in the country, Sugiono, like many Indonesians, has no surname.
The news of the day: the Indian Supreme Court criticises bulldozer justice; In New Zealand, Maori MPs oppose a bill to revise an indigenous-government treaty; An Iranian activist committs suicide in protest against the regime; In Georgia, the opposition considers the new parliament illegitimate and tensions spread to Abkhazia.

SRI LANKA

Polling stations opened this morning for early parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka, considered a test for President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who was elected only seven weeks ago. The main concern for the population remains the economy: the number of people living below the poverty line has risen to 25.9% in the last four years, while the World Bank expects limited growth of 2.2% this year.

INDIA

In a new ruling, the Indian Supreme Court sought to curb bulldozer justice, stating that the house of an accused or convicted person cannot be demolished. The court ordered the authorities to give the person concerned sufficient time to challenge the order or abandon the property. For a long time, the BJP government has been using the justification of illegal building to demolish houses (mainly of Muslims) in an arbitrary manner.

NEW ZEALAND

This morning a parliamentary session in New Zealand was suspended by some Maori MPs who staged a haka to interrupt the vote on a bill that seeks to reinterpret a historic treaty between the government and indigenous people. In recent days hundreds of people have undertaken a march (hikoi) in protest.

PHILIPPINES

Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said his government will not block the investigation of his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity committed during the infamous war on drugs. Marcos's statements follow a hearing during which Duterte called for the investigation (after having long opposed it) claiming he had nothing to hide.

IRAN

Kianoosh Sanjari, a well-known Iranian human rights activist committed suicide in protest against the Iranian regime's failure to release four political activists, themselves arrested for supporting the protests following the death of Mahsa Amini. In a post published before his death, he had written that he wished that one day the Iranians would wake up and defeat slavery.

RUSSIA

As Nezavisimaja Gazeta informs, Russia has invested more than 10 billion roubles (100 million euros) over the past two years in the modernisation of the canal linking the Caspian Sea and the Volga, the so-called North-South corridor, which is of primary strategic importance following Western sanctions, connecting Russia to India and Iran.

GEORGIA

Members of the opposition parties in Georgia of the National Movement and the Coalition for Change, which had won almost 200 seats in the parliamentary elections, approached the Election Commission with statements asking not to be registered as MPs, considering the new parliament to be illegitimate, pending new elections. In the Georgian separatist region of Abkhazia, opponents were arrested for violently assaulting MP Almas Akaba, in charge of an investment project with the Russians, while supporters of those arrested blocked the main republican road to the capital Sukhumi
The airline Ryanair is launching two new direct routes: Dakhla-Madrid and Dakhla-Lanzarote.

From January 2025, the Western Saharan city will benefit from two new direct air connections thanks to an agreement between the Irish low-cost airline and the Moroccan National Tourist Office (ONMT).

The new routes will connect Madrid, the Spanish capital, and Lanzarote, one of the famed Canary Islands, with two flights a week each.

The Dakhla-Madrid flight will be the city's first direct connection to the Iberian Peninsula via Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas airport. As for the Lanzarote-Dajla route, it will strengthen connections with the Canary Islands, a key market for tourism to Dakhla due to the geographical proximity between the two points.

These two new connections will double the international air capacity of Dakhla airport, reaching 47,000 seats, and will make Spain the leading player in outbound tourism for this market.

This is a historic agreement to develop the tourist destination of Dakhla, an enclave located in the south of Morocco with warm temperatures all year round and an attractive natural environment.

Ryanair aircraft - AFP/THIBAUD MORITZ

As part of this agreement, a memorandum of understanding was also initialled between the ONMT and Ryanair in the presence of the Moroccan Minister of Tourism, Fatima Zahra Ammor, Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson and Yanja El Khattah, President of the Council of the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab Region.

The agreement extends over the next four tourist seasons and provides for the scheduling of four new international air routes to Dakhla. The first phase of the agreement starts in January 2025 with two routes connecting Dakhla airport with Madrid and Lanzarote, with a frequency of two flights a week.

Following the launch of these routes, Ryanair will become the fourth ONMT partner to cover a direct air route to Dakhla, after Royal Air Maroc, Binter Canarias and Transavia.

This development is part of a strategy aimed at strengthening Dakhla's air connectivity and attracting more European tourists as part of Morocco's economic plan to boost the Western Sahara region.

The Moroccan kingdom plans to develop Western Sahara, which it claims as an integral part of its southern provinces, to the maximum extent possible in defence of its territorial integrity.

Morocco defends its Autonomy Plan, which proposes broad autonomy for Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty while respecting the postulates of the United Nations (UN). This initiative would give the Saharawi authorities great room for manoeuvre in many areas, leaving defence and foreign policy in the hands of the Moroccan state.

This proposal has received the support of more than 100 countries, which consider it to be the most serious, credible and realistic proposal to resolve the Sahrawi territorial conflict, which has lasted almost five decades since Spain's departure from the area as a colonial power.

It is seen as the most viable solution to make Western Sahara a prosperous territory in several areas such as the economic, social, etc. .....

This proposal is opposed by the Polisario Front, which advocates holding a referendum on independence for the Sahrawi population, which for several analysts poses difficulties such as those related to the elaboration of an electoral census, as it is necessary to take into account which Sahrawis would vote, because there are several Sahrawi populations scattered both in the Moroccan environment of Western Sahara and in the refugee camps of Tindouf in Algeria.
Thunberg decried the worlds hypocrisy as she visited Armenia to underscore her boycott of the annual UN summit on climate change that began on Monday. She arrived in the country from neighboring Georgia where she staged a protest outside the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tbilisi.

Climate justice without social justice is not justice, she told a conference in Yerevan organized by local environment protection groups. For the same reason, we cannot continue pretending that conferences like COP which are continuously held in states which have no basic respect for human rights  are going to lead to meaningful change.

Thunberg pointed to Bakus poor human rights record, crackdown on civil society and terrible crimes against Armenians. Instead of being held accountable, she said, the Azerbaijani authorities are given a pass and legitimacy and platform on the world stage to legitimize these extreme human rights abuses and ethnic cleansing.

The ethnic cleansing that Azerbaijan is guilty of and the continuous extreme hardships that many Armenians are facing because of the Azerbaijani military aggression, the torture, forcible displacements, prisoners of war, hostages, extreme physical and psychological violence that people have experienced can in no way be justified. And the fact that the world remains silent and lets Azerbaijan greenwash these crimes is absolutely unacceptable, she said.

Countries buying Azerbaijani oil and gas are complicit in those crimes, she added during the conference held at the American University of Armenia.

Thunberg, 21, became the face of young climate activists after her weekly protests, starting in 2018, next to the Swedish parliament quickly grew into a global youth movement with large rallies across continents. She has repeatedly been detained during such protests staged in Sweden and other European countries.

Armenia was among the countries that approved the choice of Baku as the venue of COP29. The decision was part of a deal that led to the release last December of 32 Armenian soldiers and civilians held in Azerbaijan. Armenian officials were reportedly ready to attend the two-week global summit in return for the release of more Armenian captives. None of them has been freed so far.
14 November 2024 16:48 (UTC+04:00)

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At a time when the UN Climate Change Conference, COP29, was held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, the countries of the world did not remain indifferent to global initiatives. COP29, which is underway in Baku for four days, has been continuing with the absence of France, the first signatory to the Paris Agreement and the main leading country of this initiative.

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14 November 2024 20:55 (UTC+04:00)

Akbar Novruz Read more

The ongoing COP29 Climate Conference in Baku has seen crucial advancements on multiple fronts in the first few days, underscoring Azerbaijans leadership as the host nation. Building on the foundation set by President Ilham Aliyevs strong speeches at the World Leaders Climate Action Summit and the Leaders Summit of the Small Island Developing States, COP29 has already set historic precedents in climate finance, international partnerships, and energy innovation.

Commitment to Energy Security and Transition: Defying all the odds

Being a country endowed with beautiful natural resources, notably oil and gas, has made certain countries to refer Azerbaijan as a petrostate. While being called as such, gave hypocritical forces an excuse to use this as a weapon towards the nation. We consistently see a recurring theme in the media: "How can a petrostate possibly host a climate conference?" While hosting the event we can easily say that in the past 3 days, even in this short term Azerbaijan has defied all the odds, and underscored its commitment to energy transition. For instance, let's count some of the milestones that have been reached. One of the key events on the first day of the climate forum was the approval of the conference agenda, which successfully demonstrated COP29's leadership and achieved consensus among participants. This compromise involved extensive diplomacy and negotiations, reflecting the commitment to meaningful changes in global climate policy. Consensus was also reached on standards for transparent and reliable carbon markets under Article 6.4 of the 2015 Paris Agreement. This is a vital milestone, as carbon markets help redistribute resources to developing countries. Article 6 aims to reduce the costs of implementing national climate plans by $250 billion annually, facilitating cooperation and CO2 emission quota exchanges, particularly beneficial for resource-limited countries seeking to cut emissions.

In parallel, in his opening speech at the ceremony of the COP29 Leaders' Summit in Baku on November 12, President Ilham Aliyev firmly stated that the mega-projects launched by Azerbaijan have undeniably transformed the energy and transportation landscapes of Eurasia. These initiatives have established robust frameworks for multilateral cooperation, and they have not gone unnoticed on the international stage.

Then he took a moment to address the political hypocrisy surrounding Azerbaijans role as an energy producer, pointing out that while Azerbaijans oil production accounts for less than 1% of the global share, the country has faced unjust criticism from some Western media and NGOs labelling it a "petrostate." He emphasized that natural resources should not be a basis for criticism, especially as Azerbaijan has a robust and actionable green agenda. "Our green agendaI have already described our plansThese, along with many other important criteria, should serve as the basis for evaluating the country's performance, rather than its natural resources, which are a gift from God."

Advancing the Green Agenda with Massive Renewable Energy Potential: Bridging the East and West

Despite the criticism and double standards of some Western politicians, Azerbaijan has consistently kept its commitments and remains focused on fostering cooperation in the future. This cooperation spans agreements in traditional energy sectors as well as in the rapidly developing "green" initiatives. This message is especially important in the context of creating new cross-border energy connections across the vast Eurasian continent. Azerbaijan is committed to implementing the concepts of "clean environment" and "green growth" as key priorities for the country's development until 2030 and beyond. This includes the development of renewable energy generation, the establishment of "green" energy zones, the decarbonization of oil and gas operations, the improvement of energy efficiency, and the promotion of electric mobility.

With a total renewable energy capacity of nearly 300 gigawatts onshore and offshore, Azerbaijan has emerged as a leader in the regions transition to green energy. President Aliyev outlined ambitious projects including wind and solar plants, notably the 230-megawatt solar power plant inaugurated by Masdar from the UAE, and the 240-megawatt wind project by ACWA Power from Saudi Arabia. He also highlighted an upcoming agreement with BP to develop a 240-megawatt solar facility in Jabrayil, a former conflict zone now central to Azerbaijans green transformation.

Strengthening Global Partnerships and Responding to Calls for Energy Security

The European Union has leaned on Azerbaijan to secure energy resources amid shifting geopolitical dynamics, an arrangement solidified by a strategic energy partnership agreement signed two years ago. Given this fact, Azerbaijan continues to fulfil its commitments in the gas sector. Specifically, between January and September of this year, Azerbaijan exported 9.4 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe, which is a 9.3% increase compared to the previous year. In total, gas deliveries from Azerbaijan to Europe through the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) amounted to approximately 40 billion cubic meters from December 31, 2020, to mid-September of this year. As of today, 43 companies are authorized to reserve pipeline capacity. Furthermore, by the beginning of 2026, TAPs transportation capacity will be increased by 1.2 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

Azerbaijan is positioning itself as a green energy exporter to Europe, with the ongoing Black Sea-Caspian energy cable project aimed at transmitting up to four gigawatts of renewable energy to European markets. "This is only the beginning," head of state remarked, underscoring Azerbaijan's commitment to sustainable development and resilience amid global energy demands.The preliminary results of the feasibility study of the Black Sea Energy project are expected to be announced during the ninth meeting of the energy ministers of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary participating in the Agreement on Strategic Partnership for the Development and Transmission of Green Energy scheduled within the framework of COP29 conference. "We are also looking at export markets and working actively with our partners in order to implement another important energy security projectthe Black Sea Caspian energy cable," said President Ilham Aliyev at the opening ceremony of the Leaders' Summit. " This will allow us to export green energy to Europe, and the technical potential of this cable - by the way, feasibility studies will be ready very soonis close to four gigawatts," he added.

Addressing Neocolonialism and Environmental Justice, the main focus of the day three

Azerbaijans support for the Supporting Small Island Developing States (SIDS) has become a cornerstone of its climate agenda. President Ilham Aliyevs address on November 13 at the Leaders Summit of the Small Island Developing States, on the third day of COP29, outlined this commitment. He emphasized Azerbaijans backing of various disaster-prone countries through educational grants, financial aid, and humanitarian assistancestating that "Azerbaijan has provided assistance to more than 10 small island states" in mitigating climate change impacts. To further aid SIDS, Azerbaijan allocated $10 million towards Commonwealth projects and signed an MoU for satellite data-sharing on environmental monitoring, enhancing climate resilience for these vulnerable regions. Such initiatives signal Azerbaijan's intent to support countries facing an existential threat from climate change, underlining its dedication to accessible climate finance for those in need.

Azerbaijans assistance to SIDS extends beyond climate finance; it includes educational grants, humanitarian aid, and investments in infrastructure that bolster food security and clean water access. The president's statements reflect a broader philosophy that climate action should encompass both immediate financial support and long-term capacity-building. He cited Azerbaijans provision of educational grants to students from over ten small island nations as part of this commitment, underscoring the countrys dedication to building climate resilience through knowledge-sharing and human capital development.

The early milestones at COP29 signify a pivotal shift towards coordinated, inclusive climate action. Azerbaijans presidency has set a strong precedent for future conferences, with a focus on amplifying the voices of vulnerable nations, fostering global partnerships, and addressing both immediate and long-term climate challenges. As COP29 progresses, the hope is that the momentum generated will inspire further commitments and resources to support ambitious global climate targets.
A marshy area near a Dow Chemical plant Jan. 5, 2021, near Freeport. A report from the Environmental Integrity Project found the plant released the highest levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and dioxins directly into a waterway, the Brazos River. Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Industrial facilities that produce plastics and their ingredients across the U.S. dump wastewater with nearly unlimited nutrient pollution and other cancer-causing toxins directly into waterways, according to new analysis from the data-focused nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project.

Most folks dont know that the plastics industry is not required to use modern wastewater treatment controls to limit the amount of pollution they pour into our waterways, said Jen Duggan, the groups executive director.

The Dow Chemical Co. plant in Freeport, south of Houston, tops the new list for its wastewater discharges. Last year, the sprawling chemical facility dumped 3.3 million pounds of nitrogen and more than 500,000 pounds of phosphorous into the Brazos River. High volumes of nutrient pollution can cause fish kills and toxic algal blooms, and contaminate drinking water.

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Dow Freeport, the biggest integrated chemical manufacturing plant in the hemisphere, also released more carcinogenic dioxins into a waterway than any other facility in the U.S. It was one of 30 Texas operations examined by the new report, all of which release certain known pollutants into waterways with no federal limits.

The EPA has not updated regulation of wastewater from plastics manufacturing plants for more than 30 years, said Kristen Schlemmer, senior legal director of Bayou City Waterkeeper, at a press conference Thursday. She said the delay flies in the face of a Clean Water Act requirement to revisit the standards every five years, and has left facilities free to release certain pollutants at will.

Some of the worst actors are here in our backyard in Texas, Schlemmer said. The consequences are clear. Water across the Houston region does not meet basic water quality standards, and in many cases, is not safe for drinking, swimming or fishing.

Dow Chemical did not respond to a request for comment on the report.

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While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does regulate the discharge of more than 60 pollutants, it has not updated its rules for plastics plants to limit effluent levels for nutrient pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorous, or some substances directly harmful to human health like dioxins, 1,4 dioxane and mercury. The new report found that the agency has not reconsidered limiting the release of dioxins since 1987.

The Dow Chemical Company plant sits across the ship channel from Port Freeport. A report from the Environmental Integrity Project found the plant released the highest levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and dioxins directly into a waterway, the Brazos River. Gary Coronado, Staff / Houston Chronicle

EPA decided not to limit dioxins at that time because it concluded that the methods used to detect the chemical in 1984 and 1985 were outdated by 1987, the report said. It has never gone back since, even though better testing methods are now available.

The agency did not respond to a request for comment.

The report identified 70 plastic production facilities that release waste directly into waterways and said all but one of the plants had no limits in their permits for the discharge of nutrient pollution. More than 40% of those plants are in Texas.

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While the Dow Freeport plants record release of nitrogen, phosphorous and dioxins does not break the law, the facility has faced 15 violations for the discharge of other pollutants between 2021 and 2023, according to researchers.

Theres a huge sum of water thats coming out of this plant. And its a mixture of a lot of different things, said Kira Dunham, research manager at the Environmental Integrity Project and the reports main author. The facility discharges, on average per day, 725 million gallons of water; (it) is producing so many different products.
14 November 2024 09:59 (UTC+04:00)

At the COP29 climate summit held in Baku, the Climate Platform for business, investment, and philanthropy was launched, Azernews reports.

The event was organized by the COP29 Presidency, the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the COP29 high-level champion on climate change.

The purpose of the platform is to bring together leaders from business, finance, and philanthropy to drive joint action to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Organized across several segments, the event will focus on climate finance measures to 2030, accelerating public-private sector collaboration for scaled-up foreign direct investment for climate action, promoting decarbonisation solutions, financing solutions for climate adaptation and resilience, as well as climate leaders' dialogue will be held.
14 November 2024 14:53 (UTC+04:00)

Kazakhstan's Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources has provided information about the country's participation in the COP29 climate conference held in Baku, Azernews reports.

The ministry's report states that the Kazakh delegation participated in the summit focused on methane and non-CO2 greenhouse gases.

The delegation was led by Zulfiya Suleimenova, Advisor to the President of Kazakhstan and Special Representative for International Environmental Cooperation, as well as Mansur Oshurbayev, Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources.

In her speech, Zulfiya Suleimenova shared Kazakhstan's plans to finalize the development of regulatory acts related to methane emissions.

She explained that the country is working to reduce non-accidental methane emissions and to improve the system for detecting and eliminating leaks in the oil and gas sector.

Suleimenova also mentioned that the development of the National Program for Methane Emissions Reduction is planned to be completed by 2025.

The summit on methane and non-CO2 greenhouse gases was organized by Azerbaijan, the United States, and China on November 12 as part of COP29.
14 November 2024 12:30 (UTC+04:00)

Akbar Novruz Read more

The Central Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan (CBA) has officially approved the green taxonomy through a decision dated November 7. This new classification system is designed to identify and categorize green activities across various economic sectors, establishing technical criteria and subtypes to ensure clarity and consistency, Azernews reports.

According to the CBA, the green taxonomy primarily serves financial institutions by providing a standardized framework to evaluate and support environmentally sustainable projects. However, it is also available for use by the private sector to ensure that business activities align with the taxonomys defined criteria and principles. This alignment enables companies to develop green and sustainable transition strategies, disclose relevant information to the public, attract green investments, and pursue similar initiatives.

The implementation of the green taxonomy is expected to play a crucial role in forming a sustainable financial ecosystem within Azerbaijan. By directing both internal and external resources towards green and sustainable projects, the taxonomy aims to regulate risks associated with climate change and leverage opportunities presented by the transition to a low-carbon economy. Additionally, it supports enterprises engaged in the export of goods and services, thereby contributing significantly to the countrys adaptation to sustainable development imperatives.

Developed by the "Expert Group on Sustainable Finance," the green taxonomy was created under the initiative of the Central Bank with participation from relevant state institutions and support from World Bank experts. During its development, the group incorporated advanced international practices while also considering the unique characteristics of Azerbaijans economy.

The CBA emphasized that the green taxonomy will not only facilitate the sustainable growth of the financial sector but also enhance the overall resilience of the Azerbaijani economy. By fostering a sustainable financial environment, the taxonomy is poised to attract substantial green investments and promote long-term economic stability.
14 November 2024 11:52 (UTC+04:00)

Nazrin Abdul Read more

Today, COP29s Azerbaijan Pavilion hosted a packed agenda focused on Finance, Investment, and Trade, spotlighting the pivotal role that financial and trade systems play in supporting global climate action, Azernews reports.

This thematic day attracted international leaders, financial experts, and policy innovators committed to advancing green governance, sustainable finance, and climate accountability.

Key sessions included:

1. Ministerial Forum on Green Good Governance (3G)

Led by the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations, this high-level forum (9:0011:00) launched discussions on the principles of green governance, encouraging governments and institutions to integrate sustainability into public service and administrative frameworks.

2. Where Are Governments with Their Climate Action?

The Chamber of Accounts of Azerbaijan introduced ClimateScanner, an innovative assessment tool providing an accountability framework to track national climate efforts and assess progress (11:3013:00).

3. Advancing Sustainable Finance

The Central Bank of Azerbaijan presented a roadmap for global comparability in sustainable finance taxonomies (14:0015:30), aiming to align international investment standards for green projects.

4. Climate Justice and Human Rights

Azerbaijans Ombudsman facilitated an impactful session on the intersection of human rights and climate justice (14:0015:00), emphasizing the protection of vulnerable communities.

5. Climate Finance Initiatives

PASHA Holding led a session on climate finance (16:0017:00), outlining strategies to mobilize private capital to meet climate goals.

6. Regional Call to Action on Glacial Melting

The Ministry of Ecology, in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank, addressed the urgency of glacial preservation in Central and West Asia, underscoring the climate risks to water resources and regional stability (17:0018:00).

7. Green Guarantee Group Initiative

In a joint presentation by COP29 co-host Germany, the Green Guarantee Group was introduced to provide financial assurance and boost private sector confidence in climate investments (18:3019:30).

Todays events underscored the indispensable role of financial institutions, governance frameworks, and human rights in shaping a resilient global response to climate change. Each session contributed to a larger vision of sustainable development where economic policies, environmental imperatives, and social justice align to achieve a more sustainable world.

About COP29 Azerbaijan Pavilion

The Azerbaijan Pavilion at COP29 provides a platform for global, regional, and local stakeholders to engage in dialogues and partnerships on climate issues, showcasing Azerbaijans role as a leader in climate resilience, sustainable finance, and environmental innovation.
14 November 2024 12:51 (UTC+04:00)

Nazrin Abdul Read more

Catherine McKenna, Chair of the UN High-Level Expert Group (HLEG) on Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Actors, delivered a crucial progress report today at COP29 titled "Integrity Matters: The Hard Work is Now" to the UN Secretary-General, Azernews reports.

The report provides an update on the progress made by businesses, investors, cities, and regions in meeting the commitments outlined in the 2022 Integrity Matters report, which called for credible and high-integrity net-zero commitments.

In her address, McKenna emphasized that the shift to a net-zero economy is not only possible but urgent. The leaders highlighted in this review show that high-integrity net zero can be achieved. Its no longer credible for companies, investors, cities, and regions to claim that moving faster on the climate crisis is too difficult or expensive, McKenna said. However, to meet the 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement, we need a much broader range of companies, investors, cities, and regions to build on these examples and produce high-integrity transition plans by 2025.

The report highlighted several positive developments, including the increasing recognition of the economic opportunities presented by the global energy transition. Nearly 100 leading cities worldwide have developed climate action plans that align with the goals of the Paris Agreement, following C40's Cities Climate Transition Framework. Additionally, 1,145 of the worlds largest 2,000 publicly listed companies have made voluntary net-zero commitments, representing a 23% increase since June 2023, with notable progress in Asia.

Despite these encouraging figures, the report identifies several critical gaps. McKenna pointed out that many of these commitments lack alignment with the key criteria set out in *Integrity Matters*, particularly when it comes to phasing out fossil fuels. The phase-out of fossil fuels must underpin all transition plans, she said. The report also highlights the need for stronger commitments to energy efficiency, renewable energy, and independent auditing and verification processes to ensure the credibility of the pledges.

"Voluntary efforts alone are not enough," McKenna stated. We also need governments to step up and regulate net-zero pledges to address competitive issues and provide certainty for investment decisions. McKenna cited a recent report by the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, which found that 90% of businesses would be willing to invest more if governments implemented policies to address barriers in the energy transition.

The report comes at a pivotal moment as countries prepare to submit new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in 2025. McKenna called for greater alignment between non-state actors and national climate goals to strengthen the credibility of these commitments. By driving corporations and sub-national governments to set rigorous net-zero targets and transition plans, countries can boost the credibility of their national climate goals, she said.

In line with the UN Secretary-Generals call, McKenna stressed the urgency of creating robust transition plans. Every city, region, industry, financial institution, and company must also be part of the solution, said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his special address A Moment of Truth.

"They must present robust transition plans by COP30 next year in Brazil at the latest, aligned with 1.5 degrees and the recommendations of the UN High-Level Expert Group on Net Zero."

McKenna concluded her remarks with a powerful reminder of the stakes involved. Climate change is accelerating, and the clean energy transition is inevitable. Business, investors, cities, and regions have the tools to act decisively already, and they should work with national governments to achieve the Paris Agreement goals. Every fraction of a degree matters, and every tonne of CO2 makes a difference. We must do the hard work now, or we will all face the consequences tomorrow.
14 November 2024 14:17 (UTC+04:00)

Nazrin Abdul Read more

In a brief interview with Azernews, Elnur Soltanov, CEO of COP29, shared his thoughts on the new climate financing target set by Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and its potential to address the urgent needs of low- and middle-income countries.

Soltanov acknowledged the significance of the MDBs' new climate financing target but emphasized that much more is needed. Studies show that developing countries, excluding China, need approximately $2.4 trillion in climate finance, with $1 trillion of that coming from external sources, he explained. But if we put aside the numbers for a moment, the key target we should be looking at is 1.5 Celsius. For the finance number to be truly effective and acceptable, it must push the world towards this figure."

He continued, Any number that takes us closer to 1.5 Celsius is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, anything less than that will not suffice."

It should be noted that the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), including prominent institutions such as the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the African Development Bank (AfDB), have projected that their combined climate finance contributions will reach USD $120 billion annually by 2030. Of this, USD $42 billion is earmarked specifically for adaptation efforts, aimed at helping vulnerable countries address the impacts of climate change.

The MDBs' commitments also include a significant goal of mobilizing USD $65 billion annually from the private sector, marking a key initiative to leverage private finance for climate action in low- and middle-income nations.

For high-income countries, the MDBs expect their collective climate financing to total USD $50 billion annually, with USD $7 billion allocated to adaptation. In addition, they aim to mobilize another USD $65 billion from private sector investments to support climate projects.

These estimates were presented during a high-level meeting in Baku, hosted by COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev. The event was attended by heads of state, senior executives from international financial institutions, and representatives from global organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The meeting underscored the critical importance of financial support to meet the scale of the global climate crisis and accelerate progress toward achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Soltanovs comments underscore the growing urgency to scale up climate finance for developing nations as the world strives to meet the 1.5C climate goal outlined in the Paris Agreement. His statement highlights the critical role of MDBs and other financial institutions in driving the necessary investments to support climate action in vulnerable regions.
14 November 2024 18:24 (UTC+04:00)

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Azerbaijan and the Islamic Development Bank signed new documents.

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13 November 2024 22:59 (UTC+04:00)

A new publication of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation dedicated to Azerbaijan was presented as part of COP29 in Baku on November 13, Azernews reports.

The book, Azerbaijan. Inspired by Nature, was published within the framework of a project implemented by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

The author of the project idea is Leyla Aliyeva, Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, while Anar Alakbarov, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, is the project manager.

The ceremony was attended by Anar Alakbarov, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan; Leyla Aliyeva, Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation; Arzu Aliyeva, Head of the Baku Media Center; Salim bin Mohammed AlMalik, Director-General of ICESCO; Sadhguru (Jaggi Vasudev), the founder of the Isha Foundation and a prominent Indian yogi; and other distinguished guests.

It was noted at the event that presenting the book on the sidelines of COP29 was not accidental. The book contains photos and information about Azerbaijans fascinating nature, flora, and fauna. Not only does the publication introduce readers to Azerbaijans wonderful nature, but it also highlights the importance of preserving this wealth.

The hundreds of photos taken as part of this large-scale project, initiated in 2020, include unique shots of rare animals, birds, and plants. The project showcases the diversity of Azerbaijan's nature, as well as the countrys regions, national parks, and reserves. Video clips and a documentary film were also produced as part of the project, and a trailer of the documentary film was shown during the ceremony.

In her remarks at the event, Leyla Aliyeva said that the book calls for the love and protection of nature. She noted, There is nothing in the world as valuable as nature. We breathe air. We cant survive without water for three days. We get energy from the soil and trees. We feed on them. Unfortunately, people hardly think about that during the day. I believe that the pictures published in this book will remind people of the importance of loving and protecting nature. As our fathers used to say, If you dont come here, you will never find out. I would like everyone to take more time to visit our homeland. I want to thank the whole team for this great work and will never forget the days we spent in Lerik together. This book calls for the love and protection of nature. Nature grants us life, so lets learn how to love it.

One of the projects photographers, Aleksey Lyokin, said that a team of photographers traveled to all corners of the country, took pictures, and explored the rare nature of every region. He noted that the filming was done in all seasons to show the full beauty of nature to the greatest extent possible.

During the project, we acquired more detailed information about the lives of animals and the kind attitude our little friends need. For example, the gazelles living in Shirvan National Park have grown accustomed to drinking sea water. It was simply amazing to watch them. We had the opportunity to shoot flamingos in Azerbaijan year-round. As the migration route passes through the country, they can be observed in Absheron, Shirvan, and Aghgol National Parks. We experienced some extraordinary feelings while filming in liberated territoriesKarabakh and East Zangezur. The beauty of Karabakh and East Zangezur is truly breathtaking. The Istisu spring in Kalbajar and the Chetir waterfall in Shusha are magnificent. The basalt rocks in Kalbajar deserve special attention, said Aleksey Lyokin, adding that filming had also taken place in the Azykh cave, which is considered one of the oldest human settlements. He expressed that the team experienced incredible emotions in these places, which are hard to put into words, and that all these feelings are reflected in the film.

The founder of the Isha Foundation, Sadhguru (Jaggi Vasudev), spoke about the close relationship between nature and its elements, as well as the transformations occurring due to climate change. He emphasized the unity of individual components of nature, the human races home, and the importance of protecting them.

Leyla Aliyeva then presented the book Azerbaijan. Inspired by Nature to ICESCO General-Director Salim bin Mohammed AlMalik and Sadhguru.

The guests expressed their enjoyment of the publication.

In conclusion, a commemorative photo was taken.

The project was widely covered on social networks, with various educational columns and competitions organized, enhancing the project's public outreach.

The book has been published in Azerbaijani and English. An exhibition of the photos featured in the publication and the launch of the documentary are also expected to take place soon.

The Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Leyla Aliyeva, also visited local and foreign pavilions in the Green Zone of COP29.
Azerbaijani House in Prague has hosted a poetry evening, which took place against the backdrop of paintings by national artists living in this city, Azernews reports.

At the beginning of her speech, Shahrun Suleymanova expressed her gratitude to the State Committee for Work with Diaspora of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani Embassy in the Czech Republic and Natavan Society.

The poetry evening consisted of three parts. In the first part, the poet recited poems dedicated to Victory Day, martyrs and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, President Ilham Aliyev. Then, video clips were shown to the guests.

"The initiative of the Natavan Society - the clip "Urayim Shusha" with music by Anar Ibrahimov (Germany) and lyrics by Leyla Begim (Czech Republic), beautifully realized by the Baku Media Center, was released on November 7 and became a harbinger of victory for the Azerbaijani people, and I am proud that I was the author of the translation of this song into Azerbaijani, beautifully performed by Sevda Alakbarzadeh," the poetess said.

Then, the members of the Azerbaijani diaspora were delighted with the song "My Garabagh" performed by Sevinj Javadova, lyrics by Shahrun Suleymanova and music by Givi Usenashvili.

In the second part of the evening, poetess, a member of the Azerbaijan Writers' Union Shahrun Suleymanova recited translated poems of both classics and modern poets, including Konstantin Simonov, Robert Rozhdestvensky, A.S. Pushkin, Leyla Aliyeva, Leyla Begim, Murad Hasanov (Germany), Naila Nadir and Narmina Mammadzadeh.

Shahrun Suleymanova especially noted Leyla Begim's participation in the translation of the play "Immolatio":

This play draws very interesting parallels between the ideas and destinies of two peers, sons of the Azerbaijani and Czech peoples, Imadeddin Nasimi and Jan Hus.

The evening's participants also watched an excerpt from this production, staged by People's Artist of Azerbaijan Vagif Asadov, at the Maqsud Ibrahimbayov Creativity Center in Baku.

The third part of the evening was dedicated to Shahrun Suleymanova's personal works, including the poem "To My City," which she wrote during the pandemic.

The poetess noted that she was very happy to see thousands of guests in Baku, participants of the leaders' summit of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29).
14 November 2024 17:33 (UTC+04:00)

Laman Ismayilova Read more

Azerbaijan is hosting the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), Azernews reports.

As part of this globally significant event, the Culture Ministry is organizing concerts, exhibitions, and presentations to effectively engage guests.

On November 13, a concert program titled "Awakening" was presented at the Heydar Aliyev Center.

The concert featured soloists from the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater and was attended by heads of state and government from dozens of countries, officials, and climate experts who came to Baku for COP29.

It is noted that "Awakening" is a special ritual that restores the unity of humans with nature and encourages individuals to pay close attention to the essential elements necessary for life. At this modern stage, vital elements such as air, water, earth, and fire have become themes that inspire new thoughts. Therefore, this spectacular performance was conceived as an awakening that connects water to life, air to the power of reason, earth to conscious existence, and fire to the light of civilization. Lost on the winding paths of progress, humanity draws wisdom from the teachings of priests that have survived to our time, illustrating that each element contains a work of art related to nature. The sacred male and female dialectic formed in the dynamics of cosmic relationships further creates the fabric of humanity through collective efforts for the common good.

The carpet, as an intertwining of countless knots, embodies collective labor towards a common goal. Such is the concept of the authors of the composition's plot.

A pure, immaculate maiden in the image of Maiden Tower, who has become a prisoner of human limitations, while inspiring with her beauty, purity, and fragility, reminds us of the mission to "be human." Indeed, to be human is to acknowledge the fragility we possess, yet this does not mean we should not be on the stage of life. Let us not forget that life itself is akin to beauty. If it is not cared for, if it is not given due attention, it ceases to exist. Truly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, awakening is a mystery bestowed upon humanity to give everything new breath, a harbinger of a new day, of new life!

The conductor of the show composition featuring local and international artists was the chief conductor and musical director of the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, Honored Artist Ayyub Guliyev, with choir master Sevil Hajiyeva, a distinguished art worker, and director and screenwriter Francesco Bondi.

It is important to note that COP29 is also significant in promoting Azerbaijan's ancient and rich historical and cultural heritage. Throughout the session, which will last until November 22, a series of cultural events and presentations organized by the Azerbaijan Culture Ministry will take place.

Moreover, on November 15, the second meeting of culture ministers dedicated to climate activities will be held.

This meeting, organized by the ministries of culture of the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, and Azerbaijan, is expected to be attended by officials, experts, and representatives from non-governmental organizationsaround 120 delegates in total. Efforts will be made during the event to achieve international consensus on high-level cultural dialogue, including the incorporation of art and cultural heritage into the agenda for climate change action.

On November 16, within the framework of COP29, there will be a session dedicated to the country's initiative "Culture for Climate" (C4C), organized by Group of Friends for Culture-based Climate Action under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Azerbaijan Culture Ministry.

On the same day, the Azerbaijan initiative "Culture for Climate" (C4C) will be presented.
Joelle Espeut, advocacy director for the Normal Anomaly Initiative, speaks at a press conference for the kickoff of the TAC:SAGES research partnership on Wednesday, November 13th 2024. Tanya Babbar/Houston Chronicle

Leaders of a new partnership are training Black transgender women to lead University of Houston research on the issues facing their own community.

"I've never seen researchers who look like me doing research about people who like me," said Byancha Lawson, one of the women joining the partnership. She spoke Wednesday afternoon under the cast of a new billboard off Loop 610, where she's pictured smiling on alongside other transgender women.

The partnership, announced on Transgender Allyship Day, is composed of the Normal Anomaly Initiative and the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work's Collective for Community Action.

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The Normal Anomaly Initiative is a nonprofit organization for Black LGBTQ individuals.

Dr. Samira Ali, a UH HIV researcher who will be working with the partnership, said the goal is to dismantle the traditionally narrow idea of who conducts research on minority communities, and thus, who controls the narratives about them.

Were socialized at a young age so that when we see whos doing the research, we see white men in lab coats. We dont see Black women. We dont see trans women, she said.

The women, who band together under the name TAC:SAGES (Trans Ally Collective: Scholars in Action for Gender Expansive Services), but go by "the sages," for short, will be named as co-researchers on projects.

That means theyll make decisions on all levels, from the types of questions asked about them, to the way the results are shared with the public.

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The women have been receiving research training this month from Dr. Bec Sokha Keo, a UH community-focused researcher who has been developing a curriculum since last October.

Christen Coco Valentine, one of the "sages," said the goals of the partnership feel more important than ever after Trumps victory in the presidential election.

It feels like the future, even though we had devastating news a few days ago, Valentine said. Our community has been suffering enough. Death is like our next-door neighbor. We have to do more.

Texas has the highest number of transgender murders in the nation. The Human Rights Campaign reported that out of the 335 transgender and non-gender conforming individuals killed in the U.S since 2013, 34 were in Texas. Also, 84% of transgender individuals killed since 2013 were people of color, and 62% were black transgender women.

In August, a 34 year-old Black transgender woman and Air Force veteran, Vanity Williams, was shot to death in her apartment downtown. A 36 year-old transgender woman, Cameron Brigaman, who also was known as Diamond, was shot to death in southwest Houston in March.

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Valentine, who is originally from Detroit, moved to Houston 15 years ago. The citys nightclubs are where she first found a sense of community. Now, its coming through the research partnership, Valentine said.
14 November 2024 09:00 (UTC+04:00)

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy spoke at a COP29 event focused on supporting the role of indigenous people and local communities in protecting nature, including forests.

Lammy expressed his honor in attending COP29 as the first foreign secretary from the Labour Party since it came to power after 14 years. He highlighted the alarming rate of deforestation and noted that less than 1% of all climate funding last year went toward forest protection.

"A significant portion of this funding was allocated to governments and NGOs," Lammy said, adding that from 2012 to 2022, around 2,000 land and environmental defendersmost of them indigenouswere killed.
14 November 2024 13:20 (UTC+04:00)

On November 14, Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, met with Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser to the Interim Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, Azernews reports.

Muhammad Yunus fondly recalled his previous visit to Azerbaijan, highlighting his collaboration with the Nizami Ganjavi International Center and active participation in its events.

He praised Azerbaijan for becoming a venue for significant international events and congratulated the head of state on the successful organization of COP29 within a short timeframe. Muhammad Yunus also noted opportunities for Bangladeshi students to study in Azerbaijan, the exchange of expertise with Azerbaijan, and collaboration in the areas of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and digital development.

Muhammad Yunus invited the President of Azerbaijan to pay an official visit to Bangladesh.

President Ilham Aliyev expressed his gratitude for the invitation.

President Ilham Aliyev noted Azerbaijan's organization of COP29 in a short time and addressed the smear campaign against the country regarding its presidency of COP.

During the conversation, they exchanged views on the development of bilateral relations, reciprocal visits of delegations, strengthening the mechanism of political consultations, and cooperation within international organizations. The sharing of Azerbaijan's ASAN and DOST experiences with Bangladesh was also explored.
14 November 2024 11:30 (UTC+04:00)

Fatima Latifova Read more

The leading media outlets in Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Greece continue to focus on the 29th session of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), held in Azerbaijan, Azernews reports, citing AZERTAC.

Romania's AGERPRES national news agency, DIGI24 television, and news portal, Bursa newspaper, Mediafax news agency, Bulgaria's BTA national news agency, Dariknews news portal, BTV television channel, Dir.bg news portal, Greece's Capital, Eretikos, Imidones, Sofokleous news portals, Croatia's Jutarnji List, Vecernji, Dnevnik news portals, and other television channels, radio stations, and newspapers have highlighted the high-level organization of COP29 in Azerbaijan in their reports.

These media outlets provided extensive coverage of the event, highlighting its significance and providing detailed information about Azerbaijan. They noted that important decisions would be made during COP29. Special attention was given to the speeches and interviews of Romania's Minister of Energy Sebastian Burduja, Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Bulgaria's President Rumen Radev, and Croatia's Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic during the conference.

The signing of the "Joint Development Agreement" between SOCAR and Asarel Energy with the participation of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Bulgaria was also reported. Many media outlets extensively covered Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev's speech at COP29. In particular, it was emphasized that President Aliyev strongly responded to the criticisms directed at Azerbaijan during his speech at the opening of the Leaders' Summit. The President's statement that natural resources are a gift bestowed by God was highlighted.

The reports also mentioned that President Ilham Aliyev recalled how, after the 2022 energy crisis, the European Union specifically requested Azerbaijan to supply more natural gas.
14 November 2024 13:21 (UTC+04:00)

On November 14, Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, met with Philemon Yang, President of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly, Azernews reports.

Emphasizing the high-level relations between the United Nations and Azerbaijan, Philemon Yang underscored that Azerbaijan remains fully committed to the UN Charter.

He acknowledged the excellent organization of COP29, pointing out that organizing such an event was no easy task, as the preparation process took only 11 months.

Philemon Yang also praised Azerbaijan's green transition and green energy concepts.

Yang mentioned that the UN General Assembly actively supports young and professional Azerbaijani personnel.

President Ilham Aliyev emphasized that Azerbaijan's high-level organization of COP29 within a short timeframe demonstrates the country's determination to support international efforts in combating climate change.

The President also highlighted the initial progress made in the COP process, positively assessing the statements made at COP29 regarding Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and new financial targets set by international financial institutions.

President Ilham Aliyev mentioned the ongoing broad propaganda campaign against Azerbaijan and COP.

The head of state noted Azerbaijan's diversified diplomatic relations and the establishment of strategic partnerships across a wide geographical region.

The Azerbaijani leader stressed the importance of increasing solidarity among Global South and developing countries and called for a change in the current geopolitical architecture to ensure greater justice globally.
14 November 2024 18:07 (UTC+04:00)

Laman Ismayilova Read more

An exhibition featuring the works of Azerbaijani photographer Rustam Huseynov has opened its door at Oryol United State Literary Museum in Russia, Azernews reports.

Titled "An Extraordinary Journey with Turgenev to the East," the exhibition coincides with a local holiday celebrating the birthday of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, a renowned literary figure from Oryol.

This exhibition marks a significant cultural event that, after a long hiatus, has rekindled the interest of the residents of the "third literary capital" in Eastern culture. Rustam Huseynov showcased a collection of his photographs that highlight the Azerbaijani architecture and natural beauty.

Speaking to AZERNEWS, the photographer mentioned that when selecting works for the exhibition, he tried to choose the most interesting snapshots that resembled illustrations for a traveller's diary. He reflected on how he would be impressed if he were visiting Azerbaijan for the first time and aimed to convey a holistic image of the natural and cultural beauty of their country.

"When selecting works for the exhibition, I tried to choose the most interesting snapshots that resembled illustrations for a traveller's diary. I thought about how I would be impressed if I were visiting Azerbaijan for the first time and aimed to convey a holistic image of the natural and cultural beauty of our country," he said.

Visitors to the exhibition are treated to stunning images of Azerbaijan's majestic mountains, the intricate patterns of its roads, the vibrant red of blooming poppies in the valleys, the surf of the Caspian Sea, and the exquisite ancient architecture of the country, all captured in the artist's succinct and expressive style. Through Huseynov's works, Orel's residents gained a glimpse into the East.

The selection of this photo exhibition at the Literary Museum of I.S. Turgenev is fitting, as Turgenev himself was enchanted by the Eastoften referred to as the "land of wonders"since childhood, a passion reflected in his writings. His fascination extends to the captivating "eastern pages" found in Turgenev's "mysterious stories" and his interest in the works of esteemed Eastern poets.

Following in Turgenev's footsteps, other classics of Russian literature, such as A. Fet, N. Leskov, I. Bunin, and L. Andreyev, also embarked on literary journeys to the East.

The exhibition featuring Rustam Huseynov's photographs will be open until January 20, 2025.
14 November 2024 12:22 (UTC+04:00)

On November 14, Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, met with Alain Berset, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Azernews reports.

Berset expressed his appreciation for the invitation to COP29 and commended Azerbaijans efficient organization of the event within a limited timeframe. President Ilham Aliyev underlined that while host countries typically have up to two years for COP preparation, Azerbaijan managed to complete all arrangements within just 11 months.

The head of state stated that significant progress has been made in the COP29 negotiation process. Specifically, on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which has been under discussion for over 10 years, the first results have been achieved, and negotiations in this area will continue. The President also highlighted that statements from international financial institutions about a new financial target are viewed as positive signals. He expressed hope that a new financial target will be established at COP29, stressing that developing countries, in particular, have high expectations on this matter.

Berset emphasized the Council of Europe's focus on environmental crimes and climate change, highlighting their place on the organizations agenda. He also pointed out the importance of upholding diversity among member states.

The head of state mentioned Azerbaijans joining 76 Council of Europe conventions. The significance of the Baku Process, which Azerbaijan initiated to promote dialogue between the Council of Europe and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, was also highlighted along with other cooperation matters in a variety of fields.
14 November 2024 13:04 (UTC+04:00)

On November 14, Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, met with Geraldo Alckmin, Vice-President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Azernews reports.

Geraldo Alckmin conveyed greetings from the President of Brazil to the Azerbaijani President, noting that Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva could not attend COP29 due to health reasons.

The head of state expressed gratitude for the greetings and asked Geraldo Alckmin to pass on his own regards to the President of Brazil, wishing Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a speedy recovery. President Ilham Aliyev also invited the President of Brazil to pay an official visit to Azerbaijan.

The Brazilian Vice-President expressed admiration for Bakus beauty and congratulated Azerbaijan on the excellent organization of COP29.

Geraldo Alckmin highlighted the cooperation between Azerbaijan and Brazil within the Troika on COP and climate change issues. He emphasized the importance of developing bilateral relations with Azerbaijan, including in the economic, trade, agriculture, and investment sectors.

During the conversation, they exchanged views on establishing a working group for economic and trade matters, as well as on investments, joint production ventures, tourism, and direct air connections between their countries.
14 November 2024 13:52 (UTC+04:00)

On November 14, Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, met with Taye Atske Selassie, President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Azernews reports.

Taye Atske Selassie conveyed greetings from Abiy Ahmed Ali, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, to the Azerbaijani President.

President Ilham Aliyev expressed his gratitude for the greetings and asked Taye Atske Selassie to convey his regards to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia.

Taye Atske Selassie expressed his thanks for the invitation to COP29, praised the excellent organization of the event, and noted the high level of participation. He also commended President Ilham Aliyevs comprehensive and meaningful speech, expressing his gratitude for it.

The President of Ethiopia shared that his acquaintance with Azerbaijan's ASAN Khidmet during his visit had made a strong impression on him and highlighted the potential for applying this model in his own country. He also mentioned the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of Azerbaijan and the Federal Civil Service Commission of Ethiopia.

The President of Ethiopia expressed his countrys interest in Azerbaijan's expertise in free trade zones. He touched upon cooperation opportunities in areas such as tourism, agriculture, investments, and other sectors, emphasizing the significant prospects for collaboration.

President Ilham Aliyev stressed the importance of strengthening solidarity among developing countries and reiterated Azerbaijans commitment to developing relations with African countries.

The President of Azerbaijan underlined that the country is ready to fully support the ASAN Khidmet experience in Ethiopia.

During the conversation, the Presidents discussed cooperation between the two countries in international organizations, renewable energy, and other sectors. They also emphasized the importance of establishing an intergovernmental commission on economic issues.

The President of Ethiopia invited the Azerbaijani leader to pay an official visit to Ethiopia.

President Ilham Aliyev expressed his gratitude for the invitation and invited the President and Prime Minister of Ethiopia to make an official visit to Azerbaijan.
14 November 2024 14:19 (UTC+04:00)

On November 14, Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, met with Ramchandra Paudel, President of Nepal, Azernews reports.

President Paudel expressed his gratitude for the warm hospitality and praised the high-level organization of COP29. He noted with pleasure his exposure to Azerbaijani culture during his visit and voiced hope that COP29 would consider the interests of developing nations like Nepal.

The Nepalese President highlighted the existing friendly relations between Azerbaijan and Nepal, mentioning cooperation within international organizations as well as on climate change, and sustainable development matters.

He pointed out that he was deeply impressed by Azerbaijans progress and stated that Nepal, now entering a phase of sustainable development after a lengthy transition, is eager to attract foreign investors, particularly in the tourism and hydropower sectors.

Ramchandra Paudel went on to say that despite its low carbon emissions, Nepal faces serious consequences from climate change.

President Ilham Aliyev noted the historic significance of this first meeting between the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Nepal, expressing hope that it would give a boost to bilateral relations. He emphasized the importance of enhancing economic and trade ties.

The meeting also included discussions on cooperation and mutual support within the UN and other international organizations, political consultations between the foreign ministries, and climate change collaboration during Azerbaijans COP presidency.

The President of Nepal invited his Azerbaijani counterpart for an official visit to Nepal.

President Ilham Aliyev expressed gratitude for the invitation.

The Nepalese President presented a keepsake to President Ilham Aliyev.
14 November 2024 14:35 (UTC+04:00)

On November 14, Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, met with Abdullah al-Alimi, Vice Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council of the Republic of Yemen, Azernews reports.

Abdullah al-Alimi congratulated Azerbaijan on the excellent organization and hosting of COP29. He described Azerbaijans accomplishments as the success of the entire Muslim world. He considered the arrival of a large number of representatives, heads of state, and government in Azerbaijan these days as an important event, noting that COP29 had achieved great results.

Abdullah al-Alimi also expressed admiration for the beauty of Baku.

He then congratulated President Ilham Aliyev on the liberation of Azerbaijans lands from occupation and the full restoration of the countrys territorial integrity and sovereignty. Recalling that a number of Yemeni students had received education in Azerbaijan during the Soviet era, he asked for the tradition to be continued.

The President of Azerbaijan expressed his gratitude for the kind words and congratulations, adding that the successful hosting of COP29 in Azerbaijan was a shared success.

President Ilham Aliyev stated that Armenia had destroyed Azerbaijans material and cultural heritage during the years of occupation, including holy shrines and hearths belonging to the Islamic religion, and desecrated them by keeping pigs in mosques.

The head of state said that Azerbaijan had liberated its territories from occupation and put an end to Armenian occupation.

The sides also touched upon Muslim solidarity, expressed their satisfaction with cooperation between the two countries within international organizations, noted that Azerbaijan and Yemen always stand by each other, and exchanged views on the prospects for cooperation in various areas.
President-elect Donald Trump arrives to watch SpaceX's Starship rocket lift off for a flight test with Elon Musk from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (Brandon Bell/Pool via AP) Brandon Bell/Associated Press Elon Musk speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Evan Vucci/Associated Press

When Elon Musk was tapped by then President-Elect Donald Trump last November to co-head the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, speculation arose over what the body was and what role Musk would play in it.

Those questions have since refocused on how much tangible power the South African-born tech billionaire can wield though DOGE, described by Trump then as an outside body that would work in tandem with the Office of Management and Budget and the White House to shake up federal agencies.

Less than a month into Trump's second term, the department  purportedly aimed at cutting federal waste and spending  has put a bullseye on government employees and federal agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. Concerns have also been raised over DOGEs access to databases within the Health and Human Services  including Medicaid and Medicare  and payment systems in the U.S. Treasury.

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Federal officials and lawmakers have raised additional concerns that Musk's encroaching access to federal government agencies could pose conflict of interests with NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration.

In an interview with the Washington Post this week, Georgetown Law School professor David Super called DOGEs recent moves wildly illegal.

I think theyre playing a quantity game and assuming the system cant react to all this illegality at once, Super said.

Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, raised warning flags during a press conference this week over the possible ramifications of the group's, and Musk's, stated objectives to dismantle those agencies.Before our very eyes, an unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government, Schumer said.

Musk, who was Trump's most prominent financial backer ahead of the November election, chided the democrats over similar comments made by Schumer and other detractors.

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Hes mad that @DOGE is dismantling the radical-left shadow government in full view of the public.



This is our ONE CHANCE to return POWER to the PEOPLE from an unelected BUREAUcracy back to DEMOcracy!!



Only with the support of YOU can this succeed. Thank you, unknown soldiers. https://t.co/G8ZCOUSHN6  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2025

Musk maintains a strong online presence, particularly on X, engaging with his supporters, and delivering often unsubstantiated claims, such as his recent implication that DOGE had eliminated a government department that supported a free tax processing service to Americans, and uses much of his X feed bandwidth to characterize various media outlets as propaganda, or predicting the demise of the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party is dying by their own hand https://t.co/G5fROXeCtn  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2025

In a January 26 entry on its official X account, DOGE declared it was open for applications to join the group, saying that the DOGE Team is looking for world-class talent to work long hours identifying/eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.

The president-elect boldly predicted the department could become the Manhattan Project of our time, while Musk said it would send shockwaves through the system.

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In a January 26 entry on an X account, DOGE appealed for applications to join the group, saying that the DOGE Team is looking for world-class talent to work long hours identifying/eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.

Musk, who co-leads the entity with Vivek Ramaswamy, a financier and former Republican presidential nominee, recently called DOGE the "wood chipper for bureaucracy" on X.

On Friday, Musk - in response to a tweet from President Trump in which he condemned USAID - indicated that he would continue to follow Trump's lead.

In November, the Houston Chronicle asked experts to weigh in on what DOGE is, what it isnt, how Musk - who owns X and Tesla - boosts its public visibility, and how it could play out during Trump's second term.

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Is DOGE a department?

The Department of Government of Efficiency is not a department, thats the first thing people should make note of, said Se-Hyoung Yi, an associate professor of political science and director of the political science program at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

The term department might be misleading from the beginning, Yi said in an email. As Mr. Trump has not laid out any specific plan to create a new cabinet position, we should assume that DOGE would be an informal advisory body to the president.

As an informal body, Musk or Ramaswamy, a former GOP presidential candidate, will not require Senate confirmation, like typical department heads, nor will they likely have to comply with the disclosures required of federal employees.

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Trumps reference to the panel as a department could be semantics, said Mark P. Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University.

When a formal executive order comes through, the terminology may change, said Jones.

He can call it whatever he wants, but it's not going to function as a department, he said.

What Trump's terminology says

The terminology also lends weight to the appointment, said Jones.

From the public perspective, (Trump) is announcing it at the same time hes nominating the head of the department of defense, the EPA and state department, so its department, department, department, Jones said. It definitely has that aura and gravitas of a cabinet post surrounding it even though it has nothing to do with the cabinet.

Under federal law, the formal term for DOGE would be a federal advisory committee, Jones said.

Part of it is Trump saying that this is not your ordinary federal advisory committee, that this is an advisory committee on steroids, he said.

By calling it a department, added Jones, Trump could also be promoting public consciousness of the advisory panel and elevating the role of Musk and Ramaswamy, similar to when the president-elect appointed Tom Homan as "border czar" of his new administration, when there is no such position by that name.

(Calling it a department) raises the status of Musk and Ramaswamy in that theyre not co-chairing an advisory committee, they are co-directing a department  even though they are co-chairing an advisory committee, Jones said.

The Reagan precedent

There is precedent to the kind of group Trump is creating for his administration. The most famous of those was the Grace Commission, created by President Ronald Reagan during his first term through executive order, according to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum website.

The commission was not funded by Congress, but organized and funded by corporate executives and volunteers, said Yi.

Reagan directed the commission to make recommendations to eliminate government waste and inefficiency, but its effectiveness, said Yi, was spotty.

Originally given six months in 1982 to review the entire federal executive branch and make its recommendation, the deadline was postponed until Jan. 1984 near the end of Reagan's first term, and while the group would make more than 2,500 recommendations for reform, relatively few were implemented, Yi said.

"Many of them were ignored by Congress," he said.

Yi notes that Congress throughout both Reagan terms was sharply divided. Under a Trump presidency, a similar body may have better results.

As the GOP has gained control over both the House and Senate, "DOGE's suggestions might become more impactful than the Grace Commission's work in 1984," he said.

Where does Musk fit in?

The South Africa-born businessman has expressed many polarizing views, from his pro-deregulation stances to promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories on his X platform.

As CEO of electric automaker Tesla and co-founder space technology company SpaceX, Musk topped Forbes' 2024 list of richest individuals in the world, but his effectiveness within the advisory remains to be seen, said Robert Stein, a political scientist and professor at Rice University.

"He has a full-time day job, and so the question becomes, 'What could he do?'  and I think the answer is, he may have some ideas and he may have people who can implement those ideas or at least see if they are feasible," said Stein.

While Musk has floated $2 trillion in cuts  nearly a third of the $6.75 trillion the federal government spent in 2024, Congress has control over government spending, and lawmakers regularly ignore presidential budget requests, which typically work more to signal the administrations priorities than actually guide federal spending.

Trump repeatedly proposed massive spending cuts during his first term that never fully materialized.

By attaching the Musk name to the advisory panel, Trump could also be sending something of a dog whistle to supporters, said Jones.

"One of (Trump's) biggest campaign promises was cutting fat, eliminating waste, and so it fits right in with a narrative, and then the person he's sending (to the panel) is somebody who the public would view as anti-swamp," Jones said.

Ronald Reagan used the phrase "draining the swamp" to allude to ridding Washington of lobbyists and special interests. Trump used the term during his 2016 campaign when vowing to eliminate corruption in Washington.

How effective could DOGE become?

With his influential social media platform and his notoriety, something the Grace Commission lacked, Musk may bring more light to any recommendations the panel makes to push agendas, said Jones.
14 November 2024 14:44 (UTC+04:00)

On November 14, Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, met with Mohamed Muizzu, President of the Republic of Maldives, Azernews reports.

Mohamed Muizzu expressed his gratitude to President Ilham Aliyev for the excellent organization of COP29.

The Azerbaijani leader thanked the President of the Maldives for accepting the invitation to participate in the event.

President Ilham Aliyev stated that the Maldives, as an island nation, is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

President Ilham Aliyev expressed hope that the discussions during President Mohamed Muizzus visit to Azerbaijan would give impetus to the development of bilateral relations.

The Maldivian leader also confirmed that his country is affected by climate change. He expressed confidence that the recent launch of direct flights between the Maldives and Baku would boost tourism and people-to-people ties between the two countries. Mohamed Muizzu also highlighted that the Maldives has implemented a visa-free regime for Azerbaijani citizens and expressed hope that this would be reciprocated in the future.

During the conversation, the Presidents exchanged views on cooperation between the two countries in tourism, investments, and other areas of mutual interest.
14 November 2024 14:58 (UTC+04:00)

On November 14, Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, met with Gordana Siljanovska Davkova, President of the Republic of North Macedonia, Azernews reports.

Gordana Siljanovska Davkova commended the excellent organization of COP29 and noted the interesting presentation on Azerbaijani culture during the opening ceremony. She also expressed her support for cultural diplomacy and conveyed her pleasure in getting to know Azerbaijani culture. Additionally, she highlighted the broad opportunities for cooperation with Azerbaijan.

President Ilham Aliyev expressed hope that Gordana Siljanovska Davkova's visit to Azerbaijan would contribute to expanding bilateral relations and further developing economic, trade, and cultural ties.

The head of state highlighted the unjust propaganda targeting Azerbaijan in relation to COP29.

Touching on opportunities for investment in North Macedonia, President Ilham Aliyev emphasized that Azerbaijan attaches importance to developing relations with Balkan countries.

The discussion also included an exchange of views on cooperation in investment, agriculture, tourism, education, and culture.

Both Presidents invited each other for official visits to their respective countries, with mutual gratitude for the invitations expressed.
14 November 2024 18:30 (UTC+04:00)

On November 14, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, met with Muhammad Al Jasser, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), Azernews reports.

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev Aliyev and IsDB Chairman Muhammad Al Jasser attended the signing ceremony for the Agency Agreement between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Islamic Development Bank on Construction of the Main Irrigation Canal from the Maiden Tower Reservoir Project, and Reverse Linkage Technical Assistance Grant Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Islamic Development Bank on Construction of the Main Irrigation Canal from the Maiden Tower Reservoir Project, and Framework Agreement between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Islamic Development Bank on Construction of the Main Irrigation Canal from the Maiden Tower Reservoir project.

During the meeting, President Ilham Aliyev emphasized the importance of expanding cooperation between Azerbaijan and IsDB in terms of future directions and activities, expressing hope that these ties will deepen in the future.

The head of state also noted that the signed agreements mark the first step in securing international financial support for the projects in the liberated territories of Azerbaijan.

Muhammad Al Jasser commended the successful organization of COP29 within a short timeframe and recalled his visit to Azerbaijans liberated territories in 2023. He praised the efficient and high-quality execution of large-scale projects in those regions. Al Jasser reiterated the IsDBs readiness to support and expand its involvement in both public and private sector projects in Azerbaijan.
14 November 2024 22:43 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Aykhan Hajizada has responded to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's recent post on X regarding his claim against Azerbaijan's constitution.

According to Azernews, in his response, the Azerbaijani spokesperson says:

Mr. Prime Minister, your allegations about Azerbaijan's Constitution containing territorial claims have no ground and are misleading the international community. This allegation is a futile balancing act and an attempt to overlook/ignore the claims towards the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. It seems that there is a necessity to once again shed light on this: First of all, even though the Constitution of Azerbaijan has a reference to the Independence Act of Azerbaijan of 1991 which refers to the Declaration of Independence of 1918 affirming the current Republic of Azerbaijan as a successor of the previous republic of 1918-2020, it does not contain any claim to the neighboring countries. Both documents emphasize the importance of respecting common norms, principles, and good neighborly relations. Most importantly, article 3 of the Declaration of Independence of Azerbaijan of 1918 notes that the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic is determined to establish good relations with all nations, especially with neighboring nations and states.

On the contrary, the Constitution of Armenia is based on the fundamental principles of Armenian statehood and pan-national aspirations enshrined in the Declaration of Independence of Armenia of 1990, among which aims for a reunification of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, and calls some territories of Turkiye as Western Armenia. It is an irrefutable fact that this particular provision was used as a basis in Armenias multiple legislations, including Parliaments decision of 18 February 1992 on the ratification of the CIS founding agreement (Almaty), and the decision of 8 July 1992. The same logic and approach were applied during the adoption of the courts decision on the conformity of the regulation of the border commissions between Azerbaijan and Armenia with the Armenian Constitution of 26 September 2024.

All these legislations demonstrate that Armenia has never recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. Therefore, statements that Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan have no legal ground until Armenia makes changes to its Constitution and renounces all the legal and political acts that reflect its claim to Azerbaijan. Also, taking into account Armenias history of aggression against Azerbaijan while joining the Almaty Declaration as well as ongoing claims in its legislation as well as political statements, and legal documents it is time to ask for clarification on what is meant by the recognition of each others territorial integrity and sovereignty for Armenia back in 1992 and now?

When it comes to the issue of regions demonstrated in the map submitted to the Peace Conference of 1919 (Prime Minister has identified them as Syunik, Vayots Dzor Provinces of Armenia fully included in Azerbaijan, as well as the territories of Ararat, Armavir, Gegharkunik, Tavush, Shirak, Lori Provinces included in part), in order not to falsify the historical facts, it is necessary to recall the dates these regions were officially included in Armenia, which are long after the map of Azerbaijan was submitted to Entente: Syunik (Zangezur)  30 November 1920, and Vayots Dzor (Drlyz)  10 August 1920. When it comes to other regions enumerated by the Prime Minister, most of their parts were incorporated into Soviet Armenia by altered administrative divisions that also in some cases violated international treaties, such as the Moscow Treaty of 16 March 1921.

However, enumerating all these historical facts that could be proven with the official documents, does not mean that Azerbaijan has a territorial claim to Armenia.
14 November 2024 13:59 (UTC+04:00)

Fatima Latifova Read more

The price of one barrel of Azerbaijani oil branded "Azeri Light" in the world market has increased by $0.54, or 0.73%, to reach $74.7, Azernews reports.

According to auction results, the price of Brent crude oil for January futures stood at $72.28 per barrel.

The Azerbaijani state budget for this year is based on an average price of $75 per barrel of oil.

It should be noted that the lowest price for "Azeri Light" oil was recorded on April 21, 2020 ($15.81), while the highest price was in July 2008 ($149.66). Oil in Azerbaijan is mainly produced under the agreement for the development of the "Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli" (ACG) oil fields block. The agreement provides for a 25% share for the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR).
13 November 2024 23:45 (UTC+04:00)

By Alimat Aliyeva

The Ministry of Transport of Vietnam has proposed a project for the construction of a high-speed railway connecting the capital, Hanoi, with the country's largest economic center, Ho Chi Minh City, Azernews reports.

The investment justification for the project, valued at 1.7 quadrillion dong (approximately 67.34 billion dollars), was presented to the National Assembly (unicameral parliament) by Transport Minister Nguyen Van Thang during the eighth session of the National Assembly's 15th convocation in Hanoi.

According to the minister, the project involves the creation of a two-track electrified railway designed for train speeds of up to 350 km/h.

The route will span 1,541 km, with 23 passenger stations and five freight stations. The project aims to meet the growing demand for rail transport, foster sustainable socio-economic development in the North-South corridor, and contribute to national defense and security, the minister noted.

Construction is set to begin in 2027, with the full completion and commissioning of the route expected by 2035. The estimated payback period for investments is approximately 33 years, the minister added.

According to Vietnam's general railway development plan, by 2050, the country will have 25 railway routes, totaling 6,354 km, integrated into regional and international railway networks.
14 November 2024 22:50 (UTC+04:00)

By Alimat Aliyeva

The U.S. Department of Defense has rejected claims made by a former employee regarding the presence of extraterrestrial technologies in the possession of the American government, Azernews reports.

"To date, the Department of Defense has not found any reliable evidence that the observation of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) has revealed extraterrestrial activity," a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

She added that the U.S. Department of Defense "has also found no reliable data to support claims that any programs related to the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or currently exist."

According to Gough, the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) "continues to review historical data" related to the U.S. government's UFO research programs.
14 November 2024 23:26 (UTC+04:00)

By Alimat Aliyeva

Poland is deploying K2 tanks acquired from South Korea in Branev, just a few kilometers from the border with Russia's Kaliningrad region, Azernews reports.

"During the first delivery, the 9th Brigade received seven tanks. Another batch is expected later this year. Currently, the unit has eight trained crews, who were trained by instructors from the 20th Mechanized Brigade," Koschinska said.

In July 2022, Poland and South Korea signed a framework agreement for the supply of approximately 1,000 K2 tanks, manufactured by Hyundai Rotem Corporation. In August of the same year, a contract worth more than $3 billion was signed, under which Hyundai Rotem pledged to deliver the first 180 tanks to Poland.
14 November 2024 23:59 (UTC+04:00)

By News Centre

Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloglu, in his statement at the AI In The Sky event, stated that they use domestic and national software and devices in flight operations and said, With our first domestic and national Interactive Radar Analysis and Data Screen (IRADE), we have established a system that collects current meteorological data, ATIS information, notams, AIP and radar images of the airport on a single screen and presents them to the user. Again, we have established the first domestic and national Civil Surveillance Radar at Gaziantep Airport. We plan to start using it in December.

The Multi-Purpose Radar Screen (CARE) system allows air traffic controllers to effectively manage air traffic and maintain traffic safety at the highest level.

Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloglu attended the AI In The Sky event, which discussed the transformative impact of artificial intelligence and big data on the aviation sector.

Minister Uraloglu, in his statement at the organization that brings together international authorities in the field of aviation, said, Our country has an advantageous and magnificent location in the centre of 67 countries where 1.5 billion people live and have a gross national product of 51.2 trillion dollars with a flight time of 4 hours. With the awareness that the fastest, safest and most comfortable way of transportation is air transportation; we have made very large investments in the field of aviation in order to maximize the potential of this advantageous location of our country.

Noting that they acted with the goal of no point in the world that we cannot reach under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Uraloglu said, We have transformed our country into one of the countries with the widest flight network in the world. Today, we reach 58 domestic destinations and 347 different destinations in 131 countries internationally by air. Next month, we will start new flights with Turkish Airlines on the Istanbul-Sao Paolo-Santiago and Istanbul-Kuala Lumpur-Sydney routes and increase our number of international flights to 349 destinations by the end of this year. We anticipate that our passenger numbers will exceed 236 million by the end of this year and 250 million by 2025. We have built 32 new airports in the last 22 years. Easier said than done, one airport every 1.5 years. 

Uraloglu, who explained that the aviation sector is the most important actor of globalization, said, We all know very well that aviation, more than being a mode of transportation, plays an important role in the economic and cultural development of countries and is a bridge that crosses borders. In an age where technology is rapidly developing, this sector is constantly transforming and competition is increasing in parallel. Having young, modern and efficient aircraft fleets is one of the most important factors that allows airlines to take a step forward in competition.

Uraloglu stated that innovative solutions should be continuously produced for permanent competition and said, As in every area of our lives, we have to evaluate artificial intelligence and big data technologies in aviation. In fact, the sector where digital technologies are most applied and their use is constantly increasing has been the aviation sector. The first automatic baggage sorting systems emerged in the 1990s, and since the early 2000s, e-tickets have replaced paper tickets, while boarding passes have been moved to the mobile environment. Real-time baggage tracking has begun to be implemented.

Uraloglu, who stated that the developments in the field of artificial intelligence have deeply affected the aviation sector, said, One of the biggest changes that artificial intelligence has brought to aviation is autonomous flight systems, which have reduced pilot errors to a minimum. All companies in the aviation sector can reduce their operating costs and general expenses with artificial intelligence-supported systems. There are many companies working on this. In other words, there is actually nothing artificial about artificial intelligence. We see that it has very concrete, successful and positive contributions.

Uraloglu explained that thanks to artificial intelligence, aircraft maintenance processes will be optimized and possible malfunctions will be detected in advance, and said , With big data analysis, air traffic management will be made more efficient and accidents will be prevented. Again, passenger behaviour will be analyzed with big data analysis, and more personalized services will be offered. Thanks to artificial intelligence-supported maintenance systems, the life of the aircraft will be extended and maintenance costs will be reduced. One of the most important points is that thanks to artificial intelligence and big data, air traffic management will be made more environmentally friendly, emissions will be reduced and a sustainable aviation sector will be built. In this context, I believe that artificial intelligence and big data technologies are a major turning point for our aviation sector.

Stating that artificial intelligence technologies are in every aspect of life, Uraloglu said,  We always say that the most important thing we care about in terms of cyber security is locality and nationality from software to device production. Today, we ensure the cyber security of our country with our artificial intelligence applications named Avc, Azad, Kasrga, Atmaca and Kule, which we have developed completely locally and nationally. Similarly, I would like to proudly underline that we use our software and devices, which we have developed locally and nationally, in the flight operations we carry out through our General Directorate of State Airports .

Uraloglu, who stated that they established a system that collects the current meteorological data, ATIS information, notams, AIP and radar images of the airport on a single screen with the Interactive Radar Analysis and Data Screen (IRADE) and presents them to the user, said, We started a new era in the field of aviation by starting to use the IRADE software at our Istanbul Ataturk and Cukurova airports. Thanks to our first domestic and national air traffic imaging software, we have cleared the way for the next domestic technology products by getting rid of external dependency in this field. We will start using it at Dalaman Airport in the coming days. Again, we installed Turkeys first domestic and national civil surveillance radar, MGR, developed by Turkish engineers, at Gaziantep Airport. We plan to activate it and start using it in December.

Minister Uraloglu also made statements about the Multi-Purpose Radar Display (CARE) system, which was developed with completely domestic and national resources in the field of air traffic management, and said,  It allows air traffic controllers to effectively manage air traffic by displaying real-time flight data on the map and to maintain traffic safety at the highest level. The CARE system, which is in service at more than 40 airports in our country, has also gone beyond our countrys borders and started service in Azerbaijan last year. FOD Detection Radar (FODRAD), Bird Detection Radar (KUSRAD), Flight Information System (FIDS), AIS Portal Application, Flight Tracking Application, Predictive Cyber Attack Prevention System, Geographically Based Digital Information Platform Software, Digital Atis System or Electronic Flight Strip (EFS) application. In short, we have made great progress in making the technologies used in flight operations in our country domestic and national and we continue to take innovative steps .

Uraloglu noted that they have also created a new civil aviation model focused on digitalization in Turkeys civil aviation field, and said, This model, which we call the Corporate Transformation Model (KDM) in short, does not only provide safety and efficiency; it also enables a sustainable transformation in the sector through an infrastructure supported by advanced technologies. It offers all the digital infrastructure that an aviation authority may need by combining it with artificial intelligence and big data. In this system, which was developed in accordance with ICAO regulations, training is based on a transparent, traceable and independent measurement mechanism. Thus, both the quality of training increases and a much more effective learning environment is provided for the participants.

Minister Uraloglu noted that the new aviation model also provides proactive and dynamic business process management that minimizes human error, and continued his words as follows:

Big data infrastructure enables the early detection of potential risks with real-time analysis. One of the most concrete examples of digitalization and data integration is our OLS/CNS software. This software accelerates the preparation of Obstacle Restriction Surfaces and Building Restriction Area maps to ensure safety around the airport and provides highly accurate results. Integration with the Digital Terrain and Surface Model ensures that all potential obstacles on the terrain are automatically reflected on the maps and improves these processes, which are extremely sensitive in terms of safety, with a digital approach. Moreover, since this software was developed on an open-source platform according to the requirements of aviation authorities, it can be customized according to user needs. Again, the UAV Tracking and Traffic Management System offers another example of data-driven decision-making in air traffic. It accelerates autonomous commercial transportation and drone usage processes and maximizes operational efficiency. Thanks to dynamic drone bans, intercity autonomous UAV flights and the ability to monitor flight records in real-time, security is provided at the highest level.
Xi Story: A champion for cultural exchanges between China, Latin America

Xinhua) 08:06, November 14, 2024

BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- This year, many people in China were charmed by the ancient Inca civilization at an exhibition held in the southern Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen.

The artifacts, ranging from leopard-print pottery and stone slabs adorned with mythical creatures to intricately crafted figurines, were shipped to China from 14 museums across Peru. Initially set to run from April to August, the exhibition was extended until October because of its popularity.

The success of the exhibition underscores the vibrant cultural ties between China and Latin America, which are both home to some of the world's oldest and most influential civilizations.

On Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping headed to the region for the APEC and G20 events, as well as state visits to Peru and Brazil. This marks his sixth trip to the region as China's head of state.

A strong advocate of cultural exchange, Xi has long lauded Latin America's rich history and civilizations. His visits to exhibitions, historical sites and cultural events in recent years show a genuine commitment to fostering understanding between different cultures.

In a speech delivered at the Peruvian Congress on Nov. 21, 2016, Xi expressed his admiration for the Inca civilization, praising the magnificence of Machu Picchu, the mesmerizing Nazca Lines, and the advanced local pottery, metallurgy and textile techniques. "These achievements continue to radiate the brilliance of wisdom," he said.

On the same trip, Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, joined the then Peruvian first couple at the closing ceremony of the China-Latin America Cultural Exchange Year, an initiative he had proposed during a previous trip to the continent in 2014.

At a museum in Lima where the ceremony was held, the leaders stopped to carefully examine a chart illustrating the parallels between Chinese and Latin American cultures.

Over the millennia that the Chinese nation was building its rich and enduring civilization in East Asia, the people of Latin America were shaping the vibrant cultures of the Maya, Inca, and Aztec empires.

Conversing with his Peruvian counterpart, Xi explained the origin of the oracle-bone script character "mu," which translates to "eye." And gesturing to an exhibit from the Terracotta Warriors on display at the Peruvian museum, he said, "This comes from the birthplace of the Chinese civilization, Shaanxi." He added, "It is also my hometown."

As the evening settled in, the sounds of bamboo flutes and pan pipes filled the air. Xi gave a speech, emphasizing mutual respect, equality and shared benefits. He called for mutual learning between civilizations to grow friendships, advance human society and promote world peace.

For Mexican archaeologist Jose Huchim Herrera, the day he guided Xi around the ancient Maya ruins of Chichen Itza in June 2013 was an experience forever etched into the fabric of his mind.

Located some 1,400 kilometers east of Mexico City, Chichen Itza has stepped pyramids, temples, columned arcades and other stone structures sacred to the Maya. It is one of the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico.

Xi showed keen curiosity about the civilization, recalled Huchim Herrera. From traditional Maya rituals to the history of a local sport, the Chinese president listened intently throughout the tour, inquiring about the meaning behind the relief sculpture carved on the foundations of the ruins and asking other detailed questions.

The following year, China hosted an exhibition of the Maya civilization at the national museum in Beijing. Xi attended the opening ceremony, hailing the exhibition as a grand cultural exchange event that allowed people to transcend time and borders, appreciate different civilizations, and renew friendships.

For the Chinese president, civilizations become richer and more colorful through exchanges and mutual learning. Over the years, he has actively engaged with cultures of the places he visited and genuinely interacted with the people he met.

He spontaneously played the steelpan with local musicians in Trinidad and Tobago, savored freshly brewed coffee on a Costa Rican plantation, and experienced the grace of ballet at a theater in Cuba.

"I have traveled to many places around the world, and one of my favorite things to do is to learn about civilizations across the continents, to appreciate their differences and uniqueness, and to understand different worldviews, outlooks on life, and values of the people who live within them," he said in 2014 at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Applauding the richness of global diversity, Xi has emphasized that civilizations and cultures can flourish together through openness, inclusivity, and peaceful coexistence.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
For the first time in what feels like an eternity, the National Weather Services Climate Prediction Center expects unusually cooler temperatures to take over Texas in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Climate Prediction Center / Pivotal Weather

This November has been bizarrely warm in Houston.

For the first 13 days of the month, the citys official climate observation site at Bush Intercontinental Airport has recorded daytime high temperatures at or above 80 degrees every day for the first time ever. This includes a close brush with 90 degrees for the first time in November.

The early November heat isnt just occurring during the day. Not a single daily low temperature has dropped below 60 degrees yet this month at Bush Intercontinental, also for the first time since Houston weather record-keeping began in the late 1880s.

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The second half of the work week will provide a reprieve from the unseasonably warm temperatures.

Thursday forecast

For the first time this month, most of us in Greater Houston will be waking up Thursday to temperatures in the upper 50s. Despite clear blue skies, daytime temperatures will only reach 75 or 76 degrees, which is much closer to the average high for mid-November, which is 74 degrees.

You may find yourself tempted to crank up the heater Thursday night as overnight temperatures drop to around 50 degrees. Expect at least a few 40s possible, especially near and north of Houston.

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The National Blend of Models expects low temperatures in Southeast Texas to fall into the 40s, mainly north of Houston, by Friday morning. WeatherBELL

After a crisp start to Friday, high temperatures will again peak in the lower to mid-70s. The weather for Friday is unchanged from Thursdays, except perhaps afternoon temperatures will be a degree or two less.

In short: Get outside Thursday or Friday. Or both.

Warming up this weekend

Just as were starting to enjoy the sweet embrace of fall weather, it yields to warmer temperatures again. Saturday will not only feel warmer with temperatures inching back to near 80 degrees, but itll also begin to feel muggier.

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Sunday is likely to be even warmer as temperatures reach into the lower 80s. As moisture-rich onshore winds strengthen, dont be surprised if a stray shower pops up along and south of Interstate 10 by Sunday afternoon. Rain is even more likely with the next cold front, which is poised to move into Houston early next week.

Fall cold front, for real?

Forecast models have done a terrible job lately of nailing down cold fronts. Starting in October, models continually suggested strong cold fronts seven to 10 days out. Ten days later, we were all shaking our fists in frustration and disappointment.

Houston's temperatures over the next 10 days rise and dip like a roller coaster, according to the National Blend of Models. Daily temperatures might reach the lower 80s early next week but they will struggling to get out of the 60s by the end of next week. WeatherBELL

This time around, agreement among the major weather forecast models and the National Weather Services Climate Prediction Center are zeroing in on a cooler pattern ahead. A cold front arriving around Monday or Tuesday could send temperatures plunging by the middle or end of next week.

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Confirmed: Waterspout Touches Down on N. Oregon Coast Becomes Tornado in Rockaway Beach

Updated 11/12/24 at 9:15 p.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff





(Rockaway Beach, Oregon)  UPDATED NUMBERS FROM NWS.

A confirmed tornado touched down in Rockaway Beach Monday night about 9:30 p.m., doing some amount of damage. Fences were knocked over, at least a couple of roofs were torn off, windows shattered and other damage, and one minor injury was reported. (Photo Pam Murray)

Still, it shook up local residents, with some from the Midwest recognizing the sound fairly quickly.

And there's another chance it'll happen again Wednesday on the coast.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has confirmed it as a tornado, an EF-0 that caused minimal damage. LATEST FROM NWS: estimated 85 mph; lasted two minutes.

It started as a water spout then became a tornado, said Nan Devlin, head of Tillamook Coast Visitors Association. Lots of damage to buildings, trees down and some power lines. The high school received the brunt of it.

According to NWS, it started just after 9:20 p.m., and the waterspout / tornado was spotted briefly by radar in Portland.



Photo courtesy Adelaido Bautista

A trained spotter in Rockaway Beach, Oregon called and reported a tornado near the beach in the town of Rockaway Beach, the NWS said. It occurred around 9:24 PM 11/11/24 and lasted a minute or so according to the spotter. At that exact time, KRTX radar imagery depicted a fairly strong velocity couplet over Rockaway Beach. There have been multiple reports of damage to fences, roof shingles, a window and dirt/debris being tossed around.

"The maximum width of the the tornado is estimated at 150 yards and an estimated path length of 0.25 miles based on damage reports."

There is no radar system on this part of the Oregon coast. NWS was only able to glimpse it through holes in the Oregon Coast Range  areas penetrated by gaps in the mountain.



Photo courtesy Tillamook County Sheriff's

According to numerous photographs and some video shared online, some of the fencing was actually picked up by the twister and set down. In one case it was dropped in a neighbor's yard.

In photos taken by Rockaway Beach resident Adelaido Bautista, you can see the roof torn off a garage and part of a neighboring building. Some of that debris ended up in other people's yards.



Photo courtesy Adelaido Bautista

Especially hit hard was the Neahkahnie School District building, where windows were broken by flying debris.

"I have not heard of any significant injuries but there's plenty of property damage," said Tillamook County Deputy Ahlers early in the day. "The Neahkanie School District buildings were hit hard, though does not sound like there is any impact to school operations."



Photo courtesy Adelaido Bautista

The noise and other sensations were frightening, according to many. Resident Pam Murray told Oregon Coast Beach Connection there was kind of a roaring sound and sounds of things hitting our house.

Everything happened so fast, Murray said. We heard a very loud thunder, then the wind started blowing, loud crashing sounds, it was scary! It was night so we couldn't see what really happened until the next day.

The atmospheric melee may not be over, according to meteorologists around the state. There are high winds forecast for Wednesday and there is a chance of more waterspouts off the Oregon coast.



Photo courtesy Tillamook County Sheriff's

There is currently a high wind warning in effect for the north Oregon coast on Wednesday.

South winds 30 to 40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph expected, the NWS said. Wednesday also will bring increased chances for thunderstorms with the chance for waterspouts near the coast.

Waterspouts and tornadoes are extremely rare in this region. This one starkly contrasts the one in October of 2016, when a waterspout hit the beach at Manzanita  becoming a tornado  then tore up one third of the trees in town. It also severely damaged some buildings, smacking a total of 128 in that town altogether. See Two Tornadoes on Oregon Coast; Manzanita Severely Damaged, Video

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Oregon Coast Glass Floats Hit 25-Year Mark: Lincoln City Celebrates How It Started

Published 11/13/24 at 8:55 p.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Lincoln City, Oregon)  How time flies when you're dropping glass floats on the beach. A major Oregon coast tradition has turned a quarter of a century old already.

Explore Lincoln City and the North Lincoln County Historical Museum (NLCHM) are celebrating a beloved anniversary with a special exhibit titled "25 Years of Finders Keepers." This annual tradition sees over 3,000 handcrafted glass floats scattered along Lincoln City's seven miles of beach. The exhibit kicks off on November 16, 2024, and will be open until November 15, 2025.

Historically, the Oregon coast was renowned as a prime location to discover Japanese glass fishing floats, attracting treasure hunters from near and far. Inspired by these historic floats, the Finders Keepers program began in 2000. Artists and community groups joined forces to mark the new millennium by continuing the joy of finding these glass treasures. For the past 25 years, Lincoln City's "Float Fairies" have hidden more than 75,000 glass floats along the beaches, creating a cherished tradition for visitors.

How Finders Keepers Began - And Who Started It

Finders Keepers began in 1997, when a local artist starting thinking glass floats would make an interesting way of launching the new millennium. He went to Lincoln City Visitors Bureau (now known as Explore Lincoln City) executive director Jennifer Sears, and it was Sears and staff that sponsored and kickstarted the inaugural season in 1999-2000.

Who started the Finders Keepers? It was a combination of Sears, staff and the artists. It was Sears who really made it all happen, but she died rather suddenly in 2005. Her part in starting the glass float drops was honored when they renamed the local glass-blowing facility the Jennifer Sears Glass Art Studio. It changed names again later in the 2010s.

Second-in-command at the LCVB was Sandy Pfaff, and she took over Sears' position immediately, staying for about a decade.





Back in the late 2010s, Pfaff spoke to Oregon Coast Beach Connection about the project.

"This is a great way to get our visitors excited about the upcoming Finders Keepers promotion in the fall," Pfaff said."I have been involved with Finders Keepers since 2000, and am honored to see it grow into the premier promotion of Lincoln City.

For almost two decades, Finders Keepers was a seasonal thing. It only happened from Labor Day to Memorial Day. Float Faeries weren't used in the summer.

Then came the change to an eternal thing: Finders Keepers went year-round in 2018. For a long time, tradition held that one more new float would added each year. 2001 had 2001 floats dropped on the beaches, and in 2010 it was 2010 floats, etc. That was dropped by the wayside when special drops were added in the 2010s, and certainly after the project went all year.

The Exhibit

The 25 Years of Finders Keepers exhibit opens with a public reception on Saturday, November 16 from 1 -3 pm, and will feature light refreshments. The ongoing exhibit is free to the public and will display 25 different floats  one from each year of the program  original posters from each year, glass-making tools and instruments, videos showing the glass-making process, along with interviews and photos of artists who have been involved in the program.



"The Finders Keepers Exhibition narrates the story of how the Lincoln City community turned the end of one tradition into the start of another," said Kim Cooper Findling, Director of Explore Lincoln City. "This creative initiative began as a celebration of the new millennium and has since become a hallmark of Lincoln City, bolstering our arts community and creating lasting memories for visitors."

In days gone by, visitors searching Oregons beaches often found treasures from the east, blown glass floats, in intriguing shades of green and blue. Used by Japanese fishing crews to float their nets, these spheres were as small as two inches or as large as two feet in diameter. They were hoarded, polished and adored - the ultimate find for a dedicated beachcomber.

Then Lincoln City dropped its project  spawning many imitators. Newport did it briefly in the 2000s. Gold Beach now does it, and Bandon has a very unique spin on it utilizing glass bottles with messages.

We are excited to walk visitors through the history and development of the program and celebrate the amazing community of glass artists who have continued to create unique Finders Keepers floats. said Christopher Melton, Executive Director, North Lincoln County Historical Museum.

North Lincoln County Historical Museum is located at 4907 SW Highway 101, Lincoln City, OR 97367 and is open Wednesday-Saturday, 11 am - 4 pm.

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N. Oregon Coast History Talk Digs Into 100-Year-Old Seaside Aquarium Building

Published 11/12/24 at 5:55 a.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Seaside, Oregon)  Each last Thursday of every month there's a new trip through time. History & Hops is the monthly feature hosted by Seaside Museum at Seaside Brewing Co., bringing a new chapter in Oregon coast's distinctive past. (The aquarium in the 1950s)

This time around, on Thursday, November 21, the talk is 100 Years of the Seaside Aquarium Building.

The Seaside Aquarium is the oldest privately-owned Aquarium on the West Coast. The aquarium opened for business in 1937, but the building itself was erected in 1924. What was the original purpose of the structure? A natatorium  one of those heated salt water baths that were crazy popular on the Oregon coast back then.

At 6 p.m., Keith Chandler and Tiffany Boothe of the Seaside Aquarium will be presenting a history of the building; what it was 100 years ago, what it is now, and what the future may hold. They will also be leaning into the history of Natatoriums and their presence on this coast from about 1910 to the early 1930s.

History & Hops is supported by the Seaside Museum, the Seaside Public Library, and Seaside Brewing Co.

The building opened up to the public on August 9, 1924, as a natatorium  possibly the last around the Oregon coast. There were others in Rockaway Beach, Cannon Beach, Newport and at the fabled Bayocean resort that fell into the sea.

Called the Seaside Baths Natatorium, it was the second such feature in Seaside, this one created by W. Arthur Viggers of Astoria  just three blocks from the Oates Natatorium. That one far outlasted the second, with this newer one hitting the skids in about 1930.

This one had a lot of unique features, including a big fountain in the middle and a loft upstairs where bands played. There was even a lunch counter about where the seals are now located.



In the '70s

After it shut down, it was a variety of other things, including a wrestling venue.

In the late '30s it became the Seaside Aquarium, which staff say it was perfect for. Various parts of the original structure are still used.

Somewhere in there, apartments were built up on the top floor and were around through the '70s. The average tourist can't see those, but Oregon Coast Beach Connection was granted access a couple of times  and it's a wildly engaging, even slightly spooky area.





Preserving Seasides History since 1974, the Seaside Museum & Historical Society is a non-profit educational institution with the mission to collect, preserve, and interpret materials illustrative of the history of Seaside and the surrounding area. The museum is open Wednesday - Saturday from 11 AM - 4 PM.

For further information, please contact Emily Halverson during museum hours at 503-738-7065. www.seasideoregonmuseum.com

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In France, the populist nationalist anti-immigration National Rally is the country's most popular party. In Germany, the populist nationalist anti-immigration Alternativ fur Deutschland is a close second to the CDU. Both are under attack from those country's globalist governments which want to abuse power to kneecap both parties.

In France, taking a cue from Biden's lawfare against Trump, the globalists around Macron have trumped up a criminal case against the National Rally and its leaders over claims they used some of their EU parliament staff for national party activities. A kangaroo court trial led to guilty verdicts with likely reversal on appeal. However, prosecutors are trying to structure a sentence that would prevent National Rally leader Marine LePen, who is leading the in polls for President in 2027, from being eligible to run for that office. They seek very extreme sentencing and an unusual procedure to impose the sentence pending appeal. Their recommended sentence would also put her in prison and remove her from parliament.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/lawfare-comes-to-france-prosecutor-requests-prison-sentence-and-public-office-ban-for-marine-le-pen/

In Germany, the parties in the recently collapsed Scholtz government are actually proposing to ban the second most popular party in the country, which in substantially leading all of their coalition parties in the polls. Scholtz is proposing to do to the AfD the same thing Hitler did to opposition parties after 1933. If Scholtz and his allies do that, they can truly be called neo-nazis.

https://rmx.news/article/the-end-of-democracy-vote-to-ban-afd-party-will-happen-before-german-snap-elections/

GLobalism is a clear and present danger to democracy. Globalism is a totalitarian ideology, and if any political ideology needs to be samped out, it is globalism. Failing and flailing globalist parties which have lost support want to abuse power to suppress the populist parties that have gained support.

The US has likely dodged a similar bullet with the NOv. 5 election result.
Roberto Villalpando is the Texas weather science editor for the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. He can be reached at roberto.villalpando@houstonchronicle.com.

He supervises a weather coverage team that includes three newsroom meteorologists who provide expert forecasts for the states two largest cities.

Working out of Austin, Roberto joined the Chronicle in 2023 and has more than 25 years of experience covering Texas as a breaking news editor, multimedia producer, graphic artist, copy editor and reporter.
Freedom of speech was on the ballot in the US on November 5, and free speech won. The most anti-free speech ticket in American history, Harris-Walz, was soundly defeated. Recent arrests and police investigations in Europe are a stark warning of what could have been in store for America.

In Germany, a 64 year old pensioner retweeted a meme portraying the controversial Economics Minister from the far left Green Party as an "idiot". Given the economic calamity that has befallen Germany under the recently collapsed left-liberal government, many Germans would agree with him. However, the police were not amused. They arrested him for "hate speech".

https://rmx.news/article/germany-police-raid-pensioners-house-and-drag-him-to-court-after-he-retweets-meme-calling-green-minister-an-idiot/

Earlier this year, it was a French woman who had never been involved in politics who found the police at her door to arrest her for posting online that President Macron was "a piece of filth". She asked if they were kidding. They weren't. A few weeks later, two Frenchmen were arrested for flipping the "bird" to President Macron as his entourage drove down the street in front of them.

In the UK last week, a woman journalist with the major London newspaper, The Daily Telegraph found the police at her door investigating a social media post a year old for "hate speech" but would not reveal what post it was, the subject, or who the alleged "victim" was. Both her newspaper and the Free Speech Union of the UK, of which she is a member, have criticized the police action. The tweets came during the time soon after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/12/my-visit-from-police-is-proof-of-two-tier-justice-system/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/telegraph-journalist-faces-kafkaesque-investigation-over-alleged-hate-crime/ar-AA1tXSfW

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/police-investigation-telegraph-journalist-allison-pearson-racial-hatred-x-old-tweets-b1193976.html

Elon Musk has weighed in, declared that the UK should make Orwell fiction again.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/massive-backlash-after-police-visit-uk-journalist-over-year-old-tweet/

When citizens are not allowed to criticize their politicians and government officials, they are not living in a democracy. Much of Europe is headed that direction, but America escaped this path thanks to the GOP victory on Nov.5.
The decision comes after the retirement of three physicians and the clinics inability to fill those positions, Bridget Dove, the centers administrator, told the publication.

Half of my physicians work for Bronson and the other half work for Ascension, Ms. Dove said, according to WWMT. So, thats where we kind of ran into the problem that I have physicians from both that are retiring, and any of the physicians that we can find are either part of one or the other and cant be brought in here.

Ms. Dove cited a nationwide shortage of gastroenterologists as the larger issue.

There arent as many coming out into the practice any longer, and when they are, most of them right out of school are being brought into hospitals, Ms. Dove told the publication.

Due to physician retirements, as of January 1, 2025, we will be transitioning gastroenterology services from Battle Creek to our Kalamazoo gastroenterology clinic location, Scott Newell, vice president of operations for Ascension Medical Group Southwest Michigan, told Beckers in a statement. We are committed to a seamless transition for our patients with no disruption in care or service.
Wausau, Wis.-based Aspirus Health is working with Chippewa Falls, Wis., officials on plans to build a new hospital in the city.

Aspirus' plan comes after Springfield, Ill.-based Hospital Sisters Health System closed Chippewa Falls-based St. Joseph's Hospital and Eau Claire, Wis.-based Sacred Heart Hospital on March 22.

"Since the March 2024 closure of HSHS hospitals in the Chippewa Valley, there has been an unmet need for emergency and inpatient hospital services," Aspirus President and CEO Matt Heywood said in a Nov. 14 news release.

"To help fill that gap, Aspirus expanded services and access in Stanley and Medford, which are located to the east of Chippewa Falls. After months of investigation and productive conversations with local officials, we have created a plan to build a facility where residents could access emergency care, inpatient hospital services and primary care," Mr. Heywood added.

Aspirus said it has completed preliminary plans for a new hospital and clinic that could be open in as soon as 18 months, pending necessary approvals. The system is working to secure a site with convenient highway access, as well as capacity for future growth and service expansion.

The system currently operates 18 hospitals and more than 130 outpatient locations in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan.
An Iowa health system has experienced the highs and lows of virtual nursing since launching the technology amid the pandemic.

Here are six things to know, according to a Nov. 13 KCCI story:

1. Patients told the news outlet they love the care model at Des Moines-based MercyOne. "It just seems unbelievable.  It's amazing to me," said patient Lerene Clinton.

2. The virtual nurses provide an "extra set of eyes" and can help fill gaps in a time of nursing shortages, according to the story. They help with charting and make calls to physicians. Virtual nurses include nurses who want to stay in the career longer in a less physically demanding fashion.

3. Sometimes, virtual nurses aren't available, one bedside nurse told the news outlet. "They need to be engaging. They need to be able to feel comfortable interacting with the patient because, you know, it's very hard to be remote and develop that relationship," said Kelly Barker, DNP, RN, the director of virtual nursing.

4. Some patients don't want the virtual experience, either because they feel it's an invasion of privacy or don't feel they are "real" nurses, one virtual nurse told the TV station.

5. There are also "myths to bust," according to the article. The virtual nurses are not located overseas and don't take the place of bedside nurses.

6. MercyOne leaders said they believe the program will grow, possibly into the emergency department. But it's costly.
Moody's affirmed Orlando (Fla.) Health's "A2" rating but lowered its outlook to stable from positive after it acquired eight hospitals in October.

On Oct. 1, Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare completed the sale of its 70% majority ownership interest in Birmingham, Ala.-based Brookwood Baptist Health to Orlando Health. On Oct. 24, Orlando Health completed the acquisition of three Florida hospitals and related physician practices from Dallas-based Steward Health Care.

Moody's said in a Nov. 13 report that the change in outlook is driven by a meaningful increase in debt  about 46%  related to the acquisitions, as well as an anticipated reduction in days cash on hand related to an expanded expense base.

The ratings agency said Orlando Health's historically strong operating cash flow will be diluted by its new, underperforming assets. Moody's noted, however, that Orlando Health's management has a demonstrated ability to execute growth strategies, which will help offset the risks from its acquisitions, "particularly in Birmingham, a brand new, highly competitive market."






Patrick O'Rourke, executive vice chancellor and COO at the University of Colorado Boulder, is leaving the university at the end of the semester to take on a position as senior vice president and chief legal officer at Children's Hospital Colorado in Aurora.

"I've been connected with Children's Hospital since I first began practicing law in 1995 and have a close connection to its mission," Mr. O'Rourke said in a news release. "I believe I can help Children's Hospital serve its patients in a challenging healthcare environment."

Mr. O'Rourke has served in various roles at CU Boulder. Previously, he was vice president, university counsel and secretary of the CU Board of Regents from 2012 through 2020, according to his biography.
Liz Kirby has been named executive director for virtual care and rural initiatives at Mobile, Ala.-based USA Health.

Ms. Kirby most recently served as CEO of Monroe County Hospital in Monroeville, Ala., according to a Nov. 13 news release from USA Health.

USA Health is creating a rural care program office to expand access to care and improve quality of care, including through telemedicine, the release said. The initiative aims to address the rural healthcare crisis by fostering growth in the physician workforce.

Ms. Kirby previously served at USA Health as assistant administrator at Children's & Women's Hospital in Mobile.
President-elect Donald Trump is assembling his cabinet and senior staff for his upcoming term.

Some positions require no Senate confirmation, while other cabinet appointments await Senate approval.

Here's an overview of Mr. Trump's selections so far, according to The Hill, The New York Times and CBS News.

Note: This is not an exhaustive list and will continue to be updated. The list was last updated on Jan. 3.

No Senate confirmation required

Susie Wiles, Mr. Trump's senior campaign adviser, was named chief of staff.

Stephen Miller was chosen to serve in Mr. Trump's second term as homeland security adviser and deputy chief of staff for policy.

James Blair was named deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs.

Taylor Budowich was named deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel.

Dan Scavino, a long-time adviser to Mr. Trump, was named deputy chief of staff.

Thomas Homan, a senior immigration official in Mr. Trump's first administration, was selected as "border czar."

Michael Waltz, U.S. representative for Florida's 6th congressional district, was chosen as national security adviser.

Bill McGinley, who served as a cabinet secretary in the first Trump administration, was chosen as White House counsel.

Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and X, among other firms, was chosen as department of government efficiency co-head.

Vivek Ramaswamy, founder of Roivant Sciences, was chosen as department of government efficiency co-head.

Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the FCC, was selected to serve as FCC chairman.

Sergio Gor was chosen as presidential personnel office head.

Steven Cheung was chosen as White House communications director.

Karoline Leavitt was chosen as White House press secretary.

Kevin Hassett was chosen as director of the White House National Economic Council.

Retired Gen. Keith Kellogg was chosen as assistant to the president and special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

Vince Haley was chosen as director of the Domestic Policy Council.

David Sacks, a venture capitalist and podcaster, was chosen as "artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar."

Caleb Vitello, the assistant director for the Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs, was chosen as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Tony Salisbury, the special agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Miami, was chosen as deputy homeland security adviser.

Alina Habba, an American attorney and managing partner of Habba Madaio & Associates, was chosen as counselor to the president.

Michael Anton, who was a senior national security official in Mr. Trump's first administration, was chosen as State Department director of policy planning.

Michael Needham, who co-founded and served as CEO of Heritage Action for America, the advocacy arm of The Heritage Foundation, was chosen as counselor of the Department of State.

Devin Nunes, former U.S. representative of California and current CEO of Mr. Trump's Truth Social platform, was chosen to serve as chairman of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.

Kari Lake, former longtime television news anchor, was chosen to serve as director of the U.S.-run broadcaster Voice of America.

Chad Mizelle, who served as general counsel and chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security under Mr. Trump's first term, was selected as chief of staff at the Justice Department.

Senate confirmation required

Pete Hegseth, Fox News host and military veteran, is Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of defense.

Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, is Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of homeland security.

John Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman, is Mr. Trump's pick for CIA director.

Lee Zeldin, a former congressman from Long Island, is Mr. Trump's pick for EPA administrator.

Pam Bondi is Mr. Trump's pick for attorney general (after Matt Gaetz withdrew).

Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator, is Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of state.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew to John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is Mr. Trump's pick for HHS secretary.

Todd Blanche, a former federal prosecutor, is Mr. Trump's pick for deputy attorney general.

Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota, is Mr. Trump's pick for interior secretary.

Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Energy, is Mr. Trump's pick for energy secretary.

Tulsi Gabbard, who served four terms as a Democratic representative in Congress, is Mr. Trump's pick for director of national intelligence.

Doug Collins, a former U.S. representative, is Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of veterans affairs.

Dean John Sauer, Missouri's former solicitor general, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. solicitor general.

Jay Clayton is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Russell Vought is Mr. Trump's pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Vought served as OMB deputy director during Mr. Trump's first term.

Sean Duffy is Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of transportation.

Howard Lutnick is Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of commerce.

Linda McMahon is Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of education.



Scott Bessent is Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of the treasury.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer is Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of labor.

Scott Turner is Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Marty Makary, MD, a surgical oncologist at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins and chief of islet transplant surgery, is Mr. Trump's pick for FDA commissioner.

David Weldon, MD, a former congressman, is Mr. Trump's pick for CDC director.

Brooke Rollins, president of the America First Policy Institute, is Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of agriculture.

Janette Nesheiwat, MD, a double board-certified physician, is Mr. Trump's pick for surgeon general.

Mehmet Oz, MD, is Mr. Trump's pick for CMS administrator.

John Phelan, a financier, is Mr. Trump's pick for secretary of the Navy.

Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, a Stanford (Calif.) University professor, is Mr. Trump's pick for director of the National Institutes of Health.

Jamieson Greer, an international trade attorney and former chief of staff to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. trade representative.

Jim O'Neill, who served as the principal associate deputy secretary of HHS during the George W. Bush administration, is Mr. Trump's pick for deputy secretary of HHS.

Chad Chronister, Florida's Hillsborough County sheriff, is Mr. Trump's pick for administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Kash Patel, an American lawyer and former federal prosecutor at the Justice Department, is Mr. Trump's pick for FBI director.

Kelly Loeffler, a former U.S. senator from Georgia, is Mr. Trump's pick for administrator of the Small Business Administration.

Frank Bisignano, chairman, president and CEO of Fiserv, is Mr. Trump's pick for Social Security Administration commissioner.

Paul Atkins, who served as a commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 2002 to 2008, is Mr. Trump's pick for Securities and Exchange Commission chairman.

Rodney Scott, former chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, is Mr. Trump's pick for commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Christopher Landau, an American lawyer and diplomat, is Mr. Trump's pick for deputy secretary of State.

Troy Edgar, who previously served as CFO and associate deputy under secretary of management for Homeland Security, is Mr. Trump's pick for deputy secretary of Homeland Security.

Michael Rigas, who served in Mr. Trump's first term as the deputy and acting director of the Office of Personnel Management and acting deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, is Mr. Trump's pick for deputy secretary of state for management and resources.

Andrew Ferguson, who has served as a commissioner of the FTC since April, is Mr. Trump's pick to lead the Federal Trade Commission.

Mauricio Claver-Carone, who previously sesrved as senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, is Mr. Trump's pick for the role of State Department special envoy for Latin America.

Stephen Feinberg, co-founder and CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, is Mr. Trump's pick to serve as deputy secretary of defense.

Mark Burnett, a television producer, is Mr. Trump's pick as special envoy to the United Kingdom, a newly-created post.

David Fink, a fifth generation railroader, is Mr. Trump's pick as the next administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration.

Aaron Reitz, chief of staff to Sen. Ted Cruz, is Mr. Trump's pick as the next head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy.

Pete Hoekstra is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Canada.

Elise Stefanik, a representative in the U.S. House, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.N. ambassador.

Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Israel.

Matthew Whitaker, who briefly served as acting attorney general in Mr. Trump's first term, was picked to be NATO ambassador.

Warren Stephens, an investment banker and CEO of Stephens, a privately held financial services firm, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Charles Kushner, real estate developer and the father of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump's son-in-law, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to France.

David Perdue, who served as a U.S. senator from Georgia from 2015 to 2021, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to China.

Brandon Judd, an American law enforcement officer and union leader, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Chile.

Edward Walsh, president and founder of Walsh Company, a contracting and real estate firm, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Ireland.

Bill White, CEO of Constellations Group, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium.

Daniel Newlin, founder of Dan Newlin Injury Attorneys, is Mr. Trump's pick to serve as U.S. ambassador to Colombia.

Peter Lamelas, MD, founder and former CEO of MD Now Urgent Care, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Argentina.

Leandro Rizzuto Jr., son of Leandro Rizzuto, the founder of Conair, is Mr. Trump's pick for ambassador to the Organization of American States.

Ronald Johnson, former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, former Fox News host, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Greece.

Tom Barrack, who served as an adviser to Mr. Trump during his first term, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Turkey.

Benjamin Leon Jr., founder of Leon Medical Centers, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Spain.

Joe Popolo, founder and CEO of Charles & Potomac Capital, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands.

Kevin Marino Cabrera, a Miami-Dade County commissioner, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Panama.

Somers Farkas, the wife of Jonathan Farkas, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Malta.

John Arrigo, an automotive entrepreneur, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Portugal.

Callista Gingrich, the wife of Newt Gingrich, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Switzerland.

Ken Howery, who was the U.S. ambassador to Sweden during Mr. Trump's first term, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Denmark.

Tilman Fertitta, billionaire Republican donor, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Italy.

Herschel Walker, former Republican Georgia Senate candidate, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas.

Nicole McGraw, a philanthropist and businesswoman, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Croatia.

Lou Rinaldi, a businessman and entrepreneur, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Uruguay.

Leah Francis Campos, who previously served as a CIA case officer and then a senior adviser for the Western Hemisphere for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic.

Arthur Graham Fisher, founder of a real estate firm in North Carolina, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Austria.

Stacey Feinberg, a Broadway producer, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg.

George Glass, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to Portugal, is Mr. Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Unclear whether Senate confirmation will be required

Richard Grenell, who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during Mr. Trump's first term, was chosen as "envoy for special missions," a new role.
People walk down Post Oak Boulevard on Friday, Aug. 26, 2022, in Houston's Uptown development zone, one of the city's wealthiest such agencies. A Baker Institute study found that the city's two dozen development zones mostly benefit affluent areas, and shift the burden of funding basic city services to less wealthy residents who don't live near these areas. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer

Houstons controversial network of development zones has disproportionately benefited affluent areas while also shifting the burden of funding basic services onto lower-income neighborhoods, researchers at Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy report in a new study.

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In a tax increment reinvestment zone, or TIRZ, part of the city property taxes generated each year are set aside to be spent only within the zone, rather than sent to City Hall to be spent anywhere in Houston. The idea is that subsidizing new streets, sidewalks and parks will spur private investment and revitalize stagnant areas.

Yet most of the revenue Houstons zones collect each year, and most of the money they have spent since the program launched in the 1990s, have benefited areas of the city with median household incomes nearly double the citywide figure, the Baker Institute report found.

To put it another way: 11 of Houstons 27 zones are in areas with incomes above the citywide median, and these 11 comprise the majority of the programs revenues and spending, the study found. A couple living in one of these areas, the researchers calculated, received a roughly $850 value in 2023 in the form of public projects  a rebate paid by all Houstonians not living near a TIRZ.

These regressive results do not align with lawmakers goal in enabling these zones, the study states  to combat blight and spur investment in areas where redevelopment would not occur solely through private investment in the reasonably foreseeable future, as state law puts it.

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Substantial reforms are needed to align the outcomes with the original intent of the statute, which was to uplift areas of Houston that needed economic and infrastructural support most, the report states.

Whitmire, in a statement, vowed to bring "transparency and accountability" to the city's TIRZ system.

It is important for outside entities to critically look at city functions," the mayor said, "which is why I commissioned a spend analysis and forensic accounting analysis on TIRZs to ensure best use of taxpayer dollars."

Reverse Robin Hood

Supporters of the citys TIRZ program often point to the marquee parks projects  Memorial Park, Emancipation Park, Buffalo Bayou Park  and millions of dollars in road repairs the zones have funded. The agencies also helped the city prevent all of Houstons growth from flowing to the suburbs, they add, and played a crucial role in revitalizing neighborhoods such as Midtown, Gulfgate and parts of Washington Avenue.

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And some TIRZs, under a quirk in state law, have generated tens of millions of dollars for affordable housing, most of which can be spent citywide. However, these housing expenditures have had mixed results.

University of Houston economist Steven Craig called the study a credible report, though he said its possible it overstates the disparity between those who do and do not benefit from the zones spending.

For instance, the study might overstate the benefit to residents near the zones if some TIRZ projects had a citywide benefit, or if some of the zones spending had very little benefit, either due to inflated administrative costs or poorly selected projects.

And they only vaguely refer to the governance problems in the TIRZs, which are very real and deserve their own attention, he said. If you live in that area and youre not on the board of the TIRZ, you have exactly zero say over whats going on.

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CHRONICLE EXPLAINER: How the Houston TIRZ system works

The studys methodology for deciding how close someone has to live to a TIRZ to benefit from its spending also might be too narrow, said Greg LeRoy, executive directive of Good Jobs First, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that scrutinizes economic development programs.

However, LeRoy said, the study mimics the reverse Robin Hood effect his researchers have identified in numerous big cities use of tax incentives for decades.

They (the cities) were helping places that needed help the least and taking jobs away from places that needed help the most, he said. This study is very consistent with what weve found in other places.

Shifting the burden

By diverting funds that would otherwise flow into the city general fund to development zones, the Baker Institute researchers say, the program shifts the burden of paying for basic city services like police and fire protection, parks, libraries and trash pickup onto the Houstonians who dont benefit from TIRZ spending.

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The researchers did not address in detail the roughly $28 million in payments the zones were scheduled to make to the city in 2023 with the intent of lessening this impact on the general fund. They did note, however, that the city also gave $22 million in grants to various TIRZ projects that year over and above their annual revenues.

Council Member Sallie Alcorn said the study could have better explained these payments. And, she added, some TIRZ projects  such as the revitalization of Memorial Park, and perhaps even routine road repairs  have a citywide benefit, not just a local one.

Still, Alcorn welcomed the study, and said she has invited its lead author, John Diamond, to present the findings at a Dec. 3 meeting of the councils budget committee, which she chairs. The reports other authors were Joyce Beebe, Andrew Pitigoi and former Houston mayoral candidate Bill King.
The operators of four New York nursing homes agreed Nov. 14 to pay $45 million to settle allegations of mistreatment, neglect and fraud.

The settlement involves the Buffalo Center, the Martine Center in White Plains, and the Holliswood Center and the Beth Abraham Center in New York City. The nursing homes, along with their owners, operators, management company, landlords and other parties, agreed to increase staffing as part of the settlement.

In a lawsuit filed in June 2023 by New York Attorney General Letitia James, the organizations were accused of multiple financial fraud schemes, misusing more than $83 million in taxpayer funds, and causing significant resident neglect, harm and humiliation.

Insufficient care was tied to low staffing levels, with the lawsuit also citing noncompliance with COVID-19-era protections, such as staff failing to wear personal protective equipment.

An independent financial monitor was installed in July 2023 and will oversee the centers through July 2026.
Amid a decade-high surge in drug shortages, the American Medical Association has adopted new policy measures aimed at addressing the crisis.

The policy advocates for federal oversight of compounding pharmacies advertising drugs that are in shortage, the prevention of artificial drug shortages and the introduction of incentives to encourage manufacturers to invest in improving product processes.

A key focus of the AMA's policy is the shortage of semaglutide and other GLP-1s, which have faced increased demand due to aggressive advertising, particularly on social media, according to a Nov. 13 news release from the organization. The AMA is calling for the FDA, the Federal Trade Commission and other agencies to investigate these advertising practices to protect patient safety.

The policy also addresses broader drug supply issues, including those related to controlled substances, generic medications and on-patent drugs. The AMA opposes business practices that artificially create shortages, such as limitations on pharmacy procurement or restrictions on where patients can fill prescriptions, the release said.
Baxter restarted a second IV solutions manufacturing line at its North Carolina facility this week as part of its recovery following Hurricane Helene. The line, along with the first that restarted Oct. 28, represents 50% of the site's total production capacity and 85% of its production of 1-liter IV solutions, according to a Nov. 14 news release from the company.

Here are three other shortage updates:
Under the first Trump administration, telehealth benefitted, The Wall Street Journal reported Nov. 14.

For example, in 2020, federal regulators waived a rule requiring in-person evaluations before prescribing controlled substances via telemedicine, a change that advocates say has expanded access to critical opioid-use disorder treatments, especially for rural patients.

However, some telemedicine companies have faced scrutiny for overprescribing stimulants under this policy.

The current waiver is set to expire on Dec. 31, but in October, the DEA signaled plans for another temporary extension. This would give the new administration time to develop a permanent policy, according to the report. Kyle Zebley, senior vice president of public policy at the American Telemedicine Association and executive director of its advocacy arm, expressed support for a rule that maintains access while adding safeguards against misuse.

"This will be a piece of unfinished business that the Trump administration will inherit," Mr. Zebley told the publication.
AdventHealth University Tampa (Fla.), a nursing school, opened its doors Nov. 13.

Five things to know:

1. The school is an extension of Orlando, Fla.-based AdventHealth University, according to a Nov. 14 news release shared with Becker's.

"With more than 25 specialized certificates and the addition of this nursing program in Tampa, AdventHealth University is creating valuable opportunities for our team members to enhance their skills while working within AdventHealth," David Ottati, president and CEO of AdventHealth's west Florida division, said in the release. "This investment helps us 'grow our own' workforce and train highly skilled professionals to better support our communities."

2. The nursing school includes instructional spaces, simulation equipment and birthing suites.

3. Classes will begin in January 2025 for students pursuing an associate of science in nursing.

4. The Florida Hospital Association predicts the state will face a shortage of 59,000 nurses by 2035, if solutions are not implemented soon, the release said.

5. AdventHealth Tampa has also launched a dedicated education unit at its hospital, as well as a clinical scholar role. Nurses in this role care for patients during two shifts each week and serve as clinical instructors for nursing students for one shift.
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After experiencing significant turnover in the wake of COVID-19, NYC Health + Hospitals adopted a series of effective solutions to attract and retain nursing talent, while building a sustainable and supportive work environment.

At the recent Becker's CEO+CFO Roundtable, Natalia Cineas, DNP, RN, senior vice president and chief nurse executive at NYC Health + Hospitals, shared her organizations strategies for addressing workforce challenges in one of the nations largest municipal health systems.

One of the primary challenges NYC Health + Hospitals faced post-COVID was the urgent need to fill thousands of nursing vacancies. Recognizing that traditional recruitment methods werent enough, Dr. Cineas and her team decided to foster collaboration between nursing, human resources, and finance. This cross-functional partnership allowed nursing to take the lead in recruitment, resulting in more streamlined processes and quicker results.

"We really broke the silos and nursing started leading nursing recruitment, which is very different," Dr. Cineas said. This shift in approach has proven incredibly effective, allowing NYC Health + Hospitals to fill 3,000 registered nurse positions within a year and save the organization over $150 million. Dr. Cineas credits this success to the collaborative efforts of nursing leaders and HR, who worked together to enhance the organizations recruitment pipeline.

In addition to recruitment, NYC Health + Hospitals focused on retention. Three programs contributing to the health system's success include:

1. Expanding its nurse residency programs to support new nurses through the early stages of their careers. The expanded program includes over 30 cohorts that provide specialized training for new graduates and ensure that they can safely and confidently transition into their roles.

The residency programs, which also include simulation labs to prepare new nurses for hands-on care, have been instrumental in supporting staff retention. By investing in these training and mentorship opportunities, NYC Health + Hospitals is providing new nurses with the resources they need to succeed and helping them feel supported from day one.

2. Developing mentorship programs. Mentorship is a cornerstone of NYC Health + Hospitals' workforce strategy, and the organization has developed a comprehensive, three-tier mentorship program for its nurses. Through this program, NYC Health + Hospitals not only supports nurses in their current roles but also prepares them for future leadership positions.

We use a platform by the name of Mentor Click, which is phenomenal, Dr. Cineas shared, noting that many nurses are eager to advance in their careers, whether that means pursuing a nurse practitioner path or moving into a leadership role. "We are also working on an amazing career ladder. Many organizations have career ladders, but I must say the program that we're launching this spring will be special because we are building a career ladder for support staff that work in behavioral health to become behavioral health nurses."

3. Adding career pathways. The career pathway program aligns with NYC Health + Hospitals' broader commitment to supporting employees growth and career aspirations, while simultaneously addressing critical shortages in behavioral health services. The initiative is designed to encourage participants to stay within the system, as they commit to working at NYC Health + Hospitals for three years after completing their training.

This program aims to help support staff advance to behavioral health nursing roles, with NYC Health + Hospitals funding prerequisites that often prevent employees from pursuing higher education.
Rosemary Nelson: There were some rogue police officers who would have been quite happy for her not to be around
A 30-year old man has been charged with the murder of his father at a five-star hotel in Co Laois.
The Education Authority (EA) has called for support in helping to stop the spread of inaccurate claims regarding an incident at a school in Northern Ireland

It follows news that an alleged assault at a north Belfast school is being investigated by the PSNI as a hate crime.

The incident is understood to have taken place on the campus of Belfast Model School for Girls earlier this week.

A spokesperson for the EA has said that inaccurate information has been shared on social media, leading to increased tensions within the community, negatively impacting on student wellbeing and their sense of safety.

This follows an earlier call from the principal of Belfast Model for the community to help curb the spread of information being shared on social media.

"We want to assure the wider school community that the safety and protection of all pupils is our highest priority, said the EA spokesperson.

"The school is working with the EA and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in line with robust and established processes and procedures to ensure the safety and well-being of all our pupils.

It is important to note that, contrary to some reports, there is no evidence to support inaccurate claims or fears being expressed on social media around pupil safety at the school and we would ask for support in helping to stop the spread of such information.

We would ask for the wider community for their continued support in our efforts to maintain a safe learning environment for all children and young people.

Sinn Fein MP John Finucane has said pupil safety must be paramount following reports of an alleged hate crime at a school in north Belfast earlier this week.

The North Belfast MP said: I am concerned at reports of an alleged hate crime at a school in north Belfast earlier this week.

My party has been in contact with police and I have also reached out to the school in an effort to establish the full facts.

Ensuring every child can learn and socialise in school safely must be paramount.

I would urge those engaging in online speculation to stop and allow the school and relevant authorities to carry out the investigation, and I will support them in this in any way I can.

A spokesperson for the PSNI said that police received a number of reports of an assault which allegedly occurred at a school in north Belfast on Tuesday November, 12.

Chief Inspector Alan Lowry said: Enquiries are continuing to establish the circumstances of the incident, which is being investigated as a hate crime.

Officers are liaising with key stakeholders in relation to this matter.

Rumours around the incident had been circulating online and on Wednesday the principal of the school addressed these with a statement posted on social media.

In the letter, Paula Stuart assured parents that the allegations were being addressed and called for speculation around the incident to end.

We are aware of various claims circulating on social media which has unfortunately led to increased tensions in our community, negatively impacting on student wellbeing and their sense of safety.

I want to assure you that we take the safety and well-being of all our pupils very seriously.

We are working closely with the Education Authority (EA) and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to address this matter appropriately."

The statement added: Our school is committed to providing a safe, inclusive, and supportive environment for all lour pupils.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperations as we work to address the situation in the best interests of our entire school community.

Police are appealing to anyone with information to come forward.

Belfast Model School for Girls (Image: Google)

News Catch Up - Thursday 14th November
A man and a child ride bikes by a new installation of traffic signals at the intersection of Blossom St.and Westcott St., funded to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety, is photographed on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer A new installation of traffic signals at the busy intersection of Blossom and Westcott, funded to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety, is photographed on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Mayor John Whitmire stands at the intersection of Westcott and Blossom Streets in the Crestwood neighborhood on Friday March 29, 2024. Sharon Steinmann

As a longtime state lawmaker, John Whitmire learned a valuable lesson: you dont get to stay in office for 50 years without listening to and delivering for your constituents. He firmly believes that problem-solver ethos is also what got him elected as Houston's mayor.

Which is why Whitmire doesnt understand all the fuss over his decision to direct Public Works to install a $320,000 high-intensity activated crosswalk  known as a HAWK  at a busy intersection in the Rice Military neighborhood, a stones throw from his home and four blocks from a main entrance to Memorial Park. His proximity to the intersection, he insists, was not the impetus for the project. The way he sees it, the crosswalk is the type of commonsense solution Houstonians are clamoring for.

My motivating factor was City Hall was not responsive to citizens concerns, he told us. And if you went over there and stood on the corner during peak times, you would hear from the citizens, just like I have.

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Indeed, you only need to hang out at Blossom and Westcott for 15 minutes to see cyclists, joggers and stroller-pushing parents playing a human version of Frogger, sprinting across the intersection before traffic whips down the thoroughfare. The HAWK crossing should allow these folks to make it across safely as long as drivers stop for the signal.

The day before Election Day, Public Works employees were hard at work installing the new signal. The early impressions from Houston pedestrians (yes, some do exist) were positive. Logan Lynch, 29, walked his French bulldog across Westcott, braving the signal-less intersection for what he hoped would be the last time.

Having the park right here, you have so many people walking around that infrastructure needs to be in place to make it safe, Lynch told us.

The problem is that crash data doesnt jive with the perception that this crossing is dangerous. The Chronicles Dug Begley reported that public works officials nixed the idea of putting a traffic signal at Blossom and Westcott three years ago because no one has been hit crossing at that spot. That doesnt mean the HAWK signal there isnt a good idea  it was likely a matter of time before a catastrophic accident happened. The mayor was right to make it a priority, but wed prefer that it was completed as part of a comprehensive plan for improving mobility, which Whitmire told us in April was in the works.

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The mayor has now slightly changed his tune. He says he still cares deeply about initiatives such as installing and raising crosswalks and beefing up traffic enforcement but is limited by budgetary constraints. As a result, redesigns will be done on a case-by-case basis, at his discretion.

What would you want me to do while our agenda is totally full? Whitmire said. We would like to be proactive. I drive and ride across Houston. Were in the posture of playing catch-up. Were trying to do it right, and were doing it better than what we inherited.

The mayor's penchant for listening did turn up a problem in Gulfton along High Star Street where a bicycle lane didn't leave room for a bus stop next to a Legacy Community Health clinic. He also worked out a compromise along Shepherd and Durham after pausing a plan to extend a bike lane and sidewalk over concerns it would impede drivers. On other projects, he has been more impulsive, such as when he ordered medians on Houston Avenue removed in February without input from the local council member. Earlier this month, he expressed interest in scrapping a North Side roundabout installed at a dangerous intersection, because some drivers complained it was hard to see. Tearing up this intersection would be particularly problematic as it was built with federal funds, meaning the city would likely need to repay that money and then use city funds to repave it.

Whitmire doesn't have much money to spare. The citys self-imposed property tax cap handcuffs his ability to throw money around to make city streets safer.

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Thats why putting forward a real mobility plan is so important. Former Mayor Sylvester Turners Vision Zero policy did not quite live up to the paradigm shift in transportation that he promised. But just having a plan in place made it easier for his administration to apply for crucial state and federal grant funds. The Texas Department of Transportations Highway Safety Improvement Program, for instance, awarded nearly $32 million in funds to Houston since 2020 for projects that reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads.
A potential legal challenge to the long awaited A5 upgrade has been described as a crushing blow for campaigners who have been left appalled by the latest obstacle to complete the flagship project.

The Department for Infrastructure (DfI) received pre-action correspondence on Wednesday which relates to a potential legal challenge to plans to proceed with construction work early in 2025.

DfI Minister John ODowd said he was extremely disappointed by the move which comes just weeks after the Executive approved the 1.2bn upgrade which includes a full dual carriageway. The Irish government has agreed to contribute 500m.

The A5 Enough Is Enough campaign group also expressed disappointment that its pleas to end opposition to the upgrade of a road that has caused almost 60 deaths since the A5 Western Transport Corridor project was first announced back in 2007 had fallen on deaf ears.

Chairman Niall McKenna said he is appalled by the potential legal action regarding the notorious route which has a cruel legacy of death and destruction that has torn families and communities apart.

At the PAC Public Inquiry in Omagh last summer, the people of this area made their feelings absolutely clear; the new road must be delivered immediately, he said.

"Too many lives have been lost and too many families have suffered. Despite the vast majority of people making their voices clearly heard on the issue and despite the continuous deaths, there are those who continue to ignore the realities of this life-or-death situation.

"Our pleas to reflect and reconsider have sadly fallen on deaf ears so far. It is unacceptable that a small number of people look for technical points to bring legal challenges to a scheme that is supported by the overwhelming majority of the public.

"The clear majority of people, the experts and all the main political parties have spoken in support of this scheme.

"Human life is sacrosanct and to any person who places their personal or financial needs first, we hope they will reflect upon the continued hurt that they are causing to the families of the deceased and to those who wish to protect their children in the future.

Stormonts infrastructure minister said he was extremely disappointed and warned the action could have huge consequences for the public purse and for road safety.

Any further delay on this project not only has cost implications for taxpayers but, more importantly, every day that goes by risks another family receiving devastating news about a loved one that will shatter their lives, he continued.

SDLP MLA Daniel McCrossan said the development has angered all of those involved in the long hard slog to progress the A5.

Along the way there have been many obstacles but people in this area genuinely believed that finally, the end was in sight, he said.

"News of a potential legal challenge this evening has come as a crushing blow, people are upset, angry and wondering how this can be possible.

There has been a devastating loss of life on this road in recent years.

"I have met with families and seen first-hand the pain that they have experienced following the loss of a loved one, while others live in constant worry knowing friends and family are travelling along this road.

"It is a testament to the strength and courage of victims families that they have been at the forefront of the campaign to see the A5 delivered.

The West Tyrone representative made a direct appeal to anyone considering mounting a legal challenge.

I ask you to think of those families, of all the people who have lost their lives on this road, he said.

"We are so close to seeing work begin on the A5 and people cant take more years of delay and frustration.

"Do the right thing, drop this legal challenge and let this life-saving work begin.
A protest outside Queen's University Belfast, during a visit from Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, Queen's University Belfast Chancellor, who is attending a Young Enterprise event at the University. Picture date: Thursday November 14, 2024. PA Photo. See PA story ULSTER Queens. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Four people have been arrested during a pro-Palestine demonstration which took place as Hillary Clinton visited Belfast.

The rally coincided with the third day of an international conference taking place on the Queens University campus which was attended by the former US Secretary of State.

The actions of the protesters were condemned by the university.

Politicians including the First and deputy First Ministers, Secretary of State Hilary Benn and US special envoy Joe Kennedy were among those attending a global summit at the university.

Footage circulating on social media shows demonstrators clashing with PSNI officers at the gates of the main campus on University Road this afternoon.

QUB Palestine Assembly, which organised the protest, has also shared pictures online.

"War criminals NOT welcome, the group posted on X.

Join us to protest against the war criminal and genocide denier @HillaryClinton.

Shame on you @QUBelfast.

Police have confirmed that four men were arrested on suspicion of a range of public order offences and remain in police custody.

Officers will remain in the south Belfast area this evening and a full robust investigation will follow in due course, A PSNI spokesperson added.

Protest at Queen's University Belfast, Pic via QUB Palestine Assembly/X

Watch: Protesters clash with police in Belfast during Hillary Clinton visit

QUB issued a statement insisting it is committed to freedom of expression, the right to hold a range of views and the right to a peaceful protest.

However, it strongly rebuked of a number of individuals taking part in the rally.

Whilst we recognise and support any individual or groups right to protest this must be conducted in a peaceful and respectful manner and are disappointed at the action of this small number of protestors and condemn their behaviour, the university added.

Todays protest coincided with the final day of a three day international conference, the Global Innovation Summit, which brought together political, industry and academic leaders to discuss pressing issues around economic inclusion and sustainability facing our world.

The conference itself provided a platform for people to discuss and debate different views constructively on current global issues.

"Queen's is committed to providing an open and safe space to have difficult conversations.

Queen's University has led the way in response to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East through calling for a ceasefire, providing scholarships for Palestinian students and divestment policies and has responded positively to the concerns of our University population where appropriate.

HAPPENING NOW.



War criminals NOT welcome.



Join us to protest against the war criminal and genocide denier @HillaryClinton.



Shame on you @QUBelfast. pic.twitter.com/fY6yIh4v4H  QUB Palestine Assembly (@QUBPalestine) November 14, 2024

As chaos ensued outside the university, Mrs Clinton told those attending the conference that Belfast is "reinventing itself" after the end of decades of conflict.

She compared the city to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the 2025 summit will take place saying it too has "risen again".

"You've heard so much over the course of the last few days about Belfast, another city that is quickly reinventing itself and one of the main reasons, I would argue, is because of the end of conflict, which I was very - like so many of us - gratified to see," she said in her afternoon address.

"We had an extraordinary conference here a year-and-a-half ago to celebrate the Good Friday Agreement, the end of conflict, a moving away from the past to look towards the future, the very strong relationship that this university, in particular, but others have with the business community, forging public-private partnerships.

"There is no path for innovation unless you support higher education. Higher education has to be viewed as a public good that businesses, governments, citizens understand."

Mrs Clinton described it as "an honour" to be the chancellor of Queen's University and said she could not express "how pleased I am to be here".

The mood was very different on the streets outside as protesters chanted "shame" while carrying Palestine flags and a cut-out of Mrs Clinton depicted with blood on her hands.

NIs Secretary of State shared pictures on X of him posing alongside Michelle ONeill, Emma Little-Pengelly and Joe Kennedy on Thursday.

"Northern Ireland is renowned for its innovation and its excellence in life sciences, cyber and advanced manufacturing, he posted.

"Making the UK a clean energy superpower is one of the five missions of the UK Government. Delighted to address.

Earlier this year pro-Palestine students at QUB staged a peaceful sit-in in protest against Israel and called for the removal of Mrs Clinton due to her apparent ties to Israel.

It was also organised by QUBs Palestine Assembly whose supporters called for the university to condemn Israels mass killing of Palestinians and the deliberate destruction of Gazas educational infrastructure.

People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll was among those demonstrating in May and demanded an immediate ceasefire in the region and called on QUB to offer sanctuary status to Palestinian academics and students.

Activists also called for Queens to review all ties with Israeli universities, cultural institutions and its industrial sector, as well as implementing a sector-wide withdrawal of support for companies engaged in violations of Palestinian human rights.

QUB later confirmed those who took part would not face any repercussions.

Mrs Clinton has faced criticism over her opposition to an Israeli ceasefire shortly after the war began in October 2023 following Hamas deadly attack on Israel.
US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland explains the 'biggest thing' that could fix the problem

Joe Kennedy pictured in Belfast on his last visit to Northern Ireland as US Special Envoy

The United States top diplomat in Northern Ireland has said Americans can still see Belfast through the lens of the Troubles when it comes to investing here, as he prepares to depart his role as Joe Bidens special envoy.
Police have said a man wielding a knife demanded money from staff at a commercial premises in Belfast.

Police are investigating an armed robbery at commercial premises on at the Newtownards Road on Thursday November 14.

Detective Sergeant Faulkner said: Shortly before 6:45am, it was reported to police that a male entered a shop in the area armed with a knife.

"It was reported he demanded money from a male member of staff inside the premises and made off with a sum of money on foot. The member of staff was not injured during the incident.

The male is described as being 58 in height, of medium build and brown hair. He was described as wearing a black coloured hooded top with the hood up and navy tracksuit bottoms.

Enquiries are continuing and police would appeal to anyone with any information in relation to the incident, to contact detectives on 101 quoting reference number 196 14/11/24.
Royal greeted with jeers by a small pro-Palestinian rally as he arrived for university tour

HRH Prince of Wales visits Ulster University, Belfast during a brief visit to the province.

The Prince of Wales made a surprise trip to Belfast where he met actor James Martin and hopped on a motorbike  but avoided a planned walkabout following a muted reception.

William visited homeless charity the Simon Community before touring Ulster University.

The trip had been scheduled for May but was postponed because of the general election.

At the university, the prince admired An Irish Goodbye star Jamess MBE medal as the pair were introduced, remarking I recognise that.

William visited the Ulster Screen Academy and the universitys state-of-the-art Virtual Production Studio.

The future king took a rare turn behind the camera as he was shown around the facility, practising moving a video camera along rails while talking to the students.

He couldnt resist climbing on the motorbike as part of the in-camera visual effects stage, commenting: I need to sit on the motorbike, and continued to chat to the students while flexing his fingers around the handlebars against a backdrop of an arid scene in Arizona.

Still entranced by the motorcycle, he commented: I feel I should take this for a spin, does it come off the gimbal at all, feels like you could have quite a lot of fun with that.

Brilliant bike, love the exhaust.

William went on to tour the rest of the city centre campus to which he had been welcomed by Secretary of State Hilary Benn, deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly and Belfast Lord Mayor Micky Murray.

He met some students gathered in the foyer as he prepared to leave.

One young woman admitted she was late for her lecture, to which William laughed, replying: You can blame me, and motioned to all gathered: You can all blame me.

However, arriving at the university, the prince had been greeted with jeers and boos as he entered the building, primarily from a small pro-Palestinian rally gathered outside.

Some of the protesters were heard shouting shame and accused the Prince of Wales of hiding from them.

Then, on leaving the university, William was met by further shouting, and did not part take in a planned walkabout to greet some students outside.

Prince William on a motorbike during a visit to Ulster University

Watch: Prince William booed as he arrives in Belfast

Students Annie Simpson and Lucy Matthews were excited by the royal visit to their place of study, but admitted the reaction to his arrival was a bit dull.

Its really good for the university, I love the royals, but it was a bit dull, said Annie.

I was expecting a bit more, but I am a big fan of them, its really good for here, added Lucy.

Their fellow students Maya ONeil and Lucy Browne were impressed by the royal visitor.

Were first years, we study politics and international studies so were excited that he is here. Its important and its very good for the university, said Maya.

A lot of people want to see him here, there was so much buzz on Wednesday about it, all speculating who was coming, said Lucy.

However their excitement was not shared by others.

Sharon Alfred noted that she was paying thousands of pounds for a class she couldnt get to.

Before visiting the university, the Princes first stop was at The Foyer, which provides temporary accommodation and support services for young people experiencing homelessness.

It is run by the Simon Community, part of the Homewards Northern Ireland Coalition and part of the Princes UK-wide Homewards initiative.

William met young people to hear about their journeys and the support they have received.

He also discussed some of the work being delivered in Northern Ireland to support young people leaving care, and the role Homewards can play in developing new solutions.

During his visit to the Simon Community, the Prince spoke with 21-year-old Stuart, who has been supported by the charitys Housing First for Youth service.

Stuart described meeting the royal as surreal and said he was very interested in his story.

It was really helpful to speak to him, said Stuart, who has been in and out of foster care since he was a child, but now with the Simon Communitys help has a tenancy and a full-time job.

I am a fan of the royal family and he seemed really interested in what I had to say. He was listening to me and also asking lots of questions about my journey, so that was very nice.

He seemed genuinely interested.

Later, William met James Martin at Ulster University, with the actor sharing his delight at meeting the royal. It was a great pleasure to meet Prince William, the Prince of Wales, again. He presented me with my MBE at Windsor Castle in May, he said.

The creative arts are very important to us all providing opportunities to have fun and explore important topics. It is so good to see this industry doing so well in Northern Ireland and Ulster University playing a big part in that.
Prince William shakes hands with Simon Community CEO Jim Dennison after a visit to The Foyer in Belfast. Image: Jason Cairnduff/PA Wire

The Prince of Wales gestures as he speaks during a visit to The Foyer in Belfast. Photo Jason Cairnduff/PA Wire

The Prince of Wales tries out a motorbike in the state-of-the-art Virtual Production Studio. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

The Prince of Wales tries out camera equipment in a state-of-the-art Virtual Production Studio. Photo Liam McBurney/PA Wire

The Prince of Wales students taking part in a training workshop with young people from the two communities who are being taught by the Ulster Screen Academy . Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

The Prince of Wales meets Belfast-born actor, James Martin, in the state-of-the-art Virtual Production Studio, at Ulster University. Photo Liam McBurney/PA Wire

The Prince of Wales waves at students gathered during his visit to Ulster University's Belfast City Campus Centre. Photo Liam McBurney/PA Wire

The Prince of Wales during a visit to the The Foyer in Belfast. Photo Jason Cairnduff/PA Wire

Prince William pictured outside the Ulster University in Belfast. Picture By: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press.

The Prince of Wales met with Irish Goodbye actor James Martin after being greeted with boos by pro-Palestinian protesters when he arrived at Ulster University in Belfast this afternoon.

The Prince scheduled two engagements during his flying visit to Northern Ireland.

He visited Ulster Universitys Belfast campus where he met with the Belfast actor to discuss the growing success of the creative sector here.

The Prince of Wales tries out a motorbike in the state-of-the-art Virtual Production Studio. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

An earlier engagement in the city focused on his homelessness work.

Arriving via police escort at the university, where he met students studying creative subjects, the future king was greeted with a muted response despite the onlooking crowds of over 100 students.

A pro-Palestinian protest of around 30 people were also at the scene.

The group loudly shouted the Prince of Wales name followed by shame as well as directing comments at Secretary of State Hilary Benn, who was also in attendance.

Prince William pictured outside the Ulster University in Belfast. Picture By: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press.

Watch: Prince William booed as he arrives in Belfast

While at Ulster University William heard about the work that is being carried out to solidify Northern Ireland as a global leader of creative excellence and innovation by developing and upskilling the future workforce and expanding technological capabilities.

Through its Ulster Screen Academy, the university provides creative industries training via community outreach and grassroots connections.

He also joined a training workshop with young people who are being taught by the Ulster Screen Academy to operate software used in the creation of games, animation and virtual production.

William also visited the universitys state-of-the-art Virtual Production Studio to meet students who are developing their skillsets in virtual production.

The Princes first stop was at The Foyer, which provides temporary accommodation and support services for young people experiencing homelessness- a group that the Homewards Northern Ireland Coalition has identified as a priority group.

It is run by the Simon Community charity, part of the Homewards Northern Ireland Coalition and part of the Princes UK-wide Homewards initiative.

During his visit to The Foyer, he met young people to hear about their individual journeys and to understand the support they have received.

The Prince of Wales during a visit to the The Foyer in Belfast. Photo Jason Cairnduff/PA Wire

The Prince also met practitioners to discuss some of the work currently being delivered in NI to support young people leaving care, and the role Homewards can play in developing new solutions.

Todays visit is the Princes first to the city since June 2023, when he toured the UK to promote his Homewards initiative, which spreads to six locations UK wide.

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Research indicates that a third of people with care experience in the UK become homeless within the first two years of exiting the care system.

And 25% of all people who have experienced homelessness have been in care at some point during their childhood.

Young people with lived experience of care can become homeless for many reasons including being unable to access affordable housing, the lack of a support network, and the impact of childhood trauma.

In Northern Ireland, approximately 140 young people each year leave care and present as homeless. Although this is a minority of those leaving care, we need to better understand why this is happening, and what can be done to prevent it.

The Prince of Wales students taking part in a training workshop with young people from the two communities who are being taught by the Ulster Screen Academy . Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

The Prince recently described the past year as brutal and probably the hardest year of my life as he dealt with his wife and father battling cancer.

In a video interview during the beginning of his visit to Cape Town in South Africa for the Earthshot price awards ceremony he said: Honestly, its been dreadful, he said.

Its probably been the hardest year in my life. Trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult.

But Im so proud of my wife, Im proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done. But from a personal family point of view, its been, yeah, its been brutal.

The visit came the same day the prince was crowned world's sexiest bald man for the second year in a row, beating huge movie stars to top spot.

A study by PR agency Reboot Online placed William ahead of Hollywood A-listers including Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Stanley Tucci, Thierry Henry, and Vin Diesel.

Prince William pictured outside the Ulster University in Belfast. Picture By: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press.

News Catch Up - Thursday 14th November
The full inquest into the death of Noah Donohoe is expected to take place next year (Family handout/PA)

A final decision not to prosecute a Stormont department for corporate manslaughter over the death of schoolboy Noah Donohoe has been taken, a court has heard.

Noah, 14, was found dead in a storm drain owned by the Department of Infrastructure (DFI) in north Belfast in 2020, six days after he went missing.

His mother Fiona Donohoe is hoping to secure answers to some of the questions surrounding the death of her son through the inquest process.

Ms Donohoe was at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast on Thursday for the latest preliminary hearing in the long-running case.

The full inquest is expected to take place next year.

In 2021, police launched an investigation into suspected corporate manslaughter in relation to how DFI managed access to the drain network.

Fiona Donohoe is hoping to find answers surrounding the death of her son, Noah (Mark Marlow/PA)

In 2022, the PSNI passed a file onto the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) which decided not to pursue charges against the department.

However, it then decided to review that decision following a request from Ms Donohoes legal team.

Providing an update to court on Thursday, counsel to the coroner Peter Coll KC said a letter had been sent from the PPS to the coroners service on October 25 relating to the finalisation of the decision not to prosecute DFI.

A spokesperson for the PPS confirmed the original decision not to prosecute had been upheld.

The spokesperson said: In line with the review procedure set out in the PPS Code for Prosecutors, a senior public prosecutor considered all the available evidence and applied the test for prosecution afresh.

The information considered included all the evidence in the police investigation file, the advice of a senior barrister independent of the PPS and a new report by a health and safety expert.

All the evidence was considered solely from the perspective of whether any action by the department amounted to criminal conduct.

The spokesperson added: Following this process, it was determined that the evidence is insufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction, and therefore the original decision not to prosecute is upheld.

We wrote to Ms Donohoe in July 2024 to explain the detailed reasons for the outcome of the review, and offered to address any further questions she may have.

We assured Ms Donohoe that the decision was taken only after the most careful and impartial consideration of all the available evidence, the circumstances of the case and all relevant legal issues.

During the lengthy review hearing, Mr Coll updated the court on a number of issues relating to the disclosure process and preparation of expert reports ahead of the full inquest.

Brenda Campbell KC represents Fiona Donohoe at the inquest hearing (Liam McBurney/PA)

Counsel for Ms Donohoe, Brenda Campbell KC, also updated the court on a photograph of a hand found on Noahs phone believed to have been taken on the night he went missing.

During a previous hearing, Ms Campbell said an expert had discovered the image and it raised the prospect that the phone had been in the possession of someone else after Noah went missing.

During the latest hearing, she said: It seems that there is no dispute as to the timing of the photograph, or there is unlikely to be a dispute that a photograph was taken on his phone at that time.

But as to the who, why, and where questions, we dont yet have a response from those that are working on it within the PSNI.

We wont be able to progress with our experts report until we have some of those answers.

Counsel for the PSNI Donal Lunny KC said he was hopeful that written answers could be provided in the next week.

The inquest into Noahs death was originally scheduled to take place last year but was then delayed after a ruling that it should proceed with a jury, following an application from Ms Donohoe.

The original coroner, Joe McCrisken, has since recused himself from the case. The inquest will now be heard by Mr Justice Rooney.

A provisional date for the inquest has been set for February 3 next year, but it is not expected that it will be ready to proceed on that date.

Mr Justice Rooney said he would review progress in the case again before Christmas.
President-elect Donald Trump arrives to speak at a meeting of the House GOP conference, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington. Alex Brandon/AP

Moral compass

Regarding Trump wins the White House in a political comeback rooted in appeals to frustrated voters, (Nov. 6): What happened to Americas moral compass and to the decorum of the Oval Office? The man just elected president of the United States is a convicted felon, he has been impeached twice, and he was the reason for at least three deaths caused by his loyal followers. He has rarely if ever reaped the consequences for his behavior and may never  including for Jan. 6.

America, this is who you have chosen as your 47th president of the United States. As a role model for your children  and for you, too!

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In Houstons Holocaust Museum there is a saying: Words matter; actions matter. The recent words of the president-elect regarding former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney brought back a painful family memory I hadnt thought of in years. Lets put her with the rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Donald Trump said at a rally earlier this month. And lets see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.

In the 1930s, when the Nazis stormed Charles University in what was then Czechoslovakia, my father, a medical student, was rounded up with other students as he was walking across campus. They were taken down to a basement for three days and tortured. Then, they were taken out of the building and lined up against a wall where every other one was shot dead. My father was the only survivor of my family.

Words matter; actions matter. I wonder what the next four years will be like. I choose to believe in miracles.

Sally E. Miller, Houston

Eggs over climate change?

Regarding Donald Trump defeats Vice President Kamala Harris in Texas, (Nov. 5): Donald Trump just got reelected for a second term as president of the U.S., a country that claims to be a beacon of democracy. Yes, he was elected by the majority of the voters, but what does his win mean for democracy, the U.S. and the rest of the world? This is the same guy who asked his armed followers to fight like hell at the Capitol three years ago to steal an election and defeat democracy. This is the same guy who asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes so he could overturn Joe Bidens victory. This is the same guy who took troves of classified government documents to his private residence at Mar-a-Lago and obstructed FBI search agents who went to recover the documents.

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How short is the memory of a majority of voters. Democracy works best when the voters know and appreciate its value. Not when the price of eggs is more important than climate change. Or when the majority of voters cannot think about tomorrow and beyond. When they cannot think about what is good for them and their children.

Mohiuddin Khan, Cypress

This election was lost by belittling people for caring more about putting food on the table, a roof over their childrens head and gas in their tank than stock market highs or foreign aid. Some voters were motivated by other issues, but justified their flight to Trump as the result of feeling left behind economically and then being shamed for it. There is a difference between the macroeconomy and the microeconomy to people whose children are hungry today, and there are a lot of them. Remember that a majority of Americans cant name their states senators and probably dont understand tariffs any better than Trump.

The outcome of the election didnt change who any of us are. But it did remind us that everybodys coping mechanisms are not equal to ours. A little humility might be a winner next time.

Britt D. Davis, Katy

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Time to right the ship

Regarding Latinos showed up for Trump for a reason. It's on us to understand why. | Opinion, (Nov. 8): I find that Regina Lankenau was right on the mark. The Democrats, for whom I voted, missed the mark by failing to respond to the real concerns of working-class Americans. Granted, they had a mountain to climb, but they picked the easy path. I rarely heard a real concern about high grocery store prices and the border. In order for them to break through, they needed to leave Biden behind and focus on telling us what they would do in real terms and also what they had already done.

The question now is: will they be introspective enough to find the answer and not blame the voters? Can they keep the progressives from hijacking the answer? The country seems more conservative than where the Democratic Party is right now. Low-income workers, from various backgrounds, care more about grocery store prices and having a regular income from a job that they fear may be taken from them. If the Democrats can solve this dilemma, they may have a chance to regain prominence.

Harold Rocketto, Houston

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Thank you for the clear-eyed column, with its message to understand rather than castigate the Latinos who voted for Trump. The vote was for change. After giving Democrats four years to unite and right the ship, they failed miserably in the eyes of many. Yes, lets hope the president-elect will do a better job.
A road sign on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic has been altered overnight to read "Welcome to Occupied Ireland."

Activists from the socialist republican group, Lasair Dhearg (Red Flame), are behind the altered sign on the border between Londonderry and Donegal.

In 2020 the group sparked controversy after it erected fake streets signs in Irish in Belfast honouring republicans such as hunger striker Bobby Sands.

In a post on social media the group claimed responsibility for the new sign saying that it aimed to highlight the reality of British occupation and partition in Ireland.

Despite what we are told by former Republicans and the ruling class in the occupied six counties we are still no closer to unity after 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement, said the post.

Last year Cambridge Universitys Labour Club (CULC) apologised for sharing a social media post by the group commemorating the anniversary of the 1981 hunger strikes, which also provided details on how to join the republican organisation.

A row over the incident erupted on the universitys campus, with a senior member of the Labour societys executive team resigning over the furore.

The PSNI and Department for Infrastructure have been contacted.

The sign that appeared in a border area

News Catch Up - Thursday 14th November
Green leader Roderic OGorman has said the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund was a red line issue for the party and negotiations in 2023 were tense and difficult (Niall Carson/PA)

The Infrastructure, Climate and Nature (IFN) Fund was a red line issue for the Greens, Roderic OGorman has said, after a party colleague revealed that the Government nearly collapsed at the time.

Mr OGorman said the period of negotiations with Fine Gael and Fianna Fail in 2023 was a tense and very difficult time.

He did not deny that Green ministers had threatened to walk out of Government.

The 3.15 billion euro state investment fund is a vehicle for investing in infrastructure, climate and nature projects until 2030, sourced from windfall corporation tax profits.

Green junior minister Ossian Smyth claimed Fianna Fail had to be dragged kicking and screaming on many environmental issues (Brian Lawless/PA)

It comes after a Green junior minister claimed that the Government almost collapsed due to Fianna Fails position on budget negotiations over the IFN Fund.

On Saturday, Green Party minister Ossian Smyth claimed Fianna Fail had to be dragged kicking and screaming on many environmental issues.

In a statement issued through the party press office, he said: The last Government nearly collapsed because Fianna Fail wouldnt agree to the 3.15 billion euro Climate and Nature Fund even though it will help businesses and state bodies cut emissions while also cutting their energy bills.

Asked to expand on these comments on Thursday, Mr OGorman said that in 2023 the party had insisted on introducing the measure alongside the Future Ireland Fund, which is designed to protect against demographic changes associated with an ageing population.

He said: When the Climate and Nature Fund was being devised in summer 2023, there was very significant tension in terms of that we have a very clear vision of how some of the surplus money would be used.

He added: There was strong pushback at time and the funds were meant to be agreed by July 2023 but we didnt sign off on them because we werent happy with the commitments in the Climate and Nature Fund.

The measures were later agreed over September and October.

Asked how close the Greens came to walking out of Government over the IFN Fund, Mr OGorman said: It was a tense time. It was a very difficult time. We made it very clear this was a red line for us.

He said the party at that time was led by Eamon Ryan, and would not comment on the former leaders conversations with the coalition partners.

Pressed on the matter, Mr OGorman admitted he was abreast of the tensions in Government at the time but could not comment on the specific wording used to express the red-line position.

The then-leaders of the Greens, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail Eamon Ryan, Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin (Niall Carson/PA)

Asked if he was personally prepared to walk out of Government, he said: I saw this as an essential element in making sure Ireland could meet its climate targets.

Mr Smyth also revealed on Wednesday that he was prepared to quit the Government if a land hoarding tax was deferred again in Budget 2025.

Asked if a future coalition involving the Greens would be marked with similar threats, Mr OGorman said the tax is essential in the housing crisis and added: It will be marked by standing by our principles and standing by our key policies.

He said that stance shows the Greens will insist on policies agreed in the Programme for Government.

Mr OGorman was speaking at the launch of the partys policy document on the climate for the General Election.

He offered a breakdown of the spending of the climate fund where 1.2 billion euro would finance a massively expanded home retrofit programme, 200 million euro would help businesses with their energy efficiency, 250 million euro would support the rollout of district heating, and 100 million euro would be allocated to new infrastructure to support offshore wind and microgeneration.

Social Democrats climate spokeswoman Jennifer Whitmore (Brian Lawless/PA)

Also on Thursday, the Social Democrats said coalition parties had wasted their opportunity to deal with climate action and meet emission-reduction targets.

The partys climate spokeswoman Jennifer Whitmore said: Our top priority when it comes to climate action is to revise the climate action plan to make sure that it meets our targets, that we have sufficient plans and measures and policies in place to meet our 51% climate target, and to avoid eight billion euro in fines from Europe if we do not, because that will be one of the ramifications for this country.

Ms Whitmore said Social Democrats would have a five billion-euro climate fund ringfencing hundreds of millions of euro for offshore floating wind, install 500,000 solar panels on homes across the country, and introduce a minister for biodiversity.

She said the party would also encourage farmers to have a herd reduction.
A friend of Irish mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor has denied a suggestion he would be the fall guy and be the patsy in relation to allegations by a woman that she was raped by the sports star, a court in Dublin heard.

Mr McGregor, who is facing an accusation in the civil action that he brutally raped and battered Nikita Hand, was being cross-examined in the High Court on Thursday.

He has previously told the court he had consensual sex with Ms Hand in a penthouse in the Beacon Hotel.

Ms Hand, who is also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin, is also suing another man, James Lawrence, for sexual assault on December 9 2018.

James Lawrence is being sued along with Conor McGregor (Brian Lawless/PA)

Mr McGregor told the court on Thursday that he had not colluded with Mr Lawrence following claims made by Ms Hand.

Mr McGregor also told the jury that he replied no comment to more than 100 questions during police interviews about the allegations because he was beyond petrified.

Ms Hand, who has no automatic right to anonymity, has accused Mr McGregor of pinning her to a bed and raping her in the hotel bedroom.

Mr Lawrence rejected assertions by John Gordon SC, for Ms Hand, that he was the fall guy, with Mr Lawrence saying what man would put themselves up for the rape of a woman.

He said he comes from a family of women and would not stand up for any man doing anything to a woman.

Mr Lawrence told the court that on the day of the alleged rape, he had sex three times with Ms Hands friend, Danielle Kealy, while Ms Hand and Mr McGregor were also having sex.

That claim was previously denied by Ms Kealy, who told the court on Wednesday that she had sex once with Mr Lawrence.

The jury of four men and eight women heard evidence from Mr Lawrence that he heard sex noises coming from the room where Ms Hand and Mr McGregor were, and that he heard Ms Hand moaning.

He further claimed he later saw Ms Hand on top of Mr McGregor having sex with him for a second time.

She had nothing on her at the time. She was completely naked on top of Conor, he told the court.

Mr Lawrence said Ms Hand had been flirtatious with Mr McGregor as they travelled to the Beacon Hotel and in the lift to the bedroom. He also said she had followed Mr McGregor into the bedroom.

The court also heard claims that after Mr McGregor left the hotel, Ms Hand then made advances towards Mr Lawrence.

He said she was pulling at him, kissing me ear, slapping my arse and biting my ear.

I rejected her and I rejected her 14 times. She was chasing me around the lift, he said.

It was all her pushing me.

Nikita Hand claims she was raped by Conor McGregor six years ago (Brian Lawless/PA)

He said he felt peer pressured into having sex with her.

You might not believe me because Im a man but thats how it was, he added.

Mr Lawrence claimed he and Ms Hand then had sex twice in the penthouse bedroom.

In his evidence, he said he did not see any bruises on Ms Hand except a small bruise on either her leg or arm.

I didnt cause any bruises, he said.

I dont know where she got the bruises from.

The court was also told that Mr McGregor read out a pre-prepared statement to gardai when he was questioned about the alleged rape on January 17 2019.

Following the statement, Mr McGregor was asked more than 100 follow-up questions by police, to which he replied no comment.

Mr McGregor repeatedly stated he was acting on advice from his solicitor, adding he told his lawyers his story and gave his series of the events.

Asked why he replied no comment to every question, Mr McGregor said it was the first time he was interviewed by gardai and was beyond petrified.

I would have loved to go to the top of a mountain with a microphone and shout from the hilltops about the series of allegations, Mr McGregor added.

He told the court that he felt he was co-operative with police during the interviews, adding he was nervous and it was alien to him.

It is the first time it has happened to me in my life, he continued.

He said he was in court to speak his case.

These allegations are false and I have come out here, and say my piece and say my truth.

Mr McGregor also admitted to the court that he took cocaine while he was in the car with Mr Lawrence, Ms Hand and her work colleague Ms Kealy as they travelled to the Beacon Hotel.

He rejected an assertion that he had took the bag of cocaine when he left Mr Lawrences house and returned to the two women, who were waiting in his car.

He said it was a small piece of cocaine.

It also emerged that Mr McGregor has paid for Mr Lawrences solicitors fees.

When first asked by Mr Gordon if he paid for his friends legal fees, Mr McGregor replied: I dont recall.

Mr McGregor went on to say that Mr Lawrence was his friend and would not have been able to pay the fees.

Asked again if he paid Mr Lawrences legal fees, Mr McGregor replied, possibly and later, I am not a million per cent.

Mr McGregor said he gets staggering legal fees among the lies put forward.

Asked again, he replied: I believe I did.

The case continues.
Arrest made after death following sustained assault at luxury venue

An American man who was found dead in the leisure area of a five-star hotel in the Republic was the victim of a sustained assault, gardai believe.

The victim, a US national who was in his 60s, had only flown into Ireland a number of hours before he was allegedly attacked in a bathroom of the exclusive Ballyfin Demesne hotel in Co Laois.

The incident happened at around 8pm on Tuesday night. Hotel staff discovered the mans body and emergency services quickly rushed to the scene and the suspect was arrested.

The suspect, who is in his 30s, required medical treatment in hospital in the aftermath of his arrest.

He was not deemed fit to be interviewed by gardai until late Wednesday morning.

Investigations have established that the suspect had recently required treatment for medical issues at a hospital in Dublin.

It is unclear where he met his alleged victim earlier on Tuesday after the man had flown into the country from the US.

But both men then checked in together into the well-known Co Laois hotel where the fatal assault happened.

It is understood that the assault was sustained in nature. The case is being described as extremely tragic.

The services of the Garda Technical Bureau and Office of the State Pathologist were requested.

The hotel is one of Irelands most exclusive accommodation options, with celebrities regularly staying in the luxury hotel.

The library at Ballyfin Demesne in Co Laois

Ballyfin hit global headlines in 2014 after celebrity couple Kim Kardashian and Kanye West stayed there as part of their five-day Irish honeymoon.

There was deep shock in the local community on Wednesday as news of the tragic death spread.

The owner of the Deadmans Inn, Ger Whelan, said there was a lot of Garda activity in the quiet area on Tuesday night.

His pub is located a short distance from the entrance to the upmarket hotel.

He said: I heard it on the news this morning, a hotel in the north of the county. My wife was working here last night and she said to me this morning, there was a lot of activity with guards around the area.

But we hadnt a clue until the news this morning.

Ballyfin Demesne in Co Laois

Mr Whelan said the hotel is a well regarded employer and many of the staff are from the Laois area.

He added: There is shock. You dont go in there without a booking. There is no way youd get past that gate unless youre either booked for dinner, you are staff, or youre booked to stay. Thats the only way youd get past that gate.

Ballyfin Demesnes secluded setting, luxurious accommodation and five-star welcome have attracted high-profile celebrity weddings down through the years.

George and Amal Clooney rented out the entire property in 2019 for a reunion of Georges Irish cousins, and Ballyfin was named as the top hotel in the world to make you feel special, in the Hideaway Reports 2018 Members Choice Award.

The estates original residents were the Coote family. Ballyfin then came into the ownership of the Patrician Brothers who ran it as a school.

After that school closed, the house was later purchased and restored over a nine-year period by the American electronics tycoon Fred Krehbiel, now deceased. His sons, Liam and Jay Krehbiel, are the current owners.

The hotel opened in 2011 and offers guests activities including carriage rides, picnics, fishing, archery, clay pigeon shooting and butler service.

The hotel is set back from the main gates by a mile-and-a-half-long driveway.

The restoration of the hotel included adding six bedrooms and millions of euro were invested as part of the refurbishment.

Ballyfin Demesne did not reply to a request for comment.
The boss of the Metropolitan Police has warned of eye-watering cuts to the forces spending next year as it desperately tries to keep a significant number of police officers.

Sir Mark Rowley, who heads the countrys largest police force, said he is deeply troubled by the situation the force appears to be heading towards.

As the Met tries to balance the books, Sir Mark said back-ups such as selling police stations and using reserves have run out.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4s Political Thinking With Nick Robinson, the Met Commissioner said: Some of the things that successive commissioners and mayors have used to balance the books  like selling police stations and using reserves  all of those things have run out.

So those propped up the budget. Those props have gone.

Asked if it was a case of buildings versus bobbies, Sir Mark said no.

He said the finances for maintaining police buildings are completely crazy.

Some of the challenges the Met faces come from desperately trying to keep a significant number of police officers but cutting everything else, Sir Mark said.

So actually our buildings are, weve sold a lot of them but the ones we have left, half of them are in a parlous state; in a few years many of them will be unusable if we dont spend more money on them.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Sir Mark Rowley speak to officers (PA)

We have half the money per square metre for maintaining our property than Whitehall has for Government buildings per annum. What that means is we can refurbish each police building once every 130 years.

Thats completely crazy.

The Metropolitan Police will receive up to 3.5 billion in funding in 2024/25, the Home Office said, which is a 3.5% increase on 2023/24.

In the Budget, the Chancellor set out plans to increase the core government grant for police forces in 2025/26.

Sir Mark said the force is still in talks with the Home Office and the City Hall over the annual funding allocation for the next financial year.

This is not just about this years decisions, but its a cumulative effect of decisions over the last decade or so which have put us in a more and more precarious position, he said.

The Commissioner compared spending on policing with that in New York and Sydney and said they are spending about 50% more per capita than in London.

Sir Mark added: The Chancellor has been very clear  its a difficult public sector context. You add all those things together. And you get a dramatic change in budgets and of a scale thats never going to be absorbed by efficiencies. And its going to require some pretty eye-watering cuts to the services we provide to London.

I am deeply troubled by the situation we appear to be heading towards.

Those numbers are presenting some very, very difficult choices.

He said the Mets spending planning will get rolling and he expected it to be set out properly before Christmas.

In a plea to ministers, he said: I will do everything I can do, but I think its reasonable for me to say youre setting really high expectations on me and my 45,000 fantastic people.

Im going to ask you (ministers) to help. Where its within your gift, not mine.

A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: Nothing is more important to the mayor than keeping Londoners safe and he is determined to do everything he can to support the commissioner deliver a new Met for London where local neighbourhood policing is prioritised and communities are put first.

The mayor has invested a record 151 million extra in this years (2024/25) budget for policing and crime prevention and tackling the complex causes of crime.

This approach is working, with gun crime, knife crime with injury for those aged under 25, burglary, and homicides all down since 2016.

The previous government chronically underfunded the Met and made cuts to policing in London that were equivalent to more than 1 billion since 2010.

The mayor is working closely with the commissioner and the new Government to ensure the Met gets the longer-term funding needed to help make our city safer for everyone.
The UK has condemned Israeli government minister Bezalel Smotrich for suggesting annexation of the West Bank (Clive Gee/PA)

The UK has condemned Israeli government minister Bezalel Smotrich for suggesting annexation of the West Bank.

The finance minister, a hard-line settler leader, said he hoped the election of Donald Trump as the next US president will clear the way for Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank in 2025.

The UKs Middle East minister, Hamish Falconer, said that would be illegal and would scupper any hopes for peace in the region.

He called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government to reject the ministers comments.

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I condemn Minister Smotrichs comments proposing annexation of land in the West Bank, the Foreign Office minister said.

Annexation only undermines the prospects for peace, would lead to greater instability and would be illegal under international law.

The Israeli government must reject this.

Mr Smotrich said in a speech on Monday that he will push for the inclusion of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria  using the biblical term for the territory.

He said 2025 will be the year  of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

The territory on the West Bank of the River Jordan was occupied by Israel after the 1967 war.

It would form a key area of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine dispute.
Satirical news publication The Onion has been named the winning bidder for Alex Jones Infowars at a bankruptcy auction.

The bid was backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than one billion dollars in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.

The purchase would turn over Jones company, which for decades has peddled in conspiracy and misinformation, to a humour website that plans to relaunch the Infowars platform in January as a parody.

The judge in Jones bankruptcy ordered a hearing for next week after Jones and his lawyers raised questions about how the auction was conducted.

Within hours of the sales announcement on Thursday, Infowars website was down and Jones was broadcasting from what he said was a new studio location.

The dissolution of Alex Jones assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for, Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.

The Onions bid was for the conspiracy theory platforms website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; and video archive for an undisclosed sales price.

Lawyers for Jones and a company affiliated with Infowars that submitted a 3.5 million dollar offer said they had expected a round of bidding to be held on Wednesday where prospective buyers could outbid each other.

They alleged that the trustee overseeing the auction changed the process only days before and instead opened only sealed bids that were submitted.

Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said he had concerns.

The exact day and time for the hearing have not yet been determined.

The satirical outlet  which carries the banner of Americas Finest News Source on its masthead  was founded in the 1980s and for decades has skewered politics and pop culture, including making Jones a frequent target of mocking articles.

Mass shootings in the US, such as the Sandy Hook attack, are often followed by The Onion publishing slightly updated versions of one of its most well-known recurring pieces: No Way to Prevent This, Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.

No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds, The Onion said in a satirical post about the sale.

And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of InfoWars (a forgettable man with an already-forgotten name) and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars.

On his live broadcast, Jones was angry and defiant, vowing to challenge the sale in court and calling it a total attack on free speech.

He later announced his show was being shut down.

Alex Jones (David J Phillip/AP)

Jones, who had told listeners for days that he had a new studio set up nearby, then resumed his broadcast from the new location, carrying them live on his accounts on X.

The Onion, based in Chicago, consulted on the bidding with some of the Sandy Hook families that sued Jones for defamation and emotional distress in lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas, lawyers for the families said.

Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones ability to spread lies, pain and fear at scale, said Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the families.

Ben Collins, chief executive of The Onions parent company, Global Tetrahedron, told The Associated Press (AP) in a video interview that it will relaunch the Infowars website in January with satire aimed at conspiracy theorists and right-wing personalities, as well as educational information about gun violence prevention from the group Everytown for Gun Safety.

Mr Collins would not disclose the sale price.

We thought it would be a very funny joke if we bought this thing, probably one of the better jokes weve ever told, Mr Collins said.

The (Sandy Hook) families decided they would effectively join our bid, back our bid, to try to get us over the finish line.

Because by the end of the day, it was us or Alex Jones, who could either continue this website unabated, basically unpunished, for what hes done to these families over the years, or we could make a dumb, stupid website, and we decided to do the second thing.

John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said the organisation will be the exclusive advertiser on the new Infowars website.

When you think about the unmitigated harm that Alex Jones and Infowars brought to Sandy Hook families, its just poetic justice that now Everytown and The Onion together will open a new chapter on Infowars and a chapter that is devoted to the issue of gun safety, he told the AP.

Jones did not lose his personal X account, which has more than three million followers, in the auction.

But the bankruptcy judge is deciding whether his personal accounts can be sold off at the trustees request.

Sandy Hook families sued Jones and his company for repeatedly saying on his show that the shooting that killed 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control.

Parents and children of many of the victims gave evidence that they were traumatised by Jones conspiracies and threats by his followers.

Jones has since acknowledged the shooting was 100% real.

The Onion bills itself as the worlds leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events and says it has 4.3 trillion daily readers.

Sealed bids for the private auction were opened on Wednesday.

The bankruptcy trustee named First United American Companies, which is affiliated with one of Jones product-selling sites, as the back-up bid should the sale to The Onion fall through.
Protesters against the Treaty Principles Bill stand by a Maori sovereignty flag outside parliament in Wellington, New Zealand (Charlotte Graham-McLay/AP)

A vote in New Zealands parliament was suspended and two legislators ejected when dramatic political theatre erupted over a controversial proposed law redefining the countrys founding agreement between Indigenous Maori and the British Crown.

Under the principles laid out in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which guide the relationship between the government and Maori, tribes were promised broad rights to retain their lands and protect their interests in return for ceding governance to the British.

The Bill would specify that those rights should apply to all New Zealanders.

The Bill has scant support and is unlikely to become law.

Detractors say it threatens racial discord and constitutional upheaval, while thousands of New Zealanders are travelling the length of the country this week to protest against it.

Despite its unpopularity, however, the proposed law passed its first vote on Thursday after dominating public discussion for months, due to a quirk of New Zealands political system that allows tiny parties to negotiate outsized influence for their agendas.

It also reflects unease among some New Zealanders about more rapid progress in recent years towards upholding the promises made to Maori when the country was colonised.

For decades after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, differences between the English and Maori texts and breaches by New Zealand governments intensified the disenfranchisement of Maori.

By the middle of the 20th century, Indigenous language and culture had dwindled, much tribal land was confiscated and Maori were disadvantaged on every metric.

As the Indigenous protest movement surged in the 1970s, legislators and the courts slowly began to elucidate what it understood the treaty to promise Maori: partnership with the Crown, participation in decision-making and protection of their interests.

What all of these principles have in common is that they afford Maori different rights from other New Zealanders, David Seymour, leader of minor libertarian party ACT and the Bills author, said on Thursday.

David Seymour stands during the first debate on the Treaty Principles Bill in parliament in Wellington, New Zealand (Charlotte Graham-McLay/AP)

To those who have championed the treaty, that is the point.

Work has involved billion-dollar land settlements, embrace of the Maori language, guaranteed representation in central and local government and attempts through policy to reverse the stark inequities Indigenous people still face.

But Mr Seymour  who is Maori  said no law or court had actually settled for good a definition of the treatys principles, and that had caused division.

His Bill filled a silence this parliament has left for five decades, he said.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon disagrees, but his party voted for the Bill on Thursday to fulfil the political deal with Mr Seymour that handed Mr Luxon power.

Without enough seats to govern after last Octobers election, Mr Luxon curried support from two minor parties  including Mr Seymours ACT, which won less than 9% of the vote  in return for political concessions.

Mr Luxon told Mr Seymour his party would vote for the treaty Bill once, while promising publicly that it would go no further.

The treatys principles had been negotiated and debated for 184 years, Mr Luxon told reporters on Thursday, and it was simplistic for Mr Seymour to suggest that they could be resolved through the stroke of a pen.

A protester against the Treaty Principles Bill sits outside parliament in Wellington, New Zealand (Charlotte Graham-McLay/AP)

Government legislators made awkward speeches in parliament explaining that they opposed the Bill before voting for it to jeers from opponents, who demanded they break ranks.

Mr Luxon was spared that; he left the country for the meeting of leaders from the Asia-Pacific APEC bloc hours before the vote.

His political horse-trading drew scorn from opposition legislators.

Shame! Shame! Shame on you, David Seymour, roared Willie Jackson, a veteran Maori legislator.

Shame on you for what youre trying to do to this nation.

Mr Jackson was thrown out of the debating chamber by Speaker Gerry Brownlee for calling Mr Seymour a liar.

You are complicit in the harm and the division that this presents, said Rawiri Waititi, a legislator from Te Pati Maori, an Indigenous group, speaking to all who advanced the Bill.

If you vote for this Bill, this is who you are, Green party leader Chloe Swarbrick told Mr Luxons legislators.

No-one deviated from their planned votes and the Bill passed.

But not before one final flashpoint.

Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, right, and her colleagues from Te Pati Maori, talk to reporters following a protest inside parliament in Wellington, New Zealand (Charlotte Graham-McLay/AP)

When asked how her partys legislators would vote, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke of Te Pati Maori stood and began a ringing haka  a rhythmic Maori chant of challenge  which swelled to a roar as first opposition legislators, and then spectators in the public gallery, joined in.

An irate Mr Brownlee was unable to quiet the fracas as opponents approached Mr Seymours seat.

The live broadcast of parliaments proceedings was cut and Mr Brownlee ordered the public be removed before the vote resumed.

He suspended Ms Maipi-Clarke, 22, from parliament for a day.

The Bill will proceed to a public submission process before another vote.

Mr Seymour hopes for an outpouring of support to change Mr Luxons mind about vetoing it.

The proposal will shortly roil parliament again.

Thousands of protesters are due to arrive in the capital Wellington on Tuesday for what is likely to be one of the largest race relations marches in New Zealands history.
Im a proud, first-generation, college-educated and gay Mexican American with undocumented family in the United States, including a mother who was previously deported to Mexico, and I experienced homelessness as a child. I am everything Democrats claim to support, right?

Wrong.

Democrats have accepted a progressive platform, ignoring decades worth of change and focusing on erroneous issues. They have built campaigns on a foundation of misleading airs and fake vibes.

Voting for Donald Trump does not make me racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic or any other ist and ic Ive been called. I, along with more than half of the voting public in America, am sick of the self-righteous and label-obsessed left alienating us over differing opinions.

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In her concession speech, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed to have built strong coalitions. What she did was the opposite. She did not motivate enough Black voters, Latino voters, Asian voters, Jewish voters, union voters and female voters to cast their ballots for her. Fewer women voted for Harris than they did Joe Biden, even with abortion being a top issue. To the very end, Harris ignored the data; she ignored what voters needed.

The party spent the last four years demonizing men and blaming us for all of societys ills. Then they spent several months drinking beer, releasing camo hats and attempting to love guns to desperately win our votes. Former President Barack Obama noticed Black men were not falling in line, so he resorted to shaming his brothers, essentially saying they were sexist, even though Black men supported Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Which leads us to Latinos. Democrats, we are not Latinx or Latine; we are Latinos and Latinas. Stop trying to change our language and our culture. The Biden-Harris administrations disastrous handling of the southern border was one of the major issues for most Americans. Americans in Chicago and around the U.S. watched how veterans and other homeless and needy citizens suffered as local governments spent billions for newly arrived migrants. Americans saw Trump secure the border without any congressional approval.

Seeing my undocumented family members, who have been in the U.S. for more than 20 years, work, pay taxes and buy their own homes with zero benefits, then watching millions of new migrants skip the line with government-funded help, only inflamed me and other Latinos like me. When my mother came to America as a single mother of two, she did not get any benefits. This election became personal. It was about my family!

My concerns go beyond just immigration. I am a U.S.-born Mexican American. We are the youngest demographic in the U.S. What matters to me and many Latinos like me are obtaining jobs, paying for the costs of living, buying a home, growing and helping our families, and making sure the American Dream is attainable and still alive. Over the last four years, all of that has become harder. If you think it hasnt or havent felt it, consider yourself blessed. This situation clearly upset many other Latinos who broke from generational loyalty to Democrats.

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It was also rich to have Democratic leaders such as Michele Obama, whose personal worth is reportedly tens of millions, say that rich people take more than their fair share. She was sandwiched between billionaires Gov. JB Pritzker and Oprah Winfrey at the DNC in Chicago. Pritzker even taunted Trump for not being a real billionaire, which was extremely unrelatable. Billionaire Mark Cuban also hit the campaign trail for Harris. Billionaire and megastar Taylor Swift, who endorsed Harris, at least gracefully encouraged everyone to do their own research, which I highly respect. Compare that to the Republican National Convention, where Trump had everyday people speak about experiences most of us worry about  the cost of groceries, safety, jobs and the border crisis.

Democrats, please look into your hearts again. Your progressive policies are crumbling your own base.

In a recent news conference in response to the election, Pritzker told Trump, You come for my people, you come through me. Governor, switch that energy to the criminals who are holding up Illinoisans at gunpoint, committing smash-and-grab robberies, stealing cars in record numbers, and committing homicides, home invasions, theft and more. Where has this protection been over the last four years?

If Pritzker doesnt change his messaging, he will not fare well in any other political aspirations he may have.

I am very proud to be a Christian, gay Mexican American who voted for Trump. No, I dont hate myself. With Republicans set to take over the White House, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House after obtaining a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, Democrats desperately need to answer the 2 a.m. wakeup call Clinton never answered. The political pendulum will swing toward Democrats again. Its inevitable. Single-party rule is never ideal for America. We love compromise, and we need compromise.

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This election, voters canceled the wokeism of the extreme left. As of now, the person who is taking care of us, listening to us  the regular folks  where we can see and feel it, is the soon-to-be 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump.
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A defendant on trial for rape fled to Mexico in the middle of his trial. It continued and jurors found him guilty
PITTSFIELD  The orange sign along the southbound lane of Holmes Road, several hundred feet from Dawes Avenue, says bump.

That, it certainly is  for unwary drivers, and for the citys latest traffic calming initiative, a newly built raised crosswalk waiting just ahead.

But the city's top traffic enforcement officer says it's all easily navigable  if you take the time to slow down.

The raised crosswalk, installed after a pedestrian accident involving an Egremont Elementary School student two years ago, has been catching some motorists by surprise. For some, its a brief roller coaster ride. For others, its a brief moment of flight, followed by a loud thud. Local residents have taken to calling it "the ramp."

But at least two city councilors said the addition, while well intentioned, has fallen short in execution, and are calling for more forethought to go into traffic calming efforts in the city.

A petition from Councilors Matthew Wrinn and Earl Persip III, introduced to the City Council on Tuesday night and referred to Mayor Peter Marchetti, has requested changes in how the citys Public Services and Utilities Department deploys traffic calming measures such as raised crosswalks and extended curbing.

The petition claims traffic calming efforts to date have resulted in property damage to both citizens and municipal vehicles.

"It is also essential that the city maintains a strong commitment to the safety of pedestrians. For example, the safety measures implemented on Holmes Road, while well intentioned, appear to be causing more harm than benefit," the petition said. Wrinn represents Ward 3, the affected neighborhood; Persip is an at-large councilor.

Marchetti agreed that setting standards for future traffic calming projects made sense. And Public Works and Utilities Commissioner Ricardo Morales reminded councilors that a $310,060 federal Safe Streets and Roads grant won by the city last year will fund the process of writing and adapting comprehensive guidelines.

A NEAR-TRAGEDY SPARKS ACTION

A little more than two years ago, then-Egremont Elementary School student Owen Rathbun was struck by a southbound driver while walking home from school. He was thrown 5 feet by the impact and bruised, but escaped serious injury.

His mother, Melissa Rathbun, a teacher at Egremont, sprang into action, lobbying city government, police and school officials for changes. The citys crossguard policy was changed to make sure those positions are fully staffed every school day. Road design changes were ordered, installing raised crosswalks at Holmes Roads intersections with Dawes, Cambridge and Strong avenues.

Similar planning efforts are underway for West Street, where in January 2023, Shaloon Milord was killed and her daughter injured while using a crosswalk near Dorothy Amos Park.

The typical roadway speed and the failure of motorists to observe and stop for pedestrians to allow them to cross the street was the driving effort for this project, said Pittsfield Police Lt. Marc Maddalena, who heads the Pittsfield Police Departments traffic division, in an email on Wednesday.

It is new, but in time, once it becomes familiar to those who utilize Holmes Road," he said, "it will be forgotten and simply part of the commute.

How fast is that stretch of Holmes Road? Maddalena said according to the most recent study, conducted in 2018, 85 percent of cars were traveling at 43 mph  13 mph over the posted speed limit of 30 mph.

On Tuesday night, Persip said the problem is that traffic calming additions have been built without being thought out. He said the raised crosswalk wasnt painted for a number of days and isnt visible enough. And he challenged whether cars can go over the raised crosswalk at 30 mph without bottoming out.

If you want to go down without scraping  people already have  its less than 30 mph," he said. "Thats a fact.

At present, there are four construction barrels around the crosswalk  two on either side. Aside from the "bump" warning there's also a yellow 25 mph advisory sign on the southbound approach.

But clearly, as seen by a reporter Wednesday morning, some are not seeing the addition until there's an unexpected bounce, and a loud bang. Others, however, are creeping through as if there's alligators below.

"Im not against keeping pedestrians safe  Im a supporter of slowing people down, Persip said, noting that it took days for lines to be painted at the crosswalk. But the way we do things on one of the busiest roads the people in the city use is a raised crosswalk that is hard to see.

'UNWANTED MEET AND GREET'

On Wednesday, Maddalena said he conducted his own testing, at various speeds.

To be clear there is a speed advisory sign of 25 mph as one approaches the new speed bump, he wrote in his email. At 25, you will have no issue negotiating this. At 30, you will still have no issue negotiating this.

At 35, you will definitely feel it, but, again [you] should not have a problem controlling your vehicle, he said. "At 40 mph, which is 10 over the speed limit, your front end and roadway will more than likely have an unwanted meet and greet.

I am not sure at what speed it would take to actually get 'air,' but I can assure you it would require exceeding the speed limit by at least 10 mph, he said.

Marchetti, in response to Persips comments, said he welcomed the petition, and councilors desire to standardize the city's traffic calming solutions. But he also expressed frustration that despite a public process, neighborhood meetings and community input, complaints still emerge when the work is completed.

We need time to put a policy together and bring to you guys, and so I appreciate the petition," he said. "I look forward to coming up with a solution, but just recognize that it's not going to be one size fits all for everybody.

Morales added that when the grant is put into action, two separate committees will be formed: a technical advisory committee with transportation and public safety officials, and a community advisory committee with city councilors and residents.

The policy will be discussed in public and include public input, he said.

Since he became commissioner, Morales said, hes been constantly asked to get vehicles to slow down.

We have had in the last two years, six fatalities on our streets with vulnerable road users, specifically," he said. "So we recognize that this is something we need to provide for.
With at least five more rain-free days looming, nearly all of Berkshire County is now in a severe drought zone.

The U.S. Drought Monitor, in its weekly update released on Thursday, upgraded the dry spell plaguing the county and more than two-thirds of Massachusetts to severe from its less severe significant drought category. Only Williamstown remains in that less-drastic zone, according to the monitors statewide map.

The continued shortfall of rain for the past 10 weeks has prompted widespread outdoor fire bans and nearly 400 wildfires in Massachusetts since Oct. 1.

Unusually high fire danger and numerous brush fires have broken out in parts of Massachusetts, southeastern New York bordering New Jersey, and even in New York City.

National Weather Service records at Pittsfield Municipal Airport and Harriman-and-West Airport in North Adams indicate that less than 20 percent of normal rainfall has fallen since Sept. 1.

Severe drought impacts The U.S. Drought Monitor, placing all of Berkshire County except Williamstown into a severe drought zone on Thursday, listed some of the most commonly observed effects: Severe drought impacts:  Trees are brittle and susceptible to insects.  Warnings are issued on outdoor burns; air quality is poor.  Water quality is poor; groundwater is declining; irrigation ponds are dry.  Outdoor water restrictions are implemented.  Fish kills occur; wildlife move to farms for food.  Producers begin feeding cattle; hay prices are high.  Specialty crops are impacted in both yield and fruit size. Source: U.S. Drought Monitor

Earlier this week, Gov. Maura Healey asked state residents to conserve water during a visit to firefighters who've been dealing with some of the hundreds of recent wildfires.

"It's really important that people do things like run their dishwasher less frequently. Make sure you're running your washing machine only at full capacity. Take shorter showers," Healey urged.

She noted that the wildfires have been caused by human behavior. Now is not the time to burn leaves. Now is not the time to go outside and light a fire out back. And sit around one of our stoves. It's just not that time."

Pittsfield and several other Berkshire County communities have imposed an outdoor fire ban until further notice.

Historically low rainfall, bright and breezy weather, and bone-dry fuel sources mean that any outdoor fire will quickly grow out of control, Pittsfield Fire Chief Thomas Sammons said in a statement issued by the city.

Statewide, 203 wildfires were reported in October, compared to the historical average of 15, followed by 175 more so far this month.

Daily Red Flag warnings issued by the National Weather Service noted the lack of beneficial rain since Sept. 26, widespread dead leaves and vegetation, plenty of sunshine even during Novembers shortening days, low humidity and gusty winds.

State environmental officials have pointed out that nearly half of homes in Massachusetts are in or near woodlands.

Great Barrington fire officials have extended an outdoor fire ban until at least Friday.

In Egremont and Mount Washington, the ban extends through the end of the month, Fire Chief Joseph Schneider said. "Every firefighter battling a preventable wildfire is one who can't respond to a house fire, car crash, or medical emergency, he cautioned residents. Please use caution and common sense and refrain from any outdoor activity that could spark a fire."

On Wednesday afternoon, multiple fire departments responded to a reported trailer and brush fire in Pownal, Vt., just north of Williamstown.

Last Friday, Pittsfield firefighters put out a windswept brush fire that spread to nearby structures on Scammell Avenue in Pittsfield. A fire in Chicopee also forced an early afternoon shutdown of Massachusetts Turnpike traffic.

Small brushfires were reported in Lenox and Monterey last week.

In Attleboro, a southeastern Massachusetts city that relies on surface water from reservoirs, the drought is causing city officials to consider importing hundreds of thousands of gallons each day, or more, from neighboring communities.

The U.S. Drought Monitor is a partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Severe drought impacts:

 Trees are brittle and susceptible to insects.

 Warnings are issued on outdoor burns; air quality is poor.

 Water quality is poor; groundwater is declining; irrigation ponds are dry.

 Outdoor water restrictions are implemented.

 Fish kills occur; wildlife move to farms for food.

 Producers begin feeding cattle; hay prices are high.

 Specialty crops are impacted in both yield and fruit size.

Source: U.S. Drought Monitor
President-elect Donald Trump has selected Thomas Homan to serve as border czar. Above: In 2018, Homan, then deputy director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement shook hands with Border Patrol agents. Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

President-elect Donald Trump is moving aggressively on mass deportation, installing two of the most strident anti-immigrant voices in his circle in key positions.

Their selection sets the stage for the administration to take the hardest possible line on Trumps signature issue: vastly reducing the number of immigrants in this country. Whats coming will be ugly.

Tom Homan , former acting director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the first Trump White House , will be the new border czar. Stephen Miller , the architect of such brutal policies as the Muslim travel ban and the family separation policy that put kids in cages, returns in an even more powerful role: deputy chief of staff for policy.

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Together, these two are expected to swiftly conduct a sweep that Miller said would start on Inauguration Day.

What could be more fitting to kick off a second Trump term  all the majesty and pomp of the inaugural against a backdrop of Border Patrol agents dragging off immigrants in a raid?

Then came the topper. Trump loyalist, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem , was announced as his choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security . Noem, who reportedly was on the short list of Trumps potential vice presidential picks until she decided to publicize shooting and killing her dog, has remained a staunch supporter. She has little to no experience in dealing with the border, other than a bit of performative wall-building back in May when she dispatched her states National Guard troops to the Texas - Mexico border.

In a preview of things to come, Homan delivered a startlingly blunt message on 60 Minutes nine days before the election. Asked if deportations could avoid splitting up families, he replied: Families can be deported together. In other words, undocumented parents and their American-born children. Something like this would almost certainly be challenged in court. Still, given the growing number of Trump-appointed judges and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, the outcome is unpredictable.

Even before Trumps victory, Homan promised to run the biggest deportation operation this country's ever seen. And he knows how to do it. He served under President Barack Obama as head of ICEs Enforcement and Removal Operations, overseeing more than 920,000 deportations in three years. In 2015, Obama awarded him a Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service for his enforcement efforts.

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Under Trump, Homan executed the family separation policy that Miller helped birth. Exceptional in its cruelty, the policy separated more than 5,500 children from their parents at the U.S. - Mexico border in 2018. As of April 2024 , more than 1,400 minors still had not been reunited with their parents.

Illegal immigration has bedeviled presidents for decades. Most were torn because they found genuine value in the dynamism and renewal immigrants bring, but they were also compelled to enforce limits.

President Bill Clinton deported 12 million undocumented immigrants over his two terms, including more than 5 million in his last three years. President George W. Bush deported 10 million over 8 years.

Even Obama deported 5.2 million immigrants over his two terms. Unlike Clinton and Bush, who relied more heavily on informal returns that shipped immigrants back across the border, Obama concentrated on removals, which involve court orders and penalties for re-entry. Focusing on recent arrivals and serious criminals, Obama removed far more undocumented immigrants than either of his predecessors through those means, earning him the nickname deporter-in-chief.

But none demonized immigrants the way Trump has, making them the scapegoats for every societal ill. His predecessors followed the rule of law and due process as a matter of course. Those are important distinctions, especially now, because Trump and the toxic duo of Homan and Miller are already searching for every conceivable way to restrict both illegal and legal immigration.

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Homan has also signaled that he intends to bring back a disruptive and traumatizing enforcement tactic that had fallen into disuse: large-scale workplace raids. Homan has said the raids would be conducted in humane ways. I witnessed many raids as an immigration reporter in Southern California years ago, and they were anything but humane. What they do  very effectively  is create chaos and fear among immigrant communities, cause severe labor disruptions for employers often smaller businesses, contractors, and farmers  and lead to devastation for those left behind.

In an interview on Fox News Fox and Friends on Monday, Homan had a message for Democratic governors who have the temerity to say they will protect their states.

If youre not going to help us, get the hell out of the way, cause were gonna do it, Homan said. We may have to double the agents we send, he said, but we are going to do the job.

Miller has floated the idea of using the National Guard to assist in roundups and local law enforcement. To speed up removals, Trump has talked of using a law typically reserved for times of war and was last employed to remove Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II. He also has threatened to withhold federal funds from cities that refuse to cooperate with deportations.

Ironically, one of the earliest targets of the Trump administration may be a group of immigrants that is here legally. More than 530,000 migrants from Haiti , Venezuela , Cuba and Nicaragua are here under a special sponsorship program. Those four countries had previously been among the main drivers of illegal immigration in recent years. Created by President Joe Biden in 2022, the program became infamous during the campaign amid false stories about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio , eating the pets of other residents. Trump said he considered the program illegal. (Its not and has been upheld in federal court.)

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Biden said in October he would not renew the status of these immigrants, which leaves them with few legal options under the new administration. Dismantling the program and jettisoning those under its protection would get Trump halfway to his goal of deporting 1 million. Those immigrants, of course, are working and contributing to their communities. None of that matters to this administration, which seeks only to stoke hatred against those Trump has called vermin and said are poisoning the blood of this country.

Polls show that a majority of Americans are convinced that immigration is out of control and affecting too many parts of their lives. But are they prepared for the pain and cruelty this administration will inflict as it carries out its dystopian vision of America for Americans only?

Our economy's dirty little secret is that it depends on the cheap labor that undocumented immigrants provide. Up to 1 in 5 construction workers is undocumented, as are up to a fourth of all agricultural workers. Undocumented migrants work in food service, maintenance, cleaning, and retail. But they represent more than some faceless army of low-paid laborers. They live among us as neighbors, friends, and co-workers. They go to church, build community, and dream for themselves and their children.

Once theyre gone, we may find that we need them more than we realized.

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POWNAL, Vt.  Multiple fire departments responded to the scene of a "trailer and brush fire" Wednesday afternoon in the area of Murphy and Dean roads.

The Hoosick, N.Y., and Williamstown fire departments were among those that responded to assist local firefighters.

Expect heavy smoke in the area as efforts to extinguish it are just beginning, according to a post on the Williamstown Police Department's Facebook page. Be aware that smoke may carry over into the Northern portions of Williamstown.

The Hoosick Fire Department posted on its Facebook page a picture of the fire, saying, Mutual aid to Pownal for a trailer and brush fire  PLEASE REFRAIN FROM BURNING!

The Pownal Fire Department did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday, and details are scarce on what exactly happened.

Berkshire County and the surrounding area are now experiencing significant drought conditions, and Pownal is among many towns under a burn ban, as its fire department noted in a Nov. 11 Facebook post.

Nearly 50 wildfires have broken out so far this month, including a windswept brush fire Friday that ignited a two-family home on Scammell Avenue in Pittsfield and another in Chicoppe last week that required an early-afternoon shutdown of traffic on the Massachusetts Turnpike. In October, there were 203 brush fires statewide.
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NORTH ADAMS  Superintendent Barbara Malkas is retiring at the end of the school year, leaving open a position that will face both local and national challenges.

The head of the North Adams Public Schools district said she is leaving the district in much better circumstances than when I found it 8 1/2 years ago.

Malkas spoke to The Eagle from Washington, D.C. on Monday while attending the American Association of School Administrators Leadership Program and Gala as the Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year.

The job has always been challenging, and it certainly became more challenging with COVID, Malkas said. I think Im not alone that going through the pandemic, a lot of my colleagues were looking at the chart to see when theyd be able to retire.

Malkas has had this move planned for more than two years. Her last day will be June 30, 2025, giving time to show her replacement the ropes, which will include building a new school and navigating any changes to federal dollars coming to the district due to President Donald Trump's administration taking office in January 2025.

Her resume as head of the district includes a successful relationship with MCLA to give students access to college courses; launching a free preschool program with state funds; as well as installing district and educator leadership teams and increases in student support. The district has been recognized on a state level for reducing chronic absenteeism, she said.

But most recently, her leadership helped the district create and pass a 2025 budget that included projections for the closure of Greylock Elementary.

The superintendent said she was proud of the role she played in arranging for a new school to be built, but said that was more of a School Committee/mayor/community achievement than a personal one.

By a narrow vote, North Adams residents approved the $65 million new school project in October, involving a tax hike to get it built and the closure of Brayton Elementary once it is.

I feel the district is in a great place, theres always work to be done, Malkas said. Im hoping the district will find a very strong and capable leader to see where North Adams Public Schools goes next.

SEARCHING

School Committee members Tara Jacobs and Richard Alcombright, who congratulated Malkas during a School Committee meeting Wednesday, were part of the search committee that hired Malkas.

As an educator, as an administrator, and as a human being, we couldnt have found anyone better to lead our district, Aclombright said. Your impact on our greater community, our school district and most importantly our children, has been epic.

Jacobs called Malkass retirement well-deserved and wonderful, adding that she was very unhappy to hear Malkas would be leaving because her departure leaves a great hole for us that well need to fill.

Liz Lafond, a field director with the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, spoke broadly about what goes into a superintendent search.

Lafond said the pool of outside candidates for superintendents continues to shrink, saying that the committee could have more luck considering an internal hire to fill the position on an interim or long-term basis.

There is also the question of what a search committee could look like. As Lafond noted, it could be an ad hoc committee of the School Committee, or it could take the form of a representative search committee, which would bring members of the community into the decision-making fold.

Mayor Jennifer Macksey said the committee aims to have a concrete search plan by January.

HANDS FULL

Locally, Malkas points to declining population and enrollment as the issues the future superintendent will have to grapple with.

Whoever comes after me has to really think about how theyre going to build the relationships of trust that are necessary to consider furthering regionalization within the area, Malkas said.

Early on in her time with North Adams, Malkas nearly become superintendent of Adams and Cheshire schools when the then-Adams-Cheshire School Committee considered sharing a superintendent with North Adams. The committee ultimately decided against it.

Nationally, President-elect Trumps reelection likely will affect how money is allocated. Malkas, whose tenure spans Trump and President Joe Bidens administrations, said that money referred to as entitlement grants  essentially needs-based funding  could function differently under a Trump administration.

When we talk about, Were going to get rid of those entitlement grants, the issue is its impacting districts like North Adams and Pittsfield and Springfield and some of our smaller rural communities where there is a higher level of need, Malkas said.

Trump and his allies have promoted school choice, and considered taking entitlement grants and creating a voucher program in which parents decide where that money goes depending on where their child goes to school, which really undermines the expectations we have in our country around public education, Malkas said.

We need to become really good advocates around those funds, she said. They cant be cut, and they need to have sufficient increases to support their intended outcomes for students of need.

MOVING ON

Malkas previously worked as superintendent of Webster Public Schools, deputy superintendent of Pittsfield Public Schools and assistant principal of McCann Tech in North Adams.

She plans to stick around a while to help the incoming superintendent transition into the role. The change in leadership could cause some movement within the district regarding staffing, she said.

Malkas has made the offer to Mayor Jennifer Macksey to stay on as an adviser on the new school building project, which is slated to be completed in time for the beginning of the 2027-28 school year.

Malkas will carry on her work with Breathe for Change, a nonprofit bringing yoga and mindfulness into education, but shed like to be able to set her own hours, and spend time with family.

When she was hired in 2016, Malkas said she wanted to create an education system and community that "attracts people to come back, and to want to come to, so we're not going to see that decline in population.

"We're going to turn that corner," she said, "but it will take a lot of work."
50 children to get lifelong access to free Roche drug for SMA treatment

November 14, 2024 | Thursday | News

Care and Protection of Children Trust signs agreement with Roche Pharma India to procure Risdiplam

Tamil Nadu-based Care and Protection of Children Trust (CPCT), a leading NGO committed to alleviating the burden of rare diseases, has announced the launch of a groundbreaking financial assistance initiative aimed at supporting children diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA).

As part of this landmark programme, 50 children up to the age of 16 years in Karnataka will receive lifelong free of cost access to Risdiplam, a revolutionary oral treatment for SMA.

CPCT has signed an agreement with Roche Pharma India to procure Risdiplam, the first and only drug approved by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for the treatment of SMA. Under CPCTs Free Medicine Access Programme (F-Map), children will receive continuous care and access to treatment at Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health (IGICH), Bengaluru.

Lakshmi Kanthan, Chairman - CPC Trust said "We are sure that with the free drug support of Risdiplam, a disease modifying therapy which can be administered orally in the comfort of ones home, these children will benefit immensely. We hope that this partnership in Karnataka will serve as a role model to scale the program in other States too.

Dinesh Gundu Rao, Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Government of Karnataka said, "This landmark programme will pave the way for a brighter future for these children of Karnataka by giving them a fair and solid chance to battle a debilitating condition like SMA. Programmes like these are in line with the state governments healthcare vision of providing best-in-class care and treatment for citizens of Karnataka.

Dr Sharanprakash Patil, Minister of Medical Education - Health & Family Welfare, Government of Karnataka said, "This is a first-of-its-kind financial assistance program anywhere in the country. We are delighted that SMA patients in Karnataka will stand to benefit immensely.

The Free Medicine Access Programme (F-Map) is an initiative specially curated by CPCT through funding received under CSR for treatment of rare conditions. CPCT plans to expand the F-Map initiative to cover additional children in the near future.

SMA is a rare genetic disorder that severely impacts muscle strength and motor functions, often leading to life-threatening complications if untreated.
ICMR recognises Dr Anjana of Madras Diabetes Research Foundation with Research Excellence Award

November 14, 2024 | Thursday | News

Dr Anjanas paper on the ICMR-INDIAB study published in June 2023 was selected for this prestigious award

Dr R M Anjana, President of Madras Diabetes Research Foundation and Managing Director of Dr. Mohans Diabetes Specialities Centre, Chennai, has received the "Research Excellence Recognition Award in the Best Extramural Paper category at the DHR-ICMR Health Research Excellence Summit, 2024, held as part of ICMRs 113th Foundation Day celebrations, on 14 November.

The event was presided over by Anupriya Patel, Union Minister of States in the Health and Family Welfare, and Minister of State in the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers.

The summit honoured exceptional contributions of biomedical researchers recognizing their impactful publications and innovative advancements in health research.

Dr Anjanas paper on the ICMR-INDIAB study published in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology in June 2023 was selected for this prestigious award. Dr Anjana has published nearly 400 research papers and has an h-index of 81 and has been recognised as one of the top most young medical researchers and Scientists in the country by several agencies nationally and internationally. Her contributions in the field of Epidemiology and Physical Activity especially the evolution of Thandav a High Interval Intensity Training (HIIT) activity involving dance as a method of preventing Non communicable diseases has been widely recognised nationally and internationally.
As revealed in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Economic Survey 2024- 25, for the first time in seven years, Indias female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) has seen a significant rise, jumping from 23.3 per cent in 2017-18 to 41.7 per cent in 2023-24. The Economic Survey underscores how womenled businesses thrive under government support. As of October 31, 2024, over 73,151 startups with at least one woman director have been recognised under the Startup India Initiative, nearly half of all registered startups in India.

Additionally, Union Budget 2025-26 has listed new initiatives to support women entrepreneurs across various sectors within the industry. While the number of women entrepreneurs in the country has been increasing over the years, there has not been much change at the women leadership level in both the public and private sectors. There are very few women leaders who have the opportunity to take charge of an entire academic institute or a government posting, thereby contributing to the growth of our country.

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Gov. Greg Abbott, second to right, waves to the large crowd as he campaigns for Republican HD 121 candidate Marc LaHood, right, at the Angry Elephant on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 30, 2024, in San Antonio, Texas. Sam Owens/San Antonio Express-News

Republicans dominated Texas House elections across the state on Tuesday, winning key contests in San Antonio and the suburbs of Dallas and Austin where Democrats thought they had their best shot at flipping seats.

The GOP won two new seats while Democrats failed to flip any, according to The Associated Press and unofficial county results. The results expand the GOPs majority, pushing the chamber farther to the right. The effect is even more pronounced because many of the most moderate GOP members were defeated in primaries earlier this year.

The outcome bolsters Gov. Greg Abbott, who has been pushing to stack the Legislature with Republicans supportive of his voucher plan to use taxpayer money to subsidize private education, and it sets the table for a knock-out fight over who will lead the chamber when lawmakers reconvene in January.

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House Speaker Dade Phelan, under fire for leading the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, is already being challenged by fellow Republican Rep. David Cook.

Abbott wrote online that there are now more than enough votes to pass his voucher plan.

Tonight, we celebrate all the incredible, hard-fought victories that conservatives achieved throughout our great state in this year's elections, he wrote late Tuesday. Texans sent a clear message: they want safer streets, a secure border, a strong economy, and the opportunity to choose the best school for their children.

Republicans won two high-profile San Antonio House races that drew big dollars from both parties and visits from Abbott, who campaigned for Rep. John Lujan and defense attorney Marc LaHood. In another race viewed by Democrats as a pickup opportunity, Rep. Angie Chen Button defeated former Miss Texas Averie Bishop in the northeast suburbs of Dallas.

And in an open district that includes Uvalde and was previously held by Democratic Rep. Tracy King, Republican Don McLaughlin Jr. defeated Democrat Cecilia Castellano with more than 90% of districts reporting.

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Adding to the upheaval, nearly a quarter of the winning Republicans are new to the job thanks to messy primary fights earlier this year that led to the ouster of many long-time incumbents. The incoming House Republicans include Katrina Pierson, a former Trump campaign spokeswoman, and Shelly Luther, a Dallas salon owner who was jailed for defying COVID-19 lockdowns.

Also joining the chamber are several key Paxton allies, including Mitch Little, who defended the attorney general in his impeachment trial, and prominent gun rights lobbyist Wes Virdell, who won the seat being vacated by state Rep. Andrew Murr. Murr had led the committee that launched the impeachment inquiry.

The GOP shift is likely to affect the speakers race: Many of the newly elected Republicans have endorsed Cook, R-Mansfield, over Phelan and have signed a Contract for Texas that aligns them with the right-most members of the chamber.

Cook has promised to push through more conservative legislation and restrict Democrats from serving as committee chairs.

Without question, its going to be more conservative than it was in 2023, said Rice University political science professor Mark Jones.

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Republicans prevailed across several key races in South Texas, a massive win for the party. The GOP has worked especially hard to court the states Hispanic voters in the region, who make up a plurality of the states residents and are a fastest-growing population group. According to statewide exit polling by the Washington Post, more than half of Texas Latinos voted for Donald Trump.

In addition to the success of McLaughlin, the former mayor of Uvalde, Republican state Rep. Janie Lopez of Harlingen successfully won a second term.

And the GOP picked up an open seat outside Corpus Christi currently held by Democrat Abel Herrero when Republican Denise Villalobos, an oil and gas engineer, defeated Democratic nominee Solomon Ortiz.

Tuesdays results are a promising sign for sustained GOP success among Latinos  and a potential death knell for Democrats who for many years have argued that population growth among nonwhite Texans would inevitably tip the states political scales in their favor.
Kim Na Jung, 31, a former television announcer and current model, made an appeal for help on social media, saying she was too scared to leave her hotel while in the Philippines.

UPDATE: The model is now under investigation after confessing to drug use.

Kim said she was at the Conrad Hotel in Manila and felt threatened in an Instagram post on November 12. She wrote, "I am scared I cannot go to the airport or I cannot take a taxi. Help me."

She also posted a plea for her followers to reach out to the embassy on her behalf.

Kim relayed her plight via a text on the numberregistered with the embassy, saying she wanted to return to South Korea. "I think I'm going to die if I get on a plane," she wrote.

"I think I'm going to die if I go out of Manila. The airport is also dangerous."

In another post later that day, she said she was on a flight that took off from Manila at 12:05 p.m. local time.

Though it is uncertain what triggered her distress, a wave of concern from fans has been directed towards her while she is receiving the necessary assistance.

KimNa-jung, who gained public attention from MBN's "Miss Maxim" contest in 2019, appeared on various TV programs such as SBS's "Black Sheep Game" and Wave's original series "Four Seasons Verification Zone: The Community."

So far, the embassy has not issued a statement regarding her case
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Sinn Fein would introduce a new dedicated immigration management agency within months, Mary Lou McDonald has said.

Ms McDonald said the agency would ensure cohesion around planning, sharing of information, and speedy decision-making.

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Sinn Fein wants to operate the agency under a newly formed Department of Justice and Home Affairs.

It would bring personnel from six State agencies to work in sync under one department: the Garda National Immigration Bureau; the Border Management Unit; the Immigration Service Delivery Unit; the International Protection Unit; International Protection Accommodation Services (Ipas); and relevant units in the Workplace Relations Commission.

Sinn Fein candidate Matt Carthy. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA.

Launching her partys immigration policy on Thursday, she told reporters: It will have responsibility for processing applications, enforcement of rules, registration and accommodation.

We would increase staff and properly resource the new agency to ensure it is equipped to fulfil its tasks.

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The Department of Integration would continue to have responsibility for supporting international protection applicants who receive the asylum status so that they can fully integrate into society, and would work closely with communities to ensure that services and resources are provided.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment will continue to process employment permits as normal for the many workers who are playing a really valuable role in our economy, especially in our health service, and, of course, in our tech sector.

Earlier this year, Ms McDonald announced that Sinn Fein had conducted an internal review after performing well below its own expectations in the local and European elections.

She revealed that senior figures in Sinn Fein were disappointed with her engagement with the partys base.

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Ms McDonald was told that she needed to offer more clarity on its policies, including on immigration.

Sinn Fein said it would treble resourcing of the immigration system to 64 million euro in a bid to halve processing times, with the establishment of the new agency costing an additional five million euro.

Ms McDonald said her party was putting forward a common-sense approach to immigration, rather than what she called the chaotic approach of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

Taoiseach Simon Harris. Photo: Gareth Chaney/PA.

The current system doesnt work for anybody. Weve chaotic management with different bodies and Government departments acting independently of one another, she said.

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Last week, Ms McDonald echoed her partys integrations spokeswoman when she told reporters that it was common sense to deport immigrants who commit serious crimes.

She said this was in line with Irish law, which permits the removal of an individual to their country of origin if they have committed a serious or violent crime.

If someone has been living in Ireland for more than 10 years or is a child, the order can only be made in the interests of public security.

Tents were cleared from the canals in early morning operations. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA.

On Thursday, she reiterated a commitment that Sinn Fein would not locate International Protection Accommodation Services (Ipas) centres in working-class communities.

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Her party colleague, Matt Carthy, said it is a matter of principle that some areas are not appropriate for the location of a centre for asylum seekers, adding that communities should be allowed to have a say.

In addition, he said there needs to be assurance that asylum seekers whose applications are not granted have actually left the country.

Their comments come the morning after Taoiseach Simon Harris said Ireland needs a firmer immigration system.

Immigration emerged as one of the major issues for political parties in the last two years of the Government, with senior ministers saying there had been a massive increase in the number of asylum seekers.

The State has failed to accommodate thousands of international protection applicants, with 2,865 men currently awaiting an official offer of accommodation.

This has manifested with the erection of makeshift migrant camps along streets and canals in Dublin, something Ms McDonald called a heartbreaking disgrace.

The Government mobilised a multi-agency response to clear the encampments in the interests of public health, and placed barriers to make it more difficult for asylum seekers to place their tents.

There has been a spate of arson attacks against centres earmarked for use by asylum seekers as well as protests in which gardai were injured, and garda vehicles were damaged. Some of the makeshift migrant encampments have also been damaged and subjected to suspected arson.

In a pre-election interview with Virgin Media News, Mr Harris said: We have went from about 3,500 people a year seeking asylum in Ireland to about 25,000, plus a war in Ukraine.

The Fine Gael leader added: Since I have become Taoiseach, I have been very clear that the system needs to be firmer. Immigration is a good thing, we benefit from it, but there also have to be rules.

Fine Gael wants to implement a means-tested, income-linked contribution towards State accommodation for international protection applicants with jobs.

Election 2024 Sinn Fein TD says next government should 'prepare... Read More

Mr Harris has also said there will be a very significant increase in deportations to countries of origin.

Labour has criticised the Taoiseachs rhetoric as populist-pandering to anti-immigrant feeling.

Jim OCallaghan, a candidate for Fianna Fail in Dublin Bay South, questioned Fine Gaels bona fides on immigration, noting the party has held the justice portfolio for 13 years: When you look at my constituency, at tents, and you look at barriers, its not a system thats working very effectively.
A family Christmas dinner in Bantry ended with a man being glassed in the face following an argument, a recent sitting of Bantry District Court has heard.

Court presenter inspector Triona OMahony said that there were two counter prosecutions resulting from an argument between two men that occurred at an address at Marino Terrace, Bantry, Co. Cork on December 24th, 2023.

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Garda Louise Kingston told the court that James Greig, 28, of Clashnadoo, Durrus, had reported that he was assaulted by Filip Kroscen, 27, of The Warner Centre, Bantry, while Mr Kroscen had alleged that he was assaulted by Mr Greig.

Garda Kingston said that Mr Grieg reported the alleged assault on December 26th, 2023 and had suffered facial injuries that required stitches as well as injuries to his gums and teeth. Mr Greig alleged that he had been hit in the face with a glass by Mr Kroscen.

Gda Kingston said that Mr Kroscen was interviewed by appointment on December 27th, 2023 where he admitted he had punched Mr Greig but denied he had hit him with a glass or any other type of weapon. He also alleged that Mr Greig had assaulted him.

Giving evidence, James Greig said that he had been invited to the Kroscen home by his friend Julius Kroscen, Filip Kroscens cousin. He said that the Kroscens were a Czech family and celebrated Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve.

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Mr Greig said that there were a number of members of the Kroscen family present. Mr Greig said that he sat opposite Filip Kroscen during the meal who at one point stood up angrily and accused him of calling him a motherfucker.

Mr Greig said that the situation calmed down but later in the evening Filip Kroscen smashed a glass in his face and then left the house.

Filip Kroscens solicitor, Flor Murphy, said his client alleged that James Greig had called him a motherfucker three times. He also alleged that Mr Greig had begun questioning Mr Kroscen if his family were gypsies or travellers.

Mr Murphy said that Mr Greig had been drinking vodka on the night and may have been much more intoxicated than he realised.

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Mr Greig said that he may have called Filip Kroscen a motherfucker but it was not intended as an insult.

Witness Sara Gaborova, the partner of Filip Kroscen said that she was not drinking alcohol at the dinner as she had young children to look after.

She told the court that Filip Kroscen and James Greig were drinking the whole evening and she heard Mr Greig calling Mr Kroscen a motherfucker several times.

She said that most people had left the room when the alleged assault occurred and only an aunt who was visiting from the Czech Republic was in the room with the two men at the time it happened.

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Giving evidence, Julius Kroscen said that his cousin Filip may have been upset by the term motherf**ker as his own mother was dead, and it was a phrase that did not translate into the Czech language. He said that Filip may have believed that James Greig was insulting his dead mother.

He said that the two men had been drinking all evening and the argument between them had escalated to a point where most of the other people in the house had left the room. He said that following the alleged assault there was blood everywhere.

Filip Kroscen told the court that James Greig had repeatedly called him a motherf**ker and kept asking him if his family were travellers or gypsies.

He said that he had pushed James Greig who had pushed him back, and they both ended up on the floor. He said that he did not hit him with a glass and that he saw no blood.

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James Greigs solicitor Collette McCarthy said that according to statements there was broken glass on the floor and on the table, as well as a large amount of blood.

She said her client had sustained a deep straight cut to his face that had left a scar and medical reports and photographs corroborated the extent of his injuries. She said that Filip Kroscen had to be dragged out of the house and the only injuries he had sustained were to his hands.

Judge Marie Keane said that all parties agreed a significant amount of alcohol had been consumed including vodka, shots and beer. She said it was clear that a disagreement had broken out over the use of the word motherf**ker which had led to further arguments later on when even more drink was taken.

She said that, based on the evidence, she was quite satisfied that a glass had been broken into James Greigs face. She dismissed the charge against James Greig and convicted Filip Kroscen of assault causing harm.

At the sentencing hearing, Mr Murphy told the court that his client had brought 1,000 in compensation for the injured party. He said that Mr Kroscen wished to apologise for his behaviour which he accepts was appalling".

Ireland Conor McGregor petrified during gardai interview... Read More

He said that Mr Kroscen was the father of two young children and was engaged to be married and was currently living in rented accommodation in Bantry. He said that Mr Kroscen was well able to work and asked the judge to consider the community service route as a potential penalty.

The court heard that Filip Kroscen had seven previous convictions, mostly road traffic related, including one for no insurance for which he received a suspended sentence in 2023.

Judge Keane noted that Mr Kroscen had brought 1,000 in compensation to court but said that in the context of the offence it was nothing other than a token".

Filip Kroscen was sentenced to four months in prison with recognisance in the event of an appeal fixed in his own bond of 100. Regarding the suspended sentence, he was remanded on bail to appear before Macroom District Court on November 20th.
A man and women have been arrested after approximately 36,000 worth of heroin was seized in Galway on Wednesday.

This comes after a car was stopped by the Galway Divisional Drugs Unit at Cappataggle, Co Galway, at around 11pm.

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In excess of 252 grams of heroin (with an estimated street value of 35,700, subject to analysis) was seized and a man and a woman, both aged in their 50s, were arrested.

They are both being held in a Garda station in Galway, and can be held for up to seven days.
A man who struck a three-year-old with his car has been jailed for two years and banned from driving for 15 years.

Sandile Hlatshwayo (43) of Riverwood Hall, Castleknock, Dublin 15, pleaded guilty on a trial date to a charge of endangerment on October 31st, 2020.

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He further pleaded guilty to failing to remain at the scene of a collision, failing to provide a sample for testing, and driving without a licence, all on the same date. Hlatschwayo has 26 previous convictions, the majority for road traffic offences, including four for drink-driving.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Hlatshwayo was the driver of a car which knocked over a three-year-old on his bike, who had been crossing from kerb to kerb, with his parents.

The child was taken to hospital with fractures to his leg and ankle and required emergency surgery and pins inserted into his leg.

In a victim impact statement, the boys parents said they had been on their way to the playground when the incident occurred.

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They said they would never forget their sons screams of agony when he was taken to hospital.

They outlined how the young boy thought for a long time afterwards that a car was going to come in through his bedroom window and kill him.

The young boy also developed separation anxiety and continues to suffer night terrors in the wake of the incident, the court heard.

The boys parents said they understand accidents happen, but could not understand how anyone could drive away and leave a three-year-old on the ground.

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Imposing sentence on Thursday, Judge Elma Duffy set a headline sentence of four years but imposed an actual sentence of three years, with the final 12 months suspended.

Judge Duffy also disqualified Hlatshwayo from driving for 15 years and ordered him to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for 12 months on his release from prison.

The judge said it was incomprehensible that having knocked over a three-year-old child who was taken away in an ambulance, Hlatshwayos level of aggressive and threatening behaviour was such that extra gardai were required to deal with him.

This has had a huge impact on the life of the entire family, said Judge Duffy, pointing out that the child had to undergo a year of hospital visits, each one traumatic.

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'Appalling' history of driving offences

Judge Duffy described Hlatshwayos previous history of driving offences as appalling and said the accused had clearly, several times, made the decision to get back into the car when intoxicated and despite the fact that he could no longer get insurance because hed been taken off the road.

This was a mistake that was made on an ongoing basis, to keep getting back into the car, said the judge.

She said Hlatshwayo had driven into a gated estate, where he knew there were families present, driving at excessive speed, and having knocked over a child, had then made the decision to leave at excessive speed.

The judge accepted that Hlatshwayo has not engaged in offensive behaviour for a period of time and instructed that he stopped drinking alcohol last December, although she says there is no particular evidence of that.

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An investigating garda told Simon Matthews BL, prosecuting, that Hlatshwayo drove into the housing estate at speed around 4pm and struck the child, who was on a bike and crossing kerb to kerb with his parents.

When gardai arrived, Hlatshwayo was parked nearby, but then left the scene. He returned a short time later and appeared intoxicated when gardai spoke to him.

He was arrested, but became aggressive towards gardai.

Hlatschwayo was taken to Blanchardstown Garda Station, where he was seen by a doctor due to his level of intoxication. He refused to provide a sample for testing when asked by gardai.

The garda agreed with Oisin Clarke BL, defending, that minor damage was caused to the front bumper of the car and to the boys bike.

It was further accepted that most of Hlatshwayos convictions have occurred since 2020, with his most recent offending in 2023.

Mr Clarke noted that his client has an appalling record of previous convictions and appeared to have a lack of regard for road traffic laws.

Counsel said his client had issues with alcohol, which had deteriorated during the Covid-19 pandemic when he wasnt working, and his behaviour at the garda station was caused by intoxication.

Alcoholism was at the foundation of his offending behaviour, Mr Clarke said.

He outlined to the court his clients personal circumstances and background. Hlatshwayo has a good work history.

Hlatshwayo is married and supports his wife, who has health issues, and his son.

A letter of apology from Hlatshwayo and a testimonial from his wife were handed to the court.

Judge Duffy wished the childs family well and expressed the hope that he would continue to do well and recover.

She suspended the final 12 months of Hlatshwayos sentence in order to incentivise him to return to work and to being a contributing member of the community.
Conor McGregor giving evidence in the High Court and parties clashing on a rent freeze make the front pages of Thursday's papers.

The Irish Times leads with Conor McGregor giving evidence, as he is accused of rape by Nikita Hand in a civil action trial.

The front pages also has parties clashing over plans for a rent freeze in the lead up to the general election.

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The Irish Independent leads with calls from Micheal Martin for clashes to stop between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.

The Irish Examiner leads with the States cybersecurity agency, as they said there is an overall medium threat of cyberattacks on candidates and political parties during the election campaign.

The Echo leads with the welcome approval for the Night-time economy strategy in Cork.

The Irish Daily Mail leads with plans for Fine Gael to provide an extra 30,000 childcare places should they be elected back to Government.

Both the Irish Daily Mirror and the Irish Daily Star lead with quotes from Conor McGregor giving evidence as he is accused of rape.

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British papers

The papers on Thursday are led by a shake-up to the pension scheme.

The Financial Times reports Chancellor Rachel Reeves is to announce pension megafunds are set to be created to help unlock billions of pounds of investment in businesses and infrastructure, mirroring schemes in Australia and Canada.

FT: Reeves will force council pensions to merge #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/up0G4BeA1e  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

Staying with the economy, The Times says business leaders have warned the Chancellor that job losses and higher prices are inevitable as a result of Budget reforms.

Elsewhere, the Daily Mail says council tax bills are set to rise by an average of 110.

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MAIL: Now Council Tax to rise by 110 #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/dL08q79hVj  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

Labour is set to miss its pledge to build 1.5 million new homes, according to the i.

I: Labour will miss its new homes pledgesays official leading plan #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/k3AXxRMnTk  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

The Daily Express leads with the father of Sara Sherif telling jurors he takes full responsibility for killing the 10-year-old.

The Telegraph says police have been accused of an attack on free speech following an investigation into one of the papers reporters.

TELEGRAPH: Police in appalling attack on free speech #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/Tuc0sl4Hoe  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

Metro carries Donald Trump appointing a TV host to be defence secretary, while The Independent says Mr Trump could sabotage Sir Keir Starmers Chagos Islands deal.

INDEPENDENT: Revealed: Trump push to sabotage Starmers Chagos Islands deal #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/qbWntSlaAI  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

The Guardian reports a US-based group has warned Israel is committing crimes against humanity in Gaza.

GUARDIAN: Israel committing crimes against humanity in Gaza, warns report #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/BFI2QC1syF  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

The Daily Mirror leads with a documentary expose into the wild west of cosmetic surgery in Britain.

MIRROR: Wild west of cosmetic surgery in Britain #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/WPjTgqmcZo  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

And the Daily Star says there is an environmental positive to a particular bathroom habit.

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South Korean model Kim Na Jung is being investigated after posting disturbing confessions about taking drugs on her Instagram page.

Now, an official complaint has been made to the police about posts from the 32-year-old former announcer, which are being investigated.

In one of her posts on Instagram, Kim said that she feared for her life and was in a death-threatening situation in Manila on the 12th of November.

In her posts, she mentioned that she had used illegal drugs before describing the airport as unsafe. "I feel like I'm going to die if I get on this flight. The airport is not safe. Please help me," she said. Those messages were subsequently cleared away, however.

Kim allegedly reached out to South Korean authorities in the embassy in the Philippines, asking to be repatriated.

She is said to have claimed she was in a "dangerous situation" but did not elaborate on what threats she was facing. She received assistance of some kind, but the embassy has not revealed whether she is safe or not.

Following her posts, an anonymous internet user submitted an official petition to the Seoul police and expressed that because Kim is suspected of drug use, this may have a "negative impact" on teenagers and requested to summon Kim and investigate.

It is rumored that Kim has reported to the police station along with her drugs for investigative questioning.

It is unknown if this happened prior to or after the anonymous complaint.

The incident is still developing, and authorities have not provided additional information regarding the investigation.
The alleged gang rapists of a British teenager in Magaluf have been warned they face prison sentences totalling more than 150 years if convicted.

Spanish public prosecutors announced in an indictment made public they were seeking individual jail sentences of between 18 and 20 years for each of the eight men charged over the horror crime - totalling 151 years.

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All eight, seven French nationals and one from Switzerland, have been held on remand in prison since their arrests last year and are expected to remain behind bars until their trial.

Two of the suspects, charged earlier this year following a lengthy probe by an investigating magistrate, were held abroad on a European Arrest Warrant and extradited. Six were detained in Majorca.

Some of the harrowing details about the alleged actions of the men accused over the sickening crimes against the 18-year-old British tourist at the BH Mallorca Resort in Magaluf around 7:30am on August 14th, 2023, had already emerged around the time they were charged.

Reports at the time said three of the suspects met the teenager hours earlier while partying in Magaluf and one had allegedly gone out into a hotel corridor after sexually attacking her to encourage strangers returning from their own night out to have free sex with her.

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Respected Majorcan newspaper Diario de Mallorca, outlining details of the female investigating judges probe, reported this summer she had concluded at least five of the men took turns to rape their alleged victim while the other three sexually assaulted her.

The 14-page indictment laying out the public prosecution case against the suspects confirms many aspects of those reports and others pointing to their alleged humiliating treatment of the Brit tourist, saying six of the suspects went to room 108 at the BH Mallorca Resort where one of them was staying and met another two men including a roommate who were already inside with the teenager.

It says: There, the accused men, during approximately half an hour, aware of the semi-conscious state the young woman was in and at one point seeing she had fallen in a state of unconsciousness, and taking advantage of the closed room she had been taken into, stripped her naked leaving her with only her bra on.

They then carried out different sexual acts on her, acting by common consent and without her consent.

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The prosecution indictment goes on to say: The accused men, each one with a mobile phone, throughout the actions previously described, recorded several videos focusing on the young womans private parts in which they appeared forcing her to to carry out sexual acts.

It goes on to accuse two of the men of sending the recordings from their phones and sharing them on Snapchat in boasts about their actions while their alleged victim was still semi-unconscious or unconscious.

One of the suspects stands accused of filming 14 videos lasting 170 seconds, and another of filming five videos lasting 142 seconds.

The eight men were aged between 18 and 26 when they were arrested.

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The charges laid as part of the criminal investigation include five counts of rape involving two or more men simultaneously and particularly degrading and humiliating intimidation and violence, one count of sexual assault without penetration, and mistreatment and privacy crimes relating to the publication of the mobile phone videos.

The men have been identified in the public prosecution indictment as primary authors of rape or accomplices who knowingly, voluntarily and with common intent united with the principal offender in the commission of the sex crime.

The prison sentences public prosecutors are demanding on conviction range from four to 15 years for the most serious of the crimes.

The prosecutors also want them to compensate their alleged victim with 100,000 if convicted as charged. No date for the trial, expected to take place next year, has yet been set.

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After the incident involving the British teenager, the BH Mallorca Resort said it was cooperating fully with the authorities and offered its support to the unnamed holidaymaker.

A spokesman said in a statement at the time: The BH Mallorca Resort deeply regrets what has happened and would like to manifest its firm and forceful repudiation of the alleged sexual attack that occurred in the early hours of August 14th, last year at the hotel.

The hotel also wants to demonstrate its solidarity with the alleged victim of this aggression.

We are co-operating fully with the Civil Guard and its investigators in everything they consider to be necessary.

This hotel ratifies through this statement its commitment to the condemnation of all types of sexual attacks that affect peoples dignity and physical integrity.

Behaviour that undermines those rights has no place in this establishment.

Majorca Civil Guard

The Civil Guard in Majorca said in a statement after the last of the eight arrests: The Civil Guard has closed the investigation sparked by the alleged gang rape that took place in a hotel in Magaluf in the early hours of August 14th, 2023.

Officers saw early on the complexity of the investigation, as the alleged aggressors didnt form part of the same group of friends but encouraged by other participants, had allegedly joined the group action in sporadic acts, meaning no type of relationship existed between them.

Confirming the first six suspects had been held the day of the alleged sex attack and remanded in prison, a force spokesman added:

The probe continued to identify the two young men whose arrests were pending.

One they had been identified, officers discovered they had taken a flight to Baden-Baden in Germany so they could head to their homes in the Strasbourg area.

The Civil Guard sought the assistance of the French authorities through the normal channels and issued European Arrest Warrants to avoid them evading justice.

On Sunday, August 20th, 2023, the French police confirmed they arrested one of them in the French locality of Scherwiller before subsequently confirming a second arrest at Basilea Mulhouse Freiburg Airport in France, when that suspect was trying to take a flight to Turkey to avoid detention.

It was also claimed the first of the Magaluf gang-rape suspects was held after Spanish police got him to answer the stolen mobile phone of the British teenager targeted.

The French youngster picked up the phone and then went with two holiday pals to the lobby of the hotel where the sex attack allegedly took place unaware they would be met by the teenager and detectives assisting her, respected Majorcan newspaper Ultima Hora reported in the days after the incident.

All three were arrested on the spot before the other three suspects were located over the following hours after the 18-year-old gave police their descriptions.

A security guard at the hotel where the incident occurred came to the rescue of the British teenager after finding her sobbing on the floor in the lobby.

Ireland Roscommon man sentenced to nine years in prison fo... Read More

He had just come in for his morning shift and described the police response at the time as very quick and efficient.

Bruises were found on the tourists arm during a medical examination which were believed to have been caused by her alleged rapists holding her down. She also suffered a cut to her chest.

A lawyer acting for the teenager is also due to privately prosecute the eight suspects in a case which will run parallel to the state prosecution in the same courtroom in the Majorcan capital Palma. His indictment has yet to be submitted to the courts.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help.
Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, including massive forced displacements that amount to ethnic cleansing, according to Human Rights Watch.

A new report released by the New York-based rights group said people have been killed while evacuating under Israeli orders and in Israeli-designated humanitarian zones, where hundreds of thousands are crammed into squalid tent camps.

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The report said the widespread demolition of homes and civilian infrastructure in Gaza  partly to carve a new road bisecting the territory and to establish a buffer zone along Israels border  was likely to permanently displace many Palestinians.

Such actions of the Israeli authorities amount to ethnic cleansing, Human Rights Watch said.



Palestinians line up for food distribution in Deir al-Balah (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the report.

Israels campaign in Gaza has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

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Around 90% of the territorys population have fled their homes, with many displaced multiple times. The Israeli offensive has also damaged or destroyed around two-thirds of homes and other buildings in Gaza, according to UN assessments.

Israel says it does not deliberately target civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths, saying the militants hide among civilians and operate in residential areas.

On Wednesday, 15 trucks carrying aid were allowed into northern Gaza, where aid groups have warned that a month-long Israeli offensive could cause a famine.

The trucks entered Gaza with aid from the United Arab Emirates, according to the military body handling aid deliveries into the territory, COGAT. It said the aid consisted of food and water as well as hygiene, shelter and medical supplies.

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A Palestinian child carries humanitarian aid in Deir al-Balah (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)

Israeli forces have encircled the Gaza Strips northernmost areas for the past month, saying Hamas militants have regrouped there. Experts say the Israeli military campaign has caused a new wave of displaced civilians and warn that famine is imminent or may already be happening there.

Israel has also been striking deeper inside Lebanon since September as it escalates the war against Hezbollah.

The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killing some 1,200 people  mostly civilians  and abducting 250 others.

Lebanons Hezbollah group began firing into Israel on October 8 2023 in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.

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Since then, more than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 14,200 wounded, the countrys Health Ministry reported. In Israel, 76 people have been killed, including 31 soldiers.
A vote in New Zealands parliament was suspended and two legislators ejected when dramatic political theatre erupted over a controversial proposed law redefining the countrys founding agreement between Indigenous Maori and the British Crown.

Under the principles laid out in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which guide the relationship between the government and Maori, tribes were promised broad rights to retain their lands and protect their interests in return for ceding governance to the British.

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The Bill would specify that those rights should apply to all New Zealanders.





The Bill has scant support and is unlikely to become law.

Detractors say it threatens racial discord and constitutional upheaval, while thousands of New Zealanders are travelling the length of the country this week to protest against it.

Despite its unpopularity, however, the proposed law passed its first vote on Thursday after dominating public discussion for months, due to a quirk of New Zealands political system that allows tiny parties to negotiate outsized influence for their agendas.

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It also reflects unease among some New Zealanders about more rapid progress in recent years towards upholding the promises made to Maori when the country was colonised.

For decades after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, differences between the English and Maori texts and breaches by New Zealand governments intensified the disenfranchisement of Maori.

By the middle of the 20th century, Indigenous language and culture had dwindled, much tribal land was confiscated and Maori were disadvantaged on every metric.

As the Indigenous protest movement surged in the 1970s, legislators and the courts slowly began to elucidate what it understood the treaty to promise Maori: partnership with the Crown, participation in decision-making and protection of their interests.

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What all of these principles have in common is that they afford Maori different rights from other New Zealanders, David Seymour, leader of minor libertarian party ACT and the Bills author, said on Thursday.



David Seymour stands during the first debate on the Treaty Principles Bill in parliament in Wellington, New Zealand (Charlotte Graham-McLay/AP)

To those who have championed the treaty, that is the point.

Work has involved billion-dollar land settlements, embrace of the Maori language, guaranteed representation in central and local government and attempts through policy to reverse the stark inequities Indigenous people still face.

But Mr Seymour  who is Maori  said no law or court had actually settled for good a definition of the treatys principles, and that had caused division.

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His Bill filled a silence this parliament has left for five decades, he said.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon disagrees, but his party voted for the Bill on Thursday to fulfil the political deal with Mr Seymour that handed Mr Luxon power.

Without enough seats to govern after last Octobers election, Mr Luxon curried support from two minor parties  including Mr Seymours ACT, which won less than 9% of the vote  in return for political concessions.

Mr Luxon told Mr Seymour his party would vote for the treaty Bill once, while promising publicly that it would go no further.

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The treatys principles had been negotiated and debated for 184 years, Mr Luxon told reporters on Thursday, and it was simplistic for Mr Seymour to suggest that they could be resolved through the stroke of a pen.



A protester against the Treaty Principles Bill sits outside parliament in Wellington, New Zealand (Charlotte Graham-McLay/AP)

Government legislators made awkward speeches in parliament explaining that they opposed the Bill before voting for it to jeers from opponents, who demanded they break ranks.

Mr Luxon was spared that; he left the country for the meeting of leaders from the Asia-Pacific APEC bloc hours before the vote.

His political horse-trading drew scorn from opposition legislators.

Shame! Shame! Shame on you, David Seymour, roared Willie Jackson, a veteran Maori legislator.

Shame on you for what youre trying to do to this nation.

Mr Jackson was thrown out of the debating chamber by Speaker Gerry Brownlee for calling Mr Seymour a liar.

You are complicit in the harm and the division that this presents, said Rawiri Waititi, a legislator from Te Pati Maori, an Indigenous group, speaking to all who advanced the Bill.

If you vote for this Bill, this is who you are, Green party leader Chloe Swarbrick told Mr Luxons legislators.

No-one deviated from their planned votes and the Bill passed.

But not before one final flashpoint.



Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, right, and her colleagues from Te Pati Maori, talk to reporters following a protest inside parliament in Wellington, New Zealand (Charlotte Graham-McLay/AP)

When asked how her partys legislators would vote, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke of Te Pati Maori stood and began a ringing haka  a rhythmic Maori chant of challenge  which swelled to a roar as first opposition legislators, and then spectators in the public gallery, joined in.

An irate Mr Brownlee was unable to quiet the fracas as opponents approached Mr Seymours seat.

The live broadcast of parliaments proceedings was cut and Mr Brownlee ordered the public be removed before the vote resumed.

He suspended Ms Maipi-Clarke, 22, from parliament for a day.

The Bill will proceed to a public submission process before another vote.

Mr Seymour hopes for an outpouring of support to change Mr Luxons mind about vetoing it.

The proposal will shortly roil parliament again.

Thousands of protesters are due to arrive in the capital Wellington on Tuesday for what is likely to be one of the largest race relations marches in New Zealands history.
European Union regulators have hit Facebook parent Meta with a fine of nearly 800 million euros for what they called abusive practices involving its Marketplace online classified ads business.

The European Commission, the 27-nation blocs executive branch, issued the 798 million euro (663 million) penalty after its long-running investigation found that the company abused its dominant position and engaged in anti-competitive behaviour.

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Brussels accused Meta of distorting competition by tying its online classified ad business to its social network, automatically exposing Facebook users to Marketplace whether they want it or not and shutting out competitors.

It was also concerned that Meta was imposing unfair trading conditions with a terms of service that authorised the company to use ad-related data  generated from competitors who advertise on Facebook or Instagram  to benefit Marketplace.

Meta said in a statement that the decision fails to prove any competitive harm to rivals or consumers and ignores the realities of the thriving European market for online classified listing services.

The company vowed to appeal.
The boss of $94 billion superannuation giant Cbus has publicly apologised to 10,000 members whose death and disability claims were unacceptably delayed as the financial regulator puts the funds governance under the microscope.

Appearing before a Senate inquiry on Thursday morning, Cbus chief executive Kristian Fok was grilled on a litany of scandals engulfing the embattled fund, including its links to the disgraced construction union and a Federal Court action against its handling of insurance claims.

CEO of Cbus Super Kristian Fok appears via video link during a public hearing of a Senate committee on Thursday morning. Credit: AAPIMAGE

Fok blamed high staff turnover at Link, the third-party administrator to which it outsourced claims handling, for 10,000 members waiting more than three months for their applications to be assessed. Most of them not were resolved for more than a year.

The delays are unacceptable, but were not withholding money, absolutely none at all, Fok said.
Mali is demanding Australian gold producer Resolute Mining pay about $US160 million ($250 million) to resolve a tax dispute after the government detained its chief executive, according to people familiar with the matter.

CEO Terry Holohan and two colleagues have been held in the capital, Bamako, since late last week after the Resolute boss travelled to the city for meetings with the nations tax and mining authorities. The detention comes as the military rulers of Africas third-largest gold producer ratchet up pressure on mining companies to renegotiate economic terms.

Resolute Mining chief executive Terry Holohan is detained in a hotel in Bamako. Credit: Resolute website

The governments position is that Resolute  which operates the Syama gold mine  should pay the state 100 billion CFA francs ($249.9 million) to settle a dispute mainly concerning alleged back taxes following a sector-wide audit, the people said, asking not to be named as the matters were private.

The parties have been discussing a potential agreement that would see the company pay half that sum now and half at a later date, one of the people 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 Many of us have been overwhelmed  emotionally, spiritually, intellectually  by a work of art, be it a painting, a play, or a belting punk song. Its one of the great joys of life to be awed by an artists ingenuity, energy, humanity. Its less common for such an experience to lead us to an intensive, years-long quest to understand just why a work of art affected us so profoundly. For Andrew Turley, former soldier and ad man, there was no turning back when he came face-to-face with Sidney Nolans painting Gorilla. He had to go digging. The painting is a haunting, hazy vision of a gorilla floating horizontally before a spiky mountain range. The gorilla is almost human in form, its mouth open, in anguish, or sorrow, or pain, or death. The brushstrokes are fast and urgent, the paint thin, and yet the whole captures something elusive and alarming. It is not an easy work, but when Turley and his partner, Rachael Ash, saw it at an auction preview in Sydney in 2012, they could not walk away. We knew nothing about it, Turley tells me via Zoom from his Adelaide home. We connected with our hearts to the work. Gorilla, 1963, the painting that triggered Andrew Turleys journey of discovery. Credit:  The Sidney Nolan Trust. All Rights Reserved, DACS / Copyright Agency, 2024 The couple flew to Melbourne for the auction and bought the painting. We were absolutely physically jubilant, Turley says. But also sick to the pit of our stomachs that wed spent that kind of money on a piece of art. That kind of money was close to $40,000. This dramatic, unprecedented response set Turleys inquiring nature abuzz. What was it about the painting that prompted such an intense reaction? What imagery, philosophies, writings, and events had fed Nolans thinking and creation process? Frustrated by a lack of information about the painting and encouraged by Ash to find out more, Turley set off to fill what he describes as an art-historical void.

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He embarked on an obsessive 12-year voyage of discovery: following the footsteps of Nolans African travels with his first wife, Cynthia; reading every book on Nolan he could get his hands on; scouring diary entries, photographs and notes from the recently opened Sidney Nolan archives at the National Library of Australia; trawling the Tate archives in London; and visiting Nolans Jacobean manor house on the English border with Wales. The result is a 352-page book, Nolans Africa, published on November 19 by Melbourne University Press under its Miegunyah Press imprint. Turleys pitch to the publishers summarised the book as part detective story, part adventure, part history and all art. Man and Monkey, (6/2/63). Credit:  The Sidney Nolan Trust. All Rights Reserved, DACS / Copyright Agency, 2024. He has fulfilled that promise and more, meticulously documenting the itinerary (with maps) of the Nolans three-month journey through Africa in 1962 and tracking down 98 of Nolans Africa paintings, all illustrated and listed in the book, along with extensive exhibition histories, including appearances on film and television, and buying another three of the paintings along the way  Figure at Harar, Man and Monkey, and African Head, all from 1963. Figure at Harar, (3/2/63). Credit:  The Sidney Nolan Trust. All Rights Reserved, DACS / Copyright Agency, 2024. The paintings, Turley tells me, have everything and nothing to do with Africa, and his book amplifies this idea, taking as its focus the five years  from 1957 to 1962  that preceded the series. Turley threads together Nolans influences, preoccupations and movements in those years: the books he read, such as Alan Moorheads No Room in the Ark (which inspired the Nolans journey), the people he is associated with, such as Sir Julian Huxley, founder of the World Wildlife Fund, and the places that left an indelible mark. In January 1962, Nolan visited Auschwitz and it shook him to the core, Turley writes. The experience was one of the most dramatic but least-known events that shaped the African series.

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Before his visit to Auschwitz, Nolan read Romain Garys The Roots of Heaven. The novels lead character, Morel, survives the Nazi concentration camps by thinking of elephants  symbols of freedom. After the war, Morel travels to Africa to stop the slaughter of wildlife. Sidney and Cynthia Nolan travelled to Africa in 1963, a journey that is retraced in Andrew Turleys book. Credit: Fairfax Media Six weeks after Nolan got back from Auschwitz, the first painting he did was an elephant, Turley says. This was six months before [his and Cynthias travels to Africa]. Turleys search began with his discovery that Gorilla was first shown at Londons prestigious Marlborough Fine Art gallery in 1963, one of 35 paintings unveiled in the exhibition Sidney Nolan: African Journey. On display were paintings of apes, monkeys, elephants, human heads and tortured figures, animals of the Serengeti (gazelles, antelopes, lions, zebras, cheetahs, giraffes, leopards, hyenas), a desert landscape, and two portraits of French poet Arthur Rimbaud, who lived in the Ethiopian city of Harar in the late 19th century and whose writings influenced Nolan throughout his career. The exhibitions opening night was a teeming success, attended by the rich, famous and powerful. Turley shares with me an article in The Bulletin magazine from 1963, which observes that between the kisses and the wine, Princess Margaret and her husband [Lord Snowdon] tried to squeeze in for a look  Thats how fashionable Sidney Nolan is. Queen Elizabeth II asked for a private viewing, and bought one of the paintings, Herd at Waterhole, for Prince Philip, who was then president of the World Wildlife Fund. The painting hung over the princes desk at Buckingham Palace for almost 60 years. King Charles very graciously allowed the release of that painting to be included in the book, Turley tells me. As far as Im aware, it hasnt been published for 50 years, and I believe that this is the only colour reproduction of it in the public domain.

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Despite the glamorous, frenzied exhibition opening, Nolans Africa series has fallen from the limelight. Turley argues that this is partly of Nolans making. He writes: When Sidney declined to speak publicly about the series, he created an art-historical void. The vacuum filled with the loudest, most contentious opinion, repeated the most often, and the status quo has endured now for more than six decades. Some critics were impressed and intuited the broader themes of the paintings  the commentary on nature, humanity and civilisation  but others were puzzled by the works. One critic described them as having a curious feeling of haste and superficiality, comparing them to colour snaps, taken out of the car window on a drive through a game reserve. Ape and Elephant, 1963. Credit:  The Sidney Nolan Trust. All Rights Reserved, DACS / Copyright Agency, 2024. Image courtesy Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). Turley has made it his mission to reassert the series importance, to show that the paintings are far more than superficial travel snaps, and that they are more relevant than ever, layered with references to colonialism, industrialisation, the threat of nuclear conflict, the destruction of wildlife, and human cruelty  towards each other and the very planet on which we depend. Whats remarkable about Turleys undertaking is that before his encounter with Gorilla, he knew very little about Australian art. He ran a communications and advertising agency in Sydney, and would regularly travel to Africa to decompress, eschewing guided tours, charting his own journey, sleeping on roofs, catching local buses, keeping it local. Andrew Turley with local children in the Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda. Credit: Courtesy of Andrew Turley Before that, he had been a soldier and UN peacekeeper, deployed in the killing fields of Cambodia, clearing mines and recording mass graves from years of genocide under the Khmer Rouge. His book reveals an exacting, military discipline, and the sensibility of someone who has witnessed first-hand the horrors of which humans are capable.

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While Turley followed in the footsteps of the Nolans African journey, he could not face visiting Auschwitz. He suspects his experiences in Cambodia may have something to do with his reluctance. I actually found being so connected to Sidneys Auschwitz experience quite disturbing, he says. There were times when I had to put the pen down and stop writing that section of the story, leaving it for a day before I could mentally regroup. Rachael suggested we travel there in 2019 but I didnt feel ready. We have talked about it more recently and although it would still be uncomfortable, agreed we do have a duty to go and play our part in ensuring it is remembered. Im interested in an art historians perspective on Turleys book and ask Jane Clark  who curated a retrospective of Nolans works at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1987  for her response. Clark is currently senior research curator at Hobarts Museum of Old and New Art, which holds some major Nolans in its collection, including the vast 1620-panel work Snake, and some African paintings. I ask Clark whether Nolans African series has been overlooked. To a certain extent, yes, she says. And I assume some of thats because we didnt have access to his diaries and so on. The works were sometimes dismissed as, you know, the globetrotting artist who went travelling and then painted what he saw to make money. But I think in the current period, when Nolans had a few major retrospectives, here and in England, the African paintings have always been included. But I dont think anybody had connected them in the way Andrew has to the Cold War themes, the Second World War, Auschwitz  Its definitely not just an art book, because it takes Nolans art as a springboard to look at ... 20th century events. Elephant in Landscape, (6/3/62). Credit:  The Sidney Nolan Trust. All Rights Reserved, DACS / Copyright Agency, 2024. Image courtesy Deutscher and Hackett. Andrew was a great person to write this book, because he has a real military knowledge of politics, the history of the 20th century, which I think lots of us dont. Although hes not an art historian, he has looked at, read, and digested material on Nolan, very, very deeply over many years  its a very personal book, you get a real sense of Andrew saying, this is what I think, this is what Ive discovered, thats why I think its very readable. But he also backs it up with what hes found in the diaries, what hes found elsewhere.

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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 Back in 2015, Saoirse Ronan was in London doing promotion for Brooklyn, in which she played a young Irish woman who moves to New York in the 1950s. She had just moved to London from Dublin herself, aged 21, and was calling her mother every day. That stuck in my mind. Time has passed, of course; Ronan is 30 now, recently married to her long-term partner Jack Lowden, who has his own devoted following as River Cartwright in Slow Horses. I have to ask her, though, when we meet to talk about playing a mother herself in Steve McQueens Blitz, whether she still makes that daily call. She shuffles a little. No, shes off the hook; shes gotten rid of me now, she says. I used to call her six times a day. It was a bit much. She hasnt spoken to me since! That really is unimaginable; we both laugh. It is true, however, that it is a different experience talking to Ronan, now a polished, articulate and careful interviewee clearly used to being surrounded by lights, cameras and a dozen people taking note, than it was when a conversation with her felt like talking to a friendly fellow passenger at a Dublin bus stop. She feels in charge. Ronan has now been in this game, as I notice she mentions quite often, for 21 years. She has certainly made films that flopped, but never garbage; if she has chosen to be in a film, as a journalist on Irish radio said to her recently, you would certainly think about seeing it. And that has been true since she was 13, when she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as the quietly wilful Bryony Tallis in Atonement. She was, said The New York Times in its 2020 list of the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century, in full, disciplined command of her gifts right from the start. Saoirse Ronans comment on The Graham Norton Show went viral. Her control of the moment came to the fore recently on The Graham Norton Show, where she was sitting on the couch with actors Eddie Redmayne, Denzel Washington and her good friend Paul Mescal, star of Gladiator II. Her perfectly timed comment on womens fear of attack  not a usual chat-show subject  cut between the lads having a laugh about the idea of using a phone for self-defence. Thats what girls have to think about all the time, she said pleasantly. And added, in the middle of the ensuing silence, Am I right, ladies? The studio audience cheered; social media did the rest. Of course, Ronan has been asked about her viral zinger repeatedly while doing press for Blitz. She has always said she doesnt like the kind of inquisitive attention you get as a public person, but this sits well with her. She has had messages from all over the world. Its hugely encouraging. I think the fact that a moment like that happened on a show like Graham Norton, which is something the entire nation tunes in to watch, means it has gained traction  which I think is amazing, she told Irish radio. Its opening a conversation.

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Loading What is more remarkable to me, however is that there has been none of the usual backlash, as far as I can see. Maybe the forces of misogyny have just been drowned out by the chorus of approval. Or maybe its just that nobody, not even an internet troll, could take exception to Saoirse Ronan. Ronans father, Paul, is an actor; she was first roped into a show he was doing when they needed a child in a hurry. She was nine and loved it. That was the start, more or less, of a life of homeschooling between movie jobs, with her central role in Peter Jacksons The Lovely Bones (2009) an early highlight. As a young adult, among her most notable performances have been the two films she made with Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019), both Oscar-nominated. Gerwig told Vogue magazine that working with Ronan was like sharing one brain. Saoirse Ronan plays a mother searching for her son in Blitz. Credit: AP Long before Blitz came along, Ronan had told her agent that she would jump at any chance to work with Steve McQueen, the Oscar-winning director of 12 Years a Slave (2013), Hunger (2008) and the critically lauded Small Axe series about West Indian culture in 50s Britain. As it happened, McQueen had become interested in the experience of the Blitz, when Londoners sat out the Luftwaffe night after night. A photograph of a small Black boy in a too-big overcoat captured his imagination. Who was he? Where was he going? He had an idea for a story about the people still at home in a country at war. Ronan plays Rita, a working-class Londoner who had a son with Marcus, a West Indian man she met at a dance club. He was deported; she lives with her son George (newcomer Elliott Heffernan) and her elderly father, played by musician Paul Weller, and is one of hundreds of women working in a munitions factory. McQueen depicts a London that is already far more multiracial than popular imagery of the Blitz has ever allowed.

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He also shows East Enders under siege, forbidden by government top brass to shelter in the Underground as the bombs rained down until, finally, the mob forced their way in. Its not exactly the story passed down of everyone keeping calm and carrying on. Im not trying to shame us, McQueen told the Financial Times. There was heroism everywhere in the Blitz. I never set out to discredit anything. I just wanted to tell the truth  a story about what was, rather than what we would like to have been. Reality is healthier. George is one of the many hundreds of children whose parents send them to billets in the country, out of harms way. Both he and his mother are distraught. Hes only nine. George is a feisty one, however; when the train slows down, he jumps off. Thus begins his long journey trying to get home, a picaresque series of encounters with gangs of runaways, criminals and false benefactors; the films sensibility has often been compared with Spielberg, but seems to me closer to Dickens, with George as a mid-century Oliver Twist or David Copperfield, keeping his hopes up as he trudges sturdily through misfortune. His mother, meanwhile, is a force of nature: a Cockney lioness determined to find her cub. Saoirse Ronan with Elliott Heffernan in Blitz: I always wanted to make sure it was as special and fun for him as it had been for me. Credit: AP Ronan has said that she has always wanted children and that now, with a partner and house and a career that could withstand a few gaps, is probably the time. Her on-screen rapport with Elliott is remarkable; a scene where she snuggles with him on a bed, telling him how much she loves him, is so sweet and easy that it is a real surprise to hear they shot it on their first day together. It looks maternal, she agrees. But my relationship with Elliott in real life is so built on a friendship, we really feel like were pals, she says. What was crucial to her was that here was a child actor, working with adults on a big film set for the first time. She had been there. Saoirse Ronan with James McAvoy in Atonement. I always wanted to make sure it was as special and fun for him as it had been for me, she says. So that, weirdly, became my sole focus. Her mother was on set with her until she was 18, looking out for her while also impressing on her how important it was to be on time, but she had a lot of protectors: Paul Rudd on her first film, James McEvoy on Atonement, Juno Temple  who remains a good friend  and Guy Pearce. A gorgeous Kiwi actor called Rose McKay. Do you know her? she asks hopefully. Bill Murray. Susan Sarandon. James Gandolfini. The string of names keeps coming. I dont think you forget the people who gave you time.

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Does she ever regret not going to school? Even the mucking around she didnt do? Ultimately, no, she says. Theres always going to be things youre going to miss out on. I didnt have the social life that some of my mates had and of course thats going to have an effect on you, in the same way it would if you had a bad experience at school, or you did have a very rich social life, or you had a bunch of siblings you grew up with, or you were an only child. Theres going to be pluses and minuses to everyones experience. Saoirse Ronan in The Lovely Bones (2009). Credit: Paramount Pictures But, fundamentally, I had such a happy childhood on a film set and I think its given me such a great start in life. I was working on, like, serious films, you know. I wasnt the star and I wasnt treated as such. I was supported and I was loved, but I was very much a child in an adults environment. She doesnt say it made her clever, but it looks that way. Her toughest times came later, when she worked on stage. For some reason, I mention the common actors nightmare of suddenly forgetting all the lines and, usually, what play it is. Ronan sparks into spontaneous memory. I still have that nightmare! I developed night terrors after a play I did a few years ago and it was that exact anxiety dream. That was on Macbeth. And I actually had that experience when I was on stage with The Crucible; Im nervous just thinking about it, but it was the closest I came to stage fright. Saoirse Ronan and Jack Lowden at the Emmy Awards in September. Credit: AP I remember it was the first act, near the end. I was on stage and in my head I was like I dont know whats going on and I dont know whats coming next and I dont know if I just said anything. I came off the stage and I was white as a ghost, I thought I was going to pass out. Awful. Im not doing any more plays like that! Im going to do a comedy. She has one earmarked, by Belfast playwright David Ireland. I want to do a new play, a modern play, I want to use my own accent and I want it to be funny. And its going to be in a small theatre. She enjoys being decisive. She and Lowden were partners in Arcade Pictures, a production company set up to make The Outrun, directed by Nora Fingscheidt and recently released in the UK; Ronan stars as a recovering addict living in the Orkneys. She wants to direct in the next couple of years.

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Australian Fashion Week is like a John Farnham concert. You dont realise how much you will miss it until the chance of it happening again becomes slimmer than a supermodel.

With the announcement that former entertainment juggernaut IMG has abandoned responsibility for the annual event they have owned and operated since 2005, feathers and egos have been left ruffled like an Aje dress.

The events future is in peril. How will Australian designers be able to host a runway show? Can models still get their step count up to 10,000 a day on the runway? Where can people be photographed wearing completely impractical and irrelevant outfits and end up in online galleries?

It would be laughable if it wasnt so serious.
Chinese vice premier calls for more int'l cooperation on climate change adaptation for islands

Xinhua) 08:18, November 14, 2024

Chinese President Xi Jinping's Special Representative Ding Xuexiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese vice premier, attends and addresses the International Zero-Carbon Island Cooperation Initiative Launching Conference held by China during the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 13, 2024. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

BAKU, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang on Wednesday called for strengthening international cooperation on climate change adaptation for islands, exploring the creation of an international zero-carbon island cooperation organization, and promoting resource sharing, technology exchange, and experience sharing to help small island nations better address the challenges of climate change.

Ding, Chinese President Xi Jinping's special representative and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks when addressing the International Zero-Carbon Island Cooperation Initiative Launching Conference held by China during the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Ding said that China attaches great importance to addressing climate change and fully understands the unique challenges and concerns that small island nations face in this regard.

In recent years, China has collaborated with small island nations to establish low-carbon demonstration zones, develop and implement mitigation and adaptation projects, and set up the China-Pacific Island Countries Climate Change Cooperation Center, actively supporting small island nations in addressing climate change and improving people's livelihoods and well-being, he added.

Noting that addressing the survival crisis of islands is a shared responsibility of all humanity, Ding called on all parties to work together to enhance islands' capacity to adapt to climate change, strengthen island infrastructure, and advance scientific research and technological innovation in disaster prevention and mitigation.

He called for promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of islands, developing clean energy systems suited to local conditions, fostering green industries, protecting island resources, and preserving marine ecosystems.

Ding said that China is willing to work closely with all parties to push for an early achievement of the goal of zero-carbon islands and build islands that are green, beautiful, safe, and prosperous.

The conference was held at the China Pavilion of the UN Climate Change Conference. Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu, Sao Tome and Principe's Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada, Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell, and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat Simon Stiell attended the conference and delivered speeches.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
K-Actor Woo Do Hwan is stealing hearts for the adorable way he treats co-star Lee Yoo Mi.

In the new K-drama "Mr. Plankton," Netizens took to social media to praise Woo as a gentleman ever since Netflix Korea unveiled a video clip of the behind-the-scenes on Nov. 13.

In the video, set against the backdrop of a picturesque rice field, both stars depict figures ensnared in a melodramatic moment. The cameras roll one minute, and the next, they are on the grass, playing, fighting in the sun.

However, viewers were most moved by seeing Woo Do Hwan pick up Lee Yoo Mi and carry her across the wet grass onto the tarmac.

dohwan gently carried youmi out of the rice field  #MrPlankton pic.twitter.com/7oIwEvckxN  hwanito (@thehwanderland) November 13, 2024

It was regarded and interpreted as a gesture of care so that Lee would not get uncomfortably wet after the shoot.

Shortly afterward, online fans showered Woo Do Hwan with praises, calling him a "gentleman" and commending his thoughtfulness.

Omg you guys, dohwan carried yoomi out of the rice field with only one hand  #MrPlankton pic.twitter.com/Qlms15AkOh  currently obsessed with sangyi (@onlyrheii) November 13, 2024

One social media user commented, "His sweetness, especially the way he treats Lee Yoo Mi, is just so endearing."

"These are the tiny moments that we love even more about him!," another commented.

omg dohwan really picked yoomi up and helped her out of the paddy field, what a gentleman im crying #MrPlankton #Mrpic.twitter.com/GXhBeHRJ8O   (@xxtracurricular) November 13, 2024

This show has already captivated audiences with its plotline, and its lead actors have been experts at blending a little reality with the fictional "Mr. Plankton" to keep the emotional rollercoaster rolling in real life.
Move over, cavoodles, with your $5000 price tag. Meet the $27,000 greyhound.

Not that Whisper looked like a dog worth anywhere near that amount when Erika Wadlow-Smith met him. She watched him hurl around an office, soil the sofa and freak out when she pulled a stick-shaped vegetable out of her bag.

His whole face contorted into a thousand wrinkles  he was terrified, she said. He had a lot of issues. Anxiety issues. She now knows he also came to her with a broken rib and three serious muscle tears from his former career as a racing dog.

Erika Wadlow-Smith with Whisper, the greyhound she adopted after his retirement from racing. Credit: Louise Kennerley

Whisper was rehomed by GAP (Greyhounds as Pets). GAP is run by Greyhound Racing NSW, the organisation with a government-appointed board that operates the dog racing industry in the state. GAP rehabilitates racing greyhounds for adoption and finds them new homes.
Christmas market season is here already, and tonight its the turn of Beenleigh Town Square, which is hosting the Beenleigh Christmas Twilight Markets. Find gifts and street food, and entertain the kids with the petting zoo and stilt walkers.

Fans of bizarre old childrens show Round the Twist need to see the musical version, which has opened at the Playhouse at QPAC. Ghosts, bodily functions, greedy real estate agents and school bullies abound in this nostalgic Queensland Theatre production.

The queens have got their Claus out for Christmas. Stars of Rupauls Drag Race are appearing live at the Princess Theatre on Sunday for Slay Belles on Tour 2024  they include Kween Kong, Alyssa Edwards, Karen From Finance and more.

Kween Kong is a Pasifika New Zealander drag queen who competed on Rupauls Drag Race Down Under Season 2. Credit: ID Events

The annual Irish Film Festival is on at Dendy Cinemas Coorparoo till Sunday. Highlights include Brendan Gleesons Farewell to Hughess, in which actor Brendan Gleeson interviews denizens of a famous pub in Dublin noted for its traditional music.

For more big-screen thrills, Ridley Scotts long-awaited sequel Gladiator II is also in cinemas, with another Irish actor, Paul Mescal, taking over from Rusty Crowe as a new-generation warrior kicking arse in the Colosseum.

If youre on the west side of town you might like to go see the film at the brand new Hoyts Cinemas that just opened in Ipswich. Or you could snag a free ticket to the Ipswich Art Gallerys Saturday opening showcasing a $116 million Rothko on loan from the National Gallery.
Thousands of VCE students could have taken their exams with a hidden advantage over their peers, after some questions were accidentally revealed online in advance.

Authorities are yet to say how many subjects were affected by the major blunder, which gave some students early access to questions.

Heres what we know so far:

What happened?
We bring you the stories of womens lives lost in Australia in recent years. Some of the cases featured are still before the courts.

The man accused of murdering missing Ballarat mother Samantha Murphy will have his trial fast-tracked to the Supreme Court after the 23-year-old pleaded not guilty.

Patrick Orren Stephenson faced Ballarat Magistrates Court via video link from the Melbourne Assessment Prison on Thursday. It was revealed that he had elected to have the case fast-tracked to the higher court.

Missing Ballarat mother Samantha Murphy.

Court documents reveal Stephenson has also been charged with drink and drug driving, and careless driving in October 2023, months before the alleged murder.

Stephenson, sporting a beard, long hair and black wristwatch, sat with his arms crossed while being addressed by magistrate Mark Stratmann.
When it came time for the bill to be voted on, the same parties voted in favour. Their support would send the bill to a select committee, which was expected to take six months to consider it. Labour Maori development spokesperson Willie Jackson called that a six-month hate tour. Loading Jackson was then kicked out of the house himself, after refusing to apologise to Seymour for calling the associate justice minister a liar. Jackson said he had a message for Seymour, given to him by people who were at the hikoi mo te Tiriti in Auckland.

To you, David Seymour: you fuel hatred and misinformation in this country, you bring out the worst in New Zealanders, you should be ashamed of yourself, and you are a liar, Jackson said in parliament. He then refused to withdraw his comment. I cant do that, he told Brownlee, adding: Thats a message from the hikoi. He was then booted from the House. Seymour was under pressure through the debate and was the only MP to speak in favour of the bill. Coalition partners from National and NZ First said they did not like the bill, but would keep to the coalition agreement and support it at first reading. Willie Jackson was kicked out of parliament after refusing to apologise for calling the associate justice minister a liar. Credit: Stuff He argued the bill would give tino rangatiratanga to everyone, and rejected criticism that he was stirring racial division.

That is not true. My mission is to empower every person, Seymour replied. ACT Party leader David Seymour stands during the first debate on the Treaty Principal Bill. Credit: AP Speaking after the debate, he said the opposition and coalition MPs had not raised any strong argument against the bill. I heard all sorts of name-calling, I heard hysteria, I saw haka, but I didnt hear any arguments, he said. He said he had never before seen a Speaker eject the entire public gallery, during his decade as an MP.

Long-serving MPs, who have been in parliament for decades, couldnt recall a moment like this. They called it an unprecedented day for the House. We respect their right to have debate according to the rules of parliament. They have to reciprocate. Otherwise, it doesnt work, Seymour said. Rawiri Waititi spoke against the Treaty Principles Bill. Credit: Stuff The idea that some people have a greater right to obstruct other peoples right to be represented. Thats a lot about what this bill is about, the idea that we should each have equal rights. Tensions between ACT and Te Pati Maori were at boiling point.

During the debate, Ngarewa-Packer and ACTs Nicole McKee were shouting at each other across the aisle. At one point, Seymour pulled McKee back  urging her to step away from the argument. During Waititis speech, he compared the ACT Party to the Ku Klux Klan. Loading He said parliament had no right to redefine the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This parliament means nothing in Aotearoa without Te Tiriti o Waitangi, he said.

Waititi said only the signatories of the treaty, being the monarch and the rangatira of hapu of Aotearoa, had the power to change Te Tiriti. Tell me David Seymour, which one of those are you? he asked. Waititi told coalition MPs they were complicit in harm, which he said would be caused by the Treaty Principles Bill. That bill, he said, was euthanising Te Tiriti o Waitangi. New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Thursday called the bill divisive and a distraction. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Given National said it did not support the bill, Waititi said: ACT are seen to be pulling the strings and running the country like the KKK.

Green co-leader Chloe Swarbrick said the bill was designed to oppress Maori. When youre accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. That is what is behind this bill, she said. Loading Earlier on Thursday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon spoke against the bill. Holding a press conference with reporters before departing New Zealand, he called the bill divisive and said it was a distraction. He said the bill oversimplified a complex issue.
ASICs plan: Simplification Consultative Group

In response, Longo announced a new initiative: the Simplification Consultative Group, composed of consumer advocates, business leaders, and industry groups. This group is tasked with identifying ways ASIC, which recently highlighted the importance of ensuring that governance frameworks evolve alongside AI usage, can simplify regulatory administration.
Housing pipeline delays adding to crisis

Even when approvals are granted, further obstacles remain. Recent KPMG data indicated that more than 12,000 homes approved in Sydney remain stalled due to financial and construction challenges, an increase of nearly 18% from the previous year.
Jabil Inc. (NYSE: JBL), a global leader in engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain solutions, today announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat state government. The signing took place in Gandhinagar in the presence of Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.

This agreement follows an MoU signing with the Tamil Nadu state in September 2024. The two MoUs reflect Jabils intentions to expand its footprint in India and will allow the company to explore long-term goals, opportunities and support with both states.

Representing Jabil was Fred McCoy, Executive Vice President, Operations. Jabil is committed to expanding in India to meet and grow with the future needs of our customers in the Intelligent Infrastructure segment, which covers our capabilities across cloud, compute, storage, networking, telecommunications, semiconductor capital equipment, and data center infrastructure, amongst other end-markets, he said. The planned expansion also opens up opportunities for Jabils customers in the automotive and transportation industry to consider manufacturing in India.

In recent months, the Intelligent Infrastructure segment has made investments to drive further innovation and support the increasing demands of next-wave cloud and AI data center growth. These include silicon photonics-based products and capabilities, liquid cooling solutions for thermal management, and an expanded server portfolio purpose-built for scalability.

Beyond attracting foreign direct investments and job creation, this MoU reflects our shared ambitions to pursue sustainable growth and create long-term value. We are excited at this opportunity to work with Jabil to explore new avenues for long-term growth together, said Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.

In addition to being recognized globally as an employer of choice across a wide variety of career areas, Jabil was recently recognized as one of America's Greenest Companies for 2025 by Newsweek. At Jabil, sustainability is defined as the integration of environmental health, social equity, governance and economic growth to create thriving, healthy, diverse and resilient business operations for employees and the communities in which the company operates.

About Jabil:

At Jabil (NYSE: JBL), we are proud to be a trusted partner for the world's top brands, offering comprehensive engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain solutions. With over 50 years of experience across industries and a vast network of over 100 sites worldwide, Jabil combines global reach with local expertise to deliver both scalable and customized solutions. Our commitment extends beyond business success as we strive to build sustainable processes that minimize environmental impact and foster vibrant and diverse communities around the globe. Discover more at www.jabil.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241113449581/en/
Ensuring workplace safety is of the highest possible standard is of utmost importance regardless of the industry you work in. Many jobs though pose much more risk to employees than others. Lone workers for example, have to contend with long periods working by themselves. Should an incident occur, it can be many hours before someone passes by or arrives to take over the shift. By then, injuries or criminal activity could have developed into something much worse.

Luckily, many businesses have lone worker policies in place to ensure lines of communication remain open, periods of lone work are reduced, and security features are enhanced.

For workers in retail, security, care, construction, agriculture and transport, among others, lone working is common. Such industries can see safe working practices become risky and without the appropriate policies and procedures in place, the chances of injury or crime can be vastly increased.

This is why many businesses now look to arm their workers with a robust man down alarm device alongside other safety measures. In this blog, we look at how you can arm your team with the right man down alarm for your business, and make sure safety is enhanced at all times.

What is a man down alarm and how does it work?

A man down alarm, also known as a fall detection alarm, is a feature provided by lone worker focused safety device companies.

Should an employee fall from height or have a slip or trip, a lone worker device will activate its man down or fall detection feature and alert an alarm receiving centre.

It may then open up a two-way channel of communication between the person who fell and the handler at the receiving centre. This will allow an assessment of the situation to be made where contact with emergency services will be made if needed. The call handler will then also contact the relevant people such as other workers in the vicinity or the fallers management team.

Why is a man down alarm necessary?

With lone working perhaps more prominent than ever, it is important for businesses to arm their teams with appropriate safety tech. Man down alarms provide an added element of safety and should be given to all lone workers to help with:

 Increased feeling of safety and wellbeing when completing tasks that may put them at risk.

 Rapid response should an accident occur

 Preventing risks to health and safety

 Giving team members peace of mind that they are protected

 Safety compliance and regulatory guidelines

How do you choose the right man down alarm for your business?

The lone working safety device industry is filled with an array of products, each lending themselves to various situations and industries. Some might be more suited to loud environments; others may be better by being discreet. Some will provide live monitoring; others will offer connections to a dedicated alarm receiving centre. Thankfully, most bases are covered by the assortment of devices and features on offer. Weve highlighted a selection of the things you should take into consideration before choosing the man down alarm you need.

What does your company need?

Before choosing a man down alarm, look at the security risks for employees within your business. As we mentioned earlier, a discreet alarm may be a preferred choice in some cases. What is the working environment your employees will find themselves in? Do you need a loud alarm? Something streamlined perhaps? Or simply an app added to their phone.

Consider ease of use

You want a system that is easy to use and possibly integrates with your existing tools. Safety doesnt have to be complicated so look for a device or app that provides comprehensive support but simple operation.

Assess reliability and responsiveness

You want a man down alarm that can provide support no matter the working environment or time of day. Risk can spring from anywhere, so it is better to ensure employees are protected no matter what. Many devices and apps offer rapid connectivity to an alarm receiving centre and offer 24/7 coverage. Ensure your choice of man down alarm provides this and that it can trigger its alarm effectively and quickly.

Durability and performance

A man down alarm is there to alert people to falls, slips, and trips, if these occur at height the impact could be significant. You need a robust device that wont see its performance compromised if it takes a sudden impact.

Location reporting

Many fall detection alarms offer live location tracking, enabling help to be sent to the precise location of the incident. With built-in GPS or a What3Words integration, a speedy resolution can be made possible.

Check-in & check-out features

Should lone workers be spending long periods working by themselves, it can be handy to set a protocol for informing colleagues of their safety. For example, you could have it that every three hours, an employee makes colleagues aware that they are ok. Many devices and apps allow for this and have this feature as standard.

Taking the above into consideration, you should be able to find a suitable lone worker alarm with fall detection that gives you and your team not only added peace of mind but full coverage in the event of an incident.
A FUNDRAISING campaign has been set up to help a 50-year-old mother of three who suffered a life-changing stroke and who now needs to have her home adapted to her needs.

Edel Canning (nee Brennan) from Carlow town suffered a massive stroke in March, which has left her with a lifelong disability. Edel is the mother of three children  Laura (17), Emma (14) and 11-year-old Sarah  and was working as a pharmaceutical rep when she suffered the stroke while she was in bed one night. Edel tried to call for help but couldnt cry out so she banged on the bedroom wall instead. Fortunately, Laura heard her and ran to help her.

Edel was rushed to Beaumont Hospital, where she was cared for until she was transferred to St Lukes Hospital, Kilkenny. Shes now at home in Feltham Hall, Carlow and is due to start rehab in the National Rehabilitation Centre, Dun Laoghaire this week.

Edel is the mother of three children. She was a working woman all of her life and all that has been pulled from under her, explained her sister Fiona. Laura saved her life. They are all incredible girls. Just like Edels life was changed overnight, so was theirs. Edel is the daughter of Patrick Brennan from Oakley Park, Carlow and is sister to Fiona, Karen, Patrick, Roly and Dwayne.

Her family has set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds so that her house can be fitted out to suit her needs, such as a downstairs bedroom and bathroom. The target has been set for 100,000 and already almost 35,500 has been raised.

On the GoFundMe page, her family wrote: Edel has fought valiantly for her life, and thanks to her incredible strength, she has emerged from that battle. However, the journey ahead is far from easy. She now faces permanent disabilities that challenge her every day. After enduring 32 long weeks in the hospital, separated from her precious girls, she has now returned home while awaiting further treatment. But her home  once a sanctuary  now poses significant challenges that prevent her from being able to live safely and comfortably in her home. Edels resilience is inspiring, but to truly thrive she needs a home that meets her new needs. She is awaiting admission to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dublin for specialised care and in the meantime we want to ensure her home is ready for her return.

This fundraising effort is aimed at helping Edel and her family adapt their home, creating a supportive, safe environment where she can focus on her recovery and be the wonderful mam she is meant to be. Edel, her daughters and the Brennan family are overwhelmed with the support the campaign has garnered, with 35,422 already raised.

People have been incredibly kind and generous. Wed like to thank the people of Carlow and everyone who has generously donated money, said Fiona.

The fundraising campaign is continuing so if youd like to contribute, go to www.gofundme.com/f/support-edels-journey-after-stroke.
CONCERN has been expressed about the excessive clearing of vegetation along the River Barrow in recent weeks and its destructive impact of local wildlife.

... And how it looks after Waterways Ireland's clearance programme near Maganey bridge

The Nationalist has learned that as part of Waterways Irelands general maintenance programme on the River Barrow, large sections of vegetation have been cleared, particularly along the riparian, an area on the bank of the river.

Large areas have been cleared in a way that has never happened before, said Art Mooney, a Carlow resident and regular walker alongside the Barrow. Its just above Maganey bridge on the Athy side. I would call it excessive clearing; areas have been cleared that normally wouldnt be touched.

It is such a fabulous resource and its such a pity to see it being treated in such a way, said Art.

The Save the Barrow Track Facebook page has also stated its disgust at the recent Waterways Ireland work.

Kilometres of river riparian have been boned with an auger, clearing the banks of any plants, which provide cover, food and shade for fish and birds over the winter, it says. Any trees have been hacked back to make sure there are no perches for the likes of dippers and kingfisher. A large patch of wildflowers has been cleared above Maganey bridge, which was a haven for native wildflowers and was one of the few places that one could consistently see the Common Blue Butterfly. People Before Profit general election candidate cllr Adrienne Wallace has called on minister Malcolm Noonan to weigh in on the apparent environmental damage that Waterways Ireland has caused to the Barrow.

It seems that Waterways Ireland have become a law unto themselves, said cllr Wallace. They have recently cleared a large patch of native flowers above Maganey bridge, which was one of the few places where the Common Blue Butterfly could be observed. Various other species of butterfly were known to also lay their eggs on the sorrel there. In addition, further up the river, nearly half an acre of rushes was also cleared, with no obvious explanation for these works.

Questions need to be asked and the Green minister should be focused on ensuring any works carried out by Waterways Ireland are done in tandem with preserving the local biodiversity, said cllr Wallace. Whats especially shocking is that this is a Special Area of Conservation and a Natura 2000 site. In a statement to The Nationalist, Waterways Ireland said: We are mindful of our statutory remit to undertake the care, management, control, maintenance, repair, improvement and development of the canals and other canal property, adding that this includes the Barrow Line and Navigation.

We maintain the Barrow Trackway throughout the year so that it is safe for recreational use, such as walking and also so that Waterways Ireland vehicles and machinery can use the trackway for operational reasons. We only cut adjoining grassy verges and bankside vegetation once a year. This is a health and safety measure to mitigate the growth of overhanging branches into the Barrow. Branches of this type can cause safety risks to people using the water. Waterways Ireland is a partner of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan and is careful to ensure that this work is carried out in accordance with their guidelines, the statement read.

Waterways Ireland clarified that hedgerows are also cut once a year, between September and the end of February, which is deemed to be the minimum necessary to ensure that the trackway remains open for use by the public and Waterways Ireland.

In relation to the works referred to upstream of Maganey bridge, these are confined to the Barrow Trackway. They are an essential part of the maintenance of this trackway structure. The vegetation maintenance works involve hedge and grass/scrub cutting only, Waterways Ireland concluded.
Michael Bolton

A Sinn Fein TD has said there should be a citizens' assembly set up by the next government to discuss a united Ireland.

Donegal TD Padraig Mac Lochlainn was speaking on the prospect of Irish unity ahead of the general election on November 29th.

Back in September, former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said every party running in the next general election should make manifesto pledges that Irish unification is an objective, not an aspiration.

Speaking to Breakingnews.ie, Mr Mac Lochlainn said a citizens' assembly should be created by the next government to examine key aspects of a united Ireland.

"The issue for me is that the demographics are clear in the north of Ireland, the pathway is inevitable here, so we need to prepare responsibly.

"I don't want to be triumphal about that and say in 10 years' time, we will have more nationalists than unionists, and we are going to win the vote. That is not a responsible way to proceed.

"We need to now have a citizens' assembly looking at a number of different areas, like what type of health service we would have in a new Ireland.

"What protection can we give to unionists in a United Ireland? What type of economy, what sort of defence strategy would we have? There are all sorts of questions that are presented.

"I don't want it to be like Brexit. I don't want it to be a cliff edge vote that throws the whole place into crisis, as we have seen in Britain. Absolute upheaval that they have faced over there.

"I think we have the breathing space now to prepare responsibly, so people are very clear what they are voting for when the time comes."

Speaking on the Occupied Territories Bill, Mr Mac Lochlainn criticised the Government for not implementing the bill before the general election.

The Occupied Territories Bill seeks to ban trade with illegal settlements in territories deemed occupied under international law.

The Bill went through the Dail five years ago, but was dropped for the 2020 Programme for Government.

Mr Mac Lochlainn has doubts whether Fianna Fail and the Green Party wanted to implement the bill.

"I am not convinced, despite the claims of Fianna Fail and the Green Party, that they want to pass the legislation.

"This is about not doing commerce with war criminals, yet we cannot bring sanctions and laws in that regard. I actually think it is shameful it wasn't done, but certainly shameful considering what has happened in Gaza.

"When it came to South Africa back in the day and the apartheid regime there, Ireland led the way. It started with workers in Dunnes Stores, who wouldn't handle fruit from South Africa. It worked its way through society until the government took a stand.

"We actually led the way back then in the 1980s. Why can't we do it now?"
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Total shipments of Portland and blended cement, including imports, in the USA and Puerto Rico amounted to 9.926Mt in August, down 8.9 per cent YoY from the 10.901Mt recorded in August 2023, according to data published by the US Geological Survey (USGS). Excluding for sales to Puerto Rico and overseas territories, cement consumption in the US fell 8.8 per cent YoY to 9.804Mt, down from 10.752Mt a year earlier. The key consuming states were, in descending order, Texas, California, Florida, Ohio and Georgia.



Extreme weatherthree tropical storms and the fourth warmest summer on recordcombined with uncertainty ahead of the election will have impacted production and sales during the month.



The key producing states for Portland and blended cement were, in descending order, Texas, Missouri, California, Florida and Alabama.



Masonry cement shipments amounted to 191,391t, down 6.7 per cent YoY, from 206,712t in August 2023, with Florida the leading producer.



Clinker production, excluding Puerto Rico, saw a 5.1 per cent YoY decline in August to 6.524Mt, from 6.877Mt a year earlier.



Hydraulic cement, including white cement, and clinker imports amounted to 2.296Mt a decrease of 6.3 per cent YoY from 2.449Mt in August 2023. Turkey (525,060t, down 34.1 per cent YoY), Vietnam (490,666t, up 15.2 per cent YoY) and Canada (472,526t, down 14.6 per cent YoY) were the top three sources of imports.



January-August 2024

In the January to August period, total shipments of Portland and blended cement, including imports, in the US and Puerto Rico amounted to 68.55Mt, down 5.8 per cent YoY from the 72.771Mt recorded in the same period of 2023. Excluding for sales to Puerto Rico and overseas territories, cement consumption in the US fell 5.1 per cent YoY to 67.873Mt, down from 71.540Mt in January-August 2023.



Masonry cement shipments amounted to 1.505Mt, down seven per cent YoY from 1.611Mt reported in the same period of 2023.



Clinker production, excluding Puerto Rico, amounted to 46.761Mt, down 5.5 per cent YoY, from 49.5Mt in January-August 2023.



Hydraulic cement, including white cement, and clinker imports amounted to 17.414Mt, a decline of 5.4 per cent YoY from January-August 2023. Turkey was the key source of imports accounting for 4.948Mt, down 13.6 per cent YoY, followed by Vietnam (3.182Mt, up 17 per cent YoY) and Canada (3.101Mt, unchanged YoY).



Imported clinker amounted to 653,323t, down 2.9 per cent YoY. Canada was the key source of clinker to the US, accounting for 293,669t.
Violet Larrabee, 93, died comfortably at home on November 6, 2024, in McDonald, Tennessee, after a brief illness.

Violet was born in Austin, Mn. on Dec. 23, 1930, to her Polish-immigrant father, John Kereluk (1894-1982) and her Austrian-immigrant mother, Mary Kereluk (1899-1943). After her mothers death, 12-year-old Violet was raised by her sister Anna Babb (1915-2001).

Violet was graduated as Valedictorian of the Class of 1949 from Maplewood Academy, Hutchinson, Mn., and went on to receive her Bachelor of Science degree from The College of Medical Evangelists School of Nursing, Loma Linda, CA, in 1953.

Two years later, she married Lawrence G. Larrabee (1934-1999). They lived in 13 different communities, including the country of Peru, where they were missionaries.

They are survived by their children; Jon (Lisa); Clark (Jeannie); Jodi (Michael) Brewer; grandchildren Kelsey (David) McAuliffe; Connor (Angela); and David; along with great-grandchildren Miles, Violet, and Nevin.

Of all the places she lived, Maine was her favorite, and she loved spending time at the lake (including this past summer) watching her family enjoy lake life.

Violet excelled at being a nurse, wife and mother. Later in life, the professional job she enjoyed the most was as an office nurse in a pediatricians office in Maine, where she was loved by the doctor, parents and patients alike.

She was a lady of faith and a member of the Fletcher (NC) Seventh-day Adventist Church, and also regularly attended the Collegedale (TN) Seventh-day Adventist Church in recent years. Her Bible and prayer life sustained her throughout the good times and bad. Violets favorite Bible chapter was the 103rd Psalm of David, which perfectly describes her walk with the Lord. As she neared the end of her life on earth, she was excited to finally be able to meet Jesus.

Violet's life was a testament to her kind spirit and nurturing heart. She will be deeply missed by her family, friends, and all who were fortunate enough to have known her.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Community Foundation of Henderson County, specifically to the Hurricane Helene Disaster Relief Recovery and Rebuilding Fund. For more information, please contact (828) 697-6224 or visit cfhcforever.org.

Visit the online obituary www.heritagechattanooga.com to post tributes and share memories.

Arrangements are by Heritage Funeral Home, East Brainerd Chapel.
Nov 14 (NHK) - Seven & i Holdings says it has received a buyout proposal from a company linked to the founder of its Ito-Yokado supermarket chain.

The offer is apparently aimed at countering takeover proposals from a major Canadian convenience store operator.

Informed sources say the management buyout proposal involves Ito-Kogyo buying Seven & i shares and taking the Japanese retail giant private.

Ito-Kogyo, a company managing the Ito-Yokado founder's assets, holds more than 8 percent of Seven & i's shares. The firm is said to be negotiating with financial institutions to secure financing for the purchase.

Seven & i's market capitalization is around 6 trillion yen, or 39 billion dollars.

The Japanese retail giant said in October it had received a revised acquisition proposal from Alimentation Couche Tard. Sources say the Canadian company raised its offer to over 45 billion dollars.

Seven & i said in a statement it is committed to what it called an ''objective review of all alternatives" to unlock shareholder value.

The retail giant said a special committee of only outside directors is reviewing the latest proposal.
A land rush for the Tennessee hills that began during the pandemic is flowing strong, says Thunder Enterprises President Dane Bradshaw. That desire for spacious skies first came for Thunder Thornton's Jasper Highlands development, and now sales of lots at River Gorge Ranch are three years ahead of schedule.

The secret got out on Tennessee and our mountaintop communities, Mr. Bradshaw said. Popularity of the two Marion County developments has continued to increase, and people from 35 states have bought 545 lots at River Gorge Ranch atop Aetna Mountain. Construction has begun on 40 homes.

The on site fine dining restaurant Riverdance will open as early as summer 2025, during early phases of River Gorge Ranch. The success of Top of the Rock restaurant in Jasper Highlands convinced planners to open Riverdance as early as possible.

It certainly gave us the inspiration and the confidence, Mr. Bradshaw said.

Riverdance will be managed by SquareOne, also manager of Top of the Rock, Stir at the Choo Choo and State of Confusion on Main Street.

Their track record has been really spectacular, Mr. Bradshaw said.

A vaulted and airy breezeway shown in the most recent renderings will gain icon status for photo ops, with its wide views of the Tennessee River surrounded by forest below, he predicted.

Mr. Bradshaw said that Riverdance is more than twice the size of Top of the Rock, and it has more than twice the view. The 13,000-square-foot restaurant brings options to the secluded area, he said, and will seat more than 700 people.

An October meet-and-greet for property owners was well attended and festive, its proof of concept pioneered by Jasper Highlands, he said.

It was awesome, said Mr. Bradshaw. It was packed with 400-plus property owners who were so excited to meet one another and meet their future neighbors.

Buyers are empty-nesters and pre-retirees building a new primary residence, but Mr. Bradshaw said the proximity to Chattanooga makes River Gorge Ranch an option for second-home buyers from Chattanooga. Mr. Bradshaw said he is honored that people would choose Marion County for this important life event.

It was really rewarding to see, he said.

Owners design custom homes inspired by the architecture of Blackberry Farm in Maryville, Tn., whose architect, Summerour & Associates, designed the River Gorge Ranch model home. Mr. Bradshaw calls it mountain modern: lots of glass, natural stone and natural colors. One- to two-acre lots provide privacy without sacrificing community, Mr. Bradshaw said. The property will offer rental cabins, trails, pickleball courts and other recreation spaces. Lots start at $115,000 and go up to $700,000 or more for prime river views.

River Gorge Ranch and Jasper Highlands combined encompass over 16,929 acres, with more than 9,140 acres intentionally preserved as undeveloped wilderness. This commitment to land conservation reflects Thunder Enterprises vision of creating sustainable communities that blend seamlessly with the natural environment, it was stated.

Mr. Bradshaw said, We undoubtedly could have crammed hundreds of more lots into our communities, but we are committed to providing large, spacious homesites to our property owners and responsible development.

As cool as the restaurant is and everything else, you got to have a way to get to it, Mr. Bradshaw said. He said Thunder went above county regulations to build a strong and wide road up Aetna Mountain, a five-minute journey. River Gorge Ranchs $10 million, 8,500-foot road is built with six inches of roller-compacted concrete - delivering 2.5 times the strength of a four-inch asphalt road. The road, featuring two 12-foot travel lanes with three-foot-wide shoulders, climbs 796 feet in elevation.

The Economic and Fiscal Impact of Jasper Highlands and River Gorge Ranch on Marion County, Tennessee, an impact study by Bento J. Lobo, Ph.D., CFA, outlines the economic influence of River Gorge Ranch and its sister community, Jasper Highlands.

The economic report highlights Jasper Highlands $68.8 million investment, which has already generated $91 million in total economic output, 234 jobs and $15.3 million in household earnings in Marion County. Jasper Highlands is 38 percent of the entire countys residential property taxes, translating to effective tax relief of $146 per household, a figure projected to reach $314 by 2032, it was stated.

River Gorge Ranch is poised to follow suit with an estimated 2,150 lots and 1,720 homes by 2042, creating over 330 new jobs and contributing over $11 million annually in property and sales taxes. Once completed, the communitys total market value is projected to exceed $1.6 billion, "adding an invaluable fiscal resource for Marion County," Mr. Bradshaw said.

He added, "This report highlights the substantial contributions Jasper Highlands continues to bring and River Gorge Ranch will bring, from job creation to tax revenue that benefits every household in the county."
The Lee University School of Music will present the Senior Honors Concert on Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 7:30 p.m. in Squires Recital Hall, featuring performers selected by music faculty from the entire senior class.

We have a very gifted group of senior music majors this year, said Dr. Douglas Warner, director of applied studies in music. These performers represent the high level of musicianship for which the Lee University School of Music is known, and we look forward to showcasing their talent.

The vocalists performing include Lily Allen and Taylor Guyton, mezzo-sopranos, and Daniel Puckett, tenor.

Performing instrumentalists include YeEun Kim, piano; Austin Petitt, tenor saxophone; Alex Reid, alto saxophone; Riley Russell, soprano saxophone; Triston Teague, tuba; and Gracie Webb, piano.

The program will feature works by composers such as Denis Bedard, Ida Gotkovsky, and Giacomo Puccini, among others.

This is a free, non-ticketed event, open to the public. Squires Recital Hall is located in Lees Humanities Center on Paul Conn Parkway. Livestream viewing will be available at leeu.live.

For more information, please contact the School of Music at 614-8240 or musicinfo@leeuniversity.edu.
What are you afraid of? An airplane crashing into your house? The boogeyman? Walking under a ladder?

An online search reveals there are hundreds, many even thousands of fears. The technical term for them is phobias. There are common ones like fear of spiders (arachnophobia); fear of closed spaces (claustrophobia); fear of heights (acrophobia); fear of flying (aerophobia); and fear of crowds (agoraphobia).

There also are some less common ones, such as fear of needles (trypanophobia); fear of men (androphobia); fear of computers (cyberphobia); fear of beautiful women (venustraphobia); fear of small things (microphobia); and fear of hospitals (nosocomephobia). Theres even fear of vacuum cleaners (zuigerphobia). Do people with that phobia avoid making sweeping generalizations?

One fear most of us experience at one time or another is atychiphobia. Whats that? Its a fancy name for the fear of failure. In its most extreme form, an atychiphobic person might find daily life difficult  avoiding or postponing tasks, suffering from panic or anxiety, or feeling scared about taking risks or embracing growth opportunities.

Ive been atychiphobic at times, resisting the desire to try or learn new or unfamiliar things, thinking, What if I try and fail? I remember years ago when I accepted a job to work with CBMC (Christian Business Mens Connection). We lived in Houston at the time and were moving to Chattanooga, so I told my pastor about our relocation and my transition to the new position.

He caught me off guard by suggesting, I think you should get up during the service and tell everyone what youll be doing. What?! (Years before I had been asked to speak at another church but became so nervous I barely got through what I had to say.) Id be staring at hundreds of faces, even though I knew many of them. What if I got up there and started stammering, or forgot what I wanted to say?

So, I responded, No, I couldnt do that. However, my pastor persisted, asking me to pray about it. I did and eventually felt God wanted me to step out of my comfort zone and trust Him. I felt anxious that Sunday morning, but prayed, Lord, enable me to tell everyone about this new door Youve given me.

When the moment came, I stepped to the pulpit and suddenly felt a sense of calm. God got me through the brief talk without making a fool of myself. Rebounding from my past failure was an important step of obedience. In the years since, the Lord has given me opportunities to speak in a variety of places.

In the Bible we encounter many individuals who suffered great failures but managed to rebound from them to experience victory in their walk with the Lord. One of my favorites is John Mark, a cousin of Barnabas, a leader in the early Church and mentor for the apostle Paul.

We first meet John Mark, also known as Mark, in Acts 12:12. He accompanied Barnabas and Paul on a missionary journey to Antioch and Cyprus, but for some unspecified reason abandoned the group at a later stop. Perhaps hed grown homesick or found traveling too arduous. In any event, at that point Mark parted ways with Barnabas and Paul.

Then he apparently reconsidered what might have been a rash decision. Barnabas and Paul were planning to revisit the cities on their first mission trip, and Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in their work? (Acts 15:37-39).

Can you blame Paul? The mission trips they were undertaking were demanding, even dangerous. As someone who placed great value on faithful men (2 Timothy 2:2), he didnt want to be held back by someone who seemed unreliable.

Barnabas, however, disagreed. It might have been the family relationship or that, as with Paul, he saw promise in John Mark that others didnt. In any event, were told, [Paul and Barnabas] had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus (Acts 15:39).

Happily, thats not the last we hear of John Mark. Barnabas must have done well in taking his cousin under his wing, because twice Paul mentions the young man in his epistles. To believers in the city of Colossae, he writes, My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you greetings, as does Mark the cousin of Barnabas. You have already received instructions about him: If he comes to you, welcome him (Colossians 4:10).

And in a letter to his protege Timothy, Paul states, Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry (2 Timothy 4:11). Hows that for a resounding word of confidence?

Even at that, the greatest testimony to John Marks rebound from failure is the fact that he is credited as the author of the gospel of Mark. Not bad for a young guy who at one point bailed during an important missionary journey.

Theres a lesson here for us all. If atychiphobia is holding us back, fear of failing because of past failures, or hesitation about trying something new or different, remember John Mark. If he can do it, so can we.

* * *



Robert J. Tamasy is a veteran journalist, former newspaper editor and magazine editor. Bob has written, co-authored and edited more than 15 books. These include the newly published, Marketplace Ambassadors; Business At Its Best: Timeless Wisdom from Proverbs for Todays Workplace; Tufting Legacies, The Heart of Mentoring, and Pursuing Life With a Shepherds Heart. A weekly business meditation he edits, Monday Manna, is translated into more than 20 languages and sent via email around the world by CBMC International. The address for his blog is www.bobtamasy.blogspot.com. His email address is btamasy@comcast.net.
Thomas A. Varner of Hixson, Tennessee, passed away on November 12, 2024, surrounded by his family.

Thomas was a loving husband and father dedicated to his family. He is survived by his beloved wife of over 62 years, Carolyn Taylor Varner, his four sons: Daniel E. Varner, Andrew W. Varner, Derek J. Varner and Jason T. Varner, seven beloved grandchildren: Sarah Connor, Zane Varner, Vance Varner, Brett, Varner, Cameron Allen, Audrey Varner, and two beloved great grandchildren: Raelyn Connor and Rowan Connor.

He was predeceased by his parents Andrew W. Varner and Mary Zahniser Varner and his two brothers James (Jim) Varner and William (Bill) Varner and his sister Sue Varner Conrad.

Tom was born on Jan. 28, 1934. He grew up and went to high school in Waynesburg, Greene County, Pa. After graduation, Tom joined the Navy where he served during the Korean War as a Machinist Mate 3rd Class on a diesel submarine, The USS Tiru. After being honorably discharged, he enrolled in West Virgina University where he received a bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering.

In June 1963, Tom married his beloved wife, Carolyn, and shortly after moved to Huntsville, Al., where they started their family. He worked as an engineer for General Electric where he had the opportunity to do design work for NASA and the Skylab Space Station project. In 1977, Tom took his family to Hixson, where the remainder of his career, he worked with TVA and in the nuclear power field.

Tom loved the outdoors and was an avid fisherman. The hours he spent fishing were numerous, the amount of fish he caught was less so. He passed this passion for the outdoors onto his sons. He was a member of the VFW and continued to stay in touch with his Navy shipmates, attending and participating in many ceremonies and reunions. He enjoyed restoring old military (Willis) jeeps and participating in veteran parades and celebrations.

We would be remiss if we didnt mention Toms dry sense of humor. He was never the most talkative person in a crowd but you could always tell he was listening. His comments were either insightful or hilarious, depending on the situation.

Graveside services with military honors for Tom will be held at 2:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 25, at the Chattanooga National Cemetery with Brother Richard Floyd officiating. There will be no visitation at the funeral home.

Please share your memories of Tom at hamiltonfhofchattanooga.com

Arrangements are by Hamilton Funeral Home & Cremation Services, 4506 Hixson Pike, Hixson, Tn. 37343.
Advancing quantum science is a national priority of the federal government, and a proposal to establish the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Quantum Center has been awarded $3.5 million from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).The funding from NIST, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, will be awarded over a four-year period in support of four distinct focus areas, according to UTC Vice Chancellor for Research Reinhold Mann.Those are infrastructure; education and outreach; use of case-driven research and development; and business development to ensure the Centers sustainability.In 2022, UTC started an initiative to establish a program of excellence in Quantum Information Science and Engineering, or QISE, with a strong focus on education and workforce development, and to establish use cases for QISE in Urban Systems and Energy Systems.This includes innovation in cybersecurity, AI (artificial intelligence), mobility and transportation, safe and resilient energy supply and related applications, Mann said.Since then, UTC has become a member of the Chattanooga Quantum Collaborative, has established an access node on campus to the first commercial quantum network in the United Statescreated by EPBand with this funding will be able to accelerate the evolution of the quantum initiative into a Quantum Center.The focus on quantum information science and engineering is a new direction for UTC. The Quantum Center represents important opportunities for our students, the community and UTC research collaborations with other institutions.The infrastructure aspect of the Quantum Center involves resources necessary for connecting and adapting to the EPB quantum network as it continues to develop.The projects education focus involves both curriculum and advanced degrees at UTC, as well as community outreach and engagement.Within the next year, we plan to add courses to our certificate program in Quantum Information Science and Engineering so as to offer a minor in QISE, Mann said. Soon thereafter, we plan to offer M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in QISE.The outreach piece also involves the UTC Center for Professional Education (CPE) developing materials for K-12 school outreach with an emphasis on underserved and rural communities. CPE plans to create quantum-specific programming for teachers by engaging K-12 partners and UTC experts in QISE education. In collaboration with EPB, content will be developed to introduce select high school counselors and youth agencies to enable a foundational understanding of quantum and facilitate discussions on its implications for student populations in Hamilton County Schools, Mann said.Developing use cases via research and developmentthe projects third focus areawill involve the investigation of applications of quantum sensing, quantum computing and machine learning, quantum networking and quantum simulation in high-value application areas.Thats a high priority in the research community nationally and the Quantum Center will strategically align investment of R&D with areas of national and regional need, Mann said. For example, with support from TVA, our quantum researchers will evaluate quantitative measures of performance for quantum computing compared to classical approaches in complex optimization problems.Similarly, we will launch projects in collaboration with the UTC Center for Urban Informatics and Progress to evaluate quantum advantage in developing intelligent systems to solve complex mobility and transportation problems in smart cities with overall goals to improve quality of life and sustainability of growing communities.The business development and sustainability effort of the projects fourth focus area calls for securing ongoing funding through a combination of strategies. Those will include publicly and privately resourced program development and research projects, faculty support, graduate fellowships and the like.Dr. Tian Li, UTC assistant professor of physics and chief technology officer for the Quantum Center, said the funding award promises new and unprecedented opportunities for the Center and the University.The $3.5-million funding comes at a pivotal moment, enabling UTC as an emerging research institution to expand its role in the forefront of quantum information science and engineering. This timely investment empowers us to undertake ambitious, high-impact research in areas like distributed quantum sensing, quantum control and multipartite entanglement generation, Li said.With these resources, were equipped not only to make significant scientific strides but also to elevate our research capabilities, further positioning UTC as a leader in advancing quantum technology and delivering transformative solutions to benefit society.These efforts will support UTCs mission to serve as a critical resource to the community and the state, Mann added.In equipping UTC to establish new partnerships and grow existing ones across the UT system, with other universities in the region and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, our Quantum Center is going to be an important asset for economic development in Tennessee, Mann said. The Center will be an important part of fulfilling the Universitys role in workforce and talent development and offer unparalleled opportunities for our students.
Nokian Tyres set a monthly production record in October at its North American factory in Dayton. The milestone comes as the company finishes infrastructure upgrades, optimizes efficiency and has hired workers at the facility, where it produces all-season and all-weather tires for drivers in the United States and Canada.

Since opening in 2019, our team has remained committed to steadily expanding our output and helping our colleagues grow, said Nokian Tyres Dayton Factory Operations Director David Korda. It is rewarding to reach new heights in our growth journey, at the same time we are adding jobs and becoming more efficient than ever.

The production record reflects rigorous training and equipment upgrades aimed at increasing daily yield while maintaining high quality standards. The team in Dayton stands at approximately 500 team members in recent months as the company hired employees to staff the new finished goods warehouse it opened this summer.

An automated gantry system came online in recent weeks to deliver tires from the production building to the warehouse. The global tiremaker ships tires from the finished goods warehouse in Dayton to its nine-warehouse network across North America, from which the company serves dealers in the United States and Canada.

Nokian Tyres has won awards for the operations and culture at its Southeast Tennessee campus, which opened five years ago last month. It received Company of the Year honors from the Chattanooga Regional Manufacturers Association in 2021 and was the first Rhea County company to win a Tennessee Governors Environmental Stewardship award.

The factory possesses ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001 certifications for its quality, sustainability and safety, respectively. The factory is the first LEED v4 Silver-certified tire production building in the world and is partially powered by solar energy. Onsite solar panels provide three megawatt-hours of energy every year.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanoogas Dr. DeAnna Beasley and Terrence Banks have been selected to the prestigious 2024-2025 All-Southern Conference Faculty and Staff Team.Dr. Beasley, a UC Foundation associate professor in the Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science, and Mr. Banks, associate director of recruitment in Undergraduate Admissions, were chosen to represent UTC alongside faculty and staff members from each of the 10 SoCon institutions. Although selection criteria vary by school, all honorees are recognized for their significant contributions to service, campus life, teaching and research.Award recipients will receive an engraved plaque presented by Southern Conference Commissioner Michael Cross at the Mocs mens basketball game on Jan.9, 2025, vs. the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.Dr. Beasley, a UTC faculty member since 2016, is widely recognized for her dedication to both teaching and research. Since coming to the University, she has taught across all levels of the biology curriculum, including courses such as Principles of Biology, Ecology, Evolution, Ant Ecology and Urban Ecology. In her lab courses, she creates hands-on learning environments where students can engage in research and connect with the scientific community.Her commitment to students extends beyond the classroom, as she actively mentors both undergraduate and graduate students in research focused on urban ecology and the effects of urbanization on insect populations and biodiversity. Dr. Beasley has garnered more than $1.8 million in external funding for her research, including leading a three-year National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates program that aims to study the socio-ecological role of urban greenways.She also has several citizen science projects that are ongoing throughout the city. As an example, visitors to four area parksRenaissance, Heritage, Carver and Warnerwill find camera traps documenting the change in native areas of the parks.To date, Dr. Beasley has published 10 papers with student coauthors and interdisciplinary collaborators. In recognition of her teaching excellence, she was honored by her UTC colleagues with the Dr. John R. Freeman Award in September 2023.She is also a dedicated campus leaderserving on both the Honors College Advisory Committee and the Africana Studies Advisory Committeeand manages the Biology, Geology and Environmental Science departments Instagram and Facebook accounts.Dr. Beasley attended Wofford University in South Carolina as an undergraduatewhere she was a four-year letter winner on that SoCon institutions soccer team and one of the teams captains her senior year.Talk about coming full circle. My experience as an athlete shaped the way I approached my life; it gave me a sense of discipline and an ability to prioritize goals, Dr. Beasley said. Being a student-athlete really forces you to do that because you have to balance being a competitive athlete with performing well in the classroom, and that is an aspect of my life Im very proud ofbeing able to play for four years, graduate with my biology degree, then go on and pursue my Ph.D.It certainly wasnt planned this way, but I love that Im still within the Southern Conference. I feel like it has nurtured and supported my career from undergrad through my faculty experience, and Im very grateful.Mr. Banks, a first-generation college student who began working at UTC during his undergraduate days, is a two-time alumnus of the Universityearning a bachelors degree in exercise science in 2013 and a Master of Public Administration degree in 2019.After graduating from Raleigh Egypt High School in Memphis in 2008where he was a three-sport athlete participating in soccer, golf and tennisMr. Banks traveled across the state to come to UTC and quickly made Chattanooga his new home. During his freshman year, he began working as a counselor for the GEAR UP programa federally funded initiative aimed at increasing college readiness and success for low-income middle and high school students by providing academic support, mentoring and resourceswhich became the launch point for his future career.As an undergraduate, he worked in UTC Housing and Residence Life as a conference assistant and resident assistant. After working as a graduate assistant in the Office of Equity and Diversity for two years, he moved into Undergraduate Admissions in 2015progressing from admissions counselor to senior counselor to diversity outreach coordinator to assistant director. He was named associate director of recruitment in 2022.In his current role, Mr. Banks supervises a team of admissions counselors and leads the recruitment process, including tracking recruitment strategies.This University means everything to me. Honestly, it has changed my trajectory, Mr. Banks said. UTC has been instrumental in developing the man that stands before you in terms of being confident in my ability to speak, in terms of wanting to be a difference maker, because before I came to collegeI just figured Id get a college degree and go back home.Finding my space in Chattanooga meant a lot to me; its very different from what I was used to. So I just opened myself up to the cityand Chattanooga and UTC received me very well.
Tennessees unemployment rate remains near its all-time low and well below the U.S. rate, according to the latest data from the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.The states seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.3 percent in October, an increase of one-tenth of a percentage point over the previous month. Despite the uptick, Tennessees rate is eight-tenths of a percentage point below the national rate of 4.1 percent.Earlier this year, Tennessee recorded a rate of 3 percent  its lowest ever  three months in a row.The states October rate of 3.3 percent is two-tenths of a percentage point lower than its rate in October 2023.The U.S. rate of 4.1 percent held steady from the month before and is three-tenths of a percentage point higher than it was in October 2023.Between September and October 2024, Tennessee employers added 2,600 nonfarm jobs. The largest increase was in the education and health services sector. The government and manufacturing sectors accounted for the next-largest increases.Over the past year, total nonfarm employment across the state increased by 45,200 jobs. The education and health services sector accounted for the biggest gains, followed by the trade, transportation, and utilities sector and the mining, logging and construction sector.TDLWD has prepared a complete analysis of the states October 2024 unemployment data, which is available here November 17-23 is National Apprenticeship Week. Tennessee is celebrating all month long with conferences and events.The proven earn-and-learn model allows apprentices to collect a paycheck from day one while growing their skills through on-the-job training and related education. Employers, meanwhile, gain qualified, productive workers who tend to stay on long after completing their apprenticeships. Tennessee currently has more than 9,500 apprentices and 431 active programs. More information about becoming an apprentice or starting a registered apprenticeship program is available here The state of Tennessee will release county unemployment data on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 1:30 p.m. CST.
The Tennessee RiverLine, an initiative of University of Tennessee Extension, has been awarded a $500,000 Area Development grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) and Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development to support the development of comprehensive Planning and Design Standards. These standards will help accelerate the creation of new river experience amenities along the 652-mile stretch of the Tennessee River, benefitting residents and visitors throughout the region.The 18-month project will be led by a professional consulting team in collaboration with the Tennessee RiverLine's Planning and Design staff and network of partners.It will deliver a first-of-its-kind technical resource with planning and design recommendations that inspire and empower river communities, landowners and public land managers, and their capital project partners to develop river access areas, riverside parks, trails, campsites and more. The resource will also address shoreline stabilization, habitat enhancement and signage. The standards will guide new recreation infrastructure investments to align with industry best practices, relevant policies and the Tennessee RiverLines guiding principles.This resource will accelerate investments in amenities that enhance the quality of life, grow the regions outdoor economy and provide healthy lifestyle opportunities, said Brad Collett, executive director of the Tennessee RiverLine and professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. It also brings innovative thought leadership to rural and distressed communities that may not otherwise have access to such creative capacity, demonstrating our commitment to equitable river access and resource stewardship.Officials said, "The project will help underserved populations by offering infrastructure design recommendations that overcome barriers to river access and support sustainable recreation development in rural areas. Additionally, the initiative aligns with UTs mission as a modern land-grant institution, offering innovative solutions to regional challenges through collaboration and thought leadership. This mission aligns with ARCs commitment to building community capacity and strengthening economic growth in Appalachia."At ARC, we know that connecting our Appalachian communities through outdoor recreation opportunities boosts local tourism, supports the hospitality industry and accelerates business development for gear manufacturers and outdoor tour companies, said ARC Federal Co-Chair Gayle Manchin. Having experienced the Tennessee RiverLine firsthand, I have no doubt that this project will not only attract visitors to the towns along the Tennessee River but will catalyze greater economic growth for the entire Appalachian region.The Tennessee RiverLine is an initiative of UT Extension, with principal partners UT Knoxville and Tennessee Valley Authority, and is a continuous system of outdoor recreation experiences along the Tennessee Rivers 652-mile reach. The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture is comprised of the Herbert College of Agriculture, UT College of Veterinary Medicine, UT AgResearch and UT Extension. Through its land-grant mission of research, teaching and extension, the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture touches lives and provides Real. Life. Solutions. to Tennesseans and beyond.For more information about the Tennessee RiverLine, visit www.tennesseeriverline.org.
Bodo Moller Chemie GmbH announced its expansion into the Japanese market with the establishment of Bodo Moeller Chemie Japan K.K. This strategic move marks a significant milestone in the companys growth strategy and strengthens its commitment to serving the Asian market.

Julian Bashore (l.), Managing Director & Representative Director of Bodo Moeller Chemie Japan K.K., and Dr. Christoph Schnoll (r.), Vice President of Technology of Bodo Moller Chemie, present the future plans for the new entity in Tokyo. Bodo Moller Chemie

Bodo Moeller Chemie Japan K.K., officially incorporated on August 23, 2024, will operate from a sales office in Tokyo, with warehouse capabilities in Nagoya. This positioning allows the company to efficiently serve customers throughout Japan, tapping into the countrys robust manufacturing capabilities, particularly in sectors such as automotive, batteries for electric vehicles, electronics manufacturing, and aerospace.

Frank Haug, CEO of Bodo Moller Chemie Group, expressed enthusiasm about the expansion: I am delighted to make this significant investment in Japan, a market that represents multiple lucrative opportunities for Bodo Moller Chemie. Our projected growth in Japan will dovetail with the consistent double-digit increase in revenues we have achieved every year in Asia since 2015. This expansion is a crucial step in broadening our geographical footprint and offering customers worldwide an exceptional range of products and decades of expertise.

To lead this important venture, the company has appointed Julian Bashore as Managing Director & Representative Director of Bodo Moeller Chemie Japan K.K. A graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Bashore brings over 25 years of experience in the specialty chemicals industry, with a proven track record of market introduction and expansion in Japan.

In Julian Bashore, we have found a seasoned, competent leader with proven success in market entry, market expansion, and ROI in Japan, added Haug. His expertise will be invaluable as we establish and grow our presence in this key market.

Bashore expressed his commitment to the new role, stating, It is truly an honor to be selected as the first employee in Japan. I will leverage Bodo Moller Chemies vast product portfolio with my experience in building businesses to win new customers in this opportunity-rich country. In addition to my plans for achieving sustainable organic growth, I also see acquisitions as a complementary approach to expanding our presence more swiftly in the Japanese market.

Building on its global partnerships with renowned manufacturers such as BASF, Dow, DuPont, Evonik, Henkel, Huntsman and Merck, Bodo Moller Chemie will offer Japanese customers a wide range of adhesives, sealants, and other specialty chemical solutions. The company will also provide its signature technical consulting and application technology services, including adhesive testing capabilities.
TOKYO, Nov 14 (News On Japan) - A 65-year-old American tourist, Hays Steve Lee, was arrested on suspicion of property damage after reportedly carving letters into the torii gate at Meiji Shrine, Tokyo's prominent cultural landmark.

According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Lee arrived in Japan on October 11th for a family tour with four relatives. During his visit, he allegedly engraved the initials of his family members into the shrines torii gate.

In questioning, Lee admitted to the allegations, saying, There is no mistake.
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Home News Trump's defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth opposes women in combat, 'woke' ideology in military

Pete Hegseth, who was announced Tuesday as President-elect Donald Trump's choice as secretary of defense, went viral for a recent clip expressing opposition to women in combat.

Speaking during an interview last week on "The Shawn Ryan Show" podcast, the 44-year-old former Fox & Friends host who served as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard and was deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay said that the presence of women makes high-stress combat situations more dangerous.

Pete Hegseth 5 days ago: "I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles." pic.twitter.com/0W3LDSakud 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 November 13, 2024

"Everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat, means casualties are worse," Hegseth said. "I'm straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles  it hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated."

"We've all served with women, and they're great. Our institutions don't have to incentivize that in places where traditionally  not traditionally, over human history  men in those positions are more capable," he added.

Hegseth said racial diversity in the military should be commended, but gender diversity is not the same because of the inherent physical differences between men and women.

By allowing women to engage in combat roles, Hegseth warned, "we've changed the standards in putting them there, which means you've changed the capability of that unit."

Former President Barack Obama's Defense Secretary Ash Carter allowed women to participate in all combat roles starting in 2016, which opened them to become Green Berets, Army Rangers and combatant-craft crewmen who transport Navy SEALs.

Hegseth, who earned two Bronze Stars, also served as a former executive director for Vets for Freedom and former CEO of Concerned Veterans for America. He was floated as a potential head of the Department of Veterans Affairs during Trump's first term.

Hegseth has been outspoken about his opposition to the "woke" ideology allegedly seeping into the U.S. Armed Forces.

"First of all, you've got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs," Hegseth told Ryan of how the U.S. military should be reformed. "Any general that was involved, any general, admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI/woke sh has got to go."

He also advised purging the military academies of such a worldview.

In his 2024 book The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, excerpts of which were highlighted by Mediaite, Hegseth portrayed some on the left as "domestic enemies" who have been attempting to impose a "woke ideology" on the U.S. military by promulgating diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory within the ranks.

"While the post-9/11 generation of patriots spent two decades fighting enemies abroad, we allowed America's domestic enemies at home to gobble up cultural, political and spiritual territory. Overextended, our rear guard was exposed  and the enemy pounced," he wrote, adding that "just like an enemy at war, the radical Left never stops moving and planning."

"The radical Left never takes a day off and uses every avenue  political, cultural, and educational  to push its agenda," he added.

If Hegseth is confirmed, he will assume leadership at the Pentagon as military enlistment plummets despite a gathering storm of global conflicts, including Iran's escalating involvement in the Israel-Hamas war, Russia's strengthening alliance with North Korea amid the Russo-Ukrainian War and an increasingly aggressive China.

Hegseth's nomination has been met with ridicule from national security officials and defense analysts questioning his experience for the job, according to Politico.
Home News Friends shocked Jackie Shroyer charged in murder of missionary husband

Friends of Jackie Shroyer, who was recently charged in connection with the death of her missionary husband, Beau Shroyer, are reeling in shock at allegations that the mother of five plotted with three men in the southern African country to carry out the violent murder of her late husband on Oct. 25.

I just dont have any words, Carl Gessell, a friend of the couple in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, told The New York Post. Im shocked that this even happened. I cant believe she would do something like that.

Angolan authorities revealed at a press conference last Thursday that Beau Shroyer, 44, was found fatally stabbed in a thicket on the outskirts of the municipality of Humpata in Huila province, Voice of America reported.

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Manuel Halaiwa, a spokesperson for the countrys Criminal Investigation Service, said Jackie Shroyer was the mastermind behind a murder-for-hire plot involving the three men. Investigators also allege that Jackie Shroyer was involved in a romantic relationship with one of the men, Bernardino Elias, 24, who worked as a security guard for her family. The two other men have been identified as Isalino Kayoo, 23, and Gelson Ramos, 22.

There are strong suspicions here of a possibly romantic relationship in relation to the person who ordered the case and her accomplice, the citizen who was initially a guard through a private security company, but who, after ending his contract with this company, was welcomed because he seemed to be a good person very close to the couple and was hired with another salary to serve the couple, Halaiwa said.

Angolas CIS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Christian Post Tuesday, but The New York Post noted that Jackie Shroyer has not yet been formally charged for her role in Neau Shroyers death.

The missionary was found fatally stabbed inside his vehicle in the Palanca commune on the outskirts of the municipality of Humpata. Investigators said the accused men pretended they were having car trouble and called Beau Shroyer for help. When he arrived at the scene with his wife, she stepped away in a bush to allegedly relieve herself while her husband was attacked with a U.S.-made knife, which Jackie Shroyer had gifted to her alleged lover.

Investigators say the missionary's wife, 44, first asked her alleged lover to kill her late husband and he hired the two other men with a promise to pay $50,000 for the murder.

Jackie Shroyer allegedly paid $400 to set the stage for Beau Shroyers murder in a place where he was known to give her driving lessons. The murder was set up to look like a robbery, and the guard reportedly paid the other two men $9,000.

Some friends of the couple who were members of the Lakes Area Vineyard Church in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, before moving to Lubango to do missionary work under the auspices of SIM USA said they, too, are shocked but told The New York Post that they wanted to wait for the investigation to be completed before commenting publicly.

Gessell noted, however, that Beau Shroyer was convinced that God wanted him to go to Angola despite never doing missionary work overseas before.

Beau told me that God led him in a different path, said 45-year-old Gessell, who is also a member Lakes Area Vineyard Church.

He said he was able to help a lot of people when he got to Angola, Gessell recalled. He was a caring person, the kind of person who would give you the shirt off his back.

He told The New York Post that he was supposed to meet up with the former police officer when he visited stateside with his family over the summer, but the meeting never happened.

I cant see his wife doing that, Gessell said as he mused over the allegations. Its got to be something else. But, you know, I dont know if something happened between there and here.

Though Beau Shroyer told friends that God led him to become a missionary in Angola, family friend Cleone Stewart said it was all Jackie Shroyers idea.

Jackie had visions of helping poor children and Beau was right beside her, Stewart said.

Beau Shroyer had helped her work on the annual Detroit Lakes Festival of Birds, and she said, he was a great volunteer.

He was really good as a field trip leader, really good at describing things, Stewart said. He really knew his birds.
Home News Peanuts owner to sue NY officials over killing of beloved squirrel

The former owner of social media sensation Peanut the Squirrel has announced that he plans to file a lawsuit against New York state officials responsible for the beloved animals death.

Also known as PNut the Squirrel, the animal was taken into custody and euthanized by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) following complaints from locals.

Mark Longo, the former owner of the famous squirrel, told Jim Turpin of WETM 18 News on Wednesday that he was planning to file a complaint against state officials over his loss.

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We are going to  file a lawsuit, and well move forward with that, and well let everyone know about that when the time is right, Longo explained.

Longo, who oversees a sanctuary for more than 300 animals with expenses that Peanuts popularity helped to pay for, explained that he and his wife want to stick to the mission that we have with our nonprofit.

Its going to be hard for me to do this, but I have an obligation to the other animals here, I cant just give up, I cant just pack up and move, continued Longo.

The former owner of Peanut also said that he remains emotional about the DEC raid, which led to the death of not only Peanut but also another popular animal named Fred the Raccoon.

Its tough, you know, we have a stain in our bathroom caused by the DEC, and Im going to have to look at that one until I pull up the carpet, Longo told WETM. You know, I walk in there and I cry every day.

On the day before Halloween, the DEC removed Peanut and Fred from the couple's property in response to them allegedly illegally keeping wildlife as pets. The two animals were euthanized and tested negative for rabies.

In New York, while it is illegal to keep wild animals as pets, residents with a Wildlife Rehabilitator License can care for an injured or orphaned animal, provided they return the creature to the wild.

"Peanut did not bite anybody," Longo told WENY News. "I have had people travel the world, not the neighborhood, the world to meet Peanut and he has never bitten anybody.

There are a lot of unanswered questions that we demand an answer to and we are looking forward to the day that we get to present this to the courts so we can get explanations."

News of PNuts demise garnered widespread outrage from celebrities, politicians and others, with Jake Blumencranz of New York's 15th Assembly District announcing a proposed amendment titled Peanuts Law: Humane Animal Protection Act that would amend Section 11-0512 of New Yorks Environmental Conservation Law to require, among other things, a 72-hour waiting period before euthanizing sanctuary animals.

The manner in which Peanut was seized and euthanized defies logic and compassion, and it raises serious questions about the application of our animal control protocols, especially as they relate to animals in sanctuaries, Blumencranz wrote in a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

I urge you to take immediate action by launching a thorough investigation into the handling of this case and ensuring accountability, he added. It is essential that we work together to safeguard both the welfare of animals and the values we hold as a compassionate society.

Longo helps oversee the PNuts Freedom Farm Animal Sanctuary, which seeks to rescue animals from situations of neglect, abuse, and abandonment, offering them a safe, loving environment to recover and rebuild their lives.

Our dedicated team provides personalized care to help each animal heal physically and emotionally, giving them the opportunity to trust again, stated the nonprofit.

Beyond rescue, we are passionate about raising awareness and advocating for a world where all animals are treated with kindness and compassion. At Pnuts Freedom Farm, every animals story is worth telling, and every second chance is a chance to thrive.
Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - Intense Israeli military operations have continued in Gaza as UN humanitarians reported that multiple attempts to deliver lifesaving aid to besieged areas in the north of the enclave had been either denied or impeded
Home News Former salon owner jailed for defying COVID rules wins Texas House seat after brain aneurysm recovery

For Shelley Luther, the fight for freedom is a family tradition.

Luther, a former Dallas salon owner who made national headlines for defying COVID-19 lockdown orders, has won a seat in the Texas Legislature, where she will represent House District 62 in the state's upcoming legislative session.

House District 62 represents several North Texas counties, including Grayson, Fannin, Delta and Franklin.

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Her election marks a dramatic political comeback after she made waves in 2020 for refusing to close Salon A La Mode in Dallas during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the height of the lockdowns, Luther continued operating her business in defiance of city and state mandates, which led to her arrest and three days in jail. She was released only after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott intervened on her behalf and the Texas Supreme Court ordered her immediate release.

"My dad's a Vietnam veteran of 26 years in the Marine Corps," Luther told CP via phone Monday. "I could just imagine him saying, 'You know, I fought for this country. I fought for all the rights that we have,' and for me to just give them up so easily, I couldn't do it."

But then when I got out of jail, a Senate seat opened up in the district that I live in, which is pretty ironic," she added.

Luther, a Republican, ran for Texas Senate District 30 in 2020 but lost, and in 2022, she also fell short in her bid for Texas House District 62. She won the seat in a resounding victory last week, defeating Democrat Tiffany Drake with about 77% of the vote.

Following her two defeats, Luther said she thought her political career was behind her.

"After I lost the first two campaigns, my husband and I actually decided that I was not going to be in politics anymore," she explained. "We said, 'Maybe that's not God's plan for us,' and so we started going back to our normal life."

But in April 2023, Luther suffered a brain aneurysm, leaving her in a coma and hospitalized for nearly a month. After months of speech and physical therapy, she says she decided in December to give it one more shot.

Luther said that while her medical emergency was difficult, it brought some much-needed perspective to her political pursuits.

"Honestly, God showed me that wasn't the biggest story. He's the biggest story," she said. "If you know anything about what happened to me in the hospital in that event, it's an absolute miracle that I'm even alive, much less walking around and then even more, running and winning a campaign."

Upon taking office in January 2025, Luther says her legislative priorities will include border security and revisiting the "so-called emergency powers," which saw her thrust into the political spotlight just a few short years ago. That includes, says Luther, preventing the government from unconstitutionally shutting down private businesses ever again.

"The power our government had during COVID, in the so-called emergency powers that they use to create these mandates, how they're unconstitutional and not right," she said. "So in Texas, we want to make sure that when we are in a quote-unquote emergency situation, that the government is not allowed to do basically whatever they want. And so, we're definitely filing legislation to prevent that in the future."

Luther and her husband live just outside Tom Bean, Texas, a city with a population of just under 1,000 residents, where they operate a horse and animal rescue. The Luthers are also members of King's Trail Cowboy Church in nearby Whitewright.

She says while she's always believed in God, attended church and even played in a worship band, her faith walk has been forever transformed by what she went through in that hospital bed.

"When you go through something like what happened to me a year-and-a-half ago and literally almost died, you become closer to God than you could ever imagine," Luther said. "I can't imagine my life without Him now, and I can't imagine getting through anything without Him, and I don't believe in coincidence anymore ever."

From political defeats and medical emergencies to a seat in the Texas Legislature, Luther says she knows whatever comes next, the Lord is in control of it all.

"I know it's all part of God's plan," she said. "And even when it doesn't go my way, I just trust that he has my best interests and the interests of the people around me. And I just trust it and move on.

"It's hard to explain, but I'm just OK with everything. Everything's going to be OK because God's in control. And I've never had that."
Home News Texas Supreme Court orders release of mom jailed for reopening hair salon to feed family

The Texas Supreme Court has ordered the release of a Dallas hair salon owner, who was sentenced to jail by a judge on Tuesday after she reopened her shop despite the governors order shutting down non-essential businesses.

The move by the states high court came after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton voiced outrage over Shelley Luther being found in contempt of court and sentenced to seven days in prison.

Luther reopened her business, Salon A la Mode, despite orders issued by Abbott for all non-essential businesses to shut down as the state tries to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus. She claimed that she needed to reopen her salon because she would not have been able to feed her children without doing so.

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In her hearing Thursday, Luther reportedly refused an opportunity by Dallas County State District Judge Eric Moye to apologize and label herself selfish for violating the state order rather than pay a fine or serve jail time.

The judge found that she had no contrition, remorse or regret. Her sentencing came on the same day that Abbott announced that salons, gyms, and other businesses can begin reopening their doors on Friday.

The Texas Supreme Courts order was laid down on the same day in which Abbott removed jail as a possible punishment for people who violate the states coronavirus shutdown orders.

In a statement, the Texas attorney general praised the Supreme Court for correctly addressing Luthers excessive punishment and unnecessary jailing.

No Texan should face imprisonment for peacefully resisting an order that temporarily closed a lawful business and drastically limited their ability to provide for their family through no fault of their own, Paxton said. Texans must all work together to overcome this crisis, and ensuring freedom from excessive punishment is critical.

Luthers case drew the ire of state leaders and much pushback from people who have opposed orders forcing businesses to close during the pandemic.

In a tweet Thursday, Abbott argued that [t]hrowing Texans in jail whose biz's shut down through no fault of their own is wrong.

I am eliminating jail for violating an order, retroactive to April 2, superseding local orders, Abbott wrote. Criminals shouldnt be released to prevent COVID-19 just to put business owners in their place.

Paxton wrote a letter to Moye on Wednesday, calling on him to release the mother and business owner. He also accused the judge of abusing his authority.

As a mother, Ms. Luther wanted to feed her children. As a small business owner, she wanted to help her employees feed their children, Paxton wrote. Needless to say, these are laudable goals that warrant the exercise of enforcement discretion.

Indeed, local officials in Dallas have already gone considerably farther in cases less deserving of enforcement discretion. The Dallas County District Attorney announced that he will not prosecute theft of personal items less than $750 unless the evidence shows that the alleged theft was for economic gain.

Paxton stressed that if Dallas County is prepared to completely forgo prosecution of actual thefts it should not confine a woman to jail because she operated her business.

I find it outrageous and out of touch that during this national pandemic, a judge, in a county that actually released hardened criminals for fear of contracting COVID-19, would jail a mother for operating her hair salon in an attempt to put food on her familys table, Paxton said in a statement Wednesday. The trial judge did not need to lock up Shelley Luther. His order is a shameful abuse of judicial discretion, which seems like another political stunt in Dallas.

Paxton also stated that under the governors new executive order, Luther would be allowed to open her business on Friday.

Confining Ms. Luther for seven days, well after she could be operating her business and providing for her children, is unjustifiable, Paxton stated.

In Texas, there have been over 34,000 cases of COVID-19 reported. In the Dallas/Fort Worth region, there have been over 9,000 reported cases and 272 deaths as of Thursday afternoon.

Luther is not the only business owner in Texas arrested for operating her business despite the order.

In Laredo, two women  Ana Isabel Castro-Garcia and Brenda Stephanie Mataoffering  were arrested on April 15 for offering beauty and cosmetic services from their home. They were later released on bond.

According to The Laredo Morning Times, Castro-Garcia and Mata faced the potential to serve up to 180 days in jail for their violations before Abbott eliminated jail time as punishment for violating the shutdown.

This order is retroactive to April 2nd, supersedes local orders and if correctly applied should free Shelley Luther. It may also ensure that other Texans like Ana Isabel Castro-Garcia and Brenda Stephanie Mata who were arrested in Laredo, should not be subject to confinement, Abbott said in a statement.
Home News After Trump's stunning victory against Kamala, what comes next?

Pundits and commentators are still exploring the factors that led to President-elect Donald Trump's stunning defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris.

The Christian Post's Ryan Foley joins "The Inside Story" today to explain what happened, what the polls say and to look ahead to what comes next in a second Trump term.

Plus, he breaks down the states where abortion and other issues were on the ballot.

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The Inside Story takes you behind the headlines of the biggest faith, culture, and political headlines of the week. In 15 minutes or less, Christian Post staff writers and editors will help you navigate and understand whats driving each story, the issues at play  and why it all matters.

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Home News Church of England senior clergy facing calls for more resignations

More senior clergy in the Church of England might need to resign following the Archbishop of Canterbury's decision to step down over personal failings in how decades of "abhorrent" child abuse by the late John Smyth was responded to.

Julie Conalty, the bishop of Birkenhead and deputy lead bishop for safeguarding in the Church of England, said Archbishop Justin Welby had "done the right thing" by resigning but that his departure alone might not be enough as far-reaching change within the Church of England is needed.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's "Today" program, Conalty said: "Just the Archbishop of Canterbury resigning is not going to solve the problem. This is about institutional changes, our culture and a systemic failure, so there must be more that we need to do. Very possibly some of the people should go."

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She declined to name who else she thought should resign.

The second most senior figure in the Church of England, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, has said he doesn't think more bishops need to step down.

He told the "Today" program: "Those who actively covered this up [should resign], which was not bishops.

"When people speak about the Church of England, we need to remember we are speaking about literally thousands of branches, parishes, chaplaincies."

Asked whether more bishops should resign, Cottrell replied: "The archbishop of Canterbury has resigned."

Pressed on whether he thought this was enough, he said: "Yes, because he has resigned for the institutional failings."

Health Secretary Wes Streeting weighed in, saying that while it was "absolutely the right decision" for Welby to step down, the Church of England should not think "one head rolling solves the problem."

Saying that he was speaking "as an Anglican, not as a government minister," he told the "Today" program that there are "deep and fundamental issues of not just practice, but culture on safeguarding that needs to be taken seriously."

Welby resigned on Tuesday after coming under intense pressure in the days following the publication of the Makin Review's final report into how the Church of England handled abuse by the late QC and Christian camp organizer, John Smyth.

The damning report said that Smyth had committed "abhorrent" abuse of over 100 children and young men over a period of decades. Despite knowing about the abuse from the '80s, referrals to police were not made until decades later by which time Smyth had moved to Africa where the abuse continued.

The report concluded that "despite the efforts of some individuals to bring the abuse to the attention of authorities, the responses by the Church of England and others were wholly ineffective and amounted to a cover-up."

The report also pointed the finger at Welby for failing to report the abuse to authorities after becoming aware of it in 2013.

It said, "From July 2013 the Church of England knew, at the highest level, about the abuse that took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s. John Smyth should have been properly and effectively reported to the police in the U.K. and to relevant authorities in South Africa. This represented a further missed opportunity to bring him to justice."

There have been calls from survivors for more resignations, with one Smyth survivor telling Channel 4 News: "What I think the survivor group would like is more resignations because that means more accountability."

The Bishop of Lincoln, Stephen Conway, has resisted calls to resign over his response to a disclosure about Smyth's abuse while bishop of Ely.

In a statement, he said he had "made a detailed disclosure to Lambeth Palace and contacted the relevant diocese in South Africa to alert them to the issue," and that he "did all within my authority as a bishop of the Church of England." He also said it was his understanding that the matter had been reported to U.K. police.

He said: "I acknowledge fully that my fault was in not rigorously pursuing Lambeth about that province-to-province communication, and for this I am deeply sorry."

Originally published at Christian Today
Home News Democratic leader no longer wants to abolish filibuster despite comparing it to 'Jim Crow'

A Democratic leader who once likened the filibuster to Jim Crow policies that enforced racial segregation backtracked on eliminating the political procedure now that Republicans control the White House, Senate and House.

The chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., has long been a proponent of abolishing the filibuster in the Senate, which typically involves prolonging a debate to delay or block the vote on proposed legislation, making it so most legislation needs 60 votes to pass in the Senate instead of a simple majority.

During a Monday news conference to introduce new Congress members and discuss issues they hope to address, Jayapal, who has served in the House since 2017, told reporters she no longer wants to end the filibuster.

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"Am I championing getting rid of the filibuster now, when the Senate has the trifecta? No," Jayapal told journalists at the news conference. "But had we had the trifecta, I would have been because we have to show that government can deliver."

"If we had had control of the trifecta and gotten rid of the filibuster to pass minimum wage, to pass paid sick leave, to pass many of these things that are passing  abortion access  that are passing on ballot measures that are so popular  then I think we would have built some trust with the American people," she added.

The 59-year-old argued that her newfound support for keeping the filibuster does not contradict her previous views, claiming that Republicans "already got rid of the filibuster, for taxes."

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, however, the process of "reconciliation" allows for expedited consideration of certain legislation related to taxes, spending and the debt limit. These reconciliation bills are not subject to the filibuster in the Senate.

In September, the progressive caucus chair issued a statement about the filibuster before Election Day, declaring, "The choice is clear. Abolish the Jim Crow filibuster."

"It's the filibuster OR an assault weapons ban. It's the filibuster OR codified abortion access. It's the filibuster OR raising the minimum wage. It's the filibuster OR protecting voting rights," she wrote.

The Democratic leader also called for eliminating the filibuster in a May 2022 statement, arguing that this "shouldn't be a hard decision." Jayapal maintained that the filibuster would halt bills related to gun reform, abortion and voting rights. In another X post from September, the Democratic Party member claimed that the filibuster was "originally created *by mistake* in 1806."

"Every day we don't abolish it is just as big a mistake," she added.

However, her tune seems to have changed after former President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Republicans also recaptured control of the U.S. Senate for the first time since 2021 and maintained control of the House of Representatives.

Jayapal is not the only politician who has called for ending the filibuster, as former President Barack Obama expressed support for ending it during the funeral of Democratic Rep. John Lewis in 2020.

Obama urged political leaders to carry on the legacy of the civil rights icon by passing reforms, such as a voting rights act named in Lewis' honor, Politico reported at the time.

"And if all this takes eliminating the filibuster, another Jim Crow relic, in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that's what we should do," Obama said.

During the 2024 presidential election campaign, Vice President Harris told WPR's "Wisconsin Today" that she would support ending the filibuster to restore Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 ruling, allowing states to once again dictate their own abortion laws.

"I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe," Harris, a former U.S. senator from California, said during the September interview. "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 supported ending the filibuster in 2022 to push forward legislation on abortion and voting rights, as WPR reported. As a senator in 2019, Harris advocated for abolishing the filibuster to pass the Green New Deal, a piece of environmental legislation conservatives estimated would cost between $51 trillion and $93 trillion over the next decade.
Home News Chris Pratt-backed 'Fighting Spirit' doc highlights sacrifice, resilience of military chaplains

Military chaplains, the unsung heroes who walk side by side with soldiers into the harshest realities of war, are the focal point of a new documentary that aims to encourage viewers to find their own life jacket moments  acts of selflessness and service that can change lives.

Fighting Spirit: A Combat Chaplains Journey, the first-ever co-production between Hollywood and the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps, is directed by Justin D. Roberts and produced by Rich Hull, along with actor Chris Pratt as an executive producer.

The story begins with a profound discovery: the remains of Emil Kapaun, a Catholic Army chaplain captured and killed during the Korean War, were identified after nearly 70 years.

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Kapaun, who served as a chaplain and a source of comfort to fellow soldiers while enduring hardship as a POW, left a legacy of resilience and faith that echoes through the decades. In 2013, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, and the Vatican is evaluating his canonization.

Fighting Spirit doesnt just chronicle Kapauns life; it delves into the collective legacy of all 419 U.S. military chaplains who have given their lives in service.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Army Chaplain Brandon Moore, who co-produced the film, reflected on how faith can be a cornerstone of resilience and mental health for soldiers on the front lines. The film, he said, aims to highlight the quiet, powerful work of chaplains offering counseling, guidance and friendship to those grappling with trauma and loss.

Chaplains, at times, can help people find hope and realize that there may be situations in our life that we can't change, but sometimes by realizing that there's a bigger plan, there's life beyond this immediate moment because that's a powerful thing  God puts us in the right place with people, he said.

The idea of self-sacrifice  Jesus gave of Himself. So there's a part where we realize, if we start feeling bad about ourselves, guess what, Jesus did too: Take this cup from me, Not my will, but Your will be done. You see that moment there where Jesus says, It's not about my feelings right now, it's ultimately about doing God's will.

The documentary shows how chaplains, unique among military personnel, serve without weapons, placing their lives in the hands of others as they focus solely on the spiritual and emotional well-being of those they serve.

The chaplain's unique role is to turn, in a sense, around, Moore explained. Our job is to focus on soldiers, their families and those in harm's way. There are times when we would care for the enemy as well, but our number one goal is to care for the souls of the Army. Our job isn't to have a weapon facing the enemy; we have plenty of soldiers to do that. The unique role of the chaplain is to say, Our hands are to heal and to care and to serve.

Through gripping recollections and never-before-seen footage, the film offers a raw and rare view of the men and women who serve as both moral anchors and spiritual counselors in times of stress and violence.

Moore recalled one Christmas Eve service in Iraq, where he transformed a humble makeshift coffeehouse into a place of solace. Soldiers from all backgrounds came together that night, lit candles and sang  an act of defiance against the darkness of war.

We passed candles, and we were lighting candles, and I stood on top of this truck stage, and we talked about gathering together to bring peace on Earth in the middle of war, and that Christ came for us and to be the light of the world, he said. To look out from people from all different backgrounds to lighting candles, it was amazing.

The documentary also highlights the story of the Four Chaplains of World War II  a Catholic priest, a rabbi and two Protestant chaplains  who perished aboard the USS Dorchester after giving up their life vests to fellow soldiers. The story, often immortalized on stamps and in patriotic lore, serves as a profound example of interfaith unity in crisis, Moore said.

In the film, you'll see even the eyewitnesses that lived, recounting the fact that these four chaplains gathered together and they went down with the ship, he said. What makes that story powerful is that they had a life jacket, but they realized there was someone that didn't, and they were ready to, in a sense, meet their maker  they wanted to ensure that the soldiers that may not be ready could have a life jacket and they could continue to live. That's the power of that story.

According to the Department of Defense, there is a significant shortage of military chaplains across the U.S., particularly for Catholic servicemembers, despite their crucial role.

Moore, now the Armys Chief of Recruiting for Chaplains, explained that becoming a chaplain is a secondary call beyond traditional ministry and requires a masters degree in divinity, ordination and specialized training. Through Fighting Spirit, he said he hopes to inspire a new generation to consider this path and fill the ranks with those willing to shoulder the weight of a pastoral calling.

For anyone that says, I want to be a combat chaplain, I would tell them to take the next step. What's the next step that you need to take? Because sometimes God gives us just enough for that next step, he said.

I would encourage anyone thinking about being a chaplain to go for it. They may not be able to do it today, but what's that next step that they need to take that honors God, and then the step after that, and the step after that, and then at the end of the day, I think they'll look back and go, Wow, I never believed I could have a life like this that would make such a difference.

Moore, along with several others, screened the film for the Vatican last year. Reflecting on the experience, he recalled presenting a commemorative coin bearing the likeness of the Four Chaplains to Pope Francis.

It was surreal, he said. In some way, I felt as though I was honoring Kapaun and all the chaplains who never got to make it home.

Moore said hes hopeful that Fighting Spirit not only educates audiences about chaplains but inspires viewers to consider their own life jacket moments.

The lesson is not to give up your life jacket and die, he said, referring to the story of the four chaplains. It's more than that. It's what's that life jacket moment in your life when you have something that you don't have to give up, but you choose to give that up for someone else  as an act of love?
Home News Friends urge prayer for Dennis Prager amid hospitalization for 'serious' back injury

Friends of conservative author and radio host Dennis Prager urged prayer and poured out encouragement after the PragerU founder was hospitalized this week following a fall that left him seriously injured.

"On Tuesday morning, PragerU founder and our dear friend, Dennis Prager, suffered a serious back injury following a fall," the X account of PragerU tweeted. "He's resting in a local Los Angeles hospital as doctors assess treatment options. We will keep you informed of his condition. In the meantime, Dennis welcomes the healing power of your prayers."

On Tuesday morning, PragerU founder and our dear friend, Dennis Prager, suffered a serious back injury following a fall. He's resting in a local Los Angeles hospital as doctors assess treatment options. We will keep you informed of his condition. In the meantime, Dennis welcomes 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 November 13, 2024

Prager, 76, has been a nationally syndicated radio host since 1999.

Prager, who is Jewish, has penned 11 books, including a multi-volume biblical commentary on the Pentateuch called The Rational Bible.

In 2009, Prager founded Prager University or PragerU, which appealed to young people with five-minute videos on various topics from a conservative perspective.

Fellow Salem Media radio host Mark Davis filled in for Prager on his Wednesday radio show and urged listeners to pray for Prager's "quick recovery."

Join us in praying for Dennis's quick recovery from a back injury! pic.twitter.com/5gCIhshSEl  Dennis Prager (@DennisPrager) November 13, 2024

Many prominent conservative figures took to X to offer their support for Prager.

"I just heard from Mrs. Prager," Social Media Freedom Foundation founder Jason Fyk tweeted Wednesday. "[Prager's] condition is far worse than I thought. My thoughts and prayers go out to the Prager family, friends and loved ones."

TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk also explained that Prager's fall was serious and praised Prager for his influence on young conservatives.

"Please join with me and pray for my dear friend and Salem radio colleague, Dennis Prager," wrote Kirk. "He had a bad fall and doctors are currently assessing the best treatment options. His impact on my life, and this country, have been enormous, and I'm praying for a full and speedy recovery."

Claremont Institute associate editor Spencer A. Klavan, the son of Daily Wire host Andrew Klavan, noted that he just recently saw Prager on Election Night.

"I shook Dennis's hand not two weeks ago as we passed each other backstage at the Daily Wire election show," Klavan wrote. "A kinder and a more earnest man of thought and faith I have not met. Please pray for his recovery with me."

"Please, please say a prayer for one of the best human beings on planet Earth, Dennis Prager," wrote podcaster Dave Rubin.

"Please keep patriot @DennisPrager in [your] prayers," wrote Republican Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake. "His @prageru 5-minute-videos helped me raise my kids conservative. Dennis, heal-up, quickly!"

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said prayers were "needed for one of the great men of our generation."

"My friend @DennisPrager has had a very bad accident. He is in hospital, surrounded by his family. PLEASE pray for them all," radio host Sebastian Gorka wrote.

"A truly great American, Dennis Prager," actor Rob Schneider said. "God bless you and heal you."

Christian author and radio host Eric Metaxas also exhorted his followers on X to pray, tweeting an image of himself with Prager during a "Socrates in the City" event in New York City last year.

"One of my very dearest and most beloved friends  the national treasure that is Dennis Prager  desperately needs our prayers. PLEASE lift him up before the throne of God's grace today  and believe God for a miracle."

One of my very dearest and most beloved friends -- the national treasure that is Dennis Prager -- desperately needs our prayers. PLEASE lift him up before the throne of God's grace today -- and believe God for a miracle. pic.twitter.com/Oz4GlRTeTl  Eric Metaxas (@ericmetaxas) November 14, 2024
Home News Hail Santa? Christmas movie features Jack Black as devil trying to steal boy's soul New release marks actor's latest homage to Satan

When it comes to redefining the Christmas movie season, the evil one is hoping to give Saint Nick a run for his money.

Paramount+ has released a trailer for Dear Santa, a new Christmas comedy that introduces a very different version of the devil  played by none other than Jack Black. Directed by Bobby Farrelly of the Farrelly brothers team, who directed hits like Dumb and Dumber and Theres Something About Mary, the film follows a young boy who accidentally summons Satan while trying to send a letter to Santa Claus.

After Liam Turner (played by Robert Timothy Smith) mistakenly misspells "Santa" in his letter, he instead is greeted with an unexpected summoning of the devil, who offers Liam a tempting deal: three wishes, but with a heavy price  his soul.

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You, my friend, are getting three wishes, the devilish Santa tells the boy.  ... By the way, after you make your wishes, I'm taking your soul.

The trailer shows the movie veering into a series of wacky and unexpected hi-jinks: in one moment, Liam and Satan perform onstage at a concert featuring Post Malone, who makes a cameo along with a cast that includes Keegan-Michael Key, Brianne Howey, Hayes MacArthur and P. J. Byrne.

After telling Liam, Let me show you a few of the things I can do for you, the trailer shows gambling, swimming atop a pile of cash, and hanging out with a rock star (Malone).

At one point, the family stages an intervention where Liam says, Look, I'm worried Satan is going to trick me into getting my soul, to which Keys character responds into the camera, Hes nuts.

In another scene, Satan shrinks down to give Liam romantic advice while nestled in the class pets cage. Along the way, Satan's cruel nature starts to soften as he becomes more engaged with Liam's innocent charm.

At one point, the devil even laments, Ive tried everything. The kids incorruptible, while standing over a bright red pentagram.

Based on the trailer, fans of Black's previous work are sure to make comparisons to his performance in 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, where Black voiced the villainous Bowser.

In one of the films teasers, the camera pans up from Santas familiar boots and red suit to reveal the face of Blacks Satan with devilish horns. He stares directly into the camera, breaking the fourth wall, as he says, What? You were expecting someone else?

The trailer also features numerous shots in which Black flashes his familiar devil horns hand signal, including while reading with Liam and playing a game of beer pong.

Black is no stranger to playing satanic characters, from his role in metal band Tenacious D to his appearances in satirical content like "Prop 8: The Musical," which took aim at opponents of Californias same-sex marriage law. As part of the production, Jesus, played by Black, intervenes in a debate between pro- and anti-Prop 8 Christians, and remarks, "The Bible says a lot of things, you know?"

Along with Kyle Gass, Black is also a founding member of the metal duo Tenacious D, whose songs include odes to the devil like "Beelzeboss" and 2001s "Tribute," which portrays the bands encounter with a demonic figure who threatens to take their souls if the duo cant play "the best song in the world.

Satan also figures prominently in the duos 2006 film Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, in which the band challenges the devil  played by Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl  to a rock-off.

In a promotional stunt for the video game Brutal Legend, Black led a satanic prayer at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards as a tribute to metal music.

During the show, Black took the stage as his Brutal Legend character Eddie Riggs and said, Since were giving a rock award tonight, who wants to pray to the devil with me?

He then told the audience to take the hand of someone next to them and then prayed on stage, Dear Dark Lord Satan  I wanted to say hi and ask you to grant tonights nominees continued success in the music industry.

An IMDb satire news article from 2002  which has since been deleted  even has a tongue firmly in cheek headline, Jack Black loves Satan, in which the star is described as an unashamed worshipper of Satan.

Black is quoted in the article clip as saying, I love Satan. Christianity is so boring. If 'Star Wars' didn't have that evil imprint, they wouldn't sell two tickets. Satan sells tickets. That dude, Darth Maul, he was down with Satan.

While Black was raised Jewish  he recounted in a 2022 podcast that he caught the acting bug as a young boy while attending a Passover seder  he told NPR in 2012 that he considers himself kind of an atheist.

"I don't have any real spirituality in my life  I'm kind of an atheist  but when music can take me to the highest heights, it's almost like a spiritual feeling. It fills that void for me, he told NPRs Terry Gross.
Home News WEA's plan to hold General Assembly 2025 in Seoul sparks debate

Only weeks after the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization concluded in Incheon, South Korea, the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is about to announce plans to hold its next General Assembly in Seoul from Oct. 27-31, 2025.

Even before the official announcement ceremony scheduled for this Friday, however, the news has been met with criticism by several Christian groups in the country who have called for the plans to be put on hold.

According to reporting by Korean Christian media, the groups have taken issue with what they described as secretive planning, which excluded the representative Christian member bodies in South Korea that the WEA used to work with. They also point to long-standing unresolved theological concerns among Korean churches about some of WEAs leaders, which they say must be resolved before planning for a General Assembly can begin.

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Concerns about months of discussions behind-the-scenes

According Christian Today Korea (CT-K), the Rev. Junghyun John Oh, senior pastor of SaRang Church in Seoul, is expected to lead the preparations for the next WEA GA with support from Yoido Full Gospel Church, the largest Pentecostal church in the world.

In a note to Christian media on Sunday, SaRang announced a thanksgiving worship service to mark the launch of the 2025 WEA Seoul General Assembly Organizing Committee to be held this Friday, with Yoidos Senior Pastor Younghoon Lee delivering the sermon.

The official announcement and ceremony follow what CT-K describes as months of behind-the-scenes negotiations between the WEA and SaRang.

Initially, Bp Efraim Tendero, former secretary general and current global ambassador of the WEA, together with then-Secretary General Thomas Schirrmacher met with Lee to see if Yoido would host the WEA GA in South Korea. When these discussions failed to lead to an agreement, the two WEA leaders reportedly approached Rev. Oh of SaRang with a request to provide a venue and financial support, which was met with a favorable response.

CT-K points out, however, that the decision to work with a local church without the involvement of its national member body did not follow WEAs regular procedure and could open it up for criticism.

As a global association, the WEA is comprised of nine regional and 143 national Evangelical Alliances, with international denominations and ministries as affiliate members. National membership with the WEA is usually reserved for a single representative Evangelical association made up of denominations, churches or ministries. Individual churches and national denominations cannot directly be part of the WEA, according to its bylaws.

In the case of South Korea, the Christian Council of Korea (CCK) became WEAs member Alliance in 2009. A few years later, internal divisions led to the formation of the Communion of Churches in Korea (CCIK), which was officially recognized as WEAs member body in 2022. (It was the division within the national member body that led WEA to cancel its General Assembly that was planned in Korea in 2014.) Additionally, the Korea Evangelical Fellowship (KEF) has been a long-time affiliated member of the WEA.

However, CT-K reports that sources indicate that neither CCK, CCIK, nor KEF has held official discussions with WEA on hosting the assembly, and that talks were exclusively between certain WEA leaders and SaRang Church. It cautions that excluding these organizations from such major decisions could lead to significant backlash.

Some have reportedly also been critical toward Rev. Ohs premature decision to push ahead with the hosting of the WEA GA given the prolonged transitional leadership in the WEA and questions surrounding the financial support expected from the Korean church.

After Schirrmacher resigned from his role as secretary general on March 31, citing health reasons, the WEA announced that the chair of its International Council, Goodwill Shana, would take over leadership of the WEA as executive chair for an interim period not exceeding six months.

On Sept. 18, however, the WEA announced that Shana would continue in his double-role as board chair and acting secretary general/CEO for more than one year longer, up until the GA in October 2025. Meanwhile, the WEA has yet to announce the search for a new secretary general.

The uncertainty surrounding the WEAs leadership and the financial strain raise further questions about the feasibility of hosting the event, CT-K reports, adding that Rev. Ohs term as senior pastor of SaRang is set to end within a year after the proposed GA.

Resolving theological concerns before hosting the General Assembly

At least since some WEA leaders, including Schirrmacher, participated in the World Council of Churches General Assembly in Busan in 2013, there have been concerns among the largely conservative Korean Evangelical churches about what they perceived to be WEA tendencies toward liberal theology.

SaRangs own denomination HapDong, the largest denomination in South Korea and rooted in the Presbyterian tradition, has previously criticized Schirrmacher and other WEA leaders for alleged religious pluralism. While there have been moves within HapDong to officially reject WEAs perceived liberal tendencies, CT-K reported that the denominations General Assembly in 2021 adopted a proposal to withhold a decision on WEA until its stance becomes clearer, and to avoid unnecessary disputes.

But it cautioned that hosting the WEA assembly might reignite dormant controversies within the denomination regarding WEA.

CT-K also noted that the next HapDong General Assembly is due just before the planned WEA GA. Therefore, if the denomination bans any participation in the WEA, the fallout could become complicated for both the WEA and the Korean church.

Mere hours after the CT-K article, a group of 1,000 pastors, elders and professors published a full-page advertising in Kukmin Daily, a Korean church newspaper, on Monday morning, with a statement titled Reasons Why the Korean Presbyterian Church HapDong Cannot Engage with the WEA.

Authored by leaders from HapDong-affiliated Kwangshin Theological Seminary, the statement outlined the issues they consider incompatible with the Reformed faith. They specifically pointed to WEAs close proximity to the pope and the World Council of Churches as well as its engagement with Muslim leaders which they view as potential sign of religious pluralism.

A few hours later, still on Monday, CCK President the Rev. Seo-young Jeong also went public with his opposition to the WEA GA, saying the planned event risks increasing division among the Korean churches.

The strongly worded statement called for all the preparations to be put on hold until the concerns about WEAs theology and allegations of religious pluralism can be addressed.

When the CCK previously attempted to host the WEA General Assembly [in 2014], the WEA sought a united Korean church for the assembly, not one marked by division. With the WEAs pluralistic tendencies now even more pronounced, hosting the WEA Assembly in a way that risks further church discord is undesirable, and we cannot stand by and watch as division deepens, Jeong said.

Christian Daily International reached out to the WEA and to Schirrmacher for comment but has yet to receive a response.

Originally published at Christian Daily International
Home Opinion The 2024 election was the Bud Light moment for the Democrats

The meltdowns Ive seen by Kamala Harris supporters since Donald Trump exceeded all expectations and trounced her in the polls has been epic. They cannot fathom why over 73 million people flipped the lever for Trump over their savior. They are so out of touch with regular Americans that this election cycle should aptly be called their Bud Light moment.

On April 1, 2023, Dylan Mulvaney, a man who calls himself transgender and dresses in womens clothing, wears makeup, and had nearly 11 million social media followers, posted a clip advertising his partnership with Bud Light in conjunction with March Madness. The backlash was swift as conservatives and Bud Light customers immediately called for a boycott. The companys long-held niche was one of manly men drinking beer, Clydesdale horses, and Americana  all of which they threw away during an attempt at wokeness.

Sales tanked and revenue was down over 10% from April-June 2023. Bud Light, which was Americas top-selling beer for more than two decades, slid to number three a year later. The company never issued an apology to its customers. They attempted to explain their reasoning, had their CEO go on several television shows to clarify what happened, and released multiple ad campaigns to win back their customers  all to no avail.

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At least Bud Light knew what went wrong but if they ever win back the trust of their customers, it will take a long time to do so. A formal apology would go a long way but more than a year after the debacle and billions of dollars in losses, its hard to imagine they will take that route.

The Democrats thought they knew their base, but it turns out that they were vastly wrong. They were so out of touch and pushed so hard on radical, woke policies that they managed to alienate more than half the country. They destroyed any kind of moderate policies they may have held by delivering a candidate who believed in zero restrictions on abortion, no protections for women in sports, no border control, and no plan to help working Americans get back on their feet.

The Harris-Walz ticket campaigned on creating a country where parents no longer have the right to protect their children from harmful and so-called gender-affirming care hormones, which Tim Walz took away in his home state of Minnesota. They wanted men to play in womens sports, not only putting those girls in harm's way but taking away scholarship opportunities for them. According to exit polls, parents of minors supported Donald Trump over Kamala Harris 54% to 44%, a shift of 15 percentage points from the 2020 election. Fathers with minor children living at home supported Trump in a landslide, 60% to Harris 37%.

As a mother of eight kids, I voted the way I did for their protection. There are many people in this country who think more than half of those who voted for Trump simply voted for hate and bigotry. They think we voted because we hate women. Our very own president, Joe Biden, literally called Trump supporters garbage just days before the election. And then all these people are shocked that over half the nation didnt vote for Harris. Who enjoys being insulted for months and then expected to vote for the party who hates them?

The audacity that the Harris campaign showed  and consequently the Democratic Party  throughout this campaign cycle by their outright hatred for conservatives and their values landed them exactly where they deserved. They have shown how out of touch they are to the average American who believes in science, who believes that abortion is abhorrent, and who wants to protect their kids from radical wokeness.

This election was the Bud Light moment for the Democrats. They touted a candidate whose beliefs were so far left of more than half the country and had no idea how much pushback they were going to get come Election Day. Americans were pushed too far and the Harris campaign and all the people who maneuvered to get her on the top of the ticket were shell-shocked because it turned out they listened to the shrill but smaller majority of radicals in this nation.

Actor John Cusack, one of many celebrities who stood behind Harris, said, "The fact that the country would choose to destroy itself by voting in a convicted felon rapist and Nazi is a sign of deep nihilism  To put it mildly."

Sure, Donald Trump is a convicted felon but look at what Americans had as their only other option. She was so much worse than that to more than 73 million Americans.
Kinshasa, DR Congo (PANA)  Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and a mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday reached a staff-level agreement on a new 3-year economic and financial programme supported by the IMF for US$ 1
"Mary" (Photo: Netflix)

(CP) This Christmas season, Netflix is set to bring a retelling of the Nativity story to audiences around the world, offering a fresh perspective on an ancient narrative in the forthcoming film "Mary."

Directed by D.J. Caruso and releasing Dec. 6, "Mary" follows the story of the Virgin Mary, reimagining the trials and courage of a young woman chosen to bring Jesus into the world. Viewers will see the journey from Mary's viewpoint as she navigates the challenges of an unprecedented destiny, according to Netflix.

The film stars Israeli actress Noa Cohen as Mary and Ido Tako as Joseph, with Academy Award-winning actor Anthony Hopkins taking on the role of King Herod.

Producer Mary Aloe, a devout Christian, described "Mary" as a "labor of love," one that aims to bring the world's most iconic story of faith and sacrifice to new generations.

"This story is needed now more than ever in our world. As a woman, a Christian, and a producer, Mary's story is important to me. This is a story of faith, hope, and pure love," she said.

Watch the trailer for 'Mary' below:

According to showrunners, the film offers a look at Mary as both a holy figure and a relatable young woman, enduring rejection and hardship in the wake of a miraculous conception.

As her community turns against her, she finds herself and her newborn son hunted by King Herod, whose obsessive grip on power leads him to ruthless acts. Forced into hiding, Mary and Joseph begin a life on the run, driven by faith and bound by love as they protect their child.

Caruso, a practicing Catholic and father of five, said his vision for "Mary" was rooted in reverence and relatability.

"I believe Mary is the most extraordinary woman ever to walk this earth," he said. "Her story, especially for younger generations, has often been underappreciated. I wanted to create a film that presents Mary as someone we can all relate to. ... My hope is that audiences feel my reverence for Mary and come to see her not only as a holy figure but as a friend, a mother, and one of the greatest heroines ever to grace the screen. In the end, it's her love that will save the world."

To capture the story's spiritual depth and ensure biblical accuracy, Caruso and Aloe consulted with religious scholars, theologians and clergy.

The film's script, written by Timothy Michael Hayes, went through over 70 drafts with rigorous input to ensure historical accuracy and sensitivity to biblical themes. The late Catholic Bishop David G. O'Connell, Caruso's spiritual advisor on the project, provided essential guidance.

"It was essential to stay true to the biblical narrative as the story's foundation, which Timothy Michael Hayes' script captured beautifully. I was fortunate to have the guidance of a brilliant biblical scholar, the late Bishop David G. O'Connell, who served as my spiritual advisor and an expert on 'Mary,'" he said.

"He helped me interpret the scriptures in a way that was both relatable and deeply emotional. From there, we carefully fictionalized the moments between Mary's journey, adding tension, emotion, and pacing  all vital elements for compelling cinema  while preserving the truths of the miraculous events in her life. The plot remains faithful to the scriptures, with thoughtful interpretations that enhance the film's central themes. In short, we aimed to honor the scriptures."

"Mary," filmed on location in Morocco, also stars Stephanie Nur; Susan Brown; Ori Pfeffer; Eamon Farren; Hilla Vidor; Mili Avital; Gudmundur Thorvaldsson; Dudley O'Shaughnessyl; Keren Tzur; Mehmet Kurtulus and Mila Harris.

As "Mary" enters the canon of recent biblical cinema like "The Chosen," "His Only Son" and "Journey to Bethlehem," Aloe said she hopes the film will resonate with audiences of all backgrounds.

"Our hope is that people will want to learn more about faith from Mary's journey, what her family gave up, and what she endured to follow her calling to bring us Jesus," Aloe said. "I hope that this makes Mary and Joseph relatable to people who want to know, learn, and discover more about them and so many great stories in the Bible," she said.

"Mary" will land on Netflix on Dec. 6.

 The Christian Post
(Photo: Getty/iStock)

Expressing alarm over an increase in false blasphemy accusations in Pakistan, the UN Human Rights Committee last week urged repeal or amending of the country's harsh blasphemy laws.

The committee noted that false blasphemy accusations led to Islamist mob violence and recommended amending the laws in accordance with requirements of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

In Nov. 7 concluding observations of the committee's second periodic report on Pakistan, it stated concern over sections 295 and 298 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which carry severe penalties, including the death penalty, and have a disproportionate impact on religious minorities.

"It is also concerned about the increasing number of persons incarcerated under blasphemy charges, the high number of blasphemy cases based on false accusations, violence against those accused of blasphemy, fostering vigilante justice, and allegations of entrapment of persons, in particular young persons, on accusations of on-line blasphemy under cybercrime laws," the committee stated.

It emphasized ending use of cybercrime laws, such as the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016, to prosecute and detain those accused of breaching blasphemy laws online. The committee also urged the government to investigate allegations of massive abuse of blasphemy laws in connection with cybercrime laws and publish the results of the inquiries.

"[The committee] is also concerned about the chilling effect that criminal defamation laws, blasphemy, sedition and counter-terrorism laws, and other recently passed legislation have on the exercise of freedom of expression by journalists, activists, human rights defenders and members of ethnic and religious minorities," it stated.

Urging Pakistan to take all necessary measures to guarantee prompt and fair trials for all persons charged with blasphemy or other offenses against religion, the committee highlighted jail conditions, stating that it was "also concerned about reports of abuse of women prisoners, including sexual violence, and that individuals accused of blasphemy are often placed in solitary confinement for extended periods of time. It remains concerned about the widespread recourse to prolonged pretrial detention."

Mob Violence

The committee cited reports of increased violence and intimidation against religious minorities, along with the destruction of their worship places in Pakistan.

It also pointed out lack of protection of the religious minorities and lack of accountability for the crimes committed against them. The UN rights body recommended that Pakistan prevent all forms of discrimination and violence against religious minorities.

"The Human Rights Committee is deeply concerned about reports of the increase of discrimination, hate speech and crimes, mob violence, harassment, and intimidation against religious minorities, in particular Christians, Ahmadis, Hindus, Shias and Sikhs, as well as the destruction of their places of worship and cemeteries, as was the case in Jaranwala in August 2023," it stated. "In particular, [Pakistan] should take all the measures necessary to prevent violent attacks against persons accused of blasphemy, in particular those under police custody or in detention, and investigate these attacks, including mob lynchings and killings, ensuring that all perpetrators are prosecuted, convicted and appropriately sanctioned."

It added that authorities should ensure that all who incite or engage in violence based on allegations of blasphemy, as well as those who falsely accuse others of blasphemy, be brought to justice and duly punished.

Forced Conversion/Marriage

Calling for immediate measures to protect women and girls, particularly religious minorities, from forced conversion to Islam and from forced marriage, the committee said the government "must raise the minimum age of marriage for both boys and girls to 18 years throughout the country without exceptions."

"[The committee] is concerned about reports of the persistent practice of abducting girls who belong to religious minorities and forcing them to marry  regardless of their age and the prevailing law  and convert to Islam under the threat of violence, which results in rape, trafficking and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence against these girls," it stated.

It expressed concern about reports of the widespread impunity surrounding these cases.

"Victims are usually not returned to their families during investigations but forced to stay with their abductors, including members of organized criminal groups, or placed in unnecessary and inappropriate alternative care facilities, with no or limited regard for child protection standards, exposing victims to further risk of exploitation, abuse and harmful practices," the committee stated.

It urged Pakistan to intensify efforts to eradicate forced conversions and forced marriages, including strengthening its legal framework and enforcement mechanisms.

"The state party should also ensure that all allegations of forced conversions and forced marriages of girls are promptly, impartially and effectively investigated, that those responsible are brought to justice, and that all victims have access to effective remedies and support services such as adequate shelters, legal aid, psychological counselling and rehabilitation programs," it stated.

While noting the adoption of the Protection of Journalists and Media Professionals Act 2021, the committee expressed concerns about frequent reports of forced disappearances, torture, killing, threats, and harassment of journalists and human rights defenders.

Pakistan should investigate such incidents, prosecute the perpetrators and compensate victims, it stated.

Expressing concern about alarmingly frequent internet shutdowns among other means of blocking social media platforms and online content, it called upon Pakistan to stop restricting freedom of expression and ensure that criminal laws and counter-terrorism legislation are not used to silence journalists and human rights defenders.

The committee noted that Pakistani legislation punishes with the death penalty more than 30 crimes, including non-violent offenses that do not meet the threshold of the "most serious crimes" within the meaning of the ICCPR, including blasphemy.

The committee considered reports from six nations  Ecuador, France, Greece, Iceland, Pakistan and Turkiye  during its 142nd session on Oct. 17-18 in Geneva. The concluding observations contain concerns and recommendations to implement the ICCPR and other related conventions.

Pakistan ranked seventh on Open Doors' 2024 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian, as it was the previous year.

 Christian Daily International-Morning Star News
Rev. Oh (fourth from the left), Bp Tendero (middle) and others take a commemorative photo after discussing the WEA General Assembly plans at SaRang Church on March 30, 2024. (Photo: Facebook)

Only weeks after the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization concluded in Incheon, South Korea, the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is about to announce plans to hold its next General Assembly in Seoul from Oct. 27-31, 2025.

Even before the official announcement ceremony scheduled for this Friday, however, the news has been met with criticism by several Christian groups in the country who have called for the plans to be put on hold.

According to reporting by Korean Christian media, the groups have taken issue with what they described as secretive planning, which excluded the representative Christian member bodies in South Korea that the WEA used to work with. They also point to long-standing unresolved theological concerns among Korean churches about some of WEA's leaders, which they say must be resolved before planning for a General Assembly can begin.

Concerns about months of discussions behind-the-scenes

According Christian Today Korea (CT-K), the Rev. Junghyun "John" Oh, senior pastor of SaRang Church in Seoul, is expected to lead the preparations for the next WEA GA with support from Yoido Full Gospel Church, the largest Pentecostal church in the world.

In a note to Christian media on Sunday, SaRang announced a thanksgiving worship service to mark the launch of the "2025 WEA Seoul General Assembly Organizing Committee" to be held this Friday, with Yoido's Senior Pastor Younghoon Lee delivering the sermon.

The official announcement and ceremony follow what CT-K describes as months of "behind-the-scenes negotiations" between the WEA and SaRang.

Initially, Bp Efraim Tendero, former secretary general and current global ambassador of the WEA, together with then-Secretary General Thomas Schirrmacher met with Lee to see if Yoido would host the WEA GA in South Korea. When these discussions failed to lead to an agreement, the two WEA leaders reportedly approached Rev. Oh of SaRang with a request to provide "a venue and financial support," which was met with a favorable response.

CT-K points out, however, that the decision to work with a local church without the involvement of its national member body did not follow WEA's regular procedure and could open it up for criticism.

As a global association, the WEA is comprised of nine regional and 143 national Evangelical Alliances, with international denominations and ministries as affiliate members. National membership with the WEA is usually reserved for a single representative Evangelical association made up of denominations, churches or ministries. Individual churches and national denominations cannot directly be part of the WEA, according to its bylaws.

In the case of South Korea, the Christian Council of Korea (CCK) became WEA's member Alliance in 2009. A few years later, internal divisions led to the formation of the Communion of Churches in Korea (CCIK), which was officially recognized as WEA's member body in 2022. (It was the division within the national member body that led WEA to cancel its General Assembly that was planned in Korea in 2014.) Additionally, the Korea Evangelical Fellowship (KEF) has been a long-time affiliated member of the WEA.

However, CT-K reports that "sources indicate that neither CCK, CCIK, nor KEF have held official discussions with the WEA on hosting the assembly, and that talks were exclusively between certain WEA leaders and SaRang Church." It cautions that excluding these organizations from such major decisions could lead to "significant backlash."

Some have reportedly also been critical toward Rev. Oh's "premature decision" to push ahead with the hosting of the WEA GA given the prolonged transitional leadership in the WEA and questions surrounding the financial support expected from the Korean church.

After Schirrmacher resigned from his role as secretary general on March 31, citing health reasons, the WEA announced that the chair of its International Council, Goodwill Shana, would take over leadership of the WEA as executive chair for an interim period "not exceeding six months."

On Sept. 18, however, the WEA announced that Shana would continue in his double-role as board chair and acting secretary general/CEO for more than one year longer, up until the GA in October 2025. Meanwhile, the WEA has yet to announce the search for a new secretary general.

"The uncertainty surrounding the WEA's leadership and the financial strain raise further questions about the feasibility of hosting the event," CT-K reports, adding that Rev. Oh's term as senior pastor of SaRang is set to end within a year after the proposed GA.

Resolving theological concerns before hosting the General Assembly

At least since some WEA leaders, including Schirrmacher, participated in the World Council of Churches' General Assembly in Busan in 2013, there have been concerns among the largely conservative Korean Evangelical churches about what they perceived to be WEA tendencies toward liberal theology.

SaRang's own denomination HapDong, the largest denomination in South Korea and rooted in the Presbyterian tradition, has previously criticized Schirrmacher and other WEA leaders for alleged religious pluralism. While there have been moves within HapDong to officially reject WEA's perceived liberal tendencies, CT-K reported that the denomination's General Assembly in 2021 adopted a proposal to "withhold a decision on WEA until its stance becomes clearer, and to avoid unnecessary disputes."

But it cautioned that "hosting the WEA assembly might reignite dormant controversies within the denomination regarding WEA."

CT-K also noted that the next HapDong General Assembly is due just before the planned WEA GA. Therefore, if the denomination bans any participation in the WEA, the fallout could become complicated for both the WEA and the Korean church.

Mere hours after the CT-K article, a group of 1,000 pastors, elders and professors published a full-page advertising in Kukmin Daily, a Korean church newspaper, on Monday morning, with a statement titled "Reasons Why the Korean Presbyterian Church HapDong Cannot Engage with the WEA."

Authored by leaders from HapDong-affiliated Kwangshin Theological Seminary, the statement outlined the issues they consider incompatible with the Reformed faith. They specifically pointed to WEA's close proximity to the pope and the World Council of Churches as well as its engagement with Muslim leaders which they view as potential sign of religious pluralism.

A few hours later, still on Monday, CCK President the Rev. Seo-young Jeong also went public with his opposition to the WEA GA, saying the planned event risks increasing division among the Korean churches.

The strongly worded statement called for all the preparations to be put on hold until the concerns about WEA's theology and allegations of religious pluralism can be addressed.

"When the CCK previously attempted to host the WEA General Assembly [in 2014], the WEA sought a united Korean church for the assembly, not one marked by division. With the WEA's pluralistic tendencies now even more pronounced, hosting the WEA Assembly in a way that risks further church discord is undesirable, and we cannot stand by and watch as division deepens," Jeong said.

Christian Daily International reached out to the WEA and to Schirrmacher for comment but has yet to receive a response.

Originally published at Christian Daily International
Story shared by Xi: A Peruvian family's bond with China

(People's Daily App) 08:30, November 14, 2024

On November 21, 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech entitled "Sailing Forward to Build A Bright Future of China-Latin America Relations" at the Peruvian Congress, during which he mentioned the late Peruvian journalist and writer Antonio Fernandez Arce.

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the Peruvian Congress in Lima, Peru on November 21, 2016.

In 1970, his daughter Flor de Maria Fernandez was born in Beijing. But unfortunately, she suffered from septicemia. After then-Chinese premier Zhou Enlai became aware of her condition, he immediately directed medical experts for her treatment. The Chinese People's Liberation Army organized soldiers to rush to the hospital to donate blood for Arce's daughter.

Eventually, Maria returned safe. After she grew up, like her father, Maria contributed to enhancing China-Peru friendship.

Hearing Xi mention her father via the internet, the older daughter of Arce, Lourdes Fernandez Esquivel, was deeply moved. "My father was a simple and humble person," she said. "I am honored that the Chinese president has recognized the work he has done over the years to strengthen the friendship between the peoples of Peru and China."

"I once asked my father, what has China brought you? This was his answer: 'When I first came to this country, China was still poor, but possessed the courage and perseverance to overcome difficulties. China relied on its own efforts to achieve liberation, and will certainly be able to play a leading role in the future. Five thousand years of cultural and technological development and progress have supported China as a leading force in the next century.'"

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun)
A Chicago bakery owner recently discovered that her longtime patron was actually her long-lost son, who she had placed for adoption as a baby.

Lenore Lindsay, 67, owned the Give Me Some Sugah bakery in the South Shore neighborhood, where she placed her son up for adoption when she was just 17 years old. For years, she had a loyal customer named Vamaar Hunter, 50, who would stop by the bakery for breakfast or a sweet treat.

"I loved the service; I loved the products," Hunter, who lived in the same neighborhood, said. "The pancakes are the best I ever had, period."

Discovering the Connection

Hunter was 35 when he discovered that he was adopted. Curious to meet his birth mother, he submitted results for genetic testing.

In March 2022, Hunter received a phone call from the bakery. When he answered, Lindsey told him she was his birth mother.

"It was just so unbelievable," Hunter said of the moment.

Read Also: Missing American Teen Found Safe After Leaving Cruise Ship in Germany

Lindsey had to give up Hunter for adoption in 1974 after she gave birth at 17 years old. She never saw her son's face when he was born, as it would have been much harder for her to let him go.

Nearly 50 years later, Lindsey---who now had a daughter, 40-year-old Rachel---received a call from a genealogist informing her that her son was looking for her. At the time, she had just recovered from breast cancer surgery and was about to undergo chemotherapy.

Lindsey reached out to Hunter that same day. Chicago Sun-Times was the first to report their story.

Taking Over the Bakery

Shortly after they reunited, Lindsey suffered from a stroke. This led Hunter, who had no prior baking experience, to help her manage the bakery and ensure all the baked goods were ready to sell in the morning. Hunter has since left his job in the logistics industry to run the bakery full-time alongside Lindsey.

In addition to meeting his birth mother, Hunter had met other family members, including his siblings. Lindsey, on the other hand, has met Hunter's four children, as reported by PEOPLE magazine.
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Credit: ShelterBox

The UKs first charity donation vending machines have been installed this week in a West Midlands shopping centre, set to raise funds for charities through donation cards.

Three specially fitted vending machines will be open to the public in Touchwood Shopping Centre, Solihull, from 15 November until 27 November.

The vending machines will stock donation cards from several charities, with the donation amounts ranging from 3 to 400, enabling shoppers to decide where their donations are being spent.

International disaster relief charity ShelterBox is one of those involved in the project alongside Muslim Aid, FareShare, the Felix Project, Jesuit Refugee Service, and Little Hearts Matter.

For shoppers who donate to ShelterBox via the machine, they can buy donation cards for items such as a mosquito net; a solar light; a clean water kit, or a humanitarian tent (for 405).

Other items on offer from other charities include meals for individuals and families from FareShare and a smiley face balloon, that will be sent to children who are recovering from heart surgery by Little Hearts Matter.

The machines are being brought to the UK by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as part of their annual Light the World Christmas initiative.

The Mormon church has already popularised the use of vending machines for charitable donations in Australia, Canada, Guatemala, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines and the United States

ShelterBox: Fundraising drives like these enable us to deliver vital aid

ShelterBoxs director of fundraising and communications Lisa McCormack said: The Light the World vending machine is a fun and festive fundraising initiative, which will help ShelterBox continue our crucial work, supporting families uprooted from their homes by disaster or conflict.

With millions of people displaced worldwide, the need for emergency shelter has never been more urgent. As winter approaches and temperatures drop in many places around the world, the need for shelter becomes even more critical.

Fundraising drives like these mean we can deliver vital aid like tents, water filters, and thermal blankets to people who need them.

The wonderful people who donate through these vending machines will be making a tangible difference to people who have often lost not only their homes but loved ones and livelihoods too.

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,
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In response to Donald Trumps election victory, some women in the US are joining a radical feminist movement that seeks to decentralize men in their lives. The movement, called 4B, originated in South Korea about a decade ago in response to broader dissatisfaction with gender discrimination and sexual violence online. Now thousands of Americans are tuning in to the movement on social media as Trumpwho appointed the Supreme Court justices who helped overturn national abortion rights, and has been found liable for sexual abuseprepares to return to office. While the movement has yet to show signs of gaining traction offline, its resurgence reflects a growing sense of frustration among women who fear that Trumps second term will be characterized by unchecked misogyny and the continued rollback of bodily autonomy in the US.

The name 4B refers to the four nos, which encourage women not to date, marry, have sex, or bear children. (The Korean word for no is bi.) The movement originated in feminist circles on X, then known as Twitter, in 2016, after a twenty-three-year-old woman was murdered in a public restroom in Seoul. The assailant, a man in his mid-thirties, said that he felt ignored and belittled by women, but in spite of this, the police refused to label the murder a hate crime, according to The Cut. This kickstarted discussions across online forums.

Around the same time, a different feminist wave was gaining traction in South Korea: the so-called escape the corset campaign, which sought to free women from prejudicial beauty standards. As the movement grew into a fashion statement, many young South Korean women participated by swearing off makeup and cutting their hair short. Building on the momentum from this campaign, the 4B movement sought to create space for women and more broadly reject traditional gender norms. South Korea has one of the widest gender gaps in the developed world; as of 2022, women earned 31 percent less than men (based on median hourly wages). Thousands of people, particularly women, have also been the victims of a surge in nonconsensual pornography and molka crimes, a term referring to tiny spy cameras installed in public bathrooms, motel rooms, or similar spaces to capture voyeuristic images. Ninety-eight percent of those arrested for making illegal sexual recordings have been men, according to Coda Story.

Now the 4B movement appears to be booming on social media in the US: at time of writing, there were over a hundred thousand videos about the movement on TikTok; Google registered a massive surge in the search for 4B starting on Election Day. Ive been waiting for everyone to catch up to speed for a while, Alexa Vargas, a 4B adherent, said in a TikTok video posted last week. In a less restrictive interpretation of the movements tenets, Vargas encouraged women not to engage in hookup culture and to wait at least three months before considering having sex with new romantic partners. Decenter men from your life, she advised. Get off the dating apps. Another TikTok user said that shed been keeping her participation in the movement private but decided to speak about her experiences publicly after the election: As somebody whos been 4B for two years nowat thirty-six years old, it is the best thing Ive ever done for my mental health, she said. We are not alone in this.

Its too early to tell whether the movement will have much staying power, but it has already sparked a debate, both online and in more traditional media. Sex strikes are about as old as male-dominated societies: the practice has been an anti-war measure for centuriesit was central to the plot of the Ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, in which women on both sides of the Peloponnesian War denied their husbands sex as a way of forcing peace talksand more recently has returned to the discourse in the US following the introduction of a strict anti-abortion measure in Georgia and the repeal of Roe v. Wade. (Lysistrata was also adapted, in late 2015, into Spike Lees Chi-Raq.) Such movements rarely result in widespread support, Helen Morales, a cultural critic and classicist, told The Guardian in 2022, but they can be a powerful tool for building awareness. Women tend to protest with their bodies when they dont have a voice, Morales added.

And yet sex strikes have often been ridiculed in the West and its media, and as soon as 4B hashtags began to garner engagement last week, criticism of the idea bubbled up again. Kami Rieck, an opinion editor at the New York Times, argued that sex strikes are a losing strategy for American women. (The 4B philosophy is shortsighted, primarily because it demonizes men, including those who champion equality and reproductive freedom, while constraining the women who participate in it, Rieck wrote.) And the movement has faced outright misogyny, in particular from men on the far right. According to a recent report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, women have experienced an onslaught of online abuse and harassment following Trumps victory, including a significant rise in posts focused on repealing the Nineteenth Amendment (which gave women the right to vote) and increased mentions of the phrase your body, my choice. Nick Fuentes, a white-supremacist influencer, tweeted it to his over four hundred thousand followers on the day of the election.

4B has also faced stark backlash from another popular womens movement online, led by social media influencers who advocate for the return of traditional domestic gender roles and the importance of womens perceived work as homemakers and mothers. Many self-described trad wives (a popular term in this community) mocked the 4B cause on TikTok and elsewhere. With the 4B movement taking off, I just want you to know Ill be doing my part to keep the birth rate from declining, one TikTok user who frequently posts pro-trad videos wrote. The stark contrast between these ideologically opposed online trends reveals a growing divide between American women, and young women in particular.

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Even amid all this, theres a risk that journalistic attention to the broader issues of womens rights and bodily autonomy will decline post-election. During and since Trumps first term, online feminist activism has been a major story across the media landscape, especially since the repeal of Roebut, as votes have been tallied, its become increasingly clear that women didnt overwhelmingly support Trumps pro-choice opponent, Kamala Harris. (Overall, a majority of women voted for Harris, but in smaller numbers than for Joe Biden.)

Still, the rapid rise of the 4B movement in the US signals a growing anxiety on the part of women who fear that their rights will come under even greater threat during the second Trump presidency. Knowing this, the need for journalism that accurately and faithfully captures these concerns may be more important now than ever. While viral slogans and seemingly radical activist tactics may come and go with the breakneck speed of online news cycles, they hint at underlying shifts in public opinion that warrant the presss continual attention, as well as its scrutiny.



Other notable stories:

On Tuesday, a federal judge sentenced Jack Teixeirathe young Massachusetts Air National Guardsman who shared sensitive government documents on the social platform Discord, and was subsequently arrested and charged under the Espionage Actto fifteen years in prison. (We wrote about the Teixeira leak, and what it meant for journalism, last year.) Then, yesterday, we learned that Asif W. Rahman, a CIA official, has been charged, also under the Espionage Act, for sharing classified documents containing possible details of Israeli plans to strike Iran. The documents circulated on the Telegram messaging app last month; initially, as the New York Times reports, officials said that they didnt know where the leak came from and were looking for the source.

In yesterdays newsletter, we noted that a number of French newspapers, including Le Monde, were suing X, alleging that the platform has violated French and European laws that require big tech platforms to compensate publishers when the latters content is shared on their sites. Now Le Monde reports that a court in France has intervened in a separate dispute revolving around the same laws, this time involving Google and various European publishers; Google had proposed to temporarily block content from these outlets from appearing for certain users, calling this a limited experiment to establish the effects of such a measure, but the court ordered Google not to go ahead with the test.

Over the summer, Selina Cheng, a Wall Street Journal reporter in Hong Kong, claimed that the paper had fired her after she put herself forward to lead a local journalists association that has come under fire from officials in the territory, where press freedom is in decline; the Journal, Cheng alleged, told her that the role would be incompatible with her journalistic work. (Cheng wrote for CJR about her firing.) This week, Cheng said she is taking legal action against the Journal, and plans to allege before a tribunal that the paper fired her illegally due to her work with a union. The Associated Press has more.

And certain Gaza-based correspondents for Al Jazeera said that they would stop broadcasting this week, in protest of what they described as the delayed payment of wages and expenses; one correspondent told colleagues that stalled fuel payments have meant that journalists can no longer get around in their own vehicles, and that they dont want to use public transport for safety reasons. Al Jazeera blamed the delays on logistical problems with getting money into Gaza; Semafors Max Tani has more.
Meta Platforms Inc. will face a somewhat scaled-back antitrust trial over its alleged dominance of social networking after a federal judge threw out some allegations by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, but the heart of the case remains.

In a brief order on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said he was narrowing one of the FTCs claims. He accepted Metas arguments that some of its restrictions on its Facebook platform had legitimate business justifications.

But the judge rejected the companys main contention  that its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were good for consumers and not an effort to dominate the personal social-networking market. Boasberg left that issue to be decided at trial. He also ruled in favor of the FTC that Meta cant argue at trial that it needed the acquisitions to compete against Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.s Google.

The lawsuit, filed in 2020, is one of two by the first Trump administration aimed at curtailing the power of the largest US tech platforms.

Meta said its defense is strong.

We are confident that the evidence at trial will show that the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp have been good for competition and consumers, Meta spokesperson Christopher Sgro said in a statement, adding that the FTC is wrongly continuing to assert that no deal is ever truly final, and businesses can be punished for innovating.

The FTC said the case will protect innovation.

This case, which began under President Trump and was refined during the Biden administration, represents a bipartisan effort to curtail Metas monopoly power and restore competition to ensure freedom and innovation in the social media ecosystem, FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar said in a statement.

In April, Meta asked Boasberg to dismiss the FTCs suit outright, without a trial, arguing that the agency cant prove consumers would be better off without its acquisitions of the two apps.

In its suit, the antitrust agency alleged that the company illegally dominated the US personal social-networking market by buying up emerging rivals.

The judge is to schedule a trial date at a hearing this month.

The case is Federal Trade Commission v. Meta Platforms Inc., 20-cv-03590, US District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

Top photo: A logo at the Meta Platforms Inc. pavilion on the opening day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Monday, May 23, 2022. The annual Davos gathering of political leaders, top executives and celebrities runs from May 22 to 26. Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg.

Copyright 2025 Bloomberg.
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Apple Inc. faces a lawsuit from a U.K. consumer group over allegations its monopoly on data storage breaches competition law, in a fresh class action that could ultimately cost the tech giant billions.

The iCloud provider is accused of abusing its market dominance by making it difficult for consumers to use alternative means of storing photos, videos and other data beyond that of its own service, according to lawyers at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, who filed the suit Londons Competition Appeal Tribunal on behalf of Which? Ltd.

Britains opt-out class-action regime has become an increasingly popular route for consumers to try and hold a handful of globally dominant firms to account. Tech companies  Apple included  in particular have been targeted for abusing their dominant position to overcharge customers. None of the recent filings have made it to a full trial.

Apple raised the price of iCloud storage for U.K. consumers by between 20% and 29% across its storage tiers in 2023  fees which customers have no choice but to pay once they surpass the free storage limit of 5GB, according to the claimants.

Which? estimates that the damages in the case could reach as high as 3 billion ($3.8 billion) should the 40 million British customers who use Apple storage products take part in the litigation. A London judge will have to approve the class action before the real scope can be decided.

Our users are not required to use iCloud, and many rely on a wide range of third-party alternatives for data storage, Apple said. We reject any suggestion that our iCloud practices are anticompetitive and will vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise.

Top photo: An employee places a new iPhone 16 smartphone in a bag in the Apple Inc. store on Regent Street in London, UK, on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. . Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg.

Copyright 2025 Bloomberg.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Joe Mosbrook, a news reporter at WKYC Channel 3 from 1967 to 2002, has died.

Mosbrook passed away peacefully in his sleep at a hospice care facility in Euclid on Tuesday, his son, Charlie, shared on Facebook. He was 91.

A native of Wilmington, Delaware, Mosbrooks journalism career began in 1961, working in his hometown at radio station WDEL. He arrived in Cleveland six years later to report and anchor the news at the local NBC radio and television affiliate.

During his career, Mosbrook covered major stories such as the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the Kent State shootings, interviewed several U.S. presidents and even traveled with King Charles when the monarch visited Cleveland as the Prince of Wales in 1977.

Mosbrook is also famously remembered for surviving the crash of WKYCs helicopter, Newshawk 3, during a blizzard in Ashtabula County in 1981, the station reported.

Joe was all business. A solid reporter. Every story was soup to nuts, Paul Orlousky, his former colleague at WKYC, said in an obituary shared with cleveland.com.

Mosbrook was a noted jazz historian, too. The author of Cleveland Jazz History, his newsletters for the Northeast Ohio Jazz Society were turned into broadcasts for Clevelands NPR affiliate, WCPN, which has aired them weekly for the past 33 years.

Mosbrook is survived by his four children, Nancy Mosbrook Gecking, Joe Mosbrook, Charlie Mosbrook and Susan Mosbrook. The family will share memorial details in the coming weeks, Charlie posted.


Dominica to confer highest national honour on PM Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi will receive Dominicas highest national award, the 'Dominica Award of Honour,' in recognition of his vital support to it during the COVID-19 pandemic and his commitment to strengthening India-Dominica relations. According to a press release by the Government of Dominica, President Sylvanie Burton will bestow the award during the India-CARICOM Summit, set to take place in Georgetown, Guyana, from November 19 to 21.



In February 2021, Prime Minister Modi supplied Dominica with 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine"a generous gift which enabled Dominica to extend support to its Caribbean neighbours", said the government of Dominica.



The award also recognises Indias support for Dominica in education and information technology under PM Modis leadership, as well as his role in promoting climate resilience-building initiatives and sustainable development on a global level.



Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit expressed the nations gratitude, stating, Prime Minister Modi has been a true partner to Dominica, particularly during our time of need amid a global health crisis. It is an honour to present him with Dominicas highest national accolade as a symbol of our gratitude for his support and as a reflection of the strong ties between our countries. We look forward to building on this partnership and advancing our shared vision of progress and resilience.



Accepting the award, PM Modi emphasised the importance of collaboration in tackling global challenges such as climate change and geopolitical conflicts and affirmed Indias commitment to working alongside Dominica and the Caribbean in addressing these issues.



This honour will be conferred as part of PM Modis diplomatic tour, which will include visits to Nigeria, Brazil, and Guyana.



PM Modi will participate in the Second CARICOM-India Summit in Georgetown, Guyana and hold meetings with leaders of CARICOM member countries to further enhance Indias long-standing friendship with the region.




Ursula O. Robinson

ORANGEBURG, S.C.  South Carolina State University Professor of Drama Ursula O. Robinson is back in the spotlight as she appears in another Tyler Perry production on Netflix, the series Beauty in Black.

And starting on Thursday, the spotlight will shine on Robinsons writing skills, as SC States Henderson-Davis Players perform her original play, Thirsty, at the Henderson-Davis Theatre on campus.

Her career as an actress, playwright and professor dates back to her childhood in Greensboro, North Carolina. It all started at age 6 when she went Christmas caroling with her siblings and cousins. She prayed and dreamt of becoming a famous actress.

We performed in front of the family during Christmas time, and my aunt suggested that we add more to the show, so we did a Black nativity scene. That same aunt then again suggested that we add talent to the show, so later it became a tradition, Robinson said. Everybody else stopped doing the show, and I kept doing it until my freshman or sophomore year of college.

Also in her childhood, she was then introduced to soap operas and TV award shows, and her desire for acting, theatre, and writing really sparked.

Growing up, I always wanted to work with C. Thomas Howell because I had a crush on him from when he played his role in The Outsiders, Robinson said. I fell in love with him then, but Ive always looked up to people who were doing great things.

Now, Robinson is doing her own great things. She garnered lots of national attention for her scene-stealing performance in Perrys movie, Divorce in the Black, one of this years most watched movies on streaming services.

Knowing your director and the kind of work this film is, goes a long way in helping you shape characterization, Robinson said. I learned how to come to the set every day and consistently deliver.

Working with Perry on Divorce in the Black and Beauty in Black, Robinson learned to get her lines down quickly, understand her character, be ready for the camera, and understand the process of shooting a film rather than a series. She described it all as a dream come true.

Translating her success to the classroom and beyond

Robinson is a graduate of Shaw University, an HBCU in Raleigh, North Carolina. After being an adjunct professor at North Carolina A&T and teaching in public schools for nearly two years, she arrived at SC State University as a drama professor.

Robinson dedicates her acting career to her students as she brings her students along with her for special events like movie premiers, she mentors them through their acting gigs, and she even brings back the knowledge she learned from being on set.

Robinson does more than just teach courses -- she also advises SC States Henderson-Davis Players, writes and directs plays, host events, and serves as a mentor.

One of her most recent events was a lyceum for students and the community. The purpose of the lyceum was to get young people to begin to consider their career and goals.

The event was open to community members so they can realize that youre never too old to pursue your dream, Robinson said. You shouldnt leave here without a plan, a course of action of things you want to do to live your best life.

I want to help people pursue their passion and not spend years just kicking around, trying to figure out who they are and whats going on with life before they get to that passion, she said. Because you can live your passion, and that was the purpose of it -- to inspire people.

During the lyceum, Robinson invited Jamarius Wiley, a first-semester transfer student from Morehouse College, on stage to tell his story and encourage and motivate other young people.

I wanted to make them feel as if no matter the environment you come from, if you push and want to achieve your goal, you can achieve it, Wiley said. Of course, you can dream when youre sleep, but its better to dream when youre up because you have the opportunity to achieve it.

Nothing against Morehouse, but I see the way professor Robinson acted in the Tyler Perry movie. She actually put her heart in it and became the character, Wiley said. Her techniques are just different from what I was taught at my last college.

Robison also was an integral part of the South Carolina Theatre Associations convention last week in Orangeburg. The event included master classes from three SC State alumni: Javon Johnson, an actor on Tyler Perrys The Oval who also is a producer, director and playwright; Erskine Johnson III, actor and founder of M2tI; and Calhoun Cornwell, filmmaker and director of Orangeburg 68, which was a finalist in the BET Project Cr8. Like Robinson, both Javon Johnson and Erskine Johnson have been in Tyler Perry productions. Erskine Johnson was the first African American inducted in the South Carolina Theatre Association Hall of Fame.

Thirsty is up next.

The next production for the Henderson-Davis players will be Robinsons original play Thirsty. Performances will be Thursday, Nov. 14, through Sunday, Nov. 17 starting at 8 p.m. at the Henderson-Davis Theatre. The play contains adult themes.

Click here to purchase tickets.

For more information about SC States Professional Drama Program and the Henderson-Davis Players, visit the programs webpage at www.scsu.edu/academics/programs/drama or contact Robinson at urobinson@scsu.edu or 803-536-8815. Apply for admission to SC State at apply.scsu.edu/apply.

The Professional Drama Program is a unit of the SC State Department of Visual & Performing Arts and the College of Education, Humanities & Social Sciences.
The Palm Haven neighborhood of San Jose was one of the largest, most racially restricted developments in Santa Clara County under discriminatory housing covenants that are no longer enforceable but still appear in deeds. Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle

When Daniel Ho purchased a home in Palo Alto in 2015, he had to sign property records that said the property shall not be used or occupied by any person of African, Japanese or Chinese or any Mongolian descent unless they were a servant to a white person living at said property.

The discovery of a racist housing covenant  clauses in property deeds that prohibited people of color from buying or living in certain neighborhoods during the 1920s and 1930s in the U.S.  startled Ho, who is Asian American. He said he was aware that covenants were legal in the past, but reading it raised a lot of questions about his neighborhoods history.

It (was) striking to see language that in another historical period would disparage you from residing in this home, Ho said.

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Ho is not alone. Although racist housing covenants were outlawed by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, homebuyers in the Bay Area and across the country continue to find harmful and offensive language in property deeds to this day, resurfacing the countrys racist history when the restrictions were enforced. Homebuyers are required to sign these deeds to transfer the ownership of the property from the seller.

Stanford University law professor Daniel Ho points out the racially discriminatory housing covenant in the property record he was required to signed when he purchased his Palo Alto home in 2015. Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle

In 2021, California legislators passed a law requiring all counties to find and remove racist and discriminatory covenants from millions of property records  creating an enormous workload for county recorder offices.

A new artificial intelligence model seeks to make this process easier.

Released last month by Stanford Universitys Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab, aka RegLab, and Princeton University assistant professor Peter Henderson, the AI language model was able to detect around 7,500 racist covenants in 5.2 million deed records from 1902 to 1980  the period when discriminatory deeds were most common  in Santa Clara County in just a week, said Ho, a Stanford law professor and director of its RegLab.

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After the success of the AI models findings, the county plans to continue using it to analyze the countys remaining 18.8 million deed records.

Stanford researchers trained their language model on what to look for by feeding it nearly 4,000 racial covenants from across the country, Ho said. The model is available to all counties for free, he said.

The AI system cut down on the hugely time-consuming part of sifting through millions of deed documents, allowing the county to focus scarce human resources on the documents that were most relevant, Ho said.

Daniel Ho, a Stanford University law professor and director of the Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab, worked on an artificial intelligence language model that can help California counties search property records for discriminatory restrictions that were outlawed more than 50 years ago. Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle

County councils are required to review and approve the redactions.

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AB1466 also requires title and escrow companies as well as real estate brokers and agents to notify homebuyers of illegally restrictive covenants and of buyers ability to have them removed through a modification process outlined in the bill. But the bulk of the responsibility falls on county recorders, whose association is expected to submit its next progress report to the Legislature on Jan. 1.

Before the AI model, Santa Clara Countys Clerk-Recorders Office had a three-person team doing the work in-house, said Louis Chiaramonte, assistant county clerk-recorder.

It took them a couple of months to read 100,000 pages to identify 400 racist covenants, Chiaramonte said.

You have individuals who are working eight hours a day solely for the purpose of complying with the state law, Chiaramonte said. Thats day in, day out, reading through pages, word by word.

The AI model also created an interactive map of all the properties that had racially restrictive covenants. Researchers said 1 in 4 properties was subject to racial covenants as of 1950. In many instances, these covenants applied not only to single-family homes but entire tracts of land and neighborhoods.

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The Broadway Palm Haven neighborhood of San Jose used to be subject to discriminatory housing restrictions that can still be found in property records new homeowners are required to sign. Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle

In Santa Clara County, some of the largest and most notable racially restricted developments were in these areas: Palm Haven, Herschbachs subdivision and Oak Hill cemetery in San Jose; the Redwood Estates in Los Gatos; the Los Altos Golf and Country Club; and the Stanford University Villa tract in Palo Alto.

The maps revealed historical insights into the utilization of racial covenants in Santa Clara County and the disproportionate role of a small number of developers in maintaining housing discrimination, the team of researchers wrote in a paper published last month.

Ho said one of the most striking findings is that there were only 10 developers who were responsible for nearly a third of the 7,500 racial covenants and deeds they identified.

One of the conventional accounts is that developers placed those covenants in deeds to preserve racial homogeneity and housing prices, Ho said. But our finding that a small number of developers was responsible for such a disproportionate number of covenants suggests that there was real agency.

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In San Jose, the covenants went beyond restricting where people of color could live  but also where the dead could be.

Racially discriminatory housing covenants also applied to San Jose burial plots, including at Oak Hill Memorial Park. Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle

The city-owned Oak Hill cemetery had racial covenants for 50 burial plots in 1925 for the human dead of the Caucasian race, according to the study, which researchers wrote goes against the conventional historical account that racial covenants were used only between private parties after the Supreme Court banned state-based racial zoning.

Ho said he hopes other jurisdictions will use the model.

The San Francisco Assessor-Recorders Office is developing a similar tool and has been in talks with Stanford about a potential collaboration that could augment it, a spokesperson said.

Before AB1466, Ho said, jurisdictions typically left it up to homeowners to individually petition to redact their deed covenants.

However, research shows that theres a small number of homeowners who are willing to go through the byzantine process, Ho said.
Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to members of the media at the U.S. Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 1, 2023.

Special counsel Jack Smith asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to pause proceedings in his effort to overturn a judge's decision to dismiss the criminal classified documents case against President-elect Donald Trump and two other defendants.

Smith's request cited Trump's election last week to a second term in the White House.

On Friday, the special counsel cited that same reason in asking a federal judge in Washington, D.C., for a pause in proceedings in another criminal case, where Trump is charged with crimes related to his attempt to reverse his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. That request was granted.

Both moves reflect the expectation that the Department of Justice will drop both criminal cases against Trump because of his election.

DOJ policy says that the department cannot criminally prosecute a sitting president. But even if that policy was not in effect, Trump has the power as president to order his attorney general, who will head the DOJ, to toss out both cases.

Trump on Wednesday announced that he would nominate the controversial Florida congressman Matt Gaetz as his attorney general.

NBC News reported earlier Wednesday that Smith and his team of prosecutors in the special counsel's office intend to resign before Trump is sworn in as president in January. Trump was expected to fire Smith if he did not quit.

On Tuesday, a New York state judge granted a request by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office for a one-week delay in proceedings in a third criminal case against Trump to give prosecutors time to consider how his electoral victory affects that case. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in the case on Nov. 26 on nearly three dozen counts of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Florida federal court Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this year dismissed the criminal case against Trump in which Smith had accused the Republican of illegally withholding classified government records after leaving office in early 2021 and obstructing efforts by officials to recover them.

Cannon, who was nominated by Trump, also tossed out obstruction charges against Trump's valet, Walt Nauta, and a worker at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Carlos de Oliveira.

Cannon ruled that Smith's appointment as special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who heads the DOJ, violated a clause in the U.S. Constitution that regulates how government officials are appointed.

Smith asked the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn Cannon's ruling.

But in its filing to that court on Wednesday, Smith's office wrote, "As a result of the election held on November 5, 2024, one of the defendants in this case, Donald J. Trump, is expected to be certified as President-elect on January 6, 2025, and inaugurated on January 20, 2025."
A woman completes her ballot for the 2024 U.S. presidential election at a polling booth in Fairfax, Virginia on November 5, 2024.

For the second time in U.S. history, a major party nominated a woman for President, and for the second time, she came up short. Vice President Kamala Harris' loss to Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S. presidential election echoed Hillary Clinton's defeat in 2016. Many women saw the opportunity of having the first woman president as a powerful signal of women's advancement in leadership and society, and now question what the loss means and what role gender may have played. But the idea of electing the first female president didn't strongly motivate people to turn out. Only 10% of voters called the historic potential of the Harris campaign the most important factor in their decision, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide between Oct. 28 and Nov. 5. An additional 25% considered it an important factor but not decisive. Still, Harris captured 48.1% of the over 140 million votes Americans cast in 2024, according to NBC News.

While many Harris supporters are saddened by the result and concerned about what her experience means for future female candidates, a range of political analysts, academics, and U.S. women CNBC Make It spoke to remain cautiously optimistic. They don't expect that America will have to wait much longer for a female president.

'I think a woman could do a great job as president. I don't think she is the right woman'

The results of this year's election shouldn't be understood to mean that Americans don't ever want a female president, says NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitali, author of the 2022 book "Electable: Why America Hasn't Put a Woman in the White House  Yet." The compressed timeline of Harris's campaign  and her association with President Joe Biden, whose approval ratings have long been underwater  didn't help to convince voters that she was the right candidate for the job. "Many Americans didn't know who Harris was heading into the election, and if they did, they just knew her as the vice president of Joe Biden, an unpopular incumbent," adds Vitali. "Forming your own political identity is so important for any candidate, whether you're a woman or not," Vitali continues. "Harris only had 107 days to run a successful campaign." Close to 30% of voters said they wanted a major overhaul in how the country is run, according to AP VoteCast.



As one of the first Gen Z women to hold public office in the U.S., 26-year-old Bushra Amiwala of Chicago would love to see more female representation in government. But even she was conflicted. "I voted for Vice President Harris, but there was so much pause in that decision  I debated it for weeks," she says. Amiwala felt indecisive about Harris in part because "she's been part of the same administration that's been involved in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and as a Muslim American, that's an important issue to me," she says. Harris' loss has not diminished Amiwala's optimism that the U.S. could elect its first female president soon. "I think Americans are ready for a woman president, it just wasn't meant to be Harris," Amiwala says. "I'm excited to see what the 2028 election holds."

Former President Donald Trump thanks the "North Carolina Girls," a group of women who attend many of his rallies, at the end of a rally at First Horizon Coliseum on November 02, 2024 in Greensboro, North Carolina. Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Trump voter JoyAnna Chabaka, a 48-year-old real estate broker in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, saw the President-elect as a strong leader and family man. She hopes to see a woman in the White House; she just didn't believe Harris was the right candidate. "I think a woman could do a great job as president. I don't think she is the right woman," she says. "I really wanted to support [Harris], especially as someone who is also biracial," she adds. But the Harris campaign's messaging around the vice president's race and identity felt inauthentic. "That's where she lost me," Chabaka says. "She might have had a good message [in the campaign], but I think it got lost in some of the culture or identity politics her team used." "Something I also struggled with, too, is that she wasn't a mom," Chabaka continues. "I didn't feel like she understood what it was like being a parent in this economy under her administration."

'People still don't trust us to lead'

A wealth of research shows that women leaders  especially those who compete at the highest echelons of political power  have to walk a tightrope. If they make traditional displays of power, they may be labeled as too direct or aggressive. If they appear agreeable and friendly, they can be denigrated as weak, lightweight, and incompetent. For Harris, a woman of color, the tightrope was even thinner, Vitali says: Harris had to face both racist and sexist tropes throughout the election. "Some people didn't vote for Harris for her politics, or because they were frustrated with Biden," Vitali says. "But at the same time, some voters might not even be able to recognize their unconscious bias around not voting for a woman, specifically a woman of color." Natasha Bowman, a 46-year-old human resources executive in New York, theorizes that Harris' identity as a Black and South Asian woman played a role in her defeat. As a Black woman herself, Bowman says she has to work "twice as hard for half the recognition." "What Harris' loss reaffirmed to me is that you can have a woman of color with a flawless resume, and people will still think she's less qualified than a white man with a criminal record, simply because of her gender and the color of her skin," she says. "The millions of people that voted for Trump sent a very clear message: They want a country that is male-centered and white-centered." Alejandra Toro, a 29-year-old project manager from Charlotte, North Carolina, felt similar heartache. The morning after the election, Toro sat down at her makeup table to film a "get ready with me" TikTok video, as she does every day, through tears. She decided to post it, hoping it would comfort other disheartened women. Within hours, her video garnered more than 4 million views. "If Harris  smart, well-spoken, and experienced  wasn't 'qualified' enough, who is?" Toro tells CNBC Make It. "As a woman of color, it's disheartening, it almost feels like people still don't trust us to lead."

'Maybe a Republican woman would see greater success'

Sexism was a small but significant factor that worked against Harris, according to Laura Kray, a psychologist and director of the Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership at UC Berkley's Haas School of Business. "When people think of the most powerful men in the world, whether it be CEOs or those in political office, it's men who control resources, whereas the most powerful women tend to have less actual power and more social status," Kray says. She points to the Harris campaign's active presence on TikTok and the endorsements she received from celebrities with huge, devoted fan bases like Beyonce and Taylor Swift. While Americans may support women's advancement in principle, "the outcome of the election suggests, to me, that our society remains more comfortable with women in supporting roles rather than the primary decision-makers, or controlling resources."

The outcome of the election suggests, to me, that our society remains more comfortable with women in supporting roles rather than the primary decision-makers. Laura Kray director of the Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership at UC Berkley's Haas School of Business
Amazon representatives met with the House China committee in recent months to discuss lawmaker concerns over the company's partnership with TikTok, CNBC confirmed.

A spokesperson for the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party confirmed the meeting, which centered on a shopping deal between Amazon and TikTok announced in August. The agreement allows users of TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance, to link their account with Amazon and make purchases from the site without leaving TikTok.

"The Select Committee conveyed to Amazon that it is dangerous and unwise for Amazon to partner with TikTok given the grave national security threat the app poses," the spokesperson said. The parties met in September, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news.

Representatives from Amazon and TikTok did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

TikTok's future viability in the U.S. is uncertain. In April, President Joe Biden signed a law that requires ByteDance to sell TikTok by Jan. 19. If TikTok fails to cut ties with its parent company, app stores and internet hosting services would be prohibited from offering the app.

President-elect Donald Trump could rescue TikTok from a potential U.S. ban. He promised on the campaign trail that he would "save" TikTok, and said in a March interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box" that "there's a lot of good and there's a lot of bad" with the app.

In his first administration, Trump had tried to implement a TikTok ban. He changed his stance around the time he met with billionaire Jeff Yass. The Republican megadonor's trading firm, Susquehanna International Group, owns a 15% stake in ByteDance, while Yass has a 7% stake in the company, NBC and CNBC reported in March.

 CNBC's Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report.
Nuclear fuel company BWX Technologies is "the nuclear pick [for] yesterday, today and tomorrow," according to Bank of America. Analyst Ronald Epstein reiterated his buy rating on the stock while increasing his price target to $160 from $115. The new price target indicates more than 20% upside from where shares closed Wednesday. BWX's primary business is providing U.S. submarines and carriers with naval nuclear reactors, nuclear fuel and other components. Shares have surged 72.1% in 2024 due to the scarcity premium in the small modular reactor, or SMR, market. Although the market for SMRs is still in the beginning phases, BWX is still a key supplier in the market, per Epstein. "Additionally, BWXT is uniquely positioned to the US Navy build up as the sole-source supplier of nuclear power plants for submarines and aircraft carriers," Epstein wrote in a research note on Thursday. The company's "monopolistic position" also shields it from any tailwinds from sluggish shipbuilders and shipyards performance, the analyst added. "We view BWXT as a pure-play beneficiary of bi-partisan support for the Department of Defense's (DoD) Indo-Pacific strategy," Epstein said. Shares climbed 4% Thursday before the bell. Analysts are generally bullish on the stock. Of the 11 covering BWX Technologies, eight rate it as buy or strong buy, LSEG data shows.
Michael Burry, best known for calling the subprime mortgage crisis, made a slew of changes in his portfolio last quarter, including what appears to be a hedge on his sizable bet on Chinese internet stocks. Burry, who now manages hedge fund Scion Asset Management, boosted his stakes in a few Chinese internet companies' ADRs, according to a regulatory filing. The trader added to his Alibaba bet by 29% to a stake worth more than $21 million, making it his largest position at the end of September. The widely followed investor also doubled his stake in JD.com , pushing it to become Scion's second-biggest holding, worth $20 million. Burry also increased his stake in Chinese search engine Baidu by 67% to a bet worth $13.2 million at the end of the third quarter. While loading up on these ADRs, Burry took a significant amount of put options against these names, likely as some sort of hedge. Investors profit from puts when the underlying securities fall in prices. But when paired with long holdings, they can be used to offset any short-term losses expected in the shares. As of the end of September, Burry owned millions of dollars worth of put contracts against Alibaba, JD.com and Baidu, with unknown value, strike price or expiry, according to the filing. Chinese equities got a boost in September after the government signaled a flood of stimulus measures in a bid to revive growth and avoid continued stagnation in the world's second-largest economy. However, many stocks gave up some of those gains as officials have yet to announce much concrete fiscal support. Burry shot to fame by betting against mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 global financial crisis . Burry was depicted in Michael Lewis' book " The Big Short " and the subsequent Oscar-winning movie of the same name. Outside of these Chinese companies, Burry added to his bets on payment processing company Shift4 Payments , American Coastal Insurance Corporation and managed care firm Molina Healthcare . Money managers with more than $100 million in assets are required to disclose long positions with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 45 days after a quarter ends. Active traders such as Burry could have already changed their positions by the time filings come out.
Bill Ackman's Pershing Square doubled down on Nike and Brookfield in his concentrated portfolio last quarter. The high-profile investor boosted his investment in Nike drastically in the third quarter, making the bet worth $1.4 billion, according to a regulatory filing. The bet was only worth about $220 million at the end of June. Nike is in the midst of a broader restructuring after it shifted its strategy to sell directly to consumers. The sneaker giant has been gearing up for company veteran Elliott Hill to come out of retirement to take the helm. Just last month, Nike withdrew is full-year guidance and fell short on quarterly revenue as it works to fix its product assortment and rework its approach to innovation. Shares of Nike have plunged more than 30% this year. Pershing Square also boosted its bet on Brookfield last quarter to a stake worth $1.74 billion, making it the second biggest holding behind Alphabet. Earlier this year, Microsoft signed a deal with the company's majority-owned Brookfield Asset Management to invest more than $10 billion to develop renewable energy capacity to power the growing demand for artificial intelligence and data centers. Brookfield's portfolio also includes data center operators. Other than these big movers, the hedge fund manager tweaked slightly holdings of Hilton Worldwide Hotels , Restaurant Brands and Canadian Pacific Kansas City , and kept Alphabet , Chipotle and Howard Hughes unchanged.
A man whose 2016 hack of Bitfinex drained nearly 120,000 bitcoin from that cryptocurrency exchange was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison for a money laundering scheme he and his wife employed to hide the swiped crypto.

The value of that bitcoin stolen by Ilya Lichtenstein was just $70 million when he executed the cyberattack on Bitfinex and initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions to siphon off the cryptocurrency.

That crypto is currently worth $10.5 billion due to bitcoin's rise in price since 2016.

"I want to take full responsibility for my actions and make amends any way I can," Lichtenstein reportedly told Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., before she sentenced him to the prison term and three years of supervised release that prosecutors had requested.

Lichtenstein, 35, and his wife, Heather Rhiannon Morgan, pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy in August 2023, 18 months after their arrest in New York City, where they lived.

Lichtenstein first publicly admitted that he had been the hacker of Bitfinex at that plea hearing.

He had faced a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison before his sentencing on Thursday.

"The defendant perpetrated what was at the time one of the largest thefts from a virtual currency exchange," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. "He became one of the greatest money launderers that the government has encountered in the cryptocurrency space."

"Over half a decade, the defendant engaged in what IRS agents described as the most complicated money laundering techniques they had seen to date," prosecutors wrote.

Lichtenstein will get credit for the 29 months he has served in custody since his arrest. And with credit for good behavior, which is standard in the federal penal system, Lichtenstein could be released from prison in less than two years.

Morgan is scheduled to be sentenced Monday in Washington.

Prosecutors, who have said she was a "lower-level participant" in the money-laundering scheme, which she only became involved in three years after the Bitfinex hack, are asking the judge to sentence Morgan to 18 months in prison.

At the time of the couple's arrest in February 2022, the Department of Justice said officials had been able to seize more than 94,000 bitcoin stolen in the hack. That crypto, which was worth more than $3.6 billion at the time of the arrest, is now worth nearly $8.3 billion.

Prosecutors in their sentencing memo for Lichtenstein wrote that the federal "government anticipates returning most if not all of those assets to Bitfinex and/or other potential owners through restitution" and other means.
The Oura Ring 4 Courtesy: Oura

LISBON  Samsung's foray into smart rings isn't concerning the boss of the product category's pioneer, Oura  in fact, Tom Hale says he's seeing a boost in business. "I'm sure that a major tech company making an announcement saying: 'Hey, this is a category that matters. It's going to be something that's big.' I think it's probably helpful," Hale told CNBC in an interview this week. "In terms of the impact on our business, it has made zero impact. If anything, our business has gotten stronger since their announcement." In a wide-ranging interview with CNBC at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, Hale discussed Oura's plans for new areas of insight it wants to give users, how he is thinking about new devices and the company's intentions for international expansion.

Oura's flagship product is the Oura Ring 4, a device known as a smart ring. It is packed with sensors that can track some health metrics, allowing Oura app users to learn more about the quality of their sleep or how ready they are to tackle the day ahead. Founded in Finland in 2013, the company has been called a pioneer by analysts in the smart ring space. Oura said it has sold more than 2.5 million of its rings since it launched its first product. CCS Insight forecasts Oura will end the year with a 49% market share in smart rings. Competition is starting to rear its head in the space. The world's largest smartphone maker Samsung made its first venture into smart rings this year with the Galaxy Ring, which some analysts say has put the device category on the map and popularized it with a broader audience. Hale is keen to position Oura as a "health company and a science company from the get-go," with the aim of its product being "clinical grade." Oura is seeking approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its ring to be used for diagnostics, although Hale declined to provide too many further details. He did say that Oura's focus on health and science is what sets it apart from competitors. "If you're actually thinking [of] yourself as a healthcare company, it is very different in many ways and different postures you might take towards data privacy. ... So instead of being like a tech company where data is some sort of oil to be extracted and then used to create some kind of advantage of network effects, we're really a healthcare company where your data is sacrosanct," Hale said. Oura's business model relies on selling the hardware, as well as on a $5.99 monthly subscription service that allows users to get the insights from their ring. Oura says it has nearly 2 million subscribers. "We look more like a software company than we do look like a hardware company. And I think that's a function of the business model, and the fact that it's working. Our subscribers are continuing to pay," Hale said.

Oura eyes nutrition as next 'pillar'

Oura takes the data gathered by the ring to provide insight to its users, focused on a person's levels of sleep, activity and readiness to take on the day. Hale said the company is now testing out nutrition, with users able to take a picture of their meal and log it into the Oura app. Also in the nutrition space, he highlighted Oura's recent acquisition of Veri, a metabolic health startup that can take data from continuous glucose monitors  small devices inserted into a person's arm  to give insight into someone's blood sugar levels. Hale says that this, combined with Oura's food tracking feature, could tell a user how certain meals affect their glucose levels.

watch now

Many glucose monitors today are invasive and need to be inserted into the skin. Some observers see a non-invasive glucose monitor on wearable gear as something that could be transformative  but Hale warns this is a difficult goal to achieve. "The idea that a wearable [device] will get there, I think, has definitely been a Holy Grail, and like the Holy Grail, they may never find it, because it's a very difficult problem to solve with any kind of accuracy," Hale said. "Never say never. Certainly, technology continues to advance and all the capabilities continue to advance," he added.

New hardware and AI

While Oura only sells rings currently, Hale sees the company developing new products in the future. He declined to elaborate. "I think we'll undoubtedly see other Oura-branded products, beyond the ring," he promised. He also said the company hopes to work with other devices as well, even if they are not Oura's own hardware. Like many hardware companies, such as Apple and Samsung, Oura is looking at ways it can use the advancing capabilities of artificial intelligence to give users more personalized insights. Smartphone makers have spoken about so-called "AI agents," which they see as assistants that are able to anticipate what a user wants. Oura is testing out an AI product called Oura Advisor in a similar vein. "Think of it as the doctor in your pocket that knows all the data about you," Hale said.

International push
Check out the companies making headlines before the bell: Disney  Shares popped more than 9% after the company's fiscal fourth-quarter results beat analysts' estimates . For the period, Disney earned $1.14 per share, after adjustments, on revenue of $22.57 billion. That is above earnings of $1.10 per share on revenue of $22.45 billion that analysts were expecting, according to LSEG. Cisco Systems  The networking stock dropped slightly. The company topped Wall Street's quarterly estimates and lifted its full-year guidance, but posted its fourth consecutive quarter of declining revenue. Capri , Tapestry  The luxury apparel stocks were moving in opposite directions after the companies called off their planned merger , citing regulatory hurdles. Shares of Tapestry jumped 8%, while Capri slid more than 5%. Campbell Soup  Shares rose more than 1% after Piper Sandler upgraded the stock to overweight from neutral . The firm cited "continued strong growth" expectations for the Rao's brand. BWX Technologies  The nuclear fuel stock advanced more than 4% on the back of Bank of America's price target hike . The firm now sees shares hitting $160, which reflects upside potential of more than 20%. Bank of America also said the stock's recent rally can be attributed to the "scarcity premium" in the small modular reactor market. Super Micro  Shares plummeted more than 11%, extending losses from the previous session. On Wednesday, the stock fell more than 6% on the heels of the company saying it would delay the filing of its report for the period that ended Sept. 30 . ASML  The Dutch semiconductor supplier rose more than 3% after confirming its 2030 targets at its 2024 Investor Day. ASML confirmed potential scenarios for its annual revenue to fall between 44 billion and 60 billion euros, or $42.14 billion to $63.22 billion, while gross margin could be between 56% and 60%. Ibotta  The stock plunged about 20% despite the cashback rewards platform's third-quarter results beating on the top and bottom lines. Ibotta earned 51 cents per share on revenue of $98.6 million, while analysts surveyed by LSEG were expecting a profit of 35 cents per share on revenue of $94.1 million. CNH Industrial  The agricultural equipment stock rose nearly 6% after Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn revealed at CNBC's Delivering Alpha conference that he took a medium-sized position in the company . Sonos  The stock rose nearly 7% in the wake of the audio equipment maker's fourth-quarter results. Sonos reported a loss of 44 cents per share on revenue of $255.4 million.  CNBC's Alex Harring, Samantha Subin, Jesse Pound and Lisa Kailai Han contributed reporting.
San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus, shown at a podium during an earlier appearance, received a vote of no confidence from the Board of Supervisors, which called on her to resign and opened several pathways to her removal. San Mateo County Sheriffs Office

The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday unanimously passed a vote of no confidence in Sheriff Christina Corpus, called on her to resign and opened several pathways to her removal, a day after an independent report alleged corruption, intimidation and retaliation in Corpus office.

The resolution, introduced by Supervisors Noelia Corzo and Ray Mueller, opens a route to potentially putting Corpus on trial by directing staff to send copies of the report to the county district attorney, the California attorney general and the countys civil grand jury. The resolution also proposes an amendment to the countys charter that would give the Board of Supervisors authority to remove Corpus, if voters approve the change.

The board also voted to abolish the position of the sheriffs executive director of administration, a role with a nearly $250,000 salary that Corpus created and to which she appointed Victor Aenlle, with whom she allegedly has had an inappropriate relationship.

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Corpus is the most powerful person in the sheriffs office  and she needs to be held accountable, Corzo said at the meeting. It would be a dereliction of our duty not to act.

The meeting came after Corzo and Mueller unveiled the results of a monthslong investigation into Corpus office commissioned by the board and conducted independently by LaDoris Cordell, a retired Santa Clara County Superior Court judge and San Joses former police auditor.

The 400-page report found that more than a dozen allegations brought by whistleblowers against the sheriff were substantiated, including that Corpus is having an inappropriate relationship with appointee Aenlle, that she signed off on retaliation against staff, and that she used racist and anti-gay slurs.

In a brief appearance during the public comment period of Wednesdays meeting, Corpus called the report and the boards allegations disgusting.

I will not allow the board to threaten me and attempt to fire my chief of staff without cause, Corpus said. This inquiry was politically motivated and one-sided, and it was full of lies.

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Corpus also announced that she was promoting Aenlle to assistant sheriff effective immediately. Mueller asked Corpus whether she would be willing to provide testimony to Cordell under oath; Corpus said she would answer Muellers question when she has legal representation, then walked out of the meeting.

County Attorney John Nibbelin said he had some questions about the legality of Aenlles impromptu promotion and said county staff would look into whether someone who is not a sworn law enforcement officer can serve as an assistant sheriff.

County Executive Mike Callagy executed an order barring Aenlle from entering nonpublic areas of county buildings, including parts of the sheriffs office and county jails. Callagy noted that Aenlle could be subject to civil and criminal penalties if he violates the order, making it unclear whether Aenlle will be able to perform his new job responsibilities.

More than a dozen members of the public spoke at the meeting, with most calling for Corpus to be ousted and expressing support for the creation of a permanent inspector general to oversee the sheriffs office. County executive Callagy said a measure considering the appointment of an inspector general would be placed on the agenda for a future meeting. A few speakers defended Corpus and praised her leadership.

Hours before the reports release Tuesday, Corpus announced the arrest of Carlos Tapia, the president of the Deputy Sheriffs Association and a whistleblower, on suspicion of felony grand theft and theft by false pretenses. Supervisors and union leaders called Tapias arrest an example of Corpus pattern of retaliation, an allegation she denied.

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Retaliation against whistleblowers is just one of the allegations outlined in Cordells report, which was based on 60 hours of interviews with 40 current and past employees of Corpus office.

Lies, secrecy, intimidation, retaliation, conflicts of interest, and abuses of authority are the hallmarks of the Corpus administration, the report concluded. Sheriff Corpus should step down and Victor Aenlles employment with the Sheriffs Office should be terminated immediately. Nothing short of new leadership can save this organization that is in turmoil, and its personnel demoralized.

Corpus has accused supervisors of advancing a vendetta and trying to block her from creating change as a woman of color in the often male-dominated sheriffs office. Corpus became the countys first female and first Latina sheriff when she was elected in 2022.

Corpus has also said that Cordells report was biased and that she was not given sufficient opportunity to participate in the investigation. According to the report, Cordell emailed Corpus with an interview request and Corpus responded that she would consider it, but then never wrote back.

At Wednesdays meeting, supervisors defended Cordells credibility and dismissed Corpus allegations as attempts to deflect blame.

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The sheriffs office is using Trumpian tactics, in my opinion, of lies, false information, deflection and delay, Supervisor Warren Slocum said. Can 40 witnesses all be wrong?

There is no vendetta against her, Corzo said. There is only the pursuit of truth and justice. Corzo, also a woman of color, denounced Corpus invocation of her gender and ethnicity as a reason for the investigation. When people cry wolf, they do a disservice to all of the people that are actually experiencing discrimination.

If Corpus does not resign  and she has said she will not  removing her may take months and is not guaranteed.

A civil grand jury could look at the evidence and issue an accusation, which could kick off a trial in the superior court, but that litigation would be a multi-month process, Nibbelin said. The states attorney general could also exercise its supervisorial powers if it found evidence of criminality, but Nibbelin said the timeline for such an action is unclear.

Supervisors could also remove Corpus if San Mateo voters give them the authority to do so, but the earliest a charter amendment could go on the ballot would be in March, Nibbelin said, and its passage is not assured. Los Angeles County passed a similar amendment in November 2022, Nibbelin said.

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Board members asked for the publics patience and said they would be aggressive in holding Corpus accountable for her alleged misconduct, noting that the district attorney and the attorney general have the authority to subpoena Corpus, Aenlle and other witnesses.

We stand at a new point in the investigation, Mueller said. It no longer will be cooperative, but will be compulsory.

There will be a new era, Corzo said. I dont know exactly when that will be, but I do have great hope that one day we will have a sheriff that we can trust.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters

LISBON, Portugal  Tech giants are increasingly investing in the development of so-called "sovereign" artificial intelligence models as they seek to boost competitiveness by focusing more on local infrastructure. Data sovereignty refers to the idea that people's data should be stored on infrastructure within the country or continent they reside in. "Sovereign AI is a relatively new term that's emerged in the last year or so," Chris Gow, IT networking giant Cisco's Brussels-based EU public policy lead, told CNBC. Currently, many of the biggest large language models (LLMs), like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude, use data centers based in the U.S. to store data and process requests via the cloud. This has led to concern from politicians and regulators in Europe, who see dependence on U.S. technology as harmful to the continent's competitiveness  and, more worryingly, technological resilience.

Where did 'AI sovereignty' come from?

The notion of data and technological sovereignty is something that has previously been on Europe's agenda. It came about, in part, as a result of businesses reacting to new regulations. The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, for example, requires companies to handle user data in a secure, compliant way that respects their right to privacy. High-profile cases in the EU have also raised doubts over whether data on European citizens can be transferred across borders safely. The European Court of Justice in 2020 invalidated an EU-U.S. data-sharing framework, on the grounds that the pact did not afford the same level of protection as guaranteed within the EU by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Last year the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework was formed to ensure that data can flow safely between the EU and U.S. These political development have ultimately resulted in a push toward localization of cloud infrastructure, where data is stored and processed for many online services. Filippo Sanesi, global head of startup marketing and operations at OVHCloud, said the French cloud firm is seeing lots of demand for its European-located infrastructure, as they "understand the value of having their data in Europe, which are subject to European legislation."

"As this concept of data sovereignty becomes more mature and people understand what it means, we see more and more companies understanding the importance of having your data locally and under a specific jurisdiction and governance," Sanesi told CNBC. "We host a lot of data," he added. "This data is sovereign in specific countries, under specific regulations." "Now, with this data, you can actually make products and services for AI, and those services should then be sovereign, should be controlled, deployed and developed locally by local talent for the local population or businesses." The AI sovereignty push hasn't been driven forward by regulators  at least, not yet, according to Cisco's Gow. Rather, it's come from private companies, which are opening more data centers  facilities containing vast amounts of computing equipment to enable cloud-based AI tools  in Europe, he said. Sovereign AI is "more driven by the industry naming it that, than it is from the policymakers' side," Gow said. "You don't see the 'AI sovereignty' terminology used on the regulator side yet." Countries are pushing the idea of AI sovereignty because they recognize AI is "the future" and a "massively strategic technology," Gow said. Governments are focusing on boosting their domestic tech companies and ecosystems, as well as the all-important backend infrastructure that enables AI services. "The AI workload uses 20 times the bandwidth of a traditional workload," Gow said. It's also about enabling the workforce, according to Gow, as firms need skilled workers to be successful. Most important of all, however, is the data. "What you're seeing is quite a few attempts from that side to think about training LLMs on localized data, in language," Gow said.

In Italy, the first LLM trained specifically on the Italian language data, called Italia 9B, launched this summer. The aim of the Italia project is to store results in a given jurisdiction and rely on data from citizens within that region so that results produced by the AI systems there are more grounded in local languages, culture and history. "Sovereign AI is about reflecting the values of an organization or, equally, the country that you're in and the values and the language," David Hogan, EMEA head of enterprise sales for chipmaking giant Nvidia , told CNBC. "The core challenge is that most of the frontier models today have been trained primarily on Western data generally," Hogan added. In Denmark for example, where Nvidia has a major presence, officials are concerned about vital services such as health care and telecoms being delivered by AI systems that aren't "reflective" of local Danish culture and values, according to Hogan. On Wednesday, Denmark laid out a landmark white paper outlining how companies can use AI in compliance with the incoming EU AI Act  the world's first major AI law. The document is meant to serve as a blueprint for other EU nations to follow and adopt. "If you're in a European country that's not one of the major language countries that's spoken internationally, probably less than 2% of the data is trained on your language -- let alone your culture," Hogan said.

How regulation fueled a mindset shift

That's not to say regulations haven't proven an important factor in getting tech giants to think more about building localized AI infrastructure within Europe. OVHCloud's Sanesi said regulations like the EU's GDPR catalyzed a lot of the interest in onshoring the processing of data in a given region. The concept of AI sovereignty is also getting buy-in from local European tech firms. Earlier this week, Berlin-headquartered search engine Ecosia and its Paris-based peer Qwant announced a joint venture to develop a European search index from scratch, aiming to serve improved French and German language results. Meanwhile, French telecom operator Orange has said it's in discussions with a number of foundational AI model companies about building a smartphone-based "sovereign AI" model for its customers that more accurately reflects their own language and culture. "It wouldn't make sense to build our own LLMs. So there's a lot of discussion right now about, how do we partner with existing providers to make it more local and safer?" Bruno Zerbib, Orange's chief technology officer, told CNBC. "There are a lot of use cases where [AI data] can be processed locally [on a phone] instead of processed on the cloud," Zerbib added. Orange hasn't yet selected a partner for these sovereign AI model ambitions.
Here are Thursday's biggest calls on Wall Street: Citi initiates Gilead Sciences as buy The firm said it is bullish on the biotech company's HIV franchise. "We are initiating coverage of Gilead with a Buy rating and a $125 TP." Piper Sandler upgrades Campbell Soup to overweight from neutral Piper Sandler said it sees an attractive entry point for the stock. "We upgrade CPB from Neutral to Overweight on better long-term growth expectations with its Rao's brand. It has improving US measured retail sales and volume trends (ex- SOVO acquired brands). Despite better trends, the stock has pulled back ~15% since mid- September, which we believe presents a good buying opportunity." UBS initiates Cogent as buy The firm said it sees meaningful revenue acceleration for the internet services company. "We are initiating CCOI with a Buy rating and $102 PT." Oppenheimer reiterates Nvidia as buy The firm said it is bullish heading into earnings next week. "We see NVDA best positioned in AI, benefiting from full-stack AI hardware/software. Reiterate Outperform and raise price target to $175 from $150." Jefferies reiterates Tesla as hold The firm raised its price target on the stock to $300 per share from $195. "Tesla should take advantage of shares re-rating 30% back > $1trn since Trump's election to raise equity. Assuming markets remain competitive, de-regulation raises the growth path but also the investment requirements for Tesla and competitors (AV, Robots) in ventures where returns remain unclear." Bank of America upgrades ArcelorMittal to buy from Neutral Bank of America said the steel company's valuation is "compelling." " ArcelorMittal is a leader in all major global steel markets, including automotive, construction, household appliances and packaging. Its industrial presence in Europe, Asia, Africa and America gives it exposure to all the key steel markets, from emerging to mature." Morgan Stanley upgrades Doximity to equal weight from underweight Morgan Stanley said consensus estimates are too low for the online networking services for medical professionals. 'Doximity is seeing renewed momentum in its business and conservative Q4 guidance suggests room for upward revisions to estimates." Evercore ISI opens a negative tactical call on Target The firm said it sees sales trend deceleration heading into earnings next week. "We are initiating a negative TAP call on TGT ahead of its earnings on 11/20, with potential downside to $140." KeyBanc downgrades Papa John's to sector weight from overweight KeyBanc said it sees a slowing recovery for Papa John's shares. "We are downgrading shares of Papa Johns International from Overweight to Sector Weight, as our industry conversations suggest a recovery in sales trends and store-level profitability metrics could take longer than previously expected, and potentially require reinvestment on the part of the Company and its franchisees." JPMorgan initiates Blueprint Medicines as buy JPMorgan said the biotech company is a "blockbuster franchise not fully valued." "We initiate coverage on Blueprint Medicines ( BPMC) with an OW rating and a Dec 2025 PT of $126." Compass Point upgrades BXP to buy from neutral Compass said the real estate investment trust is undervalued. "We are upgrading BXP to Buy with an $88 PT as this blue chip office has lagged its two Manhattan focused office peers by +30% YTD, despite having a better balance sheet and higher average quality office portfolio. As an investment grade credit, BXP has continuous access to the unsecured debt markets." Wells Fargo reiterates Burlington as a top pick Wells Fargo said the off-price retailer remains a top pick heading into earnings later this month. " BURL is likely to beat 3Q (w/ traffic accelerating into the exit)." JPMorgan reiterates Netflix as overweight The firm said investor sentiment remains robust on the streaming giant. "We believe investor sentiment remains strong into year-end on the 4Q content slate, along with confidence in NFLX meeting & beating its +11%-13% 2025 revenue outlook & 28% 2025 operating margin guide, while delivering meaningful FCF growth." Barclays upgrades American Airlines to equal weight from underweight Barclays said it sees business travel improving and renegotiated card agreements for the airline. "We upgrade American to Equal Weight as balance sheet leverage fades, business travel share has room to improve and the carrier renegotiates co-brand card agreements in 2025." Morgan Stanley reiterates Meta as overweight The firm said Meta is a major artificial intelligence beneficiary. " META's scale and distribution have accelerated Meta AI adoption to levels comparable with ChatGPT and Gemini, despite only being released in April 2024." Needham reiterates Amazon as buy Needham raised its price target on the stock to $250 per share from $210 after a series of channel checks. " AMZN's focus is on customer-centric innovation, and most of its product development comes directly from customer feedback. AMZN's culture allows every FTE (full time equivalent) to pitch ideas and see them work-shopped, implemented and scaled quickly." JPMorgan adds a negative catalyst watch on ResMed The firm said it is keeping its overweight rating on ResMed but is concerned about a series of negative catalysts in the months ahead for the sleep apnea company. "First, we expect Eli Lilly's Zepbound label expansion to be granted by the FDA to include patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), following the SURMOUNT-OSA trial results. Secondly, Novo Nordisk will release results from its phase 3 trial for CagriSema, a drug which offers weight loss of over 25%, a greater reduction than is offered by currently approved drugs." Jefferies reiterates Microsoft as buy Jefferies said it is getting even more bullish on the stock following a visit to company headquarters. "We believe MSFT can rerate as it continues to execute."
Multiple Republican senators gave a chilly reception to President-elect Donald Trump's selection of Matt Gaetz for U.S. attorney general, putting the former Florida congressman's odds of being confirmed by the Senate in question.

The surprise announcement Wednesday, and Gaetz's swift resignation from Congress, also drew attention to a House Ethics Committee probe into allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other wrongdoing.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a Republican on the judiciary panel that will decide whether to advance Gaetz's nomination to the full Senate, said Thursday morning that he "absolutely" wants to see the ethics committee's final report.

"I think there should not be any limitation on the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee is generated," Cornyn told reporters on Capitol Hill.

He added that while "it's premature to count votes," there are "a lot of questions."

Gaetz had previously been embroiled in a federal investigation into whether he was involved in the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl. That probe, which ended last year without charges being filed, was conducted by the Department of Justice  the agency Gaetz would lead if he were confirmed as attorney general.

Gaetz has denied all the allegations against him. In September, he declared he would stop cooperating with the House panel, while sharing a letter in which he vehemently denied having "sexual activity with any individual under 18."

On Thursday, an attorney for the woman who alleges she had a sexual relationship with Gaetz when she was a minor said the Ethics panel should release the report.

"Mr. Gaetz's likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report," John Clune, a partner at Hutchinson Black and Cook, wrote on X.

"She was a high school student and there were witnesses," the lawyer added.

A lawyer for Gaetz did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

Calls for the committee to release its report have become more pressing given the unusual sequence of events surrounding Trump's announcement.

Trump's selection of Gaetz and the lawmaker's decision to abruptly resign from Congress the same day came just two days before the panel was set to vote on releasing its report on the sex and drug probe, Punchbowl News reported Wednesday, citing sources.

Gaetz's resignation effectively ends the Ethics Committee probe, because the panel's reach is limited to members of the House.

Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., told reporters Wednesday that if Gaetz were to step down in order to seek the attorney general role, "then the Ethics Committee loses jurisdiction at that point."

The Ethics panel was slated to meet Thursday behind closed doors, a source familiar with the situation told NBC. It was unclear whether the committee would discuss Gaetz or vote on the report during that confidential meeting.
Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives a keynote speech during the Bitcoin 2024 conference at Music City Center July 26, 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee.

President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that he will nominate vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the Health and Human Services Department.

If the Senate approves Kennedy, the former independent presidential candidate will lead a sprawling department responsible for the huge Medicare and Medicaid health coverage programs, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

HHS' decisions on spending and policies have major effects on the U.S. health-care system and related businesses.

Kennedy, 70, is the son of Robert F. Kennedy, the late U.S. attorney general and Democratic senator from New York who was assassinated in 1968 by a gunman in Los Angeles as he ran for president. He is the nephew of former President John Kennedy who was assassinated in 1963.

Trump said in October that if elected he would let Kennedy "go wild on health."

"I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services," Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social site Thursday.

"For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health," Trump wrote.

"The Safety and Health of all Americans is the most important role of any Administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country."

Kennedy, in a post on X, thanked Trump and wrote, "I'm committed to advancing your vision to Make America Healthy Again."

"We have a generational opportunity to bring together the greatest minds in science, medicine, industry, and government to put an end to the chronic disease epidemic," Kennedy wrote. "I look forward to working with the more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth."

Kennedy told NBC News in a recent interview that Trump has said he wants Kennedy to "clean up corruption" at federal health agencies, return those agencies to science-based policies and "make America healthy again." Kennedy said that "there are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA, that have to go."

Stock prices of vaccine makers fell earlier Thursday on reports that Trump would tap Kennedy for the HHS post.

Kennedy last year suggested that the Covid-19 virus, which CDC played a major role in combatting, was engineered to "attack Caucasians and Black people," and to be less likely to harm "Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese" people.

He previously promoted theories that autism was linked to childhood vaccines, a connection that has been disproved.

Kennedy outraged many of his siblings by endorsing Trump in August after abandoning his long-shot presidential candidacy.

Trump's selection of Kennedy came a day after the Republican president-elect tapped Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general.

Gaetz's selection immediately sparked controversy due in large part to the fact that the Department of Justice, which he would lead as AG, previously investigated him for possible sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl.

Gaetz resigned from Congress effective Thursday, removing him from the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee. But a number of Republican senators have called on that panel to release a report of its investigation of the former lawmaker.

Kennedy last week reportedly suggested he would fire 600 NIH workers and replace them.

His "Make America Healthy" website has been seeking suggestions from the public for more than 4,000 appointee posts across the federal government to be filled by Trump.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., blasted Kennedy in a statement.

"Mr. Kennedy's outlandish views on basic scientific facts are disturbing and should worry all parents who expect schools and other public spaces to be safe for their children," Wyden said.

"When Mr. Kennedy comes before the Finance Committee, it's going to be very clear what Americans stand to lose under Trump and Republicans in Congress."

Another Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, said, "Donald Trump's selection of a notorious anti-vaxxer to lead HHS could not be more dangerous  this is cause for deep concern for every American."

"There is no telling how far a fringe conspiracy theorist like RFK Jr. could set back America in terms of public health, reproductive rights, research and innovation, and so much else," Murray said.
Shares of vaccine makers fell Thursday as President-elect Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

The stocks fell in the final hour of trading as reports emerged about Trump's expected pick. Moderna 's stock closed more than 5% lower on Thursday, shares of Novavax fell more than 7% and Pfizer 's stock ended more than 2% lower.

Shares of BioNTech , the German drugmaker that helped develop a Covid vaccine with Pfizer, closed more than 6% lower. British drugmaker GSK , which makes flu shots and several other vaccines, closed roughly 2% lower.

Shares of those companies dipped further in extended trading as Trump confirmed his pick in a post on his platform Truth Social.

Health policy experts have said a second Trump term could allow Kennedy to elevate anti-vaccine rhetoric, which could deter more Americans from receiving Covid shots and routine immunizations that have for decades saved millions of lives and prevented debilitating illnesses.

Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax are still recovering from falling Covid vaccination rates in the U.S., which have dented their profits over the past two years.

Kennedy's track record as a vaccine skeptic is extensive. He has long made misleading and false statements about the safety of shots, such as claiming they are linked to autism despite numerous studies going back decades that debunk the association.

Kennedy is the founder of the nonprofit Children's Health Defense, the most well-funded anti-vaccine organization in the country.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., react during a campaign event at Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, Nov. 4, 2024. Jonathan Drake | Reuters

President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Sen. Marco Rubio as his secretary of State, arguably the world's most important diplomat, could change the dial when it comes to the U.S.' relationship with both its enemies and its allies. Rubio, considered a foreign policy hawk, has been intensely critical of China and Iran, which are considered the U.S.' top economic and geopolitical adversaries, but has also been ambivalent about ongoing support for Ukraine, echoing Trump's stance that the war with Russia must come to an end. Serving as the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio was tapped to be secretary of State by Trump late Wednesday as he appointed his top team for the White House following his decisive election win last week. "He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries," Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social platform. Rubio's nomination, along with his assertive position on foreign policy matters and criticism of America's rivals, could ease concerns among U.S. allies that the world's most powerful economy could retreat from the global stage, given Trump's "America First" policy.

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Ahead of his being tapped, and after Trump's election win, Rubio told CNN that the U.S. was entering "an era of pragmatic foreign policy." "The world is rapidly changing. You know, adversaries are uniting  in North Korea, Iran, China, Russia  [and] increasingly coordinating," Rubio said. "It is going to require us to be very pragmatic and wise in how we invest overseas and what we do." The relationship between Trump and Rubio has not always been easy. Both men ran for president in 2016, bitterly clashing as they campaigned for the Republican nomination with Trump describing Rubio as "Little Marco," and Rubio making fun of Trump's "small hands." At that time, Rubio was critical of Trump's isolationist foreign policy stance. Back in 2016 he said "the world without American engagement is a world none of us wants to live with," arguing against Trump's position that the U.S. gives more than it gets from its interactions with the international community.

US Senator Marco Rubio speaks during a campaign rally for former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Doral, Florida, on July 9, 2024. Giorgio Viera | AFP | Getty Images

Rubio has since made peace with the president-elect, however, backing him in his presidential campaign. Rubio's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment as to his new role, but here's a snapshot of the 53-year-old politician's comments on some of the U.S.' biggest foreign policy challenges, signaling what we might expect from the incoming secretary of state:

China

Rubio is a renowned hawk when it comes to China, aligning him closely with President-elect Trump who has vowed to redress trade imbalances with Beijing, firstly by promising to impose tariffs on Chinese goods of 60% or higher, once in office. That policy is likely to find favor with Rubio, whose Senate biography describes him as "leading the charge to rebalance our relationship with Communist China." Rubio has been highly critical of China's economic power base, stating in his most recent report on the country's industrial policy that "through theft, market distorting subsidies, and strategic planning, Beijing now leads in many of the industries that will determine geopolitical supremacy in the 21st century."

JIUJIANG, CHINA - JUNE 17: A worker manufactures seamless steel gas cylinders for export at the workshop of Sinoma Science & Technology (Jiujiang) Co., Ltd. on June 17, 2024 in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province of China. Wei Dongsheng | Visual China Group | Getty Images

"This report should serve as a wakeup call to lawmakers, CEOs, and investors," Rubio said, calling for "a whole-of-society effort to rebuild our country, overcome the China challenge, and keep the torch of freedom lit for generations to come." There's no love lost for Rubio in Beijing. In 2020, Rubio and other top U.S. officials were sanctioned by China during a round of tit-for-tat sanctions by Beijing and Washington.

Iran and Israel

It's uncertain how a Trump administration, and future Secretary of State Rubio, will approach Iran with both Republicans giving off mixed signals when it comes to a punitive or more pragmatic policy stance. Trump caused international consternation in his first term in office by ripping up the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposing biting sanctions on Iran, with critics warning that Iran's nuclear weapons capability would be achieved sooner rather than later, as a result. Ahead of his election win last week, Trump signaled he was open to reaching a new nuclear agreement with Iran, however, telling reporters in New York, "sure, I would do that." "We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal," he said, in comments reported by Politico.

U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order imposing new sanctions on Iran, in the Oval Office at the White House on June 24, 2019 in Washington, DC. Mark Wilson | Getty Images

For its part, Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Tuesday that the country "will have to deal with the U.S. in the regional and international arena," Reuters reported, signaling Iran could also be open to talks. A new nuclear deal might not go down well in Israel, however, a country Trump cast himself as a "protector" of during his election campaign. Rubio too has been a vocal critic of Iran and a staunch supporter of Israel as it continues its attacks on Iranian proxies, the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, in Gaza and Lebanon, respectively. In late September, Rubio gave his backing to the Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, telling NBC News that "Israel has no choice but to defend itself. Wiping out not just Nasrallah, but the senior leadership of this evil organization, I think, is a service to humanity." He also said Iran's goal in the Middle East was to "seek to drive America out of the region and then destroy Israel."

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, greets former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 29, 2024. Angela Weiss | Afp | Getty Images

Rubio has not ruled out taking a pragmatic approach to Tehran either, telling NBC News that "if the Iranian regime tomorrow said, 'We're going to stop trying to become the regional power, we're going to stop our nuclear weapons, we're going to stop sponsoring terrorism, we're going to stop trying to kill you  which is what they're trying to do with Donald Trump  we're going to stop all of these things,' theoretically, yes. Of course, you could work something like that out." Still, he added that the scenario was "unlikely because that's the very driving mission and purpose of the regime." Iran has denied U.S. charges that Tehran was linked to an alleged plot to kill Trump.

Ukraine

It's widely agreed that the incoming Trump administration will be far more hostile toward granting Ukraine more military aid, significantly inhibiting its ability to continue to fight back against Russia. It's also seen as likely that a Republican administration will push Kyiv into peace talks with Russia in which it will be forced to concede occupied land to its neighbor as part of a peace deal. Rubio has insisted he is "not on Russia's side" but he told NBC News in late September that "unfortunately the reality of it is that the way the war in Ukraine is going to end is with a negotiated settlement." "We hope that when that time comes, there is more leverage on the Ukrainian side than on the Russian side. That really is the goal here, in my mind. And I think that's what [former President] Donald Trump is trying to say," Rubio said.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) speaks on Day 2 of the Republican National Convention (RNC), at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 16, 2024. Mike Segar | Reuters
Former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning says censorship is still "a dominant threat," advocating for a more decentralized internet to help better protect individuals online.

Her comments come amid ongoing tension linked to online safety rules, with some tech executives recently seeking to push back over content moderation concerns.

Speaking to CNBC's Karen Tso at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, on Wednesday, Manning said that one way to ensure online privacy could be "decentralized identification," which gives individuals the ability to control their own data.

"Censorship is a dominant threat. I think that it is a question of who's doing the censoring, and what the purpose is  and also censorship in the 21st century is more about whether or not you're boosted through like an algorithm, and how the fine-tuning of that seems to work," Manning said.

"I think that social media and the monopolies of social media have sort of gotten us used to the fact that certain things that drive engagement will be attractive," she added.

"One of the ways that we can sort of countervail that is to go back to the more decentralized and distribute the internet of the early '90s, but make that available to more people."


Dominica will award its highest National Honour, the Dominica Award of Honour, upon PM Narendra Modi at the India-Caricom Summit in Guyana.

This award will be in recognition of his contributions to Dominica during the COVID-19 pandemic and his dedication to strengthening the pic.twitter.com/3GX7RWFhpg



 ANI (@ANI) November 14, 2024

Dominica will confer its highest national award, the Dominica Award of Honour, to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for contributions to the island nation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The award will be presented by Dominican President Sylvanie Burton to PM Modi during the India-CARICOM Summit, scheduled between November 19 and 21 in Georgetown, Guyana.The Commonwealth of Dominica will bestow its highest national award, the Dominica Award of Honour, upon His Excellency Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, in recognition of his contributions to Dominica during the COVID-19 pandemic and his dedication to strengthening the partnership between India and Dominica," read a statement from Dominica's Office of the Prime Minister.It highlighted how the Indian Prime Minister had in February 2021 supplied 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to the country. The generous gift enabled the country to extend support to its Caribbean neighbours.Further, the award recognises India's support for the island nation in healthcare, education and information technology under the leadership of PM Modi, along with his role in promoting climate resilience-building initiatives and sustainable development globally.Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said the honour was an expression of the country's gratitude for PM Modi's solidarity with Dominica and the wider region. Prime Minister Modi has been a true partner to Dominica, particularly during our time of need amid a global health crisis. It is an honour to present him with Dominicas highest national accolade as a symbol of our gratitude for his support and as a reflection of the strong ties between our countries," he said.Skerrit added the country was looking forward to building on the partnership between the two sides and "advancing our shared vision of progress and resilience". PM Modi, while accepting the offer of the award, emphasised the importance of collaboration in tackling global challenges like climate change and geopolitical conflicts. He also affirmed Indias commitment to working alongside Dominica as well as the Caribbean region in addressing these issues.The official statement noted that Dominica President Sylvanie Burton and Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit will attend the India-CARICOM Summit.


Warmest congratulations to Sen. @marcorubio on your nomination as Secretary of State. Deeply appreciate your staunch support for Taiwan & tireless efforts to defend freedom & human rights globally. I look forward to furthering #Taiwan-#US relations to promote peace & prosperity. pic.twitter.com/xyzQRUkDc2

 Lai Ching-te (@ChingteLai) November 14, 2024

With his nomination of China hardliner Marco Rubio for secretary of state, US President-elect Donald Trump has signaled his policy toward Beijing could go beyond tariffs and trade to a more hawkish stance on China as the United States' main strategic rival.Rubio's selection on Wednesday came along with other cabinet picks that might upset China, such as Representative Mike Waltz as national security adviser and John Ratcliffe to lead the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) The choices suggest Trump wants to upend the Biden administration's approach of "managing competition" with Beijing on issues ranging from support for Taiwan to China's role in the U.S. fentanyl crisis.Republicans have criticised the Biden position as too conciliatory.Rubio "believes in his heart that China is an enemy of the United States," said David Firestein, a former US diplomat with expertise on China. "That's going to color everything he does with respect to China."Taiwan President Lai Ching-te wrote on X on Thursday: "Deeply appreciate your staunch support for Taiwan & tireless efforts to defend freedom & human rights globally."Trump has pledged to end China's most-favored-nation trading status and impose tariffs on Chinese imports in excess of 60% - much higher than those imposed during his first term.Rubio is almost certain to be confirmed by the US Senate, where he is a senior member of both the foreign relations and intelligence committees.The staunchly anti-communist Cuban American's support for Hong Kong democracy protesters earned him Chinese sanctions in 2020.It would be the first time China would have active travel restrictions on a US secretary of state, presenting an early test of how Beijing might engage with the new Trump administration.For his part, Rubio has been an advocate for US visa sanctions on Chinese officials, and pushed the State Department to bar Hong Kong's chief executive, John Lee, from traveling to San Francisco for the 2023 APEC summit.China's embassy in Washington did not comment on the Rubio sanctions or his nomination, but spokesperson Liu Pengyu said Beijing looked forward to working with the new administration to promote ties "in a stable, healthy and sustainable direction".China's record on human rights, a contentious issue between the countries, has been a focus for Rubio.He co-sponsored the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, giving the U.S. government a tool to bar Chinese imports over concerns of rights abuses of Muslim minorities in China, claims that enrage Beijing.Hong Kong activists see Rubio, who has sponsored legislation including the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019, as a champion of their cause."We're obviously really excited and look forward to working with him on these issues," said Frances Hui, an activist in Washington with the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation for whose arrest China has offered a bounty.Rubio has also proposed a bill now being considered to let the secretary of state strip certification from Hong Kong's economic and trade offices in the United States.He has said the near-complete erosion of Hong Kong's autonomy from Beijing means it does not merit separate privileges.It is unclear what leeway Trump, who has praised China's leader Xi Jinping at times, would give his new top diplomat to adopt restrictions on China, particularly those clashing with other goals of his administration."(Trump's foreign policy) lineup is conspicuously hawkish on China, but can be counted on to follow the leader if he shifts from confrontation with Beijing to the art of the deal," said Daniel Russel of the Asia Society Policy Institute.During Trump's first term, the United States and China struck a trade deal after a series of tit-for-tat tariffs, but many analysts say China has not lived up to its terms.Rubio has also focused on China as a perceived threat to national security.He has led calls to blacklist Chinese industrial battery company CATL, revoke capital gains tax rates for US companies investing in China, tighten export restrictions on US technology to China, and end tariff loopholes for small packages shipped from China, many used to carry fentanyl precursor chemicals.Perhaps most grating to Beijing is Rubio's support for Taiwan, the democratically-governed island China claims as its own, including calls for a free trade deal and unfettered interaction between US officials and Taiwan counterparts.Analysts are anticipating Taiwan will make large new arms purchases after Trump takes office.During his first term, Trump approved more than $18 billion in arms sales for Taiwan, compared to Biden's $7.7 billion.Some analysts believe Beijing may try to sidestep Rubio and seek engagement directly between Xi and Trump, or with other senior US officials."If that doesn't work, then I think we're going to get into a much more regular escalation of a bad relationship," said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 passenger jet is parked at a gate at the Tulsa International Airport in June. A Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Reno made an emergency landing in Sacramento on Wednesday due to a potential flap issue. Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press

A Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland was forced to make an emergency landing Wednesday evening after the crew reported a potential mechanical issue with the aircrafts flaps. It was the second such incident in the Bay Area this week.

The latest emergency occurred on Flight 4474, a Boeing 737-800, en route from Oakland International Airport to Reno-Tahoe International Airport. The aircraft was diverted to Sacramento International Airport, where it landed safely around 8 p.m.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that the flight crew notified authorities about a possible malfunction with the planes flaps, which help control the aircrafts speed and stability during takeoff and landing.

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According to Southwest Airlines, the crew followed established safety procedures after a warning light illuminated during the flights initial descent.

The airline said the plane landed without incident and reported no injuries among the passengers or crew. Southwest also apologized for the inconvenience to travelers.

Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of our customers and employees, the airline said in a statement.

The FAA has launched an investigation to determine the cause of the warning light that triggered the emergency procedures.

The incident follows a similar one earlier in the week when another Southwest Airlines flight had to return to San Jose Mineta International Airport after experiencing engine trouble.

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Groups are asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to deploy California Highway Patrol officers on BART trains and at stations due to concerns over violent crime. Paul Chinn/The Chronicle 2020

Bay Area economic policy advocates and Asian American Pacific Islander leaders have called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to deploy California Highway Patrol officers to the BART system just hours after the fatal stabbing of a man near San Franciscos Embarcadero Station.

In a letter to Gov. Newsom on Wednesday, the groups said we write today seeking your immediate attention and action in response to recent violent crimes on BART trains and in stations targeting the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, seniors and other vulnerable populations. We call for the immediate deployment of California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers on BART trains and in stations to ensure the safety of the community.

The looming threat of violence against the AAPI community and other vulnerable populations on transit and in other public spaces forces individuals to often find less convenient and more expensive but safer modes of travel, pushing thousands out of our transit systems and public spaces and alters other behaviors such as avoiding travel at certain times, traveling with self-defense products and abandoning any unnecessary trips, the letter said.

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Several notable groups and individuals signed onto the letter, including the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce; Chinese American Democratic Club; San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu; Assembly Member Matt Haney, D-San Francisco; Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho; and state Treasurer Fiona Ma.

The letter said leaders appreciate Newsoms deployment of CHP officers to San Francisco, and more recently Oakland, to help fight spikes in crime. They asked for CHP officers across the BART system.

There must be zero tolerance for crime on BART, said Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, an economic policy advocate group. We know large numbers of riders are staying away from BART largely because of deep concerns about the lack of safety and security they feel on trains and in stations. With bold and immediate action, Gov. Newsom can help restore public confidence in the BART system and help bring back riders.

The request for CHP officers comes on the heels of recent attacks on BART trains or near the agencys stations. On Wednesday, Embarcadero Station was briefly closed after a man was found suffering from stab wounds near Market and Main streets. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and no arrests have been made, officials said.

Earlier this month, BART police arrested a man, with a history of criminal convictions, on suspicion of stabbing an Asian American woman onboard a train that was approaching 24th Street Mission Station. Jovany Portades, the man accused in the attack, has been charged with attempted murder.

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In July, a man allegedly shoved an Asian American woman into an oncoming BART train at Powell Street Station. She later died at San Francisco General Hospital, the Chronicle reported.

Asians make up 25% of BART riders, making it a vital lifeline that must be safeguarded, said a statement from Mark Young, co-founder of advocacy group Stand With Asians. Deploying more safety patrols is a critical short-term step to restore safety and trust while working toward lasting solutions.

In a survey conducted by the Bay Area Council of BART riders last year, 79% of respondents said theyd feel more comfortable riding when there is a uniformed police officer or security guard present, in addition to 73% of respondents saying the agency should prioritize adding more uniformed officers on trains and at stations. A recent Chronicle analysis of BART crime data showed that while the number of violent crimes on the system is lower than before the pandemic, the rate of violent crimes per ride is nearly double what it was in the years before the pandemic.

BART would welcome the strategic deployment of the CHP in the areas around our stations, said a statement from Alicia Trost, a spokesperson for the agency. This will help keep problems out of BART. Trost also called on the the Bay Area Council to use a marketing campaign to help BART hire more officers, ambassadors and crisis intervention specialists.

Violent crime on other mass transit systems has prompted leaders in California and other states to ramp up police officer presence. In March of this year, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul deployed 1,000 state police officers and national guard soldiers to patrol New York City subway platforms and check bags after the slashing of a train conductor. In May, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass increased law enforcement presence on the countys metro system to address a spike in crime.

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Authorities said they found a bear costume and meat claws in the home of four people who were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of faking bear attacks to collect over $140,000 in insurance money. California Department of Insurance

Four people authorities say used a bear costume to fake attacks on luxury vehicles for insurance payouts were arrested in the Los Angeles area Wednesday.

The suspects allegedly defrauded insurance companies of more than $140,000 after filing three claims stating that a bear caused interior damage to three vehicles. But an investigation into video footage of the supposed animal  termed Operation Bear Claw  determined that the vandal was actually a person in a bear costume, according to the California Department of Insurance.

Police said they arrested Glendale residents Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, and Valley Village resident Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, on suspicion of insurance fraud and conspiracy.

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The suspects are accused of filing three claims with three insurance carriers seeking damages for bear attacks they said occurred in Lake Arrowhead on Jan. 28. The suspects included video footage of the purported bear attacking three vehicles: a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350, according to the Department of Insurance.

Four people who allegedly used a bear costume to fake attacks on luxury vehicles for insurance payouts were arrested in the Los Angeles area on Wednesday, authorities said. Video footage shows a bearlike figure opening each vehicles passenger door and causing interior damage, including scratches to the door and seats. CA Department of Insurance

Video footage and photos provided by the Department of Insurance show a bearlike figure opening each vehicles passenger door and causing interior damage, including scratches to the door and seats.

After an insurance company suspected fraud, detectives from the Department of Insurance investigated the video footage and determined that the bear was a human in a bear suit. A biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife who reviewed the footage said the supposed animal was clearly a person, authorities said.

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If you can get through the part about climate disaster, youll be rewarded with the part about ritual murder.

14 Mauled to Death Grizzly bears get a bad rap, but polar bears are actually the most aggressive species. More than any other animal on the planet, polar bears are known to explicitly hunt humans. And Santa doesnt exactly wear camo.

13 Climate Change This one is a slower burn than being pureed by a bears teeth and claws. But Santa aint immune from climate disaster. The melting of Arctic ice not only raises global sea levels, but releases methane and carbon thats been stored inside, supercharging the entire process. Even if Santas workshop never becomes beachfront property, he could still find his life fatally disrupted by global supply chain stoppages, or complications from the mass migration of climate disaster refugees.

12 Becoming Patient Zero That melting ice also contains biological curses that had long ago been put in stasis. If pathogenic microbes begin waking up from the permafrost, Santa could be the first human in eons to inhale primordial smallpox. Christmas Eve would become the biggest superspreader event since the Chicxulub impactor.

11 Becoming Patient One That said, its statistically unlikely that a virus could jump directly from the ground to a human without dying in the sun and air. So heres how its more likely to go down: rising temperatures make previously uninhabitable lands more hospitable to mammals, who then nibble on the new grass and drink the thawed arctic water that contains a newly-awakened virus. Santa goes hunting in Russia and sinks his teeth into an infected moose steak or rabbit drumstick. His eyes turn milk-white, and he begins a slow march toward the Kremlin, hungering for the flesh of a tyrant. Putin is infected, and Russia is ruled by a putrefying zombie. In fairness, geopolitically, little changes.

10 Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Malfunctioning heating devices, especially inside of an insufficiently ventilated space, have been known to produce fatal doses of carbon monoxide.

9 Senicide Many cultures around the world historically practiced senicide, the ritualistic killing of elders. Some have used their local mountains or deserts to do the deed, and cultures who have traditionally lived above the Arctic Circle have in turn used their unique landscape. Lets not forget: Saint Nick is over 1,700 years old, and the modern version of Santa conjured up by Coca-Cola turns 93 this year. The last known case of senicide among the Inuit was in 1939, but we simply dont know what the elves have been up to.

8 Patricide A common theme of reported senicide is a ritualistic ceremony led by the eldest son. Santa may put his clothes on inside out, and be carried on a caribou skin seat to a sacred site just outside of his village. MyMerryChristmas.com confirms that Santa has several adult children; his firstborn son might be expected to euthanize his father with a hunting knife.

7 Getting Sealed in His Home In 1860, Cincinnati newspaperman Charles Francis Hall traveled to the Canadian Arctic, where he described witnessing an old woman sealed inside of her igloo with snow bricks to take her final breaths alone. We can assume the elves have a vault of candy cane and chocolate bricks at the ready.

6 Weathering a Storm 1920s anthropologist Knud Rasmussen noted that the elderly whom death will not take, help death to take them. His contemporaries heard tales of those who travel between hunting grounds leaving their elders to die in a blizzard or on an ice float.

5 Petty Squabbles Tensions can run high when youre stuck in a remote research lab for long, dark months in close quarters. In 1970, one scientist was accused of murdering another in a fight over some raisin wine. Its not hard to imagine elves, highly sophisticated reindeer or Mrs. Claus bristling over hot chocolate rations, and the situation escalating beyond control.

4 Flash Freezing His Dingy Off Santa is famously bundled up, and is probably used to working through blizzards. But what happens when he has to take a leak? When temps are below -30 degrees and the wind is over 50 MPH, a flash freeze can whip through the tundra at any moment. Pray that Santa doesnt have any exposed appendages when it does.

3 Theres No Bridges Like Snow Bridges A snow bridge, despite its name, is more like a mirage of a bridge. They form when snowdrifts build up to the extent that they tenuously connect two glaciers with lightly-packed, non-loadbearing snow. At any moment, Santas next step could send him through this crunchy veneer and hurl him half a mile into a crevasse.

2 Waking Up Too Fast Most people found dead in the Arctic arent frozen mid-step on a treacherous march into the wind, but rather lounging on top of their sleeping bags. The human body tends to run warm when asleep, and getting out of your sleeping bag into the hostile Arctic morning before your core temperature has a chance to stabilize is a great way to quickly freeze to death. If Santa hops out of bed with a pep in his step, he could be dead on the toilet three minutes later.
An office worker received an email that appeared to be from a vendor but was caught in quarantine and the user requested its release. It looked innocent enough, so an administrator released the email. The user clicked on the email to review the contents, which included an attached invoice.

Thats where the trouble started: clicking on the attachment launched a website that requested the workers username and password, which they dutifully entered. Unfortunately, there was nothing legitimate about the email, which was phishing for just such an opportunity.

But it got worse  the user had unwittingly given the attacker the ability to go one step further and launch an adversary in the middle (AiTM) attack, the ultimate business email compromise that seeks to gain entry to banking or other financial transactions. These attacks not only grab credentials, but they can also snare tokens to bypass multifactor authentication.
Multiple US telecommunications companies were hacked into by a Peoples Republic of China (PRC)-backed threat actor to carry out a full-blown cyber-espionage attack, according to a joint FBI and CISA statement issued on Wednesday.

During what the FBI is calling a broad and significant cyber espionage campaign, the threat actors used compromised networks within these companies to steal customer call records data.

The offense included theft of private communications of a limited number of individuals who are primarily involved in government or political activity, and the copying of certain information that was subject to US law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders, the statement added.
Black Alps is a non-profit, self-funded association founded in 2017 and headquartered in Yverdon-les-Bains (Switzerland). Its mission is to promote cybersecurity through the organization of dedicated events.

A must-attend event in Switzerland, the Black Alps conference is a hot spot for cybersecurity professionals and enthusiasts. The event allows you to discuss the latest threats, mitigations and advances in cybersecurity.
Interview: FedEx Asia Pacific president upbeat about China's thriving logistics sector

Xinhua) 08:33, November 14, 2024

Representatives pose for a group photo in front of a FedEx cargo flight at Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, Nov. 11, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Ziheng)

QINGDAO, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- China's thriving logistics sector is embracing innovation and promoting the global market with enhanced connectivity, creating new opportunities for transportation companies, said Kawal Preet, president of Asia Pacific, Federal Express Corporation (FedEx).

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of FedEx's operations in China, the global express giant has made significant investments since the beginning of this year, including the opening of a new Chinese headquarters office in Shanghai and the launch of a new flight cargo service between China and the United States. These developments demonstrate FedEx's continuous dedication to the Chinese market, Preet said during an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

"In response to the significant growth of the Chinese market, we have increased our investment and infrastructure upgrades in China," said Preet, adding that FedEx will continue to expand its investment in China, a market filled with opportunities.

In the 2023 International Logistics Performance Index (LPI) released by the World Bank, the Chinese mainland is ranked 19th in this regard among 139 countries and regions listed.

"China has been making progress in creating a world-class logistics framework, positioning the country as a global logistics hub," she said, adding that smart logistics solutions supported by technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT), improve efficiency, and empower logistics infrastructure with enhanced connectivity.

While benefiting from the significant development of China's logistics infrastructure, FedEx identifies some key trends that guide their endeavors. "China's dual circulation strategy, as well as the implementation of new quality productive forces, clearly shows that the logistics industry is embracing innovation," she said.

To meet the demands of an evolving market, FedEx is continuously exploring and investing in a variety of emerging technologies, and expanding its sustainability effort. These endeavours aim to provide reliable global delivery and smart digital solutions that contribute to the advancement of China's logistics infrastructure, Preet noted.

According to the latest data released by China's State Post Bureau, the cumulative volume of completed international/Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan express deliveries from January to September this year reached 2.67 billion pieces, representing a 24.9-percent year-on-year increase.

"Given China's strong performance in cross-border transportation, our objective is to make significant headway in this area." Currently, FedEx serves six international airports in China, operates over 300 international cargo flights per week, and is committed to the continued growth of cross-border cargo in the country through enhancements to its logistics network.

On the day of the interview, which was conducted Monday, FedEx announced the increased frequency of international cargo flight connecting the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao to the United States, alongside the inauguration of its Qingdao international gateway facility.

"By leveraging Qingdao's geographical significance in air logistics, the increased frequency will facilitate the cargo transportation within the Asia-Pacific region and between East China and North America," Preet stated.

This year marks the fifth consecutive year that FedEx has participated in the China International Import Expo (CIIE), which concluded over the weekend. "CIIE enables FedEx to analyze market trends, establish forward-looking and targeted development strategies as we expand our business and drive innovation," According to Preet.

Furthermore, the company experienced firsthand China's commitment to promoting a high level of opening up during the CIIE. "It not only helps an increasing number of businesses share the opportunities of the Chinese market, but also assists Chinese companies in entering global markets," she said.

"We have been an active participant in high-level forums and organizations, including the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) and the China Development Forum (CDF), that promote the global exchanges," Preet emphasized, adding that FedEx will be committed to advocating for constructive trade relations between the U.S. and China and empowering the development of areas that are significant to the peoples of both countries.

Since becoming a panda transportation provider in 2000, FedEx has had the privilege of transporting 21 pandas to and from China with 12 cross-border transports.

"The panda movements are close to my heart, as we believe they play an important role in fostering global friendship," said Preet. "As FedEx accompanies pandas to various destinations around the world or back to their home country, we witness the love and affection for pandas within the global community."

A FedEx cargo flight passes a welcome water gate upon landing at Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, Nov. 11, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Ziheng)

A FedEx cargo flight arrives at Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, Nov. 11, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Ziheng)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Antioch police arrested a man suspected of carjacking a vehicle with the driver still inside. Rafe Swan/Getty Images

Antioch police arrested a man suspected of a carjacking that preceded a chaotic chase that resulted in a police pursuit in Antioch on Wednesday morning.

The man was accused of crashing a vehicle, carjacking a sport utility vehicle with the owner still inside and trying to enter several parked cars in an Antioch neighborhood, according to the citys police department.

The suspects identity was not released, and police spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for more information.

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The brazen incident began around 8:48 a.m. Wednesday when officers responded to Lone Tree Way and Slatten Ranch Road for reports of a man who fled after crashing a black sedan at the shopping center there and then carjacked a silver SUV in the parking lot, police said.

The owner of the SUV was apparently still in the car when the carjacker took off in the vehicle. The owner escaped as the thief drove west toward the Walmart supercenter on Lone Tree Way, authorities said.

Officers in the area located the SUV, and a police pursuit ensued, which ended shortly after the carjacker sped through a school zone.

Police said the thief then abandoned the SUV on the 3100 block of View Drive, about 4 miles from the Walmart. The man ran toward Alcala Street and West Tregallas Road, where he tried to enter several cars parked on the street before fleeing on foot on the northbound lanes of Highway 5, where he was arrested, police said.
DJ Antoine Davis, center, sits behind the microphone at KBLX in 2006. The popular on-air personality announced his departure from the San Francisco radio station after more than two decades as part of company-wide layoffs. Ben Fong-Torres

Antoine Davis, a popular on-air personality, has announced his departure from 102.9 KBLX after more than two decades with the San Francisco station.

His exit, which marks the end of his third tenure at the Bonneville International-owned R&B station, comes as part of a broader round of staff reductions at the company earlier this week.

Well, as they say, nothing lasts forever, Davis wrote on Instagram on Wednesday, Nov. 13. As difficult as this is to do, I am reaching out to let you know after 20+ years on 102.9 KBLX (it) has been decided that it is time for me to move on. I want to thank you for always being kind, considerate, and loving to me all these years on the radio.

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Davis served as the stations midday host for most of his career.

This is a tough break up but, I do realize life happens to everyone, he added. Ill miss speaking those iconic call letters ... KBLX. Im very proud of what I was able to accomplish and I realize I was the last link to a station we all loved and most of us grew up listening to.

A fixture in Bay Area radio, Davis began his tenure with KBLX in 1998 as a weekend host. He later moved to a full-time role at the station while hosting evenings at Rhythmic CHR 97.7 KWIN in Stockton.

From 2003 to 2012, Davis took on middays and afternoons at KBLX, becoming one of the stations most recognizable voices. He made a high-profile return in November 2014, when he co-hosted the morning show.

Davis was among several staff members impacted this week by recent cuts at Bonneville , a media company owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with 13 stations in cities across the country, including San Francisco, Sacramento and Salt Lake City. At least one other full-time employee and a part-time worker were also let go, according to Radio Insight

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Closing his message, Davis hinted that a new venture was on the horizon.
Charles Manson is escorted to his arraignment in 1969 on conspiracy-murder charges in connection with the Sharon Tate murder case in Los Angeles. A newly uncovered audio recording of the notorious cult leader sheds light on previously unknown aspects of his past, including his involvement in killings that had never before been publicly acknowledged. Associated Press

A newly uncovered audio recording of Charles Manson sheds light on previously unknown aspects of the notorious cult leaders past, including his involvement in homicides that had never before been publicly acknowledged.

The recording, featured in the upcoming Peacock docuseries Making Manson, captures Manson speaking candidly from prison about his criminal history. He admits to committing killings in Mexico before orchestrating the infamous 1969 murder spree in Southern California, in which nine people  including actress Sharon Tate  were brutally killed.

Theres a whole part of my life that nobody knows about, Manson says during a phone call from prison, before recounting his time in Acapulco, where he stole cars and was drawn into violent crime.

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I got involved in a couple of killings, he continues. I left my .357 Magnum in Mexico City, and I left some dead people on the beach.

Making Manson, which premieres Tuesday, Nov, 19, delves into more than two decades of previously unreleased conversations with Manson, offering an in-depth look at his life before and after the formation of his infamous Manson Family.

More Information Making Manson (TV-MA) begins streaming on Peacock on Tuesday, Nov. 19.

In the late 1960s, Mansons bizarre charisma helped him attract a small group of followers, mostly young women, whom he manipulated with hallucinogenic drugs, calling them his family. In the summer of 1969, after spending time in San Francisco and on ranches near Death Valley, the group relocated to the Los Angeles area and took up residence at a ranch previously used for filming Westerns.

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Although Manson did not directly carry out the murders in Southern California, he was convicted of using psychological manipulation to incite his followers to kill as part of a delusional plot he called Helter Skelter, which he believed would trigger a race war.

Charles Manson in 1986. Associated Press

Mansons confession about the slayings in Mexico is just one of many revelations in the docuseries. Making Manson also includes insights from former Manson Family members and others who had close contact with him.

Phil Kaufman, his former cellmate, describes how Manson used his charisma to control others while concealing his darker tendencies.

Charlie was very good at being evil and not showing it, Kaufman says in the series.

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The docuseries also explores Mansons life behind bars, where he continued to engage in violent behavior for decades. His time in Corcoran State Prison was marked by assaults on guards, starting fires in his cell and other acts of chaos.

Even in his later years, Manson remained defiant. In 2012, he told a parole board, Im special. Im not like the average inmate. I have spent my life in prison. I have put five people in the grave. I am a very dangerous man.
A female journalist is visited at home by two policemen and told that she is being investigated for allegedly stirring up racial hatred in a social media post a year ago.

She says they wouldnt divulge which particular tweet they were looking into. Nor did they reveal the name of her accuser. One of the policemen referred to this person as a victim.

Where could this threatening scene be taking place? China, perhaps? Or Russia? Even North Korea? No, it occurred in Britain on a Sunday morning.

Since their visit to journalist Allison Pearson, Essex Police have said that they have opened an investigation under Section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 relating to material likely or intended to cause racial hatred

Allison Pearson, pictured, doesnt know which tweet aroused the interest of Essex Police but surmises that it may have been written in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks by Hamas and the anti-Semitic slogans being brandished and chanted at pro-Palestine marches

And on a day, sacred to this country, when we remember those who fought and died for us in the name of freedom: Remembrance Sunday.

I am so shocked by this story that if I werent acquainted with Allison Pearson, the journalist in question, and didnt know her to be a respected columnist who works for the Daily Telegraph, I might wonder whether it was really true.

Essex Police  the force to which the two officers belong  have issued a statement claiming that a report in the Telegraph about Allisons experience, and an accompanying column by her, are factually wrong and contain wholly inaccurate information presented as fact. However, they dont bother to justify their serious accusation.

Until or unless Essex Police can show that Allisons account is false, Ill continue to assume that it is true.

What has happened to our country? How can two policemen visit a journalist unannounced and frighten her with unspecified charges? If it could happen to Allison, it could happen to any journalist.

Even more to the point, if a journalist can be treated in such a way by the police, so can any citizen. This is about something even bigger than the freedom of the Press. It concerns the right of all of us to freedom of speech.

This story also touches on the increasing tendency of the police to target law-abiding citizens while ignoring and sometimes indulging real criminals who shoplift, steal cars, snatch mobile phones or break into peoples houses. We have a two-tier justice system, which has become even more inequitable since two-tier Keir (aka Sir Keir Starmer) arrived on the scene.

Lets examine the details of Allison Pearsons case. She doesnt know which tweet aroused the interest of Essex Police but surmises that it may have been written in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks by Hamas and the anti-Semitic slogans being brandished and chanted at pro-Palestine marches.

Its just conceivable that the tweet was truly incendiary, and therefore worthy of the polices attention. We must accept that even in a free society some extreme statements should be judged unacceptable as they foster division and discord.

But knowing Allison a little, I doubt that she tweeted anything other than a strongly felt and deeply held opinion expressed in a forthright way. According to her, the police who came around to her house said that she was being investigated over what is called a non-crime hate incident.

By the way, why were two officers required to deliver their message? The police often bellyache about a lack of resources  an excuse they routinely use to justify their failure to investigate many burglaries  and yet turn up mob-handed when it suits them.

Since their visit on Remembrance Sunday, Essex Police have said that they have opened an investigation under Section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 relating to material likely or intended to cause racial hatred. Allison has still not been told what she is alleged to have done. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has weighed in on her side.

Allison has still not been told what she is alleged to have done, but now Elon Musk has weighed in on her side

The amazing and depressing truth is that her experience is not unusual. In January 2020, ex-police officer Harry Miller was interviewed by Humberside Police over tweets questioning whether transgender women are real women. It was recorded on the national database as non-crime hate speech.

Mr Miller subsequently won a case in the Court of Appeal, which concluded that recording non-crime hate speech interfered with the right of freedom of expression.

Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman responded by raising the threshold for police recording non-crime hate incidents. The current Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, is reportedly considering undoing Mrs Bravermans changes, and restoring the requirement for police officers to record all such incidents.

Another disquieting case concerned Bernie Spofforth. After the Southport killing of three children in July, this law-abiding woman retweeted a post that wrongly identified the alleged attacker as an asylum seeker. She realised her mistake and deleted the retweet within an hour.

Nonetheless, six police officers arrived at her house in three vehicles. She was taken to a police station and held for 36 hours. Police informed her that the term asylum seeker is racist.

Another shocking case concerns an autistic girl, whose family called the police last year because she was intoxicated and possibly at risk in Leeds city centre. As officers drove her home, she allegedly remarked that a female officer resembled her lesbian nana. She was arrested on suspicion of a homophobic public order offence before being released on bail. The police apologised nearly seven months later.

And so it goes on. Again and again police armed with woke prejudices bear down on blameless individuals  there are cases of people silently praying outside abortion centres being carted off  while they often go easy on real criminals. How much easier to target someone for writing a silly but harmless tweet.

Its instructive that, in the year to August, Essex Police only solved 6.3 per cent of burglaries  an appalling record that is close to the national average. At the same time they boasted a clear-up rate of 15.9 per cent for hate crime.

Im sure the burghers of Essex would prefer their police to spend more time investigating burglaries and less time looking into hate crime. But the police, who now appear to be imbued with progressive views not traditionally associated with the boys in blue, take the opposite view.

This sort of two-tier policing has been going on for a long time, but it has worsened under Labour. During the August riots, Sir Keir Starmer called for tough sentences on miscreants.

In many cases these were richly deserved. But its very hard, for example, to defend a sentence of 31 months in prison for Lucy Connolly, who called for mass deportation in a social media post on the day of the Southport attack, adding set fire to all the ****ing hotels full of the b******s for all I care. An awful thing to write, but the woman hadnt left her keyboard!

But its the bullying of law-abiding people I care most about  those whose views may not accord with those of the Prime Minister and chief constables but are nonetheless held by millions of respectable people.

Essex Police should search their consciences. Do they really believe that it is decent or fitting  or British  to despatch two policemen on the morning of Remembrance Sunday to an apparently blameless woman, thereby intimidating her?

Another disquieting case concerned Bernie Spofforth. After the Southport killing of three children in July, this law-abiding woman retweeted a post that wrongly identified the alleged attacker as an asylum seeker. She realised her mistake and deleted the retweet within an hour.

Nonetheless, six police officers arrived at her house in three vehicles. She was taken to a police station and held for 36 hours. Police informed her that the term asylum seeker is racist.

Another shocking case concerns an autistic girl, whose family called the police last year because she was intoxicated and possibly at risk in Leeds city centre. As officers drove her home, she allegedly remarked that a female officer resembled her lesbian nana. She was arrested on suspicion of a homophobic public order offence before being released on bail. The police apologised nearly seven months later.

And so it goes on. Again and again police armed with woke prejudices bear down on blameless individuals  there are cases of people silently praying outside abortion centres being carted off  while they often go easy on real criminals. How much easier to target someone for writing a silly but harmless tweet.

Its instructive that, in the year to August, Essex Police only solved 6.3 per cent of burglaries  an appalling record that is close to the national average. At the same time they boasted a clear-up rate of 15.9 per cent for hate crime.

Im sure the burghers of Essex would prefer their police to spend more time investigating burglaries and less time looking into hate crime. But the police, who now appear to be imbued with progressive views not traditionally associated with the boys in blue, take the opposite view.

This sort of two-tier policing has been going on for a long time, but it has worsened under Labour. During the August riots, Sir Keir Starmer called for tough sentences on miscreants.

In many cases these were richly deserved. But its very hard, for example, to defend a sentence of 31 months in prison for Lucy

Connolly, who called for mass deportation in a social media post on the day of the Southport attack, adding set fire to all the ****ing hotels full of the b******s for all I care. An awful thing to write, but the woman hadnt left her keyboard!

But its the bullying of law-abiding people I care most about  those whose views may not accord with those of the Prime Minister and chief constables but are nonetheless held by millions of respectable people.

Essex Police should search their consciences. Do they really believe that it is decent or fitting  or British  to despatch two policemen on the morning of Remembrance Sunday to an apparently blameless woman, thereby intimidating her?
Never has the intellectual divide between political leaders on each side of the Atlantic been greater.

And nothing better symbolises this chasm separating Keir Starmer's Labour and Donald Trump's Republicans than Trump's choice of hi-tech billionaire Elon Musk to be his efficiency tsar.

Since taking office in July, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have been intent on expanding the bloated British state, with an eye-watering tax hike of 40 billion in the Budget, a huge injection of 22.4 billion into the NHS and the creation of quangos.

What a contrast with President-elect Donald Trump, who has tasked not just Musk (pictured) but also pharma and tech pioneer Vivek Ramaswamy, to head a new Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE).

Both have already trumpeted their ambition  on the Musk-owned social media channel X  to wipe $2 trillion from the cost of running the US federal government. 'Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!' declared Musk.

Never has the intellectual divide between political leaders on each side of the Atlantic been greater, writes ALEX BRUMMER

Nothing better symbolises this chasm separating Keir Starmer's Labour and Donald Trump's Republicans than Trump's choice of hi-tech billionaire Elon Musk to be his efficiency tsar

Tonight Rachel Reeves  a self-confessed admirer of the US  has an opportunity to follow suit and embrace a new world of efficiency when she addresses grandees of the City of London at the annual Mansion House dinner.

Imagine the positive impact in the City if the Chancellor set out credible plans to streamline the British state which now spends a mind-boggling 44 per cent  up

5 per cent since the pandemic  of the 2.7 trillion annual output of the UK economy. Don't hold your breath. Because this government is set on a fateful course of adding to its bills rather than cutting costs.

The fact is that Britain is desperately in need of its own Elon Musk-type efficiency tsar. When his appointment was announced, City economist Simon French of investment bank Panmure Liberum, suggested it could change attitudes in Britain.

'This is a big moment for the UK economy, with a far larger state sector...' he tweeted. 'If the US Department of Government Efficiency achieves $2 trillion of savings without damaging outcomes, then debate on scope-depth of public services changes at next UK election.'

Any efficiency tsar here would start by dismantling Labour's plans for new quangos and organisations which will do little more than mimic bureaucracies which already exist.

These include the new 'Border Security Command' which is duplicating work done by the immigration and security services and the National Crime Agency; and 'Skills England' which is doubling up on work being done by private sector trade organisations and trades unions.

The list goes on. Labour's plans for an Industrial Strategy Council and a National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, despite their grandiose names, will simply add more red tape and wage bills, increasing the size of the state rather than productivity.

SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk arrives on stage at an America PAC town hall on October 26,

Across government, budgets have exploded over the last decade. The NHS which gobbled up 144 billion in 2016 is now projected to cost 277 billion in the current fiscal year. Education spending has climbed from 102 billion to 146 billion over the same period. The nation's welfare bill has climbed from 240 billion to 379 billion. The transport budget has gone from 29 billion to 66 billion.

And yet no one would say state services have improved quite the reverse. Anyone seeking to claim 'Pensions Credit', following the Chancellor's raid on the winter fuel allowance, can vouch for that.

If we had our own Musk to drive efficiency in the public sector the red tape would be peeled away while the unions would not be indulged. We were shown what could be achieved when, as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson appointed a vaccine tsar in Dame Kate Bingham who harnessed the efficiency of the private sector to enable the NHS to produce Covid-19 vaccines in record time.

It says everything about Labour's approach that this week British pharma giant AstraZeneca, which developed the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, announced it is to plough a record 2.7 billion of research and development expenditure into the US rather than the UK.

If in Britain we had the willpower to challenge the inefficiency of the state, there is every reason to believe it could be shrunk.

That would create a more agile and productive nation.
In Beaujolais, nouveau wine is made from the Gamay grape and fermented via carbonic maceration, which tends to produce lighter wines reminiscent of bubble gum. Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle

The third Thursday of November marks a special holiday in the wine world: Beaujolais Nouveau Day. Always one week before Thanksgiving, its the day when wineries in the French region of Beaujolais have historically released nouveau, the young, barely finished wines of the current years harvest season.

A decade ago, it was rare to see nouveau wines made outside of Beaujolais. Now, wine regions around the world have fully embraced the ritual, especially California, where dozens of wineries are releasing 2024 nouveau. As these wines have proliferated, its been fascinating to see how liberally wineries here have interpreted the nouveau template.

Whereas almost all domestic nouveau examples used to hew closely to the Beaujolais originals  made from Gamay (or its close relative, Pinot Noir); fermented using the regions customary carbonic maceration technique  the 2024 crop of California nouveau is a veritable rainbow, with white, rose and orange wines in the mix. Carbonic maceration, an alternative fermentation method that tends to imbue wines with an extra-fruity, bubble gum-like note, remains common but is by no means universal.

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And whereas most of the nouveau energy in California a few years ago was coming from natural and lower-intervention producers, its gone mainstream: Even mass-market brand La Crema is doing it now.

Drinking With Esther >

Ordinaire in Oakland, one of the Bay Areas first natural wine bars, began hosting a celebration of local nouveau in 2016. This years third-Thursday party will feature at least 25 winemakers including Ruth Lewandowski, Florez and La Onda pouring their young wines, said owner Bradford Taylor, all available by the glass ($9) or bottle ($28). Casa de Kei, a popup that has become a fixture at many Bay Area natural wine spots, will be making sandwiches.

Nouveau will light up the downtown Sonoma Plaza on Nov. 21. Valley Bar & Bottle will pour nouveau from nearby wineries including Scribe (a Pinot Noir) and Las Jaras (a Zinfandel-Carignan-Petite Sirah-Vermentino blend), as well as some actual, imported Beaujolais nouveau, paired with a French wine bar-inspired food menu. Around the corner, Dos Bar, a group tasting room representing several natural wineries, will be partying with wines including a 2024 Lenoir, a hybrid grape variety, from North American Press winery. Darling, another downtown Sonoma tasting room, will be pouring tastes of its 2024 Gamay, fermented partially by carbonic maceration  which makes it among the truest-to-form nouveau efforts around  along with bites from Spread Kitchen.

Nearby Extradimensional Wine Co. Yeah! is selling extremely unorthodox nouveau wines: a Mourvedre-Primitivo rose and a Chenin-Roussanne-Viognier blend that come in refillable Klean Kanteens. The stainless-steel bottles are meant to cut down on the wines ecological footprint, since glass bottles account for more than half of many wineries carbon emissions, by some estimates. Although a Klean Kanteen is not an ideal vessel for longterm wine aging, nouveau has always been meant for immediate consumption. (People drink most wines within a day or two of purchase anyway.)

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The 2024 Extradimensional nouveau wines: a rose and a white blend that come in refillable Klean Kanteens. Courtesy Hardy Wallace

These are wines that will eventually go into regular (and pricier) Extradimensional bottlings; they werent made for the purpose of nouveau. But they tasted so good so early this year, Wallace said, that the idea just made sense. Each costs $45 upfront, which includes a $20 deposit on the Klean Kanteen. Refills are $25, and the Extradimensional tasting room will be doing punch cards so that the 10th refill costs only $1.

I love nouveau because its timing specificity encourages these sorts of parties  a mini, semi-invented holiday to kick off the holiday season. I love that its a celebration of intentionally unserious and, almost always, affordable wines. I love that it constitutes the latest example of a longstanding French tradition that California vintners have now made their own.

But my favorite thing about nouveau is the fact that it captures such a fleeting moment in a wines life, a moment that winemakers are well acquainted with but which laypeople rarely get to glimpse. Brand-new, unaged wines can be awkward. They can smell farty and taste unpleasantly astringent. (Many wines harvested in September or October are still undergoing their secondary fermentations by late November.) Theyre unpolished, their adolescent blemishes still showing, especially the many California nouveau wines (like those from Scribe, Extradimensional and all the producers pouring at Ordinaire) have had no added sulfur.

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Yet sometimes, when the moment is right, these nouveau wines can be delicious in their clumsiness. Its that cookie dough phase, as Wallace put it. Its not the finished cookie coming out of the oven, he said, but youd better be licking that spoon before you put it in the dishwasher.

A few places to try California nouveau on Nov. 21:

Compline, 1300 First St. #312, Napa. complinewine.com

Darling Wines, 27 E. Napa St. Suite A, Sonoma. darlingwines.com

Dos Bar, 521 Broadway A, Sonoma. dos-bar.com

Extradimensional Wine Co. Yeah!, 27 E. Napa St. Suite E, Sonoma. winecoyeah.com

Ordinaire, 3354 Grand Ave., Oakland. ordinairewine.com

Valley Bar & Bottle, 487 First St., W., Sonoma. valleybarandbottle.com
Kim Leadbeater's Bill to legalise assisted dying leads inevitably to a potentially awkward conversation with King Charles.

Either the royals will have to be exempted from it (as happened with the Marriage Act 1949 in regard to civil weddings) or the Treason Act 1351, still very much in force, will need to be amended.

That makes it an offence to 'compass or imagine' the death of the monarch, meaning, for example, that Queen Camilla could end up in the Tower if she did anything to help the King shuffle off this mortal coil.

It is also treason to 'interrupt' the line of succession. Deep waters.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater pictured in her office in the Houses of Parliament

Leadbeater's Bill to legalise assisted dying leads inevitably to a potentially awkward conversation with King Charles

The only doctor to have deliberately killed a monarch is Lord Dawson of Penn, who injected the dying George V with lethal doses of morphine and cocaine to hasten his death in 1936.

Lord Dawson, who may have been guilty of murder and high treason, was given a viscountcy a few months later, prompting the clerihew: 'Lord Dawson of Penn / Killed many men / That's why we sing / God save the King.'

Fashion designer Amanda Wakeley has revealed that she saved the blushes of her friend Theresa May when, in her inaugural appearance as Prime Minister, she spotted that she was wearing a navy-blue Escada suit.

'Realising it was a company headquartered in Germany, I went, 'Stop right there. She may feel great in it, but she can't take office in front of the world wearing Escada',' wailed Wakeley.

Suitably warned by Amanda, the new PM changed into a blue coat and dress from Amanda Wakeley. Funny that.

Fashion designer Amanda Wakeley has revealed that she saved the blushes of her friend Theresa May

Paying tribute to her Good Life co-star more than a decade since his death, Felicity Kendal enthuses: 'The best leading man is one you can't wait to work with. It was like that with Richard Briers. There was a chemistry between us that made it so enjoyable.'

But would Richard concur? Shortly before he died in 2013 he suggested it had been a more distant relationship.

'I don't really know who she is. Never did,' he reflected. Was Richard, pictured with Felicity in their 1970s Good Life heyday, having a giraffe?

Frugal painter Frank Auerbach, who has died aged 93, was baffled by the money that flowed his way in his later career, once calling Jacob, Lord Rothschild, who had collected his work for more than 60 years, and asking: 'What's a pension fund?'

Frugal painter Frank Auerbach was baffled by the money that flowed his way in his later career

Kathy Burke, 60, reveals on the latest episode of her podcast, Where There's A Will, There's A Wake: 'I remember years ago, when I was drying my knickers on the radiator, I looked over and I thought, I used to be able to get seven pairs of knickers on that radiator, now there's three. Three that are like f****** distress signals  the size of them!'
Basil Fawlty said 'don't mention the war'. Likewise the message from Government whips yesterday seemed to have been 'don't mention the farmers'.

Hotelier Basil failed to heed his own edict on the Germans but Labour's new MPs are more obedient. In the Commons, during 40 minutes of questions to environment ministers, they steered well clear of the forbidden subject.

An Edwardian matriarch determined to avoid mention of sex or politics at her tea table could not have been more daintily discreet.

Next Tuesday there is to be an agricultural protest outside the Houses of Parliament. Farmers are unhappy about a change to inheritance taxes.

Rachel Reeves' Budget, among its many exciting if suicidal measures, withdrew a long-standing deal under which farmers could bequeath their fields, stock and machinery to their children without being clobbered by death duties.

Basil Fawlty said 'don't mention the war'. Likewise the message from Government whips yesterday seemed to have been 'don't mention the farmers'

Farmers and their supporters protest in Westminster near the Houses of Parliament

Farmers drive tractors around Parliament Square during a demonstration organised by Save British Farming on March 25

The Treasury has long itched to scrap that concession and, in Ms Reeves, it finally found a Chancellor mad enough to agree. 'What a brave decision, minister,' murmured Sir Humphrey.

So it is that Westminster next week may look less like Parliament Square and more like the Three Counties Showground. Tractors and muck-spreaders could stretch as far as Piccadilly Circus. Yet Labour MPs were yesterday determined to ignore that awkward matter. 'Don't mention the farmers.'

Rachel Taylor (Lab, N Warwickshire & Bedworth), Sarah Coombes (Lab, West Bromwich), Chris Bloore (Lab, Redditch) and Leigh Ingham (Lab, Stafford) preferred to discuss fly-tipping.

Junior minister Mary Creagh, who has long been adept at talking rubbish, was delighted to assist them. She used up some more time by wishing the King a happy birthday. 'Hear hear!' cried the Labour benches, glad to grasp any piece of good news. There has not been much for them recently.

For Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent S) the hot issue was flooding. Emma Hardy, another minister, dived into the dreadful floods in Spain. The Foreign Office would have been proud of her.

Ms Hardy also spoke with enthusiasm  I nearly said that she gushed  about recent meetings of our own country's floods resilience taskforce. We were told how often it had gathered, how many people attended those events, and more.

Ms Hardy was soon dilating at length on a conference held by the Association of Drainage Authorities. She was in full flow. Her benches were gripped.

As the minutes ticked by, Andrew Pakes (Lab, Peterborough) sought further particulars on 'the work of my internal drainage'. Ms Hardy cast him the sympathetic glance of a district nurse. It would have been no surprise had she asked Mr Pakes to drop his troosers.

Farmers take part in a tractor "go-slow" in, central London on March 25

In the Commons, during 40 minutes of questions to environment ministers, they steered well clear of the forbidden subject (stock image)

We heard next from Gumboot Man, aka Secretary of State Steve Reed. He's the townie with the 420 wellington boots bought by Lord Alli. Mr Reed was full of chat about water pollution. In this he was joined by Bolton West's Phil Brickell, an eager little fellow with a teenager's quiff.

Next to participate in parliamentary keepy-uppy was Jonathan Brash (Lab, Hartlepool). What did he raise? Crustacean mortality. An inspired choice.

Bozo Bill Esterson (Lab, Sefton C) sought a new veterinary deal with the EU. Polly Billington (Lab, East Thanet) was vexed about 'egregious' bonuses to water-company bosses. Egregious is the new buzzword. You're a nobody if you haven't used it recently.

Beccy Cooper (Lab, Worthing West) floated the subject of dead dolphins. Tom Rutland, less romantically, spoke of 'used toilet roll flooding a street' in East Worthing & Shoreham.

Tim Roca (Lab, Macclesfield) planted some question about forests. Not to be outdone by a Lib Dem who mentioned puffins, Andrew Cooper (Lab, Mid Cheshire) raised a matter concerning zoos.

Conservative MPs, as I am afraid has long been the case, had no such hesitation in using the F-word. It was farmer-this and farmer-that. A stream of filth. Tories have one-track minds.

They kept pressing farms minister Daniel Zeichner to rethink the inheritance tax whack against farmers. Mr Zeichner's ears pinkened. 'We seem to be discussing this endlessly,' he complained. Hardly!
The health pro has shared an excerpt of her upcoming book with DailyMail.com

A traditional Chinese medicine expert has lifted the lid on the body parts you should be massaging every day to help improve your mental health, sleep schedule and organs.

Nina Cheng is the founder of The Eastern Philosophy - a small business that specializes in herbal medicines and frequently shares educational videos about traditional Chinese health remedies on TikTok.

After finding a flood of success online, Nina is now set to release her first book, titled Chinese Medicine for the Mind, which will hit shelves on November 19.

In an exclusive excerpt shared with DailyMail.com, the small business owner detailed how you can improve your body from the comfort of your home.

She revealed that massaging certain areas around your head and legs can help transform your health and even improve your sleeping patterns.

The exclusive excerpt notes that acupressure offers up a slew of health benefits.

'We focus on points that are known to calm the mind, relax the body and promote overall relaxation. Simply press on these points or massage them using your hands, a gua sha tool, or an acupressure stick, pressing for about two minutes until you feel relaxed and calm,' Nina revealed.

The first area she recommended you massage is your Anmian, which is found behind your ear.

A traditional Chinese medicine expert has lifted the lid on the body parts you should be massaging every day to help improve health (stock image)

Nina Cheng, founder of The Eastern Philosophy, is set to release her first book

'Anmian, which means "peaceful sleep," is one of the most significant extra points for insomnia. It is found behind the ear, below the bony mastoid process, in a small depression.

'Circular pressure here will ease tension and can also alleviate tension in the neck and shoulders that inhibits relaxation,' the excerpt noted.

The next area of your body to massage is near your foot and is known as the Taixi.

This area, which is found between the Achilles tendon and height of the ankle bone, can improve your kidney function.

Nina explained: '[The Taixi] is the source point of the kidney, which means it has a direct effect on the organ.'

Placing a firm amount of pressure on this point in your body can have a 'nourishing' and 'calming' effect on your kidney.

The next area of your body is known as the Sanyinjiao and is said to benefit your spleen, liver and kidney.

The exclusive excerpt shared with DailyMail.com reads: '[The] Sanyinjiao is found one hand's width above the ankle bone, in the inside of the lower leg. There is a depression there that is often sensitive to pressure.

The first area Nina recommended you massage is your Anmian, which is found behind your ear (stock image)

In an exclusive excerpt shared with DailyMail.com, the small business owner detailed how you can improve your body from the comfort of your home (stock image woman massing Sanyinjiao)

Heal your organs! The four areas you should massage Anmian: Behind the ear

Taixi: Between the Achilles tendon and height of the ankle bone

Sanyinjiao: Inside the lower leg

Yintang: Between the eyebrows Advertisement

'This point is strongly indicated for any menstrual pain, and can also ease tension and calm an overactive, worried, irritable, or even fearful state that inhibits sleep.

'As the meeting of three yin channels, the emotions attributed to the spleen, liver and kidney can all benefit from firm, pulsing pressure here.'

Lastly, Nina suggested you massage the point between your eyebrows on the daily.

In her book, she wrote: 'Yintang is an extra point found above and between the eyebrows. It is one of the most relaxing points, promoting a sense of calm and quieting an overactive mind.

'Stroking downward will also help direct the qi downward and induce a state of ease.'

According to VeryWellHealth, massaging these pressure points can help improve circulation and reduce inflammation and anxiety.

The site noted that putting firm pressure on these areas for around one to three minutes can transform your health.

Nina's book, Chinese Medicine for the Mind, hits shelves on November 19.
Anna Whitehouse is no stranger to controversy. She was one of the first women to build a lucrative career from sharing the warts-and-all reality of family life as a married mother of two via her Mother Pukka podcast and blog, garnering nearly half a million followers on Instagram.

Last year, she dropped the bombshell that she was divorcing her husband Matt Farquharson, the father of her two young daughters, aged seven and 11. And now, at 43, she has given birth to a baby girl  with a new partner she met only a year ago.

Here, in an impassioned defence of her new life, she confronts her critics and asks why women are judged more harshly than men for moving on...

Anna Whitehouse writes: Two weeks ago, at the age of 43  so very much considered a 'geriatric mother' or one of 'advanced maternal age', as we're now more kindly termed  I gave birth to my third child, via emergency C-section.

The baby's father is my partner Olly, who I met last November on dating app Hinge. We each have two children from previous relationships and it's fair to say neither of us imagined having any more until we walked into each other's lives.

'Mumfluencer' Anna Whitehouse had her third baby two weeks ago via C-section - just a year after she fell in love with her new partner Olly after they met on the dating app Hinge

For some, the pace we've moved at might be seen as 'fast'. There's been undeniable judgment here and there around what is  in its simplest form  genuine love and happiness.

It's also the sort of moving on we see frequently with men in midlife. But somehow, people are surprised that I, a mother, have done the same.

Since separating from my ex in March 2023, I had dated a bit but decided I'd be happy with just my two girls and a hectic career. I didn't expect my life to change as I walked through the door of a bar down the road from London's Victoria and Albert Museum, where I'd been hosting an event.

I'd never believed in love at first sight but the connection was instantly clear to us both as I walked in. As we sipped wine and talked, openly and without pretence, I felt calm, content, like I'd 'come home', perhaps. It was instant attraction. That said, I'm no longer looking for that elusive 'happy ever after' young women are sold on. Something I was made to believe was the Holy Grail at 24.

I want a contented ever after with someone I love, and I just knew, hard though it is to explain, that Olly was that person. At 43, maybe I just know myself better.

My previous marriage lasted 13 years and, despite living separately for nearly a year before, we announced our separation in September 2023 when it felt right to do so, and when everyone close to us had been told.

Both of us moved on with new relationships that November, and yet there remains this odd judgment for couples that do find happiness on the other side.

The reality is that most marriages that end in divorce are over years before the final decision is made. There's grief and processing in the years prior to exit; so what might seem 'soon' to some has been a long time coming for those in it.

Around our commitments to our children and our work  Olly, 40, is a lawyer and I am best known as the founder of Mother Pukka, an online parenting community, and a radio and podcast host  we spent every spare minute either together, or talking on the phone.

What could be seen as a year together is the equivalent of three, when you look at how much we have communicated and how often we see each other.

Olly and Anna with their baby daughter, who was born early at 35 weeks. The couple got engaged on a romantic New Year break in Thailand, just over a month after they met

Ever since we met, we haven't been apart for more than a day and no topic or secret, however hard or awkward, is off the table. Neither of us has been perfect, far from it. We've both learnt difficult lessons over the years. But in laying ourselves bare, in learning from those experiences, we could see each other very clearly.

Just over a month after we met and fully in love, we headed off on a romantic break to Thailand for New Year. It was the first Christmas I'd had off my Heart Radio show in seven years and it was there that we decided to get engaged.

Sitting on plastic chairs on the beach one evening, sipping Chang beer, he turned to me and said: 'If it wasn't for the judgment of everyone else, I'd ask you to marry me right now.' I replied: 'If it wasn't for the judgment of everyone else, I would ask you to marry me too.'

Then I looked at him and asked: 'Will you marry me?' I can't put into words how happy I felt when he held my hand and said: 'I will.'

That week, alone in Thailand, left us in no doubt that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

Once back in London, we went engagement ring shopping and I picked pretty much the first one I tried on  a beautiful art deco diamond.

When I announced our engagement on Instagram, to over 400,000 followers, one or two people were predictably quick to respond with: 'That's fast!'

Maybe it was, but we're both at a stage of life where we know what makes us happy. Of course, people are entitled to their opinions, but what wasn't fair was the suggestion that I was having some kind of 'midlife crisis'. That I was discounting the happiness of my children when they've truly never been happier. Our new normal might not be for some, but it works for our little family.

It wasn't just strangers online. One of my friends said she felt it was all too quick, that we couldn't possibly know each other well enough. More recently, that friend has admitted she did judge me, but then confessed that every time she sees me now, she realises I'm a lighter, happier version of myself.

Anna, 43, says of her critics: 'What wasn't fair was the suggestion that I was having some kind of "midlife crisis"...our new normal might not be for some, but it works for our little family'

It's true  and the same goes for my kids.

Getting engaged to a man you've met on Hinge and having a baby, at the age of 43  all within a year  just doesn't fit the fairytale narrative women have been raised on, perhaps. Or the idea that you have to be with someone for years to truly know and understand them, when in reality we are all constantly evolving and changing.

Society still dictates that longevity is a key component of a successful relationship, when some of the unhappiest couples are those that have been together for years but aren't actually right for each other  or are no longer right for each other.

Soon after our engagement, Olly and I talked about having a baby. I would have felt sad if we never got to do that together; I want to do everything in life with him. But given my age, we weren't sure it would be possible. I'd experienced five miscarriages before  three before my first daughter and two more before the second  and was well aware that a successful pregnancy is never a given.

One thing I couldn't do was get consumed by trying. I knew I'd lose my mind and go down a dark hole. So there was no pressure, really, just a hope it would work out.

In the event, it happened so quickly that when my period was late, in March, and I experienced hot flashes and mood swings, I assumed that I was just perimenopausal.

But then I developed a weird, coppery taste in my mouth and remembered the last time that happened I was pregnant.

So, on my way home from a work appointment one afternoon, I picked up a pregnancy test from Boots, and took the test in the public loos at London's Marylebone Station.

It's only when you get that positive result that you really know how you feel about having a baby. Alone in that toilet cubicle, as the word 'pregnant' appeared in the results window, I felt utterly euphoric.

God knows what the other passengers in my Tube carriage must have thought as I sobbed on my route home. I called Olly immediately.

For the next couple of months we told no one. After five miscarriages, I know better than to broadcast news of a pregnancy until after the 12-week scan, so for a while, it was our secret.

Our exes were the first to know when we were finally able to 'go public'. It wasn't a conversation I ever imagined having, and I can't pretend it wasn't awkward, but I didn't want the girls' dad to hear it elsewhere first. Olly and I told each of our children individually, to give them time to process the news and so that we could reassure them this made no difference to the love and care we have for them.

All four were over the moon and since the baby's arrival, have been fighting over their time with her. She has landed in the middle of our newly blended family  or what the Hungarians call a 'mosaic family'.

Still, there were those who weren't so sure. Some of my close friends have since told me that they felt concerned at the speed at which I was embarking on such big life changes, that they worried about my mental state and whether I was rushing into things through fear of being alone.

The truth is, I'd had no great desire to remarry and have another child  I'd even contemplated living with my best friend, who was also separated. We had plans to pool our resources and live out our days in a two-woman homestead. It's just that, after meeting Olly, it felt right in a way I wasn't expecting.

What's lovely is that every single friend who judged what, to them, looked like a hasty decision has since held us both and acknowledged that what we have is just love.

I know critics, who fear it will all go up in flames, might insist: 'The lady doth protest too much.'

I'm speaking about it because I wish somebody had told me sooner that, on the other side of divorce, there is, perhaps, a happier-ever-after. Just not one you often see depicted in Disney films and fairytales.

There are a lot of people who, I think, feel stuck in marriages because, financially, they can't afford to separate and run two homes. There's a huge privilege in even being able to leave and I don't say that lightly. I've spoken to many women who simply don't know what to do and it is utterly heartbreaking.

And, of course, I sometimes question whether I deserve to move on, to experience love and family life again. I'd have judged myself as much as anyone else might be judging me.

However, I count my blessings that I went with my gut instinct, at every stage, and now get to spend my life with Olly, the most kind and sensitive soul.

Our mosaic family has brought me more joy, this past year, than I ever thought possible.

Olly and I both co-parent with our former partners. Spending time apart from my girls is hard, but, when they come back from their dad's full of tales about what they've done with him and his girlfriend, we don't make them feel awkward, we want to hear all about it. All the adults involved agree that the children must never feel responsible for our emotions as we navigate the landscape of shared parenting.

Anna with her ex-husband and their two children. Their marriage lasted 13 years, but they separated in March 2023 and went public with the news six months later

So what's the truth about being a 'geriatric' mother? Having our little girl was definitely more exhausting than my previous two, probably because of my age, and the fact I suffered insomnia and relentless gastric reflux during the final two months.

For the first couple of days back home, after the birth, it was just Olly and me, in a baby bubble. Then the grandparents brought the kids, individually, to meet their little sister.

Now, family life is settling into a new normal.

I'd worked on most of this piece before our little girl arrived  she is now a healthy weight after being born early at 35 weeks, and she's thriving.

She had given us a scare when I had a heavy bleed at around 33 weeks. Then she decided to make an appearance two weeks before I was booked in for an elective Caesarean. My first baby was in the breech position, which meant she had to be delivered by C-section, so an elective was recommended for subsequent births.

My biggest fear, this time, was not about having a baby within a year of meeting Olly, or about being a 'geriatric mum', but experiencing postnatal depression afterwards.

I suffered with PND for a year after my second daughter was born  I functioned, I had a big job and two children to take care of, but I felt lost, like I was watching myself living life from afar.

I think the downward turn was returning to work when she was just two weeks old.

I'll be taking a minimum of three months' maternity leave and know Olly, when he's not working, will be as supportive with the baby as he was throughout the pregnancy.

I also have a 'village' of ten women on hand  friends, my mum and sister  who I know I can call on whenever I need.

My closest friend is the one to bring a lasagne round. Another mate, who's out all the time dating men she meets on Hinge, cheers me up with messages at 3am while I'm breastfeeding.

Sitting here snuggled up with my little girl, in my 40s, I can honestly say I know myself much better, and recognise potential breaking points sooner. That's why I asked the women in my life for help before the baby came.

We'll give ourselves 18 months to settle into our new rhythm before our wedding, which we're planning at Port Lympne Safari Park for April 2026. I'm not sure of the finer details yet, other than that it will be a big celebration.

Still, if you'd told me, even a year ago, that I'd have a baby, and be engaged to be married to a wonderful man I met online, I'd never have believed it. I maybe wouldn't have dared to believe it.

It may be unconventional, but I finally believe I deserve the happiness of this new 'ever after'.
For months now, I have been on covert operations, mostly when it is dark. Once the lights are out, I slink around the house, unseen by my husband, turning down the dials on radiators in the sitting room, the TV room, the spare room and the hall. I dont touch the one in my husbands office, for tactical reasons.

Occasionally, hell pass a radiator, notice its set to the snowflake symbol and turn it back up. As soon as possible, I turn it back down.

When hes out I also tamper with the thermostat, which he will eventually turn back up, triumphantly assuming he has won this latest skirmish, not realising that all my sneaking around the house swivelling radiator dials renders the thermostat largely irrelevant except in his office. Which is why I dont touch that one.

Sarah Frieze (yes, really) slinks around the house, unseen by her husband, Anthony, turning down the dials on radiators in all the rooms except his - for tactical reasons

Clever? Not always. Once I got the dial in the spare room wrong and jammed it on the highest setting, which broke the mechanism. It cost me an 80 plumbers visit. Which I managed to keep secret from my husband.

Its mid-November and already British households are locked in a bitter battle over the heating. A new poll found one in four regularly argue with their partner about the temperature, while 18 per cent get frustrated with family members who tinker with it. If they find out about it, of course.

My husband and I are practical, details-oriented people. We agree on the level of illumination we require as the nights draw in, on the components of our weekly shopping list and on the correct day in December to put up the Christmas decorations. But the heating we fight over.

A poll has found that one in four couples regularly argue about the temperature in the home, while 18 per cent get frustrated with family members who tinker with it (posed by models)

My daughter and I call it The Cold Wars, and they rage in our house along strict, although unconventional, gender lines.

Research published in 2019 showed men and women generally want different things when it comes to ambient indoor temperature. Overall, Professor Nicole Sintov, of Ohio State University, found women tend to the warmer end of the gauge compared to the often chillier preferences of men.

Its a difference thats long been the subject of office wars, too.

In 2015, a paper titled Overcooling of offices reveals gender inequity in thermal comfort showed thermostats were set in office buildings according to a 1960s formula based on the heat needs of a 40-year-old man weighing 11 st.

Men function better at a cooler temperature, apparently, while women perform at higher levels on mental tasks when warmer, meaning the corporate thermostat traditionally favoured the perfect male working environment at womens expense.

We are now seeing this in family conflicts about temperature, where its possible that women are losing the thermostat battle, says Prof Sintov. This hints at a status quo gender bias in heat settings that leads to a home thermal environment that does not cater to womens preferences.

Well, some women. Perhaps Prof Sintov would like to come and study us, for in my house the exact opposite is true. Im far tougher in the cold than my husband Anthony. And while our 21-year-old son loafs about in bare feet and a T-shirt, shivering like a whippet and complaining about the cold, my daughter  a 23-year-old climate change warrior and charity shop devotee  is dressed in second-hand tweeds and natural-fibre jumpers, and wraps herself in a duvet if all else fails. Given half a chance, she too will spin the dial down.

My husband, by contrast, is a tropical flower. Where I like the thermostat at a brisk, economic 17c, he turns it up to a milk-curdling 24c (according to this weeks poll, the ideal temperature for your home is 19.5c).

I dread the day he signs us up to one of the app-controlled heating systems and gets to control the thermostat from afar, which is what happens to my shivering friend Deborah. I turn it up because Im the one at home freezing and he monitors it via the app from work and turns it down. Its a yo-yo battle!

To be fair, my husband has two credible defences: he is Australian-born, and he pays the heating bills. Not that I pay nothing. We split our outgoings fairly evenly, but the things I pay for  supermarket shops, TV subscriptions and water bills  cause no similar dramas.

Im a loving enough wife that I dont want outright conflict, so I fight back with guerilla warfare. We live in a narrow terraced house. My husband insists that near the bottom of the house you have the radiators on in all rooms because they warm the upper floors. A particular front line is the big radiator in our hall, which belches heat into the street with every opening of the front door.

Hot air rises up the stairwell, states Anthony firmly.

A bone of contention between Susannah and Anthony is the radiator in the hallway, which belches heat into the street with every opening of the front door

Thermal convection replaces the colder air of the street with the hot air of our hall, I fire back.

Ah, these winter nights of warming banter and debate.

Hostilities were thawed by buying him a crimson and white thick fleecy throw to wear indoors instead of relying on hothouse heat levels. At first, he wasnt impressed, but when I told him how regal it was and how well it suited him, he relented.

The news that we could try to claim household expenses because we were working at home pleased him. My employer would be paying for us to be warm enough in the office, he crowed, so they can pay for us to be warm enough at home!

But I was ineligible because I am freelance, and his relief (given by the Income Tax Earnings & Pensions Act 2003) was capped at 244 per year with a ton of paperwork which even he didnt think was worth the effort.

Susannah suffers from cold feet, but her husband objects to her friendly suggestion that they practise thermal convection under the sheets

It has taken a family meeting and a poker-based negotiation  Ill see your 17 degrees, and Ill raise it to 19 degrees  for us to reach a compromise, helped by the fact we now have low-cost underfloor heating in the kitchen with a separate thermostat set to 18.2c by our builders that none of us yet knows how to change.

So now I work in a steady state of happiness round the kitchen table in our basement, and his lordship reigns over his thermostat set at 22c in solitary splendour on the ground floor upstairs.

Our only place of real peace is in the bedroom, which neither of us like to heat, preferring a cold nose and a thick duvet.

But then there are Cold Feet Wars. For an otherwise hot-blooded person, I have the cold feet of a turtle. For some reason, my husband objects to my friendly suggestion that we practise thermal convection under the sheets. No, I dont want your cold feet jammed into my warm calves, he grumbles.

For now, I shall continue the low-level resistance  and with gas prices rising, hope to press my advantage by Christmas.

ANTHONY WRITES:

There were moments in the early days of the thermostat wars when I allowed my wifes arguments to persuade me that turning down the heating was both good for us and for our wallets.

The trouble was we both looked like Soviet-era gulag prisoners, wrapped in layer upon layer, topped with hoods and scarves. Not only did I find it hard to bend my arm enough to type, but opening the door to the countless deliveries we get for a houseful of people working from home just became embarrassing.

In the early days of the thermostat wars with Susannah, Anthony says they looked like Soviet-era gulag prisoners, wrapped in layer upon layer, topped with hoods and scarves

Delivery driver, outside, lightly clad in branded fleece and slacks, astonished at Siberian parcel recipient, inside, reaching out with hands blue-tipped in fingerless gloves.

You all right, mate? they would ask. Boiler on the blink?

Shes right to say things looked up when she bought me my ermine-trimmed robe. It wraps right around my chilled kidneys, and makes me feel like an eccentric aristocrat in his unheatable Scottish castle. And it can easily be flung aside when the doorbell goes for the 100th time in a day.

What Susannah hasnt gone into  since she revolts against the modern tendency to blame everything on the menopause  is that her natural body temperature is rather higher than it was. Hot flushes mean we are not operating on a level playing field.

Not that Id ever be foolish enough to bring this into the thermostat wars. If I know anything about the menopause, its that you pick your battles carefully.
Celebrations chocolates have been pulled from the shelves across Australia, leaving shoppers disappointed ahead of Christmas.

The popular chocolate boxes which included bite-sized Mar Bars, Snickers, Twix, and other family favourites, is a much-loved festive-season staple.

But, according to parent company Mars-Wrigley, supplying the box of treats to Australians has become too expensive, and a logistical nightmare.

'Our CELEBRATIONS products were imported from Europe and like many Australian businesses importing products from overseas, we are experiencing rising cost-pressures and supply challenges,' a spokesperson told FEMAIL.

The chocolate boxes are already missing from the shelves of major supermarkets and marked as 'currently unavailable' online.

Foodie Russ Stuart, who does reviews under the name Russ Eats, was disappointed when he found out the news.

He said an insider let him know celebrations had been discontinued 'at least for this year'.

'This really upsets me to be honest,' he said.

Celebrations chocolates have been pulled from the shelves across Australia, leaving shoppers disappointed ahead of Christmas

'Are Celebrations dead?'

The foodie ranked Celebrations first in the 'best Christmas choccies' rankings earlier this year.

His followers were devastated by the news.

'Won't be a Christmas without Celebrations,' one person complained.

'Say it's not true Russ. You're normally my outlet for good food reviews and news. You ruining my Christmas wasn't on the bingo card this year,' said another.

Entrepreneurial shoppers who stockpiled the products are taking advantage of the situation.

'I saw one packet listed on Ebay for $193,' one fan said.

However, they are available on Amazon for an eyewatering $99.

The Mars-Wrigley spokesperson told FEMAIL the company is working out ways to make the chocolates available again in the future.

'We know CELEBRATIONS is a much-loved brand that plays a role at many family gatherings, events and of course, celebrations.

'Therefore we are currently reviewing options to reintroduce CELEBRATIONS in 2025. We hope to have positive news to share with Australian consumers over the coming months,' they said.

This confirmed some of Russ' fans speculations.

'Best marketing play of the year. You watch them comeback December 1,' one man said.
I was shocked, but not altogether surprised, to wake up to yesterday's headlines that TV host Erin Jayne Plummer - who took her own life two years ago - may have been experiencing domestic violence at the hands of her husband Alan when she died.

The allegations emerged after Alan himself was found dead at the foot of a cliff at Freshwater Beach on Sunday, having also committed suicide.

I didn't know Erin Jayne, but I remember feeling terribly sad when she passed away in May 2022, leaving behind three daughters - now orphans - and her husband.

Seeing the picture-perfect photos of the couple on the news, they looked so happy, so in love. Nestled in together over dinners, twirling around each other on their wedding day, posing for family snaps. How lucky they were to have each other, I thought. While she may have been lost at the end, at least she knew love in her life.

And it really looked like Erin had it all: a successful career as a TV host and aerobics star, stunning good looks, and, what we assumed, the perfect husband of 22 years.

When the details of her death were made public - that she had jumped from the clifftops at Manly on Sydney's northern beaches - the question on my mind was: 'How could such a beautiful looking woman who had it all, do such a thing?'

Now, it seems, we know why.

As revealed yesterday by this outlet, a NSW State Coroner investigation found she had confided in friends she was a victim of domestic violence and coercive control and was planning to leave her husband.

The Plummers' smiling family photos offered no clue of the domestic violence and coercive control allegedly happening behind closed doors, writes Amanda Goff

'I can't look at the Plummers' photos the same way anymore. My heart goes out to her. And to other women who are living that nightmare,' writes Amanda

Erin had an awful secret that she only shared with a select few  she hadn't even reported it to police. The woman who looked so happy and in love in those photos was allegedly trapped in an abusive marriage.

The saying goes, 'the camera doesn't lie'. But it does. Ask the airbrushed influencers who can't stand how they look without filters or the happy couples who are actually at breaking point. Or the mum hiding her anguish behind a forced smile and lipstick, ready to burst into tears at any moment, barely keeping it together for her children.

I can't look at the Plummers' photos the same way anymore. My heart goes out to her. And to other women who are living that nightmare.

It's a story I know only too well. Violence doesn't discriminate. These marriages are everywhere, even in the posh suburbs. Especially in the posh suburbs.

Amanda: 'Violence doesn't discriminate. These marriages are everywhere, even in the posh suburbs. Especially in the posh suburbs'

Instagram posts of mansions and designer clothes, fast cars and Aspen holidays may look enviable, but I know the frightening reality of what goes on in some of those homes. I've been around Sydney's eastern suburbs for 25 years; I am part of the community of school mums, business owners and locals. Believe me when I tell you, scratch beneath the surface and you'll find privileged women living in multimillion-dollar houses whose seemingly perfect lives are, in reality, absolute hell.

I also know a few cops. I once joked with one how bored they must be in the east - after all what would they be chasing in Bondi? A few stolen wallets from the beach? The odd small-time cocaine bust? Missing dogs?

'You'd be surprised what really goes on,' he replied. 'The rates of domestic violence here are huge, more than in any other area I've worked.' And it's not just the east, it's the northern beaches, the swanky north shore  anywhere where there's a lot of money you'll find husbands who treat their wives like dirt.

It was a shock to me, but it shouldn't have been. In my previous life as the owner of a high-class escort agency I mostly employed over-40s women who, with a few exceptions, all shared the same story: they were upper-middle class divorcees with horror stories about their 'perfect' marriages.

Some had escaped physical violence, other were married to drug addicts and narcissists. Some were who controlled by husbands with money and access to children. Some were subjected to horrific emotional and verbal abuse.

It was horrifying to hear their stories, and I have so much respect for the bravery of these women who manage to escape - often penniless and broken - these marriages.

And it's not just abusive men they're running from. Many women who seem to lead perfect lives online are struggling with their own issues: drinking, drugs, loneliness.

I lost one girlfriend to alcoholism - a beautiful friend and professional model. She struggled with anxiety and loneliness, and drank to escape her sadness. No one would have guessed it from her social media, her designer wardrobe and career.

Seeking support isn't easy. It takes courage to escape abusive marriages - especially when the husband controls the finances and the children.

Erin's last Instagram post, from a work trip to New Zealand, posted four weeks before she died

The suicides of Erin Jayne and her husband have left the couple's three children orphaned

Mr Plummer was found dead at Freshwater beach (pictured) on Sunday morning

There is also the shame factor and 'keeping up with the Joneses'. The fear of what your high society friends would think if they knew how tragic your life was.

My guess is that a lot of them are going through it too - or certainly more than you think. It might not always be physical violence, but coercive control, affairs, verbal abuse, disrespect and - something I personally find abhorrent - parental alienation.

As women, we need to stop clinging to the idea our lives must be 'perfect'. There is no shame in struggling, there is no shame in honesty, there is no shame in asking for help. If you are one of those women desperately trying to keep up appearances while trapped in an abusive marriage, my advice to you is tell someone, or better yet report it to the police, and do it today. You are not alone - once one woman speaks up, others will follow.

It could save another woman's life or, more importantly, your own.
The budget supermarket topped three festive food categories including best pigs in blankets

Preparing Christmas dinner for a long-list of family and friends can be a daunting task. Will people actually eat the Brussels sprouts? Is the turkey going to be dry?

But Which? has attempted to take the stress away from this festive season by revealing the best supermarket to buy your ingredients from ahead of December 25.

After surveying more than 8,000 of its members on what they had bought for their festive fare in January 2024, Which? ranked British supermarkets based on their Christmas dinner essentials.

Whether you're looking for a mouthwatering turkey or the perfect stuffing that will leave your guests wanting more, this is where you should buy the ingredients for your best Christmas dinner yet.

And the results are surprising - with one budget retailer ranking within the top five of every category while several other big supermarkets failed to impress.

Which? has attempted to take the stress away from this festive season by revealing the best supermarket to buy your ingredients from ahead of December 25 (Source: Aldi)

Aldi, which was previously crowned the UK's cheapest supermarket in October, has been revealed as the best place to do your Christmas food shop by Which? members - for the second year in a row.

Achieving a score of 84 per cent to take first place, Aldi beat the likes of Marks & Spencer (82 per cent), Waitrose (80 per cent) and Lidl (78 per cent) to take the crown.

The German-born budget supermarket is a deserving winner, having gone all out this year with its Christmas range including a multitude of turkey options and a festive Wagyu beef range.

It has also introduced its 'biggest ever' vegan and vegetarian range with vegan-friendly pigs in blankets, meat-free vegetable tarts and a cheesy mushroom Wellington.

Rating taste, quality and value for money, Aldi was also named as the best supermarket to stock up on pigs in blankets and fresh vegetables.

And it tied in first place with Marks & Spencer as the best supermarket to buy stuffing.

Julie Ashfield, Managing Director of Buying at Aldi UK, said: 'We're thrilled to be recognised by Which? as the best place to buy Christmas essentials, for the second year in a row!

'This is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our teams, who are committed to delivering great value, quality, and service to our shoppers.

'Christmas is a special time for many, and we're proud to help families across the UK make the most of their festive celebrations, all while keeping their budgets in check.'

Aldi was named as the best British supermarket to stock up on a Christmas classic - pigs in blankets

Aldi's 2024 festive range features its 'biggest ever' vegetarian and vegan range which is filled with old favourites and appealing new additions

Aldi also emerged victorious from Good Housekeeping's annual Christmas taste test.

The budget brand's Veuve Monsigny Premier Cru Champagne was awarded Best Champagne by Good Housekeeping, making it the perfect tipple to kickstart the festivities.

The 22 bottle beat competitors on taste as well as price, with Selfridges 34.99 and M&S's 28 bottles, failing to make for the perfect fizz.

Wine expert and Mistress of Wine, Sam Caporn, hailed the winned bubbles as the 'best supermarket champagne in the UK' following a recent tasting.

The retailer even won on mince pies, with a panel of judges salivating over their 'soft, flaky pastry' and 'sweet, caramelised fruit filling'.

Aldi's Specially Selected Mince Pies, costing a a budget friendly 38p, or 2.29 for a pack of six, overtook steeper supermarket treats, and can already be bought in store.

And for the perfect centerpiece, the German brand are selling a succulent Specially Selected Roly Poly Whole Turkey - which was named Best Whole Turkey for its 'natural sweet flavour' and 'umami depth'.

The budget retailer even won on mince pies, with a panel of judges salivating over their 'soft, flaky pastry' and 'sweet, caramelised fruit filling'

The best places to buy turkey, trimmings and more this Christmas Source: Which? Best place to do your Christmas food shop Aldi (84 per cent) Marks & Spencer (82 per cent) Waitrose (80 per cent) Lidl (78 per cent) Asda (77 per cent) Morrisons (76 per cent) Sainsbury's (74 per cent) Tesco (73 per cent) Best place to buy turkey crowns, breasts and joints Farm/market (94 per cent) Butcher's (92 per cent) Marks & Spencer/Morrisons (83 per cent) Aldi/Waitrose (82 per cent) Lidl (81 per cent) Tesco (73 percent) Sainsbury's (67 per cent) Best place to buy stuffing Butcher's/farm/market (88 per cent) Aldi/Marks & Spencer (78 per cent) Lidl (77 per cent) Waitrose (75 per cent) Asda (73 per cent) Morrisons (71 per cent) Sainsbury's (70 per cent) Tesco (70 per cent) Best place to buy pigs in blankets Butchers (89 per cent) Farm/market (88 per cent) Aldi (79 per cent) Marks & Spencer (78 per cent) Waitrose (77 per cent) Iceland/Lidl (74 per cent) Asda (71 per cent) Sainsbury's (70 per cent) Morrisons (69 per cent) Tesco (67 per cent) Best place to buy fresh vegetables Greengrocer's/farm/market (88 per cent) Aldi (83 per cent) Marks & Spencer (82 per cent) Lidl (81 per cent) Ocado and Waitrose (80 per cent) Morrisons (75 per cent) Asda/Sainsbury's/Tesco (73 per cent) Co-op (72 per cent) Advertisement

The prize winning poultry will reach the retailers shelves on December 19, just a few days before the big day.

The specially selected orange and maple pudding, costing just 9.99, was named best flavoured Christmas pudding, for its scrumptious sweet flavours, and already hit shelves on November 1.

And one returning favourite has also wowed the judges - Aldi's specially selected ultimate five-year vintage cheddar bake - which was awarded with top place for vegetarian starter.

The cheesy treat will be available in store from December 6 and will cost 6.

The award-winning supermarket clearly has everything you need for a traditional yuletide meal, alongside some interesting alternatives to spice up your festive season.
Queen Letizia looked effortlessly chic as she stepped out in a knitted dress for an event today in Madrid - weeks after she and her husband King Felipe were pelted with mud by protestors in the flood-hit region of Valencia.

The Spanish royal, 52, today presided over the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Aequitas Foundation which is dedicated to helping people with disabilities navigate the justice system.

This morning Letizia arrived at the event - which took place at the National Museum of Prado in Madrid - in a stylish navy knitted dress with a draped neck by fashion brand COS.

She paired the elegant look with a chunky black belt which cinched her in at the waist.

Ever practical, the Queen, who used to work as a journalist, carried a 348 calfskin leather handbag from the brand Mauska which was specially crafted in Ubrique, southern Spain.

Queen Letizia, 52, attends the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Aequitas Foundation

The royal arrived to the National Museum of Prado in a navy knitted dress and a 348 calfskin leather handbag from the brand Mauska

The mother-of-two, who will hand out various awards at the event, also wore a pair of black leather boots from the Spanish brand Unisa.

She has been opted for low-heeled footwear since she broke her toe earlier this year.

Spanish outlet El Mundo has also previously reported that the Queen has chronic metatarsalgia - or, in layman's terms, pain in the ball of the foot.

Letizia completed her comfortable look with 18-karat rose gold earrings from Spanish-owned brand Gold & Roses.

Each stunning earring features three hoops laden with sparkling diamonds and, in total, the dazzling pair costs an eye-watering 2,600.

The 52-year-old looked typically stylish as she wore her cocoa-coloured tresses down in a sleek straightened blow-dry.

She kept her makeup subtle with a peachy gloss on her eyelids and a slight shimmer on her lips.

Letizia was spotted chatting to Jose Angel Martinez Sanchiz - President of the Aequitas Foundation - ahead of the event.

Soledad Cisternas is also due to speak at the celebration as the the former special envoy of the United Nations Secretary General on Disability and Accessibility and former president of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Letizia completed her comfortable look with 2,600 18-karat rose gold earrings from Spanish-owned brand Gold & Roses

The mother-of-two, who will hand out various awards at the event, also wore a pair of black leather boots from the Spanish brand Unisa

Letizia was spotted chatting to Jose Angel Martinez Sanchiz - President of the Aequitas Foundation - ahead of the event

The Spanish royal has been keeping her outfits dark and sombre to match the mood of the nation after catastrophic floods hit Valencia earlier this month, claiming the lives of just over 200 people.

Yesterday the mother-of-two donned a dark burgundy outfit consisting of a tailored blazer and matching smart trousers to greet Olympians and Paralympians who competed in Paris this year.

While at the event - which took place at the El Pardo Palace - Letizia paired the stand-out piece with a black blouse featuring a pussy bow, highly polished black boots and glitzy gold stud earrings.

Letizia was pictured bending down and greeting a Paralympian in a wheelchair by kissing her on the cheek.

Elsewhere, she shook hands of athletes donning the colours of the Spanish flag - red and yellow.

On Tuesday, the Spanish Queen wore a muted green suit as she hosted meetings at Zarzuela Palace.

Her sombre outfits come after she and her husband King Felipe travelled to Paiporta on November 3 to pay their respects to victims and give their condolences to those affected by the floods.

Letizia appeared to be crying as she spoke to a woman in Paiporta, with the Queen wrapping her hands around her shoulder.

She also consoled groups of sobbing local women affected by the flash floods and gave them hugs as they explained their situations to the Queen.

Meanwhile, her husband King Felipe was heckled and had dirt thrown at him by furious locals during the visit.

Letizia looked in high spirits as she stepped out with a warm smile on her face in a stunning ensemble yesterday

The Queen was pictured bending down and greeting a Paralympian in a wheelchair by kissing her on the cheek

Queen Letizia appeared to be crying as she spoke to a woman in Paiporta today

The monarch was pelted with mud and objects like drink cans by angry survivors of the deadly floods as he walked through the ruined town.

Hecklers also targeted Letizia, as a video showed the Queen bursting into tears with mud on her face, as she was helped through the busy streets by her entourage.

King Felipe is set to return to Valencia today to visit the Jaime I Base in Betera to talk to members of the army and the air force as well as the Military Emergency Unit.

The monarch will then travel to the port of Valencia to visit the Galicia - an amphibious ship which has arrived with members of the army to assist with damage caused by the flood.

His trip will conclude with a tour of the Valencia Trade Fair site where the main army logistics base has been set up.

But the King is expected to return to the flood-hit region next week with his wife Letizia by his side once again.

It has been reported that they will visit Chiva - a visit which was on their original schedule before it was scrapped due to the hostile reception in Paiporta.
Mummeeee what are you doing? I need to show you something! My six-year old daughter Emi was hammering on my bedroom door, which, unusually, Id locked in the middle of the afternoon.

Im my mind was whirring. I stared at myself in a panic. What was I doing?

I was actually in the middle of trying to take a sexy photo for Eliot, before he went away for a month. At that very moment, I was half in, half out of a madly expensive Agent Provocateur basque Id bought online without knowing how many hooks and eyes it had. The basque was smaller than I thought  or I was bigger  so every time I got five of the hooks into the eyes, another five popped undone.

Im busy! I said to Emi desperately.

Busy doing what?

I was busy being a single mum-of-three and a girlfriend to one hot younger guy  not that I could tell her that.

I had already hoovered every part of the house today and tidied up the dirty bowls left outside 15-year-old Hectors room for the servant (me) to remove. And now, I had to take sexy photos for Eliot.

Over the course of our relationship Eliot and I had exchanged lots of photographs; hed sent ugly/cute ones of himself from random angles, Id sent him only the most glamorous of me, taken from above so that gravity erased my lines.

I tried different poses. If I took a photo over my shoulder, more of my bum was in shot (good) and less of my resting bitch face (also good)

Occasionally, if we were texting goodnight, Id sent him topless pictures of me in bed  also from above. He never asked for them, but I liked doing it to remind him I was here and hot on the end of the phone.

Although the stereotype is that young men are sending unsolicited pictures of themselves non-stop, Eliot is careful, respectful, and quite shy. He wasnt the type to send anything without being asked (and sometimes refused even when he was).

But he was beautiful and sexy, and I loved to look at him when we werent together  which was often. Exchanging pictures made us feel closer, and added spice to my otherwise domestic life.

Yet while my previous photos taken in the midst of our sexting sessions may have been artfully angled, Id never taken an actual bona fide sexy selfie  one requiring lipstick, stockings and heels.

There were no smartphones in the early 2000s when I was last dating; I was married with small children by the time intimate photos were doing the rounds  and by then, my ex-husband Simon and I wanted to see less of each other, not more.

Now here I was, in my late 40s, in a basque that was more like an instrument of torture, struggling with the right angle. Bits of flesh I didnt know I had bulged out between the expensive ribbons that ran up and down my back. I couldnt get the suspenders to fasten, and my thighs were mottled above the stocking rim.

I tried different poses. If I took a photo over my shoulder, more of my bum was in shot (good) and less of my resting bitch face (also good). I was surprised to see that my rear looked appealing.

Having conquered the outfit, I could see that the hourglass shape of the basque was flattering, and stockings are always sexy. I knelt on the bed and tried a pout. The pose was good; the pout terrible. I threw my head back, with a come-hither vibe. Better!

I pushed my boobs forward; also good. I tilted my head, opened my mouth, stuck out my tongue, trying to be playful. Not too bad... OK, now standing legs apart in sexy authoritarian manner  click!

It was quite thrilling to be in my expensive basque, conjuring up my most sexy persona. Not like my normal life at all.

Over the next month, Eliot referenced the photos a lot. It made our sexting more real and personal, and it was flattering that he loved them.

And in return, every time he got back from the gym, I asked him for a photo. For me, Eliot in his workout gear is the equivalent of my lingerie; I love to see him in his shorts and vest, sweat on his brow. I make him clench his muscles for me in the mirror, which look even bigger after a workout. He flexes his biceps, shows me his lats, pumps his chest. Its exciting to know that a boy like him is mine.

If Im honest, its me who is the drooling middle-aged man in our relationship, and he who is the young beautiful thing. He loves me for my brains, my girl-boss life-juggling skills. And hopefully my bum, too.
Whooping cough cases, caused by the Bordetella pertussis bacteria seen here under an electron microscope, are surging in California and around the U.S., with Bay Area counties experiencing some of their highest numbers in a decade. Associated Press

California is experiencing a sharp rise in whooping cough cases, with several Bay Area counties reporting their highest numbers in a decade.

Nearly 1,800 cases of pertussis, the bacterial disease that causes whooping cough, have been confirmed this year by the states Department of Public Health as of the end of September, the month with the most recent statewide data. That marks a significant increase from the 644 cases reported for all of 2023.

San Francisco recorded 84 confirmed cases this year, compared with just one in 2023. Marin County had documented 336 cases as of September, a jump from 17 the previous year.

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Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at UCSF, said the spike is likely due to a decline in vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among young children.

Infants and children need five doses in the first six years to get full protection, so even missing a few shots could leave folks vulnerable to infection, he said, noting that growing vaccine hesitancy may also be contributing to a rise in cases.

Contra Costa County, with 109 confirmed cases, saw an increase from just 16 last year, while Santa Clara County reported 55 cases in 2024, up from eight in 2023. Sonoma County, likewise, experienced a dramatic rise, with 64 cases this year compared with just two the previous year.

Alameda County, with 84 cases so far this year, saw a particularly concerning spike in October, when the number of cases more than doubled. Among school-age children, teenagers aged 14 to 18 accounted for 74% of the cases. In 2023, the county reported just four cases.

In response to the rising case numbers, local health officials have issued exposure alerts to families at several middle and high schools across the Bay Area, warning of potential outbreaks in classrooms.

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This uptick in cases is not confined to California. Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 22,240 cumulative cases as of Nov. 2, a fourfold increase from the previous year. The figure marks the highest incidence of whooping cough in the United States in more than a decade.

Chin-Hong explained that another factor driving the surge is the natural cycle of the disease, which typically peaks every three to five years.

The surge also follows the end of pandemic-era social distancing measures and mask mandates, which temporarily curbed the spread of many contagious illnesses, including pertussis.

Overall, just like with RSV, influenza and other infections that diminished over the pandemic, we are seeing the emergence of these infections as people are resuming their normal lives, Chin-Hong said.

With colder months approaching, public health experts are concerned that the pertussis outbreak could worsen in the winter when respiratory illnesses typically thrive.

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Whooping cough primarily affects school-age children, but adolescents are vulnerable due to waning immunity from the Tdap vaccine, which is given at age 11 or 12. The most at risk are infants, with one in three infected babies requiring hospitalization.

Pertussis, caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis, is an extremely contagious respiratory illness. It begins with symptoms resembling a common cold  fever, runny nose and mild cough  but rapidly progresses to violent coughing fits, often followed by a characteristic whooping sound when the person inhales.

Though the disease can be severe but manageable in healthy individuals, it may be life-threatening for infants, particularly those who are not vaccinated.

Whooping cough spreads easily through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Diagnosis is typically confirmed with a nasal swab, followed by antibiotic treatment to limit the spread of the bacteria. However, antibiotics do not fully eliminate the infection.

Vaccination remains the most effective method of prevention, according to health experts. The DTaP vaccine, which protects young children, and the Tdap booster, recommended for older children and adults, are critical in controlling the spread of the disease.

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Though vaccinated individuals can still contract pertussis, they are generally spared from more severe effects.

However, nationwide, the CDC has reported a decline in kindergarten vaccination rates and an increase in vaccine exemptions, trends that could be contributing to the spread of preventable diseases like pertussis.

In addition to vaccination, experts recommend other preventive measures, including frequent handwashing and mask wearing, especially in areas with high transmission.
His sister's stunning looks may have been the talk of the town, but it was Pedro Pascal who stole the heart of the public after carefully adjusting her dress on the Gladiator II red carpet.

Transgender actress Lux, 32, supported her older brother, 49, at the screening of his new film held at London's Leicester Square on Wednesday evening, wearing a show-stopping black gown.

In the sweet clip of the siblings, Pedro, who looked suave in an all-black ensemble, is seen very carefully adjusting the bottom of her daring black gown while Lux looks on.

After making sure her stunning black dress is sitting correctly, he stands up and grins at his sister, who nods and smiles happily back before posing for a picture with her brother.

The adorable exchange was captured on video and shared by Harper's Bazaar Espana on Instagram, with fans gushing over the sweet gesture.

'He is the sweetest! Love that at his event, he makes sure she looks her best and is comfortable. He is a darlin,' one fan wrote.

'The way Pedro Pascal is ready to hit the floor just to fix his sister's dress at his own premiere peak gentleman energy,' agreed another.

'As if he wasn't perfect already...' another wrote.

Transgender actress Lux, 32, supported her older brother, 49, at the screening of his new film held at London's Leicester Square on Wednesday evening

Lux publicly detailed her transition in 2021, appearing on the cover of the February issue of Chilean magazine, Ya.

The actress revealed she began receiving hormone treatment the previous July, with her whole family being incredibly supportive.

She said it was something that's very natural for everyone in my family and was 'almost something that they expected to happen.'

Lux added it 'doesn't make me anxious to see old photos of myself.'

She said: 'The same thing happens to me with theater: I see someone who was doing what they liked.'

In the interview, she described herself as a 'baby learning to walk.'

Describing life before transition, she said it was like 'playing with a deck of cards that was not mine.'

'While in the dark I collected the cards to put together another one,' she said. 'And I finally dared to participate in this game with my own cards, as the person I am.'

After making sure her stunning black dress is sitting correctly, he stands up and grins at his sister, who nods and smiles happily back and poses for a picture with her brother

Lux publicly detailed her transition in 2021, appearing on the cover of the February issue of Chilean magazine, Ya

Lux previously credited Pedro as being an 'important part' of her journey

The adorable exchange was captured on video and shared by Harper's Bazaar Espana on Instagram, with fans gushing over the sweet gesture

Proud Pedro shared an image of his sister's cover story with the magazine on his Instagram account with a purple heart.

Her rumored boyfriend actor and musician Jose Antonio Raffo de la Jara also shared Lux's magazine cover to Instagram, describing her as 'the most beautiful and brightest star in all the galaxies.'

Before coming out as transgender, Lux first came out as gay and then identified as non-binary which eventually led her to realize she was a woman.

'I think if I would have been sufficiently sure of myself I would have transitioned in my adolescence. In school I trusted my classmates.

'Moving through the world as a woman is much more simple for me, but I still advocate for nonbinary identities to have a space in society,' she explained.

'Coming out of the closet as a gay man didn't cost me anything, but deep down it wasn't who I was. It was only a step on the staircase, but it wasn't me,' she said. 'It was an easy thing to say,' she said about her coming out, 'but the truth was, "Oof, if you really knew what I feel..."'

Lux credited Pedro as being an 'important part' of her journey as she recalled: 'When I officially told him about my transition through FaceTime, he asked me how I felt because I remember that he was worried.

'I told him, "I'm happy." And his answer was: "Perfect, this is incredible."

'He's also an artist and has served as a guide for me. He was one of the first people to gift me the tools that started shaping my identity.'

Pedro issued a tribute to Lux when the magazine came out, sharing the cover to Instagram with the caption: 'Mi hermana, mi corazon, nuestra Lux,' which translates to: 'My sister, my heart, our Lux.'

After Lux came out as transgender, Pedro told Esquire his 'protective side is lethal, but I need her more than she needs me.'

He added: 'She is and has always been one of the most powerful people and personalities I've ever known.'

The actor has also shown his support to the LGBTQIA community on Instagram, sharing photos of a rainbow flag after the attacks on trans rights in March 2023.
Nicole has since addressed the viral moment in conversation with Dev Patel

The actress, 57, set the internet alight with her seal-like applause in 2017

Nicole Kidman has admitted that she was 'ridiculed' into changing the way she claps her hands after going viral at the Oscars in 2017.

The Perfect Couple actress, 57, set the internet alight at the 89th Academy Awards when she was caught on camera giving a round of applause 'like a seal.'

Seven years later, Nicole has addressed her humiliation during a video shoot for Vanity Fair's 2025 Hollywood Issue, revealing that she's now more conscious about how she demonstrated her appreciation.

Appearing alongside Skins actor Dev Patel, Nicole said as they made conversation in front of the camera: 'I know what I do when I clap, and I've been ridiculed for that.'

She then mimicked her seal-like applause, prompting Dev to comment, 'I've seen that.'

'I now try to clap like this,' Nicole confessed, showing off her delicate and light applause that sees the tips of fingers making contact with her palm.

Nicole sent social media into meltdown at the Oscars in 2017 when she was seen enthusiastically applauding after Charlize Theron took to the stage to introduce an award.

'Anyone see Nicole Kidman clapping? She claps like a seal,' one person wrote at the time.

Nicole Kidman was 'ridiculed' into changing the way she claps her hands after going viral at the Oscars in 2017

Nicole later addressed her strange movement, revealing that it was all down to a bit of a wardrobe malfunction.

Speaking on Australian radio show Kyle & Jackie O, she recalled: 'It was really awkward! I was like, 'Gosh, I want to clap. I don't want to not be clapping.

'It was really difficult because I had a huge ring on that was not my own, but it was absolutely gorgeous, and I was terrified of damaging it!'

Mother-of-four Nicole was dripping in diamonds on her special night, sporting bracelets on both wrists as well as drop earrings.

Joined by her husband, Keith Urban, for Hollywood's night of nights, the Australian beauty oozed glamour with her vibrant makeup look.

She wore a bright shade of red lipstick while keeping her porcelain complexion looking flawless with foundation and a hint of pink blush.

Elsewhere in her conversation with Vanity Fair, Nicole talked about working with both female and male directors.

She recently worked with women directors on Perfect Couple and Babygirl.

The Perfect Couple actress set the internet alight at the 89th Academy Awards when she was caught on camera give a round of applause 'like a seal'

Nicole at the premiere for the New York Spellbound earlier this week on November 11

'I've worked with some of the greatest, and I feel intimacy with most directors that I work with,' she said.

'I move in very quickly. I'm very open, which is why I just have to be careful how I choose.

'Ninety-nine percent of the time, it's really the best way to approach anything.

'But yeah, I'm trying to support all of these women at all different ages, at all different stages in their careers, put my weight behind them and go, "I'm here and I'm at your disposal and I'm ready."'
Prince William faced boos and jeers as he left Ulster University's Belfast City Campus Centre after a visit this afternoon.

The Prince of Wales, 42, smiled and waved as students ardently yelled in the background.

Video shared on X by Belfast Telegraph reporter Kurtis Reid showed the royal facing a 'less than warm reaction' as he made his way to a car.

Shouts also appeared to demand more action from the future King on 'Palestine and Gaza', with the social media clip finishing to chants of 'Free Palestine'.

In February, William called for an end to the fighting in Gaza in an unprecedented royal intervention, writing that the 'terrible human cost' of the conflict had seen 'too many killed'.

'I, like so many others, want to see an end to the fighting as soon as possible,' the Prince said.

He also highlighted the desperate need for more humanitarian support for the civilians of Gaza and called on Hamas to release its remaining Israeli hostages.

The heir's exit appeared to be a contrast from earlier scenes during his visit to the university, which saw William swarmed by adoring crowds.

Prince William faced boos and jeers as he left Ulster University's Belfast City Campus Centre after a visit this afternoon

In one instance, a student asked the Prince to film a video message for a friend who couldn't be there for his visit.

Elsewhere, reports said that the royal laughed at cheers and whistles directed at him.

William had a jam-packed schedule during his trip to Northern Ireland. In the afternoon, he visited Ulster University's Belfast City Campus Centre to meet pupils who are learning about visual production, and visited its state of the art studio.

The studio is part of a Ulster University drive to train up the next generation of experts in the creative sector, which is estimated to contribute 1.4bn to the local economy and employs more than 24,000 people.

The Prince joined an Ulster Screen Academy training workshop, in which mentors were paired with young people from two local community groups to learn how to operate the software used in the creation of games, animation and virtual production.

William asked what they were currently working on, seeing a rainy scene from a horror game, how the young people got into it, and what they were hoping to do for their future careers.

'Ahh that's clever!' he said, watching them work. 'That's amazing.'

He asked one man whether it was 'fairly easy to get your head around?', laughing when he was told it was his first day. 'You're going places!' William told him.

The Prince of Wales, 42, smiled and waved as students yelling anti-monarchist sentiments could be heard in the background

The heir's exit appeared to be a contrast from earlier scenes during his visit to the university, which saw William swarmed by adoring crowds

The project is aimed at diversifying the talent pool in the creative industries, training young people in their own communities in the hopes that some will go on to find skilled work.

Moving to the visual production training suite, he heard about the other end of the career spectrum, introduced to Oscar-winning actor James Martin.

Martin, who starred in the award-winning short film An Irish Goodbye, received his MBE from Prince William earlier this year, with the Prince grinning and telling him 'I recognise that! Who gave you that!' when he shook his hand.

He asked the actor what had helped him in his own career, and when he realised he had such acting potential.

After trying out both the motorbike and the film camera, the Prince was given a short tour of the Ulster University campus by the President of its student union, pausing to speak to staff at the 'Student Wellbeing' room and some students having their lunch.

He seemed particularly interested in a small remote controlled car built by a student studying a mechanical engineering course, picking it up to admire it.

As he walked, students took photographs and videos, with some saying hello or giving a small cheer.

Before leaving, he spent time at the OUSU 'student voice' stall, asking what was on students' minds and what they cared about.

The Prince of Wales met staff and students gathered during a visit to Ulster University's Belfast City Campus Centre

The royal was in high spirits as he chatted with students, who were excited to meet with the royal

The royal was all smiles as he helped a student record a video message for a friend on her phone today

As he walked, students took photographs and videos, with some saying hello or giving a small cheer

He seemed particularly interested in a small remote controlled car built by a student studying a mechanical engineering course, picking it up to admire it

The future King clearly enjoyed himself as he posed on a model motorbike and played around with the cameras

Over the last decade, the university helped to grow the creative industries sector in Northern Ireland, which is estimated to contribute 1.4bn to the local economy and employs more than 24,000 people

Emily Roberts, vice-president of the student union, told him about their work on tackling violence against women and girls, saying afterwards that the Prince had asked what he could do to help or support them.

He signed the visitor book before leaving, with students peering over five floors of balconies to see him. Some whistled loudly, making the Prince laugh, with several brief rounds of cheers before he left.

The father-of-three has had a busy couple of weeks, having recently just come back from South Africa where he celebrated the Earthshot Prize winners during a glitzy, star-studded ceremony.

Finalists, stars and campaigners trod the green carpet, the biggest in the world, at the start of the awards.

Last week's event were held in a reusable eco 'super dome' with a green carpets for guests who include host Billy Porter and models Heidi Klum and Winnie Harlow.

The five winning organisations were chosen from nearly 2,500 nominees across 75 countries.

The Prince of Wales looked suave in a grey chequered blazer, crisp blue shirt and navy suit trousers, complete with a casual pair of gleaming eco-friendly white trainers while attending the event.

Mary Allen, from Natural Fiber Welding who make Purified Shoes said: 'I had no idea Prince William was going to be wearing the shoes until just before we got here. It's such a huge honour.

He looked ready for the evening ahead as he posed next to Earthshot Prize Ambassador and Host of Earthshot Week, Nomzamo Mbatha, and the son of the late Steve Irwin, Robert Irwin, who is a Australian conservationist.

The star-studded event saw model Winnie posing for snaps on the green carpet, donning an elegant chocolate brown ensemble.

At he end of his trip to Cape Town, William offered a rare insight into his life, admitting that the past few months have been 'brutal'.

When asked how the past year had been for him as a husband, father and son, the Prince of Wales lowered his head and said: 'Honestly? It's been dreadful.

'It's probably been the hardest year in my life. So, trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult.

'But I'm so proud of my wife, I'm proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done.

'But from a personal family point of view, it's been, yeah, it's been brutal.'
It starts like this, a little flickering movement in front of the eye. Youre not quite sure if you have imagined it or not, but it leaves you with a growing dread that it might be  oh, please not!  a wretched moth.

Small but devastating, the damage these nocturnal beasts inflict on clothes, curtains and carpets is horrendous.

Which is why I have a sneaking sympathy for the couple who, this week, decided to sue the person who sold them their 32.5m home in Notting Hill, west London. From the day they moved in, Iya Patarkatsishvili and her husband Yevhen Hunyak have been plagued by an infestation which they say has destroyed clothing, ruined their wine, and even resulted in moths settling on their toothbrushes.

Small but devastating, the damage moths inflict on clothes, curtains and carpets is horrendous

Alexandra Shulman (pictured) has experienced the misery and deep financial hit of a serious moth invasion

I have never experienced moths falling into my wine glass or swatted 100 moths a day, as they claim they did, but I have experienced the misery and deep financial hit of a serious invasion. Even after a radical culling of the uninvited guests and their lethal little eggs, the awful truth is, they always return.

My first experience of the ghastly toll taken by moths was in 2003, when I had been editor-in-chief of Vogue for a decade. Along with a fabulous wardrobe of evening dresses, coats and handbags, I had gathered an enviable collection of cashmere scarves and jumpers.

Despite the fact this bounty was worth tens of thousands of pounds, I took a cavalier approach and never subscribed to any moth-proof bags, lavender sachets or cedar balls. Moths were not something that took up any bandwidth in my brain . . . until I spotted holes in some of my knitwear. Even so, I took the view that life is too short to stress about moth holes.

While editor-in-chief of Vogue, Alexandra had a fine collection of cashmere, but took a cavalier approach to moths and so did not use moth-proof bags, lavender sachets or cedar balls

During my childhood I remember visiting houses in the country where, when you opened the chest of drawers in the bedroom or the heavy doors of a dark wood wardrobe, there would always be a powerful smell of moth-repelling camphor.

But we didnt have them in our London flat and, during my 20s, I never had a problem with them in rented accommodation. Perhaps my clothes werent expensive enough to attract them, or perhaps  and there is some credence to this theory  there just werent as many moths in Britain back then as there are now.

But after discovering those first jumper holes, I noticed more and more  especially in the most pricey cashmeres, fine cottons and silks of my Vogue wardrobe (moths are seriously attuned to luxury).

I concluded it was time to do something about it, and called in the big guns. The man from Rentokil arrived to survey the house, which resulted in the gloomy diagnoses that moth larvae were everywhere. This was not, he said, a case for lavender bags. I would need the whole place fumigated.

At first, the inconvenience and cost deterred me from taking up his suggestion. Surely it was in Rentokils interest, I thought, to paint the worst possible scenario.

Id do it my way instead, and on my next trip to Paris to watch the couture shows, I snapped up cans of a very toxic spray to deal with the blighters.

The French spray wasnt allowed to be sold in this country and I admit I was slightly nervous as I put my luggage through the Eurostar scanners; Vogue Editor imports poisonous substance was not a headline I was keen to see.

Safely home, I put away any foodstuffs and sprayed all the clothing cupboards and linen storage  then fled the house with my eight-year-old son for the day while the poison did its thing.

Alas, the British blighters were not put off by the French infantry. Within a week or so I spotted a couple more cruising around my bedroom. It was time to admit defeat and go all in.

Dealing with a moth infestation is not for the faint-hearted. Every possible object moths might enjoy has to be detoxed, including cushions, carpets, childrens soft toys, furs, feathers, even animal bristles in brushes. In my case, while I took my clothes to a dry cleaner  and, yes, the cost was upwards of a thousand pounds  the majority of infected items were put in a sealed tent in our upstairs converted attic and zapped in a job lot.

Dealing with a moth infestation is not for the faint-hearted. When fumigators wearing hazmat suits went to work in Alexandra's house, the scene felt unnervingly like a TV thriller  her home now a contagion zone

As the fumigators went to work in their hazmat suits, the scene felt unnervingly like a TV thriller  my home now a contagion zone.

I dont remember how long the toxic bubble was left to do its work, but the whole house had to be industrially cleaned as well: cornices and crevices had to be vacuumed; any unwelcome visitors in the floorboards were suctioned out; clothes were washed on high temperatures; and furniture moved away from walls so expert cleaners could get to the skirting boards that might house larvae.

The thing about a dramatic infestation is that you suffer a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder. Getting rid of them is such a difficult, expensive and thoroughly unpleasant business that any possibility of having to do it again becomes one of lifes dreads.

This year the mild weather is thought to have led to an increase in the pests. Tineola bisselliella, the common clothes moth, only lives for a month or so but it is capable of laying up to 50 eggs during that time. The insects are most active between May and October, although looking at the number of them currently stuck to sticky pheromone traps in my current house, they clearly dont adhere to a rigid timetable.

This year the mild weather is thought to have led to an increase in the pests. They thrive in the dark, so leaving wardrobes open should offer a slight deterrent, but moths are tenacious

One of the reasons they like cupboards and drawers is that they thrive in the dark, so leaving wardrobes open should offer a slight deterrent. But the truth is that moths are tenacious and the increasingly large and lucrative industry that has grown up to deal with them is relatively toothless.

I have to confess that after our traumatic experience  and our tireless effort to remove them  we moved house.

I understand the Notting Hill couples court case is centred around whether the previous owners should have owned up to a moth problem when the sale was going through and the solicitors report asked if there had been any previous vermin infestation.

Im pretty sure that when I sold my house I didnt tick that box either. I would have assumed that Id done as much as possible to get rid of them, but also wouldnt have considered them vermin.

Now, though, Im wondering what I should do when I think of selling this house. The moths are as under control as they could possibly be, but the mice droppings I have discovered? Now thats another story . . .

Found a hole? Heres how to fight back...

Stuart Hine, former head of the Natural History Museums Insect Identification Service, tells Rachel Halliwell how to deal with moths.

Freeze out the interlopers: Washing clothes at high temperatures will kill off moths, eggs and larvae  but freezing is an alternative. Pop items in a sealed bag in the freezer; after three days theyll all be dead. Dry cleaning works, too.

Bag, seal and always put away clean: Storing woollens in vacuum-sealed bags will avoid them being attacked afresh.

Sweet smelling deterrents: Hanging cedar wood balls and lavender bags in your wardrobe doesnt kill moths  but it is effective in keeping them out.

Get the vacuum cleaner out: A thorough clean is key to breaking the breeding and feeding cycle. Empty the bag or wash out the cylinder afterwards, vacuum wardrobe floor and shake out your un-bagged clothes each month.

Take the males out of circulation: Pheromone traps entice male moths onto a sticky board, hopefully before mating with the females.

Use chemical sprays: Fly spray also kills moths, but, if all else fails, call in pest control who have chemical products to deal with infestations.
Australia's taxpayer-funded health system, Medicare, is lauded as one of the most robust in the world.

Yet ask any woman living with chronic pain how they would rate their standard of care and you would think they were living in a third-world country.

One in nine Australian women live with chronic pain caused by endometriosis, a disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside it. There is no cure and the average time it takes to get a diagnosis is seven years.

Endometriosis made headlines around the world in early 2023 when Bindi Irwin, the daughter of legendary 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin, opened up about her decade-long struggle with the condition, and revealed she had been forced to go to America to have surgery to remove painful cysts.

She said 'every part of my life was getting torn apart because of the pain', yet doctors had previously told her 'it's all in your head', 'you're hormonal', or to 'just have a cup of tea and lie down', leaving her feeling 'desperately alone'.

For the estimated 830,000 women living with endometriosis in Australia, this type of medical gaslighting from GPs is all too familiar.

Dr Rebecca South, a specialist in women's health, used to be alarmed when patients living in agony would come to her Sydney practice and reveal their last doctor had told them to 'go home and take some Nurofen because there's nothing wrong'.

Now she's not surprised at all.

Bindi Irwin, seen with daughter Grace, lived for years with the brutal pain of endometriosis. Her symptoms were initially dismissed by doctors and she ended up having surgery overseas

The daughter of the late conservationist Steve Irwin is seen recovering in a New York hospital

More than half of the women who join the months-long waitlist for an appointment at the Inner West Women's Health Clinic in Leichhardt, where Dr South works, have previously had their pain dismissed by a medical professional.

'Often, people have talked about their pain to health practitioners quite a few times over many years,' Dr South told Daily Mail Australia.

'Sometimes, they've even been to emergency rooms many times. And usually their symptoms have been minimised down to being "period pain" or "ovulation pain" - particularly if they have an ultrasound which is deemed "normal" - and it very often is - then they're told that there's nothing wrong,' she said.

There was uproar in August when Canberra Health Services posted a video titled 'Stop! Is it an emergency?' that discouraged people living with severe pain from seeking hospital admission because this is not a 'life-and-limb threatening situation'.

The clip specifically cited two chronic pain conditions, endometriosis and arthritis, as non-emergencies.

One young woman, Jade, later said the video deterred her from going to the emergency department when she was experiencing '10 out of 10' pain during an endometriosis flare-up.

This was despite the pain being so severe that she was vomiting and collapsed on the floor. Jade said she 'did not see the point in going in' if her condition was not viewed as an emergency.

Children's entertainer Emma Watkins, 34, formerly of The Wiggles, has suffered from endometriosis since she was a teenager, but did not seek treatment for eight years

Her GP had told her the heavy bleeding and pain was caused by 'working too much'

Children's entertainer Emma Watkins, formerly of The Wiggles, did not get help for her 'exponential symptoms' of endometriosis until 2017 when she found herself doubled over in pain right before a concert in Adelaide.

Her GP had told her the heavy bleeding and pain was caused by 'working too much'.

At the time, she was travelling the world and performing four shows a day, six days a week as the Yellow Wiggle, being responsible for about 50 per cent of their revenue.

Until that day in Adelaide, she had never spoken about her pain or cancelled a show. But this time she 'could not get off the floor'.

She has since left the band to form her own independent project, Emma Memma.

Dr South says stories like these are commonplace for Australian women seeking treatment for any kind of pelvic pain or menstrual-related issue.

'That is completely what you would be told in an emergency department - "it's period pain. Here's some Nurofen, go home".'

Dr South is among a handful of doctors working at one of 22 specialised clinics that will be funded by the Federal Government's new endometriosis and pelvic pain package from July 1, 2025.

It comes after a new drug called Ryeqo was in February approved for use in Australia aimed at relieving endometriosis pain. It's the first medication addressing the condition that the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has approved in 13 years.

The once-daily tablet costs $135 for a month's supply and isn't subsidised by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

When the $49.1 million endometriosis project was announced in May, Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said: 'Women are suffering unnecessarily.

'They're having their experiences dismissed, being called hysterical and accused of drug-shopping. Women's pain is real and it's time we stop telling women to just suck it up.'

Dr South  who has been a GP for more than 20 years, in addition to working as a procedural obstetrician in the NT, and as a senior lecturer on sexual health at Family Planning  could not agree more.

She says the training afforded to her by the new funding - the first the sector has ever received - has already 'completely changed the way we do consultations'.

However, her clinic, and the 21 others offering longer specialist consultations of 45 minutes or more under Medicare, is already struggling to meet the demand.

The current waitlist for an initial consultation at her clinic is more than three months.

'We run a very small clinic in a very large city,' she said.

'We do have some protected pelvic pain appointments, but also cover a raft of other services. We will never meet the demand for where we live in Sydney. There's no way.'

But, in her opinion, there is an obvious solution.

Dr South is calling on her GP peers across Australia to step up to the plate and retrain in women's health so they can properly serve their communities.

'You don't have to be a specialised clinic to treat menstrual and pelvic pain. Nothing we are doing at Inner West Women's Health is a specialised service,' she said.

'The only thing that's specialised is our knowledge and training.

'Nothing that we offer is beyond the scope of an interested doctor who is prepared to make a longer consultation time and implement the information that we can teach.'

One in nine Australian women live with chronic pain caused by endometriosis, a disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside it. There is no cure and the average time it takes to get a diagnosis is seven years

Initial gynecologists' appointments currently receive less than half the Medicare rebate of other specialist appointments dealing with issues that are as complex as endometriosis.

The reality for women suffering with the condition is they are rushed through quick appointments and then given two options: Either undergo surgery to diagnose and remove the disease, with 50-50 odds of it growing back immediately, or roll the side-effects dice with hormonal treatments, including contraceptives like the pill or IUDs such as Mirena and Kyleena.

'There's a lot of distrust around hormone use, which I think does take time to talk people through, to understand why we're using them in this context to stop bleeding,' Dr South said.

'The aim is to stop bleeding because bleeding is inflammatory and if we can reduce the bleeding in the pelvis, then normally that improves symptoms.'

That is why her clinic has decided to concentrate on sharing its knowledge and operational model with other doctors, including training them on how to use resources like pelvic pain questionnaires and pain impact forms.

Dr Rebecca South, who has been a GP for more than 20 years in addition to working as a procedural obstetrician in the NT and senior lecturer on sexual health at Family Planning, is on the frontlines of the endometriosis crisis working at Inner West Women's Health in Sydney

Dr South believes clearer national guidelines will help cut down the diagnosis and/or treatment time for endo 'because it's always been very open to interpretation'.

'Nobody knows how much anyone else bleeds and what levels of pain anybody else experiences. So often, whether or not you get help is very dependent on what other people - particularly health professionals or family - do to interpret your pain and your level of distress,' she said.

'Mothers of people with heavy periods and pelvic pain may have also experienced that themselves, so it's kind of normalised when they tell their daughters, "That's just what a period is".'

The next hurdle after diagnosis is how a health professional responds.

'If the doctor's first question is, "Can you manage with a couple of ibuprofen?" it's conversation closed,' Dr South said.

'The hope is more women will be told: "What you're experiencing is not normal, let's talk about it." But takes a level of confidence and understanding of what is "normal" menstrual pain.'

The Inner West Women's Health clinic is actively trying to 'package up' all they've learned over the past 18 months 'so that it's easier for other doctors to catch up to where we're at.'

Until quite recently, women had to be formally diagnosed with endometriosis by undergoing a surgical procedure known as a laparoscopy before receiving any treatment.

It's a prohibitively expensive step that means the number of women living with endometriosis is likely far greater than our current estimates.

'It's an invasive surgery, and it's not cheap,' Dr South said.

'So for a young woman, or anyone really, the cost of that and fear of the unknown is a huge turn-off. People think "well, things aren't so bad, I'll keep putting up with it".'

In the past, GPs often thought they were doing the right thing by not wanting to label someone as having the disease until they could be certain.

But now, doctors like her are fighting back against that idea because too many women - just like Bindi Irwin - are waiting too long for help.

'If someone is experiencing pelvic pain or menstrual pain then you don't have to wait for a laparoscopic surgery to be treated,' Dr South said, adding that more often than not, chronic pain requires holistic and individualised care.

'The first step is knowing that your pain is valid, it is real, and it needs to be treated.

'I've actually had people burst into tears when I've shown them a cluster of all the symptoms that go together,' she said, listing off pelvic pain, menstrual pain, IBS, headaches, feeling tired and depressed, and an irritable bladder.

'Because they've always kind of known and in their head they felt like it was all connected.

'A lot of what happens is I see people who say, "I'm worried there is something wrong with me that people are missing. Because I experience this really severe pain and yet I've been to hospital, I've had an ultrasound, and sometimes I've had a laparoscopy and still sometimes nothing much has really shown up".

'So they believe something is wrong with them that no one can diagnose. Which is really, really scary. And often these are quite vulnerable people who have been living with pain for a long time.'

Dr Fiona Cousins is a postdoctoral research scientist with Victoria's Hudson Institute's Endometriosis Stem Cells Group who is working on finding new treatments for endo

The first-line treatment for endometriosis has been the same since 1957: hormonal contraceptives.

'A lot of patients go on the pill because it essentially puts their lesions into a dormant state and so, while you're on the pill, they hopefully don't grow anymore,' Dr Fiona Cousins, a postdoctoral research scientist with Victoria's Hudson Institute's Endometriosis Stem Cells Group, told Daily Mail Australia.

Once you stop taking the pill, however, all the symptoms, including the pain and excessive bleeding, return almost immediately.

The gold standard of endometriosis treatment is still laparoscopic surgery, a keyhole procedure to diagnose and physically remove the disease's lesions, scarring and cysts.

'Unfortunately, recurrence after surgery is very high, up to 60 per cent,' Dr Cousins said. That means within five years of surgery, half of patients will have to go in for another.

In the meantime, it is vital women understand their options for pain management.

'For many years, there has been a bit of a disconnect between women and their medical providers around pain,' Dr Cousins said.

The lack of understanding stems from a lack of research, which is because scientists believed for years that women's menstrual cycles interrupted scientific trials. As a result, trials for almost all medical treatments were focused on the male experience.

'A lot of the medical treatments that we have, for anything even down to heart attacks, are all tested on men,' added Dr Cousins.

She is trying to bridge some of that research gap at the Hudson Institute, where she is working on 'a novel type 1 interferon called Interferon Epsilon'  a potential treatment for ovarian cancer that she hopes could be used for endometriosis as well.

Dr Cousins' theory is the treatment might be able to reprogram a patient's immune system to detect lesions and attack them, but also to 'directly act on the lesions themselves and stop them growing.'

'There's also big push for endo to be recognised as an inflammatory disorder, not just a menstruating disorder, and we do now think your immune system is a big reason that some people get endo and some don't.'
British plastic surgeons have warned of the unsafe 'short cuts' taken by Turkish cosmetic surgery clinics, which they say likely explains the astonishingly cheap prices of procedures they offer.

Experts have voiced suspicions about high-risk procedures such as nose jobs and weight loss surgeries priced 6,000 less than they would be in the UK.

The use of old, riskier equipment, a lack of aftercare and scrimping on insurance that protects patients when something goes wrong may explain the shortfall in price, surgeons told MailOnline.

This website has identified at least five Turkish clinics offering Brazilian Butt Lifts, gastric bands, nose jobs and breast augmentations that lure customers in with prices five times cheaper than they are in the UK.

The findings come after the death of Janet Savage, 54, who suffered fatal injuries on the operating table in a Turkish clinic while undergoing a gastric sleeve weight loss procedure.

She paid 2,750 for the treatment, which included flights to Turkey. This is a fraction of the 5,000 to 15,000 for a similar procedure in the UK.

MailOnline has found rhinoplasties and Brazilian Butt Lifts advertised on various Turkish clinics' websites for around 1,500 and 2,000 respectively.

Janet Savage, 54, (pictured) who travelled to Antalya, Turkey, for a gastric sleeve operation died on the operating table, a recent inquest heard

Hayley Dowell, 38, (pictured) died after paying 7,000 for a 'premium' cosmetic surgery package including a Brazilian butt lift and tummy tuck in Turkey in October 2023

Kaydell Brown, 38, (pictured) died after paying just 5,400 for a 'mummy MOT' - a package deal involving a BBL, tummy tuck and boob job - in Turkey in March

In comparison, such operations can cost upwards of 7,000 and 8,000 in Britain.

Boob jobs, including lifts and augmentations, were listed at as little as 2,000 compared to upwards of 8,000 in the UK.

Tummy tucks were priced by some Turkish as costing just under 2,500, five times less than the upwards of 10,000 such an op can cost in Britain.

Meanwhile, MailOnline found bariatric surgery, the same type of weight-loss procedure that killed Mrs Savage, priced from 2,500.

Many clinics, such as major Turkish hospital chain Medicine Park, offer a package that includes accomodation and flights, meaning the operation itself is even cheaper.

One advertisment on another clinic's website claimed: 'Don't regret paying over the odds for exactly the same treatment.'

But British surgeons warned that ultra-cheap prices are a 'red-flag'.

Charles Durrant, a consultant plastic surgeon at the Ad Nova in Portsmouth said British surgeons are more expensive as they are covered by costly insurance, which can provide financial protection of something goes wrong.

Mother-of-two Kaydell, who died after cosmetic surgery in Turkey, is pictured with her two sons

Liposuction, Brazilian butt lifts, eye colour-changing laser treatments and hymenoplasties are all offered in clinics across Turkey

Glamorous Ms Savage suffered fatal injuries on the operating table in a Turkish clinic

Hayley Butler, 40, (pictured) died from complications after travelling to Turkey for gastric sleeve surgery

This is just one of many 'catches', with cheap procedures, he said.

'The chances are they're not using the most up to date equipment which potentially means a higher risk of complications, and a less desirable result.'

It's for these reasons that extraordinary price differences are a 'red flag', he said.

'If you're racing to get to the lowest price possible, short cuts are going to be taken. You're going to be less skilful, have less effective equipment and take short cuts with the aftercare.'

'There's a lot of truth to the ''you get what you pay for''.'

And he highlighted such a false economy could 'end up costing your life'.

'There have been several deaths in Turkey and there haven't in the UK, now that's a pretty obvious statistic.'

He added a lesser known aspect of the equation was what he called 'collusion' by the Turkish government in luring Brits to have surgery in the country.

'Cosmetic tourism is such a big financial income for the government that all these pop-ups will get government funding,' he said.

'The government will subsidise the building of the clinic, they'll subsidise the hotel stays, flights for patients, the list goes on.'

The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons has previously estimated the cost of treating such botched patients back in Britain is about 15,000 and with over 300 known patients, this puts the bill at about 4.8million.

Some Turkish agencies, like this example from Medicine Park, tried to tempt Brits with 'limited offers' for major surgery

The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons analysed 324 cases of Brits needing medical treatment or corrective surgery after having gone under the knife overseas since 2018

Michelle Heath (pictured) appeared on This Morning in April to talk about her horror plastic surgery which has left her scarred for life

Turkish clinics offer packages including VIP airport transfers in 'luxury vehicles' and 5-star hotel stays with breakfast

It comes as research suggests that four in five patients who were botched in cosmetic operations overseas admitted to being lured in by budget prices.

The survey of over 100 patients, conducted by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), found almost 60 per cent paid less than 5,000 for their procedure.

Of the total, two thirds said they would not make the same decision to have the procedure given a second chance, nearly half expressed 'outright regret' over the ordeal.

Nora Nugent, BAAPS president, said: 'Potential patients need to understand the risks involved with traveling abroad for cosmetic surgery, beyond just the financial savings.'

Concerns over the rise and risks of budget surgery overseas have been raised for years.

At least 25 Brits are known to have died during or shortly after surgery in Turkey in recent years.

Many more have been injured, with some requiring life-saving care upon return to the UK for complications like infections.

While all surgery carries risks, campaigners and surgeons have urged Brits to thoroughly do their research before opting to go under the knife overseas.
The UK must harness AIs transformative power to revolutionise the healthcare system and slash cancer deaths, Lord Darzi has urged.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant dream but a reality thats here to stay which must be seized upon, he says.

The former health minister, who recently conducted a major review of the state of the NHS, said it will increasingly play a vital role within the health service.

He said a time will likely come when AI is used to detect all cancers quickly, allowing earlier treatment and boosting survival chances.

But he warned ambition must be tempered with pragmatism and that robust regulation will be needed to ensure it is used wisely.

Lord Darzai, who recently conducted a major review of the NHS, said a time will come when AI is used to detect all cancers quickly (stock image)

The ex-health minister said artificial intelligence must be used to help revolutionise the healthcare system and slash cancer deaths in Britain (stock image)

'It may be some time off, but it feels eminently possible to, at some point, have a system which uses AI to detect all cancers earlier, leading to less aggressive treatment, fewer side effects and better quality of life.

In order to make this a common reality, endorsement of innovation by the new Government and robust regulation are essential.

Labour has vowed to prioritise cancer with the UK survival rates lagging behind much of Europe and other countries.

Poor access to timely diagnosis and treatment, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, are a factor with more than four in five NHS trusts failing to treat them on time.

While hospitals are supposed to treat 85 per cent of patients within 62 days of receiving an urgent referral, NHS England data shows 82 per cent, are falling short of this target.

Lord Darzi is one of a number of leading voices in oncology calling on ministers to deliver on a recent commitment to develop a dedicated cancer strategy.

Leading cancer charities have joined forces with AstraZeneca as part of its Cancer: Project Zero which ultimately aims to eliminate cancer as a cause of death.

However, he warned ambition must be tempered with pragmatism and that robust regulation will be needed' for AI (stock image)

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They hope to be able to advise ministers on how best any new cancer targets are met.

Professor Richard Simcock, chief medical officer at Macmillan Cancer Support, agreed AI will play a crucial role in future strategies.

He said: Artificial intelligence solutions may soon be able to decode the jargon of a pathology or radiology report for people as easily as our smartphones can unlock a food menu in a foreign language.

However, we need professional communities to chaperone these evolutions and more openly welcome efforts to improve patient autonomy.

Experts said there is a strong economic argument for cancer research has been overlooked for too long, with every 1 invested estimated to generate 2.80 in economic benefits.

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of CRUK, said: There is no quick fix, but improvements can and must be made.

Research and innovation have been the driving force behind the UK doubling cancer survival in the last 50 years - and despite the current outlook faced by cancer patients, we are at the centre of a golden age of cancer research which, if harnessed, will power economic growth and improve outcomes.

Anna Arent, head of oncology at AstraZeneca UK, said: Zero may feel far away but our goal with this campaign is to celebrate the progress already made and to collectively address the next steps required.

This includes welcoming the Governments recent commitment to a dedicated cancer strategy, and calling for it to be developed in collaboration with the cancer community.
The number of Brits dying from freak accidents like unknowingly drinking bleach or being crushed by a wardrobe has soared to record highs of more than 20,000 per year, new data shows.

So-called accidental deaths are 42 per cent higher than they were two decades a go go, with these types of fatalities now the leading cause of preventable deaths in the under 40s.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), the organisation that collected the data, has warned that the UK is facing an 'accident crisis'.

Falls remained the nation's top accidental killer accounting for almost half of all deaths, followed by the accidental ingestion of medications, cleaning products or cosmetics, which accounted for one in four.

Transport accidents of all types, including vehicles like cars, bikes and boats, accounted for just seven per cent of all deaths.

The majority (55 per cent) of accidental deaths in 2022 occurred in the home.

Non-fatal accidents, those that only result in injury, are also on the rise, increasing by 48 per cent in the last two decades with 740,000 hospital admissions in England alone, 50,000 of these among children under 10.

Tragically, 61 of these resulted in children dying.

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Over 100 deaths from 'inanimate mechanical forces' like a bookshelf or other piece of furniture crushing someone were recorded last year.

Just over 30 fatalities from 'animate mechanical forces' like powered tools or lawnmowers were also included in the data for 2022.

Additionally, 22 deaths from accidents like electrical shocks and nearly 300 deaths from accidental drownings like in bathtubs were also recorded last year.

The RoSPA listed factors like being poorer and our aging population as potential contributors to the increasing numbers of people suffering an accident.

RoSPA called on the Government to implement a National Accident Prevention Strategy to 'save lives, boost the economy and free up capacity in the NHS'.

The society's chief executive Becky Hickman said: 'We must take action now to stop further preventable deaths and serious injuries  accidents are avoidable and do not need to happen.

'The UK is facing an accident crisis.

'We are all substantially more likely to suffer a serious accident today than we were 20 years ago.

Falls remained the nation's top accidental killer accounting for almost half of all deaths

'Even those who have never been involved in an accident are still suffering, as increasing numbers of accidents are choking the UK economy and engulfing the NHS  taking up bed space, money, time and resources that could be directed to other serious illnesses.

One victim of an accidental injury who was lucky enough to survive was Brian Whitnall who chopped off two of his toes while mowing his lawn earlier this year.

The 50-year-old sales manager needed to stay in hospital for six days and have two operations after the accident.

'It was a warm Sunday and my partner Rachel was jetwashing the drive while I was cutting the grass,' Mr Whitnall said.

'As I was walking with my Flymo lawnmower, I stepped backwards and my foot caught on the stairs leading up to my grandson's trampoline. Next thing I'm falling backwards.

'Rather than letting go of the handle, which would have turned off the engine, I grabbed it tighter to try and steady myself and brought the lawnmower towards me.

'I felt a searing heat in my right foot and knew straight away that I'd lopped off some toes.'

Mr Whitnall was taken to hospital where doctors told him they were unable to re-attach the severed toes.

'I had two lots of surgery to try to "tidy up" the wound but sadly the toes  two in the middle on my right foot  are gone forever,' he said.

'I was in hospital for six days in order to be monitored and make sure the wound was not infected.

'After that, I had to wear a protective boot on my foot for several weeks.'
The chilling cosmetic practices carried out by 'wild west operators' in some of Britain's high-street salons were today exposed in a shock investigation.

Raw footage shows one beautician crudely continuing to suck out fat from a client's cheek using a 'suction wand'  a long metal tube that pierces the skin  despite her clearly being in pain.

Cameras also capture the practitioner admitting she only ever damaged just 'two nerves' and 'one artery' during the hundreds of other procedures she has done.

All of the hard-hitting clips were secretly captured by an undercover reporter who had signed up for a one-day training course at Luxury Medical Aesthetics in Clapham, south west London.

Experts today slammed the 'unbelievable' and 'disgusting' practices that were found in the ITV News probe.

Doctors also warned Brits contemplating getting non-surgical procedures to choose carefully and only ever opt for experienced practitioners.

During the training course in 'fat reduction' procedures, which cost 1,500, students were told about the different treatments before a client arrived just half an hour later.

The undercover footage shows a beautician making an incision into a client's jawline, before beginning to remove fat with the 'suction wand' plunging it up and down beneath her skin.

Footage shows one beautician crudely continuing to suck out fat from a client's cheek using a 'suction wand'  a long metal tube that pierces the skin  despite her clearly being in pain

Cameras also capture the practitioner admitting she only ever damaged just 'two nerves' and 'one artery' during the hundreds of other procedures she has done

The client  who has had only local anaesthetic  is clearly experiencing pain, but the procedure continues regardless.

'If we damage the nerves on one side, then we're very, very careful on the other side,' the trainer says.

Before shortly handing over instruments to students on the course, she also tells them she has only ever damaged 'two nerves' and 'one artery' carrying out the procedures.

The undercover reporter excused herself and left before she was invited to join in.

Despite this, she still passed the course, leaving with a certificate from Luxury Medical Aesthetics.

The footage forms part of a year-long investigation into unregulated cosmetic surgery for a new ITV documentary - 'Britain's Backstreet Surgery Scandal'

The clinic did not respond later to the safety concerns raised by ITV News, when contacted.

When the owner was also approached outside her salon, she also chose not to answer any questions.

Experts today slammed the 'unbelievable' and 'disgusting' practices exposed by the probe.

Consultant plastic surgeon, Professor Iain Whitaker said: 'How she can be allowed to do this, with zero training, or medical background is just beyond belief'

Consultant plastic surgeon, Professor Iain Whitaker said: 'How she can be allowed to do this, with zero training, or medical background is just beyond belief.

'To say they'll continue after damaging the nerves on one side, they're just not thinking about the patient, it's unbelievable.

'It actually disgusts me, to be honest. I've been a doctor for over 22 years, I never thought in my lifetime I would see something like that.'

In the UK, there is no regulation to prevent non-medics performing these procedures, while doctors face strict regulation from the General Medical Council (GMC).

But a separate freedom of information request by ITV News also found there have been 1193 ambulance callouts to businesses with 'beauty' or 'aesthetics' in the name.

The reasons include 'chest pain', 'immediate threats to life' and 'major trauma'.

In the last five years, there have also been 670 complaints to local authorities about aesthetic procedures.

Experts have long warned of 'non-surgical' aesthetic treatments carried out by practitioners will little experience and repeatedly called for tighter controls over the cosmetic industry..

It is reported that Alice Webb (pictured), 33, underwent the procedure at The Studio 23 clinic in Gloucester, run by beautician Jemma Pawlyszyn and Parke, 32, dubbed the 'Lip King'

Beautician Jordan James Parke has addressed concerns raised following the death of a mother-of-five who died hours after having a non-surgical BBL procedure

In September, Alice Webb, 34, died just hours after having a non-surgical butt lift, understood to have been performed in the West Country.

Two people were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and bailed, including the beautician Jordan James Parke, alleged to have carried out the treatment.

At the time, one of Britain's leading plastic surgeons told this website Ms Webb is believed to have had a 'large volume of filler' injected into her buttocks.

While the risks of a traditional Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) are well known  surgery to transfer fat from other areas to the buttocks  a non-surgical methods that aim to create the same result are less understood.

Unlike a traditional BBL which sees fat transferred from other areas of the body, a liquid BBL involves hyaluronic acid fillers.

Dermal filler  the same material used to fill lips  is injected in large quantities into the buttock.

Non-surgical BBLs are not illegal in the UK.

Last year, however, Wolverhampton City Council barred a company from carrying out liquid BBLs after identifying risks associated with their processes.

These included 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.

In 2023, the Conservative Government conducted a public consultation, on the issue of non-surgical cosmetic procedures and committed to looking at new regulations.

But no further action was taken prior to the election.

When the safety concerns were put to Labour health secretary Wes Streeting this week, he said it was 'absolutely disgusting that there are wild west operators practising actually dangerously in cosmetic surgery and putting people's lives at risk'.

He added: 'We've seen that in the tragic case of Alice.'
As far as our bodies are concerned, Planet Earth is now Planet Plastic.

Tiny plastic particles  microplastics  in the air we breathe, our food and water and many of the products around us pollute our bloodstream and organs, with potentially serious health consequences.

Previously the particles have been linked to lung disease, liver failure and fertility damage in men.

But now two new studies have shown something more alarming  that even our brains are being invaded with these plastic pieces, possibly raising our risk of dementia and Parkinsons or causing developmental problems in children.

This invisible plague comes in the form of tiny particles classed as microplastics (as small as 0.0001mm) and nanoplastics (even tinier particles  as small as one billionth of a centimetre, 0.000000001cm).

On average we ingest about 5g of plastic particles every week - the same weight as a credit card  according to a 2019 World Wildlife Fund review of data from 50 previous studies. Over a year this adds up to 260g, or half a pound.

Numerous studies show that many of these plastics can be highly toxic.

Research reveals microplastics can lodge in our organs, causing dangerous inflammation. Microplastics may also transport infectious bacteria and viruses.

Tiny plastic particles  microplastics  in the air we breathe, our food and water and many of the products around us pollute our bloodstream and organs

Until now most scientists believed that our brains were safe from plastic invaders because they are protected by the blood-brain barrier, a layer of specialised cells that acts as a filter keeping out toxic substances and infections.

But the two new studies suggest microscopic plastic particles are small enough to slip past the blood-brain barrier and into the brain.

The first study, published in September in the journal Environmental Health, analysed the brains of 15 people who had died from various causes and found microplastic particles in eight of them, specifically in the olfactory bulbs.

This pair of rounded tissue masses at the bottom of the brain relays information about smells from the nose to the brain. Crucially this pathway is a weak spot in the blood-brain barrier.

Luis Fernando Amato-Lourenco, an environmental engineer at Berlin University who led the study, suggests that inhaled microplastics may bypass the blood-brain barrier by flowing up nasal mucus and becoming mixed in brain fluids around the olfactory bulbs, via tiny perforations in bony structures found in this area.

The olfactory nerve, responsible for transmitting the smell information, is situated just below the front and prefrontal lobes  areas of the brain involved in thinking, judging and problem solving.

The most common type of plastic found was polypropylene, used in a wide range of plastic packaging, clothing and home accessories  suggesting indoor environments as a major source of inhaled microplastics, the researchers said.

Co-researcher Thais Mauad, an associate professor of pathology at the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil, warned: What is worrying is the capacity of such particles to be internalised by cells and alter how our bodies function.

The findings should raise concern amid the increase in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinsons, the report said.

Experiments on mice have already shown how microscopic plastic particles can damage brains  for instance a 2022 study in the journal Chemosphere found that microplastics provoke chronic inflammation that damages brain cells.

Two years earlier, a study by Rutgers University in New Jersey in which pregnant mice inhaled microplastics found that the particles were being passed on to the next generation - in the organs and brains of the foetuses.

Another new study on humans suggests microplastics might also invade our brains via the food and drink we consume.

The researchers, led by Dr Matthew Campen, a professor of pharmacology at the University of New Mexico, examined brain, liver and kidney samples taken from 51 local men and womens post-mortem examinations.

The scientists were surprised to find up to 30 times more microplastics - most commonly polyethylene - in brain samples than in the liver and kidney.

They theorised this could be due to high blood flow to the brain carrying plastic particles with it from organs such as the liver and kidney. Its thought the particles accumulate there because the brain - which has the blood-brain barrier to protect it - is less efficient at ridding itself of toxics than other organs.

Professor Campens study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, also found the amount of plastics in brain samples increased by about 50 per cent between 2016, when the first samples were taken, and 2024, potentially reflecting the rise in human exposure to environmental plastic pollution.

The view was echoed by Professor Richard Thompson, a plastics pollution expert at the University of Plymouth, who warned that environmental contamination (by microplastics and nano-plastics) could double by 2040.

Rather than waiting for further evidence of harm to humans, Professor Thompson says we should be cutting plastic contamination now.

A good place to start for most of us, he told the Mail, is in single-use items such as plastic bottles.

What other steps can we take to protect our brains from exposure to microplastics?

WEAR NATURAL FIBRES

Up to 65 per cent of all the microplastics floating in our household air may come from synthetic-fibre clothes, according to a 2020 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).

This warns that the microscopic particles are shed every time we wear or dry clothes indoors that are made of plastics such as polyester, acrylic and nylon textiles.

Opting for clothing made with cotton, wool and silk could cut your risk

More than 80 per cent of fashion-brand clothes contain plastics, according to a 2021 analysis of 10,000 items by the Royal Society for the Arts.

Such clothing significantly contributes to the fact that indoor concentrations of microplastics can regularly be 60 times higher than outdoors, according to environmental researchers at the University of Portsmouth.

One potential risk is the effect of such fibres on the lungs.

Two years ago a study by the University of Hull of samples from living people found microplastics buried deep inside narrow airways in the lungs.

In separate research earlier this year Barbro Melgert, a professor of respiratory immunology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, found that synthetic fibres in textiles make it more difficult for lungs to recover from infection or injury.

Its hard to avoid these materials altogether, but opting for clothing made with cotton, wool and silk could cut your risk.

CHOOSE WOODEN FLOORS AND WOOL RUGS

Carpets are an important source of microplastics in indoor air, warned a study this year by environmental scientists at the University of Birmingham, which examined plastic pollution in the air inside 30 homes in the city.

They found that having carpet was associated with a 20 per cent increase in airborne microplastics, compared with uncarpeted indoor areas - although a 2020 study put the figure higher, estimating that having carpets can double the amount of microplastic fibres in the home.

Research shows plastic fibres abound in most mass-market British carpets. Choose natural flooring products made from wool, sisal, jute or seagrass; wooden floors and natural rugs also dont produce microplastics.

DITCH THE MICROFIBRE BEDDING

Microfibre or hollowfibre synthetic bedding is another significant source of indoor microplastic air pollution.

Cheap to mass-produce, these very fine synthetic fibres were created as a man-made equivalent to natural down.

The most common plastic found in bedding is polyester, and the most prevalent polyester in bedding is polyethylene terephthalate or PET. This is made from chemicals including substances extracted from oil and sometimes coal.

Plastic fibres from bedding, carpets and furnishings were the dominant type of microplastic found in the Birmingham University study which looked at plastics in the home, making up about 60 per cent of all the samples taken.

Try using sheets and covers made from natural fibres  and consider duvets filled with natural goose or duck feathers. An alternative to feathers is cellulose fibres processed from wood pulp.

BUY VINTAGE FURNITURE

Many modern furnishings have plastics in their coverings, as well as plastic-foam fillings.

Even furniture made from non-plastic material  such as leather  may nonetheless have cushions made of polyurethane foam that will ultimately produce microplastic dust.

Modern second-hand furnishings are similarly often made of microplastic-shedding materials, and impregnated with older fire-retardant chemicals associated with cognitive and fertility problems, as well as allergies.

One option is modern wooden items with plastic-free wool cushions. Alternatively, properly vintage and antique furniture made with horsehair can offer a plastic-free way forward.

DUST WITH A WET CLOTH

You can reduce microplastic dust and fibres in your home by regularly using a vacuum cleaner with HEPA or S-class filters and mopping and wiping down surfaces with a damp cloth (dry dusting flicks tiny particles back into the air).

DITCH PLASTIC CHOPPING BOARDS

Boards made from polyethylene or polypropylene could expose humans to up to 79.4 million microplastics each year

Reduce ingestion of microplastics by using wooden chopping boards in the kitchen.

Boards made from polyethylene or polypropylene could expose humans to up to 79.4 million microplastics each year, according to a study last year by scientists at North Dakota State University.
California voters defeated Proposition 33, which would have prohibited state limitations on local rent control measures. Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle 2021

Rent control expansion faced a resounding defeat by California voters for the third time since 2018. But proponents of Proposition 33 say that the push to expand rent control is not dead.

Prop 33, which would have prohibited state limitations on local rent control measures, was opposed by 60.6% of voters and supported by 39.4% as of Wednesday afternoon.

The rent control measure was the most expensive proposition on voters ballots this fall, with opponents of Prop 33 spending $125 million while supporters spent $50 million. Both sides said their position was in the best interest of renters. Both campaigns ran advertisements on social media and television featuring renters talking about their concerns over their ability to find and afford housing.

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I think in a progressive state where theres a sense that housing affordability is a big problem, it makes sense that the arguments both pro and con would play out around the same set of issues and concerns, said Christopher Elmendorf, a UC Davis law professor focused on housing issues.

Elmendorf, who opposed Prop 33 over concerns that it could stifle housing development, said the election results on the measure were both surprising and predictable. Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a Los Angeles organization serving HIV and AIDS patients, has pushed two similar rent control ballot measures since 2018 that also saw resounding losses in California.

The other way to look at it is to say its very surprising, because if you ask people in the abstract, when they support rent control, more than 75% of people say they do, Elmendorf said.

For opponents of Prop 33, its defeat represents a clear message that Californians dont want to expand rent control.

Californias voters have spoken three times decisively, Nathan Click, spokesperson for the No on 33 and Yes on 34 campaigns. California voters understand that that is not the right solution to our problem.

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The defeat of Prop 33 came amid a rightward shift in California and San Francisco. The rent control measure failed to win a majority of voters in every county in the state, including left-leaning San Francisco. Statewide, it failed by more than 20 percentage points.

Two of the measures biggest local proponents were defeated alongside Prop 33. Supervisor Dean Preston lost his reelection campaign to moderate Bilal Mahmood, and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin termed out of his current position and lost his bid for mayor, with moderate Daniel Lurie winning.

Preston and Peskin were on the same page in their assessment of why Prop 33 lost.

I have one word: money, Peskin said.

Preston called Prop 33 a sensible measure that fell victim to expensive campaigning from Big Real Estate. The California Apartment Association spent nearly $89 million against the measure, and the California Association of Realtors spent $19 million. He said the push to repeal the horrible state law will continue, referring to the Costa-Hawkins Act that limits local governments ability to impose rent control. Prop 33 would have overturned it.

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The enemy of a yes vote is confusion, Weinstein said.

Weinstein also blamed Gov. Gavin Newsoms late support for the No on 33 campaign, which was used in ads in the lead-up to the election. While Newsom didnt release a statement on his position, his name was added to the list of Prop 33 opponents, and he was featured heavily in an ad saying the measure would overturn the statewide rent cap, which Prop 33 supporters dispute.

Shanti Singh, legislative and communications director from Tenants Together, a renter advocacy organization, said she was bombarded with No on 33 ads that would have confused her if she werent so involved in the measure.

Im sure that the general shift to the right in terms of how other propositions are voted on also had an effect, Singh said. But I still think that the core issue is true. It was confusing people into thinking that the no vote is the pro-rent control, pro-rent cap vote.

Elmendorf acknowledged that given rent controls broad popularity in the abstract, the No on 33 campaigns advertising was probably effective in defeating Prop 33. He said that while money plays a role in changing voters opinions, the messaging still has to resonate with voters.

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Click pushed back on claims that the Prop 33 defeat came down to funding, citing the measures previous defeats.

Its an epic loss for the third time, Click said.

Concerns that the measure would have slowed homebuilding also appear to have contributed to its loss.

Make no mistake about it: This ballot measure will end housing production in California, full stop, Assembly Member Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, told Politico in May.

Matthew Lewis, director of communications for California YIMBY, said that while rent control is a strong tool to help existing tenants when done well, it cannot address widespread housing affordability without additional development and subsidized housing options.

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Singh said renter groups plan to push the state Legislature to expand rent control by reforming the Costa-Hawkins Act. Elmendorf said its puzzling that the push to reform the law isnt better funded.

Elmendorf said that changing which buildings face rent control limits  Costa-Hawkins exempts single-family homes, condos and buildings constructed after 1995 from rent control  could be more doable than passing a ballot measure. Weinstein said he has pushed for similar reforms, but that lawmakers have not been receptive.

Click said the California Apartment Association, the top funder behind the No on 33 campaign, would be more receptive to extending the states rent cap, passed in 2019, rather than expanding rent control. The housing advocacy division of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has criticized the statewide cap as too weak. Known as the California Tenant Protection Act of 2019, the cap limits annual rent increases to 5% plus the local consumer price index or 10%, whichever is lower, but there are exemptions and the law expires in 2030.

Weinsteins efforts to implement rent control face another major obstacle: Prop 34. The measure, which was billed as health care spending reform, would force certain providers to spend 98% of revenues from federal discount prescription drug program on direct patient care.

If the measure  which has not yet been called but is currently ahead slightly  passes and is implemented, it would drastically limit the AIDS Healthcare Foundations ability to spend on political efforts. Weinstein said the group will probably sue over its constitutionality if it passes.
Baby deaths are at a record high in the US for the second year in a row and much higher than in peer nations.

A new report from the CDC showed there were 5.61 per every 1000 deaths among infants under one year old in 2023, around the same level in 2022, which officials hoped was a blip.

The rate in the US is up to 75 percent higher than in countries like the UK and Australia, with experts blaming America's spiraling maternal healthcare crisis.

The leading causes of infant deaths were birth defects, disorders related to pre-term birth, sudden infant death syndrome, accidental injuries and maternal sickness.

But there were big disparities between states. Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Ohio and Oklahoma had rates between seven and nine deaths per 1,000 births.

Black babies were found to be at a two fold risk of dying within their first year of life, which experts attribute to poorer maternal healthcare for black women and a lack of access to doctors in many predominantly black areas.

Other experts pin poor outcomes for all babies on a lack of national insurance - which has poorer mothers skipping doctors appointments before and after birth.

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This can lead deadly illnesses to go undetected. For example, in 2023, the CDC reported cases of babies born with syphilis had increased tenfold in a decade.

Had the mothers with syphilis known they had the condition, they could've had it treated during pregnancy to avoid passing it to their child.

Instead, the condition caused 231 stillbirths and 51 infant deaths in 2022.

Dr Danielle Ely, a co-author of the report, told ABC News: 'So what we're seeing is that what we were hoping would be just a one-year blip is now a two-year higher rate.'

In 2022, the rates of seasonal viruses like the flu and RSV rebounded after being flattened during quarantine - both of these can be deadly to the fragile immune system of a newborn.

Dr Eric Eichenwald, a Philadelphia-based neonatologist, told PBS this uptick was 'disturbing' and blamed the viruses for the uptick. It's possible that the 2023 rate simply represents the continuation of this trend.

In addition, Demographer Amanda Jean Stevenson, who was not involved in the research, pinned the blame on a lack of standardized national care.

Dr Stevenson told CNN: 'We can certainly expect that maternal complications overall are increasing because the standard of care for pregnancy-related complications is not being met in many states.'

Though this rate stayed the same nationally between 2022-23, in a few states, like Nevada and Washington, the rate of newborn deaths actually increased, by 31 percent and 16 percent, respectively.

In Mississippi in 2023, there were 34,459 live births and 308 deaths, meaning in every 1000 births, there were about 8.94 deaths.

Similarly, in Arkansas, there were 35,264 and 290 deaths, representing 8.22 deaths per every 1000 births.

In Ohio, there were were 126,896 births and 909 deaths, representing 7.16 deaths per every 1000 births.

The above graph shows the infant mortality rate by ethnic group in 2021 (blue) and 2022 (green)

According to the American Journal of Managed Care, as of 2022 the US has the highest infant mortality rate of similarly developed countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Japan.

In the UK, 3.9 deaths of every 1000 births ends in an infant death and in Australia its 3.2 deaths of every 1000 births.

Dr Sandy Chung, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told CNN: 'We live in a country with significant resources, so the infant mortality rate and the increase are shockingly high'.

The National Vital Statistics System, the arm of the CDC that releases this report, collected birth certificate data, researchers sorted them based on race, sex, state of residents and ten leading causes of infant death.

Maternal sicknesses included conditions like pre-eclampsia, a dangerously high blood pressure which affects an estimated 9.5 percent of pregnancies.

Black children continued to be more likely to die than any other group, followed closely by Native Americans and Native Hawaiians or other pacific islanders.

Aside from measuring the overall rates of each state, there were a few states whose rate of infant mortality got worse over the year.

Though Nevada and Washington saw the biggest increases, the rates also jumped in states like Rhode Island, Alabama and Kentucky.

Experts from the National Bureau of Economic Research said this gap between the US and other countries is largely owing to two factors.

First, in Europe, doctors are more likely to count infants born after 24 weeks as a miscarriage, whereas the US is more likely to count them as live births.

Second, babies in the US are more likely to be born pre-term or with a low birth weight. Both of these factors can make a baby more likely to die.

Outside of a national statistic, Dr Chung said that differences in healthcare from state to state, based both on the number of doctors and the type of public insurance available, may be contributing to differences.

The US regularly outranks other developed nations in terms of infant mortality.

In some states, women have to drive for hours to get to a doctor - meaning they might skip check ups during pregnancy and might not even make it to the hospital to give birth.

In Mississippi, for example, a 2023 report found that half of the women live in a county without access to maternity care. 24 percent of women didn't have a birthing hospital within 30 minutes of their home.

Dr Chung said: 'We know that for people who live in or near poverty and for certain racial and ethnic groups there are significant challenges with getting access to a doctor or getting treatments.'

In addition, research has shown that state's who expand Medicaid coverage to cover mothers in the year after they give birth decreases the number of infant deaths. This is largely because uninsured women may be more likely to skip doctors visits after giving birth than women who are covered by a plan.

Many states have since moved to adopt this plan. Arkansas, which ranks in the top five for the worst infant mortality rates, did not.

Dr Chung said: 'We need to change policies to help lift families out of poverty and help them get access to healthcare sooner, before is it too late.'
Doctors have warned against 'prolonged vigorous' bedroom antics after treating a patient with a potentially deadly injury to his genitals.

The 53-year-old man suffered inflammation in the main vein that runs along the shaft of the penis, which can lead to life-threatening blood clots.

He had a Viagra-fuelled rough sex session the previous night which had caused extreme swelling on the undercarriage of his phallus.

The skin was warm to the touch and 'tender', with a visible bulge as a result of a build-up of fluid.

The man, who has not been named, was treated with anti-inflammatory drugs and made a full recovery within a few weeks - but his doctors are using his case as a warning.

They say doctors should be wary about prescribing Viagra to patients who are likely to have vigorous sex or who have pre-existing damage to their genitals from intercourse.

Revealing the case in a medial report, they add people should be aware of the 'potential risks' of the erectile dysfunction drug.

Around 8,000 men in the US suffer a penis injury each year, with penile fractures and trauma from penetration the most common.

Doctors have warned against 'prolonged vigorous' bedroom antics after treating a patient with a potentially deadly injury to his genitals (file image)

The latest patient was treated in Turkey and his case was revealed in the journal Radiology Case Reports.

The man claimed he had taken Viagra for his erectile dysfunction before having 'prolonged vigorous' sex with his partner.

He was officially diagnosed with penile Mondor disease - when the veins become inflamed and cause swelling. The lesion usually appears within hours of prolonged sexual intercourse and causes immune cells to rush to the location of the injury.

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This inflammation causes the vein to swell and become sore. It also makes blood more likely to clot.

The man was diagnosed after an ultrasound and given a course of blood thinners, anti-inflammatories and told to abstain from sex for a few weeks.

Writing in the report, his doctors said: 'While penile Mondor disease is not typically life-threatening, it can significantly impact a patient's quality of life. Therefore, clinicians should remain vigilant about the potential risks of prolonged sildenafil use.

'They should consider additional predisposing factors, such as vascular injury from sexual activity, in the management and prevention of this condition.'
There is very little of the Tory economic inheritance that has been appreciated by the Chancellor.

Rachel Reeves has sought to trash it with her trumped up charge of the worst public finances since the Second World War and discovery of much disputed black holes.

So it will come as pleasant surprise at the Mansion House tonight to hear the Chancellor picking up the baton from her predecessor Jeremy Hunt on pension fund reforms.

After an interim review by colleague Emma Reynolds, the Chancellor will unveil a plan designed to unleash more investment in Britains creaking infrastructure, local communities and hopefully technology, IT and pharma start-ups.

Pension reform: Chancellor Rachel Reeves wants to unleash more investment in Britains creaking infrastructure, local communities and hopefully tech, IT and pharma start-ups

At the core of the Chancellors blueprint are two big changes. Britains diverse collection of 86 local authority schemes will merged into megafunds.

There will be a similar approach for the assets in smaller defined contribution plans.

All of this is designed to unleash 80billion of new investment cash.

The Chancellor is seeking to emulate the adventurism of the mega Australian and Canadian funds, which are big investors in Britain.

The Government intends to begin the work on amalgamating funds next year with a new pensions bill.

There is no doubt the structure of untapped UK funds needs to be reshaped. But simply announcing the changes is not suddenly going to unlock a growth revolution.

Fundamental difficulties need to be addressed. Years of safety-first policies have imposed overzealous regulation on the sector and squeezed out adventurous approaches, substituting heavy exposure to the gilt market.

It is only asset managers with vision  former Legal & General chief executive Nigel Wilson comes to mind  who have demonstrated the willpower to overcome barriers and build student accommodation and science parks.

In Australia, the origins of the superannuation fund, known as the Aussie Super, can be dated back more than three decades to 1992. The trick to its success as an investor has been to win consumer buy-in.

My own family members Down Under look forward to their regular personalised statements from the Super, which show the value of their investments and provide granular detail.

This is akin to the way that many Americans think about their 401K self-invest schemes, which give them a direct line into S&P 500 shares.

Reform requires cultural change both at the we know best asset management level and among consumers.

The involvement of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, backing the idea that 5 per cent of cash in local authority funds will go to communities, plays to the idea of State compulsion.

What is required are policies embracing citizen capitalism and the very best of British research and development, tech and pharma. In spite of the Chancellors well-meant enthusiasm a pensions-driven growth surge is a long way off.

Save your energy

Cop29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, is so far from any on-the-ground greening of the economy that it can be safely ignored.

Progress is more easily measured by the self-help of the power sector. In the UK, the departing chief executive of SSE, Alistair Phillips-Davies, is showing that steady investment in renewables, alongside traditional power generation, can bring big payoffs.

A big driver of the 26.4 per cent rise in profit to 714.5million in the six months to September was the renewables arm, where earnings leapt fourfold.

SSE has shown investors that its 20billion plan to invest in green generation over five years can deliver returns.

In contrast, one of Britains largest generators, German-based RWE, is to scale back a planned 46billion of renewable investments in response to Donald Trumps drill baby drill policy.

Shell and BP are on much the same course. Message for climate change zealot and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband: there is a middle way.

Roger Wilko

Good retail concepts never die. Wilko is roaring back with an opening in Uxbridge.

This is the seventh such store since the bankrupt chain was bought by Chris Dawson. The entrepreneur went from a market stall to create The Range chain and is restoring Wilko to its rightful place in shopping centres.

It has an online tie-up to THG and reportedly Dawson has sized up Homebase as a purchase. Enterprise reigns.
The new Trump administration could be good news for Britains defence industry as the incoming US president pushes allied nations to spend more on armaments, according to the boss of Babcock.

Chief executive David Lockwood told the Mail that if Trump continued to press other members of Nato to meet their spending commitments, this could result in demand edging up as it did in several countries during his first term in office.

If you combine Trumps second term with whats going on in Ukraine, I think it further reinforces the need to meet spending commitments. So for us, thats got to be marginally good news, he said.

Profits up: Babcock chief exec David Lockwood said that if Trump continued to pressure NATO members to meet their spending commitments it could boost demand

The comments follow the Autumn Budget, in which Labour reiterated its pledge to keep defence spending at 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product, as well as committing to a 2.9billion increase to defence spending for 2026 and an additional 3billion a year to support Ukraine.

It came as Babcock, which works on the Royal Navys Dreadnought Class nuclear submarines and runs Naval yards at Devonport in Plymouth and Rosyth in Scotland, posted a profit of 184million for the six months to September 30, up from 144million in the same period a year ago while sales jumped to 2.4billion from 2.2billion.

Earnings were boosted by a strong performance from the firms nuclear power division, which saw sales surge 22 per cent to 866million.

Lockwood also said the complex geopolitical backdrop stoked by conflicts in the former Soviet Union and the Middle East meant demand for Babcocks services remains high.

Shares in the firm jumped 3 per cent or 14.8p to 514p.

The company did, however, join the list of those knocked by the increase to employers national insurance contributions unveiled in last months Budget, flagging that the changes would add 20million to its tax bill.

Analysts at broker Shore Capital cautioned that the higher costs meant they would need to moderate their forecasts for Babcock, although they added that remained positive about the business.

The positive results followed an update from BAE on Tuesday that revealed that Babcocks rival had amassed orders worth 25billion so far this year amid strong demand from its key British and US markets.

BAE has cashed in on a boom in defence spending since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine in February 2022, while it has also benefited from programmes such as Aukus, a submarine collaboration between Australia, the UK and the US, and the GCAP fighter jet project, which includes Britain, Italy and Japan.

BAE shares lost some of their midweek gains closing down 2.7 per cent or 37p at 1344.5p.
Boohoo is facing a showdown with Mike Ashley days before Christmas, it was disclosed last night.

Ashley, whose Frasers retail empire owns 27 per cent of the struggling fashion site, will seek to install himself as chief executive at an emergency meeting of investors on December 20.

Boohoo disclosed details of the meeting after markets closed yesterday, with the unscheduled publication of half-year results.

Power struggle: Mike Ashley (pictured), whose Frasers Group empire owns 27% of Boohoo, will formally seek to install himself as chief exec at a meeting in December

It also announced plans to raise up to 39.3million from shareholders.

Boohoo urged investors to reject Ashleys demands, reiterating its claim that the tycoon is promoting commercial self-interest at the expense of fellow investors.

It added: The board has a credible plan to unlock and maximise value for the benefit of all shareholders.

Boohoo has already paved the way for a potential break-up of its business, putting in question the future of some of its brands, such as Oasis and Coast, which could be spun off or sold to boost Boohoos flagging share price.

Ashleys persistent demand for a chance to overhaul Boohoo has gone as far as setting up a website Boohoo deserves better.

Last night Boohoo said Ashley was conflicted as Frasers owns stakes in rival brands.

In the six months to the end of August Boohoo sales slumped 15 per cent to 620million as losses widened to 147million.

New chief executive Dan Finley said: There have been challenges and we continue to operate in a volatile market.

Shares were broadly flat at 30p.
Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor:

'Burberry can only hope that these results represent a line in the sand, and that its revised energy will return it to previous glories. It is impossible to estimate how much of its cachet has already been lost, let alone the wider headwinds such as the economic situation in China which continue to be uncertain.

'The share price decline has been severe and relatively concentrated, with a decline of 72% from a peak of over 26 reached as recently as April 2023. Over the last year, the shares have fallen by 56%, including relegation to the FTSE250, which itself added 9.8% over that period.

'A brief bounce over the last few weeks after unconfirmed reports of a bid approach from Moncler of Italy has been followed by a positive share price reaction to these numbers and the groups intent, although both are far from sufficient to stem the decline.
Not many outside Russia have heard of Kazan.

But if the architects  or midwives  of the planned new payments system for the BRICS countries have their way, one day it may be as well-known  to economists at least  as Bretton Woods, the birthplace of our present international payments system created in July 1944.

The heads of BRICS  Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa  agreed closer financial cooperation at a conference hosted in the city by Vladimir Putin last month.

In future, this may even involve a new joint currency and international payment system.

Power games: Russian President Vladimir Putin hosts a conference for the BRICS group countries in the Russian city of Kazan last month

Star of the show was Putin, whose name is on an arrest warrant issued by the International Court of Justice because of his countrys invasion of Ukraine.

But the driving force and ambition behind this move  which is clearly aimed at the US and its Western Allies  is China.

The aim is to end the US Dollar domination of international trade and investment. That has brought the group together and has made it attractive for countries such as Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and UAE, which are already part of the broader BRICS+ group of emerging economies.

Saudi Arabia and a number of smaller African and Asian countries apparently are knocking on the door. At close to 50pc of the world population, it definitely deserves to be taken seriously.

The new payment system is likely to be an ambitious blockchain-based crypto currency.

The line-up of the involved countries also has an interesting political raison detre rather than merely an economic one.

Like China and Russias leaders following the demise of communism, they embrace a kind of state-led capitalism and top-down system of governance  in contrast to our Anglo-Saxon capitalism with its liberal democracy and rule of law.

They argue that the latter is unsuitable for their populations at the present development stage, but the real reason could be that they would rather not have their own political futures determined by free elections.

So, assuming it is not being hindered by too many internal constraints, the currency and payment system might even succeed on the international stage.

Particularly since the US is about to be led by a man who is putting America first and international issues second.

They may feel that their chances are pretty good. However, there is a view in Western banking circles that the new currency idea will struggle to get off the ground.

Maybe. But it is worth Donald Trump  and the rest of the Western world  keeping a close eye.
An investment firm that collapsed owing its backers millions of pounds was a Ponzi scheme that deliberately created a false impression about the company, a court has ruled.

London Capital & Finance (LCF) raised 237million from around 11,600 individual investors before it went bust in 2019, promising them healthy returns from the sale of risky mini-bond products.

But in a ruling yesterday, a High Court judge said the company had engaged in the fraudulent conduct of business and misrepresented itself in a widespread, fundamental and systematic way.

Swindle: A judge said London Capital & Finance had engaged in the fraudulent conduct of business and misrepresented itself in a widespread, fundamental and systematic way

The judge also ruled that LCFs former boss Michael Andy Thomson and Spencer Golding, a shareholder in companies linked to LCF, were liable for breaching their duties as directors.

Three other associates, Paul Careless, John Russell-Murphy and Robert Sedgwick, were also found to have knowingly participated in the fraudulent conduct.

The men face a hefty bill for damages. Three former co-defendants have struck out-of-court settlements.

The court said that LCF had operated as a Ponzi scheme, a scam where money from new investors is used to pay existing investors to create the illusion of profit.

Mr Justice Miles, the judge in the case, held that a substantial part of the funds invested into the company were not used to provide loans to small and medium-sized businesses, as had been promised, but were instead misappropriated and used to make payments to people connected to the firm.

Some of the cash had been spent on items including horses and Porsches.

Thomson had wanted to take out as much money as possible, was recklessly indifferent to bondholders, had lied, forged signatures and knowingly misled auditor PwC, the judge said.

A hearing is to be held to determine how much damages will be paid. Administrators are seeking more than 177.5million. A 120million compensation scheme has already been set up, paid for by taxpayers.

The judgment came after Thomson was last year handed a ten-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, after breaching a restraining order on his assets imposed by the Serious Fraud Office.

In May, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the accounting watchdog, fined Big Four firms PwC and EY 4.9million and 4.4million respectively for failing to uncover the scam during their audits of LCF.

The City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority also came under fire in a 2020 review which found it had been wholly deficient in its handling of a probe into the LCF collapse.
Burberrys boss yesterday vowed to return the brands focus to timeless British luxury as he outlined plans to revive its fortunes and fend off takeover talk.

Joshua Schulman, who took the top job in July, admitted the firm, best known for its trench coats, had lost its way in recent years.

But he insisted the 168-year-old company had a strong future as an independent business.

It comes amid recent speculation that Burberry, whose share price has fallen by two thirds since April 2023, could be snapped up by Italian ski wear firm Moncler.

Turnaround plan: Burberry boss Joshua Schulman, who took the top job in July, admitted the firm, best known for its trench coats, had lost its way in recent years

Schulman, a New Yorker, impressed investors after pledging to emphasise the firms outerwear offering  including its signature check-print coats and scarves.

He said a current its always Burberry weather marketing campaign  featuring British stars such as Oscar-winner Olivia Colman sipping tea and enjoying the great British countryside  have already helped improve perceptions of the brand.

And the group is to give less energy to niche and modern designs, which have been skewed to a narrow base of luxury customers, Schulman said.

We are pivoting to timeless British luxury, juxtaposing heritage and innovation across all our touch points in a more recognisable expression of Burberry, he said.

His insistence that change is needed was underscored by results showing a 20 per cent slump in sales for the six months to September 28 while it swung to a pre-tax loss of 80million.

Schulman , who took over from Jonathan Akeroyd, said he was on a mission to course correct after a mismanagement of the brand and its core products.

Prices had been hiked too high for products such as handbags, Schulman added, and Burberry would now offer a broader range of prices on flagship outerwear products. Currently its coats range from 1,150 to 7,900.

But Schulman was adamant the group would still maintain its desirable luxury status and was not in a rush to slash prices to become accessible.

There have been questions over creative director Daniel Lees future at the business.

But Schulman yesterday said everybody is focused on the same outcomes, and everybody is working together very well.

Chairman Gerry Murphy has previously said the business probably went a bit too far, too fast with raising prices and targeting a super-wealthy bracket.

Against a backdrop of swirling takeover talk, Schulman said that landlords and customers see advantages for Burberry to be an independent luxury brand, as it makes it stand out against fashion house rivals.

This will have been reassuring news to those who fear Burberry could be next to exit the London stock market.

Both Moncler and Burberry have refused to comment on bid rumours.

Schulman, former boss of handbag firm Michael Kors, struck an upbeat tone as he announced an ambition for annual sales to hit 3billion  although he did not give a deadline for this.

AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould warned: The one thing out of Schulmans control is Chinese consumer sentiment, with the weak backdrop in China extremely unhelpful to Burberry given its reliance on this market in recent years.
Poland has begun building a 1.9billion 'East Shield' along its borders with Russia and Belarus, in an effort to protect NATO's eastern flank as tensions simmer amid the war in Ukraine.

The 400-mile-long construction will include anti-tank fortifications, bunkers and other obstacles built to physically defend the border and control movement at a time when US support for Europe's defence is expected to wane as Donald Trump takes office in January.

Trump, who last week won the US presidential election, has repeatedly said he would 'end' Russia's invasion of Ukraine on his first day in office, adding that he also plans on cutting aid to Kyiv, despite the US being a top financial and military backer. His team has also reportedly considered the idea of creating an 800-mile buffer zone across the front line that would be marshalled by EU and UK troops.

Anti-drone systems and state-of-the-art surveillance technologies, powered by artificial intelligence to help early threat detection, will also protect Poland from threats posed by modern warfare revealed by the conflict to the south.

What's more, the 'shield' will also include a satellite component in order to provide 'another element of safety in space,' Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, in order to ready the country for 'the wars of the future'.

The fortifications are designed to fend off potential threats from 'the enemy', Tusk said earlier this year, with the heavily militarised Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to the north considered to be posing a growing threat to the West.

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk shared the above image with the caption: 'Construction of the East Shield has begun! First works at the border with Russia'

Polish soldiers begin laying a razor wire barrier along Poland's border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad in November 2022

A Polish border guard officer patrols the boundary between Poland and Belarus, 2022

Tusk speaks during a press conference at the military exercise 'Shield East' defence programm in the Land Forces Training ground in Orzysz, northern Poland, last month

According to details provided by the government, the programme, perhaps the most significant national security investment in Poland's post-war history, will employ modern surveillance equipment, including imagery intelligence (IMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), and acoustic monitoring to improve situational awareness.

The multi-layered line of defences is expected to be around 200 metres deep, consisting of fences, ditches and minefields.

A high border fence will provide the first barrier to any invaders, followed by barbed wire and anti tank trenches.

Obstacles including 'dragon's teeth' - concrete pointed blocks used to stop the movement of armoured vehicles - will also be placed in the way.

Bunkers and underground shelters will also be concealed within forests to protect those inside the border should the defences fail.

The project was announced in response to Russia's illegal war in Ukraine and what the Polish government labels 'hybrid war' tactics by Belarus and Russia.

These include increase migratory pressure on the eastern border, with Warsaw claiming that Minsk and Moscow may be colluding to funnel asylum seekers westwards, putting a strain on western countries and fuelling divisive rhetoric.

'The border cannot be crossed with impunity... It is Russia and Belarus behind this procedure, and the whole world calls it a hybrid war. We will not back down,' Tusk said back in July.

'We do this to deter the enemy, so that all those who wish Poland ill, all those who plan an attack, an aggression against our allies or against our country, hear here today, from the Krakow Main Market Square: stay away from Poland!' Tusk said at an event marking the launch of the initiative back in May.

He added: 'Poland is strong, Poland will be safe thanks to its own actions and thanks to its own allies.'

Poland has the highest military spending per GDP out of all NATO member countries, according to a recent report by the defence alliance. Its ambitious project is set to be completed by 2028.

The Minsk large landing ship takes part in an amphibious landing exercise held by naval infantry units of the Russian Baltic and Northern Fleets, off Kaliningrad in the Baltic Sea

The fortifications are designed to fend off potential threats from 'the enemy', Donald Tusk (pictured at the border in 2024) said earlier this year

Border guards patrol on quads along the border wall at the Polish-Belarusian border near Tolcze village in north-eastern Poland on June 8, 2022

Meanwhile another project, set to begin in 2025, is being planned by NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who announced a 'Baltic Defence Line' in January.

The countries' shared concerns over the threat posed by Russia will see it integrated into Poland's eastern defence efforts.

They are seeking EU funding to build a network of bunkers, barriers, distribution lines and military warehouses along their borders with Russia and Belarus, Estonian officials said in September.

'The need for a (Baltic) defence line stems from the security situation and supports NATO's new forward defense concept,' Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said in a statement.

'At the same time, it strengthens the security of the European Union and the military defence of its borders, which is why we clearly see that the EU could also financially support the project,' he went on.

Defence ministers from the four countries said that threats at the Baltic-Polish frontier are rising and that ramping up fortifications 'remains a high-priority contributing to our pledge to defend every inch of (NATO) territory.'

'Russia's war against Ukraine has shown that creating physical obstacles on an open ground with no natural defensive cover is paramount even in technologically advanced warfare,' they said in a joint statement.

Polish soldiers operate amoured tanks during the military exercise 'Shield East' defence programme in the Land Forces Training ground in Orzysz, northern Poland, October 14

A border guard patrols at the Polowce-Pieszczatka border crossing in 2024

Lithuania has recently blocked and fortified a bridge over the Nieman river which links it to the Russia's Kaliningrad, with officials saying they planned to fortify and even mine other bridges connecting their country to the exclave.

The small but heavily armed territory is lodged between the Baltic Sea, Poland and Lithuania, and hosts the headquarters to Russia's Baltic Sea Fleet.

'Kaliningrad is essentially a Russian weapons depot, and it has a lot of militarily operational equipment in use, not just in storage,Senior Fellow Atlantic Council Fellow Elisabeth Braw told the Kyiv Independent earlier this year.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine escalated fears that the territory's neighbours could be the first to be targeted in the event of a war between Moscow and NATO.

Poland's foreign minister claimed in June that Russia could be storing up to 100 nuclear warheads in the territory.
Incumbent San Francisco Mayor London Breed concedes the election to challenger Daniel Lurie during a news conference at City Hall. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

A CNN anchor this week painted a misleading picture of Mayor London Breeds record on public safety when discussing her failed reelection bid and linking it to her purported slashing of police funding.

In fact, Breed has repeatedly grown SFPDs budget, which now stands at a record high. Breed has steered more money to police in recent years as she sought to boost staffing levels and increase support for law enforcement amid widespread concerns about brazen retail thefts and open-air drug dealing in the city.



CNNs Erin Burnett said in a Tuesday interview with Breeds successor, Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie, that part of the reason (Breed) fell out of favor with voters  was, sure, rising crime, but slashing the police budget.

Burnett then referenced Luries campaign pledge to boost police staffing  a goal shared by Breed and the three other major candidates for mayor this year.



You talk about (how) you need to be able to fully staff your police department. Sure, that seems common sense, Burnett said, echoing Luries description of his policy plans. But it only seems that way in the context of what you're dealing with where you are: slashing the police budget, (and a) growing number of homeless tents across the city.



The interview made its way to Fox News website on Wednesday, with a headline that noted Luries description of his common sense approaches after beating progressive incumbent.

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Burnett did not specify what she was referring to when she spoke about Breed slashing the police budget. The Chronicle reached out to CNN for comment.



Its possible that Burnett was invoking the original source of funding for Breeds signature Dream Keeper Initiative. The program has been lauded for investing tens of millions of dollars to support the citys Black community but also came under scrutiny this year after reporters uncovered multiple instances of mismanagement.

When Breed and Supervisor Shamann Walton created Dream Keeper in the aftermath of the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, they said they would fund the program by redirecting money from law enforcement  including SFPD. But the city never actually cut back on policing to pay for the program and has for years used its general fund on the initiative, even as Breed has allocated more money to police.



SFPDs budget did decline during the pandemic, falling about 3.5% in the 2021 fiscal year. San Francisco did not need to spend as much money on police overtime, for example, because early pandemic stay-at-home orders led to a steep drop in foot traffic and a near-elimination of large public events in the city, said Breed spokesperson Jeff Cretan.



Breed immediately increased police funding the following year and has done so every year since. SFPDs current budget of about $822 million is more than 30% higher than when Breed first took office.



In addition to allocating more funding to SFPD, Breed has embraced law enforcement in other ways. She led a police crackdown on open-air drug scenes that resulted in the arrest of nearly 1,300 users and more than 1,000 dealers in one year. Last year, she supported a new contract that gave police a 10.75% raise over three years and gave San Francisco the highest starting pay for new officers among large Bay Area cities. In March, Breed put a successful measure on the ballot that gave police more power to conduct car chases and use surveillance technology, while also reducing their paperwork requirements.



Breed was the only mayoral candidate this year to be endorsed by the San Francisco Police Officers Association, although not everyone in the union was happy about it.

As of the end of October, reported crimes in San Francisco were down more than 30% from last year and are also lower than before the pandemic. But public safety remained a dominant issue in this years mayoral race as candidates debated how best to shut down drug markets and rein in property crime.

Asked by CNNs Burnett how much he thought his victory over Breed came down to saying something as simple as we need a fully staffed police department, Lurie indicated that he thought Breeds policies werent delivering enough visible change to voters.

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An 'anti-fascist' OnlyFans model raged at her parents online after they voted for Donald Trump.

Merrick DeVille went viral on X after she shared that she no longer wants a relationship with her MAGA parents in the wake of Trump's election win last week.

'My parents are downstairs right now - in the house I moved us into and whose bills I pay, watching TV,' the avowed socialist wrote on X on Monday.

'They happily voted for Trump. I dont know how to be anything other than angry. 6 more months on the lease and every day already I am more angry.'

DeVille, who lives in Austin, Texas, claimed her parents' vote was an attack on her, saying it was 'like they spat in her face.'

Merrick DeVille, right, shocked social media with a post about her parents voting for Trump

Antifa OnlyFans model Merrick DeVille is raging with her parents for voting Donald Trump

'They know I have extensive reproductive health issues. They know access to BC (birth control) is the only thing between me and regular hospital visits. They know Trump is a fascist, they dont even like him,' she added. 'They voted for him anyway.'

After realizing her post had gone viral, DeVille thanked supporters and then spoke to the 'people suggesting [she is] a controlling monster for being upset that [her] parents just voted to make [her] job illegal and hurt my healthcare.'

DeVille then appeared to backtrack, claiming her parents have other living options and would not be left on the street when she kicks them out.

'I dont know what Im going to do yet,' she wrote.

'My father runs a business and has money coming in, his fiancee owns millions and millions of worth property and a ranch, shes a landlord. Shes never had a job or paid a bill. They could have tons of money, she just doesnt sell anything.

'They have other places they could live. Im the only one on the lease, all bills are in my name. I work from home, my dad totaled my car (that he asked me to buy from her) a few months back & I just sold it. Theyre my only family here. I paid for everything to move them in.'

DeVille then claimed that her dad owes her wages for her work for him and that she has been exploited by him, going after those who accused her of wanting to leave her parents on the street.

Many social media users took issue with DeVille's thread, accusing her of putting politics above her loved ones.

One reply read: 'This is why Democrats lose. They think they know what's best for everyone. If you won't go along with them? They will use your livelihood as a bargaining chip. You are all about FORCED compliance and FORCED behavior. Even when it comes to your own parents.'

Another added: 'If a loved ones political opinion affects you more than the familial bond and love, then it is you whos the issue. Touch some grass.'

Others, however, agreed with DeVille's plan to disown her parents.

One person said: 'Protect yourself since they wont help protect you Sometimes the family we make is better than the one were born into.'

'Kick them out by yesterday,' wrote another.

She replied to a critic's comment, writing: 'Hey, I just wanna know why youre pretending I said anything remotely indicating Im gonna throw my parents on the street when this thread indicates that they have a lot of property, money + options and I have not actually said Im gonna do anything to them, but rather they hurt my feelings? Why are you such a s**thead weasel little liar?'

DeVille, who has also described herself as a sex worker, addressed those who slammed her over her post.

'I am learning today that a lot of Republicans believe that as long as someone is your parent you have to pay for their life & let them exploit you to any degree,' she wrote.

'Bootstraps for thee, free handouts for me.'

Many ultra-progressives have said they need time away from their Trump-voting relatives following the Republican's win last week.

President-elect Donald Trump is seen at a town hall campaign event in Oaks, Pennsylvania, on October 14

Among them are a Yale child psychiatrist who told MSNBC host Joy Reid that it's fine to disown family members who voted for Trump.

Dr. Amanda Calhoun, a child psychiatry fellow at the Ivy league school, made the comments during an interview on Reid's show The Reid Out Friday, while discussing coping strategies for people upset by Trump's election win.

'There is a societal norm that if somebody is your family that they are entitled to your time and I think the answer is absolutely not,' Calhoun said.

'So if you are going into a situation where you have family members, where you have close friends, who you know have voted in ways that are against you, against your livelihood, its completely fine to not be around those people and to tell them why.

'To say, "I have a problem with the way that you voted because it went against my very livelihood and I'm not going to be around for this holiday. I have to take space for me.'
A high school principal of more than 30 years says Snapchat, the popular digital platform mostly used by young Australians, must be one of the apps facing age restrictions.

Snapchat may be able to dodge the Albanese government's plan to ban social media for kids under 16.

Snapchat lets users exchange photos, videos and messages rather than offering a posting board-type feature, such as Facebook, Instagram or X.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland confirmed on Thursday that Snapchat could get around the age restrictions if it successfully argued it was a messaging service rather than a social media platform.

But Queensland Catholic Secondary Principals Association director Dan McMahon said Snapchat should not be allowed to skirt the ban.

'I've gotta say I'm a bit gobsmacked by that, I find that extraordinary,' Mr McMahon told ACA's Ally Langdon on Thursday.

'Of all the social media platforms that I deal with ... Snapchat is one of the most common ones.

'Not everyone on Snapchat is an online bully, but in my experience every online bully uses Snapchat.

Snapchat should not be excluded from the social media plans to enforce age restrictions, said Queensland Catholic Secondary Principals Association director Dan McMahon

Communications Minsiter Michelle Rowland has been pushing the policy

'It's just such a great tool to weaponise harm.'

He said several of his students' lives had been lost after enduring online bullying.

The Albanese government is set to introduce legislation for the social media age ban next week when parliament resumes sitting. The legislation will create a new definition of social media.

While Ms Rowland couldn't confirm whether Snapchat would be included in the ban, she said the new definition would be 'broad and robust'.

'The new definition will capture a range of services that have features that are considered harmful for young people,' she said.

'The definition will be deliberately broad and robust, to reflect the diverse range of services typically considered by the community to be social media.'

Pressed on the logic of banning some platforms and not others, she said some platforms may 'present themselves in different ways'.

In those instances she said the apps would be assessed 'objectively against a transparent set of criteria'.

Snapchat could skirt new legislation to enforce age restrictions on social media by arguing it was a messaging service and not social media (pictured snapchat app icon)

Experts, parents, young people and social media companies themselves will also be consulted to determine what platforms, deemed non-social media services, will be covered under the exemptions framework, she added.

Opposition communications spokesman David Coleman has called on Ms Rowland to close any possible loopholes, saying the Coalition backed the Albanese government's social media ban but 'we don't support them going weak on exemptions.'

'For many Australian families, Snapchat has had a devastating impact on their children,' Mr Coleman said.

'The idea of having social media age limits without those limits applying to Snapchat is outrageous. It is extraordinary that the Minister is saying that Snapchat could be exempted from the laws.

'The Minister must rule out exemptions for Snapchat today.'

'Digital duty of care'

Digital giants including Meta, Google and TikTok could soon be bound by a digital duty of care aimed at preventing the negative mental health impacts posed by social media.

The Albanese government will develop and legislate the new regulations, which will be modelled on similar provisions passed in the UK and European Union.

Under the proposed legislation, social media companies will be obligated to continually and proactively monitor their platforms for risks and take reasonable steps to prevent foreseeable harms.

While the legislation has yet to be finalised, it could include provisions that will force platforms to identify and circumvent harms related to mental health, young people. problematic internet usage and algorithms.

Ms Rowland made the announcement in a major address to The Sydney Institute on Wednesday night, stating the code would enforce platforms to pivot to preventing harm.

The new law will put the onus of social media companies to ensure they are proactively monitoring platforms for harmful practices (pictured a teen on their phone)

'A duty of care is a common law concept and statutory obligation that places a legal obligation to take reasonable steps to protect others from harm. It is a proven, workable and flexible model,' she said.

'This, as part of a growing global effort, will deliver a more systemic and preventive approach to making online services safer and healthier.

'Where platforms seriously and systemically breach their duty of care we will ensure the regulator can draw on strong penalty arrangements.'

Ms Rowland said while laws contained in the Online Safety Act focused on removing illegal content on a case-by-case basis, the new laws incentivised companies to create 'safer (and) healthier' digital platforms.

'To my mind, what's required is a shift away from reacting to harms by relying on content regulation alone and moving towards systems-based prevention, accompanied by a broadening of our perspective of what online harms are,' she said.

'The Albanese government is clear about where it stands - on the side of millions of concerned parents, children and citizens at large'.

Wednesday's announcement follows the Albanese government's announcement it will legislate 16 years of age as the minimum age for social media use, with the large-scale policy receiving bipartisan support to pass parliament in the final two sitting weeks of the year.

The proposed laws, which have been approved by all state and territory leaders, will force platforms to enforce the age limit or risk significant penalties.

For confidential support 24/7 call Lifeline 13 11 14 or Beyond 1300 22 4636.
An army veteran posing as a retired elite soldier who served during the Falklands at a Remembrance service has admitted fabricating his military background in an act of 'stolen valour'.

Mick Carling, 61, placed himself at the heart of commemorations in Malton, North Yorks, in full military regalia - with medals pinned to his chest that he had no right to wear.

Carling claimed that his service included a period in the Parachute Regiment during the Falklands War and the Pathfinder platoon in Afghanistan, during a career which spanned from 1979 to 2000.

But his military heroics unravelled under scrutiny from the Walter Mitty Hunters Club, a group of former soldiers who unmask dubious military claims, known as stolen valour.

The group said no records existed of Carling serving in the 2 Para battalion in the Falklands or being awarded a Military Medal for his combat in Afghanistan.

Mick Carling, 61, posed as a retired elite soldier who served during the Falklands at a Remembrance service

Carling, seen far left, was pictured front-and-centre during Remembrance Day events last week

At one point he joined other veterans during a parade. Carling is pictured, left, wearing the maroon blazer and carrying what appeared to be a military pace stick

Elite 2 Para - 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment - first deployed to Afghanistan in 2002, two years after Carling said he had retired from the military.

At his home in Malton, Carling insisted he had served in the British Army but admitted exaggerating his record, saying: 'I've overstated, that was it.'

Pressed for details on which aspects he had embellished, he downplayed his actions, adding: 'Just some medals, that's all.'

Carling refused to expand on the extent of his service, which of his medals were bogus and then shut the door to his council house when asked if he would apologise.

The Walter Mitty Hunters Club said no records existed for Carling in the London Gazette, which publishes honours and awards for gallantry and meritorious service in the armed forces.

It said: 'Clearly Carling was lying as no entry under 'Mick Carling Military Medal' can be found in the London Gazette and that includes his long service and good conduct medal which would also have been listed.'

The group claimed there were no records he had passed the Army's demanding course to serve in the Parachute Regiment, or his basic military parachute course.

It said there were also 'no records' he had been a member of the Pathfinder platoon or that he had been awarded the Long Service and Good Conduct or Military Medal.

Carling claimed that his service included a period in the Parachute Regiment during the Falklands War and the Pathfinder platoon in Afghanistan but his lies were unraveled after a group of soldiers exposed his military exploits as inventions

At his home in Malton, Carling insisted he had served in the British Army but admitted exaggerating his record, saying: 'I've overstated, that was it'

Carling was pictured at the front of crowds in Malton next to civic leaders and veterans as the town paid its respects to fallen servicemen and women, holding a ceremonial baton.

He was approached in a pub shortly afterwards by a genuine veteran who said Carling's credentials appeared immediately suspicious, including a clasp for serving in Iraq displayed on a general service medal.

The ex-serviceman told the Walter Mitty Hunters Club: 'I initially shook his hand because he was wearing the maroon beret and blazer with the Military Medal.

'However, things took a turn for the worse when I saw his general service medal. It had three clasps, one was the dated clasp for Iraq (no Iraq medal present), second clasp was for Afghanistan!.

'He claimed to be in Afghan in 1992, yet I'm stood there with the Afghan medal and clasp knowing that it's b******s.

'Some of things he said just got my back up, I confronted him and he had no explanation for not appearing on the list also, couldn't tell me where in Afghan he was etc. Luckily I'd only had three beers at that point.'

Carling, who was said to have attended previous Remembrance ceremonies in Malton, was condemned by locals.

At the New Globe Inn, at which he is a regular, a pal said he was 'dumbfounded' by Carling's claims but praised him for 'coming clean'.

Shaun Pickering wrote on Facebook: 'Disgrace to everyone who served and this town.'

Jill Winters added: 'The desire to be seen. Not sure if it's from a sense of duty or illness.

'It's very sad irrespective of motive, but alas, not a crime.'

In America, The Stolen Valor Act of 2013 makes it a federal crime to fraudulently claim to be a recipient of certain military decorations or medals in order to obtain money, property, or other tangible benefit.
Sir Keir Starmer's new national security is facing calls to disown social media posts by his wife after she promoted the views of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Jonathan Powell, who was previously Downing Street chief of staff under Sir Tony Blair, is due to take on the key role from next month.

But his appointment by the Prime Minister has come under scrutiny due to posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, by his wife Sarah Helm.

In one post, Ms Helm - a journalist and author - shared a video of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad speaking at the recent Arab-Islamic summit in Saudi Arabia.

'This is important. Assad is stepping up to the plate,' she commented on footage of the tyrannical leader.

According to a translated version of Mr al-Assad's speech shared by Ms Helm, he branded Israel an 'outlaw colonial entity'.

'We are not dealing with people in the civilized sense, but rather with herds of settlers that are closer to barbarism than to humanity,' he added.

Mr al-Assad also claimed Israel was 'afflicted with schizophrenia between hating Nazism abstractly and loving it as an organic part of itself in practice'.

Jonathan Powell's appointment by the Prime Minister has come under scrutiny due to posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, by his wife Sarah Helm

In a previous social media post, Ms Helm accused Israel of pursuing 'ethnic cleansing of Palestinians'

Mr Powell's appointment as Sir Keir Starmer's new national security adviser comes at crucial time given the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine

The PM has chosen Mr Powell, who was previously Downing Street chief of staff under Tony Blair, to replace Sir Tim Barrow in the key role

In a previous social media post, Ms Helm accused Israel of pursuing 'ethnic cleansing of Palestinians'.

She also blasted the 'silence' of world leaders in response to 'genocide'.

There is no suggestion that Mr Powell, who worked for the Foreign Office for more than 15 years before becoming Sir Tony's chief aide, shares his wife's views.

His appointment as Sir Keir's new national security adviser comes at crucial time given the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.

The veteran diplomat, who played a key role in brokering the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998, will replace Sir Tim Barrow in the role.

Ms Helm opposed the Iraq War while Mr Powell worked as a key aide for Mr Blair during the US-UK invasion in 2003.

The US, UK and EU oppose Mr al-Assad - an ally of Russian's Vladimir Putin and the Iranian regime - and continue to call on him to stand down as Syrian president.

He has been repeatedly accused of using chemical weapons against his own people in his brutal response to the ongoing Syrian civil war.

A Tory source said Ms Helm's social media posts are 'deeply regrettable and seem to show more student union politics swirling around Labour's Government'.

They added: 'Did Labour do their due diligence before parachuting one of their Blairite apparatchiks into this important role?

'And will Powell now distance himself from them?'

Downing Street did not comment.
A furious mother has claimed that her daughter was given a detention for wearing a poppy pin on Remembrance Day.

The parent said she was angered that her child was punished for trying to commemorate and honour those who served and sacrificed in the war.

As Britain came together to mark Armistice Day on November 11, the mother was shocked to receive a text from her youngster saying she had been handed a detention for wearing a poppy pin.

Sharing her experience on TikTok, the mother said she was told by other parents that their children were also banned from wearing poppies over fears the pins could be used to 'stab' people.

In a video which has been seen hundreds of thousands of times, the mother revealed: 'My daughter's school has done it again in terms of ridiculous detentions being handed out.

'It was the 11th of the 11th yesterday, so Remembrance Day. I got a message from my daughter, "just got a detention for wearing the pin".

The mother showed her followers the poppy that her daughter was given a detention for wearing

A young Poppy Appeal collector shows off a paper poppy pin to mark Remembrance Day

'The pin in question is a poppy pin, it's not just any poppy pin, it's the actual British Legion poppies that are being sold everywhere.

'The school have given her a detention for wearing a poppy pin, think about that for a minute.'

The parent said she had spoken to the school and was hoping for a meeting with the headteacher.

She added: 'If not, I've already spoken to people in the British Legion, they are ready to make a stand, ex-armed forces are ready to make a stand.'

In an update on Wednesday, the mother, who did not name the school, said: 'The assistant head called me yesterday and said there's no detention set.

'I said "well there was, her name was on board, she had to stay after lessons, she therefore would had a detention".

'Whether someone has overrided that and tried to shove it under the carpet I don't know.

'The fact of the matter is, it was still said. She was not allowed to wear that pin. That angers me in itself.

'It is a poppy pin, it's there for remembrance. The assistant head then tried to spin around what poppy was she wearing, was it a big flamboyant one, was it a different colour?

As Britain came together to mark Armistice Day on November 11, the mother was shocked to receive a text from her daughter saying she had been handed a detention for wearing a poppy

The mother revealed that her daughter sent her this text message after being given a detention

Poppies on sale to mark Remembrance Day in Sheffield

Falling poppies are shown on the advertising boards of 'Piccadilly Lights' in London at Piccadilly Circus

World War II veterans Jim Grant, Stan Ford and Henry Rice ahead of the Royal British Legion's March Past the Cenotaph

King Charles, Prince William and Princess Anne attend the National Service of Remembrance

'She's remembering those people who fought for our country and shouldn't be punished.'

The mother said the incident was still being investigated and has been 'saddened' to hear of other parents telling her their children were also banned from wearing poppies.

In some cases, she claims parents said their children couldn't wear poppies because the 'pins could be used to stab people and cause harm'.

And in another instance, pupils were allegedly told that they couldn't wear poppies because it 'might offend someone'.

The mother concluded: 'Those people fought for our country to ensure we could have a free country, and sadly we are going to end up forgetting these people because there's too much health and safety and what if we offend someone now?'
Consumer group Which? has launched a 3billion claim against Apple, claiming the tech giant has breached competition law by 'forcing its iCloud services on customers'.

It says Apple has encouraged users to sign up to iCloud to store photos, videos and other data and is therefore favouring its own products, while simultaneously making it difficult to use alternative products, ultimately stifling competition.

Which? says Apple does not allow customers to store or back up all of their phone's data with a third-party provider, and users of its iOS operating system have to pay for the service when the amount of data being stored goes over the 5GB free limit.

In its claim, the consumer group also accuses Apple of overcharging users for iCloud subscriptions, partly because the company's dominance of the market means it is difficult for new alternatives to emerge and provide competition.

The group said it is seeking damages for all affected Apple customers who have obtained iCloud services since October 1, 2015, which it estimates is around 40 million people.

They say individual customers could be owed an average of 70, depending on how long they have been paying for the service.

Pictured: The new Apple iPhone 16. The company has come under fire for its 'forcing iCloud services onto customers'

Which? has urged Apple to resolve the claim without the need for litigation by offering consumers their money back, and opening up its operating system to allow users more choice for cloud services.

Which? chief executive Anabel Hoult said: 'We believe Apple customers are owed nearly 3billion as a result of the tech giant forcing its iCloud services on customers and cutting off competition from rival services.

'By bringing this claim, Which? is showing big corporations like Apple that they cannot rip off UK consumers without facing repercussions.

'Taking this legal action means we can help consumers to get the redress that they are owed, deter similar behaviour in the future, and create a better, more competitive market.'

Apple said that there is no requirement to use iCloud and say that 50 per cent of their customers neither use or pay for an iCloud+ subscription.

The company also argues that its pricing is in line with other cloud storage providers.

In a statement, Apple said: 'Apple believes in providing our customers with choices. Our users are not required to use iCloud, and many rely on a wide range of third-party alternatives for data storage.

'In addition, we work hard to make data transfer as easy as possible  whether its to iCloud or another service. We reject any suggestion that our iCloud practices are anticompetitive and will vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise.'

A specialist holds up an iPhone 16 Pro Max at an event in Cupertino, California

Professor Pinar Akman, a law professor specialising in competition law at the University of Leeds, told MailOnline a victory for Which could force Apple to change the way iOS lets people back up their data.

'Collective actions, where a class representative seeks damages on behalf of very large numbers of consumers, arising out of a competition law violation have become commonplace in the UK over the last few years.

'The Competition Appeal Tribunal is a specialist competition tribunal with jurisdiction to decide these competition law cases and there are dozens of such cases pending at the Tribunal at the moment. Many of the ongoing collective actions are against big tech companies and involve very large sums in terms of potential damages.

'If Which? can succeed in proving a relevant violation of competition law, such as by proving that Apple holds a dominant position and abuses that position, and (that there are) damages arising out of that violation for UK consumers, such as through paying an excessive price for the services in question, then the Tribunal can decide to award damages to compensate potentially millions of UK consumers.

'The potential claim is one that concerns a possible abuse of a dominant position. If a violation of competition law is proven, then the court can order remedies, which will seek to restore competition on the market.

'The remedies can be wide-ranging and would normally require the company in question to terminate any violation which the court has found. Terminating the violation can, indeed, necessitate a change of business practices on the part of the company in question.'
Former Neighbours actor Damien Richardson is under investigation after being filmed doing a Nazi salute to a crowd of far-right activists at an event in Melbourne.

Richardson, who also starred in shows such as Blue Heelers and McLeod's Daughters, was speaking at a National Workers Alliance meeting in September.

NWA says it stands 'for the preservation of Western culture and identity'.

'Police are investigating vision which shows a person performing a Nazi salute, believed to be in Victoria,' Victoria Police said in a statement.

'The circumstances surrounding the incident are yet to be established, and an investigation is ongoing.'

Before doing the Nazi salute, which was revealed by ABC's 7.30, Richardson declared that Australia was experiencing 'a war on men'.

'I thought it was a war on Western tradition, Western values  and actually, it's an anti-white male agenda.'

Former Neighbours actor Damien Richardson (pictured) is under investigation after being filmed doing a Nazi salute to a crowd of far-right activists at an event in Melbourne

It was then that Richardson raised his right arm and alluded to the fact that far-right extremist Jacob Hersant was given a one-month jail term last week for doing a Nazi salute.

'Am I gonna be fined now? I'm gonna go to jail for five years?' Richardson said.

'I mean, really? I mean, this is absurd. This is insane. It's crazy. It's so crazy you can't believe it's even happening.'

After Richardson did the salute, which was broadcast live on Facebook, members of the National Socialist Network neo-Nazi group could be heard cheering.

Despite his actions and words being filmed, the actor has tried to distance himself from the neo-Nazis he was addressing.

Matt Trihey, who organised the Melbourne gathering, said 'there has been a lot of misinformation spoken about the event, Damien, the National Workers Alliance and myself'.

Damien Richardson (left) is pictured with Neighbours co-star Sharon Johal (right) on the soap opera's set

Damien Richardson (left) is pictured in a scene from Australian soap opera Neighbours

'Neither Damien or I have ever been members of Nazi organisations and we have no connection with the NSN,' he told the ABC.

'I am a free speech advocate and have no control over who purchases online tickets to my events.'

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said he was 'disgusted' at the footage.

'I was shocked enough when I saw the salute, disgusted when I heard the applause,' he said.

'They might think they did it in a private place, but the moment you put things online there's a new legal question on whether it was done publicly, so that will be something our authorities will work through.'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Richardson for comment.
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This video is no longer available

DO YOU KNOW MORE? Email Harrison.Christian@dailymail.com

A Sydney barber is under investigation over social media posts that appear to support terrorists - but his mother says he is underage and wasn't aware of new counter-terrorism laws.

Zac Zhour, who works at Z VIP Barber in southwest Sydney, recently published posts to Instagram and Facebook glorifying the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas.

One included the words: 'Jihad is the greatest deed'.

In another post, Zhour wore a black headband, sometimes worn by jihadists in battle, and made a salute with a young child.

A third post depicted the Jewish Star of David covered in blood, accompanied by the quote: 'Surely we will bring a severe retribution to the wrongdoers.'

Zhour also posted videos that appeared to be filmed in Lebanon which showed the Hezbollah symbol.

Australia has designated both Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist groups, and in January, the display of terrorist symbols was banned at the federal level.

Confronted by a Sky News reporter at the shop this week, Zhour said police had paid him a visit over the posts, but insisted it was only for a 'friendly chat'.

He also maintained he had no regrets about his posts.

Zhour's mother says Sky News shouldn't have interrogated her son because he is a 'child'.

'I dont regret them because innocent children are being killed and obviously, if you are human and you have a heart, thats not OK.

'I know for a fact that these associations aren't terrorist groups, but I know for a fact that in the Western world, thats what theyre stated as.'

When Daily Mail Australia contacted the barbershop on Thursday, Zhour said, 'I'm actually under-age,' and preferred his mother to speak on his behalf.

His mum said that her son had no idea the images were wrong.

'It could be possible that a 17-year-old is not aware of those laws,' she said.

'Anything he's posted as a child is irrelevant. It's in the past, and he wasn't aware that he wasn't supposed to.'

NSW Police have confirmed that the matter is under investigation.

Australian Jewish Association chief executive Robert Gregory was appalled by Zhour's posts.

In one post, Zhour wears a black headband and makes a salute with a young child.

'It's certainly very suspicious and it's something we would urge law enforcement to take seriously,' he said.

'This isnt an isolated case. Weve seen many incidents of the Muslim community expressing support for proscribed terrorist organisations since October 7.

'It's a great concern to Australia, it's a great concern to the Jewish community, to ordinary Australians and for social cohesion.'

One of the posts included the words 'Jihad is the greatest deed'.

Another shows the Star of David covered in blood

Zhour is not the first Australian to come under scrutiny after the new counter-terrorism laws were brought in.

A 19-year-old woman is fighting allegations in court after she was accused of displaying the Hezbollah flag at a pro-Palestine protest in Sydney.

Sarah Mouhanna was charged with causing a public display of a prohibited terrorist organisation symbol, and entered a not-guilty plea in October.
New changes to social media site X have proved a bridge too far for one historic landmark - as they take the high road over 'inappropriate content'.

Clifton Suspension Bridge has hit troubled waters, saying they have decided to burn their bridges with Elon Musk's platform, formerly Twitter, because of recent changes to the site.

The Bristol-based monument - famously built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel - is now taking its content elsewhere, saying earlier this week that they no longer have as much meaningful engagement with their followers.

And social media users were quick to take the mickey out of the landmark - with one laughing: 'Cry me a river!'

Their post comes as liberal outlets including The Guardian boycott the platform, with the left wing newspaper citing 'often disturbing content' such as 'far-right conspiracy theories and racism'.

Clifton Suspension Bridge posted: 'X (formerly known as Twitter) has been a wonderful place to engage with our audience over the last 15 years. But the changes made to the platform in recent times caused us to reconsider our use of it.

Clifton Suspension Bridge has hit troubled waters, saying they have decided to burn their bridges with Elon Musk 's platform, formerly Twitter , because of recent changes to the site

The Bristol-based monument - famously built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel - is now taking its content elsewhere, saying they no longer have as much meaningful engagement with their followers

Social medias were quick to take the mickey out of the landmark - with one laughing: 'Cry me a river!'

Standing 101 metres above the Avon Gorge, it spans the 414 metre expanse between Bristol and Leigh Woods in North Somerset

'With the rise in inappropriate content and decrease in meaningful engagement with our followers, we have chosen to no longer post to this account.'

Their last use of their account - more than three weeks ago - saw them wishing 'happy travels' to a group of teddy bears on an adventure in Bristol.

Before that, their last post had been in August, when they were shut for Bristol's Balloon Fiesta.

Hearing their news, one commenter, Stephen Davies, laughed: 'Build bridges, not barriers!'

Another, Matt Graver, joked that they were 'burning bridges' while a third, called Paul, added: 'Cry me a river!'

And another, called John, said: 'I am waiting for the announcement from Blackpool tower or Wigan Pier next.'

Permission to build Clifton Suspension Bridge was given in 1830, and it has been up and running since 1864. A toll bridge, the iconic landmark now works as a not-for-profit charity.

First designed for light horse-drawn carriages in Victorian Britain, as many as 12,000 vehicles now cross its expanse every day.

Permission to build Clifton Suspension Bridge was given in 1830, and it has been up and running since 1864. A toll bridge, the iconic landmark now works as a not-for-profit charity

Some social media users, seeing the post, were not so amused and criticised the team behind the account for their stance

Standing 101 metres above the Avon Gorge, it spans the 414 metre expanse between Bristol and Leigh Woods in North Somerset.

But some social media users, seeing the post, were not so amused and criticised the team behind the account for their stance.

One said: 'A bridge, by nature spans a void. You've just fallen into a political one. What a ridiculous statement you've made.'

Another raged: 'A bridge is leaving a social media platform because it's against free speech. Beyond satire.'

A third added: 'For a bridge that costs 1 to cross this is ridiculous.'

And another angry customer fumed: 'I will be taking my business to another bridge.'

It comes as a series of accounts have boycotted the social media giant in the wake of the US election.

The Guardian said that the recent US presidential election had underlined its view that the online forum, formerly known as Twitter, was a 'toxic media platform'.

The Guardian has launched a boycott of social media platform X, citing 'often disturbing content'

The newspaper added that owner Elon Musk - the world's richest person - had been using the service's influence to 'shape political discourse'

Insisting that the benefits of being on the platform were 'now outweighed by the negatives', it added that owner Elon Musk - the world's richest person - had been using the service's influence to 'shape political discourse'.

The boycott means the The Guardian - which has more than 80 accounts and 27 million followers on X - will stop posting from its official editorial accounts on the platform. The main Guardian account on X now says: 'This account has been archived'.

The move does not stop individual reporters using the site and X users will still be able to share its articles, but some columnists have decied to follow in the newspapers' footsteps.

Environmentalist George Monbiot says that he will stop posting from January 20, instead taking to alternative social media site Bluesky.

The site - which began as a project inside Twitter - has seen an influx of more than one million users since the start of the US election as Twitter users flee misinformation.

They are said to boast a more comprehensive system for blocking and suspending harmful and problematic accounts.

Monbiot told his fans: 'Will you join me in setting January 20th (a significant date) for the Xodus?'

Other organisations have also recently quit X, include the Berlin Film Festival and the North Wales police force.

Chief constable Amanda Blakeman said the platform 'was no longer consistent with our values and therefore we have withdrawn our use of it '.

Musk, who describes himself as a 'free speech absolutist' bought the social media platform in 2022 for $44bn.

The EU and campaigners have raised concerns over the way Musk is running the platform and the type of content that has been allowed on it during his tenure.

Among those previously banned individuals to have been let back on the platform include self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate, British far-right figure Tommy Robinson and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Clifton Suspension Bridge has been contact for comment.
ABC News executives are reportedly actively searching for a conservative, pro-Trump voice to join the panel on The View after its woke stars all backed Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

The talk show - co-hosted by liberals Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines as well as Republican Trump critics Ana Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin - featured the vice president in an episode just one month ahead of the election.

Then, just one day after Trump's victory, the panelists dressed in all black as if they were attending a funeral.

But now ABC News Group President Debra OConnell and ABC News boss Almin Karamehmedovic are holding sit-down meetings with executive producers and other senior editorial leaders to address its coverage, the New York Post reports.

It is primarily focusing on The View, unidentified sources said.

ABC News executives are actively searching for a conservative, pro-Trump voice to join the panel on The View, the New York Post reports

All six of the panelists endorsed Harris in the presidential election, with some hitting out at the president-elect

'The View is facing pressure from higher-ups,' the source said. 'Viewers can expect some major changes, including brining in new panelists that can bring in a pro-Trump perspective.'

The source went on to note that all six of the current panelists endorsed Harris in the presidential election.

'They lost. They are out of touch with America,' the insider said, noting: 'For a show about different perspectives, The View doesn't seem to have any when it comes to Trump' and ABC News executives 'don't want to alienate the pro-Trump demographic' as they try to maintain the show's ratings and advertising revenue.

'At the end of the day, these changes aren't about politics. They are about economics,' the source explained. 'Trump got more than half of the vote.

'TV networks need to find pro-Trump voices and diversify viewpoints to reflect the various perspectives of Americans.'

Another unidentified source also noted that the change comes after ABC News execs were caught by surprise by Trump's victory.

'We are trying to sort out how we cover the next four years, when everyone inside ABC News is on one side,' the source said.

But an ABC News spokesperson has denied the claims, telling DailyMail.com the show is doing just fine as it is.

'This report is not true,' the spokesperson said.

'The View is an opinion-based show featuring a diverse panel of women with different points of view  the current panel is clearly resonating with audiences given that the series just had its highest rated episode in more than a decade and hit a four-year high in total viewers.'

ABC News Group President Debra OConnell and ABC News boss Almin Karamehmedovic are holding sit-down meetings with executive producers and other senior editorial leaders to address its coverage following Trump's victory

It remains unclear whether the show would kick off one of its woke panelists or just add a seventh.

But including a conservative onto the notoriously woke show may cause some issues with its top talent, the first source said.

'The question is what will happen to the Whoopis and the Joys if they bring on a Trumpster,' the insider said.

Many of the panelists have already spoken out against the president-elect since his victory, with Goldberg - the show's longest-running permanent co-host - announcing that she will continue to refuse to use Trump's name.

'He's not the president. I'm still not going to say his name,' the woke co-host said. 'That's not going to change.'

Goldberg has refused to use Trump's name since he first took office in 2016, saying she 'can't' bring herself to put the word 'president' before his name.

Sunny Hostin also said she was 'profoundly disturbed' by the election outcome, as she blamed 'uneducated white women' and 'Latino men' for Trump's victory, claiming they voted in favor of policies that will negatively impact them.

'I think [Trump's victory] had nothing to do with policy, I think this was a referendum on cultural resentment in this country,' she told the show.

'Black women tried to save this country again, last night what we do not have is white women, who voted about 52 percent for Donald Trump - uneducated white women is my understanding. You have Latino men actually, voting more for him.'

Amid the Trump-bashing, former panelist Meghan McCain took to X to lash out at her one-time castmates

She also hit out at the network for not having a 'single conservative woman' on the panel during the election season

Amid the Trump-bashing, former panelist Meghan McCain took to X to lash out at her one-time castmates.

'Respectfully, please stop sending me clips from The View,' she wrote, describing the show as a 'radical progressive insane asylum and that's why I left years ago.'

McCain also hit out at the show for not having 'a single conservative woman' on the panel during the election season.

'It is actual malfeasance on the part of ABC News that there isn't one single conservative woman on The View this morning who voted for Trump or simply isn't repulsed by his supporters to explain to America why he is so popular,' she said following Trump's win.
Thomas Homan speaks as Donald Trump listens at a primary election night party in New Hampshire in January. President-elect Trump has nominated Homan, his former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, to serve as border czar in his incoming administration. Matt Rourke/Associated Press

When Donald Trump announced his intent to name Thomas Homan to the new position of border czar upon retaking the White House in January, the president-elect closed the distance between his agenda and Project 2025, the far-right blueprint crafted by the Heritage Foundation.

Homan, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trumps first term, is a visiting fellow with Heritage and a contributor to the Washington, D.C., think tanks Project 2025, subtitled the Presidential Transition Project.

The 900-page manifesto expands on Trumps promise to expel millions of undocumented immigrants by detailing how such a massive undertaking could be accomplished through executive and congressional action.

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Project 2025 even calls for the kind of Cabinet-level post that Homan will fill if confirmed.

Ive known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders, Trump wrote in a Nov. 10 post on TruthSocial, the social media platform he owns. Likewise, Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin. Congratulations to Tom. I have no doubt he will do a fantastic, and long awaited for, job.

Border security forces close a gate at the Paso del Norte international bridge in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, this month. Christian Chavez/Associated Press

Trump had nominated Homan to be permanent ICE director in 2017, but the nomination stalled for more than a year and never advanced to a Democratic-controlled Senate.

Homan laid out his vision for a mass deportation plan in October, telling 60 Minutes that his priorities were public safety threats and national security threats first, followed by all other undocumented migrants. He also said workplace immigration raids, which occurred in California during Trumps first term, would be necessary.

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Originally from New York, Homan has long railed against Californias sanctuary policies, which prohibit local cooperation with federal deportation efforts. He told Fox News in 2018 that he wanted to charge politicians in sanctuary cities with crimes. The Trump administration tried to withhold funding from California and San Francisco over their sanctuary laws before a court barred it from doing so in 2020.

This whole argument  sanctuary cities protect the victim  is a bunch of crap, Homan said during a July 2023 Heritage Foundation panel. Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals. Bottom line.

Democrats made Project 2025 a focal point of their argument against a second Trump term, as the publics awareness of the policy document coincided with its rising unpopularity. Trump took to TruthSocial in July to deny any connection to Project 2025, which was drafted by more than 100 former staffers, including Homan.

The Heritage Foundation was a sponsor of the Republican National Convention and hosted Trump for a keynote address in 2022.

Project 2025 would expand immigrant detention capabilities, mandate the detention and prosecution of every unauthorized immigrant in the country, authorize local and state law enforcement to participate in immigration enforcement efforts, and financially penalize jurisdictions with sanctuary policies.

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It also calls for dismantling the Department of Homeland Security in favor of a Cabinet-level agency focused on border security. Such an agency would give Trump tighter control over immigration enforcement, said UC Davis law Professor Kevin R. Johnson, an authority on civil rights and immigration law.

Johnson said he sees no difference between Trumps immigration agenda and the one advanced by Project 2025, except that Trumps agenda may be more extreme.

It just seems that qualifications, knowledge and expertise are second to loyalty and adherence to a particular political agenda  I would say, the strictest immigration policies of any modern president, Johnson said.

Along with promising to conduct the largest deportation project in American history, Trump has said he would issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of unauthorized immigrants and activate the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, last used to incarcerate 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.

While Johnson said Californias sanctuary laws preventing its law enforcement agencies from assisting federal immigration authorities should hold up in court, the state has little recourse to prevent the federal government from conducting enforcement sweeps or building detention centers on its federal lands.

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Trumps commanding victory, along with the Republican Party claiming both houses of Congress, has stoked panic and defiance in immigrant communities. Even before the election, the American Civil Liberties Union was preparing to combat a new Trump administration in the courts while also reassuring the public that Trumps extreme immigration agenda would be difficult to pull off and politically unpopular.

Trumps proposals fly in the face of longstanding laws and policy principles that obligate the United States to protect people fleeing danger and to preserve family unity, Blaine Bookey, legal director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at UC Law San Francisco, said via email. During the previous Trump administration, we challenged his hateful, illegal policies in court and won. We will do so again.

Reprising an approach he took while in office, Trump used social media to announce a slew of key administration picks in recent days.

Along with Homan, Trump selected South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to run the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, and former senior adviser Stephen Miller to be his deputy policy chief.

Miller was the architect of the family separation policy that forcibly removed more than 4,600 children from their parents. More than 1,300 of the children remained unaccounted for as recently as April, according to Homeland Securitys most recent progress report.

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Homeland Security is responsible for administering disaster relief.

Homan, an unapologetic supporter of the family separation policy, said in October that instead of separating families, families can be deported together.
A breathtaking townhouse in with an incredible secret in its attic has hit the market for just under $1.5million.

The single family home cost $1,499,999, and while the exterior of the property has a classic 'Victorian charm' to it, the interior is full of a mix of 'historic and global design,' according to the listing.

The 3,488 square-foot Halifax, Nova Scotia, home, listed by Coldwell Banker Maritime Realty agent Cody Richard, is not just a beautiful escape, but also has a unique 'Tomb Room' attic.

Artist Michael Lewis painted the 'one of a kind' Egyptian-inspired space with a slew of murals on the walls and ceiling.

The attic even features a sarcophagus, or ancient Egyptian stone coffin, that 'transports' visitors to ancient Egypt.

The Scottish Georgian townhouse, built in 1859, has five bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and two half bathrooms, and sits on 0.05 acres of land.

A stunning townhome in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has hit the market for $1,499,999

The home has a secret hidden attic space that was painted to 'transport' visitors to Egypt

Upstairs in the attic, guests are greeted by a marvelous space, decked out head-to-toe in Egyptian-inspired designs.

Pharaohs, animals and intricate paintings of plants and designs cover the walls.

The tomb in the center of the room opens up to a hidden bathroom space, fit with a toilet and shower, while a sink is located on the outside of it.

Upon entering the quaint home, a checkered floor and window-filled entryway fill the space.

Gorgeous hardwood flooring covers the front hallway and extends into the front living room area.

The room is decked out in white walls and molding, 11.5 foot high ceilings, and a cozy fireplace.

The tomb in the center of the room opens up to a hidden bathroom space, fit with a toilet and shower, while a sink is located on the outside of it

The home also has five bedrooms, all of which have an abundance of natural light and high ceilings

Large wooden pocket doors create a spacious open concept floor plan, leading visitors into the stunning kitchen.

The kitchen is covered in Saltillo tiles, has a large granite island, bay windows and another fireplace.

The space also has updated cabinetry, appliances, great lighting, more high ceilings, and a great space for a large kitchen table.

The townhome also comes with a roomy laundry and mudroom area, fit with a washer, dryer and long countertop with a sink.

Sizeable bedrooms fill the home, all of which have an array of natural sunlight, ample closet space and high ceilings.

One of the bedrooms has unique emerald green hardwood flooring and dark colored cabinetry and doors.

Another room is filled with hardwood flooring, paneling and brick walls.

The kitchen is covered in Saltillo tiles, a large granite island, bay windows and a fireplace

One of the bedrooms has unique emerald green hardwood flooring and dark colored cabinetry and doors

One of the bathrooms is decked out with gray painted brick walls, a pedestal sink, and clawfoot tub

One bathroom is covered in stunning black and white granite tiles, a pedestal sink and a large bathtub with a slanted window overhead that brings in great sunlight.

Meanwhile, another bathroom is decked out with gray painted brick walls, a pedestal sink, and clawfoot tub.

There is also a small living area in the home, fit with a small kitchenette, and room for a couch and accent chair.

The property's plumbing, wiring and natural gas heating have all been updated, according to the listing.

The home also has a 'south-west facing backyard,' a detached garage, and two-car driveway.

'This property offers an extraordinary blend of history, style, with the convenience of south end living,' the listing said.
The federal government has vigorously defended Australia's under fire Ambassador to the US, former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

Rudd has been under increasing pressure since Donald Trump, who he had called a 'village idiot' and 'incoherent', won the US presidential election last week.

During the election campaign, when asked about some of the 'horrible things' Rudd had said about him, Trump said 'he won't be there long if that's the case.

'I don't know much about him. I heard he was a little bit nasty. I hear he's not the brightest bulb. If he is at all hostile, he will not be there for long.'

One of Trump's senior advisors, Dan Scavino Jr, this week posted a GIF of sand falling through an hourglass next to a post by Rudd renouncing some of his previous social media posts about the President-elect, in an ominous clue as to how the ex-PM's statements have been received in the US.

But Trump is not allowed to pick who Australia sends to Washington as the ambassador - Australia's federal government does.

'Former Prime Minister Rudd is a highly effective Ambassador,' a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told Daily Mail Australia.

'He is recognised across the Australian Parliament as doing an excellent job advancing Australia's interests in the United States.'

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also defended Rudd, saying he 'is doing a terrific job as Australia's Ambassador to the United States.

Australia's US Ambassador Kevin Rudd (right) and his wife Therese Rein are pictured at the unveiling of his official portrait at Parliament House in Canberra

Mr Albanese added that 'it says a lot about how important we regard the relationship with the United States that we appointed a former prime minister'.

But Rudd seemed to be caught by surprise when Mr Trump won the US election, and just hours after the results were announced, he deleted his previous critical posts about the incoming president on X.

In a statement, Rudd's office said: 'In his previous role as the head of an independent US-based think tank, Rudd was a regular commentator on American politics.

'Out of respect for the office of President of the United States, and following the election of President Trump, Ambassador Rudd has now removed these past commentaries from his personal website and social media channels.

'This has been done to eliminate the possibility of such comments being misconstrued as reflecting his positions as Ambassador and, by extension, the views of the Australian Government.'

The government's concern at the implications of Rudd having to deal with a US President who doesn't want him there have also drawn Foreign Minister Penny Wong into the debate.

Rudd has been under increasing pressure since Donald Trump, who he had regularly criticised, won the US presidential election last week. Donald and Melania Trump are pictured

'I have confidence, continued confidence in Kevin (Rudd),' he told Sky News. 'Kevin has been an outstanding ambassador and I'm confident will continue to be so.'

She admitted, though, that the incoming US President has big plans for the next four years.

'President Trump campaigned on change, and so we shouldn't be surprised if there is change,' Ms Wong said.

'We should be confident in our ability to work together to progress Australia's interests.'

Amid concerns about how Trump's plans for high tariffs on imports will affect Australia, the President-elect offered a friendly greeting on a phone call with Mr Albanese last week.

Trump, who will be sworn in to his second term as President on January 20, told the Prime Minister, 'We are going to be perfect friends'.

The call, held at around 10am Canberra time on Thursday, was the first between the pair since Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the US election.

The Labor government said the call to Mr Albanese was among the President-elect's first to a world leader after Mr Trump's decisive win.

On the call, the incoming President emphasised the importance of the long lasting, strong relationship between America and Australia.

The Prime Minister spoke about the $368billion AUKUS nuclear submarines deal and pointed out the US had a trade surplus with Australia.

The latter point could be crucial, as Trump's vow to slug Chinese imports with a 60 per cent tariff is a major worry for the Albanese government.

Any hit to China, which is Australia's largest trading partner, is likely to have consequences Down Under.

'A renewed trade war between the US and China is bad for the US and Chinese economies,' Commonwealth Bank of Australia analysts said.

'And what is bad for China is bad for Australia, Korea and New Zealand because of high exposure to Chinese domestic demand.'

But before Australia has to deal with the consequences of Trump's tariff regime, it has to consider whether or not it's worth hanging on to a US Ambassador who has previously been a thorn in the side of the incoming US President.
A man filmed delivering a unhinged racist rant during a road rage incident has been identified as a local restaurant owner and university advisory board member.

Jonathan Spanos, 54, was recorded hurling racial slurs towards another driver in York, Pennsylvania, and at one point proclaimed 'I am a racist,' in a video posted to X on Sunday.

The clip shows Spanos in a confrontation on a residential road where he repeatedly called another man's brother a 'half n****r.'

'I don't have a half n*****r brother, but you do,' he said. 'You popped me the finger, you're wrong.

'That's right, I did, I said he has a half n****r brother... I am, I am a racist.'

Jonathan Spanos, 54, was recorded spewing racial slurs and at one point saying 'I am a racist,' during a road rage incident

The confrontation was on a residential road where Spanos repeatedly called another man's brother a 'half n****r'

Spanos was on the Penn State York Advisory Board and owns a seafood restaurant with his wife called The Paddock on Market.

He resigned from the board on Monday, one day after the video was posted on X, Penn State director of university public relations Wyatt DuBois told DailyMail.com.

'This hateful language has no place in our community and is not reflective of the University's values or our desire to foster an inclusive environment,' DuBois said.

Spanos endowed the J. Spanos Family Trustee Scholarship in honor of his parents and sisters who attended the school. He was listed as a 2014 commencement speaker at the college, according to Centre Daily Times.

Spanos and his wife Sally are third generation proprietors of their family restaurant, according to The Paddock on Market website.

Spanos and his wife Sally (pictured) are third generation proprietors of their family restaurant

The website states they are known for their 'award winning' Chesapeake jumbo lump crab cakes, fresh cut angus stakes, made to order pasta sautes and salads, as well as their 'house-made' onion rings.

Spanos issued a public apology on Wednesday alongside a small group of local leaders - including the Black Ministers' Association, the NAACP and Confronting Racism Coalition of York - reported WHP.

'The video captured a heated family confrontation in which I intentionally used the most ugly language,' he said.

'I was wrong for not walking away from that volatile situation. I was wrong for responding in anger with hateful language.

'I was wrong for using a racist term that has caused great trauma in our country, our community and to our neighbors. I was also wrong to state sarcastically in the video that I am a racist.

Spanos was on the Penn State York Advisory Board but resigned on Monday, one day after the video was posted on X

He owns The Paddock on Market, a seafood restaurant known for their 'award winning' crab cakes

'It saddens me that my own foolish words have understandably caused others to question if I am a racist. While I have never believed myself to be a racist, I was reminded by the pastors that the mouth speaks what flows from the heart.'

The York branch of the NAACP called for Spanos immediate resignation from the advisory board and said they were 'deeply troubled' by the incident.

'The emotional trauma that this video ignites for African Americans is deplorable. The use of this demeaning term is not only offensive but also perpetuates the systemic racism that the NAACP has fought against for over a century,' NAACP York Branch President Jamiel Alexander said.

'Penn State York should conduct a thorough review of its advisory council members to ensure they embody the university's commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.'

DailyMail.com has approached Spanos for further comment.
Several Church of England dignitaries were under mounting pressure to step down tonight over their implication in the John Smyth abuse scandal.

After Justin Welbys resignation, the spotlight has turned on other senior clerical figures who have questions to answer over whether or what they knew about the abuse.

These include four bishops and a member of the secretive committee that will select Mr Welbys replacement.

They are now under pressure to follow the Archbishop of Canterbury, who resigned in shame on Tuesday over failures that meant the Churchs most prolific child abuser was never brought to justice before his death in 2018.

It came after a review last week concluded that Smyths abhorrent abuse of more than 100 boys and young men was covered up within the Church.

On Wednesday, a bishop specialising in Church safeguarding admitted the CofE may not be a safe institution and added: Very possibly some other people should go.

After Justin Welby s resignation, the spotlight has turned on other senior clerical figures who have questions to answer

John Smyth (pictured) is believed to be the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England

But another prelate claimed that no further bishops needed to resign over the mishandling of allegations against Smyth as Mr Welby had already taken the institutional blame.

The review, by Keith Makin, found the Church knew at the highest level from 2013 about abuse by Smyth, a barrister, and that its response was wholly ineffective and amounted to a cover-up.

Many of those aware of Smyths abuse in the late 1970s and 1980s have since died. But some criticised in the review for a lack of curiosity over the allegations are still alive.

Andrew Graystone, author of the definitive book on Smyths abuse, has said at least 11 bishops knew about his conduct in addition to literally scores of rank-and-file church leaders.

Among those identified as allegedly being aware of the abuse in the 1980s is Canon Andrew Cornes, who it stated was told all about Smyths behaviour.

The review says: There is no evidence to suggest that Andrew Cornes took action to respond to this, he suggests that he thought the matter was being dealt with. He is a member of the Crown Nominations Commission which will consult on who will become the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

Mr Cornes, 75, and the CofE were approached for comment.

Four bishops are also named in the review, including the Bishop of Lincoln, the Rev Stephen Conway, who is facing calls from survivors to resign.

Mr Welby (pictured) admitted he personally failed the countless victims of sexualised beatings from evangelist barrister John Smyth

Bishop Conway, who was the Bishop of Ely in 2013 when he was informed of allegations, said: In light of the review, I understand there were further actions I could have taken following my reporting of the disclosures.

The Rev Dr Jo Bailey Wells, who was chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013, is now the Bishop for Episcopal Ministry for the global Anglican communion.

She failed to follow up with the police on a safeguarding referral, the report found. Dr Bailey Wells has said she was appalled by the abuse.

The Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, the Rev Martin Seeley, and the Archbishop of Cape Town, Dr Thabo Makgoba, are also named in the review.

Meanwhile, Rev Hugh Palmer  a chaplain to the late Queen  and former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey were both also identified as allegedly being aware of the allegations at that time.

Lord Carey, now 89, has denied being informed about Smyths abuse.

Yesterday Bishop of Birkenhead Julie Conalty, deputy lead bishop for safeguarding, said Mr Welbys resignation alone is not going to solve the problem and that very possibly some other people should go. We still have this institutional problem where we are not putting victims and survivors at the centre. In some ways, we are not a safe institution, she told Radio 4s Today programme.

But the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, said no further resignations are needed as Mr Welby has already stepped down, adding: Those who actively covered this up [should resign], which was not bishops.

Named: The Church of England dignitaries who have questions to answer

Canon Andrew Cornes:

Now a member of the Crown Nominations Commission that will shortlist the next Archbishop of Canterbury, the review reported Andrew Cornes, 75, knew all about Smyths abuse in September 1982 and even talked to some of his victims.

It says: There is no evidence to suggest Cornes took action to respond to this, he suggests he thought the matter was being dealt with.

He was approached for comment.

Reverend Stephen Conway:

As Bishop of Ely in 2013, when one of Smyths victims informed his diocese of abuse allegations, the Rev Stephen Conway was in a potentially powerful position...to make sure that the full extent of the concerns was being fully pursued, but under his leadership opportunities were missed to formally report concerns to the police, said the review.

As Bishop of Ely in 2013, when one of Smyths victims informed his diocese of abuse allegations, the Rev Stephen Conway was in a potentially powerful position...to make sure that the full extent of the concerns was being fully pursued

Revered Dr Jo Bailey Wells:

She was chaplain to Justin Welby in 2013 when he was informed of Smyths abuse. She failed to follow up with police on a safeguarding referral, the report found.

She has said she was appalled by the abuse and recognised the immense courage of victims.

The Rev Dr Jo Bailey Wells, the Bishop for Episcopal Ministry at the Anglican Communion Office

Revered Sue Colman:

She and her husband Sir Jamie Colman  heir to the Colman mustard dynasty  sent money to Smyth in Zimbabwe despite on the balance of probabilities both having significant knowledge of his abuses.

They visited him there, and he stayed with them in the UK. In 1990, Sir Jamie had been warned Smyth was dangerous but argued he was reformed, the report found.

Revered Sue Colman sent money to Smyth in Zimbabwe despite on the balance of probabilities both having significant knowledge of his abuses

Revered Hugh Palmer:

Hugh Palmer, 74, a chaplain to the late Queen and Rector of All Souls Langham Place until retiring in 2020, denied keeping tabs on one of Smyths victims.

The young man had tried to take his own life in 1982, and afterwards Rev Palmer made visits to him.

Reverend Hugh Palmer was rector of All Souls Langham Place from 2005 until his retirement in 2020. From July 2012 he was also a chaplain to the Queen.

The victim told the review it could have been John Smyth, keeping tabs on [me]. Palmer said his visits were out of genuine concern.
A Democrat insider admits the real reason Kamala Harris never sat down with Joe Rogan is because it would've upset her progressive staffers.

Donald Trump's appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience - sparked by Rogan wanting Trump to appear after he'd survived an assassination attempt - was a huge hit and has been credited for his ability to win over young voters.

When Rogan asked Kamala Harris to join him on the podcast, he revealed she 'only wanted to do an hour,' ultimately refusing to appear over scheduling conflicts.

Jennifer Palmieri, a liberal strategist and former senior advisor to Harris's husband Doug Emhoff, said it would've upset her far left campaign workers.

'There was a backlash with some of our progressive staff that didn't want her to be on it, and how there would be a backlash,' she said.

Donald Trump's appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience was a huge hit and has been credited for his ability to win over young voters .

A Democrat insider admits the real reason Kamala Harris never sat down with Joe Rogan is because it would've upset her progressive staffers

Meanwhile, Rogan is continuing to comment on the controversy himself, revealing things Harris refused to discuss.

'They had, I don't know how many conversations with my folks, but multiple conversations giving different dates, different times, different this, different that, and we knew that she was going to be in Texas, so I said, 'open invitation,'' he said.

'I think they had requirements on things that she didn't want to talk about, she didn't want to talk about marijuana legalization, which I thought was hilarious.'

On November 3, Harris posted to X: 'I will legalize recreational marijuana, break down unjust legal barriers, and create opportunities for all Americans to succeed in this new industry.'

During a 2020 discussion with comedian Jimmy Dore on The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan said he had 'always been' a progressive voter.

He told Dore: 'I've never voted right wing in my life. Never. Never. I voted Democrat.'

However, Sanders' appearance on the show drew huge backlash from Democrats and appears to have kept the podcast as a no-go zone for liberals.

Palmieri also blamed the media's coverage over the negotiations for creating a 'weird dynamic.'

Rogan is continuing to comment on the controversy himself, revealing things Harris refused to discuss, like legalizing marijuana

'Because all of a sudden he's on his heels about how his audience is going to react to this, and the demands that they were going to put on him to be tough on her,' she told Financial Times.

The snub is now clearly seen as a key element of Harris' flop campaign, losing access to Rogan's massive listenership.

Rogan specifically mentioned his fondness for Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard - as she was a Democrat before endorsing Donald Trump - but he did point out the one exception to his pattern.

He said: 'Except for [voting] Independent. I voted for Gary Johnson because he did my podcast.'

This one-off comment points to why Harris refusing to be on Rogan's show may have cost her his vote and - even more influential - his endorsement.

During the Rogan-Dore episode, Dore mentioned an unnamed senior Democrat who would not go on his podcast because their 'career would be over.' Rogan guessed he was referring to Harris.

Dore laughed, but neither confirmed nor denied the claim.

Rogan chimed in and said, 'They all keep asking to be on my show, I've got requests from all of them.'

Joe Rogan revealed that he used to vote Democratic, with the only exception being Gary Johnson because he came on the show

In the 2020 episode, Rogan hinted at why Kamala Harris did not get his vote after she snubbed him

The podcaster listed off Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and 'Mayor Pete' Buttigieg as some of the top politicians who have requested to come on his show, but he turned them down.

Rogan, who previously was vocal about disliking Donald Trump, seemingly made a 180-degree turn by endorsing the candidate just before the presidential election.

Speaking with the presidential nominee in a wide-ranging interview, Rogan referenced Trump's interview with fellow comedian Theo Von in August of this year.

Trump asked: 'Is that why you called me to do this', to which Rogan responded: 'No. Once they shot you I was like, 'He's gotta come in here.''

Rogan replies: 'It healed up pretty f***ing good man', to which Trump said it wasn't like UFC fighters that Rogan also provides color commentary for.

Trump told Rogan that the attempt on his life and the scarring had made him a 'tougher guy'.

Showing off the wound he received when gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on him in July of this year, Trump said: 'It zicked right there.'

The podcaster asserted in 2022: 'I'm not a Trump supporter in any way, shape or form.

Trump showed off the wound he received when gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on him in July of this year

'I don't want to help him, I'm not interested in helping him.'

Two years later, Rogan's views took a shocking turn when he welcomed the Republican nominee on his show after rampant speculation from fans.

He publicly endorsed the soon-to-be president after a discussion with Elon Musk.

'If it wasn't for him (Musk) we'd be f***ed,' Rogan wrote on X just hours before the polls open.

'He makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you'll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way.

'For the record, yes, that's an endorsement of Trump. Enjoy the podcast'.

He sat with Trump for a three-hour interview and tried to do the same with Harris.

But Rogan revealed that scheduling issues and conflicts over how long and where the interview would take place ultimately prevented it from happening.

Comedian Jimmy Dore said an unnamed Democrat would not go on his show in order to preserve their reputation and Rogan guessed it was Harris

Rogan endorsed Donald Trump just before the election after previously expressing disapproval of the soon-to-be president

He explained he hoped to use the interview as a means of getting to know the candidates better.

Rogan said: 'My whole goal with her and with him is just talk. Just have a conversation like a human being. You find out things about people. You get a sense of them, at least.'

The Joe Rogan Experience is the most popular Spotify podcast, with more than 14 million subscribers. Rogan also has nearly 18 million YouTube followers, and his videos routinely receive millions of views.

An unidentified Arizona State University student told MSNBC's Gadi Schwartz that the VP's refusal to appear on the popular show ended up deciding his vote.

'We've actually been hearing a lot of talk about the Rogan podcast,' Schwartz said. 'A little while ago we were talking to two guys.

'One of them said he was on the fence, when Kamala did not go on the Joe Rogan podcast that was what influenced his vote, he ended up voting for Trump.

'He said he was open to listening to Kamala on the podcast and when she didn't, not necessarily all the issues. She didn't seem like a real person because she couldn't talk for an extended period of time. '
Prosecutors tonight called for would-be French President Marine Le Pen to be sent to prison and banned from standing for public office.

The dramatic demands were made on Wednesday in the Paris Correctional Court, where the 56-year-old is on trial for embezzlement.

She and 24 other members and staff of her National Rally (RN) party are accused of stealing a total of 6.8million (5.6million) of European taxpayers' money by setting up fake jobs in the European Parliament over a period of at least a decade.

All deny the charges, but prosecutors demanded that Le Pen receive the harshest sentence of all.

They specifically asked the judge to give her five years in prison, three of which would be suspended, and a fine equivalent to 250,000.

Crucially, they also want the five year ban on Le Pen seeking public office, meaning she would be struck out of the 2027 presidential election.

Marine Le Pen and vice president Louis Aliot pictured during a break in the closing arguments hearing of their trial on Wednesday

Prosecutors want the five year ban on Le Pen seeking public office, meaning she would be struck out of the 2027 presidential election

After hearing the demands, Le Pen said: 'It's clear that the only thing the public prosecutors wanted was Marine Le Pen's exclusion from political life.'

She had continually accused the case of being 'politicaly motivated' and said the entire case is based on 'shaky' evidence.

Opinion polls continually place Le Pen as a favourite to become president on her fourth attempt, but she said 'millions of French people would be deprived of their presidential candidate'.

Chief prosecutor Louise Neyton urged the court to take into account the 'unprecedented nature' of the embezzlement, which took place over at least a decade.

The accused 'made the European Parliament their cash cow and were looking to continue to do so,' said Ms Neyton.

She added: 'If the European Parliament had not blown the whistle, the facts would have continued and the embezzlement would have been even greater.'

The defence will now argue for an acquittal, before a verdict is announced early in 2025.

Specialist anti-corruption investigators have pointing to a 'sophisticated billing system' being set up by Le Pen, an MEP in Brussels from 2004 until 2017, to divert cash into party funds back in Paris.

Prosecutors also called called for Le Pen to be sent to prison over the allegations

Le Pen denies the charges, but prosecutors demanded she receive the harshest sentence of all

The RN was called the National Front (FN) in those days, and many of its leading lights are on trial alongside Le Pen.

The party's founder is the convicted racist and Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is also Marine Le Pen's father.

He was due to appear as a defendant too, but medics said the 96-year-old could stay away because of his 'deteriorating state of health'.

Embezzlement is a crime punishable in France by up to 10 years in prison, and penalties also available to judges include one million euros in fines.

The investigation into RN fraud began in March 2015, when the European Parliament announced that it had referred possible irregularities to the EU anti-fraud office.

It mainly concerned salaries paid to parliamentary assistants, and even to Jean-Marie Le Pen's bodyguard.

Ms Le Pen was in 2022 runner up to Emmanuel Macron in the race to become president of France, after a similar result in 2017.

Party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen in turn came second to Jacques Chirac in the presidential election of 2002.

Earlier this year, the RN did so well in European elections that President Macron called snap domestic parliamentary elections.

It led to the RN saying they were preparing for government, with party leader Jordan Bardella set to become prime minister.

Mr Bardella is a former EU parliamentary assistant for the RN, but is not implicated in the current trial.

In fact, the RN was beaten into third place in the election by the left-wing New Popular Front (NPF), and by Mr Macron's Renaissance party.

Mr Macron then appointed former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as prime minister, and he does not have a single RN or NPF minister in his government.
A Florida mother's decision to confront the predator who was sexting her 13-year-old daughter led him to be shot by police.

The unidentified mother learned on Sunday that someone was engaged in an 'inappropriate text relationship' with her daughter on Sunday, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Chief Alan Parker said at a news conference the following day.

He said the worried mom decided to take her daughter's phone and start texting the predator, who was later identified as 18 year old Cerry Rodriques Banks, and arranged to meet up with him at a local Popeye's at 7am., The Florida Times-Union reports.

Banks still thought he was talking to the teenager, and agreed with the plan.

But when the mother showed up with her daughter and her 11-year-old son to the restaurant on Monday, Banks allegedly showed them a gun tucked into his waistband and warned, 'When you hear the shots tonight, you know what's up,' Parker said.

A Florida mother decided to confront the 18 year old who was sexting with her 13-year-old daughter outside of a Popeye's in Jacksonville

When the unidentified mother met with the suspect, Cerry Rodriques Banks, police say he pulled out his pistol (pictured) and threatened the mother

At that point, the mother went inside the restaurant and called police, who responded about half an hour later, and found Banks still outside.

Responding Officer Garrion Robinson then approached the suspect and went to handcuff him, when police say he started running around the back of the Popeye's, and Robinson chased him.

When Robinson eventually turns a corner, he saw Banks pull a pistol from his waistband, Parker said, according to First Coast News.

'He yells for him, "Drop, stop, gun, gun, gun," engages [the] suspect; he shoots him multiple times,' the chief recounted.

Still, police say, Banks continued to flee.

'The suspect continues around the neighboring business, then drops the gun,' Parker said. 'He continues running. The officer tracks him and loses sight of him.'

Officers then deployed a K-9 unit to try to track Banks down, and he was ultimately located hiding in a drainage culvert.

The suspect received medical assistance at the scene, as Parker said he was shot 'once in his hand, there's something in the torso and maybe one [time] in the leg.'

The suspect remained at the scene when police arrived half an hour later

Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Chief Alan Parker said a responding officer tried to engage Banks after he pulled out his pistol, but then fired multiple shots

Banks is now being held on a $700,000 bond, as he recovers at a local hospital in stable condition.

He is now charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, lewd and lascivious conduct by an offender over 18 against a victim less than 16, unlawful use of a two-way communication device and traveling to meet after using a computer to seduce/solicit/lure a child.

The shooting marks the third-officer involved shooting in Jacksonville over the past month, and Banks was the seventh person shot by police this year, with three people killed, according to the Times-Union.

But it is Robinson's first shooting over his seven years as an officer.

The sheriff's office now says it will release body camera footage within 21 days to maintain transparency, as officers urged anyone with a problem to call the department, CBS 12 reports.

'We'd absolutely love to handle every situation, but this is a mother who's concerned about her daughter,' Sheriff TK Waters said at the news conference. 'So I get it, I understand.

'But I would say that in most cases, in situations like that, call us and let us come out and deal with the situation so it doesn't unfold like this.'
Climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen has insisted the Australian government will remain committed to fighting climate change regardless of Donald Trump's policies.

The President-elect has been very vocal about what he thinks of climate change, dubbing it a 'hoax' and 'one of the great scams of all time'.

He dismantled almost 100 climate policies in his first term as President in 2016 and environmentalists fear he will go even further in his second administration.

It is likely he will seek to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement, which aims to keep the world global average temperature below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, for the second time.

Trump has also told supporters of his plans to 'drill, baby, drill' by massively ramping up the US production of oil and gas.

Mr Bowen admitted on Wednesday the Labor government 'doesn't know yet' what Trump will do, but insisted it will not alter Australia's course.

The election of a new president doesnt change some fundamentals, regardless of what approach he takes,' Mr Bowen told ABC's 7.30 on Wednesday night.

'The fundamentals that the world will continue to warm and we need to act  point one.

Climate change minister Chris Bowen has insisted the Australia government will remain committed to fighting climate change regardless of Donald Trump's policies

'Point two, the economics of renewable energy are so strong and it is our national interest to embrace that and to expand renewable energy.

And point three, the United States is responsible for just a bit more than 10 per cent of the worlds emissions. Does that mean the rest of the 90 per cent of us dont bother anymore even if the US withdraws action?

'No it doesnt. Thats not our approach, it wont be our approach and its not the approach of most international counterparts that Im talking to.

Mr Bowen's upbeat attitude comes ahead of the COP29 climate summit due to be held in Azerbaijan this weekend.

When Im talking to international colleagues, no one is saying lets give up. There are some people in each domestic debate who argue that, there are people in Australia who argue that,' Mr Bowen told the program.

Even if a major power withdraws that can be a time for middle powers to step up and to continue to argue for action. Thats what Ill be doing, thats what Australia will be doing.

He added that other middle powers like Germany, Canada and the UK will be doing the same.

However, Mr Bowen refused to set a date for when the Albanese government will announce Australia's 2035 emissions reduction target under the Paris climate agreement.

The deadline is February but Mr Bowen has repeatedly refused to be pinned down on whether he will unveil a target before the next Federal election.

Donald Trump dismantled almost 100 climate policies in his first term as President in 2016 and environmentalists fear he will go even further in his second administration

Some have pointed out that this is because the major issue likely to dominate the election is the cost-of-living crisis and the government doesn't want to risk seeming to be more focussed on climate targets that have no discernible impact on voters' short-term lives.

This is exacerbated by the fact that Opposition leader Peter Dutton has declared he will not announce at 2035 target before the election and his lobbying for nuclear power - a policy favoured by Trump.

Professor Michelle Grattan, esteemed journalist and chief political correspondent with The Conversation, argued that Mr Bowen faced threats from all sides over the 2035 target.

'A bold target would make the government more vulnerable, just when Labor would want the attention on the Coalitions problematic nuclear policy,' Prof Grattan wrote.

'On the other hand, if the target were modest, that would be exploited by the Greens.'
A police force has been accused of carrying out an 'appalling' attack on free speech after launching an investigation into a journalist over a post on social media.

Allison Pearson, 64, claimed two Essex Police officers turned up at her door at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday to inform her she was being investigated over a post on X from a year ago.

The award-winning writer said she was still in her dressing gown when one officer at the door said 'I was accused of a non-crime hate incident. It was to do with something I had posted on X a year ago. A YEAR ago? Yes. Stirring up racial hatred apparently'.

Now the force is facing backlash from critics, including Boris Johnson, after Ms Pearson was not told the specific focus of the enquiry.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary and former policing minister, told The Telegraph: 'It is completely wrong that the journalist was not even told about the particulars of the allegation [...].'

He added: 'I am deeply concerned this will have a chilling effect on free speech and free expression.'

Elon Musk, who owns X, waded in. In response to a post describing how British police visited and questioned a journalist in her home because someone was offended by a year-old post on X, Mr Musk replied: This needs to stop.

Allison Pearson (pictured) is accused of stirring up racial hatred in a post on social media in 2023

Boris Johnson branded the investigation 'appalling' and an attack on free speech

Former Prime Minister Mr Johnson wrote in a post on X: 'This is appalling. How can Starmer's Britain lecture other countries about free speech when an innocent journalist gets a knock on the door - for a tweet?

'Our police have their hands full of burglaries and violent crime. They are being forced to behave like a woke Securitate - and it has to stop.'

Former Tory party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: What the public wants is for [police] to crack down on shoplifting, violent threats and anti-social behaviour. If you want to know what hate is, that is hate. They should deal with that rather than targeting journalists whose job is to speak freely.

A spokesman for Essex Police said: 'As a police force, we investigate matters which are reported to us without fear or favour, no matter who makes a report or to whom the incident concerns.'

At the time of the alleged tweet last year, the journalist was regularly posting about Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israel, as well as pro-Palestine demonstrations happening in London.

On Tuesday night, Essex Police said officers had opened an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 relating to material allegedly 'likely or intended to cause racial hatred'.

A police spokesman said: 'We're investigating a report passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed. An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act.

Ms Pearson (pictured in 2011) said she was 'shocked' to have officers turn up on her doorstep on Remembrance Sunday

'As part of that investigation, officers attended an address on Sunday November 10 to invite a woman to attend a voluntary interview on the matter.'

The case was being treated as a criminal matter rather than an non-crime hate incident, police sources suggested.

Writing in the Telegraph yesterday, Ms Pearson said officers were unable to explain the nature of the allegedly offending post or provide the identity of the complainant.

She said she told them: Okay, youre here to accuse me of causing offence but Im not allowed to know what it is. Nor can I be told whom Im being accused by? How am I supposed to defend myself, then?

She added: The two policemen exchanged glances. Clearly, the Kafkaesque situation made no sense to them, either.

This is supposed to be 2024, not 1984, yet the police officers seemed to be operating according to the George Orwell operational manual.
A driver who was slapped with a speeding ticket has launched his own investigation into NSW Police - and won a payout of nearly $5,000.

In July 2023, Jeffrey Little was pulled over and accused of driving 26 km/h over the limit in a 90 km/h area.

But he 'knew in my heart of hearts' that he hadn't been speeding, he told news.com.au.

The former police detective from the Central Coast was convinced he had received a penalty for 'something I hadn't done'.

'No one hates a bad cop more than a good cop,' he said.

After driving for nearly 40 years without a driving offence, he was amazed he didn't receive a warning, and decided to fight the fine in court.

His legal costs reached $4,477, as he issued subpoenas uncovering practices surrounding LIDAR speeding devices. Police eventually withdrew the charge.

On Wednesday, Magistrate Alan Railton ordered NSW Police to pay all of Little's legal costs in Wyong Local Court.

NSW Police were ordered to pay Little's full legal costs.

Magistrate Railton found the officer in charge of Little's case had carried out his investigation in an 'unreasonable and improper manner'.

The officer had failed to test and log the speeding device, which was supposed to be standard procedure.

'The officer in charge gave evidence the relevant tests were carried out but were not noted in the log,' the magistrate said.

'I am of the opinion that the failure to record the log and  failure to comply with NSW standard operating procedures amount to an improper manner.

'Any deviation from the standard operating manner is improper.'

When the officer was approached outside court, he declined to comment to news.com.au.

Little once led an investigation into allegations of child abuse among church officials in the Maitland region, during his work as a detective.
Rep. Matt Gaetz stepped down from his position in the U.S. House of Representatives just hours after Donald Trump picked him as Attorney General.

The dramatic move by Gaetz came as Punchbowl News revealed the impending release of a 'highly damaging' report concerning sex trafficking and drug use allegations against the Florida rep.

Now that Gaetz is no longer a member of Congress, the House Ethics Committee loses jurisdiction over him, although the report may still be released.

Attorney General Merrick Garland's DOJ also conducted an investigation into the Florida Republican over claims of sex trafficking, but he was never charged.

Gaetz's decision came as even Republicans questioned whether the controversial pick to head the Justice Department could clear the Senate.

Rep. Matt Gaetz made a shock announcement that he is immediately stepping down from Congress

House Speaker Mike Johnson revealed that he received Gaetz's resignation letter on Wednesday, effective immediately.

Now, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will be able to appoint someone else to fill Gaetz's opening House seat in in Florida's 1st congressional district.

Johnson admitted that the resignation 'caught us by surprise a little bit,' but says he believes Gaetz resigned in order to prevent vacancies in the closely-split House and give DeSantis the eight weeks to find his successor.

DeSantis received a call from Johnson today to start initiating the process of finding a replacement.

The House Ethics Committee has been investigating Gaetz on and off since 2021.

The panel announced earlier this year that the GOP lawmaker was under investigation for sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and bribery.

Trump announced on Wednesday his intention to nominate Rep. Gaetz as Attorney General to lead reforms at the Department of Justice  the same agency that was investigating the lawmaker for allegations of sex trafficking

Gaetz married his wife Ginger Luckey in 2021

Allegations regarding Gaetz's sexual relationships with underage girls resurfaced Wednesday after Trump announced the Florida representative as his pick for Attorney General.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin slammed Gaetz earlier this year for showing images of girls he 'slept with' to colleagues on the floor of the U.S. House.

The Oklahoma Senator now tells CNN that he trusts Trump's decision to pick Gaetz to join his cabinet and lead the Justice Department.

But he warned Geatz about questions he will have to face during Senate confirmation hearings.

Republican senators expressed hesitation when asked for their reactions to news of the nomination.

Sen Cornyn doesnt say whether he supports Gaetz as AG or not, says senate will do its job of advise and consent. I dont know the man other than just his public persona.  Liz Goodwin (@lizcgoodwin) November 13, 2024

'I have to noodle that one a little while,' said Sen. Kevin Cramer to Washington Post reporter Liz Goodwin.

Sen. Cornyn also said he was not sure.

'I dont know the man other than just his public persona,' he said.

Sen. Tom Tillis indicated that it would be difficult for Gaetz to get 50 votes in the Senate, but said he would give him an 'honest look.'

'You got to have the credentials right so that'll come out in the hearing, but then you have to have the relationships,' he said, referring to Gaetz's persona.
A convicted murderer known as 'The Wolfman' who has served nearly 40 years in prison after a bride-to-be was beaten to death could get a retrial after his conviction was referred to the Court of Appeal.

Diane Sindall, 21, was killed with a crowbar after she ran out of petrol when she left her part-time job as a barmaid in Bebington, Merseyside in August 1986.

Peter Sullivan was convicted of her murder the following year after one of the biggest man hunts the area has ever seen.

The florist's injuries were so horrific they were never revealed by the police - but Sullivan gained his horrific nickname after he was convicted through bite marks found on her body that matched his dental records.

The unemployed-father-of-one had spent the day drinking heavily after losing a darts match at the Crown Hotel, before a chance encounter with Ms Sindall as she walked to a petrol station when her blue Fiat van ran out of petrol, the Liverpool Echo reports.

On Wednesday, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) said that Sullivan's conviction had been referred to the Court of Appeal on the basis of DNA evidence.

Peter Sullivan was convicted of murdering Diane Sindall, 21, was killed with a crowbar in August 1986

Diane Sindall was brutally murdered after she left her part-time job as a barmaid in Bebington, Merseyside

In a statement the CCRC told The Mirror: 'Mr Sullivan applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) in March 2021 raising concerns about his interviews by the police, bitemark evidence presented in his trial, and what was said to be the murder weapon.

'After consulting experts, the CCRC obtained DNA information from samples taken at the time of the offence.

'As a result, a DNA profile was obtained which did not match Mr Sullivan. The CCRC has now sent Mr Sullivan's conviction back to the courts.'

Samples taken at the time of the murder were re-examined and a DNA profile that did not match Sullivan was found, the commission said.

Sullivan applied to the body to have his case re-examined in 2021, raising concerns about police interviews, bite mark evidence and the murder weapon.

He claimed he had not been provided with an appropriate adult during interviews.

The CCRC added that there was evidence suggesting there were breaches in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 over police interviews, as he was not given an appropriate adult and was initially denied legal representation.

Sullivan had previously applied to the CCRC in 2008 raising questions about DNA evidence, but forensic experts said that further testing was unlikely to reveal a DNA profile.

He applied to the High Court for permission to appeal against his conviction in 2019 over bite mark evidence, but this was rejected by the Court of Appeal in 2021.

At the time of his trial, a scientist specialising in teeth told the jury that his teeth marks were as unique as a finger print.

In September 1987, the Liverpool Echo reported Prosecutor Mr Andrew Rankin QC said: 'The defendant caused those bite marks -he murdered Diane Sindall beyond argument. That is how important the evidence of bite marks is.

The unemployed-father-of-one had spent the day drinking heavily after losing a darts match at the Crown Hotel (pictured) before a chance encounter with Ms Sindall as she walked to a petrol station when her blue Fiat van ran out of petrol, the Liverpool Echo reports

'This is the critical part of the case - so critical that, in my submission, you can forget the rest of the case.'

He told Liverpool Crown Court that Sullivan had teeth which matched all the features found on Ms Sindall's right breast.

Sullivan had a history of petty convictions and confessed, before retracting his plea. He was convicted in November 1987.

Horrific descriptions of the girl's injuries were described to the court, where her face, head and body had been left with multiple fractures from the crowbar.

Her clothes had been pulled around her neck and her jeans, shoes, underwear and handbag were missing.

Fibres found on her were later matched to Sullivan's socks and a sofa at his council home.

She was attacked on her way home to her boyfriend, who she had dated since she was 16 years old.

'The severity of the injuries left little doubt that Diane would have died very quickly once the blows rained down, but she was then dragged backwards and stripped almost naked,' the pathologist who carried out Ms Sindall's post-mortem told the court, The Sun reports.
Coles shoppers have been outraged after a customer spotted security tags on packets of meat as the supermarket cracks down on theft.

Mandy Van shared footage to TikTok when she spotted the grey tags and bright yellow warning stickers on items at a Coles in Boronia, in Melbourne's east.

The clip, which has been viewed almost 150,000 times, showed dozens of meat trays stocked inside an open display fridge with security tags attached.

'Tell me you live in the ghetto without telling me you live in the ghetto,' Ms Van wrote.

Hundreds posted comments slamming the supermarket giant for bringing in the extreme security measure.

'What is happening in this world when a supermarket has more security than a bank,' one wrote.

'Wow, I'm sure they'll be implementing this at all Coles stores soon,' added a second.

'That's crazy,' said another.

@mandycherie Tell me you live in the ghetto without telling me you live in the ghetto @Coles   original sound - Eggzlybeb

One shopper said their local Coles store prevents customers from purchasing pieces of steak directly from the shelves.

'You have to go and ask the butcher, who puts another scanning code on the meat so you beep at [the] checkout and a second worker then scans again,' they wrote.

Others said the tags have been in place for a while at several stores.

'Meat has been security tagged since they brought in self checkout years ago to stop people not scanning it,' one person wrote.

A Coles spokesman told Daily Mail Australia the supermarket has introduced a range of security measures including CCTV cameras to reduce retail theft.

'The TikTok showing tags on some meat products is a very small trial in just 10 Victorian stores,' they said.

'We are always reassessing and trying new security measures, and are keen to hear local feedback on the trial.

The clip, which has been viewed more than 150,000 times, showed dozens of meat trays stocked inside an open display fridge with the tags attached to the products (pictured)

'It's important to note that the majority of customers do the right thing in store. Measures like this are for the ones who don't.'

It's understood the trial to introduce the security tags began earlier this year.

The spokesman said Woolworths also has a range of other measures to help reduce retail crime.

'These initiatives include the use of camera technology at the checkouts, double welcome gates, CCTV and a trial of gates at the exit to our self-serve checkout area,' they said.

'The majority of our customers do the right thing and we thank them for doing so.'

The implementation of the measures come as new data revealed meat theft has increased by 85 per cent between 2022 and 2023.

The findings by retail crime intelligence platform Auror also revealed 67,000 incidents of meat theft were reported in 2023.

Pork was the most popular meat stolen, with thefts increasing by 35 per cent.

Lamb was the second most popular with thieves, at 31 per cent followed by beef at 15 per cent.
Jetstar is resuming flights between Australia and Bali after conditions from a volcanic eruption improved.

Six return Jetstar flights will fly to Denpasar from across Australia on Thursday, consisting of four scheduled services and two ad-hoc recovery flights.

'Our teams have been working through the night to closely monitor the evolving situation and assess when it's safe to fly,' the airline said in a statement.

'We will continue to monitor the changing conditions and volcanic activity and work on plans to operate more recovery flights.'

The emergency began on Sunday when Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki volcano erupted, spewing an ash column 9km high.

The event in East Nusa Tenggara province, about 500km from Bali, killed nine people and prompted the evacuation of more than 15,000 people close to the crater.

Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia cancelled multiple flights because of safety concerns.
A California teacher reportedly stormed out of her classroom after seeing a student wear a Make America Great Again shirt last week.

The unidentified Spanish teacher at Cerritos High School later sent students a lengthy email in which she argued that MAGA clothes are 'meant to intimidate both students and teachers' and called president-elect Donald Trump a 'fascist.'

She also argued in her missive that it is unfair that students can wear political clothes, but teachers cannot - saying that she is speaking to ABC Unified School District officials about the policy and is 'in talks with my union representative and attorneys.'

'Given the current political climate and ABC USD's policy of neutrality NOT being neutral in the sense that students are allowed to express their political views by wearing their preferred political party attire and teachers are NOT allowed to express their political views by wearing their preferred political party attire, I am having a disagreement with administration regarding this double standard,' the teacher allegedly wrote in the email on November 7, screengrabs of which were shared on social media.

'It is not a neutral stance when one group is allowed to express their political views (even if those views are racist, misogynistic, antisemi[tic] and homophobic) and the other side is silenced under threat of losing their job and/or being seriously reprimanded,' read the email, simply signed Profe. O.

A Spanish teacher at Cerritos High School (pictured) reportedly walked out of class after seeing one of her students wear a Make America Great Again shirt

The teacher then sent students a lengthy email in which she argued that MAGA clothes are 'meant to intimidate both students and teachers' and called president-elect Donald Trump a 'fascist'

The teacher then seemed to hit out at the student who wore the MAGA shirt saying it represents 'a deep hatred of minorities, women, non-Christian religion and LGBTQ+, and in my opinion are a HATE crime when worn at school.'

'As a Latina woman, who is agnostic at best but leans towards atheism and a mother of an LGBTQ+ daughter and supporter of ALL my LGBTQ+ students, I do not feel safe at work, and I fear for the safety of my daughter and my students when administration allows students to wear clothing that expresses their utter disdain and hatred of women, minorities, non-Christian religions and the LGBTQ+ community.'

She also called Trump a 'fascist put into office by people who fear the changing demographics of a country, never mind that this country was founded by people immigrating to this great country as they fled dictators and tyrants (my dad from Cuba) or impoverished countries (my grandmother from Mexico) and have come to this country to give their children a better life and opportunity at an education.'

Profe. O concluded by saying she will be taking a few days off for her mental health 'while trying to come up with a better definition of what political neutrality looks like in the classroom so that we can all feel safe coming to school, rather than being intimidated by MAGA attire which has promised to end social services, including education as we know them.'

In the meantime, she encouraged her students to 'keep the politics at home, not in the classroom.'

ABC Unified School District told DailyMail.com they are aware of the situation, and are investigating the teacher's actions. Superintendent Gina Zietlow is pictured

ABC Unified School District told DailyMail.com it is aware of the situation, and is investigating the teacher's actions.

It also said that 'we encourage students to exercise their freedom of speech within the policies set by our Board of Education and California Education Code.'

Courts have previously upheld students' right to free speech inside a school, as they are required to attend, with the Supreme Court ruling in the 1969 Tinker v Des Moines case that pupils do not 'shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.'

But attorney Michael Overing, who teaches First Amendment rights at the University of Southern California told ABC 7: 'It's different with teachers because the teachers are the ones who are there to do a job.

'If the person is exercising a First Amendment right, they risk losing their job,' he said of teachers.

'It's pretty straightforward.'
Labour's tax raid on private tuition fees is in disarray as school heads have been unable to register for VAT on the official UK tax website.

Schools logging on have been told they must have a company number to register, but because they are charities they do not have one.

It left schools spending hours trying to navigate the system via HMRCs live webchat, with one adviser even admitting: we dont seem to have the systems in place.

After being contacted by the Daily Mail, HMRC said it had issued new training to its advisors this week on how to handle the situation.

This involves registering online as a charitable incorporated organisation.

The chaos comes just weeks before the official implementation date for VAT on fees, on January 1.

Keir Starmer and the Labour party's tax raid on tuition fees has caused chaos just weeks before the implementation date

Private schools have been warning that the date, which falls directly in the middle of the school year, does not give them time to prepare.

One adviser admitted to an accountant working for a school: We dont seem to have the systems in place to facilitate what we are requesting fee paying schools to do.

The adviser also suggested the problem was widespread, leading to delays in queries being answered via email.

They added: This is why there is probably a delay due to the demand on the email account because everyone will be asking the same question as yourself.

The adviser spent almost an hour trying to resolve the problem by asking various colleagues, but in the end could not help.

They admitted they were frustrated and added: There comes a point when enough is enough.

Surely most fee paying schools must be in a similar position as yourselves, registered charities, so this situation should have been pre-empted.

It comes after the Independent Schools Bursars Association (ISBA) said the implementation date should be extended until September 1 2025.

ISBA pointed out it had been advised by HMRC not to even register for VAT until after the budget on October 30.

David Woodgate, ISBAs chief executive, said: Independent schoolshave only a very short window in which to implement labyrinthine new rules and regulations.

It was also claimed that the ISBA tried to warn HMRC that parts of its guidance on complying with the tax were inadequate and incoherent, but was ignored.

Labour says the tax on private schools will pay for 6,500 extra teachers for the state sector (file image)

Mr Woodgate added: It is not too late for the government to make a rational, pragmatic decision to defer implementation until next September, in the best interests both of schools and HMRC who clearly need more time to get their systems and processes up to speed and enable finance teams in schools to comply with the new regulations.

A spokesman for HMRC said: We have provided clarification to private schools on what reference numbers are required to register for VAT. We have also updated guidance on gov.uk.'

Labour says the controversial tax will pay for 6,500 extra teachers for the state sector.

It says private schools should absorb some or all of the cost so that it is not passed on to parents via fee rises.

However, many schools have already said they will have to raise fees, and many families will not be able to afford it.

Tens of thousands of pupils are expected to be forced from their schools to find places in the state sector, creating added cost for the taxpayer.
It bucks the general results trend among the genders.

But female students are less likely to get first-class honours at Oxbridge - and it is partly because of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and a higher aversion to risk, a new report suggests.

Male students are ahead in gaining the top mark in almost every subject at Oxford and Cambridge, according to the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi).

The study said that the focus on end-of-year exams at these universities disadvantages women, causing fewer of them to get firsts.

It suggested this could be because some women are held back by PMS on any particular exam day.

In addition, it may be that women do better in coursework and continuous assessment because they thrive in lower-risk situations rather than a high-stakes end-of-year exam.

The examination school at Oxford University, where male students are gaining the top mark in nearly every subject

At the University of Cambridge men are ahead of women by 43 percentage points in Theology

The gap could be related to premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Pictured: a woman experiencing stomach cramps

The study pointed out that women are ahead of men at other universities where there is not such a heavy focus on exams.

At Cambridge, the biggest attainment gap was in theology, where men are ahead of women by 43 percentage points.

At Oxford, it was classics, which has a 29 percentage point gap in favour of men.

Men are ahead in a wide range of other subjects, from history to physics, with only a handful of disciplines across both universities where this is not the case.

It is a problem specific to Oxbridge, as the only subject group where men generally outperform women at a first-class level is the social sciences, with a 0.9 percentage point gap.

Report author Famke Veenstra-Ashmore said: 'Women still face significant institutional barriers to the highest levels of academic achievement at Oxford and Cambridge.

'The slow pace of change is deeply unfair and means female students are not getting the most out of their experience of higher education.'

The report says a number of factors may contribute to the trend, including Oxbridge's focus on final year exams.

It says: '[This] disadvantages women from reaching the first-class bracket because they are generally less likely to take risks, are impacted by Premenstrual Syndrome and may perform better in coursework.'

The report added: 'The added anxieties around menstruation and the tiredness and pain that can come with it are often cited as contributors to unexpectedly poor academic performance in some examinations taken by women.'

Other reasons could include the lack of female lecturers in some subjects, as 'role models are important for building confidence and encouraging aspiration.'

A number of factors may contribute to the trend, including Oxbridge's focus on final year exams. Pictured: All Souls College, Oxford University

There are only a handful of subjects across both universities where men are not ahead

The effects of menstruation and the tiredness and pain that can come with it could be causing the gap between the genders

In addition, the tutorial system of Oxbridge is sometimes 'combative and confrontational', with some female students reporting they felt 'undermined' during discussions by male peers.

The report called for a 'reconsideration' of the 'balance of examinations to coursework', as 'in some cases, coursework is a fairer evaluation of a student's research skills'.

However, it stressed that assessment should not be 'dumbed down' and should retain its 'rigour'.

Professor Bhaskar Vira, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education at Cambridge, said: 'The university is investigating possible causes for the awarding gap in first class degrees, including variation across subject and time.

'This is also being examined as part of our current teaching review. Our findings so far suggest that there is no single cause, and while there are examples of progress in some parts of the University, more remains to be done..'

Professor Martin Williams, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education at the University of Oxford, said: 'The University is committed to addressing gaps in degree outcomes where they exist and has set a target to eliminate the current gap between our male and female undergraduate students by 2030.

'Progress has been made in some subject areas, but the reasons for this gap are varied and highly complex. We are working hard to understand this issue through extensive engagement with students, and are introducing measures including flexible teaching, mixed assessment methods, study skills support, as well as enhanced data provision to enable us to better target support.'
A Supreme Court judge who assaulted and emotionally abused his then-partner has been sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

The punishment is part of a 12-month community corrections order handed down to Tasmanian Justice Gregory Geason on Thursday in Hobart Magistrates Court.

Geason was previously found guilty of assaulting a woman on October 31, 2023 at a Hobart home and one count of emotional abuse or intimidation spanning a period of months.

The 63-year-old, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, was found to have grabbed, shaken and pushed the woman, causing her to fall into a mantelpiece and suffer bruising and concussion.

Geason was also found to have tracked her movements and was verbally abusive, aggressive and jealous.

Magistrate Susan Wakeling on Thursday described the assault as serious offending and said the emotional abuse was 'not at the lower level'.

She sentenced Geason to 100 hours of community service and recorded a conviction.

Tasmanian Supreme Court Justice Gregory Geason (red tie) has been found guilty of assaulting and emotionally abusing hisgirlfriend

'Your moral culpability ... is high. Your love for her does not mitigate your abuse of trust,' Ms Wakeling said.

'You have not demonstrated any remorse ... even following the finding of guilt.'

Geason must also continue treatment for his mental health and not leave Tasmania unless given permission by a probation officer.

Geason's lawyer Fabiano Cangelosi told the court on Tuesday his client intended to resign and considered he no longer had the moral authority to continue serving as a judge.

'The destruction of his public image and professional life is total,' he said.

Ms Wakeling previously found the woman to be a truthful witness and ruled Geason's version of the assault, in which he said she tripped, to be implausible.

The woman told the court she spent months in hospital after the assault and was unable to work for eight months.

She has since installed cameras around her home and was often 'looking over her shoulder', she said in a statement to the court via video link.

In a separate matter, Geason pleaded guilty in a NSW court to breaching an apprehended violence order and is expected to be sentenced in December.
A registered nurse working night-shift at a nursing home when a police officer tasered a resident has said she was 'very, very concerned' when the weapon was used on the woman.

Senior Constable Kristian James Samuel White shot his stun gun at great-grandmother Clare Nowland at Yallambee Lodge in the southern NSW town of Cooma in the early hours of May 17, 2023.

The 95-year-old hit her head on the floor when she fell and had an inoperable bleed on the brain, dying at Cooma Hospital a week later.

White, who says he acted lawfully under his duties as a police officer, returned to his NSW Supreme Court trial on Wednesday.

Registered nurse Rosaline Baker had been working at the aged-care home for just over two weeks when she called triple zero regarding Mrs Nowland.

She said she had previously tried to get Mrs Nowland out of three other residents' rooms about 3am after the great-grandmother grabbed two steak knives and a jug of prunes from a kitchen.

White and acting Sergeant Jessica Pank arrived on the scene after two paramedics.

Senior Constable Kristian James Samuel White faced the NSW Supreme Court on trial for tasering a 95-year-old woman who died after sustaining an inoperable brain bleed

Clare Nowland, 95, died a week later after she was tasered at the Yallambee Lodge care home

They searched for the great-grandmother with Ms Baker, finding her in a treatment room.

When the 34-year-old senior constable pulled out his Taser, the nurse said she did not know what it was and was 'kind of curious'.

'In my years of experience as a nurse, almost 50 years, I've never seen anything like that,' she told the court.

She then heard a loud noise and saw Mrs Nowland get hit.

'I was very, very concerned when she was falling to the ground,' Ms Baker said.

In video footage played on Tuesday, White could be seen shouting orders at Mrs Nowland as she shuffled forward while gripping a steak knife and her walker from within a treatment room.

'You keep coming, you're going to get tased,' the officer told her before he fired.

Ms Baker described her feelings earlier that night when Mrs Nowland had raised a knife at her in the nursing home's darkened corridors.

'Were you scared or concerned when that knife was pointed at you?' crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC asked.

'No, I was concerned about her going around to other places and other rooms, that something could happen to other residents,' she said.

Earlier on Wednesday, geriatrician Susan Kurrle told the jury she diagnosed Mrs Nowland with moderate to moderately severe dementia at the time she was tasered.

While still mobile on her four-wheeled walker, the 95-year-old would have been unable to understand what was happening around her or comply with instructions, she said.

Professor Kurrle said Mrs Nowland's behaviour had escalated in the three months before her death.

'She was constantly resistant to any changes or anything they asked her to do and she didn't appear to understand,' the expert said.

'With hindsight, it's very clear that the symptoms and signs were developing over that time.'

Registered nurse Rosaline Baker told the court she was 'very, very concerned' when White used the taser on Ms Nowland

Pictured, body cam footage showed police handcuffing Ms Nowland after she was tasered and fell to the ground, hitting her head

Mrs Nowland exhibited anti-social behaviour in early 2023, including taking residents' food, trying to undress in social areas, disturbing residents in their rooms, wandering around in the cold and dark and refusing to accept staff assistance, the jury heard.

The court was played CCTV footage of three incidents at Yallambee Lodge in March and April 2023, when the 95-year-old physically lashed out, rammed one staff member with her walker and climbed an embankment and got stuck in a tree.

She was admitted to hospital on April 16 and prescribed the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal to calm her aggressive behaviour after punching and biting staff.

Under questioning by defence barrister Troy Edwards SC, Prof Kurrle admitted Mrs Nowland's behaviour in the moments before she was tasered could have resulted from staff deciding to reduce the dosage of Risperdal two days before.

The trial continues on Thursday.
A magnitude 4.0 earthquake has been recorded off the coast of Western Australia.

The quake was detected 260km from Albany on the southern coast of WA, at a depth of 10km at about 10.45am local time on Thursday.

Geoscience Australia has received four felt reports from people who felt the tremors, two in Augusta, one person in Margaret River and one person in Manjimup.

It comes just two days after thousands of residents were left without power after a magnitude 4.1 earthquake rocked regional NSW.

The event was recorded 7km from Denman in the Upper Hunter Region, 250km north of Sydney, at a depth of 10km at 12.15pm on Tuesday.

Over 300 people reported feeling the earthquake in the Hunter Valley, Central Coast, Scone and Penrith in western Sydney, according to Geoscience Australia.

Experts warned the NSW quake was part of a 'swarm sequence' that would see more seismic activity in the area over the coming months.

Residents in the NSW mining town of Muswellbrook were told to expect 'hundreds to thousands' of aftershocks in the wake of four quakes in three months.

The magnitude 4.0 earthquake was detected about 260km from Albany on the southern coast of WA at a depth of 10km at about 10.45am local time on Thursday (pictured)

The quake struck off the coast of the D'Entrecasteaux National Park 315km south of Perth

'In earthquake swarms, you have a series of the earthquakes with similar size magnitudes  it's not like an aftershock sequence,' senior seismologist Dr Hadi Ghasemi from GeoScience Australia told the ABC.

'In this region, since the magnitude-4.7 in August, we've recorded over 50 earthquakes, four of them with magnitudes larger than 4, including the recent one.'

Dr Ghasemi warned residents of the possibility of further tremors being felt.

'All of the previous magnitude-4 ones in this region, they were followed by smaller aftershocks,' he said.

'But then again, with the swarm activity this kind of activity may continue for months or even years to come.'
A ride share driver has been arrested after he allegedly fired a water pistol in the Sydney CBD near NSW Parliament House, sparking a major police operation.

The alleged incident unfolded on Hospital Road at about 1pm on Thursday.

Emergency services rushed to the scene with six police cars and more than a dozen officers attending following reports of a man discharging what was initially believed to be a replica firearm/

NSW Police initially alleged the replica firearm was discharged several times into the ground.

'The bloke apparently drives along Hospital Road to Parliament House and fires what looks like a glock into the Domain,' a parliamentary source told the Daily Telegraph.

Police said the man left the location in a vehicle prior to police arrival.

A man allegedly fired a replica firearm near the Domain Parklands behind NSW Parliament House. Pictured are police at the scene

NSW Police said the replica gun was fired into the ground several times. The scene is pictured

A crime scene was established and officers searched the Domain parklands directly behind Parliament House, reportedly looking for casings from the alleged incident.

Detectives spoke with NSW Parliament special constables and Premier Chris Minns' close protection officers.

Mr Minns and other state MPs were inside the Parliament at the time.

Following inquiries, police arrested a male ride share driver in Mascot in the city's south shortly after 5pm.

Officers also seized a water pistol, which will be subject to further examination.

NSW Police have seized a water pistol in relation to the alleged incident

The man was taken to Mascot Police Station where he's currently being interviewed by officers.

No charges have yet been laid.
Fans of 'trad wife' influencer Nara Aziza Smith are convinced they figured out who she and her husband, Lucky Blue, voted for in the presidential election amid a bizarre witch hunt into celebrities who secretly supported president-elect Trump.

Neither Nara, 23, nor Lucky Blue, 26, have spoken about their political beliefs, but in the aftermath of Trump's stunning victory last week, a Redditor posted screengrabs he believed proved Lucky Blue was a Trump fan.

The screengrabs showed the male model allegedly shared a celebratory election post from conservative American activist Scott Presler on his TikTok. They also appeared to show he was following conservative pundit Charlie Kirk.

Many then assumed that if Lucky Blue were a Republican who may have voted for Trump, he must have convinced his doting wife to do so as well.

The news seemed to have stunned some social media users, with one TikToker saying she 'can't say I saw that coming' and will have to 'unfollow her', despite liking her content.

Netizens are convinced Nara Aziza Smith and her husband, Lucky Blue Smith, are secretly Trump supporters

They pointed to screengrabs showing Lucky allegedly shared a celebratory election post from conservative American activist Scott Presler on his TikTok page and was apparently following conservative pundit Charlie Kirk

Others, though, seemed to suggest her 'trad wife' videos in which she makes soaps and even Coca-Cola from scratch lends itself to a conservative view.

'Nara Smith turning out to be a conservative after being the face of an extremely conservative anti-feminist movement,' one social media user wrote.

Another said that 'people finding out Nara Smith is a Trump supporter as if the entire "trad wife" lifestyle isn't anti-feminist at its core like WE KNEW.'

'Like pls be so for real, there's no way y'all thought Mormon trad wife Nara Smith was voting the same as you,' a third said, while a fourth wrote 'Lucky Blue Smith being a Republican and at one point a Trump supporter' with a reaction GIF saying 'Pretends to be shocked.'

Dr. Jess Maddox, a social media expert, also said: 'The fact that so many people are shocked to learn Nara Smith's politics is revealing so much about the relationship between homesteading, gender and politics.

'This isn't just fun aesthetics for people doing it,' she said. 'This is an ideological project seeking converts.'

Another X user wrote: 'So NOW do y'all understand that the critiques leveled against Nara Smith had nothing to do with Mormonism itself, but with the sanitization and promotion of FASCISM AND TRADITIONAL VALUES?'

Nara a Bloemfontein, South Africa-born beauty, who was raised in Germany , met Lucky, a Mormon from Utah, when they were both models in 2019, and converted to Mormonism one year later when they got married

Nara a Bloemfontein, South Africa-born beauty, who was raised in Germany, met Lucky, a Mormon from Utah, when they were both models in 2019, and converted to Mormonism one year later when they got married.

She was just 18 years old at the time, and after just six months of dating, she became pregnant with her eldest child.

Nara and Lucky Blue now have three children - Rumble Honey, Slim Easy and Whimsy Lou - and have inspired others to start cooking from scratch.

But the clips have also garnered a measure of controversy at times, according to a profile published in Harper's Bazaar in August.

Some commenters are critical of her embracing the cliche of a traditional housewife and nostalgia toward a timeframe when women's rights had not evolved to the point where they are now.

Smith said of her critics, 'For the sake of my mental health, I cant indulge in that. I cant keep correcting people or read things and get frustrated.'

Lucky also defended her against the critics, who he said are coming from a place of envy.

'People are seeing her gaining some success from everything shes doing,' Lucky said.

'If you have someone who doesnt know you at all and theyre making a video about you online with things that are not true, you can just tell its coming from a place of jealousy. Lets call it what it is.'

Her 'trad wife' videos see her making soaps and even Coca-Cola from scratch

Some social media users suggested her lifestyle lends itself to a conservative viewpoint

Nara also said in the piece that she is expressing her individuality and hopes others can find value in the,.

'To me, it's all about just putting what I love out there, and whoever can resonate with that and take something away from it - that's what I want to do,' Smith said.

'Sometimes my outfits aren't the most practical, but then again fashion isn't always practical.

'That's what I do. I post videos of me cooking for my kids and my husband. It's really not that deep.'
A 'floor shaking' Haka briefly suspended New Zealand Parliament as Maori politicians opposed a controversial bill.

The libertarian ACT Party, a minor partner in New Zealand's National Party-led coalition, has introduced a bill that will radically change how the Treaty of Waitangi is interpreted.

The Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand's founding document, an agreement signed between the British Crown and around 540 Maori chiefs on February 6, 1840.

It still defines the relationship between Maori and ruling authorities.

But the ACT claims it grants indigenous Kiwis greater legal and political rights and their bill will bring an end to what they describe as 'division by race'.

The bill has prompted waves of protests and warnings from academics and lawyers that it will negatively impact Maori rights.

These protests spilled over into parliament on Thursday after the bill was introduced two weeks before it was originally due to be scheduled.

As each party was called to provide their votes for the Treaty Principles Bill on Thursday afternoon, Hauraki Waikato MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke of the Te Pati Maori Party erupted into a haka.

As each party was called to provide their votes for the Treaty Principles Bill on Thursday afternoon, Hauraki Waikato MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke of the Te Pati Maori Party erupted into a haka (pictured)

Furious parliamentary speaker Gerry Brownlee attempted to stop the performance.

But the entire public gallery and Te Pati Maori MPs continued with the haka, as Labour and Green MPs stood in apparent support of the protest.

Te Pati Maori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi performed the haka directly in front of ACT Party seats, looking directly at their leader David Seymour who has been a vocal proponent of the bill.

The speaker then suspended parliament, later describing the haka as 'grossly disorderly' and calling it 'appallingly disrespectful conduct inside the House'

A furious Gerry Brownlee, the parliamentary speaker, attempted to stop the performance

The Treaty Principles Bill has now passed its first reading with the support of the National, NZ First and ACT parties.

It will return to Parliament next year to be voted on again.

Up to 8,000 demonstrators are currently marching across New Zealand's North Island in opposition to the bill.

A Haka is a ceremonial war dance performed in Maori culture involving chanting and vigorous body movements.

There are multiple different kinds of hakas that can be performed for different occasions.

For example, the New Zealand rugby team - the All Blacks - perform a haka before each test match.
Australia's most powerful banker has ruled out Bitcoin playing any meaningful role in the economy - despite it surging to a record high - because she doesn't understand it.

The cryptocurrency is now trading at AU$139,000 as investors get excited at Bitcoin enthusiast Donald Trump becoming the next American president - with a plan to hoard cryptocurrencies for strategic purposes.

But Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Michele Bullock has declared she doesn't understand the fuss.

'It's not a currency, it's not money. It's being used as some sort of asset class,' she told the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's annual forum on Thursday.

'I don't understand it. I don't really see a role for it, certainly in the Australian economy or the payments system. Not sure of the purpose of it.'

Ms Bullock also dismissed the idea that Bitcoin could be an alternative currency.

'Don't call it an alternative currency. It's not,' she said shaking her head, adding the price surge was simply a case of 'more buyers than sellers'.

ASIC chairman Joseph Longo was just as scathing, describing demand for it as the 'bigger fool theory' and saying 'who cares?' during a panel discussion about its price surge.

Australia's most powerful banker has ruled out Bitcoin playing a meaningful role in the economy - despite it surging to a record high - because she doesn't understand it

'It's something out of nothing,' he said.

'The environmental impact of creating Bitcoin, to create that stuff, you use the whole power of small, European countries.'

President Trump in July promised to build a national strategic reserve of Bitcoin, treating it like a government-issued currency.

'I'm laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world and we'll get it done,' he said.

Raphael Arndt, the chairman of the federal government's Future Fund, questioned the wisdom of the Americans having a strategic reserve of cryptocurrency.

'If I was the controller of the world's reserve currency and I could print as much of it as I wanted, and I had a Budget deficit as far as I could see, I'm not sure why I'd want a strategic reserve of any currency, let alone one I didn't control or understand,' he said.

Bitcoin has surged by 25 per cent, from $103,000, since Trump's election victory over Democrat Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Michele Bullock declared she didn't understand the fuss about Bitcoin

Nick Forster, an Australian Wall Street trader who co-founded Derive.xyz - a decentralised finance platform for buying and selling cryptocurrency - last week predicted Bitcoin could be worth $A155,000 by the end of 2024.

'Should Donald Trump secure the presidency, it could significantly rally the markets,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'Such a victory could catalyse this movement reflecting investors' anticipation of potential regulatory shifts or economic policies that favour the crypto market.'

Ms Bullock's dismissal of Bitcoin is a stark contrast to her predecessor Philip Lowe's signal in December 2021 that he supported the idea of a digital retail currency.

Cryptocurrencies allow individuals to pay each other directly without the need for a bank account.

Decentralised finance also means money can be exchanged without the need for a central bank to have oversight of the payments system governing how banks handle transactions.
Danica Patrick has revealed how much she was paid by the Trump campaign for her support, as she hit out on Megan Thee Stallion's alleged hefty $5million payday from Kamala Harris.

The former NASCAR driver, 42, threw her support behind the president-elect as she prepared to cast her first-ever ballot.

Ahead of the 2024 election, Danica spoke at a Trump rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania, and also traveled with 45th president leading up to the day - free of charge.

Meanwhile, allegations have spread online that Megan, 29, was allegedly paid an eye-watering $5million by the Harris campaign for her July appearance on the campaign trail, but the vice president's staff have remained silent about the claim.

However a source told DailyMail.com that the artist was never paid for her performance as speculation grows over where the huge checks cut by the campaign to secure celebrity endorsements.

On Tuesday, Danica reposted a video of Megan's performance on X and said: 'All the events, rallys, interviews, social posts.. I did for free. Actually spent a fair amount on wardrobe.

Danica Patrick confirmed that she supported Donald Trump free of charge during his campaign for president

The former NASCAR driver also hit out on Megan Thee Stallion amid reports the rapper was paid an astounding $5million from the Harris campaign for her performance in July

Your browser does not support iframes.

'But to be fair, I cant twerk so. It all adds up,' she added, referring to Megan's dance-filled performance inside Georgia State University's Convocation Center.

Danica took to X to share a behind the scenes glimpse into her time with Trump just before he was announced as the 47th president of the United States.

She shared a series of photos on Instagram that depicted her day traveling with Trump and revealed how she discussed racing cars with the Republican.

She described Trump's energy as 'truly unreal' and explained that she became determined to get involved in this election after receiving backlash for attending her first political event in December.

'Somehow that passion has led me all the way to November 4th... riding on Trump force 1 for the final evening of the campaign... talking about race cars with @realdonaldtrump while we flew to the last rally,' Danica said in a post on X.

'I really think that when you are in alignment with yourself and speaking truth about something you are passionate about it gives you energy.

'And he is passionate about YOU and this country! He doesnt need this job, he wants this job. And no one has had their will tested more than him,' she continued.

Danica Patrick shared a timeline of her night with Trump on X, along with a picture of the two of them smiling on his plane

Patrick also shared a timeline of her night with Trump, along with a picture of the two of them smiling on his plane.

Other images posted by Patrick showed her curling her hair on Trump's plane and hanging out with former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and ex-ESPN reporter Sage Steele.

She sported a red pantsuit as she met with the former president, two of his sons - Eric and Donald Trump Jr. - and daughter Tiffany Trump backstage. She watched the rally with Steele and Megyn Kelly from the audience.

Since throwing her support behind Trump, the retired NASCAR and Indy Car driver took the stage at several campaign events.

During her speech in Pennsylvania - a battleground state that Trump won - Danica ripped the celebrities who have come out to support the Democrats.

'Now I'm speaking. I'm not paid to be here. I don't have a teleprompter. I'm winging this right now, everybody. I don't need a telephone,' she said, referencing rapper Cardi B who endured teleprompter issues at her speech for Harris before eventually reading her words off a phone.

Danica said: 'But to be fair, I cant twerk so. It all adds up,' in reference to Megan's performance inside Georgia State University's Convocation Center over the summer

Patrick continued: 'I never went to a Diddy party. I'm doing this because I love this country and there's nobody that's been tested more than Trump.'

She claimed putting Trump back in the White House is 'the most important decision we will see in our life.'

'We're not living in a time of Republican (versus) Democrat, we're living in good vs. evil.'

Throughout her campaign, Harris wheeled out Megan, Lizzo, Eminem, and Oprah Winfrey to try to get supporters on her side in her failed bid to be president.

Since her defeat to Donald Trump, allegations she paid extortionate seven-figure sums to the A-list backers have emerged on social media.

While some of the figures haven't been confirmed in Federal Election Commission filings, the vice president's staff hasn't responded to claims.

A source close to the situation told DailyMail.com that Megan Thee Stallion wasn't paid for her July appearance on the campaign trail for Harris.

Winfrey also denied the charge, though in her case it gets more complicated because there's a record of two $500,000 payments made to her Harpo Productions company on the Federal Election Commission website.

'Not true,' Winfrey told TMZ. 'I was paid nothing ever.'

In a statement to Variety, a spokesperson for Harpo said, 'The campaign paid for the production costs of "Unite for America," a live-streaming event that took place Sept. 19 outside Detroit, Mich.'

'Oprah Winfrey was at no point during the campaign paid a personal fee, nor did she receive a fee from Harpo,' the spokesperson added.

Throughout her campaign, Harris wheeled out Megan, Lizzo, Eminem, and Oprah Winfrey to try to get supporters on her side in her failed bid to be president

When Harris took over the top of the Democratic ticket for President Joe Biden in July, a number of top artists and actors jumped to get involved in the campaign, which aimed to put the first woman - and woman of color - in the White House.

Megan Thee Stallion was one of them.

She performed at a Harris campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia on July 30th - just nine days after Biden dropped out.

There is no record on the FEC website of the Harris campaign paying Megan Thee Stallion, nor Megan Pete, nor Megan Thee Stallion's production company a fee.

At the same time, three individuals who work or worked for the Harris campaign would not return DailyMail.com's request for comment.

Eminem's and Lizzo's people didn't get back to DailyMail.com.
A woman and child have been rushed to hospital after being injured during turbulence on a Qantas flight from Sydney to Brisbane.

The woman in her 40s, and the child, who is younger than 10, suffered bruising and lacerations on flight QF528 on Wednesday.

The pair were were taken to The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane for treatment, a Queensland Ambulance Service spokeswoman said.

Another person injured on the flight declined treatment from paramedics.

The mother and child were reportedly not wearing seatbelts at the time, even though the seatbelt sign was on.

The plane landed safely after being struck by the turbulence.

'Our pilots and cabin crew are highly trained to manage a range of onboard events, including turbulence events, but we know this would have been very unsettling, and we thank customers for their co-operation,' a Qantas spokeswoman said.

Queensland Ambulance Service said three patients were assessed by paramedics.

The woman in her 40s, and the child, who is younger than 10, suffered bruising and laceration on Qantas flight QF528 on Wednesday (a Qantas plane is pictured in Melbourne)

'Paramedics were called to a location on Bribie Way at 3.15pm on 13 November for reported injuries from turbulence on a flight,' a spokesman said.

'Three patients were assessed, one patient declined assistance however a woman in her 40s and a child were transported to Princes Charles Hospital in stable conditions with bruises and lacerations.'

It comes after the engine on a Qantas aircraft exploded at Sydney Airport, which forced the pilot to make an emergency landing.

Qantas flight QF520 that was heading to Brisbane had just taken off from Sydney shortly before 1pm last Friday when one of the engines failed.

It is understood another person on board the flight was also injured and the passenger declined treatment from paramedics before the plane made a safe landing (pictured stock image)

Passengers on board the plane reported hearing a loud bang before the plane was forced to circle Botany Bay before making an emergency landing.

All 174 passengers disembarked from the plane safely.

Qantas denied reports that an explosion has occurred and instead described the incident as a 'contained engine failure'.

Around the same time, a huge grass fire erupted near the airport's third runway in the vicinity of Sir Joseph Banks Park.

There is no indication that the two incidents are linked.

Huge clouds of smoke were seen billowing above the airport as NSW Fire Service crews fought to get the blaze under control.

More to come.
A California city is set to vote on whether to approve a nearly $6million reparations deal with black and Latino families whose neighborhood was razed in the 1960s.

Section 14 of Palm Springs, a one-mile tract owned by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, was destroyed by city officials to make way for commercial development in the mid-1960s.

More than 230 structures in the neighborhood, where African American and Latino families built and rented homes, were demolished and burned by the city's fire department between 1965 and 1967, the New York Times reports.

It was one of the few places minorities could live due to discriminatory housing restrictions in place at the time, after a change in federal law allowed the tribe to lease the land for up to 99 years.

Former residents have now accepted a $5.9million settlement, which the city council is expected to vote on at a public meeting on Thursday.

Members of the Palm Springs Section 14 Survivors group approved a $5.9million settlement for the destruction of their neighborhood in the 1960s

It is also set to vote on a package that would include up to another $21million for housing, economic development and small business programs.

The city had already set aside $20million of its funds to be spent over the next decade on 'affordable homeownership' for first-time buyers and established a community land trust for low-income residents.

Those who lived in Section 14 and their descendants would receive priority access.

An additional $1million would also be used under the proposal to support small businesses through grants and low-interest loans.

A Section 14 monument, along with naming rights for a future public park and a racial healing center, is also included in the hefty settlement, KESQ reports.

Members of the Palm Springs Section 14 Survivors group praised the deal, which they formally accepted on Wednesday.

'We have been fighting for a long time to tell our story,' Margarita Genera, 86, who lived with her parents and two siblings in the neighborhood told the Times.

Former residents of Section 14 have long contended they were evicted with little or no notice before their homes were destroyed

The former residents have long contended they were evicted with little or no notice before their homes were destroyed, but a California state investigation in 1968 concluded the city showed 'civil disregard' for the rights of its minority resident, but there was no evidence any crimes were committed.

City officials did not acknowledge its wrongdoing until 2021, when it formally apologized for the evictions.

The following year, the survivors' group filed a tort claim, alleging the forced evictions were unlawful and amounted to 'racially-motivated attacks.'

It compared the tragedy to the violence that decimated a vibrant community known as Black Wall Street in 1921, leaving as many as 300 people dead - though no deaths were reported in connection with the displacement of families from Section 14.

'This was a community that was told that you are not deserving - They were told they were a menace, an eyesore, a public nuisance,' Areva Martin, a Los Angeles-based civil rights attorney representing the group.

'This was about acknowledging the harm that was done.'

The Palm Springs city council is expected to vote on the settlement on Thursday

The city council finally approved a package to address the historical injustices, including a cash settlement of about $4.3million in April.

It was increased to $5.9million last week, after city officials received updated information that an estimated 197 homes were involved in the original abatement - up from the 145 homes previously identified, according to the Palm Springs Post.

That money will now be split among the verified former residents and their descendants.

Martin said there were about 300 people in the group, but she expected a smaller number to qualify.

Pearl Devers, who organized the survivors' group, said the settlement is long overdue.

'While no amount of money can fully restore what we lost, this agreement helps pave the way for us all to finally move forward.'

Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein also said in a statement: 'The City Council is deeply gratified that the former residents of Section 14 have agreed to accept what we believe is a fair and just settlement offer.

'The City Council has always respected the historical significance of Section 14, and with this resolution of the claim... we are taking bold and important action that will create lasting benefits for our entire community, while providing programs that prioritize support for the former residents of Section 14.'
An arrest has been made in a grisly decades-old double homicide after a suspect was identified using a fingerprint from a taxi license application.

Theresa Marcoux, 18, and Mark Harnish, 20, were shot dead in West Springfield, Massachusetts on November 19, 1978.

Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni said on Wednesday that a bloody fingerprint was collected at the scene but no match had ever been made.

Then an unnamed tipster came forward with information connecting Timothy Joley, 71, of Clearwater, Florida - who previously lived in Massachusetts, to the crime.

'Investigators obtained a finger print identification card for Joley from the Springfield Police Department, which was on file with that department because Joley was fingerprinted as an applicant for a taxi cab license in the year 2000,' Gulluni said.

Timothy Joley (pictured), 71, was arrested in connection to a 1978 Massachusetts murder after his fingerprints from a taxi cab license application connected him to the crime

Two law enforcement investigators - each with extensive experience in fingerprint analysis, comparison, evaluation and verification - were enlisted and both matched Joley's print to the one left at the scene.

Marcoux and Harnish were last seen alive on the morning of November 19, 1978 at approximately 12:30, leaving a party hosted by friends.

At approximately 9:30am, police discovered a 1967 green Dodge pickup truck that belonged to Harnish parked in a roadway rest area on Route 5 and Riverdale Street.

An officer saw that the driver's side window of the truck was damaged and noticed blood in and around the vehicle.

Marcoux and Harnish's remains were found over a nearby guardrail and they both had multiple gunshot wounds.

'The forthcoming investigation saw painstaking efforts to document and photograph the scene, with physical and biological evidence collected by investigators. The rest area was thoroughly searched for evidence, yet no firearm was recovered,' Gulluni said.

'Investigators concluded that Theresa and Mark had been shot while in the passenger compartment of the pickup truck and their bodies were moved to the area where their remains were later discovered.'

Theresa Marcoux (pictured), 18, and Mark Harnish, 20, were shot dead in West Springfield, Massachusetts on November 19, 1978

Marcoux and Harnish (pictured) were last seen alive on the morning of November 19, 1978 at approximately 12:30, leaving a party hosted by friends

Police discovered Harnish's truck at a rest stop. Their remains were found over a nearby guardrail and they both had multiple gunshot wounds

Ballistics testing concluded that bullets were all fired from the same unknown firearm which was capable of firing 38-caliber ammunition.

After Joley's name was brought up to investigators, they learned he had lived in town at the time and owned a gun.

'Investigators also learned that Joley was a licensed gun owner in November 1978 and that he purchased a Colt handgun approximately one month before the murders,' Gulluni said.

The district attorney said no motive is known at this time and there was no apparent connection between Joley and the victims.

While both of the victims parents have died, their remaining family members attended Gulluni's press conference on Wednesday.

'I admire and respect you for your patience, resolve, and the faith that I know you've maintained over these many years,' he said.
An elite private boys' school has appointed its first female principal since it was founded more than a century ago.

Current Ravenswood School for Girls principal Anne Johnstone will become the new head of Cranbrook private school in Sydney's eastern suburbs, which will become fully co-ed by 2029.

The historic announcement to students and staff was made on Thursday, saying Ms Johnstone will move into the top job from the start of term 3 in 2025, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The head of Ravenswood will replace Cranbrook's former principal Nicholas Sampson, who resigned in March from his $1 million-plus a year role after allegations of workplace bullying and historical abuse at the elite school.

Cranbrook council chair Geoff Lovell wrote in a letter to parents that the appointment follows a 'competitive recruitment process' which involved an extensive global search conducted by recruitment firm Korn Ferry.

'The council was impressed by Annes energy, warmth, intellect, wisdom, deep educational experience and by her values,' he wrote.

'The council is confident that, in appointing Anne as our new head of school, we have secured a leader who can fulfil the hopes and aspirations of the school community.'

'And guide Cranbrook to become the very best co-educational school it can be.'

Current Ravenswood School for Girls principal Anne Johnstone (pictured) will become the new head of Cranbrook in mid-2025

Sydney's exclusive private all-boys school, Cranbrook (pictured) has been in the spotlight after ABC's Four Corners program exposed allegations of bullying and a toxic culture

Ms Johnstone was an English and history teacher before she scored the top job at Ravenswood on Sydney's upper north shore in 2016.

She had previously been head of Adelaide's Seymour College and deputy headmistress at Anglican private girls' school St Catherine's.

Ms Johntone was also the head of St Catherine's junior school.

Cranbrook has been in the spotlight since the ABC's Four Corners exposed bullying claims on March 4, as well as a toxic culture.

Among the allegations aired was that a female teacher was the victim of an attempted blackmail attempt by a male student, who demanded she send him nude photos.

Other allegations came to light days later, claiming Mr Sampson knew a teacher had sent sexually explicit messages to a former student - but had failed to tell the council.

Cranbrook's former principal Nicholas Sampson (pictured) resigned in March after allegations of bullying at the school were exposed, but had a confidential settlement with Cranbrook in June

The Four Corners investigation sparked the resignation of Mr Sampson, who had been the head of Cranbrook for ten years.

The school made a confidential settlement with the former principal in June, saying the reason for him leaving 'may have caused confusion'.

The $46,500-a-year school lists late billionaire Kerry Packer and his son James among its alumi

The school announced in 2022 it would start accepting girls in years 7 and 11 from 2026 and would be fully co-ed by 2029.
Teachers have been told not to use the word 'bullies' to avoid upsetting them  and ordered to call in police when pupils are suspected of hate crime.

Latest guidance from the SNP government aimed at cracking down on bullying highlights the importance of tackling prejudice  including misgendering and 'microaggressions'.

This is the term given to an intentional or unintentional casual slight based on race, culture, beliefs or gender  for example, assuming that someone is foreign-born because of their race or name.

Staff have been instructed not to label children as 'bullies' or 'victims'  as it can be 'disempowering'  and pupil exclusion does not feature in the 57-page document.

Last night, Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth was told to 'get a grip by ditching the wokery and protecting the victims of bullying'.

Latest guidance from the SNP government aimed at cracking down on bullying highlights the importance of tackling prejudice  including misgendering and 'microaggressions'

Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said the 'woke' guidance is 'inappropriate'

Scottish Tory children and young people spokesman Roz McCall said: 'This guidance might be full of warm words but it also fails to address the serious issues that our teachers are having to deal with every single day.

'That is typical of the SNP who have dithered and delayed as violence has soared in Scotland's schools.

'It has consequences if we are asking teachers to record incidents based on ideology, rather than allowing them to show some common sense and get on with teaching.'

Separate Scottish Government research published last year found violence, aggression and disruptive behaviour in schools have risen sharply. But the guidelines state: 'Labelling children and young people as 'bullies' or 'victims' can be disempowering and is unhelpful in supporting them to change their behaviour, or in scaffolding their recovery from a bullying experience.'

Terms such as 'child displaying bullying behaviour' and 'child experiencing bullying behaviour' are preferred.

However, the guidance states that the 'nature of some behaviours may constitute criminal offences, and advice should be sought from Police Scotland where there are significant concerns'.

The document also stresses the importance of recording all incidents and being alert to prejudice as an aspect of bullying, which could then fall foul of the Hate Crime Act.

Staff have been instructed not to label children as 'bullies' or 'victims'  as it can be 'disempowering'  and pupil exclusion does not feature in the 57-page document

Bullying of youngsters who identify as trans can be manifested in many different ways, it says, including 'deliberately misgendering'.

The guidelines also state that it is 'crucial to help [bullies] recognise the harm their behaviour causes, repair relationships when possible and desired, and challenge prejudicial attitudes through education and building empathy'.

Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: 'This woke guidance is totally inadequate.

'The soft and 'inclusive' approach it promotes is more likely to encourage bullies than to deter them.

'It places children in danger and undermines the authority of hard-pressed teachers facing daily thuggery in the classroom.

'Bullying, including online bullying, should be treated as crossing a red line that results in exclusion and, for a second offence, expulsion.'

Ms Gilruth said: 'I am committed to creating safe, inclusive, and supportive environments where children and young people can thrive.'
Xi's cultural exchange footprints: Peru, China's 'neighbor' across the Pacific Ocean

(People's Daily App) 08:39, November 14, 2024

The Shizai Bronze Ding from the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046BC771BC), an armored Terracotta Warrior from the Qin Dynasty (221BC206BC) and a tri-colored glazed pottery camel from the Tang Dynasty (618907)  these are just a few of the more than 100 cultural relics that weave together the story of Chinas ancient civilization.

On November 21, 2016, President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan, together with then Peruvian first couple, attended the closing ceremony of the China-Latin America Cultural Exchange Year in Lima. They also visited the Long Distance Separates No Bosom Friends - Treasures of China exhibition.

In recent years, bilateral cultural exchanges are flourishing. The two peoples, though separated by long distance, enjoy connected hearts and deep friendship, Xi said at the closing ceremony.

During their visit to the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History of Peru, the two heads of state and their wives viewed the photo exhibition A River of Civilization  Mutual Learning between China and Peru. They also attended a joint performance by the China National Traditional Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra of Peru, featuring the Chinese folk song "Song of Yimeng Mountain" and a Peruvian folk song "El Condor Pasa." The soft, graceful sound of the Chinese pipa and the ethereal tones of the Peruvian bamboo flutes and pan pipes created a harmonious blend.

The ruins of the ancient city of Machu Picchu, Peru (People's Daily/Zhang Penghui)

The Long Distance Separates No Bosom Friends- Treasures of China exhibition displayed 121 items, including intricately carved jade pieces from the Neolithic period, Tang San Cai (tri-colored glazed pottery of the Tang Dynasty), and porcelain that showcased the cultural exchanges along the Silk Road.

"This piece comes from Shaanxi Province, the birthplace of Chinese civilization," Xi said as he pointed to a Qin Terracotta Warrior, "Shaanxi Province is also my hometown."

Xi also explained the origin of the oracle-bone script character "mu," which translates to "eye."

At this moment, the rich histories of the Chinese and Inca civilizations were presented to the world in a tangible way.

"President Xi took great pride in explaining," said Ivan Ghezzi Solis, then director of the Peru's National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History, recalling the scene as if it was still fresh in his mind. "President Xi provided specific details, demonstrating his deep understanding of Chinese history."

In recent years, China and Peru have embraced Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), strengthening cultural exchanges and mutual learning. Since 2023, exhibitions such as the Journey Through Civilizations World Tour in Peru and the Inca "Sky Road" Andean Culture Exhibition in China received warm welcome by visitors in both countries.

Light of the Sun: A Dialogue Between Ancient Shu and Inca Civilizations exhibition at the Inca Museum in Cusco, Peru, November 2024 (People's Daily/Zhang Penghui)

In November 2024, the exhibition Light of the Sun: A Dialogue Between Ancient Shu and Inca Civilizations was held at the Inca Museum (Museo Inka) in Cusco, Peru. Themed "Dialogue and Mutual Learning," the exhibition featured artifacts from the Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites alongside Inca relics, highlighting the unique beauty of both civilizations and celebrating the harmony of human culture.

During his visit to Peru in 2016, Xi was awarded the Grand-Cross Medal of Honor by the Peruvian Congress and delivered an important speech titled "Sailing Forward to Build A Bright Future of China-Latin America Relations" at the Peruvian Congress. His mention of iconic Inca sites like Machu Picchu and the Nazca Lines resonated with the local audience.

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the Peruvian Congress in Lima, Peru on November 21, 2016.

Peru is an ancient civilization and the birthplace of the Inca civilization. Due to the distance between China and Peru, the phrase "From China to Peru" has come to mean "to have traveled all over the world."

President Xi Jinping noted that Peru is China's "neighbor" across the Pacific Ocean. The two peoples, though separated by long distance, enjoy connected hearts and deep friendship.

Cultural exchanges between China and Peru enjoy a time-honored history. Over 400 years ago, Chinese explorers braved the Pacific, opening up the maritime Silk Road. Since then, exchanges have flourished, with many Chinese immigrants settling in Peru. Today, Peru is home to over 3 million Chinese descendants.

Peruvian artists pose in traditional clothing. (People's Daily/Zhang Penghui)

As an important country in Latin America, Peru has deepened its political trust, practical cooperation and cultural exchanges with China since establishing diplomatic relations. President Xi's regular dialogues with Peruvian leaders have paved the way for continued strengthening of bilateral ties.

Eight years since his last visit, President Xi is returning to Peru to reaffirm the friendship between the two nations and to elevate China-Peru and China-Latin America cultural exchanges, mutual learning and practical cooperation to new heights.

(Planning: Tian Junrong, Ma Xiaoning and Liu Xiaopeng. Coordination: Yang Xuebo, Jiang Yun, Pei Guangjiang, Wang Tian, Li Xiang, Wang Xinping, Liang Changjie, Liu Hui and Wang Xiangyu. Writing: Zhang Penghui. Editing: Song Jingsi, Fan Liuyi and Jiang Runnan. Translation: Qiao Wai, Fan Liuyi, Fu Junjie and intern Di Chenjing. Proofreading: Cheng Weidan and Xu Zheqi)

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun)
An Aussie holidaymaker has unleashed a tirade of abuse at Jetstar after he became stranded in Bali due to a volcano eruption which has sparked travel chaos.

The unnamed passenger at Denpasar International Airport didn't hold back as he directed an expletive-filled rant at Jetstar while being interviewed on ABC News on Thursday.

The heavily tattooed passenger, who had a mullet and appeared to be shirtless claimed he had been told his flight had been cancelled and couldn't be rebooked.

When asked what airline he was due to fly home on, the furious passenger replied Jetstar, before unleashing a string of expletives.

He ended his rant with some blunt advice for other travellers.

Dont fly with them,' he fumed.

He wasn't the only Aussie to air their frustrations about being stranded on the Indonesian holiday island.

Virgin Australia passenger Jemma Dunstan was close to tears as she detailed her travel nightmare.

The heavily tattooed passenger at Denpasar International Airport in Bali who appeared to be shirtless launched an expletive-filled tirade at Jetstar

Flights to and from Bali were thrown into chaos earlier this week due to ash clouds from Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki. Passengers at Sydney International Airport are pictured

Virgin wiped their hands of us and said We are unable to find you a way home, please find your own,' Ms Dunstan told ABC News.

Another Aussie told the broadcaster: 'I've got to get home to my three kids.'

A Jetstar spokesperson was unable to comment on individual passengers.

Daily Mail Australia also contacted Virgin Australia regarding Ms Dunstan's situation.

Flights were cancelled earlier this week due to ash clouds from Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki in Indonesia, which has had several eruptions since November 3.

Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all resumed flights in and out of Bali on Thursday.

Six return flights will depart today to Denpasar from a number of ports around Australia,' Jetstar announced.

This includes four scheduled services and two ad-hoc recovery flights.

The airline added a third ad-hoc flight from Denpasar to Sydney for Friday morning.

'We will continue to monitor the changing conditions and volcanic activity and work on plans to operate more recovery flights using aircraft from across the Group so that we can get customers on their way as quickly as possible,' Jetstar added.

Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia resumed flights on Thursday in and out of Bali on Thursday. Passengers at Sydney International Airport are pictured

Qantas planned to operate three flights from Australia to Bali on Thursday.

This included two delayed flights from Wednesday (Melbourne and Sydney) and a scheduled flight from Sydney.

Two of the flights will depart Denpasar tonight and the other on Friday morning local time.

'We are contacting customers directly to notify them of any changes to their travel plans,' Qantas said.

'We appreciate the changing situation is frustrating and we thank customers for their understanding and patience.'

Virgin Australia has also resumed scheduled flights in and out of Denpasar.

We will continue to contact guests whose flights have been cancelled to accommodate them on recovery flights in the coming days,' the airline said.

Passengers heading to Bali are advised to check their flight status and consider travel insurance.

The Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki volcano is one of two volcanoes on Mount Lewotobi, on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, 500km east of Bali.

The volcano started erupting on November 3 until last weekend.

The eruptions have killed at least nine people, with dozens injured and over 11,000 people have been evacuated.
Cabinet tensions have surfaced today over Rachel Reeves' dramatic Budget raid on farms.

The Chancellor used her package last month to impose inheritance tax on previously exempt agricultural estates worth over 1million, at a rate of 20 per cent.

But farmers have warned that move will be 'disastrous' for the industry, wiping out family businesses that will be forced to sell to pay death duties.

With damaging protests looming and many MPs saying their postboxes are full of complaints from constituents, Environment Secretary Steve Reed is said to have been pushing for the move to be watered down.

Options floated by Defra include exempting people over the age of 80 who will not have time to adjust their plans, according to the BBC.

However, Ms Reeves has slapped down the idea. Treasury sources said it was not considering 'mitigations'.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves used her Budget last month to impose inheritance tax on previously exempt agricultural estates worth over 1million, at a rate of 20 per cent

Environment Secretary Steve Reed is said to have been pushing for the move to be watered down

The row comes with 10,000 farmers due in London next week for a march against the tax change.

Almost 2,000 are also expected to meet up with MPs in a 'mass lobbying event' by the National Farmers' Union on Tuesday.

There have even been threats of strikes that could hit supplies of meat, barley and oats.

Earlier this week Keir Starmer was forced to distance himself from a Labour ex-adviser's claim that Britain 'doesn't need small farmers' and could 'do without' the industry.

The PM dismissed a suggestion by John McTernan, a former top aide to Tony Blair, that Labour could do to farmers 'what Margaret Thatcher did to the miners'.

The senior figure, a prominent supporter of Sir Keir, had sparked outrage among farming groups and senior Tories with his remarks.

A Treasury spokesman said: 'With public services crumbling, a 22billion fiscal hole inherited from the previous government and 40 per cent of Agricultural Property Relief going to the 7 per cent wealthiest claimants, we made a difficult decision to ensure the relief is fiscally sustainable.'

'Around 500 claims each year will be impacted and farm-owning couples can pass on up to 3m without paying any inheritance tax - this is a fair and balanced approach.'

A Defra spokesperson said: 'All Ministers support the policy and it will not change.'
A rare soldier teddy that comforted a child whose father was leaving to fight in the First World War is looking for a new home.

The 116-year-old bear was first gifted to a boy in Birmingham for Christmas in 1908, but got a makeover in 1915 when the boy's father was called up.

Now dressed in a homemade uniform, complete with sword and pistol, the Steiff bear was meant to 'soften the blow' of parting, an expert said.

A rare soldier teddy that comforted a child whose father was leaving to fight in the First World War is looking for a new home. The 116-year-old bear was first gifted to a boy in Birmingham for Christmas in 1908, but got a makeover in 1915 when the boy's father was called up

Known as Captain Bruiny, the bear's history is described on a postcard, handwritten by the son

Known as Captain Bruiny, the bear's history is described on a postcard, handwritten by the son.

It says: 'Bruiny arrived at Christmas 1908 in Birmingham, He was transferred in 1915 to the border of Salisbury Plain and joined the Army.

'Using some rather questionable manoeuvres he was rapidly promoted to General.

'He had a Motor Bike & Sidecar with wheels made out of Golden Syrup tin lids. He has his driving licence, signed by my Father, in his right hand pocket.

'My cousin Edward, stationed at Bulford, made his sword out of a piece of yew and Cousin Cecile made his stylish baggy trousers.

'The rest of his outfit was made by myself with very limited resources.'

Daniel Agnew, teddy bear specialist at Special Auction Services, which is handling the sale of the item, said such gifts for children or sweethearts were 'fairly common'.

He continued: 'But this is a rare item  often, after the war, any uniform like this would have been removed as a bad memory  people wanted to move on between the wars.

'For the child who owned it, their father was in the British army, so it was very poignant.'

The bear's wooden sword and pistol. The bear will go under the hammer on November 26

Looking for a new home: The battered face of the bear, which is set to fetch up to 1,200 at auction

The author doesn't sign his name on the postcard that accompanies the bear and his true identity is unknown.

But there are clues, Mr Agnew said.

'We know where they lived and we have a clue as to the father's name  probably Bulright or Bullwright  as he has signed the driving licence.

'It was sold at Bermondsey market in London in the 1970s, and it's been with one of the first UK bear collectors, who has slowly been selling her collection.'

The bear will go under the hammer on November 26 at the Special Auction Services premises in Newbury, Berkshire, where it is expected to fetch up to 1,200.

A rare Farnell teddy bear stitched to a gas mask case, dating back to the Second World War, will also be up for auction.

These were apparently manufactured in the belief that children might forget their gas mask in an emergency, but they wouldn't forget their teddy.
READ MORE: Risk factor that makes breast cancer more likely in women

A mother was diagnosed with breast cancer 10 months late - because of a missed email, her lawyers say.

Kingston Hospital Foundation Trust has apologised to 41-year-old Wioletta Smith who was 'devastated' following the incident.

The mother of a young son had attended a yearly examination at Kingston Hospital in south west London in December 2022 due to changes in her right breast.

The mammogram image was marked as FAR (further action required) by the radiologist with recommendations for an ultrasound assessment and possible biopsy.

It was then e-mailed to the breast clinic - but it later transpired that it was never received, Ms Smiths's lawyers Irwin Mitchell said.

The hospital trust claimed in a letter that the result was not sent via the agreed process, therefore it wasn't received by the breast clinic and the recommendations weren't actioned.

Wioletta Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer 10 months late - because of a missed email, her lawyers say

Kingston Hospital Foundation Trust has apologised to the 41-year-old who was 'devastated' following the incident

Having not heard anything back, Ms Smith, from East Molesey in Surrey, 'assumed everything was fine.'

In October 2023 she attended her GP surgery reporting a lump in her breast, and was referred under the urgent two-week suspected cancer pathway.

The mother underwent a biopsy and was diagnosed with grade three breast cancer.

She said: 'I always made sure to attend all my appointments and reviews at the hospital, so when I didn't hear back about the mammogram in question, I assumed everything was fine.

'So to then find out less than a year later that I had cancer came as a huge shock; I was absolutely devastated.

'It would have been easy for me to crumble and think 'why me?' but I knew I couldn't change the diagnosis so I was determined to fight it. I have a young son and I want to be around to see him grow up, so giving up really wasn't an option.'

Following her diagnosis, Ms Smith has undergone surgery to remove the lump, and treatment including chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

In October 2023 Wioletta Smith attended her GP surgery reporting a lump in her breast, and was referred under the urgent two-week suspected cancer pathway. The mother underwent a biopsy and was diagnosed with grade three breast cancer

Ms Smith says she has since received a letter from the trust to apologise, but that she still feels let down.

In their letter, the hospital trust writes that they have since redesigned their process for radiological alerts distribution and the pathway for patients under surveillance mammogram review to 'minimise the likelihood of human error'.

Mrs Smith, who is a financial planner, has now instructed medical negligence lawyers at Irwin Mitchell to investigate her care and is working hard to raise awareness for the importance of testing.

She added: 'The treatment process has been gruelling, both physically and emotionally, and I had to keep telling myself it's temporary and I'll get through the other side.

'I still feel hugely let down by the hospital trust, but I appreciate the apology and that they've introduced changes to help prevent something like this happening to someone else.

'I hope by speaking out, I can raise awareness of the symptoms of breast cancer. Many people are affected by the disease, so we all need to know what to look out for.'

Following her diagnosis, Ms Smith has undergone surgery to remove the lump, and treatment including chemotherapy and radiotherapy

Lauren Mannion, the lawyer representing Ms Smith, said: 'The past year has been incredibly difficult for Wioletta coming to terms with her diagnosis and the physical and emotional impact it's had on her.

'Through our work, we sadly see the devastating effects that breast cancer can have, and understandably Wioletta has a number of questions and concerns around the events that led up to her diagnosis.

'While we continue to support Wioletta so she can access the specialist support and therapies she requires, we welcome that the Trust's pledge to improve patient safety.

'Despite what happened to Wioletta and current concerns around cancer care and waiting times, it's important people continue to participate in screening programmes or seek medical advice as soon as possible if they're concerned they may have cancer.

'Early detection and treatment are key to beating it.'

A spokesperson for Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust said: 'We are very sorry for the delay in escalating abnormal results from the patient's surveillance mammogram.

'The Trust has carried out a full review into the incident which highlighted some learning and safety recommendations that are now being implemented and monitored, to ensure improvements are made.

'The process for the distribution of FAR (further action required) radiological alerts within the Trust's breast team has been redesigned and a standard operating procedure has been created and agreed with the relevant hospital department.

'The pathway for Atypical Ductal Hyperplasia (ADH) patients has also been redesigned to minimise the likelihood of human error and to ensure surveillance mammogram requests and follow-ups are managed in a standardised way.

'The safety of our patients continues to be our priority.'
Spain has been battered by devastating rain and floods over the past two weeks, with the country's wet weather season wreaking havoc on communities along the Mediterranean coast.

A new map lays bare the timeline of where the catastrophic rainfall has hit and the deadly flash floods it has triggered, as region after region was affected by relentless weather fronts.

The worst impact of heavy rain was felt on October 29, when more than a year's worth of precipitation was dumped on areas in southern and eastern Spain, with the Valencia region among the hardest hit as locals said warnings came too late.

Flash floods in Valencia and other parts of the country have since killed more than 220 people, destroyed thousands of homes and triggered mass protests against regional authorities.

The extreme weather has continued to grip large swathes of the country this week, with thousands evacuated from their homes in the Malaga region and much of the country still on alert as the stormy weather shows little sign of letting up.

Waves hit the promenade of the Ebro Delta Nature Reserve, one of the largest wetland areas in the western Mediterranean region, in the autumnal storm system blighting Spain

A woman takes a photo of a flooded street in Malaga, Andalusia, Spain, 13 November 2024

Cars destroyed by the impact of rains are pictured in the Barranco del Poyo in Quart de Poblet, Valencia

A general view during a heavy rainstorm near to El Perchel quarter on November 13, 2024 in Malaga

A red weather alert was in place for the whole of Malaga province yesterday, with pictures and videos showing water sweeping through towns and popular coastal resorts including Marbella and Estepona.

Pictures from Malaga city showed submerged cars and abandoned buses and sticks and other objects accumulating at the bottom of streets, which had been turned to rivers by the heavy rain.

Meanwhile Valencia has been bracing for another onslaught as coastal areas were put on the highest alert on Wednesday night, with forecasters warning that up to 180 millimetres (7 inches) of rain could fall within five hours.

More than two weeks after the region first fell victim to the floods, large areas remain covered in mud and debris, with more rainfall making the situation even more dire for clean-up volunteers and rescue workers, who are still combing some areas for bodies.

The most up to date reports indicate that 223 people lost their lives, with at least 31 still missing, making it Spain's deadliest weather disaster in decades.

Windy and rainy weather in Malaga in Malaga, Spain November 13

A before and after satellite image shows the flooding in the city of Valencia on October 31

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The emergency response included the deployment of over 2,000 personnel from Spain's military emergency unit, who worked alongside local responders and volunteers to conduct rescue and recovery operations.

An additional number of more than 30,000 volunteers have been mobilized, from all over the country, to support the ongoing cleanup efforts.

To date, hundreds of families have lost their homes and thousands have seen their vehicles destroyed.

Military vehicles have been patrolling the area to offer aid and have been supplying people with food and other necessities.

Numerous homes and public spaces were submerged, and up to 155,000 households experienced power outages.

The regions of Aragon, Murcia and Andalusia were also impacted by flooding on October 29, with a 71-year-old British ex-pat killed at his home in Malaga.

As many parts of the country reeled from the first wave of floods, the Balearic Islands and Catalonia were put on alert for severe rain.

Spain's weather service issued a red alert for 'continuous and torrential rains' along the Barcelona coast, telling people to stay alert and not travel 'unless strictly necessary'.

Roads were blocked by mudslides and high water, with motorists filmed driving through submerged streets, while Barcelona's El Prat airport was also closed as the terminal building filled with water.

Treacherous conditions have continued to hit the nearby area of Tarragona this week.

Spain's weather service AEMET renewed its warnings yesterday, saying on X that 'very torrential rain and showers' would be hitting Malaga, Granada, Tarragona and the coast of Valencia once again.

Thousands of people were evacuated from homes and holiday apartments on the Costa del Sol after a weather alert for the area went from yellow to red and locals and holidaymakers were warned of an 'extreme risk.'

Residents watched as torrents of water gushed down a flight of stairs within metres of shops and homes

The phenomenon behind the unrelenting barrage of rain is known locally as DANA, a Spanish acronym for high-altitude isolated depression.

Unlike common storms or squalls it can form independently of polar or subtropical jet streams.

When cold air blows over warm Mediterranean waters it causes hotter air to rise quickly and form towering, dense, water-laden clouds that can remain over the same area for many hours, raising their destructive potential.

The event sometimes provokes large hail storms and tornadoes, as seen this week, meteorologists say.

Eastern and Southern Spain are particularly susceptible to the phenomenon due to its position between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

Warm, humid air masses and cold fronts meet in a region where mountains favour the formation of storm clouds and rainfall.

Before the term DANA was coined in the early 2000s, any heavy rainfall in the autumn, characteristic of the Mediterranean climate, used to go by the popular name 'gota fria' (cold drop) in Spain and parts of France. The term is still widely used colloquially.

A soldier from the UME special emergency corps searches for bodies following rains and flash floods that caused rivers to burst their banks in Valencia and other parts of Spain, in the Poyo ravine in Quart de Poblet, Valencia, Spain, November 13, 2024

The overflowing Guadalhorce river in Cartama, Malaga, Andalusia, Spain, 13 November 2024

Its origin dates back to 1886 when German scientists introduced the idea of 'kaltlufttropfen', or cold air drop, to describe high altitude disturbance but without apparent reflection on the surface.

Aemet says the concept of cold drop is outdated and defines DANA as a closed high-altitude depression that has become isolated and separated from an associated jet stream.

Aemet says DANAs sometimes become stationary or even move backwards, from east to west.

Enrico Scoccimarro, senior scientist at the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, said last month that while the large water dumps are 'typical of the western Mediterranean region and of this period of the year', the recent weather event was 'exceptional'.

Shocking footage shared overnight on social media showed the deluge gushing through the streets of Alcanar

Floodwaters rip past homes in southeastern Spain

'Events of this type, in these areas and with this intensity, have not been recorded for several decades, you have to go back to the 1960s to find similar values,' he told Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Scientists are usually cautious of linking individual weather events with climate change, but many have said that a combination of factors linked to it likely caused the dramatic weather event.

Dr Friederike Otto, Lead of World Weather Attribution at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, said: 'No doubt about it, these explosive downpours were intensified by climate change.

'With every fraction of a degree of fossil fuel warming, the atmosphere can hold more moisture, leading to heavier bursts of rainfall.

'These deadly floods are yet another reminder of how dangerous climate change has already become at just 1.3C of warming.

'But last week the UN warned that we are on track to experience up to 3.1C of warming by the end of the century.'

Dr Jess Neumann, Associate Professor of Hydrology at the University of Reading, added: 'The flash floods in Spain are another terrible reminder of the changing and more chaotic weather we are experiencing as a result of climate change.'

Studies have shown that the Mediterranean region - which is home to more than 510 million people - is warming 20 per cent faster than the global average.

This leaves coastal zones at heightened disaster risks, including flooding and erosion.

Dr Ernesto Rodriguez Camino, Senior State Meteorologist and member of Spanish Meteorological Association, said: 'In general terms, what we know is that, in the context of climate change, these types of intense and exceptional, rare rainfall events are going to become more frequent and more intense and, therefore, destructive.'

The UN Environment Programme calls the Mediterranean a 'climate change hotspot' where vulnerabilities are exacerbated.
Locals in a French town where a depressed mother allegedly stabbed her three children to death before being found dead herself have suggested that she may have acted out of revenge.

Deborah Pel, 45, allegedly killed her three children Jules, two, Noe, 11 and Victoria, 13, in their Alpine home in Taninges, southeastern France, on Tuesday, before driving to nearby Switzerland, where she was found dead in her Audi SUV.

Now a resident has claimed that Pel 'wanted revenge by killing the children' after 'things weren't going well with her partner' and he moved out, according to Le Parisien.

The man, who fathered the youngest child, and Pel's parents discovered the carnage in the family home, which lies ten miles from the Swiss border. The autopsies revealed the children were stabbed to death.

Pel's daughter Victoria had said that 'things weren't going well for her mother, that she was depressed', a classmate said. Pel reportedly left a letter behind, although its content is not known.

'I didn't know that Deborah was depressed. It's already a tragedy for her to commit suicide, but she didn't have to take her children with her,' a neighbour told Le Parisien.

Deborah Pel (pictured), 45, allegedly killed her three children Jules, 2, Noe, 11 and Victoria, 13, in their home in Taninges, southeastern France , on Tuesday, before driving to nearby Switzerland, where she was found dead in her Audi SUV

The house where three children were found dead is pictured in Taninges, on November 13, 2024

A surveillance officer closes the road to the hamlet above Taninges, French Alps, where three children were found dead the day before, on November 13, 2024

The mother-of-three worked as a teacher and had recently transferred to a school in nearby Marnaz, reportedly following a petition from parents, who said she was too strict with the children.

While teaching at the Adelin-Malgrand school in Samoens, Pel allegedly made students stand when they 'moved around too much' and even 'threw pencil cases in their faces', according to a woman whose grandchildren were in Pel's class.

'She was not at all cut out to be a teacher. She was obnoxious with children,' the grandmother told Le Parisien.

Pel's children were found dead on Tuesday around 1pm, with a manhunt being launched for Pel.

Around 60 French police officers, supported by helicopters and diving squads, were searching for her.

Investigators who knew of Pel's French and Swiss citizenship requested assistance from Swiss authorities in their search, who flagged her car as it passed into the country.

On Wednesday morning, Swiss authorities announced that Pel's Audi SUV had been found parked in Champery, in the canton of Valais, with the body of a woman - believed to be Pel - inside. The cause of Pel's death is not currently known.

The motive behind the tragic killings of the three children is not currently known.

Pel's older children, Noe and Victoria, were from a previous relationship. She shared her youngest, Jules, with her current partner, who has not yet been publicly named.

Deborah Pel (pictured) fled the small town of Taninges after she allegedly stabbed the three children to death on Tuesday afternoon

This photograph shows the house where three children were found dead in Taninges, on November 13, 2024

On Wednesday morning, Swiss authorities announced that Pel's Audi SUV had been found parked in Champery, in the canton of Valais, with the body of a woman - believed to be Pel - inside

The local community has been left in ruin following the killings.

The head teacher at the Jacques Brel middle school in Taninges where the two older children were enrolled, refused to comment on the matter, following a question from a local reporter.

But one of Victoria's classmates told Le Parisien that teachers were crying and stopped their lessons. 'Lots of students were crying in the corridors, it's really sad,' the student added.

Meanwhile, the school where Pel taught is making preparations to answer questions from students and their parents.

Le Dauphine Libere reported that a substitute teacher has already been appointed to take charge of the class Pel taught.

'I never could have believed that she would do this. It's unimaginable,' an employee at the primary school where Pel worked told Le Parisien.

She added that Pel 'was great with the children' and was 'very popular' at the school.

Pel was reportedly heavily involved in the local community, most notably as a member of Samoens municipal harmony, and was treasurer of the town's music school.

She was a keen flutist, and was given an award for her dedication to music in 2022, following 30 years of playing the flute.

French gendarmes stand guard at the entrance of street near the location where three children were found dead in Taninges, on November 12, 2024

French gendarmes stand guard at the entrance of a street, near the location where three children were found dead, in Taninges, eastern France, on November 12, 2024

The shocking Alps killing comes after two small children were last week found decapitated in a bathtub on the French island of Guadeloupe.

The bodies of the mutilated four-year-old and 13-month-old siblings were discovered by their father in their family home.

The children's mother, the prime murder suspect, was found naked and wandering the streets by two police officers after the alarm was raised.

According to French outlet Le Parisien, the woman, who is believed to be in her forties, was speaking incoherently and was unable to explain the reasons for her actions when approached by police.

According to public prosecutor Caroline Talbo, the woman was initially taken into custody and then released due to her mental state, and has since been hospitalised.

For confidential support, call Samaritans on 116 123, visit samaritans.org or visit https://www.thecalmzone.net/get-support.
London house prices may take a hit from new narrower Heathrow flight paths that will create 'noise sewers', residents fear.

Britain's busiest airport is currently looking at 181 options of modernising the routes planes take that campaigners say will increase the number of flights.

It is part of a national masterplan being led by the Civil Aviation Authority and the Department for Transport to restructure the pathways of the already congested motorways in the sky.

Hopes are that the changes would save time and fuel, as well as decrease delays and reduce noise for some of the residents already living under the flight paths.

But warnings have been sounded the ground-based navigation beacons that could be used to navigate aircraft can create 'noise sewers'.

London house prices may take a hit from new narrower Heathrow flight paths that will create 'noise sewers', residents fear

Britain's busiest airport is currently looking at 181 options of modernising the routes planes take that campaigners say will increase the number of flights (Pictures shows all of Heathrow's options and the existing operations up to 7,000ft)

A Richmond council Heathrow meeting this week on how to respond to the proposals heard that Performance Based Navigation (PBN) could be used for navigating planes.

The system, already used in parts of America, including New York, uses ground-based navigation beacons to direct aircraft to the airport which creates narrower and more consistent paths.

A briefing paper for the Special Standing Committee on Heathrow warned 'this may mean that some areas see an increased frequency in planes overhead, whilst others are less overflown'.

'Analysis of its implementation in the US has found to have the negative impact of creating "noise sewers" whereby airport noise is concentrated over specific neighbourhoods along the flight-paths,' the document stated.

Campaigners argue the modernisation programme will result in an extra 60,000 flights soaring over the picturesque Richmond Park 'that threatens to destroy the peace and tranquility of London's most important nature reserve'.

Friends of Richmond Park writes on its website: 'This is about moving existing arrivals and departures to overfly new areas - and some of the shortlisted options are almost certain to happen.

'The Park is home to some of the capital's rarest species and a haven for people and families seeking respite from the city.

The map above is Heathrow's 'Option A' for day flights. The flight path restructure is part of a national masterplan being led by the Civil Aviation Authority and the Department for Transport

Hopes are that the changes would save time and fuel, as well as decrease delays and reduce noise for some of the residents already living under the flight paths

The above map shows the current four 'holding stacks' at Heathrow where aircraft are held in the sky before coming in to land

The westerly departure routes currently used by aircraft leaving Heathrow until they reach 4,000ft where they are directed off the path towards their final destination

'The impact of the potential new flights over Richmond Park  up to 235 a day, one every 90 seconds at peak time - would be catastrophic.'

The new routes will today be debated in the House of Commons to discuss the impact of aircraft noise on local communities.

Liberal Democrat and Richmond Park MP Sarah Olney, who secured the debate, told the Standard her constituents' lives had for years been 'blighted' by 'constant air traffic' above their homes.

'The news of narrower flight paths will no doubt be cause for concern for many affected communities. The impact on local residents could be far beyond simply noise complaints,' she said.

'The impact could be widespread from hitting house prices, to disrupted sleep, impacting local communities' health, work, and personal lives.'

Aircraft today mostly follows outdated routes that were put in place during the 1950s. With modern technology and updated airspace designs, aircraft could climb more quickly and take more direct routes.

Liberal Democrat and Richmond Park MP Sarah Olney says her constituents' lives had for years been 'blighted' by 'constant air traffic' above their homes

Campaigners argue the modernisation programme will result in an extra 60,000 flights soaring over the picturesque Richmond Park 'that threatens to destroy the peace and tranquility of London's most important nature reserve'

Friends of Richmond Park says the park 'is home to some of the capital's rarest species and a haven for people and families seeking respite from the city' (Pictured: Stags in Richmond Park last month)

Carbon emissions could also be reduced through a reduction in fuel use.

A spokesperson for Heathrow said: 'Despite the progress we have made to reduce the area most impacted by aircraft noise by 41% in 2023 since 2006, we know that noise is an issue for some people in our local communities.

'That's why we are doing all we can to find new ways to become a quieter airport.

'We will continue to work in close partnership with our airlines, regulators, air traffic controllers and local communities to find new ways to minimise the impacts of our operations.'
A female recluse who played a key role in an international monkey torturing network reportedly claimed to police that she wanted to abuse infant macaques due to a pathological hatred of pregnant women and children.

Holly LeGresley, 37, from Kidderminster, uploaded 22 images and 132 videos on Telegram showing monkeys being beaten, burned and even doused in acid by members if the torture ring based overseas in her role as the group's 'archivist'.

Posting online under the moniker 'The Immolator', the fiend set up a voting mechanism where group members could decide what method of torture and death they would prefer, and once discussed putting a monkey in a blender.

LeGresley was jailed for two years at Worcester Crown Court yesterday alongside her co-conspirator Adriana Orme, 56, a married mother of three with a pet rescue dog - who received 15 months.

It has subsequently been reported that LeGresley tried to excuse her actions in police interviews by faking a fictitious disorder known as 'Happy Valley Syndrome, which involves an irrational hatred of young children and pregnant women.

Holly LeGresley, 37, from Kidderminster, uploaded 22 images and 132 videos on Telegram showing monkeys being beaten, burned and even doused in acid

LeGresley arrives at Worcester Crown Court for her sentencing yesterday to shouts from protestors

LeGresley was jailed for two years at Worcester Crown Court yesterday alongside her co-conspirator Adriana Orme, 56, (pictured) a married mother of three with a pet rescue dog - who received 15 months

Following the claim officers consulted a psychiatrist, who told them the disorder did not exist and there was no evidence LeGresley had a severe mental illness, the Telegraph disclosed following the sentencing.

The judge told both women their offences represented a course of conduct that can only be described as 'depraved, sickening and wicked'.

He said both defendants had high culpability factors from prolonged and serious cruelty, and sadistic behaviour, and said LeGresley had played a leading role in the torture network.

The judge told the pair: 'Neither of you can explain away your conduct as pure fantasy as you seemed to assert in interviews with police.'

A year-long BBC investigation into the torture network in 2022 revealed a chain of participants around the globe who would 'commission' people living in Thailand or Indonesia to film monkeys being tortured to later be shared online.

BBC journalists went undercover in one of the main Telegram torture groups after the charity Action for Primates discovered people were paying to buy monkeys in Indonesia to be tortured.

Journalists in the Telegram group found hundreds of people trading extreme torture ideas, with the goal of creating bespoke videos which were then sold, sometimes for as little as 10.

Worcester Crown Court heard the two women, both from Worcestershire, were participants in online chatrooms where abuse was discussed.

Judge Burbidge told the pair: 'You promoted the physical torture of monkeys by others, you shared videos and images of such torture and abuse, retained images and videos for what appeared to be your own pleasure and amusement.'

He said 'socially awkward' Orme's involvement in the network began with her wanting to stop 'this outrageous behaviour' but said she then 'got a taste for it'.

And he told LeGresley she had 'caused significant pain, torture and death to the monkeys in Indonesia'.

The gore-obsessed woman - who lives with her parents - previously described Hannibal Lecter, a serial killer who eats his victims, and Pennywise, the clown from IT who preys on children, as her 'horror icons'.

But other posts on social media showed her cradling and cuddling cockatiels or holding a tarantula.

The torture network shared 61 folders with approximately 3,000 images and videos, the court heard.

Orme, 56, from Upton-upon-Severn arriving at a previous hearing. She was jailed for 15 months

The pair were brought to justice following investigations by animal rights campaigners and the makers of a shocking BBC documentary called The Monkey Haters

LeGresley sobbed in the dock as the court heard how she planned to create videos showing severe injuries to monkeys.

She expressed a desire for a baby monkey to undergo severe trauma, and also for one monkey to watch another animal die.

She also ordered a whip-round for one member who had funded videos, writing: 'She's done so much... delivering one of the best videos we've seen for a long time.'

The judge was read a catalogue of monkey torture methods which included attacks with scissors. One monkey died after being tortured for around 10 minutes.

The court heard Orme, who attended court with her husband, was known as Noelle in the online chatrooms.

She had more than 1,200 cached images of monkey torture on her computer, and a USB stick seized by police contained five videos of monkeys being tortured.

Prosecutor Ben Close said Orme expressed a preference for mental torture, wanting to torture monkeys and heal them, before torturing them again.

In a post on Facebook she wrote: 'My monkey hatred seems to be back.

'Shame they don't do a diploma in monkey hatred.'

Ahead of the sentencing, the women were greeted by placard-waving protesters shouting 'shame' as they arrived at court. One sign read 'social media enables animal abuse'.

LeGresley, from Kidderminster, admitted uploading photos and videos of monkeys being tortured, as well as paying 17.24 via PayPal to a contact in order to encourage or assist the commission of acts causing unnecessary suffering to an animal.

Orme, from Upton upon Severn, has admitted sending one image and 26 videos featuring monkey torture into chat groups, between 14 March 2022 and 16 June 2022.

Softly-spoken Orme further admitted encouraging an offence by making a 10 payment to a PayPal account - the price of seeing a baby macaque being tortured.

LeGresley is heckled by protestors as she arrives at Worcester Crown Court for sentencing

Orme arrives at Worcester Crown Court for her sentencing

The court heard Orme had taken steps to address her behaviour and was on the waiting list for cognitive behavioural therapy, while LeGresley had a long history of depression and anxiety and was likely to be diagnosed with autism.

Despite their shared interest in monkey torture, the pair had never met, and only set eyes on each other for the first time at their initial magistrates court hearing in May.

LeGresley and Orme were members of a Telegram group run by Michael Macartney from Virginia, USA, who called himself ''the Torture King''. Macartney, who was recently sentenced to three years and four months in prison for conspiring to make and distribute "animal crush" videos, ran several online Telegram groups that facilitated the 'torture, murder and sexually sadistic mutilation' of baby long-tailed macaques for 'fun.'

In their group chats on Telegram, Orme told other members: I love mental torture. It's funny what you can reach and see how they change.

I would start f****** them up mentally, then slowly bit by bit physically, torture them, heal them, torture them, heal them. Keep them alive like this for as long as possible.

LeGresley said: I feel very satisfied when I see monkeys suffer too. It makes me happywhats the point in just killing them? Thats no fun.

Evidence obtained during the investigations by Action for Primates, a UK-based project that advocates globally on behalf of non-human primates, and Lady Freethinker, a US-based animal protection organisation, was given to various law enforcement agencies and spurred the BBC investigation.

Sarah Kite, spokesman for Action for Primates, said: Anyone involved in this type of behaviour must be held to account, and others need to know that such extreme cruelty and depravity will never be tolerated. We hope these sentences will deter others from becoming involved in these perverted and sadistic activities.'

Nina Jackel, Founder of Lady Freethinker, said the horrors inflicted on baby monkeys for online videos were sickening, adding: Those involved in the creation or distribution of animal torture content for enjoyment pose a threat to both animals and humans, and they must be held accountable.

Worcester Crown Court heard that the women had become members of online groups dedicated to the sadistic torture of Macaque monkeys in Indonesia.

Both paid an American intermediary known as Torture King to commission their twisted fantasies which were carried out by an Indonesian called OKBro whose real name was Lupe.

Sentencing them, His Honour Judge Burbidge KC, described the women, both first time offenders, as depraved, sickening and wicked.

Both women were arrested after a year-long investigation by the BBC and a police inquiry which was assisted by Action for Primates, a UK-based environmental conservation group.

Protestors were heard shouting 'Shame' as LeGresley arrived at the court with her face covered

LeGresley was surrounded by protestors as she arrived for her sentencing

LeGresley of Baldwin Road, Kidderminster, admitted that she uploaded 22 images and 132 videos of monkeys being tortured to online chat groups between March 25 and May 8 2022, and made a payment to a PayPal account to encourage cruelty on April 25 of the same year.

Dutch-born Orme from Upton upon Severn pleaded guilty in August to publishing an obscene article by uploading one image and 26 videos of monkey torture between April 14 and June 16 2022, and to having encouraged or assisted the commission of unnecessary suffering by making a 10 payment to a PayPal account on April 26 2022.

Having originally joined a group called HCage, Le Gresley, from Kidderminster, complained about rules preventing sex stuff.

She was then invited in March 2022 by Mike Macartney, also known as Torture King, to join another group and wrote: Finally the uncensored version.

Orme joined the group a month later.

Prosecutor Ben Close told the sentencing hearing that they soon set about commissioning their own video to be made.

Le Gresley wrote to the group saying: I have something that might interest you. I have a guy to crowdfund a monkey in Indonesia.

Basically he buys a onkey just for us. He will do just about anything to it that you want.

Discussing putting a monkey into a blender, Le Gresley said: I would like to see it spun on slowly and tormented  have some limbs broken. If it does not suffer it feels like a waste of a good rat.

Le Gresleys enthusiasm for torture led to her being appointed the group moderator by Macartney who said: If you need something organising cal the Immolator. Shes your girl.

She advised that a baby monkey should be clothed before being put into a blender as it would, make the death more drawn out and posted comments such as, OMFG, epic blender video.

Encouraged by the blender video, Le Gresley got others in the group to pay in for more videos to be made.

She said: It is like when you commission a piece of art. You put your trust in the artist to bring your vision to life.

Orme paid 10 to a PayPal account for a video to be made and Le Gresley sent payments worth 40.29.

One torture idea discussed by the group was to take a cheese grater to a monkeys bottom, rub lemon juice into the wounds and then hang it from a ceiling fan.

Le Gresley rubbished the idea saying she feared OKBro might go too easy on the monkey.

Her idea of putting a baby monkey into a sealed jar with red ants won the vote.

Lupe (OkBro) was paid $105 for his services.

The final video showed a young monkey trapped in a tiny jar with red ants. It struggled to breathe.

It then had its eyelids removed and was impaled by a spike through its anus which came out of the top of its head.

After 16 minutes of torture, the monkey died and a second creature was then subjected to the same treatment.

LeGresley's nickname was 'The Immolator'  meaning someone who kills for a religious sacrifice  and the group she was part of commissioned videos of monkeys being set on fire

Orme wrote: I loved seeing the ants and the shish kebab.

Le Gresley urged members to watch with the sound on as the screams sounded like a small child.

During the two and a half hour hearing, Le Gresley sobbed in the dock and asked for water, bringing the hearing to a temporary halt.

She had told police that she was suffering from PTSD as a result of what she had seen.

She had written: I love the look of confusion and betrayal on the little shits face. I like to see the babies f***ed over. The younger they are, the more they deserve to get a beating.

The adults I would shoot point blank in the face. The juveniles I want to torture for as long as possible until they die.

Orme said she preferred mental torture. Torture, heal, torture. Keep them alive as long as possible, she wrote, before adding: My son is downstairs with me so cant watchLOL.

Le Gresleys obsession led to her assembling an archive of 65 folders with 3,000 images and videos classified according to the torture taking place.

One of the videos of a young monkey being tortured to death was set to The Entertainer music.

Giving mitigation for Le Gresley, her barrister Tom Walkling said she was extremely remorseful and had suffered from extreme fatigue syndrome for over a decade, making her unfit for work.

He said she was on the autistic spectrum and said custody would be inappropriate.

Mitigating for Orme, Curtis Myrie described her as a caring mother and devoted to her rescue dog Diesel.

He said his client suffered from undiagnosed Aspergers Syndrome and also lived with chronic pain from fibroid myalgia.

He said she had originally come across the monkey material on YouTube and had intended to report it but then became sucked in.

Her condition meant she could not leave the abhorrent material alone, he said.

Resisting calls for suspended sentences, Judge Burbidge told the defendants: These offences represent a course of conduct by you both that can only be described as depraved, sickening and wicked.

Using the comfort of your own homes you engaged in chat rooms through the internet.

Resisting calls for suspended sentences, Judge Burbidge told the defendants: These offences represent a course of conduct by you both that can only be described as depraved, sickening and wicked.

Perhaps in that environment you took leave of your senses and any real recognition of reality  as sadly some people appear to do when engaging with others on the internet.

Quite what led you two women of good character and, I am satisfied, some intelligence, to engage in such a forum is beyond comprehension by any right-thinking member of society.

Why there even exists such a forum is beyond comprehension and a sad indictment to humanity. You promoted the physical torture of monkeys by others and you disseminated videos of such torture and abuse.

I would be failing in my public duty were I not to give you custodial sentences.

Prosecutor Ben Close said that childless LeGresley had told police that her phobia of childbirth was triggered by monkeys, especially monkeys that look like humans.

In an exchange with group members, she admitted wanting to see monkeys tortured but added that she did not 'need five years in jail.' This, said the prosecutor, showed she had researched the law and knew exactly what sentence she could expect.

At one point LeGresley told the torture network: 'People do not see it (torture) as a strange psychological phenomenon, they see it as a crime.'
South Korean prosecutors have indicted influencer-troll Johnny Somali after he caused a 'commotion' in a grocery store.

The 24-year-old influencer, whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael, has built an online audience by hurling insults and provocative comments as he travels abroad, particularly in Asia.

Ismael has been banned from several livestreaming platforms, including Twitch and Kick, for his stunts.

In a series of videos posted to Instagram last month, he was seen drinking alcohol in a convenience store before pouring instant noodles.

Though the initial video was deleted from his page, Ismael left a video of him cleaning the mess up, with the caption: 'I AM INNOCENT. THE KOREAN GOVERNMENT AND MEDIA IS CORRUPT. I AM THE OJ SIMPSON OF ASIA. THE NORTH KOREAN STATE MEDIA WONT SHOW THIS CLIP.'

The 24-year-old influencer, whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael, has built an online audience by hurling insults and provocative comments as he travels abroad, particularly in Asia

He has also streamed himself kissing the country's Statue of Peace during a live video

Ismael has been banned from several livestreaming platforms, including Twitch and Kick, for his stunts

In the video, he appears to be on the phone with an associate, telling him: 'Let me clean this s*** up, I made a big mess. Let me clean this s***.'

South Korean prosecutors said he will face a trial, and has been banned from leaving the country, though he has not been detained.

It comes after Ismael was banned from leaving South as authorities investigate him over drug claims.

After receiving reports on an emergency hotline accusing the streamer of drug use, cops quickly commenced investigations.

Korean law firm Lee & Lee claimed if Somali is found guilty, he could face 10 years in prison or a fine of up to 100 million won ($95,000).

The streamer, from Arizona, was also discussed in South Korean parliament last month after a string of videos appeared to show him wreaking havoc in the country.

One member of parliament questioned whether there will be any legal consequences following his actions, which include disrespecting a memorial statue and pouring ramen on the floor of a convenience store.

Somali, real name Ramsey Khalid Ismael, rose to fame in the East Asian country for his disruptive and often offensive stunts

Somalia has previously said he would perform lewd acts on a statue, reports the Korea JoongAng Daily

He has also streamed himself kissing the country's Statue of Peace during a live video - a memorial honouring Korean comfort women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War 2.

The following week, he reportedly applied baby oil to the statue, while suggesting that he would perform lewd acts on it, reported Korea JoongAng Daily.

'We are monitoring Johnny Somali,' the parliament chairman said.

It came after Somali was reportedly taken into custody for his own protection at the end of last month, after a live stream showed him being assaulted by someone in a mask.

His alleged attacker, who has since been reported as being a rival YouTuber from Japan - was arrested and clips online later showed Somali in the back of a police car.

The streamer can be seen drinking Soju, being disrespectful to officials, and infuriating locals in footage circulating on social media.

'Americans have way more freedom here,' he was heard saying in one clip.

American YouTuber Johnny Somali has previously been banned from leaving South Korea as authorities investigate him over drug claims

Somali was reportedly taken into custody for his own protection at the end of last month, after a live stream showed him being assaulted by someone in a mask

The controversial streamer was discussed in South Korean parliament last month after videos appeared to show him wreaking havoc in the country

'These n****s protecting us, we in the back of a police car. Come and get us! Come get us!'

Cops later told local media, 'We plan to investigate the related complaints.'

The incident became the third time Somali had been attacked in a week, having been beaten in Seoul on two separate occasions the week before.

A Dexerto report claimed Somali had been charged with two counts of assault and drug use - which he has vehemently denied.

'I was never charged with assaulting anyone, this is a warning to remove this post and article or I will pursue legal action,' he wrote of the report on X.
A senior Labour minister slapped down a trade union today over its demand that civil servants be allowed to work a four-day week without losing and pay.

Pensions Minister Emma Reynolds lashed out at the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union over its call for government workers to get a three-day weekend to facilitate 'one day of chores, one day of fun and one day of rest'.

The PCS carried out research in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and claims the plan would save the taxpayer more than 21 million a year, halve staff turnover and cut the rate staff call in sick by almost two thirds.

But Ms Reynolds questioned the union's cost-saving maths, telling Times Radio this morning that the change was a non-starter and adding: 'We're not living in the 1970s'.

'I see the benefit for those who want to have the flexibility to be able to work part-time. I'm a mum of two young children,' she added.

'And you know, sometimes I wish that I worked part-time. But I don't think as a whole that civil servants as a general rule should work four days rather than five.'

Her remarks highlight a growing Government split over the issue. Ms Reynolds' Treasury boss Rachel Reeves is opposed to a four-day week, but other ministers including Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner support the change.

Pensions Minister Emma Reynolds lashed out at the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union over its call for government workers to get a three-day weekend to facilitate 'one day of chores, one day of fun and one day of rest'.

The PCS argues that the plan would save the taxpayer more than 21 million a year, halve staff turnover and cut the rate staff call in sick by almost two thirds.

Her remarks highlight a growing Government split over the issue. Ms Reynolds' Treasury boss Rachel Reeves is opposed to a four-day week, but other ministers including Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner support the change.

General secretary Fran Heathcote said the study suggested any opposition to employees working a four-day week was 'purely ideological' because the arrangement has 'financial benefits too.'

But Joe Ryle, director of the 4 Day Week Campaign, said: 'Emma Reynolds comes off like a Tory minister stuck in the past.

'The truth is that the 9-5, 5 day working week is outdated and no longer fit for purpose. It was invented 100 years ago and we are long overdue an update.

'As hundreds of British companies and one local council have already shown, a four-day week with no loss of pay can be a win-win for both workers and employers.'

Whitehall officials are campaigning for Defra to carry out a pilot so that managers can assess the arrangement.

Statisticians within the department who are members of the PCS say the Government could save 21.4 million from the move, branding it 'essential for a happy and healthy life'.

That figure is based on Institute for Government modelling of the year 2016-17 and updated to reflect a rise in salaries, staff numbers and turnover since then.

In a survey of more than 1,200 members carried out by the PCS as part of its research, 80 per cent of respondents said the change would give them health and wellbeing benefits.

General secretary Fran Heathcote said the study suggested any opposition to employees working a four-day week was 'purely ideological' because the arrangement has 'financial benefits too.'

'Why else would an employer stand in the way of progress?' she said.

'Our members are resolute in their belief that a four-day week is critical to attaining a good quality of life, improving their health and wellbeing and helping them to meet caring responsibilities, while all the time increasing their productivity.'

Director of the 4-Day Week Campaign Joe Ryle, who wrote a foreword to the research, said the 'time has come' to trial the arrangement in Whitehall.

'As hundreds of British companies in the private sector have already shown, a four-day week with no loss of pay can be a win-win for both workers and employers,' he said.

A Defra spokeswoman said there were no plans for a four-day week.

The Government last week dropped official concerns about South Cambridgeshire District Council's four-day week after the authority faced opposition from the previous Tory administration.

But there has been kick-back against the idea. Last month civil servants will have to spend at least three days a week in the office after senior Whitehall officials recommitted to rules on working from home.

Under the previous Tory government, civil servants were told to spend 60 per cent of their time in the office or on official business, rather than at home.

Following July's general election, it was reported that newly-appointed Labour ministers were quietly ignoring the rules in a 'less dogmatic' approach towards staff

But Whitehall chiefs have now made a fresh commitment to the 60 per cent target after deciding the guidance should not change.

Cat Little, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, was revealed to have written to other heads of departments yesterday to reconfirm the three-day-a-week instruction.

It appears to be a victory for the Chancellor after she put herself at odds with Cabinet colleagues by hailing the benefits of staff working together in an office.

Ms Reeves said she 'leads by example' by turning up to her Treasury workplace and said staff benefitted from 'coming together' to work 'collaboratively'.

This contrasted with the stance taken by Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, who had criticised a 'culture of presenteeism' in Britain's workplaces.

He also insisted a default right to flexible working would boost productivity and hit out at the 'bizarre' Tory approach of 'declaring war on people working from home'.
A women's rights campaigner faces possible prosecution for claiming a transgender GP 'enjoy[ed] intimately examining female patients without their consent' on social media last year.

Maya Forstater, the executive director of charity Sex Matters, has confirmed to MailOnline that her police file is now being considered by the Crown Prosecution Service.

The 51-year-old was first notified she was under investigation by the Metropolitan Police for malicious communications in August 2023, after taking to X (formerly Twitter) to tweet a claim about a transgender GP.

The former GP had previously said that after transitioning, patients allowed her to perform 'more intimate examinations that they did not let me to do when I was a male GP'.

Following what Mr Forstater called a 'Kafkaesque' police probe, she could face prosecution by the CPS for the crime.

Maya Forstater (pictured), 51, the head of the charity Sex Matters, has revealed her police file is now being considered by the Crown Prosecution Service for the crime of malicious communications

Ms Forstater (pictured) was first contacted by police last August who informed her that she was under investigation for the crime

Ms Forstater was first contacted by police officers two months after her tweet in June 2023, and was invited to a voluntary interview with the force to share her version of the incident.

She alleged that the Met Police warned her that she would be arrested unless she voluntarily attend a police interview.

Ms Forstater claims she was given no details of the allegation except that it was regarding a post allegedly targeting a person from the transgender community.

She was then interviewed under caution at Charing Cross police station in September 2023, where she discovered the allegation related to a tweet she had made about a transgender GP.

In August of this year, it was confirmed to Ms Forstater that her police file had been passed on to CPS, but she claims that she has not been updated since.

When contacted by MailOnline, Ms Forstater her right to freedom of speech, claiming she was being 'discriminated' against by the police for the tweet.

'I am just one of the people who have been caught by this. They [the police] should be out catching criminals not hurt feelings on Twitter,' she said.

'This is a part of a pattern of police going after people who express gender critical views,' she added.

'I wrote a tweet and someone was offended by a tweet - I hate to think about the police resources are spent on a social media posts.

'If there is any sense in the world the CPS will see there is no crime here.

'Its a massive infringement on my freedom of speech and the freedom of speech of anybody who wants to say any truth.'

She previously told the Telegraph: 'When I express my views publicly, I do not do so with the intention of causing distress or anxiety to those who disagree with me.'

Ms Forstater has contacted Allison Pearson (pictured) after the journalist accused of stirring up racial hatred in a post on social media in 2023

Ms Pearson (pictured in 2011) said she was 'shocked' to have officers turn up on her doorstep on Remembrance Sunday

Boris Johnson branded the investigation 'appalling' and an attack on free speech

'I express my views because they are important to me, and I consider them to be a legitimate contribution to an ongoing political debate.

'It may well be that persons who have seen my tweets are offended or upset, or would prefer that I did not utter them.

'There is no right not to be offended in a democratic society, nor to use the powers of the state to destroy other people's rights in pursuit of your own political goals.

'Nothing that I have tweeted comes anywhere close to meeting the criteria of being so obviously indecent, grossly offensive, threatening or factually false that it called for an investigation into my intentions in writing it.'

Ms Forstater's experience encouraged her to reach out to journalist Allison Pearson, 64, who was informed on Remembrance Sunday that she was under investigation for a post she had made on the platform over a year ago.

Allison Pearson, 64, claimed two Essex Police officers turned up at her door at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday to inform her she was being investigated over a post on X from a year ago.

The writer said she was still in her dressing gown when one officer at the door said 'I was accused of a non-crime hate incident.

'It was to do with something I had posted on X a year ago. A YEAR ago? Yes. Stirring up racial hatred apparently'.

Ms Forstater told MailOnline: 'When I saw her story there were so many parallels in her experience.

'They couldn't tell her who the tweet was from. They talked about the victim as if they proved there had already been a crime.

'The only difference is they didn't turn up at my door, they emailed me.'

She described the process with the police as 'terrifying', explaining that she felt she was not being questioned by the force but a political organisation.

A spokesperson from the Met Police said: 'An allegation of malicious communication was reported to police in June 2023 relating to post on social media.

'A number of enquiries have been carried out by officers and these enquiries are ongoing. This has included liaising with the CPS.

'While it is right that we carry out a full investigation, we do recognise the length of time this has taken so far and the impact it will undoubtedly have had on all parties.'
Devastated couples had their weddings cancelled after the hotel they were using closed suddenly to house asylum seekers.

The Best Western Cresta Court Hotel in Altrincham - owned by a group chaired by former BBC director-general Greg Dyke - was shut to paying guests on Monday after being turned over to accommodate almost 300 migrants.

The news sparked fury among locals and led to a major row after residents were informed at a public meeting that the guests would receive 'free private healthcare' to reduce pressure on NHS services.

It subsequently emerged that health cover would be provided by not-for-profit provider GTD Healthcare, which stressed it did not provide private care and was being commissioned by the NHS.

Dan Butler and Katy Evans were due to get married at the hotel on May 24 next year and are among at least two couples who have had their weddings called off due to the last-minute Home Office deal.

Dan Butler and Katy Evans were due to get married at the hotel on May 24 next year and are among at least two couples who had their weddings called off

The Cresta Court Hotel in upmarket Altrincham has closed for one year as migrants are about to move in

Migrants were spotted at the hotel yesterday - understood to be from Syria, Yemen, Iran and Somalia

The news torpedoed an all-inclusive package agreed all the way back in April 18 2023, which cost 9,000 and included a wedding ceremony, breakfast and a reception for 60 daytime guests before a 120-strong party in the evening.

They had also reserved 20 beds at the venue for guests on the night of the wedding and an additional 12 rooms for the night before their wedding day.

'We've had 18 months of imagining the day and slowly getting our stuff together,' Ms Evans previously told local newspaper Altrincham Today. 'I'd been getting more excited and had sorted out my wedding dress.'

Mr Butler, a cable jointer, and office manager Ms Evans had already paid 5,000 of their bill to Cresta Court and carefully saved up to pay the rest, which they were preparing to do next week before hearing the devastating news - which caused the bride-to-be to burst into tears.

Fortunately, the couple have since managed to arrange a new date for their wedding in July next year and a new venue, Mere Court in Knutsford.

They are not the only people to have been left disappointed by the closure of Cresta Court, with a second wedding also cancelled despite being less than a month away on December 7.

A friend of the bride took to social media to share the upsetting news, writing: 'Best Western have no regard for the heartbreak these decisions make.

'This is a second chance for my friend and her hubby to be, after a genuinely serious health scare...

'After a really difficult year with his health it was going to be a fantastic ending. Sadly Cresta Courts owners have ruined that and at the moment they can't see the wood for the trees. Absolutely gutted for them.'

Cresta Court Hotel has been a fixture in the prosperous Greater Manchester town of Altrincham since the 1970s.

As recently as last week, local businesses were being encouraged to book their Christmas parties there.

However despite Labour's manifesto pledge to end the use of hotels, barges and military sites as accommodation for asylum seekers, the Cresta Court is now housing mainly-male migrants under a Home Office-approved deal - to the fury of many locals.

The news caused outrage in the town as parties, weddings and functions have all been cancelled. Pictured: Migrants outside the hotel

The hotel is part of Vine Hotels, which Greg Dyke (pictured) - a former FA chairman and BBC director-general from 2000-2004 - chairs as well as being a major shareholder

Worried residents gathered at a meeting on Monday to voice their concerns

But some residents gathered to show their support for migrants and refugees outside the venue despite the migrants being housed with no notice

It comes after ministers warned that the immigration system would 'descend into chaos' if they failed to open more asylum hotels.

Upcoming bookings at the Cresta Court have been abruptly cancelled, with room reservations no longer being taken.

Staff were last week seen removing posters emblazoned 'Christmas is coming' advertising the hotel's events venue.

Meanwhile bored-looking young men - understood to be from Syria, Yemen, Iran and Somalia - have been seen congregating outside.

The hotel is part of Vine Hotels, which Mr Dyke - a former FA chairman and BBC director-general from 2000-2004 - chairs as well as being a major shareholder.

It is understood to have signed a year-long deal with private contractor Serco to house asylum seekers after receiving Home Office 'ministerial approval'.

On Monday a public meeting was held at which locals expressed safety fears over the hotel's proximity to several schools as well as placing local health services and police under strain.

Nearby residents say they were given no advance warning.

At the meeting, locals expressed safety fears over the hotel's proximity to several schools as well as placing local health services and police under strain

People speaking out said they were 'not happy to be honest' and that they 'were given no notice at all'

Yesterday a 59-year-old who only gave her first name Angela told the Daily Mail: 'I'm devastated.

'I don't feel I can take my grandchildren down the park now and I'm going to get extra security at home.

'I think it's just the wrong place to put them, so close to the town centre.

'Even if they don't intend to be, their presence will feel threatening.

'I'm also worried about the impact on the town in general and on visitors who might be put off from coming.'

Another woman said: 'I am just not happy to be honest.

'We were given no notice at all.'

An 88-year-old woman living close to the hotel said: 'It's difficult because they have to go somewhere.

'But I admit it has caused me concern because I was worried it could lead to crime going up.'

One of the new residents, a 27-year-old man, said he'd only arrived in Britain on Saturday via a small boat after fleeing violence in his native Syria.

Police talk to members of the public who stood outside the hotel holding signs which said 'Refugees welcome'

He said it was a 'good' hotel and that he hoped to eventually find work in a restaurant once his asylum claim is processed.

A Home Office spokesman said: 'This government inherited an asylum system under unprecedented strain, with thousands stuck in a backlog without their claims processed.

'We have taken immediate action to restart asylum processing which will save an estimated 7 billion for the tax payer over the next ten years, and are delivering a major uplift in returns to remove people with no right to be in the UK.

'Over the long term this will reduce our reliance on hotels and costs of accommodation.

'We remain absolutely committed to ending the use of hotels for asylum seekers and continue to identify a range of accommodation options to minimise their use.'

MailOnline has contacted Best Western for comment.

Has your event been cancelled? Email rory.tingle@mailonline.co.uk
Horrifying footage shows the moments before an elderly woman and her young granddaughter were allegedly hit by a P-plate driver running a red light who was forced to swerve onto the footpath.

The grandmother, 72, and a girl, 4, were waiting to cross Old Glenfield Road at Glenfield in Sydney's south-west about 5pm on Tuesday, when a red Toyota sedan allegedly mounted the footpath and ploughed into them.

The 18-year-old behind the wheel was allegedly banned from driving due to a suspended licence.

Dashcam footage showed the sedan moving at speed through the intersection before swerving wildly to avoid a 4WD turning into its path.

Such was the force of the impact the four-year-old girl was thrown into a tree, with emergency responders forced to cut a branch to rescue her.

The impact of crash was heard by nearby residents.

'I hear the boom, this noise,' one local told Nine News.

A suspended P-plate driver allegedly sped through an intersection against the lights, forcing it to swerve to miss oncoming traffic and hitting a grandmother and toddler waiting to cross the road

The dashcam also showed motorists and neighbours rushing to help the injured before emergency responders arrived.

'The road was so busy and police and ambulances were dealing with everything, traffic controllers,' Jwanah Rahem said.

The grandmother was rushed Westmead Hospital in a critical condition, where she remains with serious head injuries.

The girl was also taken to Westmead in a stable condition but has since been discharged.

Police established a crime scene that was examined by specialist police from the Crash Investigation Unit.

The horror crash in Glenfield which left three in hospital was captured on dashcam

The P-plate driver was taken to Liverpool Hospital in a stable condition and since been released.

NSW Police told Nine News they plan to speak to the 'in the very near future'.

A police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday night that no charges have yet been made.

Investigations into the crash continue.
James Bond star Daniel Craig has stepped in to save a community hub under threat of eviction by donating a massive 50,000.

The action hero made the payment to Brimscombe Mill in Stroud, Gloucestershire, after the building was sold unexpectedly in March, and the businesses operating there given six months to find a new home.

Other projects in the hub include The Long Table, a pay-as-you-can lunch and dinner spot, Kids Stuff, a second-hand toy shop, The Home Remedy, a pre-loved furniture shop and The Bike Drop.

This pledge, alongside other generous donations from the community, meant that the group were able to secure the essential space in October 2024 and will not have to move out.

Speaking to MailOnline Tom Herbert, director at Brimscombe Mill and co-founder of The Long Table, said: 'An email came from Daniel Craig's agent in our darkest hour and it has been a lifeline for us, giving us a war chest of cash for all the expenses we incurred.

'Without this support we wouldn't have been able to stay and we are forever grateful to him for being our real life hero.'

James Bond star Daniel Craig has stepped in to save a community hub under threat of eviction by donating a massive 50,000

The action hero made the payment to Brimscombe Mill in Stroud, Gloucestershire, after the building was sold unexpectedly in March

Tom Herbert, director at Brimscombe Mill and co-founder of The Long Table, said: 'This incredible support from both the community and Daniel Craig speaks to the vitality of what we're building here at Brimscombe Mill'

He continued: 'Daniel's support has also made other people notice. Why should The Long Table that this year will serve 40,000 delicious pay-as-you-can meals suffer?

'Or Kids Stuff that employs over a dozen mums taking donations of clothes kids have grown out of along with toys and buggies make them available to families that need them and Bike Drop, which fixes up bikes, getting the whole district back on bikes?

'And The Home Remedy plays its part by getting unwanted furniture to families and people that need it.'

Mr Herbert praised the community by saying that since the news went out they have 'never been busier' .

'Together the work of Brimscombe Mill has created over 50 living wage jobs and built a lively and beloved community and since the news has gone out we've never been busier with people curious to know why of all that's going on in the world has this place been saved.

'I think it's because we meet need in a joyful way and that's something people are hungry for because it gives us hope.'

He also added how this surprise sale 'threatened their whole existence' and earnestly added that they were not prepared for that scenario.

'We had no plan and we didn't have any cash reserves. The thing that happened to us threatened our whole existence.'

Although Mr Herbert is unsure how Craig found the project, he believes the news 'rippled' out from local press into national papers.

'It obviously landed with him and made an impression. We're super grateful that he heard the cry and answered.'

In addition to food and employment initiatives, the Mill hosted 389 free or Pay-As-You-Can activities last year alone and plans to expand on this in the next year

Although Mr Herbert (above) is unsure how Craig found the project, he believes the news 'rippled' out from local press into national papers

In addition to food and employment initiatives, the Mill hosted 389 free or Pay-As-You-Can activities last year alone and plans to expand on this in the next year.

Mr Craig was in LA last night for the premiere of Queer inside the DGA Theater Complex looking very dapper in a grey-pinstripe bespoke Loewe double-breasted suit, estimated to cost $4,500.

He paired his wool suit with a white sheer top and $790 Loewe 'Flow Runner' sneakers.

In his latest movie, Daniel portrays a thinly-veiled version of author William S. Burroughs in A24's big-screen adaptation of his 1985 novella about a love affair between two American expats in Mexico City back in the 1950s.

Craig spent months taking dance and movement classes in preparation for the role.

Daniel Craig has been approached for comment.
A Swedish health firm has been criticised for using the C-word in 'offensive' posters to promote vaginal vitamin supplements.

The adverts, which were displayed on billboards at metro stations in Stockholm, show a woman with her underwear pulled down reaching for a jar of tablets.

The posters read 'Chaos down there? Don't worry!' in Swedish, with the English phrase 'you can c**t on us' added underneath in pink writing.

Health supplement company Elexir Pharma, has been blasted by the Swedish advertising ombudsman for using the 'offensive' swear word to advertise its Happy Vagina vitamins.

It ruled yesterday that the adverts used a 'gross profanity' in a way that was 'intended to cause offence'.

A Swedish health firm has been criticised for using the C-word in 'offensive' posters to promote vaginal vitamin supplements (stock photo)

The ombudsman added that c**t is the 'most shocking swearword' in English and is frequently used to 'denigrate women'.

But Elexir Pharma has defended its marketing campaign, saying the use of the pun was a 'conscious choice to challenge and break taboos around women's abdomen health'.

It added that the posters were aimed at a Swedish audience and that the strength of the C-word depends on how it is used.

'In Sweden it is not as charged a term as in the UK and as a result the use of the word is more acceptable here,' Elexir Pharma continued.

'In some situations, particularly in feminist circles, the word has been reclaimed as a symbol of strength and resistance against patriarchal norms.'

However, this defence was rejected by the advertising ombudsman, who said the use of the C-word can offend consumers in general.

Health supplement company Elexir Pharma, has been blasted by the Swedish advertising ombudsman for using the 'offensive' swear word (stock photo)

It also noted that the Stockholm metro is full of 'English speakers' who would understand the term.

One British man who did not want to be named, told The Local: 'This particular swearword has a particular place in the lexicon of swearwords and Swedes don't get that.'

'It was used in a context that wasn't funny and it wasn't clever and it was offensive,' he added.

A spokesperson for Elexir Pharma told The Guardian: 'Our intention was to use the word in a context, where it highlights women's strength and their right to their own bodies and health.'

MailOnline has contacted the health supplement company for further comment.
President-elect Donald Trump has made another controversial decision regarding his future Cabinet by nominating controversial Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz for the position of Attorney General.

Gaetz has served as a member of Congress since being elected to the role in 2016, but has resigned from his role following Trump's decision to nominate him as Attorney General.

If confirmed as Attorney General, Gaetz would become the top law enforcement officer in the nation, overseeing the Justice Department and the FBI.

It comes a day after Trump also made the shock decision to appoint Peter Hegseth - a man with no senior military or national security experience - as his Secretary of Defense.

So, who exactly is Matt Gaetz and why has his nomination been met with shock by both Democrats and Republicans alike?

Read on below for everything you need to know about Matt Gaetz.

Who is Matt Gaetz?

Republican U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz speaks at a campaign rally for Donald Trump in Henderson, Nevada on October 31 2024

Born on May 7 1982 in Hollywood, Florida, Matt Gaetz decided to follow in his father Don's footsteps by embarking on a career in politics.

Don served as the Member-elect of the Florida Senate from the 4th District from 2006 to 2012 - before moving to the 1st District between 2012 and 2016 after the state's legislative districts were reconfigured.

Taking inspiration from his father, Matt, now 42, entered the same field after obtaining a Bachelor of Science in interdisciplinary sciences from Florida State University in 2003.

He would also go on to earn a Juris Doctor from William & Mary Law School, in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 2007.

From 2010 to 2016, Matt served as Member of the Florida House of Representatives from the 4th District, before being elected to Congress in 2016.

What role does Matt Gaetz play in Congress?

Prior to resigning in the wake of his nomination for the role of Attorney General, Gaetz served as the Republican representative for Florida in the House of Representatives.

According to a blog post on his website, his work in Congress 'focuses on national security, veterans' affairs, and adherence to constitutional principles'.

While serving in Congress, Gaetz became prominent for his controversial remarks and actions as a member of the Freedom Caucus.

After taking office during Trump's first term, he became one of the lead critics into the Russia investigations into the 45th president.

He also reportedly sought a pardon from Trump over his efforts to overturn the election, and has embraced conspiracy theories about the attack on the US Capitol.

In 2023, Gaetz spearheaded a successful effort to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy - and resigned from his position in Congress late on Wednesday evening after being nominated for the role of Attorney General by Trump.

What is the controversy surrounding Matt Gaetz?

In 2023, the Department of Justice decided not to charge Gaetz as part of a long-running investigation that included allegations that Gaetz was part of a scheme that led to the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl.

A separate probe by the House Ethics Committee - which is the very department he has been picked to lead - ended on Wednesday with Gaetz's resignation from his position in Congress.

In June, the committee gave an unusually public update on its review, which it said also included whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.

The committee announced that it was no longer reviewing four other allegations involving the congressman, including that he shared inappropriate images or videos with colleagues on the House floor or that he accepted a bribe or converted campaign funds to personal use.

Gaetz has categorically denied all the allegations, which he has blamed on former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a longtime nemesis, though the probe began before McCarthy and Republicans took the majority in the House.

Joel Greenberg, a former friend and ally of Gaetz, pleaded guilty to sex trafficking and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

What role has Donald Trump picked Matt Gaetz for?

Gaetz would be responsible for overseeing the legal positions that the government takes on key issues, including abortion, civil rights laws, and first amendment issues.

The president-elect has pledged to use the justice department to prosecute his political enemies and there is little doubt that Gaetz will help him fulfill that pledge.

Despite being embroiled in controversy himself, Gaetz has remained one of Trump's closest allies as he was tried and convicted in a Manhattan criminal court of 34 counts for covering up the hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels to hide an affair.

HE has consistently defended Trump and his vision for the United States during Trump's first term in office

This has seen him earn nicknames such as the 'Trumpiest Congressman in Trump's Washington' by GQ magazine and 'the Trumpiest Congressman' by Rolling Stone, which he considers as badges of honor.

Gaetz appeared with Trump in the courtroom and spoke on his behalf outside as the trial was taking place earlier this year.

Announcing the appointment of Gaetz as Attorney General on Wednesday afternoon, Trump wrote on Truth Social: 'It is my Great Honor to announce that Congressman Matt Gaetz, of Florida, is hereby nominated to be The Attorney General of the United States.

'Matt is a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney, trained at the William & Mary College of Law, who has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice,' Trump added.

Is Matt Gaetz married?

Ginger Luckey Gaetz, 30, shared a heartful tribute to her husband after President-elect Donald Trump nominated him for Attorney General

Matt Gaetz and his wife Ginger Luckey walk down the steps of the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill following a vote on April 19, 2024 in Washington, DC

In December 2020, Gaetz announced that he would be getting engaged to his girlfriend, Ginger Luckey.

Matt has one son, Nestor, who he has described raising as 'the most rewarding thing I've done in my life.'

Ginger is the sister of Reality Lab (formerly Oculus VR) founder and major Republican donor Palmer Luckey - whose company specializes in virtual reality and augmented reality software.

The company was acquired by Facebook Inc, now Meta, in a deal reported to be worth up to $1.6 billion.

Gaetz - who is also a member of First Baptist Church in Fort Walton Beach, Florida - married Ginger at a ceremony in southern California in August 2021.

According to The Guardian, Ms Luckey works for a company that endeavours to extend the life of products made from plant-based materials.
A vengeful housewife hounded her estranged husband's new partner out of her job and bombarded her with texts branding her a 'homewrecker'.

Andrea Savage, 55, from Cheshire, sent the messages to NHS therapist Louise Young over a three-day period last Christmas after discovering she was dating her ex, Paul Savage, with whom she split in 2020.

Keen horsewoman Savage wept uncontrollably as she was convicted of harassment and handed her sentence on Tuesday afternoon.

Matters came to a head when former administrator Savage sent a parcel containing A4 print outs of 100 texts Miss Young had shared with Mr Savage during their relationship and posted them to the victim's workplace.

Miss Young was said to have felt 'physically sick' on receiving the parcel at work.

The victim felt so uncomfortable being targeted in her workplace that she left her job - despite having worked for the NHS for 20 years.

In a statement to police Miss Young said: 'I've been caused months of stress and I still cannot understand why Andrea went to such length to intimidate me and scare me, goading me about Paul's love for her.

Andrea Savage (pictured) hounded Louise Young out of her job when she found out she was in a relationship with her estranged husband

Hateful missives were sent by Savage to NHS therapist Louise Young (pictured). The messages included false claims Miss Young was 'transgender '

Pictured: Andrea Savage's estranged husband Paul Savage. Andrea Savage split with Paul in 2020

Andrea Savage with her husband Paul Savage before they became estranged

'I've tried to remain neutral in the exchanges between Andrea and Paul and I had no idea that her abusive texts would escalate to such aggressive behaviour when I received the parcel at work.

'I worked as a therapist and often received catalogues and I just presumed the bundle of printed out texts was a catalogue.

'It was only when I opened the parcel and took out the papers in the office that I realised the content.

'I felt physically sick. The messages were in large print, each message on a page and I was frightened.

'I did not know what to expect as she had made threats to contact my manager which caused me anxiety.

'I worked for the NHS, I had done so for 20 years and I had good professional relationships.

'I loved my job. However, I now felt uncomfortable doing my job in the community in case I was targeted by Andrea.

'It's been emotionally overwhelming and I have found Andrea provocative, vindictive, nasty, and unpredictable and this has left me dealing with feelings of fearfulness and anxiety every day since the last year.

'I believe Andrea's actions have been deliberately aimed to cause me the maximum trauma and distress and she aimed to do this at my place of work.'

At Warrington magistrates court, Cheshire, Savage, who lives in the Latchford area of the town, was convicted of harassment and wept uncontrollably as she was sentenced to a 12-month community order with a requirement she undertakes up to 10 rehabilitation activity days.

Andrea Savage (pictured), 55, from Cheshire, sent the messages to therapist Louise Young

Savage (pictured) sent a parcel containing A-4 prints outs of 100 texts Miss Young had shared with Mr Savage during their relationship and posted them to the victim's workplace

Miss Young felt so uncomfortable being targeted by Savage (pictured) in her workplace, she left her job despite having worked for the NHS for 20 years

She was also fined 200 with 764 in costs and a victim surcharge and banned from contacting Miss Young and Mr Savage for a year under the terms of a restraining order.

Savage denied wrongdoing and during the hearing claimed Mr Savage had been cheating on her with Miss Young during their marriage.

Miss Gayle McCoubrey, prosecuting, said: 'The defendant is the ex-partner of Mr Paul Savage and Louise Young is his new partner.

'The defendant sent text messages to Louise Young accusing her of being a homewrecker.

'She also called her transgender and told her to pay for a divorce. Several times, Miss Young asked her to stop messaging but she continued to send text messages

'The defendant has then sent a parcel with 100 pages of text messages between Mr Savage and Miss Young his new partner to Miss Young's place of work.

'Miss Young has stated she was very worried and frightened and said it must have taken hours to print off. There is no victim personal statement from Paul Savage.'

Savage who represented herself said she needed surgery from a compression of the spine and two slipped discs.

She told the hearing: 'While he was dating Louise, he was still dating me. He left me for her. He was still with me.

'I did send her some text messages but I did not think that was harassment. She had been abusive to me as well.

'I have had two friend requests and she has followed me on Facebook.

'I don't want to contact my husband or Louise Young, I am happy with the restraining order.

Sentencing her Deputy District Judge John Rowan told her: 'Your relationship with Mr Savage ended and he seemingly struck up a new relationship with Miss Young.

Savage (pictured) told the hearing: 'While he was dating Louise, he was still dating me. He left me for her. He was still with me'. She is a keen horsewoman

Matters came to a head when Savage sent a parcel containing A4 print outs of 100 texts Louise Young (pictured) had shared with Mr Savage

It was found after trial that between December 26, 2023 and December 28, 2023, you had sent a number of messages to Louise Young via text.'

'A significant number of messages had been sent to Miss Young by text and a number of messages were printed out and sent to Miss Young's place of work.

'Your account, was that while you did accept sending the messages to Miss Young it was a two-way street - you did not cause her harassment and you would not have foreseen that she would be caused harassment.

'But that was not accepted. Miss Young she describes feeling anxious. She describes feeling upset at your behaviour.

'She describes having to leave her place of work because of what has happened and the ongoing mental anxiety and upset.

'I agree distress was caused and some psychological harm and there was some impact on Miss Young.

'But I have read from those who know you, you are described as a good mother, a good person, and how this matter has and will continue to have an impact on you. But the impact on the complainant in these matters cannot be understated.'
But Kyiv could still manufacture rudimentary nuclear weapons using plutonium

Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1996 following the Soviet Union's collapse

Ukraine has enough plutonium to construct hundreds of nuclear warheads for rudimentary bombs akin to the first atomic weapons dropped on Japan by the US in 1945, a new report has revealed.

A briefing paper prepared for Ukraine's Defence Ministry said Kyiv could develop small dirty bombs within months if Donald Trump pulls US military aid.

Despite giving up its nuclear arsenal in 1996, Kyiv is still in control of nine operational reactors and has significant expertise on how to build the weapons.

Ukraine does not have the time or resources to run the facilities required to enrich uranium needed for high-yield nuclear weapons amid the ongoing war.

But Oleksii Yizhak, head of department at Ukraine's National Institute for Strategic Studies and author of the paper, said Kyiv could extract plutonium from its spent fuel rods at nuclear power plants to create a significant arsenal of dirty warheads.

'The amount of material is sufficient for hundreds of warheads with a tactical yield of several kilotons,' Yizhak concluded.

'That would be enough to destroy an entire Russian airbase or concentrated military, industrial or logistics installations.'

The weapon would use similar technology to the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, the report stated, with each bomb having roughly one tenth of the power of the Fat Man.

A mushroom cloud rises after an atomic bomb codenamed 'Fat Man' exploded after being dropped by a U.S. Army Air Force B-29 bomber over Nagasaki, Japan August 9, 1945

Zelensky made a bombshell announcement at an EU summit in Brussels, claiming he wanted NATO to let his country join the military alliance, or Ukraine would become a nuclear power

President Vladimir Putin delivers a video address on the occasion of the Day of the Internal Affairs Officer in Moscow on November 10, 2024

Replicas of the first Atomic bombs, Little Boy, left, was the first nuclear weapon used in warfare, over Hiroshima, Japan, on the morning of August 6, 1945. Fat Man, right, was used on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets Donald Trump in September in New York

The concerning revelation comes after Trump reportedly backed the shock ultimatum President Volodymyr Zelensky gave NATO last month in which he suggested Ukraine would need to become a nuclear power if it is not granted a NATO membership.

Zelensky later clarified he had meant there was no alternative security guarantee and Kyiv has since denied they are considering building a nuclear bomb.

According to The Times, the briefing paper prepared for the Ministry of Defence reads: 'Creating a simple atomic bomb, as the United States did within the framework of the Manhattan Project, would not be a difficult task 80 years later.'

'The weight of reactor plutonium available to Ukraine can be estimated at seven tons A significant nuclear weapons arsenal would require much less material,' it continued.

President-elect Trump has famously pledged to end the Russia-Ukraine war within a day of becoming president and has boasted of his 'very good relationship' with President Putin.

He has also said the invasion would never have happened if he had been in the White House and has criticised Biden's level of support for Ukraine, despite President Zelensky being adamantly against relinquishing territory to Russia.

Zelensky last month reportedly told NATO to let his country join the group or it will get nuclear weapons in a shock ultimatum that was allegedly backed by Trump.

The leader, 46, declared his bombshell proposal at the EU summit in Brussels - stating either NATO quickly accepts Ukraine into its alliance, or it will once again become a nuclear power, German newspaper Bild reported.

President Donald Trump meets with Russia's Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg in July 2017

The bomb would be big enough to destroy an entire Russian airbase or concentrated military or industrial targets, the document's authors concluded (stock photo)

Zelensky had reportedly planned to present what is being dubbed his 'victory plan' to the heads of state and government of the European Union, but instead made the dramatic announcement to stunned reporters.

Speaking to the former American President Donald Trump, 78, some weeks ago, the Ukrainian leader declared: 'Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and then they will be our defence.

'Or we will have to enter into some kind of alliance. Apart from NATO, we do not know of any effective alliances today.'

He said Trump had agreed with his proposal before he made the statement at the summit, insisting that a membership to NATO would provide his country with the ultimate security guarantee to protect it from Russia.

Last week it emerged that Trump could propose a 800-mile demilitarised zone between Russia and Ukraine as part of a plan to end the war early.

The plans, which were outlined by three Trump staffers, would involve the zone being policed by British and European troops.

It would mean that Russia would keep its territorial gains made in Ukraine with the current border frozen in place. Kyiv would also have to assure that it would not join NATO for 20 years.

Ukrainian servicemen of the 26th artillery brigade fire an AHS Krab self-propelled howitzer toward Russian positions near the front line in the Chasiv Yar area

Under the plans the US would arm Ukraine in return for preventing Russia from restarting the war. However, responsibility for manning and financing the buffer zone would fall solely on Ukraine's European allies.

'We can do training and other support but the barrel of the gun is going to be European,' a member of Trump's team told the Wall Street Journal.

'We are not sending American men and women to uphold peace in Ukraine. And we are not paying for it. Get the Poles, Germans, British and French to do it.'

Many analysts have warned that Trump is indeed likely to reduce US military aid to Ukraine and force Kyiv's European partners to shoulder a huge burden to maintain an adequate supply of arms - a move that would certainly pile pressure on Zelensky to consider a negotiated settlement.

'Trump does have a legitimate point about European allies having underperformed in defence and over-relied on Uncle Sam to protect them for too long, and this is a huge wake-up call to the West,' Dr Russell Foster, Senior Lecturer in British and International Politics at King's College London, told MailOnline.

'But Europe, Canada, and Australasia have let their defence spending stagnate for so long, they have nowhere near the industrial base and military infrastructure to help defend Ukraine and themselves from further aggression without American help.

'We are likely to see major calls for defence spending and investment across NATO - but this will take years to build up and be hugely expensive at a time of economic stagnation. The future of Western defence is now looking very bleak.'
Sick and twisted messages from a sadistic global monkey torture network asked people to 'be creative' for 'brutal vids' with one saying: 'I wanna see pain, shock, pain, acceptance of fate.'

The sordid exchanges on WhatsApp and Telegram saw 'monkey haters' share their vile fantasies of forced feeding, using power tools and even placing the animals in jars of acid.

They would run depraved polls on how they wanted monkeys to be brutally tortured where in one it asked whether they wanted either a hammer, pliers, or a screwdriver to be used.

Within hours a grotesque video would appear with their chosen desire.

Hundreds of people would trade extreme torture ideas, with the goal of creating bespoke videos which were then sold, sometimes for as little as 10.

One of those groups was on Telegram called Ape's Cage which was uncovered by a year-long BBC investigation.

It contained 400 members which included a US Air Force airman and a grandmother from Alabama.

The pair were brought to justice following investigations by animal rights campaigners and the makers of a shocking BBC documentary called The Monkey Haters

Sick and twisted messages from a sadistic global monkey torture network asked people to 'be creative' for 'brutal vids' with one saying: 'I wanna see pain, shock, pain, acceptance of fate'. Pictured is some a mock up of some of the messages uncovered by a year-long BBC investigation

Briton Holly LeGresley, 37, revelled under her moniker 'The Immolator' where she effectively acted as an 'archivist' for the group

LeGresley pictured here wearing a T-shirt with an image of dog-hating character Cruella de Vil. The group she was part of commissioned videos of monkeys being set on fire

Ran by 'Mr Ape', he would boast about having 3,500 clips in his repulsive collection saying: 'The only good smell coming from a monkey is gasoline.'

The baby monkey at the centre of their vulgar fantasies was Mini who would become a celebrity in their warped world.

'I'm literally feeding off its fear right now,' one said as Mr Ape replied: 'Lmao you can tell this monkey has really been through some s**t.'

When the videos of Mini stopped appearing they speculated on whether she was dead.

One member under the name of 'Freddy's Finger' perversely pleaded to 'see mini's corpse right now'.

Mini was eventually freed from her abuser and after two years in a rehabilitation sanctuary was this month released into the Indonesian forest.

But amongst the twisted group's cruellest contributors was bird-loving 37-year-old Brit Holly LeGresley who was yesterday jailed for two years for her harrowing sadism.

Pet-owning grandmother Adriana Orme, 56, was also jailed yesterday for 15 months for her part in the online chatroom.

They followed law firm worker Peter Stanley, 42, who last month became the first Briton to be jailed over sharing the vile clips.

LeGresley (left) and Orme (right) were both jailed yesterday for their harrowing sadism in sharing monkey torture videos

One sickening group named Ape's Cage was run by 'Mr Ape' who would boast about having thousands of vile videos

Holly LeGresley is heckled by protestors as she arrives at Worcester Crown Court for sentencing

LeGresley was surrounded by protestors as she arrived for her sentencing

Adriana Orme, 56, from Upton-upon-Severn, arriving at a previous hearing. She was jailed for 15 months

Adriana Orme arrives at Worcester Crown Court for her sentencing

He was put behind bars for 20 months after police uncovered that he was a member of a grotesque private Facebook group called 'Monkey Sauce' where people were encouraged to view and post their own disturbing videos.

As for LeGresley, she revelled in her leading role as moniker 'The Immolator' which a judge said 'indicated a desire to maim or torture'.

The monkey abusers who have been brought to justice UK Holly LeGresley, 37, Kidderminster, Worcestershire - two years

Peter Stanley, 42, Dovecot, Liverpool - 20 months

Adriana Orme, 55, Upton-upon Severn - 15 months US Mike Mccarthey, 50, Virginia - three years and four months

David Noble, 48, Oregon - four years

Nicole Devilbiss, 35, Florida - four years and three months Advertisement

She effectively acted as an 'archivist', offering to help catalogue a user's collection.

LeGresley would try and invite others into her torture world telling them 'it's basically everyone I like in one place for monkey hate, content and chat'.

The BBC's investigation into the torture network in 2022 revealed a chain of participants around the globe who would 'commission' people living in Thailand or Indonesia to film monkeys being tortured to later be shared online.

BBC journalists went undercover in one of the main Telegram torture groups after the charity Action for Primates discovered people were paying to buy monkeys in Indonesia to be tortured.

Worcester Crown Court heard the two women, both from Worcestershire, were participants in online chatrooms were abuse was discussed.

LeGresley, who had researched where she could buy a monkey in the UK, offered to help catalogue a user's collection.

Judge James Burbidge told the pair: 'You promoted the physical torture of monkeys by others, you shared videos and images of such torture and abuse, retained images and videos for what appeared to be your own pleasure and amusement..'

He said 'socially awkward' Orme's involvement in the network began with her wanting to stop 'this outrageous behaviour' but said she then 'got a taste for it'.

And he told LeGresley she had 'caused significant pain, torture and death to the monkeys in Indonesia'.

The gore-obsessed woman - who lives with her parents - previously described Hannibal Lecter, a serial killer who eats his victims, and Pennywise, the clown from IT who preys on children, as her 'horror icons'.

But other posts on social media showed her cradling and cuddling cockatiels or holding a tarantula.

The torture network shared 61 folders with approximately 3,000 images and videos, the court heard.

LeGresley sobbed in the dock as the court heard how she planned to create videos showing severe injuries to monkeys.

She expressed a desire for a baby monkey to undergo severe trauma, and also for one monkey to watch another animal die.

She also ordered a whip-round for one member who had funded videos, writing: 'She's done so much... delivering one of the best videos we've seen for a long time.'

The judge was read a catalogue of monkey torture methods which included attacks with scissors. One monkey died after being tortured for around 10 minutes.

Former motorcycle gang member and Donald Trump supporter Michael Mccartney was one of the ringleaders. He was last month jailed in the US state of Virginia for three years for his role in setting up one of the barbaric networks

A year-long investigation by the BBC found that hundreds had been paying Indonesians to torture and kill infant long-tailed macaques on video

A horrific video shows baby monkeys dressed up in human clothing while trapped in cages

M Ajis Rasjana (pictured) was sentenced to eight months in prison in Indonesia - the maximum available for animal torture

The recent charges have left the abusers warning their co-conspirators to watch out that the authorities are after them

The court heard Orme, who attended court with her husband, was known as Noelle in the online chatrooms.

The unravelling of the macabre world began during the coronavirus pandemic.

It started on YouTube when former adult dancer Lucy Kapetanich began watching cute animal videos from her small bedroom in Los Angeles.

She was using them as a way to wind down after spending long hours hosting webcam shows.

But with each click, the algorithm slowly started shifting her towards cruel and sickening videos of monkeys being beaten, attacked with drills and doused in acid.

What she at first hadn't realised was that she had unwittingly uncovered a global underworld torture network for the sadistic and twisted self-proclaimed 'monkey haters'.

The horrifying clips brought Kaetanich to tears but with the help of an animal rights group, the dark and sordid world began to unravel.

Its ringleader? Former motorcycle gang member and Donald Trump supporter Michael Mccartney who last month was jailed in the US state of Virginia for three years for his role in setting up one of the barbaric networks.

The tattooed 50-year-old revelled in his role as 'The Torture King' and ran most of the high-profile torture groups.

'I was the man. You want to see monkeys get messed up? I could bring it to you,' he boasted.

By the time the FBI had caught up with him the network was based on the encrypted messaging app Telegram where animal abusers would detail their vile torture fantasies.

'Pull its teeth out,' urged one group member as they clubbed together to raise $200 to torture it. Another added: 'I think we should hammer its hands and feet flat.'

Mccartney was jailed for three years and four months.

So far nine key ring leaders within the monkey torture network have pleaded guilty or been sentenced in America.
An embattled Sydney restaurateur continues to contact clients for bookings, despite stepping down as a director following his arrest for displaying a Nazi symbol at a pro-Palestine protest.

Al Yazbek continues to hold a 50 percent stake in the Nomad restaurant group and has been actively contacting clients to encourage Christmas reservations, despite being removed from day-to-day management.

Clients have revealed to the Daily Telegraph that Yazbek has been messaging and urging them to confirm Christmas bookings at Nomad in Sydney and Melbourne, aling with Victorian eateries Reine & La Rue.

He sparked national outrage last month after holding a sign made to look like the Israeli flag, but with a swastika the Star of David in the middle and the words 'Stop Nazi Israel'.

He was arrested following the protest march in Sydney on October 6 that marked one year since the beginning of the war in Gaza and was later charged with displaying a Nazi symbol and pleaded guilty.

Yazbek is no longer company secretary director of Edition Hospitality, which was rebranded from the Nomad Group.

Mr Yazbek's wife Rebecca was recently appointed sole director of Edition Hospitality in a damage control move in the wake of the saga.

It appears he is a silent partner in the company and has not cut ties.

Disgraced restauranteur Al Yazbek has been actively contacting clients to encourage Christmas reservations, despite being removed from day-to-day management. Mr Yazbek is pictured with his wife Rebecca

Mr Yazbek (pictured holding sign) was arrested on October 6 for displaying a Nazi symbol at a pro-Palestine protest in Sydney. He will be sentenced on December 10

A former Nomad patron and president of the Israel For Youth Foundation, Ronn Bechler, told the Daily Telegraph the restructuring of the hospitality group was 'lipstick on a pig'.

'Everyone who eats at, or contracts with, Reine & La Rue in Melbourne and Nomad restaurants in Melbourne and Sydney is funding the Yazbeks.'

'Irrespective of what the head company is called or who is on its board,' Mr Bechler said.

Following Yazbek displaying the Nazi symbol at the protest in October, Reine & La Rue's co-head chef, Israeli-born Jew Rotem Papo, resigned.

Yazbek was allegedly involved in another controversy involving Jewish people.

The Australian reported earlier this month that Yazbek allegedly called his Jewish landlords 'Shylock & Shylock'.

The publication reported Yazbek also described one of the landlord's employees as 'the little bald Jewish guy who works for you'.

Clients revealed Mr Yazbek has been messaging urging them to confirm Christmas bookings at Nomad in Sydney and Melbourne and Reine & La Rue, in Melbourne. Nomad Sydney is pictured

The comments were allegedly made in emails to Robert and Geula Burke, owners of the five-storey Surry Hills building that houses Nomad restaurant.

Ms Yazbek previously acknowledged that her husband behaved in a way that offended a lot of people.

'We deeply regret the impact his actions have had on the community, and for that, we sincerely apologise,' she said.

'As both his wife and business partner, I was furious with his actions and heartbroken by the harm they caused.'

'I fully understand the disappointment and frustration felt by those affected, and I am committed to doing everything possible to restore your trust.'

The couple built their high class restaurant group over the last decade with restaurants Nomad Sydney and Nomad Melbourne, as well as Reine & La Rue.

In a statement earlier this month, Ms Yazbek spoke of the restructuring of the hospitality group.

'Nomad Group is already a successful company, I am confident this new structure will work towards our future success.'

'This is the right time to move towards a new phase for my business,' she said.

Celebrity accountant Anthony Bell, founder & CEO of Bell Partners has been appointed as a business adviser to the restaurant group.

Yazbek last month pleaded guilty to displaying a Nazi symbol.

He will be sentenced on December 10.
Private jet arrivals at Baku's international airport have doubled as world leaders fly in to preach about global warming during the Cop29 summit.

The UN climate conference, being held this year in the oil-rich capital of Azerbaijan, has already sparked controversy over the country's human rights records.

Data from tracking website Flight Radar now shows that 65 private jets arrived in Baku in the week leading to Monday, The Times has reported.

Some 45 planes landed on Sunday and Monday alone as the Cop29 summit got underway.

This compares to the 32 private jets that arrived at Baku airport during the same week last year.

Sir Keir arrives at Heydar Aliyev International Airport on a government jet operated by the RAF to attend the UNFCCC COP29 Climate Conference

A general view at the United Nations climate change conference COP29 venue in Baku (stock photo)

Participants talk as they visit an exhibition at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP29 in Baku

Delegates attending the climate conference by private jet have been accused of hypocrisy by environmental campaigners for their private jet use.

Denise Auclair from the Travel Smart Campaign said: 'The number of arrivals by private jet we are seeing at Cop29 puts front and centre the hypocrisy of using a private jet while claiming to be fighting climate change, particularly from an equity point of view.

'An executive taking one long-haul private flight will burn more CO than several normal people do in an entire year.'

However, the overall number of private jets arriving in Baku is considerably lower than the 644 that arrived in Dubai for Cop28, producing 4,800 tonnes of CO.

Many world leaders have chosen not to attend this year with President Biden, President Xi of China, and Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi all shunning Cop29 despite their countries being some of the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide.

Senior figures from the EU are also absent from what is feared will be yet another talking shop that achieves little or nothing in the way of concrete action.

French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen are all staying at home.

Delegates arrive for the UNFCCC COP29 Climate Conference on November 11

Activists participate in a demonstration at the COP29 UN Climate Summit today

An electric taxi is parked in front of a terminal of the Heydar Aliyev International Airport ahead of the COP29 United Nations Climate Change Conference on November 3

Sir Keir Starmer is one of the only premiers from the wealthiest nations in Azerbaijan for the annual gathering, although the Taliban has sent a representative.

Sir Keir is laying out a target for the UK to slash 81 per cent off carbon emissions by 2035, compared to 1990 levels.

Countries will also be grappling with Donald Trump's return to the White House, in what analysts say is a trend of climate scepticism in elections this year.

The next President of the US, the world's second biggest polluter, is expected to boost fossil fuels, roll back green incentives domestically and take America out  again  of the global Paris Agreement on tackling climate change, which commits countries to pursue efforts to curb warming to 1.5C.

The choice of Azerbaijan to host the talks has come under criticism over its human rights record, with failings including the persecution of political opponents and detainment of activists.
He is the retail magnate dubbed the 'Del Boy Billionaire', who founded discount chain The Range, and is now seemingly on a one-man mission to rescue some of Britain's top chains from financial oblivion.

Tycoon Chris Dawson - one of the nation's wealthiest men - has already used his huge fortune to save Wilko after it collapsed into administration.

And on Wednesday, he struck again, swooping in to save troubled DIY firm Homebase in a move that secured 1,600 jobs and 70 stores.

It's the latest extraordinary business move by the energetic 71-year-old, as he continues to rapidly expand his retail empire.

Dawson, who left school unable to read or write, opened his first The Range shop in Plymouth in 1989.

Fast-forward 35 years and there are now more than 200 outlets nationwide, with its huge success having seen the wealth of Chris and his wife, Sarah, ballooning to more than 2billion, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

But when he first became a billionaire, he cried, admitting he felt 'frightened, lonely and hollow', telling the Mail in 2014: 'I thought this is the end, the show is over, what do I do for an encore? It's nice, but I am no happier being a billionaire.'

Dawson left school at just 15 with no qualifications - but he had a sharp business sense and a knack for hard graft that soon saw him venturing into the world of retail.

The 'Del Boy Billionaire' Chris Dawson (pictured) founded The Range and has gone onto use his fortune to rescue Wilko and Homebase from collapse. He is pictured with his custom 'DE11BOY' number plate on his old Bentley

Retail guru Dawson, who left school at 15 with no qualifications and unable to read and write, as since risen to become one of Britain's most wealthy men

He started his working life as a market trader, flogging off cutlery from the backs of lorries in markets across the south-west of England.

It was here that his comparison of David Jason's famous Only Fools and Horses character 'Del Boy' came from.

And it's a moniker Dawson is proud of; he spent more than 30,000 on a personalised 'DE11BOY' numberplate that has adorned his 250,000 Rolls Royce and more recently his luxury 265,000 Lamborghini.

His tale is as truer example of a rags-to-riches story as there can be. He grew up and a council estate and was so poor that he didn't own a pair of underpants until he was 12.

At school his nickname was 'Dunce' or 'Thicko' and he left barely able to read or write. 'I could write Chris, but I couldn't do Christopher,' he recalls.

He still can't write today and has never read a book. When he checks into a hotel, he pretends he has forgotten his spectacles and gets the receptionist to fill in the booking form for him. 'I'm not embarrassed about it,' he previously told the Mail.

Speaking to The Times earlier this year, the billionaire tycoon added: 'I can't do texts and things like that. I got loads of messages and I had to sit all day and phone them up because I can't bloody spell  almost like 'cat' and 'dog'. You would think I was speaking Chinese if I tried to text.'

His father was a sailor in the Royal Navy, and often drunk when at home. His mother would cry when there was no coal in the bunker and her three sons said they were cold.

Dawson left school at just 15 with no qualifications - but he had a sharp business sense and a knack for hard graft that soon saw him venturing into the world of retail.

He is proud of his nickname the 'Del Boy Billionaire' and even splashed out more than 30,000 on a custom number plate which now adorns his new Lamborghini (pictured)

He earned his nickname of David Jason's Only Fools and Horses character 'Del Boy', while working as a market trader. The cast of Only Fools and Horses is pictured, with 'Del Boy', right

As a boy, he had two paper rounds and pinched discarded copper from the metalwork class at school to sell in the scrap yard.

He is the youngest of three brothers, with varying fortunes in the world.

Oldest brother Michael, 66, is a multi-millionaire who lives in South Africa and owns a business repairing ship boilers. Middle brother Terry, 64, was unemployed and lived in the council house they all grew up in.

'A bit of a contrast, isn't it?' Dawson admitted when he spoke to the Mail back in 2014.

'I don't give Terry a penny and he does not expect me to. He is not a disappointment to me. I don't think he is a disappointment to himself, because you can't put in what God left out. If it is not there, it is not there.

'Some are not disappointed because they haven't tried hard and failed: they didn't try hard in the first place.'

Just like his hero Del Boy, Dawson started as an open-air trader, selling canteens of cutlery and such-like off the backs of lorries in the markets of South-West England. His nickname back then was Dickie Dirt Dawson and he was adept at charming housewives with his patter.

Mr Dawson started life on the market stall in Plymouth (pictured) and used to sell upcycled furniture and scrap metal to punters

Dawson has gone on to make billions and is now one of the most affluent men in Britain

Mr Dawson is now at the helm of 213 chains nationwide and visits ten per day in his personalised helicopter (seen above)

He met his wife Sarah 45 years ago when he was selling watches for 8.99 and she had only a fiver.

He loved his time at the markets, where he was well known across several counties.

'It was like being on stage. Me being in charge of the show was me expressing myself. When I was a famous market trader, I was like a bloody god.'

In 1989, Dawson used his market profits to open his first Range superstore at Sugar Mill Business Park in Plymouth. Now there are 88 homeware stores across the UK, employing more than 2,500 staff.

He has even picked up a few famous fans, including Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, who was once spotted shopping in The Range in Kings Lynn in December 2018 - possibly for a Christmas present.

His family work for the company; his wife and daughter as buyers, his son on shop refits. He says that they all work excessive hours and 'only go home to sleep'. No one, however, works quite as hard as Chris.

'I only sleep for six hours. I can't wait for night to go, so that I can start the day. I leave when it is dark, I get home when it is dark.

Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, was reportedly seen shopping in her local The Range store in Kings Lynn in December 2018 (file image of Kate, who is seen in 2017)

The Princess of Wales was reportedly spotted shopping in the store, possibly hunting for a Christmas present

'My paranoia is not maximising every day. I would hate to think there was an inch left in anything, I would hate to think that I had missed 50 pence.'

He was once a keen motocross rider, but an accident has left him with a limp.

And he is not afraid of getting into a scrap; the middle finger on his right hand is missing, following a fight 20 years ago with someone who owed him money. The finger somehow became poisoned, and at one stage doctors thought they might have to amputate his whole arm.

'Well, I whacked someone, didn't I? And in hospital I had the cocktail of drugs but my arm came up like an elephant. I had a finger like a Crunchie bar and I had a giant cyst like a mushroom under my arm.'

'That might make me sound like a violent man, but I am not,' he adds. 'A one-off. I am not a gangster, it was just an eye for an eye and I paid the price for it. I take people to court now.'

On Wednesday, Dawson used his company CDS Superstores - which acts as the parent firm for The Range - to rescue Homebase.

But around 2,000 workers and 49 shops still remain at risk.

Homebase has been saved thanks to retail tycoon Mr Dawson. File photo

Mr Dawson is seen at The Range, pictured with son Chris and daughter, Lisa

Mr Dawson pulled a similar move last September after agreeing to buy the Wilko name, website and intellectual property - entitling him to use the Wilko brand as he sees fit - for 5million after the British homeware chain collapsed.

News of the latest deal came just hours after Homebase owners Hilco, who bought the firm for a token 1 in 2018, announced yesterday morning it was appointing insolvency experts after reporting an 84.2 million loss last year.

The threat facing the retail giant came as Britain's high street continue to suffer after beloved brands including BHS, Wilko, Debenhams, The Body Shop and CarpetRight ran into financial trouble.

Some have been resurrected as online brands, or have drastically slimmed down t just a handful of stores where there was once an empire of hundreds.

Damian McGloughlin, the managing director of Homebase, told suppliers in August it would begin an 'active sale process' to seek new investment.

Hilco Capital began looking at ways to cut costs earlier this year, blaming overly cautious consumers not splashing out on DIY projects.

The deal will see Homebase subjected to a 'pre-pack' administration sale that sees the firm's assets bundled up and purchased by another company, which could save some stores and jobs.

Speaking on Wednesday, Mr McGloughlin said the last three years had been 'incredibly challenging' for DIY stores, blaming 'a decline in consumer confidence and spending' after the pandemic.

'Against this backdrop, we have taken many and wide-ranging actions to improve trading performance including restructuring the business and seeking fresh investment.

'These efforts have not been successful and today we have made the difficult decision to appoint administrators.'

For Homebase's new owner, Dawson, it will mean more work to try and save the fortunes of the British DIY store giant.

But the tycoon barely takes two weeks off a year and has insisted he has no desire of slowing down his effort to expand his business empire.

'I am well and truly on it. I am flat out. My ambition is to turn one billion into two,' he told The Times.

'When people say, "You are greedy", I am greedy for success. If you are successful then you get paid. You dont get paid before you are successful.'
Russia claims to have destroyed a British Challenger 2 tank operating inside its borders as military bloggers trumpeted the efforts of Moscow's troops to repel Ukraine's incursion into Kursk.

Footage shared by the Troika milblogging Telegram channel showed how an FPV drone swooped down on the British armour seen protruding from some bushes.

There was no immediate proof of an explosion but the Challenger 2 - operated by the Ukrainian armed forces inside the Russian region of Kursk - was destroyed by Russia's 155th Brigade marines underneath the turret in 'its main weak spot', according to Russian reports.

'The very fact that it was transferred by the Ukrainian Armed Forces as a reserve to Kursk Oblast indicates the enemy's intention to hold the occupied lines in our region at all costs,' said a from Two Majors Telegram channel, reposted by Rybar military channel.

'The enemy is throwing fresh reserves, NATO armoured vehicles into battle and is putting up fierce resistance,' the military blogging channel concluded.

Russia claims to have destroyed at least one other Challenger 2 tank, supplied to Ukraine by the UK.

Russia claims to have destroyed a British Challenger 2 tank operating inside its borders as military bloggers trumpeted the efforts of Moscow 's troops to repel Ukraine's incursion into Kursk

Footage shared by the Troika milblogging Telegram channel showed how an FPV drone swooped down on the British armour seen protruding from some bushes

Nov. 13, 2024: The Russian army's multiple rocket launcher Solntsepyok fires towards Ukrainian positions in the border area of Kursk region, Russia

In this image taken from a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024, Russian Army soldiers fight with Ukrainian Armed forces in the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region of Russia

A handout picture made available by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine shows the site of a rocket attack on a five-story residential building in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, 11 November 2024

The doomed Challenger 2 tank is believed to have been operated by the 82nd Airborne Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Army.

Its destruction in Kursk comes as Russia amasses some 50,000 troops in preparation for a major operation to repel Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region, a presence seen as humiliating to Vladimir Putin.

The force likely includes some 10,000 North Korean troops recruited by Putin.

Kyiv's troops remain in control of hundreds of square miles of Kursk region close to the Ukrainian border.

Elsewhere, Russian forces are said to have reached the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Kupiansk, but each side disputed the claims of the other regarding the battles unfolding there.

Russian milbloggers claimed armoured units had moved into the northeastern city and began seizing territory.

'At night, enemy resources reported from the Kupiansk direction about the entry of our troops into Kupiansk, which marks the beginning of the battle for the city. According to enemy estimates, two columns of Russian equipment advanced from the Liman Pervy area to Kupiansk.

'They managed to enter the city and land troops, which dispersed among the houses in the Svatovskaya Street area.'

But Ukraine's military declared this morning its troops were in full control of Kupiansk and that their forces had stopped a Russian advance towards the railway hub.

'The alleged presence of Russian troops in the city of Kupiansk is not true,' the Ukrainian military's General Staff wrote on the Telegram messenger.

A Russian-installed official said earlier that Moscow's forces were gaining a foothold on the outskirts of the city, more than 2-1/2 years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

Kupiansk was seized by Moscow's forces in the early days of their February 2022 invasion and recaptured by Ukrainian troops in a rapid counter-offensive months later.

Russian forces suffered an average of around 1,500 dead and injured per day in Ukraine during October, according to the UK's chief of defence staff.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin told the BBC that the Russian people were paying an 'extraordinary price' for Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion, saying that October was the worst month for losses since the conflict began in February 2022.

A view from a drone showing a destroyed Russian armoured vehicle in part of a forest where the hottest phase of the war is taking place on November 9, 2024. The forest is located about 8 kilometers southwest of Kreminna in the Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine

A view shows a destroyed bridge, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 4, 2024

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin (pictured) told the BBC that the Russian people were paying an 'extraordinary price' for Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion, saying that October was the worst month for losses since the conflict began in February 2022

Putin's (pictured) forces suffered an average of around 1,500 dead and injured per day in Ukraine during October, according to Sir Tony

'Russia is about to suffer 700,000 people killed or wounded - the enormous pain and suffering that the Russian nation is having to bear because of Putin's ambition,' he told the Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme.

He said that while Russia was making gains and putting pressure on Ukraine, the losses were 'for tiny increments of land'.

The cost of the war, which he put at more than 40 per cent of public expenditure on defence and security, is also 'an enormous drain' on Russia.

With the election of US president-elect Donald Trump casting doubt on US support for Ukraine, Sir Tony said Western allies would stand with them for 'as long as it takes'.

'That's the message President Putin has to absorb and the reassurance for President Zelensky,' he said.

Writing in The Sunday Times, Sir Tony said the growing threat from authoritarian states, including Russia, North Korea, and the Iranian-backed Houthi movement in Yemen, is putting the international community 'under immense strain'.

'This is a new era of competition and contest that will last for decades and has the potential to be more disruptive to our economy and our security than anything Britain has experienced in modern times,' he wrote.

This comes just two weeks after NATO's top brass said Putin has lost more than 600,000 troops in Ukraine, forcing him to rely evermore on foreign support for his invasion.

The military bloc's secretary general Mark Rutte said that as a result of the heavy losses, North Korean troops have been sent to Russia's Kursk region.
This is the moment actors recreate the infamous kiss between Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito shortly after the 2007 murder of British student Mereditch Kercher.

The then-couple's kiss became one of the defining images of the case, thrusting the young people into an international spotlight in the aftermath of Kercher's murder in the small Italian town of Perugia, where she was studying before she was found stabbed to death in the apartment she shared with Knox.

Knox was arrested, then subsequently acquitted for her murder, with Rudy Guede later being found guilty

17 year on from the murder, Disney-owned Hulu has begun filming an eight-part series about the Kercher murder, and its effects on Knox, titled Blue Moon.

Photos taken on set show actress Grace Van Patten, playing Knox, and Giuseppe De Domenico, playing Sollecito, sharing a tender kiss.

The filming of the show has stirred up traumatic memories for those who live in Perugia, who are furious that the case is being turned into a TV show.

Photos taken on set show actress Grace Van Patten, playing Knox, and Giuseppe De Domenico, playing Sollecito, sharing a tender kiss

The kiss became infamous, and led to a public perception that she was a 'sinister seductress'

Hulu is currently filming Blue Moon - an eight part series about Knox's life, which was uprooted after she was jailed and later acquitted over Kercher's murder

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito (both pictured) were seen embracing and kissing following Kercher's murder

The house where Kercher was murdered has reportedly been rebuilt in the town of Olevano Romano, a two-and-a-half hour drive south of Perugia, to avoid further controversy in Perugia.

Perugia locals have been up in arms over the 'disrespectful filming' of the series.

When film crews arrived in the picturesque medieval city they were met with banners emblazoned with 'Rispetto per Meredith' (respect for Meredith) - making clear their presence in the area was not welcome.

The banners were in reference to the murder of Ms Kercher in 2007 while she was studying on exchange from the University of Leeds. She was found stabbed to death in the apartment which she shared with Ms Knox.

This has prompted the mayor of Perugia - Vittorria Ferdinandi - to apologise to locals in an open letter for allowing the filming to take place.

Amanda Knox jailed after she was found guilty of fatally stabbing Kercher though she was then definitively acquitted of the murder in 2015 due to a lack of evidence - after she had already served four years of her sentence

Meredith Kercher was on exchange from the University of Leeds in Perugia when she was found stabbed to death in the apartment which she shared with Ms Knox

When film crews arrived in the picturesque medieval city they were met with banners emblazoned with 'Rispetto per Meredith' (respect for Meredith) - making clear their presence in the area was not welcome

Rudy Hermann Guede, center, is escorted by Italian penitentiary police officers as he leaves Perugia's court, Italy, Friday, Sept. 26, 2008. Guede was convicted for the slaying of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy

According to the Guardian, she claimed to have overlooked 'the people and their sorrow, which is still alive in them.'

While also defending the decision, Mayor Ferdinandi said 'would have been filmed in any other town in our region' and by allowing them to film in the city it gave the local government more control over what was filmed.

The new series - titled Blue Moon - has already sparked controversy after Hulu was slammed for their 'lack of sensitivity'.

The lawyer for the Kercher family, Francesco Maresca, said: 'We've already spoken about this case too much and at a certain point you have to close the chapter.'

17 year on from the murder, Disney-owned Hulu has begun filming an eight-part series about the Kercher murder

The new TV show is called Blue Moon

It follows the Kercher murder, and its effects on Knox

Perugian locals were furious that the show was filming, as it stirred up painful memories of the case

Speaking to The Times, she added: 'However, Knox does not want to close the chapter.

'This continuous stirring is a demonstration of a lack of sensitivity. She earns money, obtains visibility on the television after many years  It seems that Knox does not want people to forget about this story and does all she can to keep it alive.'

Lawyer Maresca also made disapproving references to talks Ms Knox gave to American universities in 2018 for which she is reported to have been paid seven and a half thousand pounds for each.

Speaking to The Times, he went so far as to say that her defamation conviction being upheld cast doubt on her complete innocence.

'Knox's silence at the moment would have been the most appropriate thing,' he concluded.

A statement from Meredith Kercher's sister, Stephanie, read: 'She will forever hold a lasting legacy in friendship and kindness that no media can change' and spoke of 'an indescribable void'.

Ms Knox was then jailed after she was found guilty of fatally stabbing Ms Kercher though she was then definitively acquitted of the murder in 2015 due to a lack of evidence - after she had already served four years of her sentence.

The kiss played a massive role in her initial conviction. She was described as a 'she-devil, a 'sexual thrill-seeker' and a 'seductress', which she was forced to firmly deny in court.

The real murderer of Ms Kercher was eventually identified as Rudy Guede, from the Ivory Coast, after his DNA was found on her body.

The new series - titled Blue Moon - has already sparked controversy after Hulu was slammed for their 'lack of sensitivity'

The lawyer for the Kercher family, Francesco Maresca, said: 'We've already spoken about this case too much and at a certain point you have to close the chapter.'

He was sentenced to 16 years before being freed in 2021 as he only needed to serve 13 years due to good behaviour.

However, Ms Knox's 2011 slander conviction relating to Patrick Lumumba who she accused of killing Ms Kercher would hang over her head for many years.

Ms Knox apologised in June this year to the court and said that she wrongly accused him after being put under intense police pressure for hours, adding she had been 'scared, tricked and mistreated.'

She said: I am very sorry that I was not strong enough to resist the pressure of police'

But the two judges and six jurors found her guilty of slander.

She had earlier told the judge: 'I never wanted to slander Patrick; he was my friend.'

Lumumba's lawyers said the bar owner's reputation suffered regardless of whether she knew who the murderer was.

'When Patrick was accused by Amanda, he became known everywhere as the monster of Perugia,' Lumumba's lawyer Carlo Pacelli told reporters saying that the conviction should be upheld. Lumumba was not in court.

Meredith's parents Arline (centre) and John (right) Kercher - who both died in 2020 - and her sister Stephanie (left) at a press conference in Perugia in November 2007

Meredith Kercher (pictured) was tragically murdered in 2007

Ms Knox initially accused the Congolese owner of a bar, Patrick Lumumba, (pictured outside Perugia's court, central Italy, Tuesday September 16, 2008) of killing Ms Kercher

She is now the mother of two small children, and has a podcast with her husband while campaigning against wrongful convictions

Ms Knox is now 37 and has two children. She spends her time advocating for criminal justice reform and campaigning against wrongful convictions.

A 2011 film for US television, the 2013 memoir, Waiting to be Heard, and a 2016 Netflix documentary are just some of the ways she has had her story told already.

Ms Knox was reported to have been paid $3.8 million (2.9 million) for her book deal.

The new series, titled Amanda: A Coming of Age Horror Story, is co-produced by Monica Lewinsky who became well-know for having an affair with the then-American president Bill Clinton - a story which Disney also decided to turn into a television drama.

Ms Knox is also executive producer on the new drama. She is being played by Grace Van Patten.

Series bosses say it tells the 'true story of how Amanda Knox was wrongfully convicted for the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher and her 16-year odyssey to set herself free'.
Tourists appear to have turned on Rome after the city's Trevi fountain was emptied and fences went up around the Colosseum in preparation for a festival in 2025.

Rome has been branded 'a mess' by disappointed visitors who came to see the famous sights and instead were met by construction sites.

At the Trevi Fountain, visitors are now being forced to toss coins over a plastic barrier and into a small makeshift pool while the attraction is being drained for maintenance.

Meanwhile, the Colosseum is surrounded by construction barriers and the Dea Roma fountain on the Piazza del Popolo has been fenced off, leaving it almost hidden behind the scaffolding.

'The magic is lost,' one tourist wrote on Tripadvisor, with another adding that people shouldn't travel to the Eternal City until 2026.

'Don't go this year and don't go next year. Currently it's a mess, no water in [the Trevi fountain] or many other fountains, has metal fencing around it like many things/attractions in Rome, all being done up for the 2025 celebration,' the British tourist from Hitchin said.

More than 32 million pilgrims are expected in Rome next year for the Jubilee - a holy year proclaimed by Pope Francis which takes place every 25 years -, putting Rome's antiquated infrastructure under enormous strain.

A small pool is seen in front of the Trevi Fountain to allow tourists to throw their coins in it, as the fountain has been emptied to undergo maintenance work that it is expected to be completed by the end of the year, in Rome, November 1, 2024

Significant construction in Piazza del Popolo in Rome as the city prepares for the Jubilee in 2025

The Arch of Constantine in Rome was covered in scaffolding ahead of the 2025 Jubilee Year

A general view of the construction site with St. Peter's Basilica in the background, where the new underpass for the 2025 Jubilee is being built in Piazza Pia in Rome

Taking advantage of the event, Rome has pooled billions of euros of state and European funds to overhaul tourist sites, transport hubs, parks, streets and even its rubbish bins.

The frenzy of work has snarled traffic, to the fury of residents, and left some visitors this year feeling short-changed as they weave their way through myriad building sites, but mayor Roberto Gualtieri promised it will all be worth it.

'This is an unmissable opportunity to make structural changes ... and transform Rome,' Gualtieri said in July. 'We are going to get a more sustainable, inclusive and innovative city that enhances its extraordinary heritage.'

Rome's monumental facelift ahead of the 2025 Roman Catholic Holy Year has left tourists feeling let down after seeing more scaffolding than famous sites.

'Nothing to see, whole place under construction may just as well been on a building site anywhere in the world,' Francois T, from Johannesburg, South Africa, wrote after his visit.

Angela G, from US state Arkansas, said after she went to the Trevi fountain: 'Don't go until after the Jubilee. It's barricaded up and has no water.

'Also, it's a circus around it. Tons of people trying to get that photo for [Instagram].'

The rectangular box placed in front of the fountain so tourists can throw coins into it has been labelled as 'ugly' in reviews online.

Visitor Jack also described the small pool as 'funny' on Google Reviews, adding that it meant money could still 'be collected for an attraction that doesn't work'.

City lore has it that tossing a coin into the Trevi fountain will ensure a return trip to Rome. This tradition generates an estimated 1.5million euros (1.25million) annually, which has been donated to the Catholic charity Caritas for the past 15 years.

With a record 3,200 public construction works are underway, according to mayor Gualtieri, more tourists could be left disappointed if they visit before the Jubilee.

More than 320 of these construction works are deemed essential for the Jubilee, such as the creation of what Gualtieri promises will be 'one of the most beautiful squares in the world' by the Vatican.

View of Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome, Italy, on November 13, 2024. The square is partially closed to the public due to renovation works financed by European funds

Tourists shared their disappointment in reviews on Tripadvisor

The rectangular box placed in front of the fountain so tourists can throw coins into it has been labelled as 'ugly' in reviews online

People throw coins and wishes inside a pool as Trevi fountain undergoes maintenance works in Rome, Italy, October 31, 2024

Significant construction of a pedestrian pathway which will link Castel Sant'Angelo and the Vatican City in Rome as the city prepares for the Jubilee in 2025

The Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona in Rome is also being restored

The scheme involves shifting a major road junction underground and workmen are pulling overnight shifts to complete the project by December 24, when Pope Francis is due to open St. Peter's bronze Holy Door and inaugurate the Jubilee.

During a Jubilee, Catholics can obtain special indulgences, or remission of their sins, if they fulfil certain conditions and do good works or make pilgrimages.

The city council has marshalled 1.3 billion euros (1billion) in special Jubilee funding from the state as well as some three billion euros (2.5billion) from post-pandemic EU funds.

It has also put together financing for a further 4 billion euros (3.3billion) to complete Rome's third metro line, which will connect the city's two main basilicas - St. Peter's and St. John Lateran - and dissect the heart of the art-rich centre.

One of Rome's busiest squares, Piazza Venezia, has been largely closed to traffic since the start of the year as a specially designed, 185-tonne hydro cutter begins digging a 280 feet ring that will eventually encase the new Metro C station, just down the track from the Colosseum.

Before any serious construction can start, workers will have to sift through the top 20 metres of earth, which is known to contain archaeological remains, while ensuring that nearby churches and palazzi don't suffer subsidence.

Underscoring the old adage that Rome wasn't built in a day, the Piazza Venezia station will not open for a decade.

Works at Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome have left the area covered in scaffolding

Significant construction of a pedestrian pathway which will link Castel Sant'Angelo and the Vatican City

Pictured above is the construction site for the new C metro line on the Piazza Venezia Square, the historic centre of Rome

Tourists walk through Piazza del Pantheon in Rome, Italy, on November 13

A picture shows the construction site at Piazza Pia in Rome in March

The road leading to the Castel Sant'Angelo has shrunk after scaffolding was placed on either side for maintenance works ahead of the 2025 Jubilee Year

Tourists have also complained about the constructions works in Rome on social media

'It is true that 10 years seems like a lot compared to the timelines for work in Madrid or London, but it is also true that in these stations we are not only handling the engineering but also the archaeology,' said project manager Andrea Sciotti.

The existing metro lines are undergoing major renovations to ensure they can handle the expected crowds, with two of the busiest stations, including that serving the Spanish Steps, about to close for a revamp.

The city is temporarily replacing trams with buses to allow for work on a new tram depot, while visitors arriving at the main railway station are greeted by mesh fencing and clouds of dust as the adjoining bus terminal gets a badly needed new look.

The intense activity has also engulfed tourist attractions. All of Piazza Navona's three fountains, including the celebrated Fountain of Four Rivers, are boarded up for restoration, likewise the Renaissance fountain in front of the Pantheon.

'We knew work was going on, but we didn't realise there would be quite so much. It is a bit of a bummer,' said Tom Pagano, a tourist from Sacramento, California, visiting a sun-drenched Rome with his wife and daughter.

'I guess there is so much to see here that you can always find something that isn't covered in scaffolding,' he added.
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A sprawling spruce forest deemed the 'Rolls-Royce' of Scottish woodlands and spread over more than 900 'desirable' hectares of natural beauty has gone on sale for 19.5million.

Norwood Forest is a well-regarded 939-hectare property near Hawick in the Scottish Borders that yields hundreds of tonnes of high quality timber each year and offers an attractive prospect for wind farms.

The estate also includes a significant stone quarry with a stock pile of crushed stone, additional borrow pits and twin hills cheekily named 'Maiden Paps' - because they are shaped like breasts.

The predominantly Sitka spruce forest is now on sale after being held by the same family since the 1970s.

Norwood also includes more than 12 miles of a 'high-quality internal forest road network', other burns, ponds and a section of the Catrail - an 11.5-mile long ditch and bank cutting across the upper Teviot Valley that is thought to have been constructed in the 4th and 5th centuries.

A sprawling spruce forest deemed the 'Rolls-Royce' of Scottish woodlands and spread over more than 900 'desirable' hectares of natural beauty has gone on sale for 19.5million

Norwood Forest is a 939-hectare property near Hawick in the Scottish Borders famed for its natural surroundings

The predominantly Sitka spruce forest near Hawick is now on sale after being held by the same family since the 1970s

Sporting rights are included in the sale and are unlet. Deer are currently professionally controlled by an in-house wildlife management team.

Jon Lambert, partner at Goldcrest Land & Forestry Group, said: 'Norwood is the Rolls Royce of large-scale commercial forestry. It is rare to come across a forest of this size that is of such superb quality.

'Possibly the most desirable, extensive operational forest in the south of Scotland, it has more than 200ha of mature high quality timber ready for felling and offering immediate income potential.

'With timber prices increasing, this will generate substantial revenue for the foreseeable future.

'Add the premium location, an excellent forest road network, a diverse age class structure, the outstanding quality of the forestry and Norwood ticks every box.

Norwood also includes a section of the Catrail - an 11.5-mile long ditch and bank cutting across the upper Teviot Valley that is thought to have been constructed in the 4th and 5th centuries

The estate includes more than 12 miles of a 'high-quality internal forest road network' cutting through the dense woodland

Planting began more than 50 years ago, with the widespread forest now renowned in the area for its size and quality

A long term forest plan for Norwood Forest was agreed in May 2024 with felling approved for the next 10 years

Large volumes of high quality timber have been harvested - with some coupes, a designated felling area in the woodland, producing over 500 tonnes per hectare

The estate includes twin hills cheekily named 'Maiden Paps' - because they are thought to be shaped like breasts

'It is an exemplary forest that has been managed to an exacting standard and I expect it to attract considerable attention.'

Conifers comprise 735 hectares and felling of the first crops restructuring started in early 2010.

Large volumes of high quality timber have been harvested - with some coupes, a felling area in the woodland, producing over 500 tonnes per hectare.

A long term forest plan was agreed in May 2024 with felling approved for the next 10 years.

Managed by the same firm since planting began more than 50 years ago, the aim has been 'to maximise timber production and sequester carbon while also enhancing the amenity and conservation value of the forest where possible', the advert said.

Scottish Power Energy Networks has just commenced a consultation process for a proposed 400kV steel tower overhead power line to run from Gala North Substation to the Scottish Borders route which may affect Norwood, according to the advert.
A former NSW Police detective who played a pivotal role in the arrest of notorious serial killer Ivan Milat has died aged 69.

Paul Gordon unearthed key evidence and was one of the arresting officers in the 1994 capture of Milat, who was infamously dubbed the Backpacker Killer.

Despite being at the heart of the investigation that brought Milat to justice, tensions with another senior police officer eventually resulted in Mr Gordon being drummed out of the force and finishing his days in relative anonymity as a Brisbane cabbie.

Peter Gordon said that his brother brought a fresh perspective to Task Force Air, which had been set up to find the killer after seven bodies were found hidden in Belanglo State Forest in the NSW Southern Highlands in 1992.

'Paul was a different type of thinker and joined Task Force Air investigating the murders after it had been running for a while and believed they were looking in the wrong places,' Peter told The Daily Telegraph.

He recalled his brother going through 'mountains of paper' which led to him to a report made at Bowral Police Station, where English backpacker Paul Onions said he had been hitchhiking when a man called 'Bill' picked him up.

Seeing a rope and a gun in the car, Mr Onions realised he was in grave danger and jumped from the vehicle.

Milat pursued him on foot along the Hume Highway firing shots but Mr Onions was able to flag down another motorist and make his escape.

Former police detective Paul Gordon, who by some accounts was pivotal to the arrest of notorious serial killer Ivan Milat, has died at the age of 69

Despite Mr Onions reporting the incident at Bowral Police Station, police took no action and filed it away undisturbed until Mr Gordon unearthed the report.

In 1993, the unsolved 'Backpacker Killer' case was attracting worldwide publicity, which prompted Mr Onions to ring Crime Stoppers Australia from England.

When Mr Gordon discovered this, he was able to link it to the earlier report.

Although Milat was strongly suspected of the murders, police had been unable to gather enough evidence to get a search warrant for his home.

However, with Mr Onions able to identify Milat, police raided his home and found enough evidence, including victims' possessions, to make an arrest.

Mr Gordon was famously captured by TV cameras on May 22, 1994 as one of Milat's arresting officers.

'For a week Paul was one of the most famous people in Australia with those images,' his brother recalled.

However, Task Force Air head, former NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Clive Small has disputed that Mr Gordon played a central role in the arrest after the pair of police had a spectacular falling out.

Peter claimed that his brother 'was basically sacked from the taskforce' soon after Milat's arrest and then 'run out of the police force'.

Milat, dubbed the Backpacker Killer, murdered at least seven hitchhikers and hid their bodies in a state forest

'Instead of being treated as a hero, Paul was treated very poorly by the NSW Police Force back then and struggled for a long time after,' Peter said.

'He had no pension or benefits and ended up driving taxis in Brisbane.'

Mr Gordon consulted for a 2014 TV series called 'Catching Milat', which portrayed the tensions between him and Assistant Commissioner Small.

Peter said the show was not entirely accurate but conceded it gave his brother some of the credit he deserved.

Between 1989 and 1992, Milat kidnapped and murdered at least seven victims aged 19 to 22 - three Germans, two Britons and two Australians.

Milat died in Sydney's Long Bay Correctional Centre, where he was serving out seven life sentences without parole, on 27 October 2019 at the age of 74.
Drivers with large luxury cars including Range Rovers and Audi R8s face having to pay more for their resident parking permits under a council's new Paris-style policy.

Draft proposals by Labour-run Haringey Council, in north London, will see the annual cost of residents' parking permits rise by as much as 87 for the largest vehicles, depending on its size and how much CO2 it produces.

Large cars which emit over 225g/km of CO2, including the Lamborghini Urus and BMW 3 Series, could see their annual permit cost rise from 430 to 517.

By comparison, the permit cost of a hybrid Fiat 500  which emits between 104 and 109g/km  would go from 55 per year to 70.

Haringey Council has said the proposals address 'fairness in road space use' and 'the environmental footprint of vehicles'.

The council report states: 'The current charging structure focuses the impact of emissions, however recognising the impact of the size of vehicles  on the highway road space  should also be considered.

'This reflects wider corporate objectives to reassess and reprioritise highway space, and seeks to drive more efficient use of this space.'

However, it has been blasted by residents who called the plans 'grossly unfair' and accused the council of choosing motorists as an 'easy target' to raise money.

Large cars which emit over 225g/km of CO2, including the Lamborghini Urus, could see their annual permit cost rise from 430 to 517 while the permit cost of a hybrid Fiat 500  which emits between 104 and 109g/km  would go from 55 per year to 70

Drivers with large luxury cars including Range Rovers and Audi R8s face having to pay more for their resident parking permits under a council's new Paris-style policy (stock image of a Range Rover)

Similar charges were proposed in Oxford and Bristol this year, as local officials followed France's lead in the crackdown on SUVs.

In February, Parisians voted to muscle SUVs off the French capital's streets by making them three times more expensive to park, while calling on London to follow suit.

It came as the latest move in a drive by Mayor Anne Hidalgo to make the city greener and friendlier for pedestrians and cyclists.

The policy was previously backed by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who labelled it 'innovative'.

In Haringey, residents with vehicles that are 4.5 metres or longer (most SUVs) will pay the highest charges, followed by those between 4 and 4.49 metres.

According to the Council's website, if the vehicle was registered after March 1, 2001, the cost is based on its environmental impact.

Before March 2001, the vehicle's CO2 emissions are not available, therefore the cost of the permit is based on the vehicle's engine size.

Diesel vehicles must pay an extra 100 on yearly permits and 50 on six-monthly permits.

Households can have one resident permit at a standard price and there will be an extra charge for further permits of 65 for yearly permits and 32.50 for six-monthly.

Haringey Council, which oversees areas including Highgate, Muswell Hill, Tottenham and Wood Green, is also reportedly planning to scrap its 5 visitor permits.

It is a move that could see daily parking charges triple in some areas to 17 as drivers will be forced to pay 1.20 an hour.

Haringey Council is also reportedly planning to scrap its 5 visitor permits. Pictured: A row of terraced houses in Muswell Hill, north London

Haringey Council oversees areas including Wood Green (pictured)

The council claimed the changes were necessary as permits were being misused by commuters to park near stations on their way to work.

However, more than 3,500 people have signed a petition in an attempt to block the overhaul, the Telegraph reported.

Tom Leanse, a lawyer who organised the petition, said the proposals were 'grossly unfair'.

Meanwhile, Caitlin Clunie-O'Connor also told the publication that the council failed to produce evidence to back up its claims that the current scheme was being misused.

She said: 'My suspicion is that this is really about raising more money for Haringey and that they have chosen the motorists as an easy target.

'Everyone agrees that there is too much traffic in Haringey, but these charges won't do anything about that. They will just raise more money for the council in an unfair way.'

Councillor Seema Chandwani, Cabinet Member for Resident Services and Tackling Inequality, said: 'No decisions have been taken on any of the proposals.

'Our residents and businesses have been instrumental in helping to develop our Parking Strategy, which aims to address the challenges of parking in a densely populated borough.

'I would strongly urge residents and businesses to continue their involvement in this collaborative exercise by responding to the statutory consultation in accordance with the advice given on the council's website and therefore have their say on any future changes to our parking policy.

'This consultation will help determine whether these proposed policies will meet the needs of the community and enhance parking accessibility in Haringey.'
A tech consultant charged with stabbing to death the founder of Cash App Bob Lee has told the jury he was defending himself after he made a 'bad joke' and Lee suddenly attacked him.

Nims Momeni told the court that his altercation with Lee began after he joked that the software engineer might want to spend his final night in San Francisco with family rather than trying to find a strip club.

It was at this point Momeni claimed that Lee pulled out a knife and attacked him, forcing the 40-year-old to defend himself.

Lee was later found fatally stabbed in downtown San Francisco on April 9 2023. He was later rushed to hospital where he died.

Momeni has pleaded not guilty and he faces 26 years to life in prison if convicted.

Bob Lee was later found fatally stabbed in downtown San Francisco on April 9 2023. He was later rushed to hospital where he died

Nims Momeni (pictured) told the court that the altercation began after he joked with Lee that he might want to spend his final night in San Francisco with family rather than trying to find a strip club

The Rincon Hill neighborhood along Main Street near where Lee was fatally stabbed in San Francisco

He said Lee later walked away, showing no signs he was injured. Momeni then says he called an attorney when he learned of Lee's death the following day.

Grainy footage from the night shows the two men exiting a car in a isolated spot by the Bay Bridge.

Prosecutors say that is where Momeni stabbed Lee, while the defense says that is where Lee attacked Momeni.

The defense claim Lee was being erratic and aggressive, having slept only six hours over a four-day period of a cocaine and ketamine-fueled drinking spree.

When Momeni took to the witness stand on Wednesday, he recalled the events of what happened in April 2023.

He said the two men were on friendly terms when his sister, Khazer Momeni, kicked them both out of her condo at 2 am because she wanted to sleep following hours of partying.

Momeni said the two men were on friendly terms when his sister, Khazer Momeni (pictured), kicked them both out of her condo at 2 am because she wanted to sleep following hours of partying

CCTV captures Lee on his knee outside an apartment building in downtown San Francisco after he was fatally stabbed

Momeni said they got into his BMW and he started driving while Lee checked his phone for places to go next.

He pulled the car over after they went over a pothole, causing Lee to spill his beer. Lee got out of the car and Momeni followed, thinking Lee was about to puke.

That was when he said he made the 'bad joke' about seeing family.

'He just went from zero to 100,' Momeni said. 'You could see the anger.'

Omid Talai, assistant district attorney, questioned Momeni over the story during his cross-examination.

'He wanted to kill you over a bad joke?' asked Talai.

'I'm not sure why he pulled it out,' Momeni said. 'I was in fear for my life.'

Momeni pushed back yesterday afternoon as Talai questioned him about text messages and testimony from others. The cross-examination continues Thursday.

From left to right: Lee's father Rick, his brother Oliver and ex wife Krista

Floral tributes left close to where Lee was fatally stabbed. Lee's death stunned the tech community as fellow executives and engineers penned tributes to the charismatic entrepreneur's generosity and brilliance

Surveillance video of Lee's final night shows him entering the posh Millennium Tower downtown, where Momenis sister lives with her husband, a prominent San Francisco plastic surgeon.

Video also shows Lee and Momeni leaving the building after 2 a.m. and driving off together in Momeni's car.

Police recovered a knife with a 4-inch (10-centimeter) blade in the secluded area where Lee was stabbed. Prosecutors said tests showed Momenis DNA on the weapons handle and Lees DNA on the bloody blade, but the defense presented an expert witness who said the police should have tested the handle for fingerprints, namely Lee's.

Lee's death stunned the tech community as fellow executives and engineers penned tributes to the charismatic entrepreneur's generosity and brilliance. Lee was chief product officer of cryptocurrency platform MobileCoin when he died. He was a father to two children.
An iconic Aussie Christmas tradition celebrated for almost 70 years will not go ahead, amid fears the family-friendly event will be hijacked by pro-Palestine activists.

The famous annual Myer Christmas window-reveal planned for Sunday at its Melbourne CBD store in Bourke Street has been cancelled due to safety concerns.

The department store giant confirmed on Thursday that the beloved Christmas tradition will not go ahead.

'In light of recent developments and to ensure the wellbeing and safety of customers and team members, we will no longer hold an event on Bourke Street Mall for the unveiling of our Christmas windows,' a Myer spokesperson said.

'Myer's Christmas windows have long symbolised joy and community, and we remain committed to providing a safe and positive experience for all visitors.'

Pro-Palestine activist group Disrupt Wars plans to rally at Bourke Street Mall on Sunday.

'Christmas is cancelled, and there will be no joy or frivolity while children in Gaza are massacred,' the group posted on social media.

'Inconvenience those who would rather bury their heads in the capitalist machine than speak up against a genocide.'

Myer's famous Christmas window unveiling at its Melbourne CBD store won't go ahead

The annual Myer Christmas window reveal planned for Sunday in Bourke Street Mall has been cancelled due to safety concerns from a planned pro-Palestine protest

An image on social media included the threat, 'Crash the Christmas windows.'

It will be only the second time the iconic Myer unveiling has been cancelled in its almost 70 year history.

The event was cancelled in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.

The cancellation of the time-honoured event has sparked anger from Jewish leaders.

'Is nothing sacred anymore?' community leader and Anti-Defamation chair Dr Dvir Abramovich told the Herald Sun

'This is not about free speech  it's a toxic hijacking of a family-friendly tradition that has no place in any community.

'Melbourne's Christmas windows are about peace, unity, and holiday magic, not about spreading discord and confrontation.

'We cannot allow the spirit of Christmas to be exploited as a vehicle for hatred or to spread anger and misinformation.'

A pro-Palestinian group In Melbourne (supporters pictured) has threatened to 'Crash the Christmas windows. 'Christmas is cancelled, and there will be no joy or frivolity while children in Gaza are massacred'

A Victoria Police spokesperson confirmed it was aware of reports that protesters had been planning to disrupt the Myer event.

'We have repeatedly requested they do not do this, however, the group is not co-operating with police,' the spokesperson said.

The cancellation has been met with public outrage.

Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council and Liberal Member for Southern Metropolitan Region Georgie Crozier led the backlash.

'Myer Christmas Windows unveiling cancelled due to pro-Palestine protest. What a disgrace these activists aren't protestors, they are pathetic miserable bullies,' she posted on X on Thursday night.

Aussies also took to X to vent their fury.

''Disrupt war' protesters to gatecrash families and children attending the Myer Christmas windows reveal on Sunday. You can't get more stupid and sick than that,' one wrote.

Another wrote: 'Why would protesters want to spoil the Myer Christmas Window?' When little kids would be looking forward to it? What are they achieving can't they let them enjoy one Sunday?' another wrote.

Channel Seven reporter Nick McCallum also weighed in and urged Myer to rethink its decision.

'Myer should have gone ahead with the Christmas windows launch. It's a beautiful Melbourne tradition for the entire community. They and the police should have been strong enough to defy protesters and protect those attending. Don't just give up when the going gets tough!' he wrote.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan tweeted on Friday that she was 'furious that a small group of people have chsoen to politicise a beautiful event for children.

'Blocking the Christmas windows won't change a thing in the Middle East, but it will let down a bunch of kids in Melbourne. Who does that help?

'We are all a bit sick of this stuff.'
A British tourist lost 15,000ft up in Peruvian mountains has described how a stray dog 'appeared from the fog' and led him to his destination.

The man, known as 'El Guero Ingles' or The Blond Englishman on social media was hiking the the famous Santa Cruz circuit, near the city of Huaraz, when he became separated from his group on the second day of the trek.

He was hoping to reach the picturesque Punta Union pass at 15,000ft above sea level but the route was covered in snow, ice and thick fog.

The hiker said, just at the moment he found himself on his own, a friendly dog approached him, evoking the actions of TV rescue collie dog Lassie.

Pictured: The stray dog that left the British tourist to safety in the Peruvian mountains

The hiker poses for a selfie with the dog that led him to the top of the mountain

Pictured: TV rescue collie dog Lassie who guided rescuers back to her young master lost in a snowstorm

'I decided to trust his knowledge of the mountain,' the man said according to Italian newspaper La Stampa.

He said he wondered what a dog could be doing so high up but was surprised how it seemed to know the routes around the mountain and led him to a sign pointing towards his destination - the Punta Union.

The Brit explained that when the reached the top the pair waited in silence together for the other hikers to arrive.

And from that moment on, the stray dog remained close to the group of hikers as they continued on the trek.

He said that, incredibly, when they got back to the camp there was another dog waiting for them at the camp and the pair of them continued with the group for another 13 and a half miles.

A local later explained to the British tourist that dogs in the area often follow hikers up the mountains as if they were trained guides.

'El Guero Ingles' filmed his experience on the hike in a video he later posted on his Instagram account.

He can be heard in the video asking the dog: 'What on earth are you doing up here? How did you get here?'

He then points up the mountain saying: 'We need to go somewhere up there. Ok you lead the way. If we get lost I'm blaming you, you are in charge now.'
Norwegian sailors who set out for a routine fishing expedition made an unexpected and utterly sensational catch earlier this week when they managed to entangle an American nuclear-powered attack submarine.

The ygutt, or 'Island Boy', a humble 10-metre-long fishing vessel, left port on the stunning village of Sommary high above the Arctic Circle on Monday.

Having scooped hundreds of kilos of fish in a lucrative haul worth some 1,500 that morning, they redeployed the nets for a second load.

But moments later the trawling equipment was torn clean off the side of the ship by the unsuspecting USS Virginia - a 7,800-ton, 115-meter-long fast-attack behemoth.

The state-of-the-art submarine - the lead ship of its class - was sailing silently through the waters northeast of Sommary having recently left the Arctic city of Troms when it inadvertently swept up the entire line of halibut nets.

Harald Engen, one of a three-member crew aboard ygutt, told Norway's NRK how they had just re-set the nets and were making their way back to shore when the coast guard radioed in on VHF channel 16.

'A submarine had gotten into our halibut nets and had towed them two nautical miles northward into the open sea,' Engen recounted, still in disbelief.

The trawling equipment was torn clean off the side of the ship by the unsuspecting USS Virginia - a 7,800-ton, 115-meter-long fast-attack behemoth

The ygutt, or 'Island Boy', a humble 10-metre-long fishing vessel, left port on the stunning village of Sommary high above the Arctic Circle on Monday

The dinky fishing boat was of course no match for the state-of-the-art submarine (stock image)

The young fishermen now have an excellent story to tell - but lament the destruction of their nets which are now lost to the bottom of the sea.

The dinky fishing boat was of course no match for the state-of-the-art submarine, which tore the nets away from the hull before calling for help.

Though their first haul of halibut and plaice put more than 20,000 Norwegian kroner in their pocket, the nets torn away by the USS Virginia are worth some 40,000-50,000 kroner.

'The (net) is at the bottom of the sea. It is gone, and we will probably never find it again,' a pained Engen told The Barents Observer.

The US Navy's nuclear submarines are rarely seen so close to the surface, making this incident all the more unusual.

'I know about other vessels that have sailed over fishing nets, but no one out here has ever heard about a submarine doing so,' Engen said.

The USS Virginia, part of a class of fast-attack submarines, is also equipped with advanced sonar and stealth technology, capable of reaching extreme depths and carrying a range of torpedoes and Tomahawk missiles.

But for all its sophisticated equipment, even this cutting-edge vessel was scuppered by a simple fishing net.

Fortunately, the Norwegian Coast Guard was able to deploy aboard the ship Heimdal and cut the yarn free of the submarine's propeller.

The USS Virginia and its counterparts are part of the US Navy's 6th Fleet, a forward-deployed unit responsible for missions across Europe and Africa, including the so-called 'High North' (Virginia-class USS North Dakota is pictured)

Traditional houses at Sommary, Norway

Image shows Russia's new nuclear submarine during a flag-rising ceremony led by Vladimir Putin at the Arctic port of Severodvinsk on December 11, 2023

The USS Virginia and its counterparts are part of the US Navy's 6th Fleet, a forward-deployed unit responsible for missions across Europe and Africa, including the so-called 'High North'.

The 6th Fleet regularly conducts operations in the Arctic and North Atlantic given the Arctic's rise to prominence as a strategically vital region.

Norway, one of Europe and NATO's most well-equipped and advanced nations in terms of its mastery of Arctic exploration, research and military operations, works closely with the US and regularly hosts its these submarines, often to resupply or undergo maintenance.

Every two years, Norway also hosts 'Nordic Response' - a set of large-scale military drills led by its armed forces in cooperation with troops, air forces and navies from various NATO countries.

In a statement following this week's incident, the US 6th Fleet expressed its gratitude to Norway for its continued support, acknowledging the assistance of Heimdal in freeing the submarine.

'We appreciate Norway's continued support for US submarine deployments, which are essential to deterring and defending against an increasingly complex security environment,' a Navy spokesperson commented.

The Arctic has been considered a potential theatre for conflict ever since the Cold War as the US and Soviet Union each recognised the most direct route for a nuclear strike on the other was over the North Pole.

They have maintained a robust submarine presence in the region ever since.

But now, with the Arctic region undergoing unprecedented changes due to climate change, the melting of the ice is opening up a massive new frontier, unlocking a treasure trove of previously untapped natural resources, new trade routes and strategic superiority.

Russia's new Alexander III nuclear submarine is pictured during a flag-rising ceremony led by Russia's President at the Arctic port of Severodvinsk on December 11, 2023

Russia's Admiral Gorshkov frigate fires a hypersonic Tsirkon missile in the Barents Sea

This 2019 aerial photo provided by ConocoPhillips shows an exploratory drilling camp at the proposed site of the Willow oil project on Alaska's North Slope

While the West faces numerous challenges in asserting its interests in the High North, Russia has strategically positioned itself at the front of the race for Arctic dominance.

One of the key areas where Russia has taken the lead is in icebreaker technology.

Icebreakers are indispensable tools in navigating the Arctic's icy waters, and Russia boasts the world's largest and most advanced fleet, exemplifying its commitment to controlling new shipping routes and exploiting new arenas for resource extraction.

'Russia has a significant advantage [in the Arctic] level with dozens of active icebreakers, including nuclear-powered variants. China is also building up its fleet,' RAND Europe defence analyst and European security expert Nicolas Jouan said.

'The UK and the US respectively have one and two active icebreakers. This is probably the key capability gap between NATO and its competitors at the moment.'

Russia has also invested huge funds into the development of military infrastructure in the Arctic Circle since 2014.

More than 50 Soviet-era Arctic bases including airfields, radar stations, cargo ports, missile launch pads and naval yards have been renovated, while others - including dozens of airfields in the Kola Peninsula some 200 miles east of Finland - have been expanded to host larger forces, including nuclear bombers and missiles.

Some have been adapted to house Moscow's state-of-the-art military technology - the Plesetsk Cosmodrome was used in 2021 for a test-launch of Russia's latest satellite-killer missile and was in 2022 used to launch Sarmat-2, one of its most fearsome intercontinental ballistic missiles.

And Russia's nuclear arsenal is embedded within its Northern Fleet - the headquarters of which are located in Severomorsk, a city within the Arctic Circle.

Rob Clark, a British Army veteran who now heads the defence research team at UK think-tank Civitas, told MailOnline: 'We need to wake up to the threat posed by Russian expansion in the Arctic  while all eyes are on Ukraine, Russia is testing new-age nuclear subs and hypersonic missiles in the Arctic and building up its presence in the region.'

But not only is Russia enhancing its technological and military capabilities to the north - it is also working to destabilise the operations of other Arctic nations via a mix of cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns.

Alaska, Norway, Canada and Finland have all suffered a spate of what they say were Russian-authored cyberattacks in the past three years, with other territories such as Iceland and Greenland reporting a surge in 'suspicious internet traffic' since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
A father badly injured in a horror three-car pile-up who has a long road to recovery will raise his surviving children alone after his partner and teenage son were killed in the collision.

Tracey Craig, 40, and her son Corey, 13, died after the Nissan Navara 4WD they were travelling in ended in a crumpled heap at Raglan, between Gladstone and Rockhampton in central Queensland late Tuesday night.

Police allege a truck driver hit the vehicle from behind, forcing the 4WD into a Toyota HiLux.

Tracey's partner Steven was also critically injured and remains intensive care.

Another of the couple's teenage sons also suffered head injuries and was transported to hospital.

A GoFundMe started by Alesha Gibson had already raised more than $21,000.

'We are heartbroken to share the devastating news of the tragic loss of Tracey and her son Corey, who were both taken from us in a car accident earlier this week,' the page reads.

'Losing a mother and her child is a pain no one should have to endure, and their family is struggling to cope with this sudden, heartbreaking loss.'

Corey Craig (left) and his mum Tracey (centre) died in a horror smash on Tuesday night. Her partner Steven (right) was also critically injured

Ms Craig was remembered as an incredible, dedicated and loving mother.

'Corey, just 13, had so much life ahead of him, his smile could light up any room, and he brought happiness to everyone around him,' the page states.

'Their loss has left a hole that will never be filled.'

Funds raised will help cover funeral expenses, assist Steven with his recovery and provide for the couple's two surviving sons.

'As he heals, he is also caring for their two other sons, Kai and Jayden, who are now without their mother and brother. The family is in desperate need of support during this unimaginable time.'

The tragedy has rocked the Calliope community, where the family live.

Corey attended Calliope State High School, which is offering guidance counselling for mourning students and staff.

The fatal crash has again raised concerns about the state of Queensland's Bruce Highway. Pictured are police at the scene

A Department of Education spokesperson told the Courier Mail that the school community was 'deeply saddened' by what had occurred.

'Support is also being provided to students and staff, and guidance counsellors will remain at the school to provide support in any way they can and for as long as it is needed,' the spokesperson said.

'Our thoughts are with the family during this difficult time.'

The family was heavily involved in pool and snooker.

'Their dad is in ICU fighting hard with a lot of surgeries ahead  also young Jayden was in the car,' a Bundaberg 8 Ball Association post read.

One shocked member commented: 'Such a tragic loss. Little Corey always had a smile on his face at pool and Tracey was such a good mum.'

Another wrote: 'I am truly going to miss seeing Corey on the table and Tracey was all about her kids it really puts so many things into perspective on what is important in life.'

Police state the family's Nissan Navara was travelling south along the Bruce Highway when it slowed behind the HiLux, which was carrying a wide load shortly after 11pm on Tuesday.

A semi-trailer then allegedly crashed into the Navara from behind, forcing it into the HiLux.

The HiLux driver and their passenger also sustained minor injuries.

The truck driver, 30, was charged with one count of dangerous operation of motor vehicle causing death or grievous bodily harm.

He will appear in Gladstone Magistrates Court on December 9.

Police investigations into the crash continue.

'This crash has torn one family apart and has traumatised numerous others,' Acting Inspector Ben Wiltshire told the Courier Mail.

He lamented this had been one of the worst years for road deaths the region has seen in years.

The 2024 road toll in the Capricornia District stands at 22 lives lost, already nine more than last year's toll.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli admitted the state government must do more to upgrade the Bruce Highway and vowed to set up an advisory body by the end of the year.

'Every time an incident like this happens on the Bruce it just sends regional communities into a real sense of despair, and our hopes and thoughts are with the families and with that community as well,' he said.
A new documentary chronicling the life and times of President-elect Donald Trump has been released to rave reviews and huge audiences.

'The Man You Don't Know', directed by Christopher Martini, hears from close family members and friends including the likes of Hulk Hogan.

The film, which is available to stream on Trump confidante Elon Musk's social media platform X, documents from his childhood up until the present day and was released prior to his election win.

Filmmakers spoke with Donald Trump Jr., Lara Trump, Eric Trump and Kai Trump who laud about their father and grandfather in the 90-minute flick.

It shows his early real estate developer career in building the Trump brand up until recent events including the assassination attempt on him earlier this year in Butler, Pennsylvania.

After a limited theatrical release, it has since been shared on X and has raked in over 53 million streams.

On review site Rotten Tomatoes, it currently has a 'Popcornmeter' score of 74 percent, which is based on reviews from regular cinema-goers and not film critics.

Viewers have branded the movie as being a 'must see' and praised Martini for his work.

The film, which is available to stream on social media platform X, documents his childhood up until the present day

Trump gestures during a campaign rally at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 4, 2024

One person wrote: 'I just watched Christopher Martini's movie on X and all I can say is WOW!

Martini, seen here, later said in a post to social media that his movie was being pulled theaters because it was about Trump

'Very well put together documentary of our President. He knocked it out of the park just in time for the election. Great Job Chris!'

Another said: 'Different perspective on a very public person from those who know him well.'

It has also been endorsed by Tesla and X CEO Musk, a vocal Trump supporter who has since been nominated by Trump to head a new government office.

Posting on the platform earlier this month, Musk said: 'Worth watching this documentary to understand Donald Trump.'

Kai Trump, Trump's granddaughter, also posted: 'It was an honor to be able to support my Grandpa and show everyone the side of him that I know and love.'

According to a synopsis, it is: 'An inside and exclusive look at the 45th President of the United States as the person and not the persona as portrayed by mainstream media.

'And as told by those closest to him -- his children, grandchildren and closest friends. Goes behind the headlines to reveal personal untold stories that highlight his kindness, generosity, faith and love of family.

'This is the inside take on Donald Trump from childhood to present day. Not the known world leader and business icon. But the father, grandfather and friend.'

The documentary also hears from friends of Trump including Hulk Hogan, seen here

Filmmakers spoke with Donald Trump Jr ., Lara Trump, Eric Trump, seen here, and Kai Trump who laud over their father and grandfather in the hour and a half flick

It touches on his relationship with his late ex-wife Ivana Trump and his third marriage to Melania Trump.

But the documentary completely omits to mention his second marriage to Marla Maples, the mother of Trump's daughter Tiffany.

Ivanka and Melania Trump are not interviewed and appear only in archive footage. Donald Trump himself is also not interviewed, although those closest to him have clearly been given his blessing to speak.

Trump's new right-hand woman Lara Trump - the wife of his son Eric - appears heavily to sing her father-in-law's political prowess and laud his personal qualities.

Besides his family and some friends, it also hears from a former NYPD detective, and YouTube personality Kyle Forgeard of the Nelk Boys channel.

Speaking in the film, Hulk Hogan says: 'He's a wonderful human being, I've known the man for over 35 years.

'He is one of the greatest people I've ever met. The way he has been demonized is totally opposite to the way he is.'

Martini, a Trump supporter, later said in a post to social media that his movie was being pulled theaters because it was about Trump.

He claimed that New York and New Jersey cinemas had 'flat out refused to show it' and that only two theaters in New Jersey ending up running it.

Martini added: 'Only parts of California are showing it. This is the sad state of our country where freedom of has been taken away from us.'

He later shared footage of himself going to watch his own movie inside an AMC theater in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
A Sunday school teacher, who is accused of giving children lessons in Jihad, bragged to her friends about lying to police about terrorist videos, a court heard.

Dzhamilya Timaeva, 19, was caught with a video called 'Incite The Believers' on her phone when she was arrested at Heathrow Airport, shortly before boarding a flight to Turkey in October 2022.

The footage encourages viewers to carry out arson attacks against buildings, forests, and agricultural land in the West, if they do not have a gun or a knife.

The Old Bailey previously heard that Timaeva was the head teacher at the Windsor Muslim Association and was due to begin teaching classes at the Tawheed Islamic Education Centre, a Sunday school in Maidenhead.

She devised lesson plans and a curriculum for the children attending the Tawheed school.

Despite telling police it was the 'first time' she watched the extremist video, it was later uncovered that she laughed in a voice note to friends detailing her lies to officers, the court was told.

When the 19-year-old was rearrested in March 2023, police found she bragged to friends about her lies.

In the voice note, she said: 'They were going through this sheet of why I was arrested and I was thinking this is nothing this is light work, like you guys have nothing on me.

Sunday school teacher Dzhamilya Timaeva, 19, is standing trial at The Old Bailey on a terror charge

'I'm sitting there like I'm chilling like I'm not even worried I'm not even scared - nothing! Like I'm so calm.

'And then after the video started on a tutorial on how to make explosives etc etc (giggle) and I had saved it on my phone.

'I forgot because I didn't even watch the whole video.'

She added: 'I like the start because it was a nicely edited video. I'm trying not to laugh because guys this one is not like me.'

Prosecutor Gareth Weetman said Timaeva 'wasn't being truthful about not having watched the video.'

'She was not simply a devout Muslim but someone who believed that it was her duty to wage war against non-believers and instil that sense of duty in others,' he said.

On the day after her home in Windsor was searched in 2023 a teacher at her school found her alone trying to hide shredded paper in a cupboard, jurors heard.

The strips were reconstructed and found to relate to Jihad with topics such as 'Constants on the path of Jihad' and 'Democracy: The modern idol.'

Timaeva largely gave no comment to police questions but said the 'Windsor Muslim Association' listing of her as head teacher was 'incorrect.'

She denied recognising the address for the school on the website and said she had never been there.

The Tawheed Islamic Education Centre, a Sunday school in Maidenhead where Timaeva was due to begin teaching

Timaeva agreed that she 'taught the Quran to children.'

The court also heard she had printed seventy picture books for children called Little Muwahideen - a term used by believers of Islam, who think Allah above all else should be worshipped

Within the pages reference was made to the duty of waging of war for Islam, the Old Bailey was told.

Timaeva, who is on bail, denies disseminating terrorist documents and possessing a document for terrorist purposes between October 2022 and February 2023.

The trial continues.
The celebrated but controversial Massachusetts chef is back in hot water just a month after announcing the closure of her remaining restaurants.

Barbara Lynch, 60, an acclaimed American restauranteur, recently announced the official closure of her last three remaining eateries of her once-mighty $24 million restaurant empire in Boston following a series of scandals.

Now, the renowned female chef is now being sued by the city of Boston for nearly $1.7 million in unpaid taxes.

'Ms. Lynch has failed, directly and through her corporate entities, to pay taxes due and owning to the City of Boston despite clear notification from the city,' the lawsuit stated.

'As Ms. Lynch continues to evade these taxes due and has publicly announced her plans to sell her remaining restaurant businesses, the city brings this action to recover the over $1.6 million due and accruing.'

Lynch, who helped kick-start Boston's modern fine-dining scene, opened seven restaurants during her 30-year run in the industry.

But a lawsuit filed on Wednesday through Suffolk Superior Court addressed the 'vast unpaid amount of taxes' across her seven establishments in Fort Point, the South End and Beacon Hill - all of which have gone ignored for more than a decade.

No. 9 Park, Lynch's 4.5 star French restaurant, owes more in taxes than any of her other businesses - more than half a million dollars which date back to 2011.

Barbara Lynch, 60, renowned chef in Boston and an acclaimed American restauranteur, is now being sued by the city of Boston for nearly $1.7 million in unpaid taxes

No. 9 Park, Lynch's 4.5 star French restaurant, owes more in taxes than any of her other businesses - owing more than half a million dollars dating back to 2011

The lawsuit comes just a month after announcing the closure of her remaining eateries that made up her once-mighty restaurant empire across Boston

She also owes $156,188 in taxes at B&G Oyster, which also dates back to 2011.

The notable but embattled chef owes $515,107 at Menton, another modern French restaurant and $134,714 at Drink, her cocktail bar, that have gone unpaid since 2015.

The lawsuit also claimed that she owes $148,269 in taxes at The Butcher Shop, dating back to 2013, $124,995 at her Italian eatery, Sportello, dating back to 2012 and $8,003 at Stir - a bookstore for cookbooks which also offers classes - that had accrued since 2017.

The suit stated that along with her restaurants' corporate entities, she failed to pay personal property taxes for many years - which are assessed on equipment, fixtures and other business material - except for one payment from each entity in August of 2021.

Lynch's seven restaurants, which accumulated more than $20,000 in back taxes over the last several months, received final notices in January of this year.

Her owed tax money is continuing to grow at a rate of $366.94 a day.

The world-leading chef, who was listed as one of the Time's 100 most influential people in 2017 - is also James Beard Award-winning restaurateur who has received dozens of awards from the foundation.

In 2014, she became the second woman to receive the 'outstanding restaurateur' award, which recognizes those who set high standards in restaurant operations and ownership, The Rudder reported.

Lynch opened seven restaurants during her 30-year run in the industry and is known to have kickstarted Boston's modern fine-dining scene

In January of this year, Lynch announced that she was selling The Butcher Shop to former employees which resulted in 100 lost jobs

The lawsuit filed on Wednesday through Suffolk Superior Court addressed the 'vast unpaid amount of taxes' across all of her seven establishments in Fort Point, the South End and Beacon Hill - most of which have gone ignored for more than a decade

But in recent years, her stellar career began to become overshadowed by accusations of toxic working conditions and bullying claims in her kitchens.

In March of last year, two of Lynch's former employees filed a class-action lawsuit against her, claiming that she had failed to pay out tips to staff after her eateries reopened from the COVID shut-down, the Boston Globe reported.

Lynch was one of the hundreds of businesses that applied to receive loans through the federal Paycheck Protection Plan to help stay afloat during the pandemic.

B&G Oysters received $850,000 and Drink received more than $1.3 million in loans.

But upon returning back to work, employees were told that the restaurant had 'suspended the tip pool' and any tips would be used to continue an employee food-and-supply pickup program - which they were 'welcome to attend'.

The employees claimed that although they are entitled to get the share of tips left by customers in order to take home at least the full minimum wage, they were ultimately paid much less than that.

'It's outrageous and a violation of the trust of both the workers and the customers,' Lou Saban, one of the employment lawyers, told the Boston Globe.

'The Lynch Collective seems to have allegedly taken these tips that were intended to support the hourly workers who were struggling at the time.'

The city of Boston requested a temporary restraining order against Lynch in their court filing in case there are future sales of her restaurants

Her owed tax money is continuing to grow at a rate of $366.94 a day since the businesses received their final notices in January of this year

Lynch was listed as one of the Time's 100 most influential people in 2017 - but has been in a handful of scandals since

Just a month later, Lynch was accused of sexually touching her staff when drunk and bullying them  even firing an employee on the spot and threatening to put his head through a window - which resulted in a toxic workplace culture.

More than a dozen former employees came forward with reports of the longstanding problems they were experiencing in her kitchens.

Lynch herself is a sexual assault survivor who had fought against sexism to reach the top of a male-dominated profession.

Twenty of her former employees claimed that she 'drinks heavily' and had subjected employees to unwanted propositions and touching.

However they said that because Lynch is a majority owner of her restaurants, they felt unable to take their complaints higher.

A former employee from her luxury cocktail bar Drink claims that, after she was hired in 2015, Lynch came up behind her and caressed her lower back and squeezed her bottom  telling her that they would 'make a good couple'.

Michaela Horan was hired as the manager of the Butcher Shop in August 2018, but claims she was surprised to find that Lynch did little cooking and a lot of drinking.

She told the Times that Lynch would drink and spontaneously take charge of the kitchen, sending out barely cooked chicken and threatening staff members with knives.

Her stellar career began to become overshadowed by accusations of toxic working conditions and bullying claims in her kitchens

Lynch was said to have threatened staff members with knives

More than a dozen former employees came forward with reports of the longstanding problems they were experiencing in her kitchens - including sexually touching her staff when drunk and bullying them

Despite writing in her memoir about her past troubles with alcohol, she denied the allegations - calling them 'fantastical'.

'I expressly reject the various false accusations lodged against me that I have behaved inappropriately with employees or crossed professional guideposts that are important to me,' Lynch said in a statement at the time.

'I cannot put out all the fires that flare in this high stress environment and my very modest roots allow me to recognize that I'm far from being above reproach.'

In 2017, Lynch was charged with alleged drunk driving in Gloucester, Massachusetts, while driving home from work at one of her restaurants.

The report alleged that she said she had 'a few glasses of wine with dinner' and 'did not know what happened.'

After failing a series of field sobriety tests, Barbara was found to have had a blood alcohol content of 0.159, nearly twice the legal limit.

All of her scandals eventually took a toll and she began pulling back from her series of Boston establishments at the end of 2023.

Six weeks after closing The Butcher Shop for a 'summer break,' it became clear that the South End restaurant had gone dark.

In March of last year, two of Lynch's former employees filed a class-action lawsuit against her, claiming that she had failed to pay out tips to staff after her eateries reopened from the COVID shut-down

In 2017, Lynch was also charged with alleged drunk driving in Gloucester, Massachusetts , while driving home from work at one of her restaurants

In January of this year, she announced she would close her three eateries in Fort Point and sell The Butcher Shop and Stir to former employees - which resulted in 100 lost jobs, the Boston Globe reported.

Just last month, she shared to Instagram the closure of her newest endeavor, The Rudder, which is a waterfront seafood restaurant in Gloucester.

By the end of the day, she announced the closure of her remaining three restaurants, claiming that the financial challenges of running the businesses contributed to her ultimate decision, the Boston Globe reported.

The city of Boston requested a temporary restraining order against Lynch in their court filing - attempting to preserve assets in the event of her restaurants being sold to make sure any back taxes would be paid.
A tourist's visit to Machu Picchu sparked outrage after spreading what are believed to be human ashes on the hallowed grounds of the 15th century Peruvian sanctuary.

A TikTok video shared by IncaGo Expeditions showed the woman holding a transparent bag and leaning over a cordoned area at the world-famous archeological site.

She then dumped the ashes and bowed before another woman stepped forward and gave her a hug.

T'ika Oregon, a lawyer with the Cusco Commission of Jurists, told state news agency Addnina that 'archaeological areas are not repositories of any type of ashes, much less of a deceased person.'

She also claimed that it could have also been a stunt by IncaGo Expeditions to promote its tours at Machu Picchu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

'It must be determined if it is an agency that is dedicating itself to this objective or if it is a person, and according to the level of participation, of seriousness, the maximum penalty will have to be given,' she said.

The Ministry of Culture said in a statement that it opened an investigation to identify the woman and tour agency involved.

"Machu Picchu is a Cultural and Natural Heritage of Humanity, identified by its immense exceptional universal value and represents a work of art of the human creative gene,' it said.

Peruvian authorities have opened an investigation after a tourist was filmed dumping what are believed to be human ashes at Machu Picchu

A woman recently went viral and sparked outrage after she visited Machu Picchu, the 15th century Inca sanctuary in Peru, and sprinkled ashes out of a bag

'As such, Machu Picchu deserves respect and protection from visitors and tourism operators, who are obliged to comply with the provisions contained in the regulations for visiting the Inca city of Machu Picchu,' the ministry added.

The woman's actions were immediately condemned before the 30-second clip was pulled down by the local tour company, which operates out of Coscu.

'May the full weight of the law fall on the person who did this act, there was no respect for Machu Picchu', one person commented.

'What is the need to do it in a universal jewel, such as Machu Picchu?' another chimed in.

'It is a sacred place, a historical sanctuary, it is a place that is respected as if it were your home,' another person said.

Tourists in the past have been called out for the lack of respect while visiting ancient grounds.

In November 2022, Abigail Villalobos climbed up the Pyramid of Kukulcan and posed for photos at the Mayan site in Tinum, Mexico.

A video shared by a local Peruvian tour company, IncaGo Expeditions, went viral after a woman (pictured) was releasing ashes from a bag

Machu Picchu is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site

Villalobos was filmed walking through one of the temple's four terraces at the front of the steps before exiting as an enraged group of people shouted obscenities at her from down below.

A security guard trekked up the pyramid to get her to walk down.

DailyMail.com reached out to IncaGo Expeditions for comment.
Eluned Morgan, the Welsh First Minister, sparked fury today after she said 'we should all calm down a bit' over Labour's inheritance tax raid on farmers.

As she marked 100 days of being in charge of the Labour-run Welsh Government, Baroness Morgan waded into the row over Chancellor Rachel Reeves' Budget.

Farming groups are seething after Ms Reeves last month announced controversial changes to inheritance tax, which have been dubbed Labour's 'family farms tax'.

The Chancellor used her Budget to impose inheritance tax on previously exempt agricultural estates worth over 1million, at a rate of 20 per cent.

Farmers have warned that move will be 'disastrous' for the industry, wiping out family businesses that will be forced to sell to pay death duties.

But, speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Baroness Morgan said initial calculations showed there were a 'tiny proportion' of farms affected.

'I just think we should just all calm down a bit until we are clear about how many farms will be affected, and we are crunching the numbers on that as we speak,' she said.

Baroness Morgan pointedly referred to the inheritance tax changes as a 'UK Government responsibility' and refused to say if she would have taken the same decision.

It came as Ms Reeves slapped down suggestions she could water down her tax raid on farmers amid claims of a split between herself and fellow Cabinet ministers.

Eluned Morgan, the Welsh First Minister, sparked fury today after she said 'we should all calm down a bit' over Labour's inheritance tax raid on farmers

Baroness Morgan, pictured with PM Sir Keir Starmer last month, was branded 'patronising' for her comments

Chancellor Rachel Reeves used her Budget last month to impose inheritance tax on previously exempt agricultural estates worth over 1million, at a rate of 20 per cent

Baroness Morgan was branded 'patronising' for her comments, with Labour said to be suffering a 'political and PR crisis' over the tax row.

Mo Metcalf-Fisher, director of external affairs at the Countryside Alliance said: 'Talk about misjudging the public mood.

'These patronising comments suggest the First Minister is lacking in basic empathy for the people that feed us and maintain our countryside, despite the many obstacles in their way.

'Rather than tell farmers how to behave, perhaps the Government should prioritise clearing up exactly how many farms will be affected by this appalling family farm tax.

'This is increasingly becoming a political and PR crisis'.

The Chancellor plans to limit the 100 per cent relief for family farms to only the first 1million of combined agricultural and business property.

For anything above that, landowners will pay a 20 per cent tax rate, rather than the standard 40 per cent rate of inheritance tax applied to other land and property.

Farmers are set to stage protests against the Budget measures, while many MPs have said their postboxes are full of complaints from constituents.

Some 10,000 farmers are due in London next week for a march against the tax change, with almost 2,000 also expected to meet up with MPs in a 'mass lobbying event' by the National Farmers' Union on Tuesday.

There have even been threats of strikes that could hit supplies of meat, barley and oats.

Amid the backlash, Environment Secretary Steve Reed is reported to have been pushing for the tax changes to be watered down.

Options floated by his Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) include exempting people over the age of 80 who will not have time to adjust their plans, according to the BBC.

But Ms Reeves has slapped down the idea with Treasury sources saying they are not considering 'mitigations'.

Environment Secretary Steve Reed is said to have been pushing for the move to be watered down

Farmers have warned the move will be 'disastrous', wiping out family businesses that will be forced to sell to pay death duties (pictured, a protest in Northumberland last week)

Earlier this week, Sir Keir Starmer was forced to distance himself from a Labour ex-adviser's claim that Britain 'doesn't need small farmers' and could 'do without' the industry.

The PM dismissed a suggestion by John McTernan, a former top aide to Tony Blair, that Labour could do to farmers 'what Margaret Thatcher did to the miners'.

The senior figure, a prominent supporter of Sir Keir, sparked outrage among farming groups and senior Tories with his remarks.

Speaking in the House of Commons today, Mr Reed insisted the Government's figures on the number of farmers impacted by rises in inheritance tax are 'crystal clear'.

The Environment Secretary remained adamant that 'three quarters of farmers will pay nothing' as a result of the changes as he faced questions from the Conservatives about whether the figures had been 'checked before the Budget'.

The NFU has disputed the Government's claims about the number of farms that will be impacted, warning that plans to roll together allowances for both IHT relief and business property relief could leave far more agricultural businesses exposed to the tax.

Tory shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins told the Commons: 'The Secretary of State and the food minister claim that their family farm tax will affect only a quarter of farms.

'Yet after informed questioning by the NFU, the CLA (Country Land and Business Association), the TFA (Tenant Farmers Association) and this side of the House, the minister has now admitted they need to check their figures.

'Should the cost of the family farm tax to farming families have been checked before the Budget?'

Mr Reed replied: 'HMRC data is crystal clear. Three quarters of farmers will pay nothing as a result of these changes, family farming will continue into future generations, just as it should do.'

Ms Atkins said: 'He can explain the veracity and the accuracy of his figures next week, when thousands of farmers are coming to Westminster to rally against the family farm tax, the delinking of payments, the hike in national insurance and other tax hikes on working farms as a result of this Budget.'

Farmers are 'reasonable people', Mr Reed said, who will 'want to look at the facts'.

He said: 'They, like everybody else, will see that if they drill into that HMRC data, three quarters of them will end up paying no more under the new system than they do today.'

A Treasury spokesman said: 'With public services crumbling, a 22billion fiscal hole inherited from the previous government and 40 per cent of Agricultural Property Relief going to the 7 per cent wealthiest claimants, we made a difficult decision to ensure the relief is fiscally sustainable.'

'Around 500 claims each year will be impacted and farm-owning couples can pass on up to 3m without paying any inheritance tax - this is a fair and balanced approach.'

A Defra spokesperson said: 'All Ministers support the policy and it will not change.'
Loring Tu, a mathematics professor at Tufts University for 38 years, has amassed a multi-million dollar fortune by investing in stocks.

The Taiwan-born mathematician plans to retire at the end of next year and the Boston-area university just announced his parting gift.

Tu will be donating an 'eight-figure gift' of more than $10 million to the $2 billion-plus Tufts endowment fund, the Boston Globe reported.

In exchange, Tufts will rename its Science and Engineering building after his grandfather, Tsungming Tu, who was a pioneer in Taiwan's medical field.

Tu's astounding donation is coming from his own portfolio, where he began investing early in high-profile companies that have since done extraordinarily well.

'Tufts needs a bigger endowment in order to offer more financial aid for its students,' Tu told the Globe. 'I've had a happy time here for 38 years. ... I'd like to give something back.'

One of Tu's most profitable picks was Apple, which is among the best performing stocks in the S&P 500 over the last thirty years.

He first bought shares of the tech company back in 1997, long before the company's success was practically gospel like it is today - largely thanks to former CEO Steve Jobs conceiving the iPhone, one of the best selling products of all time.

Math professor Loring Tu will be donating eight figures to Tufts University thanks to the success he's had investing in stocks, most notably Apple. He is standing in front of the Science and Engineering building that will display his grandfather's name

He declined to donate to Princeton University and Harvard University, the institutions he was educated at, because he felt his money would have a greater impact at Tufts (pictured)

At the time of Tu's first purchase, Apple shares were trading for 15 cents.

He didn't reveal how much he invested but said that a $1,000 investment at that time would be worth well over $1 million today.

Tu said he doesn't use a financial advisor, but suggested people should invest in companies with familiar products. He added that his math analytical skills could have given him a leg up.

'I didn't expect to be wealthy,' Tu told the Globe. 'I would attribute it mostly to dumb luck and frugality.'

Tufts president Sunil Kumar said Tu's gift will allow the university to continue advancing 'learning, teaching and research for generations to come.'

Tu has donated to Tufts before, but decided on the much larger contribution after a school official approached him.

He also declined to donate to Princeton University and Harvard University, the institutions he was educated at, because he felt his money would have a greater impact at Tufts.

Now that his grandfather's name will grace the shiny new engineering complex that was completed in 2017, he hopes the student body will learn more about his life's work.

Tsungming Tu is considered one of the foremost medical innovators in Taiwan. He died in 1986, leaving a towering legacy

For example, Tsungming founded the first opium addiction clinic.

He was tasked by the Taiwanese government to tackle widespread opium addiction in the country, and according to Tu, his grandfather was able to eradicate it by 1945.

After World War II, his grandfather later founded the first private medical school in the country.

'They had no health care; they had no doctors,' Tu said. 'His goal was to have a doctor in every village, and he made it happen - and this was remarkable thinking for back in the 1950s.'

Tu lived in the same house as his grandfather in Taiwan, until his family left for the United States when he was 13.

Tsungming died in 1986 at the age of 93 and is extensively celebrated as a transformational figure in Taiwan's history to this day.

Now his honors extend to the US thanks to his grandson.

When Tu retires, he plans on traveling, visiting friends, working on a new editions of his new mathematics books and getting more involved with robotics and artificial intelligence.

'I live a simple life, my needs are minimal,' Tu said. 'I want to give away what I don't need.'
Donald Trump may get more than he bargained for with his pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who's often accompanied by her raffish New Zealand husband Abraham Williams.

Since Trump's shock announcement on Wednesday, critics have pounced on Gabbard's record as a conspiracy theorist with an affinity for such strongmen dictators as Russia's Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

But scratch beneath the surface and another mysterious backstory emerges  Gabbard and hubby Williams' ties to a shady Hindu offshoot cult that's for decades sought a back door into mainstream politics.

Critics have branded the secretive group, called the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), as intolerant of women, gays, and Muslims, while treating its reclusive leader Chris Butler as some kind of all-powerful deity.

Murky ties to Butler's group, which straddles Hawaii and New Zealand, could well complicate Gabbard's bid to secure congressional backing for a senior cabinet-level post as Trump's top advisor for his key decisions on national security.

Williams, a part-Maori, part-Samoan filmmaker and surfer from Auckland, New Zealand, reportedly met Gabbard, a former Army officer, during her first run for Congress in 2012, when he volunteered to shoot her campaign ads.

That year, Gabbard made history by becoming the first American Samoan and practicing Hindu in Congress.

The pair bonded over their shared love of watersports and started dating about 18 months later.

Abraham Williams and Tulsi Gabbard were married in a traditional Vedic ceremony on the eastern shore of Kahaluu, Hawaii, in 2015

Williams is a freelance cinematographer and Steadicam operator, with experience on commercials, movies, documentaries, and music videos

Williams reportedly proposed to Gabbard while they were surfing at sunset  the diamond ring was duct-taped to a flotation device being pulled behind them.

The practicing Hindus were married in a traditional Vedic ceremony on the eastern shore of Kahaluu, Hawaii, in 2015.

Narendra Modi, India's populist and Hindu nationalist prime minister, famously bought them a wedding gift.

Williams plays several musical instruments and works as a freelance cinematographer and Steadicam operator, with experience on commercials, movies, documentaries, and music videos.

According to IMDB, he's best known for such low-budget productions as Decade of the Dead, Go for Broke, Angel by Thursday and Down on the Sidewalk in Waikiki, a short poetic film about a janitor in Hawaii.

His website says he works across 'diverse and challenging environments, from cities across America to warzones in the Middle East.'

But much of his work nowadays appears to involve trailing Gabbard around with a camera, producing adverts, promotional material and a steady stream of social media content for her burgeoning political career.

Williams' beach-bum good looks have earned him attention from fashion title Marie Claire, which called him the 'coolest political spouse.'

Meanwhile, The Oprah magazine dubbed him a 'low profile' sidekick to Gabbard who was well worth following on Instagram.

According to a 2021 New York Magazine article, the couple's connection pre-dates Gabbard's 2012 congressional campaign by decades, thanks to ties between their families through Butler's SIF community.

Williams and Gabbard are connected through Chris Butler, founder of the Science of Identity Foundation, a conservative offshoot of the Hare Krishna movement

Renegade Democrat Tulsi Gabbard threw her lot in with Donald Trump this year and could end up being his intelligence chief

Filmmaker Williams volunteered to work on Gabbard's 2012 campaign to represent Hawaii in the US Congress

Williams' mom Anya Anthony reportedly left New Zealand and moved to the States soon after he was born and married his stepdad Tim Anthony.

She has worked in Gabbard's core Hawaii-based political team, which is composed of largely family and long-term friends.

Gabbard, 43, and Williams have said little publicly about the SIF, which has been derided as the 'alt-right of the Hare Krishna movement.'

Neither of them answered DailyMail.com's request for comment.

The Hare Krishna movement, best known for chanting mantras, vegetarianism, and yoga, exploded across America in the 1960s and 1970s.

Butler, a surfer in Hawaii, was part of that growth, but splintered from the group and formed SIF in the late 1970s.

A tight-knit SIF community of around a thousand followers developed across Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. It reportedly includes members of the families of Gabbard and Williams.

Gabbard calls Butler a 'guru' and says his message is positive and uplifting.

But some former members of his group have described themselves as survivors of a cult, of which Butler was an all-powerful and unquestionable leader.

'I was raised to believe Chris Butler was God's voice on earth, and if you questioned him or offended him in any way, you were effectively offending God,' one such former SIF member wrote in a 2017 post on Medium.

'Questioning the leader was spiritual suicide, which was seen as worse than death.'

In a damning tell-all interview with The Independent in 2022, Gabbard's aunt, Dr Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard, lifted the lid on what insiders call a homophobic, often anti-Islamic and misogynist cult.

She told the publication that her niece's career is all about the pursuit of power, and her bid for the presidency in 2020 was the culmination of four decades of Butler's efforts to seek political influence.

The Hawaii-based couple have family ties and bonded over their shared love of surfing and other watersports

Gabbard's aunt, Dr Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard, says her niece's faith group made her hungry for power

'Once again I find my niece's apparent penchant for parroting extremist toadies such as Tucker Carlson and vile strongmen such as Vladimir Putin, to be problematic and deeply troubling,' said the retired University of Hawaii professor.

'It gives me no pleasure to note that Tulsi's single governing principle seems to be expedience, which is in effect no principle at all.'

Gabbard's faith background offers insights into the unusual political career of a four-term Democratic congresswoman who ran against President Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries, but then left the party in dramatic fashion in 2022.

She accused her former party of being an 'elitist cabal of warmongers' driven by 'cowardly wokeness,' and initially registered as an independent.

She became a Fox News contributor, speaking about radical gender ideology and freedom of speech, and became an outspoken advocate of Trump before joining the Republican Party less than a month ago.

She endorsed Trump in August and even helped him prepare for his debate face off with Vice President Harris.

But her political shift has accompanied numerous other statements and actions that have led to claims that she peddles conspiracy theories or could even be working for Russia.

Gabbard's past political controversies and her links to Butler's religious group make her an unlikely candidate for being America's top intelligence officials. Democrats and even some Republicans have already raised objections to her candidacy.

Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton said the president had 'lost his mind' by picking Gabbard, as it showed China that the US was not interested in a serious intelligence operation.
November 13, 2024: On August 2nd, Ukrainian forces made an unexpected raid into Russias Kursk area, Russian security forces were exposed as inept and unprepared. The agency most at fault was the FSB. This is the 1990s successor to the Soviet era KGB. The FSB is not as large or as aggressive and competent as the KGB border guard forces. This was evident when Ukrainian troops rolled into Kursk province. It took the Russians over a month to show up and oppose, but not dispose of, the invaders. As of early November Ukraine still occupies over a thousand square kilometers of Russian territory and the Russians apparently are still unprepared to try and oust the Ukrainians.

Despite this apparent failure, the FSB was doing its job. In this case it was spying on other Russian intelligence and combat organizations. Russia has always had multiple intelligence agencies which gather information on foreign nations and their armed forces as well as rival Russian intelligence organizations. The FSB failure in opposing the Ukrainian incursion was caused by FSB preoccupation with investigating internal enemies and those suspected of opposing Vladimir Putin.

Everyone in Russian intelligence and the military works for Putin and protecting him from real or imagined threats takes priority over everything else. The Ukrainian incursion was largely ignored by Russian intelligence and military commanders who were concentrating on internal struggles. None of the Russian intel agencies appear to have noticed the Ukrainian incursion.

Russian civilians in the Ukrainian occupation zone noticed the absence of Russian forces. When the Ukrainians invaded, they captured several hundred soldiers as well as civilians working for the military. Most of these were subsequently used to get Ukrainian prisoners released. While the Russians responded to the prisoner swap offer, they are still not in a fighting mood regarding the Ukrainian troops occupying Russian territory. A Russian official did show up and blamed the local municipal authorities for the Ukrainian success. At the same time he said Russian military assistance was on the way. After three months the local civilians doubt help is on the way. The Ukrainian occupiers have been friendly and not blocked local civilians from leaving the occupied zone.

Previous to the August incursion, Ukrainian forces had advanced into Russia several times, but withdrew before any Russian troops could show up. In most of those cases, there were no Russian soldiers present to oppose the incursions. The dwindling, from casualties and desertions, Russian forces are barely able to cover the thousand kilometer front line. Most of the fighting is going on in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces continue to gain ground in Luhansk and Donetsk provinces where the war began in 2014.

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 II. During some major offensives NKVD 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.

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.
Geraldo Rivera branded Matt Gaetz 'rotten' and 'creepy' as he unleashed on Donald Trump's attorney general pick.

Even Republican lawmakers were shocked by the selection, setting up an early loyalty test as the new GOP-controlled Senate plans confirmation hearings.

Gaetz, 42, is under an ethics investigation over claims of sexual misconduct, bribery and drug use - which he denies - and was also the focus of a sex trafficking probe involving a 17-year-old girl.

Former Fox News host host Rivera didn't hold back in his initial reaction to Trump's announcement, alongside a dozen other proposed appointments while speaking on NewsNation's On Balance with Leland Vittert.

'Matt Gaetz is a douche. So bad for Attorney General. Gross,' he wrote on Twitter.

'In May 2021 this guy was under investigation for sex trafficking a 17-year-old. The DOJ decided not to charge him reportedly because the minor was almost 18.

'He also allegedly asked President Trump for a prospective pardon re: January 6th.'

Gaetz, 42, is under investigation over claims of sexual misconduct, bribery and drug use - which he denies - and was also the focus of a sex trafficking probe involving a 17-year-old girl

Rivera continued his scathing assessment on News Nation, and predicted the Senate would vote to reject him even though it would be packed with Republicans.

'When I heard that Matt Gaetz was picked to be attorney-general, I threw up in my mouth,' he said.

'I think it is a horrible, creepy choice. I have no idea why he did it.'

Host Leland Vittert claimed Rivera's opposition showed Democrats were out of touch with what Americans voted for at the election.

'The fact that all Democrats are doing, yourself included, is talking about how terrible Matt Gaetz is means they're not talking about the things that actually the American people told us in this election they care about,' she said.

Trump-voting Americans cited their top issues at the election as being the economy and immigration - neither of which concern the attorney-general.

'Well, as I understand it, President-elect Trump, was absolutely keen on ending the weaponization of the Justice Department,' Rivera replied.

'That guy is the weapon that Trump will use to destroy his enemies in the DOJ, wreck its independence.'

Geraldo Rivera branded Matt Gaetz 'rotten' and 'creepy' as he unleashed on Donald Trump's attorney general pick

This sparked crosstalk between Rivera and Vittert as she pointed out Gaetz never said he believed the DoJ should go after Trump's enemies.

'Matt Gaetz is the epitome of everything that is rotten in Washington. He is someone who is a privileged, entitled, backstabbing,' Rivera continued.

'There's no way the Republicans in the Senate will confirm this man. He'll make the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing look like a walk in the park. They will dig up everything about him.'

Thomas, 76, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by George HW Bush in 1991 and is by far the longest-tenured justice on the bench, faced two hostile hearings amid allegations of sexual harassment.

Accusations by his former colleague Anita Hill, whose FBI interview was leaked, dominated the hearings that soon took on a racial tone. He was eventually confirmed 52 to 48.

Trump announced on Wednesday his intention to nominate Rep. Gaetz as attorney general to lead reforms at the Department of Justice  the same agency that was investigating him

Gaetz married his wife Ginger Luckey in 2021

While Trump appears to be valuing staunch loyalty as a prerequisite for his choices to key posts over standard qualifications, the choice of Gaetz as the top law enforcement official in the land left many scratching their heads - if not scraping their jaws off the floor.

Republicans who had the Gaetz nomination thrown in their lap  apparently without prior consultation  revealed their shock both through their words and their silence.

Even if Gaetz were to see his nomination falter, the clash could provide cover for other controversial Trump nominees.

Rivera's extreme distate for the Gaetz pick contrasted with his support for Fox News host Pete Hegseth being nominated for defence secretary.

'Bravo Major Pete Hegseth an inspired choice for Defense Secretary,' he wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

'Awarded the Bronze Star, he is a combat veteran with service in Iraq and Afghanistan and strongest in his support of our veterans. RESPECT.'

Rivera's extreme distate for the Gaetz pick contrasted with his support for Fox News host Pete Hegseth (pictured) being nominated for defence secretary

Hegseth's nomination is almost as controversial as Gaetz's as he lacks any political or executive experience, largely just being a media pundit since his retirement from the Army National Guard.

Rivera doubled down on his praise on Wednesday after hearing from defense sources who were less excited.

'I've heard from high ranking Pentagon veterans re: Major Pete Hegseth's lack of experience running an organization-especially one with 3 million employees,' he wrote.

'Fair enough, but this guy has a great heart, strong character, patriotism and courage. He will grow into this tough job.'

Rivera was a colleague of Hegseth at Fox News for many years until he was fired from The Five last year and quit the network in response.
This is the moment a lone German-made Leopard tank took on an entire column of Russian armour.

Footage shows the tank blasting three armoured trucks and two tanks driving down a road in eastern Ukraine, near the city of Kurakhove.

The vehicles caught on fire after heavy gunfire rained down on them, with smoke billowing into the sky while Russian soldiers attempted to flee to safety.

The fleeing soldiers were killed shortly after, according to the Ukrainian army unit who posted the footage on Telegram. 'One for a whole column,' the unit captioned the video.

This comes as Putin's troops suffered 'unimaginable losses' during their meat grinder counter-offensive in the Kursk region, according to X account WarMonitor.

On Monday, Russia suffered its deadliest day of the war in Ukraine so far, with 1,950 soldiers killed in just 24 hours, the Ukrainian army said.

The record number of troops dying within a day serves as fresh humiliation for Putin after his two-day Kursk counter offensive last weekend ended with 28 tanks blown up and 100 troops killed, according to reports.

The offensive comes after Donald Trump romped to US election victory having boasted of being able to end the war in one day with Kyiv facing the prospect of America's vast military funding drying up under his presidency.

Footage shows Russian armoured vehicles, each of them carrying about 30 troops, driving over landmines in Kursk before exploding, with some injured soldiers crawling out of the wreckages as the smoke dissipated.

Footage shows the tank blasting three armoured trucks and two tanks driving down a road in eastern Ukraine, near the city of Kurakhove

The vehicles caught on fire after heavy gunfire rained down on them, with smoke billowing into the sky while Russian soldiers attempted to flee to safety

The fleeing soldiers were killed shortly after, according to the Ukrainian army unit who posted the footage on Telegram

Vladimir Putin's losses in the war against Ukraine are piling up after after thousands of soldiers died in the last two days alone

Russia lost more than 710,000 troops since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion almost three years ago, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said this week.

Despite the heavy losses, Moscow is pushing forward with its 'meat assaults' and continues to advance at its fastest rate since 2022, with Ukraine's armed forces chief admitting this month that it is currently facing 'one of the most powerful' Russian offensives since the war broke out.

Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region has stalled, and Moscow has reportedly massed a force of 50,000 soldiers as it aims to reclaim the territory taken from it three months ago.

Kyiv said last week its forces had clashed with some of the estimated 11,000 North Korean soldiers sent to the region to support Moscow, with some experts saying their deployment could be partly due to the heavy Russian losses.

Volodymyr Zelensky said at the time of the August incursion into Kursk that the taking of Russian territory could serve as a bargaining chip with Moscow.

But, stretched by manpower shortages, Ukrainian forces have lost some of the ground they captured in August incursion, and have continued to lose large swathes of its own territory.

A view from a drone showing a destroyed Russian armoured vehicle in a battle hotspot. The forest is located about 8 kilometers southwest of Kreminna in the Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine

Ukrainian soldiers from the mortar group of the "Karpatska Sich" battalion carry out combat operations and target Russian military with a 120 mm mortar on November 11, 2024 in Toretsk, Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured) said at the time of the August incursion into Kursk that the taking of Russian territory could serve as a bargaining chip with Moscow

The record number of daily Russian losses on Sunday (1,770 troops) and Monday (1,950 troops), which surpasses the previous peak of 1,730 in a day back in May, is broadly in line with estimates from Western countries.

The number of Russian soldiers killed and injured averaged 1,500 'every single day', UK Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Tony Radakin told the BBC on Sunday.

Russia is making huge sacrifices in order to secure 'tiny increments of land,' Radakin said, but added that it continues to make 'tactical, territorial gains,' and is 'putting pressure on Ukraine'.

Sir Tony said that the Russian people were paying an 'extraordinary price' for Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion, saying that October was the worst month for losses since the conflict began in February 2022.

'Russia is about to reach 700,000 people killed or wounded - the enormous pain and suffering that the Russian nation is having to bear because of Putin's ambition,' he told the Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme.

The cost of the war, which he put at more than 40 per cent of public expenditure on defence and security, is also 'an enormous drain' on Russia.

The past weekend saw the largest drone attacks by Russia and Ukraine since the war began, with the barrages impacting large swathes of each country and hundreds of drones downed, including in the Moscow region.

Strikes have intensified amid expectations that US president-elect Donald Trump will put pressure on both sides to end the conflict.

Trump repeatedly said throughout his campaign that he could end the war 'in a day', without saying how.
A Utah woman left over 800 people without power for hours after she climbed a substation transformer and damaged equipment during a 'mental health episode'.

Witness Ryan Kent revealed that the unidentified trespasser had managed to stand on top of the transformer and was 'scream obscenities'.

He recalled hearing the troubled resident yell about 'how the world was no longer safe for her or future children', according to ABC4 News.

Kent also saw a smashed circuit box and a pipe near the scene as multiple police cars continued to pull up to the Rocky Mountain Power electric grid near Gladiola Street and Decade Drive.

As a result, deputies from The Salt Lake City Police Department were forced to cut power to more than 800 homes in the area to ensure she was not electrocuted during the incident.

A huge crowd of people had soon gathered to at the grid and remained worried about the woman's situation.

'We were kind of concerned for her. We're waiting around hoping that she's safe and she's okay, and she comes down,' he told the outlet.

Ultimately, officials began surrounding her with cherry pickers to bring her down but the distressed woman kicked at them and instead began to climb a nearby wire 'like a vine.'

A Utah woman left over 800 people without power for hours after she climbed a substation transformer and damaged equipment during a 'mental health episode.' Pictured: The Rocky Mountain Power electric grid near Gladiola Street and Decade Drive

But when she stepped onto the rim of a picker, an officer managed to shoot their stun gun towards her - followed by a 'yelp', Kent recalled.

The officer reportedly threatened her to get inside the picker with him or he would stun her again. Allegedly, she did not agree and suffered another shock.

'She literally collapsed from pain into the cherry picker and they went down slowly.

'She seemed okay. She was verbal, and she was in pain, she was crying, and then [an] ambulance came put her on a stretcher, and took her away,' Kent said.

Dave Eskelsen, a Rocky Mountain Power representative later confirmed that a person had gone into a substation and damaged a control panel at around 11am.

He said that at around 1pm, power had been restored for all of the affected locals.

A huge crowd of people had soon gathered to at the grid and remained worried about the woman's situation

Dave Eskelsen, a Rocky Mountain Power representative later confirmed that a person had gone into a substation and damaged a control panel at around 11am

Witnesses saw a smashed circuit box and a pipe near the scene as multiple police cars continued to pull up

DailyMail.com has reached out to The Salt Lake City Police Department and Rocky Mountain Power for more information.

This comes two months after a rich California coastal town was left without gas, electricity and water after officials asked residents to evacuate due land movements.

Rancho Palos Verdes, south of LA, has been dubbed America's richest retirement town, but many poorer residents have been left with nowhere to go after surging groundwater knocked out its utility network.

Gas was cut to 135 homes at the start of August before their power and water supplies were switched off on September 1.

The coastal community has been blighted by landslides since torrential rain hit the area in spring of last year.

Dozens of homes were destroyed by landslides in July last year and floods tore through the area during the storms that hit California in February causing 'considerable land movement' under the homes that survived.
When President-elect Donald Trump nominated Fox News host and decorated Army veteran Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary it set off a firestorm inside the Pentagon.

The heavily tattooed 44-year-old deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and won two Bronze Stars, then unsuccessfully ran for Senate in Minnesota in 2012 before joining Fox News.

'Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First,' Trump said in a statement.

But the surprising top cabinet-post appointment came as an absolute shock to Pentagon career employees - who weren't anticipating such a non-establishment pick to lead the nation's largest federal agency with a $800 billion budget.

One defense official told DailyMail.com that it was 'like a morgue' inside the Pentagon after Trump's announcement.

They said the career staff were 'apoplectic' after hearing Hegseth, who has no government or management experience, would be taking over administration of the largest joint fighting forces in the world.

'The libs seemed so depressed,' according to a message obtained by DailyMail.com.

And many are especially concerned about Trump's reported plan to create a 'warrior board' of retired ex-military personnel to weed out 'woke generals' deemed unfit for leadership.

Hegseth's most distinctive tattoo is a large Jerusalem Cross on the right of his chest. The cross consists of a large Christian cross surrounded by four smaller crosses in each quadrant

A source within the department says that ever since the announcement, the mood has been 'dark' among employees.

'No one has been joking,' the insider told DailyMail.com. There are also worries that the U.S. could lose its soft power and trust of allies.

But that seems to be the exact goal of Trump with his defense shake-up and incoming wave of firings.

And another official says change is 'welcome' and that employees want a defense secretary that will 'engage with staff more' after current Sec. Lloyd Austin's distance.

'No one really knows his hobbies or what he likes to do,' the official says about Austin. 'His staff has always kept him hidden and he doesn't seem to have much interest in pretending that he is interested in staff.'

Hegseth could change that up in the department and be more accessible to employees - a perk in the eyes of many.

A Pentagon official told DailyMail.com that theres some 'disappointment' that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Q. Brown Jr., who replaced Gen. Mark Milley, will be the main target of the warrior board purge.

Employees feel hes a 'good guy that keeps his head down and doesnt make news,' they explained.

The main issue that Trump has with Brown is his work to expand the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) effort within the agency.

But the official said he was 'kind of forced' into DEI after the death of George Floyd.

'There was some hope at first that Trump might keep Brown, which would be viewed as positive in the building, but that is looking bleak now.'

There are career officials who are welcoming Trump's warrior board because some Milley loyalists are still around.

But it's a 'mixed bag of emotions' in the department because now some who will be fired are 'scrambling' to find new job options.

'Then again, there was a general understanding that because the Biden and Harris teams didnt seem to like each other, that she would have done a massive sweep as well to put in people she viewed as loyal to her.'

But not all service members are upset - some say that the agency needs a strong shaking up starting at the top.

Navy Commander Robert A. Green Jr. said he's 'excited for the fresh approach' that Hegseth will bring to the position.

'The Joint Force deserves a decision maker who will prioritize constitutional principles over contractor profits,' he told DailyMail.com.

'There is also a deep bench of recently retired conservative Admirals and Generals who are eager to support and advise. The future looks very bright for the US military under Pete Hegseth.'

Air Force veteran Jordan Karr told DailyMail.com that she was 'shocked in a good way' regarding Hegseth's nomination.

The 44-year-old deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and won two Bronze Stars

Pete Hegseth and his wife Jennifer Hegseth

Another retried Air Force Col. John McAfee said that he's hopeful Hegseth will 'create a way' to bring back religious service members who were terminated for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.

The mandate enacted in August 2021 led to the forced firing of over 8,000 service members who refused the shot on religious or medical grounds.

Hegseth's appointment comes as Trump has made other shock nominations including former Democratic congresswoman and Tulsi Gabbard for the director of national intelligence and embattled Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general.

Hegseth, who is 44, started adorning his body with tattoos only recently after his father dissuaded him from getting tattoos at a young age

In a flurry of announcements, Trump said he had chosen former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and his longtime friend Steven Witkoff to be a special envoy to the Middle East.

Trump also said he would nominate South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to run the Department of Homeland Security and named Bill McGinley, his Cabinet secretary in his first administration, as his White House counsel.

'With Pete at the helm, America's enemies are on notice - Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,' Trump said in the statement announcing Hegseth.

'Nobody fights harder for the Troops, and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our `Peace through Strength policy.'

Trump's defense secretary pick is pictured with his wife Jennifer at a baseball game

'Deus Vult' on his bicep. The phrase means 'God will it.' This was a phrase that originated from the First Crusade as a battle cry for Christians

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he is nominating Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary

'Pete Hegseth has been an exceptional host on FOX & Friends and FOX Nation and a best-selling author for FOX News Books for nearly a decade,' a spokesperson for Fox News Media told DailyMail.com in a statement.

'His insights and analysis especially about the military resonated deeply with our viewers and made the program the major success that it is today. We are extremely proud of his work at FOX News Media and wish him the best of luck in Washington.'

Trump is rolling out a steady stream of appointees and nominees for his upcoming administration, working thus far at a faster pace and without as much drama as his first transition following his 2016 victory.

Hegseth, 44, is a co-host of Fox News Channels 'Fox & Friends Weekend' and has been a contributor with the network since 2014, where he developed a friendship with Trump, who made regular appearances on the show.

He is also the author of 'The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.'

The book, according to its promo, combines 'his own war experiences, tales of outrage, and an incisive look at how the chain of command got so kinked,' and bills itself as 'the key to saving our warriors - and winning future wars.'

While the Pentagon is considered a key coveted post in any administration, the defense secretary was a tumultuous post during Trumps first term.

Pete's wife Jennifer will be by his side as he assumes the position of defense secretary

The appointment comes after former Democrat Congresswoman and Trump ally Tulsi Gabbard said she'd wanted the job

Hegseth has been one of the primary hosts of Fox & Friends Weekend

'Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First,' Trump said in a statement

Five men held the job during his four years only to resign, be fired or serve briefly as a stopgap. Just two of them were actually confirmed by the Senate.

Trump's relationship with his civilian and military leaders during those years was fraught with tension, confusion and frustration, as they struggled to temper or even simply interpret presidential tweets and pronouncements that blindsided them with abrupt policy decisions they werent prepared to explain or defend.

Many of the generals who worked in his first administration - both on active duty and retired - have slammed him as unfit to serve in the Oval Office and he has condemned them in return.

Hegseth was an infantry captain in the Army National Guard and served overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He was formerly head of the Concerned Veterans for America, a group backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch.

If confirmed by the Senate, he would inherit the top job during a series of global crises - ranging from Russias war in Ukraine and the ongoing attacks in the Middle East by Iranian proxies to the push for a cease-fire between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and escalating worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea.

On a recent appearance on Fox News, he made it clear that he felt Joe Biden's White House - run by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin - was run by 'pro-Palestinian millennials.'

'What Israel is about to do is bring Hell down on Hamas. Israel is about to do real war. Israel will be stacking bodies because Netanyahu isnt messing around,' he said.

On a recent appearance on Fox News , he made it clear that he felt Joe Biden's White House - run by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin - was run by 'pro-Palestinian millennials'

Trumps relationship with his civilian and military leaders during those years was fraught with tension, confusion and frustration, as they struggled to temper or even simply interpret presidential tweets and pronouncements that blindsided them with abrupt policy decisions they werent prepared to explain or defend

Hegseth has 'an excellent background as a junior officer but does not have the senior national security experience that secretaries need,' said Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

'I think Trump was tired of fighting with his secretaries of defense and picked one who would be loyal to him.' Cancian said the lack of experience might make it more difficult for Hegseth to get through Senate confirmation.
A heroic Navy sailor rescued trapped residents from a burning building after he saw it go up in flames from his car.

Fire tore through an apartment complex in Norfolk, Virginia on Tuesday afternoon, sparked by 'unattended cooking' in a lower floor unit.

Two people were injured and at least 32 are now displaced after the entire building was razed.

But the incident could have been far worse if it weren't for the efforts of Gabriel Journey, a Navy sailor who rushed to the aid of a mother and son who were trapped in the blaze.

'The fire started in the bottom and had spread up, so they were trapped,' Journey told Wavy.

He said he was driving past the building when he noticed the blaze and heard a woman screaming, prompting him to jump out of his car and offer assistance.

'There was a group of about four other gentlemen that were there. I had them lift me up and I climbed up the side of the building and helped get her out,' he said.

'It's what I trained [for] at work on a daily basis, so the number one priority was just getting as many people out as quickly as possible.'

A heroic Navy sailor rescued trapped residents from a burning building after he saw the building go up in flames from his car

Two people were injured and at least 32 are now displaced after the entire building was razed

Fire tore through an apartment complex in Norfolk, Virginia on Tuesday afternoon, sparked by 'unattended cooking' in a lower floor unit

Video shows the moment Journey whisked a woman to safety while himself balancing on a narrow ledge.

Thick, black smoke billowed from the windows as he coaxed the woman into his arms, followed immediately by her son.

Beneath him, other Good Samaritans held their hands in the air in an effort to help catch people as they came out of the building.

The fire tore through the building rapidly due to heavy winds.

Two people were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Journey has been hailed a hero for his actions, and onlookers said he should be awarded for his bravery.

'A true American Hero taking on a challenge wherever and whenever. We salute you Gabe,' one person said.

'Give this man a Medal of Honor an Bravery Salute.'

Beneath him, other Good Samaritans held their hands in the air in an effort to help catch people as they came out of the building

Journey (left) is assigned to a nuclear submarine in Virginia and is a third generation submariner

The fire tore through the building rapidly due to heavy winds. Two people were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries

Journey is assigned to a nuclear submarine in Virginia and is a third generation submariner.

Firefighters determined the building complex could not be salvaged, and tore down what was left of it.

Residents are calling for a thorough investigation into potential electrical issues in the building, noting that multiple separate units have reported problems with their stoves in recent weeks.

Others noted the black smoke indicated the fire was electrical.
A group of furious passengers stopped a train from leaving the station after 'jobsworth' staff wouldn't let them board.

The disgruntled group - which included Lou Monrow and her wheelchair-using mother Susan Hackett, 64, - reached their platform at Manchester Piccadilly to find the doors 'turned off'.

Lou, 34, says they and 'four others' were told they'd arrived too late and so they took matters into their own hands with one man 'staging a protest' while Lou and the others 'passionately' argued with station staff.

Footage shot on September 7 shows the man stopping the train moving by standing with one foot on the Transport for Wales carriage's step and the other on the platform as he declares 'we are here at 9.30pm and we are early'.

A member of station staff walks over to tell them 'you've missed the train' and adds 'they did the second whistle as you were running down' once they argue back.'

Passengers at Manchester Piccadilly station staged a protest after they were told they couldn't get on the train as they had arrived too late. Here one man stops the train from leaving by standing with one foot on the step and the other on the platform

One of the passengers was wheelchair-user Susan Hackett (pictured). Ms Hackett's daughter Lou Monrow who was with her at the time said: 'I was quite hungry, it was getting cold and I just wanted to get my mum home safe'

The man keeps his foot on the door to continue the argument with another worker. Staff tell the pair there are other trains later that night but Lou, who had tickets for that specific 9.30pm train, asks the woman 'are you going to pay for our fine'?

The man keeps his foot on the door to continue the argument with another worker while Susan, 64, and Lou shout 'just let us on the train' and 'why can't we get on the train?'.

Staff tell the pair there are other trains later that night but Lou, who had tickets for that specific 9.30pm train, asks the woman 'are you going to pay for our fine'?.

Lou says the group were allowed onto the service '15 minutes' after the protest began, despite rowing with staff for so long.

The model, who was travelling to Crewe, claims the Network Rail staff at the station were 'jobsworths' and that she supported the angry man's 'protest'.

The model shared her chaotic clip on TikTok where it's been viewed more than 1.2 million times - splitting users over whether the group had 'missed the train' or not.

Lou, from Reading, Berkshire, said: 'They were jobsworths and should have let us on the train.

'When we got to the train they turned the doors off.

'I'm not normally someone who films that stuff because I'm not into drama but the man standing at the train told me to start recording.

'He had his foot on the train and I think it was like a protest to say 'we will get on the train'.

'I back what he did 100 per cent because he just wanted to get home as well.

'They kept saying we'd missed the train but we hadn't because it was right there.

A member of station staff walks over to tell them 'you've missed the train' and adds 'they did the second whistle as you were running down' once they argue back

Lou insists platform staff have stopped trains from leaving when she's been on the last minute before. Pictured: A member of staff who reportedly stopped passengers boarding the train

'I think they thought we were being aggressive but I don't think that comes across in the video.

'I was quite hungry, it was getting cold and I just wanted to get my mum home safe.

'[They] were telling us to go to the pub for another drink and get the next one but we couldn't because we'd have had to buy another ticket.

'They delayed the other passengers by 15 minutes because we were basically arguing. I don't think it was disrespectful but it was passionate.

'When I rewatched the video I noticed my mum was completely ignored in all of that conversation. I wonder if it was because she's in a wheelchair.

'At one point they just opened the doors and we all got on so we were saying 'what was all that about?'.

'As long as you're on the platform I think you should be allowed on.

'When they let us on it felt like there'd been all that commotion for nothing.

'I understand protocol and safety but it wasn't just me and my mum. There were five or six people there.'

Lou, who lives in Alsager, Cheshire, says she arrived at the station five minutes before the train was due to leave but spent the time pushing her mother to the platform.

She insists platform staff have stopped trains from leaving when she's been on the last minute before.

In response to online criticism, Lou said: 'Trolls don't generally have empathy or life experience where they can put themselves in our shoes.

'I think people should mind their own business.'

She captioned the viral video 'this is the most ridiculous thing in the entire world'.

One commented: 'You missed the train [face palm emoji].'

Lou responded: 'I don't think people know what logic is. Also why did the ticket people let us through?'

Pictured: Susan Hackett with her daughter Lou Monrow. Lou, who lives in Alsager, Cheshire, says she arrived at the station five minutes before the train was due to leave but spent the time pushing her mother to the platform

Lou (pictured) says the group were allowed onto the service '15 minutes' after the protest began, despite rowing with staff for so long

However one agreed with Lou and said: 'The amount of time arguing they could have all been on it and halfway to the next station.'

A Network Rail spokesperson said: 'We are sorry to the passengers for their experience. We have a policy in place where doors close 45 seconds before departure to make sure services run on time.

'The passengers arrived just before the departure time and our station team were following protocol, advising they can't board the train as it's about to leave.

'The whistle had already been given to signal departure. Safety is our top priority, and we take every precaution to uphold it rigorously.'

A spokesperson for Network Rail, which operates Manchester Piccadilly station, said: 'Our team at Manchester Piccadilly work hard to make sure all passengers travel safely though the station.

'When a train is ready to depart, it is not safe for passengers to board the train.

'On this occasion, one of the passengers in the video appears to deliberately place their foot on the train, blocking its safe departure. This caused the train and its passengers to be delayed by 11 minutes, costing the taxpayer hundreds of pounds.

'We expect passengers to treat our staff with respect at all times.'

Transport for Wales declined to comment, while the British Transport Police have been contacted for comment.
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman summed up Donald Trump's cabinet nominations this week as 'God-tier level trolling' after a series of announcements from the president-elect continued to spark shock and even outrage.

Trump announced MAGA firebrand Matt Gaetz as his nominee for Attorney General and conservative Fox News TV personality Pete Hegseth his nominee for Defense Secretary.

He also named former congresswoman and military vet Tulsi Gabbard, accused of spreading Russian disinformation, as his pick for Director of National Intelligence.

'I would describe it as God-tier level trolling to just trigger a full-on China syndrome to own the libs in perpetuity,' Fetterman said.

Sen. John Fetterman says Donald Trump tapping Rep. Matt Gaetz for Attorney General is god tier level trolling. pic.twitter.com/O7RfrKBRbk  Brennan Leach (@brennanleach) November 13, 2024

President-elect Trump named controversial Florida lawmaker Matt Gaetz his pick for Attorney General on Wednesday

In a separate post, Fetterman wrote on X that there have been 'serious, qualified individuals nominated to posts.'

He noted Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for Secretary of State, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik for Ambassador to the UN, and suggested Senator Eric Schmitt as a 'solid choice' for Attorney General.

'Dem opinions on Gaetz arent that interesting,' the Keystone State Democrat wrote.

'The good ones will come from my GOP colleagues to justify a vote for that jerkoff,' he added.

Senator John Fetterman described Trump's cabinet nominations as 'God-tier level trolling'

There have been serious, qualified individuals nominated to posts, like Rubio or Stefanik. Eric Schmitt would be a solid choice for AG.



But Dem opinions on Gaetz arent that interesting.



The good ones will come from my GOP colleagues to justify a vote for that jerkoff. https://t.co/0vizyxYpAr  U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) November 13, 2024

Trump named former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard his pick for Director of National Intelligence. Critics have accused her of being a Putin apologist and threat to security

Trump named Fox News host Pete Hegseth his nominee for Defense Secretary. Hegseth is a decorated Army veteran but lacks any senior military leadership experience

Gaetz sparked a meltdown on Capitol Hill when Trump announced he was his pick as top law enforcement officer. The Florida Congressman has long railed against the department he is being tapped to lead.

The House Ethics Committee has been investigating the longtime Trump loyalist for sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. He was also the subject of a Justice Department investigation into sex-trafficking of a minor though charges were never brought.

Gaetz abruptly resigned from Congress Wednesday night after Trump's announcement just days before the House Ethics Committee was set to move forward with its findings.

It's not clear whether the committee could still release its findings since it no longer has jurisdiction over him.

Republican Senators Collins and Murkowski were among Republican senators who signaled they would oppose Matt Gaetz's confirmation

But the Florida congressman's confirmation in the Senate faces an uphill battle.

Republican Senator Susan Collins said she would oppose his confirmation. Senator Lisa Murkowski said she does not think Gaetz is a serious nomination and she is looking forward to a serious one.

Senator Markwayne Mullin, who once slammed Gaetz claiming he had seen the videos the Florida congressman was showing of 'girls' he slept with, said the nominee would have to come to the Senate and sell himself on the job.

But others on the hill defended the choice right out of the gate. Senator Tommy Tuberville claimed Trump had a mandate from voters and threatened senators to confirm his nominees or face primary efforts to unseat them.
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A woman who fought back after a motorbike rider allegedly sexually harassed her in the street in Iran, has been arrested for not wearing a hijab, according to reports.

Footage posted on social media appears to show the motorcyclist trying to touch the woman from behind as he rides past.

The victim, who has been identified as Roshanak Molaei Alishah, 25, a Turkish woman can then be seen pushing her attacker to the ground as she berates him for his actions.

Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a Norway-based Kurdish NGO, has since revealed that Roshanak has been detained by Iran's security forces.

Separately, the Center for Human Rights in Iran confirmed she was arrested on November 3 after she posted a clip of the attack on social media.

In the CCTV footage, she appears not to be wearing a head covering made mandatory by Iran's Islamic Republic.

Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad posted on X: 'In the twisted logic of this regime, it's not the assault that's the crime; it's the fact that her hair was showing while she did it.

'So now, instead of punishing the attacker, they're opening a case against her for breaking the sacred law of compulsory hijab.

Footage posted on social media appears to show the motorcyclist touching the woman from behind as he rides past

The woman has been identified as Roshanak Molaei Alishah, 25, a Turkish woman

'Because in a country they've ruined, showing a strand of hair is more criminal than assaulting a woman.'

Roshanak, whose current fate is unknown, was previously arrested for taking part in the protests against the killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini two years ago, Metro has reported.

A spokesperson for Hengaw Organization for Human Rights added: 'Initially held in Evin Prison, she was subsequently transferred to Qarchak Varamin Prison.'

It comes after an Iranian woman who stripped down to her underwear in protest over hijab was allegedly attacked by police and taken to a mental hospital earlier this month.

The young unidentified woman was seen in footage walking around the campus of Tehran's Islamic Azad University science and research branch before security guards detained her.

She tries to push her attacker off the motorbike as he rides past

In the CCTV footage, she appears not to be wearing a head covering made mandatory by Iran's Islamic Republic

The widely circulated video on social media shows the woman sitting and pacing back and forth with her arms crossed around the campus in her underwear.

Another clip captured the moment she was detained by security forces and forcibly taken into a car.

University spokesperson Amir Mahjoub confirmed the arrest on X, saying: 'Following an indecent act by a student at the science and research branch of the university, campus security intervened and handed the individual over to law enforcement authorities.

'The motives and underlying reasons for the student's actions are currently under investigation'.

According to Reuters, Mahjoub also added that: 'at the police station,...it was found that she was under severe mental pressure and had a mental disorder'.

But some social media users suggested the woman's action was a deliberate protest.

'For most women, being ...in their underwear in public is one of their worst nightmares, ... This is a reaction to the (authorities') stupid insistence on the mandatory hijab,' a user on X, said in a comment accompanying the video.

An unidentified female student was arrested in Iran after she was spotted walking around the campus of Tehran's Islamic Azad University science and research branch in her underwear

The brave act was an apparent protest against the country's strict Islamic dress code

The student reportedly sustained severe injuries following the assault during her arrest

The student reportedly sustained severe injuries following the assault during her arrest, Iran International reported, citing a newsletter by the student group Amir Kabir newsletter.

It said the student was 'disrobed after being harassed for not wearing a headscarf and having her clothing torn by security forces'.

'Blood stains from the student were reportedly seen on the car's tyres,' the newsletter said, adding that her head was struck either by a car door or a pillar which caused heavy bleeding.

The fate of the woman was not known but the mass-circulation daily Hamshahri said on its website: 'An informed source said...the perpetrator of this act has severe mental problems and, after investigations, she will most likely be transferred to a mental hospital'.

These claims, however, have not yet been confirmed.

Growing numbers of women have defied authorities by discarding their veils after nationwide protests that followed the death in September 2022 of a young Iranian Kurdish woman in the custody of the morality police for allegedly violating hijab rules.

Mahsa Amini, 22, died after being captured by morality police for not wearing her hijab correctly.

Her death spearheaded mass protests known as 'Women. life, freedom' which lasted months in the country.

A year later, in October 2023, an Iranian teenager named Armita Geravand was injured in a suspicious incident on Tehran's metro while not wearing a head covering.

She later died in the hospital after falling into a coma.
An outspoken anti-war Russian TV chef exiled to London has been found dead in a hotel room in Serbia after his restaurant in the British capital was threatened with arson attacks, it has been revealed.

Alexei Zimin, 52, who owned Zima restaurant in Soho, is understood to have died on a trip to Belgrade, where he was promoting a new book.

He had not returned to Russia since he was exiled following his criticism of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Crimea.

His television gastronomic show on NTV channel was then abruptly cancelled in 2022 after he posted anti-war songs.

Zimin, who had a wife and 17-year-old daughter, also worked as the editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of GQ as well as Afisha Mir and Gourmet.

Details of his death in Serbia are scarce and his cause of death remains unclear.

In May 2022 he told the BBC his restaurant had been targeted with abuse and arson threats after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Alexei Zimin, 52, who owned Zima restaurant in Soho, reportedly died on a trip to Belgrade, Serbia

Pictured: Zima restaurant in Soho, London that Zimin owned

Moskvich magazine in Russia said he had been found dead in a hotel in Belgrade where he had been on an advertised tour promoting his new book called Anglomania.

A statement today from his Zima magazine said: 'Alexei Zimin, the project's editor-in-chief and the chef of the Zima restaurant, has passed away.'

It added: 'For us, Alexei was not only a colleague, he was our friend, a close person with whom we were lucky to go through a lot - both good, kind and sad.

'Thank you to everyone for the words we receive today about Alexei. We are hurting together with you.

'The entire Zima team expresses condolences to Alexei's family and mourns together with them.'

Zimin previously had several cooking shows in Russia, which had run for 11 years before being halted amid his criticism of Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

His London restaurant in Frith Street was advertised as offering 'Russian cuisine with a modern twist in the heart of Soho'.

His Zima Club ran 'various 'workshops, parties and other events' and is popular with Russian expats in the UK.

It was seen as providing a platform for Russians labelled 'foreign agents' by the Kremlin, and forced into exile.

Zimin is survived by his wife Tatiana 'Tanya' Dolmatovskaya, a costume designer who previously worked at Vogue Russia and graduated from the University of the Arts London, and their daughter Varvara, 17.

In a post three months after Putin's invasion he said: 'Russia will be free, one way or another, or the third, more mysterious, way.'

Zimin had also been editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of GQ as well as Afisha Mir and Gourmet

Vladimir Putin pictured at the Kremlin on November 12 during a meeting

On his cancellation by pro-Kremlin NTV, he said: '11 years. For 22 television seasons I had a programme on Saturday morning prime time on NTV.

'Since May it has been gone.

'There will be no new episodes because of the host's anti-war position.

'Do I regret it? No, I regret that we ended up participating in the war.

'I do not participate in the war, the war participates in me.'

He had also posted: 'Stop the war. Withdraw troops. Return our soldiers home.'

He is seen on a video singing lyrics by famous Soviet and Russian poet and songwriter Bulat Okudzhava - Grab Your Coat, and Let's Go Home.

This song reflects on the experiences of war-ravaged soldiers longing for home and peace.

The lines include 'the war that mowed us down in thousands, years of mothers without children and 'go grab your coat, and let's go home.'

Zimin joins a list of Russians who have died early after fleeing Putin's rule to the UK.

They include oligarch and political fixer Boris Berezovsky, who was found hanged in his Berkshire home in 2013, and his associate Nikolai Glushkov, found dead from compression to the neck five years later.

Putin's secret services poisoned former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko with deadly radioactive polonium-210 in London in 2008.

He died but an attempt to kill Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who spied for the UK, failed despite the use of nerve agent novichok.
Vladimir Putin has been forced to call up dozens of creaking T-55 tanks used by Russia's Hollywood as props in war films.

The army has raided the Mosfilm warehouses in its desperation to invade Ukraine.

Desperate Russian president Putin thanked movie chief Karen Shakhnazarov for the outdated Cold War military hardware during a Kremlin meeting.

'We have handed over to the [Russian] Armed Forces 28 T-55 tanks, eight PT-76 tanks, six BMPs (combat vehicles) and eight tractors [that] we had stored at the military-technical base,' Shakhnazarov said.

'I found out that there was a need, contacted the Ministry of Defence and they took these vehicles. In short, these are our results.'

Putin acknowledged the importance of the contribution of the geriatric military equipment. 'We are proud of Mosfilm - thank you,' he said.

Shakhnazarov branded the move 'charitable assistance' by the Russian film industry to Putin's war.

The T-55 is a Soviet-made main battle tank first produced in the late 1950s.

The Putin regime has been forced to call up dozens of creaking T-55 tanks used by Russia 's Hollywood as props in war films

'We have handed over to the [Russian] Armed Forces 28 T-55 tanks, eight PT-76 tanks, six BMPs and eight tractors [that] we had stored at the military-technical base,' Karen Shakhnazarov (left) told Vladimir Putin (right)

Putin's army has called up creaking tanks and armoured vehicles belonging to Russia's Hollywood, known as Mosfilm, which were used in war films

It was known Russia had raided its vaults of pensioned-off tanks - and some held in museums - but the revelation about using the film industry's collection of old crocks is new.

Shakhnazarov, 72, is a prominent Russian filmmaker, producer, and screenwriter.

He has been the Director General of Mosfilm, the country's largest and oldest film studio - aka Russian Hollywood - since 1998.

He publicly backed Putin's grab of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Ukraine mocked the use of film props, many of which were decommissioned from the Red Army's Soviet era stocks.

'Having emptied the warehouses of Soviet weapons, the Russian army has taken into service fake armoured vehicles from the 1950s from the warehouses of Mosfilm,' reported telegram channel Pravda Gerashchenko.

It branded Shakhnazarov a 'part time propagandist' who 'announced such a generous donation during a personal audience with Putin in the Kremlin'.
November 13, 2024: the United States continues to hunt down and prosecute Russian hackers that were responsible for Cyber War attacks on Ukraine just before the Russians invaded in 2022. Five suspects are members of the Russian military and in Russia. The United States has offered a $60 million reward for those who make possible the arrest of the Russian hackers. This is the largest reward the United States has ever offered. These rewards work and the Americans keep quiet about who received an award and how the U.S. often arranged to have the award winners and their families relocated and sometimes put in a form of the U.S. witness protection program.

The Russian cyber-attacks on Ukraine were known as Whisper Gate and were carried out by the Russian GRU military intelligence organization. The GRU, in one form or another, has been around for 300 years. Espionage and dirty tricks are a long Russian tradition.

The GRU Cyber War offensive on the eve of the Ukraine invasion was directed against NATO supporters of Ukraine, including the United States. This triggered an aggressive and ongoing American response. This appears to have encouraged the GRU to try harder and the Cyber War goes on.

Since 2022 the Ukrainian GRU has been fighting back at the Russian Cyber War efforts and had some success damaging Russian Cyber War assets and stealing Russian government and military data. In July 2024 Ukraine carried out a surprise electronic attack on Russian internet access. This was accomplished by using the largest DDOS distributed denial of service attack ever. The attack disrupted all major Russian internet systems, including financial institutions, government networks and internet-based communications. This included messaging apps and social networks.

These attacks are usually carried out by first using a computer virus, often delivered as an email attachment that installs a secret Trojan horse type program that allows someone else to take over that computer remotely and turn it into a zombie for spamming, stealing, monitoring, or DDOS attacks to shut down another site. There are millions of zombie PCs out there and these can be rented, either for spamming or launching DDOS attacks. You can equip a web site to resist, or even brush off, a DDOS attack but the Ukrainian attack was so massive and well planned that Russian DDoS defenses were of no use.

It took about three weeks to get the Russian internet back to normal, although some systems were so heavily damaged that it took months to get them running again. Major commercial, government and military systems were damaged or offline for weeks while repairs were made. The Ukrainian attacks were so massive, hitting internet targets throughout Russia, that there were not enough Russian internet engineers to repair all that damage immediately. That meant systems that were not critical were offline for weeks or months.

Russians feared the Ukrainians would launch a similar attack before all the damage from the first one was repaired. Russia has long been a leader in such attacks, but the Ukrainians prepared for that before the Russian 2022 invasion and upgraded their internet defenses. Russia was not as well prepared and was vulnerable. Some Russian internet engineers warned their government of the vulnerability but not enough was done.

Attacks like these are more common now but have been for over two decades. One example occurred in 2011 there was an odd incident in South Korea, where a widely distributed computer game appeared to be infected with malware. What caught the attention of South Korean military intelligence was the fact that the malware was hidden in every copy of this game and, at one point, many of the 100,000 infected PCs tried to shut down the air traffic control system at a major South Korean airport.

Further investigation revealed that the airport attack was part of a growing Cyber War campaign by North Korea against government and military websites in South Korea. One of the most disruptive North Korean Cyber War weapons was DDOS attacks. You can equip a website to resist, or even brush off, a DDOS attack and some of those attacks are prepared. But others were not. The South Korean airport was disrupted for several hours. The Russians suffered even greater damage in 2024.

North Korea has launched DDOS attacks and attempted to hack into South Korean networks for over twenty years. This is a continuing problem for South Korea and Japan, which have had to construct large scale internet defenses to provide some protection from further North Korea attacks via the internet. Most North Korean attacks are for financial gain. North Korea is perpetually broke and always in need of more cash. North Korean hackers have turned many foreign internet systems they have hacked into their own private ATMs.
Two terrorists who plotted to kill hundreds of Brits by blowing up a string of high-profile targets, including a major shopping centre and nightclub, have been freed from prison.

Extremists Waheed Mahmood and Anthony Garcia were part of a five-man terror cell all jailed for life in 2007 over a deadly bomb plot.

Members of the al-Qaeda-linked gang aimed to use fertiliser-based explosives to blow up Kent's Bluewater shopping centre and London's Ministry of Sound nightclub and even wanted to set off a radioactive 'dirty' device.

They also aimed to wreak havoc on the UK's gas or electricity network and attack the House of Commons during Prime Minister's Questions. However, their plan was foiled by MI5.

Today it emerged Mahmood, 52, of Crawley in West Sussex, was freed in September by the Parole Board. Fellow terror group member Garcia has also been granted parole, reports The Mirror.

The pair of extremists were freed despite a judge at their 2007 trial saying: 'You have betrayed this country that has given you every opportunity. All of you may never be released.'

Former British Gas boiler engineer Mahmood has now reportedly launched a High Court battle to try and prevent the Metropolitan Police from making him the subject of a serious crime prevention order.

Such orders are designed to prevent terrorists or serious criminals from being able to commit further offences, by restricting their freedoms, contact, finances, movements and technology use.

Waheed Mahmood, of Crawley, West Sussex, was freed from prison in September, it emerged. He was part of a terror gang jailed in 2007 for a plot to blow up a shopping centre and club

Anthony Garcia (pictured) was also a member of the terror cell and has reportedly now been released from jail

Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, pictured in 2005 around the time the gang was plotting to try and blow it up, in an attack that could have killed hundreds of people

Married father Mahmood is already subject to strict licence conditions which means he has had to surrender his passport, is GPS tagged, has a curfew and must regularly sign in with police.

He can also face lie detector tests and questioning by officers.

Mahmood and Garcia were part of the gang with ringleader Omar Khyam, Jawad Akbar, and Salahuddin Amin. They were all jailed after a year-long trial at the Old Bailey in London.

Mahmood, described as a key figure in the cell, sent others abroad to Islamist terror camps for training in military tactics and creating explosives.

At their 2007 trial, it also emerged some of the plotters were photographed by anti-terror cops and security personnel meeting two of the July 7 London suicide bombers.

The fanatics had been planning a series of major attacks in 2004 and had acquired 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, which can be mixed with other substances to make a bomb.

The wannabe Bluewater bomber gang also had ambitious plans to explode a radioactive 'dirty bomb'. Security experts believe the attacks could have killed hundreds of innocent people.

A police surveillance recording of Khyam speaking to Akbar also revealed a potential suicide mission involving a British Airways plane.

Waheed Mahmood is pictured in a sketch during his 2007 trial at London's Old Bailey

Anthony Garcia (left) and gang member Omar Khyam at the Avari Hotel, Lahore, Pakistan in 2003

The terrorists also celebrated the 2004 Madrid bombings, it was heard during their trial (pictured is the aftermath of the blasts that ripped through the city)

Khyam said: 'Imagine: you've got a plane, 300 people in it, you buy tickets for 30 brothers in there. They're massive brothers, you just crash the plane. You could do it easy, it's just an idea.'

Following the World Trade Centre attacks in 2001, the group also talked of bombing the Houses of Parliament.

The conspirators were happy to discuss almost any target - Tube trains, gas and electricity plants, nightclubs and a giant shopping centre were all mentioned.

The court heard that four of the accused, including Akbar and Amin, attended a terror training camp in the mountains bordering Afghanistan in the summer of 2003.

They arrived there with thousands of pounds they defrauded from British banks to buy arms and explosives.

Some had gone on to fight in Afghanistan or Kashmir but were told they would be more useful bringing terror back to the UK.

The plan was foiled by intercepted chat room conversations, surveillance and the discovery of the fertiliser in a storage depot in west London.

As anti-terrorist detectives and MI5 agents decided the plot was near to completion, they moved in and rounded up the terrorists on March 30, 2004.

Mahmood's murderous nature was laid bare in a conversation recorded in March 2004 by MI5 agent.

A few days after the 2004 Madrid bombings, which killed 191 people, he was overheard saying: 'Spain was a beautiful job weren't it? Absolutely beautiful, man, so much impact.'

Another time he talked about bombing the Bluewater shopping centre a Saturday, saying: 'I don't know how big it would be, we haven't tested it, but we could, tomorrow - do one tomorrow.'

Fired on by the World Trade Centre attacks (pictured), the group of men talked of bombing the Houses of Parliament and toyed with the idea of using a nuclear bomb

Ringer leader Omar Khyam, then aged 25, was found guilty by a jury at the Old Bailey of conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life

Terror cell members Jawad Akbar, then aged 23, (pictured left) and Salahuddin Amin, then aged 32, were both jailed in 2007

Pictured is the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, which was one of the group's targets

Summing up, the Judge Mr Justice Astill told the group: 'You have betrayed this country that has given you every opportunity.'

The judge added: 'All of you may never be released,' while noting it was not 'a foregone conclusion'.

In July 2022, Akbar had his first appeal for parole refused. The Parole Board said he was still a danger to society.

In 2018, he waged a human rights battle funded by legal aid to move to an open prison, but appeal court judges threw it out.

MailOnline reported in June 2021 that Akbar was at risk of being deported to Italy, his father's homeland, when he finishes his sentence.

In June 2023 it was revealed that Akbar and Amin were again granted a parole hearing.

A Parole Board spokesperson confirmed a panel had directed the release of Garcia and Mahmood, telling MailOnline: 'Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.'

MailOnline has approached the Ministry of Justice for further comment.
A transgender woman has been arrested for allegedly killing her elderly roommate with fentanyl-laced cocaine and then stowing her body in a freezer for two weeks.

Monique Gilbertson, 68, was found dead in her Las Vegas mobile home on November 6 after police carried out a welfare check.

Jazlynn Roush, born Daniel Roush, told investigators she had found Gilbertson dead at the dining room table with drugs nearby in late October, according an arrest report obtained by KTNV.

Roush, 37, claimed she then moved Gilbertson's body to the freezer while she tried to work out what to do about the situation. She also claimed the elderly woman liked taking cocaine and opiates.

But Roush's wife told police Gilbertson overdosed right in front of Roush, whom she claims sold the woman the fentanyl-laced line of cocaine.

Cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, a digital scale and a razor were also discovered during a search of the property.

Roush was arrested and booked into the Clark County Detention Center. She appeared in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

Roush's preliminary hearing has been scheduled for November 27.

Monique Gilbertson, 68, was found dead in her Las Vegas mobile home on November 6 after police carried out a welfare check. It is suspected that she overdosed on fentanyl-laced cocaine, although the coroner's Office has not yet released the official cause of her death

Jazlynn Roush, born Daniel Roush, appeared in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. Police suspect that Roush sold Gilbertson the drugs that killed her and then stuffed her body into a freezer

Roush and Gilbertson met during a Home Depot shopping trip and after engaging in some small talk, the 68-year-old invited her to move in, the arrest warrant stated.

Although Roush helped with chores, Gilbertson reportedly started complaining after her new roommate within a week of her moving in, citing concerns about cleanliness, drug paraphernalia and her own items disappearing.

Las Vegas police officers were called to the Tres Piedras Road residence just before noon on November 6 after receiving a request for a welfare check.

The caller alleged that they had not heard from Gilbertson since October 22.

When officers spoke with Roush during the welfare check, she claimed that she found Gilbertson dead in the home - but could not recall the exact date this allegedly occurred.

She said she suspected Gilbertson had taken drugs, according to the report.

'I put her in the icebox because I didn't know what to do,' Roush told police. 'Until I could figure it out, I had her in the icebox.'

Police observed several inconsistencies in her story, with Roush first claiming she found Gilbertson's dead at the dining room table. She then said she found her body in a completely different room.

Blood was also found near the freezer, police told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Las Vegas police officers were called to Gilbertson's Tres Piedras Road residence just before noon on November 6 after receiving a request for a welfare check. The caller alleged that they had not heard from Gilbertson since October 22

Roush's wife was also questioned by police. She first denied ever having met Gilbertson, but later admitted that she had come to the Tres Pierdras residence to 'hang out and do drugs.'

At she claimed to be unaware that Roush had stored Gilbertson's body in a freezer, but once again changed her story, claiming to have known about it for at least four days.

She also told police Roush had admitted to selling Gilbertson the narcotics that killed her and witnessed the overdose. Roush has denied this allegations.

Investigators believe that Roush continued to live in Gilbertson's residence for about two weeks after her death.

Police say Roush expressed regret for not immediately reporting the death.

The Clark County Coroner's Office has not yet released the official cause and manner of Gilbertson's death.
A paramedic was in an unnecessary meeting when she could have attended a collision that killed a father-of-five on his pregnant wife's birthday, an inquest has heard.

Aaron Morris, 31, who was about to become a father to twins, was left lying in the road for almost an hour after his motorbike collided with a car in Esh Winning, County Durham, on July 1, 2022.

An ambulance should have been on the scene within 18 minutes of the initial 999 call, but Aaron suffered a 54 minute wait for a paramedic before passing away at University Hospital of North Durham later that day.

The only available Clinical Team Leader on call at the time of the accident was in a meeting.

At County Durham and Darlington Coroner's Court on Wednesday, North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) admitted there were failings in the handling of Aaron's case.

Today, Barrister Sam Harmel, representing Aaron's family, asked Senior Assistant Coroner, Crispin Oliver, to consider neglect in his conclusion of how Aaron came to his death.

The father's wife Samantha Morris was 13 weeks pregnant with twins and celebrating her birthday when the crash happened.

Aaron Morris (left) was about to become a father to twins with his wife Samantha Morris (right)

Aaron was left lying in the road for almost an hour after his motorbike collided with a car in Esh Winning, County Durham, on July 1, 2022

Samantha was 13 weeks pregnant with twins and celebrating her birthday when the crash happened

NEAS, which has been praised by Aaron's family and the coroner for its transparency and honesty in the inquest, told the court that a specialist medic, known as a Clinical Team Leader (CTL), was based approximately 9.1 miles away in Stanley at the time of the collision and could have attended.

However, CTL Sarah Hall was in a meeting she didn't need to be in and did not dispatch to the scene when a colleague queried whether she was available.

She was the only operating CTL at the time of the collision, an inquest heard. This was a new role within the Trust at the time.

Benjamin Barber, a locality manager and paramedic for the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS), admitted to the court that Ms Hall should have stopped the meeting and attended the call.

When asked by the Coroner if she should have 'stopped that and gone', Mr Barber said: 'Yes'.

He told the court: 'I think it was just a misunderstanding that day that when Sarah was offered that job she should have responded.'

He added: 'The CTL role had only been in fruition for about six to eight weeks. The role that most of the people had moved into that position from was more of a managerial role before that day.

'Previously you would stand yourself down to support staff in those meetings.'

Ms Morris pictured with her twin boys Aaron-Junior John Robson Morris (left) and Ambrose-Ayren Morris (right)

Benjamin Barber, a locality manager and paramedic for the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS), admitted to the court that Ms Hall should have stopped the meeting and attended the call

Aaron sustained serious injuries when his motorcycle was involved in a crash on Priestburn Close in Esh Winning just after 12.30pm

The crew were en-route to Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) when Aaron suffered a cardiac arrest

Although it is unclear the time in which Ms Hall was asked to attend the scene, had she responded at 12.40pm, when 999 call operators had sufficient information about the incident to consider sending a CLT, Ms Hall could have been the first responder on scene, the inquest heard.

The court was told that she would have arrived between 1pm and 1.13pm and could have requested the support of an air ambulance.

Instead, one ambulance from a third party ambulance company, Ambulanz, arrived at 1.21pm after being allocated at 1.08pm.

The crew were en-route to Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) when Aaron suffered a cardiac arrest.

The ambulance was diverted to the University Hospital of North Durham, where Aaron was pronounced dead at 6.40pm.

A NEAS serious incident report following his death said that Aaron had a 95% chance of survival of his injuries. Mr Barber, author of the report, told the inquest: 'There was a lot of failings through [Aaron's case] which led unfortunately to the outcome.'

The inquest is expected to conclude on Friday, November 15.
British soldier Daniel Khalife has told a court he would never have been caught if he did not ring MI5 on himself.

The 23-year-old pleaded guilty this week to escaping prison, but continues to deny allegations that he was a spy for Iran while working in the Army.

He instead insists that he was an amateur double agent trying to prove his spycraft to MI6, after being told his Iranian heritage would stop him getting his dream job in intelligence.

Over the course of two years, he passed Iranian spies a host of fake documents he had written on his laptop - and even collected payments from them in a dog poo bag left in a London park.

Prosecutors allege he also passed the Iranians classified documents and had gathered a list of British soldiers from elite units which could have been useful to terror groups.

Khalife was arrested in January 2022, just weeks after he rang MI5 and explained the supposed undercover operation he had mounted against the Iranians.

During his evidence at Woolwich Crown Court, Gul Nawaz Hussain KC, defending, asked Khalife: If you hadnt contacted the intelligence services, do you believe anybody would have found out about what you were doing?

Khalife replied: If there wasnt any contact, in my belief then no. In his evidence, Khalife claimed he thought MI6 and MI5 would be impressed by his efforts to smoke out Iranian spies on British soil and the security services would want to take over his operation.

Daniel Khalife is seen here after his arrest on a canal towpath on September 9 last year after being caught by police

A court artist drawing by Elizabeth Cook of Daniel Khalife appearing at Woolwich Crown Court

HMP Wandsworth in London, where Daniel Khalife has pleaded guilty to escaping custody at the prison

He said that his mothers side of the family, who are originally from Iran, hated the regime following the Islamic revolution in the country in 1979.

In police interviews, he described his ambitions to help overthrow the regime by working as a double agent inside the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC).

He told police: Ive always dreamed that the revolution never happened. Iran is such a beautiful country with beautiful people, but the government is a f****** joke.

It almost brings tears to my eyes. Im not even joking, I hate it so much, I hate all of them - I hate the IRGC, I hate the revolution, I wish we could go back to 1979 and have the Shah back.

It might be immature, a bit crazy the way that Im thinking, but I thought I could make a difference. Earlier this week, Khalife dramatically changed his plea midway through his trial to admit escaping from prison.

Khalife is seen on CCTV preparing to slip out of custody while working in the kitchens at HMP Wandsworth - triggering a huge nationwide manhunt

Daniel Khalife while on the run at a branch of Mountain Warehouse in Richmond, London, which was shown to a jury at the Old Bailey, London, during his trial

Bodycam footage issued by Metropolitan Police when Daniel Khalife was arrested at Grand Union Canal towpath

British soldier Daniel Khalife (pictured) was convicted of escaping prison after changing his plea to guilty halfway through giving evidence at his trial

He triggered a huge nationwide manhunt last year after slipping out of HMP Wandsworth while clinging to the bottom of a food truck.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb explained to jurors that Khalife was being asked if he wanted to enter a new plea because the evidence he had given about his escape was not any lawful defence to that charge.

The change of plea came after the former soldier spent several hours in the witness box describing how he had escaped prison, claiming it was a ploy to be moved to a cell away from sex offenders and terrorists when he was recaptured.

He continues to deny committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state, eliciting information about members of the armed forces and perpetrating a bomb hoax.
The UK saw the biggest rise in legal immigration of any major country last year, according to a report.

The OECD put Britain at the top of the international table after long-term inflows increased by nearly 53 per cent to a record 750,000.

That was a larger increase than any other European state, and a more significant jump than the 13.4 per cent seen in the US.

America was still the top destination with 1.2million arrivals, a peak since 2006.

The global organisation monitors migration trends across all its members, standardising figures as much as possible.

The Tories pointed out that when in government they brought in measures to crack down on migrants bringing in dependants, as well as the now-scrapped deal with Rwanda for illegal arrivals.

Keir Starmer has insisted he is 'not relaxed' about net migration levels - which are forecast to fall, but remain at an historically-high 315,000 a year in the medium term.

The latest report ignores Ukrainians seeking asylum amid the fallout from the Russian invasion.

Overall OECD countries saw a total inflow of more than 6.5million people in 2023, up 10 per cent on the previous year and 28 per cent from 2019.

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'Following an unprecedented increase in 2023, the United Kingdom rose to second place with a record 750,000 new migrants (250 000 more than in 2022, +52 per cent),' the report said.

'Germany, which had been the second OECD destination since 2012, fell to third place despite an increase of 4 per cent and nearly 700,000 new permanent-type entries.

'Canada followed with 470 000 new permanent migrants (+7.8 per cent), and Spain recorded a 12 per cent increase to 360 000.'

The report flagged that the Tories had brought forward measures including tightening up the Skilled Worker visa route and curbing overhauling shortage occupation rules.

It also pointed out that as well as the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Finland, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg and Switzerland all registered record immigration in 2023.

The OECD report noted that the UK had been planning to send Channel migrants to Rwanda before Labour took power.

Overall OECD countries saw a total inflow of more than 6.5million people in 2023, up 10 per cent on the previous year and 28 per cent from 2019

Keir Starmer has insisted he is 'not relaxed' about net migration levels - which are forecast to fall, but remain at an historically-high 315,000 a year in the medium term

'However, following the elections early July 2024, the new Prime Minster has indicated that the government will abolish the policy and terminate the agreement with Rwanda,' it added.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said Labour was mounting 'an ideologically driven push to can that legacy, which would open the doors to migration and undo all the progress we made'.

'I call on Labour to reinstate the further changes to reduce migration that we initiated when in Government, that were due to take affect in April 2025 and which Labour has now cancelled,' he said.

In September Sir Keir set out measures to cut over-reliance on migrant labour and boost training in the UK to fill vacancies.

He announced a push to link visa policies to skills needs, so that immigration is not used as an alternative to training or tackling workforce problems.

The Migration Advisory Committee has been asked to highlight key sectors where labour market failures have led to soaring overseas recruitment and provide an annual assessment to ministers.

The Government is also overhauling the rules around migrant sponsorship to ensure employers guilty of flouting employment laws are banned from hiring from abroad.

The PM said at the time: 'It is the policy of this Government to reduce both net migration and our economic dependency on it.

'I have never thought we should be relaxed about some sectors importing labour when there are millions of young people, ambitious and highly talented, who are desperate to work and contribute.'

At the Budget the Treasury's OBR watchdog predicted that net migration will drop to 315,000 a year in the 'medium term'

At the Budget the Treasury's OBR watchdog predicted that net migration will drop to 315,000 a year in the 'medium term'.

That would be nearly as much as recorded in the run-up to the EU referendum in 2016.

'We forecast net migration to fall from 740,000 in the year to June 2023, 68,000 higher than estimated in March due to ONS revisions, to reach 315,000 in the medium term,' the watchdog said.

'Net migration has already fallen to 685,000 in the year to December 2023. And more recent Home Office data, covering the period until the second quarter of 2024, show visas granted falling sharply.

'This largely reflects government restrictions coming into force in the first half of this year, which we now expect to have a slightly larger impact than we anticipated in March.'

Reform UK Deputy Leader, Richard Tice said: 'For fourteen years the Tories promised us action on immigration and instead all we were left with was the highest numbers on record.'
Four Vietnamese migrants arrested at a cannabis drug factory will claim they were victims of modern slavery, a court heard today.

The three men and a teenage boy will say they were working under duress to produce the drug at an empty office building in an affluent London suburb.

Photographs released by police following a raid last month show more than 1,500 cannabis plants, heat lamps and metal ducting used in the mass production of the drug.

Hung Le, 30, Anh Tian, 23, Nam Phan, 44, and a 17-year-old boy all pleaded not guilty to jointly producing a controlled class B drug when they appeared at Kingston Crown Court.

An earlier hearing was told the teenager, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, did not have a passport and was undocumented. He was accompanied to court by a social worker and is on bail.

Four Vietnamese migrants arrested at a cannabis drug factory will claim they were victims of modern slavery, a court heard today

Photographs released by police following a raid last month show more than 1,500 cannabis plants, heat lamps and metal ducting used in the mass production of the drug

Hung Le, 30, Anh Tian, 23, Nam Phan, 44, and a 17-year-old boy all pleaded not guilty to jointly producing a controlled class B drug when they appeared at Kingston Crown Court

The three adults are of no fixed address and have been in custody since their arrest.

Prosecutor Jordan Platt said all four were arrested at the cannabis factory in Hampton Hill, Middlesex, last month.

Local neighbourhood police officers had been tipped off about the factory by concerned neighbours.

The three adults and teen entered a plea of not guilty through a Vietnamese interpreter.

The judge Mr Bryant-Heron KC said: 'As I understand it the issue is to be modern slavery and working under duress.

'I take it as read that modern slavery is going to be run as a defence.'

Barrister's acting for the men agreed with the judge who said a trial would likely last two weeks.

Police from the Richmond Safer Neighbourhood team issued photos of the drug bust and used their Twitter page to acknowledge the tip off writing: 'Residents thank you very much. Please keep sending us the information for quick results.'

The three men were remanded in custody until their trial while the teenager was granted bail.

Judge Bryant-Heron set a trial date for April 7th 2025.
Scotland's former first minister Humza Yousaf has accused Elon Musk of accessing his private messages as part of a campaign to 'besmirch' his reputation.

The ex-SNP leader claimed that Musk, who is one of the richest men in the world, 'scours' the communications of people he sees as a threat.

Yousaf said he has 'no doubt' the billionaire owner of 'X' is racist and said he is 'certain' Musk has access to his private messages on the social media platform.

The two men have been involved in an ongoing feud since Mr Yousaf was first minister.

When asked if he thinks Mr Musk had access to his X messages, Mr Yousaf told the Tortoise Media's Elon's Spies podcast: 'I'm certain he absolutely does and I'm certain he scours the private messages of those that he sees as a threat.

'In fact, I'm certain he has a whole team of people who are now looking at any information they can gather on me and try to use it to besmirch my reputation, and he'll use any nefarious tactics in order to do that.'

The podcast said it understood Mr Musk had denied accessing private messages on X.

Yousaf (pictured) has accused Elon Musk of accessing his private messages as part of a campaign to 'besmirch' his reputation

The podcast said it understood Elon Musk (pictured) had denied accessing private messages on X

Elon Musk and Humza Yousaf have been at loggerheads for more than a year with a series of social media and TV spats

During unrest in parts of England and Northern Ireland this summer, Musk claimed 'civil war is inevitable' in response to a post blaming the riots on 'mass migration and open borders'.

Mr Yousaf referred to Mr Musk as a 'race baiter' and claimed he was 'one of the most dangerous men on the planet'.

Musk had also branded the Prime Minister 'two-tier Keir' - a nickname used by critics on the right who say Muslim protesters are being treated more favourably by police than other groups.

How Musk and Yousaf's 'race baiter' row has unfolded

October 26, 2023 - Musk claims Yousaf is a 'blatant racist' after the billionaire reacted to a selective clip of a speech Yousaf gave after the murder of George Floyd back in 2020. October 27, 2023 - Yousaf responds to Musk with a post which read 'racists foaming at the mouth at my very existence' with a Gif of Navid from Still Game dancing. August 4, 2024 - Musk says 'civil war is inevitable' in response to a post blaming the UK riots on 'mass migration and open borders'. August 8, 2024 - Talking at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Yousaf states Musk is 'one of the most dangerous men on the planet', claiming he is stoking up civil war in the UK and Europe on X. August 9, 2024 - Musk responds to Yousaf by saying he is a 'super racist' who 'loathes white people'. August 11, 2024 - Yousaf calls Musk a 'dangerous race baiter' and says his 'billions won't stop me from calling out his support for the far-right. Elon Musk responds saying Yousaf is 'super racist. I dare that scumbag to sue me.' November 14, 2024 - Yousaf tells the Tortoise Media's Elon's Spies podcast that he is 'certain' Musk 'scours' the communications of people he sees as a threat on X. Advertisement

The Tesla owner - who has been appointed by US President-elect Donald Trump to head a government department to cut regulation - replied by claiming Mr Yousaf is 'obviously super racist against white people'.

Mr Musk said: 'I dare that scumbag to sue me. Go ahead, make my day.'

He then added: 'Legal discovery will show that however big a racist he's been in public communications, he is vastly worse in private communications.'

The former first minister said the businessman's comments were an attempt to 'threaten and intimidate' him.

The former first minister, who is now a backbench MSP at Holyrood, said he will continue to speak out.

'Let me be clear that Elon Musk could have trillions, let alone billions, and he wouldn't be able to shut me up,' he said.

'We're going to continue to call out his racist, far-right white supremacist tendencies.

'But that caught me by surprise and I started to wonder what it was he was possibly talking about.

'I thought well okay, this is somebody who obviously has access to Twitter DMs (direct messages) or X DMs, and that should ring alarm bells for people.

'Your private conversations you have in your DMs, how secure are they?'

Mr Yousaf claimed Mr Musk was making a 'pointed accusation' and added that his followers had encouraged him to publicly release the messages.

He said: 'I'm thinking, I've been on Twitter for a long time, have I made an off-colour joke? Have I said something in a private communication?

'So, I thought I better do the belt and braces thing, and as I say there was nothing there, and unsurprisingly so.

'But here is somebody who is basically saying to me by the way 'you better watch out. I'm going to release stuff on you and it's going to make your life hell'.'

Mr Yousaf repeated his previous remarks that the billionaire is 'one of the most dangerous men on the planet'.

He added: 'He's unaccountable, one of the wealthiest, by some accounts, the wealthiest man, an individual on the planet.

'He does what he wants, says what he wants and does not care about the consequences.'

X has been approached for comment.

The first skirmish came last year when a speech Mr Yousaf gave in 2020 resurface and Musk called him racist

Yousaf responds to Musk with a post which read 'racists foaming at the mouth at my very existence' with a Gif of Navid from Still Game dancing

Musk responds to Yousaf's comments at the Edinburgh Fringe by saying he is a 'super racist' who 'loathes white people'

Yousaf appears on CNN where he accuses Musk of spreading disinformation on X

Musk responds saying Yousaf is 'super racist. I dare that scumbag to sue me'

The pair's bad blood goes back more than a year over comments made by Humza in 2020 that resurfaced on X last year.

In a speech, Mr Yousaf talked about other people's surprise that he is often the 'only non-white person in the room' in most of the meetings he attends.

He added: 'Why are we so surprised when the most senior positions in Scotland are filled almost exclusively by people who are white?

'Take my portfolio, for example. The Lord President is white, the Lord Justice Clerk is white, every High Court judge is white, the Lord Advocate is white, the Solicitor General is white, the chief constable is white, every deputy chief constable is white, every assistant chief constable is white, the head of the Law Society is white, the head of the Faculty of Advocates is white and every prison governor is white.'

He made the speech during a debate to show solidarity with anti-racism campaigners following the death of George Floyd in the United States in 2020.

But Musk branded Mr Yousaf a 'blatant racist' when video of the speech started re-circulating on social media last year. He was replying to an account named 'End Wokeness', which had shared the clip.

In April there was also an attack on the SNP and a policy backed by Yousaf.

Mr Musk signaled support for JK Rowling after she challenged Scotland's new hate crime law which could see citizens arrested for addressing a transgender person with the wrong pronouns.

The Harry Potter author and prominent gender critic, who often refuses to use a person's chosen pronouns in her frequent posts on X, formerly Twitter, challenged police to arrest her for her own apparent violations.

But Police Scotland confirmed that no action would be taken against Rowling, 58, despite thousands of complaints against her.

Mr Musk gave his support for the author with a fire emoji.
Thousands of rowdy British revellers dressed up as nuns, inflatable penises and gimps have taken to the streets of Benidorm for the annual 'bad taste' Fancy Dress Party.

The event in the city's famed English zone is billed as Europe's biggest costume party and expects to draw as many as 30,000 visitors.

Now in its 34th year, the festival has become a regular fixture for British tourists, who have been flocking to the Mediterranean city on Spain's east coast since the 1960s.

However, the event which has become known as a front against wokery with previous attendees coming dressed as Just Stop Oil protesters and migrants in inflatable boats, has this year taken a heartwarming turn.

The lively parade has put charity in the spotlight with revellers collecting funds for those hit by Spain's devastating floods.

Attendees this year were snapped dressed as nuns, gimps and Wonder Woman as they partied on the streets of Benidorm.

Another two men donned inflatable penis costumes and were pictured joyfully dancing in foam.

Meanwhile a group of attendees appear to have gone as disco balls, wearing sparkly silver outfits.

Two revellers dressed as inflatable penises dance in foam on the streets of Benidorm today

Attendees dress as a tin of Heinz beans and a ketchup bottle at the fancy dress parade

Three men dress as English knights with crowns on their heads during the parade

Revellers dressed as a nun and a gimp are pictured out on the streets of Benidorm

Another pair of attendees dressed as a Heinz ketchup bottle and a can of baked beans.

Wonder Woman and a group of cavemen and women also made an appearance, while a chicken was seen mingling amongst a number of Spanish musicians.

The costume party is held every year on a Thursday and features various kinds of music, paella and colourful floats.

It began more than 20 years ago and has been growing in numbers ever since, with similarly outrageous costumes seen in previous years.

The event hit the headlines in 2021 when 20,000 revellers took to the streets in spite of a Covid ban.

Pictures from the event that year showed tens of thousands of people rubbing shoulders and not a face mask in sight. One video even showed a group of men walking down the street dressed up as channel migrants, wearing life jackets and carrying an orange inflatable dingy boat.

It was a triumphant return to form for the event which is expected to raise cash for the victims of the Spanish floods.

The costume party is held every year on a Thursday following the Major Patron Festivities of Benidorm Costumes and features various kinds of music, paella and colourful floats

An inflatable chicken was seen mingling amongst a number of Spanish musicians

Crowds pour out onto the streets of Benidorm for the annual fancy dress party

The lively parade has put charity in the spotlight with revellers collecting funds for those hit by Spain's devastating floods

A group of attendees dressed as cavemen and women holding inflatable clubs

Around 30,000 people are expected to have attended the mass fancy-dress event

Now in its 34th year, the 'bad taste' festival has become a regular fixture for British tourists, who have been flocking to the Mediterranean city on Spain's east coast since the 1960s

Two attendees in fancy dress costumes take to the streets of Benidorm

Two women dressed as nuns attend the parade in Benidorm on Thursday

Two weeks ago flash floods in the Valencia region killed more than 220 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

Clean-up efforts in the area are still underway with more bad weather thought to be on the way.

Moreover, last Friday residents in Cadaques in the northern Spanish province of Girona woke up to a scene of destruction after 32 cars were washed away by flood water.

Many ended up piled on top of each other by a bridge in front of the town casino, with at least one of the smashed-up vehicles appearing to belong to foreign tourists because of the number plate that was clearly visible.
Donald Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump says she would 'love' to serve in the Senate after her name got floated for the powerful appointment to succeed Marco Rubio, who is Trump's choice to be the next secretary of state.

'This is my home state now and has been for three years,' she told Fox News host Sean Hannity, a friend and advisor to the president-elect, during an appearance on his prime time show.

Donald Trump made his daughter-in-law co-chair of the Republican National Committee, and she crowed about the GOP's performance during a cycle when the party captured the White House and the Senate, while holding a narrow House majority.

He gave regular shout-outs to his daughter-in-law on the campaign trail, noting in battleground North Carolina that his granddaughter Carolina is named after Lara's home state.

'I was truly so honored to be the cochair of the RNC through really the mot historic election, I think, of any of our lifetimes,' she told Hannity.

She said she and her team 'accomplished on everything that we set out to do.'

'Likewise, if I am able to serve, I would love to serve the people of Florida. This is my home state now, and has been for three years. This is where Eric and I live, and truly to have that opportunity, I think would be incredible,' she gushed.

Then she touted her bonafides as a MAGA candidate, on a day when senators were shocked by Trump's announcement that he would nominate former Rep. Matt Gaetz to be attorney general, even amid a House ethics inquiry into sex trafficking allegations that he has denied.

''Likewise, if I am able to serve, I would love to serve the people of Florida,' said Donald Trump daughter in law Lara Trump, after MAGA allies floated her to be named to the Senate to fill part of Sen. Marco Rubio's term after Trump nominated her to be secretary of state

The nomination, along with Trump's choice of Pete Hegseth to run the Pentagon and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence, were signs he intends to bend the Senate to his will as he carries out a campaign against the 'deep state.'

Senators also elected John Thune as Republican leader on Wednesday, turning back more MAGA-aligned Sen. Rick Scott of Florida.

'No one knows better than I do the America First agenda or the goals of Donald Trump in the coming four years. So if I am asked, I would love to consider it, but I have yet to have a conversation with Governor DeSantis, so we will have to see,' she said.

If and when Rubio steps down, it will be up to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a former bitter Trump rival who endorsed him after their contentious primary, to name a replacement to fill out part of his term.

Lara Trump's husband Eric is a Trump Organization exec who helped run the business during Trump's first term.

He has not said how he plans to mitigate potential financial conflicts during his forthcoming term.

A handout photo made available by the Chigi palace Press Office shows Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (R) with Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis (L), during their meeting at the Chigi Palace in Rome, Italy. DeSantis has some big political decisions awaiting him when he returns

Sen. Marco Rubio is Trump's pick to lead the State Department

Rubio's pick has received a strong reception from Republicans, as his experience in the agency he would help stacked up against Trump cabinet choices that shocked Republicans Wednesday.

'Leading the U.S. Department of State is a tremendous responsibility and I am honored by the trust President Trump has placed in me,' Rubio wrote Wednesday after the announcement. 'I will work every day to carry out his foreign policy agenda.'

Whoever DeSantis picks would serve until a 2026 special election. DeSantis, who may still harbor presidential ambitions despite ending his campaign against Trump after Iowa, must decide whether to appoint a 'caretaker,' someone who would run to maintain the seat, or even himself.

Wrote Trump loyalist Anna Paulina Luna, '@LaraLeaTrump needs to be the nominated replacement by @GovDestantis for Rubio. She will keep the seat and avoid a messy primary for FLORIDA. Well spoken. Kicked butt on election integrity. Etc.'

Scott also jumped to get behind the effort to make Trump the junior senator from his state. 'RT if you think @LaraLeaTrump should be Floridas next Senator!,' he posted on X.
Republican CNN panelist Scott Jennings poked fun at his colleagues on Thursday, mocking them for describing President-elect Donald Trump as 'Hitler' and a 'fascist' during the presidential campaign.

After playing clips of Trump and Biden criticizing each other on the campaign trail, the CNN panel discussed the successful meeting between Biden and Trump at the White House on Wednesday.

Meghan Hays, a former Biden White advisor, said that Biden did not traditionally hold grudges, and was ultimately a dignified statesman in the end.

'I'm shocked,' Jennings said, holding up a copy of the Wall Street Journal featuring a picture of the two men together. 'I mean, did you ever think you'd see literal Hitler in the Oval Office - with the President United States?'

'C'mon Scott,' Hays protested.

'It was the underpinning of the Democratic campaign that Donald Trump is a fascist,' Jennings continued. 'And what I see in this is I'm glad it's happening ... but what it tells me and what it ought to tell Democrats is they didn't mean any of it. It was all campaign rhetoric.'

Biden warned voters Trump would be a 'dictator on day one' and Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre said in October that Trump fit 'into the general definition of fascist.'

During the presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris described Trump as 'a president who admires dictators and is a fascist.'

US President Joe Biden meets with US President-elect Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, DC

Jennings said that if Democrats truly believed that Trump was a 'fascist' Biden would not have welcomed him to the White House on Thursday.

Journalists on the panel praised Biden's decision to welcome him back to the White House as a 'good moment in the country,' noting that Trump famously refused to hold a meeting with Biden after he won the 2020 presidential election.

Jennings was not the only one pointing out Biden's sudden turnaround in how he treated Trump.

Radio co-host Charlamagne tha god had a similar reaction on his show The Breakfast Club.

'I'm shocked,' Jennings said, holding up a copy of the Wall Street Journal featuring a picture of the two men together

'Well, I just don't understand the White House visit,' he told his audience. 'Now, granted, you know, I'm glad it's a peaceful transition of power; but what happened to the threat of democracy talk? What happened to the fascist talk?'

He noted that Biden's attacks against Trump meant more as the sitting president of the United States.

'I'm just trying to figure out how do you go from, "He's an existential threat to democracy," to, "Welcome back"?' he asked.
November 14, 2024: Peace in Ukraine is proving very difficult to achieve. Ukraine demands all its territory back. That means Russia giving back Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk provinces as well as other bits of territory currently in their possession. Vladimir Putins attitude is that whats mine is mine and whats yours is negotiable. Putin also ignores all the documented war crimes Russian troops have committed carrying out Putins orders. Ukraine and the rest of the world have not forgotten but most Russians support Putin and his war in Ukraine. Putin is also stubborn. He will concede nothing until he has no other option and perhaps not even then. Putin continues to believe that NATO and the West will eventually tire of supporting Ukraine and allow Putin to ravage Ukraine until it is again part of the Russian Empire.

The war has been going on for nearly three years now and none, not even most Russians want it to continue for a few more years. Sanctions have eviscerated the Russian economy and most Russians feel the pain. But the politicians and their wealthy oligarch allies live in the cities and feel no pain. Putin realizes that the Russian people know how to suffer in silence and endure for as long as it takes.

Ukraine is negotiating a solution with NATO and the EU that includes Ukrainian membership in NATO despite the ongoing war. NATO is willing to make an exception for Ukraine because NATO is supposed to defend its members and Ukraine is seen as worth defending. The threat has always been Russia and now that Russia is ravaging Europes eastern borderlands its time for NATO to step in and step up. This includes Ukraine joining the EU, an economic union that will integrate the Ukrainian economy with the rest of Europe. Currently Ukraine expects to achieve all this by the end of the decade. Ukraine has a plan and so does Putin. When the plans collide, who will win?

NATO countries represent a GDP of $32 trillion while Russias is two trillion. NATO GDP is growing while Russia struggles. Russia has plenty of oil, natural gas and food but exporting those goods is complicated by sanctions. Russian industry discovered that it was dependent on Western technology to keep its economy going and, with most of that tech no longer available, even the Russian railroads are grinding to a halt.

If Putin persists, most of the industrialized world will resist. Putin will have only himself to blame for the economic and military disaster he has led his nation into.
DailyMail.com asked New York City voters what they thought of the extreme measures liberal women have said they will take to protest Donald Trump's election win - and there was a general consensus that things may be going a bit far.

'I'm walking in the park. I don't see no war. No one's bothering me,' said 20-year-old student Lucy.

Liberal women have spoken out online warning the world how they plan on protesting the president-elect's victory, including poisoning their husbands, shaving their heads, and abstaining from dating or sex with men.

'No that's radical. That's weird,' said 73-year-old Jerome.

Many of those we spoke to in Washington Square Park couldn't see how these steps were necessary, and one wasn't even sure their threats would be upheld.

'I think that honestly, we're overestimating the number of women who hate Trump enough to not get laid but are in relationships with guys who love Trump enough to stay with them and not get laid,' said 32-year-old Hymie.

The voters said they had seen many women talk about stocking up on birth control, as well as adopting the 4b Movement - a form of protest against men where women abstain from sex, dating, childbirth or marriage.

The movement gained popularity across social media almost immediately after Trump's victory was announced.

Supporters surged after Nicholas Fuentes, a far-right live streamer, posted 'Hey b***, we control your bodies!' and 'Your body, my choice. Forever' as the election results turned in Trump's favor.

However, voters we spoke to think it's a little extreme for American women and can't see that it's entirely necessary for liberals to adopt.

One voter couldn't see why women felt the need to take steps such as these, she said: 'I don't know. I saw that on TikTok. I think women are afraid of the rights getting taken away, but I never even heard [Trump] say anything like that. I never flat out heard that. That's why it's hard for me to believe

The 4b Movement, which originated in South Korea, has gained popularity in America as liberal women look for ways to protest Trump's election victory

Many women, especially online, have been speaking out about their rights potentially being stripped by Trump's next term in office. Their main concern stems from threats on reproductive care, especially after the overturning of Roe v. Wade

'I think it would definitely change the dynamic between men and women and the way relationships are. But I also think it is kind of extreme because I don't think I would shave off my whole head of hair and just completely run away from men,' said 18-year-old student Elisha.

Some liberals appear to have gone that step further and threatened violence against men, including poison and murder - another measure that voters think is an overreaction.

'I do not condone murder. Don't poison your husbands, but divorce them, leave them, run away if you have to,' said 21-year-old Owen.

'I don't see why you're punishing your husband because of something like this,' said Lucy.

'I do not condone murder. Don't poison your husbands, but divorce them, leave them, run away if you have to,' one said

Lucy couldn't see why women felt the need to take steps such as these, she said: 'I don't know. I saw that on TikTok. I think women are afraid of the rights getting taken away, but I never even heard [Trump] say anything like that. I never flat out heard that. That's why it's hard for me to believe.'

Many women, especially online, have been speaking out about their rights potentially being stripped by Trump's next term in office. Their main concern stems from threats on reproductive care, especially after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Some voters we spoke to seemed to recognize the way many women feel across America and the potential driving force behind the drastic measures.

Elisha added: 'I feel like a lot of women are genuinely just scared and disappointed in our country right now. I think that women are going to be terrified to exist day to day.'

Grace, a 19-year-old service worker, said: 'What it represents for women too, just the fact that someone who has so many sexual assault and sexual harassment charges can be elected, really is frightening and something that all shows how America views women.'

'People voted for this man to come back. They chose for women to be constantly neglected and seen as just objects and not seen as people. And I think that is an attack,' she added.
Thinking of leaving the US after the 2024 Presidential election or obtaining another citizenship?

You may be in luck as many countries offer dual citizenship to people who can prove they have relevant ancestry through their parents or grandparents.

But while numerous countries such as England, France, Australia, Canada and Mexico require at least one of the applicant's parents to be a citizen, others are more flexible.

Here are the 9 countries where you can apply for citizenship based on descent:

1. Ireland

According to Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs, any US citizen whose parent was born before January 1, 2005 in Ireland is already a citizen and can apply for a passport.

For those whose parent was born after January 1, 2005 in Ireland, officials require them to prove the parents' citizenship and residence history at the time of the birth.

Otherwise, US citizens with grandparents who were born in Ireland can apply through Foreign Birth Registration - also known as Citizenship by Descent which is now processed only in Dublin.

According to Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs , any US citizen whose parent was born before January 1 2005 is already a citizen and can apply for a passport

2. Germany

US citizens may be able to acquire a German citizenship if they can prove they have a German parent, a grandparent or a great-grandparent who was born in the country.

Those born before July 1, 1993 to a non-German mother and a German father out of wedlock as well as proven their paternity before turning 23 can also apply to become citizens.

The country further allows those to apply whose ancestors lost their nationality or had their citizenship revoked by the Nazi regime on political, racial or religious grounds.

US citizens may be able to acquire a German citizenship if they can prove they have a German parent, a grandparent or a great-grandparent who was born in the country

3. Poland

This Central European country gives any American who has Polish and/or Polish-Jewish ancestry the opportunity to apply for citizenship

This Central European country gives any American who has Polish and/or Polish-Jewish ancestry the opportunity to apply for citizenship.

According to Henley and Partners, applicants may qualify if they can prove that at least one of their ancestors was born in Poland or its former territories; lived in Poland after 1920 or maintained their Polish citizenship after 1920 and at the time of their birth.

The government requires candidates to prove domicile with original Polish-issued documents.

4. India

While India does not grant dual-citizenship to those born in other countries, it does allow certain individuals to acquire 'Overseas Citizenship of India' status.

While India does not grant dual-citizenship to those born in other countries, it does allow certain individuals to acquire 'Overseas Citizenship of India' status

Under the OCI scheme, the card holder is 'granted a multiple entry, multipurpose, life-long visa for visiting India' and 'parity with Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in financial, economic and educational fields except in the acquisition of agricultural or plantation properties.'

To be eligible, the candidate needs to have parents born in India on or after January 26, 1950 and not be a citizen or former citizen of Pakistan or Bangladesh.

5. Italy

The country allows US citizens to become naturalized members if they are married to an Italian citizen, have financial investment and if they have lived in the country for about a decade

According to Italian Dual Citizenship, the primary requirement to apply for an Italian citizenship is that the candidate's 'Italian male ancestor did not naturalize prior to the birth of his child in the US and prior to 1912 or if there is a female intermediate ancestor, her child born after January 1, 1948.'

The country allows US citizens to become naturalized members if they are married to an Italian citizen, have financial investment and if they have lived in the country for about a decade.

6. Ghana

In accordance with the Citizenship Act of 2002, those who wish to apply for Ghanaian nationality need to 'provide a copy of the current passport of applicant's Ghanaian parent and evidence of US citizenship along with their birth certificate.'

In accordance with the Citizenship Act of 2002 , those who wish to apply for Ghanaian nationality need to provide a copy of the current passport of applicant's Ghanaian parent and evidence of US citizenship along with their birth certificate

Under its Year Of Return program that was launched in 2019, the country aimed to inspire Black Americans who have descended from victims of the transatlantic slave trade to 'return' to Ghana.

According to NPR, the program was declared a success after many who visited gained citizenships and over 560 people acquired pieces of land.

The year-long program also commemorated the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first recorded enslaved Africans in Virginia.

Apart from this, Ghana's Right of Abode law allows people of African descent who live outside of continent, especially African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans, to live in the country indefinitely without a visa and work without a work permit.

A person of African descent 'is defined as a person whose immediate forebears have resided outside the African continent for at least 3 generations but whose origin, either by documentary proof or by ethnic characteristics is African', according to Acheampong & Associates.

7. Spain

Americans who can prove both or either one of their parents are Spanish nationals, were adopted by Spanish national prior to their 18th birthday or have Spanish grandparents can apply to be citizens of the sunny country

Americans who can prove both or either one of their parents are Spanish nationals, were adopted by Spanish national prior to their 18th birthday or have Spanish grandparents can apply to be citizens of the sunny country.

Unlike its counterparts, the government requires applicants pass the two citizenship exams - DELE A2 and CCSE.

The DELE A2 is a basic language test and the CCSE tests knowledge of Spanish social-cultural customs as well the Spanish Constitution.

8. Hungary

Anyone born to a Hungarians or a descendent are citizens themselves regardless of the country of birth

According to the Hungarian Embassy in Washington, anyone born to a Hungarian or has Hungarian grandparents are citizens themselves regardless of the country of birth or the number of generations living abroad.

Those eligible need to apply to verify their Hungarian citizenship. The government does not require those with Hungarian ancestors to speak the language.

US citizens can also naturalized if they have been married to a Hungarian for at least a decade or married for five years and have a child together.

9. Portugal

The Portuguese Government grants naturalization to anyone with at least one grandparent or parent with Portuguese citizenship

The Portuguese Government grants naturalization to anyone with at least one grandparent or parent with Portuguese citizenship, according to Portugal Embassy in the US.

To apply, candidates must submit the birth certificate of their Portuguese ancestor as well as the children they had. The application is only processed in the country itself.
Trump's oldest fan, a 105-year-old Connecticut grandmother, is racing against the clock to meet her hero before her 'time is up.'

Rosalie Cianelli, of East Haven, has followed politics her entire life - and with the help of her granddaughter - has racked up more than a million likes and 130,000 followers on TikTok where she shares her immense support of the future commander-in-chief.

Now Cianelli, who turns 106 next month, has one end goal in mind following Trump's landslide victory over Vice President Kamala Harris last week.

'She says Trump was our only option to save America,' Julie Cestaro, her granddaughter, told What's The Jam.

'Now that the election is over, she's hoping to meet Trump before her time is up.'

The 105-year-old patriot has had a taste of social media fame this year after dozens of her TikTok videos went viral.

Julie, who is the mastermind behind the camera, regularly posts her grandmother discussing her love and support of the former president - often in a MAGA hat.

In her most viral video shared this September, which gained over two million views, Cianelli wore a Trump pin on her sweater and urged her followers to vote 'wisely' on Election Day.

Rosalie Cianelli, 105, of Connecticut, may be Trump's biggest - and oldest - supporter and is desperate to meet her hero before her 'time is up'

With the help of her granddaughter, Cianelli has quickly become an internet sensation - racking up more than two million likes and 130,000 followers on her TikTok account where she shares her immense support

Cianelli received a gift straight from Mar-a-Lago Florida from the former president after her TikTok videos captured his campaign team's attention

'My days are numbered. Not yours,' she said. 'We can't have another four years of this administration.'

'Please vote for President Trump. He's the only one now that can turn this country around. We are in dire need of a new administration.'

Cianelli's family said that the centenarian has followed politics for her entire life and became captivated by the former president.

And luckily, Trump's biggest - and oldest - supporter got to see his sweeping victory in the 2024 presidential election.

The day after Election Day, Cianelli expressed her excitement in a TikTok video congratulating Trump while wearing a red sweater, an American flag themed scarf and a Trump pin.

'Congratulations to President Trump on his historical victory,' she said. 'Great opportunities ahead of us as a country with you sitting in the White House chair.'

'We're looking forward to another four years. We give you the best of health to lead our beautiful country,' she added. 'God Bless the USA,' she sang as the video came to an end.

Although she hasn't met Trump face-to-face just yet, she hasn't gone unnoticed by him either.

Cianelli was able to witness Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris last week before she turned 106-years-old

Trump's campaign team became aware of Cianelli's viral videos and sent her an autographed MAGA hat

To her surprise, Cianelli also received a letter from none other than the former president himself

Trump's campaign team became aware of Cianelli's viral videos and sent her a gift straight from Mar-a-Lago Florida - a signature MAGA hat signed by none other than the former president himself.

Peter Cianelli, her son, who also supports Trump, proceeded to read her the letter that was accompanied with the present.

'Thank you for your support of my presidential campaign,' Trump wrote. 'Your steadfast commitment means a great deal to me as we go against the radical left for the soul of our country and defend the American idea of values we share.'

'God bless you. Thank you so much. Sincerely, Donald Trump,' the letter concluded as she clapped in elation.

She then thanked Trump for making her day, and said: 'I can't believe that I have an autograph of Donald Trump for his hat.'

'Dearest President Trump,' she said to the camera later in the video as she held up her letter and wore her new hat. 'I can't thank you enough. I love it. I'm going to frame my letter, and treasure my hat.'

Cianelli continuously proves that age is just a number and not the deciding factor in how she lives the rest of her days.

'She is a member of the Lions Club, a community club and attends monthly meetings and participates in volunteer activities,' Julie told What's The Jam.

'Your steadfast commitment means a great deal to me as we go against the radical left for the soul of our country and defend the American idea of values we share' Trump wrote in the personal letter as she clapped in excitement

The day after Election Day, Cianelli expressed her excitement in a TikTok video congratulating Trump on his 'historical victory'

In her most viral video, which gained more than two million views, the 105-year-old grandmother urged her followers to vote wisely on Election Day, stating: 'My days are numbered. Not yours'

The lifelong New Haven resident, who was born in 1918, grew up in poverty across multiple areas in the Connecticut city.

But she always understood the importance and value of hard work - which was demonstrated to her through neighbors and led her to begin working the minute she reached adulthood, Zip06 reported.

Since then, she has been deeply involved in the town - volunteering at blood drives, becoming a member of the ladies guild and involving herself with the East Haven Historical Society.

Earlier this year, she joined the Lions Club - an organization best known for fighting blindness, but also takes part in dozens of community projects - such as caring for the environment, feeding the hungry and aiding seniors and the disabled.

She meets her group of ladies once a month at a diner for a monthly meeting and has plans to get involved at the East Haven Senior Center to meet more new friends and play bingo.

Even as her 106 birthday quickly approaches, Cianelli continues to maintain her internet fame and her youthful appearance.

When asked what the secret was, she said that she uses Estee Lauder cream morning and night and indulges in chocolate everyday, ZIp06 reported.

The internet sensation now plans to continue making TikTok videos everyday until the lucky day comes where she can finally meet Trump in person.
A man suspected of being a 'major supplier' of small boats used for migrant crossings between the France and the UK was detained by authorities in the Netherlands on Wednesday.

The Turkish national had been travelling through Amsterdam's Schipol Airport when he was arrested as part of a joint investigation by Dutch and Belgian police alongside the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA).

The suspect has been accused of shipping dinghies and engines from his native Turkey to a storage facility in Germany, where they then made their way to northern France.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has since labelled the man's detention as a 'significant piece of the jigsaw' in tackling the mounting Channel migrant crossing crisis.

Since assuming power earlier this year, the Prime Minister has stated his goals of placing an increased emphasis on international cooperation between UK law enforcement agencies and their European counterparts in an effort to stem the rates of migrant crossings.

To date this year more than 32,000 people have arrived in the UK via British Channel crossings, according to official figures shared by the Home Office.

Speaking to the man's capture, a Dutch spokesman stated that the suspect is facing extradition to Belgium.

The extent of the man's human smuggling record is still unknown, although the boats and engines he allegedly supplied are likely to have been used by thousands of migrants who gained entry to the UK over the last number of years.

The man arrested by the joint international task force is alleged to have been a 'major supplier' of boats used by migrants to cross the British channel

Authorities uncovered a large quantity of equipment used to aid migrant crossings from France to the UK during a related 2022 raid

Hundreds of life vests were included in the seizure made by authorities back in 2022

The Turkish national was detained by authorities at Amsterdam's Schipol airport on Wednesday

Reacting to the news of the man's arrest, the Prime Minister said he was glad and that criminal enterprises involved in migrant smuggling had been going unpunished for too long.

Going on to thank the joint international taskforce who oversaw the man's arrest, the Prime Minister stated: 'This is exactly what we want to see and it shows that our approach of working with international partners to smash the people smuggling gangs is bearing fruit'.

The Labour leader also lamented what he referred to as the 'very bad position' his government inherited following a record number of migrant crossings in the first half of 2024.

'The entire focus until we had the election was on a gimmick, the Rwanda gimmick, and not enough attention was on taking down the gangs that are running this vile trade', the Prime Minister stated.

Sir Starmer went on to add that whilst this arrest signified an important step in combatting the Channel crossing crisis, that this should not be considered 'a silver bullet'.

NCA Director General of Operations Rob Jones also commented on the arrest operation, stating that the types of vessels supplied by smugglers were 'highly dangerous and completely unfit for open water' and that there is 'no legitimate use for them'.

Mr Jones added that at least 50 people are known to have died so far this year as a result of these unfit vessels.
DailyMail.com readers have rejected Donald Trump's Attorney General pick Matt Gaetz as unqualified, 'creepy', and tainted by scandal.

Just 36 percent of almost 10,000 poll respondents thought Gaetz should be the country's next top lawman, with just 54 per cent hating the pick and 10 per cent voting that they were 'unsure'.

Gaetz, 42, is under an ethics investigation over claims of sexual misconduct, bribery and drug use - which he denies - and was also the focus of a sex trafficking probe involving a 17-year-old girl.

Even Republican lawmakers were shocked by the selection, setting up an early loyalty test as the new GOP-controlled Senate plans confirmation hearings.

Similarly, readers who voted for Trump believed he blundered by nominating Gaetz.

'I voted for Trump and support every nominee so far except the completely unacceptable Kristi Noem and now the equally unpalatable Matt Gaetz,' one reader from Florida, which is Gaetz's home state, wrote.

'With all of the incredible attorneys out there who have Republican affiliation, why would he choose someone as radioactive as sleazeball Gaetz?

'Take it from a Floridian, we can do a lot better than him as attorney general.'

DailyMail.com readers have rejected Donald Trump 's attoney-general pick Matt Gaetz as unqualified, 'creepy', and tainted by scandal

Gaetz, who married his wife Ginger Luckey in 2021, was the focus of a sex trafficking probe involving a 17-year-old girl

Another from Geatz's state agreed that Trump would not look back on choosing Gaetz, Elon Musk, and others as good decisions.

'Dear lord. Some of his picks are concerning. Matt Gaetz isn't the best, or a solid choice. Between Elon now telling him how to run the country when he can't run the businesses he has and Gaetz, he will regret it,' the Orlando resident wrote.

A third reader from Denver added: 'So, Trump picks Gaetz, the guy whose license had been suspended by his state, and who is under an ethics investigation, to be attorney general? Good grief.'

Another felt Trump hadn't thought through his selections well enough.

'I back Trump but I think this is a bad choice. He threw things into chaos without a plan to introduce something to replace it. Trump needs to pull that one back,' they wrote.

Other readers not only disliked Gaetz for his scandals and credentials, but were turned off by his vibe and mannerisms.

'I've got to be honest here. I'm a Trump voter, and there's still something about Matt that creeps me out a bit,' Mike from Nashville wrote.

'That was the first nomination that made me wince. Call it discernment, intuition, perception... I don't know. The eyes are a little bit crazy.'

The poll is still going, cast your vote below!

Just 36 per cent of thousands responding to a poll thought Gaetz should be the country's next top lawman, with 54 saying no and 10 per cent unsure

Another from Pittsburgh added: 'These charges against him sound like a really really bad guy, outside the normal definition of bad.

'Plus his face and hair and eyebrows look bad too. In a line up of ten people if the question was pick out the bad guy you would pick him. Sometimes people show you who they are.

'Plus his resignation from Congress is such a cooked up deal already. I have been OK with everything else but this guy but this feels crooked as hell.'

Gaetz did have some readers on his side, and many others who were just happy to see his nomination enrage Democrats.

'I have to trust Trump's thinking on this one as no one better than he has experienced the wrath of political injustice,' one staunch Trump supporter wrote.

'Gaetz is awesome, he interrogated the corrupt democrat AG so brilliantly he humiliated him, it was something to behold,' another added.

'Showed [Biden's attorney-general Merrick] Garland to be the complete democrat hack he is, and the poetic justice that Gaetz will (hopefully) be replacing him.'

Gaetz resigned from Congress almost immediately after Trump's nomination, meaning he was all-in on being confirmed and would be out of a job if the Senate rejected him.

Gaetz was brutally mocked after speaking at the Republican National Convention in August (right) with a face that looked starkly different to that in his official portrait (left)

Some readers thought this was part of the plan, as Gaetz's nomination was too outrageous to be anything other than a ploy by Trump at his expense.

'He knows he won't get through... it's a test and also one to get his 2nd choice through easily,' one reader who said he was military on active duty wrote.

'Horrible choice. The rest of the cabinet is okay. Maybe this is a favor to House Republicans, removing Gaetz from the House. Once he resigns as a congressman, Trump can fire him,' another added.

Some of Trump's other controversial cabinet and agency picks were speculated to be similar stalking horses, to soften up opposition for his real choices.

The same has been said of some Trump policies as well, with the most outlandish to be dumped in exchange for others being approved by Congress.

While Trump appears to be valuing staunch loyalty as a prerequisite for his choices to key posts over standard qualifications, the choice of Gaetz as the top law enforcement official in the land left many scratching their heads - if not scraping their jaws off the floor.

Republicans who had the Gaetz nomination thrown in their lap  apparently without prior consultation  revealed their shock both through their words and their silence.

Others like John Bolton, who was Trump's UN ambassador and national security adviser, called for both Gaetz and director of national intelligence pick Tulsi Gabbard to be fully investigated by the FBI before hearings even began.

Gaetz, 42, is under investigation over claims of sexual misconduct, bribery and drug use - which he denies

He cited to News Nation the ongoing ethics investigation of Gaetz and Gabbard's history of pro-Russian statements.

'Given the Russian propaganda that she has espoused over the past period of time, I think she's a serious threat to our national security.' he said of Gabbard.

'Up until a few hours ago, I would have said that was the worst cabinet appointment in recent American history. Of course, since Matt Gaetz's nomination, he clearly has taken the lead on that score.'

Bolton said appointing Gabbard showed China that the Trump administration would not be serious about intelligence gathering.
Eight men are facing 151 years in jail for allegedly gang-raping a British tourist in a Magaluf hotel.

The men - seven French and one Swiss - are accused of raping the 18-year-old British woman at a hotel in Magaluf around 7.30am on August 14, 2023.

Two of the men were staying in the same hotel and took the 'semi-conscious' woman there after plying her with alcohol, according to the prosecutor's office. They then allegedly partnered with two other suspects who entered the room.

The men later invited strangers in the corridor to follow them into the hotel room for 'free sex', according to local media.

They reportedly undressed the woman and raped her for about 30 minutes. When the girl managed to flee the room, she alerted the local police and told them she had woken up surrounded by young men holding mobile phones.

The defendants allegedly filmed themselves while having oral, vaginal and anal sex with the girl and groping her before sharing the videos on Snapchat.

All eight are now facing a total of 151 years in prison for the horrific attack, with the prosecutor's office also requesting 100,000 euros (83,000) to be paid in compensation to the victim, the Majorca Daily Bulletin reports.

The gang's trial is set to start soon. They have been charged with several counts of sexual assault, privacy violations and abuse.

A man accused of being involved in the horrific attack is pictured above arriving at court in Palma flanked by two police officers in August 2023

Two of the men arrested by police on suspicion of the gang rape arriving at court in Palma on August 16, 2023

Officers initially identified three suspects by ringing the girl's phone, which it was claimed had been stolen during the ordeal.

The man who answered and two of his friends were then duped into heading to the hotel's reception without realising that they were going to meet police and the girl.

The alleged victim pointed at the men  named as Anthony G, 20, Anthony A, 20, and Khalil A, 18  and they were quickly arrested.

Two other French men, Thomas E, 23, and Romain C, 26, were reportedly arrested later at the hotel along with the Swiss man named Lucas H, 20.

The arrests were made after the victim described the men to police and 'various surveillance devices' were placed on the hotel entrances.

All six men were held on suspicion of rape and remanded in custody in August 2023.

The judge who refused them bail and remanded them in prison had concluded the British teenager had suffered 'really humiliating and degrading treatment' and described the men's claims sex was consensual as 'completely preposterous'.

Another two men detained by police on suspicion of being involved in the alleged rape in Magaluf in August 2023 outside the court

Another of the men alleged to have raped the British tourist is pictured above in August 2023

Spanish newspaper Ultima Hora, which published more details of the judge's remand ruling, said the suspects had allegedly 'deliberately taken advantage' of their alleged victim's drunkenness to persuade her to accompany them to a hotel room before 'surrounding her' and 'carrying out numerous sexual practices' with her despite her 'obvious lack of awareness and willing to carry out those practices.'

Medical reports revealed that the British girl had several bruises or grip marks on her right arm, suggesting she had been held down, and a small cut on her upper chest.

Police confirmed they found footage on the suspects' mobile phones showing the alleged multiple rape, which could form a 'key part' of the case and is said to have shown the men had been 'enjoying themselves and laughing.'

A security guard at the hotel reportedly came to the rescue of the 18-year-old Brit after finding her sobbing on the floor in the lobby.

He called police after finding her, recalling how he had just come in for his morning shift and describing the police response as very quick and efficient.
An illegal migrant shocked a CNN host after revealing that he will continue to support Donald Trump even if the president-elect deports him.

Gelacio Velazquez is from Mexico and has lived in Houston, Texas, for 25 years as an undocumented migrant. He has two children who are American citizens.

Speaking with the outlet, Velazquez revealed that his backing for Trump will not waver even if he's forced to leave the US.

Asked if he supported Trump, Velazquez said: 'For the economy, yes. I'm not [supportive] of the anti-immigrant action. [Mass deportation] it's not human.

When asked if he was afraid of being deported he said he was not, adding that Latinos want a better nation and that he did not trust Democrats in office.

If in the worse case scenario he was deported, he said he wouldn't regret supporting Trump, adding: 'I want better for my children'.

Despite his support of the president, his illegal status in the country would have rendered him unable to back the president-elect.

Meanwhile Cesar Espinosa, also from Houston, fears for his legal status in the country despite being a green card holder.

Gelacio Velazquez, seen here with his two children, is from Mexico and his lived in Houston, Texas, for 25 years as an undocumented migrant

Trump, arrives on stage during a town hall campaign event on October 20, 2024 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania

He told the outlet: 'I just became a green card holder after 33 years in this country, it is a constant shadow that hangs over our heads.'

His wife Karynna Espinosa, a US citizen, said she 'cried a lot' when Trump won the election, adding: 'It was emotional.

'Half my family, if they are going to be here or not going to be here. How do you tell all of our kids, or our nephews.'

Cesar added: 'To tell people that it doesn't live in kids and children's minds and teenagers and young adults lives is a lie.'

Espinoza runs a migrant advocacy group, and said he believes there is a heightened sense of fear.

He believes that some of the Latino vote for Trump was a vote against the idea of the first black female president.

He added: 'There's still a lot of of machismo, there is still a lot misogyny. Something that we need to say out loud is there is a lot of anti-blackness.'

Black and Hispanic voters turned out in their droves to back Trump, who saw an increase in support in 49 out of the 50 states.

Cesar Espinosa, above, fears for his legal status despite holding a green card

Trump has vowed to undertake mass deportations of the millions of illegal immigrants who have flooded into the US under the Biden administration.

He has already announced that his former ICE director Tom Homan would serve as his 'border czar' to oversee the large deportations.

On Sunday night, he announced that Homan would oversee the country's borders in his upcoming administration.

Homan had previously said that Trump will use the US Army to round up and deport 'the worst of the worst' illegal migrants in an unparalleled crackdown.

On Monday word broke that Trump was bringing back adviser Stephen Miller - who is credited with devising the mass deportation plan.

Miller is poised to serve as his deputy chief of staff for policy zeroing in on the unprecedented border crackdown.

Homan said all of the estimated 20 million people residing in the US illegally would be targeted by the campaign.

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Tom Homan (left) will serve as 'border czar' in the Trump Administration

He also noted: 'Bottom line: if you come to the country illegally, you're not off the table.'

Homan said he would revive the president elect's 'remain in Mexico' program, in which Mexicans would have their applications processed on their side of the border.

He further promised to close the southern border and build a wall - another flagship Trump pledge.

But the former immigration chief dismissed any suggestion that concentration camps could be used to hold migrants rounded up in the deportation program.

Instead he said he would explore possible arrangements for asylum seekers to be processed in third countries.
A man is in custody after killing a bird who had been beloved by locals with a rock.

Jeremy Jansen, a 36-year-old from Los Angeles, was filmed committing the unsettling act last month.

It happened at Lake Gregory near the San Bernardino Mountains, where the Great Egret known as 'Arthur' would regularly visit.

The same bird is seen being stoned to death in the footage, which ultimately led to the man's arrest.

It shows him hurling a rock at the animal as it stands helpless dozens of yards away, first missing as others looked on horrified.

Even as onlookers told him to stop, he hurled a second one - this one making contact.

The bird is then seen falling into the water before being pulled out and left to die by a person with Jansen's group.

The event left witnesses like Kaylyn Donica in complete disbelief, as Jansen now faces animal cruelty charges.

Scroll down for video:

Jeremy Jansen, a 36-year-old from Los Angeles , was filmed committing the unsettling act last month.

It happened at Lake Gregory near the San Bernardino Mountains, where the Great Egret known as 'Arthur' would regularly visit - to the delight of locals

'It was just shock and anger, like, "What the hell is wrong with you?"' Donica said of the moment in an interview with KTLA.

'He went walking up toward the grass with it and was looking at it under its wing,' she added of the friend who pulled out the fatally injured animal.

'Something needs to happen. He needs to have repercussions,' she said of the suspect, who was tracked down thanks to the cellphone video she recorded.

'You don't just go around and do whatever you want.'

The footage, filmed on October 23, had circulated in Jansen's neighborhood, cops said this week.

As a result, detectives there were able to make contact with him, confirming he was the culprit responsible.

Deputies in the posh LA suburb known as Claremont proceeded to arrest and book Jansen - for animal cruelty and for violating the Fish and Game Code.

The arrest was made Tuesday, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department confirmed - not releasing a mug shot of the suspect.

The event left witnesses in complete disbelief, as Jansen now faces animal cruelty charges. His alleged crimes carry a maximum three year-sentence in a state prison, a fine of up to $20,000, after he was booked Tuesday

The disturbing clip filmed by Donica, meanwhile, continues to gain traction online - horrifying onlookers far and wide.

"It's just made me absolutely sick to my stomach," resident Shyann Swisher told CBS News in early November after seeing the clip.

"This bird was a part of our community,' she continued, her voice rife with emotion.

'His name was Arthur.'

In an exchange with KTLA, a wildlife expert confirmed the bird seen in the footage and Arthur, a regular at the lake, were one and the same.

His death, moreover, was not a quick one, officials said - indicating how the bird was first wounded by the barrage, before ultimately dying.

'The one guy stood up and says, "Look, a crane,"' Donica recalled of what predated the series of stone-throws.

As for Jansen, he was booked at the West Valley Detention Center for animal cruelty and killing a nongame bird on Tuesday. Records did not immediately indicate he's been released.

His alleged crimes carry a maximum three year-sentence in a state prison, a fine of up to $20,000.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the San Bernardino Sheriff's Office for more information.
Rachel Reeves will vow to tear up red tape for the City of London after claiming regulation after the 2008 financial crash has 'gone too far'.

The Chancellor, in her first Mansion House speech tonight, will say rule changes in the wake of the global banking meltdown were 'right'.

But she will add this has now 'resulted in a system which sought to eliminate risk taking' and led to 'unintended consequences'.

Labour pledged before the general election to secure the 'highest sustained growth in the G7'.

And Ms Reeves will this evening bemoan how the UK 'has been regulating for risk, but not regulating for growth' in recent years.

In setting out a package of reforms, the Chancellor will say: 'Before we came into Government, I was clear that the financial services sector must play a central part in our economic vision and our plan for economic growth.

'Because I know that this sector is the crown jewel in our economy.'

She will tell a central London audience how financial services employs 1.2million people across the UK and accounts for 9 per cent of economic output.

The Chancellor will bemoan how the UK 'has been regulating for risk, but not regulating for growth' in recent years

Rachel Reeves will vow to tear up red tape for the City of London after claiming regulation after the 2008 financial crash has 'gone too far'

'It is a global success story: we are the second largest exporter of financial services in the G7,' Ms Reeves will add.

'But we cannot take the UK's status as a global financial centre for granted. In a highly competitive world we need to earn that status and we need to work to keep it.'

Her reforms aimed at driving competition across financial services will include sending 'growth-focused remit letters' to regulators and overhauling the system for consumer redress to give customers and firms 'clearer expectations' about the compensation landscape, the Treasury said.

Ms Reeves has written to the Financial Conduct Authority, Prudential Regulation Committee, Financial Policy Committee and Payment Systems Regulator to push for a greater focus on growth.

She is expected to announce plans for pension 'megafunds' which could result in around 80billion to invest in businesses and infrastructure.

In her speech, Chancellor will say: 'While it was right that successive governments made regulatory changes after the global financial crisis, to ensure that regulation kept pace with the global economy of the time, it is important that we learn the lessons of the past.

'These changes have resulted in a system which sought to eliminate risk taking. That has gone too far and, in places, it has had unintended consequences which we must now address.'

Ms Reeves will hail her reforms as 'the most pro-growth financial services package since the financial crisis'.

The Treasury said 'high regulatory standards will be maintained' but parts of the system will be 'rebalanced to drive economic growth and competitiveness'.

Ms Reeves will announce plans to 'modernise' the Financial Ombudsman Service, which deals with complaints between consumers and firms, as part of the shakeup.

Meanwhile, a pilot scheme will be launched to deliver 'digital gilts'  tokenised Government bonds that are issued on a blockchain  in a move to better embrace technology.

The Government will also consult on replacing the certification regime, which seeks to strengthen market integrity and applies to staff below senior management level, with a more 'proportionate' approach that cuts costs so firms can 'focus on growth, the Treasury said.

The Chancellor, Home Secretary and Technology Secretary have also written to tech and telecommunication sectors calling for tougher action in reducing the scale of fraud taking place on their platforms and networks.

A progress update has also been requested by March 2025 ahead of an expanded fraud strategy.

Ms Reeves will also commit the Government to publishing the first ever Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy in the spring, which is aimed at providing long-term certainty for the sector.

She will propose focusing on five priority areas in financial services to take advantage of the UK's existing strengths and boost the potential for growth.

These will be financial technology, sustainable finance, asset management and wholesale services, insurance and reinsurance and capital markets.
The choice of Matt Gaetz for attorney general is not a stunt, a chance to troll the libs or a ruse to smuggle through other (marginally less) controversial cabinet picks.

Donald Trump is deadly serious about putting the combative politician in charge of his fightback against the people he blames for a witch hunt against him, according to confidants and allies.

Yet the appointment surprised many around Trump and it led to claims that the former president had gone freelance, reaching the decision Wednesday only when Gaetz traveled with him on his plane and while Susie Wiles, his chief of staff, was in a different cabin.

Not so, said a string of insiders familiar with Trump's thinking.

The announcement may have come as a surprise when it dropped on Truth Social, but Trump confidants said his name had long been in the frame as the natural choice to overhaul a justice department blamed for weaponizing the legal system.

'This is where you're going to get the Department of Justice cleaned out,' said John Fredericks, radio host and chair of Trump's Virginia presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020.

'It's not business as usual ... the lawfare, the weaponization of government, all the things that we have seen and all of us experienced.

'The Matt Gaetz nomination to the Department of Justice is a clear signal that those days are over, and those people have to pack their bags ASAP and get the hell out of town.'

Matt Gaetz flew aboard 'Trump Force One' on Wednesday. He is seen here disembarking with Trump chief of staff Suzie Wiles and Taylor Budowich, deputy chief of staff

Donald Trump flew to Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday en route to the White House

It meant Trump chose a controversial figure with a reputation as a provocateur, disliked by many of his congressional colleagues and at the center of a House ethics investigation.

And it meant that Trump picked a loyalist over more qualified lawyers who had been in the mix as contenders.

Possible names included former acting US Attorney General Matt Whitaker, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, and John Ratcliffe, who got the nod as C.I.A. chief.

'He saw his previous AGs turn out to be creatures of the establishment,' said a source familiar with Trump's thinking and his disappointment in first pick Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from investigations into Russian election interference rather than killing them off, and Bill Barr, who refused to back his claims that the 2020 elections were stolen.

'So when he saw the other contenders talking their legal talk he was turned off. Gaetz made clear he was going to blow things up.'

Gaetz was the subject of a Justice Department investigation into allegations of sex trafficking.

He was never charged, but that probe and his friendship with Joel Greenberg, now serving 11 years in prison after admitting paying women and an underage girl to have sex with him and other men, will almost certainly be at center of a stormy and difficult Senate confirmation process.

There is an alternative. Trump could bypass the usual checks and balances by pushing his appointee through without a vote during a recess.

Gaetz faces a difficult Senate confirmation process for the role of US attorney general

The process has been used before and is not unconstitutional, but could provoke the ire of senators.

Either way the attorney general, the country's top law enforcement official, will be one of Trump's most important appointments, central to his plans to carry out mass deportations, pardon Jan. 6 rioters, and seek retribution against political opponents.

'Gaetz will root out the systemic corruption at DOJ, and return the department to its true mission of fighting crime, and upholding our democracy and Constitution,' Trump wrote on social media when he announced his pick.

'We must have honesty, integrity, and transparency at DOJ.'

Gaetz traveled aboard Trump's jet with him to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning.

And anonymous briefers suggested that he had clinched the gig while chatting to the former president alongside adviser Boris Epshteyn, while Wiles was elsewhere on the plane.

But a string of insiders told DailyMail.com that Gaetz's name had long been among those considered and disputed the idea that Trump had gone rogue by springing a surprise name on Wiles and the rest of his team.

'Gaetz has had aspirations to be attorney general for years,' said a recent passenger on Trump Force One.

'This feels like people are briefing against Wiles, trying to undermine her authority and say that she's not really in control as much as she is.'
November 14, 2024: There are things Russia does not want to deal with or be reminded of. One of these forgettable items is the loss of the Black Sea Fleet and the inability for the Russian navy to operate in the Black Sea. Russia recently held its annual naval exercises and this year none of those operations took place in the Black Sea. Over the last three years Russia has lost 29 warships in the Black Sea and doesnt want to lose any more.

Ukraine has no navy but they do have a lot of imagination and know how to innovate and quickly build and use their innovations. This is how hundreds of Ukrainian air and naval drones wiped out the Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine can export its agricultural products and import what it needs via the Black Sea. Russia has to depend on ports in the north, near the Arctic Circle. There are air and naval bases up there along with NATO members Norway and Finland to keep an eye on what the Russians are up to. There isnt much to report because Ukraine figured out a way to make drone attacks on Russian forces in the far north.

In 2022 Russia believed it could hunt down Ukrainian forces wherever they were. Now Russian air and naval forces are attacked wherever they are. In 2022 Russia believed they could strangle Ukrainian trade via control of the Black Sea. Defeat of the mighty Black Sea Fleet was inconceivable. Then it happened and the Russians are trapped in a disaster they created.
Students are 'self policing' at universities, a coroner has warned after an Oxford pupil killed himself when friends made comments about a sexual encounter.

Alexander Rogers, 20, a materials science student in his third year at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, took his own life after a woman expressed being uncomfortable about their sexual relations.

Mr Rogers's suicide was likely to have been influenced by the 'isolation he felt' when he was shunned by his peers, an inquest concluded this month.

Nicholas Graham, the area coroner for Oxfordshire, wrote to the Department for Education with fears that 'exclusionary behaviour' is becoming common at universities.

He has urged ministers to take action, warning that more students could lose their lives if the issue is not taken seriously.

Ms Graham wrote in his report that 'social ostracism is a recognised practice within student communities'.

He added: 'Students appear to employ social ostracism as a means of "self-policing" their community, often in response to allegations of serious misconduct. This occurs in the absence of formal processes and without proper investigation or evidence.'

Alexander Rogers, 20, took his own life after a woman expressed being uncomfortable about their sexual encounter and friends shunned him

Alexander Rogers was a Corpus Christi College (pictured) student at Oxford University

Mr Rogers, from Salisbury, died after entering the River Thames from Donnington Bridge in Oxford on January 15.

Emergency services recovered his body from the water and discovered he had suffered a head trauma.

Rogers had been confronted by friends after a sexual encounter with a woman, an inquest at Oxford coroner's court heard.

The woman had expressed 'discomfort' about the encounter, after which Mr Rogers had a conversation with friends to discuss the 'allegations'.

The friends claimed they believed he had 'messed up', that they needed space from him and that they would check in on him a few weeks later, the coroner's court heard.

Mr Rogers (pictured) jumped into the River Thames at Donnington Bridge and died of serious head injuries

After the inquest, a spokesman for the university said: 'Oxford University and Corpus Christi College extend our deepest sympathies to Alexander's family and everyone in our community who has been saddened by his tragic death.

'The college commissioned an independent review to identify all learning in this case with the aim of minimising the chance of such a tragic loss happening again.

'A college working group has been set up to take forward all the recommendations, a number of which have already been implemented. The university is also working on recommendations made by the review as part of its ongoing work on student welfare.'
Senators are eager to get their hands on a secretive ethics report into Donald Trump's attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz's alleged drug use and sexual misconduct.

Gaetz had been the subject of a House Ethics Committee probe that ended Wednesday after his abrupt resignation from Congress, one day after Trump shockingly nominated him to be the top law enforcement official in the nation.

His exit comes as allegations resurfaced Thursday about a woman who reportedly testified to the committee that Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17.

The woman - now in her 20s - talked about Gaetz and her having sex when she was a minor in high school while 'representing that she was an adult,' sources close told ABC News.

The FBI had investigated similar claims against Gaetz, but the DOJ opted not to indict him over claims he sex trafficked a minor.

Trump's pick of the embattled former congressman to oversee the Justice Department, FBI, DEA, ATF and related agencies has shocked Republicans and Democrats.

And the bombshell claims could derail his hopes of taking the helm as attorney general.

Now, senators who will vote on his nomination are demanding to review the House report before the 42-year-old Florida man is able to join Trump's Cabinet.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 12, 2024. He resigned his House seat on Wednesday immediately after being nominated by Donald Trump to be attorney general

Gaetz has long been one of Trump's most ardent supporters in the House

'The President's role is to make the nomination, but we need to have complete vetting of the nominees, not only so we know that the nominee is qualified, but also to protect the president,' Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Thursday.

He 'absolutely' wants to review the House Ethics Committee's report on Gaetz's conduct.

Cornyn even floated the idea of taking legal action to review the report's contents.

'There's various ways we can glean access to it, we can subpoena it,' he told reporters. 'I don't I don't think any of us want to fly blind.'

Cornyn argued the Senate has a role in weeding out unqualified candidates during the nomination process, and that doing so protects the president from potential bad apples.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., however, doesn't think that will work, nor does he want it to happen.

When pressed on if the Senate would be able to subpoena an unreleased House ethics report Graham responded: 'I wouldn't think so.'

Gaetz and his wife Ginger pose on the rooftop of the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The South Carolinian also added he wouldn't want the House to be able to subpoena unreleased Senate reports.

Gaetz has called the investigation 'frivolous' and a smear campaign against him.

Rep. Michael Guest, R-Ala., the chairman of the House Ethics Committee, reiterated Thursday that he does not intend to release the report.

President Donald Trump takes a selfie with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., in the House chamber after Trump's State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on January 30, 2018.

Gaetz was by Trump's side during his legal hearings in New York earlier this year

Gaetz speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 17, 2024

'What happens in Ethics is confidential. We're going to maintain that confidentiality,' he told reporters Thursday.

There is also the possibility that committee members, or staff, would leak the document.

The top Democrat on the Ethics panel, Glenn Ivey, D-Md., told DailyMail.com he had no knowledge of any anticipated Ethics leaks for Gaetz's file. He said he couldn't recall another instance of a report from the committee being leaked.

On the other hand, Ivey noted that Gaetz has repeatedly accused the Ethics Committee of leaking information regarding their investigation, though he denied the allegations.

But that has not stopped senators from calling to see the report.

Democratic Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin wrote Thursday: 'I am calling on the House Ethics Committee to preserve and share their report and all relevant documentation on Mr. Gaetz with the Senate Judiciary Committee.'

Later in the day Durbin released a letter co-signed by 10 other Democrats demanding the House Ethics Committee turn over their report.

They wrote that the timing regarding Gaetz's sudden resignation seems suspicious.

'The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetzs resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report and findings,' the Democrats wrote.

'We cannot allow this critical information from a bipartisan investigation into longstanding public allegations to be hidden from the American people, given that it is directly relevant to the question of whether Mr. Gaetz is qualified and fit to be the next Attorney General of the United States.'

When asked if he wanted to see the Gaetz report Thursday Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said he does.

'It'll be a fine tooth comb,' the Alabaman said of reviewing Gaetz's file. 'And they knew that going in.'

'It will be one of those [nominations] that will be well scrutinized,' he added.

Still, Tuberville says he likes the former Florida lawmaker

'I'm a Matt Gaetz fan because I've known it for him for a long time. He's smart, been on Judiciary [Committee] for seven years, a very good lawyer, well spoken, believes in the Constitution and I think he'd do a great job.'

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he absolutely wants to review the Gaetz ethics report

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told reporters he'd like to take a 'fine toothed comb' to the Gaetz report

Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., told DailyMail.com 'I need to learn more about him generally ... I'm sure whatever information I need to review will be forthcoming.'

Trump, however, has demanded that the Senate use 'recess appointments' to confirm Cabinet nominees.

'Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,' Trump wrote on X Sunday.

This cuts against the desires of many Republican senators to hold hearings and votes for nominees.

'I'm fine with it, but I hope we don't have to do it,' Tuberville said of Trump's recess appointments. 'I hope we can just do them ourselves and and go through the same process.'

'Well, I think we ought to be able to go through the regular process,' Republican Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts told DailyMail.com.

US Senator John Cornyn, Republican from Texas, speaks to reporters on his way to a vote at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on November 14, 2024

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told DailyMail.com: 'I think it's too early to tell whether you need to go to any kind of extraordinary measures to do it.'

'I'm not opposed to it, but there's all kinds of ins and outs of how you get to that.'

Paul, who will be chairman of the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs come January, noted he is planning on having hearings for nominees under his purview.

Meaning South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who Trump nominated for Department of Homeland Security secretary, will need to sit before Paul's panel before getting confirmed into Trump's Cabinet.

'My plan is to have hearings at the first possible date for the ones I'm in charge of,' he revealed.
Strongman champion Luke Stoltman has separated from his wife after she accused him of cheating with a woman powerlifter.

Stoltman, 39, of Invergordon, Ross-shire, is currently Europe's Strongest Man and has won the national title five times.

His wife Kushi, 31, took to social media to claim her husband has been having liaisons with a female competitor while their child was unwell in hospital.

She also made other claims of adultery and revealed she was 'heartbroken and devastated' by the news.

After years of fertility treatment, the couple finally welcomed their first child - a baby boy - nine months ago.

Kushi wrote in a post on Instagram: 'I thought my world was complete going through so much heartache to get my beautiful baby boy and finally get pregnant and getting that happily ever after I've always wanted with my husband after trying for so many years.

'Our son is nine months old now and this weekend after our son has been in hospital so sick and Luke refusing to come and see him in hospital because he was with another woman behind my back.'

Luke Stoltman, 39, and his wife Kushi, 31, (pictured together) share a nine-month-old baby boy

Stoltman is currently Europe's Strongest Man and has won the national title five times

Stoltman and his wife Kushi having a new years day swim in January 2022

Kushi shared her heartbreak in a post on Instagram, alleging her husband cheated on her

Luke and Tom Stoltman who are the worlds strongest brothers and have written a book about their lives

Kushi wrote on Instagram: 'Thank you very much Luke Stoltman... for torturing me'

After years of fertility treatment, the couple finally welcomed their first child - a baby boy - nine months ago

She added: 'I am absolutely heartbroken and devastated that someone could be so cruel and nasty.

'He is not the man he portrays himself to be.

'Thank you very much Luke Stoltman... for torturing me.

'I have no idea how people in this world can be so cruel.'

When approached by The Scottish Sun, Kushi said: 'This is all true I'm afraid.'

Stoltman is nicknamed the Highland Oak and is the older brother of the current World's Strongest Man Tom, 30.

Tom's wife Sinead was one of those to send support to her sister-in-law, as was famous lifter Eddie Hall's partner Alexandra.

MailOnline has contacted Stoltman for comment.
A school is Glasgow has has come under fire for promoting a coffee morning to raise money to buy chest binders for transgender pupils.

An invite was sent to staff at Bannerman High School, for the event and they were told that their 2.50 entry fee would be put towards the tight-fitting compression tops.

Chest binders are an item of clothing often used to flatten and hide the appearance of breasts. Some people who use them can experience negative side effects such as back and chest pains, breathing difficulties or fractured ribs.

Campaign Group For Women Scotland told Sky News that the chest binders are a 'dangerous practice' and said it 'beggars belief that the school would raise money to pay for these incredibly damaging devices'.

The group has called for the school to undertake an urgent review of policy and safeguarding and claimed it is as dangerous as breast ironing, which is illegal in the UK.

It is understood that senior pupils on the school equalities group came up with the idea to raise money for the binders.

The email was said to have been sent from a staff member, with one teacher telling the Daily Record no consultation had been carried out.

The teacher told the newspaper: 'Staff would be paying money to raise funds to buy breast binders for young girls and we have no idea if parents are in agreement with this.

Chest binders are used by some transgender men to hide the appearance of breasts

Bannerman High School in Glasgow has come under fire for promoting the fundraising event

An example of a chest binders which the event was trying to raise money for

'This is a delicate and sensitive matter and the staff who took it upon themselves to organise this are not specialists in this area.'

After concerns were raised about the fundraising and a lack of consultation with staff and parents, the school decided to distribute the money raised elsewhere on a range of other things related to equality.

A spokesperson for Glasgow City Council said: 'This is an annual fundraiser organised by the school's equalities group.

'The senior pupils will work with school staff to decide the best way to use any funds raised. Bannerman is proud to be an LGBTQ+ gold charter school.

'We would urge any teacher or staff member to raise their concerns with the school's senior management team.'
Irish mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor said he replied 'no comment' to more than 100 questions during police interviews about allegations he raped a woman in a Dublin hotel because he was 'beyond petrified'.

Mr McGregor, who is facing an accusation in the civil action that he 'brutally raped and battered' Nikita Hand, is being cross-examined in the High Court on Thursday.

He has previously told the court he had consensual sex with Ms Hand in a penthouse in the Beacon Hotel.

Ms Hand, who is also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin, is also suing another man, James Lawrence, for sexual assault on December 9, 2018.

Ms Hand, who has no automatic right to anonymity, has accused Mr McGregor of pinning her to a bed and raping her in a hotel bedroom in south Dublin.

The court was told that Mr McGregor read out a pre-prepared statement to Gardai when he was questioned about the alleged rape on January 17, 2019.

Following the statement, Mr McGregor was asked more than 100 follow-up questions by police, to which he replied 'no comment'.

Mr McGregor repeatedly stated he was acting on advice from his solicitor, adding he told his lawyers his story and gave his series of the events.

Conor McGregor said he replied 'no comment' to more than 100 questions during police interviews about allegations he raped a woman

Mr McGregor and his friend James Lawrence have both been sued for damages by hairdresser Nikita Hand, 35, (pictured) from Drimnagh, Dublin

The Irish mixed martial arts fighter is seen leaving the High Court in Dublin on Wedensday

Asked why he replied 'no comment' to every question, Mr McGregor said it was the first time he was interviewed by Gardai and 'was beyond petrified'.

'I would have loved to go the top of a mountain with a microphone and shout from the hilltops about the series of allegations,' Mr McGregor added.

He told the court that he felt he was co-operative with police during the interviews, adding he was 'nervous' and it was 'alien' to him.

'It is the first time it has happened to me in my life,' he continued.

He said he was in court to speak his case.

'These allegations are false and I have come out here, and say my piece and say my truth.'

Mr McGregor also admitted to the court that he took cocaine while he was in the car with Mr Lawrence, Ms Hand and her work colleague Danille Kealy as they travelled to the Beacon Hotel.

He rejected an assertion that he had took the bag of cocaine when he left Mr Lawrence's house and returned to the two women, who were waiting in his car.

Conor McGregor with his father Tony McGregor (left) outside the High Court in Dublin on Wednesday, Nov 6

DNA samples matching the profile of MMA fighter Conor McGregor were found on the body, underwear and clothes of Nikita Hand, the woman accusing him of rape, the High Court has heard

He said it was a 'small piece' of cocaine. It also emerged that Mr McGregor has paid for Mr Lawrence's solicitor's fees.

When first asked by John Gordon SC, for Ms Hand, if he paid for his friend's legal fees, Mr McGregor replied: 'I don't recall.'

Mr McGregor went on to say that Mr Lawrence was his friend and would not have been able to pay the fees.

Asked again did he pay Mr Lawrence's legal fees, Mr McGregor replied, 'possibly' and later, 'I am not a million per cent'.

Mr McGregor said he gets 'staggering legal fees' among the 'lies' put forward.

Asked again, he replied: 'I believe I did.'
A TikTok influencer who made 'disgusting and nauseating' posts including one where she 'joked' about the 'the Jews putting gas into gaslighting' walked free from court today.

Fiona Ryan, who was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf in the dock, also called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as 'Nazi Yahu' and livestreamed herself singing 'I will wear my antisemite badge with pride', to the tune of 'If you're happy and you know it'.

On X, formerly known as Twitter, the sociology graduate posted photographs of Hiroshima and Gaza with the caption 'this is what Jews do best', while several of her posts also 'showed support for and glorified Hamas', a District Judge was told.

Ryan also uploaded fake quotes from the Talmud to call Judaism an 'evil religion from the depths of hell', Salisbury magistrates court heard.

In a police interview the 40 year old compared herself to comedian Ricky Gervais and claimed her TikToks were 'free speech' protected by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The mother was handed a suspended sentence this afternoon after District Judge Timothy Pattinson branded her 'appallingly ignorant and misguided' and said the posts were 'anything but amusing'.

The judge told her: 'In the course of the trial I heard the recording of an abusive song and comments, you said 'where's the harm in a little bit of fun' suggesting that you thought offensive communications of the type described by the prosecution can somehow be amusing.

Fiona Ryan (pictured) outside Salisbury Law Courts, Wiltshire, where she escaped jail today

'It also undermines what you say about remorse, to put it bluntly the comments made in these various offences are anything but amusing, they are grossly offensive and disgusting.

'Any reasonable person would find your comments disgusting and nauseating, I find they were motivated by a desire to shock, self-publicity and money.'

The sentencing comes after it emerged a prominent journalist is under criminal investigation for allegedly stirring up 'racial hatred' after a complaint was made to police about a social media post.

Allison Pearson, a columnist at The Daily Telegraph, said she was visited by two officers at her home in Essex on Remembrance Sunday as she was preparing to make her way to a memorial service.

Ryan was found guilty at an earlier trial of four counts of sending by public communication an offensive message for the TikTok videos made in March and April last year.

She also admitted two further counts in relation to posts on X between October and December last year, around the time of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

At her trial in September the court was told that a neighbour overheard her singing the 'antisemite badge' song whilst Ryan was livestreaming on TikTok.

In a video posted to TikTok on April 18, Ryan referred to Netanyahu as 'Nazi Yahu' and told him to 'go back to Poland'.

In a different video on her backup TikTok account Ryan said she did not think Ashkenazi Jews were Jewish and that they were 'descendants from Nazis'.

Salisbury Magistrates Court heard that Ryan was interviewed by the police on April 22, she described herself as a 'geo-politician' and told them she was earning 200 a week from the TikTok Creator Fund.

Ryan, who was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf in the dock, called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as 'Nazi Yahu'

In her police interview she said: 'If the song was about Muslims no one would care. It's just a silly joke.'

She also compared herself to The Office creator and standup comedian Gervais, saying she used humour to talk about horrific things.

At today's sentencing, senior prosecutor Adam Cooper said the posts were 'beyond the pale' and that the X post about the Talmud had caused 'a lot of offence'.

He said: 'Between October 1 and 31 last year a number of messages were put on social media, the dates you will be well aware include the events that took place on October 7.'

Mr Cooper said some posts had 'shown support and glorification of the actions of Hamas'.

He added: 'There is a balance with freedom of expression but when material is so shocking or disturbing it goes beyond the pale, throughout the police investigation that test is rigorously considered.

'Certainly in all of these cases it was found to have crossed that, in particular the antisemitic tropes and conflating the Jewish religion with Nazi Germany.'

Mr Cooper also read out victim impact statements from five people who had been harmed by Ryan's 'discriminatory' posts, including Alexandra Boyd, a town councillor for Wilton who is Jewish. She said the posts had 'created an environment of fear for my family'.

Representing herself, Ryan, of Salisbury, said she was 'deeply remorseful' and that the posts were made in 'anger'.

She said: 'I have had a long time to think about this and I am deeply remorseful for any comments that have caused offence to anybody and I understand why that was the case.

'I am pro-Palestine but not pro-terrorism.' She said she had made videos 'in a state of anger at what is going on in the world.'

Ryan was sentenced to 12 weeks in jail suspended for 18 months for the TikTok posts and, concurrently, 8 weeks suspended jail for 18 months for the X posts as well as being required to attend 20 rehabilitation days, pay a surcharge of 154 and the prosecution's costs of 650.

Writing in the Telegraph on Wednesday, Pearson described a 'Kafkaesque situation' when two policeman arrived at her door to inform her a complaint had been made in relation to a post on X, around a year ago. At the time the journalist, who said she cannot recall the post in question, was frequently commenting on the October 7 attacks on Israel and pro-Palestine protests in London.

Essex Police said: 'We're investigating a report passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed.'
A DPD delivery driver has been throw behind bars after he sexually assaulted five women in just two days.

Nottingham Crown Court heard how Ionut Torodoc touched, kissed or grabbed five different victims in East Leake in Nottinghamshire.

On one occasion he took a photo of a woman and told her 'I had to get your legs in'.

The 37-year-old also got into the front passenger seat of another victim's car, turned around to her nine-year-old son who was sitting in the back seat and told him 'your mum is very beautiful'.

Jailing him for 17 months, Recorder Ciaran Rankin said: 'This case paints a very disturbing and troubling picture.

'You displayed a bizarre attitude towards others you came into contact with when working as a delivery driver.

'It is an extremely worrying set of offences and in your pre-sentence report you don't seem to recognise the seriousness of these offences.'

Thomas Welshman, prosecuting, said the first offence took place in April this year, in a Tesco Express in Marlborough Road, Leicester.

Ionut Torodoc, 37, has been locked up for sexually assaulting five women over a two-day period

Torodoc met the women when he was delivering packages for DPD. Pictured: Stock image of a DPD van

He said the defendant walked over to a mother with her child who was using the self-service checkout and picked up the boy.

The mother demanded he put him down telling him he should not do that and he walked away, the prosecutor said.

Mr Welshman said all of the other offences happened in East Leake ontwo consecutive days in May.

He said the first saw the defendant park his van in front of a woman's car to deliver a parcel.

The prosecutor said: 'She had her nine-year-old son in the car but got out as she recognised the defendant and opened her house so she could take the parcel in.

'He told her she was a 'beautiful girl' and tried to kiss her but she turned away.

'She was shocked and returned to her car and he got in and sat in the front passenger seat and said 'let's go' before turning to her son in the back seat and telling him 'your mum is very beautiful'.

'He then got out of the car and said 'you must order more parcels'.'

The court heard around 20 minutes later he went to deliver another parcel at a different address in the village and when the female answered the door he put it down on the floor.

All five of the women were from the small village of East Leake in Nottinghamshire

Mr Welshman said: 'She went to pick up the box and bent over and he put his hand on her thigh saying 'nice tattoo' before pushing his hand further up her thigh and started to grab her shorts.

He told her 'I need to get a photo' and took a photo from above and when she saw it, it was not of the parcel but just her body. He said 'I had to get your legs in'.'

At 10.45am the same day the third victim was at her place of work in the village when Torodoc arrived with a delivery claiming to be unwell and was given a glass of water and something to eat.

He said while there he kissed one of the female workers on the cheeks and then 'grabbed her face and kissed her on the mouth'.

Mr Welshman said: 'She felt him trying to put his tongue in her mouth and clenched her teeth together to prevent this from happening.'

The prosecutor said in the afternoon, on the same day, the fourth victim was at East Leake Leisure Centre and was approached by Torodoc who had made a delivery.

He said the defendant 'grabbed her' and tried to pull her close to him and she could smell alcohol on his breath.

Mr Welshman said the fifth victim was a 17-year-old female who was walking to work the next day, when the defendant pulled up alongside her and asked her for a light before grabbing her hand.

Torodoc was sentenced to 17 months at Nottingham Crown Court, he was also put on the sex offender register

He said: 'She walked off and he followed her in the van wound down his window and said 'where do you work, I will take you, get in'.

She told Torodoc to 'get away from me'.

Torodoc, of Stuart Street, Westcotes, Leicester, pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual assault and also to common assault. He has three convictions for six offences including fraud and drink-driving.

He was assisted at this week's hearing by a Romanian interpreter.

Emma Coverley, mitigating, said her client has a wife and son back in his home country and at the time of the offences she had told him she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with him.

She said: 'He has been in custody for six months now and has not had a family visit. He was given indefinite leave to be in the UK in 2020 and was working and quite properly sending money home to his family in Romania.'

As well as the prison term, the judge placed the defendant on the sex offender register for 10 years.
A foul-mouthed Connecticut teacher was forced to leave her dream job and resign after threatening to kill Donald Trump voters in a viral video.

Annie Dunleavy, 30, of Wallingford, was left feeling heartbroken after she resigned from Chapman Elementary School after receiving massive backlash over her threats.

'It's my life's dream to be a teacher,' Dunleavy, who worked as a Special Ed teacher, told News 8. 'I consider those kids to be my kids, and they fill that for me, and it's just so fulfilling, so rewarding.

'And I really know that what people see right now, I don't look like that person, but I truly would do anything to help any child and family in need.'

Dunleavy went viral after a video she had posted to a private Snapchat channel -where she said she would leave Trump supporters 'on a stretcher' if they 'tested their gangster' on her - made waves on the internet.

The elementary teacher was placed on a temporary leave from the school earlier this week as the institution investigated the matter.

Now, Dunleavy is regretting ever posting the video.

'I was in a moment of high emotion, and I shouldn't have posted,' she told News 8.

'The message came off wrong.'

Annie Dunleavy, 30, of Wallingford, was left feeling heartbroken after she resigned from Chapman Elementary School, where she worked as a Special Ed teacher, after receiving massive backlash. 'I was in a moment of high emotion, and I shouldn't have posted,' she said

Dunleavy went viral after a video (pictured) she had posted to a private Snapchat channel -where she said she would leave Trump supporters 'on a stretcher' if they 'tested their gangster' on her - made waves on the internet

What the educator said she meant to convey was how she believed a second Trump presidency would 'give people the permission in their minds to enact violence against women'.

'I wanted to say, I'm not going down without a fight. I will fight for myself, and if someone was to try to hurt me, I would protect myself,' she told the outlet.

Following her resignation, Cheshire Public Schools Superintendent Jeff Solan said in a statement: 'The comments on that video did not reflect the position of our school system.

'They were hurtful, deeply concerning, and ultimately undermined the faith that our community has placed in us,' he continued.

'Every student and family has the right to attend our schools free from the concern of political prejudice, let alone their safety.'

The Cheshire Board of Education Chair Samantha Rosenberg also released a statement, writing: 'The Board of Education is united in finding the teacher's behavior reprehensible and unacceptable, and we are horrified and deeply offended by statements made in the video.'

In her video, Donleavy claims that the people she cares about 'aren't gonna be safe in America' so 'neither the f*** are you guys'.

'Just because you won doesn't mean we don't remember who the f*** you voted for you're not in the clear... please, please don't test your gangster on me because you will end on a stretcher - gone, forever,' Dunleavy said.

'The message came off wrong,' she said. What the educator said she meant to convey was how she believed a second Trump presidency would 'give people the permission in their minds to enact violence against women.'

Cheshire Public Schools Superintendent Jeff Solan said in a statement: 'The comments on that video did not reflect the position of our school system'

'[I'm] so serious nobody f**king talk to me unless you wanna swing - if you wanna fight text me call me, whatever, anybody else stay the f**k outta my face.

'If you voted for Trump literally, please delete me, block me, get rid of everything of me - or step to me, so that I know what's up and I can handle you how I see fit,' she added.

She then finished her rant by asking Trump supporters to 'come forward... or leave, please, [there's] the door'.

Despite the threats Donleavy made in the video, the Cheshire Police will not be pressing criminal charges against her, according to News 8.
A chilling new update has been revealed in the case of the Florida businessman whose estranged wife disappeared in Spain earlier this year.

David Knezevich, 36, a Fort Lauderdale resident and a dual citizen, was arrested in May at Miami International Airport upon his return from his home country of Serbia in connection to his wife's disappearance from her Madrid apartment in early February.

But he is now facing a murder charge in the case - marking a dramatic shift in the case that remains largely circumstantial.

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors obtained a grand jury indictment accusing Knezevich of killing his 40-year-old wife, Ana Knezevich Henao, despite her body still not being found in Europe, Tampa Bay Times reported.

He had previously only been charged with kidnapping his wife in May.

But the new charges accuse Knezevich of kidnapping resulting in death, foreign domestic violence resulting in death and foreign murder of a United States national.

According to the new indictment, Knezevich traveled from Miami-Dade to Madrid 'with the intent to kill, injure, harass and intimidate his spouse', NBC Miami reported.

The indictment added that he 'did willfully and unlawfully seize, confine, kidnap, abduct and carry away' his wife and did 'willfully, deliberatively, maliciously and with premeditation and malice aforethought, unlawfully kill her.'

David Knezevich, 36, is now charged with kidnapping resulting in death, foreign domestic violence resulting in death and foreign murder of a United States national after federal prosecutors obtained a grand jury indictment on Wednesday

He may possibly face the death penalty for killing his 40-year-old wife, Ana Knezevich Henao, despite her body still not being found in Europe

Family members said that before the Colombian-American's presumed death, the pair was going through a messy divorce and frequently arguing over millions of dollars in assets that they accumulated during their 13-year marriage, CBS News reported.

Ana, who had previously lived in Fort Lauderdale, moved to Spain in December of last year to get away from her husband and their tumultuous separation.

But she was declared missing on February 5 after she failed to meet a friend to travel from Madrid to Barcelona for a conference.

The FBI has been working on their investigation with the Spanish National Police for months and gathering suspicious evidence of Knezevich's presence in Madrid - dubious security camera footage, fabricated text messages and stolen license plates on a rental car.

The 40-year-old woman was last seen walking into her Madrid apartment where her husband then showed up.

Security-camera footage showed the Serbian-American IT specialist, Knezevic, at a hardware store buying duct tape and spray paint with cash on the day she went missing.

Hours later, he was caught spray-painting the surveillance camera while wearing a motorcycle helmet at his estranged wife's building before leaving with a suitcase an hour later.

Prosecutors said that the evidence showed Knezevich buying the same brand of spray paint the man in the motorcycle helmet used on the security camera.

Ana was was declared missing on February 5 after she failed to meet a friend to travel from Madrid to Barcelona for a conference and was last seen walking into her Madrid apartment where her estranged husband then showed up

Family members said that before the Colombian-American's presumed death, the pair was going through a messy divorce and frequently arguing over millions of dollars in assets

Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres cited the strength of another video showing Knezevich at the hardware store - noting that the purchases may have been used to keep the front door of his wife's apartment building open during the alleged kidnapping, Tampa Bay Times reported.

'He was buying those supplies in that hardware store, including the can of spray paint, to make sure the video cameras did not catch him moving her out of the building,' he said.

The family became concerned about Ana after they started receiving text messages in Spanish from her phone that did not sound like they were written by the Colombia native.

Prosecutors said that on the morning after his wife disappeared, he texted a Colombian woman he met on a dating app to translate two English messages into into 'perfect Colombian' Spanish, NBC Miami reported.

Two of Ana's friends then received the messages, which said that she was going off with a man she met on the street - something that she would never do.

'He was engaging in a scheme to make it look like the wife was alive and well, communicating with her friends about a man she just met,' Torres added. 'When in fact she was never to be seen again.'

His attorney said that he was innocent and was in Serbia on the day she vanished, but agents say a rented a car in the Serbian capital four days earlier tells a different story.

The judge noted that he flew from Miami to Turkey and then to Serbia in January where he then rented a Peugeot to drive himself to Spain before returning it five weeks later.

Ana, who had previously lived in Fort Lauderdale, moved to Spain in December of last year to get away from her husband and their tumultuous separation

Security-camera footage showed the Serbian-American IT specialist, Knezevic, at a hardware store buying duct tape and spray paint with cash on the day she went missing

The car had been driven 4,800 miles and was returned with tinted windows as well as two missing identifiable stickers.

There was also evidence that the license plate had been removed and then put back.

License plates that were stolen in Madrid during that time period were spotted by police plate readers - both near a motorcycle shop where an identical helmet was purchased and on Ana's street the same night she vanished, NBC Miami reported.

'All these facts in combination reflect highly unusual behavior for someone with the means to fly from Serbia to Spain if he wanted to visit a hardware store in Madrid,' Torres added.

'At a time he was supposed to be visiting his family in Serbia, he was blocks away from the apartment where his wife was last seen.'

In August, the FBI joined Spanish and Italian authorities in the woods north of the city of Vicenza to search for her body after a GPS alert on Knezevich's rental car suggested he took a detour to the area on his way back to Serbia.

However, authorities found no evidence of blood traces or signs of a struggle in the Madrid apartment after she vanished.

Knezevich has been held at a federal lock-up in Miami since his arrest this past May while an FBI agent dug into a blackhole of circumstantial evidence suggesting he had the means, opportunity and motive to kidnap and kill his wife, Tampa Bay Times reported.

License plates that were stolen in Madrid during that time period were spotted by police plate readers - both near a motorcycle shop where an identical helmet was purchased and on Ana's street the same night she vanished

'He was buying those supplies in that hardware store, including the can of spray paint, to make sure the video cameras did not catch him moving her out of the building', Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres said

Knezevich, who operated a tech business, owned millions of dollars in Broward County residential real estate with his wife - which was one of the topics they were fighting over when she left for Europe.

Jayne Weintraub, Knezevich's main defense attorney, has challenged prosecutors to produce evidence of an alleged murder.

'I'm sitting here just trying to wrap my mind around what is happening here,' Weintraub said - adding that prosecutors filed the original kidnapping charge as a 'bookmark or a placeholder', Tampa Bay Times reported.

He pleaded not guilty to the original kidnapping charge.

Yet Knezevich was still ordered to remain in jail without bond after his arrest in May due to being considered a 'serious flight risk'.

The FBI believes that he left Miami a month after she did to track her down - and ultimately carried her body out of the Madrid apartment in a suitcase, Tampa Bay Times reported.

But her remains have not yet been located.

Prosecutors in the US Attorney's Office in Miami are still unclear whether or not they will seek the death penalty, but if they do pursue it, the Justice Department has the power to make the final call.

The FBI believes that he left Miami a month after she did to track his wife of 13 years down - and ultimately carry her body out of the Madrid apartment in a suitcase

Despite her body still not being found, Knezevich could either face the death penalty or a maximum life sentence in prison in convicted

If the department were to approve the punishment, he would face the death penalty if convicted at trial.

But even if they don't approve the death sentence, Knezevich would face a potential maximum life sentence in prison if convicted.

Ana's family held out hope that she would eventually be found alive but the new charges 'confirm their worst fears,' NBC Miami added.

'Our hope is that Ana's life, love and legacy will not be overshadowed by this tragedy but will instead inspire meaningful conversations about domestic violence and the importance of protecting those at risk, as Ana would have wanted, Felipe Henao, Ana's brother, told NBC Miami.

The case is set to go to trial in February but is likely to be postponed.
A Texas man has been arrested by the FBI on suspicion of supporting ISIS and planning a '9/11 style' terrorist attack on US soil.

Authorities took Anas Said, 28, into custody last week after he allegedly plotted a sickening attack from his Houston apartment.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Douglas Williams said Thursday that Said admitted to researching how to carry out a terrorist attack, particularly targeting local military recruiting centers.

'Today is a great day. Weve taken a suspected terrorist off the streets of Houston,' Williams said.

Authorities said Said had also attempted to offer his west Houston apartment to ISIS operatives and produced ISIS propaganda.

At a press conference alongside Williams, Alamdar Hamdani, the US Attorney in the Southern District of Texas, said Said is an American citizen but spent 'a good part of his childhood in Lebanon.'

The FBI arrested a Texas man on suspicion of supporting ISIS and planning a '9/11-style terrorist attack' on US soil

FBI Special Agent in Charge Douglas Williams said Thursday that Said admitted to researching how to carry out a terrorist attack, offered his Houston apartment to ISIS operatives, and attempted to produce ISIS propaganda

The FBI Houston office added in a statement: 'We stopped a potential terrorist attack from happening right here in Houston. Any day we can publicly say that is a good day.'

Said is charged with attempting to provide material support to the terrorist group.

FBI Houston said on X that after his arrest, Said admitted to researching how to conduct attacks, and offering his home in west Houston as a 'safe sanctuary to ISIS operatives.'

He also allegedly bragged he would commit a '9/11-style attack' if he had the right resources available to him, and the FBI said he was attempting to produce ISIS propaganda.
A major security alert was sparked outside the House of Parliament when a man appeared in a suit of armour, allegedly carrying two samurai swords and asked to speak to Boris Johnson, a court heard.

Lewis Allington, 34, who appeared at Westminster magistrates court charged with two counts of possession of bladed articles, claims to be a British nobleman.

In his mind he had a clear right as an alderman to carry out that sort of behaviour, said prosecutor Murray Packenham.

Mr Packenham said that Allington does not recognise the court and believes he should be tried in the House of Lords.

Norman Cho, defending Allington, said that he had no intention of using the swords in any way'.

He is not someone looking to harm someone with weapons. He believed he was serving his right as an alderman,' said Mr Cho.

He recommended the case go before Crown Court due to Allingtons complicated mental health issues.

The area was cordoned off following the incident on November 12, and police cars parked in front of Carriage Gates - one of the main entrances to the Palace of Westminster.

Armed police on the scene in front of Carriage Gates following reports of a man 'in possession of knives' on Tuesday afternoon

Police cars could be seen parked in front of Carriage Gates - one of the most prominent entrances to the Palace of Westminster

A man wearing a red hooded top could be seen handcuffed and surrounded by police

Following a mental health assessment District Judge Briony Clark said Allington should stay with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Trust to receive treatment.

Allington, of March, Cambridgeshire, is set to appear at Southwark Crown Court on December 12.

The judge referred to the defendant as Sir Allington as she dismissed him from the court.
President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon will not be part of his administration.

Trump broadcast the decision on his Truth Social network.

Republicans and Democrats had mentioned Dimon as a potential Treasury secretary for Trump and also for Vice President Kamala Harris, had she won.

'I respect Jamie Dimon, of JPMorgan Chase, greatly, but he will not be invited to be a part of the Trump Administration. I thank Jamie for his outstanding service to our Country!' Trump wrote Thursday afternoon.

The message came after Reuters reported the day after the presidential election that Dimon had no plans to join the Trump White House 2.0.

Dimon didn't endorse Trump ahead of the election, though The New York Times reported in late October that he was quietly supporting Harris.

His wife Judy went a step further and knocked doors for Harris in the swing state of Michigan the weekend before voters headed to the polls.

Judy Dimon donated nearly $200,000 to the Democratic National Committee and gave the Harris campaign $3,300 - the max individual donation allowed to be donated to a candidate's committee per election cycle, according to Open Secrets.

President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon will not be part of his administration - after Dimon already signaled that he would not join the Trump 2.0 White House

President-elect Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday afternoon to say that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon would not be 'invited' to join the second Trump White House

She gave the same amount to Michigan's Democratic Senate hopeful, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who was successful in her bid.

Jamie Dimon's net worth is estimated to be around 2.5 billion - and he's credited with helping JPMorgan Chase CEO natigate the 2008 financial crash, running the bank for nearly 19 years.

He chose to not publicly support a candidate this cycle because he feared Trump might retaliate should he

Trump has shocked Washington with some of his appointments thus far - including the selection of embattled ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth as Pentagon chief.

But he's also been vocal about who won't be joining the ranks - even if they've told him they're not interested.

On Saturday, Trump posted to Truth Social that former U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would not be asked back.

Haley has since said on her SiriusXM show that Trump was aware she didn't want to work for him again.

'His best friend, Steve Witkoff, came to our house in South Carolina ... He was like, "What do you want? Tell me what you want. Is there anything you want?" I said, "There's nothing I want,"' she said.

The two were political rivals in the 2024 Republican primary - which he won.

Haley later endorsed Trump but never campaigned for him in-person.

She ended hitting the trail for Pennsylvania Republican Senate hopeful Dave McCormick instead.
The Daniel Penny trial isn't just about New York. It's a litmus test for the future of American justice.

On the 13th floor of Manhattan Supreme Court, 26-year-old Penny, a Marine veteran, stands charged with manslaughter in the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless black man who had been threatening passengers in a crowded subway car in May 2023.

Penny, who is white, faces 20 years in prison.

This case reflects so much of what plagues America: soft-on-crime policies that have average citizens in fear for their safety; the far-left's insistence that leaving homeless, drug-addicted, mentally ill people on the streets is compassionate; and the intransigent falsehood that this nation runs on white supremacy  ergo, Daniel Penny's actions that day embody nothing less than white America's belief that black lives don't matter.

All brought to us by feckless DA Alvin Bragg, a Democrat who has reduced violent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, and who somehow saw President Donald Trump's hush-money payments to a porn star worthy of prosecution.

Bragg has racialized the criminal justice system in New York  a city like no other, in which people of every imaginable race, creed, color and socioeconomic class interact daily. As they did in that very subway car. It's a multiracial witness list, and what isn't in doubt is that Jordan Neely scared commuters who thought they'd seen everything.

The Daniel Penny trial isn't just about New York. It's a litmus test for the future of American justice.

26-year-old Penny, a Marine veteran, stands charged with manslaughter in the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless black man who had been threatening passengers in a crowded subway car in May 2023.

Juan Alberto Vasquez, a 59-year-old reporter from Mexico, said he went into 'alert mode' the moment Neely boarded the train. He told police that Neely reminded him of Frank James, the man who randomly shot ten commuters in a Brooklyn subway car in 2022.

Moriela Sanchez, a teenager from Harlem, told a grand jury that she did not believe Penny was 'lynching' Neely, as the left would have us believe.

A key bit of that testimony:

Q: 'Did it appear to you that the white man was squeezing the black man's neck?'

Sanchez: 'No. He was trying to protect other people so that [Neely] wouldn't put [his] hands on nobody.'

Neely had a long history of assaulting strangers on the street and in the subway  including breaking the nose and orbital bone of a 68-year-old woman.

In fact, Neely had more arrests than birthdays: 44 by age 30, including for indecent exposure.

He was on the city's 'Top 50' list of homeless people in dire need of help and, in 2015, was arrested for attempting to kidnap a 7-year-old girl. Neely was reportedly seen dragging the child down a street.

But you won't see mention of that in most coverage of this trial  because in Bragg's worldview, and that of the left-leaning media, Neely was just an occasional Michael Jackson street-performer who fell through the cracks.

In January, New York magazine ran a soft-focus cover story, headlined: 'Finding Jordan Neely'.

It was a love letter to an urban menace, with writer Lisa Miller musing that Neely's threats to terrified passengers that day were 'perhaps a plea to be back in a place where meals and medications were provided, perhaps a sign of his exhaustion or anguish, perhaps an admission of defeat'.

Or, perhaps, a prelude to harming people, as Neely had done many, many times before.

Naturally, Al Sharpton, New York City's original race-baiter, eulogized Neely.

'We can't live in a city,' Sharpton said, 'where you can choke me to death with no provocation, no weapon, no threat.'

This case reflects so much of what plagues America: soft-on-crime policies that have average citizens in fear for their safety; the far-left's insistence that leaving homeless, drug-addicted, mentally ill people on the streets is compassionate; and the intransigent falsehood that this nation runs on white supremacy.

To be clear: No one deserves to die as Neely did.

But New Yorkers can't live in a city where police are scant, or afraid to intervene for fear that they, too, will be brought up on charges of hate crimes, or where the elderly, children and women are raped, assaulted, and murdered in broad daylight  as 23-year-old Leslie Torres was last month, apparently strangled to death outside a Times Square hotel at 1.30 in the afternoon.

But for Sharpton and compatriot Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who positioned herself front row at Neely's funeral, violent crime is so often adjudged solely through race.

'Jordan Neely was murdered,' AOC posted on X, two days after his death. 'The murderer gets protected [with] passive headlines [and] no charges. It's disgusting.'

What's disgusting is pampered politicians fanning racial animus and calling Penny, before he was ever arrested or charged, a murderer.

Even Mayor Eric Adams, himself a former police officer, implied that Penny should likely not be charged with a crime.

'Any loss of life is tragic,' Adams said in the immediate aftermath. 'However, we do know there were serious mental health issues in play here.'

As were drug issues and, according to Neely's aunt, a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The autopsy showed Neely was high on K2, a powerful synthetic cannabinoid that can cause paranoia, hallucinations and cardiac arrest.

New York City's medical examiner has refused to say how much K2 was in Neely's system at time of death. Seems relevant to me.

Barring the prosecution hiding some piece of bombshell evidence  we're in week four of a likely six-week trial  Daniel Penny should be found not guilty.

Witness testimony, so far, supports this.

The basic facts: After 2 p.m. on Monday, May 1, 2023, Neely boarded a northbound F train at the heavily trafficked Second Avenue station.

Alethea Gittings, a retired medical administrator and daily subway rider from Brooklyn, was in the same car.

She testified that, as far as she could remember, Neely started yelling: 'I don't give a damn. I'll kill a motherf***er I'm ready to die.'

She described his tone as 'very loud, very menacing, very disturbing', and said it left her 'scared sh**less'.

Neely had more arrests than birthdays: 44 by age 30, including for indecent exposure. He was on the city's 'Top 50' list of homeless people in dire need of help and, in 2015, was arrested for attempting to kidnap a 7-year-old girl.

But you won't see mention of that in most coverage of this trial - because in worldview of the left-leaning media, Neely was just an occasional Michael Jackson street-performer who fell through the cracks.

Caedryn Schrunk, a senior brand manager at Nike, was also in the subway car. She testified that, as a daily subway rider, she had never been so terrified.

'Everyone was frozen,' she said. 'I was fearful, truly, that was the moment I was going to die.'

Schrunk testified that Neely was approaching a mother who was shielding her child with a stroller. Neely's odor, she said, 'took over the subway His sweatpants were visibly soiled.'

She suspected he was having a mental breakdown and was likely on drugs. 'I've never seen a human in that state,' she added.

That's when Penny is said to have taken Neely down, restraining him in a chokehold. Two other civilians, one a black man, helped keep Neely on the floor until police arrived.

NYPD Sergeant Carl Johnson was among the first on the scene. He testified that neither he nor any of his officers performed CPR on Neely  not because the NYPD is racist, but because Neely was so obviously filthy and potentially diseased.

'He was an apparent drug user,' Johnson said of Neely. 'He was very dirty. I didn't want [my officers] to get hepatitis. If [Neely] did wake up, he would have been vomiting. I didn't want my officers to do that.'

Bodycam video shown in court revealed that Neely still had a pulse when first responders arrived. Penny remained on the scene the entire time.

Alethea Gittings testified that she 'came back to thank Mr. Penny for what he had done'.

The fear of potentially fatal assault is one that every woman, in an increasingly lawless New York City, can relate to. As Lauri Sitro, the mother of that five-year-old boy, testified: 'I was scared for my son. It's not like you can take a 5-year-old and run to the next train. I felt very relieved when Daniel Penny had stopped [Neely].'

Yet the prosecution runs on the race card.

'I am not a white supremacist,' Penny told the New York Post last year. 'This had nothing to do with race.'

Will a jury see it that way? If there's one thing the election of Trump augurs, it's that ordinary Americans are rejecting the idea that everything in this country should be reduced to race. We are exhausted by the notion that white people are inherently evil and bigoted.

The Daniel Penny trial seems in pursuit of a cause, not a crime. And that cause is propping up the myth of an intractably racist America.
READ MORE: Antiques Roadshow guest stunned at value of painting

An Australian man has discovered framed pictures of himself and his wife in a thrift shop they had lost while moving house more than 30 years ago.

Rob Klaric was browsing Lifeline's Mosman store on Sydney's north shore when he spotted the two pictures on the floor and thought he was 'hallucinating'.

The photos were taken in 1988 when he and Leonie, his wife of 35 years, were backpacking across Europe. They hung on the wall for a few years before a removal company in 1993 misplaced a box they were packed in.

'I'm still buzzing with this. I mean, what's the chances?' Mr Klaric told 2GB's Ben Fordham.

'I've walked into a store and I see these pictures and I thought I was hallucinating.

'We backpacked across Europe, to my mother's place in the north of Italy.

He said the photos were iconic because the one with his wife was in his mother's backyward and 'Mum's passed away a few years ago' while the other was himself posing in front of the Tower of Pisa.

Mr Klaric married Leonie the year after they returned from Europe and they lived in a small place while they were getting on their feet before upsizing a few years later.

Rob Klaric with Lifeline Mosman staff after finding two framed photos of him and his wife on a European holiday from 30 years ago in the store

Mr Klaric said it was a huge coincidence he had decided to visit that store (pictured)

The two pictures were snapped in Italy when he and his wife were backpacking a year before they got married but were misplaced while they were moving house

He had always wondered what happened to the photos and when he saw them in the op-shop his first thought was 'this can't be real' but they were unmistakable.

Staff were also stunned but Mr Klaric explained he still had to pay for the items.

'The ironic thing is that my picture, apologies Leonie, mine was more expensive. It was $12 and hers was $8,' he said.

Mr Klaric said he wondered if his late mother had something to do with the remarkable find.

'My beautiful old Italian mum, it's got her fingerprints all over it,' he said.

'Those pictures were right in the middle [of the shop] on the floor, you would have never seen it unless you walked through the store.

'If it was on the left or the right you wouldn't have seen it.

'I think she's looking down from heaven.'
A Philadelphia man was killed after he became trapped underneath a car when haphazardly popping a wheelie while riding a dirt bike.

Rashad Basil Young Jr. had took the bike for a spin through the crime-riddled streets of the City of Brotherly Love before he struck a black 2024 Genesis sedan.

The impact happened around 8:30pm at 52nd and the 5200 block of Spruce Street on Wednesday evening.

The 25-year-old rider had become pinned underneath the vehicle, unable to free himself from the immense weight of the car.

After strenuous efforts by responding firefighters and Philadelphia Police, Young was freed from the car's mounting grip and was immediately rushed to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he later succumbed to his injuries at 8:57 pm.

The driver, who remains unidentified, was reportedly operating the vehicle within the confines of the law and no arrests have been made in the case as of Wednesday evening.

'I assume he was not traveling that fast at the time, he was not speeding,' Philadelphia Police Captain Andrew DiSanto told NBC10, indicating that the car's driver - who did not sustain injuries - was making a legal turn at the time of the collision.

The driver reportedly remained at the scene of the accident after the crash.

Rashad Basil Young Jr., 25, rode the bike through the crime-riddled streets of the City of Brotherly Love before he struck a black 2024 Genesis sedan

A Philadelphia man was killed after he became trapped underneath a car after haphazardly popping a wheelie while riding a dirt bike

After efforts by responding firefighters and Philadelphia Police, Young was freed from the car's mounting grip and was immediately rushed to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he later succumbed to his injuries at 8:57 pm

An investigation into the late evening accident is ongoing as police seek to determine any and all causes that may have led to the crash.

Young has had a few run-ins with the law in the past, including an October 2019 charge related to carrying a firearm without a license and a guilty plea for a disorderly conduct charge in October, according to court documents.

He had also accumulated additional criminal charges for driving an unregistered vehicle in May 2024, driving with a revoked license in both April and August 2024, and another for speeding in 2018.

Young's loved ones have since taken to social media to share their heartbreak and utter devastation.

'My sweet precious angel I love you so very much Rashad I would give every breath in my body for you,' his grieving mother, Dorothy Young wrote on Facebook.

Others have inundated her comment section sharing heartfelt sentiments about the young man.

'Rest well cousin. Love you Dotsy we are praying for you,' Phillip Young, a man claiming to be the victim's cousin shared.

'No words can truly capture the depth of your grief, and I am so sorry for your loss. In times like these, we can find strength in our foundation. Matthew 5:4 reminds us, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. The impact his life made on those around him would never be forgotten,' another wrote.

Another commented: 'OMG. This is a lot. My next door neighbor, my nephew, my family. I am sooo very very sorry. May God give you all the strength to get through this. Rest in peace our precious one.'
Famously progressive Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez raised eyebrows by removing her pronouns from her X account.

The move from Squad lawmaker, 35, seen as one of the most liberal members of Congress, was seen by some as a sign that the cultural tide is turning following Donald Trump's election win.

Journalist Benjamin Ryan said records showed AOC removed her 'she/her' pronouns sometime between August 3, 2023, and May 28, 2024.

Critics branded her a hypocrite, and noted that just two years ago AOC apologized to followers for not having pronouns in her Instagram bio, claiming they 'fell off' and she didn't realize.

Eagle-eyed conservatives have mocked New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after she quietly removed her pronouns from her X account

The New York lawmaker removed 'she/her' from her bio, and others noticed she also changed her moniker from the genderless 'Representative' to 'Congresswoman'

Conservatives were quick to mock AOC after it was realized that she had removed the pronouns from her account bio. Some also noted that she changed her moniker from the genderless 'Representative' to 'Congresswoman' as she removed her pronouns.

Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has frequently clashed with AOC in Congress, demanded that she 'needs to explain herself.'

'After shoving gender lies and insane ideology down people's throats for years, why has she removed her pronouns?' Greene tweeted.

Conservative commentator Paul Szypula told his 250,000 followers that he believes she was pandering to Hispanic voters after the voter bloc swung dramatically to Donald Trump in the election.

'If you're wondering why AOC ditched her pronouns in her bio, it might have something to do with the massive exodus from the Democrat Party by Hispanic voters,' he argued.

'Many have conservative values and aren't thrilled with gender ideology. They care about low prices and strong borders.'

Others drew a link between her removal of pronouns and Democrats' attempts to coin the phrase 'Latinx' - a gender-neutral alternative to Latino and Latina - which many Hispanic voters said they found offensive in recent years.

'This election killed the woke era,' another added.

It comes days after AOC was slammed by Republicans for her first public response to Trump's win, as she was criticized for 'fearmongering.'

The New York lawmaker warned her followers that he United States may be entering an era of 'fascism and authoritarianism' under Trump.

'We find ourselves I believe in a time where there are lets say peers in history of massive movements of people that mobilize to protect one another in times of fascism and authoritarianism,' AOC said.

'And this is the era that we are poised to enter.'

Ocasio-Cortez has long been a supporter of transgender rights, including so-called gender-affirming care for children, and transgender girls competing in female sports.

But the Democrats more extreme stances were blamed as a massive vote loser for Kamala Harris in the recent election.

An advert showing her supporting taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgeries for illegal migrant prisoners was played on repeat by Team Trump.

Many Dems' insistence that opposing hormones for trans children or banning trans girls from joining female sports teams was transphobic further alienated centrists.

Immigration and inflation were the issues that ultimately swung the election for Donald Trump, but the Dems' unpopular trans stance has now forced a reckoning within the party.

'Donald Trump has talked about turning the military on U.S. citizens that he deems his domestic political enemies. Authoritarians and people that he associates closely with and strongmen aboard in regimes like that, it's not uncommon to jail political dissidents or legislative opponents,' the congresswoman said.

'This is the world that we very realistically may be entering.'
A Stockholm-to-Miami flight was forced to turn around and head back to Europe after it experienced extreme turbulence over Greenland.

The Scandinavian Airlines flight, which was supposed to take over nine hours, was almost complete when it was forced to make a U-turn and head all the way back following the alarming situation on Thursday.

The aircraft returned to a base in Copenhagen to undergo checks and root out technical issues.

A spokesperson told MailOnline the airline did not have the required equipment in Miami to perform the checks.

The passengers would be offered hotel rooms and will be flown to Miami on Friday, per the airline.

A passenger shared an image from inside the Scandinavian Airlines plane after it experienced severe turbulence on Thursday and had to fly back to Europe

The image above shows the scene inside the flight as it experienced severe turbulence

The Scandinavian Airlines flight took off from Stockholm at 12.55pm and was due to land in Miami at 5.45pm local time but decided to turn back to Europe as it reached the US East Coast.

According to Scandinavian Airlines, 254 passengers and one baby were on board the plane.

It had not been confirmed whether any of them were injured in the turbulence.

However, a spokesperson said no serious injuries were reported.

Some passengers posted pictures on social media of the cabin during the turbulence - with items such as plastic cups, paper bags and one man's rucksack scattered all over the floor.

Back in September, a Scandinavian Airlines flight was forced to make a diversion after a rodent was discovered in a passenger's meal.

The aircraft, which was flying from Oslo to Malaga, Spain was forced to land in Copenhagen as a safety precaution after the mouse was found in an in-flight 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 from occurring.
The anti-Trump editor of America's oldest magazine has been forced out of her job after posting a string of foul-mouthed attacks on the president-elect.

DailyMail.com can reveal Laura Helmuth has 'moved on' from Scientific American after describing Trump fans as fascists, racists and sexists in a wild, late-night rant as it became apparent he had won the election.

There had been a mounting public campaign demanding she be fired for the inflammatory remarks.

Magazine president Kimberly Lau said on Thursday: 'Laura Helmuth has decided to move on from her position as editor in chief of Scientific American.

'We wish her well for the future. As we enter our 180th year, we will be searching for our next editor in chief.'

The announcement comes two days after newly unearthed posts dating back to February revealed a pattern of vile remarks targeted towards Trump's allies - including JD Vance and Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Helmuth, as the editor of Scientific American, which has been published continually since 1845, described anti-vaxxers as 'f***ing ghouls' in February, and days later lamented somehow being subscribed to Kennedy Jr's mailing list.

'He could not possibly be barking up a wronger tree,' she wrote.

Laura Helmuth, the editor of America's oldest magazine is now facing calls for her resignation after issuing a groveling apology for her anti-Trump rant earlier in the week

Newly unearthed social media posts dating back to February 2024 reveal a pattern of nasty remarks targeted toward Trump's allies - including Vice Presidential pick JD Vance and Robert F Kennedy Jr

'The messages are all sickening and shameless, but today's is about how rules for getting on the ballot in Kansas are persecuting him. The subject line is ''bloody Kansas''. 'This f***ing guy,' she added. At the time, Kennedy Jr was still running for president.

He went on to drop out of the race and endorse Trump, and Trump later revealed Kennedy Jr would have a 'special role' in his government focusing on healthcare and women's health.

In July, Helmuth threw her weight behind Kamala Harris' bid for the White House after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

Setting her sights on JD Vance after he was announced as Trump's running mate, she wrote: 'As a stepparent, stepchild, half-sib and half-aunt I just cannot WAIT for whoever Kamala Harris's VP pick is.

'Kick JD Vance's bigoted, misogynistic, white supremacist carcass to the f***ing moon.'

Helmuth served as editor in chief of the publication for four years and eight months. Prior to that, she was the health and science editor at the Washington Post.

On Thursday afternoon, she announced her departure on BSky, revealing: 'I've decided to leave Scientific American after an exciting 4.5 years as editor in chief.

'I'm going to take some time to think about what comes next (and go birdwatching).'

She then shared a thread of works she is particularly proud of over her years in command, including stories about climate change, gender affirming care for transgender children and gaslighting.

On Thursday afternoon, she announced her departure on BSky, revealing: 'I've decided to leave Scientific American after an exciting 4.5 years as editor in chief'

He went on to drop out of the race and endorse Trump, and Trump later revealed Kennedy Jr would have a 'special role' in his government focusing on healthcare and women's health

On election night, once it became apparent that Trump would return to the White House and there was no path to victory for Harris, Helmuth vented her frustrations online yet again

Scientific American endorsed Kamala Harris for president in September, asking readers to vote Democrat 'to support science, health and the environment.'

The once-prestigious magazine made its first ever presidential endorsement for Joe Biden in 2020, sparking accusations against Helmuth and her staff that they were pushing a social justice agenda.

On election night, once it became apparent that Trump would return to the White House and there was no path to victory for Harris, Helmuth vented her frustrations online yet again.

'I apologize to younger voters that my Gen X is so full of f*****g fascists,' Helmuth wrote on the social media site Bluesky.

She went on: 'Solidarity to everybody whose meanest, dumbest, most bigoted high-school classmates are celebrating early results because f**k them to the moon and back.'

Helmuth then went after her own home state: 'Every four years I remember why I left Indiana (where I grew up) and remember why I respect the people who stayed and are trying to make it less racist and sexist.

'The moral arc of the universe isn't going to bend itself.'

The following day, Helmuth suggested her staff were as distraught as her, writing: 'Any advice on what workplaces can do to help people who are devastated by the election? Thanks so much.'

Trump was elected the 47th president on Wednesday, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the US Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts.

Setting her sights on JD Vance after he was announced as Trump's running mate, she wrote: 'As a stepparent, stepchild, half-sib and half-aunt I just cannot WAIT for whoever Kamala Harris's VP pick is.

Laura Helmuth, the editor-in-chief of Scientific American, went on a rampage against Trump supporters in now-deleted posts on social media, calling them fascists, racists and sexists

Helmuth issues a groveling apology for her 'offensive and inappropriate posts'

Scientific American endorsed Kamala Harris for president in September, asking readers to vote Democrat 'to support science, health and the environment'

Helmuth's comments sparked immediate backlash, and she later walked back her statements claiming she was 'shocked and confused' when she made them.

'I made a series of offensive and inappropriate posts on my personal Bluesky account on election night, and I am sorry. I respect and value people across the political spectrum,' Helmuth began.

'These posts, which I have deleted, do not reflect my beliefs; they were a mistaken expression of shock and confusion about the election results. These posts of course do not reflect the position of Scientific American or my colleagues. I am committed to civil communication and editorial objectivity.'

In recent years, loyal readers have complained that the publication has become obsessed with race and transgender issues.

In May 2023, Scientific American was blasted for publishing a piece which asserted that arguing there are only two sexes is 'bad science.'

Scientific American also published a recent story accusing Donald Trump of pushing 'eugenics.'
Experts discovered the top 10 overused passwords in the US that could put you at risk of being easily hacked.

NordPass and NordSteller recently released its sixth annual analysis of personal password habits.

Based on NordPass and NordStellar's data they crunched, 'secret' was the most common password in the US.

The management platforms found that the password was used 328,831 times, and it would take less than one second for someone to crack it.

'Secret' is also ranked in the top 10 most common passwords in the world.

Andrew Shikiar, executive director of Fido Alliance, mentioned hackers could guess the password if it's even spelled using numbers or with other substitutions while speaking with CNBC.

'For example, they might believe that "secret" is a weak password but "s3cr3t" will be hard to guess,' Shikiar said in 2019.

'However, hackers are wise to this type of substitution and will have no trouble guessing such a password.'

NordPass and NordSteller recently revealed the 10 most common passwords in the US in its sixth annual analysis of personal password habits

The second most common password in the US, '123456,' is also ranked the number one common password in the world.

NordPass and NordStellar found that 3,018,050 used the password worldwide, and 260,428 used it in the US.

The easy-to-guess passwords that ranked the third, fourth, and fifth most common in America are 'password,' 'qwerty123,' and 'qwerty1.'

'Frequently used passwords such as "password" or "qwerty" are among the first choices attempted by cybercriminals,' according to TeamPassword.

'By opting for popular passwords, you inadvertently make it easier for malicious actors to breach your accounts.'

Sixth, seventh and eight on the list are '123456789,' 'password1' and '12345678.'

And finally, the ninth and tenth most common passwords among Americans are '12345' and 'abc123', although both were found to have been used less than 50,000 times.

When it came to corporate passwords in the US, 'password' was ranked the most common used by American workers.

The password '123456' topped the list as the most common corporate password in the world, which NordPass said was at the top 'five out of six times.'

Social media users were shocked at some of the common passwords that people dependably use both privately and at work.

NordPass and NordStellar's ranked 'secret' the number one most common password in the US

'Don't use "123456" as a password! Strong passwords use letters, numbers, and symbols,' an X user wrote.

'It may be hard to remember, but a secure password can stop hackers in their tracks. Protect your online life by getting creative with your passcodes!'

Another X user joked: 'People love "123456" more than their security, it seems.'

One person advised users not to use weak or guessable passwords, reused passwords, dictionary words and simple passwords, including 'qwerty.'

That X user also suggested everyone create 'unique, complex passwords' that are more than 12 characters and utilize password managers, regularly change their passwords and enable a two-factor authentication.

NordPass and NordStellar named '123456' as the most common corporate password in the world

To yield their results, NordPass and NordStellar analyzed a 2.5 terabyte (TB) database extracted from public sources, including the dark web.

The technology experts organized the statistical information into categories to help analyze it by country of origin, with 44 nations included.

NordPass and NordStellar were also able to distinguish between corporate and personal credentials by domain names and email addresses.

During the analysis, the management platforms did not acquire or purchase anyone's personal information, which was omitted when organizing the data into different categories.
A Connecticut heir murdered his financier dad at a five star Irish hotel after his father came to help him through a mental health episode, police say.

Henry McGowan, 30, appeared at Portlaoise District Court on Thursday after the death of his father John McGowan, 66, at the Ballyfin Demesne hotel in Laois on Tuesday.

McGowan was charged with his murder and made no reply to the charge when he was cautioned by Garda, the Irish Police, according to The Irish Times.

The outlet reported that McGowan was remanded in custody inside Cloverhill Prison and the case was adjourned to November 18.

McGowan's lawyer Barry Fitzgerald said he suffers from significant mental health difficulties.

Garda sources told Extra.ie that Henry had arrived at the hotel several days before the death after a trip around mainland Europe.

The outlet reported that he soon started acting erratically at the hotel and staff then alerted his father who was in the US at the time.

The judge presiding over the case has allowed McGowan to receive immediate medical assistance relating to his mental health.

Henry McGowan, pictured, is accused of murdering his financier dad during a mental health episode at an ultra-luxurious Irish hotel

John McGowan, seen here, was found unresponsive inside the leisure area of the hotel and was later pronounced dead

The McGowan family home in New Canaan, Connecticut is pictured. John McGowan spent decades working as a financier

The elder McGowan was found unresponsive inside the leisure area of the hotel and was later pronounced dead.

The police say the death was caused by a 'fatal assault' and have launched an investigation.

According to public records, Henry McGowan lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, inside a home valued at $1.9 million.

The brutal murdered happened at Ballyfin Demense, pictured

His LinkedIn profile indicates he had been a head partner for a brokerage firm specializing in trading on the New York stock exchange.

McGowan had first worked as a Head Partner for Cohen, Duffy, McGowan & Co LLC, before more recently working with Torus Capital.

He had graduated from Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois, with a Bachelors of Arts in Economics.

The Ballyfin Demesne, set in a 614-acre estate near the Slieve Bloom mountains, is a popular destination for many celebrities.

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West honeymooned at the site after reportedly being turned away from Glin Castle.
MBABANE  Eswatini National Council of Arts and Culture has achieved unprecedented success in promoting Eswatinis culture by increasing the visibility of local artists through the NACAs.

This was said by the Acting Minister of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs, Jane Simelane in Parliament. In the preamble presented to Members of Parliament, Mkhonta stated that the Ministry through Eswatini National Council of Arts and Culture (ENCAC) programmes has seen a significant rise in youth and creatives participation. The highly successful launch of the National Arts and Culture Awards (NACAs) drew over 2 100 entries across diverse artistic disciplines, fostering a renaissance in arts and culture participation, she said. The acting minister also applauded the council for their recommendable work in establishing arts centres in all regions to help creatives nurture their raw talents. The enabled success of such artistic and cultural resources will significantly expand the reach of Eswatinis artists, Mkhonta said.

A member of the Ministrys portfolio committee, Futhi Ngcamphalala said that Eswatini is characterised by its arts and cultural inclusivity and harmony; therefore more emaSwati should participate in the arts industry especially in terms of developing the country economically and socially. As a country we are really in a very good position in terms of developing our arts industry though there is still room to do more. Young people are now recognising and appreciating the fact that there is a lot they can do and achieve through arts and culture, she said.

Ngcamphalala went on to appreciate the governments involvement in fostering arts and culture among the youth, however she pointed out that government needs to fully commit to these industries as they not only showcase Eswatinis unique and rich art and cultural diversity but also play a major role in job creation. Through ENCAC the country hosts several pageants and events like Miss Cultural Heritage and the upcoming NACAs, to name a few. The concern is that all these events are privately sponsored. The government needs to set aside funds for these events as they promote the country, she said. The committee members put an emphasis on the education curriculum to include arts from primary school level so that the talents the pupils have are nurtured at an early stage.

Benefits

In the United States, arts and culture are important to state economies. Arts and culture-related industries, also known as creative industries provide direct economic benefits to states and communities: They create jobs, attract investments, generate tax revenues and stimulate local economies through tourism and consumer purchases. These industries also provide an array of other benefits, such as infusing other industries with creative insight for their products and services and preparing workers to participate in the contemporary workforce.
President Joe Biden arrived in Lima, Peru Thursday for his diplomatic swan song  but it was China's President Xi Jinping who got a hero's welcome.

The Chinese leader was treated to an elaborate red carpet ceremony outside the country's Government Palace, complete with military honors, sword-wielding troops in dress uniforms, a military band, and equestrians as part of an official state visit.

Xi greeted Peruvian President Dina Boluarte and waived to greeters as the two strode the red carpet into the ornate palace, on a trip where they will celebrate a massive Chinese infrastructure investment.

Biden, meanwhile, touched down aboard Air Force One at the country's Jorge Chavez international airport, with plans to attend meetings Friday, where he will huddle with leaders from the Asia-Pacific region who have already switched their gaze to the disorienting return of Donald Trump.

He was greeted by a military cordon sporting blue uniforms and white gloves as he stepped off the presidential aircraft. Joining him on the farewell diplomatic tour was granddaughter Natalie Biden and daughter Ashley.

Then, Biden greeted Peru's Prime Minister Gustavo Adrianzen and got into 'the Beast,' his presidential limo. He slipped on his Ray Bans, and drove toward his upscale hotel and called it a night.

Biden has long prided himself on the the kind of personal diplomacy that gets forged at global gatherings like the annual APEC summit. Now, he faces fellow leaders after having his party swept from power by the man he called a threat to American democracy.

President Joe Biden attends two summits, one in Lima Peru and another in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But Donald Trump is on fellow world leaders' minds

President Joe Biden disembarks Air Force One followed by daughter Ashley Biden and granddaughter Natalie. Biden is spending six days in South American, starting with attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Lima, Peru

With just two months to go in his term, Biden is a 'super lame duck' being overshadowed both by his returning nemesis he had vowed to defeat and the imposing figure of China's Xi Jinping.

The Trump factor is running so strong that world leaders are trading notes on their interaction with the returning president. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke to Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto about his recent chat with Trump.

'He had a phone conversation with President Trump, as I did last week, so we discussed that and what it might mean for the world,' he told reporters. 'Obviously, that's part of the backdrop of APEC and the G20 is what the impact of a change in US Administration will have.'

Biden is set to meet Xi on the sidelines of the meetings on Saturday. But Xi, whose country has eclipsed the U.S. as Peru's top trading partner, was already making his importance known.

The two governments had scheduled a grand opening of a massive China-financed Chancay port project timed to the start of the summit. It was set to open just minutes after Biden touched down in the Peruvian capital. In Washington, the massive project is viewed with suspicion, and officials are eyeing it for potential military applications.

'We need to jointly build and manage well the Chancay port, make "from Chancay to Shanghai" truly become a prosperous path to promoting the joint development of China-Peru, and China- Latin America,' Xi wrote in an op-ed in the local El Peruano newspaper.

With Xi also holding an official state visit with Peru, he got an elaborate welcoming ceremony as he met Peru's President Dina Boluarte at the government palace.

The U.S. wants to manage the relationship 'through this delicate period of transition where we want to maintain a degree of stability,' White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters.

Chinese President Xi Jinping review the honour guard alongside Peru's President Dina Boluarte

China's trade with Peru now surpasses that of the U.S.

Xi took part in an elaborate welcome ceremony as part of a state visit on the sidelines of the APEC conference

People make preparations for the meeting of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Peru's President Dina Boluarte at the government palace, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Lima, Peru

Demonstrators burn a US flag as they take part in a protest against the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Lima on November 13, 2024

Biden is set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping this weekend

Trump was flexing his muscles back in D.C. and Florida by daring Senate Republicans to resist his nominee to be attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who was battling a House Ethics Committee probe of sex trafficking allegations.

With all the geopolitical tensions at play, there were also security ones. The leaders gathered a day after a suicide bomber armed with explosives blew himself up a the Brazilian Supreme Court in Brasilia, days before the G20 leaders including Biden are set to meet in Rio de Janeiro.

There was already tight security in Lima, where Biden is just one of 21 leaders attending the Asia Pacific Economic Conference. Peruvian authorities have put 15,000 police and soldiers on the streets, amid protests over public safety.

Students have been kept home for remote classes, and people have been asked to telework to free up some of the Peruvian capitals notorious traffic. Protesters who have been raising concerns about public safety and gang shakedowns have clashed with police in riot gear outside the summit.

Armored police vehicles have been establishing a presence in some of the city's most visited neighborhoods, and law enforcement and security guards are taking conspicuous positions outside hotels hosting visiting delegations.

The 81-year-old lame duck president brought along granddaughter Natalie, days after attending an event to memorialize her late father, Beau in Biden's hometown of Claymont, Delaware. Natalie is Beau's only daughter.

'Not only is he a lame duck, but a super lame duck because his successor is going to have very different policies,' Erin Murphy, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the AP.

Also coming along for the ride is former Sen. Chris Dodd, a longtime friend and former colleague who is his special advisor for the Americas.

Biden joins the conference despite telling allies at the Munich security conference in 2021 that 'America is back; the trans-Atlantic alliance is back. And we are not looking backward. We are looking forward together.'

'He promised that America is back and instead Donald Trump is back,' mused Richard Haass, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, on CNN.

Also on tap is a meeting with Japan's new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, plus South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, as the Democratic president has tried to strengthen the ties between Japan and South Korea to counterweight a rising China.

Ishiba reportedly wants to meet with Trump in the States before he heads back to Japan.

During a press call organized by the Biden Administration, a senior administration official batted down question after question from reporters wanting to know how Trump's stunning election win would impact the summit or undermine Biden's message.

'Ill refer you to the incoming administration on any questions on what they intend to do. We really cant comment on that,' was one variation of the reply.
A man who is accused of a fatal shooting spree in Scotland threatened to kill an osteopath because he had 'ruined his life' by causing 'irreparable' damage to his body, a court has heard.

Finlay MacDonald, 41, is accused of murdering his brother-in-law John MacKinnon, 47, at his home on Skye on August 10 2022.

He is also accused of attempting to murder a married couple, osteopath John Don MacKenzie and his wife Fay, during an alleged shooting spree in the village of Dornie, Wester Ross, on the Scottish mainland.

MacDonald is further accused of attempting to murder his wife Rowena MacDonald, 34, by repeatedly stabbing her on the same day in the village of Tarskavaig, on the island's Sleat peninsula.

Giving evidence at the High Court in Edinburgh, Mrs Macdonald said that she knew her husband had bought a pump-action shotgun in June 2022 as well as ammunition.

Mrs Macdonald said her husband was signed off sick in March 2022 with a back injury and began telling her to sort out life insurance for both of them.

She said that he visited osteopath Mr MacKenzie, but then became 'fixated' on the idea that he had caused 'irreparable' damage.

John MacKinnon (pictured) was shot dead by a gunman on August 10, 2022. His brother-in-law Finlay MacDonald is accused of murder

Osteopath John D MacKenzie and Fay MacKenzie (pictured together) were also attacked the same day during the alleged shooting spree

MacDonald is also accused of the attempted murder of his wife, Rowena MacDonald (pictured), 32, who suffered 'serious' stab injuries in an attack at her home

Mrs MacDonald said her husband became obsessed with suing Mr MacKenzie - as well as threatening to kill him.

She told the court: 'He wasn't happy - he thought John Don had made his injuries much worse. He claimed that John Don had injured him. He told me that he had ruined his life.

'He was very, very upset for a very long time, he would rant about it every single day. He was in the process of trying to sue John Don and was trying to get a second opinion.

'He would frequently say "I am going to kill him, I'm going to bloody kill him for what he's done ruining my life".'

Ms MacDonald also told the court her husband had been 'abusive' towards her, and that she had gone with a male friend, her boss, who she exchanged late night texts with, to visit a house she planned to buy.

The court has heard that MacDonald repeatedly discharged a shotgun at his brother-in-law, in the village of Teangue.

MacDonald launched a special defence against the murder charge, claiming his 'ability to determine or control his conduct was substantially impaired by reason of abnormality of mind'.

The court heard that in 2013, when Mrs MacDonald was eight months pregnant, there was an 'altercation' between MacDonald and his brother-in-law Mr MacKinnon.

Cross-examining, defence advocate Donald Findlay KC said: 'Do you remember him saying something to you about 'he tried to gouge my eyes out'?

Mrs MacDonald said: 'I do actually.'

She agreed Mr MacKinnon would have driven 15 minutes for the 'altercation', which Mr Findlay put to her caused MacDonald to require hospital treatment.

Finlay MacDonald is charged with murdering John MacKinnon, pictured, in August 2022

A forensic team carried out an investigation into the incident at a property in the Dornie area following the shootings in August 2022

Mr Findlay said: 'He had been told something as the result of which he decided to get in the car to assault your husband and try to gouge his eyes out. Did you phone police?'

Mrs MacDonald said: 'No.'

Mr Findlay said: 'Did your husband phone police?'

Mrs MacDonald said: 'No.'

The court heard that on the morning of August 10, the couple 'struggled' over Mrs MacDonald's phone, which had a serious of messages from her male boss, including some saying 'virtual hugs' which were sent late at night.

Mr Findlay told the court MacDonald was diagnosed with autism after being taken into custody and described the attack on Mrs MacDonald as 'frenzied', but he put it to her that the accused 'did not finish the job'.

Mr Findlay added: 'He's a man with autism, he's a man who fixates, he's a man who needs routine, a needy kind of a man.

'He is somebody who has had a problem with his brother-in-law that has resulted in two sides of a family pretty much severing contact until his sister approaches him in the weeks and months before this.

'Then he has health issues, he has a particular issue with a chiropractor and believes his physical life has been damaged. He has a problem in his marriage, you, had lost all interest.

'He then finds text messages which show a man and you have been exchanging messages; that this man knows what you are planning, knows it's all coming to a head, knows you have been looking at property. All of that is confronted to your husband in early hours of the morning.'

MacDonald denies a murder charge and two charges of attempted murder.

The trial continues in front of Judge Lady Drummond.
Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump's controversial pick to lead the Justice Department, could become the attorney general without a Senate confirmation vote through a little-known clause in the Constitution.

In order to become a confirmed Cabinet official, a nominee must receive support from the majority of senators during a floor vote usually following a hearing.

But Trump declared on Truth Social that he wants to use the 'recess appointment' process in order to get his Cabinet picks into office more quickly.

That includes his most recent selection - embattled former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz - to lead DOJ.

Gaetz was recently under investigation by the FBI for alleged sex trafficking of a minor, although DOJ never brought charges. And the House Ethics Committee was wrapping up a probe into his alleged illicit drug abuse and sexual misconduct.

As a result, his path to confirmation through the traditional process doesn't seem likely as two Republicans - Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine - have already vowed to block him.

Former George W. Bush Justice Department official John Yoo told DailyMail.com that the only way Gaetz can grasp power is through a recess appointment.

Gaetz's path to confirmation through the traditional process doesn't seem likely

'I cannot see the Senate confirming someone whom the House and DOJ have investigated and who could have faced expulsion from the House,' he explained.

But in reality, a recess appointment is a bit more complex than it seems.

'The recess appointments clause in the Constitution effectively allows the President to appoint cabinet officers for about two years without the need for Senate confirmation,' said Yoo.

However, that only happens if the House and Senate 'agree on when to adjourn.'

Over the last few decades, the Senate has never been out for recess for more than a few days at a time, as they can hold 'pro forma sessions.'

That stops the president in power from conducting recess appointments whenever they wish.

The Supreme Court also ruled during Barack Obama's term that the Senate must be on recess for at least 10 days before a president can use the mechanism.

Yoo went on to say that the Senate could 'retaliate' by 'refusing to adjourn, refusing to confirm any inferior officers, and cutting off funding to these officers and refusing to cooperate on Trump's priorities.'

And the president-elect could try and force the Senate into recess himself or pressure Republicans to abdicate their own power, which is unlikely.

Trump made his desire for recess appointments known over the weekend.

But Trump declared on Truth Social that he wants to use a 'recess appointment' process in order to get his Cabinet picks into office more quickly

Rep. Matt Gaetz is likely to face an uphill battle to receive Senate confirmation to become Donald Trump's Attorney General considering his controversy even among Republicans in the upper chamber

'Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments,' Trump posted on Truth Social.

He went on to say that all his Cabinet positions must be filled 'IMMEDIATELY!'

John Thune, R-S.D., who was elected Wednesday to lead the Senate Republicans after Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., stepped down from leadership, has said he's supportive of using the mechanism.

'One thing is clear: We must act quickly and decisively to get the president's Cabinet and other nominees in place as soon as possible to start delivering on the mandate we've been sent to execute, and all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments,' Thune said over the weekend.

Top Republican James Lankford, Oklahoma, said Thursday that Gaetz should get a 'fair shake' and go through the nomination process like every other Cabinet pick.

Allegations about Rep. Matt Gaetz having sexual relationships with underage girls have resurfaced since his appointment.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin slammed Gaetz earlier this year for showing images of girls he 'slept with' to colleagues on the floor of the U.S. House.

The Oklahoma Senator now tells CNN that he trusts Trump's decision to pick Gaetz to join his cabinet.

But he warned Geatz about questions he will have to face during Senate confirmation hearings.

While Republicans regained control of the Senate in the 2024 election, Gaetz is controversial even among members of his own party.

Mullin said that Gaetz was 'seeking fame' when he initiated the motion to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year because the media 'wouldn't give him the time of day' after allegations of inappropriate relationships emerged.

Following an investigation, the Florida lawmaker was never charged by the Justice Department for sex trafficking or engaging in sex with minors.

'This is a guy that the media didn't give the time of day to after he was accused of sleeping with an underage girl. And there was a reason why no one in the conference came and defended him because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor  of the girls that he had slept with,' Mullin told CNN earlier this year.

'He'd brag about how he would crush ED (erectile dysfunction) medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night,' Mullin explained. 'This is obviously before he got married. So when that accusation came out, no one defended him.'

'All of the sudden he found fame because he opposed the Speaker of the House back in November,' he concluded.

Trump announced on Wednesday that he is nomianting Rep. Matt Gaetz to lead his Department of Justice as Attorney General

Video reemerged on Wednesday of Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma claiming earlier this year that Gaetz showed girls he had sexual relationships with to members of Congress on the floor of the House

Gaetz is a hardline pro-Trump lawmaker and has been one of the most vocal supporters of the former  and now future  president. He is a controversial figure among Democrats and Republicans.

Democratic Rep. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has praised Trump for some of his other picks for his 2025 Cabinet and White House, spoke out against the selection of Gaetz as Attorney General.

'There have been serious, qualified individuals nominated to posts, like Rubio or Stefanik. Eric Schmitt would be a solid choice for AG,' Fetterman wrote.

'But Dem opinions on Gaetz aren't that interesting,' he continued. 'The good ones will come from my GOP colleagues to justify a vote for that jerkoff.'

Fetterman's X post noted that Republicans have plenty of opposition to Gaetz, as well. But it'll be left to see next year whether members of the GOP will go on record voting against a Trump nomination.

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman said there are plenty of Republicans who will oppose Gaetz's selection as Attorney General

'Matt Gaetz and I, there's no question we've had our differences,' Mullin said following Trump's announcement on Wednesday. 'They've been very public about it.'

He noted: 'I completely trust President Trump's decision-making on this one.'

'But at the same time he's got to come to the Senate and sell himself,' Mullin countered. 'There's a lot of questions that will be out there. He has to answer those questions. And hopefully, he's able to answer the questions right.'

'If he can, then we'll go through confirmation process.'

Trump said he picked Gaetz, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, after he emerged as a vocal critic of the agency of which his panel provided oversight and called for serious reforms.

'Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System,' Trump wrote of Gaetz's pick. 'Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans' badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.'
A town which found itself at the centre of national uproar when it was suggested hundreds of migrants being housed in a hotel could be given private health care is bitterly divided over the fallout from the row.

Around 300 asylum seekers are being housed at the Cresta Court Hotel in Altrincham, near Manchester, many of them arriving in the last few weeks having made treacherous small boat journeys across the English Channel.

News of their presence sparked a row because the Cresta Court has been newly turned over to migrants at a time when the government has pledged to end the practice of housing asylum seekers in town centre hotels.

And things only became more heated when Nathan Evans, Conservative group leader at the local council, claimed asylum seekers housed at the Cresta Court Hotel in Altrincham had been contracted to a private 'doctors' system'.

It later emerged that they are in fact getting treatment on the NHS from not-for-profit provider GTD Healthcare.

Fury also erupted after locals had weddings and other long-planned functions booked at the Best Western hotel, owned by a group chaired by former BBC director general Greg Dyke, had been cancelled because of its asylum status.

When MailOnline visited Altrincham today we found a town in uproar over the hotel being taken over in this way - with strongly held opinions on both sides.

Some blasted what has happened as 'disgraceful' but others insisted the migrants should be welcomed to their town and properly looked after.

Around 300 asylum seekers are being housed at the Cresta Court Hotel in Altrincham, near Manchester

The Cresta Court Hotel in upmarket Altrincham has closed for one year as migrants are about to move in

Two migrants are spotted chatting outside the Cresta Court hotel and taking selfies

The free health care for migrants has not gone down too well with many residents.

Cleaner Jill Hobbs, 60, said: 'It's wrong that they can get free health care. It's a nightmare trying to get appointments as it is.

'It seems foreigners are getting the best treatment which is wrong. Everyone is talking about the migrants being here.

'They shouldn't be there. It's a lovely hotels and I know people's weddings and Christmas parties have been cancelled.

'It's outrageous.'

Web designer Warren Blinstom, 39, said: 'They shouldn't be getting free health care as we have enough problems for people here getting doctor and dentists appointments.

'My dad had to wait eight-and-a-half hours at Wythenshawe Hospital recently.

'It's not right. They should not be here.

The presence of the migrants at the Altrincham hotel has left the town divided

Web designer Warren Blinstom (pictured), 39, said his father had to wait eight-and-a-half hours at Wythenshawe Hospital recently

Cleaner Jill Hobbs, 60, said: 'It seems foreigners are getting the best treatment which is wrong.'

But engineer, Lara Webster, 25, who was pushing her baby daughter in a pram near the town's market, said: 'I want them here.'

The news caused outrage in the town as parties, weddings and functions have all been cancelled. Pictured: Migrants outside the hotel

Dan Butler and Katy Evans were due to get married at the hotel on May 24 next year and are among at least two couples who had their weddings called off

The hotel is part of Vine Hotels, which Greg Dyke (pictured) - a former FA chairman and BBC director-general from 2000-2004 - chairs as well as being a major shareholder

'It is in the wrong place. The whole asylum system is broken.

'People who come on small boats shouldn't be allowed to get preference over people who make the proper asylum claim.

'There is not enough vetting of these people - we don't know whether a lot of these people are criminals.

'It needs sorting out.'

IT worker John Cumine, 64, said: 'It's a disgrace that they are here and will be getting NHS care.

'No one I know is in favour of them being here. There is enough pressure on health care here as it is.

'It's not right.'

Retired nurse Mary Cunningham, 66, said: 'They shouldn't be getting free health care of even private health care as it is.

'There is too much pressure on doctors surgeries and dentists as it is.'

However others were in favour of the migrants being in Altrincham.

Engineer, Lara Webster, 25, who was pushing her baby daughter in a pram near the town's market, said: 'I want them here.

Migrants were spotted at the hotel earlier this month - understood to be from Syria, Yemen, Iran and Somalia

Worried residents gathered at a meeting earlier this month to voice their concerns

But some residents gathered to show their support for migrants and refugees outside the venue despite the migrants being housed with no notice

'We should make them welcome not demonise them.

'My work is opposite the hotel and I've not heard of any problems.

'Any way the police station is just round the corner, so how much trouble can they cause?

'We should look after these people and they should be health care.

'I do understand if people are worried about not being able to get dentist or doctor appointments.

'But we should look after them and be welcoming.'

Student Mike Hall, 19, said: 'These people have come from terrible situations or dangerous countries at war.

'We should be helping them not trying to drive them away.

'Of course they should get free health care.

'We are a tolerant, welcoming country and we should show it.

'I want them here and I hope they feel welcome.'

Some of the migrants were seen having a smoke outside the hotel and one did praise residents.

Ali Mohammed, 20, said he had come to the UK from Iraq on a small boat like others in the hotel.

Smoking a cigarette as he walked towards the town centre, he said: 'I like it here - it is very welcoming.

'I am from Iraq. I came in a small boat like all the others in the hotel. I am not sure what health care we get.

'I can't say anymore - I am off to meet a friend.'

However their health cover will be provided by not-for-profit provider GTD Healthcare, which stressed it did not provide private care and was being commissioned by the NHS.

Asylum seekers are entitled to free NHS care while their claims are assessed.

However health care in the trendy suburb has become more stretched with the minor injuries ward at Altrincham General Hospital having been shut since the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.

And it was recently announced that it would now be permanently closed sparking outrage among locals.
Billionaire hedge-fund boss Ken Griffin has unloaded two apartments in a prestigious building in Chicago for a $15million loss.

The Citadel CEO sold the properties - the entire 37th and 38th floors of the condo tower No. 9 Walton - for $9million and $10million, respectively.

He paid more than $34 million for them both, back in 2017. After selling the properties Tuesday, he blamed rampant crime in the Windy City.

He said so to The Wall Street Journal, after previously criticizing Illinois' Democrat Governor JB Pritzker for failing to keep Chicago safe.

Since the pair of purchases, Griffin has been on the move - relocating his hedge-fund to South Florida with plans to build a $1billion mega-estate just a quarter mile south of Mar-a-Lago where President-elect Donald Trump resides.

He's also bought a series of multimillion-dollar properties across the country, but appears to be set to part ways with Chicago for good.

The not-so-shrewd move meant a 44 percent loss for the Florida native, after he also sold his unit at the Waldorf Astoria - a deal itself worth about $10.2million - for $3million less than what he paid in 2014.

'The decline in value of Chicago real estate is representative of the failed political leadership in Illinois which is a loss ultimately borne by the people of the state,' he said, weeks after shelling out $45million for an 150million-year-old set of fossils.

Ken Griffin sold two apartments in Chicago for a $15million loss this past Tuesday. He bought them back in 2017 with plans to converge them

The Citadel CEO sold the properties - the entire 37th and 38th floors of the condo tower No. 9 Walton - for $9million and $10million, respectively

'Live on top of the Gold Coast in the most luxurious building in the city,' the listing for the now-sold 37th floor property had read.

'The first time ever offered- This penthouse at Chicago's most distinguished address, No. 9 Walton.

'This a one-of-a-kind and exceptional opportunity to create a 7500+ square feet dream.'

The listing for the 38th floor - an unfinished loft left abandoned by the hedge-funder - added how prospective buyers would have had access to their own private rooftop pool and pavilion on the roof, with the apartment being the building's penthouse.

'The first time ever offered- This true penthouse at Chicago's most distinguished address, No. 9 Walton,' it goes on.

The homes went on the market last month, and both were seemingly purchased by the same buyer.

The party who paid the still-hefty price has not been named, but they made the purchase at a time where the market for luxury condos are in the midst of a remarkable downturn.

A recent report from @properties showed how the median price of condos in the city above $1million dropped by nearly 10 percent this year, down from just three years ago.

The not-so-shrewd move meant a 44 percent loss for the Florida native, whose move back to the Sunshine State comes amid rising crime and violence in Chicago

Brandon Johnson, 57, an ex-teacher who spent four years as a Cook County commissioner, has failed to bring down crime substantially since replacing Lori Lightfoot - who many blame for the current state of the city - last year

On Wednesday, Griffin called Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker - seen here on-stage during night two of the Democratic National Convention, held this year in Chicago

They also did during a historic stretch of crime - one that saw it again assume the dubious distinction of being the US's murder capital for the 12th year straight in 2023.

The Big Apple - no stranger to homicide - is approximately three times larger than the Dem-led city, but had roughly 40 percent fewer murders last year, statistic show.

Moreover, since Brandon Johnson replaced languishing Lori Lightfoot last year, the statistics have continued, according to figures published Thursday by the Chicago Police Department.

Still, the totals are down 8 percent for homicide and 5 percent for shootings compared to the same time last year - showing some, albeit slow, improvement.

As for Griffin, who is 56, he bought the two homes with plans to converge them. However, he never got that far, with the 38th floor still completely gutted, photos show.

Meanwhile, he continues to snap up properties in places like New York, Miami, and Palm Beach, including a sting of posh properties on Miami's exclusive Star Island.

A major donor to Republicans in the past, he has yet to donate to Trump, but in July, he gifted $10million to a crucial conservative fundraising group - the Congressional Leadership Fund - in an apparent attempt to gain some sway over Congress.

A major donor to Republicans in the past, Griffin - believed to be worth around $50billion - has yet to donate to Trump,

However, in July, he gifted $10million to a crucial conservative fundraising group - the Congressional Leadership Fund - an apparent attempt to gain some sway over Congress

That same month, the man thought to be worth nearly 50biillion purchased a late-Jurassic stegosaurus skeleton for $44.6 million at Sothebys in New York City , a record-setting sum in dinosaur collecting that further demonstrated his deep pockets

That same month, the man thought to be worth nearly $50billion purchased a late-Jurassic stegosaurus skeleton for $44.6 million at Sothebys in New York City, a record-setting sum in dino-collecting that further demonstrated his deep pockets.

The stegosaurus, named 'Apex,' is 11 feet tall and nearly 27 feet and has been called the 'finest stegosaurus specimen ever to appear at auction.'

The skeleton was expected to sell for about $6million, with Griffin winning the live auction after competing with six other bidders for 15 minutes.

The person he sold the properties to remains unknown, but the sale was handled by Christie's International Real Estate and Jameson Sothebys International Realty, the listings showed.
A notorious Venezuelan gang that has spread its tentacles across the US is now terrorizing 'every major city' in Tennessee, local officials have warned.

Tren de Aragua was described by Tennessee Bureau of Investigation director David Rausch as a violent 'super gang' in Tuesday's budget meeting.

'We know they are on a pathway to more violence,' said Rausch. 'They are back in all our major cities. They are running human trafficking operations.'

Major cities in Illinois, Connecticut, Georgia, New York, Colorado, and multiple cities in Texas, have also seen major incidents involving the gang.

'They're here, and they're in numbers,' Rausch added.

He warned that the group was on a path to increased violence and have asked the governor for funding to put an end to their operations, before they engage in more retail theft and take on the drug trade.

He added: 'Recently there was a video that they showed, where they shot a cartel member 31 times, broad daylight on video and posted it to social media.'

Congressman Andy Ogles said this issue is one he had been keeping a close eye on, he added: 'Every small town in America is a border town because of the immigration crisis.'

The Tren de Aragua gang has been identified with increasing violence across multiple major cities in America

Footage of the gang's activity in Colorado appears to capture the armed gang seizing control of an apartment complex

Gang members have been arrested across America for charges of violence, sexual offences, drug charges or human trafficking. Pictured is Estefania Primera, 37, who was arrested in Texas on charges of human trafficking after drugging another migrant woman and forcing her into sex

'We will begin deporting individuals who are here. You've got to prioritize those who are here with violent intent,' said Ogles, who got in touch with president-elect Donald Trump. Gov. Lee told WZTV he would review the budget requests from the TBI.

The same gang had been identified in the state years ago during a human trafficking bust, the gang had been abducting women from Venezuela and took them to Tennessee. Many of the gang members fled after the operation but none had been seen since - until recently.

Stories of the violent gang's presence across America has increased over the last few years.

Arrest data shared with DailyMail.com revealed that the gangsters were now operating in more US cities than originally feared.

Members from the Tren de Aragua gang were busted in Chicago - dozens in less than two years - and several were allowed to walk free, according to the New York Post.

At least 30 suspected gang members were arrested by Chicago Police between January 2023 and September 2024 for crimes ranging from traffic violations to robberies and drug offences, the outlet reported.

The gang had adopted its name between 2013 and 2015, according to CNN, but began operations years before.

The group's leadership were reportedly running out of the notorious Tocoron prison, which they controlled.

Inside the prison walls, officials found a swimming pool and several restaurants and weapons, including automatic rifles, machine guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch has warned that the violent 'super gang', Tren de Aragua , has infiltrated all major cities in the state and is continuing to grow

Venezuela's most violent gang Tren de Aragua has moved its headquarters to just across the US border in the Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez

US Border Patrol chief Jason Owens, posted on X: 'Watch out for this gang. It is the most powerful in Venezuela, known for murder, drug trafficking, sex crimes, extortion, & other violent acts.'

A former Venezuelan police officer, Alvaro Boza who now lives in Florida, says he fled his country in large part because the gang had become so powerful.

Boza recalled that the gang was able to kill law enforcement, like him, with little consequence.

A fellow police officer who refused to cooperate with the gang was shot 50 times, Boza recalled: 'He refused and was murdered. They tied his body to a motorcycle and dragged it throughout the San Vicente neighborhood to demonstrate the power of the Tren de Aragua.'

Earlier this year republican members of Congress, led by Florida senator Marco Rubio, called on the Biden administration to designate the gang as a 'Transnational Criminal Organization', reported CNN.

The letter they sent to President Biden read: 'If left unchecked, they will unleash an unprecedented reign of terror, mirroring the devastation it has already inflicted in communities throughout Central and South America, most prominently in Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru.'
Speaker Mike Johnson is begging Donald Trump to not poach any more Cabinet nominees from the House of Representatives.

Republicans officially won control of the House on Wednesday, gaining control of the 218 seat minimum needed to hold the majority.

Though their majority is already being threatened - and not by Democrats.

The president-elect has already snatched up several high-profile GOP members of the House to fill the many positions in his future administration.

Already Trump has nominated Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York to be Ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz of Florida to be national security advisor and Matt Gaetz of Florida to be attorney general.

As it stands, Republicans have won 218 seats to the Democrats' 209 seats in the next Congress that will be convened in January 2025. Eight House races still remain without results.

'It's a great problem to have,' Johnson optimistically told Fox News. 'We have an embarrassment of riches in the House Republican Congress.'

'Lots of talented people who are very attuned to the America First agenda, and they can serve the country well in other capacities.'

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson pleaded with Trump to give him 'some relief' after the president-elect poached three Republicans from the slim GOP House majority

Trump selected Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., to become his national security advisor

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., was chosen by Trump to be the next Ambassador to the U.N.

'But I've told President Trump, enough already, give me some relief,' Johnson revealed. 'I have to maintain this majority.'

If Trump decides to take any more GOP members the speaker's grip on power will get significantly weaker.

Every member that the president-elect brings in strengthens House Democrats' hand by forcing a special election to replace the outgoing members.

Many states have differences in how they conduct special elections too, meaning the timing of when they might happen could impact critical votes.

Gaetz resigned his Florida seat right after being nominated to AG, Johnson told reporters Wednesday, and the speaker was hopeful Florida could hold elections and get a replacement to Washington by early January.

Johnson said Trump fully understands his predicament.

'He understands that, of course, we've been talking about it almost hourly every day,' Johnson said.

Republicans 'will have a majority' he added.

President-elect Donald Trump, accompanied on stage by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik, addressing House Republicans on Wednesday

Trump greets his friend Stefanik on stage at the House GOP event

Trump selected former Rep. Matt Gaetz to be his next attorney general

The GOP is expected to control between 220 - 222 seats next Congress. That would give them only a handful of votes to work with when passing critical legislation.

And Johnson this week even mentioned how every vote matters.

'Every single vote will count because if someone gets ill or has a car accident or a late flight on their plane, then it affects the votes on the floor,' Johnson said on Tuesday.
A man has been charged and a water pistol seized by police following reports a male was seen discharging a replica firearm near NSW's Parliament House.

Police responded to reports of a man discharging a firearm on Hospital Road in Sydney's CBD about 1pm on Thursday.

The man had left the scene in a car before officers arrived.

Police arrested a 28-year-old male rideshare driver about 5.10pm on Thursday in Mascot in Sydney's inner south after police were provided with information.

Officers also seized a water pistol, which will be subject to further testing.

The man was taken to Mascot Police Station where he was charged with possessing an unauthorised firearm.

'Police will allege in court that the water pistol appeared to be a dark-coloured pistol similar in appearance to a "Glock" manufactured firearm,' said a NSW Police spokesperson.

Police initially suspected the gun was an illegal gel blaster, a type of firearm which is outlawed in every state, except Queensland, which fires water-filled, gel pellets.

Police arrested a 28-year-old in Wolli Creek after reports a man discharged a replica firearm in Sydney's CBD

Police rushed to Hospital Road in Sydney where they carried out their investigations before arresting a man four hours later

'Initial inquiries suggest the replica firearm may be a gel blaster, which was discharged several times into the ground,' police said on Thursday.

The 28-year-old was refused bail to appear before Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court today.

Officers had converged on Parliament House following reports of a shooting on Thursday.

A number of police were reportedly seen talking with special constables assigned to buildings and offices in the parliament.

Other officers could also be seen conducting line-searches for evidence.
Two women have been rushed to hospital after the driver of a car that crashed into a daycare centre reportedly suffered a medical episode.

The Mazda ploughed into a hedge outside the daycare centre at Burdekin Court, in Wattle Grove in Sydney's south-west, at about 5.40pm on Thursday.

The 25-year-old female driver reportedly suffered a medical episode behind the wheel moments before the crash. No children were injured.

The driver and her 78-year-old female passenger both suffered minor injuries and were momentarily trapped inside the vehicle.

Emergency services freed the women and rushed both to Liverpool Hospital.

A NSW Police spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia officers are still investigating what may have caused the incident.

'The building structure was damaged, however there were no reports of any other persons being injured,' the spokeswoman said.

'Investigations have commenced into the circumstances of the crash.'

The Mazda ploughed into a hedge outside the daycare centre at Burdekin Court, in Wattle Grove, in Sydney 's south-west, at about 5.40pm on Thursday (pictured)

Emergency services (pictured) rushed to the scene after two women became momentarily trapped inside the vehicle. Both were taken to Liverpool Hospital with minor injuries

Images from the scene showed the black hatchback beside an exterior wall of the daycare centre after it crashed through a hedge.

The car had crossed over a public footpath and the lawn before it crashed.

Several hedges and plants in front of the centre were damaged in the incident.
An influencer is begging to be reunited with her Instagram-famous spider monkey that was confiscated after she was in a drunken car crash.

Jorgie Boy, an almost three-year-old primate, is recuperating at Funky Monkey Ranch near Burleson, Texas, with what staff said was rickets.

He weighs just 6lbs, half what a spider monkey his age should, and had tiny fractures in his bones due to the metabolic bone disease caused by poor nutrition.

Fashion influencer Brandi Botello begged authorities to give Jorgie Boy back after Dallas police found them in a car wreck on early Saturday morning.

'These past few days have been the hardest days of my life, I'm devastated. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't sit still,' she said.

'I'm so used to waking up every morning with him hugging my face we do everything together we share food, we take baths together I'm willing to keep trying my hardest to get him back home.

'It breaks my heart knowing his probably caged up when he's never been in one before he's with me 24/7.'

Botello was involved in a car crash with Jorgie Boy, who was asleep on her lap and uninjured, where the vehicle hit a curb so hard the wheels were torn off.

Jorgie Boy, an almost three-year-old primate, is recuperating at Funky Monkey Ranch near Burleson, Texas, with what staff said was Rickets

Fashion influencer Brandi Botello begged authorities to give Jorgie Boy back after Dallas police found them in a car wreck on early Saturday morning

She had blood drawn at a local hospital and faced being charged with a DUI, but claimed it was a 'very drunk' young man who was behind the wheel and she moved to the driver's seat moments before police arrived.

Botello admitted she was drunk and passed out in the passenger seat and shouldn't have put herself or Jorgie Boy in that situation, but called it 'one mistake'.

Dallas police gave the monkey to the City of Irving, where Botello lives, which transferred him to the wildlife sanctuary.

Funky Monkey Ranch owner Dwan Johns said Jorgie Boy had was malnourished with a lack of Vitamin D, and elevated liver and pancreatic levels - which he blamed on eating too much fast food and soft drink.

Videos showed Botello feeding him eating eggs from Waffle House, biscuits, and she said he loved Tex Mex. Spider monkeys usually live off fruit and vegetables.

Botello disputed that she failed to take proper care of Jorgie Boy and claimed he was probably malnourished because he refused to eat when they were separated.

'He's VERY well taking care of! I'm all he knows. Jorgie Boy has his own personality he's not a regular monkey he's very well known across the US,' she wrote.

'We always do giveaways for the public such as Friendsgiving at no cost to anyone. I threw him a birthday party which over 400 people attended also at no cost.

'I've tattooed his name across my back, I have his name engraved in my bracelet, I truly love him with all my heart.'

Botello was involved in a car crash with Jorgie Boy, who was asleep on her lap and uninjured, where the vehicle hit a curb so hard the wheels were torn off

Botello has Jorgie Boy's name tattooed on her back and often naps with him

Botello said she threw Jorgie Boy a birthday party including this huge cake that was attended by 400 people

Dozens of Instagram photos and videos showed Jorgie Boy dressed in baby clothing wearing chunky jewelry, and attending Dallas Cowboys games.

The pair even dressed as Dora the Explorer and her pet monkey, Boots, for Halloween.

Botello posted about the saga on social media, spawning hundreds of 'Free Jorgie Boy' posts and raising almost $4,000 - though $3,000 was from one donor.

She asked for donations for legal fees despite her instagram showing her and Jorgie Boy wearing expensive jewellery and buying a $400 onesie.

The influencer said she was prepared to to receive training from the sanctuary on how to properly look after him and pay for the proper permits.

Monkeys are not allowed as pets in Irving so she would have to move to a county that permits exotic pets.

'After five days no sleep I finally got to take a good nap but this ugly depressing lonely feeling I have is the worst. 'My body feels so heavy,' she wrote on Instagram on Wednesday.

'I'm not going to stop trying! As a mother that's what we do for our kids! I don't care how delusional I sound to anybody!

Jorgie Boy weighs just 6lbs, half what a spider money his age should, and had tiny fractures in his bones due to the metabolic bone disease caused by poor nutrition

Dozens of Instagram photos and videos showed Jorgie Boy dressed in baby clothing wearing chunky jewellery, and attending Dallas Cowboys games

The pair even dressed as Dora the Explorer and her pet monkey, Boots, for Halloween

'He means more to me than anything in the world, I'm not going to let one little mistake break me. I'm willing to change anything and everything for him.

'Being that the wrong place at the wrong time is a real thing. I owned up to it, I know I'm a good mom.'

Jorgie Boy is drinking baby formula and eating pureed baby food, receiving sun therapy twice a day, and will undergo physical therapy.

Johns said he was not yet strong enough to play with the five other monkeys and can't swing or climb well.

He told the Dallas Morning News he would not give him back to Botello.

'People think monkeys are fun and cute, and they treat them like accessories,' he said.

Botello said she got Jorgie Boy from a friend when he was two months old, born on February 14, 2022, but didn't know where he came from.

Spider monkeys are native to parts of South America but are violently taken from their parents and smuggled into the US where Instagram is driving a market for them.
Traditional oilcloth umbrella-making craftsmanship inherited in E China's Anhui

Xinhua) 08:44, November 14, 2024

Zheng Guomin, a provincial-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, makes oilcloth umbrella at Guomin Oilcloth Umbrella Plant in Gufeng Village of Jingxian County, east China's Anhui Province, Nov. 13, 2024. The umbrella, made of oiled cloth and bamboo frame, is a traditional Chinese handicraft. The oilcloth umbrella-making craftsmanship with 12 procedures is a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage. (Xinhua/Cao Li)

A worker makes ribs for an oilcloth umbrella in Gufeng Village of Jingxian County, east China's Anhui Province, Nov. 13, 2024. The umbrella, made of oiled cloth and bamboo frame, is a traditional Chinese handicraft. The oilcloth umbrella-making craftsmanship with 12 procedures is a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage. (Xinhua/Cao Li)

A worker airs oilcloth umbrellas in Gufeng Village of Jingxian County, east China's Anhui Province, Nov. 13, 2024. The umbrella, made of oiled cloth and bamboo frame, is a traditional Chinese handicraft. The oilcloth umbrella-making craftsmanship with 12 procedures is a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage. (Xinhua/Cao Li)

Zheng Guomin, a provincial-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, checks an oilcloth umbrella at Guomin Oilcloth Umbrella Plant in Gufeng Village of Jingxian County, east China's Anhui Province, Nov. 13, 2024. The umbrella, made of oiled cloth and bamboo frame, is a traditional Chinese handicraft. The oilcloth umbrella-making craftsmanship with 12 procedures is a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage. (Xinhua/Cao Li)

Zheng Guomin, a provincial-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, introduces techniques of making oilcloth umbrella to visiting students at Guomin Oilcloth Umbrella Plant in Gufeng Village of Jingxian County, east China's Anhui Province, Nov. 13, 2024. The umbrella, made of oiled cloth and bamboo frame, is a traditional Chinese handicraft. The oilcloth umbrella-making craftsmanship with 12 procedures is a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage. (Xinhua/Cao Li)

A worker makes an oilcloth umbrella in Gufeng Village of Jingxian County, east China's Anhui Province, Nov. 13, 2024. The umbrella, made of oiled cloth and bamboo frame, is a traditional Chinese handicraft. The oilcloth umbrella-making craftsmanship with 12 procedures is a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage. (Xinhua/Cao Li)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Sir,



While voices are typically understood as a type of sound, it seems that the voices of UNESWA students are imbued with a profound sense of sorrow, akin to salty tears.

When a person cries, it is often a manifestation of deep pain, and it appears that the current students are overwhelmed by a cycle of suffering. If one were to inquire about the time spent at the institution this year, it would be difficult to provide an accurate response. The academic year for both Kwaluseni and Luyengo campuses commenced on March 8.

Examinations

However, examinations for the second semester began in mid-February and concluded by the end of March. Following this, students faced an extensive break from April until the 19th of August. During this lengthy period, some students sought employment, while many others found themselves idle at home, a situation that can only be described as painful. The stories shared on the University Confessions page are heart-wrenching, and even a person with emotional detachment would find them distressing. Approximately 10 per cent of the student population confessed to enduring abusive relationships while struggling to escape poverty at home. It is tragic to consider that the closure of the university subjected these vulnerable individuals to further torment. To this day, the reason behind the prolonged absence from the institution remains unclear.

Challenges

Upon their return, students faced further challenges as their allowances were not disbursed in a timely manner. How can they be expected to survive under such conditions? How can they maintain hope for the future when their present circumstances are so unclear? Were the students wrong to protest and boycott classes in a bid to claim what is rightfully theirs? Why were they met with expulsion for simply standing up for their rights? What is the purpose of education if the knowledge gained cannot be applied meaningfully? The situation raises numerous questions about the ongoing turmoil. Was the closure of the university for five months justified if no progress has been made upon reopening?

Future

Is there a viable future for UNESWA students, or are they destined to experience only despair and suffering? The current climate within the institution suggests a profound need for change. Students are grappling with not just academic challenges, but also with their personal circumstances. They are yearning for a supportive environment that fosters growth and well-being rather than one that exacerbates their struggles. As we reflect on these issues, it is essential to consider the broader implications for the student body and the future of the university.

There must be a commitment to addressing the grievances of the students and ensuring that their voices are heard and valued. Only through understanding and action can we hope to create a more supportive and nurturing academic environment.



Anonymous
They had attended a welfare check early on Friday morning

A tense siege in suburban Queensland has been diffused with the arrest of a 43-year-old man who had barricaded himself inside a house with a weapon.

An 'emergency situation' was declared on Hood Street at Urangan, in Hervey Bay, about 4.30am on Friday following a welfare check at 3am.

Hundreds of residents were ordered to stay indoors as police negotiated with the man, who was eventually arrested shortly after 10am.

Children had been inside the home and the man had armed himself with a bladed weapon, according to local media reports.

Police managed to get the children out of the single storey brick house to safety but continued to negotiate with the man for another few hours.

Several police officers along with paramedics were seen stationed around the property.

A trailer with a large toolbox could also be seen in the driveway with a 'for sale' sign perched on it.

'Upon arrival, police began negotiations with a male resident at the address,' Queensland Police said.

'An emergency situation was declared around 4.30am.'

An 'emergency situation' was declared under the Public Safety Preservation Act on Hood Street at Urangan, in Hervey Bay, about 4.30am on Friday

Residents in the area (pictured) had been ordered not to leave their homes until the situation was resolved

The lockdown was declared under the Public Safety Preservation Act.

The area included Hood Street, Esplanade, Marine Court and Pulgul Street.

'Members of the public were advised to avoid the area, and those within the exclusion zone were asked to remain indoors until further notice,' police said.

Traffic diversions were also in place but the restrictions have now been lifted.

The man remains in custody and no charges have yet been laid.
Israel is rushing to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon as a gift to American President-elect Donald Trump, according to reports.

Ron Dermer - Benjamin Netanyahus Minister of Strategic Affairs - met Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner in Mar-a-Lago on Sunday to discuss a possible peace proposal.

Following this, he travelled to the White House to speak with the Biden administration - a clear sign of Netanyahus realigning priorities before Mr Trump is inaugurated in January.

Israeli officials who spoke to the Washington Post said they country Israel hopes to secure Trump a foreign policy win by agreeing on a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

One Israeli official anonymously told the Post that there is an understanding that Israel would gift something to Trump ... that in January there will be an understanding about Lebanon.

Mr Netanayhus office and a spokesperson for Donald Trump declined to comment about any impending ceasefire agreement.

Meanwhile Dermers office told The Washington Post that a wide range of issues were discussed during his visit to the US.

The talks emerged as a senior Hamas official claimed the terror group is ready to secure a Gaza ceasefire deal with Israel immediately but they have not had any serious proposals from Israel in months.

Benjamin Netanyahus Minister of Strategic Affairs met Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago on Sunday

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is understood to be trying to rush a ceasefire deal with Lebanon

Dr Basem Naim - appearing on Sky News The World With Yalda Hakim - also suggested that Hamas had no regrets about committing the October 7 terror attacks which killed 1,200 Israelis and caused the ensuing war in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinans - describing the massacre last year as an act of defence.

Trump has long-said that once elected he wants to bring an end to wars in the Middle East and Europe but last month in a phone call the American President told Netanyahu to do what you have to do to defeat Hezbollah and Hamas.

Last night Frank Lowenstein, a former special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under President Barack Obama who served during the transition to the first Trump administration, told the Washington Post: Netanyahu has no loyalty to Biden and will be focused entirely on currying favour with Trump.

[And] Trump wont hesitate to act like hes already president when he sees an opportunity.

As a ceasefire agreement draws nearer, Netanyahu published a video statement on Sunday stating that he had spoken to President elect Trump three times and that they both saw major opportunities ahead for Israel, especially in advancing peace.

According to Israeli and American sources a ceasefire plan would focus on forcing Hezbollah to retreat beyond the Litani River, a strategic region in southern Lebanon.

Since October 2023, following Hamass brutal terror attack in Israel, Lebanese terrorists have fired thousands of rockets and missiles on Israel killing 45 civilians, 31 soldiers and displacing more than 60,000 people from their homes.

Ron Dermer, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S, met with Donald Trump in Florida

Trump has said that once elected he wants to bring an end to wars in the Middle East and Europe

Meanwhile in Lebanon more than 3,300 people have been killed following Israels limited incursion into the country, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry - which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

A source familiar with Hezbollah said the terror group would be willing to withdraw its fighters north of the Litani as part of a temporary cease-fire agreement.

But they added that the groups condition for progress remains clear: Israel must be prohibited from conducting operations within Lebanese territory.

It is believed that in any agreement the Lebanese military would take control of the border zone for an initial 60-day period, overseen by the United States and Britain.
Keir Starmer was last night told to 'police the streets, not tweets' after he backed the controversial investigation of 'non-crime hate incidents'.

The Prime Minister came under fire after No 10 said he supported police action to 'capture data' on incidents and comments which are not serious enough to constitute a crime.

Critics say the growing trend is a waste of police time and risks having a 'chilling effect' on free speech, with officers sometimes dealing with malicious complaints that amount to little more than hurt feelings.

The Free Speech Union has branded the tactics 'Orwellian' and described non-crime hate incidents as 'thought policing'.

But No 10 said Sir Keir supported the practice, adding: 'It's important that the police can capture data relating to non-crime hate incidents where it is proportionate and necessary to do so to help prevent serious crimes which may later occur.'

Keir Starmer was last night told to 'police the streets, not tweets'

The Prime Minister came under fire after No 10 said he supported police action to 'capture data'

The case generated widespread concern about free speech, with billionaire Elon Musk  the owner of X, formerly Twitter  commenting: 'This needs to stop'

Downing Street said the Home Office was conducting a review, 'looking at how to do this while also balancing the fundamental right of free speech, and ensuring that the police can spend their time dealing with the issues that matter most to our communities'.

But rather than cracking down on the issue, the department later said it was simply looking at 'the best way to ensure police can record non-hate crime incidents to ensure we understand the extent of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in a balanced way' rather than reviewing their use.

A source said the review reflected a Labour manifesto commitment to 'reverse the Conservatives' decision to downgrade the monitoring of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate'.

Senior Tories criticised the PM's intervention and urged him to direct the police to focus on tackling real crimes.

In a message on X, justice spokesman Robert Jenrick said: 'Starmer shouldn't be wasting a second of our police officers' time on so-called 'non-crime hate incidents'. They're a chilling attack on free speech. Police the streets, not tweets.'

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp added: 'Starmer has got this wrong. Non-crime hate incidents should not take up police time, which should be spent catching real criminals. It also risks infringing free speech. Only where there is clear danger of an actual crime later occurring should the police get involved.'

The issue hit the headlines this week after Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson revealed she was visited at home by police on Sunday over a deleted social media post from a year ago.

Pearson said she was told police were investigating an alleged non-crime hate incident. Essex Police have since clarified they were in fact investigating a potential criminal matter under the Public Order Act, involving material 'likely or intended to cause racial hatred'.

In a message on X, justice spokesman Robert Jenrick said: 'Starmer shouldn't be wasting a second of our police officers' time on so-called 'non-crime hate incidents'

A source said the review reflected a Labour manifesto commitment to 'reverse the Conservatives' decision to downgrade the monitoring of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate'

The case generated widespread concern about free speech, with billionaire Elon Musk  the owner of X, formerly Twitter  commenting: 'This needs to stop.'

Former director of public prosecutions Ken McDonald also raised concerns about the recording of non-crime hate incidents. The crossbench peer said people could have their reputations tarred on the basis of little more than the say-so of the alleged victim, telling BBC Radio Four's PM show: 'We are talking about non-crimes.

'These are non-criminal incidents and the bottom line is that a disclosable record is being made that a named individual has been responsible for a hate incident short of a crime without any proper process to determine whether the event took place or was motivated by hate. Because the hate component is identified solely by the supposed victim on the basis of what they feel happened.

The danger is that these records are disclosable to prospective employers in certain circumstances and who is going to employ someone said by the police to have engaged in acts motivated by racial, religious, sexual or gender hatred?'

In September, the police watchdog warned that forces were recording too many hate crime incidents and getting involved in disputes that include 'hurt feelings'. Its report found that officers were having to take action that 'may appear to contradict common sense', according to Andy Cooke, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary.

Last night, The Times reported that children as young as nine were among thousands of people being investigated for non-crime hate incidents.

Forces recorded incidents against a pupil who called a primary school classmate a 'retard'and against two secondary school girls who said a classmate smelt 'like fish'.

Norfolk Constabulary recorded a hate incident after a dog walker spotted stickers on gate stating: 'Trans women are men.' And North Wales Police received a 'racial' complaint from a man who claimed he had been refused service in a pub because he was English.
ONE of disgraced Mohamed Al Fayeds brothers also abused women who worked at Harrods, former staff at the store have claimed.

Three women told the BBC that Salah Fayed abused them in London, the south of France and Monaco between 1989 and 1997, including one alleged case of rape.

All three say they were also sexually assaulted or raped by Mohamed  the late Harrods boss who has been exposed as a prolific abuser who assaulted hundreds of women.

Harrods said in a statement that the new claims point to the breadth of abuse by Fayed and raise serious allegations against his brother.

Salah, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2010, was one of three Fayed brothers who bought the Knightsbridge department store in 1985.

One of the three women, Helen, said she was 23 in 1989 and working at Harrods when Mohamed raped her in a Dubai hotel room.

The former employee, who has waived her right to anonymity, said she later took a job as his younger brother Salahs personal assistant at his Park Lane home, where she alleges he drugged then raped her while she was unconscious.

The BBC has also spoken independently to two other women who say they were abused by both Mohamed and Salah.

All three say they were also sexually assaulted or raped by Mohamed, pictured  the late Harrods boss who has been exposed as a prolific abuser who assaulted hundreds of women

Harrods, pictured, said in a statement that the new claims point to the breadth of abuse by Fayed and raise serious allegations against his brother.

Salah, pictured, was one of three Fayed brothers who bought the Knightsbridge department store in 1985

They say they were trafficked and tricked by Salah into smoking crack cocaine.

One woman told the BBC that she was just 19 when she was pressured to sit with Salah in a hot tub in his Monaco apartment where he sexually assaulted her. She said he had encouraged her to smoke what he told her was tree resin from a homemade bong pipe which was in fact crack.

Lawyers for the Justice for Harrods Survivors said last night: We have credible evidence from our survivors suggesting the abuse perpetrated at Harrods and Mohamed Al Fayeds other properties was not limited to Mr Al Fayed himself.

We are grateful that another abuser has now been unmasked and look forward to the others on whom we have credible evidence  whether abusers themselves or enablers facilitating that abuse  being exposed in due course.

Allegations of sexual abuse against Mohamed, who died in August last year aged 94, came to a head earlier this year, when a BBC investigation saw five women accuse him of rape.

Since then at least 40 more alleged victims have contacted the police amid fears hundreds could have been targeted by the Egyptian businessman.
How would you handle a bully? Weve all come across them, whether at school, the workplace or in our social lives.

Most of us have witnessed their insidious intimidation campaigns at close quarters; some of us have suffered horribly at their hands.

Many a fantasy is harboured about the bully getting his or her comeuppance. That one needs to be taught a lesson, we observe.

We delight in seeing the lesson play out. The film industry teems with depictions of just this scenario.

It turns out we rather enjoy justice, that retribution satisfies something inside us and even inspires us in building our own defences  or planning our counter-attacks  against bullies.

I remember a difficult period in my childhood after my parents separated when I enrolled in a new primary school in a town where I knew no one of my age.

A bully, sensing vulnerability, moved in.

My mother was beside herself with rage after I endured one unpleasant day of taunts from the classroom thug and made her feelings clear in the headmasters office that week. I was never troubled again.

New woke Scottish Government guidance warns that branding children bullies is disempowering

Solution

My fathers solution seemed more problematic to me at the time but, the older I get, the more it appeals.

Stand up to him. Dont let him win. Remember, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Whatever your solution for dealing with bullies, Id wager it is founded on a single objective  removing their power to make victims suffer.

Power is, after all, the currency of the oppressor. When coupled with egotism or cruel intent, it can create monsters.

Schools are places where monsters in the making should be invited to change their ways before it is too late for them.

These are my views; I would not have imagined they were controversial  but then, I never imagined a government as hell-bent as this one on overturning everyday common sense in slavish adherence to something called wokeism.

According to the latest guidance from the Scottish Government, teachers who persist in calling bullies what they are  bullies  should cease and desist.

Unhelpful

The reason it is no longer acceptable to tell them the truth is that it can be disempowering for a label such as this to be attached to a pupil.

Yes, it turns out this knowledge could be upsetting for them and prove unhelpful in supporting them to change their behaviour.

In this one word  disempowering (a cornerstone of the woke lexicon)  the challenge to antiquated morals crystallises.

Here we were, convinced since the year dot that the very removal of the bullys power to cause misery was the whole point of any sensible attempt at a solution.

We now learn that preservation of their sense of power is a key objective in addressing their transgressions.

Take them down a peg or two? Give them their just desserts? Make sure they get whats coming to them? Heathen talk from last century, it turns out.

The way we handle bullies in schools today is we walk on eggshells around them and, above all, avoid hurting their feelings with careless language.

Can you imagine the language bullies themselves deploy in the average inner city Scottish state comprehensive as they seek to belittle classmates?

Does it mark them out as sensitive souls to you, or young louts sorely in need of a telling?

The guidance for teachers  which runs for 57 pages without mentioning pupil exclusion once  also advises avoidance of the term victims, for this can be disempowering too.

Well, that is the thing about being the victim of a bully. They are already disempowered, are all too aware of it, and feel rubbish about it.

They are, in my experience, more concerned with making it stop than with matters of linguistics  particularly when the word teachers must not utter is the one which exactly describes their circumstances.

The term is unhelpful, says the guidance, in scaffolding their recovery from a bullying experience.

When recoveries are to be scaffolded, when bullying is a bullying experience, we know the author is already hopelessly adrift in an ocean of woke.

Henceforth, teachers are advised, the acceptable terms are child displaying bullying behaviour and child experiencing bullying behaviour.

Where do they suppose this is going? Is an arsonist an arsonist or merely someone displaying the tendencies of a fire-starter?

When he burns your house down, are you properly a victim or merely the experiencer of behaviour of one displaying proneness to torching others property?

At what point on the scale of misdemeanours, I wonder, must the culprit own who and what they are?

And, more pertinently, how is the mollycoddling of bullies working out in Scottish schools thus far? By any measure, disastrously.

So emboldened are the disruptive elements in classrooms by the dearth of meaningful measures to control them that many have moved on from bullying classmates.

It is the teachers they target today. More fun  and look, they can do nothing about it.

Our schools are awash with teachers at the end of their tether. Many face daily verbal abuse from pupils whose feet would not have touched the ground a generation ago if they had dared to speak in such a way.

Other teachers are punched and kicked. A former music master I spoke to months ago was spat at, attacked, had his classroom trashed and his car keyed in the school car park  all in the space of the single year he was prepared to stay in his job at a state comprehensive in Dundee.

A national survey last year by the Educational Institute of Scotland found that 80 per cent of teachers had considered leaving the profession because of the rising tide of violence.

A second survey, carried out among Aberdeen teachers only, detailed their frustrations as they battled to control classes with too few resources and too little in their armoury to deal with daily bouts of aggression.

Sickening

Many railed at the restorative practice ethos now in play, whereby sickening pupil behaviour is addressed in a conversation with the offending child to establish how they might work together to improve their discipline.

Others spoke of gaslighting by senior staff who would invite teachers to consider how they could have handled the situation better.

Isnt this latest guidance part of the same playbook? And isnt the evidence now beyond overwhelming that it simply doesnt work?

Bullying needs to be confronted head on. It needs to be nipped in the bud wherever in schools it occurs and if that experience is a sobering one for the bully, too bad  they had it coming.

It is to be hoped that the lesson they learn in childhood will set them on a better path for the future.

Better to shudder at the errors of youth than to keep making them in adulthood because schools were too concerned about our feelings to point them out.

And yet, what has taken place in the last decade of SNP power is a sea change in the moral syllabus in schools.

The old order is not only left untaught, it is  on the orders of government  actively traduced and dismantled.

Witness the results.
The Texas senator did not indicate he would line up behind Trump's pick

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz did not commit to backing Matt Gaetz for attorney general when asked Thursday.

Cruz demurring on the matter is the latest incident highlighting Congress' hesitancy to get behind Donald Trump's nominee.

Both Republicans and Democrats have bristled at the idea Gaetz could be the top law enforcement official in the U.S.

When Newsmax host Bianca de la Garza pressed Cruz on whether he would vote for Gaetz on Thursday, Cruz avoided answering head on, saying instead he'd rather the former Florida lawmaker go through confirmation hearings first.

'The question is, will he make it through confirmation? Will you vote to confirm him? What do you think of him as a pick?' de la Garza asked.

Cruz did not answer 'yes.'

The Republican replied: 'As for that particular nomination, look, we have a process under the Constitution where the Senate provides advice and consent. And I trust that process.'

'That nominee, like every other will, will have a vigorous vetting, will have confirmation hearings. And every nominee is going to be going to be judged on the merits.'

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, did not commit to backing Matt Gaetz for attorney general when asked if he would on Thursday

Cruz said that he wants to have normal confirmation hearings for nominees - cutting against what Donald Trump wants

Gaetz is a close ally of Trump and campaigned with him in 2020 and 2024

Cruz admitted to the Newsmax host he and his colleagues were shocked by Trump picking Gaetz.

'I will say that was a pick that was, I think, very surprising to the entirety of the Senate,' he said. 'And so well assess the nominee on the merits.'

'But but there is a process that will unfold that examines a particular nominees background, their experience and their suitability for a role.'

Gaetz's qualifications for the top law enforcement role have come into question since the announcement.

And previous allegations about sexual misconduct and drug use may murky the Florida man's chances of getting confirmed to the position.

Gaetz had been the subject of a yearslong House Ethics Committee probe that ended Wednesday after his abrupt resignation from Congress, one day after Trump shockingly nominated him to be the top law enforcement official in the nation.

The resignation means the committee no longer has jurisdiction over Gaetz. They even canceled an upcoming meeting Friday to discuss releasing the report.

The FBI had investigated similar claims against Gaetz, but the DOJ opted not to indict him over claims he sex trafficked a 17-year-old girl.

Trump's pick of the embattled former congressman to oversee the Justice Department, FBI, DEA, ATF and related agencies has shocked Republicans and Democrats.

Now, some Republican senators who will vote on his nomination are demanding to review the House report before the 42-year-old Florida man is able to join Trump's Cabinet.

'The President's role is to make the nomination, but we need to have complete vetting of the nominees, not only so we know that the nominee is qualified, but also to protect the president,' Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Thursday.

He 'absolutely' wants to review the House Ethics Committee's report on Gaetz's conduct.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks at a bus tour campaign rally at The Barn venue on October 18, 2024 in Waco, Texas

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 12, 2024. He resigned his House seat on Wednesday immediately after being nominated by Donald Trump to be attorney general

Gaetz has long been one of Trump's most ardent supporters in the House

Gaetz and his wife Ginger pose on the rooftop of the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Cornyn even floated the idea of taking legal action to review the report's contents.

'There's various ways we can glean access to it, we can subpoena it,' he told reporters. 'I don't I don't think any of us want to fly blind.'

Cornyn argued the Senate has a role in weeding out unqualified candidates during the nomination process, and that doing so protects the president from potential bad apples.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., however, doesn't think that will work, nor does he want it to happen.

When pressed on if the Senate would be able to subpoena an unreleased House ethics report Graham responded: 'I wouldn't think so.'

The South Carolinian also added he wouldn't want the House to be able to subpoena unreleased Senate reports.

Gaetz has called the investigation 'frivolous' and a smear campaign against him.

Rep. Michael Guest, R-Ala., the chairman of the House Ethics Committee, reiterated Thursday that he does not intend to release the report.

President Donald Trump takes a selfie with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., in the House chamber after Trump's State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on January 30, 2018.

Gaetz was by Trump's side during his legal hearings in New York earlier this year

Gaetz speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 17, 2024

'What happens in Ethics is confidential. We're going to maintain that confidentiality,' he told reporters Thursday.

There is also the possibility that committee members, or staff, would leak the document.

The top Democrat on the Ethics panel, Glenn Ivey, D-Md., told DailyMail.com he had no knowledge of any anticipated Ethics leaks for Gaetz's file. He said he couldn't recall another instance of a report from the committee being leaked.

On the other hand, Ivey noted that Gaetz has repeatedly accused the Ethics Committee of leaking information regarding their investigation, though he denied the allegations.

But that has not stopped senators from calling to see the report.

Democratic Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin wrote Thursday: 'I am calling on the House Ethics Committee to preserve and share their report and all relevant documentation on Mr. Gaetz with the Senate Judiciary Committee.'

When asked if he wanted to see the Gaetz report Thursday Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said he does.

'It'll be a fine tooth comb,' the Alabaman said of reviewing Gaetz's file. 'And they knew that going in.'

'It will be one of those [nominations] that will be well scrutinized,' he added.

Still, Tuberville says he likes the former Florida lawmaker

'I'm a Matt Gaetz fan because I've known it for him for a long time. He's smart, been on Judiciary [Committee] for seven years, a very good lawyer, well spoken, believes in the Constitution and I think he'd do a great job.'

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he absolutely wants to review the Gaetz ethics report

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told reporters he'd like to take a 'fine toothed comb' to the Gaetz report

Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., told DailyMail.com 'I need to learn more about him generally ... I'm sure whatever information I need to review will be forthcoming.'

Trump, however, has demanded that the Senate use 'recess appointments' to confirm Cabinet nominees.

'Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,' Trump wrote on X Sunday.

This cuts against the desires of many Republican senators to hold hearings and votes for nominees.

'I'm fine with it, but I hope we don't have to do it,' Tuberville said of Trump's recess appointments. 'I hope we can just do them ourselves and and go through the same process.'

'Well, I think we ought to be able to go through the regular process,' Republican Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts told DailyMail.com.

US Senator John Cornyn, Republican from Texas, speaks to reporters on his way to a vote at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on November 14, 2024

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told DailyMail.com: 'I think it's too early to tell whether you need to go to any kind of extraordinary measures to do it.'

'I'm not opposed to it, but there's all kinds of ins and outs of how you get to that.'

Paul, who will be chairman of the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs come January, noted he is planning on having hearings for nominees under his purview.

Meaning South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who Trump nominated for Department of Homeland Security secretary, will need to sit before Paul's panel before getting confirmed into Trump's Cabinet.

'My plan is to have hearings at the first possible date for the ones I'm in charge of,' he revealed.
Its not hard to see why the Washington Establishment  Democrats and Republicans alike  are horrified that Donald Trump has nominated Matt Gaetz as his next Attorney General.

The 42-year-old, has proclaimed on his X/Twitter profile that he is a Florida man. Built for the Battle  is seen by his enemies as a danger to democracy, having called the January 6 rioters who mounted an assault on the Capitol peaceful patriots and tourists, and suggested that Joe Bidens presidential victory in 2020 was fraudulent.

He has called women protesting for abortion rights disgusting, overweight and ugly, and claimed that illegal immigrants are replacing American culture.

However, the main reason Trump has chosen this firebrand MAGA supporter for this key role is because they share a contempt for a US justice system that has investigated both of them and which  so they claim  is politically motivated and corrupt.

The Department of Justice  which Gaetz may soon run  has investigated him for child sex trafficking, statutory rape and illegal drug use.

Last year, it finally decided not to charge him, but the House ethics committee continued to investigate him over claims that he paid for sexual misconduct with an underage girl at a 2017 sex party and used illicit drugs, among other claims.

Gaetz has denied the accusations but the committee was expected to release a highly critical report about him today which will now remain under wraps after Gaetz resigned as a Congressman on Wednesday. Federal investigators had reportedly been looking into allegations that he made trips to the Bahamas with women who were paid to travel for sex  an offence under federal law.

In 2021, Gaetz married Ginger Luckey, 13 years his junior, having met her at a fundraiser at Trumps Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago.

Donald Trump's new Attorney General Matt Gaetz with his wife Ginger, who is 13 years his junior

Matt Gaetz, and his wife Ginger at the US Capitol. Gaetz claims to be 'Built for the Battle

The president-elect and Gaetz share a contempt for a US justice system that has investigated both of them

In what he calls a modern family, he has also raised a young Cuban immigrant, Nestor Galban, now in his early 20s, as his own son. Gaetz met the boy when he was 12 years old, after he began dating Nestors older sister, and has said: I cant imagine loving him more even if he was my own flesh and blood. (The childrens mother had died of breast cancer.)

Gaetz, a former commercial litigation lawyer whose father was also a Republican politician and property tycoon in Florida, is easily the most controversial of Trumps cabinet appointees to date  no mean feat.

His nomination, say critics, illustrates the extent to which the President-elect is prepared to flout convention in his determination to surround himself in power with cronies who are both ferociously loyal and share his more extreme views.

Opponents fear that Trump and Gaetz are determined to destroy the Justice Departments independence and make it more subservient to the White House.

The nomination was reportedly so contentious that Trump hatched the deal on his jet while his level-headed new chief-of-staff, Susie Wiles, was in another cabin.

Gaetz certainly has bold plans should he win, promising a crackdown on government that has been turned against our people ... And if that means abolishing every one of the three letter agencies, from the FBI to the ATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives], Im ready to get going!

Gaetz met his wife Ginger at a fundraiser at Trumps Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago in Florida

The Department of Justice  which Gaetz may soon run  has investigated him for child sex trafficking, statutory rape and illegal drug use

If Gaetz is confirmed in the role, Trump will have a powerful ally in prosecuting his many political enemies, as he has promised to do. Gaetz could also prove useful in helping the next president escape the various criminal cases in which hes embroiled.

The US Senate needs to confirm his appointment but Trump has threatened to try and bypass it. Whether Gaetz takes the job or not, the president-elect has put down a marker over the sort of people he wants by his side in his next White House term.
The body of an American woman who was murdered after a night out in Budapest was dismembered and stuffed into two suitcases, police revealed today.

Mackenzie Michalski may have been killed in a sex game that went wrong, detectives in Hungary investigating her killing have confirmed.

They are also probing whether drugs had been taken and contributed to her death.

Miss Michalski, a 31-year-old nurse from Portland, Oregon, was reported missing in Hungary on November 5.

Less than 24 hours later, an Irishman - who is only being referred to by his initials LTM as per Hungarian law - was arrested.

He confessed to the killing during questioning but insisted it was an accident while the pair were having sex.

Mackenzie Michalski, pictured with her ex-boyfriend, was murdered after a night out in Budapest

A case recovered after the suspect allegedly put Miss Michalski's body into a new suitcase

The 37-year-old Irishman suspected of killing Ms Michalski (pictured) led police to the area where her body was dumped following his arrest over her disappearance on November 7

Handcuffed and attached to a leash, the man, 37, then dragged police through dense and isolated woodland surrounding a lake on the outskirts Szigliget - a two hour drive from the capital.

Detectives probing the murder are now investigating several lines of inquiries to establish how Miss Michalski was killed and are trying to establish if the death could have been an accident, as the suspect claims.

Ferenc Rab, spokesman for the police, told MailOnline the force is investigating if the victim's death was caused by 'a sex game gone wrong' or if 'bad quality drugs' had been potentially been consumed.

Disturbing new details also reveal that the victim's body had been cut up and hidden in two suitcases before the suspect drove it to the secluded rural lake.

Coroners are still trying to determine the woman's cause of death.

Meanwhile LTM remains in custody due to the risk of him escaping or hiding. Police also believe there is a danger of him repeating the crime, according to local reports.

It comes just days after the ex-boyfriend of Miss Michalski claimed that she had been 'beaten, raped and brutually' murdered by the suspect.

Kenton Reichen, who had been with the healthcare worker for six years, was supposed to have travelled to Budapest with his girlfriend but chose not to when they decided to break up.

He has since spoken of his heartbreak wishing he 'could have saved her from this' and 'protected her'.

Ms Michalski was 'in the middle of a breakup' with her partner when she travelled to Hungary

Mr Reichen had been travelling across from the United States with the victim's parents when they were informed that she had been killed.

'Before the trip, Kenzie and I were in the middle of a breakup. She originally wanted me to go to Budapest with her, but I decided not to go with her, so a friend of hers accompanied her instead,' he told a local newspaper.

'She was perfect, but I neglected her in many ways. It hurts me a lot, and I wish I could have protected her. 

'Kenzie did not deserve to be beaten, raped and killed so brutally. I wish I could have saved her from this. This will forever be the biggest mistake of my life.'

The last message the nurse sent to family and friends was a picture of her out enjoying drinks in the Jewish quarter of Budapest. After that, no one heard from her.

CCTV footage had shown Miss Michalski and the suspect dancing in a nightclub before leaving together. They then went back to the suspect's rented apartment where she was allegedly killed during an intimate moment.

Loved ones contacted the Airbnb she was staying in where the owners found her belongings. She went on to miss her flight from Hungary to Amsterdam which was on her route back home.

Following her death, the suspect had searched online how to dispose of a body, what a corpse smells like and whether pigs eat dead bodies. He also researched whether there were wild boars in the area he later dumped her body.

The suspect then cleaned his apartment before allegedly stuffing the victim's body into a freshly bought suitcase and rolling it away along with a handbag, clothes and a credit card with Ms Michalski's name on it.

He then rented a car and drove to the lake in Western Hungary.

Chilling footage later released by the police revealed the moment LTM was arrested and taken into custody.

One section of the video shows the suspect being escorted out of a police car and leading officers through hedges to th elake.

Mackenzie's body was found near Lake Balaton in western Hungary after she went missing on November 5

Police dogs watch on as specialists in hazmat suits place markers in the ground at the direction of the killer.

Evidence bags labeled 'one' and 'two' are collected, along with samples of grass and leaves, before the handcuffed Irishman is returned to the police car.

On Saturday night at a candlelit vigil in Budapest, Bill Micahalski, her father, told The Associated Press he was 'still overcome with emotion'.

'There was no reason for this to happen. I'm still trying to wrap my arms around what happened', he added. 'I dont know that I ever will.'

While struggling to come to terms with his daughter's death, he revealed that Hungary was her 'happy place.'

'The history, she just loved it and she was just so relaxed here,' he said. 'This was her city.'

A statement on behalf of the family was released on a Facebook group set up to find the nurse added: 'Dear members of our community, we are deeply saddened to confirm a report published by Hungarian police announcing the death of our beloved Kenzie.'

It further thanked the efforts of everyone including strangers abroad and officials across the world for getting involved in helping find Ms Michalski.

It continued: 'Kenzie will forever be remembered as a beautiful and compassionate young woman who dedicated herself to caring for others and making the world a better place.

'As a nurse practitioner, Kenzie used her humor, positivity, and limitless empathy to help heal her patients and encourage family and friends alike.'
A nine-year-old child is among the youngsters being probed by police over hate incidents, it is understood.

Officers recorded incidents against the child, who called a fellow primary school pupil a 'retard', and against two schoolgirls who said another student smelled 'like fish'.

The youngsters were among multiple cases of children being recorded as having committed non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), The Times discovered through freedom of information requests to police forces.

NCHIs are meant to be recorded for incidents 'clearly motivated by intentional hostility' and where there is a genuine risk of significant escalation, government guidance says.

Incidents in classrooms that do not amount to crimes are not meant to be recorded.

The news comes amid a debate on free speech after journalist Allison Pearson is being investigated by police over a post she made on social media a year ago.

The award-winning writer told The Telegraph that officers turned up at her door and said 'I was accused of a non-crime hate incident. It was to do with something I had posted on X a year ago. A YEAR ago? Yes. Stirring up racial hatred apparently'.

Newly collected data shows the recording of NCHIs is widespread - with critics questioning whether the investigation of non-crime hate incidents is an appropriate use of police resources, especially in cases regarding children.

A nine-year-old child is among the youngsters being probed by police over hate incidents, it is understood (Stock photo)

Allison Pearson (pictured) is accused of stirring up racial hatred in a post on social media in 2023

Boris Johnson branded the investigation into Ms Pearson 'appalling' and an attack on free speech

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary and former policing minister, said: 'These examples are obviously totally absurd.

'Pursuing these sorts of incidents is a total waste of police time - they should be concentrating on criminals. It risks having a chilling effect on free speech, one of the fundamental values of this country.'

Journalist Ms Pearson said she was still in her dressing gown when Essex Police officers showed up at her door on Remembrance Sunday.

A spokesman for Essex Police said this week: 'As a police force, we investigate matters which are reported to us without fear or favour, no matter who makes a report or to whom the incident concerns.'

At the time of Ms Pearson's alleged tweet last year, the journalist was regularly posting about Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israel, as well as pro-Palestine demonstrations happening in London.

On Tuesday night, Essex Police said officers had opened an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 relating to material allegedly 'likely or intended to cause racial hatred'.
Husband Mick Murphy has stared down Stephenson in court

Patrick Orren Stephenson has pleaded not guilty to murder

The heartbroken husband of missing Ballarat mum Samantha Murphy has stared down her alleged killer for the first time in court.

Mick Murphy could barely contain his emotions on Thursday when Patrick Orren Stephenson pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife.

Seated at the front of the Ballarat Magistrates' Court, Mr Murphy glared at the video screen in court where Stephenson appeared from a room within Melbourne Assessment Prison.

Now sporting long hair and a woolly beard, Stephenson appeared calm as he officially denied murdering Ms Murphy, whose body has still not been found.

With his arms crossed, a relaxed Stephenson simply uttered the words, 'Not guilty, your honour' when asked for his plea.

The matter will now be fast-tracked directly to the Supreme Court of Victoria, setting the stage for a jury trial that will likely run sometime late next year.

Flanked by Crown prosecutor Ray Gibson and Homicide Squad police, Mr Murphy refused to comment to a waiting media pack outside the court.

While Stephenson has appeared in court previously both in person and via video link, it was the first time Mr Murphy had laid eyes on his wife's alleged killer since he was charged.

A shattered Mick Murphy (far right) leaves the Ballarat Magistrates' Court behind police and the prosecutor

Dressed in white, Stephenson heard three new statements had been obtained by detectives since he last fronted court.

One of those witnesses was named as Doctor Matthew Sorrell, an expert in digital forensic science.

With the matter now headed directly to the Supreme Court of Victoria, the public will be all but shutout of how police put their case against Stephenson until the jury trial gets underway.

Alleged killers traditionally run their cases through a preliminary hearing within the lower magistrates' court where their lawyers can test the police case before it goes to trial.

These committal hearings often see witnesses put in the witness box and cross examined in public hearings that can be reported in full.

Such a hearing was held in the case of killer Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn, who was later found guilty of murder.

Samantha Murphy vanished in February and is now presumed dead

Ms Murphy, a mother-of-three, vanished without a trace on the morning of February 4 after leaving her home on Eureka Street in Ballarat East, Victoria.

Her family reported her missing later that day after she failed to show up to a family brunch.

Few developments in the police case have been made public since May 29 when police found what appeared to be Ms Murphys phone, raising hopes they might soon be close to finding her remains.

The phone was retrieved on the muddy banks of a dam positioned along the Buninyong-Mount Mercer Road in the same region the phone last connected to a mobile phone tower before it went dark.

An image of the device pulled from the scene showed what appeared to be an Apple iPhone contained in a wallet stuffed with identification cards.

Samantha Murphy's husband Mick Murphy leaves a Ballarat court on Thursday

Samantha and Mick Murphy in happier times

The dam sits about 15km from Ballarat East where Ms Murphy took off on her final run early on the summer Sunday morning.

Aerial footage from the scene showed police officers hugging, backslapping and shaking hands as they examined the phone.

Mr Murphy later confirmed he instantly recognised his wife's phone upon seeing the dramatic television footage.

His wife had long used such a wallet to protect her phone and hold her various credit and identity cards.

It had been pictured in a Facebook photo alongside Mr Murphy in a happy snap from their final Bali trip.

The contents of that phone and what, if any, help it has provided investigators in finding Ms Murphys body remains unclear.

Patrick Orren Stephenson, 22, is accused of murdering Ms Murphy while she was out on a Sunday jog.

The final haunting image of Samantha Murphy alive on the day of her last jog

Police celebrate after finding what is believed to be Ms Murphy's phone in a dam

Forensic tests remain ongoing on the phone as police work to obtain data from it in a bid to receive further clues.

Reports indicate the phone was found to be in a near-perfect working condition.

Police remain tight-lipped over how the investigation is progressing, advising only that the search for Ms Murphy's body continued.

Stephenson, 22, is accused of murdering Ms Murphy while she was out on a Sunday jog.

It is understood Stephenson, who was arrested five weeks after Ms Murphy was allegedly murdered, has not told police where her body is located.

He is due to appear for a preliminary hearing at the Ballarat Magistrates Court in August.

Stephenson is the son of former AFL Richmond and Geelong AFL player, Orren Stephenson and is not known to the Murphy family.
MBABANE - The Ministry of Health Portfolio Committee in the House of Assembly has uncovered that drugs supplied across the country are substandard, often with short expiry dates.



Additionally, it was revealed that government is not procuring these drugs from World Health Organisation (WHO)-pre-qualified manufacturers. This is part of the committees findings detailed in the Ministry of Healths Second Quarter performance report responses, tabled in Parliament yesterday. This follows the ministrys second quarter debate, which was held on Monday, where Members of Parliament (MPs) raised concerns about drugs being recalled by the ministry. The MPs also wanted to know if there were actions taken against the suppliers responsible for the recalled drugs and if those suppliers were paid.

The ministry recently recalled medical drugs for various reasons. In one instance, government had placed an order for 59 514 units of drugs from suppliers, however, when the recall notice was issued, 17 513 were available. According to WHO, suppliers and/or manufacturers must offer products that conform to the WHO recommendations, with respect to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). The WHO states that the prequalification process for each product stream consists of a transparent, scientifically sound assessment, which may include dossier review, product testing, performance evaluation and inspection of manufacturing sites and contract research organisations.

The MPs wanted to know if the country has a facility where the authenticity of procured drugs is tested on delivery. The Minister of Health, Mduduzi Matsebula, reported to the committee that currently, they do not do chemical testing. Matsebula said the ministry is putting together a few strategies which include, improving their quality control laboratory.

According to Matsebula, the ministry is also in the process of having memorandum of understanding (MoU) with nearby countries regulatory authorities (South Africa and Zimbabwe). These countries, including Eswatini, are also involved with regulatory initiatives like Zazibona, which, as Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, there is capacity building on regulatory issues, Matsebula said.

Quality

He explained that they do quality checks in the procurement processes, when tendering and registering as a pharmaceutical importer, quality documents are requested, including good manufacturing practices, manufacturers licence and certificate of pharmaceutical products. He stated that these documents are the WHO pre-qualified or any stringent organisation/authority eg, the European Union (EU). Adding, the minister stated that they are also processing the implementation of the Medicine and Related Substance Act 9 of 2016, to establish a medicine and regulatory authority, while in the meantime, the Medicines Regulatory Unit is currently doing regulatory activities.

He said the suppliers who delivered the recalled drugs were engaged; to collect and replace the recalled drugs at their cost. The tender contracts compel them to replace the recalled drugs at their cost and they are expected to replace the drugs within 14 days, he said. He also reported that they have also advertised internationally to suppliers, manufacturers and embassies to ensure that a broad supplier base is being created on the supply of health commodities. He mentioned that they are also testing the model of buying directly from manufacturers in the ongoing emergency procurement of critical drugs.

Furthermore, the minister reported that they are taking steps to report the suppliers who provided the recalled drugs to the relevant authorities, including Eswatini Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (ESPPRA). He added that they have already advertised new tenders to improve the supplier base. According to Matsebula, the shrinking supplier base makes it easier for other suppliers to monopolise the supply of drugs. Meanwhile, the portfolio committee found that there are shortages of drugs in the country and the drugs when supplied are not tested by the Central Medical Stores (CMS). The committee also noted that the drugs supplied in the country are substandard and they have a short-dated stock.

Recalled

According to the committee, government does not procure drugs from the WHO pre-qualified manufacturers and the drugs are being recalled by the ministry. Furthermore, the committee recommended that the ministry needs to facilitate the supply of drugs and medicine in hospitals and health centres in the country. The committee also recommended that the ministry of health should ensure that there is complete testing of drugs and medicines in the country. Furthermore, it was recommended that drugs should be procured from the WHO pre-qualified manufacturers and those supplied should not be less than 18 months (shelf-life). The committee further recommended that there must be a possible visit to the manufacturers and the Drug Approval Authority in the countries of origin, to determine whether the recalled drugs were not fake or unapproved. There must be a remediation process based on the outcome of the visits from the manufacturers and drug approval authority, the committee said.




As the King celebrates his birthday on November 14, alongside his wife, Queen Camilla, will he also perhaps reflect on what might have been. It could just as easily have been Diana as his Queen if his mother Queen Elizabeth II had had her way.

As heir to the throne at the time, Charles had to seek the permission of Her Majesty to marry, as all those in the line of succession had to. He might have followed the earlier example of his sister, Princess Anne, who when asked how difficult it was, replied: Not half as difficult as asking permission to get divorced.' Which they both were required to do at some time.

These days, Anne is so far down the line that it isnt necessary for her to ask anyones permission.

A royal birthday still attracts a lot of publicity, from newspapers and television, which is then lapped up by the public. It seems nearly everyone wants to know every detail of Royal Family life.

And if there is any spice in the story, so much the better. When Charles was still Prince of Wales, serving the longest apprenticeship ever by an heir to the throne (he was over 70 before he became monarch), he was allowed the comparative freedom that he lost the day he donned the crown.

Prince Charles turned 18 on the 14 November 1966 and was taken at Balmoral Castle wearing the Balmoral tartan

Prince Charles was considered the most eligible and famous bachelor before he married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981

There was trouble on both asides. Five years after they married, Diana resumed a relationship with a former old boyfriend, James Hewit, in 1986 when this family photograph was taken

The couple undertook a royal tour of Korea in November 1992 and shortly after John Major announced in the House of Commons that the couple were to separate

Charles was regarded as the most eligible and famous bachelor in the world and when he married Lady Diana Spencer, in July 1981, making her the Princess of Wales, and she became the most famous woman on the planet.

But, as we now know, it wasnt to last. Charles never stopped talking about Camilla Parker Bowles and his friendship with her, even when at last he married Diana. She accepted this, knowing that to object would place her at odds with the Royal Household, as well as against the most powerful family in the world.

On the day Charles and Diana married they became the most photographed couple ever.

However, there were problems almost from the beginning . And, contrary to the general belief, it wasnt all Charless fault. There was trouble on both asides. Five years after they married, Diana resumed a relationship with a former old boyfriend, James Hewit, in 1986.

Much later, Charles admitted that the love of his life had always been Camilla, and they began another affair. It would never end. To many people throughout the world, it remains one of the greatest love stories ever.

He said at the time that his relationship with Mrs Parker Powles was non-negotiable.

If there has ever been a year that Charles would describe as the worst in his life, it could well be 1992. His birthday that year was not a time for celebration. Perhaps relief was all he felt now that at last it was all over. This was when he and Diana finally separated.

When the divorce was finalised, the financial settlement was never revealed, as with all royal matters. But it was believed to be around 15million.

There had always been a great deal of speculation about what went wrong with the Waleses. Was it Charles never really having loved her? The massive age difference between them  he was 13 years older than Diana. Or maybe the difference in their upbringing.

Charles had grown up used to the rigid discipline of Palace life and all it involved. With Diana, even though hers was an aristocratic background, there was a certain amount of informality in the Spencer family that was missing with the House of Windsor. She was a tactile, affectionate woman while Charles never really forgets who and what he is or was.

The only bright light being that the way was now clear for him to marry Camilla at last, which he did on April 9, 2005, in a civil ceremony in Windsor Guildhall, followed by a blessing by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Windsor Castle. His mother, the Queen, did not attend the civil ceremony as she believed it would be inappropriate as the Head of the Church of England.

A few years earlier there was another tragedy that had caused Charles to try to forget the past. Diana was involved in a car crash in Paris in 1997, and died immediately.

Prince Charles and Prince Harry after the devastating news that Diana had died in a crash in Paris the previous night

There was international mourning for Diana after the crash and the same amount of derision and scorn, aimed at Charles who was blamed, unfairly

There was happiness for Prince Charles after marrying Camilla Parker Bowles in a Civil Ceremony at the Guildhall in Windsor

Charles has recently completed an arduous but wonderful tour of Australia and Samoa while continuing to recover from his cancer diagnosis

There was international mourning for her and the same amount of derision and scorn aimed at Charles who was blamed, unfairly, by many millions of men and women. All watched by a worldwide audience.

If there was one thing both Charles and Diana would be jointly proud of it was the fact that they produced two wonderful sons, William and Harry, though Harry, as a typical younger son, is causing certain problems at the moment.

They both love their father and understand the difficulties both parents faced in their early days.

William is working with his father, helping as much as possible and preparing for his own future role.

Anyway, things appear to have settled down for the Royal Family, at last. Charles is behaving impeccably as monarch and has recently completed an arduous tour of Australia while continuing to recover from his cancer diagnosis.

He deserves to enjoy this birthday, more than we know. Hes hard working. He never stops. Now is the time for him to relax, with his wife, and Queen, alongside him. And may we join with many more people, everywhere, in wishing him a Respectful Happy Birthday.
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King Charles has spent his 76th birthday working in London today as gun salutes rang out across the capital to mark the celebratory occasion.

The monarch has opened two Coronation Food Project Hub in Deptford, South London, and in Merseyside in a virtual ceremony.

The hubs will distribute surplus food to food banks, schools and community centres as part of his Coronation Food Project which aims to tackle food waste and was launched one year ago today.

It comes after he attended the premiere of Gladiator II last night without Queen Camilla who missed the screening as she recovers from a chest infection.

Our live coverage has now ended but for a full recap see below
As worshippers remembered Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in their roll-calls of the faithful departed during All Souls services across Britain last week, it was hard not to think how upset our late monarch would have been at the latest outbreak of hostilities between her two elder sons.

For the previous day, it had been disclosed by the Daily Mail  in its serialisation of my esteemed colleague Robert Hardmans updated biography of Charles III  that the King had cut off Prince Andrew financially, marking a new low in relations between the brothers.

In Charles III: New King. New Court, Hardman reveals that the King told Sir Michael Stevens, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, to sever his beleaguered brothers annual personal allowance  believed to be 1 million a year. He has also stopped paying the seven-figure sum for the Duke of Yorks private security detail. The Duke is no longer a financial burden on the King, a source confirmed.

Charles has now withdrawn financial support from his younger brother Andrew

I can disclose that the move by the King, who has long made it clear he wants his brother to move out of Royal Lodge, has shocked friends of Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah, Duchess of York, also resident at the 30-room mansion in Windsor Great Park.

Why is the King doing this? demanded one associate I spoke to. And why now? It makes no sense. The King hardly needs to save money.

Indeed, the King was handed more than 27 million from the Duchy of Lancaster last year to spend as he pleases without public scrutiny. That huge sum is in addition to the 86.3 million he will receive this year from the Sovereign Grant, which pays for the Royal Familys running costs.

The decision to strip Andrew of financial support once again draws attention to the Kings finances, which are already being scrutinised heavily under the Labour Government, which is currently legislating to remove hereditary peers from the Lords.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, minister for the constitution, declared: The hereditary principle in law-making has lasted for too long and is out of step with modern Britain.

And the King, surely, cannot rest easy under Sir Keir Starmer, who once called for the abolition of the monarchy. The Prime Minister has since described that as a youthful indiscretion.

However, the recent publication of stories such as one disclosing how the Duchy of Lancaster, on behalf of the King, charged the NHS more than 11 million over 15 years for the right to park ambulances in one of its warehouses, are likely to increase nervousness among monarchists.

But instead of sticking together, the King is attacking his 64-year-old brother Andrew, who served bravely as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands War and worked as UK trade envoy.

Whatever you think of Andrew or his former wife, they have always been loyal to the Crown, one of their friends insists. Its quite remarkable how Sarah has managed to pursue a successful career in public life, and has given countless interviews, yet has never said anything damaging about the Royal Family.

The friend is too discreet to spell it out, but Andrew and Fergies loyalty stands in contrast to the disloyalty of another duke, the Duke of Sussex, who, with his wife, has made a fortune out of attacking the Royal Family via Harrys tawdry memoir, Spare, and their Netflix docu-series Harry & Meghan.

Is it wise of the King to force his brother to seek his own fortune in order to pay the costs of maintaining and running Royal Lodge, which are estimated to be as much as 1 million per year?

Royal Lodge has been the Yorks family home since they paid 1 million for a 75-year lease in 2003. They spent more than 7.5 million on extensive renovation work to the Queen Mothers former sprawling Grade II-listed mansion.

Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah, seen here at Ascot, still both live at Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park

There have been suggestions that Royal Lodge could be let to a private tenant instead. However, a National Audit Office report in 2005 made clear that this could not happen because of the sensitive location of the property in the centre of the Windsor Great Park with its consequential management considerations, and because of security concerns surrounding the Royal Familys access to the Royal Chapel.

The Crown Estates view at the time was that it remained appropriate that the property should remain in Royal Family occupancy. According to my sources, that position hasnt changed.

At the weekend, it was reported that Andrew had raised the funds to be allowed to stay at Royal Lodge as his money had been approved as coming from legitimate sources by the Keeper of the Privy Purse.

The King should call off the dogs and reassure Andrew that he wont be booted out of his family home if his sources of income dry up. Otherwise, his brother might be forced to follow the example of Charles's disloyal younger son and make millions from spilling royal secrets.

And no one would want that.
Sometimes it's tempting to reply to texts with a quick 'LOL' or 'BRB'.

But sending abbreviations such as these  which are short for 'laugh out loud' and 'be right back'  could make you seem insincere, a study suggests.

Researchers say people should spell out words in full instead of shortening them if you want to come across as genuine and receive more replies.

A team from Stanford University in California conducted eight texting experiments involving more than 5,300 people.

Analysis revealed that people who used texting abbreviations such as 'FWIW'  instead of spelling out 'for what it's worth'  were perceived as more insincere.

They were also les likely to receive a response because they were seen to be making less effort in text conversation.

'In daily interactions, we often encounter people who could be considered good texters or poor texters,' lead researcher David Fang said.

'We thought texters might like abbreviations because it would convey an informal sense of closeness, so we were surprised that abbreviations elicited negative perceptions about people who use them.'

Sometimes it's tempting to reply to texts with a quick 'LOL' or 'BRB'. But sending abbreviations such as these  which are short for 'laugh out loud' and 'be right back'  could make you seem insincere, a study suggests (stock image)

Texting has become a dominant form of digital communication, and most texters use some abbreviations including 'IDK' for 'I don't know' or 'GOAT' for 'greatest of all time'

Texting has become a dominant form of digital communication.

And most texters use some abbreviations including 'IDK' for 'I don't know' or 'GOAT' for 'greatest of all time'.

In one of the surveys carried out by the researchers, 99 per cent of respondents said they used texting abbreviations.

Meanwhile, 84 per cent didn't believe that others wouldn't like abbreviations.

The team found that while young people tend to use more texting abbreviations, they still weren't fans of them.

'While our overall results on age were mixed, it's clear that younger people are not particularly fond of abbreviations,' Mr Fang said.

He warned that texting abbreviations could contribute to loneliness if people find that social bonds weaken over time because they receive less frequent or positive replies to their texts.

However, he doesn't believe people should stop using abbreviations altogether.

Analysis revealed that people who used texting abbreviations such as 'FWIW'  instead of spelling out 'for what it's worth'  were perceived as more insincere

'We often tailor the effort we put into conversations to match the significance of the relationship,' he said.

'In some cases, it makes sense to invest less effort and accept being perceived as less sincere, like quickly texting with a delivery driver.

'However, our findings are especially relevant when we want to appear more sincere and strengthen social ties, such as at the beginning of a relationship or when we need to make a good impression.'

The findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
READ MORE: Passenger sparks fierce debate after sitting in between couple

The person was playing sound out loud on their phone

An irate plane passenger has shared the moment they confronted a fellow traveler for playing a film out loud on their phone.

In a post to Reddit on the Delta Airlines subthread, the user explained how their seatmate was watching something on 'full volume' for the entire time the plane was boarding.

'It was so loud that people behind me were complaining. A lot of looks from neighbors but nothing,' they shared.

After awhile, the passenger admitted they could not take it any longer and went to speak to the offending passenger after they failed to find a flight attendant.

'After 15 minutes I finally got up and asked them if they could turn it down (may have said it in certain tone),' they admitted.

An irate plane passenger has shared the moment they confronted a fellow traveler for playing a film out loud on their phone (stock image)

The person's partner was visibly displeased and the pair rolled their eyes but ended up turning it down.

'I usually never say anything and put my headphones on. But this was so loud you could still hear it through the headphones,' they complained.

'Glad I said something because it's been so peaceful,' they added.

The interaction encouraged other users to share their own tales of annoying mid-flight interactions.

'I flew a red eye on Sunday. After dinner service, I put on the eye mask and ear plugs, but still heard my neighbor watching videos on their phone. I asked them if they had headphones  of course they didn't. They got the hint and stopped making noise,' one person recalled.

'People who use speakerphone or watch media without ear buds in public are the WORST. Zero concept of being considerate of other people. It's completely mind boggling to me,' someone else complained.

'Yes, I've experienced this. They should be using headphones. How someone thinks that behavior is acceptable is beyond me but my standards have been tested as of late,' wrote another.

'There's always one on every flight. Good on you for saying something,' praised another.

In a post to Reddit on the Delta Airlines subthread, the user explained how their seatmate was watching something on 'full volume' for the entire time the plane was boarding

The annoying interaction encouraged other users to share their own tales of annoying mid-flight interactions

Some even shared the times people had ignored their headphones in other settings.

'Not on an airplane, but in my gym a month or so back there was an elderly woman on the elliptical next to me with either a podcast or an audiobook blaring at full volume,' a user shared.

They continued: 'I took off my headphones and to ask her to turn it down and I realized it was actually about the value of silence and absence of noise.

'The irony completely blew my mind.'

The etiquette surrounding flying is a well-spoken about - and divisive - topic.

Recently, flight attendants have revealed all the things a passenger should never do while flying.

Chris Price and Isold Wilberg Antonsdottir listed going barefoot, changing babies' diapers in their seats, leaving trash and being disorganized with baggage as the ultimate faux-pas passengers commit.
Hold it right there  don't press the 'pay now' button for that 2025 getaway just yet.

Not until you've read the 2025 Fodor's Travel 'Go and No Lists', which reveal the places you should avoid next year  and 25 'incredible' destinations worldwide you should consider visiting instead.

The no list comprises 'highly coveted tourist spots [that] are collapsing under the burden of their own prominence' and face issues including overcrowding and environmental stress.

Destinations on this list include a paradise island that's become a 'plastic apocalypse', a driving route in Scotland and places in Europe where locals don't want you.

So, avoid them, says Fodor's Travel, and instead travel to one of the 25 places on the 'Go' list.

Fodor's Travel comments that these destinations are 'for those seeking incredible experiences that prioritise cultural immersion and sustainable practices'.

Recommendations include five spots in the USA, along with an 'under-the-radar outdoor stunner' in Poland, a 'rugged corner of Provence' and an 'oasis' in New Zealand. Read on for the full lists - will you be heeding the advice?

THE NO LIST

Scotland North Coast 500

Avoid: Scotland's North Coast 500 route has become 'too popular', says Fodor's Travel

'What happens when a road trip route becomes too popular, threatening the natural environment and becoming a nuisance to the communities living alongside it?' says Fodor's.

'The residents of Scotland's most scenic road trip route, known as the North Coast 500 (NC500), know only too well.'

The guide explains: 'Camping in tents or motorhomes is one of the most popular ways for tourists to experience the NC500, but a shortfall of adequate facilities including campsites, toilets, and designated chemical waste areas is causing issues along the route. "Wild camping" on beaches, in laybys, and even on private property is common, and residents report finding campfire scorch marks, trash, disposable grills, and even human faeces in their wake.'

Bali, Indonesia

Avoid: Overtourism has turned Bali into a 'plastic apocalypse'

Fodor's says: 'Rapid, unchecked development spurred by overtourism is encroaching on Bali's natural habitats, eroding its environmental and cultural heritage, and creating a "plastic apocalypse".'

European destinations where the locals don't want you - Barcelona, Mallorca, Venice, the Canary Islands and Lisbon

Fodor's notes that tourists in the European hotspots of Barcelona, Mallorca, the Canary Islands, Venice and Lisbon are no longer so welcome.

The guide explains that visitors are arriving in such numbers that they're 'clogging neighbourhoods' and 'altering the very fabric of society'. How? 'By raising the cost of living, straining infrastructure and natural resources and homogenising cultures,' says Fodor's.

It adds: 'A good tourism management strategy should make immediate improvements to the lives of locals.'

Koh Samui, Thailand

'Koh Samui has long suffered from overtourism,' says Fodor's, 'but when the new season of The White Lotus premieres in 2025, many fear for what will become of the island.

'Experts worry the increased traffic will exacerbate existing problems on the island. There are currently 200,000 tons of waste sitting at a landfill beyond the sightline of tourist sites and luxurious villas, as well as rapid, often unregulated, new development on the mountainside.'

Mount Everest

'Everest, known locally as Sagarmatha, Chomolungma, or Qomolangma, is a sacred mountain to the Sherpa community, but overtourism is adversely affecting local communities,' says Fodor's. 'It's also degrading the environment and ruining travellers' experiences.'

British Virgin Islands

Avoid: Locals aren't benefitting from tourism in the British Virgin Islands, says Fodor's

'The emphasis on cruise tourism is keeping tourist dollars out of residents' hands,' writes Fodor's, 'and the 13-year wait for a comprehensive tourism plan has left locals sceptical that improvements in development and infrastructure are on the horizon.'

Agrigento, Sicily

Fodor's says: 'The city is preparing to be the Italian Capital of Culture in 2025, which will likely mean an increase in the number of visitors. However, the area is facing a severe water crisis that could be further aggravated by increased tourism, and could irrevocably harm its most precious cultural treasures and punish its permanent residents.'

Kerala, India

Avoid: Tourism in Kerala is making the impact of natural disasters worse, says Fodor's

There's been a surge in tourism in coastal Kerala that's 'exacerbated the impact of natural disasters', says Fodor's, explaining that in some areas 'development has obstructed natural water flows and increased landslide risks'.

What's more, 'development is largely unregulated, unsustainable, and harmful to communities and ecosystems'.

Oaxaca City, Mexico

Oaxacans are complaining, says Fodor's, that their 'culture and customs are being commercialised' by overtourism, with 'large wealth gaps and environmental degradation' the result.

Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan

Avoid: Parts of Tokyo and Kyoto (above) are 'overwhelmed by crowds'

Tokyo and Kyoto are overrun with tourists, with Fodor's pointing out that the term 'tourism pollution' has now emerged in Japanese media.

One of the major issues it has caused is a rise in domestic travel prices, as tourists stay in business hotels that then hike their prices.

What's more, says Fodor's, at some Kyoto 'must-sees' such as Arashiyama, Kiyomizudera, and Fushimi Inari, it's not possible to 'walk comfortably' as they're 'overwhelmed by crowds'.

THE GO LIST

USA

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

'A land of unparalleled beauty.'

Houston, Texas

Go: Houston has 'cosy eateries' and plenty to entice outdoor enthusiasts

Houston is home to 'one of [America's] nation's largest concentrations of cultural institutions', has 'cosy, local eateries' and outdoor enthusiasts 'can hike and bike the trails of Buffalo Bayou Park'

Las Vegas, Nevada

'Bet on this classic destination - with something for divas, daredevils, and everyone in between.'

Los Olivos, California

'SoCal meets cowboy chic right outside Santa Barbara.'

Michigan's Beach Towns, Michigan

'Beach bliss along Michigan's coast includes winery hopping and lighthouse visits by the country's largest freshwater lake.'

AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

Hermanus, South Africa

Go: Hermanus in South Africa is a must-visit for whale watchers

'A seaside destination with the best land-based whale watching in the world.'

Kigali, Rwanda

'In Rwanda's capital city, culture, history, and modernity merge within reach of natural wonders.'

Petra, Jordan

'Jordan's current tourism slump means the usually jam-packed Unesco Heritage Site - is all yours.'

Siwa Oasis, Egypt

'A timeless desert escape in the majestic dunes of Egypt's Great Sand Sea.'

ASIA

Koh Ker, Cambodia

'A remote Cambodian archaeological site that was founded by a rebellious royal.'

Meghalaya, India

'A crisp, pine-scented hill state where lovers of the outdoors will be in their element.'

Nikko, Japan

'As Tokyo and Kyoto grow more crowded with tourists each year, a stay in Nikko, beloved for its spectacular natural beauty... is just the ticket for a peaceful journey in Japan.'

AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC

The Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia

Go: The Marquesas Islands are 'captivating' - put them on your bucket list

'These remote Pacific islands have captivated travellers for centuries.'

Wellington, New Zealand

'New Zealand's capital city is an oasis surrounded by mountains, sandy beaches, and a seaside harbour.'

EUROPE

Camargue, France

'A rugged corner of Provence complete with wild bulls and cowboys.'

Helsinki, Finland

'The world's happiest city is also a vibrant cultural hub.'

Meteora, Greece

Go: Meteora in Greece is one of several European spots Fodor's recommends for 2025

'A million-year-old natural wonder where heaven meets earth.'

Masurian Lake District, Poland

'An under-the-radar outdoor stunner.'

Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland

'A sanctuary of puffins and stunning cliffs.'

MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA

Alta Verapaz, Guatemala

'Clear blue rivers, mountaintop cloud forests, and subterranean caverns make this a nature lover's paradise.'

Leon, Nicaragua

'Street spirits revolt in the shadows of colonial cathedrals and cinder cone volcanoes.'

Merida, Mexico

'A vibrant, creative capital steeped in Mayan culture.'

Veraguas, Panama

'A lush Panamanian province that offers world-class wildlife tourism opportunities.'

SOUTH AMERICA

Colca Canyon, Peru

'Often missed for its renowned neighbour, Machu Picchu, this is one of the deepest canyons in the world with soaring condors and Inca terraces.'

Santa Marta, Colombia

'A Unesco World Heritage Site with a national park that is best reached by boat.'

For more visit www.fodors.com/go-list/2025 and www.fodors.com/news/news/fodors-no-list-2025.
Joan Vassos' journey as ABC's inaugural Golden Bachelorette came to an end on Wednesday night's 90-minute finale.

The 61-year-old Maryland native had narrowed the 24 contestants down to 2 - Chock Chapple, 60, and Guy Gansert, 66, heading into the finale.

She had promised herself that she would never say 'I love you' until the end of her journey, which happened on the finale.

She was slated to have final dates with both Chock and Guy, both of whom would meet her son and daughter, along with their significant others.

That didn't happen, though, with Joan making up her mind after the first date... leaving the other finalist heartbroken.

Joan Vassos' journey as ABC's inaugural Golden Bachelorette came to an end on Wednesday night's 90-minute finale

The 61-year-old Maryland native had narrowed the 24 contestants down to 2 - Chock Chapple, 60, and Guy Gansert, 66, heading into the finale

She was slated to have final dates with both Chock and Guy, both of whom would meet her son and daughter, along with their significant others

She ultimately chose Chock after his final date with her, telling Guy the next day that her, 'heart belonged to someone else.'

He told her, 'I made the decision that when I spoke with your kids, I was going to tell them that I had fallen in love with you and then I was going to get down on a knee and I was going to ask you to marry me.'

'I really thought this was gonna happen,' Guy said in confession, as Joan told him, 'You'll always be a part of my life.'

'I'm gonna let it all out. I was ready,' Guy said in confession, as Joan admitted, 'I can't help but feel really, really, really guilty.'

'He was so happy to see me when I got there. I don't want to hurt people. It's a hard line to kind of walk,but you can't make your heart feel a different way, and my heart belongs to Chock,' Joan said.

Guy was clearly heartbroken, though there was no animosity, as he met with Joan during the live finale before Chock proposed to Joan.

Chock joined host Jesse Palmer on the live portion of the finale, admitting it was 'a blur' and watching it again was, 'heartbreaking,' though he learned something important.

'I didn't think at this point in my life that I could feel the emotions I could feel what I call true love again and watching that there, I did. I know I can do it again,' he said.

She ultimately chose Chock after his final date with her, telling Guy the next day that her, 'heart belonged to someone else'

'I'm gonna let it all out. I was ready,' Guy said in confession, as Joan admitted, 'I can't help but feel really, really, really guilty'

Joan was brought out as Guy saw her for the first time in a few months as they embraced in a hug as he told her, 'everything is good.'

He insisted that everything he told her, 'came from the heart,' and asked if there was something 'missing' that he didn't anticipate.

'Kind of the opposite. I never ever thought I could have strong feelings for more than one person, and, like, as you described it, it was kind of a slow burn, but I was getting there with you, but it comes down to being like kind of a time thing,' she said.

She added that he was, 'an amazing human being' and that he was 'full of love' and a 'kind person.'

'It was really, really hard at the end to say good-bye to you because in any other situation I would have been with you, because we would have more time,' she said, adding that she missed him and she hopes they will always be friends, 'and that one day we'll be double dating.'

They then showed the final moments of the show, where Chock was getting ready to propose, admittedly nervous since she still hadn't told him that she loved him.

'We are living proof that no matter what life throws at you that there is still hope even at our age,' Joan told him.

'I waited till this moment in this amazing location to tell you that I love you. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you,' she said, which thrilled Chock.

He insisted that everything he told her, 'came from the heart,' and asked if there was something 'missing' that he didn't anticipate

They then showed the final moments of the show, where Chock was getting ready to propose, admittedly nervous since she still hadn't told him that she loved him

They then showed the final moments of the show, where Chock was getting ready to propose, admittedly nervous since she still hadn't told him that she loved him

'I waited till this moment in this amazing location to tell you that I love you. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you,' she said, which thrilled Chock

'Joan you will never be invisible to me. I'm going to tell you that I love you every day. I promise that,' Chock told her.

'I look into those gorgeous eyes and I just can't believe this is happening. Because I still think, I'm in a dream and I'm just going to wake up. But Joan, I love you and I want you to be in my life.'

Joan then told him that she decided a year and a half ago that she needed love back in her life. She said she saw a future with him on their very first date.

'I felt like we could take care of each other and knew you would never hurt me,' Joan said. 'We are living proof that no matter what life throws at you there is still hope even at our age. I waited until this moment in this amazing location to tell you that I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.'

Chock kissed her.

'I have a question for you,' Chock said. 'Joan would you marry me?'

'Of course I'll marry you,' Joan said.

Joan then picked up the final rose and asked if he would accept it.

'Joan you will never be invisible to me. I'm going to tell you that I love you every day. I promise that,' Chock told her

'I look into those gorgeous eyes and I just can't believe this is happening. Because I still think, I'm in a dream and I'm just going to wake up. But Joan, I love you and I want you to be in my life.'

Chock and Joan then rode off on a boat kissing each other.

Joan and Chock are engaged!

The happy couple was then introduced to the live audience, with Joan showing Jesse Palmer the engagement ring

'Absolutely with all my love,' Chock said.

Joan then called her mother and showed her Chock and said he was her fiance.

'I'm the luckiest guy in the world,' Chock said.

Chock and Joan then rode off on a boat kissing each other.

The happy couple was then introduced to the live audience, with Joan showing Jesse Palmer the engagement ring.

He also had a surprise for the couple, announcing that he was sending Joan, Chock and their entire families to Disney World in Florida.

They also showed a sneak peek at the next installment of The Bachelor, with Grant Ellis in the audience, who said Joan and Chock were, 'an inspiration.

Grant's season of The Bachelor debuts January 27 on ABC.
Just a week after fans praised Bronwyn Newport as being one of the best rookie castmates, Real Housewives of Salt Lake City fans are now questioning her marriage.

The 39-year-old first-year housewife has not been shy with flaunting her and husband Todd's immense wealth, flying most of the cast out on a lavish Palm Springs trip to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary.

Todd presented Bronwyn with a stunning 170 karat diamond necklace that cost a whopping $4 million for an anniversary gift, which stunned both her fellow housewives and many fans as well.

While many fans were impressed, many others thought that, despite the lavish gifts, they don't actually act much like a couple at all.

The fans weren't the only ones to question the relationship, with Meredith Marks chiming in during a confessional after an awkward dinner exchange.

Just a week after fans praised Bronwyn Newport as being one of the best rookie castmates , Real Housewives of Salt Lake City fans are now questioning her marriage.

Todd presented Bronwyn with a stunning 170 karat diamond necklace that cost a whopping $4 million for an anniversary gift, which stunned both her fellow housewives and many fans as well

The group all ate dinner outside where the windy weather made things a bit chilly, with Bronwyn joking, 'It's miserable but it's beautiful, it's an analogy for Todd and I's marriage.'

Most at the table didn't laugh as Bronwyn tried to list all the reasons she 'adores' Todd, but then jokes, 'actually there's only two,' as Todd took out his black card and showed the table.

During a confession, Marks said, 'Look, I don't know all that much about Bronwyn and Todd's relationship, but it feels like there's a mild tension there.'

'I say a mild tension, but I don't even know if that's the right word. It's just, it's an unusual engagement with each other,' Marks added.

@thom_ahs basically agreed with Marks, stating on Twitter, 'There is something very unusual about Bronwyn & Todd's relationship & I can't quite put my finger on it. It feels mildly father/daughter like, he tends to reprimand her. There is some mild tension there. I guarantee if they stay on the show, more will come out.'

@BrianniT added, 'Todd does not care for Lisa. I truly don't think it has anything to do with the Gwen situation. I believe he feels like Lisa brought Bronwyn into the group but isn't protecting her & then you want to be involved with something about his kid? no! & I don't blame him.'

@_iparker_ added, '#RHOSLC i would love to hear about bronwyn and todd's relationship from both of their POV. it feels like they're both very sarcastic ppl but it's hard to read.'

@thom_ahs exclaimed, 'TODD GAVE BRONWYN A $4 MIL NECKLACE FOR THEIR ANNIVERSARY??? Oh she's single handedly bringing the wealth to this franchise, the other girlies aren't even close to that level.'

The group all ate dinner outside where the windy weather made things a bit chilly, with Bronwyn joking, 'It's miserable but it's beautiful, it's an analogy for Todd and I's marriage'

Most at the table didn't laugh as Bronwyn tried to list all the reasons she 'adores' Todd, but then jokes, 'actually there's only two,' as Todd took out his black card and showed the table

During a confession, Marks said, 'Look, I don't know all that much about Bronwyn and Todd's relationship, but it feels like there's a mild tension there'

@thom_ahs basically agreed with Marks, stating on Twitter, 'There is something very unusual about Bronwyn & Todd's relationship & I can't quite put my finger on it. It feels mildly father/daughter like, he tends to reprimand her. There is some mild tension there. I guarantee if they stay on the show, more will come out.'

@_iparker_ added, '#RHOSLC i would love to hear about bronwyn and todd's relationship from both of their POV. it feels like they're both very sarcastic ppl but it's hard to read'

@CurrentClips said, 'Todd and Bronwyn are reminding me of the cringe, demeaning moments between Erika and her ex Tom on RHOBH.'

Other fans were purely stunned at the extravagant necklace for an anniversary gift, including @gwenandellie who said, '4 MILLION DOLLARS FOR A 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY GIFT????'

Elsewhere in the episode, Bronwyn Newport was not happy Lisa Barlow didn't stick up for her after she felt Heather Gay called her two-faced

@BrianniT theorized, 'Bronwyn & Todd speak to each other too much to not like one another.'

@CurrentClips said, 'Todd and Bronwyn are reminding me of the cringe, demeaning moments between Erika and her ex Tom on RHOBH.'

Other fans were purely stunned at the extravagant necklace for an anniversary gift, including @gwenandellie who said, '4 MILLION DOLLARS FOR A 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY GIFT????'

@msbyrd34 added, 'Todd seems like he don't want to be bothered with Bronwyn, but yet he bought her a 4 million dollar necklace.'

Elsewhere in the episode, Bronwyn Newport was not happy Lisa Barlow didn't stick up for her after she felt Heather Gay called her two-faced.

'I know you were saying Heather was explaining her side but Heather also dropped some bombs in there like I'm two-faced and I'm conniving, and I'm mean,' Bronwyn, 39, said. 'And that's nasty, Lisa.'

'I get why you feel that way,' Lisa, 49, said.

Bronwyn didn't understand why Lisa didn't defend her. She told Lisa she felt she was more concerned about Heather's feelings than hers.

'Am I two-faced Lisa?' Bronwyn said.

'You know it's hard for me to answer this question right now because I do think you are two-faced sometimes,' Lisa said in a confessional. 'I don't feel that I can trust you 100%.'
Kate Garraway was scolded by bosses told to 'let the guest talk' in an awkward moment during Thursday's Good Morning Britain.

The TV presenter, 57, was fronting the show alongside her co-host Richard Madeley, 63, when they welcomed comedian Babatunde Aleshe to the studio for an interview.

He appeared on the ITV programme to dish out his best I'm A Celeb survival tips and share his opinion on this year's line-up, after going Down Under himself as a campmate who took part in the 2022 series.

He was candidly explaining why he couldn't take part in the Walk The Plank challenge, which saw him forfeit and break down in tears.

Kate quickly chimed in to share her own experience with the task when she gave it a go as a contestant in 2019.

Kate Garraway was scolded by bosses told to 'let the guest talk' in an awkward moment during Thursday's Good Morning Britain

The TV presenter, 57, was fronting the show alongside her co-host Richard Madeley, when they welcomed comedian Babatunde Aleshe to the studio for an interview

Babatunde explained: 'When Charlene [White] walked out they drew the plank away after she got to the end, so I was like oh once I get there I'm stuck, and that was enough for me.'

Kate quipped: 'It's so windy, nobody tells you that. When I did it they took Ant and Dec downstairs for a bit because they were just checking all the security and I was like "What about us?"

'It was so frightening and they always put tricks in like there was gaps, there was a seesaw. Mine was a stepladder down and then you go onto another plank and look down.'

She then talked about the science behind the fear of heights, explaining: 'It is a very basic fear, the fear of heights.

'There's been a lot of research done and one piece of research was that they put crawling babies in a room in a Perspex square.'

Kate went on to explain the study, before joking: 'We're going off on a tangent here...'

After hearing a warning from the producers in her ear piece, she admitted: 'They just told me to let you talk, it's a fair point, you are the guest.'

Switching to a new subject, Richard asked Babatunde: 'Who's your money on then?,' to which he replied: 'Ohh I don't know, it's not even really started yet.'

Kate went on to explain the study, before joking: 'We're going off on a tangent here...'

She then talked about the science behind the fear of heights, explaining: 'It is a very basic fear, the fear of heights'

Viewers were quick to pick up on the awkward interview moment and rushed to social media to share their thoughts, writing:

'Richard and Kate just love the sound of their own voices. Just talking over each other and the guests. Its Painful #gmb.'

'I thought this was about Babatunde #gmb.'

'Man cant get a word in with these 2 muppets! Shut the f***up!! #GMB.'

'How many times is Kate going to cut straight over Richard during this interview? How rude?! #GMB.'

It comes just after Richard addressed his shoplifting arrest in the 1990s live on Good Morning Britain as he claimed it was 'easy to forget to pay for things'.

The broadcaster was presenting the ITV breakfast show last week alongside co-host Kate Garraway, during a segment about granting security guards in stores increased powers.

The duo discussed the suggestion that store detectives be allowed to arrest or maybe handcuff suspected shoplifters, with it even being suggested supermarkets have cells built inside them.

After hearing a warning from the producers in her ear piece, she admitted: 'They just told me to let you talk, it's a fair point, you are the guest'

Switching to a new subject, Richard asked Babatunde: 'Who's your money on then?,' to which he replied: 'Ohh I don't know, it's not even really started yet'

Viewers were quick to pick up on the awkward interview moment and rushed to social media to share their thoughts

Urging viewers to give their opinions on the idea, Kate said: 'There's such a scourge of shoplifting and it's causing so many problems for shopkeepers and for everybody else. So let us know what you think.'

After reading out some comments that had been sent in, Richard gave his thoughts, acknowledging his own experiences.

He said: 'I know from my own experience that it's very easy to forget to pay for stuff.'

The presenter went on: 'And woah, just a minute a store detective, would you really accept a store detective putting you in cuffs?

'I mean, you would say, "Woah, hold on! I've just made an honest mistake, let me explain." There's a lot to go out there.'

Richard was arrested in 1994 for allegedly failing to pay for items, including champagne, on two occasions at a Tesco supermarket in Walkden, Greater Manchester. A jury later found him not guilty of the offence after he cited a lapse of memory.

Speaking about the incident to The Sun last year, he said: 'Thank God Twitter wasn't around then. But the whole thing was so self-evidently b****cks, that my not paying was an oversight.

'It was leaked by someone at Tesco. At the time though, I thought, "Well, of course it's going to be OK because otherwise the world's gone mad." I never felt I was going to get cancelled.

It comes just after Richard addressed his shoplifting arrest in the 1990s live on Good Morning Britain as he claimed it was 'easy to forget to pay for things'

The broadcaster was presenting the ITV breakfast show alongside co-host Kate Garraway, during a segment about granting security guards in stores increased powers

'Granada Television were fantastic. And the Monday after they found out, and knew the facts of the case and knew it was rubbish, they told me not to worry.

'We carried on as normal. I went to crown court, my lawyer told me to get in front of a jury so people could see it was an obvious oversight. So that's what I did. And I was absolutely acquitted.

'But I told viewers about it. I mean, Judy had to open This Morning on her own while I was in court for two minutes, then I'd get in my car and drive from Manchester to Liverpool, rock up, walk on the set while she was mid-interview, and sit down and join in. It was surreal.'

He added: 'After the trial, it was as if it had never happened. I've never really spoken about it because, as I said at the start of this interview, when you're on camera you're only one sentence away, and you can so easily get it wrong.'
The One Show's Alex Jones left viewers blown away as she fought back tears after a gruelling Children In Need challenge and admitted 'it's so hard'.

The presenter and her co-host Roman Kemp were joined by Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley and Emily, a member of the Children in Need challenge team on Wednesday's instalment of the BBC chat show.

Emily, from north London, who has cerebral palsy and relies on a wheelchair and walking sticks to get around, had the host welling up as she spoke about the gruelling challenge she completed for the children's charity.

The 21 year old took on The Long Walk in Windsor as part of BBC Children in Need and The One Show's fundraiser - The Challenge Squad.

The Long Walk in Windsor takes a fully mobile person around three hours to complete and starts from the castle gates at the end of Park Street, ending at the Copper Horse statue of King George III.

Alex and her co-host Roman Kemp, were joined by Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley and Emily, a member of the Children in Need challenge team on yesterdays instalment of the BBC chat show

Emily, from north London , who has cerebral palsy and relies on a wheelchair and walking sticks to get around, had the host welling up as she spoke about the gruelling challenge she completed for the children's charity

Visibly overwhelmed with emotion, Alex tried to convey to the viewers just how big of an achievement this was for Emily and how hard it would have been for her

However, it took Emily three days to complete the walk down the iconic tree-lined avenue due to her mobility issues.

She was joined on the final stretch by the Duchess of Edinburgh who came to show her support before heading to the studio to sit down with Alex and Roman.

Visibly overwhelmed with emotion, Alex tried to convey to the viewers just how big of an achievement this was for Emily and how hard it would have been for her.

She said: 'You can't even see on camera, I don't think, but when I watched you today, gosh, doing the long walk, honestly, it's so hard. It's so hard!

'I think it's one of the hardest challenges I've seen on Children in Need and you did it. How does it feel now that you've taken it on and you've absolutely conquered it?'

The Duchess of Edinburgh was snapped accompanying Emily, 21, during her charity walk in Windsor yesterday

Following the Long Walk for BBC's Children in Need, the Duchess was snapped embracing the 21-year-old

To which Emily responded: 'It feels so good to have completed it because there was a part of me that really thought I couldn't, especially because I got sick just before. But I feel amazing to have completed it and I'm really proud of myself.'

Emily's bravery and tenacity struck a cord with audiences across the country who took to social media to congratulate her, saying: 'Well done Emily!! What a brave, courageous young lady. Many congratulations to her on such an incredible achievement.'

One wrote: 'Well done lass. You're a superstar!'

Another post read: 'Just cried at Emily on The One Show. What an incredible girl.'

The One Show airs on BBC One and iPlayer.
Maureen Lipman jokingly threatened to 'personally kill' I'm A Celeb bosses if they 'harm one hair' on Alan Halsall's head, during Thursday's Lorraine.

The Coronation Street legend, 78, wasn't afraid to speak her mind when she was asked what she thought of her on-screen grandson, 42, going Down Under to spend three weeks with critters.

Maureen is best-known for her role as established character Tyrone Dobbs' (Alan Halsall's) grandmother in Corrie.

She has appeared in the Manchester-based soap as Evelyn Plummer, mother of addict Cassie Plummer, since 2018.

Alan, who touched down at Brisbane Airport on Sunday, is heading into the jungle alongside the likes of GK Barry and Tulisa.

Maureen Lipman jokingly threatened to 'personally kill' I'm A Celeb bosses if they 'harm one hair' on Alan Halsall 's head, during Thursday's Lorraine

The Coronation Street legend, 78, wasn't afraid to speak her mind when she was asked what she thought of her on-screen grandson, 42, going Down Under to spend three weeks with critters

Lorraine asked soap star Maureen: 'Will you be watching your boy in the jungle? Are you worried about him?'

She let out a sight before raging: 'I could kill him honestly. He was gonna go last year but he hurt his knee. If they harm one hair on that boy's head I will personally kill them.

'If they give him turkey testicles I will personally kill them. He'll be fine because he's a lovely human being. He takes a lot from me.'

Praising her co-star, she added: 'He's very sorted, his life is very sorted and he's a really better actor than you'd ever know.

'He'll be very guarded at first but if they get underneath they'll find he's a lovely bloke.'

Last November, the father-of-one underwent major knee surgery and was told by doctors it could take him up to a year to recover.

The surgery sees the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstructed by removing the torn ligament and replacing it with a tendon from another area of the leg.

It was reported on Friday the Coronation Street star had to pull out of a padel competition because of his knee and so speculation grew he would not make it to the jungle.

She let out a sight before raging: 'I could kill him honestly. He was gonna go last year but he hurt his knee. If they harm one hair on that boy's head I will personally kill them'

Alan, who touched down at Brisbane Airport on Sunday, is heading into the jungle alongside the likes of GK Barry and Tulisa

Maureen is best-known for her role as established character Tyrone Dobbs' (Alan Halsall's) grandmother in Corrie

'Alan was meant to be taking part in a padel competition but pulled out at the last minute because his knee was playing up,' a source told The Sun.

'Its fine now but he just has to be really careful. He might not be able to take part in some of the trials, bosses are currently working out if he will be ruled out of any.

'Its a huge blow for Alan because he was looking forward to throwing himself into it and now has to be a bit wary.'

MailOnline has contacted Alan's representatives for comment.

Elsewhere in the interview, Maureen opened up about her engagement to her business consultant fiance David Turner.

She revealed she was the one who popped the question to her partner, also 78, while attempting to make a joke on a train journey.

When asked if the wedding planning is underway, Maureen joked: 'The very mention of the word venue fills me with fear but yes, we are astounded by the fact that you can have a love affair at this age.

'We had sort of talked about marriage but in a sort of ha ha way because you know, if you've been married, then you don't need to be married again do you.'

Last November, Alan had major knee surgery and told how it could take him up to a year to fully recover

Elsewhere in the interview, Maureen opened up about her engagement to her business consultant fiance David Turner

They got engaged on a train coming back from Edinburgh, when David mentioned that it was the minor festival of Tu BAv  a day when a Jewish woman can ask a man to marry her.

She explained: 'It was just the gag really, we were on this train with a table between us and I just slid under the table and he said: "What are you doing?" and I said "Go on then! Marry me" and he was just gobsmacked.

'He said "Yes, yes" and then I couldn't get out, I sort of folded under the table. Then of course, I wrote about it and the whole thing skyrocketed.'

The actress was married to TV scriptwriter Jack Rosenthal for 30 years until his death in 2004 and they welcomed daughter Amy, 50, and Adam, 48. David also has three children from a previous relationship.

Writing about how the children took the news in her Spectator column, she shared: 'All reactions were warm, and all were individual.

'One child said that he needed time "to process it". We broke the news to another as he slid leaves into a new dining table, transforming the scene into a Jack Rosenthal play  one with, I like to think, a happy ending.'

Maureen first mentioned David in autumn 2023, when she shared that she was bringing a 'gentleman friend' to that year's National Television Awards.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express she said: 'I'm going with my gentleman friend David.'

She revealed she was the one who popped the question to her partner, also 78, while attempting to make a joke on a train journey (pictured on September 5)

When asked if the wedding planning is underway, Maureen joked: 'The very mention of the word venue fills me with fear'

Discussing finding love again at 77, the star was overjoyed to be sharing life with a partner.

She said: 'It's a gift for all concerned. It's a gift and he's been very nice. I've met some nice men in my life, some really interesting men, and we will see where it goes.'

They made their public appearance debut at the Oldie Of The Year Awards that November.

At the event, Maureen proudly said of David: 'That's my significant other.'

After the death of her husband, Maureen dated Italian businessman Guido Castro for 13 years before his death in 2021.

Speaking about her partner's death, Maureen confirmed: 'He got Covid  it wasn't Covid that killed him but it weakened him terribly.

'We don't know how he got it or when or if he had it when he got the vaccine.'

Maureen heartbreakingly added: 'I said to Guido, ''It's time to go. You've got to let go''. And I think for once in his life he actually did what I told him.'

The actress was married to TV scriptwriter Jack Rosenthal for 30 years until his death in 2004 (pictured on their wedding day in 1973) and they welcomed daughter Amy, 50, and Adam, 48

Maureen had a 13-year relationship with computer expert Guido Castro, who died in 2021, after his body was 'weakened' by Covid (pictured in 2014)

Maureen's role as Evelyn Plummer has won her two awards: Best Newcomer from the Inside Soap Awards and Best Comedic Performance from The British Soap Awards.

She was made a Dame in 2021 in the belated Queen's birthday honours list in recognition of a stage and screen career stretching back more than 50 years.

After training at LAMDA, her work was mostly in the theatre and the actress was a member of the RSC and Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company in the 70s.

She later came to prominence on television playing an agony aunt whose own personal life was a shambles in the sitcom Agony in the late 70s, and then as Jewish grandmother Beattie in a string of famous BT adverts.

On the big screen she has had supporting roles in Educating Rita with Michael Caine and Julie Walters, and Roman Polanski's 2002 Oscar winner The Pianist.
An Antiques Roadshow guest was left speechless when she discovered the incredible value of her 18 painting she had almost donated to charity.

This week, the cherished BBC series made its way to Cromford Mills, Derbyshire, where expert Lawrence Hendra met a guest who owned a rather intriguing piece of art.

The expert was taken aback by the unexpected discovery as he pointed out: 'So of all the paintings I was not expecting to see here at Cromford Mills in Derbyshire, is a painting by an artist from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pili Pili Mulongoy.'

The guest then explained her original plans for the painting by saying: 'I bought this painting with a job lot of other paintings and prints, I didn't want half of them so I was going to take them to a charity shop.

'I had this one in my arms and I noticed that it had got a signature and could tell that it was a real painting.

'I tried to do some research about it and it's been on my wall ever since.'

An Antiques Roadshow guest was left utterly speechless when she discovered the incredible value of her 18 painting she had almost donated to charity

This week, the cherished BBC series made its way to Cromford Mills, Derbyshire, where expert Lawrence Hendra met a guest who owned a rather intriguing piece of art

The guest explained: 'I bought this painting with a job lot of other paintings and prints, I didn't want half of them so I was going to take them to a charity shop'

Upon hearing this, Lawrence asked the woman what specifically attracted her to the intriguing art piece.

To which she expressed: 'I think you love it or you hate it and it's really lovely and colourful and I love the little antelope and I can appreciate how it's painted. I paint myself and I just really love it.'

Delving deeper into the artwork's background, Lawrence elaborated: 'As you can see, it's signed on the bottom right, Pili Pili, and he came from a very working-class family, he trained as a plumber and a builder and then he fell under guidance of a French artist.'

'He went to a drawing school set up by him, he won a prize and thereafter, he managed to develop this style of painting that was uniquely his own and you see a lot of this very delicate, vertical colouring in his pictures.'

'This is on canvas, water colours and oils, but they're often very flat in perspective.'

'The animals, which are the main features of his work, are often on the same picture plain as grass and sometimes forest-type backgrounds.'

He then revealed Pili Pili's art was 'very popular' and had even been collected by the Belgium Royal Family.

Branding it a 'good discovery' for the visitor, the guest chuckled and said: 'Good job I didn't give it away!'

Expert Lawrence looked thrilled as he identified the piece as a work of art by Pili Pili and shockingly valued the sculpture between 3,000 to 5,000

The crowd gasped at the expert's shocking revelation and the owner exclaimed 'No!' in disbelief

Disclosing the price she paid, the guest revealed: 'I think I paid about 18 for it, it was only about six years ago.'

'I had my eye on a print in this bundle of paintings and, as I say, I donated some to a local charity shop on the way home because I didn't want them all.'

Pressing on, the expert said: 'But you kept this one crucially. Okay, well was it 18 well spent?'

'To be honest, if this were to go under the hammer today, I wouldn't be surprised to see it fetch between 3,000 to 5,000.'

The crowd gasped at the expert's shocking revelation and the owner exclaimed 'No!' in disbelief.

She looked lost for words at first, stuttering and then giggling 'Okay. Thank you, Lawrence!'

The specialist remarked with a nod of approval, 'You have a good eye', and quipped light-heartedly, 'I like it more now.'

Antiques Roadshow continues on Sunday, November 17, on BBC1 at 8pm.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are set to face-off in court next year as their long-running legal battle or so-called 'War of the Rose' heads to trial, DailyMail.com can reveal.

The feuding exes are now due to come face to face after a judge recently threw out the Oscar-winning actress's motion to dismiss her ex-husband's lawsuit over their French vineyard.

The Chateau Miraval estate, which produces an award-winning sparkling rose, is at the center of a long-running court battle between the pair.

Jolie, 49, filed motions to dismiss claims that Pitt, 60, made against her concerning a verbal agreement over their 50-50 ownership of the vineyard.

Feuding exes Brad Pitt (pictured in September) and Angelia Jolie (seen on Tuesday) are now set to faceoff in court next year as their long-running legal battle over their Miraval winery heads to trial

Since their 2016 split, the two stars have been fighting in court over their French winery, Chateau Miraval (seen) that they once owned together

She argues that the agreement had been nullified after Pitt requested she sign an NDA regarding their marriage  with both sides seemingly determined to throw everything at the case.

'It's already been ugly but it's going to get even uglier as Angie is bent on retaliating against Brad and will try to continue to settle more old personal scores,' an insider close to the case told DailyMail.com.

And it's going to get costlier too  with their legal wrangling already costing both sides millions.

The latest twist in the acrimonious lawsuit has seen LA Superior Court Judge Lia Martin throw out the motions.

Court filings submitted last week suggest that the judge has found a basis in Pitt's claims that their original verbal agreement was binding, and Jolie may have violated them when she sold her shares to Russian businessman Yuri Shefler and his Stoli Group in 2021.

Pitt's lawyers say that Jolie violated the couple's deal to not sell their respective stakes in Miraval without both parties' permission.

With the dismissal of the three filings, the former power couple - who wed at the Provence, Southern France estate in 2014 and split in 2016  are set to face off in court at the trial next year.

A source close to the actor told DailyMail.com: 'This is a straightforward business dispute, but unfortunately, the other side has consistently introduced personal elements which have exposed the weaknesses in their case and complicated and lengthened the proceedings.'

The ongoing legal battle saw Brad Pitt demand his ex-wife hand over documents for previous agreements she's entered with third parties after she claimed she backed out of the deal over his 'cruel' NDA clause. He is pictured at the chateau with business partner Marc Perrin

Pitt was shocked when his ex-wife sold her half of their stunning Chateau Miraval estate without his consent to Russian billionaire Yuri Shefler in 2021

The Maleficent star will have 30 days to appeal the judge's decision in filings at Los Angeles Superior Court last week.

Pitt filed the $67million lawsuit against Jolie in 2022, less than a year after the shares were sold, setting off a protracted court battle between the exes.

But Judge Martin's decision to dismiss Jolie's final three claims against Pitt has put him firmly back in the driving seat ahead of a trial next year.

This latest court ruling represents another pre-trial victory for Pitt, adding to his momentum in the ongoing legal battle.

The South of France chateau, where the couple wed in 2014, became Pitt's 'passion' and one of the world's most highly-regarded producers of rose wine

Jolie faces potential damages claims if she does not undo the deal she made with Yuri Shefler regarding the sale of her Miraval stake.

With her frustration over Pitt being awarded joint custody of their children in 2021, the dispute appears to have turned highly personal for the pair, going beyond the original business matter.

Jolie has also been accused of trying to drive a wedge between her estranged husband and their six kids in the aftermath of their split.

Pitt's team claims she believes her deal with Shefler was 'justified' due to the NDA her ex-husband asked her to sign.

She was dealt another blow earlier this year after the court ruled she must produce every NDA that she signed with a third-party over an eight-year period from 2014 - the year they married - to 2022.

NDAs have become a key battleground in the dispute over Chateau Miraval after Jolie claims she backed out of their agreement because Pitt asked her to sign one as part of their business deal.

She claims that it was an 'unconscionable' attempt by her ex-partner to 'control her' after their split in April 2019, with his lawyers asking LA Superior Court to unwind the sale because of their agreement to not sell to a third party.

But Pitts attorneys have argued that Jolie's NDA objection was really just a cover story which she cooked-up to 'rationalize' her betrayal of Pitt by deciding to sell her stake behind his back.

The Fight Club star's attorneys also claim that Jolie herself 'weaponized' NDAs, and asked for Pitt to sign a broader NDA just six months later as part of their divorce settlement talks.

Pitt has landed several legal victories in the battle for the winery including a key judgment in Luxembourg which handed him back control of the property pending further hearings

An aerial view of Chateau Miraval in Le Val, southeastern France, the winery and home that Brangelina bought for $27million

Pitt's legal team asked in previous filings that she come clean about NDAs she entered into with third parties including staff.

At the time Paul Murphy, one of Jolie's attorneys, told DailyMail.com that the judge's order also opens the window for the actress to demand documents related to Pitt's alleged abuses.

'We are more than happy to turn them over and we are gratified that the Court acknowledged that the only potential relevance is to the unconscionability of Mr. Pitt's conduct, a now confirmed key issue in this case,' he said.

He continued: 'The judge's ruling completely opens the door to discovery on all issues related to Pitt's abuse. We welcome that transparency in all parties' discovery responses, including Mr. Pitt's.

A source close to Brad, however, said Jolie's decision to use the NDA as a strategy 'has backfired spectacularly.'

'Her defense has been exposed as a house of cards, and she will now have to provide details of all the NDAs she demanded of third parties.

'There is no question that this is a huge setback for her. There's a long way to go, but in the context of the case so far, this is a hugely important and far-reaching ruling which will be problematic for her defense,' the source added.

Pitt has landed several legal victories in the battle for the winery including a key judgement in Luxembourg which handed him back control of the award-winning vineyard pending further hearings.

In March, LA Superior Court rejected the allegations that his suit was 'frivolous, malicious, and part of a problematic pattern.'
Denzel Washington looked as loved up as ever with his wife of 41 years Pauletta as the couple attended the Gladiator II premiere on Wednesday in Leicester Square.

The Hollywood legend, 69, embraced the actress, 74, as they beamed for stunning snaps on the red carpet for the hotly-anticipated screening.

Pauletta looked in her highest spirits proudly supporting her husband amid his leading role in Ridley Scott's second instalment of the action film.

Meanwhile the Equalizer alum looked smart in a suit co-ord, and the actress rocked a silky white top and black maxi skirt, teamed with a black billowing coat.

Adding further glamour to her ensemble, the Philadelphia star accessorised with a long pendant pearl necklace.

Denzel Washington looked as loved up as ever with his wife of 41 years Pauletta as the couple attended the Gladiator II premiere on Wednesday in Leicester Square

The Hollywood legend, 69, embraced the actress, 74, as they beamed for stunning snaps on the red carpet for the hotly-anticipated screening

She finished off with chic black stilettos and a classy clutch bag as she posed alongside Denzel under the limelight.

During the glitzy event, acting icon Denzel rubbed shoulders on the red carpet with director Sir Ridley Scott as well as co-star Paul Mescal.

The trio were later joined for pictures by the rest of the brilliant cast of A-listers including Stranger Things alum Joseph Quinn, The Last Of Us favourite Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen, and Fred Hechinger.

Gladiator II will hit both US and UK theatres on November 22 - where Oscar nominee Paul's character battles three-time Emmy nominee Pedro's Roman general-turned-gladiator, man-eating baboons, and a rhino-riding warrior.

Paul took over the role of Lucius Verus (Spencer Treat Clark), the grown-up nephew of the late Roman Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) who idolized the late general-turned-slave-turned-gladiator Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe).

Gladiator II - which has men fighting atop giant boats in shark-infested waters - will also feature Matt Lucas, May Calamawy, Lior Raz, Peter Mensah, and Tim McInnerny.

'Working on this film was one of the standout moments of my life to date,' Paul, 28, gushed in the pre-taped introduction.

'Getting to go to work every day with Sir Ridley Scott behind the camera is a good day to work in any context.'

The actress rocked a silky white top and black maxi skirt, teamed with a black billowing coat

Pauletta looked in her highest spirits proudly supporting her husband amid his eagerly-anticipated leading role in Ridley Scott's second instalment of the action film

Meanwhile the actor opted for a conventional black suit co-ord

During the glitzy event, acting icon Denzel rubbed shoulders on the red carpet with director Sir Ridley Scott (middle) as well as co-star Paul Mescal (right)
Kelly Brook turned heads in a Roman-inspired outfit as she stepped out on the red carpet for the London premiere of Gladiator II.

The model, 44, opted for a monochrome look for the screening at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on Wednesday.

The presenter paid homage to the film by wearing a toga-style dress which included a long black dress with a thigh-high split and a billowing cape over her shoulders.

And she made sure to show off her dress, twirling on the carpet and showing off the sequin-trimmed sleeves.

Kelly elongated her long legs with a pair of grey satin heels and accessorised with a star and sequin headband.

Kelly Brook, 46, turned heads in a Roman-inspired outfit as she stepped out on the red carpet for the London premiere of Gladiator II on Tuesday

The presenter paid homage to the film by wearing a toga-style dress which included a long black dress with a thigh-high split and a billowing cape over her shoulders

Kelly was joined at the star-studded event with her husband Jeremy Parisi who matched his partner's all black look with a smart tuxedo

The Heat FM host opted for a smokey eye and nude lipstick and let her long brunette locks fall in waves over her shoulders.

Kelly was joined at the star-studded event with her husband Jeremy Parisi who matched his partner's all black look with a smart tuxedo.

The couple posed together on the red carpet and looked to be having an excellent time.

The pair's joint appearance comes after it was revealed Kelly and Jeremy have signed with ITV to host their own daytime show.

MailOnline can reveal that the couple, who married in 2022 after eight years together, will host a three-part mini-series which will see them embark on a trip to rural Italy where Jeremy's family have lived and farmed for several generations.

Kelly and Jeremy: La Vita Italiana will follow the couple as they decide whether a move to the Italian countryside is right for them.

They will return to Arpino - Jeremys hometown and the stunning location of their wedding - to immerse themselves in his family business.

An ITV source said: 'With Kellys trademark sense of humour, and Jeremys passion for his heritage, This Morning viewers will become immersed in the couples journey of discovery in deciding whether Italian life really is right for them.'

Kelly made sure to show off her dress, twirling and showing off the sequin-trimmed sleeves, along with a pair of grey satin heels and a star and sequin headband

The pair's joint appearance comes after it was revealed Kelly and Jeremy have signed with ITV to host their own daytime show after the success of their appearance on Celebrity Race Across the World

'The barn is an interesting talking point too as it could potentially become their dream home if they can get the goats to move out first!'

The series is set to be a ratings winner for This Morning, with bosses making the most of their popularity following their appearance on Race Across the World.

The series, which begins on Wednesday, will show how Kelly and Jeremy's Italian dream may not be all its cracked up to be and the simple life comes with its own challenges.

The duo have to tackle the busy harvest season, muck out the cows, look after livestock, go mushroom foraging in the Italian forest and attempt pizza and pasta making.

Speaking about the show, Kent-born Kelly, 44, said: 'We are in a hilltop town in rural Italy and it has been the home of Jeremys family for the last 600 years many many generations!'

'Could we live here? It is something that I think is definitely in our future plans.'

The couple, who married in 2022 after eight years together, will host a three-part mini-series which will see them embark on a trip to rural Italy

Jeremy agreed: 'Its my dream having a peaceful life! My family owns an olive farm - that is their main business - they have around 7000 trees and produce olive oil every year.'

Meanwhile, Kelly reveals how they have gone to Italy to pick the olives and farm.

Although realising how hard some of the tasks were, Kelly admits: 'It takes a lot out of you, farming. Being with live farm animals is a very different situation!'

Kelly and Jeremy: La Vita Italiana will start next Wednesday (13th Nov) on This Morning from 10am on ITV1 and ITVX.
Carrie Bickmore's ex-husband Chris Walker has purchased a lavish new home in Melbourne following the couple's split.

The four-bedroom house, located in the suburb Eaglemont, was listed with a price guide of $2.95 and $3.2million.

Chris was obviously keen to grab the keys to the property, sealing the deal at $3.22million.

Sitting on an expansive 900 square metre block, the property features a separate, self-contained space with its own kitchen and powder room.

The main kitchen is a gourmand's delight, complete with Miele appliances and a stone island bench.

The house also boasts a large open plan living and dining area, which listing agent Matthew Treacy told the Herald Sun was the major drawcard for the producer.

The main bedroom features an adjoining Carrera marble ensuite while the three remaining bedrooms share a travertine bathroom.

The property also has a heated mineral pool, workshop and ample underhouse storage.

Carrie Bickmore 's ex-husband Chris Walker has purchased a lavish new home in Melbourne following the couple's split

Chris is the co-creator of Hard Quiz, The Weekly With Charlie Pickering and Tomorrow, Tonight.

He met Carrie when he the managing editor and producer of The Project.

The former couple announced their split in an Instagram post in January last year after 11 years of marriage.

At the time, Carrie said the pair was focused on co-parenting their three children, Ollie, 16, Evie, eight, and Adelaide, five.

'It's with immense sadness that Chris and I have decided to separate,' she wrote.

Sitting on an expansive 900 square metre block, the four bedroom house features a separate, self-contained space with its own kitchen and powder room

The four-bedroom house, located in the suburb Eaglemont, was listed with a price guide of $2.95 and $3.2million. Chris snapped it up for $3.22million

The house also boasts a large open plan living and dining area, which listing agent Matthew Treacy told the Herald Sun was the major drawcard for the producer

'While this is a tough time, our focus is on parenting, loving and supporting our three children Ollie, Evie and Addie with everything that we've got.

'They are doing great. We won't be making any further comment.'

The pair's love story captured the hearts of Australians.

Carrie and Chris met as colleagues on The Project - she was a presenter and he was a producer - and they began dating in late 2012, two years after she lost her husband Greg Lange, the father of her eldest child Ollie, to brain cancer.

Carrie announced their split in an Instagram post in January last year after 11 years of marriage

Speaking on the Empowering Leaders podcast in August, Chris opened up on the split admitting he was still dealing with the 'grief' of the separation.

He explained to host Luke Darcy the hardest part of their new co-parenting arrangement is 'saying goodbye to the kids twice a week'.

'I still find that just enormously challenging. I had always assumed I'd be around them a hundred per cent of the time,' he explained.

'When it comes to being a dad, I was born for it. I love it and I wanna be around them all the time. I find that really difficult.'

Chris added he was being supported by friends and family through 'rougher times' but he added, 'the thing is, grief can last a long time.'

Carrie and her radio co-star Tommy Little meanwhile have repeatedly been hit by romance rumours ever since they hosted their HIT FM radio show from Paris, France, last year.

Last month, the pair were spotted cuddling up for a photo behind-the-scenes at the ACRAs.

The Hit Network drive show co-hosts skipped the red carpet at the radio awards and snuck in through the kitchen together.

They stopped to pose for a picture in the bustling backroom, with Carrie turning heads in a very short black dress.
Dave Coulier used a group text to tell his Full House colleagues that he was battling cancer.

The 65-year-old actor told People Wednesday that he received an 'immediate' response after telling his costars that he'd been diagnosed with stage 3 Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The St. Clair Shores, Michigan-born actor told the publication, 'I didn't want them to hear it from someone else, so I sent a text message out.

Coulier - who played Joey Gladstone on Full House from 1987-1995, and Fuller House from 2016-2020 - said that the group text is composed of the show's creator Jeff Franklin and costars John Stamos, Lori Loughlin, Candace Cameron Bure, Jodie Sweetin, Andrea Barber and Scott Weinger.

'It was just this outpouring of, "I will be there. You just name the time, and I know you're in great hands with [wife Melissa Bring] but what can we do?"' he said.

Dave Coulier, 65, says he used a group text to tell his Full House colleagues that he was battling cancer. Pictured Sunday in Michigan

Coulier sent a group text to a thread including (L-R) Candace Cameron Bure, Andrea Barber, Jodie Sweetin, Lori Loughlin and John Stamos. Pictured on Stamos' Instagram in 2019

Coulier, who's also worked on popular shows such as Robot Chicken, How I Met Your Mother and It's Garry Shandling's Show, said of the show's inner circle: 'It really is overwhelming the love that we have for each other.

'We've been there for so many years for each other and it's pretty remarkable.'

Coulier said that the bonds of the cast have been strong in the near-three years since the January 2022 death of Bob Saget at the age of 65.

'I think we value not only our lives together, but we value our lives,' he said. 'We value those good times and the positive moments that we've gotten to share. And I think that that spills over to other people, and it's just positive.

'There's not many negatives when I'm with that group of people. It's really just laughter and positivity, and we appreciate so much what we have in our lives and the people around us.'

Coulier told the outlet that Stamos was visiting him Saturday, after he undergoes chemotherapy.

'I can't wait for him to visit, November 15, I get a chemo treatment,' Coulier said. 'November 16, John's going to be here.'

He said of Stamos: 'He goes, "If you want to just sleep, I'll just sit by you or if you want to listen to music or just talk, whatever." And I'm just like, "Wow. That's like a brother. That's just truly a brother."'

Coulier said of the show's inner circle: 'It really is overwhelming the love that we have for each other'

Coulier discussed his diagnosis with Hoda Kotb on the Today Show earlier Wednesday

The cast of the series, including the late Bob Saget, was pictured in January 2017 in LA

Coulier, who discussed his diagnosis with Hoda Kotb on the Today Show earlier Wednesday, told the publication that he was diagnosed last month after dealing with an upper respiratory infection.

'I went from, I got a little bit of a head cold to I have cancer, and it was pretty overwhelming,' Coulier told the outlet. 'This has been a really fast roller coaster ride of a journey.'

Coulier, who is father to son Luc, 34, with ex-wife Jayne Modean, said that he's been entertained in doing his Full House Rewind podcast, as he 'never watched' the show during its first run.

'I understand it. I get it,' Coulier said. 'I understand why kids loved it so much, why families loved it so much, and why it's become so cross-generational. It's really got wonderful elements for kids and families.'

He said that the series' overwhelming message of love, respect and giving a strong effort resonates in the episodes.

'I didn't understand that so much when we were actually doing the show because it was so intense doing 192 episodes, but I get it now,' Coulier said. 'I can actually be so much more objective having a son going through family moments, going through raising a child. It just all makes sense to me.

'Now, I'm like, "Oh, now I see what was in the Kool-Aid. I get it."'
Gigi Hadid turned up the glam during a photoshoot for Maybelline on the streets of New York City this week.

The supermodel, 29, posed in and around a yellow cab in a pair of jeans and a bright yellow sweater.

In some snaps, she also had on a denim jacket and amber-lensed sunglasses.

The star  who recently opened an outpost of her cashmere store Guest in Residence in South Korea  applied red lipgloss to her famous pout in several of the fun images.

Gigi, who is dating actor Bradley Cooper, 49, gave off the vibe of the All-American girl during the photoshoot that stopped traffic in the busy metropolis.

Gigi Hadid turned up the glam during a photoshoot for Maybelline on the streets of New York City this week

The supermodel, 29, posed in and around a yellow cab in a pair of jeans and a bright yellow sweater

Gigi was also spotted looking sultry with a white rose, clowning around with a stop sign and sitting on the hood of a taxi.

When she wasn't wearing the yellow sweater that is likely from her cashmere brand Guest in Residence, she had on a white, v-neck t-shirt with baggy jeans and a denim jacket.

She also took a bite out of an apple in a cheeky reference to New York City, made a call on an old school lips-shaped phone and showed off her blood red manicure.

The shoot comes after she went on a date with her boyfriend Bradley.

They also got out for a night on Broadway to see their friend Alyssa Milano, 51, perform in Chicago.

The Charmed star posed for a snap with Hadid, Cooper and co-star Kimberly Marable backstage at the Ambassador Theater and later shared it on Instagram, where fans noticed something odd about the photo.

Many users sounded off about Cooper's unusual appearance in the social media shot, with speculation ranging from AI to photoshop.

'Is that AI Bradley because I have questions... lol,' one user said, while another said, 'The filter on this photo is insane.'

In some snaps, she also had on a denim jacket and amber-lensed sunglasses

Overall, Gigi, 29, gave off the images of the All-American girl during the photoshoot that stopped traffic in the busy metropolis

Gigi was also spotted looking sultry with a white rose, clowning around with a stop sign and sitting on the hood of a taxi

The former International Model of the Year applied red lipgloss to her famous pout in several of the images

Gigi carefully applied lipgloss to her lips as she hung outside the window of a taxi

The Los Angeles native looked happy and carefree in all of the photos

When she wasn't wearing the yellow sweater that is likely from her cashmere brand Guest in Residence, she had on a white, v-neck t-shrt with baggy jeans and a denim jacket

Maybe she's born with it or maybe its Maybelline, the brand's famous tagline states

She also took a bite out of an apple in a cheeky reference to New York City, made a call on an old school lips-shaped phone and showed off her blood red manicure

Gigi sported a blood red manicure for the photoshoot which matched her lipcolor

Gigi recently had a date night with boyfriend Bradley Cooper with his apparently digitally altered face sparking confusion - Pictured with Chicago's Alyssa Milano and Kimberly Marable

Another user described the image as the 'worst photoshop ever.'

Multiple comments made reference to the filtering app Facetune, with comments such as 'this picture is over facetuned;' 'girl chill with the Facetune' and 'the FaceTune on this is insane.'

One commenter said that Hadid's appearance was also unrecognizable due to the edits made to the image.

'Bradley and Gigi look nothing like themselves and no ones noticing that?' the user said.
Whoopi Goldberg's 69th birthday celebration on The View took an unexpected turn when her co-host Sara Haines walked off after the star made a risque comment.

The EGOT winner was in the middle of promoting some of her favorite products on the daytime talk show, including a large wheel of cheese with her face on it.

Whoopi gave the cheese a kiss, while Sara, 47, told the audience: 'I always wanted my face on cheese.'

The Sister Act star  who recently shared she can't afford to retire from The View  replied, 'Yeah, I like to be eaten from time to time.'

The tongue-in-cheek remark prompted the shocked television host to jokingly walk off the set.

Whoopi Goldberg's 69th birthday celebration on The View took an unexpected turn when her co-host Sara Haines, 47, walked off after the star made a risque comment

The audience erupted in laughter as Whoopi glanced around with a mixture of surprise and amusement.

Haines then returned back to the stage and gave Whoopi a hug.

'Nevermind!' Whoopi quipped, as she dismissed the joke with a wave of her hand.

The atmosphere continued to be lighthearted as Whoopi chuckled while further describing the cheese.

'This is a wheel of authentic Parmigiano Reggiano from Italy, and this has been aged for 24 months and it's a testament to Italian tradition and quality,' she shared.

'So if you'd like a chance to win a wheel just like this...' Whoopi went on, before Haines interjected with 'and eat Whoopi Goldberg!'

Whoopi  who elsewhere on the show claimed that a bakery refused to serve her over political views  laughed, replying, 'That's right! No  and eat yourself! Because you put your own face on it.'

It comes after Whoopi shared she's 'having a hard time' financially and can't afford to retire from The View.

'If I had all the money in the world, I would not be here, OK? So, I'm a working person, you know?,' she told the audience on the November 12 episode of the CBS talk show.

The EGOT winner was in the middle of promoting some of her favorite products on the daytime talk show, including a large wheel of cheese with her face on it

Whoopi gave the cheese a kiss, while Sara told the audience: 'I always wanted my face on cheese'

Whoopi replied, 'Yeah, I like to be eaten from time to time'

The tongue-in-cheek remark prompted the shocked television host to jokingly walk off the set

The audience erupted in laughter as Whoopi glanced around with a mixture of surprise and amusement

Haines then returned back to the stage and gave Whoopi a hug. 'Nevermind!' Whoopi quipped, as she dismissed the joke with a wave of her hand

Goldberg's most recent salary is currently unknown, but it was reported to be in the $5 to $6 million range back in 2016.

'I appreciate that people are having a hard time. Me too. I work for a living,' Goldberg said, following a discussion about Donald Trump's second presidency and all the working class Americans who voted for him.

She explained: 'My kid has to feed her family. My great-granddaughter has to be fed by her family. I know it's hard out there.'

'We talk to people all the time who say, "This is what's bothering me." But the thing that's bothering everybody should not be the thing that puts 85% of other people in danger. I think thats what we're saying,' she elaborated.

The comments come after grocers got angry at the Ghost star after she called them 'pigs' over the rising costs of food.

'The folks that own the groceries are pigs,' she said as she blamed them for rising prices at supermarkets on last Thursdays show.

'Your pocketbook is bad, not because the Bidens did anything. Not because the economy is bad. Your grocery bills are what they are because the folks that own the groceries are pigs,' Goldberg said.

Meanwhile, The Color Purple actress is continuing her pledge to never say Trump's name, which has been her motto since he first got elected in 2016.

It comes after Whoopi shared she's 'having a hard time' financially and can't afford to retire from The View

The View has been on the air since 1997. The current hosts are Goldberg, Haines, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro

After his win last week, Goldberg stated 'that's not going to change.'

Discussing the election results with her co-hosts, Goldberg expressed her disappointment that 'people didn't come out' to vote for Kamala Harris.

In 2018, Goldberg admitted that she never says Trump's name, telling CNN's The Axe Files that she 'can't' bear to say it or call him 'President'.

But her co-host Sunny Hostin, 56, took her frustration one step further, placing the blame on white women and Latino men.

The View has been on the air since 1997. The current hosts are Goldberg, Haines, Hostin, Joy Behar, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro.
Zoe Saldana put on a fashion-forward display on Wednesday evening as she stepped out in New York City.

The 46-year-old actress  who attended the ACLU Bill of Rights Awards this week  was clad in a dark gray pantsuit, striped shirt, and matching back tie.

The Avatar star fastened one of the double-breasted blazer's buttons and rounded out the ensemble with pointy black heels with a gold hardware accent at the toe.

The mom-of-three, who is married to Italian filmmaker Marco Perego, wore her chocolate-brown locks in a side part and spiral curls that tumbled over one side of her shoulder.

She accessorized with subtle gold earrings and looked typically beautiful in a a full face of makeup.

Zoe Saldana put on a fashion-forward display on Wednesday evening as she stepped out in New York City

The 46-year-old actress was clad in a dark gray pantsuit, striped shirt, and matching back tie

The Avatar star fastened one of the double-breasted blazer's buttons

Saldana flashed her megawatt smile as she waved to adoring fans outside The Late Show with Stephen Colbert studio.

She has been busy promoting her film Emilia Perez, which was released on November 1 and co-stars Selena Gomez.

Zoe takes on the role of Rita in the Spanish language film, while Selena portrays the character Jessi Del Monte.

The movie is set in Mexico and tells the story of a lawyer who receives 'an unexpected offer to help a feared cartel boss retire from his business and disappear forever by becoming the woman he's always dreamed of being,' according to an IMDb synopsis.

It won the Jury Prize during the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May, and the female ensemble won the Best Actress award.

Zoe is one of several A-list entertainers who covers the latest copy of Vanity Fair, the publication's 31st annual Hollywood Issue.

Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, the Crossroads actress wrote in a caption, 'Thank you Vanity Fair for this honor. Bucket list item .'

The post has so far racked up more than 100,000 likes from a chunk of the performer's 11 million followers.

About what drew her to the Jacques Audiard-directed drama  which has a musical element  she told the magazine 'it just felt provocative, audacious, original, and operatic.'

Zoe rounded out the ensemble with pointy black heels with a gold hardware accent at the toe. The mom-of-three, who is married to Italian filmmaker Marco Perego , wore her chocolate-brown locks in a side part and spiral curls

Saldana flaunted a short and shiny black manicure as she headed to the Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Zoe is one of several A-list entertainers who covers the latest copy of Vanity Fair, the publication's 31st annual Hollywood Issue

Zoe, who was raised in New York and the Dominican Republic, was also asked what it was like to speak Spanish on the silver screen.

'If you live a day in the life of my crazy circus of a household, English is probably a language that we use when the kids are out of school,' she explained.

She added: 'When the kids are in school, everybody goes back to their child language, and the language that was first spoken to me  that was sung to me, that I received love in  was Spanish. I do become a different person. I use different tones in my voice when I speak Spanish. So it felt wonderful. It felt like going home.'

The star and her husband share twins Cy and Bowie, nine, and Zen, seven.
The Candyman franchise should not proceed following the death of actor Tony Todd, according to George Lemore, who appeared in 1995's Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh.

'I think it should be left as a classic - Candyman should be left as a classic like all the other great movies, all the other horror movies that came out that are classics - leave it alone,' Lemore told TMZ Wednesday in the wake of Todd's November 6 passing.

Lemore played the role of Drew in the Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, the sequel to the 1992 horror staple which hit theaters in March of 1995 and costarred Kelly Rowan, Caroline Barclay and Nate Bynum.

In Candyman, released in 1992 (and followed by a remake in 2021), Todd played a menacing killer who had a hook on one arm.

The premise of the original movie centered on an urban myth that Candyman roamed the Cabrini-Green housing projects in Chicago and could be summoned by saying his name five times in front of a mirror; the 1995 sequel Lemore appeared in was set in New Orleans.

The Candyman franchise should not proceed following the death of actor Tony Todd, according to George Lemore, who appeared in 1995's Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh

Lemore played the role of Drew in the Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, which hit theaters in March of 1995

Todd played the titular character in two other sequels: 1999's Candyman: Day of the Dead and 2021's Candyman.

Lemore, a one-time child actor who also made appearances on shows such as Moesha, Smart Guy, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper and Sister, Sister, said that news of Todd's passing 'really hurt' him, and that he feels the actor's legacy is sealed with the iconic role.

'I loved working with Tony Todd - but Candyman lives forever,' said Lemore, who has 41,000 Instagram followers.

Lemore said that Todd had a larger than life presence that carried over when the cameras were off, recalling an anecdote from the set of the mid-90s motion picture.

'I remember one night we wrapped set and it was, like, late at night, it was like 12 midnight,' Lemore said. 'I went to my trailer to grab my backpack so I can leave set after working all day ... and he was in my trailer - and he scared me. Yeah, he scared me and I'm like, "This is real."'

Lemore said the last time he crossed paths with Todd was about three years ago at a Studio City, California grocery store, where they were both getting coffee.

'I bumped into him and we remained friends,' Lemore said. 'I don't care if we're on a movie set, don't care if we're in public, I'm grown now and when I see him - even when I bumped into him in the coffee shop - I thought he was coming to get me.'

Todd died at 69 last week at his home in the Los Angeles area, his manager Jeffrey Goldberg said in a statement to The Associated Press.

In Candyman, released in 1992, Todd (pictured with Virginia Madsen) played a menacing killer who had a hook on one arm

Lemore is a one-time child actor who also made appearances on shows such as Moesha, Smart Guy, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper and Sister, Sister

Lemore, who has 41,000 Instagram followers, said that Todd had a larger than life presence

Goldberg said, 'I had the privilege to have Tony as my friend and client for over 30 years and I will miss that amazing man every single day.'

Goldberg's management company said in announcing the death: 'Known worldwide for his towering presence, both physically and artistically, Tony leaves behind an indelible legacy in film, theater, and the hearts of those who had the honor of knowing him.

'We bid farewell to Tony Todd, a giant of cinema and a beloved soul whose impact on our lives and the world of film will never be forgotten.'

Todd's film resume included roles in award-winning movies such as the Oliver Stone-directed classic Platoon, released in 1986.

Todd was also known for his role in the 2000 horror film Final Destination and its sequel in 2003.

The film company New Line Cinema mourned Todd's death on social media over the weekend: 'The industry has lost a legend. We have lost a cherished friend. Rest in peace, Tony.'

Todd died at 69 last week at his home in the Los Angeles area, his manager Jeffrey Goldberg said in a statement. Pictured in LA in 2018

Todd's television career included roles in Night Court, Matlock and Law & Order.

'Off-screen, Tony was cherished as a mentor, a friend, and a beacon of kindness and wisdom,' Goldberg's company said. 'He gave his time and resources to aspiring actors, consistently advocating for greater representation and authenticity within the industry.

'Those who knew him will remember his warm laugh, generous spirit, and his dedication to his craft. Whether on stage, on screen, or in personal conversations, Tony brought an unyielding honesty that resonated deeply with his friends, family, and fans.'
Ariana Grande was 'immediately obsessed' when she first set eyes on the Munchkins on the Ivinghoe set of Wicked back in 2022.

'She was just obsessed immediately. She wanted her phone to take pictures of all of us,' Ricardo Ludgero Souza - who plays a dancing Munchkin - recalled to TMZ on Wednesday.

'The film uses CGI. So we had like blue blocks everywhere to, like, replicate for post production. So we'd be sitting down and she would just be coming up to us and talking and trying to take photos.'

And while Victor Fleming's 1939 film The Wizard of Oz amassed over a hundred little people to play Munchkins, director Jon M. Chu took an entirely different approach.

'The Munchkins we really wanted to define as a culture - not a size, not a look,' the 45-year-old filmmaker said in the BTS featurette.

Ariana Grande was 'immediately obsessed' when she first set eyes on the Munchkins on the Ivinghoe set of Wicked back in 2022

'They are made up of many different types of people in Oz. They're a very agricultural culture. They are in charge of collecting the color from the tulip fields.'

The 31-year-old pop star's character the Good Witch of the South - Glinda Upland - travels to Munchkinland to deliver news of the Wicked Witch of the West's death and reveal her backstory in an opening number called No One Mourns the Wicked.

'There's this one scene where she uses her wand. We were trying to get, like, a really precise camera angle. And she kept getting it wrong,' the 20-year-old Englishman recalled.

'She would just start bursting out into laughter, like, "Goddamn it! I got it wrong! I got it wrong!" And it's just really funny because you just see how like a celebrity that you don't see, like, face to face.

'You don't have normal conversations [to see] just how human they are, really. And it was just nice to see her, like, turning a mistake into such a funny thing for everyone. And not just for herself.'

Ricardo said Ariana was 'nice' and 'well spoken' and 'beautiful' on set, gushing: 'She had this excited, nervous energy about her that got us all thrilled about doing what we were doing. Like, it was just musical theatre geek merriment, really.'

Souza - who does flips and back handsprings - concluded: 'She has literally become Glinda. There's no other way of saying it.'

Grande's (born Butera) real-life boyfriend Ethan Slater portrays a Munchkin called Boq attending Shiz University with Glinda, who eventually becomes the Woodsman aka the Tin Woodman in the big-screen adaptation of the 2003 Broadway musical.

Ricardo Ludgero Souza - who plays a dancing Munchkin - recalled to TMZ on Wednesday: 'She was just obsessed immediately. She wanted her phone to take pictures of all of us'

The 20-year-old Englishman continued: 'We'd be sitting down and she would just be coming up to us and talking and trying to take photos'

And while Victor Fleming's 1939 film The Wizard of Oz amassed over a hundred little people to play Munchkins, director Jon M. Chu (M) took an entirely different approach

The 45-year-old filmmaker said in the BTS featurette: 'The Munchkins we really wanted to define as a culture - not a size, not a look'

Jon added: 'They are made up of many different types of people in Oz. They're a very agricultural culture. They are in charge of collecting the color from the tulip fields'

The 31-year-old pop star's character the Good Witch of the South - Glinda Upland - travels to Munchkinland to deliver news of the Wicked Witch of the West's death

Ricardo recalled: 'There's this one scene where she uses her wand. We were trying to get, like, a really precise camera angle. And she kept getting it wrong'

Souza said: 'She would just start bursting out into laughter, like, "Goddamn it! I got it wrong! I got it wrong!"...It was just nice to see her, like, turning a mistake into such a funny thing for everyone. And not just for herself'

The One Dance UK choreographer went on to gush how Ariana was 'nice' and 'well spoken' and 'beautiful' on set: 'She has literally become Glinda. There's no other way of saying it'

Grande's (born Butera) real-life boyfriend Ethan Slater (R) portrays a Munchkin called Boq attending Shiz University with Glinda, who eventually becomes the Woodsman aka the Tin Woodman in the big-screen adaptation of the 2003 Broadway musical

On Tuesday, Gold Derby reported that the two-time Grammy winner 'now places among the top five most likely supporting actress contenders' for the 2025 Oscars due to her performance as Glinda

Part one of Wicked hits US theaters November 27 followed by the second part on November 26, 2025

On Tuesday, Gold Derby reported that the two-time Grammy winner 'now places among the top five most likely supporting actress contenders' for the 2025 Oscars due to her performance as Glinda.

Part one of Wicked hits US theaters November 27 followed by the second part on November 26, 2025.

The $145M-budget fantasy film also stars Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, and Jeff Goldblum.

Last Friday, Ariana scored three nominations - including best pop vocal album for Eternal Sunshine - at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards, which air February 2 on CBS.
Nicky Hilton was rocking a look that would make The Beatles proud.

The heiress, 41, attended a bash celebrating alice + olivia's Beatles capsule collection at 50 Ninth in New York City on Tuesday.

Nicky, who was recently in Australia, donned a mod inspired dress decked out with Beatles decor along with glossy black boots and sleek waves.

The band's biggest hits were inscribed all across Nicky's dress, from Help! to I Want To Hold Your Hand.

Nicky's particular dress, the Clyde Shift dress, retails for $695.

Nicky Hilton rocked a Beatles themed mini dress as she attended a bash celebrating alice + olivia's Beatles capsule collection at 50 Ninth in New York City on Tuesday

Of the line, the brand states on their website: 'alice + olivia by Stacey Bendet is thrilled to announce a capsule collection with The Beatles in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the bands first U.S. tour in 1964. This limited-edition collection combines the iconic artistry of The Beatles with the bold, modern aesthetic of alice + olivia, featuring artwork spanning the legendary band's career.'

Nicky wasn't the only celeb in attendance - Mary J. Blige, Coco Rocha, Scout Willis, and Kristin Chenoweth were also rocking the line's latest wares.

On Wednesday, Nicky gushed about the soiree on Instagram: 'Imagine a world where fashion meets music (emojis). this is for the dreamers + the music lovers. @aliceandolivia brings the iconic magic of The Beatles to life in the most fabulous & fun collection!'

From the red carpet to her everyday outfits, Nicky rarely looks anything less than exceptional.

She recently shared her biggest style successes from her decades walking red carpets at star-studded events around the globe.

Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia, the American socialite revealed which of her red carpet looks she considers to be the most iconic.

She said her biggest hit came this year when she attended the Cannes Film Festival wearing a glittering ice blue gown by Aussie designer Rebecca Vallance.

Speaking at a Sydney event celebrating her new holiday capsule with Vallance, Nicky shared the little-known inspiration behind the custom-made dress.

Nicky's particular dress, the Clyde Shift dress, retails for $695

She posed beside a replica of the Yellow Submarine

She said she wanted to channel one Disney princess in particular.

'Rebecca and I designed an ice blue gown together, with the bows down the middle and it was very inspired by Cinderella,' Nicky told Daily Mail Australia.

Indeed, Nicky oozed elegance back in May in the gorgeous off-the-shoulder ice blue gown designed by herself and Rebecca Vallance.

The head-turning satin dress featured a dramatic train billowing out behind her and featured the brand's signature silver bows below the plunging neckline.

Her dress was decked out with Beatles decor, along with names of their iconic songs

She posed alongside alice + olivia founder Stacey Bendet

Mary J. Blige was among the guests in attendance

Nicky looked equally glamorous in another Rebecca Vallance number last Wednesday as she stepped out at the brand's Strand Arcade Boutique in Sydney.

She put on a dazzling display in the long-sleeve red midi dress from her new holiday collection, which retails for $899.

The gown is embellished with glittering rouge sequins and features a sweetheart neckline and stunning lace detailing around the collar.

Coco Rocha and Scout Willis were also present

Kristni Chenoweth donned a glittering 'Come Together' dresss

Nicky admitted the dress is her favourite from her newly released capsule collection with Rebecca Vallance as she celebrated her edit's launch.

Of her favourite piece in the collection, she shared: 'I think the dress I'm wearing, this encompasses the holidays.

'It's colourful, it's festive, it's joyful, I feel like a Christmas mermaid!'

It isnt only the fashion world that the socialite is jumping into, but the beauty world as well with the recent launch WNP Skincare - a new line of skincare products that she is currently promoting.

Nicky shared her excitement on Instagram, posting: 'Obsessed with the results! Loving this new skincare brand by @wnp.skincarecombining cutting-edge tech with powerful ingredients to bring out the best in my skin.'
Kyle Sandilands rushed to the defence of Hugh Jackman on Thursday amid reports the actor's rumoured affair with theatre star Sutton Foster is the reason his marriage to Deborra-Lee Furness ended.

The radio king, 53, was discussing with his KIIS FM co-star Jackie 'O' Henderson, 49, speculation that Jackman's relationship with Sutton contributed to his split from Furness in September 2023.

He revealed his reasons for supporting Jackman, 56, who is said to be completely smitten with glamorous Broadway star Foster, 49.

'Who cares if the rumours are true? How long is Hugh supposed to stay single for, how long is long enough?' Kyle asked.

Jackie then jumped in to say there were rumours that Jackman's close relationship with Foster contributed to his shock split with Deborra-Lee.

However, Kyle was having none of it and said he wasn't interested in hearing unverified claims, saying, 'I don't believe in unknown sources, which could be lying to sell a story.'

Jackie then said there was strong speculation that Deborra-Lee had appeared to confirm the rumours by 'liking' an Instagram gossip page post by blogger Tasha Lustig claiming Jackman was 'running off with the mistress' and planning a 'soft launch' of their relationship.

Adding credence to the claim was Deborra-Lee's friend Amanda de Cadenet, who commented on the same post: 'You are on point with this one. My beloved friend Deb is about to have her glow up any moment fyi!'

Kyle Sandilands (pictured) came to the defence of Hugh Jackman on Thursday, amid rumous an affair with theatre star Sutton Foster is the reason his marriage to Deborra-Lee Furness ended

Kyle still refused to listen to the speculation and shot back Deborra-Lee may have 'liked the post by mistake' and that people shouldn't read too much into it.

Lustig's post also claims that Hugh and Sutton have been planning a 'soft launch' of their relationship publicly to test reaction.

The pair have already attended public events together, looking smitten with one another at the opening night of their show The Music Man on Broadway in February 2022.

The radio king, 53, was discussing with his KIIS FM co-star Jackie 'O' Henderson, 49, the media speculation that Hugh Jackman's (left) close friendship with Sutton Foster (right) contributed to his split from Furness in September 2023

It was in March 2020 - right when COVID shut down the world - when the Australian 56-year-old and the Georgia-born, Michigan-raised 49-year-old giddily first began workshopping Jerry Zaks' Broadway revival of the 1957 musical.

Hugh and Sutton took on the roles of Harold Hill and Marian Paroo in The Music Man, which ran from February 2022 to January 2023 at the Winter Garden Theatre in Manhattan.

'Sutton and Hugh's relationship is the reason Hugh and Deb [separated],' a source close to Foster told Us Weekly.

'A lot of people on Broadway knew, and we kept it quiet because both of them are so nice and great people. Everyone respected their privacy. But there was an affair and overlap. They are really happy now.'

Jackie O then jumped into say there was media speculation that Jackman's close friendship with Foster contributed to his shock split with Furness. (Deborra and Hugh pictured in May 2023)

They continued: 'Hugh's whole image is that hes the nicest guy in Hollywood, so he doesn't know what to do with this.'

And while a source told DailyMail.com on October 26 that Furness 'had her suspicions when Hugh started working with Sutton' an industry source claimed the opposite to Us Weekly.

'Deborra-Lee was blindsided when she found out about the affair through the run of the show,' the insider said.

'It was apparently Broadway's worst-kept secret, and Deborra-Lee was the last to know. [Worse yet,] he didn't own up to it!'
Kim Zolciak and Chet Hanks were spotted attending a Jelly Roll concert amid romance rumors.

The Real Housewives of Atlanta star, 46  who is working on a divorce from her estranged husband Kroy Biermann  took to Instagram to share selfies and videos from her fun-filled night as fans got a glimpse of the duo looking loved up.

Zolciak and Hanks  who costarred on MTV's The Surreal Life: Villa of Secrets  shared VIP room snaps and were hosted by the country star and his wife Alyssa DeFord, also known as 'Bunnie XO.' The love birds were also joined by their pal Jenny Doyle.

Kim penned in the caption: 'Had the best time with @jellyroll615 and his beautiful wifey @xomgitsbunnie so fun much with @chethanx @jennydoyle1111.

'One of my absolute favorite concerts and everyone that was/is part of this massive operation is beyond kind. There are no words for the happiness and joy that surrounded us all that night. I saw a whole lot of sparkle in the crowd.'

Kim Zolciak and Chet Hanks were spotted attending a Jelly Roll concert amid romance rumors

She also shared a silly image of herself playing Jelly Roll's guitar after meeting the country star.

The former Real Housewives of Atlanta star and the 34-year-old son of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson sparked romance rumors back in July after flirting outrageously with one another while starring on MTV's reality show together.

After relationship rumors swirled, Hanks told Page Six that 'meeting Kim Zolciak' was 'one of the best moments of my life.'

However, Kim is in the midst of a strenuous divorce from her estranged husband Kroy Biermann. And as of March, the pair still lived in the same house despite being separated.

Chet, who has an eight-year-old child named Michaiah with ex Tiffany Miles, said that he and Kim are 'really good friends.'

When asked if there were any benefits, the star simply laughed.

Chet lives in Nashville while Kim lives in Atlanta, and he said that he would 'absolutely' move to date her.

'I'm living in Nashville right now, so it's not that far [from Georgia],' he told the outlet.

Chet added that he wishes 'the best' for Kim amid her divorce from Kroy.

The reality star, who considers himself a 'family man,' also noted that he is not 'turned off' from by her having six kids.

Last October, Kim was asked about romance rumors with Chet, and she simply just called him a 'nice guy,' DailyMail.com exclusively revealed.

The love birds were also joined by their pal Jenny Doyle (right)

She also shared a silly image of herself playing Jelly Roll's guitar

She shared selfies and videos from her fun-filled night as fans got a glimpse of the duo looking loved up

Kim meet Jelly Roll in his dressing room after the concert

She wrote: 'There are no words for the happiness and joy that surrounded us all that night. I saw a whole lot of sparkle in the crowd'

During The Surreal Life season eight, sparks were seen flying between Chet and Kim after their flirting caught the attention of their housemates and was caught on camera throughout the episode before culminating in a suggestive exchange during a group dinner on a houseboat in Colombia.

'I wanna bond with you more, Kim,' Chet said as Kim smiled at him during the episode.

Chet added: 'I've been wanting to come holler at you and kick it with you 'cause like you're cool as f***.'

'Oh, I'm coming to you tonight. That's what I decided earlier. So you must've felt that,' Kim told Chet.
Love Island stars Ekin-Su Culculoglu and Arabella Chi were among the celebs that attended the Gladiator II premiere in London on Wednesday.

Reality star Ekin-Su, 30, put on a show-stopping display in the stunning busty garment, which featured straps and a chic floral design.

The Celebrity Big Brother sensation added nude open-toe heels and matched a plum pedicure.

The star added further glamour toting her look with a heart-shaped mini bag, posing up a storm on the star-studded event.

Elsewhere Arabella, 33, showcased her jaw-dropping physique in a silver metallic dress.

Ekin-Su Culculoglu turned heads in a dark purple gown as she joined dazzling Arabella Chi as the Love Island stars attended the Gladiator II premiere in London on Wednesday

Reality alum Ekin-Su, 30, put on a show-stopping display in the stunning busty garment, which featured straps and a chic floral design

The strapless number enhanced her slender neck as she twirled around posing for striking snaps, and matched a chromed handbag.

The beauty added heels and kept jewellery to the minimum with a classy gold watch.

Early reviews from critics have called Gladiator II the 'best movie of the year' and a 'true epic' as they hailed Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington's performances.

With Russell Crowe's legendary Maximus long-since dead and buried, it is vengeful Lucius (Paul) who must fight for his liberty in the film after being taken into slavery and ripped away from his wife and daughter by general Marcus (Pedro Pascal).

On Wednesday Paul revealed the insane bet he had with Ridley Scott over one Gladiator II stunt that caused a huge argument between pair.

In a new interview with Vanity Fair Paul told how there was a scene towards the end of the film where a weary Lucius mounts a horse in hot pursuit of Macrinus.

Paul was keen to do his best for the action-packed moment and the other stunts so 'trained for f***ing months' - before Ridley changed his mind about the scene.

The Normal People actor told the publication: 'Two weeks before the scene, Ridley says, 'You're not f***ing doing it,' and I was like, 'What the f**k?,' and we had this argument.'

The star rocked a glam full-face make-up

The strapless number enhanced her slender neck as she twirled around posing for striking snaps, and matched a chromed handbag

The former Love Islander accessorised with a gleaming diamond necklace

Ridley had decided to cut the scene due to some equine advice he had received on another movie

Paul added of the altercation: 'I was pestering him constantly. And then the day before, he goes, 'OK, you can do the stunt, but if you come off, it's two Bentleys.'

He eventually pulled the move off in just a couple of takes.
Molly-Mae Hague left her fans baffled on Wednesday as she shared a snap of her visiting a designer store in London, with a ginormous shopping bag on her arm.

The Love Island star, 25, appeared to have splashed some serious cash in Bottega Veneta, an Italian luxury fashion brand.

She took to her Instagram to share a mirror selfie during her spree, with her petite frame almost dwarfed by a giant green bag from the store.

Her stunned fans took straight to the comments in to poke fun at the size and question what Molly-Mae could've bought, writing: 'that bag is outrageous; You need a bigger shopping bag Mol!'

'The size of that bag!!; Molly the bag Im hollering; Ya just know that last photo is going to be a meme!!'

Molly-Mae Hague left her fans baffled on Wednesday as she shared a snap of her visiting a designer store in London, with a ginormous shopping bag on her arm

The Love Island star, 25, appeared to have splashed some serious cash in Bottega Veneta, an Italian luxury fashion brand (pictured with Bottega handbag)

'I never knew a shopping bag could ever be that large; The bottega bag obsessed !; I love the big bag the end'.

'whats in the bag? A new car?; Ok Ill say what were all thinking Whats inside the Bottega bag to make it THAT big?'

While one person referenced an iconic line from hit show Succession, which saw Tom Wambsgans launch a scathing attack on a woman's 'monstrous' and 'gargantuan' handbag, as they commented: 'a ludicrously capacious bag indeed'.

Molly-Mae has shown her love for Bottega in the past, previously showing off one of the brand's 2,600 leather totes while on a private jet.

It marks the second big splurge for the influencer this month, after she was previously spotted with another giant bag of designer purchases, just two weeks ago.

The mother-of-one showed money is no object as she took to her Instagram Stories while at luxury department store Harrods, with a huge orange Hermes carrier bag over her shoulder.

The French designer, known for its handmade handbags and luggage has a hefty price tag attached to its products, but that didn't seem to faze the influencer, whose bag was double the size of her.

Molly-Mae is no stranger to the luxury brand and in some of her most recent posts, has been spotted with what appears to be a Birkin 35 in a Autumnal burgundy colour.

She took to her Instagram to share a mirror selfie during her spree, with her petite frame almost dwarfed by a giant green bag from the store, causing her stunned fans to go straight to the comments in to poke fun at the size

Molly-Mae has shown her love for Bottega in the past, previously showing off one of the brand's 2,600 leather totes on a private jet

Her recent retail therapy comes during a turbulent time for the star, after she shared the shock news she had split from fiance Tommy Fury in August.

The couple had fallen for each other on Love Island and went on to welcome daughter Bambi, one, in January 2023, before getting engaged six months later.

Molly-Mae has since been working on her clothing line, Maebe, while reports surfaced claiming Tommy 'cheated on her with a Danish woman he met' on a holiday in North Macedonia.

Speaking to The Mail in an interview, Tommy admitted: 'It is proper love. Do I still love Molly? 100 per cent. I will love her until my final breath.'

'I know what I have to do in order to resolve things. And that's down to me. Nobody else can do that other than me.'

Addressing the rumours he said: 'All the allegations that were made of me recently are completely false. The truth will come out in time and when it does I think a lot of people might regret their actions and unkind words.

'What the public thinks is going on isn't what is going on. It's not something I envisaged happening, but it didn't come out of nowhere.

'It's a thing that was there previously to all this happening, but the only people who know what is going on in our relationship is me and Molly.'

It marks the second big splurge for the influencer this month, after she was previously spotted with another giant bag of designer purchases, from pricey brand Hermes, just two weeks ago.

Molly-Mae is no stranger to the luxury brand and in some of her most recent posts, has been spotted with what appears to be a Birkin 35 in a Autumnal burgundy colour (pictured in September)

Meanwhile, Molly-Mae has been focusing on her clothing line, which launched last month, telling MailOnline she was looking forward to a 'new era' in her life after the split.

In an exclusive interview the influencer said she felt 'emotional' but was channeling all her energy into the couple's one-year-old daughter, Bambi, and her new clothing line Maebe.

She told of how the past six months have been a juggling act and she has found parenting as well as running her existing businesses 'tricky.'

But navigating the launch of her fashion label alongside the end of her five-year relationship has given Molly the chance to focus on the next chapter as she admitted: 'It was really good timing for this to happen for me. It has all just aligned perfectly.'

Molly told MailOnline: 'When I became a mum, I changed a lot as a person and different things became important to me in terms of fashion, it was the right time to launch Maebe. I was really ready to sink my teeth into something new.

'I have a really good feeling about this new era of my life and think it's going to be so special and a great thing for me to focus on and put my time into as well as being a mum to Bambi.

'It was really good timing for this to happen for me. It has all just aligned perfectly really. I am so excited about it... I really do have an amazing feeling about the brand. I see Maebe having a huge future.'

She added: 'I know if I make the right steps with it and I do this well, I do genuinely see it becoming really huge and being one of those brands that everybody knows and that's my dream and my goal.'

Her recent retail therapy comes during a turbulent time for the star, after she split from fiance Tommy Fury in August. The couple had fallen for each other on Love Island and went on to welcome daughter Bambi, one, and get engaged last year (pictured)
Gossip Girl actress Chanel Maya Banks has seemingly broken her silence to make shocking allegations against her family who claimed she was 'missing'.

A slew of disturbing abuse allegations against the star's family were detailed in an Instagram account associated with Banks, 36, on Wednesday night.

The post, which discouraged people from donating to crowdfunding sites in Banks' name, alleged the actress is 'not missing' and indicated she had willingly disappeared 'to escape my cage'.

Relatives of the actress had previously reported her missing, claiming her husband Carlos Jimenez hadn't been helping them in their search.

Police subsequently said that Banks, a resident of Playa Vista, California, had been located unharmed in Texas on Wednesday and that no foul play was suspected in the now-closed case.

But her cousin Danielle-Tori Singh has branded the LAPD's update as 'fake news' and vowed to continue spearheading search efforts for Banks, seemingly prompting the actress to take to social media with a statement in which she made the series of strong allegations against her family.

The complicated case swirling around Gossip Girl actress Chanel Maya Banks, 36, took another odd turn on Wednesday. Pictured on her TikTok account

An Instagram account associated with Banks posted four frames from a notes app screengrab in which she commented on the issues at hand.

It was not immediately clear if Banks, who appeared on three episodes of Gossip Girl in 2009 playing the role of Sawyer Bennett, penned the posts herself on the account, which is verified and has a total of 70 posts in more than three-and-a-half years, KTLA reported.

Jimenez told the station over the phone that Banks 'had decided she didn't want to talk to the family anymore due to past issues that they had'.

She purportedly said on the social media site: 'My name is Chanel Banks I'm a 36 year old American nobody,' adding her family members 'are all so very "concerned" about my current whereabouts.'

Banks, who also appeared on a 2010 episode of Blue Bloods, acknowledged speaking with law enforcement amid the probe into her alleged vanishing.

'I have met with the Police and verified that not only am I okay, but I'm finally free from my ... family,' Banks said.

She alluded to her religious faith as a factor to cut off contact with some of her relatives.

'They say, once you're free in Christ Jesus, you're free indeed, so I told my husband six days ago I was going to get baptized by one of my favorite pastors Pastor Robert Clancy,' Banks wrote. 'He drove me to the airport and then I was off for a week.'

A message posted on Banks' Instagram slammed her family and discouraged people from donating to crowdfunding sites in her name

She continued, 'God said: 'I'm going to give you some money and I was shocked when it appeared just like He said!'

Banks said God told her to move, so she took a first-class flight 'to the Promise Land.'

The actress also said she was 'releasing a clarion call to those in high places who still have a soul and want to keep it in such a time as this. Reach out. Help me.'

Banks said she 'found out hours before leaving' that some of her relatives 'were vehemently pursuing a CONSERVATORSHIP [i.e.] complete legal control.'

She added that 'there will be no more lies' and that 'everything in the darkness must come to light ... thus says the Lord.'

Banks ended her statement in saying: 'PLEASE DO NOT DONATE TO ANY GO FUND ME THAT SAYS I'M MISSING I AM NOT MISSING.'

Banks appeared on three episodes of Gossip Girl in 2009 playing the role of Sawyer Bennett

Banks appeared on a 2010 episode of Police drama Blue Bloods

Banks' family claims they last heard from her on October 30 when she texted her cousin Danielle-Tori Singh, who is leading the fundraiser for her urgent return.

The actress had been living at an apartment in Playa Vista with her husband of one year before her family members suddenly stopped hearing from her, Singh told ABC7.

Singh claims that a tip led police to a residence in Texas and a woman who identified as Banks answered the door.

The family however, after viewing police body camera footage from the encounter, claim that woman was not Banks.

Authorities in California had carried out four welfare checks at the actress's Playa Vista property this month alone but Banks was not home on any of the occasions, KTLA reported.

When the family visited the home, they discovered that her belongings were still at the location, including her 'emotional support' dog and car. However, her phone and laptop were not found.
Chrissy Teigen is getting called out by fans for letting her eight-year-old daughter Luna put her bare feet on the kitchen counter as she cooked at home this week.

The model, 38, uploaded a short clip on Tuesday of herself preparing a large pot of Jok Moo, a hearty Thai porridge made with rice and pork, from a 'family recipe.'

Chrissy, whose mother is Thai, said that Jok Moo is her 'ultimate comfort recipe' and that it was her first time making it for all four of her children.

In the video, Chrissy is hovered over the stove as she and Luna add spoonfuls of pork to the boiling pot of porridge.

Luna is seen squatting on the marble countertop, just inches away from the food, without shoes or socks on while carefully adding her meatballs to the pot.

While many fans praised Chrissy for involving her young kids in the kitchen, others criticized her for allowing Luna's 'dirty feet' on the counter.

Chrissy Teigen is getting called out by fans for letting her eight-year-old daughter Luna put her bare feet on the kitchen counter as she cooked at home this week

In a video shared to Chrissy's Instagram on Tuesday, a barefoot Luna is seen squatting on the marble countertop as she helps her mom prepare a pot of Jok Moo

'Umm feet on the counter ??? Why I don't do potlucks!! Sorry personal preference,' one remarked.

Another added: 'It's cute little one helping, but don't like how she stay by foot (sic) on the kitchen'

One fan said that feet on the counter just isn't 'sanitary.'

'Is it me? But why are dirty feet on the counter? I love you guys, but that doesn't seem sanitary,' they wrote.

But hoards of Teigen's loyal followers flocked to the comments in her defense.

One sternly declared: 'It's their home. They can do what they want'

Another felt it was ridiculous that people assumed Teigen would be serving dinner where Luna had just placed her feet.

'do you think they are going to throw their dinner right where her feet are and start eating?? Like I'm pretty sure everything is pretty spotless,' the comment read.

While many fans praised Teigen for involving her young kids in the kitchen, others criticized her for allowing Luna's 'dirty feet' on the counter

Some went as far as to tell Teigen's critics to 'get a life.'

Chrissy has yet to respond to the online backlash.

In Tuesday's Instagram post, Teigen revealed what inspired her to make the porridge dish and even shared her 'family recipe' with her 42million followers.

'I think we could all use a good recipe. The past few months have us all feeling stress, unease, discomfort and uncertainty,' the Cravings founder wrote.

'We can find peace in all sorts of things - therapies, art, breaking things in a rage room. But for me, one of the best things we can do for ourselves is fill our bellies with a wonderful meal.'

She said that she's been eating Jok Moo since she was a baby and that it's the 'most ultimate hangover cure!'

'I finally made my babies our family recipe for jok moo - a hearty rice porridge made with spiced pork meatballs. The aroma of fresh ginger, green onion, cilantro and garlic will fill your kitchen and the warmth of the creamy rice porridge will warm your bellies,' Teigen continued.

'I have about 298 people in my home on a daily basis so I make LOADS at a time but this soup can easily be frozen to eat whenever.

She told fans to 'enjoy' after sharing a detailed recipe in the caption of her Instagram post.

But hoards of Teigen's loyal followers flocked to the comments in her defense

Chrissy, whose mother is Thai, said that Jok Moo is her 'ultimate comfort recipe' and that it was her first time making it for all four of her children

Along with the footage of her and Luna working together in the kitchen, Teigen also uploaded a short clip of her son Wren, one, eating the porridge in his highchair

Along with the footage of her and Luna working together in the kitchen, Teigen also uploaded a short clip of her son Wren, one, eating the porridge in his highchair.

Chrissy shares all four of her children  Luna, eight, Miles, six, Esti, one, and Wren, one  with husband of 11 years, John Legend.

She and the 45-year-old EGOT winner wed back in 2013.

Luna, Miles and Wren were all conceived naturally while the couple welcomed daughter Esti via surrogate in 2023.
Denzel Washington revealed one of the Gladiator II scenes that wound up on the cutting room floor ahead of the release of Ridley Scott's $310M-budget historical epic.

The 69-year-old acting veteran portrays slave-turned-powerbroker Macrinus, who maintains a stable of gladiators and desires to become Roman emperor.

'I kissed a man on the lips, but it got cut,' Denzel told Gayety on October 31.

'I think they got chicken. I kissed a guy full on the lips and I guess they weren't ready for that.'

Washington noted that his ruthless character then kills the same man 'about five minutes later' in a symbolic gesture he called 'the kiss of death.'

Denzel Washington revealed one of the Gladiator II scenes that wound up on the cutting room floor ahead of the release of Ridley Scott's $310M-budget historical epic (pictured Wednesday)

Macrinus marked the two-time Oscar winner's first bisexual part, and he famously played a lawyer who overcame his homophobia after winning a $5M wrongful termination lawsuit for an AIDS-infected client (Tom Hanks) in Jonathan Demme's 1993 film Philadelphia.

And Denzel wasn't alone as the 86-year-old filmmaker also cut a same-sex kiss between gladiator Lucius Verus (Paul Mescal) and Roman general Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal).

'There was a moment when we were rehearsing my fight scene with Pedro, and I had an idea towards the end of the scene to kiss Pedro on the forehead,' the 28-year-old Englishman told EW last month.

'I did it in one of the takes, and then we're getting the radio messages back to Ridley and I was like, "Ridley, kiss on the forehead, did you like it? Yay or nay?" There was radio silence for a second. His radio crackles back and [sarcastically] goes "I'm afraid I did." I think Ridley's one of the funniest men I've ever come across.'

Gladiator II - hitting UK theaters this Friday and US theaters November 22 - currently has a 'certified fresh' 76% critic approval rating (out of 121 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes.

On Wednesday, Washington had an awkward first meeting with King Charles III at the royal film performance of Gladiator II at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in London.

The New York-born, LA-based actor appeared nervous before the 76-year-old monarch reached out to shake his hand and he admitted: 'I didn't know if I was supposed to grab your hand or not.'

The pair smiled and shook hands before King Charles III complimented Denzel: 'You've been in so many films, it's fantastic!'

The 69-year-old acting veteran portrays slave-turned-powerbroker Macrinus, who maintains a stable of gladiators and desires to become the Roman emperor

Denzel told Gayety on October 31: 'I kissed a man on the lips, but it got cut. I think they got chicken. I kissed a guy full on the lips and I guess they weren't ready for that'

Washington noted that his ruthless character then kills the same man 'about five minutes later' in a symbolic gesture he called 'the kiss of death'

Macrinus marked the two-time Oscar winner's first bisexual part, and he famously played a lawyer who overcame his homophobia after winning a $5M wrongful termination lawsuit for an AIDS-infected client (Tom Hanks) in Jonathan Demme's 1993 film Philadelphia

And Denzel wasn't alone as the 86-year-old filmmaker also cut a same-sex kiss between Roman general Marcus Acacius (L, Pedro Pascal) and gladiator Lucius Verus (R, Paul Mescal)

The 28-year-old Englishman (R) told EW last month: 'There was a moment when we were rehearsing my fight scene with Pedro, and I had an idea towards the end of the scene to kiss Pedro on the forehead'

Paul continued: 'I was like, "Ridley, kiss on the forehead, did you like it? Yay or nay?" There was radio silence for a second. His radio crackles back and [sarcastically] goes "I'm afraid I did"' (pictured Wednesday)

Gladiator II - hitting UK theaters this Friday and US theaters November 22 - currently has a 'certified fresh' 76% critic approval rating (out of 121 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes

On Wednesday, Washington had an awkward first meeting with King Charles III at the royal film performance of Gladiator II at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in London

The New York-born, LA-based actor appeared nervous before the 76-year-old monarch reached out to shake his hand and he admitted: 'I didn't know if I was supposed to grab your hand or not'

The pair smiled and shook hands before King Charles III complimented Denzel: 'You've been in so many films, it's fantastic!'

On Monday, Washington announced on the Australian version of TODAY that he officially plans on retiring after completing his next slated four projects.

The Piano Lesson producer will portray Othello opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in director Kenny Leon's Broadway revival of William Shakespeare's 1603 play Othello running March 23 to June 8 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in Manhattan.

Denzel will also star in Spike Lee's remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1963 crime thriller High and Low, Antoine Fuqua's untitled biopic on the Carthaginian general Hannibal, and Marvel's untitled third Black Panther film.

On the personal front, Washington has four children - son John, 40; daughter Katia, 36; and twins Olivia and Malcolm, 33 - from his 41-year marriage to Pauletta Pearson Washington.

The Equalizer 3 producer-star and the 74-year-old Reasonable Doubt actress originally met on the 1977 set of NBC movie Wilma, and they renewed their vows in a 1995 ceremony officiated by anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu in South Africa.
Controversial online personality Suzan Mutesi celebrated the launch of her book Love Beyond 30s during a lavish brunch at Marta, Sydney on Tuesday.

The 38-year-old, who has long been accused of being a 'fake influencer', shared images of the intimate gathering on Instagram.

Mutesi stole the show in an extravagant dress which featured a nude halter neck bodice with huge emerald green tulle skirts.

She rocked a blonde wig for the occasion and a bold red lip as she finished off her look with a set of neon green nails.

Mutesi was all smiles as she enjoyed a lavish meal and drinks with her friends at the Italian restaurant Marta Osteria.

'Thank you all so much for coming to the brunch launch today and, even more importantly, for showing up as yourselves,' Mutesi captioned the reel.

'Seriously, the vulnerability and honesty you've shared have been so refreshing and not just because we're all admitting that dating beyond 30s is like a wild, overpriced game of hide-and-seek.

'You all remind us that finding love and loving someone takes serious guts. It takes patience, kindness, resilience, and the courage to peel back the surface and look beyond the filters, the facades, and those perfectly curated dating app profiles.'

Controversial online personality Suzan Mutesi, 38, (pictured) celebrated the launch of her book Love Beyond 30s during a lavish brunch at Marta, Sydney on Tuesday

Mutesi went on to say she wrote her book to capture the 'real, messy, hilarious truths' of modern dating in your 30s and beyond.

'We're a little wiser, a bit more successful, and way pickier than we used to be,' she said.

'So yeah, dating means navigating a jungle of membership fees, crazy first-date budgets, and occasionally wondering if that "perfect match" has ever loaded a dishwasher correctly.

'And somehow, through all of that, we're learning that the most important relationship is the one we have with ourselves.'

Mutesi, who has long been accused of being a 'fake influencer', shared images of the intimate gathering on Instagram

Mutesi finished her lengthy message by thanking her friends who attended the launch and the ones who 'might think their invitation got lost in the mail'.

'Love you all and here's to love, laughter, tears, and learning from each other's dating adventures,' she ended.

It comes after the influencer made waves earlier this week after trying to boost sales of her new book by posting a five star review on Amazon.

Mutesi, who's been accused of everything from buying Instagram followers and photoshopping herself into private jets, was exposed by her nemesis Jamie Azzopardi in a series of savage posts shared to their Instagram on Monday night.

Mutesi stole the show in an extravagant dress which featured a nude halter neck bodice with huge emerald green tulle skirts

She rocked a blonde wig for the occasion and a bold red lip as she finished off her look with a set of neon green nails

The review, left under her own name, described the book as an 'empowering pursuit of self-worth' and claimed that her novel 'resonated deeply'.

It claimed the fiction was a 'must-read for anyone navigating their 30s with humour and heart'.

'The book brilliantly captures the highs and lows of dating beyond your 30s in this clever narrative. The relatable anecdotes and poignant moments had me laughing, cringing, and nodding along,' it read.

Azzopardi also accused Mutesi of staging paparazzi photos while she was on a date with British actor David Walliams when he was in Australia back in 2022.

In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, the actress admitted to leaving the review on her own book.

'I wanted to share my genuine excitement and let readers know how much I believe in the journey this book offers,' she explained.

'Leaving my own review felt like speaking directly to each person who picks it up, as if to say, "This was written with you in mind, and I hope it resonates deeply with you too." I just wanted to put my love for the book out there in my own words.'

Mutesi was all smiles as she enjoyed a lavish meal and drinks with her friends at the Italian restaurant Marta Osteria
Jackie O Henderson's ex-husband Phil O'Neil has become Sydney's new top morning show radio host in his timeslot.

The WSFM radio presenter, best known as Ugly Phil, has knocked 2GB's Ray Hadley off the top spot for the first time in two decades.

Phil, who hosts his show from 9am to 1pm, took out the pole position after attracting 12.7 per cent share of the available audience, lifting 0.5 percentage points.

Hadley had enjoyed an unbeaten 160 ratings survey run until this week when his show dropped 1.3 percentage points, pulling in 11.1 per cent share, coming third after smoothfm 95.3 with 11.2 per cent of the audience.

Phil began his radio career in the 1990s as the host of the Hot30 Countdown before landing roles on Nova 969 and Triple M.

In 2004, he returned to the UK and worked in radio before eventually travelling back to Australia.

He now works in the same building as his ex-wife Jackie, who co-hosts popular FM breakfast show on ARN's KIIS 106.5 which airs from 6am to 10am weekdays.

Jackie and her co-host Kyle Sandilands have once again claimed the top position for their breakfast time slot despite a drop to 13.1 per cent of the audience.

Jackie O Henderson 's ex-husband Phil O'Neil (pictured) has become Sydney's new top morning show radio host in his timeslot

WSFM's Jonesy & Amanda are now Sydney's second top rating breakfast show with a 11.3 per cent share.

Meanwhile, Nova 100's Jase & Lauren beat Kyle and Jackie O in Melbourne's radio wars with a 11 per cent share.

Coming second in Melbourne is previous leaders Fifi, Fev & Nick on The Fox, pulling in 10.2 per cent of the audience.

Phil and Jackie previously worked together co-hosting the Hot30 Countdown in the 1990s.

They met when an 18-year-old Jackie called into the radio show Phil was hosting at the time to enter a competition, and were married just a year later.

The WSFM radio presenter, best known as Ugly Phil, has knocked 2GB's Ray Hadley off the top spot for the first time in two decades

Their split in 1999 led to their radio show ending and Phil returning to the UK.

Jackie went on to marry Lee Henderson with whom she shares daughter, Kitty, 12.

The Hendersons separated in 2018 after 15 years of marriage.
Love Island Australia veteran Isabelle Green and her fiance Josh Elliott have welcomed their first child together, a healthy baby boy.

The former reality star, 32, shared a gallery of precious baby photos to Instagram on Wednesday, which captured her tenderly cradling her bundle of joy.

One adorable picture showed Isabelle gently nursing her new bub in her arms, while also holding her three-year-old daughter Dakota.

Another sweet snap captured the new mum lovingly nursing her precious son while resting in bed.

She revealed his sweet name in the comments: 'Emmanuel James Elliott graced our world on 7th Nov at 12:30pm.

'His birth is quite the wild story which I'll share soon. Bub is super healthy, born at home at almost 4kg so he's definitely not a little boy. More to come.'

Isabelle is also the mother of three-year-old Dakota, who she shares with Queensland-based fitness guru Dean Tahana.

In February, the glamorous star announced her engagement to boyfriend Josh.

Love Island Australia star Isabelle Green and her fiance Josh Elliott have welcomed their first child together, a healthy baby boy. Pictured: Isabelle with her two children

In a post shared to Instagram, the 32-year-old from Brisbane showed off her diamond ring alongside other images of her gorgeous country proposal.

'So this happened. I've been a bit quieter online of late & just really enjoying life!!! Obviously I said yes,' she wrote.

In the accompanying images, the former reality star shared images of the special moment which happened during a hillside picnic in Queensland.

The bride-to-be enjoyed champagne and chocolates before her man got down on one knee.

She also shared a video from the day, writing: 'Just over here soaking in that I have a fiance now. Thank you again to everyone for all the beautiful messages - we're feeling super loved'.

The former reality star, 32, shared a gallery of precious baby photos to Instagram on Wednesday night

One adorable picture showed Isabelle gently nursing her new bub in her arms, while also holding her three-year-old daughter Dakota

She ensured her massive sparkler, created by Morgan & Co who are known for their custom rings, was front and centre.

Isabelle appeared on season two of Love Island Australia in 2019, before launching a career as a social media influencer.
Kanye West was nowhere to be seen when his wife Bianca Censori was pictured visiting Disneyland on Wednesday.

It was a rare outing for the 47-year-old rapper's wife, as she is almost always seen in public with him, though she made a solo shopping trip just a day earlier.

Bianca  who shocked Disney fans in April when she went barefoot on a visit to the theme park with Kanye  was surprisingly covered up as she arrived at the park in Anaheim, California, even though she appeared to go bra-free.

The 29-year-old architect had almost no skin showing thanks to an enveloping all-white look, and she got in line with Disney's dress code this time by wearing a thick set of white rain boots.

Although Bianca wasn't joined by her husband for the visit, she did bring along two male friends to help her enjoy the day.

Kanye West was nowhere to be seen when his wife Bianca Censori, 29, was pictured visiting Disneyland on Wednesday

It was a rare outing for the 47-year-old rapper's wife, as she is almost always seen in public with him, though she made a solo shopping trip just a day earlier

Bianca was seen heading over from the Disneyland Resort to the main park while joined by her small entourage.

Even without Kanye's presence, Bianca still opted for the eye-catching minimalist looks that she usually wears in his presence  though she was dressed much more modestly than usual.

She wore a layered look with a cream-colored sleeveless vinyl minidress.

The top clashed with the pale white top with long sleeves that stuck out underneath.

The brunette beauty matched it with a set of white leggings that were rolled up to just below her knees.

She flashed a tiny strip of flesh above her chunky white rain boots, which looked like the inverse of the dark boots her husband has often worn in recent years.

Bianca's dark shoulder-length locks looked slightly wet and were slicked back, putting the spotlight on her made-up face and silver earrings.

She had shelled out for a VIP tour, which can cost $500 to $700 per hour, according to Disney's trip-planning website.

Bianca  who shocked Disney fans in April when she went barefoot on a visit to the park with Kanye  was surprisingly covered up as she arrived at the park in Anaheim, California, even though she appeared to go bra-free

She wore a layered look with a cream-colored sleeveless vinyl minidress

The top clashed with the pale white top with long sleeves that stuck out underneath

The brunette beauty matched it with a set of white leggings that were rolled up to just below her knees

She flashed a tiny strip of flesh above her chunky white rain boots, which looked like the inverse of the dark boots her husband has often worn in recent years

Bianca's dark shoulder-length locks looked slightly wet and were slicked back, putting the spotlight on her made-up face and silver earrings

The service is popular with celebrity guests, as the guides can usher them through the park while avoiding some of the crowds and bypassing many of the lines at attractions.

Bianca appeared to have two male friends who were joining her for the Disney tour, though their relationships weren't clear.

One male pal was shirtless under a black zip-up hoodie, which he paired with baggy black pants and matching sneakers.

Another friend was swallowed up in an oversize purple-and-white T-shirt that he mixed with acid wash jeans and dirtied white boots.

Although the VIP guide allowed Bianca to zoom around the park, she was spotted spending some time in the Fantasyland and Tomorrowland sections, according to TMZ.

They enjoyed several of the attractions in the park, including the classic Matterhorn roller coaster, which never made the jump from Disneyland to the much larger Disney World in Florida.

Bianca's Disneyland visit seemed much less likely to court controversy than her previous trip in April.

During that visit  which included Kanye  she strolled around the park in bare feet.

She had shelled out for a VIP tour, which can cost $500 to $700 per hour, according to Disney's trip-planning website

The service is popular with celebrity guests, as the guides can usher them through the park while avoiding some of the crowds and bypassing many of the lines at attractions

Bianca appeared to have two male friends who were joining her for the Disney tour, though their relationships weren't clear

One male pal was shirtless under a black zip-up hoodie, which he paired with baggy black pants and matching sneakers

Another friend was swallowed up in an oversize purple-and-white T-shirt that he mixed with acid wash jeans and dirtied white boots

Although the VIP guide allowed Bianca to zoom around the park, she was spotted spending some time in the Fantasyland and Tomorrowland sections, according to TMZ

The trio were pictured enjoying some thrills on Disney's classic Matterhorn roller coaster, which never made the jump to Disney World in Florida

Bianca's Disneyland visit seemed much less likely to court controversy than her previous trip in April. During that visit  which included Kanye  she strolled around the park in bare feet

According to Disneyland's website , the park has a strict dress code that guests are required to follow

Guests are prohibited from wearing revealing clothing or displaying offensive slogans or tattoos  though the rules are left vague  and going barefoot is explicitly prohibited

It's unclear why Bianca was allowed in the park despite demonstrably breaking the dress code rules, though her and Kanye's celebrity status probably didn't hurt

According to Disneyland's website, the park has a strict dress code that guests are required to follow.

Guests are prohibited from wearing revealing clothing or displaying offensive slogans or tattoos  though the rules are left vague  and going barefoot is explicitly prohibited.

It's unclear why Bianca was allowed in the park despite demonstrably breaking the dress code rules, though her and Kanye's celebrity status probably didn't hurt.

Last month, the couple shocked fans when they were reported to have split.

TMZ reported that Kanye and Bianca had been on the outs for some time and were considering divorce after Bianca felt she could no longer ignore her family's pleas to get out of the unconventional marriage.

But just days later the two appeared to confirm that they were still together when they were seen engaging in some PDA while spending time in Tokyo.

An insider later accused the couple of concocting the whole split narrative.

They told DailyMail.com that the 'split' was an attempt to draw attention away from a lawsuit filed agains Kanye by his former assistant Lauren Pisciotta.

She accuses the Vultures rapper of drugging and raping her at a party co-hosted by Sean 'Diddy' Combs, and she claimed in her lawsuit that Kanye later confessed to her, though he has since denied her claims.

'Kanye is concerned that his new lawsuit will drag him down to Diddys level and he has been speaking to his legal reps,' the insider said.

'He is paying attention to what is going on with Diddy and some believe that the publicity stunt was a way of overshadowing the details of the harrowing lawsuit,' they added.

Last month, the couple shocked fans when they were reported to have split

TMZ reported that Kanye and Bianca had been on the outs for some time and were considering divorce after Bianca felt she could no longer ignore her family's pleas to get out of the unconventional marriage

But just days later the two appeared to confirm that they were still together when they were seen engaging in some PDA while spending time in Tokyo

An insider later accused the couple of concocting the whole split narrative

They told DailyMail.com that the 'split' was an attempt to draw attention away from a lawsuit filed agains Kanye by his former assistant Lauren Pisciotta

She accuses the Vultures rapper of drugging and raping her at a party co-hosted by Sean 'Diddy' Combs

She also claimed in her lawsuit that Kanye later confessed to her, though he has since denied her claims

'Kanye is concerned that his new lawsuit will drag him down to Diddys level and he has been speaking to his legal reps,' the insider said

'He is paying attention to what is going on with Diddy and some believe that the publicity stunt was a way of overshadowing the details of the harrowing lawsuit,' they added

Pisciotta is also suing Kanye for allegedly sexually harassing and stalking her

In an 88-page update to her lawsuit filed in October, Pisciotta claimed that West has a sick obsession with wanting to sleep with the mothers of his romantic interests, which he allegedly confessed to her

She included a text message conversation that West allegedly sent to Pisciotta in which he told Bianca he wanted to have sex with her mother before she went back home during a visit to LA

Pisciotta is also suing Kanye for allegedly sexually harassing and stalking her.

In an 88-page update to her lawsuit filed in October, Pisciotta claimed that West has a sick obsession with wanting to sleep with the mothers of his romantic interests, which he allegedly confessed to her.

She included a text message conversation that West allegedly sent to Pisciotta in which he told Bianca he wanted to have sex with her mother before she went back home during a visit to Los Angeles.

His former assistant said Bianca  who had not yet married Kanye  turned down the offer, and her mother has refused to comment on the allegations.
Gal Gadot looked chic while attending the Israel Film Festival opening night in Beverly Hills, California on Wednesday night.

The Israeli actress, 39, also made a subtle statement as she arrived at The Saban Theater by wearing a yellow ribbon pin on the lapel of her beige blazer.

The pin appears to be a symbol signifying her support for the safe return of the hostages held by Hamas.

The Wonder Woman star  who recently celebrated her daughter's bat mitzvah  has been a major advocate for Israel after Hamas killed civilians and took hostages at a music festival in October 2023.

The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History sells the pins, which symbolize 'solidarity with the hostages, their families, and all who care about their safety.'

Gal Gadot, 39, looked chic while attending the Israel Film Festival opening night in Beverly Hills, California on Wednesday night

The Israeli actress also made a subtle statement as she arrived at The Saban Theater by wearing a yellow ribbon pin on the lapel of her beige blazer

The star, who spent two years in the IDF as a combat fitness instructor, wore a stylish sheer skirt under her oversized beige blazer.

Her dark tresses were slicked back for the occasion, and she opted for delicate glam.

The beauty further accessorized with a unique gold necklace.

Gadot has consistently been vocal about her support for Israel since Hamas militants stormed a music festival on October 7, 2023 and killed hundreds of Israeli people, taking 251 hostages.

A total of 97 hostages still remain unaccounted for.

Referring to Hamas' deadly incursion, she said in an Instagram post to more than 109 million followers at the time: 'The world has failed the women of October 7th. We claim we stand against rape, violence against women.'

'We will not let women be victimized and then silenced. We say we believe women, stand with women, speak out for women.'

It continued: 'On October 7th, the world witnessed Hamas carrying out its violent plans in real time. Within hours of the October 7th attack, the first blood-chilling video emerged of Shani Louk being paraded naked and defiled by her proud assailants.'

The pin appears to be a symbol signifying her support for the safe return of the hostages held by Hamas

The Wonder Woman star has been a major advocate for Israel after Hamas killed civilians and took hostages at a music festival in October 2023

The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History sells the pins, which symbolize 'solidarity with the hostages, their families, and all who care about their safety'

The star wore a stylish sheer nude skirt under her oversized beige blazer

Gadot has consistently been vocal about her support for Israel since Hamas militants stormed a music festival on October 7, 2023 and killed hundreds of Israeli people, taking 251 hostages

'Yet two months later women are still hostage to these rapists and the world has failed to call this situation what it is: an urgent emergency that demands a decisive response.'

Gadot said that the 'moment' had come for women and allies of women to act in condemnation of the crimes committed.

She said, 'I am beseeching all those who have done so much for women's rights globally - from the UN, to the human rights community, to please join in the demand that Hamas release every single woman hostage immediately - not after the next round of international mediation, not after another day.

'These women cannot survive another moment of this horror.'

Last year Gadot held a screening of footage of the Hamas terror attack, which ended in mass brawls outside the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance.

The 47-minute footage, provided by the Israeli Defence forces, was aired to a select audience of celebrities and influential personalities in Los Angeles and New York.

About 200 people attended the screening, though Gadot was not in attendance, nor were any major Hollywood stars, according to the LA Times.

The Museum of Tolerance, opened in 1993, is meant to examine the history of prejudice around the world with a strong focus on the Holocaust.

Earlier this month Gal excitedly celebrated her daughter, Alma's, 13, bat mitzvah with husband Jaron Varsano and daughters Maya, seven, Daniella, three, and Ori, eight months

Last December she called on the United Nations to demand every female hostage held by Hamas be released immediately.

Shortly after the initial attack, the former Miss Israel 2004 was one of the first Hollywood names to support Israel, writing: 'I stand with Israel you should too. The world cannot sit on the fence when these horrific acts of terror are happening!'

The star also asked her followers to donate funds for those affected by the attacks.

Earlier this month Gal excitedly celebrated her daughter, Alma's, bat mitzvah and shared a sweet tribute post to her main Instagram page.

She uploaded a family photo as she posed with her husband and four children during the special day.

The star married Jaron Varsano back in 2008 and they share Alma, 13, Maya, seven, Daniella, three, and eight-month-old Ori.

Gal surprised fans after she welcomed her fourth child, Ori, earlier this year in March, after a secret pregnancy.
Reese Witherspoon look incredible on Wednesday night at an event in New York City  amid her 'fun' new romance with German financier Oliver Haarmann.

The Oscar-winner, 48, led stars at the iMentor 25th anniversary Champions Dinner, which was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

She posed up on the event's purple carpet in a chic black midi dress with a bedazzled asymmetrical neckline by Roland Mouret.

Reese styled her frock with black satin heels and a pair of diamond stud earrings.

Her signature sandy blonde hair was worn in loose curls that framed her face.

Reese Witherspoon led stars at the iMentor 25th anniversary Champions Dinner, which was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Wednesday night in NYC

As for makeup, the Legally Blonde star rocked a youthful peach flush on her cheeks and shimmery brown shadow on her eyelids.

To round out the look, her makeup artist applied a peachy pink gloss to her lips and a natural set of false eyelashes.

While on the red carpet, Reese ran into G9 Ventures founder Amy Griffin and legendary broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer.

iMentor is non-profit organization based in New York that matches high school kids with college-educated mentors who help guide them on their journey to higher education.

This year's Champions Dinner is in celebration of iMentor's 'quarter-century of mentoring moments,' as per the official website.

Over the last 25 years, iMentor has helped more than 42,000 students across the United States build 'strong, lasting, and transformative mentoring relationships.'

Amy Griffin and her husband John Griffin, both of whom are Benefit Chairs, hosted the event inside the Met's Temple of Dendur.

Reese's appearance at Wednesday's dinner in NYC comes amid her romance with Haarmann, who is minority co-owner of the NHL's New York Islanders and founding partner of Searchlight Capital.

He is Reese's first boyfriend since splitting from her second husband Jim Toth in 2023.

She and the hunky businessman started dating earlier this year after getting to know one another as friends.

They first sparked romance rumors in July when they took a helicopter ride together into New York City, where Haarmann lives, and enjoyed dinner at L'Artusi restaurant in the West Village.

While sources initially claimed she and Haarmann were 'just friends,' it was confirmed in September that the duo are romantically linked but taking things slow.

She posed up on the event's purple carpet in a chic black midi dress with a bedazzled asymmetrical neckline by Roland Mouret

Her signature sandy blonde hair was worn in loose curls that framed her face

While on the red carpet, Reese ran into G9 Ventures founder Amy Griffin and legendary broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer

Last month, a source told PEOPLE that Reese has been 'having fun' with Haarmann.

'Reese is doing great and enjoys dating,' a source told People. 'She's having fun with Oliver,' the insider dish.

'Reese loves that he's a businessman and not into Hollywood.'

The source also noted that the Cruel Intentions star  who is based in LA  'often flies between Nashville and N.Y.C. to see him. He's spending time with her kids too.'

Reese is a mother of three. She shares daughter Ava, 25, and son Deacon, 21, with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe and son Tennessee, 12, with ex Toth.

Haarmann is also a parent to two kids with his ex-wife Mala Gaonkar.

While her new relationship is progressing, insiders recently told DailyMail.com that twice divorced Reese sees no reason to say 'I do' for a third time.

'At 48 Reese doesn't plan to have any more children,' the source dished. 'She's also independent as hell and certainly doesn't need a man for his money.

'The reason she's told Oliver 'no' to marriage is because she doesn't want him to have false expectations and think this is in their future. Because it definitely isn't.'

Reese's divorce announcement in 2023 shocked fans as she and talent agent Toth has been married for 12 years.

She announced the split in March 2023 with an Instagram statement, calling it a 'difficult decision' but one that was done with 'a great deal of care and consideration.'

Months later, she told Harper's Bazaar that she felt 'very connected' after sharing her divorce news with the world.

Reese's appearance at Wednesday's dinner in NYC comes amid her romance with German financier Oliver Haarmann, who is minority co-owner of the NHL's New York Islanders and founding partner of Searchlight Capital

Haarmann is Reese's first boyfriend since splitting from her second husband Jim Toth in 2023; the exes seen in 2017

'To be able to talk to people directly about what's going on in my life and just share it in the way that I share great professional experiences or personal experiences,' she told the magazine. 'It feels much more authentic to be able to say things in my own voice and not let somebody else control what's happening.

'Then, of course, there's speculation, but I can't control that. All I can do is be my most honest, forthright self and be vulnerable.'

She continued: 'I think about how many other people are going through this experience. I don't feel isolated at all. I feel very connected.'
Daniel Craig was serving pure silver fox as he attended the Los Angeles premiere of Queer, which was held inside the DGA Theater Complex on Wednesday.

The 56-year-old Englishman looked dapper in a grey-pinstripe bespoke Loewe double-breasted suit, estimated to cost $4,500, which was selected by stylist Taylor McNeill.

Daniel paired his wool suit with a white sheer top and $790 Loewe 'Flow Runner' sneakers.

Groomer Nicole Elle King made sure Craig's complexion was ready for his close-up beneath a $430 pair of Loewe 'Groove Round' sunglasses.

Jonathan Anderson, the creative director of Loewe, just so happened to serve as costume designer on the 48M-budget experimental drama.

Daniel Craig was serving pure silver fox as he attended the Los Angeles premiere of Queer, which was held inside the DGA Theater Complex on Wednesday

The Emmy-nominated actor was joined on the grey carpet by his black-clad onscreen leading man Drew Starkey who, at 31, is 25 years his junior.

Daniel portrays a thinly-veiled version of author William S. Burroughs in A24's big-screen adaptation of his 1985 novella about a love affair between two American expats in Mexico City back in the 1950s.

Craig spent months taking dance and movement classes with Starkey, whose drug-addicted character Eugene Allerton was based on Adelbert Lewis Marker.

'There's nothing like a good dance to break the ice,' the two-time Golden Globe nominee told ET on Wednesday.

'I think it did all sorts. It made us bond very quickly because we're both non-dancers and we both had to go through the pain barrier to get to a good position. It was really important to us.'

Daniel was thrilled to work with director Luca Guadagnino on Queer, which was banned by the Turkish government for 'provocative content that would endanger public peace and that the ban decision would be implemented for security reasons.'

Craig shared a hearty laugh with the 53-year-old Italian filmmaker during their red carpet reunion.

The Guildhall School of Music and Drama grad - who played gay roles in Knives Out and Angels in America - has spent the press tour relishing just how far his character William Lee is from his macho breakout character, James '007' Bond.

The 56-year-old Englishman looked dapper in a grey-pinstripe bespoke Loewe double-breasted suit, estimated to cost $4,500, which was selected by stylist Taylor McNeill

Daniel paired his wool suit with a white sheer top and $790 Loewe 'Flow Runner' sneakers

Groomer Nicole Elle King made sure Craig's complexion was ready for his close-up beneath a $430 pair of Loewe 'Groove Round' sunglasses

Jonathan Anderson, the creative director of Loewe, just so happened to serve as costume designer on the 48M-budget experimental drama

The Emmy-nominated actor was joined on the grey carpet by his black-clad onscreen leading man Drew Starkey (R) who, at 31, is 25 years his junior

Daniel portrays a thinly-veiled version of author William S. Burroughs in A24's big-screen adaptation of his 1985 novella about a love affair between two American expats in Mexico City back in the 1950s

Craig spent months taking dance and movement classes with Starkey, whose drug-addicted character Eugene Allerton was based on Adelbert Lewis Marker

The two-time Golden Globe nominee told ET on Wednesday: 'There's nothing like a good dance to break the ice...It made us bond very quickly because we're both non-dancers and we both had to go through the pain barrier to get to a good position'

Daniel was thrilled to work with director Luca Guadagnino (L) on Queer, which was banned by the Turkish government

Craig shared a hearty laugh with the 53-year-old Italian filmmaker during their red carpet reunion

The Guildhall School of Music and Drama grad has spent the press tour relishing just how far his character William Lee is from his macho breakout character, James '007' Bond

For the role, Daniel will next compete for the European Actor trophy at the 37th European Film Awards, which will be held December 7 in Switzerland

Queer - hitting limited US theaters November 27 and UK theaters December 13 - currently has a 78% critic approval rating (out of 68 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes

Also there Wednesday representing the Queer cast was Drew Droege - who plays John Dume - wearing a silky white button-up shirt with cuffed blue jeans

Omar Apollo - who plays Chimu Bar Guy - did his best Tarantino in a classic black suit and dress shoes

Queer composers Trent Reznor (L) and Atticus Ross (R) also looked sleek and sophisticated wearing all-black attire

For the role, Daniel will next compete for the European Actor trophy at the 37th European Film Awards, which will be held December 7 at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre in Switzerland.

Queer - hitting limited US theaters November 27 and UK theaters December 13 - currently has a 78% critic approval rating (out of 68 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes.

Also there Wednesday representing the Queer cast was Drew Droege - who plays John Dume - wearing a silky white button-up shirt with cuffed blue jeans.

Omar Apollo - who plays Chimu Bar Guy - did his best Tarantino in a classic black suit and dress shoes.

Queer composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross also looked sleek and sophisticated wearing all-black attire.

Enjoying the film festivities was Mayfair Witches actress Thora Birch wearing an eggplant-colored short-sleeve mini-dress and black pumps.

Slip creator-star Zoe Lister-Jones went for BDSM glam in a midi-sleeve black PVC dress while holding hands with her girlfriend, You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah director Sammi Cohen.

TikToker Dylan Mulvaney bared her shoulders in a red halter cocktail dress with gold bracelets and sandals.

Enjoying the film festivities was Mayfair Witches actress Thora Birch wearing an eggplant-colored short-sleeve mini-dress and black pumps

Slip creator-star Zoe Lister-Jones (R) went for BDSM glam in a midi-sleeve black PVC dress while holding hands with her girlfriend, director Sammi Cohen (L)

TikToker Dylan Mulvaney bared her shoulders in a red halter cocktail dress with gold bracelets and sandals

Gottmik - the first trans man to compete on RuPaul's Drag Race - proudly showcased his happy trail in a black cropped tank beneath a camouflage vest and trousers

Blink Twice actor Simon Rex turned up in an olive-green suit over a navy-blue button-up and Oxfords

Kardashian-Jenner guy pal Fai Khadra flaunted his frosted tips with all-black attire

Borderlands actress Ariana Greenblatt (L) donned a chocolate-brown double-breasted pantsuit while music video maestro Petra Collins (R) opted for a black skirt-suit and leather gloves

Comedian Kate Berlant - who's a regular at Largo LA - donned a colorful cap-sleeve top with a midi-black wrap skirt and stilettos

Dream Scenario actor Noah Centineo (R) embraced and kissed English Teacher actor Jordan Firstman (L) from behind on the grey carpet

Red, White & Royal Blue actor Clifton Collins Jr. (R) rocked all-black attire alongside his fur coat-clad companion, Bailey Mikel (L)

Gottmik - the first trans man to compete on RuPaul's Drag Race - proudly showcased his happy trail in a black cropped tank beneath a camouflage vest and trousers.

Blink Twice actor Simon Rex turned up in an olive-green suit over a navy-blue button-up and Oxfords.

Kardashian-Jenner guy pal Fai Khadra flaunted his frosted tips with all-black attire.

Borderlands actress Ariana Greenblatt donned a chocolate-brown double-breasted pantsuit while music video maestro Petra Collins opted for a black skirt-suit and leather gloves.

Comedian Kate Berlant - who's a regular at Largo LA - donned a colorful cap-sleeve top with a midi-black wrap skirt and stilettos.

Dream Scenario actor Noah Centineo embraced and kissed English Teacher actor Jordan Firstman from behind on the grey carpet.

Red, White & Royal Blue actor Clifton Collins Jr. rocked all-black attire alongside his fur coat-clad companion, Bailey Mikel.
The Bachelor's Snezana Wood wowed fans on Thursday with a sizzling share.

The 44-year-old mother-of-four dazzled her followers as she flaunted her beach fit physique in a barely there black bikini.

In a clip shared to Instagram, the lifestyle influencer can be seen posing in front of a mirror wearing a blue shirt she left open to expose a skimpy bikini top.

Snezana opted to cover her matching bikini bottoms under a pair of white see-though pants adorned with flowers.

An accompanying caption revealed that Snezana took the images while enjoying a recent family weekend getaway at Mount Martha in Victoria.

'This little retreat means the world, giving us time to unwind and create memories together,' she explained in the post.

Snezana also included a photo of herself surrounded by a pile of family washing.

'And while its our perfect escape, lets be honest the laundry still manages to find us, even here,' she joked in the caption.

The Bachelor's Snezana Wood flaunted her beach fit physique in a barely there black bikini. Pictured

Snezana opted to cover her matching bikini bottoms under a pair of white see-though pants adorned with flowers

It comes after the social media star recently announced that her 19-year-old daughter Eve reached a major mile stone.

Snezana and her fitness expert husband Sam Wood, 43, recently hosted a touching farewell party for Eve, who is set to embark on an exciting new chapter in New York City.

Snezana looked every inch the proud mum in a series of precious Instagram photos posted on Thursday, as she posed alongside Sam and Eve.

One snapshot captured the family beaming together, while another featured Eve blowing out candles on a specially designed farewell cake, adorned with a plane.

In the clip, the lifestyle influencer can be seen posing in front of a mirror wearing a blue shirt she left open to expose a string bra top style bikini. Meanwhile, her black high-hipped g-string was clearly visible beneath a pair of white see through floral pants. (Pictured)

Meanwhile, Eve also shared some photos of herself having the time of her life in New York City, as she took in the sights shortly after arriving in the Big Apple.

Snezana captioned the photos with some informative words: 'Pre-departure Melb to NYC.'

The 19-year-old's move coincides with the start of the American university's first semester, suggesting she may be studying abroad.

Eve Markoski-Wood who Snezana shares with her first husband, launched her modelling career on Instagram last year, not long before graduating high school in October.

The teenager has since updated her Instagram bio from 'model' to 'digital creator' and she now boasts 47,000 followers on the platform.
Fans joked Pedro Pascal was his younger sister's 'plus one' at the premiere of his film Gladiator II on Wednesday night after she stole the show.

Transgender actress Lux, 32, supported her older brother, 49, at the screening held at London's Leicester Square.

Wowing in a daring black cut out dress, Lux was soon flooded with compliments on social media with many wanting to know more about Pedro's sister who revealed her transition in 2021.

Narcos and The Last Of Us star Pedro has admitted he's fierecely protective of his sister, and he's won praise from fans for his LGBTQ advocacy.

However, he admits that Lux is a 'powerful' personality and doesn't need to rely on him for supporting, saying: 'I need her more than she needs me.'

Lux, who is dating actor and musician Jose Antonio Raffo de la Jara, was born in 1992, is the youngest of her three siblings; sister Javiera and older brothers Nicolas and Pedro, who is 17 years older.

While Pedro was raised in mostly in Texas, Lux was born in Orange County in June 1992.

Their mother, a child psychologist, and father , a fertility doctor, had fled Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile in 1976, but moved back to Chile not long after Lux was born.

Transgender actress Lux, 32, supported her older brother, 49, at the screening held at London's Leicester Square

Lux appearing in the Chilean television series Juana Brava in 2015, before transitioning (left). She says she doesn't mind seeing old images of herself before her transition because it's like watching herself on screen in acting roles

While Pedro was raised in mostly in Texas , their parents returned to Chile after Lux was born, with the actor revealing his younger sister 'ruled the household'

Giving an insight into family life, the actor previously told Esquire: 'She ruled the household right away. When my older sister and I would visit, we were like intruders.

'Our mother was her mother, but for us to think that we were entitled to this womans attention in any way was absurd.'

Like her brother, Lux is also an actress having graduated from the prestigious Julliard School in 2023.

She has had roles in The Prince, Invisible Heroes, and Chilean drama series Los 80 as well as starring alongside her brother in Narcos.

Here MailOnline delves into the incredibly close bond between the siblings that has onyl grown stronger through Lux's transition.

In 2017, prior to her transition, Lux played the role of Elias in the third season of the Netflix series Narcos (left). Lux starring in The Prince, released in 2019, a story about sexual identity behind bars (right)

Fans joked Pedro Pascal was his younger sister's 'plus one' at the premiere of his film Gladiator II on Wednesday night after she stole the show

Lux is a regular plus one for Pedro at red carpet events, and stole the show at last night's Gladiator premiere

Lux publicly detailed her transition in 2021, appearing on the cover of Chilean magazine, Ya

Lux's rumoured boyfriend Jose Antonio Raffo de la Jara also shared Lux's magazine cover to Instagram

Lux came out as transgender in 2021

Lux publicly detailed her transition in 2021, appearing on the cover of the February issue of Chilean magazine, Ya.

The actress revealed she began receiving hormone treatment the previous July, with her whole family being incredibly supportive.

She said it was something that's very natural for everyone in my family' and 'almost something that they expected to happen'.

Lux added it 'doesn't make me anxious to see old photos of myself'.

She said: 'The same thing happens to me with theater: I see someone who was doing what they liked.'

In the interview, she described herself as a 'baby learning to walk'.

Describing life before transition, she said it was like 'playing with a deck of cards that was not mine'

'While in the dark I collected the cards to put together another one,' she said. 'And I finally dared to participate in this game with my own cards, as the person I am.'

Proud Pedro shared an image of his sister's cover story with the magazine on his Instagram account with a purple heart.

Her rumoured boyfriend actor and musician Jose Antonio Raffo de la Jara also shared Lux's magazine cover to Instagram, describing her as 'the most beautiful and brightest star in all the galaxies'.

Lux's journey

Before coming out as transgender, Lux first came out as gay and then identified as non-binary which eventually lead her to realise she was a woman

Before coming out as transgender, Lux first came out as gay and then identified as non-binary which eventually lead her to realise she was a woman.

'I think if I would have been sufficiently sure of myself I would have transitioned in my adolescence. In school I trusted my classmates

'Moving through the world as a woman is much more simple for me, but I still advocate for nonbinary identities to have a space in society,' she explained.

'Coming out of the closet as a gay man didn't cost me anything, but deep down it wasn't who I was. It was only a step on the staircase, but it wasn't me, she said. "It was an easy thing to say," she said about her coming out, "but the truth was, 'Oof, if you really knew what I feel...'

Lux said she's eager to fight for the rights of the trans community.

'We need trans activists who are good, smart, informed and who can be strong voices against transphobia, homophobia and racism,' she said.

Pedro's close bond with Lux

Lux credited Pedro as being an 'important part' of her journey (pictured together in November 2023 at the LACMA Art and Film Gala)

Lux, born in 1992, is the youngest of her three siblings; sister Javiera and older brothers Nicolas and Pedro, who is 17 years older (pictured in 2017)

Lux credited Pedro as being an 'important part' of her journey as she recalled: 'When I officially told him about my transition through FaceTime, he asked me how I felt because I remember that he was worried.

'I told him, 'I'm happy.' And his answer was: "Perfect, this is incredible".'

'He's also an artist and has served as a guide for me. He was one of the first people to gift me the tools that started shaping my identity.'

Pedro shared a tribute to Lux when the magazine came out, sharing the cover to Instagram with the caption: 'Mi hermana, mi corazon, nuestra Lux,' which translates to: 'My sister, my heart, our Lux.'

After Lux came out as transgender, Pedro told Esquire his 'protective side is lethal, but I need her more than she needs me'.

He added: 'she is and has always been one of the most powerful people and personalities Ive ever known.'

The actor has also shown his support to the LGBTQIA community on Instagram, sharing photos of a rainbow flag after the attacks on trans rights in March 2023.

Pedro's plus one

Lux is Pascal's biggest supporter and often accompanies him to red carpet events and the Emmys earlier this year (pictured)

The actress stole the show in a daring black cut out gown at the Gladiator II premiere at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square

The actor stars in the highly-anticipated sequel as Marcus Acacius (pictured), a Roman general who trained under Russell Crowe's Maximus

Fans were wowed by her captivating appearance, as they joked that she had stolen the spotlight from her brother and quipped that Pedro had been relegated to Lux's 'plus one'

Lux is Pascal's biggest supporter and often accompanies him to red carpet events and the Emmys earlier this year.

The actress stole the show in a daring black cut out gown at the Gladiator II premiere at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square.

Fans were wowed by her captivating appearance, as they joked that she had stolen the spotlight from her brother and quipped that Pedro had been relegated to Lux's 'plus one'.

They took to social media, writing: 'I don't know whether to look at Pedro or Lux... the Balmaceda Pascals are going to drive me crazy'.

'Lux Pascal!!!!! Aint nobody looking at that man; LUX PASCAL THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE; their face cards never decline huh'.

'Lux Pascal and her plus-one; THE CUTEST SISTER AND BROTHER DUO; lux pascal you will ALWAYS be famous'.
Daniel Craig appeared to be morphing into U2's Bono as he attended the Los Angeles premiere of Queer on Wednesday.

The 56-year-old actor cut a dapper figure in a grey-pinstripe bespoke Loewe double-breasted suit as he posed up a storm on the red carpet.

He teamed the look with a white cotton top and a pair of white trainers.

Bearing a striking resemblance to the U2 frontman, Daniel added a pair of yellow sunglasses and slicked-back his hair for the star-studded occasion.

The Emmy-nominated actor was joined on the carpet by his onscreen leading man Drew Starkey, 31, who donned a all black ensemble.

Daniel Craig appeared to be morphing into U2's Bono as he attended the Los Angeles premiere of Queer on Wednesday

The 56-year-old Englishman cut a dapper figure in a grey-pinstripe bespoke Loewe double-breasted suit as he posed up a storm on the red carpet.

Daniel stars in the movie which is an adaptation of a novella by American writer William Burroughs.

He plays an American, William Lee, living in Mexico City who becomes sexually obsessed with a former sailor, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey).

The James Bond actor spent months taking dance and movement classes with Starkey, whose drug-addicted character Eugene was based on Adelbert Lewis Marker.

'There's nothing like a good dance to break the ice,' the two-time Golden Globe nominee told ET on Wednesday.

'I think it did all sorts. It made us bond very quickly because we're both non-dancers and we both had to go through the pain barrier to get to a good position. It was really important to us.'

Speaking to Variety, Craig and Drew lifted the lid on their feelings towards portraying gay characters as straight men - after Daniel played serial womaniser Bond.

'It wasn't part of the audition process(director Luca Guadagnino) didn't ask us the intricacies of our sexuality,' Drew revealed.

In real life, both men are straight, with Daniel married to Rachel Weisz and Drew dating Odessa A'Zion.

He teamed the look with a white cotton top and a pair of white trainers

Bearing a striking resemblance to the U2 frontman, Daniel added a pair of yellow sunglasses and slicked-back his hair for the star-studded occasion

The Emmy-nominated actor was joined on the grey carpet by his onscreen leading man Drew Starkey (R), 31, who donned an all black ensemble

Craig added: 'I'm not dismissing it, but I didn't reallyThere's kind of a trust in the director, and a trust in the process of what you know, and realising that the story has massive, universal themes that appeal hopefully to everybody.

'The movie's not defined by that. I really, genuinely don't think it is. Other people see it differentlythat's up to them.'

'I've been shooting sex on-screen since I did my short film 'Qui' when I was 22,' Luca added.

'I always said to myself, if you start to give that scene a level of awareness or alarm, it's going to become what it shouldn't be.

'Quality means making an audience surrender to what they are seeing,' he says, 'not judging, not feeling the fakeness of it, but believing it completely.

The films sees some steamy scenes between Daniel and Drew, with the former saying: ''You kind of have to leave your ego at the door.

Queer is based on William Burroughs' semi-autobiographical novella and stars Daniel as American expat and war veteran William Lee, who has a romance with a younger man, Eugene Allerton, played by Drew

'You've got to kind of just let it go. There are no rules.'

In response, Drew said: 'That's what I learned from you. There's no ego involved. I've never seen a freer actor.'

Daniel added: 'I've been in movies with terrible love scenes. It doesn't work.

'You need a director who has a sensitivity, a director who understands, toto put it crasslymake it real. That's one's job on the day: to make it as real as possible.'

For the role, Daniel will next compete for the European Actor trophy at the 37th European Film Awards, which will be held December 7 at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre in Switzerland.

Queer will hit limited US theaters November 27 and UK theaters December 13 - currently has a 78% critic approval rating (out of 68 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes.
New Delhi, Nov 14 (UNI) To mark the completion of 75 years of establishment of diplomatic relations, India and the Philippines have unveiled a joint logo that incorporates elements from their national flags, including the Ashok Chakra and the Sun and also features national birds of both countries  the Peacock and the Eagle.

The joint logo was unveiled here on Wednesday by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Ambassador of the Philippines Josel F. Ignacio, in the presence of Undersecretary (Vice-Minister) of Tourism of the Republic of the Philippines, Maria Rica C. Bueno.

The joint logo symbolizes the enduring friendship, cultural bonds and shared values between the two countries, a statement said.

India and the Philippines share warm and friendly relations, which have provided a firm basis to our expanding bilateral cooperation ranging from political exchanges, trade and investment, defence and security, healthcare and medicine, agriculture, development partnership, engagement in new technologies to tourism, culture and people-to-people exchanges.

The 75th anniversary celebrations coincide with the completion of a decade of Indias Act East Policy. Several special commemorative events and activities are being planned to foster greater cooperation, including under the ASEAN Framework, between India and the Philippines, it added.

UNI RN
Connie Nielsen hasn't aged a day as the actress wowed at the Gladiator II premiere on Wednesday night as she returned to the franchise 24 years after starring in the original.

The star, 59, played Lucilla in the original Gladiators back in 2000 and has rejoined the cast alongside Paul Mescal and Yuval Gonen for the latest instalment.

Wowing on the red carpet, Connie looked sensational in a baby blue pleated chiffon gown, with a semi-sheer skirt and thigh-high leg slit.

The Danish actress teamed the halterneck number with a pair of matching blue satin slingback sandal from Gianvito Rossi and styled her hair into loose waves.

Gladiator II takes place several decades after the first instalment, and features Lucius (the son of Lucilla) who is now living in Numidia, a region of northern Africa.

Connie Nielsen hasn't aged a day as the actress, 59, returns to Gladiator II 24 years after starring in the original

The star, 59, played Lucilla in the original Gladiators back in 2000 (pictured R) and has rejoined the cast alongside Paul Mescal and Yuval Gonen for the latest instalment (pictured L)

Although he was sent to Numidia as a child, the film follows Lucius' return to Rome to reunite with his motherand coming into conflict as he does so.

Connie is one of only two actors to return from the original movie alongside Derek Jacobi who plays Gracchus.

And Lucilla has a prominent role in the film, with the actress revealing that director Ridley Scott was a major reason for her return.

Speaking about her return the star described filming as an 'amazing process' as she gushed: 'just walking into the arena on that first day back was an absolute surreal experience.'

She added: 'I was just so excited to tell the story of this woman who Ridley has set up to hold within herself a crumbling empire and a crumbling legacy of her father, the loss of a son, and in the whole of it, this heart that's being loved by an amazing man called Pedro Pascal.

'And then this moment where she finds her son again. I mean, these are incredible experiences and situations that Ridley set up for me. How could I be anything but excited?'

The film, which was 20 years in the making has been a hit with critics and fans have praised Paul's performance.

Connie was joined by Paul at Wednesday's premiere as the Irish actor, 28, opted for a smart black suit with a cream satin shirt.

Connie showcased her radiant complexion the carpet, as one of only two stars to return to the film

Connie starred alongside Joaquin Phoenix in the original film which was also directed by Ridley Scott

Speaking about her return the star described filming as an 'amazing process' as she gushed: 'just walking into the arena on that first day back was an absolute surreal experience'

Connie looked sensational in a baby blue pleated chiffon gown, with a semi-sheer skirt and thigh-high leg slit

She styled her hair into loose waves

Paul Mescal looked effortlessly stylish as he walked the red carpet at the UK premiere of Gladiator II on Wednesday

Yuval Gonen and Pedro Pascal have also joined the cast

Paul plays the former heir to the Roman Empire Lucius Verus in the highly-anticipated blockbuster.

Meanwhile Yuval, who stars as Arishat, stunned in an elegant white gown that featured a corseted bodice.

Pedro, 49, looked as fashion forward as ever in a black oversized shirt with a pair of smart trousers.

Early reviews from critics have called Gladiator II the 'best movie of the year' and a 'true epic' as they hailed Paul and Denzel Washington's performances.

With Russell Crowe's legendary Maximus long-since dead and buried, it is vengeful Lucius (Paul) who must fight for his liberty in the film after being taken into slavery and ripped away from his wife and daughter by general Marcus (Pedro Pascal).

Paul has revealed the insane bet he had with Ridley Scott over one Gladiator II stunt that caused a huge argument between pair.

Director Ridley Scott joined Paul on the red carpet

In a new interview with Vanity Fair Paul told how there was a scene towards the end of the film where a weary Lucius mounts a horse in hot pursuit of Macrinus.

Paul was keen to do his best for the action-packed moment and the other stunts so 'trained for f***ing months' - before Ridley changed his mind about the scene.

Paul told the publication: 'Two weeks before the scene, Ridley says, 'You're not f***ing doing it,' and I was like, 'What the f**k?,' and we had this argument.'

Ridley had decided to cut the scene due to some equine advice he had received on another movie.

Paul added of the altercation: 'I was pestering him constantly. And then the day before, he goes, 'OK, you can do the stunt, but if you come off, it's two Bentleys.'

He eventually pulled the move off in just a couple of takes.
Hayley Atwell cut a chic figure in a sheer black blouse as she posed at a Fendi event in London on Wednesday amid speculation she secretly welcomed her first child with fiance Ned Wolfgang Kelly.

The actress, 42, was all smiles as she flashed her black bra beneath the sheer top while mingling with other attendees at the fashion brand's Winter Holiday 2024 Collection Launch.

Hayley was in good company at the VIP party as Sugababes star Mutya Buena was also in attendance, dressed to impress in a glam cream and black ensemble.

Mission Impossible 8 star Hayley - who was recently seen with a baby amid pregnancy rumours - added a smart pair of black trousers and pointed black heels to her look, while holding onto a black leather bag.

As she made her way into the fashion event, the beauty covered up in a furry-trimmed black jacket, which was gracefully draped over her shoulders.

Hayley Atwell cut a chic figure in a sheer black blouse as she posed at a Fendi event in London on Wednesday amid speculation she secretly welcomed her first child with fiance Ned Wolfgang Kelly

Hayley was in good company at the VIP party as Sugababes star Mutya Buena was also in attendance, dressed to impress in a glam cream and black ensemble

She looked in great spirits as she posed with actor Jimmy Akingbola inside.

Meanwhile, Mutya, 39, rocked a similar look to Hayley, also flashing her bra beneath a sheer black top by Fendi.

The Round Round hitmaker added an oversized cream jacket and coordinating trousers, finishing off her ensemble with black heels and nude miniature handbag.

Other attendees included Gene and Lennon Gallagher, Yasmin Finney, Wretch 32 and Nick Grimshaw.

Just a day before, Hayley put on a loved-up display with her fiance Ned on Tuesday night, as they attended the star-studded re-opening of The Georgian at Harrods.

The actress exuded elegance at the event in a black satin gown, gathered at the waist to showcase her svelte figure.

Adding a pop of colour to her monochrome ensemble, the Marvel star added a pair of bright red high heels.

The couple - who were first linked in July 2022 - have kept their relationship away from the public eye and are rarely pictured together.

The actress, 42, was all smiles as she flashed her black bra beneath the sheer top while mingling with other attendees at the fashion brand's Winter Holiday 2024 Collection Launch [pictured with Jimmy Akingbola]

Mission Impossible 8 star Hayley - who was recently seen with a baby amid pregnancy rumours - added a smart pair of black trousers and pointed black heels to her look, while holding onto a black leather bag

Hayley looked effortlessly chic in an all-black ensemble

As she made her way into the fashion event, the beauty covered up in a furry-trimmed black jacket, which was gracefully draped over her shoulders

The film star couldn't keep the smile off her face as she arrived

Meanwhile, Mutya, 39, rocked a similar look to Hayley, also flashing her bra beneath a sheer black top by Fendi

Nick Grimshaw flashed a smile as he made his way to the event

Yasmin Finney put on a leggy display in a pale blue co-ord teamed with a red sweater and brown boots

Lennon Gallagher was seen at the event with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth

The son of Liam Gallagher looked keen to light up as he stepped outside

He was joined by brother Gene at the fashion bash

Wretch 32 covered up in a long brown leather coat

Ned popped the question to Hayley in Venice in April 2023, and the pair are thought to have welcomed their first child together this year.

The Mission Impossible star sparked speculation she was to become a mother after she was seen cradling her tummy during another trip to Venice with Ned in April this year.

And on Tuesday last week, Hayley was photographed stepping out with her baby for the first time, as she lovingly cradled her little one on a visit to a London park.

Confirming their engagement last year on Instagram, Ned wrote: 'Lucky me. Arrived in Venice at 10am, around midday the love of my life and I got engaged in the kitchen of this strange apartment surrounded by ducks, with a bloke outside the window murdering "My Way" on the accordion.

Just a day before, Hayley put on a loved-up display with her fiance Ned on Tuesday night, as they attended the star-studded re-opening of The Georgian at Harrods

The actress exuded elegance at the event in a black satin gown, gathered at the waist to showcase her svelte figure and added a pop of colour with bright red high heels

'A perfect start to the rest of our lives together. I'd never had any interest in getting married... until I met this extraordinary woman. Happy as a clam.'

While speaking to the Daily Mail's Richard Eden, Hayley described Ned's low-key proposal, recalling: 'My fiance was in his pants in the kitchen, and there was an accordion playing outside our window  which was timed perfectly but not planned.

'We had rented this Airbnb that had lots of shelves with porcelain ducks on them, so it was quite a surreal set-up.

'I said to him, "Venice was my first most precious destination", and I've always had a weird connection with it. So, he took me there, and it happened there.'
Offset devoured a handful of chips as he left Luks Kebab in Paris after securing a staggering 10,000 for his very brief appearance on Wednesday night.

The rapper, 32, reportedly bagged an easy five-figure paycheck for a quick five-minute visit to the restaurant.

During his star-studded appearance, Offset indulged on some food, signed a mirror and posed for some photos.

Offset looked trendy in an all black ensemble, sporting a leather jacket and chunky shoes.

The hitmaker also attended H&M's party at night-life hub YOYO at the Palais de Tokyo to celebrate the new Studio Holiday Capsule collection.

Offset, 32, devoured a handful of chips as he left Luks Kebab in Paris after securing a staggering 10,000 for his very brief appearance on Wednesday night

The rapper reportedly bagged an easy five-figure paycheck for a quick five-minute visit to the restaurant

During his star-studded appearance, Offset indulged on some food, signed a mirror and posed for some photos

Offset's estranged wife Cardi B filed for divorce on July 31 after nearly seven years of marriage.

She was pregnant at the time with their third child, a daughter, who was born September 7.

The pair are also parents to daughter Kulture, six, and son Wave, two.

The couple married in September 2017, before announcing they were splitting up in 2018 due to his alleged infidelity.

The couple reconciled and then Cardi B filed for divorce again in September 2020 but called it off in November.

In June 2023, the stars appeared to be at odds with Offset accusing her of cheating on him, to which she denied.

Cardi and Offset had relationship issues again in winter 2023, despite spending the holidays together.

She also revealed they had sex around New Years 2024 but were still not back together.

Offset looked trendy in an all black ensemble, sporting a leather jacket and chunky shoes

Offset playfully posed outside the restaurant

He cut a very grungy display in his trendy ensemble

The hitmaker also attended H&M's party at night-life hub YOYO at the Palais de Tokyo to celebrate the new Studio Holiday Capsule collection

The stress of dealing with her divorce was exacerbated when someone made a prank call to Children's Protective Services, alleging she was harming her kids.

The MTV Music Award winner made an angry video against the caller in the early morning hours of October 22, and shared it on social media.

'We dont play that s***. My kids live great,' she said in an Instagram live from the hospital.

'My kids have never been touched, never gotten hit no matter how annoying they are. Dont you ever in your f**king life play with my motherhood or my ex-husbands fatherhood.'

The star continued: 'Were the only colored people in my neighborhood completely and for motherf****** to pop up in my house with cops and child protective services because you motherf***** wanna do an anonymous call involving my children.

'I promise you this, Im gonna sue CPS for f****** coming to my house at whatever the f*** time it is. [I will sue] the person that did this anonymous call,' she claimed.

She and Offset were also the victims of another prank call that resulted in police showing up at their home in Atlanta in January.
Katie Price was seen cooking a family meal in a new Instagram video on Wednesday - but can you spot the health hazard in the clip?

The former glamour model, 46, was busy making a delicious looking one pan cheesy tomato pasta dish when fans spotted something unpleasant that drove them to the comments to express their disdain.

Katie seemed oblivious as she chatted away to the camera explaining how she was putting basil leaves, spaghetti, cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms and mozzarella in the dish before popping it in the oven.

But it was her Sphynx cat that got all the attention - and not her layers of mozzarella as it walked along her kitchen counter and started eating something out of her sin.

Fans quickly slammed Katie for being 'so unhygienic' while c.ooking for her children and joked the cat looked like a 'bald chicken'

Can you spot the health hazard in this video of Katie Price preparing a one-pot pasta dish for her family on Instagram on Wednesday night?

The former glamour model, 46, was busy making a one pan cheesy tomato pasta dish when her pet Sphynx cat walked all over her kitchen counter and started eating something in the sink

'Eeeee the cat is in the sink Katie not good hygiene; Cat in the sink is so unhygienic ; Oh no cat in the kitchen for me yuk yuk; There is a bald chicken in the sink avoiding the oven;

'Why is nobody mentioning the bald cat in the back; Looks great but the cat is walking on your worktops in the background; Its the bald cat over the worktops and in the sink for me;

'Looks great but the cat is walking on your worktops in the background; Not the cat in the sink; Katie is there an animal on your worktop'.

Katie cut a casual figure for the video in a blue tracksuit and pulled her long dark tresses back into a high ponytail.

She simply penned: 'This is how I make my Cheesy Pasta No-Name Dish'

It comes after the star took to the stage for a performance at The Clapham Grand on Saturday.

She serenaded the audience at the Top of the Slops Drag Competition with her 2017 song I Got U.

But along with her judging duties, Katie also got on stage herself and performed for the crowd, who burst into applause when she began singing.

Katie seemed oblivious as she carelessly chatted away to the camera explaining how she was putting basil leaves, spaghetti, cheese, tomatoes in the dish before putting it in the oven

However, fans couldn't take their eyes of the pet as it leaned into the sink, which had items stacked inside, to eat something

Fans quickly slammed Katie for being 'so unhygienic' while cooking for her children and joked the cat looked like a 'bald chicken'

The reality star showcased her assets in a skintight camo vest top with matching leggings and cap. She also sported a pair of black leather boots.

Alongside the clip, she wrote: 'Thanks for having me @theclaphamgrand as a judge'

Katie is no stranger to showing off her singing chops as she previously tried to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2005.

The mother-of-five entered the selection competition Making Your Mind Up but lost to Javine with the Song Touch My Fire.

She and her then husband Peter Andre released a cover of the song A Whole New World in 2006 which reached number 12 in the charts.

They also released a collaboration album of the same name that year which reached number 20 in the charts and was certified gold.

The TV personality also reignited an old feud during the performance as she called out Emily Atack.

'Has anybody ever seen me do the "pwor fishy",' Katie asked the crowd.

The 'fishy' comment references a video Katie shared back in 2019 where she slammed Emily for making jokes about her.

The pair's feud kicked off in 2019 when Emily appeared on the I'm A Celebrity spin-off show Extra Camp.

It comes after Katie took to the stage for a performance at The Clapham Grand on Saturday

Katie previously reignited her feud with Emily Atack as she took a swipe at her in a new TikTok video

The pair's feud kicked off in 2019 when Emily appeared on the I'm A Celebrity spin-off show Extra Camp

Emily joked she would need to 'get tested in a clinic' after learning the rock pool she bathed in had previously been used by Katie and Peter Andre.

'Now I am not one to attack, even though it was Emily Atack,' Katie added. 'I don't attack anyone. I am the kindest person ever.

'But if someone goes for me, I make sure I have the last word.'

A source previously told The Sun Katie was 'furious' when she heard what Emily had said about her.

They revealed: 'She was telling people that she can't believe Emily would say something so snide and if she "wants a problem, I'll give her a problem".

'At one point Katie was saying she'd fly out to Australia and confront her. She's not going to, obviously, but she was asking around to see if anyone had Emily's number.'

Emily has not responded to Katie's most recent jibe or the video she previously made about her.
Martin Freeman got into he festive spirit with his French actress girlfriend Rachel Benaissa as they attended the Marylebone's Christmas Lights switch on.

The Sherlock actor, 53, and his partner, 30, held hands as they made their way through the crowds in central London on Wednesday.

The couple were escorted by a group of police officers after his Hollywood appearance caused a stir.

Martin wrapped up in a black trench coat over a navy blue two-piece suit.

He paired his ensemble with a blue shirt, brown scarf and a pair of smart black leather shoes.

Martin Freeman got in the festive spirit with his French actress girlfriend, Rachel Benaissa as they attended the Marylebone Village Christmas Lights Switch on

The Sherlock actor, 53, and his partner, 30, held hands as they made their way through the crowds in central London on Wednesday

Meanwhile, Rachel was wrapped up in a beige and brown trench coat which she layered over a black chunky jumper, checked trousers and black boots.

They have been dating for around three years but are rarely seen together in public.

Rachel and Martin went public with their romance in 2021.

They made their first appearance as a couple when they graced the red carpet at the Raindance Film Festival Opening Night gala screening of Best Sellers at The Dorchester.

The outing came just months after Amanda discussed their split.

Rachel is best known for playing a role in BBC hit Normal People, alongside stars Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar Jones.

The actress has also starred in Lindsay Lohans Netflix film Irish Wish, Aisling Beas sitcom This Way Up.

In addition to acting, Rachel also writes screenplays and once came runner-up in Outstanding Screenplays TV pilot competition.

The couple were escorted by a group of police officers after his Hollywood appearance caused a stir

They have been dating for around three years but are rarely seen together in public

Martin shares two teenage children Joe, 17, and Grace, 15, with his ex-wife Amanda Abbington, 51 (pictured in 2014)

Martin shares two teenage children Joe, 17, and Grace, 15, with his ex-wife Amanda Abbington, 51.

The actor co-parents his two children with ex-Amanda following their split in 2016 after 16 years together.

Martin was said to have supported Amanda through the Strictly Come Dancing probe.

The actress made a series of accusations about her pro Giovanni Pernice's teaching methods and has described his behaviour as 'unnecessary, abusive, cruel and mean'.

The BBC cleared Giovanni of physically abusive behaviour towards Amanda, while upholding some of her complaints the Corporation.

A source told The Sun at the time of the investigation: 'Martin has made a point of making sure Amanda is OK with everything that has happened recently. They share two children together so have always remained close for their sake.

'He was left worried and concerned at learning about the things which Amanda has been going through. And it's been really heartening for Amanda to know that she has Martin's support.

'She's been through hell recently, and had to endure death threats and hateful messages. She's relied heavily on her fiance Jonathan who has been an absolute rock throughout all of this.'
The stars came out for the return of the '70s hit musical Jesus Christ Superstar in Sydney at the Capitol Theatre on Thursday.

And Lisa Wilkinson struck a retro note on the red carpet in a quirky outfit that caught the groovy mood of the smashing new production.

The media veteran rocked a pair of blue denim flares, a silver 'disco tie' and a black jacket she wore over a black T-shirt.

Wearing her auburn hair in a bob, Lisa topped off the outfit with a black sailors cap, silver drop earrings and a fluro orange handbag.

FBoy Island star Abbie Chatfield was also among the arrivals for the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic.

The outspoken media personality went retro casual for the event, sporting a black pleated skirt, which she matched with a chain belt, high boots and a tight blue stripped shirt.

Abbie let her signature long locks fall over her shoulders and accessorised with a set of delicate earrings and a necklace.

Meanwhile, Tsehay Hawkins went 'full disco' for the glittering event.

The stars came out for the return of the '70s hit musical Jesus Christ Superstar on Thursday. Lisa Wilkinson struck a retro note on the red carpet in a quirky outfit. Pictured

FBoy Island star Abbie Chatfield was also among the arrivals for the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic. Pictured

The Yellow Wiggle bared her torso in a white two piece 'cowgirl' outfit that featured frills and consisted of a tie-front top and matching hipsters.

She accessorised with a pair of giant hoop earrings and a crucifix on a chain.

At one point she surprised onlookers when she revealed that her top had the word 'Jesus' emblazoned on the back.

She topped off her look with a pair of chunky boots and decorative eye make up.

Former Miss World Australia Erin Holland also turned heads on the red carpet.

The famed beauty donned a figure hugging pair of retro black jeans with white trim that she paired with a black see-through lace top.

Tsehay Hawkins went 'full disco' for the glittering event

At one point she surprised onlookers when she revealed that her top had the word 'Jesus' emblazoned on the back

Erin Holland also turned heads on the red carpet

Also in attendance was red carpet regular Kerri-Anne Kennerley

Also in attendance was red carpet regular Kerri-Anne Kennerley.

The TV fan favourite opted for an elegant look that consisted of a black suit that featured bedazzled epaulettes.

She paired the outfit with a low cut black top and matching trousers and tan boots.

The Block's Mitch Edwards and Mark McKie also rocked the Jesus Christ Superstar red carpet.

The colourful couple had a lot of fun posing for onlookers in complimentary dance party inspired outfits.

The Block's Mitch Edwards and Mark McKie also rocked the Jesus Christ Superstar red carpet. (Pictured)
Ekin-Su Culculoglu and Arabella Chi pulled out all the stops for the House Of CB Christmas party in London on Wednesday.

Ekin-Su looked incredible in a red lace midi dress with a plunging keyhole neckline as she arrived at the Corinthia hotel.

The Traitors star, 30, added height with a pair of embellished strappy metallic heels and toted a Chanel chain-link bag.

She styled her hair in a sleek half-up 'do and framed her features with smoky eye shadow and taupe lipstick.

Fellow Love Island alum Arabella, meanwhile, showed off her model legs in a strapless black minidress.

Ekin-Su Culculoglu stunned in a red lace dress and shimmering heels at the House Of CB Christmas party in London on Wednesday

Love Island's Arabella Chi looked chic in a black strapless minidress

Arabella accessorized simply with a diamond necklace and stacked bracelets, finishing off the look with strappy silver heels.

The reality star slicked her hair back into a '90s-style half-up-half-down 'do and complemented her features with winged eyeliner with nude makeup.

The duo were joined by a host of other reality stars at the star-studded bash, including Love Island's Maura Higgins, and Uma Jammeh and Matilda Draper from the latest season of the ITV2 reality show.

Ekin-Su shared a clip of herself snacking inside the party venue on her Instagram Story.

The brunette beauty helped herself to chips in the video, which she captioned: 'Sorry not sorry I love food.'

Her night out comes just days after she shut down rumours she's dating Married At First Sight star Georges Berthonneau, insisting: Im 100 per cent single.

The TV personality said that despite being spotted together last week, she is not in a relationship with him.

Ekin-Su blew a kiss for the cameras as she posed outside the Corinthia hotel

The 30-year-old styled her hair in a sleek half-up 'do and framed her features with smoky eye shadow and taupe lipstick

Arabella, 33, accessorized simply with a diamond necklace and stacked bracelets, finishing off the look with strappy embellished heels

In an exclusive interview, she told MailOnline: Im a hundred percent cent single, and loving life - Im thirty, flirty and thriving.

'I can see who I want. I can date who I want, and its my private life, thank you very much.'

Ekin-Su spoke out as she attended an event at the Mar Hall Hotel in Renfrewshire, Scotland this week.

She added: 'I know Im single because I was staying in a haunted hotel in Scotland and could have done with somebody by my side.'

Pointing to a new crystal bracelet, Ekin-Su said: 'Im ready to mingle. Ive got this really nice bracelet and it means abundance and hope and money.

'Im hoping that my life is going to be more successful.'

Rumours about the two began swirling after Ekin-Su and Georges, 31, were seen heading to the gym together in Essex and were later seen in his car.

Ekin-Su has been romantically linked to Married At First Sight star Georges Berthonneau in recent months

His representative played down their visit, insisting that Georges  who married Peggy Rose on last years MAFS  and Ekin-Su are just friends who happened to go to the same gym that day.'

However, in August Ekin-Su stayed at Georges' family home in the South of France after she reached out to Georges after he confessed to having a crush on her during a podcast interview, letting him know of her mutual interest.

Georges rose to fame on last season's MAFS where he met Peggy for the first time at the altar.

Viewers warmed to Georges as he put genuine effort into building a relationship with Peggy, even as her parents voiced their disapproval of the match.

However, the couple eventually split on Valentines Day, with Georges admitting he was blindsided by Peggys announcement on Instagram confirming their separation.
Louise Thompson has shared a major update amid her recent terrifying hospital ordeal.

The Made In Chelsea star, 34, suffered another setback in her health after being rushed in for emergency surgery before going into septic shock.

She recently broke her silence amid fears she'll miss her son Leo's third birthday this week, however on Thursday, she shared the joyous news that she will indeed be home in time to help her boy celebrate.

Taking to Instagram, the mother-of-one shared a sweet video of her son enjoying bath time, with Louise expressing her joy that she gets to spend his special day with him.

Captioning the clip, the TV personality penned: 'Ive never been more in love in my life. The way he says Claus. I must have watched this video 100000x over the past two weeks.

Louise Thompson has shared a major update amid her recent terrifying hospital ordeal

The Made In Chelsea star, 34, has suffered another setback in her health after being rushed in for emergency surgery before going into septic shock (pictured earlier this year during a previous hospital stay)

'Tomorrow you turn 3. Wow. And I get to spend it with you. Double wow. I know whats on the top of my gratitude list.'

The TV personality later shared the clip to her Instagram stories, adding: 'The video that makes all the pain go away'.

It comes after Louise revealed she has been left 'sad and a bit confused' after her fiance Ryan Gibbey decided to do their podcast solo, despite her terrifying rush to hospital.

She has been in hospital for two weeks, however Ryan soldiered on with the couple's podcast He Said, She Said as he went solo for the recent episode and explained the traumatic ordeal.

Taking to her Instagram Story to share the podcast, Louise was left heartbroken by the clip as she admitted she wouldn't be listening herself.

She penned: 'Just watching this 1 clip broke my heart so I won't be listening to the pod this week until I'm waaaaay recovered and feeling so far removed from this challenge.'

Appearing to criticise the decision to go ahead with the podcast in her absence, she added: 'makes me really sad and a bit confused as to why Ryan had to host a solo ep THIS early on into our pod journey, but hey go.

'I'm v proud of you for getting on and doing it.'

She recently broke her silence amid fears she'll miss her son Leo's third birthday this week, however on Thursday, she shared the joyous news that she will indeed be home in time to help her boy celebrate

Taking to Instagram, the mother-of-one shared a sweet video of her son enjoying bath time, with Louise expressing her joy that she gets to spend his special day with him

Captioning the clip, the TV personality penned: 'Tomorrow you turn 3. Wow. And I get to spend it with you. Double wow. I know whats on the top of my gratitude list'

The TV personality later shared the clip to her Instagram stories, adding: 'The video that makes all the pain go away'

Ryan explained during the episode how he rushed his partner to A&E when she suffered agonising abdominal pain.

He said he had returned from a weekend visiting his family in Devon to find Louise 'rolling around in heaps of pain' at the London home their share with Leo.

By the early hours of the morning she could take no more and Ryan rushed her to A&E 'and a few hours later she was on the operating table.'

Louise underwent surgery 'in the same tummy area that she's been recovering from since earlier this year with her stoma surgery. It was completely unexpected,' Ryan told listeners.

Complications arose and she went into septic shock after the operation which Ryan explained 'shows the severity of how bad things got.'

Ryan reassured listeners that his fiancee is recovering, and is out of the intensive care unit, but he confessed the terrifying ordeal has taken its toll on both of them.

Louise also posted an Instagram update on Wednesday, telling her followers: 'The world feels like its been a bit unkind to me again.'

It comes after Louise revealed she is 'sad and confused' over fiance Ryan's decision to do their podcast solo while she recovers in hospital from septic shock after undergoing emergency surgery

Ryan soldiered on with the couple's podcast He Said, She Said, yet Louise was left heartbroken by the clip as she admitted she wouldn't be listening herself

Ryan explained during the episode how he rushed his partner to A&E when she suffered agonising abdominal pain

Louise posted an Instagram update on Wednesday, telling her followers: 'The world feels like its been a bit unkind to me again'

The star shared a photo of Ryan placing a sunshine balloon at the end of her bed as she told her followers: 'Its World kindness day. The world feels like its been a bit unkind to me again.'

She added that she hopes to be home soon, especially as it her son Leo's third birthday on November 15.

'Today is a new day. And that hopefully means home,' she continued. 'I really hate to say it but Ive been back in hospital feeling very poorly (I feel like the word poorly warrants the label of an Onomatopoeia - everything about it resembles elderly, frail illnessy stuff).'

'As I say it I feel like a grandma blowing out bubbles for words. It looks and sounds sick. Like I did. Even though Im also confusingly only 34 and incredibly strong. Mentally and physically STRONG. If I do say so myself.'

Louise went on to admit 'Im almost embarrassed at this point. BUT there is light,' as she thanked hospital staff and her friends and family for taking care of her.

'Despite The Surgery The Butt drain The Catheter The Stoma The Robinsons drains Dreaded Pigtail drain Copious cannulas, damn I wish Id accepted that picc line Blood tests galore My poor poor bod. Ive felt like a bit of a zombie. There have been beacons of kindness EVERYWHERE.'

'Its been needed because oh goodness me its been quite scary seeing my body laden with so many foreign objects. Im amazed I even managed to move with all that in at one point.'

'I literally had a tail dangling out of me. Stitched in. In fact I felt like an octopus with multiple legs or tubes (turns out a cannula with different entry points is called an octopus too). Great minds. Or a great subconscious mind and memory of mine.'

She added that she hopes to be home soon, especially as it her son Leo's third birthday on November 15. 'Today is a new day. And that hopefully means home'

Louise underwent surgery 'in the same tummy area that she's been recovering from since earlier this year with her stoma surgery

'Ahhh the joy of heavy heavy opioids for getting me through the worst of it. Thank goodness for poppies. Thank goodness for science. Thank goodness for modern medicine.'

'Back to the important thing : kindness. There have been many many people who have been incredibly kind who have got me through. Like BEYOND KIND.'

'Angel level of kind. The kind of people you meet and think gosh I wish I was as kind as you because you are next level kind, going out of your way to help others. You really are a superstar kind of god given gift.'

'Its really remarkable that there are people out there that are THIS cool. Actually I dont mean cool. I mean warm, really really warm. Because warm > cool. The world is a better place because of you.'

'My faith in humanity is actually at an all time high right now.'

'I don't know how much more she can take,' he said. 'It's soul destroying, it takes the wind right out of your sails.'

Louise, the elder sister of Sam Thompson, has faced series of health issues since the birth of Leo in November 2021.

She recently published her book Lucky which details her health battles over the past three years.

She shared the news of having a stoma bag fitted with her Instagram followers in early April, as she bravely admitted it is 'not something she wanted to hide forever'.

The television personality has previously spoken about her ongoing struggles with the bowel condition ulcerative colitis as well as the autoimmune disease lupus.

Ulcerative colitis is a chronic bowel condition where the colon and rectum become inflamed and small ulcers develop on the colon's lining, which can bleed. The condition has no cure, but can be effectively managed with time.
Gladiator II star Paul Mescal was every inch the leading man on Wednesday night as he led the stars at the film's afterparty held at 8 Northumberland Avenue.

The Irish actor, 28, who plays the former heir to the Roman Empire Lucius Verus in the blockbuster, had joined co-stars Connie Nielsen, Yuval Gonen and Pedro Pascal for the glitzy London premiere at the Odeon Luxe earlier in the evening.

And Paul certainly cut a cool figure after he later let his hair down, with the hunk seen strolling from the afterparty venue with one hand in his pocket.

Paul still rocked the same smart black suit with a cream satin shirt that he wore earlier, with the film star surrounded by security as he made his way outside

Meanwhile, Connie, 59, looked in great spirits as she left the afterparty, dazzling in the night in her baby blue pleated chiffon gown.

The actress, who has barely aged a day since starring as Lucilla in the original film, happily signed autographs before heading off.

Gladiator II star Paul Mescal was every inch the leading man on Wednesday night as he led the stars at the film's afterparty held at 8 Northumberland Avenue

Paul's co-stars Connie Nielsen [left] and Yuval Gonen brought the glamour as they left the film's afterparty

Yuval meanwhile, who stars as Arishat, looked a vision as she turned heads in her floor length cream gown.

The actress covered up in the cool weather with a coordinating coat, while storing her night's essentials in a cream clutch bag.

Elsewhere, Pedro, 49, who portrays Marcus Acacius in the film, flashed a charming smile as he sat in the back of his car after partying with his fellow Gladiator II stars.

In addition to the film's cast, a number of other stars were also in attendance, including rapper Doja Cat, who is dating cast member Joseph Quinn.

The American artist rocked an oversized coat and flashed some leg as she sat in the ack of a waiting car.

Also pictured were Harry Gregson-Williams and Malika Sharipova, who beamed for the camera as they left.

While Andy Serkis and wife Lorraine Ashbourne cuddled up for a cosy snap outside the venue.

Meanwhile Spencer Treat Clark, who starred in the original film as a child, looked in a cheerful mood as he walked outside.

Pedro Pascal was all smiles as he left the afterparty

Paul certainly cut a cool figure after he later let his hair down, with the hunk seen strolling from the afterparty venue with one hand in his pocket

Paul still rocked the same smart black suit with a cream satin shirt that he wore earlier, with the film star surrounded by security as he made his way outside

Meanwhile, Connie, 59, looked in great spirits as she left the afterparty, dazzling in the night in her baby blue pleated chiffon gown

The actress, who has barely aged a day since starring as Lucilla in the original film , happily signed autographs before heading off

Connie later put on a leggy display as she sat in her car

Yuval meanwhile, who stars as Arishat, looked a vision as she turned heads in her floor length cream gown

The actress covered up in the cool weather with a coordinating coat, while storing her night's essentials in a cream clutch bag

Elsewhere, Pedro, 49, who portrays Marcus Acacius in the film, flashed a charming smile as he sat in the back of his car after partying with his fellow Gladiator II stars

The film star donned a thick charcoal coat as he sat in the car

Leading man Paul had joined co-stars Connie Nielsen, Yuval Gonen, Pedro Pascal and others for the glitzy London premiere at the Odeon Luxe earlier in the evening

Gladiator II follows Lucius Verus (Paul), the former heir to the Roman Empire who is forced into slavery and eventually pushed to fight in the Colosseum in an effort to restore glory

Elsewhere, British star Matt Lucas beamed as he showed off his dramatic weight loss in a smart suit.

Early reviews from critics have called Gladiator II the 'best movie of the year' and a 'true epic' as they hailed Paul and Denzel Washington's performances.

With Russell Crowe's legendary Maximus long-since dead and buried, it is vengeful Lucius (Paul) who must fight for his liberty in the film after being taken into slavery and ripped away from his wife and daughter by general Marcus (Pedro Pascal).

Paul has revealed the insane bet he had with Ridley Scott over one Gladiator II stunt that caused a huge argument between pair.

In a new interview with Vanity Fair Paul told how there was a scene towards the end of the film where a weary Lucius mounts a horse in hot pursuit of Macrinus.

Paul was keen to do his best for the action-packed moment and the other stunts so 'trained for f***ing months' - before Ridley changed his mind about the scene.

Paul told the publication: 'Two weeks before the scene, Ridley says, 'You're not f***ing doing it,' and I was like, 'What the f**k?,' and we had this argument.'

Ridley had decided to cut the scene due to some equine advice he had received on another movie.

Paul added of the altercation: 'I was pestering him constantly. And then the day before, he goes, 'OK, you can do the stunt, but if you come off, it's two Bentleys.'

In addition to the film's cast, a number of other stars were also in attendance, including rapper Doja Cat, who is dating cast member Joseph Quinn

The American artist rocked an oversized coat and flashed some leg as she sat in the ack of a waiting car

The music star was surrounded by onlookers as she attended the afterparty

Andy Serkis and wife Lorraine Ashbourne cuddled up for a cosy snap outside the venue

Also pictured were Harry Gregson-Williams and Malika Sharipova, who beamed for the camera as they left

Harry cut a smart figure as he headed outside

Meanwhile Spencer Treat Clark, who starred in the original film as a child, looked in a cheerful mood as he walked outside

Elsewhere, British star Matt Lucas beamed as he showed off his dramatic weight loss in a smart suit

He eventually pulled the move off in just a couple of takes.

The actor, who rose to fame as Connel Waldron in the BBC's lockdown smash hit Normal People, plays the son of Russell Crowe's legendary Maximus.

Although the character is long-since dead and buried, it is vengeful Lucius (Paul) who must fight for his liberty in the film after being taken into slavery and ripped away from his wife and daughter by general Marcus (Pedro Pascal).

Gladiator II takes place several decades after the first instalment, and features Lucius (the son of Connie Nielsen's Lucilla) who is now living in Numidia, a region of northern Africa.

Although he was sent to Numidia as a child, the film follows Lucius' return to Rome to reunite with his motherand coming into conflict as he does so.

The film, which was 20 years in the making has been a hit with critics and fans have praised Paul's performance.
Saoirse Ronan has revealed she is embracing playing flawed characters after her latest role as alcoholic Rona in The Outrun.

The Irish actress, 30, admitted she now gives 'less of a f*** about things being palatable' and is enjoying playing characters who aren't always the most likeable and have challenging qualities.

Saoirse made headlines last month after she stunned a panel of male celebrities into silence with her comment on male violence on The Graham Norton Show.

And now the star has spoken critically about the current tendency to 'filter our personalities' for social media.

Starring in ELLEs 2024 Women in Hollywood she spoke about playing a flawed character in The Outrun she explained: 'I havent played anyone like that anyone like that since Briony Tallis [her character from Atonement]. And I was so ready for it.

'I felt confident enough in my ability, but also confident enough in who I was. I didn't feel like I was being held down by a need to only play likable people.

Saoirse Ronan has revealed she is embracing playing a flawed characters as she admitted to giving 'less of a f***' as she stars in ELLEs 2024 Women in Hollywood

The Irish actress, 30, admitted she now gives 'less of a f*** about things being palatable' and is enjoying playing characters who aren't always the most likeable and have challenging qualities

'Because I got to shape it creatively, I just gave less of a f**k about things being palatable.'

Revealing how she was inspired by Lena Dunham's characters in Girls, she continued: 'We've gotten into this habit of filtering our personalities so much, reducing them to a line on Instagram or Twitter.

'And to be able to have the opportunity to go, "Look, this person can be fully formed and have sh**y qualities and also redeeming ones, and let's honor all of that"I'm at the point in my life where I'm like, "That's what I want to see onscreen".'

The star also opened up about being a private person and her choice not to have social media as she explained: 'I like that people don't know my business.

'I just fundamentally believe that they don't need to. I'm an actor, and the side of me that's out there that I want people to see is in the work.'

'I also think I was very lucky that when I was coming up, it was right before social media really took off.

'I can see, with the slightly younger generation, how they've felt the pressure to have that presence. And to be honest, that is justified, because I've been in audition rooms where I haven't gotten a role because I didn't have enough Twitter followers or whatever.'

'And in the end, I was like, "Okay, well, I don't want to be in a movie like that, anyway." But when you're coming up and nobody knows who you are, and you're trying to make a name for yourself in the world that we're in now, I can understand how you can give that too much importance.

She continued: 'We've gotten into this habit of filtering our personalities so much, reducing them to a line on Instagram or Twitter'

The star also opened up about being a private person and her choice not to have social media as she explained: 'I like that people don't know my business'

The star admitted she has been turned away from roles due to her lack of Twitter followers, but confessed they aren't the kind of films she would want to star in anyway

Saoirse set social media alight last when she made a joke about self-defence while sat alongside Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington and Eddie Redmayne on Graham Norton

'I was lucky that I just got past that. It doesn't make sense to me why I would share my personal life with people I don't know.'

Last month the actress set social media alight during her appearance on Graham Norton when she made a remark about gender-based violence while sat alongside an otherwise all-male panel of Paul, Denzel Washington and Eddie Redmayne.

As the men laughed about how they wouldn't think to access their phone to retaliate in the event of an attack, Saoirse stunned the group into silence as she finally found a moment to speak amidst the hilarity and declared: 'That's what girls have to think about all the time.'

The brutally honest comment prompted a moment of silence from the panel before Saoirse asked the crowd: 'Am I right, ladies?' eliciting a huge round of applause from the studio audience.

Breaking her silence on the viral moment, Saoirse spoke to Ryan Tubridy on Virgin Radio UK, as she admitted the reaction 'wasn't something she expected,' before going onto 'urge more women to speak out'.

She said: 'The reaction has been wild. It's definitely not something that I had expected, and I didn't necessarily set out to sort of make a splash.

'But I do think there's something really telling about the society that we're in right now and about how open women want to be with the men in their lives.

'So many men and women that I know from all over the world have gotten in touch with me about this one comment, which is, again, I would urge people, please, please, please to watch this in context.

Saoirse's latest role in The Outrun sees her play alcoholic Rona

'Please watch the whole interview or watch at least that part of the conversation, because it really wasn't about the boys weren't sort of like debunking anything that I was saying.

'But at the same time, it felt very similar to like when I am at dinner with a bunch of my friends and I will always make the point that, well, this is actually an experience that we go through every single day, 100%.

'Paul being one of my very dear friends, I've had conversations like that with him before and he completely gets that and completely understands that but I think the fact that there was a moment like that that happened on a show like Graham Norton, which is something that the entire nation channels and to watch and even overseas, it's something that people tune into, it seems to have had an accessibility which seems to have really gained traction, which I think is amazing.

'It's opening a conversation and again, hopefully it's allowing more and more women to just be like, well, yeah, actually, let's talk about our experience.'
New Delhi, Nov 14 (UNI) The Commonwealth of Dominica on Thursday announced to confer its highest national award, the Dominica Award of Honour, to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in recognition of his contributions to the island nation during the "Covid-19 pandemic'.

The North American island nation also lauded PM Modis dedication to strengthening partnership between India and Dominica.

A statement from Dominicas Prime Ministers Office read, The Commonwealth of Dominica will bestow its highest national award, the Dominica Award of Honour, upon His Excellency Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, in recognition of his contributions to Dominica during the COVID-19 pandemic and his dedication to strengthening the partnership between India and Dominica."

"In accepting the offer of the award, Prime Minister Modi emphasized the importance of collaboration in tackling global challenges such as climate change and geopolitical conflicts, and affirmed India's commitment to working alongside Dominica and the Caribbean in addressing these issues" said the statement.

As per the statement, PM Modi in February 2021 supplied Dominica with 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine-a generous gift which enabled Dominica to extend support to its Caribbean neighbours.

UNI JA BD
Cynthia Erivo has admitted she and Ariana Grande went through a series of 'hard' and 'vulnerable' conversations before they started working together in Wicked.

The actress, 37, who is starring as Elphaba in the upcoming musical movie, looked incredible as Elle's 2024 Women In Hollywood cover star.

Within the shoot, Cynthia spoke of her and Ariana's, 31, who stars as Glinda, blossoming friendship, admitting she's 'gained a sister', thanks to Wicked.

She said: 'Ive gained a sister. At this point, we speak almost every day. Both of us were blown away by how connected we were immediately.

'I remember the first day we got to come together. It was at [director] Jon M. Chus house, and Stephen Schwartz [who wrote Wickeds music and lyrics for both the OG Broadway musical and the film] was over.

'He played some songs for us, and we sang together for the first time. It worked. Its a very intimate thing to sing with someone. Theres a really beautiful danceI need to follow you, you have to follow me.

Cynthia Erivo, 37, has admitted she and Ariana Grande, 31, went through a series of 'hard' and 'vulnerable' conversations before they started working together in Wicked

The actress, who is starring as Elphaba in the upcoming musical movie, looked incredible as Elle's 2024 Women In Hollywood cover star

Within the shoot, Cynthia spoke of her and Ariana's blossoming friendship, admitting she's 'gained a sister', thanks to Wicked

'It was one of the most gratifying things to know that there was someone who was that open and available, because she was, and that meant I could be as well.

'We also had a beautiful relationship offscreen. We had really beautiful conversations, some that were not easy, but thats what makes relationships.

'Those hard conversations that you can have with someone that mean that you have to be vulnerable are the things that make you close.'

As well as Cynthia, Danielle Deadwyler, Karla Sofia Gascon, Selena Gomez, Mikey Madison, Demi Moore, Julianne Moore, Saoirse Ronan, Zoe Saldana and Tilda Swinton were the honorees of Elle's 2024 Women In Hollywood.

Speaking about her role as Elphaba and if she'd change anything about the movie, she said: 'Why would that change for the film? I couldnt even dream about wanting it.

'When youre in this skin and you walk around, you are immediately an "other".

'It was a really wonderful experience to be able to step into this role, outside of my own skin, and into someone elses, who has also been "othered".

'Its important to know what it feels like. I hope that this shifts and changes things across stages.'

She said: 'Ive gained a sister. At this point, we speak almost every day. Both of us were blown away by how connected we were immediately'

'We also had a beautiful relationship offscreen. We had really beautiful conversations, some that were not easy, but thats what makes relationships'

The 2024 honorees grace the December 2024/January 2025 covers of ELLE

Back in 2021, Ariana and Cynthia were casted to star in Wicked as Glinda and Elphaba, respectively, and quickly formed a close-knit bond.

During an interview with the New York Times, they said they would frequently spend their days off together  staying in at each other's homes, go shopping together and even getting tattoos.

On their connection and friendship, Ariana told the outlet: 'I think that was one of my most cherished parts of this experience: I felt held and like I had a friend every step of the way.'

'I'm really proud of us for how genuinely we took care of each other throughout this whole time,' she added.

Ariana also said Cynthia 'really inspired' her as she gushed about working alongside her.

'I feel really inspired by her fierce ability to be truthful and protect herself,' she said.

'Just by being around her, I have become more of an ally to myself when I used to do a lot of self-abandoning, and I really do credit that to our friendship.'

Cynthia shared that she had similar feelings towards Ariana and explained that their friendship helped her believe in herself.

'Those hard conversations that you can have with someone that mean that you have to be vulnerable are the things that make you close', she added

Back in 2021, Ariana and Cynthia were casted to star in Wicked as Glinda and Elphaba, respectively, and quickly formed a close-knit bond

'I don't think it was up until I met her that I was like, "Oh, I think I can have what I want in this lifetime, and I can have it in my way. She's really held my hand all the way through it and wants it for me just as much as I want for myself.'

The upcoming two-part feature is adapted from the long-running Broadway musical and is a sequel to The Wizard of Oz.

The Wicked cast also includes Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, Keala Settle and Marissa Bode.

The motion picture is slated to arrive in theaters with release dates of November 22, 2024 for Wicked: Part One, and November 26, 2025 for Wicked: Part Two.
He previously opened up about his tough backstory and his parents' plight

The anchor, 45, has officially started his tenure as co-anchor on the NBC show

As Craig Melvin fronts the Today show for the first time as co-anchor, he is thankful that his parents can 'enjoy the fruits of their labor' following their tough backstory.

The broadcaster, 45, has officially taken over as Hoda Kotb's replacement on the NBC program alongside long-serving star Savannah Guthrie.

Craig hasn't shied away from sharing the battles his mom and dad endured over the years, and has expressed just how grateful he is for them.

After being named as Hoda's successor in November, Craig opened up about his devastating family history and revealed his dad was 'born in prison.'

'I talked to Mom and Dad yesterday. I'm thankful that they're still young enough and healthy enough to be able to see this and enjoy the fruits of their labor, and you all know my back story,' he said.

'My mother's mother was an elementary school custodian, and my father's mother had to take care of five kids, so she ran numbers and ran liquor for a long time and ended up in prison.'

'My dad was born in prison, that didn't define him. He overcame addictions in his life and he's become one of my favorite human beings,' Craig continued as his voice broke slightly.

'And my mom, at one point, picks up a second job to sacrifice and provide for our family, and so I'm grateful to them,' he added, fighting back tears.

Craig Melvin opened up about his devastating family history on the Today show last year

Craig pictured on his graduation day with his mom, Betty, and his father, Lawrence, as well as his brother

The father-of-two went on to thank his partner, Lindsay Czarniak, and said: 'My wife, Lindsay, who has endured 13 years of me, and God bless her.

'And even before that, she was along for the beginning of this professional journey.

'I talked to her this morning, she's traveling, and we had a nice moment and I'm just so thankful for her and dealing with years of... you know what this job is?

'I mean it's a lot of long days and short nights, and she's been there for me from the beginning.'

'And my kids, who make me proud every day, I love them and this place,' he continued, referring to his son Del, 10, and his daughter, Sybil, who will turn eight this month.

Speaking about his Today role, he then said: 'People see us on TV every morning, what they don't see are the folks behind these cameras and downstairs, we have the best team in television news and I'm honored to be a part of that.

'I am beyond excited and grateful, and I just, you know, I've had a lot of conversations yesterday with a lot of people who mean a lot to me, and I just want to obviously thank NBC and the folks here who have deemed me worthy.'

Craig also took the opportunity to mention his Christian faith as he thanked 'the man upstairs.'

Craig, pictured here with his father and his son, Del, described his dad as 'one of my favorite human beings'

Craig recalled how his mother picked up a second job to 'sacrifice and provide' for the family when he was growing up

In his speech, Craig thanked his wife of 13 years Lindsay Czarniak and said 'she's been there for me from the beginning'

'Thanking my Lord above and his son, Jesus, and I've enjoyed just a lifetime of blessings, and this is the latest in a long line of blessings,' the TV star added.

Craig first joined NBC-affiliate WIS-TV in Columbia, South Carolina as a high school student, working as an 'Our Generation Reporter' from 1995 to 1997.

After graduating college, he returned to WIS in July 2001 as a news photographer and producer, before becoming a reporter for the station's morning news team, producing his 'Craig Cam' live segments.

He was later promoted to news anchor for the weekend morning newscast and the weekend evening edition before heading up the weekdays.

In July 2008, he made the decision to leave WIS-TV to join NBC's owned-and-operated station in Washington, D.C., WRC-TV, where he anchored the weekend evening newscasts.

Three years later, in July 2011, Craig departed WRC-TV for MSNBC to become a daytime anchor, while also contributing to NBC News as a reporter.

And in 2018, he reported from Pyeongchang County in South Korea for NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics and he was also promoted to weekday news anchor on Today in September of that year and formed the cast of hosts heading Today Third Hour.

Craig married then-ESPN sports anchor and former WRC-TV sports reporter Lindsay in October 2011. The couple first met in 2008 while working at WRC in Washington, DC.

Lindsay was on assignment for NBC Sports at her first-ever Olympics in Beijing and when she returned, Craig had been hired. The pair met one another during her first day back in studio during a commercial break... and 'have been together ever since.'

Craig and Lindsay welcomed their son Delano in March 2014, followed by their daughter Sybil in November 2016.
Olivia Munn's son seems to know his mom is a Hollywood starhes just not sure which one.

The X-Men actress, 44, shared a charming video on her Instagram Stories Wednesday featuring her three-year-old son Malcolm, whom she has with comedian John Mulaney.

In the clip, Malcolm adorably mistakes his mom for British actress Florence Pugh on the cover of TIME magazine.

Olivia was celebrating her spot on TIMEs 2024 Inspiring Women Special Edition alongside notable icons like Taylor Swift, Serena Williams, and Jane Fonda when Malcolm pointed to Pughs picture and confidently declared, 'I know this is mommy.'

The movie star then quipped, 'I often get confused for Florence Pugh.'

To be fair to the little guy, Olivias photo was right next to Florences in a grid of 11 stars, making it an easy mix-up.

Olivia Munn shared a charming video on her Instagram Stories Wednesday featuring her three-year-old son, Malcolm, whom she shares with comedian John Mulaney (Mulaney and Munn in Los Angeles in September 2023)

In the clip, Malcolm adorably mistakes his mom for British actress Florence Pugh on the cover of TIME magazine

Olivia's sweet mix-up story follows her candid reflections in GQ's 2024 Men of the Year issue.

The star opened up about how her relationship with Mulaney was far from typical when she became pregnant with their first child.

'It wasnt anything close to dating,' she told GQ, admitting, 'I barely knew him.'

Munn first crossed paths with Mulaney, 42, at Seth Meyers' wedding in 2013, reconnecting in early 2021 when he had just left rehab and was starting fresh after his split from Anna Marie Tendler.

She offered a contact to help him find a new place, which led to a thank-you note from Mulaney and eventually to them briefly dating.

When Olivia shared the news of her pregnancy, John was thrilled, though they werent exactly planning a traditional family structure.

'It wasnt necessarily "were going to be married and live together," but it was "I will be involved in some way,"' she explained.

Living bi-coastally with Munn in Los Angeles and Mulaney in New York City, they kept in touch, and he made visits to LA when possible.

Olivia was celebrating her spot on TIMEs 2024 Inspiring Women Special Edition alongside notable icons like Taylor Swift , Serena Williams , and Jane Fonda when Malcolm pointed to Pughs picture and confidently declared, 'I know this is mommy'

Olivia, left, and Florence, right, don't really look very similar

The couple welcomed their second child, Mei, in September via surrogate

Olivia was cautious given John's recovery journey, describing the situation as 'like watching a man in a tsunami.'

She worried, 'I didnt know him well enough to help him.'

When she was six months pregnant, she staged a small intervention, agreeing to randomly drug-test Mulaney to support his sobrietya practice they still maintain.

Oliva has since faced her own health struggles, undergoing a double mastectomy and hysterectomy earlier this year after a breast cancer diagnosis.

The couple married over the July 4 weekend and welcomed a daughter, Mei, in September via surrogate.

Now settled in Los Angeles, John has launched John Mulaney Presents: Everybodys in L.A., with 12 new episodes set to air on Netflix by late February.

Meanwhile, Livia is slated to star in Your Friends and Neighbors alongside Jon Hamm and Amanda Peet, expected to premiere on Apple TV+ in 2025.
She wore the same dress twenty-two years ago when she won Best Actress for her role in Monsters Ball.

And now Halle Berry proves she hasnt aged a year as she gets back into the same Elie Saab gown to walk a Saudi fashion show.

A mesh bodysuit decorated in leaves paired with a ruby red skirt, Halle, 58, first wore the gown in 2002 when she accepted an Oscar for 2001 thriller Monsters Ball.

She was also the first Black woman to win an Academy Award.

The dress was considered a watershed moment for Middle Eastern designers at the time and helped make Saab a household name.

It was then displayed at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

Halle Berry proves she hasnt aged a year as she getting back into the same Elie Saab gown she wore 22 years ago, (right) to walk a Saudi fashion show on Wednesday, (left)

On Wednesday night Berry took to the catwalk in Saudi Arabia in the exact same dress for the Elie Saab event for Riyadh season.

Walking down the catwalk, the audio played: And the Oscar goes to, Halle Berry.

She then sat in the front row as the brand showcased its collection titled 1001 Seasons of Elie Saab.

Meanwhile the event continued as 300 looks were displayed as well as performances from Celine Dion and Jennifer Lopez.

Dion, 56, dazzled in a pink shimmering gown as she performed The Power Of Love and Im Alive.

Ms Lopez, 55, also sang four of her hits and performed a dance routine as she was carried by a group of suit-clad men.

The show marks Dions second public appearance since her performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony after it was revealed she has been battling stiff person syndrome  an autoimmune disorder that causes muscle stiffness.

Before the show she said: Being here for the first time is kind of a dream come true.

The dress was considered a watershed moment for Middle Eastern designers at the time and helped make Saab a household name

On Wednesday night Berry took to the catwalk in Saudi Arabia in the exact same dress for the designer

She wore the same dress twenty-two years ago when she won Best Actress for her role in Monsters Ball

Celine Dion dazzled in a shimmering pink gown as she joined Jennifer Lopez performing at the glamorous Elie Saab event in Riyadh

Jennifer also performed at the event and brought all the energy in a shimmering jumpsuit

She wore a racy gold leotard and shiny boots for her performance

Dion, 56, dazzled in a pink shimmering gown as she performed The Power Of Love and Im Alive.

And Monsieur Elie Saab and his entourage and his beautiful family has welcomed us here  my manager, my son and all the people that I needed to support me to be here.

His generosity, his talent, he has been singing with me because Ive been wearing his dresses, his talent for many, many years.

Wearing his extraordinary talent is one thing, meeting him and being with him and having a chance to have a bit of chat with him was very touching for me.

So being here is just wonderful. So were very, very privileged and very honoured to be here.
Sharna Burgess revealed what it is like sharing a blended family with Megan Fox amid the Transformers star's pregnancy news.

The 39-year-old DWTS pro - whose fiance Brian Austin Green is said to have 'no relationship' with Megan's current boyfriend Machine Gun Kelly - got candid about her modern family with the 38-year-old actress.

Sharna returned to Dancing With The Stars to celebrate the reality competition show's 500th episode on Wednesday as she sweetly reacted to Megan's 'amazing' baby news.

She told TooFab: 'We're very excited for her and we can't wait to meet the little one. But we are an amazing blended family.

'[A blended family] is a special one, but we do really well at it.'

Megan took to Instagram to make the announcement that she is expecting her first child with Machine Gun Kelly, 34, after previously suffering a miscarriage.

Sharna Burgess revealed what it is like sharing a blended family with Megan Fox amid the Transformers star's pregnancy news

Megan took to Instagram to make the announcement that she is expecting her first child with Machine Gun Kelly, 34, after previously suffering a miscarriage

Sharna was quick to congratulate her fiance's ex-wife as she took to her Instagram Story to write: 'Welcome little one, we are all so excited to meet you. Congratulations Mama.'

Megan was married to 51-year-old actor Brian from 2010 to 2021 as they share three sons named Noah, Bodhi and Journey. Sharna and the Beverly Hills, 90210 star have a two-year-old son named Zane together.

Sharna told TooFab: 'I'm very proud of us. We have a good vibe.'

However, it seems not everyone's relationship could be as harmonious as Sharna's and Megan's as it has been reported that Machine Gun Kelly has 'no relationship' with Brian.

According to TMZ, the rapper-turned-rocker hasn't spoken or seen Green in two years and hasn't made much of an effort to be a 'father figure' to Fox's kids.

She got engaged to Machine Gun Kelly in 2022 after two years of dating and she confirmed this week that she's expecting their first child.

MGK and Green's alleged icy relationship could create a tense co-parenting dynamic once Fox gives birth next year.

TMZ reported that Machine Gun Kelly last crossed paths with Green in 2022 when he accompanied Fox to one of her sons' school functions.

Sharna (pictured with fiancee Brian Austin Green in New York last week) told TooFab : 'We're very excited for her and we can't wait to meet the little one. But we are an amazing blended family. '[A blended family] is a special one, but we do really well at it'

Sharna was quick to congratulate her fiance's ex-wife as she took to her Instagram Story to write: 'Welcome little one, we are all so excited to meet you. Congratulations Mama'

However, it seems not everyone's relationship could be as harmonious as Sharna's and Megan's as it has been reported that Machine Gun Kelly has 'no relationship' with Brian; MGK and Megan seen in 2022

According to TMZ , the rapper-turned-rocker, 34, hasn't spoken or seen Green, 51, in two years

Sources who were in attendance claimed that Green tried to 'break the ice' by cordially approaching MGK during the event.

However, the greeting didn't go as planned as MGK is said to have offered 'nothing more than an unenthused 'What up'' to Green.

He also refused to make eye contact with Green during the encounter, making it clear that he was not interested in befriending the Beverly Hills, 90210 star.

This was reportedly the last time that MGK and Green have spoken to or seen one another.

Sources told the outlet that Green would like the Rap Devil hitmaker to involve himself more in his and Fox's kids' lives.

But when it comes to the possibility of Green forming an amicable relationship with MGK in the future, the insider said: 'That ship has sailed.'

In contrast, Sharna is said to have a 'great relationship' with his ex Megan and their three sons.

When she began dating Green four years ago, Burgess went out of her way to introduce herself to Fox and even exchanged numbers with the Transformers actress, another source told TMZ.

MGK also hasn't made much of an effort to be a 'father figure' to Fox's kids; Green and Fox with sons Noah, Bodhi and Journey

Fox and Green divorced in 2020 after a decade of marriage; seen in 2013

Sharna is so involved in Noah, Bodhi and Journey's lives that they now refer to her as 'mom.' Green and Sharna welcomed their first child, son Zane Walker Green, two, in 2022.

On Monday, Megan shocked as she made her pregnancy announcement by debuting her bump in an edgy shoot showing her covered in black paint as she cradled her stomach.

The post was captioned: 'nothing is ever really lost. welcome back.' She added an angel and heart emoji to the caption.

The announcement was soundtracked to the MGK song Last November, a track about the miscarriage she previously suffered with the musician.

Megan is already a mother of three and Machine Gun Kelly is already a father to his 15-year-old daughter Casie Colson Baker, who he shares with ex Emma Cannon.

TMZ revealed on Tuesday that Fox is four to five months along in her pregnancy.

This would mean that she and MGK  born Colson Baker  would have a due date in March for their first child together.

The site reports that the power could does know the sex of the baby but they are keeping it between themselves for now.

Insiders for the publication claim that the Jennifer's Body actress is feeling confident and healthy during the pregnancy which is obviously a great sign considering her prior pregnancy loss.

Fox's shock pregnancy announcement comes a year after she revealed she suffered a miscarriage with MGK.

MGK and Green's alleged icy relationship could create a tense co-parenting dynamic once Fox gives birth

In contrast, Green's fiancee Sharna Burgess, 39, has a 'great relationship' with Megan and their three sons

She opened up about the experience in her 2023 book of poetry, Pretty Boys Are Poisonous.

Megan wrote about an ultrasound of a baby girl at 10 weeks and a day, per excerpts from People, and said: 'maybe if you hadn't... maybe if i had...'

She continued, 'I want to hold your hand / hear your laugh, but now / I have to say / goodbye,' and later adds, 'I close my eyes and imagine holding you tight against my chest as they rip you from my insides'.

Elsewhere in the book, she wrote, 'I will pay any price. Tell me please / what is the ransom / for her soul?'

During an interview on Good Morning America at the time, Megan said she had 'never been through anything like that before in my life'.

'It was very difficult for both of us,' she explained. 'And it sent us on a very wild journey together and separately, and together and apart, and together and apart, and together and apart, trying to navigate, 'What does this mean? Why did this happen?''

Megan and MGK had never discussed the pregnancy loss prior to the poetry book, however the 'Bloody Valentine' hitmaker did appear to allude to it at the Billboard Music Awards in May 2022, dedicating his performance to Megan and adding, 'This is for our unborn child.'

Megan also suffered an ectopic pregnancy years earlier.

She revealed the loss in an interview with Women's Wear Daily last year as she discussed the two poems she wrote about her miscarriage.

'That experience was so much harder than I would've anticipated it being, and I've really analyzed 'why was that? Why was that so difficult for me?' Because when I was younger, I had an ectopic pregnancy, I've had other things that I'm not going to say because God forbid the world will be in an uproar.

On Monday, Megan shocked as she made her pregnancy announcement by debuting her bump in an edgy shoot showing her covered in black paint as she cradled her stomach; seen in 2020

She also shared a photo of her positive pregnancy test

'But I've been through other similar issues, but not with someone who I was so in love with.'

'And so that love element really made this miscarriage really tragic for me and left me with a lot of grief and a lot of suffering.

'So I put it into a lot of writing. He's written about them in his albums as well, he wrote a couple of songs about the miscarriage. So it just felt like something that I could address publicly because it's been addressed in one way through him, so I have a space to express as well.'

The pregnancy announcement comes several months after Megan and MGK confused fans with his music video, Lonely Roll, which was released in July.

Megan appears in the video sporting a fake baby bump before the video ends with her playing with a baby girl.

The credits of the video further confused fans as the final line read: 'Introducing: Baby Violet Leika.'

At the time, a source shared with Us Weekly that Megan was not pregnant but that she and MGK had discussed starting a family together. 'Although they have discussed having a baby, this was just for MGK's music video,' the insider said.

Megan and MGK have had a passionate and rocky relationship.

They first began dating in 2020 after meeting on the set of Midnight in The Switchgrass before getting engaged in 2022.

When announcing their betrothal on Instagram, Megan said she and MGK 'drank each other's blood' to celebrate the occasion.

But just over a year later, Megan sensationally hinted she had split from MGK as she shared a cryptic Instagram post before completely deleting her account.

TMZ revealed on Tuesday that Fox is four to five months along in her pregnancy

Megan cloaked her bump beneath a Star Wars costume as she celebrated Halloween with her boyfriend last month

The actress posted a video in which she appeared to burn a letter in a bonfire, along with a bag.

She also uploaded a very raunchy string of mirror selfies while joined by a male pal, in which she put on a busty display in a plunging black top and cut-out trousers.

Megan wrote in her caption, 'You can taste the dishonesty/ it's all over your breath,' which are lyrics from Beyonce's 2016 track, Pray You Catch Me, about her husband Jay Z's own affair.

She then removed all traces of Machine Gun Kelly from her Instagram grid, having unfollowed him before deleting her account altogether.

Ultimately they seemed to patch things up and things appear to be all well between them now, with the couple being seen together ever since.

The rapper also recently tattooed his entire upper body in black ink, reportedly to prove to Megan that he is 100% committed to their relationship.

In March, during an appearance on Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast, Megan revealed she and MGK had ended their engagement at some point.

'I feel like everyone has such an opinion on your guys relationship. You got engaged, then I think it was called off, then we don't know what's going on with you. How would you describe your relationship with MGK?' host Alex Cooper asked.

Megan responded: 'I think that what I've learned from being in this relationship is that it's not for public consumption, so I think as of now, I don't have a comment on like the status of the relationship per say.

'What I can say is that is what I refer to as being my twin soul and there will always be a tether to him no matter what. I can't say for sure what the capacity will be, but I will always be connected to him somehow.

The pregnancy announcement comes several months after Megan and MGK confused fans with his music video, Lonely Roll, which was released in July; seen in a still from the video

They first began dating in 2020 after meeting on the set of Midnight in The Switchgrass before getting engaged in 2022

Megan is already a mother of three and Machine Gun Kelly has daughter Casie Colson Baker, 15, with ex Emma Cannon; pictured last year

'Beyond that I'm not willing to explain. But all those things you said were accurate things that have occurred and I can see them being confusing or interesting to people and them being like, 'What's up?''

Her final comment confirmed speculation she had ended her engagement from Kelly.

Megan was previously married to Beverly Hills, 90210 alum Brian Austin Green from 2010 to 2021. They welcomed three children together during their marriage before their union officially ended.

Brian has been with DWTS professional Sharna Burgess since 2020 and they have son Zane Walker Green, two, together.
Married At First Sight UK star Sacha has confirmed her marriage is over as she puts her iconic 'naked' custom made wedding dress up for sale on Vinted on Thursday.

The reality star, 29, and Ross were one of only four couples to make it to the finale of the hit E4 series.

However, Sacha is now flogging her vow renewal gown for just 800 and charged 10 delivery on secondhand site Vinted after splitting with her husband Ross.

She claimed she paid 1,500 for the dress which is covered in dazzling crystals and features sheer straps, a sheer bodice and skirt, a plunging neckline and a dramatic thigh-high split.

On Vinted, Sacha uploaded several pictures of herself in the size 6 number and described it as being in 'very good' condition.

Married At First Sight UK star Sacha has confirmed her marriage is over as she puts her iconic 'naked' custom made wedding dress up for sale on Vinted on Thursday

Sacha is now flogging her vow renewal gown for just 800 and charged 10 delivery on secondhand site Vinted after splitting with her husband Ross

The aesthetics practitioner also revealed that the gown was also previously worn for a beauty pageant, rather than being especially made for her renewal with Ross.

The description for her listing reads: 'White flower long dress. Ideal for a prom, pageant or wedding dress as it has a train. Band inside to cinch waist.

'Custom made paid 1500 for it. Worn for a pageant and on MAFS final vows.'

It is reported by The Sun that Sacha and Ross broke up two weeks after filming finished. He has since moved on with a new girlfriend.

Sacha and Ross had a rollercoaster marriage since they first met on the reality show and tied the knot.

Ross dropped the bombshell that he has a child on their wedding day and where the couple were going to live once MAFS UK was over became a very sore point between the pair.

The pair had several explosive rows and Sacha even sparked concern by saying she 'didn't feel safe' moving to his home city of Manchester.

During the vow renewal during the shows finale, Sacha burst into tears as Ross talked about needing to be close to his daughter and she ran off.

She claimed she paid 1,500 for the dress which is covered in dazzling crystals and features sheer straps, a sheer bodice and skirt, a plunging neckline and a dramatic thigh-high split

Sacha and Ross were one of only four couples to make it to the finale of the E4 series, but the stars split two weeks after filming finished and Ross has since moved on with a new girlfriend

The aesthetics practitioner also revealed that the gown was also previously worn for a beauty pageant, rather than being especially made for her renewal with Ross

Sacha is not the only bride from the recent series to be flogging her wedding dress as Polly Sellman has put her gown up for sale on Vinted following two stone weight loss

After regrouping at the alter, Ross told Sacha he will move to her home town of Walsall, prompting them to say their vows.

Sacha is not the only bride from the recent series to be flogging her wedding dress as Polly Sellman has put her gown up for sale on Vinted as well.

The careers advisor - who married barber Adam Nightingale, 35, as part of the E4 experiment - is selling clothes ranging from a UK large to sizes 14 and 16 after her incredible two stone weight loss.

She has put her wedding dress up for sale following her split from Adam in a fiery rant at the final dinner party.

Originally posting the dress for 1,800 she has now reduced the price to 1,130 and it still hasn't sold.

Polly described the dress on Vinted, saying: 'Absolutely gorgeous wedding dress. Brand new Justin Alexander 2024. UK 16 but has been altered to size and can be altered again. Can include veil. Collection only.'
James Argent hit the gym with his new girlfriend Nicoline Artursson in Essex earlier this week.

The former TOWIE star, 36, who lost a staggering 14 stone after gastric sleeve surgery, overcoming his addiction battle and exercise, looked the picture of happiness for the workout session.

The couple went Instagram official during a lavish getaway to St Tropez in September, with reports a smitten Arg is hoping to marry Nicoline, 31.

Arg was seen heading for a run before they enjoyed a coffee together. They put on a cosy display with Nicoline putting her arm over his shoulder.

The former Miss Sweden cut a sporty figure in a white zip-up jumper and brown snakeskin print leggings, while Arg rocked black shorts and a jumper.

James Argent hit the gym with his new girlfriend Nicoline Artursson in Essex earlier this week

Arg, 36, looked the picture of happiness for the workout session

The former TOWIE star lost a staggering 14 stone after gastric sleeve surgery, overcoming his addiction battle and exercise

The couple seem to be going from strength to strength, with reports James is reportedly hoping 'to marry and start a family' with his new girlfriend.

The TV star has been seen looking very loved-up with the model on multiple occasions.

After turning his life around, it seems Arg is now ready to settle down with a source claiming he believes 'she is the one'.

A source told OK! Magazine: 'He had a real problem loving himself, outside and in. But now that he's worked on that relationship, the one with himself, he's been able to have a really healthy relationship with someone else.

'He absolutely thinks she's the one and he wants to marry her. He wants a family, she wants a family, it all makes sense.'

The source added: 'Hes been asking for advice from friends about rings and proposals, its definitely at the forefront of his mind right now.'

MailOnline has contacted James Argent's representative for comment.

The couple went Instagram official during a lavish getaway to St Tropez in September , with reports a smitten Arg is hoping to marry Nicoline, 31

Nicoline won the Miss World Sweden beauty pageant in 2011 and modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch

The couple seem to be going from strength to strength, with reports James is reportedly hoping 'to marry and start a family' with his new girlfriend

They put on a cosy display with Nicoline putting her arm over his shoulder

The former Miss Sweden cut a sporty figure in a white zip-up jumper and brown snakeskin print leggings

Arg was seen heading for a run before they enjoyed a coffee together

Arg rocked black shorts and a jumper for the workout

Arg worked up a sweat as he pounded the pavement

Rumours swirled on the pair's romance after James liked a picture of Nicoline shared to her Instagram at the World Vision Gala in August

James broke up with Stella, 16 year his junior, in November after a year-long romance

Nicoline won the Miss World Sweden beauty pageant in 2011 and modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch.

She was also asked to take part in the French version The Bacherlorette but declined to focus on her studies.

Rumours swirled on the pair's romance after James liked a picture of Nicoline shared to her Instagram at the World Vision Gala in August.

It is James's first relationship since splitting from his ex Stella Turian last November.
Joan Vassos flashed a huge diamond engagement ring from Chock Chapple on Wednesday's finale of The Golden Bachelorette.

The pretty rock was from Hollywood jeweler Neil Lane and made under his Couture banner, it was explained on the after show.

DailyMail.com has learned that the bling costs around $80,000.

According to The Diamond Bank in Los Angeles, the center stone is large enough to warrant that high price.

'There is a large emerald-cut center stone with two generous tapered diamond baguettes on each side,' said a spokesperson.

'That adds up to a lot of carats and a high price,' it was added.

Vassos flashed the ring after Chapple - they are both 61 - got down on one knee and popped the question on the beach in Bora Bora. She said yes then they both said 'I love you' several times.

Joan Vassos flashed a huge diamond engagement ring from Chock Chapple on Wednesday's finale of ABC Golden Bachelorette

The couple will also be moving to New York City after he promised her during the finale they could relocate.

They are set to celebrate their relationship with a big engagement party in Los Angeles before heading to the East Coast.

'It's gonna be bigger than most weddings,' Chock told Us Weekly of the party in the couple's first interview on Thursday.

'We've got friends coming in from around the country, and it's kind of our coming-out party as a couple. We're extremely excited about that.'

They soon will be apartment hunting in New York City, the site added.

Vassos, who is from Maryland, had narrowed the 24 contestants down to two - Chock and Guy Gansert, 66, heading into the finale.

She had promised herself that she would never say 'I love you' until the end of her journey, which happened on the finale.

The rock was from Hollywood jeweler Neil Lane and made under his Couture banner

DailyMail.com has learned that the bling costs around $80,000

She was slated to have final dates with both Chock and Guy, both of whom would meet her son and daughter, along with their significant others.

That didn't happen, though, with Joan making up her mind after the first date... leaving the other finalist heartbroken.

She ultimately chose Chock after his final date with her, telling Guy the next day that her, 'heart belonged to someone else.'

He told her, 'I made the decision that when I spoke with your kids, I was going to tell them that I had fallen in love with you and then I was going to get down on a knee and I was going to ask you to marry me.'

'I really thought this was gonna happen,' Guy said in confession, as Joan told him, 'You'll always be a part of my life.'

According to The Diamond Bank in Los Angeles, the center stone is large enough to warrant that high price

'There is a large emerald-cut center stone with two generous tapered diamond baguettes on each side,' said a spokesperson

'That adds up to a lot of carats and a high price,' it was added. Vassos flashed the ring after Chapple - they are both 61 - got down on one knee and popped the question on the beach in Bora Bora

'I'm gonna let it all out. I was ready,' Guy said in confession, as Joan admitted, 'I can't help but feel really, really, really guilty.'

'He was so happy to see me when I got there. I don't want to hurt people. It's a hard line to kind of walk,but you can't make your heart feel a different way, and my heart belongs to Chock,' Joan said.

Guy was clearly heartbroken, though there was no animosity, as he met with Joan during the live finale before Chock proposed to Joan.

Chock joined host Jesse Palmer on the live portion of the finale, admitting it was 'a blur' and watching it again was, 'heartbreaking,' though he learned something important.

They looked very happy in a photo shared to Instagram on Wednesday

'I didn't think at this point in my life that I could feel the emotions I could feel what I call true love again and watching that there, I did. I know I can do it again,' he said.

Joan was brought out as Guy saw her for the first time in a few months as they embraced in a hug as he told her, 'everything is good.'

He insisted that everything he told her, 'came from the heart,' and asked if there was something 'missing' that he didn't anticipate.

'Kind of the opposite. I never ever thought I could have strong feelings for more than one person, and, like, as you described it, it was kind of a slow burn, but I was getting there with you, but it comes down to being like kind of a time thing,' she said.

After the finale aired, the couple sat down with Jesse Palmer

She shared a good look at the ring

She added that he was, 'an amazing human being' and that he was 'full of love' and a 'kind person.'

'It was really, really hard at the end to say good-bye to you because in any other situation I would have been with you, because we would have more time,' she said, adding that she missed him and she hopes they will always be friends, 'and that one day we'll be double dating.'

They then showed the final moments of the show, where Chock was getting ready to propose, admittedly nervous since she still hadn't told him that she loved him.

'We are living proof that no matter what life throws at you that there is still hope even at our age,' Joan told him.

'I waited till this moment in this amazing location to tell you that I love you. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you,' she said, which thrilled Chock.

'Joan you will never be invisible to me. I'm going to tell you that I love you every day. I promise that,' Chock told her.

'I look into those gorgeous eyes and I just can't believe this is happening. Because I still think, I'm in a dream and I'm just going to wake up. But Joan, I love you and I want you to be in my life.'

Joan then told him that she decided a year and a half ago that she needed love back in her life. She said she saw a future with him on their very first date.

'I felt like we could take care of each other and knew you would never hurt me,' Joan said. 'We are living proof that no matter what life throws at you there is still hope even at our age. I waited until this moment in this amazing location to tell you that I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.'

Chock kissed her.

'I have a question for you,' Chock said. 'Joan would you marry me?'

'Of course I'll marry you,' Joan said.

Joan then picked up the final rose and asked if he would accept it.

'Absolutely with all my love,' Chock said.

Joan then called her mother and showed her Chock and said he was her fiance.

'I'm the luckiest guy in the world,' Chock said.

Chock and Joan then rode off on a boat kissing each other.

The happy couple was then introduced to the live audience, with Joan showing Jesse Palmer the engagement ring.

He also had a surprise for the couple, announcing that he was sending Joan, Chock and their entire families to Disney World in Florida.

They also showed a sneak peek at the next installment of The Bachelor, with Grant Ellis in the audience, who said Joan and Chock were, 'an inspiration.

Grant's season of The Bachelor debuts January 27 on ABC.
Tom Cruise touched down in London on Wednesday as he landed his helicopter at Battersea Heliport.

The Hollywood actor, 62, who has had his pilot licence since 1994 and owns several aircrafts, arrived in the capital with his sister Cass.

He dressed casually in a black hoodie which he paired with straight leg jeans and white trainers.

Tom looked elated and flashed a huge smile after landing the helicopter with his co-pilot.

Joining the siblings was eyebrow guru Nilam Holmes-Patel, who walked across the tarmac in a long padded coat.

Tom Cruise touched down in London on Wednesday as he landed his helicopter at Battersea Heliport

The Hollywood actor, 62, who has had his pilot licence since 1994 and owns several aircrafts, arrived in the capital with his sister Cass

Tom has been in the UK to film yet more daredevil scenes for the latest Mission Impossible film, which is set to be released in May.

The first teaser trailer for Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning has finally been released, as the long-awaited conclusion to the beloved film series confirmed its title after months of delays.

Reprising his role as the titular hero Ethan Hunt, Tom is set to take on his biggest mission yet, after a tense cliffhanger saw the spy determined to track down cyber weapon The Entity.

In the new trailer, fans get a glimpse back through some of the film franchise's most iconic moments, as Ethan pleads with his team to 'trust him one last time.'

A voice narrates: 'Everything you were, everything you've done, has come to this.

'When the need for certainty is absolute and the odds are deemed impossible, the mission falls to him, should he choose to accept.'

The preview offers glimpses of Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg and Vanessa Kirby, while Esai Morales returns as the villainous Gabriel.

As Ethan battles to find the mysterious Entity, he'll face some of his biggest stunts yet, including being forced to dangle from a World War II plane.

Tom's sister Cass (right) wore a leather jacket as she followed her brother

Joining the siblings was eyebrow guru Nilam Holmes-Patel (right), who walked across the tarmac in a long padded coat

The first teaser trailer for Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning has finally been released, as the long-awaited conclusion to the beloved film series confirmed its title

Reprising his role as the titular hero Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise is set to take on his biggest mission yet, after a tense cliffhanger saw the spy determined to track down The Entity

Tom himself revealed the film's title for the first time on Instagram sharing a snap of the film's poster with caption: 'Every choice has led to this.'

The film, which has faced multiple delays, is finally due to hit cinemas on May 23 2025.

The filming of the UK scenes of the eighth instalment of the Mission Impossible franchise initially took place between March and December 2022.

Production on the eighth film had originally halted so that the cast could promote Part One, and then the SAG-AFTRA strike began causing further delays.
Cynthia Erivo showcased her bold fashion sense while promoting Wicked in New York City on Thursday.

The 37-year-old British actress, who stars as Elphaba opposite Ariana Grandes Glinda in the highly anticipated musical film, turned heads in a vested top paired with neon green pants as she headed to an ABC studio.

The Oscar nominee added a touch of glam with dangling diamond earrings and flashed her extravagant, designer-styled nails as she waved to photographers.

Later, she emerged in a fresh, all-black look, sporting a cozy sweatshirt, leather pants, and a matching newsboy cap.

Her NYC appearance follows her Elle 2024 Women in Hollywood cover story, where she opened up about the 'hard' and 'vulnerable' conversations she and Ariana shared before working together on Wicked.

'Ive gained a sister,' she said in Elle's 2024 Women in Hollywood portfolio. 'At this point, we speak almost every day. Both of us were blown away by how connected we were immediately.'

Cynthia Erivo showcased her bold fashion sense while promoting Wicked in New York City on Thursday

The Oscar nominee added a touch of glam with dangling diamond earrings and flashed her extravagant, designer-styled nails as she waved to photographers

'I remember the first day we got to come together. It was at [director] Jon M. Chus house, and Stephen Schwartz [who wrote Wickeds music and lyrics for both the OG Broadway musical and the film] was over.

'He played some songs for us, and we sang together for the first time. It worked. Its a very intimate thing to sing with someone. Theres a really beautiful danceI need to follow you, you have to follow me.

'It was one of the most gratifying things to know that there was someone who was that open and available, because she was, and that meant I could be as well.

'We also had a beautiful relationship offscreen. We had really beautiful conversations, some that were not easy, but thats what makes relationships.

'Those hard conversations that you can have with someone that mean that you have to be vulnerable are the things that make you close.'

As well as Cynthia, Danielle Deadwyler, Karla Sofia Gascon, Selena Gomez, Mikey Madison, Demi Moore, Julianne Moore, Saoirse Ronan, Zoe Saldana and Tilda Swinton were the honorees of Elle's 2024 Women In Hollywood.

Speaking about her role as Elphaba and if she'd change anything about the movie, she said: 'Why would that change for the film? I couldnt even dream about wanting it.

'When youre in this skin and you walk around, you are immediately an "other".

The 37-year-old British actress, who stars as Elphaba opposite Ariana Grande s Glinda in the highly anticipated musical film, turned heads in a vested top paired with neon green pants as she headed to an ABC studio

Her NYC appearance follows her Elle 2024 Women in Hollywood cover story, where she opened up about the 'hard' and 'vulnerable' conversations she and Ariana shared before working together on Wicked

Later, she emerged in a fresh, all-black look

She sported a cozy sweatshirt, leather pants, and a matching newsboy cap

'It was a really wonderful experience to be able to step into this role, outside of my own skin, and into someone elses, who has also been "othered".

'Its important to know what it feels like. I hope that this shifts and changes things across stages.'

Back in 2021, Ariana and Cynthia were casted to star in Wicked as Glinda and Elphaba, respectively, and quickly formed a close-knit bond.

During an interview with the New York Times, they said they would frequently spend their days off together  staying in at each other's homes, go shopping together and even getting tattoos.

On their connection and friendship, Ariana told the outlet: 'I think that was one of my most cherished parts of this experience: I felt held and like I had a friend every step of the way.'

'I'm really proud of us for how genuinely we took care of each other throughout this whole time,' she added.

Ariana also said Cynthia 'really inspired' her as she gushed about working alongside her.

'I feel really inspired by her fierce ability to be truthful and protect herself,' she said.

'Just by being around her, I have become more of an ally to myself when I used to do a lot of self-abandoning, and I really do credit that to our friendship.'

Cynthia shared that she had similar feelings towards Ariana and explained that their friendship helped her believe in herself.

Back in 2021, Ariana and Cynthia were casted to star in Wicked as Glinda and Elphaba, respectively, and quickly formed a close-knit bond; (seen in November)

'I don't think it was up until I met her that I was like, "Oh, I think I can have what I want in this lifetime, and I can have it in my way. She's really held my hand all the way through it and wants it for me just as much as I want for myself.'

The upcoming two-part feature is adapted from the long-running Broadway musical and is a sequel to The Wizard of Oz.

The Wicked cast also includes Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, Keala Settle and Marissa Bode.

The motion picture is slated to arrive in theaters with release dates of November 22, 2024 for Wicked: Part One, and November 26, 2025 for Wicked: Part Two.
US Universities are receiving flak over antisemitic incidents, with the University of Rochester bringing the latest headline on the said topic.

Reports stated that there were hundreds of 'Wanted' posters across the campus late Sunday night, causing outrage among students, faculties, and staff.

ABC News Go detailed that these posters were meant to target several members of the university, many of which are believed to be Jewish. The posters were placed on walls, chalkboards, and other campus structures.

University President Sarah Mangelsdorf condemned the action and denounced these acts as antisemitism. She emphasized that this goes against the values of the university and they will commit to supporting students, especially those in the Jewish community,

Read more: Harvard Sued Over 2023 Antisemitic Incidents on Campus That Affected Jewish Students

Removing Wanted Posters of Jewish Students

The issue extended into school infrastructures as removing the posters caused damages to the property due to the strong adhesive used. This included initially flawless chalkboards and walls. While facilities staff worked hard to remove the materials, the Department of Public Safety described it as a painstaking activity due to the extent of damage.

Currently, the university is launching an investigation to find those responsible for placing the posters around the campus.

The university's Jewish student organization expressed strong disapproval of the incident and confirmed that many of those in Wanted posters were Jewish faculty and staff members. The organization, called Hillel, echoed Mangelsdorf's sentiments and called for action to ensure the safety and well-being of the Jewish community on campus.

Local law enforcement in New York will also join the investigation to prevent further acts of hatred against the group.
Wanda Sykes had Jimmy Kimmel in hysterics this week when she shared her honest thoughts on Donald Trump winning the US Presidential election earlier this month.

The 60-year-old comedian and actress appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and did not hold back when the late night host asked her how she was feeling following Trump's victory on November 5.

'Jimmy, I'm a Black woman and a lesbian, how the hell do you think I'm doin'?' Wanda blurted out as he asked her what her opinion is about why the Republicans won.

'Sometimes America is just gonna America. I mean there's so many reasons why you can say it happened, but I think a lot of us aren't totally shocked,' she admitted.

'But you know, you get your hopes up and you move forward and honestly I blame those damn Cheerio commercials, showing all those interracial couples!' she joked as Jimmy, 57, burst out laughing.

'You scared the s**t outta white people! They're like, "What are y'all doin'?" It's just cereal, just sell the damn cereal! Why you bringing us into this?

'They've got gay couples selling s**t, it's like, "just sell your stuff," stop bringing us into this!' she added.

Wanda continued: 'The finger pointing and all it's not really helping a lot, like "oh it's your fault, it's your fault," but it's like it just happened, it is what it is.'

Wanda Sykes shared her thoughts on Donald Trumps' election victory during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week

The comedian and actress said she wasn't 'totally shocked' by the fact that Trump won the US presidential election

The Black-ish star then pointed out that a lot of people are asking: 'Why are the majority of white women not voting for another woman?' and she was quick to make another joke.

'I'm like, "y'all need to watch more Bravo!" Why are you shocked? I mean, have you seen The Bachelor? Women tear each other apart over a dude, so why do you think this weren't gonna happen? Real Housewives, they do the same thing!' she said.

When Jimmy asked Wanda what had 'puzzled' her the most about Trump's policies, she shared her thoughts on a very specific issue.

'Going after transgenders,' she replied. 'Especially transgender kids, because here's the thing, you're supposed to be trying to fix the problems of America, so you target a community that's less than one per cent of the population?

'So you're going after affirming care, as far as the sex, and it's like, okay so you're focusing on that, on sex change, how about focusing on climate change that affects everybody instead of sex change which affects one per cent?' she suggested as she was met with a round of applause.

'And it's all fears, like "you know, your son goes to school as a boy and comes home a girl," I'm like, "relax, it's man bun! Shut up!"' she joked as Jimmy laughed in response.

'Do you see anything positive out of this?' he then asked her as she mocked: 'If I'm a straight, white male then yeah, I'm good!'

Jimmy then pointed out that her wife, Alex Niedbalski, is French and asked Wanda if she would be looking to move to Europe in the wake of the election result and British celebs fleeing the US.

Jimmy was keen to hear the actress' thoughts on Republican policies and the election outcome

Wanda confirmed that she and her French wife Alex Niedbalski will not be moving to Europe following Trump's win

'My ancestors have got too much blood in this land, I ain't going nowhere! No!' she quickly fired back.

'And here's the thing, I'll tell you right now, Black women ain't having it right now, okay! So Black women, give them a break right now,' she continued.

'We just chilling right now so don't ask us dumb questions and stuff, don't be looking at us with those puppy dog eyes like "I'm sorry," coz you will get the s**t slapped out of you, I'm telling you right now,' she warned.

'Jimmy, Black women are taking a break! Hell, I probably shouldn't even be here right now! I should be at home in my house shoes with a bonnet on my head!' she joked.
John Krasinski refuses to read social media comments after The Office chat rooms 'scared the absolute hell' out of him 20 years ago.

The 45-year-old actor - who played Jim Halpert in the US remake of Ricky Gervais' iconic sitcom - recalled his early experiences with the idea of people being able to critique however they want on social media.

John - who has been named People's Sexiest Man Alive for 2024 - told the outlet in his cover story: 'I remember on The Office, the computers we had [at our desks] were live, and that was the early days of like MySpace and IMDb chat rooms and stuff.

'Jenna [Fischer] was super into it and she'd go, "Guys, last night's episode, they loved it and blah blah, blah." And so we'd all jump on.

'One of my first forays down that rabbit hole, I was like, "Oh my God, what did they say?" It was like, "Oh dear Lord.' And I've never gone back. I've never gone back.'

Meanwhile, his wife Emily Blunt doesn't even have an Instagram account.

John Krasinski refuses to read social media comments after The Office chat rooms 'scared the absolute hell' out of him; seen in June

The 45-year-old actor recalled his early experiences with the idea of people being able to critique however they want on social media. Seen on The Office

The IF star noted that things are much worse now after social media has become more prevalent since those early days.

He added: 'Truly, that scared the absolute hell out of me, those chat rooms in the early days. So I can't imagine where it's gone since.'

Those early days were 20 years ago.

The A Quiet Place filmmaker has become a huge star from The Office and beyond, and he can still remember the first time he realized his level of fame.

He recalled: 'It must have been season two of The Office because iPods had come out and I had no idea what an iPod was.

'I remember a guy came up to me on the street and he held up an iPod and he said, "Look, you're on my iPod."

Meanwhile, his wife Emily Blunt doesn't even have an Instagram account. She said she avoids it because she wants a normal life. Seen in March

'It's about a balance,' she has said. 'I really am in love with this job, but I'm also in love with my life outside of it'; seen in September

He made the Sexiest Man Alive cover

'And the screen was tiny, and I couldn't see who it was, but it looked a lot like me.

'And I thought, "I don't know if that's fame or if that person's going to kill me, but either way, that person knows me and that's a stranger."

'So that was that was a big, big moment.'

John's Instagram account has almost 5M followers and he does not replied to comments.

Meanwhile, his wife Emily Blunt doesn't even have an Instagram account.

She said she avoids it because she wants a normal life.

'It's about a balance,' she has said. 'I really am in love with this job, but I'm also in love with my life outside of it.'

Meanwhile, John has admitted he thought he was being pranked when he was told he'd be receiving People's annual Sexiest Man Alive accolade.

Asked about his reaction, he said: 'Just immediate blackout, actually. Zero thoughts. Other than maybe I'm being punked.

'That's not how I wake up, thinking, 'Is this the day that I'll be asked to be Sexiest Man Alive?' And yet it was the day you guys did it. You guys have really raised the bar for me.'
He's one of the most famous and respected actors in the world.

But that didn't stop Denzel Washington from seeming to briefly lose his cool when he was greeted by King Charles at Gladiator II's London premiere at the Leicester Square Odeon on Wednesday night.

The 69-year-old Oscar winner was joined by his costars Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen and Joseph Quinn, as well as director Ridley Scott, for a meeting with the premiere's guest of honor, King Charles.

Charles greeted them one by one, but things took a decidedly awkward turn when it was Denzel's opportunity to shake the royal's hand.

'I didnt know if I was supposed to grab your hand,' the actor stammered with a seemingly nervous look on his face.

Denzel Washington seemed to briefly lose his cool when he was greeted by King Charles at Gladiator II's London premiere at the Leicester Square Odeon on Wednesday night

Charles greeted the stars one by one, but things took an awkward turn when it was Denzel's opportunity to shake the royal's hand. 'I didnt know if I was supposed to grab your hand,' he stammered with a seemingly nervous look on his face

In video of the awkward encounter, Charles appears to ask Denzel about playing the Roman emperor Macrinus.

'I'm just, you know, an awful...' he seems to say while trailing off, before adding, 'Im a lovely man youll see. Im a lovely chap.'

He reiterated, 'I'm a lovely chap, and doing my best,' but Charles didn't leave him hanging.

The royal moved on to shake hands with Pedro, but added a quick compliment to the Malcolm X star: 'You've been in so many films  it's fantastic.'

'Thank you, thank you,' Denzel replied graciously.

Things were less awkward as Charles greeted the other actors, though they all looked similarly honored to meet him.

The king appeared to have a particularly animated, though brief, conversation with Ridley Scott at the start of the line.

Prior to King Charles' arrival, Denzel was spotted out on the red carpet as he took some time to chat with fans ahead of the high-profile film premiere.

After Charles asked him about playing an emperor, Denzel replied: 'I'm just, you know, an awful...' while trailing off, before adding, 'Im a lovely man youll see. Im a lovely chap'

The royal moved on to shake hands with Pedro, but added a quick compliment to the Malcolm X star: 'You've been in so many films  it's fantastic'; Washington (L) is joined by (LR) Joseph Quinn, Connie Nielsen, Ridley Scott, Paul Mescal, Fred Hechinger and Pedro Pascal

Denzel looked sober on the red carpet in a black tuxedo, which he dressed down with a long necktie and black sneakers

He was also joined by his wife Pauletta on the red carpet. She looked elegant in a white satin blouse, black skirt and a cozy double-breasted overcoat draped over her shoulders

Prior to King Charles' arrival, Denzel was spotted out on the red carpet as he took some time to chat with fans ahead of the high-profile film premiere

He was also joined by his wife Pauletta on the red carpet. She looked elegant in a white satin blouse, black skirt and a cozy double-breasted overcoat draped over her shoulders.

Washington recently revealed that his character kissed another man in one Gladiator II scene, but it was left out of the final cut.

Missing from the premiere was Queen Camilla, who was forced to withdraw from events earlier this month after coming down with a chest infection.

The premiere came on the cusp of King Charles' 76th birthday on Thursday.

The celebration didn't stop him from working, though, and he used the day to open the first of two new Coronation Food Hubs.

Gladiator II is a sequel to Scott's 2000 film Gladiator, which starred Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix.

While Connie Nielsen is returning, the rest of the cast is largely new this time around.

Paul Mescal stars as Lucius, the son of Crowe's character Maximus.

He follows his father's fate and becomes a gladiator after a Roman army led by General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) takes control of his home.

Gladiator II is a sequel to Scott's 2000 film Gladiator, which starred Russell Crowe. Paul Mescal stars as Lucius, the son of Crowe's character Maximus

After his home is invaded by Roman General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), he becomes a gladiator working for Macrinus (Washington) to get revenge

Gladiator II will be released in theaters on Friday, November 15, in the UK and on Friday, November 22, in the US

As part of Lucius' plan for revenge, he risks his life to fight in the arena for Macrinus (Washington), a former slave.

Macrinus' uses Lucius as part of his plan to overthrow the dual emperors Geta and Caracalla, as he hopes to assume their throne.

The film has so far attracted praise from critics, and it boasts an impressive 74 percent fresh rating from critics surveyed by Rotten Tomatoes.

Gladiator II will be released in theaters on Friday, November 15, in the UK, and American audiences can see it one week later on Friday, November 22.
Helen Flanagan looked elegant as she joined Claire Sweeney at The Ivy's Liverpool restaurant launch on Thursday.

The former soapstar, 34, wore a fitted bandeau dress for the occasion that featured a huge satin bow on one shoulder.

She teamed the festive number with a pair of silver strappy heels and styled her hair into soft curls.

Claire, 53, dazzled in a gold sequinned gown which gathered around her waist and draped down the front.

The actress completed her look with a pair of embellished heels and a slick of red lipstick.

Helen Flanagan looked elegant as she joined Claire Sweeney at The Ivy's Liverpool restaurant launch on Thursday

Claire, 53, dazzled in a gold sequinned gown which gathered around her waist and draped down the front

Departing the restaurant with her boyfriend Robbie Talbot, Helen later layered over a fur coat.

The couple were joined by his daughter Sophie who wore a pretty pink dress.

Robbie shares children Sophie, 14, and Carina, 10, from a previous relationship while Helen has children Matilda, nine, Delilah, six, and Charlie, three, with her ex fiance Scott Sinclair.

Helen has revealed her ex-fiance has blocked her despite the pair sharing three children.

The actress broke up with Scott, 35, in 2022 after thirteen years together, four of which they were engaged. They share three children.

Speaking openly about the split for the first time last month, Helen said the pair weren't right for each other.

Speaking on The Mail's The Life of Bryony podcast, she said: 'You read so much about how you don't need a man to make you happy.'

'No, I don't need a man to make me happy, but it really f*****g helps when you're in a healthy relationship to a toxic one.'

Helen said that her relationship with Scott was unhealthy.

The former soapstar, 34, wore a fitted bandeau dress for the occasion that featured a huge satin bow on one shoulder

Claire completed her look with a pair of embellished heels and a slick of red lipstick

Departing the restaurant with her boyfriend Robbie Talbot, Helen later layered over a fur coat

The couple were joined by his daughter Sophie who wore a pretty pink dress

'No disrespect to the father of my children, you know, I've had three children with him, and I always have a lot of love for him.'

'We're both good people, but together we were very toxic.'

'I think a toxic relationship can just damage your mental health a lot. Especially when you struggle with your mental health anyway.'

'I mean, I'm on block at the moment on Scott's phone. I really am. I'm on block.'

'We do each other's f*****g head in. But I know he always will have a love for me, you know, you always have kind of a respect for each other, I know he's not a bad guy, we've just got our own s**t going on.'

'And I think because we're together from so young, we were just 19, and I just don't think we had that time to grow until we've split up, we just didn't work.'

Robbie has been living in the former Coronation Street star's home since last month, eight months since the pair began dating.

Asked by Bryony about her new relationship, she said: 'He's lovely.'

'Everybody loves him. I just met him at a bar. I literally, I just, I could not stop laughing at this guy.'

Robbie has been living in the former Coronation Street star's home since last month, eight months since the pair began dating

Helen broke up with her ex Scott, 35, in 2022 after thirteen years together, four of which they were engaged for

She added: 'My boyfriend's actually the funniest guy I've ever met. He's got two kids and he's, he's really beautiful with my children.'

'I think that's what made me fall more in love with him because he's so good with my mental health things and that's the main thing for me that I need.'

'I need someone that's good for me mentally and emotionally, that's my top thing and that's what I've realised.'

'No disrespect to the father of my children, I'll always have that love for him, but he didn't know how to cope with me or didn't know how to do that, and not everybody does, but because the man that I'm with now really knows how to do that, it makes me happy.'
Hugh Jackman has opened up about a heartbreaking health scare which prompted the Hollywood megastar to undergo tests for a rare form of skin cancer.

The Wolverine star, 56, appears in an upcoming documentary film called Conquering Skin Cancer, in which he talks about his ordeal.

In a newly released trailer, Hugh reveals details of the harrowing time, admitting, 'I remember feeling pretty scared.'

He then urged people to get a skin cancer test done and reassured them: 'I promise you won't regret it.'

The movie star will appear alongside Olympic swimmer Cate Campbell and Deborah Hutton in the movie, which will be released in Australian cinemas on Wednesday.

Hugh previously took to Instagram in 2023 to inform his followers he was having a biopsy conducted on his nose to test for basal cell carcinoma, a mild form of skin cancer.

Hugh Jackman (pictured) has opened up about his heartbreaking health scare, in which he had to have tests done to see if he had contracted a rare form of skin cancer

'I've just had two biopsy tests done. The doctor saw two little things that may be basal cell,' Hugh told his followers.

The Melbourne-born actor then urged his fans to always practice sun safety, to minimise the risk of contracting the disease.

'Summer is coming, so please wear sunscreen! It is just not worth it! No matter how much you want a tan, trust me.'

The Marvel star revealed he had biopsies of moles on his nose that could be basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer with a high survival rate.

Fortunately, after getting the lesions removed Hugh was given a clean bill of health, as he committed to practice strict sun safety from then on.

The Wolverine star, 56, appears in an upcoming documentary film called Conquering Skin Cancer, in which he talks about his terrifying ordeal

It follows reports that Hugh's close relationship with Broadway star Sutton Foster, 49, contributed to the end of his long-term marriage to Deborra-Lee Furness.

Hugh and Sutton took on the roles of Harold Hill and Marian Paroo in The Music Man, which ran from February 2022 to January 2023 at the Winter Garden Theatre in Manhattan.

'Sutton and Hugh's relationship is the reason Hugh and Deb [separated],' a source close to Foster told Us Weekly.

The pair have already attended public events together, looking smitten with one another at the opening night of their show The Music Man on Broadway in February 2022.
KFC has sued a rival fried chicken brand for using the phrase 'Original Recipe' in its advertising.

The company accused Church's Texas Chicken of violating its trademark rights when it started featuring the phrase in promotions in September.

KFC has been using the phrase for over half a century to describe its top secret signature blend of 11 secret herbs and spices.

The recipe is so closely guarded that KFC calls it one of the most 'iconic trade secrets in the food industry,' and trademarked the phrase in 1984.

In a lawsuit, KFC claimed it noticed Church's 'abruptly' began using the phrase in advertisements on September 30, and ignored a complaint letter in October.

One of the disputed Church's social media advertisements features an older photograph of a restaurant, contrasted with a present-day picture.

The text above reads: 'Different decade, same Church's. Our original recipe is back.'

Another video promotion features a former Church's worker saying: 'If they're bringing back the original recipe, you know it's going to be good.'

KFC's lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Texas, alleges that Church's use of the phrase 'is likely to create confusion in the marketplace and dilute the ORIGINAL RECIPE Mark.'

It said KFC's trademark recipe is one of the best known in the world, and has become synonymous with the brand's products.

'On behalf of all fried chicken lovers out there, we take it personally when another company tries to claim our iconic taste and branding as their own,' a KFC spokesperson said in a statement to CNN.

'We remain committed to protecting our brand's intellectual property and safeguarding the experience of our customers.'

Church's declined to comment to the outlet, due to active litigation.

The lawsuit comes as KFC is facing falling sales in its restaurants across the US.

KFC's parent company Yum! Brands said during a third quarter earnings call last week that US sales had fallen 5 percent - the third straight quarter of declines.

Yum! Brands CEO David Gibbs put it down to increased competition from other fast food companies.

KFC has been using the 'Original Recipe' phrase for over half a century to describe its top secret signature chicken recipe, which it says is a blend of 11 herbs and spices

In a lawsuit, KFC claimed it noticed Church's 'abruptly' began using the phrase in advertisements on September 30, and ignored a complaint letter in October

'In the US, limited-time offers underperformed expectations due to a more intense competitive environment, particularly within the chicken QSR (quick-service restaurant) category,' he said.

Other leading fried chicken brands that KFC is competing with are Popeyes, Raising Cane's, Chick-fil-A and Zaxby's.

KFC is trying new products and deals to lure customers back. Last month, for the first time it started to make tenders with its 'original recipe' that it uses for its chicken on-the-bone products.

Earlier this summer KFC entered the value wars with its $5 meal deal after seeing sales fall earlier in the year.
India must act swiftly to secure its digital future in an era where technological prowess is now essential for national security

Today, cyber-attacks impact every aspect of life, from government agencies and corporations to individuals personal data and privacy. While the reach of cybercrime is vast, the underlying complexity remains poorly understood by many, with significant security consequences for nations that fail to address these threats adequately. Cyber-attacks threaten national security and underscore the vulnerabilities associated with our increasing dependence on digital infrastructure. Although the internet has revolutionised the world by providing incredible convenience, connection and comfort, these benefits come with the challenge of safeguarding critical data and infrastructure. As cybersecurity becomes the essential defense for peace, prosperity, and privacy in the digital age, recent incidents such as the breach of 7.9 million customer records at Indias stockbroking firm Angel demonstrate the necessity of strengthening digital protections. While the internet facilitates ease of access, it also introduces serious vulnerabilities that call for immediate, concerted efforts.

The recent cyber-attack on Iran marks a chilling advance in digital warfare, illustrating that no nation is immune to the risks of a hyperconnected world. As countries, corporations, and citizens expand their online presence, the scope for potentially devastating cyber-attacks rises dramatically.

This incident serves as a reminder of the need for nations to address cyberspaces complex, escalating risks. India, for example, is undergoing a digital revolution with over 936 million internet users as of December 2023. These Digital Nagriks fuel a dynamic digital economy, supporting critical sectors such as healthcare, education, finance and agriculture. However, the rapid pace of digital adoption has outpaced Indias cybersecurity measures, creating opportunities for cybercriminals to exploit these gaps.

According to the 2024 Cisco Cybersecurity Readiness Index, only 4 per cent of Indian companies are fully prepared to counter cyber threats, exposing significant vulnerabilities within the nations digital framework. These threats arise not only from criminal organisations but also from state-sponsored entities targeting Indias economic and strategic assets.

Moreover, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) enable more sophisticated cyber-attacks, including deepfake technology and disinformation campaigns, adding complex layers to cyber defenses.

In todays world, technological prowess in fields such as AI and cybersecurity equates to national security, rivaling traditional military strength. However, India faces several challenges in coordinating an effective cyber defense.

While initiatives like Cyber Surakshit Bharat have shown early progress, a comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy is still missing, which limits effective threat response and assessment. A recent step forward has been the Prime Ministers Offices appointment of a cybersecurity oversight official, but gaps remain in the infrastructure needed to support comprehensive defence. Cyberspaces borderless nature complicates defence efforts, as attacks can target both military and civilian assets globally, bypassing traditional political and geographic constraints.

India has implemented several initiatives to tackle cyber threats. For instance, the Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC) at the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre in New Delhi unites major playersincluding banks, telecom providers and law enforcement agenciesto combat online financial crimes. This initiative, exemplifying Cooperative Federalism, enables swift responses to fraud. The government has also introduced the Samanvaya Platform, a centralised repository of cybercrime data to foster interagency cooperation. Despite these initiatives, further action is required to establish a comprehensive cybersecurity framework. Without unified regulatory standards, gaps remain in protecting the public and private sectors, especially for small businesses that may lack the resources for robust cybersecurity protocols.

This vulnerability could undermine both national security and public trust in Indias digital infrastructure. Programs like Cyber Surakshit Bharat, the National Cybersecurity Coordination Centre (NCCC), and CERT-In have all aimed to strengthen Indias defences, with additional measures such as the Information Security Education and Awareness Project (ISEA) helping to create a culture of security consciousness among citizens. The 2023 Digital Personal Data Protection Act reinforces this commitment by aligning with global data security standards to improve transparency and accountability among companies.

(The writer is an assistant professor, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Sonepat; views are personal)
By promoting multilingualism, skill development and character-building, NEP 2020 aims to empower students to tackle both national and global challenges

On July 29, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 completed four years, a transformative framework that has reshaped the countrys educational landscape by connecting contemporary needs with its traditional roots. NEP 2020 stands as the first education policy since independence that genuinely aligns with Bharats ancient traditions, advocating for accessible, quality education with an emphasis on relevance and inclusivity.

The policy introduces a host of progressive features, such as flexible study options, multiple entry and exit points, the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC), credit transfer mechanisms, and a focus on online courses, aiming to create a seamless, adaptable educational journey for learners across the nation.

A defining aspect of NEP 2020 is its commitment to the five foundational pillars of Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability and Accountability.

NEP 2020 brings traditional values, arts, languages and culture into the mainstream curriculum, underscoring Bharats ambition to reclaim its heritage as a knowledge superpower.

One of the most notable additions is the incorporation of the Indian Knowledge System (IKS), promoting the revival and research of traditional subjects such as Vedic mathematics, Ayurveda, environmental studies, linguistics, Yoga and other indigenous disciplines. This shift helps bridge the gap left by prior policies, which often neglected or excluded these areas under the influence of Western paradigms. The NEP also recommends a three-language formula, promoting multilingualism by including at least two Indian languages in school curricula. While this policy is intended to support Indias linguistic diversity, it faced resistance in some non-Hindi-speaking states, where concerns about linguistic hegemony and regional language preservation surfaced.

The central government may need to address these concerns carefully, especially given educations status on the Concurrent List, to ensure a balanced approach that respects regional identities while achieving national integration. The policys emphasis on Sanskrit, often regarded as a foundational element of Bharats cultural heritage, is a major milestone. With Sanskrit included as an optional language under the three-language formula, both school and higher education institutions are encouraged to integrate it into their curricula. NEP serves as a turning point in Bharats educational history, aiming to foster character development and national pride alongside academic excellence. NEP 2020 emphasises two overarching themes: nurturing Indian values and fostering character-building among students. This holistic approach is intended to develop responsible, ethical citizens ready to tackle both national and global challenges.

Despite allegations of saffronisation, proponents argue that the NEP aims to realign the educational system with what benefits the nation and its people. Science and history, though based on facts, are often viewed through the lenses of time and place. A major thrust of NEP 2020 is skill development, with the objective of enhancing employability by integrating vocational training and practical learning into the curriculum. The inclusion of courses on data structures, programming, machine learning and artificial intelligence is intended to prepare students for a tech-driven future. NEP 2020 also encourages societal engagement through initiatives like internships and community visits, fostering creativity and real-world problem-solving skills. Institutions like NIT Uttarakhand have already embraced the NEPs multidisciplinary model, focusing on research and innovation to build a skilled and socially conscious workforce.

(The author is the BJP Councilor, New Delhi; views are personal)
The Commonwealth of Dominica will bestow its highest national award, the Dominica Award of Honour, upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi this month, the Dominica government said.

The award is in recognition of PM Modis contributions to Dominica during the COVID-19 pandemic and his dedication to strengthening the partnership between the two countries.

In a statement, the office of the Dominican Prime Minister said President of the Commonwealth of Dominica Sylvanie Burton will confer the award during the upcoming India-CARICOM Summit scheduled to take place in Georgetown, Guyana, from November 19 to 21.

In February 2021, Prime Minister Modi supplied Dominica with 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine - a generous gift which enabled Dominica to extend support to its Caribbean neighbours, it stated.

The award also recognises Indias support for Dominica in healthcare, education and information technology under PM Modis leadership as well as his role in promoting climate resilience-building initiatives and sustainable development on a global level, the statement read.

The statement quoted PM Roosevelt Skerrit as saying that the award is an expression of Dominicas gratitude for Prime Minister Modis solidarity with Dominica and the wider region.

Prime Minister Modi has been a true partner to Dominica, particularly during our time of need amid a global health crisis. It is an honour to present him with Dominicas highest national accolade as a symbol of our gratitude for his support and as a reflection of the strong ties between our countries. We look forward to building on this partnership and advancing our shared vision of progress and resilience, he said.

In accepting the offer of the award, PM Modi emphasised the importance of collaboration in tackling global challenges such as climate change and geopolitical conflicts, and affirmed Indias commitment to working alongside Dominica and the Caribbean in addressing these issues, the statement underlined.

President Burton and Prime Minister Skerrit will attend the India-CARICOM Summit, a forum to discuss shared priorities.
Gibraltar Tourist Board exhibit at World Travel Market event in London

The Minister for Equality, Employment, Culture and Tourism, The Hon. Christian Santos GMD MP, has returned from the 44th edition of the World Travel Market (WTM) event in London.

The Gibraltar Tourist Board (GTB) hosted a stand to gain exposure and continue to promote Gibraltars tourism, culture and heritage to an estimated 40,000 visitors from the travel industry as well as the 250,000 members of the WTMs online community.

Accompanied by GTBs CEO Kevin Bossino and Head of Media and Marketing Tracey Poggio, Minister Santos attended various high-level meetings with industry recognised names, including easyJet and British Airways.

Marketed as the worlds most influential travel and tourism event, Gibraltar took the opportunity to showcase our product to top industry representatives and senior buyers with purchasing responsibility.

Minister for Tourism, the Hon Christian Santos said: Our annual participation at the World Travel Market event in London is an integral part of our marketing strategy. It is important for Gibraltar to exhibit at these types of events and show what we have to offer the world  a first-class destination. Our unique tourist sites, made only more enticing by our heritage, culture, lifestyle and the warmth of our people, makes Gibraltar a very desirable tourist destination. As always, I am proud to fly our flag as Minister for Tourism anywhere I go and the connections made at this event will be highly beneficial to our Tourism industry.
India will seek extradition of Arsh Singh Gill alias Arsh Dalla, the de facto chief of the Khalistan Tiger Force, from Canada as he is a proclaimed offender here. He was reportedly arrested there recently and it is expected that he will be extradited or deported to face justice in India, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said here on Thursday.

We have seen media reports circulating since 10 November on the arrest in Canada of proclaimed offender Arsh Singh Gill alias Arsh Dalla, the de-facto chief of the Khalistan Tiger Force. Canadian print and visual media have widely reported on the arrest. We understand that the Ontario Court has listed the case for hearing, MEA said.

Arsh Dalla is a proclaimed offender in over 50 cases of murder, attempt to murder, extortion and terrorist acts including terror financing. In May 2022, a Red Corner Notice was issued against him. He was designated in India as an individual terrorist in 2023. In July 2023, Government of India had requested the Canadian government for his provisional arrest. This was declined. Additional information was provided in this case, it said.

A separate request was also sent to Canada under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to verify Arsh Dallas suspected residential address, his financial transactions to India, moveable/immovable properties, details of mobile numbers etc. all of which were provided to Canadian authorities in January 2023.

In December 2023, the Department of Justice of Canada sought additional information on the case. A reply to these queries was sent in March this year, MEA said.

In view of the recent arrest, our agencies will be following up on an extradition request. Given Arsh Dallas criminal record in India and his involvement in similar illegal activities in Canada, it is expected that he will be extradited or deported to face justice in India, it said.
After four days of relentless protests by nearly 20,000 students, the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) has reversed its decision to conduct preliminary exams over two shifts agreeing to hold the PCS (Provincial Civil Services) preliminary exam in a single day as per the old pattern.

The Review Officer/Assistant Review Officer (RO/ARO) exam, scheduled for December 22 and 23, has been postponed. A special committee will evaluate the best approach for conducting the RO-ARO exam fairly and transparently.

In a bid to address student concerns, UPPSC Secretary Ashok Kumar addressed the crowd on Thursday. The preliminary examination will be conducted in one shift. For the RO/ARO (Review Officer/Assistant Review Officer) Examination-2023, a committee will review all aspects and submit a detailed report. The final decision on the RO/ARO exam will be taken based on this report, he announced, signifying that the proposed changes had been officially withdrawn.

Consequently, the PCS prelims will occur on a single day, while the RO/ARO exam, initially scheduled for December 22 and 23, has been postponed. According to Prayagraj District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar, the revised exam date will be announced soon. The date for the PCS exam will be released by the UPPSC shortly, he confirmed.

The announcement came after discussions at UPPSC, driven by widespread concerns over the normalisation process, which students feared could introduce scoring inconsistencies. Protestors camped outside the UPPSC office in Prayagraj for four days, demanding changes.

In response, a government spokesperson explained that the states initial decision to hold exams in multiple shifts stemmed from recent cases of paper leaks in various regions, some involving organised networks.

To ensure purity and transparency in selection exams, the state government had initiated steps to conduct exams in multiple shifts, the spokesperson said, emphasising that the two-shift format aimed to minimise security risks and accommodate over 500,000 candidates in government centres alone.

The PCS-Pre exam, scheduled for December 7-8 in 41 districts, was originally split over two days with a normalisation process to adjust for varying exam conditions. UPPSC now confirms that the exam will be held in a single shift, with further details to follow soon.

Earlier in the day, tensions escalated as plainclothes police attempted to disperse the crowd forcibly. When the police moved in, the students lay down in solidarity, blocking the removal efforts. Protesters accused the police of misbehaviour, including using abusive language and manhandling female students, fueling further anger. Within an hour, over 10,000 additional students had gathered, pushing through barricades and advancing to the commissions gate.

The issue had drawn national attention, with Congress Member of Parliament Rahul Gandhi condemning the UP Governments handling of the protests. In a post on X, he stated, The treatment of competitive students in Prayagraj by the UP government and UPPSC is both insensitive and unfortunate. The non-transparent normalisation process is unacceptable, and the demand for a single-shift exam is completely justified. Why should students bear the cost of an incompetent government that is dismantling the education system? These hardworking students, away from their families, are now forced to fight on the streets, facing harassment by the police. We support the students demands unequivocally. Their democratic rights cannot be stifled by authoritarian actions.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday conducted fresh searches in multiple states against Chennai-based lottery king Santiago Martin, one of the biggest donors to political parties, with over Rs 1,300 crore in electoral bonds, as part of a money laundering investigation. The action comes after the Madras High Court recently allowed the ED to proceed against Martin as the Tamil Nadu Police had decided to close the predicate or primary FIR against him and a few others and a lower court accepted this police plea.

Santiago Martin donated Rs. 542 crore to Trinamool Congress (TMC), Rs. 509 crore to DMK, Rs.154 crore to Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), Rs.100 crore to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rs. 50 crore to Congress under the controversial Electoral Bond Scheme banned by Supreme Court. Officials said at least 20 premises linked to Martin, his son-in-law Aadhav Arjun and associates in Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Faridabad in Haryana, Ludhiana in Punjab and Kolkata in West Bengal were being searched as part of a comprehensive action against his business empire.

A clutch of police FIRs have been taken into cognisance by the ED to initiate the latest action against Martin and his business network for lottery fraud and illegal sale of lottery. The ED had last year attached assets worth about Rs 457 crore in a case against Martin linked to an alleged loss of over Rs 900 crore to the Sikkim government by fraudulent sale of the State lottery in Kerala.

Martins firm Future Gaming Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. Is the master distributor of Sikkim lotteries and the ED has been investigating Martin, known as lottery king in Tamil Nadu, since 2019. The Madras High Court last month allowed the ED case against Martin and his linked persons to go on as it set aside a lower court order which had accepted a closure report filed by the Chennai Police crime branch in a case related to the seizure of unaccounted Rs 7.2 crore from his Chennai home.

His other companies include Martin Builders Pvt. Ltd, And Daison Land and Development Pvt. Ltd. The ED had said earlier that these firms acquired immovable properties worth Rs 19.59 crore from the loans and advances given by Martin and his family members.
Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has said that 41 AI based e-checkgates are being established to stop illegal transportation in the state. Vehicles engaged in mineral transportation will be checked with the help of verifocal camera, RFID Reader, automatic number plate reader at these e-checkgates.

As a pilot project in the project, work has been started by installing e-checkgates at 4 places on the important route for mineral transportation. Command and Control Centre in Bhopal and District Command Centres have been established at the state level in Bhopal and District Command Centres in District Bhopal and Raisen to monitor illegal transportation. The target is to establish all 41 e-checkgates by December 2024.

Yadav has also started a satellite and drone based project to prevent illegal mining in the state. Through this, all 7 thousand mines of the state have been geo-tagged and the mine area has been demarcated. When this project is fully implemented, illegal mining can be identified and effectively prevented.
A cow smuggler died, and six others were injured after the Gurugram police chased and stopped a gang illegally smuggling cows on Thursday, police said.

However, the six smugglers have been arrested after being discharged from the hospital, and the deceased cattle smuggler's body has been sent for an autopsy on Thursday.

The accused have been identified as Munna, Mafik Ali, Mubarak alias Utavandia, Shaukin alias Sunda, and Irsad alias Langa all residents of Nuh district in Haryana, while Salman, a native of Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh.

Shahjad, who died in the incident, was also a native of Nuh district. According to the police, on Thursday, a Cow Protection Cell in Gurugram, while patrolling, saw some people loading cows in a pickup vehicle near the Manesar Bus Stand on the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway.

When they saw the police, the accused drove their pickup towards Panchgaon-Bilaspur, but the vehicle overturned after hitting the divider, and police nabbed all the vehicle occupants.

When the police team checked the pick-up a person was found dead, buried under the vehicle.

Police recovered 04 cows tied in the vehicle and picked them up for transporting the cows.

In connection with the matter, a case was registered under the relevant sections at the Police Station Manesar, Gurugram.

After observing the criminal records of the accused, it was found that the deceased Shahjad was involved in 02 cases of attempt to murder and cow smuggling registered in Gurugram and 03 cases in district Nuh.

Shaukin was involved in 18 cases that were registered against him in various police stations of Rewari, Nuh, Gurugram and Rohtak and in 02 cases, he has also been declared a proclaimed offender.

Irshad has a total of 03 cases registered against him in Gurugram and Nuh in connection with cow smuggling, assault and threat. Mafiq Ali and Mubarak have 01 cases each registered against them in Nuh.

"The police team is questioning the accused thoroughly. Further action will be taken in the case as per rules according to whatever facts will come out in the police interrogation. Investigation of the case is on," Sandeep Kumar, spokesperson of the Gurugram police said.
The city Crime Branch rescued a telecom engineer from Gayatri Nagar on Wednesday after he was held captive and intimidated by cyber criminals in a digital arrest lasting over six hours.

The engineer, Pramod Kumar (38), works for a private telecom company. The incident began on Tuesday at 4:15 PM, when Pramod received a call from someone claiming to be an officer from the Economic Offences Wing (EOW).

The caller told Pramod that a large sum of money had been transacted using his number. He warned Pramod not to switch off his phone, claiming he was calling from Mumbai.

The caller threatened that if the call was disconnected, Pramod would be arrested in Bhopal. Shortly after, Pramod received a video call from another number.

Three people appeared on the screen in police uniforms, claiming to be from the Mumbai Crime Branch. They told Pramod that ransom had been demanded from a person using his phone number.

When Pramod tried to explain himself, the criminals threatened him with jail time unless he paid a Rs 3.5 lakh penalty for misusing his mobile.

The fraudsters continued to manipulate Pramod, extracting personal information and telling him that he would be arrested with the help of local police.

They further insisted that he would be safe only if he agreed to stay under their surveillance for 24 hours. In fear, Pramod locked himself in a room, following the criminals instructions. He stayed under their control until 11:30 PM when they finally ended the call.On Wednesday morning, still terrified, Pramod avoided answering any calls, including those from his boss, Pradeep.

Concerned, Pradeep visited Pramods home and found him unwilling to open the door. Sensing something was amiss, Pradeep contacted the Crime Branch.

Upon arrival, the Crime Branch officers rescued Pramod and confirmed that he had been scammed by cyber criminals. After talking with the police, Pramod regained his composure and came out of the house with his wife and children.

This case underscores growing incidents of cyber fraud, where criminals exploit fear and technology to manipulate and wilt their victims psychologically.
After a long delay of seven months for the mayoral poll elections, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)s Mahesh Khichi a councillor from the Dev Nagar ward in Karol Bagh (45) was elected as the first Mayor of Delhi on Thursday, defeating BJPs Kishan Lal from Shakurpur ward (47) with a slim margin amid a chaotic scenes unfolded during the voting process. Khinchi received 133 votes, while Lal secured 130 votes. Two votes were declared invalid. The eight Congress councillors chose not to participate in the voting process.

Ravindra Bhardwaj of AAP was elected unopposed for the post of Deputy Mayor. Bhardwaj is a councilor from Aman Vihar, Ward No. 41. His rival candidate, BJP councilor Neeta Bisht, withdrew her nomination. Bisht is a councilor from Sadatpur, Ward No. 247.

The winning the Mayoral post will boost the AAP morale of the party workers ahead of the assembly polls next year. These elections, which had been delayed since April due to a a prolonged battle of words between the AAP and BJP, saw the Congress boycott the voting, demanding a full term for the mayor instead of the shortened tenure now on offer. Khinchi's tenure will last only five months, as the election had been postponed since April.

AAP had a strength of 125 councillors while the BJP had 113 councillors. Votes were also cast by all the seven MPs of BJP while two MPs Sanjay Singh and ND Gupta also voted for the elections. AAP Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal was a no show at the election. A total of 14 MLAs casted their vote including 13 from AAP and one from BJP. It is noteworthy that this year was reserved for Dalit candidates.

The elections began with a chaotic scene which unfolded with the Congress councillors raising slogans and storming into the well of the House over the reduced tenure allotted for the upcoming Dalit mayor. The uproar began as presiding officer Satya Sharma initiated the proceedings.The uproar began as presiding officer Satya Sharma initiated the proceedings. Congress Leader of Party (LOP) Nazia Dhanish immediately raised objections, criticising the truncated tenure set for the Dalit mayor. Earlier, the Congress has decided to boycott the elections for the mayor and deputy mayor in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), citing dissatisfaction over the limited tenure planned for the next Dalit mayor.

He accused the current sitting mayor of overstaying and infringing on the Dalit community's right to full representation. Dhanish, along with other Congress councillors, moved into the well of the House, demanding an explanation from the presiding officer.

In response, Sharma urged the Congress councillors to return to their seats, remarking, "You are spoiling their limited tenure as well." The protest escalated as the Congress members targeting the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chanted "Dalit Virodhi Kejriwal Sarkar" slogan. In return, the AAP members countered with chants of "Kejriwal Zindabad". The standoff continued with both sides hurling slogans against each other followed by them staging a walk out.

However, in a later twist, one of the councilors from the party Sabila Begum resigned from the primary membership of the party saying she would vote for the AAP nominee. She had also previously defected to the AAP in 2022 before returning to the Congress fold.

The newly elected Mayor thanked everyone present in the house and expressed his gratitude to the former Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal. He said, Under his leadership, we all will work together with full honesty for the development of Delhi.

Despite the loss, Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva said that Arvind Kejriwal's party lost the election for the post of Mayor and Arvind Kejriwal has lost the moral ground to continue as the Convenor of AAP.

At least eight councillors of AAP cast their votes in favour of BJP and two others deliberately got their votes invalid which is a big moral defeat for Arvind Kejriwal, he said.

Every year in April, mayoral elections are held in accordance with MCD procedures, and each mayor is elected to a one-year term as part of a five-year cycle. Women are assigned to the first term, followed by the open category in the second, a reserved category in the third, and the open category once more in the last two terms.
Deputy Chief Minister Rajendra Shukla praised the remarkable progress made in Ayushman card creation for senior citizens across Madhya Pradesh, commending all involved officials, ASHA workers, ANMs, and community health officials.

He stated that the state government is committed to reaching all eligible senior citizens with health security under this ambitious scheme. Madhya Pradesh currently leads the country in issuing Ayushman cards for senior citizens.

Dr Yogesh Bharsat, CEO of the Ayushman Bharat scheme, shared that over 2,00,667 Ayushman cards have been created for senior citizens aged 70 and above in Madhya Pradesh, compared to 1,76,167 cards in Kerala.

Dr Bharsat added that approximately 30,000 to 35,000 Ayushman cards are being generated daily for senior citizens in Madhya Pradesh. He mentioned that the target of 34,73,325 Ayushman cards is expected to be met by January 15.

An action plan has been formulated, with ASHA workers, ANMs, and CHOs conducting door-to-door outreach and organizing special camps.

Bharsat explained that under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), a new initiative has been introduced to provide accessible and high-quality healthcare services to senior citizens aged 70 and above. Launched on October 29, 2024, this scheme allows eligible senior citizens to register themselves on the National Health Authoritys portal https://beneficiary.nha.gov.in or the Ayushman app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beneficiaryapp, enabling them to create their card from home by choosing the self-registration option.

Dr Bharsat mentioned that a special Vaya Vandana Card is being issued to senior citizens. Eligible individuals aged 70 and above whose families are already covered under the Ayushman Bharat scheme will receive an additional top-up coverage of ?5 lakh annually through this card. This top-up is exclusively for senior family members and cannot be shared with younger family members below 70.

Re-registration Mandatory for Existing Beneficiaries to Obtain Vaya Vandana Card

Dr Bharsat noted that existing Ayushman beneficiaries must re-register to obtain the Vaya Vandana Card. Upon receiving this card, senior citizens will gain an additional top-up of ?5 lakh, resulting in a total health coverage of ?10 lakh. This additional top-up will be exclusively for elderly members, while other family members will continue with the standard ?5 lakh coverage. All other senior citizens aged 70 and above will receive an annual family-based coverage of ?5 lakh.

Dr. Bharsat explained that senior citizens who are already benefiting from public health schemes such as the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS), or Ayushman CAPF must choose between their current plan and the Ayushman Bharat scheme. Senior citizens covered under private health insurance or the Employee State Insurance (ESI) scheme are also eligible to receive benefits under the Ayushman scheme.

Dr Bharsat emphasized that the Aadhaar card serves as the primary identification document for beneficiaries in the scheme. For those whose Aadhaar card only shows the birth year instead of the full date, January 1, 2025, will be considered as the eligibility date upon reaching 70 years of age. Three methods are available for easy identification: thumb impression, iris scan, and mobile OTP, ensuring a smooth registration process for beneficiaries.
Habibganj police arrested Mukesh Bhalerao, who sold a Bhopal woman in Rajasthan, from Rani Kamlapati Railway Station (RKMP). Mukesh, who had a reward of Rs 10,000 on his head and was in a bid to flee.

Police said many big links operating flesh traders are likely to be revealed from Mukesh. It is believed that he was in contact with a human trafficking gang. The accused's mobile has been given for investigation. The CDR of his number is being extracted.

The accused had sold a 26-year-old woman from Bhopal in Rajsamand, Rajasthan. The woman was sold for Rs 3 lakh. The woman who was sold on February 23 was recovered by the police from village Maulela in Rajsamand on September 23. Its mastermind Pooja, her friend Chhaya, Mukesh's wife Santosh Bhalerao, Himmatlal who arranged the marriage and Devi Lal who bought the woman and married her have already been arrested.

Police station in-charge Ajay Soni said that informers were deployed in and around the house of accused Mukesh to catch him. On the night of November 11, he was arrested from the railway station on the basis of pin-point information.

Mastermind Chhaya's daughter's in-laws are in Rajasthan. She visits there frequently. This is how Chhaya came in contact with Devi Lal of Rajsamand. Devi Lal talked about buying a girl for marriage and the deal was done for Rs 3 lakh. Puja brought her friend (victim) who worked with her to Chhaya's place. On the pretext of work in the wedding, Santosh and her husband Manoj took the victim to Rajsamand. Here Pandit Himmat Lal got her married to Devi Lal. The victim had told the police that she was kept tied in chains.

Accused Manoj had got a second Aadhar card made for the victim to change her identity. Apart from this, other documents were also made. Where these documents were made. This is being investigated. Police are also connecting the links of who else Mukesh was in contact with.

The minor who went missing 8 months ago has been recovered from Sehore by Katara Hills Police. The person who took her away has been arrested. Both were living as husband and wife. The accused was identified as Suraj Mehra.

Police station in-charge Brijendra Nigam said that sections will be increased after the victim's medical examination.
The Delhi Polices Special Cell arrested a 22-year-old sharpshooter of Tillu Tajpuriya - Davender Bambiha gang in a murder case after a brief exchange of fire near Rohini.

According to the police on Thursday, Nihal, who is suspected to be a member of the Tillu gang, sustained bullet injuries in the exchange of fire. A firearm and a two wheeler on which the suspect was travelling were recovered from the spot.

A senior police officer said, On the night of Wednesday, police recieved a specific input regarding one of the shooters of Tillu Tajpuriya - Davender Bambiha Gang who is involved in Mundka Murder case and acting upon the information, team laid a trap near UER -II road adjacent to Kheda Canal, Shahbad Dairy area.

The police spotted the suspect at around 9 pm riding a scooty and signaled him to stop. However, upon seeing the police, the suspect attempted to flee, but the scooty slipped, bringing him to a halt.

They opened fire on the police team. In retaliation and self-defense, the police team fired upon him and in the process the suspect was injured, it said.

Nihal was allegedly involved in the murder of one Amit Lakra, who had recently got bail in a case of robbery. Lakra was allegedly shot six times at a crowded market in Mundka on November 9.

According to another official, initial investigations suggested that Lakra was a member of the Gogi gang and was targeted by members of its rival, Tillu gang.
MindTalks: A New Forum for Parents and Community Engagement by The Mindspace Project

The Mindspace Project, Gibraltars dedicated charity for community and mental well-being, has launched an exciting new initiative to create a supportive space for open dialogue on important topics.

MindTalks is a community forum designed to bring residents together to engage, discuss, and learn from one another. The first of these events is set to take place on Tuesday, 26th November, at 6:00 PM.

MindTalks aims to be an inclusive platform where the community can gather to explore common issues, share experiences, and gain insights from expert speakers. This forum is open to everyone, whether youre looking to listen, connect, or actively participate in discussions on real-life topics that matter.

As the name suggests, MindTalks is about fostering meaningful conversations, turning concerns into opportunities for growth and understanding. Your Community, Your Forum isnt just a tagline; its an invitation for every member of the community to feel part of a larger support network.

The inaugural MindTalks event is tailored especially for parents under the theme Connection Before Correction. This session will focus on understanding and supporting children in ways that foster strong, positive relationships. Parents looking to better connect with their children and learn practical techniques to support their childs development are encouraged to attend.

Topics covered in this first session include:

1. Impulse Control - Helping children think before acting.

2. Emotional Control - Guiding kids in managing their emotions effectively.

3. Flexible Thinking - Adapting to unexpected changes with ease.

4. Working Memory - Retaining and using important information.

5. Self-Monitoring - Building self-awareness in daily interactions.

6. Planning and Prioritising - Setting and achieving goals.

7. Task Initiation - Encouraging children to start tasks independently.

8. Organisation - Keeping track mentally and physically, ensuring a more organised approach.

This session is for all parents, whether their child has a special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) diagnosis or not. The goal is to empower parents with the skills to connect with their children on a deeper level, fostering resilience, self-regulation, and a growth mindset.

Why Attend?

 Gain skills to connect with your child

 Better understand behaviours and the reasoning behind them

 Share your experiences with other parents who may have similar concerns

 Feel supported and part of a community committed to positive change

Attendance requires a minimum 5 investment, which supports The Mindspace Project in continuing its community programs. Register by following payment Link https://pay.sumup.com/b2c/QCBOW6E0

The Mindspace Project invites members of the community to step forward and share their insights. Simply email your proposal to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Sagarites of Sagar Public School Katara extension unfurled breathtaking two-day fourth annual day celebrations with an array of captivating performances taking audiences to the world of wonder and imagination. The first day of the annual day was based on the theme 'Fantasia - Flights of Imagination' and portrayed a magical testament of the artistry and creativity of over 1,000 Sagarites, underscoring the school's unwavering commitment to academic and cultural brilliance.

Dr. Rahul Mukhopadhyay from Azim Premji University graced the evening as the Chief Guest and was accorded the guard of honour by the school band. What followed was a tapestry of vibrant performances, where Sagarites brought to life beloved tales of Snow White, Gulliver's Travels, Tenali Raman, and Aladdin. Each portrayal was a symphony of drama and dance, breathing vitality into timeless virtues: the gentle compassion in Snow White, the empathetic wisdom in Gulliver's Travels, the wit and problem-solving flair of Tenali Raman, and the enduring loyalty found in Aladdin. Together, these stories wove powerful messages that resonate deeply with today's world.

The Principal of the School Prachi Verma presented the school's annual report celebrating achievements across academics, sports, and cultural spheres, while emphasizing the institution's dedication to nurturing creativity, building skills, and fostering character in every Sagarite. The day one celebration wrapped up with a vote of thanks by Headmistress Rupinder Arora followed by the singing of the National Anthem. The day's celebrations culminated in a heartfelt vote of thanks by Headmistress Rupinder Arora, with the audience rising for a stirring rendition of the National Anthem.

The festivities will continue on the second day, themed Synergia - Confluence of Culture, with special guests Ms. Lopamudra from IIM Bengaluru and Brigadier Anil Das joining as Chief Guest and Guest of Honour, to honour the beauty and harmony of cultural unity.
Wife of former District Panchayat President of Kesla, Ganpat Uike, died on the spot while Ganpat Uike and his granddaughter were injured after their vehicle collided with a parked truck in Narmadapuram; vehicle lost control after tyre exploded.

The accident happened on Obedullaganj-Betul National Highway 46 at around 7 pm on Tuesday evening. The car was badly damaged in the accident.

On receiving the information, Kesla police station in-charge Srinath Jharbade, Dial 100 and 108 ambulances reached the spot. With the help of passersby, all three were brought to Sukhtawa Community Health Center where the doctor declared the woman dead. Ganpat Uike was referred to Itarsi after first aid.

The police said that Ganpat Uike, along with his wife Anokhi Bai (57) and granddaughter Saloni (16), were going from Dauri Jhunkar to Banabid village to celebrate Devuthani Ekadashi. Ganpat was driving.

Meanwhile, the tyre of their car exploded near Model School ahead of Sukhtawa. The car lost its balance due to the speed and collided with a truck parked near the road.

Kesla police station in-charge Srinath Jharbade said - the truck was standing on the side of the road due to a punctured tyre. After the accident, the vehicle got stuck in the truck. It could be pulled out after much effort. Saloni is slightly injured while Ganpat has injuries on his face and head.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the Congress and its allies are hatching a scheme to have a separate Constitution for Kashmir, and making all efforts for restoration of Article 370.

Will the people of Maharashtra support the Congress and its allies who speak the language of Pakistan, Modi said, addressing a rally in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar for the November 20 state assembly elections.

Congress and its colleagues have passed a resolution to restore Article 370, he said. When we made Kashmir free from Article 370, Congress opposed this in Parliament and court. Now they are again hatching a scheme to restore Article 370 and have a separate Constitution in Kashmir, Modi said. "Kashmir is an integral part of India.

Every Indian wants that there should be only Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar's Constitution in Kashmir," Modi said. The Congress used to say that reservations were against the country. It considered reservations were against merit.

The mentality and agenda of the Congress remains unchanged. Therefore, they can't come to terms with the fact that someone from OBC has been the PM of the country for the last 10 years, he said.

The Prince of Congress, while he is abroad, openly claims that his party will scrap reservations. To further their agenda, Congress and Maha Vikas Aghadi are conspiring to divide SCs, STs and OBCs into small castes, he said. Modi also said the BJP-led Mahayuti government renamed Aurangabad as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, and fulfilled the wish of Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray.

The whole Maharashtra knows that the demand to rename this city as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar was raised by Balasaheb Thackeray, he said. The Congress party went to the court to overturn this decision, he added.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi government was in power for two-and-a-half years but did not have the courage to rename the city under pressure from the Congress, he said. This election in Maharashtra is not just an election to elect a new government.

In this election, on one side there are patriots who believe in Sambhaji Maharaj and on the other side there are people who praise Aurangzeb, Modi said. BJP-Mahayuti ahe, tar gati ahe, Maharashtrachi pragati ahe (If there is Mahayuti there is progress in Maharashtra), Modi said. The people of Maharashtra and Marathwada had been demanding for decades to give classical language status to Marathi, Modi said.

This work related to Marathi pride was completed by the BJP, he added. Maharashtra has attracted the maximum FDI after the formation of the Mahayuti government. The people have benefited due to the investment, he said.
The Commonwealth of Dominica will bestow its highest national award, the Dominica Award of Honour, upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi this month, the Dominica government said.

The award is in recognition of Modi's contributions to Dominica during the COVID-19 pandemic and his dedication to strengthening the partnership between the two countries.

In a statement, the office of the Dominican prime minister said President of the Commonwealth of Dominica Sylvanie Burton will confer the award during the upcoming India-CARICOM Summit scheduled to take place in Georgetown, Guyana, from November 19 to 21.

"In February 2021, Prime Minister Modi supplied Dominica with 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine  a generous gift which enabled Dominica to extend support to its Caribbean neighbours," the statement said.

The award also recognises India's support for Dominica in healthcare, education and information technology under Prime Minister Modi's leadership as well as his role in promoting climate resilience-building initiatives and sustainable development on a global level, the statement read.

The statement quoted Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit as saying that the award is an expression of Dominica's gratitude for Prime Minister Modi's solidarity with Dominica and the wider region.

"Prime Minister Modi has been a true partner to Dominica, particularly during our time of need amid a global health crisis. It is an honour to present him with Dominica's highest national accolade as a symbol of our gratitude for his support and as a reflection of the strong ties between our countries. We look forward to building on this partnership and advancing our shared vision of progress and resilience," he said.

In accepting the offer of the award, Prime Minister Modi emphasised the importance of collaboration in tackling global challenges such as climate change and geopolitical conflicts, and affirmed India's commitment to working alongside Dominica and the Caribbean in addressing these issues, the statement underlined.

President Burton and Prime Minister Skerrit will attend the India-CARICOM Summit, a forum to discuss shared priorities and new avenues for cooperation between India and CARICOM (The Caribbean Community and Common Market) member states.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi feels the "red book" of the Constitution which Gandhi carries is blank as he has never read it.

Addressing a rally in Maharashtra's Nandurbar, Gandhi said the Constitution contains the soul of India and the principles envisaged by national icons like Birsa Munda, Dr B R Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi.

"The BJP has objections to the red colour of the book (which Gandhi has been displaying in rallies). But for us, irrespective of the colour, we are committed to preserve it (Constitution) and ready to give up our lives too. Modi ji feels the Constitution (book) is blank because he has never read it," he said.

Congress wants adivasis, Dalits and backward classes to get representation in decision-making, the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha said.

Notably, BJP leaders in their campaign for the November 20 Maharashtra assembly polls, have sought to link the "red book" displayed by Gandhi to "urban Naxalism".

Gandhi alleged that PM Modi and the BJP were insulting the national icons by making such comments.

The BJP and RSS insult tribals by referring them as "vanvasi" instead of adivasi, he charged.

"Adivasis are the first owners of the country and have the first right on jal (water), jungle (forest) and zameen (land). But the BJP wants adivasis to remain in the jungle without any rights. Birsa Munda fought for this and laid down his life,' Gandhi said.

Highlighting the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi's (MVA) manifesto, Gandhi said women, farmers and youth will be protected with provisions like Rs 3,000 monthly assistance and free bus travel, farm loan waiver up to Rs 3 lakh and Rs 4,000 per month assistance for unemployed youth.

He reiterated the demand for a caste census, saying it will help to ascertain the number of adivasis, Dalits and backward classes in Maharashtra and how much is their share in resources.

At present, out of the eight per cent tribal population, their share in decision-making is only one per cent, Gandhi claimed.

He also alleged that five lakh jobs from Maharashtra have been snatched as various big ticket projects have been shifted to other states.

"Our government will not allow this. Projects meant for Maharashtra will remain here while those meant for Gujarat will stay there,' he said.
Violence erupted outside a polling booth in Tonk district -- where bypolls were being held -- when alleged supporters of Independent candidate Naresh Meena pelted stones at police and set ablaze at least one vehicle on Wednesday night.

This happened after the police force tried to remove Meena and his supporters who were on a dharna while voting for bypolls were being held outside a polling station in Samravta village in the Deoli-Uniara assembly constituency.

IG Ajmer Omprakash said heavy police force deployment was made in the village. The exact number of vehicles burnt will be clear after the mob is dispersed, he said, adding that there was confirmation of one vehicle being set ablaze by the mob. Police are engaged in bringing law and order under control, the officer said.

Stones were pelted at the police who lobbed tear gas shells to control the situation.

Hundreds of people were present at the dharna outside a polling station in which Meena earlier in the day had slapped an RAS officer engaged in election duty.

He later sat on a dharna outside a polling booth in Samravta village and asked his supporters to gather at the dharna with sticks.

After polling was over, police asked Meena and his supporters to disperse from outside the polling station so that the polling party could leave the station with EVM machines. However, police said, they turned violent and pelted stones at police.

Meena slapped SDM Malpura Amit Chaudhary for making efforts to get more people to vote while locals had boycotted polling over a demand. Meena was supporting the villagers.

RAS officers' association has demanded the arrest of Meena and warned of a pen-down strike from Thursday across the state if he was not arrested.

Polling for bypolls on seven assembly seats, including Deoli-Uniara, was held today from 7 am to 6 pm and counting will take place on November 23.

Naresh Meena, a Congress rebel, contested the election from Deoli-Uniara as an independent candidate.
About the Book

Book: THEYYAM - Indian Folk Ritual Theatre

Author: KK Gopalakrishnan

Publication: Niyogi Books

Price: Rs 6000.00

Pages: 352

In a world that often favours the new, Theyyam: Indian Folk Ritual Theatre - An Insiders Vision by KK Gopalakrishnan remains a symbol of the resilience of Indias folk traditions. The author takes us on a journey through history, explaining how this centuries-old ritual has survived and flourished despite the pressures of modernisation and outside influences, says SAKSHI PRIYA

In the dance of Theyyam, the gods do not watch; they come to life through the performer, bridging the human and the divine. This powerful insight into Theyyam offers a glimpse into the essence of the ritual, where the lines between the spiritual and the earthly are beautifully blurred. In Theyyam: Indian Folk Ritual Theatre - An Insiders Vision, K.K. Gopalakrishnan guides us through this captivating tradition, revealing its deep-rooted significance and the vibrant performances that bring the divine to the stage.

Theyyam: Indian Folk Ritual Theatre is an extraordinary exploration of one of Indias most vibrant and spiritually rich traditions. This insightful book takes readers deep into the heart of Theyyam, a ritualistic folk theatre from the northern regions of Kerala. Theyyam is not just a performance; it is a sacred and living art form that combines the sacred with the theatrical, where performers embody gods, spirits, and heroes, giving voice to centuries of social, religious and cultural narratives. Through his book, the author offers both a scholarly analysis and an intimate visual journey into the world of Theyyam.

Theyyam, which translates to "god's form," is a fusion of dance, drama, music and ritual and has been a central part of Kerala's spiritual and cultural life for centuries. The book captures the essence of this tradition, from the rituals performed by humble labourers to the spiritual elevation of these individuals who take on divine personas. Gopalakrishnans perspective as an insider, with his extensive experience and deep connection to the tradition, provides a rare and valuable lens into Theyyam's intricate and multifaceted nature. As Gopalakrishnan eloquently puts it, "At a time when the entire world, ignoring contextual relevance, is lavishly vocal on political correctness, here is an ancient art form called Theyyam that places the subaltern community in Gods shoes." It is this transformative aspect of the art form that makes Theyyam such a powerful symbol of social rebellion and spiritual empowerment.

One of the most captivating aspects of Theyyam is the way in which the book intertwines detailed descriptions of the rituals with stunning, full-colour photographs. These images allow the reader to experience the vivid colours, intricate costumes, elaborate headgear, and the striking body paint that define Theyyam performances. The photographs help to bring to life the dazzling transformation of the performers into supernatural beings, who, in the course of the ritual, take on divine attributes.

The central theme of Theyyam, as presented by Gopalakrishnan, is the juxtaposition of the sacred and the social. At its core, Theyyam serves as a spiritual act, honouring various deities, ancestors and natural forces such as animals and spirits. The performance is an offering of devotion and the powerful figures created in the ritual allow the worshippers to interact directly with the gods. Interestingly, despite the predominantly male performance tradition, the majority of the deities honoured in Theyyam are female figures, revered as Mother Goddesses. This gender aspect adds another layer of richness to the tradition, reflecting the reverence for feminine power in Keralas religious and social landscape.

The ritual of Theyyam has a unique social dimension, which Gopalakrishnan is careful to highlight. In a striking reversal of traditional power dynamics, the humble performers, often daily-wage labourers, become gods and goddesses during the ritual. This transformation challenges social hierarchies and elevates the performers above the very people they serve. Gopalakrishnan reflects on this dynamic, noting that, for a moment, even the wealthy landowners and patrons bow before the performers as they embody divine figures. This inversion of power allows the performers to address social injustice and in some cases, the Theyyam may directly criticise those who financially support the ritual. Gopalakrishnan captures this paradox and the way it highlights the intersection of religion, art and social critique.

The authors intimate knowledge of the Theyyam tradition is evident not just in his writing, but in the depth of the research and the perspective he brings to his subject. He outlines the origins of Theyyam and its evolution, acknowledging the challenges it has faced over the years, from the influence of colonial rule to the more modern pressures of contemporary life. He traces how Theyyam, as a practice deeply linked to local communities and their traditions, has been able to persist despite these external challenges. This persistence is rooted in the unbroken spiritual and cultural connections that the art form maintains with the past, even as it adapts to present circumstances.

The Author also delves into the community structure surrounding Theyyam. While the performance itself is central, the social context of the tradition is crucial to understanding its full significance. The book provides detailed insights into the various communities that perform Theyyam, including the Vannans and Malayans, who are the main performers. These communities play a critical role in preserving the tradition, and Gopalakrishnan offers a nuanced examination of their place in Keralas social fabric. He explores the significance of lineage, clan and caste in Theyyam performances, highlighting how these factors influence the performance and how social boundaries are both reinforced and challenged within the context of the ritual.

The book is not just a documentary of a particular art form but also a reflection on the role of art in shaping and critiquing society. Through this lens, Gopalakrishnan invites the reader to consider the deeper meanings behind Theyyams rituals, from its role in spiritual devotion to its capacity to question societal norms and power structures. It is a book that encourages reflection on the role of performance in both personal and collective transformation.

For anyone interested in Indian folk traditions, spirituality, or cultural history, Theyyam: Indian Folk Ritual Theatre - An Insiders Vision is an enlightening read. It provides a window into the world of Theyyam with all its colours, sounds and meaning. This book is not just a study, its an invitation to witness a tradition that, despite the odds, continues to be a source of strength, expression and divine connection for the people of Kerala. Gopalakrishnans work ensures that readers come away with a deep appreciation for Theyyam, its performers and the community spirit that keeps it alive

Theyyam: Indian Folk Ritual Theatre - An Insiders Vision is a compelling and richly detailed exploration of one of Indias most distinctive and awe-inspiring artistic traditions. Through Gopalakrishnans work, readers are not only given access to the visual spectacle of Theyyam but are also invited to engage with its spiritual, social and historical dimensions. This book serves as both a scholarly resource and a visual celebration of Theyyam, shedding light on an art form that continues to thrive in the heart of Keralas cultural identity.
Ethnic instrument making plays high notes in Xinjiang village

08:50, November 14, 2024 By Chen Shuo, Hu Huhu and Lyu Qiuping ( Xinhua

Nurdun Esmayil installs strings for a folk musical instrument with his friend at home in Xinhe County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Oct. 29, 2024. (Xinhua/Hu Huhu)

URUMQI, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- In a small courtyard dappled with light under a grape arbor, 65-year-old Nurdun Esmayil was making handmade folk musical instruments with his family and apprentices. Although he cannot read music, his keen ears have enabled him to make and play these instruments with precision.

Hailing from a village in Xinhe County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Nurdun Esmayil is a master craftsman specializing in making Uygur folk musical string instruments like dutar, tambur, and satar.

An important town along the ancient Silk Road up to 2,000 years ago, the county is known for the traditional Kucha music and dance, named after the ancient kingdom of Kucha.

While China has attached importance to preserving ethnic culture, recognizing traditional craftsmanship skills as intangible cultural heritage and encouraging businesses to help pass down such skills, locals have developed the ethnic instrument manufacturing industry as a key source of income.

Born into a family making instruments, Nurdun Esmayil has been in the business for over 40 years.

In 2008, Xinhe County's ethnic instrument-making techniques were added to China's national intangible cultural heritage list. That same year, he was officially recognized as a regional-level inheritor of this tradition, receiving financial support to continue his work.

He has trained over 100 apprentices, passing down his knowledge to ensure the art does not fade away. His method is rigorous.

"Crafting a tuning peg can be mastered in a week, but to meet my standards, they should spend at least a year," he said, underscoring the level of precision just like what his father taught him when he was young.

The materials Nurdun Esmayil uses have changed over the years, ranging from traditional mulberry wood to other imported international kinds. Traditional sheep-gut strings have given way to modern nylon.

"Unlike in the past, when it was extremely hard to deliver an ideal piece of wood home because of the bumper road and no vehicles, now we can have any materials delivered from anywhere in the world," he said.

Nowadays, the village is home to more than 120 instrument artisans producing over 50 varieties of instruments, with more than 20,000 pieces sold every year.

Eyeing the potential of the village's unique intangible cultural heritage, local authorities have rebranded the area as a tourist destination under the "musical instrument village" brand, drawing visitors from around China and abroad.

Inspired by peers, Nurdun Esmayil is considering registering a trademark to pass down the cultural heritage better and leave it as a legacy to his family.

Born in the internet era, his 12-year-old grandson likes playing drums and dancing to welcome visitors, showing promise as a potential inheritor of the family's musical legacy.

"If I could start over, I'd study music theory, read music and play all kinds of music that I want to," Nurdun Esmayil said, watching his grandson attentively.

Nurdun Esmayil (C) plays music with his son, Ehmet Nurdun (L), and his apprentice in his courtyard in Xinhe County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Oct. 15, 2024. (Xinhua/Chen Shuo)

Nurdun Esmayil makes rewap, a folk musical instrument, in his courtyard in Xinhe County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Oct. 15, 2024. (Xinhua/Liu Mengqi)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Being on the Interpol wanted list can have serious consequences for your life, restricting your freedom of movement and creating reputational and legal risks. Interpol coordinates the international exchange of information about people who are suspected or accused of committing serious crimes. This can lead to detention and the initiation of extradition proceedings when crossing borders. In this article, we will look at what it means to be on the Interpol wanted list and what steps to take to get off it.

What is the Interpol Wanted list?

The Interpol Wanted list is a database used to coordinate the efforts of law enforcement agencies from different countries in the search for suspects or those accused of committing serious crimes.

This database contains information about internationally wanted persons and serves as a tool for the rapid exchange of data between Interpol member countries. One of the main elements of this list is the Red Notice, which contains information about the person, details of the charge or crime, and a request for possible detention and extradition.

A Red Notice is not an arrest warrant, but is perceived as a request to law enforcement agencies in other countries to detain a person for further consideration. Being included on this list can have serious consequences, including restrictions on freedom of movement and the risk of detention when crossing borders.

What does it mean to be on the Interpol wanted list?

Being on the Interpol wanted list means that the law enforcement authorities of a certain country have requested the international community to find, detain and, if possible, extradite a person suspected or accused of committing a serious crime. This may include the issuance of a red notice, which is one of Interpols tools for coordinating actions between member countries.

Being on this list can mean serious consequences, such as restrictions on freedom of movement, risk of detention when crossing international borders, and potential damage to business reputation.

Although a red notice is not an arrest warrant, many countries respond to it as a formal request to detain an individual.

How to get off the Interpol list?

Removing your name from the Interpols most wanted list is a complex process that requires a careful legal approach.

The first step is to contact an experienced lawyer or an Interpol red notice law firm that specializes in international law and cases related to Interpol. The lawyer will assess the validity of adding your name to the list and check whether it is in line with the Interpol charter.

The next step is to submit a formal request to the INTERPOLs Commission for the Control of Files (CCF). This request should clearly set out the arguments proving that the inclusion of your name in the list is unlawful or based on politically motivated or other unlawful grounds. The lawyer will also prepare relevant evidence and documents to prove your innocence or refute the allegations.

It is important to keep in constant contact with your legal representative to keep abreast of the progress of the case and to respond in a timely manner to any requests from Interpol or the Commission.

Professional support will help not only to remove your name from the list, but also to minimize the consequences of being on it, protecting your freedom of movement and reputation.

Is it possible to remove your name from Interpol?

Yes, it is possible to remove your name from Interpols most wanted list, but the process is complicated and requires a professional approach. The main way to remove your name is to apply to the Interpol File Control Commission (CCF), which reviews complaints and decides whether the data entry is in line with the organizations charter. The grounds for removal may include misconduct, politically motivated accusations, or lack of sufficient evidence for a search.

It is important that the process is accompanied by an experienced lawyer who can collect the necessary evidence, prepare a reasoned request and represent your interests. A professional will ensure that your rights are protected and that the procedure is carried out in accordance with international law.

Although the process of de-listing can take time, a successful resolution of the issue allows you to lift travel restrictions, restore your reputation and avoid the risks associated with detention and extradition.

Whats next?

If you find out that your name is on the INTERPOL Most Wanted List, the following steps are critical to protecting your rights and reputation. Firstly, you need to contact a qualified lawyer who specializes in international law and issues related to Interpol.

Specialist Dmytro Konovalenko will help you assess the situation, develop a defense strategy and prepare a request to the Commission for the Control of Files (CCF) to review your case.

After submitting the request, it is important to keep in touch with a lawyer to monitor the progress of the review and respond in a timely manner to any additional requests or comments from Interpol. Professional support will help not only to ensure legal protection but also to minimize the consequences of your being on the most wanted list.
Students Aoife Doherty and Ava Norris from Thornhill College recently participated in NI Waters inaugural Hybrid Work Experience Programme - the first in a series developed in partnership with the leading social mobility charity, Speakers for Schools.

The programme offered 26 students aged 16-19 the opportunity to gain invaluable experience in the world of science.

Participants from across Northern Ireland attended two virtual days packed full of interactive workshops and sessions, led by NI Water scientists, followed by an in-person day at NI Waters headquarters in Belfast, complete with lab tours and hands on activities.

The hybrid approach allowed students unable to travel to Belfast each day, due to distance or the costs involved, the opportunity to learn all about the different career paths and opportunities in science that are on offer at NI Water.

The multi-award winning employer will host more hybrid work experience programmes in 2025, focussing on careers in Finance and Engineering. This will ensure even more students across the country have the opportunity to gain industry insights and develop essential skills.

Rebecca Allen, Catchment Officer at NI Water from Limavady, did a virtual presentation to a variety of schools: Our new Work experience programme allows participants to meet a great mix of real people throughout our industry, and get a first-hand feel of what we do, how we do it and why.

The online material and talks are engaging and in combination with the in-person day, provide a good insight into the real NI Water and the people behind the brand.

NI Waters Head of HR Operations Helen Devlin explained: NI Water is thrilled to launch this new Hybrid Work Experience Programme in partnership with Speakers for Schools. We believe that every young person should have the opportunity to explore and develop their career interests, so our programmes are designed to provide students with real-world exposure to the diverse career paths on offer at our award-winning organisation, and a unique insight into the water industry and life at NI Water.

Our Entry Level recruitment campaign will be launching early 2025, with unrivalled opportunities for apprentices, higher level apprentices and graduates on offer. We hope that these work experience programmes will inspire students to consider a career in the water industry, and open their minds to the alternative career path options open to them.

Details of the next two work experience sessions on Engineering and Finance coming up in 2025 can be found on here, so watch out for those in the new year.

NI Waters hybrid work experience programme is delivered in partnership with Speakers for Schools, a UK-based charity committed to increasing social mobility by providing young people with access to career development opportunities. Speakers for Schools is a charity founded in 2010 by ITVs Political Editor Robert Peston and supported by the Law Family Charitable Foundation. Its mission is to help level the playing field for young people of all backgrounds, increasing access to exciting work experience and other development opportunities, linking students to hundreds of the UKs leading employers.

Jenni Marshall, Speakers for Schools Employer Engagement Manager NI said: Speakers for Schools are thrilled to partner with NI Water to help empower students in Northern Ireland with access to valuable work experience opportunities. By offering multi-day work experiences, companies like NI Water contribute significantly to bridging skills gaps and preparing the next generation for the workforce by informing and inspiring our young people.

As the UKs leading social mobility charity, were on a mission to help students nationwide to reach their potential by providing work experience placements and inspirational talks across multiple sectors. Having supported NI employers to provide valuable experiences to over 2400 students last academic year, we are excited to impact even more young people this.
The family of Derry man Billy McGreanery has accepted a significant financial settlement in respect of the death of their uncle.

Mr McGreanery was shot dead by a member of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, ciphered soldier A, at the junction of Eastway, Lonemoor Road and Westland Street, Derry, late in the evening of September 14, 1971.

He underwent surgery at Altnagelvin hospital and died approximately four hours later, during the early hours of Wednesday, September 15 1971.

Mr McGreanery was 41 years old at the time of his death.

In 2013, following a public apology from the Minister for the Armed Forces, Andrew Robathan on behalf of the Ministry of Defence and the British army, KRW Law wrote to the Attorney General seeking a new inquest.

KRW engaged in lengthy correspondence with the Attorney Generals office, and in 2017, it was confirmed the Attorney General had referred the case to the Public prosecution Service (PPS).

The PPS subsequently directed the PSNI to carry out a number of enquiries. Legacy Investigation Branch undertook a review of the case, before commencing a full investigation.

On April 29, 2024, PPS took the decision not to prosecute Soldier A in relation to Mr McGreanerys death.

The family has asked for a review of this decision and await the outcome.

A day later, on April 30, 2024, the Attorney General for Northern Ireland directed a fresh inquest into the circumstances of Mr McGreanerys death.

This came just 24 hours before the May 1 deadline imposed by the Legacy Act that halted all legacy inquests.

Billy McGreanery, nephew of Billy McGreanery, said: In my opinion, today the Ministry of Defence have made a financial retribution for the death, pain, anguish and sorrow they have inflicted on our family.

I liken this process to a three-course meal that we fought very hard for and earned. The starter was the apologies for the wrongful killing of Billy, and today is the dessert, financial retribution.

But they skipped the Main Course  Justice, which we have hungered for 53 years, and for which we can only hope.

The PPS review puts the justice we crave firmly on the plate, and only a prosecution will satisfy our need for the justice we rightly deserve.

Gary Duffy, Solicitor for the McGreanery family said: Todays settlement is a long overdue, but nevertheless, welcome endorsement of the familys campaign to uncover the truth around this unjustified and unjustifiable killing by a soldier in the British army.

This case highlights the value and merit of such legacy civil actions in truth recovery and obtaining justice. Furthermore, it exemplifies the need to move beyond the Legacy Act and its bar to prosecutions and inquests.

We look forward to the reinstatement of the familys inquest and for a decision on the prosecution of the soldier who shot and killed Billy.

Sara Duddy from the Pat Finucane Centre said:Over a decade ago, both the British government and the Ministry of Defence apologised to the family of Billy McGreanery following a review by the Historical Enquiries Team that found that their uncle was unarmed and posed no threat when Soldier A shot and killed him back in 1971.

Todays settlement is another acknowledgement for the wrong done that day and is welcomed by the McGreanery family.

However, the real justice would be for Soldier A to be held to account for his actions, and for the PPS now to reverse the decision not to prosecute.

We also have concerns that if the prosecution does not move forward, the family will also be denied the inquest they were granted by the Attorney General so close to the Legacy Act deadline.

The Secretary of State has been ambiguous in his commitment to reinstate ALL legacy inquest, prioritising those that were prematurely halted without assurances that those granted more recently will also go ahead.

Families will not accept the discredited ICRIR (Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery as any type of substitute.
MPs have voted in favour of a Northern Ireland pet travel scheme as part of the Windsor Framework, despite opposition from unionist parties.

On Wednesday MPs approved the draft Windsor Framework (Non-Commercial Movement of Pet Animals) Regulations 2024, with 412 in favour and 16 against.

The Windsor Framework is a post-Brexit agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom which replaces the Northern Ireland Protocol.

During a Delegated Legislation Committee meeting last week TUV leader Jim Allister said the move imposed a pet passport scheme.

He said: People must belong to a pet scheme and submit their dog, cat or ferret to documentary and identity checks on getting on the boat and on leaving the boatall that is within the one country.

All that is because, for the first time since Brexit, the EU has legislated for the United Kingdom. I want that to sink in.

He added: These regulations impose that foreign-made regulation, made not for the EUit is not applicable to the EUbut for this United Kingdom.

How is it that we have got to the point that this Committee is expected merely to nod to legislation made not by this House, for this United Kingdom?

It is not that it is imposing obligations unique to Northern Ireland; it is imposing obligations on GB citizens, who want to bring their pet to visit family, the Giants Causeway or the many tourist attractions in Northern Ireland.

Now, courtesy of the demands of this foreign EU legislation, they must belong to a pet scheme, apply for and obtain a pet passport, subject their pet to document and identity checks, and thenand only thencan they move their pet internally within the United Kingdom.

That is an astounding situation, and an astounding imposition on citizens of Great Britain.

Environment minister Emma Hardy said: The aim of the original Northern Ireland protocol and the framework was to avoid the need for any hard border, as I am sure (Mr Allister) knows, in the island of Ireland, between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The scheme safeguards that position.

The position that he advocates is one that does not existwe are not a member of the European Union.

We are fulfilling our requirements under the Windsor framework, because the Government believe in our international obligations.

We believe in keeping our word and in fulfilling our obligations.

When we make an agreement, as with the Windsor framework, we fulfil that agreement, and do everything we can to ensure that that is done in good faith.

During Northern Ireland questions last month the Government played down concerns over post-Brexit travel arrangements, amid calls in Westminster to liberate the people of Northern Ireland and our pets from EU diktat.

Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn told MPs the statutory instrument for the Northern Ireland pet travel scheme significantly reduces the requirements associated with the original Northern Ireland Protocol and provides a stable and long-term arrangement for those travelling with their pets within the UK.

Mr Allister went on to tell the Commons: When the grip of EU law controls even the movement of our pets within the United Kingdom isnt it clear weve gone far too far in regarding Northern Ireland as EU territory?

For that is the reason for this absurd regulation, which at the behest of the EU imposes pet passports if you want to bring your pet from GB to Northern Ireland.

Theres no point the Secretary of State saying it could have been worse, it shouldnt exist at all.

When will this Government get the EU off our back and liberate the people of Northern Ireland and our pets from EU diktat?

Mr Benn replied: Well, as I hope (Mr Allister) is aware, Northern Ireland pet owners will not face any checks and will not be required to hold a pet travel document so I think in discussing this theres an obligation on him and all of us to make sure we present the facts so that people are not unnecessarily troubled.
A tiling trainee from North West Regional College (NWRC) who won the gold medal in Wall and Floor Tiling at the 2024 SkillBuild NI Regional Competition will compete in the UK National Finals in Milton Keynes next week.

Rebecca Gavigan is the only student from Northern Ireland to qualify for the Wall and Floor Tiling competition and now faces a tough challenge in her bid to be crowned the winner at the finals.

However, for Greystone campus student Rebecca, who previously achieved a first-class honours degree in Fine Art, its all about precision, good preparation, and staying calm.

The former St Cecilias College pupil is now in the second year of a Traineeship at NWRC says shes enjoying learning a trade and hopes to progress to an apprenticeship in the future.

She added: Im looking forward to travelling to Milton Keynes its a tough few tough days of competition. I have received great support from my lecturers David McCay and Alan McLaughlin whove helped me prepare during the last few months.

Its a tight competition with some of the UKs top trainees and apprentices participating. I have no idea what Ill be asked to do but it will be a project, created by an expert panel of judges, that I will have 18 hours to complete.

Im hoping that my eye for detail will help me out.

David McCay, Lecturer, said Rebecca has been an exceptional student with a fantastic work ethic.

Tiling can be very physically demanding, he said, But Rebecca just gets on with it. Shes put in the hours preparing for this competition while also completing her traineeship.

We are proud that Rebecca has made it to the finals of Wall and Floor Tiling. The competition project will test knowledge, skills and abilities - and will be marked by the judges at the end of the three-day competition. Competitors will also need to be able to work under pressure within strict timelines, ensure they adhere to health and safety protocols and will need to impress with their talent and finesse.

Rebeccas competitors in Wall and Floor Tiling come from colleges in England and Wales as the British Army Royal Engineers.

SkillBuild, delivered by CITB, is the largest multi-trade competition in the UK for construction trainees and apprentices.

The finals take place in Milton Keynes from November 18-21.
by Philip Graham

For over twenty years I have been in awe of David Jauss as a writer, as a colleague and teacher, and above all for his insight into the contradictory human heart. His short stories have been gathered together in two essential collections, Glossolalia and Nice People, and many of these stories, I believe, take their rightful place among the best short fictions in American literature. He is a master of the precise, illuminating moment, and the clarity of his prose is deepened by his parallel work as a poet.

Its not surprising that his poetry collections, Improvising Rivers and You Are Not Here, are, in turn, informed by his work as a fiction writer. Jausss poems arent afraid of the tug of narrative. And because of his love of music, particularly jazz, he is more attuned than most writers to the importance of rhythm, unexpected harmonies, and structural invention in writing, whether prose or poetry.

Jauss is also the author of two important collections of craft essays, Alone with All that Could Happen, and, most recently, Words Made Flesh. David and I were colleagues for ten years at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and I remember quickly learning to attend his craft lectures. David knew how to see through the common cliches of creative writing advice, whether it might be the accepted modes of characterization, the flow of prose rhythm, use of epiphanies in short fiction, or constricting notions of what constitutes a plot. The audiences for his lectures were always filled with both students and fellow faculty members because we knew that, when David spoke, we would all become his apprentices, and happily so.

Philip Graham: As I was reading your latest collection of literary craft essays, Words Made Flesh, I kept thinking of this couplet from a poem in Fernando Pessoas The Keeper of Sheep (co-written with his heteronym Alberto Caeiro):

But what is a row of trees? There are just trees.

Row and the plural trees are names, not things.

Pessoa is speaking of a certain kind of sight here, one that rejects the hidden power of abstractions and instead embraces the importance of the particular. It seems to me you possess a similar sight. You read short stories and novels not as examples of categories, but as examples of themselves. Its a different approach from most books on the craft of writing (and a more rewarding one), and I wonder how you came to this particular perspective.

David Jauss: Well, maybe the best way I can answer your question is to say that I titled my book Words Made Flesh because thats what I want from literature: words that somehow transcend their inevitably abstract nature and conjure something as real and particular as flesh. Words that not only make us think but make us feel what we think. Whenever I read or write a story, thats what Im looking for. And I dont think its possible to read a story even halfway accurately unless you consider that story as particular: itself, not something that either lives up to or fails to live up to some abstract predetermined notion of what a story should be. Back in high school, the only things my English teachers seemed to want to discuss were a storys conflict (we were given the choice of four uber-abstract options: man against man, man against nature, man against self, and man against society) and its theme (a.k.a. what the author was trying to say, a phrase that annoyed the hell out of me because it implied the author hadnt already said what he or she wanted to say and needed us to step in and finish the job). This approach made stories seem even more abstract, more disconnected from life. What I wanted to know is how and why a story could affect me so strongly that I sometimes felt I had lived through the experiences it describes.

PG: Ha! Youre reminding me of my own long-ago dissatisfaction with the high school brand of literary analysis. While I cant remember most of the books taught in English class during my teen years, I do remember the novels and stories I chose to read on my own, outside of school.

DJ: Because I was so disappointed by the way my high school teachers talked about literature, I started paying very close attention to whatever I was reading, sort of walling it off from everything else Id read or heard and trying to see what it was in itself and how it actually worked, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and scene by scene. I like what you say about approaching stories not as examples of categories but as examples of themselves. Thats how I try to read everything. I want to see whats actually there, not whats supposed to be there or said to be there, and I want to figure out how the author managed to make me feel and think the way I did. So while I do categorize stories in various ways in both Words Made Flesh and Alone with All that Could Happen, my primary focus has always been on describing what a given story actually does, not prescribing how stories in general should be written. As I see it, you cant even begin to categorize stories accurately until youve understood how they achieve the effects they do. And although I started reading the way I do out of frustration with my high school teachers, I was lucky to have several teachers in both undergrad and grad school who helped me learn how to read better. And of course many, many writersincluding Pessoa and his heteronymstaught me a great deal, too.

PG: What a story actually does. How radical! This is what makes your craft essays so riveting, the sense that we are witnessing a work of literary art being deeply seen, and that this path of insight can be learned and followed. But Im guessing that this sort of blinders off reading skill wasnt easily achieved. Can you recall a specific aha! moment in your reading when you were younger?

DJ: I think I probably had more than a few aha! moments early on but one stands out in my memoryand its one that found its way into Words Made Flesh. I was taking an undergrad Intro to Lit course and one of our texts was Heart of Darkness. My aha! moment came near the end, when Marlow tells Kurtzs Intended that his last words were her name. As soon as I read that lie, I remembered what Marlow says earlier in the novella about how much he hates, detests, and cant bear a lie, then goes on to admit that he once went near enough to a lie by not correcting a young mans false assumption that Marlow had influential friends in Europe. I felt something like a jolt of electricity had leapt from that moment of the story to this one, and it literally knocked the breath out of me. What I realized was that Marlow was telling a near lie in order to preserve the Intendeds false assumptions about Kurtz and that beneath that lie was a metaphorical truth that was too dark to tell directly: that she was the horror, the horrorKurtzs actual last wordsand the heart of darkness was in all of us, even someone as refined and civilized as the Intended. That realization literally knocked the breath out of me, and I still trust my reaction to his lie. I believe everything in a great work of art is there for a reason, and I cant help but believe Marlows comment about a near lie is there to set us up to realize that Marlow is telling one at the end.

PG: I have to admit, having lived in small villages in West Africa I have long disliked Heart of Darkness. And the novels final pages with the Intended felt like little more than a sentimental add-on. But your reading transformed my sense of that scene. The correspondence about lying seems clear, though Id never noticed it before. Your aha moment became my aha moment. And thats one of the reasons why Words Made Flesh is such an important book, because you provide so many of those aha moments, a cascade of them in chapter after chapter.

For example, the chapter What Chekhov Teaches Us about Endings has twelve different sections (with titles such as Echo Endings and False Climaxes), and each of them contains multiple examples of how Chekhov artfully undermines a readers expectations of how to end a short story, and how those often-unusual endings serve to illuminate the stories characters. I felt I was on an epic journey throughout this chapter, seeing through your better eyes how to properly read. Those 25 pages seem to contain a lifetime of insight. Id love to hear some backstory about how you pulled it all together.

DJ: Well, I cant quite claim a lifetime of insight into Chekhov. When I first read him, I thought his stories were boring and plotless and I didnt understand what all the fuss was about. But eventually the aha! moments piled up and I gradually learned how to read him and now have long considered him short fictions GOAT. Hes been a major influence on virtually every modern and contemporary fiction writer, of course, but when it comes to endings, most of us have been far more influenced by Joyce and his climactic epiphanies. So many stories end with a blast-of-trumpets/choir-of-angels moment of sudden insight that such endings began to seem obligatory and cliched to me. In one of my earlier essays, I estimated that Ive vicariously experienced more than 25,000 characters brilliant, life-changing realizations in my reading life but didnt feel more than one whit wiser. But I always feel wiser after reading Chekhov, whose stories consistently end in surprising and innovative ways. I wrote my essay about his endings in hopes that itd inspire some of us to follow his lead and look for new and better ways to end our stories.

PG: Early in your reading of Chekhovs stories, was there one story in particular that impressed you with its ending, that alerted you to the richness to be discovered in the rest of his fiction?

DJ: Yes, Gusev. It has the most astonishing ending Ive ever readutterly unexpected, original, and powerful as hell. The first dozen or so pages of the story convey the delirious thoughts of Gusev, one of several sick soldiers in a ships infirmary. Its clear that Gusev is going to die but just when were expecting the kind of epiphanic death scene we see in The Death of Ivan Ilyich and other stories of that time (and now), Chekhov shifts the point of view away from himand not to another character but to non-human nature. He describes Gusevs burial at sea from the perspective of a school of pilot fish, a shark, and, even, the sea itself, which at first frowns at the sky above it but then reflects its tender, joyous, passionate colors for which it is hard to find a name in the language of man. The story ends, in short, with the language of nature. By personifying impersonal nature, Chekhov depersonalizes Gusev and emphasizes natures indifference to his death and his lifeand by extension, to our deaths and our lives. When I read that ending, I realized Chekhov was an author unlike any other Id ever read and I needed to reread the stories that I had thought merely stopped rather than ended and try to discover just what he was doing in his endings.

PG: Ah yes, the joy and necessity of rereading! And maybe thats the essential power of your craft essays, in both Words Made Flesh and Alone with All that Could Happen: your insights send a reader back to the original texts, to see with new eyes, rather than squint through the lens of some ideological hobbyhorse about what a story or a novel is supposed to be. Were back to Pessoas very specific tree, rather than a gathering of trees fit into the abstract notion of a row, arent we? Im thinking especially about your essay What We See with, in which you redefine the notion of plot. Rather than recommending a single, monolithic organizing principle, one characterized by a focus on causality and character change, as most authors of fiction writing guides tend to do, you instead delve into the specific structures of individual stories and novels. And in so doing, you come up with several different possibilities of how a plot might unfold. Plots can be episodic or juxtapositional, lyrical or associative, and yet still engage a reader to the last page.

DJ: Youre absolutely right about rereading. Just as revision is essential to good writing, rereading is essential to good readingand to maximum pleasure and understanding. Reading a story once is like a one-night stand; rereading it numerous times over the course of years is like a marriage, and I recommend that all readers be polygamists. And youre right again that each time I read a story, Im trying to see it, Pessoa-like, for what it actually is, not for what its abstractly purported or supposed to be. One of the most important things Ive learned from reading stories this way is that many are organized by principles other than causality and character change. Unfortunately, most literary scholars and authors of creative writing guides tend to dismiss non-causal stories as plotless and make little or no effort to discover how theyre structured. In What We See with, I discuss forty-some stories from a wide variety of old and new masters that exemplify seven different organizing principles. Most of these stories are well-known and frequently anthologized and taught, but their innovative approaches to plot have been largely ignored.

PG: I was particularly impressed by your analysis of a story by Lucia Berlin, from her selected short stories. Ive had that collection on a bookshelf for years, and Im ashamed to say that Ive never quite gotten around to reading it. But now Berlins book has moved from the bookshelf to my night table!

DJ: Lucia Berlins A Manual for Cleaning Women is one of many excellent examples of a type of story that combines two or more plot forms to create a hybrid plot. Her story is an episodic, non-chronological, and non-causal account of the narrators bus rides to work, conversations with other cleaning women, and snippets of scenes with the various people whose houses she cleans, but as the title suggests, Berlins narrator Maggie regularly departs from the episodic account of her work life to pass along expository advice to cleaning women.

But this expository plot is not the only one that interrupts the episodic plot; ultimately, the story also contains a causal plot about Maggie and her grief over her husbands recent death. Like the expository advice plot, the causal plot is woven into the episodic plot in bits and pieces, creating a contrapuntal rhythm to the surface action of the story, and we begin to realize that Maggie is desperately trying to repress her grief by focusing on minor, even inconsequential matters. Then, in the final two pages, the surface episodic plot and the implied causal plot intersect: Berlin gives us a scene with Maggie and Mrs. Johnson, an eighty-year-old widow who distracts herself from the loss of her husband by working on picture puzzles. Mrs. Johnson is distraught because theres a piece missing from one of the puzzles, but Maggie finds it for her and the old woman is almost as happy as if she found what shes really missingher husband. Only after this encounter with another grieving widow do we get the climactic moment of Maggies causal plot, which has in effect been a shadow plot. The storys last sentence reads: I finally weep. Combining plot formsbe they causal or non-causalis a major way that fiction writers have lived up to Ezra Pounds injunction to Make it new, and recognizing hybrid plots can help readers not only understand the stories originality but also understand how it was achieved.

PG: Since youve mentioned creative writing guides, Id like to discuss your chapter on characterization, Homo Fictus vs. Homo Sapiens. You find much of the advice about this subject in many of these guides as wrong-headed, especially when that advice is based on conventional wisdom rather than open-eyed close-reading. And that conventional wisdom goes back at least to E. M. Forster, the conviction you succinctly describe in Words Made Flesh that characters dont become real until we know everything there is to know about them. Though of course in our daily lives the people we are closest to, the people we think we know best, are also laced with mystery.

DJ: With the possible exception of plot, creative writing guides are typically least helpful on the subject of characterization. The authors of such guides often quote approvingly Keatss famous definition of the quality most essential to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, a quality that Shakespeare possessed so enormously. That quality, he said, was Negative Capability, which he defines as the ability to be in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. Yet when it comes to characterization, the authors of craft guides almost universally recommend what Id call Positive Capability, the ability to know with absolute certainty every blessed thing about our principal characters, including such trivial matters as the kind of underwear they prefer. And some craft guides go so far as to say we should know everything about our protagonists before we begin writing. Me, I believe that any character who is fully known at any point in the story, much less before the story is even started, is too devoid of mystery to be plausible. As Robert Boswell has said, Heres another definition of stereotype: any character that is fully known. I believe genuinely successful characters are not assembled from a pre-fab list of factoids but are discovered through the process of writing about them and imaginatively experiencing what they experience.

PG: I never bought into the Know Everything school of thought, even though that approach was often espoused in the craft texts I taught to my undergraduates. I found myself teaching against some of the advice in those books. Especially since my own experience in creating characters in fiction was a messy, intuitive, often surprising process. Sort of like getting to know any other living, breathing human being.

DJ: Virtually all craft guides also affirm that the key to characterization is motivation, which they associate with the characters desire. But equating desire and motivation raises the question of what motivated the desire. Why does Ahab want to wreak vengeance on Moby-Dick for taking his leg while Captain Boomer, who lost an arm to the same whale, doesnt? And what if a character has a clearly defined desire and achieves it, as the charming Vanda does in Chekhovs A Gentleman Friend, but the author is far more interested in a desire the character lacks? In any case, in real lifeand in great literaturemotivation is never so completely understood. Witness Hamlet, that bundle of contradictions who still fascinates us all these centuries later. As the scholar K. L. Cook has said, Hamlet seems both brilliant and foolish, spiritual and crude, melancholy and manic, empathetic and callous, indecisive to the point of paralysis at one point and then suicidally impulsive at others. And Hamlet himself says in one of his soliloquies that I do not know / Why yet I live to say This things to do, / Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means, / To dot. I think truly realistic characters are, like Hamlet, not so entirely aware of their motivations that we can fully know them. I like George Saunderss definition of a successful character: the sum total of moments we cant explain.

PG: Its the unknowability of others that ultimately keeps us returning to them. People (and literary characters) arent jigsaw puzzles that can be finished. And we are always refreshing our memories as we go along, adding nuance (if were paying attention) to what we thought we understood about a friend, a lover, a parent, a spouse, a character.

DJ: Yes, and our understanding of the various techniques and strategies available to fiction writers are also things we refresh throughout our lives. A former student recently asked me what Id title my two craft books if they were combined into one volume, and I answered with a joke that isnt really a joke: Everything I Wish Id Known when I Started Writing. If Id known fifty-some years ago what I know now, I think I would have written much better stories. There are a few stories that Im mostly pleased withGlossolalia, Torque, Tell Me Something, What They Didnt Notice, and Firelightand there are passages, scenes, and characters in other stories that please me, but on the whole Im disappointed with the stories Ive written. Ive gotten a lot of praise for them and even won some awards, but I mostly just notice their flaws. All of my stories have been revised numerous times throughout my lifelike Bernard Malamud, I love the flowers of afterthoughtso some of my later understanding has worked its way into them, I suppose, but Im sure they all would be a good deal better if Id known more when I wrote their first versions.

PG: Theres a certain humblenesswhich is as far from false modesty as can bein this and your other responses in our conversation that I think are key to your powers as a reader, David. You dont approach any work of art believing that you know more than the author. Instead, you read each work as if an apprentice, despite your many accomplishments as a writer of fiction yourself. Youre open to fresh insight and surprise. And with your own developing short stories you apply this same openness. Even after they have been published, you continue the dialogue. The stories youve mentioned above are among my favorite stories of all time, but I have many, many more favorites. Brutality is a story that has haunted me for years, the way it so tenderly depicts the potentially dangerous moment when a couple has to expand their understanding of each other. Ive never read another story quite like it.

Im so curious about your continuing dedication to revision. I wonder if you could share your thought process when you realized one of your stories, post-publication, could be improved?

DJ: Some writers believe that the revision process should end when a work is published, but I think it should end only when the author stops breathing. My old friend and one-time colleague Richard Hugo disparaged writers who revised previously published work as time effacers, but I dont think the purpose of a work of literature is to be a snapshot of who I was or what I thought at a given time in my life. And since time plans to efface me, I dont feel the least bit guilty about effacing as much of it as I can.

In my essay The Flowers of Afterthought, I discuss fourteen strategies for revision, all of which Ive used over and over for many years. With the exception of my first book, Crimes of Passion, which I very substantially rewrote before Dzanc Books reprinted it twenty years later, the revisions Ive made to my previously published stories have been relatively minormostly cuts and additions and numerous sentence-level changes. I revised all thirty of the stories that appear in my three other books, and I revised five of them again before they appeared in anthologies. I will consider the revisions final only when my EKG flatlines.

PG: Theres a certain attitude that most writers, I think, havealmost a superstitious onethat the published version is the final version. Though I think many writers also believe that any published story or novel could be improved upon, if only. If only it hadnt become an historical record of ones inner life. Hey, dont mess with the archeological field site! But why cant a story continue to live and breathe, if theres more to be discovered?

DJ: I havent always been patient enough to delay publishing my stories until they truly deserved to appear, however. One story I published much too early was called Dear Husband and it was in the form of a letter a woman wrote to her husband to explain why she was leaving him. I regretted publishing that story almost immediately, and over the course of a couple years I revised it a few times but still wasnt happy. The only truly substantial revisions of it I did were inspired by something the great Grace Paley said during a talk at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I was teaching. She said Every story is actually two stories and the climax is when they collide. As soon as she said that, I realized Dear Husband was at best only one story and I set about working a second story into it. I dumped the first-person letter format and wrote a third-person version that focused on both the woman and her husband and their conflicts, one that drove them apart and another that brought them back together but also created a new conflict between mother and daughter. The story grew to be almost three times its original length and I dont think more than a half dozen sentences of the first version remained. I thought the story was as good as I could make it at the time and sent it to one of my favorite magazines. After the story was published, I read it a couple of times to audiences, including once at the U of Illinois, where a certain very wise and talented fiction writer gave me some terrific advice about how to improve it. So I revised the story one more time before I published it in my book Glossolalia: New & Selected Stories (Press 53, 2013), this time under the title Constellations. Im still not 100% satisfied with the story but I believe Ive made it a far, far better story than it was originally, and Im happy I effaced all of the times I wrote earlier versions of it.

PG: Ah, Constellations, another favorite. Theres a quite dramatic (and essential scene) in that story, but for me the greatest drama is the wife quietly discovering the ability to forgive. Its the invisible current in a story that brings life. Understanding what she couldnt before, she sees, deeply, and this fictional moment seems to track well with your achievements as a literary critic: allowing oneself to see with open eyes, and not allowing that gaze to skim over what doesnt fit some preconceived notion. Thank you, David, for this conversation that has allowed my already high appreciation of your essays and stories to expand.

DJ: I cant thank you enough for all of your generous words about my essays and stories. Since you asked me not to end our interview by complimenting you (even though thats exactly what Id most like to do, given that I revere your writing and would love to encourage the whole wide world to read your astonishing new novel What the Dead Can Say), Ill close with one of my favorite quotes about writing. In her Paris Review interview, Jean Rhys says, Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I dont matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake. I hope Words Made Flesh and Alone with All that Could Happen will help whoever reads them to feed the lake.

***

David Jauss is the author of the craft books Words Made Flesh: The Craft of Fiction and Alone with All that Could Happen: On Writing Fiction and four collections of short stories, most recently Glossolalia: New & Selected Stories and Nice People: New & Selected Stories II. His fiction has been reprinted in the Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Award, and Pushcart Prize anthologies and in The Best Short Stories from The Pushcart Prize. His honors include the AWP Award for Short Fiction, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a James A. Michener/Copernicus Society of America Fellowship. He taught fiction writing for many years at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock and in the low-residency MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Philip Graham is the author of eight books of fiction and nonfiction, including The Art of the Knock: Stories; The Moon, Come to Earth: Dispatches from Lisbon; and (as Author Unseen) the novel What the Dead Can Say. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Washington Post Magazine, Paris Review, McSweeneys, and elsewhere, and has been reprinted or translated in seven countries. A Professor Emeritus of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, he was a co-founder of the literary/arts journal Ninth Letter and is currently the Editor-at-Large for the journals website.
Rebecca Gavigan, a tiling trainee from North West Regional College (NWRC), will compete in the SkillBuild UK National Finals in Milton Keynes next week.

Rebecca is the only student from Northern Ireland to qualify for the Wall and Floor Tiling competition after winning a gold medal in the category at the 2024 SkillBuild NI Regional Competition.

SkillBuild, which is delivered by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), is the largest multi-trade competition in the UK for construction trainees and apprentices.

Rebecca faces a tough challenge to be crowned the winner at the UK finals next week, but it's all in a day's work for the Derry woman who has previously received a first-class honours degree in Fine Art.

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A former student of St Cecilia's College, Rebecca is now in her second year of a traineeship with NWRC.

Commenting on her participation in the competition, Rebecca said: "Im looking forward to travelling to Milton Keynes its a tough few tough days of competition. I have received great support from my lecturers David McCay and Alan McLaughlin whove helped me prepare during the last few months.

"Its a tight competition with some of the UKs top trainees and apprentices participating. I have no idea what Ill be asked to do but it will be a project, created by an expert panel of judges, that I will have 18 hours to complete.

"Im hoping that my eye for detail will help me out."

Rebecca's lecturer David McCay has praised her skill and determination, saying she has been an "exceptional student" with a "fantastic work ethic."

He said: "Tiling can be very physically demanding, but Rebecca just gets on with it. Shes put in the hours preparing for this competition while also completing her traineeship.

"We are proud that Rebecca has made it to the finals of Wall and Floor Tiling. The competition project will test knowledge, skills and abilities - and will be marked by the judges at the end of the three-day competition.

"Competitors will also need to be able to work under pressure within strict timelines, ensure they adhere to health and safety protocols and will need to impress with their talent and finesse."

The finals will take place in Milton Keynes next week from Monday, 18 November to Thursday, 21 November.
Author Paddy Hillyard has Derry launched his new book Decades of Deceit: The Stalker Affair and its Legacy in the Museum of Free Derry.

The Saturday afternoon event took the form of a conversation between himself and Bill Rolston, emeritus professor of the Transitional Justice Institute at Ulster University.

A rapt audience listened as the two men discussed the events around the eponymous Stalker Inquiry and its subsequent fallout.

In 1984, John Stalker, then Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, began an investigation into the shootings of alleged members of the IRA by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Stalker was removed from the Inquiry in 1986 as a result of false accusations made about his friend, Manchester businessman Kevin Taylor.

Speaking to The Derry News, Mr Hillyard, who is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Queens University, Belfast, said he had never believed the official line there was just a coincidence of events between Manchester and Belfast.

Taylor brought a civil action against Greater Manchester Police for malicious prosecution. He had been charged with fraud but the trial had collapsed and in 1995, he was awarded 2.4 million in compensation. Although Greater Manchester Police did not accept any responsibility, it agreed to the settlement, said Mr Hillyard.

I then got to know Kevin Taylor because I was still fascinated by the story. How somebody like Stalker could be so easliy removed from a very important investigation.

He gave me access to his criminal trial and civil action transcripts, which I then analyised very, very carefully. One of the things I discovered was a document used in June 1984 to suggest Stalker was associating with Taylor and Taylor was a member of the Quality Street Gang [an alleged Manchester crime gang] was a forgery. The first part of the book analyses in detail all of that information.

The legacy aspect of it was that Stalker obviously discovered the MI5 counterinsurgency strategy which was put in place in 1981, in secret, by Sir Patrick Walker - director general of MI5 from 1988 to 1992.

That transformed policing fundamentally from the detection and prosecution of crime to a system based on intelligence. Intelligence became the principal driving force of everything from then on. The police and the army were encouraged to get as many informers in the paramilitary organisations as possible. They recruited informers wherever they could in order to supply intelligence, said Paddy Hillyard.

According to Mr Hillyard, Sir Desmond de Silva, who conducted a desktop review into the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane, discovered there was no legal framework for running informers.

He added: What you have running through from 1981 right the way through until the end of the conflict was a counterinsurgency strategy which was not based on the rule of law.

What you then have, of course is, when Stalker and [Colin] Sampson, who subsequently replaced Stalker, recommended various police officers should be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice, the Attorney General said that wasnt in the national interest.

Then in 1989 you have the murder of a law officer of the crown, Pat Finucane, and it was then disclosed that two informers were involved in his murder. Then subsequently MI5, which I discovered, wanted to recruit another person who was involved in that murder after all these events had taken place.

Paul O'Connor (Pat Finucane Centre) with from left, Bill Roulston, Paddy Hillyard (author), at the launch of his book 'Decades of Deceit - The Stalker Affair and it's Legacy' held in the Museum of Free Derry. On right is Adrian Kerr, Manager, Museum of Free Derry.

What you have and what my central argument in the book is, Stalkers discovery of the MI5 strategy had to be kept secret at all costs. As a result of that it has meant the people who devised the strategy, the high ups in MI5 and the British Government are never going to be prosecuted for malfeasance in public office.

Also, a number of people who were involved in handling informers in all this period, are never going to be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice because they knew that people were allowed to commit murder with impunity.

A section of the audience at the book launch.

It was Paddy Hillyards thesis Stalker was removed from the shoot-to-kill inquiry because he was making too many demands for access to the hayshed tape and information about informers.

Michael Tighe (17) was shot dead and Martin mcCauley (19) was seriously injured when RUC officers opened fire on a County Armagh hayshed in Novemebr 1992. It emerged MI5 had a device hidden inside the hayshed.

Decades of Deceit: The Stalker Affair and its Legacy is published by Beyond the Pale Books and costs 20.
A final decision not to prosecute a Stormont department for corporate manslaughter over the death of schoolboy Noah Donohoe has been taken, a court has heard.

Noah, 14, was found dead in a storm drain owned by the Department of Infrastructure (DFI) in north Belfast in 2020, six days after he went missing.

His mother Fiona Donohoe is hoping to secure answers to some of the questions surrounding the death of her son through the inquest process.

Ms Donohoe was at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast on Thursday for the latest preliminary hearing in the long-running case.

The full inquest is expected to take place next year.

In 2021, police launched an investigation into suspected corporate manslaughter in relation to how DFI managed access to the drain network.

In 2022, the PSNI passed a file onto the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) which decided not to pursue charges against the department.

However, it then decided to review that decision following a request from Ms Donohoes legal team.

Providing an update to court on Thursday, counsel to the coroner Peter Coll KC said a letter had been sent from the PPS to the coroners service on October 25 relating to the finalisation of the decision not to prosecute DFI.

A spokesperson for the PPS confirmed the original decision not to prosecute had been upheld.

The spokesperson said: In line with the review procedure set out in the PPS Code for Prosecutors, a senior public prosecutor considered all the available evidence and applied the test for prosecution afresh.

The information considered included all the evidence in the police investigation file, the advice of a senior barrister independent of the PPS and a new report by a health and safety expert.

All the evidence was considered solely from the perspective of whether any action by the department amounted to criminal conduct.

The spokesperson added: Following this process, it was determined that the evidence is insufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction, and therefore the original decision not to prosecute is upheld.

We wrote to Ms Donohoe in July 2024 to explain the detailed reasons for the outcome of the review, and offered to address any further questions she may have.

We assured Ms Donohoe that the decision was taken only after the most careful and impartial consideration of all the available evidence, the circumstances of the case and all relevant legal issues.

During the lengthy review hearing, Mr Coll updated the court on a number of issues relating to the disclosure process and preparation of expert reports ahead of the full inquest.

Counsel for Ms Donohoe, Brenda Campbell KC, also updated the court on a photograph of a hand found on Noahs phone believed to have been taken on the night he went missing.

During a previous hearing, Ms Campbell said an expert had discovered the image and it raised the prospect that the phone had been in the possession of someone else after Noah went missing.

During the latest hearing, she said: It seems that there is no dispute as to the timing of the photograph, or there is unlikely to be a dispute that a photograph was taken on his phone at that time.

But as to the who, why, and where questions, we dont yet have a response from those that are working on it within the PSNI.

We wont be able to progress with our experts report until we have some of those answers.

READ NEXT: Case against Limavady man charged with attempted murder of his partner to be reviewed

Counsel for the PSNI Donal Lunny KC said he was hopeful that written answers could be provided in the next week.

The inquest into Noahs death was originally scheduled to take place last year but was then delayed after a ruling that it should proceed with a jury, following an application from Ms Donohoe.

The original coroner, Joe McCrisken, has since recused himself from the case. The inquest will now be heard by Mr Justice Rooney.

A provisional date for the inquest has been set for February 3 next year, but it is not expected that it will be ready to proceed on that date.

Mr Justice Rooney said he would review progress in the case again before Christmas.
Stormonts leaders have thanked outgoing US special envoy Joe Kennedy for his commitment to Northern Ireland.

Mr Kennedy is in the region for a series of events marking his time in office, including meeting First Minister Michelle ONeill and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly.

He was appointed to the envoy position with a focus on economic affairs by US President Joe Biden in December 2022.

During his time in the post he was involved in events such as Mr Bidens visit to the island of Ireland and Belfast hosting 25th anniversary celebrations of the Good Friday Agreement.

Ms ONeill said: I want to thank Joe Kennedy for all his work as special envoy, helping to open doors for local businesses into the US market.

He has been instrumental in developing many economic opportunities, bringing US business delegations to our shores and supporting our businesses on overseas missions.

It is clear to see that Joe opened his heart to this place and our people. It has been a privilege to witness everything he has achieved, and I wish him well for the future.

Ms Little-Pengelly added: As the US special envoy for economic affairs, Joe Kennedy has been a great advocate for Northern Ireland. His endorsement has been invaluable when it comes to advancing our economic development and inward investment prospects.

Northern Ireland is a great place to live, work and invest and I appreciate Joes commitment to showcasing this place as an attractive location for US investors. His support has helped deliver tangible benefits that will make a real difference.

I am grateful for the dedication he has shown to promoting everything we have to offer and wish him all the best for his future endeavours.

Stormont speaker Edwin Poots hosted a joint ceremony at Parliament Buildings on Wednesday during which Queens University Belfast and Ulster University conferred honorary doctorates on Mr Kennedy.

Mr Poots said: When Joe Kennedy was first appointed as special envoy by President Biden, it was rightly recognised as a significant appointment.

It is fair to say that he was appointed at a challenging time in local politics.

However, the energy and positivity Joe Kennedy brought to the role was entirely fitting for the resumption of business in this Assembly and the appointment of a new Executive.

He added: Regardless of their individual political views, I know that members of this Assembly are united in recognising Northern Ireland as a special place which can have a great future if we fulfil our responsibilities to encourage and unleash it. In all of the discussions I have had with him, I know Joe Kennedy needs no convincing of that.

He has made a point of being out on the ground, meeting people and organisations from across our economy and society.

I know how impressed Joe Kennedy has been and that he shares my passion for how much Northern Ireland and our people have to offer.

The event, which included a reception, was the first time both universities had come together to jointly bestow honorary doctorates.
Climate change and cybersecurity are the key challenges facing society in the future, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn has said.

But Mr Benn expressed optimism, describing the region as a place with a long history of innovation, referencing mechanic Harry Ferguson who developed the modern tractor and the links to Belfast of pneumatic tyre inventor John Dunlop.

Mr Benn made the remarks while addressing the third day of the Global Innovation Summit 2024 at Queens University Belfast, appearing alongside US special envoy Joe Kennedy.

He paid tribute to the work of Mr Kennedy, who earlier this week was made an honorary graduate of the university.

Mr Benn told those gathered: Nowhere is human ingenuity needed more urgently than in tackling climate change and also in protecting the natural world on which all human life depends.

The question is not whether we need to act, the question is how quickly are we going to get on with it.

He warned that delay was dangerous and would cost more in the long run, highlighting the goal of making the UK a clean energy superpower as one of the five missions of the Government.

He said Northern Ireland was in a fine position to be at the forefront of creating clean homegrown energy, creating jobs and supporting growth.

In terms of cybersecurity, he described living in dangerous times with so much dependency on technology.

Protecting citizens and governments from malicious attacks by hackers and cyber terrorists is really important and it is a challenge that is constantly evolving, he said.

Mr Benn added: We are going to need all of the innovation in all of the forms to help us move forward. Our future may be uncertain but it will be determined above all by political leadership.
Stormonts Health Minister has proposed a two-stage process to deliver a recommended pay rise for health workers in a move he hopes will avert strike action.

Mike Nesbitt held talks with health unions and the professional bodies for dentists and doctors on Thursday to discuss the pay issue.

The meeting came after Mr Nesbitt earlier this week refused to support an Executive funding reallocation exercise, insisting the 350 million given to his department was not enough to cover recommended pay rises for healthcare staff.

Despite receiving 57% of the total funds shared among departments, the minister insisted he is still 100 million short of the money he needs to make pay awards of at least 5.5% to all health staff.

The PA news agency understands the minister has now proposed to make the pay award in two stages, with the first award backdated to August, rather than April.

Mr Nesbitt has said he will then work with Executive colleagues to find the funds required to cover the outstanding four months worth of backdating, with that paid at a later date.

Medics and other health workers in Northern Ireland are demanding parity with colleagues elsewhere in the UK.

There are two health sector pay bodies.

The NHS Pay Review Body, which makes recommendations on the pay of staff on the Agenda for Change terms and conditions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has recommended a 5.5% increase for 2024/25.

The review body for pay for doctors and dentists in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has recommended a 6% increase.

After his meetings on Thursday, Mr Nesbitt said he was now involved in a process with the unions and professional bodies after detailed and constructive discussions.

I put my plan to them, I think theyve accepted it as a serious proposition, but thats one they need to take away, think about and consult upon, he said.

And, equally, they have put things to me that I have to take away, and in the first instance, discuss with the First Minister (Michelle ONeill) and the deputy First Minister (Emma Little-Pengelly), and I will try and do that as a matter of urgency.

Some of these decisions, I think, have to be Executive-wide, and in discussions with the first ministers yesterday, Im content that they now agree that that is the case right across all these issues of public sector pay.

The representative body for doctors, the BMA NI, said not making the full pay award would be unacceptable.

Dr Alan Stout, BMA NI Council chair, said: At our meeting today the minister informed us that he is not in a position to make the full pay award.

On behalf of all doctors in Northern Ireland, I made it clear this was totally unacceptable.

I will now meet with the chairs of all the BMA branch of committees in Northern Ireland to seek their views on how to proceed.

The scale of anger and outrage I have been hearing over the course of the last week is unprecedented.

Doctors here are totally disillusioned with the Department of Health and its attitude towards doctors pay.

They seem to believe that by paying us less than counterparts in the rest of the UK, it will somehow motivate us to work harder to address the chaos our health system is in.

Without staff, our health service cannot function.

It really is time to stop this cycle of doctors here constantly playing catch-up with the rest of the UK on pay.

Pay awards need to be built into the financial planning the department undertakes, so they are not constantly caught by surprise at the notion staff will get a pay rise.

Mondays October monitoring round exercise allocated around 630 million of additional day-to-day spending funds that came to Northern Ireland after the UK Governments Budget last month.

Finance Minister Caoimhe Archibald has warned that, despite the funding boost from the Chancellors Budget, the devolved administration is still overcommitted by around 180 million this year.

She has made clear that ministers need to find more savings and balance the books, highlighting that failure to balance the overall Stormont budget by the end of the financial year would see the Westminster Government withdraw a previous offer to write off 559 million of debt owed to the Treasury.

The Treasury offer, made by the last government, to set aside the 559 million was conditional on the Executive delivering a balanced budget in 2024/25.

The 180 million shortfall has placed a question mark over the Executives ability to deliver a range of pay awards across the public sector.

On Wednesday, three of the largest trade unions representing teachers in Northern Ireland announced they will ballot members for industrial action over pay.
Four men have been arrested following protests while former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton visited Queens University in Belfast.

Police have said they will be maintaining a presence in the area following minor unrest during a pro-Palestinian protest earlier in the day.

The former US presidential candidate was speaking at the final day of the Global Innovation Summit 2024 at the university, where she is the chancellor.

Protesters chanted shame and carried Palestine flags and a cut-out of Mrs Clinton depicted with blood on her hands.

Footage from outside the hall where Mrs Clinton was speaking showed angry exchanges and scuffles between protesters and police.

A PSNI spokesperson said: Police have arrested four men following public order offences in the University Road area of south Belfast.

The men were arrested on suspicion of numerous offences and remain in police custody at this time.

Officers will remain in the south Belfast area this evening and a full robust investigation will follow in due course.

In a statement, Queens University said that while they respected the right to protest peacefully, it was disappointed at the action of this small number of protesters and condemn their behaviour.

Todays protest coincided with the final day of a three-day international conference, the Global Innovation Summit, which brought together political, industry and academic leaders to discuss pressing issues around economic inclusion and sustainability facing our world, it said.

The conference itself provided a platform for people to discuss and debate different views constructively on current global issues.

Queens is committed to providing an open and safe space to have difficult conversations.

Queens University has led the way in response to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East through calling for a ceasefire, providing scholarships for Palestinian students and divestment policies and has responded positively to the concerns of our university population where appropriate.

Meanwhile, Mrs Clinton told the conference that Belfast is reinventing itself after the end of decades of conflict.

She said: Youve heard so much over the course of the last few days about Belfast, another city that is quickly reinventing itself and one of the main reasons, I would argue, is because of the end of conflict, which I was very  like so many of us  gratified to see, she said in her afternoon address.

We had an extraordinary conference here a year-and-a-half ago to celebrate the Good Friday Agreement, the end of conflict, a moving away from the past to look towards the future, the very strong relationship that this university, in particular, but others have with the business community, forging public-private partnerships.

There is no path for innovation unless you support higher education. Higher education has to be viewed as a public good that businesses, governments, citizens understand.

She said that she had seen some projects being carried out by young entrepreneurs in schools in Northern Ireland that afternoon, which focused on making new products using recycled clothes and 3D printing.

Young children, between the ages of like 11 and 18 or 19, theyre being given a chance to learn about the entrepreneurial opportunities and that goes hand-in-hand with education, with skills acquisition in order to create a competitive economy. And of course, government has to play its role.

Mrs Clinton also said it was an honour to be the chancellor of Queens University and said she could not express how pleased I am to be here.
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Taiwan's vibrant tech ecosystem offers partnership opportunities for space launch service startups

Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), through the Small and Medium Enterprise and Startup Administration (SMESA), organizes the International SpaceTech Startup Supporting Program, a key initiative within the Taiwan Accelerator Plus (TAcc+). This year, TAcc+ invited eleven startups from seven countries to Taiwan to connect with local research institutions and supply chain players.

Now in its second year, the program aims to connect local startups with the information and communication technology (ICT) supply chain while attracting talented SpaceTech startups from around the globe to Taiwan. By fostering

partnerships between established companies and emerging startups, the program seeks to promote innovation and support international expansion.

Among the exciting participants in this year's initiative are three innovative startups specializing in launch service:

DBSpaceS.r.l.

DBSpace is the first IP factory in the world to focus on next-generation electric pumps and enabling the future of propulsion.

The startup was established in Italy in 2021. Founders have long multi-industry work experiences matured in world-class organizations (including NASA, Rolls-Royce, ESA, Ferrari, and Uber), a track record of technology delivery at high Technology Readiness Levels, and several experiences as entrepreneurs.

DBSpace is dedicated to making high-performance propulsion systems both affordable and simple, offering a comprehensive solution for reusable, cost-effective, and scalable e-pumps. The commitment to innovation enables superior performance through robust technical expertise and a unique "IP factory" platform. By utilizing standardized and scalable technology within an agile R&D framework, DBSpace achieves faster time-to-market and lower costs. The proprietary technology supports the latest trends in space propulsion, including cryogenic liquid methane and LOX, as well as storable green propellants, making it adaptable for a wide range of applications.

The e-pumps can be seamlessly integrated into various propulsion systems, including spacecraft, orbital transfer vehicles, kick-stages, planetary exploration vehicles, landers, cargo vehicles, and nano- and micro-launchers. After successfully testing numerous prototypes, DBSpace has garnered interest from multiple companies eager to explore these technological solutions. Letters of Intent have already been signed towards technology and commercial partnerships. Currently, tech demonstrators are being developed for integration into engine test beds, with plans for the first space validation in operational environments.

DBSpace employs a dual strategy that focuses on applications both in space and on Earth, driving the development of cutting-edge propulsion systems across various industries, including space, aviation, clean mobility, and energy. The visit to Taiwan is aimed at engaging with the local space and high-tech ecosystem and exploring potential partnerships with manufacturers of rockets, space vehicles, and propulsion systems. Additionally, opportunities in components manufacturing and parts supply are considered, as Taiwan serves as a strategic gateway to the Asia-Pacific region.

Fruitful trip leading to future partnerships

Having visited the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA), Advanced Rocket Research Center (ARRC) of NYCU, TiSpace, and several mechanical parts and component suppliers, DBSpace found that they are ideal customers or partners because the company provides technology for propulsion systems. This trip to Taiwan proved to be very fruitful because it also found a potential future partnership with a startup that makes payload systems.

DBSpacewas very impressed by Taiwan's semiconductor industry. It aims to build partnerships with local component providers to help it prepare for larger product batches or even mass production in the future.

The startup was keen to progress conversations also with micro-launcher manufacturers and looked forward to expanding into the market in Asia. There could be opportunities for DBSpace employees to be stationed in Taiwan in the future.

Ethereal Exploration Guild Private Limited

EtherealX is building the world's first, fully reusable medium-lift launch vehicle/rocket, Razor Crest Mk-1. At a maximum 96-hour turnaround for a launch and a launch price as low as $350/kilo, which is 1/35th of the current global launch price average ($12,500/kilo), EtherealX reserves the capacity to enter the market as a disrupter with an opening to significant share. This makes EtherealX the go-to choice for earth-to-orbit and back transportation. The company said the only operational competitor currently in this class is SpaceX, which is booked out until 2026.

The founding team of EtherealX consists of highly skilled aerospace professionals, including CEO and Co-Founder Manu J. Nair, a distinguished scientist and astronaut candidate with extensive research experience at organizations like IIAS and ISRO, as well as leadership roles at Manastu Space. COO and Co-Founder Shubhayu Sardar brings nearly a decade of experience from ISRO, where he excelled in engineering, assembly, integration, and testing of PSLV and GSLV rockets, and played a key role in establishing the first Astronaut Training Facility in Bengaluru. Finally, CTO and Co-Founder Prashant Sharma contributed significant technical expertise, with 2,000 seconds of engine test firing experience and a track record of developing a semi-cryogenic engine-powered rocket that reached an altitude beyond the Karman Line. Together, they are well-positioned to drive advancements in the aerospace sector.

EtherealX, fueled by a $5 million seed round led by YourNest, is committed to making space access more democratic as a crucial step in human progress. The company plans to launch a Technology Demonstrator Vehicle commercially in 2026 and has acquired 16 acres of land to develop India's largest private engine testing facility.

Apart from the Indian government's recognition of its innovative contribution, EtherealX has also made history by becoming the first startup outside of the US and Europe to participate in Beyond Gravity's Launchpad Program, validating its upper-stage technology design. The company was also featured in Forbes India's list of the D Globalist's Select 200 Companies, highlighting its global potential. Additionally, EtherealX secured $100,000 in non-dilutive grants from various relevant schemes, including Startup India, the Government of Karnataka, and MEITy, further solidifying its position in the space sector.

EtherealX's business networking goals in Taiwan focus on building strategic partnerships and securing essential suppliers for rocket technology development. In the short term (2024-26), the company aims to collaborate with TASA for joint development of critical technologies and secure suppliers for key components like flight computers, control systems, avionics, and propellant supply. Additionally, EtherealX plans to establish partnerships with research institutes for comprehensive testing, including hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations, and book payloads for launch vehicles.

Looking ahead to the long term (2024-2030), EtherealX intends to identify suppliers for manufacturing machinery, forge long-term partnerships through MoUs, and develop in-house propellant production capabilities. The company also seeks to establish a strong supply chain network to ensure reliable access to critical components for continuous development and manufacturing.

Eye-opening experience and opportunities for progress

During the four weeks in Taiwan, EtherealX visited local suppliers across different industries including semiconductors, metal, space, and electronics. "It was really an eye-opener. The exposure to the local ecosystem and how the current Taiwanese ecosystem works was very informative."

EtherealXsaw potential opportunities of supplying system integration services to research institutions and universities in Taiwan, while getting support from local supply chains to bring costs down. Discussions have been progressing.

EtherealX's goal is to capture 30% to 40% of the global launch vehicle market. The team has acquired land in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India, to build India's largest privately developed engine testing facility.

Oct. 4th at Advanced Rocket Research Center (ARRC). ARRC Director Tsung-Lin Chen (row 1, second from the right)Deputy Director Shih-Sin Wei (row 1, first from the right). DBSpace (row 1, second from the left), EtherealX (row 2, second from the left), Omspace (row 1, first from the left). Credit: TAcc+

Omspace Rocket and Exploration Pvt Ltd

Omspace Rocket and Exploration Pvt Ltd is comprised of seasoned professionals with diverse expertise in the aerospace and space technology sectors.

Omspace CEO Ravindra Raj BM has a strong background in electrical engineering and power electronics, particularly in avionics systems, supported by a B.Tech and a Master's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He is joined by Dr. RR Elangova, Vice President of Technical Operations, who has over 40 years of experience in rocket structures with ISRO; Maulik Mota, who holds a B.Tech in Aerospace and specializes in rocket propulsion; JD Patel, the Fabrication Head with nine years of precision manufacturing experience and a state-of-the-art facility; and Giriraj Singh, the Chief Investment Officer, who has over 14 years of experience in investment strategies. Together, this diverse team is well-equipped to drive innovation and success in the space industry.

Omspace focuses on developing reusable space launch vehicles for small and nanosatellites, providing cost-effective and flexible satellite launch services. Its flagship project is a rocket capable of launching a 100 kg payload into orbit at a competitive rate of $20,000 per kilogram. The startup specializes in satellite launch services on demand, offering tailored solutions for various international clients. Its commitment to Made-in-India technologies ensures that it integrates local innovation into global space needs. It is also operating a second vertical - Service on Demand by making highly reliable satellites.

Omspace believes its competitive edge lies in the affordability and reusability of its launch vehicles, which drastically reduces the cost of launching small satellites, and its Advanced Avionics which helps in denoising any critical electronic components.

Omspace has recently made history by successfully test-firing India's first 100% indigenously developed rocket engine at the facility in Sanand, GIDC. Upcoming projects include partnerships with clients from North America, Australia, and the UK. The go-to-market strategy focuses on signing MOUs with educational institutions for industrial-based training, fostering relationships with global satellite companies, and emphasizing international collaborations. Additionally, Omspace is expanding its global presence through strategic partnerships, particularly in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Engagement with Taiwan's vibrant tech ecosystem presents opportunities to explore potential collaborations in satellite manufacturing, launch services, and advanced space technologies. Through another vertical, Omspace Engineering Solutions, the aim is to provide precision manufacturing services to Taiwan. The objective is to establish strategic partnerships with Taiwanese companies, research institutions, and government agencies so as to contribute to Taiwan's space ambitions while leveraging expertise in cost-effective launch solutions and broadening Omspace's footprint in the region.

This visit would serve to facilitate the exploration of opportunities for joint research and development projects while strengthening ties within the space industry and enhancing collaboration on innovative technologies.

Fruitful trip leading to MOUs and access to chip design services

Omspace's visit to ITRI and TASA proved highly impactful, revealing significant collaboration potential, particularly with TASA on satellite solutions and noise reduction technology. Additionally, Omspacesaw promising opportunities to assist ITRI and TASA in expanding their business reach in India.

Participating in this year's program has been invaluable for Omspace as it fostered connections with space technology companies not only in Taiwan but also from around the world. "These individuals have been incredibly supportive of one another. We have established strong bonds and plan to sign several MOUs with fellow participants," Omspace stated.

The company also expressed interest in accessing IC design services and noted that several solutions are already available within Taiwan.

Sep. 30th Welcome Party at the Social Innovation Lab. Deputy Director General Chia-Ying Wu from Small and Medium Enterprise and Startup Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs (row 2, fourth from the left), TASA Deputy Director General Chung-Huei Vicky Chu (row 2, third from the left), Deputy Director Kwao-Lun Hsieh of CIS at ITRI (row 2, third from the right). DBSpace (row 3, second from the right), EtherealX (row 1, first from the right), Omspace (row 1, third from the right). Credit: TAcc+
The star-studded guest line-up to join host Patrick Kielty on Friday night's episode of the Late Late Show on RTE One has been revealed.

In his first sit-down Irish television interview, Kildare's acting star Paul Mescal will chat to Patrick about working with director Ridley Scott on Hollywood blockbuster Gladiator II, coming home to his family, his friendship with Saoirse Ronan and their appearance on The Graham Norton Show.

U2 superstar Adam Clayton will be live in studio this Friday to talk about Ballroom Blitz, his documentary about the Irish showband scene of the 60s and 70s and how its in his blood; the Las Vegas Sphere and their 40-day residency, as well as sharing exciting news of previously unheard U2 tracks.

Graham Norton will chat about the inspiration for his fifth bestselling novel, the one chat show guest that got away early in his career, and why he decided to get his weekends back by leaving his long-running radio show.

Samantha Barry is coming home to Ireland and will join Patrick to chat about her new role as Glamour magazine's first Global Editorial Director, life in New York post US Presidential elections and dancing with Beyonce at the recent Glamour Women of the Year Awards.

Comedian, actor and writer Brendan OCarroll is home from Florida and will be chatting to Patrick about his hit series, Mrs Browns Boys ahead of its Christmas return. Hell also chat about his live show, The Musical for Moore Street, which tours Ireland in the coming weeks.

Donegal band Altan, led by Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh, will be taking care of the music on Friday night.
A Garda who was stabbed with a pointed trowel before he lost his footing and ended up with his head being banged off concrete, has told how he believes he would not be here to make a victim impact statement, had he not fought off his attacker.

Michael Connolly (56) was living at The Bakehouse apartments on Church Street, Dundalk, on September 26th 2019, when he assaulted the Garda, causing him harm, almost two months before he killed his cell-mate, while on remand in Cloverhill prison.

Dundalk Circuit Court heard last Friday that the officer had been called to the apartment complex, over visitors to Mr. Connolly's home, who were being abusive.

One of them was still there, and the manager said she wanted him gone.

The garda, who knew him personally, offered to speak to him and while the atmosphere in the apartment was initially calm, Michael Connolly suddenly charged at the garda - picking up a trowel from the kitchen table.

He was told to drop it, but kept coming at him, and as the garda drew his baton and backed out of the room, the defendant followed and began stabbing at him - striking him on the head, neck and side of his face.

The victim ended up tripping and falling on his back, and the defendant jumped on top of him and stuck his fingers in his eyes, before thumping his head off the concrete.

The guard, who also had bite marks to his shoulders and arms, was bleeding heavily and was rushed to hospital by patrol car.

Pieces of his ripped uniform and the trowel were found at the scene.

Michael Connolly, when interviewed, said he didn't like the look of the victim and claimed "He didn't look like an Irish garda, to me".

He said he felt the garda was looking for a fight" and "the scumbag came into my apartment and rubbed me up the wrong way" and added "He got what he deserved.

He was told f*** off and he didn't". He wanted a fight and he got it.

In his victim impact statement, which was read to the court in his absence, the garda said he was simply doing his job when he responded to the call and has been left with visible and invisible scars "that I carry to this day".

He outlined how he sustained lacerations to his neck and face after he lost his footing and attempted to defend himself.

The garda said had he not successfully fought off the defendant "I would not be here to give this victim impact report".

He outlined how the attack had a major impact on him and he has struggled with fear and hyper-vigilance and is constantly looking over his shoulder "even off-duty".

The garda added the scar under his eye is a daily visible reminder of his ordeal and a constant reminder of how vulnerable I am and he has found himself questioning his future in An Garda Siochana.

Mr. Connolly's Senior Defence Counsel said his client had a relatively ordinary childhood and his prospects were good as he headed into adulthood, which saw him travel to the US on a Donnelly visa and work in construction.

He returned to Ireland in 2007 and from that point on his life started to derail with difficulties arising with drug use and also his mental health "the latter being exacerbated by the first issue in relation to cannabis use".

Following the death of his cell-mate at Cloverhill Prison in November 2019, a Central Criminal Court jury found the defendant not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.

Judge Dara Hayes, who wished the injured garda well, noted in addition to the manslaughter, Mr. Connolly had two other previous convictions - criminal damage and possession of knives or other articles from 2013.

He said the defendant's symptoms in this instance did not reach the the level where it was open for him to use the defence of insanity and a sentence of two and a half years would be appropriate for the assault causing harm, but given the nature of the attack, which pre-dated the manslaughter conviction, it should be consecutive to the 10 years currently being served and not concurrent.

As a result, Judge Hayes said he was adjusting the sentence in a greater way, to 12 months, to allow for the principle of proportionality in sentencing.

In a separate case, Michael Connolly was returned to the Central Mental Hospital where he was sent for assessment the previous week after a jury found him not guilty of arson and criminal damage at a local B&B by reason of insanity.

The jury took 31 minutes to reach their verdict having heard that the 56 year old was suffering from a manic psychotic episode at the time, and believed the guesthouse he was staying in as emergency accommodation was an Orange Lodge, and the mattress he set fire on November 19th 2019 to was "King Billy's".

Two psychiatrists, called as witnesses by the Prosecution and Defence, gave evidence that the defendant did not know the nature or quality of his actions, did not not know what he was doing was wrong and was not able to refrain from his actions.

Judge Dara Hayes noted the report produced following Mr Connolly's assessment recommended that he have inpatient treatment and he made an order that he be returned there, after being told a bed is available for him.

The Judge also noted that Mr. Connolly's stay there will be periodically reviewed.
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Marking twenty years in business, the team at Specsavers Dundalk are celebrating their milestone birthday with an in-store celebration this weekend.

Customers are being invited into the store at Market Square, Dundalk, on Saturday 16 November for a birthday celebration with fun and refreshments throughout the day. Customers will also be treated to a raffle with exciting prizes up for grabs. Sight tests will also be available at a reduced price of 20 on the day.

Since opening with just seven staff members in 2004, the directors at Specsavers Dundalk say they are delighted to have grown to a team of 48 local staff, including expert optometrists and audiologists. Three of the original staff are still working in the store since the doors opened, Martina Kelly, Gaven Oliver and Christina Myles.

A spokesperson said: "The optical and audiology teams proudly serve the local community and are always looking to grow and improve their business, ensuring they provide the best possible service, support, and advice to their local and loyal customers.

"After an expansion in 2022 saw the store double in the size, Specsavers Dundalk now boast five dedicated optical testing rooms and two audiology rooms, overseen by a team of eight optometrists and three audiologists. From routine eye examinations to contact lens fittings and hearing tests, Specsavers Dundalk can provide all aspects of professional eye and ear care."

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Speaking ahead of the celebrations, Ophthalmic Director Martina Kelly said: We are delighted to have been located here in the heart of the community for the last twenty years, providing the local people of Dundalk with the best technology in eye care and audiology. The expertise of our colleagues, coupled with the technology available to them, makes Specsavers Dundalk a great choice for optics and audiology services.

Specsavers Dundalk is a locally owned and run business, where supporting local clubs and charities is a key part of the stores culture. Aside from their sponsorship with the local GAA club, Clan na Gael, they are also dedicated to raising money and awareness all year round for causes including Crumlin Childrens hospital, SOSAD, Irish Cancer Society and the North East Down Syndrome Centre.

The day of celebrations coincides with the local Dundalk Christmas market, taking place on the doorstep of the store, offering customers a fun-filled day in the town.
With three outgoing TDs not seeking re-election; a boundary change that sees Louth having some areas transferred to the Meath East constituency that will result in the loss of around 11,500 voters in Louth; and what is seen by some as a further disillusionment with what would be seen as establishment parties in favour of Independent politicians, there is a lot of uncertainty as to who will take the five seats in Louth in General Election 2024.

The boundary change is a result of the 2023 Dail Constituency Review produced by An Coimisiun Toghchain, the Electoral Commission. An Coimisiun Toghchai was established after the Electoral Reform Act 2022 was passed by the Oireachtas following the 2022 Census.

The changes for General Election 2024 have come about due to the increase in the population, and are aimed at upholding Article 16.2.2 of the Constitution of Ireland, Bunreacht na hEireann, that says one TD should speak on behalf of between 20,000 and 30,000 people. As a result of the constituency review, Louth has seen some areas transferred to Meath East, but it will still maintain its five seats.

The 2020 general election saw Sinn Fein top the poll and see its two candidates elected on the first count. The quota was 11,778 votes, and with 17,203 first preference votes, Imelda Munster not only was elected on the first count, she took 24.34% of the first preference vote share in Louth and had almost an extra half quota to spare.

Her Sinn Fein colleague, Ruairi O Murchu was also elected on the first count with 12,491 votes and 17.68% of the first preference vote share. Between them they had over 42% of the first preference votes.

The other three candidates to be elected in Louth in 2020 were Fine Gael's Fergus O'Dowd, who received 6,380 first preference votes; Independent TD Peter Fitzpatrick, who received 6,085 first preference votes; and Labour's Ged Nash, who received 5,824 first preference votes.

The three outgoing TDs who are not seeking re-election in 2024 are Fergus O'Dowd, Imelda Munster and Peter Fitzpatrick, with just Ruairi O Murchu and Ged Nash looking to hold their seats. So what are their chances of holding their seats and if they do, who will take the remaining three? While is is seen as easier for a sitting TD to hold their seat, there is no guarantee this time around.

There are 17 candidates confirmed for Louth at present, both party politicians and Independent candidates. They are: Marianne Butler (Green Party), Paula Butterly (Fine Gael), Joanna Byrne (Sinn Fein), Kevin Callan (Independent), Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail), Hermann Kelly (Irish Freedom Party), Derek McElearney (Irish People), John McGahon (Fine Gael), Niall McCreanor (Social Democrats), Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail), Ryan McKeown (Independent Ireland), Ged Nash (Labour Party), Peter James Nugent (Independent), Michael O'Dowd (Aontu), Ruairi O Murchu (Sinn Fein), James Renaghan (People Before Profit-Solidarity), Antoin Watters (Sinn Fein).

If polls are to be believed, Sinn Fein has lost some popularity, its performance in this year's local and European elections suggest that this is the case. It should be noted however that Sinn Fein did not do as well as hoped in the 2019 local elections but rebounded in the 2020 general election winning 37 seats, and the party has grown a significat following in Louth.

This time around the party is running three candidates  Ruairi O Murchu, along with Cllr Joanna Byrne who is seeking to take Imelda Munster's seat, and Cllr Antoin Watters, who is seeking to take a third seat for the party. On the face of it, it looks like an uphill task for the party. However, were Joanna Byrne to take even two-thirds of the first preference votes Imelda Munster received, she would be almost assured of taking the seat.

As a sitting TD, the party would be hopeful that Ruairi O Murchu would hold his seat, so the question would be could Antoin Watters take a third? As a councillor he topped the poll in the last two local elections. He is well liked across the board and acknowledged as one of the most proactive councillors in north Louth.

So while Sinn Fein's popularity seems to have dipped overall in the past year or so, on a good day for the party, one might expect that they would at least hold onto their two seats.

With Fergus O'Dowd not seeking re-election, Senator John McGahon and Cllr Paula Butterly are flying the flag for Fine Gael this time around.

This will be John McGahon's second run in a general election. He took in 4,442 first preference votes in 2020 and would be very hopeful of taking a seat for the party this time around. He has been very active canvassing for some time now and the party would likely be quite bullish about his prospects.

Paula Butterly will be hoping to take a second seat for the party, and while an active councillor who would be expected to do well in mid Louth and the south of the county, she might lose votes to candidates like Aontu's Michael O'Dowd and Independent candidate Kevin Callan, who would both be expected to perform well in south Louth.

Fianna Fail will be looking to take back the seat in Louth that it lost in 2020, when Declan Breathnach failed to be re-elected. The party is running two candidates, Senator Erin McGreehan and Alison Comyn. It is understood Erin McGreehan was selected by Michael Martin in 2020 to be a Senator with the aim of raising her profile for a run in the general election.

Alison Comyn might be seen by some locally as a celebrity candidate. A well known local journalist in Drogheda, she has also worked on television with networks including Sky News. This could be another challenging election for Fianna Fail in Louth however. While both competent candidates, they would need transfers from other candidates to get through, and it is diffiult to see where they will come from.

For Labour, Ged Nash is hoping to retain the seat he won in 2020, when he took 5,824 first preference votes. Labour has a big following in the south of the county, and while the boundary change may see him lose some votes, should the party agree a pact with the Green Party again, one which they are understood to have agreed in the 2020 election, transfers could help see him hold his seat.

One of the most interesting things to watch in Louth this year will be to see if an Independent candidate can take a seat. Outgoing Independent TD Peter Fitzpatrick took in 6,085 first preference votes last time around, and Independent candidate, Cllr Kevin Callan will be hoping he can do at least as well.

A popular councillor in south Louth, he stood in both Drogheda Rural and Urban in the 2019 local elections, winning a seat in both. He was re-elected in 2024 and was also elected as Cathaoirleach of Louth County Council. He has been very active the past number of months raising his profile in the rest of the county, and would be seen as a transfer-friendly candidate. With a growing disillusionment of what might be seen as establishment political parties by some sectors of the electorate in the past few years, Cllr Callan could well capitalise on this and take a seat in Louth.

So, a prediction for Louth? Sinn Fein to take two seats, John McGahon for Fine Gael, Ged Nash for Labour and Independent candiate Kevin Callan.

Though anything can happen on election day, the most important thing we must do is get out and vote.
The Drogheda Women and Childrens Refuge (DWCR) has launched its annual Christmas Campaign, generously supported by the Rotary Club Drogheda. This support helps address the rising demand for refuge and support services for women and children affected by coercive control and domestic abuse, especially during the Christmas season and into the new year.

The Louth based refuge provides 24/7 support, faces a significant surge in demand during the holidays. Susan Keogh, CEO of DWCR, expressed her gratitude for the Rotary Club's support: The Rotary Club understands our plight, and their generous donation will enable us to continue supporting women and children in urgent need. Christmas is meant to be a time of joy and togetherness, but for many, its a season of intensified challenges. This donation will allow us to extend critical support as demand increases.

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The Rotary Club Drogheda selected DWCR as a beneficiary, recognizing the alignment between their missions. Seamus Daly, President of the Rotary Club Drogheda, said, Providing this donation and supporting Drogheda Women and Childrens Refuge fits perfectly with our commitment to fostering peace and community well-being. Its a privilege to support a cause that makes a direct, positive impact on vulnerable families in our community.

DWCRs Christmas Campaign invites the community to help women and children escaping domestic violence by donating warm clothing, shopping vouchers for mothers, and financial contributions to assist with emergency costs for families during this period.

"These donations are essential to helping DWCR empower women in rebuilding their lives and giving children a sense of stability and security," a spokesperson said.
A second plebiscite for a directly-elected Mayor of Cork is one of the recommendations contained within the expansive Cork Commuter Coalitions general election manifesto.

Described by the group as being both ambitious and reasonable, it sets out a range of goals with improvements to public transport also high on its agenda.

Founded in 2020, the coalition is an advocacy group aimed at improving public transport and active travel throughout the Cork Metropolitan Area.

Its election manifesto said the most pressing transportation issue for public transport users is the significant unreliability of the bus network within Cork.

It states: Ghost buses are chronic throughout the city and suburbs, causing severe reputational damage to both Bus Eireann and to Cork city as a whole.

The coalition is calling for an end to bus schedule cuts and a significant increase in the hiring of drivers, including through the mechanisms of improved wages and work conditions. It is also seeking a political commitment to following through on BusConnects, including seeking planning permission for Core Bus Corridors within the first year of Government.

Crisis management task force

They also want the appointment of a crisis management task force and urge the incoming government to examine the permanent spin-off into a separate operating company in the long term, similar to Dublin Bus.

Antisocial behaviour acts as a real deterrent to the safe use of public transport, they said, calling for a dedicated, full-time security force on public transport services operating within Cork as well as a substantial increase in public lighting at bus stops and train stations.

Another section of the publication focuses on road safety measures, welcoming the recent decision to split the RSA into two separate authorities, and seeking an expansion of speed cameras, further development of an online portal for reporting illegal parking, and the introduction of public realm wardens with the ability to issue fines.

Luas

The proposed Cork Luas system plays a prominent role in their plans, with the coalition asking all parties to commit to succinct, well-informed consultation and a targeted delivery date of 2032.

The All-Island Strategic Rail Review is an ambitious strategy promising a Cork city that is well connected to key points in Munster, and Ireland as a whole, they continued, suggesting that this could be expanded to include rail links to West Cork and Cork Airport.

The coalition welcomed recent active travel and public realm projects, but called for further funding for resurfacing, as well as for disability groups to be involved in project design, and an inclusive mobility assessment to be mandatory for planning.

Bus station

It said that one notable area for improvement is the Parnell Place bus station, which they described as a drab site that has become a haven of unsafety, with a dank interior and basic public amenities, such as toilets and seats, that are cordoned off from public use.

We are calling for a complete revamp of Parnell Place bus station into a welcoming transport hub to accompany the planned increase in bus services.

The report also calls for better bike parking, significant expansion of the TFI Bikes scheme, the reversal of the ban on e-scooters on public transport, and for planning permission to be sought within a year for improved cycle lanes promised under BusConnects.

It explained: Many of the citys cycle paths are not up to an acceptable standard to allow for safe usage, especially for children.

Cycle lanes do not fully join up, often sending vulnerable road users into full traffic. Separation infrastructure is often of poor quality, if it exists at all.

A directly elected Mayor of Cork city would help to push all these changes, they said, requesting a second plebiscite on the matter is held.

Cork is at a crossroads, and the policies and action of the next five years will play a major part in determining whether Cork will grow into its role as a counterbalance to Dublin, or continue to be sidelined by further years of poor spatial development, it concluded.
A North Cork man drove to Limerick for a 20,000 stash of cannabis and returned to Charleville by backroads in the hope of avoiding detection  but the smell of cannabis detected at a routine checkpoint resulted in his detection, a court has heard.

Detective Garda Will Hosford gave evidence of the incident which dated back to May 2023.

Yesterday at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, Samuel Meade of Cregane, Lombardstown, Co Cork, was handed a three-year-suspended sentence by Judge Dermot Sheehan.

Defence barrister Alan ODwyer emphasised that the accused had stayed out of trouble since May 2023, and took the opportunity given to him to deal with a quite serious cannabis addiction.

Mr ODwyer said that the defendants grandparents played a key role in rearing him and that Mr Meade did not respond well to the death of his grandmother, and got himself into deeper difficulties.

However, he since got the help that he needed and put his life on a much better footing, Mr ODwyer said.

Det Gda Hosford said the offence was detected at a routine garda checkpoint. He said the smell of cannabis from the car was immediately evident, and suspicions were further raised by the young mans level of anxiety.

Meade put his hands up straight away and admitted that there was cannabis in the car.

He later told gardai that he had driven to Limerick to pick it up and was trying to avoid detection by driving backroads on the return to Charleville.

Imposing the fully suspended sentence in light of the positive changes the defendant had made to his life since this drug-dealing offence was detected, Judge Sheehan said: Using the parlance of gardai, he is no longer on the radar.
A Cork city councillor has raised concerns about the spending of taxpayers money on consultancy services, including project management, at Cork hospitals.

Labour Party councillor for Cork City South East Peter Horgan recently received information from the South/South West Hospital Group that shows that 1,376,202 was spent on project management alone across three hospitals in Cork city to date this year.

The figures supplied to Mr Horgan by the chief operations officer of South/South West Hospital Group Dr Gerard OCallaghan show that 1,195,668 was spent on project management at Cork University Hospital (CUH), 74,077 was spent on project management at the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital (SIVUH) and 106,457 was spent on project management at the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) to date this year.

Last year, there was 2,266,845 spent on project management services at CUH, 48,278 spent on project management services at SIVUH and 150,512 spent on project management services at MUH.

In 2022, CUH spent 213,044, SIVUH spent 45,941 and MUH spent 160,796 on project management services.

Figures

The figures supplied also showed that 500,772 has been spent on managed service executive portfolio, 32,552 has been spent on managed service directorate support and 347,924 has been spent on national programmes to date this year at CUH.

Last year, the hospital spent 1,135,877 on managed service executive portfolio, 370,065 was spent on managed service directorate support and 661,632 was spent on national programmes.

Mr Horgan sought the information ahead of the meeting of the HSE Regional Health Forum South on September 19. The councillor asked the HSE to supply the amount paid to consultancy houses for the provision of services within each hospital and hospital group under the remit of the forum, in the years 2022, 2023, and 2024 year to date .

Mr Horgan was supplied with the information over one month later, on November 4, which he said is in itself concerning.

Speaking to The Echo, Mr Horgan said: This is a massive amount of taxpayer money that would have secured a ward of nurses rather than executive reports no one can access.

There is a massive issue at present with safe staffing levels, as articulated by trade unions, yet we see millions being spent on this project management with no transparent oversight function.
A total of 1,500 is to be contributed to charity by a man who threatened a social worker with the words, Im going to take your life.

Solicitor Daithi O Donnabhain said the accused man had gathered 1,000 to date for charity since the social worker declined to take any offer of compensation from him.

Judge Mary Dorgan noted this today but said he should gather a further 500. Sentencing in his case was then adjourned until January 9 2025 to allow time for this to be done.

Mr O Donnabhain said recently that a probation report on the defendant was favourable and that the accused expressed his apology and remorse and fully accepted that he was wrong.

Detective Garda Dave Barry investigated the case where the accused man pleaded guilty to making the death threats.

In her victim impact statement, the social worker said:

When your life is threatened, it shakes you to your core, anxiously thinking if I was gone, who would care for my children because these are real moments of taking stock because the reality is one day a social worker will not return home as violence towards us and all working the frontline increases.

Because of the possibility that identification of the parties would lead to identification of the defendants child in the court proceedings there is a prohibition on naming the parties.

The defendant pleaded guilty to assaulting the woman at Washington Street Courthouse on April 3 2023 and two counts that on May 9 he made a threat to the woman that he would kill her or cause serious harm.

The defendant first confronted the social worker outside Washington Street Courthouse and began waving his arms in her face in an angry manner on April 3 2023, followed by the threatening calls a month later.

In the first message he called her a liar and said that he would blow you up while in the second message, he threatened he would take your life while in the third message, he said she had taken something from him and he was now going to take something from you.

In the fourth and final message that he left on the social workers phone, he threatened to kill her, saying that you can do what you want, you can record it, you shit, but Im telling you, I am going to take your life.
Several Cork stars are among the guests on this Fridays Late Late Show, with Paul Mescall, Adam Clayton and Brendan OCarroll also to make an appearance.

Graham Norton will be chatting about the inspiration for his fifth bestselling novel, Frankie; the one - chat show guest - that got away early in his career, and why he decided to get his weekends back by leaving his long running radio show.

Corks Samantha Barry is coming home to Ireland and will join Patrick to chat about her new role as Glamour magazine's first Global Editorial Director, life in New York after the US Presidential elections and dancing with Beyonce at the recent Glamour Women of the Year Awards.

Additionally, In his first sit down Irish television interview, BAFTA award winning actor Paul Mescal will chat about his giant blockbuster Gladiator II.

Paul will chat to Patrick Kielty about working with director Ridley Scott, his friendship with Saoirse Ronan, their appearance on The Graham Norton Show and coming home to his family.

U2 bassist Adam Clayton will talk about Ballroom Blitz, his documentary about the Irish showband scene of the 60s and 70s, the Las Vegas Sphere and their 40-day residency, as well as sharing news of previously unheard U2 tracks.

Comedian, actor and writer Brendan OCarroll is home from Florida and will be chatting to Patrick about his hit series, Mrs. Browns Boys, which returns to screens this Christmas, and about his live show, The Musical for Moore Street, which tours Ireland in the coming weeks.

Irish folk music band from Donegal and led by Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh, Altan, will be taking care of the music on Friday night ahead of tour dates around Ireland.
Cork County Council has announced 12 new affordable homes that will shortly become available in Bantry.

The new three-bed homes, located a short distance from Bantry town, are being offered at a discounted rate.

Cork County Council is inviting prospective homeowners to apply from 12 noon on Monday, November 25.

The A-rated family homes are in a new development situated at An Cnocan, Milleencoola.

Cork County Council is delighted to announce the launch of this Affordable Housing Scheme in Bantry, Mayor of the County of Cork, Cllr Joe Carroll said.

The development at An Cnocan will not only bring much needed housing to the area at accessible prices but will also enrich the lives of those who will call it home.

The houses are in a fabulous location, are well designed and finished to a very high standard.

Constructed by Remcoll Developments Ltd, the houses will generally be available for first-time buyers who do not own a home, although a small number of exceptions apply, as well as to Fresh Start Applicants.

The houses will be available from 235,000 which represents a reduction of approximately 17.5% from market value.Through the scheme, purchasers will enter an affordable dwelling purchase arrangement with Cork County Council.

Under this arrangement, the council will retain a percentage equity share in the dwelling, equal to the difference between the market value of the dwelling and the price paid by the purchaser, expressed as a percentage of the market value of the dwelling (minimum of 5%).

Chief executive of Cork County Council, Moira Murrell said the scheme is an important part of council plans to provide new homes in areas with the greatest housing need.

Those that are interested can apply for the homes via the online application portal that is on Cork County Councils website - www.corkcoco.ie.
Two women were terrified by a life-endangering incident where they felt like they were in a scene from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre in Doneraile, County Cork.

Now at Cork Circuit Criminal Court the two men responsible for the violent and threatening incident have been jailed.

At the height of the incident the car in which the injured parties were travelling was rammed.

Judge Helen Boyle noted in her sentencing that they were then faced by men with a chainsaw or chainsaws.

Two men in their 20s were sentenced for their parts in the incident.

Jason Landy who lives at an apartment at Heatherside, Banteer, County Cork, was sentenced to three years by Judge Helen Boyle with the last year suspended.

Jack OFlynn of Ballybrack, Doneraile, County Cork, was sentenced to three years with the last 18-months suspended.

Judge Boyle remarked at Cork Circuit Criminal Court: This was an absolutely terrifying occurrence.

(One man was) brandishing a chainsaw. One woman said it resembled the Chainsaw Massacre.

That (description) was not surprising.

One of the two women said the threat to kill her and the car-ramming impacted on her life and she was still suffering flashbacks and had to get therapy as she finds herself in constant fear that she might be attacked for no reason.

The second victim said she was absolutely terrified by the traumatic experience.

The judge was told that the incident at Doneraile transferred to Castletownroche and back to Doneraile again on that date, July 21, 2022.

Jack OFlynn pleaded guilty to endangerment on July 21, 2022 at Main Street, Doneraile, by throwing glass bottles and a spanner out of the car at another car, and production of a chainsaw on the same date and dangerous driving.

Jason Landy pleaded guilty to endangerment by ramming of another car and making a threat to kill or cause serious injury.
At the Opera House and at the Everyman, they are hard at work, polishing and refining their big festive productions which are both opening at the end of this month.

Theres less than two weeks to go before Cinderella opens at the Opera House, and just over a fortnight until Red Riding Hood starts at the Everyman. Got your tickets yet? The matinees are going fast, as usual, but certain nights are proving very popular too. Dont wait to book!

In between panto performances at the Opera House, they are also slotting in other attractions.

Abba Forever on the two Mondays, December 2 and 9, is selling fast, as is Villagers on December 3; while the great Opera House Christmas Concert is being held this year on Monday and Tuesday, December 16 and 17. Traditional carols, contemporary holiday hits, and timeless orchestral pieces always make for a wonderful evening.

And dont forget the late-night Improvised Panto opens on December 6.

Call 021 427 0022 or www.corkoperahouse.ie for all bookings.

Meanwhile, the Everyman is also managing to fit in some other delightful events to carry you through to panto opening night on November 30.

Ronan Collins is here on November 22 with Showband Hits And Stories, and Lisa Hannigan on November 23. Then its all go for Red Riding Hood and that wicked wolf! Call 021 450 1673 or see www.everymancork.com.

The One-Act Theatre Festival opens in Rossmore tomorrow, November 15, and runs until Sunday when the all-important adjudication will take place. See https://rossmoretheatre.com/events or 086 4481086.

There is still time to catch Portal-Ooh at Cork Arts Theatre, as it continues to Saturday. Step into the world of Olly, the mad inventor, and her extraordinary creation: a fantastical machine exploring the human experience.

And next week, a show dealing with a particularly Corkonian bit of history; Michael Patric (yes, he of An Cailin Ciuin) is bringing his new show, Sugar, on tour.

Michael Patric in Sugar at Cork Arts Theatre

This is a comedy set in the final days of Irelands last sugar factory, in Mallow, when employees had to face the end of the world they had always known, and an uncertain future. But, being Michael Patric, its all done in lively style: If you can keep smiling at all, you have hope.

Call 021 450 5624 or see www.corkartstheatre.com.

And look it, next Thursday is the start of the Quiet Lights Festival, taking place in venues all across the city from November 21 to 24.

This aims to highlight the new wave of Irish and international folk, traditional, and experimental talent, that are quietly forging new paths, recollecting old tales, and creating new stories.

Highlights this year include a large-scale double-header from Elaine Howley and Rachael Lavelle, presented with festival partners Live at St Lukes. Also on the programme are Joshua Burnside & Memorial, Aoife Ni Bhriain (fiddle) and Corks own Cormac McCarthy (piano) in Triskel Arts Centre. The Kurdish/Syrian phenomenon Mohammad Syfkhan opens the festival in Coughlans on the Thursday night, and the legendary concertina player Cormac Begley headlines St Lukes on the Sunday of the festival.

The festivals backbone is in the brilliance of our local venues, and wed like to thank them for their ongoing partnership in hosting these brilliant artists, says festival director Jonathan Pearson. We think theres something for everyone this year.

See more at https://www.quietlights.net/.

The Glen Theatre in Banteer has a busy programme coming up. This Sunday, November 17, that great country music artist Gerry Guthrie will be filling the auditorium with song, and on Saturday and Sunday, November 23 and 24, a laughter-filled drama, Grandad Dont Like The British. All 8pm. Booking on 029 56239.
Jerry Fish, one of Irelands most distinctive voices and enigmatic performers, has always followed his own path artistically, and he describes his latest album Dreaming Of Daniel as a true labour of love.

The word true is an apt choice, Jerry Fishs best-known solo song is True Friends and the best-known song by the writer of all the songs on the record, Daniel Johnston, is True Love Will Find You In The End.

Daniel Johnston, who passed away in 2019 at the age of 58, was much loved in the American alternative music scene from the 1980s onwards, equally comfortable with music and illustration, his own artwork was famously worn on a t-shirt by Kurt Cobain. He spent time in various psychiatric institutions and lived with extreme bipolar disorder, throughout his career he was labelled by many as an outsider artist, who considered his work as childlike and naive.

A documentary released about him in 2006, The Devil And Daniel Johnston, helped his music get to a larger audience, that film is where the first seed of Jerrys tribute album was planted.

When I saw The Devil And Daniel Johnston, one of his songs The Story Of An Artist appeared throughout, like a theme tune. The song itself is quite infectious, and then when I saw him play it live in Vicar Street, I said to myself I have to do that song. And Ive used it as my opening song at my shows for many years now, the song really feels like my voice and my story.

He cleverly penned the experience of when you decide to join a band as a kid, and you eventually get successful - which is never overnight, it takes years and years and years. I was in a band for years, we were in a rehearsal room every Sunday, you know, for years! I never had a free Sunday for years because of our commitment to these rehearsals.

Artists put so much into what we do, and most people think were wasting our time, saying it doesnt feed you but it feeds another part of you.

The power of making music and its importance is something that Jerry doesnt just prize in his life, but something he tries to help others with too,

Ive worked with a lot of bands and especially young bands, its almost like you cant help it, its very difficult to be an artist because you dont get paid well for it. Its a love thing. So that song by Daniel just became mine, the moral of it is that being an artist is a long game. Its about living rather than making a living. If you can make a lifestyle that youre happy with and if youve stayed in a job that you love, what else do you want?

Daniels songwriting is something people return to again and again, the entire Jerry Fish household are fans.

I fell in love with Daniel, but my teenage kids also were mad into Daniel, my son in particular, his songs speak to so many young people. I think Johnstons honesty is just pure, he has a lack of filter - that filter that we have in this world - but he just was able to just spit it out.

As a songwriter himself, Jerry recognises that while Johnstons recordings were lo-fi and unrefined the musicality of the songs stand up to interpretation.

His songs are so rare, they make me laugh or they make me cry, they really connect with me you know, and it was just an honour to interpret them. I think what was key when we were listening to the songs and looking for arrangements to put to the songs, because they are so simple you can kind of hear what hes thinking, it was all clear and imagined in his head.

He was a big fan of The Beatles, and you can clearly hear that in something like Dont Let The Sun Go Down On Your Grievances, at the end of the song hes imagining that theres a big crowd there singing along but theyre not there! Hes speeding it up on the end, saying Come On Everybody! and theres nobody there but him. You start to hear his thoughts, so I think Dreaming Of Daniel was a good title in the end.

Another one of Daniels songs proved quite a test for the trained musicians in the studio, as Jerry explained.

He has another song called Loner, when you hear it hes playing the ukulele. Now on the Dreaming Of Daniel album, we feature some of Irelands best jazz musicians, some incredible players and nobody could find its key, it was a keyless kind of song. But you can hear that hes nearly paying homage to the likes of The Cramps, hes making this rock sound with a ukulele, and hes talking about being a rock star.

You can hear a bit of The Velvet Underground in his music, he was quite punky I think, because of the time he was around in the 80s and the 90s, it was quite a punky time in America. So theres that punk element in it but then theres always this Beatles thing. In a way, in his head, he was always making albums.

Thats one of the most amusing stories about him, where hed give a cassette away and the guy would ask if he had another one and Daniel would go back and rerecord the whole album again from scratch, because he didnt know how to copy duplicate tapes!

The fact that Daniel is such a beloved figure means Jerry knows everyone wont be happy.

I dont expect everybody, especially Daniel Johnson fans, to get what weve done, because weve made the songs more accessible. One of the beautiful things about Daniel is the bit of work the listener has to do to listen to them, the quality of his recordings were often very raw.

Jerry Fish performs songs from his new Dreaming Of Daniel album on Sunday, November 17, in Musiczone in Togher at 4pm, and Coughlans on Douglas Street at 7.30pm. Admission is free but tickets can be booked in advance at www.musiczone.ie
High Court Reporters

Three people accused of breaching publication restrictions during the trial of the murder of teenager Ana Kriegel have lost a Supreme Court appeal.

They had brought a case to the Supreme Court over a decision that they should be tried before a jury rather than in the District Court where potential penalties are less severe.

The three were among 10 charged with breaches under the Children Act 2001 which provided that no one could legally identify the two boys who were convicted of the girls murder.

Edel Doherty (48) of Rory OConnor House, Hardwicke Street, Dublin, is charged with posting photos on Facebook of the two, known as Boys A and B.

Kyle Rooney (26) of Rathfield Park, Raheny, Dublin, was charged with the posting of photos of the two boys on Twitter.

Declan Corcoran (30) of Williams Place Lower, Dublin, was accused of both naming the boys on Twitter and of posting images of them.

14-year-old Ana Kriegel was murdered at a disused farmhouse in Lucan, Co Dublin, in May 2018, by the boys when they were both 13 years old.

When they first appeared in court on the charges, Ms Doherty, Mr Rooney and Mr Corcoran, were told by the judge the cases against them could be dealt with in the District Court.

However, when the case returned before the District Court, another judge decided the offences were too serious and they should be sent for trial before a judge and jury in the Circuit Court where penalties are more severe.

As a result, the three brought a High Court challenge over the second judges decision.

In July 2022, the High Court ruled the decision was incorrect and the matter should be sent back to the District Court for reconsideration.

The DPP appealed that decision and a year ago the Court of Appeal reversed it.

The three then asked the Supreme Court to hear a further appeal on grounds that the decision involved a matter of general public importance or that the interests of justice necessitate such a further appeal.

They argued, among other things, that trial in the Circuit Court before a jury will remove certain statutory entitlements they can have in the District Court including their cases being dealt with under the Probation Act without proceeding to conviction.

It was also claimed that where a judge in the District Court chooses to refuse jurisdiction that reasons are required.

The DPP opposed a further appeal saying the law is clear and there was no deprivation of rights.

On Thursday, a five-judge Supreme Court unanimously dismissed their appeal.

Giving the court's judgment, Mr Justice Peter Charleton said if a District Court judge has made a decision in a case, that is noted on the order that is put before another judge who comes to hear the case.

While it is not necessary for the second judge to embark on a task already undertaken, in a case such as this one, it was sensible for the second judge to consider if that capturing of court resources is for the benefit of the administration of justice.

"Then, it is prudent, but not imperative or always desirable, to adopt caution and to ask if the allocation of time will in fact be a waste of time", he said.

The three accused had asserted in this case that the second District Court judge had no function once the first judge had decided to accept jurisdiction. However, the second judge was dealing with case management and this "gave him (second judge) the authority to consider if this series of several cases were indeed minor in nature", he said.

The second judge was entitled to conclude the offences in question were not minor in character for the purposes of the constitutional provision (Article 38.2) in relation to the trial of minor offences, he said.

"He had the jurisdiction so to conclude because he had been called upon to make a decision as to how long each of these case would take and what amount of time on what dates might be assigned to each case".

It was accordingly necessary for him to make such a determination at that point which he did, he said.

It had not been otherwise suggested, that is apart from the fact that the first judge had apparently taken a different view, that he was not entitled to conclude that the offences were not minor, he said.

The second judge was entitled to decline jurisdiction in these three cases, he said.
By Cillian Sherlock, PA

Sir Keir Starmer needs to indicate what circumstances are necessary for the calling of a referendum on Irish unification, the Sinn Fein leader has said.

Mary Lou McDonald, who is seeking to be Taoiseach following the general election on November 29th, said a Sinn Fein-led government would take immediate steps to progress the partys long-held goal of unifying the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

She previously said the border poll could be held by 2030.

Ms McDonald said Sinn Fein would dedicate a junior ministry role to unification under the Department of An Taoiseach.

She also said her party would propose to produce a green paper on the matter within 100 days of entering government, followed by the convening of a citizens assembly to provide space for wider democratic discussion of unification.

Mary Lou McDonald was speaking on the campaign trail again at the Irish election later this month. Photo: PA.

Speaking to reporters on the election campaign trail in Dublin, Ms McDonald said: Beyond that, the conversation needs to be had with the British Government, with Keir Starmers administration around this decade.

The British Government needs to start now indicating for them what they believe is the tipping point at which they believe a referendum would be called.

Ive pursued this with them for a long time through many prime ministers, but I think its necessary that the person who is taoiseach would pursue that because, obviously, that brings it to a different level, and a different proposition.

Under the terms of Good Friday Agreement of 1998, the UK Government is obliged to call a referendum in Northern Ireland if there is evidence of a shift in public opinion in favour of unity. In that event, there would be a simultaneous vote in the Republic of Ireland.

Earlier this year, Sir Keir said he was committed to the principles of the Good Friday Agreement. However, while in opposition, he said a referendum on Irish unification was not even on the horizon.
Natasha Reid

A man has been sentenced to five and a half years in prison for an aggravated burglary in the bedroom of a five-week-old baby and its parents while they were sleeping.

He also received a concurrent four-and-half-year sentence for the armed robbery of his local credit union in which he threatened to kill two customers.

Lee Conlon of Meath Place, Thomas Street in Dublin had pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary with a large kitchen knife at an apartment on Montague Street in the city on 22nd November 2022.

The 46-year-old also pleaded guilty to the robbery of Capital Credit on St Lukes Avenue in the city on 16th January 2013. He further pleaded guilty to threatening to kill or cause serious harm to two customers, one of whom was 83 years old, on the same occasion.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that in the first incident, gardai were called to an apartment at 2.30am, where they met a couple and their infant. The couple was upset.

They said they had gone to sleep with their five-week-old baby and had woken to find Conlon at the bottom of their bed. He was reaching for a mobile phone on a locker.

The infants father jumped out of bed and tackled the intruder out of instinct. He pushed the intruder into the hallway, where Conlon lost his balance and fell against a door.

At this stage, the new father could see that the intruder was carrying a large kitchen knife in his hand, and that a large scratch had been left on the door.

Conlon fled and took with him items to the value of almost 600, including handbag, wallet, headphones, sunglasses, bank cards and the couples identification and a key to their apartment.

Conlon had not brought the knife with him, but had found it in the familys home.

Armed robbery

In the other incident, Conlon entered the credit union with a handgun and threatened to shoot while demanding cash. His face was fully covered, but he was identified after CCTV footage from about 90 premises was viewed.

He called the teller a f***ing b*tch, and said he would shoot the two customers, who were waiting, one of whom was 83 years old.

He pointed the gun at her, then at them, and then back at her, while demanding 50s. All were terrified that he would do so.

The teller started throwing money onto the counter and managed to press the panic alarm. Conlon took 1,200 off the counter and ran out the front door.

Conlon has 111 previous convictions, going right back to the Childrens court. He is currently serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for similar offences, with a release date in 2029.
I was passing through the town of Macroom the other day and saw an energetic group of workmen drilling, bashing, and cutting at a small square on the pavement. Others were dragging away twisted pieces of metal.

What was going on? They were removing the phone box. No more need for that, away it goes to the scrap merchant, lets have another free bit of pavement for the chewing gum!

Presumably, the same thing is happening all over the country, and in some of these locations the booth is now used to house a vital defibrillator or serve as a free bookstand. I have even seen phone boxes on offshore islands used for growing tomatoes, and very successfully too.

But werent phone boxes a vital part of our lives back in the 40s, 50s, and 60s ?

We talked last week about the illegal skill of tapping public phones to make calls for free, and many were the delighted responses, showing that we dont forget what a huge role they played in our growing up, dealing with emergencies, establishing relationships, and keeping in touch with friends and families far away.

Whether you can remember two old pennies being required, or a newer and more expensive decimal coin, you surely can recall the many times you dialled carefully and pressed Button A to make that all-important contact with another human voice.

Telephone operators at the GPO in Cork in February, 1965

And yes, we have been reminded by several readers (who have now reformed and live blameless lives) that you could stuff the Button B aperture with paper (usually torn from the resident phone book  remember those?) so that if an unsuccessful caller pressed for the return of his pennies, he didnt get them. If they were unaware of the dodge, they left in high dudgeon, while the local lads crept back later to pull out the paper and retrieve any money packed behind it!

Some years ago, Mattie Lennon recorded some wonderful stories of the old phone box days in Listowelconnection.com, when she feared (with good reason) that these landmarks were drawing to a close.

She quoted a great story of the man who phoned his friend to ask for the loan of a tenner. Cant hear you, sorry, its a bad line. The plaintiff repeated the request, with the same negative response. Whereupon the operator interrupted to say, I can hear him perfectly. Without missing a beat, the friend who was being leaned on riposted: Well, you give him the loan of the tenner so.

Ah, the power of the operator! Before we all got private individual phones in our homes, shared or party lines were a fact of life, and must have contributed considerably to both the stories and the disasters of social life.

Half of Agatha Christies detective stories wouldnt be possible without someone listening in secretly to a vital conversation. And here in Ireland, especially in villages where there wasnt much else going on of interest, party lines were a constant source of interest to gossips and housebound folk.

I remember when my father took over a business in a small village outside Skibbereen, recalls John Nagle. We shared a party line with about five other houses, and you had one ring from the operator if a call was for this person, two for that person, and so on.

Well, of course, everyone knew ours was five, and everybody used to listen in to hear what my father was saying to his head office.

If he was thinking of buying goods somewhere, or taking on more people, or letting staff go, they all knew about it as soon as his bosses did! It drove my father mad!

Mick McCarthy - well-known stalwart of the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team and legendary dog handler - shared his own early experiences of party lines.

I read, with interest, your article on Throwback on November. 7. I laughed when I read about the phone tapping - I tried this many times but failed miserably - I guess I just didnt have the knack.

I started work in the city in 1965 behind a counter. Being a country boy, I was scared out of my wits being in the city.

One of my jobs was answering the phone and, on many occasions, I cut in on random conversations between total outsiders. I remember in particular one call I overheard where a brother was speaking with his sister who lived in Wexford. A couple of the girls, working on the counter with me, were also trying to listen in and, whilst we couldnt make out what the sister was saying, we could clearly hear the brother give advice to her and it went like this: Holy God, Bridie, youll have to keep your hand on your hapenny in future.

Now, I never did find out what was meant by the phrase, keep your hand on your hapenny!

A coffin prank

Mick continues: I remember too one of our loaders/drivers (who shall remain nameless) pulling what was then a hilarious stunt on the girls.

We used to have an hour and a half for our lunchbreak and the girls used link arms and go window shopping in Patrick Street.

We worked next door to a coffin maker and coffins were regularly left standing upright and leaning against the outside wall for collection by the purchaser.

This particular day, our man placed one of the coffins flat on the footpath with the cover left leaning against the wall. This colleague of mine was balding and had a glass eye - he lay into the coffin, removed his glass eye and crossed his hands. We were able to see all this from a second-storey window in our workplace.

We saw the girls turn into our street, arms linked, and chatting away. They were used to seeing coffins against the wall, only this time one was blocking the footpath, and they had to step out on to the street to pass it by.

As they passed, yapping away, our man sat up, arms crossed, said hello girls, and immediately lay back down.

Well, I tell you, at first the girls screamed, but almost immediately realised what had happened, so they grabbed the coffin lid, closed it down on our man, and walked into work.

Needless to say, after about five minutes, they returned and released him.

I suppose if some of the tricks that were pulled back then happened nowadays, the tricksters would land in jail!

Mick remembers that when he first went for the job, the interviewer finished with the following statement:  Young fella, he said, remember, we are not the bosses in this company. The real boss is the man or woman who walks in through that door. No customer, no money, no money no job!

I think, all counter staff nowadays should learn that phrase!

Well where was this counter job, we enquired of Mick.

I actually started work in September, 1966, in Munster Glass on Maylor Street. Munster Glass was co-owned by W.J.Hickey Ltd., and Dublin Glass & Paint Company.

A few years later, a man called John Elmes from Crosshaven decided to retire from his company, Waters Glass, which was our intense rival at that time. Our company bosses decided to take them over; however, before the news broke, all eight of Munster Glass staff were gathered together and informed by our Managing Director (Pat Hickey) that we were to pretend to Waters Glass staff (and the general public) that this was an amalgamation, not a take-over.

Waters was a much larger company, he explained, and we did not want to insult/upset the staff of Waters Glass (Caroline Street) by saying it was a take-over.

Teaching Rory

Almost casually, Mick adds as an afterthought that at this time he was giving one-to-one music lessons in his mothers house, and Rory Gallagher actually came down for a few lessons.

Rory Gallagher came down for a few lessons.

He wanted to learn to read music. I used to teach sight-reading for guitar players (back in the days when I thought I knew it all!).

Unfortunately, I was unable to teach Rory as he was too good - Id play the few music notes Id have written for him and hed instantly have it in his head. He didnt have the patience to look at, and play, what I had written.

At that stage he was a brilliant guitar player yet he didnt appear to have any confidence in his obviously innate ability.

Oh gosh, were going to have to hear more about that, Mick!

Another Throwback Thursday reader, Brian Cronin wrote to say how much he also enjoyed last weeks story about fiddling the public telephone boxes.

We never did anything like that of course... adds Brian, but it reminded me of an occasion when my sister Rosemary and I were doing our stint in London - she nursing, and me hotel-ing - when we clambered into a public telephone box outside Selfridges store in Oxford Street on a cold and wet Christmas Eve to call our mum in Cork. She was living then in a rented apartment on the third floor of a building at the end of MacCurtain Street (next door to that little Protestant Church at the foot of Summer Hill).

The Garda station occupied the house next door, and from time to time when we were calling Mum from overseas, I would ring the guards there, and they would gladly bring her down to take the call in the barracks.

Having pressed button A, we were told by the guard who answered - after he had hopped in next door to check - that she wasnt home on this particular occasion. He then, incredibly, invited me to leave a message on their answering machine!

So Rose and I, a little tearfully I think, sang Silent Night into the phone before leaving the Christmas greeting. Could you imagine doing that today with the police - even in Ireland?

It was Rosemarys first Christmas away from home and only my second one. Oh, and there was no point in pressing button B, as the money had gone!

Yes, you do wonder if there is anywhere you would get a thoughtful service like that these days? Against all the rules, probably. But so nice when it happens.

Party lines and gossip

Brian also shared a memory of party lines which ensured that news was spread everywhere as soon as the phone was lifted.

The two years we spent in Oughterard as managers of the Connemara Gateway Hotel were amongst the happiest times in our hotel careers, he says.

Our grand old house on the hotel grounds had been originally the Church of Ireland rectory. In those days of the early 1970s, the telephone lines were scarce for the older houses in that part of the country and in our case we shared a line with three other houses.

The local post office, with postmistress Mrs OSullivan, would ring one, two to three times to identify which house should answer the call. So even the most private conversations could be overheard by other curious neighbours.

On one particular occasion, I was away in the UK on business and I called the post office to request being put through to Anne. Mrs OSullivan asked me to wait until the line was free but in the meantime she gave me all the local news, the most dramatic being that our local doctors wife had just given birth to their first child after 20 years of marriage!

I guess half of Connemara was able to join in the celebrations!

What are your memories? Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com or leave a comment on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/echolivecork.
Google is adding a handful of new features to Maps in time for the holidays, including the ability to search for specific products within the app itself. If you need a sweater for your annual ugly sweater party, new clothes or some last-minute gifts, for instance, you can type the item in Maps' search bar to bring up nearby stores where you may be able to find what you're looking for. From the results that pop up, you can select one of the options and then look up directions. Google says you can search for a wide variety of items from Maps, such as electronics, home goods and even grocery items.

The company has also updated Maps to allow you to report and see delays impacting your transit lines, as well as to show more details, such as alternate transit routes and subway station entrances. Maps will show reports for weather disruptions like unplowed or flooded roads and low visibility areas, as well. In addition, Google is adding the ability enter your vehicle's dimensions in its built-in Maps app to show routes that don't have bridges or tunnels you can't clear. For now, though, those routes are only available on the 2024 Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Suburban and GMC Yukon. The company says it will expand the feature's capability to more vehicle models in the future.

If you're driving an EV and look up routes with charging stops on your phone, you can now send the route you've decided on to your car with built-in Google Maps. Finally, if you want to avoid crowds when you go out, you can look at Maps' Popular Times info to see traffic trends at specific times.
Google will stop serving political advertisements in the European Union. The decision, announced in The Keyword blog, is in response to an upcoming new rule for the bloc that "introduces significant new operational challenges and legal uncertainties for political advertisers and platforms." The company says the Regulation on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising has an overly broad definition for political advertising and raised concerns that technical guidance around the policy may not be given until close to October 2025, when the rules will take effect.

In addition to no longer serving that ad content ahead of next October, Google said that paid political advertisements will also not be allowed on YouTube in the EU. The company said that similar regulations have already led it to stop serving political ads in Canada , France and Brazil.
When reality becomes stranger than satire, maybe the satirists can teach us something. Or, maybe the last laugh will be on them after all. The Onion said on Thursday that its parent company bought Infowars, the disgraced purveyor of Sandy Hook misinformation and vendor of pseudoscience supplements. The Onion posted on Bluesky that it plans to transform the rebooted Infowars into a very funny, very stupid website. However, the Texas judge overseeing the bankruptcy sale temporarily halted the takeover, citing concerns about the auction process. A review hearing will be scheduled for next week.

The Onion said it received the blessing of the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to scoop up Infowars in a bankruptcy auction. Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit founded in the massacres aftermath, reportedly plans to advertise on the rebooted site if the sale is finalized.

Infowars founder Alex Jones was found liable in 2022 for nearly $1.5 billion in damages for spreading conspiracy theories about the 2012 shooting that killed 20 children and six adult staffers.

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After The Onions triumphant announcement on Thursday, the AP reported that US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez called for an evidentiary hearing to review the auction that led to the takeover. Christopher Murray, the trustee overseeing the auction, reportedly said in court that The Onions parent company, Global Tetrahedron, didnt offer the highest bid in cash. However, the sale price included a clause where some Sandy Hook families would forego their portion of the proceeds to pay Jones other creditors. Murray said Global Tetrahedrons bid was the best despite having a lower (undisclosed) cash amount due to that agreement.

The only other bidder was First United American Companies, which runs a website using Jones name to sell his supplements. The company reportedly placed a $3.5 million bid that, based on cash alone, would have won the secret auction. First Uniteds attorney reportedly told the judge on Thursday that the trustee changed the auction process days before, omitting a final round on Wednesday that would have given the parties a chance to outbid each other.

The trustee only chose from the sealed bids submitted last week. However, he said his decision followed Judge Lopezs auction rules in September, describing the final round as optional.

Lopez struck a disapproving tone in court, throwing the sale into question. Were all going to an evidentiary hearing, and Im going to figure out exactly what happened, the judge reportedly said. No one should feel comfortable with the results of this auction.

Elon Musk allowed Jones back on X (Twitter) last year after the platform permanently banned him in 2018 under its previous ownership.

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As Americas chief satire publication (at least of those doing so consciously), The Onions (perhaps premature) announcement of the purchase stayed on brand. Its tone, hinting at whats to come, resembled The Colbert Report on steroids  or maybe Jones Survival Shield X-2 pills.

Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic panic and growing steadily ever since, InfoWars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses, The Onion wrote in a truth-meets-fiction announcement. With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal. They are a true unicorn, capable of simultaneously inspiring public support for billionaires and stoking outrage at an inept federal state that can assassinate JFK but cant even put a man on the Moon.

If the sale still ends up in its hands, The Onion plans to rebrand Infowars as a parody of itself (more than it already was), poking fun at weird internet personalities like Jones, according to The New York Times. Ben Collins, the CEO of Global Tetrahedron, hasnt said how much it paid to transform Infowars destructive self-parody into constructive satire. (Collins reported extensively on Infowars when covering misinformation at NBC News.) He plans to launch the rebooted site in January.

Update, November 15, 2024, 1:47PM ET: This story has been updated to reflect the sales finality being thrown into limbo at a court hearing after the announcement.
Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products .

No gaming mouse will magically stop you from getting wrecked in Counter-Strike or Call of Duty, but a good one can give you a greater sense of control while making your playtime more comfortable. Which one is best will always be subjective: Shape is king, as the adage goes, and everyones hands are different. That said, weve tested dozens of well-reviewed gaming mice over the past several months to find the ones that stood out the most. After playing through countless sessions of CS2, Overwatch 2, Final Fantasy XIV and more PC games, here are our picks for the best gaming mice you can buy, along with some general shopping advice to keep in mind before you pull the trigger.

The best gaming mouse

Photo by Jeff Dunn / Engadget Best wireless gaming mouse (symmetrical) Razer Viper V3 Pro Connectivity: Wireless, wired (USB-C) | Shape: Symmetrical | Weight: 54 grams | Dimensions: 5 x 2.51 x 1.57 inches | Sensor: Razer Focus Pro 35K Optical Sensor Gen-2 | Switches: Razer Optical Mouse Switches Gen-3 | Maximum polling rate: 8,000Hz | Programmable buttons: 6 | Battery life (rated): Up to 95 hours at 1,000Hz If money is no object, the best gaming mouse with a symmetrical design that weve tested is the Razer Viper V3 Pro. It costs a hefty $160, but itll give you little to complain about if you play a ton of competitive PC games and can stomach the price. With its lightly grooved sides, noticeable but not aggressive hump and gentle flare-outs toward the back, the Viper V3 Pros shape should be comfortable for a wide range of hand sizes and grip types. Its a bit on the wider side, and it probably works best with a claw or fingertip grip, but its not so short or flat that it cant accommodate palm grippers. The main mouse buttons are contoured in a way that gives your fingers a natural resting place, and there are little ledges on either side to subtly nudge them to the right spot when youre scrambling in-game. Put another way, this is one of the safer shapes weve tested. The Vipers build quality is excellent. Its impressively light at 54 grams, which makes it a breeze to flick around in fast-paced games, yet its matte plastic frame isnt covered in dust-inviting holes like many other options around the same weight. Weve seen zero hints of creaking, flexing or rattling after months of testing. The finish picks up some finger smudges but is grippy and delightfully soft to the touch. The main click buttons use durable optical switches but arent especially loud. Though they arent quite as full or crisp as the absolute best mechanical switches, theyre still snappy to press, neither too firm nor too light. The two programmable side buttons are well-sized and easy to reach. The scroll wheel, meanwhile, is tight and quiet, with clearly defined steps and a textured finish. Performance, as is the case with many high-end gaming mice these days, is effectively flawless. Razers Focus Pro 35K Optical Sensor Gen-2  say that five times fast  is basically overkill from a technological perspective but makes the mouse exceptionally accurate and consistent all the same. Its aided by amply-sized, smooth-gliding PTFE feet and a rock-solid connection to an included HyperPolling dongle. The latter lets the mouse reach a maximum polling rate of 8,000Hz, but as noted below, few people will actually noticed any benefit from jumping that high. Mostly, itll just zap battery life: Razer says the Viper V3 Pro can get up to 95 hours at 1,000Hz, which is fine for this market and roughly consistent with our experience, but that drops to just 17 hours at 8,000Hz. If the price didnt make it obvious, the Viper V3 Pro is for gaming enthusiasts. As such, it gives up some of the perks youd find on more mainstream mice: Theres no RGB lighting or Bluetooth, while the power button/DPI switcher is located on the bottom of the device to make it harder to hit by accident. Since the device uses a special dongle instead of a traditional receiver, it still requires you run a separate USB-C cable from your PC or gaming laptop. You can connect over that cable when the battery is low, thankfully, but its relatively thick. And while Razers Synapse software makes it simple enough to adjust settings, its something of a resource hog. Its also Windows-only. These are all nitpicks, though. The Viper V3 Pro is outstanding, and it should feel right at home in the hands of committed FPS players. Pros Exceptional performance

Superb build quality

Comfortable for most grip types and hand sizes Cons Expensive

Bit of a fingerprint magnet

Thick charging cable $140 at Walmart Explore More Buying Options $148 at Amazon$172 at Macy's

Photo by Jeff Dunn / Engadget Best wireless gaming mouse (ergonomic) Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro Connectivity: Wireless, wired (USB-C) | Shape: Right-handed | Weight: 63 grams | Dimensions: 5 x 2.67 x 1.73 inches | Sensor: Razer Focus Pro 30K Optical Sensor | Switches: Razer Optical Mouse Switches Gen-3 | Maximum polling rate: 8,000Hz ("classic base" model requires optional dongle) | Programmable buttons: 6 | Battery life (rated): Up to 90 hours at 1,000Hz If you want a premium gaming mouse with a more ergonomic shape, get the Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro. It packs most of the same strengths as the Viper V3 Pro but has a taller, slightly wider and more dramatically flared design thats tailored to right-handed users. Most people with medium to large hands should find it to be a natural fit with a palm or claw grip, though itll probably be a touch too fat for smaller-handed folks and fingertip grippers. This kind of shape isnt as easy to whip around as the Viper, but its high, sideways-sloping hump should provide a more relaxing place to rest your hand over the course of the day. Razer sells two variants of the DeathAdder V3 Pro: one with a similar soft-touch finish as the Viper V3 Pro, and one with a more textured matte plastic coating. We tested the latter; its not as grippy or smooth to the touch, but its still good, and its much less of a fingerprint magnet. Also, the side buttons are bigger, closer together and a smidge less tight, but theyre still difficult to hit by accident. The design is heavier at 63 grams, too, but still seriously lightweight. The PTFE feet are smaller but still glide reliably. And while the sensor is technically a generation older, performance is effectively flawless. Otherwise, youre looking at a similar feature set. The optical main buttons are satisfying and consistent but not overly sensitive. The lightly notched scroll wheel is soft, quiet and resistant enough, if not firm. Battery life is rated at a decent 90 hours, and you can connect a lighter and more flexible USB-C cable in a pinch. Both versions of the mouse also support polling rates up to 8,000Hz, though only the SKU with the smooth-touch texture comes with a wireless dongle that enables those higher rates in the box. The textured classic base model comes with a smaller USB receiver that only goes up to 1,000Hz, but since its often available for less at third-party retailers, its probably a better value. In general, the biggest knock against the DeathAdder V3 Pro is that its expensive, with the 8,000Hz model priced at $160. The newer DeathAdder V3 HyperSpeed, which costs $99, is a 1B pick here. Although its positioned below the Pro in Razers lineup, its more of a DeathAdder V3 Pro Mini than a clear downgrade. It doesnt give up the rechargeable battery, cutout-free shell, optical switches and soft (if smudge-heavy) coating of its bigger sibling, and while its sensor is technically worse, it still performs wonderfully. Its battery life rating is actually 10 hours higher at 1,000Hz, plus it has a built-in storage compartment for its USB receiver. The major difference is that its lighter (55g) and more compact, with a lower-profile scroll wheel and a marginally shorter hump. If your hands are on the smaller side, its worth grabbing instead. Pros Top-shelf performance

Lightweight

Comfortable for those with medium to large hands Cons Expensive

Naggy software

Not ideal for smaller hands $110 at Amazon Explore More Buying Options $134 at Macy's

Photo by Jeff Dunn / Endgadget Best wired gaming mouse (symmetrical) Endgame Gear OP1 8K Connectivity: Wired (USB-A) | Shape: Right-handed | Weight: 49 grams | Dimensions: 4.65 x 2.38 x 1.46 inches | Sensor: PixArt PAW3395 | Switches: Kailh GX | Maximum polling rate: 8,000Hz | Programmable buttons: 6 | Battery life (rated): N/A If you dont mind connecting over a cable, our favorite wired gaming mouse with a symmetrical design is the Endgame Gear OP1 8K. It weighs just 50 grams and has a simple design with flat sides and a reasonably-sized hump sloping down the back. Its a bit smaller and more narrow than most mice weve tested, so itll be comfiest with a claw or fingertip grip, though a palm grip can also work in smaller hands. The whole thing is incredibly sturdy, with no flex or rattle, while the smooth matte plastic coating gives a fair bit of grip. The built-in cable is light, flexible and cleverly titled upwards at the base of the mouse, all of which helps reduce any dragging sensation as you throw your hand around. The OP1 8K uses mechanical switches, but the mouse is designed in a way that makes them (relatively) easy to swap out in a worst-case scenario. In general, the devices openness to customization is commendable  there are readily exposed screws on the bottom and a screwdriver, optional side grips and larger PTFE feet in the box. By default, the main clicks are on the stiffer side but fast to actuate and noticeably crisp. You can actually set these switches to use a speed mode that reduces click latency even further, but either way the buttons are easy to spam. The right mouse button on our unit does sound a little sharper than the left, but the difference isnt severe and you can pop in quieter switches on the cheap if you want a different noise profile. The notched scroll wheel and two side buttons are well-tensioned, too. The latter feel somewhat hollow, but theyre hard to hit by accident. Sensor performance is predictably excellent; we saw no accuracy or motion delay issues across a range of games. With its light weight, fast clicks and smooth stock skates, everything about it feels tailor-made for snapping around in esports-style games like Counter-Strike 2 that prioritize quick reactions. The mouse also supports polling rates up to 8,000Hz  thats still far from essential, but its at least easier to turn on when theres no battery drain to worry about. We also like Endgame Gears configuration software, which looks like something out of the Windows 95 era but is simple to grok and takes up next to no resources. At $75, the OP1 8K certainly isnt the cheapest wired mouse, but its still a good way less than wireless high-performance models. The most pressing issue may be that it can fall out of stock from time to time, as Endgame Gear is a relatively small company out of Germany. Pros Fast to click and flick

Sturdy, ultralight design

Light and flexible cable

Hardware is customizable Cons A bit small for large hands

Side buttons feel somewhat hollow

Occasional stock issues $75 at Endgame Gear Explore More Buying Options $85 at Amazon

Photo by Jeff Dunn / Engadget Best wired gaming mouse (ergonomic) Razer Basilisk V3 Connectivity: Wired (USB-A) | Shape: Right-handed | Weight: 101 grams | Dimensions: 5.11 x 2.95 x 1.65 inches | Sensor: Razer Focus Pro 30K Optical Sensor | Switches: Razer Optical Mouse Switches Gen-2 | Maximum polling rate: 1,000Hz | Programmable buttons: 11 | Battery life (rated): N/A Its a few years old, but the Razer Basilisk V3 remains our favorite wired gaming mouse with an ergonomic design. This one is more aggressively contoured than ergo mice like the DeathAdder V3 Pro, with a large rubberized thumb rest, long main buttons and a rounded, moderately-sized hump running down its middle. Its fantastically comfy for palm grippers with medium- to large-sized hands, but itll also play well with claw grips. Those who prefer a fingertip grip or just have smaller hands will likely find it too chunky, however. The design as a whole feels robust; theres some minor flexing on the bottom-right side when you press down hard, but youd have to go out of your way to notice it. The matte plastic finish is pleasingly textured and sufficiently grippy. The cable is plenty flexible, while the PTFE feet glide smoothly. We also dig the fun-but-not-garish RGB lighting around the mouses underside and scroll wheel. There are 11 customizable buttons in total, including two easy-to-reach side buttons and a dedicated sensitivity clutch that lets you momentarily drop to a lower DPI for moments where you may need to aim more precisely. The latter will be particularly tough for the smaller-handed to reach comfortably, though. The Basilisk V3 uses older optical switches than our other Razer top picks, but we havent had any double-clicking issues after well over a year of testing. While main clicks arent nearly as fast as those on the Endgame Gear OP1 8K, they strike an agreeable balance between firmness and speed. They arent all that loud, either. Similar to the Viper V3 Pro, the buttons are grooved in a way that naturally invites your index and middle fingers. The scroll wheel might be the weakest element: It has clearly defined steps and an easily identifiable texture, but its fairly loud and a bit wobbly. That said, it can tilt side-to-side  which helps explain the wobbliness  and theres a built-in toggle that lets you swap between a normal ratcheted scroll and a free-spin mode. That can be handy outside of games  say, when you need to scroll through a giant document or Excel sheet. Razers Synapse software is still naggy with updates and Windows-only, but it makes customizing DPI levels, macros and RGB effects simple enough. You can save up to five different profiles to the mouse itself, though your lighting customizations wont carry over. We havent had any major issues with sensor accuracy, either, but at roughly 100 grams, the Basilisk V3 is obviously heftier than the ultralight mice we highlight above. While you absolutely can go off in Counter-Strike or Valorant with it, the mouses weight and wide frame mean its not expressly designed for games like those. It also cant go above a 1,000Hz polling rate. In many ways, this is the exact opposite of the OP1 8K, a device that feels designed from the ground up for competitive fare. Instead, the Basilisk V3 makes sense for righties who want a comfy and reliable mouse they can turn to for more casual gaming across genres. Razer sells it for $70, but since its usually available for less than $50 at third-party retailers these days, you can consider it our pick for the best budget gaming mouse as well. Its worth noting that Razer released a slightly refreshed model called the Basilisk V3 35K since our last update. That one comes with a technically improved sensor and newer optical switches, though the weight and overall shape are virtually identical. Given that we didnt have many issues with the tech inside of original V3, wed still recommend getting the older version while its still in stock and available for less. If you see the V3 35K on sale for a similar price, however, it should be safe to just get that one instead. Pros Super comfortable for medium to large hands

Well-built, with flexible cable

Versatile scroll wheel

Good value Cons Too heavy to be ideal for FPS games

Too bulky to be ideal for small hands

Scroll wheel is noisy

Naggy software $40 at Amazon Explore More Buying Options $40 at Walmart$53 at Macy's

Photo by Jeff Dunn / Engadget Best gaming mouse for MMOs Corsair Scimitar RGB Elite Connectivity: Wired (USB-A) | Shape: Right-handed | Weight: 108 grams | Dimensions: 4.98 x 2.48 x 1.57 inches | Sensor: PixArt PMW3391 | Switches: Omron D2FC-F-K | Maximum polling rate: 1,000Hz | Programmable buttons: 17 | Battery life (rated): N/A If you want a mouse specifically designed for MMO and MOBA games, get the Corsair Scimitar RGB Elite. It does the most important thing any MMO mouse can do, which is let you access several in-game actions with minimal effort. Thats thanks to its 12 programmable side buttons, all of which deliver a comfortable, firm-but-not-stiff sensation when pressed. Two of the panels four button rows are textured, which makes them easier to distinguish without having to look down. Uniquely, you can physically reposition this side panel with an Allen key included in the box, so if you find the buttons difficult to reach by default, you can address that. Either way, having a host of buttons right under your thumb makes it much easier to play MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV or even single-player RPGs like Baldurs Gate 3, which ask you to navigate multiple hotbars of commands at any given time. Like most MMO mice, the Scimitar RGB Elite is on the larger and heavier (108g) side, but its not the bulkiest model weve seen. Its shape should be accommodating to palm and claw grips, and most hand sizes. The middle has a rounded, not-overly-aggressive hump, while the bottom is more gently sloped than rivals like Razers Naga lineup. The overall construction feels well-built, with a smooth matte finish, a grippy pinky rest and decent PTFE feet. Internally, its optical sensor (the Pixart PMW3391) isnt exactly advanced these days, but its more than consistent enough for MMOs and MOBAs, which dont rely on precise, quick-twitch movements. It has no significant issues with latency, either. However, there are a few downsides. The braided cable feels durable but somewhat stiff. The scroll wheel is grippy and accurate enough, but its a touch too recessed between the main buttons, and it could be firmer. Those main buttons never feel mushy, but they use mechanical switches, so they carry more of a long-term durability risk than optical alternatives. (Corsair rates them at 50 million clicks.) And Corsairs iCue software is, frankly, the worst: You can use it to customize key bindings, assign macros, adjust the (mild) RGB lighting and save profiles to the mouse, but figuring out how is wildly unintuitive. Nevertheless, the MMO gaming mouse market doesnt really have one killer option these days. At a price that usually hovers in the $60 to $75 range, the Scimitar RGB Elite offers better value than most. If you hate cables, Corsair sells a wireless version of the device too. Pros Cleverly textured side buttons make MMOs easier to navigate

Generally comfortable and well-built

Decent value relative to MMO mouse market Cons Stiff cable

Scroll wheel is too recessed

Annoying software $80 at Amazon

Lamzu Honorable mention Lamzu Atlantis OG V2 4K Connectivity: Wireless, wired (USB-C) | Shape: Symmetrical | Weight: 57 grams | Dimensions: 4.84 x 2.6 x 1.5 inches | Sensor: PixArt PAW3395 | Switches: Huano Transparent Blue Shell Pink Dot | Maximum polling rate: 4,000Hz | Programmable buttons: 6 | Battery life (rated): No rating provided While our top wireless picks are great, we realize that they arent cheap. If you want a performance-focused model with a symmetrical shape that isnt as pricey, consider the Lamzu Atlantis OG V2 4K. Clunky name aside, it tracks accurately and feels well-built. Its mechanical clicks are crisp and full, while its scroll wheel is quiet and sufficiently tight. The lightweight wireless design (57g) is soft in the hand, though its another one that can pick up smudges fairly easily. It has a wider and lower-profile shape than the Viper V3 Pro, particularly toward the front, with a centered hump that isnt quite as aggressive. Itll feel at home with a claw grip for any hand size, but fingertip grippers should find it comfortable too. (Just stick with the Viper if you use a palm grip.) Beyond that, Lamzus companion software is ugly but functional, and the included charging cable is suitably flexible. The main knock against the Atlantis is the set of cutouts strewn about its baseplate, which reduce the weight but leave the mouses interior open to dust and debris. Its better to have these holes on the bottom than the top if they must be there, but the Viper avoids this risk entirely. That said, the Atlantis costs $60 less, so its a decent value for a premium mouse. Pros Satisfying clicks and quiet scroll wheel

Comfy for claw or fingertip grips

Decent value Cons Holes in baseplate leave interior open to dust and debris

Not ideal for palm grips

Ugly software $102 at Amazon

Pulsar Gaming Gears Honorable mention Pulsar Xlite V3 (Xlite V3 Medium) Connectivity: Wireless, wired (USB-C) | Shape: Symmetrical | Weight: 55 grams | Dimensions: 4.8 x 2.6 x 1.7 inches | Sensor: PixArt PAW3395 | Switches: Raesha Optical (90 M) | Maximum polling rate: 1,000Hz (4,000Hz with optional dongle) | Programmable buttons: 5 | Battery life (rated): Up to 100 hours at 1,000Hz The Pulsar Xlite V3, meanwhile, is an excellent alternative to the DeathAdder V3 Pro if you want a right-handed design. It has a similar contoured shape, so its great for palm and claw grips, but its a pinch lighter. Notably, Pulsar sells mini, medium and large variants, so you can choose a size that fits your hands best. Each have rigid outer shells and snappy optical buttons, though the smooth plastic coating isnt as grippy as either of the DeathAdders finishes and the side buttons arent as crisp. Like the Atlantis, the Xlite V3 also has cutouts across the bottom, making it more susceptible to gunk. Still, this is a light, comfortable and highly responsive ergo mouse. For a typical street price of $70, its a strong buy. Well note that Pulsar has released a revised version of this mouse called the Xlite V4 since our last update. We havent been able to test it just yet, though it doesnt appear to be a huge refresh, primarily adding a newer sensor in effectively the same shape. Well update this recommendation once were able to get our hands on the V4, but for now we stand by our current pick, especially when its available for a lower price. Pros Solid value

Well-suited for palm and claw grips

Available in different sizes Cons Holes in baseplate leave interior open to dust and debris

Coating could be grippier $100 at Amazon

Other gaming mice we tested

The Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2. (Photo by Jeff Dunn / Engadget)

Note: The following is a selection of especially noteworthy mice we've tested, not a comprehensive list of every single model weve put through its paces.

Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2

The Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 is a close rival to the Razer Viper V3 Pro for those who want a no-frills, high-end wireless gaming mouse. It has a similar potato-style shape, its tracking is similarly tremendous and its optical-mechanical switches have a distinct feel. Unlike the first Superlight, it also charges over USB-C. But the Vipers main clicks are crisper and more pleasant-sounding, its side buttons aren't as mushy and its scroll wheel is both firmer and grippier. Its also slightly lighter.

Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 DEX

The G Pro X Superlight 2 DEX is the ergonomic version of the Superlight 2, packing the same sensor and hybrid switches in a chunkier, right-handed shape. We found its right side to flare out a little too much, though, often leaving our pinky finger in a less-than-comfortable position. Those with medium-sized hands may find its center hump to be too aggressive for consistent aiming as well. The DeathAdder V3 Pros main buttons are still more invitingly curved and consistent to press beyond that, while its coating isnt as slippery. The DEXs scroll wheel is tighter, and all of its internal tech is great, so by no means is this a poor choice. But at $159, there are better values out there.

Razer Viper V3 HyperSpeed

Much like the DeathAdder V3 HyperSpeed, Razers Viper V3 HyperSpeed is a lower-cost variant of the top-end Viper V3 Pro. (Confusing, we know.) At $70, its a solid value. Its symmetrical shape and soft-touch finish are virtually identical to the more premium model, and though it technically has a worse sensor, the drop-off is hardly noticeable. The main trade-off is that its heavier (about 82g), as it requires a AA battery for power. That doesnt make it outright hefty, but you can feel the difference in twitchier games. It uses older mechanical switches and smaller PTFE feet, too, plus it lacks a port for connecting a cable. So its not as close to its big sibling as the mid-tier DeathAdder. Some may prefer that its DPI button is located on the top of the mouse, though, and its simpler on-off switch is nice.

Razer Basilisk V3 X HyperSpeed

The Razer Basilisk V3 X HyperSpeed is a more affordable wireless version of the Basilisk V3 with the same comfortable shape and layout, plus a quieter scroll wheel. Because it requires a AA battery for power, though, it weighs around 115g. That's not great for fast-paced games. The scroll wheel cant tilt left or right, either, nor can it switch between a ratcheted and free-spin mode. It also uses less durable mechanical switches and only supports one onboard profile. All that said, its a decent value at $70.

Left to right: the Logitech G309 Lightspeed, the Razer Viper V3 HyperSpeed and the Pulsar X2 V2. (Photo by Jeff Dunn / Engadget)

Pulsar X2 V2

The Pulsar X2 V2 is a good alternative to the Lamzu Atlantis OG V2 4K if you want a high-performing symmetrical mouse for less than the Viper V3 Pro. It has a broadly similar shape as Lazmus mouse but is marginally lighter. Its plastic shell is nice and sturdy, but we find its flatter sides and hump make it a little less inviting to palm and claw grips. It does use optical switches, but its main clicks arent as quiet or full-feeling as those of the Atlantis. It, too, has cutouts across the bottom shell. Weve seen the X2 V2 go for $70 on Amazon in recent months  at that price, its still better for FPS players than the Viper V3 HyperSpeed, but we prefer the Atlantis when both are at their normal MSRP of $100.

Pwnage Stormbreaker

The Pwnage Stormbreaker is a superlight (51g), exceptionally sturdy and premium-feeling wireless mouse thats largely made from magnesium alloy instead of plastic. It performs about on par with our top picks, which is excellent, while its right-handed, medium-sized shape should suit palm and claw grippers well. (If you know BenQs Zowie EC line, the shape is basically that.) However, the extensive cutouts all over the sides and top shell are noticeable in the hand and make the device more susceptible to debris buildup than the DeathAdder V3 Pro. While the buttons and scroll wheel are impressively tight, the main clicks are a bit too stiff and high-pitched for our liking. We also noticed more connection stutters than usual on our test PC, and its expensive at $169.

BenQ Zowie U2

Speaking of BenQ, its Zowie U2 is a perfectly decent alternative to the Viper V3 Pro that costs about $30 less. It tracks great, its lightweight (60g) and its mechanical clicks feel fine. It also comes with two receivers, one of which doubles as a handy charging dock. It has a symmetrical shape with sides that curve inwards and a decently-sized hump at the back; BenQ says its designed for claw grips, and it is indeed good for that, but it should also work for fingertip grippers with larger hands or palm grippers with smaller ones. Alas, the scroll wheel is gratingly loud and the plastic coating picks up smudges and hand oils like its its job. Theres also no configuration software, which can make adjusting settings a little cumbersome, though some may prefer not having to install any extra bloat on their PC. This mouse also maxes out at a fairly basic 1,000Hz polling rate  thats not a huge deal in practice, but it is technically behind many other mice in this price range.

The Pwnage Stormbreaker (left) and BenQ Zowie U2 (right). (Photo by Jeff Dunn / Engadget)

Logitech G309 Lightspeed

There isnt much wrong with the Logitech G309 Lightspeed in a vacuum. Its built like a tank, its sensor is accurate and its egg-like shape should feel OK, if not superlative, in most hand sizes and grip types. It uses the same hybrid switches as the G Pro X Superlight 2, so the clicks dont sound great but are fast. It also has a supercapacitor inside, which gives it effectively infinite battery life if you own Logitechs (costly) PowerPlay charging mat. Thats neat! Most people, though, will need to pop in a AA battery, which pushes the weight up around 85 grams. As most of that weight is felt toward the back, the mouse can feel relatively clunky to fling around in FPS games. Were not fans of the ugly recess across the middle of the device, either, as it creates a space for dust to collect. At $80, the G309 is still fine for more casual types wholl only buy from a name brand. But unless you use PowerPlay, it doesnt do much to stand out from other options around the same price.

HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2

The HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 is a decent wired model for those who want a flatter ambidextrous shape. It performs well for competitive play, and its plenty light (53g) thanks to a clever design with cutouts on the bottom that are covered by the mouses label. But the Endgame Gear OP1 8K is better-built and more comfortable, so we think its worth the extra cash. The Razer Viper 8KHz was another solid, albeit heavier, option with a similar shape, but its no longer available for purchase.

A few more gaming mice we've tested. Left to right: the Glorious Model I 2 Wireless, the Razer Cobra Pro, the Razer Basilisk V3 X HyperSpeed and the HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2. (Photo by Jeff Dunn / Engadget)

HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 Core Wireless

The HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 Core Wireless is a budget-friendly wireless variant of the Haste 2. It may be OK if you must go wireless and only have $50 to spend, as its shell feels sturdy and its low-profile shape is well-suited to claw or fingertip grips. Its a bit weightier than the wired Haste 2 (about 70g) since it runs on a AAA battery, but thats nowhere near heavy. That said, its main buttons feel somewhat mushy, and we observed a few sensor hiccups and inconsistencies, particularly when we had HyperXs Ngenuity software open.

Logitech G502 X

The Logitech G502 X has a generally similar shape as the Razer Basilisk V3, with a lower weight (84g) and more side buttons. However, its main buttons are noisier, its a slightly more awkward fit for most hands, its rubber cable isnt as flexible and it lacks RGB.

Logitech G203 Lightsync

The Logitech G203 Lightsync is our former budget pick. Its often available in the $30 range these days, and at that price its still fine if you want a competent gaming mouse for as little money as possible. You can feel the cost cutting in its rubbery cable and mushy scroll wheel, however, and its shape is a bit too small and flat for larger hands. The Logitech G305 Lightspeed is a wireless model with more or less the same shape, but it requires a AA battery to work and thus weighs just over 100g. It, too, feels somewhat outdated in 2025.

Razer Cobra

The Razer Cobra is another value-oriented wired option with a compact shape. Its much lighter (58g) than the Logitech G203, with a more flexible cable and optical switches instead of mechanical ones. Its priced at $40, though, putting it in something of a no mans land between the G203s and Basilisk V3s usual going rates. The Endgame Gear OP1 8K still feels higher-quality across the board, but if you have smaller hands, use a fingertip grip and want a symmetrical mouse on the cheap, go for it.

The Logitech G203 Lightsync (Jeff Dunn / Engadget)

Glorious Model I 2 Wireless

Theres plenty to like about the Glorious Model I 2 Wireless: an ergonomic shape thats reminiscent of the Basilisk V3/Logitech G502 X but lighter at 75g, four customizable side buttons, the ability to connect over a USB receiver or Bluetooth, a smooth scroll wheel and tasteful RGB lighting, all for $100. However, its honeycomb-style design and mechanical switches both raise concerns about its long-term durability.

Glorious Model D 2 Wireless

The Glorious Model D 2 Wireless also has holes all over its shell yet doesnt perform or feel significantly better than other mice around the $100 mark. Reviews from other sites say it has latency issues, too. The ergonomic Model D 2 Pro and symmetrical Model O 2 Pro arent loaded with cutouts, but their main buttons are relatively loud and sticky-feeling.

Razer Naga Left-Handed Edition

The Razer Naga Left-Handed Edition isnt nearly as good of a value as the Scimitar RGB Elite, but its one of the few MMO mice thats actually built for lefties.

Logitech G600

We would continue to recommend our former MMO pick, the old but wonderfully versatile Logitech G600, but sadly its been discontinued.

What to look for in a gaming mouse

Wired vs. wireless

Buying a wireless gaming mouse used to mean sacrificing a certain level of responsiveness, but thankfully, thats no longer the case. Over the last few years, wireless connectivity has improved to the point where the difference in latency between a good wireless model and a tried-and-true wired gaming mouse is barely perceptible.

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Note, however, that were strictly talking about mice that use a 2.4GHz connection (over a USB dongle), not Bluetooth. Many of the best wireless gaming mouse models support both connection options, which is great for travel, but Bluetooths latency is generally too high to be reliable for gaming.

Going wireless still has other trade-offs, too. Battery life is improving all the time, but with their higher performance demands and RGB lighting, most wireless gaming mice usually don't last as long as "normal" wireless models. You shouldnt expect more than a few days of power from a rechargeable gaming mouse you use regularly. Some gaming mice offer wireless charging too, which makes things a bit easier. Good wireless gaming mice usually come at a much higher cost than their wired counterparts as well.

Thats not to say the premium is never worth it: Who wants yet another cable on their desk? You may need a wireless model if you hate the feel of cable drag or if your gaming PC is located in an awkward spot. Many wireless gaming mice come with a cable you can hook up in a pinch as well. But if price is your primary concern, a good wired mouse may be a better value.

Comfort and grip types

Everyones hands are different, so at the end of the day, calling one mouse more comfortable than another is mostly subjective. Ensuring your comfort is the most essential step when buying any mouse, though, so weve done our best to consider how each device we tested works with smaller, average-sized and larger hands alike.

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We also considered how each peripheral accommodates the three grip styles most people use while holding a mouse: palm, fingertip and claw. As a refresher, a palm grip is when your whole hand rests on the mouse, with your fingers resting flat on the main buttons. A fingertip grip is when you steer the mouse solely with the tips of your fingers, with your palm not in contact with the device at all. A claw grip is when your palm only touches the back edge of the mouse, with your fingers arched in a claw-like shape toward the buttons.

In general, most people use a palm grip, which tends to offer the greatest sense of control  though, depending on the size of your hand, you may need your mouse to be a specific length to use it comfortably. A fingertip grip can allow for more rapid movements, while a claw grip is something of a balance between the two. Switch and Click has a good breakdown if youd like a bit more detail, but weve noted above if a mouse isnt well-suited for a particular grip style. For what its worth, yours truly is a claw gripper most of the time.

Build quality and design

A good gaming mouse feels sturdy and wont flex or creak when used strenuously. We valued mice without any overly sharp angles or grooves that could be awkward for most people to hold. And while most gaming mice have plastic exteriors, not all plastic is created equal, so we looked for finishes that were smooth, not too slick and capable of withstanding the sweaty palms that often come with competitive gaming sessions.

The gaming mouse market is mostly split between two design styles: ergonomic and ambidextrous. Ergonomic mice are almost always made with right-handed users in mind and often feature dedicated thumb rests. Ambidextrous mice are more symmetrical and designed to be used with either hand (though they may not have extra buttons on both sides). Whether an ergonomic or ambidextrous gaming mouse works best for you is largely a matter of personal preference.

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A gaming mouses feet, meanwhile, should provide a consistent glide and reduce the friction between your mouse and mouse pad beneath it as much as possible. For the best performance, look for feet made from PTFE (aka Teflon). All feet will eventually wear down, but many mice come with spares, and most manufacturers sell replacements if needed.

As for flashy RGB lighting, its a nice bonus, but little more than that. Still, if youve already kitted out your setup with RGB, having a mouse with adjustable lighting effects can add to the gaming experience (and more consumer tech could stand to do things for pleasures sake). More practically, some mice let you assign custom lighting settings to separate profiles, which can make it easier to see which one youre currently using.

Weight

Gaming mice have gotten lighter and lighter over the years, with some recent releases weighing less than 40 grams. Your mouse doesnt need to be that feathery  anything under 80g is still reasonably light, and its not like a 100g mouse feels like a total anchor. Regardless, a lightweight mouse makes it easier to pull off fast movements repeatedly, with less inertia. That said, some players still enjoy a little bit of bulk in their gaming mouse (relatively speaking), especially with games that arent as reliant on twitchy reactions.

To reach those lightest weights, some manufacturers have released gaming mice with honeycomb-style designs, which feature an array of cutouts in the outer shell. These mice can still perform great, but having a bunch of holes that expose the internal circuit board to possible sweat, dust and detritus isnt the best for long-term durability.

Switches, buttons and scroll wheel

A growing number of gaming mice use optical switches instead of mechanical ones. Since these involve fewer bits making physical contact, they should generally be more durable and less prone to unwanted double-clicks over time. Many gamers still find good mechanical switches more satisfying to press, so it's not like you should avoid mechanical mice altogether. They just carry a little more long-term risk in a vacuum.

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Since most people will use their gaming mouse as their mouse-mouse, you may want main buttons that have a softer feel when pressed, with enough travel to make inadvertent actuations less frequent. But even that is a matter of preference: You may want lighter buttons if you play games that call for constant clicking. We also looked to testing from sites like Rtings to ensure each mouse we recommend has a sufficiently low click latency, meaning your clicks will register with minimal lag.

Beyond the standard click panels, a good gaming mouse should also have programmable buttons for quick macros or shortcuts. For most games, shoot for at least two extra buttons on the thumb-side panel that are easy to reach and difficult to press by accident. Many mice have more buttons, which can be a plus, but not if they force you to contort your fingers to avoid hitting them. For MMO mice, having at least 12 side buttons is preferable in order to access as many hotbar commands as possible.

As for the scroll wheel, it should have distinct, ratcheted steps that arent too resistant but make it clear when youve actually scrolled. Its texture should be grippy, and it shouldn't make a distracting amount of noise when used. The wheel should also be clickable, giving you another input to customize for certain games (e.g., to control the zoom on a sniper rifle).

Sensors and performance

Some are more proficient than others, but generally speaking, the optical sensors built into most modern gaming mice are more than fast and accurate enough for most peoples needs.

While shopping for gaming mice, youll see a number of terms related to sensor performance. To be clear, a gaming mouses responsiveness doesnt come down to just one spec. But for claritys sake, heres a rundown of the more noteworthy jargon:

DPI, or dots per inch, is a measure of a mouses sensitivity. The higher the DPI setting, the more your cursor will move with every inch you move the mouse itself. Many of the best gaming mice advertise extremely high DPIs that top out above 30,000, but thats largely marketing fluff: Few people play above 3,000, with 800 a common sweet spot. This concept is also referred to as CPI (counts per inch), which is probably the more accurate term, though DPI is used more often.

IPS, or inches per second, refers to the maximum velocity a mouse sensor supports. The higher the IPS, the faster you can move the mouse before it becomes incapable of tracking motions correctly.

Acceleration goes with IPS. In this context, it refers to how many Gs a mouse can withstand before it starts to track inaccurately.

Polling rate is a measure of how often a mouse tells a computer where it is. In general, the more frequently your mouse reports information to your PC, the more predictable its response time should be. Anything at 500Hz or above is fine for gaming. The sweet spot for most is 1,000Hz. Many newer mice can go all the way up to 8,000Hz, but you start to see diminishing returns the higher you go unless own a powerful PC and play on a gaming monitor with a particularly high refresh rate.

Lift-off distance is the height at which a mouses sensor stops tracking the surface below it. Many competitive players like this to be as low as possible in order to avoid unintended cursor movements while repositioning their mouse.

Software and onboard memory

It doesnt take long to find horror stories about bugs and other niggling issues caused by gaming mouse software, so the ideal app is one that doesnt force you to use it all the time. It should let you adjust as many of the aspects above as possible, ideally to several distinct profiles. Preferably, you can save your settings directly to the mouse itself, letting you pick your customizations back up on another device without having to redownload any software. All this is most important on Windows, but Mac compatibility is always good to have.

Warranty and customer support

Most major gaming mice brands offer warranties between one and three years. The longer and more extensive a manufacturers program is, the better. This is the case with most consumer tech, but we note it here because the gaming mouse market is particularly flush with products from less-than-household names, many of which you may see hyped up on YouTube, Reddit or elsewhere around the web. A bunch of these more obscure mice are genuinely great, but if you ever buy from a more niche brand, its worth checking that some level of customer support is in place. Weve made sure our picks for the best gaming mice arent riddled with an abnormal amount of poor user reviews.

November 2024: Weve updated this guide with testing notes on the Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 DEX. Weve also added mentions of the Razer Basilisk V3 35K and Pulsar Xlite V4, two recently released updates to a couple of our current picks. We aim to test those more fully, alongside a few others, for our next update.

September 2024: We've completely refreshed this guide for late 2024, adding new main picks based on shape alongside notes on several other gaming mice we've tested in recent months. We're now in the process of testing Logitech's new G Pro X Superlight 2 DEX, a flagship ergonomic mouse that the company announced right as we were putting the finishing touches on this update.
Google now offers a dedicated Gemini AI app on iPhone. First spotted by MacRumors, the free software is available to download in Australia, India, the US and the UK following a soft launch in the Philippines earlier this week.

Before today, iPhone users could access Gemini through the Google app, though there were some notable limitations. For instance, the dedicated app includes Googles Gemini Live feature, which allows users to interact with the AI agent from their iPhones Dynamic Island and Lock Screen. As a result, you dont need to have the app open on your phones screen to use Gemini. The software is free to download  though a Gemini Advanced subscription is necessary to use every available feature. Gemini Advanced is included in Googles One AI Premium plan, which starts at $19 per month.

The app is compatible with iPhones running iOS 16 and later, meaning people with older devices such as the iPhone 8 and iPhone X can use the AI agent. Ill note here that the oldest iPhone that can run Apple Intelligence is the iPhone 15 Pro. Of course, thats not exactly a fair comparison; Apple designed its suite of AI features to rely primarily on on-device processing, and when a query requires more computational horsepower, it goes through the companys Private Cloud Compute framework.

Either way, its not surprising to see Google bring a dedicated Gemini app to iPhone. Ahead of WWDC 2024, Apple had reportedly been in talks with the company to integrate the AI agent directly into its devices.

If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
Craig Melvin has been announced to replace Hoda Kotb on the 'TODAY' show.

Melvin, a broadcast journalist and anchor at NBC News and MSNBC, revealed the news on Thursday, November 14. Kotb's last day will be January 10.

"Craig Melvin is the new anchor of the 'Today' show!" Savannah Guthrie said, describing the move as "one of the most popular decisions NBC News has ever made."

Kotb, 60, told Melvin, 45, "You were made for this job. ... You have all the things that this job needs. You're the right person for it."

@nbcnews Craig Melvin will replace Hoda Kotb as co-anchor of the @TODAYshow starting Jan. 13, 2025, after Kotb announced in September that she was leaving the show.  original sound - nbcnews - nbcnews

Kotb wrote a letter to the staff of the morning show informing them that the choice to leave has been a painful choice to make, and added that her career has proven to be meaningful in her life.

Although Kotb won't be hosting anymore, she will reportedly remain on staff as she navigates family matters, which include giving attention to her daughters, Haley and Hope.

"As I write this, my heart is all over the map," Kotb wrote in late September, per 'TODAY.' "I know I'm making the right decision, but it's a painful one. And you all are the reason why. They say two things can be right at the same time, and I'm feeling that so deeply right now. I love you and it's time for me to leave the show."

"My broadcast career has been beyond meaningful, a new decade of my life lies ahead, and now my daughters and my mom need and deserve a bigger slice of my time pie. I will miss you all desperately, but I'm ready and excited."

According to the media outlet, the journalist will remain in her current role through the start of 2025, but she won't be completely absent from the team.

Kotb wrote: "Happily and gratefully, I plan to remain a part of the NBC family, the longest work relationship I've been lucky enough to hold close to my heart. I'll be around. How could I not? Family is family and you all will always be a part of mine."

The mother of two has co-anchored NBC News' 'TODAY' along with fellow hosts Guthrie, and Jenna Bush Hager  taking the record for being the first-ever female trio of the fan favorite a.m. talk show.

It was February 2023 when Kotb temporarily parted ways with the series due to her now 4-year-old daughter, Hope, falling ill with a medical crisis that reportedly landed her in the intensive care unit for several days.

"Any parent who's been through a scary thing with their child understands. It's like you just can't believe that your child's sick," the Oklahoma native told 'PEOPLE' in March. "You can't believe that there's nothing you can do. You can't believe that no matter what you do, you can't will it away or protect her, or all the things that we're supposed to be doing as parents. And it's a position I've never found myself in."

In October, Kotb shared an update about her daughter.

"She's thriving," she revealed to 'PEOPLE,' describing how her daughter's progress has brought a renewed sense of hope to their lives. While treatments and careful monitoring continue, Kotb says Hope is finding her strength and steady footing once again, bringing comfort and joy back to their family.
DeHaven Irby, a former drug dealer and longtime friend of Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, is opening up about their friendship and the events that led to its collapse.

Growing up together in Brooklyn's Marcy Houses, Irby says he and Carter formed a close bond, sharing clothes, money, and experiences. Irby even made Jay-Z the godfather of his daughter. Despite their brotherhood, things changed when Irby faced federal drug conspiracy charges in 1998.

In a recent interview with RealLyfe Productions, Irby described how Jay-Z promised support but disappeared when it mattered most. "During my trial, [he looked] at me in my face telling me, 'Yo, don't worry about it, bro. I got you.' And I never see him again," Irby recalled. He labeled this experience as the first instance of "sucker s**t" from his former friend, calling it deeply disappointing.

Irby detailed how their paths diverged as Jay-Z launched his career with Roc-A-Fella Records, founded in 1994 alongside Damon Dash and Kareem "Biggs" Burke. The label became home to iconic albums like 'Reasonable Doubt' and 'Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life.'

Despite their history, Irby says he was not included in Jay-Z's rise in the music industry, which deepened the rift between them.

Their fractured relationship resurfaced in Jay-Z's music.

On the track "No Hook" from 2007's 'American Gangster,' Jay-Z seemingly accused Irby of betrayal, rapping, "So f**k DeHaven for caving, that's why we don't speak." Irby denied these allegations, maintaining his innocence, and expressed hurt over Jay-Z's subliminal messages in his songs.

In the interview, Irby revealed the extent of his loyalty, even recounting a moment when he was shot during a drug deal gone wrong to protect Jay-Z.

"I really got shot for him," Irby claimed, describing how he distracted gunmen to allow Jay-Z to escape. Despite the betrayal, Irby said he would take the bullet again, adding, "That's just who I am."

Irby still seeks clarity, not apology. "We never really had a falling out," he said. "That's the problem. This is why I'm so confused."
Moses "Shyne" Barrow has a new documentary on the way that he's promoting, and he is bringing up Diddy in the process.

The former Bad Boy rapper-turned-politician appeared on The Tamron Hall Show on Nov. 13 to promote his The Honorable Shyne documentary that arrives on Hulu on Nov. 18. During his time there, he talked about his turbulent relationship with the embattled rapper.

Hall pressed Shyne about reuniting with Diddy to perform "Bad Boyz" with him at the 2022 BET Awards, which was a moment to honor hip-hop as well as Belize.

"I didn't want to do it, but he said, 'Listen, this is about Belize. Imagine this platform,'" he said.

Hall then referenced a time when Diddy called Shyne his "brother" after all they have been through.

"I wish I was his brother in 2000 when we were on trial," he quipped.

"I wish I was his brother for the last 26 years when my mom, who is here with me, never got any assistance. He never helped to dry her tears," Shyne added.

Shyne is referencing the 1999 New York City which saw him charged and Diddy walking away without any charges to his name. He was ultimately sentenced in 2001 on charges of first-degree assault, gun possession and reckless endangerment charges while Diddy was let off after previously being charged with gun possession and bribery.

Read more: Diddy Confessed His Romance with Jennifer Lopez Was a Gamble to Get Kim Porter Back

"I keep having to put into context without spitting on someone's grave that this is the person that destroyed my life. You hear my mom, she'll probably start crying when she comes on this couch. People ask, 'Do you think that he did those things?' Well, I know what he did to my family so the potential is there," Shyne told Hall.

Shyne served eight years in prison before being released in 2009 and then he began his career in politics.

"I moved on and I healed. I didn't see him shooting, but I know that he made me take the fall. I know that he called witnesses to testify against me. We sat here and I said, 'Please, don't call that witness. That witness is going to destroy me and the witness is lying.' So I had to tell that truth," he concluded.

Diddy is currently behind bars on charges related to sex trafficking and racketeering. He is due in court in May of 2025.

--Originally appeared on 'Music Times.'
Zendaya had a chance to dish on what it's like acting alongside her boyfriend Tom Holland, and based on their seemingly blissful relationship, the answer was just what you might expect.

The bombshell actress  who first met Holland on the set of 'Spider-Man: Homecoming'  clarified that their experience working together isn't awkward at all, and described feeling "safe" on set.

The fan-favorite couple has continued to make waves on social media, due to their similar mannerisms, Holland's motivation to protect her, and what fans have described as a genuine connection.

Despite their years together, the couple have never really confirmed their romance  however, photos of the two locking lips has caused fans to make final assumptions.

Do you like this couple?

Tom Holland and zendaya. pic.twitter.com/ksh60LOzcy  Hareem shehzdi (@Hareem990) November 14, 2024

Zendaya Coleman sat for an interview with 'Vanity Fair,' where the 28-year-old was asked if it was "weird acting opposite each other" when it came to her beau, Holland. To nobody's surprise, the actress admitted he makes her very comfortable. "Not really," she replied.

"It's actually strangely comfortable. It's like second nature, if anything. You feel extra safe with the person you're acting beside. I love working with him. He's so talented, and so passionate about what he does. He always gives things one thousand percent, even if he's absolutely worn down," the actress said of Holland, 28.

"I really appreciate that about him. It feels pretty normal. That's how we met. Literally, at a chemistry read," the star added.

The superstar was also asked about the delay in the highly-anticipated HBO series 'Euphoria,' which she maintains has nothing to do with her, and added that she's also waiting to get back in gear for the project. That said, she admits the time away makes her a bit on edge.

"On that first day on set, you're like, 'I was terrible. I was s**t. Everyone hates me. I'm going to get fired tomorrow.' And when the director's like, 'You did a great job,' you're like, 'You're lying. You're actually lying to me.' But that's just part of, again, the Virgo self-criticism," she told 'VF.'

The Emmy Award-winning actress also revealed this interesting trait, admitting that her "Virgo" tendencies challenges her desire to be in control while on set. "So you have any Virgo traits?" the interviewer asked.

"Oh my God, yeah. But I'm learning how to deal with that," the actress shot back. " I think [that's] why I enjoy my job so much is because there's a certain level of release of control you can have when you're playing someone that's not yourself. You can be like, 'Actually, I wouldn't make this decision. I wouldn't make this choice, so whatever,' " she explained.

"I can get lost in somebody else's decisions and choices and not be so critical of myself because it's not me," she concluded.
A federal judge declared a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public school classrooms in the state as unconstitutional.
Russia launches first missile attack on Kyiv since August, Ukraine says

Russia launched its first missile attack on Kyiv since August, prompting Ukrainians to brace for potential energy system disruptions and long blackouts.
Last chance! Get a summer glow with Anne Nordhaus-Bike's colorful sky horizon paintings,exclusive at luxury Gwen Hotel-Chicago.

Get some summer glow before it goes!

Anne Nordhaus-Bike's horizon watercolor paintings are up at the exclusive, 4-star Gwen Hotel for only a limited time!

Sunny Sentiments: A Tribute to Summer's Glow, will close by end of day on Friday, December 13. So if you live in the Chicago area or will be visiting for the holidays, be sure to plan a visit downtown to enjoy the show before it closes.

Perfect Way To Warm Up Indoors While In Chicago

This exclusive exhibit is keeping summer's sun kissed days and balmy nights alive, even though colder weather has come.

So it's the perfect way to warm up after being out and about in downtown Chicago!

Shop For Gifts: Art Makes A Perfect Gift

All art in the show is for sale.

"Art makes a perfect gift for that special someone on your list," Nordhaus-Bike said. "This is your chance to get one of the most memorable and beautiful gifts you'll ever share with a loved one or friend."

See Art, Stop For Drinks After At The Gwen Hotel Chicago

So come to the Gwen, the Rush Street luxury hotel in Chicago's trendy Gold Coast neighborhood to enjoy my paintings (and have a drink or snacks). You'll find all this in the hotel's beautiful Upstairs at the Gwen area, in the Private Affairs space, 5th floor, 521 N. Rush St., Chicago.

Here's a link to get more information: https://artistanne.com/1174/four-star-gwen-hotel-showcases-chicago-artist-anne-nordhaus-bike-watercolors/

Wishing you summer's warmth in your heart all year 'round and the joy of beautiful art always!
New insights from an industry-wide bluetongue impact survey, along with research by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), have revealed big challenges for UK farmers.

The survey, conducted by industry group Ruminant Health & Welfare (RH&W), was designed to understand the UK bluetongue (BTV-3) picture more accurately.

With current disease restrictions impacting movements, and clinical signs being observed, farmers have particularly raised questions about vaccines.

The early findings from RH&W's BTV-3 impact survey have revealed that out of the farmer respondents, over half remain undecided about vaccination.

However, a substantial portion of farmers who took part in the survey said they plan to vaccinate before the next summer season.

Last month, the government confirmed that all livestock keepers in England can use any of the permitted bluetongue vaccines without applying for a specific licence.

However, it said that farmers must still meet the legally-binding conditions of the general licence for any vaccination activity.

According to RH&W's survey, sheep farmers in particular are showing higher intent to vaccinate compared with cattle farmers, possibly reflecting the more severe impact on unvaccinated sheep flocks seen in Europe.

Farmers also have questions about vaccine efficacy, when to vaccinate, duration of immunity, risks, impact on trade, availability, and price.

Fiona Lovatt, of Flock Health Ltd, a sheep veterinary consultancy that works directly with farmers, responded to the findings.

Whereas actual infection with BTV-3 definitely has detrimental effects on fertility, there is no data or reports yet to suggest that well-timed vaccination has any negative impact on either sheep or cattle fertility.

In terms of wider impact, the survey highlighted that farmers have concerns about what next year will bring, after the cases experienced in the UK this year.

The farmer feedback also clearly documented that the impact of BTV-3 extends well beyond animal health, affecting farm operations and cash flow.

In terms of business operations, farmers within the restriction zone have reported difficulties in selling livestock.

"I have store cattle that should have been sold by now, but with no market access, I'm struggling with forage and feed for winter," shared one farmer.

Another farmer comment echoed by many others was: We have experienced considerable financial loss.

One farmer who has experienced mortality on-farm as a result of BTV-3 understandably reported the experience to be 'horrible; physically, financially, mentally and emotionally.'

With the short and mid-term outlook for the disease uncertain, and dependent on factors such as weather conditions and midge activity, Ms Loyatt shared what the expectation of vaccine effect could be from overseas learnings.

We know that in Germany, the research shows a marked difference in outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated herds and flocks," she explained.

"Findings indicate that unvaccinated sheep flocks have experienced mortality rates as high as 30%, whereas vaccinated flocks show significantly lower mortality, with some reporting only 1-2% losses.

We want to learn from this data and build a UK base of evidence that we can trust going forwards.

Meanwhile, new APHA research has documented clinical signs amongst confirmed infected animals on UK farms, between August and early October.

These included lameness, swollen faces, drooling, nose and mouth ulcers, nasal discharge breathing difficulties and mortality.

The research will likely reinforce the importance of early detection and treatment, and of understanding the long-term impact of this disease in a herd or flock.

APHA is running a study which will complement the survey discussed above and, will involve an agency vet talking through the details of the impact of BTV-3 on premises where it was confirmed.

This will include discussion on whether other endemic diseases may have influenced the outcome of the BTV-3 infection in those animals.

UK farmers are at the forefront of dealing with the immediate and long-term effects of BTV-3, explained Ms Loyatt.

The impact survey and APHAs research is starting to provide essential insights that will help us develop practical support, but we need to hear from more affected farmers.

"The industry anticipates further BTV-3 cases in 2025, and vaccination is expected to play a key role in reducing the impact of the disease."
The Scottish government has been urged to deliver a budget 'for Scottish food and farming' following the UK government's 'crippling' inheritance tax measures.

NFU Scotland President Martin Kennedy used the AgriScot event to remind First Minister John Swinney that the 'ball is now firmly and exclusively' with the Scottish government.

He warned that the Labour government's recent budget had 'hammered' family farms and crofts due to the inheritance tax changes contained within it.

It also saw the UK government 'wash its hands' of a commitment to multi-annual, ring-fenced funding for farming that had been in place for half a century.

The Scottish government's budget is due to take place on 4 December, with the industry seeking more funding directed toward Scottish agriculture.

During his AgriScot speech, Mr Kennedy also urged all farmers and crofters to join the planned rally outside the Scottish Parliament on 28 November.

This is taking part in a show of strength to highlight what the industry delivers for Scotland and its economy.

Mr Kennedy, who steps down as president in February 2025, said: From a future funding perspective, that ball is now firmly and exclusively within the gift of Scottish government.

"And that is why we need all those with the best interests of our farming, crofting and food industries at heart to be outside Holyrood on 28 November in a show of strength.

He said that Scottish farmers and crofters were being asked to do 'more and more' on a support budget with only half the buying power it had 10 years ago.

"The blunt fact is that whatever funding now goes towards Scottish agriculture is 100% within the power of Scottish government," Mr Kennedy added.

Scottish government cabinet ministers are on record saying agriculture now needs an uplift in funding dependent on an uplift in funding from the UK government.

That significant uplift is now there, so it is time for Scottish government to deliver."

Scotlands block grant is to increase by 1.5 billion in the current financial year, followed by another 3.4 billion in the next.

This is a record settlement from the UK government, with the NFU Scotland saying it must be reflected in a significant uplift in the Scottish agriculture budget.

The union said that the Scottish government, in 2022 and 2023, 'raided' the agricultural budget, with 46 million still outstanding.

Mr Kennedy told AgriScot: "The budget on 4 December must see the Scottish government show, despite the UK governments decisions, that it is willing to support the agricultural sector in Scotland.

It must use the uplift in the block grant to put in place a five-year multi-annual budget that drives our agricultural industry, acting as a catalyst for our 16bn food and drink industry.

"That is the strong signal that this industry deserves," he concluded.
A North Yorkshire estate has agreed to rewild large swathes of its arable land as part of a new 30-year restoration project.

Castle Howard Estate has signed up to a project with the Environment Bank which will see 440-acres of low-yielding arable land rewilded.

The project will see the estate invest in habitat enhancement and regeneration in a bid to boost biodiversity over a period of over 30 years.

Environment Bank says the project will "transform arable land to a mosaic of newly created grassland, shrubland, ponds and reedbeds, whilst enhancing streams, ditches and woodlands".

It will also include "sustainable grazing livestock, rewilding species like beavers and seeding local plant species to attract rare native birds back to the area, such as turtle doves".

Lawyers at Briketts, who advised the estate on the move, said the project would likely set to set the bar for diversification of land and future nature share initiatives.

Daisy Darell, of Birketts estates team, said: This initiative sets the trend for future nature shares projects and demonstrates to the rural community what is possible in terms of diversification within an estates portfolio.

"In the Castle Howard collaboration, a substantial biodiversity uplift is expected on the estate as a consequence of the nature shares initiative, which is fantastic for nature."

The project is expected to yield nearly 200% in biodiversity uplift and capture over 30,000 tonnes of CO2e over the next three decades.

It comes as rewilding campaigners recently announced plans to introduce a herd of tauros cattle - a giant breed bred resembling the ancient aurochs - onto a Scottish estate.

Trees for Life's project would be a UK-first, with the immediate aim of it to boost biodiversity, but outcomes like meat production and agri-tourism could be explored later.

The rewilding charity aims to introduce a herd of up to 15 tauros from the Netherlands to its 4,000-hectare Dundreggan estate, near Loch Ness, in 2026.
Chris Evans plans to divide his time between the US and Portugal over the Christmas holidays.

Chris Evans will spend Christmas Day in the US

The 43-year-old actor married Portuguese actress Alba Baptista in 2023, and Chris has revealed how they plan to celebrate Christmas this year.

The movie star - who was born in Boston, Massachusetts - told PEOPLE: "So far we've only had one Christmas. This will be our second Christmas together as a married couple, so we're going to have to do the pinball.

"As much as I love Christmas in Massachusetts with snow, she has her own traditions in Portugal. We're going to start doing the pinballing back and forth."

Chris and Alba, 27, are both busy with their own work commitments over the coming weeks. But the loved-up couple intend to spend Christmas Day in Chris' home state of Massachusetts.

He shared: "We have a very busy schedule going on. She's about to start something in January. I'm doing something right now in Greece. So just the amount of travel that we have, we're doing one more here in Massachusetts and then we'll start over there [in Portugal]."

Chris has previously spoken about his ambition to become a dad one day, and he hopes that his future children will follow some of his Christmas traditions.

He said: "I hope that my kids will enjoy each other's company as much as me and my siblings did. We wanted to spend every second of Christmas Eve together right up until you fall asleep."

Earlier this week, Chris reiterated that he wants to become a dad.

The Hollywood star told PEOPLE: "That's absolutely something I want.

"Wife, kids, building a family. When you read about most of the best artists, whether it's actors, painters, writers, most of them [admit] it wasn't the work they made [that they are most proud of], it was about the relationships, the families they created, the love they found, the love they shared."
Sharna Burgess "never dreamed" of becoming famous through 'Dancing with the Stars'.

Sharna Burgess didn't imagine herself becoming famous through Dancing with the Stars

The 39-year-old star serves as a professional on the ABC dancing competition and is also known for her relationship to former '90210' actor Brian Austin Green - with whom she has two-year-old son Zane - but initially thought her life was going to be completely different when she was growing up in Australia.

She told TooFab: "It's wild, I grew up in Australia thinking I was going to be a world champion ballroom dancer, own a dance studio in probably Wagga Wagga [outback Australia] and that was my life.

"And somehow life took a completely different turn. I got asked to be on what is one of the biggest shows on television still nearly 20 years later. That is a dream I never knew I could have. If you told me that when I was 18, I would have laughed at you."

Sharna believes that the global dance franchise has changed things "for the better" in her life because growing up she always felt as if she could never be honest about her talent or passion because the disciple of ballroom was seen as being so old-fashioned.

She added: "'Dancing with the Stars' changed that for everybody. It became cool to do it.

"Kids on TikTok are learning ballroom dancing moves right now. That's insane. And it's amazing at the same time. And that's all because of 'Dancing with the Stars'. I don't think anyone could have predicted that would be a thing."#

Prior to becoming engaged to Sharna, Brian, 51, was married to 'Transformers' actress Megan Fox - with whom he has - who already has Noah, 12, Bodhi, ten, and Journey, eight and after she announced the news that she is now expecting a baby with Machine Gun Kelly, the dancer was quick to congratulate her.

Alongside a photo of her naked body covered in black paint to reveal her blossoming baby bump and a snap of her positive pregnancy test, Megan wrote on Instagram: "nothing is ever really lost. welcome back [baby and heart emojis] (sic)"

Sharna has since re-posted Megan's baby bump picture to her Instagram Story and wrote: Welcome little one, we are all so excited to meet you.

Congratulations Mama."
Eva Longoria feels "privileged" to live in Spain and Mexico instead of the "dystopian" United States.

Eva Longoria is glad to no longer be living in the United States

The 49-year-old star and her husband Jose Baston - who have six-year-old son Santiago together - have split their time between the two after Eva grew disillusioned and disappointed with California.

She told Marie Claire magazine: Im privileged. I get to escape and go somewhere. Most Americans arent so lucky.

"Theyre going to be stuck in this dystopian country, and my anxiety and sadness is for them.

The 'Desperate Housewives' actress noted she spent her "whole adult life" in and around Los Angeles, but noticed things "changing" years ago.

She added: "The vibe was different. And then Covid happened, and it pushed it over the edge.

"Whether its the homelessness or the taxes, not that I want to s*** on California  it just feels like this chapter in my life is done now.

Eva was bitterly disappointed to see Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in the recent presidential election, but she "would like to think" the fight will continue.

Describing the US as "a scary place", she claimed: "If he keeps his promises, it's going to be a scary place."

She also hit out the "strained relationship" between the US and Mexico, particularly with some people in the States calling for the wall on the boarder despite enjoying much of its southern neighbour's culture.

She said: "I feel like the strained relationship between us and Mexico needs to be repaired, and I think culture and food can easily celebrate the best things of a country.

"The people who were screaming, Build that wall! are the same people that are going to Taco Tuesday.

"And Im like, No, no, no. You dont get to margarita out and s*** on the culture that gave you the taco and gave you the margarita. You have to go, This came from there. There must be good things. "
Nicky Hilton will be spending Christmas with her sister Paris.

Nicky Hilton is planning to spend Christmas at her sister Paris' house

The 41-year-old socialite - who is married to James Rothschild and has Lily-Grace, eight, Teddy, six, as well as two-year-old Chasen with him - is heading to California for the festive period and is looking forward to a "big dinner" with the 'Paris In Love' on hosting duties.

She told E! News: "We always head to LA to see my family for a California Christmas. We start the festivities at Disneyland for my daughter Teddys birthday with my siblings and all of their kids. Its so fun to have all of the cousins together. On Christmas Day we open presents early and have a big family dinner.

"This year Paris [Hilton] will be hosting at hers."

Paris, 43, is married to entrepreneur Carter Reum,also 43, and they have Phoenix, 22 months, as well as London, 12 months, together.

The rest of the Hilton clan is made up of matriarch 'Real Housewives' star Kathy Hilton, her husband Richard Hilton and their sons Barron, 35, and 30-year-old Conrad.

Nicky recently revealed that while she and her husband travel a lot for their careers, they will never leave the children alone so try to divide their time accordingly.

She said: "She said: "My husband and I, with our work, we travel a lot, but we always try ... We will not leave the children alone. So we try and divvy up our work trips and make sure that we're always present."

But the couple will also always try to make time for just each other whenever they can, with Nicky noting that their date nights together are "special" to them.

She added: "We always try and just make that special alone-time date night"
Sydney Sweeney "tried to hide" her personality at the start of her career.

Sydney Sweeney has discussed the challenges of fame

The 27-year-old actress has enjoyed a meteoric rise over recent years, but Sydney has never felt sure about what she should and shouldn't share with the public.

Asked what advice she'd give her younger self, Sydney - who is engaged to businessman Jonathan Davino - told Vanity Fair's 2025 Hollywood Issue: "I actually think about this often. I go back and forth.

"One way is, 'Sydney, dont give them any part of you, only talk work.' Then theres another part of me where I wish that I could have started off and been so openly me that theres no questioning things that I say.

"I just tried to hide who I was for so long because I wanted a little bit of myself for myself. I didnt want to give it all away."

Sydney observed that people are inclined to "create their own idea of who you are".

She continued: "Then when you just talk about work, people are annoyed or bored or - what Ive noticed the most - they just create their own idea of who you are. I see that all the time with me."

Sydney previously admitted that she's still adjusting to the pressures of fame and success.

The Hollywood star told ES Magazine: "I think Im still navigating it on a daily basis because I want to be as authentic and genuinely open to the public and my fans as possible. And I think I am.

"I talk a lot, Im very open and itll probably be to my detriment, but I dont know how people can hide behind an image.

"At the same time, I dont owe people answers."
Whoopi Goldberg would quit 'The View' if she had "all the money in the world".

Whoopi Goldberg joined the chat show in 2007

The 69-year-old actress has starred on the TV chat show since 2007, and Whoopi has explained that she won't walk away anytime soon because she needs her salary.

Whoopi - who stars alongside the likes of Sunny Hostin, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Ava Navarro and Sara Haines - said on the show: "I appreciate that people are having a hard time. Me, too. I work for a living.

"If I had all the money in the world, I would not be here, okay? So, I'm a working person, you know?"

Whoopi subsequently revealed that other members of her family are in a similar position.

She explained: "My kid has to feed her family. My great-granddaughter has to be fed by her family. I know it's hard out there."

Meanwhile, Whoopi previously claimed that she knew she'd become an actress from the age of three.

The 'Sister Act' star explained on 'This Cultural Life': "It was just part of me. I suspect thats why I didnt even question it  I never thought I was going to be a famous movie person, but I always knew I was going to be a character actor."

Whoopi had no obvious path into acting as a child, but her mother always encouraged her to follow her ambitions.

She shared: "She was just odd enough to recognise the oddity in her child."

Whoopi still remembers her mom encouraging her to fully commit to her acting dream.

The Hollywood star said: "My mother never said, What are you talking about? [when I told her I wanted to act]. She always said, If you want to do that you have to learn how to do it.'"
King Charles met the star-studded cast of 'Gladiator II' at the movie's world premiere in London.

King Charles at the premiere in London

The 75-year-old monarch met the likes of Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington and director Sir Ridley Scott at the premiere, which was held in Leicester Square on Wednesday (13.11.24).

Charles arrived at the event in his state Bentley limousine, and he posed for photographers on the red carpet, while wearing a black tuxedo, which he teamed with a bowtie.

Queen Camilla missed the premiere after she was recently diagnosed with a "seasonal chest infection". The Queen also missed Remembrance events in London over the weekend.

Despite this, Camilla was able to chat to a slew of Hollywood A-listers at Buckingham Palace prior to the premiere.

She told Ridley at the event: "I am so sorry I'm not coming tonight. I'd be coughing throughout it."

Meanwhile, the King was diagnosed with "a form of cancer" earlier this year, and he continues to receive treatment for the disease.

Despite this, Buckingham Palace previously insisted that he wanted to return to public duties "as soon as possible".

The Palace said in a statement in February: "During The Kings recent hospital procedure for benign prostate enlargement, a separate issue of concern was noted. Subsequent diagnostic tests have identified a form of cancer.

"His Majesty has today commenced a schedule of regular treatments, during which time he has been advised by doctors to postpone public-facing duties. Throughout this period, His Majesty will continue to undertake State business and official paperwork as usual.

"The King is grateful to his medical team for their swift intervention, which was made possible thanks to his recent hospital procedure.

"He remains wholly positive about his treatment and looks forward to returning to full public duty as soon as possible."
A new picture of King Charles has been released in honour of the monarch's birthday.

King Charles has turned 76

The king turned 76 on Thursday (14.11.24) and Buckingham Palace has shared a photo of him to mark the occasion, in which he wears a suit, white shirt and blue patterned tie, with one hand in his pocket and the other resting on a chair.

It was posted on the Royal Family's X and Instagram accounts along with a birthday cake emoji and the caption: "Wishing His Majesty The King a very Happy Birthday today."

And the king's son and daughter-in-law, Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales, shared a funny photo of Charles to accompany their birthday wishes.

The picture was taken from the king's recent tour of Australia and Samoa and featured him wearing sunglasses and a floral garland.

The Instagram post was simply captioned: "Wishing a very Happy Birthday to His Majesty the King!"

Despite it being his birthday, the king - who has been undergoing cancer treatment this year - is treating it as a normal working day and will be marking the official opening of a surplus food hub in London.

Charles will be joined by the city's mayor, Sadiq Khan, for a tour of the first Coronation Food Hub in Deptford, before then attending the surplus food festival being staged to mark the occasion.

He will also virtually open a second facility in Merseyside.

The king's wife, Queen Camilla, had hoped to join him on the visit but is still recovering from a chest infection.

In honour of the king's birthday, bells will be rung at Westminster Abbey, where he was crowned in 2023.

And gun salutes will be fired in Green Park by The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery and at the Tower of London by the Honourable Artillery Company.
A recent survey from EasyJet has shown that holidays are a major priority for Brits with almost two thirds of respondents more likely to travel abroad in 2024, compared with 2023. Continuing a trend seen in recent years, with three quarters of Brits planning on prioritising spending their money on holidays, up 3% on the last year.

Gary Clark, Academy Director at SIA

Gen Z are masterminds when it comes to maximising budget and holiday allowance, as another survey reveals that Gen Z is booking an average of two mini breaks and three staycations abroad per year, leveraging remote working to make the most of their time.

Gary Clark at SIA said: Flexible working has opened new doors to how we holiday. It has prompted us to think more carefully about how we use our holiday time and has introduced new ways of experiencing the world while integrating it into our work schedule.

It has also made us consider how we can make our budget go further by fitting in experiences such as a ski season jobs or backpacking, which we typically associate with a specific life stage. Now, Gen Z is encouraging everyone to think about their work holidays more efficiently and enjoyably, with multiple mini breaks being a prime example. Its exciting to see how Gen Z is budgeting and demonstrating even more innovation in managing their time and money.

The top budget-friendly destinations for mini breaks

Thanks to their research skills and social media savviness, Gen Z has uncovered some hidden travel gems. With 70% of students worldwide using TikTok as a trip-planning tool, lets dive into the top budget-friendly mini break destinations for 2024:

Tip No1: Stay local  explore Europe

EasyJets survey shows that the majority of Brits planning a holiday in 2024 would prefer to travel in Europe rather than further afield to save money. Indeed, easyJets follow-up survey shows that Brits top choices for mini breaks include Spain (42%), Italy (37%), France (36%), Portugal (30%) and Netherlands (26%).

The Mediterranean is a clear favourite, and Amsterdam remains a hotspot, with a million Brits flocking each year. However, this trend has seen some changes following recent backlash from the Netherlands.

Tip No2: Destinations dupes

How does Gen Z find budget-friendly mini-break destinations in Europe? Enter destination dupes. Like fashion dupes, these lesser-known alternatives to popular spots offer similar experiences without the crowds and high costs.

Here are some top swaps inspired by Expedias extensive list:

Swap Lisbon for Palermo: The Sicilian city of Palermo harbours stunning views, fresh Mediterranean food such as oysters, and historic castles, making it a great alternative to bustling Lisbon.

Swap Venice for Genoa: If Venice is on your list, consider visiting Genoa instead for its blend of medieval charm and vibrant street life. Wander through narrow alleyways filled with baroque architecture and take scenic boat trips to nearby Cinque Terre. Plus, Genoa is the home of pesto, so get ready to indulge in traditional pasta dishes featuring this basil-infused delight.

Swap Barcelona for Girona: If you wish to visit Spain like the 42% of easyJets survey respondents but avoid the crowds and pricey hotels in Barcelona, consider Girona. Just a few hours northeast of Barcelona, Girona features the charming Old Quarter akin to Barcelonas Gothic Quarter, and the Girona Cathedrals grandeur rivals that of Sagrada Familia.

Swap Amsterdam for Utrecht: Known as "mini Amsterdam," Utrecht offers just as many picturesque canals and historic sites but with fewer tourists and lower costs. The city also offers a vibrant student scene and a quintessentially Dutch ambiance.

Swap St Tropez for Bodrum: St Tropez chic vibe, stunning beaches, and vibrant culture attract elite visitors - but at a steep price. Enjoy equally stunning beaches and vibrant nightlife at a fraction of the cost in Bordum in Turkey.

Swap London for Liverpool: For a city staycation in the UK away from Londons crowds, Liverpool offers rich history and vibrant culture, not to mention being the home of The Beatles.

Gen Z-inspired mini break budgeting tips

Alongside choosing great destination alternatives, here are some Gen Z-approved holiday hacks to save time and money:

Track flights: Use apps such as Skyscanner and make use of airlines dynamic pricing to track flight prices. Also, consider booking during off-peak times, as flexibility with dates can result in significant savings. Generally, Tuesday is considered the cheapest day to travel and Saturday the most expensive one, but that may vary.

Accommodation alternatives: Opt for hostels, Airbnb, or budget hotels. Websites such as Hostelworld and Booking.com offer affordable and well-reviewed options. If youre more adventurous, you can try couch surfing for a free holiday stay and the chance to meet new friends.

Travel light: Avoid checked baggage fees by traveling with a carry-on. Pack versatile clothing and essentials only.

Public transport and walking: Utilise public transportation and explore destinations on foot to save money and experience the local culture more intimately. All you need is Google Maps and a friendly approach.

Use discounts and offers: Take advantage of student or workplace discounts on flights, accommodation, and attractions. Check websites such as ISIC for special deals for young travellers and explore your company benefits as many workplaces offer employee discounts schemes.

Eat like a local: Save on dining by eating at local markets, food trucks, and budget-friendly eateries. Experience authentic cuisine without the hefty price tag. Plus, authenticity is very cherished in social media today, so you might even get some bonus points for being real.

Free and low-cost attractions: Research free or low-cost attractions and activities. Many cities offer free walking tours, museum days, and public events.

Conclusion:

Gen Z travellers are redefining how we think about vacations. By embracing shorter, more frequent trips and prioritising budget-friendly destinations, they manage to see more of the world without compromising their finances. So, pack your bags, book that trip, and explore the world the Gen Z way!

Additional Contributers: Easyjet
Seasonally-adjusted industrial production decreased by 2 per cent month on month (MoM) in both the euro area and the European Union (EU) in September this year, according to first estimates from Eurostat, the EU statistical office.

It decreased by 2.8 per cent year on year (YoY) in the euro area and by 2.4 per cent YoY in the EU in the month.

Seasonally-adjusted industrial production fell by 2 per cent month on month (MoM) in both the euro area and the EU in September, the first Eurostat estimates show. It decreased by 2.8 per cent YoY in the euro area and by 2.4 per cent YoY in the EU in the month. In August this year, industrial production grew by 1.5 per cent MoM in the euro area and by 1.2 per cent MoM in the EU.

In August this year, industrial production grew by 1.5 per cent MoM in the euro area and by 1.2 per cent MoM in the EU, an Eurostat release said.

In the euro area in September, compared with August, industrial production remained stable for intermediate goods, decreased by 1.5 per cent for energy, decreased by 3.8 per cent for capital goods, increased by 0.5 per cent for durable consumer goods and increased by 1.6 per cent for non-durable consumer goods.

In the EU, industrial production decreased by 0.1 per cent MoM for intermediate goods, decreased by 1.6 per cent MoM for energy, decreased by 3.2 per cent MoM for capital goods, increased by 0.3 per cent MoM for durable consumer goods and increased by 0.5 per cent MoM for non-durable consumer goods.

The largest monthly decreases were recorded in Ireland (minus 10.7 per cent), Denmark (minus 5 per cent) and the Netherlands (minus 2.9 per cent). The highest monthly increases were observed in Croatia (plus 5.8 per cent), Portugal (plus 2.7 per cent) and Slovenia (plus 1.6 per cent).

In the euro area in September 2024, compared with the same month last year, industrial production decreased by 2.6 per cent for intermediate goods, increased by 1.9 per cent for energy, decreased by 6.4 per cent for capital goods, decreased by 1.7 per cent for durable consumer goods and increased by 4.8 per cent for non-durable consumer goods.

In the EU, industrial production decreased by 2.5 per cent YoY for intermediate goods, increased by 1.4 per cent YoY for energy, decreased by 5.6 per cent YoY for capital goods, decreased by 1.5 per cent YoY for durable consumer goods and increased by 4.5 per cent for non-durable consumer goods in the month.

The largest annual decreases were recorded in Ireland (minus 7.3 per cent), Luxembourg (minus 6.3 per cent) and Hungary (minus 5.3 per cent). The highest YoY increases were observed in Denmark (plus 7.8 per cent), Belgium (plus 6 per cent) and Lithuania (plus 3.5 per cent).

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Silver X Mining Corp.(TSXV:AGX)(OTCQB:AGXPF)(F:AGX) ("Silver X" or the "Company") is announcing that it has agreed to terminate its private placement as announced by the Company on October 30, 2024, due to current market conditions.

"Given the dramatic fall in the price of equities, and in other metals, especially silver, we believe the market is no longer conducive for completing the offering on terms that would be in the best interests of the Company's shareholders," said Jose Garcia, CEO of Silver X.

About Silver X

Silver X is a rapidly expanding silver producer and developer. The Company owns the 20,472-hectare Nueva Recuperada Silver Project in Central Peru and produces silver, gold, lead and zinc from its Tangana Mining Unit. Silver X is building a premier silver company that aims to deliver outstanding value to all stakeholders, consolidating and developing undervalued assets, adding resources, and increasing production while aspiring to sustain the communities that support us and stewarding the environment. Current production, paired with immediate development and brownfield expansion opportunities, present investors with the opportunity to invest in the early stages of a silver producer with strong growth prospects. For more information visit our website at www.silverxmining.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Jose M. Garcia, CEO and Director

For further information, please contact:

Susan Xu

Investor Relations

ir@silverxmining.com

+1 778 323 0959

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.

Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation ("forward-looking information"). Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain acts, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". All information contained in this press release, other than statements of current and historical fact, is forward looking information. Forward- looking information contained in this press release may include, without limitation, expectations regarding the completion of the Offering, the expected use of proceeds from the Offering, other sources of funds, exploration plans, results of operations, expected performance at the Project, the Company's belief that the Tangana system will provide considerable resource expansion potential, that the Company will be able to mine the Tangana Mining Unit in an economic manner, and the expected financial performance of the Company.

The following are some of the assumptions upon which forward-looking information is based: that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner; demand for, and stable or improving price for the commodities we produce; receipt of regulatory and governmental approvals, permits and renewals in a timely manner; that the Company will not experience any material accident, labour dispute or failure of plant or equipment or other material disruption in the Company's operations at the mine and Nueva Recuperada Plant; the availability of financing for operations and development; the Company's ability to procure equipment and operating supplies in sufficient quantities and on a timely basis; that the estimates of the resources at the Project and the geological, operational and price assumptions on which these and the Company's operations are based are within reasonable bounds of accuracy (including with respect to size, grade and recovery); the Company's ability to attract and retain skilled personnel and directors; and the ability of management to execute strategic goals.

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 the Company, as the case may be, to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to those risks described in the Company's annual and interim MD&As and in its public documents filed on www.sedarplus.ca from time to time. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

SOURCE: Silver X Mining Corp.

View the original press release on accesswire.com
China, Vietnam agree to enhance security cooperation

Xinhua) 09:06, November 14, 2024

Chen Wenqing, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, meets with Phan Dinh Trac, a member of the Political Bureau and chairman of the Commission for Internal Affairs of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Chen Wenqing, a senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC), met with Phan Dinh Trac, a member of the Political Bureau and chairman of the Commission for Internal Affairs of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, in Beijing on Tuesday.

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, said that under the strategic guidance of the top leaders of the two parties, bilateral relations have achieved strong and sustainable development, and solid progress has been made in the construction of a China-Vietnam community with a shared future.

It is hoped that the two sides will focus on implementing the important consensus reached by the top leaders, jointly implement the cooperation documents already signed, strengthen exchanges and cooperation in the fields of politics and law, enhance regional and multilateral coordination, and push bilateral security cooperation to a higher level, Chen added.

Trac expressed his willingness to push for deeper and more solid security cooperation between the two countries.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - November 13, 2024) - Aion Therapeutic Inc. (CSE: AION) ("Aion Therapeutic" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has received an order from the British Columbia Securities Commission (the "BCSC") revoking the management cease trade order (the "MCTO") previously granted by the BCSC on August 29, 2024.

As previously announced, the MCTO was granted by the BCSC at the Company's request on August 29, 2024, due to delays in filing the Company's annual audited consolidated financial statements for the financial year ended April 30, 2024, the related annual management's discussion and analysis and the related CEO and CFO certifications (collectively, the "Annual Filings"). The Annual Filings were delayed as a result of certain complexities associated with the acquisition of Toppen Health, Inc. on December 15, 2023.

As a result of the delay in completing the Annual Filings, the Company was also late in the filing of its unaudited condensed interim consolidated financial statements, management's discussion and analysis and related materials for the three-months ended July 31, 2024 (the "Interim Filings").

The BCSC has revoked the MCTO as the Annual Filings and Interim Filings were filed by the Company on November 4, 2024 and November 8, 2024 respectively. Copies of the Annual Filings and the Interim Filings are available on the Company's SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca.

About Aion Therapeutic Inc.

Aion Therapeutic is a forward-thinking business within the health and wellness sector with a diverse portfolio of intellectual property. With a commitment to innovation and transformative solutions, the Company is poised to drive positive change to redefine the boundaries of health and wellness.

Toppen, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aion Therapeutic, is a US-based health and wellness company dedicated to delivering state-of-the-art water filtration solutions. With a focus on innovation, affordability, and sustainability, Toppen's water filtration solutions are designed to meet the diverse needs of consumers, businesses, and industries around the world as they strive to provide access to clean and safe water.

For further information, please contact:

DISCLAIMER & READER ADVISORY

This release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Expressions such as "anticipates", "expects", "believes", "estimates", "could", "intends", "may", "plans", "predicts", "projects", "will", "would" and other similar expressions, or the negative of these terms, are generally indicative of forward-looking information. Forward looking statements in this press release include statements regarding: Aion Therapeutic and Toppen's business, business goals and management's expectation on the growth and performance of its business. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information.

In addition, the forward- looking information contained in this release is based upon what management believes to be reasonable assumptions. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information as it is inherently uncertain, and no assurance can be given that the expectations reflected in such information will prove to be correct. The forward-looking information in this release is made as of the date hereof and, except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise such information to reflect new events or circumstances.

The securities of the Company have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This release is issued for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of any securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

The Canadian Securities Exchange (operated by CNSX Markets Inc.) has neither approved nor disapproved of the contents of this press release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229877

SOURCE: Aion Therapeutic Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 13, 2024) - Chesapeake Gold Corp. (TSXV: CKG) (OTCQX: CHPGF) ("Chesapeake" or the "Company") announces an update in respect of the legal proceedings initiated by the Company related to its San Vicente 3 mineral concession ("San Vicente 3"). The Company initiated legal proceedings against the Direccion General de Minas of Mexico ("DGM") in response to the DGM's cancellation of San Vicente 3. San Vicente 3 is one of 12 mineral concessions comprising the Metates project. The Metates project totals 4,260 hectares, of which San Vicente 3 covers 700 hectares and encompasses a portion of the Metates mineral resource.

Chesapeake began nullity proceedings to have the cancellation of San Vicente 3 declared as null and void by the North Center III and Auxiliary Regional Chamber of the Federal Court of Administrative Justice (the "Chamber") based on certain procedural arguments. The Chamber dismissed the Company's lawsuit in a 2-1 split decision, with the dissenting judge finding the Company's arguments to be well-founded. The Company plans to appeal before the Collegiate Court and to pursue all legal remedies available to it to protect and defend its position with respect to San Vicente 3.

In the event Chesapeake is unsuccessful in reinstating San Vicente 3, the Company's current resource estimate for Metates and the ability to develop the Metates project as outlined in the Metates PEA may be materially affected.1

Chesapeake remains committed to advancing the Metates project and will continue to move forward with developing our proprietary oxidative leach technology concurrently with these legal proceedings. Additional activities, such as environmental baseline work and related studies in support of the pre-feasibility study will remain a priority for the Company.

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.

About Chesapeake

Chesapeake Gold Corp's flagship asset is the Metates Project ("Metates") located in Durango State, Mexico. Metates hosts one of the largest undeveloped gold-silver deposits in the Americas[2] with over 16.77 million ounces of gold at 0.57 grams per tonne (g/t) and 423.2 million ounces of silver at 14.3 g/t within 921.2 million tonnes in the Measured and Indicated Mineral Resource category and a further 2.13 million ounces of gold at 0.47 g/t and 59.0 million ounces of silver at 13.2 g/t within 139.5 million tonnes in the Inferred Mineral Resource category. See the technical report titled "Metates Sulphide Heap Leach Project Phase I" dated January 13, 2023, and news release dated February 23, 2023.

Forward-looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. These include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the Company's legal proceedings to contest the cancellation of San Vicente 3, plans to advance the Metates project and preparing a pre-feasibility study, the continued development of the Company's proprietary oxidative leach technology and other matters. Such forward looking statements or information are based on a number of assumptions, which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things: the reliability of mineral resource estimates, the conditions in general economic and financial markets; the price of gold and silver; and future operating costs.

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 be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, whether the Company is successful in its legal proceedings in respect of San Vicente 3; the accuracy of the Company's mineral resource estimates; the impact of the cancellation of San Vicente 3 on Metates; general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; the actual results of exploration activities; availability of funds; and political instability. 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 to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended.

Forward-looking statements are based on the expectations and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. The assumptions used in the preparation of such statements, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date the statements were made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements included in this news release if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as otherwise required by applicable law.

1 "Metates Sulphide Heap Leach Project Phase 1 - Amended NI 43- 101 Technical Report Preliminary Economic Assessment" dated January 13, 2023, with an effective date of December 15, 2022 (the "Metates PEA").

2 Mexico's biggest undeveloped gold deposits. Bnamericas. Published Tuesday, November 24, 2020.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229853

SOURCE: Chesapeake Gold Corp.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 13, 2024) - Westside Pest Control, the leading pest control company in Vancouver contributes over $60,000 to Ecojustice through the 1% for the Planet Program.

Westside Pest Control is incredibly proud to be a member of the 1% for the Planet global network. Being a member means they have committed to donate 1% of total sales each year to approved nonprofit partners.

Ecojustice is Canada's premiere environmental law charity, and they are committed to using the law to protect Canada's environment. Westside Pest Control is a long-time partner of Ecojustice having donated an incredible $217,900 since 2019.

Ecojustice executive director Tracy London shares, "Ecojustice is committed to defending nature, combating the climate crisis, and fighting for a healthy environment for all. But we never do this critical work alone and are so grateful to have Westside Pest Control as a partner. Thank you, Westside Pest Control, for standing with Ecojustice as we tackle the most urgent environmental issues across Canada."





Westside Pest Control Donates Over $60,000 to Ecojustice and Helps Fight for Environmental Rights

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10740/229760_8954c934e4c0db7c_001full.jpg

Westside Pest Control CEO Mike Londry comments, "Ecojustice is a phenomenal organisation. We're absolutely delighted to support them and surpass the $200K milestone in total contributions."

"We feel privileged to be in a position to do so. And that's thanks to our customers, our team, and our partners for helping us make this possible. We're excited to be part of a global movement of businesses and individuals that share our commitment to protecting the planet. Our end goal everyday is to provide the highest quality pest control service with the lowest possible environmental impact," continued Londry.

Learn more about Westside Pest Control on their website - westsidepestcontrol.com

Media contact

The Pest Desk Newsroom

Mike Londry

marketing@westsidepest.com

604-559-9060

About Ecojustice

Ecojustice is Canada's largest environmental law charity, focusing on the most urgent environmental issues in Canada. From coast to coast to coast, the non-profit has a proven history of winning key cases and securing environmental protections.

For more than 30 years, Ecojustice lawyers have represented Canadians at every level of court- free of charge. Ecojustice is committed to fighting for a thriving environment, safe climate, and healthy communities protected by strong, well-enforced laws.

Learn more at ecojustice.ca.

About 1% for the Planet

1% for the Planet is a global organization that connects dollars and doers to accelerate smart environmental giving. Through their business and individual membership, 1% for the Planet inspires people to support environmental organizations through annual membership and everyday actions. They advise on giving strategies, certify donations, and amplify the impact of the network.

1% for the Planet is a program to help fund diverse environmental organizations so that collectively they can be a more powerful source in solving the world's problems. Businesses that join 1% for the Planet commit to giving 1% of gross sales each year to approved nonprofit partners through a variety of support.

Learn more at onepercentfortheplanet.org

About Westside Pest Control

Westside Pest Control LTD is the leading pest control company in Vancouver BC, and has been happily serving Metro Vancouver and other parts of the Lower Mainland since November 2009. The company offers innovative industry-leading pest and wildlife control solutions including rodent control, bird control, insect removal, and wildlife removal. WSP is a member of the National Pest Management Association, the Structural Pest Management Association of BC (SPMA BC), and is a Certified Quality-Pro company.

Westside Pest Control has always been committed to environmentally friendly and humane pest control solutions since its inception and the 1% for the Planet membership is a testament to that. With a growing team of 40 skilled and fearless technicians, the company has successfully served over 10,000 customers.

Learn more at - www.westsidepestcontrol.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229760

SOURCE: GetFeatured
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 13, 2024) - Atomic Minerals Corp. (TSXV: ATOM) ("Atomic" or the "Company") wishes to clarify the exploration schedule for the Bleasdale Lake Project ("Bleasdell Lake") in the previous news release dated November 13, 2024 disseminated earlier today. Permits are currently in process and expected to be finalized shortly, with the Company's main objective being to mobilize on the property and commence drilling in December as quickly as possible. The Company regrets any confusion that may have been created by the previous inaccurate new release.

The Bleasdell Lake project is located approximately 95 kilometers southwest of Lynn Lake, Manitoba, Atomic Minerals is advancing toward obtaining a multi-year permit for ground-based geophysics and up to 4,000 meters of diamond drilling. The exploration program will focus on three newly identified uranium target zones in addition to the historically drilled Horn and Jackpine zones. These areas are known for uranium-bearing pegmatite dykes. Historic trenching returned 91m averaging 0.12% U3O8 over 2.56m and 33.5m averaging 0.62% U3O8 over 1.21m. Drilling beneath the trenching identified a 1957 historic resource of 620,700 pounds of U3O8 (triuranium octoxide), identified within the Horn and Jackpine zones.

This historic estimate was originally reported in a shareholder report for Columbia Metals Exploration Co. Ltd. dated Nov. 9, 1957. The estimate, which was calculated using the standards of the time, is based on data from closely spaced shallow drill holes and more widely spaced deeper drill holes. While the historic resource is considered relevant to the potential of the Bleasdell Lake property, there is no technical report, and the calculations, methods and parameters used were not disclosed in the shareholder report. Consequently, a qualified person has not completed sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as a current mineral resource.

The Company acknowledges that, to upgrade or verify the historical estimate as a current mineral resource, significant twinning of the historic drill holes will be necessary. As such, Atomic is not treating the historical estimate as a current mineral resource at this time.

For more information on Atomic Minerals Corporation and the Bleasdell Lake Project, please visit Atomic Minerals Corp. Northern Saskatchewan Projects.

Technical Information

The exploration and drilling results referenced in this release are based on historical data, which Atomic Minerals is utilizing as a foundation for its current and future exploration strategies. The Company has not independently verified the sampling or analysis of this historical data. Planned exploration and drilling at Bleasdell Lake are expected to validate these historical findings and enhance Atomic Minerals' understanding of the uranium potential at the site.

Qualified Person

Mr. R. Tim Henneberry, P.Geo. (BC), an advisor to the Company, is the "Qualified Person" under National Instrument 43-101 responsible for the technical contents of this news release and has approved the disclosure of the technical information contained herein.

About the Company

Atomic Minerals Corp. is a publicly listed exploration company on the TSX Venture Exchange, trading under the symbol ATOM, led by a highly skilled management and technical team with a proven track record in the junior mining sector. Atomic Minerals' objective is to identify exploration opportunities in regions that have been previously overlooked but are geologically similar to those with previous uranium discoveries. These underexplored areas hold immense potential and are in stable geopolitical and economic environments.

Atomic Minerals' property portfolio contains uranium projects in three locations within North America, all of which have significant technical merit and/or are known for hosting uranium production in the past. Three of the properties are located on the Colorado Plateau, an area that has previously produced 597 million pounds of U3O8 (triuranium octoxide). Six properties, comprising nine claims totaling 6,498 hectares, are located in Northern Saskatchewan: five within or proximal to the prolific Athabasca basin and a sixth that hosts a historic resource.

For additional information about the Company and its projects, please visit our website at www.atomicminerals.ca

Please download the Atomic Minerals Corporate Presentation

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

"Clive Massey"

Clive H. Massey

President & CEO

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor their 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 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 Atomic Minerals Corporation 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 Atomic Minerals Corporation management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by law, Atomic Minerals Corporation undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

###

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229907

SOURCE: Atomic Minerals Corp.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - November 13, 2024) - Seabridge Gold (TSX: SEA) (NYSE: SA) announced today that it has filed its Report to Shareholders, Interim Financial Statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis for the three months period ended September 30, 2024 on SEDAR+. To review these documents on the Company website, please see https://www.seabridgegold.com/investors/financial-reports.

Recent Highlights

Work and partnership discussions continue at KSM

KSM's License of Occupation renewed for an additional 20 years for Mitchell Treaty Tunnels

Promising drill results obtained at Iskut's Snip North target

2024 exploration at 3 Aces focused on evaluating targets

Gold trades at all-time high

Financial Results

During the three-month period ended September 30, 2024 Seabridge posted a net loss of $27.6 million ($0.31 per share) compared to a net loss of $5.3 million ($0.06 per share) for the same period last year. The net loss reported in the current three-month period included a non-cash loss of $42.0 million from the quarterly remeasurement of the Company's secured notes, primarily driven by a decrease in discount rates, higher metal prices and a change in the valuation date, offset by interest payments. During the third quarter, Seabridge invested $28.0 million in mineral interests, property and equipment, compared to $73.7 million during the same period last year. At September 30, 2024, net working capital was $36.0 million compared to $54.5 million at December 31, 2023.

It should be noted that the quarterly remeasurements of the secured note liabilities under IFRS leads to significant gains or losses over time due to changes in the input variables. However, these swings in fair value will have no impact on the actual outcome of the notes at maturity. Either the notes will be put back to the Company at the prescribed fixed price under the rights of the noteholders, or the notes will be exchanged for the prescribed royalty and NSR, at maturity.

Seabridge holds a 100% interest in several North American gold projects. Seabridge's assets include the KSM and Iskut projects located in Northwest British Columbia, Canada's "Golden Triangle", the Courageous Lake project located in Canada's Northwest Territories, the Snowstorm project in the Getchell Gold Belt of Northern Nevada and the 3 Aces project located in the Yukon Territory. For a full breakdown of Seabridge's mineral reserves and mineral resources by category please visit Seabridge's website at http://www.seabridgegold.com.

None of the Toronto Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, or their Regulation Services Providers accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Technical Information

Unless otherwise indicated, the technical and scientific disclosure contained or referenced in this press release, including any references to mineral resources or mineral reserves, was prepared in accordance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101"), which differs significantly from the requirements of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") applicable to U.S. domestic issuers. Accordingly, the scientific and technical information contained or referenced in this press release may not be comparable to similar information made public by U.S. companies subject to the reporting and disclosure requirements of the SEC.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Rudi Fronk"

Chairman and C.E.O.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229888

SOURCE: Seabridge Gold Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 13, 2024) - CENTR Brands Corp. (CSE: CNTR) (FSE: 303) (OTCQB: CNTRF) ("CENTR" or the "Company"), announces that further to its news release dated November 12, 2024, the Company will implement the consolidation of its common shares in the capital of the Company (the "Shares") on the basis of ten (10) pre-consolidation Shares for every one (1) post-consolidation Share (the "Consolidation") effective as of November 18, 2024.

The Company name will remain unchanged after the Consolidation. The new CUSIP number will be 15234A400 and the new ISIN number will be CA15234A4000 for the post-Consolidation Shares.

The total issued and outstanding number of Shares post-Consolidation will be approximately 11,623,380, subject to rounding for fractional Shares.

No fractional Shares will be issued in connection with the Consolidation. In the event a holder of Shares would otherwise be entitled to receive a fractional Share in connection with the Consolidation, the fractional Share will be cancelled if it is less than one-half (1/2) of a Share and will be changed to one whole Share if that fractional Share is equal to or greater than one-half (1/2) of a Share.

The exercise or conversion price, and the number of Shares issuable under any of the Company's outstanding convertible securities, if any, will be proportionately adjusted upon the effectiveness of the Consolidation.

Registered shareholders who hold physical Share certificates will receive a letter of transmittal requesting that they forward pre-Consolidation Share certificates to the Company's transfer agent, TSX Trust Company, in exchange for new Share certificates representing Shares on a post-Consolidation basis. Shareholders who hold their Shares through a broker or other intermediary and do not have Shares registered in their own name will not be required to complete a letter of transmittal.

The board of directors of the Company is proceeding with the Consolidation on the basis that it may provide the Company with increased flexibility to seek additional financing opportunities and strategic acquisitions.

About CENTR Brands Corp.

CENTR Brands Corp. is one of North America's leading functional wellness beverage companies dedicated to promoting holistic well-being. With a commitment to providing high-quality products and exceptional customer experiences, CENTR offers a range of functional wellness beverages that support individuals in their pursuit of balanced and healthy lifestyles. By leveraging innovative technology and embracing consumer-centric strategies, CENTR empowers customers to prioritize their well-being and discover the benefits of wellness beverages.

The Company produces CENTR Enhanced, a family of refreshing, ZERO calorie, non-CBD, nootropic and adaptogen sparkling waters incorporating a variety of science-backed ingredients. The Company recently discontinued 2 product lines, CENTR CBD and CENTR Instant, facilitating the exit of the company within the CBD category.

The Company's ethos revolves around functional efficacy, exceptional flavor, and a visual design that resonates with consumers seeking a well-rounded approach to wellness.

On behalf of the Board

CENTR BRANDS CORP.

/s/ Campbell Becher

Campbell Becher

Chief Executive Officer

Forward-Looking Information

This press release may contain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements are not comprised of historical facts. Forward- looking statements include estimates and statements that describe the Company's future plans, objectives or goals, including words to the effect that the Company or management expects a stated condition or result to occur. Forward-looking statements may be identified by such terms as "believes", "anticipates", "expects", "estimates", "may", "could", "would", "will", or "plan". Since forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Although these statements are based on information currently available to the Company, the Company provides no assurance that actual results will meet management's expectations. Risks, uncertainties and other factors involved with forward-looking information could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward-looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, the closing of the Consolidation and the potential benefits thereof. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affecting such statements and information other than as required by applicable laws, rules and regulations.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229911

SOURCE: CENTR Brands Corp.
LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto Plc (RTNTF, RIO, RIO.L, RTPPF) said that it approved construction of a new 25-megawatt solar plant at its Kennecott copper operation in Utah, bringing the mine's total solar capacity to 30MW.The new solar plant will be located next to Kennecott's existing 5MW solar plant, which was completed in 2023. Together, the two solar plants will reduce Kennecott's Scope 2 emissions by approximately 6%, or 21,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. This is equivalent to removing around 5,000 gas-powered passenger cars from the road.Construction of the 25MW solar plant is expected to be completed next year and create short-term employment opportunities for up to 100 laborers, as well as a small number of long-term operations and maintenance roles. Bechtel Corporation will design and manage construction of the plant, the company said.The company noted that the 210-acre solar array will include more than 71,000 panels, which contain tellurium produced by Kennecott, a byproduct of mining and refining copper. In 2022, Kennecott became one of only two U.S. producers of this critical mineral. Both copper and tellurium are vital components of photovoltaic solar panels.Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights ReservedCopyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Reward completes acquisition of Hospitality Data Insights (HDI), a UK market-leading data insights company and longtime partner

The acquisition will strengthen Reward's Commerce Media proposition, enhancing consumer insights capabilities that unlock growth opportunities for global retail partners

This acquisition follows a period of strong growth for Reward, further bolstered by recent strategic investment from Experian PLC, A FTSE 25 company, solidifying Reward's position as a leader in Customer Engagement and Commerce Media

LONDON, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Reward, a global leader in Customer Engagement and Commerce Media, today announces the acquisition of Hospitality Data Insights (HDI), a prominent UK-based data insights company and trusted partner. This acquisition is set to further elevate Reward's Commerce Media capabilities, driving enriched consumer insights for retail and bank partners worldwide.

HDI is known for delivering high-quality, independent data solutions to over 100 global and national brands in the hospitality and convenience sectors, including industry leaders McDonald's, Pizza Express, and Deliveroo. With a focus on high-spend, high-frequency sectors representing over 20% of household spending, HDI strengthens Reward's capability to deliver significant consumer value, supporting Reward's commitment to deliver over 2 billion in rewards by 2025.

By combining HDI's SKU-level data, product range, pricing insights, and consumer sentiment analysis with Reward's transactional and behavioural insights, the acquisition enhances Reward's suite of products for retail marketing, performance optimisation, and operational insights. HDI's extensive sector expertise and talented team of data analysts add further depth to Reward's offerings, positioning the company for growth as it establishes itself as the preferred marketing and insights partner. This strategic focus aims to help banks and retailers better understand customers while securing a larger share of marketing budgets.

The all cash acquisition reflects Reward's period of significant growth. The recent strategic investment from Experian PLC has further enhanced Reward's consumer insights capabilities, integrating new assets like its Mosaic product. Reward has also expanded its international footprint, with new investment directed at scaling operations in key regions such as Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Effective immediately, Darroch Bagshaw, Managing Director of HDI, will join Reward's Leadership Team, reporting to CEO Jamie Samaha. While HDI has been primarily servicing its global brands in the UK, Reward and HDI are well-positioned to scale their enhanced capabilities internationally. The combined efforts will start in the hospitality and convenience sectors and move into other high priority spend categories including convenience and grocery.

Jamie Samaha, CEO of Reward, commented: "In today's fast-evolving Commerce Media landscape, expanding consumer insights capabilities is more critical than ever. This acquisition of HDI marks a transformative step in our journey to deepen our understanding of consumer behaviour and amplify the value we deliver to our customers, banking partners, and retailers. HDI's diverse portfolio of leading hospitality brands and innovative insight products opens significant opportunities for us to strengthen our retailer relationships in this key sector, all while driving toward our goal of delivering $2 billion in rewards by 2025."

Darroch Bagshaw, Managing Director of HDI, added: "HDI's mission has always been to provide market-leading insights to businesses across the hospitality sector using accurate and actionable data. Reward's endorsement of our services is testament to our aligned commitment to high quality data analytics that drive investment decisions for the world's largest retailers. We look forward to combining insights capabilities to provide enriched products and services to retailers and greater value to customers."

ABOUT REWARD

Reward is a global leader in Customer Engagement and Commerce Media, operating in more than 15 markets across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Uniquely positioned at the intersection of banking and retail, Reward's platform combines technology, data insights and digital marketing to deliver personalised products and services that help brands deepen connections with customers.

As businesses strive to better understand and influence customer behaviour, Reward is poised to lead in the fast-growing commerce media space, offering consumer insights that enhance omnichannel experiences, boost sales and build customer loyalty.

Beyond unifying consumer insight and commerce, Reward is on a mission to make everyday spending more rewarding and every interaction count, delivering billions in rewards to customers.

For more information, please visit www.rewardinsight.com.

ABOUT HDI

Hospitality Data Insights (HDI) is a leading UK insights business, providing independent data insight to global and national brands operating in the UK hospitality sector since 2017, supporting over 100 different clients spanning Pubs & Bars, Restaurants & Casual Dining, QSR, Coffee Shops, Delivery, Convenience, Drinks Suppliers & Manufacturers, Investors and Consulting Firms.

HDI turns vast amounts of high-quality data into meaningful products and services that help operators improve their investment decisions, offer development and customer marketing; and help manufacturers sell and support their brands more effectively

Since late 2022, HDI have extended their capabilities into the UK grocery sector, tracking online pricing for 10 national grocers and monitoring customer spending patterns within over 40,000 individual convenience & grocery stores.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/reward-acquires-uks-leading-hospitality-data-insights-company-hdi-to-enhance-commerce-media-offering-delivering-deeper-consumer-insights-for-the-retail-sector-302304659.html
LONDON, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Vantage Markets (or "Vantage"), an award-winning multi-asset broker, has once again solidified its reputation for excellence, outperforming competitors across multiple key categories in Investing.com's latest brokerage test.

Investing.com, one of the world's leading financial publishers, provides real-time financial news, analysis, and data, serving over 60 million monthly users across global markets. Its brokerage tests are highly regarded in the industry, offering comprehensive insights into broker performance based on rigorous evaluation criteria.

In this latest assessment, the test evaluated multiple key metrics, including leverage, spread value, spread stability, no-slippage rate, market depth, large order cost, and swap competitiveness, conducted during one of the most volatile periods - the U.S. elections-with test data focused on the product movement of Gold (XAUUSD).

Leverage

Vantage excelled in providing flexible, highly competitive leverage of up to 1:2000 (in selected regions), granting traders access to powerful financial instruments with a range of options tailored to their trading needs. This balance of flexibility and control is essential to Vantage's philosophy of empowering traders with tools that support intelligent risk management.

Spread Value and Spread Stability

Based on ECN account data, the test highlighted Vantage's exceptionally low spread values at 9.1 as compared to other brokers, offering traders cost-effective access to the markets. Furthermore, spread stability consistently held within a range of 8-9 points, a critical factor during market turbulence. This stability reflects Vantage's robust infrastructure and dedication to providing reliable trading conditions regardless of market fluctuations.

No-Slippage Rate

Vantage demonstrated an unmatched 79% no-slippage execution rate on STP accounts, showcasing its ability to minimise the disparity between requested and executed prices. By reducing unexpected deviations, Vantage ensures that traders' strategies remain intact without unexpected deviations, enhancing trust and transparency in trade execution.

Market Depth

In a rigorous test of order placements during high-volatility news events, Vantage exhibited unparalleled market depth, handling large lot sizes with minimal slippage. This level of market depth and stability reflects the strength of Vantage's liquidity network, providing traders with a seamless experience even during peak market activity.

Large Order Cost

During the high-volatility US Election period, Vantage excelled with a larger order cost of -26.6, offering competitive pricing and minimising trading expenses for large transactions. This is at the back of Vantage's commitment to ensure that traders enjoy cost-efficiency even in dynamic and fast-moving markets.

Swap Competitiveness

Vantage continues to deliver value with industry-leading swap rates, offering -30.8 for long positions and 22 for short positions. Known for offering some of the industry's best swap rates, Vantage ranks highly with advantageous rates on both sides of the market, providing traders added value, especially for long-term positions.

The recognition by Investing.com is a true testament to Vantage's drive for excellence and reinforces its position as a leader in the global trading landscape. For traders across the world, these results are not only a reflection of Vantage's superior trading conditions but also a promise of its unwavering commitment to fostering a high-performance trading environment.

David Shayer, CEO, Vantage UK said, "This recognition from Investing.com reaffirms Vantage UK's commitment to delivering exceptional trading services tailored to the needs of UK traders. It's a testament to the strides we've made in fostering a reliable and innovative trading environment. We look forward to building on this momentum, providing our traders with unmatched service and trading solutions in the year to come."

For more information, visit Vantage's Media Centre: https://www.vantagemarkets.co.uk/about/media-centre/

About Vantage

Vantage Markets (or Vantage) is a multi-asset broker offering clients access to a nimble and powerful service for trading Forex and Contracts for Difference (CFDs) products on, Commodities, Indices, Shares, ETFs, and Bonds.

With over 15 years of market experience, Vantage transcends the role of broker, providing a trusted trading ecosystem, an award-winning mobile trading app , and a user-friendly trading platform that empowers clients to seize trading opportunities. Download the Vantage App on App Store or Google Play.

trade smarter @vantage

https://www.vantagemarkets.co.uk/

Risk warning: CFDs and Spread Bets are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 70.5% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs and Spread Bets with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs and Spread Bets work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. Please seek independent advice if necessary.

* 'The Ultimate Trading Machine' is a marketing term and does not imply guaranteed performance. CFDs involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors.

Vantage is the trading name of VGP LLP.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2557631/1920x1080_PR.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2506103/Vantage_15_Logo_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/vantage-markets-celebrated-among-the-top-brokers-in-investingcoms-latest-performance-test-during-the-us-election-period-302305193.html
Curatis Holding (SIX:CURN) has explored in detail which regulatory pathway should be pursued in view of a possible approval of C-PBTE-01 in the USA. The detailed clarifications in collaboration with a renowned US law firm and their regulatory experts have shown that C-PTBE-01 meets the criteria for a Biologic License Application (BLA). If approved in the USA, this would result in a market protection of 12 years, significantly longer than the 7 years market protection under orphan drug status. This would extend the market protection for C-PTBE-01 in the USA by 70% or 5 years.

According to the US Public Health Service Act, the status of "biologic" is intended for peptides with a length of more than 40 amino acids. The molecule C-PTBE-01 has a length of 41 amino acids. The orphan drug designation for C-PTBE-01 will be pursued as planned.

About C-PTBE-01

Curatis is focusing its development activities for C-PTBE-01 on an very rare group of aggressive brain tumours (Diffuse Midline Glioma, DMG). These tumours mainly affect children, with most cases being diagnosed between the ages of 5 and 9. In the USA, around 800 patients are diagnosed with DMG every year; in Europe, the number is in the same order of magnitude, which is why the disease is considered a 'rare disease' for regulatory purposes.

In connection with DMG, indirect brain damage regularly occurs due to an accumulation of extracellular fluid in the vicinity of the tumour. This peritumoural brain edema (PTBE) can cause symptoms such as headaches, vomiting and neurological dysfunction such as paralysis, speech disorders, visual problems and altered mental status and can be life-threatening.

The current typical treatment method for PTBE is the use of corticosteroids. Corticosteroids often have serious side effects such as severe myopathies, muscle wasting, abnormal weight gain, osteoporosis, gastritis, gastrointestinal bleeding, hypertension and personality changes. The already serious side effects are exacerbated in children.

C-PTBE-01 has demonstrated a strong steroid-sparing effect in two clinical safety and efficacy studies, which may lead to a significant reduction or complete replacement of corticosteroid use and thus alleviation of the severe side effects associated with steroid use in children.

A detailed analysis of Curatis and its product candidates is available in a research report at https://ir.curatis.com/equity-research-reports.

About Curatis:

Curatis Holding AG is a publicly listed company (CURN.SW) specialising in the development and commercialisation of drugs for rare and very rare diseases. Curatis has a sales portfolio of more than 30 drugs and a pipeline of orphan drug products and speciality products that can make a significant contribution to cash flow from 2025 onwards. Further information can be found on the website www.curatis.com.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this media release and in any link to our website indicated here is not for use in any country or jurisdiction or by any persons where such use would constitute a violation of law.

This media release contains "forward-looking statements" that are based on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections about us and our industry. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, any statement that may predict, forecast, indicate or imply future results, performance or achievements, and may contain the words "may", "will", "should", "continue", "believe", "anticipate", "expect", "estimate", "intend", "project", "plan", "will likely continue", "will likely result", or words or phrases with similar meaning. Undue reliance should not be placed on such statements because, by their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, economic, competitive, governmental and technological factors outside the control of Curatis Group, that may cause Curatis' business, strategy or actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements (or from past results). For any factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained in this media release, please see our listing prospectus in connection with the business combination from April 2024. Curatis Group undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any of these forward-looking statements, whether to reflect new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise. It should further be noted that past performance is not a guide to future performance.

The information contained in this media release is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of offers to purchase or subscribe for securities. This media release is not a prospectus within the meaning of the Swiss Financial Services Act nor a prospectus under any other applicable laws.

Some financial information in this media release has been rounded and, as a result, the figures shown as totals in this media release may slightly vary from the exact arithmetic aggregation of the figures that precede them.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241113599004/en/

Contacts:

Contact for Media:

Dr. Roland Rutschmann, CEO

Phone: +41 61 927 8777

r.rutschmann@curatis.com

Contact for Investors:

Thomas Bieri, Managing Partner Yuma Capital

Phone: +41 44 575 20 01

thomas.bieri@yuma-capital.com
Amsterdam, November 14, 2024

Highlights

FPSO Prosperity sold to ExxonMobil Guyana Ltd; FPSO LizaDestiny on track for sale before year-end

TotalEnergies contract award for an FPSO as part of the GranMorgu field development project in Suriname

2024 Directional 1 EBITDA guidance increased from around US$1.3 billion to around US$1.9 billion (+46%)

EBITDA guidance increased from around US$1.3 billion to around US$1.9 billion (+46%) 2024 Directional revenue guidance increased from above US$3.8 billion to above US$6.0 billion (+58%)

Completed sale of 13.5% interest in FPSO Sepetiba to China Merchants Financial Leasing (Hong-Kong) Holding Co., Limited (CMFL)

Share repurchase program of EUR130 million on track, c. 57% completed2

ivind Tangen, CEO of SBM Offshore, commented:

"Our SBM teams continue to deliver a strong performance, driving improved results.

We have increased our EBITDA guidance for the year from around US$1.3 billion to around US$1.9 billion. This is mainly driven by the completion of the sale of FPSO Prosperity to ExxonMobil Guyana Ltd on November 7, and the expected sale of FPSO LizaDestiny towards the end of year.

The award by TotalEnergies of the FPSO contract for the GranMorgu project in Suriname demonstrates the value of our lifecycle offering and the advantaged positioning this can give us in the market. The c. 220 kboe/d capacity vessel, delivered in partnership with Technip Energies, will utilize all-electric drive to help optimize the emission intensity of the FPSO in line with our emission zero goal of delivering more carbon-efficient units.

Our project portfolio continues to progress as per plan, with three units expected to reach first oil in the course of next year. This convergence towards excellence across our lifecycle is greatly helped by the fast learning achieved through our Fast4Ward program.

The first of these units, FPSO Almirante Tamandare, arrived safely in Brazil and has entered the final offshore commissioning scope. Once in full production, this unit will be the largest producing FPSO in Brazil and is also the first in Brazil with a Sustainability-1 Notation3.

Reflecting our continuous attention to the health and wellbeing of our employees and all those working on our projects, we can report another quarter with an overall HSSE performance in line with our targets.

Finally, we completed the sale of 13.5% in FPSO Sepetiba to CMFL."



Financial Overview4

YTD Directional in US$ million 3Q 2024 3Q 2023 % Change Directional Revenue 2,838 2,247 26% Directional Lease and Operate 1,801 1,412 28% Directional Turnkey 1,036 835 24% in US$ billion 3Q 2024 FY 2023 % Change Directional Net Debt 7.3 6.7 9%

Directional revenue for the third quarter of 2024 stood at US$2,838 million, a 26% increase compared with the same period in 2023 supported by both the Lease and Operate and Turnkey segments.

Year-to-date, Directional Lease and Operate revenue was US$1,801 million compared with US$1,412 million in the third quarter of 2023. This 28% increase mainly reflects (i) the contribution of FPSOs Prosperity and Sepetiba joining the fleet upon successful delivery in 4Q 2023 and 1Q 2024 respectively, (ii) an increase in the reimbursable scope of the fleet, and (iii) the additional contribution from Angolan entities following Sonangol transaction. This was partially offset by the lower revenue generation from FPSO LizaUnity following the sale of the vessel in 4Q 2023 with a contribution coming solely now under the Operations and Maintenance Enabling Agreement.

Directional Turnkey revenue improved by 24% to US$1,036 million compared with the same period last year. The US$200 million increase was mainly driven by the contract award for FPSO Jaguar and higher support to the fleet through brownfield activities, partly offset by a comparatively lower amount of revenue booked in the construction portfolio as projects approach completion.

Directional Net Debt increased by US$603 million to US$7,258 million for the period ending 3Q 2024. The increase was driven by drawings under the project finance facilities, which reflects the continued investment in the construction program of 4 FPSOs. The hedge ratio of the floating-rate debt is above 90%.

Project Review and Fleet Operational Update

FPSOAlmiranteTamandare - The unit has been delivered and arrived safely at its offshore destination in October 2024. The installation, hook-up and offshore commissioning activities are progressing in line with plan. The client is expecting first oil from the field in early 2025.

FPSOAlexandrede Gusmao - The integration phase has successfully been completed. The teams are focusing on commissioning activities until sail away, planned around year-end. First oil is expected in 2025.

FPSOONE GUYANA - The integration and onshore commissioning activities are progressing in line with plan, including the successful completion of the power plant commissioning. First oil is expected in the second half of 2025.

FPSO Jaguar - As planned, the topsides' fabrication has started in Singapore and the Fast4Ward MPF hull's delivery is expected in the last quarter of 2024. First oil is expected in 2027.

Fast4Ward MPF hulls - The total number of MPF hulls ordered to date under the Company's Fast4Ward program stands at nine, with 3 Fast4Ward based vessels now in operation, 5 hulls allocated to projects in construction and 1 reserved as part of tendering activities.

Fleet Uptime - Year-to-date, the fleet's uptime was 95%, mainly reflecting the shutdown of 2 units in the year-to-date period.

Safety and Sustainability

Safety - The Company's Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate year-to-date was 0.10, in line with the full year 2024 target of below 0.125.

Decarbonization - SBM Offshore's mission to continue to advance the decarbonization of traditional energy production has been recognized by the American Bureau of Shipping for its Tower Loading Unit and Catenary Anchor Leg Mooring Soft Yoke systems designed for ammonia and CO 2 injection, resulting in the receipt of the American Bureau of Shipping's "Approval in Principle".

Cash Return

The share repurchase program of EUR130 million (c. US$140 million) is progressing and was c. 57% completed on November 13, 2024 after market close. The repurchases were made under the EUR65 million share repurchase program announced on February 29, 2024, effective from March 1, 2024, and increased by EUR65 million as announced on August 8, 2024.

The objective of the share repurchase program is to reduce share capital and in addition to provide shares for regular management and employee share programs. The share repurchase program is expected to be completed by end of April 2025.

Guidance

Following the purchase of FPSO Prosperity, ExxonMobil Guyana Ltd has informed the Company that it will also exercise its right to purchase FPSO Liza Destiny by year-end 2024. This is ahead of the end of the maximum lease term which would have expired in December 2029. The purchase allows ExxonMobil Guyana Ltd to assume ownership of the unit while SBM Offshore will continue to operate and maintain the FPSO. The net cash proceeds will be applied to full repayment of the US$405 million outstanding project financing and as such together with the repayment of the US$979 million outstanding financing for FPSO Prosperity will decrease SBM Offshore's net debt position.

The Company's 2024 guidance has been updated to take into consideration the sale of both FPSOs Prosperity and Liza Destiny6.

The Company's 2024 Directional revenue guidance is increased to above US$6.0 billion of which above US$2.3 billion is expected from the Lease and Operate segment and above US$3.7 billion from the Turnkey segment.

2024 Directional EBITDA guidance is increased to around US$1.9 billion for the Company.

Corporate Profile

SBM Offshore is the world's deepwater ocean-infrastructure expert. Through the design, construction, installation, and operation of offshore floating facilities, we play a pivotal role in a just transition. By advancing our core, we deliver cleaner, more efficient energy production. By pioneering more, we unlock new markets within the blue economy.

More than 7,400 SBMers collaborate worldwide to deliver innovative solutions as a responsible partner towards a sustainable future, balancing ocean protection with progress.

For further information, please visit our website at www.sbmoffshore.com.

Financial Calendar Date Year Full Year 2024 Earnings February 20 2025 Annual General Meeting April 9 2025 First Quarter 2025 Trading Update May 15 2025 Half Year 2025 Earnings August 7 2025 Third Quarter 2025 Trading Update November 13 2025

For further information, please contact:

Investor Relations

Wouter Holties

Corporate Finance & Investor Relations Manager

Phone: +31 (0)20 236 32 36 E-mail: wouter.holties@sbmoffshore.com (mailto:wouter.holties@sbmoffshore.com) Website: www.sbmoffshore.com (http://www.sbmoffshore.com)

Media Relations

Giampaolo Arghittu

Head of External Relations

Phone: +31 (0)6 212 62 333 / +39 33 494 79 584 E-mail: giampaolo.arghittu@sbmoffshore.com (mailto:giampaolo.arghittu@sbmoffshore.com) Website: www.sbmoffshore.com (http://www.sbmoffshore.com)

Market Abuse Regulation

This press release may contain inside information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation.

Disclaimer

Some of the statements contained in this release that are not historical facts are statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance, or events to differ materially from those in such statements. These statements may be identified by words such as 'expect', 'should', 'could', 'shall' and similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. The principal risks which could affect the future operations of SBM Offshore N.V. are described in the 'Impact, Risk and Opportunity Management' section of the 2023 Annual Report.

Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results and performance of the Company's business may vary materially and adversely from the forward-looking statements described in this release. SBM Offshore does not intend and does not assume any obligation to update any industry information or forward-looking statements set forth in this release to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise.

This release contains certain alternative performance measures.

Nothing in this release shall be deemed an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities. The companies in which SBM Offshore N.V. directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities. In this release "SBM Offshore" and "SBM" are sometimes used for convenience where references are made to SBM Offshore N.V. and its subsidiaries in general. These expressions are also used where no useful purpose is served by identifying the particular company or companies.

"SBM Offshore", the SBM logomark, "Fast4Ward", "emissionZERO" and "F4W" are proprietary marks owned by SBM Offshore.

1 Directional reporting, presented in the Financial Statements under section Operating Segments and Directional Reporting, represents a pro-forma accounting policy, which treats all lease contracts as operating leases and consolidates all co-owned investees related to lease contracts on a proportional basis based on percentage of ownership. This explanatory note relates to all Directional reporting in this document.

2 Based on cumulative repurchase amount of c. EUR74 million on November 13, 2024.

3 This sustainability certificate from Bureau Veritas recognizes the Company's efforts in minimizing environmental impacts over the lifecycle of the FPSO, from design to construction and operations.

4 Numbers may not add up due to rounding.

5 Measured per 200,000 work hours.

6 Note: The purchase option can be cancelled at any time up to completion of the transaction. Given the high likelihood the Company decided to include the transaction in the guidance for FY 2024.

Attachment
Amsterdam, November 14, 2024

SBM Offshore announces that it has been awarded contracts for the GranMorgu field development project located in Block 58 in Suriname by the Operator, TotalEnergies EP Suriname B.V., an affiliate of TotalEnergies. Under these contracts, SBM Offshore will, in partnership with Technip Energies, construct and install a Floating Production, Storage and Offloading vessel (FPSO). The award follows completion of front-end engineering and design studies, and the final investment decision on the project by the Joint Venture operated by TotalEnergies EP Suriname B.V. SBM Offshore is expected to operate the unit under an operations and maintenance agreement.

The GranMorgu project is the first development within Block 58, circa 150 kilometers offshore Suriname. TotalEnergies is the operator holding a 50 percent interest in Block 58, alongside APA Corporation. Staatsolie has announced its intent to exercise its option to enter the development project with up to 20% interest.

The FPSO will be the first large deepwater project development in Suriname with an expected production capacity of up to 220,000 barrels of oil per day and associated gas treatment capacity of up to 500 million cubic feet per day. The FPSO will be spread moored in water depth of about 400 meters and will be able to store around 2 million barrels of crude oil. First oil is expected in 2028.

Thanks to the joint expertise of Technip Energies and SBM Offshore, this all-electric drive FPSO will also be designed to eliminate routine flaring, in line with TotalEnergies objectives and SBM Offshore's goal to deliver carbon efficient units.

ivind Tangen, CEO of SBM Offshore commented:

"Extending our Fast4Ward value proposition to TotalEnergies supports our client's fast-track development strategy for Block 58. This award demonstrates the strength of SBM's cost-effective and low emission deepwater offering and calls on our proven track record in time-to-market. By entering Suriname, we are delivering on our strategy to advance our core and pioneer more. The award also highlights our partnerships capabilities. On this, I express my appreciation to TotalEnergies for this award and to the team at Technip Energies who share our commitment in making this project a success. Together, we'll de-risk project execution and accelerate time to first oil."



Corporate Profile

SBM Offshore is the world's deepwater ocean-infrastructure expert. Through the design, construction, installation, and operation of offshore floating facilities, we play a pivotal role in a just transition. By advancing our core, we deliver cleaner, more efficient energy production. By pioneering more, we unlock new markets within the blue economy.

More than 7,400 SBMers collaborate worldwide to deliver innovative solutions as a responsible partner towards a sustainable future, balancing ocean protection with progress.

For further information, please visit our website at www.sbmoffshore.com.

Financial Calendar Date Year Full Year 2024 Earnings February 20 2025 Annual General Meeting April 9 2025 First Quarter 2025 Trading Update May 15 2025 Half Year 2025 Earnings August 7 2025 Third Quarter 2025 Trading Update November 13 2025

For further information, please contact:

Investor Relations

Wouter Holties

Corporate Finance & Investor Relations Manager

Phone: +31 (0)20 236 32 36 E-mail: wouter.holties@sbmoffshore.com (mailto:wouter.holties@sbmoffshore.com) Website: www.sbmoffshore.com (http://www.sbmoffshore.com)

Media Relations

Giampaolo Arghittu

Head of External Relations

Mobile: +31 (0)6 212 62 333 / +39 33 494 79 584 E-mail: giampaolo.arghittu@sbmoffshore.com (mailto:giampaolo.arghittu@sbmoffshore.com) Website: www.sbmoffshore.com (http://www.sbmoffshore.com)

Market Abuse Regulation

This press release may contain inside information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation.

Disclaimer

Some of the statements contained in this release that are not historical facts are statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance, or events to differ materially from those in such statements. These statements may be identified by words such as 'expect', 'should', 'could', 'shall' and similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. The principal risks which could affect the future operations of SBM Offshore N.V. are described in the 'Impact, Risk and Opportunity Management' section of the 2023 Annual Report.

Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results and performance of the Company's business may vary materially and adversely from the forward-looking statements described in this release. SBM Offshore does not intend and does not assume any obligation to update any industry information or forward-looking statements set forth in this release to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise.

This release contains certain alternative performance measures.

Nothing in this release shall be deemed an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities. The companies in which SBM Offshore N.V. directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities. In this release "SBM Offshore" and "SBM" are sometimes used for convenience where references are made to SBM Offshore N.V. and its subsidiaries in general. These expressions are also used where no useful purpose is served by identifying the particular company or companies.

"SBM Offshore", the SBM logomark, "Fast4Ward", "emissionZERO" and "F4W" are proprietary marks owned by SBM Offshore.

Attachment
Octopai's best-in-class data lineage and catalog platform to provide discoverability, quality, and governance for enterprises to enhance data-driven decision making

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 14, 2024, the only true hybrid platform for data, analytics, and AI, announced that it entered into a definitive agreement with Octopai B.I. Ltd. (Octopai) to acquire Octopai's data lineage and catalog platform that enables organizations to understand and govern their data. The transaction will significantly add to Cloudera's data catalog and metadata management capabilities.

Enterprises are under increasing pressure to incorporate data-driven decision-making into their business operations. They want to utilize their data for AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics initiatives, requiring a comprehensive data intelligence strategy to find all the relevant, contextual, and trusted data across the company. But for many enterprises-particularly those in finance, healthcare, retail, and telecommunications that deal with highly regulated, sensitive, and voluminous data-having a complete purview of the entire data estate still proves challenging as they require capabilities over multiple data solutions across hybrid environments.

"As data-driven organizations adopt hybrid, distributed data architectures, being able to automatically manage metadata is critical to providing a unified self-service view of the data," said Sanjeev Mohan, principal analyst at SanjMo. "Unified metadata strategies lead to analytic insights that data consumers trust. They also ensure security, increase governance, and provide a consistent view across the entire data estate. Augmenting Cloudera's data management, governance, and AI capabilities with Octopai's enterprise-ready, multi-layered data lineage over 50 data source connectors, and automated metadata management leads to a comprehensive metadata and data intelligence solution."

Founded in 2016, Octopai transformed the metadata management landscape by leveraging automated data mapping and knowledge graphs to enrich and activate metadata to deliver insights into the data landscape. This, coupled with an intuitive experience and AI copilots, accelerates the use of high-quality data for analytic and AI outcomes. Today, Octopai customers at leading enterprises save time on change or impact analysis, reduce errors and costs in their data operations, and comply with evolving regulations.

Octopai's automated solutions for data lineage, data discovery, data catalog, mapping, and impact analysis across complex data environments complement Cloudera's modern data architecture strategy. With the built-in metadata management and multi-dimensional data lineage from Octopai, Cloudera customers can get visibility across a myriad of data solutions so they can fuel their AI, predictive analytics, and other decision-making tools with trusted data. Customers can also expect improved:

Data D iscoverability - Quickly find relevant data in complex and distributed data sets across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments, as well as understand data origins and their reliability. This clear visibility into the data source, history, and transformations ensures decisions are based on accurate and trusted data.

- Quickly find relevant data in complex and distributed data sets across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments, as well as understand data origins and their reliability. This clear visibility into the data source, history, and transformations ensures decisions are based on accurate and trusted data. Data Q uality - Trace the journey of data from its source to its current state. With Octopai, customers can resolve data quality issues that lead to unreliable data, poor decision-making, and substandard data products, ensuring trusted, quality data is leveraged across the enterprise.

- Trace the journey of data from its source to its current state. With Octopai, customers can resolve data quality issues that lead to unreliable data, poor decision-making, and substandard data products, ensuring trusted, quality data is leveraged across the enterprise. Data Governance - By automatically mapping and cataloging data across systems into a knowledge hub, with detailed insights into data flows, transformations, and processes, Octopai can help enterprise customers comply with regulations like GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and more.

By automatically mapping and cataloging data across systems into a knowledge hub, with detailed insights into data flows, transformations, and processes, Octopai can help enterprise customers comply with regulations like GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and more. Migration Assistance - Apply partner-driven lineage and the Octomize AI (https://www.octopai.com/octomize-ai/) genAI agent for data teams to mitigate risks, reduce errors, and ensure migrated data remains accurate, consistent, and usable when moved to a new environment.

"When using data to make business-critical decisions, enterprises can't afford to have blind spots or inaccuracies, and they certainly shouldn't let identifying trusted data slow down progress," said Charles Sansbury, CEO of Cloudera. "Our customers need to auto-discover data across multiple repositories, show deep lineage of assets both within and outside the Cloudera estate, and leverage a robust data catalog to identify data assets that can be consumed. The acquisition of Octopai's platform enhances Cloudera's data, analytics, and AI platform, enabling customers to have greater visibility of their data regardless of their data management provider."

"Cloudera and Octopai represent a perfect symbiosis by bringing together centralized data and metadata management," noted Yael Ben Arie, CEO of Octopai. "By combining Octopai's metadata capabilities with Cloudera's comprehensive data, analytics, and AI platform, we're addressing the critical challenge of understanding and governing data across multi-cloud and on-premises environments. This acquisition will establish the Octopai data lineage and catalog platform as the standard for metadata management while accelerating Cloudera's mission of preparing customers for the AI era. We're excited to bring enterprise-grade data lineage and metadata management to organizations at an unprecedented scale."

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and Cloudera anticipates the closing of the transaction will occur before the end of November 2024. For more information on Cloudera's acquisition of Octopai's platform, read the Cloudera blog .

To learn more about how Cloudera can enable your organization to derive more value from your largest data volumes, visit: www.cloudera.com/products/cloudera-data-platform .

About Cloudera

Cloudera is the only true hybrid platform for data, analytics, and AI. With 100x more data under management than other cloud-only vendors, Cloudera empowers global enterprises to transform data of all types, on any public or private cloud, into valuable, trusted insights. Our open data lakehouse delivers scalable and secure data management with portable cloud-native analytics, enabling customers to bring GenAI models to their data while maintaining privacy and ensuring responsible, reliable AI deployments. The world's largest brands in financial services, insurance, media, manufacturing, and government rely on Cloudera to use their data to solve what seemed impossible-today and in the future.

To learn more, visit Cloudera.com and follow us on LinkedIn and X . Cloudera and associated marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cloudera, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact

Jess Hohn-Cabana

cloudera@v2comms.com
DUESSELDORF (dpa-AFX) - E.ON SE (EONGY.PK) report that its adjusted group net income for the first nine months of fiscal year 2024 declined to 2.2 billion euros from last year's 2.9 billion euros.Adjusted Group EBITDA of about 6.7 billion euros for the first nine months of 2024 was below the prior-year figure of 7.8 billion euros.The company affirmed its full-year 2024 guidance. It still projects adjusted Group EBITDA to be in the range of 8.8 billion euros - 9.0 billion euros and adjusted group net income of 2.8 billion euros - 3.0 billion euros.Between 2024 and 2028, E.ON plans to invest a total of 42 billion euros in the energy transition across Europe and thus in a secure, competitive, and sustainable energy system.For more earnings news, earnings calendar, and earnings for stocks, visit rttnews.com.Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights ReservedCopyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Australian dollar weakened against other major currencies in the Asian session on Thursday.The Australian dollar fell to nearly a 3-1/2-month low of 0.6460 against the U.S. dollar, more than a 2-month low of 0.9053 against the Canadian dollar and a 1-week low of 1.6318 against the euro, from yesterday's closing quotes of 0.6485, 0.9076 and 1.6286, respectively.Against the yen, the aussie edged down to 100.73 from yesterday's closing value of 100.81.If the aussie extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 0.63 against the greenback, 0.88 against the loonie, 1.65 against the euro and 99.00 against the yen.Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights ReservedCopyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The New Zealand dollar weakened against other major currencies in the Asian session on Thursday.The NZ dollar fell to nearly a 3-1/2-month low of 0.5854 against the U.S. dollar, from yesterday's closing value of 0.5879.Against the euro and the Australian dollar, the kiwi dropped to 3-day lows of 1.8007 and 1.1049 from yesterday's closing quotes of 1.7958 and 1.1025, respectively.The kiwi edged down to 91.29 against the yen, from Wednesday's closing value of 91.39.If the kiwi extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around against the 0.57 against the greenback, 1.83 against the euro, 1.11 against the aussie and 89.00 against the yen.Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights ReservedCopyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Group Eleven Resources Corp. (TSXV: ZNG) (OTC Pink: GRLVF) (FSE: 3GE) ("Group Eleven" or the "Company") is pleased to announce results from latest five step-out holes of the 2024 drill program at the Company's 100%-owned Ballywire zinc-lead-silver discovery ("Ballywire"), PG West Project ("PG West"), Republic of Ireland.

Highlights:

G11-3552-19 intersected (from 194.5m): 15.3m of 14.5% Zn+Pb (11.4% Zn and 3.1% Pb) and 56 g/t Ag, including 8.7m of 23.9% Zn+Pb (18.8% Zn and 5.1% Pb) and 85 g/t Ag, including 3.4m of 32.6% Zn+Pb (24.9% Zn and 7.7% Pb) and 88 g/t Ag Located 50m NNW from G11-3552-17 (released 24-Sep-2024)

intersected (from 194.5m): G11-3552-21 intersected (from 189.7m): 17.0m of 4.7% Zn+Pb (3.5% Zn and 1.2% Pb) and 44 g/t Ag, including 7.0m of 8.1% Zn+Pb (6.2% Zn and 1.9% Pb) and 93 g/t Ag 1.2m of 26.4% Zn+Pb (19.2% Zn and 7.2% Pb) and 396 g/t Ag Located 50m NNW from above hole

intersected (from 189.7m): G11-3552-20 intersected (from 254.6m): 9.2m of 4.8% Zn+Pb (3.6% Zn and 1.2% Pb) and 18 g/t Ag, including 5.7m of 6.6% Zn+Pb (5.3% Zn and 1.3% Pb) and 21 g/t Ag, including 1.1m of 26.8% Zn+Pb (21.0% Zn and 5.8% Pb) and 78 g/t Ag Located 260m SW of above holes, 50m NNW from G11-3552-18 (released 22-Oct-2024)

intersected (from 254.6m): Above holes add at least 50-100m to the lateral (up and down dip) extent of the recently announced flat-lying zone of zinc-rich massive sulphide lenses at the base of the Waulsortian Limestone, with the zone extending for at least 360m along strike and remaining open

to the lateral (up and down dip) extent of the recently announced at the base of the Waulsortian Limestone, with the zone extending for and remaining open Massive sulphide zone is pierced by the above intercepts and four previously released holes: G11-3552-12 : 29.6m of 10.6% Zn+Pb and 78 g/t Ag (released 11-Jun-24) G11-3552-13 : 6.1m of 11.4% Zn+Pb and 85 g/t Ag (released 01-Aug-24) and G11-3552-17 : 4.2m of 15.2% Zn+Pb and 34 g/t Ag (released 24-Sep-24) G11-3552-18 : 11.8m of 11.6% Zn+Pb and 48 g/t Ag (released 22-Oct-24)

Two-rig drill program at Ballywire continues with the next assay results expected in due course

"It is exciting to announce G11-3552-19 today as it represents the best hole drilled to date at Ballywire in terms of zinc-dominant massive sulphide," stated Bart Jaworski, CEO. "The hole intersected an interpreted true width of 8.7m of continuous massive sulphide grading an impressive 24% Zn+Pb - and at a relatively shallow depth of 200m. Altogether, today's results significantly expand the emerging flat-lying, zinc-rich massive sulphide zone at Ballywire to at least 360m along strike and 100-150m along dip. The massive sulphide zone is open and appears to be strengthening to the northeast, towards shallowing stratigraphy. Ongoing drilling is testing this area with two rigs. We look forward to providing further results as we continue our step-out drilling within the 2.6km corridor of robust mineralization drilled thus far and along our broader 6km long prospective trend."





Exhibit 1. Cross-Section A-A' of G11-3552-19, -21, -23 (100m Step-Out Distance) at Ballywire



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5685/229882_ex1.jpg

Exhibit 2. Cross-Section B-B' of G11-3552-20 and -22 (50m Step-Out Distance) at Ballywire



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5685/229882_ex2.jpg





Exhibit 3. Plan Map Showing Key New Drilling (G11-3552-19, -20, -21) at Ballywire



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5685/229882_ex3.jpg

Exhibit 4. Emerging Massive Sulphide Zone and Upcoming Drill Results at Ballywire

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5685/229882_f29723b1c4c7fb73_005full.jpg

Recent Holes from 2024 Drill Campaign at Ballywire Discovery

The Ballywire prospect at the Company's 100%-owned PG West Project in Republic of Ireland, is a new zinc-lead-silver discovery (first announced Sept-2022). In addition to 37 holes drilled and reported by Group Eleven to date, the most recent five step-out holes (G11-3552-19 to -23) of the 2024 program are reported today (see Exhibits 1 to 6).

High-grade mineralization from G11-3552-19, -20 and -21 consists predominantly of massive and semi-massive sulphide (sphalerite, galena, pyrite, chalcopyrite and suspected tennantite-tetrahedrite), as well as, disseminated and vein hosted sulphide mineralization. Mineralization occurs along and/or close to the base of the Waulsortian Limestone (see Exhibit 1 and 2).

Overall, recent drilling suggests the emergence of two distinct styles of mineralization. First, relatively flat-lying zinc-rich massive sulphide lenses and second, 'other mineralization', dominated by variably dipping massive sulphides, as well as, vein-hosted and disseminated mineralization (see Exhibits 1-3). Both styles occur at or near the base of the Waulsortian Limestone and offer great exploration opportunities as drilling progresses.

Exhibit 5. Summary of Assays from G11-3552-19 at Ballywire

Item From

(m) To

(m) Int

(m) Zn

(%) Pb

(%) Zn+Pb

(%) Ag

(g/t) Cu

(%) G11-3552-19 199.69 200.40 0.71 13.95 1.65 15.60 31.6 - And 200.40 201.15 0.75 5.32 0.14 5.46 26.0 - And 201.15 201.73 0.58 5.35 0.31 5.66 18.6 - And 201.73 202.55 0.82 20.50 0.53 21.03 60.4 - And 202.55 203.46 0.91 21.00 6.32 27.32 62.1 - And 203.46 204.38 0.92 20.70 11.75 32.45 83.1 - And 204.38 205.33 0.95 19.35 7.31 26.66 91.9 - And 205.33 206.23 0.90 29.60 7.77 37.37 95.7 - And 206.23 206.90 0.67 32.20 2.59 34.79 80.1 - And 206.90 207.72 0.82 16.05 7.19 23.24 121.0 - And 207.72 208.38 0.66 17.45 6.22 23.67 269.0 0.26 Weighted Avg 194.50 209.84 15.34 11.36 3.14 14.50 55.5 - Incl. 199.69 208.38 8.69 18.78 5.08 23.86 85.0 - Incl. 203.46 206.90 3.44 24.90 7.70 32.59 88.2 - And 230.00 230.82 0.82 1.40 2.13 3.53 370.0 0.73 And 235.62 237.10 1.48 0.31 2.06 2.37 261.0 0.47

Note: True width of the overall mineralized package in all holes above is estimated at approx. 90-100% of the intersected interval; G11-3552-19 hosts continuous zinc-rich massive sulphide over 8.7m starting from 199.69m

Exhibit 6. Summary of Assays from G11-3552-20 to -23 at Ballywire

Item From

(m) To

(m) Int

(m) Zn

(%) Pb

(%) Zn+Pb

(%) Ag

(g/t) Cu

(%) G11-3552-20 254.55 263.75 9.20 3.59 1.23 4.82 17.6 - Incl. 254.55 260.25 5.70 5.28 1.33 6.61 21.2 - Incl. 259.14 260.25 1.11 21.00 5.78 26.8 78.4 - G11-3552-21 189.69 206.67 16.98 3.53 1.17 4.71 43.7 - Incl. 199.67 206.67 7.00 6.17 1.89 8.06 92.8 - Incl. 205.50 206.67 1.17 19.21 7.16 26.38 395.9 0.30 G11-3552-22 222.81 235.78 12.97 0.95 0.15 1.11 3.0 - Incl. 227.49 229.88 2.39 3.65 0.55 4.20 10.2 - Incl. 228.40 229.88 1.48 4.47 0.81 5.28 14.2 - G11-3552-23 181.92 192.87 10.95 0.53 0.14 0.68 2.1 - Incl. 184.64 185.59 0.95 1.85 0.68 2.52 8.1 -

Note: True width of the overall mineralized package in all holes above is estimated at approx. 90-100% of the intersected interval; G11-3552-19 hosts continuous zinc-rich massive sulphide over 8.7m starting from 199.69m

Looking forward, two drill holes (G11-3552-24 and -25; see Exhibit 4) are in progress with results expected in due course. Exhibit 4 shows drilling to date across 1.25km of the overall 2.6km long trend (see Exhibit 3) of significantly mineralized drill intercepts (open in all directions). A photo of the 8.7m interval of massive sulphide in G11-3552-19 will be put on Group Eleven's website (www.groupelevenresources.com).





Exhibit 7. Regional Gravity at Ballywire Showing 6km Long Prospective Trend



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5685/229882_ex7.jpg

Notes to Exhibit 8: (a) Pallas Green MRE is owned by Glencore (see Glencore's Resources and Reserves Report dated December 31, 2023); (b) Stonepark MRE: see the 'NI 43-101 Independent Report on the Zinc-Lead Exploration Project at Stonepark, County Limerick, Ireland', by Gordon, Kelly and van Lente, with an effective date of April 26, 2018, as found on SEDAR; and (c) the historic estimate at Denison was reported by Westland Exploration Limited in 'Report on Prospecting Licence 464' by Dermot Hughes dated May, 1988; the historic estimate at Gortdrum was reported in 'The Geology and Genesis of the Gortdrum Cu-Ag-Hg Orebody' by G.M. Steed dated 1986; and the historic estimate at Tullacondra was first reported by Munster Base Metals Ltd in 'Report on Mallow Property' by David Wilbur, dated December 1973; and later summarized in 'Cu-Ag Mineralization at Tullacondra, Mallow, Co. Cork' by Wilbur and Carter in 1986; the above three historic estimates have not been verified as current mineral resources; none of the key assumptions, parameters and methods used to prepare the historic estimates were reported and no resource categories were used; significant data compilation, re-drilling and data verification may be required by a Qualified Person before the historic estimates can be verified and upgraded to be compliant with current NI 43-101 standards; a Qualified Person has not done sufficient work to classify them as a current mineral resource and the Company is not treating the historic estimates as current mineral resources. 'Rathdowney Trend' is the south-westerly projection of the Rathdowney Trend, hosting the historic Lisheen and Galmoy mines.





Exhibit 8. Regional Map of PG West (100% Interest) and Stonepark (76.56% Interest)



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5685/229882_ex8.jpg

Qualified Person

Technical information in this news release has been approved by Professor Garth Earls, Eur Geol, P.Geo, FSEG, geological consultant at IGS (International Geoscience Services) Limited, and independent 'Qualified Person' as defined under Canadian National Instrument 43-101.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) Information

Group Eleven inserts certified reference materials ("CRMs" or "Standards") as well as blank material, to its sample stream as part of its industry-standard QA/QC programme. The QC results have been reviewed by the Qualified Person, who is satisfied that all the results are within acceptable parameters. The Qualified Person has validated the sampling and chain of custody protocols used by Group Eleven.

About Group Eleven Resources

Group Eleven Resources Corp. (TSXV: ZNG) (OTC Pink: GRLVF) (FSE: 3GE) is a mineral exploration company focused on advanced stage zinc exploration in the Republic of Ireland. Group Eleven announced the Ballywire discovery in September 2022. Key intercepts to date include:

10.8m of 10.0% Zn+Pb and 109 g/t Ag (G11-468-03)

10.1m of 8.6% Zn+Pb and 46 g/t Ag (G11-468-06)

10.5m of 14.7% Zn+Pb, 399 g/t Ag and 0.31% Cu (G11-468-12)

11.2m of 8.9% Zn+Pb and 83 g/t Ag (G11-3552-03)

29.6m of 10.6% Zn+Pb, 78 g/t Ag and 0.15% Cu (G11-3552-12) and

6.1m of 11.4% Zn+Pb, 85 g/t Ag (G11-3552-13)

5.6m of 13.1% Zn+Pb, 116 g/t Ag (G11-3552-17)

11.8m of 11.6% Zn+Pb, 48 g/t Ag (G11-3552-18)

8.7m of 23.9% Zn+Pb and 85 g/t Ag (G11-3552-19)

The Company's two largest shareholders are Glencore Canada Corp. (17.1% interest) and Michael Gentile (16.5%). Additional information about the Company is available at www.groupelevenresources.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Bart Jaworski, P.Geo.

Chief Executive Officer

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Such statements include, without limitation, statements regarding the future results of operations, performance and achievements of the Company, including the timing, content, cost and results of proposed work programs, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/ reserves and geological interpretations. 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: 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 statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, variations in the nature, quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located. All of the Company's public disclosure filings may be accessed via www.sedarplus.ca and readers are urged to review these materials, including the technical reports filed with respect to the Company's mineral properties.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229882

SOURCE: Group Eleven Resources Corp.
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Eos Advisory leads a 7.8m series A round alongside MITO Tech Ventures, CDP Venture Capital, PI-NB, and Paragon Capital Management

Naturbeads is set to build its first production plant in Puglia, Italy

UK startup Naturbeads has secured a series A funding round to further develop its pioneering technology that addresses worldwide microplastic pollution. Founded in 2018 as a spinout from the University of Bath, Naturbeads is now scaling its innovative cellulose microsphere technology developed by the company's co-founders, CTO Professor Davide Mattia, CEO Giovanna Laudisio, and the late Professor Janet Scott.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114197195/en/

The Naturbeads team at the UK startup's headquarters in Bath. Naturbeads has secured a series A funding round to further develop its pioneering technology that addresses worldwide microplastic pollution. (Photo: Business Wire)

Microplastics plastic particles which are less than five millimetres in size persist in the environment for hundreds of years, contributing to pollution in waterways, marine ecosystems, oceans, and soil. They have been detected in over 1,300 marine species, are embedded in the food chain, and have raised serious concerns about their impact on ecosystems and human health. An estimated 2 million tonnes of microplastics are added each year to everyday products from cosmetics to detergents, adhesives, paints, and many more.

EU regulations to ban the use of micro plastics in cosmetics and other products were published in October 2023, with a view to phasing out rinse-off products like shampoos and face washes by 2027, followed by the phase out of further personal and home care products, and agricultural products including fertiliser.

Naturbeads CEO and co-founder Dr Giovanna Laudisio said: "Microplastics have been found at the top of Arctic mountains and in the depths of the Mariana Trench, with a recent study forecasting that microplastic pollution could more than double over the next decade. Our differentiator from other companies who are trying to solve challenges around plastic packaging, is that we are one of few that is solely focused on the plastic found within daily products, and producing an eco-friendly, scalable alternative."

St Andrews based Eos Advisory led the 7.8 million series A round alongside existing investor Progress Tech Transfer, and new investors CDP Venture Capital through its Corporate Partners I Fund, PI-NB, and Paragon Capital Management in Singapore through its early-stage VC fund, Paragon Ventures I. Naturbeads is set to build its first production plant in Puglia, Italy, and the funding will enable the company to significantly increase its production capacity to meet the growing demand for sustainable ingredients from multiple industries.

Andrew Durkie, Partner, Eos, said: "Giovanna and her team are tackling one of the most urgent environmental challenges of our time, and we look forward to supporting Naturbeads through its next, exciting phase of commercialisation."

Alberto Calvo, Managing Director, Progress Tech Transfer, added: "The leadership team has bold ambitions in coming up with an industrial-grade solution to tackle microplastic pollution in a variety of different applications, with a platform-technology that is delivering high technical performance with a fully circular approach."

"Naturbeads represents an excellent example of how a project born in the laboratory can evolve to large-scale industrial production, attracting international investment and we are delighted that they have chosen to create a new production plant in Puglia", says Agostino Scornajenchi, Managing Director and General Manager of CDP Venture Capital.

Naturbeads is already collaborating with a number of global manufacturers to integrate its cellulose microsphere ingredients into various industrial applications, demonstrating that their microspheres break down naturally without compromising product performance, and expects to announce its first commercial milestones during 2025.

For more information on Naturbeads: https://www.naturbeads.com/

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114197195/en/

Contacts:

Nick Freer, Freer Consultancy

nick@freerconsultancy.com
As investors and international policy makers gather at COP29, The Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA) released its report Transforming Global Finance for Climate Action: Addressing Misaligned Incentives and Unlocking Opportunities. In addition to offering specific recommendations to the policymakers at COP29, the report identifies barriers to sustainable investment and the actions needed to encourage the flow of capital to the projects needed to address climate change.

"Investor and policymakers' incentives are misaligned," said James Alexander, CEO of UKSIF and Chair of GSIA. "Ahead of COP29, policymakers, investors and civil society negotiators can help address the key barriers to meaningful and actionable change. We need supportive policy action to align incentives and catalyse capital to unlock the opportunities that a climate transition presents."

The report groups incentive barriers into five categories, which GSIA has framed as PIVOT, the interlinking actions to facilitate capital flow and enable effective action on climate change:

P olicy vacuum Policies can act as barriers that prevent investment from flowing to the climate crisis. At the same time, there is a lack of positive policies that encourage climate-positive investments.

Policies can act as barriers that prevent investment from flowing to the climate crisis. At the same time, there is a lack of positive policies that encourage climate-positive investments. (self-) I nterest Companies and investors may focus on quick wins for near-term financial return or sustainability, ignoring long-term goals (e.g. net-zero by 2050). This short-term thinking prevents investments in sustainable projects and innovations to meet climate targets.

Companies and investors may focus on quick wins for near-term financial return or sustainability, ignoring long-term goals (e.g. net-zero by 2050). This short-term thinking prevents investments in sustainable projects and innovations to meet climate targets. (mis-) V aluation Environmental and social factors are traditionally not accounted for in financial models causing money to flow into environmentally harmful industries as "hidden costs" aren't considered. A short-term focus on financial reporting can further undermine long-term value creation.

Environmental and social factors are traditionally not accounted for in financial models causing money to flow into environmentally harmful industries as "hidden costs" aren't considered. A short-term focus on financial reporting can further undermine long-term value creation. ( In)active O wnership Some institutions and investments are managed without active involvement. A hands-off approach, whether due to cultural or structural challenges, means redirecting capital is difficult, and met with resistance from the current system.

Some institutions and investments are managed without active involvement. A hands-off approach, whether due to cultural or structural challenges, means redirecting capital is difficult, and met with resistance from the current system. T ransition misalignment Certain business models and industries naturally conflict with the goals of the energy transition, making it challenging to create and put into action long-term plans that include these sectors.

GSIA undertook the report to highlight the need for a coordinated action from both policymakers and investors. The report aims to facilitate more informed conversations among investors and policymakers at COP29 and beyond, providing a foundation for developing comprehensive strategies to align global finance with goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.

"The current system incentivizes investors to invest in unsustainable and un-equitable activities, but by aligning financial incentives and creating the necessary regulatory frameworks, policymakers worldwide have the opportunity to spur sustainable investing practices and drive public and private collaboration which will drive a just and equitable transition across markets," said Maria Lettini, CEO of US SIF, a member of GSIA.

To read the full report, click here

About Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA)

GSIA is a global collaboration of sustainable investment membership-based organizations, aiming to unlock the power of the worldwide financial services industry to drive leadership, achieve a substantial impact on key global challenges, and accelerate the transition to a sustainable future.

GSIA simultaneously works to enhance the synergies between members, participate in global initiatives, and provide advice and support to local and regional sustainable investment organizations as they establish and grow.

GSIA's members are drawn from Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America. Collectively GSIA's members represent the mainstream of global finance and investment, managing tens of trillions of dollars in assets. GSIA members include Eurosif (European Sustainable Investment Forum), Japan SIF (Japan Sustainable Investment Forum), RIAA (Responsible Investment Association Australasia), RIA Canada (Responsible Investment Association Canada), UKSIF (UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association), US SIF (The US Sustainable Investment Forum).

About US SIF and the US SIF Foundation

US SIF: The Sustainable Investment Forum is the preeminent voice advancing sustainable investing. Members, who represent $5 trillion in assets under management or advisement, support US SIF's mission to rapidly shift investment practices toward sustainability, focusing on long-term investment, the generation of positive social and environmental impacts and supporting the shift toward a more resilient and equitable planet and society. https://www.ussif.org

US SIF is supported in its work by the US SIF Foundation, a 501(C)(3) organization that undertakes educational and research activities to advance the mission of US SIF, including offering trainings for advisors and other financial professionals on the Fundamentals of Sustainable and Impact Investment.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114446926/en/

Contacts:

Talia Dunyak

+1 414-376-7934

ussif@lowecom.com
OneSumX community of global customers, partners, and industry leaders gather to discuss actionable insights and perspectives on the dynamic banking environment

Wolters Kluwer, a global leader in information, software, and services for professionals, is set to convene banking professionals and leaders at its annual Wolters Kluwer Finance, Risk and Regulatory Reporting (FRR) Client Conference in Amsterdam on 13 14 November 2024.

This year's conference brings together thought leaders, regulators, and decision-makers from our FRR customer community for insightful panels and discussions on the future of finance, risk, and regulatory reporting.

Jeroen Van Doorsselaere, Vice President, Product and Platform Management, Wolters Kluwer FRR said: "The FRR Client Conference is a unique opportunity for clients to hear from their peers and gain practical insights on how to drive both compliance and business goals amid constant regulatory shifts. At Wolters Kluwer, we remain committed to empowering our clients with the expertise, tools and strategies they need to succeed and thrive in a rapidly changing industry landscape."

With a focus on technology innovation, data management, Basel reforms, upcoming regulatory and DPM changes, Asset Liability Management (ALM), and IRRBB compliance, the conference agenda is designed to help financial institutions anticipate and adapt to key trends shaping the industry.

Attendees will gain insights into the latest advancements in Wolters Kluwer OneSumX suite, with exclusive previews, live demos, interactive learning hubs, and insights into future enhancements designed to simplify regulatory navigation and drive sustainable business growth.

Key highlights of the FRR Client Conference include:

Tech innovation : A panel focused on how advancements in GenAI, machine learning, and cloud-based solutions drive transformative changes in risk management and reporting.

: A panel focused on how advancements in GenAI, machine learning, and cloud-based solutions drive transformative changes in risk management and reporting. Granular data : A discussion on the pivotal role of granular data in enhancing accuracy and compliance.

: A discussion on the pivotal role of granular data in enhancing accuracy and compliance. Insights on Basel Reforms : Industry leaders will explore the regulatory timelines, implementation strategies, and future steps surrounding the Basel Reforms.

: Industry leaders will explore the regulatory timelines, implementation strategies, and future steps surrounding the Basel Reforms. ALM strategies: The panel will provide insights on tech-driven approaches to risk management, sharing the latest industry strategies and innovations.

To learn more about the Wolters Kluwer FRR Client Conference, please visit our website.

Wolters Kluwer FRR is part of Wolters Kluwer's Corporate Performance ESG (CP ESG) division.The division is the world's leading provider of integrated software solutions for EHS, ESG, Corporate Performance Management, Audit and Assurance, and Risk and Regulatory reporting. Through innovative technology and unique expertise, Wolters Kluwer CP ESG enables business leaders to make informed, strategic decisions that drive transformation, performance, and risk management for a sustainable and resilient world.

About Wolters Kluwer

Wolters Kluwer (EURONEXT: WKL) is a global leader in information, software solutions and services for professionals in healthcare; tax and accounting; financial and corporate compliance; legal and regulatory; corporate performance and ESG. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with technology and services.

Wolters Kluwer reported 2023 annual revenues of 5.6 billion. The group serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs approximately 21,400 people worldwide. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands.

For more information, visit www.wolterskluwer.com, follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114487655/en/

Contacts:

Sarah Whybrow

Associate Director, External Communications

Corporate Performance ESG

Wolters Kluwer

Mob: +44 7855 186713

sarah.whybrow@wolterskluwer.com
This year's award marks 30 years since clinicians first used ECP to successfully treat chronic graft versus host disease (cGvHD).1 In recognition of this important milestone, this year's $75,000 grant was dedicated to advancing research in this important area.

DUBLIN, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Mallinckrodt plc, a global specialty pharmaceutical company, today announced the winner of the Extracorporeal Immunomodulation Award (EIA). The award recognizes a project aimed at identifying the optimal timing for extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) initiation and assessing its effectiveness when combined with other graft versus host disease (GvHD) therapies. To recognize the occasion, Mallinckrodt, which provides immunomodulatory therapy via ECP, dedicated the $75,000 grant to this research. This year's award holds special significance as it marks 30 years since clinicians first used ECP to successfully treat chronic graft versus host disease (cGvHD).1,2

The EIA-winning project was submitted by Dr Andrea Varkonyi, of the South-Pest Central Hospital, National Institute of Hematology and Infectiology's Department of Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation, in Budapest, Hungary. Her team will carry out a retrospective and prospective study, comparing ruxolitinib alone to ruxolitinib combined with ECP therapy in the treatment of acute and chronic GvHD. They will also evaluate the impact of ECP on the development of transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy (TA-TMA).

"Mallinckrodt is thrilled to recognize Dr. Andrea Varkonyi with this year's the Extracorporeal Immunomodulation Award and continuing the research in chronic GvHD. As the manufacturer of the THERAKOS CELLEX Photopheresis System we are committed to supporting research that seeks to improve patient outcomes and tackle unmet needs in this important area of medicine." said Peter Richardson, MRCP (UK), Executive Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer.

Dr. Varkonyi said, "Acute and chronic GvHD, along with TA-TMA, remain unresolved issues following allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. Despite the intent of the procedure, these complications often prevent patients from achieving complete recovery. We are grateful to be receiving this award to advance research in this area. Thank you, Mallinckrodt, for the opportunity to further our research."

The study's objective is to identify the optimal timing for introducing ECP and assess its effectiveness when combined with other therapies. It aims to address key areas of interest in allogeneic stem cell transplant-associated fundamental and clinical research.

Entries to the EIA award were invited from clinicians and scientists working on translational or outcomes-based research, as well as collaborative projects, in the field of GvHD-focused ECP. Submissions were assessed on a range of criteria, including scientific merit, originality, and feasibility.

The EIA award recognizes individuals and institutions whose research contributes to the continued advancement of knowledge in this area of medicine and is just one part of our ongoing commitment to the science of immunomodulation through ECP.

In June, the THERAKOS CELLEX System technology secured CE certification under the European Union Medical Device Regulation (EU MDR). It involved a robust quality management system audit, technical and microbiological reviews, and a thorough clinical assessment, demonstrating the organization's ongoing commitment to ECP evidence generation, post approval.

About THERAKOS CELLEX Photopheresis System

The THERAKOS CELLEX Photopheresis System is the world's only fully integrated and validated ECP system.3 THERAKOS performs ECP using patented technology that collects, separates and treats a small amount of white blood cells (immune cells) while the patient is connected to the instrument. The treated cells are then returned to the patient where they help to modify the immune response in a process called immunomodulation. It is used to treat a range of immune-mediated diseases. THERAKOS Systems are used by over 300 treatment centres in over 30 countries worldwide.4

About Extracorporeal Photopheresis (ECP)

Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) is an immunomodulatory therapy that has demonstrated efficacy in various T-cell and immune-mediated diseases. ECP is recommended by international and national guidelines for a spectrum of diseases, including cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease (aGvHD and cGvHD), chronic lung allograft dysfunction-bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (CLAD-BOS) and after cardiac transplantation. 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15, 16,17

EU INDICATIONS AND IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION FOR THE THERAKOS PHOTOPHERESIS PROCEDURE

Indications

The THERAKOS CELLEX Photopheresis System is indicated for patients older than 18 years of age for the administration of photopheresis in the following:

Cutaneous T Cell Lymphoma (CTCL)

Solid Organ Transplant Rejection (SOT) (heart, lung)

The THERAKOS CELLEX Photopheresis System is indicated in patients older than 3 years of age for the management of:

Acute and Chronic Graft versus Host Disease (aGvHD, cGvHD)

Contraindications

THERAKOS Photopheresis is contraindicated in:

Patients possessing a specific history of a light sensitive disease

Patients who cannot tolerate extracorporeal volume loss or who have white blood cell counts greater than 25,000 / mm 3

Patients who have coagulation disorders or who have previously had a splenectomy

Warnings and Precautions

THERAKOS Photopheresis treatments should always be performed in locations where standard medical emergency equipment is available. Volume replacement fluids and/or volume expanders should be readily available throughout the procedure.

Do not expose the device to a magnetic resonance (MR) environment. The device may present a risk of projectile injury, and thermal injury and burns may occur. The device may generate artifacts in the MR image, or may not function properly.

Thromboembolic events, including pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis, have been reported in the treatment of Graft versus Host Disease (GvHD). Special attention to adequate anticoagulation is advised when treating patients with GvHD.

When prescribing and administering THERAKOS Photopheresis for patients receiving concomitant therapy, exercise caution when changing treatment schedules to avoid increased disease activity that may be caused by abrupt withdrawal of previous therapy.

Adverse Events

Hypotension may occur during any treatment involving extracorporeal circulation. Closely monitor the patient during the entire treatment for hypotension.

Transient pyretic reactions, 37.7-38.9C (100-102F), have been observed in some patients within six to eight hours of reinfusion of the photoactivated leukocyte-enriched blood. A temporary increase in erythroderma may accompany the pyretic reaction.

Treatment frequency exceeding labelling recommendations may result in anaemia.

Venous access carries a small risk of infection and pain.

Please refer to the THERAKOS CELLEX Photopheresis System Operator's Manual for a complete list of warnings and precautions.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION FOR METHOXSALEN USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THERAKOS PHOTOPHERESIS

Consult the 8-methoxypsoralen (Methoxsalen (20 micrograms / mL)) professional leaflet or the oral 8-methoxypsoralen formulation package insert before prescribing or dispensing any medication.

Warnings and Precautions

Patients exhibiting multiple basal cell carcinomas or having a history of basal cell carcinoma should be diligently observed and treated.

Methoxsalen may cause fetal harm when given to a pregnant woman. Women undergoing photopheresis should be advised to avoid becoming pregnant.

Special care should be exercised in treating patients who are receiving concomitant therapy (either topically or systemically) with known photosensitizing agents.

Oral administration of methoxsalen followed by cutaneous UVA exposure (PUVA therapy) is carcinogenic.

Patients should be told emphatically to wear UVA absorbing, wrap-around sunglasses for twenty-four (24) hours after methoxsalen treatment. They should wear these glasses any time they are exposed to direct or indirect sunlight, whether they are outdoors or exposed through a window.

Refer to the package insert for methoxsalen sterile solution (20 micrograms / mL) or the oral 8-methoxypsoralen dosage formulation for a list of all warnings and precautions.

ABOUT MALLINCKRODT

Mallinckrodt is a global business consisting of multiple wholly owned subsidiaries that develop, manufacture, market and distribute specialty pharmaceutical products and therapies. The company's Specialty Brands reportable segment's areas of focus include autoimmune and rare diseases in specialty areas like neurology, rheumatology, hepatology, nephrology, pulmonology, ophthalmology, and oncology; immunotherapy and neonatal respiratory critical care therapies; analgesics; and gastrointestinal products. Its Specialty Generics reportable segment includes specialty generic drugs and active pharmaceutical ingredients. To learn more about Mallinckrodt, visit www.mallinckrodt.com.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS RELATED TO FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This release contains forward-looking statements, including with regard to Therakos, its potential to improve health and treatment outcomes, and its potential impact on patients. The statements are based on assumptions about many important factors, including the following, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements: the effects of Mallinckrodt's recent emergence from bankruptcy; satisfaction of, and compliance with, regulatory and other requirements; actions of regulatory bodies and other governmental authorities; changes in laws and regulations; issues with product quality, manufacturing or supply, or patient safety issues or adverse side effects or adverse reactions associated with THERAKOS; and other risks identified and described in more detail in the "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" sections of Mallinckrodt's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and other filings with the SEC, all of which are available on its website. The forward-looking statements made herein speak only as of the date hereof and Mallinckrodt does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events and developments or otherwise, except as required by law.

CONTACT

Media Inquiries

Green Room Communications

908-577-4531

mediainquiries@grcomms.com

Investor Relations

Derek Belz

Vice President, Investor Relations

314-654-3950

derek.belz@mnk.com

Mallinckrodt, the "M" brand mark, and the Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals logo are trademarks of a Mallinckrodt company. Other brands are trademarks of a Mallinckrodt company or their respective owners.

2024 Mallinckrodt. EU-2400258 10/24

References:

Owsianowski M, et al. Bone Marrow Transplant. 1994;14(5), 845-848. Solh M, et al. (2023). Bone Marrow Transplant. 2023;58(2), 168-174. Knobler R, et al. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2020;34(12):2693-2716. Data on File - Ref-07615. Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. Hart JW, et al. Ther Adv Hematol. 2013;4:320-334. Knobler R, et al. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2020;34(12):2693-2716. Trautinger F, et al. Eur J Cancer. 2017;77:57 74. Padmanabhan A, et al. J Clin Apher. 2019;34(3):171-354. Alfred A, et al. Br J Haematol. 2017;177:287-310. Cho A, et al. Front Med (Lausanne). 2018;5:236. Zeiser R. et al. Graft-versus-Host Erkrankung, akut. 2021. Available at: https://www.onkopedia.com/de/onkopedia/guidelines/graft-versus-host-erkrankung-akut/@@view/html/index.html. Accessed August 2024. Bredeson C, et al. Curr Oncol. 2014;21(2):e310-325. Pierelli L, et al. Transfusion. 2013;53(10):2340-2352. Wolff D, et al. Biol Blood Marrow Transplant. 2011;17:1-17. Dignan FL, et al. Br J Haematol. 2012;158(1):30-45; 46-61. Knobler R, et al. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2021;25(1):27-49. Costanzo MR, et al. J Heart Lung Transplant. 2010;29(8):914-956.

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LONDON, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On November 12, Jackery, a global leader in solar generators and green outdoor energy solutions, participated in a side event at COP29, the United Nations climate conference. Bringing together governments, businesses, and experts, the event focused on pathways to carbon reduction, energy transition, and technological innovation. Tracy Wang, Jackery's Head of Global PR, highlighted the company's dedication to eco-friendly innovation and its contributions to global green initiatives.

During the event, Jackery unveiled its approach to integrating green energy with ecological conservation, emphasizing that green technology must advance environmental care. Jackery supports ecological projects through cross-sector collaborations, providing both promotional and practical solutions to accelerate global "carbon neutrality." This commitment extends to sustainable packaging, with the launch of patented eco-friendly packaging for the Jackery Plus series in September 2023, and eco-friendly production models powered by Jackery's digitalized factories.

To date, Jackery has sold more than four million units globally, with its solar panels contributing an estimated 760 million kilowatt-hours of electricity savings by mid-2024, avoiding approximately 758,000 tons of carbon emissions. "Driving green transformation is both an opportunity and a responsibility," Wang stated.

Jackery's sustainability initiatives extend beyond consumer products. Recently, the company began supporting critical conservation efforts in ecologically sensitive areas, including Hoh Xil Nature Reserve on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in China. This UNESCO World Heritage site, one of the world's last pristine landscapes, faces threats from climate change. Jackery's solar generators provide clean power to mobile shelters in the reserve, supplying essential lighting, heating, and energy for equipment, all without relying on traditional fuels. Additionally, Jackery collaborates with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to protect endangered wildlife through green technology solutions.

Solidifying its role as a leader in sustainable technology, Jackery envisions spreading green energy worldwide. Its mission to provide clean, renewable energy to all demonstrates a commitment to the planet and human well-being. Through innovation and responsibility, Jackery inspires companies and individuals to embrace green energy solutions, promoting a healthier, more harmonious world.

For all media enquiries, image requests and product reviews, please contact: Jiatong Li, jiatong@jackery.com, or call +4915223970329.

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Press Release

4BIO Capital Becomes First UK Venture Fund Certified by Japan's AMED

4BIO Capital named as the first and only UK-based venture fund to be accredited by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED)

AMED certification allows the firm to support Japanese life science ventures through non-dilutive funding model

Selection of 4BIO alongside distinguished institutions is a testament to its position as a key player in Japan's biotech landscape





LONDON, 14 November 2024 - 4BIO Capital ("4BIO" or "the Group"), an international venture capital firm unlocking the treatments of the future by investing in advanced therapies and other emerging technologies, today announces that the Group has been named as a venture capital firm certified under the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED)'s "Drug Discovery Venture Ecosystem Strengthening Project".

4BIO Capital is the first and only UK-based venture fund to achieve this certification, which allows the firm to support life science projects relevant to the Japanese ecosystem and healthcare needs through AMED's non-dilutive funding model. Ventures backed by AMED-certified VCs can apply for AMED grants, receiving up to twice the investment amount as grant funding without dilution. The selection of 4BIO alongside other four distinguished institutions is a testament to 4BIO's position as one of the key players in Japan's biotech investment landscape.

Since 2018, 4BIO Capital has fostered Japanese innovation in advanced therapeutics. By continuously evaluationg and supporting promising Japanese startups and emerging technologies, 4BIO has built significant access to local innovation. Within its portfolio, 4BIO has backed pioneering companies such as Tokyo based LUCA Sciences. These companies have high-impact therapeutic potential and 4BIO is committed to supporting them on their journeys toward clinical breakthroughs and commercial success.

Kieran Mudryy, Partner at 4BIO Capitalsaid: "The accreditation by AMED validates our commitment to advancing drug discovery and development in Japan. We look forward to leveraging this approval to further support innovative biotech ventures and contribute to the growth of Japan's life sciences ecosystem."

Philippe Fauchet, Venture Partner at 4BIO Capital, commented: "Collaborating with AMED to support the most innovative Japanese biotech startups is an exciting opportunity for 4BIO. This accreditation allows us to utilise AMED's non-dilutive funding model to expand our activities and portfolio in Japan and contribute to the development of the Japanese innovation eco-system."

- Ends -

Contacts

ICR Consilium



Amber Fennell, Jonathan Edwards, Kris Lam +44 (0)20 3709 5700



4BioCapital@consilium-comms.com (mailto:4BioCapital@consilium-comms.com)

About 4BIO Capital

4BIO Capital ('4BIO') is an international venture capital firm headquartered in London, focused solely on the advanced and emerging therapies sector. The 4BIO team, which has an unrivalled network within the advanced therapy sector, comprises leading advanced therapy scientists and experienced life science investors.

The firm maintains a global footprint across the US, Europe and Asia with an objective to create, invest in, support, and grow early-stage companies. Its ultimate goal is ensuring access to potentially curative therapies for all patients, with a specific focus on viable, high-quality opportunities in cell and gene therapy, RNA-based therapy, targeted therapies, and the microbiome.

4BIO is currently investing out of its Fund III, having secured support from prominent global institutional investors, including the Children's Minnesota, UPMC, Development Bank of Japan, Kyowa Kirin, Exor, and many other endowments and foundations. For more information, connect with us on LinkedInand X) and visit www.4biocapital.com.
Blue Lagoon Resources Inc. (the "Company") (CSE:BLLG)(FSE:7BL)(OTCQB:BLAGF) is pleased to announce that it has received the draft mine permit for its 100% owned Dome Mountain Gold Project, located near the town of Smithers in British Columbia, Canada. This milestone brings the Company one step closer to initiating production and advancing the project towards operational status.

The draft permit, issued by the British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, outlines the regulatory framework for mining activities at Dome Mountain. Receiving the draft permit is a key milestone in the advancement of the project, which has shown significant potential for gold and other valuable resources. The receipt of the draft permit reflects the strong support of both provincial authorities and local stakeholders, emphasizing Blue Lagoon's commitment to meeting the highest environmental, safety, and community standards.

"We are thrilled to receive the draft mine permit for Dome Mountain," said Rana Vig, President & CEO of Blue Lagoon Resources. "This is a pivotal moment for our Company and validates our team's hard work, dedication, and commitment to creating value. The draft permit not only brings us closer to gold production but also aligns with our goal to drive long-term growth and value for our shareholders."

The Company will now work closely with regulatory authorities and the Lake Babine Nation to fulfill any remaining requirements to finalize the permit, with plans to proceed to full production upon its issuance. Blue Lagoon remains committed to maintaining sustainable practices and ensuring the responsible development of Dome Mountain in harmony with community interests.

For further information, please contact:

Rana Vig

President and Chief Executive Officer

Telephone: 604-218-4766

Email: rana@ranavig.com

The CSE has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information: This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that Blue Lagoon Resources Inc. (the "Company") expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include results concluding permitting and other approvals, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, 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.

SOURCE: Blue Lagoon Resources Inc.

View the original press release on accesswire.com
Highlights

Locked-cycle testing of the Ashram Deposit's flotation-only flowsheet has resulted in high-grade rare earth mineral concentrate at strong recovery. 36 to 37% REO 1 at overall recoveries of 65 to 68%.

Mineral concentrate grades compare favourably to historical and current hard rock global rare earth producers, of which 30% REO is the typical lowest grade concentrate produced.

Results will be incorporated into a pending Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Ashram Rare Earth and Fluorspar Deposit on schedule for Q2-2025.

Variability testing and pilot plant testing scheduled for the first half of 2025 as next steps.

Fluorite recovery from rare earth flotation tailings to be evaluated.

Ross Carroll, Director and CEO of the Company comments: "The results of the locked-cycle tests confirm the robustness of the simplified, flotation-only, continuous recovery process for the Ashram Deposit. The strong recoveries will ensure we maximize returns from the high-value in-situ mineralization, and the high-grade mineral concentrate produced will reduce the scale of the downstream processing resulting in lower capital and operating expense. We are thrilled with these outcomes and are grateful for the innovative attention to maximizing the potential of one of the world's largest rare earth resources by the technical team, many of whom have remained engaged with advancing the Project since its discovery over a decade ago."

Rare Earth Oxide ("REO") includes the sum of the lanthanides plus yttrium.

Commerce Resources Corp. (TSXV:CCE)(FSE:D7H0)(OTCQX:CMRZF) (the "Company" or "Commerce") is pleased to announce that it has successfully completed flotation locked-cycle testing on whole rock material from the Ashram Rare Earth and Fluorspar Deposit (the "Ashram Deposit"). The Ashram Deposit is located central to the Eldor Property, is unencumbered (royalty free), is wholly owned by the Company, and one of the largest undeveloped rare earth deposits in the world.

The locked-cycle test ("LCT") program was completed on the Ashram Deposit's simplified flotation-only beneficiation flowsheet (see news release dated March 4, 2024) and has demonstrated improved grade and recovery compared to the prior bench-scale test program. Monazite dominate rare earth mineral concentrates grading 35.8 to 36.8% REO at 65 to 68% overall recovery were achieved through the LCT test work on the flotation-only beneficiation flowsheet. The locked-cycle test was carried out by SGS Canada at their Lakefield, ON, facility and utilized bulk sample material (~2.1% REO head grade) collected from an outcrop of the Ashram Deposit.

A locked-cycle test is an iterative laboratory-scale batch flotation test which recycles the tailings material between flotation stages to best simulate a continuous closed-circuit operating process plant. The test evaluates the influence of re-circulation on flotation recovery and is a laboratory test which provides more relevant data of anticipated commercial operation performance compared to a bench-scale test. The locked-cycle test also provides insight on potential buildup of reagents within a circuit and optimizes reagent dose rates. The locked-cycle test on Ashram whole rock was performed with nine (9) cycles using 1 kg of feed material stage-ground to 80% passing 25 m (Figure 1, Figure 2, and Figure 3).

The LCT results (i.e., the high-grades of rare earth mineral concentrate) will be incorporated into a pending updated Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") on the Ashram Rare Earth and Fluorspar Deposit, which remains on schedule for Q2-2025. The historical PEA completed in 2012 was based on a rare earth mineral concentrate grade of only 10% REO. Therefore, the simplified flotation-only flowsheet with more than triple the mineral concentrate grade is anticipated to have a significant positive impact on the pending PEA update.

A higher-grade mineral concentrate has the benefit of resulting in a smaller downstream hydromet plant size, smaller footprint, reduced reagent consumption, reduced shipping requirements, simpler logistics, and reduced overall technical and project risk. Further, Ashram's flotation-only mineral processing flowsheet will permit an operator to leverage the size of the deposit and optimize mining for effective recovery into a high-grade monazite dominant concentrate in order to significantly simplify and thereby reduce Project mineral processing and downstream hydromet capital and operating expenditures.

Variability testing and pilot plant testing is scheduled for the first half of 2025 as next steps. Additionally, following the positive LCT results, which further confirm the robustness of the flotation-only beneficiation flowsheet, the Company has initiated a program to evaluate fluorite recovery from the rare earth mineral concentrate tailings. Fluorspar (or fluorine) is recognized as a critical/strategic mineral by Canada, Europe, Japan, and the United States, and is also a key input into lithium-ion batteries.

Figure 1: The flotation locked-cycle test flowsheet. Each cycle consisted of a rougher flotation stage, three (3) cleaner flotation stages, and a 1st cleaner-scavenger stage. The three streams shown in red were recirculated from one cycle to the next (e.g. the 3rd cleaner concentrate from cycle A was fed to the 2nd cleaner of Cycle B).

Figure 2: Flotation of Ashram whole rock sample material in a 2-litre Denver cell.

Figure 3: Combined final locked-cycle test high-grade (>35% REO) rare earth flotation mineral concentrate

NI 43-101 Disclosure

Jordan Zampini, P.Eng., Process Manager - Montreal for DRA Americas Inc., a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information, and verified the data, contained in this news release.

About The Ashram Deposit

The Ashram Deposit ranks as one of the largest REE deposits globally, consisting of a monazite-dominated, single mineralized body outcropping at surface, and has a footprint approximately 700 m along strike, over 300 m across, and 600 m deep, remaining open in several directions. Therefore, the deposit is envisioned to be an open-pit extraction operation at production, with a very low strip ratio. Coupled with a monazite rare earth mineralogy and strong NdPr distributions (>20%), these attributes allow for flexibility in flowsheet design, whereby a 60+% overall recovery of the NdPr into saleable product is significant.

About Commerce Resources Corp.

Commerce Resources Corp. is a junior mineral resource company focused on the development of the Ashram Rare Earth and Fluorspar Deposit located within their Eldor Property, in northern Quebec, Canada. The Ashram Deposit is characterized by simple rare earth (monazite, bastnaesite, xenotime) and gangue (carbonates) mineralogy, a large tonnage resource at favourable grade, and has demonstrated the production of high-grade (more than 30 - 45% TREO) mineral concentrates at high recovery (more than 60 - 75%) in line with active global producers. The Ashram Deposit also has a fluorspar component which makes it one of the largest potential sources of fluorspar in the world and could be a long-term supplier to the met-spar and acid-spar markets. The Company is positioning to be one of the lowest cost rare earth producers globally, with a specific focus on being a long-term supplier of mixed rare earth carbonate and/or NdPr oxide to the global market. Additionally, Commerce is committed to exploring the potential of other high-value commodities on the Property such as niobium and phosphate minerals, which may help advance Ashram by reducing costs through shared development.

For more information, please visit the corporate website at www.commerceresources.com or email info@commerceresources.com.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

COMMERCE RESOURCES CORP.

" Ross Carroll "

Ross Carroll

President and Director

Tel: 604-484-2700

Email: rcarroll@commerceresources.com

Web: http://www.commerceresources.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements, which includes any information about activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future. Forward-looking statements in this news release include that the results of the locked-cycle testing will be incorporated into a pending Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Ashram Project scheduled for Q2 of 2025; that variability testing and pilot plant testing is scheduled for the first half of 2025; that the Ashram Deposit is envisioned to be an open-pit extraction operation;; that Ashram has the potential to become one of the largest fluorspar deposit and a long-term supplier to the met-spar and acid-spar markets; that the Company is positioning to be one of the lowest cost rare earth element producers globally; and that the Company is exploring the potential of other high-value commodities on the Ashram Deposit such as niobium and phosphate minerals. These forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. Risks that could change or prevent these events, activities or developments from coming to fruition include: that we may not be able to fully finance any additional exploration on the Ashram Deposit; that even if we are able raise capital, costs for exploration activities may increase such that we may not have sufficient funds to pay for such exploration or processing activities; the timing and content of any future work programs; geological interpretations based on drilling that may change with more detailed information; potential process methods and mineral recoveries assumptions based on limited test work and by comparison to what are considered analogous deposits that, with further test work, may not be comparable; testing of our process may not prove successful or samples derived from the Ashram Deposit may not all yield positive results, such as the possibility that future metallurgical variability testing is not guaranteed to confirm that the entirety of the deposit responds as has been demonstrated on the sample reported in this news release, and even if such tests are successful or initial sample results are positive, the economic and other outcomes may not be as expected; the availability of labour and equipment to undertake future exploration work and testing activities; geopolitical risks which may result in market and economic instability; and despite the current expected viability of the Ashram Deposit, conditions changing such that even if metals or minerals are discovered on the Ashram Deposit, the project may not be commercially viable; The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and the Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise such information to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.

SOURCE: Commerce Resources Corp.

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euroAtlantic Airways ("EAA"), a Njord Partners portfolio company and a leading Portuguese aircraft wet-leasing and charter business, is pleased to announce the appointment of Raul Largo as the Company's new Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) as of 1 November 2024.

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Raul brings over 15 years of experience in the aviation industry, having held senior leadership positions at Wamos Air, Maleth Aero and Albastar Airlines. He will play a key role in driving the Company's commercial strategy, with a focus on expanding global market presence, enhancing customer engagement, and optimizing revenue streams.

"Raul's expertise and strategic vision make him an ideal fit for this critical role," said Stewart Higginson CEO Chairman of EAA. "We are confident that his leadership will be instrumental as we continue to grow and innovate in an increasingly competitive and dynamic industry. His deep understanding of the global aviation market and customer needs will help us strengthen our brand and deliver even greater value to our passengers."

Raul Largo, incoming CCO, added, "I am honored to join EAA at such an exciting time in its growth journey. The airline industry is evolving rapidly, and I look forward to working with the talented team here to drive commercial success and deliver exceptional experiences for our customers worldwide."

About euroAtlantic Airways

euroAtlantic Airways is a Portuguese airline specializing in ACMI and charter solutions, operating a diverse fleet of aircraft. Headquartered in Carnaxide and based at Lisbon Airport, it offers charter services, wet-lease, and Ad-Hoc flights across the globe, and has served 719 Airports in 176 countries in 30 years of operations. With over three decades of expertise in the aviation industry, EAA has established itself as a global leader in providing ACMI (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance, and Insurance) and Charter solutions. Over the years, the Company has earned a reputation for delivering tailored services that meet the unique needs of its clients, with a continued focus on safety, efficiency, and innovation. euroAtlantic Airways is majority owned by Njord Partners.

To find out more visit: https://www.euroatlantic.pt/en/quem-somos/

About Njord Partners

Njord Partners is a European special situations investment manager and provider of long-term flexible capital solutions, primarily to family-owned businesses. Established in 2013, Njord Partners has invested in 24 businesses and manages capital in excess of 1 billion.

To find out more visit: https://njordpartners.com/

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114306805/en/

Contacts:

Media enquiries: via Camarco

Jennifer Renwick

Letaba Rimell

njord@apcoworldwide.com
Premialab's technology chosen to enhance QIS scaling, operational efficiency, and risk management.

LONDON, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM), the institutional asset management business of the Lombard Odier Group, has integrated Premialab's industry-leading technology to support the management of their soon-to-be-launched DOM Global Macro strategy. This partnership underscores LOIM's commitment to onboard innovative strategies in an evolving market landscape.

"Our decision to partner with Premialab is driven by their comprehensive risk management and regulatory compliance expertise," said Didier Anthamatten, Portfolio Manager at LOIM. "With a strong track record in alternative investments, LOIM remains focused on delivering innovative investment solutions and high-quality returns for our clients. Premialab's advanced data capabilities are essential in helping us maintain our rigorous standards and provide robust, risk-adjusted performance. Additionally, their platform perfectly matches the DOM Global Macro strategy's needs, enhancing our risk monitoring capabilities and streamlining portfolio management."

The DOM Global Macro strategy expects to leverage Premialab's unique dataset. The full lookthrough across all DOM's proprietary systematic strategies allows granular risk decomposition and scenario-based analysis at the entire portfolio level. This should help monitoring exposures' attractiveness, from both time-series and cross-sectional perspectives, and optimizing asset allocation.

Neil Richards, Head of EMEA Business Development at Premialab, said the collaboration with LOIM is a significant addition to Premialab's growing business in Switzerland and within the wider European markets.

"Institutions such as LOIM, which oversees a substantial portfolio across various asset classes, need continuous monitoring and adjustment to keep their investments on track," he explained. "Premialab provides the tools for benchmarking and stress testing their systematic investments, ensuring that LOIM's mandates are effectively managed in terms of cost, risk, and value."

Premialab CEO Adrien Geliot highlighted that the QIS sector is experiencing rapid growth, driven by institutional investors seeking liquid, transparent, and cost-efficient investment strategies. "Premialab sits at the centre of the QIS landscape, uniquely positioned to aggregate and make sense of the vast and growing universe of data," he stated. "We are thrilled to be partnering with LOIM to deliver our unique data and risk monitoring capabilities to one of the top global investment firms."

Premialab's multi-asset, multi-region platform handles 10 million data points daily. It analyzes over 5,000 investible systematic strategies, with client assets under management totalling approximately USD $20 trillion. Combining the Premialab platform with Premialab Pure Factors, it provides comprehensive cross-asset quantitative strategy selection and thorough due diligence on strategies available worldwide. Additionally, the platform enhances risk management and reporting capabilities, including expedited and detailed regulatory reporting.

With its unique combination of systematic strategies and discretionary trading, the DOM Global Macro strategy clearly benefits from Premialab's state-of-the art data analysis capabilities and computational efficiency. The Portfolio and Risk Managers can thus use a shared dataset for risk analysis and performance decomposition, enhancing the portfolio's robustness and operational efficiency.

About Premialab

Premialab is the leading independent platform that collaborates with leading investment banks and institutional investors globally, providing data, analytics, and risk solutions for systematic, factor, and multi-asset strategies. With offices in London, Paris, New York, Hong Kong, Dubai and Sydney, the company has forged strong partnerships with the top 18 investment banks, asset managers, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies globally.

About Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM)

Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM) is the institutional asset management business of the Lombard Odier Group, wholly owned and funded by its partners since its establishment in 1796.

We provide a range of investment solutions to a diverse group of long-term oriented clients. Our heritage, and our combination of the best of conservatism and innovation, keeps us well positioned to create lasting value for our clients. Our investment capabilities span fixed income, convertible bonds, equities, multi-asset, and alternatives. Sustainability is central to our investment philosophy; we believe it is the founding principle of long-term economic and investment outcomes and will drive returns over the long term.

With over 200 investment professionals, we are a global business with a network of 13 offices across Europe, Asia and North America and have assets under management of CHF 64 billion (as at 31 September 2024).

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SHANGHAI, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Hotel & Shop Plus is a trade show for hospitality and commercial space professionals in China and Asia, set to take place from March 31 to April 3, 2025, at Shanghai New International Expo Center.

Why Attend HSP 2025?

Access to 2,100+ exhibitors with cutting-edge products.

A vast 210,000 SQM exhibition space for industry overview.

Networking with 140,000+ professionals.

80+ forums and 10+ special events for deep industry insights.

Products and Benefits from HSP 2025

The exhibition will showcase a variety of high-end, eco-friendly materials and products across categories like construction, design, smart hotels, lighting, retail, smart office, landscaping, cleaning and operation and maintenance, etc. It will also feature creative designs and advanced intelligent systems.

Hall E features construction materials like architectural decoration, ceramics, and outdoor furniture, offering solutions for hotel and commercial spaces. Renowned brands like GIMIG, Yongyu, Kingdom, Zhuart are present. Hall W hosts leading hotel supply companies, with high-quality products from Groupe GM, LE LABO, ADA, La Bottega, LANVIN, CANASIN SIDEFU, AMERICA STANDARD, GOLDENSAIL, expanding the exhibition's scope and opportunities for hoteliers. Halls N1-N4 display cleaning tech, sanitation, and smart cleaning solutions, with participants like Nilfisk, BAIYUN, Trust, Bennett, Cleanwill, Haotian. Hall N5 focuses on smart shading systems and innovative materials, with industry leaders Dooya, Wistar, Yuma, Xidamen, Wintom, Mingyang, and Sunlever. The exhibition also includes areas for Hotel Brand Investment and Franchise Exhibition Area, E-sports Hotel Special Area, Non- Standard Accommodation Procurement Platform, Environmental Sanitation Technology and Equipment, Smart Cleaning Area, etc.

Engaging Activities and Networking Opportunities

The Hotel & Shop Plus conference, leveraging its extensive resources, has organized over 80 events like Design Week Shanghai and Hotel Culture Week. These serve as a platform for industry experts to discuss insights, experiences, and design trends.

Stay Updated with HSP

HSP, an innovative-driven event, offers unique business opportunities and insights. It also focuses on the hotel investment market in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which is diversifying and pursuing high-quality growth. The Shenzhen edition runs from December 12-14, 2024, at the Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center. Register now for free and join us!

Register to Visit HSP Shenzhen, December 12-14, 2024: https://reg.hdeexpo.com/?utm_source=media&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=PRNEWSWIRE

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SouthGobi Resources Ltd. (Hong Kong Stock Exchange ("HKEX"): 1878, TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V"):SGQ) (the "Company" or "SouthGobi") today announces its financial and operating results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024. All figures are in U.S. dollars ("USD") unless otherwise stated.

Significant Events and Highlights

The Company's significant events and highlights for the three months ended September 30, 2024 and the subsequent period to November 14, 2024 are as follows:

Operating Results - The Company has been increasing the scale of its mining operations since 2023, as well as implementing various coal processing methods, including screening, wet washing and dry coal processing, which have resulted in improved coal quality and enhanced production volume and growth of coal export volume into China during the quarter. In response to the market demand for different coal products, the Company focused on expanding the categories of coal products in its portfolio, including mixed coal, wet washed coal and dry processed coal. In addition, the Company has experienced success with processing its inventory of F-grade coal products through cost-effective screening procedures. As a result of the improvement in the quality of the processed F-grade coal, the Company was able to meet the import coal quality standards established by Chinese authorities and has been exporting this product to China for sale since the first quarter of 2024, further enhancing the Company's coal export volume. The Company recorded sales volume of 2.1 million tonnes for the third quarter of 2024 compared to 1.2 million tonnes for the third quarter of 2023, while the Company recorded an average realised selling price of $67.8 per tonne for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $85.6 per tonne for the third quarter of 2023. The decrease in the average realised selling price was mainly due to changes in the Company's product mix and decreased pricing for processed coal.

Build-Operate-Transfer Agreement - On July 15, 2024, the Company's wholly-owned Mongolian subsidiary, Southgobi Sands LLC ("SGS"), entered into a Build-Operate-Transfer agreement (the "BOT Agreement") with Tangshan Shenzhou Manufacturing Group Co., Ltd ("Tangshan"), pursuant to which Tangshan will be responsible for the construction, operation, and quality management of a new dry coal separation system, including key machinery (collectively, the "Dry Coal Separation System") at the Company's Ovoot Tolgoi Mine in Mongolia, which will be a stand-alone plant separate from the Company's existing dry processing plant. Tangshan will also be responsible for the construction of all related facilities for the Dry Coal Separation System. Under the BOT Agreement, SGS has the right to supervise and manage the overall work of coal quality assurance and operation, including, but not limited to, the supervision and management of operational safety, production planning, and operations management. The total consideration payable by the Company over the term of the BOT Agreement is approximately $10.9 million, together with certain additional processing volume-based fees. Subject to the terms as set out therein, the BOT Agreement is effective from July 15, 2024 until October 1, 2029.

Financial Results - The Company recorded a $27.7 million profit from operations for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $46.3 million profit from operations for the third quarter of 2023. The decrease was mainly due to changes in the Company's product mix and decreased pricing for processed coal.

Additional Tax and Tax Penalty Imposed by the Mongolian Tax Authority ("MTA") - On July 18, 2023, SGS received an official notice (the "Notice") issued by the MTA stating that the MTA had completed a periodic tax audit (the "Audit") on the financial information of SGS for the tax assessment years between 2017 and 2020, including transfer pricing, royalty, air-pollution fee and unpaid tax payables. As a result of the Audit, the MTA notified SGS that it is imposing a tax penalty against SGS in the amount of approximately $75.0 million. The penalty mainly relates to the different view on the interpretation of tax law between the Company and the MTA. Under Mongolian law, the Company had a period of 30 days from the date of receipt of the Notice to file an appeal in relation to the Audit. Subsequently the Company engaged an independent tax consultant in Mongolia to provide tax advice and support to the Company and filed an appeal letter in relation to the Audit with the MTA in accordance with Mongolian laws on August 17, 2023. On February 8, 2024, SGS received notice from the Tax Dispute Resolution Council ("TDRC") which stated that, after the TDRC's review, the TDRC issued a decision in relation to SGS' appeal of the Audit, and ordered that the audit assessments set forth in the Notice of July 18, 2023 be sent back to the MTA for review and re-assessment. On February 22, 2024, SGS received another notice from the MTA stating that the MTA anticipated commencing the re-assessment process on or about March 7, 2024 and the duration of such process will be approximately 45 working days. On May 15, 2024, SGS received a notice (the "Revised Notice") from the MTA regarding the re-assessment result on the Audit. The re-assessed amount of the tax penalty is approximately $80.0 million (the "Re-assessment Result"). In accordance with applicable Mongolian laws, SGS is entitled to file an appeal to the TDRC regarding the Re-assessment Result within a 30-day period from the date of receiving the Revised Notice. On June 12, 2024, following consultation with its independent tax consultant in Mongolia, SGS submitted an appeal letter to the TDRC regarding the Re-assessment Result on the Audit, in accordance with applicable Mongolian laws. As at September 30, 2024, the Company recorded an additional tax and tax penalty in the amount of $85.1 million, which consists of a tax penalty payable of $75.0 million and a provision of additional late tax penalty of $10.1 million. To date, the Company has paid the MTA an aggregate of $1.7 million in relation to the aforementioned tax penalty. According to Mongolian tax law, the MTA has the legal authority to demand payment from the Company irrespective of any potential appeal process that may change the aforesaid tax penalty. Based on the advice from tax professionals and the best estimate of Company management, in the event that the Company's appeal is successful in future, it is probable that the Company may recover approximately $46.0 million which represents a portion of the tax penalty payable to the MTA. However, there are inherent uncertainties surrounding the development and outcome of the appeal. The Company cannot determine with any virtual certainty the recoverability or exact recoverable amount of the tax penalty paid in future. If any subsequent event occurs that may impact the amount of the additional tax and tax penalty, an adjustment would be recognised in profit or loss and the carrying amount of the tax liabilities shall be adjusted.

Going Concern - Several adverse conditions and material uncertainties relating to the Company cast significant doubt upon the going concern assumption which includes the deficiencies in assets and working capital.

See section "Liquidity and Capital Resources" of this press release for details.

OVERVIEW OF OPERATIONAL DATA AND FINANCIAL RESULTS

Summary of Operational Data

A Non-International Financial Reporting Standards ("non-IFRS") financial measure. Refer to "Non-IFRS Financial Measures" section. Cash costs of product sold exclude idled mine asset cash costs. Per 200,000 man hours and calculated based on a rolling 12 month average.

Overview of Operational Data

For the three months ended September 30, 2024

The Company recorded an average realised selling price of $67.8 per tonne in the third quarter of 2024 compared to $85.6 per tonne in the third quarter of 2023, the decrease was mainly due to changes in the Company's product mix and decreased pricing for processed coal. The product mix for the third quarter of 2024 consisted of approximately 5% of premium semi-soft coking coal, 51% of standard semi-soft coking coal/premium thermal coal, 12% of standard thermal coal and 32% of processed coal compared to approximately 56% of premium semi-soft coking coal, 15% of standard semi-soft coking coal/premium thermal coal and 29% of processed coal in the third quarter of 2023.

The Company's unit cost of sales of product sold was $52.8 per tonne in the third quarter of 2024 compared to $42.2 per tonne in the third quarter of 2023. The increase was due to the Company expanding into certain categories of processed coal with higher production costs.

For the nine months ended September 30, 2024

The Company sold 4.4 million tonnes for the first nine months of 2024 as compared to 2.6 million tonnes for the first nine months of 2023. The Company recorded an average realised selling price of $73.3 per tonne for the first nine months of 2024 compared to $93.1 per tonne for the first nine months of 2023, the decrease was mainly due to changes in the Company's product mix and decreased pricing for processed coal.

The Company's unit cost of sales of product sold was $52.9 per tonne for the first nine months of 2024 compared to $46.2 per tonne for the first nine months of 2023. The increase was due to the Company expanding into certain categories of processed coal with higher production costs.

For the nine months ended September 30, 2024, the Company had a lost time injury frequency rate of 0.07.

Summary of Financial Results

Revenue and cost of sales related to the Company's Ovoot Tolgoi Mine within the Coal Division operating segment. Refer to note 3 of the condensed consolidated interim financial statements for further analysis regarding the Company's reportable operating segments. A non-IFRS financial measure, idled mine asset costs represents the depreciation expense relates to the Company's idled plant and equipment.

Overview of Financial Results

For the three months ended September 30, 2024

The Company recorded a $27.7 million profit from operations for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $46.3 million profit from operations for the third quarter of 2023. The decrease was mainly due to changes in the Company's product mix and decreased pricing for processed coal.

Revenue was $143.7 million for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $98.0 million for the third quarter of 2023. The financial results were impacted by increased sales volume, as a result of expansion of its sales network, diversification of its customer baseand expansion of the categories of coal products in its portfolio.

Cost of sales was $111.4 million for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $48.6 million for the third quarter of 2023. The increase in cost of sales was mainly due to increased sales and the Company expanding into certain categories of processed coal with higher production costs.

Cost of sales consists of operating expenses, share-based compensation expense, equipment depreciation, depletion of mineral properties, royalties and idled mine asset costs. Operating expenses in cost of sales reflect the total cash costs of product sold (a Non-IFRS financial measure, refer to "Non-IFRS Financial Measures" section of this press release for further analysis) during the quarter.

Operating expenses in cost of sales were $90.0 million for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $38.0 million for the third quarter of 2023. The overall increase in operating expenses was due to the increased sales and the Company expanding into certain categories of processed coal with higher production costs.

Cost of sales related to idled mine assets for the third quarter of 2024 included $0.2 million related to depreciation expenses for idled equipment (third quarter of 2023: less than $0.1 million).

Other operating expenses were $0.3 million for the third quarter of 2024 (third quarter of 2023: $0.4 million).

Administration expenses were $3.4 million for the third quarter of 2024 (third quarter of 2023: $1.8 million). The change was mainly due to higher daily administration fees and increased salaries and benefits as a result of expansion of operations.

The Company continued to minimise evaluation and exploration expenditures in the third quarter of 2024 in order to preserve the Company's financial resources. Evaluation and exploration activities and expenditures in the third quarter of 2024 were limited to ensuring that the Company met the Mongolian Minerals Law requirements in respect of its mining licenses.

Finance costs were $10.7 million and $13.3 million for the third quarter of 2024 and 2023 respectively, which primarily consisted of interest expense on the $250.0 million Convertible Debenture.

For the nine months ended September 30, 2024

The Company recorded a $74.9 million profit from operations in the first nine months of 2024 compared to a $33.8 million profit from operations in the first nine months of 2023. The turnaround result was mainly due to an additional tax and tax penalty of $75.0 million imposed by MTA was recorded in the second quarter of 2023.

Revenue was $318.7 million in the first nine months of 2024 compared to $243.0 million in the first nine months of 2023. The financial results were impacted by increased sales volume, as a result of expansion of its sales network, diversification of its customer base and expansion of the categories of coal products in its portfolio.

Cost of sales were $230.5 million in the first nine months of 2024 compared to $121.6 million in the first nine months of 2023, as follows:

Operating expenses in cost of sales were $182.9 million in the first nine months of 2024 compared to $87.4 million in the first nine months of 2023. The overall increase in operating expenses was due to the increased sales and the Company expanding into certain categories of processed coal with higher production costs.

Cost of sales related to idled mine assets in the first nine months of 2024 included $0.3 million related to depreciation expenses for idled equipment (first nine months of 2023: $0.1 million).

Other operating expenses were $2.5 million in the first nine months of 2024 (first nine months of 2023: $5.2 million). The change was mainly due to decreased net foreign exchange loss.

Administration expenses were $9.8 million in the first nine months of 2024 (first nine months of 2023: $6.6 million). The change was mainly due to increase in daily administration expenses, legal and professional fees and salaries and benefits as a result of expansion of operations.

The Company continued to minimise evaluation and exploration expenditures in the first nine months of 2024 in order to preserve the Company's financial resources. Evaluation and exploration activities and expenditures in the first nine months of 2024 were limited to ensuring that the Company met the Mongolian Minerals Law requirements in respect of its mining licenses.

Finance costs were $30.9 million and $36.7 million in the first nine months of 2024 and 2023 respectively, which primarily consisted of interest expense on the $250.0 million Convertible Debenture.

Summary of Quarterly Operational Data

A non-IFRS financial measure. Refer to section "Non-IFRS Financial Measures". Cash costs of product sold exclude idled mine asset cash costs. Per 200,000 man hours and calculated based on a rolling 12 month average.

Summary of Quarterly Financial Results

The Company's condensed consolidated interim financial statements are reported under International Accounting Standard ("IAS Standards") 34 - "Interim Financial Reporting" using accounting policies in compliance with the IFRS Accounting Standards issued by the International Accounting Standards Board and Interpretations of the IFRS Interpretations Committee ("IFRS Accounting Standards"). The following table provides highlights, extracted from the Company's annual and interim consolidated financial statements, of quarterly results for the past eight quarters.

Revenue and cost of sales relate to the Company's Ovoot Tolgoi Mine within the Coal Division operating segment. Refer to note 3 of the condensed consolidated interim financial statements for further analysis regarding the Company's reportable operating segments. A non-IFRS financial measure, idled mine asset costs represents the depreciation expense relates to the Company's idled plant and equipment.

LIQUIDITY AND CAPITAL RESOURCES

Liquidity and Capital Management

The Company has in place a planning, budgeting and forecasting process to help determine the funds required to support the Company's normal operations on an ongoing basis and the Company's expansionary plans.

Costs reimbursable to Turquoise Hill Resources Limited ("Turquoise Hill")

Prior to the completion of a private placement with Novel Sunrise Investments Limited on April 23, 2015, Rio Tinto plc ("Rio Tinto") was the Company's ultimate parent company. In the past, Rio Tinto sought reimbursement from the Company for the salaries and benefits of certain Rio Tinto employees who were assigned by Rio Tinto to work for the Company, as well as certain legal and professional fees incurred by Rio Tinto in relation to the Company's prior internal investigation and Rio Tinto's participation in the tripartite committee. Subsequently Rio Tinto transferred and assigned to Turquoise Hill its right to seek reimbursement for these costs and fees from the Company.

On January 20, 2021, the Company and Turquoise Hill entered into a settlement agreement, whereby Turquoise Hill agreed to a repayment schedule in settlement of certain secondment costs in the amount of $2.8 million (representing a portion of the TRQ Reimbursable Amount) pursuant to which the Company agreed to make monthly payments to Turquoise Hill in the amount of $0.1 million per month from January 2021 to June 2022. The Company is contesting the validity of the remaining balance of the TRQ Reimbursable Amount claimed by Turquoise Hill.

As at September 30, 2024, the amount of reimbursable costs and fees claimed by Turquoise Hill (the "TRQ Reimbursable Amount") amounted to $6.3 million (such amount is included in the trade and other payables).

Additional tax and tax penalty imposed by the MTA

On July 18, 2023, SGS received the Notice issued by the MTA stating that the MTA had completed the Audit on the financial information of SGS for the tax assessment years between 2017 and 2020, including transfer pricing, royalty, air-pollution fee and unpaid tax payables. As a result of the Audit, the MTA notified SGS that it is imposing a tax penalty against SGS in the amount of approximately $75.0 million. The penalty mainly relates to the different view on the interpretation of tax law between the Company and the MTA. Under Mongolian law, the Company had a period of 30 days from the date of receipt of the Notice to file an appeal in relation to the Audit. Subsequently the Company engaged an independent tax consultant in Mongolia to provide tax advice and support to the Company and filed an appeal letter in relation to the Audit with the MTA in accordance with Mongolian laws on August 17, 2023.

On February 8, 2024, SGS received notice from the TDRC which stated that, after the TDRC's review, the TDRC issued a decision in relation to SGS' appeal of the Audit, and ordered that the audit assessments set forth in the Notice of July 18, 2023 be sent back to the MTA for review and re-assessment.

On February 22, 2024, SGS received another notice from the MTA stating that the MTA anticipated commencing the re-assessment process on or about March 7, 2024 and the duration of such process will be approximately 45 working days.

On May 15, 2024, SGS received the Revised Notice from the MTA regarding the re-assessment result on the Audit. The re-assessed amount of the tax penalty is approximately $80.0 million. In accordance with applicable Mongolian laws, SGS is entitled to file an appeal to the TDRC regarding the Re-assessment Result within a 30-day period from the date of receiving the Revised Notice.

On June 12, 2024, following consultation with its independent tax consultant in Mongolia, SGS submitted an appeal letter to the TDRC regarding the Re-assessment Result on the Audit, in accordance with applicable Mongolian laws.

As at September 30, 2024, the Company recorded an additional tax and tax penalty in the amount of $85.1 million, which consists of a tax penalty payable of $75.0 million and a provision of additional late tax penalty of $10.1 million. To date, the Company has paid the MTA an aggregate of $1.7 million in relation to the aforementioned tax penalty. According to Mongolian tax law, the MTA has a legal authority to demand payment from the Company irrespective of any potential appeal process that may change the aforesaid tax penalty. Based on the advice from tax professionals and the best estimate of Company management, in the event that the Company's appeal is successful in future, it is probable that the Company may recover approximately $46.0 million which represents a portion of the tax penalty payable to the MTA. However, there are inherent uncertainties surrounding the development and outcome of the appeal. The Company cannot determine with any virtual certainty the recoverability or exact recoverable amount of the tax penalty paid in future. If any subsequent event occurs that may impact the amount of the additional tax and tax penalty, an adjustment would be recognised in profit or loss and the carrying amount of the tax liabilities shall be adjusted.

Going concern considerations

The Company's condensed consolidated interim financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis which assumes that the Company will continue to operate until at least September 30, 2025 and will be able to realise its assets and discharge its liabilities in the normal course of operations as they come due. However, in order to continue as a going concern, the Company must generate sufficient operating cash flows, secure additional capital or otherwise pursue a strategic restructuring, refinancing or other transactions to provide it with sufficient liquidity.

Several adverse conditions and material uncertainties cast significant doubt upon the Company's ability to continue as a going concern and the going concern assumption used in the preparation of the Company's condensed consolidated interim financial statements. The Company had a deficiency in assets of $119.7 million as at September 30, 2024 as compared to a deficiency in assets of $141.3 million as at December 31, 2023 while the working capital deficiency (excess current liabilities over current assets) reached $273.1 million as at September 30, 2024 compared to a working capital deficiency of $218.8 million as at December 31, 2023.

Included in the working capital deficiency as at September 30, 2024 are significant obligations, represented by trade and other payables of $113.9 million and the additional tax and tax penalty of $83.4 million.

The Company may not be able to settle all trade and other payables on a timely basis, and as a result any continuing postponement in settling of certain trade and other payables owed to suppliers and creditors may result in potential lawsuits and/or bankruptcy proceedings being filed against the Company. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the Company will be successful in its negotiations with the MTA, or any appeal, in relation to the Audit. Except as disclosed elsewhere in this press release, no such lawsuits or proceedings were pending as at November 14, 2024. However, there can be no assurance that no such lawsuits or proceedings will be filed by the Company's creditors in the future and the Company's suppliers and contractors will continue to supply and provide services to the Company uninterrupted.

There are significant uncertainties as to the outcomes of the above events or conditions that may cast significant doubt on the Company's ability to continue as a going concern and, therefore, the Company may be unable to realise its assets and discharge its liabilities in the normal course of business. Should the use of the going concern basis in preparation of the condensed consolidated interim financial statements be determined to be not appropriate, adjustments would have to be made to write down the carrying amounts of the Company's assets to their realisable values, to provide for any further liabilities which might arise and to reclassify non-current assets and non-current liabilities as current assets and current liabilities, respectively. The effects of these adjustments have not been reflected in the condensed consolidated interim financial statements. If the Company is unable to continue as a going concern, it may be forced to seek relief under applicable bankruptcy and insolvency legislation.

For the purpose of assessing the appropriateness of the use of the going concern basis to prepare the financial statements, management of the Company has prepared a cash flow projection covering a period of 12 months from September 30, 2024. The cash flow projection has considered the anticipated cash flows to be generated from the Company's business during the period under projection including cost saving measures. In particular, the Company has taken into account the following measures for improvement of the Company's liquidity and financial position, which include: (a) entering into the 2024 March Deferral Agreement and the 2024 April Deferral Agreement with JDZF on March 19, 2024 and April 30, 2024, respectively for a deferral of the 2024 March Deferred Amounts and 2024 April Deferred Amounts; (b) communicating with vendors in agreeing repayment plans of the outstanding payable; and (c) obtaining an avenue of financial support from an affiliate of the Company's major shareholder for a maximum amount of $127.0 million (equivalent to RMB 900 million) during the period covered in the cash flow projection. Regarding these plans and measures, there is no guarantee that the suppliers would agree the settlement plan as communicated by the Company. Nevertheless, after considering the above, the directors of the Company believe that there will be sufficient financial resources to continue its operations and to meet its financial obligations as and when they fall due in the next 12 months from September 30, 2024 and therefore are satisfied that it is appropriate to prepare the condensed consolidated interim financial statements on a going concern basis.

Significant uncertainties exist regarding the Company's management's ability to achieve its plans as described above. The continued operation of the Company as a going concern depends on a key factor: the utilisation of the financial support from an affiliate of the Company's major shareholder to settle payables, including the additional tax and tax penalty, in a timely manner.

The outcome of this factor will have a significant impact on the Company's ability to continue operating as a going concern. It is crucial to closely monitor and address these uncertainties to ensure the Company's stability and long-term viability.

Factors that impact the Company's liquidity are being closely monitored and include, but are not limited to, restrictions on the Company's ability to import its coal products for sale in China, Chinese economic growth, market prices of coal, production levels, operating cash costs, capital costs, exchange rates of currencies of countries where the Company operates and exploration and discretionary expenditures.

As at September 30, 2024 and December 31, 2023, the Company was not subject to any externally imposed capital requirements.

Convertible Debenture

In November 2009, the Company entered into a financing agreement with China Investment Corporation (together with its wholly-owned subsidiaries and affiliates, "CIC") for $500 million in the form of a secured, convertible debenture bearing interest at 8.0% (6.4% payable semi-annually in cash and 1.6% payable annually in the Company's Common Shares) with a maximum term of 30 years. The Convertible Debenture is secured by a first ranking charge over the Company's assets, including shares of its material subsidiaries. The financing was used primarily to support the accelerated investment program in Mongolia and for working capital, repayment of debts, general and administrative expenses and other general corporate purposes.

On March 29, 2010, the Company exercised its right to call for the conversion of up to $250.0 million of the Convertible Debenture into approximately 21.5 million shares at a conversion price of $11.64 (CA$11.88).

Deferral Agreements

On March 19, 2024, the Company and JDZF entered into the 2024 March Deferral Agreement pursuant to which JDZF agreed to grant the Company a deferral of (i) the cash and payment-in-kind interest ("PIK Interest"), management fees, and related deferral fees in the aggregate amount of approximately $96.5 million which will be due and payable to JDZF on or before August 31, 2024 pursuant to certain prior deferral agreements dated March 24, 2023 and October 13, 2023; (ii) semi-annual cash interest payment of approximately $7.9 million payable to JDZF on May 19, 2024 under the Convertible Debenture; (iii) semi-annual cash interest payments of approximately $8.1 million payable to JDZF on November 19, 2024 and the $4.0 million in PIK Interest payable to JDZF on November 19, 2024 under the Convertible Debenture; and (iv) management fees in the aggregate amount of $2.2 million payable to JDZF on November 15, 2024 and February 15, 2025, respectively, under the amended and restated mutual cooperation agreement (the "Amended and Restated Cooperation Agreement") (collectively, the "2024 March Deferred Amounts").

The effectiveness of the 2024 March Deferral Agreement and the respective covenants, agreements and obligations of each party under the 2024 March Deferral Agreement are subject to the Company obtaining the requisite approval of the 2024 March Deferral Agreement from shareholders in accordance with the requirements of applicable Canadian securities laws and Rule 14.33 and Rule 14A.36 of the Listing Rules. The 2024 March Deferral Agreement was approved by the Company's disinterested shareholders through a special meeting of shareholders convened on August 28, 2024.

The principal terms of the 2024 March Deferral Agreement are as follows:

Payment of the 2024 March Deferred Amounts will be deferred until 2024 March Deferral Agreement Deferral Date.

As consideration for the deferral of the 2024 March Deferred Amounts which relate to the payment obligations arising from the Convertible Debenture, the Company agreed to pay JDZF a deferral fee equal to 6.4% per annum on the outstanding balance of such 2024 March Deferred Amounts, commencing on the date on which each such 2024 March Deferred Amounts would otherwise have been due and payable under the Convertible Debenture.

As consideration for the deferral of the 2024 March Deferred Amounts which relate to payment obligations arising from the Amended and Restated Cooperation Agreement, the Company agreed to pay JDZF a deferral fee equal to 1.5% per annum on the outstanding balance of such 2024 March Deferred Amounts commencing on the date on which each such 2024 March Deferred Amounts would otherwise have been due and payable under the Amended and Restated Cooperation Agreement.

The 2024 March Deferral Agreement does not contemplate a fixed repayment schedule for the 2024 March Deferred Amounts or related deferral fees. Instead, the 2024 March Deferral Agreement requires the Company to use its best efforts to pay the 2024 March Deferred Amounts and related deferral fees due and payable under the 2024 March Deferral Agreement to JDZF. During the period beginning as of the effective date of the 2024 March Deferral Agreement and ending as of the 2024 March Deferral Agreement Deferral Date, the Company will provide JDZF with monthly updates of its financial status and business operations, and the Company and JDZF will on a monthly basis discuss and assess in good faith the amount (if any) of the 2024 March Deferred Amounts and related deferral fees that the Company may be able to repay to JDZF, having regard to the working capital requirements of the Company's operations and business at such time and with the view of ensuring that the Company's operations and business would not be materially prejudiced as a result of any repayment.

If at any time before the 2024 March Deferred Amounts and related deferral fees are fully repaid, the Company proposes to appoint, replace or terminate one or more of its chief executive officer, its chief financial officer or any other senior executive(s) in charge of its principal business function or its principal subsidiary, the Company will first consult with, and obtain written consent (such consent shall not be unreasonably withheld) from JDZF prior to effecting such appointment, replacement or termination.

On April 30, 2024, the Company and JDZF entered into the 2024 April Deferral Agreement pursuant to which JDZF agreed to grant the Company a deferral of the remaining $1.1 million of PIK interest which was payable on November 19, 2022 under the Convertible Debenture, the payment of which was deferred pursuant to a certain prior deferral agreement dated November 11, 2022 (the "November 2022 Deferral Agreement") until November 19, 2023, as well as related deferral fees under the November 2022 Deferral Agreement (collectively, the "2024 April Deferred Amounts").

The effectiveness of the 2024 April Deferral Agreement and the respective covenants, agreements and obligations of each party under the 2024 April Deferral Agreement are subject to the Company obtaining the requisite approval of the 2024 April Deferral Agreement from shareholders in accordance with the requirements of applicable Canadian securities laws and Rule 14.33 and Rule 14A.36 of the Listing Rules. The 2024 April Deferral Agreement was approved by the Company's disinterested shareholders through a special meeting of shareholders convened on August 28, 2024.

The principal terms of the 2024 April Deferral Agreement are as follows:

Payment of the 2024 April Deferred Amounts will be deferred until the 2024 April Deferral Agreement Deferral Date.

As consideration for the deferral of the 2024 April Deferred Amounts, the Company agreed to pay JDZF a deferral fee equal to 6.4% per annum on the outstanding balance of such 2024 April Deferred Amounts, commencing on the date on which each such 2024 April Deferred Amounts would otherwise have been due and payable under the Convertible Debenture.

The 2024 April Deferral Agreement does not contemplate a fixed repayment schedule for the 2024 April Deferred Amounts or related deferral fees. Instead, the 2024 April Deferral Agreement requires the Company to use its best efforts to pay the 2024 April Deferred Amounts and related deferral fees due and payable under the 2024 April Deferral Agreement to JDZF. During the period beginning as of the effective date of the 2024 April Deferral Agreement and ending as of the 2024 April Deferral Agreement Deferral Date, the Company will provide JDZF with monthly updates of its financial status and business operations, and the Company and JDZF will on a monthly basis discuss and assess in good faith the amount (if any) of the 2024 April Deferred Amounts and related deferral fees that the Company may be able to repay to JDZF, having regard to the working capital requirements of the Company's operations and business at such time and with the view of ensuring that the Company's operations and business would not be materially prejudiced as a result of any repayment.

If at any time before the 2024 April Deferred Amounts and related deferral fees are fully repaid, the Company proposes to appoint, replace or terminate one or more of its chief executive officer, its chief financial officer or any other senior executive(s) in charge of its principal business function or its principal subsidiary, the Company will first consult with, and obtain written consent (such consent shall not be unreasonably withheld) from JDZF prior to effecting such appointment, replacement or termination.

Amendment of Convertible Debenture

On May 13, 2024, the Company and JDZF entered into an amendment agreement (the "Convertible Debenture Amendment") to amend certain terms of the Convertible Debenture.

Pursuant to the Convertible Debenture Amendment, the Company may, by resolution of the Board of the Company, at any time and from time to time prepay, without penalty, the whole or any part of the principal amount outstanding under the Convertible Debenture, together with accrued cash interest and PIK interest thereon to the date of prepayment, provided that:

the Company has, not later than three (3) business days prior to the proposed prepayment date, delivered to JDZF an irrevocable written notice, signed by an independent director of the Company and setting out the terms of the prepayment; the amount of such prepayment reduces the then outstanding principal amount under the Convertible Debenture by an amount that is (a) not less than $500,000 and (b) if in excess of $500,000, an integral multiple of $500,000; and the proposed prepayment date falls on a business day.

The Company did not provide any additional form of consideration to JDZF in connection with the Convertible Debenture Amendment. Aside from the aforementioned amendments, the existing terms of the Convertible Debenture continue in full force and effect and unchanged.

The effectiveness of the Convertible Debenture Amendment is subject to the Company providing notice to, and obtaining acceptance (if required) from the TSX-V and requisite approval from disinterested shareholders of the Company in accordance with the requirements of applicable Canadian securities laws and Listing Rules. The Convertible Debenture Amendment was approved by the Company's disinterested shareholders through a special meeting of shareholders convened on August 28, 2024.

Ovoot Tolgoi Mine Impairment Analysis

The Company determined that an indicator of impairment existed for its Ovoot Tolgoi Mine cash generating unit as at September 30, 2024. The impairment indicator was the potential closure of border crossings in the future. Since the recoverable amount was higher than carrying value of the Ovoot Tolgoi Mine cash generating unit, there was no impairment of non-financial asset recognised during the nine months ended September 30, 2024.

REGULATORY ISSUES AND CONTINGENCIES

Lawsuit

In January 2014, Siskinds LLP, a Canadian law firm, filed a class action (the "Class Action") against the Company, certain of its former senior officers and directors, and its former auditors (the "Former Auditors"), in the Ontario Court in relation to the Company's restatement of certain financial statements previously disclosed in the Company's public fillings (the "Restatement").

To commence and proceed with the Class Action, the plaintiff was required to seek leave of the Court under the Ontario Securities Act ("Leave Motion") and certify the action as a class proceeding under the Ontario Class Proceedings Act. The Ontario Court rendered its decision on the Leave Motion on November 5, 2015, dismissing the action against the former senior officers and directors and allowing the action to proceed against the Company in respect of alleged misrepresentation affecting trades in the secondary market for the Company's securities arising from the Restatement. The action against the Former Auditors was settled by the plaintiff on the eve of the Leave Motion.

Both the plaintiff and the Company appealed the Leave Motion decision to the Ontario Court of Appeal. On September 18, 2017, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed the Company's appeal of the Leave Motion to permit the plaintiff to commence and proceed with the Class Action. Concurrently, the Ontario Court of Appeal granted leave for the plaintiff to proceed with their action against the former senior officers and directors in relation to the Restatement.

The Company filed an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada in November 2017, but the leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was dismissed in June 2018.

In December 2018, the parties agreed to a consent Certification Order, whereby the action against the former senior officers and directors was withdrawn and the Class Action would only proceed against the Company.

To date, counsel for the plaintiffs and defendant have completed: (i) all document production and (ii) defence oral examinations for discovery. Counsel for the plaintiffs have served their expert reports on liability and damages.

Counsel for the plaintiffs and defendant have entered into a good faith procedural agreement (the "Procedural Agreement") telescoping all remaining pre-trial steps into a periodthat is expected to end on December 31, 2024 including oral examinations for discovery of the plaintiffs by the defendant and, subject to the parties signing and delivering individual commitments that all discovery processes have been completed by December 31, 2024, subsequent delivery of the defendant's expert reports in January 2025. The parties have engaged the services of an experienced neutral former Chief Justice of Ontario (the "Mediator") to act as a mediator to assist the parties in resolving all pre-trial matters as set out in the Procedural Agreement. The parties have agreed to a pre-trial mediation before the Mediator scheduled in April 2025 with an intention to have the entire case ready for trial by April 25, 2025. The Court has not yet scheduled trial dates. The Company continues to urge a trial as early as possible.

The Company firmly believes that it has a strong defense on the merits and will continue to vigorously defend itself against the Class Action through independent Canadian litigation counsel retained by the Company for this purpose. Due to the inherent uncertainties of litigation, it is not possible to predict the final outcome of the Class Action or determine the amount of potential losses, if any. However, the Company has determined that a provision for this matter as at September 30, 2024 was not required.

Toll Wash Plant Agreement with Ejin Jinda

In 2011, the Company entered into an agreement with Ejin Jinda, a subsidiary of China Mongolia Coal Co. Ltd., to toll-wash coal from the Ovoot Tolgoi Mine. The agreement had a duration of five years from the commencement of the contract and provided for an annual washing capacity of approximately 3.5 million tonnes of input coal.

Under the agreement with Ejin Jinda, which required the commercial operation of the wet washing facility to commence on October 1, 2011, the additional fees payable by the Company under the wet washing contract would have been $18.5 million. At each reporting date, the Company assesses the agreement with Ejin Jinda and has determined it is not probable that this $18.5 million will be required to be paid. Accordingly, the Company has determined that a provision for this matter as at September 30, 2024 was not required.

Special Needs Territory in Umnugobi

On February 13, 2015, the Soumber mining licenses (MV-016869, MV-020436 and MV-020451) (the "License Areas") were included into a special protected area (to be further referred as Special Needs Territory, the "SNT") newly set up by the Umnugobi Aimag's Civil Representatives Khural (the "CRKh") to establish a strict regime on the protection of natural environment and prohibit mining activities in the territory of the SNT.

On July 8, 2015, SGS and the chairman of the CRKh, in his capacity as the respondent's representative, reached an agreement (the "Amicable Resolution Agreement") to exclude the License Areas from the territory of the SNT in full, subject to confirmation of the Amicable Resolution Agreement by the session of the CRKh. The parties formally submitted the Amicable Resolution Agreement to the appointed judge of the Administrative Court for her approval and requested a dismissal of the case in accordance with the Law of Mongolia on Administrative Court Procedure. On July 10, 2015, the judge issued her order approving the Amicable Resolution Agreement and dismissing the case, while reaffirming the obligation of CRKh to take necessary actions at its next session to exclude the License Areas from the SNT and register the new map of the SNT with the relevant authorities. Mining activities at the Soumber property cannot proceed unless and until the Company obtains a court order restoring the Soumber mining licenses and until the License Areas are removed from the SNT.

On July 24, 2021, SGS was notified by the Implementing Agency of Mongolian Government that the license area covered by two mining licenses (MV-016869 and MV-020451) are no longer overlapping with the SNT. The Company will continue to work with the Mongolian authorities regarding the license area covered by the mining license (MV-020436).

On December 7, 2023, the Citizen representative Khural of Gurvantes soum held a meeting and passed a resolution (the "Resolution") claiming that the License Areas were part of local special needs protection area. A request letter was sent to Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority of Mongolia ("MRPAM") on January 4, 2024.

On January 11, 2024, MRPAM issued an official letter to the Citizen representative Khural of Gurvantes soum and concluded that request was not reasonable and the License Areas will not be registered on the Cadastre mapping system.

On June 18, 2024, the Court of First Instance in Umnugobi Province reviewed the above subject matter in which SGS is the plaintiff and Citizen's Representative Meetings of Gurvantes soum is the defendant. The Court of First Instance determined that the claims made by Citizen's Representative Meetings of Gurvantes soum relating to the License Areas as set forth in the Resolution were invalid. Citizen's Representative Meetings of Gurvantes soum has since applied to the Court of Appeals for an appeal of the Court of First Instance's decision.

On September 12, 2024, the Court of Appeals reviewed the appeal made by Citizen's Representative Meetings of Gurvantes soum and determined that the appeal was invalid. Citizen's Representative Meetings of Gurvantes soum did not apply to the Supreme Court of Mongolia for an appeal of the Court of Appeals' decision upon the expiry of the application deadline. As a result, the decision made by the Court of Appeals is final and conclusive.

TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE

On August 2, 2011, the State Property Committee of Mongolia awarded the tender to construct a paved highway from the Ovoot Tolgoi Mine to the Shivee Khuren Border Crossing (the "Paved Highway") to consortium partners NTB LLC and SGS (together referred to as "RDCC LLC") with an exclusive right of ownership of the Paved Highway for 30 years. The Company has an indirect 40% interest in RDCC LLC through its Mongolian subsidiary SGS. The toll rate is MNT 1,800 per tonne.

The Paved Highway has a carrying capacity in excess of 20 million tonnes of coal per year.

For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024, RDCC LLC recognised toll fee revenue of $3.5 million (2023: $2.9 million) and $9.8 million (2023: $6.5 million), respectively.

PLEDGE OF ASSETS

As at September 30, 2024, most of the Company's mobile equipment and other operating equipment with carrying value of $6.9 million (December 31, 2023: $3.2 million) were pledged as security of Convertible Debenture.

PURCHASE, SALE OR REDEMPTION OF LISTED SECURITIES OF THE COMPANY

The Company did not redeem its listed securities, nor did the Company or any of its subsidiaries purchase or sell suchsecurities during the nine months ended September 30, 2024.

COMPLIANCE WITH CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

The Company has, throughout the nine months ended September 30, 2024, applied the principles and complied with the requirements of its corporate governance practices as defined by the Board and all applicable statutory, regulatory and stock exchange listings standards, which include the code provisions set out in the Corporate Governance Code (the "Corporate Governance Code") contained in Appendix C1 to the Listing Rules, except for the following:

Pursuant to Section C.2 under Part 2 of the Corporate Governance Code, the chairman of the Board (the "Chairman") should be responsible for the overall management of the Board. The Company has not had a Chairman since November 2017. The Board has appointed an Independent Lead Director, who is fulfilling the duties of the Chairman; Pursuant to code provision C.2.7 of the Corporate Governance Code, the Chairman should at least annually hold meetings with the non-executive directors (including independent non-executive directors) without the executive directors present. During the period of January 1, 2024 to September 30, 2024 there was one meeting between the Independent Lead Director, who is fulfilling the duties of the Chairman, and the non-executive directors without the presence of the executive directors. The opportunity for such communication channel is offered at the end of each Board meeting; Pursuant to code provision F.2.2 under Part 2 of the Corporate Governance Code, the Chairman of the Board should attend the annual general meeting. Mr. Yingbin Ian He, an independent non-executive director and the Lead Director, attended and acted as Chairman of the Company's annual general meeting held on June 27, 2024 to ensure effective communication with shareholders of the Company.

SECURITIES TRANSACTIONS BY DIRECTORS

The Company has adopted policies regarding directors' securities transactions in its Corporate Disclosure, Confidentiality and Securities Trading Policy that have terms that are no less exacting than those set out in the Model Code for Securities Transactions by Directors of Listed Issuers contained in Appendix C3 to the Listing Rules ("Model Code").

In response to a specific enquiry made by the Company on each of the directors, all directors confirmed that they had complied with the required standards as set out in the Model Code and the Company's Corporate Disclosure, Confidentiality and Securities Trading Policy throughout the nine months ended September 30, 2024.

Furthermore, if a Director (a) enters into a transaction involving securities of the Company or, for any other reason, the direct or indirect beneficial ownership of, or control or direction over, securities of the Company changes from that shown or required to be shown in the latest insider report filed by the Director, or (b) enters into a transaction involving a related financial instrument, the Director must, within the prescribed period, file (i) an insider report in the required form on the System for Electronic Disclosure by Insiders website (www.sedi.ca) operated by the Canadian Securities Administrators and (ii) a Disclosure of Interest Form with the HKEX.

A "related financial instrument" is defined as: (a) an instrument, agreement, security or exchange contract, the value, market price or payment obligations of which is/are derived from, referenced to or based on the value, market price or payment obligations of a security, or (b) any other instrument, agreement or understanding that affects, directly or indirectly, a person's economic interest in respect of a security or an exchange contract.

OUTLOOK

The Company had been increasing the scale of its mining operations since 2023, as well as implementing various coal processing methods, including screening, wet washing and dry coal processing, which have resulted in improved coal quality and enhanced production volumes and growth of coal export volume into China during the quarter.

In response to the market demand for different coal products, the Company has focused on expanding the categories of coal products in its portfolio, including mixed coal, wet washed coal and dry processed coal. In addition, the Company has experienced success with processing its inventory of F-grade coal products through cost-effective screening procedures. As a result of the improvement in the quality of the processed F-grade coal, the Company was able to meet the import coal quality standards established by Chinese authorities and have been exporting this product to China for sale since the first quarter of 2024, further enhancing the Company's coal export volume.

Both Chinese and Mongolian governments played a significant role in strengthening their ties on coal trade. The development of new cross-border railways, expansion of road infrastructure, deployment of automated technologies in export operations and streamlined customs clearances underscore the collaborative efforts to facilitate cross-border trade. These strategic initiatives position Mongolian coal favourably in the evolving dynamics of China's coal imports.

With the continuous assistance and support from JDZF, the Company will focus on expanding its market reach and customer base in China to improve the profit margin earned on its coal products.

In 2024, the Company will continue to ramp up its mining operations and production capacity to capitalise on the anticipated increase in sales volume.

The Company remains cautiously optimistic regarding the Chinese coal market, as coal is still considered to be the primary energy source which China will continue to rely on in the foreseeable future. Coal supply and coal import in China are expected to be limited due to increasingly stringent requirements relating to environmental protection and safety production, which may result in volatile coal prices in China. The Company will continue to monitor and react proactively to the dynamic market.

In the medium term, the Company will continue to adopt various strategies to enhance its product mix in order to maximise revenue, expand its customer base and sales network, improve logistics, optimise its operational cost structure and, most importantly, operate in a safe and socially responsible manner.

The Company's objectives for the medium term are as follows:

Enhance product mix - The Company will focus on improving the product mix by: (i) improving mining operations; (ii) utilising the Company's wet coal processing plant; and (iii) trading and blending different types of coal to produce blended coal products that are economical to the Company.

Expand market reach and customer base - The Company will endeavor to increase sales volume and sales price by: (i) expanding its sales network and diversifying its customer base; (ii) increasing its coal logistics capacity to resolve the bottleneck in the distribution channel; and (iii) setting and adjusting the sales price based on a more market-oriented approach in order to maximise profit while maintaining sustainable long-term business relationships with customers.

Increase production and optimise cost structure - The Company will aim to increase coal production volume to take advantage of economies of scale. The Company will also focus to reduce its production costs and optimise its cost structure through engaging sizable third-party contract mining companies to enhance its operation efficiency, strengthening procurement management, ongoing training and productivity enhancement.

Operate in a safe and socially responsible manner - The Company will continue to maintain the highest standards in health, safety and environmental performance and operate in a corporate socially responsible manner.

In the long term, the Company will continue to focus on creating and maximising shareholders value by leveraging its key competitive strengths, including:

Strategic location - The Ovoot Tolgoi Mine is located approximately 40km from China, which represents the Company's main coal market. The Company has an infrastructure advantage, being approximately 50km from a major Chinese coal distribution terminal with rail connections to key coal markets in China.

A large reserves base- The Ovoot Tolgoi Deposit has mineral reserves of more than 90 million tonnes.

Several growth options - The Company has several growth options including the Soumber Deposit and Zag Suuj Deposit, located approximately 20km east and approximately 150km east of the Ovoot Tolgoi Mine, respectively.

Bridge between China and Mongolia - The Company is well-positioned to capture the resulting business opportunities between China and Mongolia. The Company will seek assistance and support from its two largest shareholders, which are both experienced coal mining enterprises in China, and have a strong operational record for the past decade in Mongolia.

NON-IFRS FINANCIAL MEASURES

Cash Costs

The Company uses cash costs to describe its cash production and associated cash costs incurred in bringing the inventories to their present locations and conditions. Cash costs incorporate all production costs, which include direct and indirect costs of production, with the exception of idled mine asset costs and non-cash expenses which are excluded. Non-cash expenses include share-based compensation expense, impairment of coal stockpile inventories, depreciation and depletion of property, plant and equipment and mineral properties. The Company uses this performance measure to monitor its operating cash costs internally and believes this measure provides investors and analysts with useful information about the Company's underlying cash costs of operations. The Company believes that conventional measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS Accounting Standards do not fully illustrate the ability of its mining operations to generate cash flows. The Company reports cash costs on a sales basis. This performance measure is commonly utilised in the mining industry.

Summarised Comprehensive Income Information

(Expressed in thousands of USD, except for share and per share amounts)

Summarised Financial Position Information

(Expressed in thousands of USD)

Summarised Cash Flows Information

(Expressed in thousands of USD)

REVIEW OF INTERIM RESULTS

The condensed consolidated interim financial statements for the Company for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024, which are unaudited but have been reviewed by the audit committee of the Company.

The Company's results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024, are contained in the unaudited condensed consolidated interim financial statements and Management Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, available on the SEDAR+ website at www.sedarplus.ca and the Company's website at www.southgobi.com .

ABOUT SOUTHGOBI

SouthGobi, listed on the HKEX and TSX-V, owns and operates its ?agship Ovoot Tolgoi coal mine in Mongolia. It also holds the mining licenses of its other metallurgical and thermal coal deposits in South Gobi Region of Mongolia. SouthGobi produces and sells coal to customers in China.

Contact:

Investor Relations

Email: info@southgobi.com

Mr. Ruibin Xu

Chief Executive Officer

Office: +852 2156 1438 (Hong Kong)

+1 604 762 6783 (Canada)

Website: www.southgobi.com

Except for statements of fact relating to the Company, certain information contained herein constitutes forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterised by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "could", "should", "seek", "likely", "estimate" and other similar words or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements relate to management's future outlook and anticipated events or results and are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the time the statements are made. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding:

the Company continuing as a going concern and its ability to realise its assets and discharge its liabilities in the normal course of operations as they become due;

adjustments to the amounts and classifications of assets and liabilities in the Company's condensed consolidated interim financial statements and the impact thereof;

the Company's expectations of sufficient liquidity and capital resources to meet its ongoing obligations and future contractual commitments, including the Company's ability to settle its trade payables, to secure additional funding and to meet its obligations under each of the JDZF Convertible Debenture, the 2024 March Deferral Agreement and the 2024 April Deferral Agreement as the same become due, the Company's ability to settle or appeal the tax penalty payable of $75.0 million imposed by the MTA and a provision of additional late tax penalty of $10.1 million;

the Company's anticipated financing needs, operational and development plans and future production levels, including ramp up of the Company's mining operations and capacity in 2024;

the results and impact of the Ontario class action (as described under section Regulatory Issues and Contingencies of this press release under the heading entitled "Lawsuit ");

the estimates and assumptions included in the Company's impairment analysis and the possible impact of changes thereof;

the construction and operation of the Dry Coal Separation System at the Company's Ovoot Tolgoi Mine;

the agreement with Ejin Jinda and the payments thereunder (as described under section Regulatory Issues and Contingencies of this press release under the heading entitled "Toll Wash Plant Agreement with Ejin Jinda");

the ability of the Company to enhance the operational efficiency and output throughput of the washing facilities at Ovoot Tolgoi;

the ability of the Company to enhance the product value by conducting coal processing and coal washing;

the impact of the Company's activities on the environment and actions taken for the purpose of mitigation of potential environmental impacts and planned focus on health, safety and environmental performance;

the future demand for coal in China;

future trends in the Chinese coal industry;

the Company's outlook and objectives for 2024 and beyond (as more particularly described under Outlook of this press release); and

other statements that are not historical facts.

Forward-looking information is based on certain factors and assumptions described below and elsewhere in this press release, including, among other things: the current mine plan for the Ovoot Tolgoi mine; mining, production, construction and exploration activities at the Company's mineral properties; the costs relating to anticipated capital expenditures; the capacity and future toll rate of the paved highway; plans for the progress of mining license application processes; mining methods; the Company's anticipated business activities, planned expenditures and corporate strategies; management's business outlook, including the outlook for 2024 and beyond; currency exchange rates; operating, labour and fuel costs; the ability of the Company to raise additional financing; the anticipated royalties payable under Mongolia's royalty regime; the ability of the Company to settle or appeal the tax penalty payable of $75.0 million imposed by the MTA and a provision of additional late tax penalty of $10.1 million; the future coal market conditions in China and the related impact on the Company's margins and liquidity; the anticipated demand for the Company's coal products; future coal prices, and the level of worldwide coal production. While the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on the information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect. Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things: the uncertain nature of mining activities, actual capital and operating costs exceeding management's estimates; variations in mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; the possible impacts of changes in mine life, useful life or depreciation rates on depreciation expenses; risks associated with, or changes to regulatory requirements (including environmental regulations) and the ability to obtain all necessary regulatory approvals; the potential expansion of the list of licenses published by the Government of Mongolia covering areas in which exploration and mining are purportedly prohibited on certain of the Company's mining licenses; the Government of Mongolia designating any one or more of the Company's mineral projects in Mongolia as a Mineral Deposit of Strategic Importance; the risk that the Company is unable to successfully settle or appeal the tax penalty payable of $75.0 million imposed by the MTA and a provision of additional late tax penalty of $10.1 million (as described under section "Significant Events and Highlights" of this press release under the heading entitled "Additional Tax and Tax Penalty Imposed by the MTA"); the risk that the import coal quality standards established by Chinese authorities will negatively impact the Company's operations; the risk that Mongolia's southern borders with China will be subject for further closure; the risk that the Company's existing coal inventories are unable to sufficiently satisfy expected sales demand; the possible impact of changes to the inputs to the valuation model used to value the embedded derivatives in the Convertible Debenture; the risk of the Company or its subsidiaries default under its existing debt obligations, including the Convertible Debenture, the 2024 March Deferral Agreement and the 2024 April Deferral Agreement; the impact of amendments to, or the application of, the laws of Mongolia, China and other countries in which the Company carries on business; modifications to existing practices so as to comply with any future permit conditions that may be imposed by regulators; delays in obtaining approvals and lease renewals; the risk of fluctuations in coal prices and changes in China and world economic conditions; the outcome of the Class Action (as described under section "Regulatory Issues and Contingencies" of this press release under the heading entitled "Lawsuit") and any damages payable by the Company as a result; the risk that the calculated sales price determined by the Company for the purposes of determining the amount of royalties payable to the Mongolian government is deemed as being "non-market" under Mongolian tax law; customer credit risk; cash flow and liquidity risks; risks relating to the Company's decision to suspend activities relating to the development of the Ceke Logistics Park project, including the risk that its investment partner may initiate legal action against the Company for failing to comply with the underlying agreements governing project development; risks relating to the ability of the Company to enhance the operational efficiency and the output throughput of the washing facilities at Ovoot Tolgoi and risks relating to the Company's ability to raise additional financing and to continue as a going concern. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of the Company's forward-looking statements.

Due to assumptions, risks and uncertainties, including the assumptions, risks and uncertainties identified above and elsewhere in this press release, actual events may differ materially from current expectations. The Company uses forward-looking statements because it believes such statements provide useful information with respect to the currently expected future operations and financial performance of the Company, and cautions readers that the information may not be appropriate for other purposes. Except as required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release; they should not rely upon this information as of any other date.

The English text of this press release shall prevail over the Chinese text in case of inconsistencies.

Neither the TSX-V nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: SouthGobi Resources Ltd.

View the original press release on accesswire.com
Phase 2a study to evaluate safety and immunogenicity of a booster dose of influenza vaccine candidate OVX836, three to five years after initial administration

Enrollment of over 150 participants anticipated in Belgium

Osivax, a biopharmaceutical company developing vaccines to provide broad-spectrum protection against highly mutating infectious viruses, today announced that the first participant has been vaccinated in a Phase 2a clinical trial (NCT06582277) evaluating OVX836, its broad-spectrum influenza vaccine candidate as a booster in participants previously administered with OVX836.

Based on the encouraging data gathered so far, Osivax launched this study to further assess the safety and immunogenicity of a booster dose of OVX836. The booster dose will be administered to participants who were vaccinated three to five years ago in earlier Osivax studies at the same clinical site. The study is taking place at the Center for Vaccinology (CEVAC) at Ghent University Hospital.

The topline results from the trial are expected by the end of 2025.

"We are pleased to support the ongoing evaluation of OVX836 through this Phase 2a influenza booster study," commented Prof. Isabel Leroux-Roels, Principal Investigator at CEVAC and Associate Professor at Ghent University. "We anticipate important insights that could significantly impact long-term influenza prevention."

"This milestone is a significant step forward in our mission to develop a truly broad-spectrum, lasting flu vaccine capable of addressing the ever-evolving threat of influenza. By studying the effects of a booster dose, we aim to deepen our understanding of OVX836's potential to provide robust and sustained immune protection," said Dr.Nicola Groth, CMO of Osivax. "Osivax is committed to leveraging innovative science to develop vaccines that protect individuals and help reduce the global healthcare burden associated with seasonal flu epidemics and potential pandemics."

The single-center trial is a randomized, double-blind, Phase 2a clinical study evaluating the immunogenicity and safety of one single dose of OVX836 administered intramuscularly (IM) at either 180g or 480g. The study includes healthy participants ages 20-64 who previously received OVX836 (180g to 480g), Influvac Tetra or placebo in the OVX836-002 (NCT04192500) and OVX836-003 (NCT05060887) studies.

About OVX836

OVX836 is a first-in-class influenza A vaccine candidate that targets the nucleoprotein (NP), a highly conserved internal antigen. Unlike surface antigens, the NP is much less likely to mutate, providing a broader and more universal immune response. Osivax' oligoDOM technology enables the design and production of a recombinant version of the NP which self-assembles into a nanoparticle, thus triggering powerful T- and B-cell immune responses. OVX836 has been tested in 5 clinical trials with 1,200 participants so far, and has shown promising safety, immunogenicity, and efficacy read-outs.

About Osivax

Osivax is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leveraging its novel, self-assembling nanoparticle platform technology, oligoDOMTM, to develop transformative, first-in-class pan-respiratory virus vaccines generating superior T-cell responses in addition to strong and sustained B-cell responses. The company is establishing proof of concept with its broad-spectrum "universal" influenza candidate, OVX836, which is currently in Phase 2 clinical trials with over 1,200 volunteers tested and encouraging efficacy proof of concept data. Osivax' ambition is to develop a pan-respiratory virus vaccine to prevent all strains of influenza and all variants of Covid-19 in one single shot. The company will expand into other infectious disease indications through combinations and collaborations worldwide.

For further information: www.osivax.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114473839/en/

Contacts:

Alexandre LE VERT, CEO

contact@osivax.com

+33 (0)9 70 30 13 80

For Media Inquiries

Trophic Communications

Desmond James or Valeria Fisher

osivax@trophic.eu

+49 (0) 151 678 59086 or +49 (0) 175 804 1816
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Alpha Exploration Ltd. (TSXV: ALEX) ("Alpha" or the "Company") announces initial drill results from its 7,868m drill program at the Aburna orogenic gold prospect within its 100% owned, 771 km Kerkasha Project located in Eritrea.

Aburna is a major, district scale orogenic gold project covering an area of at least 7km long and 2km wide and is one of three significant discoveries made by Alpha on the Kerkasha licence. Exploration to date by Alpha on the project has defined six primary areas of interest including the Hill 52 and Northeast prospects (see Figure 1, below).

Following a period of sample preparation delay, assays from 20 holes completed in July 2024 have now been received. Alpha is pleased to report initial assays received from both the Hill 52 and Northeast areas.

HIGHLIGHTS:

From Hill 52 Prospect: 29m @ 2.89 g/t gold (ABRD 142) 4m @ 7.12 g/t gold (ABD 024) 5m @ 4.3 g/t gold (ABD 025)

From the Northeast Prospect: 8m @ 2.35 g/t gold (ABR 171) 8m @ 3.77 g/t gold (ABR 169)

Mineralization at the Northeast Prospect is now extended to over 650m strike length

Drill samples from the second and third quarter of this year are now being successfully prepared for assay.

Hill 52 Prospect

Significant intervals from the recent drilling are shown in Table 2. Hole ABRD142 intersected 4m @ 10.00 g/t gold from a wider zone intersecting 29m@ 2.89 g/t gold with additional mineralized zones within the hole intersecting 1m @ 19.2 g/t gold and 1m @ 13 g/t gold. With a 40m offset, southeast of ABRD142, drillhole ABD024 intersected 4m @ 7.12 g/t gold from a wider zone of 18m @ 1.91 g/t gold and ABD025 intersected 5m @ 4.3 g/t gold from an offset of 40m southeast of ABD024. Gold mineralization seen in holes ABRD024 and ABRD025 is open to depth, and the Company plans to to deepen these holes (see cross-section Figure 2). Significantly, drillholes ABRD142, ABD024 and ABD025 are 80m, 130m & 170m respectively south-east from previous drillhole ABD012, reported earlier this year which intersected 18m @ 15.33 g/t gold and ABD013 (49m @ 2.75 g/t gold). This drilling now confirms and further defines this higher-grade gold zone.

Northeast Prospect

Significant intervals from the recent drilling are presented in Table 1. Additionally, the shear zone appears to be split into two sub parallel zones, with step-over structures presenting a broader zone with opportunities for higher-grade shoot mineralization in three areas along strike. This split in the shear zone may be associated with complex fold limb geometry similar to those seen at Abruna's main mineralized zone at Hill 52 and Central Prospects, approximately 1km to the southwest.

Recent drilling has successfully extended the primary mineralized shear structure over at least 650m of strike length which is open in both directions and down dip. Assay results received include 8m @ 2.35 g/t gold from drillhole ABR 171 and 8m @ 3.77 g/t gold from drillhole ABR 169.

Michael Hopley, Alpha President & CEO said, "We are pleased to report the receipt of our first batches of sample assay results from drilling completed in the second and third quarter of this year, following a delay in receiving assays due to equipment issues with our local independent sample preparation laboratory.

We are particularly happy to see further definition of the wide, high-grade core zone at Hill 52 which we reported on in March this year and where these new results including 29m @ 2.89 g/t gold 4m @ 7.12 g/t gold and 5m @ 4.3 g/t gold further underline the potential of this prospect.

At the Northeast Prospect, results including 8m @ 3.77 g/t gold and 8m @ 2.35 g/t gold have extended the interpreted gold mineralized zone to at least 650m of strike length. We look forward to reporting further results as they become available."

Figure 1: Map of Aburna with main prospects defined and drilling completed to date



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8361/229934_b307cf2c64773888_001full.jpg

Receipt of assay resumption following laboratory delay

In June 2024, Alpha announced results from six initial drillholes in the Central Prospect in Aburna. Thereafter, following an equipment failure at the processing facilities in Asmara, owned and operated by an independent company, a significant delay was experienced in the processing of over 7,800 samples from this drill program. Alpha is pleased to report that following substantial maintenance and improvements at the sample preparation facilities, including the installation of new crushing equipment, the laboratory is now back up to full capacity and assays are now being regularly received from the drill program.

Figure 2: Cross section (Hill 52 Prospect) showing high grade core of mineralization defined to date



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8361/229934_b307cf2c64773888_002full.jpg

Table 1: Significant Intervals for drillholes in Hill 52 Prospect

Drillhole

ID Significant Intervals From

(m) To

(m) Prospect ABD024 9m @ 0.73 g/t Au 130 139 Hill 52 plus 1m @ 1.6 g/t Au 145 146 plus 5m @ 1.01 g/t Au 150 155 plus 18m @ 1.91 g/t Au 158 176 including 4m @ 7.12 g/t Au 169 173 plus 1m @ 1.44 g/t Au 196 197 ABD025 5m @ 4.3 g/t Au 219 224 Hill 52 ABRD142 5m @ 0.19 g/t Au 75 80 Hill 52 plus 5m @ 0.38 g/t Au 83 88 plus 4m @ 0.25 g/t Au 92 95 plus 4m @ 0.84 g/t Au 108 112 plus 29m @ 2.89 g/t Au 135 164 including 1m @ 13.00 g/t Au 144 145 including 1m @ 19.2 g/t Au 149 150 including 4m @ 10.00 g/t Au 154 158

Significant intervals are determined to be >3m wide zones beginning and ending with 0.2 g/t Au or greater with internal dilution of no more than 2m. A narrower interval is also determined to be significant if over 1.0 g/t Au.

Figure 3: New drilling results at Northeast Prospect shown relative to existing drilling

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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Table 2: Significant Intervals for drillholes in Northeast Prospect

Drillhole

ID Significant Intervals From

(m) To

(m) Prospect ABR156 No significant Intervals ABR157 9m @0.54 g/t Au 114 123 Hill 52 South ABR158 No significant Intervals ABR159 14m @ 0.47 g/t Au 41 55 Abereta Shear plus 5m @ 0.74 g/t Au 69 74 ABR160 1m @ 2.1 g/t Au 137 138 Dasarna ABR161 3m @ 1.27 g/t Au 46 48 Northeast ABR162 3m @ 0.93 g/t Au 121 124 Northeast plus 9m @ 0.33 g/t Au 136 145 plus 5m @ 0.41 g/t Au 148 153 plus 7m @ 0.70 g/t Au 169 176 including 3m @ 1.29 g/t Au 173 176 ABR163 5m @ 0.85 g/t Au 5 10 Northeast including 2m @ 1.62 g/t Au 6 8 plus 3m @ 0.34 g/t Au 54 57 plus 6m @ 1.09 g/t Au 131 137 including 1m @ 4.7 g/t Au 131 132 plus 8m @ 1.00 g/t Au 140 148 including 1m @ 2.66 g/t Au 141 143 plus 2m @ 1.39 g/t Au 158 160 ABR164 1m @ 1.96 g/t Au 25 26 Northeast plus 5m @ 0.35 g/t Au 47 52 plus 4m @ 0.24 g/t Au 57 61 plus 7m @ 1.02 g/t Au 102 109 including 1m @ 4.76 g/t Au 102 103 ABR165 3m @ 0.75 g/t Au 89 92 Northeast plus 2m @ 2.40 g/t Au 118 120 plus 9m @ 0.72 g/t Au 131 140 ABR166 13m @ 0.45 g/t Au 80 93 Northeast plus 3m @ 0.40 g/t Au 99 102 plus 3m @ 0.36 g/t Au 117 120 plus 3m @ 2.59 g/t Au 124 127 ABR167 No significant Intervals ABR168 9m @ 0.88 g/t Au 54 63 including 3m @ 2.10 g/t Au 54 57 ABR169 2m @ 3.08 g/t Au 9 11 Northeast plus 8m @ 0.44 g/t Au 37 45 plus 8m @ 3.77 g/t Au 48 56 ABR170 16m @ 0.05 g/t Au 39 55 Northeast including 2m @ 2.17 g/t Au 51 53 plus 15m @ 0.25 g/t Au 59 74 plus 3m @ 0.36 g/t Au 81 84 plus 6m @ 0.32 g/t Au 87 93 ABR171 8m @ 2.35 g/t Au 114 122 Northeast including 2m @ 7.59 g/t Au 116 118 ABR172 8m @ 2.00 g/t Au 69 77 Northeast including 2m @ 6.33 g/t Au 73 75 plus 2m @ 0.88 g/t Au 138 140 plus 2m @ 2.47 g/t Au 148 150

Significant intervals are determined to be >3m wide zones beginning and ending with 0.2 g/t Au or greater with internal dilution of no more than 2m. A narrower interval is also determined to be significant if over 1.0 g/t Au.

Aburna - Controls of gold mineralization

Initial interpretation by Alpha suggested that Hill 52, Central Area and Northeast Prospects were likely part of the same mineralized system creating an overall target area of at least 2km in cumulative strike and separated by a major N-S regional fault that appears to have laterally offset mineralization. Recent ore genesis modelling, with guidance from renowned orogenic gold specialist, Dr Jon Hronsky, has confirmed that Hill 52 and Central Prospects are likely part of a single, large mineralized system (>1km strike length).

Dr Hronsky's analysis also suggests that this area represents an antiformal culmination that is possibly part of a larger saddle reef complex. The Northeast Prospect appears to be part of the same folded volcanoclastic lithology package, but lateral movement along the NNE regional structure is believed to have occurred prior to mineralization, leading to the development of separate mineralizing systems. The spatial relationship of the Central Aburna Antiform (CAA) and the mineralization at the Northeast Prospect is shown in Figure 4, below.

Figure 4: Surficial geology in the Aburna area showing the spatial relationship between the Hill 52, Central and Northeast Prospects with the mineralized area strike lengths.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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Sampling, Sub-sampling and Analysis

Alpha engaged an independent Consultancy, RSC Mining & Mineral Exploration (RSC) to develop a Standard Operating Procedure ("SOP") for both RC and DD drill samples in June 2021 and all samples in this release use this RSC SOP. The RSC SOP utilizes blank standards and industry standards that are inserted at the beginning and end of every batch (and every 20 samples within the batch) for all batches submitted to ALS for assay. Additionally, field replicates are taken at a frequency of approximately 1 in 5 (20%) through mineralized areas.

One-meter samples from both RC and DD drilling were crushed (to >90% passing 2.0 mm) and pulverised (to >85% passing 75 m). Two scoop samples were taken from the pulveriser bowl: approximately 130g for laboratory analysis and approximately 150g for portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) analysis. The coarse and pulp rejects were stored at Alpha's warehouse in Asmara. The Company inserted certified reference material from OREAS (www.ore.com.au) into the sample stream, while Nabro sample preparation facility inserted barren granodiorite material into the sample stream as a blank. Samples were shipped to ALS Geochemistry (ALS), Loughrea, Ireland, for analysis. ALS analysed all drill samples for gold by method Au-AA26 (50 g charge fire assay, AAS finish). ALS is independent of the Company and its quality management systems framework is accredited to ISO/IEC 17025:2005 or certified to ISO 9001:2015 standards.

Note: Anomalous gold values were returned in some "blank" rock samples inserted by Alpha into the sample stream in drillholes ABR046, ANR046, ABR171 and ABR172. Alpha will reanalyse representative samples from these drillholes from coarse reject material with sample preparation and analysis at ALS, Loughrea, and will report if there is a statistically significant bias compared to the original results.

About Alpha

Alpha (TSXV: ALEX) is an exploration company that is rapidly advancing a number of important gold and base metal discoveries across its 100% owned, large (771 km2) Kerkasha Project in Eritrea.

The Aburna Gold Prospect is an exciting new gold discovery where recent drilling has confirmed a high-grade mineralised system, with grades including 18m @ 15.33 g/t Au, 16 m @ 14.07 g/t Au, 9 m @ 10 g/t Au and 23 m @ 6.74 g/t Au.

The Anagulu Gold-Copper Prospect includes recent drilling intersections of 108 m @ 1.24 g/t Au and 0.60% Cu and 49 m @ 2.42 g/t Au and 1.10% Cu within a porphyry unit mapped over at a >2 km strike length.

The Company is also advancing exploration of the Tolegimja volcanogenic massive sulphide copper-zinc-gold prospect and over 17 other gold and base metal occurrences since listing in 2021.

The Company is managed by a group of highly experienced and successful mining professionals with long track records of establishing, building and successfully exiting a number of world class gold and base metal discoveries in Eritrea and across the wider Arabian Nubian Shield.

For further information go to the Alpha webpage at www.alpha-exploration.com or contact:

Qualified Person

All scientific and technical information in this press release, including the results of the Aburna drill program and how these results relate to the ongoing exploration at the Kerkasha Project has been reviewed, verified, and approved by Michael Hopley, President, Chief Executive Officer of Alpha and a "qualified person" for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Cautionary Notes

This press release is intended for distribution in Canada only and is not intended for distribution to United States newswire services or dissemination in the United States.

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements and information herein, including all statements that are not historical facts, contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements or information include but are not limited to statements or information with respect to future dataset interpretations, sampling, plans for its projects (including the Anagulu prospect), surveys related to Alpha's assets, and the Company's drilling program. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements or information can be identified by the use of words such as "estimate", "project", "belief", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "plan", "predict", "may" or "should" and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. With respect to forward-looking statements and information contained herein, Alpha has made numerous assumptions including among other things, assumptions about general business and economic conditions and the price of gold and other minerals. The foregoing list of assumptions is not exhaustive.

Although management of Alpha believes that the assumptions made and the expectations represented by such statements or information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that forward-looking statements or information herein will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking statements and information by their nature are based on assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. These factors include, but are not limited to: risks relating to Alpha's financing efforts; risks associated with the business of Alpha given its limited operating history; business and economic conditions in the mining industry generally; the supply and demand for labour and other project inputs; changes in commodity prices; changes in interest and currency exchange rates; risks relating to inaccurate geological and engineering assumptions (including with respect to the tonnage, grade and recoverability of reserves and resources); risks relating to unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications or expectations, cost escalation, unavailability of 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 adverse weather conditions; political risk and social unrest; changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets; changes in laws (including regulations respecting mining concessions); risks related to the direct and indirect impact of COVID-19 including, but not limited to, its impact on general economic conditions, the ability to obtain financing as required, and causing potential delays to exploration activities; those factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Final Prospectus; and other risk factors as detailed from time to time. Alpha does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229934

SOURCE: Alpha Exploration Ltd.
Including Two Gold Honors for Measurement Innovation

CAMBRIDGE, MA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Fullintel , an industry leader in media monitoring, analytics, and intelligence, is thrilled to announce a resounding victory at the 2024 AMEC Global Communication Effectiveness Awards , where the company clinched a remarkable seven awards across six categories. Fullintel's achievements include two Gold, four Silver, and one Bronze award, solidifying its position as an industry leader in innovative media measurement solutions.

"We are thrilled for our customers and the industry that research-backed measurement approaches are being recognized for the value they deliver to enterprises," said Angela Dwyer , Fullintel's Head of Insights. "When we step past vanity metrics and start to measure how communications can influence audiences, as opposed to whether those audiences exist in the first place, we learn more about how to make positive impacts for brands."

Among the prestigious accolades, Fullintel was recognized with Gold awards for both Best Use of New Technology in Communications Measurement and the Step Change Award for the most impactful improvement in a measurement journey. The award-winning entries reflect Fullintel's ongoing commitment to integrating advanced technology and predictive media metrics to deliver meaningful, actionable insights for clients across diverse sectors.

2024 AMEC Award Wins:

Best Use of New Technology in Communications Measurement Gold: Fullintel & Global Medical Devices Company - Innovative Metrics in Action: How Fullintel's Tech-Driven Approach Enhanced Global Medical Devices Company's Media Measurement Silver: Fullintel & Global Healthcare Company - Transforming Measurement: Journey to Predictive Media Excellence Bronze: Fullintel & Global Streaming Service - Streaming Success: A Global Streamer's Leap in Media Measurement

Step Change Award Gold: Fullintel & Global Pharmaceutical Company - A New Era of Measurement: The Global Pharmaceutical Company Transformation Journey

Best Crisis Communications Measurement and Reporting Silver: Fullintel & Horizon Health Network - Mastering Crisis Management: Advanced Media Analytics for Horizon Health Network

Best Multi-Market Reporting Silver: Fullintel & Global Healthcare Company - Global Impact: Advanced Media Metrics Driving Multi-Market Success

Best Use of a Measurement Framework Silver: Fullintel & Global Pharmaceutical Company - Precision in Action: Fullintel's Advanced Measurement Framework for Global Pharmaceutical Company



These achievements showcase Fullintel's unique capabilities in media measurement and commitment to delivering value through its AI-powered and human-curated approach.

A Proud Moment for Fullintel

In response to the announcement, Fullintel's President and Co-Founder, Andrew Koeck , expressed his excitement over the company's success:

"Winning seven AMEC Awards, including two Gold, is a testament to our team's dedication to transforming media measurement and pushing the boundaries of what's possible with technology and insight-driven analytics. Each of these awards reflects the hard work, innovation, and strategic thinking that our team puts into delivering unparalleled value for our clients. This recognition fuels our commitment to remain at the forefront of the industry and inspires us to continue developing pioneering solutions for media analysis."

About Fullintel

Fullintel provides top-tier media monitoring, daily news briefs, and comprehensive media analysis services that blend proprietary AI technology with expert human curation. This unique approach ensures that Fullintel's clients receive highly actionable insights from print, online, social media, broadcast, and influencer data tailored to meet their specific needs. Fullintel has offices in Cambridge, MA; Ottawa, ON; and Nagercoil, India.

Media Contact:

Angus Nguyen, Director of Marketing

Email: anguyen@fullintel.com

Twitter: Fullintel

Facebook: Fullintel

LinkedIn: Fullintel

SOURCE: Fullintel, LLC

View the original press release on accesswire.com
Oakville, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - FendX Technologies Inc. (CSE: FNDX) (OTCQB: FDXTF) (FSE: E8D) (the "Company" or "FendX") a nanotechnology company developing surface protection coatings, is pleased to announce that its United States ("US") patent application was registered as a granted patent on October 8, 2024, further supporting the Company's commitment to build on its intellectual property position and coverage for the Company's nanotechnology, its methods and products in development.

Dr. Carolyn Myers, CEO of FendX states, "The US patent represents a significant milestone for us that excludes others from making, using, or selling the innovation that protects our REPELWRAP film in the US. We are pleased to receive the final documentation which confirms the issuance, particularly given we recently completed pilot manufacturing runs with Dunmore for REPELWRAP film and are preparing for real-world beta testing."

The US patent number 12,109,586, registered as a patent on October 8, 2024, is titled "Omniphobic Surfaces with Hierarchical Structures, and Methods of Making and Uses Thereof", which was licensed exclusively by FendX from McMaster University, relates to the making of a repellent surface that has been shown in the lab to reduce contamination on surfaces by significantly reducing bacteria and virus adhesion and transmission.

About FendX Technologies Inc.

FendX is a Canada-based nanotechnology company focused on developing products to make people's lives safer by reducing the spread of pathogens. The Company is developing both film and spray products to protect surfaces from contamination. The lead product under development, REPELWRAP film, is a protective surface coating film that, due to its repelling properties, prevents the adhesion of pathogens and reduces their transmission on surfaces prone to contamination. The spray nanotechnology is a bifunctional spray coating being developed to reduce contamination on surfaces by repelling and killing pathogens. The Company is conducting research and development activities using its nanotechnology in collaboration with industry-leading partners, including McMaster University. The Company has exclusive worldwide licenses to its technology and IP portfolio from McMaster, which encompass both film and spray coating nanotechnology formulations.

About Dunmore International Corp.

Dunmore International Corp. ("Dunmore"), a Steel Partners Holdings L.P. (NYSE: SPLP) operating company. And is a global manufacturer of engineered coated and laminated films and foils with manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and Germany. Dunmore offers film conversion services such as coating, metallizing, and laminating along with contract film manufacturing and custom film product development. Dunmore services a diverse group of industries including aircraft, spacecraft, photovoltaic, graphic arts & labels, packaging, and insulation. Dunmore is a subsidiary of Steel Partners and is ISO 9001:2015 and OSHA VPP Star certified.

ON BEHALF OF THE COMPANY

"Carolyn Myers"

Carolyn Myers

Chief Executive Officer and Director

For more information, please visit https://fendxtech.com/ and the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor the Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, including with respect to: the plans of the Company; statements regarding further building the Company's intellectual property portfolio and coverage for the Company's nanotechnology, its methods and products in development; statements regarding patent protection; statements regarding preparing for real-world beta testing; and statements regarding research and development activities, products under development, and any pathogen reduction benefits related thereto. 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 statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "potential," "goal," "objective," "prospective," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and involve several risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and that actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.

Important factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include: product candidates only being in formulation/reformulation stages; limited operating history; research and development activities; dependence on collaborative partners, licensors and others; effect of general economic and political conditions; and other risk factors set forth in the Company's public filings which are available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. Accordingly, the reader is urged to refer to the Company's such filings for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors should change.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229842

SOURCE: FendX Technologies Inc.
Syngenta, McDonald's and Lopez Foods announce collaboration aimed at helping to reduce certain environmental impacts during beef production.

McDonald's USA, one of the largest fast food restaurant chains, Lopez Foods, a multi-protein producer and long-term supplier to McDonald's, and Syngenta North America, a leader in agricultural technology, today announced a collaboration that aims to increase feed efficiency and help reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released per pound of meat produced, as part of efforts to improve the sustainability of beef production.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114754025/en/

McDonald's USA, Syngenta and Lopez Foods collaborate to help produce beef more sustainably in the US

Enogen corn is an in-seed innovation available exclusively from Syngenta, that has been shown to increase feed efficiency in cattle and thereby help reduce emissions intensity compared to other corn.

"At Syngenta, we're convinced improving the sustainability of the global food system can be accelerated through innovation and collaboration," said Justin Wolfe, President of Syngenta Seeds. "We're proud of the great attributes of our Enogen corn, and how our work can help enable McDonald's and their beef supply chain to deliver impact."

Ambitious climate commitments mean that companies like McDonald's and Lopez Foods may need to invest in climate-smart technologies like Enogen corn. "McDonald's is starting with a priority ingredient for our company beef," said Kendra Levine, Director of US Sustainability for McDonald's. "We believe the innovative collaboration with Syngenta is an opportunity to help us make progress toward our science-based climate targets."

Enogen corn, used for both grain and silage, contains a robust alpha amylase enzyme that quickly converts starch to usable sugars, delivering more available energy to cattle while being easily digestible. Increased digestibility of Enogen corn can result in increased feed efficiency, which is widely recognized as an important approach to helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions in livestock production systems1.

University research has shown that feeding Enogen as silage or grain can improve feed efficiency by about 5%.2 Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) shows potential for environmental savings resulting from this increased efficiency, including lower emissions of greenhouse gases and lower use of land, energy, and water per unit of production.3 Specific findings show that, per 1,000 head of beef cattle, this collaboration could potentially achieve annual savings of4

196 tons (178 metric tons) CO2e in GHG reduction

69 acre reduction (28 hectare) in land use for growing feed

6 million fewer gallons (22 million liters) of water used

231 thousand kilowatt-hours energy savings

McDonald's plans to scale this program to help deliver over 164,000 metric tons CO2e per year.

According to Wolfe, sustainability is fully embedded in the global business strategy of Syngenta, with clear targets and an ambition that guides the company's innovation, including advancements in Seed technology like Enogen. Syngenta sustainability priorities include achieving higher yields with lower impact, regenerating soil and nature, improving rural prosperity, and establishing sustainable operations. Collaborations like these will drive impact and change at scale.

1Min et al. Animals 2022, 12, 948. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12080948; Waite, R, and J. Zionts. WRI 2022, 7 Opportunities to Reduce Emissions from Beef Production. https://www.wri.org/insights/opportunities-reduce-emissions-beef-production#

2 University of Nebraska-Lincoln Research Studies, 2013-2017; Kansas State University Research Study, 2017; Pennsylvania State University, 2019

3Based on LCA conducted by the University of Arkansas Resiliency Center for 1000 head, backgrounding through feed yard (Matlock et al. Analysis of Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Using EnogenCorn in Beef Cattle Rations. Animals 2021, 11, 2916. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11102916) using these experimental data and resources: Transl. Anim. Sci., 2019, 3, 504-512, https://doi.org/10.1093/tas/txy121 (Exp 2); Transl. Anim. Sci., 2022, 6, 1-13 https://doi.org/10.1093/tas/txac013 (Exp 1); https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator; and https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/units-and-calculators/energy-conversion-calculators.php

4 The claims presented in this media release are Syngenta's and were not independently verified by McDonald's.

Web Resources: Syngenta Media Library

About Syngenta

Syngenta is a global leader in agricultural innovation with a presence in more than 100 countries. Syngenta is focused on developing technologies and farming practices that empower farmers, so they can make the transformation required to feed the world's population while preserving our planet. Its bold scientific discoveries deliver better benefits for farmers and society on a bigger scale than ever before. Guided by its Sustainability Priorities, Syngenta is developing new technologies and solutions that support farmers to grow healthier plants in healthier soil with a higher yield. Syngenta Crop Protection is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland; Syngenta Seeds is headquartered in the United States. Follow Syngenta on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/company/syngenta), X (www.x.com/Syngenta) Instagram.

To find out more about how our innovation is empowering farmers around the world, read our articles on the Stories section of our Syngenta website.

About McDonald's

McDonald's is the world's leading global foodservice retailer with over 40,000 locations in over 100 countries. Approximately 95% of McDonald's restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local business owners.

About Lopez Foods

As one of the nation's leading protein-processing companies, Lopez Dorada supplies beef, pork, and poultry products to some of the largest global restaurant chains and retailers. Proudly Hispanic-owned and with a rich history of excellence, we are committed to providing safe, high-quality products and doing things right the first time. We champion our diverse team and place strong emphasis on trust, workplace safety, and community outreach.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This document may contain forward-looking statements, which can be identified by terminology such as 'expect', 'would', 'will', 'potential', 'plans', 'prospects', 'estimated', 'aiming', 'on track' and similar expressions. Such statements may be subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from these statements. For Syngenta, such risks and uncertainties include risks relating to legal proceedings, regulatory approvals, new product development, increasing competition, customer credit risk, general economic and market conditions, compliance and remediation, intellectual property rights, implementation of organizational changes, impairment of intangible assets, consumer perceptions of genetically modified crops and organisms or crop protection chemicals, climatic variations, fluctuations in exchange rates and/or commodity prices, single source supply arrangements, political uncertainty, natural disasters, and breaches of data security or other disruptions of information technology. Syngenta assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changed assumptions or other factors.

2024 Syngenta. Rosentalstrasse 67, 4058 Basel, Switzerland. Enogenand the Syngenta logo are trademarks of a Syngenta Group Company. McDonald's is a trademark of McDonald's Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective third-party owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114754025/en/

Contacts:

Syngenta Media Relations

media@syngentagroup.com

McDonald's USA Contact

press@us.mcd.com

Lopez Foods Contact

breck.ferrell@lopezdorada.com
BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - Saturday, President Joe Biden will meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Peruvian capital Lima.Announcing this at a news conference, a senior administration official said the White House has been working towards this meeting since National Security Advisor Sullivan visited Beijing in late August.This will be the third in-person meeting between the two leaders since President Biden assumed office, and most probably their last meeting as presidents. They previously met in Bali, in 2022, on the margins of the G20, and at Woodside, in 2023, on the margins of APEC.'The President will use the opportunity to take stock of efforts to responsibly manage competition over the last four years, how the two countries have advanced areas of shared interest, and, even amidst deep differences and intense competition, have worked to do so,' the official told reporters.The United Sates and China made progress in a number of areas since the Woodside Summit last year. Over the last year, the two sides have resumed military-to-military communications at all levels. At the senior level, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Brown, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and the INDOPACOM commander have met or had telephone calls with their Chinese counterparts.Biden will continue to emphasize the importance of maintaining military-to-military communications at all times and especially during times of heightened tension, according to the official.The U.S. and China also restarted the Defense Policy Coordination Talks in January. And for the first time this year, both sides pre-notified their respective Inter Continental Ballistic Missile launches.The outgoing U.S. President intends to use this meeting to discuss areas of difference and how to manage those differences in the period ahead.Biden will express deep concern over China's support for Russia's war against Ukraine, as well as the deployment of more than 10,000 North Korean troops to Russia, where they have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces.Biden is expected to underscore the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and express his concerns that China's increased military activities around Taiwan are destabilizing and eroding the status quo.Biden will also emphasize on his longstanding concern with Beijing's unfair trade policies and non-market economic practices, which have over time created an unlevel playing field for American workers.Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights ReservedCopyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
GRONO, Switzerland, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- By expanding its expertise and integrating several complementary competencies through both organic growth as well as mergers and acquisitions over the last few years, Pini Group has undergone a significant evolution, transforming into a new entity. This growth and diversification have turned the group into a resource for a wide range of engineering and design specialties. Such a substantial change calls for a new name that accurately reflects this evolution:

ARX

The name change will impact all 25 countries in which ARX is present, beginning in 2025.

As a global community of talent, ARX represents the best of the old and the new. Each contributing entity brings decades of industry leadership and innovation to the table. The gathering of expertise under one roof enhances the entire group's capabilities and potential. From complex engineering to sustainable infrastructure and futuristic design, ARX now pushes the envelope of what is possible in many areas.

While leveraging a wider skillset, ARX maintains its reputation and the values of its founding entities. This new enterprise maintains its Swiss roots and commitments to sustainability and is poised to enter the top 100 of the ENR Top 225 International Design Firms this year.

This transition is already underway, although it will officially begin on 1 January with the 2025 fiscal year. To allow all legal entities in the 25 countries to make the necessary adjustments, the changeover phase will extend over 12 months.

Andrea Galli, Group CEO - Swiss EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2024: "This development reflects our ability to do more. At ARX, we are eager to showcase our varied specialties, proving our versatility while displaying the strength of our tributary companies. Our agile task force operates on a global scale with thousands of colleagues worldwide. We are transforming communities one at a time, remaining focused on our mission: make it happen."

Roberto Gerosa, Chairman: "We are a comprehensive network of experts in selected engineering and design disciplines, expanding as we integrate talent and expertise. Tackling complex design projects, ARX adapts and evolves with the dynamic and challenging global landscape. Our team dives deep into niche technical challenges while overseeing broad, multidisciplinary projects. This versatility allows us to confront any challenge - from the precise to the expansive, from the local to the global - with confidence."

Please join us in celebrating ARX's evolution; watch what this network of smart minds can do.

The name ARX:

The name ARX may call to mind an arc-a curved line connecting cities on a map, and also connecting our branches in a powerful network of experts. It also suggests an arch-an elegant structure providing strength and beauty that reflects Swiss values of concreteness and stability. It may even reference an ark-the strongest of vessels for the greatest of challenges, driving us through the five continents where we are present. ARX leans into all of these metaphors!

Facts about ARX

Headquarters: ARX, c/o Pini Group Holding SA, Via Cantonale 109, 6537 Grono, Switzerland

Countries: Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Nepal, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkiye, United Arab Emirates, USA.

Number HC: 1,500+

Number of offices: 56

Areas of expertise: Infrastructure, City, Energy, Industry

Domains: Airports, Bridges & other Structures, Buildings - architecture, Buildings - civil engineering, Cableways, Digital & Innovation, Environment, Equipment, Geology, Geotechnics & Special foundations, Hydropower, Metros, Nuclear plants, Oil & Gas, Pipelines & Networks, Ports / Maritime works, Railways, River engineering, Roads, Traffic & Mobility, Tunnel & Underground, Water / Wastewater treatment

Board of Directors: Roberto Gerosa (Chairman), Daniele Stocker (Vice-Chairman), Fiona Trachsel (member), Andrea Galli (CEO)

Group Management: Andrea Galli (CEO), Aymen Cheikh Mhamed (COO), Edda Rettinger (CHRO), Davide Merlini (CTO and CRO Nordics), Cristina Pagani (CRO Central Europe), Andrea Polli (CRO Southern Europe), Roberto Schuerch (CRO North America)

Contact:



ARX c/o Pini Group Holding SA, Via Cantonale 109, 6537 Grono, Switzerland

arx.ing

info@arx.ing

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SEOUL, South Korea, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Nota AI, a leader in hardware-aware AI optimization and on-device AI solutions, has taken a significant step toward establishing its presence in the Middle East by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Alliance Traffic Systems (ATS). This strategic partnership aims to bring Nota AI's cutting-edge Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) solutions to the region, aligning with its broader vision of expanding technological impact across the Middle East.

Alliance Traffic Systems, a key player in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, holds particular influence in the UAE's traffic enforcement infrastructure sector. Since 2008, ATS has managed major traffic projects in Abu Dhabi Emirate, solidifying its role as a leader in providing total traffic management solutions. This extensive track record makes ATS an invaluable partner as Nota AI launches into the Middle Eastern market. Leveraging ATS's established network, Nota AI will initiate a Proof of Concept (PoC) project with Dubai's Road and Transport Authority (RTA), deploying its generative AI and Vision Language Model (VLM)-based ITS solutions. This project will demonstrate Nota AI's on-device AI capabilities, setting the stage for solutions to urban mobility challenges across the Middle East.

The PoC project's core ITS solution integrates Vision Language Model (VLM) and multimodal capabilities to process diverse data sources, enabling precise traffic analysis. Powered by Nota AI's optimized on-device AI technology, this advanced traffic analysis solution can be deployed efficiently across various traffic-related devices, promising substantial improvements in traffic management and bringing meaningful changes to regional conditions in the Middle East.

Myungsu Chae, CEO of Nota AI, remarked, "This PoC project offers a unique opportunity to validate our VLM-based on-device AI solution, delivering real-time traffic analysis in the Middle East. It marks an important milestone in showcasing our global technological and business potential." Mohammad Al Abbadi, CEO of ATS, added, "This MoU aims to leverage Nota AI's on-device AI technology to reduce traffic congestion across the Middle East, offering a cost-effective solution for road management."

Nota AI's steady expansion in the Middle East has included recent participation in high-profile events such as Expand North Star 2024 and the ITS World Congress 2024. With its strategic partnership with ATS, Nota AI has secured a strong entry point into the Middle Eastern market, drawing on ATS's extensive expertise in traffic management and infrastructure. This collaboration allows Nota AI to deliver tailored solutions that address the region's unique transportation needs. Furthermore, through ATS's established networks with key authorities in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Nota AI is well-positioned to extend its reach across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, laying the foundation for sustainable, long-term growth.

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA & MUMBAI, Nov 14, 2024 - (ACN Newswire) - myBillBook, India's leading GST billing and accounting software by the neo-banking startup FloBiz, partnered with CleverTap, the all-in-one engagement platform, to boost engagement and revenues through highly-targeted, data-driven customer interactions. The collaboration aimed to nurture high-potential users and convert them into subscribers.myBillBook team recognized that several free trial users could offer higher lifetime value based on their attributes and platform usage. They sought a comprehensive solution to execute a lifecycle engagement strategy to spark relevant conversations with users at the right times. Harnessing CleverTap's advanced features, myBillBook orchestrated tailored, multi-channel messaging across WhatsApp, SMS, and in-app notifications, delivered at key user milestones. This approach enabled myBillBook to drive significantly higher volumes for their inside sales funnel, boosting revenues while ensuring a superior user experience.By leveraging CleverTap, myBillBook achieved:- 3x increase in the volume of high-intent "hand-raiser" users.- 35% boost in Inside Sales-driven revenue.- 15% reply rate on WhatsApp through personalized conversations.Snehal Samant, VP Growth, myBillBook, said - "As a company dedicated to empowering small businesses, we recognized the need for an integrated platform to enhance user engagement and optimize customer journeys. CleverTap has helped us transform our approach to user interactions, focusing on key micro-moments that drive meaningful engagement. With its powerful data visualization and automation capabilities, we've been able to personalize our outreach and optimize our engagement strategy. We are excited about the growth we are witnessing and remain committed to leveraging data-driven insights to enhance our offerings further."Abhishek Gupta, Chief Operating Officer, CleverTap, said - "At CleverTap, we're dedicated to empowering digital-first brands like myBillBook to create personalized, data-driven customer experiences that build loyalty and drive growth. By leveraging personalized messaging and analytics, myBillBook has transformed its engagement strategy, achieving remarkable results. This collaboration exemplifies the impact of understanding customers at each stage of their journey, and we're excited to continue supporting myBillBook as they innovate and elevate their business."About myBillBookmyBillbook is an all-in-one billing, inventory and accounting platform that helps Indian SMB owners to increase their business efficiency and profit margins. Founded in 2019, myBillbook's app, web and desktop platform is now used by more than 1 crore businesses. The easy, intuitive interface helps businesses to complete daily workflows like billing and reconciliation in seconds and also simplifies complex tasks like preparing and filing GST reports.About CleverTapCleverTap is the leading all-in-one customer engagement platform that helps brands unlock limitless customer lifetime value. CleverTap is trusted by over 2000 brands like Domino's, Levis, Jio, Papa John's, Zomato, Kotak Bank, Air Asia, Carousell, TD Bank, and Tesco to help build personalized experiences for all their customers. The platform is powered by TesseractDB - the world's first purpose-built database for customer engagement, offering speed and cost efficiency at scale.Backed by top-tier investors such as Accel, Peak XV Partners, Tiger Global, CDPQ and 360 One, the company is headquartered in San Francisco, with presence across Seattle, London, Sao Paulo, Bogota, Mexico, Amsterdam, Sofia, Dubai, Mumbai, Bangalore, Singapore, Vietnam, and Jakarta.For more information, visit clevertap.com or follow us on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clevertap/X: https://twitter.com/CleverTapForward-Looking StatementsSome of the statements in this press release may represent CleverTap's belief in connection with future events and may be forward-looking statements, or statements of future expectations based on currently available information. CleverTap cautions that such statements are naturally subject to risks and uncertainties that could result in the actual outcome being absolutely different from the results anticipated by the statements mentioned in the press release.Factors such as the development of general economic conditions affecting our business, future market conditions, our ability to maintain cost advantages, uncertainty with respect to earnings, corporate actions, client concentration, reduced demand, liability or damages in our service contracts, unusual catastrophic loss events, war, political instability, changes in government policies or laws, legal restrictions impacting our business, impact of pandemic, epidemic, any natural calamity and other factors that are naturally beyond our control, changes in the capital markets and other circumstances may cause the actual events or results to be materially different, from those anticipated by such statements. CleverTap does not make any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or updated or revised status of such statements. Therefore, in no case whatsoever will CleverTap and its affiliate companies be liable to anyone for any decision made or action taken in conjunction.For more information:SONY SHETTYDirector, Communications, CleverTap+91 9820900036sony@clevertap.comASHMIT CHAUDHARYAssociate Consultant, Archetype+91 8850752121ashmit.chaudhary@archetype.coSource: CleverTapCopyright 2024 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Providing access to a selection of ready-made chef-inspired meals for TSMC and TaiPower employees

NEW YORK, NY and TAIPEI, TAIWAN / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd. (OTC PINK:SUIC) SUIC's I.Hart has signed contracts with Taiwan TSMC and Taiwan Power Company to cater employee meals. I.Hart pursues and forges more strategic partnerships with U.S. restaurant professional consultants and restaurant suppliers to launch diverse cuisines and chef-inspired food lines and comprehensive restaurant supply lines nationwide.

Taiwan TSMC - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited

TSMC created the semiconductor Dedicated IC Foundry business model when it was founded in 1987. In 2023, TSMC served 528 customers and manufactured 11,895 products for various applications covering a variety of end markets including high performance computing, smartphones, the Internet of Things (IoT), automotive, and digital consumer electronics. Annual capacity of the manufacturing facilities managed by TSMC and its subsidiaries exceeded 16 million 12-inch equivalent wafers in 2023. TSMC employs approximately 80,000 employees globally and operates manufacturing facilities in Taiwan, China, Japan, Singapore, Arizona USA, Washington USA, and Germany.

Visit their website at https://www.tsmc.com/english/aboutTSMC

TaiPower - The Taiwan Power Company (TPC)

TaiPower is a state-owned electric power industry providing electricity to Taiwan and its off-shore islands. Taipower operates both of Taiwan's active nuclear power plants. It also operates coal power plants, but these are planned to be shut down in favor of natural gas turbines. TaiPower employs about 30,000 employees nationwide. Visit their website at https://www.taipower.com.tw/

"SUIC is the biggest investor, shareholder and major operating partner of Beneway USA. We are very pleased for our distinguished partner I.Hart Group to have reached agreements with Taiwan TSMC and TaiPower as we focus our forces on unlocking our ultimate value, revolutionizing contract catering services, and sustaining our recent momentum. Our digital consumption model for employees promotes health and wellness as they gain access to nutritious and diverse cuisines. At the same time, TSMC and TaiPower benefit from this practical solution for maximizing their workspace and multiplying employee satisfaction," said Hank Wang, CEO.

About SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd., USA

SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd. provides research and development, venture financing for and investing in private enterprises and the public sector that develop products and services adopting core capabilities of the Internet of Things, cloud computing, mobile payment, Big Data, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence, to enhance and streamline existing processes, and establish new and exciting business models that will create revolutionary products and services. Shareholders of SUIC will be exposed to the diverse application of advanced services in various parts of the economy. Additionally, existing and potential customers can benefit from this company's diversified portfolio of technologies. As one of the pioneering publicly traded technology companies, SUIC will help build tech-enabled businesses of the future. To learn more, please visit www.sinounitedco.com

Forward-Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "ongoing," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "will," "would," or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. However, not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at which such performance or results are achieved. This press release is considered considering all Company filings contained in the Edgar Archives of the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov.

Contact

SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd.

New Release Department

929-391-2550

SOURCE: SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd.

View the original press release on accesswire.com
Lead, South Dakota--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Dakota Gold Corp. (NYSE American: DC) ("Dakota Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce results from fifteen drill holes from the ongoing infill and step-out drill program to expand the maiden resource at the Richmond Hill Gold Project ("Richmond Hill"). The results from the drill program will be incorporated into an updated S-K 1300 Initial Assessment ("Initial Assessment or Report") in Q1 2025. The maiden S-K 1300 resource, which was announced on April 30, 2024 outlined an Indicated Resource of 51.83 million tonnes (Mt) at 0.80 grams per tonne gold (g/t Au) for 1.33 million ounces and Inferred Resource of 58.06 million tonnes (Mt) at 0.61 grams per tonne gold (g/t Au) for 1.13 million ounces.

Highlights:

The drill results reported in this release are from the northeast corner of the Richmond Hill resource area known as Chism Gulch, where there has been limited drill testing by the Company. Results to date show areas of mineralization higher in grade or consistent with the results reported in our maiden resource. These results are very encouraging as they further support our belief that the current resource has potential for significant expansion.



Highlighted intersections include: RH24C-100 intersected - 1.33 g/t Au over 11.7 meters RH24C-104 intersected - 1.03 g/t Au over 33.8 meters RH24C-106 intersected - 1.48 g/t Au over 38.1 meters RH24C-107 intersected - 1.67 g/t Au over 6.4 meters

The resource remains open in all directions and has potential for improvement with additional drilling, metallurgical work to improve recoveries, and incorporation of silver in the resource. We continue to have significant opportunities with infill, where the original resource block model contained gaps, as well as in step-out areas to expand the initial resource.

An updated S-K 1300 resource estimate is planned for Q1 2025 and an S-K 1300 Initial Assessment with Cash Flow is planned for Q2 2025. We expect to include an additional 88 new drill holes totaling 17,000 meters in the updated resource.

James Berry, VP of Exploration said, "We are very pleased that the results from our infill and step-out drill program continue to add ounces to our current S-K 1300 resource. It is particularly exciting to see that the resource area is already showing expansion at Chism Gulch where we have only just begun step-out drilling and have more results that we will be announcing as they are processed over the coming weeks. We look forward to continuing our drill program on the other zones identified in our Initial Assessment for follow up drilling."

Table 1. Released Drill Results (Metric / Imperial)1,2

Hole # From To Depth Interval* Gold From To Depth Interval* Gold Mineral Type g x m m m m m g/t ft ft ft ft oz/ton RH24C-089 9.1 16.2 9 7.0 0.70 30.0 53.0 30 23.0 0.020 Td / Tert 5 RH24C-090 No significant Results RH24C-091 3.0 14.5 2 11.4 0.54 10.0 47.5 5 37.5 0.016 Td 6

33.5 44.2 12 10.7 1.02 110.0 145.0 39 35.0 0.030 Tp 11 RH24C-092 No significant Results RH24C-093 No significant Results RH24C-094 0.0 8.5 0 8.5 0.59 0.0 28.0 0 28.0 0.017 Td 5

12.3 16.6 9 4.2 0.70 40.5 54.4 29 13.9 0.020 Td 3

19.8 24.2 14 4.4 0.51 65.0 79.5 46 14.5 0.015 Td 2

28.2 33.0 20 4.8 0.61 92.6 108.3 65 15.7 0.018 Td / Tp 3 RH24C-095 0.8 14.3 1 13.6 0.94 2.5 47.0 2 44.5 0.027 Td 13 RH24C-096 No significant Results RH24C-097 0.0 3.2 0 3.2 0.64 0.0 10.5 0 10.5 0.019 Td 2

7.2 11.0 5 3.8 0.98 23.7 36.2 17 12.5 0.029 Td 4 RH24C-098 39.0 41.6 28 2.6 0.64 128.0 136.5 91 8.5 0.019 Td / Tert 2

54.8 58.9 39 4.1 0.79 179.7 193.2 127 13.5 0.023 Td 3

65.3 68.1 46 2.8 1.29 214.3 223.4 152 9.1 0.038 Td 4

72.1 85.6 51 13.5 0.88 236.7 281.0 167 44.3 0.026 Td 12 RH24C-100 75.0 86.7 53 11.7 1.33 246.2 284.5 174 38.3 0.039 Td 15 RH24C-103 72.9 82.5 52 9.6 0.86 239.1 270.7 169 31.6 0.025 Td / Tp 8 RH24C-104 0.0 33.8 0 33.8 1.03 0.0 110.8 0 110.8 0.030 Td 35 RH24C-105 No significant Results RH24C-106 0.0 38.1 0 38.1 1.48 0.0 125.0 0 125.0 0.043 Td / Tert 56 RH24C-107 3.7 10.1 3 6.4 1.67 12.0 33.0 9 21.0 0.049 Td / Tert 11 RH24C-108 14.9 21.8 11 6.9 1.12 49.0 71.5 35 22.5 0.033 Td 8

28.0 36.6 20 8.6 0.89 91.9 120.0 65 28.1 0.026 Td 8

40.0 42.5 28 2.5 1.17 131.2 139.4 93 8.2 0.034 Tp 3 RH24C-109 0.0 13.5 0 13.5 0.95 0.0 44.2 0 44.2 0.028 Td 13 RH24C-111 0.0 12.1 0 12.1 0.88 0.0 39.6 0 39.6 0.026 Td 11

The table may contain rounding errors.

Abbreviations in the table include ounces per ton ("oz/ton"); grams per tonne ("g/t"); feet ("ft"); meter ("m"); Tertiary breccia hosted mineralization ("TBx"); Cambrian Deadwood Fm hosted Tertiary mineralization ("Td"); Tertiary intrusive hosted mineralization ("Tert"); and Precambrian hosted Tertiary mineralization ("Tp"). True thickness unknown.

Figure 1. Plan view of Dakota Gold Corp. Richmond Hill highlighted drill holes from drill program to update the S-K 1300 Initial Assessment.

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https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8218/229900_29319a6a94fa7ba4_002full.jpg

The infill and step-out drilling at the Richmond Hill Gold Project to update the S-K 1300 resource estimate is one of three ongoing drill programs being advanced by the Company - the other two being Homestake Mine-style gold mineralization in the JB Gold Zone and Tertiary epithermal gold mineralization in the Unionville Zone at Maitland. The Unionville Zone at Maitland is approximately 2,100 meters east of the Richmond Hill Gold Project, which also contains Tertiary mineralization.

About Dakota Gold Corp.

The Dakota Gold team is focused on new gold discoveries and opportunities that build on the legacy of the Homestake District and its 145 years of gold mining history.

Subscribe to Dakota Gold's e-mail list at www.dakotagoldcorp.com to receive the latest news and other Company updates.

Qualified Person and S-K 1300 Disclosure

James M. Berry, a Registered Member of SME and Vice President of Exploration of Dakota Gold Corp., is the Company's designated qualified person (as defined in Subpart 1300 of Regulation S-K) for this news release and has reviewed and approved its scientific and technical content.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control consists of regular insertion of certified reference materials, duplicate samples, and blanks into the sample stream. Samples are submitted to the ALS Geochemistry sample preparation facility in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Gold and multi-element analyses are performed at the ALS Geochemistry laboratory in Vancouver, British Columbia. ALS Minerals is an ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited lab. Check samples are submitted to Bureau Veritas, Vancouver B.C. as an umpire laboratory. Assay results are reviewed, and discrepancies are investigated prior to incorporation into the Company database.

Forward-Looking Statements

This communication contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. When used in this news release, the words "plan," "target," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "intend," "potential," "will" and "expect" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Any express or implied statements contained in this announcement that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements, including, without limitation: our expectations regarding the drilling to be completed in 2024 and 2025; our expectations for the improvement and growth of the mineral resources; the grade potential of the drilling completed after the effective date of the Initial Assessment; the timing for the updated S-K 1300 Initial Assessments to be released in 2025 or thereafter; and our overall expectation for the possibility of near-term production at the Richmond Hill project. These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and expectations that may not be realized and are inherently subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among others: the execution and timing of our planned exploration activities; our use and evaluation of historic data; our ability to achieve our strategic goals; the state of the economy and financial markets generally and the effect on our industry; and the market for our common stock. The foregoing list is not exhaustive. For additional information regarding factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in our forward-looking statements, we refer you to the risk factors included in Item 1A of the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, as updated by annual, quarterly and current reports that we file with the SEC, which are available at www.sec.gov. We caution investors not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this communication. These statements speak only as of the date of this communication, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise these statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law. We do not give any assurance that we will achieve our expectations.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229900

SOURCE: Dakota Gold Corp.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Cabral Gold Inc. (TSXV: CBR) (OTC Pink: CBGZF) ("Cabral" or the "Company") is pleased to announce trench results from the Jerimum Cima target and the identification of a fifth gold-in-oxide blanket within the Cuiu Cuiu Gold District, Brazil.

Highlights

Surface trench CT050 at the Jerimum Cima target at Cuiu Cuiu returned 18m @ 1.9 g/t gold including 1m @ 22.8 g/t gold in weathered gold-in-oxide blanket material at surface. The trench also returned results of 0.8m @ 47.6 g/t gold (which remains open), 3m @ 0.5 g/t gold, 2m @ 0.3 g/t gold, and 1m @ 2.4 g/t gold

These results, together with previous reconnaissance drilling, indicate the presence of a fifth gold-in-oxide blanket at Cuiu Cuiu which appears to extend over an area of 900 x 1000 metres. The other gold-in-oxide blankets with Inferred and Indicated resources are Central, MG, PDM and Machichie. Only the Indicated resources at Central and MG were included in the recently released pre-feasibility study

Previous reconnaissance drilling at the Jerimum Cima target, to the east of trench CT050 returned gold values of 14m @ 1.6 g/t gold, 20m @ 1.2 g/t gold, 10m @ 1.3 g/t gold and 24m @ 0.7 g/t gold in weathered gold-in-oxide blanket and saprolite material

Alan Carter, Cabral's President and CEO, commented, "The surface trench results from CT050 at the Jerimum Cima target confirm that we have a fifth gold-in-oxide blanket within the Cuiu Cuiu gold district. The results demonstrate the presence of extensive gold-in-oxide mineralization of excellent grade at Jerimum Cima. This is likely to have a very positive impact on the recent PFS study on a starter heap-leach operation which only considered mining gold-in-oxide material from the MG and Central gold deposits. The potential to upgrade Inferred material at both MG and Central and the likelihood of adding additional Indicated material with further material at the PDM and Machichie discoveries and now at Jerimum Cima, bode very well for growing the overall gold-in-oxide resource base. Furthermore, the presence of zones of higher-grade gold mineralization in the near surface saprolite to the east of the Jerimum Cima area that was previously targeted by the reconnaissance drilling, suggests that those zones of higher-grade mineralization may be more extensive than previously envisaged, with a high likelihood of extending into the underlying bedrock."

Brian Arkell, Cabral's VP Exploration and Technical Services said: "Jerimum Cima is actually one of four adjacent targets that we are exploring in the area where surface geochemistry and geophysics show high potential for discovery of near-surface gold-in-oxide mineralization. A large magnetic low in the Jerimum Cima area suggests extensive magnetite destruction in the intrusive host rocks which is one of the key indicators of alteration and mineralization at Cuiu Cuiu. In addition, much of the earlier scout drilling intercepted substantial zones of gold mineralization in both the weathered oxide layer and the underlying hard rock, including up to 45.6m @4.5 g/t gold in diamond drill hole CC-026 in hard rock east of Jerimum Cima. We are currently in the process of completing further surface exploration, including auger drilling plus additional trenching, and we are very eager to follow up with the next round of drilling."

Jerimum Cima Trench Results

As part of the current effort to increase the gold-in-oxide resource inventory at Cuiu Cuiu, the company is currently conducting a program of surface trenching and shallow RC drilling. Whilst this program aims at adding both Inferred and indicated resources of gold-in-oxide material, of particular importance is adding Indicated resources that can be included in the mine plan.

The Jerimum Cima target is located 3km ENE of the Central gold deposit and 3.5km NW of the MG gold deposit (Figure 1). The target is characterized by a very strong gold-in-soil anomaly of +100ppb gold covering an area of 900m x 1000m and is comparable with the gold-in-soil anomalies above the MG and Central gold deposits and the PDM and Machichie gold discoveries.

Figure 1 Map showing location of known gold-in-oxide blankets with resources; Central, MG, PDM and Machichie. The Jerimum Cima gold-in-oxide blanket is located approximately 3km ENE of the Central gold deposit and 3.5km NW of the MG gold deposit.

* Only Indicated resources at Central and MG were considered in the PFS released on 21st October 2024. The main exploration targets (yellow dots) and distribution of historic placer gold workings (pale yellow outlines) are also shown.

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3900/229933_480d0899c48b996e_002full.jpg

Previous reconnaissance drilling at Jerimum Cima returned 39m @ 5.1 g/t gold in hard intrusive rock material as well as a number of shallower, lower-grade gold intercepts in gold-in-oxide material which include 14m @ 1.6 g/t gold, 20m @ 1.2 g/t gold, 10m @ 1.3 g/t gold, and 24m @ 0.7 g/t gold (Figure 2). Previous drilling was mainly focused on identifying a hard-rock gold deposit.

The recently completed trench CT050 was oriented NW-SE in the western part of the Jerimum Cima target, immediately west of previous reconnaissance drilling (Figure 2). The trench returned several zones of gold-in-oxide mineralization including:

18m @ 1.9 g/t gold, including 1m @ 22.8 g/t gold

including 0.8m @ 47.6 g/t gold (open)

(open) 3m @ 0.5 g/t gold

2m @ 0.3 g/t gold

1m @ 2.4 g/t gold

All of the mineralized zones in CT050 remain open along strike and at depth. It is notable that all of the mineralized zones in CT050 are co-incident with a magnetic low. The correlation of gold mineralization with magnetite destruction in the host intrusive rocks is well established and is a feature of all of the known gold deposits at Cuiu Cuiu, as well as the recent discoveries. The magnetic low centered on Jerimum Cima is open to the NNE as well as to the south where exploration is in the early stages. Initial auger soil samples in this southern area are anomalous with gold values up to 100ppb.

A second magnetic low, likely the same alteration system, occurs 100m to 200m east of Jerimum Cima. Earlier scout drilling in this area returned results of 46m @ 4.5 g/t Au and 33m @ 0.72 g/t Au in diamond-drill holes.

Whilst additional trenching and drilling is needed at Jerimum Cima in order to define a maiden resource, management is confident that Jerimum Cima represents a fifth zone of substantial gold-in-oxide mineralization within the Cuiu Cuiu district. This is likely to have a number of positive implications, particularly on resource growth, as well as potential additions to the gold-in-oxide starter operation.

The presence of high grades within wider intervals of lower grade mineralization within the oxide material also occurs at MG and Central and the Machichie discovery. The results from Jerimum Cima are very similar and provide clues to the underlying hard rock potential.

Figure 2: Map showing the Jerimum Cima target with historic RC and diamond drill holes and recently completed trench CT050 which returned 18m @ 1.9 g/t gold including 1m @ 22.8 g/t gold west of previous reconnaissance drilling. The same trench also returned 0.8m @ 47.6 g/t gold at the eastern extremity of the trench. Background is Total Magnetic Intensity reduced to pole. Terms: g/t = grams / tonne, m = metres, Au = gold

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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About Cabral Gold Inc.

The Company is a junior resource company engaged in the identification, exploration, and development of mineral properties, with a primary focus on gold properties located in Brazil. The Company has a 100% interest in the Cuiu Cuiu gold district located in the Tapajos Region, within the state of Para in northern Brazil. Three main gold deposits have so far been defined at the Cuiu Cuiu project which contain National Instrument ("NI") 43-101 compliant Indicated resources of 12.29Mt @ 1.14 g/t gold (450,200oz) in fresh basement material and 11.11Mt @ 0.48 g/t gold (171,883oz) in oxide material. The project also contains Inferred resources of 13.63Mt @ 1.04 g/t gold (455,100oz) in fresh basement material and 12.22Mt @ 0.39 g/t gold (151,608oz) in oxide material. The resource estimate for the primary material is based on the NI 43-101 technical report dated 12th October 2022.The resource estimate for the oxide material is based on an NI 43-101 compliant estimate released on 21st October 2024 with an NI 43-101 compliant technical report expected to be filed within 45 days of the release date.

The Tapajos Gold Province is the site of the largest gold rush in Brazil's history which according to the ANM (Agencia Nacional de Mineracao or National Mining Agency of Brazil) produced an estimated 30 to 50 million ounces of placer gold between 1978 and 1995. Cuiu Cuiu was the largest area of placer gold workings in the Tapajos and produced an estimated 2Moz of placer gold historically.

Technical information included in this release was supervised and approved by Brian Arkell, B.S. Geology and M.S. Economic Geology, SME (Registered Member), AusIMM (Fellow) and SEG (Fellow), Cabral Gold's Vice President, Exploration and Technical Services, and a Qualified Person under NI 43-101.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as such term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities legislation (collectively "forward-looking statements"). The use of the words "will", "expected" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements should not be unduly relied upon. The Company believes the expectations reflected in those forward-looking statements are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct.

Notes

Gold analysis has been conducted by SGS method FAA505 (fire assay of 50g charge), with higher grade samples checked by FAA525. Analytical quality is monitored by certified references and blanks. Until dispatch, samples are stored under the supervision the Company's exploration office. The samples are couriered to the assay laboratory using a commercial contractor. Pulps are returned to the Company and archived. Drill holes results are quoted as down-hole length weighted intersections.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229933

SOURCE: Cabral Gold Inc.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A number of Houthi weapons storage facilities within Houthi-controlled territories in Yemen were destroyed in a series of precise airstrikes by U.S. forces.These facilities stored a variety of advanced conventional weapons used by the Iran-backed militants to target U.S. and international military and civilian vessels navigating international waters in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.The U.S. Central Command said its Air Force and Navy assets, including the F-35C war planes, took part in the operations. The F-35C is the first and world's only long-range stealth strike fighter jet.The Centcom said it carried out targeted operation in response to the Houthi's frequent attacks on international commercial shipping, as well as U.S., coalition, and merchant vessels in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden. It also aimed to degrade the Houthi's ability to threaten regional partners.Additionally, U.S. Navy destroyers USS Stockdale and USS Spruance, along with Air Force and Navy aircraft destroyed a range of Houthi-launched weapons while transiting the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. The Houthis launched eight one-way attack uncrewed aerial systems, five anti-ship ballistic missiles, and four anti-ship cruise missiles targeting the American ships and their personnel.No U.S. personnel were injured or equipment were damaged in the operations. 'These actions reflect the ongoing commitment of CENTCOM forces to protect U.S. personnel, regional partners, and international shipping, while maintaining security and stability in the region,' Centcom said in a press release.Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights ReservedCopyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Announces Strategic Initiatives to Return to Growth

Schedules Conference Call With Investors

https://www.capriholdings.com/StrategyPresentation

Capri Holdings Limited (NYSE:CPRI), a global fashion luxury group, today announced the mutual termination of its definitive merger agreement with Tapestry, Inc. Capri and Tapestry mutually agreed that terminating the merger agreement was in the best interests of both companies as the required closing condition of receiving necessary U.S. regulatory approvals was unlikely to be met by the merger agreement's outside date of February 10, 2025. The Company also announced its strategies to return to growth, which management will discuss on a call today at 11:00 a.m. ET. The Company will share more details of its strategies at an Investor Day in late February 2025.

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John D. Idol, the Company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, "With the termination of the merger agreement, we are now focusing on the future of Capri and our three iconic luxury houses. Looking ahead, I remain confident in Capri's long-term growth potential for numerous reasons. First, we have an incredible portfolio of luxury houses, each with their own rich heritage, exclusive DNA and strong consumer loyalty. Second, we have a solid distribution network to build upon. With over 1,200 directly operated luxury retail locations globally combined with our robust digital platform we have a strong framework for the future. Additionally, our extensive wholesale network serves as an important channel to reach consumers in areas where we do not have our own stores. Third, we have the management team, design talent and a global workforce of 15,000 employees to successfully execute our initiatives. Fourth, we have the financial strength to implement our strategies."

Mr. Idol concluded, "Given our Company's performance over the past 18 months, we have recently started to implement a number of strategic initiatives to return our luxury houses to growth. Across Versace, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors, we are focused on brand desirability through exciting communication, compelling product and omni-channel consumer experience. While our strategies are tailored uniquely for each brand, our overarching goals are similar."

Capri Strategy Update

Communication Strategy Engage and inspire both new and existing consumers

Product Strategy Create exciting fashion product that resonates with our consumers

Omni-channel Strategy Leverage digital capabilities to grow E-commerce Improve retail store sales densities

Wholesale Strategy Stabilize revenue by aligning product offering to better meet consumer preferences

Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy Build upon our corporate values with communities both internally and externally



Michael Kors Strategy Update

Communication Strategy Implement dynamic, new marketing plans that appeal to a broader consumer base Increase marketing investments

Product Strategy Focus on creating exciting fashion product with compelling value Rebuild core and Signature assortments Strategic pricing review across the assortment to drive higher full price sell-throughs

Omni-channel Strategy Leverage digital capabilities to grow E-commerce Improve retail store sales densities Anticipate the store fleet will be reduced to approximately 650 stores over time Renovate approximately 150 stores over the two years

Wholesale Strategy Stabilize revenue by aligning product offering to better meet consumer preferences



Versace Strategy Update

Communication Strategy Continue to leverage strong brand awareness to drive engagement

Product Strategy Inject more energy into the assortment to better balance fun and elegant Develop broader assortment to reengage with the aspirational luxury consumer Further develop accessories offering

Omni-channel Strategy Leverage digital capabilities to grow E-commerce Improve retail store sales densities Anticipate that store fleet will remain flat at approximately 230 stores

Wholesale Strategy Resume growth by aligning product offering to better meet consumer preferences



Jimmy Choo Strategy Update

Communication Strategy Continue to engage new and existing customers through effective campaigns and collaborations

Product Strategy Enhance assortment to appeal to aspirational luxury consumers Further develop accessories offering Expand casual footwear assortment

Omni-channel Strategy Leverage digital capabilities to grow E-commerce Improve retail store sales densities Anticipate that store fleet will remain flat at approximately 220 stores

Wholesale Strategy Stabilize revenue by aligning product offering to better meet consumer preferences



Conference Call Information

A conference call to discuss Capri Holdings strategic initiatives to return to growth is scheduled for today, November 14, 2024 at 11:00 a.m. ET. Those who wish to participate in the call may do so by dialing (877) 704-4453 or (201) 389-0920 for international callers, conference ID 13750220. A live webcast of the conference call will also be available on the Company's website, www.capriholdings.com.

In addition, a replay of the call will be available shortly after the conclusion of the call and remain available until November 21, 2024. To access the telephone replay, listeners should dial (844) 512-2921 or (412) 317-6671 for international callers. The access code for the replay is 13750220. A replay of the webcast will also be available within two hours of the conclusion of the call.

Investor Day 2025

Capri Holdings intends to host an Investor Day in New York, NY in late February 2025, where it will provide more detail on the company's strategic actions and its financial prospects. Specific details for that event will be announced at a later date.

About Capri Holdings Limited

Capri Holdings is a global fashion luxury group consisting of iconic, founder-led brands Versace, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors. Our commitment to glamorous style and craftsmanship is at the heart of each of our luxury brands. We have built our reputation on designing exceptional, innovative products that cover the full spectrum of fashion luxury categories. Our strength lies in the unique DNA and heritage of each of our brands, the diversity and passion of our people and our dedication to the clients and communities we serve. Capri Holdings Limited is publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CPRI.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains statements which are, or may be deemed to be, "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements are prospective in nature and are not based on historical facts, but rather on current expectations and projections of the management of Capri about future events and are therefore subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts included herein, may be forward-looking statements. Without limitation, any statements preceded or followed by or that include the words "plans", "believes", "expects", "intends", "will", "should", "could", "would", "may", "anticipates", "might" or similar words or phrases, are forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could significantly affect expected results and are based on certain key assumptions, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied in any forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors are identified in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 30, 2024 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please consult these documents for a more complete understanding of these risks and uncertainties. Any forward-looking statement in this press release speaks only as of the date made and Capri disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking or other statements contained herein other than in accordance with legal and regulatory obligations.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114600043/en/

Contacts:

Investor Relations:

Jennifer Davis

+1 (201) 514-8234

Jennifer.Davis@CapriHoldings.com

Media:

Press@CapriHoldings.com
DELRAY BEACH, Fla., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The global Shore Power Market is anticipated to grow from estimated USD 2.03 billion in 2024 to USD 3.58 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 12.0% during the forecast period. This growth is mainly driven by a higher demand for renewals in the maritime sector in order to reduce carbon emissions from docked ships, and therefore stricter regulations by the government to protect the environment. Higher investments in port infrastructure and alternative renewable energy sources entry are also adding up to the adoption of the shore power system. Among these are automation, smart grids, and energy management systems that are deployed to optimize shore power operations by improving energy efficiency and minimizing the costs associated with its operations. These benefits have propelled shore power systems from being ecologically and economically unfeasible to become the core part of transition to cleaner and more efficient port operations everywhere around the world.

Browse in-depth TOC on "Shore Power Market"

366 - Tables

64 - Figures

313 - Pages

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Frequency Converter, by Component

By component, the frequency converter is expected to be the fastest-growing segment with growing demands from industries for power management efficiencies. The fundamental key components of a transformer, converters, and inverters make the working possible for managing fluctuating electrical frequencies between grids. In key terms, this applies to aerospace, defense, manufacturing, and marine industries. In addition, its growth will depend on the trend towards alternate sources of energy such as wind and solar power generation, wherein frequency converters will find a central application role for synchronizing supply of power from different sources. Advancements in automation along with growing demand in energy-efficient solutions will contribute to the demand for sophisticated components for frequency converters. Growing need in terms of energy efficiency and cost-effective operation is also driving widespread adoption, specifically in industrializing regions, like Asia-Pacific, that is expected to grow the fastest in this market.

Retrofit, by Connection

By connection, retrofit is expected to be the segment to record the highest growth rate in the forecast period with greater emphasis on upgrading existing infrastructure to meet modern energy efficiency standards and regulatory requirements. Retrofitting allows companies to upgrade the efficiency of their currently in-place systems without having to install completely new installations which makes the solution much costlier. This is more attractive to those industries focusing on lowering carbon footprint and optimizing energy use. Along with the push toward sustainability and the encouragement of cleaner sources of power, government measures and policies to incentivize energy retrofits are also motivating energy retrofits to continue driving demand for retrofit solutions. Additionally, retrofitting existing ships and shoreside infrastructure with advanced shore power technology is becoming ever more critical as regulations tighten on emissions from maritime operations.

Regional Analysis

North America is most likely to be the second-largest market in the forecast period as it witnesses significant economic growth, rapid technological development, and sky-rocketing demands for innovation across multiple sectors within the region. There is a strong industrial and technological base available in the region that invests highly in the sectors of machine learning, augmented reality, and renewable energy. This is further supported by the favourable government policies and the stress imposed on sustainability that motivate the high uptake of the advanced technologies and energy efficiency solutions. North America also hosts a great demand from the consumers for the advanced healthcare, IT, and manufacturing solution, and the growth in this market is especially rapid in augmented reality and machine learning.

Key Players

The world Shore Power Market is influenced by strategic moves of key players, including ABB (Switzerland), Siemens (Germany), Schneider Electric (France), GE (US), and Cavotec SA (Switzerland), which focus on developing shore power solutions with the state-of-the-art technology to fully meet demand from ports regarding cleaner and more efficient energy supply. Some of the strategies include very innovative products such as advanced frequency converters and energy management systems to reduce emissions from docked ships. Other major approaches towards the expansion of their technological capability and increasing market reach are acquisitions and partnerships by which they can cater to more diverse geographic regions and stricter environmental regulations across the globe.

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General Electric Company

General Electric Company or GE is a leading global industrial company. It can be classified into three main operating segments: Aerospace, Renewable Energy, and Power. It designed products for offering services in commercial and military aircraft engines and systems; renewable energy solutions involving wind power generation, grid technologies, and equipment for generating gas, steam, nuclear, and other power. GE addresses the Shore Power Market in solutions regarding the Power segment. GE maintains a very wide installed base of equipment in these industries, where services and maintenance become as important as new product sales. Over 130 years of innovation, GE has built its continuing history of continually leveraging technology to enhance the quality of life by solving critical global challenges. Presently, the company is focused on creating a better future of flight and building an energy future that's increasingly renewable and sustainable. GE operates in more than 160 countries, with a significant manufacturing footprint that includes 59 facilities across 24 US states and Puerto Rico, and 102 manufacturing plants in 25 other countries worldwide.

Siemens

Siemens is a global technology group operating in nearly every country. The company focuses its activities on the following main business areas: key sectors, key markets. Siemens focuses on making the world more comfortable and secure with visionary solutions and comprehensive services from a single source. The company's operating activities are aligned to four main Sectors: Industry; Energy; Healthcare; Building Technologies, also includes the combined Solutions sector with the combination of the Solutions as well as Government Technologies businesses. The company is divided into several business areas: Digital Industries, Smart Infrastructure, Mobility, and Siemens Healthineers, which represent the "industrial business," and Siemens Financial Services. Digital Industries business includes a range of products and systems in industrial automation, from solutions for factory automation, through numerical control systems to servo motors, drives, inverters, and integrated automation systems for production machines and tools. Smart Infrastructure is a company that supplies goods, services, systems, and software to help facilitate the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Its areas of expertise include building technologies, electrification systems, and related products to modernize the global energy infrastructure. Its shore power solutions are represented through its business segment known as Smart Infrastructure. The Mobility group encompasses everything Siemens offers in the field of rail transportation, and therefore encompasses offering vehicles and components for urban and regional transport systems such as metro trains, trams, and light rail solutions. Siemens Healthineers provides a wide variety of healthcare products, solutions, and services around the world. Finally, Siemens Financial Services (SFS) provides financial solutions to Siemens' customers and outside businesses, debt and equity investments that help support their business operations. The company satisfies customer needs through almost 500 wholly-owned and independent distributor locations as well as over 9,000 dealer locations in more than 190 countries.

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Mako Mining Corp. (TSX-V:MKO)(OTCQX:MAKOF) ("Mako" or the "Company") announces that the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") has accepted its normal course issuer bid (the "NCIB") to purchase up to an aggregate of 3,956,485 common shares ("Common Shares") of the Company, representing 5% of the 79,129,713 Common Shares issued and outstanding on the date hereof.

Purchases under the NCIB may commence on November 19, 2024, and will end no later than November 18, 2025. The Common Shares will be purchased for cancellation through the facilities of the TSXV in accordance with its policies and at market price. Mako has retained Ventum Financial Corp. to make purchases on its behalf under the NCIB.

The Board of Directors and senior management of the Company believe that its Common Shares have been trading in a price range that does not adequately reflect their value in relation to the Company's business and future business prospects. The repurchase of the Company's Common Shares therefore is a prudent use of funds and in the best interests of Mako and its shareholders.

On behalf of the Board,

Akiba Leisman

Chief Executive Officer

About Mako

Mako Mining Corp. is a publicly listed gold mining, development and exploration company. The Company operates the high-grade San Albino gold mine in Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua, which ranks as one of the highest-grade open pit gold mines globally. Mako's primary objective is to operate San Albino profitably and fund exploration of prospective targets on its district-scale land package. The Company also owns 100% of the gold project Eagle Mountain in Guyana, South America.

For further information: Mako Mining Corp., Akiba Leisman, Chief Executive Officer, Telephone: 917-558-5289, E-mail: aleisman@makominingcorp.com or visit our website at www.makominingcorp.com and SEDAR www.sedarplus.ca.

Forward-Looking Information: Some of the statements contained herein may be considered "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information can be identified by words such as, without limitation, "estimate", "project", "believe", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "plan", "predict", "may" or "should" or variations thereon or comparable terminology. The forward-looking information contained herein reflects the Company's current beliefs and expectations, based on management's reasonable assumptions, and includes, without limitation, that Mako's primary objective to operate San Albino profitably and fund exploration of prospective targets in Nicaragua. Such forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking information, including, without limitation, changes in the Company's exploration and development plans and growth parameters; unanticipated costs; the October 24, 2022 sanction measures imposed by the US Treasury Department having impacts on business operations not currently expected, or new sanctions being imposed in Nicaragua by the U.S. Treasury Department or other government entity in the future; and other risks and uncertainties as disclosed in the Company's public disclosure filings on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. Such information contained herein represents management's best judgment as of the date hereof, based on information currently available. Mako does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Mako Mining Corp.

View the original press release on accesswire.com
BOTHELL, WA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / VaporBrands International, Inc. dba E-Cite Motors Group, (OTC PINK:VAPR) announced that its CEO Barry Henthorn and COO Gene Langmesser have signed Board Resolutions converting loans and deferred compensation into restricted stock of (OTC PINK:VAPR) eliminating over 90% of related party payables.

Specifically, the related party payables resulted from consulting earnings and working capital contributions to the Company. The Compnay's CEO will convert $483,251 of related party payables to 48,325,149 restricted shares of the Company's common stock valued at $0.01 per share. The Company's COO will convert $193,300 related party payables to 19,330,000 restricted shares of the Company's common stock valued at $0.01 per share. The aggregate related party payables converted to common stock was $676,551 and 67,655,149 restricted shares of the Company's common stock.

This reduces the related party payables as of September 30, 2024 from $746,340 to $69,789 which is a reduction of more than 90%. In addition, total liabilities were reduced from $1,272,012 to $595,461 which is a reduction of more than 50%. Further details can be seen VAPRs Q3 Financial filings at www.otcmarkets.com under Subsequent Events section on the final page.

The shares will be issued with a restricted legend and will not become part of the public float until the company has completed a listing on a senior exchange and become fully reporting. Even if the company is successful in achieving these milestones, the shares will still be subject to insider restrictions and discloser requirements.

E-Cite Motors COO Gene Langmesser commented: "We are very confident in the new developments and progress of the company as we are gearing up to begin full production of our EV-GT sportscar. By removing the debt from the company while increasing my personal holdings at this time the company will be better positioned to attract non-dilutive capital."

"This is a major milestone in our initiatives to reduce the debt, tighten up the share structure, position the Company for growth, and increase shareholder value. We are very excited to begin production of or first vehicle the EV-GT " Added E-Cite Motors CEO Barry Henthorn.

E-Cite was the first company to get any vehicle approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) under the Low Volume Manufacturers Act of which E-Cite has four distinctly different vehicles approved. The EV-GT of which the new EV-C3 is anchored and two other E-Cite Vehicles, the EV-RT truck, and the EV-222 hyper car. E-Cite is free to manufacture them under a special exemption specifically (49 CFR 565.16(b)).

This allows E-Cite to produce its own VINs for the production of new vehicles. In addition, E-Cite has received a World Manufactures Identifier (WMI) under the Act registering it as a manufacturer for the sale of vehicles worldwide.

Note* E-Cite's vehicles are in no way categorized as "Kit Cars" as they are manufactured new vehicles.

About VaporBrands International, dba E-Cite Motors

www.ecitemotors.com (OTC PINK:VAPR) is a publicly traded company based in Bothell that is developing for manufacturing, state of the art electric vehicles utilizing the latest in technologies with a flare of some of the iconic autos of the past. VAPR acquired 100% ownership in E-Cite Motors, Acclaimed Automotive www.acclaimedauto.com, and N2A Motors www.n2amotors.com a California-based custom auto manufacturer and car factory specializing in designing, engineering and building prototype, concept, and limited production vehicles for OEMs, corporations, movies, and private owners. N2A was led by legendary designer Gene Langmesser who now serves as the COO of the combined operations.

CONTACT:

VaporBrands International, Inc. dba E-Cite Motors

ceo@ecitemotors.com

SOURCE: VaporBrands International, Inc. dba E-Cite Motors Group

View the original press release on accesswire.com
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Xplore Resources Corp. (TSXV: XPLR) ("Xplore" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the completion of its surface exploration program, leading to the identification of new drill targets at its flagship Surge Lithium project. Located in the rapidly developing Root lithium district in northwest Ontario, the project benefits from new Lidar and geological data gathered this summer and sits strategically adjacent to Green Technology Metals' Root Bay Project, where ongoing exploration continues to deliver strong results.

News Highlights

Rapid Growth Along the Root Bay Trend Immediately Adjacent to Xplore's Surge Project. The Root lithium area has experienced rapid growth, with the Root Bay project owned by Green Technology Metals boasting a 10.1 Mt at 1.29% Li 2 O JORC Resource . 1 Recent encouraging results from a 14,000 m ongoing drilling campaign on the project have been reported, including: 17.3 meters at ~30% spodumene in drill hole RB-24-002 16.3 meters at ~28% spodumene in drill hole RB-24-001 [1]

The Root lithium area has experienced rapid growth, with the Root Bay project owned by Green Technology Metals boasting a . Recent encouraging results from a 14,000 m ongoing drilling campaign on the project have been reported, including:

Further drilling by Green Technology Metals is planned near the boundary shared with Xplore's Surge property, following promising lithium intersections within 25 m to the property line.

Surge Project Located Along 10 km of the Root Bay Lithium Trend. Drilling results reported by Green Technology Metals for their Root Bay East project area include 23.3 m of 1.16% Li2O (RBE-23-007), 10.5 m of 1.08% Li2O (RBE-23-008), and 11.7 m of 1.12% Li2O (RBE-23-009)1 (Figures 1 and 2). These three holes are within 50 m of the Surge property boundary. The Surge property is situated along the eastern extension of the Root Bay - Root Bay East trend, covering approximately 10 km of prospective geology.

New Data Refines Drill Targets for Upcoming Program. Recent exploration on the Surge property, including a targeted airborne Lidar survey, mapping and ground prospecting, has been instrumental in revealing additional structures and outcrops. Xplore is now finalizing plans to commence drilling, focusing on priority areas targeting the extension of known mineralized zones at the property boundary with Green Technology Metals. Further details on the drill program will be announced in the coming weeks.

Dominic Verdejo, Chief Executive Officer of the Company commented, "With targets for our upcoming program as close as 25 m from Green Technology Metals' latest discovery at Root Bay East, we are excited to commence drilling. Our neighbour's rapid transition from discovery to a significant resource sets a fantastic precedent that Xplore aims to follow as we fast-track our drill program at the Surge Project. Starting with a series of high-priority targets, our goal is to reveal the vast, yet-to-be-tapped potential contained within our 10 km of prospective trend."





Figure 1. Xplore's Surge Lithium Project area showing drill targets, nearby projects and deposits.



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Figure 2. Annotated drone photo taken near Xplore's Surge Project boundary with Green Technology Metals Root Project (looking east). Annotations show the location of recent drilling by Green Technology Metals with lithium drill results as close as 25 m from the Surge property boundary.



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Qualified Person

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Karly Oliver, P.Geo., director of the Company and a Qualified Person pursuant to National Instrument 43-101.

About Xplore Resources

Xplore Resources is a North American lithium exploration company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under symbol XPLR. The Company has a prospective land package in the emerging Root Bay lithium district located in northwest Ontario. Xplore's flagship property is the Surge lithium project, on trend and near two lithium deposits and just 25 m from a new lithium discovery. The Company is led by a highly experienced management team with a strong track record of growing shareholder value.

For further information, please contact:

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Dominic Verdejo, Chief Executive Officer

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts are "forward-looking information" or "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "Forward-Looking Information") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words "anticipate," "significant," "expect," "may," "will" and similar expressions are intended to be among the statements that identify Forward-Looking Information. Forward-Looking Information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those implied by the Forward-Looking Information. In preparing the Forward-Looking Information in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including, but not limited to, assumptions that general business and economic conditions will not change in a materially adverse manner; that all requisite approvals will be received and all requisite information will be available in a timely manner. Factors that may cause actual results to vary materially include, but are not limited to, inaccurate assumptions concerning the exploration for and development of mineral deposits, currency fluctuations, unanticipated operational or technical difficulties, risks related to unforeseen delays, general economic, market or business conditions, regulatory changes, timeliness of regulatory approvals, the risks of obtaining necessary licenses and permits, changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets and the inability to raise additional financing. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this Forward-Looking Information. The Company does not assume the obligation to revise or update this Forward-Looking Information after the date of this release or to revise such information to reflect the occurrence of future unanticipated events, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

1 Green Technology Metals News Release dated November 12, 2024

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229903

SOURCE: Xplore Resources Corp.
Rival Downhole Tools, a leading provider of downhole drilling technologies to the energy industry, has announced its continued international expansion with the establishment of new legal entities, personnel, and facilities in Canada and Mexico, as well as strategic partnerships in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Europe. These endeavors align with Rival's strategic vision to broaden its global footprint and reinforce its commitment to providing customers with industry leading downhole drilling technologies and service delivery.

Building upon its established U.S. operations, Rival is focused on delivering its STORM Tool, AXE Tool, JOLT Tool, and new line of TORX Drilling Motors to a wider client base in North America. By adding local personnel and infrastructure, Rival will better meet the unique needs of its clients from its new service locations in Nisku, AB, Canada and Villahermosa, TAB, Mexico, enhancing customer support and expanding its market reach. "Our expansion into Canada and Mexico represents an exciting milestone," said Neil Fletcher, Rival Chief Executive Officer. "By establishing these local entities and operational capabilities, we can more effectively support our customers across every basin in North America."

In addition to its North American growth, Rival has partnered with local agencies in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Europe, positioning itself to pursue new business opportunities and strengthen relationships within these key markets. Rival has signed multi-year agreements with Gas Oil Technologies (GOtech) in Saudi Arabia, Almansoori Specialized Engineering in the UAE, and Titan Tools in Europe. These partnerships underscore Rival's commitment to these markets and drive to deliver value for clients worldwide. "Our international expansion reflects our commitment to providing our premium technologies directly within the markets we serve," said Noah Daoust, Chief Operating Officer of Rival. "By establishing facilities and local partnerships in key regions, we're positioning Rival to deliver incremental value by directly addressing our clients' local needs."

About Rival

Founded in 2002, Rival is a trusted name in downhole drilling technologies. Rival specializes in engineering, manufacturing, and service delivery of its patented, proprietary technology offering and is headquartered in Houston, TX, USA. The company is known for its commitment to quality, innovation, and customer service. With this expansion, Rival continues to uphold its dedication to supporting the global energy sector with advanced solutions that meet the highest industry standards.

For more information, please visit www.RivalDT.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241113448467/en/

Contacts:

Kate Odasz

Chief Financial Officer

Rival Downhole Tools

Kodasz@rivaldt.com

(713) 983-8355
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - AIM5 Ventures Inc. (TSXV: AIME.P) ("AIM5" or the "Company") and Fortress Gold Ltd. ("Fortress Gold") are pleased to announce that they have entered into a non-binding letter of intent dated November 13, 2024 (the "LOI"), pursuant to which AIM5 and Fortress Gold intend to complete a business combination or other similarly structured transaction which will constitute a reverse take-over of AIM5 (the "Transaction"). It is intended that the Transaction will be an arm's length "Qualifying Transaction" for AIM5, as such term is defined in Policy 2.4 of the Corporate Finance Manual of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV"). Trading of the common shares of the Company has been halted and will remain halted pending receipt and review from the TSXV.

A comprehensive news release will be issued by AIM5 and Fortress Gold setting out the terms of the Transaction, which shall include information about AIM5 upon closing of the Transaction and the proposed financing of Fortress Gold in connection with the Transaction (the "Concurrent Financing").

Fortress Gold

Fortress Gold is a private minerals exploration company with a prospective land package in Namibia sharing license boundaries with an operating mine and a recent large discovery. Fortress Gold has the right to acquire five exclusive prospecting licenses with multiple drill ready targets in the well established Damara Gold Belt of Namibia.

AIM5 Ventures

AIM5 was incorporated under the Business Corporations Act (Ontario) on August 11, 2020 and is a Capital Pool Company (as defined in the policies of the TSXV) listed on the TSXV. AIM5 has no commercial operations and no assets other than cash.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking information" ("forward-looking information") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking information and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that discusses predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking information. In disclosing the forward-looking information contained in this press release, the Company has made certain assumptions, including that: the Concurrent Financing will be completed on acceptable terms and all applicable shareholder and regulatory approvals for the Transaction will be received. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking information are reasonable, it can give no assurance that the expectations of any forward-looking information will prove to be correct. Known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, but are not limited to: availability of financing; delay or failure to receive board, shareholder or regulatory approvals; and general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking information contained in this press release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward-looking information or otherwise.

All information provided in this press release relating to Fortress Gold has been provided by management of Fortress Gold and has not been independently verified by management of the Company. As the date of this press release, the Company has not entered into a definitive agreement with Fortress Gold with respect to the Transaction (the "Definitive Agreement"), and readers are cautioned that there can be no assurances that a Definitive Agreement will be executed.

Completion of the Transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to TSXV acceptance and, if applicable pursuant to TSXV requirements, majority of the minority shareholder approval. Where applicable, the Transaction cannot close until the required shareholder approval is obtained. There can be no assurance that the Transaction will be completed as proposed or at all.

Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the filing statement (or other applicable disclosure document) of AIM5 to be prepared in connection with the Transaction, any information released or received with respect to the Transaction may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of AIM5 should be considered highly speculative.

The TSXV has in no way passed upon the merits of the Transaction and has not approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for dissemination in the United States. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229879

SOURCE: AIM5 Ventures Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Myriad Uranium Corp. (CSE: M) (OTCQB: MYRUF) (FSE: C3Q) ("Myriad" or the "Company") is pleased to announce further results of equivalent uranium (eU3O8) grades from drilling at the Copper Mountain Uranium Project in Wyoming, USA (Figure 1). Spectral gamma ray logging continues to confirm high-grade uranium mineralisation at the Canning Deposit area and provides strong validation of the historic work done by Union Pacific at Canning and across the Project. These results are still to be confirmed by chemical assay of core and reverse circulation samples being collected from the drilling. Chemical assay results may differ from spectral gamma ray results.

Highlights

Drilling continues to return highly encouraging eU 3 O 8 results from the Canning Deposit area over a strike length of some 2,500 ft (~750 m).

Several intervals reporting average grade greater than 1,000 ppm eU 3 O 8 and peak grade reaching up to 3,870 ppm eU 3 O 8 in borehole CAN0021.

Highlights of significant intervals from the spectral gamma logging include: CAN0013: 1,881 ppm eU 3 O 8 over 8.20 feet (peak of 2,353 ppm eU 3 O 8 at 305.53 feet) CAN0013: 1,286 ppm eU 3 O 8 over 6.89 feet (peak of 1,595 ppm eU 3 O 8 at 330.13 feet) CAN0021: 2,530 ppm eU 3 O 8 over 6.56 feet (peak of 3,870 ppm eU 3 O 8 at 301.60 feet) CAN0021: 1,714 ppm eU 3 O 8 over 4.26 feet (peak of 2,340 ppm eU 3 O 8 at 330.46 feet) CAN0023: 1,644 ppm eU 3 O 8 over 8.53 feet (peak of 2,095 ppm eU 3 O 8 at 448.87 feet)

Spectral gamma ray logging results show elevated uranium mineralisation (greater than 200 ppm eU 3 O 8 ) across multiple intercepts in almost every hole drilled to-date.

The thirteen holes reported here contain 56 intervals over a minimum of 3 feet that are greater than 200 ppm eU 3 O 8 , 14 intervals greater than 500 ppm eU 3 O 8 , and 5 intervals greater than 1,000 ppm eU 3 O 8 .

It is important to note that this initial drill program is focused only on the Canning Deposit area, itself highly significant, but the Project Area also includes six other historical deposits and numerous prospects previously identified by Union Pacific, including Hesitation, Midnight, Knob, Bonanza, Fuller, Mint/Allard, and Kermac/Day, all of which have shown excellent potential through historical drilling and other exploration work.

In addition, our Copper Mountain Project Area includes the formerly-producing Arrowhead and Bonanza uranium mines, which are understood to have produced 0.50 Mlbs at 0.15% U 3 O 8 and 0.78 Mlbs at 1.3% U 3 O 8 respectively.

CEO Thomas Lamb commented: "Beyond the continuing strong gamma probe results, we are excited about what we are seeing as we log the core and RC chips from Canning in terms of alteration and other characteristics and the deeper understanding that this provides us regarding the deposit and mineralization potential. We are more and more confident that we have validated and gone beyond historical drilling results and limits. I also note that a recent gamma probe calibration test at the US DOE calibration facility in Casper, Wyoming, indicates that the already very strong grades we reported in our first six holes (reported here ) may have been understated by as much as 13%. Further comparison will be made with sample assays from an accredited laboratory before any adjustments are made to the reported grade data. Details of this testing are set out below."

George van der Walt, Myriad's Qualified Person for the Project and Technical Advisor, commented: "It is encouraging that we continue to find high-grade intercepts in the Canning Deposit area. Most of the intercepts reported previously were concentrated on the eastern side of the Canning Deposit area, whereas the majority of holes in this report are concentrated on the western side of the area, over a strike length of some 2,500 ft (~750 m)."

Significant intervals derived from Spectral Gamma Ray (SGR) logging at 1000 ppm (0.10%) cut-off (over a minimum of 3 feet) include the following intervals. Note that grade intervals at 500 ppm (0.05%) and 200 ppm (0.02%) cut-offs are provided in Appendix 1:

1000 ppm Cut-off (minimum 3 feet)

Peak Grade

eU3O8 (ppm) Hole ID From (ft) To (ft) Length (ft) eU3O8 (ppm) eU3O8 (%) GT (ft%) CAN0013 302.09 310.29 8.20 1881 0.188 1.54 2353

CAN0013 328.33 335.22 6.89 1286 0.129 0.89 1595 CAN0021 297.82 304.38 6.56 2530 0.253 1.66 3870 CAN0021 328.33 332.59 4.26 1714 0.171 0.73 2340 CAN0023 445.42 453.95 8.53 1644 0.164 1.40 2095



Notes:



The interval lengths are "down the hole" and may not represent true width intervals as the exact nature of the mineralisation distribution has not been determined yet. However, most of the holes are being drilled at an inclination of 50 degrees to test a model that indicates steeply dipping mineralisation. Intervals were selected over a minimum of 3 feet, with grade below cut-off less than 1 foot being included in the total interval. The possible effects of disequilibrium have not been accounted for in the determination of eU3O8 grades.

The boreholes represent a combination of diamond core and reverse circulation drilling that was planned to verify mineralisation identified in drilling by Union Pacific in the late 1970s and to test a grade shell model (above 0.05% eU3O8) created from cross-sections, as reported here and here.

The majority of the boreholes in this report were drilled on the western side of the high-grade zone of the Canning Deposit area. This demonstrates the presence of high-grade mineralisation across a strike length of at least 2,500 ft (~750 m).

Figure 1: Map of completed boreholes in the Canning Deposit Area.

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Equipment and Methods

Drilling is being performed by Harris Exploration using two diamond core (DD) rigs producing HQ (63.5 mm / 2.5 in) core diameter and 96 mm (3.78 in) in hole diameter, and one reverse circulation (RC) rig using a 140 mm (5.5 in) hammer bit. Core samples are being packed into core trays and transported to Riverton for further processing. RC hole runs are being drilled at 5 ft intervals and split on site to produce two representative samples that are then transported to Riverton for further processing. All mineralised intervals will be submitted to ALS Laboratories for chemical analysis to confirm the intervals reported by gamma logging.

Downhole logging is being performed by DGI Geoscience (DGI). A combination of Spectral Gamma Ray (SGR) and Optical Televiewer and/or Acoustic Televiewer is being applied. The probes are manufactured by Mount Sopris Instruments with details as follows:

QL40 SGR BGO (Sx): Measures the energy of gamma emissions from natural sources within formations crossed by a borehole. It counts the number of gamma emissions at each energy level aiding in lithological determination and correlation. The Probe use a Bismuth Germanium Oxide scintillation crystal.

QL40 SGR 2G CeBr3 (Sx): Measures the energy of gamma emissions from natural sources within formations crossed by a borehole. It counts the number of gamma emissions at each energy level aiding in lithological determination and correlation. The probe uses a CeBr3 (Cerium Bromide) scintillation crystal.

QL 40 ABI 2G (At, Gr): Captures high-resolution, oriented images of the borehole wall, allowing the orientation of acoustically visible features to be determined. This includes fractures, bedding/rock fabric, breakouts, bedding planes and other structural features. Contains a built in Natural Gamma sensor that measures the gamma emissions from natural sources in the formation.

QL OBI 2G (Ot, Gr): Captures a high-resolution, oriented image of the borehole wall using a CMOS digital image sensor, allowing the orientation of features to be determined. This includes fractures, bedding/rock fabric, veins, lithological contacts, etc. Contains a built in Natural Gamma sensor that measures the gamma emissions from natural sources in the formation.

The SGR probes measure the full energy spectrum of the gamma radiation emitted naturally from within the formations crossed by a borehole. A Full Spectrum Analysis (FSA) is performed on the recorded energy spectra. The FSA derives in real time the concentration of the three main radioisotopes 40K, 238U, 212Th, and thus also provides insight into the mineral composition of the formations. DGI is also running optical and acoustic televiewer, when hole conditions allow, to obtain downhole structural information. Borehole paths are being measured using a gyroscopic deviation tool.

Data Verification and Determination of eU3O8 Grades

Initial manufacturer calibration certificates have been provided to Myriad by DGI. Downhole gamma measurements are checked for a repeatability by comparing down and up runs in the borehole. DGI is providing conversion of API units measured by the SGR tools to eU3O8 concentrations using a standard conversion theory and formula.

DGI also ran a calibration test on both the BGO and CeBr3 SGR probes at the Department of Energy (DOE) calibration test facility in Casper, Wyoming on November 1st, 2024. The data indicates that the CeBr3 SGR probe is measuring accurately in the test pit to within 2% of the expected average value, but that the BGO probe is possibly underestimating eU3O8 grade by as much as 13%. The first six boreholes (CAN0001 - CAN0006) were run with the BGO probe and the remainder are all being run with the CeBr3 probe. Further comparison will be made with sample assays from an accredited laboratory before any adjustments are made to the reported grade data.

Radiometric Disequilibrium

Radiometric disequilibrium refers to the loss or gain of uranium in the mineralised zone during geologic processes, which can disrupt the equilibrium between the parent isotope and its daughter products. At this stage the effect of disequilibrium has not been fully assessed at Copper Mountain, but it should be noted that geochemical analysis of samples from the drilling could report results for U3O8 that differ from the eU3O8 grades that have been derived from the gamma logging. Some historic reports state that closed can assays from Copper Mountain indicated little disequilibrium, however differences between gamma probe data and were observed. For this reason, the reported eU3O8 values should be considered as preliminary are subject to data verification by chemical assay with appropriate QAQC.

Myriad is in the process of collecting the samples of all the mineralised intervals from drilling and will submit them to a commercial laboratory for full chemical analysis. The results will then be compared to determine the potential effect of disequilibrium, or other factors, on the final uranium grades that will be used in mineral resource estimation when there is sufficient data to allow it.

Geological Background

Uranium mineralisation at Copper Mountain occurs in two distinct geologic environments:

Fracture-controlled uranium mineralisation hosted in Archaean-aged granite, syenite, isolated occurrences along the margins of diabase dikes and in association with meta-sediment inclusions in granite; and

As disseminations in coarse-grained sandstones and coatings on cobbles and boulders in the Tertiary-aged Teepee Trail Formation at the Arrowhead (Little Mo) mine and other localities.

Uranium mineralisation is thought to have resulted through supergene and hydrothermal enrichment processes. In both cases, the source of the uranium is thought to be the granites of the Owl Creek Mountains.

Historical Estimates

While Myriad Uranium has determined that the historical estimates described in this news release are relevant to the Copper Mountain Project Area and are reasonably reliable given the authors and circumstances of their preparation, and are suitable for public disclosure, readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on these historical estimates as an indicator of current mineral resources or mineral reserves at the Project Area. A qualified person (as defined under NI 43-101) has not done sufficient work to classify any of the historical estimates as current mineral resources or mineral reserves, and Myriad Uranium is not treating the historical estimates as a current mineral resource or mineral reserve. Also, while the Copper Mountain Project Area contains all or most of each deposit referred to, some of the resources referred to may be located outside the current Copper Mountain Project Area. Furthermore, the estimates are decades old and based on drilling data for which the logs are, as of yet, predominantly unavailable. The historical resource estimates, therefore, should not be unduly relied upon.

Inherent limitations of the historical estimates include that the nature of the mineralisation (fracture hosted) makes estimation from drill data less reliable than other deposit types (e.g. those that are thick and uniform). From Myriad Uranium's viewpoint, limitations include that the Company has not been able to verify the data itself and that the estimate may be optimistic relative to subsequent work which applied a "delayed fission neutron" (DFN) factor to calculate grades. On the other hand, DFN is controversial, in that the approach is viewed by some experts as too conservative. Nevertheless, it was applied in later resource estimations by Union Pacific relating to Copper Mountain.

To verify the historical estimates and potentially re-state them as current resources, a program of digitization of available data would be required. This must be followed by re-logging and/or re-drilling to generate new data to the extent necessary that it is comparable with the original data, or new data that can be used to establish the correlation and continuity of geology and grades between boreholes with sufficient confidence to estimate mineral resources.

Qualified Person

The scientific or technical information in this news release respecting the Company's Copper Mountain Project has been approved by George van der Walt, MSc., Pr.Sci.Nat., FGSSA, a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr van der Walt is employed by The MSA Group (Pty) Ltd (MSA), a leading geological consultancy providing services to the minerals industry, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has more than 20 years industry experience and sufficient relevant experience in the type and style of mineralisation to report on exploration results.

The information and interpretations thereof are based on the Qualified Person's initial review of historical reports, which were recently obtained by the Company. The information did not include original data such as drilling records, sampling, analytical or test data underlying the information or opinions contained in the written documents. Therefore, the Qualified Person has not reviewed or otherwise verified the information and has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimates as current mineral resources or mineral reserves. The Qualified Person considers the information to be relevant based on the amount and quality of work undertaken and reported historically. A more thorough review of any available original data will be undertaken and reported on in more detail in future releases.

About Myriad Uranium Corp.

Myriad Uranium Corp. is a uranium exploration company with an earnable 75% interest in the Copper Mountain Uranium Project in Wyoming, USA. Copper Mountain hosts several known uranium deposits and historic uranium mines, including the Arrowhead Mine which produced 500,000 lbs of eU3O8. Copper Mountain saw extensive drilling and development by Union Pacific during the late 1970s including the development of a mine plan to fuel a planned fleet of California Edison reactors. Operations ceased in 1980 before mining could commence due to falling uranium prices. Approximately 2,000 boreholes have been drilled at Copper Mountain and the Project Area has significant exploration upside. Union Pacific is estimated to have spent C$117 million (2024 dollars) exploring and developing Copper Mountain, generating significant historical resource estimates which are detailed here. A recent detailed update with Crux Investor can be viewed here. The Company's presentation can be viewed here. News releases regarding historical drilling can be viewed here and here.

Myriad also has a 50% interest in the Millen Mountain Property in Nova Scotia, Canada, with the other 50% held by Probe Gold Inc. For further information, please refer to Myriad's disclosure record on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca), contact Myriad by telephone at +1.604.418.2877, or refer to Myriad's website at www.myriaduranium.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking information" that is based on the Company's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections. This forward-looking information includes, among other things, the Company's business, plans, outlook and business strategy. The words "may", "would", "could", "should", "will", "likely", "expect," "anticipate," "intend", "estimate", "plan", "forecast", "project" and "believe" or other similar words and phrases are intended to identify forward-looking information. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect, including with respect to the Company's business plans respecting the exploration and development of the Company's mineral properties, the proposed work program on the Company's mineral properties and the potential and economic viability of the Company's mineral properties. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, but are not limited to: changes in economic conditions or financial markets; increases in costs; litigation; legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; and technological or operational difficulties. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect our forward-looking information. These and other factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking information. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

The CSE has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the contents of this news release.

APPENDIX 1: Equivalent uranium (eU3O8) intervals at 500 ppm and 200 ppm cut-off (over 3 ft minimum)

500 ppm Cut-off (minimum 3 feet) Hole ID From (ft) To (ft) Length (ft) eU3O8 (ppm) eU3O8 (%) GT (ft%) CAN0011 386.71 391.63 4.92 877 0.088 0.43 CAN0012 328.33 335.87 7.54 718 0.072 0.54 CAN0013 290.94 310.94 20.01 1251 0.125 2.50 CAN0013 321.11 337.18 16.07 950 0.095 1.53 CAN0014 568.42 574.33 5.90 960 0.096 0.57 CAN0019 267.65 277.16 9.51 668 0.067 0.64 CAN0019 292.25 301.43 9.18 629 0.063 0.58 CAN0019 583.18 588.43 5.25 712 0.071 0.37 CAN0020 439.85 448.38 8.53 910 0.091 0.78 CAN0021 297.17 307.99 10.82 1789 0.179 1.94 CAN0021 327.02 333.25 6.23 1395 0.139 0.87 CAN0023 317.50 320.78 3.28 760 0.076 0.25 CAN0023 370.31 374.25 3.94 664 0.066 0.26 CAN0023 443.13 457.23 14.10 1269 0.127 1.79

200 ppm Cut-off (minimum 3 feet) Hole ID From (ft) To (ft) Length (ft) eU3O8 (ppm) eU3O8 (%) GT (ft%) CAN0011 201.39 211.23 9.84 323 0.032 0.32 CAN0011 211.89 217.46 5.58 360 0.036 0.20 CAN0011 228.29 247.97 19.68 317 0.032 0.62 CAN0011 249.28 257.48 8.20 307 0.031 0.25 CAN0011 263.71 274.21 10.50 290 0.029 0.30 CAN0011 289.95 304.06 14.10 328 0.033 0.46 CAN0011 318.16 331.94 13.78 270 0.027 0.37 CAN0011 338.50 342.43 3.94 258 0.026 0.10 CAN0011 357.19 363.10 5.90 287 0.029 0.17 CAN0011 370.97 376.87 5.90 246 0.025 0.15 CAN0011 385.40 393.27 7.87 674 0.067 0.53 CAN0012 323.74 340.14 16.40 513 0.051 0.84 CAN0012 344.73 349.65 4.92 262 0.026 0.13 CAN0012 423.45 429.35 5.90 431 0.043 0.25 CAN0012 464.12 470.35 6.23 258 0.026 0.16 CAN0013 287.98 312.26 24.27 1086 0.109 2.64 CAN0013 316.19 339.81 23.62 811 0.081 1.91 CAN0013 620.25 627.79 7.54 271 0.027 0.20 CAN0014 422.14 425.42 3.28 264 0.026 0.09 CAN0014 538.58 541.86 3.28 312 0.031 0.10 CAN0014 550.38 553.66 3.28 256 0.026 0.08 CAN0014 555.30 576.62 21.32 595 0.060 1.27 CAN0014 582.53 587.78 5.25 222 0.022 0.12 CAN0014 589.74 594.01 4.26 212 0.021 0.09 CAN0014 596.63 615.00 18.37 230 0.023 0.42 CAN0015 166.62 181.71 15.09 359 0.036 0.54 CAN0015 190.24 213.86 23.62 300 0.030 0.71 CAN0015 215.50 226.32 10.82 286 0.029 0.31 CAN0015 232.22 250.92 18.70 274 0.027 0.51 CAN0015 254.20 261.42 7.22 257 0.026 0.19 CAN0015 265.02 268.96 3.94 284 0.028 0.11 CAN0015 270.60 278.14 7.54 249 0.025 0.19 CAN0015 676.01 679.29 3.28 242 0.024 0.08 CAN0015 717.66 722.58 4.92 345 0.034 0.17 CAN0016 525.46 534.31 8.86 367 0.037 0.33 CAN0017 No intervals with eU3O8 greater than 200 ppm CAN0018 269.29 273.55 4.26 451 0.045 0.19 CAN0019 217.14 231.24 14.10 359 0.036 0.51 CAN0019 232.55 279.13 46.58 373 0.037 1.74 CAN0019 287.98 304.06 16.07 482 0.048 0.77 CAN0019 310.62 329.31 18.70 293 0.029 0.55 CAN0019 582.20 590.73 8.53 556 0.056 0.47 CAN0020 438.54 449.36 10.82 787 0.079 0.85 CAN0020 485.77 490.69 4.92 281 0.028 0.14 CAN0020 517.58 520.86 3.28 211 0.021 0.07 CAN0021 128.25 131.86 3.61 389 0.039 0.14 CAN0021 296.18 309.63 13.45 1507 0.151 2.03 CAN0021 325.05 334.23 9.18 1057 0.106 0.97 CAN0022 482.16 486.75 4.59 427 0.043 0.20 CAN0022 702.90 707.50 4.59 257 0.026 0.12 CAN0023 310.94 322.10 11.15 442 0.044 0.49 CAN0023 334.89 344.73 9.84 320 0.032 0.31 CAN0023 356.54 362.44 5.90 287 0.029 0.17 CAN0023 368.67 375.23 6.56 541 0.054 0.35 CAN0023 441.82 461.50 19.68 990 0.099 1.95 CAN0023 547.10 550.38 3.28 440 0.044 0.14

APPENDIX 1: Table of drilled positions

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To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229904

SOURCE: Myriad Uranium Corp.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Appia Rare Earths & Uranium Corp. (CSE: API) (OTCQB: APAAF) (FWB: A0I0) (MUN: A0I0) (BER: A0I0) (the "Company" or "Appia") is pleased to announce that it secured one (1) additional mining claim on the Eastern border adjacent to its existing mineral claims at the PCH project through a public bidding process conducted by the Brazilian National Mining Agency ("Agencia Nacional de Mineracao" or "ANM").

The new mining claim (see Map #1) will increase the total project area by an additional 1,969.06 hectares to the existing mineral rights which now covers an impressive 42,932.24 hectares. This important addition to the project enables Appia to expand the potential rare earth mineralization associated with the ionic adsorption clay (IAC) targets - Taygeta and Merope - previously identified and currenty under exploration through auger drilling. (See Press Release May 14th, 2024 - Click here).

Stephen Burega, President, said, "The addition of this new mineral claim is very important as it extends the potential of our Eastern targets - Taygeta and Merope. Both of these target zones have shown a consistent IAC mineralization and strong desorption results for the magnet rare earths that we are looking to identify. And we expect that both target zones will extend into this new claim area."

Map 1 - Location of Tenement 860.009/2020 (in yellow) and PCH Targets (in green).

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The technical information in this news release, including the information related to geology, drilling, and mineralization, has been reviewed and approved by Andre L. L. Costa, Appia's VP Exploration for Brazil, with more than 30 years of relevant experience. Mr. Costa is a APEGS Professional Geoscientist (P.Geo.) and a Fellow of Australian Institute of Geoscientists (FAIG), a Qualified Person (QP) as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

About Appia Rare Earths & Uranium Corp. (Appia)

Appia is a publicly traded Canadian company in the rare earth element and uranium sectors. The Company holds the right to acquire up to a 70% interest in the PCH Ionic Adsorption Clay Project (See June 9th, 2023 Press Release - Click HERE) which is 42,932.24 ha. in size and located within the Goias State of Brazil. (See January 11th, 2024 Press Release - Click HERE) The Company is also focusing on delineating high-grade critical rare earth elements and gallium on the Alces Lake property, and exploring for high-grade uranium in the prolific Athabasca Basin on its Otherside, Loranger, North Wollaston, and Eastside properties. The Company holds the surface rights to exploration for 94,982.39 hectares (234,706.59 acres) in Saskatchewan. The Company also has a 100% interest in 13,008 hectares (32,143 acres), with rare earth elements and uranium deposits over five mineralized zones in the Elliot Lake Camp, Ontario.

Appia has 149.4 million common shares outstanding, 170.8 million shares fully diluted.

Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements: This News Release contains forward-looking statements which are typically preceded by, followed by or including the words "believes", "expects", "anticipates", "estimates", "intends", "plans" or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance as they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. We do not intend and do not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements and shareholders are cautioned not to put undue reliance on such statements.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229906

SOURCE: Appia Rare Earths & Uranium Corp.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Silver47 Exploration Corp. (TSXV: AGA) ("Silver47" or the "Company), is pleased to announce that its common shares will begin trading on the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") effective at the open of trading today.

Silver47 wholly-owns three silver and critical metals (polymetallic) exploration projects in Canada and the US: the flagship Red Mountain silver-gold-zinc-copper-lead VMS-SEDEX Project in southcentral Alaska; the Adams Plateau silver-zinc-copper-gold-lead SEDEX-VMS Project in southern British Columbia, and the Michelle silver-lead-zinc-gallium-antimony MVT-SEDEX Project in Yukon Territory.

"We are thrilled to announce that Silver47 will commence trading on the TSX-Venture Exchange at a time when silver prices are surging and the market demand for this precious metal is approaching an all-time high," commented Gary Thompson, CEO. "Our flagship Red Mountain project in Alaska represents an exceptional opportunity for investors to gain exposure to a promising silver-rich deposit that has the potential to become a world-class mine. Our experienced team aims to rapidly advance this high-quality asset to create substantial value for our shareholders by unlocking the full potential of Red Mountain and our portfolio of projects."

Red Mountain, VMS-SEDEX Project - Alaska, USA

The flagship Red Mountain VMS-SEDEX project is located approximately 100 kilometers (km) south of Fairbanks, Alaska, in the Bonnifield Mining District. Silver47 wholly-owns 942 Alaska State Mining Claims and one Upland Mining Lease covering approximately 633 square kilometers of Alaska State-managed land. The Red Mountain Project is well situated for infrastructure, 30km east of the community of Healy which has power, rail and state highway access to Alaska Route 3, providing a valuable connection to Anchorage and tide water. Silver47 has an approved Application for Permits to Mine in Alaska ("APMA"), valid until December 31, 2026. The APMA allows advanced exploration activities, including drilling, across the property.

Figure 1: Red Mountain Project Location

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Red Mountain Highlights

The Red Mountain Project hosts a 2024 NI 43-101 inferred mineral resource estimate of 15.6Mt at 335.7 g/t AgEq or 1Mt of ZnEq at 7% ZnEq comprised of two resource zones, Dry Creek and West Tundra Flats

DC18-79: 6 m of 2155 g/t AgEq (409 g/t Ag, 5.38 g/t Au, 1.21% Cu, 23.3% Zn+Pb)

DC18-77: 5 m of 1719 g/t AgEq (1213 g/t Ag, 1.87 g/t Au, 0.4% Cu, 6.0% Zn+Pb)

DC98-40: 36 m of 672 g/t AgEq (183 g/t Ag, 1.02 g/t Au, 0.22% Cu, 8.54% Zn+Pb) Incl. 3 m of 3123 g/t AgEq (738.2 g/t Ag, 3.29 g/t Au, 1.47% Cu, 44% Zn+Pb)

WTF82-08: 7.3 m of 619 AgEq (334.8 g/t Ag, 0.5 g/t Au, 5.4% Zn+Pb)

WTF18-28: 3.5 m of 1654 g/t AgEq (517.5 g/t Ag, 2.05 g/t Au, 0.2% Cu, 21.6% Zn+Pb)

Table 1: Red Mountain NI 43-101 Resource Summary, 2024

Combined Open-Pit and Underground Mineral Resource Estimate Mineral Resource Area Rock

Mt ZnEq

kt ZnEq

% AgEq

Moz AgEq

g/t Zn

kt Zn

% Pb

kt Pb

% Cu

kt Cu

% Ag

Moz Ag

g/t Au

Koz Au

g/t Dry Creek 11.6 676 5.84 104 279.4 346 2.99 130 1.13 23 0.2 17.5 47 128 0.34 West Tundra Flats 4 420 10.39 64.6 496.9 186 4.6 86 2.13 3 0.08 18.4 141.2 86 0.66 Global 15.6 1,097 7.02 168.6 335.7 532 3.41 216 1.39 26 0.17 35.9 71.4 214 0.43

Notes:

Mt=million tonnes; g/t=grams per tonne; AgEq=silver equivalent; ZnEq=zinc equivalent; m=metres; Ag=silver; Au=gold; Cu=copper; Zn=zinc; Pb=lead

Equivalencies are calculated using ratios with metal prices of US$2,750/tonne Zn, US$2,100/tonne Pb, US$8,880/tonne Cu, US$1,850/oz Au, and US$23/oz Ag and

Metal recoveries are based on metallurgical work returned of 90% Zn, 75% Pb, 70% Cu, 70% Ag, and 80% Au.

Zinc Equivalent (ZnEq %) = [Zn (%) x 1] + [Pb (%) x 0.6364] + [Cu (%) x 2.4889] + [Ag (ppm) x 0.0209] + [Au (ppm) x 1.923]

Silver Equivalent (AgEq g/t) = [Zn (%) x 47.81] + [Pb (%) x 30.43] + [Cu (%) x 119] + [Ag (g/t) x 1] + [Au (g/t) x 91.93]

Technical Summary

The Red Mountain Project was first discovered in 1975, with exploration resulting in two deposits called Dry Creek (DC) and West Tundra Flats (WTF). The mineralization within the two resource zones are typical of a Volcanogenic Massive Sulfide (VMS) with a siliciclastic felsic association. The mineralization occurs within the upper portions of the Totatlanika Schist of Mississippian to Devonian Age. The Totlanika Schist forms the core of a roughly east-west trending syncline within the property (the Bonnifield East Syncline). The DC mineralized horizons can be traced for 4,500m of strike, and steeply dips to the north. Mineralization occurs as semi-massive to massive sulfides within metamorphosed mudstones and rhyolites. WTF is located approximately 3.5-5 km northeast of DC on the opposing limb of the syncline. Mineralization at WTF can be traced at surface for 1,000m and dips shallowly to the southwest.

Table 2: Select Drill Intercepts at Dry Creek (DC) and West Tundra Flats (WTF).

Drill Hole Width Silver Gold Copper Lead+Zinc AgEq ID (meter) (g/t) (g/t) % % (g/t) DC98-38 9.00 268.60 1.15 0.15 7.80 725 DC98-40 36.10 183.00 1.02 0.22 8.54 672 Including 3.00 738.20 3.29 1.47 43.99 3123 DC18-77 6.80 938.70 1.45 0.36 5.20 1333 DC18-79 4.60 233.30 1.75 0.16 9.73 820 and 6.10 384.60 5.50 1.23 22.20 1988 Including 4.70 466.00 6.91 1.45 27.20 2442 WTF82-08 7.30 334.80 0.54 0.07 5.42 619 Including 1.80 1313.10 1.85 0.27 17.74 2248 WTF82-14 1.80 240.20 2.14 0.10 12.50 984 WTF83-17 1.90 620.70 3.58 0.00 23.21 1945 Including 1.30 871.60 5.06 0.51 31.93 2760 WTF18-28 3.50 517.50 2.05 0.20 21.60 1654

Assays are weighted averages and the intervals are drilled widths as true widths have yet to be determined.

A total of 213 holes for 38,417m have been drilled since 1976 by numerous operators including Phelps Dodge, Getty Oil, US Borax, Grayd Resources, Bear Creek Mining, Inmet Mining and most recently, Whiterock Minerals, prior to Silver47 ownership.

DC and WTF are the two most advanced mineralized zones at Red Mountain, with at least 20 additional mineralized prospects discovered on the property to date over the 60 km of highly prospective geology. Silver47 has a robust database of historic geochemical and geophysical data, including 2,543 rock samples and 7,948 soil samples, 15,862 XRF soil samples, property-scale SkyTEM surveys and high-resolution FLEM, CSAMT and ground magnetic survey coverage over high-priority targets.

During the summer of 2024, Silver47 drilled six holes for a total of 1,039m at Red Mountain to confirm historic intercepts, infill and expansion potential at both DC and WTF, including one hole to 283m depth testing the Kiwi exploration target. A small surface geochemical sampling program was completed concurrent with drill operations for a total of 228 soils and 21 rocks from Galleon, Horseshoe and Kiwi targets.

Assay results from the 2024 exploration program are pending.

The Red Mountain NI 43-101 technical report titled "Technical Report on the Red Mountain VMS Property, Bonnifield Mining District, Alaska, USA" dated January 12, 2024, prepared by Apex Geoscience Ltd., can be found on the Company's website https://silver47.ca/ and SEDAR+. The Red Mountain technical report includes a Mineral Resource Estimate at Part 14.

Adams Plateau SEDEX/VMS Project - British Columbia, Canada

The Adams Plateau Project is located in the Kamloops Mining Division and is 70 km northeast of the city of Kamloops, BC. Silver47 wholly-owns 48 contiguous mineral titles covering approximately 149 square km. Mineralization was first identified in the area in 1925, resulting in more than 25 MINFILE showings, including small-scale past production of lead, zinc, and silver at the Lucky, Spar and Mosquito King Showings.

Historic Drill Highlights, Adams Plateau

3.66m of 180.4 g/t Ag, 8.1% Pb+Zn at the Lucky Showing

4.88m of 348.35 g/t Ag, 0.72 g/t Au, 27.3% Pb+Zn, 0.23% Cu at the Spar Showing

Modern exploration has consisted of surface geochemical sampling and various geophysical surveys. Silver47 carried out surface sampling programs in 2022 and 2024, producing numerous new targets for follow up exploration. A total of 16,947 soil, 694 rock and 146 silt samples have been collected over the project. Silver47 collected surface rock grab samples that have returned up to 3503 g/t Ag, 7% Cu, 6.5 g/t Au and 29% Pb+Zn.

Figure 2: Soil Geochemical Results for Silver with Rock Sample Highlights

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Michelle Project, MVT-SEDEX Project - Yukon Territory, Canada

The 15,900 hectare Michelle Project is located in north-central Yukon, 130 km north-northeast of Dawson City, Yukon. In 2022, Silver47 confirmed a new and significant silver discovery at the Michelle Project:

7.68 m of 1,577 g/t Ag, 45% Pb, 4% Zn within 15 m of 907 g/t Ag, 26% Pb, 2.7% Zn in hole MCH22-002 at the Silver Matt Target.

Surface samples at the Silver Matt Showing have returned up to 4180 g/t Ag, 82% Pb.

First discovered in 1973, exploration at the Michelle Project has identified 20 named showings with limited drilling defining 3 mineralized zones. Silver, lead, zinc and a number of critical metals are known to occur within oxide and sulfide mineralization of the Bouvette Formation carbonates across the property. Mineralization style is yet to be defined, with showings exhibiting characteristics of Mississippi Valley Type, Carbonate replacement, within the broader classification of SEDEX deposits.

In 2021, Silver47 discovered the Silver Matt showing with reverse calculations drilling intersecting several meters of oxide and massive sulfide mineralization. In 2022 a diamond core drill was mobilized to further test the Silver Matt prospect, MCH-22-002 intersected 7.68 m of 1,577 g/t Ag, 45.28% Pb, 4.03% Zn and 0.17% Sb. Holes MCH-22-004 and -005 confirmed continuous mineralization at least 50 m along strike.

Figure 3: Silver Matt Cross-Section

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Table 3: Assay Intervals for the Silver Matt Discovery

Hole ID From (m) To (m) Interval (m) Ag (ppm) Pb (%) Zn (%) Cu (ppm) Ga (ppm) Sb (ppm) MCH-22-001 16.91 27.10 10.19 246.31 5.71 3.54 526.82 98.62 976.62 incl 21.65 26.05 4.40 497.00 11.13 3.87 1035.50 190.27 2129.50 and 64.62 67.89 3.27 64.97 0.52 0.44 45.77 4.82 5.17



















MCH-22-002 33.79 49.00 15.21 907.11 26.03 2.72 117.24 17.10 1011.99 incl 33.79 41.47 7.68 1577.50 45.28 4.03 201.50 28.96 1748.75



















MCH-22-003 22.60 32.00 9.40 270.92 7.95 4.35 125.37 26.79 491.23 incl 27.00 31.05 4.05 640.30 16.55 7.06 190.00 41.26 880.25 Not Previoulsy Released Hole ID From (m) To (m) Interval (m) Ag (ppm) Pb (%) Zn (%) Cu (ppm) Ga (ppm) Sb (ppm) MCH-22-004 26.80 48.34 21.54 172.42 3.11 7.08 65.93 19.44 340.59 incl 31.32 39.19 7.87 199.87 5.97 18.60 121.93 48.76 896.92 incl 44.12 48.34 4.22 232.62 4.45 2.30 84.20 11.50 213.62



















MCH-22-005 27.20 39.50 12.30 623.87 12.95 3.75 354.61 66.07 657.95 incl 33.32 38.53 5.21 1282.80 26.34 6.55 734.60 136.34 1343.40 and 49.88 79.00 29.12 2.77 0.10 6.80 54.27 2.38 11.69

Assays are weighted averages and the intervals are drilled widths as true widths have yet to be determined.

The Michelle Project is considered an early-stage exploration project, with further exploration recommended pending a class 3 permit. However, during the class 3 drill permit review process by the Yukon territorial government, the federal Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board's ("YESAB") recommended the project not proceed based on environmental and Indigenous group concerns. Both the Yukon Government and Silver47 are jointly challenging the YESAB recommendation for a variety of reasons, e.g. First Nation and government bodies all agreed to honour existing mineral claims, and YESAB improperly applied wrong criteria on Silver47's exploration proposals. The legal challenge will take the form of a judicial review in Yukon Supreme Court, and will be heard in Whitehorse on November 27-29, 2024. Indicative of the Yukon Government concern, it is taking the extraordinary position that Silver47 was treated unfairly by YESAB.

Michelle QA/QC

Quality Assurance and quality control protocols for rock, soil and drill core sampling at the Michelle Project followed industry standard practices. Rock and soil samples were delivered directly to ALS Minerals preparation facility in Whitehorse, Yukon. Core samples were taken at 1.0 m intervals in mineralized zones, and 3.0 m intervals in unaltered, fresh host rock. Blank, duplicate (Coarse and lab pulp), and certified reference materials were inserted into the sample stream every 8th sample. Core samples were cut in half, bagged, sealed and delivered to ALS Minerals preparation facility in Whitehorse, Yukon. ALS Minerals Laboratories are registered to ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 17025 accreditations for laboratory procedures. Rock and core samples were analyzed at ALS Laboratory facilities in North Vancouver using four-acid digestion with an ICP-MS finish. Over-limits for Ag, Pb, and Zn were analyzed using Ore Grade four-acid digestion. Silver values >1,500 ppm were analyzed using fire assay with gravimetric finish. Lead >20% and zinc >30% were analyzed using titration methods. The standards, certified reference materials, were acquired from CDN Resource Laboratories Ltd. of Langley, British Columbia and selected to represent expected mineralization.

Qualified Person

Mr. Alex S. Wallis, P.Geo., is Vice President of Exploration for the Company who is a "qualified person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Wallis has verified the data disclosed in this press release, including the sampling, analytical and test data underlying the technical information and has approved the technical information in this press release.

About Silver47 Exploration Corp.

Silver47 wholly-owns three silver and critical metals (polymetallic) exploration projects in Canada and the US: the Flagship Red Mountain silver-gold-zinc-copper-lead VMS-SEDEX project in southcentral Alaska; the Adams Plateau silver-zinc-copper-gold-lead SEDEX-VMS project in southern British Columbia, and the Michelle silver-lead-zinc-gallium-antimony MVT-SEDEX Project in Yukon Territory. Silver47 Exploration Corporation shares trade on the TSX-V under the ticker symbol AGA. For more information about Silver47, please visit our website at www.silver47.ca.

No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved of the contents of this release. Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", and "intend", statements that an action or event "may", "might", "could", "should", or "will" be taken or occur, including statements relating to the trading of the Company's common shares on the TSXV, the prospective geology and composition of its properties, anticipated results of further exploration on its properties, statements relating to the YESAB litigation, or other similar expressions and all statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein. By their nature, forward- looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: the need for additional financing; the satisfaction of the conditions imposed by the TSXV on the Listing; operational risks associated with mineral exploration; regulatory risks; fluctuations in commodity prices; title matters; litigation risks; and the additional risks identified in the Company's long form prospectus dated October 25, 2024 filed under its issuer profile on SEDAR+ and other reports and filings with the TSXV and applicable Canadian securities regulators. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229897

SOURCE: Silver47 Exploration Corp.
- GETESA Money S.A. a subsidiary of GETESA, to introduce first-of-its-kind digital payment services on Comviva's mobiquity Pay platform in Equatorial Guinea

- Comviva to empower GETESA with next generation converged communication and messaging cloud

NEW DELHI, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Comviva, the global leader in customer experience and data monetization solutions, today announced its strategic partnership with Guinea Ecuatorial de Telecomunicaciones SA (GETESA), Equatorial Guinea's largest telecom operator, to launch a comprehensive digital payments platform. This three-way partnership between GETESA/GETESA Money S.A., Comviva and Quitus Payments & Services S.A., marks a significant milestone in the digital evolution of Equatorial Guinea's financial landscape, introducing some of the nation's first-of-its-kind digital payment services and accelerating the transition toward a cash-lite economy.

Leveraging Comviva's advanced mobiquity Pay platform, GETESA Money S.A. will empower users with a suite of fintech capabilities, such as peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers, bill payments, merchant payments, and more. With mobiquity Pay, GETESA Money S.A. customers can seamlessly conduct several day-to-day transactions, such as utility payments, grocery purchases, insurance premiums, satellite TV top-ups, mobile airtime recharge and many more. The platform will also enable self-service, with additional support through GETESA's extensive agent network, fostering accessibility and convenience across the country.

Comviva will also deploy its next generation converged communication and messaging cloud platform that streamlines SMS, USSD, and Firewall services, along with various value-added services, into a single, unified platform. This solution will enable GETESA to efficiently plan and manage its complete communication needs, supporting its transformation into a next-generation telecom leader in Equatorial Guinea.

Quitus Payments & Services S.A., known for its extensive expertise in fintech, will play a crucial role in the overall solution deployment. Through its deep understanding of technology development and digital finance, Quitus brings the ideal foundation to accelerate the success of this project.

Carlos Esono MIKO NSING, CEO of GETESA, expressed his excitement, "At GETESA, we are committed to making life easier for our customers by offering innovative solutions that meet their daily financial needs. This partnership with Comviva and Quitus Payments & Services S.A. brings a powerful digital payments platform that will empower our customers with greater financial convenience and inclusion, enhancing their lives and contributing to Equatorial Guinea's digital transformation."

Speaking on the partnership, Comviva's Chief Executive Officer, Rajesh Chandiramani, said, "This collaboration represents our dedication to advancing digital finance services globally and creating meaningful, real-world impact. By empowering GETESA Money S.A. with our mobiquity Pay platform, we are providing a trusted and convenient digital payments solution that aligns with GETESA's vision to simplify financial transactions for its customers. Ultimately, this partnership not only drives financial inclusion but also sets a benchmark for a cash-lite economy in Equatorial Guinea, reinforcing our commitment to transforming financial landscapes worldwide."

"Our role in this partnership is to bring our deep expertise in technology and fintech development, bridging Comviva's digital financial capabilities with GETESA Money S.A.'s robust market presence. Together, we're setting the stage for a transformative shift towards cashless convenience for the people of Equatorial Guinea," said NDONGMO Patrice Maurille, CEO of Quitus Payments & Services S.A.

Comviva's mobiquity Pay is the world's leader in digital payment and wallet solutions. With 90+ deployments in 50+ countries, processing USD 300 Bn annually, it serves consumers, merchants, businesses, and banks globally, fostering telcos, banks, and fintech companies to utilize its capabilities. The platform provides an array of functionalities, ranging from digital onboarding to bill payments and merchant transactions. The solution streamlines diverse payment instruments within a unified wallet platform, ensuring accessibility to a wide user demographic, spanning from underbanked individuals and corporates to millennials and Gen Z.

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/995982/4760440/Comviva_Logo.jpg

Contact

Sundeep Mehta

sundeep.mehta@comviva.com

+91-9910030732

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/getesa-partners-with-comviva-to-accelerate-digital-payments-and-offer-next-generation-communication-and-messaging-cloud-302305675.html
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - General Mills, Inc. (GIS) announced Thursday it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Whitebridge Pet Brands' North American premium Cat feeding and Pet treating business from pan-European investment firm NXMH BV in a transaction valued at $1.45 billion.The business, which includes the Tiki Pets and Cloud Star portfolio of brands, is a growth leader in the Cat feeding and Pet treating segments, which collectively make up $24 billion in retail sales within the broader $52 billion U.S. pet food category.With this transaction, General Mills further advances its Accelerate strategy, with a focus on its core markets, global platforms and local gem brands to drive sustainable, profitable growth and top-tier shareholder returns over the long term.The North American Whitebridge Pet Brands business generated approximately $325 million in U.S. Nielsen-measured retail sales in the past twelve months, predominantly in the pet specialty and E-commerce channels.As part of the transaction, General Mills will assume operations of two manufacturing facilities in Joplin, Missouri. NXMH will retain Whitebridge Pet Brands' European business and brands.General Mills intends to fund the acquisition with cash on hand and new debt. The transaction is anticipated to close in the third quarter of fiscal 2025, subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions.Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights ReservedCopyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Johannesburg, South Africa--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - DRDGOLD is pleased to announce the company is participating in the upcoming 121 Mining Investment Conference in London. Niel Pretorius of DRDGOLD will be presenting about the Company's recent and future planned activities.

121 Mining Investment London will be hosting over 150 mining companies and more than 500 investors for two days of pre-arranged, targeted 1-2-1 meetings.

Alongside the curated schedule of pre-booked meetings matching investors with appropriate projects, the conference programme will provide expert commentary and the latest market intelligence on key industry developments.

This year's event is being held on November 14-15.

Any investors who would like to attend 121 Mining Investment London can register for a free pass here.

About 121 Mining Investment

The 121 Mining Investment global event series connects portfolio managers and analysts from institutional funds, private equity groups and family offices with mining company management teams for 1-2-1, private in-person meetings.

121 Mining Investment has an ever-expanding global portfolio, currently covering London, New York, Cape Town, Dubai and Singapore, as well as online editions throughout the year.

About DRDGOLD

DRDGOLD Limited is a South African company and world leader in reclaiming surface gold resources (tailings) and, through the astute use of technology, produces gold and releases hundreds of hectares of rehabilitated land for social and industrial development, empowering host communities, reversing gold mining's environmental legacy, aligning with

SOURCE: 121 Mining Investment Conference
JERUSALEM (dpa-AFX) - Protalix BioTherapeutics, Inc. (PLX) Thursday reported net income of $3.24 million or $0.03 per share for the third quarter compared with net loss of $1.85 million or $0.04 per share in the same quarter a year ago.Revenue for the quarter increased to $17.96 million from $10.35 million in the previous year.Additionally, the company reported encouraging results from the Phase 1 study evaluating PRX-115 for the treatment of uncontrolled gout.'Preliminary results from this study, being presented today and this week in a late-breaking poster at ACR Convergence 2024, are encouraging and demonstrate the potential of PRX-115 to be a promising uric-acid lowering treatment option for individuals with gout. We are actively planning a phase II clinical trial of PRX-115 in gout patients and expect to initiate the study in the second half of 2025' said Dror Bashan, Protalix's President and Chief Executive Officer.Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights ReservedCopyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
New campaign stakes a claim in the future of software development by transforming application generation through the powerful combination of low-code and generative AI

OutSystems, a global leader transforming how companies innovate through software, today unveiled the "Generative Software Cycle." The new campaign, targeted across the United States, highlights the power of GenAI with governed low-code to introduce new levels of developer productivity and eliminate cumbersome technical debt.

"About five years ago, we predicted that AI and neural networks would have a huge impact on the future of automation. We are now at a tipping point in the world of software, something that has never been seen in the past 35 years-the Generative Software Cycle is here," said Paulo Rosado, CEO and founder of OutSystems. "With GenAI, we have seen an increase in the amount of code that's being generated. To avoid increasing technical debt, we need abstractions that reduce that amount of code. This is why we believe that code will become an artifact, a technology of the past. And only the combined power of low-code and AI will enable organizations to tackle the challenges of the new software development lifecycle."

The Generative Software Cycle is more than just a technological advancement-it's a shift in how enterprises create, customize, and modernize applications. By merging the simplicity of low-code with the power and automation of GenAI, OutSystems transforms the entire software development lifecycle into a major competitive advantage. The result is faster development cycles and speed-to-market, greater innovation potential and agility to adapt to market and customer demands, and stronger alignment across the business.

As a full-stack, generative lifecycle platform that combines the power of GenAI with governed low-code, OutSystems transforms GenAI into a superpower, enabling a generation of modern, governable, integrated enterprise apps in minutes.

"Both GenAI and low-code have become clouded with so much hype. We needed a way to cut through the noise and accurately convey the transformative value of these technologies coming together," said Christine Nurnberger, CMO, OutSystems. "The Generative Software Cycle is an expression of the new world that's already been unleashed, and low-code x AI is the path to taking software development to infinity with continuous iteration, unlimited use cases, and limitless productivity."

To develop the campaign, OutSystems conducted extensive market research, working with B2B marketing visionaries, Velocity Partners, to capture the competitive landscape and user demands in the Generative Software Cycle.

This campaign was introduced earlier this month at ONE: OutSystems NextStep Experience in Amsterdam where OutSystems unveiled Mentor, a first-of-its kind AI-powered application generator that enables IT leaders to turn big ideas into enterprise-grade software in minutes with simple prompts. On the heels of this groundbreaking innovation, this campaign aims to define the Generative Software Cycle. To learn more about the Generative Software Cycle, click here.

About OutSystems

OutSystems is a global leader transforming how companies innovate through software, empowering IT leaders with a better way to build the software that matters most. The OutSystems platform helps companies develop, deploy, and maintain mission-critical applications by unifying and automating the entire software lifecycle. With OutSystems, organizations leverage GenAI to deliver software instantaneously, adapt faster to changing requirements, and reduce technical debt by building on a future-proof platform. Helping customers achieve their business goals by addressing key strategic initiatives, OutSystems delivers software up to 10x faster than traditional development. Recognized as a leader by analysts, IT executives, business leaders, and developers around the world, global brands trust OutSystems to tackle their impossible projects and turn their big ideas into software that moves their business, people, and the world forward.

Founded in 2001, the company's network spans more than 800,000 community members, over 500 partners, and active customers in 75+ countries across 21 industries. Learn more at www.outsystems.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114870238/en/

Contacts:

Shayna Chapel

pr@outsystems.com
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - NASA is commissioning five studies that look into new designs or technologies that make sustainable aircraft of the future, which are more efficient and have lower emissions than the current ones.Through its Advanced Aircraft Concepts for Environmental Sustainability (AACES) 2050 initiative, NASA asked industry and academia to come up with studies looking at aircraft concepts, key technologies, and designs that could offer the transformative solutions needed to secure commercial aviation's sustainable future by 2050. NASA issued five awards, totaling $11.5 million, to four companies and one university. These new NASA-funded studies will help the agency identify and select promising aircraft concepts and technologies for further investigations.'Through initiatives like AACES, NASA is positioned to harness a broad set of perspectives about how to further increase aircraft efficiency, reduce aviation's environmental impact and enhance U.S. technological competitiveness in the 2040s, 2050s, and beyond,' said Bob Pearce, NASA associate administrator for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.The AACES 2050 awards went to organizations that will form networks of university and corporate partners to advance their studies. NASA expects the awardees to complete their studies by mid-2026.Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing Company, will examine new alternative aviation fuels, propulsion systems, aerodynamic technologies, and aircraft configurations along with other technology areas.The Electra-led team will explore extending Electra's novel distributed electric propulsion and its unique aerodynamic design capabilities to develop innovative wing and fuselage integrations that deliver sustainable aviation focused on enabling community-friendly emission reduction, noise reduction, and improved air travel access. The company's existing small aircraft prototype has been flying for more than a year, demonstrating Electra's technology that aims to transform air travel with reduced environmental impact and improved operational efficiency.Georgia Institute of Technology will perform a comprehensive exploration of sustainability technologies, including alternative fuels, propulsion systems, and aircraft configurations.JetZero will explore technologies that enable cryogenic, liquid hydrogen to be used as a fuel for commercial aviation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These technologies will be evaluated on both tube-and wing and JetZero's blended wing body - an airplane shape that provides more options for larger hydrogen fuel tanks within the aircraft.Pratt and Whitney a division of RTX Corporation, will explore a broad suite of commercial aviation propulsion technologies targeting thermal and propulsive efficiency improvements to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights ReservedCopyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Revenue for the Three Months Ended September 30, 2024 Increased 43%

Income from Operations for the Nine Months Ended September 30, 2024 Increased 648%

Operating Cash Flow for the Nine Months Ended September 30, 2024 Increased 1,508%

Previously Announced Share Repurchase Program for up to $1 Million Has Begun

Zoned Properties, Inc. ("Zoned Properties" or the "Company") (OTCQB:ZDPY), a technology-driven property investment company for emerging and highly regulated industries, including legalized cannabis, today announced its financial results for the third quarter and nine months ended September 30, 2024, as well as recent highlights related to the Company's ongoing progress.

Recent Highlights:

The Company continues to make material progress in expanding its property portfolio, enhancing cash flow, and reducing operating expenses.

The Company previously announced the approval of a stock repurchase program, pursuant to which the Company is authorized to purchase up to $1 million of its common stock over an unlimited period of time. The Company has begun repurchasing shares and expects to continue to do so in accordance with Rule 10b5-1 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), and Rule 10b-18 of the Exchange Act.

The Company has secured a portfolio of future retail dispensary locations in Ohio, working with tier-one dispensary operators as applicants through the state's lottery system. Multiple properties are in major metropolitan areas and are expected to be leased to tier-one cannabis operators, further solidifying the Company's presence in key markets with best-in-class cannabis tenants.

The Company previously announced it has listed one of its legacy cultivation property assets in Chino Valley, Arizona for sale. This potential transaction marks a significant development in the Company's strategic real estate portfolio optimization. The Chino Valley property has become a valuable non-core asset, and its potential sale is part of the Company's strategic efforts to source non-dilutive investment capital in order to concentrate on a direct-to-consumer real estate strategy.

Selected Financial Highlights for the Three and Nine Months Ended September 30, 2024:

Total revenues were $1,029,630 for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to $720,450 for the quarter ended September 30, 2023, an increase of 43%.

Property investment portfolio revenues were $750,926 for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to $637,143 for the quarter ended September 30, 2023, an increase of 18%.

Operating expenses were $584,442 for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to $671,338 for the quarter ended September 30, 2023, a decrease of 13%.

Income from operations was $445,188 for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to $49,112 for the quarter ended September 30, 2023, an increase of 806%.

Income from operations was $677,235 for the nine months ended September 30, 2024, compared to $90,531 for the nine months ended September 30, 2023, an increase of 648%.

Cash provided by operating activities was $455,363 for the nine months ended September 30, 2024, compared to $28,325 for the nine months ended September 30, 2023, an increase of 1,508%.

Net income of $58,872, or ($0.00) per fully diluted share, for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, as compared to net income of $114,523, or $0.01 per fully diluted share, for the quarter ended September 30, 2023.

The Company had cash on hand of $1.2 million as of September 30, 2024, compared to cash on hand of $3.1 million as of December 31, 2023. The decrease in cash position primarily reflects the Company's property investments and acquisitions.

Management Commentary:

"We are incredibly proud of our third quarter results, which resulted in record revenue, robust operating cash flow, and a continued ability to deliver profitability, all of which underscore the credibility of our business model. This forward momentum is a testament to our core team and the operating ecosystem we have created, supporting strong tenant diversification and attractive geographic expansion opportunities. With our focus on value-add direct-to-consumer properties, we are well-positioned to capture above average cap rates in high-growth markets. Our property investment pipeline remains strong as we continue to secure new locations, bolstered by our deep industry relationships and disciplined investment process. In line with our strategic capital allocation priorities, we have been actively executing our share repurchase program, reaffirming our confidence in the intrinsic value of our company and our assets compared to our market cap, reflecting our ongoing commitment to delivering shareholder value. We expect this share repurchase activity will continue as part of our opportunistic approach to managing capital," said Bryan McLaren, Chief Executive Officer of Zoned Properties.

About Zoned Properties, Inc. (OTCQB: ZDPY):

Zoned Properties Inc. ("Zoned Properties" or the "Company") (OTCQB: ZDPY) is a technology-driven property investment company focused on acquiring value-add real estate within the regulated cannabis industry in the United States. The Company aspires to innovate within the real estate development sector, focusing on direct-to-consumer real estate that is leased to the best-in-class cannabis retailers.

Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Zoned Properties is redefining the approach to commercial real estate investment through its standardized investment process backed by its proprietary property technology. Zoned Properties has developed a national ecosystem of real estate services to support its real estate development model, including a commercial real estate brokerage and a real estate advisory practice. With a decade of national experience and a team of experts devoted to the emerging cannabis industry, Zoned Properties is addressing the specific needs of a modern market in highly regulated industries. The Company targets commercial properties that face unique zoning or development challenges, identifies solutions that can potentially have a major impact on their commercial value, and then works to acquire the properties while securing long-term, absolute-net leases.

Zoned Properties targets commercial properties that can be acquired and rezoned for specific purposes, including the regulated and legalized cannabis industry. It does not grow, harvest, sell or distribute cannabis or any substances regulated under United States law such as the Controlled Substance Act of 1970, as amended. Zoned Properties corporate headquarters are located at 8360 E. Raintree Dr., Suite 230, Scottsdale, Arizona. For more information, call 877-360-8839 or visit www.ZonedProperties.com.

Twitter: @ZonedProperties

LinkedIn: @ZonedProperties

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this press release are forward-looking statements. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "plan," "potential," "continue" or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties, and there are important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors, risks and uncertainties are discussed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Investors should not place any undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond the Company's control which could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Any forward-looking statement reflects the Company's current views with respect to future events and is subject to these and other risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to operations, results of operations, growth strategy and liquidity. The Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

Investor Relations

Zoned Properties, Inc.

Bryan McLaren

Tel (877) 360-8839

Investors@zonedproperties.com

www.zonedproperties.com

SOURCE: Zoned Properties, Inc.

View the original press release on accesswire.com
Corsicana, Texas--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - 8:07 AM ET - Birchtech Corp. (TSX: BCHT) (OTCQB: BCHT) ("Birchtech" or the "Company"), a leading environmental technologies firm, has reported financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2024. The Company reports the following highlights for the period ended September 30, 2024:

Q3 Financial Summary Highlights (USD):

Cash on hand of $4.4 million

Working capital of $3.6 million

1.9 to 1 ratio of current assets to current liabilities

Revenues of $5.2 million for Q3 2024

Total costs and expenses of $6.0 million for Q3 2024

Net loss of $0.47 million for Q3 2024

Repayment of remaining principal balance due to AC Midwest Energy on its unsecured note, leaving only non-recourse profit share liability outstanding

Additional information can be found in the Company's Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended September 30, 2024, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 14, 2024.

"As we reach the final months of 2024, we remain in a stable, strong financial position in support of our launch into new markets in the near term," stated Richard MacPherson, CEO of Birchtech Corp. "The repayment of our debt to our primary financial partner was a significant achievement during these last few months. Removing all major debt allows for further investment in our company's growth as we work to establish potentially industry disrupting technologies that provide significant benefit to the potable water treatment sector.

"Through our ongoing patent protection efforts, we expect to see additional license agreements from discussions with current defendants that our now underway. Our core business in mercury emissions capture technologies remains a consistent foundation as we continue in our efforts to establish positive business relationships across the power industry.

"Moving into 2025, with this team of industry renown experts and excellent support staff and operational improvements, our future is expected to be punctuated by transitional corporate growth," concluded MacPherson.

About Birchtech Corp.

Birchtech Corp. (TSX: BCHT) (OTCQB: BCHT), formerly Midwest Energy Emissions Corp., is an environmental technology firm that promotes cleaner water and air with highly effective, affordable, and sustainable business solutions. Birchtech's separate operating divisions each offer innovative, efficient technologies addressing critical industry concerns. With over 40 patents, the Company's ME2C Environmental division has provided patented SEA sorbent technologies for mercury emissions capture to the coal-fired utility sector since 2008. WE2C Environmental is focused on developing new, disruptive technologies for PFAS/PFOS removal from potable (drinking) water. New and innovative water purification technologies are under development to meet the growing demand for sustainable water solutions worldwide. Learn more at http://www.birchtech.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

With the exception of historical information contained in this press release, content herein may contain "forward-looking statements" that are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor Provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 or forward-looking information under applicable Canadian securities laws (collectively, "forward-looking statements"). Forward-looking statements are generally identified by using words such as "anticipate," "believe," "plan," "expect," "intend," "will," and similar expressions, but these words are not the exclusive means of identifying forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this release include statements relating to expected developments and growth in Birchtech's business. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. In addition, this release contains time-sensitive information that reflects management's best analysis only as of the date of this release. Birchtech does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect future events, information or circumstances that arise after the date of this release. Further information concerning issues that could materially affect financial performance or other forward-looking statements contained in this release can be found in Birchtech's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission or Canadian securities regulators.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229847

SOURCE: Birchtech Corp.
Novotech, the global full-service clinical Contract Research Organization (CRO), has published its latest whitepaper, offering in-depth analysis and emerging trends and advancements within the rapidly evolving field of cell and gene therapies. The report provides critical insights into the growth of clinical trials, innovations and strategic opportunities, shaping the future of this field.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114441933/en/

Key Highlights from the Report:

Global Clinical Trial Expansion : Over 1,500 drug candidates in development across phases 0 to III. CAR-T therapies account for 32% of the pipeline, primarily targeting hematological cancers. The global trial landscape experienced a 32.5% growth from 2019 to 2023, with Asia-Pacific leading in trial activity (44% of all trials).

: Oncology Focus : CAR-T and CAR-NK therapies represent ~30% of all cell and gene trials, with a strong focus on solid and hematological malignancies. Significant attention on gastrointestinal tract and lung cancers, as well as hematological cancers like diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).

: Geographic Leadership : Asia-Pacific : Strong growth driven by China, which leads with 56% of the region's cell and gene trials. North America : The U.S. dominates with 85% of the trials. Europe : The UK, Spain, and Germany are key players.

: Technological Advancements : AI and Contract Development and Manufacturing Organizations (CDMOs) are transforming the cell and gene therapy landscape, improving manufacturing efficiency and trial scalability.

: Patient Recruitment Trends : Faster recruitment in Asia-Pacific (16.07 months) compared to the U.S. (21.15 months), with the region showing higher enrollment efficiency.

: Investment Growth : A significant rise in venture capital for cell and gene therapies peaked in 2021, with sustained funding for start-ups and growth-stage companies.

:

Novotech's whitepaper highlights the significant potential of cell and gene therapies, particularly in oncology, and outlines opportunities for increased collaboration in global clinical trials.

Download the full report to explore the complete clinical landscape and discover how Novotech can accelerate your research efforts.

About Novotech Novotech-CRO.com

Founded in 1997, Novotech is a global full-service clinical Contract Research Organization (CRO) focused on partnering with biotech companies to accelerate the development of advanced and novel therapeutics at every phase.

Recognized for its industry-leading contributions, Novotech has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Frost &Sullivan 2024 Global Biotech CRO of the year award, Clinical Trials Arena Excellence Awards 2024, 2024 Employer of Choice, 2024 Great Place to Work in the US, 2024 Brandon Hall Gold Award, CRO Leadership Award 2023, the Asia Pacific Cell Gene Therapy Clinical Trials Excellence 2023, the Asia-Pacific Contract Research Organization Company of the Year Award since 2006.

The Company offers a comprehensive suite of services including laboratories, Phase I facilities, drug development consulting, regulatory expertise, and has experience with over 5,000 clinical projects, including Phase I to Phase IV clinical trials and bioequivalence studies. With a presence in 34 office locations and a dedicated team of 3,000+ professionals worldwide, Novotech is a trusted end-to-end strategic partner of choice.

For more information or to speak to an expert team member visit www.Novotech-CRO.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114441933/en/

Contacts:

Media Contact

Toyna Chin

mediacontact@novotech-cro.com

USA: +1 415 364 8135
Blenheim Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - In a comprehensive analysis leveraging the principles from *What Grandpa Learned from His Honeybees*, three of Canada's leading banks-Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD), and Bank of Montreal (BMO)-have been recognized for their commitment to sustainability and financial stability. This analysis, based on the latest 36-month Sedar Filings, uses a detailed scoring system across ten key sustainability and financial categories, providing a holistic view of each bank's operations.

Top 3 Scoring Canadian Banks:

**Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)** - Achieving an outstanding score in **Trustworthiness and Responsibility**, Royal Bank of Canada demonstrated a proactive approach, resulting in a final score of 92/100. **Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD)** - Achieving an outstanding score in **Consistency and Simplicity**, Toronto-Dominion Bank demonstrated a proactive approach, resulting in a final score of 88/100. **Bank of Montreal (BMO)** - Achieving an outstanding score in **Preparation and Resourcefulness**, Bank of Montreal demonstrated a proactive approach, resulting in a final score of 85/100.

This unique evaluation framework, inspired by principles from the honeybee hive, assesses each bank's financial and sustainable practices with a focus on long-term stability and responsible resource management. Each bank was rated on a 0-10 scale across ten key categories, culminating in a comprehensive final score out of 100.

The study underscores the importance of sustainable financial practices and demonstrates how leading Canadian banks are setting the standard for an eco-conscious future.

For more details about the principles and methodologies, consider exploring *What Grandpa Learned from His Honeybees.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229633

SOURCE: Wildflower Bee Farm
Green hydrogen production is rapidly accelerating, driven by demand from hard-to-abate heavy industries, surpassing past conservative predictions

LONDON, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Green Hydrogen (H2) is the cleanest form of hydrogen production. It's produced by renewable energy with zero CO2 emissions. Though only 0.2% of hydrogen is produced today, green H2 will account for 27% of total hydrogen production by 2030 - and 55% by 2035. ABI Research, a global technology intelligence firm, forecasts that this explosive growth will drive the market for green H2 from US$10 billion today to US$180 billion by 2035, significantly displacing grey hydrogen as the primary driver of the market.

"We're witnessing the start of a huge upheaval in what is already an established market," says Daniel Burge, Smart Energy Analyst at ABI Research. "Despite previously widespread doubt that green hydrogen would play a role in the energy transition, we're seeing committed investment - a global trend spearheaded by Asia-Pacific - in massive electrolysis productive capacity. Heavy industries, like petrochemical refineries and ammonia producers, are investing in low-emission hydrogen to decarbonize, reduce operational costs, and capture green premiums. Meanwhile, industries unable to electrify recognize green hydrogen as a promising sustainability path."

Net-zero regulations are impacting hydrogen production. Europe's upcoming RED II rules will require 42.5% low-emission hydrogen by 2030, while China and India are also scaling production to decarbonize and reduce costs, aiming to capture significant market share. In 2024, China accounted for about 30% of global hydrogen production, with green H2 output expected to grow at a 38% CAGR through 2035, likely increasing its lead.

This increasing commitment to clean hydrogen has dispelled the uncertainty around whether it is a suitable foundation for the decarbonization of heavy industry - for the largest regions in terms of supply and demand, that decision is clearly already made. "To capitalize on the opportunities inherent of the hydrogen market's prospective transformation and growth, players in petrochemical, chemical, steel, shipping, and aviation industries need to watch closely to see where, when, and how green hydrogen displaces, outpaces, and outgrows grey hydrogen and take its place as a fuel of the future," Burge concludes.

Green hydrogen and electrolyser producers to watch include Adani Energy, Linde, ITM Power, Sinopec, and Plug Power.

These findings are from ABI Research's Hydrogen Market Data report. This report is part of the company's Smart Energy for Enterprises & Industries research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights. Market Data spreadsheets are composed of deep data, market share analysis, and highly segmented, service-specific forecasts to provide detailed insight into where opportunities lie.

About ABI Research

ABI Research is a global technology intelligence firm uniquely positioned at the intersection of technology solution providers and end-market companies. We serve as the bridge that seamlessly connects these two segments by providing exclusive research and expert guidance to drive successful technology implementations and deliver strategies proven to attract and retain customers.

ABI Research?????????????,?????????,???????????????????????,??????????????,??????????????????????????,??????????

For more information about ABI Research's services, contact us at +1.516.624.2500 in the Americas, +44.203.326.0140 in Europe, +65.6592.0290 in Asia-Pacific, or visit www.abiresearch.com.

Contact Info:

Global

Deborah Petrara

Tel: +1.516.624.2558

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Collaboration to Drive Innovation in Healthcare with Secure AI Applications and Quantum-Resistant Data Solutions

VANCOUVER, BC, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Scope Technologies Corp. (CSE: SCPE) (OTCQB: SCPCF) (FSE: VN8) ("Scope" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the signing of a Letter of Intent (the "LOI") with Global Care Innovations Inc. ("GCI") and BitLab. This strategic partnership aims to deliver both quantum-secure data solutions and advanced AI-powered tools to healthcare providers across North America, enhancing patient care through cutting-edge technology. This partnership underscores Scope's positioning towards becoming a leader in secure technology sectors like Healthcare.

Under the proposed terms of the LOI, GCI will license Scope's QSE suite of quantum-resistant encryption and decentralized storage solutions, providing HIPAA-compliant, secure data management for healthcare organizations. Additionally, BitLab, a Toronto-based technology innovation lab, will serve as the primary development partner, leveraging Scope's visual recognition and neural network technologies to create tailored AI applications that meet the unique needs of each healthcare provider.

"This partnership with GCI and BitLab marks a significant step forward in our mission to secure sensitive health information against both current and future cyber threats," said James Young, CEO of Scope Technologies Corp. "Our collaboration combines robust quantum security with innovative AI solutions, empowering healthcare providers to protect patient data while improving diagnostics and treatment options through advanced AI."

The collaboration's AI focus will enable healthcare providers to leverage Scope's visual recognition and annotation technology in multiple applications, developed by BitLab to improve diagnostics, streamline patient care, and enhance health outcomes. From AI-powered diagnostic tools to personalized treatment recommendations, Scope's technology offers a scalable foundation for various healthcare innovations, all underpinned by quantum-secure data storage to ensure patient data remains protected.

On the quantum security side, GCI will integrate Scope's QSE platform to offer both quantum-resistant data backups and individual patient data vaults, designed to meet or exceed regulatory standards for data protection.

GCI CEO Dr. Ragui Ibrahim shared, "Scope's technology aligns perfectly with our vision of transforming healthcare through AI-driven solutions and secure data management. This partnership enables us to expand our offerings to healthcare providers, ensuring that data is safeguarded both today and as we move into a quantum-powered future."

BitLab CEO Shoukri Kattan added, "We're excited to be part of this transformative partnership. Our focus at BitLab is on delivering scalable, innovative solutions in AI and MedTech. By integrating Scope's advanced AI and quantum security capabilities, we're setting new benchmarks for healthcare technology and improving the quality of care across the sector."

The transaction is subject to the parties entering into a definitive agreement.

About Global Care Innovations Inc.

Global Care Innovations (GCI) is a healthcare technology leader focused on advancing patient care through AI-powered solutions. Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, GCI serves healthcare providers across North America with telemedicine, remote monitoring, and advanced data analytics solutions.

https://www.globalcareinnovations.com/

About BitLab

BitLab is a Toronto-based technology innovation lab focused on transforming the healthcare sector with cutting-edge solutions in AI, MedTech, and Digital Health. BitLab partners with ambitious organizations to create custom, scalable applications that drive innovation, elevate patient care, and set new industry benchmarks in medical technology and wellness.

https://www.bitlab.co/

Additionally, Scope announces that, further to its news releases dated September 13, 2024 and September 20, 2024, it has made additional payments to Creative Direct Marketing Group Inc. ("CDMG") for investor relations and marketing services to raise public awareness of the Company and increase brand awareness of the QSE platform. As set out in Scope's previous news release, CDMG will provide investor relations, market awareness and brand growth services through the creation and distribution of marketing materials (including print, digital and video). Scope made initial payments of US $997,100 to CDMG for their services. Scope has now paid CDMG an additional US $797,804 thereby increasing the total amount to US $1,794,904 for investor relations and marketing services that will end on December 20, 2024.

CDMG is based in Nashville Tennessee and does not have any prior relationship with Scope and is an arm's length party. To the best of Scope's knowledge, CDMG does not hold, directly or indirectly, any securities of Scope or have any right to acquire any such securities. The compensation payable to CDMG does not include any securities of Scope. The contact information for CDMG is Creative Direct Marketing Group, Inc., 1313 4th Avenue North, Nashville, TN 37208, Phone: 615-814-6633; Email: alobel@cdmginc.com

Scope has also engaged the market awareness and brand growth services through the creation and distribution of digital marketing materials of Plutus Invest & Consulting GmbH (28199 Bremen, Germany) ("Plutus") for a 12 month campaign commencing on November 15, 2024 and ending on December 15, 2025 for the total amount of EUR 107,500.

Plutus is based in Bremen, Germany and does not have any prior relationship with Scope and is an arm's length party. To the best of Scope's knowledge, Plutus does not hold, directly or indirectly, any securities of Scope or have any right to acquire any such securities. The proposed compensation for Plutus does not include any securities of Scope. The contact information of Plutus is Plutus Invest & Consulting GmbH, 28199 Bremen, Germany. +49 (0) 172 422 69 58, messina@plutus-invest.de

About Scope Technologies Corp.

Scope Technologies Corp., headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, is a pioneering technology company specializing in quantum security and machine learning. Through its flagship brands-QSE and GEM AI-Scope provides advanced solutions in quantum encryption and neural networks, empowering businesses and individuals with secure, scalable technologies that drive growth and operational efficiency.

LinkedIn: scope-technologies-corp

Facebook: Scope Technologies Corp

Twitter:@ScopeTechCorp

Contact Information:

James Young

CEO, Scope Technologies Corp.

Email: james@scopetech.ai

Phone: +1 604-416-1720

Website: www.scopetechnologies.io

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements that constitute forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements in this news release that are not purely historical statements of fact are forward-looking statements and include statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations, future, strategy, objectives, goals and targets, and more specifically, the use of proceeds of the Offering. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable and reflect expectations of future developments and other factors which management believes to be reasonable and relevant, the Company can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: "believes", "expects", "aim", "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 and are based on assumptions and analyses made by the Company in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, including, but not limited to, those risks and assumptions described in the Company's prospectus dated August 10, 2022, a copy of which is available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. While Scope considers these assumptions to be reasonable, based on information currently available, they may prove to be incorrect. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. In addition, forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks, including, without limitation, risks associated with general economic conditions, continued satisfaction of Canadian Securities Exchange requirements, product safety and recalls, regulatory compliance and risks associated with the Company's business. For more information on the risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause anticipated opportunities and actual results to differ materially, please refer to the risk factors set out in the Company's prospectus dated August 10, 2022, a copy of which is available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and, unless required by applicable law, the Company assumes no obligation to update the forward looking statements or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in these forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has in no way passed upon the merits of the business of the Company and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release and accepts no responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy hereof.

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Azure Holdings Group Corp (OTC PINK:AZRH) (being renamed American Industries), a Nevada corporation, and Coil Tubing Technology Inc., (CTT), a Nevada corporation, are pleased to announce the signing of a Joint Venture Agreement that will result in the contribution of $14.0M in Lower of Cost or Market Coil Tubing Technology Tools into a wholly owned subsidiary of AZRH & the exclusive rights to the distribution and sale of the broader set of technologies by AZRH. The effective date of the merger is 11/12/24. The tools will be delivered free and clear of liens, with zero obligation, and the wholly owned subsidiary joint venture formed will be subject to a 50 / 50 profit distribution between AZRH and CTT.

The groups see an incredible opportunity together to invest into the sales and distribution channels that have been formed CST, another wholly owned subsidiary AZRH, while leveraging over 40 years of Oil & Gas industry relationships.

Coil Tubing Technology, Inc. (CTT) is supplying the joint venture with a full line of proprietary tools, manufactured in accordance with and to oil industry specifications. The core business of the Company is development and marketing of specialty tools and related innovative technical solutions used with coiled tubing and jointed pipe in the bottomhole assembly for the exploration and production of hydrocarbons. CTT is active worldwide.

As a coiled tubing company, CTT has specialized in the design of proprietary tools for the coiled tubing industry, concentrating on four categories of tubing applications: thru-tubing fishing, thru-tubing workover and intervention, pipeline clean out, and coil tubing lateral drillout operations.

CTT offers a turnkey tool package containing a full line of standard tools and proprietary downhole tools or a single item tool rental.

Controlled Investments acted as an Advisor to the Transaction. Controlled Investments is a capital investment firm led by Josh Cohenthat has raised $310 million in committed capital this year and has acted as an advisor or co-advisor to over $1.3 billion in consummated transactions over the past decade.

As a result of the new joint venture and its technology capabilities, both parties anticipate a bright future for present and future shareholders.

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these statements by the use of the words "may," "should," "plans," "expects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimates," "projects," "intends," and similar expressions. Forward looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the company's ability to successfully execute its expanded business strategy, including by entering into definitive agreements with suppliers, commercial partners and customers; general economic and business conditions, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, delays in completing various engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technical advances and delivering technological innovations, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, regulatory requirements and the ability to meet them, government agency rules and changes, and various other factors beyond the Company's control.

CONTACT:

Josh Cohen,

josh@controlleddev.com

(917) 584-7042

SOURCE: Azure Holding Group Corp

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Nova Pacific Metals Corp. (CSE: NVPC) (OTCQB: NVPCF) (FSE: YQ10) (WKN: A40GFH) (the "Company", or "Nova Pacific") is pleased to report on the history and revitalization plans for its Lara Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) deposit. The Lara property is located 15 km west of Chemainus on southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, in a prospective belt of uplifted Sicker Group volcanics which hosts a number of former VMS mines and mineral occurrences.

The following has been excerpted from "1980-1994 FINDING LARA" by Albert Reeve, former President, Laramide Resources Ltd., April 2020, with minor changes made for consistency and clarity.

The Lara deposit, discovered in 1984 by Laramide Resources Ltd. in partnership with Abermin Corporation, was the subject of significant exploration efforts during the 1980's, only to languish as the result of depressed metal prices through the 1990's.

The Lara deposit's story began when geologist Gary Belik, an expert in volcanogenic base metal deposits, staked a mineralized outcrop on ground previously held by Cominco Ltd. This serendipitous find led to a series of exploration campaigns that have progressively unveiled the deposit's potential. Results of these efforts were highlighted by an 8.2-meter intersection of massive sulphides averaging 3.01 % zinc, 0.68% copper, 0.45% lead, 2.86 g/t gold and 55.85 g/t silver in the 12th diamond drill hole.1

Extensive exploration followed, with 61 drill holes being completed in the 1985 exploration season and the definition of what became known as the Coronation Zone and its extensions. A further 75 diamond drill holes were drilled in 1986, resulting in the definition of a high-grade trend in the Coronation Zone that was 152.4 m in length and 3.35 m thick, averaging: 6.80 g/t gold, 189.94 g/t silver, 14.9% zinc, 1.5% copper and 3.1% lead1. In addition, further exploration targets were defined along the Coronation Trend and elsewhere on the property.

Over 10,000 m of infill drilling was completed by Minnova, an investing partner, on the Coronation Zone in 1989. The following year, Minnova completed an additional 49 exploration holes totaling 11,167 m. Twenty-six (6,188 m) of these holes tested the 262 Zone, a distal exhalite horizon, sub-parallel to and in the hanging wall of the Coronation Zone.

In 1994, renowned geologists Dr. Giles Peatfield and Richard Walker conducted a comprehensive reinterpretation of the property's geology. Their report, "Reinterpretation of Geological Relationships on the Cowichan Uplift Polymetallic Mineral Property" recommended a program of geological re-mapping and identified six drilling targets based on the concept that VMS base metal deposits typically occur in clusters.

Coronation Trench, Coronation Zone Portal

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Cautionary Statement: These results and estimates are historical and are used for reference purposes only. Nova Pacific has examined the historical drill data, sampling plans and exploration reports and believes that the historical estimates are relevant. The Company will need to complete additional drill holes to verify the historical resources in order to upgrade the estimates to make them compliant with the standards of National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101").

To date, 323 diamond drill holes totalling 58,262 m have been drilled on the property. The Company is currently implementing a rapid revitalization plan for the Lara project that includes:

Confirmation sampling of mineralized outcrops and showings that includes some backpack drilling (results pending).

An in-depth evaluation of historical drill results enabling site selection for an upcoming program of 40 DD holes designed to confirm previous results as well as to target infill drill locations effectively. Phase one has already completed, and the final phase is expected to be completed by year end, pending approval of necessary permits.

Drill permits applications have been made and a reclamation bond is in place. The Company has received several drill bids; the selection will be announced once the necessary permits have been received.

Consultation with First Nations have been initiated and meetings have been scheduled.

Preparation of a mineral resource estimate that complies with CIM requirements once results from drilling are complete.

Conducting optimization trials using optical mineral sorting processes in Q1, 2025 utilizing crushed portions of drill core recovered from the drill program.

Nova Pacific's CEO, Mr. Malcolm Bell, stated: "From an examination of the existing historical data, the Company, in consultation with professional consultants, believes there is a significant opportunity to advance toward future development of the Lara deposit. A recent financing has closed and plans will soon be completed to conduct both confirmation and infill drilling within the Coronation Trend including along strike extensions. We are excited to build upon the Lara legacy and maximize the potential of this remarkable asset."

Albert Reeve (2020): 1980-1994 FINDING LARA.

Kingfisher Agreement

In addition, Nova Pacific announces that the Company has entered into an investor relations consulting agreement with Kingfisher Consulting Ltd. ("Kingfisher") dated November 14, 2024, pursuant to which Kingfisher will assist the Company with its European marketing and communications strategy, including the creation of content, the coordination of press contacts and coverage, the management of social media channels and related services. The agreement is for a term of three (3) months commencing on December 1, 2024, may be extended by the mutual consent of the parties, and requires the Company to pay Kingfisher a total fee of 60,000 prior to services being rendered.

Kingfisher and the Company are unrelated and unaffiliated entities and neither Kingfisher nor its principals have an interest, directly or indirectly, in any securities of the Company. The agreement does not obligate the Company to issue any securities to Kingfisher and is subject to all necessary approvals of the Canadian Securities Exchange.

Kingfisher can be reached at Fairview Strand 23, Dublin 3, Ireland, telephone: +353-1-442-8061, email: weare@kingfisherconsulting.eu

Qualified Person

The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by David Nelles, P.Geo., a consultant to the Company and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101.

About Nova Pacific Metals

Nova Pacific is committed to advancing the Lara VMS deposit through responsible exploration and development. The Company believes that the property's location, combined with its geological characteristics and historical exploration data, positions it as a promising project in the mining industry.

For additional information please visit: www.novapacificmetals.com

Rights of Indigenous Communities Statement

Nova Pacific recognizes the Rights of all Indigenous Peoples of Canada. The Company is committed to consultation and accommodation with the Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group communities on whose Traditional, Ancestral and Unceded Territory the Lara Property is located. The Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group is a politically unified group that represents six Hul'qumi'num-speaking First Nations: Cowichan, Stz'uminus, Penelakut, Lyackson, Halalt, and Lake Cowichan.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

J. Malcolm Bell

Chief Executive Officer, Director

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not in any way passed upon the merits of the matters referenced herein and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release.

Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements contained in this news release may constitute forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "intend", "should", and similar expressions. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in this forward-looking information as a result of regulatory decisions, competitive factors in the industries in which the Company operates, prevailing economic conditions, changes to the Company's strategic growth plans, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking information should not be unduly relied upon. Any forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the Company's expectations as of the date hereof, and is subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities legislation.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229919

SOURCE: Nova Pacific Metals Corp.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Military Metals Corp. (CSE: MILI) (OTCQB: MILIF) (FSE: QN90) (the "Company" or "Military") is pleased to announced that it has entered into a Letter of Intent ("LOI") with Amador Mining LLC, to acquire the past-producing Last Chance (aka Wall Canyon) antimony-gold property ("Last Chance" or "the Property"), located in Nye County Nevada.

The property is located 18km (11 miles) due west of the Round Mountain Gold Mine, and is accessible by road NF-157 that runs west from Highway 376 into the Toiyabe National Forest. The nearest town is Tonopah. The elevation at the historical mineshaft on the property is just under 8,000 feet above sea level. Prospecting for gold in the area - the Jett Mining District, dates back to the 1870s, leading to the discovery of the Last Chance historical antimony mine. First recorded production of antimony was in 1915 with mining activity recorded throughout both World War One and Two and then in 1957-58, as well. Mostly gold-focused exploration work by the United States Geological Survey and Nevada Bureau of Mines during the 1980s further documented antimony and associated gold mineralization in the area, leading to the development of a small (historical) low-grade gold resource.

Historical mining and drill data indicate that antimony mineralization is both structurally and stratigraphically controlled, hosted in faults and receptive carbonate units, in quartz veins that crosscut gold-mineralized zones indicating that it is part of a younger mineralizing event. Dikes of serpentinized ultramafics are known nearby although this relationship may be more rheological versus metallogenic (exploiting the same structures), given what is known about the age and metallogenesis of epithermal gold deposits in the region.

Military plans a program of detailed surface mapping and sampling upon which a drilling program to test the full potential of the system will be undertaken. The Company plans to enter a definitive purchase agreement within 30 days, and has provided a $10,000 USD exclusivity deposit to the seller. The pending acquisition includes the past-producing mine and covers 5 unpatented mineral claims for total compensation of $45,000 USD and includes a 2% Net Smelter Royalty ("NSR").

The technical contents of this release were reviewed and approved by Avrom E. Howard, MSc, PGeo, geological consultant to Military Metals and a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101.

Figure 1

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About Military Metals Corp.

The Company is a British Columbia-based mineral exploration company that is primarily engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties with a focus on antimony.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD of DIRECTORS

This news release contains "forward-looking information". Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative 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 information in this news release includes statements related to the completion of the Definite Agreement, as well as future plans for exploration activities, and assumptions related to the continuation of the global demand for antimony. A variety of factors, including known and unknown risks, many of which are beyond our control, could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking information in this news release. These include meeting the conditions to close the Definitive Agreement, geopolitical developments related to the supply of antimony, the continued use of antimony and availability of alternatives, availability of capital and labour in respect of the properties that are the subjects of this news release, the results of any future exploration activities, which cannot be guaranteed, and such other factors as may impact both and any future activities in respect of the properties.. Additional risk factors can also be found in the Company's public filings under the Company's SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca. Forward-Looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. 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. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances, management's estimates or opinions should change, except as required by securities legislation. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the information contained herein and does not accept 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/229931

SOURCE: Military Metals Corp.
Recurring net income reaches a record R$572 million, up 30% year-on-year;

Revenue growth driven by robust growth in acquiring (TPV) and acceleration of the banking platform

SAO PAULO, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- PagBank (NYSE: PAGS), a leading digital bank offering a comprehensive suite of financial services and payment solutions, announced strong results for the third quarter of 2024 (3Q24). The Company reported net revenues of R$4.8 billion in 3Q24 (+20% YoY). Recurring net income reached a record high of R$572 million (+30% YoY), with a record reported net income of R$531 million (+29% YoY).

"This quarter's exceptional results demonstrate the power of our customer-centric approach," said Alexandre Magnani, PagBank's CEO. "Our payments business grew more than twice as fast as the overall card market, while banking revenue increased 52%. We achieved this growth while maintaining a strong balance sheet and delivering increased value to our shareholders with earnings per share growth of 31%."

PagBank's acquiring business achieved a record performance, with total payment volume (TPV) reaching R$136.3 billion, an annual growth of 37% (+10% YoY). This growth was driven by solid performance across all segments, particularly in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), contributing 65% of TPV. Key growth verticals include online, cross-border and automation, which now account for a third of total TPV.

PagBank's digital banking platform showed robust growth, with deposits reaching a record R$34.2 billion, a remarkable 59% increase year-on-year. This increase reflected growth in PagBank's account balances and increased investments in certificates of deposit (CDBs) issued by the bank.

"Our robust revenue growth, coupled with healthy margins, underscores the effectiveness of our strategic investments in process optimization, innovation, and service quality," said Gustavo Sechin, PagBank's Director of IR, ESG, Market Intelligence and Economics. "Reduced funding costs also strengthens our competitive position in the market."

The credit portfolio recorded strong growth in 3Q2024, increasing 30% YoY to R$3.2 billion. Low-risk, high-engagement products, including credit cards, payroll loans, and FGTS anniversary withdrawal advances drove this expansion.

Growth is also driven by the resumption of credit lines, such as working capital loans for SMEs and expanded credit card limits for low-risk borrowers. The company sees these as key drivers of future loan portfolio growth.

Artur Schunck, PagBank's CFO, highlighted the acceleration in volumes and revenues, combined with cost and expense discipline, as key drivers of the company's record results. "We successfully balanced growth and profitability, gaining traction in all of our operating segments," said the CFO. "By building operating leverage, reducing funding costs through deposit growth, and improving risk management, we have established a strong foundation for the future. This performance reinforces our confidence in delivering the year's expected results."

Other highlights

Net revenue in 3Q24 was R$4.8 billion (+20% YoY), driven by solid growth in acquiring and even greater growth in banking (+52% YoY).

The digital bank also delivered a significant margin expansion in its financial services (+68% 3Q24). This success, coupled with attaining 32.1 million customers, solidifies PagBank's position as a leading financial institution in the country.

PagBank has been working on launching new products and services that will expand its portfolio of solutions to make its customers' financial lives easier. These include the Multiple Card, which combines the credit and debit functions in a single product, making it more convenient for PagBank customers, and the 3% cash back on the card's first bill, offered to customers who make purchases using the credit function.

"Our focus on simple, accessible, and digital solutions has clearly resonated with customers," said Magnani, citing increased engagement with the company's payment and banking offerings. He emphasized the company's vision for the future: "We want to create an interface that brings together all the essential elements of a customer's financial life in one place."

To further capitalize on the market opportunity and attract new customers, PagBank is offering a range of compelling Black Friday promotions. These include special discounts on card reader machines, early access to FGTS funds, INSS payroll loans and variable income transfer options. Customers can also take advantage of cash-back offers on life and home insurance policies.

To access PagBank's full 3Q24 balance sheet, click here.

Important notice on forward-looking statements

This document contains certain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts or that relate to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements contained in this press release will be consummated or achieved. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About PagBank

PagBank promotes innovative solutions in financial services and means of payment, automating the process of buying, selling and transferring in order to promote the business of any person or company in a simple and secure way. PagBank, a company of the UOL Group - Brazil's Internet leader - acts as an issuer and acquirer, offering digital accounts and complete solutions for online and in-person payments (via mobile and POS devices).

PagBank also offers a wide variety of payment methods, such as credit and prepaid cards, as well as bank transfers, boleto payments, account balances and more. PagBank (PagSeguro Internet Instituicao de Pagamento S.A.) is regulated by the Central Bank of Brazil as a payment institution, issuer of electronic money, issuer of post-paid instruments and acquirer, with partnerships with the main card brands. Its parent company, PagSeguro Digital, is publicly traded in the United States (NYSE: PAGS) and regulated by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). The distribution of mutual funds is carried out by BancoSeguro S.A., authorized by the Central Bank of Brazil, the Securities and Exchange Commission and affiliated to ANBIMA.

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The Addition of Top Creative Talent Advances Bluewater's Vision of Empowering Content and Campaign Creation through Operational Efficiencies

CLEARWATER, FL / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Bluewater, the fully converged, direct marketing, creative, production and media advertising agency, proudly announces it is further expanding its creative force with the acquisition of Shadow Box Pictures, a Philadelphia-based creative and production heavyweight known for its compelling campaigns, high-end production values, and long-standing client successes. This strategic acquisition aligns with Bluewater's mission to bring together the very best creative and marketing talent, enhancing its position as a leader in fully integrated direct-to-consumer advertising solutions.

Left to Right: Gina Pomponi, COO of Bluewater; Jeff Young, President of ShadowBox Pictures; Ken Barbet, CEO of ShadowBox Pictures

ShadowBox Pictures, LLC, led by CEO Ken Barbet and President Jeff Young, built a sterling reputation over decades, delivering action-oriented, high-impact creative content for major brands such as AARP, Inogen, Independence Blue Cross, Carshield, and many more. Their expertise in direct response and branded storytelling has driven millions in client sales and made them a trusted name in the industry. "Joining forces with Bluewater allows us to reach new heights and bring innovative content/strategy to a broader array of brands, powered by Bluewater's exceptional resources," said Barbet. "We're excited to continue driving client success with what I feel is a powerhouse of visionary talent."

This latest addition to Bluewater follows a period of robust growth, including the agency's recent expansion with a new office in Los Angeles, positioning it to better serve clients coast-to-coast with exceptional marketing, creative production, and media capabilities. The acquisition of ShadowBox strengthens Bluewater's East Coast presence while supporting the agency's mission to transform the production landscape by eliminating creative barriers and empowering front-line teams with the resources they need to deliver compelling campaigns.

"This acquisition underscores our commitment to bringing the industry's top creative and marketing talent together, combined with data and analytics infrastructure to not just make great creative but make creative that drives measurable, optimizable results," said Andy Latimer, CEO of Bluewater. "By creating an environment that removes creative barriers, we're equipping our producers, directors, and marketers with the tools to develop groundbreaking content that drives engagement and inspires consumers to take action. ShadowBox is only the beginning, as we continue to unite the best minds in strategy, creative, media, and digital to lead the future of integrated marketing."

The acquisition of ShadowBox continues Bluewater's strategic vision to bring together the industry's brightest minds in creative strategy, media, and digital marketing. With the support of a rich data and analytics team, campaigns are fully optimized across every aspect, from creative and media to digital strategies and sales offers, driving better performance and results. By consolidating resources and expanding centralized back-office operations, Bluewater aims to streamline processes and strengthen its commitment to delivering innovative, successful high-impact campaigns. The agency's visionary approach continues to resonate with brands seeking end-to-end full-funnel solutions in an increasingly convergent media landscape. This is one of many steps forward as we integrate industry-leading expertise and amplify our ability to deliver dynamic, results-focused solutions.

Contact Information:

Hunter Stokes

Agency Marketing Director

hstokes@bluewater.tv

(813) 944-2926

SOURCE: Bluewater

View the original press release on newswire.com.
Company Focused on Top-Line Growth and Business Efficiencies

Wi2Wi Corporation (TSXV:YTY), a leading supplier of frequency control solutions, today announced its unaudited financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2024. The company reported revenues of $1.709 million, reflecting a 20% increase over Q3 2023. Gross margin also improved sequentially, rising from 16% in Q2 to 27% in Q3, driven by optimized product mix and cost efficiencies.

Key Financial Highlights

"Our Q3 results demonstrate the progress we're making on our path to increased revenue and profitability," said Ted Clark, CEO of Wi2Wi Corporation. "We have strengthened our gross margins and continue to focus on both top-line growth and operational efficiencies. These improvements reflect our team's commitment to delivering the highest quality products and driving value for our shareholders. Moving forward, we are expanding our footprint in high-growth sectors and building partnerships that will support sustained growth."

Wi2Wi continues to expand its network of manufacturing representatives and distribution partners as part of the ongoing top line growth strategy. With an unwavering commitment to quality and customer satisfaction, Wi2Wi remains dedicated to delivering exceptional products and services. The company's clear strategic vision and proactive approach to growth continue to drive substantial business improvement, making Wi2Wi well-positioned for future success.

3 Months ending September 30, 2024 Overview (Unaudited)

(In thousands of U.S. dollars) Quarter 3 2024 Quarter 3 2023 Revenue $ 1,709 $ 1,421 Net income (loss) (78 ) (355 ) Net cash provided by (used in) operations (212 ) 183 Total assets 9,224 7,568 Cash on hand 467 1,012 Total current liabilities 1,286 1,222 Shareholders' equity 3,306 4,280

Detailed and historical financial information is available here.

Investor & Media Contact

Ted Clark, Chief Executive Office

+1-469-545-3423

ted_c@wi2wi.com

About Wi2Wi Corporation

Wi2Wi is a specialized electronic component supplier with expertise in all aspects of frequency control devices as well as in wireless technologies. Wi2Wi's Precision Devices brand of products has earned a premier spot in numerous key markets including avionics, aerospace, industrial equipment, government, and the US military. Wi2Wi's frequency control products are best-in-class and of the highest quality.

Founded in 2005, Wi2Wi's headquarters, design center and state-of-the-art manufacturing facility are located in the heart of America's industrial belt in Middleton, WI. Wi2Wi can deliver specific solutions using its in-house design and manufacturing expertise, as well as leveraging many tier-1 global partnerships with numerous industry leading silicon and wireless technology suppliers.

Wi2Wi has partnered with best-in-class sales leaders. The company uses a global network of manufacturer's representatives to promote its products and services, and has partnered with world class distributors for the fulfillment of orders all of which augment a US-based direct sales team.

Wi2Wi is extremely proud to serve hundreds of the world's top companies with its made-in-America products.

Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including management's assessment of future plans and operations, and the timing thereof, that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the Company's control. Such risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, risks associated with the ability to access sufficient capital, the impact of general economic conditions in Canada, the United States and overseas, industry conditions, stock market volatility. The Company's actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements and, accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what benefits, including the amount of proceeds, that the Company will derive there from. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. Additional information on these and other factors that could affect the Company's operations and financial results are included in reports on file with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and may be accessed through the SEDAR website (www.sedar.com). Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date the statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements and if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable law. All subsequent forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. Furthermore, the forward- looking statements contained in this news release are made as at the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Wi2Wi Corp.

View the original press release on accesswire.com
DUBAI, UAE, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The highly anticipated Web3 Oscar, a prestigious event hosted by the Blockchain for Good Alliance (BGA), celebrating blockchain projects driving real-world impact aligned with the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Industry leaders gathered in Bangkok to honour innovators shaping a sustainable future.

The event was part of BGA's November lineup, featuring two major initiatives for global change through blockchain: the Sustainable Innovation Summit and the Web3 Oscar Awards.

Sustainable Innovation Summit: A Hackathon for Social Impact

Held from September 9 to November 11, 2024, the Sustainable Innovation Summit hosted a hackathon with a $100,000 prize pool, inviting participants worldwide to create blockchain solutions addressing key issues such as poverty, clean water access, and gender equality. The summit concluded with a Demo Day at the Grand Hyatt Erawan in Bangkok, where finalists showcased their projects to blockchain pioneers, investors, and industry leaders, with opportunities for incubation support and equity-free funding.

Rising Stars

In a cinematic presentation style, 10 shortlisted projects from across the globe, participating in the Sustainable Innovation Summit's 17 SDGs Challenge, took the stage. Each team presented their blockchain solutions to address sustainability challenges, telling the story of a "hero" confronting a global crisis (one of the 17 SDGs), with blockchain as the "tool" they wield for change.

Winners for the 17 SDGs Challenge:

1st Place: Grand Social Impact Award ?? EthicHub

?? EthicHub 2nd Place: Outstanding Social Innovation Award ?? Plastic Odyssey

?? Plastic Odyssey 3rd Place: Emerging Impact Award ?? ResearchHub

Rising Star Awards (top 10 projects, in no specific order):

Wavy Health

LAKE (LAK3)

KulaDAO

erable

arkreen

UCO Network

Edu3Labs

Web3 Oscar Awards: Honouring Leaders in Blockchain for Social Good

Coinciding with the hackathon's Demo Day on November 11, the BGA Web3 Oscar Award recognizes individual contributions to blockchain for social good across three categories, with up to 7 total winners.

Each category highlights individual efforts aligning with BGA's mission.

The Collaboration Bridge Award honours individuals who have played a vital role in guiding the strategic direction of the Blockchain for Good Alliance (BGA). This year's recipients are:

Harn, CEO of Trigger Asset Management

Mariana de la Roche Wills from INATBA (International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications) and de la Roche W. Consulting

The Public Welfare Contribution Award celebrates individuals who have harnessed BlockchainForGood. This award was presented to:

BreeAnne Yek, Consultant at The Verdant Room

Milica Dimitrijevic from Positiveblockchain.io

These individuals have demonstrated remarkable dedication, guidance, and pioneering work, significantly advancing the mission of the Blockchain for Good Alliance (BGA) in promoting sustainable development through blockchain technology.

In her closing remarks, Helen Liu, Co-founder and COO of Bybit and founder of BGA, explained how blockchain can bring people together to make a real difference worldwide. Her vision for leveraging blockchain to create worldwide impact was both inspiring and forward-thinking.

About Blockchain for Good Alliance (BGA)

The Blockchain for Good Alliance (BGA) is a long term collaborative non-profit initiative with key partners with the main aim to contribute to societal good by using blockchain technology to solve real world problems. By convening leaders, innovators, and organisations from across the blockchain community, BGA seeks to drive innovation, collaboration, and action towards a more sustainable and equitable world.

For more information

Email: hello@blockchainforgood.xyz

Website: www.blockchainforgood.xyz

Twitter: www.twitter.com/chainforgood

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2558063/Blockchain_Good_Alliance_Hosts_Web3_Oscar_Celebrating_Innovators_Advancing_UN_s.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2386817/Blockchain_For_Good_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/blockchain-for-good-alliance-hosts-web3-oscar-celebrating-innovators-advancing-uns-sustainable-development-goals-302305827.html
ELKO, NV / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / In a strategic move underscoring the Company's commitment to advancing electrification and a low carbon economy, Lithium Corporation (OTCQB:LTUM) ("LTUM" or "the Company") announced today it is expanding its scope beyond mineral exploration to actively evaluating opportunities in renewable energy generation and energy storage. These closely related sectors are considered a natural extension to the Company's core interest in clean energy.

Lithium Corporation's portfolio of critical mineral prospects includes several lithium prospects in Nevada, and titanium, rare earth elements, graphite and fluorspar properties in Canada. It reflects the Company's focus to-date on energy metals for the North American battery supply chain. The deep integration of renewable energy and energy storage systems with the battery supply chain prompted Lithium Corporation to look beyond mineral exploration, as the Company continually seeks to enhance its environmental stewardship and secure operational sustainability.

Driven by a commitment to innovation, Lithium Corp. is exploring state-of-the-art, niche applications such as Agrisolar. Also known as agrivoltaics or dual-use solar, Agrisolar combines solar energy generation with agriculture. Crop or livestock production or pollinator habitats located underneath or adjacent to solar panels are examples of Agrisolar.

"Our core mission is to be at the forefront of clean energy innovation," said Tom Lewis, CEO of Lithium Corporation. "Evaluating Agrisolar aligns perfectly with our goals, enabling the Company to support global electrification efforts while contributing to food security and rural development. Harnessing the dual benefits of solar power generation and enhanced agricultural productivity delivers tangible environmental and economic benefits."

Another groundbreaking innovation on Lithium Corp.'s radar is Vertically Mounted Bifacial Photovoltaic (VBPV) solar panels. VBPVs capture sunlight from both sides. A 2024 study from the UK found VBPV outperform traditional panel designs, noting a more than 10% increase in Average Daily Power Output over Vertically Mounted Monofacial (VMPV) panels. Together, Agrisolar and VBPVs have the potential to significantly advance land use efficiency while promoting economic resilience in rural areas.

Lithium Corporation's preliminary renewable energy assessment is focused on the state of solar in select jurisdictions, panel technologies, organizational structures, and more. Collaboration with government offices, technology experts, environmental organizations, and other stakeholders will be pursued if the decision is made to move forward.

Learn more about Lithium Corporation's complete portfolio of lithium, graphite, titanium/rare earth elements and fluorspar prospects: https://lithiumcorporation.com/projects/

About Lithium Corporation

Lithium Corporation is a leading mineral exploration company dedicated to advancing clean energy solutions and supporting global electrification. The Company operates as one of only a handful of Project Generators in the critical minerals space in North America. The Company's dual operational focus covers exploration activities in worldclass mining jurisdictions including several lithium prospects in Nevada, USA, as well as titanium, rare earth elements, graphite and fluorspar properties in British Columbia, Canada.

Lithium Corporation concentrates its exploration expertise on the energy metals supply chain to help secure a sustainable future through renewable energy. With a focus on innovation and sustainability, the Company is committed to driving a low-carbon future through strategic investments in energy metals for the North American battery supply chain and related opportunities, such as renewable energy generation and energy storage solutions.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

"Tom Lewis"

Tom Lewis, President & CEO

Website: www.lithiumcorporation.com

Contact:

Tom Lewis, CEO

775-410-5287

info@lithiumcorporation.com

Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This current report contains "forward-looking statements," as that term is defined in Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Statements in this press release which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future.

Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with mineral exploration and difficulties associated with obtaining financing on acceptable terms. We are not in control of minerals prices and these could vary to make development uneconomic. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Although we believe that the beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in our most recent annual report for our last fiscal year, our quarterly reports, and other periodic reports filed from time-to-time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Lithium Corporation (OTC-LTUM) 1031 Railroad St. Ste 102B Elko NV 89801 (775) 410-5287 www.lithiumcorporation.com

SOURCE: Lithium Corporation

View the original press release on accesswire.com
New research reveals 81% of women feel anxious about leaking on their period and 65% experience some level of pad discomfort when on their period.

In a bid to avoid pad discomfort and leaks, 86% of women admit to taking significant steps to avoid period mishaps.

These 'extra measures' include avoiding light clothing (61%), subtly checking seats for period leaks once getting up (45%), checking or adjusting their pad frequently (44%), or walking or sitting in a particular way (25%).

To make period worries around leaks and discomfort a thing of the past, Always is celebrating a new era of period protection with Always FlexProtect a pad unlike anything you've tried before. It's designed with game-changing technology that absorbs like no other and feels like nothing.

Always has taken over the UK's largest shopping centre, Westfield London, with their biggest period stunt to showcase the pad's unique flexibility, absorption and comfort before inviting guests to, quite literally, jump into a new period on their giant bouncepad.

Always Brand ambassador and British Olympian, Jazmin Sawyers attends the stunt and continues her mission to empower young girls and women to become period confident by breaking down taboos and normalising periods.

New research from Always reveals that despite 81%* of women feeling anxious about leaks and 65% experiencing some level of pad discomfort, over half (55%) of women admit to putting up with their period protection each month.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114639939/en/

Guests put FlexProtect to the ultimate torture test on giant bouncepad. (Photo: Business Wire)

What's more, a staggering 86% admit to taking significant steps to avoid such period mishaps. Monthly behaviours include avoiding wearing light clothing (61%), subtly checking seats for period leaks once getting up (45%) and adjusting daily routines to factor in regular toilet breaks to check their pad (39%).

And when it comes to pad discomfort, 60% reveal the main contributing factor is because they can feel their pad all the time and 47% regularly experience their pad bunching, giving them a wedgie. They, therefore, check or adjust their pad frequently (44%), or walk or sit in a particular way (25%).

These 'extra measures' are a stark reminder of the ways that women subtly & sometimes inconveniently amend their everyday actions when they have their period.

But Always wants to change things for the women putting up with their period protection each month and, instead taking extra measures because they have been unable to find a suitable solution, by giving them reliable protection that they can trust every month.

It's time to celebrate a new era of period protection with Always FlexProtect a revolutionary pad designed to adapt to your every move. It absorbs like no other and feels like nothing, making period worries about leaks and pad discomfort a thing of the past. It has a unique absorbency system with smart holes that pull blood deep inside the core of the pad, absorbing up to 40% more than regular pads (Always FlexProtect Size 1 vs. Always Ultra Normal Pads), for up to zero leaks. Unlike any other pad, it's made with unique SmartFoam technology that flexes and comfortably moulds to different body shapes, adapting with every movement, without crumpling or bunching you might even forget you're wearing a pad!

On 13th November 2024, Always took over the UK's largest shopping centre, Westfield London, with the brand's largest period stunt yet a 15x8m bouncepad installation. Opening up the conversation of periods in the heart of the Westfield London, the event allowed consumers to witness Always FlexProtect's unique flexibility, absorption and comfort before having the chance to, quite literally, 'jump into a new period' on a giant Always FlexProtect bouncepad.

The event was attended by Always Brand ambassador and British Olympian, Jazmin Sawyers who is a true champion for breaking down taboos around periods. Jazmin says, "I'm excited to continue my partnership with Always, helping to break down barriers and taboos around periods. I've experienced leaks and pad discomfort in the past and I believe that women deserve to wear the best protection to ensure that they feel as comfortable as possible each month. This stunt by Always, to celebrate the innovation of its FlexProtect pad, is a brilliant way to get people talking and understanding that there are solutions out there to help relieve the anxieties that women feel each month when it comes to their periods."

Farah Azmy, Brand Director for Always UK says:

"Always is committed to empowering girls and women with reliable protection they can trust, and normalising period conversations to fuel education and confidence around the topic. Women have accepted leaks and pad discomfort as the norm for so long and they shouldn't! Always FlexProtect is truly a game-changing solution and we're so excited to bring this new era of period protection and conversations to the UK's largest shopping centre and invite people to jump into a new period of zero feel and zero leaks!"

Watch Always take over Westfield London celebrate a new era of period protection: Always FlexProtect Media Pack

Always FlexProtect comes in four different sizes, to match different flows, day and night.

About Always

Always, the world's leader in menstrual protection, offers a wide range of pads and liners designed to fit different body types, period flows and preferences. For over 35 years, Always has been empowering millions of young people globally through puberty and confidence education, providing products to those in need and tackling societal barriers to their confidence through programmes like Always LikeAGirl and KeepHerPlaying. Together, Always believes we can create a world where neither periods nor gender get in the way of young people reaching their full potential. Please visit www.always.co.uk for more information.

About Procter Gamble

P&G serves consumers around the world with one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Always, Ambi Pur, Ariel, Bold, Braun, Daz, Fairy, Febreze, Gillette, Head Shoulders, Herbal Essences, Lenor, Olay, Oral-B, Pampers, Pantene, Tampax, Venus and Vicks. Although headquartered in the US, P&G was founded by an Englishman and an Irishman in 1837, our heritage lives on through the work of around 2500 people across 10 sites, including R&D Centres, Manufacturing Plants and Business sites, across the UK Ireland. To learn more about P&G UK and Ireland, our brands, and our Citizenship programmes, please visit our website, download our Northern Europe Citizenship Report, or follow us on our social channels (Twitter @PGUK and Instagram @pgukandireland)

About the research

This online survey of 1000 UK women who menstruate was commissioned by PG One and conducted by market research company OnePoll, in accordance with the Market Research Society's code of conduct. Data was collected between 4th and 8th November 2024. All participants are double opted in to take part in research and are paid an amount depending on the length and complexity of the survey. This survey was overseen and edited by the OnePoll research team. OnePoll are MRS Company Partners, have corporate membership of ESOMAR and Members of the British Polling Council.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114639939/en/

Contacts:

For further information, interviews or campaign content please contact the Always PR team at AlwaysUK@pgone.co.uk
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Energy Plug Technologies Corp. (CSE: PLUG) (OTCQB: PLGGF) (FSE: 6GQ) ("Energy Plug" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the launch of its 20 kWh Decentralized Battery System.

Designed to meet the demand for decentralized energy in North America, this system is a power solution for those in crypto mining, blockchain nodes, and AI operations. Built on cutting-edge technology and poised for rapid market entry, Energy Plug's battery system can contribute to energy reliability and decentralization.

The Company believes that the timing of the release of this product is very good due to the increasing value of coins like Solana, Dogecoin, and Bitcoin, and the urgency for decentralized energy infrastructure. The 20 kWh Decentralized Battery System which will have limited supply will start taking preorders in December 2024 positioning Energy Plug at the forefront, offering unparalleled support to decentralized networks and providing an opportunity for those ready to strengthen their position in the crypto and AI sectors.

Why Choose Energy Plug's 20 kWh System Right Now?

Our 20 kWh Decentralized Battery System is built on advanced technology assets and marks the first of many products designed for decentralized networks. As we ramp up, this launch is a call to action for those who understand the value of aligning with the market's leading edge.

Product Highlights Driving Urgency:

Unmatched Decentralized Network Support:

Blockchain Networks : Ensures continuous power to validators and RPC nodes, allowing operators to maintain network stability even through grid disruptions. Excess stored energy can be traded, cutting costs and bolstering decentralized infrastructure.

: Ensures continuous power to validators and RPC nodes, allowing operators to maintain network stability even through grid disruptions. Excess stored energy can be traded, cutting costs and bolstering decentralized infrastructure.

IOT Networks: Power backup for hotspots and IoT gateways expands reliable network coverage into off-grid and remote areas, fuelling decentralized IoT missions.

Crypto Mining Power for the Next Generation:

Mining : At-home and commercial miners can now operate without interruptions, cutting costs by storing energy during off-peak hours and maximizing mining returns during high-demand times.

: At-home and commercial miners can now operate without interruptions, cutting costs by storing energy during off-peak hours and maximizing mining returns during high-demand times.

Bitcoin Nodes and Mining Pools: A robust battery backup for mining pools and Bitcoin nodes, ensuring miners can ride through demand peaks without downtime, enhancing profitability.

A Sustainable, High-Capacity Solution Ready for the Future:

20 kWh Storage with Renewable-Ready Technology : The integrated bi-directional PCS and renewable-ready design lower costs and carbon footprints, appealing to miners and businesses alike who value both profit and sustainability.

: The integrated bi-directional PCS and renewable-ready design lower costs and carbon footprints, appealing to miners and businesses alike who value both profit and sustainability.

Advanced EMS for Real-Time Load Management: The Energy Management System (EMS) balances grid connections, distributed resources, and renewable energy in real-time, preventing costly blackouts and load issues.

Accelerating Toward the Future with Energy Plug and Malahat Nation

The demand for decentralized, sustainable power solutions is at a breaking point, and Energy Plug's 20 kWh battery system can help to meet this need. This system is expected to lead the way in securing the decentralized energy networks. With the Malahat facility on the horizon, our ability to scale production and bring more solutions to market looks positive.

Join the Future of Decentralized Power and Crypto

Energy Plug's new battery system not only capitalizes on the current cryptocurrency surge but also establishes a foundation for decentralized energy management. It enables users to participate actively in blockchain networks, contributing to both financial growth and a sustainable future. With Energy Plug's innovative 20 kWh Pad Mount Battery System, cryptocurrency miners and decentralized network participants should be able to position themselves in this evolving market.

About Energy Plug Technologies Corp.

Energy Plug Technologies Corp. is an energy technology company, dedicated to innovation and sustainability. With a focus on residential, commercial, and utility energy storage applications, our goal is to advance battery technologies to enhance energy management and grid resiliency. Based in British Columbia, we seek to leverage strategic partnerships with Indigenous communities, and the development of a vertically integrated supply chain involving industry-leading companies in Taiwan to provide advanced solutions to our customers and partners. For more information about Energy Plug, visit our website at https://energyplug.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Often, but not always, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "will", "proposes", "expects", "estimates", "intends", "anticipates" or "believes", "aim", or variations (including negative and grammatical 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. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements regarding any objectives and strategies of the Company) are forward-looking information.

The forward-looking information in this news release includes but is not limited to the statements about the benefits of the decentralized battery system, future sales, financing, developing and construction of the Malahat Battery Plant and other large scale energy projects, production and sale of cutting-edge battery systems to AI and blockchain companies, utilities and other customers.

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 risk factors, including, but not limited to obtaining financing, ability to build the battery assembly factory on Vancouver Island, ability to secure suppliers of batteries and obtaining batteries at desired prices, supply chain disruptions, changing government plans, policies regarding clean energy, batteries, electric vehicles and other electric transportation devices, elimination or reduction of government subsidies for electric vehicles and other electric transportation devices, solar panels, and wind power installations; changes in the Canadian and/or the U.S Government policies, rules and regulations, and potential war conflicts which may disrupt supply of the components required to produce batteries.

The material assumptions used to develop forward-looking information include, but not limited to general business and economic conditions, financial markets conditions, the Company's ability to fund its operations through financings and joint ventures, procurement of consulting, technical and related services and supplies on favourable terms, attraction and retention of key staff members, market demand for the Company's products, growth prospects in the market for its products, accessibility of raw materials and battery pack supplies to meet market demand, facility profitability, the anticipated terms of the consents, permits and authorizations necessary to carry out the planned operations and the Company's ability to comply with such terms on a cost-effective basis, and the ongoing relations with the industry regulators.

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 forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. The Company disclaims any intention to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Investment in the securities of the Company is risky.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229920

SOURCE: Energy Plug Technologies Corp.
DELRAY BEACH, Fla., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The global protein expression market is expected to reach USD 4.82 billion in 2029 from USD 3.41 billion in 2024 at a CAGR of 7.1% during the forecast period. Factors such as the rise in R&D within the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries owing to the increasing demand for biologics and the growing use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance protein expression workflow, drive the growth of the protein expression market. Other factors such as the growing clinical activities outsourcing trend and an increasing shift toward personalized medicines support the growth of the protein expression market. Furthermore, advancements in synthetic protein production technologies and the growing use of recombinant proteins provide growth opportunities for companies operating in the protein expression market. However, the high cost of protein expression offerings and the dominance of small molecules in drug development are expected to restrain the growth of this market to a certain extent.

Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=180323924

Browse in-depth TOC on "Protein Expression Market"

632 - Tables

71 - Figures

470 - Pages

Based on system type, the protein expression market is segmented into mammalian cell expression systems, prokaryotic expression systems, cell-free expression systems, yeast expression systems, insect cell expression systems, and algal-based expression systems. In 2023, the mammalian cell expression systems segment held the largest share of the global protein expression market, owing to the preference given to these systems to produce complex proteins such as monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), and vaccines. Among these systems, Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells are the most used due to their rapid growth and high protein expression capabilities.

The protein expression market has been segmented based on application into three segments, including industrial application, research application, and therapeutic applications. In 2023, the therapeutic application segment had the highest market share across the protein expression market. This segment of the application is growing because of the increasing cases of chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and neurological disorders that are supporting the demand for protein-based therapies such as mAb and vaccines. Moreover, the segmental growth is further supported by the increased focus on the production of personalized medicine through grants and funding support.

Based on offerings, the protein expression market is segmented into products and services. The products are segmented further into expression vectors, competent cells, reagents & kits, instruments, and software. In 2023, the protein expression market was dominated by the products segment. This large share can be attributed to the growing research alongside the rising approvals and commercialization of biologics, for example, antibodies. The reagents & kits sub-segment held the majority share under the products segment since the demand for reagents & kits persists in the sphere of research. This is because they need to be refilled periodically throughout the process of protein expression. Moreover, companies are launching innovative products for advanced protein expression workflows further supporting the growth prospects for the products segment.

Based on end users of protein expression products, the protein expression market is segmented into contract research organizations & contract development and manufacturing organizations (CROS and CDMOs), pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and academic & research institutes, and other end users. In 2023, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies held the largest share of the global protein expression product market, and this growth trend is expected to continue during the forecast period. The large share of this end-user segment is supported by the increase in the demand for therapeutic proteins and the rising approvals for recombinant therapeutic proteins for disease treatment.

The protein expression market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa based on region. In 2023, North America held the largest share of the protein expression market, followed by Europe. The presence of major suppliers and key end users for the protein expression offerings in the region supports the large share of the North American protein expression market. Other drivers include growth in the biotechnology and pharmaceuticals industries, the growing prevalence of chronic disorders, and investments in the research and development of protein-based therapeutics research that contribute to furthering this large share of this market. North America is expected to dominate this space during the forecast period.

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The protein expression market is highly consolidated. The top players in this market hold a significant share of the total market. Prominent market players include Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (US), Merck KGaA (Germany), Danaher Corporation (US), Sartorius AG (Germany), Agilent Technologies, Inc. (US), Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (US), Takara Bio Inc. (Japan), GenScript (US), and Eurofins Scientific (Luxembourg). These companies have adopted various strategies such as the development of advanced products, partnerships, contracts, expansions, and acquisitions to strengthen their position in the protein expression market. The organic and inorganic strategies have helped the market players expand globally by providing advanced authentication and brand protection solutions. However, the high market consolidation acts as a barrier for new entrants in the market.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (US) is the largest player in the protein expression market offering a wide range of protein expression products and services, including expression systems and kits, expression vectors, competent cells, and instruments such as electroporators and MS systems. The company has a significant global footprint due to its robust sales and distribution network. Additionally, multiple production sites at various geographic locations give the company an edge over other players in the protein expression market. With the reduced demand for COVID-19 products, the company has shifted its focus toward strengthening its core business. The company acquired PPD in 2021 to enhance its clinical research capabilities, allowing it to maintain its leadership in vaccine and therapy development supporting its leadership in the protein expression market. Moreover, in June 2021, Thermo partnered with Advanced Electrophoresis Solutions Ltd. (AES) (Canada) to enhance therapeutic protein development by utilizing protein separation techniques. The company aims to expand its market presence by investing in R&D, which enhances its expertise in protein expression solutions and services, allowing it to offer innovative products and services to the market.

Merck KGaA (Germany) is a key player in the protein expression market. The company offers a wide range of protein expression solutions and services, such as assays, reagents, devices, software, protein sample preparation services, and detection & quantification kits, through its science & lab solutions subsegment under its life science business unit. With a strong geographic presence in over 120 countries, Merck KGaA focuses on expanding its customer base, particularly in the fast-growing Asia Pacific region, where it established life science centers in China, India, South Korea, and Singapore from 2021 to 2023. To maintain its market leadership, the company has made significant investments in research and development. For instance, in 2023, the company allocated USD 2.6 billion toward R&D to enhance its product offerings. Additionally, between 2022 and 2024, it expanded its manufacturing and research facilities in Germany, China, France, and Ireland. By prioritizing digitalization, automation, and process improvements, along with these strategic investments, the company seeks to further strengthen its global market presence and ensure sustainable growth.

Danaher Corporation (US) is a key player in the protein expression market owing to its strong product portfolio including reagents, kits, and instruments used throughout the protein expression process. The company leverages its strong geographic presence and advanced technological capabilities to maintain its position in the protein expression market. The company focuses on acquisitions, collaborations, and expansions, such as the 2022 acquisition of CEVEC Pharmaceuticals to support and improve its protein expression portfolio. In the same year, Danaher's subsidiary, Cytiva, collaborated with Nucleus Biologics to improve custom cell media development for cell and gene therapies. Moreover, in 2022, the company established its chromatography resins manufacturing facility in the US, supporting protein purification and analysis. In 2023, the company's Life Sciences segment saw a 1.5% sales increase, driven by a 4.0% price rise, higher core sales in life science research, and contributions from acquisitions. These strategic moves have helped Danaher become a dominant player in the protein expression market.

Agilent Technologies, Inc. (US) is a life science company offering various instruments, software, services, and consumables to support laboratory operations. Their extensive portfolio includes protein expression products such as competent cells, expression vectors, protein purification kits, and transfection tools. Agilent Technologies, Inc. has its primary R&D and manufacturing sites in the US, Australia, China, Denmark, Germany, India, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, Singapore, and the UK. The company utilizes direct sales channels as well as distributors, resellers, and electronic commerce to distribute its offerings. The company increased its R&D investments in the Life Sciences and Applied Markets segment by 1% from the previous year (2022), totalling USD 297 million in 2023. This funding helps develop new and innovative products and solutions to meet the changing needs of clients.

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Diabetic Foot Ulcer Patients Continue to Benefit from Sustainable Fish-Skin Technology

Kerecis, the pioneer in the use of fish skin and fatty acids for tissue regeneration and protection, today announced Medicare coverage approval of two of its products by the U.S. Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services (CMS) in a new Local Coverage Determination (LCD).

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CMS Confirms Coverage of Kerecis Fish-Skin Products by Medicare, Diabetic Foot Ulcer Patients Continue to Benefit from Sustainable Fish-Skin Technology (Photo: Business Wire)

This LCD focuses on skin substitutes for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers (DFU) and venous leg ulcers (VLU) in the Medicare population. CMS developed the LCD mechanism to create a policy consistent with current evidence of clinical efficacy.

Kerecis products are on the list of covered products for diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) alongside 16 other products. 189 products have been eliminated from coverage. In addition, the application limit of the final policy has been expanded from 4 to 8 and the duration of treatment has been increased from 12 to 16 weeks from the initial draft of the policy. The implementation date of the final policy is set to February 12, 2024.

Kerecis is not on the list of covered products for VLU as CMS did not consider sufficient clinical evidence supporting that indication. VLU sales in the out-patient setting currently represent a low single digit portion of Kerecis revenue. Kerecis has already launched a VLU randomized control trial (RCT) with the first patients already enrolled. The company expects to complete the RCT successfully within 12 18 months and will then apply to be added to the list of covered products for VLU in the policy.

"We are very pleased that CMS has confirmed that the Kerecis fish-skin technology is an effective and financially sound solution that qualifies for Medicare coverage," said Kerecis founder and CEO Fertram Sigurjonsson. "We expect an opportunity for growth to emerge from the departure of some of our largest competitors from the list of covered products in the DFU space. That, along with our recently published Odinn study, will increase demand for our products, offsetting lack of coverage in the VLU space," he explained. He added, "We have substantial inventory in place, short production lead times, and large manufacturing capacity to serve the market."

New large study supports Kerecis fish skin as leading standard to treat DFUs

In September this year Kerecis released the results of the largest randomized controlled trial (RCT) published to date on the efficacy of using biologic skin substitutes to treat diabetic foot ulcers with exposed bone and tendons. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine Evidence journal, conducted on a sample of 255 patients at 15 care centers across four countries, demonstrates that fish-skin grafts significantly outperform the standard of care in closing University of Texas grade 2 and 3 diabetic foot ulcers.

The study named Odinn as an homage to the Norse god of healing and wisdom is by far the largest RCT of its kind because of the number of patients and severity of the wounds studied (University of Texas grades 2 and 3). The findings underscore the efficacy of fish-skin grafts in the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers (DFU), offering new hope and improved outcomes for patients.

About Kerecis

Kerecis, founded by Fertram Sigurjonsson, develops fish-skin and fatty acid products for cellular therapy, tissue regeneration, and protection. The patented material supports healing and regeneration when grafted onto damaged tissue, with no disease-transfer risk between cold-water fish and humans. The fish-skin is gently processed to maintain its natural structure, strength, and molecules. Clinical studies show that Kerecis products heal wounds faster than competitors. Kerecis is the only global manufacturer of medical devices containing intact fish-skin and is the fastest growing company in the U.S. biologics skin market. Products include SurgiBind, GraftGuide, MariGen, and Shield for various medical applications. Committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Kerecis uses sustainable Icelandic fish processed with renewable energy. Kerecis is a part of Coloplast, a leading supplier of intimate healthcare products. For more information, visit https://www.kerecis.com.

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Lessor's First Financing With the South African Lender

CHICAGO, IL / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Aircraft Engine Lease Finance, Inc. ("AELF") has completed the financing of a 737-800 with South Africa's Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking (Nedbank CIB). This marks the second such transaction the company has completed in recent weeks, supporting its ongoing 737-800 acquisition campaign, and is its first financing with Nedbank.

"We are pleased to add Nedbank CIB to AELF's growing stable of aviation lenders," said Joe Cirillo, Chief Commercial Officer, AELF. "As we continue to broaden our lending relationships, AELF is well positioned to take advantage of market opportunities and support ongoing fleet expansion efforts."

AELF is active in South African aviation with several recent transactions, including two 737s delivered to FlySafair and a financing completed with Investec, so far this year. Nedbank CIB is a division of the Nedbank Group, one of South Africa's four largest banks, and has a team that specializes in aviation finance.

"We are excited to partner with AELF in their fleet expansion efforts. This transaction underscores our commitment to supporting the aviation sector with tailored financial solutions," said James Geldenhuys, Head: Aircraft Finance at Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking.

About AELF

Aircraft Engine Lease Finance Inc. ("AELF") is an experienced commercial aircraft lessor. Based in Chicago, AELF offers customized and flexible financing solutions to airlines and commercial aircraft operators worldwide. AELF has been in operation for almost a decade and owns a fleet of A330-200s and 737-800s as well as an engine portfolio. The company is expanding its presence in the NG market and strategically deploying capital on widebody acquisitions.

About Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking

Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking is a division of Nedbank, a leading African bank that provides transactional, corporate, and investment banking services to local and global markets. Nedbank CIB's client base includes leading corporations, financial institutions, state-owned entities, and governments across Africa. Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking (Nedbank CIB) specializes in providing comprehensive financial solutions tailored to meet the diverse needs of businesses across various sectors.

Contact Information

Amy Phillips

communications@aelfinc.com

SOURCE: AELF, Inc.

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SHENZHEN, China, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On November 13, the opening ceremony of the 2024 ASEAN-China Greater Bay Area (GBA) Economic Cooperation (Qianhai) Forum was held in Qianhai, Shenzhen city, China. Under the theme "Technological Leadership, Industrial Synergy," the forum features 5 sub-forums, enterprise exchange exhibitions, and industrial cooperation matchmaking events. Over 1,000 representatives from government departments, business associations, think tanks, and enterprises from China and ASEAN countries attended the opening ceremony and related activities.

Given their geographical proximity and cultural affinities, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and ASEAN have long engaged in win-win cooperation as each other's largest trading partners. In his keynote speech, Mr. Zheng Yongnian, President of the Institute for International Affairs, Qianhai and Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, emphasized that the GBA and ASEAN countries should work together to address global challenges and achieve sustainable development.

Statistics released by the Authority of Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone at the forum shown that, at the signing ceremony for 2024 economic and trade projects between the GBA and ASEAN, representatives from enterprises and business associations in two regions signed 15 projects with a total contract value of 29.99 billion yuan. To date, the forum has facilitated trade exceeding 30 billion yuan and driven total investment close to 5 billion yuan.

The 2024 ASEAN-China GBA Overseas Study Support Program was also officially launched at the forum. The program aims to support the establishment of the Qianhai International Education Foundation initiated by the Institute for International Affairs, Qianhai. It also strives to further strengthen Qianhai's role in promoting international exchange, attract more excellent overseas talents to study in Shenzhen, inject new vitality into the educational exchanges and cooperation between the two sides, and cultivate more talents with an international perspective and cross-cultural communication skills.

During the forum, major outcomes of the 2023 ASEAN-China GBA Economic Cooperation (Qianhai) Forum and the 2023 Report on ASEAN-China GBA Economic and Trade Cooperation were also released. According to the attendees, the forum not only offered them a profound insight into the current status and future prospects of cooperation between China and ASEAN countries but also provided opportunities to broaden international cooperation and seek potential partners.

Leveraging Qianhai as a fulcrum and the ASEAN-China GBA Economic Cooperation (Qianhai) Forum as a platform, the GBA will expand exchanges and cooperation with ASEAN in various fields such as digital economy, cross-border finance, and international trade. In the digital era, the forum will serve as a broader platform for global practitioners to engage in exchanges and cooperation, thereby boosting industrial upgrades, innovation, and the development of cross-border e-commerce in the GBA and ASEAN countries.

Source: The Authority of Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone
DELRAY BEACH, Fla., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The global healthcare IT market is projected to reach USD 834.35 billion by 2029 from USD 420.23 billion in 2024, at a high CAGR of 14.7% during the forecast period. Increasing demand for interoperability among healthcare systems is the main reason for the growth of this market; as the continuously rising amount of communication and data sharing across EHRs, laboratory systems, and billing software, the need for seamless integration becomes more critical. Moreover, government initiative, such as the 21st Century Cures Act, mandating that healthcare organizations improve their data-sharing capabilities. Further, advancements in technology such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence are enhancing interoperability that is, in turn, fuelling the expansion of the Healthcare IT market. A report from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) found that while hospitals in the U.S. can access health information from outside their own systems, less than half are integrating that data into individual patient records. This shows there's a big opportunity for growth in solutions that enable better interoperability.

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Based on Components, the Healthcare IT market is segmented into services, software, and hardware. The largest share of the healthcare IT market was held by the services segment in 2023. The growth can be attributed to the following factors: healthcare organizations rely heavily on service providers for consulting, storage, implementation, training, maintenance, and regular upgrade of technologies and solutions. Moreover, the introduction of complex software and the requirement for software integration and interoperability, which requires training and regular updates, fuelled the growth of the services segment. And the increasing demand for digital health solutions is driving patients towards distance health care services. especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlighted the need for safe care and efficiency more than ever.

Based on end user, the healthcare provider segment is expected to register the fastest growth in the healthcare IT market. Significant share of this segment is attributed to the patient engagement as patients increasingly seek personalized and accessible care. This growth is fuelled by advancements in technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and telehealth, which is transforming how patients interact with their care. This increased engagement not only improves patient satisfaction but also enhances the overall efficiency of healthcare services, making it essential for providers to invest in these technologies to stay competitive. Moreover, Medication errors are a serious issue, causing nearly 150,000 deaths each year in the U.S. and costing the industry about USD 20 billion annually. Healthcare IT systems minimizing these errors by improving medication management, ensuring accurate documentation, and enhancing communication among healthcare teams. For instance, EHR systems can alert healthcare providers about potential drug interactions or incorrect dosages, making patient care safer and more efficient.

Based on the region, the Healthcare IT market is segmented into five major regional segments, namely, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East and Africa. The North American region dominated the Healthcare IT market because of the increasing adoption of health information technology (IT) solutions across healthcare settings, especially the interoperability used in between laboratories, clinics, pharmacies, and hospitals, it can easily share patient information and allows doctors and healthcare providers to quickly access and exchange electronic health records. Moreover, government initiatives led by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). These initiatives focus on improving health information technology (health IT) systems, enhancing interoperability, and advancing data sharing across healthcare providers. For instance, the Assessing Use of Health IT by U.S. Physicians Providing Outpatient Care initiative received USD 425,000 in its first year to fund a five-year study. The Leading-Edge Acceleration Projects (LEAP) in Health Information Technology, which has various funding announcements each year focusing on innovative solutions in health IT. And the ONC has allocated funding for the Health Information Exchange (HIE) and Immunization Information System (IIS) programs, with a maximum award of USD 10 million aimed at enhancing data-sharing capabilities.

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The Healthcare IT market is dominated by key players. The major players operating in this market are, Optum, Inc. (US), Cognizant (US), Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherlands), Oracle (US), GE Healthcare (US), Dell Inc. (US), Wipro (India), eClinicalWorks (US), SAS Institute Inc. (US), Inovalon (US), Infor. (US), Conifer Health Solutions, LLC. (US), Nuance Communications, Inc. (US), 3M (US), Merative (US), Epic Systems Corporation. (US), InterSystems Corporation (US), Veradigm (US), Salesforce, Inc. (US), CitiusTech (US), Conduent, Inc. (US), Carestream Health (US), Practice Fusion, Inc. (US), TATA consultancy services limited (India), Elsevier (Netherlands), MedeAnalytics, Inc. (US), Medecision (US), Surgical Information Systems (Georgia), Chartis. (US), and Clearwave Corporation. (Georgia).

Optum, Inc.:

Optum, Inc. (part of the UnitedHealth Group) provides HCIT solutions to healthcare payers, providers, employers, and government & life science companies. The company serves its solutions and services to more than 280 healthcare payers, 5,000 hospitals, and over 100,000 healthcare facilities in the US. The company focuses on forming strategic partnerships and driving innovation in digital health solutions to enhance patient care and reduce costs, especially in areas like value-based care and population health management. A notable example of their strategy is the recent completion of a USD 7.8 billion merger with Change Healthcare, which gives them access to data from millions of healthcare transactions and boosts their IT capabilities for the US population. And, according to an article from Becker's Health IT, in the last two years, Optum has invested USD 31 billion into acquisitions. These strategic steps have been critical in positioning Optum for rapid growth while also enhancing the capability of the company to offer better patient care and enhance operational efficiency throughout the US healthcare system.

Cognizant:

Cognizant is an IT, consulting, and business process services company. The company provides digital services and solutions, consulting, application development, systems integration, application testing, application maintenance, infrastructure, and business processes. Cognizant operates major metropolitan areas across nearly 50 countries, and its headquarters is in a leased facility situated at Teaneck, New Jersey, US. The company applies a global delivery model, which includes delivery centers around the world, involving both in-country, regional, and global facilities. The space owned and leased for its delivery centers now stands at over 24 million square feet for Cognizant, with its largest presence here being in India at 90% of its total delivery center square footage.

The company focuses on inorganic strategies. For instance, In July 2024 Cognizant partnered with Unity water to sign a five-year deal that envisioned the upgrade of its digital infrastructure and the improvement of its operational efficiency in serving Queensland for more than 800,000 customers. Again, In December 2023, Cognizant acquired Thirdera, which is one of the ServiceNow partners, onboarded more than 940 associates, and thus created one of the biggest ServiceNow teams in the world with 2,400 specialists and 14,000 certifications. This move was to strengthen the efforts of digital transformation and to spur a USD 1 billion AI-driven automation business.

Oracle:

Oracle Corporation, one of the world's largest technology companies, has revenue of about USD 53 billion for fiscal year 2024. It recently made a comprehensive acquisition of USD 28.4 billion in June 2022 to bolster its footprint in healthcare by acquiring Cerner Corporation. This allows Oracle to use advanced analytics and artificial intelligence in EHR. Oracle Health has extended its EHR contract with the VA until 2024 and announced new partnerships geared to improve patient care and operational efficiency through initiatives in cybersecurity and interoperability. Oracle's Health Data Warehouse has emerged as the greatest healthcare IT solution; users have attained a strong 417% return on investment (ROI) during five years. This continues to fuel growth for the company in healthcare.

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Verified Market Reports is proud to unveil its latest report, "Satellite Payloads Market: Industry Trends, Analysis, and Forecast to 2030." This in-depth study is targeted at aerospace executives, satellite manufacturers, and technology providers seeking critical insights into the evolving satellite payloads sector. The report explores key drivers, technological advancements, and investment opportunities shaping the future of satellite payloads.

LEWES, Del., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Global Satellite Payloads Market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 8.7% from 2024 to 2030, according to a new report published by Verified Market Reports. The report reveals that the market was valued at USD 14.1 Billion in 2023 and is expected to reach USD 41.9 Billion by the end of the forecast period.

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REPORT ATTRIBUTES DETAILS STUDY PERIOD 2021-2030 BASE YEAR 2023 FORECAST PERIOD 2024-2030 HISTORICAL PERIOD 2021-2022 UNIT Value (USD Billion) KEY COMPANIES PROFILED Airbus, Raytheon, Thales, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, Harris, Boeing, Viasat, Space Exploration Technologies, SSL SEGMENTS COVERED By Type, By Application, By Geography CUSTOMIZATION SCOPE Free report customization (equivalent to up to 4 analyst working days) with purchase. Addition or alteration to country, regional & segment scope

Global Satellite Payloads Market Overview

Growing Demand for High-Resolution Imaging and Data Collection

The increasing need for high-resolution imaging and real-time data has significantly boosted the demand for satellite payloads. Various sectors, such as agriculture, environmental monitoring, and urban planning, rely on satellite-based data for precision, efficiency, and decision-making. Advanced payloads capable of capturing detailed images and measurements are essential to fulfill these requirements. This demand is further driven by defense and security agencies that utilize high-resolution imagery for surveillance and threat detection. As a result, the push for better imaging capabilities drives investment in satellite payload technology, expanding the market.

Expansion of Internet Services to Remote and Underserved Areas

The growing emphasis on providing internet access to remote and underserved regions is another major driver in the satellite payloads market. Traditional telecommunications infrastructure faces challenges in remote or rural areas, where satellites offer a viable alternative. Satellite payloads dedicated to communication enable reliable internet and cellular connectivity, bridging the digital divide and enhancing socio-economic development in isolated communities. This demand is particularly strong from government initiatives and private companies aiming to extend global connectivity, boosting the need for communication-focused payloads.

Technological Advancements in Miniaturization and Cost Efficiency

Continuous innovation in satellite payload design, especially in miniaturization and cost efficiency, fuels market growth. Modern satellite payloads are becoming more compact, lightweight, and affordable, enabling the deployment of smaller satellites in larger constellations. This trend supports more frequent launches and lowers overall mission costs, making satellite services accessible to a broader range of industries and organizations. In particular, the emergence of small satellites, such as CubeSats, has transformed the landscape, allowing payloads to perform advanced functions at a fraction of the traditional cost. These technological advancements are essential to driving the market forward as they attract more players and applications.

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High Initial Costs and Lengthy Development Timelines

The satellite payloads market faces significant barriers due to high initial investment requirements and lengthy development periods. Designing, manufacturing, and launching satellite payloads involve complex engineering and precision, resulting in high costs that can deter new entrants. Additionally, from concept to deployment, satellite missions often require years of development, making it difficult for companies to quickly respond to changing market demands. This financial and time-intensive nature of satellite payloads is a considerable restraint, limiting market growth and reducing the number of companies capable of participating.

Regulatory Challenges and Spectrum Allocation Issues

Regulatory complexities and spectrum allocation constraints also restrict the satellite payloads market. Governments and international bodies impose stringent regulations on satellite launches, payload specifications, and orbital slots to ensure safety and minimize space congestion. Securing the necessary permits and frequency spectrum for communication payloads is a time-consuming and challenging process, as available space and frequency bands are limited. These regulatory hurdles can delay projects, increase costs, and limit the deployment of new payloads, creating a significant obstacle for market expansion.

Risks Associated with Space Debris and Collision Hazards

The growing issue of space debris poses a significant risk to satellite payloads and limits market expansion. With an increasing number of satellites in orbit, the likelihood of collisions and damage from debris has risen sharply. This threat not only endangers the operational lifespan of satellite payloads but also raises insurance and risk management costs. Companies and agencies are forced to invest in collision-avoidance technology and plan for potential losses, which can increase project budgets and impact profitability. The threat of space debris is thus a critical concern that affects investment decisions and operational strategies in the satellite payload market.

Geographic Dominance

The Satellite Payloads Market exhibits distinct geographic dominance across several key regions, led primarily by North America and Europe. North America, home to major space and technology companies and supported by substantial government funding from agencies like NASA and the Department of Defense, dominates the market. Europe follows closely, with strong contributions from organizations like the European Space Agency (ESA) and a robust private sector focused on satellite payload technology. Asia is rapidly emerging as a formidable player, driven by high demand for communication and surveillance satellites, as well as substantial investments from countries like China, India, and Japan.

Africa, although still developing its space infrastructure, has shown growing interest in satellite technology to support telecommunications, agricultural monitoring, and environmental management, spurred by government initiatives and partnerships with international space agencies. The Rest of the World, including Latin America and the Middle East, is also contributing to the market's growth, with several countries investing in satellite payloads to address connectivity gaps and enhance national security. Each of these regions plays a unique role, collectively shaping the global landscape of the satellite payloads market and driving innovation and expansion across various applications.

Satellite Payloads Market Key Players Shaping the Future

Major players, including Airbus, Raytheon, Thales, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, Harris, Boeing, Viasat, Space Exploration Technologies, SSL. and more, play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the Satellite Payloads Market. Financial statements, product benchmarking, and SWOT analysis provide valuable insights into the industry's key players.

Satellite Payloads Market Segment Analysis

Based on the research, Verified Market Reports has segmented the global Satellite Payloads Market into Type, Application and Geography.

Satellite Payloads Market, By Type

LEO (Low Earth orbit)



GEO (Geosynchronous Earth orbit)



MEO (Medium Earth orbit)

Satellite Payloads Market, By Application

Telecommunication



Remote Sensing



Scientific research



Surveillance



Navigation

Satellite Payloads Market, By Geography

North America



U.S





Canada





Mexico



Europe



Germany





France





U.K





Rest of Europe



Asia Pacific



China





Japan





India





Rest of Asia Pacific



ROW



Middle East & Africa





Latin America

Browse Related Reports:

Global Military Satellite Payloads and Subsystems Market By Type (Optical Sensors and Other Sensors Payloads, Avionics and Subsystems), By Application (Military & Defense, Civil & Commercial), By Geographic Scope And Forecast

Global Launch System Payload Market By Type (Geosynchronous Earth Orbit, Medium Earth Orbit), By Application (Commercial, Academic), By Geographic Scope And Forecast

Global Satellite Platform Market By Type (Service Cabin, Propulsion Module), By Application (Agriculture, Energy), By Geographic Scope And Forecast

Global Satellite Communication (SATCOM) Service Market By Type (Consumer, Mobile), By Application (Government and Military Applications, Civil Satellite Communications), By Geographic Scope And Forecast

Global Satellite Modem Market By Type (Single Channel Per Carrier (SCPC) Modems, Multiple Channel Per Carrier (MCPC) Modems), By Application (Energy & Utilities, Mining), By Geographic Scope And Forecast

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One of the leading manufacturers of American-made steel arch buildings, AgriBilt Building Systems delivers affordable, high-quality Quonset huts designed to meet the versatile needs of modern agriculture.

PITTSBURGH, PA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / AgriBilt Building Systems, a trusted name in American-made steel arch buildings, has raised the industry bar with its line of affordable, high-quality Quonset hut steel buildings. AgriBilt's agricultural buildings cater to farmers, ranchers, and large property owners who are seeking versatile, durable buildings that ship directly to any state across the country.

Engineered to be extremely user-friendly, AgriBilt's steel barns and Quonset huts meet the growing demand for DIY construction, with each building kit shipped to include all necessary components. AgriBilt has contractors across the country available to clients, just in case, but the straightforward bolt-and-nut assembly design is simple enough that most customers handle the set-up independently. Best of all, this ease of construction helps to reduce overhead costs, making Agribilt's steel arch buildings a perfect fit for small to medium-scale agricultural operations.

The all-steel construction is fire-resistant and made from commercial-grade Galvalume-coated steel. With a 100% clear-span design-meaning no posts, beams, or trusses-the steel buildings can be utilized for all sorts of storage solutions, including but not limited to grain, livestock, equipment, and hay storage.

Proudly made in the USA, AgriBilt Building Systems is diligent about the quality and longevity of its products. Each structure is specially manufactured using premium materials and is backed by American craftsmanship. As the company continues to grow and expand its reach across the country, customers can be assured that AgriBilt will deliver products that support their work while also strengthening the American manufacturing industry.

For further information or to obtain clearance pricing, interested parties are encouraged to contact AgriBilt directly at (888) 926-1171 to learn more about available options, pricing, and any ongoing promotions.

About AgriBilt Building Systems

AgriBilt Building Systems, as seen on RFD-TV, is a trusted name in the agricultural industry. They manufacture and deliver innovative Quonset hut structures designed to meet a wide variety of farming and storage needs. Known for their ease of installation, durability, and American-made quality, AgriBilt's steel buildings provide reliable storage and shelter solutions for a variety of needs. AgriBilt's commitment to customer satisfaction, robust design, and clear-span engineering continues to set a standard in the agricultural building industry.

Contact Information

Gary Bonacci

gary@agribilt.com

SOURCE: AgriBilt Building Systems

View the original press release on newswire.com.
Over 1,000 employees worldwide contribute 3,200 volunteer hours to support local initiatives

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / More than a thousand Trane Technologies employees from around the world came together to make a positive impact in their communities through Global Time of Service.

Held from October 18 to November 1, this inaugural initiative saw remarkable engagement, with employees dedicating approximately 3,200 volunteer hours to dozens of causes and activities.

Among the highlights were the assembly of nearly 98,000 meal kits at sites in the United States, India, Malaysia and the Philippines, as well as the distribution of 900 literacy kits to students at 5 different locations in the U.S.

"Global Time of Service has truly exemplified the power of collective action within Trane Technologies," said Deidra Parrish Williams, Global Corporate Citizenship Leader at Trane Technologies. "By dedicating their time and energy, our employees have made a tangible difference in their communities. Together, we are building a brighter future and challenging what's possible for a sustainable world."

This initiative also advanced Sustainable Futures, Trane Technologies' corporate citizenship strategy aimed at leveraging the company's resources to support young, under-represented learners.

Additionally, it contributed to Opportunity for All, a key pillar of the company's 2030 Sustainability Commitments, which focuses on uplifting its culture and communities through an inclusive approach centered on education and career development.

As part of these 2030 Sustainability Commitments, Trane Technologies is investing $100 million and 500,000 employee volunteer hours over the next decade to support a generation of learners with the potential to transform our way of life and our world.

Trane Technologies employees in Columbia, South Carolina take part in Global Time of Service.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Trane Technologies on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: Trane Technologies

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/trane-technologies

Email: info@3blmedia.com

SOURCE: Trane Technologies

View the original press release on accesswire.com
German inverter maker SMA says it has recorded 1. 06 billion ($1. 12 billion) of revenue for the first nine months of 2024. From pv magazine Germany SMA Solar Technology has reported a steep decline in sales and profits for the first three quarters of 2024. Revenue dropped by 26% to 1. 06 billion, with a more significant 77% decrease in earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), from 201. 6 million last year to 46 million. It said this decline stems from both reduced sales volume and rising costs. Weak results in the residential and commercial sectors were partially offset by the large-scale ...

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
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Find more information on Youtube and axinocapital.de Sonorp Gold gains local support, anticipates license approval soon, and benefits from high gold prices. With strong community ties and expansion plans, it stands poised for a promising future. gold mexico mining No investment advice! Always trade at your own risk! More insights at ? axino.com For 35 years, we have known how to earn money sustainably with shares in the commodities sector and build up a fortune in the process. The axinocapital channel offers insights into our actions, our many years of experience and access to high-growth stocks in the precious metals, commodities and technology sectors from Australia and Canada. As AXINO Investment GmbH invests its own money in the companies we feature, there is a potential conflict of interest as defined by MiFID II. We would like to point out that axinocapital is a playback channel of AXINO Media GmbH and therefore a purely commercial provider. The videos broadcast does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell. We recommend that you seek advice from your bank or an independent asset manager before making any decision. The content shown may be subject to conflicts of interest in accordance with MiFID, which we are happy to disclose. Please therefore note our disclaimer! www.axinocapital.de/disclaimer This is the English version of youtube.com/@axinocapital

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Leading mission-critical AI company reports strong momentum and rapidly growing customer base

deepset, creators of the deepset Cloud platform and Haystack open source framework, today announced it has been named a 2024 Gartner Cool Vendor in AI Engineering. The company also announced strong momentum and a rapidly growing customer base, including Airbus, The Economist, Oxford University Press, and YPulse, over the past year further solidifying its position as a leader in AI innovation.

"We're thrilled to be recognized in the Gartner Cool Vendors in AI Engineering report, and we view this as a meaningful milestone in our mission to enable organizations to deploy scalable AI solutions for their most critical situations," said Milos Rusic, CEO and co-founder of deepset. "At deepset we're powering many of the world's most high-value and trusted use cases, leading the charge in enabling custom AI development, tailored to each industry and company. As we experience rapid growth, we remain committed to advancing enterprise AI and empowering our clients to tackle their most complex challenges."

2024 Gartner Cool Vendors in AI Engineering Report

According to the 2024 Gartner Cool Vendors in AI Engineering report: "AI engineering tools enable enterprises to operationalize AI faster, balancing both governance and time to market. We highlight innovative vendors that enable IT leaders to robustly operationalize their AI projects." The report contains a series of recommendations, including:

Simplify prompt engineering and RAG by deploying orchestration tools that can automate prompt engineering and orchestrate complex workflows across a broad set of AI models and use cases.

Adopt differentiating and innovative AI engineering tools in tandem with building up AI skills in your teams.

Advancing AI technology to meet evolving industry needs

deepset empowers organizations to build production-ready business applications with customized generative AI solutions. deepset's commercial and open-source products, deepset Cloud and Haystack, are trusted by top companies like Airbus, ZEIT, Siemens and NVIDIA to accelerate the development of custom LLM-powered applications for critical use cases. With a global team, customer base, and community, deepset is committed to advancing AI technology, making it faster, more reliable, and fully tailored to meet the evolving needs of every industry.

"As a market research authority on youth culture for global brands, deepset is foundational to YPulse's AI strategy," said Dan Coates, President, YPulse, Inc. "Their platform empowers us to build trusted, LLM-powered applications that grow our customer relationships. deepset's power and flexibility have significantly enhanced our quality, agility, and speed-to-market. We believe the Gartner recognition of deepset as a 2024 Cool Vendor in AI Engineering aligns with our experience and validates our choice. For organizations aiming to leverage AI effectively, I highly recommend deepset."

Since its Series B funding in August 2023, deepset has solidified its position as a leader in AI innovation. The company has expanded its go-to-market strategy with key hires in marketing, sales, and customer success, opened new offices in Berlin and New York, and established partnerships with NVIDIA, AWS, Intel, MongoDB and AppliedAI.

Most recently, the company launched deepset Studio, deployment options for cloud, VPC, and on-premise, AI Jobs for repeated intelligent document processing, and agentic AI frameworks. deepset was recognized in the Sifted B2B SaaS Rising 100 for its growth, and prioritized educational opportunities within the market, such as the recent launch of their DeepLearning.AI course, designed to educate developers on building production-grade AI applications.

"As early investors in deepset, we've been fortunate to witness firsthand how the company is revolutionizing how AI is scaled in high-stakes environments," said Vidu Shanmugarajah, Partner at GV (Google Ventures). "Their innovative approach accelerates adoption and maximizes ROI in the most critical situations. By combining cutting-edge technology with a deep understanding of real-world challenges, deepset is setting new benchmarks for AI implementation and value creation, and we continue to be impressed by the company's progress."

Download a complimentary copy of the 2024 Gartner Cool Vendors in AI Engineering report here.

Disclaimer

Gartner, Cool Vendors in AI Engineering, Arun Chandrasekaran, Manjunath Bhat, Arup Roy, George Brocklehurst, 6 November 2024

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark, and the GARTNER COOL VENDOR badge and COOL VENDORS are trademarks and service marks, of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About deepset

deepset is the mission-critical custom AI company. Since 2018, the year of the first large language model, we've been helping thousands of developers and companies build enterprise-grade generative AI into their products and business workflows, with the fastest time to market and highest degree of trust and accuracy. deepset is funded by GV (Google Ventures), Balderton Capital, Lunar Ventures, System.One, Harpoon, and Acequia Capital. Learn more about deepset by visiting deepset.ai.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114914983/en/

Contacts:

Media Contact

Eleni Laughlin for deepset

e@eleni.press

(510) 406-0798
Caissargues, November 14, 2024 - Groupe Bastide, a leading European provider of home healthcare services, has published its revenue for first-quarter 2024-2025, ending September 30, 2024.

In  millions 2023-2024 published 2023-2024* restated 2024-2025 published Change First-quarter revenue 127.9 122.7 133.8 +9.1%

*2023-2024 revenue restated for the scope effect related to store closures, the sale of Distrimed on December 4, 2023 and of Sodimed and Promefa - Swiss entities classified as assets held for sale (see restated sales reconstitution in appendix)





Solid organic growth of 9.0% in first-quarter 2024-2025

Groupe Bastide posted a solid first-quarter performance with organic growth[1] of 9.0% and revenue of 133.8 million.

Home healthcare services (Respiratory, Nutrition-Perfusion-Stomatherapy) maintained a high organic growth rate of 10.9%, and now represent 63.2% of Group revenue. The return to growth in the "homecare" business is materializing and gathering pace, particularly in the stores and local authorities businesses, with organic growth of 6.0% over the quarter.

International business accounted for 16% of Groupe Bastide's revenue.





Breakdown of revenue by business

Homecare: Revenue amounted to 49.2 million, representing a solid return to growth of 6.0%, driven mainly by rental activities in the local authorities and stores segments.

In the healthcare institutions business, thanks to the success of several public tenders and the recovery of private-sector orders, which had temporarily slowed down in the post-COVID period, the Group recorded revenue of 21.7 million, representing organic growth of 4.3%, a clear acceleration compared to the 2.5% figure achieved in 2023-2024.

business, thanks to the success of several public tenders and the recovery of private-sector orders, which had temporarily slowed down in the post-COVID period, the Group recorded revenue of 21.7 million, representing organic growth of 4.3%, a clear acceleration compared to the 2.5% figure achieved in 2023-2024. Stores/online revenue amounted to 27.5 million, up 7.3%, boosted by a strong rebound in the stores segment thanks to excellent performance in the mobility assistance segment. As part of a store network optimization and franchisee restructuring strategy, two stores were closed during the second half of 2023-2024, and a third during the first quarter of 2024-2025.

The "Respiratory" business maintained its excellent performance, with revenue up 13.3% to 48.7 million (up 13.1% on an organic basis). Growth was particularly strong in France, at almost 20%, reflecting increased market shares in a buoyant segment. Internationally, thanks to its policy of targeted acquisitions, Groupe Bastide reported a robust business level, with a ramp up in Italy and the Netherlands, and the confirmation of good momentum in the UK and Canada, where the Group benefited from both price increases and a positive volume effect.

The "Nutrition-Perfusion-Stomatherapy" business reported revenue of 35.9 million, up 8.0% thanks to the excellent performance of the "Diabetes" business and solid performance of the "Nutrition-Perfusion" business.





2024-2025 outlook

Given the strong growth of home healthcare services and the upturn in the homecare business, Groupe Bastide is reiterating its revenue target of over 560 million (based on its current scope) for the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

The Group also confirms its target of achieving a recurring operating margin of at least 8.7% in the 2024-2025 fiscal year, as a result of the cost control policy in place, continued growth in the share of revenue from higher value-added businesses, and a stable pricing environment expected for the current fiscal year.

Reducing debt and improving debt ratios, particularly financial leverage, are among the Group's priorities. These objectives will be achieved due to the expected improvement in operating free cash flow, resulting from both an improvement in profitability and the strict management of working capital and investments, as well as due to the disposal of targeted assets.

In this respect, the Group has finalized the sale of its commercial business in Switzerland. The sale of the Swiss real estate assets is planned to be completed by the end of 2024. Groupe Bastide is continuing to evaluate its business portfolio, with the aim of disposing of assets that no longer align with the Group's strategy or that offer limited potential for organic growth or additional value creation in the short to medium term.





NEXT PUBLICATION:

Half-yearly 2024-2025 revenue on Thursday, February 13, 2025 after the close of trading.

In  millions 2023-2024 2024-2025 Published revenue 127.9 133.8 Impact of acquisitions in 2023-2024 - - Removal from the scope of consolidation of Distrimed since December 2023 (2.9) Removal from the scope of consolidation of the Swiss entities in the process of being sold over the full year (IFRS 5) (2.1) Store closures (0.2) Restated revenue 122.7



About Groupe Bastide Le Confort Medical

Created in 1977 by Guy Bastide, Groupe Bastide is a leading European provider of home healthcare services. Present in eight countries, Bastide develops a permanent quality approach and is committed to providing medical devices and associated services that best meet patients' needs in key health areas: diabetes, nutrition, infusion, respiratory care, stomatherapy and urology. Bastide is listed on Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0000035370, Reuters BATD.PA, - Bloomberg BLC: FP).



CONTACTS

Groupe Bastide Actus Finance

Vincent Bastide/Olivier Jourdanney

T. +33 (0)4 66 38 68 08

www.bastide-groupe.fr

Analyst-Investor

Helene de Watteville

T. +33 (0)1 53 67 36 33

Press - Media

Deborah Schwartz

T. +33 (0)1 53 67 36 35

[1] Organic growth calculated at constant exchange rates and on a like-for-like basis: 2023-2024 figures restated for the contribution of assets sold within the last 12 months and assets classified as held for sale.

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ROMA, Italy, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Blackshape, an Italian aircraft design and manufacturing company (part of Angel Holding), will be a key participant at the Air Expo Abu Dhabi, a significant international event for the aviation industry, running from November 19-21, 2024. For the first time in the UAE, Blackshape will showcase the all-composite Gabriel BK160-200 at stand 440, an advanced and versatile aircraft that exemplifies Italian excellence and technological innovation. Founded in Monopoli (Bari, Italy), Blackshape is celebrated for its quality "Made in Italy" design and cutting-edge technology, earning it recognition among pilots and aviation enthusiasts worldwide. With over 100 aircraft produced, Blackshape excels in utilizing composite materials to craft sleek, high-performance aircraft that cater to civil, military, and recreational markets. The Gabriel BK160-200 is an all-composite, piston-engine, two-seat tandem aircraft with retractable landing gear, fully certified by both EASA and FAA. Its versatility makes it ideal for basic flight training for both civilian and military pilots, as well as for private and recreational use. Available in AVGAS and MOGAS versions, the Gabriel provides an advanced, flexible solution that meets both performance and sustainability standards. As part of its participation in the Air Expo, a Gabriel BK160-200 will make a journey of over 4,000 kilometers from Italy to the United Arab Emirates, piloted by the company's chief pilot, symbolizing Blackshape's ambition and pioneering spirit. This impressive flight also serves as a real-world demonstration of the aircraft's reliability and long-distance performance. In addition to the Gabriel, Blackshape manufactures the Prime, a two-seat tandem ultralight aircraft, also made of composite materials. Certified by aviation authorities in several countries, the Prime is admired by pilots and aviation enthusiasts for its agility and high performance.

"We are thrilled to showcase the Gabriel BK160-200 for the first time at this event and to see our engineering and manufacturing excellence appreciated in a region that has always valued avantgarde technology and innovation," said Blackshape CEO Niccolo Chierroni. "This participation represents a strategic step to strengthen our presence in international markets and to further position Blackshape's Gabriel, along with future developments, as a reference platform for primary/basic aeronautical training."

For more information:

Press Office LaPresse - ufficio.stampa@lapresse.it

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/add1741a-face-4ab9-979c-9a0f95e9dcd7
Forbo Holding AG / Key word(s): Miscellaneous

Change on the Board of Directors of Forbo Holding Ltd



14-Nov-2024 / 19:00 CET/CEST

Release of an ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





MEDIA RELEASE

AD HOC ANNOUNCEMENT PURSUANT TO ARTICLE 53 OF THE SIX EXCHANGE REGULATION LISTING RULES This E. Schneider will not be standing for re-election at the Ordinary General Meeting on April 4, 2025. The Board of Directors of Forbo Holding Ltd will propose the election of Bernhard Merki as the new Chairman of the Board of Directors. Bernhard Merki has been a member of the Board of Directors of Forbo Holding Ltd since April 5, 2024. Baar, November 14, 2024 This E. Schneider will not be standing for re-election

This E. Schneider will not be standing for re-election as a member of the Board of Directors at the upcoming Ordinary General Meeting 2025. He has been a member of the Board since 2004 and until the end of 2013 was Delegate of the Board of Directors in his role as CEO of the Forbo Group. From 2014 to 2023, he held the role of Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of Forbo Holding Ltd. He has been leading the company as Chairman of the Board of Directors since April 2023. This E. Schneider is also Chairman of the Strategy and Sustainability Committee. The Board of Directors of Forbo Holding Ltd would like to thank This E. Schneider for his many years of success as well as the dedication he has shown to the company. With his strategic expertise, in-depth corporate and financial knowledge as well as his extensive professional experience, he has played a key role in shaping Forbo over the past two decades. He recognized the importance of corporate sustainability from an early stage and enshrined it as one of Forbo's core values. Under his leadership, first as CEO of the Forbo Group and then as Chairman of the Board of Directors, the Group developed an integrated corporate strategy under the Forbo brand, gradually focused its business activities on two strong pillars - Forbo Flooring Systems and Forbo Movement Systems - and rounded off the portfolio with targeted acquisitions. The Board of Directors is extremely grateful to This E. Schneider for his valuable contributions and trusting working relationship and wishes him all the best for the future. Election of a new Chairman of the Board of Directors

Based on the long-term succession plan, the Board of Directors of Forbo Holding Ltd will propose to the Ordinary General Meeting on April 4, 2025, that Bernhard Merki be elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Forbo Holding Ltd. Bernhard Merki, a Swiss citizen, has been an independent entrepreneur since 2019 as well as a professional and independent member of the Board of Directors with a seat on various boards of nationally and internationally active companies. These additional board positions include serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors at both EMS-Chemie-Holding AG and Georg Utz Holding AG. Bernhard Merki has extensive industrial experience accumulated over many years in sectors closely related to Forbo's activities: logistics, mechanical engineering, plastics processing and building materials. After earning a degree in mechanical engineering (Dipl. Ing. HTL) at HTL Brugg-Windisch, he held various management positions at the Netstal Group - a leading global manufacturer of injection molding machinery - from 1988 to 2013, the last ten years of which as CEO. From 2014 to 2018, he was CEO of 4B, a leading company in innovative facade and window solutions. MEDIA RELEASE (PDF FILE) Forbo is a leading producer of floor coverings, building and construction adhesives, as well as belts for power transmission and lightweight conveyor technology. The sustainable manufacture of environmentally friendly products has long been an integral part of the strategy. Forbo's linoleum floor coverings are made from natural raw materials. It is biodegradable and carbon negative (cradle to gate), without offsetting. For its manufacture of heterogenous vinyl floor coverings, Forbo uses the latest generation of phthalate-free plasticizers. As a proportion of total product weight, textile floor coverings also contain up to 45% recycled materials. The BioBelt is a conveyor belt consisting of at least 20% renewable raw materials. The AmpMiser conveyor belt allows savings in energy of up to 50%. Forbo employs about 5,200 people and has an international network of 25 sites with production and distribution, 6 fabrication centers, and 47 sales organizations in a total of 39 countries around the world. The company generated net sales of CHF 1,175.2 million in the 2023 business year. Forbo is headquartered in Baar in the canton of Zug, Switzerland. Forbo Holding Ltd is listed on SIX Swiss Exchange (security number 354151, ISIN CH0003541510, Bloomberg FORN SW, Reuters FORN.S). Contact person:

Karin Marti

Head Corporate Communications

Phone +41 58 787 25 41

www.forbo.com

www.forbo.com -> Sustainability

End of Inside Information
This recognition underscores IW's unwavering commitment to supporting military service members and veterans, a commitment it holds in the highest regard.

RESTON, VA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Intelligent Waves (IW), a leading technology integrator that delivers mission-focused multi-domain operational expertise and innovation to the Government through high-impact technology solutions, has been recognized as one of the top 2025 Military Friendly Employers for the third year in a row. This recognition underscores IW's unwavering commitment to supporting military service members and veterans, a commitment it holds in the highest regard.

Intelligent Waves (IW)

Logo of Intelligent Waves (IW)

The Military Friendly Employer Award honors organizations that provide meaningful support to the military community through effective hiring practices, career advancement opportunities, customer service, and community investment. Intelligent Waves joins over 1,500 organizations recognized for creating lasting benefits for veterans, as identified by the Military Friendly Company survey.

This award recognition follows IW's being recognized by the Washington Business Journal as one of the area's largest Veteran-Owned Companies in 2024 for the fifth year in a row and being named the Top Veteran-Owned Business of the Year by the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce's 2024 Distinguished Service Award competition.

Tony Crescenzo, IW's CEO, and a Marine Corps veteran, stated, "Intelligent Waves is honored to receive this award, which recognizes our commitment to veterans. We measure our success by the impact on our community."

Intelligent Waves is committed to recruiting veterans and assisting them in transitioning into the workforce by translating their military language. The firm has formed a robust partnership with Warriors Ethos, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides career planning, professional development, and placement assistance to wounded service members, veterans, and families. This partnership is a beacon of hope for the future of veteran support, as Warriors Ethos also supports numerous veteran-focused foundations.

About Intelligent Waves

Intelligent Waves delivers high-impact, multi-domain technology solutions to government clients by combining mission-focused expertise with innovative technologies. Known for its agility and reliability, Intelligent Waves operates under the motto, "Always Ready. Anytime. Anywhere. Any Domain." For more information, visit www.intelligentwaves.com.

About Military Friendly

Military Friendly is the leading standard for evaluating organizations supporting military service members and veterans. Owned by Viqtory, Inc., a veteran-owned business not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense, Military Friendly uses data-driven criteria to identify organizations offering sustainable and impactful military community benefits. Learn more at www.militaryfriendly.com.

Contact Information

Gal Borenstein

CEO

gal@borensteingroup.com

703-385-8178 x70

SOURCE: Intelligent Waves (IW)

View the original press release on newswire.com.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Taylor Capito, co-founder of GenRAIT, a pioneering SaaS platform transforming life sciences through artificial intelligence, was a featured speaker at the FII 8th Edition 2024: Infinite Horizons: Investing Today, Shaping Tomorrow. The prestigious global summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, gathered leading minds from around the world to explore how today's investments shape the future of business, science, and society. By convening world-class scientific and business personalities, the annual conference aims to foster cooperation in pursuit of cutting-edge innovation.

In her address, Capito underscored the critical role collaboration plays in addressing the world's most pressing healthcare challenges, the transformative power of data, and rapid AI innovation as solutions. In an industry that is highly protective of technical capabilities derived from some of the most personal data on the planet, Capito emphasized the future of health-tech innovation through curated data, bespoke data security, world-class AI, and cooperation among like-minded companies. The summit's theme aligned with GenRAIT's mission to accelerate scientific discovery through a collaborative, AI-driven software company that supports scientists in tackling the most complex healthcare issues.

Speakers Panel: How Can Health Startups Drive Innovation with Data at Scale?

Capito joined Will Ahmed (co-founder and CEO of WHOOP), Joshua Fink (founder of Luma Group), Morad Fareed (founder of Delos and FC Mother), and Nisa Leung (managing partner, Qiming Venture Partners) for a panel discussion on the role data will play in the future of healthcare innovation.





Caption: Nisa Leung, Will Ahmed, Taylor Capito, Morad Fareed, and Josh Fink held a panel discussion at FII 2024



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Capito commented on the missed potential for rapid innovation in scientific research, expressing her belief that positive healthcare outcomes could be produced more rapidly by properly harnessing data and AI. "Everyone here has struggled with a health issue, likely a chronic one. The time horizon for discovering new treatments is 15 years or more, so we're not seeing the advances we should, given the available technology. Insights aren't being uncovered-not due to any fault of scientific researchers, but because the field has advanced so rapidly."

When asked how GenRAIT helps scientists leverage data at scale, Capito explained:

"There are 3 billion data points in the genome. That's a lot of information. GenRAIT's current product provides researchers and bioinformaticians with tools to make better use of that data more efficiently. If the researcher is the chef, we at GenRAIT are fully stocked with the ingredients and tools they can use to start making analyses and discoveries now. They don't need to go to a supermarket, so to speak-everything they need to make analyses and discoveries is there: the computational infrastructure, the data, the tools, and more." -Taylor Capito, CEO of GenRAIT







Caption: GenRAIT logo



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Collaboration: A Core Pillar of GenRAIT's Vision

GenRAIT, which stands for Genomic Revolutionary Artificial Intelligence Technology, is a cloud-based SaaS that helps scientists streamline the management, analysis, and interpretation of large-scale life sciences data. By harnessing AI, GenRAIT enables researchers across various disciplines-from advanced bioinformatics to dry-lab scientists-to collaborate more effectively, reduce bottlenecks, and produce insights for groundbreaking discoveries.

"Our mission is to eliminate the traditional barriers that slow down scientific progress," said Capito. GenRAIT's platform allows scientists to integrate their own workflows, automate processes, and accelerate innovation.

Capito used her platform at FII 2024 to advocate for a future where collaboration, especially among women leaders, drives progress. "We need to bring together the best ideas and the best people to ensure we create solutions that benefit all of humanity. Collaboration isn't just a buzzword-it's how we thrive," she explained.





Caption: Taylor Capito, co-founder of GenRAIT



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Urgency and Initiative: Building a Future Where Humanity Thrives

As GenRAIT continues to expand its influence in the global scientific community, Capito called on fellow leaders to act with urgency. "At GenRAIT, we're leveraging the power of AI, cloud infrastructure, and cutting-edge technologies to advance drug discovery and research into rare and chronic diseases," said Capito.

The potential for AI to transform life sciences is immense, but it's equally important to address the human systems around it. Capito emphasized the need for immediate action and enthusiastic collaboration to reduce bottlenecks and produce positive healthcare outcomes.

Capito's message to the FII 2024 audience was clear: The future belongs to those who take the initiative and invest in partnerships that drive innovation and progress. "The time to act is now," she added. "We can't wait for others to solve the problems we face. It's up to all of us-especially women entrepreneurs and innovators-to step up and create the world we want to live in."

Conclusion: Shaping Tomorrow Through Collaborative Leadership

With a focus on diversity in leadership to optimize collaboration, Taylor Capito's participation in FII 2024 marked a pivotal moment for women-led innovation in life sciences. By advocating for collaboration and urgency, Capito's message aligned with FII's mission to drive scientific breakthroughs that improve global health and well-being. Her speech underscored the importance of bringing diverse perspectives into leadership roles, especially as society grapples with challenges that demand innovative, cooperative solutions.

For more information about GenRAIT and to explore partnership opportunities, visit GenRAIT's website.

About GenRAIT: GenRAIT is a revolutionary SaaS designed to expedite omics-driven discovery and innovation through AI enablement. The platform provides seamless tools for data management, analysis, and collaboration, empowering scientists to drive solutions that improve the health and future of humanity.

Media Contact:

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/228104

SOURCE: AK Infinite
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - West High Yield (W.H.Y.) Resources Ltd. (TSXV: WHY) (the "Company" or "West High Yield") announces that, further to its news releases dated August 29, 2024, September 26, 2024, October 9, 2024 and October 11, 2024, it is closing the final tranche (the "Closing") of its previously announced private placement offering (the "Offering") of units (the "Units"). The Company also announces that, further to its news release dated October 9, 2024, it has completed its previously announced shares-for-debt transactions (the "Shares for Debt Transactions") to settle CAD$320,000 in outstanding debt (collectively, the "Debt") owed to with three (3) non-arm's length lenders (the "NAL Creditors") and one (1) arm's length lender of the Company (collectively, the "Creditors").

The Closing

The Closing consisted of the issuance of 3,660,935 Units for gross proceeds of CAD$732,187. The Units were issued at a price of CAD$0.20 per Unit, and each Unit consists of one (1) common share of the Company (each, a "Common Share") and one (1) Common Share purchase warrant (each, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant, together with CAD$0.30, entitles the holder thereof to acquire one (1) additional Common Share for twelve (12) months from the date of the Closing. All securities comprising the Units issued on the Closing are subject to a trading hold period expiring four months plus one day from the date of issuance. In connection with the Closing, the Company issued 10,000 non-transferable share purchase warrants (the "Broker Warrants") to one (1) arm's length broker (the "Broker"), equal to 2% of the number of Units issued under the Closing to subscribers introduced by the Broker, and paid the Broker a cash commission of $2,000.00 (the "Broker Commission"), equal to 2% of the aggregate proceeds from the number of Units issued under the Offerings to subscribers introduced by the Broker. The Broker Warrants have identical terms to the Warrants.

The Offering

After completion of the Closing, the Company confirms that it issued a total of 5,690,935 Units for total gross proceeds of $1,138,187.00 under the Offering. Each Unit consisted of one (1) Common Share and one (1) Warrant. Each Warrant, together with CAD$0.30, entitles the holder thereof to acquire one (1) additional Common Share for twelve (12) months from the date of each closing under the Offering. The only compensation provided to brokers under the Offering were the Broker Warrants and Broker Commission noted above pertaining to the final Closing. The Company had initially announced the Offering would consist of the issuance of up to 3,750,000 Units for gross proceeds of up to $750,000.00. The oversubscription, among other items such as the acceptance and final approval of the Offering, remain subject to approval by the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") which the Company has submitted for as of the date of this news release.

The proceeds from the Offering have been and will be used to conclude the Company's permitting process, covering essential operations, general working capital purposes and expenses, and for supporting the Company's planned drilling program for the water monitoring holes at its Record Ridge magnesium deposit, as required by the British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation.

The Shares for Debt Transactions

Following receipt of final acceptance from the TSXV for the Shares for Debt Transactions, the Company issued 1,600,000 Common Shares (the "Settlement Shares") at a deemed issuance price of CAD$0.20 per Settlement Share in full and final satisfaction of the Debt. The Settlement Shares were issued in reliance on certain prospectus exemptions available under Canadian securities legislation and are subject to a trading hold period expiring four months plus one day from the date of issuance.

No new "control person" of the Company was created pursuant to the Shares for Debt Transactions, and no new "insiders" of the Company were created by virtue of holding over 10% of the Company's issued and outstanding Common Shares upon completion of the Shares for Debt Transactions.

As was announced in the Company's news release dated October 9, the Shares for Debt Transactions for the NAL Creditors are considered non-arm's length transactions. The issuance of the Settlement Shares to the NAL Creditors constitutes a "related party transaction" as such term is defined by Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The Company was exempt from the MI 61-101 valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements for related party transactions in connection with the Shares for Debt Transactions for the NAL Creditors under sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 as neither the fair market value (as determined under MI 61-101) of the subject matter of, nor the fair market value of the consideration for, the transaction, insofar as it involves the NAL Creditors, exceeds 25% of the Company's market capitalization (as determined under MI 61-101).

About West High Yield

West High Yield is a publicly traded junior mining exploration and development company focused on acquiring, exploring, and developing mineral resource properties in Canada. Its primary objective is to develop its Record Ridge critical mineral (magnesium, silica, and nickel) deposit using green processing techniques to minimize waste and CO2 emissions.

The Company's Record Ridge critical mineral deposit located 10 kilometers southwest of Rossland, British Columbia has approximately 10.6 million tonnes of contained magnesium based on an independently produced National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") Preliminary Economic Assessment technical report (titled "Revised NI 43-101 Technical Report Preliminary Economic Assessment Record Ridge Project, British Columbia, Canada") prepared by SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc. on April 18, 2013 in accordance with NI 43-101 and which can be found on the Company's profile at https://www.sedarplus.ca.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. The forward-looking statements and information are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the Company. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct.

Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking information. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause the results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: general economic conditions in Canada and globally; industry conditions, including governmental regulation; failure to obtain industry partner and other third party consents and approvals, if and when required; the availability of capital on acceptable terms; the need to obtain required approvals from regulatory authorities; and other factors. Readers are cautioned that this list of risk factors should not be construed as exhaustive.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information, which is given as of the date hereof, and to not use such forward-looking information for anything other than its intended purpose. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in the United States. The securities of the Company will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of U.S. persons except in certain transactions exempt from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act.

NEITHER THE TSXV NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSXV) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229986

SOURCE: West High Yield (W.H.Y.) Resources Ltd.
TOKYO, Nov 15, 2024 - (JCN Newswire) - TANAKA Kikinzoku Kogyo K.K. (Head office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director & CEO: Koichiro Tanaka), which develops industrial precious metal products as one of the core companies of TANAKA Precious Metals, announced that it has succeeded in developing the world's first bulk[2] platinum with controlled crystal grain[3] size in the nano scale.The average grain size of a typical bulk metal is about 10 um at the smallest. In this new technology, the average crystal grain size can be controlled in the nano scale. As a result, the developed pure platinum, with 99.9% or higher purity, has 10 times the hardness and 4 times the strength of typical platinum materials.It is known that the properties of metals, including precious metals, are enhanced by grain refinement. In recent years, steel and nonferrous metals with nano-sized crystal grains have been produced by deformation processing to apply extreme levels of plastic deformation[5] and recrystallize their structures. While deformation processing temporarily hardens[6] metal materials, when highly pure precious metal materials undergo the same process, the arrangement of atoms that form their crystalline structure changes and new crystal grains are nucleated and grown over periods of a few hours to a few days. As a result, the hardness of the material noticeably decreases (softens), and it has been very difficult to refine the crystal grains through deformation processing.TANAKA Kikinzoku Kogyo has succeeded in manufacturing bulk platinum with controlled crystal grain size in the nano scale by optimizing the manufacturing process. The hardness and strength of the platinum materials manufactured by this technology are much higher than those of typical platinum materials. The developed platinum has a high density of small-angle grain boundaries, large-angle grain boundaries, dislocations, and other lattice defects within the material. Therefore, the developed platinum has properties that are clearly different from the properties of commonly known platinum materials, even without additive elements or alloying. As a new material with high purity and high functionality, it is expected to be applied to a wide field of industries, including the electronics and aerospace industries.Material Development of Nanostructured BulkMany metal materials are polycrystalline, consisting of small crystal grains. It is considered that their properties can be improved by refinement of the crystal grains. The finer the grains, the higher the proportion of grain boundaries or lattice defects, such as dislocations, in the overall material. In materials with nanoscale grain, the ratio of lattice defects is incomparably higher than in commonly known materials, of which the physical properties and characteristics are usually discussed. As a result, unique physical properties and characteristics that are dramatically different from conventional materials are obtained.[1] World's first: As of October 30, 2024, and based on internal research (according to a survey of patents and papers on bulk platinum materials)[2] Bulky, bulk: Bulky refers to the state of material where clumps of atoms within the material, not on the surface, are connected three-dimensionally. Solid matter with a bulky structure is called bulk.[3] Crystal grains, crystal grain size: Metals have a structure with a regular arrangement of atoms. Crystal grains refer to individual areas of this structure where the orientation of the atomic arrangement is different from neighboring areas, and crystal grain size refers to the diameter of the grains.[4] Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD): A method of investigating information on material crystals (crystal system, grain size, orientation, etc.) by analyzing the backscatter diffraction from the surface of a material with a crystalline structure when irradiated with an electron beam[5] Plastic deformation: The amount of deformation that remains in a material, without it returning to its original state, after applying an external force to the material to deform it and then removing that external force[6] Work-hardened: The phenomenon of a metal being hardened by applying stress to the metal to accumulate plastic deformation[7] Royal Pure Platinum: An original material manufactured by TANAKA Kikinzoku Kogyo, with higher hardness and strength than normal platinum materials while maintaining a purity of 99.9%About TANAKA Precious MetalsSince its foundation in 1885, TANAKA Precious Metals has built a portfolio of products to support a diversified range of business uses focused on precious metals. TANAKA is a leader in Japan regarding the volume of precious metals it handles. Over many years, TANAKA has manufactured and sold precious metal products for industry and provided precious metals in such forms as jewelry and assets. As precious metals specialists, all Group companies in Japan and worldwide collaborate on manufacturing, sales, and technology development to offer a full range of products and services. With 5,355 employees, the group's consolidated net sales for the fiscal year ending December 2023, was 611.1 billion yen.Global industrial business websitehttps://tanaka-preciousmetals.com/en/Product inquiriesTANAKA Kikinzoku Kogyo K.K.https://tanaka-preciousmetals.com/en/inquiries-on-industrial-products/Press inquiriesTANAKA Holdings Co., Ltd.https://tanaka-preciousmetals.com/en/inquiries-for-media/Press release: http://www.acnnewswire.com/docs/files/20241114_EN.pdfSource: Tanaka Holdings Co., Ltd.Copyright 2024 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Bedford, Massachusetts--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Dodge Construction Network ("Dodge" or the "Company"), a portfolio company of Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. (together with its affiliates "Clearlake") and STG Partners, LLC ("STG"), today announced significant business milestones including executive changes and the successful closing of a financing transaction.

Dodge raised $100 million of new capital and extended debt maturities, further bolstering its liquidity position and financial flexibility. The transaction is open to holders of all of its existing first lien and second lien term loans.

Dodge also announced today that Andrew Somosi has been appointed as the Company's new Chief Executive Officer, replacing Daniel McCarthy, who is stepping down. Mr. Somosi was most recently Head of the Americas at Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG), and previously held leadership roles at Nielsen, Lattice Engines and LexisNexis, after beginning his career at McKinsey & Company.

In addition, Johann Dudley has joined Dodge as Chief Product Officer. Mr. Dudley most recently held product leadership roles at Flywheel Digital (acquired by Omnicom) and Nielsen.

"I am excited to join Dodge to help drive its next chapter of growth and business transformation. In my extensive research preparing for my role, I was impressed by the breadth and scale of Dodge's lead-generation, marketing, analytics and consulting solutions, which empower tens of thousands of companies to grow their businesses in the multi-trillion dollar U.S. commercial construction industry," said Mr. Somosi. "We are pleased with the successful completion of this transaction, which strengthens our financial position and provides ample flexibility to pursue growth and innovation. The continued support of Clearlake and STG highlight their confidence in Dodge's opportunities and potential."

"This new capital and the strengthening of the leadership team represent important milestones on Dodge's journey," said Ben Kruger, Principal at Clearlake and Adam Hendricks, Managing Director at STG. "We thank Dan for his service and look forward to supporting Andrew and the Dodge team in its quest to serve the commercial construction industry and power its customers' growth."

About Dodge Construction Network

Dodge Construction Network harnesses data, analytics, and industry connections to be the leading source of insights and opportunities in the construction industry. With five trusted solutions - Dodge Construction Central, The Blue Book, Sweets, IMS, and Principia - Dodge connects construction professionals across all stages of the building process. Designed for both small teams and large enterprises, these tools simplify complexity, empowering you to build thriving businesses and communities. With over a century of experience, Dodge Construction Network is the catalyst for modern construction. To learn more, visit construction.com.

About Clearlake

Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. is an investment firm founded in 2006 operating integrated businesses across private equity, credit and other related strategies. With a sector-focused approach, the firm seeks to partner with experienced management teams by providing patient, long-term capital to dynamic businesses that can benefit from Clearlake's operational improvement approach, O.P.S. The firm's core target sectors are technology, industrials, and consumer. Clearlake currently has over $85 billion of assets under management and its senior investment principals have led or co-led over 400 investments. The firm is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA with affiliates in Dallas, TX, London, UK, Dublin, Ireland Singapore and Abu Dhabi, UAE. More information is available at www.clearlake.com.

About STG

STG is a private equity partner to market-leading companies in data, software, and analytics. The firm brings experience, flexibility, and resources to build strategic value and unlock the potential of innovative companies. Partnering to build customer-centric, market-winning portfolio companies, STG creates sustainable foundations for growth that bring value to existing and future stakeholders. The firm is dedicated to transforming and building outstanding technology companies in partnership with world-class management teams. STG's expansive portfolio has consisted of more than 50 global companies. For more information, please visit www.STG.com.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229702

SOURCE: Dodge Construction Network
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Northstar Gold Corp. (CSE: NSG) ("Northstar" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce the Company has closed the first tranche of its previously announced non-brokered private placement with strategic investors (the "Offering") of units ("Units").

The first tranche consisted of 14,900,000 Hard Dollar Units and 4,950,000 Critical Minerals Eligible Flow Through Units for a total of 19,850,000 Units and aggregate gross proceeds of $818,750. Northstar has since received additional orders to close a second tranche in the near term.

Hard Dollar Units were priced at $0.04 and comprised of one common share of the Company and one share purchase warrant. Each full Warrant is exercisable into one additional common share of the Company at an exercise price of C$0.06 for a period of 36 months. Flow Through Units were priced at $0.045 and comprised of one common share of the Company and one share purchase warrant. Each full Warrant is exercisable into one additional common share of the Company at an exercise price of C$0.08 for a period of 24 months.

The Company paid a total of $20,255 in finder fees associated with the Offering and issued 560,000 finder warrants at exercise prices of $0.04 and $0.045 expiring between 24 and 36 months from the closing date of the Offering. All securities issued under the Offering are subject to a statutory four month hold period from the closing date under applicable Canadian securities laws.

Management Commentary

"The strategic investor response to Northstar's private placement is a positive endorsement of the Company's Miller Copper-Gold Property exploration/development initiatives and growth potential," states Brian Fowler, President, CEO, and Director of Northstar Gold Corp. "Northstar is presently shortlisting bids to drill up to 1,500 metres targeting potentially broad widths of near-surface VMS copper mineralization over a recently defined 350 metre Zone 2 Extension surface EM conductor, along a southeast trend from the historic high-grade Cam Copper Mine. Drilling is scheduled to commence later this month. (Please see Northstar News Release dated May 16, 2024)."

"Furthermore, this first financing tranche provides Northstar the ability to achieve other critical milestones that include following up the nearly complete Novamera Inc. scoping study investigating the potential to "Surgically MineTM" high-grade Zone 2 VMS copper mineralization at Cam Copper Mine. (Please see Northstar-Novamera MOU News Release dated October 3, 2024)"

"Northstar is also awaiting an upcoming Miller Intrusive Complex Allied Gold Zone site visit at the Miller Property by technical representatives from Hunan Nonferrous, a China-based company. This near-term visit, contingent on the issuance of Canadian visitor visas, will mark a critical step to fulfill a key requirement outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Northstar and Hunan Nonferrous. (Please see Northstar-Hunan MOU News Release dated September 19, 2024) The site visit sets the stage for a potential Cooperative Agreement whereby Hunan Nonferrous may secure a minority stake in the Miller Intrusive Complex gold deposits by funding up to 10,000 meters of diamond drilling, paving the way for collaborative exploration and development."

"Northstar is steadfast in its commitment to deliver shareholder value through targeted exploration and development efforts and non-dilutive, strategic partnerships with industry leaders. These efforts underscore our vision of advancing high-potential copper and gold assets while positioning the company for long-term growth."

Use of Proceeds

The gross proceeds from the Offering will be used to drill test a newly-defined, 350 metre long, 200 Siemens near-surface EM conductor, 600 - 900 metres southeast and along strike from the historic, high-grade Cam Copper Mine on Northstar's Miller Copper-Gold. This "Zone 2 Extension EM Conductor" is coincidental with several magnetic anomalies and possibly represents the southeast expansion of previously drilled Cam Copper VMS Zone 2 (14.8% copper over 2.5 metres in DDH CC03-23 - See Northstar News Release dated November 23, 2023). Zone 2 Extension Conductor possibly reflects copper-bearing volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) mineralization with potentially greater thickness.

In addition, a portion of the funds will be used to provide for potential property option agreements to acquire the neighboring Boston Creek Mines and Philip Properties, both of which are currently secured under LOI (Letter of Intent) agreements. Funds will also provide for Northstar support of the on-going Hunan Nonferrous and Novamera MOU due diligence and scoping studies, respectively. Lastly, proceeds will also contribute to general and administrative working capital expenses. The Flow Through component of the Private Placement will be used to incur eligible Canadian Exploration Expenses ("CEE") primarily to fund Critical Minerals exploration and diamond drilling on the Miller Copper-Gold Property.

Related Party Disclosure

Certain directors, officers and other insiders of the Company acquired $60,000 of Units under the Offering. Such participation is considered as "related party transactions" within the meaning of

TSX Venture Exchange Policy 5.9 (the "Policy") and Multilateral Instrument 61-101-Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101") adopted in the Policy. The Company relied on the exemptions from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 contained in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 in respect of related party participation in the Offering as neither the fair market value (as determined under MI 61-101) of the subject matter of, nor the fair market value of the consideration for, the transaction, insofar as it involves interested parties, exceeded 25% of the Company's market capitalization (as determined under MI 61-101).

About Northstar

Northstar's primary exploration focus is to advance and expand the near-surface, Allied Gold Zone bulk-tonnage gold-telluride deposit and more recently discovered VMS copper mineral deposits on the Company's flagship, 100%-owned Miller Copper-Gold Property, situated 18 km southeast of Kirkland Lake, Ontario. The Company's strategy is to develop a material (+1M ounce gold / high-grade copper) mineral resource base to either supplement a nearby mining operation or support stand-alone mining operations at the Property.

Northstar's 3 additional 100%-owned exploration projects in northern Ontario, include the recently acquired 1,150 ha Rosegrove Property situated 0.5 km from the Miller Property, the 4,650 ha Bryce Gold Property (includes the recently optioned Britcanna Lease), an intrusive-gold / PME VMS project located along the projected east extension of the Ridout Break, and the recently expanded Temagami-Milestone Cu-Ni-Co Critical Minerals Property located in Strathcona Township. Northstar is seeking exploration partners to advance all 3 properties.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

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Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

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 these securities, in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. 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 unless an exemption from such registration is available.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

All statements, other than statements of historical fact, contained in this news release constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (referred to herein as "forward-looking statements"). Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, disclosure regarding the completion of the Offering and potential gross proceeds to be raised pursuant thereto, the receipt of all applicable regulatory approvals, the prospective nature of the Company's property interests, exploration plans and expected results, conditions or financial performance that is based on assumptions about future economic conditions and courses of action; planned use of proceeds, expenditures and budgets and the execution thereof. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate" or "believes", or the negative connotation thereof or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results, "may", "could", "would", "will", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved" or the negative connotation thereof.

All forward-looking statements are based on various assumptions, including, without limitation, the expectations and beliefs of management, the receipt of applicable regulatory approvals. availability of financing, the assumed long-term price of gold, that the current exploration and other objectives concerning its mineral projects can be achieved and that its other corporate activities will proceed as expected; that the current price and demand for gold will be sustained or will improve; the continuity of the price of gold and other metals, economic and political conditions and operations; the prospective nature of the Company's properties, availability of financing, and that general business and economic conditions will not change in a materially adverse manner.

Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of NSG to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: risks and uncertainties related to the completion of the Offering as presently proposed or at all, the failure to obtain all applicable regulatory approvals; actual results of current exploration activities; environmental risks; future prices of gold; operating risks; accidents, labour issues and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining government approvals or financing; and other risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties are not, and should not be construed as being, exhaustive.

Although NSG has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. In addition, forward-looking statements are provided solely for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans and allowing investors and others to get a better understanding of our operating environment. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements in this news release are made as of the date hereof and NSG assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/230001

SOURCE: Northstar Gold Corp.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Auric Minerals Corp. (CSE: AUMC) (the "Company") announces that it has entered into a definitive share exchange agreement (the "Exchange Agreement"), dated November 14, 2024, with Central Uranium Resources Corp. ("CURC"), a privately held arm's-length company established under the laws of the Province of British Columbia, and each of the shareholders of CURC. Pursuant to the terms of the Exchange Agreement, the Company proposes to acquire (the "Transaction") all of the outstanding share capital of CURC.

CURC holds the rights to acquire the Route 500 Property located in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Route 500 Property area is located approximately 70 km east-southeast of Churchill Falls, Newfoundland and Labrador. The Property consists of 441 claims totaling 11,025 Ha. The Route 500 Property is located in an area of prospective uranium mineralization. Uranium mineralized pegmatite intrusions have been identified within adjacent claims and there exists a reasonable potential for the discovery of additional pegmatite intrusions on the property. This area of Labrador is highly underexplored, with little regional or local mapping and no airborne geophysical surveys. The Route 500 Property is located in the Wilson Lake Terrane of the Grenville Structural Province of Labrador. The Wilson Lake Terrane is dominated primarily by high grade paragneiss with local orthogneiss of granodiorite and diorite protolith.

Labrador has seen several exploration pushes in the last 60 years most notably with the discovery of Voisey's Bay in the 90's and a Uranium rush which occurred in the mid 2000's which lead to the discovery and advanced exploration of several notable uranium projects including the Michelin Project now being advanced by Paladin Energy, Moran Lake C Zone and Mustang Lake both being advanced by Atha Energy. There has been a renewed interest in the region as the global demand for Uranium increases and other regions are maturing in their exploration profile.

Transaction Summary

Pursuant to the terms of the Exchange Agreement, the Company proposes to acquire all of the issued and outstanding share capital of CURC in consideration for the issuance of an aggregate of 12,000,000 common shares (the "Consideration Shares") and 3,000,000 common share purchase warrants (the "Consideration Warrants"), to the existing shareholders of CURC. Each Consideration Warrant will be exercisable at a price of $0.16 for a period of thirty-six months following issuance. Based upon the closing price of the Company's common shares on the CSE on the trading day preceding this news release, the value of the Consideration Shares assigns an approximate value of $1.92 million to the acquisition of CURC.

The Company is at arm's length from CURC, and each of its shareholders. The Transaction will not constitute a fundamental change for the Company and will not result in a change of control of the Company (within the meaning of applicable securities laws and the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange). No finder's fee is payable in connection with completion of the Transaction.

Completion of the Transaction remains subject to receipt of any required regulatory approvals, and delivery of customary closing documents.

Qualified Person

Jeremy Hanson, P. Geo., a Qualified Person as that term is defined under National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, has reviewed and approved the technical aspects of this news release. Mr. Hanson, P.Geo is independent of the Company.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian legislation. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: "believes", "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "estimates", "plans", "may", "should", "would", "will", "potential", "scheduled" or variations of such words and phrases and similar expressions, which, by their nature, refer to future events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. All statements in this news release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations and orientations regarding the future including, without limitation, that the Transaction will be completed. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable and reflect expectations of future developments and other factors which management believes to be reasonable and relevant, the Company can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that it will complete the Transaction, that market fundamentals will support the viability of mining exploration, the receipt of any necessary permits, licenses and regulatory approvals in connection with the future exploration of the Project, and the availability of and the ability to retain and attract qualified personnel. Other factors may also adversely affect the future results or performance of the Company, including general economic, market or business conditions, future prices of minerals, changes in the financial markets and in the demand for minerals, changes in laws, regulations and policies affecting the mineral exploration industry, as well as the risks and uncertainties which are more fully described in the Company's annual and quarterly management's discussion and analysis and in other filings made by the Company with Canadian securities regulatory authorities under the Company's SEDAR+ profile. No assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will occur or, if they do occur, what benefits the Company will obtain from them. Readers are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and, accordingly, are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements due to the inherent uncertainty of such statements. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update such forward-looking information whether because of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable law.

The Canadian Securities Exchange (operated by CNSX Markets Inc.) has neither approved nor disapproved of the contents of this press release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/230023

SOURCE: Auric Minerals Corp.
Branding and Corporate Identity Work with CX Leader Aucera Honored with Three Awards

ATLANTA, GA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Truelio, a premier brand experience company specializing in branding, digital marketing and technology solutions, announced today it has been honored with three prestigious Davey Awards, showcasing the agency's expertise in branding and corporate identity. The Davey Awards, presented by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA), celebrates outstanding work from boutique agencies, in-house teams and solo creators across categories like Websites, Design & Print, Advertising & Marketing and more. The awards are judged by an esteemed panel of industry leaders from top brands including Spotify, Disney and Microsoft.

Truelio A Three-Time Davey Award Winner

Truelio received awards in Branding and Corporate Identity for its brand transformation and website design work with Aucera, a global customer experience solutions leader. The company was also recognized in the category of Brand Identity for its own brand transformation and story.

 Aucera Website Redesign and Enhancement Project - Branding

 DialAmerica Rebrand and Transformation to Aucera - Corporate/Brand Identity

 Truelio Brand Transformation and Story - Corporate/Brand Identity

"This recognition underscores the strength of our collaboration with Aucera and the distinctiveness of our approach to brand transformation," said John Kauffman, CEO of Truelio. "Our team's commitment to innovation and authenticity has set a new standard in brand experience, and it's always inspiring to see our work celebrated by industry leaders."

Brian Fallers, Truelio's Chief Brand Officer, added, "Our mission is to empower companies to uncover their core truths and create brand experiences that resonate authentically with their culture and purpose. These awards affirm our evolution as a leading brand experience partner and reflect the trust our clients place in us to bring their brand stories to life with integrity and impact."

"The rebranding journey from DialAmerica to Aucera has been transformative for our organization and Truelio's creative vision and dedication played a pivotal role in bringing our new brand to life," stated Casey Kostecka, Aucera's President. "We're thrilled to see their hard work recognized with these Davey Awards."

The awards cap off an exciting period for Truelio as the company also announced the much-anticipated launch of TruelioCX, a division exclusively dedicated to delivering tailored marketing, brand and business development solutions to customer experience and contact center providers. Last month, Truelio was also named to Fortune Media & Great Place To Work's 2024 Best Workplaces in Advertising & Marketing List. Visit Truelio.com to learn more about the company's unique culture and broad range of brand experience solutions.

About Truelio

Truelio is a premier full-service brand experience agency specializing in branding, digital marketing and technology solutions. Based in Atlanta, GA, with a growing footprint across the U.S., we are a collective group of creative strategists, brand specialists and digital experts. For over two decades, our partnership-based culture and strategic services have helped many of the world's leading brands deliver extraordinary experiences that inspire growth and make a difference in the lives of their employees and customers. Visit Truelio.com to learn more about our experience, expertise and broad range of marketing and technology solutions.

About TruelioCX

As a division of Truelio, TruelioCX is a full-service brand experience solutions partner dedicated to serving the unique needs of today's customer experience (CX) and contact center providers. Our broad CX experience, combined with our BX Services Suite, empower our partners with specialized expertise and tools to deliver next-level growth and employee engagement, delivered through a lens of profitability and customer-centricity. Visit TruelioCX.com to learn more about our tailored and experience-based CX and contact center branding, marketing and business development solutions.

Contact Information

Randy Dawson

Chief Marketing Officer

randy.dawson@truelio.com

770-407-6300

SOURCE: Truelio

View the original press release on newswire.com.
COOL COMPANY LTD. ANNOUNCES THIRD QUARTER 2024 EARNINGS RELEASE DATE

Cool Company Ltd. (NYSE: CLCO CLCO.OL, "CoolCo" or the "Company") will host a Third Quarter 2024 Earnings call and webcast presentation on Thursday, November 21, 2024, at 8:30 A.M. New York 2:30 P.M. Oslo 1:30 P.M. London. The presentation will be available to download from the Presentations and Webcasts subsection of the Investors section of the Company's website at www.coolcoltd.com.

We recommend that participants join the conference call via the listen-only live webcast link provided. Sell-side analysts interested in raising a question during the Q&A session that will immediately follow the presentation should access the event via the teleconference dial-in options listed below. We recommend connecting 10 minutes prior to the scheduled start time. Information on how to ask questions will be given at the beginning of the Q&A session. There will be a limit of two questions per participant.

a. Listen-only live webcast link

Go to the Investors News Presentations and Webcasts section at www.coolcoltd.com and click on the "Webcast" link.

b. Teleconference

Conference call participants who wish to raise a question during the Q&A session should join the teleconference by phone using one of the following options and conference ID CCL3Q24:

North America +1 800-225-9448 International +1 203-518-9708

Please download the presentation material from www.coolcoltd.com (Investors News Presentations and Webcasts) to view it while listening to the conference.

If you are not able to listen at the time of the call, you can access a replay of the event audio on www.coolcoltd.com (Investors News Presentations and Webcasts) (on-demand link is available for one year).

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Regulation EU 596/2014 (MAR) article 19 number 3 and Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241114550536/en/

Contacts:

c/o Cool Company Ltd +44 207 659 1111 ir@coolcoltd.com

Richard Tyrrell Chief Executive Officer

John Boots Chief Financial Officer
36% of U.S. Rentals Now Managed by Pros

AUSTIN, TX / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / The groundbreaking 2024 report, "The Property Management Trends Report: The shift toward professional management in SFR", details key insights into the residential property management industry, revealing a huge increase in the number of properties managed by professional third-party property managers across the United States. This shift, from 30% of properties in 2017 to 36% in 2024, reflects not only an increase of 1.3 million properties under professional management but also a broader trend of investors turning to property management solutions to navigate a complex and evolving real estate landscape.

The research was designed and fielded by The Harris Poll in 2017 to gain insight into the industry shifts that have occurred since the last known census of self-managing landlords. It was also fielded by The Harris Poll under the title "The Iceberg Report: An Analysis of the American Single-Family Residential Investment Industry," sponsored by Real Trends and NEXZUS Publishing.

"The Property Management Trends Report: The shift toward professional management in SFR" was sponsored by LeadSimple and Peter Lohmann's Newsletter and co-authored by Jordan Muela, CEO of LeadSimple, Peter Lohmann, CEO of RL Property Management, Jay Parsons, head of investment strategy and research at Madera Residential and Rob Hahn, managing partner at 7DS Associates.

"Investors today face more than just property upkeep; they're navigating a landscape where regulatory, economic and market dynamics are in constant flux. This report highlights the clear, data-backed advantage of investors working with property management partners who bring stability and efficiency," observed Parsons.

Hahn added, "This study is an important contribution to the field of property management, which may be changing more rapidly in the years ahead. The data should help inform both investors and property managers about what is truly important and what is not. Our study shows that the human elements - experience and reputation - are most important."

Key Findings: Property Managers Increasingly Valued by Real Estate Investors

Surveying over 750 residential real estate investors, this report reveals how regulatory shifts, economic uncertainty and maintenance demands have contributed to the rise in professional management. The findings indicate that investors increasingly view professional property managers as essential partners in maintaining profitability, meeting compliance requirements and reducing legal risks. Two-thirds of investors report having used a third-party property manager, with many citing benefits like streamlined tenant relations, efficient maintenance handling and improved rent collection.

According to the report, the value property managers bring goes beyond operational efficiency. "Property managers do more than simply collect rent; they're partners in enhancing the performance of the assets they manage," said Muela. "Our findings show that property management professionals are instrumental in driving property performance, especially as investor priorities shift toward increasing profit margins and mitigating risks."

Investors Report Positive Experiences with Property Management

Satisfaction levels are noticeably high among investors currently working with professional property managers, with an average Net Promoter Score (NPS) of +39, a favorable score by industry standards and the first-ever industry NPS benchmark. Additionally, property managers are viewed as effective in handling daily challenges, such as maintenance and tenant communications, with around 85% of investors stating that property managers ease the burden of property ownership. Nearly half (45%) of investors indicated that they would recommend their property managers to others, noting that property managers make rental property investments more manageable and help protect owners from costly risks.

Perceived Value of Professional Property Management Drives Increased Adoption

Despite the cost and a desire for control being the primary reasons some investors have hesitated to hire a property manager, the 2024 report suggests that those who do work with property managers feel the investment is worthwhile. Nearly 75% of investors using property managers think they bring value that justifies their fees, and 71% report an increase in overall profitability. Property managers are seen as valuable allies in dealing with regulatory compliance and tenant challenges, enabling investors to focus on expanding their portfolios and enhancing their properties.

Looking Ahead: Industry Trends and Investor Priorities for 2025

As investors look toward 2025, priorities include increasing profit margins, upgrading property facilities and expanding portfolios - goals for which property managers are well-suited to provide support. The report notes that property managers help investors meet these objectives by keeping operational costs down and maintaining compliance amid evolving regulations, particularly critical given the anticipated volatility of the real estate market over the next decade.

To register for a webinar featuring detailed data and implications for the property management and multi-family residential real estate industries told by the study's co-authors and sponsors, visit www.leadsimple.com/pm-trends-report.

###

About Jordan Muela

Jordan Muela is the CEO of LeadSimple, the leading property management operations system focused on driving revenue and streamlining operations for property managers. Jordan has started five ventures in the single-family residential space and provides thought leadership via his podcast. You can learn more about Jordan here: https://www.profitablepropertymanagement.com/.

About Peter Lohmann

Peter is the CEO & principal broker of RL Property Management, a residential property management company located in Columbus Ohio. RL Property Management manages over 650 units. Peter is a property management industry expert and thought leader, contributing with his podcast and weekly property management newsletter. You can learn more about Peter here: http://peterlohmann.com.

About Jay Parsons

Jay Parsons is a rental housing economist, consultant and speaker. He has advised numerous multifamily and single-family rental housing stakeholders - from institutional investors, REITs, owner-operators, regional investment groups, lenders, regulators and government agencies.

Currently, he serves as principal, head of investment strategy and research at Madera Residential, a multifamily owner/operator with 11,000+ units, and as a partner with WayMaker multifamily investment group. Previously, Jay was the chief economist at RealPage, a leading rental housing software and analytics provider. You can learn more about Jay here: https://jayparsons.com.

About Rob Hahn

Rob Hahn is the managing partner at 7DS Associates, where he advises leading and emerging real estate companies on strategy and industry transformation. Known for his candid insights, Rob publishes Notorious R.O.B., a blog offering bold analyses of real estate trends, policy and technology. Through writing, speaking and consulting, he challenges conventional wisdom, fostering informed discourse among industry professionals. You can learn more about Rob here: https://notoriousrob.com/.

Media Contacts:

Tammy Cancela

TrizCom PR

M: 972-898-8413

Jo Trizila

TrizCom PR

M: 214-232-0078

SOURCE: LeadSimple

View the original press release on accesswire.com
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Composite Alliance Group Inc. (TSXV: CAG) (the "Company" or "CAG") announces that, further to its news release dated June 3, 2024, subject to regulatory approval, Stephane Conort has been appointed as Chief Financial Officer of the Company.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain certain forward-looking information and statements, including the regulatory approval of the appointment of Stephane Conort as Chief Financial Officer of the Company. Statements containing the words: 'believes', 'intends', 'expects', 'plans', 'seeks' and 'anticipates' and any other words of similar meaning are forward-looking. All statements included herein involve various risks and uncertainties because they relate to future events and circumstances beyond the Company's control. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. A description of assumptions used to develop such forward-looking information and a description of risk factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking information can be found in the Company's disclosure documents on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com. Any forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and the Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/230039

SOURCE: Composite Alliance Group Inc.
Miao people celebrate traditional New Year and Guzang Festival in SW China's Guizhou

People's Daily Online) 09:57, November 14, 2024

People of the Miao ethnic group wearing traditional costumes participate in a parade during celebrations of the Miao New Year and Guzang Festival in Leishan county, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Yang Qian)

The Miao New Year and Guzang Festival kicked off in Leishan county, southwest China's Guizhou Province on Nov. 10, 2024. People of the Miao ethnic group wearing traditional costumes participated in a parade during celebrations of the event, showcasing the unique charm of the Miao ethnic culture.

The Miao New Year is the grandest festival of the Miao ethnic group. In 2008, the festival was listed as a national-level intangible cultural heritage.

This year, the event will bring a grand cultural feast lasting for over two months, and will include events such as long-table banquets and cultural performances.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Britannia Life Sciences Inc. (CSE: BLAB) (FSE: L020) ("Britannia" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the results of its annual general and special meeting of shareholders held on November 12, 2024, in Toronto (the "Meeting").

All matters presented for approval at the Meeting were duly authorized and approved, as follows:

Electing each of Scott Secord, Peter Shippen and Greg Taylor as directors of the Company to hold office for the ensuing year;



Re-appointing Zeifmans LLP as the auditor of the Company until the next annual meeting of shareholders and authorizing the board of directors to fix their remuneration; and



Re-approving the Company's omnibus equity compensation plan.

About Britannia Life Sciences Inc.

Britannia Life Sciences Inc. is focused on introducing cutting-edge technologies into the traditional laboratory and regulatory platforms to power data-driven insights to improve the outcomes of its customers. Britannia's services, including product formulations, safety assessments, analytical and microbiological testing, global compliance, and consumer evaluations are offered to companies ranging from multinationals to startups particularly in the cosmetics, food, and wellness industries. Britannia also provides geochemical testing and analysis to the natural resources industry through its subsidiary Britannia Mining Solutions. Britannia Mining Solutions operates a geochemical laboratory in the United States and is in the process of rolling out 12 PhotonAssayTM machines globally, the first two of which have been installed and commissioned to-date.

Britannia's head office is located at 120 Adelaide Street West, Suite 2400, Toronto, Ontario, M5H 1T1.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229946

SOURCE: Britannia Life Sciences Inc
PORT HUENEME, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / The Port of Hueneme, California and the Port of Paita, Peru are pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a Sister Port relationship. The initiative, funded by the U.S. Department of State, seeks to promote cooperation and development in areas of mutual interest for both ports.

Port of Hueneme

"This agreement with the Port of Paita is more than just a partnership; it's a bridge between our communities that will foster innovation, sustainability, and economic growth. We are thrilled to embark on this journey of shared knowledge and mutual advancement and look forward to the many opportunities that this Sister Port relationship will bring," said Celina Zacarias, President of the Board of Harbor Commissioners for the Port of Hueneme.

The MoU outlines a commitment to foster trade relationships, enhance commercial exchanges, and promote economic development in both ports and their surrounding regions. Key focus areas include improving transparency in procurement, sharing best practices in port management, exploring green energy initiatives, and collaborating on sustainable port development strategies.

"The signing of this MoU marks a significant step forward in our commitment to fostering international cooperation, innovation, and economic development. This Sister Port relationship with the Port of Paita opens doors to new opportunities and enables us to share expertise, drive sustainable development, enhance the economic vitality of our respective regions and create a lasting impact on the maritime industry," said Kristin Decas, CEO & Director of the Port of Hueneme.

"In the North of Peru, TPE stands out as the main port for agro-exports and is the potential gateway for importing products. This characteristic makes it a strategic port on the West Coast of South America. I have no doubt that the signing of this MoU to establish a Sister Port Relationship between the Port of Hueneme and the Port of Paita will bring mutual benefits in terms of development as green ports, commercial strategies, as well as safety & security", said Eduardo Cerdeira, CEO of Terminales Portuarios Euroandinos (TPE).

The Sister Port relationship is expected to identify common themes that can generate new initiatives and business relationships between the ports, further strengthening and nurturing ties between the nations.

About the Port of Hueneme

The Port of Hueneme is one of the most productive and efficient commercial trade gateways for niche cargo on the West Coast. Five locally elected Port Commissioners govern the Port. The Port consistently ranks among the top ten U.S. ports for automobiles and fresh produce. Port operations support the community by bringing $2.8 billion in economic activity and creating 24,997 trade-related jobs. Trade through the Port of Hueneme generates more than $236 million in direct and related state and local taxes, which fund vital community services. In 2017, the Port of Hueneme became the first port in California to become Green Marine certified and was voted the Greenest Port in the U.S. at the Green Shipping Summit. www.portofh.org .

About the Port of Paita

The Port of Paita, strategically located on the northern coast of Peru in the Piura Region, serves as a key gateway for Peru and South American trade to international markets throughout the world. After 15 years under concession and more than $240 million in investment, the Port of Paita has become Peru's most important port for exporting agricultural goods and seafood products, generating more than 1,000 direct and indirect jobs in the north of the country. The Port concession is owned and operated by the Peruvian concessionaire, Terminales Portuarios Euroandinos (TPE) - jointly owned by YILPORT Holding, Inc. and DP World Logistics - whose exclusive purpose is the administration and operation of the Paita Port Terminal.

Press Contact

Letitia Austin

Public & Government Relations Manager

Port of Hueneme

laustin@portofh.org

(805) 816-8324

SOURCE: Port of Hueneme

View the original press release on accesswire.com
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - NuGen Medical Devices Inc. (TSXV: NGMD) (the "Company" or "NuGen") a leading developer of needle-free devices to administer therapeutics subcutaneously, is pleased to announce that its shareholders have approved Sol-Millennium Medical HK Limited ("Sol-M") and Nature Health Development (Hong Kong) Co. Limited ("Nature Health") as new Control Persons (as defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) of the Company.

On September 20, 2024, Sol-M and Nature Health acquired an aggregate of C$10 million principal amount secured convertible debentures (the "Convertible Debentures") of the Company. Please refer to the Company's press release of September 20, 2024 , for a description of the features of the Convertible Debentures. If and when Sol-M and/or Nature Health convert their Convertible Debentures and exercise their underlying securities, each would hold greater than 20% of the then-issued and outstanding common shares of the Company thereby potentially making them new Control Persons.

With an aggregate of 23,139,808 votes in favour (99.93%) and 15,244 votes against (0.07%), the shareholders of the Company approved Sol-M and Nature Health as Control Persons.

Concurrently, the shareholders approved the appointment of Arvind Rai, a nominee of Sol-M and Nature Health, as a director of the Company. Mr. Rai is a seasoned financial executive with over twenty years of experience in steering business and financial strategies within the global manufacturing and healthcare sectors. He possesses extensive international expertise in financial reporting, planning, internal controls, audits, and fraud investigations.

NuGen further announces the appointment of Louise Cresswell to its board of directors. Ms. Cresswell has been NuGen's Commercial and Clinical Lead since April 2023, leading commercial activities and successfully accelerating the growth of the Company's activities in the UK market. Ms. Cresswell has an extensive background working in the UK health sector both as a registered nurse and in commercial, sales and marketing roles with international manufacturers and suppliers of medical technologies.

Karen Dunlap, Interim Chief Executive Officer of NuGen, commented: "We are thrilled to announce the incorporation of Arvind Rai and Louise Cresswell to the board of directors. Their expertise and experience will be critical for the Company's business plans and commercial development as the Company works to open new distribution channels and markets."

The Company also wishes to announce the departure of Mr. Richard Buzbuzian as a director and president of the Company. Since his appointment, Mr. Buzbuzian played a key role in the Company's restructuring and strategic planning and has been instrumental in the Company's recent commercial success. The board of directors would like to thank him for his contributions. Mr. Buzbuzian remains active with NuGen in a consultant role.

About NuGen

NuGen is a leading developer of needle-free devices to administer therapeutics subcutaneously. The Company is marketing and selling its next-generation InsuJet needle-free injection system designed to improve the lives of millions of diabetics. InsuJet is approved for sale in 42 countries around the world.

For further information, please visit:

Websites: www.insujet.com, and www.nugenmd.com



Instagram: @NuGenMD



Twitter: @NuGenMD



LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nugenmd/

Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Information:

Neither TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. The forward-looking information contained herein is given as of the date hereof and the Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise such information to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229968

SOURCE: NuGen Medical Devices Inc.
Boston, Massachusetts--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Julia Rodgers, a 2016 Suffolk Law School alum and the CEO of HelloPrenup, has joined the prestigious Dean's Cabinet at Suffolk University Law School. Rodgers joins a distinguished group of legal professionals and academics who provide advice, support, and strategic guidance to the law school.

Rodgers' appointment to the Dean's Cabinet is a reflection of her significant contributions to legal technology, through HelloPrenup. Rodgers has made it her mission to empower individuals and couples to make informed financial decisions before marriage. Under her leadership, HelloPrenup has seen tremendous growth, with a focus on technology-driven solutions and the democratization of legal services.

"I am honored to join the Dean's Cabinet at Suffolk Law School and to have the opportunity to give back - Suffolk Law is the leading legal technology law school and has played such a pivotal role in shaping my career," said Julia Rodgers. "I look forward to working alongside my fellow Cabinet members to support the next generation of Suffolk Law graduates and to continue advocating for technology training in law schools."

Rodgers is a passionate advocate for women in business and frequently participates in speaking engagements at the law school on related topics. She also mentors Suffolk Law School students interested in legal technology, including Allie Ott, a recent graduate who launched Trustie, a legal tech platform for young parents.

"We are excited to welcome Julia to the Dean's Cabinet," said Dean Andrew Perlman of Suffolk University Law School. "Julia's leadership in the legal tech space and her dedication to empowering Suffolk students make her a valuable addition to our Cabinet. Her experience and vision will help strengthen our efforts to prepare the next generation of graduates for success in an ever-evolving legal landscape."

About HelloPrenup

HelloPrenup is a leading platform dedicated to making prenuptial agreements accessible, affordable, and easy to understand. Founded by family law attorney Julia Rodgers, HelloPrenup empowers couples to protect their assets, clarify financial expectations, and avoid costly legal battles in the event of divorce. With a focus on financial transparency and technology-driven solutions, HelloPrenup is revolutionizing the way couples approach marriage.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/230014

SOURCE: Hello Prenup
SAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Businesses are constantly searching for innovative ways to market their brand and capture attention. While traditional swag like pens, T-shirts, and water bottles have been popular for years, these promotional items often fall short in terms of lasting impact. Sure, they get the brand name out there, but how often do they truly convert into meaningful engagement? With so many businesses handing out the same types of merchandise, the novelty wears off, and the strategy feels stale.

Custom Device Skins From APEALZ

Transform any surface into an opportunity to educate customers, enhance brand awareness and drive sales.

Enter a fresh and effective approach to brand visibility: APEALZ custom skins for company devices. By leveraging what people have on them at all times - their phones, laptops, and tablets - businesses can transform everyday tools into dynamic, mobile billboards that showcase their brand in a whole new way. Here's how this approach can elevate your marketing strategy.

The Power of Device Skins: A Mobile Billboard

Wherever someone goes, whether it's a meeting, coffee shop or conference, people's attention naturally gravitates toward technology. Devices are always on display, so why not make them work for the company's brand? By placing custom skins on company laptops, tablets, and phones, businesses create constant opportunities for exposure. Every time a team member uses their device, the logo, slogan or product message is visible to potential customers. It's an effortless way to increase brand awareness with a mobile billboard.

APEALZ branded skins are also affordable and easy to apply and remove without leaving any sticky residue so you can update the branding or messaging as needed. And because they're customizable, companies can tailor them to match seasonal campaigns, product launches or even specific events.

A Modern Solution for a Modern Audience

The next time you're looking for a new way to market your brand, think beyond the T-shirt and pen. By using custom device skins, get your message in front of more people, more often - whether it's at a business meeting, in a cafe or out in the field. Best of all, these tools are affordable, easy to use, and provide a much-needed upgrade to any brand's marketing strategy.

Make your brand stand out with APEALZ custom skins. Affordable, reusable, and always on display - they're the perfect way to take any business to the next level.

Visit APEALZ For Business to learn more or contact sales@apealz.com for more information. Be sure to ask about our Starter Pack.

Contact Information

Douglas Welchner

Director of Sales and Business Development

sales@apealz.com

(833) 273-2594

SOURCE: APEALZ

View the original press release on newswire.com.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - CENTURION MINERALS LTD. (TSXV: CTN) ("Centurion" or the "Company") announces that the Company's audited annual financial statements and the related management's discussion and analysis for the financial year ended July 31, 2024 (the "Required Filings"), are not expected to be finalized by November 28, 2024, being the date that such filings are due under applicable Canadian securities law requirements. The Company has applied to the British Columbia Securities Commission as the Company's Principal Regulator for a management cease trade order (the "MCTO").

Reasons for the anticipated delay are certain administrative delays in relation to the audit.

The Company currently expects to file the Required Filings on or before January 27, 2025, and will issue a press release announcing completion of such filings once completed. Until the Company files the Required Filings, it will comply with the alternative information guidelines set out in National Policy 12-203 - Management Cease Trade Orders. These guidelines require the Company to issue bi-weekly default status reports by way of a press release during the period of the MCTO.

During the MCTO, the general investing public will continue to be able to trade in the Company's listed common shares; however, the Company's Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer will not be able to trade in the Company's common shares.

About Centurion Minerals Ltd.

Centurion Minerals Ltd. is a Canadian-based company with a focus on precious mineral asset exploration and development in the Americas. Centurion can earn a 100% interest in the Casa Berardi West Gold Project which is located in the prolific gold-producing, greenstone belt of the central Abitibi Subprovince of north-eastern Ontario.

"David G. Tafel"

CEO and Director

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

This press release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is generally identifiable by use of the words "believes," "may," "plans," "will," "anticipates," "intends," "could", "estimates", "expects", "forecasts", "projects" and similar expressions, and the negative of such expressions. Forward-looking information in this press release includes statements about the expected filing of the Required Filings and the grant of the MTCO.

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. Forward-looking information is based on the reasonable assumptions, estimates, analysis and opinions of management made in light of its experience and perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, and other factors that management believes are relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date such statements are made including, without limitations, information based on the current status of the Required Filings. 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. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information, and there is no guarantee the Required Filings will be made on the timeline currently expected or at all or that the MCTO will be granted. If the MCTO is not granted and/or if the Required Filings are subject to additional delays, the securities of the Company could be subject to a cease trade order or other actions taken by the securities regulators and/or the stock exchange(s) on which the Company's securities are listed. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. All forward-looking information herein is qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement, and the Company disclaims any obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking information or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results, events, or developments, except as required by law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/230059

SOURCE: Centurion Minerals Ltd.
Barton Gold Holdings Limited (ASX:BGD) (Barton or the Company) advises that the attached presentation is due to be presented today at the London 121 Mining Conference.

Authorised by the Managing Director of Barton Gold Holdings Limited.

For further information, please contact:

Alexander Scanlon

Managing Director

a.scanlon@bartongold.com.au

+61 425 226 649 Shannon Coates

Company Secretary

cosec@bartongold.com.au

+61 8 9322 1587

About Barton Gold

Barton Gold is an ASX, OTCQB and Frankfurt Stock Exchange listed Australian gold developer targeting future gold production of 150,000oz annually, with ~1.6Moz Au JORC Mineral Resources (52.3Mt @ 0.94 g/t Au), multiple advanced exploration projects and brownfield mines, and 100% ownership of the only regional gold mill in the renowned central Gawler Craton of South Australia.*

Tarcoola Gold Project Existing brownfield open pit mine within trucking distance of Barton's processing plant

Under-explored asset with untapped scale potential Tunkillia Gold Project * 1.5Moz Au Mineral Resources (51.3Mt @ 0.91 g/t Au)

Scoping Study for competitive ~130kozpa Au mine Infrastructure 650ktpa CIP process plant, mine village, and airstrip

Tarcoola ~40 person lodging to support mine operations

Tunkillia camp to support dedicated project team

Competent Persons Statement & Previously Reported Information

The information in this announcement that relates to the historic Exploration Results and Mineral Resources as listed in the table below is based on, and fairly represents, information and supporting documentation prepared by the Competent Person whose name appears in the same row, who is an employee of or independent consultant to the Company and is a Member or Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM), Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG) or a Recognised Professional Organisation (RPO). Each person named in the table below has sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and types of deposits under consideration and to the activity which he has undertaken to quality as a Competent Person as defined in the JORC Code 2012 ( JORC ).

Activity Competent Person Membership Status Tarcoola Mineral Resource (Stockpiles) Dr Andrew Fowler (Consultant) AusIMM Member Tarcoola Mineral Resource (Perseverance Mine) Mr Ian Taylor (Consultant) AusIMM Fellow Tarcoola Exploration Results (until 15 Nov 2021) Mr Colin Skidmore (Consultant) AIG Member Tarcoola Exploration Results (after 15 Nov 2021) Mr Marc Twining (Employee) AusIMM Member Tunkillia Exploration Results (until 15 Nov 2021) Mr Colin Skidmore (Consultant) AIG Member Tunkillia Exploration Results (after 15 Nov 2021) Mr Marc Twining (Employee) AusIMM Member Tunkillia Mineral Resource Mr Ian Taylor (Consultant) AusIMM Fellow Challenger Mineral Resource Mr Dale Sims (Consultant) AusIMM / AIG Fellow / Member The information relating to historic Exploration Results and Mineral Resources in this announcement is extracted from the Company's Prospectus dated 14 May 2021 or as otherwise noted in this announcement, available from the Company's website at www.bartongold.com.au or on the ASX website www.asx.com.au. The Company confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the Exploration Results and Mineral Resource information included in previous announcements and, in the case of estimates of Mineral Resources, that all material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning the estimates, and any production targets and forecast financial information derived from the production targets, continue to apply and have not materially changed. The Company confirms that the form and context in which the applicable Competent Persons' findings are presented have not been materially modified from the previous announcements. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This document may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "expect", "target" and "intend" and statements than an event or result "may", "will", "should", "would", "could", or "might" occur or be achieved and other similar expressions. Forward-looking information is subject to business, legal and economic risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among other things, risks relating to property interests, the global economic climate, commodity prices, sovereign and legal risks, and environmental risks. Forward-looking statements are based upon estimates and opinions at the date the statements are made. Barton undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements for events or circumstances that occur subsequent to such dates or to update or keep current any of the information contained herein. Any estimates or projections as to events that may occur in the future (including projections of revenue, expense, net income and performance) are based upon the best judgment of Barton from information available as of the date of this document. There is no guarantee that any of these estimates or projections will be achieved. Actual results will vary from the projections and such variations may be material. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied upon as, a promise or representation as to the past or future. Any reliance placed by the reader on this document, or on any forward-looking statement contained in or referred to in this document will be solely at the readers own risk, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements due to the inherent uncertainty thereof. * Refer to Barton Prospectus dated 14 May 2021 and ASX announcements dated 4 March and 16 July 2024. Total Barton JORC (2012) Mineral Resources include 833koz Au (26.9Mt @ 0.96 g/t Au) in Indicated and 754koz Au (25.4Mt @ 0.92 g/t Au) in Inferred categories. SOURCE: Barton Gold Holdings Limited

View the original press release on accesswire.com
Cast: Suriya, Bobby Deol, Disha Patani, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley, Natarajan Subramaniam, Kovai Sarala, Vatsan Chakravarthy, Anandaraj and K. S. Ravikumar

Director: Siva

Kanguva has been in the news since its inception. From its announcement to its trailer featuring Suriya, Disha Patani, and Bobby Deol in his menacing avatar, the fantasy action-drama has struck the right chords among cinegoers. But has Kanguva lived up to the sky-high expectations of the audience? Lets find out

The narration of Kanguva starts in 1070 when an old tribal lady from the island of Perumachi narrates a story to a group of kids about our place being filled with mysteries. Everyone knows what is happening and where it is happening but doesnt know the root cause of it. An excited child named Purva dives into the story and asks about the mysteries.

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Cut to, the movie shifts to 2024, where illegal research is happening on kids in a biomedical lab at an undisclosed location, which is headed by Russians. One of the children, whose skull has been opened with nerves and whose brain is being altered is the incarnation of Purva.

His code name is Zeta and through experiments, his brain has become powerful and advanced as he can control machines with his mind. One night he escapes from the lab and through a train he reaches Goa. On the floor of the train, he sketches Kanguva, which hints that he still has memories of his previous birth.

In Goa, we get introduced to Francis (Suriya) and his right-hand Darling (Yogi Babu), who are bounty hunters, who get assignments from the police to catch criminals, whom cops cant catch and surrender them in exchange for money.

While chasing one of the bounties named Jittu, the target gets killed by Francis & Suriya on the boat and the child, whose code name is Zeta sees them.

On the next day, that child draws sketches of Francis and Darling after Angelina, Francis ex-girlfriend (Disha Patani) tells him to.

Francis and Darling take Zeta aka Purva with them and run through the car. Francis notices that there is something strange connection with Purva whenever he sees him. In the car, Purva suddenly gets hyper and unconscious. When he is taken to the hospital, the doctor is shocked with tests of his brain as she discloses that his skull has been opened and there is some alteration in his brain.

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While Purva, Francis & Darling are underground, Angelina catches them and surrenders to Jittus brother, who is a don. Amid this, the army of the biomedical lab comes to the place for Zeta and takes him. In this turn of events, Francis goes all out to save Zeta and realizes his connection with the kid from a previous life where he was Kanguva, a brave and skilful warrior from Perumachi and son of the Islands chief.

Now, we are taken back to 1070 year, where the Roman empire wants to capture Perumachi and Purvas father, who is one of the residents of the island, turns traitor and helps Romans in exchange for gold coins, which leads to the murder of 100 warriors of Perumachi.

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Kanguva understands Purvas fathers strategy and he not only saves other warriors but captures the traitor. Now, as per Perumachi tradition, Purvas father is given a death sentence by burning him alive. However, the tribal people demand that even Purva and his mother should also be given the death sentence. Taking a promise from Kanguva that he will protect her son, Purvas mother jumps into the fire.

Kanguva now considers Purva his son and takes care of him against his tribals people wish. Roman Empires now approach Tribal people from Athir Island, which is headed by Udhiran (Bobby Deol) to help them capture Perumachi by killing the lives of that island.

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Udhirans two sons along with their army strategically attack Kanguva and his people when they are without weapons. Kanguva tells Purva to bring his sword. However, Purva attacks him with his sword, which leaves Kanguva shattered. He realizes that Purva holds him responsible for the death of his parents and wants to take revenge.

After killing Udhirans sons, Perumachi sends a message to the Athir community that the war between the islands will take place in a week. As tribal people of Perumachi demand to give a death sentence to Purva, Kanguva rejects it. When they suggest that Purva should be left in the Black Forest (Kaala Jungle), where he wont be able to survive because of wild animals, Kanguva goes along with Purva to that dangerous place.

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Kanguva promises Purva that once the war is over between Perumachi and Arthi, he will surrender himself and he can kill him. However, with Kanguvas love and care, Purvas heart changes and they develop like a father-son bond.

Later in the war, we see Udhiran capturing Purva and post that there is a mixture of emotional and surprising moments. And to witness that, you need to watch Kanguva on the big screen.

Siva, who is known for making entertainers like Veeram, Vivegam, Vedalam, Viswasam, Annaatthe and others, has come up with a commercial potboiler with a reincarnation theme, which has grandeur and great scale, however, his screenplay falters because of its pace and unnecessary elements. The predictability of the story affects the film to a large extent.

While the VFX and cinematography is top-notch, the editing of Kanguva could have been more sharper. The music is somewhat satisfying but could have been much better.

Talking about the performances, Suriya has given his all to the film and is impeccable as Kanguva and stylish as Francis. His intense eyes in the tribal avatar is powerful and impeccable and add more punch to his character. Bobby Deol is great as Udhiran but I feel, his character has been underutilized. Disha Patani has been wasted again just like it was in Kalki 2898 AD. Yogi Babu is fine but his character looks repetitive. The child, who played and Purva and Zeta has sheer innocence and his camaraderie with Suriya is beautiful beyond words.

Not to forget, the menacing and charming cameo in the climax, which will make you happy and excited for Kanguva 2.

On the whole, Kanguva is not a great film but a decent entertainer with Suriyas impeccable performance being the biggest highlight.

Rating: 3 (out of 5 stars)

Kanguva is playing in cinemas
Not just discovering the truth behind The Sabarmati Report, it is always a pleasure to watch the flawless craft of Vikrant Massey on screen. read more

Language: Hindi

Director: Ranjan Chandel

Cast: Ridhi Dogra, Raashi Khanna, Vikrant Massey

Vikrant Massey has the caliber to go into the skin of any character with ease. Not just The Sabarmati Report, he has been giving one brilliant performance after another. A consistently good actor, who knows his craft like the back of his hand fits into any role that is given to him whether it is black or white character. I would call him a genius in his craft and watching him on screen is like taking a masterclass on cinema.

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Balaji Telefilms The Sabarmati Report is based on what really happened on the Sabarmati Express on the morning of February 27, 2002. It takes us on a journey through an incident that changed the socio-cultural structure of India. This perspective on the event has rarely been discussed, yet it has had a lasting impact on countless lives.

The movie starts on a lighter note as a film photo journalist played by Vikrant Massey who loves his job gets into a media house and gets a chance to cover the Sabarmati Express massacre. He follows his boss and by doing on ground journalism he realises that the incident isnt an accident, but it was intentionally done by a community of people. He tells his immediate boss, an English-speaking editor, Manika Rajpurohit (Riddhi Dogra) who too knows that just two bogies of the Sabarmati Express getting burnt by accident is not the truth. Yet she gives a balanced report in support of the ruling government.

A still from The Sabarmati Report movie

The movie makes us understand that there are no permanent allies or enemies in politics and even in journalism. The Sabarmati Express throws light on the closed meetings that used to happen between the government and the media. The film makes us believe that it was a well thought massacre by a certain community of people and that the narrative that was fed to us for so many years is far from the truth.

Vikrant Massey plays the role of a photo journalist who passionately gave his side of the story with all his recording to the managing editor, but it gets swept under the carpet because no news channel then liked to tell the truth and preferred to be a stooge of the ruling government. The movie showed how the ruling government is kept happy by selling false news. It is true that the fourth estate failed us and fabricated news reigns supreme in most news channels who are more like power pleasers.

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The Sabarmati Report is a well-researched story and what I liked most was that it didnt beat around the bush too much. No unnecessary melodrama or stretching of incidents or even frivolous display of romance, but a sharply made film which found out the root cause of the tragedy. The movie throws light on how we look down on Hindi speaking journalists probably because of our years of conditioning ever since our childhood days.

The Sabarmati Report is no doubt an immersive film, but it is something in between a documentary and a movie. It is immersive and engaging, but I somehow felt that Vikrant Masseys character needed some layers which the movie lacked. His performance in Vidhu Vinod Chopras 12th Fail was commendable and I simply loved his performance and hated at the same time in Netflixs Sector 36 to see the transformation to a man who feasted on human flesh. Not saying that his performance in The Sabarmati Report was bad, in fact he has nailed the role of a photo journalist, but the role itself was a little too flat and predictable for my refined taste bud.

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Rating: 3 and half out of 5

WATCH the trailer of The Sabarmati Report here:
On Wednesday, the US Congress held a second hearing on the subject of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or as they call it unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). New witnesses provided detailed testimony supporting the presence of these in the world, saying the administration shouldnt hide it and we should learn from it read more

US Congress held a two-hour long hearing titled 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth', in which four members spoke of their experience with UFOs or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs). Representational image/Pixabay

Is there alien life darting around in space? Are there unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the skies above us? These questions are no longer just restricted to conspiracy theorists, as US lawmakers held a hearing on the matter on Wednesday (November 13).

The hearing by the subcommittees of the US House Oversight Committee, which surpassed two hours, comes after a similar one was held in July last year. During that session, the Pentagon was accused of running a secret UFO retrieval programme by whistleblower David Grusch. However, he presented no evidence to back his claims.

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What came out of this new hearing? What have we learned about UFOs now?

We are not alone

Luis Elizondo, a former Department of Defence official and among the four to testify on Wednesday in front of US lawmakers, said that unidentified flying objects (UFOs), or as they are calling it unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) are real.

Let me be clear: UAPs are clear, he said. Advanced technologies not made by our government, or any other government, are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe.

In his testimony, he said that the US and some of its adversaries are in possession of UAP technology and are keeping it secret to hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos. I believe we as Americans can handle the truth and I also believe the world deserves the truth, he added.

A big revelation from his testimony came when Nancy Mace, the chair of the hearing, asked him if the government has a secret UAP crash retrieval programme to identify and reverse engineer aircraft it finds.

Elizondo responded with a yes.

Mace also referred to Elizondos book in which he claimed that the US is in possession of advanced technology made off-world by non-human intelligence. Mace said, In your book, you mentioned government employees whove been injured by UAPs placed on leave and receiving government compensation for their injuries. Is that correct?

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Elizondo said it was correct.

Tim Gallaudet, Luis Elizondo, Michael Shellenberger and Michael Gold testify during the House hearing on UAPs. Image Courtesy: CSpan/X

UAPs are interacting with humanity

During the two-hour-long hearing, Dr Tim Gallaudet, a retired US Navy rear admiral, also testified to the presence of UFOs.

In his testimony, he described when he received an email about UFOs during a training exercise taking place off the East Coast. He said personnel aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier had a run-in with the UAPs during a military exercise in 2015.

During this exercise, I received an email on the Navys secure network from the operations officer of Fleet Forces Command. The email was addressed to all subordinate commanders, and the subject line read in all capital letters: Urgent Safety of Flight Issue. The text of the email was brief but alarming, with words to the effect: If any of you know what these are, tell me ASAP. We are having multiple near-midair collisions, and if we do not resolve it soon, we will have to shut down the exercise, Gallaudet said.

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He added, The very next day, the email disappeared from my account and those of the other recipients without explanation. Moreover, the Commander of Fleet Forces and his operations officer never discussed the incident again.

He also pushed back against the secrecy surrounding these unidentifiable and unexplainable phenomena. We should boldly face this new reality and learn from it, Gallaudet said.

He said that the US should hear whistleblowers who have come forward with their UAP experiences, rather than face ridicule for their claims.

Sitting on a trove of UAP visuals

Michael Shellenberger, journalist and founder of the Public News service, in his testimony, said the Pentagon has a secret UFO retrieval programme called Immaculate Constellation. He claimed that current or former government officials had told him that the programme had maybe thousands of pieces of evidence showing UAPs.

What the American people need to know is that the US, military and intelligence community are sitting on a huge amount of visual and other information: still photos, video, photos, other sensor information, and they have for a very long time, Shellenberger said.

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And its not those fuzzy photos and videos that weve been given. Theres very clear, high resolution [files].

Giving one such example of the visuals, he said, A source told me they saw a 13-minute full-colour video of a white orb UAP coming out of the ocean about 20 miles off the coast of Kuwait.

It was filmed from a helicopter, then halfway through the video the person said the orb is joined by another orb that briefly comes into the frame from the left before rapidly moving out of the frame.

Nasa should be called upon to help

US lawmakers also heard from Michael Gold, a former Nasa associate administrator and member of Nasa UAP Independent Study Team, during the testimony. Gold emphasised on the importance for government agencies and academics to overcome the pernicious stigma that continues to impede scientific dialogue and open discussions about unexplained phenomena.

As the saying goes, the truth is out there, Gold said, We just need to be bold enough and brave enough to face it.

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He called on Nasa to do more research on UAPs, saying that it would make a powerful statement.

While theories on aliens have also existed, US lawmakers discussing and investigating this phenomenon is on the rise with the aim of destigmatising the issue.

It is unknown what comes out of this hearing, but one thing is certain: the allure and mystery of aliens and UFOs is going nowhere.

With inputs from agencies
In Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu Desam Party-led NDA government has begun a major crackdown on YSR Congress Party supporters and social media activists. Last week, the state police reportedly issued 680 notices, registered 147 cases, and made 49 arrests. The clampdown comes a week after CM N Chandrababu Naidu warned that defaming women is not acceptable under the right to free expression read more

CM Chandrababu Naidu warned last week that reckless language on social media, especially directed at women, and promised that those who use it will be held accountable. PTI

In Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu Desam Party-led NDA government has begun a major crackdown on YSR Congress Party supporters and social media activists.

According to media reports, between November 6 and 12, the state police issued 680 notices, registered 147 cases, and made 49 arrests.

The clampdown comes a week after Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu stated that defaming women is not acceptable under the right to free expression.

If anyone behaves like an animal, the government is going to treat them like an animal," he had warned.

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Lets take a closer look.

The social media crackdown in Andhra

More than 100 YSRCP activists have been detained throughout the state as part of the week-long police crackdown for allegedly sharing disparaging content on social media, as per The New Indian Express.

The authorities have also issued 680 notices, filed 147 charges, and made 49 arrests.

The alleged objectionable content posted by these activists targeted influential women: Home Minister V Anitha, TDP MLA and actor N Balakrishnas wife Vasundhara, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidus wife, Deputy CM and Jana Sena Party chief K Pawan Kalyans daughters, Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee President YS Sharmila and her mother YS Vijayamma.

Varra Ravindra Reddy, a 38-year-old YSRCP social media activist, is one of those arrested. He has been accused of uploading derogatory material that targets the top officials of the Andhra Pradesh government and their families. He was placed on 14-day court custody remand on Tuesday.

According to The New Indian Express, Ravindra managed over 40 YouTube channels that disseminated inappropriate content, especially directed at women leaders. According to the police, he confessed to sharing offensive material purportedly under the direction of Sajjala Bhargav Reddy, the YSRC social media in-charge.

According to the report which quoted Kurnool Range DIG Koya Praveen, special police teams have been established to apprehend other notable individuals, such as Bhargav Reddy, Arjun Reddy, a party activist and close aid of Jagan Mohan Reddy, and Raghava Reddy, an aide of Kadapa MP YS Avinash Reddy. Several social media activists are said to have gone into hiding.

Police from Andhra Pradeshs Maddipadu police station visited Hyderabad on Wednesday and gave filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma a notice, according to Deccan Herald.

He reportedly shared manipulated pictures of CM Naidus family members on social media. He has been summoned for questioning on November 19.

Reckless language on social media

CM Chandrababu Naidu warned last week that reckless language on social media, especially directed at women, and promised that those who use it will be held accountable.

The language on social media is reckless. They are making objectionable comments about women. Should we not take action? Should I ignore it? They have become criminals, he said at a public meeting in Amaravati on November 7.

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The CM claimed that YSRCP members were posting inappropriate material on social media with the intention of undermining the government.

Naidu added that freedom of speech is not an excuse for defaming women and that the state government would look into national and international laws to take action against those who commit character assassination.

He reiterated this warning in Srisailam two days later, saying, You may have no respect for your family members, be it your mother or sister. But I have respect for them. Do not post anything that disrespects women, including the wives and daughters of the YSR Congress Party. I will not tolerate it if it happens.

On Tuesday, APCC chief Sharmila accused her brother, YSRCP leader Jagan, of inciting the partys members to post offensive content about her on social media.

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She told the media in Vijayawada, They (social media activists) spoke as they liked, about me, Sunitha (late YS Vivekananda Reddys daughter), and mother (YS Vijayamma). Jagan Mohan Reddy himself told them to make those indecent posts.

Social media activists have become a Satanic army, she noted, while demanding action and regulation on the internet.

Opposition calls it illegal detentions

Former chief minister and leader of the YSRCP, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, denounced the arrests and claimed that the coalition government led by the TDP was engaging in vendetta politics.

The government is targeting social media activists with harassment, illegal detentions and threats, directly attacking the constitutional right to freedom of speech. By suppressing these voices, the government is undermining democracy and violating the basic rights guaranteed to every citizen. This misuse of power shows a focus on political vendetta rather than upholding democratic values, he said.

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In addition, the YSRCP has given strong directives to its members and supporters that all social media activists should behave with dignity and refrain from using insulting language or posting anything that disparages women.

Posts can be sarcastic. They can question the government on policy matters, but dont use unparliamentary language against women. Morally also, it is not good. They (the government and TDP) are using this against us as a tool, The New Indian Express quoted YSRC legal wing president, M Manohar Reddy, as saying in an X spaces session conducted by the partys social media wing.

He added that the partys legal wing has begun reviewing the TDPs social media teams posts from the previous several months, and asserted that the number of offensive posts from the TDP teams was significantly greater than that of the YSRC teams.

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On behalf of Jagan, he further promised that the party would actively and legally fight any police cases.

With inputs from agencies
Shiv Kumar Gautam, the main accused in the Baba Siddique murder case, told the police that he quickly changed his shirt and waited for 30 minutes outside Mumbais Lilavati Hospital  where the politician was rushed  after the shooting to ascertain if the politician had died or survived the attack read more

Shiv Kumar Gautam is allegedly the main shooter in the Baba Siddique murder case. News18/ANI

Former Maharashtra minister and NCP leader Baba Siddiques killing shocked the nation last month.

He was shot dead on October 12 by three assailants in Mumbais Bandra area.

The notorious Lawrence Bishnoi gang claimed responsibility for the attack.

As the investigation continues, new shocking details are emerging in the case.

The police have said that the main accused in the murder case, Shiv Kumar Gautam, alias Shiva, revealed that he stood outside the Lilavati Hospital  where the politician was taken  after the firing to ascertain if the latter had died or survived the attack.

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The accused waited outside hospital

Shiv, the shooter, told the police that soon after the firing, he and his two accomplices fled the scene.

He revealed that after quickly changing his shirt, he kept it and the murder weapon in a bag, which he dumped under a parked car.

He then stood outside the Lilavati Hospital for 30 minutes among the crowd to ascertain if Siddique had died or survived the attack.

He stood outside to check whether his job had been properly executed or not by listening to what the crowd was saying, The Times of India quoted a police official as saying.

Shiv left as soon as he learnt that Siddique had passed away, according to the publication.

He further said that from the hospital, he left in an auto for Kurla railway station and from there he went to Thane and then to Pune.

He waited for a few hours before taking a train to Uttar Pradesh.

He had destroyed his phone on the way and purchased a new one in Lucknow, as per TOI.

As per the accused, he was supposed to meet his aides  Dharmaraj Kashyap and Gurmail Singh  at the Ujjain railway station, where a member of the Bishnoi gang was to take them to Vaishno Devi.

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However, the plan failed as Kashyap and Singh were arrested by the police.

His arrest

The Mumbai Crime Branch and the Uttar Pradesh Police Special Task Force (STF) arrested Shiv along with Anurag Kashyap, Gyan Prakash Tripathi, Akash Srivastava and Akhilendra Pratap Singh near the Nepal border in Uttar Pradesh.

The four aides provided him shelter and assisted the main accused in fleeing the country, the police said.

Four close friends had strange late-night chats on social media platforms, according to the police, which were key in locating Shiv.

According to officials, Gautams four friends suspicious activities, including buying clothes in various sizes and arranging to meet him on bikes in a lonely forest about 10 kilometres from Nanpara, set off the probe.

Shiv was found hiding in a hamlet of 10 to 15 hutments, some 10 kilometres from the Uttar Pradesh town of Nanpara.

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Baba Siddiques murder

On October 12, three men shot and killed Siddique outside his son Zeeshan Siddiques office in the Neelamnagar neighbourhood of Mumbai. Sustaining two gunshot wounds to his chest, the NCP leader was rushed to Lilavati Hospital for emergency treatment.

The shooting, as per the Mumbai Police, was a result of months-long planning. Earlier, the accused had even recced outside Siddiques house and office for one-and-a-half to two months and were keeping an eye on him.

Shiv has reportedly revealed that the NCP leader was killed due to his close connections with fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim and Bollywood actor Salman Khan, who has been on their hit list over the 1998 poaching case.

When Shiv, who is a Class 7 dropout, finished his job, he was promised Rs 10 lakh, a foreign tour and monthly expenses. He has two elder married sisters and two younger brothers, aged seven and 11.

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He hails from Bahraichs Gandara village, where he had no criminal history. According to the locals and police, he had gone to Pune to work at a scrap shop. However, it was only recently that he posted content flaunting his gangster status, police say, according to News18.

He was also in direct touch with gangster Anmol Bishnoi, brother of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, through social media, according to Indian Express.

Police have so far arrested 23 accused in the case.

According to information obtained, Shubham Lonkar, a wanted suspect, and two arrested individuals, Gaurav Apune and Rupesh Mohol, went to a Jharkhand forest where they allegedly trained how to use AK-47 weapons. The police are checking this information.

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With inputs from agencies
Recent reports claim Ukraine could develop a basic nuclear bomb within months, using material from its existing power plants if Western support dwindles. However, officials have strongly denied these allegations, with foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi reaffirming, we do not possess, develop, or intend to acquire nuclear weapons read more

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacts as he attends a press conference during the European Political Community Summit in Budapest, Hungary, November 7, 2024. File Image/Reuters

Reports recently surfaced, alleging that Ukraine could develop a basic nuclear device within months if it lost support from the West.

German publication BILD reported a claim from an unnamed senior Ukrainian official specialising in weapons procurement, who reportedly stated, We have the material, we have the knowledge. If the order is given, we will only need a few weeks to have the first bomb.

This assertion, allegedly shared in a closed meeting showed the official further cautioning that Western nations should focus more on Ukraines red lines instead of solely fixating on Russias, which some interpreted as a signal of Ukraines potential pivot to nuclear options if it faces potential abandonment by its allies.

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In response, Ukraines Presidential Communications Advisor Dmytro Lytvyn dismissed the claims, saying BILDs coverage plays into the hands of Russian propaganda, echoing previous instances where BILD purportedly misrepresented information about Ukraine. He reiterated that this narrative bore no basis in reality.

Is Ukraine nuclear capable?

The Center for Army, Conversion, and Disarmament Studies, a Ukrainian military think tank, suggested that Ukraine could potentially use spent nuclear fuel from its nine operational power plants to create a basic atomic device, estimated to have a yield about one-tenth of Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

The think tanks report mentioned that the weight of reactor plutonium available to Ukraine can be estimated at seven tons, which would be sufficient to create a limited arsenal of tactical nuclear warheads. According to Oleksii Yizhak, the reports author, That would be enough to destroy an entire Russian airbase or concentrated military, industrial, or logistics installations.

Despite this analysis, many officials have downplayed the likelihood of Ukraine advancing a nuclear program. Ukraines foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi firmly asserted, We do not possess, develop, or intend to acquire nuclear weapons.

He also said that Ukraine remains committed to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and continues to maintain transparency with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose oversight rules out any military applications of nuclear materials.

What does Ukraines history tell us?

Ukraine was once a formidable nuclear power, inheriting approximately 1,700 nuclear warheads after the USSRs collapse in 1991, making it the third-largest nuclear power in the world at that time.

This arsenal included 130 UR-100N intercontinental ballistic missiles, each with six warheads, 46 RT-23 Molodets ICBMs with ten warheads each, and 33 heavy bombers. However, these weapons were under Russian operational control, as Moscow maintained the launch sequences.

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Also Read | Zelenskyys bane, Netanyahus gain: Why Donald Trumps win is bad news for Ukraine but not for Israel

In 1994, Ukraine agreed to relinquish its nuclear arsenal to Russia under the Budapest Memorandum, a security arrangement in which the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia promised to uphold Ukraines sovereignty and borders in return for its commitment to non-proliferation.

This agreement has since become a contentious issue, especially since Moscow violated its terms by invading Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, reigniting debates on whether Kyiv should consider restoring its nuclear capabilities.

How is Ukraine adapting to shifting powers amongst allies?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also touched on the nuclear issue in a recent speech at the European Council in Brussels, suggesting that Ukraines security could hinge on either NATO membership or a return to nuclear capability.

He recounted telling former US President Donald Trump that Ukraines response to Russian aggression would be either restoring its nuclear deterrent or joining NATO.

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Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump and Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet at Trump Tower in New York City, US, September 27, 2024. File Image/Reuters

Although Zelenskyy has stated that NATO membership remains Ukraines preferred route, his remarks echo sentiments made by former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk in 2021, prior to Russias latest invasion, who argued that Ukraines defence could only be guaranteed by joining NATO or regaining nuclear capacity.

The context surrounding Zelenskyys comments reflects broader concerns in Ukraine about the erosion of the Budapest Memorandums guarantees. With the US potentially reassessing its military support under a new administration led by Trump, Zelenskyys statement points to Ukraines fears of isolation in the face of Russian aggression.

How practical is it for Ukraine to become nuclear capable?

Experts debate the plausibility of Ukraine acquiring nuclear weapons, with many citing significant challenges. Ukraine lacks uranium enrichment plants and fuel production facilities, having relied on Russia for enrichment and fuel fabrication until the 2022 invasion.

While it may retain some foundational knowledge from its Soviet-era nuclear programs, constructing a functional nuclear arsenal would require substantial infrastructure, financial resources, and time  factors that, according to analysts, make a quick pivot to nuclear weapons highly unlikely.

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Valentyn Badrak, director of the Center for Army, Conversion, and Disarmament Studies, expressed the existential pressures facing Ukraine, stating, If the Russians take Ukraine, millions of Ukrainians will be killed under occupation. There are millions of us who would rather face death than go to the gulags.

In the meantime, the war continues into its third year, with Russian forces reportedly preparing a massive missile offensive against Ukrainian infrastructure ahead of winter. In parallel, leaked footage has emerged showing North Korean troops training in Russia.

Also Watch:

With inputs from agencies
Lebanons Middle East Airlines has not let the war with Israel and chaos in West Asia interrupt its busy schedule. The national carrier, which some are now calling the most badass airline on the planet, has continued to ferry passengers in an out of Beirut airport amidst the fires and clouds of black smoke even as Israel continues to pound Lebanon read more

A Lebanese Middle East Airlines (MEA) plane takes off from Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport as smoke billows, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Beirut, Lebanon. Reuters

As the chaos in West Asia continues, one airline is keeping at it.

Lebanons Middle East Airlines has not let the war interrupt its busy schedule.

The national carrier continues to operate out of Beirut airport amidst the fires and clouds of black smoke even as Israel continues to pound Lebanon.

Since September 23, Israel has stepped up its bombing campaign in Lebanon, mainly targeting Hezbollah strongholds in south Beirut and in the east and south of the country. On September 30, it sent in ground troops.

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It came after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire, launched by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

But how has Middle East Airlines kept flying through the war?

Lets take a closer look:

Most badass airline on planet

Since Israel began bombarding Beiruts southern suburbs as part of its offensive against the Hezbollah militant group, Lebanons national air carrier has become a local icon simply by continuing to do its job.

Middle East Airline is the only commercial airline still operating out of the Beirut airport, located on the coast next to the densely populated suburbs where many of Hezbollahs operations are based.

According to Al Monitor, the airline is nearly completely owned by the Banque du Liban  Lebanons central bank.

The website which describes Middle East Airlines as the most badass airline on the planet, the national carrier has become a symbol of pride for the six million people of Lebanon.

Among them is Khatchig Mouradian, a lecturer in Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University.

Mouradian told the website, As someone who grew up during the Lebanese civil war and lived through every conflict in the country.

My immediate family has taken several MEA flights in and out of Beirut over the past month. The airline has offered a semblance of normalcy in a world turned upside down."

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It has allowed thousands to return home  wherever home is  or escape from danger, and it has done so with the same spirit that has always defined it, Mouradian added.

Unlike the bruising monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, in which an Israeli strike almost immediately took Lebanons only commercial airport out of commission, it has not been targeted in the current conflict.

Captain Mohammed Aziz, adviser to MEA chairman Mohamad El-Hout, said the airline has received assurances that Israel wont target its planes or the airport as long as they are used solely for civilian purposes. The carrier conducts a risk assessment each day to determine if its safe to fly, he said.

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As long as you see us operating, it means our threat assessment says that we can operate, Aziz said. We will never jeopardise the life of anyone.

Mohamad told Al Jazeera that high level executives sped about five hours each day figuring out if its safe to fly in and out of Beirut

Weve had some very good reassurance from the government and from foreign major foreign embassies that the Beirut airport, as long as it is used for civilian purposes, will be set aside from the conflict. And it has been proven correct. so even when they are bombing not far from the airport, the airport was not touched, not affected at all, Mohamad told Al Jazeera.

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Mohammed said everyone was scrambling to leave in the early days of Israels escalation. He said the planes leave in Beirut were packed and those returning were mostly empty.

But now returning flights are about 50 per cent full with people coming back to Lebanon feeling assured that the airport has so far managed to remain open and that they can leave again should they have to, as per Al Jazeera.

Still, the sight of jetliners rising and descending as fire and clouds of smoke blacken the Beirut skyline can be alarming.

As per Al Jazeera, Fatima Nassar a Lebanese national who fled Beirut for Qatar, where her daughter lives, was onboard an MEA flight.

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Suddenly, an Israeli strike hit an area just 500 metres away from the airport.

She was travelling on September 28  a day after Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed.

The airplane started moving and all of a sudden it stopped. I was like paralyzed. It was chaos on the airplane. And we hear bomb bomb bomb sounds outside. Like theyre going to bombard the airport. And then all of a sudden the airplane started moving. Ten minutes. Started moving very slowly all of a sudden he departed. The pilot was immaculate, Fatima said.

Gabriel Farhat, a 62-year-old Lebanese American, who flew from Beirut to Pris in October, told Al-Monitor, We could see the smoke from the [Israeli] bombing while in the taxi [en route to the airport] and when we were at the [airports] Cedar [travel] Lounge. Farhat continued, The airport was not crowded, and there [were] visible extra Lebanese security personnel. The mood was sad.

Some of the most dramatic images making the rounds on social media depicting jets landing in fiery hellscapes have been AI-generated. And, Aziz said, the plumes of smoke that appear in news footage are often farther away from the airport than they appear.

Still, some strikes have landed too close for comfort. On Monday night, one hit the coastal area of Ouzai, about 200 meters (650 feet) from one of the runways. There were no planes in the area at the time.

Since the escalation began, many embassies have chartered extra commercial flights to get their citizens out. Other flights have carried Lebanese citizens to nearby destinations like Turkey and Cyprus to wait out the conflict.

The carrier conducts a risk assessment each day to determine if its safe to fly. Reuters

The number of daily MEA flights ranges from 32 to 40  not much below the usual number for this time of year, Aziz said. The difference: now the flights usually depart Beirut full and return two-thirds or three-quarters empty.

While many Lebanese have fled, others continue to fly in and out for business or family reasons.

Elie Obeid, a business consultant, was scheduled to fly to Brussels this month for a seminar. After his original flight on Turkish Airlines was canceled, he booked on MEA.

As his return flight was landing, heavy airstrikes were underway in the surrounding area. Onboard, Obeid was unaware of what was happening until the plane landed and he opened his phone to a barrage of messages.

He said he had mixed feelings about the experience.

I do appreciate the fact that they are still flying, since thats our only connection with the outer world currently, he said. But at the same time it is very risky. We should have been told that strikes were happening, and maybe even they could have told the pilot to request to land in Cyprus for a while until the strikes ended.

John Cox, a US-based former airline pilot who is now an aviation-safety consultant, said when theres a potential threat, its the captains call whether or not to proceed, and its not unusual for passengers to be left in the dark.

Telling them about a threat they cant control doesnt really do any good, and it stresses them out. So, I would be very hesitant to do that, he said.

But, he added, Im not sure that I want to fly into an area of open conflict like that with passengers on board.

It is pretty unusual, Cox said, for a commercial airline to decide that operating in an active war zone is an acceptable level of risk.

When youre in an area with ongoing military operations theres an awful lot of variables, he said. Even just keeping the airplanes  so that theyre not in the same airspace at the same time, that becomes very difficult.

Daniel Bubb, aviation history professor, told the outlet foreign carriers have to take into account different factors.

So anytime you have geopolitical conflict like were seeing for example in the Middle East that certainly is going to affect everyone. First of all countries have a bilateral agreements. you know if I have emergency, if not

to go somewhere else which might change my flight route. If you fly for example through airspace you werent supposed to you know people on the ground dont know if youre fighter plane or a jet.

So very close kind of coordination between governments and airlines are factors.

Our duty

Aziz said the airline is in continuous coordination with the Lebanese government and security agencies, and attempts to mitigate the risk by spacing out flights so the airport is not too crowded at any given time. About 20 per cent of its fleet is parked outside of Lebanon to reduce potential damage.

They have also taken measures to adjust for the frequent GPS jamming that is used by Israel to ward off missile and drone attacks but also disrupts civilian navigation technology.

Other airlines have different considerations, Aziz said. Their trips to Lebanon might be one flight out of 200 or 300 flights per day, so spending two or three hours a day just to make a risk assessment for one flight is a waste of time for them, he said.

But for us its a necessity, because if we dont do it well stop operation completely.

He added, Its our duty, of course, to maintain this link between Lebanon and the outside world.

For many, having that link is a comfort  even if the journey might be harrowing.

Marie-Jose Daoud, editor-in-chief of an online journalism platform, flew to Cyprus with her parents a few days after the massive strike in Beiruts southern suburbs that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

As they were waiting for their flight, she saw on the news that the Israeli military had issued evacuation notices for two areas close to the airport. Soon after, she heard the muffled sounds of airstrikes through the airports soundproofed walls.

As the plane took off, the crew and most of the passengers remained calm. One man pointed out the window to show his young son the smoke rising. The plane made it safely to Cyprus.

Daoud said her parents want to return home despite the risks, so she is traveling back with them in a few days. She plans to leave again soon after, but she knows she can come back at a days notice if her family needs her.

As long as the airport is open, I know that (MEA) are going to be flying, she said.

Some are also happy that the airline is not exploiting the situation to make money.

As travel agent Jean Zaylaa told Lebanons LOrient le Jour newspaper, Cheaper levels of trenches, of economy tickets are selling out quickly, leaving only the more expensive upper levels of economy class and/or business class tickets available for purchase.

Mouradian also hailed the flight attendants and crew.

That, for me, is more than badass.

It is award-worthy excellence. I have taken countless flights with the airline for the past 25 years, and MEA is for me, through thick and thin, foremost a beacon of Lebanese hospitality.

With inputs from agencies
Since Monday, Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission job aspirants have been agitating against authorities conducting the preliminary examinations for the Provincial Civil Service (PCS), Review Officer (RO) and Assistant Review Officer (ARO) in multiple shifts. Now, the commission has announced changes but the protesters are not happy. Heres what is going on read more

Aspirants arrive at an examination centre to appear for the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission's (UPPSC) PCS preliminary exam 2023, in Prayagraj, May 14, 2023. File Photo/PTI

Protests by Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) job aspirants over the conduct of two exams have led to the government body announcing some changes. Protesters have been demonstrating outside the commissions headquarters in Prayagraj since Monday (November 11).

The opposition has hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Uttar Pradesh government over the protests, which come ahead of the November 20 bypolls in nine Assembly constituencies of the state.

Lets take a closer look.

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Why job aspirants are protesting in UP

UPPSC aspirants have been staging agitation against the bodys decision to conduct the Provincial Civil Service (PCS), Review Officer (RO) and Assistant Review Officer (ARO) preliminary examinations in multiple shifts next month.

In a notification issued on November 5, the UPPSC said that if the number of aspirants for a recruitment exam surpassed five lakh, it would be held in multiple shifts.

There are over six lakh aspirants who will take the PCS preliminary examination. The paper was to be conducted in two shifts on December 7 and 8.

The RO/ARO examination, with over 10 lakh aspirants, was to be held in three shifts on December 22 and 23.

The exams are to be conducted only at government and government-aided schools in 41 districts. Earlier, these papers were held on a single day and also at private schools.

The commission also said that candidates will be assessed using a computerised formula for normalisation, which is based on the relative performance in each shift.

It had said the decision was taken to ensure the exams sanctity and for the benefit of the candidates.

In March this year, the UP government cancelled the RO and ARO preliminary examination held in February over allegations of paper leaks. After several delays, the exam was slated to be held in December.

A UPPSC official said that when holding exams in multiple shifts, normalisation is essential to uphold the integrity and quality of the examination.

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We are making every effort to explain to aspirants that the percentile-based normalisation method is for their benefit and helps prevent paper leaks, the official said, as per Indian Express.

In another step towards minimising malpractices, the commission has designated as exam centres only government or government-funded educational institutions located within a 10 km radius of a bus stand or railway station, and with no history of suspicion, controversy, or blacklisting, the official added.

ALSO READ: NEET, NET rows: How Bihar has gained notoriety for exam cheating

UPPSC makes changes amid protests

The protesters are calling for the exams to be held in one shift and on a single day. They argue that question papers and their difficulty could vary when the same paper is held on different days. The students say this might lead to corruption, reported Indian Express.

They allege the normalisation process is a strategy to exclude deserving candidates.

On Monday, more than 10,000 students from different parts of the state gathered outside the UPPSC office in Prayagraj to protest.

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Several videos of UPPSC job aspirants protesting surfaced online this week. Besides Prayagraj, students gathered at several locations, including Meerut, Lakhimpur Kheri and Lucknow, to agitate against the new rules.

VIDEO | Uttar Pradesh: Protesting students break police barricading outside UPPSC headquarters in #Prayagraj.#UPPSCStudentsProtest



(Full video available on PTI Videos - https://t.co/n147TvrpG7) pic.twitter.com/bmSzGYevKp  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 14, 2024

Protests were seen holding placards that read, One day, one exam and Na batenge, na hatenge (We will not be divided, nor will we retreat).

As per Indian Express, the Uttar Pradesh Police registered an FIR against 12 people for alleged vandalism during the protests.

On Thursday (November 14), the state government announced the PCS exam will be conducted in a single shift on a single day on the old pattern. The decision came after the UPPSC held talks with the protesters.

The commission also said a committee has been formed to examine how the RO-ARO preliminary exams will be conducted.

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Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath took cognizance of the demand of students in Prayagraj and asked the Commission to take necessary decisions by communicating and coordinating with the students regarding the PCS Preliminary Examination 2024 in one day. A committee has been formed by the Commission for RO/ARO (Pre) Examination-2023. The committee will consider all aspects and submit its detailed report soon, the Chief Ministers Office said in a statement.

VIDEO | Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) exam to be held in single shift, announces UPPSC Commission Secretary Ashok Kumar while addressing protesting students in Prayagraj. Here's what he said:



"Several paper leak issues in competitive exams have came to light pic.twitter.com/RNkYMi0PEk  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 14, 2024

The changes announced by the UPPSC have, however, failed to pacify the concerns of job aspirants. They say they will continue the protests until all their demands are met.

We will continue our protest until our demands our met, Saurav Shah, a protester, told The Hindu.

The normalisation process due to multiple shifts adds complexity. In some shifts, marks are adjusted upward, while in others they are lowered. This could result in candidates with lower marks being selected, while those who performed better may fail to pass, Shah added.

The government is misleading us. We are not moving from here till they announce that RO/ARO exam will also be held in one day, one shift. We have two demands, they have fulfilled one, another protester was quoted as saying by NDTV.

With inputs from agencies
A beluga whale that surfaced off the coast of Norway in April 2019 was widely speculated to be a Russian spy. However, a BBC documentary says the mammal, which was named Hvaldimir by locals, was trained as a covert guard whale read more

A white beluga whale wearing a harness is seen off the coast of northern Norway, April 29, 2019. File Photo/Reuters

The mystery behind a beluga whale, rumoured to be a Russian spy, found off the coast of Norway five years ago appears to be finally solved. The white whale had surfaced in icy waters around Norway in April 2019 with a harness bearing the words Equipment of St Petersburg and a mount for a camera.

Speculation arose that the marine mammal could be a Russian spy. Locals named the whale Hvaldimir, a nod to the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin and hval meaning whale in Norwegian.

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Lets take a closer look.

Russian spy whale in Norway

The beluga whale first came to the spotlight after being spotted by fishermen off the northern coast of Norway five years ago.

The whale starts rubbing against the boat, Joar Hesten, one of the fishermen, told BBC. I heard about animals in distress that instinctively knew that they need help from humans. I was thinking that this is one smart whale.

The mammal was unusually tame and could not even catch fish for itself.

After Hesten removed the whales harness, it swam to the nearby port of Hammerfest, living there for many months.

Later, the whale was filmed returning lost mobile phones and playing catch with visitors.

A white beluga whale wearing a harness is seen next to a fishing boat off the coast of northern Norway, April 29, 2019. File Photo/Reuters

As the whale started attracting attention, Norwegian authorities made preparations for it to be monitored and fed.

Rumours about the beluga being a Russian spy grew, but Moscow never officially addressed the claim that it was trained by its military.

A Russian reserve colonel, Viktor Baranets, said in 2019: If we were using this animal for spying, do you really think wed attach a mobile phone number with the message Please call this number?

The whales mystery unravels

Five years after the beluga whale was first seen in Norway, a new documentary seems to have answered some questions about the mammal.

The BBC documentary, Secrets of the Spy Whale, believes it has found the whales likely mission and probable path.

It uncovers new evidence that the whale might not have been a spy but trained as a covert guard whale.

Eve Jourdain, a researcher from the Norwegian Orca Survey, told the filmmakers, It was obvious that this particular whale had been conditioned to be putting his nose on anything that looked like a target.

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Dr Olga Shpak, who researched marine mammals in Russia from the 1990s until 2022, told BBC News: For me its 100 per cent (certain).

Her account is based on conversations with friends and former colleagues in Russia.

Dr Shpak claimed that the Russian marine mammal community had immediately recognised the beluga as one of theirs after it appeared in Norway five years back.

Through the chain of vets and trainers the message came back  that they were missing a beluga called Andruha, she said.

Dr Shpak, who also features in the documentary, told BBC that the beluga whale was first captured in 2013 in the Sea of Okhotsk in Russias Far East.

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A year later, the whale was shifted from a facility owned by a dolphinarium in St Petersburg to the military programme in the Russian Arctic, she added.

I believe that when they started to work in open water, trusting this animal (not to swim away), the animal just gave up on them, Dr Shpak explained.

What Ive heard from the guys at the commercial dolphinarium who used to have him was that Andruha was smart, so a good choice to be trained. But at the same time, he was kind of like a hooligan - an active beluga - so they were not surprised that he gave up on (following) the boat and went where he wanted to.

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As per the BBC report, satellite images from near the Russian naval base in Murmansk show pens in the water with purportedly white whales inside. This could be the old home of the beluga.

Speaking to the British broadcaster, Thomas Nilsen, from the Norwegian online newspaper The Barents Observer, said: The location of the beluga whales very close to the submarines and the surface vessels might tell us that they are actually part of a guarding system.

Jennifer Shaw, director of the documentary, told The Observer, Our latest findings about the potential role that Hvaldimir had been trained to do bring us closer to solving the mystery. But they also prompt many further questions about what Russia might be seeking to guard in the Arctic, and why.

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Hvaldimir was found dead in September this year in Risavika Bay, southern Norway. Animal rights groups claimed it was shot this was rejected by the Norwegian police.

An autopsy revealed that the beluga died after a stick became lodged in its mouth.

Military training of marine mammals

Russia and the United States have had military training programmes for aquatic animals, such as dolphins and whales.

Blair Irvine, a former dolphin trainer who was part of an early US Navy programme run from Point Mugu in California, told The Observer, Swimmers create bubbles, bubbles cause noise. The dolphins hearing is extremely sensitive and in this context it was unfailing.

He and his team used to train dolphins to swim like patrols and sound alarm if they heard intruders.

The Soviet Union soon started its own programme using similar methods. Dolphins were reportedly trained to guard the Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea.

The military training centre in the Crimean port city was revived by Ukraine in 2012 before Russia illegally annexed the peninsula.

With inputs from agencies
US President Joe Biden will meet Chinas Xi Jinping in Perus Lima on the sidelines of the Apec summit. Handcrafted cuisines have been prepared by well-known chefs focusing on Peruvian culture read more

Peru is set to host US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit. While geopolitics will be the main focus, some cant help but wonder what cuisine will be served at the event?

Peruvian cuisine has a reputation for its vast range of flavours and represents strong cultural roots. Several local ingredients like corn, thousands of varieties of potatoes, kiwicha and a range of fruits are used in the cuisine.

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Our gastronomy was born 5,000 years ago, first from a fusion with the arrival of the Spanish and then Chinese, Japanese, Italian and Arab migration, said Sylvia Dalmao, in charge of catering and dinner for the two-day summit ending on Friday (November 15).

As chefs prepare for the closing dinner, they are also cooking up gastronomic delights for Peruvian President Dina Boluartes bilateral dinners with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei.

What is the menu?

According to organisers, a huge tasting menu will be available at the event, including vegetarian as well as Halal options.

Chef Raul Manrique has crafted a unique quinoa salad for the summit, featuring the revered grain of the Incas, now celebrated as a superfood due to its powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits.

A chef cooks in a restaurant in Limas Chinatown, Peru. Reuters

Meanwhile, Limas Chinatown has been dolled up with red paper balloons and dragons along with multicoloured walls. This is a monument to Chinese migrants who started arriving in the mid-19th century and made rice a Peruvian staple.

Peruvians now love the rice brought by the Chinese, said Luis Yong, a doctor and well-known chef who owns the chifa San Joy Lao in Limas Chinatown, which first opened its doors in 1920.

What is on the agenda for Biden-Xi talks?

US President Joe Biden will be travelling to Perus Lima where he will also have a meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed the meeting on Wednesday (November 13), calling it an effort to responsibly manage the US-China competition and avoid escalation.

Sullivan said, Tomorrow, Biden travels to South America. He added, His first stop will be Peru for the Apec summit and then hell go on to Brazil for the first-ever presidential trip to the Amazon and then to the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

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This will be the third in-person meeting between the two leaders who met earlier in Indonesias Bali at the G20 Summit in 2022 and again in California in 2023 during APEC.

What is Apec?

APEC stands for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, which is a regional economic forum established in 1989 to promote economic integration, trade and cooperation among countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The organisation brings together 21 member economies that span across Asia and the Americas. These member economies work collaboratively to address issues such as trade liberalisation, economic development, sustainable growth and regional stability.

With inputs from Reuters
While Commander Prerna Deosthalee is commanding Indian Navys INS Trinkat, her brother Commander Ishan Deosthalee holds the command of INS Vibhuti read more

For the first, a brother-sister duo is holding command of two warships at the same time.

While Commander Prerna Deosthalee commands fast attack craft Indian Navys INS Trinkat, her brother Commander Ishan Deosthalee holds the command of INS Vibhuti, a Veer-class missile ship, according to ANI.

Last year, Prerna had become the first woman officer to command a naval ship. The ANI reported that her brother Ishan got the command of INS Vibhuti recently.

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Both the siblings are command their ships under the Western Command, according to the agency.

The INS Vibhuti was part of the traditional steam-past to the President Droupadi Murmu last week.

On the occasion, Murmu praised the Indian Navys capabilities.

The Indian Navy units are deployed across vast areas for extended durations, showcasing their capabilities and strategic influence. Your positive, proactive, and swift actions have saved countless lives at sea. It was a special moment for me when the President of Bulgaria called to express gratitude for rescuing the Bulgarian crew from a hijacked vessel earlier this year, said Murmu at the time.
In a sign of improving ties after President Mohamed Muizzu India Out campaign, India is set to fund the repair of a Maldivian Coast Guard ship read more

Maldives Coast Guard ship Huravee being escorted by INS Talwar to Mumbai for repairs. (Photo: High Commission of India, Maldives) Maldives Coast Guard ship Huravee being escorted by INS Talwar to Mumbai for repairs. (Photo: High Commission of India, Maldives)

Months after Indian military personnel left the Maldives, a Maldivian ship has arrived in India for scheduled repairs.

In a sign of improving ties between the two nations after President Mohamed Muizzu toned down his India Out campaign, Maldivian Coast Guards ship Huravee has arrived at Mumbais Naval Dockyard for repairs.

The repairs, estimated to cost $4 million, would be funded by India, according to ANI.

The refit, which is the first since the ship was handed over to MNDF in May 2023, will involve routine maintenance work as well as upgrades to extend the ships operational life and enhance its capabilities, said a statement by High Commission of India in Maldives, referring to the Maldivian military by its formal name Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF).

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The decision for the repair of the ship was announced during Muizzus visit to India during October 6-10.

The refit and upgrades to the Huravee are expected to boost the operational capabilities of the Maldivian Coast Guard, enhancing the Maldives maritime security infrastructure, noted ANI.

Even as India-Maldives bilateral ties were derailed by Muizzus India Out platform and his embrace of Indias archrival China, the relations slowly appear to be warming as Muizzu appears to have realised the limited scope of relations with China and the reality that you cannot antagonise India in South Asia and Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

Earlier this year, Muizzu had ordered around 90 Indian military personnel to leave the Maldives, who were there to maintain three military aircraft gifted by India to the Maldives. The aircraft were gifted for humanitarian and medical evacuations.
Wild speculation on basic questions such as the frontrunners for places in the Trump administration is being proved wrong as most names the press bandies about are not panning out read more

Many Indians must have a feeling of deja vu listening to the US commentariat tying themselves up in knots contemplating what will happen on January 20, 2025 as President-elect Donald Trump unveils his new team. Wild speculation on basic questions such as the frontrunners for places in the Trump administration is being proved wrong as most names the press bandies about, based on indications from clearly not-very-accurate sources, are not panning out.

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And yet, the actual nominees are mostly no-brainers, though the choice of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head a brand new Department of Government Efficiency could not have been foreseen. But Mike Waltz as National Security Adviser, Tom Homan as the new border czar, John Ratcliffe as CIA director, Elise Stefanik and Mike Huckabee as ambassadors to UN and Israel, and Tulsi Gabbard as head of National Intelligence were not unlikely picks.

The choice of Peter Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, however, may provide a clue to the US medias headless chicken act: he is a direct threat to the status quo at the Pentagon and will upset the cosy entente between media and establishment that characterised Democrat rule since 2008, with Trump failing to disrupt it between 2016 to 2020. Much the same frenzyalbeit not before the new leader took office as in this casehappened on May 16, 2014.

That was the day when circles in India also realised a tectonic power shift had taken place. The ascent of Narendra Modi to Prime Ministership and national power caused panic not only among the old political and bureaucratic elite of New Delhi but their friends in business, society and the media. The imminent return of Trump to the White House has also scared the living daylights out of many there, and the tenor of discourse is approaching hysteria.

Short of saying Trump will shoot migrants in the streets or flog transgenders in the village square (or its city equivalent), the rumour mills are running riot. The mainstream US media has so thoroughly alienated Trump, his confidantes and relevant party officials, none have authentic sources on the inside. So, during the excruciating wait till that first day at the Oval Office when Trump has promised he will be a dictator for just that day, nothing is off the table.

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Not surprisingly, Trump appointing loyalists to the highest offices is being touted as an aberration rather than the norm and the Department of Justicewhich led the lawfare onslaught on Trump since Biden became President in 2021has been a major focus. And Trump naming Matt Gaetz as Attorney General has truly set the cat among the pigeons. Shocking was the first dazed reaction and experts now are hoping he will not be confirmed!

The media, as the megaphone of the rattled Establishment, is reporting that most of the permanent civil service (Washington DC lifers) may be fired or posted to the boondocks if they do not fall in line. That generals who are not loyal will be fired or transferred. That troops will be deployed against protesters. That Trump will alter the Constitution to give himself a third term. Even that Air Force One will change to red, white and blue like Trump One!

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No precedents apply any more. Even when Trump met incumbent President Joe Biden at the White House as part of traditionwhich he did not follow when he lost in 2020his wife Melania, ever the maverick spouse, did not go with him to demurely have tea with Jill Biden. Indeed, she and Trump are more alike than anyone gives them credit for: both have learnt to turn a deaf ear to what the media and DCs denizens say about them and do their own thing.

In this din, though, one defining aspect missed or omitted by the Establishment and media is that all appointees are achievers on their own, not beneficiaries of DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) initiatives or any kind of affirmative action. Princeton and Harvard alumnus Hegseth did not retire with a generals stars on his shoulders, for example, but got two bronze stars and two commendation medals on his chest for acts of heroism in Iraq as a major.

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None of them are habitues of Washington DC either, tainted by its reputation of insider politicking and wheeling-dealing. In that sense, they reiterate Trumps promise of dismantling the system. But concerted efforts to derail the Trump Express before it gathers speed are evident as the media is doubling down on the newcomers by raking up indiscreet past comments to create the impression that a bunch of reckless idiots are about to take charge.

Channels have been airing clips of Huckabee making remarks about Palestine, Hegseth saying women soldiers should not be in combat roles, and the new head of Homeland Security Kristi Noem averring that her two-year-old grandchild has guns. More such comments will be unearthed and disseminated, to inflame the public and therefore (they hope) scuttle the nominations at confirmation time, as had happened to several appointees during Trump 1.0.

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Trumps opponents still have not realised, apparently, that the general public is not as credulous as they calculated; after all, a slanted media narrative did not sway the election. On the contrary, many anti-Trump channels suffered dramatic falls in viewership during the run-up to voting day. So this muck-raking gambit may fail too. But doomsayers will find kindred souls among other shaky pillars of Washington DC, including opposition lawmakers.

A slim ray of hope for the despairing Establishment is the election of South Dakotas John Thune as the new Senate majority leader, who has had a rocky relationship with Trump in the past. But as there is no recent friction to play up yet, especially since Thune also went to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago after November 5, any dreams of Senate Republicans stymieing a rampaging President may not materialise. But the anti-Trumpists will keep trying.

The impact in India of announcements of similar disruptive intent by a new leader can be easily imagined. The bureaucrats sidelined by Modi in his first term are still seething, even though nothing as out-of-the-box as appointing two rich entrepreneurs to make slash-and-burn through government departments has ever been contemplated in India! However, there is no guarantee that Modi will not take an inspirational cue from Trump now.

The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views.
From affordable housing projects to supersonic jets that defy physics, these AI creations have caught the eyes  and hearts  of countless social media users. The explosion of posts, which are a mix of pure fiction and twisted reality, show Musk as this larger-than-life genius read more

In a wild twist in the world of social media, Facebook and Instagram have found themselves awash with a deluge of AI-generated content featuring tech mogul Elon Musk in fantastical, headline-grabbing scenarios.

From affordable housing projects to supersonic jets that defy physics, these AI creations have caught the eyes  and hearts  of countless social media users.

The explosion of posts, which are often blend reality falsities with twisted reality, portrays Musk as this larger-than-life genius who is genuinely fighting for the little guy, and trying to solving some of Americas biggest challenges. The big problem? Its all a lie, a digital fabrication.

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Musk solves affordable housing: fact vs reality

One viral post depicts an AI-generated Musk standing proudly beside a miniature house on wheels, holding a key emblazoned with the word TSSLA, with a suggested price of $6,999, courtesy of his appointment at DOGE or Department of Government Efficiency.

The post, shared by a page titled Easy Recipes, joyfully announces that Musks tiny homes have finally hit the market, as reported by 404 Media.

It suggests that the affordable housing initiative could revolutionise the industry, offering a glimmer of hope to struggling first-time buyers facing stagnant wages and soaring property costs. If true, it would indeed be a game-changer for the American housing crisis.

Engagement has been off the charts, with thousands of likes, shares, and comments. People are buying into the fantasy, expressing their admiration and excitement. Comments range from calling Musk a lifesaver for millions to praising his apparent generosity.

Many users genuinely believe these tiny homes will eliminate homelessness and transform lives, offering hope to veterans, seniors, and those affected by natural disasters.

One user even expressed gratitude for Musks alleged plans, praying for blessings on the billionaire and even linking the initiative to former President Donald Trumps vision of making America great again. The enthusiasm is palpable but tragically misplaced; the housing project, much like other Musk-related posts on these pages, is a pure product of digital illusion.

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Flood of AI-generated musk myths

As elections loom and public interest in Musk soars, theres been a noticeable spike in AI-generated content painting him as a philanthropic hero. These posts have been churned out by spam networks based in the Philippines, Vietnam, and India, aiming to maximise reach and engagement. The timing is telling, as Musk has recently voiced his support for Trump, adding fuel to the fire of this viral disinformation. The AI-created visuals range from bizarre to impressive, making them even more shareable. Yet, these posts are not the brainchild of innovative tech enthusiasts but rather manipulative schemes crafted to make a profit.

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The strategy is simple: use Musks high-profile status and blend it with wild claims and eye-popping visuals to captivate and engage social media users. A scroll through any Facebook feed yields a steady stream of Musk-related fantasies.

In one, hes supposedly invented a flying Tesla car that promises to transform everyday travel. Another shows him wearing an Iron Man-style suit, a supposed creation to protect him from multiple assassination attempts, according to a story in 404 Media.

Users eagerly lap up these stories, often expressing fear for Musks safety and admiration for his supposed brilliance. The narrative gets even more political, with commenters expressing hopes for Musk to join forces with Trump to shape Americas future, alongside prayers that Musk stays safe from imaginary threats.

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One of the more peculiar Facebook pages leading this charge is called American Spotlight. Despite its patriotic branding and claims of being based in Las Vegas, the page is managed from Vietnam. The content is a jumbled mix of celebrity gossip and Musk-themed inspiration porn, with posts that are a confusing blend of reality and fiction.

Some of the Musk-related stories have a shred of truth but are exaggerated with AI-generated images and baseless claims. For example, a post about SpaceXs Starship rocket may begin with facts but quickly devolves into a fantasy about features that dont exist.

Another account, StellarX, specialises in turning Musk into a full-blown superhero. It has gained massive engagement by spinning tales about Musk developing futuristic technologies to fend off global threats. Some of the most engaging posts show AI-generated images of Musk standing among robots or flying through the air in an advanced suit of armour.

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The comments often outpour admiration, with users praying for Musks safety and expressing hope for his collaboration with political figures like Trump. The dedication to these posts is startling, revealing the extent to which disinformation can fuel devotion.

New era of AI spam and fake news

The AI content flood doesnt stop at images. Reels and long-form videos featuring Musk have also gone viral, amassing hundreds of thousands of views. One AI-crafted video boldly claims Musk will colonise Mars with a million people in the next two decades.

Others take a more fearmongering approach, asserting that Musk has warned about imminent global disasters or that he has insights into Russias supposed plans to destroy America. Its a strange blend of hero worship and doomsday predictions, packaged to generate maximum engagement.

Some of the pages posting this content have bizarre backstories. For instance, one account named Elon Musk Idea has been rebranded multiple times. It used to post about completely unrelated topics, like flower arrangements and even capitalised on human suffering by posting about the Gaza crisis.

These pages are constantly evolving, but the goal remains the same: to drive engagement and earn money, either through ad-heavy external links or Facebooks creator bonus programme.

Despite the overwhelming presence of AI-generated Musk content, Meta, Facebooks parent company, appears reluctant to tackle the issue head-on. Although fact-checking partners like PolitiFact have flagged fake images in the past, theres still a conspicuous absence of warning labels on most of these posts.

Critics argue that Meta has failed to take meaningful action, with the company appearing to embrace the engagement these posts generate. Mark Zuckerberg himself has acknowledged that AI content has boosted the time users spend on Facebook and Instagram, even hinting at plans to encourage more of it.

For now, the world of AI-generated Musk mania is here to stay, and its impact on public opinion is worrying. The blending of fantasy with reality makes it difficult for people to separate fact from fiction, and the human cost of this digital delusion remains to be seen.

As long as engagement remains high and the financial incentives are there, Musk-themed AI spam will likely continue to dominate our feeds, offering a surreal and often misleading view of one of the worlds most enigmatic figures.
With Musk expected to have significant sway over Trump, experts are also concerned that the policy for regulating AI and other key technologies may be swayed by what Elon Musk thinks would be best for him and his businesses, as he deems fit read more

As Musks relationship with Trump evolves, the tech industry remains on edge, anticipating potential regulations that could significantly change how AI develops. Image credit: Reuters

Given Elon Musks proximity to President-elect Donald Trump, and his position as one of the men leading DOGE or the Department of Government Efficiency in the incoming Trump administration, experts believe that the US governments policies for AI could push for stricter safety standards for artificial intelligence (AI), something that most AI companies will not be happy about.

With Musk expected to have significant sway over Trump, experts are also concerned that the policy for regulating AI and other key technologies may be swayed by what Elon Musk thinks would be best for him and his businesses, as he deems fit.

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However, that may not be a cause for alarm. Max Tegmark, an AI scientist from MIT who has worked with Musk on AI safety, told the Guardian how Musks commitment to regulating AI is steadfast. Tegmark highlighted Musks recent support for Californias SB 1047 bill, which aimed to require companies to stress-test AI models before launching them.

Despite facing fierce opposition from other tech leaders, Musk stood in favour of the bill. Although Governor Gavin Newsom ultimately vetoed the legislation, citing fears it would stifle innovation and drive AI companies out of the state, Musks stance was a clear signal of his willingness to push for regulation.

Musks concerns about the unchecked development of AI are well-known. He has repeatedly warned about the dangers of artificial general intelligence (AGI), where AI systems could surpass human intelligence.

Last year, Musk joined over 30,000 others in signing a letter urging a pause on developing powerful AI technologies, fearing catastrophic consequences for humanity.

Speaking at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Tegmark expressed hope that Musks influence might lead Trump to adopt critical safety measures for AI. He suggested Musk could convince Trump that developing AGI recklessly would be a suicide race, potentially leading to necessary regulatory actions.

Musks influence has only grown in recent years, with his fortune significantly boosted following Trumps recent electoral victory. His financial and social clout, along with his leadership roles at Tesla and SpaceX, could make him a key player in shaping AI policy.

While some tech leaders argue that strict regulations could hinder innovation, Musks advocacy stands out. His early support for AI safety initiatives, including Tegmarks Future of Life Institute, reflects a consistent commitment to ensuring the responsible development of advanced technologies.

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As Musks relationship with Trump evolves, the tech industry remains on edge, anticipating potential regulations that could significantly change how AI develops. For now, the debate continues over whether Musks influence will lead to meaningful safety standards or whether it will clash with tech leaders fears of stifling progress.
The Paris commercial court was ruling on an emergency injunction sought by the SEPM union that represents magazine staff in France read more

A court in Paris ordered Google to halt its news search project which many claimed is intended to surpress media articles. Image Credit: Reuters

A Paris court on Wednesday ordered Google to halt a project that would allegedly see the search giant suppress some media articles in search results.

The Paris commercial court was ruling on an emergency injunction sought by the SEPM union that represents magazine staff in France.

The union alleged that the search giant was going to start testing on Thursday a scheme under which it would remove from search results some articles from media with which it was clashing over rights for use of online news.

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Google however said the project was a time-limited experiment to evaluate the influence of content from European publishers on users search experience.

Google and other online platforms have in recent years been accused of making billions from news without sharing the revenue with those who gather it.

To tackle this, the European Union created a form of copyright called neighbouring rights that allows print media to demand compensation for using their content.

France has been a test case for the rules and after initial resistance, Google and Facebook both agreed to pay some French media for articles shown in web searches.

Google and SEPM have been negotiating over neighbouring rights for several years.

The Paris court on Wednesday ordered US-based Google LLC, Google Ireland and Google France to not proceed to test the reported scheme or risk a fine of 300,000 euros each, according to the court order seen by AFP.

SEPM, which groups 80 media groups, welcomed the order, which it said would preserve the interests of the French press.

Google said it was surprised by SEPMs stance, saying it was seeking to collect data because independent administrative authorities and press publishers have asked us for more information on the impact of the display of news content in our search engine.

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La Vanguardia said X had become an echo chamber full of conspiracy theories and disinformation that would not have had such an impact with effective and reasonable moderation read more

A day after the British newspaper The Guardian quit X, Spains La Vanguardia on Thursday announced that it will no longer post content on the Elon Musk-owned microblogging platform.

La Vanguardia said X had become an echo chamber full of conspiracy theories and disinformation that would not have had such an impact with effective and reasonable moderation.

The authenticity of X, formerly known as Twitter, has come under scrutiny after US President-elect Donald Trump appointed Musk to his new cabinet. The voluntary suspension of the two prominent media outlets has exacerbated fears about the social media platforms role in shaping future political discourse.

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Why has La Vanguardia quit X?

Apart from slamming X for turning into a disinformation network, La Vanguardia was also bothered by the growth of bots spreading disinformation. It claimed that many India-based accounts were found commenting on Spains devastating October floods.

Hatred of ethnic minorities, misogyny and racism were among the viral posts that violate human rights but captured users attention and more money through advertising, the newspaper added.

The daily would, however, continue to follow individuals, businesses and institutions on X to keep them informed of messages and debates.

Its journalists will also be free to keep using it within the guidelines of restraint and respect for human rights and freedom of expression required of them in all settings.

X witnesses largest-ever exodus

The November 5 US election cost X several thousands of users as many left the platform after Donald Trumps victory.

David Carr, who serves as the editor of news insights and research at Similarweb, shared data with NBC News indicating that X experienced its highest traffic levels of the year during the presidential election. However, on November 6, the day after the election, X recorded 115,414 account deactivations  the highest number since Elon Musk assumed ownership of the platform, according to the research.

Meanwhile, Bluesky, an alternative to X, has gained over 1 million users since the presidential elections. Many users were also found ditching X for Metas Threads.

With inputs from agencies
Argentinian representatives were ordered to withdraw from the Cop29 summit, three days after the international event started. The withdrawal of the South American nation led by climate science denier Javier Milei has sparked concerns about the future of the Paris Climate accord read more

In a major turn of events, Argentina withdrew from the Cop29 Summit just three days after it started, sparking concerns about the stability of the Paris Agreement. The Argentinian negotiators who were representing the government of climate-change denier Javier Milei were ordered to withdraw from the international summit soon after it started.

It is pertinent to note that more than 80 representatives from South American countries are in Baku, Azerbaijan, to be part of the two-week-long negotiations about climate finance and energy transition. In the past, Milei has referred to the climate crisis as a socialist lie. Not only this, but last year when he was campaigning for the presidential post, Milei pledged to withdraw the country from the Paris agreement. However, he has since backed down from that pledge.

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On Wednesday, representatives from Argentina were ordered to leave the Azerbaijani capital, The Guardian reported. Ana Lamas  the countrys most senior representative on the climate and nature after Milei dissolved the environment ministry, later confirmed the decision. Its true. We have instructions from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to no longer participate. Thats all I can tell you, she told The Guardian.

The future of the Paris climate accord at stake

When asked if the South American nation is planning to withdraw from the Paris agreement, Lamas made it clear that the decision only applies to COP29 and not the international agreement. Ever since the landslide victory of Republican firebrand Donald Trump in the 2024 US Elections, there has been a rise in concerns about the climate accord.

During his re-election bid to the White House, Trump pledged to exit the agreement for the second time if he came back to office. In the past, UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said a second US departure might cripple the global deal to limit heating to below 2C above preindustrial levels.

Interestingly, Argentinas withdrawal from the summit came a day after Milei spoke with Trump. The spokesperson of the Argentine president said Trump had told his Milei he was his favourite president.

Raising alarms about the future of the Paris climate accord, Carla Chavarria, a climate change management specialist, said Argentinas decision to withdraw from Cop29 talks would be bad for its future. Argentina withdraws its delegation from Cop29 in Baku, losing its voice in climate finance negotiations. At a key moment to secure resources against the climate crisis, the country is left out, weakening its future and its ability to adapt, she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Argentina retira su delegacion de la #COP29 en Baku, perdiendo voz en las negociaciones de financiamiento climatico. En un momento clave para asegurar recursos contra la crisis climatica, el pais queda fuera, debilitando su futuro y su capacidad de adaptacion. #CambioClimatico  Carlitachavarria (@carlitachavarr) November 13, 2024

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The Citizens Association for Human Rights, an Argentinian group present in Baku also condemned the withdrawal. We participated in the negotiation group on the gender program in the climate change convention with [Argentinas representative]. It is sad to see Argentinas absence from the negotiations after having led on this issue in many of the previous Cops," the body said.

With inputs from agencies.
Bangladeshs Attorney General, Md Asaduzzaman has called for significant revisions to the Constitution, suggesting the removal of the word secular as 90 per cent of the countrys population was Muslim read more

Millions of Muslims gathered for a religious event in the centre of Bangladesh's Dhaka. Source: Reuters | File.

The Attorney General of Bangladesh, Md Asaduzzaman, has called for significant amendments in the countrys Constitution, including removal of the word secular, considering that 90 per cent of the population in the country was Muslim.

Asaduzzaman presented his arguments during a court hearing on the 15th Amendments legality before Justices Farah Mahbub and Debashish Roy Chowdhury.

The Attorney General said the changes would align the Constitution with the countrys democratic and historical ethos".

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Want it the way it was before

Earlier, there was constant trust and faith in Allah. I want it the way it was before, Asaduzzaman.

It is said in Article 2A that the state shall ensure equal rights and equality in the practice of all religions. Article 9 talks about Bengali nationalism. It is contradictory, he further said.

Amendment to Father of the Nation label

The Attorney General also sought for the Constitutional amendment of labelling Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the Father of the Nation, claiming that it contributes to national divide and restricts freedom of speech.

Honouring the contributions of Sheikh Mujib is vital, but enforcing it by law creates division, he said.

Avoid promoting authoritarianism

The Bangladesh AG also advocated for Constitutional reforms to reflect the values of democracy, the Liberation War and national unity, and avoid promoting authoritarianism.

Asaduzzaman, who was appointed the attorney general of Bangladesh in August after former prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country, even objected to Articles 7A and 7B, which restricts any amendments that could subvert democracy.

He argued that these undermine provisions hinder democratic reforms and consolidating political power. It is done to prolong the dictatorship for ulterior motives. It is antithetical to the rule of law, the AG added.

Caretaker govt removal may harm Bangladeshs democratic foundations

Asaduzzaman also condemned the removal of the caretaker government system, previously used to oversee elections in the country.

As per him, abolishing the caretaker government system compromised the fundamental rights of Bangladeshi citizens, weakened public trust, and harmed the countrys democratic foundation.

Pitching for the revocation of the 15th amendment, Asaduzzaman asserted that it disrupts the independence legacy of Bangladesh and contradicts the spirit of the Liberation War as well as the democratic uprisings of the 1990s.

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With inputs from agencies.
Brampton City Mayor Patrick Brown moved the new bylaw prohibiting protests around religious places and was passed unanimously. He also expressed concerns about the rising sectarian animosity in the city read more

The Brampton City Council on Thursday passed a legislation banning protests outside places of worship weeks after pro-Khalistani demonstrations outside the Hindu Sabha temple triggered violent clashes.

The altercation outside the temple invoked strong responses from within Canada and abroad with many condemning the incident. Earlier this month, a protest occurred at the Hindu Sabha Mandir in Brampton and unverified videos circulating on social media appeared to show demonstrators holding banners supporting Khalistan.

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The videos showed fist fights and people striking each other with poles on what appeared to be the temples surrounding grounds.

What does the new bylaw say?

Brampton City Mayor Patrick Brown moved the new bylaw prohibiting protests around religious places and was passed unanimously.

In this country, we protect the right to protest as long as it does not infringe upon another right," Brown noted.

Talking to the Toronto Star, Brown expressed concerns about the rising sectarian animosity in the city.

He said, I will put forward a motion that will be voted on. I expect it to be unanimously passed, prohibiting protests at places of worship.

Arrests made

Last week, the Canadian police arrested a 35-year-old Brampton resident on charges of assault with a weapon during a violent demonstration at a Hindu temple in the city, authorities said.

The Peel Regional Police responded to the altercation during the demonstration at the Mandir. As tensions between opposing sides increased, the demonstrations became physical and assaultive.

Police began investigating several offences that occurred during the demonstration, many of which were captured on video; including individuals using flags and sticks to assault people, it said.

Investigators from the 21 Division Criminal Investigations Bureau and Strategic Investigation Team (SIT) have arrested and charged Inderjeet Gosal of Brampton, the Peel Police statement said.

Gosal, is Sikhs for Justice coordinator for Canada, Toronto Star reported.

With inputs from PTI
Sandeep Singh Sidhu aka Sunny Toronto, who is wanted in India for promoting terrorist activities and for the murder of a Shaurya Chakra awardee in Punjab, has been given clean chit in Canada. He has been reinstated as a superintendent by the Canada Border Services Agency read more

The Justin Trudeau-led government has once again made a move which proves Indias statement correct that Canada has been patronising Khalistani terrorists. In the latest, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), has given clean chit to its officer Sandeep Singh Sidhu aka Sunny Toronto, who is in a list of fugitive terrorists which New Delhi wants deported from Canada.

Sidhu got the clean chit after an investigation by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

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Sidhu, a member of the banned International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), is wanted in India for promoting terrorism and the murder of a Shaurya Chakra awardee Balwinder Singh Sandhu in Punjabs Tarn Taran in 2020.

Not just clean chit, Sidhu has also been reinstated as a superintendent by the CBSA, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

Trudeau govt should have defended Sidhu more vigorously

The CBC News further reported that Sidhus lawyers said the Canadian government should have defended him more vigorously from a foreign government accused of mounting a hostile disinformation campaign in this country.

The probe and subsequent clean chit to wanted terrorist Sidhu came amid the ongoing diplomatic tension between India and Canada over the murder of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June last year.

The relations between the two countries touched a new low after Trudeau, without any proof or evidence, accused the involvement of Indian government agents in the killing of Nijjar.

Who Is Sandeep Sidhu?

According to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Sidhu has been associated with Khalistani terror networks and Pakistans notorious spy agency, Inter Service Intelligence (ISI).

In India, Sidhu is accused of killing Shaurya Chakra awardee and a Canadian national Balwinder Singh Sandhu outside his home at Bhikhiwind in Punjabs Tarn Taran district.

Sandhu, who was a teacher by profession, was decorated with the Shaurya Chakra for his role in fighting Khalistani terrorism in Punjab in the 1990s. He was against Khalistan referendums led by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) in foreign countries.

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Sidhu with the help of other ISI handlers, lured the assassin of Sandhu with promises of money and a home in Canada to carry out the murder.

In 2021, the case was transferred to the NIA. The agency informed the Supreme Court of India that operatives of the banned Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) orchestrated the plot and masterminded Sandhus assassination.

As per NIA, Sidhu was involved in promoting terrorist activities in Punjab. He is also alleged to have connections with Pakistan-based Lakhbir Singh Rode, the nephew of Khalistani leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who is designated a terrorist in India under the UAPA and with the US-based Khalistani Gurjot Kaur.

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Sidhu was added to the list of fugitives, seeking deportation by the Indian government in October this year.

With inputs from agencies.
A cargo vessel from Karachi arrived at Bangladeshs Chittagong Port on Wednesday. The authorities from both sides called it the first-ever direct maritime link between the two countries read more

Chief Adviser of Bangladesh's interim government Muhammad Yunus meets Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. Source: X / @CMShehbaz

As Bangladesh cosies up with Pakistan after the fall of ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas 15-year-long reign, a cargo vessel from Karachi arrived at Bangladeshs Chittagong Port on Wednesday. The authorities from both sides called it the first-ever direct maritime link between the two countries.

According to The Dhaka Tribune, the vessel was carrying a diverse array of goods with an estimated 2,300 TEUs of capacity. Pakistans High Commissioner to Bangladesh Syed Ahmed Maroof called the direct shipping between the two nations a major step forward in enhancing bilateral trade and business ties between Pakistan and Bangladesh besides boosting a more integrated trade network across the region.

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He noted that the initiative would not only accelerate the existing trade flows but also promote new opportunities for businesses for both countries. Meanwhile, the Pakistani high commissioner also proposed launching direct shipping transport between Pakistan and Bangladesh. The system will help to take forward the eco-social relations of the two countries.

Bangladesh cosies up with Pakistan

The arrival of a Pakistani vessel at a Bangladesh port reflects the Muhammad Yunus-led interim governments shift to a regional approach. After the fall of the Hasina administration, Yunus held numerous talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. These initiatives come as a major shift to Dhakas foreign policy towards the country which was responsible for heavy atrocities during the 1971 liberation war.

In September, the Bangladeshi chief adviser met Sharif in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting. At that time, Yunus called for reviving the South Asian Association of Regional Corporation (SAARC).

The Bangladeshi Nobel laureate noted that SAARC could be a good way to start the process of strengthening bilateral ties between the two nations. Meanwhile, the Pakistani premier noted that Bangladesh and Pakistan should open a new page in their relations to enhance cooperation in different sectors.

Its very essential we revive our relations, he added. Sharif also emphasised Pakistans interest in investing in Bangladeshs textile and leather sectors.

With inputs from agencies.
The surplus could provide a buffer for prices against potential supply-side price shocks from conflicts in West Asia and other regions read more

Low oil demand from China, supply-side shocks due to the conflict in West Asia, and increase in oil production by countries like US and Brazil are all important factors in determining crude oil price. Image used for representative purpose/Unsplash

Global oil markets are expected to face a surplus of more than 1 million barrels a day next year as demand in China continues to lag, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

In its monthly report released Thursday (November 14), the IEA noted that oil consumption in China historically a primary driver of global oil demand has contracted for six consecutive months through September.

Growth in Chinas oil demand this year is projected at just 10 per cent of the pace seen in 2023, the agency said.

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Chinas slowing oil demand

IEAs Head of Oil Industry and Markets, Toril Bosoni, suggested that Chinas oil demand may have already peaked, citing shifts in economic activity and transportation. Its not just the economy and the slowdown in construction, Bosoni told Bloomberg TV.

The adoption of electric vehicles, high-speed rail, and gas-fueled trucking is eroding Chinese oil demand growth.

Brent crude futures were trading near $72 a barrel on Thursday.

The IEA forecasts that global oil demand will grow by 920,000 barrels per day this year, down from the rapid post-pandemic recovery rate seen in 2023.

For 2024, growth is expected to tick up slightly, with demand rising by 990,000 barrels per day to average 102.8 million barrels per day.

According to the IEA, the sub-1 million barrel daily growth for both 2023 and 2024 not only shows lackluster global economic conditions, but also a shift toward clean energy in transportation and power sectors.

Earlier this year, the agency predicted that world oil demand would plateau this decade as electric vehicles and renewable energy continue to displace fossil fuel, Bloomberg reported.

Crude oil price expected to be stable

While demand growth slows, oil output from non-Opec countries, including the United States, Brazil, Canada, and Guyana, is projected to increase by 1.5 million barrels per day over the next two years.

This expansion is expected to keep global supplies ahead of demand by more than 1 million barrels per day in 2024, even if the Opec+ coalition resumes production increases.

The surplus could provide a buffer for prices against potential shocks from conflicts in West Asia and other regions.

Crude prices have declined by 11 per cent since early October despite ongoing hostilities in West Asia, as markets weigh increasing production from the Americas, the IEA reported.

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Russian ambassador to the UN in Geneva Gennady Gatilov on Thursday said that the election of Donald Trump creates an opportunity for renewed dialogue between Russia and the United States, though Washingtons primary goal continues to be containing Moscow read more

Russian ambassador to the United Nations Gennady Gatilov attends an ACANU briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 26, 2024. Reuters File

Russian ambassador to the UN in Geneva Gennady Gatilov on Thursday said that the election of Donald Trump creates an opportunity for renewed dialogue between Russia and the United States, though Washingtons primary goal continues to be containing Moscow.

Trumps imminent return to the White House has prompted anxiety in Ukraine and European allies over the president-elects amiable views on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Regardless of domestic political shifts, (Washington) consistently pursues a sense of containing Moscowthe change of administration does little to alter it, Reuters quoted Gatilov as telling reporters.

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The only shift might be possible is dialogue between our countries, something that has been lacking during the last several years, he added.

In the past, Trump has described Putin as a genius and someone who respects him.

Trump also claimed on October 14 that he got along very well with Putin during his first term as president, suggesting that the Russian leader had shared his ambitions to control Ukraine.

It (Ukraine) was the apple of his eye; he used to talk about it. But I said, Youre not going in, and he wasnt going in, Trump had said at a campaign event.

Following his electoral victory, Trump reportedly warned Putin not to escalate the war in a phone call, although the Kremlin later denied that the conversation took place.

US-Russia relations deteriorated significantly after Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, leaving Putin effectively isolated in much of the Western world.

With inputs from agencies
Dominica announced that it will honour Prime Minister Narendra Modi with its highest national award during the India-CARICOM Summit 2024 which is scheduled to take place from November 19-21 in Georgetown, Guyana read more

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be conferred with Dominica Award of Honour, the highest civilian award of the Commonwealth of Dominica. Source: Reuters.

The Commonwealth of Dominica has announced that it will honour Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with its highest national award - the Dominica Award of Honour - in recognition of his contribution to the country during the Covid-19 pandemic and his dedication to strengthening the bilateral partnership between the two nations.

The announcement was made by Dominicas Prime Minister Office, which in a statement further said that the President of the Commonwealth of Dominica, Sylvanie Burton, will confer the countrys highest national award to PM Modi during the India-CARICOM Summit 2024 which is scheduled to take place from November 19-21 in Georgetown, Guyana.

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Why is Dominica honouring PM Modi with highest national award?

As per the statement, PM Modi supplied Dominica with 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in February 2021 during the peak pandemic period.

The vaccine from PM Modi was a generous gift which enabled Dominica to extend support to its Caribbean neighbours, the statement read.

The award also recognises Indias support for Dominica in healthcare, education and information technology under Prime Minister Narendra Modis leadership, as well as his role in promoting climate resilience-building initiatives and sustainable development on a global level, the Dominica PMO said.

The award is an expression of Dominicas gratitude for Prime Minister Narendra Modis solidarity with Dominica and the wider region, Dominican PM Roosevelt Skerrit said.

PM Modi true partner to Dominica'

Skerrit called PM Modi a true partner of Dominica, particularly at the time of its need amid global health crisis.

Dominicas honour to award PM Modi

It is an honour to present him with Dominicas highest national accolade as a symbol of our gratitude for his support and as a reflection of the strong ties between our countries, Skerrit said.

The Dominican PM also said that his country looks forward to building on the partnership and advancing our shared vision of progress and resilience.

Skerrit also said, In accepting the offer of the award, PM Modi emphasised the importance of collaboration in tackling global challenges such as climate change and geopolitical conflict, and affirmed Indias commitment to working alongside Dominica and the Caribbean in addressing the issues.

India-Dominica relations

The Commonwealth of Dominica is also known as the Natures Island of the Caribbean for its lush green mountains and serene beauty.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs, Dominica has a land area of 750 square kilometres and a population of approximately 72,000.

India enjoys traditionally cordial bilateral relations with Commonwealth of Dominica since the diplomatic relations established in 1981.

India exports mainly pharmaceutical products, readymade garments, textiles and home furnishings, food products, etc. to Dominica, while Dominica exports mainly scrap metals.

The Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica has waived visa requirement for Indian nationals visiting Dominica for tourism and business purposes for a period of six months. The Government of India has approved e-Tourist Visa for Dominican citizens.

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The India community in Dominica consists of a few business families, professionals and faculty members of the Ross Medical University.
Pete Hegseth shares a close rapport with Trump and is not free of controversies. He has often been spotted with Trump and is known to make contentious statements on defence-related matters read more

(File) US President-elect Donald Trump is interviewed by Fox and Friends co-host Pete Hegseth at the White House in Washington on April 6, 2017. Reuters

US President-elect Donald Trumps pick for the post of Defence Secretary believes that women should not serve in combat roles as it hurts the purpose of making the military more lethal.

Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, has been chosen as the next Secretary of Defence by Trump. The army veteran shares a close rapport with Trump and is not free of controversies. He has often been spotted with Trump and is known to make contentious statements on defence-related matters.

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Hegseth, 44, Army National Guard infantry officer who served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hegseth joined Fox News in 2014 as an on-air commentator and later progressed to co-hosting the weekend edition of Fox & Friends, the networks flagship morning show.

As Trump announced Hegseth to take up the role, he said, With Pete at the helm, Americas enemies are on notice  Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down.

Heres how his on-air statements have stoked controversies:

Womens role in combat makes everything complex

Hegseth has pushed for making the military more lethal and said that allowing women to serve in combat roles hurts that effort.

Everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat, means casualties are worse, Hegseth said during an interview last week on The Shawn Ryan Show podcast to promote his new book.

Im straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles  it hasnt made us more effective, hasnt made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.

Lobbied Trump to pardon war criminals

In 2019, the former news anchor urged Trump to acquit US service members who had been accused of war crimes.

He first defended such servicemen on his show by showing their cases and interviewing their relatives following which he posted on social media that a pardon from Trump would be amazing, and added hashtags with the names of those accused to report mentioning his private lobbying of the then-president.

Threw an axe at a person

Hegseth went viral and was later sued after he struck a U.S. Army master sergeant in the arm with an errant axe throw during a 2015 Fox & Friends segment.

Video of the incident shows the axe flying over a target and hitting Jeffrey Prosperie, a drummer in West Points Hellcats field band, who had been invited to the show for the 240th anniversary of the Armys founding.

With inputs from AP
Le Pen, along with 24 party officials of the National Rally (RN), employees, former lawmakers and parliamentary assistants, were all accused of using EU funds to pay off staff who were working for their party in France. The prosecutors are now asking for a five-year jail term along with a 5-year ban from running for office read more

In a major turn of events, the Paris prosecutors have requested a five-year prison sentence and a same-duration ban from public office for far-right leader Marine Le Pen, at a trial in which she and 24 others are accused of embezzling funds of the European Union. The closely watched trial came almost a decade after the initial investigation into the matter began.

The courts findings now threaten to undermine her National Rally (RN) partys efforts to polish its image ahead of the 2027 presidential election. Le Pen was touted as the front runner in the upcoming polls before the scandal hit the newspapers again.

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On Wednesday, prosecutors involved in the case requested a 300,000 euro (249,439) fine, five years in prison and an ineligibility sentence against Marine Le Pen, with provisional execution. Hence, if the court finds her guilty of the charges along with the provisional execution, the far-right leader will not be able to run for the polls even if she makes an appeal to the higher court.

What the case is about?

Le Pen, along with 24 party officials of the National Rally (RN), employees, former lawmakers and parliamentary assistants, were all accused of using EU funds to pay off staff who were working for their party in France. At that time, Le Pens party was called the National Front.

The ruling came months after the RN, just like other far-right parties around Europe, is riding high after a strong performance in the European election in June. The law applies to all, prosecutor Nicolas Barret told the court, as Le Pen sat in the front row of the defendants benches, adding that the ban would prohibit the defendants from running in future local or national elections.

After the trial, Le Pen slammed the prosecutors, accusing them of interfering in the upcoming polls. I think the prosecutors wish is to deprive the French people of the ability to vote for who they want, Le Pen later said. It is pertinent to note that the scandal was first flagged back in 2015. It covers parliamentary assistant contracts between 2004 and 2016.

The prosecutors argued that the assistants who were part of the contract exclusively worked for the party and outside the parliament. While addressing the trial last month, Le Pen made it clear that she is innocent in the case. I have absolutely no sense of having committed the slightest irregularity, or the slightest illegal act, she told the court.

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Meanwhile, the European parliament said that the legislature had lost 3m euros (2.49m) through the jobs scheme. It is important to note that Le Pens party has already paid back one million euros, insisting that it should not be considered as admission of guilty.

With inputs from agencies.
Elon Musks involvement in Donald Trumps new administration is considered good news for China, given the billionaires investment in the countrys Electric Vehicle (EV) market. The worlds richest man has enjoyed perks in China that were rarely offered to other foreign investors read more

President-elect Donald Trump grabbed Chinas attention after he announced that billionaire Elon Musk would help lead what he called the Department of Government Efficiency, along with biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. While the new body will attempt to do what the opposition called dismantling government bureaucracy, Musks influence on the Trump administration goes beyond just one department.

The Tesla CEO was part of nearly every meeting Trump held after he won the 2024 US Presidential Election. This included the President-elects talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had to let Musk jump in the call despite the fact that several reports suggested that the billionaire is in touch with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Musks involvement in the Trump administration is considered good news for China, given the billionaires investment in the countrys Electric Vehicle (EV) market. In the past, the worlds richest man enjoyed perks that were rarely offered to other foreign investors, such as when Tesla got an unprecedented concession to wholly control its local subsidiary.

Not only this, but Musks view on some of the most sensitive issues of contention between the US and China aligns with the outlook of Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, things are not as smooth as they look. While Musk opens doors for China to come back into the US markets, several Trump loyalists, who are now part of his administration, intend to close them swiftly.

Musks investment in Chinas EV market

In April this year, when Teslas revenue was on a sharp decline, Musk made an unannounced trip to China. The billionaire visited Beijing to seek approval to launch its driver-assistance software in the worlds biggest auto market. During his visit, he met Premier Li Qiang, who as the Chinese Communist Party secretary for Shanghai helped the company set up what is now its top plant globally.

Since then, Musks presence in the Chinese market has increased to such an extent that today half of Tesla electric vehicles are made in China. The billionaires dip in the Chinese pond fared well for him. Earlier this month, it was reported that Chinese stocks associated with Tesla rose after the US Elections.

According to the South China Morning Post, shares of Chinese manufacturers that are believed to be suppliers to Tesla surged by about 20 per cent in morning trading on November 8. The surge happened because investors bet the worlds largest maker of electric vehicles (EVs) will prosper under Donald Trumps second presidency.

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In May, a month after he visited China, Musk opposed US tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs). Musks opposition came just days after President Joe Biden quadrupled levies on EVs imported from China. Neither Tesla nor I asked for these tariffs, the multi-billionaire told a technology conference in Paris via video link.

Musks remarks came at odds with the warning he made in January that Chinese car makers would demolish competitors from other countries if there were no trade barriers. In fact, I was surprised when they were announced. Things that inhibit freedom of exchange or distort the market are not good. Tesla competes quite well in the market in China with no tariffs and no preferential support. Im in favor of no tariffs, he added at that time.

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Hence, the Chinese EV market, which struggled in the US after President Joe Biden announced a 100% increase in tariffs on EVs from China, was a response to unfair policies and intended to protect US jobs, might get some relief under the Trump administration with Musks help.

Musks stance on Taiwan might be good news for Xi

The SpaceX CEO is known for weighing in on several geopolitical issues frequently, including the tensions between China and Taiwan. In 2022, Musk said a recommendation for Taiwan was to figure out a special administrative zone, aligning with Xis vision for unifying the self-ruled island with a similar framework to that of Hong Kong and Macau.

Last year, Musk reiterated that Beijing views Taiwan as an integral part of China similar to Hawaii for the US, drawing criticism online. Under the Biden administration, the US has forged strong ties with Taiwan, making China anxious.

It is pertinent to note that Trump has already expressed skepticism over US defense commitments to Taiwan, raising fears that he could abandon the island as it faces growing tensions with Beijing. Musks talks with Taiwan over the deployment of Starlink came to an abrupt end after the SpaceX CEO insisted on 100% of the company, which is currently not allowed under the islands laws. However, many experts believe that Trump is less likely to seek advice from Musk over the Taiwan situation.

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Its not that hunky dory: The presence of anti-China Trump loyalists

It is pertinent to note that Musks view on China represents a stark contrast to other Trump loyalists. Earlier, Robert OBrien, Trumps former national security adviser, wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine that the US should sever all its economic ties with China. Meanwhile, Michael Pompeo, a former secretary of state, has called on the US to recognise Taiwan as a nation. However, Trump has already made it clear that Pompeo will not be part of his new government.

Despite a snub to Pompeo, Trumps new cabinet is filled with China hawks. Senator Marco Rubio  who has taken an aggressive stance on Chinas emergence as an economic power  will be Trumps Secretary of State. Interestingly, Rubio will be the first sitting US secretary of state to have been sanctioned by Beijing.

Meanwhile, Elise Stefanik, Trumps nomination as US ambassador to the United Nations, has also been an ardent critic of Beijing. In the past, Stefanik cited countering national security and economic threats posed by the Chinese Communist government as one of her priorities when serving as congresswoman for New York. Hence, it will be interesting to see whose influence will shape Trumps outlook towards China.

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With inputs from agencies.
With the election of Donald Trump, the focus regarding a truce with Russia appears to be shifting towards security guarantees instead of territorial control among Ukrainians read more

With US President-elect Donald Trumps second term on the horizon, Ukraine appears to be shifting its position on the end of the war.

While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that surrendering territory is out of the question, now it appears that the focus is shifting towards security guarantees, according to The New York Times.

The development comes around Trumps victory in the US election. Trump has been critical of the US support to Ukraine and is deemed friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has fawned for years. He has indicated he would not continue outgoing President Joe Bidens unwavering support to Ukraine.

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Security guarantees a priority as Trump era dawns

With the dawn of the Trump era when there is no assurance of continued US military or economic support, Ukraine is considering accelerated timetable for negotiations and is putting at least as much importance on security guarantees as on where the ceasefire line would be drawn, according to The Times.

Two officials told the newspaper that Ukraine would not make territorial boundaries the central point of talks, but will instead focus on security guarantees to get an assurance that no new invasion would happen.

Talks should be based on guarantees. For Ukraine, nothing is more important," said Roman Kostenko, the Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliaments Defense and Intelligence Committee, to the newspaper.

A second Ukrainian official told the newspaper on the condition of anonymity: The territorial question is extremely important, but its still the second question. The first question is security guarantees.

In Ukraine, the support for a land-for-peace agreement has increased. While a survey by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 19 per cent nationally supported such a move, now the percentage is 19 per cent.

Security guarantees have soured talks before

In the early months of the war, Russia and Ukraine were engaged in dialogue to end the war. The efforts failed to reach any agreement.

One of the main sticking points in those talks was of security guarantees, which would include other countries to ensure Ukraines safety and come to its aid if Russian were to invade it again.

There is also skepticism in the idea as similar deals in 2014 and 15 did not go anywhere.

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In any talks in the near-future, however, the most pressing issue of Kursk where Ukraine mounted a stunning incursion. However, even as Ukraine captured around 1,000 sq kms of territory, there has been no strategic gain, as Russi has continued its grinding war in Ukraines east.

The approach of the two sides also differs as while Ukraine views Kursk as a bargaining chip, Russia made withdrawal from Kursk to consider talks.
During the period, the top 10 import sources of India were China, Russia, the UAE, the US, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Korea, Switzerland and Singapore, the data showed read more

China was Indias top import source with $65.89 billion, a 9.8 per cent year-on-year increase, worth of inbound shipments during the April-October period of this fiscal, according to the commerce ministry data.

Exports to China, however, dipped by 9.37 per cent to $8 billion.

During the period, the US emerged as the top export destination for the country with outbound shipments increasing by 6.31 per cent to $47.24 billion.

During the period, the top 10 import sources of India were China, Russia, the UAE, the US, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Korea, Switzerland and Singapore, the data showed.

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Imports from Russia rose by 8.85 per cent to $38.8 billion during April-October this fiscal from $35.65 billion a year ago.

Similarly, the inbound shipments from the UAE rose by 55.12 per cent to $38.64 billion from $24.9 billion in the first seven months of the last fiscal.

During the period, the top 10 export destinations of the country were the US, the UAE, the Netherlands, the UK, China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Germany and Australia.

Exports to the UAE rose by 15.86 per cent from $18 billion during April-October 2023 to $20.93 billion during April-October this fiscal.

In 2023-24, the US was Indias largest trading partner, followed by China.

China was Indias top trading partner from 2013-14 till 2017-18 and in 2020-21. Before China, the UAE was the countrys largest trading partner. The US was also Indias largest trading partner in 2021-22 and 2022-23.

Further in October, imports from the UAE, with which India has a free trade agreement, jumped by 70.37 per cent to $7.18 billion, while exports grew by 43.32 per cent to $3.72 billion.
The Clinic for Quitting Hijab Removal will be for the scientific and psychological treatment of removing the hijab, specifically for the teenage generation, young adults, and women seeking social and Islamic identity read more

Iranian women walk on a street amid the implementation of the new hijab surveillance in Tehran. Reuters file

Women who refuse to comply with Irans mandatory Hijab laws will now be sent to a treatment centre. The country will open a Clinic for Quitting Hijab Removal to provide a cure to women who refuse to wear hijab.

The issue of defying the strict hijab codes has become a contentious issue in Iran with many rebelling against the Islamic Republics treatment towards women.

The Women, Life, Freedom movement has swept across the country where women come together to fight for their rights and overturn the administrations stringent dress code.

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The move comes days after an Iranian university student stripped down to her underwear in protest of the dress code. The administration was quick to brand her mentally unstable.

How will the clinic work?

The announcement of establishing a mental health clinic was made by Mehri Talebi Darestani, the head of the Women and Family Department of the Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

Darestani, who has also been tasked with running the centre, said that the clinic will be for the scientific and psychological treatment of removing the hijab, specifically for the teenage generation, young adults, and women seeking social and Islamic identity.

The project is also focused on promoting dignity, modesty, chastity, and hijab. She, however, said that it would be up to women to visit the clinic.

The clinic will be supervised by Irans Headquarters for Enjoining the Good and Forbidding the Evil, the governmental organisation tasked with upholding strict religious norms throughout society.

Activists fume

The opening of the treatment centre has invoked strong responses from human rights activists, who have called the move shameful.

The idea of establishing clinics to cure unveiled women is chilling, where people are separated from society simply for not conforming to the ruling ideology," Sima Sabet, a UK-based Iranian journalist said, according to The Guardian.

Iranian human rights lawyer Hossein Raeesi stated that the concept of a clinic for treating women who do not adhere to hijab laws is neither Islamic nor consistent with Iranian law.

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Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday that they are open to resolving their differences with the United Nations nuclear agency regarding its adherence to safeguards on its nuclear programme, but will not do so under pressure read more

Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday that they are open to resolving their differences with the United Nations nuclear agency regarding its adherence to safeguards on its nuclear programme, but will not do so under pressure.

Araqchis comments came after meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Rafael Grossi on Thursday.

Important & straightforward talks with DG @rafaelmgrossi this morning.



As a committed member of NPT we continue our full cooperation with the IAEA. Differences can be resolved through cooperation and dialogue. We agreed to proceed with courage and good will.



Iran has never pic.twitter.com/bwLLzrKzwE  Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) November 14, 2024

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Taking to X, Araqchi said, As a committed member of NPT we continue our full cooperation with the IAEA. Differences can be resolved through cooperation and dialogue. We agreed to proceed with courage and good will. Iran has never left the negotiation table on its peaceful nuclear program.

The ball is in the EU/E3 court. Willing to negotiate based on our national interest & our inalienable rights, but NOT ready to negotiate under pressure and intimidation, he added, referring to the three main European powers, France, Germany, and Britain.

European powers are advocating for a new resolution against Iran at next weeks IAEA board meeting, aiming to exert pressure on Tehran over what they consider inadequate cooperation, according to diplomats speaking to Reuters on Wednesday.

IAEA Director Grossi has been pressing Iran for months to make progress on key issues, including increased monitoring at its nuclear sites and providing an explanation for traces of uranium found at undeclared locations.

The talks took place with Donald Trump due to take office again as US President in January. During his previous tenure, the United States pulled out of the 2015 accord between Iran and several world powers aimed at curbing its suspected nuclear missile programme.

Araqchi said the talks with Grossi were important and straightforward, while the head of Irans Atomic Energy Organisation Mohammad Eslami said they were constructive.

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With inputs from agencies
Energy Minister Eli Cohen on Thursday said that Israel is closer to a potential agreement with Hezbollah than it has been since the war began, but must retain the ability to take action within Lebanon if any deal is violated, according to a report read more

Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon on Thursday. Reuters

Energy Minister Eli Cohen on Thursday said that Israel is closer to a potential agreement with Hezbollah than it has been since the war began, but must retain the ability to take action within Lebanon if any deal is violated.

I think we are at a point that we are closer to an arrangement than we have been since the start of the war, said Cohen, a member of the security cabinet, in an interview with Reuters.

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A key sticking point for Israel, he says, is ensuring it retains freedom of action should Hezbollah return to border areas where it could pose a threat to Israeli communities.

We will be less forgiving than in the past over attempts to create strongholds in territory near Israel, Cohen added.

A senior Lebanese official on Thursday signalled that Hezbollah was ready to pull its forces away from the Lebanese-Israeli border in any ceasefire but rejected Israels demand for freedom to act against the Iran-backed group in Lebanon in the future.

Senior Lebanese official Ali Hassan Khalil, speaking to Al Jazeera late on Wednesday, said Lebanon was ready to precisely implement U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Its terms require Hezbollah to remove fighters and weapons from areas between the border and the Litani River, which runs about 30 km (around 20 miles) from Lebanons southern border.

Asked whether Hezbollah had informed him of a readiness to withdraw to the Litani, Khalil - a close Hezbollah ally and top aide to Lebanons parliament speaker - said the group had expressed its commitment to Resolution 1701.

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The resolution, he added, contained a clear set of provisions. Yes, the party is committed to what is stated in these texts, he said, referring to Hezbollah.

The United States and other powers say a ceasefire must be based on Resolution 1701.

Israel long complained it was never implemented, pointing to Hezbollah weapons and fighters at the border. Lebanon in turn accused Israel of violating the resolution, with Israeli warplanes regularly violating its airspace.

Meanwhile, a response from Lebanon to the ceasefire proposal sent to Beirut by the US could come within the next 24 hours, Channel 12 reported.

Israels Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer was in Washington this week to meet Biden administration officials on the finishing touches to the proposal, including written guarantees that Israel has freedom of action against Hezbollah threats in Lebanon.

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Dermer also met with US President-elect Donald Trump on his trip, according to Axios.

Pressing its offensive against the Iran-backed group, Israel launched airstrikes on Beiruts Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Thursday, keeping up its unusually intensive bombardment of the area for a third consecutive day.

Israel has dealt Hezbollah heavy blows since launching its offensive in late September, escalating the conflict that had rumbled on in parallel to the Gaza war for a year.

Hezbollah has kept up rocket fire into Israel and its fighters have been battling Israeli troops on the ground in the south.

With inputs from agencies
Syrias defence ministry on Thursday said twin Israeli air strikes killed 15 people in the upscale Mazzeh district of Damascus and in the outskirts of the capital read more

A woman reacts as she checks the damage following a reported Israeli strike in the Mazzeh district of Damascus on Thursday. AFP

Syrias defence ministry on Thursday said twin Israeli air strikes killed 15 people in the upscale Mazzeh district of Damascus and in the outskirts of the capital.

The Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan (Heights), targeting residential buildings in the Mazzeh neighbourhood of Damascus and the Qudsaya area in the Damascus countryside, killing 15 people and injuring 16 others, The Times of Israel quoted the ministry as saying, adding that the toll was preliminary and could rise.

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Meanwhile, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed carrying out airstrikes in Syria, saying that it targeted several buildings and command centers belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group.

The strikes are a significant blow to the Gaza Strip-based Palestinian terror group and its operatives, The Times of Israel quoted the military as saying.

Islamic Jihad carried out the October 7 onslaught alongside Hamas, and its operatives have also been involved in launching attacks on Israel from Lebanon, alongside Hezbollah.

Syrian news agency SANA also published video footage of smoke covering a street.

Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since last years Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israeli territory that sparked the Gaza war.

Commanders in Lebanons Hezbollah armed group and Irans Revolutionary Guards based in Syria have been known to reside in Mazzeh, according to residents who fled after recent strikes that killed some key figures from the groups.

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Mazzehs high rise blocks have been used by the authorities in the past to house leaders of Palestinian factions including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Last month, Syrias defence ministry said two civilians were killed in an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the Mazzeh district.

Iran and Lebanons Hezbollah have been among the Syrian governments most important allies in the countrys civil war that began in 2011.

Israeli authorities rarely comment on individual strikes in Syria but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence.

With inputs from agencies
Authorities accused Benjamin Netanyahu of receiving cigars, Champagne, bracelets, bags and luxury clothes. He also allegedly meddled in investigative and judicial proceedings for favours read more

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will face the court on December 2 to testify for his corruption trial. The date of the trial was fixed days after the court rejected his request to further postpone the matter.

A report by Channel 12 quoted political analyst Amit Segal, an ally of the prime minister, as saying that Netanyahu will no longer seek any postponement. His team was reportedly putting off the trial as Netanyahu had been unable to prepare for his testimony owing to the ongoing conflict.

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The court, however, was not convinced and argued that it had given ample time to the prime minister to draft his testimony as the hearing was listed in July.

What is the case?

Trouble started brewing for Netanyahu in 2016 when it was claimed that the prime minister was owing favours from wealthy businessmen in exchange for gifts.

Authorities accused Bibi of receiving cigars, Champagne, bracelets, bags and luxury clothes. He also allegedly meddled in investigative and judicial proceedings for favours.

Two years later in 2018, the police recommended prosecuting the Israeli leader and the very next year he was indicted. The trial began in 2020.

What are the charges?

The corruption trial merges three distinct cases that Netanyahu is accused of, referred to as Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000.

Case 1000 alleges that the Israeli PM accepted nearly $300,000 in gifts from Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and the Australian billionaire James Packer in exchange for pushing the Finance Ministry to extend the period of a tax exemption for expatriate Israelis, such as the producer, upon their return to the country from abroad.

Case 2000 involves Netanyahu discussing a quid pro quo arrangement with the publisher of Israels leading newspaper Yediot Aharonot for extensive positive coverage.

Case 4000 accuses a telecom mogul named Shaul Elovitch in the hope that Bibi would not obstruct his business interests in the country.
The prime minister stressed the potential environmental and health benefits of rainfall, noting that it could improve air quality and reduce disease outbreaks read more

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday called on Pakistanis to hold a nationwide Namaz-e-Istisqa, a special prayer for rain, to address the countrys severe smog crisis.

Sharif urged the public to participate in the prayer and ask for divine intervention to bring much-needed rainfall, which he said could alleviate the challenges caused by prolonged dry weather, The Express Tribune reported.

Pray for rain, better air quality

I request the nation to offer Namaz-e-Istisqa and pray earnestly for the blessing of rain, the prime minister said in a public statement. He encouraged religious scholars and Sufi leaders to help organise the prayer.

The prime minister stressed the potential environmental and health benefits of rainfall, noting that it could improve air quality and reduce disease outbreaks exacerbated by the lack of rain. Rain would bring relief to the people and help mitigate the suffering caused by the ongoing dry spell, he added.

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Sharif called for the Namaz-e-Istisqa to be conducted in all mosques across the country, under both federal and provincial administrations. In these trying times, there is an urgent need for divine intervention in the form of rain, he said.

Poor air quality in Pakistan

The call for this prayer comes on the heels of Lahore being ranked as the worlds most polluted city on Thursday, according to live air quality rankings by the Swiss group IQAir.

The city has been enveloped in a dense layer of smog, with Air Quality Index (AQI) readings surpassing 1,000, far exceeding the hazardous threshold of 300.

This severe pollution has led to widespread health issues, including respiratory problems and eye irritations, prompting authorities to implement emergency measures such as closing schools, parks, and markets to protect public health.

With inputs from agencies
The participation of the Su-57 is a significant moment in the shows history, but also a reflection of how geopolitical dynamics are at the moment read more

Russia's state arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, announced Wednesday that it has signed initial contracts to deliver the export version of the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jet to foreign clients. The announcement was made during the Airshow China in Zhuhai, where the Su-57 made its debut appearance. "We have already signed the first contracts for the Su-57," Rosoboronexport CEO Alexander Mikheyev told Russian reporters, highlighting significant international interest in the aircraft. The Su-57, developed by Sukhoi, is Russia's premier fifth-generation stealth fighter, designed for air superiority and attack missions. It features advanced avionics, low radar visibility, and the capability to carry a variety of precision-guided weapons. The aircraft's artificial intelligence system assists pilots by managing certain flight operations and weapon preparations. Sergey Chemezov, CEO of Russia's state tech corporation Rostec, emphasized the Su-57's combat performance, stating it is the only fifth-generation aircraft globally that has demonstrated exceptional capabilities across all combat scenarios. He also noted the fighter's survivability, attributed to its low radar signature and advanced onboard defensive systems. The Su-57E, the export variant, was a focal point of Russia's display at Airshow China. Rostec highlighted its ability to deploy advanced precision weapons and maintain a minimal radar signature. Airshow China, held biennially in Zhuhai, is the country's largest aviation and aerospace exhibition, showcasing both military and civilian aircraft. The 2024 event featured a range of new technologies, including China's J-35A stealth fighter and various unmanned aerial systems. The participation of the Su-57 marked a significant moment in the show's history, reflecting Russia's efforts to expand its defense exports amid evolving global dynamics. The contracts for the Su-57E signify Russia's ongoing strategy to strengthen military-technical cooperation with international partners, aiming to support its defense industry through export orders and the development of next-generation military hardware. Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Russias state arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, announced Wednesday that it has signed initial contracts to deliver the export version of the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jet to foreign clients.

The announcement was made during the Airshow China in Zhuhai, where the Su-57 made its debut appearance.

We have already signed the first contracts for the Su-57, Russian state-owned news agency TASS quoted Rosoboronexport CEO Alexander Mikheyev as saying. He made sure to emphasise the significant international interest in the aircraft.

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Su-57 specifications

The Su-57, developed by Sukhoi, is Russias premier fifth-generation stealth fighter, designed for air superiority and attack missions. It features advanced avionics, low radar visibility, and the capability to carry a variety of precision-guided weapons.

The aircrafts artificial intelligence system assists pilots by managing certain flight operations and weapon preparations.

Sergey Chemezov, CEO of Russias state tech corporation Rostec, emphasized the Su-57s combat performance, stating it is the only fifth-generation aircraft globally that has demonstrated exceptional capabilities across all combat scenarios.

He also noted the fighters survivability, attributed to its low radar signature and advanced onboard defensive systems.

The Su-57E, the export variant, was a focal point of Russias display at Airshow China. Rostec highlighted its ability to deploy advanced precision weapons and maintain a minimal radar signature.

The significance of Russia at Zhuhai Airshow

Airshow China, held biennially in Zhuhai, is the countrys largest aviation and aerospace exhibition, showcasing both military and civilian aircraft.

The 2024 event featured a range of new technologies, including Chinas J-35A stealth fighter and various unmanned aerial systems.

The participation of the Su-57 is a significant moment in the shows history, but also a reflection of how geopolitical dynamics are at the moment.

Most noticeably, it shows Russias efforts to expand its defence exports while leveraging platforms provided by its non-West aligned allies.

With inputs from agencies
Referring to Putin, Berezhinskaya wrote: Destroy that bastard. Wipe him off the face of the Earth. She also posted accounts of atrocities carried out by Russian soldiers in Bucha, a town occupied by Russian forces for the first month of the conflict read more

Dissent, especially regarding Ukraine, is extensively curbed in Russia. File Image/Reuters

A Russian military court on Thursday sentenced a woman to eight years in jail for criticising the Ukraine offensive online and calling for the assassination of President Vladimir Putin, state media reported.

Moscow has opened hundreds of criminal cases against those who oppose the Ukraine campaign under strict censorship laws ushered in at the start of the conflict.

Russias second western district military court found Anastasia Berezhinskaya, 43, guilty of spreading false information, discrediting the armed forces and justifying terrorism over a series of posts on Russian social media platform VK.

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Berezhinskaya, a theatre director, had railed against Russias actions in Ukraine, saying Moscows soldiers were killing civilians and destroying cities in a naked land grab.

Referring to Putin, Berezhinskaya wrote: Destroy that bastard. Wipe him off the face of the Earth.

She also posted accounts of atrocities carried out by Russian soldiers in Bucha, a town occupied by Russian forces for the first month of the conflict.

In April 2022, the bodies of dozens of civilians, some with their hands tied, were found in the Kyiv suburb after a month-long occupation by Russian forces.

The Kremlin has denied targeting civilians throughout its near three-year campaign and accused Ukraine of staging the scenes at Bucha.

The United Nations has verified more than 11,000 civilian fatalities since the start of the conflict, though they believe the real number is likely much higher.

According to a counter on VK, some of Berezhinskayas posts had been viewed just 60-130 times as of Thursday. Russia has blocked access to her page inside the country.

The independent Mediazona site reported she has two children, aged eight and 10.

She has also been diagnosed with a personality disorder, according to case materials cited by Mediazona.

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In court she pleaded partially guilty, denying that her comments on Putin were a genuine call to murder the Kremlin leader, it reported.
Sri Lanka votes in a snap general election on Thursday, called by new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to secure a majority in parliament to back his policies in the island nation struggling to recover from a crushing financial crisis read more

A police officer checks the voter slip of a woman as she arrives to vote on the day of the parliamentary election, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, November 14, 2024. Source: Reuters.

Sri Lankans began voting on Thursday in snap parliamentary elections which is very crucial for the newly elected Marxist-leaning president Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who aims to secure a majority in parliament to put forward his policies to revive the island nation from its financial crisis.

Dissanayake, 55, took charge after securing victory in the September 21 presidential elections. His victory came on a promise to combat graft, recover Sri Lankas stolen assets and vows to bolster a fragile economic recovery.

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Also, his win signalled discontentment among people with the island nations traditional political parties which have led the governments since Sri Lankas independence in 1948.

Why is polling being held in Sri Lanka again?

Dissanayake dissolved parliament on September 24 to clear the way for the general election. The snap polls as being held on Thursday (November 14) Dissanayake failed to secure more than 50 per cent of votes.

Dissanayakes National Peoples Power (NPP) coalition had just three of 225 seats in parliament, prompting him to dissolve the legislature and seek a fresh mandate there for his policies.

In the snap election, Dissanayake hopes to win two-thirds of the legislatures 225 seats to press ahead with reforms after the countrys economic meltdown in 2022, when then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was ousted.

Dissanayakes party will have to increase its votes significantly  from the 42 per cent won in the presidential election  to acquire a minimum of 113 seats to take control of the 225-member Sri Lanka parliament.

Who is Dissanaykes NPP main challenger?

The main challenger for Dissanayakes NPP is Sajith Premadasa, who came in second in the presidential election and his Samagi Jana Balawegaya or United Peoples Power party.

Sri Lanka election result

Voting in Sri Lanka began at 7 am local time and will continue till 4 pm, with counting expected to start soon after.

The Election Commission of Sri Lanka will formally begin announcing the winning party, likely on Friday.

A cabinet is expected to be formed immediately afterwards and the new parliament will convene on November 21 to elect a speaker.

Dissanayake will also present a throne speech outlining his key policy priorities to the new parliament on the same day.

How Sri Lanka votes

Voters in Sri Lanka directly elect 196 members to parliament from 22 constituencies under a proportional representation system.

The remaining 29 seats will be allocated according to the island-wide proportional vote obtained by each party. A voter can cast up to three preferential votes for candidates contesting from their party of choice.

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A voter can cast up to three preferential votes for candidates contesting from their party of choice.

Sri Lanka now has 17.1 million eligible voters of which about 1 million are first-time voters.

Number of eligible voters

Sri Lanka has 17.1 million eligible voters out of which about 1 million are first-time voters.

Voting began on Thursday at 7 am local time and will continue till 4 pm, soon after which the counting will start.

Also Read:

With inputs from agencies.
A senior Taiwan official said that Taipei does not have any concrete list of new arms deals to put to the US incoming Trump administration, but is willing to discuss how to continue to reinforce its defence capacity read more

A US-made TOW-2A wire-guided anti-tank missile launched by Taiwanese soldiers from a M1167 TOW carrier vehicle at the Fangshan training grounds in Pingtung, Taiwan. Source: Reuters.

Taiwan does not have a concrete list of new arms deals to put to the United States incoming Trump administration but is keen to discuss how to boost the islands defence, senior Taiwan security officials said.

Democratically governed Taiwan, which is claimed by China, may place large new arms deals early in the life of the next US administration to show it takes seriously a comment by President-elect Donald Trump that Taiwan should pay protection money, people familiar with government thinking previously told Reuters.

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The government in Taipei is considering buying a big package of weapons from the US to demonstrate its commitment to the islands defence, the Financial Times reported this week.

Currently we do not have any such concrete list but we welcome advice from all sides, with the most important thing being how to boost self-defence capacity, a senior Taiwan security official told reporters in Taipei, requesting anonymity to be able to speak more frankly.

Taiwan is very willing to further discuss with all like-minded partners, especially the US, how to continue to reinforce Taiwans defence capacity, said the official.

Taiwan, whose government rejects Chinas sovereignty claims, has faced repeated military pressure from Beijing, including a new round last month in a series of war games.

The islands biggest arms supplier is the US. It has an order backlog worth some $20 billion and last month announced an almost $2 billion order for missile systems.

China opposes the sale, which includes radar and missile systems, and has urged the US to immediately stop arming Taiwan.

Taiwans total defence spending has jumped to around 80 per cent to date since the ruling Democratic Progressive Party entered office in 2016, the official said.

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Our commitment to self defence will only get stronger, not weaker, the official said.

Taiwans government regularly holds discussions with major US parties as well as think tanks on whether the islands current military hardware and software are effective enough to counter any Chinese attack, a second Taiwan security official said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Such discussions include whether Taiwan should greatly boost the size of its drone fleet capable of striking high-value Chinese military assets, the official said.

Such reviews are a normality, the official said, adding Taiwan has not started a new round of arms talks with the US.

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There are a lot of discussions and recommendations. We welcome everything thats beneficial to boosting Taiwans defence.
(File) A crane moves a container at the new megaport being built by China's state-owned Cosco Shipping, promising to shorten sea routes to Asia for Peruvian and some Brazilian goods, in Chancay, Peru October 24, 2024. Reuters

As Chinas President Xi Jinping begins a diplomatic tour of Latin America, his goal is clear: to show the world how Chinas Belt and Road Initiative is expanding Chinas influence globally, especially through large infrastructure projects. One of the key events on this trip is the opening of the new Chancay Port in Peru. Inauguared on Thursday by President Xi and his Peruvian counterpart Dina Boluarte on by video link, this port is a major project that gives China more control over important shipping routes and trade in developing economies.

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Chancay Port: Economic importance and key location

Chancay Port, located 80 kilometres north of Lima, has been built with $3.5 billion in funding, mostly from Chinas COSCO Shipping Corporation. The port is anticipated to become a key connection between Latin America and Asia, cutting shipping time between Peru and China by approximately 10 days. It will handle up to one million containers and 160,000 vehicles each year, allowing Peru to export resources like lithium, copper, iron and soybeans. Other South American countries, like Brazil and Chile, may also benefit since they exported $135 billion worth of goods to China in 2023.

Chancay is now part of a global network of 18 ports where China holds a majority stake extending Chinas reach and influence through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Chinas state-owned companies, like COSCO, are leading these investments, giving China more control over important trade routes and economic power through these key ports.

However, there are concerns from local communities and environmentalists about the impact of such a large project. Some worry about potential damage to the environment and the risk that such investments could put countries in debt, forcing them to make economic or political compromises. While Perus current economic stability lowers the immediate risk, concerns remain about the environment and how local authorities will manage the projects impact.

Chinas expanding global port network

Chinas investment in Chancay Port isnt an isolated project. China has funded ports in key areas worldwide, including the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and South America. These ports are located at important trade routes, like Djibouti (near a vital passage for ships), Gwadar in Pakistan and Piraeus in Greece.

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In Myanmar, Chinas investment in the Kyaukpyu Port is a crucial part of its BRI. This port provides China direct access to the Indian Ocean, helping it reduce dependence on the narrow Strait of Malacca for energy imports. Through Kyaukpyu, China can transport oil and gas directly from Myanmar into its Yunnan Province, boosting energy security and influence in Southeast Asia. However, there are concerns that Myanmar could become too reliant on China due to these large infrastructure investments.

Chinas network of ports worldwide strengthens its control over global trade routes and builds diplomatic ties giving it potential influence over major shipping pathways.

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For example, in Djibouti, Chinas commercial investments led to the creation of a naval base close to a US military base. Although Chancay Port is currently focussed on trade, its location on the Pacific Ocean raises questions about whether it could be used for intelligence or military activities if tensions between nations rise.

Dual-use ports and security concerns

By controlling ports, China could monitor the movements of other countries, including US naval activities. Although China claims these ports are purely for economic purposes, there are cases of Chinese naval ships using them, hinting at potential military applications. This dual-use capability raises security concerns, particularly in regions where China hasnt traditionally been active and could impact the movement of US and allied forces.

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Chinas network of ports aligns with a strategy known as the String of Pearls, which involves positioning ports along key trade routes to protect Chinese trade and expand its influence. Ports like Gwadar in Pakistan and Hambantota in Sri Lanka are examples of economic projects that could also serve military purposes. With Chancay Port located close to the Americas, there are worries it might increase Chinas influence over Pacific trade routes.

Traditionally, the US has dominated trade routes and military influence in Latin America, but Chinas recent investments could alter this balance pushing the world toward a more multipolar order. Ports like Chancay, strategically located on Latin Americas Pacific coast, showcase Chinas growing reach beyond Asia and emphasise the need for the US to reassess its interests in the region.

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The US has responded with initiatives like the Build Back Better World programme aimed at providing sustainable infrastructure alternatives to the BRI. However, Chinas extensive BRI investments still surpass these efforts, which may lead Washington to strengthen diplomatic ties with Latin American nations and explore expanded military partnerships.

Economic implications for host countries

Chinas investments in ports help develop infrastructure, boost trade and create jobs. However, they can also make countries economically dependent on China. For example, Sri Lankas debt led it to lease the Hambantota Port to a Chinese company to help repay what it owed. In Latin America, there are fears that relying too much on Chinese infrastructure could limit their freedom in foreign policy making their economies more vulnerable to pressure from China.

Countries need to weigh the benefits of these investments against potential long-term risks. For Peru, the new Chancay Port could strengthen its role as a trade centre on the Pacific, but it might also bring challenges with controlling regulations, managing debt and protecting the environment.

A multipolar maritime world

Chinas rapid expansion of its global port network is changing the balance of power on the seas, going beyond just economics. When countries like Peru partner with China on important trade projects, they support Chinas larger plan for economic connections through the BRI. For China, ports like Chancay help secure access to resources, strengthen economic ties and build influence in a world once dominated by Western trade and military alliances.

For the US and its allies, Chinas growing control over ports is a complicated issue. As President Xi Jinping opens another BRI port in Peru, the question of Chinas true intentions is important. Ports like Chancay represent a new era where infrastructure isnt just about trade. Its also a tool of global power shifting the world toward a system where economic influence and strategic locations are as important as traditional military alliances.
A day after Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev accused France of crimes and human rights violations in overseas territories including New Caledonia, French Environment Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher termed Aliyevs remarks as unacceptable and decided to skip the COP29 conference in Baku read more

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev speaks at the Opening Ceremony of the United Nations climate change conference COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan on November 12, 2024. Reuters

A day after Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev accused France of crimes and human rights violations in overseas territories including New Caledonia, French Environment Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher termed Aliyevs remarks as unacceptable and decided to skip the COP29 global climate change conference in Baku.

Aliyev accused France of committing crimes and human rights violations in its overseas territories, including New Caledonia in the South Pacific. The region has seen violent protests over a disputed voting reform, resulting in 13 deaths since May.

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President Aliyevs words against France and Europe as the COP29 opened in Baku are unacceptable," Radio France Internationale (RFI) quoted Pannier-Runacher as telling the French Senate.

Azerbaijans leader was using the fight against climate change for a shameful personal agenda, she added.

Later, taking to X, Pannier-Runacher posted: Azerbaijan is instrumentalising the fight against climate change for its own unworthy personal agenda. These attacks constitute a flagrant violation of the UNFCCC Code of Conduct. They will not go unanswered.

Les propos tenus contre la France et lEurope par le president Aliev a loccasion de louverture de la COP29 sont inacceptables.



Les attaques directes contre notre pays, ses institutions et ses territoires, sont injustifiables.



LAzerbaidjan instrumentalise la lutte pic.twitter.com/cRvC3HlYqU  Agnes Pannier-Runacher  (@AgnesRunacher) November 13, 2024

Also read: COP29: Island nations worried after Trump victory over Americas support for Paris Agreement

Aliyev earlier accused President Macrons regime of killing 13 people and injuring 169 during protests by the Kanak people in New Caledonia.

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The unrest, which erupted in mid-May, was sparked by fears that Pariss proposed voting reforms would marginalise the indigenous Kanak population, hindering their push for independence.

In response, France deployed thousands of troops and police to the remote archipelago, home to 270,000 people.

Although the new French government scrapped the reform after Junes legislative elections, the violence was severe enough that Prime Minister Michel Barnier announced a delay in local elections until the end of next year.

Colonial yoke

On Wednesday, Aliyev also accused France of keeping the Mediterranean island of Corsica and its distant overseas territories under a colonial yoke.

Azerbaijan has hosted pro-independence groups from French overseas territories, seemingly to provoke Paris, which has long supported Armenia, Azerbaijans rival.

Aliyevs latest attacks were a flagrant violation of the code of conduct that usually prevails at the landmark UN climate change conferences, Pannier-Runacher was quoted as saying.

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Direct attacks on our country, its institutions and its territories cannot be justified, she added  also taking aim at Azerbaijans words in favour of fossil energy.

Oil and gas a gift of the God

This comes as Aliyev called oil and gas a gift of the God in his opening Cop address on Tuesday.

Pannier-Runacher deemed the Azeri presidents remarks unworthy of the Cop presidency.

She hoped instead to spotlight a positive dynamic at the conference in petrostate Azerbaijan, where Brazil and Britain announced new emissions targets.

While Macron and Barnier backed Pannier-Runacher in not personally attending, Frances negotiating teams will spare no effort, with my support from a distance  to protect the planet and our populations, she added.

We will continue to argue for the highest level of ambition in implementing the Paris Accord of 2015, Pannier-Runacher said.

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With inputs from agencies
That is something we would unequivocally disagree with. We think that that kind of phrasing and those kind of accusations are certainly unfounded, said State Department spokesman Vedant Patel read more

Palestinians mourn relatives killed in an Israeli strike on displacement tents in the vicinity earlier, at the the Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on November 5, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. AFP File

Hours after a special UN committee report claimed that Israels warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, the United States on Thursday said it disagreed with the findings.

That is something we would unequivocally disagree with, AFP quoted State Department spokesman Vedant Patel as saying.

We think that that kind of phrasing and those kind of accusations are certainly unfounded, added Patel.

In its report released on Thursday, the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices said Israels warfare in Gaza was consistent with the characteristics of genocide and accused the country of using starvation as a method of war.

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The UN Special Committee pointed to mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians, covering the period from Hamass deadly October 7, 2023 attack in Israel to July.

The committee said Israels siege, blocking of aid, and targeted attacks and killing of civilians, despite UN and International Court of Justice (ICJ) orders, was intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury.

Since the war began, Israeli officials have openly endorsed policies that deprive Palestinians of essential resources needed for survival  including food, water, and fuel, the committee said in a statement.

These declarations, coupled with the systematic and unlawful obstruction of humanitarian aid, underscore Israels apparent intent to leverage life-saving supplies for political and military purposes, the statement added.

Its not the first time Israel has faced such accusations.

South Africa brought a case before the ICJ last year, arguing the Gaza war breached the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, an accusation Israel has denied.

A UN-backed assessment at the weekend warned famine was imminent in northern Gaza, the site of an intense Israeli offensive since early October.

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The operation had forced at least 100,000 people to flee northern Gaza for Gaza City and nearby areas, AFP quoted UN Palestinian refugee agency spokeswoman Louise Wateridge as saying.

The US also voiced concern after ally Israel struck Hezbollah sites in the Beirut suburbs, saying it opposed attacks in densely populated parts of Lebanon.

Certainly we would have concerns, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said when asked about the Israeli strikes.

Youve heard us say time and time again that we do not want to see these kinds of (military) operations in Beirut, especially as it relates to densely populated areas.

With inputs from agencies

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Bluesky, the alternative social media platform which is the brainchild of ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, has gained over 1 million new users since the US election. But why is this happening? Which celebrities have said goodbye to X and are joining Bluesky? read more

This illustration photograph taken on November 12, 2024, shows the logo of social media platform Bluesky displayed on a mobile telephone and tablet, in Paris. AFP

Xs loss is Blueskys gain.

The competitor to X is witnessing a massive influx of users after Donald Trumps re-election.

The app created by ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has gained 1 million new users in the week since the US election.

It now has 15 million users  though that is a drop in the bucket compared to Xs over 500 million users worldwide.

Lets take a closer look at how Bluesky is gaining users.

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What is Bluesky?

First, lets take a brief look at Bluesky.

The brainchild of Dorsey, the social media platform launched in October 2021.

It has previously seen heavy hitters including US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sign up.

It was an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February of this year.

That invite-only period gave the site time to build out moderation tools and other features. The platform resembles X, with a discover feed as well a chronological feed for accounts that users follow.

Users can send direct messages and pin posts, as well as find starter packs that provide a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow.

Exodus from X

Bluesky gaining users comes in the backdrop of an exodus from X.

Over 115,000 people have left X after the US election, as per CNN.

Ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon, New York Times Mara Gay and Charlie Warzel, and actor Jamie Lee Curtis have all announced that they are saying goodbye to the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Curtis on Instagram shared a screenshot of her X account being deactivated with the caption, God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to know the difference.

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Lemon wrote that he is leaving the platform but will continue to use other social media, including Bluesky.

Lemon said he felt X was no longer a place for honest debate and discussion.

He noted changes to the sites terms of service set to go into effect Friday that state lawsuits against X must be filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas rather than the Western District of Texas.

Musk said in July that he was moving Xs headquarters to Texas from San Francisco.

As the Washington Post recently reported on Xs decision to change the terms, this ensures that such lawsuits will be heard in courthouses that are a hub for conservatives, which experts say could make it easier for X to shield itself from litigation and punish critics, Lemon wrote. I think that speaks for itself.

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The Guardian newspaper also said it would no longer put up posts on X. It blamed far right conspiracy theories and racism on the site.

The newspaper in a statement said it thinks that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere.

Bluesky sees boost

Bluesky, meanwhile, has seen a number of new users sign up or become active.

These include rapper Flavor Flav, author John Chasten Buttigieg, and TV personalities Mehdi Hasan and Molly Jong-Fast.

Hello Less Hateful World, billionaire Mark Cuban wrote on the platform on Tuesday.

Company COO Rose Wang told The Verge that the majority of the new users on the social network come from the United States.

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As per The New York Times, people from Canada and Britain are also joining Bluesky.

Elon Musks relationship with Donald Trump is pushing some users away from X. Reuters

Across the platform, new users  among them journalists, left-leaning politicians and celebrities  have posted memes and shared that they were looking forward to using a space free from advertisements and hate speech. Some said it reminded them of the early days of X, when it was still Twitter.

In the last week, it has felt more like what I used to like about Twitter, John, 45, who lives in Minnesota, told the newspaper.

Shannon C McGregor, an associate professor at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina, told the newspaper that Bluesky seem to have a feeling of momentum.

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Much of this has to do with the type of material available on Twitter.

You were getting this awful timeline of far-right, white supremacist, conspiracy theory posts  which the great majority of people dont want to interact with on a daily basis, Dr McGregor added.

Social media researcher Axel Bruns agreed.

Bruns told The Guardian, Its become a refuge for people who want to have the kind of social media experience that Twitter used to provide, but without all the far-right activism, the misinformation, the hate speech, the bots and everything else.

The more liberal kind of Twitter community has really now escaped from there and seems to have moved en masse to Bluesky.

Were excited to welcome all of these new people, ranging from Swifties to wrestlers to city planners, Bluesky spokesperson Emily Liu was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

The post-election uptick in users isnt the first time that Bluesky has benefitted from people leaving X.

Bluesky gained 2.6 million users in the week after X was banned in Brazil in August  85 per cent of them from Brazil, the company said. About 500,000 new users signed up in the span of one day last month, when X signaled that blocked accounts would be able to see a users public posts.

No Bluesky member with Trump

Despite Blueskys growth, X posted last week that it had dominated the global conversation on the US election and had set new records. The platform saw a 15.5 per cent jump in new-user signups on Election Day, X said, with a record 942 million posts worldwide. Representatives for Bluesky and for X did not respond to requests for comment.

Bluesky has referenced its competitive relationship to X through tongue-in-cheeks comments, including an Election Day post on X referencing Musk watching voting results come in with President-elect Donald Trump.

I can guarantee that no Bluesky team members will be sitting with a presidential candidate tonight and giving them direct access to control what you see online, Bluesky said.

Musk, of course, who bought X in 2022, has been an ardent supporter of Trump.

His tenure has seen much controversy with advertisers such as IBM, NBCUniversal and its parent company Comcast fleeing X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site in general.

Musk has inflamed tensions with his own posts endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

X, which Musk purchased for $44 billion, is now worth under $10 billion.

With inputs from agencies
US President-elect Donald Trump certainly has an extraordinary concentration of power, but that was unavoidable and does not automatically make him a dictator, says Prof. Saumyajit Ray, a scholar US polity at the School of International Studies (SIS), Jawaharlal Nehru University read more

Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks at the Bitcoin 2024 event in Nashville, Tennessee, US, July 27, 2024. File Image/Reuters

US President-elect Donald Trump now has absolute control of the US federal government.

As the Republicans have retained the House of Representatives and won Senate, they have achieved the extraordinary feat of trifecta, which refers to the situation when one party controls the White House, Senate, and the House. The Congress is now essentially a rubber-stamp body.

Moreover, with three appointees at the Supreme Court, Trump has long had the Apex Court in his pocket.

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Such a situation would mean that checks and balances would definitely be affected, but alarm over the United States becoming a dictatorship is not warranted, says Saumyajit Ray, a scholar US polity at the School of International Studies (SIS), Jawaharlal Nehru University.

To understand the nuances of US polity, the Republican Party, and the US election, Firstposts Madhur Sharma sat down with Ray, an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Canadian, US & Latin American Studies at SIS. Excerpts:

With Republican control of the House of Representatives, President-elect Trump now essentially controls all three branches of the government  the Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary. As the Republican Party is firmly under his control, the Congress is not expected to put any checks and balances on his powers. How do you look at this extraordinary concentration of power?

Its not the first time that all the three branches of government are in the hands of the same party. You cant avoid this now. The other two branches will not just be favourable to the president, but will be very obliging as well.

In the American system of government, separation of powers was made workable by checks and balances. These checks and balances may now suffer because the three branches of government are in the hands of the same ideology.

However, this is not the first time such a situation has arisen. George W Bush had benefited from this and there was a time when President Obama had benefited from this, but he had a Chief Justice who was conservative  John Roberts.

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To an extent, the current situation is unique, but that does not mean that there will be dictatorship. The American system of government does not permit a dictatorship. For example, even as Trump has spoken about deploying military at the border, its not possible to deploy the military on a whim. The United States is a federation of states, so states have vast law and order powers and the role of the federal government beyond national defence is very limited.

Trump appears to have a nearly unprecedented hold over the Republican Party that does not allow room for any diversity of opinion. As the Congress has often served as a check on the Executives power, how do you look at Trumps hold on his party?

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Trump had been wielding enormous power even when he was not president. House Speaker Mike Johnson was of course his nominee.

The Republican Party has changed under Trump. Its Trumps party.

While it was George HW Bush who first said that he would liberate the United States from special interests, he could not remove the influence of special interests of big businesses or evangelical groups on him or the Republican politics. The same was the case with his son George W Bush.

Trump is the only one who is actually eroding these interest groups. Instead of these groups dictating him, Trump seeks to dictate these groups to do his bidding.

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The way Trump works, his Cabinet may not even comprise his closest advisors. His closest advisors may be outside of the government, such as in the think tank Heritage Foundation which produced Project 2025. Again, instead of think tanks or interest groups shaping his policy, Trump is seeking to shape their behaviour. All of them are a means to an end  not the guiding hand or an influential voice as was the case previously. The same is true for the relationship between the Republican Party and Trump.

Is President-elect Trump really the most powerful US president?

What we are seeing in the United States now is not very different from what often happens in parliamentary democracies where the same party controls different branches of the government. Does that in itself mean there is a dictatorship?

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In the parliamentary system when a party wins an overwhelming majority like Trump has won, isnt the prime minister an all-powerful entity? Trump is almost in the same position.

When liberal presidents have such a system, alarm bells dont ring, so there should not be alarm just because there is a conservative president now.

Trump has emerged as the most hardliner leader on immigration and other issues lately. Do you think the extremist rhetoric around immigration would translate into policy?

Joe Biden was a Washington insider. He had been a senator for a very long time. He had also been vice president. So, he was part of the establishment. Trump was a billionaire businessman and a celebrity before he came into politics from outside. He is a completely different person.

The voters were done with a long period of unchecked illegal immigration and Democratic Partys rule. Trump understood it as an outsider. While the USA is a nation of immigrants, Trump emphasised that it is not a nation of illegal immigrants and would become so under four more years of Democrats rule.

Illegal immigration is an issue where Trump cannot compromise on. If need be, he would deploy the military at the border as he has said. To rally people around him, he resorted to threatening rhetoric but the most extreme words may not translate into policy unless something very drastic happens.

Even if Trump takes the extraordinary step of deploying the military to tackle illegal immigration or even domestic unrest as he has said, is it that drastic a step? Doesnt it happen in India too where the military is often deployed inside the country for non-war purposes?

As I said before, the United States is a federation. The military cannot be deployed just like that by bypassing the states.

Moreover, what appears as hardliner to many in the Washington establishment insiders is common with the voters that Trump understood as an outsider. For example, as crime has risen with rising illegal immigration, people have found a sense of security in guns. Hence, Trump and the Republicans support gun rights.

Coming to elections, what do you think happened? Wasnt it supposed to be a close race? Did late entry work against Kamala Harris?

This had to happen. The media had created a hype around Kamala Harris.

The US voters saw Kamala Harris as a usurper. In America, in either of the two parties, if the incumbent president seeks re-election, generally no party in the 20th century held him back. This is the first time that the incumbent, Biden, was forced to make way for Harris.

A presidential nominee has to prove themselves through primaries and caucuses by fighting against their rivals within the party. Harris didnt go through the process. She had no advantage and no preparation.

Trump and Republicans maintained throughout it would not be a close contest and thats how it turned out to be. He won all the battleground states and got votes from everyone whether Blacks, Hispanics, or women.

Does this mean Democrats have lost touch with common Americans?

It is wrong to say that Trump represents the business class since hes a billionaire. Instead, he clicks with common Americans  the workers class. He always talks about bringing manufacturing jobs back. Thats all common Americans want  blue-collar jobs.

Coming to Trumps foreign policy approach, is he really the isolationist that he is often dubbed as or is he set to seek a middle-ground of sorts between interventionism and isolationism? Has he fundamentally reshaped the foreign policy outlook of the Republicans?

Trumps foreign policy outlook is an extension of his America First domestic approach. Instead of isolationism, he has a nativist approach, the sons of the soil kind of politics.

In his New Nativism, the interests of America and citizens are placed above immigrants and foreigners. So, thats why Trump will not intervene abroad until it helps Americans.

Moreover, if you look at the history of the right wing, even immediately after the end of World War II, the interventionists of the right wing were a small section within the Republican Party. The party was isolationist in its worldview at the time.

The Cold War interventions were started by Democrats and were only later adopted by Republican leaders like George W Bush. For Trump, such interventionism is a waste of time, energy, and money.
US President-elect Donald Trump has named Elon Musk to head the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Although he has always been vocal about his views and opinions, Musk has taken multiple digs at global leaders since the announcement of the presidential election results read more

Elon Musk sits as US President-elect Donald Trump meets with House Republicans on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, November 13, 2024. Reuters

Billionaire businessman Elon Musk has been appointed to lead the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the new administration of US President-elect Donald Trump.

In his announcement, Trump revealed that Musk, along with Indian-American multi-millionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, will head the department, which aims to provide the White House with advice and guidance. The department will work alongside the Office of Management and Budget to drive large-scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.

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Musk, who has consistently been vocal on his social media platform X, has been directly hitting out against several global leaders and their politics.

ALSO READ | Why Elon Musk has become the guest who doesnt leave at Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago

From Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has been actively attacking a few leaders and their policies.

Lets take a look at some of these cases:

Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing increased scrutiny from Elon Musk, who, shortly after the US presidential election results, targeted Trudeau with a sharp prediction about his future.

Reacting to a post on X about Germanys socialist government collapsing, Musk wrote about Trudeau, He will be gone in the upcoming election, hinting at the incumbent PMs potential defeat in Canadas next federal election, scheduled on or before October 20, 2025.

Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gives remarks at a fundraiser at the Fairmont Hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, November 8, 2024. Reuters

Although Trudeau prepares to face opposition from Pierre Poilievres Conservative Party and Jagmeet Singhs New Democratic Party, his popularity is continuing to decline, while his challengers are gaining ground.

Meanwhile, relations between India and Canada have also deteriorated largely and New Delhi has raised strong objections over issues of extremism, violence, and anti-India activities in Canada, urging the authorities there to take action. Tensions escalated further after Canadian leaders made unsupported allegations regarding the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi also condemned what he described as a deliberate attack on a Hindu temple in Canada, calling it a cowardly attempt to intimidate.

ALSO READ | How online sexist attacks on US women are on the rise after Donald Trumps win

Musk vs Italys President

The worlds richest man also shifted his focus to Italian politics and criticised a recent court ruling in Rome that blocked Italys policy of deporting illegal migrants to detention centres in Albania. The ruling challenged Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Melonis plan to detain up to 30,000 migrants in Albanian facilities.

Do the people of Italy live in a democracy or does an unelected autocracy make the decisions? Musk posted on X, questioning the judges stance on Melonis deportation policy.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni smiles on the day she meets NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at Chigi Palace in Rome, Italy, November 5, 2024. Reuters

The controversy emerged after a Rome court refused to detain seven migrants who had been rescued at sea and were due to be transferred to Albania. Instead, the men were sent to Italy for processing, marking the second time Italian judges have blocked efforts to deport migrants to Albania. Melonis government, led by the far-right Brothers of Italy party, criticised the judiciarys decision, accusing politicised magistrates of undermining Italys borders.

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In a rare statement, Italian President Sergio Mattarella advised Musk to stay out of Italian affairs. Widely respected in Italy, Mattarella stated, Italy is a great democratic country and  knows how to take care of itself. He added, Anyone, particularly if, as announced, he is about to assume an important role of government in a friendly and allied country, must respect its sovereignty and cannot give himself the task of issuing it instructions.

In response, Musk issued a statement via his Italian representative Andrea Stroppa, expressing respect for Mattarella and Italys constitution but reaffirming his right to freely express his opinions.

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Musk also mentioned a friendly call with Meloni, where he hoped for stronger Italian-US relations and said he looked forward to meeting Mattarella soon.

Germanys Olaf Scholz

Elon Musk recently criticised German Chancellor Olaf Scholz after his coalition government collapsed following months of disputes between coalition partners. The coalition, which included the Free Democrats (FDP), fell apart when the FDP demanded deep spending cuts that left-leaning coalition members could not support.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the lower house of parliament, Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, November 7, 2024. Reuters/File Photo

Shortly after the collapse, Musk wrote on X, calling Scholz a fool in German - Olaf ist ein Narr, meaning Olaf is a fool.

What is Musks job in Trumps new administration?

In the Trump administration, Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, will co-lead the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency.

This department will offer advice and guidance on making the government more efficient and reducing spending, with Trump suggesting the department might operate similarly to a blue-ribbon commission.

Though exact details are still unclear, the department could fall under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which would require it to function transparently and with public accountability.

Notably, Trump has described Musk as a potential cost cutter who could help identify savings of up to $2 trillion, nearly one-third of annual federal spending. However, given Musks other ventures, Trump has clarified Musks role would not be full-time.

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At a rally in Michigan in September, Trump 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.

He said the waste in this country is crazy. And were going to get Elon Musk to be our cost cutter.

With inputs from agencies
Republican congressman from Florida Matt Gaetz resigned from the House of Representatives shortly after President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would be the next US Attorney General. Gaetzs resignation puts the House Ethics Committees investigation into his sexual misconduct to an abrupt end read more

Republican congressman from Florida Matt Gaetz resigned from the US House of Representatives, shortly after he was named by President-elect Donald Trump as the next US Attorney General. US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson announced Gaetzs resignation on Wednesday and said that it will be effective immediately.

The resignation, which came hours after Gaetzs AG nod, was described by Johnson as a way to speed up the process of filling the House Republicans seat. The House speaker made it clear that the party would not like to be one member down in the narrow majority the GOP has acquired for next year.

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Johnson stated that Gaetzs decision to resign early caught us by surprise a little bit. The speaker of the house went on to call Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday to discuss plans to fill the vacant seat. It is pertinent to note that the Florida state law allows DeSantis to set the timeline for replacing House members through special elections.

I think, out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately, of Congress, Johnson said. That caught us by surprise a little bit, but I asked him what the reasoning was and he said, well, you cant have too many absences, so under Florida state law theres about an eight-week period to select and fill a vacant seat, he added.

The Speaker of the House insisted that the party is hopeful that the seat could be filled by January 3, when the new Congress is sworn in.

The bigger issue with Gaetzs immediate resignation

However, one of the major impacts of Gaetzs resignation is the fact that the House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz, which was in its final stages, will now come to a dead end. It is important to note that the panel will no longer have jurisdiction to investigate Gaetz since he is no longer a member of Congress. Hence, the findings of the committee will never see the light of the day.

Once a member is no longer a member of Congress, then Ethics has no jurisdiction, House Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) told reporters on Wednesday after Gaetz received the attorney general nod, The Hill reported. So if Matt Gaetz were to be appointed as the attorney general, the Ethics investigation that is currently ongoing would cease at that point.

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Gaetz is also facing an investigation from the House Ethics Committee after it was alleged that he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favours to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.

The congressional probe opened in 2021 after news reports emerged that the Department of Justice (DOJ) was reportedly investigating whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl. The Florida lawmaker has denied all wrongdoings.

After the DOJ declined to charge him for the crimes, Gaetz went on to state that he would no longer voluntarily participate in the nosy Ethics probe and would not comply with its subpoena, accusing the panel of asking him for a list of adult women with whom hed had sex over the last seven years. On Wednesday, Johnson announced that he was not sure if the Ethics Committee would release a report on Gaetz given its lack of jurisdiction now that he is no longer in Congress.

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With inputs from agencies.
Donald Trump has nominated Matt Gaetz, a hard-right Congressman from Florida, for the post of US Attorney General. However, this decision has caught many, including Republicans, on the back foot, who have termed the US president-elects choice as not serious. Heres why read more

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Matt Gaetz to serve as his attorney general, tapping the combative Florida Republican to the key post. File image/AP

US President-elect Donald Trump knows how to shock people. And his selection for the US attorney general has not only stunned experts and the common American man but also members of his own party, the Republicans.

On the day that he met US President Joe Biden at the White House, Trump also announced that he chose Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida to serve as his attorney general. In a statement on Wednesday (November 13), the US president-elect said Gaetz is a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney and that the conservative lawmaker will end weaponised government as head of the Justice Department.

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While Trumps picks so far have received muted reactions, Trumps choice of Gaetz has evoked strong responses from even his own party members, with one going as far as saying, are you sh***ing me?

We take a closer look at who exactly is Matt Gaetz and why Trumps selection of him has baffled Republicans.

Trump picks Gaetz for AG

On Wednesday, Trump announced firebrand Matt Gaetz as his pick for attorney general. As attorney general, Gaetz would drive all aspects of the work of the Justice Department  a department, which he alleges, was weaponised under President Joe Biden.

The Justice Department is crucial to Trump, as it will help enforce his policy on immigration, reproductive health and the political retribution he vowed on the campaign trail.

In a statement on his Truth Social account earlier in the day, Trump called Gaetz a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney and said he has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice.

After he was put forward for attorney general, Gaetz tendered his resignation from the House of Representatives, effective immediately, House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters. Gaetz celebrated his nomination, calling it an honour to serve as President Trumps Attorney General.

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US Representative Matt Gaetz has been a long-time ally of Donald Trump. File image/Reuters

Gaetz  a controversial choice

Forty-two year-old Gaetz has been a long-time ally of Trump and has been a US congressman since 2017.

In 2018, he was severely criticised when he invited a Holocaust denier to Trumps State of the Union address. A year later, he even hired a speechwriter who had been fired by the Trump White House after speaking at a conference that attracted white nationalists.

Gaetz also supported Trump during his New York criminal trial. He was among the many Republican politicians who sat in on the proceedings. Hes also been a defender of Trump on the television. At Trumps June debate with President Joe Biden, Gaetz was at the forefront in the spin room, talking up Trumps successes.

He was also among the many who helped Trump prepare for his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.

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Gaetz also led the charge in removing his fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy as House speaker last October. Gaetz and seven other House Republicans joined Democrats in voting to remove McCarthy, kicking off a weeks-long scramble to find a new speaker.

Like Trump, Gaetz also has legal troubles to his name. Until his resignation, the House Ethics Committee was investigating allegations that he was part of a scheme that led to the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl.

However, Gaetzs resignation from the House ends any House ethics investigation against him. We only have jurisdiction, meaning the Ethics Committee, as long as a person is a member of Congress, said Representative Michael Guest, the chair of the House Ethics Committee, to reporters earlier in the day.

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U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) stands at Manhattan Criminal Court as former US President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media next to his attorney Todd Blanche, amid Trumps trial in New York. File image/Reuters

Republicans express shock

While Trump has selected Gaetz for Attorney General, his role will need approval from the Senate, which may not be smooth sailing.

Many Republicans believe that Gaetz will have trouble getting the numbers he wants. Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said it will be a significant challenge for Gaetz to win enough votes to be confirmed.

I dont think its a serious nomination for the attorney general. Thats Lisa Murkowskis view, Murkowski said. We need to have a serious attorney general. And Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.

Republican Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho, said, Are you sh***ing me? when asked for his initial reaction to Gaetzs selection.

There may be obstacles in confirming Gaetz to the attorney general position. Many Republicans have expressed concerns over Trumps nomination. File image/Reuters

Maine Senator Susan Collins has expressed concerns about Gaetzs selection. Speaking to Punchbowl News reporter Max Cohen, she said, I was shocked at the nomination. Im sure that there will be many, many questions raised at Gaetzs hearing.

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Senator Kevin Cramer from North Dakota said Gaetzs prospects of getting confirmed were a long shot, adding that its very possible Trump is testing the limits of how far he can push the Senate.

Republican congressman Max Miller of Ohio told Axios that Gaetz has a better shot at having dinner with Queen Elizabeth II than being confirmed by the Senate. He was also quoted as telling Politico that Gaetz is a reckless pick with a zero per cent shot.

John Bolton, who served as Trumps national security adviser, even went as far as saying that Gaetz must be the worst nomination for a Cabinet position in American history.

Gaetz is not only totally incompetent for this job, he doesnt have the character. He is a person of moral turpitude, Bolton said in an interview with NBC News.

Democrats flummoxed

Trumps choice of Gaetz has even baffled the Democrats. Senator Chris Coons, who serves on the Judiciary Committee, was quoted as saying, You can record me as speechless.

It seems like a highly surprising, even bizarre choice that is likely to be met with a lot of scepticism on both sides of the aisle, Senator Richard Blumenthal said. I think there will be some very deep-seated doubt about his ability to fairly and wisely manage the very powerful law enforcement and prosecutorial system of our nation.

With inputs from agencies
President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he would nominate Democratic Lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard as the next Director of National Intelligence. In the past, Gabbard has slammed the Biden administrations handling of global conflicts read more

President-elect Donald Trump stirred headlines once again after he announced that he would nominate former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as the US Director of National Intelligence after he returns to office next year. The erstwhile Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii shifted her political allegiance after she failed to secure the liberal partys presidential nomination during the 2020 elections.

After assuming the role, Gabbard will oversee all 18 US national agencies. Lauding Gabbards stellar record, Trump said that she has broad support from both political parties. I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength, he said. Tulsi will make us all proud! he added.

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While filling the top brass of the US government, Trump has leaned towards picking his loyalists, overlooking the fact that some of them might not have national security credentials. One of the prime examples of this is the nomination of Pete Hegseth for secretary of defence on Tuesday.

It is pertinent to note that Hegseth was a Fox News host and veteran of the Army National Guard. While he has been a vocal defender of Trump, he has no senior military or national security experience.

Gabbard might shape Trumps international playbook

Gabbard created history in 2012 after she became the first Hindu elected to the House of Representatives in 2012. She is also a combat veteran and a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserve. As a director of national intelligence, the lawmaker from Hawaii might play a leading role in shaping the Trump administrations playbook.

In the past, Gabbard has been vocal in her criticism of US President Joe Bidens response to the conflicts that have taken over the world. This administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts in regions around the world and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before, she said while stumping for Trump at a campaign rally, adding it was one of the main reasons she was backing Trump this year.

I am confident that his first task will be to do the work to walk us back from the brink of war, she added. The new Republican lawmaker has slammed Bidens support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Not only this, while Gabbard was part of the US House of Representatives, she emerged as a vocal critic of the Obama administrations intervention in the war in Syria.

In 2017, she received major backlash for visiting Syria and holding talks with the countrys President Bashar al-Assad, who has been accused of myriad human rights abuses throughout the war.

With inputs from agencies.
Bill Ackman is the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management. The 58-year-old activist investor, who has a personal net worth of $9 billion and over a million followers on X, has sought to inject himself into several hot-button topics on social media. He previously attacked his alumnus Harvard and its former president Claudine Gay as well as threatened to sue a media outlet for publishing a story about his wife read more

Like some other billionaires, Ackman seems to have taken a right-wing turn in recent years. Reuters

Billionaire Bill Ackman is making waves again.

The Donald Trump backer has compared Americas prestigious Yale University to Hamas.

Ackman previously attacked Harvard University as well as the media outlet Business Insider.

Ackman, taking to X, said he was asked to write a letter of recommendation for an unnamed friends daughter for Yale University.

Ackman said that he would not be doing so and claimed that the Ivy League University potentially even more dangerous than Hamas.

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You wouldnt ask me to write a letter of recommendation for her admission to Hamas. But Yale is no different than Hamas, a cult that abides no disagreement, and a cult certain of its purpose and mission beyond reflection. Yale is potentially even more dangerous. Hamas will be defeated shortly. Yale will continue to send its graduates into positions of power for years, the post states.

A recent study at Harvard found that roughly 50% of the students and professors wouldnt discuss uncomfortable topics. An essential life skill is the ability to change your mind. She wont learn that at any Ivy league school. Their reputations are still so strong that their faculty, staff and graduates all possess the arrogant certainty of religious fanatics, Ackman added.

I am sorry to disappoint you. I wish her the best in her search for a school.

But who is Ackman? Why is he comparing Yale University to a terrorist group?

Lets take a close look

Who is he?

Ackman is a hedge fund manager.

He has a personal net worth of around $9 billion, as per Forbes.

The 58-year-old is the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management.

As per Forbes, the firm, which he formed in 2024, currently manages assets worth $15 billion.

Pershing Square is an investment holding company in which Ackman and his family own a 23 per cent stake.

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It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Pershing Square Capital Management has stock in a number of big companies including Chipotle, Hilton and Alphabet.

Ackman went to Harvard University from which he received a Bachelors Degree  and then went to Harvard Business School from where he got a Master of Business Administration.

As per Vox, Ackman is known as an activist investor.

This essentially means he buys stakes in companies and with his power calls for changes or attempts to push them through.

Investor Carl Icahn once said of Ackman, Hes the quintessential example of if you want a friend on Wall Street, get a dog.

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Ackman, speaking to The New York Times, described himself thus, If I think Im right, I can be the most persistent and most relentless person in America.

Ackman is married to ex-MIT professor Neri Oxman  who was once linked to actor Brad Pitt.

They have three children.

Why is he comparing Yale University to a terror group?

Like some other billionaires, Ackman seems to have taken a right-wing turn in recent years.

Ackman has also become a devoted supporter of Donald Trump  endorsing him for president in the 2024 campaign.

Ackman is no longer limiting his activism to investing.

Ackman, who has over a million followers, has sought to inject himself into a number of topics on social media.

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Ackman led a public and high-profile campaign against ex-Harvard president Claudine Gay who was plagued by accusations of plagiarism and antisemitism.

The academic career of Gay, Harvards first Black president, career came under intense scrutiny by conservative activists who unearthed several instances of alleged plagiarism in her 1997 doctoral dissertation.

The Harvard Corporation, Harvards governing board, initially rallied behind Gay, saying a review of her scholarly work turned up a few instances of inadequate citation but no evidence of research misconduct.

Days later, the Harvard Corporation said it found two additional examples of duplicative language without appropriate attribution.

Claudine Gay ultimately stepped down as Harvard president. Reuters

Gay was also taken to task by her handling of the Israel issue on campus in the aftermath of the October 7 attack by Hamas.

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Taking to X before Gay resigned, Ackman wrote Harvard was unwilling to acknowledge that they made a bad choice of leader and that they can only restore the universitys status as one of the worlds leading academic centers when the Corporation board members acknowledge that they made a bad choice of leader.

When your CEO has done the indefensible, you must take immediate action to replace her. If you dont, you become culpable in what was initially only her failures, Ackman wrote.

He claimed Harvard was refusing to fire Gay because doing so would look like they were kowtowing to me.

Ackman also accused Harvard of mismanaging and wasting some of his gifts.

Ackman has criticised Harvard for not doing enough to protect its students from antisemitism incidents in the wake of the October attack by the militant Islamist Palestinian group Hamas on Israel and subsequent Israeli military operations in Gaza.

He called for publicly releasing the names of students who blamed Israel and its policies for the October 7 attack and vowed not to hire them.

He also demanded that a student newspaper editor be suspended.

Ackman has also taken aim at the universitys adoption of diversity and inclusion programs he argues stifle meritocracy.

As per Vox, Ackman claims DEI is not about diversity in its purest form but rather a political advocacy movement on behalf of certain groups that are deemed oppressed under DEIs own methodology.

He says DEI unfairly paints any merit-based program, system, or organisation.

Ironically, Ackmans own father went to Harvard  a university famous for its legacy admissions.

Ackman has also taken flak from his critics.

Ben Eidelson, a professor at Harvard Law School, told The New York Times that Ackman was an interloper,

We cant function as a university if were answerable to random rich guys and the mobs they mobilize on Twitter, Eidelson added.

Joshua Sanes, a neuroscience professor at Harvard, said, Hes using his wealth to bully the university to change their politics in accordance with his political agenda.

Ackmans wife has also been accused of plagiarism.

A Business Insider story, published on January 4,, noted that Ackman had seized on revelations about Gays work to back his efforts against her  but that the organisations journalists found a similar pattern of plagiarism by Oxman. A second piece, published the next day, said Oxman had stolen sentences and paragraphs from Wikipedia, fellow scholars and technical documents in a 2010 doctoral dissertation at MIT.

Ackman, taking to X, wrote a long screed against the outlet.

Ackman complained that it was a low blow to attack someones family in such a manner and said Business Insider reporters gave him less than two hours to respond to the accusations.

He also suggested an editor there was anti-semitic. Ackman and his wife are both Jewish.

Ackman said his wife admitted to four missing quotation marks and one missed footnote in a 330-page dissertation. He said the articles could have literally killed his wife if not for the support of her family and friends.

She has suffered severe emotional harm, he wrote on X, and as an introvert, it has been very, very difficult for her to make it through each day.

He also seemed to publicly threaten Axel Springer, the German media company that owns the publication.

Business Insider and Axel Springers liability just goes up and up and up, Ackman wrote on X. This is what they consider fair, accurate and well-documented reporting with appropriate timing. Incredible.

Ackman then reached out in protest to board members at both Business Insider and Axel Springer.

That led to Axel Springer telling The New York Times that questions had been raised about the motivation behind the articles and the reporting process, and the company promised to conduct a review.

However, Business Insider ultimately stood by its reporting.

CEO Barbara Peng issued a statement saying there was no unfair bias or personal, political and/or religious motivation in pursuit of the story.

Regardless, Ackman seems to be relishing his time in the spotlight.

We live in a world in which people are afraid to speak the truth, he told The New York Times. Ive gotten calls from some of the most prominent people in the world who say, I wish I could say what youre saying.

With inputs from agencies
US President-elect Donald Trump has picked Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat and the first Hindu in the US Congress, as his new director of national intelligence. Trump described the 43-year-old as a proud Republican who can bring her fearless spirit into the intelligence community. Although Gabbard is a US Army veteran, she has never served in senior roles in intelligence agencies read more

Gabbard, a former Democrat, has been critical of Biden and his administration, accusing her former party of being controlled by an 'elitist cabal of warmongers' and pushing 'woke' ideologies. AFP

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic Congresswoman and the first Hindu in the US Congress, as his new director of national intelligence.

At 43, Gabbard will step into the pivotal role of overseeing the nations intelligence agencies while serving as the presidents chief adviser on security matters. Once viewed as a potential running mate for Donald Trump, Gabbard is now tasked with leading the intelligence community.

In a statement on Wednesday, Trump described Gabbard as a proud Republican who can bring her fearless spirit into the intelligence community.

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As a former Candidate for the Democrat Presidential Nomination, she has broad support in both Parties - She is now a proud Republican! Trump said.

Trump described Gabbard as a proud Republican who can bring her fearless spirit into the intelligence community. AFP

I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our intelligence community, championing our constitutional rights and securing peace through strength, he added.

But who exactly is Tulsi Gabbard, and what makes her stand out? Heres a closer look.

She is the first Hindu Congresswoman

Tulsi Gabbard was born in American Samoa, a US territory, and raised in Hawaii, with a brief stint in the Philippines during her childhood.

She entered politics at a young age, securing a seat in Hawaiis House of Representatives at just 21. However, her political career took a pause after one term.

Gabbard later returned to politics, winning a seat in Congress to represent Hawaii. She made history as the first Hindu member of the US House, taking her oath of office with her hand on the Bhagavad Gita. Additionally, she was the first American Samoan to be elected to Congress.

Former US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard attends a campaign rally of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., November 4, 2024. File Image/ Reuters

Due to her first name, Gabbard is often mistakenly thought to have Indian heritage, but she has no direct connection to India. Her mother converted to Hinduism and chose Hindu names for all her children.

Her father, Mike Gabbard, is a state senator who began his career as a Republican before switching to the Democratic Party.

Now 43, Gabbard is married to Abraham Williams, a cinematographer.

Throughout her four terms in the House, she gained a reputation for challenging her partys leadership. Her early endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries earned her recognition as a key figure in national progressive politics.

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Also read: Trump names Mike Waltz in Cabinet: Who else is in? Who is rumoured to join?

She once ran for presidential nomination race

In 2020, Tulsi Gabbard ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, voicing strong opposition to US military involvement overseas.

She was vocal in criticising her own party for failing to resist these conflicts, contending that Americas wars in West Asia had not only destabilised the region but also compromised national security and cost thousands of American lives.

During a primary debate, Gabbard made headlines by challenging Kamala Harris, then a senator, over her prosecutorial record. Eventually, Gabbard withdrew from the presidential race, throwing her support behind Joe Biden, who went on to win the election.

In 2020, Tulsi Gabbard ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, voicing strong opposition to US military involvement overseas. File Image. AFP

By 2022, Gabbard had severed her ties with the Democratic Party. Her criticisms of Biden and his administration grew sharper, accusing her former party of being controlled by an elitist cabal of warmongers and pushing woke ideologies.

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Todays Democratic Party is unrecognisable from the party I joined 20 years ago, she explained to AP when discussing her decision to leave.

She prepped Trump for his presidential debate against Harris

After leaving the Democratic Party, Gabbard initially appeared alongside Robert F Kennedy Jr, who had launched a challenge against Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination before switching to an independent candidacy. Ultimately, she chose to endorse Republican leader Donald Trump.

Gabbard played an active role in Trumps campaign, assisting him in preparation for his debate against Kamala Harris earlier this year.

Gabbard played an active role in Trumps campaign, assisting him in preparation for his debate against Kamala Harris earlier this year. File image/ AFP

In October, during a rally in North Carolina where she joined Trump on stage, Gabbard officially announced her decision to become a Republican.

She is a US Army veteran but has no intelligence background

Gabbard has an Army background having served as a member of the National Guard for over 20 years, with deployments in West Asia including Iraq and Kuwait.

In 2005, she was awarded a Combat Medical Badge for participation in combat operations under enemy hostile fire in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom III, according to the Hawaii National Guard.

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Unlike her predecessors, Gabbard lacks a background in senior government roles, although she did serve two years on the House Homeland Security Committee.

Currently, she holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserves.

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Despite her lengthy military service, Gabbard has limited direct experience with intelligence work, and her appointment to this key role was largely unexpected.

The outgoing director, Avril Haines, took on the position in 2021 after holding several top roles in national security and intelligence. Haines made history as the first woman to occupy the post.

Gabbards selection comes as President-elect Trump continues to fill his Cabinet with his loyalists aligning with his views, rather than long-term professionals in their requisite fields.

With input from agencies
The legislation is expected to have mixed economic effects. In the short term, regions dependent on coal mining may face job losses and economic challenges read more

The UK government, under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, has decided to ban new coal mines in the country. Image sources: Reuters

The United Kingdom announced Thursday (November 14) it will introduce legislation to ban new coal mines, part of the Labour governments push to make Britain a global leader in clean energy.

The government plans to unveil the law to block future coal mining licenses as soon as possible, calling it a crucial step in tackling climate change.

The move comes on the heels of the October closure of Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Britains last coal-fired power station, making the UK the first G7 nation to eliminate coal from its power grid.

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In September, a British court overturned a permit for a new coal mine in Whitehaven, Cumbria, a project initially approved by the former Conservative government to produce metallurgical coal for steelmaking  marking what would have been the countrys first new coal mine in 30 years.

Labour, which won the July election with a climate-forward platform, has pledged to decarbonise Britains electricity grid by 2030.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, speaking at a UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, announced plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 81 per cent from 1990 levels by 2035 as part of the countrys path to net-zero by 2050.

How will the ban impact UKs economy?

The legislation may have mixed economic effects. In the short term, regions dependent on coal mining may face job losses and economic challenges.

However, the government plans to invest in retraining programs to help workers transition to emerging green industries.

Long-term benefits include increased investment in renewable energy infrastructure, fostering innovation, and enhancing the UKs international competitiveness in green technologies.

Additionally, reducing reliance on fossil fuel imports may improve energy security and stabilise energy prices over time.

All in all, the transition may lead to initial rises in energy costs and require substantial public investment. Nevertheless, the shift is projected to drive economic growth through new industries and export opportunities in clean technologies.

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Environmental and public health improvements from reduced pollution are also expected to lower healthcare costs and boost overall quality of life.

With inputs from agencies
The World Bank said on Thursday the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has caused $8.5 billion in damage and losses to Lebanon, with final figures expected to be significantly higher as the conflict continues read more

People ride a scooter past damaged buildings, in the aftermath of Israeli strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, during a Hezbollah media tour, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, Lebanon, on November 9, 2024. Reuters File

The World Bank said on Thursday that the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has caused $8.5 billion in damage and losses to Lebanon, with the final tally expected to rise significantly as the conflict persists.

Triggered by the Gaza war, the conflict had been simmering for nearly a year before Israel launched a full-scale offensive in September, bombarding Lebanon with airstrikes and deploying troops to the south.

Lebanon is facing an estimated $5.1 billion in economic losses over the next 12 months, primarily due to severe impacts on commerce, tourism, and agriculture.

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Direct physical damage in Lebanon is at least $3.4 billion, reported Reuters, citing the World Banks Damage and Loss Assessment.

The analysis also projects that Lebanons real GDP will shrink by at least 5.7% in 2024 due to the ongoing conflict, a stark contrast to the 0.9% growth expected in a scenario without the war. This setback adds to the countrys ongoing economic crisis, which has already seen a staggering 34% contraction in GDP over the past five years.

This compounds five years of sustained sharp economic contraction in Lebanon that has exceeded 34% of real GDP, losing the equivalent of 15 years economic growth, Reuters quoted the World Bank as saying.

Housing is the sector with the most reported damage, estimated at $2.8 billion, with over 99,000 housing units partially or fully damaged, according to the World Bank.

Agriculture, which has been particularly affected in the southern regions of Lebanon, lost over $1.1 billion over 12 months, driven by lost harvest caused by destruction of crops and livestock and displacement of farmers, the report said.

Commerce accounted for $178 million in damage, with economic losses estimated at $1.7 billion, the education sector losses are estimated at $215 million, while the environment has incurred $221 million in damage, it added.

The health sector has suffered losses estimated at $338 million, while tourism and hospitality, one of Lebanons main economic drivers, have incurred losses of $1.1 billion, according to the World Bank report.

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The conflict is having broader social and environmental implications in Lebanon and has exacerbated food insecurity, the report said.

With inputs from agencies
Massive offshore PV project starts power generation in China

Xinhua) 10:44, November 14, 2024

BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- China's first gigawatt-level open-sea offshore photovoltaic (PV) project, developed by state-owned energy firm CHN Energy, successfully connected its first batch of PV units to the grid on Wednesday.

The project is located 8 km off the eastern coast of Dongying City in Shandong Province, and covers an area of more than 1,200 hectares.

With a total installed capacity of 1 gigawatt, the project, upon completion, is expected to generate nearly 1.8 billion kWh of power annually, enough to meet the annual electricity needs of more than 2.6 million urban residents. This is equivalent to saving an estimated half a million tonnes of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1.3 million tonnes a year, according to the company.

The company said this project also marked the first time in China that a 66-kilovolt offshore cable paired with an onshore cable had been used for high-capacity, long-distance transmission in the PV sector.

It said the project would serve as a model for the development of large-scale offshore PV projects in the industry.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
FBI Arrests Alleged Leaker Of U.S. Intelligence Related To Israel's Attack Plans Against Iran

By RFE/RL November 13, 2024

The U.S. Justice Department has charged a man for allegedly leaking highly classified U.S. intelligence about Israel's plans for retaliation against Iran, according to U.S. media reports on November 13. The reports said that Asif W. Rahman was indicted earlier this month for willfully transmitting national defense information. He was arrested on November 12 in Cambodia by the FBI and was to appear in court in Guam. Court documents indicate that he was employed by the U.S. government. According to a person familiar with his employment, he was employed by the CIA. This employment gave him a top-secret security clearance and allowed him to access sensitive information. The New York Times, which first reported the story, said that Rahman was indicted on a charge related to the posting of the intelligence on Telegram in mid-October. The documents posted included Israeli plans for moving munitions and Israeli Air Force exercises involving air-to-surface missiles.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-israel-intelligence-arrest- rahman-fbi-leak/33200951.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.

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Suspected Chinese hack of US telecoms reveals broader plot

By Jeff Seldin November 13, 2024

A hack of U.S. telecommunications systems linked to China that initially appeared to focus on the American presidential campaigns goes much deeper, according to investigators, and is likely part of a vast effort by Beijing to spy on the United States.

The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned on Wednesday that the breach first detected late last month has now "revealed a broad and significant cyber espionage campaign."

The two agencies said in a statement that their investigation has confirmed Chinese-linked hackers compromised the networks of multiple U.S. telecommunication companies, gaining access to a potential treasure trove of information.

Specifically, they said the hackers would have been able to access customer call records and infiltrate the private communications of a select number of government officials and politicians.

Additionally, the hackers appear to have been able to copy information requested by U.S. law enforcement as a result of court orders.

"We expect our understanding of these compromises to grow as the investigation continues," the FBI and CISA said.

"We encourage any organization that believes it might be a victim to engage its local FBI field office or CISA," they added.

The two agencies first announced they were investigating a breach of U.S. telecommunications systems in late October, less than two weeks before U.S. voters cast their ballots in nationwide elections.

Word of the breach followed a report by The New York Times that Chinese hackers were thought to have broken into telecommunications networks to target the campaign of President-elect Donald Trump  including phones used by Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance.

The Trump campaign confirmed the breach in a statement to VOA. Separately, a person familiar with the investigation told VOA that people affiliated with the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris were also targeted.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington at the time dismissed the U.S. hacking allegations as disinformation, calling the U.S. "the origin and the biggest perpetrator of cyberattacks."

The embassy has yet to respond to the latest FBI and CISA allegations.

U.S. intelligence agencies warned for months that foreign adversaries were using a combination of cyberattacks and influence operations to meddle with the November 5 U.S. presidential election.

In addition, reports issued by private cybersecurity firms indicated a significant uptick in activity by actors linked to Russia, China and Iran.

All three nations have repeatedly denied accusations of election meddling.

U.S. agencies, led by CISA and the FBI, have long warned that China-linked hackers have burrowed into U.S. computer systems and networks, in some cases hiding for years.

The China-linked group, known as Volt Typhoon, has been "positioning itself to launch destructive cyberattacks that would jeopardize the physical safety of Americans," according to an advisory issued in February.

"What we've found to date is likely the tip of the iceberg," CISA Director Jen Easterly said in a statement at the time.

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U.S. Central Command Forces Strike Iranian Aligned Targets in Syria in Response to Attacks on U.S. Personnel on 12 November

U.S. Central Command

Press Release | Nov. 12, 2024

USCENTCOM

Nov. 12, 2024

Release Number 20241112-01

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TAMPA, Fla. -- Today, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted strikes against an Iranian-backed militia group's weapons storage and logistics headquarters facility. These strikes were in response to a rocket attack on U.S. personnel at Patrol Base Shaddadi.

There was no damage to U.S. facilities and no injuries to U.S. or partner forces during the attack.

These strikes will degrade the Iranian backed groups' ability to plan and launch future attacks on U.S. and Coalition forces who are in the region to conduct D-ISIS operations.

"We have made it clear that attacks on U.S. personnel, partner forces and facilities will not be tolerated and that we retain the right to defend ourselves. U.S. Central Command, alongside our regional partners, will aggressively pursue any threat to US forces, allies, partners, and security in the region," said Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, CENTCOM commander.

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Designation of a New Prime Minister in Haiti

US Department of State

Press Statement

Matthew Miller, Department Spokesperson

November 12, 2024

Following intensive discussions with the parties, the United States recognizes that the Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) in Haiti and Prime Minister Garry Conille were unable to move forward in a constructive manner, and we take note of the TPC's decision to name his successor. The United States looks forward to working with newly appointed Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime and the TPC to advance progress against urgent priorities in the coming months. The United States also thanks former prime minister Conille for his distinguished service to his country.

The United States welcomes the commitment of the TPC and new prime minister to release a joint action plan that outlines their vision to improve security and governance, and to set a path toward free and fair elections. The United States views it as vital that they clearly delineate the roles and responsibilities of the TPC vis-a-vis the prime minister and include measures to hold one another accountable as appropriate while preventing further gridlock.

It is also imperative to promote accountability within the TPC to maintain credibility with the Haitian people and the international community. The acute and immediate needs of the Haitian people mandate that the transitional government prioritize governance over the competing personal interests of political actors.

The United States remains steadfastly committed to supporting the Haitian people, who face historic levels of violence, food insecurity, and displacement.

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FRCE Inducts First Navy CMV-22B For Maintenance

US Navy

12 November 2024

From Heather Wilburn, Fleet Readiness Center East

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION CHERRY POINT, N.C. -- Fleet Readiness Center East (FRCE) met a new milestone with the induction of its first Navy CMV-22B Osprey for maintenance Aug. 21. With receipt of this aircraft, the depot now services all three variants of the V-22 platform, which also include the Marine Corps MV-22B and the Air Force CV-22.

The CMV-22B is the newest member of the Osprey family, entering service in June 2020 on the West Coast and April 2024 on the East Coast. In comparison, the Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey has been in use since achieving initial operational capability in 2007, and the Air Force CV-22 variant has been in operational use since 2009. FRCE will take on responsibility for the Navy's East Coast-based CMV-22B fleet.

FRCE Commanding Officer Capt. Randy J. Berti said the new workload comes in as a direct result of the quality workmanship the command is known for across the board.

"FRC East's maintenance of all three variants of the V-22 Osprey, for three different branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, really highlights the reputation for excellence our artisans, engineers and support staff have built," Berti said. "I couldn't be more proud that the Navy is entrusting us with this new mission. Every day, our workforce strives to provide high-quality service to the fleet at the best possible cost, and our success in that effort leads to the mutual trust and respect we have with our customers - our nation's warfighters. The work we do here makes a real-world difference for them."

The Navy is fielding the CMV-22B for long-range, medium-lift aerial logistics capabilities, including the carrier onboard delivery (COD) mission. Like all V-22 aircraft, the tiltrotor, vertical/short takeoff and landing aircraft can take off and land as a helicopter but transit as a turboprop aircraft, and is capable of shore-based, "expeditionary" or sea-based operations. Its features include an extended operational range compared to the MV-22B, and the aircraft offers increased mission flexibility over the Navy's legacy C-2A Greyhound, which it is replacing.

FRCE V-22 Branch Head Allen Williamson said the depot will provide Planned Maintenance Interval (PMI) 1 service to the CMV-22B aircraft. He anticipates the work scope will closely mirror the PMI-1 evolutions already performed on the MV-22B, which the depot has serviced since 2009, at Marine Corps Air Stations Cherry Point and New River, and the Air Force CV-22 variant at FRCE's detachment at Hurlburt Field, Florida.

"While the CMV-22B does have some additional capabilities, the maintenance specifications largely remain the same between the Navy and Marine Corps variants of the Osprey," he said. "The CMV-22B aircraft is structurally identical to the MV-22B, with the exception of the stub wing fuel tanks. Those tanks on the Navy aircraft are actually quite a bit larger, to provide that extra flight range needed for carrier delivery operations.

"There are very, very low flight hours on these initial CMV-22 aircraft we'll be receiving, so they're essentially in new condition," Williamson continued. "We presume the work scope is going to build in the future, based on the theater they'll be operating in. The Navy has indicated they plan to deploy the aircraft on ships, which is a harsh environment, and they will be high-use aircraft. With that in mind, I believe there will be a learning curve in regard to what condition we can expect to see these aircraft in as they come in for maintenance in the future, based on the environmental factors."

Williamson said his guidance to the artisans on the production line is to approach the CMV-22B maintenance as if it were a new capability, rather than an extension of the familiar workload. This will give the team the opportunity to look at the aircraft and its needs with fresh eyes, rather than with preexisting expectations, he added.

"Obviously, the instructions should marry over fairly well - everything, we presume, is the same," Williamson explained. "But especially with this first aircraft, we're emphasizing to the team that they should take their time and really explore whether there are any additional differences in the aircraft itself, of the way we work it versus how we would work an MV."

At the moment, Williamson said, the biggest difference in CMV-22B depot-level maintenance appears be the aircraft's paint job - the newer variant uses a different type of paint than the standard MV-22B and, as a Navy aircraft, has different markings than the Marine Corps version.

"The aircraft uses a high-gloss paint, so the prep and the application are going to be a little bit different than what we're used to with the standard MV-22B," said Paint and Clean Branch Head Matt Sinsel. "There will be some differences in the masking process, because the paint scheme is a little higher-profile than the standard grey Ospreys.

"Spraying high gloss is nothing new for the our team; we do it with the Marine Helicopter Squadron 1 Ospreys, and we do it with the white-top H-1 helicopters for the Air Force, and the State Department H-46 helicopters," he added. "But there will be some differences, and there will be some learning involved."

Sinsel said the unique paint scheme of the CMV-22B also gives his team another opportunity to use the laser projection system the depot began using in January to streamline the final finish process, during which an aircraft's insignia and other markings are applied to the finished base paint. The system acts as a guide for the precise placement of the markings without having to use paper stencils.

Despite the anticipated challenges that come along with learning the ins and outs of maintaining a new aircraft - even one so similar to familiar products - leaders believe the new workload offers FRCE a chance to shine by rounding out its support of the entire V-22 family.

"The V-22 program at FRCE has received its accolades," Williamson said. "We're known for what we do, and not just within the brick-and-mortar site at Cherry Point. We have our detachment at New River, which is revered in its own light for the way they conduct a PMI. We have the In-Service Repair team down at New River that is making depot-level repairs while embedded with the Marine squadrons. And we have Hurlburt Field, where we support Air Force Special Operations Command. This isn't a totally new workload, but it adds a new capability.

"I don't think the Navy would have considered us for the CMV-22 workload if we didn't have that track record of superior performance with the products we return to the fleet, and didn't have the good rapport that we already have with our current customers," he continued. "I think this is a chance for us to succeed. This is an opportunity to show the Navy that we own the maintenance process on the MV-22s, now let us keep this CMV business for a while and show them our success in providing the fleet with a quality product that we know is going to make that next flight window with no issues."

FRCE is North Carolina's largest maintenance, repair, overhaul and technical services provider, with more than 4,000 civilian, military and contract workers. Its annual revenue exceeds $1 billion. The depot provides service to the fleet while functioning as an integral part of the greater U.S. Navy; Naval Air Systems Command; and Commander, Fleet Readiness Centers.

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At White House, Indonesia's new leader straddles US-China rivalry

By Patsy Widakuswara November 12, 2024

President Joe Biden and President Prabowo Subianto met Tuesday at the White House, marking the 75th anniversary of U.S.-Indonesia relations, part of a multination visit by the newly inaugurated leader of Southeast Asia's largest economy.

"I will work very hard to strengthen Indonesia and United States relationship," said Prabowo, who goes by his first name.

Biden said he looks forward to deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the highest level among nontreaty allies, which the two countries signed in 2023. "That includes deepening our security cooperation," he said before their meeting.

In brief remarks to the press, Biden twice raised an issue of concern for Washington: freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. He said he wanted to strengthen the U.S. partnership with Indonesia, "by advancing [a] free and open Indo-Pacific."

"We'll discuss, also, global challenges, including in Gaza and the South China Sea," he said.

China's nine-dash line

The White House meeting came days after Prabowo's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, where Indonesia and China signed a series of agreements valued at about $10 billion and focusing on infrastructure, green energy, digital technology and agriculture.

"In the present situation, geopolitical and geoeconomic, Indonesia and China have become very close partners in many, many fields," Prabowo said.

One of the deals is to jointly develop fisheries, and oil and gas exploration in waters around Indonesia's Natuna Islands where China's "nine-dash line" marking its expansive claims in the South China Sea overlaps with Indonesia's Exclusive Economic Zone.

Critics say the agreement risks implicitly validating China's territorial claims in the South China Sea, which, according to the United Nations, has no basis in international law.

VOA asked the White House whether Biden was specifically referring to this deal in his meeting with Prabowo.

"We continue to encourage Indonesia to work with their legal experts to make sure any agreement they make with the PRC [People's Republic of China] is in accordance with international law, especially the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea," said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Beijing claims the major shipping route almost entirely, infringing into the EEZs of Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines. All but Indonesia formally dispute the Chinese claim while Taiwan makes a claim to the sea similar to Beijing's.

"It's a big deal for Indonesia," as a non-claimant country in the South China Sea dispute that supports the concept of a "free and open Indo-Pacific," said Klaus Heinrich Raditio, author on South China Sea issues and lecturer at Indonesia's Driyarkara School of Philosophy. "People will question our position," he told VOA.

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry clarified Sunday that it remains firm in rejecting China's nine-dash line.

Beijing's claim, Jakarta said, "does not comply" with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and "therefore has no bearing" on Indonesia's sovereignty and jurisdiction over the North Natuna Sea.

Jakarta's agreement with Beijing highlights a "new phase of building the China-Indonesia community with a shared future," according to the joint statement.

This reference supports "China's vision of a new global order that is anti-Western hegemony," Raditio said.

It's unclear whether this language was an intentional signaling of a geopolitical shift or merely an overlook from a new administration eager to bolster ties with great powers. The Indonesian Embassy in Washington has not responded to VOA's queries.

"Most likely, it is a bureaucratic mistake," Raditio said. "We put too much attention on economic cooperation. How many investments that we can attract from China? We kind of sideline other important issues."

Prabowo's outreach to Trump

Just as important to Jakarta as the White House meeting is Prabowo's outreach to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Jakarta is gearing up for Trump's new administration that begins in January.

"Wherever you are, I'm willing to fly to congratulate you personally, sir," Prabowo said in a call to Trump that was posted Monday on his social media.

The Trump team has not responded to VOA's queries on the conversation.

U.S. foreign policy under Trump "may become more transactional and more focused on elements related to U.S.-China, competition," said Andreyka Natalegawa, associate fellow for the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The downside risk of this as it relates to Southeast Asian countries, is that it may limit some of the decision-making space they have in their diplomatic affairs," Natalegawa said.

Prabowo has voiced ambitions to raise Indonesia's international profile and has made early foreign policy moves, including a surprise decision to join Southeast Asia's largest economy to the BRICS bloc.

BRICS, which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is a growing group of emerging economies seen as a counterweight to the West. In October, BRICS added Indonesia as one of the group's 13 new "partner countries."

The move could be a shift away from the position taken by Prabowo's predecessor, Joko Widodo, who took in massive amounts of infrastructure investments from Beijing but remained mostly nonaligned geopolitically.

The White House visit marks a milestone for Prabowo, who was barred from entering the U.S. under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations over his role in abducting activists of the 1998 "Reformasi" movement that ousted President Suharto, Prabowo's then father-in-law.

The Trump administration lifted the visa ban for then-Defense Minister Prabowo, for his visit in 2020.

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Hezbollah, Hamas down but not out, US says

By Jeff Seldin November 12, 2024

Israel's war against Hezbollah and Hamas, while inflicting considerable damage, has yet to strike a crippling blow to either of the Iran-backed terror groups, according to a top U.S. counterterrorism official.

The acting director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) said Tuesday that the impact of Israeli intelligence operations, along with repeated military airstrikes and ground offensives in Lebanon and Gaza, have severely diminished the ability of both groups to launch new attacks on Israel.

But he cautioned that both groups remain resilient, and in the case of Hezbollah, retain significant capabilities.

"Before the conflict, they [Hezbollah] had built up unprecedented numbers of rockets and missiles and other munitions," the NCTC's Brett Holmgren told an audience in Washington, adding that the Lebanese group was starting at a "very strong point."

And he said while Israeli strikes have decimated Hezbollah leadership, the group's ground forces in southern Lebanon "remain somewhat intact."

Additionally, Israel's actions have done little to damage Hezbollah's reach beyond the Middle East.

"Their external capabilities have largely been untouched," Holmgren said, noting the U.S. and its allies are on alert for any indication Hezbollah may seek to retaliate outside the region.

Hamas' staying power

Hamas, which touched off the war in Gaza when it launched its October 7, 2023, terror attack that killed about 1,200 mostly Israeli civilians, has also suffered greatly, according to the latest U.S. assessments.

"Militarily, they have been significantly diminished," Holmgren said. "They're essentially morphing into an insurgent force on the ground."

Yet despite being forced to keep a low profile and resort to hit-and-run-type tactics, U.S. intelligence sees few indications Hamas has lost its appeal.

"Hamas has been able to recruit new members to its ranks and will likely continue its ability to do so, so long as there is not another viable political option on the ground for these disaffected young men in Gaza to turn to," Holmgren said.

"There has to be a more viable political actor on the ground in Gaza to give these new recruits for Hamas, to give them a better option," he added.

Hamas, Hezbollah numbers

Prior to Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, U.S. intelligence estimated that the U.S.-designated terror group had between 20,000 and 25,000 fighters, though some estimates put the number at 30,000 or more, citing support from about a dozen other terror groups that had pledged to fight under the Hamas banner.

Hezbollah, according to U.S. estimates, had about 40,000 fighters with "state-like military capabilities."

Holmgren on Tuesday did not elaborate on how many fighters from either group had been eliminated.

Israeli officials, however, have said their forces have killed upward of 14,000 Hamas fighters and more than 2,550 Hezbollah fighters.

The Israel Defense Forces earlier this month said it estimates that about 80% of Hezbollah's arsenal of medium- and short-range rockets has been destroyed.

Health officials in Gaza have said the Israeli offensive there has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children.

Lebanon's Health Ministry said more than 3,000 people have been killed during the conflict, though it does not differentiate between civilians and Hezbollah fighters.

Terror spreading

There are growing concerns, though, that the death tolls in Lebanon and Gaza are serving as a spark for other terror groups around the world.

Less than a month after Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, U.S. counterterrorism officials warned that the event had begun to galvanize other terror groups, including Islamic State and al-Qaida.

Holmgren said it appears the Hamas attack, combined with growing political and economic turmoil, has in fact helped to reenergize other groups.

Islamic State

"ISIS exploited reduced counterterrorism pressure last year to recover and to rebuild as governments shifted attention and resources to the conflict in Gaza," Holmgren said, using an acronym for the Islamic State terror group, also known as IS or Daesh.

Central Syria, he said, had become an epicenter for IS plotting against the U.S. and the West, at large.

And although a series of recent operations by the U.S. and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have again weakened IS, the group continues to benefit from improved finances and resurgent media campaigns, Holmgren said.

The IS affiliate in Afghanistan known as IS-Khorasan has likewise shown resilience.

State Department officials, in a recent inspector general's report, admitted that serious questions remain about whether Afghanistan's ruling Taliban "have the will and capability to fully eliminate terrorist safe havens or control the flow of foreign terrorist fighters in and through Afghanistan."

And although key elements of IS-Khorasan have fled Afghanistan for Pakistan, there are fears the group may be poised for a resurgence.

"Sustained pressure will be needed to prevent the group from expanding further," Holmgren said.

Africa

Holmgren further warned that groups affiliating themselves with IS and al-Qaida are also seeing their fortunes rise in Africa.

IS and al-Qaida attacks in West Africa and the Sahel alone are set to surpass more than 3,000 by the end of the year, he said, doubling the total number of attacks from 2021.

And it could get worse.

Holmgren said IS and al-Qaida affiliates have capitalized on turmoil in countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic, where governments have turned to the Russian military and Russian paramilitary groups to boost security.

The situation in Africa, "if left unchecked, could become a much more acute long-term threat to U.S. interests," he said.

Younger terrorists

U.S. counterterrorism analysts have also picked up on several other trends that they say bear watching.

One is a propensity for younger people to join terror movements.

"The rising number of juveniles engaging in terrorism is a global phenomenon, and it may well worsen in the near term as the effects of the Israel-Hamas conflict take hold," Holmgren said.

Vulnerable young people the world over, he said, are turning to groups like IS for a sense of belonging and accomplishment.

"A lot of the propaganda  it's easily accessible on the social media platforms" he said. "A lot of it [is in] English."

Iran and Trump

There is also concern about how Iran will respond to Israel's degradation of Hezbollah and Hamas, and to the reelection of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

U.S. intelligence officials warned in the run-up to last week's election that Iran was engaged in a series of influence operations aimed at hurting Trump's chance of returning to power.

And late last week, the U.S. shed light on another in a series of efforts by Tehran to assassinate the once and future president.

In the short term, Holmgren said, Iran could try to leverage its proxy forces in Iraq and Syria to launch additional attacks against U.S. interests and against Israel.

But he also expressed concern that Iran continues to play host to al-Qaida's de facto leader, Saif al-Adel.

"I won't speculate on what the Iranian intentions are, but suffice to say, it is unhelpful with his presence there," Holmgren said Tuesday in response to a question from VOA.

Trump transition

Holmgren promised Tuesday to work with the incoming Trump administration to keep the U.S. and its allies safe.

"I look forward to engaging with the Trump administration's national security team to conduct an orderly transition and to ensure that they are ready on Day One to address a dynamic threat environment," Holmgren said.

"The U.S. counterterrorism community will be working diligently, as they do each and every day, to keep threats at bay so that our democracy may continue to shine as a beacon of freedom and hope in the world," he added.

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Remarks by President Biden and President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia Before Bilateral Meeting

November 12, 2024

Oval Office

2:45 P.M. EST

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, Mr. President, welcome to the White House.

PRESIDENT SUBIANTO: Thank you very much, sir.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Good to have you here. And we're making 

PRESIDENT SUBIANTO: Thank you very much.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: We're marking an important anniversary: 75 years of diplomatic relationship with Indonesia and the United States  75 years. I'm proud that the partnership between our countries is stronger than it's ever been.

And today, we're going to discuss how we continue to strengthen that partnership, first, in my view, by advancing free and open Indo-Pacific with ASEAN at its center. As two of the largest democracies in the world, it seems to me that our nations have a special responsibility in this vision.

Second, fighting the climate crisis. Indonesia is a critical player in the clean energy transition.

And third, by building a secure and resilient supply chain.

And finally, by deepening our comprehensive strategic partnership that includes deepening our security cooperation.

We'll discuss, also, global challenges, including in Gaza and the South China Sea.

So, Mr. President, I'm looking forward to our discussion, and welcome. I'm delighted to have you here, and the floor is yours.

PRESIDENT SUBIANTO: Thank you. Thank you, President Biden. Thank you for receiving me.

I also would like to thank you: You  you phoned me yourself upon my election and 

PRESIDENT BIDEN: A great victory.

PRESIDENT SUBIANTO: Yes. Thank you very much.

And then, finally, I could make it and you received me today.

United States, for us, is a very great friend. United States supported us in our struggle for independence and helped us many times in our time of need.

Therefore, I will work very hard to strengthen Indonesia and United States' relationship. And I would like to work towards this end, that we have a strong cooperation.

Once again, President Biden, thank you very much for receiving me.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, thank you. I look forward to our discussion.

PRESIDENT SUBIANTO: Thank you, sir.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Thank you.

PRESIDENT SUBIANTO: Thank you, sir.

2:48 P.M. EST

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November 13, 2024

Release

Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks Announces Additional Replicator All-Domain Attritable Autonomous Capabilities

Building on the Department's growing autonomy portfolio, selections focus on scalable production of class-leading systems across multiple domains and critical enabling software.

Today, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced additional capabilities selected for accelerated fielding as part of the Replicator initiative. This second tranche, or Replicator 1.2, will include systems in the air and maritime domains, as well as integrated software enablers that will enhance the autonomy and resilience of other Replicator systems.

These capabilities add to the first tranche of selected systems announced earlier in 2024 and further contribute to the Department's goal of fielding multiple thousands of all-domain, attritable autonomous (ADA2) systems to warfighters by August of 2025  or within 24 months of Deputy Secretary Hicks launching the initiative.

"The Replicator initiative is demonstrably reducing barriers to innovation, and delivering capabilities to warfighters at a rapid pace," said Hicks. "We are creating opportunities for a broad range of traditional and nontraditional defense and technology companies, including system vendors, component manufacturers, and software developers, to deliver critical capabilities that our warfighters need, and we are building the capability to do that again and again."

Collectively across both tranches, more than 500 commercial firms were considered for Replicator hardware and software contracting and major subcontracting opportunities. Contracts have been awarded to more than 30 hardware and software companies, of which 75 percent are non-traditional defense contractors, in addition to more than 50 subcontractors.

Included in Replicator-1, Tranche 2 (1.2) is the Army's Company-Level Small UAS effort, which has selected the Anduril Industries Ghost-X and the Performance Drone Works C-100 UAS. These systems will enable Army maneuver companies to conduct multiple tasks with rapidly reconfigurable, attritable, modular payload capabilities to execute reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition missions.

"Ukraine has demonstrated the value of small, attritable drones on the battlefield," said Gen. Randy A. George, the Chief of Staff of the Army. "The delivery of commercially available Company Level Small UAS with support from the Replicator initiative will allow American soldiers to rapidly experiment, learn and innovate with these systems. The advancement of battlefield technology requires us to innovate faster than ever before."

The Department is also scaling loitering munitions through fielding and expanded experimentation of the Anduril Industries Altius-600 as part of the U.S. Marine Corps Organic Precision Fires program. This system complements the Switchblade-600 loitering munition produced by AeroVironment Inc. that was included in the first tranche of Replicator.

"Replicator is helping Marines experiment with a portfolio of systems that deliver organic, loitering, beyond-line-of-sight precision strike capability," said Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric M. Smith. "Expanded experimentation with these systems will inform future Organic Precision Fires efforts and enable refinement of our Force Design, concepts and doctrine."

Additionally, the Replicator initiative has selected the U.S. Air Force's Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV). Over the next year, the Air Force and DIU will partner with multiple vendors to develop and demonstrate design variants. Four vendors are currently providing prototypes: Anduril Industries, Integrated Solutions for Systems Inc., Leidos Dynetics, and Zone 5 Technologies. Select ETV prototypes will be accelerated to scaled production.

"The ETV's modular design and open system architecture make it an ideal platform for program offices to test out new capabilities at the sub-system level, reducing risk, and demonstrating various options for weapon employment," said Gen. Jim Slife, Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force. "We are excited to be a part of Replicator 1.2 and to increase the speed of the ETV effort."

Replicator 1.2 also includes additional systems that remain classified, including low-cost long-range strike capabilities and maritime uncrewed systems.

The Department's autonomy efforts, including Replicator, are also leveraging resilient decision-making architectures for collaborative autonomy teaming, or 'integrated enablers' capable of coordinating hundreds or thousands of unmanned assets in a secure shared environment. These 'integrated enablers' are enhancing the ability of Replicator systems to operate and collaborate autonomously, and to remain resilient in the face of jamming and other countermeasures. The Department is acquiring many of these integrated software enablers using Commercial Solutions Openings led by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) that streamline and accelerate onramps for commercial industry. Announcement of these awards is forthcoming.

"Combining cutting-edge hardware with cutting-edge software  the capabilities and needs of each pushing the bounds of what is possible with the other  is at the heart of the very best of technology in the commercial sector," said Doug Beck, Director of DIU. "Replicator is harnessing this same synergy, ensuring we can adopt commercial best practices to iteratively develop, test, and ultimately field autonomous systems, both individually and collectively, at scale."

Selected capabilities fill both operational and scaling gaps and will be fielded by August 2025 to meet the ambitious goals of the Replicator initiative.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3963289/

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Jakarta seeks to contain fallout from South China Sea agreement with Beijing

Deal compromised Indonesia's maritime rights, most analysts say, but one noted clause on 'prevailing laws' may render it inoperative.

By Arie Firdaus for BenarNews

2024.11.13

JAKARTA -- Indonesia is seeking to contain the fallout from a maritime cooperation agreement with China that analysts say appears to indicate a softening of Jakarta's stance on Beijing's expansive claims in the South China Sea.

A joint statement released after a meeting between Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Saturday said the two countries had reached an "important common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims."

This "understanding" or agreement compromised Indonesia's territorial and maritime rights, most regional experts said.

One security analyst. though, noted on X that a clause stating that the cooperation would proceed only under the laws of both countries may mean the agreement will end up dead in the water.

Jakarta had consistently rejected the Beijing-set boundary, which encompasses most of the South China Sea and encroaches into Jakarta's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) north of the Natuna islands, noted Eddy Pratomo, an ex-member of the Indonesian government's law of the sea negotiation team.

"[But] with this Indonesia-China joint statement, it appears Indonesia is now acknowledging overlapping claims," Eddy, an international law professor at Diponegoro University, told RFA affiliate BenarNews.

"This could be seen as tacit recognition of China's dashed-line claim over the South China Sea, particularly around the North Natuna Sea," he said.

Beijing uses the nine-dash line on maps to demarcate its extensive claims in the South China Sea, where it is embroiled in territorial disputes with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam in regional bloc Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as Taiwan.

Eddy warned that China could use the agreement with Indonesia to pressure these claimant states to accept the nine-dash line.

This China-drawn boundary infringes on the claimant states' EEZs that give these countries exclusive rights to up to 200 nautical miles from their coastlines to regulate fishing and exploit natural resources, he said.

The Indonesia-China joint statement did not specifically say the two countries would cooperate on projects for oil and gas discovery or extraction, although that is the activity that Jakarta mainly carries out in its South China Sea EEZ, which it has named North Natuna Sea.

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry attempted damage control and issued a statement Monday, saying the agreement did not amount to a recognition of Beijing's line.

"Nothing in the cooperation may be construed in any way as a recognition of the '9-Dash Line' claim. Indonesia maintains its well-known position that the claim lacks an international legal basis and is tantamount to undermining the UNCLOS 1982," the statement said.

"Therefore, the cooperation shall, under no circumstances, affect Indonesia's sovereignty, sovereign rights, or jurisdiction in the North Natuna Sea." UNCLOS is the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry said the cooperation would mainly be in the fields of fisheries and fisheries conservation in the region.

BenarNews reached out to foreign ministry spokesman Roy Soemirat for details on how the agreement came about and whether Jakarta had vetted the text, but did not hear back from the official.

The agreement comes amidst a backdrop of escalating tensions in the South China Sea, a crucial maritime route for global commerce.

Just last month, during the first week of Prabowo's presidency, Indonesian naval and coast guard vessels confronted and expelled a Chinese coast guard ship from Indonesia's exclusive economic zone in the North Natuna Sea on three occasions

'China's nine-dash line trap'

Backlash to news about the agreement was swift, both at home and abroad, despite the foreign ministry's statement on Monday.

Aristyo Rizka Darmawan, a lecturer in International law at Universitas Indonesia, slammed as "vague" the Indonesian foreign ministry's statement that it still did not recognize the nine-dash line.

The ministry's statement "contradicts the joint statement and was released unilaterally, while the joint statement was made by Indonesia and China together," he wrote in an analysis published Tuesday for The Lowy Institute, an Australian think-tank.

That means it's possible that China may continue to hold the interpretation presented in the join statement, he further wrote.

"Indonesia appears to be the first ASEAN member-state to implicitly recognize Beijing's 'nine-dash line' ... and therefore the first ASEAN country to fall into China's nine-dash line trap," Aristyo added.

He further said that the agreement had betrayed Indonesia's national interest.

"It is consequential for Indonesia's sovereign rights to use resources in its EEZ and continental shelf, and [the agreement] has significantly changed the political constellation and solidarity of ASEAN claimant states in the South China Sea," he wrote.

Opposition lawmaker Tubagus Hasanuddin, a member of the defense and foreign affairs committee in Indonesia's House of Representatives, questioned the government's approach to handling sensitive regional issues, particularly concerning the South China Sea.

"The Foreign Ministry needs to exercise greater caution and responsiveness in handling official statements," he said in a press release.

"They shouldn't act as a 'firefighter' only when problems arise."

He also raised concerns about the potential consequences of such an agreement for Indonesian fishermen, citing past instances of Chinese vessels entering Indonesian waters and engaging in illegal fishing.

"Will this economic cooperation benefit us? Will Chinese fishing vessels then be free to roam in the Natuna area to catch our fish?"

One clause in the joint cooperation agreement, however, could mean it would not go through, said Euan Graham, senior analyst at The Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

"[T]he reference to "prevailing laws" means [the] agreement may be difficult for Prabowo to push through," he noted on X.

The part of the joint statement Graham is referring to says that the joint development would be "based on the principles of 'mutual respect, equality, mutual benefit, flexibility, pragmatism, and consensus-building,' pursuant to their respective prevailing laws and regulations."

Several analysts noted that Prabowo or Foreign Minister Sugiono needed to soon clarify what exactly the joint development was referring to and how the wording got into the joint statement.

'Potential slippery slope'

The Indonesia-China joint development agreement has consequences not just for Indonesia but could potentially reshape geopolitical dynamics in Southeast Asia and draw responses from the United States and Japan, said international law expert Hikmahanto Juwana.

"Countries in dispute with China will question Indonesia's position," Hikmahanto, a University of Indonesia professor, told BenarNews.

The Indonesian government's agreement with China might reflect a pragmatic alignment with a major political power, but it could potentially destabilize the region, said Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma, an international relations researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

"In the short term, this statement may benefit Indonesia by easing tensions with China, particularly by reducing the likelihood of coast guard confrontations in the South China Sea," he said.

"However, in the long term, it could harm Indonesia's standing with Southeast Asian neighbors. This is a potential slippery slope."

Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

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 November 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.

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Businessman, 3 government officials arrested in corruption investigation

The arrests by Cambodia's Anti-Corruption Unit follows charges against 2 former advisers to Hun Sen.

By RFA Khmer 2024.11.13 -- Three senior government officials and a businessman have been arrested in a corruption and fraud crackdown that follows the recent arrests of two former advisers to Senate President Hun Sen, according to a Phnom Penh Municipal Court order issued on Tuesday.

The government's Anti-Corruption Unit has arrested gemstone and construction businessman Uth Thy, former high-ranking police official Muong Khim, Pursat Province deputy Gov. Lay Viseth, and Kan Sok Kay, the former governor of Kandal province's Lvea Em district, the order said.

Kan Sok Kay's arrest is linked to allegations against Ly Sameth, a former adviser to Senate President Hun Sen.

In a six-minute video posted on Hun Sen's Facebook page last week, Ly Sameth confessed to defrauding millions of dollars from people who sought favors and government positions. Authorities arrested him in Sihanoukville on Nov. 4.

Hun Sen wrote on Facebook last month that Ly Sameth had defrauded several Cambodians over the last two years, including one incident in which US$10 million was paid.

That post was apparently prompted by a video message he received from Kan Sok Kay who said he gave US$300,000 to Ly Sameth to obtain a different appointment in Kandal province, according to Hun Sen.

"I never accepted intervention from anyone, no matter what request or bribe," Hun Sen wrote.

Corruption's deep roots

Another former adviser to Hun Sen, Duong Dara, was arrested on Oct. 14 and charged with fraud after returning from a business trip to China.

That arrest was related to a complaint filed by villagers in southern Svay Rieng province that accused the Phnom Penh-based Phum Khmer Group of scamming them out of investments that ranged between US$40,000 and US$120,000.

Duong Dara, who was removed from his position as secretary of state at the Office of the Council of Ministers last week, is believed to be a close friend of Phum Khmer's chief executive, Som Sothea.

The court has charged Ly Sameth, Duong Dara and Muong Khim with trafficking in passive influence, a form of bribery that could result in five to 10 years in prison.

Uth Thy, who holds the title of Oknha - bestowed on Cambodians involved in business who are committed to charity or generous with donations to the government - has been charged with two counts of five years in prison for active influence.

It was unclear what charges Kan Sok Kay and Lay Viseth were facing.

RFA was unable to reach Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesman Plang Sophal and Anti-Corruption Unit spokesman Soy Chanvichet to ask about the arrests.

Corruption is deeply rooted in Cambodian society - including political corruption and bribery - so the arrests could be a good sign, Meng Heang Tak, a Cambodian-Australian lawmaker in the Victorian Legislative Assembly, said in an interview with RFA.

But efforts to eliminate corruption need "a high commitment to be effective," he said.

Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed.

This story has been updated with the charges for Lay Viseth and Kan Sok Kay.

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 November 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.

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China patrols at disputed shoal; Manila summons Beijing's envoy

The combat readiness patrols took place days after Beijing delimited its territorial sea around the shoal.

By RFA Staff 2024.11.13 -- China on Wednesday conducted combat readiness patrols at the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea to reinforce its claim while Manila summoned China's envoy to protest against its marking of a baseline around the disputed reef, media reported.

The People's Liberation Army Southern Theater Command said in a statement that it "organized naval and air forces to conduct combat readiness patrols in the territorial waters and airspace of China's Huangyan Island and surrounding areas." The command referred to the reef by its Chinese name.

The patrols were carried out "in accordance with the law," the command added.

On Sunday, the Chinese unilaterally delimited and announced baselines around Scraborough Shoal, a triangular chain of reefs about 125 nautical miles (232 kilometers) from Luzon, the main Philippine island. The shoal, known in the Philippines as Bajo de Masinloc, is claimed by China, the Philippines and Taiwan, but has been under Beijing's de-facto control since 2012.

By delimiting the baselines, China claims the 12-nautical-mile territorial sea and airspace around the shoal that lies within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. Beijing requires foreign vessels to report their presence to the China Maritime Administration when entering its territorial seas.

The Philippines has yet to react to the news of the patrols, but the Philippine Presidential Office for Maritime Concerns on Tuesday protested against the Chinese baselines announcement, calling it a violation of "the Philippines' long-established sovereignty over the shoal."

On Wednesday, the Philippines summoned China's ambassador to reinforce its protest.

"The said baselines infringe upon Philippine sovereignty and contravene international law," media cited the ministry saying in a statement.

'Victim of Chinese aggression'

On Tuesday, Philippine defense minister Gilberto Teodoro said that China was stepping up pressure on his country to concede its sovereign rights in the South China Sea, adding that the Philippines was a "victim of Chinese aggression."

A Chinese spokesman blamed Manila.

"Every escalation of maritime disputes between China and the Philippines was triggered by the infringement activities and provocations of the Philippines," said a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian.

"It was the Philippines who took infringement activities first and China had to take necessary measures in accordance with law to safeguard our lawful rights and interests," the spokesperson added. "If the Philippines stops infringement activities and provocations, there will be no trouble at sea."

There has been no reported Philippine drills at Scarborough Shoal but the Chinese military regularly holds patrols here, the last time in September.

Updates with Philippines summons ambassador.

Edited by Taejun Kang.

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 November 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.

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Georgian Opposition Moves To Leave Parliament In Protest At Alleged Election Fraud

By RFE/RL's Georgian Service November 13, 2024

Georgia's pro-European opposition has withdrawn from the new parliament, officially renouncing its mandates obtained during the disputed October 26 elections that it refused to recognize amid accusations of widespread fraud and Russian interference.

The opposition has been holding large daily protests in Tbilisi after the Moscow-friendly Georgian Dream party, which has been in power for the past 12 years, claimed victory with 54 percent of the vote.

Georgia's pro-European president, Salome Zurabishvili, also refused to recognize the validity of the results and called for fresh elections.

Representatives of the two main opposition blocs -- the United National Movement (ENM) and the Coalition for Change -- filed an appeal on November 12 with the Central Election Commission (CEC) demanding the cancelation of their party lists -- a technical move that will make it impossible for the CEC to register the opposition candidates who won seats as lawmakers.

"On behalf of the United National Movement, we declare that we do not recognize the legitimacy of these elections and refuse our parliamentary mandates. Today, each of us who was on the parliamentary list officially sent a letter to the Central Electoral Commission so that none of the candidates would be registered," ENM head Tina Bokuchava told a joint news conference.

Nika Gvaramia, the leader of the Coalition for Change, said that all members of his bloc's list will officially sign off on their refusal for as many times as necessary if the CEC, under pressure from the authorities, tries to register them in parliament through bureaucratic procedures.

"This parliament is illegitimate, and our participation in its activities is excluded. We will not aid the authorities in legitimizing it with our presence," Gvaramia said.

In response, Georgian Dream said it would file a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court to outlaw some opposition parties, directly accusing ENM of treason.

"We do not rule out that we will take care first and foremost of the ENM, which has committed treasonous acts against the country," Georgian Dream's Secretary General Kakha Kaladze said, adding that authorities have "plenty of evidence" to outlaw the bloc, without elaborating.

Georgia has been a candidate for EU membership since last year, but moves by Georgian Dream to adopt legislation to curb foreign funding of NGOs mirroring Moscow's "foreign agents" law and anti-LGBT measures have sparked criticism from Brussels and Washington that the Caucasus country was backsliding on democracy.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/georgia-bokuchava-gvaramia- kaladze/33200300.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.

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How Does Marco Rubio, Trump's Pick For Secretary Of State, See The World?

By Todd Prince and Tony Wesolowsky November 13, 2024

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Senator Marco Rubio to be his top diplomat as the incoming administration prepares to navigate an increasingly perilous world, with wars raging in Europe and the Middle East and competition heating up with China in the Asia-Pacific.

In choosing Rubio -- a senator known for taking a tough line on many foreign policy issues -- the president-elect is seeking someone who largely shares his views on the most pressing international topics, says Behnam Ben Taleblu, an analyst at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"Rubio is someone who has ideological and political alignment with Trump on several key national-security issues like great-power competition, countering China, countering the Islamic [Republic of] Iran, and reinstating the maximum-pressure campaign," Taleblu told RFE/RL.

In a wide-ranging interview last week with media before being tapped as secretary of state, Rubio said the decades-long period of unchallenged U.S. global dominance following the collapse of the Soviet Union had ended, replaced by a new Cold War-like era. He warned that the United States can't stretch itself too thin with global commitments, saying Washington must be "pragmatic" in its pursuits abroad.

"We're the most powerful [country], but we too have limited resources...so we have to invest both our time and our money on things that serve our core national interest," Rubio said in a November 7 interview with EWTN, a U.S.-based cable network.

Rubio, a Cuban-American, played an influential role in shaping Trump's policy on Venezuela during the latter's first term as president from 2017 to 2021. The New York Times described Rubio at the time as Trump's "virtual secretary of state for Latin America."

The three-time Florida senator, who challenged Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, comes to the job with ample foreign policy experience, having served on both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee.

If ultimately confirmed by the Senate, Rubio, 53, would be the first Latino to serve as secretary of state.

And while Latin America will certainly be an important focus for Rubio, it will take a back seat to more pressing U.S. foreign policy concerns, namely China's global rise, Iran's threat to the Middle East, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Priority No. 1: China

When it comes to demands on U.S. military, political, and financial resources, Rubio wants the focus to be on China.

"I think the future of the 21st century is going to largely be defined by what happens in the Indo-Pacific. And I think China would love for us to be bogged down in Europe in a conflict and not focused on what's happening in the Indo-Pacific," Rubio said on November 7.

Rubio, who served as a co-chairman of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, has consistently advocated taking a hard line on China.

He led efforts to arm Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing. He called for direct shipments of U.S. munitions and advanced military technologies in hopes of deterring China from attacking the island.

Rubio has also been vocal about Beijing's human rights record, pushed for a U.S. industrial policy to better compete with China, and backed tariffs on Chinese goods.

He sought to ban imports of Chinese goods made with forced labor by Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in western China and prevent China from circumventing Trump-era tariffs by relocating production to Mexico.

NATO And Ukraine

Rubio has repeatedly supported Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in its defensive war against Russia and described Ukrainians as "incredibly brave and strong."

In February 2022, immediately following Russia's full-scale invasion, he co-sponsored the NYET Act in the Senate, which aimed to "bolster Ukraine's defense capabilities" and impose sanctions on Russia.

However, Rubio has also said Russia's war against Ukraine has reached a "stalemate" and "needs to be brought to a conclusion."

He was among a minority of senators who, earlier this year, opposed a foreign-assistance bill that included $60 billion in aid for Ukraine. The bill eventually passed in April, bringing total U.S. aid to Ukraine since February 2022 to almost $175 billion -- about as much given by all of Europe combined.

Rubio has highlighted that imbalance, emphasizing that Washington should push Europe to take a larger role in handling its own security issues in order to allow the United States to prioritize challenging China in the Indo-Pacific.

In last week's interview with EWTN, Rubio said it was "unrealistic" to expect the United States to approve tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine every 10 months. He said European members of NATO need to step up their contributions to the alliance.

"Every day in our own country, [we are] grappling with [the question of] how do we provide assistance to Americans, even as we have these defense requirements that we're spending a lot of money on, and these [European NATO] countries are not making that choice," he said.

While Rubio sees Russia as a threat to U.S. security and backs Ukraine's sovereignty and independence, he said Kyiv will have to negotiate an end to the war. Rubio said Russia has just too many resources at its disposal, including weapons and men, to allow it to continue the fighting despite suffering extraordinary losses.

Iran: 'No Appeasement'

In the Middle East, Rubio has long taken a tough stand on Iran, describing its theocratic government as a "terrorist regime" for financing groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated terrorist organizations by the United States.

As a senator, he was a fierce critic of U.S. President Barack Obama's 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), which restricted Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions.

Critics of the deal argued it empowered Iran, offering too much relief from sanctions without guarantees it wouldn't someday produce a nuclear bomb. In 2018, Trump, who was then president, pulled the United States out of the deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran.

More recently, Rubio co-authored three bills punishing Iran that were signed into law this year. The bills authorize placing sanctions on Iranian oil exports and top Iranian leaders for human rights abuses, as well as foreign entities and governments supporting Hamas. An Iranian client, Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, triggering a regional war that threatens to engulf more states.

Rubio in September criticized the Biden administration for dragging its feet on enforcing the Iranian oil sanctions, which are aimed at crippling the government's finances. It has also failed to move forward on the human rights sanctions.

Depending on what the incoming administration is faced with in Iran when it takes office, analyst Taleblu says -- noting the volatile situation in the Middle East -- he would expect a Rubio-led State Department to make good on enforcement of the sanction bills.

A vocal supporter of Israel, Rubio has backed the country's right to defend itself from Iranian threats. Following Tehran's missile strikes on Israel on October 1, Rubio publicly backed an asymmetrical response.

Afghanistan

Rubio has also taken a hard line on the Taliban, arguing the militant Islamist group should be described as a "terrorist organization" by Washington. In March, the Florida senator introduced a bill in the Senate calling for an end to an end to U.S. aid to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, arguing that some of that money could end up with "terrorist groups."

In remarks to the Senate, Rubio said, "A Taliban-controlled Afghanistan poses a direct threat to U.S. national-security interests and to our allies in the Middle East and Central Asia."

Reid Standish contributed to this report

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/united-states-trump-rubio- secretary-state/33200611.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.

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Remarks by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini to the United Nations General Assembly Fourth Committee

UNRWA

13 Nov 2024

13 November 2024

New York

Madam Chair,

Excellencies,

This is a critical moment for UNRWA, our 33,000 staff members, and the millions of Palestine Refugees we serve.

The risk of the Agency's collapse threatens the lives and futures of individuals and communities, the stability of the region, and the integrity of our multilateral system.

In open defiance of the United Nations Charter, the resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council, and the binding orders of the International Court of Justice, the State of Israel is working to unilaterally shift the long-established parameters for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Last month, the Israeli parliament passed legislation that could end UNRWA's operations in the occupied Palestinian territory in less than three months.

This would fulfill an explicitly stated objective of the war in Gaza.

Madam Chair,

Unique among United Nations agencies, UNRWA is mandated to directly provide public-like services, including education for more than half a million children and primary healthcare.

The Agency provides human development services for Palestine Refugees in the absence of a Palestinian state.

During conflicts, UNRWA also provides humanitarian assistance to all those in need.

Yet today, UNRWA is a casualty of the war in Gaza.

At least 243 UNRWA personnel have been killed.

Others have been detained and report being tortured.

More than two-thirds of UNRWA premises have been damaged or destroyed.

Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, and Israeli forces have allegedly used our premises for military purposes.

I have strongly, repeatedly and publicly condemned this alleged use of our premises.

I continue to call for accountability for the attacks on UN personnel, premises and operations through an independent investigation into these violations.

Excellencies,

In addition to the attacks within the occupied Palestinian territory, the Agency has also been subjected to a fierce, global disinformation campaign.

Intense lobbying by the Government of Israel and affiliated groups has targeted parliaments and governments in top donor countries.

The attacks against UNRWA are justified by allegations that the Agency is colluding with or infiltrated by Hamas.

UNRWA takes allegations of neutrality breaches extremely seriously.

While we do not operate in a zero-risk environment, we take a zero-tolerance approach to any proven breaches.

The Independent Review of UNRWA's neutrality found that the Agency has a more robust neutrality framework than any comparable entity.

We are making every effort to implement the recommendations of the review.

I must emphasize that UNRWA - like comparable United Nations entities - does not have police, military or intelligence capabilities.

We rely on Member States when such capacities are needed.

For over 15 years, UNRWA has shared annually the names of its staff with the Government of Israel.

We now share these names on a quarterly basis.

This includes the names of staff about whom the government never previously raised concerns, but now include in lists alleging armed militancy.

We have repeatedly asked the Government of Israel for evidence, and proposed how sensitive evidence might be shared.

We have not received a response.

UNRWA cannot address allegations for which it has no evidence.

Yet, these allegations continue to be used to undermine the Agency.

Madam Chair,

UNRWA is a soft target for warring parties that view its presence and activities as a threat.

Hamas has repeatedly and publicly accused UNRWA, especially its senior management, of colluding with the Israeli occupation.

For many years, Hamas has strongly opposed UNRWA's education programme, challenging our commitment to gender equality and neutrality.

Hamas has even disapproved of the Agency's Summer Fun Weeks programme, which brings girls and boys together for art, games, music and sports.

Let me state the obvious - UNRWA is not a party to this conflict.

It is a United Nations agency.

It is the mechanism through which the United Nations is tasked - by the General Assembly - to assist Palestine Refugees.

All parties to the conflict must allow UNRWA to fulfill its mandate.

If the Agency cannot operate in the occupied Palestinian territory, the responsibility for providing services to Palestinians - and for bearing the cost of these services - will lie not with the United Nations, but with Israel as the occupying power.

Excellencies,

A year ago, I described to you the horror that I personally witnessed in Gaza a month into the war.

I did not know then how much worse it would get.

A year later, more than 43,000 people are reported killed. Nearly 70% are women and children.

Thousands more lie unaccounted for under the rubble or have succumbed to disease.

Nearly the entire population has been displaced, repeatedly.

Hostages taken from Israel remain in terrifying captivity, and I continue to call for their immediate and unconditional release.

North Gaza is under siege and Palestinians are being burned and buried alive by airstrikes.

Hunger is widespread and famine has likely already taken hold.

Israeli officials state that people will not be allowed to return there.

Across Gaza, 660,000 children who should be in school are learning nothing more than how to survive.

***

The stakes are also high in the occupied West Bank.

Settler violence and military incursions by the Israeli Security Forces are a daily reality.

Public infrastructure is destroyed systematically during military operations, inflicting collective punishment on Palestinians.

Illegal settlement activity is expanding aggressively, in total impunity.

***

Meanwhile, war has spilled into Lebanon.

Nearly a million people have been displaced.

And as in Gaza, UNRWA is supporting the humanitarian response.

We have opened shelters hosting thousands of displaced people.

***

Nearly half a million people - among them 5,000 Palestine Refugees - have fled from Lebanon to Syria, which is struggling to recover from war, an economic crisis, and devastating earthquakes.

Funding for Syria has dried up.

UNRWA has had to cut back on critical cash and food assistance.

***

Jordan is not immune to growing regional instability.

Many Palestine Refugees there are highly vulnerable to social and economic shocks.

In this time of profound crisis and uncertainty, Palestine Refugees across the region are turning to UNRWA.

And the Agency has never been in greater peril.

Madam Chair,

The implementation of the Knesset legislation will have catastrophic consequences.

In Gaza, dismantling UNRWA will collapse the United Nations humanitarian response, which relies heavily on the Agency's infrastructure.

Glaringly absent from discussions about Gaza without UNRWA, is education.

Palestinians value education highly - it is the only asset from which they have not, until now, been dispossessed.

In the absence of a capable public administration or state, only UNRWA can deliver education to more than 660,000 girls and boys across Gaza.

In the absence of UNRWA, an entire generation will be denied the right to education.

Their future will be sacrificed, sowing the seeds for marginalization and extremism.

Before the war, UNRWA addressed 70 to 80 percent of primary healthcare needs in Gaza.

We still provide 16,000 medical consultations each day.

In the West Bank, UNRWA's collapse would deprive at least 50,00 children of education, and half a million Palestine Refugees of primary healthcare.

Dismantling UNRWA will not terminate the refugee status of Palestinians - this status exists independently of the Agency - but it will severely harm their lives and future.

***

The Knesset legislation strikes a terrible blow to our staff.

17,000 staff in the occupied Palestinian territory fear that they will lose their employment.

They also fear further attacks, legitimized by these laws.

It is a valid fear.

Just last week, a female staff member in the West Bank was detained, intimidated and harassed by Israeli Security Forces.

They accused her of working for a terrorist organization, seized her UNRWA laptop, and used it to access internal information.

A total violation of United Nations privileges and immunities.

Despite everything they have been through, my staff is afraid that the worst is yet to come.

Excellencies,

I will conclude by reiterating three requests I made to Member States last week, and making an additional request:

First, I ask that Member States act to prevent the implementation of the legislation against UNRWA.

Changes to UNRWA's mandate are the prerogative of the General Assembly, not individual Member States.

Second, I ask that Member States ensure that any plan for a political transition delineates UNRWA's role.

The Agency must progressively conclude its mandate within the framework of a political solution, and, in the occupied Palestinian territory, hand over its services to an empowered Palestinian administration.

Third, I ask that Member States maintain funding to UNRWA, and do not withhold or divert funds on the assumption that the Agency can no longer operate.

The cost of providing critical services, including education and healthcare, during a transition will be immense.

My final request concerns the future of our multilateral system and the United Nations - of which UNRWA is an integral part.

I ask that Member States utilize all the legal and political tools at their disposal to ensure that the international rules-based order is upheld.

The United Nations and its staff are in an increasingly untenable position - if the legal and political framework within which we operate does not hold, we cannot stay and deliver.

I urge you to consider seriously what that would mean for our collective future.

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.

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Trump's unexpected pick for Pentagon chief is decorated veteran, Fox News host

By Carla Babb November 13, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has made a largely unexpected pick to run the world's largest military, nominating Fox News host and decorated veteran Pete Hegseth to be defense secretary.

Trump has picked someone who has no previous experience in government or in running a large business. But the Army National Guard officer and "Fox and Friends" weekend host has raised his profile through hinting at several changes to the Defense Department.

Hegseth has said he opposes diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or DEI, which he has called "woke." He has questioned the role of women in combat positions, all of which were opened to women by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in January 2016. Since then, women have earned positions as Green Berets, Army Rangers and Navy combat-craft crewman after completing the same grueling tests as men.

Hegseth, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, authored the book "The War on Warriors," which blames the military's DEI programs for its recruiting crisis.

"There just aren't enough lesbians from San Francisco who want to join the 82nd Airborne. Not only do the lesbians not join, but those very same ads turn off the young, patriotic, Christian men who have traditionally filled our ranks," he wrote.

The nominee has also hinted he could target military leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General C.Q. Brown, to push out those who have supported DEI programs.

"First of all, you've got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs" and "any general that was involved, any general, admiral, whatever," he told podcast host Shawn Ryan earlier this year.

Hegseth served tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay as an infantry officer and has pushed to make the U.S. military more lethal.

He received two Bronze Stars, two Army Commendation Medals and the National Defense Service Medal with a Bronze Service Star.

Trump has praised his pick as "tough, smart and a true believer in 'America First.'"

Hegseth's nomination will need to be confirmed by a Senate majority. Republicans currently hold the majority by at least three seats.

One former Pentagon official, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity to discuss a nomination before a Senate vote, praised Hegseth's dedication to American troops and veterans.

"He will fight for them because he really cares," the former official said.

Other national security officials, who also spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity, said they were surprised by the pick.

After Congressman Mike Waltz of Florida was chosen to be Trump's national security adviser, many had expected the secretary of defense position to be filled by one of the established national security heavy-hitters in the Republican party, such as U.S. Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, who chairs the House Armed Services committee, or a Senate Armed Services committee member such as Joni Ernst of Iowa or Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Both are veterans.

The Defense Department oversees more than 2.5 million active-duty and National Guard troops and has a budget that is expected to exceed $800 billion this year.

Trump had a rocky relationship with defense secretaries in his first administration. His first secretary of defense, retired General Jim Mattis, resigned in protest of Trump's treatment of allies and his decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria. His other Senate-confirmed secretary of defense, Mark Esper, has called the president-elect "unfit for office."

Ahead of the election, Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan that his "biggest mistake" in his first term was appointing "bad people," including "neocons."

Hegseth was the executive director for Concerned Veterans for America, a group funded by the Koch brothers that advocated greater privatization of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

He was reportedly under consideration to run the Department of Veterans Affairs in the first Trump administration.

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Biden, Trump pledge peaceful transfer of power in January

By Ken Bredemeier November 13, 2024

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump returned triumphantly to Washington on Wednesday, pledging a smooth transition of power in January as he met for two hours at the White House with his longtime political rival, President Joe Biden.

"It was a substantive meeting," White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. "They discussed important national security and domestic policy issues facing the nation and the world."

Biden invited Trump for the traditional visit  a show of the coming Jan. 20 peaceful transfer of power in American democracy between the current U.S. leader and the incoming chief executive. It was Trump's first visit to the White House since his first presidential term ended in January 2021.

The two men sat in front of a roaring fireplace in the Oval Office ahead of their private talks and traded niceties in a peaceful tableau.

"I'm looking forward to having a smooth transition and we're looking forward to talking about some of that today," Biden said.

"Thank you very much," Trump replied. "Politics is tough and in many cases it's not a very nice world. It is a nice world today and I appreciate very much a transition so smooth  it will be as smooth as it can get  and I very much appreciate that, Joe. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Biden responded.

First lady Jill Biden joined her husband in greeting the president-elect upon his arrival at the White House. The White House said she gave Trump a handwritten letter of congratulations for his wife, Melania, and expressed her team's readiness to assist with the transition.

The former first lady, who lived in the White House from 2017 to 2021 during her husband's first presidency, did not accompany him to Washington and has not indicated whether she plans to move into the White House again when he takes office.

Biden, a Democrat, had sought to defeat Trump, a Republican, for a second time in the Nov. 5 election, but ended his campaign in July after faltering badly in a debate against Trump. Biden quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him, but Trump swept through seven political battleground states in the election and easily defeated her.

When Biden defeated Trump in 2020, Trump offered no White House invitation to meet him ahead of the inauguration and left Washington two hours before Biden's swearing-in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Trump, who to this day claims falsely that he was cheated out of winning the 2020 election by vote fraud, was the first president to not witness his successor's inauguration since Andrew Johnson skipped the swearing-in of Ulysses S. Grant in 1869. Biden has said he plans to attend Trump's inauguration.

Trump also met with Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives. Republicans hold a narrow majority in the chamber in the current Congress and are nearing a slight majority control in the Congress set to be sworn in Jan. 3, but the outcome of more than a dozen House elections remains uncertain.

Trump has moved quickly to fill his nascent administration with Republican officials who have been the most politically loyal to him in the four years he has been out of office.

In his latest announcements Wednesday, Trump named Florida Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state, the country's top diplomat; Florida Representative Matt Gaetz as attorney general, the top law enforcement position in the government, and Tulsi Gabbard, a former Hawaii Democratic congresswoman turned Republican advocate for the president-elect, as director of national intelligence.

On Tuesday, Trump named Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host and a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to be his next defense secretary.

The choice of Hegseth was outside the norm of those usually named as the Pentagon leader. But he was a vocal supporter of Trump during his first term, embracing his "America First" agenda of trying to withdraw U.S. troops from abroad and often taking up the cause of combat veterans accused of war crimes.

Trump has also announced South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as his choice for Homeland Security chief and picked John Ratcliffe as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Both Rubio and Noem were on Trump's short list of possible vice presidential running mates several months ago. While Trump later picked first-term Ohio Senator JD Vance, now the vice president-elect, to join him on the Republican national ticket, both Rubio and Noem remained Trump stalwarts as he won the election.

Ratcliffe was the nation's sixth director of national intelligence, serving for the last eight months of the Trump administration after a rocky confirmation process.

Trump also announced that billionaire businessman Elon Musk and entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead what Trump called the Department of Government Efficiency. The announcement said they would provide advice and guidance to "drive large-scale structural reform" of the federal government.

The acronym for the new agency, DOGE, is a nod to Musk's favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin.

Other notable picks by Trump include William McGinley as White House counsel, Florida congressman Michael Waltz as national security adviser and Thomas Homan, Trump's former acting immigration chief, to be "border czar" to head efforts to deport undocumented migrants, possibly millions of them, who are living in the United States.

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Trump taps Senator Marco Rubio, his former rival, for top US diplomat

By Steve Herman November 13, 2024

There are expressions of relief among Democrats and Republicans after President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday he intended to nominate an experienced U.S. senator for secretary of state, instead of a more fringe figure.

Trump's choice, Marco Rubio, is a Florida Republican who has been in the Senate since 2011. In a statement, Trump called him a highly respected leader and a very powerful voice for freedom who "will be a strong advocate for our nation, a true friend to our allies, and a fearless warrior who will never back down to our adversaries."

Rubio, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a senior member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, is regarded as intelligent, ambitious and well-liked by Senate colleagues of both parties.

Some leading Democrats in Congress, who will be the opposition party in January, are making positive comments about the Republican.

"I've got a good relationship with Marco, and I think Marco is very capable," Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, who has served on the Intelligence Committee with Rubio, told VOA after Rubio's name was circulated in media reports.

On social media, Democratic Senator John Fetterman called Rubio "a strong choice," adding that he looks forward to voting for his confirmation.

"Compared to some of the other names that were floating around, people who really don't have any experience in foreign policy, I think this is a pretty good one," former Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger said on CNN before Trump's official announcement.

Among the other names that had been floated was that of Ric Grenell, former acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany in the first Trump administration.

Despite having a close relationship with some Trump family members and being a loyal ally of the president-elect's agenda, Grenell is regarded as a caustic figure and controversial because of his private dealings with foreign leaders. That would have meant a bumpy road for any appointment requiring Senate confirmation.

In choosing members for his Cabinet and senior White House staff, Trump is generally emphasizing loyalty rather than experience. Rubio campaigned for Trump during this year's presidential election.

The two had been rivals in the Republican presidential primary eight years ago. Trump had repeatedly belittled the senator, while Rubio questioned the New York real estate investor's qualification for the presidency, calling Trump "a con man," deemed him dangerous and someone who could not be trusted with the launch codes for nuclear weapons.

After Trump won the party's nomination and the presidency, the relationship warmed. But Rubio did not side with Trump when he refused to accept defeat at the hands of Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden four years ago. After Trump's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Rubio condemned the violence, calling the attackers "unpatriotic" and "un-American" lowlifes.

Earlier this year, Trump considered Rubio, a behind-the-scenes campaign foreign policy adviser, as his running mate before selecting Republican Senator JD Vance.

If Rubio, who is 53 and the son of Cuban immigrants, is confirmed by his Senate colleagues, he would become the first Latino secretary of state. In that role, he would be tasked with helping to implement Trump's "America First" foreign policy.

After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Rubio was a vocal supporter of Kyiv. More recently, he has called for negotiations to end the conflict and voted in April against a $95 billion military aid package for the Ukrainians.

Rubio is a strong supporter of Israel, in line with Trump's stance. He has exhibited a tough stance toward authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as toward the communist leadership in Beijing.

In response, China has banned the senator from entering the country  something that likely will change if Rubio is confirmed as secretary of state.

Should Rubio take the job, he would have to vacate his Senate seat. A successor would then be selected by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Among the candidates being promoted by influential Republicans for the Senate seat is Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Trump's daughter-in-law.

VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report.

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Blinken calls for 'extended pauses' in Gaza war

By VOA News November 13, 2024

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for "real and extended pauses" in the Gaza war to allow aid delivery to residents.

During a visit to Brussels, Belgium, Blinken told reporters the United States wants to see "real and extended pauses in large areas of Gaza, pauses in any fighting, any combat, so that the assistance can effectively get to people who need it."

He said Israel has taken steps to address the humanitarian problem, and it has also "accomplished the goals that it set for itself," he said. "This should be a time to end the war."

Earlier, six people were killed in an Israeli airstrike in an area south of Beirut Wednesday, and the Israeli army issued another warning for people in parts of the southern suburbs to leave.

Lebanon's health ministry said an additional 15 people were wounded in the airstrike, which followed heavy pounding by Israel on Tuesday.

Overnight attacks in Lebanon were "intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah weapons storage facilities and command centers in the Dahieh area, a key Hezbollah terrorist stronghold in Beirut," Israel Defense Forces stated in a post on the Telegram messaging app Wednesday.

The Israeli military said before the strikes, "numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk to civilians, including issuing advance warnings to the population in the area."

IDF also stated Wednesday that several Hezbollah field commanders have been killed in recent strikes in Lebanon.

"At the beginning of the month of October, the IAF struck and eliminated Hezbollah's Commander of the Khiam area, Muhammad Musa Salah, in the area of Khiam," IDF posted. "Salah directed many terror attacks against the State of Israel, and was responsible for the launches of more than 2,500 projectiles toward the areas of the Golan Heights, the Upper Galilee, the Galilee Panhandle, and toward IDF troops operating in southern Lebanon."

On Sunday, the commander of an anti-tank missile array in Hajir was killed, and field commanders of the Ghajar and Tebnit areas were also killed "during additional precise strikes," IDF stated.

Russia's request in Syria

Russia asked Israel to avoid launching airstrikes near one of its bases in Syria, Agence France-Presse reported.

In October, Israel reportedly hit the port city of Latakia, a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad, who is supported by Russia and backs Hezbollah.

Latakia, is close to the town of Hmeimim, which hosts a Russian air base.

"Israel actually carried out an airstrike in the immediate vicinity of Hmeimim," Alexander Lavrentiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy in the Near East, told the RIA Novosti press agency.

"Our military has of course notified Israeli authorities that such acts that put Russian military lives in danger over there are unacceptable," he added.

US response to aid in Gaza

The United States said Tuesday that Israel has made limited progress on increasing the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip as Washington requested, so the Biden administration will not limit arms transfers to Israel.

State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters that "we at this time have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of U.S. law."

The administration told its ally on October 13 that it had one month to increase aid to Gaza, where the situation after 13 months of war between Israel and Hamas militants has unleashed a catastrophic humanitarian situation, or face a reduction in military aid. The deadline was Tuesday.

"We are not giving Israel a pass," Patel said, adding that "we want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve, and we think some of these steps will allow the conditions for that to continue to progress."

At the United Nations, U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council that Israel has taken some important steps, including restoring aid deliveries to the north, but that it must ensure its actions are "fully implemented and its improvements sustained over time."

"And we continue to reiterate, there must be no forcible displacement nor policy of starvation in Gaza, which would have grave implications under U.S. and international law," she said.

A senior U.N. human rights official said at the same meeting that the entry and distribution of aid into Gaza has fallen to "some of the lowest levels in a year" and criticized Israel's conduct of military operations in the north.

Israel denies it is limiting aid to Gaza, blaming the U.N. and aid agencies for slow distribution and Hamas for stealing it.

The war in Gaza was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, although about one-third of them are believed to be dead.

Israel's counteroffensive has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities. The Israeli military says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas militants.

The war spread to Lebanon in mid-September, after months of rocket fire from Hezbollah into Israel and drone and airstrikes by Israel's military in south Lebanon escalated. More than 3,200 Lebanese have been killed, most of them in the past six weeks.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah have been designated as terrorist organizations by the United States.

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M-1978 / M1989 (KOKSAN)

170mm self propelled (SP) gun

A North Korean M-1978 "Koksan" 170mm self-propelled artillery gun was found 13 November 2024 on a train in the city of Krasnoyarsk in central Russia. The guns were heading west toward the Ukrainian front. The 170mm gun has no superstructure, and thus is highly vulnerable to attack by RPV and any shrapnel weapon. While it may be the longest-range field gun made anywhere in the world, capable of firing a rocket-assisted projectile to a range of 45 to 60 kilometers, the rate of fire of its artillery is one round every three to five minutes.

The M-1978 (KOKSAN) 170mm self propelled (SP) gun, of North Korean design and manufacture, is probably mounted on a T-54 chasis, a Chinese Type 59 hull or a T62 Chassis [most sources tend towards the Type 59 tank chassis, the CHICOM derivative of the T-54]. The 170mm gun has no superstructure, and it has 2 large spades at the rear. The 170mm (~6.69") gun itself is a previously unknown type, possibly Russian coastal-defence or ex-naval weapon. The M-1978 Koksan gun was first noted publicly in a parade in 1985. The Koksan is named after the city in North Korea where it was first seen by the West in 1978. The M-1978 version carried no on-board ammunition supply. The M1989 KOKSAN is a later version or modified M1978 which carries 12 rounds on-board ammunition supply.

The installation position of the early M1979 artillery used the rare "slide cover" technology-the artillery body is installed on the gun base, and the gun base is not It is not directly rigidly fixed to the chassis of the T-54/55, but first a layer of rails are installed on the T-54/55, and then the gun mount is placed on the rails.

This is a very strange approach, because the rail on the car body is parallel to the car body, instead of the inclined track or the track with the rear seat device of the mixed rear seat, which is common in the retreat gun, and the related From the photos taken during the military parade and inspection, the position of the M1979 artillery is not static, but sometimes in the middle and sometimes in the rear. If it is in combat, in addition to the rear hoe, the gun mount is also located in the vehicle at the back of the body.

So what artillery may be the source of reference for this country? First of all, many people think that the gun is completely copied from the Soviet-made S-23 gun, but this is not right. The S-23's artillery retreat and recoil machine is installed in the lower part of the barrel. Among the Gushan Cannon, the early M1978 adopts a trough-shaped cradle design, and the barrel is fixed in the trough and slides back and forth. Although both used vertical push-type balancing machines, there were too many heavy artillery of 150 or more with similar designs in that era.

Even harder to find, the arrangement of the retreat and retreat aircraft of the K-18 170mm artillery of Nazi Germany is somewhat similar to the trackless version of the Gushan Cannon exported to Iran by a certain country captured by the US military in Iraq. However, this model is a transitional model from M1978 to the final version of M1989, not an early prototype. And if the source of the M1979 version is its own guide rail, then considering that the barrel length 70 times diameter of this gun fits the design of the cannon, a special coastal fortress gun is likely to be the reference blueprint for that peculiar gun mount.

North Korea used them in batteries of 36 vehicles & supplied them to Iran when missiles became available as replacements. These foreign trade versions have complex designs. In addition to the traditional U-groove cradle version, there is also a combined cradle without back seat track. In addition, the artillery of these two types of cradles also has a variety of sub-models including at least slotted and pepper-bottle muzzle brakes. Later, the M1989 version also appeared dual-chamber brakes, which also shows from the side that the People's Army has been modifying the main gun.

It is difficult to say whether these transitional models are improved in response to customer needs or if they have found a takeover during the improvement process. However, the models delivered from these are all T-54 chassis and no auxiliary loading mechanism, and it has not been long since the appearance of M1989 at this time, perhaps the statement of cleaning up the inventory in the improvement test is more realistic.

As for M1989, it can be regarded as a complete version of the main thought cannon. The most important feature of M1989 is the comprehensive upgrade of the chassis. It uses a chassis similar to T-62 and pulls the skin. The guide rails are removed and the artillery is placed at the rear. About 12 rounds of ammunition racks were reserved, and the overall artillery cradle was changed to a combined cradle that requires higher materials but is lighter and more efficient, making the recoil curve of the artillery smoother. The overall shape is similar to the Soviet 2S7 self-propelled artillery, and the shape is more modern, and the overall center of gravity is also significantly reduced, which improves the passability.

During the Iran-Iraq War, key oil facilities of both nations were within artillery range of each other's armies. By June 1982, the Iraqis had been driven completely out of Iran. From that point on, Iraq spent most of the war on the defensive. In 1986 and the beginning of 1987, Iran launched new offensives, the last reaching the outskirts of Basra before again bogging down. Meanwhile, Iraq initiated a new tanker war in the Gulf, prompting Iran to target neutral shipping. Kuwait provided billions of dollars in loans and grants to support Iraq, and found itself in the middle of the combatants.

Iran acquired a number of M1978 Koksan guns from North Korea in 1987. "At that time, it was the longest-range field gun made anywhere in the world, capable of firing a rocket-assisted projectile to a range of almost 60 kilometers. It had been used by the Iranians to conduct harassment fire from the Al-Faw Peninsula into Kuwait's northeastern oil fields." [Ally to Adversary, page 27] With the Iran/Iraq War raging just to the north, fighting spilled over into Kuwait, and the steady pounding from the artillery barrages just to north shook the walls in Kuwait City.

Even the range advantage failed to save the reputation of the "Tanishan Cannon". Iranian gunners soon discovered that these weapons were not only inaccurate but also inconvenient to use: although the tank body was used as the chassis, it could not carry any gunner or ammunition. The rate of fire of its artillery is one round every three minutes, and manpower is required to slowly lower the barrel every time it is reloaded; not only that, because the length of the cannon exceeds 15 meters, it is difficult for the "Gushan Cannon" to even maneuver on curved roads -This quickly diminished the interest of Iranians.

During the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq captured more than a dozen North Korean "Gushan Cannons" from Iran. In the Gulf War in 1991, some of these artillery were seized by the U.S. Army. The U.S. military made detailed information about the North Korean "Gushan Cannons". The test gave an accurate understanding of the performance of "Gushan Cannon".

U.S. military tests have proved that although the "Tanishan Cannon" has a maximum range of 45 kilometers when using a rocket extended-range projectile, the rate of fire is very low due to the complicated design, and the normal rate of fire can only reach one round in 5 minutes. At present, the mainstream 152/155 self-propelled howitzers in the world can usually reach 50 kilometers using rocket extended-range projectiles, and the Chinese 05 can even reach 55 kilometers; todays mainstream self-propelled howitzers are equipped with semi-automatic loader, and the average rate of fire is 5-6 rounds per minute, 8 rounds per minute can be fired quickly, and the firepower density is at least 25 times that of the "Gushan Cannon".

Since 1993, the North has reinforced its artillery capability in the forward area. As of 1998 the South Korean military estimated that the DPRK had finished deploying 170mm self-propelled artillery with their range of over 50km and 240mm MRLS in the central and western areas, and was in the process of increasing deployment of these two weapons systems in the eastern area.

North Korea continues to improve its military. Highlighting these enhancements is an ambitious program to improve ground forces capabilities. A key component of this initiative involves the deployment of large numbers of long-range 240mm multiple rocket launcher systems and 170mm self-propelled guns to hardened sites located near the Demilitarized Zone. With the exception of the 170mm M-1978 Koksan gun, a new turreted self-propelled gun observed in a 1992 parade, and perhaps a few other systems, most artillery was developed from older Soviet and Chinese designs.

The M1989 Koksan was a further development of the M1978 Koksan. It carries the same 170mm Soviet Costal Gun mounted on a new chassis which can carry 12 on-board rounds. Both M1989 and M1978 are located over the DMZ these vehicles were designed to hit Seoul from the DMZ. The M1989 was introduced in 1983 and presented a lengthened chassis with a front cabin reminiscent of the Soviet 2S7 Pion.

According to one report, a South Korean security analyst suggested that DPRK artillery pieces of calibers 170mm and 240mm "could fire 10,000 rounds per minute to Seoul and its environs." The number of Koksan guns is not publicly reported, but it is reliably reported that North Korea has about 500 long-range artillery tubes within range of Seoul, double the levels of a the mid-1990s. Large caliber self propelled artillery pieces typically have a sustained rate of fire of between four and eight rounds per minute. This suggests a total rate of fire of artillery alone of between 2,000 and 4,000 rounds per minute. The DPRK's two hundred 240mm MRLs fire either 12 or 22 rounds, providing a maximum single salvo of no more than 4,400 rounds.

North Korea is establishing a host of antitank defensive positions on the eastern and western fronts of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that bisects the two Koreas. The North Korean army has been building antitank defensive positions north of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) in Kangwon Province since March 2001, and in early 2002 such positions were going up along the western front as well. It is exceptional for the North to build defensive facilities as its strategy has always centered on an offensive posture. The North has demanded that South Korea abolish its defensive concrete walls, designed to deter advancing North Korean tanks, south of the MDL. By January 2002 fifty more positions had reportedly been spotted on flat land and roads, which ensure that tanks and other vehicles can be conveniently maneuvered. The positions are reportedly five meter-high concrete structures with holes at the front, left and right for antitank guns. The structures are camouflaged by earth and sand after completion.

Given North Korea's reliance on artillery as the foundation of their combat power and the size of these positions, they are likely designed for self-propelled artillery pieces such as North Korea's Koksan Gun. The height of the positions is much more then is required to provide protection for either tanks or anti-tank guns. Tanks are usually employed "hull down" in which only the turret is exposed and anti-tank guns which have little use against modern armor, normally seek to fire at the flank of armored vehicles at close range in restricted terrain. Anti-tank guns are of little value against the K-1 and M-60s of south Korea's military. North Korea's only realistic chance to take out modern armor is with the use of anti-tank missiles, mines, or close infantry assault.

On 07 March 2016, South Korea and the United States began joint annual war games "Key Resolve" and "Foal Eagle," which Pyongyang claimed were rehearsals for northward invasion. On 26 March 2016 the DPRK threatened to fire long-range artillery at Seoul unless South Korean President Park Geun-hye apologizes and punishes those who planned striking the DPRK leadership. Pyongyang issued the warning in an ultimatum sent to the Park administration by the artillery force of the Korean People's Army(KPA). The ultimatum urged Park to offer "an official apology" to all Korean people for "dare attempts to slander and do harm to the sun of Songun," which refers to the DPRK's top leader, Kim Jong Un.

Korean Central News Agency reported that "The recent simultaneous firings conducted by the long-range artillery force of the Korean People's Army, rocking the earth and sky, turned the imaginary enemy bases of provocation into a sea of flames in a flash. This was a great eruption of its irrepressible hatred and wrath at the enemy which committed the thrice-cursed act of daring attempt to hurt the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK. It was, at the same time, the beginning of the merciless retaliatory campaign to put the most miserable end to the Park Geun Hye group of south Korea."

Korean Central News Agency reported 27 March 2016 that "Citizens in the DPRK fully support the ultimatum to the south Korean puppet group recently issued by the long-range artillery force of the Korean People's Army. Kim Han Il, manager of the Chollima Steel Complex, told KCNA: "The KPA's ultimatum is as good as the last warning to those provokers by the workers of my complex. The respected Marshal Kim Jong Un is the great sun of Songun Korea representing the destiny and future of the Korean nation. It is a never-to-be-condoned crime to point an accusing finger at the sun.""











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Mission accomplished across air, land and sea

By Captain Andrew Page

12 November 2024

Exercise Bersama Lima 2024 has concluded with all activities conducted across air, land and sea a resounding success.

The annual exercise involves the participation of Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) partners Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Commander of the Australian Contingent Major Mark Tamblyn said the exercise helped to build relationships with FPDA partners and improved interoperability.

"Training on an exercise like this helps us to work together as one cohesive team," Major Tamblyn said.

"With these partnerships, we're ready to respond to natural disasters and security situations in the coordinated defence of Malaysia and Singapore."

This year's Bersama Lima included the deployment of Royal Australian Air Force F-35A Lightning II aircraft to host nation Singapore - a first for an FPDA exercise.

Another first was the deployment of a Royal Australian Navy clearance diving team to Tioman Island, Malaysia, where together with other FPDA nations, they cleared mines laid by a fictitious enemy.

Bersama Lima 2025 will be hosted in Malaysia to continue enhancing training realism and sophistication among the FPDA nations.

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Singapore jets wrap up in Western Australia

By Flying Officer Michael Thomas

12 November 2024

After four months and three rotations of two different models of aircraft, the Republic of Singapore (RSAF) Extended Fighter Detachment (EFD) concluded on October 18 at RAAF Base Pearce, WA.

Running from June 24, the EFD involved the RSAF's F-16s and F-15SGs, and provided the RSAF air and ground crew realistic training opportunities using WA airspace, base and ranges.

Senior ADF Officer of RAAF Base Pearce Wing Commander Greg Porche said despite the EFD's impact on current operational norms, all RAAF Base Pearce personnel and stakeholders rose to the challenge.

"There were many hurdles to overcome, but all personnel demonstrated strong agility in adapting to the EFD's needs," Wing Commander Porche said.

"The increased complexity of aerodrome and airspace operations provided a valuable opportunity to test our air base capabilities, mixing fast-jet operations with ab initio flight training and assessing the increased load on air base support functions."

RSAF Deputy Head Air Operations Colonel Anthony Wong said the EFD reflected the close and long-standing defence relations between Singapore and Australia.

"As a small country with limited training airspace, overseas training detachments enable the RSAF to overcome Singapore's airspace constraints and conduct realistic, high-end training," Colonel Wong said.

"The EFD provided valuable training for our air and ground crew, as well as opportunities for our RSAF personnel to network with RAAF counterparts and engage with the local community.

"We are very grateful for the support, friendship and opportunity to be able to train in Australia."

Three community days were held offering members from Bullsbrook, the City of Swan and students from nearby schools the opportunity to see the aircraft up close and engage with RAAF and RSAF personnel.

Wing Commander Porche said the RSAF EFD provided many positive outcomes for RAAF Base Pearce.

"The RSAF personnel went out of their way to ensure the success of the EFD operations and demonstrated a strong willingness to engage with the local community," Wing Commander Porche said.

"We now have an increased understanding of how to support RSAF fast-jet operations and planning considerations, further enhancing our already strong partnership with the RSAF."

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Australia and Singapore deliver new Defence training facilities and strengthen training ties

Issued by Defence Media

13 November 2024

Australia and Singapore today celebrated the opening of new and expanded facilities at Shoalwater Bay Training Area.

The opening coincided with Exercise Trident, the signature biennial joint training exercise between the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and Singapore Armed Forces (SAF).

Australia's Secretary of the Department of Defence, Mr Greg Moriarty AO, and Singapore's Senior Minister of State for Defence, Mr Heng Chee How, opened the new facilities developed under the Australia-Singapore Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

The Shoalwater Bay Training Area has been expanded to meet the future needs of the ADF and facilitate an increased presence of SAF personnel conducting unilateral training in Australia.

Up to 6,600 SAF personnel will now be able to train for a single nine-week period each year, compared to the previous 45-day period.

New infrastructure and range developments at Shoalwater Bay Training Area include:

two urban operations live fire facilities, the first of their type in Australia,

combined air-land ranges,

camp accommodation for up to 2,000 personnel, and

medical, administration, exercise control facilities and supporting infrastructure.

Mr Moriarty said the new facilities would enhance training outcomes for Australia and Singapore.

"The expansion of the training area will enable the ADF and SAF to concurrently conduct our own unilateral training, and also support enhanced bilateral training and complexity."

Exercise Trident 2024 is designed to enhance both nations' ability to project a combined land force from sea-to-shore, manoeuvre inland and secure an objective.

"This is the latest milestone in our nations' Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, and we welcome the opportunity to continue to learn from each other in a joint exercise environment," Mr Moriarty said.

Exercise Trident has grown in scope and scale to enhance interoperability between the Australian Defence Force and Singapore Armed Forces since it was first held in 2013.

This year, Exercise Trident 2024 will focus on airmobile, littoral and urban combat operations. It will involve more than 1,900 SAF and ADF personnel, two ships and include a combined science and technology component focusing on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) interoperability.

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Sailing home for the final time

By Sub-Lieutenant Brandan Clothier

13 November 2024

After 23 years of faithful service, HMAS Gascoyne II sailed through Sydney Heads on its return home for the final time before decommissioning in December.

Commanding Officer Gascoyne Lieutenant Commander Lachlan Browne was joined on board by several former commanding officers of Gascoyne as the ship pulled alongside HMAS Waterhen flying its decommissioning pennant.

"It means a great deal to us to be able to farewell this great ship properly, and just as much to see so many of our friends in the mine warfare community line the wharf to celebrate this occasion with us," Lieutenant Commander Browne said.

Gascoyne's commanding officer praised his ship's company for their efforts during his two years in command.

"This really is an exceptional crew, and I think they've done the legacy of Gascoyne very proud. To have served as their CO has been the honour of my career," Lieutenant Commander Browne said.

HMAS Gascoyne's service as a Huon-class mine hunter of the Royal Australian Navy began in June 2001, when special guest on board Rear Admiral (retd) Mark Hill served as the ship's first commanding officer.

"To be on board for both her first ever day at sea, and now for her last, it's been quite a heartfelt moment to reflect on," Rear Admiral Hill said.

"Most importantly to me, it's understanding that it's always been the people that make the ship.

"I was certainly very proud of my people when we commissioned Gascoyne, and from listening to the CO sign off to his crew over the ship's loudspeaker system today I know he feels the same sense of pride about his ship and crew."

Gascoyne made the final journey home having travelled a total of 312,396 nautical miles - equivalent to more than 14 circumnavigations of the globe - that took the ship as far as Tonga and Tuvalu to work alongside Australia's Pacific partners.

Commander of the Mine Warfare, Diving and Geospatial Force Captain Richard Brickacek remembers his time in command fondly, having sailed Gascoyne to Japan and South Korea for multinational exercises in 2016, the furthest any mine hunter had ever sailed from Australia at that time.

"There's a heartfelt connection you feel when you've been part of [a] ship's company," Captain Brickacek said.

"It's sad to see her go after so many years of service, but there's reassurance there that our people are already leading the way to maintain the navy's mine warfare skills at the waterfront.

"From seaman to warrant officer, sub-lieutenant to commander, the future opportunities and capabilities for mine warfare will be extremely exciting for everyone involved."

HMAS Gascoyne's decommissioning ceremony will take place on December 5 at HMAS Waterhen, Sydney.

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Building experience and connections at Freedom Flag

By Squadron Leader Eamon Hamilton

13 November 2024

A growing Australian presence at Exercise Freedom Flag 24-1 in the Republic of Korea recently allowed Royal Australian Air Force aviators to build experience that cannot be found at home.

Previously titled Exercise Vigilant Defense, the exercise ran from October 28 to November 1, and is conducted annually between the US Air Force (USAF) and Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF).

Since 2022, RAAF has sent a KC-30A Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) to the exercise, flying from Gimhae Air Base near the city of Busan.

This year, RAAF also sent a nine-person team from 114 Mobile Control and Reporting Unit (114MCRU) to Osan Air Base near Seoul.

The team embedded within the USAF 621st Air Control Squadron to provide support to the Control and Reporting Centre (CRC).

Exercise Freedom Flag missions involved hundreds of aircraft, and exposed RAAF aviators to airspace and scenarios they wouldn't normally experience in Australia.

This included opportunities for a RAAF KC-30A to refuel the famous A-10C Thunderbolt II - known affectionately as the 'Warthog'.

The exercise also involved the US Marine Corps and US Army.

Leading the 114MCRU team at Osan Air Base, Squadron Leader Aaron Thorpe said the exercise built working-level relationships with American counterparts.

"Integration with the USAF CRC team was achieved with Australian CRC staff assuming USAF positions seamlessly," Squadron Leader Thorpe said.

"One of our members picked up a C2 [command and control] team lead role for one of the missions, which required them to lead the USAF and ROKAF C2 elements in execution.

"This ability to integrate in on their team, systems, positions and processes is unavailable elsewhere in our exercise program."

Missions are conducted in tightly controlled airspace and include offensive and defensive counter-air, air interdiction, close air support, combat search and rescue, air drops and aerial medical evacuation missions.

"This exercise allowed more junior staff to gain the same knowledge, skills and experience operating with their USAF equivalents," Squadron Leader Thorpe said.

"These are experiences that many of our older members have gained from previous deployments in the Middle East region where they embedded with USAF CRC units.

"The experience at Freedom Flag will allow us to continue our level of turn-key integration with Allied partners in the future."

While the RAAF CRC team 'plugged in' to the existing USAF C2 structure, it also provided awareness of its own capability in Australia.

This included RAAF's Bandicoot capability, which allows smaller dispersed C2 detachments to be rapidly established in remote locations.

"They were very keen to understand our transition to the Bandicoot capability, with a particular focus on individual positions and training needs," Squadron Leader Thorpe said.

"This is especially relevant as the USAF conducts its own transition to Tactical Operations Center - Light and small form factor C2 systems."

The RAAF KC-30A contingent likewise used Exercise Freedom Flag to build on its relationships, according to Squadron Leader Martin Drew, of 33 Squadron.

"We integrated with the ROKAF's 261st Aerial Refueling Squadron and conducted mission planning, interfly exercise missions and sharing of procedures and training," Squadron Leader Drew said.

"Our ROKAF hosts provided apron space, maintenance and support facilities, and working and briefing areas within their squadron.

"The exercise also provides experience with working from ROKAF bases, including setup and continuous flying operation from a foreign military airfield."

The ROKAF operates four KC-330 Cygnus MRTTs, which are almost identical to the RAAF's own KC-30As.

"We also shared experience of hose and drogue operations with the ROKAF, as they currently don't employ this air-to-air refuelling system on their aircraft," Squadron Leader Drew said.

"There were some language challenges, though these were overcome and managed with specific host officers and translations provided during mass briefs."

The RAAF KC-30A contingent brought considerable operational experience to the relatively unfamiliar flying environment at Exercise Freedom Flag.

"There are unique airspace constraints and real-world strategic effects by integrating with both US and Republic of Korea air assets," Squadron Leader Drew said.

"We provided two planners to the combined US, Korean and Australian planning week at Osan Air base.

"This gave our pilot and aerial refuelling officer planners exposure to mission planning cycles and experience in new airspace."

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Delivering skilled defence industry jobs in South Australia

The Hon Richard Marles MP

Deputy Prime Minister

Minister for Defence

13 November 2024

Almost 300 more young South Australians will have access to new training and employment pathways, to equip them with the skills needed for a career in the state's vibrant defence industry.

The Albanese Government in partnership with the Malinauskas Government will establish the Defence Industry Pathways Program and the Shipbuilding Employment Pathways pilot initiative. These programs will enable trainees and apprentices, including school leavers, to obtain world-class qualifications while receiving hands-on training opportunities and fulltime paid employment.

A strong defence industry in South Australia will be critical to delivering the nation's future conventionallyarmed, nuclearpowered submarines and major surface combatant vessels, including the Hunter class frigate. These capabilities will support thousands of jobs and underpin over $30 billion in investment in the state over the next decade.

At its peak, up to 5,500 direct jobs are forecast to be created in South Australia for the build of nuclear-powered submarines, while the construction of the Hunter class frigates at Osborne will sustain at least 2,000 jobs and create at least 500 new jobs over the next decade.

Delivery of the Defence Industry Pathways Program and the Shipbuilding Employment Pathways pilot is being co-designed with the South Australian Government.

Peer Education Employment & Training Ltd (PEER) has been selected to support these programs as the Group Training Organisation, in partnership with TAFE SA as the Registered Training Organisation.

From today, PEER is accepting expressions of interest for both programs, with the first group of trainees and apprentices to commence from March 2025.

These fully funded programs are the latest initiatives by the Albanese Government to quickly grow this workforce. They build on the work underway with South Australia to grow, train and retain a high-skilled workforce now and for decades to come.

Together, we are investing in over 20 initiatives under the joint Commonwealth-South Australia Defence Industry Workforce and Skills Action Plan, including:

the Skills and Training Academy at Osborne;

the Schools Pathways Program, supporting almost 5,000 secondary students;

over 1,000 additional Commonwealth Supported Places at the University of Adelaide and Flinders University over the coming years.

Quotes attributable to Acting Prime Minister, Richard Marles:

"The Albanese Government continues to prioritise investments to skill and grow South Australia's workforce to deliver some of the largest and most complex projects critical to Australia's national security.

"Our future conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines and commitment to continuous naval shipbuilding will create a pipeline of high-skilled, well-paid jobs in South Australia for generations.

"By investing in programs that support apprentices and trainees now, we are working to ensure a defence future made in Australia.

Quotes attributable to the Minister for Defence Industry and Capability Delivery, Pat Conroy

"A skilled defence industry is critical to a safer future made in Australia.

"These initiatives will help deliver the workforce required to deliver the capabilities needed to safeguard the nation while providing a path to financial security for thousands of South Australians."

Quotes attributable to the Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles:

"The Albanese Government is building a world-class vocational education sector and ensuring that all apprentices and trainees have access to the high-quality training to meet the skills needs of the future."

"We're putting TAFE at the centre of delivering Australia's future defence industry workforce.

"This program is another great example of the partnership between the Albanese and the Malinauskas governments to build the critical skills needed to support AUKUS."

Quotes attributable to SA Treasurer and Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Stephen Mullighan:

"The number of skilled workers required for South Australia's defence industry is set to skyrocket, between work on the Hunter Class frigates and the local construction of the SSN-AUKUS conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines.

"This surge in demand means South Australians will have access to thousands of highlyskilled, highly-paid career opportunities in the coming years and decades.

"Through the Defence Industry Pathways Program and the Shipbuilding Employment Pathways, we're proud to partner with the Commonwealth Government to support people of all ages and backgrounds into these roles."

Quotes attributable to SA Minister for Education, Training and Skills, Blair Boyer:

"We have a big job ahead of us to significantly increase our skilled workforce to meet the demands of our emerging defence industry and other areas of growth in our state.

"The Schools Pathway program will support our young people by providing an understanding of the defence industry and the various careers available to them as part of the sector.

"We want students and apprentices to know they can start their journey to a career in defence while still at school, getting qualifications that will get them a job when they finish their SACE."

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How could US-China rivalry in Africa play out under Trump 2.0?

By Kate Bartlett November 12, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump talked tough on China during his campaign, vowing to impose higher and sweeping tariffs on imports from the Asian giant. Beijing will now also be closely watching the incoming administration's movements further afield, in Africa, where U.S.-China rivalry is high.

Experts disagree on what a second Trump term will mean for Beijing's ambitions on the continent, with some saying it could be a boon for China - Africa's biggest trade partner - if the U.S. pursues an isolationist, "America First" agenda that mostly ignores the region.

But Tibor Nagy, who served as Trump's Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2018 to 2021 has a different perspective. He said Trump grasped how powerful a player China had become on the continent.

"It was the Trump administration that was the first to kind of recognize the existential threat that China poses," Nagy told VOA.

"We were on the front lines of that in Africa, and we saw what the Chinese were doing," said Nagy, who also served as the U.S. ambassador to Guinea and Ethiopia during the administrations of presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Nagy told VOA he does not think the incoming Republican administration will neglect Africa because it sees China as a threat to U.S interests there. He also said the continent is a major source of critical minerals attractive to both superpowers.

Nagy credits the first Trump administration with introducing policies on the continent intended to counter China's influence.

"We had ... the right focus because we made it about the youth. You know, our premise was that Africa is going to be undergoing a youth tsunami with the population doubling by 2050. And that more than anything, what the youth really wanted was jobs," he said.

To this end, Nagy says, the first Trump administration set up Prosper Africa in 2018, an initiative designed to assist American companies doing business in Africa, and he expects the incoming administration will remain engaged there.

"Africa remains very much the front lines," he said. "The United States is extremely concerned about our strategic minerals, and when a hostile power has a lock on strategic minerals, that's really not very good when you need the strategic minerals for your top-end technology and for weapon systems."

But Christian-Geraud Neema, Africa editor for the China-Global South Project, is skeptical and said a second term for Trump could be an opportunity for Beijing.

"Looking at his first term, Trump didn't show much interest in Africa, which is likely to be the case still now," he told VOA. "Only a few countries will matter  countries whose resources or position matter to the U.S. national security interests."

"China will have room to maneuver and increase its influence in so many ways," he added.

Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, echoed this.

"I doubt that Africa will be a featured priority for Trump," she told VOA in an emailed response, adding that the United States' absence on the continent "will boost the prominence of the Chinese position by its presence."

Lobito corridor future

Views on how successfully President Joe Biden's administration has engaged with Africa are also mixed. Many analysts said regardless of whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in office, the continent is usually an afterthought in U.S. foreign policy, which does not differ much from one administration to the next.

The current administration said it was "all in on Africa," when Biden hosted dozens of heads of state at his first African Leaders Summit in 2022, an event seen as an attempt at reasserting U.S. influence in the face of a rising China.

Yet, "African leaders or the African Union were not consulted about the agenda of the 2022 US-Africa Leaders Summit. This was also the case with the US's Africa strategy," wrote Christopher Isike, the director of African Centre for the Study of the United States at the University of Pretoria, in an article co-signed by Samuel Oyewole, political science postdoctoral research fellow at the university

While Trump never traveled to Africa as president, top Biden administration officials did visit the continent, including the vice president. Biden is also expected to travel to Angola before the end of his term in December.

Under Biden, the U.S. agreed to develop the Lobito Corridor and Zambia-Lobito rail line, a project described by the State Department as "the most significant transport infrastructure that the United States has helped develop on the African continent in a generation."

The rail line is seen as part of a transcontinental vision connecting the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

The undertaking is to be financed through a joint agreement calling for the U.S., African Development Bank, Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) and the European Union to support Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zambia.

Observers see it as an attempt to compete with Chinese President Xi Jinping's global infrastructure project the Belt and Road Initiative, which has built railways, ports and roads across Africa.

There is concern among some analysts that Trump could pull back from this.

"Existing bilateral and multilateral business partnerships ... such as the Lobito Corridor ... might wane significantly during the next Trump administration," said Oluwole Ojewale, a Nigerian analyst with the Institute for Security Studies, in an email to VOA.

"When that happens China will gain significant mileage in areas where the US Government's exit creates a vacuum on the continent," he added.

But Nagy disagreed, saying the Lobito Corridor is the "kind of project which would have come right out of the Trump administration."

Therefore, there's likely to be continuity, he added, noting: "The deal is done. Again, I can't speak for President Trump, or the people who are going to be coming in ... but it's logical."

'Other Friends'

When asked how African leaders will navigate the next Trump administration, Sun said they could play the U.S. and China against each other.

"Africa could highlight its role in the US-China great power competition in order to strengthen its position in the US grand strategy," she said in an email to VOA.

But she is doubtful African leaders will take that route because it "will carry the effect of being forced to choose, which I doubt that Africa will want to do."

However, at least one African politician has already alluded to this option.

Kenya's Raila Odinga, who is in the running to take over as chair of the African Union Commission next year, was blunt in his assessment of how African governments would handle a more isolationist U.S. under Trump.

"If he does not want to work with Africa," Odinga told Agence France-Presse last week, "Africa has got other friends."

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Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian's Regular Press Conference on November 13, 2024

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China

Updated: November 13, 2024 18:35

CCTV: A senior official of the Peruvian government said that in a world where economic globalization faces challenges from rising unilateralism and protectionism, China has played a leading role in the development of APEC, and become an important advocate, champion and participant of international cooperation. Political leaders and scholars of many countries also said that economies in the Asia-Pacific should promote the building of an open and inclusive world economy and prevent the world from falling into division. Do you have any comment on this? As the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting approaches, how does China view the prospects for high-quality development and economic integration in the Asia-Pacific?

Lin Jian: The Asia-Pacific is the most dynamic region and a vital engine driving global economic growth. The Asia-Pacific region accounts for one third of the world's population, over 60 percent of the global economy and nearly half of global trade. According to the IMF, economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region is projected to reach 4.2 percent in 2024, higher than the expected global growth rate of 2.9 percent.

China is an engine and propeller for regional cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. It is the largest trading partner of 13 APEC economies, and contributes 64.2 percent of the region's economic growth, 37.6 percent of the growth in goods trade and 44.6 percent of the growth in services trade. We have actively advanced the building of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, the high-quality implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and cooperation under the Belt and Road, applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, and promoted opening up and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific.

It is because of the endeavor of countries in this region to follow the prevailing trend of peaceful development and stand against bloc confrontation and zero-sum game that the Asia-Pacific has been able to create the remarkable "Asia-Pacific Miracle" and become an anchor for global development and stability. This hard-won outcome should thus be all the more cherished. Taking the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting as an opportunity, China stands ready to remain committed to upholding true multilateralism and open regionalism, create more opportunities for Asia-Pacific partners with high-quality development and high-standard opening up, and work with others to build an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future featuring openness and inclusiveness, innovative growth, connectivity, and win-win cooperation.

Reuters: An attack in Zhuhai that killed 35 people and injured 43 others has become a global news story. This attack follows a spate of recent high-profile violent attacks in Chinese cities. Is the Foreign Ministry worried that these events will impact on China's attractiveness to foreign investors and tourists?

Lin Jian: On the incident you mentioned, competent authorities have released police statements. It is learned so far that no foreign national was injured or killed in this incident. Let me point out that China is one of the safest countries with the lowest crime rate in the world. The Chinese government has always taken and will continue to take effective measures to fully protect people's safety and uphold social stability. We will also, as always, effectively protect the safety of all foreign nationals in China and provide a market-oriented, law-based and world-class environment for Chinese and foreign businesses.

China-Arab TV: Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince yesterday warned Israel against attacking Iran, denouncing its actions in Gaza as a massacre. Since China brokered the restoration of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran last year, we have seen the relationship between the two countries getting better and better. What is China's comment on the current relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran?

Lin Jian: Over the past one year and more since the historic reconciliation, the relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran have continued to make progress. China welcomes it and commends the efforts made by both countries in this regard. The recent sound interactions between Saudi Arabia and Iran at various levels have consolidated the momentum of their reconciliation, and contributed to regional peace and stability. China will, as always, support both countries in working together to enhance mutual trust and achieve lasting good-neighborliness and friendship.

The Paper: At this year's China International Import Expo (CIIE) which you touched upon yesterday, we noted that Peruvian alpaca toys became one of the hot items and were lovingly called "warmpaca." Peruvian craftsman Oswaldo Mamani said in an interview that China is a blessing for himself and his fellow villagers because the country enabled them to earn more income and live a better life. What's your comment?

Lin Jian: We also heard about the story of Peruvian craftsman Oswaldo Mamani. The cute alpaca wool products enchanted many Chinese consumers and are indeed a best seller at the CIIE. Mamani once only had a one-story workshop with annual sales of a little over 100 items. Now the workshop occupies three stories and hundreds of craftsmen joined him to earn more income. As they said, China, the country "on the other side of the world," completely changed their life.

China and Latin America have all along prioritized major livelihood projects in their cooperation. The list of uplifting and touching stories such as "warmpaca" goes on and on. The Belo Monte UHV transmission project which creates an "electricity expressway" linking north and south of Brazil has not only provided adequate power to industrial hubs there but also solved the power shortage problem for over 22 million Brazilians. China also implemented a good number of small and beautiful livelihood projects in Latin America. For example, China-aided water supply projects in two cities of Costa Rica have given nearly 40 thousand local people access to safe drinking water, and jumpstarted the local economy that was stymied for years due to water pollution.

China will follow the principle of sincerity, real results, affinity and good faith and the principle of pursuing greater good and shared interests, focus on people's livelihood, a priority in its relations with Latin America, continue to enhance solidarity and cooperation with Latin American countries, and deliver a stronger sense of fulfillment and happiness to the peoples of both sides.

AFP: Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. has called the presence of Chinese research vessels in its economic zone a violation of its sovereignty, saying it has raised flags, but China keeps sending these vessels. So does China have any comment?

Lin Jian: I am not aware of the situation you mentioned. Let me stress that China is a responsible country and has been carrying out offshore fishing and marine scientific research activities in accordance with laws and regulations.

China-Arab TV: Houthi spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in a statement this morning that the Houthis attacked a US aircraft carrier in the Red Sea as a response to the US's continuous invasion of Yemen's territory. How do you comment on the US's continuous invasion of territories of Middle East countries?

Lin Jian: The Red Sea has vital international trade routes for goods and energy going through it. Parties should jointly safeguard the security of sea lanes in the Red Sea in accordance with the law, and earnestly respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of littoral states including Yemen. The tension in the Red Sea is a prominent manifestation of the spillover of the Gaza conflict. It is now imperative for the international community to make joint efforts. Major countries in particular should play a constructive role, fully implement the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and immediately stop the fighting.

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Biden, Xi to meet in Lima on sidelines of APEC summit in Peru

By Patsy Widakuswara November 13, 2024

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet November 16 on the sidelines of the 2024 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC summit in Lima, Peru, the White House announced Wednesday.

The meeting follows the leaders' last in-person engagement a year ago on the sidelines of the APEC summit in California, and their 2022 meeting in Bali on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

Biden and Xi are expected to revisit areas of cooperation, particularly the resumption of military-to-military contacts, efforts to combat the global fentanyl crisis and nascent work to deal with the risks of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, a senior administration said in a briefing with reporters Wednesday.

The U.S. president will also express "deep concern" over Beijing's support for Moscow's war against Ukraine, and the deployment of North Korean troops to aid Russia, said the official, who requested anonymity to speak on the upcoming meeting. The official said Biden will also reiterate his "longstanding concern" over China's "unfair trade policies and non-market economic practices" that hurt American workers.

The official added Biden will raise Chinese cyber-attack efforts on U.S. civilian critical infrastructure as well as Beijing's increased military activities around Taiwan and the South China Sea while also underscoring the importance of respect for human rights.

The meeting is likely to be the last between Biden and Xi ahead of the incoming administration of Donald Trump in January. The president-elect has appointed ardent China critics in key foreign policy positions that could lead to a more confrontational U.S. posture toward Beijing. They include Republican Congressman Mike Waltz as Trump's pick for national security adviser and Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state.

Whatever the next administration decides, they're going to need to find ways to manage the "tough, complicated relationship" between the U.S. and China, the official said in response to a question from VOA.

"Russia, cross-strait issues, the South China Sea and cyber are areas the next administration is going to need to think about carefully, because those are areas of deep policy difference with China, and I don't expect that will disappear," the official said.

Xi is also likely anticipating what the Trump administration plans to do about global trade, particularly whether he will enact promises to impose steep tariffs on all Chinese goods.

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China looks to expand global influence with Xi's Latin America tour

By William Yang November 13, 2024

Chinese President Xi Jinping departs on a nine-day diplomatic tour to Latin America on Wednesday, during which he will inaugurate a Chinese-financed megaport in Peru and attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Lima and the G20 Summit in Brazil.

Analysts say the trip is part of China's attempt to expand its global influence and present itself as "a responsible global power" at a time when countries around the world brace for uncertainties following U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's victory on November 5.

"The trip is especially significant since Latin America is viewed as 'the backyard' of the United States; and [since] the next U.S. president is likely to return to a unilateral approach in world affairs, it provides China with the opportunity to expand its influence around the world as a champion for global development and multilateral cooperation," said Zhiqun Zhu, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Bucknell University.

During his state visit to Peru, Xi will inaugurate the $3.5 billion Chancay port with his Peruvian counterpart Dina Boluarte on Thursday. Situated 80 kilometers north of the Peruvian capital Lima, the port has a maximum depth of 17.8 meters and is expected to become a major trading hub between Latin America and China.

"The port will become the largest deep-water port in South America and it will drastically reduce the time needed to ship products from Peru to China," Leland Lazarus, associate director of national security at Florida International University, told VOA in a video interview.

China's state-run Cosco Shipping Corporation has a majority 60% stake in the port and a 30-year concession to operate the terminal. According to China's official data, the port can handle up to one million containers and 160,000 vehicles in the first year of operation.

The port is among 17 ports globally where China holds a majority stake, according to the Council on Foreign Relations and is one of more than 100 port projects built globally under China's flagship Belt and Road Initiative. The port is expected to become a major hub for exporting critical commodities such as lithium, copper, iron and soybeans to China more efficiently.

Latin American countries including Peru, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador, which had a combined export of $135 billion to China in 2023, could all benefit from the launch of the Chancay Port.

"There is a huge gap in infrastructure development in Global South countries and Western powers are not active in helping [to] fill the gap. [As a result,] China's investments in such large infrastructure projects are welcomed by host countries," Zhu at Bucknell University told VOA in a written response.

While Latin American countries will likely welcome the inauguration of the Chancay Port, the U.S. has warned about the potential for the port to be used for military purposes by China. That Washington claims could threaten its interests in Latin America.

"It could be used as a dual-use facility, it's a deepwater port," said Laura Richardson, the outgoing chief of the U.S. Southern Command told the Financial Times in a recent interview, adding that the Chinese navy could use the port in a scenario that, she said, fits "Beijing's playbook."

Some experts say it's difficult for China to deploy its naval vessels to Latin America in the near future and that Peru is unlikely to let Beijing militarize the Chancay port.

"Currently, the Chinese navy is not capable of projecting its power across the Pacific, and since Peru still needs to maintain its relationship with the U.S., Peruvian authorities won't allow the port to be militarized," Kung Kwo-Wei, an expert of Latin American affairs at Tamkang University in Taiwan, told VOA by phone.

However, Lazarus told VOA that Beijing's activities in other ports around the world suggest it could still use the Chancay port for military purposes in the future.

"When looking at Chinese behaviors [at other ports around the world], such as the Port of Bata in Equatorial Guinea and the Ream Naval Base in Cambodia, Chinese state-owned enterprises would promise to expand the ports for commercial purposes, yet there have been allegations that there's been construction for what looks like military purposes on these areas," said Lazarus.

In addition to the Chancay Port, Peruvian Foreign Minister Elmer Schialer told Reuters news agency in an exclusive interview that Beijing and Lima plan to sign around 30 agreements, including an updated free trade agreement, during Xi's visit.

Kung in Taiwan said these developments show that China's investment in Latin America is now focusing on logistical infrastructure and access to minerals from Latin America.

"China relies heavily on ports and logistical infrastructure to ensure it can export and import commodities at a steady pace, and as Beijing continues to expand its renewable energy industries, its appetite for minerals from Latin America will also grow," Kung told VOA.

As the U.S. could possibly adopt a more isolationist foreign policy approach during Trump's second term, Lazarus said Xi will use the upcoming APEC and G20 summits to amplify the message that China is a more consistent global power than the U.S.

"While the U.S. is going to potentially look inward with another Trump administration, [the summits] are Xi's big opportunities to show that China is playing a much more global role," he told VOA.

However, some experts say it remains unclear whether China will achieve its intended goals.

"Beijing will double down on the image of being the leader of the Global South and some countries will be attracted by that message," said Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore.

"But others who are more clear-eyed and who have followed developments from the Belt and Road Initiative and other Chinese projects will recognize that China is just another great power," he told VOA in a phone interview.

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China showcases new stealth fighter at Zhuhai air show

By Lin Nai-Chuan November 13, 2024

China showcased its second fifth-generation stealth fighter jet this week, the J-35A, at the country's premier aviation exhibition in the southern province of Guangdong, an achievement state media said puts Beijing on par with the United States.

Military analysts say China's ability to field two different types of stealth fighter jets marks an important milestone in Beijing's development of military technology, but it still has a way to go to catch up with the U.S.

With its J-20 and J-35A stealth fighter jets, China claims it is the first country to operate two types of stealth fighter jets after the U.S., which has its F-22 and F-35. Russia currently has one stealth fighter in operation, the Su-57, with another, the Su-75 Checkmate, still in development.

The J-35A made its debut on the opening day of the air show in Zhuhai, performing aerobatic displays. In addition to the J-35A and J-20, two of Russia's Su-57s were on exhibit for the first time at the biennial air show, which lasts until Sunday.

Higher profile as supplier

Song Zhongping, a Beijing-based defense expert, said China's possession of both the J-35 series and the J-20 stealth fighters brings with it benefits for Beijing in combat scenarios and raises its profile as a supplier of advanced military hardware.

"China is now one of the few countries worldwide with the capability to field two types of stealth fighters simultaneously," Song told VOA. "The advanced arms market should not be dominated solely by the U.S., Russia and Europe. China must also have a place, which will enhance China's defense industry strength on the global stage."

Song said that the J-35 has incorporated numerous new technologies that significantly improve its stealth capabilities compared with the United States' F-35. In a post on China's X-like social media platform Weibo, Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the party-backed Global Times, called the display of the new fighter jet a "strong and decisive response" to "Washington's overreach to stifle China's military achievements."

"China now has its own versions of the most attractive American equipment," Hu said in the post. "The U.S. has the F-22 and F-35; China now has the J-20 and J-35. The U.S. has THAAD [an anti-missile system], and China has the HQ-19 [surface-to-air missile system]."

Analysts say Russia's participation this year, showcasing its Su-57 alongside China's J-35 and J-20 at Zhuhai, not only highlights how Moscow and Beijing are working together in the global arms market but their closeness in the wake of Russia's war in Ukraine.

Yang Tai-yuan, a researcher at the Centre for Advanced Technology at Taiwan's Tamkang University, said that while China's technology is improving, its pilots lack real combat experience.

"The J-35 looks very similar to the American F-35. Was there copying involved? I think it's inevitable. To surpass the U.S. may not be possible," Yang said. "While the equipment may match the U.S. in many aspects, China's operational experience is not as robust."

Yang said other challenges remain, including getting more pilots trained and helping them transition from Beijing's third-generation J-7 and J-8 fighter jets to the highly digital systems of fifth-generation jets.

He also noted that while it takes at least 1,000 flight hours for a pilot to become experienced, People's Liberation Army pilots have fewer training hours compared with U.S. and NATO pilots, which makes it harder to develop situational handling experience.

He also pointed out that China's role for its "dual stealth fighters" remains unclear. While the J-20 primarily focuses on air superiority, the operational roles for the J-35 are not yet defined.

In terms of the global market, the United States' F-35 has already been sold to 20 U.S. allies around the world.

Analysts say it is highly unlikely that China will be able to sell its J-35 to countries that have the capability of operating a stealth fighter.

Even Singapore, which has deep economic ties with China, decided to buy 20 F-35s. There seems no way for the J-35 to compete against F-35 in the global fighter market, according to experts at the show.

Significant impacts

Timothy R. Heath, a senior international defense researcher at the RAND Corporation, believes stealth fighters may enhance the survivability of Chinese naval aviation.

In a written response to VOA, Heath said China's "dual stealth fighters" approach will have significant geopolitical and military impacts, prompting some Asia-Pacific nations to consider military cooperation with China.

"On the operational side, Southeast Asia and Indian Ocean coastal nations may feel pressured, as China's carrier-based stealth fighters could become a potent tool against their naval forces," Heath said.

Heath added that the J-35's political impact is significant but unlikely to drastically affect the situation in the Taiwan Strait, as China already has substantial air power over Taiwan.

Beijing considers self-ruled Taiwan a breakaway province that must one day reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Stealth fighters are dependent on carriers, which are vulnerable to U.S. submarines or long-range missiles, limiting their operational value in a Taiwan conflict. Heath said that in a Taiwan Strait conflict, if Chinese carriers ventured beyond coastal anti-access protection, their operations might be short-lived.

However, he added, deploying the J-35 from land-based air force units could enhance its effectiveness in operations over Taiwan.

Samuel Hui contributed to this report.

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Secretary Blinken's Meeting with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Dermer

US Department of State

Readout

Office of the Spokesperson

November 12, 2024

The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller:

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met in Washington yesterday with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. The Secretary and Minister reviewed steps that Israel has taken to improve the dire humanitarian situation inside Gaza in response to the letter sent by the Secretary and Secretary of Defense Austin on October 13. The Minister updated the Secretary on operational changes made by the Israeli Defense Forces and COGAT, as well as policy decisions taken by the Government of Israel to address the measures included in the letter. The Secretary emphasized the importance of ensuring those changes lead to an actual improvement in the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, including through the delivery of additional assistance to civilians throughout Gaza. The Secretary further reiterated the importance that Israel take every possible step to minimize civilian harm.

The Secretary also underscored the importance of ending the war in Gaza and bringing all of the hostages home. He reiterated that charting a path forward in the post-conflict period that provides governance, security, and reconstruction is the only way to ensure lasting peace and stability for both Israelis and Palestinians. The Secretary and Minister further discussed ongoing efforts to reach a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon that allows both Lebanese and Israeli civilians to return safely to their homes. The Secretary reaffirmed the United States' ironclad commitment to Israel's security against threats from Iran and Iran-backed proxy groups.



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Remarks by President Biden and President Isaac Herzog of the State of Israel Before a Meeting

November 12, 2024

Oval Office

11:55 A.M. EST

Q President Biden, do you think we can get a hostage deal by the end of your term?

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Do you think you can keep from getting hit in the head by a  a camera behind you?

All right. Well, thank you all.

Well, Mr. President, welcome back to the Oval Office and the White House. You've been a friend for a long time, a personal friend. And you know my commitment to Israel is ironclad and we share a deep friendship.

I want to thank you again for being here, and the floor is yours.

PRESIDENT HERZOG: Thank you, Mr. President. It's always a great honor to be here in the Oval Office and be  to be with a friend such as you, Mr. President.

I will start, of course, with the sad news of the day. In the last two hours, two Israelis were mor-  murdered by rocket attacks from Lebanon in the t-  northern town of Nahariya, a beautiful seashore town in the northern part of Israel. Early in the day, a kindergarten teacher of a kindergarten of special needs  childrens with special needs  rescued, bravely and wisely, the toddlers in the kindergarten from a drone attack. A drone exploded in the kindergarten.

This is what we're going through from Lebanon, Mr. President, and you know it all too well. We are fighting hard. We're defending our people, our brave soldiers and pilots. And I know that you're working very hard to make sure that this war will end and that will  there will be, first and foremost, security for the people of Israel as well as for the people of Lebanon.

And in Gaza, we have 101 hostages. Over 400 days, I know, Mr. President, that you know you  you are day-in, day-out, actively seeking their surf-  safe return home as they are going through hell in the dungeons of Gaza.

Clearly, you're thinking and working about the day after as well, which perhaps should be a trajectory of hope to the people of the region and the ability to have our neighbors, as well as us, live in security and peace.

But first and foremost, we have to get the hostages back home.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: I agree.

PRESIDENT HERZOG: And it all starts in Tehran. It all starts in the empire of evil, where in Tehran, with its proxies, they are doing whatever they can to re-  derail stability and security and peace, calling for the annihilation of the State of Israel and seeking nuclear weapons.

And, Mr. President, this has to be a major objective all throughout your term and the next term of the next president because we have to make sure that they cannot fulfill their evil intentions.

They're also a major engine of antisemitism, Mr. President. And I know how much you put a focus on fighting and combating anti-  antisemitism.

But most importantly, I'm here on behalf of the people of Israel and the nation of Israel and the State of Israel to say to you, Mr. President, thank you very much. As we say in Hebrew, toda raba.

You have been an incredible friend of Israel and the Jewish people for decades, and we will never forget, ever in history, how you stood up with us in our darkest hour, which became our finest hour  how you came to Israel a few days after the barbaric attack of October 7th, how you helped us and supported us with words and deeds.

And I want to express my  our heartfelt thanks to you, Mr. President, which is a great legacy that you stood up with the Jewish people and the State of Israel, as al-  you always did.

So, I brought you a little gift 

PRESIDENT BIDEN: It's a magnificent gift.

PRESIDENT HERZOG:  which is an archeological artifact from the foot of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which has the word "Joseph"  Yosef. And as you know, in the Bible, it is  says that Joseph will strengthen Israel. And clearly, Mr. President, you've done it.

Thank you very much.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, I hope my father heard that. He'd be  my father was what we call a righteous Christian. He couldn't understand why we didn't move more rapidly back in World War II (inaudible). Any rate. I 

PRESIDENT HERZOG: I think that was a great legacy with  of your father.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, it was. And I remember how I got in trouble  we were friends even back then  when I said  years ago, as a senator, I said, "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist." I'm a Zionist.

PRESIDENT HERZOG: And I know you are.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: And it's really 

PRESIDENT HERZOG: You're clearly a Zionist, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, God love you.

PRESIDENT HERZOG: Thank you very much.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Thanks for being here, pal.

12:00 P.M. EST

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Myanmar junta bombs insurgent-held gem-mining hub killing 9

Meanwhile, a tea shop in Shan state is hit, killing 11.

By RFA Burmese 2024.11.12 -- Junta forces bombed a famous ruby-mining town under insurgent control in central Myanmar killing nine people and wounding 13 in a deliberate attack on civilians, an insurgent group official told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.

Junta aircraft bombed three neighborhoods in Mogok on Monday at around 11 p.m. while one of the military's Russian helicopters also fired into the town for about 30 minutes, they said.

"Nine people died. We have to say it really impacted them badly. The junta wasn't fighting, they were targeting residents," said Lway Yay Oo, a spokesperson for the anti-junta Ta'ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA.

The insurgent group is part of a three-member alliance that has made striking gains over the past year in northeast Myanmar against forces of the junta that seized power in 2021. The TNLA has been in control of Mogok, in the Mandalay region, since July.

Six men and three women were killed in the air raid, said Lway Yay Oo, adding that a child was among the 13 people being treated for their wounds.

Radio Free Asia could not independently verify details of the attack and calls to Mandalay's junta spokesperson, Thein Htay, went unanswered.

TNLA fighters were combing through the rubble of 10 homes that were destroyed in the airstrike, said one resident of the town that has been famed for hundreds of years for its rubies and other gem stones.

"They shot directly into residential neighborhoods so everyone is afraid," said the resident.

Tea shop bombed

Also Tuesday, another airstrike hit a tea shop in Shan state, in the north of the country, killing 11 civilians and injuring 10 more.

A resident of the town of Nawnghkio said people were inside the Lan San tea shop, located on the Muse-Mandalay Union Road, when it was hit.

TNLA spokesperson Lway Yay Oo told RFA that it was initially reported that 11 civilians were killed and four were injured in the airstrike in Nawnghkio.

Due to ongoing fighting, phone and internet lines have been cut in Nawnghkio, preventing RFA from independently confirming the identities of the deceased.

RFA also attempted to contact Khun Thein Maung, Shan state Minister of Economy, and the spokesman for the junta in Shan state, but he did not respond.

The Myanmar military has been pushed back in different regions of the country over the past year and has increasingly been resorting to airstrikes, on both insurgent positions and civilian areas, human rights groups say.

Between January and October, junta airstrikes killed 540 civilians, according to the advocacy group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Translated by Kiana Duncan and Kalyar Lwin. Edited by RFA staff.

Update adds information about Nawnghkio airstrike.

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 November 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.

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UN labor watchdog to take action against Myanmar junta

The International Labor Organization said the junta failed to adhere to its recommendations.

By Kiana Duncan for RFA 2024.11.12 -- The International Labor Organization, or ILO, has decided to take action against the Myanmar junta for rights violations, saying that the country failed to adhere to recommendations made by the watchdog.

ILO's Commission of Inquiry recommended in October last year the military cease violence, release detained unionists, restore civil rights, and end forced labor practices after it found that the junta, since its 2021 coup, had severely restricted civil liberties and trade union rights.

"ILO decided to place on the agenda of ... an item concerning measures under article 33 of the Constitution to secure compliance by Myanmar with the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry," the watchdog said in a report on Wednesday.

Article 33 can lead to significant consequences including economic sanctions and international legal proceedings for member states that fail to comply with recommendations from the Commission of Inquiry.

The ILO Governing Body will discuss a draft resolution about which measures will be taken in the next session on March 2025, with a final decision made in June at the ILO Conference.

The decision was welcomed by labor advocates, who have called for international action since soon after the military overthrew an elected government in the February 2021 coup.

"This is critical, because now Article 33 will surely be passed," said Maung Maung, president of the Confederation for Trade Unions Myanmar, which has some 65,000 members.

What is most important is to see the extent to which the action against Myanmar will be addressed in the March meeting.

Media reports suggest that possible measures under Article 33 include halting support from U.N. agencies, suspending humanitarian aid, ceasing diplomatic recognition, designating the military as a terrorist group, and subjecting military leaders involved in labor rights violations to international judicial prosecution and possible economic sanctions.

"To what extent is it going to be discussed in March?" Maung Maung asked.

"Whether we just pursue trade issues or diplomatic issues or whether the international court issues will be included, these are the kinds of things that will be discussed and negotiated."

The ILO imposed sanctions against Myanmar's military regime in 2000 under Article 33 and labeled it a terrorist entity after concluding in 1998 that the use of forced labor was widespread in the country.

At that time, the ILO enacted various measures, including a request to ILO member states to review their relations with Myanmar to ensure that their actions could not be used to perpetuate the use of forced labor.

The restrictions were lifted in 2012, at the beginning of a decade of tentative reforms that was brought to an end with the coup and reimposition of strict military rule.

Edited by Taejun Kang.

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 November 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.

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Myanmar junta to cancel passports renewed by shadow government's South Korea office

Many Myanmar people struggle with paperwork enabling them to live abroad, especially opponents of military rule.

By RFA Burmese 2024.11.13 -- Myanmar's junta has announced that passports renewed "illegally" in South Korea would be canceled, the latest step in its efforts to crack down on its opponents abroad and to force citizens to return home, where they are liable to be conscripted into the military.

At the heart of the wrangle over passports is the question of who has the legitimacy to represent Myanmar - the deeply unpopular military that seized power in a 2021 coup, or members of the elected government it ousted who have set up a shadow administration in exile.

Radio Free Asia's Burmese service reported on Tuesday that there has been an increasing number of Myanmar citizens renewing their passports in the South Korean capital at the representative office of the government-in-exile, the National Unity Government, or NUG.

But the junta-appointed Myanmar embassy in Seoul warned that passports renewed that way would be canceled and their bearers would be blacklisted.

"We are taking action against those who renewed their passports with illegal stamps, in accordance with South Korean law," said the embassy.

"The embassy is discussing the issue with the South Korea government ministries concerned to take action," it added.

South Korea's foreign ministry said it is aware of the matter and was checking the facts and legal aspects.

"If necessary, appropriate measures will be reviewed in consultation with relevant ministries," the ministry told RFA on Wednesday.

RFA contacted the junta's main spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, for comment but did not receive a reply by publication time.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted a government led by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, ending a decade of gradual reforms that had raised hopes for an end to decades of poverty and repression under the military.

People of all ages and walks of life took to the streets across the country to protest against the coup.

The military responded with bullets and large numbers of people fled to places such as Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, either in fear of prison or looking for opportunities as the upheaval crippled the economy.

More fled military conscription enforced this year as junta forces struggled against ethnic minority insurgents and their new pro-democracy allies.

Thousands hope for new passports

Many of those who fled are now holding passports that are expiring, which junta-controlled embassies often refuse to renew, or only do so after detailed family background checks and if applicants sign pledges not to participate in politics.

Those without valid passports find it nearly impossible to renew visas to stay on in the countries where they are living.

So instead of relying on embassies, an increasing number of people in South Korea are turning to the NUG for passport renewals, a source close to the shadow government's office in Seoul said.

"More than 500 people from Myanmar have renewed their passports through the NUG office. The number is expected to reach into the thousands," said the source who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the issue.

"More people are contacting the NUG office every day to prepare their documents for passport renewal. The number of applicants is growing steadily."

In the weeks after Myanmar's coup, South Korea created what is known as the G1-99 visa, allowing Myanmar people to stay on humanitarian grounds. But the Myanmar embassy initially refused to renew passports with that visa, said one Myanmar national in Soul.

"Later, they accepted this visa for an extension but applicants need to sign a pledge (not to engage in politics) to get the passport. So we opted for NUG's passport renewal service," said the Myanmar citizen who declined to be identified.

The NUG office in Seoul said on Sunday that it was protecting Myanmar citizens who opposed the junta as much as it could, in addition to working for the release of Myanmar people arrested in South Korea for violating visa rules.

The office said the passports it renewed were only valid to stay in South Korea.

Those facing no option but to go home, or being deported back, risk being forced into the military, numerous people have reported.

A Yangon-based job agent helping workers go to South Korea told RFA that the NUG's passport renewal would only be a temporary fix and anyone hoping to return to Myanmar would face problems.

"The NUG passport will not be accepted by the junta. Having said that, it depends if individuals are staying long-term in South Korea," he said.

"Those holding NUG passports can't legally return home, as long as we're under the military regime, but they can stay overseas."

More than 70,000 Myanmar citizens are in South Korea under labor agreements between the two countries, according to media reports.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang.

RFA Korean's Lee Jeongeun contributed to this report.

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 November 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.

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Meeting with Head of the United Russia party faction in the State Duma Vladimir Vasilyev

Vladimir Putin held a working meeting with Head of the United Russia party faction in the State Duma Vladimir Vasilyev.

November 12, 2024

15:00

The Kremlin, Moscow

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Vasilyev, I always pay close attention to what is happening in the State Duma, especially when it comes to its biggest, leading party faction. What do you think about the current situation? I know that you have been working hard across the board.

Head of the United Russia party faction in the State Duma Vladimir Vasilyev: Mr President, you are well-informed about our work, so I will try not to repeat things you already know. I think that we embarked on a very important process. As I see this, it results from the congress we had during which you supported our people's programme - it summarises about two million wishes, contributions and mandates we received from the people of Russia. This was followed by your election as President and all the support you received, and then your Address to the Federal Assembly, the executive orders and the instructions you gave.

This was also the first time in our history that the State Duma held a debate on forming the federal Government under the amended Constitution. I believe that this was also very important. You may recall advising us at one of our congresses to steer clear of any populist agendas, and we effectively did so, even if there may have been those who were reluctant to do it. Still, we left the populist aspirations behind us, since we are in the same boat with the Government and bear joint responsibility when it comes to celebrating our success and admitting our shortcomings and failures. There is no doubt about that. We succeeded in this, and it was something that really mattered to us.

Vladimir Putin: You formed the Government.

Vladimir Vasilyev: Yes, this is what this all was about, but it takes some time before this fact dawns on you. You know, in some cases you move forward one step at a time without noticing it. I think that the processes we are currently witnessing in present-day Russia are very interesting and complementary. Therefore, instead of boring you with the figures you know better than I do, I would like to [discuss] this process as I see it.

Currently, we are actively involved in drafting the budget. This is quite a challenging process. Let us say that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation may have a position of its own on several matters, and other parties also stick to their positions. Against this backdrop, we can expect people to support us as long as we deliver, and people see that we act in their interests. For example, Mr Zyuganov may say that they are doing what people want. We respond by saying that we are doing as much as we can in terms of what people want, so as to subsequently do even more.

Vladimir Putin: This way you do not break anything.

Vladimir Vasilyev: Exactly. Otherwise, any hasty, ill-prepared move may destroy the very foundation.

You know, I believe that we have been succeeding in this regard. Let me share an interesting insight with you. I have already briefed you on this topic, but there have been some new developments in this domain. You may remember that we discussed the way State Duma deputies oversee major school renovation projects. In fact, we have monitored projects across 4,300 schools since 2022. This helped drive down tender and procurement costs, accelerate repairs and prevent any major delays. Because every month, a person, a State Duma deputy visited the school every month, accompanied by students and their parents and teachers to see what was going on. A simple solution, but it works.

In this connection, I believe that we have now reached a point where we can accomplish something, especially now that the Accounts Chamber has a new head. This change did not occur spontaneously. At the time, the Acting Head of the Accounts Chamber and I agreed that the Accounts Chamber and the Treasury would be working on a quarterly basis instead of annually, when the construction pit is in place, but nothing else has been done. While we aimed to operate on a monthly basis, that proved impossible, we do not have this opportunity. After we started working on a quarterly basis, we were able to assess the status of each facility; owners or contractors have begun installing web cameras. And we are here - a deputy arrives to check the state of things because he has to report to his constituency, and this provides a level of objective oversight.

This marks a systemic change, and I appreciate your prompt response to it. You noted that those who have made the savings should retain them. This serves as an incentive for honesty and effectiveness, which is commendable.

In this context, we can now analyse various aspects. For example, the public is now raising this issue, and it also concerns me because this is about a facility in Tver, in particular, the Volga River and water purification systems. A very acute issue, very sensitive. My colleagues there are quite proactive and commendable. But there are things there we can draw conclusions on and already monitor them in accordance with the new system of reference. It is indeed possible to monitor facilities, but we understand from the outset how much is there: for example, there is a programme, which we can monitor from the very beginning - you received money at the beginning of the year, what's the status of that funding, how it is being spent.

We have moved away from populism; our focus now is on earning the people's trust, which calls for achieving tangible results.

People witnessed this during our school renovation projects and during the recent elections. Citizens clearly understand what they are voting for. The same sentiment applies to the special military operation, as we increasingly prioritise the needs of our country over individual interests; current developments in society reveal a tremendous potential.

I believe it is now crucial to take advantage of this consensus between the Government and the State Duma to prevent the Government from diminishing our unique perspective and vitality, allowing for genuine cooperation. For instance, both the Accounts Chamber and the Treasury, they see everything. For example, I was to receive funding, and I got it, which means that we have successfully learnt to monitor the process. I used that funding, and that is objective control. The deputies are ready to implement this approach, we will be doing this - we have no other way, nothing else to demonstrate to the people.

By the way, this has had an extremely positive impact on elections. People visited schools they had renovated themselves, walked through public spaces that were developed at their request, and the streets. Naturally, they reacted as any reasonable person would.

Vladimir Putin: They can see the results, if there are any.

Vladimir Vasilyev: They want to see words translated into actions.

I was very pleased to learn that discussions are now taking place regarding the budget for the next 12 years, rather than for three or six years. I do not recall this happening in our time. If memory serves, you also pointed out the need to have a longer-term perspective, much like the rest of the world, in order to be progressive and forward-thinking.

I believe that, with this approach and systemic oversight, we can be somewhat protected from bribery, theft, unscrupulousness and mismanagement. This will allow us to prevent major losses, respond promptly, and seize assets to transfer them to more efficient owners.

Overall, we have a working atmosphere in the State Duma now, and we engage in debates from time to time.

<...>

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Ukrainian National Involved in Scheme to Export Dual-Use High Precision Jig Grinder to Russia Sentenced to 33 Months in Prison

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

For Immediate Release

Office of Public Affairs

Stanislav Romanyuk, 39, a citizen of Ukraine last residing in Estonia, was sentenced today to 33 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for his role in a scheme to violate U.S. export laws and regulations by attempting to smuggle a dual-use export-controlled item to Russia.

According to court documents and statements made in court, beginning in 2018, Romanyuk, who operated Estonia-based BY Trade OU, conspired with Vadims Ananics and Eriks Mamonovs, both citizens of Latvia who operated the Latvia-based corporation CNC Weld. Romanyuk, Ananics, and Mamonovs violated U.S. export laws and regulations with individuals in Russia and a Russian company to smuggle to Russia a 500 Series CPWZ Precision Jig Grinder that was manufactured in Connecticut.

A jig grinder is a high-precision grinding machine system that does not require a license to export to European Union countries, but does require a license for export and reexport to Russia because of its potential application in nuclear proliferation and defense programs. Romanyuk and his co-conspirators knew that the jig grinder could not be exported from the United States to Russia, and they did not apply for, receive, or possess a license of authorization from the U.S. Department of Commerce to export or reexport the jig grinder to Russia, as required by the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 and the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), which restrict the export of items that could make a significant contribution to the military potential of other nations or that could be detrimental to U.S. foreign policy and national security.

In April 2019, Romanyuk brokered the sale of the jig grinder from By Trade OU to a Russian company using funds wired to it from the Russian company to purchase the jig grinder from Sapphire Universal LLP, a company in Latvia. Sapphire Universal, which Romanyuk knew was in the business of obtaining dual-use items from the United States for sale in Russia, used CNC Weld as the claimed recipient and end-user of the jig grinder because no license was required to export the jig grinder to Latvia from the United States. In August 2019, to finalize the purchase of the jig grinder, Ananics and others traveled to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where Ananics informed the sellers that the jig grinder was being purchased for the benefit of CNC Weld. In September 2021, Romanyuk provided a false statement to Estonian authorities about the jig grinder transaction in order to cover up his involvement in this scheme.

U.S. authorities, working with Latvian authorities, intercepted the jig grinder in Riga, Latvia, before it was to be shipped to Russia. Approximately $826,000 in funds involved in the purchase of the jig grinder were subsequently forfeited, and a substantial portion of the forfeited funds were transferred to Estonia to provide aid to Ukraine.

Romanyuk was arrested on June 13, 2022, in Estonia. On May 23, he pleaded guilty to international money laundering conspiracy. He has been detained since his arrest. Ananics and Mamonovs pleaded guilty to related charges.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department's National Security Division, Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew S. Axelrod of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells of the FBI's National Security Branch, and U.S. Attorney Vanessa Roberts Avery for the District of Connecticut, Special Agent in Charge Michael J. Krol of Homeland Security Investigations in New England made the announcement.

The Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) Field Offices in New Haven and the Hague, Netherlands; HSI Counter Proliferation Mission Center; U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Export Enforcement in Boston and Portland, Oregon; FBI; and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation investigated the case. The Prosecutor-General's Office of the Republic of Latvia, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Estonia, Latvian Tax and Customs Police, Estonian Tax and Customs Board, and the Latvian State Police assisted in the investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Konstantin Lantsman, Stephanie Levick, and Daniel George for the District of Connecticut and Trial Attorney Brendan Geary of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section prosecuted the case. The Justice Department's Office of International Affairs provided valuable assistance.

This case is being prosecuted through the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Program and is being supported by OCDETF's International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center (IOC-2). OCDETF identifies, disrupts and dismantles drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs and transnational criminal organizations through a prosecutor-led and intelligence-driven approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. Additional information about OCDETF can be found at www.justice.gov/OCDETF.

The investigation was coordinated through the Justice Department's Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency law enforcement task force dedicated to enforcing the sweeping sanctions, export controls, and economic countermeasures that the United States, along with its foreign allies and partners, has imposed in response to Russia's unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine. Announced by the Attorney General on March 2, 2022, and under the leadership of the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the task force will continue to leverage all of the department's tools and authorities to combat efforts to evade or undermine the collective actions taken by the U.S. government in response to Russian military aggression.

Topic: National Security

Components: Criminal - Office of International Affairs

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

National Security Division (NSD)

USAO - Connecticut



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Joint Statement by Representatives of Iran, Russia and Turkiye on Outcomes of the 22nd International Meeting on Syria in the Astana Format, Astana, 11-12 November 2024

12 November 2024 13:53

2189-12-11-2024

The representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Turkiye as guarantor countries of the Astana Format:

1. Examined the latest international and regional developments and emphasized the leading role of the Astana Process in promoting the lasting settlement of the Syrian crisis.

2. Expressed their strong condemnation and deep concern over the continued mass killing and criminal attacks by Israel in Gaza as well as Israeli aggression in Lebanon and the West Bank. Called on the international community, in particular the UN Security Council (UNSC) to secure an immediate and permanent ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access in Gaza.

Called for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, underlined the importance of implementing the UN Security Council Resolution 1701(2006) and reiterated the need for immediate humanitarian aid to Lebanon which suffered from mass civilian casualties and major civilian infrastructure destruction. Expressed grave concern on the deliberate attacks against UNIFIL by Israeli armed forces. Underlined the efforts of the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic to receive in the Syrian territory hundreds of thousands of forced migrants from Lebanon. Agreed to continue consultations on preventing negative spillover effects of these Israeli actions in the wider region.

3. Acknowledged the negative impact of the escalation of violence in the Middle East on the situation in the Syrian Arab Republic. Underscored the urgency for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN agencies and all humanitarian actors to develop an emergency response for those who were forced to cross from Lebanon into the Syrian territory following the escalation of hostilities in Lebanon.

Condemned all Israeli military strikes in Syria. Considered these actions as a violation of international law, international humanitarian law, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria, and recognized them as destabilizing and exacerbating tensions in the region and called for the ceasing of these attacks.

Expressed their grave concern over the expansion of the conflict in the wider region by Israel and condemned its strikes on the Consular section of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus on 1 April 2024 and Iranian territory.

Reaffirmed the need to abide by universally recognized international legal decisions, including the provisions of the relevant UN resolutions rejecting the occupation of the Syrian Golan, first and foremost UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 497, especially that these Israeli decisions and actions in this regard are deemed null and void and of no legal effect.

4. Reaffirmed their unwavering commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic, as well as to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and highlighted that these principles should be universally respected and complied with.

5. Underlined the need to intensify the efforts to ensure stability and create favourable conditions for overcoming the consequences of the decade-long crisis in the Syrian Arab Republic.

6. Emphasized the importance of continuation of efforts for the restoration of relations between Turkiye and Syria on the basis of mutual respect, goodwill and good-neighbourly relations in order to combat terrorism, create proper conditions for the safe, voluntary and dignified return of Syrians with the involvement of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), revitalize the political process and ensure the unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid to all Syrians. Reaffirmed the importance of resuming contacts between Turkiye and Syria on the basis of a strict adherence to the principles of respect for the unity, territorial integrity and sovereignty of both countries.

Welcomed the efforts of Russia, Iran, Syria and Turkiye within the framework of quadrilateral format in pursuance of arrangements agreed at the defence ministers meeting in Moscow on 25 April 2023 and foreign ministers meeting on 10 May 2023. Stressed the importance of resuming contacts in this format.

7. Expressed their determination to continue working together to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and stand against separatist agendas aimed at undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and threatening the national security of the neighbouring countries, including through cross-border attacks and infiltrations. Condemned activities of terrorist groups including the recent terrorist attack against TUSAS building in Ankara on 23 October 2024 and their affiliates operating under different names in various parts of Syria, targeting civilian facilities that cause civilian casualties. Highlighted the need to fully implement all arrangements related to the north of Syria.

8. Reviewed in detail the situation in the Idlib de-escalation area and underscored the necessity to maintain calm on the ground by fully implementing all agreements on Idlib. Underlined the importance of avoiding any subversive activities by third parties which can further destabilize the situation.

Expressed their serious concern over the presence and activities of terrorist groups that pose threat to civilians inside and outside the Idlib de-escalation area. Agreed to make further efforts to ensure sustainable normalization of the situation in and around the Idlib de-escalation area, including the humanitarian situation.

9. Discussed the situation in the north-east of the Syrian Arab Republic and agreed that constant security and stability in this region can only be achieved on the basis of preserving the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. Rejected all attempts to create new realities on the ground, including illegitimate self-rule initiatives in the north-east of Syria under the pretext of combating terrorism as well as illegitimate local election initiative. Reaffirmed their determination to confront separatist agendas that aim to undermine the unity of Syria and threaten the national security of neighbouring countries, including through cross-border attacks and infiltration also from the west of the Euphrates.

10. Reiterated their opposition to the continued illegal seizure and transfer of oil and other resources that should belong to Syria. Underlined the negative impact of these factors, as well as of the unilateral sanctions on the economic situation in Syria.

11. Condemned the actions of countries supporting terrorism which undermine the unity of the Syrian state.

12. Expressed grave concern with all forms of oppression by the separatist groups against civilians in the east of Euphrates which lead to clashes with Arab tribes in the region, including forced conscription, suppression of peaceful demonstrations, and discriminatory practices and imposition of curricula in the field of education as well as restrictions placed on political activities, journalists, the right to assembly and freedom of movement. Urged the international community, particularly the UN, to expose those violations.

13. Condemned any efforts by any country to fuel terrorist and separatist aspirations of individual ethnic and faith groups of population, as well as provide them with weapons.

14. Expressed their conviction that there could be no military solution in Syria and reaffirmed their commitment to advance a viable and lasting Syrianled and Syrian-owned, UN-facilitated political process in line with the UN Security Council Resolution 2254.

15. Underlined the important role of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, established with the decisive contribution of the guarantor countries of the Astana Format for the implementation of the decisions of the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi, in promoting the political settlement in the Syrian Arab Republic. Called for an early resumption of its work and holding the 9th round of its Drafting Commission while ensuring the constructive approach by the Syrian parties. Reaffirmed, in that regard, their commitment to supporting the Committee's work through continued engagement with the Syrian parties to the Committee and the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Syria Geir O. Pedersen as facilitator to ensure its sustainable and effective work.

Stressed the need for the Constitutional Committee to pursue its activities without any bureaucratic and logistical barriers. Urged to immediately ensure all the necessary conditions for the unimpeded work of the Committee, including the overcoming of venue problem.

Expressed their conviction that in its work the Constitutional Committee should abide by the Terms of Reference and the Core Rules of Procedure to enable it to carry out its mandate of preparing and drafting a constitutional reform.

16. Expressed serious concern over the humanitarian situation in Syria. Denounced all unilateral sanctions that negatively affect it and violate international law, international humanitarian law and UN Charter, including all selective measures and exemptions with respect to specific areas in Syria that could lead the country to collapse by facilitating the separatist agenda.

Noted, in that regard, the conclusions made in the report of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) "Dynamics and unintended effects of unilateral coercive measures against the Syrian Arab Republic" on the consequences of unilateral sanctions, published in July 2024, as well as the preliminary findings of the 2023 visit to the Syrian Arab Republic by Alena Douhan, Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council, on the impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, which unequivocally conclude that unilateral restrictions should be lifted.

17. Highlighted the importance of continuing and increasing humanitarian assistance to Syria in line with international law and UN General Assembly Resolution 46/182. Called for providing adequate donor funding for humanitarian aid to all Syrians taking into account the increased risk of food insecurity stemming from the reduction in the assistance programs implemented by the WFP due to the budgetary restraints.

Underlined the decision by the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic to extend the authorization for UN humanitarian agencies to use border crossing points Bab alHawa, Bab alSalam and AlRai with Turkiye. Stressed the importance of continuing uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian assistance to all Syrians through all UN approved modalities including UN cross-border and cross-line aid to the northwest of Syria.

Emphasized the need to remove barriers and increase humanitarian assistance to all Syrians throughout the country without discrimination, politicization, or preconditions.

18. In order to help improve the humanitarian situation in Syria and achieve progress in political settlement, called on the international community, the United Nations and its humanitarian agencies to increase their assistance to all Syrians through the implementation of the early recovery and resilience projects, including through the restoration of basic infrastructure assets - water and electricity supply facilities, sanitation, health, education, schools and hospitals as well as the humanitarian demining projects in line with international humanitarian law.

19. Stressed the need to facilitate the safe, dignified and voluntary return of refugees and IDPs to their places of residence in Syria, and to ensure their right of return and right to be supported. Called on the international community to provide the necessary support to the Syrian refugees and IDPs and reaffirmed their readiness to continue engaging with all relevant parties, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other specialized international agencies. Noted the importance for continuation of work to create necessary conditions in Syria for voluntary and dignified return of refugees with accelerated support on the early recovery efforts.

20. Reiterated their determination to continue operations on the mutual release of detainees/abductees within the framework of the Working Group on the Release of Detainees/Abductees, the Handover of the Bodies and Identification of Missing Persons, which is a unique mechanism that has proved both necessary and effective in building confidence between the Syrian parties. Decided to intensify joint efforts to ensure the release of detainees/abductees. Agreed on the need to expand the activities of the Working Group by including the issues of the handover of bodies and establishment of identity of missing persons. Welcomed the aspiration to step up the activities within the Group.

21. Welcomed the participation of the delegations of Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon as observers of the Astana Format as well as representatives of the United Nations and the ICRC.

22. Expressed their sincere gratitude to the Kazakhstan authorities for holding the 22nd International Meeting on Syria in Astana.

Emphasized the special role played by the Kazakhstan side as a country hosting the International Meetings on Syria, which had been an initiator of the Astana process and had always provided venue and hospitality to ensure the smooth functioning of this unique multilateral mechanism.

23. Noted the agreement to hold the next Summit in the Russian Federation as enshrined in the Joint Statement of the Tripartite Summit of 19 July 2022.

24. Agreed to convene the 23rd International Meeting on Syria in the first half of 2025 in Astana.

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Secretary Blinken's Call with Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan

US Department of State

Readout

Office of the Spokesperson

November 12, 2024

The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller:

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke today with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. The Secretary and Foreign Minister discussed ongoing efforts to reach a diplomatic resolution that implements UNSCR 1701 and allows Lebanese and Israeli citizens to return to their homes. The Secretary reiterated that it is time to end the conflict in Gaza, secure the release of hostages, increase humanitarian assistance, and establish a pathway for Palestinians in Gaza to rebuild their lives. The Secretary and the Foreign Minister also discussed the importance of achieving a dignified and durable peace in the South Caucasus.



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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Prime Minister of Canada - Justin Trudeau

November 12, 2024

Ottawa, Ontario

Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The leaders discussed issues of shared interest, including upcoming international summits and the result of last week's presidential election in the United States of America.

The Prime Minister reaffirmed Canada's steadfast commitment to stand by the people of Ukraine as they resist Russia's unjustifiable war of aggression. He reiterated that Canada will continue providing military, financial, and other assistance until Ukraine achieves victory.

The leaders discussed President Zelenskyy's continued diplomatic efforts toward peace, and Prime Minister Trudeau expressed Canada's support for the objectives of Ukraine's Peace Formula and victory plan.

The Prime Minister and the President agreed to remain in close and regular contact.

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US confirms North Korean troops joining Russia in combat against Ukraine

China said developments in Russia-North Korea relations are solely for those two nations to decide.

By Taejun Kang for RFA

2024.11.12

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The United States and South Korea confirmed that North Korean troops have been in combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kursk region, as China declined to comment on military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang saying it was their affair.

The U.S. confirmation that the North Koreans were in combat, by Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, will compound concerns that their deployment to help Russia fight its war against Ukraine risks ramping up the dangers from Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II.

"Today, I can confirm that over 10,000 DPRK soldiers have been sent to eastern Russia, and most of them have moved to far western Kursk Oblast, where they have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces," Patel told a press briefing on Tuesday.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK, is North Korea's official name.

"Some of the challenges they would need to overcome are interoperability, the language barrier, command and control and communications," Patel said, adding that Russian forces have been training North Korean troops in artillery, unmanned aerial vehicle and basic infantry operations, including trench clearing operations.

"The United States is consulting closely with our allies and partners in other countries in the region on the implications of this, on these developments," he added.

South Korea's main security agency also confirmed that the North Koreans were "already engaging in combat operations" against Ukraine in Kursk.

Separately, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Russia's growing economic and military cooperation with China, North Korea and Iran was threatening Europe, the Indo-Pacific and North America, stressing the importance of transatlantic unity and continued support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.

"We need to raise the cost for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and his enabling authoritarian threats by providing Ukraine with the support it needs to change the trajectory of the conflict," said Rutte.

"We must recommit to stay the course of the war and we must do more than just keep Ukraine in the fight."

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that Ukrainian forces were holding off nearly 50,000 troops, including 11,000 North Koreans, in Kursk.

Ukrainian forces launched an incursion into Russia's southwestern Kursk region on Aug. 6 and have captured more than two dozen settlements there, according to Ukraine. While Russia has managed to reclaim some settlements, the front line has seen little change in recent months.

The Kremlin has not commented on the presence of North Korean troops on its territory. At a meeting of the U.N. Security Council last week, Russia declined to answer questions from the United States about its deployment of North Koreans.

'Matter for themselves'

China's foreign ministry, asked to comment on a military cooperation pact between Russia and North Korea, reaffirmed Beijing's stance that the development of their relations was solely a matter for them to decide.

"The DPRK and Russia are two independent sovereign states. How to develop their bilateral relations is a matter for themselves," said the ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Tuesday, without commenting on reports about North Koreans troops in Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a landmark treaty on a "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership" on June 19 in Pyongyang after summit talks, which includes a mutual defense assistance clause that applies in the case of "aggression" against either of the signatories.

China, one of North Korea's few traditional allies, has recently been under growing pressure to serve as a responsible stakeholder as the U.S. and its allies worry that the deployment of said North Korean troops will dangerously escalate the Ukrainian war.

The U.S. said in October that it had voiced concern to China over "destabilizing" actions by North Korea and Russia.

"We have been making clear to China for some time that they have an influential voice in the region, and they should be concerned about steps that Russia has taken to undermine stability. They should be concerned about steps that North Korea has taken to undermine stability and security," said the U.S. State Department's spokesperson Matthew Miller at that time.

Miller's remarks came about a week after the Chinese foreign ministry said it did not have information on the North's troop deployment to Russia and called for a multilateral solution to the conflict.

Edited by Mike Firn.

Updated to include South Korean confirmation.

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Justin Trudeau Discussed Support for the Victory Plan by Allies

President of Ukraine

12 November 2024 - 20:54

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a telephone conversation with Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau.

The Head of State thanked Canada for its comprehensive assistance and principled support of the Victory Plan.

Ukraine expects that Canada will continue to actively advocate for its first point - receiving an invitation to NATO. Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Justin Trudeau to continue working with allies in future multilateral formats and direct negotiations.

The President also thanked Canada for its public support for authorizing the use of long-range weapons against military targets in Russia.

The leaders coordinated steps ahead of the G20 meeting. It is important that Ukraine's position on a just and lasting peace is expressed there.

They also discussed continued defense cooperation, in particular, agreed on the current needs of Ukrainian warriors.



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The Ukrainian President's Initiative Bring Kids Back UA Was Presented to Newly Elected Members of the European Parliament in Brussels

President of Ukraine

12 November 2024 - 20:08

The Advisor to the Head of the Presidential Office, Dariia Zarivna, presented the Bring Kids Back UA initiative of the President of Ukraine and the findings of the Task Force co-chaired by the Head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, and the Director of the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute, Lady Helena Kennedy LT KC, at the European Parliament. She presented the recommendations of the second White Paper.

During the Special Conference "Forcible Transfer and Deportation of Ukrainian Children by Russia: Advancing Collective Action for Bringing Children Back Home," Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak delivered a video address.

"Every child's story reminds us of the urgent need not only to find and bring them home, but also to defend the community values, dignity and justice that are the foundation of the European Union. If children have the strength to resist the aggressor, we must be equally brave," he said.

The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, has expressed the EP's full support for Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Bring Kids Back UA initiative.

"Russia's war against Ukraine is a challenge to international norms and moral responsibility. The criminal displacement of Ukrainian children is one of the most shocking violations that requires a swift response," she said.

Co-Chair of the Bring Kids Back UA Task Force, Lady Helena Kennedy LT KC, spoke about the conclusions and recommendations of the first White Paper "Protecting Children from Forced Displacement and Deportation".

"Russia began the large-scale relocation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories a few days before the full-scale invasion. It was not a rescue from the war zone, as Russia claimed, it was something completely different. It was a deportation," she stressed.

The Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, pointed out that in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, the aggressor country is carrying out a policy of destroying the Ukrainian identity, primarily aimed at children and adolescents.

Dariia Zarivna, Chief Operating Officer of Bring Kids Back UA, presented the recommendations of the second White Paper "Reintegration of Children Affected by Deportation and Forcible Transfers: International Standards and Best Practices for Ukraine."

"Bringing children home is only the first step in reintegrating them and restoring their rights. Children need our support to heal and resume their lives in a safe environment in accordance with the best international standards," she said.

In addition, Ukraine presented the results of the Ministerial Conference on the Human Dimension of the Peace Formula, held in Canada on October 30-31: The Joint Communique and the Montreal Pledge, which should facilitate the return of all captured and deported Ukrainians.

As part of these events in Brussels, Dariia Zarivna, Lady Helena Kennedy LT KC and Vice President of the European Parliament Pina Picierno opened the Bring Kids Back UA exhibition "Lost Childhood". The pictures of Ukrainian photographer Roman Pashkovskyi show the eyes of children who were brought back home after deportation. The exhibition also features their drawings and stories.





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We Have a Solution for Many of Our Warriors Who Want to Transfer to Another Unit within the AFU - Address by the President

President of Ukraine

12 November 2024 - 19:40

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

The key points for today.

First, we have a solution for many of our warriors who want to transfer to another unit within the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Cabinet of Ministers has approved a resolution today. Technically, the feature is ready. The Ministry of Defense will determine how the system will be launched. Everything should work through the Army+ app - no more bureaucracy. And there should be a clear answer to every single report. The Ministry of Defense must clarify all the details to the public - what will happen in the first, testing phase, and what will happen after the full launch.

All decisions by military commanders on reports will be monitored to ensure that there are no unreasonable denials. The algorithm for responding to a report has been established. The system should work exactly as we discussed with the guys on the frontline and with civil society representatives. And I am grateful to all those involved in the development of this new feature.

Today, I have also instructed the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff to report on how this option can be extended to all the Defense and Security Forces, including the National Guard of Ukraine and the Border Guard Service. All our warriors deserve equal respect.

Second. I held a detailed meeting on other issues that we discussed earlier with representatives of the civilian sector. The issue of officer ranks and positions - there is already a vision of how to modernize this. Technology Staff - we have approved the working format, and we are in the process of determining the exact members and responsible persons. Sanctions and pressure on Russia, in particular against its shadow tanker fleet, - a system of measures is in place. We will work more closely with our partners, although it is not easy.

Third. Letters of credence from the ambassadors of our partner countries who have started their work in Ukraine. The ambassadors of Greece, Albania, Japan and Egypt. I have spoken with each of them today. Together, we must do our utmost to restore the full effectiveness of international law, to support Ukraine, and to ensure simple human justice, which is something every nation deserves.

And one more thing.

I have signed several decrees today imposing sanctions on Russian enterprises and individuals who are working in the interests of the aggressor state, enabling it to evade responsibility for the war. And Ukraine will ensure that these sanctions are coordinated with those of its partners, including those against Russia's aviation infrastructure.

And one more decree on establishing a professional day for the State Bureau of Investigation. Today marks the ninth anniversary of the adoption of the law on the State Bureau of Investigation, and I thank each person in the SBI structure who cares about our national interests and through their work ensures greater prospects for justice in Ukraine.

I have also presented awards to the guys from the State Bureau of Investigation. Sadly, two of them posthumously. The guys were carrying out tasks in the frontline areas.

And now I have a conversation scheduled with the Prime Minister of Canada. We have many issues to discuss.

The main of them is our continued cooperation with Canada and the G7 states in general to strengthen our common positions and to defend Ukraine together with all partners from Russia's constant desire to cause even more damage through war. Through war and intrusion. I thank all those who stand with Ukraine!

Glory to Ukraine!





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Ukraine and Slovenia Discussed the Peace Formula Implementation and Unity of the EU Countries in Support of Ukraine

President of Ukraine

12 November 2024 - 19:07

Deputy Head of the Office of the President Ihor Zhovkva met with State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovenia Marko Stucin.

During the meeting, they discussed support for Ukraine, the implementation of the Peace Formula, and the Victory Plan proposed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Ihor Zhovkva thanked Slovenia for its political, humanitarian and economic assistance and stressed the importance of working together to achieve a just and lasting peace.

The key topics of the conversation were joint efforts to ensure the unity of the European Union member states in support of Ukraine, as well as the extension of the sanctions policy against Russia.

"Slovenia actively supports Ukraine and is an important partner in promoting the Peace Formula. It is crucial that the EU remains united in its support for Ukraine, because this is a key factor for our victory," Ihor Zhovkva noted.

The Deputy Head of the Presidential Office also highlighted Slovenia's strong position in support of Ukraine's membership in the EU.

Ihor Zhovkva and Marko Stucin discussed the progress in negotiations on the conclusion of the bilateral screening within the framework of Cluster One - Fundamentals, and expectations for the opening of this cluster during the Polish EU Presidency.

The Deputy Head of the Presidential Office emphasized the importance of continuing the active dialogue between Ukraine and Slovenia, as well as sharing experiences in security and post-war reconstruction.





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Blinken Says U.S. To 'Shore Up' Ukraine Support As Russia Pounds Kyiv

By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service November 13, 2024

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has assured Ukraine that U.S. support be beefed up ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration early next year, as Russia launched its first missile and drone attack on Kyiv since August, forcing residents into bomb shelters.

Blinken, who met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels on November 13, said the administration of President Joe Biden, who leaves office on January 20, would "continue to shore up everything we're doing for Ukraine" and "use every day" to support Ukraine and strengthen NATO.

"President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20," Blinken said, adding that NATO countries must focus their efforts on "ensuring that Ukraine has the money, munitions, and mobilized forces to fight effectively in 2025, or to be able to negotiate a peace from a position of strength."

Trump has repeatedly questioned Washington's military backing for Kyiv and vowed to rapidly end the war started by Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But he has not said how he will put an end to the conflict, raising concern that he would try to force Ukraine to accept Moscow's terms for peace.

Blinken also said the deployment of North Korean troops to help Russia in the Ukraine war "demands and will get a firm response." More than 10,000 North Korean troops are engaged in combat in Russia's Kursk border region, according to the Pentagon.

Asked by RFE/RL if Washington intends to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied long-range modern weapons to strike deeper inside Russia, as requested by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in his recently presented "victory plan," Blinken did not offer a direct answer, saying the United States will continue to "adapt and adjust" to Ukraine's needs.

"We're addressing many of the needs that are laid out in the victory plan. That's something that we discussed with allies and partners today," Blinken said.

"I am convinced that we will continue to adapt and adjust if necessary," he added.

Blinken also met in Brussels with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha, who said Kyiv had maintained contact with both U.S. political parties and had worked with both Trump's team and Biden's.

Sybiha said he would discuss protection of critical infrastructure with Blinken, according to a State Department statement.

"Ukraine's defense cannot be put on hold and wait. Every day Russia is bombing our critical infrastructure -- energy, ports, hospitals, and schools," Sybiha said. "We need better protection for our people already now, not later."

He added that he was "confident that we can count on continued U.S. support and further decisive steps."

Ukraine's whole territory was under an air-raid alert early on November 13 as Moscow launched a sophisticated combination of missiles and drones on Kyiv for the first time in 73 days.

"Putin is launching a missile attack on Kyiv right now," Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy's chief of staff, wrote on Telegram.

Explosions shook Kyiv for hours as Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko urged the Ukrainian capital's residents to take cover.

"More drones are entering the capital. The danger of missiles also persists. Don't leave the shelters!" Klitschko wrote on Telegram.

The Ukrainian Air Force reported that its air defenses downed two cruise missiles, two ballistic missiles and 37 drones over Kyiv and seven other Ukrainian regions -- Poltava, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Cherkasy, Zaporizhzhya, Chernihiv, and Kirovohrad. It said that 47 more drones lost their way as Ukrainian electronic defenses jammed their navigation systems.

Russia has stepped up its daily attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, causing further destruction to the country's already battered civilian and energy infrastructure as the cold season settles in.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kyiv-russian-drone- missile-attack-klitschko-yermak-november-2024/33200195.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.

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Russian Defence Ministry reports on repelling AFU attempt to invade Russian territory in Kursk region (13 November 2024)

13.11.2024



The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the operation to neutralise an enemy group, which broke into the territory of Kursk region.

The Sever Group of Forces continued offensive actions and inflicted losses on formations of 21st, 22nd, 41st, 47th, 61st, 115th mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 80th, 82nd, 95th air assault brigades, 36th Marine Brigade, 103rd, 112th and 129th territorial defence brigades of the AFU near Daryino, Leonidovo, Malaya Loknya, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Novoivanovka.

The Group's units repelled six enemy counter-attacks in the direction of Aleksandria, Nizhniy Klin, Novaya Sorochina, and Novoivanovka. The AFU losses amounted to up to 80 people killed and wounded, a tank, two Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, two M113 armoured personnel carriers, three Humvee armoured fighting vehicles, and a motor vehicle. One AFU serviceman surrendered.

Army aviation and artillery inflicted fire damage on 21st, 22nd, 47th, and 61st mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 80th, 82nd, and 95th air assault brigades, 36th Marine Brigade as well as 103rd, 112th, 118th, and 129th territorial defence brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and 17th National Guard Brigade in the areas of Aleksandria, Bogdanovka, Viktorovka, Guyevo, Daryino, Zamostye, Zeleny Shlyakh, Kruglenkoye, Lebedevka, Leonidovo, Loknya, Malaya Loknya, Martrynovka, Makhnovka, Mirny, Nizhni Klin, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Nikolskiy, Novaya Sorochina, Novoivanovka, Plyokhovo, Sverdlikovo, Staraya Sorochina, Sudzha, and Cherkasskoye Porechnoye.

Operational-Tactical Aviation and Missile Troops have attacked concentration areas in the Sumy region and reserves of 41st and 115th mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 95th Air Assault brigade as well as 103rd Territorial Defence Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and 1st National Guard Brigade near Basovka, Belovody, Zhuravka, Ivolzhanskoye, Pisevka, Khoten, Yunakovka, and Yablovka.

During the day, the AFU losses amounted to more than 450 troops, two tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles, including two Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, two U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carriers, 33 armoured fighting vehicles as well as five artillery guns, including a Polish-made Krab self-propelled artillery system, four mortars, a French-made Crotale anti-aircraft missile system, and 49 motor vehicles.

Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk region, the AFU losses amounted to more than 32,150 troops, 202 tanks, 134 infantry fighting vehicles, 112 armoured personnel carriers, 1,146 armoured fighting vehicles, 907 motor vehicles, 274 artillery guns, 40 MLRS launchers, including 11 of HIMARS and six of MLRS made by the USA, 12 anti-aircraft missile launchers, seven transport-loading vehicles, 62 EW stations, 13 counter-battery warfare radars, four air defence radars, 27 units of engineering and other materiel, including 13 counterobstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, five armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.

The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.

Department for Media Affairs and Information

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Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha Before Their Meeting

US Department of State

Remarks

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Brussels, Belgium

November 13, 2024

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, hello, everyone. It's very, very good to see my friend and colleague, the foreign minister of Ukraine. Andrii, it's very good to have you here today. To all of our colleagues, we had a very good morning at NATO - a meeting with the secretary general, a meeting with the North Atlantic Council and the permanent representatives, a meeting with General Cavoli (inaudible). Everyone is focused on making sure that Ukraine has what it needs to continue to deal with the ongoing Russian aggression and to put itself in the strongest possible position this year and into next year, making sure that the money, the munitions, the mobilized forces are there to deal with the aggression and to put Ukraine in a position of strength.

I heard around the NATO table, again, a determined commitment for the countries in the Alliance to continue and indeed strengthen its support for Ukraine. So I'm looking forward to discussing all of this with the foreign minister. Of course, we have the recent development of the deployment of North Korean forces to aid and abet Russia's aggression. This is a very significant and very negative development, one that increases the threat to security and stability in Europe but also in the Asian Pacific region. The fact is that the relationship between Russia and North Korea is a two-way street. North Korea is helping Russia in its aggression against Ukraine. At the same time, the support that Russia is providing to North Korea, potentially including support for its nuclear and missile programs, poses a threat to stability and security in the Korean Peninsula as well.

So we're very focused on this. I think we see increasingly the indivisibility of security between the Euro-Atlantic theater, the Indo-Pacific and Asian Pacific theaters, even the Middle East with the role that Iran plays. And I can tell you again that the Alliance is very, very focused on this.

But today, our strong focus is on the steps that we will continue to take to support Ukraine. I mentioned earlier the United States is continuing to make sure that the resources that we've dedicated to Ukraine are flowing - $8 billion in September, including a significant drawdown from our military stock; another almost half a billion just a few weeks ago - and we're determined to make sure that every dollar we have available is moved to Ukraine in the months ahead.

Andrii, again, it's great to be with you. Look forward to the conversation.

FOREIGN MINISTER SYBIHA: Tony, it's a great pleasure and honor to meet today in Brussels. Today is the 994th day of Russia's brutal aggression, and this night there was another missile attack on our capital, Kyiv, and other cities and communities, one more sleepless night for our children, 96 drones and missiles including ballistic bombs.

Russians once again targeted innocent people, children, entire families while they slept peacefully in their homes. Russians commit war crimes and attack civilian people and infrastructure every night and day. We must stop their aggression with the strength of weapons, sanctions, and diplomacy.

This moment is critical. This war is not only about Ukraine. The future of transatlantic and global security is being decided in Ukraine, and Russia is using Iranian drones, as you said, and North Korean troops to attack Ukraine. It provides assistance to those regimes in return. This is how this war undermines security in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. This is all linked together. If you want to ensure a long-term peace and stability in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, we must force Russia to end its aggression. For this we need more unity and strong decisions. Appeasement will not work. Strength will work.

Dear Secretary Blinken, throughout this 994 days you have been there for us every step of the way, and we do really appreciate and we deeply appreciate all of your personal effort, your personal leadership to support Ukraine and defend liberty, life, and justice. Thank you for mobilizing the world in our support.

Today is an opportunity to coordinate (inaudible) presidential election in the United States. Ukraine can always (inaudible) from Republican support. We maintain contact with both parties and work both with the President-elect and his team and also with the outgoing administration.

Ukraine's defense cannot be put on hold and wait. Every day Russia is bombing our critical infrastructure - energy, ports, hospitals, and schools. We need better protection for our people already now, not later. We need to speed up all critical decisions, and we will have today our conversation focusing on these issues.

Today we will discuss Ukraine's defense capabilities, strengthening our air shield ahead of winter, Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic aspirations, and efforts to achieve a comprehensive, just, and long-lasting peace for Ukraine. We highly appreciate the U.S. assistance. America's leadership is critical to restore once again a comprehensive, just, and long-lasting peace for Ukraine, and I am confident that we can count on continued U.S. support and further decisive steps. Thank you for your attention.

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Secretary Blinken's Meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Sybiha

US Department of State

Readout

Office of the Spokesperson

November 13, 2024

The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller:

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha in Brussels today. The Secretary and his counterpart discussed the United States' continued surge of security assistance to Ukraine, including artillery, air defense, armored vehicles, and other needed capabilities and munitions. The two also discussed implications of Russia's decision to escalate the conflict by introducing DPRK to the battlefield. The Secretary underscored the United States' support for Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia's aggression and continues on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.

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Secretary Blinken's Meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte

US Department of State

Readout

Office of the Spokesperson

November 13, 2024

The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller:

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met today with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Brussels. Secretary Blinken and Secretary General Rutte discussed the United States' and NATO's support for Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia's aggression. The Secretary condemned the actions of the Russian Federation and Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to escalate Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. Regarding the upcoming NATO Foreign Ministers Meeting, they discussed key objectives, including advancing concrete steps Allies plan to take to help Ukraine defend itself and strengthening NATO partnerships in the Indo-Pacific and Southern Neighborhood. Both sides underscored the importance of Allies working collectively to promote security and stability throughout the Euro-Atlantic.

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Secretary Antony J. Blinken Remarks to the Press

US Department of State

Remarks

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

NATO Headquarters

Brussels, Belgium

November 13, 2024

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good morning, everyone. First, it's a pleasure as always to be back at NATO. We had very good discussions with the secretary general, Mark Rutte - delighted to see him at the helm of the Alliance in this critical moment - as well as with all of our NATO colleagues at the North Atlantic Council.

The purpose of this visit is to focus our efforts on ensuring that Ukraine has the money, the munitions, and the mobilized forces to fight effectively in 2025 or to be able to negotiate a peace from a position of strength. And this is a critical moment because we see, first, the ongoing Russian onslaught against Ukraine in the east as well as against civilians, against critical energy infrastructure. We see now the introduction of North Korean forces into the fight, and this is a profound and incredibly dangerous development in two ways - first, of course, because it's adding fuel to the fire for Russia's aggression against Ukraine, and that's of deep concern to everyone around the NATO table. But it's also a two-way street. The relationship between Russia and North Korea is working in both directions, and there is deep concern about what Russia is or may be doing to strengthen North Korea's capacities - its missile capacity, its nuclear capacity - as well as the experience that the North Korean forces are getting in their efforts to support Russia against Ukraine.

So there is a clear commitment that this gets - and it will get - a firm response from the Alliance, from many countries that are concerned both in the Euro-Atlantic theater and in the Indo-Pacific.

As we're working to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs to effectively defend itself, the United States continues to step up. We've obligated just recently and pushed out the door another $8 billion in security assistance for Ukraine - that was in September, another almost half a billion dollars just a few weeks ago, and President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20th. We're making sure that Ukraine has the air defenses it needs, that has the artillery it needs, that has the armored vehicles it needs.

But as always, this is not just the United States. We have more than 50 countries working actively in support of Ukraine. And as I said before, this is maybe the best example of burden sharing that I've ever seen in 32 years that I've been doing this. The United States has dedicated about a hundred billion dollars to Ukraine, allies and partners around the world $150 billion, and we continue to see that every day.

But it's also a moment for everyone to do more, and we're counting on European partners and others to strongly support Ukraine's mobilization with training and equipment for these forces. We need to see more artillery, more air defenses, more munitions getting to the Ukrainians, and we had a good conversation about all the work that allies and partners will be doing to step up to this moment as well.

It's also more broadly an important moment for the Alliance, and we discussed this with the secretary general and with our colleagues around the North Atlantic Council. We'll be looking in the weeks ahead at the strategy that NATO has for dealing with Russia and particularly making sure that we have the strongest possible defense and deterrence. We'll be looking at what we're doing to deal with some of the challenges posed by China, including the support that China is giving to Russia in the war of aggression through its support for Russia's defense industrial base. We'll be looking at the challenge of hybrid threats, including those coming from Russia.

All of this is front and center in our agenda, but today the focus was intensely on what we're doing and what we're doing together to make sure that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position heading into 2025.

Finally, this. As we were looking at the state of our Alliance - not just in the struggle with Russia for Ukraine but more broadly - I think we can say that we have an Alliance that is stronger, bigger, more effective than it's ever been as a result of the work of the last four years. And the ongoing importance of making sure that we have a strong NATO - one that we're engaged in, invested in, and helping to lead - I think could not be more vital than it is now.

Here's what we know, here's what we know from history over these last 75 years, and here's what we know looking forward. The best way to defend ourselves, to prevent wars, to have security, is through the investments we're making in NATO and in our other alliances and partnerships. NATO in particular is founded on this principle: An attack on one is an attack on all. And that means that any would-be aggressor, anyone looking to take the fight to a NATO country, knows that if they do that, they have to take on all NATO countries. That is the strongest possible deterrent to war. It's the best way to prevent war in the first place. It's the best way to ensure our security. And that's why it's so vital that we continue to invest in this extraordinary Alliance and continue to lead in this extraordinary Alliance.

Happy to take some questions.

MODERATOR: Nike Ching.

QUESTION: Good morning, Mr. Secretary.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Good morning.

QUESTION: Several questions for you if you may indulge me. On Ukraine, is there any development on lifting restrictions on long-range fire? What can the U.S. realistically do to improve the situation in Ukraine in the remaining time you have that cannot be easily undone? Are there any new ideas you hope to implement, and can you also outline specific actions the U.S. and NATO Allies do in response to North Korea's direct support for Russia's war in Ukraine?

On Gaza, many humanitarian organizations are saying the situation in Gaza has actually gotten worse since you sent your letter 30 days ago and that Israel has failed to address several of the listed concerns. Moving forward, what motivation will Israel have to improve the conditions on the ground when you fail to follow through on your previous warnings? Thank you.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thanks very much. So on Ukraine, as I said, the President is determined that we push every dollar out the door that we have at our disposal, notably from the $61 billion supplemental that was passed on a bipartisan basis by Congress some months ago, and we're on track to do exactly that. So the drawdowns that we can do from our military equipment, they will go forward. Obligating funds, that will go forward. And that should ensure that Ukraine continues to receive from us what it needs.

But equally important is the work of our allies and partners. And as I said, we have 50 countries that have been acting in support of Ukraine. And I am convinced from the conversations we had today and the conversations we have virtually every day that that support will continue. And not only continue; I expect it to increase and that our partners will continue to more than pick up their share of the burden. So that's critical.

In terms of exactly what we're doing, I've said this before, I'll say it again: Every month that we've been engaged in the defense of Ukraine since the Russian aggression we have adapted and adjusted to the needs of Ukraine as the battlefield changes, as what Russia is doing changes, as new elements are introduced - for example, the North Korean forces. And I can tell you that we will continue to adapt and adjust, again, to make sure that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position to deal with this aggression, to deter further aggression, to effectively defend itself.

On the Middle East and on Gaza, let me be very clear about both the intent and the effect of the letter that Secretary Austin and I sent a month ago to our Israeli counterparts. The intent was to inject a sense of urgency with Israel to take necessary steps to address the dire humanitarian situation of children, women, and men in Gaza. The effect has been that of the 15 steps that we urged action on, Israel has taken action either in implementing or being in the process of implementing 12 of the 15 steps.

There are three big issues that still need to be addressed that come from the letter - first, making sure that when Israel engages in an operation and people have been evacuated from an area, that once that operation is done it rescind the evacuation order so that people can return and we can start to take down some of this horrific overcrowding that we're seeing in parts of Gaza where people have been sent to. So that's one.

Second, we want to see along with the humanitarian assistance getting in commercial trucks getting in with commercial goods. This is vital because so many of the things that commercial truckers bring in, including things like fruits and vegetables, are absolutely essential to the balanced nutrition for people in Gaza. That, in turn, is critical to making sure they have the immunities they need to fight off disease, and that's not something normally the humanitarians do. This comes in through commercial means. The challenge there in terms of restoring commercial trucking has been a huge problem of lawlessness and looting inside of Gaza that needs to be addressed and that we're working on finding a solution to. But right now there are 900 trucks that are inside of Gaza at Karem Shalom that's backed up. They can't be distributed because of this looting and because of the criminality. So it's imperative that that be addressed. Israel has responsibilities to do that. We're also working with Egypt.

And then in my judgment maybe most significant, we need to see real and extended pauses in large areas of Gaza, pauses in any fighting, any combat, so that the assistance can effectively get to people who need it. There are huge challenges in that regard, but we've also seen real solutions. The polio vaccination campaign was the one thing that's been very successful in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of children got polio vaccines. But critical to success in doing that was having extended pauses for days, not simply hours as is the case right now, to make sure that everyone bringing assistance in has the ability to bring it in and to distribute it and to have space to do that.

So we will be working on this intensely in the days ahead. I'll be discussing this further with President Biden. And the responsibility that Israel has in terms of making sure that assistance to the best of its ability can get to people who need it is an ongoing responsibility. And I believe that the steps that it's taken over the last weeks to address what we had in our letter, those steps would not have been taken absent the letter. But it's also critical, as the letter made clear, that not only are these steps taken but they need to be fully implemented and they need to be sustained if they're going to have effect. Yes, the last month has been terrible for people. The letter went out - already we were into October. We're starting to see, as I said, implementation of most of the steps that we've laid out. It will take some time for them to have effect. And again, they have to be fully implemented and they have to be sustained. But even with that, I think it's essential that we see things like more extended pauses.

Now, the hard, bottom-line truth is also this. Even with all of these steps, the situation is so difficult and so dramatic that to fully redress it, to fully answer the needs of people, the best way to do that is to end the war. And from my perspective, what we've seen is this: Israel, by the standards it set itself, has accomplished the goals that it set for itself, the strategic goals it set for itself. It was rightly determined to make sure to the best of its ability that October 7th could never happen again. To do that, it said that it needed to dismantle the military organization of Hamas and to get the leadership that was responsible for October 7th. It's done both of those things.

So this should be a time to end the war. To do that, I think we need two things fundamentally. One is we have to make sure that the hostages come home, including the seven Americans. We've been working, as you know, on trying to get an agreement on a hostage and ceasefire deal. Hamas tragically has demonstrated that it's not going to engage on that despite the renewed efforts we've made in recent weeks. It's one of the reasons why Qatar has told them to leave Qatar.

But we also need to make sure that we have a plan for what follows, and this is something I've been working on intensely in recent weeks so that if Israel decides to end the war and we find a way to get the hostages out, we also have a clear plan so that Israel can get out of Gaza and we make sure that Hamas is not going back in.

So those plans we're moving ahead as intensely as we can to flesh them out, to put them in place. But short of ending the war, which we believe now is the time to move to that, we have to see these humanitarian steps fully implemented, sustained, and as I said, particularly with regard to pauses having more extensive pauses.

One final thing on this. Israel has to meet these responsibilities, and we will be tracking this every single day. I would note though as well that it's extraordinary to me that as from almost day one there is no focus on Hamas and almost deafening silence around the world on Hamas. Not only has it rejected engaging on the hostage/ceasefire proposals, not only has it rejected even smaller proposals that would have cost it nothing to release a small number of hostages and actually have Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails in return, not only that, but a couple of weeks ago Israel said we will guarantee safe passage for every Hamas militant out of Gaza, just give us the hostages back. And they refused. Is anyone talking about that? The world has been silent on that, too.

So it would be good to also see some genuine, sustained, effective pressure on Hamas to do its part to end something that it started and that the Palestinian people who are caught in this crossfire of Hamas' initiation didn't start and themselves are powerless to stop.

MODERATOR: Zoriana Stepanenko.

QUESTION: Thank you so much for giving me the floor. Secretary Blinken, you just mentioned that since Russian full-scale invasion (inaudible) in 2022 you and United States partners are adjusting to Ukraine's current needs. However, Ukraine has outlined its own needs in so-called victory plan (inaudible) United States leadership, and one of the needs is to lift the restrictions of using the long-range weapon inside Russian territory. Is there any chance that you will review your current decision and finally release those restrictions, and what are the prospects?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: So first, we're addressing many of the needs that are laid out in the victory plan. That's something that we discussed with allies and partners today. And as I said a moment ago, the hallmark of our support for Ukraine starting in February of '22 and carrying forward to today is making sure that we're adapting and adjusting to Ukraine's needs as the battlefield changes, as what Russia is doing changes, where the front lines are, how the war is being conducted, how the aggression is being conducted. And I am convinced that we will continue to adapt and adjust as necessary.

Thanks. Thanks, everyone.

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Secretary Antony J. Blinken And NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte After Their Meeting

US Department of State

Remarks

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

NATO Headquarters

Brussels, Belgium

November 13, 2024

SECRETARY GENERAL RUTTE: Yes, good morning, and I really would like to welcome Tony Blinken. I am so happy that you are here. Visiting is a real honor. We will have a NAC meeting later on. We just had a bilat meeting. And can I just say that the U.S. continued over the last four years to help NATO to do more on burden sharing, to increase spending also on the European and Canadian sides of NATO. Two new members have joined the Alliance in the last couple of years. And maybe most importantly, also thanks to American leadership, Ukraine has prevailed and Russia has not won.

And obviously, we have to do more to make sure that Ukraine can stay in the fight and is able to roll back as much as possible the Russian onslaught and prevent Putin from being successful in Ukraine. Particularly this is something also discussed this morning because now we see North Koreans being active in Ukraine, and this is coming at a cost, of course. These North Korean soldiers present an extra threat to Ukraine and will increase the potential for Putin to do harm.

But at the same time, he has to pay for this and he is paying for this by technology, for example missile technology going to North Korea, and that is presenting a threat not only to the European side of NATO but also to the U.S. mainland, to South Korea, to Japan. And it is not - not just North Korea being active. We know for some time that China through sanctions circumvention, through dual-use goods being delivered into Russia, is helping the war effort. And of course, Iran is doing this through drone technology and other deliveries into Russia. And here Russia is paying in money, and this helps Iran to continue its efforts to destabilize the Middle East and even beyond the Middle East.

So what you see here, and this is what we discussed this morning, that the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific, these are not two separate theaters. This is all getting more and more combined, and what is happening in Ukraine has an impact now globally. And that means that we have to stay the course, that we have to ramp up defense production on the U.S. side, here in Europe, that we have to do more in terms of spending, and that we have to do more to make sure that Ukraine can prevail.

But again, Tony, you have been four years in this role. You have been a huge support for NATO. You have visited many times. You have many friends here. I really want to thank you for your leadership, of course, so far, but also over the next two months we will need you in that role. And thank you for being here and being the man you are. Thank you so much.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you so much. Thank you, Mark. Well, it's always very good to be at NATO. And as Mark said, not exactly our first visit. In fact, I think we have an apartment here now so that we can take advantage of all these visits. And we always feel very much at home. But I have to say first of all we're so gratified to have the Alliance in such strong, capable hands with Secretary General Rutte. And this going forward to me is a point of tremendous confidence for the Alliance and for everything that we need to do together. We had a very productive discussion today about our ongoing support for Ukraine in the face of an ongoing Russian aggression, as well this added element now of DPRK North Korean forces injected into the battle and now quite literally in combat, which demands and will get a firm response.

We see increasingly the indivisibility of security between and among these different theaters - the Euro-Atlantic theater, the Indo-Pacific theater, the Middle East - and it's critical that we find ways to work ever more closely together. One of the things that NATO has done in recent years is to strengthen its partnership with Indo-Pacific partners, and we'll do more of that in the weeks and months ahead.

But I think we also took account of an Alliance that has a lot of work to do in terms of continuing to strengthen its defense industrial base, to make sure that its spending is focused on the necessary capabilities. We're at a place now where 23 of the NATO Allies are at the at or above the 2 percent of GDP mark on defense spending, which is good, but we want to make sure that that spending is focused where it needs to be focused. So we had a very productive discussion about that.

And I'm very much looking forward to meeting with all of the NATO partners in the North Atlantic Council right now and to continuing these conversations throughout the course of this day. We'll be back for the foreign ministers meeting in just a few weeks time. We have a very intense and important agenda over the next couple of months. And as I said to the secretary general, President Biden fully intends to drive through the tape and use every day to continue to do what we've done over these last four years, which is strengthen this Alliance that's so critical to the security of the United States and security of countries throughout Europe. And we will do that and as well to continue to shore up everything we're doing for Ukraine to make sure that it can effectively defend itself against this Russian aggression.

Thanks very much, Mark.

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In Brussels, Blinken pledges support for Ukraine ahead of Trump transition

By Nike Ching November 13, 2024

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured Ukraine and its NATO allies on Wednesday that Washington remains committed to putting Ukraine "in the strongest possible position" in the final months of President Joe Biden's administration, before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.

At the same time, Blinken expressed alarm about Russia possibly bolstering North Korea's missile and nuclear capacities, as North Korean troops fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

"President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20th," Blinken told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday.

"We're making sure that Ukraine has the air defenses it needs, that has the artillery it needs, that it has the armored vehicles it needs," he added.

Blinken told VOA he expects U.S. allies' support for Ukraine to increase and emphasized that it's critical for Washington's partners to "continue to more than pick up their share of the burden."

Speaking alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Blinken reiterated that Washington will "continue to shore up everything" to enable Ukraine to defend itself effectively against Russian aggression.

Rutte and other European leaders voiced serious concerns over North Korea's active support for Russia in its war on Ukraine.

"These North Korean soldiers present an extra threat to Ukraine and will increase the potential for Putin to do harm," Rutte told reporters.

The U.S. State Department says that more than 10,000 North Korean troops have been deployed to eastern Russia, and most of them have moved to the far western Kursk oblast, part of which Ukraine controls.

On Wednesday, Blinken described the military collaboration between Pyongyang and Moscow as "a two-way street."

"There is deep concern about what Russia is or may be doing to strengthen North Korea's capacities  its missile capacity, its nuclear capacity," as well as the battlefield experience North Korean forces are gaining, he told reporters.

In Brussels, Blinken held talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, European Union High Representative Josep Borrell and British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, among others.

The possibility of Ukraine using Western-supplied long-range missiles on Russian soil was among the topics discussed during Sybiha's meeting with Blinken.

"We need to speed up all critical decisions," the Ukrainian foreign minister said before the meeting.

"Ukraine has always cherished strong bipartisan support. We maintain contact with both [Democratic and Republican] parties and work both with the [U.S.] president-elect and his team and also with the outgoing administration," he added.

In Washington, officials say Biden was expected to ask Trump during their talks at the White House on Wednesday not to walk away from Ukraine.

Trump's political allies have indicated that the incoming administration will prioritize achieving peace in Ukraine over enabling the country to reclaim Crimea and other territories occupied by Russia.

Blinken has concluded talks with European counterparts in Brussels. He will next travel to Lima, Peru, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC meetings, followed by stops in Manaus and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for a summit of the 20 largest economies, the G20. He will join Biden in Peru and Brazil.

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Russia launches combined missile, drone attack on Kyiv

By VOA News November 13, 2024

Russia launched a combined missile and drone attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, overnight, with residents sheltering in metro stations and air raid sirens blaring for hours.

Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City military administration, said Ukrainian forces destroyed several cruise and ballistic missiles and up to a dozen drones.

Some 96 different "means of air assault were detected" by the air force, including anti-aircraft missiles, winged missiles from strategic bombers, Iskander-M strategic missiles and Shahed drones, the Ukrainian military said in a Facebook post Wednesday.

Officials said a 48-year-old man was wounded by the falling debris of a downed drone in the Kyiv suburb of Brovary, and emergency services distributed images of firefighters battling flames at one site.

A separate drone attack in the Kherson region killed a 52-year-old woman, officials said.

Blasts were heard in Kyiv after the air force put the nation under an air raid alert.

"Putin is launching a missile attack on Kyiv right now," the president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on the social media platform Telegram, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The attack came after a U.S. State Department spokesperson said North Korea troops have begun fighting alongside Russians.

"Over 10,000 DPRK (North Korean) soldiers have been sent to eastern Russia, and most of them have moved to the far western Kursk Oblast, where they have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces," spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters during a Tuesday briefing in Washington.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke Tuesday with his Ukrainian counterpart Rustem Umerov "to discuss battlefield dynamics and provide an update on U.S. security assistance" for the Eastern European country, according to Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder.

Ryder said, "the secretary reaffirmed President [Joe] Biden's commitment to surge security assistance to Ukraine."

The Pentagon also clarified the amount of money that remains available for Ukraine's military assistance. There is about $7.1 billion left in the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which includes $4.3 billion approved by Congress in April, plus $2.8 billion that became available after recalculations.

Additionally, there is about $2.2 billion available under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative program. Ryder again underscored that the United States would rush aid to Ukraine and use all available funds.

Ryder said the two defense leaders also talked about the implications of the thousands of North Korean troops now assessed to be mostly in western Kursk Oblast.

Information from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse was used in this report.

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VistaJet Celebrates 20 Years of Excellence with Top Industry Recognition at AsBAA Icons of Aviation Awards for the Sixth Consecutive Time





Hong Kong/Singapore, 14 November 2024  VistaJet, the worlds first and only global private aviation company, was honored with the title of Best AOC Charter Operator at the prestigious Asian Business Aviation Association (AsBAA) Icons of Aviation Awards. 2024 marks the sixth consecutive year* that VistaJet has been recognized for its industry-leading excellence, service, and operational superiority.

This years accolade is particularly meaningful as it coincides with VistaJets 20th anniversary, a milestone in its two-decade-long journey of redefining luxury private travel and setting new standards in the global aviation industry.

In addition to winning the Best AOC Charter Operator award, VistaJet was nominated across five other categories, including:

Safety Champion Award for upholding the highest safety standards while operating a global fleet covering 96% of the world.

for upholding the highest safety standards while operating a global fleet covering 96% of the world. Green Champion Award for its commitment to sustainability and environmentally conscious initiatives.

for its commitment to sustainability and environmentally conscious initiatives. Most Innovative Company Award for its continuous creativity and innovation in enhancing client experiences.

for its continuous creativity and innovation in enhancing client experiences. Trailblazer of the Year Award for Amy Yang, Vice President Marketing, APAC & IMEA, leading the Women in Aviation initiative, breaking barriers and stereotypes across cultures and gender in the industry.

for Amy Yang, Vice President Marketing, APAC & IMEA, leading the Women in Aviation initiative, breaking barriers and stereotypes across cultures and gender in the industry. Best Charter Brokerage Award for Vista, VistaJets parent company, for successfully expanding its off-fleet business by onboarding operating partners in Asia onto Vistas XO platform.

Ian Moore, Chief Commercial Officer at VistaJet, reflected on this continued success: To be recognized as the best operator for six consecutive years is an incredible honor given to us by the industry. This award is a testament to our unique business model and our teams dedication to provide exceptional service with the highest standards to our clients and business partners around the world.

Eric Lam, Chief Operating Officer at AsBAA, congratulated VistaJet on its success: VistaJets six-year reign as the Best AOC Charter Operator is a remarkable achievement. Their dedication to innovation, safety, and client satisfaction has consistently set the industry standard. We congratulate VistaJet on their well-deserved recognition and look forward to their continued leadership in the years to come.

A Year of Significant Growth and Milestones

As reported by Henley & Partners Centi-millionaire report, four Asian cities and territories are currently among the worlds top 10 centi-millionaire hotspots Beijing, Singapore, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Both Singapore and Hong Kong are forecast to enjoy exceptionally high wealth growth rates of over 100% by 2040.

Riding the growing trend of centi-millionaires in Asia, VistaJet saw exceptional performance in 2024 with an impressive growth in the Asia-Pacific region. Key highlights for the first half of the year include:

An 11% rise in new Program Members across Asia Pacific.

A 19% increase in total flights in Asia Pacific, with a 28% growth in Southeast Asia, showcasing VistaJets expanding reach and demand across the region.

A 27% year-on-year increase in flight hours in Southeast Asia, contributing to an 11% overall growth in APAC, driven by rising demand for seamless and tailored business travel solutions.

VistaJet has been redefining the private aviation experience, transforming flight time into a journey of comfort and well-being. Its comprehensive Wellness program, alongside exclusive Members offerings such as VistaPet for the little furry travelers, Adventures in the Sky for the young explorers, and its Michelin-starred private dining experiences at 45,000 feet, set a new height for luxury travel.

As the private aviation industry continues to grow, VistaJet is proud to be at the forefront of meeting the needs of private travel. With Vistas global infrastructure to support its service, VistaJet is gearing up to maintain its leadership for years to come.

*The last Icons of Aviation Award ceremony prior to 2023 took place in 2019 due to Covid 19.

Image: Amy Yang, Vice President Marketing, APAC & IMEA (middle) and James Clark, Vice President Fleet Sales, APAC (right) accept the award for Best AOC Charter Operator presented by Paul Desgrosseilliers, Treasurer of Asian Business Aviation Association (left).

--ENDS--

Information

VistaJet | press@vistajet.com

About Vista

Vista Global Holding Limited (Vista) is the worlds leading global business aviation company providing worldwide business flight services through its network of subsidiaries and a team of over 4,000 experts. A global group headquartered in Dubai, Vista integrates a unique portfolio of companies to offer asset free services to cover all key aspects of business aviation, including guaranteed and on demand global flight coverage, subscription and membership solutions, and trading and management services.

Innovating the industry for 20 years through continuous investment in talent, technology, and infrastructure, Vistas mission is to provide the most advanced flying services at the very best value  anytime, anywhere around the world.

Vistas extensive industry expertise enables it to deliver comprehensive end-to-end solutions and technology to meet the needs of business aviation clients around the world. These services are offered through its leading brands, including VistaJet and XO.

More Vista information and news at www.vistaglobal.com

Vista is a trade name for Vista Global Holding Limited. Vista does not operate any aircraft. All flights are performed by properly licensed operators, which may include subsidiaries such as VistaJet Limited or VistaJet GmbH. Vista also holds a non-controlling minority stake in FAA-licensed and DOT registered US direct air carriers XOJET Aviation LLC (DBA Vista America), Red Wing Aeroplane LLC (DBA Vista America), Western Air Charter, Inc. (DBA Vista America), Jet Select, LLC (DBA Vista America), and Talon Air LLC.





Attachments
Third Quarter 2024 vs. Third Quarter 2023

Revenue of $19.4 million compared to $20.4 million;

Gross profit of $4.2 million compared to $3.7 million;

Gross margin of 21.7% compared to 18.2%;

Net income of $0.7 million compared to $0.3 million;

Earnings per diluted share of $0.06 compared to $0.02;

Adjusted EBITDA (1) of $1.7 million compared to $1.4 million;

Cash flow provided by operating activities of $0.7 million compared to $0.0 million.

Nine Months 2024 vs. Nine Months 2023

Revenue of $59.3 million compared to $63.0 million;

Gross profit of $12.9 million compared to $13.0 million;

Gross margin of 21.7% compared to 20.6%;

Net income of $2.3 million compared to $2.4 million;

Earnings per diluted share of $0.18 compared to $0.19;

Adjusted EBITDA (1) of $5.5 million compared to $5.8 million;

Cash flow used in operations of $(0.8) million compared to $0.8 million generated by operations;

Debt as of September 30, 2024 of $18.2 million compared to $20.9 million at September, 2023.

EDGEWOOD, N.Y., Nov. 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CPI Aerostructures, Inc. (CPI Aero or the Company) (NYSE American: CVU) today announced financial results for the three and nine month periods ended September 30, 2024.

Our third quarter 2024 performance was stronger than third quarter 2023 on all fronts, while revenues were marginally lower. As a result of improved product mix and efficiencies, gross profit margin increased by 350 basis points and net income increased by 149%. In addition, our third quarter-adjusted EBITDA of $1.7 million is 15.6% higher than third quarter 2023. Our nine-month results remain strong on lower revenues.

We continue to pay down our debt and reduced it by $2.7 million over the last twelve months. Our Debt-to-Adjusted EBITDA Ratio was 2.5, which marks our seventh consecutive quarter-end below 3.0, while we generated $0.7 million of cash from operations during the third quarter 2024, said Dorith Hakim, President and CEO.

Added Ms. Hakim, We are also pleased to receive an award from L3Harris for the Next Generation Jammer Low Band Pod, our first from this Tier 1 defense contractor, adding to our backlog of $506 million as of September 30, 2024. This award continues our success of winning new development programs and demonstrates the confidence top tier companies have in CPI Aero.

About CPI Aero

CPI Aero is a U.S. manufacturer of structural assemblies for fixed wing aircraft, helicopters and airborne Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance pod systems in both the commercial aerospace and national security markets. Within the global aerostructure supply chain, CPI Aero is either a Tier 1 supplier to aircraft OEMs or a Tier 2 subcontractor to major Tier 1 manufacturers. CPI also is a prime contractor to the U.S. Department of Defense, primarily the Air Force. In conjunction with its assembly operations, CPI Aero provides engineering, program management, supply chain management, and MRO services.

Forward-looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included or incorporated in this press release are forward-looking statements. The word expect, and similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. The Company does not guarantee that it will actually achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in its forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on the Companys forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results could vary materially from these forward-looking statements. There are a number of important factors that could cause the Companys actual results to differ materially from those indicated or implied by its forward-looking statements, including those important factors set forth under the caption Risk Factors in the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2023 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although the Company may elect to do so at some point in the future, the Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements and it disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

CPI Aero is a registered trademark of CPI Aerostructures, Inc. For more information, visit www.cpiaero.com, and follow us on Twitter @CPIAERO.

Contacts:

Investor Relations Counsel CPI Aerostructures, Inc. LHA Investor Relations Philip Passarello Jody Burfening Chief Financial Officer (212) 838-3777 (631) 586-5200 cpiaero@lhai.com ppassarello@cpiaero.com www.cpiaero.com





CPI AEROSTRUCTURES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS September 30,

2024

(Unaudited) December 31,

2023

ASSETS Current Assets: Cash $ 1,708,987 $ 5,094,794 Accounts receivable, net 6,574,853 4,352,196 Contract assets, net 33,618,971 35,312,068 Inventory 1,052,286 1,436,647 Refundable income taxes 40,000 40,000 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 377,858 678,026 Total Current Assets 43,372,955 46,913,731 Operating lease right-of-use assets 3,334,992 4,740,193 Property and equipment, net 819,078 794,056 Deferred tax asset 19,425,407 19,938,124 Goodwill 1,784,254 1,784,254 Other assets 151,077 189,774 Total Assets $ 68,887,763 $ 74,360,132 LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS EQUITY Current Liabilities: Accounts payable $ 14,994,451 $ 10,487,012 Accrued expenses 5,742,854 10,275,695 Contract liabilities 1,390,127 5,937,629 Loss reserve 24,888 337,351 Current portion of line of credit 2,730,000 2,400,000 Current portion of long-term debt 31,330 44,498 Operating lease liabilities, current 2,118,329 1,999,058 Income taxes payable 28,748 30,107 Total Current Liabilities 27,060,727 31,511,350 Line of credit, net of current portion 15,390,000 17,640,000 Long-term operating lease liabilities 1,494,942 3,100,571 Long-term debt, net of current portion 2,734 26,483 Total Liabilities 43,948,403 52,278,404 Commitments and Contingencies (see note 11) Shareholders Equity: Common stock - $.001 par value; authorized 50,000,000 shares, 12,933,408 and

12,771,434 shares, respectively, issued and outstanding 12,933 12,771 Additional paid-in capital 74,402,288 73,872,679 Accumulated deficit (49,475,861 ) (51,803,722 ) Total Shareholders Equity 24,939,360 22,081,728 Total Liabilities and Shareholders Equity $ 68,887,763 $ 74,360,132





CPI AEROSTRUCTURES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS For the Three Months Ended

September 30, For the Nine Months Ended

September 30,

2024 2023 2024 2023

Revenue $ 19,419,879 $ 20,399,369 $ 59,311,356 $ 62,963,592 Cost of sales 15,200,210 16,693,279 46,422,514 49,990,986 Gross profit 4,219,669 3,706,090 12,888,842 12,972,606 Selling, general and administrative expenses 2,742,036 2,535,065 8,231,875 8,210,603 Income from operations 1,477,633 1,171,025 4,656,967 4,762,003 Interest expense (573,366 ) (663,857 ) (1,793,472 ) (1,816,408 ) Income before provision for income taxes 904,267 507,168 2,863,495 2,945,595 Provision for income taxes 154,590 205,804 535,634 503,850 Net income $ 749,677 $ 301,364 $ 2,327,861 $ 2,441,745 Income per common share, basic $ 0.06 $ 0.02 $ 0.19 $ 0.19 Income per common share, diluted $ 0.06 $ 0.02 $ 0.18 $ 0.19 Shares used in computing income per common share: Basic 12,647,023 12,759,971 12,559,876 12,613,899 Diluted 12,717,128 12,793,133 12,650,340 12,647,061 Adjusted EBITDA (1) $ 1,653,193 $ 1,429,625 $ 5,491,998 $ 5,772,832

Unaudited Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Measures

Note: (1) Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP measure defined as GAAP income from operations plus depreciation, amortization and stock-compensation expense.

Adjusted EBITDA as calculated by us may be calculated differently than Adjusted EBITDA for other companies. We have provided Adjusted EBITDA because we believe it is a commonly used measure of financial performance in comparable companies and is provided to help investors evaluate companies on a consistent basis, as well as to enhance understanding of our operating results. Adjusted EBITDA should not be construed as either an alternative to income from operations or net income or as an indicator of our operating performance or an alternative to cash flows as a measure of liquidity. The adjustments to calculate this non-GAAP financial measure and the basis for such adjustments are outlined below. Please refer to the following table below that reconciles GAAP income from operations to Adjusted EBITDA.

The adjustments to calculate this non-GAAP financial measure, and the basis for such adjustments, are outlined below:

Depreciation. The Company incurs depreciation expense (recorded in cost of sales and in selling, general and administrative expenses) related to capital assets purchased, leased or constructed to support the ongoing operations of the business. The assets are recorded at cost or fair value and are depreciated over the estimated useful lives of individual assets. Stock-based compensation expense. The Company incurs non-cash expense related to stock-based compensation included in its GAAP presentation of cost of sales and selling, general and administrative expenses. Management believes that exclusion of these expenses allows comparison of operating results to those of other companies that disclose non-GAAP financial measures that exclude stock-based compensation.

Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial information provided in accordance with GAAP. This non-GAAP financial measure may not be computed in the same manner as similarly titled measures used by other companies. The Company expects to continue to incur expenses similar to the Adjusted EBITDA financial adjustments described above, and investors should not infer from the Company's presentation of this non-GAAP financial measure that these costs are unusual, infrequent, or non-recurring.

Reconciliation of income from operations to Adjusted EBITDA is as follows:
Eight-city tour planned for 2025, with new stops in Dallas and Chicago

Electrify Expo Industry Day will move to New York City and be held on October 17

Festival will see a mix of highly-anticipated new and returning brands

New experiences will headline North Americas largest electric vehicle festival as the company continues to innovate

AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Electrify Expo , North Americas largest electric vehicle (EV) and technology festival, is expanding its reach in 2025 with the addition of two new major markets: Dallas and Chicago. These cities will join the festivals eight-stop tour, furthering its mission to drive EV adoption through hands-on, pressure-free experiences and getting people behind the wheel and on the seat of the hottest technology on the market.

The 2025 tour will kick off in Orlando in March and conclude in New York in October. With hundreds of leading brands expected to participate, attendees will have unparalleled opportunities to explore over 1 million square feet of the full spectrum of electric vehicles  ranging from cars, trucks, motorcycles, powersports, scooters, skateboards, solar, EV charging and so much more  all in one place.

New for this year, Electrify Expo Industry Day will move from LA to New York, bringing together the biggest names in all forms of electric transportation alongside journalists, analysts and key stakeholders for important discussions, panels and keynotes.

Electrify Expo has leapfrogged every other major event platform to lead the way in driving EV adoption and offering 'try-before-you-buy' experiences for all things electric, said BJ Birtwell, CEO and founder of Electrify Expo. Adding Dallas and Chicago helps us move into areas of the South and Midwest where EV curiosity is spiking. Beyond adding new markets, 2025 will be a pivotal year as our festival attracts broader industries like solar, technology and consumer electronics, and innovates with new experiences and demo zones.

The full tour schedule for 2025:

March 22-23: Orlando, FL

April 12-13: Phoenix, AZ

May 24-25: Dallas, TX **new city

June 21-22: Los Angeles, CA

July 12-13: Seattle, WA

August 23-24: San Francisco, CA

September 13-14: Chicago, IL **new city

October 17-19: New York, NY

Electrify Expo is expected to generate over 300,000 demo experiences in 2025. As the festival footprint continues to grow, Electrify Expo remains committed to delivering a fresh, consumer-driven approach to EV adoption thats enjoyable for all ages.

For the full 2025 schedule and to secure tickets, visit www.electrifyexpo.com . Media interested in attending may request credentials by emailing ee@skyya.com .



Companies interested in exhibiting at the 2025 Electrify Expo locations can visit https://www.electrifyexpo.com/partner-registration .

About Electrify Expo

Electrify Expo is North Americas largest electric vehicle (EV) and technology festival, where consumers curious about EVs and technology come to experience the thrill of all things electric. The festival showcases the industry's leading brands through hands-on activations and experiences spanning EVs, micromobility, solar energy, charging solutions, powersports, automotive aftermarket, and connected home technology, providing attendees with immersive learning opportunities and memorable interactions. From high-powered demo courses to engaging education zones, Electrify Expo offers a unique space for consumers to explore and understand the latest in electrification and alternative energy and technology. Leading global brands and startups join Electrify Expo to connect with consumers who are shopping for or considering a shift to electric. In 2025, Electrify Expos nationwide tour will visit Orlando, Phoenix, Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. To stay up to date on the latest news and announcements from Electrify Expo, visit www.electrifyexpo.com and follow on X , Facebook and Instagram .

Media Contact

Skyya PR

ee@skyya.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/870d457c-7ad2-4f1e-b9af-3d27be49d11e
NEW YORK, Nov. 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, announces an investigation of Wolfspeed, Inc. (NYSE: WOLF) for potential violations of the federal securities laws.

If you invested in Wolfspeed, you are encouraged to obtain additional information by visiting: https://rosenlegal.com/case/wolfspeed-inc/.

Why Did Wolfspeeds Stock Drop?

On November 6, 2024, after market hours, Reuters published an article entitled Chipmaker Wolfspeed projects revenue below estimates on weak auto demand, shares sink. This article stated that Wolfspeed forecast quarterly revenue below estimates on Wednesday and said it would book $174 million in restructuring charges for the planned closure of a facility, as the chipmaker deals with sluggish demand from automotive customers. [. . .] The company dropped plans last month to build a factory in Ensdorf, Germany, citing the slower adoption of EVs in Europe.

On this news, Wolfspeed stock fell 39% on November 7, 2024.

Click here for more information: https://rosenlegal.com/case/wolfspeed-inc/.

What Can You Do?

If you invested in Wolfspeed securities, 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:

https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=30954 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email case@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action.

Why Rosen Law Firm?

We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company at the time. 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.

For more information about RLF and its attorneys, please visit https://rosenlegal.com/.

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

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TORONTO, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (APF Canada), Canadas leading independent organization focused on Canada-Asia relations, is pleased to announce it is bringing the Partnering for Sustainability: The Canada Women-only Business Mission to Taiwan November 17-19, 2024.

With strong support from the public and private sectors, the Mission is part of APF Canadas 2023-2025 women-only mission series, Northeast X Southeast: Advancing Partnerships Between Canada and Asia, and will bring together Canadian women entrepreneurs with their counterparts and businesses in Taiwan with a focus on the technology and innovation sectors.

This years Mission will promote gender inclusion in the economy with the goal of womens economic advancement, support small and medium-sized enterprises, explore bilateral and regional trade issues, and catalyze international business partnerships, bringing 29 delegates to Taiwan. Delegates will participate in personalized business-to-business (B2B) matchmaking, company pitches, and networking opportunities.

APF Canada invites the media and other interested parties to join us in Taipei on November 18 (12:00 p.m.  5:15 p.m. at the National Taiwan University) for the Inclusive Futures: Partnering for Sustainable Innovation public symposium featuring insights from industry experts from Canada and Taiwan across three panels:



Inclusive Leadership Driving Gender Economic Advancement

Changemakers: Women Disrupting with Innovation

Indigenous Economies: Prosperity Through International Trade

Speakers at the Taipei Symposium include:



From Canada:



Sara Wilshaw, Assistant Deputy Minister & Chief Trade Commissioner, Global Affairs Canada From Taiwan:



Fanny Huang, President, Excellence Opto, Inc. (EOI) Group & Director, Women on Boards Jim Nickel, Executive Director, Canadian Trade Office in Taipei Dr. Shirley Lin, Founder and Chair of the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation (CAPRI) Dr. Hsiao-Wei Yuan, Vice President for International Affairs, National Taiwan University Yuri Yuko, CEO, Jidi Culture Publishing Co., Ltd. & Indigenous Business Representative for the Indigenous Peoples Economic and Trade Cooperation Arrangement (IPETCA)

Please click here for more information and to register for this free public event.

The Canadian Women-only Business Mission to Taiwan is generously supported by contributions from the Government of Canada through Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy.

Contacts:

Information:

A.W. Lee, Ph.D., Director, Inclusive International Trade,

Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

a.w.lee@asiapacific.ca

Media:

Michael Roberts, Communications Director,

Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

michael.roberts@asiapacific.ca

Follow us on X: @AsiaPacificFdn

Join us on LinkedIn: APFCanada

Like us on Facebook: Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Prime Mining Corp. (Prime, or the Company) (TSV: PRYM) (OTCQX: PRMNF) (Frankfurt: O4V3) is pleased to report its operating and financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2024. Prime is focused on the exploration and development of its wholly owned high-grade Los Reyes Gold-Silver Project in Sinaloa State, Mexico (Los Reyes or the Project).

Prime Chief Executive Officer Scott Hicks commented, Over the course of the quarter and since the quarter end, Prime has made significant progress. In September, we announced outstanding high-grade gold and silver drill results from Tahonitas at the southern end of the Z-T Trend. We also appointed board member Sunny Lowe, who brings a wealth of financial and industry experience to Prime. In October, we announced a major expansion to the resource at Los Reyes, reflecting a 49% increase in Indicated Resources to 2.2 million gold-equivalent ounces and an 11% increase in Inferred Resources to 0.8 million gold-equivalent ounces, compared to the May 2023 Resource1. The resource also included an initial high-grade underground resource, demonstrating significant underground and open pit optionality at Los Reyes. This substantial resource growth from higher-grade open pit and underground zones validates the Companys strategy of targeting a high-recovery, high-margin milling operation. We are excited to continue advancing Los Reyes through expansion and generative drilling, while de-risking the project through ongoing technical evaluations.

Corporate Highlights During the Quarter

(Unless otherwise stated, all amounts are presented in Canadian dollars.)

On September 26th, the Company announced the appointment of Sunny Lowe to its Board of Directors.



Corporate Highlights Subsequent to the Quarter

On October 15th, the Company announced an updated multi-million-ounce high-grade open pit constrained resource based on exploration drilling up to July 17, 2024.



Exploration Highlights During the Quarter

Prime Intersects 9.4 gpt Gold Equivalent over 10.5 metres at Tahonitas in the Z-T Trend

September 3, 2024

Expansion Drilling Highlights in the Z-T Trend

The Company is reporting 11 core holes at Tahonitas in the Z-T Trend with the following highlights:

9.39 grams per tonne (gpt) gold-equivalent (AuEq) (2.63 gpt Au and 522.1 gpt Ag) over 10.5 metres (m) estimated true width (etw) in hole 24TA-139, including: 10.29 gpt AuEq (2.89 gpt Au and 572.0 gpt Ag) over 8.0 m etw,

4.55 gpt AuEq (2.87 gpt Au and 130.0 gpt Ag) over 4.1 m etw in hole 24TA-138, including: 8.06 gpt AuEq (5.23 gpt Au and 218.3 gpt Ag) over 2.1 m etw, and,

3.56 gpt AuEq (2.92 gpt Au and 49.2 gpt Ag) over 4.6 m etw in hole 24TA-138, including: 5.57 gpt AuEq (4.84 gpt Au and 56.8 gpt Ag) over 2.7 m etw,

2.95 gpt AuEq (2.88 gpt Au and 5.5 gpt Ag) over 4.1 m etw in hole 24TA-135, including: 13.21 gpt AuEq (12.95 gpt Au and 20.3 gpt Ag) over 0.7 m etw, and,

4.24 gpt AuEq (4.08 gpt Au and 12.2 gpt Ag) over 2.3 m etw in hole 24TA-135, including: 13.92 gpt AuEq (13.40 gpt Au and 40.4 gpt Ag) over 0.6 m etw.



Maintaining Health and Safety Protocols

Prime remains engaged with local stakeholders and is proactive in monitoring employees and contractors concerning general health conditions. The Company continues to closely adhere to the directives of all levels of government and relevant health authorities in Mexico and Canada.

Community Engagement and Environmental Stewardship Strategy

We continued to gather environmental and community data in the quarter in support of our ESG programs, including completion of a materiality assessment, strategic plan, and disclosure matrix. We strive to minimize the environmental footprint of our activities and ensure that Los Reyes has a positive impact on our host communities.

The Company released its second annual sustainability report during May 2024 which establishes a baseline and a new yardstick to measure our progress in meeting our commitments regarding sustainability and stewardship of the environment, relevant social issues, and corporate governance.

Selected Financial Data

The following selected financial data is summarized from the Companys consolidated financial statements and related notes thereto (the Financial Statements) for the nine months ended September 30, 2024 and 2023. A copy of the Financial Statements and MD&A is available at www.primeminingcorp.ca or on SEDAR+ at www.sedar.ca.

Nine Months ended

September 30, 2024

Nine Months ended

September 30, 2023

Loss and comprehensive loss $(16,245,931 ) $(16,945,046 ) Loss per share  basic and diluted $(0.11 ) $(0.12 )





September 30, 2024

December 31, 2023

Cash $21,239,893 $33,811,215 Total assets $35,248,369 $47,908,403 Total current liabilities $892,672 $2,470,659 Total liabilities $1,700,262 $3,295,811 Total shareholders equity $33,548,107 $44,612,592



2024 Outlook

Given the results from Primes success-based drilling program, the Company is expanding its fiscal 2024 program to 50,000 metres from 40,000 metres. The drill program will continue to evaluate drilling plans using its success-based approach. This evaluation will also include prioritization of targets based on probability of resource development and generative area discovery potential.

Four drill rigs are currently active on site at Los Reyes, with 2024 exploration focused on:

Extending the high-grade Z-T Area shoots that remain open at depth, as well as along strike, both north and south.

shoots that remain open at depth, as well as along strike, both north and south. Expanding the known high-grade mineralization at Guadalupe East .

. Increasing the Central Area resource through additions at Noche Buena and its connection to San Miguel East.

through additions at Noche Buena and its connection to San Miguel East. Generative target drilling of high-grade intercepts at Las Primas, Mariposa, Fresnillo, Mina and others to further develop the resource potential at Los Reyes.

About the Los Reyes Gold and Silver Project

Los Reyes is a high-grade, low-sulphidation epithermal gold-silver project located in Sinaloa State, Mexico. Since acquiring Los Reyes in 2019, Prime has spent $58,839,993 on direct exploration activities and has completed over 208,850 metres of drilling. On October 15, 2024, Prime announced an updated multi-million-ounce high-grade open pit constrained resource based on exploration drilling up to July 17, 2024 (refer to the October 15, 2024 news release for more details).

October 15, 2024 Resource Statement1

(based on a $1950/oz gold price, $25.24/oz silver price, economic-constrained estimate)

1. Refer to the Additional Technical Notes section for the gold equivalent grade (AuEq) calculation method.

Drilling is ongoing and suggests that the three known main deposit areas (Guadalupe, Central and Z-T) are larger than previously reported. Potential also exists for new discoveries where mineralized trends have been identified outside of the currently defined resource areas. Historic operating results indicate that an estimated 1 million ounces of gold and 60 million ounces of silver were recovered from five separate operations at Los Reyes between 1770 and 1990. Prior to Primes acquisition, recent operators of Los Reyes had spent approximately US$20 million on

exploration, engineering, and prefeasibility studies.

QA/QC Protocols and Sampling Procedures

Drill core at the Los Reyes project is drilled in predominately HQ size (63.5 millimetre mm), reducing to NQ (47.6 mm) when required. Drill core samples are generally 1.50 m long along the core axis with allowance for shorter or longer intervals if required to suit geological constraints. After logging intervals are identified to be sampled, the core is cut and one half is submitted for assay. RC drilling returns rock chips and fines from a 133.35 mm diameter tricone bit. The returns are homogenized and split into 2 halves, with one half submitted for analysis and the other half stored.

Sample QA/QC measures include unmarked certified reference materials, blanks, and field duplicates as well as preparation duplicates are inserted into the sample sequence and make up approximately 8% of the samples submitted to the laboratory for each drill hole.

Samples are picked up from the Project by the laboratory personnel and transported to their facilities in Durango or Hermosillo Mexico, for sample preparation. Sample analysis is carried out by Bureau Veritas and ALS Labs, with fire assay, including over limits fire assay re-analysis, completed at their respective Hermosillo, Mexico laboratories and multi-element analysis completed in North Vancouver, Canada. Drill core sample preparation includes fine crushing of the sample to at least 70% passing less than 2 mm, sample splitting using a riffle splitter, and pulverizing a 250-gram split to at least 85% passing 75 microns.

Gold in diamond drill core is analyzed by fire assay and atomic absorption spectroscopy of a 30 g sample (code FA430 or Au-AA23). Multi-element chemistry is analyzed by 4-Acid digestion of a 0.25-gram sample split (code MA300 or ME-ICP61) with detection by inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometer for a full suite of elements.

Gold assay techniques FA430 and Au-AA23 have an upper detection limit of 10 ppm. Any sample that produces an over-limit gold value via the initial assay technique is sent for gravimetric finish via method FA-530 or Au-GRA21. Silver analyses by MA300 and ME-ICP61 have an upper limit of 200 ppm and 100 ppm, respectively. Samples with over-limit silver values are re-analyzed by fire assay with gravimetric finish FA530 or Au-GRA21.

Both Bureau Veritas and ALS Labs are ISO/IEC accredited assay laboratories.

Additional Technical Notes

Metres is represented by m; etw is Estimated True Width and is based on drill hole geometry or comparisons with other on-section drill holes; Au refers to gold, and Ag refers to silver; gpt is grams per metric tonne; some figures may not sum due to rounding; Composite assay grades presented in summary tables are calculated using a Au grade minimum average of 0.20 gpt or 1.0 gpt as indicated in Au Cut-off column of Summary Tables. Maximum internal waste included in any reported composite interval is 3.00 m. The 1.00 gpt Au cut-off is used to define higher-grade cores within the lower-grade halo.

Gold equivalent grades are calculated based on an assumed gold price of US$1,950 per ounce and silver price of $25.24 per ounce, based on the formula AuEq grade (gpt) = Au grade + (Ag grade x $25.24 / $1,950). Metallurgical recoveries are not considered in the in-situ grade estimate but are estimated to be 95.6% and 81% for gold and silver, respectively, when processed in a mill, and 73% and 25% respectively when heap-leached. Additional details will be available in the forthcoming associated Los Reyes Technical Report.

Qualified Person

Scott Smith, P.Geo., Executive Vice President of Exploration, is a qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical content in this news release.

About Prime Mining

Prime is managed by an ideal mix of successful mining executives, strong capital markets personnel and experienced local operators all focused on unlocking the full potential of the Los Reyes Project. The Company has a well-planned capital structure with a strong management team and insider ownership. Prime is targeting a material resource expansion at Los Reyes through a combination of new generative area discoveries and growth, while also building on technical de-risking activities to support eventual project development.

For further information, please visit https://www.primeminingcorp.ca/ or direct enquiries to:

Scott Hicks

CEO & Director

Indi Gopinathan

VP Capital Markets & Business Development

Prime Mining Corp.

710  1030 West Georgia St.

Vancouver, BC V6E 2Y3 Canada

+1(604) 238-1659

info@primeminingcorp.ca

Cautionary Notes to U.S. Investors Concerning Resource Estimates

This news release has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the securities laws in effect in Canada, which differ from the requirements of the U.S. securities laws. In particular, and without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the terms mineral reserve, proven mineral reserve, probable mineral reserve, inferred mineral resources, indicated mineral resources, measured mineral resources and mineral resources used or referenced in this presentation are Canadian mineral disclosure terms as defined in accordance with National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (NI 43-101) under the guidelines set out in the 2014 Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves, Definitions and Guidelines, May 2014 (the CIM Standards). The CIM Standards differ from the mineral property disclosure requirements of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) in Regulation S-K Subpart 1300 (the SEC Modernization Rules) under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act). As a foreign private issuer that is eligible to file reports with the SEC pursuant to the multijurisdictional disclosure system, the Company is not required to provide disclosure on its mineral properties under the SEC Modernization Rules and will continue to provide disclosure under NI 43-101 and the CIM Standards. Accordingly, the Companys disclosure of mineralization and other technical information may differ significantly from the information that would be disclosed had the Company prepared the information under the standards adopted under the SEC Modernization Rules.

Forward Looking Information

This news release contains certain forward-looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation as may be amended from time to time, including, without limitation, statements regarding the perceived merit of the Companys properties, including additional exploration potential of Los Reyes, potential quantity and/or grade of minerals, the potential size of the mineralized zone, metallurgical recoveries, and the Companys exploration and development plans in Mexico. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts which address events, results, outcomes, or developments that the Company expects to occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Companys management on the date the statements are made, and they involve several risks and uncertainties. Certain material assumptions regarding such forward-looking statements were made, including without limitation, assumptions regarding the price of gold, silver and copper; the accuracy of mineral resource estimations; that there will be no material adverse change affecting the Company or its properties; that all required approvals will be obtained, including concession renewals and permitting; that political and legal developments will be consistent with current expectations; that currency and exchange rates will be consistent with current levels; and that there will be no significant disruptions affecting the Company or its properties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements involve significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to: risks related to uncertainties inherent in the preparation of mineral resource estimates, including but not limited to changes to the cost assumptions, variations in quantity of mineralized material, grade or recovery rates, changes to geotechnical or hydrogeological considerations, failure of plant, equipment or processes, changes to availability of power or the power rates, ability to maintain social license, changes to interest or tax rates, changes in project parameters, delays and costs inherent to consulting and accommodating rights of local communities, environmental risks, title risks, including concession renewal, commodity price and exchange rate fluctuations, risks relating to COVID-19, delays in or failure to receive access agreements or amended permits, risks inherent in the estimation of mineral resources; and risks associated with executing the Companys objectives and strategies, including costs and expenses, as well as those risk factors discussed in the Company's most recently filed management's discussion and analysis, as well as its annual information form dated March 25, 2024, available on www.sedarplus.ca. Except as required by the securities disclosure laws and regulations applicable to the Company, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if managements beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9d5cee1b-62d2-4987-a4b7-f22ff0329a8b
NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until December 9, 2024 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against EngageSmart, Inc. (EngageSmart or the Company) (NYSE: ESMT), if they (1) purchased or otherwise acquired EngageSmart common stock between October 23, 2023 and January 26, 2024, or (2) held EngageSmart common stock as of the December 21, 2023 record date of the take-private acquisition of the Company (the Merger) by Vista Equity Partners Management, LLC and its affiliates. This action is pending in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.

Get Help

EngageSmart investors should visit us at https://claimsfiler.com/cases/nyse-esmt/ or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options.

About the Lawsuit

The Complaint alleges that a pattern of material misstatements and omissions of material facts concealed the conflicted and tainted sales process that led to EngageSmarts January 2024 take-private Merger with Vista, which was motivated not by what was best for Unaffiliated Stockholders but by controlling shareholder General Atlantics desire to monetize part of its five-year investment in EngageSmart while maintaining its control position or, at the very least, to roll over some of its equity to maintain an upside benefit in the Company going forward, in violation of an equal treatment provision in the Company charter.

The case is Altshares Event-Driven ETF v. Engagesmart, Inc., et al., No. 24-cv-1083.

About ClaimsFiler

ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations.

To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com.
KELLOG, Idaho and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bunker Hill Mining Corp. (Bunker Hill or the Company) (TSX-V:BNKR | OTCQB:BHLL) announces that it has closed the fourth tranche of the previously announced silver loan with Monetary Metals Bond III LLC (the LLC), an entity established by Monetary Metals & Co. (MM), in the principal amount of US$1,250,000, being the amount of US dollars equal to 39,619.6513 ounces of silver as of the date such amount was advanced to the LLC (the Fourth Tranche).

President and CEO Sam Ash stated, "Thanks to the backing of our valued partners, notably Monetary Metals and the exceptional Silver Valley community, we are making steady progress on the new Bunker Hill mine. Our ongoing drill campaign has revealed promising opportunities, allowing us to refine our restart plan for the first half of 2025. This optimization ensures we are well-positioned to maximize the mine's potential upon reopening."

Construction of the concentrator nears completion, with approximately 98% of its components on site ready for installation. The concrete foundations of the tailings filter press are being set, and the construction of the tails thickener tanks has started. Bunker Hill continues to advance the underground drilling required to inform an updated resource statement in the first quarter of 2025.

Concurrently, the company is preparing to start a new drill program focused on the high-grade silver target in the upper level of the mine described in the news release dated October 22, 2024, while also conducting the preliminary work required to unlock the US EXIM finance in the second half of 2025.

As further described in the news releases dated June 7, 2024 and August 8, 2024, MM, through the LLC, has agreed to loan the Company a principal amount of US dollars equal to up to 1.2 million ounces of silver to be advanced in one or more tranches, in support of the re-start and ongoing development of the Bunker Hill Mine (the Silver Loan). On August 8, 2024, the Company closed on the first tranche of the Silver Loan in the principal amount of US$16,422,039, being the amount of US dollars equal to 609,805 ounces of silver (the First Tranche) and on September 24, 2024, the Company closed on the second tranche of the Silver Loan in the principal amount of US$6,369,000, being the amount of US dollars equal to 200,000 ounces of silver (the Second Tranche). As described in the news release dated November 6, 2024, an additional principal amount of US$6,321,112, the amount of US dollars equal to 198,777 ounces of silver, was advanced in connection with the Silver Loan (the Third Tranche).

As further described in the news releases dated August 8, 2024 and September 25, 2024, the Company has issued to MM: (i) 1,280,591 non-transferable bonus share purchase warrants (Warrants) in connection with First Tranche; and (ii) 400,000 Warrants in connection with the Second Tranche. In connection with the Third Tranche and the Fourth Tranche, the Company will, subject to prior approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the TSX-V), issue a total of 476,793 Warrants to MM (the Bonus Warrants). Each Bonus Warrant will entitle the holder to acquire one share of common stock of the Company (each, a Warrant Share) at an exercise price of C$0.12, being equal to the last closing price of the Companys common stock. The Bonus Warrants will be exercisable until August 8, 2027, subject to acceleration in accordance with the policies of the TSX-V and will be subject to a hold period of four months and one day from the issuance of the Bonus Warrants in accordance with applicable securities laws. The issuance of Warrant Shares is subject to the terms and conditions of the Warrants as well as the receipt of all regulatory approvals, including, without limitation, the approval of TSX-V.

The securities referenced herein or any securities underlying or derived from the financial instruments referenced herein, including but not limited to the Warrants, the Warrant Shares, and the Silver Loan, have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act). This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy such securities, nor shall there be any sale of such securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.



ABOUT BUNKER HILL MINING CORP.

Bunker Hill Mining Corp., under the guidance of its Idaho-based leadership team, is embarking on a strategic initiative to revitalize and develop the Bunker Hill Mine. This endeavor represents the initial phase of a comprehensive plan to consolidate and optimize multiple mining assets and create a high-value operational portfolio primarily focused in North America. Detailed information regarding the company's activities and objectives can be accessed through its official website, www.bunkerhillmining.com, as well as through the SEDAR+ and EDGAR databases, which provide comprehensive financial and regulatory disclosures.

On behalf of Bunker Hill Mining Corp.

Sam Ash

President and Chief Executive Officer

For additional information, please contact:

Brenda Dayton

Vice President, Investor Relations

T: 604.417.7952

E: brenda.dayton@bunkerhillmining.com

Cautionary Statements

Neither the TSX-V nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Certain statements in this news release are forward-looking and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements are within the meaning of that term in Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, as well as within the meaning of the phrase forward-looking information in the Canadian Securities Administrators National Instrument 51-102  Continuous Disclosure Obligations (collectively, forward-looking statements). Forward-looking statements are not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking statements include estimates and statements that describe the Companys future plans, objectives or goals, including words to the effect that the Company or management expects a stated condition or result to occur. Forward-looking statements may be identified by such terms as believes, anticipates, expects, estimates, may, could, would, will, plan or variations of such words and phrases.

Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding: the Companys objectives, goals or future plans, including the restart and development of the Bunker Hill Mine; the achievement of future short-term, medium-term and long-term operational strategies; the Silver Loan; the Company receiving TSX-V approval for the issuance of the Warrants and the Warrant Shares; and the timing and advancement of additional tranches of the Silver Loan and additional Warrants. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those risks and uncertainties identified in public filings made by Bunker Hill with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) and with applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities, and the following: the Company not receiving the approval of the TSX-V for the issuance of the Warrants and the Warrant Shares; the Companys inability to raise additional capital for project activities, including through equity financings, concentrate offtake financings or otherwise; the fluctuating price of commodities; capital market conditions; restrictions on labor and its effects on international travel and supply chains; failure to identify mineral resources; failure to convert estimated mineral resources to reserves; the preliminary nature of metallurgical test results; the Companys ability to restart and develop the Bunker Hill Mine and the risks of not basing a production decision on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability, resulting in increased uncertainty due to multiple technical and economic risks of failure which are associated with this production decision including, among others, areas that are analyzed in more detail in a feasibility study, such as applying economic analysis to resources and reserves, more detailed metallurgy and a number of specialized studies in areas such as mining and recovery methods, market analysis, and environmental and community impacts and, as a result, there may be an increased uncertainty of achieving any particular level of recovery of minerals or the cost of such recovery, including increased risks associated with developing a commercially mineable deposit, with no guarantee that production will begin as anticipated or at all or that anticipated production costs will be achieved; failure to commence production would have a material adverse impact on the Company's ability to generate revenue and cash flow to fund operations; failure to achieve the anticipated production costs would have a material adverse impact on the Companys cash flow and future profitability; delays in obtaining or failures to obtain required governmental, environmental or other project approvals; political risks; changes in equity markets; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future; the inability of the Company to budget and manage its liquidity in light of the failure to obtain additional financing, including the ability of the Company to complete the payments pursuant to the terms of the agreement to acquire the Bunker Hill Mine complex; inflation; changes in exchange rates; fluctuations in commodity prices; delays in the development of projects; and capital, operating and reclamation costs varying significantly from estimates and the other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking statements in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such statements or information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all, including as to whether or when the Company will achieve its project finance initiatives, or as to the actual size or terms of those financing initiatives. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.

Readers are cautioned that the foregoing risks and uncertainties are not exhaustive. Additional information on these and other risk factors that could affect the Companys operations or financial results are included in the Companys annual report and may be accessed through the SEDAR+ website (www.sedarplus.ca) or through EDGAR on the SEC website (www.sec.gov).
DENVER, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Recently, TwyAe Exchange announced partnerships with several top global financial regulatory bodies to further strengthen the platform compliance standards and market transparency. This collaboration aims to enhance user trust by ensuring that all transactions comply with international financial regulations, while also promoting the standardization of the cryptocurrency market.

As an international cryptocurrency trading platform, TwyAe has always prioritized compliance as a core aspect of its development. Globally, TwyAe has obtained significant financial licenses in several countries, including the Money Services Business (MSB) license in the United States and a private equity financing license issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These licenses not only ensure its legal operations but also provide users with higher asset security. These compliance certifications enhance the platform credibility in the global market and increase user trust.

TwyAe strictly adheres to financial regulations in various regions, ensuring that all trading activities comply with legal requirements, thereby avoiding potential risks and compliance issues. This transparent operating model not only fosters greater trust among users but also sets a benchmark for the standardization of the global cryptocurrency market.

The compliance strategy of TwyAe goes beyond merely adhering to regulatory requirements; it also aims to promote market transparency. The platform employs advanced transparency mechanisms, where all transaction records are traceable, and regular financial audits and asset verifications are conducted by third-party auditing firms. This operational model further deepens user trust in the platform and lays a solid foundation for its long-term development.

Moreover, TwyAe has introduced various compliance tools to help users understand the risks associated with cryptocurrencies and educate them on how to operate compliantly in a complex market. These initiatives not only protect user interests but also position the platform as a trusted choice in the global crypto market.

Looking ahead, TwyAe will continue to focus on compliance, deepening its collaboration with global regulatory bodies and expanding compliance licenses in more markets to ensure a safe and transparent trading environment for users worldwide. Through global expansion and technological innovation, TwyAe not only solidifies its position as an industry leader but also embraces the responsibility of driving transformation in the global financial system.

Media Contact:

Company Name: TwyAe Block Technology Ltd.

Company website: https://www.twyae.org/

Contact person: Kesuma

Email id: kesuma@twyae.org

Disclaimer: This content is provided by sponsor. The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the content provider. The information provided in this press release is not a solicitation for investment, nor is it intended as investment advice, financial advice, or trading advice. It is strongly recommended you practice due diligence, including consultation with a professional financial advisor, before investing in or trading cryptocurrency and securities. 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/eaecc1b9-c2c0-4808-8702-6832db39d0b7
Vivet Therapeutics to Present Key Findings on its Gene Therapy Program for Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis at the American Association for the Study

of Liver Diseases Annual Meeting

Gene therapy program VTX-806 demonstrated normalization of toxic bile acid metabolites in blood, liver, tendons and brain in a CTX mouse model for the first time, holding promise for curative treatment

Long term characterization of B6.129-Cyp27a1tmlEl t/J CTX mouse model showed measurable motor alterations similar to those described in CTX patients validating model for translation

Paris, France, November 14, 2024  Vivet Therapeutics (Vivet), a clinical stage biotech company developing novel and long-lasting gene therapies for rare inherited liver metabolic disorders, today announces that it will be presenting key pre-clinical findings for VTX-806, its gene therapy program for the treatment of Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis (CTX), at The Liver Meeting presented by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), being held in San Diego, CA from 15-19 November.

CTX is a rare neurodegenerative disease caused by mutations in the CYP27A1 gene, which affect the body's ability to metabolize cholesterol and bile acids. It is characterized by a buildup of cholestanol in the blood, which can accumulate in different tissues like the brain, tendons, eyes, and arteries. If left untreated, this can lead to debilitating consequences and a poor prognosis affecting a patients lifespan.

The oral presentation entitled: Liver-directed gene therapy normalizes toxic bile acid metabolite levels in the blood and brain of mice with cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis will be presented by Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Dr Gloria Gonzalez-Aseguinolaza on Monday 18 November. It details the development and optimization of its gene therapy program, VTX-806, an adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector with high potency and low immunogenicity designed to reinstate CYP27A1 enzymatic activity, which is impaired in CTX patients.

The study was conducted to optimize an AAV vector using an expression cassette containing liver-specific promoter, CpG-depleted CYP27A1 sequences to prevent the potential activation of an innate immune response and different regulatory sequences. The optimized expression cassettes were tested in vitro and AAV8 vectors were generated with the selected sequences and tested in vivo in a CTX mouse model, resulting in the findings highlighted below:

In vitro and in vivo results demonstrate higher CYP27A1 expression with VTX-806

and results demonstrate higher CYP27A1 expression with VTX-806 VTX-806 restores normal levels of circulating 7C4, expression of hepatic bile acid synthesis-related genes, and corrected hepatomegaly

restores normal levels of circulating 7C4, expression of hepatic bile acid synthesis-related genes, and corrected hepatomegaly Results demonstrate for the first time that liver-directed AAV gene therapy can normalize levels of toxic metabolites in the brain, liver and tendons





The poster presentation entitled: Long-term metabolic, phenotypic, and neuropathological characterization of the Cyp27a1-/- mouse model of cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis details the findings highlighted below:

When compared to normal wild type mice, CTX mouse model had lower body weight, enlarged livers, higher levels of transaminases in their blood, and expression of enzymes Cyp7a1 and Cyp3a11- the latter being the mouse equivalent of the human enzyme CYP3A4

The CTX mouse model also showed higher levels of harmful bile acids in their blood and brains that increased with age

The CTX mouse model  in particular the females  showed signs of ataxia, similar to that seen in people with CTX





This is the first study describing motor alterations in a CTX mouse model, similar to those reported in CTX patients, and progressive accumulation of toxic metabolites.

Dr Jean-Philippe Combal, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at Vivet Therapeutics added, Our preclinical findings for VTX-806 further demonstrate its enormous potential as a valuable alternative treatment option for the curative treatment of CTX. These outcomes come at a transformative stage for Vivet as we refocus our efforts and progress toward key inflection points for our VTX-PID and VTX-806 programs. VTX-PID is advancing in a Phase 1 study, aimed at depleting neutralizing antibodies, with initial results already acquired and more due in 2025. We continue to develop novel and long-lasting gene therapies for rare inherited liver metabolic disorders, which have the potential to transform the current standard of care and treat broader patient populations.

Details of the oral and poster presentations are as follows:

Presentation Title: Liver-directed gene therapy normalizes toxic bile acid metabolite levels in the blood and brain of mice with cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis

Presenter: Dr Gloria Gonzalez-Aseguinolaza, Co-founder and CSO at Vivet Therapeutics

Date and Time: Monday 18 November, at 08:00-9:30 PST

Abstract Parallel Session: From Bench to Bedside: State of the Art Diagnostics and Therapeutics in Genetic and Metabolic Liver Disease

Presentation Number: 0230



Oral Presentation Authors: A Molina1,2,, L Trigueros-Motos 3,, G Perez1,2, M Molina1,2, I Marcilla-Garcia1,2, L Neri3, A Douar4, JP Combal4, B Tamarit4, C Bouquet 4, P Krasniqi 5, A Lamaziere5, 6, R Hernandez-Alcoceba1, G Gonzalez-Aseguinolaza1,2,3,*

1 Division of DNA and RNA Medicine, CIMA, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain 2 Institute for Sanitary Research (IdiSNA), Pamplona, Spain 3 Vivet Therapeutics S.L., Spain 4 Vivet Therapeutics S.A.S., Paris, France 5 Sorbonne Universite, Saint Antoine Research Center, INSERM UMR 938, Paris, France 6 Departement de Metabolomique Clinique, Hopital Saint Antoine, AP-HP, Sorbonne Universite, Paris, France Equal contribution, *ggonzalez@vivet-therapeutics.com

Poster Presentation Title: Long-term metabolic, phenotypic, and neuropathological characterization of the Cyp27a1-/- mouse model of cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis

Poster (4476): Long-term metabolic, phenotypic, and neuropathological characterization of the Cyp27a1-/- mouse model of cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis

Date and Time: Monday 18 November, at 08:00  17:00 PST

Abstract Parallel Session: Metabolic and Genetic Disease

Poster Presentation Number: 4476

Location: Poster Hall C

Poster Presentation Authors: L Trigueros-Motos3,, A Molina1,2,, G Perez1,2, I Marcilla1,2, M Molina1,2, L Neri3, D Moreno-Luqui1,2, A Douar4, JP Combal4, A Garcia-Osta 1,2, M Cuadrado-Tejedor 1,2, B Tamarit4, C Bouquet4, G Despres5, P Krasniqi5, A Lamaziere5, 6, R Hernandez-Alcoceba1, G Gonzalez-Aseguinolaza1,2,3,*

1 Division of DNA and RNA Medicine, CIMA, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain 2 Institute for Sanitary Research (IdiSNA), Pamplona, Spain 3 Vivet Therapeutics S.L., Spain 4 Vivet Therapeutics S.A.S., Paris, France 5 Sorbonne Universite, Saint Antoine Research Center, INSERM UMR 938, Paris, France 6 Departement de Metabolomique Clinique, Hopital Saint Antoine, AP-HP, Sorbonne Universite, Paris, France Equal contribution, *ggonzalez@vivet-therapeutics.com

-Ends-

For further information, please contact:

Optimum Strategic Communications `

Mary Clark, Zoe Bolt, Vareen Outhonesack

Tel: +44 (0) 20 3882 9621

Email: vivet@optimumcomms.com

About Vivet Therapeutics

Vivet Therapeutics is a private, clinical-stage biotech company developing novel and long-lasting gene therapies for rare inherited metabolic conditions, including Wilsons Disease. Vivets gene therapy platform uses recombinant adeno-associated viruses (rAAVs) as vectors and has initiated two clinical programs and four pre-clinical assets to date. Its most advanced program VTX-PID, is aimed at depleting Neutralizing Antibodies (NAbs) levels for a given AAV serotype and is advancing in a Phase 1 dose escalating study in Nabs+ subjects. Its Leading pre-clinical program VTX-806, for the treatment of Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis (CTX), received ODD by the EC in September 2024 and is demonstrating its potential as an alternative treatment option for patients affected by the burden of CTX.

Vivet Therapeutics was founded in 2016 by CEO Dr Jean-Philippe Combal and CSO Dr Gloria Gonzalez-Aseguinolaza and is led by a highly experienced management team with deep expertise developing gene therapies and orphan drugs.

Vivet Therapeutics is backed by international life science investors including Novartis Venture Fund, Roche Venture Fund, HealthCap, Pfizer Inc., Columbus Venture Partners, Ysios Capital, Kurma Partners and Eurazeo. In 2019, key investor Pfizer contributed a 45M investment to collaborate with Vivet in recognition of its scientific expertise and innovative technology platforms.

For more information, please visit www.vivet-therapeutics.com - Follow us on LinkedIn @Vivet Therapeutics and Twitter @Vivet_tx


Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Saudi Arabia Tire Market, By Region, Competition, Forecast and Opportunities 2019-2029F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The Saudi Arabia Tire Market was valued at USD 537.57 million in 2023, and is expected to reach USD 711.80 million by 2029, rising at a CAGR of 4.79%

The Saudi Arabian tire market is on the verge of experiencing significant growth in the coming years. This growth can be attributed to the flourishing automobile sector, which is witnessing a surge in demand, as well as the increasing purchasing power of the population. The market is characterized by intense competition among key international players, resulting in a continuous influx of cutting-edge products that cater to the ever-evolving needs and preferences of consumers. With a strong emphasis on quality and innovation, the tire market in Saudi Arabia is set to thrive and contribute to the overall development of the automotive industry in the region.







Tire market in Saudi Arabia has experienced consistent and impressive growth over the past few years. This growth can be attributed to several factors, including the expansion of the automotive sector and the increasing number of vehicle owners in the country. The automotive sector in Saudi Arabia has witnessed substantial development, with major players investing in manufacturing facilities and the establishment of research and development centers. These investments have led to advancements in tire technology and production methods, making Saudi Arabia tires highly sought after in both domestic and international markets.



The rapid urbanization and the rise in disposable income among the population have fueled the demand for vehicles, leading to a significant surge in the tire market. As more people move to cities and have more purchasing power, the need for cars has increased considerably, resulting in a higher demand for tires. Moreover, the government has implemented initiatives to improve public transportation infrastructure, which has further contributed to the demand for tires. The expansion of public transportation networks, such as buses and light rail systems, requires a substantial number of tires to support their operations.



However, it is important to note that the tire market in Saudi Arabia also faces challenges. One of the major obstacles is the high import duties imposed on tires, which can affect the cost and availability of imported brands. This has prompted tire manufacturers and distributors to focus on producing and promoting locally manufactured tires, which are not subject to import duties. There is a growing trend towards electric vehicles in the country, which require less frequent tire replacements due to their energy-efficient nature.



This shift in the automotive industry poses a potential challenge for the tire market, as it may reduce the overall demand for tires in the long run. However, tire manufacturers are adapting to this trend by exploring opportunities in supplying tires for electric vehicles and focusing on developing sustainable and long-lasting tire solutions. Despite these challenges, the tire market in Saudi Arabia remains resilient and adaptive. With continuous technological advancements, innovative approaches to production, and a growing focus on sustainability, the market is well-positioned to overcome obstacles and continue its upward trajectory in the coming years.



The tire industry in Saudi Arabia is actively collaborating with research institutions and engaging in knowledge-sharing initiatives to further enhance tire performance, durability, and environmental sustainability. Additionally, tire manufacturers are investing in advanced manufacturing processes, such as automated tire production and the use of eco-friendly materials, to meet the evolving demands of the market and ensure long-term growth.



The Saudi Arabian tire market presents a highly promising and lucrative landscape for both domestic and international players. With a booming automotive industry and increasing consumer demand, the market offers ample opportunities for growth, expansion, and innovation in the coming years. The favorable economic conditions, supportive government policies, and a growing population of vehicle owners further contribute to the market's potential. As the country continues to invest in infrastructure development and urbanization, the demand for tires is expected to soar, creating a favorable environment for businesses to thrive and establish a strong foothold in this dynamic market.



Vehicle Type Insights



The Saudi Arabian tire market is known for its diverse range of vehicle types, catering to the varied needs of the population. From compact hatchbacks to luxurious sedans and SUVs, there is a wide selection to choose from. However, among these vehicle types, the passenger car segment holds a dominant position. This can be attributed to the increasing preference for private vehicles, driven by factors such as convenience, comfort, and the desire for personal transportation. As more individuals opt for private cars for their daily commuting needs, the demand for high-quality tires continues to grow. With a focus on safety, durability, and performance, the tire industry in Saudi Arabia strives to meet the ever-evolving needs of consumers, ensuring a smooth and comfortable driving experience on the country's diverse road network.



The commercial vehicle segment is also experiencing steady growth in the Saudi Arabian tire market. This growth is driven by the flourishing logistics and transportation sectors in the country. As the economy expands and businesses thrive, there is an increasing demand for commercial vehicles to facilitate the movement of goods and services.



The popularity of two-wheelers has witnessed a significant surge in recent years, leading to a corresponding rise in demand for motorcycle tires. This trend can be attributed to various factors, including the convenience and cost-effectiveness of motorcycles for navigating through congested urban areas, as well as the growing interest in recreational biking. Motorcycles offer a nimble and efficient mode of transportation, making them an attractive option for many individuals.



As Saudi Arabia continues its path of urbanization and economic diversification, these trends are expected to persist and further shape the landscape of the tire market in this Middle Eastern nation. Market players are continuously adapting to these evolving dynamics, offering a wide range of tire options to cater to the specific requirements of each vehicle segment, thereby ensuring optimal performance, safety, and efficiency on Saudi Arabia's roads. The tire market in Saudi Arabia is poised for continued growth and innovation as it meets the evolving needs of the country's diverse population and ever-expanding transportation landscape.

Key Attributes:





Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 86 Forecast Period 2023 - 2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $537.57 Million Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $711.8 Million Compound Annual Growth Rate 4.7% Regions Covered Saudi Arabia

Report Scope:

Key Market Players

Bridgestone Corporation

Continental AG

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd

Michelin Group

Pirelli & C. S.p.A.

Yokohama Rubber Company Limited

Kumho Tire Co. Inc.

Hankook Tire & Technology Co., Ltd

JK Tyre & Industries Ltd.

Saudi Arabia Tire Market, By Vehicle Type:

Passenger Car

Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV)

Medium & Heavy Commercial Vehicles (M&HCV)

Off-the-Road Vehicles (OTR)

Three Wheelers

Two-Wheeler

Saudi Arabia Tire Market, By Tire Construction Type:

Radial

Bias

Saudi Arabia Tire Market, By Demand Category:

OEM

Replacement

Saudi Arabia Tire Market, By Region:

Western

Eastern

Southern

Northern & Central

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/1sj10l

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Attachment
Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Saudi Arabia Four-Wheeler Battery Market, By Region, Competition, Forecast and Opportunities 2019-2029F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The Saudi Arabia Four-Wheeler Battery Market was valued at USD 554.71 million in 2023, and is expected to reach USD 886.63 million by 2029, rising at a CAGR of 8.13%.



The Four-Wheeler Battery Market in Saudi Arabia exhibits significant growth potential, primarily driven by the country's robust and thriving automotive industry. With the increasing number of vehicle sales and the growing popularity of electric vehicles, there is a surging demand for technologically advanced four-wheeler batteries. Market players are highly motivated by the nation's favorable regulatory environment and proactive initiatives towards sustainable transportation, which create a conducive ecosystem for the growth of the market. Saudi Arabia's strategic geographic location and abundant natural resources contribute to the country's competitive advantage in the automotive sector.





The government's strong emphasis on diversifying the economy and reducing dependence on oil has further fueled investments in the automotive industry, including the development of electric vehicles. This has opened up new opportunities for manufacturers and suppliers of four-wheeler batteries to cater to the evolving needs of the market. The Saudi Arabian market presents a favorable outlook for the adoption of advanced technologies such as lithium-ion batteries, which offer higher energy density and longer lifespan compared to traditional lead-acid batteries. The government's support for research and development in the field of battery technology, coupled with the increasing awareness among consumers about the benefits of electric vehicles, has created a conducive environment for the growth of the four-wheeler battery market.



The Four-Wheeler Battery Market in Saudi Arabia is poised for significant growth in the coming years. With a thriving automotive industry, increasing demand for electric vehicles, and favorable government regulations, market players have ample opportunities to capitalize on the country's growing market and contribute to the sustainable transportation ecosystem. The Saudi Arabian government has implemented various incentives and subsidies to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles, further fueling the demand for four-wheeler batteries. These initiatives include tax rebates, reduced import tariffs on electric vehicles, and the establishment of charging infrastructure across the country.



This supportive environment not only drives the sales of four-wheeler batteries but also paves the way for a greener and more sustainable transportation system in Saudi Arabia. Along with the promising opportunities, the market also faces certain challenges that need to be addressed to ensure sustained growth. One of the challenges is the high battery replacement costs, which can impact the affordability for consumers. While the initial purchase of electric vehicles may be incentivized, the long-term costs associated with battery replacement can deter some potential buyers. To overcome this challenge, market players are investing in research and development to improve battery durability and reduce replacement costs, making electric vehicles a more financially viable option for consumers.



Segmental Insights

Type Insights



In Saudi Arabia's Four-Wheeler Battery Market, the Starter Battery is currently the leading category. This is due to the high number of traditional internal combustion engine vehicles in the market. The Four-Wheeler Battery Market in Saudi Arabia has been experiencing robust growth trends in recent years. This can be attributed to several factors. This dominance is primarily attributed to the significant presence of traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles in the region. Historically, Saudi Arabia has had a strong preference for conventional vehicles, driven by its vast oil reserves and relatively low fuel costs.



This preference has resulted in a substantial market for starter batteries, which are essential components for these vehicles. Starter batteries, also known as lead-acid batteries, are integral to ICE vehicles as they provide the necessary power to start the engine. Their widespread use is a reflection of the high number of ICE vehicles on Saudi roads. The automotive market in Saudi Arabia is characterized by a high vehicle ownership rate, with a large proportion of the population relying on personal vehicles for daily transportation. This trend has been bolstered by the country's extensive road network and urban sprawl, which make personal vehicle ownership a practical necessity for many residents.



The robust aftermarket for automotive components in Saudi Arabia further supports the leading position of starter batteries. As vehicles age, the demand for replacement parts, including starter batteries, remains strong. The hot climate in Saudi Arabia also contributes to the wear and tear on batteries, leading to more frequent replacements and a steady demand in the market. While there is a growing interest in electric vehicles (EVs) and their associated batteries, the transition is still in its early stages. The infrastructure for EVs, including charging stations, is developing, and consumer adoption is gradually increasing.



The increasing demand for four-wheel vehicles in the country, fueled by the growing population and the subsequent rise in urbanization and disposable income, has created a favorable market environment. Moreover, Saudi Arabia's ambitious Vision 2030 plan, which aims to diversify the economy away from oil, is expected to have a significant impact on the automobile industry and its ancillary sectors. This, in turn, is expected to further drive the demand for batteries, as they play a critical role in the auto-supply chain.



Considering these factors, the Four-Wheeler Battery Market in Saudi Arabia is poised to witness even more significant growth in the coming years. The convergence of increasing demand for four-wheel vehicles, government initiatives promoting sustainable mobility, and technological advancements in battery technology will continue to drive the market's expansion. The automotive industry and its ancillary sectors are expected to benefit from this growth, creating new opportunities for battery manufacturers and suppliers in the country.

Key Attributes:

Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 85 Forecast Period 2023 - 2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $554.71 Million Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $886.63 Million Compound Annual Growth Rate 8.1% Regions Covered Saudi Arabia



Report Scope:

Competitive Landscape



Company Profiles: Detailed analysis of the major companies present in the Saudi Arabia Four-Wheeler Battery Market.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

General Motors Company (ACDelco)

BYD Auto Industry Co., Ltd.

Hankook & Company Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

ENERSYS

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited.

Tianneng rechargeable battery manufacturers

LG Chem Ltd

Clarios Germany GmbH & Co. KG (Energizer)

Saudi Arabia Four-Wheeler Battery Market, By Type:

Starter Battery

EV Battery

Saudi Arabia Four-Wheeler Battery Market, By Vehicle Type:

Passenger Car

LCV

Saudi Arabia Four-Wheeler Battery Market, By Battery Type:

Lead Acid

Lithium Ion

Others

Saudi Arabia Four-Wheeler Battery Market, By Battery Capacity:

Less than 50 Ah

51-75 Ah

Above 75 Ah

Saudi Arabia Four-Wheeler Battery Market, By Region:

Western

Eastern

Southern

Northern & Central

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/kch8gg

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Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "U.S. Sustainable Data Center Market - Industry Outlook & Forecast 2024-2029" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The U.S. Sustainable Data Center Market was valued at USD 17 billion in 2023, and is expected to reach USD 35.35 billion by 2029, rising at a CAGR of 12.98%.



The U.S. sustainable data center market is expanding rapidly, driven by the need for eco-friendly data storage solutions. For instance, Google's data centers have significantly reduced energy consumption by optimizing their operations with AI-powered energy management systems.



Policy drivers and other regulations, such as the Paris Agreement and the RE100, and certifications, such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and ISO50001, drive the market for green data center development in the US.



Hyperscale operators such as AWS, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Apple, and Google are leading in new sustainability innovations in the U.S. sustainable data center market.



Most players, especially colocation operators such as Equinix, Digital Realty, CyrusOne, Aligned, STACK Infrastructure, Iron Mountain, QTS Realty Trust, Vantage Data Centers, and Switch, are investing in procuring renewable power and installing energy-efficient equipment.



Data centers are adopting innovative cooling techniques to boost energy efficiency. Operators are now employing free cooling methods to reduce facility temperatures, leading to significant energy savings in cooling systems.





KEY TRENDS

Increased Focus on Renewable Energy Sources

Major hyperscale operators, such as AWS, Google, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, and Apple, are procuring renewable energy for their facilities in the U.S. sustainable data center market.

For instance, AWS meets 85% of its energy requirements from renewable energy. Google, Meta (Facebook), and Apple meet 100% of their energy requirements for data centers from renewable energy. Microsoft aims to power all data centers with 100% renewable energy by 2025.

Colocation operators such as Equinix, Digital Realty, CyrusOne, Vantage Data Centers, STACK Infrastructure, Iron Mountain, QTS Realty Trust, Aligned Data Centers, and others are proactively signing Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) and procuring renewable energy to power their data center facilities to meet their sustainability goals.

Digital Realty meets 100% of its data center energy requirements from renewable energy. QTS Realty Trust meets 35% of its energy requirements from renewable energy, and it targets 100% renewable energy by 2025.

Emerging Trends to Power Data Centers

Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) fuel is increasingly being used in the U.S. sustainable data center market as part of the push toward sustainability and reduced carbon footprint. For instance, in April 2024, Digital Realty announced its plan to deploy HVO to some of its diesel generators across the data center facilities in Oregon and California.

Fuel cells are emerging as a promising solution for powering data centers due to their numerous advantages. Fuel cells can potentially revolutionize the data center industry by providing clean, efficient, and reliable power. For instance, in July 2024, CoreWeave, the GPU cloud provider, announced its plan to deploy fuel cells supplied by Bloom Energy in one of its data center facilities in Illinois.

Microgrids and smart grids can be adopted by data center operators functioning in regions with an uncertain power supply owing to factors such as natural disasters and power fluctuations.

Companies are developing innovative lithium-ion battery solutions tailored for data center applications. For instance, Google has implemented lithium-ion batteries in multiple data centers, including one in Alabama, to improve power efficiency and reliability.

Government Push Toward Sustainability

The U.S. government made significant strides in achieving its goals outlined in the Federal Sustainability Plan.

The aim is to have all government buildings produce zero emissions by 2045, with a halfway target of a 50% reduction by 2032.

The goal is to achieve net-zero emissions from Federal procurement by 2050, incorporating a Buy Clean program to encourage using construction materials with lower embodied emissions.

The plan is for all Federal operations to produce no net emissions by 2050, with a significant 65% reduction in emissions targeted by 2030.

SEGMENTATION INSIGHTS

Electrical Infrastructure



The electrical and power infrastructure landscape is undergoing significant changes and transformations from traditional uses. The market is now more focused on enhancing reliability and boosting efficiency.

Compass Data Centers and Foster Fuels made an agreement together to produce Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (HVO) based biodiesel for Compass Data Centers' generators.

Google has partnered with Fervo Energy to develop a geothermal power project to add clean energy to the Nevada power grid.

Rolls-Royce announced its plan to offer small nuclear reactors for US-based cloud operators such as AWS, Google, and Microsoft.

Microsoft has partnered with Eaton, which will outfit all of Microsoft's data centers with grid-interactive UPS.

Mechanical Infrastructure



The increased deployment of artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads will increase liquid immersion and direct-to-chip cooling in the United States. This will help companies reduce their PUW to 1.4 or below.

U.S. food company Cargill announced plant-based immersion cooling for its data centers.

In January 2024, Danfoss is partnering with Google to supply cooling and heat reuse systems for Google's data centers. In addition, Google will provide artificial intelligence solutions to enhance customer experience, streamline internal processes, and improve overall productivity for the multinational engineering group.

Companies have also adopted free cooling, zero-water cooling, and other methods to reduce their carbon footprint.

Innovative cooling techniques, such as underwater and floating data centers, bring more efficiency to data center cooling.

General Construction

Hyperscale operators such as AWS, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google are leading in using sustainable materials for data center construction.

Companies are introducing technologies such as green concrete, modular data centers, and more into their data center construction.

AWS and American Rock Products collaborated to develop sustainable concrete for a concrete mix for its data centers.

In September 2023, Microsoft was testing eco-friendly concrete blends at its data center in Quincy, Washington. The company is experimenting with concrete recipes that use ingredients such as microalgae, fly ash, and slag to reduce carbon dioxide emissions associated with concrete by 50%.

GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS

The Southeast U.S. is a major hub for renewable energy, boasting significant advances and investments in various sustainable energy resources.

In 2023, the Southeast region led the United States sustainable data center market, contributing to around 40% share of power capacity. This share is expected to increase to over 42% during the forecast period.

Across the U.S. sustainable data center market, companies are securing long-term renewable energy agreements to ensure a steady supply of green energy. For instance, Microsoft's data centers in Texas and Iowa benefited from intensive wind and solar energy projects.

States such as Virginia and North Carolina offer favorable tax incentives and grants to attract data center investments, making them attractive locations for operators.

By 2050, most states in the U.S. aim to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity.

VENDOR LANDSCAPE

The U.S. sustainable data center market is rapidly evolving as organizations prioritize energy efficiency and sustainability.

Google is among the top operators in the data center industry known for its commitment to sustainability and energy efficiency. The company aims to run all its data centers on carbon-free energy by 2030, and it uses AI to optimize cooling systems, reducing energy use by up to 30%.

Data Center Investors

Aligned Data Centers

Amazon Web Services

Apple

Centersquare (Evoque)

CloudHQ

Cologix

Compass Datacenters

CoreSite (American Tower)

CyrusOne

DataBank

DartPoints

DC BLOX

Digital Realty

EdgeConneX (EQT Infrastructure)

EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure

Equinix

Flexential

Google

H5 Data Centers

Iron Mountain

Meta (Facebook)

Microsoft

Nautilus Data Technologies

Novva Data Centers

NTT DATA

Oracle

PowerHouse Data Centers

Prime Data Centers

QTS Realty Trust

Sabey Data Centers

Serverfarm

Skybox Datacenters

STACK Infrastructure

Stream Data Centers

Switch

T5 Data Centers

TierPoint

Vantage Data Centers

Yondr

Renewable Energy Providers

Adapture Renewables

Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp.

Apex Clean Energy

Avangrid Renewables

DE Shaw Renewable Investments

Dominion Energy

ECL

EDF Renewables

Enel Group

Engie

Fervo Energy

First Solar

Leeward Renewable Energy

Invenergy

Lightsource bp

NextEra Energy

Pattern Energy

Qcells

Rocky Mountain Power

Shell

Solar Alliance Energy

The AES Corporation

Torch Clean Energy

TotalEnergies

Vitol Energy

KEY QUESTIONS ANSWERED

What is the growth rate of the U.S. sustainable data center market?

How big is the U.S. sustainable data center market?

What are the key trends in the United States sustainable data center market?

How many MW of power capacity is expected to reach the U.S. sustainable data center market by 2029?

Which region dominates the U.S. sustainable data center market share?

Key Attributes:





Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 226 Forecast Period 2023 - 2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $17 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $35.35 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 12.9% Regions Covered United States



Key Topics Covered:



1. Report Coverage



2. Market at a Glance



3. Premium Insights



4. Introduction

4.1. Overview

4.2. Plans for Making Data Centers Sustainable

4.3. Data Centers Shift Toward Sustainability

4.4. Power Usage Effectiveness

4.5. Policy Drivers

4.6. Shift Toward Green Environment and Energy

4.7. Adoption of Renewable & Green Energy by Data Center Operators

4.7.1. Hyperscale Operators are Increasingly Securing Renewable Energy

4.7.2. Renewable Energy Adoption by Colocation Service Providers



5. Market Opportunities & Trends

5.1. Adoption of Advanced Ups Batteries

5.2. Adoption of Advanced Fuel Sources

5.3. Adoption of Advanced Cooling Technologies

5.4. Innovation in Data Center Construction

5.5. Innovation in Power Utilities

5.6. AI, Metaverse, HPC, & Cloud Computing Increase Liquid Cooling Requirements



6. Market Growth Enablers

6.1. Renewable Energy Initiatives by Hyperscale & Cloud Operators

6.2. Renewable Energy Initiatives by Colocation & Enterprise Operators

6.2.1. Sustainability Targets by Colocation Data Center Operators

6.2.2. Initiatives by Enterprise Data Center Operators/Customers

6.3. Government Push for Green Environment



7. Market Restraints

7.1. Rise in Carbon Emissions from Data Centers

7.2. Water Consumption by Data Centers

7.3. Disturbing Weather Pattern Across US

7.4. Site Selection and Development Constraints

7.4.1. Lack of Space

7.4.2. Power Constraint

7.4.3. Data Center Activism

7.5. Other Challenges Faced by Data Centers



8. Market Landscape

8.1. Market Overview

8.2. Investment: Market Size & Forecast

8.3. Power Capacity: Market Size & Forecast

8.4. Infrastructure: Market Size & Forecast



9. Infrastructure

9.1. Market Snapshot & Growth Engine

9.2. Key Highlights

9.3. Electrical Infrastructure

9.4. Mechanical Infrastructure

9.5. General Construction



10. Geography Overview



11. Competitive Landscape

11.1. Data Center Investors

11.2. Renewable Energy Providers



12. Data Center Investors



13. Renewable Energy Providers



14. Quantitative Summary



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/85wkld

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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.

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Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Saudi Arabia 5G Technology Market by Region, Competition, Forecast and Opportunities, 2019-2029F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The Saudi Arabia 5G Technology Market was valued at USD 2.1 Billion in 2023, and is expected to reach USD 13.41 Billion by 2029, rising at a CAGR of 36%

The Saudi Arabia 5G Technology Market is experiencing robust growth driven by the country's ambitious Vision 2030 plan, which emphasizes the development of advanced digital infrastructure and smart city initiatives. The government's strategic investments in 5G technology aim to enhance connectivity, support emerging applications such as the Internet of Things (IoT), and improve overall network efficiency. Key drivers include the increasing demand for high-speed internet and the expansion of mobile broadband services.







The market is characterized by significant advancements in network infrastructure, including the rollout of 5G base stations and the upgrade of existing network systems. Major telecommunications companies in Saudi Arabia are actively deploying 5G networks to meet the rising needs of both consumers and enterprises. The adoption of 5G technology is anticipated to boost economic growth, foster innovation in various sectors, and drive the development of smart cities and autonomous systems. As a result, Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as a leader in 5G technology within the region, setting a benchmark for digital transformation in the Middle East.



Accelerated Deployment of 5G Infrastructure



In Saudi Arabia, the deployment of 5G infrastructure is rapidly accelerating as the country aims to lead in technological advancements within the region. The Saudi government's Vision 2030 initiative, which emphasizes digital transformation and technological innovation, plays a pivotal role in driving this trend. Telecom operators are investing heavily in the rollout of 5G networks to enhance connectivity, support emerging technologies, and meet the increasing demand for high-speed internet services.

Major urban centers like Riyadh and Jeddah are witnessing the deployment of 5G base stations and antennas, contributing to broader network coverage and improved service quality. Additionally, collaborations between telecom companies and technology providers are facilitating the rapid expansion of 5G infrastructure. This trend reflects the commitment to establishing Saudi Arabia as a regional hub for advanced digital services and smart technologies.



Growth in IoT and Smart City Applications



The expansion of 5G technology in Saudi Arabia is driving significant growth in Internet of Things (IoT) applications and smart city initiatives. 5G's low latency and high bandwidth capabilities are essential for enabling real-time data processing and communication between IoT devices. In line with Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia is investing in smart city projects to enhance urban living through advanced technologies.

These projects include smart traffic management systems, connected infrastructure, and intelligent public services. The deployment of 5G networks supports these applications by providing the necessary connectivity and data transmission speeds. As a result, there is an increasing adoption of IoT solutions across various sectors, including transportation, healthcare, and utilities, driving innovation and efficiency in urban management.



Expansion of 5G-Enabled Industry Solutions



Saudi Arabia's 5G technology market is seeing a rise in the development and deployment of 5G-enabled industry solutions. Industries such as manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare are leveraging 5G's capabilities to enhance operational efficiency and drive digital transformation. For instance, 5G's high-speed connectivity supports advanced manufacturing techniques like remote control of machinery and real-time data analytics. In logistics, 5G enables enhanced tracking and management of shipments through IoT devices. The healthcare sector benefits from telemedicine and remote diagnostics supported by 5G's low latency and high reliability. This trend is driven by the need for industries to stay competitive and adapt to new technological advancements. As a result, there is a growing market for 5G-powered solutions that offer industry-specific applications and services.



Increased Investment in 5G Research and Development



Investment in research and development (R&D) for 5G technology is gaining momentum in Saudi Arabia, reflecting a strategic focus on innovation and technological leadership. Both public and private sectors are channeling resources into R&D to explore new applications, optimize network performance, and develop advanced 5G technologies.

Research institutions and technology companies are collaborating on projects to address challenges related to 5G implementation, such as spectrum management, network security, and system integration. The government's support for technological innovation, coupled with investments from telecom operators and tech firms, is fostering a robust R&D ecosystem. This trend highlights Saudi Arabia's commitment to not only deploying 5G technology but also advancing it through continuous research and innovation to maintain a competitive edge in the global technology landscape.



Segmental Insights

Component Insights



The hardware segment dominated the Saudi Arabia 5G Technology Market and is expected to maintain its leadership throughout the forecast period. The hardware segment encompasses a wide range of critical infrastructure components, including base stations, antennas, and network equipment, essential for the deployment and expansion of 5G networks. As Saudi Arabia accelerates its 5G rollout in alignment with the Vision 2030 initiative, significant investments are being made in hardware to build and upgrade network infrastructure. This includes the installation of 5G base stations and antennas in key urban and rural areas to ensure comprehensive network coverage and high-speed connectivity.



The substantial capital expenditure required for purchasing and installing advanced hardware, combined with the need for robust infrastructure to support the growing demand for 5G services, reinforces the segment's dominant position. Additionally, the ongoing upgrades and maintenance of existing hardware to enhance network performance and support new technologies further contribute to the segment's prominence. While software and services are also crucial for the overall 5G ecosystem, the hardware segment's foundational role in establishing and expanding 5G networks positions it as the leading contributor to the market. As the demand for 5G connectivity continues to grow and new applications and services emerge, the emphasis on upgrading and expanding hardware infrastructure will likely persist, sustaining its dominance in the Saudi Arabian 5G technology landscape.



Spectrum Insights



The 5G NR Sub-6GHz spectrum segment dominated the Saudi Arabia 5G Technology Market and is expected to sustain its leadership throughout the forecast period. This spectrum is pivotal for providing widespread 5G coverage and delivering significant improvements in network performance and capacity. The 5G NR Sub-6GHz spectrum, which operates at frequencies below 6 GHz, offers a balanced trade-off between coverage, capacity, and speed, making it ideal for broad deployment across urban and suburban areas. In Saudi Arabia, this spectrum's ability to offer substantial coverage and more consistent connectivity has made it the preferred choice for telecom operators as they expand their 5G networks.



The lower frequency bands of the Sub-6GHz spectrum facilitate better penetration through buildings and other obstacles, which is crucial for ensuring reliable service in densely populated and geographically varied regions. This has been particularly advantageous in Saudi Arabia's large and diverse urban areas, where consistent connectivity is essential for supporting both consumer applications and emerging technologies.



While the 5G NR mmWave spectrum offers higher speeds and greater bandwidth, its limited range and higher susceptibility to physical obstructions have made it less prevalent in the initial stages of 5G deployment. Consequently, the Sub-6GHz spectrum's practical benefits in terms of coverage and reliability continue to drive its dominance in the Saudi market. As the rollout of 5G infrastructure progresses, the focus on 5G NR Sub-6GHz is likely to remain strong, aligning with the country's strategic goals for comprehensive 5G network expansion and supporting a wide array of applications and services.

Key Attributes:

Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 86 Forecast Period 2023 - 2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $2.1 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $13.41 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 36.0% Regions Covered Saudi Arabia



Report Scope:

Company Profiles: Detailed analysis of the major companies present in the Saudi Arabia 5G Technology Market.

IBM Corporation

Fujitsu Limited

Nokia Corporation

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

Intel Corporation

Cisco Systems, Inc.

ZTE Corporation

Qualcomm Technologies Inc

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

MediaTek Inc.

Saudi Arabia 5G Technology Market, By Component:

Hardware

Services

Software

Saudi Arabia 5G Technology Market, By Technology:

Enhanced Mobile Broadband [eMBB]

Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication [URLLC]

Massive Machine Type Communication [mMTC]

Saudi Arabia 5G Technology Market, By Application:

Consumer

Enterprises

Saudi Arabia 5G Technology Market, By Spectrum:

5G NR Sub-6GHz

5G NR mmWave

Saudi Arabia 5G Technology Market, By Region:

Riyadh

Makkah

Madinah

Jeddah

Tabuk

Eastern Province

Rest of Saudi Arabia

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/qpus18

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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.

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Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Saudi Arabia Solar Photovoltaic Market by Region, Competition, Forecast and Opportunities, 2019-2029F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The Saudi Arabia Solar Photovoltaic Market was valued at USD 3.92 Billion in 2023, and is expected to reach USD 44.89 Billion by 2029, rising at a CAGR of 49.87%

Saudi Arabia Solar Photovoltaic (PV) refers to the technology used to convert sunlight into electricity through solar panels, which are integral to the country's renewable energy strategy. This market is set to rise significantly due to several key factors. Firstly, Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 plan aims to diversify the energy mix and reduce reliance on oil, creating a strong push for renewable energy sources. Solar PV technology, with its ability to generate clean electricity from abundant sunlight, aligns perfectly with these goals.







The Saudi government has implemented various incentives, such as subsidies, tax benefits, and funding programs, to encourage the adoption of solar energy. These measures reduce the financial burden on businesses and households, making solar PV installations more attractive. Additionally, the decreasing cost of solar technology, driven by advances in manufacturing and economies of scale, is making solar PV systems more affordable. This trend is further supported by ongoing research and development in solar technologies, which enhances efficiency and reduces costs.



The increasing focus on sustainability and environmental concerns also drives the market, as both private and public entities seek to reduce carbon footprints and meet regulatory requirements. Furthermore, the expansion of solar projects, including utility-scale solar farms and residential rooftop installations, contributes to market growth by increasing the overall capacity and availability of solar power. As Saudi Arabia continues to invest in infrastructure and technological advancements, the solar photovoltaic market is poised for robust growth, driven by a combination of supportive policies, technological innovation, and a strong commitment to renewable energy development.



Technology Type Insights



In 2023, the Saudi Arabia Solar Photovoltaic Market was predominantly led by the Monocrystalline Silicon segment, a trend expected to persist throughout the forecast period. Monocrystalline silicon solar panels, known for their high efficiency and sleek design, offer superior performance compared to other technologies. They are manufactured from a single crystal structure, which allows them to achieve higher energy conversion rates and better space efficiency. This high efficiency makes monocrystalline panels particularly suited for regions with high solar irradiance, such as Saudi Arabia, where maximizing energy output is critical.



Additionally, monocrystalline panels tend to have a longer lifespan and come with better warranties, contributing to their dominance in the market. Their efficiency and performance are highly valued in both residential and commercial installations, aligning well with Saudi Arabia's goals of increasing solar power capacity. While other technologies such as Polycrystalline Silicon, Thin-Film, and Hybrid panels have their own advantages, including cost-effectiveness and flexibility, they have not yet matched the efficiency and reliability offered by monocrystalline silicon panels. The continued advancements in monocrystalline technology and the ongoing efforts to reduce costs further reinforce its leading position in the Saudi Arabian market, ensuring that it remains the dominant segment in the years ahead.



Regional Insights



In 2023, the Eastern Province emerged as the dominant region in the Saudi Arabia Solar Photovoltaic Market, a position expected to continue throughout the forecast period. The Eastern Province's leadership in the market can be attributed to several factors. Firstly, the region is home to significant industrial and commercial infrastructure, which has driven substantial demand for solar energy solutions to meet both operational and sustainability goals. The Eastern Province's geographic location offers high solar irradiance levels, making it ideal for harnessing solar power effectively.



Additionally, the regional government has been proactive in promoting renewable energy projects, offering incentives and support to encourage the deployment of solar photovoltaic systems. The presence of large-scale solar projects and investments in the Eastern Province has further solidified its position as a market leader. Furthermore, the region's well-developed infrastructure and logistical advantages facilitate the efficient installation and maintenance of solar systems, contributing to its dominance in the market. The Eastern Province's strategic importance, combined with its favorable environmental conditions and supportive policies, ensures that it will continue to play a leading role in the Saudi Arabia Solar Photovoltaic Market moving forward.

Key Attributes:





Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 85 Forecast Period 2023 - 2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $3.92 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $44.89 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 49.8% Regions Covered Saudi Arabia

Report Scope:

Company Profiles: Detailed analysis of the major companies present in the Saudi Arabia Solar Photovoltaic Market

ABB Ltd

First Solar, Inc

Trina Solar Co.,Ltd

LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd

Reliance Industries Limited

Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd

Enphase Energy, Inc

SunPower Corporation

Hanwha Corporation

JA Solar Technology Co., Ltd

Saudi Arabia Solar Photovoltaic Market, By Technology Type:

Monocrystalline Silicon

Polycrystalline Silicon

Thin-Film

Hybrid

Saudi Arabia Solar Photovoltaic Market, By Grid Type:

On-Grid

Off-Grid

Hybrid Grid

Saudi Arabia Solar Photovoltaic Market, By End-User:

Residential

Commercial

Industrial

Utility-Scale

Saudi Arabia Solar Photovoltaic Market, By Region:

Riyadh

Makkah

Madinah

Jeddah

Tabuk

Eastern Province

Rest of Saudi Arabia

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/9r8yhk

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.

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Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Saudi Arabia Enhanced Oil Recovery Market, By Region, Competition, Forecast and Opportunities, 2019-2029F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The Saudi Arabia Enhanced Oil Recovery Market was valued at USD 2.49 billion in 2023, and is expected to reach USD 3.96 billion by 2029, rising at a CAGR of 7.87%.



Enhanced Oil Recovery in Saudi Arabia refers to advanced techniques employed to extract additional oil from mature and depleted oil fields beyond conventional methods. This approach involves using various technologies to improve oil extraction efficiency, including thermal methods, chemical injections, and gas injection techniques. As one of the largest oil producers globally, Saudi Arabia faces the challenge of optimizing production from its extensive but aging oil fields. The Enhanced Oil Recovery Market in the country is expected to rise significantly due to several factors. The primary driver is the need to maintain high oil production levels amidst declining output from older fields.





Enhanced Oil Recovery methods enable Saudi Arabia to tap into previously inaccessible reserves, thus extending the productive life of its oil assets and maximizing resource utilization. Technological advancements play a crucial role, as innovations in recovery techniques and improved efficiency contribute to cost reductions and better overall performance.



Furthermore, Saudi Arabia's strategic focus on maintaining its position as a leading oil exporter necessitates continual investment in enhanced recovery methods to sustain and potentially increase production volumes. Government policies and investments in research and development also support this market growth, aligning with broader economic objectives and energy security goals. Additionally, rising global demand for oil and fluctuating prices drive the need for efficient recovery techniques to optimize extraction processes and enhance profitability. As these factors converge, the Enhanced Oil Recovery Market in Saudi Arabia is set to expand, driven by technological advancements, strategic resource management, and a commitment to sustaining oil production amidst evolving industry dynamics.



Key Market Drivers

Optimization of Oil Recovery from Mature Fields



Chemical methods involve injecting substances like polymers or surfactants to alter the properties of the oil and improve flow rates. Gas injection techniques, such as carbon dioxide flooding, help maintain reservoir pressure and enhance oil displacement. By applying these methods, Saudi Arabia can significantly increase the volume of recoverable oil from its existing fields, thereby extending their productive life and maintaining high levels of production. The continued investment in and adoption of Enhanced Oil Recovery technologies are essential for optimizing oil recovery and ensuring the long-term viability of Saudi Arabia's oil assets. This focus on maximizing extraction efficiency supports the country's strategic goal of sustaining its position as a leading global oil exporter and meeting both domestic and international energy demands.



Technological Advancements in Enhanced Oil Recovery



Innovations in chemical formulations, including the development of more effective surfactants and polymers, enhance the ability to mobilize and extract oil from challenging reservoir conditions. Additionally, the integration of digital technologies, such as data analytics and artificial intelligence, supports real-time monitoring and decision-making, leading to more efficient and cost-effective recovery operations.



Strategic Focus on Maintaining Oil Production Levels



By employing these advanced techniques, Saudi Arabia can mitigate the impact of declining production rates from mature fields and ensure a stable supply of oil to the global market. Additionally, maintaining high production levels supports the country's economic stability and revenue generation, which are essential for funding national development projects and diversifying its economy. The strategic emphasis on sustaining oil production aligns with Saudi Arabia's broader economic objectives and energy security goals. Enhanced Oil Recovery technologies provide a critical tool for achieving these objectives by maximizing oil recovery and ensuring the long-term viability of the country's oil resources. The ongoing focus on production optimization reinforces the importance of Enhanced Oil Recovery in Saudi Arabia's oil industry and drives market growth.



Key Market Challenges

High Costs of Enhanced Oil Recovery Technologies



The substantial capital expenditure and operational costs associated with these technologies can pose significant challenges for oil companies, particularly in a market characterized by fluctuating oil prices and economic uncertainties. To mitigate these challenges, companies must carefully evaluate the economic viability of Enhanced Oil Recovery projects and seek ways to optimize costs through technological innovations and efficient management practices. The ability to balance cost considerations with the benefits of enhanced recovery is crucial for sustaining investments in advanced recovery techniques and ensuring the long-term success of Enhanced Oil Recovery initiatives in Saudi Arabia.



Technical and Operational Complexities



The complexity of these processes necessitates specialized equipment, skilled personnel, and sophisticated monitoring systems to ensure successful implementation and minimize operational risks. Additionally, the variability in reservoir conditions, such as geological formations and fluid characteristics, can further complicate the application of Enhanced Oil Recovery techniques. Addressing these technical and operational challenges requires ongoing research and development, as well as investment in training and capacity-building for personnel. The ability to navigate the complexities of Enhanced Oil Recovery processes and adapt to varying reservoir conditions is essential for achieving optimal recovery outcomes and maintaining the effectiveness of Enhanced Oil Recovery technologies in Saudi Arabia.

Technology Insights



In 2023, the Thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery segment dominated the Saudi Arabia Enhanced Oil Recovery Market and is expected to maintain its leading position throughout the forecast period. Thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery techniques, including steam injection and cyclic steam stimulation, have been particularly effective in the country due to their ability to improve oil extraction from heavy and viscous crude reserves. Given Saudi Arabia's substantial reserves of heavy oil and its focus on maximizing output from mature fields, thermal methods offer a reliable solution for enhancing recovery rates.



The high efficiency of these techniques in increasing reservoir temperatures and reducing oil viscosity makes them a preferred choice for the oil industry in Saudi Arabia. Additionally, the country's existing infrastructure and expertise in thermal recovery technologies further support their continued dominance. As the market evolves, the sustained focus on optimizing oil production from challenging reservoirs ensures that thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery methods will remain central to Saudi Arabia's strategy for maintaining its oil output and extending the life of its oil fields. Consequently, the Thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery segment is anticipated to continue leading the market, driven by its proven effectiveness and alignment with the country's strategic goals in oil production.



Regional Insights



In 2023, the Eastern Province emerged as the dominant region in the Saudi Arabia Enhanced Oil Recovery Market and is expected to maintain its leading position throughout the forecast period. This region, known for its vast oil reserves and significant oil production infrastructure, hosts many of the country's major oil fields, including some of the largest and most mature reservoirs. The Eastern Province's strategic importance in Saudi Arabia's oil industry is highlighted by its extensive network of oil extraction and processing facilities, which are critical for implementing Enhanced Oil Recovery techniques.



The region's well-established infrastructure, coupled with its concentration of advanced recovery projects, drives the demand for Enhanced Oil Recovery technologies. The presence of key oil companies and their ongoing investments in improving recovery from aging fields further solidifies the Eastern Province's dominant role.

Additionally, the region's favorable geological conditions and existing expertise in Enhanced Oil Recovery practices contribute to its continued leadership in the market. As Saudi Arabia focuses on maximizing oil production and extending the life of its existing fields, the Eastern Province remains central to these efforts, reinforcing its position as the primary hub for Enhanced Oil Recovery activities in the country. The sustained development and application of advanced recovery techniques in this region ensure that the Eastern Province will continue to be a focal point in Saudi Arabia's Enhanced Oil Recovery Market.

Key Attributes:





Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 85 Forecast Period 2023 - 2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $2.49 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $3.96 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 7.8% Regions Covered Saudi Arabia



Report Scope:

Company Profiles: Detailed analysis of the major companies present in the Saudi Arabia Enhanced Oil Recovery Market:

Saudi Arabian Oil Company

Schlumberger NV

Halliburton Energy Services, Inc

Baker Hughes Company

Weatherford International plc

TechnipFMC plc

Ecolab USA Inc

NOV INC

Petrofac Limited

KBR Inc.

Saudi Arabia Enhanced Oil Recovery Market, By Technology:

Thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery

Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery

Gas Enhanced Oil Recovery

Others

Saudi Arabia Enhanced Oil Recovery Market, By Application:

Oil Fields

Gas Fields

Others

Saudi Arabia Enhanced Oil Recovery Market, By Region:

Riyadh

Makkah

Madinah

Jeddah

Tabuk

Eastern Province

Rest of Saudi Arabia

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/vhvxpt

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Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "United States Healthcare Facilities Management Market by Region, Competition, Forecast and Opportunities, 2019-2029F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The United States Healthcare Facilities Management Market was valued at USD 82.47 billion in 2023, and is projected to reach USD 148.30 billion by 2029, rising at a CAGR of 10.11%.



The United States Healthcare Facilities Management Market is a rapidly evolving sector that is critical to maintaining the quality and efficiency of healthcare infrastructure across the country. The rise in demand for healthcare facilities management is largely driven by several key factors, including the increasing complexity of healthcare services, stringent regulatory requirements, the growing elderly population, and technological advancements.





One of the most significant drivers of growth in this market is the increasing number of healthcare facilities and the need for their operational efficiency. As healthcare infrastructure expands, particularly due to the rising demand for elder care and chronic disease management, the need for effective facilities management also grows. With the aging population in the U.S., which is expected to continue expanding over the next decade, healthcare facilities must manage the pressures of increased patient volume and maintain high standards of care. This is especially critical as healthcare systems strive to reduce operational costs without compromising quality.



Moreover, technological advancements such as the adoption of smart building systems and integrated software for managing healthcare environments have revolutionized the facilities management landscape. The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, data analytics, and cloud-based management systems allows for predictive maintenance, real-time monitoring, and energy efficiency optimization. These innovations help healthcare facilities operate more sustainably and efficiently, which is crucial in an era of rising energy costs and environmental concerns.



Another important aspect influencing the growth of healthcare facilities management in the U.S. is the regulatory environment. Facilities must comply with rigorous standards set by bodies such as the Joint Commission, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). These organizations mandate strict protocols around infection control, waste management, safety, and patient care environments, driving demand for specialized FM services.



As the healthcare sector continues to shift towards value-based care, where patient outcomes and satisfaction are prioritized, the role of facilities management becomes increasingly important in creating environments that promote healing, safety, and well-being. Consequently, the U.S. Healthcare Facilities Management Market is projected to grow steadily in the coming years, supported by the sector's need for improved efficiency, cost reduction, and technological adoption.



Key Market Drivers:

Aging Population and Increasing Demand for Healthcare Services

Technological Advancements and the Integration of Smart Building Systems

Regulatory Compliance and Safety Standards

Focus on Sustainability and Energy Efficiency

Key Market Challenges:

High Operating Costs

Compliance with Stringent Regulations

Workforce Shortages

Technological Integration and Maintenance

Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Pressure:

Key Market Trends:

Growing Adoption of Smart Building Technologies

Outsourcing of Non-Core Healthcare Facility Functions

Increased Emphasis on Sustainability and Energy Efficiency

Regional Insights



Northeast dominated the United States Healthcare Facilities Management market in 2023, due to several contributing factors that align with the region's unique demographic, economic, and healthcare infrastructure characteristics. One of the key drivers is the high concentration of healthcare facilities and leading academic medical centers in the Northeast. States such as New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania are home to some of the most prestigious healthcare institutions, including Johns Hopkins, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the University of Pennsylvania Health System. These hospitals require comprehensive and sophisticated facilities management to maintain their complex operations, patient care quality, and compliance with regulatory standards.



Additionally, the region's high population density and aging demographic play a crucial role in the demand for healthcare services. As the population in the Northeast continues to age, the need for well-maintained healthcare facilities increases, further driving the market for specialized management services. The growth of elderly populations often results in a higher demand for long-term care facilities, nursing homes, and assisted living centers, all of which require advanced facilities management to ensure operational efficiency, safety, and regulatory compliance.



The Northeast is also characterized by significant government investment in healthcare infrastructure and stringent regulatory frameworks. Healthcare facilities in the region are subject to rigorous safety, hygiene, and operational standards, necessitating a high level of expertise in healthcare facilities management to maintain accreditation and ensure patient safety.



Key Players Profiled in this United States Healthcare Facilities Management Market Report:

Sodexo SA

Aramark Corporation

Compass Group

Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

CBRE Group, Inc.

ABM Industries Incorporated

Spindletop Health Acquisition Corp.

ISS A/S

Mitie Group PLC

HCA Healthcare, Inc.

Report Scope



In this report, the United States Healthcare Facilities Management Market has been segmented into the following categories:



By Service:

Hard Service

Soft Service

By Application:

Hospitals

Ambulatory Service Centers

Clinics

Long-Term Healthcare Facilities

Others

By Product Type:

Security

Catering

Cleaning

Support

Others

By Region:

Northeast

Southwest

West

Southeast

Midwest

Key Attributes

Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 87 Forecast Period 2023-2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $82.47 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $148.3 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 10.1% Regions Covered United States

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/3y1u79

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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.

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Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "China Textile Chemicals Market, By Region, Competition, Forecast & Opportunities, 2019-2029F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



China Textile Chemicals Market was valued at USD 2.89 billion in 2023 and is anticipated to project steady growth in the forecast period with a CAGR of 3.68% through 2029

Textile chemicals play a vital role in various stages of textile production, encompassing processes such as dyeing, printing, and finishing. These chemicals not only enhance the durability, appearance, and functionality of textiles but also prove to be indispensable to manufacturers. China, known for its growth in textile production, has witnessed a surge in the demand for textile chemicals. This demand is driven by the rising domestic consumption of high-quality textile products and the expanding export market.







China's unwavering commitment to research and development (R&D) in the chemical sector serves as another driving force for the growth of its textile chemicals market. Through continuous R&D efforts, companies are able to develop innovative and eco-friendly solutions that cater to the evolving needs of the industry. The global awareness surrounding environmental sustainability has led to an urgent need for greener production methods in the textile industry. Consequently, the textile chemicals industry faces stricter environmental regulations, compelling manufacturers to adopt more sustainable practices.



In response, manufacturers in China are investing in eco-friendly chemicals and processes that minimize environmental impact without compromising product quality. This shift towards sustainability not only addresses environmental concerns but also presents new growth opportunities for China's textile chemicals market.

China's dominance in global textile production, coupled with its unwavering commitment to R&D in the chemical sector, continues to fuel the thriving textile chemicals market in the country. As manufacturers adapt to changing regulations and consumer demands, the industry is poised to evolve and grow further. Despite the challenges posed by environmental concerns, the future of the textile chemicals industry in China looks promising. With sustained growth and adaptation, the market is set to maintain its significant role in the global textile industry.

Advancements in Digital Printing and Inkjet Technology



China's textile chemicals market is experiencing a profound transformation due to the rapid advancements in digital printing and inkjet technology. This trend is not only reshaping the textile industry but also presenting numerous opportunities for growth and innovation. The growing adoption of digital printing technologies in the textile industry is a key driver of this growth.



With benefits such as reduced time-to-market, design flexibility, and lower environmental impact compared to traditional printing methods, digital printing has become increasingly popular. The inkjet technology has also made significant strides, contributing to the expansion of the textile chemicals market. Its high precision capabilities allow for the printing of intricate designs and patterns on textiles, while also enabling more efficient utilization of textile chemicals, thereby reducing waste, and lowering production costs. These advancements have had a profound impact on China's textile chemicals market.



The shift towards digital and inkjet printing has created a surge in demand for specialized textile chemicals, including digital inks and pigments. In response, manufacturers are actively developing innovative chemical solutions to meet this growing demand. The continuous advancements in digital printing and inkjet technology are driving a significant and transformative trend in China's textile chemicals market. As the industry continues to embrace these advanced technologies, the demand for specialized textile chemicals is expected to correspondingly increase. This trend paints a promising future for the textile chemicals industry in China, highlighting its ability to adapt to technological innovations and market trends while fostering growth and innovation.



Segmental Insights

Application Insights



Based on application, the apparel segment is projected to experience rapid growth during the forecast period. The rising population in China, coupled with an increase in disposable income, has created a significant surge in demand for apparel. As more people are able to afford clothing, the textile chemicals used in clothing production have become increasingly sought after. This growing demand for textile chemicals is not only driven by the need to meet the production requirements of the apparel industry but also by the evolving preferences towards synthetic apparel.



The shift towards synthetic materials necessitates the use of specific textile chemicals to ensure the desired properties and performance of the garments. Consequently, the apparel segment has emerged as a dominant force in the textile chemicals market, with its increasing share reflecting the preference for synthetic apparel among consumers. The mainland China's emergence as a leader in world apparel production can be attributed to its advantage of low-cost labor compared to other countries. This competitive edge has further fueled the production of apparel, resulting in a continuous rise in the demand for textile chemicals to support this thriving industry.



Regional Insights



Based on region, South Central emerged as the dominant player in the China Textile Chemicals Market in 2023, holding the largest market share in terms of value. Located near the western border with Central and South Asia, South Central China enjoys a strategic position that greatly facilitates trade in the cotton/textile/garment sector. The region benefits from its proximity to these key trading partners, allowing for efficient and cost-effective import and export of textile goods. As a significant hub for manufacturing, particularly textiles, the region experiences a high concentration of industry. This concentration not only drives economic growth but also generates a substantial demand for textile chemicals.



These chemicals play a vital role in enhancing the quality, durability, and functionality of textile products, meeting the evolving needs of customers. China leverages its access to Central Asian markets to promote the sale of products manufactured in Xinjiang, including textiles. This access to a broader market creates opportunities for increased production, leading to a surge in demand for textile chemicals. The expansion of production capacity, coupled with the utilization of Central Asian markets, contributes to the growth of the textile chemicals industry in South Central China. In addition to its strategic location, the region boasts developed infrastructure that supports the production and transportation of textile goods.



Well-developed roads, railways, and ports enable seamless movement of raw materials, intermediate products, and finished textiles, bolstering the textile chemicals market. The efficient transportation network further enhances the region's competitiveness in the global textile industry, attracting both domestic and international manufacturers to invest in South Central China. By leveraging its geographical advantage, concentration of manufacturing, access to markets, and infrastructure, South Central China continues to thrive as a prominent player in the textile chemicals market, driving the growth of the overall textile industry in the region.

Key Attributes:

Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 82 Forecast Period 2023 - 2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $2.89 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $3.55 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 3.6% Regions Covered China



Report Scope:

Company Profiles: Detailed analysis of the major companies present in the China Textile Chemicals Market

Zhejiang Runtu Co. Ltd.

Dymatic Chemicals Incorporation

Hangzhou Meigao Huayi Chemical Co. Ltd.

Zhejiang Hongda Chemical Co. Ltd.

BASF China Co. Limited

Archroma Chemicals (China) Limited

China Textile Chemicals Market, By Product:

Coating & Sizing Chemicals

Colorants & Auxiliaries

Finishing Agents

Surfactants

Others

China Textile Chemicals Market, By Application:

Apparel

Home Furnishing

Technical Textiles

Others

China Textile Chemicals Market, By Region:

East China

North China

Northeast China

Southwest China

South Central China

Northwest China

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/o3cfjb

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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.

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Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Condition Monitoring Equipment Market Forecast and Growth Opportunities, 2024-2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The analysis of the global condition monitoring equipment market provides a comprehensive view of the industry's growth, focusing on the three major techniques: vibration analysis, lubricating oil analysis, and thermography. The report delves into the market size of each of these three types and provides a detailed breakdown by key regions.



In 2023, the global condition monitoring equipment market size reached $2.39 billion, reflecting a growth of 6.2% from 2022. The market is expected to continue growing at a 7.3% CAGR during the forecast period from 2024 to 2028. This growth is driven by advancements in technology, a stronger focus on predictive maintenance, and increased investments in industrial digitization.



One of the primary trends driving the adoption of condition monitoring equipment is the rise of condition-based maintenance (CBM). Companies are moving away from traditional reactive and time-based maintenance approaches in favor of CBM, which allows them to harness real-time data to make informed maintenance decisions. Implementing condition monitoring equipment enables end-users to significantly reduce maintenance costs while improving overall equipment effectiveness, leading to enhanced productivity and equipment longevity.



The report also forecasts market revenues for all condition monitoring equipment techniques through 2028. It offers insights into key trends across various end-user industries, such as manufacturing, energy, and oil & gas, which are increasingly adopting condition monitoring equipment to maintain operational efficiency. Additionally, the analysis provides guidance on factors that end users consider when selecting a condition monitoring equipment vendor, including reliability, technology offerings, and service support.



The report identifies numerous growth opportunities for condition monitoring equipment suppliers, especially as more industries embrace digitalization and IoT-driven solutions. However, suppliers also face several challenges, such as the need to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market and meeting the diverse needs of a global customer base. Despite these challenges, demand for condition monitoring equipment continues to rise, driven by its ability to minimize downtime and extend the life of industrial assets.



Furthermore, the report analyzes pricing trends and strategic imperatives for condition monitoring equipment vendors. It profiles the major players in the market, highlighting their innovations, strategies, and product offerings. This analysis will be particularly valuable to equipment vendors who are seeking to invest in the digitalization of their offerings to help customers optimize their industrial assets using advanced condition monitoring equipment.



For stakeholders, the condition monitoring equipment market presents a wealth of opportunities as industries increasingly prioritize predictive maintenance and the use of advanced monitoring tools. As organizations look to streamline operations and cut costs, the adoption of condition monitoring equipment will continue to grow, making it a crucial aspect of modern industrial maintenance strategies.



This report will be of interest to condition monitoring equipment manufacturers, investors, and service providers who are eager to capitalize on the expanding market. By leveraging the insights provided, they can better understand the dynamics of the condition monitoring equipment industry and position themselves for success in the years to come.

Key Issues Addressed

Who are the leading participants and what are their market shares?

What regions will have the highest growth potential?

What opportunities are there for CM equipment vendors in the current market scenario?

What are the impacts of convergence technologies such as big data and connectivity? How do these technologies influence innovative business models?

Research Highlights

The global condition monitoring equipment market is expected to experience significant growth between 2021 and 2028, driven by the increasing adoption of predictive maintenance strategies across industries. With a forecasted CAGR of 7.3% from 2023 to 2028, the market is set to expand as companies prioritize operational efficiency, reduce downtime, and optimize asset performance through real-time data monitoring.

Key Trends and Technologies Impacting Market Growth for Condition Monitoring Equipment Market

The condition monitoring equipment market is experiencing significant growth, driven by several key trends and emerging technologies. These factors not only enhance the efficiency of maintenance processes but also contribute to the overall optimization of industrial operations. Below are some of the most impactful trends and technologies shaping the condition monitoring equipment market:

Increased Adoption of Predictive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance (PdM) is gaining traction across various industries as organizations aim to minimize downtime and maintenance costs. By leveraging condition monitoring equipment, companies can collect real-time data on machine performance, enabling them to predict potential failures before they occur. This shift from reactive to predictive maintenance is enhancing operational efficiency and reducing maintenance-related expenditures.

Integration of IoT and Big Data Analytics

The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies with condition monitoring equipment is transforming the landscape of predictive maintenance. IoT-enabled devices collect vast amounts of data from machinery, which can be analyzed using big data analytics tools. This enables organizations to gain deeper insights into equipment performance, optimize maintenance schedules, and identify trends that lead to improved operational efficiencies. The convergence of IoT and condition monitoring equipment is creating new opportunities for advanced analytics and data-driven decision-making.

Advancements in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies are revolutionizing the capabilities of condition monitoring equipment. By utilizing AI algorithms, organizations can analyze data patterns more effectively, leading to improved predictive maintenance strategies. AI-driven condition monitoring equipment can detect anomalies and predict equipment failures with high accuracy, enabling timely interventions that enhance equipment reliability and lifespan.

Growing Emphasis on Sustainability and Environmental Compliance

As industries face increasing pressure to adhere to environmental regulations, there is a rising demand for condition monitoring equipment that supports sustainability initiatives. Organizations are seeking solutions that not only optimize equipment performance but also reduce energy consumption and emissions. By implementing condition monitoring equipment, companies can identify inefficiencies in their processes, thus contributing to their sustainability goals while avoiding potential regulatory penalties.

Cloud-Based Solutions and Remote Monitoring

The adoption of cloud-based solutions for condition monitoring equipment is enabling organizations to monitor their assets remotely. This trend has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has prompted many companies to adopt remote operations. Cloud-based condition monitoring equipment allows for real-time data access, enabling engineers to analyze performance and conduct troubleshooting from anywhere. This flexibility enhances maintenance efficiency and supports continuous operations, especially in industries with geographically dispersed assets.

Rise of Modular and Customizable Solutions

The demand for modular and customizable condition monitoring equipment is increasing as companies seek tailored solutions that meet their specific needs. These flexible systems allow businesses to integrate various monitoring techniques (e.g., vibration analysis, oil analysis, thermography) based on their operational requirements. The ability to customize condition monitoring equipment enhances its applicability across different industries and facilitates easier upgrades as technology evolves.

Enhanced Focus on Employee Training and Skill Development

As condition monitoring equipment becomes more sophisticated, there is a growing emphasis on training employees to effectively utilize these technologies. Organizations are investing in skill development programs to ensure that their workforce can maximize the benefits of advanced condition monitoring equipment. Proper training enhances the ability to interpret data insights, make informed decisions, and implement effective maintenance strategies.

Increased Investment in R&D

The condition monitoring equipment market is witnessing increased investment in research and development (R&D) as companies seek to innovate and enhance their offerings. This trend is resulting in the development of new technologies, improved sensors, and more advanced data analytics capabilities. As competition intensifies, manufacturers are striving to stay ahead by continually improving their condition monitoring equipment to meet the evolving needs of their clients.

Key Topics Covered:

Ecosystem in the Condition Monitoring Equipment Sector

Competitive Environment

Key Competitors

Growth Environment: Companies to Action (C2A), Condition Monitoring Equipment Sector

Company Profiles - Key CM Equipment Vendors

Other Key CM Equipment Vendors

Growth Generator in the Condition Monitoring Equipment Sector

Key Growth Metrics

Growth Drivers

Growth Restraints

Select Quotes from Market Participants

Forecast Considerations

Revenue Forecast Analysis

Revenue Percent by Product type

Revenue Forecast by Product Type

Revenue Forecast Analysis by Product Type

Revenue Percent by Region

Revenue Forecast by Region

Revenue Percent by Monitoring Process

Revenue Forecast Analysis by Monitoring Process

Revenue Forecast by End User

Revenue Percentage by End User

Revenue Forecast Analysis by End User

Competitive Analysis

Key Trends and Technologies Impacting Market Growth

Growth Generator: Pricing Analysis

Porter's Analysis of the CM Equipment Market

Pricing Analysis: CM Equipment Market

Revenue Analysis by Offering

CM Equipment by Application

Growth Opportunity Universe

Growth Opportunity 1: Integrating Condition Monitoring Systems with AI Analytics for Better Predictive Maintenance

Growth Opportunity 2: Developing Industry-specific Condition Monitoring Systems to Meet Emerging End-user Demands

Growth Opportunity 3: Establishing Partnerships and Flexibility in the Value Chain for Long-term Sustenance

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/ra17bp

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.
Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Sleep Monitoring Apps Market Report 2024" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



This Sleep Monitoring Apps market report covers market characteristics, size and growth, segmentation, regional and country breakdowns, competitive landscape, market shares, trends and strategies for this market. It traces the market's historic and forecast market growth by geography.







The sleep monitoring apps market size has grown exponentially in recent years. It will grow from $3.2 billion in 2023 to $3.87 billion in 2024 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21%. The growth during the historic period can be attributed to the user-friendliness of sleep monitoring apps, the rising adoption rate of these apps, evolving lifestyles, increased demand for personalized sleep insights, and heightened consumer health consciousness.



The sleep monitoring apps market size is expected to see exponential growth in the next few years. It will grow to $8.33 billion in 2028 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.1%. The growth during the forecast period can be attributed to the widespread use of smartphones, the diversification of sleep monitoring apps, the demand for apps that provide comprehensive health management, work-related stress, and an increase in corporate wellness programs. Key trends in the forecast period include integration with wearable devices, the use of advanced sensors, the development of non-invasive sleep monitoring technologies, the addition of sleep apnea and snoring detection, and the adoption of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).



The growing prevalence of sleep disorders is expected to drive the expansion of the sleep monitor apps market. For example, in November 2023, data from the National Health Service, a UK-based publicly funded healthcare system, revealed that 64.9% of young people aged 17 to 23 experienced sleep problems three or more times in the previous seven nights, up from 64% in 2022. This rate remained higher than that of children aged 8 to 16 in both years. The prevalence among young women increased from 76.7% in 2022 to 74.7% in 2023, while among young men, it rose from 52.3% in 2022 to 55.7% in 2023. Consequently, the rising prevalence of sleep disorders is fueling the growth of the sleep monitor apps market.



Major companies in the sleep monitoring apps market are concentrating on creating innovative audio-based sleep-tracking apps to improve accuracy and user engagement.



North America was the largest region in the sleep monitoring apps market in 2023. Asia-Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing region in the forecast period.

Report Scope

Markets Covered:



1) By Operating System: iPhone Operating System (iOS); Android

2) By Subscription Model: Paid; Monthly; Annually; Free

3) By Application: Sleep Quality Tracking; Heart Rate Tracking; Respiration Rate Tracking



Key Companies Profiled in the Sleep Monitoring Apps Market: Apple Inc.; Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.; Xiaomi Corporation; Koninklijke Philips N.V.; Garmin Ltd



Countries: Australia; Brazil; China; France; Germany; India; Indonesia; Japan; Russia; South Korea; UK; USA; Canada; Italy; Spain



Regions: Asia-Pacific; Western Europe; Eastern Europe; North America; South America; Middle East; Africa



Time Series: Five years historic and ten years forecast.



Data: Ratios of market size and growth to related markets, GDP proportions, expenditure per capita.



Data Segmentation: Country and regional historic and forecast data, market share of competitors, market segments.



Key Attributes

Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 175 Forecast Period 2024-2028 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2024 $3.87 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2028 $8.33 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 21.1% Regions Covered Global

Some of the other major companies profiled in this Sleep Monitoring Apps market report include:

ResMed Inc.

Fitbit LLC

Polar Electro Inc.

Headspace Inc.

Calm Ltd.

Runtastic Sleep Better

Oura Health

Beddit Inc.

Sleep Cycle Inc.

FitSleep Inc.

Emfit Inc.

Ten Percent Happier

SLUMBER Group

Sleepiest Inc.

Pzizz Ltd.

Noisli Ltd.

Moshi Inc.

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/di45kf

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.

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cornish Metals Inc. (AIM/TSX-V: CUSN) (Cornish Metals or the Company), a mineral exploration and development company focused on the advancement and restart of its 100% owned and permitted South Crofty high-grade tin project in Cornwall, United Kingdom, is pleased to announce that it has developed a near mine Exploration Target at South Crofty.

The near mine Exploration Target quantity and grade are conceptual in nature and currently there is insufficient data to classify this as a Mineral Resource. However, Cornish Metals believes the Exploration Target demonstrates the potential to define additional mineralisation, which could expand the current Mineral Resource at the project.

Highlights

South Crofty is one of the highest-grade tin resources in the world with a tin grade of 1.50% in the Indicated category

The near mine Exploration Target points to potential additional mineralisation upside of 6Mt to 13Mt, at a tin grade of 0.5% to 1.8%, above the current South Crofty Mineral Resource in the Lower Mine area

South Crofty mine has consistently increased its Mineral Resource in line with production each year for over the last 20 years when in operation

Potential to define additional mineralisation, which could expand the current Mineral Resource at the project

Further growth opportunities from longer term exploration activities both within the South Crofty mining permission area and within Cornish Metals extensive mineral rights holdings in Cornwall providing for a multi-generational asset



Don Turvey, CEO and Director of Cornish Metals, stated: This Exploration Target supports our view that there is a lot more tin at South Crofty waiting to be discovered. South Crofty is a generational asset with a long history of Mineral Resource discovery and conversion, and we expect this trend to continue after the mine restarts production. The PEA results represent a strong foundation for advancing South Crofty to production, but it is only the starting point, and this Exploration Target illustrates the potential for immense upside.

The assessment of the near mine Exploration Target is based on the current understanding of the geological controls on mineralisation at the South Crofty project and the target was generated by extrapolating known structures along strike and down dip, with tonnages estimated by applying assumed minimum and maximum thicknesses.

South Crofty near mine Exploration Target Mass

(Mt) Grade

(% Sn) Upper limit 13 1.8 Lower limit 6 0.5

Notes:

The near mine Exploration Target is reported exclusive of the current South Crofty Mineral Resource. No economic parameters, mining dilution or recovery factors have been applied to the assessments of tonnes and average grade. The potential quantity and average grade of the near mine Exploration Target is conceptual in nature and is an approximation. There is insufficient data to estimate a Mineral Resource in the area considered and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the definition of a Mineral Resource.



The near mine Exploration Target was primarily based on extrapolation of known, previously mined structures beyond the limits of the current South Crofty Mineral Resource. The mineralisation around South Crofty remains open along strike and down dip providing further potential beyond the near mine Exploration Target. The Exploration Target does not consider the wider opportunities within the South Crofty mining permission area, which also shows significant potential and includes the Wide Formation exploration project, or within the wider region in Cornwall where Cornish Metals has extensive mineral rights holdings.





Figure 1 : Plan view of existing South Crofty Mineral Resource envelopes (orange), near mine Exploration Targets (light blue) and wider mineralised and mined structures with exploration areas (dark blue, pink) identified within the South Crofty underground permission boundary.

Historic production at South Crofty demonstrates the consistent discovery of new mineralisation and subsequent conversion to Reserves (Figure 2). Cornish Metals plans to test the near mine Exploration Target systematically alongside initial production at South Crofty, targeting an increase of the Mineral Resource Estimate above that depleted by production each year. This is expected to be carried out through targeted development and exploration drilling programmes aimed at extending the existing Mineral Resource both along strike and down dip during approximately the first five years of operation.





Figure 2 : South Crofty cumulative metal mined, and metal added to Reserve  1974 to 1997.

Note: Reserves estimated based on methodologies and classifications used by South Crofty in the period.

GEOLOGY AND MINERALISATION

The geology of Cornwall is dominated by granitic intrusions that are part of the Permian Cornubian batholith, and Devonian metasedimentary and metavolcanics, known locally as Killas, that form the metamorphic aureole and host rocks of the intrusions. The sedimentary and volcanic package was deformed during the Variscan Orogeny where crustal thickening, followed by subsequent lithospheric extension and crustal subsidence, resulted in anatexis and formation of the Cornubian batholith.

The South Crofty project area lies on the north side of the Permian Carn Brea Granite. The project area is underlain by a series of metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks and associated hornfels and skarns, that occur in close proximity to the granite contact. At depth, the granite underlies the whole project area dipping towards the north west.

Mineralisation occurs in steeply dipping vein-type structures or lodes that generally strike east-northeast, occurring in both the granite and the overlying Killas. Within the granite, the principal mineral of economic significance is cassiterite. The project is split by the Great Crosscourse a late-stage fault which crosscuts and offsets the mineralised structures. The Great Crosscourse transects the project area dividing the mine into two areas, east and west.

The area is host to numerous historic mines which initially exploited copper and subsequently deeper tin. Numerous opportunities exist to test for the continuation of tin below historic copper mines. This precedent is evident both in the South Crofty workings and also at the Dolcoath mine which was continuously mined through the copper mineralisation and into tin mineralisation at depth, demonstrating the vertical zonation.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

The near mine Exploration Target has been based primarily on extrapolation of known, previously mined structures beyond the data limits of the current South Crofty Mineral Resource. Several smaller structures identified within the historical database that show potential for defining additional mineralisation through further exploration have also been included. An analogue for continuity of mineralised structures is the Dolcoath mine, which sits directly to the south of South Crofty and was mined continuously from surface to over 800m vertical depth with a strike length that is traceable over 2.1km.

Where structures have been extrapolated beyond known data points, they have been extended half the known strike length of the defined Mineral Resource envelope and extrapolated a further two mine levels (approximately 75m) down dip (Figure 3). Where structures have data which could be interpreted as belonging to that structure (Figure 4), or where there is an analogy from an existing structure (for example historical workings above), extrapolations have been expanded to the same extent (Figure 5). In all cases nothing has been extrapolated beyond the mining permission boundary. This approach assumes the continuity of structures beyond the current known data points.

Tonnage assumptions are based on the projected areas of the extrapolated structures. The upper tonnage target is based on the mean width of the known Mineral Resource structure and the lower tonnage target is based on the lower tenth percentile width of the structure. This method acknowledges that although the mineralised structures at South Crofty are extremely persistent, there is significant variability in the width. With the potential volume defined, the mean density of mineralisation at South Crofty of 2.77t/m3 was applied to give an assessment of tonnage.

Average tin grade assumptions were based on the current South Crofty Mineral Resource sample dataset. A range was derived which represents the likely average grade of the global near-mine Exploration Target and equates to the lower 40th and upper 75th percentiles of the existing Mineral Resource sample set. This is believed to give the best indication of expected average grade based on the existing precedent.





Figure 3 : Long section view looking north showing the existing Dolcoath South Mineral Resource structure (orange) and the Exploration Target extrapolation (blue).



Figure 4 : Long section view looking north showing the existing No. 8a Mineral Resource structure (orange) and the Exploration Target extrapolation (blue).







Figure 5 : Long section view looking north showing the existing Roskear B-D Mineral Resource (orange) and the Exploration Target (blue), which has been extrapolated to the length of the historic overlying North Roskear and South Roskear mines.

This Exploration Target was reviewed and approved by Mr. Nicholas Szebor (MCSM, BSc, MSc, CGeol, EurGeol, FGS), Regional Manager and Principal Geologist at AMC Consultants (UK) Limited, a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101) and AIM Rules for Companies and a Competent Person as defined under the JORC Code (2012). Mr. Szebor has reviewed the technical content of this news release as it relates to the Exploration Target and has approved its dissemination.

This news release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Owen Mihalop, MCSM, BSc (Hons), MSc, FGS, MIMMM, CEng, Chief Operating Officer for Cornish Metals Inc. who is the designated Qualified Person under NI 43-101 and the AIM Rules for Companies and a Competent Person as defined under the JORC Code (2012). Mr. Mihalop consents to the inclusion in this announcement of the matters based on his information in the form and context in which it appears.

ABOUT CORNISH METALS

Cornish Metals is a dual-listed mineral exploration and development company (AIM and TSX-V: CUSN) that is advancing the South Crofty tin project towards production. South Crofty:

Is a historical, high-grade, underground tin mine located in Cornwall, United Kingdom and benefits from existing mine infrastructure including multiple shafts that can be used for future operations;

Is fully permitted to commence underground mining (valid to 2071), construct new processing facilities and for all necessary site infrastructure;

Has a 2024 Preliminary Economic Assessment that validates the Projects potential (see news release dated April 30, 2024 and the Technical Report entitled South Crofty PEA): US$201 million after-tax NPV 8% and 29.8% IRR 3-year after-tax payback 4,700 tonnes average annual tin production in years two through six Life of mine all-in sustaining cost of US$13,660 /tonne of payable tin Total after-tax cash flow of US$626 million from start of production

Would be the only primary producer of tin in Europe or North America. Tin is a Critical Mineral as defined by the UK, American, and Canadian governments as it is used in almost all electronic devices and electrical infrastructure. Approximately two-thirds of the tin mined today comes from China, Myanmar and Indonesia;

Benefits from strong local community, regional and national government support with a growing team of skilled people, local to Cornwall, and could generate up to 320 direct jobs.

The 2024 Preliminary Economic Assessment for South Crofty is preliminary in nature and includes Inferred Mineral Resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorised as Mineral Reserves. There is no certainty that the 2024 Preliminary Economic Assessment will be realised. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Don Turvey

Don Turvey

Engage with us directly at our investor hub. Sign up at: https://investors.cornishmetals.com/link/lPdoKr

For additional information please contact:

Cornish Metals



Fawzi Hanano

Irene Dorsman investors@cornishmetals.com

info@cornishmetals.com Tel: +1 (604) 200 6664



SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP

(Nominated Adviser & Joint Broker) Richard Morrison

Charlie Bouverat

Grant Barker Tel: +44 203 470 0470



Cavendish Capital Markets Limited

(Joint Broker) Derrick Lee

Neil McDonald Tel: +44 131 220 6939



Hannam & Partners

(Financial Adviser) Matthew Hasson

Andrew Chubb

Jay Ashfield cornish@hannam.partners

Tel: +44 207 907 8500



BlytheRay

(Financial PR) Tim Blythe

Megan Ray cornishmetals@blytheray.com

Tel: +44 207 138 3204

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.

Caution regarding forward looking statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (collectively, forward-looking statements). Forward-looking statements include predictions, projections, outlook, guidance, estimates and forecasts and other statements regarding future plans and operations, the realisation, cost, timing and extent of mineral resource or mineral reserve estimates, estimation of commodity prices, currency exchange rate fluctuations, estimated future exploration expenditures, costs and timing of the development of new deposits, success of exploration activities, permitting time lines, requirements for additional capital and the Companys ability to obtain financing when required and on terms acceptable to the Company, future or estimated mine life and other activities or achievements of Cornish Metals, including but not limited to: the expected use of proceeds from the secured credit facility with Vision Blue; the balance of the cash consideration due to Cornish in respect of the sale of the Mactung and Cantung royalty interests; mineralisation at South Crofty, mine dewatering and construction requirements; the development, operational and economic results of the preliminary economic assessment, including cash flows, capital expenditures, development costs, extraction rates, recovery rates, mining cost estimates and returns; estimation of mineral resources; statements about the estimate of mineral resources and production of minerals; magnitude or quality of mineral deposits; anticipated advancement of the South Crofty project mine plan; exploration potential and project growth opportunities for the South Crofty tin project and other Cornwall mineral properties, the Companys ability to evaluate and develop the South Crofty tin project and other Cornwall mineral properties, strategic vision of Cornish Metals and expectations regarding the South Crofty mine, timing and results of projects mentioned. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as seek, anticipate, believe, plan, estimate, forecast, expect, potential, project, target, schedule, budget and intend and statements that an event or result may, will, should, could, would or might occur or be achieved and other similar expressions and includes the negatives thereof. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this news release, are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties and there can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.

Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: risks related to receipt of regulatory approvals, risks related to general economic and market conditions; risks related to the availability of financing; the timing and content of upcoming work programmes; actual results of proposed exploration activities; possible variations in Mineral Resources or grade; outcome of any future studies; projected dates to commence mining operations; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes, title disputes, claims and limitations on insurance coverage and other risks of the mining industry; changes in national and local government regulation of mining operations, tax rules and regulations. The list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect Cornishs forward-looking statements.

Cornish Metals forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management and reflect their current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date such statements are made. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ from those described in forward- looking statements, there may be other factors that cause such actions, events or results to differ materially from those anticipated. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate and accordingly readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Cornish Metals does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or managements beliefs, expectations or opinions should change other than as required by applicable law.

Caution regarding non-IFRS measures

This news release contains certain terms or performance measures commonly used in the mining industry that are not defined under International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS"), including "all-in sustaining costs". Non-IFRS measures do not have any standardized meaning prescribed under IFRS, and therefore they may not be comparable to similar measures employed by other companies. The data presented is intended to provide additional information and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS and should be read in conjunction with Cornish Metals consolidated financial statements and Management Discussion and Analysis, available on its website and on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information pursuant to Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014 as it forms part of UK domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 as amended.

Appendix

cassiterite means a tin oxide mineral which is the principal source for tin metal

Exploration Target is a statement or estimate of the exploration potential of a mineral deposit in a defined geological setting where the statement or estimate, quoted as a range of tonnes and a range of grade (or quality) relates to mineralisation for which there has been insufficient exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource. Any such information must be expressed so that it cannot be misrepresented or misconstrued as an estimate of a Mineral Resource or Ore Reserve. There has been insufficient exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource and that it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a Mineral Resource.

"grade(s)" means the quantity of ore or metal in a specified quantity of rock

"Indicated Mineral Resource" is that part of a Mineral Resource for which quantity, grade or quality, densities, shape and physical characteristics are estimated with sufficient confidence to allow the application of mining, processing, metallurgical, infrastructure, economic, marketing, legal, environmental, social and governmental factors to support mine planning and evaluation of the economic viability of the deposit. Geological evidence is derived from adequately detailed and reliable exploration, sampling and testing and is sufficient to assume geological and grade or quality continuity between points of observation. An Indicated Mineral Resource has a lower level of confidence than that applying to a Measured Mineral Resource and may only be converted to a probable mineral reserve.

"Inferred Mineral Resource" is that part of a Mineral Resource for which quantity and grade or quality are estimated on the basis of limited geological evidence and sampling. Geological evidence is sufficient to imply but not verify geological and grade or quality continuity. An Inferred Mineral Resource has a lower level of confidence than that applying to an Indicated Mineral Resource and must not be converted to a mineral reserve. It is reasonably expected that the majority of Inferred Mineral Resources could be upgraded to Indicated Mineral Resources with continued exploration. An Inferred Mineral Resource is based on limited information and sampling gathered through appropriate techniques from locations such as outcrops, trenches, pits, workings and drill holes.

"JORC Code" means the 2012 edition of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves prepared by the Joint Ore Reserves Committee of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Australian Institute of Geoscientists and Minerals Council of Australia. The JORC Code is an acceptable foreign code for purposes of NI 43-101.

"Lodes" means a vein of metal ore in the earth

"MRE" means Mineral Resource Estimate

"km" means kilometres

"kt" means thousand tonnes

"m" means metres

"Mt" means million tonnes

NI 43-101 means National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects issued by the Canadian Securities Administrators, which provides standards of disclosure of scientific and technical information regarding mineral projects

Sn means Tin

"t" means tonnes

"t/m3" means tonnes per cubic metre

tourmaline means the crystalline silicate mineral group that occurs as prismatic crystals in granitic and other rocks

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/12015dc9-3c1c-4091-8697-2677f2a0b7b8

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ada95822-2866-4494-bfa9-eca474579adb

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8687b987-cd52-44ef-bc78-ee7966bed693

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/234a3046-5ed2-4e62-b1b6-cd2f403c67ff

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/47dc6f93-b036-43c9-aa8c-aa258e6912b9
Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "India 2-Ethyl Hexanol Market, By Region, Competition, Forecast & Opportunities, 2020-2030F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



India 2-Ethyl Hexanol Market achieved a total market volume of 90.52 thousand Metric Tonnes in 2024 and is poised for strong growth in the forecast period to reach 109.81 thousand Metric Tonnes in 2030, with a projected Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 3.94% through 2030.



The 2-Ethyl Hexanol (2-EH) market in India is experiencing a remarkable surge, reflecting the country's growing prominence in the global chemical industry. With a myriad of applications spanning diverse sectors, 2-EH is a crucial component in the production of plasticizers, solvents, and coatings. India's 2-EH market has evolved significantly over the years. Initially, it primarily catered to domestic demand, supporting industries like construction, automotive, and packaging. However, with increasing industrialization and globalization, the market's growth trajectory has taken a sharp upward turn.



Currently, India is not only a substantial consumer but also a notable producer and exporter of 2-EH. The Indian 2-EH market has witnessed a consistent increase in its market size. In recent years, it has grown to become a significant contributor to the country's chemical industry. Major players like India Glycols, OXEA, and KH Neochem are actively shaping the market dynamics. India Glycols, in particular, has a significant presence in the 2-EH market and plays a pivotal role in driving its growth. The versatility of 2-EH is a key factor driving its demand. It serves as a vital precursor in the production of plasticizers, essential for enhancing the flexibility and durability of plastics.



Another, 2-EH is used as a solvent in various applications, such as coatings, paints, and inks. Its extensive applications span industries like construction, automotive, packaging, and textiles, making it an indispensable chemical compound. Several factors contribute to the escalating demand for 2-EH in India. The burgeoning construction and real estate sectors drive the need for plasticizers, while the automotive industry's growth requires 2-EH in the production of interior and exterior coatings.



Also, the rise in disposable income and changing consumer preferences stimulate demand in industries like textiles and consumer goods. While the 2-EH market in India shows immense promise, it also faces its share of challenges. Fluctuations in raw material prices, especially n-butanol, can impact the production cost of 2-EH. Environmental regulations and concerns about emissions are pushing the industry towards more sustainable and eco-friendly production processes. This transition necessitates substantial investments in research and development.



As environmental consciousness grows, regulations related to chemical emissions and waste disposal have become stricter. The 2-EH industry is responding by adopting cleaner and more sustainable production methods. This transition towards greener alternatives not only complies with regulations but also aligns with global sustainability goals. The Indian 2-EH market is witnessing noteworthy trends, including a shift towards bio-based 2-EH. Several manufacturers are exploring the potential of producing 2-EH from renewable resources, reducing the carbon footprint of the chemical. This shift aligns with the global emphasis on sustainability. India's 2-EH market holds immense potential for the future.



As industries continue to expand and evolve, the demand for 2-EH is expected to remain strong. The industry's responsiveness to environmental concerns and the adoption of innovative technologies will be crucial in determining its growth trajectory. In addition, the market's ability to explore and capitalize on international opportunities will shape its global standing.



The dynamics of India's 2-Ethyl Hexanol market present a compelling narrative of growth and adaptation. With its diverse applications and pivotal role in multiple industries, 2-EH is set to play a crucial part in India's chemical sector. As the market faces challenges and embraces environmental consciousness, it is poised to not only meet the domestic demand but also contribute to the global chemical landscape. India's journey in the 2-EH market is a testament to its resilience, innovation, and commitment to sustainability.



Segmental Insights

End User Insights



Based on the end user, the Industrial Chemicals segment is projected to experience rapid growth during the forecast period. This growth is attributed to the critical role that 2-Ethyl Hexanol plays as a raw material in the production of various industrial chemicals.



2-Ethyl Hexanol is a versatile chemical compound that is used in the synthesis of several other chemicals, including plasticizers, esters, solvents, and surfactants. These chemicals have a wide range of industrial applications, from the manufacturing of plastics, paints, coatings, and adhesives to the production of cleaning agents, agrochemicals, and industrial lubricants. The Indian industrial chemicals sector has witnessed significant growth due to the expansion of manufacturing industries, chemical processing, and the increasing demand for industrial and specialty chemicals.



As a result, the demand for 2-Ethyl Hexanol as a precursor in the production of these chemicals has risen substantially, making the Industrial Chemicals segment the dominant end user in the market. The versatility and adaptability of 2-Ethyl Hexanol for various chemical syntheses has further solidified its position in the Industrial Chemicals segment. It is a crucial component in the formulation of chemical products that are essential in multiple industrial processes.



Regional Insights



Based on the region, the West region has prominently asserted its dominance. This regional prominence can be attributed to a combination of factors, including well-established industrial infrastructure, access to key resources, and strategic geographical advantages.



The Western region of India, particularly states like Gujarat and Maharashtra, hosts a substantial portion of the country's chemical and petrochemical manufacturing facilities. This region is known for its industrial clusters and parks dedicated to the chemical and petrochemical industries. These facilities have played a pivotal role in the production and distribution of 2-Ethyl Hexanol.



The West region enjoys proximity to major ports along the western coastline, providing efficient access to the import of essential raw materials, such as n-butanol, which is a key feedstock for 2-Ethyl Hexanol production. This logistical advantage ensures a steady supply chain, making it attractive for manufacturers. The presence of a skilled workforce, a business-friendly environment, and well-developed transportation infrastructure in the West region has further contributed to its dominance in the 2-Ethyl Hexanol market. As India's chemical and manufacturing sectors continue to grow, the West region's robust capabilities and strategic advantages make it a key contributor to the country's industrial development and the 2-Ethyl Hexanol market.

Company Profiles: Detailed analysis of the major companies presents in the India 2-Ethyl Hexanol Market

Central Drug House Pvt. Ltd

Andhra Petrochemicals Limited,

BASF India Pvt. Ltd.

Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation

Vizag Chemical

Key Topics Covered:



1. Product Overview

1.1. Market Definition

1.2. Scope of the Market



2. Research Methodology



3. Executive Summary

3.1. Overview of the Market

3.2. Overview of Key Market Segmentations

3.3. Overview of Key Market Players

3.4. Overview of Key Regions/Countries

3.5. Overview of Market Drivers, Challenges, and Trends



4. Voice of Customers



5. Impact of COVID-19 on India 2-Ethyl Hexanol Market



6. India 2-Ethyl Hexanol Market Outlook

6.1. Market Size & Forecast

6.1.1. By Value & Volume

6.2. Market Share & Forecast

6.2.1. By Application (Plasticizers, 2-EH Acrylate, 2-EH Nitrate, and Other)

6.2.2. By End User (Paint and Coatings, Adhesives, Industrial Chemicals, and Other)

6.2.3. By Region (North, South, East, West)

6.2.4. By Company (2024)

6.3. Product Market Map



7. North India 2-Ethyl Hexanol Market Outlook

7.1. Market Size & Forecast

7.1.1. By Value

7.2. Market Share & Forecast

7.2.1. By Application

7.2.2. By End User



8. South India 2-Ethyl Hexanol Market Outlook

8.1. Market Size & Forecast

8.1.1. By Value

8.2. Market Share & Forecast

8.2.1. By Application

8.2.2. By End User



9. East India 2-Ethyl Hexanol Market Outlook

9.1. Market Size & Forecast

9.1.1. By Value

9.2. Market Share & Forecast

9.2.1. By Application

9.2.2. By End User



10. West India 2-Ethyl Hexanol Market Outlook

10.1. Market Size & Forecast

10.1.1. By Value

10.2. Market Share & Forecast

10.2.1. By Application

10.2.2. By End User



11. Market Dynamics

11.1. Drivers

11.2. Challenges



12. Market Trends & Developments

12.1. Merger & Acquisition

12.2. Product Development

12.3. Recent Developments



13. Porters Five Forces Analysis



14. Pricing Analysis



15. Policy & Regulatory Framework



16. India Economic Profile



17. Competitive Landscape

17.1. Central Drug House Pvt. Ltd.

17.2. Andhra Petrochemicals Limited,

17.3. BASF India Pvt. Ltd.

17.4. Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation

17.5. Vizag Chemical

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/oniuts

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.
BARCELONA, Spain, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 3D printing, Internet of Things (IoT), drones, virtual reality (VR), Building Information Modelling (BIM), Digital Twins These are some of the tools with which new technologies are transforming the construction sector into a more sustainable and efficient one. Tomorrow.Building World Congress helped to drive this change during its second edition held from November 5 to 7 and featured leading innovation companies and prominent national and international speakers.

Organized by Fira de Barcelona under the slogan Build better, the event, which took place at the Gran Via venue, showcased new ideas, projects, and construction systems that are key to the planning, construction, and rehabilitation of buildings and urban infrastructures worldwide under sustainability criteria.

Along these lines, the congress program of Tomorrow.Building Solutions World Congress was organized around the major challenges the sector must face to implement its transformation: urban planning and landscaping, construction technology, design technology, decarbonized building, and sustainable transformation of buildings.

Among more than 100 experts participating in its over 30 sessions were New York urban strategist Majora Carter, known for her design of urban revitalization strategies to promote the development of economically and socially degraded areas such as the South Bronx in New York; the architect responsible for the new telecommunications tower in Istanbul Melike Altinisik; and the R&D director at the urban research and design consultancy Gehl Liselott Stenfeldt, among other speakers.

In its exhibition space of more than 2,000 m, the event featured companies renowned for their innovative DNA such as BIOO, New Murabba, Roshn, Samsung C&T Corporation, and Siemens, which showcased their latest developments to achieve more circular, efficient, and resilient construction. It also gave visibility to digital startups in the construction sector (ConTech) and real estate management (PropTech) in the Innovation Playground area.

The event was supported by international associations, such as Build Up, the official portal of the European Union to promote energy efficiency in construction, or Womens New European Bauhaus (WNEB), as well as by Spanish entities, such as the Spanish Construction Technology Platform (PTEC) or the Higher Council of Architects Associations of Spain (CSCAE), among others.

Tomorrow.Building, along with Tomorrow.Mobility and Tomorrow.Blue Economy, was part of the Smart City Expo World Congress 2024, the worlds largest event on cities and urban innovation, which this year had more than 1,100 exhibitors and representatives from 850 cities and 140 countries. After three days, the events gathered over 25.771 attendees from more than 130 countries at Fira de Barcelonas Gran Via venue.

For media requests please contact:

Salvador Bilurbina

email: sbilurbina@firabarcelona.com

phone: +34628162674

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f4686d34-d24a-408d-a187-9062c19cf0e7
3 child rapists executed in China

Xinhua) 11:02, November 14, 2024

BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Three convicted child sex offenders were executed in China on Wednesday, according to an official statement from the Supreme People's Court, the country's highest court.

The sentencing and execution of the three criminals, all of whom were found to be rapists who targeted girls under the age of 14, have demonstrated China's zero tolerance of child sex abuse and are expected to serve as a further deterrent for child sex offenders, the court said.

One of the three men executed, a primary school teacher with the surname Guo, was found guilty of raping six female students over 100 times between 2013 and 2019. All of the victims were under the age of 14 when they were first abused by Guo.

The second man executed, a laborer surnamed Shang, was found to have sexually abused eight girls through the use of deceit or force between 2011 and 2020. He had met his victims in various public locations, including parks, buses and kindergarten gates. He was also found to have coerced several of his victims into continued sexual relationships by threatening to reveal indecent images of them, the statement said.

The third man executed, a village shopkeeper surnamed Gong, was found guilty of coercing a girl in his village into sexual acts for almost five consecutive years, beginning in 2015, at which time the victim was under the age of 12. In 2020, after multiple instances of sexual abuse by Gong and other offenders, the victim took her own life at the age of 16, according to the statement.

The top court stressed that China's people's courts will hand down sentences decisively for child sex abuse crimes that warrant the death penalty.

It noted that most offenders of child sex abuse cases have been found to be family members, teachers or neighbors of victims, or to have met their victims online. Perpetrators of child sex crimes often target minors with a low ability to protect themselves and inadequate family supervision -- especially rural children whose parents have moved away for work, and children with intellectual disabilities.

According to China's Criminal Law, any person who engages in sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 14 will be deemed to have committed rape and will be handed a heavier punishment.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Wilmington, Delaware, United States, Transparency Market Research Inc. -, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global pressure sensitive adhesives market (  ) is estimated to flourish at a CAGR of 5.2% from 2022 to 2031. Transparency Market Research projects that the overall sales revenue for pressure sensitive adhesives is estimated to reach US$ 13.8 billion by the end of 2031.

The increasing popularity of flexible packaging in the food and beverage industry emerges as a significant driver. As consumer preferences shift towards convenience and sustainability, flexible packaging relies heavily on pressure sensitive adhesives for secure closures, spurring market growth.

The burgeoning demand for electric vehicles brings forth a unique driver for the pressure sensitive adhesives market. The assembly of battery packs and lightweight components in EVs requires specialized adhesives for bonding and sealing, presenting an uncharted avenue for pressure sensitive adhesives applications.

Get Access to Sample PDF Research Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=1448





The growing trend of miniaturization in electronic devices fuels the demand for ultra-thin and high-performance pressure sensitive adhesives. As manufacturers strive to reduce the size and weight of electronic components, the role of advanced pressure sensitive adhesives in enabling precision assembly gains prominence.

Key Findings of the Market Report

Water-based pressure-sensitive adhesives lead the market, offering eco-friendly solutions with low VOC content and versatile applications in various industries.

The labels segment leads the pressure sensitive adhesives market, fueled by demand for innovative labeling solutions across diverse industries.

North America leads the pressure sensitive adhesives market, driven by advanced industrial applications, technological innovation, and a robust manufacturing sector.

Pressure Sensitive Adhesives Market Growth Drivers & Trends

Growing demand for eco-friendly solutions propels the development and adoption of sustainable pressure-sensitive adhesives, aligning with global environmental consciousness.

The surge in online retail amplifies the need for efficient packaging, driving the demand for pressure-sensitive adhesives in the packaging industry.

Increasing utilization of smart labels in various sectors enhances the demand for specialized pressure-sensitive adhesives, fostering innovation in labeling and packaging applications.

Technological advancements in the automotive sector, including lightweight materials and electric vehicles, fuel the demand for high-performance pressure-sensitive adhesives in automotive manufacturing.

The medical sector's stringent hygiene and performance standards drive the adoption of specialized pressure-sensitive adhesives in medical device manufacturing, contributing to market growth.





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Global Pressure Sensitive Adhesives Market: Regional Profile

In North America , the United States spearheads the market, driven by robust manufacturing and end-user industries. The region's focus on innovation, particularly in the automotive and packaging sectors, fuels the demand for advanced pressure sensitive adhesives. Regulatory initiatives promoting sustainable adhesives further shape the market, with key players like 3M and Avery Dennison leading in technological advancements.

, the United States spearheads the market, driven by robust manufacturing and end-user industries. The region's focus on innovation, particularly in the automotive and packaging sectors, fuels the demand for advanced pressure sensitive adhesives. Regulatory initiatives promoting sustainable adhesives further shape the market, with key players like 3M and Avery Dennison leading in technological advancements. Europe stands as a prominent hub for the pressure sensitive adhesives market, with Germany and the United Kingdom playing pivotal roles. The European market thrives on stringent environmental regulations, fostering the adoption of eco-friendly and low-VOC adhesive solutions. Increased emphasis on renewable energy and sustainable packaging bolsters the demand for specialized pressure sensitive adhesives in the region.

stands as a prominent hub for the pressure sensitive adhesives market, with Germany and the United Kingdom playing pivotal roles. The European market thrives on stringent environmental regulations, fostering the adoption of eco-friendly and low-VOC adhesive solutions. Increased emphasis on renewable energy and sustainable packaging bolsters the demand for specialized pressure sensitive adhesives in the region. Asia Pacific emerges as a dynamic growth center, driven by the manufacturing powerhouses of China, Japan, and South Korea. Rapid industrialization, coupled with expanding automotive and electronics sectors, propels the demand for pressure sensitive adhesives. The region's robust packaging industry also contributes significantly to the market.

Pressure Sensitive Adhesives Market: Competitive Landscape

The pressure sensitive adhesives market is characterized by intense competition among key players such as 3M, Avery Dennison, and Henkel. These industry giants leverage extensive research and development capabilities to introduce innovative adhesive solutions.

Emerging players like Arkema and H.B. Fuller also contribute to the competitive landscape, driving advancements in PSA formulations. Strategic collaborations, mergers, and acquisitions shape market dynamics, reflecting a constant pursuit of market share.

As demand escalates across diverse industries, the competitive landscape evolves, compelling companies to focus on customization, sustainability, and technological prowess to maintain a competitive edge in the pressure sensitive adhesives market. Some prominent manufacturers are as follows:

3M Company

Ashland Inc.

Avery Dennison Corporation

BASF SE

Bostik SA

Nippon Paint Co. Ltd.

Dow Chemical Company

Ellsworth Adhesives

H.B Fuller Company

Henkel AG & Co. KGaA

LG Chem

Product Portfolio

H.B. Fuller, a global adhesive solutions provider, offers a comprehensive product portfolio catering to various industries. From innovative adhesives and sealants to specialty chemicals, H.B. Fuller's offerings exemplify a commitment to enhancing product performance and efficiency for clients worldwide.

Henkel, a leading multinational conglomerate, presents a diverse product portfolio encompassing adhesives, beauty care, and laundry & home care solutions. Renowned for innovation, Henkel's products reflect a commitment to sustainability, efficiency, and meeting evolving consumer needs across industries.

LG Chem, a global chemical and energy solutions leader, shows a diverse product portfolio spanning petrochemicals, advanced materials, and batteries. With a focus on sustainability and cutting-edge technology, LG Chem's offerings contribute to advancements in various sectors, fostering a greener and more efficient future.

Pressure Sensitive Adhesives Market: Key Segments

By Product

Water-based

Solvent-based

Hot Melt

Radiation Cured

By Application

Tapes

Labels

Graphics

Others (including Automotive Trims, Dental Adhesives, and Notepads)

By Region

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Middle East & Africa

Latin America

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Sulfamic Acid Market (  ) : The global sulfamic acid market was valued at US$ 154.3 Bn in 2022; It is projected to expand at a CAGR of 4.6% from 2023 to 2031 and reach US$ 237.6 Bn by the end of 2031

Adhesive Tapes Market (  ) : The global adhesive tapes market was valued at US$ 80.9 Bn in 2022; It is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.7% from 2023 to 2031 and reach US$ 143.5 Bn by the end of 2031

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BARCELONA, Spain, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The course towards a future where the blue economy plays a critical role in the development of our society came closer after the third edition of Tomorrow.Blue Economy World Congress (TBEWC). Over 250 experts from around the world provided insights into how to develop the extraordinary potential of seas and oceans as powerhouses of the economy through innovation and sustainability at the event. Among the highlights were the Smart Ports: Piers of the Future forum, organized by the Port of Barcelona, and the conferences by the World Ocean Council (WOC) aimed at tackling the major challenges these strategic infrastructures face in cities and the pathways to reduce marine pollution, respectively.

TBEWC was held from November 5 to 7 at the Gran Via venue in Barcelona, organized by Fira de Barcelona in collaboration with the Barcelona City Council through Barcelona Activa; the Port of Barcelona; the WOC, the leading international business organization in the field of sustainable maritime economy; and Smart Ports: Piers of the Future, an initiative of the Port Authority of Barcelona.

The congress discussed the importance and potential of ocean resources as well as their preservation and featured over 250 national and international specialists and a conference program with more than 40 sessions.

Along these lines, on November 5 and 6, the sixth edition of Smart Ports: Piers of the Future took place, promoted by the Port of Barcelona, featuring authorities from around the world. More than 60 speakers made up the panels for these sessions, including Tino Klemm, CFO of the Hamburg Port Authority; Jose Alberto Carbonell, General Director of the Port of Barcelona; and Michael DiBernardo, Deputy Executive Director of Marketing and Customer Relations at the Port of Los Angeles.

Topics such as the use of drones in port activities, combating drug trafficking and organized crime, actions to minimize marine pollution from plastics, and the impact of artificial intelligence on port infrastructure management were discussed. The event was supported by an alliance of the ports of Antwerp-Bruges, Barcelona, Busan, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Montreal, and Rotterdam, and aims to promoting the digital and sustainable transformation of ports.

Additionally, Tomorrow.Blue Economy World Congress hosted the Sustainable Ocean Summit (November 5-6) and the Global Blue Finance Summit (November 7), both forums organized by the WOC to foster business collaboration and develop innovative financial solutions to facilitate the growth of the blue economy.

Tomorrow.Blue Economy World Congress, Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress, and Tomorrow.Building World Congress were held alongside the Smart City Expo World Congress 2024, the largest global event on cities and urban innovation, which this year hosted more than 1,100 exhibitors and representatives from 850 cities and 140 countries. After three days, the events gathered over 25,771 attendees from more than 130 countries at Fira de Barcelonas Gran Via venue.

For media requests please contact:

Salvador Bilurbina

email: sbilurbina@firabarcelona.com

phone: +34628162674

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/fbb25b56-47fa-4cfd-9e73-40779813b920
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- K92 Mining Inc. (K92 or the Company) (TSX: KNT; OTCQX: KNTNF) is pleased to announce financial results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024.

Production

Record quarterly production of 44,304 ounces gold equivalent ( AuEq ) or 41,702 oz gold, 1,278,492 lbs copper and 37,613 oz silver (1) . With over 80% of AuEq production for the lower end of annual guidance delivered in the first 9 months of the year, the Company is well positioned to meet its 2024 operational production guidance.

) or 41,702 oz gold, 1,278,492 lbs copper and 37,613 oz silver . With over 80% of AuEq production for the lower end of annual guidance delivered in the first 9 months of the year, the Company is well positioned to meet its 2024 operational production guidance. Cash costs of $584/oz gold and all-in sustaining costs ( AISC ) of $941/oz gold ( 3 ) , significantly better than our 2024 operating guidance of $820/oz to $880/oz cash costs and $1,440/oz to $1,540/oz gold all-in sustaining costs.

) of $941/oz gold , significantly better than our 2024 operating guidance of $820/oz to $880/oz cash costs and $1,440/oz to $1,540/oz gold all-in sustaining costs. Record metallurgical recoveries in Q3 of 95.3% for gold and near-record recoveries of 95.1% copper, with September achieving record monthly gold recoveries of 96.5% and copper recoveries of 95.9%, both exceeding the recovery parameters from the Updated Integrated Development Plan, of 93% and 94%, respectively (see October 16, 2024 press release).

Quarterly ore processed of 104,992 tonnes and total ore mined of 112,333 tonnes, with long hole open stoping performing to design, and 2,190 metres of total mine development.

Head grade of 13.8 grams per tonne (g/t) AuEq or 13.0 g/t gold, 0.58% copper and 13.0 g/t silver. AuEq head grade in Q3 was the highest since Q4 2020 and above budget, benefiting from higher grade stopes in Q2 reporting to Q3, in addition to a moderate positive gold grade reconciliation versus the latest independent mineral resource estimate (effective date of September 12, 2023 for Kora and Judd) for both gold and copper.



Financials

Strong cash and cash equivalent position of $120.3 million, which excludes restricted cash of $20.3 million (4) . Under the terms of the Trafigura loan, the Company has the ability to convert restricted cash to cash and cash equivalents on January 1, 2025. During the quarter, the Company completed a drawdown of $20 million of unrestricted cash and has $60 million of unrestricted cash available to draw anytime. Unrestricted cash and cash equivalents during the quarter increased by $49.5 million.

. Under the terms of the Trafigura loan, the Company has the ability to convert restricted cash to cash and cash equivalents on January 1, 2025. During the quarter, the Company completed a drawdown of $20 million of unrestricted cash and has $60 million of unrestricted cash available to draw anytime. Unrestricted cash and cash equivalents during the quarter increased by $49.5 million. Subsequent to quarter end, K92 purchased put contracts for $2.2 million covering, 12,500 oz Au per month for 9 months at $2,400/oz, to protect against commodity price risk during the Stage 3 Expansion construction. K92 maintains full exposure to commodity price upside.

Record quarterly revenue of $122.7 million.

Record quarterly net income of $46.5 million or $0.20 per share.

Record operating cash flow (before working capital adjustments) for the three months ended September 30, 2024, of $61.0 million or $0.26 per share, and record earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ( EBITDA ) ( 3 ) of $78.9 million or $0.33 per share.

) of $78.9 million or $0.33 per share. Sales of 45,248 oz gold, 1,615,185 lbs copper and 46,062 oz silver. Gold concentrate and dore inventory of 1,887 oz as of September 30, 2024, a decrease of 3,082 oz over the prior quarter.

Growth

On the Stage 3 and 4 Expansions, 63% of growth capital has been either spent or committed as of September 30, 2024. K92 has completed handover to GR Engineering Services (GRES) for the construction of the 1.2 million tpa ( tonnes per annum ) Stage 3 Expansion Process Plant, with commissioning of the Stage 3 Expansion Process Plant targeting the second half of Q2 2025. Majority of the long-lead time items have arrived on site for the process plant with construction most advanced at the grinding circuit (SAG + Ball), which is the critical path for the mill construction schedule. Underground, the two raise bore rigs are operational, with reaming of the first raise (5 m diameter) completed to upgrade ventilation to the main mine. The first waste/ore pass is currently being developed. Subsequent to quarter end, K92 awarded the river crossing construction contract. This contract was awarded largely on a lump sum fixed price basis and as of October 31, 2024, 69% of growth capital has been either spent or committed.

) Stage 3 Expansion Process Plant, with commissioning of the Stage 3 Expansion Process Plant targeting the second half of Q2 2025. Majority of the long-lead time items have arrived on site for the process plant with construction most advanced at the grinding circuit (SAG + Ball), which is the critical path for the mill construction schedule. Underground, the two raise bore rigs are operational, with reaming of the first raise (5 m diameter) completed to upgrade ventilation to the main mine. The first waste/ore pass is currently being developed. Subsequent to quarter end, K92 awarded the river crossing construction contract. This contract was awarded largely on a lump sum fixed price basis and as of October 31, 2024, 69% of growth capital has been either spent or committed. Subsequent to quarter end, K92 announced results of its Updated Integrated Development Plan ( Updated IDP ) for the Kainantu Gold Mine, with an effective date of January 1, 2024, that comprises two scenarios: 1) Kainantu Stage 3 Expansion Definitive Feasibility Study Case ( DFS  or  DFS Case ); and 2) Kainantu Stage 4 Expansion Preliminary Economic Assessment Case ( PEA  or  PEA Case ). Stage 3 Expansion DFS Case Highlights: Evaluates the Stage 3 Expansion to 1.2 million tpa, representing a 100% throughput increase from the 600,000 tpa Stage 2A Expansion throughput Involves a new standalone 1.2 mtpa process plant, which is currently under construction After-tax NPV5% of $680 million at $1,900 per ounce gold, rising to an after-tax NPV5% of $1.2 billion at $2,600 per ounce gold Average annual run-rate production of 303,288 ounces AuEq per annum and a peak annual production of 319,360 ounces AuEq in 2027 Life of Mine average cash costs of $380 per gold ounce or $694 per AuEq ounce and AISC of $665 per gold ounce or $920 per AuEq ounce over a 7-year mine life Growth capital of $194 million and life of mine sustaining capital of $337 million Stage 4 Expansion PEA Case Highlights: Evaluates two-stages of expansions to a run-rate throughput of 1.8 mtpa, a 200% increase from the 600,000 tpa Stage 2A Expansion throughput Involves running the new 1.2 Mtpa process plant in conjunction with the current 600,000 tpa Stage 2A process plant After-tax NPV5% of $2.3 billion at $1,900 per ounce gold, rising to an after-tax NPV5% of $3.5 billion at $2,600 per ounce gold Average annual run-rate production of 413,593 ounces AuEq per annum and a peak annual production of 484,692 ounces AuEq in 2034 Life of Mine average cash costs of $174 per gold ounce or $633 per AuEq ounce and AISC $432 per gold ounce or $822 per AuEq ounce over a 14-year mine life Growth capital of $201 million and life of mine sustaining capital of $900 million

) for the Kainantu Gold Mine, with an effective date of January 1, 2024, that comprises two scenarios: 1) Kainantu Stage 3 Expansion Definitive Feasibility Study Case (  or  ); and 2) Kainantu Stage 4 Expansion Preliminary Economic Assessment Case (  or  ).

See the Companys new release dated October 16, 2024 for additional details.

Subsequent to quarter end, results from the third set of holes were reported from K92s maiden drill program at the Arakompa project. Between the high-grade lodes, the tonalite to dioritic host rock is overprinted with porphyry style mineralization increasing the potential for bulk mining. The target size of Arakompa is very large, with mineralization demonstrated from drill holes, rock samples and surface workings for at least 1.7 km of strike, hosted within a ~150-225 m wide mineralized intense phyllic altered package, and exhibits a vertical extent of +500 m. Arakompa is sparsely drilled, with K92s maiden drill results representing the first drilling on the project completed in 32 years. Exploration has ramped up from 1 rig in Q1 2024 to 4 rigs currently operating. K92 is targeting a maiden mineral resource estimate for Arakompa by Q1 2025. Highlights from the third set of drill results include: Potential thick high-grade zone discovered from two holes stepping out 250 metres along strike to the south, encountering both high-grade and bulk mineralized zones: KARDD0029: 20.60 m at 9.87 g/t AuEq, including 10.70 m at 14.97 g/t AuEq Located ~60 metres up-dip, KARDD0025 recording 23.60 m at 6.57 g/t AuEq, including 12.00 m at 11.16 g/t AuEq Significant extension of bulk tonnage strike by ~250 metres to the south to a total interpreted strike now exceeding 750 metres, with bulk tonnage intersections reported to date recording an average true thickness of 56 meters and mineralization reaching a vertical depth of up to 350 meters, with highlights including: KARDD0025 (~250 m southern step-out along strike): 100.80 m at 1.92 g/t AuEq KARDD0030 (~125 m southern step-out along strike): 111.62 m at 1.53 g/t AuEq KARDD0018: 57.0 m at 1.58 g/t AuEq KARDD0028: 45.9 m at 1.88 g/t AuEq Other high-grade intersections include: KARDD0018: 1.30 m at 35.72 g/t AuEq and 4.00 m at 6.59 g/t AuEq KARDD0030: 5.40 m at 5.88 g/t AuEq and 1.62 m at 33.52 g/t AuEq KARDD0013: 7.10 m at 5.69 g/t AuEq KARDD0023: 2.00 m at 14.60 g/t AuEq



See the Companys news release dated October 22, 2024 for additional details.

The Companys interim consolidated financial statements and associated managements discussion and analysis for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024 are available for download on the Companys website and under the Companys profile on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca). All amounts are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated.

See Figure 1: Quarterly Production, Cash Cost and AISC Chart

John Lewins, K92 Chief Executive Officer and Director, stated, The third quarter delivered our strongest quarter to date, achieving multiple records and importantly, a significant strengthening to our net cash position while concurrently progressing construction and development for the Stage 3 and 4 Expansions. Our financial position is strong  at quarter end, the cash balance has grown to $120 million, plus multiple other liquidity sources including $20 million of restricted cash that K92 has the ability to convert to cash and equivalents on January 1, 2025; $60 million in undrawn credit facilities; another $30 million of credit available through an accordion feature, and; cash flow from operations with $2,400/oz put contracts in place until June 2025 to protect commodity price downside while retaining full upside exposure to the record gold price environment.

As at October 31, 2024, 69% of growth capital has been either spent or committed, several major contracts have been awarded on a majority lump sum / fixed price basis de-risking capital costs, and with less than 7 months to the planned commissioning of our Stage 3 Process Plant, there is a tremendous amount of excitement within the organization, as it will mark the transition of K92 to a Tier 1 Mid-Tier Producer.

Mine Operating Activities Three months ended

September 30, 2024 Three months ended

September 30, 2023 Operating data Gold head grade (Au g/t) 13.0 6.2 Copper grade (%) 0.58% 0.72% Gold equivalent head grade (AuEq g/t) 13.8 7.3 Gold recovery (%) 95.3% 92.0% Copper recovery (%) 95.1% 93.0% Gold ounces produced 41,702 22,227 Gold ounces equivalent produced (1) (3) 44,304 26,225 Tonnes of copper produced 580 809 Silver ounces produced 37,613 40,233 Financial data (in thousands of dollars) Gold ounces sold 45,248 18,339 Revenues from concentrate and dore sales US$122,749 US$32,814 Mine operating expenses US$13,133 US$9,811 Other mine expenses US$17,761 US$5,280 Depreciation and depletion US$10,130 US$7,422 Statistics (in dollars) Average realized selling price per ounce, net (2) US$2,388 US$1,848 Cash cost per ounce (3) US$584 US$684 All-in sustaining cost per ounce (3) US$941 US$1,300 Notes: (1) AuEq in Q3 2024 is calculated based on: gold $2,474 per ounce; silver $29.43 per ounce; and copper $4.17 per pound. AuEq in Q3 2023 is calculated based on: gold $1,928 per ounce; silver $23.57 per ounce; and copper $3.79 per pound. (2) The average realized selling price per ounce is net of metal payabilities for both concentrate and dore. (3) The Company provides some non-international financial reporting standard measures as supplementary information that management believes may be useful to investors to explain the Companys financial results. Please refer to non-IFRS financial performance measures in the Companys managements discussion and analysis dated November 13, 2024, available on SEDAR+ and on the Companys website, for reconciliation of these measures. (4) AuEq exploration results are calculated using longer-term commodity prices with a copper price of US$4.00/lb, a silver price of US$22.50/oz and a gold price of US$1,750/oz. (5) The restricted cash is in relation to a condition precedent in the Loan with Trafigura. All conditions precedent for the advance of US$120 million have been satisfied. Restricted cash can become unrestricted beginning January 1, 2025.

Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Conference Call and Webcast to Present Results

K92 will host a conference call and webcast to present the 2024 third quarter financial results at 8:30 am (EDT) on Thursday, November 14, 2024.

Listeners may access the conference call by dialing toll-free to 1-844-763-8274 within North America or +1-647-484-8814 from international locations.



The conference call will also be broadcast live (webcast) and may be accessed via the following link: https://event.choruscall.com/mediaframe/webcast.html?webcastid=bBRYFhsh

Qualified Person

K92 Mine Geology Manager and Mine Exploration Manager, Mr. Andrew Kohler, PGeo, a qualified person under the meaning of Canadian National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, has reviewed and is responsible for the technical content of this news release.

About K92

K92 Mining Inc. is engaged in the production of gold, copper and silver at the Kainantu Gold Mine in the Eastern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea, as well as exploration and development of mineral deposits in the immediate vicinity of the mine. The Company declared commercial production from Kainantu in February 2018, is in a strong financial position and is working to become a Tier 1, mid-tier producer through ongoing expansions. A maiden resource estimate on the Blue Lake copper-gold porphyry project was completed in August 2022. K92 is operated by a team of mining company professionals with extensive international mine-building and operational experience.

On Behalf of the Company,

John Lewins, Chief Executive Officer and Director

For further information, please contact David Medilek, P.Eng., CFA, President and Chief Operating Officer at +1-604-416-4445

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release includes certain forward-looking statements under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation: (i) the results of the Kainantu Mine Definitive Feasibility Study, and the Kainantu 2022 Preliminary Economic Assessment, including the Stage 3 Expansion, a new standalone 1.2 mtpa process plant and supporting infrastructure; (ii) statements regarding the expansion of the mine and development of any of the deposits; (iii) the Kainantu Stage 4 Expansion, operating two standalone process plants, larger surface infrastructure and mining throughputs; and (iv) the potential extended life of the Kainantu Mine.

All statements in this news release that address events or developments that we expect to occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, although not always, identified by words such as expect, plan, anticipate, project, target, potential, schedule, forecast, budget, estimate, intend or believe and similar expressions or their negative connotations, or that events or conditions will, would, may, could, should or might occur. All such forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on estimates and assumptions that are inherently subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond our ability to control, that may cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, without limitation, Public Health Crises, including the COVID-19 virus; changes in the price of gold, silver, copper and other metals in the world markets; fluctuations in the price and availability of infrastructure and energy and other commodities; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; volatility in price of our common shares; inherent risks associated with the mining industry, including problems related to weather and climate in remote areas in which certain of the Companys operations are located; failure to achieve production, cost and other estimates; risks and uncertainties associated with exploration and development; uncertainties relating to estimates of mineral resources including uncertainty that mineral resources may never be converted into mineral reserves; the Companys ability to carry on current and future operations, including development and exploration activities at the Arakompa, Kora, Judd and other projects; the timing, extent, duration and economic viability of such operations, including any mineral resources or reserves identified thereby; the accuracy and reliability of estimates, projections, forecasts, studies and assessments; the Companys ability to meet or achieve estimates, projections and forecasts; the availability and cost of inputs; the availability and costs of achieving the Stage 3 Expansion or the Stage 4 Expansion; the ability of the Company to achieve the inputs the price and market for outputs, including gold, silver and copper; failures of information systems or information security threats; political, economic and other risks associated with the Companys foreign operations; geopolitical events and other uncertainties, such as the conflicts in Ukraine, Israel and Palestine; compliance with various laws and regulatory requirements to which the Company is subject to, including taxation; the ability to obtain timely financing on reasonable terms when required; the current and future social, economic and political conditions, including relationship with the communities in Papua New Guinea and other jurisdictions it operates; other assumptions and factors generally associated with the mining industry; and the risks, uncertainties and other factors referred to in the Companys Annual Information Form under the heading Risk Factors.

Estimates of mineral resources are also forward-looking statements because they constitute projections, based on certain estimates and assumptions, regarding the amount of minerals that may be encountered in the future and/or the anticipated economics of production. The estimation of mineral resources and mineral reserves is inherently uncertain and involves subjective judgments about many relevant factors. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The accuracy of any such estimates is a function of the quantity and quality of available data, and of the assumptions made and judgments used in engineering and geological interpretation, Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance, and actual results and future events could materially differ from those anticipated in such statements. Although we have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actual results to differ materially from those that are 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. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Figure 1: Quarterly Production, Cash Cost and AISC Chart

An infographic accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9df62338-d9a1-40ad-9596-67552fca4c14
SEOUL, KOREA, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Red ginseng is a must-have souvenir and a popular health product among foreign tourists visiting Korea. However, many tourists need help purchasing red ginseng due to concerns about quality and price. To address this, MINGAONE, which has been specializing in ginseng manufacturing since 1969, offers a convenient and affordable way for travelers to purchase premium red ginseng.





MINGAONE is a health-functional food brand with over 50 years of tradition, recognized with an award for distinguished longevity from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. By minimizing intermediaries, MINGAONE directly produces top-quality red ginseng and provides it to consumers at reasonable prices. As a result, foreign tourists can purchase high-quality red ginseng products at more economical prices without additional costs associated with road shops, such as rental fees, labor costs, and advertising expenses.

In particular, MINGAONE supports foreign tourists in conveniently purchasing red ginseng through its online shopping mall, MINGAONE.com. Through this site, consumers can purchase top-quality red ginseng products directly produced by MINGAONE at reasonable prices, without intermediary margins. The website supports multiple languages (Chinese, English, Vietnamese, etc.), making it easy for foreign tourists to use, and offers delivery services to accommodations. If orders are placed before 2 PM, the product can be received at the accommodation the following day, providing a convenient option for purchasing red ginseng even amidst a busy travel schedule.

Although MINGAONE also supports international shipping, purchasing directly through MINGAONE.com and having the product delivered to accommodation during a stay in Korea is more affordable, as additional costs may apply for overseas shipping. Various payment methods are offered, including credit card payments via PayPal, with plans to add convenient payment methods such as Alipay and WeChat Pay.

For foreign consumers not visiting Korea, MINGAONE also sells its products on overseas direct-purchase platforms like Tmall Global and Shopee, helping consumers worldwide conveniently access premium red ginseng.

A MINGAONE representative stated, "Red ginseng is a very popular product among many tourists visiting Korea. We will continue our efforts to ensure that foreign tourists can conveniently and affordably purchase premium red ginseng through MINGAONE.com."

Social Links

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mingaone

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mingaone.official/

Blog: https://blog.naver.com/mingaone

Media Contact

Brand: MINGAONE

Contact : IAN SUNG

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Phone: +82-70-4420-1264
Luton, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The smart sensors market is witnessing significant growth, fueled by factors such as government initiatives supporting the construction of green buildings and the increasing demand for predictive maintenance in various industries. These sensors play a crucial role in modern applications like machine-to-machine communication, analytics, and process monitoring, where they detect changes in parameters like temperature, pressure, and acceleration. The automotive, defense, sports, and electronics sectors, along with smart grids, cities, and environmental systems (such as forest fire detection and earthquake monitoring), all benefit from the use of these advanced sensors.

Smart sensors offer substantial advantages over traditional models by enabling automated, real-time data collection with improved accuracy. As the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) and automation in vehicles expands, the demand for smart sensors is expected to grow steadily. Innovations in IIoT connectivity, particularly through low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technologies like NB-IoT, LTE-M, LoRa, and Sigfox, further drive the market. These technologies allow devices to transmit data over longer distances, a key feature for manufacturing environments.

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Governments worldwide are also contributing to market growth by offering incentives and favorable regulations to attract international investments, particularly in IoT-based infrastructure projects like smart cities and grids. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an accelerated focus on upgrading technological infrastructures, leading to a rise in the adoption of IoT solutions. The pandemic further fueled the integration of Industry 4.0, with businesses increasingly relying on sensors for production efficiency, maintenance optimization, and enhanced customer insights, thus accelerating the markets recovery and growth.

Market Dynamics:

Driver: Surge in Wireless Technology Adoption for Enhanced Security Monitoring

The rise in demand for wireless technologies like GPS, GPRS, wireless LAN, and WAP is revolutionizing security systems. With the added benefits of reduced installation costs and no need for cumbersome wiring or batteries, wireless sensors are rapidly replacing their wired counterparts. For example, advanced home security solutions employing Wi-Fi and Zigbee protocols enable seamless control of devices such as surveillance cameras, door locks, lighting, and smoke detectors via smartphones. This growing preference for wireless connectivity is accelerating the adoption of smart sensors, which offer an efficient, scalable solution to modern security needs.

Challenge: Rising Installation and Maintenance Expenditures Impede Market Growth

The high capital investment required for installing and maintaining a network of smart sensors presents a significant barrier to widespread adoption. The intricate deployment process involves expensive components and batteries, which can quickly add to operational costs. Additionally, the limited battery life and energy-intensive nature of wireless sensors further contribute to high maintenance demands, limiting their cost-effectiveness. Businesses also face substantial expenses related to software integration and compatibility issues, which can deter small-to-medium enterprises from investing in smart sensor technologies, thus slowing the overall market growth.

Opportunity: Expanding Role of Predictive Maintenance Across Industries

The demand for predictive maintenance is soaring, particularly in manufacturing, where machine downtime can significantly impact productivity. Sensors capable of detecting anomalies in machinerysuch as temperature, pressure, and vibrationenable real-time monitoring and predictive analysis. This allows industries to schedule timely maintenance and avoid costly failures. With industries embracing machine learning and AI to enhance predictive capabilities, the market for smart sensors is poised to expand rapidly, especially as businesses increasingly focus on optimizing operational efficiency and minimizing unplanned disruptions.

Growth Surge in Smart Temperature Sensors: A Game Changer for Multiple Industries

Smart temperature sensors are witnessing a remarkable growth trajectory, largely driven by the digital transformation within industries like automotive, healthcare, and smart homes. These sensors are essential for ensuring optimal temperature regulation in a wide range of applications, including HVAC systems, fire detection, and smart thermostats. The integration of IoT and IIoT technologies has pushed manufacturers to develop innovative, low-interface digital temperature sensors, meeting the demand for more efficient and cost-effective solutions. The expanding smart home market, in particular, is a major growth driver, with consumer interest in energy-saving and environmentally friendly technologies spurring the adoption of smart thermostats and other temperature-regulating devices. For instance, in October 2021, ABB launched the FusionAir Smart Sensor, an innovative, touch-free room sensor designed to monitor air quality by tracking temperature, humidity, CO2, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), addressing growing concerns about indoor environmental health.

Report Link Click Here: https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/38429/smart-sensors-market/

Challenges: The Increasing Shortage of Skilled Workforce As the demand for smart sensors surges across industries, the lack of a skilled workforce remains a significant challenge. Although smart sensors play a pivotal role in modern technology, their effective deployment and integration require professionals who are highly trained in areas such as installation, configuration, and data analysis. Without proper expertise, the deployment of sensor networks can be plagued by errors, delays, and inefficiencies, hindering their potential.

Moreover, managing the vast amounts of data generated by these sensors necessitates specialists like data scientists and engineers who can interpret and analyze this data effectively. The shortage of such professionals means the actionable insights that smart sensors are capable of providing often go untapped, diminishing the overall value of the technology.

Additionally, maintenance and troubleshooting are vital for smart sensor systems, but a lack of skilled technicians can lead to delays in repairs or mishandling of technical issues, causing costly downtime. For smart sensor systems to achieve peak performance, ongoing monitoring and optimization are essential, but these processes are hindered in the absence of skilled personnel, ultimately limiting their operational effectiveness.

Pressure Sensors: Dominating the Smart Sensors Market Pressure sensors are poised to retain the largest share of the smart sensors market during the forecast period from 2024 to 2029. These sensors are crucial in a wide range of applications, including automotive, industrial automation, and healthcare. With increasing safety concerns and the push to reduce automotive emissions, the demand for pressure sensors continues to rise. In automobiles, pressure sensors are integral to engine management, tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS), and airbag deployment systems.

In industrial automation, pressure sensors monitor pipeline and machinery pressure, ensuring the smooth functioning of various systems. Furthermore, pressure sensors are vital in medical devices, such as blood pressure monitors, helping track vital signs and supporting accurate health assessments.

The Growing Role of Smart Sensors in the Automotive Industry



The automotive sector is the second-largest end-user of smart sensors, with the market expected to grow steadily in the coming years. The increasing use of smart sensors in advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), electronic control units (ECU), electronic stability control (ESC), and HVAC systems is driving the sectors demand for these technologies. These sensors are also crucial in safety systems, in-car navigation, and TPMS.

Looking ahead, self-driving cars present significant opportunities for smart sensor manufacturers, with advancements in sensor technology playing a key role in enabling autonomous driving. As manufacturers continue to develop self-driving vehicles, the demand for smart sensors, particularly those used in navigation, safety, and system integration, is expected to grow exponentially. The automotive industry is set to remain a major player in the smart sensors market due to the continuous advancements in sensor applications and technology.

Report Link Click Here: https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/38429/smart-sensors-market/

Asia-Pacific Having The Fastest Growth

The Asia Pacific region is poised to witness the fastest growth in the smart sensor market, driven by robust demand from diverse sectors including automotive, infrastructure, consumer electronics, and pharmaceuticals. Countries like China, India, and Japan are expected to play a pivotal role in this growth.

China stands as the global leader in electronics manufacturing, with strong governmental support fueling the expansion of its smart sensor industry. The nation's large domestic market, combined with rapid technological advancements, is driving demand across various industries. Japan, recognized for its leadership in sensor technology, benefits from its expertise and the increasing demand for sensor-based solutions, particularly driven by the aging population. This demographic shift is creating opportunities for smart sensors that enhance the quality of life for elderly citizens, spurring growth in sensor-driven healthcare solutions.

Meanwhile, India is emerging as a key player, with its growing middle class and substantial infrastructure development efforts. The Indian government is investing heavily in infrastructure projects, creating new avenues for smart sensor applications. The widespread adoption of smartphones and connected devices, coupled with advancements in IoT, is further propelling the demand for smart sensors in the country.

Technological adoption in the region is expanding rapidly, with smart sensors increasingly integrated into consumer electronics, automotive, and healthcare sectors. The rise of smartphones, wearables, and connected devices is significantly driving this demand. India, for instance, is expected to have around 2.1 billion internet-connected devices by 2023, accelerating the market for smart sensors as affordable smartphones and internet access become more widespread.

In China, the push to modernize industries is increasing the need for smart manufacturing products, including advanced sensor networks. Chinese manufacturers are capitalizing on this demand, contributing to the rapid development and marketing of innovative sensor technologies.

As IoT continues to evolve in the region, innovations like LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Networks) technologies such as NB-IoT, LoRa, LTE-M, and Sigfox are further enhancing connectivity, especially for the automotive sector, enabling smart sensors to operate over vast distances with minimal power consumption.

The Asia Pacific regions growth trajectory is set to remain strong as countries like China, Japan, and India continue to push forward with technological and infrastructure advancements, all of which are expected to drive the smart sensor market to new heights in the coming years.

Key Market Players - Smart Sensors Market

Analog Devices, Inc. (US),

TE Connectivity (Switzerland),

Infineon Technologies AG (Germany),

STMicroelectronics (Switzerland),

ABB (Switzerland),

Microchip Technology Inc. (US),

NXP Semiconductors (Netherlands),

Siemens (Germany),

Honeywell International Inc. (US),

Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany)

Recent developments

Stirling Council IoT Sensor Rollout (November 2022): Stirling Council deployed 50,000 IoT smart sensors in homes to monitor environmental issues such as moisture, mold, and ventilation problems. These sensors provide early warnings for potential problems and offer real-time data on energy consumption.

BioIntelliSense BioButton Patch (February 2023): At CES 2023, BioIntelliSense's BioButton, a medical-grade digital biosensor patch, won a CES Innovation Award for its role in continuous biometric monitoring. This patch tracks vital signs and provides additional data on sleep, body position, and gait analysis, enhancing personalized care for patients.

Advantechs LoRaWAN Sensors (September 2022): Advantech launched the WISE-2410 wireless condition monitoring sensors, which track equipment vibrations and temperature over time. These sensors are widely used in industrial and medical applications due to their ability to detect structural changes and patterns.

Xiaomis Smart Sensor for Home Automation (July 2023): Xiaomi unveiled a new range of smart home sensors, including temperature and humidity sensors, aimed at improving home automation and energy efficiency. These sensors integrate with the company's existing ecosystem of smart devices.

NXPs Automotive Smart Sensor Collaboration (June 2023): NXP Semiconductors signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. to develop next-gen smart sensor technologies for connected vehicles. This partnership aims to enhance safety and connectivity in electrified and autonomous vehicles.

Honeywells DG Smart Sensor for Combustion Systems (June 2023): Honeywell launched the DG Smart Sensor, designed to monitor and control combustion air and fuel gases in low-pressure systems. This solution enhances energy efficiency and aligns with digitalization trends in Industry 4.0.

Market Segmentations:

By Type

Temperature and Humidity sensors

Pressure sensors

Flow Sensor

Touch sensor

Image sensor

Motion and Occupancy sensors

Water sensors

Position sensor

Light Sensor

Ultrasonic sensor

Others

By Component

Analog to digital converter (ADC)

Digital to analog converter (DAC)

Transceivers

Amplifier

Microcontrollers

Others

By Technology

CMOS

MEMS

Others

By Network Connectivity

Wired

Wireless

Others

By End-User Industry

Industrial Automation

Building automation

Consumer Electronics

Biomedical and Healthcare

Automotive

Aerospace and defense

Others

By Region

North America

Europe

Asia-Pacific

Latin America

Middle East & Africa

Get a Sample PDF Brochure: https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/38429/smart-sensors-market/#request-a-sample

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Toronto, Ontario, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CEDES, a Swiss pioneer in intelligent IoT solutions and the original manufacturer of elevator light curtains, and FIELDBOSS, the leading Microsoft-based field service platform for elevator contractors, today announced a transformative partnership. Their innovative integration connects CEDES Elevate's IoT-powered insights with FIELDBOSS's advanced field service tools, offering a complete system to optimize the elevator industry's safety, compliance, and service efficiency.

This first-of-its-kind integration combines real-time data with actionable insights, allowing elevator companies to remain proactive in their maintenance efforts while reducing downtime and improving safety outcomes for passengers and technicians. This partnership seamlessly integrates insights and actions by combining CEDES' advanced IoT technology, FIELDBOSS' mobile field technology, and Microsoft's Power Automate, Power BI, and Copilot. This powerful combination delivers contractors and their customers unparalleled efficiency, enhanced decision-making, and a genuinely innovative service experienceall at a fraction of traditional costs.

A Vision for the Future of Elevator Service

CEDES CEO Patrick Bass shared his enthusiasm for this groundbreaking collaboration:

"We are bringing together the FIELDBOSS operating system and the elevator health insights from CEDES Elevate to provide a complete closed-loop integration of IoT, data, service activities and then service outcomes. This empowers every elevator company in the world to streamline their maintenance activities. Putting these two pieces together will allow our customers to benefit from the full value of each solution and achieve meaningful automated business outcomes."

Commitment to Industry Excellence

Both CEDES and FIELDBOSS bring a long-standing history of innovation and dedication to the elevator industry. With its legacy as the original manufacturer of the elevator light curtain, CEDES has consistently set the standard for safety and technological advancement. FIELDBOSS, as the only Microsoft-based field service solution designed specifically for elevator contractors, is known for helping businesses stay ahead of compliance requirements and adapt to evolving technology. Together, the companies are pushing the boundaries of what's possible in elevator monitoring and service management.

FIELDBOSS CEO Jonathan Taub highlighted the revolutionary potential of the partnership:

"Elevator IoT is a game-changer for the industry. By combining CEDES' Swiss-quality intelligent IoT solutions with FIELDBOSS's robust contractor management platform, we deliver actionable insights that empower contractors to drive efficiency and improve service outcomes. This partnership underscores our commitment to using technology to elevate the industry and sets a new standard for intelligent, connected service."

Changing the Landscape of Elevator Monitoring and Maintenance

The integration of CEDES Elevate with FIELDBOSS delivers several key benefits:

Streamlined Maintenance : Real-time data-driven insights directly tied to service actions and outcomes.

: Real-time data-driven insights directly tied to service actions and outcomes. Increased Safety: Continuous IoT monitoring and predictive analytics enhance passenger and technician safety by addressing potential risks before they escalate.

Continuous IoT monitoring and predictive analytics enhance passenger and technician safety by addressing potential risks before they escalate. Improved Compliance: Automated tracking and reporting tools ensure contractors stay ahead of regulatory requirements while maintaining proactive maintenance schedules.

Automated tracking and reporting tools ensure contractors stay ahead of regulatory requirements while maintaining proactive maintenance schedules. Cost-Effective Solutions: Powerful tools powered by Microsoft technology at a fraction of traditional costs.

Powerful tools powered by Microsoft technology at a fraction of traditional costs. Enhanced Reliability: The trusted expertise of CEDES and FIELDBOSS delivers industry-leading tools to elevate the standard of service.

As a result of this partnership, elevator companies can seamlessly integrate IoT insights with service operations, setting a new benchmark for safety, compliance, and operational excellence.

To explore the companies shaping the future of elevator service, visit

https://www.cedes.com/en/ and www.fieldboss.com

About CEDES:

The CEDES Group offers its innovative solutions for elevators, escalators, industrial doors, and warehouse management systems in more than 60 countries. It develops intelligent and safe sensing, control and communication systems that provide actionable data streams for higher operational and maintenance efficiency. The product portfolio ranges from simple optical sensors, through highly complex 3D camera systems in cutting-edge ToF (Time-of-Flight) technology, to complete safety-related control systems and smart IoT-enabling devices.

For more information, visit www.cedes.com

About FIELDBOSS:

FIELDBOSS is a leading provider of field service management solutions for elevator and HVAC contractors. The company offers a comprehensive, integrated platform designed to streamline operations, enhance productivity, and improve customer satisfaction. With a strong focus on innovation and collaboration, FIELDBOSS continues to set new industry standards in the field service management sector.

Learn More: www.fieldboss.com

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With 2024 coming to a close, Squaremouth.com, the nation's leading comparison site, is revealing where luxury-loving travelers spent their money in 2024 and which destinations were the most costly.

Trips to Africa, Antarctica, French Antarctic Territories, and the islands of Oceania cost the most. This year, travelers spent 34% more on trips to these 10 destinations compared to any other countries.

Travelers Spend Millions on Most Expensive Destinations

Over 15,000 travelers spent over $82 million to visit the 10 most expensive destinations.

This year, Squaremouth saw a 43% increase in spending to expensive destinations compared to 2023.

The average individual trip cost to these destinations in 2024 was just over $16,000  3.4x more than the average traveler spent this year.

Rising Costs Are Dissuading Travelers

High travel costs to these destinations have affected traveler behavior, with tourism to these locations down 27% in 2024.

Travel to destinations with an average trip cost of under $6,000 in 2024 has increased 18% over last year.

Africa Remains Most Expensive Destination

For more than 15 years running, nearly half of the most expensive trips were to African nations.

Djibouti, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Central African Republic and Tanzania were the five most expensive African countries to visit.

Djibouti has the highest trip cost increase of the most expensive destinations, more than tripling over last year.

Top 10 Most Expensive Destinations of 2024

Country Average Trip Cost Djibouti $28,594 Botswana $18,734 Antarctica $17,599 South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands $16,455 Zimbabwe $15,637 Central African Republic $14,960 Tanzania $14,229 French Southern Territories & Antarctic Lands $14,066 Namibia $13,550 Kenya $13,113

Travel Insurance Remains A Smart Investment for High-Cost Destinations

When compared to the steep price of the worlds priciest travel spots, travel insurance continues to be a low cost investment for travelers.
Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Saudi Arabia Internet of Things (IoT) Market, By Region, Competition, Forecast and Opportunities, 2019-2029F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



Saudi Arabia Internet of Things (IoT) Market was valued at USD 1.5 Billion in 2023 and is anticipated to project robust growth in the forecast period with a CAGR of 17.5% through 2029

The Internet of Things (IoT) market in Saudi Arabia is experiencing remarkable growth and transformation. With a burgeoning demand for interconnected devices and data-driven solutions, the country is witnessing a rapid expansion of IoT applications across diverse sectors.







Saudi Arabia is embracing IoT technology to enhance its smart city initiatives, improving urban infrastructure and resource management while fostering sustainability. In the oil and gas industry, IoT is streamlining operations through predictive maintenance and remote monitoring, optimizing efficiency and reducing downtime.

The healthcare sector is leveraging IoT to enhance patient care, with applications ranging from remote health monitoring to tracking medical equipment. As the government and businesses invest in IoT infrastructure, the market is poised for further expansion, offering opportunities for technology providers, startups, and enterprises to collaborate in shaping Saudi Arabia's IoT landscape, ultimately driving economic growth and innovation.



Expansion of Smart City Initiatives



One prominent market trend in Saudi Arabia's Internet of Things (IoT) landscape is the rapid expansion of smart city initiatives. As part of the Vision 2030 plan, the government has been investing heavily in transforming key cities like Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam into smart, connected urban centers.

These smart city projects leverage IoT technology to enhance urban services, improve transportation systems, reduce energy consumption, and ensure sustainable living conditions. The growing trend toward smart cities is driving demand for IoT solutions in areas like smart traffic management, waste management, and energy-efficient buildings. This emphasis on urban transformation is expected to continue, providing lucrative opportunities for IoT technology providers and fostering innovation in smart city solutions.



Healthcare IoT Adoption



In Saudi Arabia, the healthcare sector is witnessing a significant trend of IoT adoption to enhance patient care and optimize healthcare services. The government's focus on improving healthcare delivery aligns with the use of IoT technology to provide more personalized and efficient care. IoT-enabled devices, such as wearables and remote health monitoring solutions, allow healthcare providers to track patient data in real-time, enabling early detection of health issues and reducing hospital readmissions.

Furthermore, IoT solutions are used to streamline healthcare facility management, leading to efficient resource allocation and reduced operational costs. The healthcare IoT trend is set to grow as the sector continues to invest in digital health initiatives, creating a fertile ground for technology companies to develop innovative solutions and contribute to the improvement of healthcare services in the country.



Agriculture and Food Security Applications



Another noteworthy trend in Saudi Arabia's IoT market is the growing use of IoT technology in agriculture and food security. As the nation seeks to ensure a sustainable and secure food supply, precision agriculture is becoming more prevalent. IoT-enabled sensors, drones, and data analytics are being used to optimize crop yields and resource management. By monitoring soil conditions, weather patterns, and crop health in real-time, farmers can make data-driven decisions to increase agricultural productivity.

Additionally, IoT technology is playing a vital role in the management of the food supply chain, ensuring the quality and safety of food products from production to distribution. As Saudi Arabia invests in agricultural and food security initiatives, the IoT market sees substantial growth, offering opportunities for innovation in agri-tech solutions.



Energy Efficiency and Sustainability



Energy efficiency and sustainability have become integral aspects of the IoT market trend in Saudi Arabia. The country's commitment to reducing its carbon footprint and promoting environmental sustainability aligns with the use of IoT technology to enhance energy management, renewable energy integration, and environmental monitoring. Smart grid solutions, powered by IoT, are being implemented to optimize electricity distribution, reduce energy wastage, and enhance grid reliability.

Additionally, IoT sensors are used for monitoring air quality, water resources, and environmental conditions, contributing to a cleaner and more sustainable environment. This trend for energy efficiency and sustainability is expected to drive the adoption of IoT solutions, attracting businesses and fostering innovation in clean technology and environmental monitoring.



Industrial IoT (IIoT) Integration



The integration of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is a growing trend in Saudi Arabia's industrial and manufacturing sectors. With a focus on diversifying the economy, the country is making substantial investments in these sectors, including the establishment of industrial cities and zones. IIoT technology is being harnessed to optimize operations and increase productivity.

In manufacturing, IoT-enabled sensors and data analytics are used for predictive maintenance, improving production efficiency and reducing downtime. In the oil and gas industry, IIoT is facilitating remote monitoring and automation, enhancing safety and operational efficiency. This trend is driving demand for IIoT solutions and services, attracting technology providers and fostering innovation in industrial automation and digitization.

Key Market Players

Amazon Web Services, Inc.

Intel Corporation

Microsoft Corporation

PTC Inc.

Cisco Systems, Inc.

IBM Corporation

Oracle Corporation

SAP SE

Saudi Arabia Internet of Things (IoT) Market, By Component:

Software

Hardware

Service

Saudi Arabia Internet of Things (IoT) Market, By Connectivity:

Zigbee

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

Near Field Communication (NFC)

Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN)

Others

Saudi Arabia Internet of Things (IoT) Market, By End User:

Oil and Gas

Manufacturing

Automotive & Transportation

Healthcare

Retail and E-Commerce

Infrastructure Management

Others

Saudi Arabia Internet of Things (IoT) Market, By Region:

Riyadh

Makkah

Madinah

Jeddah

Tabuk

Eastern Province

Rest of Saudi Arabia

Key Attributes:





Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 86 Forecast Period 2023 - 2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $1.5 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $3.98 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 17.5% Regions Covered Saudi Arabia



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/w598zi

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.

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TORONTO, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Toronto & York Region Labour Council President Andria Babbington condemned the recent decision by federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to intervene in negotiations by port workers in British Columbia and Quebec on behalf of their employers. Instead of letting a fair deal be negotiated at the bargaining table, the government is siding with employers, and trampling on workers rights to strike.

Rather than bargain in good faith, federally-regulated employers are using lockouts to get around the constitutionally-protected right to strike, knowing that the federal government will help impose a collective agreement which will be weaker than one achieved through bargaining.

On Tuesday morning, MacKinnon announced that the government would intervene to end the two port employer lockouts by imposing binding arbitration on the parties through the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB). Liberal Labour Ministers have employed Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code several times over the last two years to end work stoppages at railways and airlines  an action which has no modern precedent. In every case, Section 107 was invoked to end an employer-initiated lockout of workers.

Noting the 2015 Supreme Court decision which recognized the right-to-strike as being enshrined in Canadas Constitution, Babbington said Its been made clear to this government time and again that working people have the right to strike to win the contracts they deserve. The Liberal government must respect workers rights.

In every case where the government has imposed arbitration to end negotiations, the employer was represented by the same employer association, FETCO (Federally Regulated Employers - Transportation and Communications)  a pattern Babbington sees as more than coincidence.

Its clear that this new strategy has been cooked up by a well-funded big business lobby to attack working people, and the government is eager to adopt it, said Babbington. 2023 saw the most working people go out on strike in nearly 40 years, all in response to the dramatic increase in the cost of living. Instead of siding with employers to keep wages low, the government should be addressing the needs of working people by making life more affordable, she added.

What concerns me most is the total disregard for our democracy. To not only break the constitution by imposing arbitration, but to allow an appointed Minister to do so without even a vote in Parliament is a serious escalation, said Babbington. Historically, back-to-work legislation to end labour disputes required a vote in Parliament, as opposed to a simple Ministerial order.

Babbington demanded the government respect ongoing negotiations between Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and Canada Post by not imposing back-to-work orders, as the Liberal government did in 2018, Weve seen this from this government before, when they unconstitutionally sent CUPW workers back-to-work in 2018. This time, they should learn from their mistakes and respect the right to bargain!

As long as employers know the government will step in on their behalf, we will never have a fair negotiation process, said Babbington. What were calling for is the same thing weve been calling for over 150 years: respect workers rights and negotiate fair deals!

For more information and media inquiries, please contact: Jack Copple Organizer, Toronto and York Region Labour Council Phone: 613 883 8871 Email: ymontenegro@labourcouncil.ca

About Toronto & York Region Labour Council:

The Toronto & York Region Labour Council represents over 200,000 workers from diverse sectors across the Toronto region . Committed to fighting for economic, social, racial and climate justice, the Council works tirelessly to create a fair and equitable future for all.
Dublin, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Retinal Vein Occlusion Treatment Market by Treatment Type (Anti-VEGF Injection, Corticosteroid Treatment, Laser Therapy), Age Group (40-60, Above 60, Below 40), Condition Type, End User - Global Forecast 2025-2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Retinal Vein Occlusion Treatment Market grew from USD 2.74 billion in 2023 to USD 2.91 billion in 2024. It is expected to continue growing at a CAGR of 6.41%, reaching USD 4.23 billion by 2030.

Key growth factors influencing the RVO treatment market include an aging global population, increasing prevalence of diabetes and hypertension, and advancements in medical technology improving treatment efficacy. Potential opportunities lie in the development of novel therapeutics, particularly biologics and gene therapies, that offer longer-lasting effects or fewer side effects.

While these opportunities are promising, the market faces limitations such as high costs of treatment, limited patient awareness, and complexities associated with chronic management of underlying conditions like diabetes. Additionally, regulatory challenges and long development timelines for new drugs pose significant barriers. Key recommendations for stakeholders include investing in patient education programs to enhance awareness and adherence, collaborations to accelerate innovation in treatment modalities, and expansion into emerging markets with growing healthcare infrastructure.

Areas ripe for innovation include personalized medicine approaches, advances in drug delivery systems, and integration of AI in diagnostic and monitoring tools to enhance treatment precision. The market is characterized by rapid technological development, intense competition among pharmaceutical companies, and a strong focus on research and development aimed at addressing unmet medical needs. With strategic focus on these factors, there is considerable potential for businesses to establish a competitive edge and address the growing demand for effective RVO treatments.

Market Dynamics

The market dynamics represent an ever-changing landscape of the Retinal Vein Occlusion Treatment Market by providing actionable insights into factors, including supply and demand levels. Accounting for these factors helps design strategies, make investments, and formulate developments to capitalize on future opportunities. In addition, these factors assist in avoiding potential pitfalls related to political, geographical, technical, social, and economic conditions, highlighting consumer behaviors and influencing manufacturing costs and purchasing decisions.

Market Drivers

Growing prevalence of risk factors such as diabetes and hypertension necessitating effective therapies

Rising healthcare expenditure encouraging investment in retinal vein occlusion treatment options

Market Restraints

High cost associated with retinal vein occlusion treatment & limited reimbursement policies

Market Opportunities

Ongoing advances in gene therapy techniques for long-term management of retinal vein occlusion

Adoption of artificial intelligence in early detection and personalized treatment plans for retinal vein occlusion

Market Challenges

Comorbidities complication in patient management for retinal vein occlusion treatment

Market Segmentation Analysis

Treatment Type: Wide adoption of anti-VEGF injections to manage macular edema

Recent Developments

European Commission approves groundbreaking Vabysmo treatment, revolutionizing retinal vein occlusion care across the EU

The European Commission's approval of Vabysmo marks a significant development in treating visual impairment due to macular edema from retinal vein occlusion (RVO). This approval introduces the first bispecific antibody for RVO, offering a novel treatment since 2015. Vabysmo's primary advantage lies in potentially extending treatment intervals to up to four months, reducing patient burden and healthcare demands. Backed by positive phase 3 studies, Vabysmo achieves non-inferior visual acuity gains compared to aflibercept.

Health Canada approves Vabysmo for retinal vein occlusion

Health Canada has authorized Vabysmo (faricimab injection) for treating macular edema due to retinal vein occlusion (RVO), marking its third indication following neovascular age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema. This approval is based on two Phase III studies showing early, sustained vision improvements with Vabysmo, comparable to aflibercept, alongside rapid retinal fluid drying. Roche Canada's strategy focuses on expanding Vabysmo's access in Canada and globally, supported by its bispecific action on VEGF-A and Ang-2, aiming to alleviate treatment burdens and enhance patient outcomes over time.

Chugai's Vabysmo secures approval as the first bispecific antibody for retinal vein occlusion treatment in Japan

Chugai Pharmaceutical has received approval in Japan for Vabysmo, the first bispecific antibody for treating macular edema due to retinal vein occlusion (RVO). This approval stems from successful global phase III trials (BALATON and COMINO) demonstrating Vabysmo's efficacy in enhancing vision and reducing retinal fluid. Vabysmo, innovatively targeting Ang-2 and VEGF-A pathways, stabilizes blood vessels and addresses RVO's severe vision loss risk.

Key Company Profiles

The report delves into recent significant developments in the Retinal Vein Occlusion Treatment Market, highlighting leading vendors and their innovative profiles. These include AbbVie, Alimera Sciences, Inc., Bayer AG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Carl Zeiss AG, Fovea Pharmaceuticals SA, Genentech, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc, IRIDEX Corporation, Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc., Lumenis Ltd., Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc., Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc., Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Sanofi S.A., Suzuken Co. and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

The report addresses key questions to assist stakeholders in making informed decisions:

What is the current market size and projected growth?

Which products, segments, applications, and regions offer promising investment opportunities?

What are the prevailing technology trends and regulatory frameworks?

What is the market share and positioning of the leading vendors?

What revenue sources and strategic opportunities do vendors in the market consider when deciding to enter or exit?

Key Attributes:





Report Attribute Details Forecast Period 2024 - 2030 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2024 $2.91 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2030 $4.23 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 6.4% Regions Covered Global





Key Topics Covered:

Market Dynamics

Drivers Growing prevalence of risk factors such as diabetes and hypertension necessitating effective therapies Rising healthcare expenditure encouraging investment in retinal vein occlusion treatment options

Restraints High cost associated with retinal vein occlusion treatment & limited reimbursement policies

Opportunities Ongoing advances in gene therapy techniques for long-term management of retinal vein occlusion Adoption of artificial intelligence in early detection and personalized treatment plans for retinal vein occlusion

Challenges Comorbidities complication in patient management for retinal vein occlusion treatment



Market Segmentation Analysis

Treatment Type: Wide adoption of anti-VEGF injections to manage macular edema

Condition Type: Growing prevalence of branch retinal vein occlusion boosting demand for advanced treatments

Porter's Five Forces Analysis

PESTLE Analysis

Retinal Vein Occlusion Treatment Market, by Treatment Type

Anti-VEGF Injection

Aflibercept

Bevacizumab

Ranibizumab

Corticosteroid Treatment

Laser Therapy

Retinal Vein Occlusion Treatment Market, by Age Group

40-60

Above 60

Below 40

Retinal Vein Occlusion Treatment Market, by Condition Type

Branch Retinal Vein Occlusion

Central Retinal Vein Occlusion

Retinal Vein Occlusion Treatment Market, by End User

Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASCs)

Hospitals

Specialty Clinics

Americas Retinal Vein Occlusion Treatment Market

Asia-Pacific Retinal Vein Occlusion Treatment Market

Europe, Middle East & Africa Retinal Vein Occlusion Treatment Market

Competitive Landscape

Market Share Analysis, 2023

FPNV Positioning Matrix, 2023

Competitive Scenario Analysis

European Commission approves ground breaking Vabysmo treatment, revolutionizing retinal vein occlusion care across the EU

Health Canada approves Vabysmo for retinal vein occlusion

Chugai's Vabysmo secures approval as the first bispecific antibody for retinal vein occlusion treatment in Japan

Strategy Analysis & Recommendation

Companies Featured

AbbVie

Alimera Sciences Inc.

Bayer AG

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

Carl Zeiss AG

Fovea Pharmaceuticals SA

Genentech Inc.

GlaxoSmithKline plc

IRIDEX Corporation

Johnson & Johnson Services Inc.

Lumenis Ltd.

Novartis AG

Pfizer Inc.

Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Sanofi S.A.

Suzuken Co. Ltd.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/qc24p7

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.
Columbus, OH, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Chris Infantino, Director of the Tim Lamb Group, the largest auto dealership sales and acquisitions firm in North America, has brokered the sale of Knox Ford in Radcliff, Kentucky to Don Franklin Automotive Group. The dealership was sold after owner Gary Haupt decided to simplify his portfolio and focus on his larger Ford dealership in the Louisville, Kentucky area. Chris Infantino helped to facilitate the transaction which closed on Monday, November 4, 2024. Knox Ford has been renamed to Don Franklin Radcliff Ford and is located at 461 S. Dixie Hwy., in Radcliff, Kentucky.

Gary Haupt owned Knox Ford since 1999. When he decided to sell the store to Eddie Franklin, President of Don Franklin Automotive Group, he took into account the excellent reputation he has with each of his dealerships. This location will add to their successful Ford dealerships in Columbia, Kentucky and London, Kentucky.

Don Franklin Radcliff Ford is the 28th dealership for the Don Franklin Automotive Group, which owns Ford, Lincoln, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Fiat, Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Nissan, Toyota, Hyundai, Genesis, Kia, and Mitsubishi stores all throughout Central Kentucky. As I continue to look for expansion opportunities in Central Kentucky, its always a great fit when you find businesses like Knox Ford that have been well run by great people for so many years, stated Eddie Franklin. Franklin will be retaining all of Knox Ford employees thru this transaction.

Prior to working with the Tim Lamb Group, Chris Infantino worked for the Ford Motor Company. During his 30-year career, he developed a relationship with both the seller, Gary Haupt, and the buyer, Eddie Franklin. Gary Haupt explained, Having known Chris for over 20 years, I knew he would be the right choice in helping to make the process of selling this dealership smooth and efficient. Infantino stated, Both of these men are great dealers and quality individuals. Working with them made for a very smooth transaction and a great outcome.

For more information on Tim Lamb Group visit, https://timlambgroup.com/

About Tim Lamb Group

Since 2006, Tim Lamb Group has been the number one choice for dealers looking to sell, or purchase, a new vehicle dealership. Twelve regional directors handle billions of dollars per year in transactions for multiple dealer operators in every part of the United States and Canada. The Group has leveraged their factory management experience and retail dealership background to become the largest auto dealership sales and acquisitions firm in North America. For more information and dealership offerings, visit www.timlambgroup.com.

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SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2024 -- Solo.io , the leading cloud-native application connectivity company, today announced that it is donating its popular open source API Gateway, Gloo Gateway , to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) to further its mission of building a complete omni-gateway connectivity solution.

Supporting its vision of building the industrys first omni-directional gateway, Solo.io is bringing together leading open source technologies in the cloud-native ecosystem to support security, observability, and resiliency for API traffic spanning ingress, egress, and east-west communication. The donation of the open-source Gloo Gateway project to the CNCF, the general availability of Istios Ambient mode with production-ready support from Gloo Mesh , the launch of the community website Ambientmesh.io , and the introduction of advanced security guardrails for Large Language Model (LLM) usage with Gloo AI Gateway together represent a new open-source frontier for cloud-native connectivity.

The introduction of an omni-gateway connectivity solution marks a new era in API management, said Idit Levine, CEO and founder of Solo.io. As organizations accelerate their adoption of cloud native architectures and practices, they will look to build on best-of-breed open source standards and technologies for API connectivity to secure, control, and scale their cloud adoption. To take the first step in building this truly omni-directional connectivity solution, were excited to donate our market-leading open source API gateway, Gloo Gateway, to the CNCF.

Solo.io Donates Open Source Gloo Gateway to CNCF

The market demands for API management are shifting, driven by the proliferation of AI, cloud-native workloads, and distributed systems. While the cloud-native open source community offers component technologies that users can assemble and deploy individually, this often results in incomplete and overlapping solutions to API connectivity for ingress, east-west, and egress network traffic.

To address this gap in the cloud-native ecosystem, Solo.io has donated its open source API Gateway, Gloo Gateway, to the CNCF as a foundational component of an open source omni-directional API management solution. The donation provides the community with access to a feature-rich modern API gateway purpose-built for organizations investing and scaling their cloud native environments.

Istio Ambient Mode reaches General Availability, Production Readiness with Gloo Mesh

Istios ambient mode, the groundbreaking sidecarless data plane architecture for Istio, has reached general availability status and delivers a production-ready Ambient mesh for customers looking to enable seamless zero trust security, comprehensive observability, and advanced traffic management features for cloud-native architectures.

We chose Istio because were excited about Ambient mesh, said Troy Dai, senior staff software engineer at Coinbase. Different from other options, with Istio, the transition from sidecar to sidecar-less is not a leap of faith. We can build up our service mesh infrastructure with Istio knowing the path to sidecar-less is a two way door.

As a co-creator and co-founder with Google of both Istio and Ambient mesh, Solo.io helps customers and the community realize the full benefits of an enterprise-grade sidecarless service mesh with the introduction of Ambientmesh.io , a free community-orientated website designed to help users fast-track the adoption of Ambient mesh and access enterprise production-ready features and support for Ambient mesh in Gloo Mesh .

AI Gateway Delivers Advanced Safety and Security Guardrails for a Multi-LLM Strategy

Solo.io has introduced new advanced AI guardrail capabilities to Gloo AI Gateway , supporting the integration of custom Small Language Models for semantic safety and security guardrails. This new semantic guardrails capability complements existing advanced AI gateway capabilities such as semantic caching, retrieval-augmented generation, token-weighted rate limiting, and fine-grained LLM consumption tracking available in Gloo AI Gateway. This approach provides users with a drop-in approach to comprehensive security, observability, and governance across their GenAI and LLM integration connectivity use cases.

Join Solo.io at KubeCon

Solo.io will be at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2024, November 12-15 in Salt Lake City, Utah as a Diamond sponsor. Idit Levine, founder and CEO of Solo.io, will present a keynote, and several of Solo.ios team members have sessions at the show. Solo.io will also present at Istio Day on November 12. Visit the Solo.io team at booth C2 to watch one of our lightning talks, or learn more about Istio Ambient Mesh in our free hands-on 5-minute labs. For more information visit: https://pages.solo.io/Kubecon_NA_2024.html

Resources

Solo.io Website

Solo.io on X

Solo.io on LinkedIn

About Solo.io

Solo.io is a trusted partner to hundreds of companies around the world, providing industry-leading cloud-native API gateway, management, and service mesh. Solo.io provides solutions helping companies to secure, scale, and simplify their application networking. Companies use Solo.io to deliver modern applications faster, and across any cloud infrastructure. Solo.io is shaping the future of cloud-native computing. To learn more and see the solutions in action, visit www.solo.io .
TORONTO, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Class 1 Nickel and Technologies Ltd. (CSE: NICO | OTCQB: NICLF) ("Class 1 Nickel" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has filed its National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101) Technical Report in support of the updated Mineral Resource Estimate (the MRE) for the Dundonald South Nickel Sulphide Deposit (the D-S Deposit) as announced in the 3 October 2024 news release. The D-S Deposit is one of 4 nickel deposits within the sizeable Alexo-Dundonald Nickel Sulphide Project (the Project or A-D Project) (Figure 1), located about 45 km northeast of the City of Timmins, Ontario, and covering approximately 3,093 ha (30.93 km2).

With updated mineral resources from 3 of the 4 nickel deposits now complete (see Class 1 news releases 24 April 2024, 22 May 2024, and 3 October 2024) the Company is confident in validating the high-grade nature of the four nickel sulphide deposits (2.7Mt at 1.01% Ni):

Deposit Type Ni (%) Cut-Off Grade (% Ni) Tonnage (t) Dundonald South Pit-Constrained 0.67 1.00 776,000 1Dundonald North Global (no pit) 0.19 1.01 1,820,000 Alexo South Pit-Constrained 0.52 1.00 77,700 Alexo North Pit-Constrained 0.28 1.00 35,900 Total: 1.01 2,710,000

1cut-off grade calculation based on the data provided by Stone et al. (2020).

With respect to the newly interpreted geological model (see Class 1 news release 3 October 2024) and updated mineral resource estimate for the Dundonald South Deposit (Table 1):

Contains 776,000 t at 1.0% Ni using a 0.67% Ni cut-off (17.1Mlbs nickel).

Indicated Resources (Pit-Constrained 1 ) of 2.54 Mt at 0.49% Ni (27.4Mlbs Ni)  781% increase in Indicated tonnes and 474% increase in nickel pounds.

) of 2.54 Mt at 0.49% Ni (27.4Mlbs Ni)  781% increase in Indicated tonnes and 474% increase in nickel pounds. 87% of Ni lbs and 41% of tonnes (Pit-Constrained + Out-of-Pit 1 ) in Indicated category with drilling planned to update to Measured.

) in Indicated category with drilling planned to update to Measured. 59% of the D-S Deposit tonnes is in Inferred category - excellent exploration upside to expand and upgrade resources through additional drilling.

Like the other 3 nickel deposits within the Project, the Dundonald South Deposit is open along strike and at depth, with new geological modelling and interpretation providing ample targets for next-stage drilling.

Total Mineral Resources within the 4 nickel sulphide deposits: 3.4 Mt at 0.54% Ni Indicated and 5.9 Mt at 0.61% Ni Inferred1 2.

1C$52.50/t NSR Pit-Constrained and C$96.00/t NSR Out-of-Pit cut-offs applied in current (2024) MREs.

2C$90.0/t NSR Out-of-Pit cut-off, Dundonald North MRE (Stone et al., 2020).

David Fitch, CEO of Class 1 Nickel, commented: We are very pleased with the results and progress being made in terms of updating the mineral resources from 3 of our 4 nickel sulphide deposits. Dundonald Souths high-grade nickel intervals and new target areas underscores the economic potential of these komatiite-hosted deposits, and we feel that future exploration will lead to the discovery of additional nickel-copper-PGE sulphide resources outside of the 4 known deposits. With 3 of 4 nickel deposits now updated, were progressing towards a Phase 2 drilling program and other exploration programs in 2025 with a goal of completing an initial Preliminary Economic Assessment in 2025.

The updated MRE for the D-S Deposit (Table 1) was completed by Atticus Geoscience Consulting Ltd. (Atticus) and their strategic partner Caracle Creek Chile SpA (Caracle) (together the Consultants). This MRE replaces the 2020 mineral resource estimate completed by P&E Mining Consultants Inc. (Stone et al., 2020).

The Technical Report in support of the current MRE for the D-S Deposit was completed in accordance with NI 43-101 and filed on SEDAR+.

Table 1. 2024 Mineral Resource Statement for the Dundonald South Nickel Sulphide Deposit using C$/t NSR cut-offs.

Dundonald South - Resources

Tonnage

(t)



Grade Contained Metal Ni

(%) Cu

(%) Co

(%) NiEq

(%) NSR

(C$/t) Ni

(klbs) Cu

(klbs) Co

(klbs) Pit-Constrained (C$52.5/t NSR COG) Indicated 2,540,000 0.49 0.02 0.01 0.52 103 27,400 911 755 Inferred 3,600,000 0.42 0.01 0.01 0.44 88 33,000 1,100 1,060 Out-of-Pit (C$96.0/t NSR COG) Indicated 200,000 0.95 0.03 0.02 0.99 198 4,210 145 80 Inferred 390,000 0.57 0.02 0.01 0.60 120 4,900 160 120 Total Pit-Constrained + Out-of-Pit Indicated 2,740,000 0.52 0.02 0.01 0.55 110 31,600 1,060 834 Inferred 3,990,000 0.43 0.01 0.01 0.46 91 37,600 1,270 1,200

Notes to Table 1:

(1) The independent Qualified Person for the MRE, as defined by NI 43-101, is Mr. Simon Mortimer (FAIG #7795) of Atticus Geoscience Consulting Ltd., working with Caracle Creek Chile SpA. The effective date of the MRE is 1 October 2024.

(2) Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.

(3) The estimate of Mineral Resources may be materially affected by environmental, permitting, legal, title, taxation, socio-political, marketing, or other relevant issues.

(4) The Inferred Mineral Resource in this estimate has a lower level of confidence than that applied to an Indicated Mineral Resource and must not be converted to a Mineral Reserve. It is reasonably expected that the majority of the Inferred Mineral Resource could be upgraded to an Indicated Mineral Resource with continued exploration.

(5) The Mineral Resources were estimated following the 2019 CIM Estimation of Mineral Resources & Mineral Reserves Best Practice Guidelines prepared by the CIM Mineral Resource & Mineral Reserve Committee and the 2014 CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources & Mineral Reserves prepared by the CIM Standing Committee on Reserve Definitions.

(6) Geological and block models for the MRE used core assays (497 samples from 2021 drilling) and data and information from 273 surface diamond drill holes (16 from Class 1 Nickel and 257 historical). The drill hole database was validated prior to resource estimation and QA/QC checks were made using industry-standard control charts for blanks, core duplicates and commercial certified reference material inserted into assay batches by Class 1 Nickel.

(7) The block model was prepared using Micromine 2020. A 6 m x 6 m x 6 m block model was created, with sub blocks to 0.5 m x 0.5 m x 0.5 m. Drill composites of 1.0 m intervals were generated within the estimation domains, and subsequent grade estimation was carried out for Ni, Cu and Co using Inverse of distance Weighting interpolation method.

(8) Grade estimation was validated by comparison of input and output statistics (Nearest Neighbour), swath plot analysis, and by visual inspection of the assay data, block model, and grade shells in cross-sections.

(9) As a reference, the average estimated density value (specific gravity) within the mineralized domain is 2.90 g/cm3 (t/m3).

(10) Estimates have been rounded to 3 significant figures for Indicated resources and 2 significant figures for Inferred resources.

(11) The MRE considers a geological dilution of 5% and a mining recovery of 95%.

(12) US$ metal prices of $8.00/lb Ni, $3.25/lb Cu, $13.00/lb Co were used in the NSR calculation with respective process recoveries of 85%, 70%, and 80%; gold, platinum and palladium are not considered in the current NSR calculation.

(13) Pit-constrained Mineral Resource NSR cut-off considers processing, and G&A costs, applying a factor of 5% for mining dilution, that respectively combine for a total of (($45.00 + $5.00) * (1 + 5%)) = C$52.5/tonne processed.

(14) Out-of-pit Mineral Resource (underground) NSR cut-off considers ore mining, processing, and G&A costs that respectively combine for a total of ($46.00 + $45.00 + $5.00) = C$96.0/tonne processed.

(15) The Out-of-Pit Mineral Resource grade blocks were quantified above the $96.0/t cut-off, below the constraining pit shell and within the constraining mineralized wireframes. Additionally, only groups of blocks that exhibited continuity and reasonable potential stope geometry were included. All orphaned blocks and narrow strings of blocks were excluded. The long-hole stoping with backfill mining method was assumed for the Out-of-Pit (underground) MRE calculation.

(16) The NSR calculation is as follows: NSR C$/t = ((Ni% x 199.89) + (Cu% x 66.87) +(Co% x 305.71)) x 95%.

(17) The NiEq% calculation is as follows: NiEq% = (Ni% x 1) + (Cu% x 0.33) + (Co% x 1.53).

Updates to the mineral resources of the Alexo South and Alexo North deposits were announced 24 April 2024 and 22 May 2024, respectively. Details regarding the new 3D model and re-interpreted Dundonald South Deposit was announced on 23 September 2024. An update to the mineral resource estimate for the Dundonald North Nickel Sulphide Deposit is planned.





Figure 1. Alexo-Dundonald Nickel Sulphide Project showing the location of the 4 nickel deposits and the optimized pit shell outlines for Alexo North and South and Dundonald South deposits, overlain on the generalized geology within the Project. The yellow oval at the Dundonald North Deposit is not an optimized pit shell but rather outlines the approximate area of the 2020 mineral resource estimate reported by Stone et al. (2020).

The Company is planning a Phase 2 diamond drilling program with the primary objectives of expanding mineralization and resources in its 4 existing magmatic nickel sulphide (Ni-Cu-(PGE)) deposits. In addition, the Company is planning future staged exploration programs to examine the various underexplored areas of the A-D Project, including the numerous nickel-copper sulphide occurrences that exist outside of the known deposit areas. Much of this exploration will be guided by the 2020 Geotech Ltd. VTEM airborne geophysical survey which has yet to be systematically ground-truthed, historical drilling with magmatic sulphide intercepts, and new ground geophysics and remote sensing surveys planned for 2025.

Alexo-Dundonald Nickel Sulphide Project

The A-D Project is located about 45 km northeast of the City of Timmins, Ontario, covers an area of approximately 3,093 hectares (30.93 km2), and was assembled through various acquisitions by the Company in September 2018. The A-D Project includes the 4 foundation nickel deposits (Alexo North and South and Dundonald North and South) of which the Alexo North and Alexo South (aka Kelex) were small-scale past producers of relatively high-grade nickel (i.e., 1957; 2004-2005). The 4 deposits are located on a near-continuous folded komatiite-ultramafic rock sequence that extends for at least 14 km within the Property, and which has never been systematically explored. The 4 mineral resources are open at depth and along strike and could increase in size with additional drilling, modelling and interpretation (see Class 1 news releases 18 April 2024 and 23 September 2024).

Qualified Persons

The Qualified Person, as defined by NI 43-101, for the Dundonald South Mineral Resource Estimate reported herein, Mr. Simon Mortimer (FAIG #7795), Principal Geoscientist at Atticus Geoscience Consulting Ltd. (Cornwall, UK and Lima, Peru). All other technical information and data in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Scott Jobin-Bevans (P.Geo., PGO #0183), Principal Geoscientist at Caracle Creek Chile SpA and a Qualified Person under the definitions established by NI 43-101.

About Class 1 Nickel

Class 1 Nickel and Technologies Limited (CSE: NICO | OTCQB: NICLF) is a Mineral Resources Company focused on the exploration and development of its 100% owned komatiite-hosted nickel sulphide projects: the Alexo-Dundonald Project, near Timmins, Ontario (4 nickel sulphide deposits) and the Somanike Project, near Val-dOr, Quebec (includes the historical Marbridge Ni-Cu Mine). Both projects comprise extensive property packages covering past-producing nickel mines, offering near-term production opportunity and excellent exploration upside.

Class 1 Nickels current focus is to continue brownfield and greenfield exploration on its large property packages to aggregate additional nickel resources and in parallel look to advance the A-D Project back into production. The A-D Project sits on a 14+ km strike-length, folded komatiite unit containing several nickel-copper-cobalt and PGE mineral resources plus numerous underexplored sulphide occurrences. Decades of successful capital expenditure and investment into the Project has resulted in the discovery and delineation of four main nickel Mineral Resources that occur along the folded komatiite unit. The A-D Project was previously mined via a direct-shipping model, and the Company will soon commence a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) study to determine the best path forward.

In addition, the Company also holds a 100% interest in its River Valley PGE Project located about 65 km northeast of the City of Sudbury, Ontario, the worlds largest and longest operating nickel-copper-cobalt-PGE mining camp (see Class 1 news release 13 December 2023).

For more information, please contact:

Mr. David Fitch, President & CEO

T: +61.400.631.608

E: info@class1nickel.com

For additional information please visit our website at www.class1nickel.com and our Twitter feed: @Class1Nickel.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its regulation services provider has reviewed or accepted responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

This news release contains forward-looking information which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information is characterized by words such as plan, expect, project, intend, believe, anticipate, estimate and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions may or will occur. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, changes in the state of equity and debt markets, fluctuations in commodity prices, delays in obtaining required regulatory or governmental approvals, and other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry, including those risks set out in the Companys managements discussion and analysis as filed under the Companys profile at www.sedarplus.ca. Forward-looking information in this news release is based on the opinions and assumptions of management considered reasonable as of the date hereof, including that all necessary governmental and regulatory approvals will be received as and when expected. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, other than as required by applicable securities laws.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b4990b0b-d8e5-4ce2-8259-2e5a56b975bd
Boston, Massachusetts, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HYCU, Inc., a leader for modern data protection for on-prem, cloud services, and SaaS, and one of the fastest growing companies in the industry, announced today that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has included HYCU on its 2024 Stellar Startups list and as a Stellar Startup Storage Vendor To Know In 2024. This prestigious list highlights fast-rising technology vendors that are driving innovation and fostering growth in the IT channel with groundbreaking products.

Companies recognized as Stellar Startups must be six years old or younger, and they are selected across categories that include artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), big data, business applications, cloud, data center, Internet of Things (IoT), networking/unified communications, security and storage.

HYCUs focus on equipping partners with the technology and solutions to solve their customers' complex data challenges across on-premises, public and hybrid cloud, and SaaS IT environments was a major reason why HYCU was recognized for the fourth consecutive year. HYCU R-Cloud including R-Graph, are powerful solutions to visualize core compute and storage services, database services, core platform services and supporting SaaS applications. HYCU R-Cloud provides channel partners with more Cloud and SaaS coverage to future-proof their practice and unlock new revenue opportunities.

Each technology vendor featured on the CRN 2024 Stellar Startups list is distinguished by their commitment to innovation and to delivering cutting-edge offerings that help solution providers distinguish themselves in todays fast-changing IT landscape.

This annual list serves as an invaluable resource for solution providers making business-critical strategic decisions and exploring new technologies and services to add their portfolios to give them the competitive advantage and drive success.

Were thrilled to congratulate the innovative companies named to this years Stellar Startups list, said Jennifer Follett, Vice President of U.S. Content and Executive Editor of CRN at The Channel Company. This achievement reflects each organizations dedication to solving IT channel challenges, pushing the boundaries of whats possible with leading-edge technologies, and contributing to the success of their partners. We look forward to seeing how they continue to transform the industry going forward.

"Recognition as a CRN Stellar Startup is a testament to our unwavering commitment to driving innovation in multi-cloud and SaaS data protection," said Simon Taylor, Founder and CEO, HYCU, Inc. "This newest honor validates our mission to simplify data protection across on-premises, cloud, and SaaS environments while creating new opportunities for our channel partners. Through R-Cloud, we're empowering partners to better serve their customers' evolving data protection needs and unlock new revenue opportunities. This reinforces our dedication to delivering cutting-edge technology that helps our valued partners and their customers thrive in today's complex IT landscape."

The CRN 2024 Stellar Startups list will be featured in the December 2024 issue of CRN Magazine and online at CRN.com/StellarStartups.

###

About HYCU

HYCU is the fastest-growing leader in the multi-cloud and SaaS data protection as a service industry. By bringing true SaaS-based data backup and recovery to on-premises, cloud-native, and SaaS IT environments, the company provides unrivaled data protection, migration, disaster recovery, and ransomware protection to thousands of companies worldwide. The company's award-winning R-Cloud platform eliminates complexity, risk, and the high cost of legacy-based solutions, providing data protection simplicity to make it the #1 SaaS Data Protection platform. With an industry leading NPS score of 91, HYCU has raised $140M in VC funding to date and is based in Boston, Mass. Learn more at www.hycu.com.

About The Channel Company

The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by nearly 40 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. thechannelcompany.com

Follow The Channel Company: LinkedIn , X, and Facebook.

 2024 The Channel Company, Inc. The Channel Company logo is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

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TORONTO, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mink Ventures Corporation (TSXV:MINK) (MINK or the "Company") today announced that it has acquired a 100% interest in the Gambler property, consisting of 296 mining cell claims (59.2 km2), from Voltage Metals Corporation (CSE:VOLT). Total consideration for the claims is a 2% net smelter return royalty (NSR) on those claims, granted in favour of Voltage Metals Corporation. The Gambler property is contiguous to the Mink/Voltage Montcalm (80:20) joint venture property. Minks Montcalm and Gambler properties combined cover approximately 100 km2, across five townships. They are located, in the emerging Timmins Nickel District, approximately 55 road kilometers northwest of Timmins, Ontario (see Figure 1).

HIGHLIGHTS:

The Gambler claims acquisition is a strategic, non-dilutive addition to Minks nickel copper cobalt exploration portfolio.

Mink now holds a camp-sized (100 km2) land package within the highly prospective Montcalm Gabbro Complex (MGC), adjoining the former Glencore Montcalm nickel mine, with historical production of 3.93 million tonnes @ 1.25% Ni, 0.67% Cu and 0.05% Co (Reference: OGS Report, Atkinson, 2010).

The Gambler claims cover 11 km of an ultramafic (peridotite/dunite) unit, considered highly prospective for nickel copper mineralization. The ultramafic unit is underexplored and has not been surveyed with new state-of-the-art deeper penetrating airborne electromagnetic (EM) or gravity surveys (see Figure 2).

Mink now controls two of the most highly prospective portions of the MGC; including 10 km2 of the Gabbro Phase of the MGC, which hosts the Montcalm Mine, as well as 11 km of strike length of the ultramafic unit (peridotite/dunite) horizon within the Gambler property.

Evaluation of these new claims is forecast to begin following the diamond drill program at Minks nearby Warren Ni Cu Co project, which is slated to begin in the next few weeks, when freeze up occurs.

Consolidating claims over 100 km2 to control a contiguous, camp-sized project that covers the majority of the Montcalm Gabbro Complex responsible for the adjacent, past producing, Montcalm nickel sulphide mine is an enviable position for Mink from a both geological and corporate perspective, said Natasha Dixon, Mink President and CEO.

Qualified Person:

Mr. Kevin Filo, P. Geo. (Ontario), is a qualified person within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Filo approved the technical data disclosed in this release.

About Mink Ventures Corporation:

Mink Ventures Corporation (TSXV:MINK) is a Canadian mineral exploration company exploring for critical minerals in Ontario, Canada. It has a prospective, nickel copper cobalt exploration portfolio, with its Montcalm project, which now covers approximately 100 km2 adjacent to Glencores former Montcalm Mine with historical production of 3.93 million tonnes of ore grading 1.25% Ni, 0.67% Cu and 0.051% Co (Ontario Geological Survey, Atkinson, 2010), as well as the expanded Warren Project. These complementary nickel copper cobalt projects have excellent access and infrastructure and are in close proximity to the Timmins Mining Camp. The Company has 22,456,488 common shares outstanding.

For further information about Mink Ventures Corporation please contact: Natasha Dixon, President & CEO, T: 250-882-5620 E: ndixon@minkventures.com or Kevin Filo, Director, T: 705-266-6818 or visit www.sedarplus.ca

Forward Looking Statements

This press release includes certain forward-looking information, including, but not limited to, statements with respect to the prospectivity of the Gambler, Montcalm, and Warren Projects. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Mink 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: future prices and the supply of metals; the results of exploration work; inability to raise the money necessary to incur the expenditures required to retain and advance the Gambler, Warren Project and Montcalm Project; environmental liabilities (known and unknown); general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; political instability, or delays in obtaining governmental and stock exchange approvals. For a more detailed discussion of such risks and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, refer to Minks filings with Canadian securities regulators available on SEDAR+. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and Mink disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws.

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 ac curacy of this release.

Figure 1: Minks Project Location Map (Montcalm, Gambler, and Warren Claims Map)

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9b08fd3f-9c5d-4548-afa7-f27eaae0a3ce





Figure 2: Montcalm Gabbro Complex

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/aad1d46a-80c7-4995-8887-a3da2c56f090




Public event celebrates remarkable history and contribution of Italian Canadians





VILLA CHARITIES HONOURS THE ITALIAN CANADIAN IMMIGRANT STORY

Villa Charities Italian Canadian Immigrant Tribute Installation. From (L to R) Christina Sorbara, Tribute Project donor, Sheref Sabawy, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism; Mary Pompili, Vice President, Marketing and Communications, Villa Charities Inc.; Joseph Arcuri, Board Chair of Villa Charities Inc.; Aldo Cundari, Villa Charities Foundation Board Director and Sculpture Artist; Marco DeVuono, President and CEO of Villa Charities Inc.; Kim Storey, Brown + Storey Architects Inc.; Hon. Marco Mendicino, MP, Eglinton-Lawrence; Anna Roberts, MP, King-Vaughan; Edward Sorbara, Tribute Project donor.

TORONTO, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- After much anticipation, yesterday marked the official unveiling of the Villa Charities Italian Canadian Immigrant Tribute Installation, a stunning multi-faceted commemoration and public space that honours the Italian Canadian immigrant story.

With over 500 people in attendance, the unveiling event was officially underway at 10:00 am to celebrate the public opening of the first phase of the installation at the Columbus Centre. Hosted by Mary Pompili, Villa Charities Vice President of Marketing and Communications, the event featured Tribute Project donors, Villa Charities executives and Board members, elected officials, representatives from Italian organizations, and members of the Italian Canadian community.

Speakers included Joseph Arcuri, Chair of the Villa Charities Board of Directors; Marco DeVuono, President and CEO of Villa Charities Inc.; Hon. Marco Mendicino, MP for Eglinton-Lawrence; Anna Roberts, MP for King-Vaughan; Sheref Sabawy, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism; Kim Storey, Brown + Storey Architects; and Aldo Cundari, sculpture artist and Villa Charities Foundation Board Director. Edward and Christina Sorbara, Tribute Project donors, concluded the public remarks with a heartwarming account of their familys ties to Villa Charities and their participation in the project.

After listening to the uplifting speeches, attendees made their way outside to witness the ceremonial ribbon cutting in the brisk autumn air.

Italian Canadians have played such a pivotal role in developing the vibrant cultural traditions that exist in our community today, said Marco DeVuono, President and CEO of Villa Charities Inc. Through the Italian Canadian Immigrant Tribute project, Villa Charities seeks to honour their legacy and inspire future generations. I am extremely proud to see that the vision for this important initiative has become a reality."

Designed by Brown + Storey Architects Inc., the Immigrant Tribute installation is located on the Villa Charities site at Lawrence Avenue West and Dufferin Street in Toronto, on the north-facing wall of the Columbus Centre. It showcases engraved name plaques dedicated to Canadians of Italian heritage and the year they immigrated to Canada, with a fluttering effect that gives a sense of movement to the wall.

The installation was designed as a vibrant gathering place and a destination to celebrate Italian Canadian immigrants and their contributions, said Kim Storey from Brown + Storey Architects Inc. It is fitting that this permanent landmark is on the Villa Charities campus, the hub for the Italian Canadian community in Toronto and the GTA.

Accompanied by a landscaped area, the installation offers visitors a unique space to commemorate and reflect on their collective history.

Anchored against the backdrop of the installation and its hundreds of customized name plaques stands the striking bronze statue titled Hope, a representation of a 1950-period immigrant family with all their worldly possessions and future aspirations in tow. Imagined and created by marketing executive and artist Aldo Cundari, the full-scale statue is an important element of the Tribute installation.

The installation and statue explore the struggles and successes of the Italian Canadian immigrant story, said Aldo Cundari, sculpture artist and Villa Charities Foundation Board Director, I have intended for the viewer to get the sense of their brimming excitement for their country and new home, in stark contrast to the traditional immigrant sculpture depicting a depressed and frightened family.

Just after 11:00 am, the sculpture and installation were officially inaugurated for the cameras and the hundreds of attendees.

Yesterdays event launched the first phase of the installation, with plaque sales ongoing and new names to be added to the installation on a quarterly basis. Personalized single or double name plaques featuring the name of the family member and the year they immigrated to Canada are available for a $1,000 donation. For each plaque purchase, a tax receipt will be issued for the maximum allowable amount.

Canadians nationwide not only have the opportunity to purchase plaques that will appear on the installation at the Columbus Centre, but also have their stories told on the Villa Charities Immigrant Tribute website. This allows donors to share family photographs and histories with the public, preserving their legacies and acting as a useful resource for future generations. In addition, as part of the physical installation, current donors can scan a QR code on the information panel to find on which section of the panel their familys plaque is located.

The funds raised from the Tribute Project through Villa Charities Foundation will support senior care, youth services, education and scholarships, cultural programming, and capital needs.

For more information on the Villa Charities Italian Canadian Immigrant Tribute project, including how to purchase a name plaque, visit villacharitiesimmigranttribute.com.

About Villa Charities Inc.

Villa Charities Inc. (VCI) is a registered charity and non-profit organization that enriches lives through experiences and services that honour Italian culture and heritage. For more than 50 years across the GTA, Villa Charities has provided cultural and educational programs and supported culturally sensitive long-term care and independent living apartments for seniors. VCI fulfills their mandate through a broad range of activities, services and facilities, both directly and in conjunction with its affiliates and independent organizations. Affiliates include Columbus Centre and Joseph D. Carrier Art Gallery; Villa Colombo Homes for the Aged Inc. in Toronto; Villa Colombo Seniors Centre (Vaughan) Inc. Di Poce Centre; and Italian Canadian Benevolent Seniors Apartments Corporation/Casa Abruzzo Benevolent Corporation with apartments for independent seniors (Caboto Terrace, Casa Del Zotto and Casa Abruzzo). Each of these organizations is an integral part of the Villa Charities family with separate legal status and its own governance Board. Villa Charities has been certified as a Great Place to Work and named on the 2024 Best Workplaces for Giving Back list, which recognize the organizations commitment to creating an inclusive and positive workplace with a strong community focus. For more information visit villacharities.com.

About Villa Charities Foundation

Villa Charities Foundation supports experiences and services that honour Italian culture and heritage. As the charitable arm of Villa Charities, the Foundation provides crucial funding for areas such as senior care, youth services, education and scholarships, cultural programming, and capital needs. For more information, visit villacharities.com/give.

For further information, please contact:



Sierra LeBlanc

MAVERICK Public Relations

647-405-2196

Sierra@wearemaverick.com

Kathleen Sloan, CM

Director, Marketing and Communications

Villa Charities Inc.

416-789-7011 Ext. 309

ksloan@villacharities.com

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Grand opening ceremony of the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver Chinatown, June 30, 2023. Credit: Chinese Canadian Museum.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Chinese Canadian Museum is proud to announce it has won this years Governor Generals History Award for Excellence in Museums: History Alive! , Canadas most prestigious history museum award. The award is a partnership between the Canadian Museums Association (CMA) and Canadas History Society (CHS), with the support of Ecclesiastical Insurance and will be presented by Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada at an upcoming ceremony.

The Chinese Canadian Museum first opened on July 1, 2023, coinciding with the centennial of the Chinese Exclusion Act, as Canadas first museum to honour the contributions, history, heritage and the rich and diverse stories of past, present, and future Chinese Canadians. Located in Vancouver Chinatown in the historic Wing Sang Building, the museum showcases the diversity of the Chinese Canadian diaspora and heralds cultural experiences and connections to significant Chinese Canadian historical perspectives and modern-day narratives, and the communitys contribution to the nation.

It is with great honour that we receive this enormous accolade from the Governor General of Canada with the History Award for Excellence in Museums: History Alive!, recognizing our achievements and dedication to preserving our Chinese Canadian heritage, says Grace Wong, Board Chair of the Chinese Canadian Museum. This is a testament to the power of museums in shaping understanding, fostering dialogue, and inspiring future generations to appreciate the richness of Chinese Canadian history, stories, and our contributions to the building of Canada.

The museums powerful grand opening exhibition, The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act curated by Catherine Clement, marks the 100th anniversary of the Act, and takes an unflinching look at Canadas important but often-forgotten exclusion years, which lasted until 1947.

Since its founding as an independent, non-profit charitable organization in March 2020, the museum has presented six featured exhibitions at its main location and its two former temporary sites in Vancouver and Victoria, and offers numerous in-person and online programs to communities across Canada.

Our goal is to create a positive, inclusive and transformative place where people can gather to bridge cultures and generations, and learn about our shared history as Canadians, explains Dr. Melissa Karmen Lee, CEO of the Chinese Canadian Museum. This Governor General award is a reflection of our commitment to elevate Chinese Canadian voices, enrich our legacy, and engage with diverse communities across Canada.

The History Alive! award honours individuals or institutions that have made a significant achievement and remarkable contributions to a better knowledge of Canadian history. It encourages and celebrates excellence specifically in the presentation, preservation and interpretation of national, regional or local history. For more information on the Governor Generals History Award for Excellence in Museums: History Alive, visit https://www.canadashistory.ca/awards/governor-general-s-history-awards.

About the Chinese Canadian Museum | chinesecanadianmuseum.ca

The Chinese Canadian Museum Society of British Columbia is an independent, non-profit charitable organization founded in March 2020 to create a museum honouring and sharing Chinese Canadian history, contributions, and living heritage. Guided by its mission statement Connecting to Chinese Canadian stories  addressing inclusion for all, the Chinese Canadian Museum aspires to provide an invigorating and transformative experience for present and future generations through its exhibitions and educational programming throughout B.C. and Canada.

The first of its kind in Canada, the Chinese Canadian Museum opened to the public in 2023 and is located in the historic Wing Sang Building in Vancouver Chinatown.

Instagram: @ccmuseumbc Facebook: @ChineseCanadianMuseum Linkedin: @ChineseCanadianMuseum

Media contact: Yvonne Chiang, pr@chinesecanadianmuseum.ca

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Denver, Colo., Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The American Indian College Fund (College Fund) is hosting a free, online book and author event for the public featuring author Deborah Taffa on November 26 from 12-1 p.m. Mountain Standard Time. Taffa will discuss her new book, Whiskey Tender, with College Fund President, Cheryl Crazy Bull.

Taffa, a member of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and the Laguna Pueblo of New Mexico from her fathers side and Chicana from her mothers side, is director of the MFA in Creative Writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, a tribal college. Taffa wrote the acclaimed coming-of-age memoir Whiskey Tender, which was nominated for a 2024 National Book Award.

Her book shares her journey from the Yuma reservation in Southern California to Farmington, New Mexico after her father relocated for a job under the Indian Relocation Act. She details her struggles for acceptance while seeking to understand her connection to her Native culture, lands, and traditions, and how she came to appreciate her identity and resist assimilation and oppression.

Part of reclaiming our sovereignty as Native people is reclaiming the power to tell our own stories from a perspective that is a truer version of American history than

the one that gets told, Taffa says.

Whiskey Tender has received a slew of accolades from the Oprah Daily Best New Book to the New York Times New Book to Read, an Amazon Editors Best Book of the Month, and is a 2024 National Book Award finalist in nonfiction and a 2025 Carnegie Medal Nominee.

Visit https://engage.collegefund.org/page/73271/event/1 to register for the book discussion.

About the American Indian College Fund  The American Indian College Fund has been the nations largest charity supporting Native higher education for 35 years. The College Fund believes Education is the answer and provided $20.5 million in scholarships and other direct student support for access to a higher education that is steeped in Native culture and values to American Indian students in 2023-24. Since its founding in 1989 the College Fund has provided more than $349 million in scholarships, programs, community, and tribal college support. The College Fund also supports a variety of programs at the nations 34 accredited tribal colleges and universities, which are located on or near Indian reservations, ensuring students have the tools to graduate and succeed in their careers. The College Fund consistently receives top ratings from independent charity evaluators. It earned a four-star rating from Charity Navigator, a Gold Seal of Transparency from Guidestar, and the Best in America Seal of Excellence from the Independent Charities of America. The College Fund was also named as one of the nations top 100 charities to the Better Business Bureaus Wise Giving Alliance. For more information about the American Indian College Fund, please visit www.collegefund.org.

Photo  Deborah Taffa (Quechan (Yuma) Nation), author of Whiskey Tender.

Journalists The American Indian College Fund does not use the acronym AICF. On second reference, please use the College Fund.

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Lheidli Tenneh Territory (Prince George, BC), Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- For Immediate Release

November 14, 2024

Public Safety Canada has awarded BCFNJC five years of funding to develop and run a pre-charge pilot program that will divert Indigenous people from entering the justice system and instead offer pathways to healing and support.

Lheidli Tenneh Territory, Prince George, BC: The BC First Nations Justice Council (BCFNJC) is pleased to announce that a new pre-charge diversion pilot program in Prince George is in the initial stages of development with financial support through Public Safety Canadas Northern and Indigenous Crime Prevention Fund (NICPF).

The NICPF supports the adaptation, development, implementation and evaluation of innovative and promising culturally sensitive crime prevention practices and promotes community safety approaches in Indigenous communities both on and off-reserve and in the North.

The Prince George Pilot Program was designed with funding from the BC Ministry of Attorney General following a recommendation of the final investigative report into repeat offending and unprovoked attacks released by the Province in 2022. The pilot program aims to interrupt the escalating interactions that vulnerable Indigenous individuals have with law enforcement in Prince George and move towards a culturally sensitive crime prevention model that emphasizes traditional healing, long-term social work case management, and empowerment.

The vision of the pilot program is to advance the presumption of diversion (as articulated in the BC First Nation Justice Strategy) to divert individuals at the point of contact with police who may be experiencing unmet mental health and addictions needs, and housing and income insecurity. Diverted from the usual criminal justice sequence (i.e., charge, prosecution, incarceration, etc.), those who will access the pilot program will instead have rapid access to supportive services and be connected to a social worker over the long term. Where the necessary community-based supports do not exist, BCFNJC will use its tripartite partnership with British Columbia and Canada to identify gaps and find solutions outside the criminal justice system. This approach aims to help break cycles of reoffending, support and protect at-risk individuals, and ensure culturally appropriate, trauma-informed responses are supporting the healing pathways of Indigenous communities.

With the support and partnership of Public Safety Canada, BCFNJC is pleased to pilot a new direction for public safety and policing, grounded in Indigenous ways of healing that recognize the root causes of crime. The project team is currently engaging with the Lheidli Tenneh Nation, surrounding First Nations, urban Indigenous communities, and other local Indigenous groups to ensure the pilot respects their protocols and is informed by community needs. BCFNJCs goal is not to replace existing community services, but to support the communitys capacity to meet its diversion needs in a culturally appropriate manner.

Consultation is also currently underway with the Lheidli Tenneh Atsiyan InkE Atsoo Elders Society to ensure that the Prince George Pilot Program carries a meaningful and powerful name that is reflective of the territory on which this important diversion work will take place.

In partnership with Public Safety Canada, BCFNJC is excited to initiate the Prince George Pilot Program, which will transform how we treat and care for Indigenous people experiencing housing insecurity, poverty, and unmet mental health and addictions needs. We know that police use of force is not an appropriate or effective response to people in crisis, with police encounters often leading to harmful and costly entanglements with the legal system. The pilot program will instead divert people in need to culturally appropriate services in the community. This program will advance diversion, but it requires bold and courageous collaboration from Rightsholders, community service providers, and policing partners alike. We are ready to do this long overdue work in BC, which has proven successful in other jurisdictions nationally and internationally.  Kory Wilson, BCFNJC Chair.

The Northern Indigenous Crime Prevention Fund is an important initiative that can foster promising solutions to the challenges faced by our Indigenous communities. I am pleased that it is supporting this pilot program, which can offer insight to support communities across the country.  the Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan, President of the Kings Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Minister responsible for the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada

Quick Facts

The pilot program in Prince George will help uphold the presumption of diversion and Strategy 1 of the BC First Nations Justice Strategy. Strategy 1 aims to establish multiple checkpoints throughout the justice system where the presumption of diversion can be applied. This means that at every point in time, culturally appropriate alternative responses to the existing justice system are considered and Indigenous individuals are supported in ways that help them avoid future incarceration.

In August 2021, the Department of Justice Canada (JUS), the Government of BC and the BCFNJC signed an MOU, committing to work together to advance shared First Nations justice prioritiesincluding through the BC Strategy and Canadas development of a federal Indigenous Justice Strategy. In May 2023, Public Safety Canada joined JUS in signing on to the Tripartite MOU.

In October 2022, British Columbia received the final investigative report about the challenges of repeat offending and unprovoked attacks. Authors Dr. Amanda Butler and Doug LePard made 28 recommendations, including providing funding to BCFNJC to develop a pilot project to better support Indigenous people in Prince George who come into conflict with the law. BC will provide in kind support to the project through their participation on BCFNJCs Steering Committees.

The Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs established the Northern and Indigenous Crime Prevention Fund to support projects that fulfill objectives related to the adaptation, development, implementation, and evaluation of innovative and culturally sensitive crime prevention practices that will help reduce vulnerability to crime among at-risk Indigenous and northern populations.

The Lheidli Tenneh are the original caretakers of their lands, waterways and people, and their territory is home to a vibrant urban Indigenous community from many parts of BC and Canada. However, the traumatic experience of colonization and its complex web of injustices and indignities has led to a growing Indigenous population experiencing homelessness in Prince George, many of whom are women.

Prince George has been one of the cities hardest hit by B.C.s toxic drug crisis, regularly recording the highest death rate per capita. In 2022, 87 people died of toxic drugs in the city, an average of one person every four days, and many of them were Indigenous.

In B.C., one in five interactions with police involve someone with a mental-health disorder.

About the BCFNJC

The BC First Nations Justice Council (BCFNJC) was created by the BC Assembly of First Nations, the First Nations Summit, and the Union of BC Indian Chiefs who together form the First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC). BCFNJC represents BC First Nations on justice-related issues to bring about transformative change to the legal system. BCFNJC is guided by the unique and comprehensive BC First Nations Justice Strategy (the Strategy) which was jointly developed by the BC First Nations Justice Council, BC First Nations communities and the Province of British Columbia. The Strategy advances 25 individual strategies along two tracks of change: reforming the current criminal justice system and restoring Indigenous justice systems, legal traditions, and structures.

Today, BCFNJC is a dynamic, expanding non-profit organization that is making a powerful, enduring mark on the justice landscape. Guided by the vision and voices of Indigenous leadership, including our Elders and Knowledge Keepers, we employ over 150 people with diverse professional, cultural, and community expertise who are working hard to implement the Justice Strategy and advance Indigenous self-determination over justice. With the direction and support of First Nations communities, work will continue to transform the mainstream colonial justice system and champion innovative, Indigenous-led justice solutions. Visit Tracking Justice for more information.

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NEW YORK, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Sysco Corporation (NYSE:SYY), the worlds largest food distributor, presented a check for $10,000 to City Harvest, New Yorks first and largest food rescue organization, to support the community where Sysco operates. Syscos donation is part of the companys signature Nourishing Neighbors program where a portion of the proceeds from each Sysco branded case sold in local communities is donated back to charitable organizations in those communities.

This is an important time of year for food banks and pantries as they gear up to feed those in need this holiday season. Sysco Metro New York also delivered 2,500 turkeys to City Harvest to be distributed through local distribution events across the city this month. As part of Syscos annual Purpose Month, a month dedicated to volunteerism, Sysco colleagues are volunteering at the Child Development Support Corporation in Brooklyn to distribute some of the turkeys through the food bank and feed the community this Thanksgiving.

We have a responsibility and unique opportunity to give back to the communities that have supported us through our Nourishing Neighbors program. We are honored to make this donation to City Harvest and help serve our community this holiday season. This is Syscos purpose  connecting the world to share food and care for one another, says Anthony Ventresca, Sysco Metro New York Region President.

Thanks to this generous donation from Sysco, thousands of families across New York City will be able to gather for a Thanksgiving meal this year, says Carlos Rodriguez, City Harvests Chief Policy and Operations Officer. This support comes at a critical time, with visits to New York City soup kitchens and food pantries at a record high.

The need for food assistance in New York City is up 82% compared to pre-pandemic, and about 50% of working-age New York City households are struggling to make ends meet.

Learn more about Syscos sustainability and community efforts by visiting sysco.com/sustainability.

About Sysco

Sysco is the global leader in selling, marketing and distributing food products to restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities, lodging establishments and other customers who prepare meals away from home. Its family of products also includes equipment and supplies for the foodservice and hospitality industries. With more than 76,000 colleagues, the company operates 340 distribution facilities worldwide and serves approximately 730,000 customer locations. For fiscal year 2024 that ended June 29, 2024, the company generated sales of more than $78 billion. Information about our Sustainability program, including Syscos 2023 Sustainability Report and 2023 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Report, can be found at www.sysco.com .

For more information, visit www.sysco.com or connect with Sysco on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SyscoFoods . For important news and information regarding Sysco, visit the Investor Relations section of the companys Internet home page at investors.sysco.com , which Sysco plans to use as a primary channel for publishing key information to its investors, some of which may contain material and previously non-public information. In addition, investors should continue to review our news releases and filings with the SEC. It is possible that the information we disclose through any of these channels of distribution could be deemed to be material information.

For more information contact:

Cassandra Mauel

Media Contact

cassandra.mauel@sysco.com

T 281-584-4059

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MIAMI, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- For Fusion CBD Products, the green gold rush is just getting started. Ans as the company continues to expand its offering, its targeting a new demographic: dogs. They dont have any spending power or money, but theyre lapping up Wiggles & Paws CBD treats and pet oil. Heres why the company chose to move into providing CBD products for animals.

Since launching its first line of flavored oils in 2018, Fusion CBD Products has been offering an ever-growing variety of CBD for sale online, including gummies, tinctures, rubs, coffee infusions and even sprays. As public awareness and understanding of CBD continues to grow, and as people increasingly seek it out for its anti-anxiety and discomfort-relieving properties, the brand saw an opportunity to offer the same benefits to their customers four-legged friends.

Wiggles & Paws products are simple, and cater to the needs of pet owners who want to use CBD for dogs without a hassle. As many dog owners know, our furry friends love to lap up any scrap thats dropped on the floor, just like they love to roll in, sniff and eat any stinky things they can find on a walk. But trying to get them to take a vitamin or a pill? Thats another story.

According to Fusion, CBD for pets had to be simpler than the old trick of slathering capsules in peanut butter or wrapping them in ham. It had to be something dogs would enjoy taking, and not something that their owners would need to chase them around the house about. In short, the companys vision of its products was similar to its fruit-flavored CBD gummies for humans; the CBD for dogs should come in a delivery system that was delicious, and rewarding in itself.

Enter Wiggles & Paws CBD-infused dog treats, a natural, vegan, non-GMO way for owners to support their pets immune health and wellness. Made with apple sauce, almond butter and coconut flour, these CBD treats for dogs are a simple way for owners to support stress relief, immune health and even joint health in their pets.

But what about owners who needed a more versatile way to provide CBD to their pets? And what about cat people? Fusion CBD Products answer was a specially formulated oil for pets, Wiggles & Paws pet drops. Like the treats, the delivery system is subtle and effective; however, the upside of this oil is that unlike the treats, it has no flavor, and wont interfere with the taste of their food or water.

With these two pet-friendly CBD products, the company had set out to appeal to pets. But what about their owners? Many people have questions about using cannabidiol for mans best friend, which can create confusion. A simple online search reveals questions like Is CBD safe for pets? and Can I give my dog CBD? Luckily, sources including the Humane Society have confirmed that CBD is safe for animals  with the caveat that owners should always consult a veterinarian before using the substance for their pet.

Fusion has added to this educational literature on their blog about CBD, where they educate customers who want to buy CBD online about the different uses of the substance. In their most recent articles, Exploring the health benefits of CBD treats for dogs and How CBD for dogs can relieve anxiety in your pet, the brand explored the different ways pooches could benefit from cannabidiol.

The primary benefit cited was anxiety relief. As a recent article begins, What do fireworks, vacuum cleaners and thunderstorms have in common? If youre an animal person, you probably knew the answer right away: they can all cause dogs anxiety. It goes on to explain how CBD may help relieve situational anxietythe aforementioned anxiety surrounding loud noises and situationsand long-term anxiety for dogs who are already prone to stress. In the form of treats for dogs, CBD is especially useful as it can easily be carried and administered as needed (after, of course, a sit! or a stay!).

However, pet owners shopping for CBD online should be aware of a crucial detail. High-quality CBD for dogs, like Fusions Wiggles & Paws products, contains no THC. Also known as tetrahydrocannabinol, this infamous compound is found in cannabis and the hemp plant, and is responsible for their psychoactive effectsin other words, its the cause of the high.

Many people who want to buy CBD worry about the substance getting their pets high; but thats not the most important reason to buy CBD for pets without THC. The bigger issue is that tetrahydrocannabinol is actually poisonous for pets, meaning that choosing the wrong kind can have much more serious consequences than a buzz.

Thats why Fusion CBD Products committed to producing CBD designed specifically for pets, and making the reason for the difference clear. CBD typically comes in three forms: isolate, which contains only cannabidiol and no other substances from the hemp plant whatsoever; broad-spectrum, which contains only cannabidiol and some other compounds, including terpenes and potentially trace amounts of THC. Finally, theres full-spectrum, which contains all of the above, as well as small amounts of THC.

The confusion around THC content and the risk involved for dogs makes it extremely important to only shop for CBD thats specially designed for pets, as opposed to using products designed for humans. It also underscores why its so important to choose reputable, safe companies that advertise transparently and provide easy-to-access information about their products.

Thats why Fusion CBD Products manufactures its offering in the USA using the highest-quality hemp available on the market. Grown in the United States and processed in FDA-approved and GMP-certified facilities, the hemp is also organic and GMO-free, solidifying Fusions commitment to providing safe, natural solutions to its customers and to the animals they love.

Fusion CBD Products is based in Miami, Florida.

Media Contact:

Fusion CBD Products

sales@fusioncbdproducts.com



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TORONTO, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Base Carbon Inc. (Cboe CA: BCBN) (OTCQX: BCBNF) with operations through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Base Carbon Capital Partners Corp. (BCCPC, together, with affiliates, Base Carbon, or the Company), is pleased to announce its third-quarter 2024 consolidated financial results and operational highlights. All financial references are denominated in U.S. dollars, unless otherwise noted.

Base Carbon has continued to execute commercially, having achieved multiple key milestones in recent months. During the third quarter, the Company received over $11 million in cash proceeds from the sale of carbon credits. Last month, we achieved completion of planting of all 6.5 million trees for the India ARR project and from our Rwanda project the Company was issued over 1 million additional carbon credits. The Company currently has a total inventory of over 1.7 million Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits on balance sheet, and as we move through Q4 and look forward to 2025, we continue to be encouraged by recent positive market developments applicable to our curated portfolio of carbon projects and short-term credit inventories, said Michael Costa, Chief Executive Officer of Base Carbon.

Company Highlights:

Received payments totalling approximately $11.2 million from the sale of carbon credits generated from the Vietnam and Rwanda projects.





Received total payments of approximately $30.0 million from the Vietnam project to date, representing full capital expenditure payback and initial returns on invested capital of approximately $9.2 million (or 43.9%) within 27 months of first dollar deployment.





Subsequent to quarter-end, received 1,014,635 Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits from the Rwanda project. The Company now holds a current inventory of 1,712,193 Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits.





Achieved key India ARR project milestone with completion of planting all 6.5 million planned project trees which are expected to generate 1.6 million carbon credits over the project life with first credit production expected in 2025.





As of September 30, 2024, the Company had total assets of $126.9 million, including $13.6 million in cash and cash equivalents, $9.2 million in carbon credit inventory and $101.4 million in investments in carbon credit projects.

Financial Highlights:

(in thousands of United States Dollars) Three months ended Three months ended September 30, 2024 September 30, 2023 Gain on investments in carbon credit projects $2,161 - Loss on carbon credit sales (79) - Total operating expenses (1,783) (1,679) Operating income (loss) for the period 299 (1,679) Net income (loss) before income tax 360 (1,745) Income tax recovery (expense) (299) - Net income (loss) for the period 61 (1,745) Basic income (loss) per share 0.00 (0.01) Diluted income (loss) per share $0.00 $(0.01)





(in thousands of United States Dollars) September 30, 2024 December 31, 2023 Cash and Cash Equivalents $13,550 $1,401 Carbon credit inventory 9,161 - Current investment in carbon credit projects 24,468 34,813 Non-current investment in carbon credit projects 76,904 102,273 Total Assets $126,858 $141,243



Vietnam Household Devices Project Update

Including a payment of approximately $11.0 million received during the quarter, as of September 2024, Base Carbon has received approximately $30.0 million from the contracted sale of carbon credits generated from the Vietnam project, achieving full payback of the Companys capital investment of approximately $20.8 million and a significant initial capital return of approximately $9.2 million, or 43.9%.

The Company expects additional proceeds of approximately $6.3 million in future payments from the project off-take arrangement within the next 12 months.

The Company has no further unfunded capital commitments to the Vietnam project.

Rwanda Cookstoves Project Update

In August 2024, the Company completed an initial market sale of 20,000 carbon credits generated from its Rwanda project. The sale was designed as a market-based test-trade to ensure commercial capabilities. This initial test-trade represented less than 3% of the initial carbon credits issued to the Company as of the sale date. As of September 30, 2024, the Company held a carbon credit inventory of 697,558 Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits from the Rwanda project with a carrying value of $9,160,919.

Subsequent to the quarter-end, in October 2024, the Company received its second issuance of carbon credits from the Rwanda project when project developer the DelAgua Group transferred 1,014,635 Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits to the Company. The Company now holds an inventory of 1,712,193 Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits.

The Company has no further unfunded capital commitments to the Rwanda project.

In October 2024, Verra, the carbon registry for the Companys projects, announced a significant milestone with the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organizations (ICAO) approval of the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program for the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), anticipated to broaden the Companys opportunities to participate in the market. For further details, see Verras press release.

India Afforestation, Reforestation, and Revegetation (ARR) Project Update

The Company, through BCCPC, executed a project agreement with Value Network Ventures Advisory Services Pte Ltd. to fund an expected $13.6 million related to the reforestation of degraded rural farmlands in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Subsequent to the quarter-end, the Company announced the completion of planting all 6.5 million planned project trees representing the achievement of a key project milestone. The project is expected to generate 1.6 million high-quality nature-based removal carbon credits over an expected 20-year project life with the first carbon credit issuance expected in 2025.

As of September 30, 2024, Base Carbon has funded 43% of the committed project capital with all further capital commitment funding tied to achievement of specific project milestones. Project validation is ongoing with Verra, the carbon registry, with completion of the validation process expected early in the first quarter of 2025.

About Base Carbon

Base Carbon is a financier of projects involved primarily in the global voluntary carbon markets. We endeavor to be the preferred carbon project partner in providing capital and management resources to carbon removal and abatement projects globally and, where appropriate, will utilize technologies within the evolving environmental industries to enhance efficiencies, commercial credibility, and trading transparency. For more information, please visit www.basecarbon.com.

Media and Investor Inquiries

Base Carbon Inc.

Investor Relations

Tel: +1 647 952 3979

E-mail: investorrelations@basecarbon.com

Media Inquiries

E-mail: media@basecarbon.com

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws relating to the focus of Base Carbons business, the expected issuance, and timing, of carbon credits, the application of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and the Article 6 Authorized Label and market reaction thereto, the receipt of proceeds from the disposition of carbon credits, the implementation of the CORSIA framework and eligibility of carbon credits thereunder, including carbon credits generated by the Companys projects, and the timing of project validation and continued development of the India project. In some cases, but not necessarily in all cases, forward-looking information may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as expects, anticipates, intends, contemplates, believes, projects, plans or variations of such words and similar expressions or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might, will or will be taken, occur or be achieved. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts but instead represent managements expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance, results, or achievements.

Although management believes that the anticipated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information are based upon reasonable assumptions and expectations, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information because it involves assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from anticipated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information.

In respect of the Rwanda cookstoves project and the Vietnam household devices project, certain factors that influence the commercial success of such projects, including the timing and number of expected carbon credits, include among other things: (i) the Company has retained industry leading experts/consultants/advisors to assist with the evaluation, planning, negotiation and execution of such projects, (ii) the work product, including monitoring reports, of each projects validation and verification body, (iii) project carbon credit market prices, (iv) the verification of ongoing project monitoring reports and issuance of carbon credits by Verra, (v) changes to laws, regulation or policies in applicable jurisdictions, and (vi) the Company has sufficient funds on hand to make any required carbon credit purchase price payments.

In respect of the Rwanda cookstoves project and the Vietnam household devices project, certain assumptions that influence the commercial success of such projects, including the timing and number of expected carbon credits, include among other things: (i) distributed cookstoves and water purifiers perform to specification when used and participating households use the devices as contemplated by project estimates, (ii) the Companys in-country project partners, being the DelAgua Group in the case of the Rwanda cookstoves project and SIPCO and the project offtaker in the case of the Vietnam household devices project, perform their obligations in connection with the development and operation of the projects, and (iii) continued participant involvement and public support, including that of applicable governmental authorities, of the voluntary carbon market.

In respect of the India afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation project, certain factors that influence the commercial success of the project include, among other things: (i) the Companys expertise with respect to the evaluation, planning and negotiation of the project, (ii) the conduct of the project counterparties, including cooperation with local small-land owners, (iii) project costs and carbon credit market prices, (iv) ongoing project monitoring and issuance of carbon credits by Verra, (v) changes to laws and regulation in the Republic of India, and (vi) extreme weather event and natural disasters.

In respect of the India afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation project, certain assumptions that influence the commercial success of the project include, among other things: (i) the development the project remains in line with anticipated timelines and costs, (ii) project counterparties, including project partner Value Network Ventures Advisory Services Pte Ltd., its subcontractors and local small-land owners, perform their contractual and/or standard operating procedures, (iii) the survival of trees, (iv) the growth rates of trees are consistent with the expectations under the project which is then reflected by monitor reports accepted by Verra, (v) the Company has sufficient funds to satisfy its capital commitments, and (vi) continued participant involvement and public support of the voluntary carbon market.

The forward-looking statements made herein are subject to a variety of risk factors and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Companys control, which could cause actual events or results to differ materially and adversely from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Specific reference is made to the managements discussion and analysis for the Companys third quarter ended September 30, 2024 and the most recent Annual Information Form on file with the Canadian provincial securities regulatory authorities (and available on www.sedarplus.ca) for a more detailed discussion of some of the factors underlying forward-looking statements and the risks that may affect the Companys ability to achieve the expectations set forth in the forward-looking statements contained in this press release.

Should one or more of the risks and uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual events or results may vary materially and adversely from those described in the forward-looking information. The forward-looking information contained in this press release is provided as of the date of this press release, and the Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements containing any forward-looking information, or the factors or assumptions underlying them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
Investors can contact the law firm at no cost to learn more about recovering their losses

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Portnoy Law Firm advises Cummins Inc. ("Cummins" or the "Company") (NYSE: CMI) investors of a class action representing investors that bought securities between April 30, 2019 to December 21, 2023, inclusive (the "Class Period"). Cummins investors have until December 2, 2024 to file a lead plaintiff motion.

Investors are encouraged to contact attorney Lesley F. Portnoy, by phone 310-692-8883 or email: lesley@portnoylaw.com, to discuss their legal rights, or click here to join the case. The Portnoy Law Firm can provide a complimentary case evaluation and discuss investors options for pursuing claims to recover their losses.

On December 22, 2023, prior to the market opening, Cummins issued a Form 8-K announcing that it had reached an agreement in principle with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and the California Attorney Generals Office. This agreement aimed to resolve civil claims regarding Cummins emissions certification and compliance processes for specific engines used in pickup trucks in the U.S. As part of the settlement, Cummins expected to incur a charge of $2.04 billion in Q4 2023, in addition to other minor charges.

On the same day, the DOJ released a statement accusing Cummins of installing illegal emissions defeat devices on approximately 630,000 RAM 2500 and 3500 pickup truck engines from the 20132019 model years, along with undisclosed auxiliary emission control devices on 330,000 engines from the 20192023 model years. The DOJ highlighted that the settlement represented the largest civil penalty ever imposed for a violation of the Clean Air Act. Attorney General Merrick Garland emphasized that the agreement held Cummins accountable for allegedly bypassing emissions tests, which could lead to significant health risks due to elevated nitrogen oxide emissions.

In response to the announcement, Cummins stock price dropped by $7.01 per share, or 2.87%, falling from $244.00 on December 21, 2023, to $236.99 on December 22, 2023.

The ensuing lawsuit claims that Cummins made materially false and misleading statements, and failed to disclose key information, specifically: (1) despite prior assurances following its 2019 announcement regarding emissions compliance, Cummins continued to produce engines with illegal emissions defeat devices between 2019 and 2023, and (2) as a result, the company understated its legal and regulatory risks, while overstating its commitment to environmental compliance.

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The Portnoy Law Firm represents investors in pursuing claims against caused by corporate wrongdoing. The Firms founding partner has recovered over $5.5 billion for aggrieved investors. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

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Admitted CA and NY Bar

lesley@portnoylaw.com

310-692-8883

www.portnoylaw.com

Attorney Advertising
Vancouver, November 13, 2024 - Quebec Nickel Corp. (CSE: QNI) (FSE: 7lB) (OTCQB: QNICF) ("QNI" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has closed its previously announced private placement offering (the "Offering") by issuing 2,000,000 units (the "Units") of the Company at a price of $0.125 per Unit for aggregate gross proceeds of $250,000.

Each Unit consisted of one common share (the "Share") and one-half of one share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant") exercisable for a period of two years. Each whole Warrant is exercisable into one Share at a price of $0.225 per Share.

The Units were offered to existing shareholders under British Columbia Instrument 45-534 - Exemption from Prospectus Requirement for Certain Trades to Existing Security Holders, and equivalent provisions of applicable securities laws in other jurisdictions of Canada and be subject to a statutory hold period of four months and one day from the date of issuance.

No finder's fees were payable in connection with the Offering. No directors or officers participated in the Offering.

The proposed net proceeds received from the Offering are intended to be used by the Company for general working capital purposes.

The securities issued pursuant to the Offering have not, nor will they be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons in the absence of U.S. registration or an applicable exemption from the U.S. 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 in any other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

About Quebec Nickel Corp.

Quebec Nickel Corp. is a mineral exploration company focused on acquiring, exploring, and developing critical metals (Ni-Cu-Co-PGE) projects in Quebec, Canada. Additional information about Quebec Nickel Corp. is available at www.quebecnickel.com.

The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Neither the CSE nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

CAUTIONARY AND FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market, or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates, and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates, opinions, or other factors should change.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229884
Vancouver, November 13, 2024 - Atomic Minerals Corp. (TSXV: ATOM) ("Atomic" or the "Company") wishes to clarify the exploration schedule for the Bleasdale Lake Project ("Bleasdell Lake") in the previous news release dated November 13, 2024 disseminated earlier today. Permits are currently in process and expected to be finalized shortly, with the Company's main objective being to mobilize on the property and commence drilling in December as quickly as possible. The Company regrets any confusion that may have been created by the previous inaccurate new release.

The Bleasdell Lake project is located approximately 95 kilometers southwest of Lynn Lake, Manitoba, Atomic Minerals is advancing toward obtaining a multi-year permit for ground-based geophysics and up to 4,000 meters of diamond drilling. The exploration program will focus on three newly identified uranium target zones in addition to the historically drilled Horn and Jackpine zones. These areas are known for uranium-bearing pegmatite dykes. Historic trenching returned 91m averaging 0.12% U3O8 over 2.56m and 33.5m averaging 0.62% U3O8 over 1.21m. Drilling beneath the trenching identified a 1957 historic resource of 620,700 pounds of U3O8 (triuranium octoxide), identified within the Horn and Jackpine zones.

This historic estimate was originally reported in a shareholder report for Columbia Metals Exploration Co. Ltd. dated Nov. 9, 1957. The estimate, which was calculated using the standards of the time, is based on data from closely spaced shallow drill holes and more widely spaced deeper drill holes. While the historic resource is considered relevant to the potential of the Bleasdell Lake property, there is no technical report, and the calculations, methods and parameters used were not disclosed in the shareholder report. Consequently, a qualified person has not completed sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as a current mineral resource.

The Company acknowledges that, to upgrade or verify the historical estimate as a current mineral resource, significant twinning of the historic drill holes will be necessary. As such, Atomic is not treating the historical estimate as a current mineral resource at this time.

For more information on Atomic Minerals Corporation and the Bleasdell Lake Project, please visit Atomic Minerals Corp. Northern Saskatchewan Projects.

Technical Information

The exploration and drilling results referenced in this release are based on historical data, which Atomic Minerals is utilizing as a foundation for its current and future exploration strategies. The Company has not independently verified the sampling or analysis of this historical data. Planned exploration and drilling at Bleasdell Lake are expected to validate these historical findings and enhance Atomic Minerals' understanding of the uranium potential at the site.

Qualified Person

Mr. R. Tim Henneberry, P.Geo. (BC), an advisor to the Company, is the "Qualified Person" under National Instrument 43-101 responsible for the technical contents of this news release and has approved the disclosure of the technical information contained herein.

About the Company

Atomic Minerals Corp. is a publicly listed exploration company on the TSX Venture Exchange, trading under the symbol ATOM, led by a highly skilled management and technical team with a proven track record in the junior mining sector. Atomic Minerals' objective is to identify exploration opportunities in regions that have been previously overlooked but are geologically similar to those with previous uranium discoveries. These underexplored areas hold immense potential and are in stable geopolitical and economic environments.

Atomic Minerals' property portfolio contains uranium projects in three locations within North America, all of which have significant technical merit and/or are known for hosting uranium production in the past. Three of the properties are located on the Colorado Plateau, an area that has previously produced 597 million pounds of U 3 O 8 (triuranium octoxide). Six properties, comprising nine claims totaling 6,498 hectares, are located in Northern Saskatchewan: five within or proximal to the prolific Athabasca basin and a sixth that hosts a historic resource.

For additional information about the Company and its projects, please visit our website at www.atomicminerals.ca

Please download the Atomic Minerals Corporate Presentation

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

"Clive Massey"

Clive H. Massey

President & CEO

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor their 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 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 Atomic Minerals Corporation 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 Atomic Minerals Corporation management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by law, Atomic Minerals Corporation undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

###

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229907
KELLOG, Nov. 13, 2024 - Bunker Hill Mining Corp. ("Bunker Hill" or the "Company") (TSX-V:BNKR | OTCQB:BHLL) announces that it has closed the fourth tranche of the previously announced silver loan with Monetary Metals Bond III LLC (the "LLC"), an entity established by Monetary Metals & Co. ("MM"), in the principal amount of US$1,250,000, being the amount of US dollars equal to 39,619.6513 ounces of silver as of the date such amount was advanced to the LLC (the "Fourth Tranche").

President and CEO Sam Ash stated, "Thanks to the backing of our valued partners, notably Monetary Metals and the exceptional Silver Valley community, we are making steady progress on the new Bunker Hill mine. Our ongoing drill campaign has revealed promising opportunities, allowing us to refine our restart plan for the first half of 2025. This optimization ensures we are well-positioned to maximize the mine's potential upon reopening."

Construction of the concentrator nears completion, with approximately 98% of its components on site ready for installation. The concrete foundations of the tailings filter press are being set, and the construction of the tails thickener tanks has started. Bunker Hill continues to advance the underground drilling required to inform an updated resource statement in the first quarter of 2025.

Concurrently, the company is preparing to start a new drill program focused on the high-grade silver target in the upper level of the mine described in the news release dated October 22, 2024, while also conducting the preliminary work required to unlock the US EXIM finance in the second half of 2025.

As further described in the news releases dated June 7, 2024 and August 8, 2024, MM, through the LLC, has agreed to loan the Company a principal amount of US dollars equal to up to 1.2 million ounces of silver to be advanced in one or more tranches, in support of the re-start and ongoing development of the Bunker Hill Mine (the "Silver Loan"). On August 8, 2024, the Company closed on the first tranche of the Silver Loan in the principal amount of US$16,422,039, being the amount of US dollars equal to 609,805 ounces of silver (the "First Tranche") and on September 24, 2024, the Company closed on the second tranche of the Silver Loan in the principal amount of US$6,369,000, being the amount of US dollars equal to 200,000 ounces of silver (the "Second Tranche"). As described in the news release dated November 6, 2024, an additional principal amount of US$6,321,112, the amount of US dollars equal to 198,777 ounces of silver, was advanced in connection with the Silver Loan (the "Third Tranche").

As further described in the news releases dated August 8, 2024 and September 25, 2024, the Company has issued to MM: (i) 1,280,591 non-transferable bonus share purchase warrants ("Warrants") in connection with First Tranche; and (ii) 400,000 Warrants in connection with the Second Tranche. In connection with the Third Tranche and the Fourth Tranche, the Company will, subject to prior approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSX-V"), issue a total of 476,793 Warrants to MM (the "Bonus Warrants"). Each Bonus Warrant will entitle the holder to acquire one share of common stock of the Company (each, a "Warrant Share") at an exercise price of C$0.12, being equal to the last closing price of the Company's common stock. The Bonus Warrants will be exercisable until August 8, 2027, subject to acceleration in accordance with the policies of the TSX-V and will be subject to a hold period of four months and one day from the issuance of the Bonus Warrants in accordance with applicable securities laws. The issuance of Warrant Shares is subject to the terms and conditions of the Warrants as well as the receipt of all regulatory approvals, including, without limitation, the approval of TSX-V.

The securities referenced herein or any securities underlying or derived from the financial instruments referenced herein, including but not limited to the Warrants, the Warrant Shares, and the Silver Loan, have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"). This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy such securities, nor shall there be any sale of such securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.



ABOUT BUNKER HILL MINING CORP.

Bunker Hill Mining Corp., under the guidance of its Idaho-based leadership team, is embarking on a strategic initiative to revitalize and develop the Bunker Hill Mine. This endeavor represents the initial phase of a comprehensive plan to consolidate and optimize multiple mining assets and create a high-value operational portfolio primarily focused in North America. Detailed information regarding the company's activities and objectives can be accessed through its official website, www.bunkerhillmining.com, as well as through the SEDAR+ and EDGAR databases, which provide comprehensive financial and regulatory disclosures.

On behalf of Bunker Hill Mining Corp.

Sam Ash

President and Chief Executive Officer

For additional information, please contact:

Brenda Dayton

Vice President, Investor Relations

T: 604.417.7952

E: brenda.dayton@bunkerhillmining.com

Cautionary Statements

Neither the TSX-V nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Certain statements in this news release are forward-looking and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements are within the meaning of that term in Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, as well as within the meaning of the phrase 'forward-looking information' in the Canadian Securities Administrators' National Instrument 51-102 - Continuous Disclosure Obligations (collectively, "forward-looking statements"). Forward-looking statements are not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking statements include estimates and statements that describe the Company's future plans, objectives or goals, including words to the effect that the Company or management expects a stated condition or result to occur. Forward-looking statements may be identified by such terms as "believes", "anticipates", "expects", "estimates", "may", "could", "would", "will", "plan" or variations of such words and phrases.

Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding: the Company's objectives, goals or future plans, including the restart and development of the Bunker Hill Mine; the achievement of future short-term, medium-term and long-term operational strategies; the Silver Loan; the Company receiving TSX-V approval for the issuance of the Warrants and the Warrant Shares; and the timing and advancement of additional tranches of the Silver Loan and additional Warrants. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those risks and uncertainties identified in public filings made by Bunker Hill with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") and with applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities, and the following: the Company not receiving the approval of the TSX-V for the issuance of the Warrants and the Warrant Shares; the Company's inability to raise additional capital for project activities, including through equity financings, concentrate offtake financings or otherwise; the fluctuating price of commodities; capital market conditions; restrictions on labor and its effects on international travel and supply chains; failure to identify mineral resources; failure to convert estimated mineral resources to reserves; the preliminary nature of metallurgical test results; the Company's ability to restart and develop the Bunker Hill Mine and the risks of not basing a production decision on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability, resulting in increased uncertainty due to multiple technical and economic risks of failure which are associated with this production decision including, among others, areas that are analyzed in more detail in a feasibility study, such as applying economic analysis to resources and reserves, more detailed metallurgy and a number of specialized studies in areas such as mining and recovery methods, market analysis, and environmental and community impacts and, as a result, there may be an increased uncertainty of achieving any particular level of recovery of minerals or the cost of such recovery, including increased risks associated with developing a commercially mineable deposit, with no guarantee that production will begin as anticipated or at all or that anticipated production costs will be achieved; failure to commence production would have a material adverse impact on the Company's ability to generate revenue and cash flow to fund operations; failure to achieve the anticipated production costs would have a material adverse impact on the Company's cash flow and future profitability; delays in obtaining or failures to obtain required governmental, environmental or other project approvals; political risks; changes in equity markets; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future; the inability of the Company to budget and manage its liquidity in light of the failure to obtain additional financing, including the ability of the Company to complete the payments pursuant to the terms of the agreement to acquire the Bunker Hill Mine complex; inflation; changes in exchange rates; fluctuations in commodity prices; delays in the development of projects; and capital, operating and reclamation costs varying significantly from estimates and the other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking statements in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such statements or information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all, including as to whether or when the Company will achieve its project finance initiatives, or as to the actual size or terms of those financing initiatives. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.

Readers are cautioned that the foregoing risks and uncertainties are not exhaustive. Additional information on these and other risk factors that could affect the Company's operations or financial results are included in the Company's annual report and may be accessed through the SEDAR+ website (www.sedarplus.ca) or through EDGAR on the SEC website (www.sec.gov).
Vancouver, November 14, 2024 - Ximen Mining Corp. (TSXV: XIM) (FSE: 1XM) (OTC: XXMMF) (the "Company" or "Ximen") announces it has completed hole 8 and is concluding its drill program at the Brett epithermal gold project near Vernon in southern BC.





Photo of Ximen's drill rig at hole B24-08 on the Brett Epithermal Gold Property



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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Hole B24-08 was drilled from the same collar location as holes 5, 6 and 7 but was drilled to the northwest to test the extent of the West Zone alteration zone (see Figure 1). The hole passed approximately 100 meters along strike northwest of the visible gold intercept in hole 7.





Figure 1. Plan view of hole B24-08 (left) and cross-section (right)

Hole was drilled to test the extent of the West Zone alteration towards the west



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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Hole B24-08 intersected volcanic rocks throughout the hole, including massive basalt, basalt breccia and ash and lapilli tuff. An oxidized leached zone of argillic alteration was intersected from the top of bedrock at 4.5 meters to 8.3 meters depth. Multiple zones of intense clay-silica alteration with clay-gouge faults and silica-pyrite mineralization in veinlets and as breccia matrix were intersected, totalling 68.3 meters or 35% of the hole. The breccia is characterized in places by wavy and circular concentric bands of silica and pyrite (see pictures below) and is interpreted to be a highly altered volcanic breccia.





Photos of silica-pyrite alteration and breccia in core from hole B24-08



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The initial oxidized zone intersected in hole B24-08 correlates with weathered and argillic altered volcanic rocks in the tops of holes 5, 6 and 7. The underlying extensive zones of intense hydrothermal alteration and silica-pyrite veining and breccia appear to be characteristic of the West Zone. Hole 8 further demonstrates that the West Zone is a major alteration zone containing all the typical features of gold-bearing zones at the Brett property.





Map showing the location of Mineralized Zones at the Brett Project



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Hole 8 completes the 2024 drill program at the Brett property, with a total of 1,356.5 meters having been drilled. The drilling equipment will be demobilized before winter conditions set in, and core cutting and sampling will continue at the site. The initial objective of the drill program was to extend the Main Zone to the southeast and at depth, and to test altered zones that border and parallel the Main Zone. Recognition of extensive alteration and the discovery of visible gold mineralization in hole 7 in the West Zone shifted the focus for 2024 to this zone.

The Brett project (20,043 hectares) covers low-sulfidation epithermal-style gold mineralization hosted in Eocene Penticton Group volcanic rocks. Epithermal-style gold mineralization was discovered in 1983, and a 291 tonne surface bulk sample was shipped to the smelter at Trail, BC in the 1990's that averaged 27.74 grams per tonne gold and 63.7 grams per tonne silver (Brett 2017 NI 43-101 report). Multiple zones of mineralization occur over a two kilometer strike, including both bulk-mineable and bonanza high grade styles. Ximen conducted LiDAR and airborne magnetic surveys over parts of the Brett property in 2022.

Readers are cautioned that historical records referred to in this News Release have been examined but not verified by a Qualified Person. Further work is required to verify that historical records referred to in this News Release are accurate.

Dr. Mathew Ball, P.Geo., VP Exploration for Ximen Mining Corp. and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, approved the technical information contained in this News Release.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

"Christopher R. Anderson"

About Ximen Mining Corp.

Ximen Mining Corp. owns 100% interest in three of its precious metal projects located in southern BC. Ximen`s two Gold projects, The Amelia Gold Mine and The Brett Epithermal Gold Project. Ximen also owns the Treasure Mountain Silver Project adjacent to the past producing Huldra Silver Mine. Currently, the Treasure Mountain Silver Project is under an option agreement. The option partner is making annual staged cash and stocks payments as well as funding the development of the project. The company has also acquired control of the Kenville Gold mine near Nelson British Columbia which comes with surface and underground rights, buildings and equipment. Ximen is a publicly listed company trading on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol XIM, in the USA under the symbol XXMMF, and in Frankfurt, Munich, and Berlin Stock Exchanges in Germany under the symbol 1XM and WKN with the number as A2JBKL.

This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, including statements regarding the receipt of TSX Venture Exchange approval and the exercise of the Option by Ximen. 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 statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "potential," "goal," "objective," "prospective," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include the possibility that the TSX Venture Exchange may not accept the proposed transaction in a timely manner, if at all. The reader is urged to refer to the Company's reports, publicly available through the Canadian Securities Administrators' System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) at www.sedar.com for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, 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.

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.

Ximen Mining Corp

888 Dunsmuir Street - Suite 888, Vancouver, B.C., V6C 3K4 Tel: 604-488-3900

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229830
Perth, November 14, 2024 - Golden Horse Minerals Ltd., (TSXV: GHML) ("Golden Horse" or the "Company") is pleased to announce its Australian initial public offering ("IPO" or "Offer") to raise a minimum of A$16 million and maximum of A$18 million (before costs) has closed early and oversubscribed, successfully raising the maximum amount of A$18 million.

The Offer closed on Thursday 14 November 2024 at 10.00am AEDT, ahead of its scheduled close of 8.00pm AEDT on Friday, 15 November 2024.

As previously stated, the funds raised from the Offer will be used by Golden Horse to leverage its strategic position in the Southern Cross Greenstone Belt, one of Australia's most prolific gold-producing regions. The Company's Southern Cross Project spans over 130 kilometres and presents both advanced and untapped exploration opportunities offering the Company a district-scale opportunity for significant discoveries.

Managing Director and CEO Nicholas Anderson said: "We have been overwhelmed by the investor support, and it's a fantastic endorsement of our company, its new acquisitions and our people. An oversubscribed Offer is a significant milestone for Golden Horse as we position ourselves to unlock the immense potential of the Southern Cross region. We are looking forward to finalising our acquisitions and the listing process with ASX."

The Company is liaising with Australian Securities Exchange ("ASX") with respect to the ASX listing process. The Company's CDIs are expected to begin trading on the ASX in early December 2024.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Disclaimer

This release may include forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements may include, among other things, statements regarding targets and the estimated date of ASX listing, and are or may be based on assumptions and estimates related to future technical, economic, market, political, social and other conditions. These forward-looking statements are based on management's expectations and beliefs concerning future events. Forward-looking statements inherently involve subjective judgement and analysis and are necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside the control of Golden Horse. Such forwardlooking statements are based on numerous assumptions regarding the Golden Horse's present and future business strategies and the political and economic environment in which the Golden Horse will operate in the future, which are not guarantees or predictions of future performance. Actual results and developments may vary materially from those that may be contemplated or implied by forward-looking statements in this release. Given these uncertainties, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. All information in respect of Exploration Results and other technical information should be read in conjunction with Competent Person Statements in this release (where applicable). To the maximum extent permitted by law, Golden Horse and any of its related bodies corporate and affiliates and their officers, employees, agents, associates and advisers:

disclaim any obligations or undertaking to release any updates or revisions to the information in this release to reflect any events, circumstances or change in expectations or assumptions after the date of this release;

do not make any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability or completeness of the information in this release, or likelihood of fulfilment of any forward-looking statement or any event or results expressed or implied in any forward-looking statement; and

disclaim all responsibility and liability for these forward-looking statements (including, without limitation, liability for negligence).

Competent Person's Statement

Mr. Jonathan Lea, a member of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) and an independent Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, is responsible for the preparation of the technical content regarding the Southern Cross Project contained in this document. Mr. Lea has reviewed and approved the technical disclosure in this news release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/229922
MONTREAL, Nov. 14, 2024 - Osisko Metals Inc. (the "Company" or "Osisko Metals") (TSX-V: OM; OTCQX: OMZNF; FRANKFURT: 0B51) is pleased to announce an updated Mineral Resource Estimate ("MRE") for the Gaspe Copper Project, located near Murdochville in the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec.

The updated MRE (Table 1) includes pit-constrained resources comprising 824 million tonnes grading 0.34% CuEq of Indicated category and 670 million tonnes grading 0.38% CuEq of Inferred category. This MRE represents a 53% increase in copper-equivalent metal content over the previously reported Indicated Resource and a 100-fold increase in copper-equivalent metal content in Inferred Resources (see May 6, 2024 news release and entitled "2024 Copper Mountain Mineral Resource Estimate").

At 4.91 billion pounds (2.23 million tonnes) of contained copper (Table 1), as well as significant molybdenum (274 million pounds) and silver (46.0 million ounces), the latest Gaspe Copper in-pit Indicated Resource hosts by far the largest undeveloped copper-molybdenum deposit in Eastern North America, exclusive of Inferred resources.

Robert Wares, CEO & Chairman, commented: "We are very proud to announce this updated resource estimate for Gaspe Copper. The overall resource has increased dramatically since last spring's MRE as a result of new geological modelling and extending the modelled Whittle pit boundaries towards Needle Mountain to the south. A minimum 70,000 metre drill program is now planned for 2025, with the objective of converting the bulk of the current Inferred resource to Indicated category. There is also excellent potential for converting currently categorized in-pit waste rock to mineralized material with this drill program, which would further grow the in-pit resource while reducing the strip ratio. This MRE represents a much larger resource than was estimated previously, presenting the potential for a bulk tonnage mining operation with significantly higher throughput. Given this new resource milestone, management has elected to defer the PEA, originally slated for release in Q1 2025, to a later date until additional new drilling is completed. Ongoing studies will focus on a larger-scale mine plan and relocation of the mill complex away from the current site."

Mr. Wares continued: "We are proud to be leading the Gaspe Copper project, which is shaping up to be a major Canadian copper-molybdenum development project located in one of the world's safest mining jurisdictions. This important asset has the potential to become a core component of Quebec's critical mineral development strategy that aims to provide essential metals for global decarbonization initiatives."

Table 1: Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) Base Case at 0.12% Copper Cut-off

Class Tonnes Cu Eq Cu Mo Ag Cu Cu Mo Mo Ag Mt % % % g/t M lbs kt M lbs kt (koz) Indicated 824 0.34 0.27 0.015 1.74 4,907 2,225 274 124 46,027 Inferred 670 0.38 0.30 0.020 1.37 4,389 1,990 294 133 29,493

The independent qualified persons for the MRE, as defined by National Instrument ("NI") 43-101 guidelines, is Pierre-Luc Richard, P.Geo., of PLR Resources Inc. with contributions from Francois Le Moal, P.Eng., of G-Mining for cut-off grade and Pit shell optimization, and Christian Laroche, P.Eng., from Synectic, for metallurgical parameters. The effective date of the MRE is November 4, 2024. These Mineral Resources are not mineral reserves as they have no demonstrated economic viability. No economic evaluation of these Mineral Resources has been produced. The quantity and grade of reported Inferred Resources in this MRE are uncertain in nature and there has been insufficient drilling to define these Inferred Resources as Indicated. However, it is reasonably expected that the majority of Inferred Mineral Resources could be upgraded to Indicated category with additional drilling. The Qualified Persons are not aware of any known environmental, permitting, legal, title-related, taxation, socio-political, financial or other relevant issues that could materially affect the MRE. Calculations used metric units (metres, tonnes). Metal contents in the above table are presented in percent, pounds or tonnes. Metric tonnages and pounds were rounded, and any discrepancies in total amounts are due to rounding errors. CIM definitions and guidelines for Mineral Resource Estimates have been followed. See Cautionary Note below for copper equivalency (CuEq) values.



This significantly larger resource estimate is the result of:

Geological re-interpretation of the mineralized system, whereby most of the mineralized stratigraphic units above the base of the C-Zone skarn, including up-dip extensions toward Needle Mountain, were included in the resource model; Extension of the Whittle pit model to the south towards Needle Mountain, eliminating the possibility of a potential mill complex on the site of the original Gaspe Copper mill. Two other sites for the potential mill are now under consideration, and Lowering of cut-off grade from 0.15% Cu to 0.12% Cu on the basis of potentially larger mine throughput and replacement of SAG mill by HPGR in the grinding circuit.

Potential for resource expansion

Building upon the information released in this updated MRE, a minimum 70,000 metre drill program is planned to commence in May 2025 that will aim to 1) convert Inferred resources to Indicated category by reducing drill spacing to 100 metres or less within the pit volume, 2) better define higher-grade (0.5 to 1.5% % Cu) mineralization within pit boundaries in the B-Zone and C-Zone skarn horizons, 3) extend up-dip, shallower B-Zone and C-Zone skarn mineralization (near Needle Mountain) beyond current pit boundaries and 4) test shallower (above 600 m depth) portions of the high grade (2%-3% Cu) E-Zone skarn for inclusion into the pit volume.

Implications of larger open pit resource at Gaspe Copper

The current modelled Whittle pit shell extends from the current flooded Copper Mountain pit towards the base of Needle Mountain to the south. Further drilling, geological modelling and pit optimization will be required to refine pit boundaries. The Company will evaluate future pit limits and the possibility of reconfiguring the current layout of the site to minimize disturbance and ensure the protection and safety of the residents of Murdochville and the surrounding environment.

General parameters of the updated Mineral Resource Estimate

This MRE is pit-constrained and includes stockwork mineralization surrounding the past-producing Copper Mountain open pit mine as well as disseminated, stratiform mineralization in both skarn and potassic-altered hornfels (porcellanite) that extends up-dip from Copper Mountain towards Needle Mountain to the south.

The MRE uses, amongst other parameters, a long-term price of US$4.00/lb copper, a lower cut-off of 0.12% Cu for pit shell modelling and a lower cut-off grade of 0.12% copper for base case in-pit resource estimation. The resource was estimated using data from historical drilling completed between the 1950s and 2019 and 42,100 metres of drilling completed by the Company between 2022 and 2024 (see Appendix for detailed parameters).

Mineral Resource Sensitivity

Table 2 shows the resources reported at various in-pit cut-off grades within a pit shell modelled at a lower cut off of 0.12% Cu; the base case resource cut-off grade reported herein is 0.12% copper and is highlighted in bold text:

Table 2: Mineral Resource Estimates at Variable Cut-Off Grades

Class

Copper Cut-off

(%)

Tonnage

(Mt)

Strip

Ratio

Grade Copper Metal Resource Cu % Mo % M lbs kt Indicated 0.12 824 1.53 0.27 0.015 4,907 2,225 Inferred 0.12 670 1.53 0.30 0.020 4,389 1,990 Indicated 0.15 696 1.93 0.29 0.016 4,528 2,053 Inferred 0.15 593 1.93 0.32 0.021 4,159 1,886 Indicated 0.20 510 2.84 0.34 0.019 3,811 1,728 Inferred 0.20 474 2.84 0.35 0.022 3,699 1,678 Indicated 0.25 363 4.18 0.39 0.021 3,086 1,400 Inferred 0.25 367 4.18 0.39 0.024 3,175 1,440 Indicated 0.30 245 6.26 0.44 0.022 2,376 1,078 Inferred 0.30 275 6.26 0.43 0.025 2,617 1,187 Indicated 0.40 120 14.31 0.54 0.025 1,428 648 Inferred 0.40 127 14.31 0.53 0.025 1,488 675

Same footnotes as Table 1 apply to this table.

Appendix - parameters and criteria used for the Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE)

General Whittle pit parameters used for the Mineral Resource Estimate include:



Parameter Value Unit Copper Price $4.00 US$ per pound Molybdenum Price $20.00 US$ per pound Silver Price $24.00 US$ per ounce CAD:USD exchange rate 1.33 Discount Rate 8.0 Percent Royalty Rate 1.0 Percent Cu concentrate transport + loading costs $25.00 US$ per wmt Cu concentrate shipping cost $66.25 US$ per wmt Cu concentrate insurance and other costs $9.00 US$ per wmt Cu concentrate smelter treatment cost $82.50 US$ per wmt Cu concentrate smelter refining cost $0.08 US$ per pound Cu concentrate grade 25.0 Percent Mo concentrate grade 58.0 Percent Payable Cu 96.5 Percent Payable Mo 98.0 Percent Payable Ag 75.0 Percent In-Pit Mining Cost $2.23 US$ per tonne mined Mill Processing Cost $4.25 US$ per tonne milled General and Administrative Costs $1.00 US$ per tonne milled Overall Pit Slope - Rock 48 Degrees Copper Recovery 92 Percent Molybdenum Recovery 70 Percent Mining loss / Dilution (open pit) 0 / 0 Percent / Percent Waste Avg. Specific Gravity 2.67 Tonnes/cubic metre Mineralization Specific Gravity (variable) Avg. 2.77 Tonnes/cubic metre





Resources are presented as undiluted and in situ for an open-pit scenario and are considered to have reasonable prospects for economic extraction. The constraining pit shell was developed using overall pit slopes of 48 degrees in bedrock and 20 degrees in overburden. The pit optimization to develop the resource-constraining pit shells was performed using Geovia Whittle 2022 software.

The MRE wireframe was prepared using Leapfrog Edge v.2024.1.1 and is based on 1946 drill holes and 58,842 samples. The drill hole database includes recent drilling totalling 67,742 metres in 125 drill holes (Xstrata 2011-2012, Glencore Canada 2019 and Osisko Metals 2022-2024) and also incorporates historical drill holes totalling 519,435 metres in 1,863 drill holes (Noranda 1998 and earlier). Drill hole data verification was performed by verifying the coherence of the information but not its correctness; original logs and laboratory certificates were only available for 2011, 2012, 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2024 drill holes. The cut-off date for the drill hole database was November 4, 2024.

Composites of 5 to 10 metre lengths were created inside the mineralization volumes. A total of 26,499 composites were generated. High-grade capping was done on the composited assay data; composites were capped from 0.80% to 2.40% for Cu, from 0.10 to 0.20% for Mo, and from 3 to 10g/t for Ag in the stockwork zones, at 1.10% for Cu, 0.12% for Mo, and 5g/t for Ag in the Porphyry, and from 1.00% to 6.00% for Cu, from 0.01 to 0.50% for Mo, and from 5 to 20g/t for Ag in the skarn zones. A restricted search capping approach was also applied to the main skarn zone for Molybdenum and Silver.

Pit-constrained Mineral Resources for the base case are reported at a lower cut-off grade of 0.12 % Cu in sulfide within a conceptual pit shell based on a 0.12% Cu lower cut-off. The cut-off grades will be re-evaluated on an ongoing basis in light of future prevailing market conditions and costs.

Contained copper in the resource includes sulfide copper only and soluble copper was ignored. It was assumed for this MRE that only the copper contained in sulfides could have economical potential. Therefore, the soluble copper that is present as oxides and carbonates was removed and significant oxidized zones are all located in the south-west portion of the deposit. The proportion of the copper contained as soluble copper relative to sulfides is correlated to the depth of the mineralization. Therefore, depth from the original topographic surface was modeled and used to estimate the percentage of copper that would be contained as soluble copper within the MRE.

Specific gravity values were estimated using data available in the historical drill holes. Values were interpolated for most of the mineralized solids and a fixed value was used where the scarcity of the data did not allow for interpolation; the average value is 2.77 tonnes/cubic metre. Surrounding barren lithologies were assigned the average specific gravity value from all measured samples.

The modelled base case pit shell measures 700 X 2,000 metres and reaches a maximum depth of approximately 800 metres.

Grade model resource estimation was calculated from drill hole data using an ordinary kriging (OK) interpolation method in a sub-blocked model using blocks measuring 10m x 10 m x 10 m in size and sub-blocks down to 1.25 m x 1.25 m x 1.25 m. Blocks were then regularized to 20 m x 20 m x 10 m.

The Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource categories are constrained to areas where drill spacing is less than 100 metres and 300 metres, respectively, and show reasonable geological and grade continuity.



Cautionary Statement Regarding Copper Equivalent Grades

Copper Equivalent grades are expressed for purposes of simplicity and are calculated taking into account: 1) metal grades; 2) estimated long-term prices of metals: US$4.00/lb copper, $20.00/lb molybdenum and US$24/oz silver; 3) estimated recoveries of 92%, 70% and 70% for Cu, Mo and Ag respectively; and 4) net smelter return value of metals as percentage of the price, estimated at 86.5%, 90.7% and 75.0% for Cu, Mo and Ag respectively.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Mineral Resources

The mineral resources disclosed in this news release conform to standards and guidelines in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and were prepared by independent qualified persons for purposes of NI 43-101. The above-mentioned mineral resources are not mineral reserves as they do not have demonstrated economic viability. The quantity and grade of the reported Inferred Mineral Resources are conceptual in nature and are estimated based on limited geological evidence and sampling. Geological data is sufficient to imply but not verify geological grade and/or quality of continuity. An Inferred Mineral Resource has a lower level of confidence relative to a Measured or Indicated Mineral Resource and constitutes an insufficient level of confidence to allow conversion to a Mineral Reserve. It is reasonably expected, but not guaranteed, that the majority of Inferred Mineral Resources could be upgraded to Measured or Indicated Mineral Resources with additional drilling. The technical report prepared in accordance with NI 43-101, including the mineral resources for the Gaspe Copper Project contained in this news release, will be delivered and filed on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca) under Osisko Metals' issuer profile within 45 days of the date of this news release.

Qualified Persons

The Mineral Resource Estimate and other scientific and technical information in this news release has been prepared and approved by independent qualified persons for purposes of NI 43-101: Pierre-Luc Richard, P.Geo., of PLR Resources Inc. with contributions from Francois Le Moal, P.Eng., of G-Mining for cut-off grade and Pit Shell optimization and Christian Laroche, P.Eng., from Synectiq, for metallurgical parameters.

About Osisko Metals

Osisko Metals Incorporated is a Canadian exploration and development company creating value in the critical metals sector, with a focus on copper and zinc. The Company is in joint venture with Appian Capital Advisory LLP to advance one of Canada's largest zinc mining camps, the Pine Point Project, located in the Northwest Territories, for which current mineral resources have been calculated for the 2024 MRE (as defined herein). The project is owned by the joint venture Pine Point Mining Ltd.. The current mineral resource estimate consists of 49.5 Mt at 5.52% ZnEq of Indicated Mineral Resources and 8.3 Mt at 5.64% ZnEq of Inferred Mineral Resources (in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects; see Osisko Metals' June 25, 2024, news release entitled "Osisko Metals releases Pine Point mineral resource estimate: 49.5 million tonnes of indicated resources at 5.52% ZnEq"). The Pine Point project is located on the south shore of Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories, close to infrastructure, with paved road access, an electrical substation and 100 kilometers of viable haul roads.

In addition, and aside from the Pine Point joint venture, the Company acquired in July 2023, from Glencore Canada Corporation, a 100% interest in the former Gaspe Copper mine, located near Murdochville in Quebec's Gaspe Peninsula. The company is currently focused on resource expansion of the Gaspe Copper system, which includes this updated mineral resource as well as the previously released resource comprising Indicated Mineral Resources of 495 Mt grading 0.37% CuEq and Inferred Mineral Resources of 6.3 Mt grading 0.37% CuEq (in compliance with National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects); see May 6, 2024 news release entitled "Osisko Metals Announces Updated Mineral Resource Estimate at Mines Gaspe - Indicated Resources of 495 Mt at 0.37% CuEq"). Gaspe Copper hosts the largest undeveloped copper resource in eastern North America, strategically located near existing infrastructure in the mining-friendly province of Quebec.

For further information on this news release, visit www.osiskometals.com or contact:

Robert Wares, Chairman & CEO of Osisko Metals Incorporated

Email: info@osiskometals.com

www.osiskometals.com

Follow Osisko Metals on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/osiskometals/,

on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/osiskometals/,

and on X at https://twitter.com/osiskometals.

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves predictions, expectations, interpretations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and constitute forward-looking information. This news release may contain forward-looking information pertaining to the Pine Point and Gaspe Copper Projects, including, among other things, the significance of the results described in this news release (which have not yet been included in a technical report prepared in accordance with NI 43-101); the parameters used in the MRE presented in this news release; the planned drill program; the ability of the Company (if at all) to upgrade the current inferred mineral resources; the potential for bulk tonnage mining operations (if at all); the timing for publishing a PEA; the ability of the Company to realize a larger-scale mine plan and relocate the mill complex; global decarbonization initiatives; the extension of the Whittle pit model; the potential for resource expansion (if at all); the implications of a larger open pit resource; the general parameters of the updated MRE being variables that are subject to a number of assumptions and variables beyond the Company's control; the ability to identify additional resources and reserves (if any) and exploit such resources and reserves on an economic basis; the expected high quality of the metal concentrates; the potential economic impact of the projects on local communities, including but not limited to the potential generation of tax revenues and contribution of jobs;; Gaspe Copper hosting the largest undeveloped copper resource in Eastern North America and Glencore being a Control Person of the Company.

Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and is based upon a number of estimates and assumptions of management, in light of management's experience and perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances, including, without limitation, assumptions about; the ability of exploration results, including drilling, to accurately predict mineralization; errors in geological modelling; insufficient data; equity and debt capital markets; future spot prices of copper, zinc, lead and molybdenum; the timing and results of exploration and drilling programs; the accuracy of mineral resource estimates; production costs; political and regulatory stability; the receipt of governmental and third party approvals; licenses and permits being received on favourable terms; sustained labour stability; stability in financial and capital markets; availability of mining equipment and positive relations with local communities and groups. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information are set out in the Company's public disclosure record on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca) under Osisko Metals' issuer profile. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward- looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.
Toronto, November 14, 2024 - Exploits Discovery Corp. (CSE: NFLD) (OTCQB: NFLDF) (FSE: 634) ("Exploits" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has closed its previously announced non-brokered private placement for gross proceeds of $346,154 through the issuance and sale of flow-through common shares of the Company (the "Charity FT Shares") at a price of $0.09 per Charity FT Share. Each Charity FT Share will qualify as a "flow-through share" (within the meaning of subsection 66(15) of the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the "Tax Act")).

The Company also announces it has closed an additional non-brokered private placement for 3,000,000 flow through common shares ("FT Shares") at a price of $0.08 per FT Share for gross proceeds of $240,000.

The Company will use an amount equal to the gross proceeds received from the sale of the Charity FT Shares and the FT Shares to incur eligible "Canadian exploration expenses" that qualify as "flow-through mining expenditures" as both terms are defined in the Tax Act (the "Qualifying Expenditures") related to the Company's projects in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, on or before December 31, 2025, and will renounce all the Qualifying Expenditures in favour of the subscribers of the Charity FT Shares and FT Shares with an effective date no later than December 31, 2024.

All securities issued and sold under these financings will be subject to a four-month-and-one-day hold period under securities laws in Canada.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States of America. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 (the "1933 Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons (as defined in the 1933 Act) unless registered under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration is available.

About Exploits Discovery Corp.

Exploits is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition and development of mineral projects in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Exploits is utilizing its experienced, talented local team and geologic understanding with the vision to become one of the most successful explorers in Canada.

On Behalf of the Board

/s/ "Jeff Swinoga"

President and CEO

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this news release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected including, but not limited to, market conditions, availability of financing, actual results of the Company's exploration and other activities, environmental risks, future metal prices, operating risks, accidents, labor issues, delays in obtaining governmental approvals and permits, and other risks in the mining industry. All the forward-looking statements made in this news release are qualified by these cautionary statements and those in our continuous disclosure filings available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances save as required by applicable law.

Acknowledgments

Exploits Discovery would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Junior Exploration Assistance Program from the Department of Natural Resources, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Not for distribution to United States Newswire Services or for dissemination in the United States

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/230010
Vancouver, November 14, 2024 - Spanish Mountain Gold Ltd. (TSXV: SPA) (FSE: S3Y) (OTC Pink: SPAZF) (the "Company" or "Spanish Mountain Gold") is providing an update, further to its press releases dated October 22, 24, and 31 2024, on its brokered "best efforts" private placement for gross proceeds of up to C$6,500,000 (the "Brokered Offering").

The terms of the charity flow-through units (the "Charity FT Units") to be issued pursuant to the Brokered Offering were amended, as disclosed in the company's amended and restated offering document dated November 5, 2024 (the "Offering Document"). The Charity FT Units will consist of one flow-through Share ("FT Shares") and one common share purchase warrant ("Warrants"), and will be priced at $0.20 per Charity FT Unit. Each Warrant will be exercisable to purchase one additional common share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.18 per share for a period of two years from the date of issuance. The FT Shares will qualify as "flow-through shares" within the meaning of subsection 66(15) of the Income Tax Act (Canada).

The Brokered Offering is scheduled to close on or around November 15, 2024, subject to certain customary closing conditions including, but not limited to, receipt of all necessary approvals including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

The Offering Document can be accessed under the Company's profile at www.sedarplus.ca and on the Company's website at www.spanishmountaingold.com, accessible here. Prospective investors should read this offering document before making an investment decision.

The securities referred to in this news release 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, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons absent registration under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws, unless an exemption from such registration is available. This news release does not constitute an offer for sale of securities for sale, nor a solicitation for offers to buy any securities. Any public offering of securities in the United States must be made by means of a prospectus containing detailed information about the Company and management, as well as financial statements. "United States" and "U.S. person" have the respective meanings assigned in Regulation S under the U.S Securities Act.

About Spanish Mountain Gold Ltd.

Spanish Mountain Gold Ltd. is focused on advancing its 100%-owned Spanish Mountain Gold Project towards construction of the next gold mine in the Cariboo Gold Corridor, British Columbia. We are conducting an integrated Whittle Enterprise Optimization to identify the highest potential value-add improvements while increasing the understanding of the high-grade geologic controls and associated drill targets that could upgrade and expand the gold resource. We are striving to be a leader in community and Indigenous relations by leveraging technology and innovation to build the 'greenest' gold mine in Canada. The Relentless Pursuit for Better Gold means seeking new ways to achieve optimal financial outcomes that are safer, minimize environmental impact and create meaningful sustainability for communities. Details on the Company are available on www.sedarplus.ca and on the Company's website: www.spanishmountaingold.com.

On Behalf of the Board,

"Peter Mah"

President, Chief Executive Officer and Director

Spanish Mountain Gold Ltd.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

When used in this press release, the words "estimate", "project", "belief", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "plan", "predict", "may" or "should" and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information (collectively referred to as "forward-looking information". Although the Company believes, in light of the experience of their respective officers and directors, current conditions and expected future developments and other factors that have been considered appropriate, that the expectations reflected in forward-looking information in this press release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on them because the parties can give no assurance that such statements will prove to be correct. The forward-looking information in this press release include, amongst others: the closing of the Offerings, the issuance of the Offered Securities, the payment of the finder's fee and commissions to the Agents, the anticipated closing date of the Offerings and the intended use of proceeds of the Offerings. Such statements and information reflect the current view of the Company. There are risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in the forward-looking information.

By their nature, forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. There are a number of important factors that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those indicated or implied by forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others: currency fluctuations; limited business history; disruptions or changes in the credit or security markets; results of operation activities and development of projects; project cost overruns or unanticipated costs and expenses; and general development, market and industry conditions. The Company undertakes no obligation to comment on analyses, expectations or statements made by third parties in respect of their securities or their respective financial or operating results (as applicable).

The Company cautions that the foregoing list of material factors is not exhaustive. When relying on the Company's forward-looking information to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events. The Company has assumed that the material factors referred to in the previous paragraph will not cause such forward-looking information to differ materially from actual results or events. However, the list of these factors is not exhaustive and is subject to change and there can be no assurance that such assumptions will reflect the actual outcome of such items or factors. The forward-looking information contained in this press release represents the expectations of the Company as of the date of this press release and, accordingly, are subject to change after such date. The Company does not undertake to update this information at any particular time except as required in accordance with applicable laws.

Not for distribution to United States Newswire Services or for dissemination in the United States


The Alliance Bible Seminary (ABS)s mobile Bible meditation platform Erdao Devotionals () has recently launched comic versions of the scriptural commentaries it provides. Through this, they hope to enrich the experience of fellowship believers as they meditate on Gods Word, upholding the truth and its integrity while providing diverse perspectives. This innovative initiative transforms previous devotionals into comic format, enhancing the depth of meditation and witnessing the truth more powerfully.

Currently, the ABS has published the comics of Sermon on the Mount, and comics for Ecclesiastes and Ezra will also be published soon, totaling the offering to three books. Additionally, the comics for the Gospel of Mark are also being planned and will be released in the near future.

Pastor Lawrence Ko (), chief editor of Erdao Devotionals, pointed out that images can enrich the believers imagination, allowing them to understand the wisdom and philosophy of life behind the Bible stories deeper. Since this year, Erdao began to experiment with adding comic elements in their daily devotionals so that believers can be accompanied by voice and text as they meditate, they also have a visual element to reflect on the Word of God from multiple perspectives. This can deepen their contact with the Word of God and enhance their understanding.

As Erdao welcomes its 10th founding anniversary, the ministry hopes that the new medium of comics can bring believers a deeper spiritual experience and lead people to meditate on Gods Word in the comic world. ABS invites all believers to experience and support the ministry, humbly asking for intercessory prayers.
ELECTORAL COLLEGE

Safe Republican (86 electoral votes)

Likely Republican (71 electoral votes)

Lean Republican (29 electoral votes)

Tossup (78 electoral votes)

Lean Democratic (91 electoral votes)

Safe Democratic (183 electoral votes)

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

GOVERNORS

Safe Republican

Tossup

Likely Democratic

Safe Democratic

ATTORNEYS GENERAL

Safe Republican

Likely Republican

Tossup

Lean Democratic

Safe Democratic

LEGISLATURES

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansa

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delware

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

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

Election Day is almost here, and as we've done in past electoral cycles, we're publishing a final frenzy of ratings for all the races handicapped this year.Readers can use this as a guide to watching the returns -- and as a check on the accuracy of our analyses.For the Electoral College, gubernatorial and AG contests, we not only offer a rating, such as tossup or lean Democratic, but also a rank ordering. That is, the list can be viewed as a continuum between the states or races most likely to go Republican (at the top) and those most likely to go Democratic (at the bottom). The idea is that, once the results are in, we should be able to draw a line somewhere in the middle of the tossup category and divide the seats won by the GOP from the seats won by the Democrats.For the Electoral College, we have achieved strong accuracy in past cycles. In 2008, just one state and one of Nebraska's congressional districts were on the wrong side of our dividing line. And in 2012, every state was on the correct side of the line.Our gubernatorial handicapping has been generally accurate as well. In 2010, we were off by just one contest; in 2012, we were fully correct; and in 2014, our worst performance, we were wrong about four (out of 36) contests.In 2014, the first cycle we rank-ordered state AG races, our calls were fully accurate. And in the seven state legislative cycles handicapped, we've, on average, mislabeled as noncompetitive one or two chambers that ultimately flipped party control.Our final ratings show 274 electoral votes are likely to go to Hillary Clinton, 186 to Donald Trump and 78 remain in the tossup category. That's a few electoral votes more than Clinton needs to win the presidency without having to win any tossup states.Since our previous handicapping in October, we've made five shifts between rating categories, plus a handful of moves within a single category. Two of the shifts between categories benefited the Democrats (one congressional district in Maine, which shifted from lean Republican to tossup, and Nevada, which shifts from tossup to lean Democratic) and three benefited the Republicans (New Hampshire moving from lean Democratic to tossup, and Indiana and Missouri moving from lean Republican to likely Republican).Here's the full breakdown, with new rating shifts in bold:Alabama (9), Arkansas (6), Idaho (4), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Montana (3), Nebraska (4 of 5 electoral votes), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), West Virginia (5) and Wyoming (3)Texas (38), Alaska (3), South Carolina (9),Utah (6), Nebraska (1 of 5 electoral votes), Georgia (16), Iowa (6)Ohio (18), Arizona (11),, Florida (29), North Carolina (15),, Colorado (9), Wisconsin (10), Michigan (16), Pennsylvania (20), Maine (2 of 4 electoral votes), Virginia (13), Minnesota (10), New Mexico (5)California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Maine (1 of 4 electoral votes), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), New Jersey (14), New York (29), Oregon (7), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3) and Washington state (12)Currently, Republicans hold a historically large 31-18 lead in governorships. (There's one independent, Alaska's Bill Walker.)We made only one change since our last handicapping in October, shifting the Missouri gubernatorial from lean Democratic to tossup.Democratic victories in each of the competitive contests would produce a two-seat gain, reducing the GOP's lead to 29-20. By contrast, a Republican sweep of all competitive seats would result in a six-seat gain and a strikingly dominant overall GOP edge of 37-12.As usual, the most likely outcome is somewhere in the middle. But regardless of how 2016 shakes out, the GOP will end the year with a continued big lead in governorships.Here's the rundown, with new rating shifts in bold:Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R)North Dakota: Open seat (R)Vermont: Open seat (D)West Virginia: Open seat (D)Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D)New Hampshire: Open seat (D)North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R)Indiana: Open seat (R)Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D)Delaware: Open seat (D)Nationally, the GOP holds 27 AG offices and the Democrats hold 23. If the GOP can run the table of competitive races, its national lead in AG offices would jump to a dominating 30-20. Democrats, by contrast, look likely to have a shot, at best, of making a net gain of one seat. In the absence of a strong national partisan tide, the GOP stands to gain a seat or two.We've changed the ratings in one race since our last handicapping in September, shifting the West Virginia AG race from lean Republican to tossup.Here's the full rundown, with new rating shifts in bold:Utah AG Sean Reyes (R)Montana AG Tim Fox (R)Indiana: Open seat (R)Missouri: Open seat (D)North Carolina: Open seat (D)Pennsylvania: Open seat (D)Vermont: Open seat (D)Oregon: AG Ellen Rosenblum (D)Washington state: AG Bob Ferguson (D)Currently, the GOP controls 68 legislative chambers to the Democrats' 30.We see 26 chambers as competitive -- 18 currently held by Republicans and eight held by Democrats. That's down by one competitive chamber since our last handicapping in October.Of the 18 chambers held by Republicans, six are rated as tossups, 11 as lean Republican and one as lean Democratic. Of the eight chambers held by Democrats, one is rated lean Republican, two are rated as tossups and five as lean Democratic.Without a one-sided wave, Democrats could regain control of a half-dozen chambers this cycle. But a larger or smaller number is certainly possible.Since our last handicapping, we've shifted one chamber towards the Democrats (the New Mexico Senate, from lean Democratic to likely Democratic) and two toward the Republicans (the Kentucky House, from tossup to lean Republican, and the Iowa Senate, from lean Democratic to tossup).Here's our state-by-state summary, with new rating shifts in bold:Neither chamber is contested this year.Senate: Projected Likely RHouse: Projected Likely RSenate: Projected Lean RHouse: Projected Lean RSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe RSenate: Projected Safe DAssembly:Projected Safe DSenate: Projected TossupHouse: Projected Lean DSenate: Projected TossupHouse: Projected Lean DSenate: Projected Safe DHouse:Projected Safe DSenate: Projected Likely RHouse: Projected Likely RSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe RSenate: Projected Safe DHouse:Projected Safe DSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe RSenate:House:Senate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe RSenate: Projected TossupHouse: Projected Likely RSenate: Projected Likely RHouse: Projected Likely RSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Lean RNeither chamber is contested this year.Senate: Projected TossupHouse: Projected Lean DNeither chamber is contested this year.Senate: Projected Safe DHouse:Projected Safe DSenate: No RacesHouse: Projected Lean RSenate: Projected Lean DHouse: Projected Lean RNeither chamber is contested this year.Senate: Projected Likely RHouse: Projected Likely RSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe RNebraska's unicameral legislature is officially nonpartisan;doesn't handicap it.Senate: Projected TossupAssembly: Projected Lean DSenate: Projected TossupHouse: Projected Lean RNeither chamber is contested this year.Senate:House: Projected TossupSenate: Projected TossupAssembly:Projected Safe DSenate: Projected Lean RHouse: Projected Lean RSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe RSenate: Projected Likely RHouse: Projected Likely RSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe RSenate: Projected Safe DHouse:Senate: Projected Likely RHouse: Projected Likely RRhode IslandSenate: Projected Safe DHouse: Projected Safe DSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe RSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe RSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe RSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe RSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe RSenate: Projected Safe DHouse:Projected Safe DNeither chamber is contested this year.Senate: Projected Lean RHouse: Projected Lean DSenate: Projected Lean RHouse: Projected Likely RSenate: Projected Lean RAssembly: Projected Lean RSenate: Projected Safe RHouse: Projected Safe R
Nigerian gospel actor, Moses Korede Are Baba Gbenro of Abattoir fame 'is dead

Graphic Showbiz Showbiz News Nov - 14 - 2024 , 21:07 1 minute read

The Nigerian gospel film industry is in mourning following the passing of veteran actor Moses Korede Are, popularly recognised for his role as Baba Gbenro in the popular Mount Zion series, Abattoir.

The actors death was announced on Thursday by his colleague, Oluwaseun Adejumobi, who shared the news via his verified Instagram account.

Adejumobi expressed his grief, saying, Heavens Gain Again. A General Has Gone to Rest.

Tributes have since poured in for the late actor, whose work left a lasting impact on the gospel film industry. Gospel actor Zoe Adeola, reflecting on Ares legacy, wrote on X, Rest in peace, Baba Gbenro. Your role in Abattoir will definitely leave a great memory of you in our minds. So painful.

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Moses Korede Are, fondly known as Baba Gbenro, was born on June 11, 1959. He spent his early years in Kano State, Nigeria, later continuing his education in Plateau State and ultimately completing his studies in southwestern Nigeria.

Source: VanguardNgr
Robert F Kennedy Jr chosen as Donald Trump's health secretary

Graphic.com.gh International News Nov - 14 - 2024 , 21:34 2 minutes read

President-elect Donald Trump has said Robert F Kennedy Jr will "make America great and healthy again" and has therefore has therefore chosen him as his new health secretary.

The news was announced by Donald Trump Jr on X, before the president-elect confirmed the appointment just moments later.

Mr Trump Jr wrote: "Robert F Kennedy Jr will be The Secretary of Health and Human Services! Promises Made Promises Kept."

In a lengthier post, President-elect Trump wrote: "For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health.

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"The Safety and Health of all Americans is the most important role of any Administration, and [the department of health and human services] will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country."

RFK will "restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again," Mr Trump added.

Mr Kennedy, the nephew of former president John F Kennedy, had been running as an independent presidential candidate before dropping out of the race to endorse Mr Trump in August.

In return for RFK Jr's support during the presidential election, President-elect Trump pledged to give him a role.

Mr Kennedy - a known vaccine sceptic - previously claimed Mr Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office.
Next article: Trump jokes he might run in 2028 before meeting Biden

Trump names Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth as Defence Secretary

bbc.com International News Nov - 14 - 2024 , 14:15 5 minutes read

US President-elect Donald Trump has named Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host, author and military veteran, as his pick for defence secretary.

Hegseth, 44, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, will be responsible for the world's most powerful military in his first political role.

Announcing his choice on Tuesday, Trump described him as "tough, smart and a true believer in America First".

The news came on the same day Trump announced another political newcomer, billionaire Elon Musk, would take a government cost-cutting role.

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Trump's administration is taking shape after his win in last week's presidential election. Hegseth was one of a flurry of security appointments that also included Trump's pick of John Ratcliffe to head the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

If confirmed for his role by the US Senate, Hegseth will arrive at the Pentagon with decisions to make on issues such as military assistance for Israel during its campaign in Gaza, and on support for Ukraine in the face of Russia's invasion.

Trump wants the US to disentangle itself from foreign conflicts generally. During the election campaign, he criticised the Biden administration's expenditure to support Kyiv.

Also on Tuesday, Trump confirmed that he wanted South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to play a significant role as homeland security secretary. Another military veteran, Michael Waltz, was chosen by Trump as national security adviser - meaning he will advise the president on foreign threats.

Senator Marco Rubio - who shares Waltz's hawkish views on China - is expected to be Trump's future secretary of state, sources have told the BBC's US partner, CBS News. But the pick is not yet confirmed.

Republicans have won back control of the Senate, the upper chamber of Congress, and are inching towards a majority in the House, the lower chamber, as vote-counting continues.

Some of the government appointments - including Hegseth's - require a vote of approval by senators, although Trump, also a Republican, has demanded that the next leader of the US Senate let him bypass this process. He can give out other jobs directly.

Senate Republicans are due to vote on a new leader on Wednesday - the day that Trump is also expected to visit the outgoing president, Joe Biden, at the White House as part of the traditional transfer of power.

Who is Pete Hegseth?

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Ivy League graduate Hegseth has in recent years worked as a conservative commentator. He lives with his wife and seven children in Tennessee.

He has hosted programmes on Fox News, using his platform to draw attention to military and veterans' issues. He had his last day at Fox on Tuesday.

He is reported by US media to have successfully lobbied Trump during his first presidency to pardon servicemen accused of war crimes.

In his statement announcing Hegseth as his pick for defence secretary on Tuesday, Trump highlighted the former soldier's education at Princeton and Harvard universities, and his military experience in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"With Pete at the helm, Americas enemies are on notice - our military will be great again, and America will never back down," Trump wrote in a post.

The president-elect also drew attention to Hegseth's work as a published author. He said the book The War on Warrior "reveals the leftwing betrayal of our warriors, and how we must return our military to meritocracy, lethality, accountability, and excellence".

What has he previously said about the military?

Hegseth has been an outspoken opponent of what he has referred to as "woke" policies within the US military and its leadership.

"The dumbest phrase on planet earth in the military is our diversity is our strength," Hegseth said on a podcast this month.

One of his tasks as defence secretary could be to act on Trump's campaign promises to get rid of US generals who he accuses of pursuing progressive policies in the force.

Before his selection by Trump, Hegseth was asked on the same podcast about what changes he would make in the military. He referred to "first of all" firing the US' top military officer, Gen Charles "CQ" Brown Jr, saying people involved in diversity, equality or inclusion policies had "got to go".

"Either you're in for war fighting and that's it, that's the only litmus test we care about," Hegseth told the Shawn Ryan Show, in an episode released last week.

Gen Brown is a former fighter pilot with command experience in the Pacific and Middle East, and was appointed into the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff role by President Joe Biden last year.

On the same podcast, Hegseth also said "whatever" combat standards were in 1995, "let's just make those the standards".

What has the reaction been?

Hegseth's pick has been welcomed by a number of prominent Republican figures, but other reactions have been more varied.

North Carolina senator Thom Tillis told Associated Press the choice was "interesting", and Senator Tommy Tuberville, of Alabama, said he would "have to think" about what he thought of the appointment.

Incoming national security advisor Waltz said Hegseth "has the grit" to make "real reform" happen at the Pentagon. Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said the job "should not be an entry-level position".

Posting on X, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said the appointment of Hegseth as defence secretary would "make us less safe and must be rejected".

"A Fox & Friends weekend co-host is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense," she added. "I lead the Senate military personnel panel. All three of my brothers served in uniform. I respect every one of our servicemembers."
Next article: Dont sit on the toilet for more than 10 minutes, doctors warn

Untreated bipolar disorder may lead to suicide - Psychiatrist

Gloria Apprey Life Nov - 14 - 2024 , 15:31 4 minutes read

A psychiatrist, Dr Yennusom Maalug, has cautioned that, untreated bipolar or mood disorders could lead to serious mental and social health issues, including suicidal thoughts, substance abuse and a lower quality of life.

Due to extreme mood swings, impulsive behaviour and the quest to escape reality, patients with bipolar disorder may resort to substance abuse or self-harm.

Dr Maalug, who works at both the Pantang and The Bank Hospitals in Accra, gave the caution in an interview with The Mirror in Accra last Tuesday.

He stressed the importance of seeking professional help early, noting that treatment became more challenging if symptoms worsened.

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Causes

The psychiatrist , who is also a member of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, who was educating the public on the condition explained that while the exact cause remained unclear, it was believed to involve a combination of genetic, biochemical, social and environmental factors.

"Family history can play a role, but other factors such as stress, the loss of a loved one, heartbreak, failure, disappointment, and low self-esteem can trigger or worsen the condition," he noted.

Dr Maalug clarified that although bipolar disorder may have a genetic component, a person with the condition does not necessarily pass it on to his or her children.

He said bipolar disorder may sometimes be mistaken for a personality trait, but the key difference is the sudden or recent onset of symptoms.

 Dr Yennusom Maalug

Symptoms

Dr Maalug the disorder typically manifested in two main phases, depression and mania, with mania being the extreme.

"During manic episodes, individuals may experience an elevated mood, excessive energy and impulsive behaviour.

This can include rapid speech, making inappropriate or vulgar remarks, difficulty focusing, nudity, trouble sleeping or engaging in harmful activities," he said.

In depressive episodes, Dr Maalug observed that patients often exhibited low mood and energy, persistent sadness, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities, changes in appetite, weight gain or loss, and disrupted sleep patterns.

He added that patients may also experience feelings of guilt, hopelessness and fluctuating self-esteem. These symptoms, he pointed out, could sometimes overlap.

In some cases, patients might boast about wealth or connections they do not have or create their own bubble or imaginative world where they are the centre of attraction, he stated.

The psychiatrist emphasised that, although people who suffered the condition were not in control of their actions, they were often aware and conscious.

"They know they're not sleeping well, acting right, or behaving normally, but they cant control it. Its similar to an asthmatic patient having an attackthey are aware they cant breathe but are unable to stop it," he explained.

Diagnosis

Dr Maalug, who is again the Executive Director of the Mental Health Institute, explained that diagnosing bipolar disorder could be challenging, particularly when a patient initially presented with only depressive symptoms.

"It is often only when manic symptoms appear later that we can confidently diagnose bipolar disorder," he stated.

He added that specialists begin by examining the patients history to determine if they had experienced manic episodes in the past.

"We need to review the full history of symptoms, including how long they have been present and what the patients behaviour was like before the onset. Additionally, we conduct laboratory tests and scans to rule out other possible conditions, such as thyroid disorders, substance use disorders or schizophrenia," Dr Maalug noted.

Treatment options

Dr Maalug noted that effective treatment options for bipolar disorder usually involved a combination of medication and psychotherapy.

Medications can include antipsychotics and mood stabilisers, while psychotherapy may involve counselling, support groups, family involvement, relaxation techniques, mindfulness, and engaging in hobbies, he explained.

He stressed that bipolar disorder was a lifelong, recurrent condition that could only be managed through consistent medication and therapy.

Relapses are common when individuals stop taking their medication, but with adherence, they can lead a good and normal life, Dr Maalug added.

Taking care of a bipolar patient at home

Dr Maalug stressed that love, care and support were essential when caring for a friend or family member with the disorder.

He advised encouraging open communication, offering support during both manic and depressive episodes and learning about the disorder to provide practical help, such as ensuring treatment adherence and managing daily tasks.

In some cases, patients may refuse help or medication. It may be necessary to wait until the episode passes, discreetly include medication in their food or drink, or, in extreme cases, consider rehabilitation, he added.
An MP's seat becomes vacant when he decides to change political identity and remain in Parliament under new identity in same term - Supreme Court [JUDGMENT]

Emmanuel Ebo Hawkson Nov - 14 - 2024 , 15:02 3 minutes read

The Supreme Court has held that a Member of Parliament cannot be said to have vacated his seat unless he decides to change his political identity and remain in Parliament under the new identity within the same term of Parliament.

In the judgment detailing why it upheld a suit by the Majority Leader in Parliament, the court held that Article 97(1) (g) and (h) of the Constitution cannot be said to have a futuristic application and therefore only applied to a current term of Parliament.

It follows from the above therefore, that the only plausible conclusion which must necessarily flow from a holistic and contextual reading of Article 97(1)(g) and (h) is that an MP's seat shall be vacated upon departure from the cohort of his elected party in Parliament to join another party in Parliament while seeking to remain in that Parliament as a member of the new party, the court held.

Similarly, an independent MP who joins the cohort of a party in Parliament, while they remain Members of the Parliament for which

they were elected as Independent Member, will have to vacate the seat tagged as that of an Independent Member, the court added.

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The court therefore held that its interpretation of Article 97(1) (g) and (h) of the Constitution was that they only applied within a current term of Parliament, and not an MP contesting for election under a different political identity.

Consequently, Article 97(1)(g) and (h) must be understood within their contextual framework, with no implicit or explicit indication that they pertain to future electoral aspirations or intentions that would materialize in subsequent terms, such as an MP contesting under a different ticket in the next election cycle, the court held.

The 5-2 majority decision of the court was authored by Justice Yaw Darko Asare.

Justices on the majority side were the Chief Justice, Justice Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo, and Justices Mariama Owusu, Samuel Kwame Adibu- Aseidu, Ernest Yao Gaewu and Yaw Darko Asare, while Justices Avril Lovelace Johnson and Issifu Omoro Tanko Amadu, dissented

Dissenting opinions

Why 2 Supreme Court justices felt Afenyo-Markin's suit should have gone to High Court

In their respective dissenting opinions, Justices Johnson and Amadu held that the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction over the matter, and rather it was the High Court that could determine the matter under Article 99 of the Constitution.

Justice Tanko held that Constitution under Article 99 has clearly indicated that the legality of issues relating to vacancy of seats in Parliament was within the purview of the High Court and not the Supreme Court.

The appropriate method, he said, was for the suit to have been filed at the High Court, and if there was an issue of constitutional interpretation, then the High Court would make reference to the Supreme Court pursuant to Article 130(2 ) of the Constitution.

Justice Tanko was of the view that the manner in which the Supreme Courts jurisdiction was invoked was only wrong but also an aberration of processes.

"I do not hasten to proclaim that, I have apprehended with despair the majoritys conclusion in this suit but I state, with utmost deference to the Hon. Chief Justice and the rest of my brethren in the majority that, not only do I fundamentally disagree with their conclusion, I, with all due respect, also find the decision an aberration to the established and accepted judicial position of this court which with profound respect,

"I hope in no distant future the resultant usurpation of the constitutional prerogative of the High Court incidental to the majority decision will be reversed, the court held.
2 Modern markets inaugurated in Techiman, Nkoranza - Local Government Minister urges good maintenance

Ali Biiya Mukasa Nov - 14 - 2024 , 12:45 4 minutes read

The Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development has inaugurated two modern markets for the people of Techiman, the Bono East Regional capital, and Nkoranza.

They are the Nana Abena Market in Techiman South Metropolis and the Nkoranza New Market and Community Enhancements in the Nkoranza South Municipality, both in the Bono East Region.

The Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development Minister, Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, inaugurated the projects at two separate ceremonies in Techiman South Metropolis and Nkoranza South Municipality.

The projects are part of the $245 million World Bank-funded Ghana Secondary Cities Support Programme (GSCSP) aimed at boosting local economies and providing essential services to market users.

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Techiman South market

The newly completed Nana Abena Market in Techiman has 122 lockable stores and 68 market stalls designed to serve both vendors and the broader community, accommodating diverse commercial activities.

Aside from that, it has an administration block, a creche, a restaurant, a dedicated meat shop, new fire, police and health posts.

The modern washrooms and an integrated drainage system, comprising 300 metres of 0.9-metre U-drain, 710 metres of 0.6-metre U-drain, and 900 metres of internal drainage, provide the market with enhanced sanitation.

Additional improvements include a 100-metre road junction upgrade, 1,900 square metres of paved walkways, perimeter fencing for security and 28 streetlights to ensure safety and accessibility throughout the market area.

Nkoranza new market

In Nkoranza, the development has a two-storey block with 50 lockable stores and 100 market stalls, designed to expand local commerce, together with a two-unit creche with an office to support families using the market.

It also comes with police and health posts to ensure a safe trading environment as well as a six-seater water closet, along with two mechanised boreholes for regular water supply.

Strengthening local economies

Speaking at the inauguration of the projects, Mr Korsah emphasised the transformative impact of the facilities.

These projects are a testament to our commitment to creating vibrant, resilient communities. By modernising our markets and improving infrastructure, we are laying the foundation for sustainable growth and support for local livelihoods, he stated.

Maintenance

Mr Korsah encouraged municipal authorities to maintain the facilities and ensure they continued to meet the needs of the communities they served.

Having spent huge sums of money to provide these facilities, one important task I want to give to the Municipal Chief Executives is to ensure that this market is put to good use to benefit their people and put adequate measures in place to maintain these facilities to ensure sustainability, the Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development Minister said.

He added that the project also underlined the determination of the government to ensure that the citizens carried out their economic activities that fed their families and the nation in an improved environment, healthy and worthy, signifying human dignity as well as services we promised the people.

Rising urbanisation

The Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development Minister reiterated that Ghanas urbanisation rate had increased, and that in 2021 the country reached the important threshold where more than 50 per cent of the population now lived in the urban areas.

He said the rapid urbanisation had imposed enormous challenges on existing infrastructure, and the quality of life of the citizens and also hampered the capacity of the urban assemblies to deliver quality service to the urban population.

It is in the light of the complexity and the seemingly intractable urban challenges that the government of Ghana with support from the World Bank has been implementing the Ghana Secondary Cities Support Programme (GSCSP) with a credit facility of $245 million for the past five years. The programme which started in 2019 is expected to be completed in 2025, Mr Korsah stated.

Mr Korsah said the complex programme would also ensure that the right skilled officers were posted to the beneficiary assemblies, ensure effective coordination of the region and the proper use of the land and its related spatial plans as well as the working of other state agencies at the urban and regional levels.

He explained that the Techiman Municipal Assembly joined the GSCSP from its inception in 2019 and had already benefited from Urban Development Grants (UDGs) One and Two 2, and is scheduled to benefit from UDGs 3, 4 and 5 in addition to financial support for capacity building in urban management under the programme.

The Nkoranza South Municipal Assembly was one of the 10 new assemblies that joined the programme in 2022, following its Mid Term Review, and the assembly has since benefitted from both capacity building initiatives and the provision of basic infrastructure such as roads and the market, Mr Korsah said.

He said other phases of the projects were ongoing and at different levels of completion.
Previous article: No more rhetorics: Lets tackle climate crisis now! - President Akufo-Addo to world leaders

Border security experts seek effective measures for sub-region

Justice Agbenorsi Nov - 14 - 2024 , 12:57 3 minutes read

Border management stakeholders from five West African countries have converged on Accra to discuss border security initiatives for effective control in the sub-region.

They include immigration services, police, customs and gendarmerie from Ghana, Togo, Cote d Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Benin.

Also participating in the workshop are international partners, experts in border security and migration management, as well as representatives from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

The three-day workshop, which opened yesterday, will feature case studies from the various African countries in the area of border management and security, measures to enhance cross-border cooperation, regional security, collaboration with border communities to enhance national security, among others.

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It was jointly organised by the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), the International Centre for Migration Policy Development and the European Union (EU).

The workshop is on the theme, Strengthening partnerships for effective border management strategies, lessons learned and future directions.

It also served as a platform to wind up on a project that aimed at enhancing Ghana's border security by building capacity and improving regional cooperation, with the end goal of reducing irregular migration and cross-border crimes

Dubbed Strengthening Border Security in Ghana (SBS Ghana), the project was launched in 2020 and will end this year.

Border management

Opening the workshop, the Comptroller-General of Immigration, Kwame Asuah Takyi, said with the evolving threats, technological advancements and shifting global dynamics, effective border management had become more crucial than ever.

As a result, he said relevant stakeholders in the border management space needed to be active participants in this space to effect the required migration management change.

Highlighting the importance of secure borders in safeguarding national security, facilitating legitimate trade, travel and fostering regional cooperation, he said stakeholders must explore effective strategies for addressing the vulnerabilities and peculiar challenges facing land borders to ensure that legitimate movement of people and goods was facilitated, while maintaining secure and controlled borders.

Let us work together to address the complex challenges we face as a region and create a safer, more secure and more interconnected region for all.

Together, we can deliver the vision of having a well-coordinated, integrated, sustainable and inclusive future for all in the management of our borders in the interest of our respective countries to contribute meaningfully to the management of migration for national development, he said.

The Comptroller-General of Immigration said the service was committed to working together with relevant stakeholders to ensure that the service became a model immigration service for migration management and national security, adding: We will leave no stone unturned in nipping irregular migration in the bud.

EU

The European Union Ambassador to Ghana, Irchard Razaaly, commended the GIS for its crucial role at the borders, adding that they were often the first responders in security matters.

He said the EU had since the commencement of the project provided not only training but also essential equipment to enhance border control, including communication devices and mobility tools.

Moving forward, he announced that the EU was working with the International Centre for Migration Policy (ICMPD) for a new 7-million programme aimed at further strengthening border management at the regional level.

This project, he said, was just the beginning of a new chapter in the EU and Ghana cooperation.

Mr Razaaly expressed the EU's commitment to supporting Ghana and West Africa in enhancing border security.

For her part, the ICMPD Head of West Africa Region, Mojisola Sodeinde, said effective border management was not just a national imperative for security but a regional commitment to uphold the values of safe mobility and trade facilitation.

In line with that, he urged the participants to share their insights and experiences generously and explore innovative approaches to address the shared challenges in the region.
ECO-Schools marks 10th milestone

Ezekiel E. Sottie Nov - 14 - 2024 , 11:06 2 minutes read

The Economic Sustainability Schools (ECO-Schools) has celebrated its 10th anniversary with a call on the students to use the knowledge, values and skills they had acquired for societal transformation to narrow the gap between knowledge and practice.

The first decade anniversary, which is part of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), was on the theme: Celebrating 10 years of education for sustainable development: Where do we go from here?

Objective

Eco-Schools and ESD connote education that empowers students with knowledge, values and skills to address societal transformation, aiming at narrowing the gap between knowledge and practice.

While fostering sustainable development through the education system, ESD simultaneously aims at developing hands-on educational strategies while applying an equitable sustainability approach for the whole of society, including vulnerable groups, public institutions, the business community, civil society, institutional and legal frameworks and public awareness-raising.

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It touches on every aspect of education: planning, policy development, programme implementation, finance, curricula, teaching, learning, assessment and administration, among others.

ESD aims to integrate sustainable development into all areas of education globally, encouraging nations to reform educational curricula and teaching practices to emphasise environmental, social and economic sustainability, hence Eco-Schools.

A section of students of Akosombo AIS at the event

The ESD, which is being implemented by the Eco-Schools approach, started in Ghana as a bilateral collaboration between schools and the local communities of Akosombo and Byaasen in Trondheim, Norway.

First, it was a Global Citizen project that fostered the exchange of ideas and methodologies on learning strategies, cultural exchange and the environment, including letter exchange among students, and eventually physical exchanges between teachers, students and parents.

In her welcome address at the event held at the Akosombo International School (AIS) last Friday, the acting Headmistress of AIS, Sarah Adei, said the Eco-Schools programme had a deep-rooted history with the Volta River Authority (VRA), as AIS, a VRA school, was the pioneer of this initiative in the country as Eco-Schools in Ghana was launched in the school on July 18, 2014.
No more rhetorics: Lets tackle climate crisis now! - President Akufo-Addo to world leaders

Timothy Ngnenbe Nov - 14 - 2024 , 12:57 3 minutes read

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has asked world leaders at the ongoing conference of parties (COP29) in Azerbaijan to walk the talk by shifting from mere dialogue to tackling global climate crisis.

"As we gather here, we must demonstrate that we are not only individuals or policymakers, but people bound by the love for our land and environment.

"Our children's future hinges on our decisions, so COP29 must be a shift from dialogue to action," he said.

Addressing the World Climate Leaders Summit which marks the official opening of COP29 in Azerbaijan yesterday, the President said that the escalating impact of climate change, especially on vulnerable populations, required a concerted effort backed by real action to protect the current and future generations.

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He said it was worrying that after many years of attending the global summit, the world was yet to have a firm grip on workable climate interventions.

The President said it was important for developed countries, in particular, to make financial commitments to accelerate the green transition.

Ghanas situation

On Ghanas climate action, President Akufo-Addo said the government had implemented a Green Ghana initiative, which had led to the planting of over 50 million trees within four years.

He also said the launch of an electric vehicles policy last year had put the country in a good position to establish the needed infrastructure for green transportation and cut down on fossil fuels that were responsible for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The President added that in line with the requirements of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the country had updated its nationally determined contributions (NDCs) aimed to promote adaptation and mitigation interventions.

He also said in 2021, the country submitted 47 NDCs targeted at reducing emissions by 64 million tonnes by 2030 to the UN, an ambition that requires investment of $15 billion.

President Akufo-Addo added that the country had mobilised $800 million through carbon credit trading from Sweden and Switzerland.

That notwithstanding, he said Ghana, like other developing countries, could not reach climate goals alone, for which reason developed countries must honour their financial commitments.

"For Ghana, climate change is real and immediate; affecting our farmers and coastlines and communities.

"Rising temperatures and unpredictable weather threaten our livelihoods daily, but we respond with resilience and commitment," the President said.

Renewable energy

The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev, also said that there was the need for collective global efforts to scale up renewable energy sources, particularly solar and wind.

However, he said even as the world made the transition to green energy, countries that had oil and gas resources must not be hastened into abandoning those natural endorsements.

"Every natural resource is a gift of God and countries should not be blamed for having them or bringing them to the market, because people need them," the President said.

He took a swipe at the Western media for waging a smear campaign against Azerbaijan prior to its hosting of the COP29 event.

"When Azerbaijan was announced as the host of COP29, some Western advocates, including the media and state-sponsored activists, spread fake news about us and called Azerbaijan a petrol nation, when they know that some countries produce 10 times of oil and gas than us.

"They called for a boycott of COP29 but I am sorry to disappoint them because this conference has attracted over 72,000 registered participants from 196 countries, as well as 80 Presidents, Vice-Presidents and Prime Ministers," he said.
Next article: No more rhetorics: Lets tackle climate crisis now! - President Akufo-Addo to world leaders

Public split over Parliament impasse: Majority rates legislature poor, others rate average, good - Graphic poll

Michael Quaye, Francis Osabutey & Samuel Duodu Nov - 14 - 2024 , 13:04 7 minutes read

Respondents in a Daily Graphic online poll are almost equally split over how much the recent issues in Parliament will affect their choices in the December 7 general election.

While 2,392 of the respondents, representing 50.51 per cent of the poll participants, said the issues in the Legislature would affect their electoral choices in December, the remaining 2,344 of the overall 4,736 participants, representing 49.49 per cent of the participants, said the issues would have no bearing on their decision on December 7.

Interestingly, just 1,262 participants, representing 26.65 per cent of participants, rated the current Parliaments work as good, while 1,913, representing 40.39 per cent of the poll participants, rated the legislatures performance as poor, with the remaining 1,561, representing 32.96 per cent of the poll participants, rating Parliaments work as average.

The poll was run by the Graphic Online web-based platform for the Daily Graphic, and, therefore, accessible by internet users and visitors to the website.

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Poll features

It was run across 120 hours and was available to respondents living in Ghana, targeting likely voters.

Indeed, 4,493 of the respondents, representing 94.87 per cent of participants, indicated they are voters, with the remaining 243, representing just 5.13 per cent of participants, indicating they are not voters.

One part of the poll asked respondents if they were satisfied with the current developments in Parliament, while the second part asked respondents if the current impasse in the Legislature would influence their decision on which party to vote for on December 7.

Context

Ghanas Parliament has gained international attention recently after four Members of Parliament (MPs) were deemed to have vacated their seats, at the time, by filing to contest the next elections under sponsorships different from the interests they currently represent in the Legislature.

The situation as communicated by the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, had implications for the composition of Parliament in terms of the new Majority and Minority caucuses, with the possibility of affecting even the composition of the various committees of Parliament.

Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, subsequently applied to the Supreme Court for redress, with the apex court reversing the communication of the Speaker of Parliament last Tuesday.

Before this, Mr Bagbin, addressing the media on issues in Parliament last week, alleged that the Executive and Judiciary as the other arms of Ghana's democratic governance system, had conspired to weaken Parliament.

Indeed, some watchers of Ghana's political space have raised concern about the long-term effect of the Judiciary's intervention in the parliamentary events, with questions lingering about where the lines of separation of powers lie, and whether this is how the concept of checks and balances apply.

While some argue that the Judiciary has overstepped its boundaries by dabbling in the work of the Legislature, others insist that the controversy needed an external power to settle it, hence the intervention by the Supreme Court.

A Political Science lecturer at the University of Education, Winneba, Gilbert Arhinful Aidoo, said instances such as this  where political or procedural disputes overshadowed core legislative duties  risk undermining public confidence and trust in this all-important institution of State.

"Unless parliamentary independence and the authority of its leadership are safeguarded, such controversies may erode the institution's effectiveness".

"The issue exposes vulnerabilities in how parliamentary authority and autonomy are sometimes compromised by political influences, especially if processes lack transparency," Mr Aidoo said.

The legislative arm, he insisted, remained inevitably critical in every democracy, and that "no democracy can thrive without the peoples representatives, who, in principle, should be serving the interest and well-being of their constituents by putting the Executive arm and other institutions of state in check".

Mr Aidoo said Ghanas Parliament had a crucial role beyond merely meeting procedural requirements by acting as a platform for legislative scrutiny, accountability and representation of the masses.

"However, the recent controversy over the declaration of four parliamentary seats vacant brings into sharp focus questions about its strength and true relevance in the democratic dispensation of the country," the lecturer said.

"On one hand, Parliament is expected to be a powerful institution that checks the Executive and ensures (that) laws reflect the peoples will.

"Conversely, this situation could also be seen as a test of Parliaments resilience. If handled with integrity and respect for the rule of law, it could affirm Parliaments commitment to fair representation and accountability," he added.

Mr Aidoo said while Ghanas Parliament remained a significant democratic pillar, its strength hinged on maintaining impartiality, avoiding "hyper-competitive partisan contests", and promoting trust, as well as upholding the principles of true democratic governance amid challenges.

Diminishing influence

The Communications Officer of the Parliamentary Network Africa (PNAfrica), Clement Akoloh, contended that Parliaments relevance in recent years has been increasingly questioned, particularly when it comes to its independence and ability to challenge the Executive.

Parliaments primary function  debating and passing laws, scrutinising the Executive and representing citizens  often gets overshadowed by partisan politics and Executive influence, leaving it sometimes as a procedural formality rather than a robust democratic check, he said.

Mr Akoloh added that the controversy over the declaration of four seats vacant had exposed the weaknesses in Parliaments mandate as an arm of government.

The involvement of the Judiciary in interpreting constitutional provisions concerning seat vacancies, rather than Parliament resolving the matter internally, has diminished the Legislatures authority.

This raises concerns that Parliament is being bypassed in favour of judicial intervention, weakening its role as the primary decision-maker in political and legal matters, the communications officer of the think tank said.

Mr Akoloh said while the Speaker's independence and the fragmented nature of the eighth Parliament might empower it to some extent, the perception of collusion between the Executive and the Judiciary undermines Parliament's authority.

In essence, the controversy has weakened Parliaments relevance by further diminishing its power to act autonomously and assert itself as an independent arm of government, he argued.

The Head of the Department of Political Science of the University for Development Studies, Dr Gbensuglo Alidu Bukari, observed that Parliaments display of power rivalry and self-serving party interest rather than upholding the constitutionalism of Parliament and peoples representation had weakened the Legislature against the other two arms of government.

He said this political behaviour weakens the constitutional powers (separation of powers) vested in the House of Parliament through the judicial review powers of the Supreme Court.

Dr Bukari said although Parliament was one of the most important building blocks of constitutional democracy, in African democracy and elections, they are commonly dismissed as rubber stamps despite mounting evidence that Parliament shapes political and developmental trajectories in many critical ways.

He said the eighth Parliament presented the country with a different model of parliamentary representation in the form of a hung Parliament, which should have been an opportunity for political interactions between parliamentarians of both sides of the House for consensus building for the purposes of government business.

Dr Bukari said Parliament must assert its powers and authority over Judicial and Executive arms of government control.

A political scientist, Dr Samuel Kofi Darkwa, said while the debate continued to unfold, it was clear that both the Speakers actions and the Supreme Courts ruling were drawing greater public interest to the complexities of parliamentary processes.

This engagement could ultimately promote a more informed citizenry, keen on upholding democratic values and the rule of law in Ghana, he said.

Dr Darkwa said it could be argued that the issues had reinforced the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances as vital concepts for a healthy democracy.

He said the Supreme Court's intervention could be interpreted as serving to clarify the boundaries of legislative and judicial authority, thus preventing any single branch of government from amassing unchecked power.

Critics argue that the Supreme Court's decision undermines the authority and independence of Parliament, effectively diminishing the Speakers power to make crucial decisions.

They view this as a direct affront to Parliament's autonomy, suggesting that it signals a troubling precedent where judicial intervention in legislative matters becomes commonplace, the respected academic observed.

He, however, also argued that the ruling also brought important public attention to the workings of Parliament and highlighted the necessity for strict adherence to constitutional principles, adding that such scrutiny could, in the long term, contribute to a more robust governance system and enhanced transparency.
Next article: Why 2 out of 7 Supreme Court justices ruled Afenyo-Markin's suit should have gone to High Court

President Akufo-Addo honoured with Frances Grand Officier de la Legion dHonneur

GraphicOnline Nov - 14 - 2024 , 17:17 1 minute read

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has been awarded the distinguished title of Grand Officier de la Legion dHonneur by French President Emmanuel Macron.

The award, conferred during an official state visit to France on November 14, 2024, celebrates President Akufo-Addos notable contributions to diplomacy, democratic governance, and international cooperation.

The Grand Officier de la Legion dHonneur is one of the most prestigious honours within Frances Legion dHonneur, an order established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 to recognise individuals who demonstrate exceptional service to France and the global community.

The award acknowledges achievements in fields ranging from public service and international diplomacy to arts, science, and humanitarian efforts.
Martin Amidu on why Speaker Bagbin should not place political interests above national unity

Mohammed Ali Politics Nov - 14 - 2024 , 12:23 7 minutes read

A former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu has accused the Speaker of Parliament, Alban S.K. Bagbin of placing political interests above national unity, claiming that this stance could disrupt the balance between the executive, legislative and judiciary.

To Mr Amidu, the Speaker's posture, amounts to defying Supreme Court orders and warned that this stance could have lasting effects on parliamentary unity and governance in Ghana.

In a statement released on Wednesday, [Nov 13, 2024], Mr Amidu highlighted Speaker Bagbins refusal to comply with the Supreme Court ruling that declared as unconstitutional, the Speaker's declaration of four Parliamentary seats vacate.

The Supreme Court in declaring the Speaker's action as unconstitutional indicated that, the four Members of Parliament intended to switch their status on their political party sponsorship for the next term of Parliament and not within this present term.

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The court therefore said an MP's seat could be declared vacant within a term.

In his statement, Mr Amidu said the Speaker's refusal to abide by the Supreme Court's ruling was a disregard for the rule of law.

The court had earlier prior to the ruling directed the Speaker to hold on with implementing the decision to let the four MPs vacate their seats on grounds of crossing carpet.

Mr Amidu argues that Speaker Bagbins defiance not only violates constitutional directives but could also fuel ongoing tensions and conflicts within Parliament, especially between the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

He accused Speaker Bagbin of placing political interests above national unity, claiming that this stance could disrupt the balance between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

Mr Amidu also suggested that Bagbins actions may be driven by personal ambitions, putting the stability of Parliament at risk to achieve political goals.

He cautioned that the Speakers actions could leave emotional and face-saving residues that may hinder Parliaments cohesion for years, even after Bagbins tenure.

He urged Bagbin to set aside personal interests and follow the Supreme Courts orders, emphasising that respect for judicial authority is essential to avoid future constitutional crises.

Attached below is the full text of Martin Amidu's article

SPEAKER BAGBIN'S DISOBEDIENCE OF THE SUPREME COURT'S ORDERS LEAVES RESIDUES TO BE FELT FOR YEARS TO COME:

BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU

The Speaker of Parliament did not have to wait for the judgment of the Supreme Court rendered on 12 November 2024, declaring both his conduct on 17 October 2024 in Parliament in interpretating the provisions of Article 97 (1) (g) and (h), of the 1992 Constitution and pronouncing the seats of four Members of Parliament (MPs) vacant as unconstitutional to obey orders directed at Speaker of Parliament by the Court on 18 October 2024 and reaffirmed on 30 October 2024 staying the Speaker's ruling or pronouncement of those four seats vacant.

The Speakers continued intransigence in challenging, disobeying, and scurrilously abusing the Court through pronouncements in Parliament and media engagements with public funds escalated the conflict to such intractable and emotional intensity that the eventual resolution of the controversy by the Supreme Court on 12 November 2024 has left behind emotional and face-saving residues that will affect coordination and cooperation in Parliament between the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for several years after the tenure of Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin as the Speaker of the eighth (8) Parliament of Ghana.

Speaker Bagbin's media engagement and pronouncements on 6 November 2024 which I thought was going to be reconciliatory and to which I put in tremendous efforts behind the scenes to encourage him to do so, took on the hallmark of contempt of scandalizing the Supreme Court in the execution of the judicial power vested in the Court under the 1992 Constitution.

The Speaker's attitude of refusing to ensure that the status quo ante his ruling of 17 October 2024 prevailed on 7 November 2024 was also contumacious of the two decisions and of the orders of the Supreme Court.

The decisions and orders of the Supreme Court or any other court are binding until vacated or overturned by the Courts.

Millions of media discussions on radio, television, in the print, and other electronic media can not change this position of the law designed to ensure respect for decisions of the courts as enjoined under the 1992 Constitution and as carried over from the common law.

Whether the Court's decision was founded or unfounded was besides the point, it had to be obeyed until set aside or overturned, period! We did not have to wait for the Supreme Court's judgment on 12 November 2024 to now turn round to remind Speaker Bagbin and the public of the consequences of disobeying or scurrilously commenting on the decisions and orders of the Court or abusing the Court.

How Speaker Bagbin is going to swallow his big ego and pride, and recall Parliament by eating humble pie in obeying the judgment and orders of the Court after disrupting the smooth working of Parliament for more than one month should be anybody's guess.

Speaker Bagbin adjourned Parliament sine die on Thursday, 7 November 2024 after Parliament had been recalled at the behest of the Majority caucus of Parliament.

With the judgment of the Court on 12 November 2024, if I were the leader of the majority caucus in Parliament, I will not submit any further petition for the re-convening of Parliament.

I will wait to see how the Speaker is going to eat humble pie and initiate the process of re-convening Parliament soonest.

What serious and meaningful business can Parliament reconvened after 12 November 2024 be able to do in the national interest before rising for the elections on 7 December 2024?

Maybe, Speaker Bagbin and his supporters intended to put the nation in this chaotic situation to satisfy an expedient political agenda at the expense of the national good.

I doubt whether this is a good legacy to crown a self acclaimed distinguished parliamentary career of 28 years as an MP after which he became the Speaker, but time will tell.

Speaker Bagbin has needlessly squandered valuable Parliamentary time for the conduct of critical national business in the interest of ordinary citizens who have footed the bills permitting him to be an umpire in Parliament and to take care of his exorbitant medical and travel expenses to and from Dubai. Common observation throughout socialization in life and common sense teaches that intractable and intense emotional conflicts even when they appear to have been resolved leave residues which inform the next cycle of conflict between the same adversaries or their proxies.

The crisis in Parliament was exacerbated by Speaker Bagbin's failure to have exercised maturity and the experience he claims to have accumulated for an alleged 32 years in Parliament (when Parliament under the Constitution will be 32 year on 7 January 2025) to discern that the fire which was ignited in the Tamale South Constitueney on 12 October 2024 and consummated in Parliament on 15 and 17 October 2024 was doomed to fail in the final run in the Courts.

I made my opinion known on 13 October 2024 to an emissary of Haruna Iddrisu, the leader of the architects who orchestrated the burning of Parliament with a needless application for the vacation of the four seats before the motion was moved on 15 October 2024 in Parliament by the Minority Leader who adopted the conspiracy to set fire to the nation and the 1992 Constitution from an NDC political gathering of leading members in the Tamale South Constituency on 12 October 2024.

When an elder allows himself to be led by the nose by a younger generation full of youthful exuberance he suffers for his own folly by being pushed into excessive actions whilst his blood is on heat, and his reason has not assumed its seat.

Speaker Bagbin has through his intransigence and bloated ego put a knife on the conventions that held the coordinating and cooperative relationship of the majority and minority in Parliament on the one hand, and the executive and the legislature on the other hand together, and things have fallen apart.

Whatever the short-term objective that the Speaker and his supporters have achieved, it will take an exceedingly long time for the centre to hold again now and in future Parliaments unless greed gives way to the love of our homeland Ghana.

Martin A. B. K. Amidu

12 November 2024
Next article: Supreme Court interpretation of Article 97 liberates NPP MPs to now support Alan - Solomon Owusu

Previous article: Ex-President Kufuor endorses Bawumia as man of the moment for Ghana

Reject Bawumia to bring economy back to life - Mahama

Kester Aburam Korankye Politics Nov - 14 - 2024 , 16:51 2 minutes read

The Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has called on voters to reject Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia in the December polls to enable an economic recovery under an NDC-led government.

He stated that a vote for the New Patriotic Partys (NPP) presidential candidate would signify an endorsement of continued hardship and economic mismanagement.

A vote for Bawumia means you are happy with the mismanagement of our finances, our increased debt stock, and the current sufferings. So, if you are displeased with what is happening, youll have to vote them out of office, he said.

Mr. Mahama, who is on a two-day campaign tour of the Western North Region, was speaking during a community engagement in Enchi in the Aowin constituency on Wednesday, marking the start of his tour of the region.

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The former President argued that retaining the NPP, which he claimed had failed in governance, would mean supporting the economic mismanagement led by Dr Bawumia, the Chairman of the Economic Management Team.

He reminded the gathering of the current economic hardships and assured them of better days under an NDC-led government.

The economy is tough for Ghanaians, including businesspersons who are experiencing sluggish growth in their businesses, Mr. Mahama said.

Tour

The campaign team of Mr. Mahama arrived in the Western North Region on Wednesday, following engagements with the clergy and stakeholders in the creative arts industry in Kumasi on Monday and Tuesday.

Mr. Mahama has embarked on a nationwide tour to share his vision and proposals for Ghana's growth and development. His campaign, tagged #Mahama4Change2024, has taken him to various regions, where he has spent days campaigning in several constituencies.

In the Western North, the former President has visited chiefs, local authorities, and opinion leaders while engaging with party supporters, locals, and the public to campaign and solicit their votes for the December election.

Mr. Mahama is promoting the NDCs Reset Ghana message, focusing on policies in the partys 2024 manifesto.

On Wednesday, Mr. Mahama paid courtesy calls on the Paramount Chief of Enchi in Aowin before holding community engagement sessions.

He also visited the Dadieso Chief in Suaman, addressing mini rallies and community durbars in various constituencies, including Akontombra and Bodi.
MTN launches Africas first 5.5G network in South Africa

GraphicOnline Technology Nov - 14 - 2024 , 07:24 2 minutes read

MTN South Africa, in partnership with Huawei, has completed Africa's first 5.5G network trial at MTNs headquarters in Johannesburg, marking a milestone in the continents telecommunications landscape.

This advanced 5.5G network, introduced as part of MTN's efforts to drive a tech-centric future for Africa, is expected to significantly boost South Africas digital economy by expanding connectivity and enhancing lives.

The newly trialed 5.5G network delivers a 10-gigabit experience and comes equipped with groundbreaking capabilities, including enhanced Internet of Things (IoT) integration, autonomous driving network technology, and green ICT. The technology allows for network performance upgrades that promise ten times the speed and number of connections compared to existing 5G, while also reducing latency and power consumption by a factor of ten.

For the trial, MTN South Africa used Huaweis advanced SingleRAN ultra-wideband active-antenna units along with hybrid beamforming and Inter-FR carrier aggregation technologies. With spectrum resources allocated for the test, the trial achieved impressive speeds of up to 8.6 Gbps per user. This high-speed connection unlocks a range of applications for both consumers and businesses, paving the way for next-generation services like 24K Extended Reality (XR), Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), and holographic conferencing.

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Rami Farah, MTN South Africa's Chief Technology Officer, described the 5.5G validation as not just a technical breakthrough but also a testament to MTNs ongoing pursuit of excellence. He added that the company looks forward to deploying innovative solutions that enhance connectivity for South Africans.

Li Chen, Huaweis Vice President for the Sub-Saharan Region, said, The joint release of 5.5G by MTN South Africa and Huawei deepens our strategic partnership and demonstrates Huaweis commitment to bringing cutting-edge technology to Africa. Jason Shao, Managing Director of Huawei MTN SA, noted that the success of the trial is a major step in advancing South Africas digital transformation.

With the 5.5G network, MTN aims to transform how South Africans interact with technology, promising improved business operations, consumer experiences, and a boost to the countrys digital landscape.
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Nearly $1.6 million of the government of Guams $2.38 million purchase of the Archdiocese of Aganas historic chancery property will go to the settlement trust for clergy sex abuse claimants.

This is according to the archdiocese on Thursday, the first time it released a statement about the Agana Heights property purchase that Adelup confirmed on Nov. 10.

The archdiocese provided more details about the purchase, including the expected closing of escrow on Dec. 12 and where the proceeds will be used:

$500,000 will be used to renovate the museum space at the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica in Hagatna for the new chancery.

$250,000 will be applied to administrative claims as allowed by the bankruptcy court.

Nearly $1.6 million: Less commission and closing fees, the rest of the sale proceeds, expected to be close to $1.6 million, will go to the Archbishop of Agana Settlement Trust for the claimants.

Archbishop Ryan P. Jimenez understands the urgency for the claimants and prays that the Chancery sale will help provide a small measure of justice for the deep harm they endured at the hands of members of our Church, the archdiocese said in a statement.

The statement, released by archdiocese director of communications Tony Diaz, said the archdiocese on Sept. 13 formally accepted the $2.38 million chancery property offer from GovGuam, through the Department of Administration.

The purchased property includes the archbishops residence, where the late Pope John Paul II, who later became a saint, stayed overnight during his historic visit to Guam on Feb. 22 and 23, 1981.

The archdiocese said because of this, the chancery property holds a historic, spiritual and cultural significance to the people of Guam. A majority of the Guam population is Catholic.

The property on San Ramon Hill, with a sweeping view of Hagatna and the bay, has been the home of archbishops for several decades.

The sale of the chancery property is a major part of the archdiocese bankruptcy settlement terms enumerated in the 5th Amended Joint Chapter 11 Plan agreed upon by both parties and approved by the bankruptcy court.

There are nearly 300 Guam clergy sex abuse claimants who are part of the settlement. Among the clergy named in the lawsuits filed were former Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron, who was convicted by a Vatican tribunal for molesting multiple minors, leading to Rome stripping him of his position, title and ban from the Archdiocese of Agana.

Guam clergy abuse claimants started receiving settlement money from the trust last year, using cash from the archdiocese and insurance money, along with expected proceeds from the sale of dozens of property that the Catholic Church owns on Guam.

The joint plan also calls for a six-month delayed possession by the buyer to accommodate the renovations and move.

Adelup said during this transition period, the archdiocese will continue to assume all operational costs such as paying for the utility bills.

GovGuam plans to use the chancery property to provide services to individuals with disabilities, as well as for community outreach.

GovGuams purchase using federal funds comes about a year after Phoenix Foundation and its donors tried to buy  but did not raise the full $2.3 million  to successfully buy the property.
The trial continues for registered Level 1 sex offender Duane Manuel Cruz, who is accused of raping and touching the breast, inner thigh and g
Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero led a Guam delegation to South Korea to help boost air seat capacity and strengthen partnerships with leading airlines from the Asian country.

The mission comes at a time when Guams tourism recovery from the pandemic remains among the slowest in the world.

Leon Guerrero was joined by Guam Visitors Bureau General Manager Carl Gutierrez, GVB Board Directors Ho Eun and Ken Yanagisawa, and Guam International Airport Authority Executive Director John Quinata. Ho is the chairman of the GVB Korea Marketing Committee, while Yanagisawa is the chairman of the GVB Japan Marketing Committee.

Overall, our delegation was well received by all our business partners and we had very fruitful and promising discussions. Airline management teams were in full support of our programs and offerings. I am very proud of the GVB team both in Guam and Korea. Together we will continue working to increase visitor arrivals and improve their overall experience on Guam, the governor said in a statement.

The mission is focused on reinforcing ties with major partners, including Jeju Air, Jin Air, Korean Air, and tway, to offer incentives for additional flights while preserving the existing airline schedule, GVB said in a press release.

GIAAs Quinata said Korean visitors are essential to Guams business revenue. Guam currently has four airlines actively serving the market and the current seat capacity is about 60% of pre pandemic numbers from Korea.

This mission gave us a great opportunity to speak face to face with airline CEOs on how Guam can collectively support expanded services for additional frequency, seasonal services, and consider new originating cities from Korea, adding to our current passenger base from Incheon and Busan airports, Quinata said in a statement.

In addition to the airline talks, a significant highlight of the Korea mission was the signing of a memorandum of understanding between GVB and Shinhan Card, one of Koreas largest financial service providers, GVB said.

With approximately 29 million cardholders, Shinhan Card has successfully driven Guam-bound consumer traffic through joint initiatives with GVB like the GoGo! Guam Pay, offering their cardholders exclusive discounts and added value for their Guam vacations, the bureau added.

Increasing visitor spend improves the value chain that our visitors and locals have come to enjoy, GVBs Gutierrez said in a statement.

Recent data from Shinhan Card indicates that cardholder spending on Guam tripled in 2024 compared to the same promotional period in 2019, according to GVB.

Additionally, the delegation met with U.S. Ambassador to Korea Philip S. Goldberg, to discuss visa entry requirements for special interest groups, with the aim of expanding GVBs marketing initiatives and creating new opportunities to attract Korean visitors to Guam.
Port Week celebrations wrapped up on Nov. 8 with a recognition of employees who have gone above and beyond in their roles and those who have faithfully served the government under the Port Authority of Guam, including two who have been with the agency for four decades.

Port General Manager Rory Respicio and other dignitaries recognized Lina M. Quinata and Victor Q. Duenas, each celebrating 40 years with the Port.

They also recognized Frank B. Santos, Carol V. Jenkins, David C. Taitano, Antoinette M. Mafnas and Frances T. Cepeda who are celebrating 35 years of service.

Honored for 30 years of service were Albert I. Tudela, Betty Ann P. Wusstig-Perez and Respicio himself.

This years event at Top O The Mar in Nimitz Hill capped off the week-long celebration of the Ports 49th anniversary.

Respicio, at the event, highlighted the critical role the Port plays in Guams economy and security, and praised the honorees for their hard work and resilience, calling them the backbone of Guams only commercial seaport.

For nearly half a century, its been the gritdefined by perseverance, passion, and unwavering commitmentof every Port Authority employee that has kept the Port strong and resilient. This Port Strong spirit, a testament to pushing through challenges with dedication and resilience, is the backbone of Guams economy and an essential pillar of our national security, Respicio said. We honor each individual, past and present, whose grit has shaped a legacy that keeps Guam and our region moving forward.

The recipients of this years Port awards include:
Aldi, the German Supermarket, acquired Winn-Dixie, Harveys Supermarkets and other grocery stores in the Southeast in an attempt to increase its presence in the region. (Brandon Bell | Getty Images)Getty Images

Since snapping up nearly 400 Winn-Dixie supermarkets in March (with most located in Florida), Aldi has remained largely silent about exactly which stores would get the full discount destination makeover.

But they have said their goal is to convert and reopen at least 50 of these stores as an Aldi in 2025. And in July, three Florida Winn-Dixie locations  two in Panama City and one in Lakeland, were among the first marked for conversion.

However, despite the fact that Aldi CEO Jason Hart told Supermarket News the plan was to make the conversions a positive and seamless one for everyone involved, whispers of discontent and disappointment among current Winn-Dixie employees began to surface, with some citing a lack of communication from corporate officials.

Winn-Dixie employee speaks out

Under the promise of anonymity, one current Florida Winn-Dixie employee told GulfLive.com in Port Charlotte, over the course of a few months, that instead of freshly preparing product every day  employees of that store, located at 200 Kings Highway, started getting products shipped in containers, and after three months of this, a lot of employees walked out upon being told the store was closing for an Aldi remodel,

Everything we were told has been very hush hush, because management is not sharing updates with staff, who only hear any news through word of mouth, the source, who works at a different Winn-Dixie location, continued. When a few of us asked  why not tell everyone  management said they dont want everyone walking out.

And as far as giving current Winn-Dixie employees first dibs on jobs at Aldi, the source claims that current Aldi employees have first choice.

Aldis employees have first choice if they want to move to a new store, the source said. Then they will look for applications from previous Winn-Dixie employees and from what we understand, it will be comparable to a lottery drawing on who they give interviews.

Rumors fuel frustration

On July 7, Lakeland Retro, a local blogger, shared a tip about the Winn-Dixie at 6902 S. Florida Ave. in Lakeland, writing in a Facebook post, Nothing official from the company, but there are rumors it is to become an Aldi.

In response, fellow Facebook user, Ciera Goldman, wrote, Theyre laying off my boyfriends uncle who has worked there for 12 years. With a minimal severance package. They did confirm to him however that it will become an Aldi.

In fact, all 48 employees of that store were laid off when it officially closed later that same month on July 29, to make way for a new Aldi in 2025

Now, another Lakeland Winn-Dixie has been marked for potential conversion at 2900 Lakeland Highlands Road  with Aldis permit request currently under review by the city of Lakeland.

And rumors that a Winn-Dixie in Arcadia, Florida, at 1737 E Oak St., would close and convert to an Aldi were confirmed as photos of the stores equipment, including refrigerators, freezers and pharmacy shelving were listed for sale on an auction site.

Job opportunities amid Winn-Dixie transition

In November, Southeastern Grocers announced that the Winn-Dixie Store in Sebastian at 995 Sebastian Blvd. would close for conversion on Feb. 2, 2025, to reopen as Aldi later in the year. The company reportedly notified store employees in a letter obtained by Sebastian Daily that stated, in part, While your position will be eliminated between 1/6/2025 and 2/2/2025, there are several options available.

Among them are severance and the option to apply for a future position with Aldi. But to be eligible, the letter states they must agree to work through the stores closure  or an agreed-upon early departure.

In 2017, the Winn-Dixie at 20417 Biscayne Blvd. in Adventura underwent an extensive remodel, including new hardwood flooring, expanded departments, and free Wi-Fi and coffee. However, it now appears an Aldi is on the horizon at this location as well  as several open positions are currently being advertised for the grand opening of the new store.

For a full-time lead store associate, the starting wage is $19.50 per hour with an annual wage increase that extends up to $21.50 per hour by year five. The company is also hiring an assistant store manager with wages starting at $24.50 per hour  and a store manager trainee, with a salary that starts at $28.25 per hour  and an estimated earning potential in the first year of up to $95,000.

Aldi officials committed to providing support

Aldi officials said they remain committed to hiring as many Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket associates as possible from converted stores to Aldi, adding, they have already seen strong interest in open positions from SEG managers and associates.

An Aldi spokesperson told GulfLive.com that the stores current employees are given the opportunity to be the first to apply to newly converted Aldi stores.

In addition, the spokesperson said. Aldi is committed to doing its best to minimize the impact and provide support and opportunities to associates at converting stores, including the option to remain with Winn-Dixie and transfer to a neighboring store,

And Meredith Hurley, senior director of communications and community for Southeastern Grocers, told GulfLive.com, the company remains committed to providing our associates with transparency and ongoing support throughout this process.



To ensure a smooth transition, SEG continues to work diligently with Aldi to provide opportunities to each associate at converting stores, Hurley said. Including having the first opportunity to apply to roles at newly converted Aldi stores or remain with SEG and transfer to a neighboring Harveys Supermarket or Winn-Dixie store.

In September, as the company continued adding new stores across the country, Aldi announced it would hire more than 13,000 store and warehouse associates for the upcoming 2024 holiday season.

How to get a job at Aldi

New stores mean new jobs and amid reports of good pay and benefits, nearly 60% of current and former workers would recommend Aldi as an employer, according to Glassdoor.

To apply for a job at Aldi:




Haiti - FLASH : Bahamasair suspends flights to Haiti





On Wednesday, November 13, 2024, the airline Bahamasair announced the suspension of all its flights to Haiti as a security measure, following the shootings suffered on Monday on planes in Port-au-Prince https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43614-haiti-flash-spirit-airlines-plane-hit-in-flight-by-several-bullets-video.html ].



"Due to recent events, we have decided to suspend flights to Cap-Haitien until further notice," Chester Cooper, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism, Aviation and Investment of the Bahamas, explained at a press conference adding "The safety of Bahamasair and passengers comes first and every day, every week, we evaluate whether to continue the service." Chester Cooper reiterated that the airline generally flies to Cap-Haitien because the city is safer than Port-au-Prince stressing "We do not take the safety of Bahamasair and its passengers lightly, our policy will always be to cancel a flight if we consider the situation to be unstable."



In addition, the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) banned on Tuesday for 30 days, commercial flights of American companies to Haiti https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43621-haiti-flash-us-airlines-banned-from-flying-over-haiti-for-30-days.html



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43622-haiti-flash-american-airlines-suspends-flights-to-haiti-for-3-months.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43621-haiti-flash-us-airlines-banned-from-flying-over-haiti-for-30-days.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43614-haiti-flash-spirit-airlines-plane-hit-in-flight-by-several-bullets-video.html



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Insecurity : The UN temporarily suspends its humanitarian aid





The United Nations has temporarily suspended the delivery of humanitarian aid to Haiti due to the inaccessibility of the port and airport of the capital due to the serious deterioration of the security situation.



Stephane Dujarric, the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres, explained in his daily press conference that humanitarian flights had to be suspended after the decision of the Haitian Government to close Toussaint Louverture airport until November 18 following gunfire on Spirit Airlines flight 951 during landing which had to urgently divert to the Dominican Republic after being hit by several projectiles https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43614-haiti-flash-spirit-airlines-plane-hit-in-flight-by-several-bullets-video.html . A closure that limits the delivery of aid and humanitarian personnel to Haiti.



The closure of the airport until November 18 adds to the difficulties of access to the city's port, the country's main port, which although open to navigation, is de facto closed by road, Dujarric explained.



The UN had to postpone "indefinitely" the movement of 20 trucks carrying medicines and essential supplies that were to go to the South of Haiti and is now considering the possibility of moving its air operations to an airport in the North of the country in Cap-Haitien.



In addition, the increasing activity of armed gangs has forced UN agencies to suspend their cash delivery operations to "thousands of people", due to the lack of a minimum of security.



"We call for an end to the escalation of violence, in order to allow safe, sustainable and unhindered humanitarian access, as well as the protection of people."



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - FLASH : Police and a group of citizens stop an ambulance and execute several patients





Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) condemns in the strongest terms the deaths of several patients, executed on 11 November 2024, after an MSF ambulance carrying three young people with gunshot wounds was forced to stop by Haitian police and members of a citizen self-defense brigade, about 100 metres from the MSF hospital in Drouillard and forced the ambulance to transfer to a public hospital in Port-au-Prince.



After an attempted arrest and shots fired in the air, the police escorted the ambulance to La Paix hospital. At the scene, law enforcement officers and members of the citizen brigade surrounded the ambulance, slashed the tyres and tear-gassed the MSF staff inside the vehicle to force them out. They then took the wounded a little further away, outside the hospital grounds, where they shot at least two of them.



MSF staff in the ambulance were violently attacked, insulted, tear-gassed, threatened with death and held against their will for more than four hours before being allowed to leave. The MSF ambulance was damaged and was no longer roadworthy, and the entire team left in a second vehicle.



"This act is a shocking display of violence, both for the patients and for MSF medical personnel, and it seriously calls into question MSFs ability to continue delivering essential care to the Haitian people, which is in dire need," said Christophe Garnier, Head of Mission. "Our teams and our patients need a minimum level of safety to continue providing medical care."



We call on the authorities and all stakeholders to respect the right to access medical care without discrimination or hindrance, and to guarantee the protection of patients, as well as respect for medical staff and health facilities in the face of increasing violence.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Upgraded tech, homegrown engine on J-35A fighter boost combat effectiveness: Chinese Air Force

Xinhua) 11:08, November 14, 2024

A China's J-35A stealth fighter jet takes part in a performance during Airshow China in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, Nov. 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Liu Dawei)

GUANGZHOU, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- China's new J-35A stealth fighter, which made its debut at the ongoing Airshow China, is equipped with a homegrown engine and a human-machine interaction design that help it fully exert its combat effectiveness, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force said on Wednesday.

At a press conference on the sidelines of the airshow, Xie Peng, spokesperson of the PLA Air Force, said that the J-35A, with its domestically developed engine, represents an important addition to the PLA Air Force's stable of fighter aircraft.

Air Force officer Li Lanxing, meanwhile, said that during test flights, pilots found the J-35A highly maneuverable, with excellent handling and user-friendly human-machine interaction, enabling full combat effectiveness.

The J-35A test flights are increasingly focused on real combat scenarios, with more emphasis on combat effectiveness, Li added.

A China's J-35A stealth fighter jet takes part in a performance during Airshow China in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, Nov. 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Liang Xu)

The fighter jet has robust joint combat capabilities, said Wang Yongqing, chief expert at the Shenyang Aircraft Design and Research Institute of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC). The AVIC is the primary contractor for the development of China's aviation weapons and equipment.

The J-35A's information and system architecture was designed for seamless interoperability, providing strong standalone combat capabilities and enabling coordination with other battlefield equipment, which will open up new possibilities for future missions, said Wang.

Unlike the J-20, a heavy stealth fighter designed mainly for air superiority, the J-35A is a medium-sized multi-role stealth fighter capable of both air superiority and strike missions against ground and maritime targets.

China's J-20 stealth fighter jets perform in formation during Airshow China in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, Nov. 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Liu Dawei)

The combination of the J-20 and J-35A features both air superiority and multi-role capabilities, greatly enhancing the Air Force's ability to conduct offensive operations in high-threat and contested environments, said military expert Wang Mingzhi in a separate interview with Xinhua.

"The successful development of the J-35A has enabled China to possess two types of stealth fighter jets, providing the Air Force with enhanced capabilities to safeguard the country's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity," Wang added.

Officially known as the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, the airshow is scheduled for Nov. 12-17 in the southern coastal city of Zhuhai.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Apple apparently has a new vice president for industrial design. This is what Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman writes in his latest newsletter. The veteran Molly Anderson previously held the title of "Senior Director" and had a large part of the team under her since at least August. However, she was not at the same level as Alan Dye, who holds the title of Vice President of Human Interface Design.

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Design heads back on the same level

Now Anderson is said to have received her promotion, writes Gurman. The position had been vacant for more than a year when Evans Hankey left  to join Apple's former Chief Design Officer Jony Ive's new company LoveFrom. In the meantime, it was said that Apple had abolished the title of Head of Industrial Design altogether. But this does not appear to be the case. However, there has been no confirmation of the report from Apple so far.

Dye, who is now on the same hierarchical level as Anderson, remains in his position. He has held the post since Ive's departure in 2019. Apple initially continued to work with Ive, but then discontinued the collaboration with LoveFrom in 2022. It is unclear whether there are still contacts now  Ive now works for numerous companies, from fashion brands and car manufacturers to the British royal family and Airbnb.

A revamped design team

Before Anderson's promotion, Jeff Williams, the second man behind CEO Tim Cook and Chief Operating Officer, was unusually the highest authority on industrial design. Apple had previously struggled to find a suitable replacement for Hankey, writes Gurman , partly because a lot of talent had left in recent years. "The company has lost almost all of the designers who worked under Ive, either through [departure to LoveFrom] or retirement." Apple had also feared that promoting one designer over others could lead to further unrest.

Despite the new clarity at the top of the Apple design team, there are apparently internal fears that there could be further departures. The reason is that the designers have "less ownership" in the product development process than they were used to under Ive. The engineering and operations departments have more power with regard to the direction of development than before. On the other hand, the younger designers probably don't know any different.

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(bsc)
Orpo issued his statement in response to a survey published on Tuesday by the Coalition of Finnish Womens Association (Nytkis). The survey found that as many as a quarter of under 35-year-old men in the country believe women may deserve the violence they face because of the way they look, dress or behave.

The entire society must work hard so that we can change these twisted attitudes and weed out violence against women, the prime minister wrote on Instagram. Men have to shoulder their responsibility.

The survey also discovered that half of men are of the opinion that feminist movements restrict the rights of men and 60 per cent that gender equality has already been achieved in Finland.

The results provoked a flood of comments from lawmakers on Tuesday, according to Helsingin Sanomat.

Helena Marttila (SDP) demanded in a press release that more resources are dedicated to mitigating the effects of social media on men, reminding that the well-being of boys and men is a key issue for the safety of society.

Social media has been the subject of a lot of debate in recent years, especially in regards to its effect on mental health and appearance-related pressure on women. There has been much less public debate about what kind of effects social media has on the attitudes of men in particular, she stated.

As policy-makers we have to make sure also men can keep up with the development of society, she added, urging her male colleagues to take part in the discussion. Lets not let the potty mouths on social media or us women do all the talking.

Atte Harjanne (Greens) similarly emphasised that the responsibility for addressing misogynistic attitudes and violence against women cannot rest solely on the shoulders of women.

He drew particular attention to the finding that half of men believe gender equality has already been achieved, describing it as somewhat unusual in a country where the majority of women have experienced harassment, where the party with the premiership has never been led by a woman and where under 10 per cent of listed companies have a woman as chief executive.

The resurgence of conservative values among young men challenges the widespread belief that future generations are inevitably more liberal than their predecessors, stated Minja Koskela, the chairperson of the Left Alliance.

This isnt completely true: there has been a broader discussion about the rising conservatism of young men, and its a real phenomenon. We need more research and discussion to understand the factors underlying the phenomenon, she commented.

The results also drew a response from Minister of Social Security Sanni Grahn-Laasonen (NCP).

Finland as a whole must wake up to the dangers of violence against women. What is particularly shocking is how common attitudes that tolerate violence are among young men. Not every young man, but one in four. You cant ignore this statistic, she wrote on Tuesday.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT
YLE on Wednesday reported that some social media commentators have drawn attention to the formulation of the survey statement that seemed to garner most of the media attention, specifically to the use of the word behave.

A NEWLY PUBLISHED SURVEY of male attitudes toward violence against women has come under criticism on social media.

Women may deserve the violence they experience for dressing, behaving or looking a certain way, for example, the statement read.

The critics highlighted the ambiguity of the word behave, noting that it can be interpreted to encompass violent or threatening behaviour.

The problem is that the question lumps together three things. Now we dont know what the respondent is responding to. You should ask about one thing in one question, Jari Pajunen, the managing director of Taloustutkimus, commented to YLE on Wednesday.

Taloustutkimus is one of the leading market research companies in Finland.

Also Juho Rahkonen from Iro Research admitted that the question had not been formulated optimally.

It wasnt formulated in an orthodox way, but Id still give it my professional blessing. Id argue that people understand what its getting at. Criticising it is a bit like splitting hairs, he said to the public broadcasting company.

The survey was commissioned by the Coalition of Finnish Womens Association (Nytkis). Silla Kakkola, the secretary general of Nytkis, said she is somewhat puzzled by the criticism but added that the statement may be revised for future iterations of the study.

Respondents responded to the question from their own starting point. Im a bit puzzled by the discussion stirred up by this particular question. That your behaviour may deserve violence is part of this culture of violence, she argued to YLE.

In the survey, 21 per cent of all respondents and 25 per cent of under 35-year-old respondents estimated that women may deserve the violence they experience because of the way they look, dress or behave.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT
ABOUT 80 people attended a wild church Remembrance service in Henley on Sunday.

The service took place in the grounds of Fawley Court, off Marlow Road, which played a vital role in the Second World War as a base for the Special Operations Executive which trained recruits on the site before being sent to Occupied Europe.

The service was led by Rev Sue Morton, associate priest for the Hambleden Valley group of churches, who welcomed guests.

The grounds were opened to the service by Mrs Aida Hersham, the owner of Fawley Court.

The service started with a moment of silence then a prayer by Rev Morton. She said: Almighty and eternal God, Lord of the universe and maker of all that is: we praise and thank you for all those who denied themselves and laid down their lives for their friends. Amen.

Rev Morton then introduced Fawley Court and the history of the Special Operations Executive on the site, encouraging people to take in nature.

She said: At wild church we often start by looking around us and, seeing what we notice about our surroundings and about Gods world. As we stand in this place, deep in the English countryside, the River Thames flowing by just a few 100 metres away, it is difficult to imagine what took place here during the war.

But I would like to invite you to look around you, and also down at your feet, because we are standing on the very ground where courageous people, many of whom went on to perform very courageous acts, trained and learned their craft. Many did not return from their missions.

The wild church choir and congregation then sang Eternal Father Strong to Save. Rev Morton then spoke about the history of the house.

She said: In July 1941 the Special Operations Executive was formed from the Secret Intelligence Service, parts of MI6 and the research branch of the War Office.

The Special Operations Executive was a plan hatched by Churchill to set Europe ablaze and undercover agents were sent to France to sabotage and to gather information. Of the 50 women sent to France, 39 were members of the Nursing Yeomanry.

The Signals Section was essentially made up of wireless operators and coders but there were also technical experts, drivers, clerks and administration staff. The female recruits were trained mainly at Fawley Court, which was known as Special Training School 54a.

A complex of huts was installed to the southwest of the main house, where recruits of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry trained, whilst living in the attics of the original house, making do with spartan accommodation.

Katie Deakin then read Micah 4:3-4 and then her son Oscar, a Royal Marine cadet, read the Exhortation, to which the crowd said in unison: We will remember them.

The Last Post was played Jo Hutchins on the flute, everyone fell silent for a moments reflection then she played the Reveille again on her flute. Ania Kozniewska, of Harcourt Close, then said a prayer. She said: Almighty and eternal God, Lord of the universe and maker of all that is: we praise and thank you for all those who denied themselves and laid down their lives for their friends.

Grant to those who are remembered here, and in our hearts, that their names may be written in your book of life; and to us who remember them give grace to walk in the same way of love and faith, that we may come at the last with them to that eternal kingdom where you live and reign in the perfect unity of love, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Lieutenant Elaine Gunstone from the Princess Royals Volunteer Corps, formerly known as the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, said: Ania and I are honoured to be here today to represent those who served our country in both world wars. Today the corps is a thriving charity whose volunteers continue to support the police, the military and civil authorities in crisis. We were deployed following the Westminster, London Bridge and Manchester bombing terror attacks and Grenfell Tower fire. More recently we supported the Nightingale hospital and London coroners during covid.

The hymn Jerusalem was then sung and Rev Morton read the final blessing: Go forth into the world in peace. Be of good courage. Hold fast that which is good. Render to no one evil for evil. Strengthen the fainthearted. Support the weak. Help the afflicted.

Show love to everyone. Love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you, always. Amen.
Chinese language speech competition held in Pakistan's capital

Xinhua) 13:05, November 14, 2024

ISLAMABAD, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese language speech contest for Pakistani college students was held here on Wednesday, with two students receiving the first prize respectively.

Twenty-one students from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of the National University of Modern Languages Islamabad (NUML) and Confucius Institute Islamabad rivaled in the speech competition, followed by a talent show with options from ribbon dance, singing, and group dance.

Citing the contribution made by the NUML, Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Jiang Zaidong said that the university has promoted Chinese language, culture, and people-to-people exchanges between China and Pakistan.

He encouraged the students to learn eagerly, improve continuously, and develop excellent skills to contribute to Pakistan's development and building of a China-Pakistan community with a shared future.

Shahid Mahmood Kayani, rector of the NUML and Pakistani dean of the Confucius Institute Islamabad, said that the university is willing to increase investment in Chinese language teaching, actively promote Pakistan-China friendship, and strive to pass on the ironclad friendship between the two countries.

Talking to Xinhua, Rida Fatima, one of the first prize winners and a sophomore at the NUML, said that learning Chinese will be a great help to her future career in Pakistan.

"Pakistan and China are good neighbors, and studying the Chinese language is a good way to enhance interaction and better relationships between the two peoples in the future," she added.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Marco Rubio's first experiences with Donald Trump involved trading schoolyard insults, but he will now become the president-elect's face to the world -- potentially showing a more traditional, hawkish US foreign policy, especially on China.

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who would be the first Hispanic and first Spanish-speaker as US secretary of state, from his earliest days has been a vociferous opponent of Latin American leftists.

In recent years the senator from Florida, whose nomination was announced by Trump on Wednesday, has become one of the most outspoken senators against Beijing.

His efforts have included championing Taiwan, moving to restrict Chinese business operations in the United States and leading legislative measures to punish the Asian power over its treatment of Hong Kong and the Uyghur minority.

Rubio has also long joined Republicans in their fervent support for Israel and hard line on Iran's clerical state.

Yet for all of his adamant views on the world, the baby-faced 53-year-old was once seen as a rising star in a more moderate Republican Party that would reach out to minorities and suburban swing voters.

After Barack Obama won reelection in 2012, Rubio, then an ambitious first-term senator, sought to work across party lines to overhaul the immigration system and offer a more humane, legal pathway to undocumented immigrants.

Trump has won his second term on a starkly different platform -- mass deportation -- and Trump crushed Rubio's own presidential ambitions in 2016 in the Republican primary.

Rubio, seeking to fight Trump at his level, told a Virginia rally during that campaign: "Have you seen his hands?"

"You know what they say about men with small hands," Rubio said tauntingly.

The crowd erupted. But Rubio's low blow antagonized Trump, who would mock him as "Little Marco."

"He referred to my hands -- if they're small, something else must be small," Trump said days later at a Republican debate, as Rubio stood just feet away. "I guarantee you there's no problem."

Rubio, much like Vice President-elect JD Vance, has looked at the Republican electorate and become a full-throated supporter of Trump, much to the president-elect's delight.

Rubio's nomination will also be a landmark for Hispanics, whose drift toward Trump helped him win the latest election.

In an interview on Catholic-oriented EWTN after Trump's victory, Rubio backed Trump's assertion that the United States is overextended and should focus on rivalry with China.

Speaking like Trump, if more diplomatically, Rubio said Ukraine had fought valiantly but hit a "stalemate" against Russian invaders and that the United States should show "pragmatism" rather than send billions of dollars more in weapons.

"I don't like what Vladimir Putin did, and we do have an interest in what happens there," Rubio said of Russia's president.

"But I think the future of the 21st century is going to largely be defined by what happens in the Indo-Pacific."

Rubio in the Senate has led efforts to arm Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing.

In July, Rubio insisted that a second Trump administration would support Taiwan after Trump in an interview appeared to say that the island needed to pay the United States "protection" money.

Rubio advanced quickly in politics, winning a city election in 1998 five years out of college and becoming speaker of the Florida House of Representatives at age 34.

A Roman Catholic, he has four daughters with his childhood sweetheart, Jeanette Dousdebes, a former cheerleader for the NFL's Miami Dolphins.

Rubio has frequently spoken of his working-class background -- a father who worked as a bartender, coming home late, and a mother who was a cashier.

In a 2012 interview with Time, Rubio recalled how his mother left him a voice message urging him not to "mess" with undocumented immigrants, pleading that they are "human beings just like us."

Now that he is poised to be America's top diplomat under the anti-immigration Trump, Rubio is likely to take another part of his family's message -- their steadfast opposition to communism.

In a 2012 memoir, "An American Son," Rubio recounted how his cigar-smoking grandfather told him how the United States was a beacon to the world's oppressed.

"My grandfather didn't know America was exceptional because he read about it in a book. He lived it and saw it with his own eyes."
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Thursday that Iran will not negotiate under "intimidation" as he held crunch talks with the UN nuclear chief weeks before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said achieving "results" in nuclear talks with Iran was vital to avoid a new conflict in the region already inflamed by Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

His visit comes just days after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Iran was "more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities" giving Israel "the opportunity to achieve our most important goal".

Grossi said Iranian nuclear installations "should not be attacked" but Trump is expected to give Israel a far freer rein after he takes office in January.

The IAEA chief described his meeting with Araghchi as "indispensable" in a post on X.

Araghchi was Iran's chief negotiator in talks that led to a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with major powers, abandoned three years later by Trump.

Araghchi posted that their meeting was "important & straightforward".

He said Iran was "willing to negotiate" based on the "national interest" and "inalienable rights," but was not "ready to negotiate under pressure and intimidation".

"We agreed to proceed with courage and good will. Iran has never left the negotiation table on its peaceful nuclear programme," he said.

Grossi also met the head of Iran's atomic energy organisation, Mohammad Eslami.

Eslami told a joint news conference that Iran would take "immediate countermeasures" against any sanctions from the IAEA's board of governors.

"Any interventionist resolution in the nuclear affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran will definitely be met with immediate countermeasures," Eslami said.

Grossi's visit is his second to Tehran this year but his first since Trump's re-election.

During his first term in the White House from 2017 to 2021, Trump adopted a policy called "maximum pressure" which reimposed sweeping US economic sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 deal.

In response, Iran started to gradually roll back its commitments under the deal, which barred it from enriching uranium to above 3.65 percent.

The IAEA says Iran has significantly expanded its stocks of uranium enriched to 60 percent, a level that has triggered international alarm as it is much closer to the 90 percent level needed for a nuclear warhead.

Iran has blamed the incoming US president for the standoff.

"The one who left the agreement was not Iran, it was America," government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Wednesday.

"Mr. Trump once tried the path of maximum pressure and saw that this path did not work."

Trump's looming return to the White House in January has only added to international fears of all-out conflict between Israel and Iran after the archfoes exchanged unprecedented direct attacks earlier this year.

"The margins for manoeuvre are beginning to shrink," Grossi warned in an interview with AFP on Tuesday, adding that "it is imperative to find ways to reach diplomatic solutions".

Grossi has said that while Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon, it does have plenty of enriched uranium that could eventually be used to make one.

Later Thursday, Grossi was due to hold talks with President Masoud Pezeshkian, who won election in July on a platform to improve ties with the West and revive the 2015 deal.

But all efforts to get the nuclear agreement off life support have failed.

The IAEA chief has repeatedly called for more cooperation from Iran.

In recent years, Tehran has switched off surveillance devices used to monitor its nuclear programme and effectively barred IAEA inspectors.

Grossi said he would visit uranium enrichment plants at Fordo and Natanz on Friday to get a "full picture" of Iran's nuclear programme.

The foundations of the programme date back to the late 1950s, when the United States signed a civil cooperation agreement with the Western-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

In 1970, Iran ratified the NPT, which requires signatory states to declare and place their nuclear materials under IAEA control.

But with Iran threatening to hit back at Israel for its latest missile strikes, some lawmakers have called on the government to revise its nuclear doctrine to develop an atomic bomb.

They called on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate authority in Iran, to reconsider his longstanding religious edict or fatwa banning nuclear weapons.
Leading global real estate company Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd., and Mitsui Fudosan Resort Management Co., Ltd. will open HOTEL THE MITSUI HAKONE in Hakone, Japan (Ashigarashimo District, Kanagawa Prefecture) in 2026. The new, 126-room property will be located in Hakone's premier hot spring resort area on more than 33 acres within the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park.

This represents new development under the luxury hotel brand HOTEL THE MITSUI following the 2020 opening of HOTEL THE MITSUI KYOTO, which has already garnered many accolades, including three consecutive years with the prestigious Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star rating and Three Michelin Keys in 2024*.

ConceptInheriting HOTEL THE MITSUI's "Embracing Japan's Beauty" concept, HOTEL THE MITSUI HAKONE will offer globally recognized hospitality and exceptional facilities while celebrating the region's natural and cultural richness. The Mitsui brand values harmony with local nature, history and aesthetics, finding beauty in the fleeting seasonal transitions that have long inspired Japanese sensibilities. This expansive property previously housed the Mitsui family's villas, linking it to their historic legacy.

LocationHistorically an important post town on the Tokaido route between Tokyo and Kyoto, Hakone is a premier destination attracting visitors from across Japan and the world, renowned for its hot springs, museums and views of Mt. Fuji from Lake Ashi. With unique landscape features shaped by ancient volcanic activity, area attractions include Sengenyama Park, the Jakotsu River and the mystical Chisuji Falls, offering guests a prime location to immerse themselves in nature's shifting beauty.

Hakone's hot springs, also born from volcanic activity, feature a variety of unique mineral waters. The planned site of HOTEL THE MITSUI HAKONE, located in Kowakudani, offers a distinctive high-saline hot spring. The relaxing thermal spring facilities and all guest rooms will draw water directly from on-site sources, providing an immersive and exceptional hot spring experience.

Distinctive FeaturesWorking with renowned designers such as Yabu Pushelberg, HOTEL THE MITSUI HAKONE aims to create a timeless, uniquely refined space that embodies Japanese beauty and tradition while setting new standards for luxury. Nestled in a lush forest, the main hotel building will allow guests to experience the sensory delights of the woods and valleys, while 126 spacious guest rooms offer views of the surrounding greenery. Guest rooms will average approximately 60 square meters / 645 square feet, with larger villas and a Presidential Suite, each filled with natural light and offering comfort and elegance.

Hotel website
Accor, a global leader in hospitality, is proud to announce the signing of Sofitel Legend Pyramids Giza, an extraordinary new luxury hotel in partnership with Abu Dhabi Tourism Investment Company (ADTIC). This exceptional property, set to open in late 2027, will be located near the majestic Giza Pyramids and the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), offering unrivaled views of Egypt's most iconic landmarks and a timeless immersion into the country's ancient heritage.

"We are truly excited to bring the Sofitel Legend brand to the iconic landscape of Giza with this exceptional project. Here, luxury and history will converge in an unforgettable way. With Sofitel Legend Pyramids Giza, we are creating a flagship destination that honors Egypt's profound heritage and culture while marking a major milestone for our brand. We deeply appreciate the trust ADTIC has placed in us, and together, we are thrilled to establish a new landmark in Egypt."  Maud Bailly, CEO of Sofitel, Sofitel Legend, MGallery and Emblems.

A New Icon in Luxury Hospitality

The upcoming Sofitel Legend Pyramids Giza promises a truly unparalleled experience, merging Sofitel Legend's signature French zest and elegance with the profound cultural heritage of Egypt.

The exclusive portfolio of unparalleled Sofitel Legend hotels is part of Sofitel, the first luxury hotel brand of French origin having expanded internationally and believing in hospitality that blends heartfelt and committed luxury with a French zest.

The new Sofitel Legend Pyramids Giza will become the eighth jewel in the brand's unique and exclusive portfolio of luxury establishments. Sofitel Legend hotels are appreciated for their timeless elegance and their awe-inspiring history creating unique atmospheres that tell stories of the past. From the writing of Agatha Christie's masterpiece "Death on the Nile" to Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Godard's honeymoon, and even the birth of James Bond, Sofitel Legend Pyramids Giza joins this exclusive network to share the legends of ancient Egyptian civilization, with an outstanding view on Gizeh pyramids.

The hotel will be the second Sofitel Legend in Egypt, joining Sofitel Legend Old Cataract in Aswan. The other hotels in the brand's portfolio include Sofitel Legend Casco Viejo in Panama City, Panama; Sofitel Legend Santa Clara in Cartagena, Colombia; Sofitel Legend Metropole in Hanoi, Vietnam; Sofitel Legend People's Grand in Xi'an, China; and the newly announced Sofitel Legend The Mozart in Prague in Czech Republic scheduled to open in 2027.

Guests will enjoy luxurious accommodations in 303 meticulously designed rooms and suites, all capturing the grandeur and mystery of ancient Egypt with contemporary comforts and refined French touches. The hotel's wellness facilities will include a high-end spa and fitness center, infinity pools, while a collection of restaurants, including an all-day dining venue and three specialty dining options, will offer world-class cuisine overlooking the timeless pyramids.

A Strategic Partnership with ADTIC

ADTIC, a pioneer in Egypt's tourism and hospitality sector since 1988, brings significant expertise in developing landmark hotels in prime locations. This new project aligns with ADTIC's commitment to creating distinguished properties that capture the essence of their settings while delivering world-class hospitality. Through this collaboration, Accor and ADTIC are set to redefine luxury travel in Cairo, strengthening Egypt's tourism appeal for both domestic and international travelers.

ADTIC expressed enthusiasm for the project, highlighting its commitment to Egypt's hospitality industry.

"Together with Accor, we are crafting a transformative experience at the Sofitel Legend Pyramids giza, where the rich narrative of ancient Egypt meets unparalleled luxury. Our commitment to excellence will not only elevate the standards of hospitality but also celebrate the timeless beauty and heritage of this extraordinary destination."  Yahia Kotub, CEO of ADTIC

A Prime Location with Unmatched Views

Strategically positioned just 500 meters from the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), Sofitel Legend Pyramids Giza will provide guests with easy access to one of the most anticipated cultural attractions in the world. Just finalized, the GEM is set to house the world's largest collection of Egyptian antiquities, including the complete collection of treasures from King Tutankhamun's tomb. GEM will not only showcase Egypt's rich history but also contribute significantly to the region's tourism, making Sofitel Legend Pyramids Giza an ideal base for cultural exploration. Additionally, most of the hotel's rooms will offer picturesque views of the Pyramids.

"We are very proud to enhance our Sofitel Legend portfolio with this magnificent property, our second Sofitel Legend in Egypt. This unique brand, blending French zest with legendary properties and destinations, was reignited just one year ago. With this being the third Sofitel Legend signing this year, we are seeing strong momentum for the brand across all continents, with many more projects to come. Our vision is to expand the Sofitel Legend network from six remarkable hotels open today to a collection of 15 iconic jewels within the next five years, and we are on track to achieve this ambitious objective. We look forward to partnering with ADTIC to serve the ever-evolving global luxury traveler in Egypt."  Xavier Grange, Chief Development Officer Sofitel, Sofitel Legend, MGallery and Emblems
Rosewood Washington, D.C. is pleased to announce the appointment of Tony Mosca as the hotel's new Managing Director. With over 20 years of distinguished experience in the hospitality industry, Tony will lead the continued success of the charming Georgetown property.

Tony joins Rosewood Washington, D.C. with an extensive background in luxury hospitality both domestically and internationally. His most recent role was as Hotel Manager at another legendary Rosewood property - The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel in New York City. During his time at The Carlyle, his leadership and commitment to excellence were instrumental in achieving key milestones and accolades for the hotel, including being featured on the 2024 list of The World's 50 Best Hotels and receiving Two Keys from the MICHELIN Guide.

Tony began his journey with Rosewood in 2014, as Director of Food and Beverage at The Carlyle, and was a key figure in the re-imagination and creativity of the hotel's culinary experiences, including the introduction of Dowling's at The Carlyle and the ongoing success of Bemelmans Bar and Cafe Carlyle. Originally from Australia, Tony worked as a leader in Food & Beverage and grew within the industry with Starwood and InterContinental Hotels & Resorts in Australia, London, and the United States.

As Managing Director, Tony will oversee all operational aspects of Rosewood Washington, D.C. His passion for enhancing the guest experience and cultivating team collaboration has been at the forefront of his leadership style and will be a crucial characteristic to take the hotel into its next chapter of success.
Last September, Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris welcomed Thibaut Drege back as General Manager, marking his return to Paris after two years at the helm of Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest.

A graduate of the Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne, Thibaut Drege has nearly two decades of experience in the luxury hospitality industry both in France and internationally. His love affair with the George V began in 2018 when he joined the iconic palace as Hotel Manager, marking the beginning of his career with Four Seasons.

Within this legendary Parisian palace, Thibaut Drege quickly earned the respect and admiration of a 600-strong team. Guided by his passion and unwavering dedication to this global icon of hospitality, he infused the Hotel with dynamic energy, devoting nearly five years to crafting unique experiences for guests.

After playing a pivotal role in the Hotel's success in meeting several challenges, including the global health crisis, Thibaut Drege relocated to Budapest in 2022 to assume the role of General Manager at Four Seasons Gresham Palace. In this iconic European setting - an architectural gem along the banks of the Danube - he instilled a renewed energy and guided the property on a path to excellence, before returning to the French capital to the Hotel that holds a special place in his heart.

As General Manager, Thibaut Drege aims to further reinforce the principles that have established the Hotel's international reputation, while infusing his vision, experience, and energy into every initiative. He is also committed to fostering a culture of kindness and empathy in his approach to team management.
Booking.coms Chief Legal & Public Affairs Officer, Maria Rocha Barros, discusses the companys approach to complying with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) after engaging in constructive dialogue with the European Commission and other stakeholders. As the first European company subject to the DMA, Booking.coms success is rooted in Europe, having grown from a small Dutch startup in 1996 to a prominent global travel company. The company operates in a competitive sector alongside various online travel platforms, offline agencies, and new entrants, facilitating connections between travelers and partners worldwide.

Booking.com takes pride in investing in technology to streamline travel experiences, connecting travelers and partners of all sizes on its platform. By enabling thousands of European small businesses to thrive, Booking.com contributes to Europes status as the top travel destination globally. The company upholds values of trust, fairness, and transparency in its operations, recognizing the responsibility that comes with its success. Booking.coms commitment to compliance with the DMA reflects its dedication to operating ethically and transparently in the digital marketplace.

Actively engaging in policy discussions, Booking.com aims to be a proactive partner in addressing issues with long-term impacts. By participating in regulatory discussions, the company strives to contribute its perspective and expertise to shape policies that benefit both the industry and consumers. Booking.coms involvement in policy advocacy underscores its commitment to being a responsible and engaged player in the digital market landscape.

Read the full article at Booking.com
MINNEAPOLIS --IDeaS, a SAS company, the worlds leading provider of hotel revenue management software and services, announced todayits official recognition by HOTELS Magazine as the hospitality industrys No.1 rated revenue management company. The publications technology review included five companies of various sizes across the hospitality industry, with IDeaS standing out thanks in part to its distribution network of more than 30,000 partner hotels and 98-percent customer retention rate.

HOTELS Magazine determined its rankings based on discussions with and evaluations of more than 20 global revenue management companies. To reflect the strengths of each candidate, HOTELS Magazines editors considered the overall number of hotel partners, available revenue figures, and other attributes.

Sanjay Nagalia, co-founder, chief operating officer & technology officer, IDeaS, said: IDeaS ongoing success is anchored in its continued innovation to bring the most sophisticated technology solutions to hospitality companies around the world. HOTELS Magazines latest recognition of IDeaS as the number one revenue management company for the hotel and hospitality industry indicates we remain on the right track in both the scope of our capabilities and the satisfaction of our customers. It is an honor, and we are proud to remain at the forefront of revenue management for more than three decades.

David Eisen, vice president and editor-in-chief, HOTELS Magazine, said: Revenue management within the hotel space is a crucial practice that, if done correctly, has an appreciable impact on the ability of a hotel to generate both revenue and profit. With the ways customers book travel today, never has there been a more important time for hotels to partner with platforms that help maximize revenue--because hoteliers cant afford to leave any money on the table.

To learn more about IDeaS leading revenue management solution and to schedule a demo, visit https://ideas.com/revenue-management/.

About IDeaS

IDeaS, a SAS company, is the worlds leading revenue management software and services provider. Combining industry knowledge with innovative data analytics technology, IDeaS creates sophisticated yet simple ways to empower revenue leaders with precise, automated recommendations they can trust. With 35 years of expertise serving hospitality, including hotel, event, and parking clients, IDeaS delivers revenue science to more than 30,000 properties in 164 countries around the world. Results delivered. Revenue transformed. Discover greater profitability at IDeaS.com.

Kim Dearborn

+1 909 455 4316
Paris  Mews, the industry-leading hospitality cloud, helped Ternelia Les Grands Massifs modernize their hotel management operations and save time on nearly 100% of their tasks.

Ternelia Les Grands Massifs a French chain of holiday residences, recently completed a comprehensive digital overhaul by adopting Mews, enabling them to streamline operations and improve guest experiences. Known for offering stays in some of Frances most beautiful locations, they had struggled with a system plagued by connectivity issues that often slowed down or even disrupted operations.

The switch from the old system to Mews felt like a leap from the past into the future, said Arnaud Stomboli, General Manager at Ternelia Les Grands Massifs. It is the heart of our system, but its connectivity with other tools makes it incredibly powerful. Mews is the perfect blend of flexibility and efficiency."

He added, Thanks also to HDC Hospitality for the quality support and guidance throughout our 18 months of digital transformation. The quality of the HDC Hospitality team allowed us to select the right technology partners and ensured successful project management.

With Mews, Ternelia Les Grands Massifs has succeeded in automating processes and enhancing communication across departments. The team have achieved an impressive 24% online check-in rate, reducing on-site queues and giving staff more time to engage with guests. Thanks to the user-friendly Mews Booking Engine, 26% of guests upgraded their stay during online check-in, generating additional revenue with just a few clicks.

The implementation of Mews Payments brought heightened security and reduced administrative workloads. Chargebacks dropped to a mere 0.0063%, and the Ternelia Les Grands Massifs team no longer struggles with manual data entry or chasing payments. They also fully integrated their F&B operations with Mews POS, an all-in-one mobile platform designed for hotel restaurants. The easy configuration and user-friendly design have made it a favorite among staff, simplifying their tasks and boosting overall efficiency.

Mews Payments has provided genuine security for our customers. Beyond the technical improvements, we've also expanded our international reach and visibility, said Celine Davienne, Sales Director at Ternelia Les Grands Massifs.

Mews is proud to support Ternelia Les Grands Massifs in their journey towards operational excellence and better guest experiences, said Matt Welle, CEO of Mews. Their story is a great example of how the right technology can genuinely transform hospitality businesses.

Mews has an expanding customer base in France, spanning five-star luxury hotels, economy groups, long-stay accommodations, and city-center hostels. Recent additions include Kley Group, Maison Mere, The Pichet Group, and VINCI Immobilier Residences Gerees.

There are plenty of opportunities to meet the Mews team in France throughout the coming months. They will be at EquipHotel Paris from 3-7 November, as well as touring six key cities in their LApero des Hoteliers roadshow. Find more details here:

https://www.mews.com/fr/ressources/evenements/lapero-des-hoteliers

About Ternelia Les Grands Massifs

The Ternelia les Grands Massifs association was created in 1979. Its mission is to manage and run several holiday villages between the mountains, lakes, countryside and sea. The association is independent and open to all. Its aim is to offer everyone quality stays and to allow as many people as possible to go on holiday. It establishes partnerships with social stakeholders and practices committed responsible tourism, particularly in the areas of accessibility for the 4 disabilities. It places great emphasis on ecology and sustainable employment. Ternelia Les Grands Massifs wishes to promote the host territory, its various stakeholders and then encourage social and generational diversity to promote "living better together"

About HDC Hospitality

25 years of experience with professional, operational, digital and entrepreneurial backgrounds. All our consultants are trained in new project management working methods 100% dedicated to hospitality, catering and leisure. HDC Hospitalitys goal is to help your business, hotel, restaurant and project succeed and exceed your expectations. HDC Hospitalitys philosophy is to offer each client the best experience, build a solid team base and provide owners with a long-term vision of the return on their investments.

About Mews

Mews is the leading platform for the new era of hospitality, designed to streamline operations for modern hoteliers, transform the guest experience and create more profitable businesses. Customers include BWH Hotels, Strawberry, The Social Hub and Airelles Collection. Mews was named Best PMS (2024, 2025) and listed among the Best Places to Work in Hotel Tech (2021, 2022, 2024, 2025) by Hotel Tech Report, and won the Tech Hero 2024 Award at CIODAY. Mews has previously raised $335 million from investors including Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Kinnevik and Notion to transform hospitality.

www.mews.com

Katie Halfhead

Senior Communications Manager
In this weeks episode of the Hotel Moment podcast, Emily Goldfischer, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of hertelier, joins podcast host and Revinate CMO Karen Stephens to bring womens influence in hospitality, especially hospitality technology, to the forefront. Emily explains how a work environment that promotes women in leadership positions also empowers those women to confidently make technology decisions that benefit your hotel. Women are pushing boundaries not just in the workplace but in the tech space  using data to connect with woman guests to curate an experience they can feel good about.

Tune in for an eye-opening conversation on the value of women mentoring women while encouraging hotel staff to work together, remain flexible, and see the bigger picture when it comes to making technology decisions for the future.

Meet your host

As Chief Marketing Officer at Revinate, Karen Stephens is focused on driving long-term growth by building Revinates brand equity, product marketing, and customer acquisition strategies. Her deep connections with hospitality industry leaders play a key role in crafting strategic partnerships.

Karen is also the host of The Hotel Moment Podcast, where she interviews top players in the hospitality industry. Karen has been with Revinate for over 11 years, leading Revinates global GTM teams. Her most recent transition was from Chief Revenue Officer, where she led the team in their highest booking quarter to date in Q4 2023.

Karen has more than 25 years of expertise in global hospitality technology and online distribution  including managing global accounts in travel and hospitality organizations such as Travelocity and lastminute.com

Connect with Karen

Transcript

Intro  00:00:04: Welcome to the Hotel Moment podcast presented by Revinate, the podcast where we discuss how hotel technology shapes every moment of the hoteliers experience. Tune in as we explore the cutting-edge technology transforming the hospitality industry and hear from experts and visionaries shaping the future of guest experiences. Whether youre a hotelier or a tech enthusiast, youre in the right place. Lets dive in and discover how we can elevate the art of hospitality together.

Karen Stephens  00:00:36: Hello, and welcome to the Hotel Moment Podcast. I am your host, Karen Stephens, the Chief Marketing Officer of Revinate. And today on the podcast, we are thrilled to have Emily Goldfisher. Emily is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of hertelier, an innovative online platform dedicated to empowering women in the hospitality industry. With a strong background as a journalist and entrepreneur, Emily has a deep understanding of the global travel and hospitality sector and its impact on various stakeholders. Hertelier aims to inspire women at all career stages by sharing valuable insights, lessons, and networking opportunities  particularly in an industry where women make up over 70% of the workforce, yet remain largely underrepresented in leadership roles. As a member of the inaugural cohort of female founders in hospitality, Emily is committed to driving change and fostering conversation that elevates womens voices in the industry. So I truly enjoyed this conversation with Emily, and I think that youll quickly understand why. So Emilys had a really great career, both in PR and journalism before she founded hertelier during the pandemic. So she interviews a lot of women. She brings a lot of knowledge, not only on how to excel as a woman in leadership and hospitality, but also how to apply some of the new technologies that are emerging to your everyday job. So I hope you enjoy. This is Emily.

Hi, Emily. Welcome to the podcast.

Emily Goldfischer  00:02:02: Thank you for having me, Karen. Im so happy to be here.

Karen Stephens  00:02:05: I am really excited to be here as well with you, and talking to you. Ive done some looking at your website. So I really want to get into hertelier, and talk deeply about how that came about. But first, I noticed that before you got into this, youre a journalist by trade. So have you always been interested in championing womens representation or what led you on this journey to bring you where you are today?

Emily Goldfischer  00:02:29: Yeah, actually, I started my career in PR, and I worked in PR and hospitality PR, for, on the agency side, for many years and had clients like Hyatt Resorts and Royal Caribbean Cruises. And it was really a great, interesting time. And then I moved over to the corporate side and ended up doing the corporate PR for Loews Hotels for 10 years. And at the time that I worked at Loews, I look back now and realize how innovative and forward-thinking they were. There were two women in the C-suite there, Sherry Laveroni and Charlotte St. Martin, who really spearheaded a lot of the innovative initiatives that Loews was doing at the time. And in 2010, my husband and I moved to London for his career. And at that time is when I switched over to becoming a journalist because we were only meant to stay here for two years. And PS, 14 years later, were still here. We love it. But it was during my time as a journalist that we moved here. The Olympics was about to happen. So there was a lot of activity  particularly on the luxury market and the hotels  a lot of new buildings and the things in advance of The Olympics. So it was quite an exciting time. And I started to notice that women first, I was like, Wait, where are all the women? Like I was used to being at Loews where I had these amazing mentors and women, female bosses that I looked up to. And over time, I noticed that actually women were starting to get these top jobs at the bigger hotels within the hotel companies in Europe. And I didnt feel that the trades were covering it in a way that was inspiring for other women. And the pandemic happened and everyone had a bit of time on their hands. So I spoke to some friends and colleagues, and actually with my former boss, Nancy Mendelson, who was the senior VP for marketing at Loews Hotels, we launched hertelier. And actually, I just had a look and we have interviewed over 600 women since 2021. And just actually, that moment, it was like the breadth of women that weve been able to talk to and learn from and share their insights is really gratifying just to have this platform for women to share and to speak out. So, yeah, its been a really interesting evolution. Of course, theres still more work to be done in terms of gender equality in hospitality and in business overall. But thats how weve gotten here. And I feel like we are contributing to progress.

Karen Stephens  00:05:01: I love that story. I think whats interesting to me  I had Shannon Knapp, who is the CEO of Leading Hotels of the World, on the podcast a little while ago. And she talked about her career, how it kind of snaked, and weaved, and bobbed, and how you have to be open to opportunity. And you really dont know what one thing is going to lead to another. So its such an interesting path that you kind of laid out there to get to where you are today. And Im sure coming across, I mean, 600 women since 2022, thats a lot of wonderful stories. So what are some of the common cool themes that you see? I mean, are there themes that you can kind of draw? I know thats a pretty big set of people, but what are the things that you see?

Emily Goldfischer  00:05:41: There are some things. I just want to say, I listened to that episode with Shannon, and I just loved the conversation that you had and what she shared about, like you said, being flexible and willing to make a lateral move. Its not always making that jump up. Really, I definitely remember that. And that is one of the things we hear from women that are successful in leaders, that they are flexible. And actually, and conversely, I would say that companies that are successful in nurturing and retaining women are also flexible. So for example, I did a panel at the Forbes Travel Guide Summit last year, and we actually had a guy  one of our male allies on the panel  and he talked a lot about how Marriott is being really intentional about allowing women to have flexibility, particularly if theyre mothers, and they need time during the child-raising years. We are seeing also a shift in gender equality in the home. And I think that thats also one of the ways that were going to see progress, and women being able to stick to upward trajectory with their careers. I think another theme we see is women that are really  theyve learned how to speak up for themselves. So when I interview more senior women  actually, weve interviewed women at all levels of their careers. So from entry-level to mid-career. But when I think about the more C-suite and VP level women that Ive interviewed, they all credit finding mentors whove helped them shape their career, and also the ability to nurture sponsors. So people who will speak about you when youre not in the room. And traditionally, this is another topic that women maybe have found challenging, but again, were seeing progress there. And this idea of advocating for yourself, thats also very important. Learning how to speak up for yourself, learning how to keep track of all your accomplishments for the year, and then share that with the people who you work with and not just expect that your work will speak for itself.

Karen Stephens  00:07:55: Im laughing as you say that, because I do think that a lot of women  they really produce amazing amounts of work, such hard workers. And I think that theres this thought that, Oh, people will understand how hard Ive worked. The company will recognize the sacrifices I make, and eventually, Ill be rewarded for that. And I think its important. I mean, I would love your take on this, but it appears to me, everybody is living their own lives and doing their own thing. And I dont think people intentionally dont think of other people, but you have to speak up for yourself and make sure that people understand what youve done and what your team has done. I find that as well. Women tend to talk about the team and bring all of that up. But can you talk to me a little bit more about the mentoring side of things? So how do you see women within organizations, what is the role of mentoring to make sure that newer generations understand how to advocate for themselves?

Emily Goldfischer  00:08:47: One of the heartening things I see is that women who are at these kind of upper levels or even VP mid-level managers, theyre very intentional about making sure women who are in the early stages of their careers have a different experience than theyve had. So I feel that women are very eager to mentor younger women. And also this idea of reverse mentoring is like, as you get further along in your career, like you can learn also from people that are in the early stages of their career. So the overall theme of mentorship is like, you can learn from others who have either trod in your footsteps or can show you the way. And I feel like theres a lot happening in that area, particularly with the big brands. Hyatt, one of our partners, has their Women@Hyatt program. IHG has their womens RISE program, which also is another partner of ours. So its really exciting. And I mentioned Marriott also has been great with flexibility, and Hilton also. There is a very conscious effort, I feel, from the industry to help women with things like mentorship, to provide them leadership training. Thats another skill that women maybe didnt get in previous generations. So I do feel we are, Im not a super optimistic person, but I do feel that companies have a real focus now on being more inclusive and really equipping women with the skills and strategies they need to help shape their careers.

Karen Stephens  00:10:23: Thats great. So lets talk a little bit about hertelier. So can you just give us an idea of  What is hertelier? And what are the resources available and how does the content that could be motivating for a woman if they see the site?

Emily Goldfischer  00:10:37: Yeah. So we run original content. We run about three stories a week. So it can be anything from an interview, a one-on-one interview, or we trend them in the industry. Everything we do is with this feminist slant. So for example, we also just had a story about gender kind of the relationship of uniforms, and women, and how women have to be in more restrictive uniforms than men, which can actually hamper their ability to do their jobs. So is this kind of conversation always with this feminist lens of, How do we make the system better for women? Because ultimately, thats kind of our message, is like, actually, women are fantastic. And its just like the system wasnt really built for women. Now, thats not unique to hospitality. Thats unique to the business world. So thats kind of what were about. So we run original content. We do some live events in York and London. Weve done one in Miami. So were doing a bit more of that. Were going to be doing some actually starting next year. Were really excited about. Were going to be doing online events through LinkedIn. So thats something to be excited about. And this, I saw you just signed, youve signed up for it, but we offer a newsletter every Sunday, and its free. And I look at, kind of, the media landscape from business and hospitality news. And I pick anywhere from, lets say, five to 10 stories a week that arent just in hertelier that are broad-based. Whats happening in the marketplace so that you can, as a woman in the business, kind of have your pulse on whats going on and what are the trends for women in the workplace in general, not specific to hospitality? And then we also include in there everything weve run in hertelier, so that you have an easy way to see what weve been up to and get the opportunity to dig into some of the interviews weve done with women leading our industry.

Karen Stephens  00:12:31: I love it. So curated content, this Sunday to help kind of navigate. I love that. Im for anything that helps me get focused and get efficient. I love that. So in your opinion, what unique contributions do women bring? If we just talk about specifically the luxury segment. So you mentioned when you moved to London, that that was something that was kind of piquing your interest. Can you talk a little bit about what unique contribution they bring and also how theyre leveraging technology in that space?

Emily Goldfischer  00:13:02: Yeah, I mean, were definitely seeing women get into the tech space, I think, in a really impressive numbers, and also very in creative ways. This week was World Travel Market here in London, and there was actually a startup pitch competition. And Vanessa Karel, who started this, an app called Greether. And its basically like as a woman traveling, you can go to a city and kind of basically hire a guide through her site. But like its a female to female thing. So shes doing really well. And its just such a cool concept. And so thats really exciting. But Ive seen a lot of women, whether its utilizing technology in ways in hospitality. So one of the stories I love talking about is interviewing a head housekeeper, director of housekeeping from a hotel in England. And this was kind of closer to as we were coming off the pandemic. And there was still quite a labor shortage. And she started using this, I think its called Indeed Flex or something, but its basically kind of like an Uber for housekeepers. So she basically could hire housekeepers on short notice, and get them in for a few hours. And what was fantastic about that is that she also is offering people who need flexible schedules, whether its moms who want to drop their kids off at school or pick them up, or actually its in York in Northern England. So theres actually quite a few universities there. So I feel like women are really into adapting technology to solve problems. I mean, weve actually interviewed quite a few women  whether its shopping or tipping or just really reinventing ideas through technology. So I think thats great because its like, I think theres this perception like women arent into tech or whatever, but actually what I found is the opposite is true. Thats one of the ways. And on the luxury space, youre definitely seeing more women in leadership roles. And I think where this is quite interesting is when you look at who buys luxury travel. And also when you look at the travel landscape in general, the fastest-growing market in travel, I think, is women over 50. So its like, Im not saying men dont understand what women want when they travel, but there certainly are things like safety concerns and what kind of amenities you want in the bathroom and stuff like that. And the lighting in a hallway, what kind of mirrors you have, just like things like that, that maybe women are a bit more sensitive to. And certainly what you all are doing, I think with the Customer Data Platform and really offering hoteliers like that rich information and data. And I mean, Im curious about what youre doing in terms of AI, and how you can then serve the customer better because you just are able to give them things that theyre already interested in.

Karen Stephens  00:16:01: Absolutely. So were doing a lot of exciting stuff for AI. So thanks for mentioning that. I think, well, the first thing to know is that we are merging profiles to get a single profile of guests which is a really hard thing to do. So you need to be able to apply machine learning because you dont want to get that wrong. Like the number one problem all hotels are trying to solve is, When I come back, just tell me, Welcome back. Thats like the baseline. But youre absolutely right, trying to make sure that you understand who the guest is in front of you. And then some other cool applications of AI are actually on the voice channel  helping our agents, reservation agents, whether they work for us or for our customers, understand when someone calls in, Whats the right package offering to make? Have they been there before? Because up until now, thats been a very manual process. People are reading manuals, and trying to make sure that they get everything right. Whereas I think AI can really help with that. Where I dont think its going to replace, or I hope it doesnt, is that human-to-human touch. So I think if AI can facilitate all of the baseline steps to have a really engaging personal conversation, I think that thats where we win. But thats just my opinion.

Emily Goldfischer  00:17:06: I mean, it makes perfect sense. Like if AI can answer the phone call of wheres the parking garage and when does it close or typical things that maybe you get at the front desk, and then it frees up that agent to really help the customer whos there instead of having them wait for you to get off the phone. I mean, I just think technology is really going to elevate guest service a lot.

Karen Stephens  00:17:29: Okay, so Emily, as we think about hiring trends for 2025, what qualities or skills do you believe will be most in demand in the hospitality sector?

Emily Goldfischer  00:17:38: Weve mentioned it before is flexibility. I mean, I think people that are eager, and engaged, and willing to try different things, not be stuck in. I need to do a certain pass. And equally for the employers to be flexible with employees, whether its the ability to work from home one day a week, if theyre not in a customer-facing job. I mean, I think these are the kinds of things both employers and employees are looking for. Flexibility would be number one.

Karen Stephens  00:18:08: Absolutely. And what advice would you give to women who are currently navigating their careers today? So if I want to get up to a leadership position, Im kind of stuck. Obviously, weve talked about some of the things, but what is your most direct path to trying to figure out how to navigate that?

Emily Goldfischer  00:18:24: One of the things Ive heard women say, successful women, is like you kind of build your personal board of directors. So its like, dont just get one mentor. Try and get advice from different people who are concerned about you, who care about you, and can offer you advice either because theyve paved the path themselves. Or maybe theyre in a different industry, but also less in the workplace that they can share. I think thats probably. I like that advice Id say.

Karen Stephens  00:18:53: I love that. You know, I was just in New York City last week and we did a roundtable with Women Leading in Travel and Hospitality, which is a really cool organization. And one of the women on the panel, and I dont recall her name, I believe she was the Chief Digital Officer at Amtrak. She mentioned having a board of directors, a personal board of directors, which I love that concept. So its one opinion is great, but having three or four with different opinions and then kind of taking the best out of that. I think is an awesome idea. Cool. So just a closing question for you, Emily. Ive loved the conversation. And I do have to say that I also used to live in London. So its really fun. Our paths cross there by just a year or two. So I love it that you live in that big city. So how can those in the industry, both men and women, support the movement towards greater gender equality and salary parity in leadership roles? Because we know that theres historically been an issue in achieving both.

Emily Goldfischer  00:19:49: Thank you for this opportunity to speak because I actually think discussing the topic, talking about the progress women have made, and then also areas for improvement is really how we make progress, is like, awareness is the first thing. And really engaging men in the conversation too. I think it was a year and a half ago we started doing a male ally of the month, and really spotlighting the guys who are very much dedicated to gender equality. Because lets face it, we need the guys to give us the opportunities until we do actually have the gender equality at the very highest levels. And I actually am really inspired too, about the tech space where you are, and seeing that like you, youre the Chief Marketing Officer for this incredible technology company thats really doing a lot to elevate guest service through technology. So I think as we see women in more powerful position, like I said, the women of this generation are really committed to making sure the women behind them, that they lift as they climb. So I really get inspired by that.

Karen Stephens  00:20:59: Awesome, well, thank you so much. My guest has been Emily Goldfisher, who is the Editor and Founder of hertelier. Thank you for the conversation.

Emily Goldfischer  00:21:06: Thank you. Enjoyed that, Karen. Thank you so much.

Outro  00:21:14: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hotel Moment by Revinate. Our community of hoteliers is growing every week, and each guest we speak to is tackling industry challenges with the innovation and flexibility that our industry demands. If you enjoyed todays episode, dont forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. And if youre listening on YouTube, please like the video and subscribe for more content. For more information, head to revinate.com/hotelmomentpodcast. Until next time, keep innovating.
What is Hotel Room Type Mapping and How Does It Work? - Image Credit Lighthouse



Hotel room type mapping is a vital technical process for the travel and hospitality industry that allows for consistent inventory management for your hotel.

By accurately mapping your room categories across the various platforms, including your website, Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and competitor listings, you can ensure that the strategies you implement are effective and consistent across all room types.

Whether youre working in short-term rentals, chain hotels, or boutique lodging, by leveraging data and automation, room type mapping ensures consistent, accurate room descriptions and competitive pricing for each booking at your property.

It also improves your overall customer experience by ensuring your guests receive their desired hotel booking.

In this article, we'll take a look under the hood and explore the functionality, key features and benefits of room type mapping, along with an examination of tools that utilize room type mapping to make your life easier.

What is hotel room type mapping?

Room type mapping is the process of aligning different room categories across various systems, such as a hotel's Property Management System (PMS), Channel Manager , OTAs , Global Distribution Systems (GDS), and market intelligence tools like rate shoppers.

Since different platforms use their own naming conventions and classifications for room types (e.g., "Deluxe Room" in the PMS might be referred to as "Standard Room" on an OTA), room type mapping ensures that these descriptions and categories are correctly synchronized.

This helps prevent messy data, and inventory mismatches when rooms are sold across multiple channels. Misleading bookers about room types, even unintentionally, can lead to dissatisfaction.

When implementing a room-type mapping strategy, or auditing your existing room type mapping you must consider any affected distribution channels and market intelligence tools you may utilize, including:

Brand website

OTAs

Travel companies

Bed banks

Tour operators

Wholesale suppliers

Rate Shopping tools

Some systems allow for automation when undergoing a room-type mapping process. This often involves some level of machine learning where an algorithm can quickly automate this process for you, minimizing the manual labor involved so you can return your attention to other operative tasks.

Automation can be especially helpful when you consider how many room types a property can have.

Now, you might be saying to yourself - thats great and all, but why should I undergo this process?

Benefits of hotel room type mapping

When you list a room on multiple OTAs, there can be different naming conventions, which can cause a single room type to have different names, and classifications on those various channels. Room type mapping allows you to match these differently named rooms back to your hotels own categories.

This is critical for effective inventory management and pricing. It prevents overbookings, ensures accurate availability across platforms, and simplifies rate adjustments.

By producing an accurate representation of your hotels room type inventory (such as your available rooms) you can more effectively forecast occupancy, implement tailored rate strategies across different room types and make more informed business decisions.

Accurate room type mapping at your hotel further enhances your revenue management strategy , enabling clear, strategic control over the visibility and pricing of each room category.

Manually completing this task would take an excessive amount of time. Automating this process not only saves you valuable time to focus on other tasks but also reduces costs by eliminating the need for guesswork in managing your room inventory.

Lets look at a few more benefits of room type mapping for your lodging business.

Simple and targeted manageability

If youve ever wanted to know how best to price a particular room or wanted to get the scoop on your competitors pricing by room type, room type mapping makes it possible.

Maintain accurate room descriptions

When was the last time you came across an identical room across three platforms, with three different names?

A hotel may have a room that is described as a 2 Queen Premium Suite in their PMS but is known as a Double Queen Luxury Room on one OTA, and then a Two Queen Upgraded Suite on another channel.

A room-type mapping solution can keep the descriptions of these various room types consistent across channels and minimize confusion surrounding different categories for the same room.

Different room type descriptions evoke different ideas about exactly what a room offers, which in turn affects how you price each room and how you view the offerings of your competitors.

Each minor difference paints a different picture, which can influence your room pricing strategy.

How does hotel room type mapping work?

The beauty of room mapping saves you from asking questions like Whats the difference between a River View King Deluxe Room and a River View Double Room? or Are these the same room, but with different bed sizes?

A room-type mapping algorithm analyzes room data (such as historical rates), the room descriptions themselves and generates thematic categories (for example, rooms with similar views, or identical bed types), and automatically groups different room types together.

This saves you precious time in determining which room type corresponds with another.

Lets go through how room type mapping works behind the scenes in your tech software.

Recognize room types

For your room type to be recognized, the room-type mapping algorithm analyzes millions of historical price points, drawn from both your hotel and competitors.

From here, the algorithm extracts room name attributes as they are designated across different OTAs, along with average room rates, and their corresponding occupancy rates (the typical number of guests per room).

Grouping room types

This step is fairly straightforward.

Once the algorithm analyzes and extracts the data from existing datasets, it begins to combine or assign different rooms to different categories in a strategic and meaningful way to establish room categories.

Each of these categories is referred to as a room type group and is the foundation for any further room mapping and assignments that will continue to take place.

Machine learning models

At this stage, the focus is on training the existing room mapping algorithm - a machine learning model (MLM) - to recognize the room types, categories, and patterns for further mapping.A room mapping algorithm is frequently trained using the Bayesian inference algorithm , a machine learning technique that harnesses and learns from different types of information, especially data used in statistical analysis.

In the case of room mapping, the information used may include text-based features such as room names, rate names and possible occupancies to help with room type prediction.

Predict room type

The fourth and final step of the room type mapping process is that the algorithm begins its predictions of a room type group based on the room name, rate name, room rate, and occupancy rate.

Overall, this four-step process provides stability and scalability to effectively manage your room type inventory, so you can handle off-season downtimes and high-season queries like the true hospitality professional you are.

How accurate hotel room type mapping helps drive revenue growth

What was once a complicated topic for revenue managers has since transformed into a key advantage for hoteliers looking to make quick pricing decisions.

Room type mapping is used in a range of Lighthouse product offerings, particularly our Rate Insight tool.

Rate Insight is a rate shopping tool that provides real-time rate intelligence on your competitors pricing strategy by uniquely delivering granular insights on competitors rates, ranking, reputation and occupancy.

By tracking competitor rates in real-time you can adjust your room pricing and promotions to maximize revenue, based on factors such as customizable room type.

Room type mapping feeds into a rate shopper like Rate Insight by aligning each room category across multiple distribution channels, providing you with an accurate, consistent view of the competitive landscape.

Without room type mapping, similar rooms could appear as entirely different offerings, creating inconsistencies that make rate comparisons challenging.

Rate Insight provides automated, algorithm-supported room type mapping in an easy-to-read dashboard to compare rates. Room types are presented in an intuitive, easy-to-navigate layout that allows for effortless comparison with your compset. See the product view below for an example of this in action.

This clarity helps you to quickly identify pricing opportunities across all room types, ensuring you dont undercut rates or miss out on high-demand days due to misaligned room pricing.

With this enhanced visibility, you can make more data-driven decisions about pricing and promotions, leading to more effective pricing strategies that optimize room revenue, boost occupancy, and drive overall profitability.

Maximize your hotels revenue with Lighthouse

Often hiding in plain sight behind user-friendly interfaces, room type mapping plays a critical role in strategic decision-making for your hotel. However, it is just one component of a comprehensive revenue optimization strategy.

Effective revenue management relies on high-quality data: as the saying goes, good input equals good output. Without accurate, reliable data, even the best revenue management strategies will fall short.

Rate Insight provides unparalleled access to competitor intelligence by aggregating over 2 billion data points daily across 300,000 hotels and 19+ million short-term rentals.

This rich dataset offers real-time insights into competitor rates, rankings, reputation, and occupancy trends - giving you a comprehensive market view to inform your pricing decisions.

By combining high-quality data with intuitive room type mapping and a seamless user experience, Rate Insight empowers you to save time, boost revenue, and make confident, data-driven decisions that drive profitability.

Start a free trial of Rate Insight today, price with confidence and capture more revenue.

About Lighthouse

Lighthouse (formerly OTA Insight) is the leading commercial platform for the travel & hospitality industry. We transform complexity into confidence by providing actionable market insights, business intelligence, and pricing tools that maximize revenue growth. We continually innovate to deliver the best platform for hospitality professionals to price more effectively, measure performance more efficiently, and understand the market in new ways.

Trusted by over 65,000 hotels in 185 countries, Lighthouse is the only solution that provides real-time hotel and short-term rental data in a single platform. We strive to deliver the best possible experience with unmatched customer service. We consider our clients as true partners - their success is our success.
Wyndham and Lafayette Ink Deal to Aid Diverse Franchisees - Image Credit Wyndham

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and investment firm Lafayette Square have joined forces to improve access to capital for diverse hotel owners. Through this partnership, Wyndham will vet and directly connect eligible owners with Lafayette Square, which intends to provide up to $100 million in combined financing over the coming years to help hoteliers advance otherwise stalled projects.

This strategy by Lafayette Square addresses the critical issue of capital access faced by diverse hoteliers. The initiative extends Wyndham's BOLD (Black Owners and Lodging Developers) and Women Own the Room programs. These initiatives aim to increase hotel ownership among Black and women entrepreneurs by tackling their unique challenges. These programs have so far resulted in more than 100 hotel deals with Black and women hoteliers, with over 20 of these hotels now open.

Both Wyndham and Lafayette Square are committed to enhancing representation within the hotel industry. They are dedicated to using their networks to increase diverse hotel ownership and provide diverse owners with the necessary tools, resources, and partners for success.

The partnership has already resulted in its first deal with Dr. Amina James. Despite her background in real estate and experience owning a hotel in Memphis, Dr. James faced challenges with banks when exploring her next venture in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Wyndham introduced Dr. James to Lafayette Square, making her the first Wyndham franchisee to receive financing from the firm. This financing will help Dr. James upgrade her second hotel, which is now the Wyndham Lake Charles, and streamline operations with a third-party management team.
Hyatt Regency Zadar - Image Credit Hyatt

Hyatt Hotels Corporation has announced ambitious plans to expand its Hyatt Regency brand in the Balkans by 70%. Following successful market entries in Croatia and Albania, the company aims to open five new hotels and resorts in the region by 2027.

Key to this expansion is the Hyatt Regency Aro Palace Brasov, in development by Aro Palace S.A., marking Hyatt's first entrance into Romania. Brasov, a significant economic hub in the heart of the country, offers a base for various tourist attractions in the region. The Aro Palace, initially opened in 1939 as the most luxurious hotel in the Transylvanian city, will be fully refurbished to welcome guests with up to 250 guestrooms by 2027.

Takuya Aoyama, Vice President of Development at Hyatt, expressed excitement about bringing the Hyatt Regency brand to Brasov in partnership with Aro Palace S.A., expecting it to serve the local community and foreign guests alike. He believes that Romania's stunning medieval towns and breathtaking nature will attract Hyatt members and lead to further growth for Hyatt brands.

Attila Joos, CEO of Aro Palace, also anticipates benefits from joining the Hyatt network, including access to world-class expertise and resources and connections with millions of travelers worldwide. Joos looks forward to building on Aro Palace's tradition of hospitality and achieving new levels of excellence in partnership with Hyatt.

Apart from Brasov, Hyatt also plans to add the Hyatt Regency Zadar in Croatia (2025), Hyatt Regency Tirana in Albania (2026), Hyatt Regency Palase Resort & Spa in Albania (2027), and Hyatt Regency Novi Sad in Serbia (2027) to its portfolio in the region.

This anticipated growth follows recent openings such as the Hyatt Regency Pravets Resort in Bulgaria and the Hyatt Regency Kotor Bay Resort in Montenegro, Hyatt's first resort property in Europe. Michel Morauw, the newly appointed Managing Director North, EAME, Hyatt, stated that the expansion in the Balkans is a crucial part of Hyatt's growth strategy in the EAME region.

Hyatt's expansion announcement comes after a record year of deal signings in 2023 and the recent global acquisition of lifestyle company Standard International's brands. As of September 30, 2024, Hyatt's global pipeline consisted of more than 135,000 rooms, supported by a strong regional pipeline across its brand collections.
The Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) has announced plans to open a new Ginger hotel in Diu, part of the Union Territory of Daman and Diu. The announcement follows a new partnership between IHCL and Praveg Limited.

The proposed hotel will be located on three acres of coastal land on Jallandhar beach. It will offer 45 rooms, each with panoramic views of the surrounding area. Amenities for guests will include a fully equipped gym, a conference hall, and a swimming pool.

Suma Venkatesh, the Executive Vice President for Real Estate & Development at IHCL, expressed the company's excitement for the project. She noted that Diu's beautiful beaches and rich history make it an attractive destination for travelers. Venkatesh believes IHCL's entrance into the Diu hospitality market will introduce guests to the unique Ginger experience.

Praveg Limited's Chairman, Dr. Vishnukumar Patel, shared Venkatesh's enthusiasm for the project. He said that the collaboration with IHCL will bring world-class hospitality expertise to Praveg's existing property in Diu, enhancing its value.

Diu, located off the Kathiawad coast of Gujarat, is part of a union territory that includes Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman. Its picturesque beaches, historic fort, and natural attractions have made it a favorite among discerning travelers.

Praveg Limited, a BSE-listed company, creates eco-resorts that blend luxury with India's rich cultural heritage. Their properties range from luxury tents to boutique hotels, providing immersive stays in locales across India.

IHCL's portfolio includes hotels under development globally across four continents, 13 countries, and over 130 locations.
Grand Mercure Changzhou Luoxi - Image Credit Accor

Accor Greater China has expanded its Grand Mercure Hotels & Resorts portfolio with two new openings in Hangzhou and Changzhou. The latest properties, Grand Mercure Hangzhou Qingshan Lake and Grand Mercure Changzhou Luoxi, join Accor's collection of 22 Grand Mercure hotels in China, with nearly 50 more in development.

The two hotels aim to offer authentic experiences tailored to their local communities. Accors CEO, Gary Rosen, highlighted the company's plan to double its Grand Mercure portfolio in key Chinese destinations over the next three years.

Located by Qingshan Lake, Grand Mercure Hangzhou Qingshan Lake offers a mix of historical and modern experiences. It's located in a high-tech business community and promotes sustainable practices. The hotel features 177 rooms with panoramic windows that provide views of the lake and mountains. The hotel is only three minutes from the Qingshan Lake Scenic Area and an hour's drive from the popular West Lake area.

Grand Mercure Changzhou Luoxi, on the other hand, is positioned in the bustling Changzhou Airport district. Known for its focus on new energy, smart manufacturing, culture, tourism, and ecology, Changzhou presents a vibrant setting for the hotel. The property is conveniently located five kilometers from the airport and a half-hour drive from the Changzhou High-Speed Railway North Station.

Both hotels offer locally inspired culinary experiences, wellness traditions, and thoughtful design. They also feature various amenities, including restaurants, bars, lounges, Executive Lounges, and advanced fitness facilities. The hotels provide ample meeting and event space for business events and special occasions equipped with advanced technology and smart systems.

Accor plans to expand the Grand Mercure brand in Greater China, with four more properties set to open by the end of 2024. These upcoming locations include Lushan, Sanya Yalong Bay, Kunming, and Shiyan.
Image Credit HOTREC

Booking.com, a major online travel agency, has not complied with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) despite being legally bound to do so. The company has been criticized for not effectively communicating the necessary changes to business users by the deadline, according to HOTREC, a European umbrella association for hotels, restaurants, and cafes.

HOTREC believes that Booking.com's compliance report fails to address several obligations identified under the DMA. Despite acknowledging changes in parity clauses that could allow hoteliers to offer better prices on various distribution channels, such as their websites, HOTREC insists on a thorough assessment of these proposed changes.

Several other changes introduced by Booking.com have been labeled as superficial or unaddressed altogether. A point of contention is the forced use of Booking.com's pre-payment option for hotels, with no alternative given to consumers. Furthermore, the company has been criticized for failing to make significant changes to its website interface and address issues regarding ranking.

There is a lack of transparency surrounding Booking.com's algorithms, which continues to be a prevailing issue. Marie Audren, HOTREC Director General, stated that simply changing parts of the terms and conditions will not fulfill the objectives of the DMA and emphasized the need for complete compliance.

European customers and travelers rely on affordability, transparency, and choice for their hospitality experiences. European hotels, primarily small and medium-sized enterprises, are counting on the DMA to rectify Booking.com's unfair business practices. HOTREC urges the European Commission to initiate a non-compliance investigation against Booking.com immediately.

Based on HOTREC's 2024 European Distribution Study, Booking.com dominates the online travel agency market with a share of over 70%.
EVEN Hotel Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport - Image Credit IHG Hotels & Resorts

EVEN Hotels, a part of IHG Hotels & Resorts, has opened a new hotel near the Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport and announced plans for a site in Beaverton, Oregon.

The Bozeman Hotel, located 15 minutes from downtown Bozeman and 90 minutes from Yellowstone National Park, is the first EVEN Hotel in Montana. It joins a portfolio of over 20 other IHG hotels in the state. The upcoming Beaverton location will be the second EVEN property in Oregon, following the EVEN Hotel Eugene.

The Bozeman hotel, which has 120 rooms, is owned by ERES Yellowstone Hospitality and operated by O'Reilly Hospitality Management. The Beaverton Hotel will offer 90 rooms and is owned by Timberland Hotel Ventures & Holdings, with operations handled by Maps Hospitality. Both hotels will reflect the brand's updated design and offer new features, such as in-room fitness options and a refreshed restaurant concept.

Lauren Krostue, the head of EVEN Hotels, stated that both locations were chosen due to their dynamic growth and unique appeals to wellness-focused and business travelers.

Guests at both locations can expect wellness-focused features such as spa-like showers, filtered water hydration stations, a premium sleep experience, and an in-room fitness experience. Additionally, the hotels will offer a restaurant with a range of menu options and a 24/7 market.

Mike Elliott, CEO of ERES Companies, expressed excitement over the opening of the Bozeman location and its potential positive impact on tourism and the local economy.

The Bozeman Hotel will provide easy access to local attractions, including the Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport, Montana State University, Yellowstone National Park, and several ski resorts. The Beaverton Hotel will be located near Portland's attractions, such as Forest Park, Nike World Headquarters, and the Oregon Zoo.

With these two additions, EVEN Hotels now operates 32 properties worldwide, with 27 more in the pipeline.
China to enhance solidarity, cooperation with Latin American countries: spokesperson

Xinhua) 13:15, November 14, 2024

BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- China will continue to enhance solidarity and cooperation with Latin American countries, and deliver a stronger sense of fulfillment and happiness to the peoples of both sides, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Wednesday.

Talking about the Peruvian alpaca toys, "warmpaca," becoming one of the hot items at this year's China International Import Expo (CIIE), spokesperson Lin Jian told the daily press briefing that Peruvian craftsman Oswaldo Mamani once only had a one-story workshop with annual sales of a little over 100 items, but now the workshop occupies three stories and hundreds of craftsmen joined him.

Mamani said in an interview that China is a blessing for himself and his fellow villagers because the country enabled them to earn more income and live a better life.

"China and Latin America have all along prioritized major livelihood projects in their cooperation. The list of uplifting and touching stories such as 'warmpaca' goes on and on," Lin said.

The Belo Monte UHV transmission project, which creates an "electricity expressway" linking north and south of Brazil, has not only provided adequate power to industrial hubs there, but also solved the power shortage problem for over 22 million Brazilians, Lin said.

China also implemented a good number of small and beautiful livelihood projects in Latin America, such as the China-aided water supply projects in two cities of Costa Rica that have benefited the local people and the economy as well, he added.

"China will follow the principle of sincerity, real results, affinity and good faith and the principle of pursuing greater good and shared interests, focus on people's livelihood, a priority in its relations with Latin America, continue to enhance solidarity and cooperation with Latin American countries, and deliver a stronger sense of fulfillment and happiness to the peoples of both sides," Lin said.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Bridging the Funding Gap: Challenges and Prospects for Female Founders in the Travel and Hotel Industry - Image Credit Unsplash+

Despite their potential, female founders in the travel and hospitality industry receive significantly less venture capital funding compared to their male counterparts.

Factors such as societal biases, lack of awareness, and the low number of female startups contribute to the funding gap. However, industry experts believe the situation is gradually improving with increased awareness and more women entering the venture capital sector.

Like many sectors, the hotel and travel industry is no stranger to gender disparity, particularly in funding for startups. Female entrepreneurs, such as Blanca Menchaca, the CEO and co-founder of BeMyGuest, are often shocked at the significant funding gap between startups led by men and women. According to Pitchbook, just 6.4% of all deals and 2% of venture capital went to companies with female founders through October this year.

Various reasons contribute to this disparity, including societal biases, a lack of female-founded startups, and skewed investor expectations. Gender bias, in particular, is a significant hurdle. Many investors unconsciously favor familiar profiles and characteristics, often leaning towards male-led startups, perpetuating the funding gap.

"The traditional idea of strength is often tied to a male leadership persona, which society has reinforced for generations," says Menchaca. This bias is further exacerbated when the decision-makers in the funding process are predominantly male. Nina Kleaveland, founder and CEO of Lanyard and founder of Female Founders in Hospitality, adds that pattern matching, where investors fund entrepreneurs similar to those they've previously funded, is another contributing factor.

The solution to this complex issue is multi-pronged. Raising awareness about the funding gap is a crucial first step. "By talking about it, analyzing it, and discussing it openly, we can make this problem visible," Menchaca says. Following awareness, collective effort, especially from investors, is necessary to examine and adjust current funding practices.

To level the playing field, industry experts suggest implementing benchmarks and metrics to foster changes in investing practices. They emphasize the need for fair opportunities and recognition based on merit and hard work rather than gender or race.

On a hopeful note, some changes are already taking place. The funding ratio is expected to improve over the next five to ten years as more women start their own companies and enter the venture capital sector. As more diverse perspectives enter the funding side of the equation, the scope of deal flow expands, offering hope for a more inclusive and fair environment in the future.

Visit PhocusWire for more details.
The Retired Investor: Jailhouse Stocks

Investors appear to be "dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock" ever since the election of President-elect Donald Trump. Private prison stocks have roared back to life as the deportation of immigrants becomes a reality.

Day One, according to the Trump team, the new administration will launch its promised plan to deport millions of illegal immigrants. Criticisms that the cost of such an endeavor would bankrupt the country have gone largely unheeded. Trump has responded that he has "no choice" and "no price tag" when it comes to what the media terms as the largest deportation in U.S. history.

Wall Street believes that the appointment of hardliner Tom Homan as Trump's "border czar," could mean expanded contracts on the back of increased US Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) enforcement combined with partnerships with U.S. Marshals and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Some policy groups that specialize in immigration have predicted GDP could shrink by $1.1 trillion to $1.7 trillion but according to most voters that would be a small price to pay to rid the country of the estimated 11 million plus illegals in the country. As a result, with investors' belief that the sky's the limit in spending, it is no wonder that the shares of the two largest prison stocks, GEO Group and Core Civic, have gained more than 80 percent in a matter of days.

These companies own and operate a nationwide network of prisons, immigration detention centers, and correctional facilities under government contracts. The latest figures (2022) of those incarcerated were just under 91,000 U.S. residents and upwards of 55,000 migrants. That was during Trump's first four years.

Thanks to lobbying efforts by both firms, there exists a hand-in-glove connection between the industry and federal policy decisions. That was worth $1.05 billion in sales (43 percent of revenue) from ICE for the Geo Group in 2022.

Core Civic received $552.2 million from ICE during the same period equaling 30 percent of total revenue. Both companies have been working with the Trump transition team to expand their capacity. Pro-private prison government benefactors argue that these companies, structured to generate profit while operating like public institutions, reduce overcrowding throughout the penal system. They reduce costs and offer specialized management expertise as well.

On conference calls last week, the management of both companies used words such as "unprecedented opportunity" and, in the case of Damon Hininger, CEO of CoreCivic, "It feels like with this election this year, we're heading into an era that we really haven't seen, maybe once or twice in the company's history." That was music to the ears of traders and investors alike.

Building prisons, especially given the number of illegal immigrants targeted by the incoming Trump administration, will not be built overnight. A 500-bed facility in San Diego, for example, costs $118 million to build. And running a 1,000-bed prison can cost as much as $143 million a year. However, the plan is to deport illegals, not just throw them in jail where taxpayers will be required to foot the bill for their incarceration.

As such, behind the scenes, there is much discussion among planners of "soft-sided" detention facilities ( tents with jail cells in them) as an interim step. That could reduce costs considerably. How this could be accomplished and still provide basic humanitarian treatment is another discussion. Given the present mood of the country, many might not even care.

Before you decide to buy into this jailhouse rock as well, know that there was a similar mood of euphoria surrounding these stocks back in the early days of Trump's first term. At that time both companies' stocks traded at or near long-term highs. Today, however, despite their gains, they are still trading far below those 2017 gains.
Berkshire County Historical Society To Collect Oral Histories

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The Berkshire County Historical Society concludes its year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of the publication of Herman Melville's "Billy Budd, Sailor" with two events that honor the journey that led to the novel's discovery.

"Billy Budd, Sailor" was discovered and published by Herman Melville's granddaughter, Eleanor, who shared a special relationship with her grandfather. On Nov. 16 and Dec. 7 BCHS will record and archive stories of grandparents and grandchildren.

Together with partners from the Housatonic Heritage Oral History Center at Berkshire Community College and the Berkshire Athenaeum, they will create a story scavenger hunt for children and their families, which will include treats and art projects.

All participants will receive a recording of their story. The Nov. 16 event takes place at Herman Melville's historic home, Arrowhead, from noon - 4 pm.

The Berkshire Athenaeum hosts the Dec. 7 event from 10 am - 2 pm. Both events are free.

This program is funded in part by Mass Humanities, which receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Lenox Library's Lecture Series to Feature State Rep. Pignatelli

LENOX, Mass.  Lenox Library will continue its Distinguished Lecture Series on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024 at 4:00 p.m. with State Representative Wm. Smitty Pignatelli.

Pignatelli currently is completing his eighth term in the House of Representatives while also serving as Interim Town Manager in Lenox.

A lifelong resident of Lenox, Smitty, as he prefers to be called, was named after his father's best friend, William Smith, who was killed during World War II. After graduating from Lenox Memorial High School in 1977, Smitty became a licensed Master Electrician and worked in his family's electrical contracting business for twenty years. Smitty took over the full operation of the business at the time of his father's retirement in 1991. Smitty left the family business to his brother Scott, in 1998, when he was offered a position as the Business Development Manager for Lee Bank. While at the bank, he attended Babson College School for Financial Studies, graduating in 2001. Longing to serve the people of his beloved Berkshire District, he decided to leave the bank to pursue his dream of public service and run for higher office. Smitty won the seat of State Representative for the 4th Berkshire District and is currently serving his eighth term in the House of Representatives.

Smitty was first elected to the Lenox Planning Board in 1987 and served on that board for five years. In 1992, he was elected to the Board of Selectmen, and was elected Chairman on four different occasions, serving until May of 2003. Smitty also served from 1995-1999 as a Berkshire County Commissioner including two years as Chairman of the board.

With over 30 years of public service experience, Smitty also has been involved in many local associations. He is a member of the Berkshire County Deputy Sheriff's Association, a past board member of the Berkshire County Arc, the Board of Directors of the Berkshire Visitors Bureau, the Berkshire County Red Cross, and is a former President of the Lenox Historical Society.

Now in its 18th season, the Distinguished Lecture Series is organized and hosted by Dr. Jeremy Yudkin, a resident of the Berkshires and Professor of Music and Co-Director of the Center for Beethoven Research at Boston University. Lectures are free and open to the public.
Triplex Special Screening 'A Book By Their Cover'

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.  The Triplex Cinema announces a special screening of local filmmaker John Tedeschi's fictional narrative film "A Book By Their Cover," inspired by local events in Berkshire County, as well as events around the country including book bans connected with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ+) community.

The film was shot entirely in the Berkshires.

The film will screen on Thursday, Nov. 14 at 7:00 pm and will be followed by a conversation with the director as well as members of the cast and crew. Tickets are available for purchase at the Triplex website, thetriplex.org.

According to a press release:

"A Book By Their Cover" tells the story of Samantha, a 12-year-old girl who discovers a book while staying at her grandparents' house. The book, a medical journal written in 1962, piques Samantha's curiosity about sexuality. After discussing it, Samantha's parents give her another book, "The Every Body Book: The LGBTQ+ Inclusive Guide for Kids about Sex, Gender, Bodies, and Families," written in 2020 by Rachel Simon and illustrated by Noah Grigni. "The Every Body Book" is widely considered to be a valuable and groundbreaking resource for parents navigating early conversations with children about puberty, consent, sex and gender.

Samantha brings the book with her to school, where the school janitor sees the book, is upset, and confiscates it. The book is turned over by the school administration to the police and an investigation ensues. The film deals with the aftermath of these events, which play out during a town meeting where opinions about the book and the police investigation that followed are played out.

A similar situation occurred last year at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School over the well-known book "Gender Queer," an incident which serves as inspiration for the film. In a statement provided to the "Berkshire Edge" Tedeschi said, "the film is not a true story, it is not a film that uses the words based on true and actual events,' and the characters are not intended to appear as any actual person. The film was inspired by many things, it is a mirror, as you say, of events but it is not the actual likeness."
Ant Toombs, senior playmaker guide, leads Monday's conference on early childhood through a rock/paper/scissors exercise in play. The idea was to engage in face-to-face connections and increase energy and creativity. Toombs of Life is Good Playmaker Project gives the keynote address. Playing games as a way of connecting. PreviousNext

Early Educators Learn Power of Play at MAAEYC Conference



Association President Cheryl Hovey and board members Gregg Millien and Kim Bennett at Taconic High School. This is the second year the conference has been held in Berkshire County.

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  More than 200 early childhood professionals gathered at Taconic High School on Monday for the Massachusetts Association for the Education of Young Children conference.



This is the second year it was held in Berkshire County though attendees were from throughout Western Mass. At one point, they were reminded of the power of play when the auditorium erupted into a rock-paper-scissors tournament.



Association President Cheryl Hovey said while the events of last week's election may have affected everyone differently, the MAAEYC is there to help navigate the next steps in times of uncertainty.



We find strength in community, she said, and Monday's event was a celebration of that strength because the work done in early childhood now more than ever has the power to shape the future.



"Today we gather not just to learn but to inspire and be inspired, to connect, and to celebrate the power of play and early childhood education," she said.



" Play isn't just fun, it's the essential work of children. Through play, they explore, create, and learn, laying the foundation for lifelong learning. It's through these moments of wonder and discovery that we build positive behaviors and resilience of our young learners."

The conference also joined with the private nonprofit Wonderfund to collect toys for local children with the state Department of Children and Families.

The day began with a keynote address from Anthony "Ant" Toombs Sr., senior playmaker guide and outreach specialist for the Life is Good Playmaker Project. It concluded at 3 p.m. after sessions, exhibitors, and a lunch break.



Toombs began by asking members of the audience to play rock-paper-scissors until there was one final winner. This was to increase energy and positivity while uniting people, he said, explaining, "Some folks who probably would have never had a face-to-face connection opportunity had that opportunity in here just now."



Life is Good donates 10 percent of profits to its kids' foundation. The Playmaker Project teaches early childhood professionals to help kids heal through play and, for 15 years, Toombs has worked with thousands to create environments that feel safe and joyous.

"Life is good but life is not so good for a lot of the children that we serve," he said.



According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, adverse childhood experiences are the single greatest unaddressed public health threat facing the nation. Toombs explained that these show up in forms of abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction, among others.



The event was in collaboration with Taconic's Early Childhood CTE Program, Berkshire Community College's EEC Career Pathways Grant, and Berkshire United Way.



In 2023, the conference had 60 participants; this year, there were 204.



Alica Ginsberg, early childhood career pathway grant coordinator at Berkshire Community College, saw Toombs at the MAAEYC Conference in Worcester two years ago and was determined to get him on the program. She worked with MAAEYC to bring the conference to Berkshire County on a Saturday last year, focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.



This year Ginsberg, Katherine von Haefen, director of community impact at Berkshire United Way, and Sarah Muil, director of the Austen Riggs Nursery School advocated bringing the conference back to the Berkshires on a school holiday rather than a weekend and focusing on behavior, trauma and play.



BUW and Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation provided scholarships for 46 Berkshire educators to attend and Greylock Federal Credit Union sponsored an additional two.



The MAAEYC also offered conference participants $10 memberships.
Williamstown Planners Seek Input from Airbnb Proprietors

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  The Planning Board on Tuesday discussed ways to reach out to residents who use their homes for short-term rentals as the body prepares to bring a bylaw regulating the practice to May's annual town meeting.

Short-term rentals  referred to as Airbnbs in the vernacular  have been a topic of conversation for the board for years. At one point, it was close to finalizing a bylaw proposal a couple of years ago but instead asked the Select Board to take up the project, as any such regulation would not be specific to a given zoning district but applicable to the town as a whole.

The Select Board effectively took no action after studying the question, leaving the planners to take it up again at the start of their 2024-25 cycle.

The board has a draft bylaw that would restrict short-term rentals of a primary dwelling unit to 90 days in a calendar year in the residential districts if approved by two-thirds of town meeting members. The rule, as drafted, would carve out exceptions: allowing unlimited rentals of a primary dwelling if the owner lives on the property in an accessory dwelling unit; allowing unlimited rentals of an individual bedroom in a home where the owner is residing; and allowing unlimited short-term rentals of ADUs if the owner lives in the primary residence.

What the board members want is feedback from residents who already rent their homes on services like Airbnb or Vrbo.

"Do people feel like the feedback we've gotten has been representative of different points of view," Chair Peter Beck asked his colleagues at Tuesday's meeting.

"In the current cycle, we haven't gotten any feedback," Kenneth Kuttner said.

The board does have some evidence that town meeting is amenable to limits on short-term rentals.

A bylaw enabling "Cottage Court" housing developments that passed overwhelmingly at the May 2024 annual town meeting included a rule against the "cottages" being used as STRs for more than 150 days in a calendar year. The Planning Board included that provision to address past criticism that any change in the bylaw to increase the density or variety of housing in town would lead to homes being built and converted to full-time STRs.

On Tuesday, the planners discussed how they could reach out specifically to residents already using their homes as STRs.

"A lot of our short-term rental units are folks who meet spike tourism demand for big events and use it to supplement their income," Town Planner Andrew Groff reminded the board.

The town currently has more than 190 short-term rentals registered with the Department of Revenue, which collects lodging taxes on them. Groff said he could send a postcard to owners of those homes inviting them specifically to a Planning Board meeting or listening session to see whether those residents have concerns about the bylaw as drafted.

The timing of that meeting was left up in the air on Tuesday, though the planners discussed holding such a listening session in January, perhaps, one suggested at a venue like Williamstown Elementary School's cafeteria, which can accommodate a larger crowd than the Town Hall meeting room.

In the meantime, the board discussed other outreach sessions it could do to inform the electorate before May's annual town meeting, including drafting a flier on the proposed short-term rental bylaw and staffing a table that the Select Board has reserved in the Penny Social at the annual Holiday Walk festival on Dec. 7.

The board pretty much agreed on Tuesday that the STR bylaw may be one of only, potentially, two proposals it brings to May's town meeting.

The other initiative that may be ready to bring to the meeting members is a bylaw amendment to regulate the installation of geothermal wells in the recharge district for the town's aquifer.

The director of the Department of Public Works brought the board his concern this summer about the use of such systems in the recharge zone given the practice of using propylene glycol as an antifreeze in the wells.

In its discussion on Tuesday, the majority of the board seemed in line with a proposal pitched at its October meeting: to allow geothermal wells that use potable water only as a heat transfer medium without requiring an engineering report from homeowners while making the oversight more stringent for systems that do use propylene glycol.

The board members recognized that more information is needed about the systems generally

"There's also the issue of what the system is made of," Roger Lawrence said. "We don't know the type of piping, for example. I can't think off the top of my head what else in the system might be harmful, but we're not engineers."

Groff pointed out that "horizontal" geothermal systems that use trenches up to 4 feet deep are less of a concern because they would not pose a threat to the aquifer or the recharge area, unlike the vertical systems, which can go several hundred feet below grade.

Tuesday's meeting included updates from board members for their colleagues about various ongoing projects that the body does not anticipate bringing to the town until May 2026, at the earliest.

Groff and Samantha Page told the board that they are convening a working group with representatives from Williams College to discuss a possible academic zoning district to address the fact that the town's private schools (Williams, Pine Cobble and Buxton) operate in residential zones and, especially in Williams' case, frequently need relief from the residential zoning rules  relief the Zoning Board of Appeals is bound to give under Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court precedent.

Cory Campbell told the board that he needs more time at its December meeting to provide a full update on his research into potential changes to the bylaw to enable more mixed-use development in town.

And Kuttner and Lawrence updated the group on their work refining a proposal to allow open-space residential development in the town's Rural Residence districts. In particular, the pair went through some of the differences between an OSRD development and subdivision mechanisms already in the town's bylaw.

"We're beginning to bring [a bylaw proposal] into focus," Lawrence said. "I think we may have another, easy, 12 months to filter through what ideas are practical and how to come up with bylaw phraseology that is easy to understand. But it feels like we're not at the beginning anymore. It feels like we're making progress."

In other business on Tuesday, the Planning Board reviewed a Select Board policy for a procedure to address pending sales of land in the commonwealth's Chapter 61 land preservation program.

Two years ago, the Select Board was faced with a decision on whether the town wanted to exercise the municipal "right of first refusal" when land is sold and moved out of the Chapter 61 program, which provides tax incentives for landowners who promise not to develop property. Ultimately, the Select Board decided to assign its right of first refusal to the non-profit Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation, as the law allows.

The process by which the board reached that decision was developed on the fly. Now, the Select Board wants to codify a process that, among other things, invites relevant town committees  including the Planning Board, Conservation Commission, Community Preservation Committee, Agricultural Commission and Historical Commission  to provide recommendations.

Before it adopts the policy or takes it to town meeting for a vote, the Select Board is asking the impacted committees to review it. On Tuesday, the Planning Board members agreed the policy language looks good.
The Select Board meets Tuesday night at the library.

Dalton Select Board Delays Special Election Decision

DALTON, Mass.  The Select Board on Tuesday voted to delay any action on setting a special election to fill its vacant seat until the town confirms that proper legal procedures were followed.

The board was shown a citizen petition with 237 signatures from residents calling for a special election and an election timeline created by Town Clerk Heather Hunt based on office activity levels.

Hunt recommended having the special election no earlier than Jan. 27, Town Manager Thomas Hutcheson said. Hunt was not present during the meeting.

An election should not be scheduled too early in January because the office will be busy with the census and dog license renewals, he said.

Before calling a special election, the board members wanted to consult the town attorney because they were concerned about whether they were acting in full compliance with state laws.

The decision was passed unanimously among present board members; Vice Chair Dan Esko was absent.

"In my opinion, everything up until this point is of questionable legalities, and that's why, at the meeting in September, I suggested that we consult with the town attorney before we do anything based on what's happened here," member John Boyle said.

"I mean, what could happen if you ignore these chapters and sub-chapters in Massachusetts General law and go and call an election without actually following all the steps  the election could be contested by a citizen in court and ruled invalid."

When contacted Wednesday, Hunt said she wished she had attended the meeting because she could have clarified board members' confusion.

On the day of the meeting, Hunt stated that she had spoken to Hutcheson several times to inquire if he would like her to attend. He declined, especially considering how busy the clerk's office has been given the presidential election and now being randomly being selected for a state post-election audit.

The state post-election audit is a lottery in which only 3 percent of precincts are selected.

"I really wish I was there because I feel like they had some information that was not correct, and I feel like it would have been helpful for me to provide them with correct information. Whether or not it would have changed the outcome, I doubt. I doubt that very much," Hunt said.

"I think the outcome was going to be the outcome either way, but I could have provided them with some details that, for some reason, they apparently didn't have."

During the meeting, Boyle presented several reasons that calling for a special election would go against state laws and could contested by a citizen in court and ruled invalid.

One reason was that the board never received any certified documentation or resignation letter regarding the Select Board vacancy.

Although Bishop obtained the email, he and Boyle claimed in a follow-up that they had not received a certified letter that had been notarized.

This type of documentation is state law, Boyle said, citing a section of Chapter 41 Section 10 which reads:

"If there is a resignation of a town officer creating a vacancy at some later time certain, and such resignation is filed with the town clerk in accordance with the provisions of section one hundred and nine, said town clerk shall certify a vacancy shall occur at the later time certain and the board of selectmen may call a special election "

Hunt said she was surprised by the board's confusion as to whether Diver officially resigned, explaining that she received his letter of resignation in September, which they printed, date-stamped, filed, and forwarded to the board chair and vice chair.

"Joe Diver actually announced his resignation at a Select Board meeting. So, I took for granted that everybody knew that. Joe did everything by the book  if I was there in attendance, I certainly would have given that information to them again," she said.

"It wouldn't have been the first time we gave them that information, but we would have made sure that everybody felt comfortable with the fact that [Diver] did resign as of Oct. 1.

Boyle also questioned the validity of the citizen petition, stating that the process was not properly followed. He claimed that the petition should have been presented to the board and then given to the town clerk for certification.

However, Robert Collins, who previously ran for a seat on the Select Board and now serves on the Planning Board, took out the petition from the town clerk on Oct. 2.

Boyle again cited a section of Chapter 41 Section 10 which reads:

"If there is a failure to elect or a vacancy occurs in the office of selectmen, the remaining selectmen or selectman may call a special election to fill the vacancy and shall call such election upon the request in writing of two hundred registered voters of the town, or twenty percent of the total number of registered voters of the town, whichever number is the lesser; provided, that such request if filed with them or him not less than one hundred days prior to the date of the next annual election."

Boyle emphasized that the law states the request needs to be presented to "them," which refers to the Select Board. This was not done, he said.

Collins worked with Thomas Irwin and several other supporting town members to gather signatures for his petition, which garnered 237 signatures.

On Oct. 17, Hunt said she informed board members that the petition had 223 certified signatures.

Collins followed the proper procedure, Hunt said.

In Massachusetts, the proper procedure requires the petition to be returned to the clerk's office for certification of signatures so that the clerk can certify that the signers are Dalton residents and registered voters.

The petition has to be submitted to the clerk's office because they have the state computers which allow them to certify a citizens petition, she said.

"I was surprised. I mean, those are pretty basic things, so I was a little shocked when I saw it this morning that those two, what I would have guessed to be clear to everybody wasn't, but I think they're clear on it now," Hunt said.

In a follow-up, Collins expressed his disappointment with the board's decision, describing it as a "travesty" and the " impediment to democracy" he has seen in the town in a long time.

"What is it that that Select Board is trying to hide that they don't want anybody else new in their sandbox," Collins said.
Thursday 14 November 2024, 19:07 - Last updated: 15 November, 11:39

As rumors circulate about a peace deal that could end the war in Ukraine, NATO countries bordering Russia fear that Putin might exploit a deal brokered by the new US President Trump to his advantage. If the fighting ceases and the Russian soldiers currently bogged down in eastern Ukraine are no longer needed, "hundreds of thousands of soldiers" will be available for Putin to deploy elsewhere, said Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur to Newsweek on the sidelines of the International Institute for Strategic Studies defense summit in Prague. Pevkur's concern is that these troops could end up crossing the border into his country and other neighboring states on NATO's eastern flank. "An immediate ceasefire would put Russia in a strong position to seize the opportunity to rebuild its forces and launch a new assault on Ukraine in the future, or free up those forces to return to the borders with NATO countries," said William Freer, a national security researcher at the UK-based think tank Council on Geostrategy. "The countries along NATO's eastern flank have been some of Ukraine's staunchest supporters," Freer told Newsweek. "A Russia no longer entangled in the quagmire of a high-intensity conflict might be tempted to focus its efforts on intimidating or breaking with the eastern flank members of NATO and within it."

SCENARIOS

Once President-elect Trump returns to the Oval Office, he might push for a ceasefire to the brutal war in Ukraine, ongoing for two and a half years. He said he could end the war in a day, but has not provided a roadmap on how he would do it. The Republican has yet to decide how to bring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin to the negotiating table, reported the Wall Street Journal earlier this month. An idea circulated among Trump's camp officials might see Ukraine commit to not joining NATO for at least 20 years, while Washington continues to funnel weapons into the country to deter Russia from launching new attacks, reported the WSJ, citing three people close to the president-elect. The conflict would freeze, with Russia maintaining its grip on about a fifth of Ukraine. A demilitarized zone would mark the control of Kyiv and Moscow along the current front lines and the international border between the two countries, likely monitored by European forces. On Friday, Czech President Petr Pavel gave a similar public assessment. A scenario that would go against what Zelensky has outlined to Ukrainian lawmakers and world leaders in his "victory plan" in recent months. That strategy was based on Ukraine's accession to NATO, excluded ceding territory to Moscow, and avoiding a frozen conflict.

UKRAINE

Any kind of rushed resolution to the war "will be a loss for Ukraine," Zelensky noted last week. European officials have also indicated that a Trump-led deal with Putin would likely come at the expense of Ukraine and possibly Europe. A ceasefire and the establishment of a demilitarized zone in eastern Ukraine and along the border with Russia would likely mean that Moscow's army would no longer be needed for high-casualty attacks on Ukrainian defenses. But Russian soldiers, who are paid thousands of dollars a month to fight in the war, Pevkur said, will not want to return to remote Russian regions to earn a fraction of this pay. "This means that the Russian military will have many free forces available, which will likely be brought into our neighborhood," Pevkur said, "because this is the plan that former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu signed."

NATO

Towards the end of 2022, Shoigu stated that the Kremlin would reorganize Russia's military structure, while simultaneously increasing the number of servicemen over the coming years. Some parts of the plan were the division of Russia's Western Military District into two districts, Moscow and Leningrad, and the increase in the size of the army. When Finland joined NATO the following year, Putin said that the restoration of the Leningrad Military District was directly due to the increased NATO presence on the border with Russia. The US think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, explains Newsweek, stated that the Western Military District was "stretched" between focusing on the war in Ukraine and maintaining force against NATO's Baltic borders. Dividing the former Western Military District and its responsibilities in this way helps Russia "adopt a more effective military posture" towards the Baltic and Scandinavian NATO members, explained to Newsweek Nick Reynolds, a researcher on Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a UK-based think tank. Russia currently has a division, its 76th Guards air assault division, near Estonia, at its base in Pskov. With the new plans, Russia would triple the number of soldiers near the NATO border with the Baltic state, Pevkur said. "Obviously, we will see more equipment, more troops in our neighborhood," Pevkur said. "This means that the risk will be much higher, as the early warning time will be reduced to a minimum," Pevkur added. "The deterrence message must be so strong that Russia does not even think of attacking NATO," he said.

THE ARMY

Although Russia has withdrawn much of its ground power from the Baltic borders to support its troops in Ukraine, NATO is well aware of Russia's public statements about reinvesting and restructuring its forces near the eastern flank, said Lieutenant General Jurgen-Joachim von Sandrart, head of NATO's Multinational Corps Northeast based in northwestern Poland, tasked with overseeing the alliance's presence in the Baltic States. Russia considers the Baltic Sea region a "significant priority," von Sandrart told Newsweek in Prague. Moscow not only has ground forces near the Baltic States but also capabilities in all sectors, such as systems that would prevent NATO forces from accessing what is known as the area of responsibility, which for the Northeast Multinational Corps includes Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and northern Poland. Russia would use these other capabilities by effectively operating in its Kaliningrad enclave, wedged between NATO members Lithuania and Poland.

THE FLEET

Moscow's fleet in the Baltic Sea is based in Kaliningrad, surrounded by NATO members bordering what has been popularly referred to as the "NATO lake." Although the Black Sea fleet, near the Ukrainian coast, has taken a hard hit since February 2022, the rest of the formidable Russian navy has emerged virtually unscathed. "The Baltic Sea fleet is little engaged in the war," von Sandrart said. "The capabilities in the Kaliningrad Oblast are still quite relevant," he added, saying: "According to Moscow, Kaliningrad is an isolated core surrounded by NATO."

"Russia has several possibilities to test the cohesion of the alliance," according to the general, who will soon hand over leadership of the multinational corps in the region. Moscow could opt for an increase in its hybrid warfare and other tactics in the "gray zone," he said. This term refers to a range of activities that stop short of open combat, such as cyberattacks and information campaigns. The Kremlin could also try small land advances," von Sandrart said. But NATO is "prepared for this," he emphasized.

The Kremlin could use these troops to carve out a small piece of NATO as a taste of how the alliance might respond, retired British Army Brigadier General Ben Barry, a senior researcher for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Newsweek. Faced with Russia's "powerful capability" near the Baltic States, the alliance is ready to confront the Kremlin's power, "but we must significantly increase our momentum to be even more prepared," von Sandrart said.

THE EFFORT

Moscow is committed to fighting in Ukraine and strengthening its force near NATO territory, von Sandrart said. NATO must "race" to ensure it builds its power before Russia can recover from its hard effort in Ukraine, he said, but the work to be done does not mean the alliance cannot push back Russia as it is, he added. "The more Russia recognizes that we are ready before them, the more we can create deterrence and prevent war," von Sandrart stated. Tallinn's foreign intelligence service stated earlier this year that Russia's success in its radical reforms would depend on the war in Ukraine. "If Russia were to successfully implement the reform," the intelligence agency stated in February, "NATO could face a Soviet-style mass army in the next decade." The army would be "technologically inferior" to NATO forces in areas other than electronic warfare and long-range attacks, the service said, but its "military potential would be significant."

To counter a potential non-nuclear Russian attack, NATO's military and defense industries should be "significantly more prepared, capable, and better supplied with ammunition and materials than they currently are," the report concludes. With a ceasefire, which would end the pace at which Ukraine is destroying Russian equipment, Russia could exploit a pause in the fighting to "rebuild its armored and mechanized forces much more effectively in particular," Freer stated. Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas agrees. A frozen conflict is "a very negative scenario because Russia will reestablish itself in a few years," he said in Prague. Then "it will try to do something more, in Ukraine or even in the NATO area," he stated.

THE OTHER SCENARIO

There is another scenario, explains Newsweek. A huge number of Ukrainian and Russian troops could remain relatively close to where they are currently deployed along the front lines where Moscow has steadily gained ground throughout the year. It is unclear how many troops Moscow and Ukraine would keep in place. Russia might fear that Ukraine would use a pause in the fighting to then resume the effort on a better plan if it felt forced into a ceasefire by the United States, Barry said. Russia might also want to keep a certain number of troops available if it hoped to resume the war and conclude it on its terms, he added. There are huge questions with few answers about a potential Trump-mediated deal. It is unclear if Kyiv could be forced into a deal it finds too unpalatable, or even what a demilitarized zone would look like. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that decisions regarding the war "cannot be made without ignoring the Ukrainians, nor ignoring us."

A spokesperson for Kyiv's Foreign Ministry stated that Ukraine is "grateful" for the Polish politician's comments and that Ukrainian officials should have the power to decide how to end the violence. "The war is taking place on Ukrainian territory, so it will be Ukraine that determines the parameters for a complete, just, and lasting peace," Heorhii Tykhyi stated in comments reported by Ukrainian media. The Times of London reported on Monday that Poland hoped to convince the United Kingdom to protect Ukraine's interests in a potential Trump-mediated ceasefire. "No one wants the conflict to escalate, and at the same time, no one wants Ukraine to weaken or even capitulate," Tusk said.
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Stephen King has addressed a rumor about Elon Musk after claims the author was banned from X/Twitter.

The writer has spoken out against Musk numerous times, making no secret of his dislike for the billionaire.

In the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election, King questioned Musks defence of Donald Trump and, in the days after Trumps victory, has repeatedly poked fun at Tesla and SpaceX founder Musk for his staunch support of the president-elect.

It was claimed this week that King, 77, had made a jibe that angered Musk, 53, so much that he blocked the Shining and Salems Lot author from posting on X/Twitter, which Musk owns. According to the rumor, King had jokingly referred to Musk as Trumps first lady.

Now, in the hours after it was revealed Musk will jointly lead a new US department set to advise the president-elect on how to make savings in the federal government, King has responded to these claims.

I see theres a rumor going around that I called the Musk-man Trumps new first lady, he wrote, adding: I didnt, but only because I didnt think of it.

King continued: Theres also a rumor going around that Muskie kicked me off Twitter. Yet here I am.

open image in gallery Stephen King addresses rumor about Elon Musk banning him from X/Twitter ( X/Twitter )

Earlier this year, King was trolled by Musk after X/Twitter introduced a new policy that wiped all pre-existing blue ticks on verified accounts, revealing that they would only be given to those who subscribed to the site.

However, King, who had been a vocal critic of Musks plan to remove free verification status, was confused to see he still had a blue tick despite not subscribing.

The author wrote: My Twitter account says Ive subscribed to Twitter Blue. I havent. My Twitter account says Ive given a phone number. I havent. In response to King, Musk wrote: Youre welcome namaste.

open image in gallery Stephen King and Elon Musk have made no secret of their dislike of each other ( Getty Images )

After Trumps election win, many celebrities from the world of film, TV and music shared their reactions, with numerous stars who had endorsed his Democratic rival Kamala Harris expressing sadness at the result.

One such star was King, who wrote: Theres a sign you can see in many shops that sell beautiful but fragile items: LOVELY TO LOOK AT, DELIGHTFUL TO HOLD, BUT ONCE YOU BREAK IT, THEN ITS SOLD. You can say the same about democracy.
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Ariana Grande has stirred up debate among fans of Wicked after correcting an often misheard lyric in one of the songs.

The pop musician, 31, is starring in the new film, the first entry in a two-part adaptation of the hit stage musical.

In Wicked, Grande plays Glinda the Good Witch, which serves as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. Cynthia Erivo (Widows) plays Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.

Ahead of the release of the film, Universal Studios shared a video of Grandes biggest solo musical number, the song Popular.

However, while the video features written lyrics to accompany the singing, Grande flagged a mistranscription in the comments.

Onscreen, the lyric reads: Ill teach you the proper poise when you talk to boys.

However, in the comments, Grande wrote: Its ploys!!!!!! She then added: I love you.

Ariana Grande in Wicked ( Universal Pictures )

Fans of the musical voiced confusion over the correction, with many unsure as to the correct version of the lyric.

I just found out in the song Popular from Wicked it is proper ploys when u talk to boys not proper poise when u talk to boys ????????? one fan wrote on X/Twitter. Is this a new mandala effect or am i just dumb as hell?

The way I thought it was Poise this whole time, wrote another, alongside a crying emoji.

I saw the original cast and all these years thought it was poise and today learned it was all a lie, someone else wrote.

Others, however, disagreed with the correction: Like im not a HUGE Wicked fan but ive read the lyrics and unless this is photoshopped or they changed it in the movie its ABSOLUTELY poise.

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Grande was, unsurprisingly, correct, with various other actors to have played Glinda also chiming in with confirmation.

Jennafer Newberry Peery, who played Glinda on stage, wrote: Just another Glinda here to say. proper ploys. Ginna Claire Mason, who played the character in a touring production, wrote: The text says poise, but its proper ploys.

Wicked is released in cinemas on 22 November 2024, with the official soundtrack album to be released the same day.
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Denzel Washington has revealed that he plans to retire in the near future, with one of his final roles being in the third Black Panther film.

The 69-year-old Oscar winner, who is currently winning rave reviews and awards buzz for his performance in Gladiator II, claims that there are very few films left for him to make at this late stage in his career.

While on the press tour for Gladiator II, Washington told Australias Today programme that there are now only a handful of filmmakers that he wishes to work with.

He said: For me, its about the filmmakers. Especially at this point in my career, I am only interested in working with the best. I dont know how many more films Im going to make. Its probably not that many. I want to do things I havent done.

Washington went on to mention a production of Othello that he is starring in on Broadway with Jake Gyllenhaal in February 2025. I played Othello at 22. I am about to play Othello at 70, he said.

Continuing, the Training Day star name checked both Steve McQueen and Ryan Coogler as directors he hopes to work with, and also mentioned an adaptation of King Lear and a film about Carthaginian military leader Hannibal.

After that, I am playing Hannibal. After that, Ive been talking to Steve McQueen about a film, said Washington. After that, Ryan Coogler is writing a part for me in the next Black Panther. After that, Im going to do the film Othello. After that, Im going to do King Lear. After that, Im going to retire.

Aside from the Hannibal film, which is being directed by Antoine Fuqua for Netflix, none of the other film projects Washington mentioned have been officially confirmed.

The Steve McQueen project remains firmly under wraps as does a third Black Panther film. However, due to the success of the first two films, it remains highly likely that Marvel and Disney will draft Coogler in for another visit to Wakanda.

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Denzel Washington ( Getty )

Before his untimely death in August 2020, Chadwick Boseman, who played King TChalla in four Marvel movies, revealed how Washington had paid for him to go to acting school.

Speaking at an AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony for Washington in 2019, Boseman said: There is no Black Panther without Denzel Washington. My whole cast stands on your shoulders. The daily battles won, the thousand territories gained, the many sacrifices you made for the culture on film sets through your career, the things you refused to compromise along the way lay the blueprints for us to follow.
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Dwayne Johnson has revealed he once changed agents after his representatives voiced scepticism that he could be as big as stars such as George Clooney or Will Smith.

The actor and wrestler is one of Hollywoods best known and most profitable actors, thanks to roles in films such as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Furious 7.

A new interview with GQ saw Johnson discuss the change, which took place shortly after launching his acting career.

Johnson, who rose to fame in the world of WWE, made his film debut in The Mummy Returns in 2001, opposite Brendan Fraser. He reprised his character, the anti-hero the Scorpion King, in the 2002 spin-off named after the character.

It was around this time that Johnson is said to have surveyed the landscape and noted who was at the top of it, as per GQ.

Writes the outlet: He went to his agents and said, despite whatever recent setbacks hed experienced, he had an idea, or simply an ambition: He wanted to have the career of George Clooney or Will Smith. But bigger, perhaps, or better. When his agents seemed sceptical of this plan, he found new agents.

Speaking to GQ, Johnson said that this was the idea back then. He admitted that he had thought I could be bigger than both Clooney and Smith, two of Hollywoods highest-profile actors at the time.

Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans in Red One (  2022 Amazon Content Services LLC )

And I mean that respectfully, he says. But also maybe do things differently, because theres no blueprint, I feel like, for a guy like me, who looks like me. But I feel now looking back on the career. Bigger than Will, bigger than George? I think the declaration is just: different.

Johnsons latest project is Christmas-set action movie Red One, in which he stars opposite JK Simmons and Chris Evans. The story follows the fallout when a highly militarised Santa Claus (Simmons) is kidnapped.

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According to Johnson, his strategy for maximising his own audience appeal involves rigourous planning.

So the date is Christmas, X year, Johnson said. Year and a half, two years before that: Theres our date. Now here comes the film. Now we work backwards from there. And I found myself doing that for years, actually. And it worked and it served me back then because it helped build my career.

I had this conceit and I idealised what my career should be, he added. [The conceit was]: Audience first. Lets take care of the audience first. So I get a piece of material, Id look at it and think, Okay, does this have four-quadrant capability and opportunity? Are audiences going to like seeing me in this role?

Red One is in cinemas now.
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Matthew McConaughey has revealed why he turned down a whopping $15m acting role.

The actor, 55, appeared on the Modern Wisdom podcast on Monday (November 11), where he explained how money and success arent necessarily interchangeable.

Now, money, fame, thats the definition of success. It seems to be whoever has more  more access, more money  youre the winner, he told podcast host Chris Williamson.

Ive met many very rich men whove chased that dollar to be successful and to be relevant for having the most money, the Oscar winner shared, before acknowledging how some people often sacrifice quality for quantity.

While the Dallas Buyers Club star admitted that he has a lot of things now from money Ive made, he maintained that theres no way Id be less happy with a much smaller fortune.

At one point during the podcast, McConaughey shared that he had turned down a $14.5m acting gig during his attempt to pivot his career from romantic comedies to dramatic roles. It was a big risk, the Interstellar star said, as he described his two-year hiatus from acting as a one-way ticket to a dead end in Hollywood.

Matthew McConaughey says theres no way Id be less happy with less money ( Getty Images )

Id been gone long enough to become a new good idea. Wheres McConaughey? Plus, he said no to that $14.5m offer three months ago, the father of three recounted. You dont say no to a $14.5m offer.

In 2008, McConaughey was offered $15m to star in a feature film remake of Magnum, P.I, according to the Hollywood Reporter. McConaughey, who had cemented himself as a romantic lead with films like 2003s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and 2009s Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, decided to turn down the role instead.

Just two years later, he was offered the role of Ron Woodroof in 2013s Dallas Buyers Club  which landed him the Oscar for Best Actor.

Taking a year and a half off and saying no to things in some form or fashion made me a new good idea, he told the Hollywood Reporter. Sometimes the target draws the arrow.
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A rare watch given to John Lennon by his wife Yoko Ono and which was stolen after his death does not belong to an Italian man who bought it from an auction house years later, a Swiss court ruled on Thursday, paving the way for its return to Ono.

The Patek Philippe watch, with an estimated value of 4 million Swiss Francs ($4.51 million), was a 40th birthday gift to the former Beatle from Japanese artist Ono in 1980, just two months before his assassination in New York.

The watch bears the inscription (JUST LIKE) STARTING OVER LOVE YOKO 10AA9AA1980 N.Y.C , on the back of its 18-carat gold face, a line from a song they composed together, the court statement said.

The appeal ruling shared with reporters by the Federal Tribunal on Thursday confirms two prior judgments by Geneva courts in 2022 and 2023. It concludes a years-long legal battle between Yoko Ono and an Italian man living in China who claimed ownership of the watch and was the appellant in this case.

Like all the names of the parties involved, his name is given in code form in the Swiss legal documents, with only some of the identities possible to determine.

open image in gallery oko Ono gestures as she unveils the 'John Lennon: The New York City Years exhibit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex in New York May 11, 2009 ( REUTERS )

It was not possible for Reuters to contact his lawyer since their identity is also censored.

Court documents show the watch changed hands and countries several times after being taken by Onos Turkish chauffeur in 2006. He claimed he had Onos consent to take the watch.

Once in Turkey, the watch changed hands again in 2010 before being sold to a German auction house who sold it to the Italian national living in China.

Ono only discovered the watch had been stolen in 2014 after a Geneva-based company, commissioned by the Italian to appraise its value, tipped off her lawyer.

The watch is currently being held for safekeeping in Geneva by the lawyer of the appellant, Swiss court documents show, and it was not immediately clear when or if it would be returned.
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Music titan Quincy Jones died of pancreatic cancer, according to his death certificate, which was released just over a week after his passing.

No other contributing factors were listed on the death certificate, though it was noted that Quincy had been living with the cancer for years.

The pioneering musician, who worked as a music producer with the likes of Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, died at the age of 91 on November 3 at his home in Los Angeles.

He has since been laid to rest during a private ceremony held earlier this week, according to the Associated Press. A larger, more public ceremony is currently being planned.

Quincys death was announced by his publicist Arnold Robinson, who shared that he was surrounded by family when he died.

Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Joness passing, the family said in a statement. And although this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life that he lived and know there will never be another like him.

The 28-time Grammy-winner is survived by his seven children, including Parks and Recreation star Rashida Jones.

Rashida Jones paid tribute to her late father Quincy Jones, calling him a giant and an icon ( Getty Images for Freedom Road P )

Days after his death, Rashida honored him in an emotional Instagram post.

Alongside a throwback photo of the two of them when she was a baby, she wrote: My dad was nocturnal his whole adult life. He kept jazz hours starting in high school and never looked back. When I was little, I would wake up in the middle of the night to search for him, she wrote, alongside a throwback picture of herself as a baby with her father.

Undoubtedly, he would be somewhere in the house, composing (old school, with a pen and sheet music). He would never send me back to bed. He would smile and bring me into his arms while he continued to work... there was no safer place in the world for me, she said.

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Calling him a giant, an icon, a culture shifter, and a genius, she added: All accurate descriptions of my father but his music (and ALL of his work) was a channel for his love. He WAS love. He made everyone he ever met feel loved and seen. Thats his legacy.

The record producer welcomed Rashida and her older sister, Kadida Jones, with his third wife, the late actor and model Peggy Lipton.

Jones was first married to his high school girlfriend Jeri Caldwell, with whom he shares his first child, Jolie. He then welcomed his second child, Rachel, with dancer Carol Reynolds. He later remarried to Ulla Andersson, with whom he had two more children: Martina and Quincy. Following his divorce from Lipton, he welcomed his youngest child, Kenya Kinski-Jones, with his then-girlfriend Nastassja Kinski.
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The family of Chanel Maya Banks, the Gossip Girl actor who vanished without a trace two weeks ago, is insisting she is still missing despite authorities confirming she was found safe and sound.

Following a two-week search, the Los Angeles Police Department announced on November 12 that after receiving a tip they were led to a home in Texas, where a woman identified herself as Banks. It was reported that no foul play was suspected in her disappearance, and the case has since been closed.

However, after being informed of the LAPDs update, Bankss cousin Danielle-Tori Singh said it was fake news and vowed to continue distributing flyers describing Banks as missing, ABC 7 reported.

Hours after the police announcement, an Instagram post shared from Bankss verified Instagram account claimed that she had not gone missing and had instead voluntarily left to escape my cage.

She accused her family of sexual abuse and manipulation  it is unclear whether Banks has made the allegations in the past or whether police have investigated them.

I have met with the Police and verified that I am not only OK, but Im finally free, she continued. They say once, youre free in Christ Jesus, youre free indeed, so I told my husband six days ago I was going to get baptized by one of my favorite pastors Pastor Robert Clancy.

open image in gallery Chanel Maya Banks claims she was not missing but instead voluntarily left to escape my cage ( ohheychanel/TikTok )

According to his Instagram, Clancy, a revivalist pastor, was indeed in San Antonio, Texas, hosting a three-day Repentance Revival Movement Conference from November 8 to 10.

So I made my Exodous and took my Freedom Ride first class (on Spirit air no less) to the Promised land, she said, adding that she now just wants freedom not only for herself but for everyone suffering in silence.

Singh, who flew in from Toronto to help with the search, has called the woman found in Texas an imposter.

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I have the still from Texas PD body cam footage that was shown to us on Monday Nov 11 at the Pacific Police Station in LA, she wrote in an Instagram Story. This is the woman theyre telling us is Chanel. We have told them this is not Chanel. They didnt listen to us and closed the case. Thats why @ohhheychanel wont post a video saying shes safe because its not Chanel.

The Independent has contacted LAPD for comment.

open image in gallery Danielle-Tori Singh claims woman found in Texas isnt her cousin Chanel Maya Banks ( Danielle-Tori Singh on Instagram )

In a subsequent Story, Singh included a side-by-side picture of the imposter woman found in Texas and our Chanel.

Banks was initially reported missing by her family, who said they hadnt seen or heard from her since October 30. Her relatives said it was very unusual for the actor to be out of touch with them for longer than a few days.

Five days without hearing from my cousin is red flags and alarm bells, Singh previously told KABC. She doesnt go more than 48 hours without speaking to me or her mom... That girl is more like a big sister to me.

Police conducted four welfare checks at her home in the Playa Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles, two on November 7 and another two on November 8, according to a now-defunct GoFundMe page launched by Singh to aid in their search.

Banks has warned followers not to donate to any GoFundMe that says Im missing. I am not missing.

During those checks at the apartment  where Banks lives with her husband of one year  authorities found her dog and her belongings, but not Banks, it was reported.

Banks does not go anywhere without her little dog, which also has been left behind. She also does not have her vehicle because its parked in her garage. She would NEVER go anywhere without telling her mom or myself, Singh wrote on the fundraising page.

Singh also accused Bankss husband of not cooperating with law enforcement and of helping with the search.

Hes not willing to help LAPD. Hes not willing to help me or her mom find her, Singh told KABC. He is removing flyers off of posts and cars.
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Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo has revealed that rather than voting for either official presidential nominees, Vice President Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, he decided to write in an alternative option on his 2024 ballot.

Speaking on a new episode of the PBD Podcast, the 54-year-old journalist shared that he voted for his older brother, disgraced New York politician Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomos admission left the hosts shocked, with host Patrick Bet-David repeatedly asking if he was serious.

After showing picture evidence of his ballot, the TV journalist joked: He didnt win by the way.

Cuomo went on to share that his brother, who previously endorsed Harris, reacted unfazed by his decision, saying: [Andrew] had other things he wanted to talk about.

He continued: My feeling is this: America can do better than these two candidates. Im not a Trump fan and Im not a Democrat. I think this country can do better.

... I just believe that the choices are beneath the standard of American leadership.

Chris Cuomo shares he voted for his older brother, disgraced New York politician Andrew Cuomo ( Getty Images for Endometriosis F )

Cuomo was fired from CNN in December 2021 after it came to light that he had served as an adviser for his brother Andrew Cuomo while he was battling sexual harassment allegations as governor of New York, forcing him to resign in August of that year.

The US attorney general found that Cuomo crossed normal journalistic lines of objectivity in public affairs, reaching out to sources and other journalists to see if there were further accusers planning to step forward, as well as conducting research on various accusers.

He later filed a lawsuit against the network seeking $125m in damages for his unlawful firing.

During his time as New York Governor, Andrew, 66, faced a wave of sexual harassment allegations by multiple women beginning in December 2020.

While he denied all the allegations, he ultimately resigned in August 2021, explaining that his situation had consumed the states attention while officials battled a resurgence of Covid-19.

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In December 2021, a judge dismissed the only criminal charge the former governor had been facing in connection to the sexual harassment allegations.

Cuomo and Andrew are the sons of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo. They also have two sisters: Madeline and Margaret Cuomo.
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Full House star Dave Coulier has revealed that he has been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of stage 3 non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

The 65-year-old actor, who starred as Joey Gladstone on the hit ABC sitcom, shared the news during an appearance on the Today show on Wednesday (November 13).

Coulier said he first discovered symptoms several months ago when he got a cold and then found a large lump on his groin.

It swelled up immediately, he recalled. I thought, Wow, Im either really sick, or my bodys really reacting to something.

He visited the doctor, who shared the shocking diagnosis with him just five weeks ago.

The first thing I said to them was, Wait a minute  cancer? he said. [I was] feeling like I got punched in the stomach because it never happens to you. You always hear about it happening to someone else.

Non-Hodgkins lymphoma is a form of cancer that affects the white blood cells, causing them to grow abnormally and can form tumors throughout the body, according to the Mayo Clinic. Stage 3 typically means that the cancer is large and may have spread to surrounding tissues or lymph nodes.

Dave Coulier as Joey Gladstone in Full House ( ABC )

Coulier said he started undergoing rounds of chemotherapy two weeks ago. He shared that he has six rounds of chemo every three weeks and is expected to wrap up treatment by February.

You hear chemo, and it scares the daylights out of you, he said. The first round was pretty intense because you dont know what to expect. You dont know how youre going to feel. Is this going to hit me immediately? Is it going to be devastating? Am I going to walk out of here?

Describing treatment as a bit of a roller coaster, he said: There [are] days where I feel unbelievable. Then theres other days where Im just going to lay down and let this be what its going to be.

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Some days are nauseous and dizzy, and then theres other days where the steroids kick in, and I feel like I have a ton of energy, he added. I actually skated yesterday with some friends here in Detroit. We just went and skated around and shot pucks, and it was wonderful just to be out there doing something that I love and just trying to stay focused on all the great stuff that I have in my life.

Coulier praised his wife, Melissa Bring Coulier, for her support, sharing that she organized [his] entire life, from nutrition to the doctors appointments to pills.

Shes got stuff color-coded. Its pretty great, he said.

Bring Coulier is Couliers second wife, whom he married in 2014. He was previously married to actor and model Jayne Modean, with whom he shares 33-year-old son Luc.

Coulier is best known for his role as Joey on Full House. He featured in every episode of the eight-season sitcom, which aired from 1987 to 1995. He later reprised his role for the Fuller House spin-off, which ran from 2016 to 2020.
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Games of Thrones star Sophie Turner is reportedly in negotiations to lead Amazon Prime Videos upcoming TV adaptation of the popular video game franchise Tomb Raider.

Turner is set to play the role of protagonist Lara Croft in Phoebe Waller-Bridges new series, according to Deadline. While the deal has not yet been finalized, its expected to close soon, according to the outlet.

Amazon Prime Video declined The Independents request for comment.

Fleabag star and creator Waller-Bridge will write and executive produce the show, which was greenlit by Amazon earlier this year. Reports of its development initially broke in January 2023.

Last month, it was reported that Turner was up against Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody) for the role. Emma Corrin and Mackenzie Davis were also among the actors on the producers wish list, but ultimately they did not screen test for the role, per Deadline.

Turner, 28, who starred as Sansa Stark in HBOs hit drama Game of Thrones, is the latest in a string of actors to take on the role of the British archaeologist.

Sophie Turner is set to lead Amazons new Tomb Raider as Lara Croft ( AFP via Getty Images )

Angelina Jolie first starred as the titular heroine in 2001s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and 2003s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider  The Cradle of Life. Alicia Vikander later took on the role in Warner Bros 2018 Tomb Raider reboot.

Though the latter received middling reviews, Vikander was praised for her portrayal and was expected to return for a sequel. However, MGM lost the rights to Tomb Raider in 2022, and the project disintegrated.

At the time, the rights to the beloved character were part of a bidding war between multiple Hollywood studios, with one source describing it as a feeding frenzy.

Amazon, which later acquired MGM in 2022, is rumored to have purchased the rights to the video game series for $600m.

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The new Tomb Raider is part of Waller-Bridges $20m-a-year deal with Amazon that she signed in 2019.

When the series was ordered in May, head of Amazon Studios Jennifer Salke teased it as epic and globe-trotting while also praising Waller-Bridge: She is clever, brilliant, generous and a virtuoso on multiple fronts including writing, acting and producing.

Lara Croft means a lot to me, as she does to many, and I cant wait to go on this adventure. Bats n all, the Killing Eve creator said.
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China has released an updated map for a southern city, established to reinforce its claims in the South China Sea, showing new labels for Paracel and Spratly districts, which were formally created in 2020 but had not appeared on maps until now.

Sansha, Chinas southernmost city in Hainan established in 2012, oversees disputed South China Sea territories also claimed by neighbouring countries like Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, and Malaysia.

The natural resources ministry released the updated map of the city on Sunday featuring new labels for the districts of Paracel, called Xisha in Chinese, and Spratly, locally known as Nansha, the South China Morning Post reported.

The civil affairs ministry, meanwhile, issued region codes for the two districts. The identifiers, used for census and administrative purposes, typically appear as the first six digits on the identity cards of residents born and registered in these areas.

Sansha, rich in resources and strategic significance, has seen extensive development in recent years, with facilities like banks and schools coming up.

The citys jurisdiction reportedly covers more than 280 islands, shoals, reefs and related maritime features, along with the waters surrounding them, totalling around 800,000 square miles of sea and land. This area includes much of Chinas nine-dash line claims, encompassing the Paracel, Spratly and Zhongsha Islands and commonly understood to cover Scarborough Shoal and Macclesfield Bank.

According to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, the establishment of Paracel and Spratly districts in Sansha was meant to solidify Beijings governance over the South China Sea.

China started administering this area back in 1959, when it set up a party committee and government office on Woody Island. The committee and the office were replaced by new municipal bodies in 2012 when Sansha city was founded, leading to the creation of further local governance structures.

The marking of the new districts continued this expansion, reinforcing Chinas administrative presence over its claimed territories in the region.

The updated maps came after China reasserted its claim over the disputed Scarborough Shoal following new Philippine legislation formalising its own territorial claims. Beijing released geographic coordinates for 16 base points around the shoal, marking its first official baseline announcement for this area.

A statement by the Chinese foreign ministry said delimiting the Scarborough Shoal was a natural step by the Chinese government to lawfully strengthen marine management and is consistent with international law and common practices.

The previous day, the Philippines had signed two laws defining the countrys maritime zones and right to resources, including in the South China Sea, codifying claims that overlap significantly with Chinas.
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A cargo vessel from Pakistans Karachi has docked at Bangladeshs southeastern coast, marking the first-ever direct maritime contact between the two countries since the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

The vessel from Karachi docked in Bangladeshs Chittagong port on Wednesday, the Pakistan High Commission in Bangladesh said.

The docking of the vessel underscores a historic shift in the traditionally complex Pakistan-Bangladesh diplomatic relationship, signalling a warming of ties under the new interim government led by Mohammad Yunus following the ousting of the India-friendly Sheikh Hasina administration.

Bangladesh, formerly known as East Pakistan, emerged as an independent nation after a war with West Pakistan (now Pakistan) in 1971. The nine-month conflict, marked by widespread atrocities, left deep scars and has long affected relations between Dhaka and Islamabad, with many in Dhaka holding Pakistan responsible for the mass atrocities.

Over the years, Bangladesh forged close ties with India, the country that intervened in support of the independence movement, leading to a decisive victory for the Bangladeshi forces over Pakistan and on 16 December 1971, Bangladesh formally gained independence, marking a historic shift in South Asian geopolitics.

Ms Hasinas father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, often called the "Father of the Nation" in Bangladesh, became the countrys first prime minister of newly founded Bangladesh.

Pakistan High Commission in Bangladesh hailed the move as a major step in bilateral trade.

This new route will streamline supply chains, reduce transit time and open new business opportunities for both countries, it said.

High Commissioner Syed Ahmed Maroof said the first-ever direct maritime link between the two countries highlights the growing demand for direct trade.

He also proposed launching more direct shipping transport between Pakistan and Bangladesh and said, The system will help to take forward the eco-social relations of the two countries.

Ms Hasina was ousted following a mass student uprising in the country against her government, forcing her to offer her resignation and flee to India on a helicopter as protesters stormed the presidential palace.

Following her ouster, symbols of the 1971 war, including portraits and a statue of her father Mujibur Rehman, who was assassinated along with Ms Hasinas mother and three brothers.

Since Ms Hasinas ouster, both Islamabad and Dhaka have called for forging closer ties and normalisation of relations.

Mr Yunus and Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif met at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, underscoring the need to revitalise bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

Its very essential we revive our relations, Mr Yunus said in New York, calling for a new page in their relations to enhance cooperation in different sectors.

This marks a significant shift from the policies in Ms Hasinas administration. In August 2022, the Bangladesh government denied permission to a newly-commissioned Chinese-built frigate warship PNS Taimur to dock at Chattogram Port, according to the Hindustan Times newspaper.

The warship finally docked at a port in Sri Lanka following its maiden voyage following exercises with Cambodian and Malaysian navies.

Sri Lanka allowed PNS Taimur to make a port call in Colombo while on its way to join the Pakistan Navy here on August 15 after the Bangladesh government denied it permission to dock at Chattogram Port.

Under Ms Hasinas 15-year rule, India enjoyed close ties with the country as she oversaw an economic boom and drew the two countries closer on business, energy and defence. Bangladesh is Indias biggest trade partner in South Asia, with bilateral trade of just under $16bn.
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A Thai town famous for its macaque population rounded up and sterilised hundreds of monkeys that had reportedly been showing aggressive behaviour for years.

Authorities in Lopburi, nearly 150km northeast of Bangkok, sterilised some 1,600 monkeys to tame their aggression and to curtail their population.

The animals had reportedly turned aggressive after the pandemic.

The lockdown deprived the citys 3,000 or so macaques of food scraps they would get from tourists and they soon became unruly, swarming buildings, stealing food, and sometimes attacking people.

Lopburi is known as Monkey City and draws thousands of tourists every year. The Lopburi Monkey Banquet Festival, celebrated annually on the last Sunday of November, is a big attraction.

The festival, started in 1989, is meant to honour the monkeys, who get special treats on the occasion as they are thought to bring luck to the area.

Macaques are classified as a protected species under Thailands wildlife conservation law.

After the pandemic, when food became scarce, the monkeys resorted to snatching food from residents and tourists. Frustrated by this behaviour, city authorities resorted to using catapults and traps for them.

As of mid-2024, they had captured and sterilised some 1,600 monkeys to reduce their numbers and aggression.

Their method is robbery, by all means, Wisarut Somngam, local researcher with NGO Ecoexist Society told Reuters.

They were ready to snatch anything off your hands, any bags they suspect contain food or items like mobile phones.

There was public uproar in March after a woman dislocated her knee when a monkey yanked her to the ground to snatch food. In another such incident, a man was knocked off his motorcycle by a hungry monkey.

I do not want humans to have to hurt monkeys, and I do not want monkeys to have to hurt humans, Athapol Charoenshunsa, the head of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, said earlier.

A fruit platter is served for the monkeys in Lopburi, Thailand, on 27 November 2022 ( Getty )

Lopburis macaque population has flourished thanks to regular feeding by residents and visitors to the citys temples and tourist spots. Seen as symbols of protection and good luck in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, the monkeys have become a cultural fixture.

In May, authorities intensified attempts to control the monkey population, including by expanding sterilisation measures initiated during the pandemic. Veterinarian Patarapol Maneeorn said the goal was to neuter all monkeys and relocate them to a designated area for care.

Our goal is to neuter all the monkeys, 100 per cent of them, he said.

Now with some 1,600 of the macaques in captivity and neutered, some local residents said they felt a sense of relief.

If there were monkeys, no customers would dare to come by and park their cars here, Chalit Nithiwkram, 64, a local businessman, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Some residents and animal rights advocates, however, said the monkeys should be managed more humanely and not kept in cages. The monkeys are suffering because currently they are in a cage that is not designed for them, Edwin Wiek, founder of the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, said. Its not proper for them.
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Struggling online retailer Boohoo has raised around 39.3 million through an investor cash call as it grapples with deepening losses and a mounting spat with Mike Ashleys Frasers Group.

Boohoo said it was pleased with the level of shareholder support shown in the fundraise, with retail investors set to be able to take part in a further 6 million share placing.

But it comes just hours after Boohoo released delayed results showing half-year losses more than quadrupled and as it urged investors to reject Mr Ashleys attempt to install himself as chief executive at an emergency meeting on December 20.

Boohoos unscheduled interim results after market close on Wednesday showed pre-tax losses swelled to 147.3 million in the six months to August 31, from losses of 36.6 million a year earlier.

At the same time, Boohoo confirmed it was heading for a Christmas showdown with Mr Ashleys Frasers  a major shareholder in Boohoo.

Frasers had been pushing for Boohoo to appoint its founder Mr Ashley at the helm after the previous chief executive stepped down in October.

Boohoo recently appointed former Debenhams boss Dan Finley as its new chief executive, something Frasers said was rushed.

open image in gallery Fraser owner Mike Ashley (Lucy North/PA) ( PA Archive )

Also in October, Boohoo announced plans for a strategic review, sparking speculation about a potential break-up of the business, which includes brands such as Oasis and Coast.

An open letter from Frasers last week accused Boohoo of trying to block the say of shareholders and demanded that Boohoo will not make a disposal of any asset or business line, in whole or in part, without prior shareholder approval.

But Boohoo has hit back at Frasers, accusing it of promoting its own commercial self-interest at the expense of fellow investors.

On Wednesday, Boohoo insisted it has a credible plan to unlock and maximise value for the benefit of all shareholders.

Frasers  which has a 27% stake on Boohoo  has even set up a website, Boohoo deserves better, as it steps up its bid for a boardroom coup.

Despite the dire losses, Boohoos new boss Mr Finley said in results on Wednesday that the group has seen positives in its first half, pointing to growth in beauty, Debenhams Marketplace and its Karen Millen brand.

There have been challenges and we continue to operate within a volatile market, he added.
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Retailer WH Smith has notched up a 16% rise in annual profits as its travel arm continued to drive sales higher.

The group reported underlying pre-tax profits of 166 million for the year to August 31, up from 143 million the previous year.

Trading profits jumped by 15% at its shops based in railway stations, airports andhospitals worldwide, to 189 million, with these stores in the UK seeing earnings leap by a fifth.

Earnings remained flat in its traditional high street business, at 32 million, despite a 2% drop in like-for-like sales thanks to cost-saving efforts.

The firm said it is focusing on growth in travel shops across North America, with a pipeline of around 60 new stores under its belt and the group bidding to take on another 15 across major US airports.

It is also continuing to expand its UK travel chain, having opened 14 sites over the past financial year, though it shut eight shops, and with aims to open around three to eight on a net basis over the year ahead.

But it continues to shrink its UK high street division, having shut 14 sites, leaving it with 500. It added that it has around 470 store leases due for renewal over the next three years, including 100 where it is in active negotiations with the landlord.

We only renew a lease where we are confident of delivering economic value over thelife of that lease, it said.

As we grow travel, the high street division will become a smaller part of the overall group WH Smith

WH Smith said: As we grow travel, the high street division will become a smaller part of the overall group.

The high street business now accounts for around 15% of annual group trading profit, it confirmed.

However, WH Smith is seeking to breathe new life into its high street business by rolling out Toys R Us concessions nationwide, with 30 already opened and another 37 due to launch by Christmas.

It also recently announced it is bringing back vinyl records for the first time in more than 30 years across 80 high street shops.

Group chief executive Carl Cowling said: The group has delivered an excellent performance throughout the year, particularly over the key summer trading period.

While there is some economic uncertainty, we are confident that 2025 will be another year of good progress for the group.
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Right-wing president Javier Milei has withdrawn Argentinas delegation from the Cop29 UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The decision, confirmed by delegate officials, means the South American country will not participate any further in the UN climate negotiations that are expected to conclude with a treaty next week.

It is not clear whether Argentina will leave the Paris Agreement altogether.

The delegation received an order to stop engaging in the negotiations on Wednesday evening, Climatica reported, just hours after the high-profile leaders address section of the summit wrapped up. Another delegation from Argentina due to arrive in Baku next week was told to cancel its plans.

Argentinas move adds to growing concerns about the influence of right-wing leaders on global climate commitments. Hopes for Cop29 were already dampened by Donald Trumps return as US president and fears that he could once again withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement.

Mr Mileis decision to withdraw from Cop29 aligns with his political stance and his intention to strengthen ties with the US. The Argentinian president is a denier of climate science and calls the environmental crisis a socialist lie.

Argentina will now only be represented in Baku by civil society and private sector groups  meaning the country is shut out of critical negotiations.

More than 50 people from various sectors continue to actively participate in Cop29, promoting Argentinas climate agenda in a challenging context, Sustentabilidad sin fronteras (SSF), an independent organisation from the country, said in a statement.

Campaigners said Mr Mileis decision was not in Argentinas interests, especially because the main goal of the summit is to create a fund for countries in the global South.

A spokesperson for Greenpeace Andino, the South American branch of the NGO, said: Withdrawing from decision-making on an issue as sensitive and critical as financing is a lost opportunity for those who can benefit from the agreements reached in Baku.

Mr Mileis decision isolates Argentina from the international community and sends a negative signal to investors and companies, SSF said.

Some campaigners in Baku said they were shocked by the decision, but added that it would not deter them from pushing the interests of the country and the wider region.

We have lived through changes of government during Cops, climate campaigner Maria Azul Schvartzman told The Independent in Baku. But we have had some sort of consistency in terms of our foreign affairs policy on climate change.

This time, she said, it was shocking because we believed that we have some ground rules that are not going to change.

The Milei administration, she added, is showing time and time and again with different topics that these ground rules do not exist and that the agreements that we thought we had as a society dont exist anymore.

At the General Assembly in September, Mr Milei criticised the UN for attempting to "impose an ideological agenda" and distanced Argentina from the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. We are at the end of a cycle. The collectivism and moral high ground from the woke agenda have crashed with reality, and they dont offer credible solutions for the worlds problems, he said.

Activists participate in a demonstration for climate finance at the Cop29 summit in Baku ( AP )

His administration has moved to distance Argentina from trade partners led by leftist leaders such as Cuba and Venezuela. He sacked foreign minister Diana Mondino after she voted in favour of lifting the US embargo against Cuba at the UN.

Mr Milei threatened to withdraw Argentina from the Paris accords in the run-up to his election victory in November of last year.

The decision to withdraw the delegation from Cop29 came just hours after Mr Milei spoke with Mr Trump. Mr Mileis spokesperson said the incoming US president told his Argentine counterpart that he was his favourite president.

He is expected to attend a Conservative Political Action Conference meeting at Mr Trumps Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and meet the incoming president, according to CNN.

Argentina isnt the only country to skip Cop29. Papua New Guinea snubbed negotiations in Baku in protest at inaction on small island nations.

We will no longer tolerate empty promises and inaction, while our people suffer the devastating consequences of climate change, the countrys foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko said ahead of the summit.

On Wednesday, French ecology minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told the French senate she would not take part in the climate talks, after what she called Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyevs unacceptable attacks on her country during a speech on Tuesday.

Mr Aliyev accused France of brutally suppressing climate crisis concerns in its overseas territories.

After discussion and in agreement with the president of the republic and the prime minister, I will not go to Baku next week, she said.

A French delegation is attending the summit.
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Hong Kong shut down schools and some businesses after authorities raised the third-highest typhoon warning for Tropical Storm Toraji which passed about 150km south of the city.

Toraji is expected to weaken and move away on Thursday, with winds gradually moderating throughout the day, allowing the warning signal to be lowered to 3 by 10.20am local time.

This is the second time the Hong Kong Observatory issued a T8 alert this year, following Super Typhoon Yagi, which passed south of the city in September. Typhoon Signal 8 (T8) indicates that gale or storm-force winds are currently impacting or are expected to impact the city.

In the past few hours, Tropical Storm Toraji adopted a more northerly track towards the coast of Guangdong, the government forecaster said on Wednesday evening. With Toraji edging closer to the Pearl River Estuary, local winds will strengthen further.

It is expected that Toraji will skirt within around 200km (125 miles) to the south of the territory [Thursday] morning, the Hong Kong Observatory said in a statement.

Hongkongers with long or challenging commutes, as well as those residing on outlying islands, were advised to start heading home on Wednesday. Evening school classes were also cancelled on Wednesday, and the citys education bureau announced that schools would stay closed on Thursday.

Public transport routes were also disrupted.

However, the education bureau said on Thursday morning that classes of afternoon primary and secondary schools will resume today.

People in Hong Kong were advised to avoid the shoreline and refrain from water sporting activities. Authorities have stepped up efforts this year to crack down on surfing during bad weather, with two people found to have committed the acts of illegal surfing during hoisting of red flags at Big Wave Bay Beach on 25 October this year.

Toraji was one of three storms in the region on Wednesday. Although Hong Kongs typhoon season runs from May to November, the peak period is July to September.

Experts warn that climate change could lead to more frequent and severe typhoons. Due to the warming seas, these tropical cyclones are becoming more intense and destructive, experts note.

In November this year, four tropical cyclones simultaneously formed in the western North Pacific and the South China Sea  a phenomenon reportedly not seen since record-keeping began in 1961.

On Thursday morning, it was reported that Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing continued operating during the storm, marking the first time it stayed open under new rules that allow trading during typhoons and heavy rains since their introduction on 23 September.

Meanwhile, Chris Au Young from the Airport Authority, noted that airport operations should remain mostly unaffected throughout the day.

According to the Civil Aviation Departments assessment, runway operations today are expected to be normal, he said.

However, he advised tourists to check with their airlines before going to the airport.
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Most airplane seats have the ability to recline for a relaxing flight experience, but one man has shared how another passengers seat may have gone too far.

In a recent post on X/Twitter, the man under the username @av_cova posted a photo of the seat in front of him reclined so far back that his knees were touching the top of the seat. He revealed in the post that he was sitting in first class on an American Airlines flight.

First class, his post began. Dude is in my lap. You continue to be awful, @AmericanAir.

In the thread, the man explained that he had limited access to move in the cabin. He suggested that the seat was able to move so far back because it was broken.

I cant use my tray table and no chance of getting up. Im in 3C, so 2C is clearly broken. AA1851. Get it fixed before someone else wastes a fortune on first class and gets f***ed @AmericanAir, the post read.

American Airlines passenger complains about uncomfortable seat recliner mishap on flight ( AFP via Getty Images )

In an interview with Fox News, the X user mentioned that he did alert a flight attendant of the seat problem, but allegedly nothing was done to fix it.

He shrugged it off  basically saying, Its an old airplane; some of these seats are worn out, he told the outlet. No matter how I positioned myself, the seat was still against my knees. The gentleman in the seat in front of me was very sympathetic, but he was unable to get the seat to lock forward, as it was inoperable.

American Airlines later responded to the passengers complaint, as they commented underneath his post apologizing for the uncomfortable experience.

Keeping our planes in top-notch shape is always the goal, they wrote. Were sorry for this inconvenience and appreciate you bringing this to our attention. Well get this right over to the Maintenance folks for review. Our apologies again.

However, he still wasnt satisfied with the apology, as the man replied: Maintenance isnt gonna review the money I wasted

Speaking with Fox, the social media user explained that he had spent an extra $500 on a first-class seat specifically for extra leg room, which wasnt possible with the seat malfunction.

This isnt the first time a person has complained about a seat on a flight. Back in September, Erin Rempel turned to TikTok to share a video of her experience in the middle seat of an airplane.

The clip showed her sitting in the middle seat with two men on either side of her, who had stretched their legs far enough that she appeared squished into her seat. The text across the screen of her video simply read: Female rage.

Why would anyone EVER need that much room??? I tried to get him to move but he wouldnt, she wrote in the caption of her video.

Her TikTok went on to receive more than 20 million views, with many people taking to the comments to express how they were equally as mad as Rempel. Some people even called out the display of manspreading  when a man spreads out his legs in a public seating area, typically taking up an extra seat in the process or invading others space.

Girl you need to say something. They do not need to be over that much, if youre nervous, call a flight attendant, one commenter pointed out at the time.
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An essential vitamin will be added to bread and flour in a bid to prevent birth defects.

Folic acid will be added to all non-wholemeal wheat flour from the end of 2026 to prevent issues in hundreds of babies every year, the Government has announced.

Folic acid is a synthetic form of vitamin B9 and is also known as folate. It helps the body produce healthy red blood cells and new cells.

A deficiency of the vitamin during pregnancy can increase the risk of serious problems for babies, known as neural tube defects.

The neural tube is a structure that forms the brain and spinal cord of a developing baby from around day 21 of pregnancy to day 28.

open image in gallery Flour added to dough for bread ( Getty Images )

The most common neural tube defects are spina bifida, when the spine does not develop properly, and anencephaly, when a baby is born without parts of the brain and skull.

It is recommended that women trying for a baby should take folic acid supplements for about three months before getting pregnant and for at least three months after falling pregnant.

However, fortifying bread and flour will give women a higher baseline intake of folic acid if pregnancy is unplanned.

The move could prevent about 200 cases of neural tube defects every year, according to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), as well as saving the NHS 20 million over 10 years.

Public health minister Andrew Gwynne said: These measures are a simple and effective intervention to improve health outcomes in babies, giving them the best start in life.

In the UK, flour is already fortified with calcium carbonate, iron, nicotinic acid or nicotinamide, and thiamine, also known as vitamin B1.

open image in gallery A person holding a handful of flour at the Holgate Windmill, Yorkshire ( Danny Lawson/PA Wire )

Englands Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty welcomed the plans to add folic acid.

He said: The fortification of flour is a simple and effective way to help to reduce cases of neural tube defects, although it is important that women who are pregnant or intending to become pregnant continue to take folic acid supplements before and during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Baroness Merron, minister for patient safety, womens health and mental health, said the move should give women greater peace of mind throughout their pregnancy.

She added: This Government is determined to support women and turn around maternity outcomes so every child can live a long, happy and fulfilling life.
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Denzel Washington appeared nervous and awestruck as he shook King Charles IIIs hand at the Gladiator II premiere on Wednesday (November 14).

The monarch stepped out solo on the eve of his 76th birthday to attend the sequels screening at Leicester Squares Odeon theater, chatting on the red carpet with director Ridley Scott, 86, and the cast.

The films stars lined up to greet the king before heading into the theater. When the King reached Washington after first chatting with Scott and lead actor Paul Mescal, 28, the Training Day star looked flustered, confessing that he wasnt sure of the proper royal handshake protocol.

I didnt know if I was supposed to grab you or not, Washington joked, adding, But its my pleasure.

King Charles couldnt resist asking Washington about his role in Gladiator II, where he plays the villainous Macrinus.

Im just an awful Im a lovely man, youll see, Washington quipped with a sarcastic grin. Im a lovely chap.

Impressed by Washingtons body of work, Charles remarked, Youve been in so many films, its fantastic.

To which Washington replied, Thank you, thank you.

Denzel Washington nervously shakes King Charles IIIs hand at the Gladiator II premiere ( Getty Images )

Queen Camilla, on doctors orders, sat out the evenings festivities to rest up from a recent chest infection.

Her Majesty The Queen is currently unwell with a chest infection, for which her doctors have advised a short period of rest, read a palace statement, according to the BBC, which also confirmed Camillas calendar was effectively cleared until shes back in full form. With great regret, Her Majesty has therefore had to withdraw from her engagements for this week.

Nevertheless, earlier that day, she rallied to join Charles at Buckingham Palace for a special reception marking the 100th anniversary of the Royal Film Performance  a charity event supporting behind-the-scenes workers in film and TV.

The gathering featured iconic British film costumes and was attended by Prince Edward, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and actors including Damian Lewis, Emily Mortimer, Joseph Fiennes, and India Amarteifio, giving the royals a chance to mingle with industry stars.

During the reception, Charles spoke proudly of Camillas recent documentary on domestic violence awareness, Her Majesty The Queen: Behind Closed Doors. I am very proud of it, he told Wolf Hall producers Kerene Barefield and Naveed Chowdhary-Flatt, admitting, It reduced me to tears, according to Tatler.
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The highly-anticipated red cup promotion at Starbucks is back.

Every year, the coffee conglomerate celebrates the cold-weather season with a special deal offered to customers who place certain holiday-themed orders.

Now until supplies last, Starbucks patrons will be able to get their hands on this years festive beverage holder thats made with 95 percent recycled materials. This years cup is decorated in candy cane-printed ornaments and a white sippy cup top.

To get a red cup today, patrons must purchase one of the coffee chains holiday beverages in any size. This can be done in-store, at a drive-thru, or on the Starbucks app for pick-up or delivery.

The list of participating holiday beverages include: Apple Crisp Nondairy Cream Chai Tea Latte, Apple Crisp Oatmilk Macchiato, Apple Crisp Oatmilk Shaken Espresso, Caramel Brulee Latte, Chestnut Praline Latte, Cran-Merry Orange Refresher, Cran-Merry Drink, Cran-Merry Lemonade Refresher, Gingerbread Oatmilk Chai, Hot Chocolate, White Hot Chocolate, Peppermint Hot Chocolate, Peppermint White Hot Chocolate, Pecan Crunch Oatmilk Latte, Peppermint Mocha, Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte, Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew, Pumpkin Spice Latte, Salted Pecan Crunch Cold Brew, and Sugar Cookie Almondmilk Latte.

Customers ordering through the Starbucks app can get their reusable red cup delivered free of charge. Whats more, the $1.99 delivery fee will be waived now until November 17.

If customers bring their cups or any other reusable cup for their local barista to fill with their drink order, they will get a 10-cent discount.

Earlier this month (November), Starbucks announced the return of a nostalgic component of their coffee service. Brian Niccol, the CEO of Starbucks, said baristas would once again be hand-writing customer names in Sharpie on coffee cups in an effort to regain and grow its customer base by incorporating the human touch.

Previously, customers would receive their orders with a printed ticket pasted on the outside of cups and bags. However, before the company moved to the sticker system, Starbucks baristas were known for writing names in black block letters.

While the Starbucks reusable red cup day continues, Niccol confessed the company would be cutting back on promotional deals and discounts offered to rewards customers because the 2023 financial results were very disappointing.

It is clear we need to fundamentally change our strategy to win back customers and return to growth, he continued.

Still, Starbucks is no longer charging customers extra for non-dairy milk. Anyone who would like their drink made with soy, almond, oat, or coconut milk will pay the same price as they would with dairy options.
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Sudans military-controlled government said Wednesday that a key border crossing with Chad will stay open to keep much-needed humanitarian aid flowing into the western Darfur region which has been a center of fighting in the countrys ongoing war.

The decision on the Adre crossing followed a meeting with United Nations agencies and local and international aid groups, Sudan's ruling Sovereign Council said in a statement.

We very much welcome the Sudanese authorities decision to extend the opening of the Adre crossing from Chad, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York on Wednesday.

He said the governments announcement that the Adre crossing will remain open for another three months will enable the U.N. and its partners to continue delivering critically needed aid.

The border crossing, which was closed earlier this year, was reopened in August for three months by the Sovereign Council to address the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Darfur. Famine has been confirmed in the Zamzam displacement camp near El Fasher, North Darfur's provincial capital.

Since the crossing was opened in mid-August, Dujarric said, "we and our partners have now moved more than 337 trucks of humanitarian aid through this route, with more than 11,000 metric tons of food and other relief items that could cover the needs of close to 1.4 million people.

Some of the aid continues to be distributed around Darfur, and an additional 30,000 metric tons of supplies are already in eastern Chad or on their way, the U.N. spokesman said.

Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other regions, including Darfur, which was wracked by bloodshed and atrocities in 2003.

The war has killed more than 24,000 people and created the worlds largest displacement crisis, with more than 14 million people forced to flee their homes.

Dujarric said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke to Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, who led a military takeover of the Sudanese government in 2021, on the sidelines of the COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan on the importance of facilitating humanitarian distribution in Sudan and in particular through the Adre crossing.

While Adre is a critical lifeline for millions of people, Dujarric said it isnt enough and all routes crossing borders and crossing conflict lines need to be opened to meet the spiraling demand for humanitarian assistance.

Aid groups on Wednesday welcomed the news of the extension and urged all parties to stop obstructing humanitarian assistance.

This decision, if sustained and supported with streamlined processes, could be a lifeline for the 5.3 million children and families on the brink of starvation, Mathilde Vu, advocacy manager in Sudan for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told The Associated Press.

The international community should seize the moment and scale up funding to accelerate the response, she said.



This story corrects that El Fasher is the capital of North Darfur, not West Darfur.

-

Mednick reported from Dakar, Senegal and Lederer from the United Nations.
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The inhuman violence meted out to Sara Sharif was completely normalised in the family with all three adults in on it, jurors have heard.

Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, his wife Beinash Batool, 30, and brother Faisal Malik, 29, are accused of being party to years-long abuse which culminated in her death last August.

The 10-year-old was found dead at the family home in Woking, Surrey, the day after the defendants fled to Pakistan, the Old Bailey has heard.

She had suffered dozens of injuries, including multiple broken bones, bites, iron and boiling water burns, and signs she was hooded and tied up with tape, the Old Bailey has heard.

Giving evidence, Sharif had initially blamed Batool for Saras death, but on the seventh day in the witness box told jurors he took full responsibility.

Over the course of six days of evidence at the Old Bailey, Mr Sharif maintained he had not injured his daughter, was regularly at work, and that he had caught Ms Batool tying up and beating his daughter.

On Thursday, Michael Ivers KC, for Mr Malik, began by asking: For a whole week you tried to blame someone else for what you did?. Yes sir, Mr Sharif replied.

Its not just you lied, you lied and then tried to implicate someone else, Mr Ivers KC continued. Yes sir, Mr Sharif said.

open image in gallery Sara Sharif suffered dozens of injuries, including multiple broken bones, bites, burns, and signs she was hooded and restrained, the trial has heard ( PA )

Cross-examing for the prosecution, William Emlyn Jones KC asserted Sara was beaten in front of Ms Batool many times and all three adults in the house were involved in childcare.

Alluding to a video played to jurors which showed a family barbecue, with Sara visibly wearing a black eye, the prosecutor suggested that violence towards the little girl had been normalised within the family, and that pain had been used as a deterrent for being naughty.

Mr Emlyn Jones said that violence to Sara had become completely normalised in that house. It had become acceptable. It was her life being beaten, being hurt, being punished.

He referred to a video shown to jurors of Sara at a barbecue saying none of the adults present bats an eyelid at her black eye.

The revolting practice of tying Sara up with packaging tape had become an alternative method of punishing her when Sharif was not at home, the prosecutor said.

Its inhuman isnt it, Mr Sharif? You cant bring yourself to admit this. The question is, who is doing it?

My suggestion is everyone has got to be in on it. Otherwise it just gets undone by someone else.

open image in gallery Urfan Sharif was detained at Gatwick Airport after returning from Pakistan ( PA )

Mr Emlyn Jones continued: Youre a coward arent you Mr Sharif? Sharif replied: I am a coward sir.

Its only a coward that bullies and beats a little child to make himself feel strong, the prosecutor added, to which Sharif agreed: Yes sir.

Sharif also admitted that he had beaten his daughter after she had soiled herself or had vomited, which had become a regular occurrence in the last months of her life.

He then had no answer as to how his daughter and another child suffered similar domestic iron burns and human bites.

Mr Ivers said: What are the chances that two children you are connected with ended up with burns from a domestic iron and bite marks?

Mr Sharif replied: I was not blamed for that. It wasnt me. I did not bite.

Mr Ivers asserted: Of course its not a coincidence, you are the common denominator. Did you tell someone to do so? Did you have an idea how she [Sara] should be punished? Is that the truth of all of this?.

open image in gallery Sharif admitted being selfish and attempting to blame his wife Beinash Batool ( Surrey Police/PA )

Sharif replied: There are certain things I cant explain. Ive got no words.

Earlier, the defendant agreed he had a credibility problem because he had not told the truth to the jury during his earlier evidence.

Mr Ivers said: The oath you took on your holy book meant nothing. Your jury walked by you for a whole week, looked at you and you looked at them, didnt you? And when you started crying at times, was it real or not? When your eyes went wide, was it an act?

Mr Sharif said: It was real. I lost my daughter.

Mr Ivers suggested Mr Sharif was not mourning his daughter but seeking to tell a pack of lies in court.

Pressed on how Sara reacted when she was being hit with a bat, Sharif said: She must have been in pain.

Mr Sharif, Ms Batool, and Mr Malik, formerly of Hammond Road, Woking, Surrey, deny murder and causing or allowing Saras death and the trial continues.
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London pubs are facing backlash after reports reveal a vital safety codeword scheme, designed to support customers in distress, is not being properly implemented.

An investigation found that staff at pubs, bars, and clubs signed up for the initiative are often ignoring the codeword, where a customer in need says Angela to discreetly signal for help.

The Ask for Angela scheme, aimed at making nightlife safer, especially for vulnerable women, has been adopted by thousands of venues across the country but is reportedly falling short in practice.

Helena Conibear, chief executive of anti-spiking charity, Alcohol Education Trust, told The Independent that some staff members are not being properly trained on how to roll out the scheme.

Secret filming by BBC journalists discovered staff failed to react to the code word in half of the London venues they went to - with leading chains included in this - with the corporation receiving reports of similar problems from around the UK.

I am shocked. We do need schemes like this so I dont want to denigrate the scheme but it has just got to be implemented properly. Helena Conibear

Ms Connibear said: The scheme in itself is really good but it is not something which should be taken lightly or for anyone to pay lip service to and this is essential if it is going to be trusted.

She warned training isnt being rolled out on the ground as she called for all customers to be able to know they will be helped if they go and ask for Angela.

Ms Connibear said the initiative is absolutely essential for those who have been spiked - adding that if we are to champion it, we must be able to trust it.

I am surprised this is the case as it appears to be a very well-run scheme, she added. I am shocked. We do need schemes like this so I dont want to denigrate the scheme but it has just got to be implemented properly.

The Ask for Angela initiative - which is in action at thousands of venues in England - is named after Angela Crompton, who was murdered by her husband. Workers are supposed to discretely step in when they hear the code word and get the person to safety - either by taking them to their friends, ringing a taxi, or getting in touch with the police if needed.

Sexual harassment is about having your choices taken away and being silenced. Any response model which, intentionally or otherwise, replicates both of these feelings for a victim, will need work to be effective in practice. Bryony Beynon

Bryony Beynon, co-founder of campaign group Good Night Out, said they have been campaigning for gendered violence prevention to be a licensing requirement for ten years, but we have major concerns about councils tying this specifically to code word-based response models.

She added: As the BBC investigation sadly shows, this approach can end up turning what should be an essential safety priority into a tick box exercise.

Sexual harassment is about having your choices taken away and being silenced. Any response model which, intentionally or otherwise, replicates both of these feelings for a victim, will need work to be effective in practice.

Ms Beynon argued they have too often seen that a light-touch implementation of the scheme can lead to a policy of just call her a taxi, banishing victims while leaving perpetrators unchallenged, adding that this dangerous and unfair.

She said: We welcome the conversation, and want to underline that busy, overworked and underpaid nightlife staff should not be individually blamed for these failures.

Sylvia Oates, national director of the not-for-profit, Ask for Angela, told The Independent they are concerned by the BBC investigations findings - adding there is work to be done and it is unacceptable for venues to advertise the scheme yet not train staff.

She said training staff to be able to implement the initiative is a reasonable example of a proportionate and fair expectation on venues in supporting vulnerable individuals.
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Chinese pottery worth 1 billion will be gifted to the British Museum  the most valuable gift in UK history.

The museum, in Bloomsbury, London, will receive 1,700 pieces from the trustees of the Sir Percival David Foundation.

The objects were acquired in Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, and China by British businessman Sir Percival David, who lived from 1892 to 1964. His love for China led him to become fluent in Chinese.

The collection has been on loan to the museum since 2009 in the specially designed bilingual Room 95, with an online catalogue available to view across the world, as Sir Percival wanted his private collection to be used to inform and inspire people.

The donation will increase the museums collection of Chinese ceramics to 10,000 pieces, making it one of the most important collections of ceramics in any public institution outside the Chinese-speaking world.

open image in gallery Ru ware bowl stand, Northern Song dynasty, 1086-1125 ( British Museum/PA Wire )

open image in gallery Doucai 'Chicken cup', Ming dynasty, Chenghua reign, 1465-1487 ( British Museum/PA Wire )

Highlights from the collection include the David vases from 1351, which revolutionised the dating for blue and white ceramics with their discovery, and a chicken cup used to serve wine for the Chenghua emperor and Ru wares made for the Northern Song dynasty court around 1086.

After their donation, pieces will be lent to the Shanghai Museum in China and Metropolitan Museum in New York as part of the British Museums support of exhibitions worldwide.

Director of the British Museum Dr Nicholas Cullinan said he was humbled by the generosity of the Sir Percival David Foundation.

These celebrated objects add a special dimension to our own collection and together offer scholars, researchers and visitors around the world the incredible opportunity to study and enjoy the very best examples of Chinese craftsmanship anywhere in existence, he said.

open image in gallery David Vases, Yuan dynasty, 1351 ( British Museum/PA Wire )

open image in gallery Bottle-shaped flask, Qing dynasty, Yongzheng, 1723-1735 ( British Museum/PA Wire )

The chairman of The Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art and The Sir Percival David Foundation Academic and Research Fund, Colin Sheaf, said: In every respect, this gift achieves the three objectives which most preoccupied Sir Percival as he planned for the collections future.

To preserve intact his unique collection, to keep every single piece on public display together in perpetuity in a dedicated gallery, and to ensure the collection would remain not only a visual display of surpassing beauty, but also an inspiration and education for future generations of academics, students and non-specialists alike.

Arts minister Sir Chris Bryant added: Thanks to the huge generosity of the Sir Percival David Foundation, I am thrilled these world-famous Chinese ceramics will now be displayed permanently in the British Museum, where the collection will educate and enlighten future generations for many years to come.

I am immensely grateful for this phenomenal act of generosity and very much hope it will help set a trend for others.

The final transfer of ownership to the British Museum will be subject to the Charity Commissions consent.
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Thirty members of the Church of England could be sacked over their failure to stop a barrister thought to have been the most prolific abuser associated with the institution.

The officials are being examined by the Churchs safeguarding team after they were named in a damning report as having knowledge of John Smyth KCs abhorrent abuse of children and young men.

It comes after the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned following increased pressure to stand down over his failures to alert authorities to Smyths behaviour.

Smyth was said to have subjected as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa to traumatic physical, sexual and psychological abuse across five decades.

Despite knowledge of Smyths abuse at the highest levels of the Church, Hampshire Police only opened an investigation in 2017 after Smyth was the subject of a Channel 4 News report.

open image in gallery Smyth was said to have subjected as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa to traumatic physical, sexual and psychological abuse across five decades ( Channel 4 )

He died aged 77 in Cape Town in 2018 and so was never brought to justice for the abuse, according to the Makin report.

Dozens of church leaders, including several bishops, could now be removed for their roles after an internal review of the case, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The separate document was drafted by an independent barrister to help work out if the failings of those named in the Makin review are serious enough to warrant removal from office.

open image in gallery Justin Welby said he must take personal and institutional responsibility for the failures ( PA Wire )

On Tuesday, Dr Welby said it was very clear I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.

He said: The Makin review has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses of John Smyth.

The last few days have renewed my long-felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England.

I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honoured to serve.

Dr Welby said he had had no idea or suspicion of this abuse before 2013, but acknowledged the review found that after its wider exposure that year he had personally failed to ensure the case was investigated.
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King Charles marked his 76th birthday with a visit to a charity project aiming to end food poverty.

Arriving at Deptford Trading Estate in south London on Thursday, the monarch appeared in good spirits as he opened the first Coronation Food Hub on-site and inaugurated a second in Knowsley, Merseyside, via video link.

Volunteers from The Felix Project, who will manage the Deptford hub, cheered and waved flags as the King stepped out of his Bentley and was greeted by London mayor Sadiq Khan.

Schoolchildren from Peckhams Rye Oak Primary School presented a homemade birthday card and sang Happy Birthday and he later took time to chat with the children, who will benefit from the hub.

Asked if hed be relaxing for his birthday, he replied with a smile, Not quite.

Members of the royal family, meanwhile, marked the Kings birthday with public tributes, including the Prince and Princess of Wales who wished him a happy birthday on Twitter/X and shared a photograph of a relaxed Charles from his recent tour of Samoa.

open image in gallery The King poses for a photo as he visits the first Coronation Food Hub in Deptford ( Justin Tallis/PA Wire )

The monarchys official social media accounts also sent its birthday wishes alongside a formal portrait of the King in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace.

Charles, however, treated the day as business as usual, choosing to focus on royal duties amid a challenging year for the family, during which both he and the Princess of Wales have battled cancer.

His visit highlighted the first anniversary of the Coronation Food Project, an initiative launched on his birthday last year to address food insecurity and tackle waste amid the rising cost of living.

Since its launch, the project has rescued an estimated 940 tonnes of surplus food  equivalent to more than two million meals  and raised more than 15m. These funds are earmarked to support the establishment of up to 10 Coronation Food Hubs nationwide, part of a network designed to alleviate food poverty across the UK.

open image in gallery Charles sat down with a group of schoolchildren from Peckhams Rye Oak Primary School ( Justin Tallis/PA Wire )

The Coronation Food Project, launched by the King last year, aims to bridge the gap between food waste and need across the UK by increasing surplus food rescue, strengthening distribution networks, and establishing a flexible funding programme for the wider sector.

According to a progress report, the initiative has made significant and tangible progress towards these goals, working with partner charities The Felix Project and FareShare.

The Felix Project  founded by The independent shareholder Justin Byam Shaw in memory of his son Felix, who passed away from meningitis at 14  redistributes fresh surplus food from supermarkets and restaurants to charities tackling food poverty.

open image in gallery King Charles and Denzel Washington at the Gladiator II premiere on Wednesday ( Eddie Mulholland/PA Wire )

Since its launch with just two distribution vans in 2016, it has become Londons largest food redistribution charity, supplying food for tens of millions of meals annually.

It was also named a beneficiary of The Independents 2022 On The Breadline Christmas appeal, with funds pledged by the King helping to equip hundreds of food charities with refrigeration units across London.

In earlier efforts, The Independent and the Evening Standard partnered with The Felix Project for the Help the Hungry appeal, raising over 10m to support the nations most vulnerable during the pandemic.
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A man suspected of being a major supplier of boats for people smugglers operating the English Channel migrant crossings has been arrested.

The 44-year-old Turkish national was detained at Schipol Airport, Amsterdam, on Wednesday after a joint investigation by Dutch and Belgian authorities and the UKs National Crime Agency (NCA).

He is suspected of shipping dinghies and engines from Turkey and storing them in Germany, before they are moved to northern France for crossings, an NCA spokesperson said.

NCA director general in operations, Rob Jones, said: We suspect that this individual is a major supplier of boats and engines to the smugglers operating in Belgium and northern France.

The types of vessels and engines we see used in making these crossings are highly dangerous and completely unfit for open water.

open image in gallery Dinghies believed to be used to smuggle migrants are seen at a location in Germany ( National Crime Agency/PA Wire )

At least 50 people are known to have died this year as a result. There is no legitimate use for them.

So far this year more than 32,000 people have arrived in the UK having made the journey across the English Channel by boat, according to Home Office figures.

The operation comes as the NCA is leading around 70 live investigations into organised immigration crime or human trafficking, according to the agency.

open image in gallery Engines used for dangerous crossings in dinghies across the English Channel are seen at a location in Germany ( National Crime Agency/PA Wire )

The arrest of the suspected boat supplier was carried out through a Europol Operational Task Force and partners.

A spokesperson for the public prosecutors office of West-Flanders said international cooperation is crucial in the fight against human smuggling.

Home secretary Yvette Cooper added: We will relentlessly pursue the criminal smuggling gangs making millions out of small boat crossings that undermine our border security and put lives at risk.

open image in gallery The equipment was discovered in Germany - believed to be supplied to people smugglers ( National Crime Agency/PA Wire )

This major investigation shows how important it is for our crime-fighting agencies to be working hand in glove with our international partners to get results.

Prime minister Keir Starmer said: It is good news that today a man suspected of being a significant supplier of small boat equipment has been arrested. Criminal gangs have been getting away with this for far too long.

I want to thank the UK National Crime Agency, along with their Dutch and Belgian counterparts, for all their hard work and their crucial role in this investigation.

open image in gallery Dozens of life jackets are seen in Germany, alleged to have been supplied to people smugglers helping people cross the English Channel ( National Crime Agency/PA Wire )

Its exactly what we want to see and it shows that our approach of working with international partners to smash the people smuggling gangs is bearing fruit.

Sir Keir said his Government inherited a very bad position with record numbers of migrants in the first half of the year because the entire focus had been on the Rwanda gimmick.

He added: If the boats and the engines arent available, it obviously makes it much more difficult for these crossings to be made.

So that is why it is very significant this arrest has taken place today. This is a significant piece of the jigsaw.

Im not pretending it is the silver bullet. There are other steps that are going to be necessary, but this is a very important step.
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Thousands could be left without protection from slavery and other human rights abuses as a result of a loophole in the governments Employment Rights Bill.

Charities and campaign groups plan to write to the home secretary to warn that migrant fishermen are facing breaches of their human rights not to be held in slavery or servitude and not to perform forced or compulsory labour if the government doesnt take action to amend the law.

Currently, the new protections afforded by the bill would not extend to migrant fishers on the Seafarer Transit Stamp, a type of visa offered to workers on UK fishing vessels that operate outside of UK territorial waters  just 12 nautical miles off the coast.

There is no UK labour protection for these workers, even if they are employed by British companies, working on a UK flagged vessel and selling into the UK supply chain, excluding them from even the most basic of employment law protections such as the national minimum wage.

In the letter to Yvette Cooper seen by The Independent, charities are demanding the government close this loophole to ensure all workers employed by UK-based firms are covered by new employment legislation.

open image in gallery The government has been told it has a significant opportunity to protect this group of workers ( PA )

While the government has committed to strengthening seafarers rights within the bill  toughening the laws around collective dismissal and cementing seafarer wage protections in UK law  ministers have been urged to go further.

Though no official statistics exist, the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) estimates that there are around 2,000 migrant workers in the UK fleet who are recruited via the Seafarers Transit Stamp.

It comes after a group of migrant fishermen last month were paid 20,000 in compensation each by the Home Office after being recognised as victims of modern slavery in a claim brought in 2020.

The department was accused of breaching their rights protected by Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by failing to have in place systems to protect them from human trafficking, modern slavery and forced labour.

The claimants had been given leave to enter the UK as contract seamen on a British-owned vessel, where they were forced to work excessively long hours without time off, as well as being threatened, intimidated and verbally abused.

Now, the government has been told it has a significant opportunity to protect this group of workers as it develops its Employment Rights Bill, which ministers have said will deliver the biggest upgrade to rights at work in a generation.

The letter, signed by Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX), ITF, Nautilus International, Stella Maris, The Seafarers Charity and the Ethical Trading Initiative, warns that the recent claim brought by migrant fishermen was not a single outlier case but a systematic problem across the industry.

The letter expresses concern over the fact that fishers are facing breaches of their human right not to be held in slavery or servitude and not to perform forced or compulsory labour.

The previous governments failure to proactively ensure that the work migration routes that they have established do not facilitate or safeguard against slavery and forced labour has created a situation where we will continue to see systemic violations of fishing workers until robust action is taken, they warn.

By contrast, we welcome the priority given by government to improving employment rights, including the recent commitment to strengthening seafarers rights within the Employment Rights Bill as well as the establishment of a Fair Work Agency to improve labour market enforcement.

The Employment Rights Bill, which had its second reading in the Commons last month, will extend the employment protections given by the best British companies to millions more workers, deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said.

A Home Office spokesperson said: Modern slavery has devastating impacts and we are committed to tackling this heinous crime in all its forms.

We are grateful for this letter and will consider the recommendations.
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Brussels is pressing ahead with its bid for a deal on free movement for young people between the European Union and the UK  despite Sir Keir Starmers repeated rejections of an agreement.

The European Commission has made a youth mobility scheme a key demand amid the prime ministers post-Brexit reset with Brussels after years of tense relations under successive Conservative administrations.

Despite Sir Keirs insistence that the UK has no intention of agreeing such a deal, official documents show the European Council has tabled a discussion on the issue on Friday.

The youth mobility agreements inclusion on the agenda sends a strong message that the proposal is a priority for the bloc, which is hoping to use the meeting to formalise its negotiating position before presenting it to UK officials,The Independent understands.

While the EU has floated the idea informally before, it has never been formally proposed.

( AP )

However, it is understood senior EU figures believe it is too early to see the mobility deal as a red line for the bloc.

Mike Galsworthy, chair of the pro-EU European Movement, warned that the bloc expects a conversation on youth opportunity and mobility in any negotiations with Starmer, adding that the PM cannot keep saying no to reality forever.

It makes it all the more bizarre a position to maintain when the UK public overwhelmingly back the principle and it would clearly do a power of good.

Furthermore, the EU has never negotiated such a youth mobility scheme before, so Starmer has carte blanche to approach it in a way that is bespoke for Britain.

Refusing even to look a gift horse in the mouth at this stage would seem short of acting in good faith, he told The Independent.

It comes just days after Sandro Gozi, the new chair of the European delegation to the EU-UK Parliamentary Assembly, told The Independent the bloc is looking to put a youth free-movement deal at the centre of the relationship reset.

He said there is a renewed desire within the EU for closer ties with Britain following Donald Trumps re-election in the United States, amid growing concerns over the president-elects commitment to Nato and fears of a global trade war.

Mr Gozi said the EU sees the Republicans election as a big opportunity to kick off a new partnership.

While Sir Keir has previously insisted the UK will not rejoin the bloc within his lifetime, he has pledged to make Brexit work by renegotiating the deal agreed upon by Boris Johnson and pursue closer co-operation, particularly on defence, security and trade.

But in October, the prime ministers official spokesman said the UK will not be considering a youth mobility scheme.

The proposal, which would likely mirror similar arrangements Britain already has with countries including Australia and Japan, would allow 18 to 35-year-olds to move and work freely between countries for up to two years.

Former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine, president of the European Movement, previously told The Independent that a failure to contemplate this is a part of the conspiracy of silence that has denied the British people a proper understanding of the disaster of Brexit.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey also piled pressure on the prime minister to rethink his stance on the deal, calling for him to have some urgency in rebuilding that relationship.

Our willingness to counter even the youth mobility scheme is quite odd and bad, he told journalists at a press gallery lunch in Westminster in October.

A government spokesperson said: We have no plans for and are not considering an EU-wide youth mobility scheme and there will be no return to freedom of movement.
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Farm incomes plummeted by more than 50 per cent in just one year, official figures show, amid growing fears over the impact of the governments tractor tax.

Average farm business incomes fell from 103,100 in 2022/23 to 45,300 in 2023/24, figures published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show.

While the government said the fall in income followed exceptional highs for some farm types in 2022/23, in real terms, this is the lowest average farm incomes have been since 2015/16.

For cereal farms, business income fell by 73 per cent to 39,400 in 2023/24, something Defra said came as a result of lower output prices and yields.

For dairy farms, average business income was 68 per cent lower at 70,900, driven by a fall in the price of milk.

The latest figures come as thousands of farmers prepare to descend on London later this month in protest against the governments extension of inheritance tax.

Farmers are planning a protest in London (Andrew Matthews/PA) ( PA Wire )

There has been a growing backlash from the farming community following the decision to extend the duty to cover agricultural properties, with National Farmers Union (NFU) chief Tom Bradshaw warning that the government should be prepared for a militant response from farmers.

The move, which has been dubbed the tractor tax, means farms worth more than 1m are now subject to 20 per cent inheritance tax.

Mr Bradshaw, described the new tax as disastrous, warning that British farmers are already down to the bone and gristle.

This Budget not only threatens family farms but will also make producing food more expensive. This means more cost for farmers who simply cannot absorb it, and it will have to be borne by someone. Farmers are down to the bone and gristle, he said. Who is going to carry these costs?

The row over the tax has been fuelled by memories of the prime ministers 2023 speech to the NFU when he pledged to have a new relationship with the countryside and farmers.

Sir Keir Starmer claimed to be concerned that each day brings a new existential risk to British farming. He added: Losing a farm is not like losing any other business, it cant come back.

Baroness Batters, Mr Bradshaws predecessor who introduced the PM at the conference last year, said the 1m threshold will easily be reached when land value is added to the value of machinery and buildings on farms, meaning most family farms will be subject to the new tax.

She said: There was already a challenge in farming because of the move away from CAP [common agricultural policy] and the new subsidy system not really working.

The problem is that farmers are asset rich but cash poor. So this will have an impact.

The reaction has been compounded by confusion over how many farms will be affected by the changes to inheritance tax after figures showed her claims of one in four may be wide of the mark.

Defra figures suggest that up to two thirds (66 per cent) of farms could be hit by the tax grab which critics claim will destroy Britains family farms, while the Treasury has claimed just 28 per cent will be impacted.

Minister for Food and Rural Affairs, Daniel Zeichner said: This government recognises food security is national security and our commitment to farmers remains steadfast.

That is why we have committed 5bn to the farming budget over two years  more money than ever for sustainable food production, and to boost rural economic growth.

We recognise that confidence amongst farmers is low following years of neglect and policy failure. We have set out significant support for the sector, including confirming that farmers affected by extreme wet weather will receive up to 60 million in farming recovery payments from next week.
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Confusion has broken out over how many farms will be affected by Rachel Reeves controversial changes to inheritance tax after new figures showed her claims of one in four may be wide of the mark.

Figures produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have been interpreted by farmers groups to suggest that up to two thirds (66 per cent) of farms could be hit by the tax grab which critics claim will destroy Britains family farms.

This is in stark contrast to the 28 per cent that the Treasury had claimed with officials in the two departments understood to be at loggerheads over the chancellors shock announcement. But a source close to environment secretary Steve Reed has blamed the National Farmers Union (NFU) for confusing the issue with incorrect analysis of Defra figures.

Ms Reeves imposed inheritance tax on farm land for the first time since 1992 with 20 per cent rate being paid for all land valued at 1 million or more, although couples can make use of a pooled allowance of 2m plus personal allowances of up to 500,000 each.

Defra figures show that the average farm is worth 2.2 million and 66 per cent are worth 1 million or more.

open image in gallery Farmers are planning a protest in London (Andrew Matthews/PA) ( PA Wire )

One organisation involved in the mass protest against the tax raid on 19 November has already called for an investigation into the figures.

Countryside Alliance external affairs director Mo Metcalf-Fisher said: This is a staggering admission by the Minister and it demonstrates that to the Treasury, the countryside and farmers are just an afterthought. With the Treasury figures being so wildly different to Defras, an urgent investigation is vital. As it stands, the Treasury could be open to the accusation of misleading the public.

Getting this right in the first instance, as well as carrying out meaningful consultation with the farming sector before Rachel Reeves announced the hated family farm tax at the dispatch box, would have avoided the unnecessary pain thats been inflicted on so many farmers and their families

The Treasury figures are said to be out of date and based on how many claim agricultural property relief (APR) but have excluded many others which claim business property relief (BPR).

On Monday NFU president Tom Bradshaw told journalists: They do not understand the immediate impacts this having to intergenerational farms. Some very, very concerned successful businesses have a parent involved who is in their 80s but the person running the farm is in their 50s. The assets are still in the ownership of the older family member.

open image in gallery Environment Secretary Steve Reed said farmers should not believe every alarming claim or headline (Ben Whitley/PA) ( PA Wire )

We have seen some in ill health who will not live seven years to utilise the gifting rules. It is unbelievable the pressure they are putting on the industry. To make this change now, to rip the rug out from under the farming industry, I dont see how they can justify it.

A source close to environment secretary Steve Reed disputed the Defra figures which have been seized on by the NFU saying that the reliefs meant that farms needed to be worth 3 million rather than 1 million to fall foul of the changes.

They said: We dont recognise the NFU figures  they are not based on Defra analysis. Our figures, which are based on actual claims for Agricultural Property Relief, show that 73 per cent of claims are expected to be unaffected by the changes.

Depending on peoples individual circumstances, up to 3 million can be passed on free of inheritance tax. Anything beyond that will be taxed at 20 per cent, rather than the usual 40% normal rate of inheritance tax. This tax can be paid in instalments over 10 years, rather than immediately.

By way of example, two farmers who jointly own a farm will be able to pass on land and property valued up to 3 million to a child or grandchild tax-free. Thats 1 million, where a pair can combine their 500,000 tax-free threshold and then on top of that, an additional 1 million tax-free threshold each for agricultural property inheritance. So in this case a farm worth 3 million could be passed on tax-free.

And if transfers to individuals are made more than 7 years before death, those will continue to fall outside the scope of inheritance tax in the normal way.

A Defra spokesperson added: With public services crumbling and a 22 billion fiscal hole inherited from the previous government, we have made the difficult decision to reform agricultural property relief in a balanced and fair way.

All ministers support the policy and it will not change.

The row spilled over into the Commons during Defra questions.

Shadow environment minister Dr Neil Hudson said the Governments ill-judged, and heartless family farm tax will put food security in jeopardy, adding: No farms, no food. No farmers, no food. Will the Government please now admit they have got this catastrophically wrong, do the right thing, reverse this farm tax, and protect our countrys food security?

But farming minister Daniel Zeichner replied: Its very important that we treat this subject carefully, that we look at the facts, and listen to people who know about it.

Shadow environment minister Robbie Moore said: The figures repeatedly being regurgitated by the Government only consider past claimants of agricultural property relief, not combined with business property relief, which is just as important. And why? Because the Treasury doesnt have the data.

We need need comprehensive detail on this policy to properly understand the impacts of his family farm tax. So, I ask for a further time in this House, will he release an impact assessment, yes or no?

Mr Zeichner replied: We seem to be having this discussion endlessly dont we? And the figures are absolutely clear on agricultural property relief, and the reason Ive kept asking for people to look at the detail, is because when you look at the detail what we will find - and listen to the tax experts, listen to the people who have actually looked at it in detail - fewer than 500 will be affected.

That is the reassuring message that his side should be conveying to British farmers as well.
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A minister has slapped down civil servants demanding a four-day week, telling them we are not living in the 1970.

After members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) said working a four-day week is critical to attaining a good quality of life and could help save the government more than 21 million a year, pensions minister Emma Reynolds ruled out the change.

I dont believe them, she told Times Radio.

open image in gallery Emma Reynolds hit back at civil servants demanding a four-day week ( PA Archive )

Officials in the in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) estimate claim the arrangement would more than halve staff turnover and free up money to hire an extra 2,345 workers .

The PCS, which represents civil servants and carried out the research, said it showed sickness absence could also drop from 4.3 average working days lost per staffer each year to 1.5 days.

But Ms Reynolds brushed off the unions calls, saying: I see the benefit for those who want to have the flexibility to be able to work part time. I'm a mum of two young children. And you know, sometimes I wish that I worked part time. But I don't think as a whole that civil servants as a general rule should work four days rather than five."

She added that civil servants wanting a four-day week wont get one... because we are not living in the 1970s.

PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote hit back, saying: "No, were not. Were living in the 2020s and weve moved on from then and adopted smarter working practices.

Ms Reynolds rebuke is another stark reminder of the change in Labour under Sir Keir Starmers leadership. The partys 2019 manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn committed to tackling excessive working hours, shifting to a four-day or 32-hour week within a decade with no loss of pay.

And the four-day week campaign said Ms Reynolds sounds more like a Tory minister stuck in the past.

Director Joe Ryle added: The truth is that the 9-5, 5 day working week is outdated and no longer fit for purpose. It was invented 100 years ago and we are long overdue an update.

As hundreds of British companies and one local council have already shown, a four-day week with no loss of pay can be a win-win for both workers and employers.

Whitehall officials are campaigning for Defra to carry out a pilot four-day week scheme within the department so that managers can assess the arrangement.

Statisticians within the department who are members of the PCS say the Government could save 21.4 million from the move.

That figure is based on Institute for Government modelling of the year 2016-17 and updated to reflect a rise in salaries, staff numbers and turnover since then.

open image in gallery Civil servants in Defra are calling for a pilot scheme of the arrangement (Johnny Green/PA) ( PA Archive )

In a survey of more than 1,200 members carried out by the PCS as part of its research, 80% of respondents said the change would give them health and wellbeing benefits.

General secretary Fran Heathcote said the study suggested any opposition to employees working a four-day week was purely ideological because the arrangement has financial benefits too.

Why else would an employer stand in the way of progress? she said.

Our members are resolute in their belief that a four-day week is critical to attaining a good quality of life Fran Heathcote, PCS general secretary

Our members are resolute in their belief that a four-day week is critical to attaining a good quality of life, improving their health and wellbeing and helping them to meet caring responsibilities, while all the time increasing their productivity.

Director of the 4-Day Week Campaign Joe Ryle, who wrote a foreword to the research, said the time has come to trial the arrangement in Whitehall.

As hundreds of British companies in the private sector have already shown, a four-day week with no loss of pay can be a win-win for both workers and employers, he said.

The Government last week dropped official concerns about South Cambridgeshire District Councils four-day week after the authority faced opposition from the previous Tory administration.

At Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday, Kemi Badenoch attacked Sir Keir Starmer over the move, asking him: If he is going to bail out the public sector then can he tell us this: does he think it is appropriate  as the Ministry for Housing has done  to approve a four-day week for councils that is not flexible working but is actually part-time work for full-time pay?

Sir Keir replied: Questions based on what were actually doing are usually better than fantasy questions made up.

What did they deliver in 14 years? Low growth, a stagnant economy, a disastrous mini-budget, a 22 billion black hole and now she wants to give me advice on running the economy?

I dont want to be rude but no thank you very much.

A Defra spokeswoman said there were no plans for a four-day week.
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Landlords are rushing to force out tenants as Labours ban on no-fault evictions looms, campaigners have warned, with government figures showing a spike in evictions by bailiffs.

Angela Rayner and Sir Keir Starmer have promised to outlaw Section 21 so-called no-fault evictions, with the ban expected to be implemented by next summer.

And Ministry of Justice figures showed that, between July and September, 8,425 households in England were served with Section 21 notices - an eight year high.

open image in gallery Angela Rayner has promised to outlaw section 21 no fault evictions ( PA Wire )

The figure marked an increase on the same period a year earlier and came as 2,830 households were evicted by bailiffs, a 23 per cent increase on last year.

Housing charities called for the passage of the Renters Rights Bill to be sped up, with almost 110,000 households now having been evicted under Section 21 since Theresa May promised to ban it in April 2019.

Crisis said the latest figures show the horrifying truth that tenants are still being evicted from their homes and left to face the nightmare of housing insecurity and homelessness.

Chief executive Matt Downie said it is a relief to see the bill moving through parliament, but said it needs to become law as quickly as possible.

No-fault evictions are one of the leading causes of homelessness. We need urgent action and stricter measures to protect people at risk of homelessness now and in the future, he added.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: With renters being marched out of their homes in their thousands, passing the Renters Rights Bill and closing the book on the gross injustice of no fault evictions cant come soon enough.

open image in gallery The Renters Reform Bill will seek to abolish so-called no fault evictions by removing Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 (Victoria Jones/PA) ( PA Wire )

The Renters Reform Coalition (RRC) said it is shocking that, with Christmas approaching, thousands of renters are still being forced out of their homes through no fault evictions.

Being forced to leave your home through no fault of your own is a disruptive and expensive experience that pushes many renters into hardship and even homelessness, RRC public affairs manager Lucy Tiller added.

The Renters Rights Bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons in October, with its third reading expected imminently.

The bill will bring an end to Section 21 evictions, under which tenants can be removed from rented housing when a fixed-term tenancy ends or during a rolling tenancy.

Former PM Ms May promised to end no-fault evictions more than five years ago but plans were delayed and eventually abandoned before Rishi Sunak called a general election this summer.

The Renters Rights Bill will put tenants in a stronger position to challenge unreasonable rent increases and outline that landlords will only be allowed to raise the rent once a year at the market rate.

As it stands, the legislation would also give renters a one-year period of protection at the beginning of a tenancy, during which landlords cannot evict to move in or sell the property, and would double notice periods for various grounds for possession from two months to four months.

The government said the bill will also bring disputes to quicker resolution through a new ombudsman service, cutting back on the need to go through the courts.

It is also expected to give local councils stronger powers to crack down on unscrupulous landlords and give tenants the right to request keeping a pet, with landlords unable to unreasonably refuse.

Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, said: Over the last year the number of possession claims brought using a Section 21 notice has fallen across England and Wales.

With data from Rightmove pointing to record numbers of rental properties up for sale, the best way to help tenants is to encourage responsible landlords to stay in the market.
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A right-wing think tank has welcomed Rachel Reeves plan to create pension megafunds in a bid to boost investment in British infrastructure.

The chancellor will tonight set out changes to local government pension pots, consolidating the 86 existing pots into a handful of funds run by professional fund managers.

The move is part of a bid to unlock the pension funds of 6.7million local government workers from smaller firms and assets for investment in major infrastructure projects.

Rachel Reeves said the shakeup will unlock tens of billions of pounds of investment ( Getty Images )

And the director of the right-wing Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) think tank Robert Colville said the move is very welcome.

Robert Colvile added: There is significant potential here to cut costs, generate better returns and create a major vehicle for long-term investment.

England and Waless Local Government Pension Scheme is set to manage assets worth around 500bn by the end of the decade, with local government officials and councillors currently each managing funds worth between 300m and 30bn.

The Treasury hopes consolidating the money into a handful of pension megafunds will support Ms Reeves mission to boost economic growth.

And officials said the changes will boost local economies, as each authority will have to set a target for the moneys investment in their area -

Speaking ahead of her address to the City of London at Mansion House, Ms Reeves promised the biggest set of reforms to the pensions market in decades.

She said the changes will unlock tens of billions of pounds of investment in business and infrastructure, boost peoples savings in retirement and drive economic growth so we can make every part of Britain better off.

And deputy PM Angela Rayner said: Weve all seen the fantastic work carried out day in, day out, by our frontline workers and its about time their pension started working just as hard by driving investment in their communities.

This is about harnessing the untapped potential of the pensions belonging to millions of people, and using it as a force for good in boosting our economy.

Boosting the amount of British pension funds invested in UK assets and infrastructure has been a key priority for both Labour and the Conservatives.

Last year, Ms Reeves predecessor Jeremy Hunt used his Mansion House speech to promise pension reforms aimed at unlocking 75bn of extra cash for investment in high-growth firms.

The former chancellors Mansion House Reforms promised to wing up poor performing pension schemes into larger, better performers. They also included an agreement with nine of Britains biggest pension providers to invest at least 5 per cent of assets in fast-growing firms by 2030.

Ms Reeves reforms are based on the pensions markets in Australia and Canada, where larger funds take advantage of their scale to invest in riskier assets with higher growth potential.

They will be delivered by a new Pension Schemes Bill to be introduced to parliament in 2025.

Dr George Dibb, associate director for economic policy at the IPPR think tank, said: With the lowest levels of investment in the G7and among the lowest in the developed worldthe UK has languished at the bottom of the league for 24 of the past 30 years. These pension fund reforms should help to end that.

Consolidating pension pots into megafunds will unlock substantial capital for UK investment, enabling more high-impact, high-return ventures. Paired with a comprehensive industrial strategy and the highest levels of public investment since the 1970s, these reforms will help shift the UK economy toward sustained investment and growth."

But Tom Selby, director of public policy at investment platform AJ Bell, warned the changes could lead to savers money being put at risk in the pursuit of economic growth.

He said: Theres a reason that an occupational scheme has a trustee to look after the interests of members. Part of that is investing their money to maximise returns and get the best retirement outcomes possible.

And Mr Selby added: Conflating a government goal of driving investment in the UK and peoples retirement outcomes brings a danger because the risks are all taken with members money. If it goes well, everyone can celebrate. But its clearly possible that it will go the other way, so there needs to be some caution in this push to use other peoples money to drive economic growth.
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Rachel Reeves has told the City that restrictions imposed after the 2008 banking crash went too far, as she tries to regain the trust of the finance sector by promising to ease banking regulations.

In a speech at Mansion House on Thursday evening, the chancellor sought to win back the business community following intense criticism of last months Budget.

It follows the announcement of her plans to create a series of pension megafunds, which the former Bank of England economist hopes will unlock around 80bn of new investment into UK businesses and infrastructure.

By rowing back on regulation, Ms Reeves is pinning her hopes on being able to fire up the economic growth which Labour put at the heart of its manifesto plan for government.

It will be the first easing of the rules since the then Labour chancellor Alistair Darling was forced to nationalise two banks and impose a raft of restrictions in the wake of the 2008 financial crash.

open image in gallery Rachel Reeves will set out the plans in her first Mansion House speech as chancellor ( PA Wire )

Ms Reevess controversial Budget, with 70bn of spending increases and a record 40bn of tax rises, has prompted numerous challenges over whether she was serious about economic growth.

Her speech came as:

open image in gallery The City of London could be the driver for economic growth ( PA Wire )

In her speech, Ms Reeves claimed that post-financial crisis regulatory changes to reduce risk-taking has gone too far and led to unintended consequences.

She unveiled the first ever financial services growth and competitiveness strategy to be published alongside industrial strategy in spring 2025.

But her attempts to woo financial leaders came as the Confederation of British Industry led the continued criticism of her Budget.

CBI chief executive Rain Newton-Smith said: Theres a lot of disquiet in the business community on whether this government is solidly focused on that growth mission. If you look at the next three to five years, you see that business investment is weaker because of decisions made in the Budget.

She added: Business leaders do credit the focus on long-term infrastructure  but what I dont see is that real plan for growth over the next three to five years. I think that has really taken the business community by surprise.

open image in gallery Farmers protesting outside the Northern Farming Conference in Hexham, Northumberland, against the proposals to reform inheritance tax ( PA Wire )

In her first Mansion House speech as chancellor, Ms Reeves warned that the UKs status as a global financial centre cannot be taken for granted.

She argued that, in the wake of 2008, a system has been created which seeks to eliminate risk-taking but holds back economic growth, saying: The UK has been regulating for risk, but not regulating for growth.

She outlined a plan to rebalance the system, setting the financial services sector up to innovate and grow with opportunities for investment in businesses, infrastructure and clean energy across Britain.

She said: Before we came into government, I was clear that the financial services sector must play a central part in our economic vision and our plan for economic growth.

Because I know that this sector is the crown jewel in our economy. It employs 1.2 million people, from London to Edinburgh, and from Manchester to Belfast. It is one of the country's largest and most productive sectors, accounting for 9 per cent of our economic output.

And it is a global success story: we are the second largest exporter of financial services in the G7. But in a highly competitive world, we need to earn that status and we need to work to keep it.

Ms Reeves referenced her plans for pension megafunds, which will consolidate the 86 existing pots into a handful of funds run by professional fund managers.

Speaking ahead of the address, Ms Reeves promised the biggest set of reforms to the pensions market in decades.

She described her plans as a: A long-term strategy to harness the strengths of the financial services sector: making the UK a global leader in sustainable finance, developing the right approach to redress to reduce uncertainty, reinvigorating our capital markets by unlocking private investment through our pension funds, and reforming our approach to regulation to make it more dynamic and more competitive.

Taken together, these measures represent the most pro-growth financial services package since the financial crisis.

As she sought to reset her relationship with the City, a fresh row broke out over how many farms may be affected by the governments new inheritance tax rules.

While the Treasury claims Defra figures show only 28 per cent of farms will be forced to pay the levy, farmers groups say that in fact up to two-thirds (66 per cent) could be hit by the tax grab.

But a source close to environment secretary Steve Reed has blamed the National Farmers Union (NFU) for confusing the issue with incorrect analysis of Defra figures.

Ms Reeves imposed inheritance tax on farmland for the first time since 1992, with a 20 per cent rate being paid for all land valued at 1m or more, although couples can make use of a pooled allowance of 2m plus personal allowances of up to 500,000 each.

Mo Metcalf-Fisher, from Countryside Alliance, said: With the Treasury figures being so wildly different to Defras, an urgent investigation is vital.
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Sadiq Khan has taken aim once again at Donald Trump, saying his policies are sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and racist.

The London mayor had a long-running row with Mr Trump during his first term in the White House, which began after Mr Khan criticised the presidents pledge to ban Muslims from the US, describing the policy as ignorant.

During his first term in office, Mr Trump described the mayor as a stone-cold loser and very dumb.

Speaking to the High Performance podcast, Mr Khan claimed the president-elect, who swept to victory in the US last week, singled him out as a result of his skin colour and religion.

Asked about the ongoing row, he said: Its personal, lets be frank. If I wasnt this colour skin, if I wasnt a practising Muslim, he wouldnt have come for me.

Donald Trump and Sadiq Khan have long been involved in a feud ( PA/Getty )

He wasnt coming for me because Im five foot six. Hes coming for me for because of  lets be frank  my ethnicity and my religion, so its incredibly personal to me.

It affects me, my family. What worries me though, its not about me and my family  its about the fact that hes the leader of the free world.

This is the president of the USA, a country we all adore, love, we love Americans, we love American culture. But also Americas like a lighthouse. They can be somebody thats a source of good, ripples of hope and love, but also ripples of hate.

Mr Khan added: I was speaking out against somebody whose policies were sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, [it] wasnt because I wanted to come to his attention, [it was] because I have a responsibility to speak out if I think somethings affecting not just Londoners, but... all of us.

Its not great. Would I do it again? Absolutely, because youve got to speak truth to power.

His criticism of the president-elect comes despite insistence from Sir Keir Starmers government that Labour will be able to work closely with the Republican administration.

The prime minister expressed confidence following Mr Trumps victory that the UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come.

Following Mr Trumps election victory last week, the London mayor said Londoners would be anxious about the outcome.

While Sir Keir complimented Mr Trump on his historic election victory, Mr Khan issued a more disparaging statement, saying the result shows progress is not inevitable.

Many will be fearful about what it will mean for democracy and for womens rights, or how the result impacts the situation in the Middle East or the fate of Ukraine, he said.

The lesson of today is that progress is not inevitable. But asserting our progressive values is more important than ever - re-committing to building a world where racism and hatred is rejected, the fundamental rights of women and girls are upheld, and where we continue to tackle the crisis of climate change head on, the mayor added.
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Four people have been arrested in Los Angeles for an alleged scam where they dressed up in a bear costume and faked a string of attacks in order to cash in on insurance claims.

Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, were all charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy charges for allegedly swindling insurance companies out of $141,839, the California Department of Insurance announced on Wednesday.

The bizarre scheme allegedly involved someone dressing up as a bear and trashing three cars, before filing claims to three different insurance companies.

The CDI said that its investigation began after the suspects filed a claim on January 28, 2024 in Lake Arrowhead alleging that a bear entered a 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost and damaged the inside.

As part of the claim, the suspects submitted video footage of the so-called bear along with photos of scratch marks on the seats and doors.

open image in gallery Images displaying the scratch marks on the seats of one of the cars ( CA Department of Insurance )

In the video, released by authorities, a person wearing the bear costume is allegedly seen inside the car.

After determining that the bear was actually a human inside a costume, investigators then found two additional insurance claims with two different insurance companies, the CDI said.

open image in gallery The bear costume was found after authorities executed a search warrant ( CA Department of Insurance )

The two claims were for a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350, both involving the same suspects, the same date of the alleged incident and the same location.

A biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Department was brought in to examine all three videos submitted as part of the claims and determined that the bear was a human in disguise.

open image in gallery Arrest photos of the suspects (left to right): Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, Alfiya Zuckerman, 39 ( CA Department of Insurance )

It was clearly a human in a bear suit, the CDI said.

Authorities then found a bear costume, after executing a search warrant at one of the suspects homes.

The Independent contacted the CDI for further information.
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A California man was arrested and charged for allegedly stoning to death a beloved bird as it sat on a pontoon at a lake.

Jeremey Jansen, 36, was filmed allegedly striking the Great Egret at Lake Gregory Regional Park in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles, according to the San Bernardino Sheriffs Department.

Witness Kaylyn Donica told TV station KTLA that she captured the October 23 attack on cellphone video. She said she spotted two men hurling rocks at the ducks in the lake while fishing with a friend and then saw the bird attacked.

It was just shock and anger, like, What the hell is wrong with you? she said of witnessing the killing.

The footage shows the suspect allegedly firing a rock at the defenseless animal. A second person then broke the injured birds neck to ease its suffering, said authorities.

A third person is said to have scooped the bird from the lake, Donica told the station.

He went walking up toward the grass with it and was looking at it under its wing. I guess he determined it was really hurt and put it out of misery, she added.

A wildlife expert told KTLA that the bird was beloved by locals in the area and was known as Arthur.

Sheriffs Department investigators managed to identify the involved subjects in the video and through witness statements.

On Tuesday, November 12, 2024, investigators contacted Jansen at his primary residence in Claremont and confirmed he was the subject in the video, SBSD said.

Jansen was arrested and booked into the West Valley Detention Center for animal cruelty and killing a non-game bird.

Anyone with information is encouraged to contact Deputy Ian Buchowiecki or Deputy Omar Romero-Rios of the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department at 909-336-0600.
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The tech consultant charged in Cash App founder Bob Lee 's stabbing death testified in his own defense Wednesday that he made a bad joke to try to put an end to a late night of drinking and doing drugs, and the famous entrepreneur suddenly attacked him.

In his first public statements about the events leading to Lee's death, Nima Momeni said that he joked to Lee that he might want to spend his final night in San Francisco with family rather than trying to find a strip club.

Momeni said Lee pulled out a knife and attacked him, forcing him to defend himself. He said Lee later walked away, showing no signs he was injured. Momeni said he called an attorney when he learned of Lee's death the following day.

Hes a big famous guy, he said. "Im just an average joe, an immigrant.

Lee, 43, was found staggering on a deserted downtown San Francisco street, dripping a trail of blood and calling for help. He later died at a hospital.

Prosecutors say Momeni, 40, planned the April 4, 2023, attack after a dispute over his younger sister, Khazar Momeni, with whom Lee was friends. They say Momeni took a knife from a unique set in his sisters condo, drove Lee to a secluded area and stabbed him three times, then fled.

open image in gallery Bob Lee founded CashApp. He was found staggering on a deserted downtown San Francisco street with stab wounds ( Twitter / Bob Lee )

The defense says Lee was being erratic and aggressive, having slept only six hours over a four-day period of doing cocaine and ketamine and drinking.

Momeni has pleaded not guilty. He faces 26 years to life in prison if convicted.

But Momeni, who took the witness stand Wednesday, said the two men were on friendly terms when his sister kicked them both out of her condo at 2 a.m., saying she wanted to sleep after hours of partying and ingesting drugs.

Momeni said they got into his BMW and he started driving while Lee checked his phone for places to go next. He pulled the car over after they went over a pothole, causing Lee to spill his beer. Lee got out of the car and Momeni followed, thinking Lee was about to puke.

That was when he said he made the bad joke about seeing family.

He just went from zero to 100, Momeni said. You could see the anger.

Omid Talai, assistant district attorney, scoffed at the story on cross-examination Wednesday.

open image in gallery Flowers were left close to the scene where Lee was found ( Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved )

He wanted to kill you over a bad joke? said Talai, incredulous.

Im not sure why he pulled it out," Momeni said. I was in fear for my life.

Momeni pushed back Wednesday afternoon as Talai questioned him about text messages and testimony from others. The cross-examination continues Thursday.

Surveillance video of Lees final night shows him entering the posh Millennium Tower downtown, where Momenis sister lives with her husband, a prominent San Francisco plastic surgeon.

Video also shows Lee and Momeni leaving the building after 2 a.m. and driving off together in Momenis car. Grainy video also shows the two men getting out of the car in a isolated spot by the Bay Bridge.

open image in gallery Lees death stunned the tech community ( MobileCoin )

Prosecutors say that is where Momeni stabbed Lee, while the defense says that is where Lee attacked Momeni.

Police recovered a knife with a 4-inch (10-centimeter) blade in the secluded area where Lee was stabbed. Prosecutors said tests showed Momenis DNA on the weapons handle and Lees DNA on the bloody blade, but the defense presented an expert witness who said the police should have tested the handle for fingerprints, namely Lees.

Lees death stunned the tech community as fellow executives and engineers penned tributes to the charismatic entrepreneurs generosity and brilliance. Lee was chief product officer of cryptocurrency platform MobileCoin when he died. He was a father to two children.
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An 18-year-old was shot by police in Florida following a sting-operation orchestrated by the mother of a 13-year-old he was allegedly sending inappropriate text messages to.

Cerry Banks arranged to meet the child at a Popeyes fast food restaurant in Jacksonville on November 11, where he was confronted by the mother who had learned of the relationship the night before, authorities said.

According to Jacksonville Sheriffs Office Chief of Investigations Alan Parker, Banks was not that smart and had been unaware that he had been conversing with the mother while arranging the meet.

Upon arrival Banks brandished a gun that was concealed in his underwear and told the woman When you hear the shots tonight, you know whats up, Parker told reporters. The family retreated into the Popeyes where law enforcement was called.

Responding to the report of an aggravated assault, officers arrived around 30 minutes later.

As our officers arrived on scene, the suspect was still standing by the business he had plenty of time to leave, Parker said.

open image in gallery After Banks threatened her, the mother and her family took shelter inside the Popeyes restaurant ( Google Maps )

Banks was reportedly given multiple verbal commands to turn around and show his hands, but ran round the corner of the restaurant. As one officer followed him, he observed Banks pulling the pistol from his waistband.

After multiple warnings and commands to drop the weapon the officer opened fire, shooting Banks multiple times, including in the hand and leg. Banks continued to flee, dropping the gun, Parker said.

After a short pursuit, which included assistance from a K-9 Unit, Banks was apprehended without further incident. He was taken to a local hospital for treatment and is believed to be in a stable condition.

We like for parents to let us handle these situations, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters told reporters.

Its protective in nature and moms and dads are going to do what they feel they need to do to protect their kids. And we cant really blame them for doing it but we do ask that they allow us to handle the situations. But I cant blame [the mother.]

Parker added: You never know what someones going to do when their backs against the wall. Its probably better to leave it to the professionals.
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An elderly woman who was returning home from visiting a loved ones grave died after she was hit by an Amazon delivery truck. in Cherokee County, Georgia.

Sandra Fitts, 79, was crossing the street on Tuesday evening when she was fatally struck by the truck.

Deputies told WSB-TV 2 in Atlanta that the driver, identified as London Best, 24, allegedly kept driving after he hit the woman.

It appears that he knows what happened and he actually continued to deliver packages in the area, Cherokee County Sheriff's Captain Jay Baker told the outlet.

He called the incident a "terrible situation."

London Best, 24, an Amazon delivery driver, has been charged with vehicular homicide in the hit-and-run death of Sandra Fitts, 79, in Cherokee County, Georgia ( Cherokee County Adult Detention Center )

Canton police officers reportedly found the truck close to the scene of the incident with damage consistent with a hit-and-run accident. A piece of a Rivian  the trucks used by Amazon for deliveries  was found at the scene.

"There was evidence in the roadway that this was going to be an Amazon vehicle, a Rivian part. One of the deputies remembered seeing an Amazon truck turn down a nearby roadway," Baker said.

Best was arrested and charged with vehicular homicide and hit-and-run resulting in Fitts' death.

In addition to the charges related to the hit-and-run, Best has also been charged with drug possession. Investigators obtained a search warrant for the Amazon van and allegedly found narcotics inside.

Best is now being held without bond at the Cherokee Adult Detention Center, and has been charged with possession of marijuana less than 1 oz, possession of a Schedule 1 Narcotic (THC wax), and possession of drug-related objects, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.

An Amazon spokesperson issued a statement to WSB-TV 2 acknowledging the incident.

Were deeply saddened by this incident, and our thoughts are with the victims family and loved ones during this difficult time. Well support local police as they investigate," the spokesperson said.

The Amazon spokesperson also said that Best is prohibited from driving for the company pending the outcome of the investigation.

Baker told the outlet that Best faces charges primarily because he allegedly fled the scene of the accident.

Had he not left the scene its very likely that he wouldnt been charged, certainly with these felonies," Baker said. "I mean it was dark and she was crossing the highway. So, if youre ever in an accident, stop, call 911, render aid, it makes all the difference in the world.

The Cherokee Sheriff's Office Traffic Enforcement Unit is leading the ongoing investigation into Fitts's death.
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The Oklahoma school district that came under fire after non-binary student Nex Benedict died of an overdose has a history of inadequately handling reports of sexual harassment and violated Title IX, a federal probe found.

The Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights investigated Owasso Public Schools after receiving a complaint following the death of Benedict in February 2024. The complaint claimed that the school district failed to respond to reports that the tenth grader was being harassed by fellow students  which culminated in a fight in the bathroom. Benedict died the next day; an autopsy concluded the teen died by suicide after a drug overdose. Police ruled the fight to be mutual combat.

Owasso students and their families did not receive the fair and equitable review process from their school district guaranteed to them under Title IX; at worst, some students experienced discrimination Congress has long guaranteed they shall not endure at school, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon said in a statement.

Owasso Public Schools has a practice of handling reports of sexual harassment of students informally and inadequately, OCR wrote Wednesday.

The investigation looked into incidents that occurred in the school district across a three-year span from 2021 through 2024, finding that the district generally failed to fulfill its Title IX obligations in those school years.

Title IX is a federal law that requires schools to treat students and employees fairly and equally, and prohibits discrimination based on sex.

A Department of Education investigation found that Nex Benedicts school district failed to protect students from harassment ( Sue Benedict via AP )

The probe found that the school districts inaction rose to the level that the districts response to some families sexual harassment reports was deliberately indifferent to students civil rights.

In the incident involving Benedict, OCR found that the school district failed to respond as required by the Title IX regulations.

Additionally, the OCR investigation found that the Oklahoma school district failed to respond to reports of at least four sexual harassment incidents. Those alleged incidents include a teacher grooming female students on social media, a very young elementary school student who was subjected to repeated harassing remarks that were described as sexual in nature, a male student who made unwelcome sexual comments to a female student, and multiple students being subjected to repeated sex-based slurs, harassment, and physical assault.

The district has entered into a robust resolution agreement to ensure the students are protected from harassment, Lhamon said Wednesday.

The district has signed a robust agreement to assure that students who attend school in the district will be afforded their rights under Title IX, including the right to file a complaint, learn about and receive supportive services individualized to their needs, and benefit from federal nondiscrimination protection when they experience harassment, Lhamon said.

The resolution agreement commits the district to contacting the parents of students affected by sexual harassment to inform them of the process for filing a Title IX complaint and the availability of supportive measures, develop and implement a recordkeeping system that adequately and accurately documents and preserves all records required by Title IX and provide training on Title IX to district staff and students, among other requirements.

The investigation also looked into whether the school district violated two other federal laws that prohibit discrimination against individuals with disabilities. The OCR found insufficient evidence that the school violated either of these laws.

Owasso Public Schools has cooperated fully with OCR during its investigation and is committed to fulfilling the requirements of the Voluntary Resolution Agreement with the utmost seriousness and care, as we believe every student has the right to learn in an environment free from discrimination and harassment, a spokesperson told The Independent in a statement. The Voluntary Resolution Agreement signed by OPS reaffirms our dedication to fostering a non-discriminatory and harassment-free environment for all students and ensures the district will continue to receive federal funding which is critical in supporting and serving all of our students.

We are confident that these steps will enhance the safety and inclusivity of our school community, the spokesperson continued.

He also underscored parts of the the resolution agreement that state that signing onto the agreement does not constitute an admission that it was not in compliance with Title IX and/or the 2020 Title IX regulation or an admission that the district knew that these harassment reports were so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it deprived any student of access to the educational benefits of opportunities provided by the District.
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A new documentary series is revealing how Charles Manson claimed to have killed a couple of people before creating the infamous Manson family.

Theres a whole part of my life that nobody knows about, Manson says in a recorded prison call. I lived in Mexico for a while. I went to Acapulco, stole some cars. I just got involved in stuff over my head, man. Got involved in a couple of killings. I left my .357 Magnum in Mexico City. And I left some dead people on the beach.

The admission is part of a Peacock three-part documentary series called Making Manson, which uses 20 years worth of never-before-aired conversations from prison.

Manson is known for leading the Los Angeles-based Manson Family cult he created in the 1960s. The cult was behind seven murders, including the deaths of actress Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of Polish-born film director Roman Polanski, as well as Jay Sebring, a celebrity hairdresser, Wojciech Frykowski and Abigail Folger, friends of Tate, Steven Parent, a recent high-school graduate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

Polanski was a target of the gang but was away from home that night.

Manson did not commit the murders himself but manipulated his followers into committing them, thinking the deaths would incite a race war. When he appeared in court, he did so with a swastika tattooed on his forehead. He and three members of the cult were convicted for their respective roles in the murders in 1971.

open image in gallery Sharon Tate was killed in her house by the Charles Manson cult in 1969 ( Screen Archives/Getty Images )

In 2017, Manson died of natural causes while serving a lifetime sentence at California State Prison-Corcoran, where he had been housed since 1989. He was originally sentenced to death before California abolished the death penalty. He was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

The documentary, which is due to premiere on Tuesday, explores Mansons upbringing, criminal youth and feelings about the cult, according to a description of the series. Former members of the family sit through the conversations, as well as the prisoners former cellmate.

open image in gallery A 2017 mugshot of Manson, left, and a photo of the convicted murderer leaving a courthouse in 1969 ( AP )

Dianne Lake, one of the interviewees, joined the cult when she was 14. In a clip from the documentary, Lake says she knew that Manson had been in prison for taking a girl across the state line but knew little else about the leaders criminal background.

Seemed minimal at the time, Lake said. She was not directly involved in the murders. She left the group and taught special education for 10 years. She is now retired.

open image in gallery Police outside the home in Los Angeles where Tate and four others were murdered ( Popperfoto via Getty Images )

Former members of the group went on to lead different lives. Linda Kasabian changed her name and moved to the Pacific Northwest after being given legal immunity to testify against Manson and four of his followers. She died last year.

Lynette Squeaky Fromme was convicted in the 1975 attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford. She went on to write a book about her life following her 2009 release.

Some members, including Patricia Krenwinkel, Charles Watson and Robert Beausoleil, continue to serve prison sentences in California.

open image in gallery Former Manson Family cult member Leslie Van Houten was freed from prison after more than five decades ( NBC News )

Leslie Van Houten, 75, was released on parole last year after spending 53 years in prison for the LaBianca murders.

Shed been denied parole more than 20 times. Upon her release, she lived in a transitional living facility to get accustomed to social, cultural and technological changes, her attorney said at the time.

Before Mansons death, he reportedly committed hundreds of violations in prison that included assault, repeated possession of a weapon and threatening staff, according to the Los Angeles Times. Hes said to have spat in officers faces, tried to cause a flood and set his mattress on fire.
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A woman forced her children to live with the rotting body of their dead eight-year-old brother for more than a year in a soiled, roach-infested apartment.

A judge on Tuesday sentenced Gloria Williams, 38, to 50 years in prison.

Her sentence came after she had pleaded guilty in October to two counts of injury to a child for abuse that involved eight-year-old Kendrick Lee, who was beaten to death by her boyfriend, and another child, the newspaper reported.

Police who discovered the boys body in October 2021, said it was the most disturbing scene they had worked in their careers and that it seemed too horrific to be real.

Lees three abandoned brothers had been living alone for months and were thin, malnourished and hungry when authorities found them in an unfurnished Harris County apartment that was infested with flies and roaches and had soiled carpet.

Authorities said the children had waited for Williams to call authorities to report that their brother had been beaten to death by her boyfriend, Brian Coulter. Investigators say the mother never made that call and the oldest surviving sibling, then a 15-year-old, finally overcame his fear and called authorities. The two other siblings were 7 and 10 years old when they were found by authorities.

open image in gallery Defendant Gloria Williams, charged in connection with the death of her eight-year-old son (  2024 Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )

Williams was sentenced following a nearly two-day court hearing that focused on the extent of her role in Lees death. Her defense attorneys blamed Coulter for most of the abuse. Coulter was sentenced in April to life in prison without parole for Lees death. The sheriffs office had previously said Coulter had consistently hit the younger children and had fatally beaten Lee sometime around Thanksgiving in 2020.

A few months after the fatal beating, Williams and Coulter moved out and went to live at another apartment about 25 minutes away, leaving the three surviving siblings to fend for themselves as their brother's body slowly decomposed, authorities said.

Williams relinquished parental rights over her children after her arrest. The two younger siblings have since been adopted, while the eldest is with a foster family, the newspaper went on to report.
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Numerous examples of AI-generated slop content falsely claiming Elon Musk has invented a variety of new sci-fi technologies are flooding across Facebook after the billionaire helped elect Donald Trump to the White House.

The posts claim Musk has invented everything from a water engine to a $6,999 tiny house on wheels to Iron Man-style armor to a pilotable flying saucer, with many tracing back to pages in the Philippines and Vietnam, according to an analysis from tech journalism site 404 Media.

Numerous Facebook users appear to be interacting with the posts and believing their claims, which in some cases enable the slop creators to earn bonuses as part of the platforms creator program.

It appears there was a spike in public interest for Elon Musk around the time of the U.S. presidential election, coinciding with the timing of some of these posts, McKenzie Sadeghi, who studies AI at NewsGuard, told the site. Im not aware of the full extent/time frame of this campaign but it is possible that these accounts were attempting to capitalize on this surge in public interest by pumping out clickbait-like, AI-generated content of Musk, and in some cases, directing users to find an article about Musk in the pinned comment in an effort to bypass Facebooks algorithmic limitations on external links.

While the claims in these posts are untrue, they come as the real, non-AI Musk has leaned into the language and aesthetics of the internet and social media as part of his alliance with Donald Trump.

Musk has been tapped to head a new Department of Government Efficiency recommending billions in federal spending cuts. The agency, DOGE for short, takes its name from the doge meme, which has mutated from a popularly shared image of a Shiba Inu dog, to the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, to a major influence over the Trump administration.

Musk has promised the DOGE will use the web to crowdsource ideas on spending cuts and post an online leaderboard with the most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars.

The billionaire has also been an outspoken advocate for online election betting using cryptocurrency, which emerged as a popular, social media-inflected alternative means of forecasting the 2024 election.
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A Philadelphia man sustained third-degree burns and has been left with disfiguring scars on his penis, testicles and thighs following a hot tea spill while flying home aboard Frontier Airlines, according to a federal lawsuit obtained by The Independent.

Sean Millers injuries include highly unsightly and embarrassing discoloration on his penis, scrotum/testicles, along with significantly decreased sensation in his penis, post-traumatic stress disorder, and lack of self-esteem, plus at least one herniated disc he suffered while writhing in distress, the lawsuit states.

Miller, 56, was rushed to the hospital immediately upon landing, after which he was transferred to an area burn center for specialized treatment due to the severity of his wounds.

Due to the tightly-situated plane seat configuration, Mr. Miller was unable to get up from his seat after the spill and, instead, was trapped in agonizing pain while his body was being burnt, his attorney, Adam S. Barrist, told The Independent.

Miller, a warehouse worker, has been left with permanent scarring on and around his genitalia, and has been encountering sexual dysfunction since this incident, Barrist said.

open image in gallery Sean Miller was heading home from Myrtle Beach when he claims he was burned by hot tea while on a Frontier flight ( Getty Images )

As a matter of standard practice, we dont comment on pending litigation, a Frontier spokesperson said in an email on Thursday.

Third-degree burns are the most grievous of all, according to the Stanford University healthcare system. They not only eat through the top two layers of skin, but also destroy nerve endings in the area and can damage the underlying bones, muscles, and tendons. Rehabilitation following third-degree burns can last months or even years.

Millers suit includes a long list of additional issues stemming from the spill, including pinched and damaged nerves, neck pain, embarrassment, emotional harm, and strains, sprains, disc bulges and disc herniations throughout his body, the extent of which is presently unknown.

The alleged mishap occurred September 20, on Frontier flight 4948 from Myrtle Beach to Philly, Millers lawsuit states. During the beverage service, Miller requested a cup of hot tea, which, according to the suit, was presented to [him] filled to the brim, at an unsafely and unreasonably high temperature and without any form of a lid.

open image in gallery Miller was rushed to the hospital immediately upon landing in Philadelphia ( Getty Images )

The scalding hot water spilled between his legs, through his clothing and directly onto Mr. Millers genitalia, leaving him crammed into his narrow seat while experiencing unimaginable torment, the suit goes on.

The flight was met on the ground by an ambulance, which took Miller to Jefferson Methodist Hospital, according to the suit. He was then brought to the Jefferson University Hospital Burn Center, it says.

Millers lawsuit says he has experienced great physical and mental pain and anguish, which will likely continue well into the future, if not for the balance of his natural life. Miller, who was unable to return to work for a period of time following the spill, has also incurred substantial medical expenses, the suit states.

Frontier, it contends, had a duty to Mr. Miller to provide his requested hot beverage to him in a safe manner that would not subject him to potential injury and disfigurement.

open image in gallery Attorney Adam Barrist says Frontier had a duty to Mr. Miller to provide his requested hot beverage to him in a safe manner that would not subject him to potential injury and disfigurement. ( Provided )

Despite multiple letters sent to Frontier Airlines via FedEx overnight courier, I have received no communication, of any kind, back from Frontier Airlines, concerning, among other issues, the payment of my clients past medical bills and payment for his ongoing treatment, Barrist told The Independent. It was, therefore, necessary to institute suit right away.

In 2015, a 33-year-old man flying Ryanair from London to Dublin settled out of court with the airline over an incident in which he said his genitals and groin were horribly burned when a flight attendant accidentally poured boiling tea onto him. Ronald Furlong, who was forced to disrobe in the aisle of the plane and sit in a temporary seat for the remainder of the flight, was awarded an undisclosed amount for his troubles.

Miller is seeking a minimum of $150,000 for his injuries, plus additional damages to be determined by a jury.
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Jail officials in Georgia's most populous county violate the constitutional rights of people in their custody by failing to protect them from violence, using excessive force and holding them in filthy and unsafe conditions, U.S. Justice Department officials said Thursday while threatening to get the courts involved if corrective action isn't taken quickly.

The Fulton County Sheriff's Office doesn't adequately protect jail inmates from violence by other detainees, including stabbings, sexual abuse and killings, federal officials contend in a lengthy report that details alleged abuses. Vulnerable populations, including people who are gay, transgender, young or have with serious mental illness, are particularly at risk from the violence, which causes physical injury and long-lasting trauma, the report says.

Our investigation finds longstanding, unconstitutional, unlawful and dangerous conditions that jeopardize the lives and well-being of the people held there, Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said at a news conference.

The jail is the same one where president-elect Donald Trump surrendered on charges of trying to interfere with the 2020 election in the state of Georgia. A mughsot showing the former president scowling at the camera went around the world and was quickly used as a campaigning and fundraising tool for the Republican.

The DoJ report resulted from a federal investigation launched in July 2023 to examine living conditions, access to medical and mental health care, use of excessive force by staff, and conditions that may give rise to violence between people held in jails in the county, which includes most of Atlanta.

Investigators cited the September 2022 death of Lashawn Thompson, 35, in a bedbug-infested cell in the Fulton County Jails psychiatric wing, noting that an independent autopsy conducted at his familys request found that he died of severe neglect. Photos released by attorneys for Thompsons family showed that his body was covered in insects and that his cell was filthy and full of garbage.

open image in gallery Donald Trump is shown in a police booking mugshot released by the Fulton County Sheriffs Office ( via REUTERS )

We cannot turn a blind eye to the inhumane, violent and hazardous conditions that people are subjected to inside the Fulton County Jail, Clarke said. Detention in the Fulton County Jail has amounted to a death sentence for dozens of people who have been murdered or who have died as a result of the atrocious conditions inside the facility.

Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat, who took office in 2021 and was reelected last week, has consistently raised concerns about overcrowding, dilapidated infrastructure and staffing shortages at county lockups. He has pushed county leaders to build a new jail, which they have so far been unwilling to do. When the federal investigation was launched, he said he welcomed it and was prepared to cooperate fully.

The sheriff's office didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment about the report's findings.

Jail officers have a pattern or practice of using excessive force against people in county custody, which violates detainees' constitutional rights, the report says. They do not receive adequate training and guidance on the use of force, they use Tasers too frequently and in an unreasonable, unsafe manner, and staff who use excessive force are not consistently disciplined, it states.

Investigators also found that the main Fulton County Jail building is hazardous and unsanitary, citing flooding from broken toilets and sinks, infestations of cockroaches and rodents, and filthy cells with dangerous exposed wires. There isn't enough food for detainees and the distribution services are unsanitary, the report says. That leaves detainees exposed to pest infestation, malnourishment and other harms, investigators contend.

open image in gallery Inmates are not protected from violence by other detainees, including stabbings, sexual abuse and killings, federal officials contend in a lengthy report ( Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved )

People held in Fulton County custody receive inadequate medical and mental health care in violation of their constitutional rights, leaving them open to risk of injury, serious illness, pain and suffering, mental health decline and death, the report states.

People with serious mental illness and youth offenders are routinely held in restrictive housing that exposes them to risk of serious harm, including self-injury, physical decline and acute mental illness, the report says. These practices discriminate against people with mental health disabilities in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, it states.

Included in the report are 11 pages of minimum remedial measures that jail officials should implement. It concludes with a warning that federal authorities will likely take legal action if concerns are not sufficiently addressed. It says the attorney general may sue to correct the problems in 49 days, and could also intervene in any related, existing private suits in 15 days.
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Several business owners at the struggling corner where George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020 are suing the city to demand it take over their properties and compensate them.

The owners of the Cup Foods convenience store and other businesses operating near 38th Street and Chicago Avenue argue that the city's failure to address deterioration and crime in the neighborhood has ruined their businesses and constitutes an unlawful taking of their property without just compensation, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported Thursday. They're seeking $30 million in damages.

The area, now known as George Floyd Square, has become a place of pilgrimage for social justice supporters from across the country, and the store has renamed itself Unity Foods. But business owners say they haven't benefitted, while activists and officials remain divided over how to transform the intersection while keeping it as a permanent memorial.

Floyd died after a white officer pinned his neck to the pavement outside Cup Foods for 9 1/2 minutes despite the Black mans pleas of I cant breathe. The ensuing protests, which turned violent at times, tested the leadership of Gov. Tim Walz at one of the states most consequential moments, and sparking a nationwide reckoning over racism and police misconduct. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted of murder.

open image in gallery George Floyd Teacher Antonio Jenkins paints a mural of George Floyd at the site where he was murdered by a police officer ( Star Tribune )

The legal action, filed last week in Hennepin County District Court, argues that the businesses have lost revenue, real estate value, reputation, and tenant and rental income. It argues that the city's decisions led to higher crime and created a no go zone for police in the area. It replaces an earlier lawsuit by the businesses that was dismissed two months ago.

Michael Healey, the lawyer representing the businesses, told the Star Tribune there are two possible outcomes. The businesses "could conceivably keep the property if a settlement is reached with the city on the diminished value, he said. The other possibility is that the city could begin the process of taking the properties and compensating the owners.

A city spokesperson said in a statement that while it cant comment on pending litigation, the city understands the challenges that residents and businesses have confronted in the wake of George Floyds murder.
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An amateur gold panner was rescued after going missing in a California forest for two days.

The search started on Thursday when the man and his friend started hiking through Plumas National Forest in northern California. One of the hikers became tired and the other went to look for water before the two became separated, according to the Butte County Sheriffs Office.

The man that had been left waited for his friend in the same spot, choosing to spend the night outside. On Saturday, he decided to hike back to their truck, hoping the missing man would be there. Once he got back to the truck and did not see his friend and he called 911 to raise the alarm.

A rescue helicopter was deployed and managed to locate the missing mans campfire on a steep cliff. A joint rescue team from the Butte County Search and Rescue and CalFire were then deployed to save the man.

Following a hike through very thick vegetation, the crew found the missing man and determined he was in good health and without major injury. He was then rescued from the canyon.

The sheriffs office is now using the incident to warn hikers against splitting up from each other.

You should always stay together, surviving as a team is always easier than surviving alone, the office said in a statement. Officials are encouraging hikers to find emergency shelter and stay put if they get lost, in addition to carrying fire-starting materials.
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Fox News host Jesse Watters appeared to say the quiet part out loud as he admitted that he will be asking the Trump administration for special favors.

On Jesse Watters Primetime on Wednesday night, the conservative media pundit and staunch Donald Trump supporter celebrated the president-elects latest picks for jobs in his second term including the controversial choices of Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence and Matt Gaetz for attorney general.

Watters boasted of his ties to some of those headed for the most powerful jobs in government, with his former Fox News colleague Pete Hegseth tapped to become Trumps future defense secretary.

He then went on to suggest that he might seek to use those ties to his advantage.

Trumps picking stars he can trust to catch his back and enact his agenda. And theyre rolling them out fast and fun, Watters said.

The country senses its on the precipice of massive change and were excited.

And Im not just saying that because I know the entire cabinet and that Ill be asking for special favors.

Jesse Watters admitted that he might ask for special favors ( Fox News )

With a brief pause, he added: Probably inappropriate, but it doesnt hurt to ask.

What special favors Watters was alluding to remains unclear.

A new golden age isnt just a slogan, its a promise. Trumps victory and these cabinet picks are raising our expectations because we deserve to have our expectations raised, Watters added.

Just days earlier, Watters complained on his show that his Democrat-voting mom hadnt invited him to Thanksgiving following Vice President Kamala Harriss election loss to Trump.

Since they [the Democrats] cant stop us, were not invited to Thanksgiving, he said on Mondays episode of Jesse Watters Primetime.

People are taking some space in the Watters household. Ill have you know that I wasnt invited to my mothers house for Thanksgiving. Apparently, there wasnt enough room.

He added: She said it was a scheduling situation. And then at the last second invited me to come over on Black Friday. I told her, No thanks, Ill be at Best Buy.

Watterss mother has been known to send her son critical text messages since 2017 in which she urged him to avoid conspiracy rabbit holes.
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Donald Trump has tapped long-time ally Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, prompting concern and disdain among lawmakers and social media users on both sides of the aisle.

Gaetz served as a representative from Florida until he resigned from the House on Wednesday following Trumps announcement. The president-elects nomination of Gaetz comes after the 42-year-old and his associates were at the center of a sex trafficking investigation carried out by current Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Gaetz was ultimately never charged with a crime but remained the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation regarding, among other claims, allegations of sexual misconduct. However, the committees investigation is now over following Gaetzs resignation, which Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said was effective immediately.

Some reports indicate Gaetzs resignation came just two days before the House Ethics Committee was set to release a highly damaging report regarding their probe.

open image in gallery Republicans and Democrats alike are voicing their disdain for Gaetz, who finds himself at the center of a House ethics probe ( AP )

He is a Champion for the Constitution and the Rule of Law, Trump wrote in his announcement. Matt will root out the systemic corruption at DOJ, and return the Department to its true mission of fighting Crime, and upholding our Democracy and Constitution.

Billionaire Elon Musk, a Trump loyalist and co-chair of the president-elects new Department of Government Efficiency, appeared to celebrate the news on X: The hammer of justice is coming.

Senator Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, told The Independent the announcement  released Wednesday afternoon  sounded like a headline in a satire publication. That was in The Onion, Welch said.

Some speculated that Gaetz was put in the post to wreak vengeance on Trumps so-called enemies.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote on Wednesday that Gaetz as AG would undermine confidence in the law, warning: Hes a nominee for those who want the law used for political revenge, and it wont end well.

Ty Cobb, a former Trump White House lawyer, told Politico: Theres no conceivable justification for nominating somebody this smarmy and this offensive for a position of such significance in this democracy other than to have a puppet and somebody who, as Gaetz has demonstrated, will do anything Trump asks.

One Justice Department lawyer told the outlet: Hes there for one purpose: to enact retribution. Im pretty sure he doesnt have a grand vision about the future of the department. I cant imagine how this isnt going to scare people even more.

open image in gallery Fellow Florida Representative Maxwell Frost, a Democrat and the first Gen-Z member of Congress, condemned Gaetz following Donald Trumps announcement ( AP )

Others remarked on the perception of tapping Gaetz to lead the very department that investigated him.

Generally, nominating reputed sex traffickers for the highest law-enforcement job in the land is not a good idea, Marc Short, once the chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, told Politico.

Montana State Representative Zooey Zephyr, a Democrat and LGBTQ-rights activist, also condemned the move.

Matt Gaetz as Attorney General is also unconscionable, given he was under investigation for his role in an underage sex trafficking case, she wrote on X.

Those in Gaetzs party are also reeling from the decision.

Former GOP Representative Joe Walsh of Illinois told The Independent that no one should be surprised by Gaetzs nomination.

F*** em, Walsh said. This is what America voted for.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis also told reporters on Capitol Hill: Im sure itll make for a popcorn-eating confirmation.

I dont think it is a serious nomination for the attorney general, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski told reporters. We need to have a serious attorney general, and Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.

open image in gallery Gaetz is a fully-fledged Trump loyalist ( AP )

But one Republican came to Gaetzs defense.

To every Republican, give Matt a chance, Senator Lindsey Graham said on Hannity on Wednesday. Im telling my Democratic friends, elections have consequences whether you like it or not.

Social media users on both sides of the aisle are also expressing their concerns.

We are not a serious country if the Senate confirms Matt Gaetz to lead the Justice Department, conservative activist and attorney Heath Mayo posted.

Author Ezra Klein offered his analysis of the situation, noting Trumps cabinet appointments appear to be a loyalty test.

Demanding Senate Republicans back Gaetz as attorney general and Hegseth as Defense Secretary is the 2024 version of forcing Sean Spicer to say it was the largest inauguration crowd ever, Klein wrote. These arent just appointments. Theyre loyalty tests. The absurdity is the point.

Others are using humor to cope with the shocking announcement.

I cannot imagine why someone would vote to confirm Matt Gaetz for host at Red Lobster, never mind Attorney General of the United States, Jonah Goldberg, editor of The Dispatch, wrote on X.

Every Trump appointment is like Donald Trump has appointed the Grinch as director of the Department of Christmas, another user posted.

Gaetz played a key role in outsing former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy last year, paving the way for current speaker Mike Johnson to take power.

He has previously said he ousted McCarthy because of concerns he violated the fundamental commitments he made to become Speaker. Meanwhile, McCarthy has accused Gaetz of doing so out of anger about the House ethics probe against him.
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President-elect Donald Trump has tapped former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz to be his next attorney general.

The right-wing political bomb-thrower resigned from Congress on Wednesday, shortly before an Ethics Committee investigation was set to be released into his alleged drug use and sex with a minor, allegations Gaetz has rejected.

Trump was looking for someone who filled all of his requirements for what is likely to become the most important role, behind his own, in the next administration. Gaetz is a loyal supporter and attack dog for the president-elect and like him, has been under federal investigation. The former congressman came out unscathed after a federal sex crime investigation, which he referred to as a product of the deep state.

The former president was attracted to Gaetz as the next AG for these reasons and to the notion that Gaetz would take the lead in targeting the investigators, according to The Bulwark.

The hunters have become the hunted, a person close to Gaetz told the outlet.

Gaetzs aggressive style and vociferous support for Trump has made him somewhat of a pariah in Congress, including with some Republicans. One Trump advisor told the outlet that Gaetzs willingness to go to the mat for Trump and to pick fights within his own party were vital attributes in Trumps selection of him as his nominee for attorney general.

open image in gallery Matt Gaetz speaks at a Donald Trump rally. He has long been a supporter of the former president, which likely helped land him the attorney general nomination ( Reuters )

None of the attorneys had what Trump wants, and they didnt talk like Gaetz, the advisor told The Bulwark. Everyone else looked at AG as if they were applying for a judicial appointment. They talked about their vaunted legal theories and constitutional bulls***. Gaetz was the only one who said, Yeah, Ill go over there and start cuttin f***ing heads.

Florida State Representative Alex Andrade took Gaetzs seat when he was elected to the US Congress in the 2016 election.

Trump likes raw talent and Matt has that in spades. And hes loyal and Trump has been burned, so this is a perfect fit for Trump, he told The Bulwark. After the Deep State failures Trump suffered through, Im surprised he didnt think of this earlier.

Gaetz is a tough son of a b****. Hes my son of a b****, Trump recently told an ally, according to the outlet.

In his statement announcing Gaetz as his pick for attorney general, Trump said the 42-year-old would end Weaponized Government and root out the systemic corruption at DOJ.

On the House Judiciary Committee, which performs oversight of DOJ, Matt played a key role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and exposing alarming and systemic Government Corruption and Weaponization, Trump said.

As far as Trump is concerned, because of the investigations into him after he left office and because of his disappointment in his attorneys general during his first term, the post is seen as the most important cabinet role.

While there has been speculation that Gaetz may have been put up for slaughter, giving Republican senators a nominee to block to give them cover to approve other controversial nominees, Trump is reportedly set on having Gaetz as his attorney general. The former president is said to believe in Gaetzs strategic abilities and both of them have suggested that they may attempt to work around the Senate if confirmation becomes an issue.

To bypass the Senate vote needed for confirmation, Gaetz may go through a recess appointment, allowing Trump to make administration appointments while the upper chamber is not in session.

Bill Clinton made 139 recess appointments during his time in the White House, compared to Barack Obamas 32 and George W Bushs 171, according to the Congressional Research Service.

open image in gallery Advisors close to Trump said that the former president believes Gaetz will do well at his Senate confirmation hearings ( Pool/AFP/Getty )

Advisors close to Trump told The Bulwark that the former president believes Gaetz will do well at his Senate confirmation hearings because of the two-year investigation into whether he paid for sex with a 17-year-old in 2017. Gaetz rejected all the charges and the investigation ended due to a lack of evidence. A House Ethics Committee investigation followed. Gaetz called it Soviet.

Allies of Gaetz say that he resigned from Congress on Wednesday because of his commitment to prepare for his confirmation process. However, his move came as the Ethics Committee was due to vote on releasing its report into Gaetzs actions, which his departure from Congress put an end to. It remains unclear if the panel could still vote to share the report.

The investigation will likely come up if Gaetz appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearings.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine told reporters that she was shocked by the announcement.

This shows why the advice and consent process is so important, she added. And Im sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing. Obviously, the president has the right to nominate whoever he wishes, but Im certain that there will be a lot of questions.

Gaetz appeared confident of his chances, writing on X: It will be an honor to serve as President Trumps Attorney General!

Meanwhile, a DoJ lawyer told The Bulwark regarding the nomination: Holy f****** s***. And, what the f***!
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Matt Gaetz has withdrawn himself from consideration for the role of Donald Trumps attorney general.

The former Florida congressman announced he was ending his bid to head up the Justice Department on Thursday, saying he had become a distraction to the future Trump-Vance administration.

His withdrawal comes following a week of intense scrutiny over resurfaced allegations of wrongdoing, including a federal sex trafficking probe  that ended without charges  and a House ethics inquiry. He vehemently denies the allegations.

I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback - and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition, Gaetz posted on X about his decision to drop out.

There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus Ill be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trumps DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1.

He added: I remain fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful President in history. I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and Im certain he will Save America.

open image in gallery Matt Gaetz has withdrawn as Trumps attorney general pick ( AFP via Getty Images )

Trump said in a statement on Truth Social that he greatly appreciate[d] Gaetzs efforts in seeking approval for attorney general. He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect, Trump said.

When he was nominated on November 13, it sent shockwaves through Congress, where the Senate would have voted on Gaetzs confirmation. Senator Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, told The Independent the announcement sounded like a headline in The Onion, while Republican Senator Thom Tillis told reporters: Im sure itll make for a popcorn-eating confirmation.

In a statement at the time, the president-elect had praised Gaetz, 42, who has frequently defended Trump and criticized the various criminal and congressional probes against the Republican.

On the House Judiciary Committee, which performs oversight of DOJ, Matt played a key role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and exposing alarming and systemic Government Corruption and Weaponization, Trump wrote, calling Gaetz a Champion for the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

Heres what you need to know about Gaetz, who was once dubbed the Trumpiest Congressman in Washington:

Who is Matt Gaetz?

Gaetz, an attorney by trade, was elected to Congress in 2016 to represent Floridas first district, after previously serving in the Florida House. Gaetz is the son of prominent Florida politician Don Gaetz.

Gaetz resigned from Congress on November 13 as soon as Trump made his attorney general announcement.

Matt Gaetz attended William & Mary Law School and is married to Ginger Gaetz, sister of technology entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, founder of the companies Oculus and Anduril, who has funded Republican political causes.

Also within the family is Nestor Galban, Gaetzs ex-girlfriends brother, whom he has raised as a son.

Why was Matt Gaetz investigated?

Gaetz became part of a DOJ federal sex trafficking investigation which was opened in the final months of Trumps administration, targeting a former associate, Joel Greenberg. The pair were part of a group of Florida Republicans described in news reports as attending parties where participants used drugs and paid women for sex.

Among the allegations against Gaetz was that he had paid for sex with a 17-year-old girl  an allegation he has vehemently denied.

In 2021, Greenberg pleaded guilty to federal crimes including sex trafficking of a minor, identity theft, stalking, wire fraud, and conspiracy to bribe a public official, and received an 11-year sentence.

In 2023, the Department of Justice declined to seek charges against the former congressman.

Gaetz was also the subject of a House ethics inquiry, which featured interviews with witnesses from the federal probe, who alleged they attended the parties where Gaetz was with women who were paid by Greenberg.

open image in gallery The federal government did not bring charges against Gaetz in a sex trafficking investigation in Florida ( Getty Images )

The House Ethics Committee was set to release the findings of its years-long probe last week, two days after Gaetzs attorney general nod. His resignation killed the investigation as he no longer fell under the committees jurisdiction.

The committee has been facing calls for the last week, including from several Republicans, to still make its report public. In a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, the committee members voted along party lines  leaving them deadlocked as to what to do with the report. It has still not been publicly shared.

Despite no criminal charges and the ethics committee findings remaining under lock-and-key, in the days following Gaetzs nomination, new details about the allegations against him came to light.

Joel Leppard, a lawyer representing two women who testified in the summer in front of the House Ethics Committee, shared new details about the damning evidence his clients gave.

The attorney said their testimony included claims that one of the women saw Gaetz have sex with the 17-year-old girl, which he vehemently denies.

My client testified to the House Ethics Committee that she witnessed Matt Gaetz having sex with a minor, Leppard told ABC, urging the committee to release the report.

Leppard also told the network that the women testified that Gaetz paid them to cross state lines in January 2018 and have sex with him on at least two occasions.

open image in gallery Matt Gaetz has withdrawn in the running to be Trumps attorney general ( AFP via Getty Images )

A bombshell document from the Justice Department investigation was also leaked, alleging there was a web of payments between the former congressman and friends and associates said to have been with him at drug-fueled sex parties.

The meticulously detailed diagram, obtained by the New York Times, was assembled by federal investigators during the sex-trafficking investigation into Gaetz.

It charts how Gaetz and associates, including convicted sex trafficker Greenberg, allegedly sent thousands of dollars via Venmo to dozens of people who were reportedly involved in the sex parties between 2017 and 2020, according to testimony to federal and congressional investigators, the Times reported.

Prior to his withdrawal, Trumps communications director, Steven Cheung, said: This purposeful leaking of classified investigative materials is the sort of politicized D.O.J. weaponization that Matt Gaetz will end.

The Justice Department investigated Gaetz for years, failed to find a crime and are now leaking material with false information to smear the next attorney general.

Separately, former Trump administration aide Cassidy Hutchinson claimed in a memoir Gaetz groped her on two occasions and tried to make a pass at her at Camp David.

Gaetz has also denied those allegations but claimed the pair had once dated, which Hutchinson denies.

Following a week of intense scrutiny, and new details from the previous investigations into his conduct, Gaetz announced he was withdrawing from consideration for attorny general.

What did Matt Gaetz do in Congress?

During his time as Florida congressman, Gaetz was one of the most bombastic voices in Congress, tearing into Biden administration officials and fellow Republicans with equal ferocity.

In 2019, Gaetz helped lead a group of Republicans in the highly unusual move of storming a closed-door hearing during one of Trumps impeachments.

During committee hearings, Gaetz often slammed witnesses, including an April 2022 hearing in which he berated Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin over allegations the military has gone too woke.

open image in gallery Matt Gaetz helped push out Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker ( Getty Images )

Hes also turned his fire on his own party and was one of the key voices that secured the eventual 2023 ouster of Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

In the House, Gaetz was a frequent critic of the probes into the Trump campaigns ties with Russia, which the Florida rep refers to as the Russia Hoax.

What would Matt Gaetz have done as attorney general?

Despite Trumps claims that Gaetz would have ushered in a new apolitical era at the DOJ, the MAGA loyalist has frequently criticized prosecutors investigating Trump and suggested they face further scrutiny.

Hes called for Fani Wallis, a Georgia official prosecuting Donald Trump for his attempts to overturn the states 2020 election results, to resign and be investigated, after the revelation she had a relationship with a member of her legal team.

In Congress, Gaetz launched a bill to defund the investigation of Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecution of Donald Trump on charges he conspired to overthrow the election results. Trump has said hell fire Smith within two seconds of taking office.

Gaetz also suggesteded he could have gone after Joe Bidens son Hunter, who is currently awaiting sentencing on federal gun and tax charges.

open image in gallery The MAGA Republican has been a vocal critic of prosecutions against Trump, including by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis ( AP )

We could send criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, we go take the White House back, and you never know...it may be an Attorney General Matt Gaetz down the road or someone of my liking who will be there to actually enforce the law and provide the accountability, Gaetz said in a 2023 interview.

What did Matt Gaetz say about January 6 and the 2020 election results?

Gaetz has supported multiple baseless claims about the 2020 election and the January 6 Capitol riot.

The Florida Republican was among those who voted to challenge the certification of the election results, and has said he remains proud of the legitimate arguments about election integrity he and his colleagues made in early 2021, as Trump attempted to remain in power in spite of losing the presidential race.

Gaetz maintained even two years later that Trump won the 2020 election, despite such claims repeatedly being shot down in court.

Gaetz has also leaned into unfounded conspiracy theories about January 6 itself, including claims that there was no insurrection and that federal agents provoked the chaos that occurred at the Capitol.

The MAGA ally reportedly sought pre-emptive pardons from Donald Trump both for his post-2020 election actions and regarding the Florida sex trafficking case.
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Donald Trumps nomination of Matt Gaetz for attorney general has stunned many in the Republican party.

If Trump gets his way, the former Florida representative will become the top law enforcement officer in the United States  a position that the president-elect could utilize to seek revenge on his opponents and enemies.

Gaetz, a Trump loyalist and controversial figure in Congress, was subject to a Justice Department investigation into allegations of sex trafficking. He was ultimately never charged with a crime but remained under a House ethics investigation.

Following his resignation with immediate effect on Wednesday, that House probe has effectively also come to an end as Gaetz is no longer within the chambers jurisdiction.

In addition to the 15 officials Trump will choose to join his cabinet, there are hundreds of positions, including ambassadors and lower-level roles, that typically require Senate approval.

Even though Republicans have clinched a majority in the Senate, given the strong reaction to Gaetzs potential appointment, it is not guaranteed he will be confirmed as attorney general.

open image in gallery Matt Gaetzs nomination as Trumps attorney general is not guaranteed ( AP )

Heres two options for what could happen next...

Gaetz needs to be confirmed by the Senate

Typically, cabinet positions require Senate approval which, given the reaction to his nomination, could leave Gaetz on shaky ground.

Following last weeks elections, Republicans will now hold a majority in the upper chamber with 53 seats when Trump takes office in 2025. This means that Gaetz can only lose three GOP votes to be confirmed by the Senate, assuming Democrats and the two Independents are unanimous in voting against his appointment.

A number of Republicans have spoken out of their shock at his nomination. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she doesnt think Gaetz is a serious nomination for the attorney general, while Senator Susan Collins of Maine told reporters she was shocked by the choice.

Ohio Representative Max Miller went as far as to say that Gaetz has a zero percent shot of getting through the Senate, Politico reported. Another Republican representative, who remained anonymous, told the outlet that the choice is an obvious throwaway nomination that has no chance in the Senate.

open image in gallery Tommy Tuberville has warned Republicans to vote with what Trump wants ( AP )

And North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis said Gaetz has probably got some work cut out for him.

However, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville has threatened to boot party members from the upper chamber if they oppose Gaetzs nomination.

Ive already seen where a couple says, Im not voting for him, the staunch Trump supporter told Fox Business on Wednesday.

This is the last chance were gonna have of saving this country. And if you wanna get in the way, fine. He then warned: But were gonna try to get you out of the Senate, too if you try to do that.

Gaetz faces a grilling during the Senate confirmation process as it typically requires nominees to submit financial disclosures and testify before a committee.

Members from both political parties get a chance to interrogate nominees about their plans for the post and their backgrounds  meaning that the DOJs sex trafficking investigation and House ethics probe will likely crop up.

The Senate committee votes on the nominee following the hearing and if it passes, it then goes to the full Senate for a vote.

2. Gaetz is confirmed by Trump through recess appointment

The Senate approval process ensures there is a check and balance on presidential power, as per the US Constitution.

But there is a mechanism in which Trump could bypass tradition to appoint Gaetz as attorney general without a Senate vote.

Trump has already applied pressure on the next Senate Majority leader to allow him to make recess appointments so he can fast-track positions without Senate approval.

open image in gallery Trump said he wants to push through his nominations via recess appointment ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. )

Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner, Trump wrote in a social media post on X on Sunday before John Thune was confirmed as the next majority leader Wednesday, replacing the outgoing Mitch McConnell.

Recess appointments would allow Trump to make administration appointments without a vote in the Senate while the upper chamber is in recess. The process is not unconstitutional, and it has been done before by other administrations.

Bill Clinton made 139 recess appointments while in the White House, and Barack Obama made 32. George W. Bush made 171, ABC noted, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Thune, who has been vocal in his criticism of Trump previously, said that the Senate will do everything we can to confirm Trumps desired nominees quickly so they can implement his agenda.

We expect a level of cooperation from the Democrats to work with us to get these folks installed, Thune said on Wednesday. Were [going to] explore all options to make sure they get moved and that they get moved quickly.

Which of Trumps picks need Senate confirmation?

Trump hasnt announced all of his Cabinet nominees yet but all 15 typically require Senate confirmation. Cabinet positions are usually approved quickly in the Senate.

Pete Hegseth - Secretary of Defense

open image in gallery Pete Hegseth ( AP )

The Fox and Friends host could oversee a budget of roughly $850bn and roughly 3 million service members and personnel.

Hegseth has been slammed as undoubtedly the least qualified nominee for [defense secretary] in American history. And the most overtly political, Paul Rieckhoff, an Army veteran of the Iraq War and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America said.

He is a former Bear Stearns banker who later served tours with the Army National Guard in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as led veterans-focused advocacy organizations.

Tulsi Gabbard - Director of National Intelligence

open image in gallery Tulsi Gabbard with Trump on the campaign trail ( AFP via Getty Images )

The former Democratic congresswoman turned MAGA loyalist who has promoted conspiracy theories about US involvement in Ukraine will be the next head of the US intelligence community.

Trump said Gabbard, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army National Guard, has fought for our Country and the Freedoms of all Americans for over two decades.

Kristi Noem - Homeland Security

open image in gallery Kristi Noem ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. )

The South Dakota governor has been chosen to head up one of the biggest government agencies that will be integral to Trumps vow to secure the border and carry out a massive deportation operation.

She was vilified this year for a story she told in her book about killing her 14-month-old wirehaired pointer named Cricket.

Marco Rubio

open image in gallery Marco Rubio ( AP )

Rubio has been a prominent Republican member of Congress and made an unsuccessful bid for White House in 2016 against Trump.

Despite losing, he still maintained a strong presence and was reportedly a contendor to be Trumps running mate this year.

John Ratcliffe - CIA director

open image in gallery John Ratcliffe ( Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. )

Trumps former director of national intelligence will be head of the CIA if approved.

Prior to serving in the Trump administration, Ratcliffe was a Republican congressman for Texas, serving on the House intelligence, judiciary, and homeland security committees.

Elise Stefanik - US ambassador to the United Nations

open image in gallery Elise Stefanik ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. )

The representative from New York is one of Trumps staunchest defenders going back to his first impeachment.

Stefaniks questioning of university presidents over antisemitism on their campuses helped lead to two of those presidents resigning, further raising her national profile.

If confirmed, she would represent American interests at the UN as Trump vows to end the war waged by Russia against Ukraine.

Lee Zeldin - Environmental Protection Agency

open image in gallery Lee Zeldin ( (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) )

Zeldin does not appear to have any experience in environmental issues, but is a longtime supporter of the former president.

During his time in Congress he frequently voted against environmental-friendly bills.

And who doesnt need Senate confirmation

There are certain roles that do not require approval from the Senate.

Susie Wiles - White House Chief of Staff

open image in gallery Susie Wiles ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. )

Trumps Ice Maiden turned chief of staff was the first person he confirmed to join him in his second term.

Wiles, who also helped Trump win in 2016, was the 2024 Trump campaigns de facto manager and steered him to victory for a second time.

Stephen Miller - Deputy chief of staff for policy

open image in gallery Stephen Miller ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved )

Miller is an immigration hardliner and was a vocal spokesperson during the presidential campaign for Trumps priority of mass deportations.

He was a senior adviser during Trumps first administration. He has been a central figure in some of Trumps policy decisions, notably his move to separate thousands of immigrant families and he helped craft the Trump administrations travel ban from majority-Muslim countries.

Tom Homan - Border Czar

open image in gallery Tom Homan ( Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. )

Homan, 62, has been tasked with Trumps top priority of carrying out the largest deportation operation in the nations history.

Homan, who served under Trump in his first administration leading US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was widely expected to be offered a position related to the border, an issue Trump made central to his campaign.

Mike Waltz - National Security adviser

open image in gallery Mike Waltz ( Getty Images for Concordia Summi )

Waltz will counsel Trump on various threats to the US. A former Green Beret and policy adviser to Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, he is known for advocating a tougher position towards Iran and China, a country which he argues is locked in a new Cold War with the US.

In 2023, Waltz introduced a bill calling for more US cooperation with Indo-Pacific nations to counter Chinese and other malign influences in the Asia-Pacific region.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy - Department of Government Efficiency

open image in gallery Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy ( AFP via Getty Images )

Department heads have to be confirmed by the Senate, but with the creation of a new DOGE department  which will operate outside of government  the process is currently unknown.

Trump vowed that Musk and Ramaswamy will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.
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Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville has already fired warning shots at any Republicans who might vote against Matt Gaetz becoming Donald Trumps incoming attorney general.

Speaking to Fox Business on Wednesday after the president-elect announced his controversial decision, the Alabama senator threatened to boot party members from the upper chamber if they oppose the former Florida representatives nomination.

I dont know, youre finding all the swamp creatures coming out right now, Tuberville said of those sharing their disdain over Gaetzs prospective role.

Ive already seen where a couple says, Im not voting for him.

Tuberville, 70, a staunch Trump supporter who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, continued: Wait a minute. You are not the United States of America. You have one vote in the US Senate. You did not get elected the president. Vote with President Trump.

This is the last chance were gonna have of saving this country. And if you wanna get in the way, fine.

He then warned: But were gonna try to get you out of the Senate, too if you try to do that.

Alarm bells rang for a swathe of congressional Republicans on Wednesday when Trump announced he had picked Gaetz to become the nations top law enforcement officer, and head up the Department of Justice.

open image in gallery Tommy Tuberville warns Republicans not to oppose Matt Gaetzs nomination ( Fox Business/X )

The 42-year-old conservative firebrand has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice, the president-elect said in a statement on Truth Social.

It will be an honor to serve as President Trumps Attorney General! Gaetz responded on X.

GOP Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were among the GOP members quick to speak out against his choice.

I was shocked by the announcement  that shows why the advise-and-consent process is so important, said Collins.

Im sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing.

Murkowski told reporters: We need a serious attorney general. Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.

Texas Senator John Cornyn said he is trying to absorb all this.

I dont really know him, other than his public persona, he addded.

A simple majority vote in the Senate would need to ratify Gaetzs nomination, meaning it would take the opposition of just three GOP lawmakers to possibly deadlock the chamber.

Gaetz, who resigned from the House on Wednesday hours after the announcement, is among Trumps most prominent allies in Washington.

open image in gallery Gaetz speaks at a campaign rally for Trump in Henderson, Nevada, on October 31. He has been one of Trumps staunchest allies ( REUTERS )

If appointed, Gaetz will follow current Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose Justice Department carried out a sex trafficking investigation into Gaetz and his associates.

Gaetz was ultimately never charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing.

However, he remains the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation into sexual misconduct and drug use, among other allegations.

The committee was reportedly due to release the findings of its probe in just two days, and the findings are said to be highly damaging, according to reports.

Gaetzs resignation has effectively ended the probe as he is no longer under the House committees jurisdiction.
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Former and incoming first lady Melania Trump is selling a digital photo collection on her website ahead of the holiday season.

The set is called On the Move and shows different parts of President-Elect Donald Trumps wife in a variety of settings. From her office and the campaign trail to her home, a description on the website states. The photos were taken by Belgian photographer Regine Mahaux and offer a poignant glimpse into her fast-moving life.

The sets are selling for $195 apiece. They come with 16 exclusive digital images, Melania Trumps office said in a statement about the product. One photo shows the Slovenian-born former model standing in front of a jet with a landing strip reading MELANIA and holding black sunglasses in her left hand.

I am pleased to share my journey  through photographs  with fans and collectors, the 54-year-old said. A portion of the proceeds will go toward the incoming first ladys Fostering the Future campaign, according to Fox News. The initiative is part of her Be Best campaign, which helps to secure educational opportunities and scholarships for children in foster care.

The former first lady launched the Be Best initiative while in office to combat cyberbullying. She faced some mockery for the project as critics pointed out her husbands habit of publicly making fun of his opponents online.

open image in gallery Melania Trump promoting her digital photo collection On the Move on X ( Regine Mahaux/Melania Trump/X )

The former first lady  who will take up the role again on January 20 when her husband is sworn in as the 47th president  released her eponymous memoir last month called Melania. Shes previously sold American-themed nonfungible tokens, digital watercolor art and jewelry.

Her husband has made merchandise a key business venture when it comes to connecting with his supporters. The president-elect sells sneakers, hats, books, keychains and flags on his website. Most products range from $16 to $200.

Hes already capitalizing on his election win by selling apparel reading 45 and 47 to correspond with his presidential terms. Those products, which include a mug, shirts and sweatshirts, range from $28 to $195.

open image in gallery A screenshot of one of Trumps watches selling for $100,000 ( gettrumpwatches.com )

The former president has come under recent fire for selling $100,000 Swiss-made watches. Upon their release in September, Trump wrote on Truth Social: Would make a great Christmas Gift. Dont wait, they will go fast. GET YOUR TRUMP WATCH RIGHT NOW!

An address for the watchmaker linked back to a Wyoming strip mall next to an H&R Block and a Wendys, according to a CNN report, revealing they might not be Swiss-made after all.

Its unclear if Melania Trump plans to return to the White House. Sources have told various media outlets that its unlikely shell return full-time, but she will attend high-profile ceremonial events like state dinners. She stood by her husbands side on election day and held his hand following his victory.

open image in gallery Donald Trump released a series of digital trading cards, including one of himself in what appears to be a knock-off Ironman suit ( Screenshot / Truth Social / CollectTrumpCards )

She was not present at the White House when her husband held a meeting with President Joe Biden. In a statement, her office said she would not be attending todays meeting at the White House. Her husbands return to the Oval Office to commence the transition process is encouraging.

open image in gallery Donald and Melania Trump on the day of his first inauguration, January 20 2017, with their outgoing predecessors, Barack and Michelle Obama ( Getty Images )

Its customary for the current president and first lady to host the president-elect and his wife at the White House before move-in day in January. That courtesy was not extended to Biden or his wife, Dr Jill Biden, when they won in 2020. Melania Trump did meet with Michelle Obama in the Yellow Oval Room following her husbands first win.

Dr Biden is reported to have given the president-elect a handwritten note for his wife in case she wanted to reach out.
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Rates of routine vaccinations among children are dropping, the percentage of children who are exempted from vaccine requirements is at an all-time high and cases of measles are being reported across the country.

And it could soon get worse.

Doctors and public health officials are bracing for a future under president-elect Donald Trumps and his administration. On November 14, Trump nominated Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among other health agencies.

Kennedy, the former independent presidential candidate who bowed out of the race to endorse Trump, does not have a medical background, but his anti-vaccine Childrens Health Defense group and focus on chronic disease and chemicals in food  and promotion of misinformation and conspiracy theories  have drawn him enormous scrutiny and endorsements.

The Republican president-elect has said he wants Kennedy to let him go wild on health and on the food and the medicines.

Trump said he would make a decision about whether to ban vaccines based on Kennedys recommendations, though he would not have unilateral authority to do so. Kennedy said that he is not going to take them away and that people ought to have choice, and that choice ought to be informed by the best information.

open image in gallery Some doctors are warning of an increased risk of disease outbreaks due to misinformation about vaccines spread by RFK Jr - who was named as nominee to oversee the Department of Health and Human Services ( Getty Images )

Pediatricians and public health experts have been sounding the alarm over their grave concerns for the possibility that a vaccine antagonist could be in a massively influential position to cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of life-saving medicine, and potentially accelerate a trend of parents rejecting vaccinations for their children.

I have watched a child die in the hospital of a vaccine-preventable illness because her parents refused to vaccinate her, Dr. Catherine Ohmstede, a pediatrician at Novant Health in Charlotte, North Carolina, told NBC News. Many parents today have not witnessed that  yet  If this trend continues, that is the reality we are going to face.

Doctors have warned Trumps campaign about impacts on the party and the country of coming across as anti-science, and of having to manage and own a deluge of measles and polio outbreaks, according to Trumps former surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams.

Adams told CNN that Kennedy could spread misinformation and take us back to the dark ages in regards to vaccine-preventable diseases.

open image in gallery Kennedy has become a key backer for Trump, and the president-elect has pushed the idea of RFK Jr in a key role in his administration ( REUTERS )

Routine childhood vaccines  which have for decades fought against measles, chickenpox, polio and other illnesses  have prevented roughly 508 million illnesses and more than 1.1 million deaths among children born within the past 30 years, according to an August report from the CDC.

Last month, the agency reported that the percentage of children with exemption from vaccine requirements ticked up to 3.3 percent  up from 3 percent in 2023, marking an all-time high since such requirements have been in place.

At least 15 measles outbreaks totaling 272 cases have been reported this year, as of November 1, according to the CDC. More than half of those cases were among children under age 5, and another quarter were among children ages 5 to 19. Nearly 90 percent of those patients were unvaccinated.

Putting Kennedy in a role that oversees those cases is a potential catastrophe waiting to unfold, according to Dr. Kavita Patel, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and a board certified internal medicine physician who served as director of policy for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement in the White House under President Barack Obama.

Imagine, if you will, giving the keys to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions data vaults to someone who has spent years spreading misinformation about vaccines, she wrote. Its like asking a flat-earther to pilot our next mission to space.

This story was originally published on November 6 and has been updated with developments
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Rudy Giulianis lawyers have abruptly quit representing him in his defamation case after attorneys for the women he defamed accused the disgraced former New York City mayor of hiding property he has been ordered to turn over.

Giulianis lead counsel Kenneth Caruso and attorney David Labkowski filed a motion in federal court in New York on Wednesday citing several reasons for their withdrawal, pointing to a fundamental disagreement with Donald Trumps former attorney.

His spokesperson Ted Goodman told The Independent that he has not been informed by Mr. Caruso of this action.

Surely Mr. Caruso would talk to the mayor, or at the very least inform him, of such a decision, he said.

The attorneys invoked a New York rule that allows attorneys to withdraw when a client insists upon taking action with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement or when a client insists upon presenting a claim or defense that is not warranted under existing law and cannot be supported by good faith argument, or when the client fails to cooperate in the representation or otherwise renders the representation unreasonably difficult for the lawyer to carry out employment effectively.

Their notice arrived just hours after attorneys for the women  a pair of election workers who faced abuse and harassment after Giuliani falsely accused them of manipulating results in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election  told the court that they received instructions for collecting the property.

But those documents contained concerning facts that suggest Giuliani has been moving and hiding his assets to avoid, or delay, handing over his property, while relying on an associate to pay off debts on his behalf, attorneys said.

A court sketch depicts Rudy Giuliani with his lawyer Kenneth Caruso in federal court on November 7 after the former New York City mayor failed to surrender valuables to Georgia election workers he defamed. Caruso announced he was quitting his client a week later ( REUTERS )

Last week, District Judge Lewis Liman ordered Giuliani to adhere to court-ordered deadlines for turning over a long list of property or risk severe sanctions, including contempt of court.

Giuliani later issued a plea for cash, raging against the womens attorneys and claiming that he cannot afford to buy food.

They have seized all my money, which wasnt much. I need legal representation against these evil people. I cant buy food, he said.

After a jury ordered Giuliani to pay Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss nearly $150 million at the conclusion of a defamation case last year, Giuliani filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, a case that has since been dismissed.

The end of his bankruptcy proceedings reopened the mountain of litigation against him, allowing the women to press the courts to begin collecting on what they are owed.

Judge Liman ordered Giuliani to transfer his $5.6m Madison Avenue penthouse, cash, 26 watches, and a Mercedes Benz that was allegedly previously owned by Lauren Bacall, among other valuables.

After he was ordered to appear in person at a status conference in a federal courtroom in Manhattan last week, Giuliani told reporters outside the building that he had no regrets about defaming the two women before quickly correcting himself to say that he did not believe he ever defamed them.

Mr Trump doesnt have to help me get out of this, he said as he stepped into a car. All Mr Trump has to do is straighten out the legal system, and youll find out who the real criminals are.
 Close Related video: Jake Tapper shares five words he never contemplated using to describe Trumps cabinet pick

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Donald Trump has returned to Madison Square Garden tonight to attend an Ultimate Fighting Championship event at the New York City arena.

The president-elect returned to the famed venue just weeks after his controversial campaign rally there. Attendees met him with thundering cheers as he entered alongside UFC CEO Dana White, billionaire ally Elon Musk, cabinet pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. Popular podcaster Joe Rogan also attended, greeted Trump with a friendly handshake.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to fill key posts in his second administration and tonight named fracking CEO Chris Wright as his choice for energy secretary.

Wright, CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, is a vocal advocate of oil and gas development and one of the industrys loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change.

Trump's transition team is also firefighting serious allegations surrounding Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Pete Hegseth for defense secretary.

A woman who gave testimony to the House Ethics Committee probing Gaetz claims that she witnessed him having sex with a minor, her lawyer told ABC. Gaetz denies all wrongdoing.

The president-elect's transition team is also reportedly "stunned" by a sexual assault allegation regarding Hegseth that only emerged within 48 hours of announcing him for the top defense job, CNN reports. He denied all the accusations.
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Senate and House Republicans wanted to use Wednesday to celebrate President-elect Donald Trumps return to power. He visited House Republicans, which in many ways is his base of support in Washington.

By the same token, he visited the White House to meet with President Joe Biden. Meanwhile, even though MAGA allies didnt get their choice of Senate majority leader in Rick Scott, newly-minted Republican leader John Thune will almost never deviate from Trump and will be a much better ally than Mitch McConnell.

Listen, Donald Trump just won the popular vote for the first time as a Republican in 20 years, and we haven't done that since 2004, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri told The Independent. So that's kind of a big deal. The Republicans have an obligation now to deliver.

And Trump wasted absolutely zero time seeing how far they would deliver. After reports in the press, Trump made it official when he announced that Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Rubio should have a relatively easy confirmation. Senators tend to be deferential to each other and even when they come from other parties, vote for nominees who come from the Club of 100.

Then, Trump lobbed a grenade when he announced his intention to nominate former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat-turned-Republican who has falsely claimed that the United States funded biolabs in Ukraine. She also met with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad even as he has been accused of committing war crimes against his own people.

That alone might give some Republicans pause.

I don't know enough about her background to have an opinion, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told The Independent. But then again, some like Senator Rand Paul told The Independent that he was Very Excited, very supportive, calling him a big fan of Tulsi Gabbard.

But that only set them up for Trump dropping a tactical nuke when he announced his nomination of Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida to be attorney general.

To say that Gaetzs popularity with the Republican base is inversely correlated with the level that Republicans on Capitol Hill loathe him would be to understate how much Gaetz repulses Republicans. This is to say nothing about the fact that Gaetz remains under investigation by the House Ethics Committee into whether he had sex with an underage girl.

Nominating Gaetz came out of nowhere for Republicans.

Collins for her part said that she was shocked by the nomination. Senator John Cornyn of Texas barely had time to get over losing the leadership race to Thune when he learned about Gaetz.

 I don't know the man, other than sort of this public persona, he told The Independent. Senator Katie Britt of Alabama told The Independent, I got nothing for you on that one.

Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who has clashed with Gaetz in the past, said he would be in wait-and-see mode with the Florida Republican.

I'm sure it'll make for a popcorn-eating confirmation hearing, he told reporters. You got to have the credentials, right? So that'll come out in the in the hearing, but then you have to have the relationships.

Tillis is up for re-election in 2026 and is perhaps the most vulnerable Republican incumbent senator. Democrats would likely bludgeon him for a vote to confirm Gaetz, especially since Tillis sits on the Judiciary Committee and will question Gaetz during his hearing.

There is something deeper at play here: the vote for Gabbard and Gaetz will also be the ultimate test of loyalty for Republicans. Neither have the credentials and in many ways could compromise and damage the very institutions that they will be charged with leading.

Hawley is correct that Trump won the popular vote, something no GOP presidential candidate has achieved since George W Bush won his re-election in 2004. That gives Trump significant leverage and the ability to wield his base to bend Republicans to his will lest they deviate from his desires.

Trumps nomination of Gaetz is essentially a dare to cross him and the MAGA faithful. But it might be one that puts them in political peril.
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President-elect Donald Trumps pick to be the director of national intelligence has stunned the intelligence community shes set to lead.

Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii until 2021 and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, has no formal intelligence experience and she has claimed that shes on a terror watchlist.

Gabbard announced at a Trump rally last month that she was joining the Republican Party and in September, she said in a video shared on X that she and her husband had been flagged as a domestic terror threat in July which she blamed on her rightward shift.

Just before boarding a flight on July 23, my husband and I were pulled aside for additional TSA screening, Gabbard said. We were told by the TSA agent there that this was just a random selection. Now, that might have been believable if it had happened just once or twice. But five, six, seven, eight times in a row? Theres no way.

Federal air marshal whistleblowers came forward with very disturbing information, she claimed. They revealed that I had been added to a secret terror watchlist run by the TSA called Quiet Skies on July 23. This is the very same day my husband and I began to be subjected to those in-depth TSA searches.

Gabbard went on to claim that she had been targeted because of her criticism of Vice President Kamala Harris.

The TSA placed me on the Quiet Skies domestic terror watchlist in what I can only describe as the ultimate betrayal, she said.

Tulsi Gabbard takes the stage during a Trump campaign rally at Lancaster Airport on November 3, 2024, in Lititz, Pennsylvania. She has been nominated to serve as the Director of National Intelligence ( Getty Images )

The Harris-Biden regime has now labeled me a domestic terror threat. Why? They see me as a threat to their power, she claimed.

The former congresswoman has regularly criticized American wars and has faced scrutiny for her apparently favorable views of authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin of Russia and Bashar Al-Assad of Syria.

A former intelligence official told Politico that the choice was a left turn and off the bridge. But some were relieved that Trump didnt nominate his former Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, who also served as acting DNI during Trumps first stint in the White House.

Gabbard looks set to face difficult Senate confirmation hearings, particularly because from members of her former party, with her foreign policy views out of the mainstream of both parties.

Just after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, she shared a video on X in which she said the Russians, Ukrainians, and Americans should put geopolitics to the side. She subsequently argued that the war could have been avoided if the West had issued a guarantee that Ukraine would never be allowed to join NATO.

Gabbard has dabbled in conspiracy theories about the US involvement in Ukraine, including saying that Ukraine wasnt worth protecting because it isnt actually a democracy and appearing to echo Russian claims that US-funded biolabs in the country might be developing chemical or biological weapons. She later clarified that she did not believe the labs were developing weapons but was concerned about dangerous pathogens being released from the labs during the war. In the meantime, Republican senator and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney accused her of spreading treasonous lies, something she angrily denied.

The claims about Ukraine had appeared similar to suggestions made in Russian propaganda efforts, which baselessly argued that the US was funding the labs in Ukraine to make illegal bio weapons for use against the Russians.

During her time in Congress in 2017, she went on a secret trip to see Al-Assad, later stating that hes not an enemy of the US.

After serving 17 years in the Hawaii National Guard, Gabbard joined an Army reserve unit. She has said that the experiences of deploying to the Horn of Africa, Kuwait, and Iraq made her skeptical of US interventions.

A Western intelligence official shared their concern with the choice of Gabbard with Politico, saying that it may prompt US allies to decrease the amount of information they share with the US.

I imagine even Israel will have serious qualms  Americas main intelligence partner on terrorist threats, the official told the outlet. Worse still, what some allies share may now be shaped by political goals rather than professional intelligence sharing.

The office of the Director of National Intelligence was created after the 9/11 2001 terror attacks and is tasked with coordinating intelligence efforts across the US government and around the world.

In his statement announcing Gabbard as his pick for the role, Trump said that she has fought for our Country and the Freedoms of all Americans for over two decades.

I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength. Tulsi will make us all proud! he added.

Gabbard, who was one of the only Democratic House members not to vote to impeach Trump in 2019 for abusing power and obstructing Congress, said on X that she was grateful to Trump for the opportunity to serve as a member of your cabinet to defend the safety, security and freedom of the American people.
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Greece is in talks with Israel to develop a two billion euro anti-aircraft and missile defence dome, part of a wider push to modernise its armed forces, Greek officials said on Thursday.

The defences would likely mimic Israels Iron Dome and other systems that intercept short- and long-range missiles launched during strikes from its neighbours amid the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.

Greece is keen to invest in its defences to keep up with its NATO ally and historic rival Turkey, which is also developing its own air defences, despite some improvement in relations.

The plan is to create a multi-layer anti-aircraft and anti-drone system, one source with knowledge of the issue told Reuters after a closed door briefing with Greek Defence Minister Nikos Dendias.

We are in discussions with Israel, the source said.

A second official confirmed the scale of the potential deal, adding that Greece needs to spend 12.8 billion euros by 2035 to modernise its armed forces.

open image in gallery Firefighters, soldiers and local residents carry a hose as a wildfire burns in the town of Rafina, near Athens, Greece ( Reuters )

The air defences are part of Athens 10-year military purchasing plan that includes acquiring up to 40 new F-35 fighter jets and drones from the U.S., and four Belharra frigates and Rafale jets from France.

Our effort is for a quick transition of our armed forces to the 21st century, Defence Minister Dendias said before the Thursday briefing.

Greece currently uses U.S. Patriot and old Russian S-300 systems to protect its airspace.

Despite some thaw in Greeces long-troubled relations with Turkey, its much larger eastern neighbour, the two countries remain at odds on a range of issues including sea boundaries, energy resources and airspace in the eastern Mediterranean.

In May this year Turkey suspended all imports and exports to Israel citing the countrys ongoing military action in Gaza and vowed to continue to impose other measures until the Israeli government allows the flow of humanitarian aid to the region.

A Turkish Trade Ministry statement said at the time export and import transactions in relation to Israel have been stopped, covering all products.

Turkish officials would coordinate with Palestinian authorities to ensure that Palestinians are not affected by the suspension of imports and exports, the ministry said.
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Police across Europe arrested 43 people and seized 520 million euros in a European investigation into a criminal conspiracy to evade VAT through money laundering and mafia activity, the European public prosecutors office (EPPO) and Italian police said on Thursday.

They said the investigation concerns tax fraud in the trading of IT products and electronic devices within the EU and involves around 400 companies with 200 suspects, mainly in Italy and several European countries, but also in the United Arab Emirates.

According to European prosecutors, those arrested are also facing charges of facilitating the Naples-based mafia Camorra and the Sicilian Cosa Nostra by investing their profits in VAT fraud.

Many investigations in Italy have shown in recent years how mobsters have moved aggressively into the low-risk, low-key world of white-collar crime.

It has been a while since we started to ring the alarm bell about dangerous organised crime groups heavy involvement in fraud to the EU budget, European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kavesi said in a statement.

We now shed light on a first such big case, she said, adding there was no division between the world of the really bad and dangerous criminals smuggling drugs, trafficking people on one side; and the world of white-collar criminals, merely corrupting and laundering money, on the other side.

open image in gallery Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti congratulated the police authorities and prosecutors in a statement on his X profile ( LaPresse )

Of those arrested, 34 are being held in prison, nine under house arrest, while four others have been banned from working. Some of the arrests were made in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain and Bulgaria, EPPO said in a statement.

Guardia di Finanza police said they found false invoices by the companies involved amounting to 1.3 billion euros from 2020 to 2023.

In addition to the money, the financial police said they also seized real estate complexes on the Sicilian and Ligurian Rivieras, on Lake Como and in Milan.

More than 160 searches were carried out throughout Italy and further searches and seizures were made in Spain, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and the Netherlands, as well as in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, Eppo said.
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Thousands of Spaniards evacuated ahead of a fresh deluge of rain have been told not to return home as swollen riverbanks threaten to overflow.

Local authorities had issued severe rain alerts in Andalusia and Valencia and referenced further storms in the provinces of Huelva, Cadiz, Seville and Alicante on Wednesday night into Thursday.

While a number of those weather warnings were downgraded across Thursday, emergency services in Malaga kept almost 4,000 people who were evacuated because of a flood risk out of their homes from rising river waters. Schools also stayed closed in the province and in different towns in Granada, Sevilla, Cadiz and Huelva. Half a million children in total stayed away from Andalusian schools on Wednesday.

More than a months worth of rain fell in some areas Wednesday just two weeks after the worst floods in the countrys modern history killed around 220 people and destroyed thousands of homes, particularly around Valencia.

According to data from the Spanish state weather forecaster Aemet, the highest rainfall recorded overnight included 110mm in Alcudia de Veo, 99mm in Suera, and 88mm in Chiva. By comparison, Malaga usually averages 100.5mm of rain for the entire month of November.

open image in gallery People clean a flooded supermarket in Spain ( EPA )

Andalusias regional head, Juan Moreno, of the conservative Peoples Party (PP) said the Guadiaro river was just 6cm away from overflowing. He cautioned that normal conditions are not in place, despite the downgraded weather warnings.

We continue to monitor [the storms] progress in all provinces. Caution until the end, he said in a post on X (Twitter).

While Aemet removed all red alerts on Thursday as the storm system moved west, orange alerts remain for western Andalusia, including the popular city of Seville, where up to 30mm of rain is expected.

Red warnings have been deactivated in the provinces of Malaga and Valencia, Aemet said in a statement on Thursday morning. It continued: Orange warnings [significant danger] remain active due to very heavy rain in areas of the provinces of Huelva, Cadiz, Seville, Alicante and Valencia.

In Seville, schools and universities remained closed. Mayor Jose Luis Sanz assured residents that the city is prepared, with nearly 1,900 troops on standby to assist if needed.

open image in gallery A woman takes a break during the street cleaning operation in the flood-hit municipality of Paiporta ( EPA )

In Malaga, flooding on Wednesday forced the main hospital to halt services as water swept through corridors. Major roads and the high-speed rail link with Madrid were also closed.

The emergency committee in Valencia, where there were concerns about the potential impact of more rainfall in areas with significant quantities of mud already and damaged sewage systems, said the areas affected by the deadly storms were not hit this time.

The city council announced Thursday that classes would resume on Friday in most schools within the city and surrounding areas, with exceptions for schools in La Torre and Forn de Alcedo. Residents were encouraged to use public transport, bicycles or walk. It also lifted a ban on the use of private cars.

High-speed trains between Madrid and Valencia, suspended since the 29 October storm and flooding, were expected to resume Thursday afternoon, and the train connection between Valencia and Barcelona also started running again, the transport ministry said.

Spanish authorities also shared the first detailed breakdown of the fatalities from the Valencia floods two weeks ago. A data protection centre called the CID, established after last months catastrophic flooding along Spains eastern coast, reported that of the 216 fatalities confirmed so far, 131 were men and 85 were women.

open image in gallery Protests over the weekend about the floods ( AP )

Of the deceased, 190 were Spanish nationals. The remaining 26 represented 11 other nationalities: nine Romanians, four Moroccans, four Chinese nationals, two British citizens and one each from Ecuador, Venezuela, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Tunisia, Colombia, and Paraguay. The number of victims aged 70 or older currently stands at 104.

The latest storms, and robust preparations for their arrival, come after fierce criticism towards the national and regional governments for their preparedness and reaction to the floods two weeks ago.

Mounting public anger is being directed at regional president Carlos Mazon after it emerged he was at a long lunch until about 6pm, by which time the town of Utiel was already flooded and the national weather service, Aemet, had issued a red alert. His governments emergency meeting had started an hour earlier, at 5pm.

Growing public anger came to a head on Saturday when 130,000 people took to the streets of Valencia and called for Mr Mazons resignation. Photos of the protest showed signs saying: Our hands are stained with mud, yours with blood.

During a visit to Valencia in the immediate aftermath of the floods, King Felipe VI, prime minister Pedro Sanchez, and Mr Mazon encountered furious locals in the town of Paiporta and were hurled with mud and insults, expressing their anger over what they perceived as inadequate government support.

Reuters contributed to this report
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Ukraine says it has full control of a key city in the northeast of the country, after Russian troops  some disguised as Ukrainian soldiers  were said to have briefly breach its outskirts.

The Ukrainian militarys general staff wrote on the Telegram messenger app that the alleged presence of Russian troops in the city of Kupiansk is not true.

The comments came after it was reported that Russian troops had, in fact, entered the city in the Kharkiv region on Wednesday for the first time since they fled in September 2022. The city is an important railway hub with a pre-war population of 26,000.

The city, now just 1.5 miles from the front line, has been under constant shelling and the population has dwindled to just 3,000 people, who have been urged to evacuate, the head of the Kupyansk City Military Administration, Andriy Besedin, told Reuters.

Russian troops took the city in the early days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 but were pushed out during a sweeping Ukrainian counteroffensive seven months later, which is still regarded as one of Kyivs greatest military successes of the nearly three-year conflict.

open image in gallery Elderly women receive their possessions after being evacuated from Kupiansk, at a distribution center for internally displaced persons, in Kharkiv, Ukraine ( AP )

On Wednesday, Moscows forces, including soldiers disguised as Ukrainian troops, attacked in four waves but were repelled from the city, Ukraines general staff said.

They partially entered the suburbs, the industrial zone, and were destroyed by our troops, Mr Besedin said.

There were assault actions using heavy armoured vehicles, there were attempts to bring in infantry.

A map updated daily by Ukrainian war monitor DeepState, known to have close ties to the defence ministry, appears to corroborate these claims.

It shows the entire city under Ukrainian control with Russian forces pushing towards its northern outskirts.

Russias military has not commented on the Kupiansk front, but Vitaly Ganchev, a Moscow-installed official, said Russian forces were gaining a foothold on Kupiansks outskirts.

Ukraines outnumbered troops have been losing ground in the east for months, while trying to hold the line against what Kyiv says is a 50,000-strong force in Russias Kursk region nearby. Ukraine says Russia also plans to launch a push in the southeast soon.

The Kupiansk thrust, involving 15 pieces of hardware such as tanks and armoured combat vehicles, according to Ukraines general staff, was an attempt to expand offensive operations on a sprawling more-than-800-mile front, president Volodymyr Zelensky said.

The Russian attack looked opportunistic and Kyiv appeared to have isolated and destroyed most of the Russian forces that penetrated the outskirts of Kupiansk, Pasi Paroinen, a military analyst with the Black Bird Group, said.

However, a penetration like that certainly signals confusion and weakness in Ukrainian defences in that area, which could prompt the local Russian commanders to increase their efforts to squeeze or cut off the Ukrainian salient, he added.

He said the coming days would likely indicate whether the Kremlin were going to react to this by ramping up their attacks there.

Russian attacks in Kupiansk, as well as the counterattack in Kursk and sweeping advances in the eastern Donetsk region along multiple fronts, were already of significant concern to Ukraine and its backers.

But US president-elect Donald Trumps comprehensive victory last week has brought into sharp relief the cost of territorial losses as his advisors confirmed the incoming leader is intent on ending the war, possibly by demanding a freeze of the frontline.

Michael Waltz, Mr Trumps nominee for the White Houses national security advisor, told Voice of America after a meeting with the president-elect: The president clearly expressed that he wishes to bring both sides to the negotiating table. He is focused on ending the war, not its continuation.

But both Russian officials and Ukrainian lawmakers appear opposed to the idea of a frozen frontline.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov described the prospect of a ceasefire as even worse than previous agreements in 2014 and 2015, which temporarily put a halt to fighting after Moscows initial invasion of Ukraine a decade ago.

Kira Rudik, meanwhile, a Ukrainian opposition leader, said if Ukraine stopped fighting, it would be overrun by Russia.

If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no Ukraine, she wrote on X, formerly Twitter. If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war.
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After months spent occupying a swathe of territory in Russia in the wake of a daring summer assault, Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Ukraine is now engaged against a force of 50,000 troops amassed by Vladimir Putin in the border Kursk region.

The Ukrainian incursion was the largest on Russian soil since the Second World War and succeeded in taking Moscow  and even Kyivs closest allies  by surprise.

But despite Ukrainian troops success in bedding into positions deep into Kursk, the offensive received a mixed reaction from analysts, with some questioning the wisdom of drawing vital defensive power away from the fight in Ukraines eastern Donbas region, where Mr Putins forces have been making steady, grinding gains for months.

With top Ukrainian officials revealing to The Independent in August that they viewed the Kursk offensive as a vital psychological tool to force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, Kyivs forces have succeeded in holding out in Kursk far longer than some analysts initially expected.

However, Moscow is now pushing to retake the territory. Following reports that thousands of North Korean troops have been stationed in Kursk, Ukraines military has claimed that Russia has suffered two consecutive days of record losses  suggesting the fight is gaining a new intensity.

Andrew Perpetua, who tracks Russian losses on the front line, told The Independent that he has already seen missing-in-action reports for the Kursk attack this week being published by families. Usually, he said, this would take two to three weeks.

While the reasons for this sudden speed are not certain, he suggested, it could be that so many died that the chances of finding this low probability event went up.

For historian Mark Galeotti, author of Forged in War: A Military History of Russia, reports of increased Russian losses reflect not just an escalation in fighting, but illustrate the degree to which Moscow is willing to take casualties  precisely because, he says, they are working to a timeline.

open image in gallery A Russian soldier fires from a howitzer towards Ukrainian positions in Kursk ( AP )

The apparent push in Kursk also comes as the re-election of Donald Trump as US president raises questions over Washingtons future approach to support for Ukraine and potential concessions to Moscow, with Mr Trump having previously claimed that he could end Russias war in a single day.

The great advantage that the Ukrainians have had in Kursk is precisely that the focus up to now has been on the Donbas [the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk]. Thats where the veteran troops have been and so forth, said Dr Galeotti.

Now it is clear particularly with prospect of a potential ceasefire freezing the frontlines under Trump, Putin is determined that, by the time Trump is inaugurated, the Kursk salient has to have been wiped out. So I think this is what were seeing now.

But Dr Galeotti added: They cant carry on that rate [of casualties] forever. But given they are thinking what can we achieve in the rest of the year, theyre willing to take losses to see how far they can push the lines.

open image in gallery Volodymyr Zelensky met with Donald Trump in September to discuss the Ukraine-Russia war ( Getty Images )

However, Emil Kastehelmi, an open-source analyst tracking the war for the Finland-based Black Bird Group, said that, even if Mr Trump had lost the US election, Russia would probably still try to attack in Kursk as well, with plans for a Kursk counteroffensive most likely being drawn up long before the vote.

The territory controlled by Ukraine, even at its largest, consisted of the countryside of the border area with a few dozen villages and one small town of 6,000 inhabitants, said Mr Kastehelmi. The Ukrainian land operations wasnt in a position to seriously threaten any significant logistical routes, military installations, cities or other infrastructure.

As such, he said, it is understandable why Moscow has not had the immediate incentive to amass a large force in Kursk, having also previously been able to seize back around half of the territory taken by Ukraine with lesser forces.

But arguing that Mr Trumps re-election had made Russias need to retake Kursk increasingly urgent, while also incentivising Mr Zelensky to keep it under Ukrainian control, Bulent Gokay, a professor of international relations at Keele University, warned that trying to keep this land will be very costly for Ukrainian troops.

On whether the Russians can indeed now succeed in retaking Kursk, Dr Galeotti said: Its all really a question of resources. Im not convinced they can do it without transferring some forces from the Donbas [Donetsk] front.

open image in gallery Presidents Trump and Putin held closed-door talks in Helsinki in July 2018 ( AFP via Getty Images )

So the real question is  how determined is Putin? If hes determined to have the Kursk salient destroyed by early January and if hes willing to transfer the resources necessary, then yes hes going to take it.

In terms of the east Ukraine front competing for resources, Dr Galeotti suggested that the goal there is also to seize as much territory as possible by the beginning of the new year.

Despite judging it unlikely Russia will be able to contest any further cities or major towns in Ukraines east, Dr Galeotti assesses that Mr Putin will be pretty happy with Russias progress if the frontlines were temporarily frozen in 2025, having disproportionately seized Russian-speaking territories in Ukraines east.

Yet further losses for Kyiv in Ukraines east could raise tough political questions over the wisdom of their Kursk incursion.

Dr Patrick Bury, a former Nato analyst now at the University of Bath, believes that Mr Zelenskys comments about a 50,000-strong force in Kursk tie in with Ukrainian officials insistence that they are drawing in Russian forces that would otherwise be deployed elsewhere.

The double-edged sword is the Russians may have a five-to-one advantage in manpower, if thats correct, and they are maybe facing a major offensive there, he said, adding: Unfortunately, although its certainly put those resources there, it hasnt resulted in [eastern] front lines being weakened massively in the way that the Ukrainians may have hoped.

open image in gallery A column of Russian tanks spotted in September across the Seym River on the western flank of Ukrainian forces in Kursk ( Telegram )

With such a massing of troops indicating that Russia is going to attempt to crush the Kursk salient with a hammer blow prior to potential negotiations, Dr Bury suggests that the Ukrainians prospects depend on the morale, quality and cohesion of the troops stationed there.

He said: If they stand and fight they do have some pretty good defensive positions and theyve got some of the riverbanks to defend on. So if they are able to, youd expect it to be bloody and costly and the Russians to make incremental gains.

If they are overwhelmed or their morale cracks, then it could be more rapid. But  if the past is an indicator of the present  usually weve seen attritional, heavy battles with Russians taking lots of losses but slowly grinding the Ukrainians back.

While Dr Bury noted that Russia in the past has had to build up an overwhelming number of troops to outgun the Ukrainians, Dr Galeotti suggested any force of 50,000 in Kursk is probably going to be a very mixed bag of troops  ranging from the absolute scrapings of the military system to some competent forces, and the complete unknown factor of North Korean troops.

Ultimately though, Kursk cant hold, said Dr Galeotti. He added: The real question is how much is it able to inflict casualties on the Russians as the price for taking back the region  and how far is Putin forced to deprioritise his push in the Donbas?
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Israeli forces have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza through a systematic campaign of massive deliberate forced displacement of Palestinians, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

The New York-based advocacy group urged governments to impose sanctions and halt weapon sales to avoid complicity in these grave violations. The Israeli military has repeatedly denied committing crimes in Gaza, telling The Independent that it is committed to international law and operates accordingly.

In a 154-page report published on Thursday, HRW said there was no plausible imperative military reason to justify the mass displacement of 90 per cent of Gazas population of two million people, with many individuals displaced multiple times in the 13 months since the current campaign began.

It said that statements by senior Israeli officials with command responsibility show that forced displacement was intentional and forms part of Israeli state policy, amounting to a crime against humanity.

The report concluded that Israels actions appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing and urged the International Criminal Court at The Hague to investigate.

The Israeli government cannot claim to be keeping Palestinians safe when it kills them along escape routes, bombs so-called safe zones, and cuts off food, water, and sanitation, said Nadia Hardman, HRWs refugee and migrant rights researcher who authored the report. Israel has blatantly violated its obligation to ensure Palestinians can return home, razing virtually everything in large areas.

She called on the US, Germany and other countries to suspend weapons transfers and military assistance to Israel immediately.

No one can be in denial about the atrocity crimes the Israeli military is committing against Palestinians in Gaza, she said. Transfer of additional weapons and assistance to Israel by the United States, Germany and others is a blank cheque for further atrocities and increasingly puts them at risk of complicity.

Israel denies the allegations. A spokesperson for the Israeli military said it calls and acts for the evacuation of the civilian population from combat zones to safer areas whenever possible. Each [Israeli military] strike is based on accurate and reliable intelligence.

There is no [Israeli military] doctrine that aims to cause maximal damage to civilian infrastructure regardless of military necessity. [Military] actions are based on military necessity and in accordance with international law, they said, adding that Israel has documented cases of Hamas operating from within densely populated areas.

Israel launched its bombardment of Gaza after Hamass 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel, when militants killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages, according to Israels count.

Since then Israeli strikes have flattened swathes of Gaza, killing more than 43,000 people, the majority of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials. The lack of access to basic humanitarian aid has pushed the tiny enclave to the brink of famine.

In recent weeks, Israeli forces have encircled and isolated northern Gaza, maintaining that Hamas militants have regrouped there.

Israel has also been striking deeper into Lebanon as part of its simultaneous conflict with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Since October, more than 3,200 people have been killed by Israeli operations and airstrikes in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese health ministry. In Israel, 76 people have died, including 31 soldiers.

Israel faces mounting global criticism for the toll its war has taken on civilians in Gaza, including accusations of blocking food, aid and medical supplies, as well as the forced displacement of civilians and the demolition of homes. HRW said its apparent aim to establish a buffer zone and security corridor does not comply with the laws of war. Multiple human rights groups and UN investigators have warned that Israeli military conduct could constitute war crimes, something Israel has vehemently denied.

The Hamas militant group has also been accused of war crimes.

open image in gallery Palestinians displaced from shelters in Beit Hanoun cross the main Salaheddin road into Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip ( AFP via Getty Images )

HRW said its report was based on interviews with 39 displaced Palestinians in Gaza, analysis of Israels evacuation system, including 184 evacuation orders, satellite imagery confirming widespread destruction, and verified videos and photographs of attacks on designated safe zones and evacuation routes.

The advocacy group found that Israels evacuation orders were inconsistent, inaccurate, and frequently not communicated to civilians with enough time to allow evacuations or, in many cases, at all.

The report stated that evacuation orders also failed to accommodate people with disabilities, many of whom are unable to leave without assistance, and that designated evacuation routes and safe zones were repeatedly attacked by the Israeli military.

HRW said that senior officials in the Israeli government and the war cabinet had made clear their intent to displace the Palestinian population of Gaza. In November 2023, Israels agriculture minister Avi Dichter said: We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba. The Nakba  or catastrophe  is the term Palestinians use to refer to being forced to leave or flee their homes during the 1948 conflict surrounding the creation of Israel.

open image in gallery A Palestinian man carries an injured child from a home that was hit in an Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp ( AFP via Getty Images )

In January, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population.

Gideon Saar, Israels foreign minister, said on Monday that residents could return to northern Gaza only after Israel had achieved its military objectives and the war was over.

Israels far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir stated in January: We must promote a solution to encourage the emigration of Gazas residents.

Last October, then-security cabinet member and now defence minister Israel Katz shared a post online ordering all the civilian population in Gaza to leave immediately, adding: We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.

On Wednesday, Israel rejected accusations from eight international aid groups, including Oxfam and Save the Children, that it had failed to meet US demands to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Washington had given Israel 30 days to implement these demands, threatening a potential halt to US military support. Tuesday marked the deadline for meeting these requirements  but the US State Department said Israel will face no policy consequences for the lack of aid.
The moment it became clear that Donald Trump was going to win the US presidential election, bitcoins price began to climb. Within a few hours, the cryptocurrency had hit a new all-time high, and the overall market had swelled by a quarter of a trillion dollars.

One week later, bitcoin was up by more than a third. Now, the price has hit the $100,000 mark for the first time in its history.

But the boom isnt that simple. In its 15-year history, the crypto market has become synonymous with volatility. Price surges like the one seen in the last week are not uncommon, and can be triggered by something as minor as a tweet from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

The latest rally, which has seen new price records for the past five consecutive days, is largely down to promises from Trump to end the persecution of the crypto industry in the United States and position the country as the bitcoin superpower of the world. During a keynote address at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville in July, the Republican pledged to form a crypto advisory council and create a bitcoin strategic reserve from the stockpile amassed through government seizures from financial criminals.

Trumps re-election could also see the removal of Gary Gensler as the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who has been accused of pursuing a vendetta against the crypto industry, while the president-elect has said he will protect peoples cryptocurrency from Elizabeth Warren and her goons.

As pro-crypto figures line up to take senior roles under Trumps administration, bitcoins record-breaking rally has continued to build.

Trumps running mate JD Vance is the first bitcoin holder to run for Vice President, having disclosed that he held between $100,000 and $250,000 of the cryptocurrency in 2022  a figure that will have at least doubled at todays prices. He has been a strong supporter of the crypto industry and last year introduced a bill that would protect crypto firms and exchanges from being cut off by traditional banks.

The price of Bitcoin is surging  and this Trump-fuelled boom could be just the start

Under the Trump administration, crypto regulation is anticipated to be overhauled, including a more favourable stance from the SEC, which tightened its oversight during Joe Bidens term, Maria Carola, chief executive of the cryptocurrency exchange StealthEX, told The Independent.

His support measures  such as replacing SEC head Gary Gensler, establishing a bitcoin reserve, and aiming to make the US a crypto superpower  could fuel market growth. Currently, the market reflects a strong bull trend, with the potential for bitcoin to reach $100,000 by year-end.

But despite all of his promises, Trumps courting of the crypto space appears more tactical than ideological. With an estimated 50 million holders of bitcoin in the US, this demographic proved to be a significant factor in a major US election for the first time.

Crypto has been taken seriously in this election cycle and its clear that a robust regulatory framework is on the way, said Philippe Bekhazi, co-founder and CEO of XBTO.

As we see this become a reality, digital assets will become more embedded into society, increasing both retail and institutional adoption. This macro backdrop could see Bitcoin end the year well above current levels and even head towards $100,000 in 2025.

Bitcoins notorious volatility is matched by Trumps often fickle whims. During the last major bitcoin bull run in 2021, the recently ousted president told Fox Business that he thought bitcoin was a scam and that its value was based on thin air.

open image in gallery Bitcoin has a higher market cap than silver ( The Independent )

Regardless of Trumps personal views, investors appear convinced by his promises, as well as buoyed by the maturity of the crypto market. Bitcoin has proved its resilience during periods of aggressive regulation imposed by the SEC, and the approval of bitcoin exchange-traded funds earlier this year means it is no longer viewed as a fringe asset class. With a market cap of $1.8 trillion, it now holds more value than silver.

The overall crypto market cap passed $3 trillion for the first time in the wake of the election  roughly one fifth that of gold  and its global reach means that it does not need Trump to gain legitimacy. But history suggests that he could have a significant impact on its short-term price trajectory.

And it will not make bitcoins price any easier to predict.
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Social media app Bluesky has emerged on top of Apples App Store amid a mass exodus from Elon Musk-owned X post the US presidential election.

X rival apps Bluesky and Threads have both risen to ranks #1 and #2 on Apples App store following Donald Trumps victory in the US elections.

Many users fleeing X have complained of the apps owner supporting Mr Trump and using the platform to campaign for the Republican president-elect as a reason.

Just a day after the election about 115,000 US users deactivated their X accounts, which is more than on any previous day of Elon Musks tenure, according to a report by web traffic monitoring company Similarweb.

open image in gallery Photograph shows the logo of social media platform Bluesky ( AFP via Getty Images )

The report also noted that the web traffic and daily active users for Bluesky increased dramatically in the week before the election, and then again after election day.

Bluesky, created by the founder and former chief of X  then Twitter  Jack Dorsey, has racked up over 15 million users recently  more than double the number of people using the platform three months ago.

The app looks and works much similar to Twitter with vertically scrolling messages and small round photo avatars for users, and icons showing the number of comments, likes and reposts each post has.

US: Trump Picks Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy To Key Cabinet Role

Thousands of people are lining up to join the app daily in recent times.

Half a million new people in the last day, Bluesky announced on 17 October.

While about 100,000 people have been signing up to join Bluesky per day since the US election, it still has a long way to go.

open image in gallery US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R) escorts Elon Musk (2nd-R) as he arrives with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (L) at a House Republicans Conference meeting ( Getty Images )

The platform still pales in comparison to Xs user base, and currently only hosts about a quarter of the daily active users that Metas Threads app has.

Instagrams Threads owned by Metas Mark Zuckerberg is also seeing increasing number of people signing up since Mr Trumps victory.

Meanwhile X is at a distant 27th place on Apples overall ranking of Apps, but holds a first place in the News category where it sees competition from apps of traditional media outlets like the New York Times and The Washington Post.

Since Mr Musk took over Twitter in October of 2022, the company has seen a number of changes, starting a new subscription programme, retiring the platforms legacy blue check marks, and reinstating controversial banned accounts.

When the Tesla titan took over Twitter, it was valued at around $44bn but a recent estimate by investment giant Fidelity suggests X could now be worth almost 80 per cent less.
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Limited flight services resumed in Bali on Thursday after several airlines cancelled their flights to the popular holiday destination due to a volcanic eruption nearby.

Around 83 international routes, mostly from Australia and Southeast Asia, were cancelled on Wednesday after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on the Indonesian island of Flores, located about 500km east of Bali, spewed a 9km tower of ash.

At least 10 people have died and about 15,000 evacuated since the volcano began erupting last week.

Thousands of passengers were stranded on Wednesday after nearly a dozen airlines grounded all flights scheduled to reach and depart from the Denpasar Airport in Bali.

On Thursday, Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia resumed some of their services from Bali to Australia, noting "improved" conditions.

open image in gallery Passengers wait at the Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali after flight cancelations ( AFP via Getty Images )

Jetstar will operate six flights, while the Qantas group will operate one scheduled flight and two delayed flights from yesterday.

"We will continue to contact guests whose flights have been cancelled to accommodate them on recovery flights in the coming days," a Virgin Australia spokesperson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Jetstar said six flights will depart for Bali on Thursday, including two "ad-hoc flights" to clear the backlog. "We will continue to monitor the changing conditions and volcanic activity and work on plans to operate more recovery flights...," the airline said in a statement.

The Qantas group said three aircraft will depart for Bali from Australia and passengers impacted by the cancellation on 12 and 13 November will be given rebooking options.

open image in gallery Flights have resumed to and from the Bali airport ( AFP via Getty Images )

Ahmad Syaugi Shahab, the general manager of Balis Ngurah Rai airport, said 26 domestic flights and 64 overseas ones were cancelled on Wednesday alone. That included flights from Singapore, Hong Kong, Qatar, India, and Malaysia, some of which resumed on Thursday.

All flights to and from the island of Lombok in the West Nusa Tenggara province, another popular destination for tourists in Indonesia, were cancelled on Wednesday as well.

Air New Zealand said it cancelled a flight to Denpasar scheduled for Wednesday and a return service to Auckland for Thursday. It said the passengers would be given the option to rebook while it monitors the movement of ash in the coming days.

Two of the Korean Air flights were forced to return on Wednesday because of the volcanic ash.

Bali's airport on Thursday morning recorded another 32 international flight cancellations while 180 international flights were scheduled, Mr Shahab told AFP. "We hope affected airline passengers can resume their travel on Thursday," he added.

The volcano erupted again overnight into Thursday morning, spewing thick ash column as lava poured from its crater.

The 1,584m volcano on the remote island of Flores has shot billowing columns of ash dozens of times since last Thursday, said Hadi Wijaya, the head of the Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation.

While visiting the devastated areas, officials found craters where rocks fell during eruptions, up to 13m wide and 5m deep, in several places including a destroyed school.

Lewotobi Laki Laki is one of a pair of stratovolcanoes in the East Nusa Tenggara province, known locally as the husband-and-wife mountains. Laki laki means man, while its mate is Lewotobi Perempuan, or woman.

Lewotobi Laki Laki is one of the 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago of 280 million people. The country is prone to earthquakes, landslides and volcanic activity because it sits along the Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.
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Travel chaos in Malaga appears to be improving Thursday morning after dozens of flights were delayed and 15 cancelled following a powerful storm over the popular tourist destination Costa del Sol in Spain.

Some high-speed train services in Malaga are also reopening on Thursday after trains were halted and stations were evacuated due to flooding, national rail infrastructure operator Adif said.

Thousands of residents have been evacuated along the Guadalhorce River west of Malaga and reportedly along the Velez River due to a high risk of flooding, while the citys main hospital is now limiting its services to only emergencies after they were flooded.

The UKs Foreign Office (FCDO) has updated its travel advice to warn that severe weather and flooding is affecting many areas along the Mediterranean coastline of Spain. They add that many parts of the Valencia region and Castilla La Mancha continue to be severely affected by recent flooding.

Multiple flights at Valencias airport appear to be cancelled on Thursday as severe weather warnings have been reinstated in the region.

The travel disruption comes two weeks after the city and other areas of Eastern Spain, namely Valencia were hit with devastating flash flooding due to torrential rainstorms, the worst flooding disaster the area has experienced in decades.

In the aftermath of the floods, cars have been piled on the street surrounded by a sea of debris from damaged buildings and structures.

More than 200 people have lost their lives after the flooding swept through streets, turning walkways into rivers and trapping people in their homes and on the roofs of cars.

It is the worst flood-related catastrophe Spain has witnessed since at least 1996 when 87 people died and 180 were injured in a flash flood near Biescas in the Pyrenees.

Here is the latest on the situation in Spain and what you need to know about travel.

Will my flight to Spain be cancelled after the latest flooding?

open image in gallery A car circulates partially submerged in water near to El Perchel quarter on 13 November in Malaga ( Getty Images )

Out of the 296 commercial flights that were scheduled at Malaga-Costa Del Sol airport on Wednesday, 15 had been cancelled as of 8pm local time, and around five had been diverted, Spains airport group, Aena, said.

Aena asked that anyone flying from Malaga-Costa Del Sol airport and Barcelonas El Prat Airport on Wednesday to check the status of their flight with their airline, as heavy rain and adverse weather were affecting approaches to both airlines.

Aside from the cancellations and diversions, flights arriving and departing from Malagas airport on Wednesday were largely delayed or disrupted throughout the afternoon, data from FlightRadar shows.

As of Thursday morning, most flights coming into the airport were landing on time, while one Iberia flight coming in from Valencia had been cancelled. Most of the scheduled departures flying out from Malaga are also undisrupted, apart from two flights, one to Paris and another to Valencia, that have been cancelled.

It appears that Valenicas airport is experiencing disruption, as FlightRadar is showing that around 19 flights scheduled to depart have been cancelled as of Thursday morning.

The airports website advises passengers flying from Valencia Airport to check official accounts for road and transport status and check with their airline about the status of their flight.

Commuter train services in Valencia have also been suspended as of Thursday morning.

High-speed train services are starting to operate again after all trains in the Malaga province were halted, national rail infrastructure operator Adif said.

On Wednesday, Adif announced that commuter trains in the city and high-speed trains between Antequera and Malaga would be suspended due to the weather.

What are my rights if my flight has been cancelled?

open image in gallery Malaga has been impacted by flooding, weeks after its first round of bad weather ( EPA )

Simon Calder, travel correspondent at The Independent, says: Whatever the cause of a cancellation, and regardless of the amount of notice that is given, you can insist upon replacement transport: the airline must get you to your destination as soon as possible if that is what you want.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority says that means if a flight is available on the original day of travel, the passenger must be booked on it  even if it is on a rival carrier.

However, cash compensation may not be available, as the airlines may claim the extreme weather means that meteorological conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight concerned, which means that the cancellation was not the airlines fault.

Where in Spain has flooded?

open image in gallery A view of mud and debris in La Torre neighborhood in Valencia ( REUTERS )

This week, around 3,000 people living along the Guadalhorce River, and reportedly a further 1,100 near the Velez River in the Malaga province have been evacuated due to the risk of flooding.

The Costa del Sol, including popular tourist destinations like Marbella, Estepona, and Velez, has been bearing the brunt of the extreme weather.

An expat living in a town in Malaga has described homes and businesses being decimated after the river running through its centre burst its banks after the downpour caused water levels to rise.

The weather continues to impact Spain two weeks after torrential rain, which had amounted to a years worth in just eight hours in one region, hit cities such as Valencia and Malaga and caused serious flash flooding.

Over 200 people have died, and search and rescue teams have been trying to locate many who are unaccounted for.

Thousands of people faced power and water cuts and shortages of essentials last week, especially in the eastern region which was the worst affected.

Flooding also hit Barcelona due to intense downfalls battering the region last week. Footage showed cars submerged and rainwater overwhelming towns in the region.

Government travel advice

As of 14 November, the UKs Foreign Office (FCDO) travel advice said that severe weather and flooding is affecting many areas along the Mediterranean coastline of Spain, and added that many parts of the Valencia region and Castilla La Mancha continue to be severely affected by recent flooding.

The FCDO said that journeys may be affected and advises checking the latest weather warnings from Spains meteorological office before travelling and following the instructions from local authorities.

In terms of the Foreign Offices general advice about travelling to a destination that has been impacted by flooding, they warn that the flood waters can cause devastation and loss of life. After a flood, they also warn that there is an increased risk of water-borne diseases and transport infrastructure can be severely impacted.

Is there more rain on the way?

open image in gallery Orange and yellow warning for rains, storms and wind are currently in place ( Aemet )

Extreme risk red warnings have been lifted along the southern coast of Spain, however orange and yellow warnings have still been put in place by Spains meteorological office Aemet.

On the east coast, Valencia remains subject to a significant risk orange alert, with up to 100mm of rain forecast in the space of 12 hours. In the west, orange alerts are also in force in Huelva, Andevalo and Condado, Aracena, Seville, Cadiz, and Grazalema.

Yellow warnings for gale-force winds have also been put in place on the Granada coastline, West and Almeria capital coast and the A Coruna coast in northern Spain.

Valenicas surrounding areas including Castellon and Alicante, northern Sierra and south Badajoz and inland areas such as Avila, Caceres, Salamanca, Alcaraz, Murcia, Almanzora Valley and Los Velez are also under yellow weather warnings.

Can I cancel my holiday and get a refund?

As the Foreign Office has not warned against non-essential travel to Spain, there will be no special circumstances in place to be able to cancel a trip for a full refund.

The conditions for cancelling your trip will be dependent on your holiday provider, so its best to contact them if youre looking to postpone.

There is no obligation for companies to refund bookings if you want to cancel, and you will not be able to claim travel insurance due to safety concerns unless the Foreign Office advice changes.

In terms of travel insurance, some policies include natural disaster cover for an event that prevents you from reaching your holiday destination. Check your insurance policies and speak to your insurer to see where you stand.

For more travel news and advice, listen to Simon Calders podcast
The Kings Royal Horse Artillery fired a 41-gun salute next to Buckingham Palace at noon on Thursday 14 November to mark King Charles 76th birthday.

Some of the artillery horses refused to behave themselves for the big occasion with at least one ditching its rider for a solo canter around Green Park.

With the horses under control the Kings Artillery proceeded to fire off 41 blank rounds at 10-second intervals, while the Irish Guards provided musical accompaniment.

Twenty-one is the most common number of gun salutes, with 20 rounds added if the salute is fired from a Royal Park, adding up to a total of 41.
Alex Jones has hit out at Connecticut Democrats The Onion after the satirical newspaper acquired Infowars and its associated intellectual property.

Jones was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to the families of Sandy Hook victims over his repeated false claims that the 2012 massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax.

In September, a Texas judge ruled that Jones assets, including the Infowars properties, could be auctioned off in order to pay the penalties he owed.

Jones took to X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday (14 November) to share his disgust, stating: We are not going to be silenced.
During months of ferocious campaigning, Donald Trumps friends and enemies agreed on one thing. That his second term, if it happened, would be more professional than the bruising chaos of his first.

But the nomination of Matt Gaetz for attorney general has left even some Trumpian loyalists open-mouthed. One senior Republican said she was shocked; reckless was another word used, with yet another suggesting that the nomination could not be serious.

So why is this such a controversial appointment, and what constraints might there be on the power of a president who has won not only the White House but control  it is now confirmed  of both Houses of Congress? Where are those famed US constitutional checks and balances when you have a president like Trump?

The problems with Gaetz come on several different levels. They relate first to his character. A lawyer and member of the House of Representatives from Florida, he was investigated over allegations of trafficking young girls for sex  claims he denied and were subsequently dropped, but a House Ethics Committee inquiry remains open.

The very idea that someone with such a taint hanging over him should be considered a contender for public office is part of what many find shocking. But another part, of course, is the position on offer. To be US attorney general is to be the countrys chief law officer. How could even Trump not foresee the evident mismatch here?

Or does he perhaps  which is a third layer  see Gaetz, an arch-loyalist to the point of supporting the Capitol rioters of 6 January 2021, as some sort of angel of vengeance?

Trump makes no secret of his belief that his first presidential term was effectively sabotaged by the Washington establishment  with the Russia-gate claims (that his election had been assisted by Vladimir Putin) their weapon of choice. Many of his supporters agree with him, which explains how the various court cases brought against him since he left office  from sexual assault to fraudulent accounting  only worked to his political advantage.

All these considerations are what makes Trumps nomination of Gaetz so controversial, culminating in the idea that Trump could be set on using, or misusing, the justice system in his favour, as  he believes  it was manipulated politically against him from 2016. (A useful clarification here is that, in a country where most judges are elected, the principle of a politicised judiciary is not as alien as it is in the UK and other countries.)

This does not mean, however, that the president, even one with control of the executive and the legislature, and a majority of the popular vote, can exercise his power as autocratically as some  including his erstwhile electoral opponents  have suggested.

First, it is not all clear that Gaetzs nomination will be confirmed by the Senate, as is required. The Republicans three-seat majority is slim, and enough of them have already voiced misgivings to make confirmation look unlikely. It could even be argued that the very act of nomination is thank-you enough.

However, Trump may also be hoping that by making his nominations in advance, they can be treated as recess appointments, meaning they will be permitted to stand until the next congressional term with no need for confirmation. That would give Gaetz  and all of Trumps other nominees  as long as two years in office, though opposition from Congress could prove to be fierce.

Even with Republicans in control of both Houses of Congress, and however well organised his White House might be this time around, Trumps exercise of power might not be quite so unencumbered as is feared. While he now has the moral majority of having won the popular vote, it should be remembered that he was in a similar position at the start of his first term, yet faced one obstacle after another.

One lesson from those years is that the Supreme Court, even with a majority of Republican-appointed justices, cannot always be relied upon to favour party above their interpretation of the law. Another is that even if Trump manages to bend federal justice to his will (via Gaetz and perhaps other appointees), the states and cities enjoy considerable autonomy, in judicial affairs as in much else. This could effectively frustrate federal intent.

There could well be legal tussles  for instance, over any federal effort to deport undocumented migrants from so-called sanctuary cities, which have vowed to protect them. It is also possible that the charges pending against Trump in the state of Georgia and in New York could tie him up in legal complexities, even if the actual proceedings, as seems likely, are delayed or abandoned.

Trumps time for such even relatively unfettered action may also be limited. The Republicans hold on both Houses of Congress could be vulnerable at the midterm elections in two years  which is where Trumps presidency came additionally unstuck the first time around, with the Democrats re-taking the House.

It could be countered that, for a well-ordered and determined president, such as Trump 2.0 may turn out to be, two years is not nothing, and he could do a lot of good or ill in that time. But as in his first term, there are the courts, there are non-Trump dissenters from his own party in Congress, there are state governors with executive power, judiciaries and legislatures of their own, and  as there were in Trumps first term  there may well be civil groups expressing their opposition on the streets.

Even a president who has won as convincing a victory as Trump in 2024 faces constraints on his power. The recruitment of such an unquestioning loyalist as Matt Gaetz as his chief law enforcer is unlikely to eliminate checks on executive power that have endured reasonably intact for more than 200 years.
Two years ago, as the Russian army was retreating back from northeast Ukraine, there were serious worries that Vladimir Putin would use tactical nuclear weapons to block the Ukrainian advance. In September 2022, Liz Truss is reported to have spent her last days in No 10 poring over maps of potential fallout zones affecting this country.

Although Putin has rattled his nuclear sabres several times since, hes confined himself to launching horrific sub-nuclear thermobaric bombs amid his swarms of rockets and drones striking Ukrainian cities.

But the threat of the war turning nuclear has raised its head again  this time from Kyiv, rather than the Kremlin.

An influential think tank there has advised president Volodymyr Zelensky to use the fuel rods from Ukraines nuclear energy reactors to make either a Nagasaki-type Bomb or a dirty bomb to intimidate Russia into halting the war  and forestall the consequences of a Trump presidency cutting military and financial aid.

Although some observers pooh-pooh the idea that Ukraine would be the one to break the taboo on using nuclear weapons, dont forget that a few weeks before Russia invaded, Zelensky warned the Munich Security Conference that his country might have to go nuclear if the West failed to prevent war.

Ever since the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986, Ukrainians have been haunted by the legacy of nuclear fallout, but maybe in desperation as the war goes badly, a last desperate gamble might make sense in Kyiv if nowhere else.

Ukrainians have long bemoaned their first post-Communist governments decision in 1994 to transfer the Soviet-era atomic weapons from its territory to Russia. Back then, the Budapest Memorandum arranging this process was shepherded by Western states led by the USA and UK who assumed that concentrating all of the USSRs nuclear weapons in Russia from Belarus and Kazakhstan as well as Ukraine would make the world a safer place and reduce the risk of loose nukes finding their way to pariah states like Saddams Iraq or North Korea.

A generation later, Ukraine found itself without a nuclear deterrent to Putins Russia while he had an atomic umbrella to deter active Western intervention when he invaded. Natos admiral, Rob Bauer, admitted a few days ago that if Russia did not have the bomb, the Wests troops would have actually fought the Russian army, not just provided the Ukrainians with weapons and money.

The Pentagons studies of tactical nuclear weapons suggest that they would have little military value unless used on a vast scale, blanketing the battlefield and a vast area around it with fallout.

Any Ukrainian nuke cobbled together in a crisis would have negligible military value, and its use on a civilian target like Moscow would outrage Kyivs friends  and could provoke a cataclysmic retaliation by Putin. But raising the issue could serve a rational purpose for Zelensky. It could push the Europeans and the Americans to press Russia to make peace before he goes overboard.

The nuclear talk in Kyiv is a symptom of the worsening situation on the conventional front line in the east. Rather than looking at the Nagasaki precedent at the end of the Second World War, it might be more sensible to think about November 1918. Then, the German army was ground down so badly by the Allies use of thousands of tanks and ever-growing numerical superiority as the Americans arrived in force in Europe, that it collapsed as a fighting force.

German intelligence has warned that Ukraine might collapse in six months leading to a flood of millions of refugees heading west. That scenario could be Putins non-nuclear knockout blow to Kyivs European allies.

Whatever Zelensky decides about the nuclear option, the fallout from the war in Ukraine looks to be heading west  no thanks to the White House.
A firm that manages mortgages on behalf of vulture fund owners has insisted that customers have not had their trackers taken off them.

Confusion arose when a number of mortgages that had been serviced by a firm named Cabot were moved to another, BCM Global in Dublin.

Customers feared losing the trackers after some of them were put on a fixed rate for a period. This caused some tracker customers to worry they would not benefit from the last two European interest-rate cuts, and more European Central Bank (ECB) rate cuts that are expected in the coming months.

The Central Bank said it was aware of a problem at BCM Global, a firm that services loans owned by vulture funds.

The problem affects around 150 homeowners with mortgages recently transferred to loan servicer BCM Global.

One homeowner, who did not want to be named, said he was told by the credit servicer his rate had been fixed.

He is taking a case to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO). The man said he had spoken to the FSPO and a staff member there advised him he had a case.

The borrower said: I have been with Cabot for the past few years. My loans were recently sold to BCM Global.

The two most recent tracker-rate decreases should have seen my repayments decrease.

I have been informed that my repayments are now fixed due to an issue with Cabot providing information on the mortgage pre the loan sale.

At the time he contacted the Irish Independent, he said that he had not received any notification from either Cabot or BCM about the move to fix the repayments on their tracker mortgages.

I think this is absolute scandalous what BCM have done without any notification, he said.

BCM Global describes itself as a leading European independent loan services provider. It has operations in Ireland, Italy, the UK and the Netherlands, and recently added 45 new roles in its offices in this country, bringing its total workforce in Ireland to over 600 staff.

A recent letter to the borrower from BCM Global said his monthly repayment was staying at 1,507.45, despite two ECB rate cuts that are supposed to automatically be passed on to tracker customers. BCM confirmed to me they decided to fix it due to issues with the loan sale from Cabot, he said.

BCM Global in Ireland explained it had become the credit servicer for 150 mortgage accounts, of which 89 are tracker, as part of a recent loan migration.

Prior to the loans migrating from the previous servicer, BCM Global identified a legacy issue related to the amortisation of certain loans, it said. Specifically, we observed that a small number of loans had not been configured to fully amortise over their term.

It said it fixed repayments on the accounts when the mortgages transferred to it to minimise customer impact and to prevent a payment shock for customers as a result of a sudden repayment increase.

BCM Global said it was continuing to apply and pass on the benefit to customers of all recent ECB rate reductions. It is understood those who want to keep their trackers are allowed to do this.

BCM Global communicated with all migrating customers, outlining the changes and invited customers to contact us with any concerns, it said.

To date, a number of customers have already engaged with us, and we have adjusted repayments in line with customer preferences.

The Central Bank of Ireland said it has been engaging with BCM Global ASI Limited in relation to an issue affecting some customers.
The new player, backed by insurance giant Aviva, will have just four schemes, and its offering is expected to put it up to existing operators VHI Healthcare, Laya Health and Irish Life Health

New insurer Level Health is set to shake up the market with prices that will be up to 500 cheaper for a family than its rivals.

It is also offering a string of add-ons to those who sign up with it.

Level Healths high-end plan will be 2,700 cheaper for an adult than similar plans from the existing players.

The keen pricing and extra benefits are set to force a response from its rivals, with consumers hoping it will lead to a price war.

The new player, which is backed by insurance giant Aviva, will have just four schemes, Plans A, B, C and D.

Its offering is expected to put it up to existing operators VHI Healthcare, Laya Health and Irish Life Health.

CFO Stephen Loughman, CMO Ruth Bailey, CEO Jim Dowdall and chair Oliver Tattan of Level Health, Irelands newest health insurance provider.

New health insurer set to shake up the market

The entry of a new player comes after multiple premium rate rises from the three main players this year that have seen some plans increase in price by as much as 25pc when the various rises are added together.

Aviva Insurance-backed Level Health claims its mid-level plans will be up to 500 a year cheaper for a family of two adults and two children than the plans on offer from rivals VHI, Laya or Irish Life Health.

It is including free cover for children under three on all plans, and free multi-trip worldwide travel insurance, which it says is worth 228 for a family.

It said members will have access to all public, private and high-tech hospitals.

There will also be access to minor injury units and private emergency departments, and scan centres nationwide for those who switch to it.

The new health specialist is also offering its members discounts from Aviva Insurance on a range of cover.

Level Health customers will get 50pc off Aviva home insurance, a 15pc discount on motor cover, and 15pc off mortgage protection cover.

Customers will be able to consult a doctor or healthcare professional via instant digital access at any time that suits them or make a face-to-face appointment.

Aviva Insurance has a 50pc stake in the new operation, and is understood to have pumped more than 20m into the venture.

Level Health chief executive Jim Dowdall said the Irish health insurance market was broken.

For too long, customers have been overwhelmed by confusing plans, limited options, and a lack of real alternatives. Level Health is the cure. Were not just entering the market  we're reshaping it, bringing clarity, simplicity, and genuine competition, he said.

He said health insurance customers would now have a real choice. The start-up is expected to put huge pressure on VHI Healthcare, Laya Health and Irish Life Health.

Health insurance expert Dermot Goode, of TotalHealthCover.ie, said: Over the last two years, health insurance consumers have been hit hard by multiple price hikes, benefit reductions and plan retirements.

The entry of Level Health couldnt come at a better time as we approach the peak renewal period, with about 50pc of the market or nearly 1.25 million people due to renew their cover.

Mr Goode said the Level Health high-end plan, Plan D, will be up to 2,700 cheaper per adult than the same plans from VHI, Laya and Irish Life.

He said the mid-level family scheme, Plan B 300, will be 200 to 600 cheaper for a family of four, depending on the level of cover chosen. This plan gives access to private hospitals.

No doubt there will be a quick response from the existing health insurers  VHI, Laya and Irish Life Health  especially if they see existing members switching for lower cost cover, Mr Goode said. This can only benefit all Irish consumers especially if this prompts a price war just before the busiest renewal period.

The new insurer is being run by industry veterans Oliver Tattan, a former head of VHI, and Mr Dowdall, who used to run Irish Life Health.

Mr Tattan set up Vivas and GloHealth, both of which were sold to larger health insurance players.

The two are joined by Stephen Loughman and Ruth Bailey, who have been involved in previous health insurance ventures with them.

The new venture comes after the three existing players in the market announced multiple price rises in the past year.

The increases from VHI, Laya and Irish Life mean some families are set to be hit with rises of up to 500-plus a year if they renew on the same plans.

The cumulate rises this year are between 8pc and 25pc, depending on the plan. And the insurers have cut a string of benefits on plans.
The appeals will initially only apply to Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. Stock image. Photo: Getty

The Appeals Centre Europe (ACE) body, staffed by 25 people, will make decisions on appeals from European users over major social media platforms decisions to take down or leave up pieces of content, including posts, videos, photos and comments.

It will cost 5 to lodge the appeal  at appealscentre.eu  which is refundable if the watchdog agrees with the complainant. However, it will initially only apply to Facebook, TikTok and YouTube  not Instagram or X.

It will handle dispute appeals ranging from bullying and harassment to misinformation, hate speech and altered images and videos.

Decisions will be made within 90 days, although a spokesperson for the organisation said that in most cases, it will be quicker than that.

There will be no hierarchy for expedited decisions, the spokesperson said.

Once a dispute is submitted, it will be evaluated by an expert team who will then seek further information from the social media platform in question, the spokesperson added.

The organisation, which has been certified by Irelands Coimisiun na Mean, says it will accept submissions in six languages from the start  English, French, German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish.

Platforms are not obliged to accept the decisions, but must engage with them in good faith, according to the provisions of the EUs Digital Services Act.

The Appeals Centre will be mostly funded through a 95 fee charged to social media companies for each case. If the centre decides in the platforms favour, then they keep the user fee of 5, reducing the cost to 90.

New EU laws are bringing new powers to users of social media, and thats what the Appeals Centre provides, Thomas Hughes, CEO of the Appeals Centre, said.

While platforms often have the right rules in place, the sheer number of posts means they dont always apply them correctly. And when platforms make mistakes, users pay the price. Journalists reports are removed just for naming terrorist groups. Posts showing breast cancer symptoms are taken down, despite exceptions for raising awareness in this area. And in other cases, policy-violating hate speech is left up, as people game the system to avoid detection.

The organisation will have a board of seven non-executive directors, including four with no relationship to any social media company or entity funded by a social media company.
The countrys largest telecoms company says that it has already spent almost 1.7bn in capital expenditure (Capex) since 2018 and that the new investment will bring it to 2.2bn. Last year, it spent 223m in Capex, which is a mixture of core network rollout, repairs and technical optimisation using new software and hardware.

The company says that its plan to replace the national copper phone line network with fibre broadband now reaches 1.3 million of the countrys 2.4 million premises, with 500,000 signed up to Eirs backbone fibre broadband network.

Eir says it will continue to upgrade the network until it reaches almost 1.9 million homes and business premises, with the remaining 564,000 to be connected under the state-backed National Broadband Plan.

The figures are part of a company economic and social impact report, which claims that its broadband infrastructure underpins 172bn in economic activity and contributes to Irelands ranking among the top five countries in the EUs Digital Economy and Society Index.

Employing 3,170 people, the companys report also claims that it creates 4,755 indirect and induced jobs in Ireland.

With an additional 500m committed investment in our communications infrastructure, Eir is committed to strengthening this foundation, said Oliver Loomes, Eirs chief executive.

Our extensive network infrastructure is essential to Irelands digital transformation, supporting both EU and national strategies that prioritise digitalisation for societal, economic, and environmental advancement."

Eirs third-quarter financial results are expected a week from today. Its last quarterly returns showed an annual 1pc increase in quarterly revenue to 320m, fuelled mainly by growth in mobile customers. Its fibre broadband base is 879,000, making it the largest in the country.

Eirs latest report comes after National Broadband Ireland reported that over 50pc of the 564,000 rural premises to be reached under the 3bn National Broadband Plan can now purchase high-speed fibre broadband using its network.

NBI chief executive Peter Hendrick said take-up is over 50pc in areas where the service has been available for 18 months.

However, tens of thousands of premises waiting for broadband have been told that they will still be without the service until 2026.
French farmers last year blocked highways with their tractors to protest over price pressures, taxes and green regulation, grievances shared by farmers across Europe. Photo: Agen, south of France, January 25, 2024. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

French farmers protested Tuesday against a trade deal that would increase agricultural imports from South America, saying it hurt their livelihoods.

The European Union and the Mercosur trade bloc, composed of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia, reached an initial agreement in 2019, but negotiations stumbled due to opposition from farmers, and some European governments, leading to sweeping rallies where they particularly expressed worry about the use of pesticides in South American produce.

Tuesday's protest in Aurillac, in southern France, was the start of a fresh wave expected to spread among the European agricultural community amid concern that the deal could be finalized at the G20 summit in Brazil on Nov. 18-19 despite the French minister of agriculture, Annie Genevard, saying it was highly unlikely."

A group of more than 600 French lawmakers also published an open letter in Le Monde, telling the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that the conditions for adopting an agreement with the Mercosur bloc have not been met."

Last week, French protesters blocked the state building in the western commune of Niort, while on Monday, the Copa-Cogeca European farmers group sent a letter to von der Leyen, urging her to reject the Mercosur deal and adopt a coherent trade policy

Meanwhile, France's three biggest farming unions have vowed action: The FNSEA, Frances largest, has called for nationwide protests once the winter sowing season ends in mid-November. Coordination Rurale has promised an agricultural revolt starting on Nov. 19 in Auch and Agen, two cities in the Southwest of France, while the Confederation Paysanne, the third-largest union, known for its anti-globalization stance, is also planning its move against free trade agreements.

Farmers in Belgium have also called for demonstrations close to the EU headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday.

European farmers' apprehensions stem from what they say are the too-strict EU environmental regulations they follow while the Mercosur deal could flood the market with imports from South America which are produced under lower environmental and labor standards, according to Veronique Le Floch, the president of Coordination Rurale, Frances second-largest farmers union.

The anger hasnt gone away. Its still there, and, in fact, our worries have grown, said Le Floc'h whose organization has been linked to France's far-right party National Rally. If the Mercosur agreement is signed, it will spell the end of our agriculture, she said.

Genevard, the agriculture minister, reiterated the governments opposition to the deal on Tuesday. In an interview with TF1, she said: We dont want this agreement because its harmful. It will bring in products, including substances banned in Europe, at the cost of deforestation. It will unfairly compete with our domestic production.

But Le Floch was not convinced.

When the minister says the agreement wont be signed, shes either naive or thinks we are, she said. Why should we believe her when so many countries are in favor of it?

In March, French President Emmanuel Macron called the deal terrible and outdated." Negotiations began on June 28, 1999, but have taken a long, torturous path since.

Macron opposes any agreement as long as South American producers fail to adhere to the same environmental and health standards as Europeans.

AP
One of the smallest pubs in the country also has one of the cheapest pints in Ireland
In a world without climate change, NDC would stand for nothing more challenging in Ireland than the National Dairy Council, and cows could go on belching and dairy lovers could go on consuming to their hearts content.
45th Cairo Int'l Film Festival kicks off with strong Chinese participation

Xinhua) 13:26, November 14, 2024

Actors and guests pose for photos on the red carpet for the opening ceremony of the 45th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) in Cairo, Egypt, on Nov. 13, 2024. The 45th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) kicked off Wednesday evening at Egypt's Cairo Opera House with strong Chinese participation. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

CAIRO, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- The 45th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) kicked off Wednesday evening at Egypt's Cairo Opera House with strong Chinese participation.

Egyptian veteran movie star Hussein Fahmy, the festival's president, expressed appreciation for the presence of Chinese film at the 45th CIFF.

"We have 18 Chinese guests today and about seven Chinese films participating in the 45th CIFF. We have always been interested in Chinese cinema, and I have watched Chinese films since I was a student at the cinema institute," Fahmy told Xinhua on the red carpet during the opening gala.

He added that cooperation with China could lead to future co-productions, noting that the CIFF signed a memorandum of understanding with China Media Group (CMG) in late July, which focused on creating joint content on international films, exchanging artistic and cultural expertise, and sharing professional guests, films, and jury members.

Among the Chinese movies participating in the festival is Brief History of a Family, directed by Lin Jianjie, which competes in the International Critics' Week Competition with seven other films.

Launched in 1976, the CIFF is the oldest internationally accredited annual film festival in the Arab world, Africa, and the Middle East. This year's festival runs from Nov. 13 to 22.

Egyptian veteran movie star Hussein Fahmy (R), the festival's president, poses for photos on the red carpet for the opening ceremony of the 45th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) in Cairo, Egypt, on Nov. 13, 2024. The 45th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) kicked off Wednesday evening at Egypt's Cairo Opera House with strong Chinese participation. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

An actress walks on the red carpet for the opening ceremony of the 45th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) in Cairo, Egypt, on Nov. 13, 2024. The 45th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) kicked off Wednesday evening at Egypt's Cairo Opera House with strong Chinese participation. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

Egyptian veteran movie star Hussein Fahmy (R), the festival's president, poses for photos on the red carpet for the opening ceremony of the 45th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) in Cairo, Egypt, on Nov. 13, 2024. The 45th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) kicked off Wednesday evening at Egypt's Cairo Opera House with strong Chinese participation. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
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The Green Party has defended its record on climate action after a Social Democrat TD said the Government had absolutely wasted their opportunity to deal with the issue over the last five years.

Speaking at the partys climate and nature policy launch, the Social Democrats TD for Wicklow Jennifer Whitmore said the Government had a strong mandate for making meaningful changes in climate policy and they absolutely failed to do so.

"We know they failed to do so because every single independent State agency that is assigned to review their actions when it comes to climate action have told them that they have failed, she said.

"They have failed to meet targets, they have failed to actually plan and put sufficient measures in place, and to meet our 2030 targets.

The Green Party TD for Limerick City Brian Leddin described Ms Whitmores claims as entirely baseless and said his party has achieved the most comprehensive and productive response to climate action in the history of the State.

Because of the Green Partys role in Government, emissions last year fell to the lowest level in 30 years, all while our population and economy is still growing rapidly, Mr Leddin said.

While we still have a long way to go, the Green Party is offering credible steps to achieve genuine climate action, such as calling for a 10bn investment in public transport.

Mr Leddin said the Social Democrats are only providing flimsy imitations of green policy, lacking the knowledge, strategic thinking and experience that has clearly defined our partys successful role in this Government.

He also defended the Green Partys record on agriculture and said the percentage of Irish land framed organically has risen from 1.5pc to around 5pc, with groundwork laid out for this figure to rise to 10pc in the next government.

Ms Whitmore said the Environmental Protection Agency, the Climate Change Advisory Council, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and a number of universities have repeatedly told the Government the target of a 51pc reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 will not be met.

The Social Democrats climate policy proposes investing 8bn  the same amount Ireland could face in fines if it fails to meet the targets  in a revised version of the Climate Action Plan with changes that ensure the targets are met.

Other key proposals include measures to reduce supply and demand for single-use plastics, moving the biodiversity portfolio from a Minister of State to the remit of the Minister for the Environment and a 5bn investment in state-owned wind energy generation.

The party would also introduce a 1 public transport fare for off-peak times to encourage more public transport use.

Ms Whitmore accused the Government of greenwashing and leaving the country with the impression everything is being done to meet climate targets when they are on track to being missed.

On agriculture, Ms Whitmore said her party will be honest with farmers on changes that need to be made, something the Government parties have not done.

"Business as usual is not going to be a way forward. We wont be populist with them, were not going to be like Fianna Fail, were not going to promise were going to fight for the [nitrate] derogation, she said.

"The reality is all the scientific evidence and all the indications from Europe is the derogation is not going to be available to us. Rather than pretending, like Fianna Fail are pretending at the moment, that this is a priority for them, we will actually work with farmers to make sure theyre not driven to a cliff face.

She warned farmers could be left picking up the pieces of a Government afraid to make difficult decisions on how farming needs to be made more environmentally friendly.

"What farmers need is a government that will work with them to plan exactly how theyre going to be farming in the future and to make sure that theres sufficient resources and advice and supports and the finances are there, Ms Whitmore added.

Fianna Fail responded to Ms Whitmore and said the party backs our farmers and is committed to reaching our climate goals.

"There is no conflict between a world class agrifood sector and a sustainable economy. Farmers have not shirked from the challenges we face and shown their commitment to innovation to reduce the environmental impact of farming, a party spokesperson said.

We are determined to protect Irelands Nitrates Derogation, while improving our water quality. Our grass-fed system, climate and soil type support this derogation, and Fianna Fail is making this case at every level.

To help farmers, Fianna Fail will launch a water quality investment scheme. We will also ensure that our water improvement ambitions are properly resourced with one-to-one support for farmers by expanding the Agricultural Sustainability Support and Advisory Programme (ASSAP) and creating a permanent Farming for Water scheme for all relevant areas to directly aid farmers with advice, support and resources.

Fine Gael was contacted for comment.
Tanaiste Micheal Martin meets with former Taoiseach Brian Cowen while out canvassing in Tullamore, Co Offaly with Cllr Tony McCormack. Photo: Mark Condren.

Tanaiste Micheal Martin has said Gerry The Monk Hutch needs to be fully transparent on the allegations that have previously been made against him.

Mr Hutch has officially confirmed that he will contest the election on November 29 and has submitted his application to the Dublin City Returning Officer.

Speaking in Co Offaly on Thursday, the Fianna Fail leader was asked about his view on Mr Hutch running in the Dublin Central constituency.

I think he should be fully transparent with the electorate in relation to all of the allegations that have been made against him, Mr Martin said.

We read in newspapers a whole range of assertions in relation to his activities and so on and I think he should be fully transparent in relation to all of that.

We live in a democracy, people can put their name on the ballot paper, and I think it's incumbent then on him to do that, the Tanaiste added.

On housing, the Fianna Fail leader said the party took over the portfolio in 2020 to change the momentum on the issue.

Prior to that, the minister for housing was former Fine Gael TD Eoghan Murphy. Mr Murphy told the Business Post this week that Fine Gael did not make housing a priority because it was felt that Brexit was more important.

The Tanaiste said Mr Murphys newly released book reveals a lot and added that if the former minister said housing wasnt being prioritised then housing wasnt going to get done.

[The interview] adds to what was in the book, in terms of he feels that he didn't get the support of his colleagues, or indeed of the system with different government departments during his tenure as housing minister.

It does reveal a lot, but from our perspective, that's why we took housing on, Mr Martin said.

If Eoghan is saying it wasn't prioritised, then it was never going to get done during the lifetime of that government, the Tanaiste said.

While the party leader wouldnt confirm if he would like to see Fianna Fail hold the housing portfolio again, he said the issue was something the party was keenly interested in.

Im not going to announce every position we want, but we're keenly interested in housing. Fianna Fail built houses in the past, that's why we took it, he said.

Earlier today, Sinn Fein launched their immigration policy where the party vowed to explore new registration requirements for EU citizens.

The Tanaiste criticised the suggestions and it would be contrary to EU law.

Freedom of mobility is the pillar of European Union, they know that too, the Tanaiste said.

That's a serious issue and if they are proposing that, because no country member state can unilaterally propose that, he added.

The Tanaiste visited Co Offaly on Thursday to canvass with party candidates in a county that is traditionally a strong Fianna Fail area.

This election is significant for the party here as it will be the first time in decades that a member of the Cowen family will not be on the ticket, after Barry Cowen was elected as an MEP in June.

One thing that could impact the party's chances here is the decision by Fianna Fail councillor Eddie Fitzpatrick to run as an independent in the county.

While the Tanaiste said challenges always come up during the election, it is his sense that people are sticking with the party.

These challenges happen in constituencies and in elections. This is a strong Fianna Fail area, has always been, and a lot of people are saying they're sticking with the party, Mr Martin said.
Tanaiste Micheal Martin with Ireland Editor of the Irish Independent Fionnan Sheahan and group Political Editor, Philip Ryan while recording for the 'Indo Daily' podcast. Photo: Mark Condren

Tanaiste Micheal Martin said he was a bit of a square when asked if he ever smoked cannabis while studying to become a teacher in college.

The Fianna Fail leader was speaking about the potential of decriminalising drugs in Ireland, reiterating that the party supports the decriminalising of drug possession for personal use, as outlined in its election manifesto.

Mr Martin was speaking with Ireland Editor of the Irish Independent Fionnan Sheahan and Political Editor, Philip Ryan, on the Indo Daily podcast.

Tanaiste Micheal Martin at the Irish Independent

Did you ever try a spliff yourself Tanaiste?

When asked if he ever smoked a spliff, Mr Martin said: I never did. Even in my college days."

When asked if there was cannabis on campus while he was studying to become a teacher at University College Cork, he said there was but not as much back then.

"I was a bit square, I suppose. I enjoyed a few pints, he told the Indo Daily, adding that he was training with Nemo Rangers GAA club at the time.

Earlier this week, Fianna Fail said the pledge to decriminalise drugs for personal use was in line with a recommendation of the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use, which proposed a health-led approach to drug enforcement.

However, the party stressed that this decriminalisation plan is unlikely to include Class A drugs like cocaine and heroin although it is yet to make a final decision on the matter.

The party manifesto says that it would "decriminalise drug possession for personal use".

Mr Martin said that he was very surprised that Taoiseach Simon Harris and his party Fine Gael are now saying they are very concerned about the decriminalisation of personal drug use.

When asked if he will smoke cannabis if the party is returned to power and introduces legislation to decriminalise personal drug use, the Tanaiste replied: Not at all, no. No interest.
Taoiseach Simon Harris dances with Helen Drumm from Sound Quality Gifts while canvassing in Monaghan. Photo: Fergal Phillips/PA

A TikTok user who jived with Taoiseach Simon Harris and Mary Lou McDonald earlier this week says the Sinn Fein leaders dance skills are a step ahead.

Shop owner Helen Drumm, who has run Sound Quality Gifts in Co Monaghan for 39 years, was paid a visit by both party leaders on their campaign trails.

Ms Drumm was given 40 minutes notice on Monday after being informed the Taoiseach was on his way. He was stopping by as part of his whistlestop tour of Ulster and the midlands.

She told the Irish Independent: When he arrived, I asked him could he dance and he said no, so I said thats grand  Ill teach you. Then, an hour later, Mary Lou arrived in.

Since then, Ms Drumm has been inundated with questions about who the better dancer was.

Mary Lou has been in the store before, dancing twice, so she was a step ahead of him, Ms Drumm said.

It was nice to put a smile on the faces of the Taoiseach and Mary Lou

He has a wee bit of rhythm and is a quick learner and full of energy. Another few visits to Sound Quality Gifts and I reckon well have him ready.

The mum of four, who sells personalised gifts, has had to adapt and diversify her business as a result of tougher economic conditions.

The latest diversification was one she didnt see coming. Last year, her youngest son Jack said: Mom, you should do a TikTok.

To which she replied: What is a TikTok?

Sixteen months on and Ms Drumm, who says she isnt tech-savvy, has amassed over 29 million video views and 1.5 million video likes.

Ive had people taking flights over from London and Liverpool as well as from the Philippines, Japan, Australia and the US to see me, she said.

Mary Lou McDonald with Monaghan shop owner Helen Drumm. Photo: PA

Last month, during a visit to the US, she walked into a shop in Memphis as she followed in Elvis Presleys footsteps.

She recalled: The shop owner, this big guy, ran up and wrapped his arms around me and said, Ms Helen, I follow you on TikTok. I love you. The feedback I get is unbelievable.

Ms Drumm is one of 15 siblings and learned to dance with her sisters.

She started off with the brush dance, which led to jiving and she has refined her act over the years.

Followers from the age of four up to 92 have danced in my shop, she said.

Ive had people taking flights over from London and Liverpool as well as from the Philippines, Japan, Australia and the US to see me

Her latest visitors, who were on day four of the general election campaign trail, chose her because she is hitting a big audience.

Nothing I do is ever planned. When they rang, they said the Taoiseach would like to meet the queen of TikTok. Im known because of my age.

There are young people on the platform who are half my age. I was wondering why they dont choose them. Its because people can relate to me.

She added, light-heartedly: Im not a dumb blonde, I dont have Botox and Im not a size eight, although I wish I was.

Ms Drumm said she is not aligned to a party, but she admires Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys, who will not be running for re-election.

While Ms Drumm did not get to relay her concerns to either party leader, she cited the cost-of-living crisis and crazy prices facing businesses as key issues.

We have serious problems with housing and childcare, she said. The middle class is getting crucified. Small business owners need to be supported more.

Personally, with children in third-level education, we are expected to pay for everything.

She added: Politics aside, I think the visit was great for Monaghan, as it shows its not all about Dublin.

It was nice to put a smile on the faces of the Taoiseach and Mary Lou. I found them to be very social and good human beings.
The Fine Gael leader said that despite the VAT rate prospectively rising from 9pc to 11pc rate, the party would introduce household offsets.

Mr Harris promised to disclose those remedy measures on Sunday, at the Fine Gael manifesto launch, meaning that households would pay less for power, light and heat. He did not give further details.

The Fine Gael leader has now set out a series of promised giveaway measures, despite the recent Budget, but denied he was bribing the electorate with their own money. He was giving them some of their tax back, he said.

Heres how he did on style and substance with just over two weeks now to polling day:

PITCH

Simon initially spoke of his ability to bring people together and break down silos, to get things done. He said he hoped he had shown energy in his first seven months, and promised more. Then he segued into Fine Gaels election promise list, before asking humbly for peoples votes, and finishing: If you give me your trust, I will give you my all.

It only lasted 90 seconds, with Mr Harris attempting to project sincerity, straightforwardness and trustworthiness. Beforehand, as presenter Colette Fitzpatrick made a long introduction, Simon had looked at bit wooden as he stared impassively at the camera, blinking only occasionally.

HOUSING

When FG first came to office there were 7,000 homes being built annually, and this year it will get up to 40,000, he said. Weve had to take this country up from its knees, when it hadnt a bob, he said, explaining the slow progress.

He was reminded that there were adults watching the programme on the couch with their parents because they couldnt manage to get a home in their thirties. A short while later, Simon parroted the same phrase and then said Help to Buy and the First Time Buyers scheme was not money from the Government, it was their own tax back. He added that he was saying to those people that there was now a way forward, with tens of thousands of homes being built. Fine Gael was providing more assistance than other parties, he claimed.

On homelessness, Mr Harris said the scenario of families in hotel rooms was why I go to work, in order to get them out of it. I feel a great sense or shame and sorrow if there is any child homeless tonight, he said. You would be robotic or heartless of you didnt, he added.

COST OF LIVING

Asked if people felt better off now than five years ago, Harris answered with his temporary measures  two sessions of double child benefit and the energy credits  and said the Budget had been progressive. Fine Gael was offering capped childcare at 200 a month per child, and he wanted to see 100 public facilities around the country, he said.

On VAT, businesses were put to the pin of their collar, and FG would lower it to 11pc  and do so within the first hundred days, he said. On energy bills, which had been due to go back up to 13.5pc, Mr Harris said they would not rise in effect (despite climbing to 11pc from 9pc) because their would be offset measures for households, as Fine Gael will unveil on Sunday. Energy bills will go down under Fine Gael, he said.

WASTE

The bike shed was a disgrace, Mr Harris said, blaming the OPW for making a mess of it, twice saying there was no political sign-off for such spending  with it pointed out, however, that a Fine Gael minister was in charge of the OPW. The buck stops with me as Taoiseach for everything in this country.

On the National Childrens Hospital cost overrun, Mr Harris said it had been promised his whole life, but the Government had pressed go on it. He promised it would be worth it, when opened, The childrens hospital is a big win for the children of Ireland. There was no question it had seen a major overrun in cost, but the Government had held the developers feet to the fire, he claimed, and it would be handed over to Government in 2025, at a price of 2.2 billion.

IMMIGRATION

Mr Harris said this was the first time the issue was being discussed in an election, because there had been a huge rise in arrivals, from fewer than 3,000 a year to now 20,000 in 2024. He said he had listened to the people of Ireland, who wanted quicker determinations. We now have a much quicker process, he said, and he wanted to introduce a contribution mechanism towards the cost of accommodation. There was also a list, being regularly expanded, of safe countries to which people could be returned to  and the Gardai were making deportation flights. The Government was determined to use public land for temporary accommodation, and not the last hotel in communities, he said. Thornton Hall was the next location to be used, as to do otherwise risked social cohesion. We have to de-stigmatise discussing migration, he said.

SCOLIOSIS

Mr Harris said he thinks about scoliosis every day, and whether he did the right thing in promising no child would have to wait more than four months for corrective spinal surgery. He said he got the number down from 200 to 35 by the time he left Health  which he said was two and a half years ago. He acknowledged that the number waiting over four months was now north of eighty.

But there is a plan to get that number down to 20 before Christmas, he said. The four month target remained, and he hadnt forgotten the commitment he gave, he said.

On wider waiting lists, Mr Harris said the numbers on a list were not as relevant as wait times  and those were falling. He promised a new multi-annual budget for Health if returned to power.

TRUMP

Simon said he asked President-elect Trump, in a phone call of electoral congratulations this week, to take steps to stop children dying in Gaza, where war crimes were being committed against them. He also raised the issue of arms supply to Israel. I had a good conversation with President Trump, whatever his policies, he said.

But the Trump Presidency holds possible dangers, he said. The risk of a transatlantic trade shock is real, Mr Harris added, saying he had to be honest with the Irish people on that score. Was it a very Trumpian attempt to win votes by creating anxiety?

TEACHERS Mr Harris said his daughter is in junior infants and he would be attending a parent-teacher meeting in the coming week, after teachers were denigrated at a Fine Gael event last weekend. This shouldnt have happened, he said, making clear the remarks had come from Michael OLeary, and he didnt know who had been cheering and applauding him, although some would have been Fine Gael supporters, he conceded.

FG & FF MERGER

I dont accept that at all, Mr Harris said of a suggested long-term merger of FF and FG. On transfers, between the big Government parties, he added: Theres certainly no pact  but if people think the Government is doing a good job, they might naturally do that. He refused to countenance resuming a rotating Taoiseach arrangement with Micheal Martin. To presume on the outcome when not a vote had been cast, was the height of arrogance, he said.

The next Big Interviews are with Mary-Lou McDonald on Wednesday, November 20; and with Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin a week later on Wednesday, November 27.
Green Party candidates Cllr Hazel Chu, Minister Malcolm Noonan, leader and Minister Roderic O'Gorman, Minister Catherine Martin and Brian Leddin, speaking at the party's climate plan launch in Temple Bar, Dublin, today ahead of the General Election on November 29. Picture: Cillian Sherlock/PA Wire

Green Party leader Roderic OGorman has said some of the biggest fights between the last Government were on climate issues, while Arts Minister Catherine Martin said voters see Fianna Fail and Fine Gael backtracking on promises.

Mr OGorman said he believes the other coalition parties are hoping that we wont be around next time and they will be able to spend the 3.1bn Climate and Nature fund as they decide.

Speaking to reporters at the launch of their climate policy, Green Party politicians pointed to a lack of thought from Fine Gael and Fianna Fail and accused them of backtracking on what needs to be done on climate.

Arts minister Catherine Martin said her former coalition partners showed their true colours in the final cabinet meeting ahead of the dissolution of the Dail and blocked plans to allocate the 3.1bn Climate and Nature Fund.

"That cabinet meeting to me was the clear signal of intent going into an election campaign, that meeting was three days before an election was called, she said.

"By backtracking what needs to be done on climate action, it exactly shows the role we played in Government that every piece of climate action that people have seen and felt over the last 4.5 years came from and was led by the Green Party.

"Our colleagues unfortunately showed their true colours at that meeting because three days before they start to hit the doors on a general election campaign, they go lets step away from this climate crisis. The next day it was 19 degrees in Dublin in November. Thats whats coming up on the doors.

"People see what they did there. People see them backtracking when you need leadership.

Mr OGorman said the Climate and Nature Fund was a red line issue for the party in Government, conceding that discussions around the issue last summer were a tense time.

He said his coalition partners last week refused to support proposals that would outline how the fund would be spent.

"They said we were coming towards the end of a Government and we couldnt make those decisions but I dont really buy that, weve taken lots of decisions at the end of this Government, he added.

"I dont buy that. My own view is I think that they are hoping that we wont be around next time and theyll get to spend it as they decide.

He added that he does not believe Sinn Fein has any interest in climate action, adding: "They talk about every sort of change other than climate change.

I genuinely think they have no feel for this issue, it is not something they care about.

Green Party candidates Cllr Hazel Chu, Minister Malcolm Noonan, leader and Minister Roderic O'Gorman, Minister Catherine Martin and Brian Leddin, speaking at the party's climate plan launch in Temple Bar, Dublin, today ahead of the General Election on November 29. Picture: Cillian Sherlock/PA Wire

Climate and Nature Fund was a 'red line' issue says the Greens

Mr OGorman said Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have changed on climate and have engaged with the issue much more robustly now than they did in the previous Government.

"But its not front and centre for them and I think they dont quite grasp the step forward we have to do in terms of helping families, helping people, helping businesses make these changes, he said, adding that Government must step up and offer supports.

"Fianna Fail and Fine Gael recognise we have to do something but they arent prepared to stump up the financial support to help people make those changes.

In a statement to the Irish Independent, a Fianna Fail spokesperson completely rejected the comments and said there is no evidence to support the assertions that climate is "not front and centre" for the party and that they are not prepared to stump up the financial support".

"In fact, Fianna Fail has made delivery on climate action a priority in Government, they added.

They said Fianna Fail has outlined ambitious climate plans including achieving net zero emissions, launching a new climate data-use performance payment for farmers, scale-up retrofitting through a tax-back scheme, support a grid-to-vehicle/vehicle-to-grid systems and advocate for an Energy Minister.

Among their proposals on climate action, the Green Party today pledged:

To allocate 2bn of the Climate and Nature Fund to an expanded home retrofit programme, 200m to help businesses with energy efficiency, 250m to support rollout of district heating and 100m for new infrastructure to support offshore wind and microgeneration

To make the installation of solar panels free for 200,000 low income households

Make attic insulation and cavity wall insulation free for all households

Introduction of low cost loans for lower priced EVs and a targeted grant for lower income households

Facilitation of vehicle to grid electricity transmission for households with smart meters to connect to their EV battery

"The Green Party will continue to prioritise climate action, we did it every single day in Government and indeed, some of our biggest fights in Government were on the issue of climate and the issue of nature, said Mr OGorman, adding that the Greens were responsible for getting the Climate and Nature Fund over the line in the first place.

"Unfortunately, in the dying days of this Government, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael decided to punt on really important decisions regarding how that money is spent, he said.

Mr OGorman described the move as really disappointing and argued that only the Green Party is capable of delivering in terms of climate action in Government.

Meanwhile, Dublin Bay South candidate Hazel Chu said the party will not back down on calls for a televised debate on climate issues ahead of polling day and said the stakes are higher than ever.

Limerick TD Brian Leddin also today accused successive Irish governments of a Dublin-centric approach to planning prompted by a lack of thinking from Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

He said the parties have historically abdicated their responsibility to bring about a balanced country and instead built all the roads to Dublin, built the railway network to serve Dublin, electricity infrastructure is to serve Dublin, Dublin airport must get another runway and terminal.

He added that the parties do not have a strategic plan in the area and have been led by vested interests, by senior civil servants to create a capital city that is creaking at the seams".

The Irish Independent has also contacted Fine Gael and Sinn Fein for comment.
Fine Gael general election candidate for Wicklow, councillor Edward Timmins, has proposed the establishment of a literary trail around the county to celebrate its strong association with literary figures.

Outlining his vision for such a project, Cllr Timmins noted that Wicklow should be taking advantage of the multitude of links with literary figures from Synge through Joyce to Sebastian Barry and Claire Keegan, adding that a literary trail could prove hugely successful, as it has done in Co Longford.

Its time for us to develop a literary trail around the county, he said.

Such initiatives have proved hugely successful in other counties, such as Longford.

I believe funding for such an initiative could be obtained, and it would be something positive that would not only boost tourism but raise the profile of Wicklows literary legacy and offer another positive activity in our county.

Wicklow is home to many great writers who could be encouraged to become involved in an exploratory Steering Committee for this initiative.

Asked about how best to maximise Wicklows proximity to Dublin, Cllr Timmins said that Wicklow is in a unique position to benefit from associated tourism from the capital.

Dublin is the fourth UNESCO City of Literature, one of 53 UNESCO Cities of Literature worldwide, he said.

I believe we need to partner with stakeholders like the Arts Council, Creative Ireland Wicklow, Words Ireland, Dublin UNESCO city of literature, Wicklow County Council and other key government stakeholders.

If elected to Dail Eireann, I will be a TD who brings new, actionable and practical ideas that have clear funding options, he added.

Indeed, it was ideas put into action that gave us some of Irelands greatest literary figures, such as playwright Samuel Beckett who had connections to the county.

In Becketts own words: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
A group of Irish peacekeepers are due to return from Lebanon to Dublin this morning, following a major security operation to escort them safely to Beirut airport yesterday.

Up to 90 Irish Army personnel were escorted from Camp Shamrock in southern Lebanon yesterday morning.

They were scheduled to leave for Ireland in the early hours of this morning.

Another group of Irish peacekeepers, who left Ireland to begin their tour, arrived in Lebanon yesterday and were then transferred by the same military escort to Camp Shamrock.

The remaining peacekeepers, who are coming to the end of their tour in Lebanon, are due to arrive back in Dublin on November 25.

There had been major concerns in recent weeks that the return of peacekeepers could be delayed owing to the volatility of the situation in Lebanon.

However, family members of soldiers due to arrive back this morning spoke of their relief and joy at news their loved ones were coming home.

Conditions have been described as extremely difficult for Irish Army personnel in Lebanon since Israels invasion of the country.

Much of their time in recent months has been spent locked down in bunkers.

One woman spoke of her joy at the prospect of her son returning home safely after months of relentless worry.

It has been a nightmare. Every day you think about them and you worry, she said.

They have been through a lot, all of them. And so have their families.

It has felt at times it was never going to end.

I cant wait to put my arms around him.

Conditions at Camp Shamrock saw reduced access to food and water supplies, with peacekeepers forced to wash with bottled water and eat ration packs for extended periods.

Communication between army personnel and their families in Ireland was often hampered as troops were forced to spent prolonged periods of times  up to 12 hours a day  in bunkers.
Eileen and Kevin Phoenix from Clondalkin waiting on their son Kevin (35) to return from Lebanon

Roisin and Jason Dowdall, waiting for their older brother Gary, from County Down

Lee Moran (20) at Dublin Airport following his first tour in Lebanon, with his mum Liz, sister Isabella (13) and brother Keith (18) and his grandmother

Irish troops were welcomed home with open arms by emotional family members following the end of their peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.

A total of 85 members of the 124th infantry battalion arrived into Dublin Airport this morning, after they were escorted from Camp Shamrock in conflict stricken Lebanon to an airport in its capital Beirut in a tight security operation yesterday.

Lee Moran (20) at Dublin Airport following his first tour in Lebanon, with his mum Liz, sister Isabella (13) and brother Keith (18) and his grandmother

Hugs and tears as 85 Irish peacekeeping troops return to Dublin Airport from Lebanon

One mother, Liz Moran, from Trim in Co Meath said she hadnt slept a wink since news broke of tensions in Camp Shamrock last month where her son Lee (20), on his first peacekeeping mission, was stationed.

"I know hes a peacekeeper and in the army and an Irish soldier but thats my baby. He will always be my baby, she told the Irish Independent.

Lee Moran (20) at Dublin Airport following his first tour in Lebanon, with his mum Liz, sister Isabella (13) and brother Keith (18) and his grandmother

Tricolours, banners and bouquets of flowers from mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers and friends welcomed the troops home, as loved ones breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Cheers rang out and tears of elation ran down faces as mothers embraced sons, fathers held their daughters, and loved ones gripped each other tight.

The troops spent six months as part of a UNIFIL mission in Southern Lebanon as middle east tensions heightened with the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, as well as Iranian and Hezbollah attacks on Israel.

Lee Moran (20) at Dublin Airport following his first tour in Lebanon, with his mum Liz, sister Isabella (13) and brother Keith (18) and his grandmother

Irish peacekeeping troops return to Dublin Airport from Lebanon

In October, Camp Shamrock, comprised of UN peacekeepers, was struck by a rocket amidst tensions between Israel and Hezbullah, with much of the Irish troops time thereafter spent locked down in bunkers.

The increased tensions saw reduced access to food and water supplies for the Irish peacekeepers, who were forced to wash with bottled water and eat ration packs for extended periods.

Eileen Phoenix, from Clondalkin, was waiting anxiously with her husband Kevin for their son, also Kevin (35), who has been in the army for the last 18 years.

Eileen and Kevin Phoenix from Clondalkin waiting on their son Kevin (35) to return from Lebanon

We are delighted, we are relieved. I think we have lost 20 years in the last 24 hours. The last few weeks were absolute torture. We know how good they are at doing their job, the men and the women out there but this was very different to any other trip any of them have been on, Ms Phoenix said.

She added that it was a tough trip and not being able to communicate with their son at times was the most stressful part of it.

The Irish troops were also unable to talk to family members for extended periods of time while bunkered down in their positions at the camp.

"I just cant believe that hes getting home, Ms Phoenix added.

Also waiting patiently in the arrivals hall were brother and sister Roisin and Jason Dowdall, who were giving a heroes welcome to their older brother Gary.

Roisin and Jason Dowdall, waiting for their older brother Gary, from County Down

"We are very proud of Gary and all the troops coming home. It has been a challenging few months as you can imagine. Its a very happy day for us all.

Returning from his second tour in Lebanon, Gary, who has been with the military for four years, got to greet his two-year-old daughter Maddison, who made her first steps while he was bunkered down in Camp Shamrock.

His young brother Jason said he cant wait for his brother Gary, his hero to come back and help him out on the farm in Newry, County Down.

"Its a long road home, but it will be a happy road home, Roisin added.

The remaining peacekeepers, some 300-strong, are coming to the end of their tour in Lebanon and are due to arrive back in Dublin on Monday, November 25.

Another group of Irish peacekeepers left Ireland to begin their tour and arrived in Lebanon yesterday.

They were then transferred by the same military escort to Camp Shamrock, after a safe corridor to escort the troops was agreed with Israel and Hizbullah,
I had one of Irelands most expensive pints of Guinness at 9.20  so, was it worth it?
Body of well-known singer Johnny Duhan (74) discovered after going missing on the same day as woman in her 30s, gardai believe they were not known to each otherGardai say sequence of events is a puzzle

Gardai help with the search at Silverstrand beach in Galway Bay. Photo: Ray Ryan

The funeral details for well-known singer and songwriter Johnny Duhan have been announced, as the search continues for the second swimmer missing off the coast of Galway.

Mr Duhan (74) from Barna was found in waters off Rusheen Bay on Tuesday afternoon.

Search and rescue services launched a major operation on Tuesday morning when alerted to concerns a local man was missing having gone for a swim at Silverstrand Beach, Barna, Co Galway.

Hours later gardai received a report that another person, a local woman in her 30s, was also feared missing having gone for a swim in the same spot after she failed to turn up for work.

Her car was subsequently found in car park at Silverstrand.

A widespread search continues for the missing woman.

Mr Duhans family notice details that he will repose at the 'Cillin' within the Church of Mary Immaculate Queen, Barna (H91 A2T7), on Thursday, November 14 from 5pm until 7pm.

There will be a private removal on Friday, November 15 from his house to St. Killian's Church New Inn (H53 H978) for a 1pm funeral mass and afterwards he will be laid to rest in Killaan Cemetery, Woodlawn.

The family wish to inform well-wishers that the house will be private at all times.

And they have requested that donations can be sent to RNLI and NRH in lieu of flowers.

The family added a quote from Mr Duhans well-loved song to the death notice, writing; In troubled waters (love) keeps us afloat.

Well-known singer and songwriter Johnny Duhan (74) was reported missing on Tuesday. Photo: Ray Ryan

Search resumes for local woman missing in Galway Bay

Tragedy

Gardai believe both swimmers arrived separately to the beach and were not known to each other.

Sea conditions at the time were calm but sources say visibility due to dense fog was extremely poor.

While the temperature was very low, sea temperatures did not fall into the range of causing hypothermia.

One theory is that one swimmer may have gone to the assistance of the other who got into difficulty. Another theory is that both incidents are unconnected, with poor visibility leading both to become disorientated separately.

While the focus of the search remains in the Silverstrand-Rusheen Bay area, boats have now widened their field of search.

Members of the missing womans family and friends remain at the shoreline day and night.

Garda Superintendent Paudie OShea told the Irish Independent they remain puzzled by the incident.

Gardai, along with our colleagues in the Irish Coast Guard, the RNLI and Galway Civil Defence recommenced the search for the missing lady here at Silverstrand Wednesday morning at first light, he said.

An Garda Siochana are still providing support to the family and the loved ones of this missing lady.

We would like to extend our thanks to the local community in Galway, in particular the support that we got and the care and the assistance we got from that community has been overwhelming.

The sequence of events is still a puzzle to us. Both parties would have arrived here separately, and they would have been keen and avid visitors to this area, and they would have planned for a dip in the sea each morning.

Supt OShea said he wouldnt like to speculate on what caused the tragedy but said its quite unusual here in Silverstrand.

Yesterday morning, the tide would have been out, so you can actually go out a good distance before you reach water, he said yesterday.

A fog descended, so its a possibility that they got disorientated within that because even here yesterday evening, the fog was lifting and dropping within seconds.

So even today, Im told if you go out a mile, a mile-and-a-half, its clear.

The fog is hugging the coastline here. What was happening here yesterday morning was quite unique, he said.

Supt OShea said poor visibility yesterday also hampered search efforts.

We did manage to get (Coast Guard helicopter) Rescue 117 up here to provide top cover for us, but it did prove challenging, he said.

We had people on the ground from out west, from Spiddal. They came in here and also from here in as far the docks.

We had 120 people who arrived here alone at this one location. And I would safely say we had a similar volume of people out in Spiddal, more people on the prom in Salthill.

Well-known singer and songwriter Johnny Duhan (74) was reported missing on Tuesday. Photo: Ray Ryan

Today's News in 90 seconds - 14th November 2024

The response from the community was massive and we want to reaffirm our thanks to the local community.

Supt OShea declined to comment on the results of a post-mortem carried out on the remains of Mr Duhan.

A spokesperson at the Department of Transport said fog had caused problems for search and rescue teams.

The search has again focused on the Silverstrand hill area but has expanded to the wider Galway Bay, they said yesterday.

The Coast Guards Marine Rescue Sub-centre at Valentia tasked multiple units on scene today, including the Aran Islands Lifeboat, Costelloe Bay Coast Guard unit, Galway Lifeboat, Cleggan Coast Guard drone team, and the Coast Guard helicopter from Waterford.

The Aran Island lifeboat was appointed as on-scene co-ordinator for the search. Fog at Shannon and Sligo prevented the tasking of Coast Guard helicopters from these bases.

The search was stood down this evening [Wednesday] at 4.30pm and will resume again tomorrow at first light. The search will continue to cover the same area around Silverstrand and the wider Galway Bay, to take into account potential drift projections.
A man in his 50s has died after a freak accident in Cork.

The man suffered fatal injuries after he was struck by a van as he was working in the Glanmire area on Thursday evening.

Gardai and paramedics raced to the scene when the alarm was raised shortly before 6pm.

However, despite desperate efforts to stabilise the man's condition, he was pronounced dead before he could be rushed to Cork University Hospital (CUH).

The scene was preserved for a full technical and forensic examination.

The deceased man is from the Cork area.

Separately, two women sustained serious injuries after a two-vehicle collision in Castletownbere, also in Co Cork on Thursday afternoon.

The collision occurred shortly after 1.40pm on the R572 road outside Castletownbere.

It is understood two cars were involved in a head-on collision with Gardai and emergency services arriving at the scene within minutes.

Part of the road at Derrymihin West was closed to facilitate the work of the emergency services but it has since re-opened.

Gardai, Cork Fire Brigade, ambulances and the air ambulance attended the scene.

Both women were transferred to Cork University Hospital (CUH) after being freed from their vehicles.

The injuries sustained in both cases are not understood to be life-threatening.

Garda forensic and technical experts examined the scene to determine the precise circumstances of the collision.

In Dublin, a man also sustained serious injured after a collision between an e-bike and a car. The collision occurred in Cabinteely, on the N11 at the junction with Johnstown Road shortly before 5pm.

The cyclist, a man aged in his 20s, was seriously injured. He was conveyed by ambulance to Beaumont Hospital, Dublin where his condition is understood to be serious.

The scene is preserved for a technical examination by Garda Forensic Collision Investigators and traffic diversions are in place.

Gardai are appealing for any witnesses to this collision to come forward.
Patsy OBrien was expelled from Fine Gael four years ago after disciplinary process Mr OBrien is now running as Independent in General Election

Taoiseach Simon Harris says he does not know why Fine Gael expelled a councillor who is now running against his party in the General Election.

Former Fine Gael councillor Patsy OBrien was suspended from the party when a complaint was made against him in March 2020.

He was expelled in October of the same year after an internal Fine Gael disciplinary investigation. Fine Gael and Mr OBrien have refused to say why he was expelled from the party.

Speaking at a campaign event in Dublin, Taoiseach Simon Harris said he was unaware of the reasons behind Mr OBriens expulsion from Fine Gael.

However, when pushed for further details, the Fine Gael leader said: I believe there was a disciplinary issue in Mayo, Im not across the details of it and that person was expelled from the party. It predates my time as leader.

Mr Harris said he will find out more information from his party officials.

We have standards in relation to who can and can't be a member of our party, and it was deemed inappropriate for that councillor to continue as a member of our party. I don't have any more information. I can see in my party headquarters can provide it, he added.

Fine Gael has received several requests for comment from the Irish Independent about the reasons behind Mr OBriens expulsion from Fine Gael but has refused to say what was behind the decision.

When contacted today and asked if he wished to detail why he was expelled from Fine Gael, Mr OBrien said: No comment.

Mr Harris and Fine Gael were very strong in their condemnation of Sinn Fein when Mary Lou McDonalds party was besieged by a series of resignations in the lead-up to the election.

There is no suggestion that Mr OBriens expulsion was in any way similar to those expelled by Sinn Fein.

Mr OBrien topped the poll in the Claremorris electoral area with 20pc of the vote and is tipped to be in the fight for a seat in the Mayo constituency.

Before the local election in June, Fine Gael headquarters was forced to send a letter of comfort to candidates over fears Mr OBrien was set to rejoin the party.

There were fears in the Claremorris Fine Gael branch that the expelled councillor would return to the party after or even before the June vote.

Fine Gael general secretary John Carroll wrote to members confirming the party ticket for the Claremorris electoral area.

Mr Carroll said Fine Gael selected three candidates for the local electoral area and would not be adding anyone else before or after the election.
Belmonds Britannic Explorer will take to the rails with three-night itineraries from July 2025

The company behind the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express is set to launch a new luxury train in Britain.

The Britannic Explorer, a sleeper train with fine dining restaurant, double cabins, observation car and even spa treatments on board, will debut next July.

Three-night itineraries are priced from 5,800 per passenger (almost 7,000), according to its website, and will take guests on immersive journeys through Wales, Cornwall and the Lake District.

Paying homage to the Great British tradition of touring, the Britannic Explorer celebrates the art of slow travel, preserving Britains pioneering railway history while ushering in a new era of culture and creativity, Belmond says.

Belmond's Britannic Explorer

It describes the train as the first luxury sleeper train in England and Wales.

Journey prices include accommodation, daily table d'hote meals including breakfasts, brunches, lunches, afternoon teas and dinners, and a selection of beverages, alcoholic and otherwise.

Belmond is known for luxury trains like the Royal Scotsman, British Pullman and Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, and briefly ran a train  The Grand Hibernian - in Ireland. Its two-night, 3,160pp itineraries were derailed by the Covid-19 pandemic, however.

The company has confirmed that Britannic Explorer uses repurposed carriages from the Grand Hibernian.

A Grand Suite on the Britannic Explorer

Belmond also counts Hotel Cipriani in Venice, The Cadogan in London, El Encanto in California, and the luxury river boards Les Bateaux Belmondl, among its brands.

News of Britannic Explorer comes at a time of growth for sleeper train travel in Europe, with several new, more affordable services from brands like NightJet, European Sleeper and SJ.

Belmonds latest will have 18 cabins, including three grand suites, an onboard wellness suite, and a culinary experience (described as a moveable feast) by Michelin-starred chef Simon Rogan.

"Each plate will reflect Britains diverse landscapes, he said. I hope every passenger not only enjoys the flavours but also feels a connection between the dishes and the journey, making their time on board truly memorable.

A centrepiece is the trains botanically inspired bar, located in the Observation Car and set to be the vibrant social heart of the Britannic Explorer, it says.

The Wellness Suite

Passengers can also take optional off-train guided excursions  these range from hikes to wild swimming and meals in locations like the Hauser & Wirth gallery.

Interiors were created by London-based studio, Albion Nord.

"The Britannic Explorer offers something truly unique; an opportunity to discover the rugged Cornish coastline to Snowdonias untamed National Park and the vast expanses of the Lake District like never before," said Gary Franklin of Belmond.

He described the venture as a revolutionary new train.

Three-night itineraries on the Britannic Explorer start from 11,000 (13,250) based on a double cabin including meals, drinks and excursions. belmond.com
Savour Las Vegas direct from Dublin  from Elvis to V-U2 and the Strip to the desert

A new Aer Lingus route puts Irish travellers just one flight away from a bucket-list trip to Sin City

Aer Lingus is now offering direct flights from Dublin to Las Vegas

Amy Blaney Thu 14 Nov 2024 at 03:30

Our Irish guests love Elvis, the wedding chapel owner says, as if we would ever doubt it.
While the reference to decriminalise the possession of drugs for personal use was just a sliver of the Fianna Fail manifesto this week, it got a reaction because people are looking for a point of connection to this election and they do not want to normalise and increase access to drugs.

However, it also got a reaction because many people get decriminalisation and legislation mixed up. At one point I was hazy on this thinking. For instance, in Portugal, drug use is still prohibited, but the sanction used in response to being caught with drugs means you get treated like a patient, not a criminal.
Were only a few days in to the election campaign, and the only thing yet to be promised is a direct rail link to Rockall in the North Atlantic. But at the rate parties are burning up the billions, we probably wont have to wait much longer.

Labour has outlined how it would use the windfall funds from the Apple tax case. It plans to direct 7bn towards housing, including 6bn to set up a state construction company, with a further 1bn allocated for water infrastructure and servicing of land.

The Greens say they would spend 7bn of the Apple tax money and 3bn from other sources to ensure that work begins on major transport projects.

We certainly need more housing, as evidenced by todays report that the average cost of renting a home is rapidly approaching 2,000 a month, nationwide.

The case for further reaching and more reliable transport is also compelling. Whats worrying is that competition to spend scarce state resources is becoming red hot.

Most people recognise that manifestos are just love letters written to the nation to buy peoples votes. The concern is that we may lose all concept of the price and value in the unfolding bidding war, in what seems to be a blind auction.

With punitive tax changes and tariffs expected, our open economy is in the direct path of the storm

With the change of administration in Washington, we can expect a profound change in the prevailing economic climate. Clement pro-trade conditions are likely to be replaced by disruptive headwinds.

With punitive tax changes and tariffs expected, our open economy is in the direct path of the storm.

No one is saying we should be fatalistic. However, committing to massive expenditure before we have had a chance to assess potential economic shocks seems improvident.

All parties are making extremely seductive but highly exorbitant pledges, as election fever takes over. But as we have learned, there is always a reckoning.

Reality is not really open to negotiation. In the end, its the taxpayer that will be expected to turn out their pockets. Politicians must remember that issues ought to be prioritised in order of peoples needs, not wants.

Pledging perpetual Childrens Allowance payments  up to the time said child nears retirement age  is neither in the best interest of child nor country.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: All the great story lines are great practical jokes that people fall for over and over again.

Reading back through election materials from past to present, a sense of deja vu prevails. Housing and health are still to the fore. And the challenge once again is to convince: next time it will be different.

To this end, more and more money is being committed. But the fundamental questions to conundrums such as how more homes are to be built and by whom, or how more hospital beds are to be found and serviced, remain open.

The not-too-recent past ought to have taught us that we either control our money, or a lack of it will control us.
The Dail Chamber in Leinster House will be busier after the general election, with the number of TDs increasing by 14 to 174. Photo: Getty

We await election of the increased number of TDs, from 160 in the last general election to 174. This is happening to satisfy the constitutional requirement of one representative per 20,000 to 30,000 population.

This figure was set in an Ireland of restricted communication where telegram was the message system. It was an Ireland with restricted transport and few private cars.

Our incumbent Dail representatives have proved that the position of TD is a part-time role. Some continue to pursue very successful legal careers, others are wealthy landlords and some have various business interests.

They have the facility to pursue legal changes that will have a positive effect on their extra-curricular activities with little consideration for conflict of interest.

Why do we need so many TDs while successful democracies in Europe and further afield operate with a smaller proportion of parliamentary representatives?

Our proportion was set at a time when county councillors were not paid. They should now be left to look after local politics.

If we cast the comparison net wider, the over-representation becomes more absurd.

If India was to have the same ratio of national parliamentarians to its population as we have in the Dail, they would require about 45,000 parliamentarians instead of their current number of 543.

I do not hear any international body claiming that India is not properly democratic in the representation of its people. 

Paddy Murray Castlepollard, Co Westmeath

OLeary right to question over-representation of teachers in Dail Eireann

I am writing in response to the recent backlash against Michael OLeary for his comments about the over-representation of teachers in the Dail. While his remarks may have been characteristically blunt, they highlight a genuine concern about the need for diverse perspectives in our political leadership.

Effective governance requires a broad range of skills and experiences. A diverse Dail, reflecting the various professions and backgrounds of the Irish people, would bring fresh perspectives and innovative solutions to our challenges.

While teachers are very dedicated individuals, its fair to question whether their specific skill set is always the most suitable for the complexities of political leadership. It is OK to question if they should be the most dominant group in the Dail.

Other professions, in areas such as business, charity, finance, healthcare and engineering, offer valuable insights and expertise that could enrich the decision-making process along with those in the education sector.

A multitude of pressing issues demand the attention of our politicians and our electorate. These issues include the economy, infrastructure, citizens safety, housing, the cost of living, job security and rural regeneration to name but a few. This latest diversion of pearl-clutching and hand-wringing does little to address these challenges.

I am more concerned about the excessive criticism directed at one of Irelands, and indeed Europes, most successful businessmen.

Whether we like it or not, another very successful businessman is now leader of the free world. Perhaps OLeary, non-teacher that he is, should consider standing himself on this side of the Atlantic.

A Gallagher Leicestershire

Safety net of retreating to the class makes politics attractive for educators

I recently had a letter printed in this newspaper bemoaning the fact that there were, at the time, 39 teachers serving in the Dail. However, my moans did not relate to their competency as TDs and ministers.

My gripe, in deference to Michael OLearys, related to the fact that each and every position these teachers held was kept open to them for the duration of their tenure in Leinster House.

Simon Harris followed OLearys remarks with an inane statement claiming that if teachers are trusted to look after our most prized possessions  ie our children  then why would we not trust them to look after the country? Utter nonsense.

There is no basis in fact that gives proof in any way that teachers make good, effective politicians.

It is simply the case that teachers can take a run at politics, seriously improve their income and, after a period, slip back into the world of education with a nice pension in their back pocket. If theyre lucky enough to get a ministry, that pension soars.

They have the safety net of their job to go back to, so why not give politics a go? The truth is we would have fewer teachers in the Dail if there was no retreat to the classroom available.

I also agree with OLeary on his point that we need more business people involved in government.

Eamon Kearney Ayrfield Road, Dublin 13

Islam is about tolerance and peace to all, regardless of personally held beliefs

I am writing to address the increase in misunderstandings about Islam and the resulting lack of knowledge regarding its true teachings  those of peace, tolerance, and benevolence towards all.

Despite the fact that Islam means peace, many people harbour misgivings about my religion due to the despicable actions of some radicalised individuals. These actions contradict the true teachings of Islam.

The Holy Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (peace be upon him), exemplified the principles of Islam throughout his life, once saying: You will not enter paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another.

Islam clearly emphasises mutual acceptance and respect towards everyone, regardless of their beliefs.

Furthermore, the Holy Quran frequently highlights the importance of peace and tolerance in fostering a world where people from all walks of life can co-exist harmoniously. The Quran states there should be no compulsion in religion, stressing the importance of freedom of belief.

To create a peaceful and prosperous world, it is imperative that we set aside our differences and respect one anothers beliefs, values and customs. This is precisely what Islam teaches and what I believe to be the first step towards a more accepting world.

Nabeeha Malik Dublin

People say Harris is full of energy and it really shows on the campaign trail

During these canvassing days, it is common to see Simon Harris skip quickly by on the hustings.

It is reasonable to assume he is running for the election.

Leo Gormley Dundalk, Co Louth
Not all is rosy when people are thinking about the coalition options that might be on the table for the next government.

As revealed in this morning's exclusive Indo Daily interview with Micheal Martin, the Tanaiste believes the attacks by Taoiseach Simon Harris on Fianna Fail are going too far and he would prefer a ceasefire.

As parties reveal their election manifestos, we find out what their political red lines are when it comes to coalition bargaining talks.

What are the issues that voters are raising on the doorstep to candidates? Is immigration still a hot topic, and if so, who might capitalise on that?

And which party is winning the social media battle in the hunt for the Gen Z vote?

Joining Kevin Doyle on this Election Extra podcast is Finian McGrath, former TD and minister of state for disability issues, and Gabija Gataveckaite, Political Reporter for the Irish Independent.

You can find the Election Extra podcast in The Indo Daily feed wherever you get your podcasts every Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
At the launch, Cork Chamber outlined the key priorities for businesses and the wider economy across Cork city and county as the election approaches.

Conor Healy, CEO of Cork Chamber, said: The next government must continue to enhance our region for the employees commuting daily, the families seeking affordable housing, and the thriving communities in our city region.

Mr Healy continued: We must ensure that the region continues to thrive in the years to come as its population expands considerably. The representatives we elect to Dail Eireann now will be presiding over the direction of national policy at a time of immense change for the Cork region, but also a time of considerable opportunity.

We must invest in our infrastructure, our housing, our public transport; we need to prioritise the pursuit of a sustainable, vibrant evolution in our urban centres. We must enhance our competitiveness, attracting talent and investment, and supporting SMEs and local businesses, he added.

President of Cork Chamber, Rob Horgan, commented: What is vital now is that all candidates standing for election across Corks five constituencies match this ambition for our region, and commit to advancing progress on the key issues for Cork.

Corks population is projected to grow by 50% by 2040, said Mr Horgan. What is needed now from all parties and candidates is a commitment to supporting the realisation of this potential, through enabling policies and measures.

As the 2024 general election approaches, Cork Chambers members have highlighted eight key priorities for progress over the next five years, namely: housing, urban evolution, talent and skills, renewables and energy system integration, sustainability and climate neutral city, infrastructure and connectivity, supporting SMEs, local businesses and start-ups, planning reform and speed of delivery.

Cork Chamber are calling on all candidates in this years general election to prioritise the following issues:

The delivery of housing and infrastructure to support Cork city and counties growing population by providing multi-annual funding plans for providers of critical utilities and infrastructure, and encouraging greater alignment among delivery stakeholders.

Enhance the competitiveness of Cork and other urban centres by supporting the development of safe, welcoming and sustainable urban areas, supported by increased garda resources, measures that promote city-centre living and social cohesion, and a commitment to supporting Corks transition to climate neutrality by 2030 as an EU mission city.

Accelerate delivery of critical infrastructure projects for the Cork region, including those that promote active travel, such as the Cork Light Rail, BusConnects and commuter rail, alongside key transport corridors like the Northern Distributor Road, the N25, the M20 and M28.

Include the Cork Events Centre in the next programme for Government, prioritising its delivery in the coming government term.

Pursue pro-business policies, streamlining the increased regulatory burden affecting SMEs in particular and providing appropriate supports to SMEs when implementing new regulations. Increase support for domestic enterprises and encourage innovation and collaboration, promoting partnerships between SMEs and R&D institutions to drive competitiveness.

Designate the Cork Harbour region as an energy park, supporting the delivery of enabling infrastructure for the offshore renewables sector and developing a skills hub for the sector in Cork, building on existing capacity in the region.
The Kanturk Tidy Towns Committee pictured with some residents of St Patrick's Place at the recent unveiling of the Famine Pot.

Last week Kanturk Tidy Towns unveiled a Famine Pot in memory of those who died during the Great Famine (1845-1850).

This historic artefact was unearthed by a local farmer when he was working on his farm and he kindly donated it to Kanturk Tidy Towns.

Situated at the entrance to St Patricks Place, this location was chosen as it was here that the gates to Kanturk Union Workhouse were positioned.

This six acre compound was on land given by the Earl of Egmont and today includes the dispensary, Kanturk Community hospital, the former medical officers residence and St Patricks Place.

The workhouse was built to accommodate 800 people but during the tragic period of the famine almost 1,800 people lived there. North Cork was thought to have suffered some of the worst effects of famine during this catastrophic period of history.

Many of these large cauldrons were donated to the Irish People by the Quaker community during the height of the famine in 1846.

They were made of cast iron and were used to provide soup to the starving people in soup kitchens and workhouses all around the country.
Chairman Donie Howard spoke of progress over the past 21 years, starting with the purchase of a one acre site in the village. Subsequently a contract was signed in 2004 with Buckley Bros Ballydesmond, for the construction of eight houses and a social centre costing in excess of one million euro.

The sod was turned on the 29th April 2005 by the then Minister of State at the Dept of the Environment Batt OKeeffe T.D and the project was completed within 15 months. The combined support from various agencies and individuals was key to the success of the project, these included Cork County Council, Sustainable Energy Ireland, Health Service Executive, IRD Duhallow Rural Social Scheme, Mallow Energy Office and Denis Lane Electrical Contractor Millstreet, said the Chairman.

Further developments included the establishment of an astro- turf playing pitch and a community playground funded by IRD Duhallow under the LEADER programme.

Secretary Tim Leader reported on developments over the past year and said that all houses were fully occupied with a waiting list, in the event that a house becomes available. One of the terms and conditions of the non-repayable loan from Cork County Council is that 75% of the houses are allocated to social welfare recipients.

Willie John O Flynn of FDC accountants circulated a positive financial report, the company has income exceeding expenditure and a sinking fund has been built up by the company which is a requirement for all social housing bodies.

A discussion followed on a number of issues, traffic calming measures completed by the Council, contributed considerably to safety for pedestrians in the village.Concern was also expressed that despite the very good amenities in the village, numbers attending Kilcorney National School were in decline, a needs assessment for parents is to be undertaken.
Cork County Councils Library and Arts Service has selected Freya Harte Is Not A Puzzle by author Meabh Collins as the chosen title for this years One County, One Book inititaive

Now in its fourth year, One County, One Book is designed to promote homegrown literature and literacy as part of the librarys community outreach programme to young people. The initaitive is supported by Creative Ireland.

Meabh Collins has a background in both education and childrens literature.

She blends these skills beautifully in her debut novel with an account of a newly diagnosed autistic teenage girl who very firmly does not want special treatment in school.

Freyas always felt different, so when she learns shes autistic she doesn't want anyone to know. All she wants is to fit in.

But does she really need to change herself or can she find friends who like her just the way she is?

Freya Harte Is Not A Puzzle centres around friendship, discovering who you really are and being ok with that.

Written with sensitivity and care, this book does a fantastic job of showing how the language and terminology we use matters deeply.

It is a school-based exploration of a young teens diagnosis as an autistic person and an exceptionally good insight as to what it is to be an autistic person.

Mayor of the County of Cork, Cllr Joe Carroll welcomed the return of the initiative: It is hugely important that we support Irish authors and in particular homegrown literature that encourages young people to embrace diversity and build a more inclusive society.

In celebration of the book, secondary school and youthreach students are invited to Vertigo at Cork County Hall in November for a book discussion with author, Meabh Collins.

Booking is essential and places can be secured by emailing Cork County Councils Library and Arts Service at schoolslibrary@corkcoco.ie

Further online events will be held during November to allow students the opportunity to meet and discuss the book.

For further enquiries, email corkcountylibrary@corkcoco.ie

Copies of Freya Harte Is Not A Puzzle are now available in all branch and mobile libraries across the county, as well as online as an e-book via Borrowbox.
A closure order was served on a Co Donegal takeaway after flies were found in a container of raw burgers while dirty equipment was also found throughout the premises.

A closure order for Tasty Mac's (Take Away), Main Street, Falcarragh, Donegal was served on Sandip Singh, Company Secretary, Sarup Catering Limited on October 16, 2024.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland closed the restaurant under the European Union (Official Controls in Relation to Food Legislation) Regulations 2020 (S.I. No. 79 of 2020).

The order was lifted on October 22, 2024.

A detailed inspection report by the FSAI explained a fly was found within a container of raw burgers.

Dirty food equipment was found throughout the premises including dirty mixing bowls for pizza dough, dirty bowls with batter and dirty whisks.

The report also detailed the potato peeler was encrusted with layers of dirt while dry ingredients containers were encrusted with dirt.

Raw meat was found stored on top of the pizza dough mixer while there was a large tray of cooling rice found on top of the potato peeling machine.

The report found there was no stock control system or date labelling for high risk food prepared and stored on the premises while there was uncovered food being stored in fridges and freezers.

The report reads, The food was not protected against contamination which is likely to render the food unfit for human consumption, injurious to health or contaminated in such a way that it would be unreasonable to expect it to be consumed in that state.

The food preparation surfaces, shelving, interiors of fridges, walls and floors were not clean as there a large build up of dirt and old food evident.

The interiors of both microwaves were not clean as there was a build up of dirt and old food evident within.

The wash hands basins in the kitchen and staff toilet were ingrained with dirt.

The sinks for washing food equipment were dirty with a buildup of dirt and old food.

There was a large build up of old food and dirt underneath all equipment within the kitchen area.

The shelving throughout was not clean. There was a lack of cleaning chemicals.

The report also detailed concerns about none of the food handling staff wearing protective clothing or head covering at the time of the inspection.

The report continued, There were flies in the food preparation area.

There was an excessive accumulation of waste in the external waste storage area.

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Tasty Macs Takeaway in Falcarragh was one of 16 businesses served with enforcement orders by the FSAI in October.

Dr Pamela Byrne, Chief Executive, FSAI, reiterated the need for food businesses to have adequate pest control systems in place; adding that businesses must operate strict food safety procedures at all times and that they need to be especially vigilant during this particularly busy time of year leading up to Christmas.

Inadequate pest control measures, filthy premises and unsafe food storage are once again the primary reasons for the Enforcement Orders served in October.

A high number of the Enforcement Orders were associated with issues related to pests as well as failures to maintain adequate cleaning.

These issues are all preventable and food businesses must ensure that they always adhere to a high standard of food safety and hygiene.

It is imperative that every food business has a proper pest control system in place and that this is checked very regularly to avoid infestations of rodents and insects.

With the busy Christmas period nearly upon us, food businesses must be especially vigilant to ensure compliance with the law and to protect the health of their customers, said Dr Byrne.
9m was allocated for the school phone pouch scheme in the recent Budget. Pic: Jane Barlow/PA

A Fianna Fail candidate in the upcoming general election has criticised the decision, made by her own partys minister, to spend 9m on mobile phone pouches for schools.

Loreto College Foxrock hosted a debate with general election candidates from the Dun Laoghaire and Dublin Rathdown constituencies today.

The student council and debating team asked the politicians questions on issues ranging from housing and mental health, to accessibility and immigration.

Those in attendance included Neale Richmond and Barry Ward (FG); Liam Coughlan and Mairead Toibin (Aontu); Sinead Gibney (Soc Dems); Ossian Smyth (Greens); Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP); Lettie McCarthy (Labour); and Elaine Dunne (FF).

9m was allocated for the school phone pouch scheme in the recent Budget. Pic: Jane Barlow/PA

Simon Harris confronts heckler who told Taoiseach he 'should be ashamed of himself'

One topic the Loreto College students were concerned about, was the 9m allocated towards phone pouches in schools which was announced in the most recent Budget.

Elaine Dunne, a Fianna Fail candidate in Dublin Rathdown, believes there should have been more debate prior to the decision, which was made by Fianna Fails Education Minister, Norma Foley.

Theres been an awful lot of emphasis put on cyberbullying and different things, Ms Dunne said.

Theyre to make sure everybody in schools arent accessing their phones, arent being distracted, are able to have conversations with your friends rather than always looking down at your phone.

Do I think that money couldve gone to better use? Absolutely, we need more SNAs, we need more supports for children with additional needs.

Theres a lot of things that money couldve gone towards. I wouldve liked to have a debate on it, she added.

Neale Richmond, a sitting Fine Gael TD in Dublin Rathdown, said the measure might make a difference when it comes to removing phones from classrooms.

We need phones out of classrooms. Teachers went to Minister Foley and suggested this method, weve seen how it has been successful. Even reducing phone usage by 10-12pc has an impact. The phone pouches might make a difference.

Minister for Education Norma Foley

On the topic of immigration, Liam Coughlan, Aontus candidate in Dublin Rathdown, faced a backlash over his claims that some people are abusing the asylum process.

If a person is fleeing war, famine, a national disaster or persecution, we as a country must do our very best we can for them. That doesnt mean we have to take in everybody and the whole world, he said.

We know the majority coming in seeking asylum are not fleeing war, not fleeing famine, in fact they are abusing the asylum process for their own economic needs. Theyre taking up valuable space for genuine asylum seekers and also genuine Irish people.

Sinead Gibney, Social Democrats candidate for Dublin Rathdown, described Mr Coughlans remarks as opinion, not fact.

Those are head in the sand messages. Its simply wrong to say that people are cheating the system, she said.

Its exactly why there is division and hate in our country. So too the barricades up on the canal, these are messages saying immigrants are bad. Its exactly what is fuelling the hate in society.

We support a robust and fair system for international protection in this country. When people talk about immigration, theyre often referring to international protection.

I think we are doing wrong by the people who are seeking asylum here at the moment in not providing for their needs while we process their claims.

People who come to this country are very grateful for the opportunity to seek asylum here. When they are supported, they integrate effectively and contribute massively to our country.

At the moment 40pc of our healthcare workers are people who come from outside of Ireland. We need to maintain a system which allows people to come here and support them.

Mr Richmond added: I want to say that immigration is a good thing, its good for our economy, good for our society.

Irish people for over decades of history have emigrated and weve also experienced being discriminated against. We have benefitted so much from immigration.

Dun Laoghaire TD Richard Boyd Barrett also said: There is one race, it is the human race where everyone is treated equally.

Irish people emigrated all over the world, they also faced racism and discrimination but actually, Irish people contributed to the societies they went to.

Immigrants are adding to the richness of this country, they are adding economically, adding to our health services and we would collapse without immigrants. We should reject any attack or stigma on immigrants coming into this country.

They are welcome in this country, and we should treat them as we would want Irish people going abroad to be treated.

Mairead Toibin, Aontus candidate in Dun Laoghaire, rejected her fellow party candidates comments and blamed the current government for stigmatising against immigrants.

Were putting asylum seekers in buildings that are not planned for, that are not suitable for accommodation, she said.

The candidates were also asked about Fine Gaels plan to decrease the VAT rate, with the partys Dun Laoghaire candidate Barry Ward insisting its not a bargaining chip to get more votes.

This is hugely important to local businesses, local services and local communities. In our manifesto, were proposing to reduce the VAT rate from 13.5pc to 11pc for the food sector, Mr Ward said.

I hope whatever party is looking to form a government with us, well only be there if you vote number one for us.

I hope we will all see that this is a good way to support businesses and make sure they continue in local communities with food, cafes, and restaurants.

On the issue of public transport, Labour candidate for Dublin Rathdown, Lettie McCarthy, described the current situation as a third world service.

Public transport has left elderly people behind. Ive an elderly neighbour who is 92, she was waiting at the bus stop and was wondering why her bus wasnt coming, she said.

Another elderly lady at the same stop decided to phone her daughter in Berlin to find out when the bus is coming.

They were standing at the bus stop on the side of the road with no seats, no shelters. Its like a third world service, especially for elderly people or people with disabilities.
First carriages of the new DART+ Fleet

Irish Rail has officially unveiled the first five carriages which will form part of the new Dart+ fleet due to enter service in January 2026.

The carriages, manufactured by the French firm Alstom and shipped from a factory in Katowice, Poland, were unveiled this morning at Inchicore Railway Works.

In total, Iarnrod Eireann has ordered 37 new trains for the Greater Dublin Area, to support the Dart+ expansion on lines extending to Maynooth, Drogheda and Hazelhatch over the next few years.

Speaking at the launch, Irish Rail Chief Executive Jim Meade described the electric and battery-electric trains as the first of their kind.

Our battery electric trains are going to transform the future of public transport, initially in the Greater Dublin Area but across the country over time, he said.

These are very eco-friendly trains, with no emissions involved, providing a seamless journey for passengers in a green environment.

This is part of a 1bn investment, the largest and greenest in public transport in the states history, he added.

Addressing Irish Rails plans to expand rail capacity north of Dublin with double-tracking between Connolly Station and Malahide, Mr Meade noted an increase in demand for public transport.

Over time, well need more track capacity north of Dublin, similar to what weve done south of Heuston Station and Kildare, he said.

Were looking at that infrastructure and will be adding to it over time, but the advantage of these new trains is that we can increase services even before that infrastructure work is complete.

The launch of the Dart+ fleet comes at a time when Irish Rail recently faced criticism for timetable changes and delays in north Dublin in August.

During this period, passengers experienced delays, overcrowding and signalling issues, particularly at Connolly Station.

The Dart+ Coastal North project aims to significantly boost capacity and frequency on the Dublin-Drogheda route.

Once completed, peak hourly capacity between Malahide and Drogheda will almost double, from approximately 4,800 to 8,800 passengers.

Mr Meade noted that these new trains will help increase capacity, as they physically have more space within them.

Well be reallocating some of the inter-city trains currently used for commuter routes, creating more capacity on the existing service pattern, he added.

These trains will allow us to enhance capacity as we upgrade infrastructure.

Each train will accommodate 550 passengers and feature dedicated spaces for wheelchairs, families and bicycles. Powered by lithium batteries, the trains can travel up to 80km before requiring a recharge.

The new design also includes an extending step to aid passengers with limited mobility, allowing them to board independently.

The interior layout is open and continuous, with no doors between carriages, improving accessibility.

Designed specifically for commuters, these trains will provide more seating and standing room, addressing the rising demand for public transport in Dublin.

Before entering service in January 2026, the new trains will undergo a year of rigorous testing and certification to meet European safety standards.
Staff at Woodie's in Drogheda celebrating their charity fundraiser efforts for Woodie's Heroes.

Three Woodies stores in Louth have celebrated the wrap-up of another successful Woodies Heroes campaign.

Woodies Drogheda raised 8,233, Woodies E-Store Drogheda raised 370 and Woodies Dundalk raised 7,288 with help from customers, colleagues, and suppliers.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Woodies annual charity fundraiser, Woodie's Heroes, which has become a vital part of the community efforts by its stores in Louth and nationwide.

The significant 10-year milestone was marked by Woodie's CEO Damien Dwyer announcing that this year's Woodie's Heroes campaign raised an impressive 563,134 nationwide.

This brings the total funds raised by Woodies Heroes over the past decade to an astounding 4,100,786.

Since Woodie's Heroes was established in 2015, Woodie's staff have nominated their chosen children's charities to benefit from the fundraiser, with 100 per cent of all funds raised divided equally among them.

This year's benefiting charities were Autism Assistance Dogs Ireland, Childrens Health Foundation, Childline by ISPCC, and Down Syndrome Ireland.

Damien Dwyer, CEO of Woodie's, says: "As we celebrate 10 years of Woodies Heroes, Im overwhelmed by what weve accomplished together in Louth and nationwide.

"This initiative started in response to our colleagues who genuinely wanted to help the communities we serve, and it has become such an important part of who we are at Woodie's, bringing pride and camaraderie to our 35 stores.

He added: Our colleagues are the heart of Woodies Heroes. They choose the children's charities we support, lead the efforts in-store, and bring incredible energy to everything we do.

"It's organic, it's genuine, and it creates a buzz across our stores and support office.

"Raising over 4.1 million in 10 years is an amazing achievement, and I couldnt be prouder.

Mr Dwyer said: Meeting the families and children supported by our charities and seeing first-hand the impact, from speech therapy to assistance dogs, shows the true difference were making together.

"Woodies Heroes is part of what makes us who we are, and it strengthens our bond with the communities around us.

"We look forward to continuing this journey in the years ahead."
Concerns have been raised that the ongoing sewage pollution crisis in Newport Bay in Co Mayo is putting the health of residents and businesses at risk.

Citing EU and Irish Government failures, Independent Ireland MEP Ciaran Mullooly called for urgent intervention in the ongoing sewage pollution crisis in Newport Bay, Co Mayo, during a European Parliament session on Wednesday night.

To the European Parliament he stressed that this issue, which has affected the town for decades, continues to violate key EU environmental directives, including the Water Framework Directive, with serious consequences for both the environment and public health.

Despite repeated promises from authorities, the upgrade of Newports wastewater treatment plant has been delayed until 2030, leaving the community at risk.

Reflecting on his recent visit to Newport, MEP Mullooly shared his meeting with local activist Chris Maxwell, who has been leading efforts to raise awareness about the pollution.

In the words of local activist Chris Maxwell, marine life is being destroyed in front of their eyes every day, MEP Mullooly recounted.

Mr Maxwell is concerned about the environmental damage, particularly its impact on Clew Bays marine ecosystem and local livelihoods.

During his visit, MEP Mullooly also met with residents Elaine McCaffery and her neighbours, who expressed disbelief over the continued delays.

I went there and met Elaine McCaffery and her neighbours and their children.

"They could not believe that the promised treatment plant has still not been built and that Irish Water and the Irish Government have ignored the wanton pollution that is going on here, he told the Parliament.

Newport, a picturesque town overlooking Clew Bay, was once known for its oyster fishing and recreational activities.

However, MEP Mullooly said the town is now plagued by the pollution.

This beautiful town looks out onto Clew Bay, where fishing for oysters and recreation has already been destroyed by millions of gallons of raw sewage pumped into the Atlantic Ocean by local municipal homes, not by farms.

We need urgent action from the EU, the Irish Government, and Irish Water. We need the Newport Scheme to go ahead.

He emphasised that while farmers are often blamed for environmental issues in rural Ireland, this crisis stems from municipal sewage mismanagement: We need to stop blaming farmers for all the problems.

As noted by local activist and Independent Ireland candidate Chris Maxwell the ongoing discharge of untreated sewage into Clew Bay poses serious environmental and public health risks.

Raw sewage introduces harmful pathogens into local waters, endangering residents and tourists who swim or fish in these areas.

Rose Conway-Walsh

Meanwhile Mayo Sinn Fein TD Rose Conway Walsh also raised the issue and said that the governments failure to end the outflow of raw sewerage at Clew Bay is damaging tourism, trade and putting peoples health at risk.

Deputy Conway Walsh has been in contact with Uisce Eireann numerous times regarding the construction of Newport Wastewater Treatment plant and was informed that the long awaited works will not be delivered until 2030.

This is outrageous. There have been years of delays and false dawns regarding this urgent scheme. It is not good enough at all that effluent continues to drain into the bay.

Earlier this year Sinn Fein raised the situation in the European Parliament and it came to light that Uisce Eireann had failed to submit its third River Basin Management Plan to the European Commission and shamefully this has led to Ireland being referred to the European Court of Justice in February of this year.

The reality is that Newport is now the only town in Mayo where raw sewerage is permitted to leak into the waterways.

Across the state the government has failed to stop sewerage dumping at 16 locations. This is a serious infrastructure deficit that successive Fianna Fail and Fine Gael governments have presided over for decades.

It is absolutely foul, unhealthy and bad for business, said Deputy Conway Walsh.

Deputy Conway said the issue is not a new problem and the government has been aware of it for decades yet they have failed to get it resolved.

"They know what the problem is and the solution. However, Uisce Eireann have confirmed to me that the Newport Wastewater Treatment Plant is only at the Preliminary Business Case stage.

This needs to be prioritised by the incoming government. I believe that it will take a change of government for this project to get the momentum required to deliver it in the fastest timeframe possible, said Deputy Conway Walsh.
Marian Harkin TD with her mother Annie Gilmartin (98) of Ballintogher and her sister Anne Gilmartin Ryan at the recent launch of Marians election campaign.

Former TD Declan Bree will not be contesting the general election citing a lack of mood for change as the reason.

Itll be the first general election Councillor Bree wont be contesting since entering politics in 1974 when he was elected to both Sligo County Council and Sligo Corporation.

Cllr Bree won a seat for the Labour Party in Sligo/Leitrim in 1992 when it was under the leadership of Dick Spring and subsequently entered coalition government with Fianna Fail.

In a short statement issued on Monday evening, Cllr Bree said he made the decision following considerable discussion and consideration among his election workers and supporters. Cllr Bree, who is the current Cathaoirleach of Sligo County Council, topped the poll in the Sligo-Strandhill area in the recent local elections and was first elected to Sligo Council and Sligo Corporation in 1974

Cllr Bree said: While activists always look forward to an election campaign, and I acknowledge the enthusiasm of supporters, we have had to take cognisance of the ongoing polls which have consistently indicated that there is not an appetite for significant change.

The feedback we have been receiving in Sligo town and surrounding area has certainly been extremely positive, however it would appear that in rural parts of the constituency there does not seem to be a demand for serious change.

While the majority of declared candidates in this constituency belong to the centre right it is important to note that activists who I have worked alongside on numerous progressive campaigns including Gino OBoyle, Chris MacManus and Martin Kenny will be contesting the election and seeking support, he said.

Cllr Bree married his long term partner, Dr Margaret Connolly, sister of Leas Ceann Comhairle Catherine Connolly TD, in an historic ceremony at City Hall last April.

Meanwhile, outgoing TD Marian Harkin has claimed that independents could be key after the election though opinion polls show strong support for both Fine Gael (22%) and Fianna Fail (21%).

The latest RED C poll also shows independents at 15%.

Deputy Harkin said

Sligo Leitrim TD Marian Harkin believes that Independent TDs will have a real chance of influencing the formation of the next government and an opportunity to participate in that government.

Speaking at the launch of her election campaign in Sligo Deputy Harkin said, The figures seem to indicate that after the election no combination of any two of the three largest parties will have the numbers to form a government.

While this will only be confirmed when the votes are counted, it is increasingly likely that the support of Independent TDs will be critical in making up the numbers.

Deputy Harkin told the gathering she decided to run for election again because of this clear opportunity for Independent TDs.

If youre not on the ballot paper then you have no chance. When the votes are counted and hopefully Im elected, Ill be ready and waiting to push for a role for independents in government formation.

Outlining her priorities in any post-election negotiations, Deputy Harkin said her focus was on:

- Balanced regional development and specific investment commitments for the Northwest.

-A commitment to establish a Model 4 hospital at Sligo University Hospital.

-Upgrading the N17 and regional rail services to strengthen connectivity.

-Concrete supports and protection for family farms and businesses in Sligo, Leitrim, and Donegal and a refocussing on the tourism industry in this region

-Establishing specific regional housing targets to address local housing needs.

In addition to infrastructure and economic measures, Deputy Harkin said she will demand stronger support systems for family carers and people with disabilities as well as substantial investment in childcare, nursing homes, respite homes and residential accommodation for adults with special needs.

More Gardai are needed so that people feel safe in their own communities and there is an urgent need for domestic violence refuges within our communities.

We also have to provide incentives for workers in the healthcare, construction and education sectors to return home and we need a much greater focus on funding our education system.

If these commitments are agreed upon and written into the programme for government, I will be prepared to support and even be part of the next government if the opportunity arises, Deputy Harkin concluded.

North Sligo councillor Marie Casserly, who previously worked for Deputy Harkin is also contesting the general election.

Cllr Casserly previously ran in the 2016 general election after she was first elected to the county council in 2014. She said she put a lot of thought and consideration into her decision to put her name on the ballot paper.

Cllr Casserly told The Sligo Champion: Many people have been asking me to run in the general election because of what I have achieved as a Councillor over the past 10 years.

I feel like Im just getting started and the North West is not reaching its full potential and as I said in 2014 the North West is worth fighting for.

I believe that empowering and supporting local communities will transform the entire country, by investing in housing, wastewater infrastructure in towns and villages -the funding is there and it would be transformative.

I am an energetic and a hard-working mother of a young family and a secondary school teacher who understands the problems people face every day.

I want to build further on the achievements I have made for the whole area as a councillor and believe people have seen this happen and seen me in action making a real change.

The North West needs someone in Dublin who takes real achievable ideas and then makes them happen for this region and I think I am the right person to make that contribution.

My record of accomplishments and ongoing initiatives demonstrates my commitment to building a thriving, accessible, and sustainable region.

Through these efforts, I will continue to drive progress and support the growth and wellbeing of our community. Together, we are shaping a brighter future for all, she said.
Labour party Sligo/Leitrim general election candidate Cllr. Nessa Cosgrove says she would vigorously advocate for the implementation of the Western Rail Corridor if she were elected to the next Dail.

Cllr. Cosgrove said: I have taken my time to study, and to reflect upon, all the issues surrounding the Western Rail Corridor and am delighted to confirm that, should I be elected to Dail Eireann at the next General Election, implementing the Western Rail Corridor will be high up on my agenda and I will be strongly advocating for it should the Labour Party be involved in Programme for Government talks after the General Election.

The expansion of public transport options within the North West forms a large part of my Election campaign. Throughout the region, in rural areas, as well as urban and village centres, we have seen the benefits which expanded Local Link services have brought. It is not too much to say that Local Link has transformed life for many people. People are able to travel much more easily, and with a much lower environmental impact to school, college, work, and to socialise. I would like to see not only the further expansion of bus services, but also the rail network. This in conjunction with the Labour Partys 9 per month climate ticket for public transport will revolutionise the Irish peoples relationship with public transport, buses and trains

For too long the Government parties, along with long-standing Sligo-based, politicians from all political perspectives, have been content to let the status-quo stand. They have been happy to treat the reinstatement of a rail link between Sligo to Claremorris, a link to Knock Airport, and ultimately onwards to Galway and Limerick, as a pipe-dream, something that is a nice idea but will never happen.

"That is why I am delighted to announce that should I be elected, and should the Labour Party form part of the next Government, that re-instating the currently disused, but still existing, 75km rail link between Collooney and Claremorris, will receive my strongest backing. This project will be the Spine of Connaught around which the Region will develop and grow

She continued: The Party has committed 2.5 billion to major public transport infrastructure projects. The Western Rail corridor is a project which emphasises the importance which we place upon the region and its development. For too long, locally based politicians in Sligo, Leitrim and South-Donegal have been content to treat the North-West as a series of small, local towns and individual communities.

"By contrast I view the North-West as a Region. A Region which has abundant natural resources, an immensely talented and growing population. The North-West has huge potential for cultural, educational and economic growth. What it doesnt have is a political class who have the vision and drive to achieve this potential.

The re-instatement of the line will benefit the whole region economically, not just Sligo as companies backed by the IDA and other firms anxious to open new facilities in the Region, support this project as a means of transporting both goods and people in a more environmentally friendly manner. These organisations do not choose to base their facilities based on county boundaries. They already view us as region, the Atlantic Economic Corridor.

The rail line will benefit the region educationally. There are 40,000 students based between Sligo and Galway. The links between campuses have led to the creation of ATU and the further expansion of educational opportunities.

My full-time job is as a Youth Co-Ordinator with the Mayo-Sligo-Leitrim Education and Training Board (MSLETB), so I know first hand the Further Education and Training opportunities which abound regionally through the MSLETB.

Cllr Cosgrove concluded: The West has huge potential, but has been hamstrung through decades of deliberate underinvestment. Now there is an opportunity to really bring about a greater balance in Regional Development. Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal can, in conjunction with Mayo, Galway, Clare and Limerick, compete with Dublin and the East Coast on a level-playing field. In so many ways we are already, conceptually, a unified region. By implementing the Western Rail Corridor, as the spine of Connaught, we will make that concept, and the rebirth of a region a reality.
An award-winning family-run business in New Ross, Co Wexford has announced plans to plant 10 million trees by 2030.

Wexford Home Preserves, the family business that makes award-winning jams, marmalades and savoury preserves in small batches, has announced their collaboration with Reforest Nation, Irelands leading tree planting organisation, to support their ambitious goal of planting 10 million trees over the next six years.

As business owners who are focused on sustainability, Tom and Laura Sinnott have already attained Bord Bia Origin Green Gold membership, invested in 100 solar panels to power their batch kitchen in New Ross and continue to operate a policy of sourcing fruit as locally as possible. Now they have made a commitment to supporting the planting of native trees across Ireland and beyond.

Having been established in 1988 by Toms aunt Ellen, all products are made by hand in small batches in the Wexford Home Preserves kitchen using all natural ingredients.

We all have to be serious about our efforts as a business to reduce our carbon footprint and as parents to leave the planet in a better condition for our children, Mr Sinnott commented.

"Reforest Nation is an amazing organisation that has already planted over a million trees and is making a difference to Irelands biodiversity. We want to be part of this and to support them in their work.

Also commenting on the partnership for the project, founder of Reforest Nation, Gearoid McEvoy said: From the inception of Reforest Nation, our dream was clear: to restore Ireland's natural heritage, champion biodiversity, and craft a legacy for future generations.

Collaborations like the one with Wexford Home Preserves propel us closer to this dream and signifies a step toward reclaiming our environment, he concluded.
Eddie and Dave Sinnott presenting a cheque to Des Murphy and Jamie Ryan from the RNLI on Saturday, November 2. Photographer: Sabrina Ffrench

Eddie and Dave Sinnott presenting a cheque to Des Murphy and Jamie Ryan from the RNLI on Saturday, November 2. Photographer: Sabrina Ffrench

Eddie and Dave Sinnott presenting a cheque to Des Murphy and Jamie Ryan from the RNLI on Saturday, November 2. Photographer: Sabrina Ffrench

Eddie and Dave Sinnott presenting a cheque to Des Murphy and Jamie Ryan from the RNLI on Saturday, November 2. Photographer: Sabrina Ffrench

The community of Kilmuckridge and the surrounding areas raised an incredible sum of 30,000 this year in a single summers day.

This community in north Wexford raises funds every year for Rosslare Harbour RNLI and last year's haul was over 28,000.

Eddie Sinnott credited the community for its generosity and it's passion for expensive spuds, as huge sums were paid for modest bags of potatoes at the auction. Boats were pulled; cars were hijacked" for cash, and raffle tickets were sold.

The cheque presentation took place in Hammell's Public House on Saturday, November 2 where Jamie Ryan, Rosslare Harbour RNLI Lifeboat Operations Manager, thanked everyone for their amazing work.

He went on to say that maintaining a lifeboat service costs a lot of money and highlight that the RNLI depends entirely on public donations.

The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea. It is independent on the government both here on the island of Ireland and in the United Kingdom.
Fianna Fail candidate Michelle O'Neill came to take down her posters within minutes of being contacted.

Rosslare Harbour and Kilrane have become the latest villages in Co Wexford to appeal to politicians to remove their posters ahead of the forthcoming general election. Describing them as an unnecessary blight on the landscape, Betty Kehoe, who is the biodiversity officer with the local environmental group, said the posters undid much of the work being carried out in the area.

Its not fair on a village which is working hard to make the place look nice. Politicians would disagree with me I guess, but I feel theyre an unnecessary blight on the landscape. Generally I feel that plastic should be reduced, if I looked at an election poster it wouldnt make me vote for somebody, I dont think theyre required. Plus, the disposal of them is a huge environmental conundrum."

The decision to ask politicians to remove their posters was taken following a meeting of the Rosslare Harbour Kilrane Environmental Group (RHKEG) and comes on foot of a local election which saw the village decorated with hundreds of pictures of election candidates.

"The roundabout here was like a circus (during the locals), and it became dangerous for motorists, said Betty. If one person put up three posters another would be along behind them with three more. They shouldnt be on roundabouts because they cause distractions.

Thankfully, having contacted each of the confirmed candidates in the Wexford constituency, the RHKEG has received an overwhelmingly positive reaction with one candidate, Fianna Fails Michelle ONeill, coming to the village to take down her posters within minutes of being contacted.

Indeed, during the course of our conversation, a sitting Wexford TD calls Betty personally to enquire about the boundaries of the poster-ban and where he can or cant erect posters.

Its an appeal, were not trying to put pressure on anyone, said chair of the RHKEG Micheal Delaney. If every political organisation thought about it theyd be delighted not to have to put them up, they dont want to be up and down poles in the dark, they dont want the expense, and Id say its questionable how much return they get from them.

"They have social media, the flyers theyre dropping in, and theyre on radio, television, and newspapers, so voters make up their mind fairly quickly, and the ones that make up their mind at the last moment arent making that decision based on a poster.

Confirming the limits of the campaign run from the port to the end of Kilrane village, Betty is hopeful this will encourage other villages to follow a similar stance and that election posters will soon become a thing of the past.

The government should be leading the charge on climate change, our environmental group is doing all it can and were all doing little things on an individual basis, she said.
Broadcaster Miriam O'Callaghan with artist Joe Hallam, from Enniskerry, at the opening of the Connecting Artists 2024 Exhibition at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

Connections Arts Centre, a social enterprise supporting the disability community in Ireland, has announced the open call for its Connecting Artists 2025 Programme, inviting applications from adult artists in Wicklow who identify as neurodivergent or are living with an intellectual disability.

This national programme is designed to support artists who face barriers in accessing traditional art education and resources, helping them advance their creative practice, exhibit, and sell their work.

The Connecting Artists Programme selects 10 artists from across the island of Ireland each year to participate in a transformative 10-week online course. The programme provides a nurturing, professional, and inclusive environment, culminating in a prestigious exhibition at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI).

Wicklow has seen past participants in the programme, including Joe Hallam from Enniskerry and Brian Kennedy from Kilcoole, who took part in the 2024 programme.

Participants will receive mentorship, attend online workshops, engage in demonstrations, and collaborate in peer discussionsall tailored to boost their artistic skills and professional confidence. The programme is focused on artists working in 2D mediums such as painting, drawing, and collage.

Connections Arts Centre founder Miriam Spollen, creator of the programme, said: Our mission through the Connecting Artists Programme is to support adult artists who face challenges in accessing formal and informal art education.

"Since its inception three years ago, the programme has supported 30 artists with paid opportunities, including workshops, talks, and sales of their artwork. Individual art sales have reached a value of 14,130 a testament to the programmes impact and reach.

Interested artists are encouraged to visit connectionsartscentre.ie to review the application guidelines and eligibility criteria. The application closing date is Friday, January 3, 2025 and the programme will start in March 2025.
Pop and folk singer Myles Smith has been announced as the winner of the 2024 BBC Introducing artist of the year award.

The prize is given to an artist who has with the support of BBC Introducing, a platform aimed at undiscovered musicians, made a significant impact that year and is on the path to stardom.

Previous winners include Olivia Dean, Arlo Parks, Tom Grennan, Nia Archives, Declan McKenna, and Self Esteem.

Luton-born Smith, 26, is known for the track Stargazing, which reached number four in the UK charts and has had more than 16 million views on YouTube.

This year, he reached one billion streams worldwide, BBC Introducing said, and according to Spotify he has more than 23.3 million monthly listens for his tracks, which include Wait For You, Solo, My Home and Whisper.

Smith said: Thats made my entire year, thats incredible. I literally cannot believe Im BBC Introducing artist of the year.

It means so much to me to be awarded this award. All of the hard work and all of the sacrifices feel so worth it.

BBC Introducing to me is more than just this small family. Its a real culture.

Its a real thing that moves peoples lives and changes peoples lives in so many different ways, and going from the uploader to this award and now touring the world shows its impact.

Head of BBC Introducing Kelly Betts said: Its been an amazing year for Myles, but not everyone may realise how hard he has been working to get here. He has been creating and uploading beautiful songs since 2017, uploading 25 tracks in total with every single one being played on BBC Introducing.

We have crowned Myles with the artist of the year title, but its more of a celebration of his hard work which got him here.

Its been a joy to watch Myles develop and is an absolute pleasure to call him the BBC Introducing artist of the year 2024.

We are all buzzing to see where he goes from here, and wherever that might be, Introducing will be right there with him.

Myles was presented with the gong by Dean Jackson from BBC Introducing in East Midlands and Kerrie Cosh from BBC Introducing Three Counties & Northants stations.

He added: Those times that you feel down, you guys really have dragged me up and given me the confidence to push on.

Im sure theres going to be so many more artists coming through Nottingham and Luton and around the country, supported by you guys who will go on to do great things.

His first chart appearance was with the 2024 single Solo, which peaked at number 69, and his track Wait For You made it to number 53.

Smiths debut EP, You Promised A Lifetime, reached number 30 on the UK downloads album charts, according to the Official Charts Company.

His follow-up A Minute was released earlier this month.

Next year, Smith will have his own UK and European tour as well as joining Ed Sheeran on his upcoming tour.
Actor Timothy West has died at the age of 90 (Yui Mok/PA)

Actor Timothy West, known for many roles in television and the theatre, has died peacefully in his sleep aged 90 with his friends and family at the end, his family said.

West, who was married to fellow actress Prunella Scales for more than 60 years, starred in television shows such as comedy drama Brass, sitcom Not Going Out and soaps Coronation Street and EastEnders.

In a statement, his children Juliet, Samuel and Joseph said: After a long and extraordinary life on and off the stage, our darling father Timothy West died peacefully in his sleep yesterday evening. He was 90-years old.

Tim was with friends and family at the end.

He leaves his wife, Prunella Scales, to whom he was married for 61 years, a sister, a daughter, two sons, seven grandchildren and four greatgrandchildren. All of us will miss him terribly.

West and Scales, 92, who played Sybil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, appeared in the documentary series Great Canal Journeys between 2014 and 2021, which saw them travelling on narrowboats together.

The couple married in 1963, and have two sons, actor Samuel West, and Joseph West.

On Instagram, Gyles Brandreth, who took over the Channel 4 canal series with Sheila Hancock, recalled his great style reading from the novel Mapp & Lucia, which his brilliant wife Scales starred in.

West was also married to actor Jacqueline Boyer from 1956 to 1961, and they had a daughter, Juliet West.

Paying tribute to West on Times Radio, broadcaster and Alzheimers campaigner Angela Rippon said he would be a huge loss to everybody.

She said: Timothy really will be a huge loss, obviously, to Pru, but I think a huge loss to everybody who came to love and respect them, not just the general public, but particularly those who live with dementia.

Rippon continued: I think between them, Timothy and Pru did an amazing, amazing job of convincing people that dementia was not something that you should be always afraid of, but something that you could embrace and live with and live with well.

In Brass, he played ruthless self-made businessman Bradley Hardacre from 1982 to 1984 before returning for a third series in 1990, while in Not Going Out he played Geoffrey, the father of Lucy Adams, played by Sally Bretton.

In Coronation Street, he appeared in seven episodes in 2013 as Eric Babbage, while in EastEnders he played Stan Carter from 2014 to 2015.

In tribute to West, an EastEnders spokesperson said: We are extremely saddened to hear that Timothy West has passed away.

Timothy joined EastEnders as Stan and his presence as the patriarch of the Carter family was immediately felt.

Timothy was instantly loved and adored by all those that worked with him at EastEnders and he will forever be in our hearts.

We send all our love and thoughts to Timothys family and friends.

Timothy West with wife Prunella Scales (Ian West/PA)

During his career West also played former British prime minister Winston Churchill three times, in From Churchill and the Generals (1979), The Last Bastion (1984), and Hiroshima (1995).

In 2019, the Bradford-born actor played Private Godfrey in Dads Army: The Lost Episodes, a recreation of three missing episodes of the BBC comedy Dads Army.

Paying tribute, Lindsay Salt, director of BBC Drama, said: Timothy West was an icon of British drama, and at the BBC we feel incredibly privileged that he was on our screens across the decades.

Loved by millions for his work in programmes ranging from Bleak House, to EastEnders, Richard II, Last Tango in Halifax, Edward II and Gentleman Jack, his remarkable talent will be remembered for generations to come.

His film roles included Commissioner Berthier in The Day Of The Jackal (1973), King Francis in From Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998), and Nazi physician and war criminal Karl Gebhardt in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973).

On stage, he was a regular performer of Shakespeare, playing Lear in 2016 and 2002.

He performed at the Piccadilly Theatre, with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and the West End, portraying many classic roles, including Shylock, Falstaff, and Macbeth.

In 1984, West was appointed CBE for his services to drama in the Queens Birthday Honours List.

Prior to acting, West had attended the John Lyon School and Bristol Grammar School, and worked as an office furniture salesman and a recording technician before becoming an assistant stage manager at Wimbledon Theatre in 1956.
Theo James has called for action to protect refugees from the impact of climate change (Aaron Chown/PA)

The Gentlemen star Theo James has called on world leaders to act on escalating injustice for refugees as a result of climate change at the Cop29 climate summit in Azerbaijan.

James, whose grandfather was a refugee who fled Greece for Syria during the Second World War, spoke about his visit to Mauritania earlier this year, where he said refugees in the west of the country had asked me to personally from them, urge world leaders at Cop to take action.

He was speaking at the launch of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) Refugees For Climate Action group, which will see eight refugees come together to reinforce the representation of displaced communities in the global climate change debate.

James said he had been motivated to support the cause by his grandfathers experience as a refugee (Ian West/PA)

James said his grandfathers story had motivated him to support the cause.

Speaking at the summit, the 39-year-old said: Here at Cop, I want to draw attention to the concerns of refugees for climate action, because Ive seen that the people who contribute the least in terms of carbon emissions are often the hardest hit by the climate crisis, which is insanity.

I know its something that you can say in a press conference, but the reality of it is ridiculous.

This is a new, relatively, and escalating injustice, as weve heard of the 120 million people forcibly displaced around the world, 90 million of them are facing high to extreme climate change impacts.

Thats why more help is needed now, people displaced by impacts of climate change and conflict need protection, and they need help from climate financing, specifically, the people I met in Mauritania and refugees like them are urging our leaders to listen.

He said that refugees need action now, with many having to flee their homes due to war, they are being pushed to the limits because of climate change and lack of resources.

Theres nowhere left for them to go, he said. We have to act now to reverse these trends.

James went on to say climate shocks are frequent and getting more frequent in Mauritania causing seasonal floods followed by crippling droughts and extreme heat.

Speaking about the people he met on his trip to the African country, he added: They told me about how life was becoming completely untenable in the desert, and they asked me to, personally from them, urge world leaders at Cop to take action, and theyre the best people to do so because they are being affected on the ground themselves.

James recalled meeting a woman who had to flee her home in Mali because of the fighting that had ripped through the country.

She told me that the dry season had extended from three to nine months of the year, and she had seen that happen in the last five years, leaving the wells empty and parents frantic about how their children are going to survive.

I asked her what she wanted to say to people here at Cop and she said, tell them were thirsty, tell them we dont have enough water for ourselves and our children, our cattle and our vegetables, we cannot survive without water.

The actor, who has appeared in the Divergent film trilogy, The Time Travellers Wife and The White Lotus, said the current situation for refugees had shown him how short our collective memories are in remembering the stories of people like his grandfather.

He added: One of the reasons I am motivated to support this cause, specifically is because of my own family history.

My grandfather was a refugee who fled the Nazi occupation of Greece and found safe haven in Syria during the Second World War.

Later, he joined the UN refugee program when it was in its infancy, working as a doctor in Gothenburg, administering vaccines to displaced people of western Europe.

And I guess that showed me how short our collective memories are in terms of, you know when people are displaced, it was only very recently that Europeans were being forced to flee themselves.

My family history motivated me to become involved with the UNHCR, and Ive been privileged to meet incredibly inspiring refugees.

The UN talks, which take place in Azerbaijan until November 22 and are looking at securing climate finance for low-income countries, come in the wake of devastating weather extremes.

There have been warnings that 2024 is on track to be another record-hot year and the world is heading for a catastrophic 3.1C of warming on current policies.
Blinken says time to end war in Gaza as dozens more killed

Israeli strikes claim lives of 22 Palestinians and six others in Beirut

A child looks on as Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on tents of displaced people in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Nidal Al-Mughrabi Thu 14 Nov 2024 at 03:30







US secretary of state Antony Blinken said yesterday it is time to end the war in Gaza, as the slaughter in the ruined enclave and in Lebanon claimed dozens more lives.
A senior Russian naval officer has been killed in a car bombing in occupied Crimea  the latest in a series of targeted attacks on Russian military personnel.

Russian investigators said a serviceman was killed when an improvised device exploded yesterday in the port city of Sevastopol  the primary HQ of Russias Black Sea Fleet  and that it was being treated as terrorism.
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Today

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 39F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 39F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
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.
Piyush Goyal emphasised that Indias economy of scale provides unmatched demand and growth opportunities for businesses, both domestically and internationally. File photo by Ministry of Railways via Wikimedia Commons

New Delhi/IBNS: During a period when India Inc. is concerned about weakened consumer demand amidst a cyclical slowdown, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal suggested that businesses prioritise competitive pricing over high margins to attract consumers.

On Thursday (Nov. 14), at the CNBC-TV18 Global Leadership Summit in New Delhi, Goyal illustrated his point with an example from Hyundai Motors India, though he didnt directly name the company.

He noted the companys impressive financial performance, with an EBITDA of over 21 percent and net profits around 9-10 percent.

However, what impressed Goyal even more was Hyundai's financial journey in India over the years.

Twenty-five years ago, they invested $200 million, and in the past decade, they have remitted over $12 billion in dividends and royalties. Their market cap has soared, and the Korean promoters stake, following the recent listing, stands at approximately $15 billion, he said.

Goyal highlighted the exceptional return on investment and the strong demand environment, emphasising that India offers a unique competitive advantage for manufacturers.

Indias demand scale is unmatched, with a 1.4 billion population, a youthful workforce, and rising income levelsa vast market not only domestically but also internationally, he remarked.

He encouraged companies to adopt more aggressive pricing strategies to boost market share.

Smart businesses should provide better value for money. Lower prices could drive significant market growth and yield better profitability, Goyal asserted.

He expressed confidence that competitive pricing would enable companies to capture a larger market and increase profitability.

Goyal also emphasised the power of economies of scale in India, explaining that the massive demand, fueled by 1.4 billion people and a growing economy, creates an unparalleled competitive edge.

The scale and affordability of our market support both domestic growth and international expansion, he said.

Furthermore, Goyal advised businesses to look beyond short-term gains, stating, Indias scale and competitive advantages support long-term growth, not just survival through short-term volatility.

Goyal also urged investors to take a long-term perspective and avoid reacting to short-term market changes.

The government doesnt operate quarter-to-quarter. Investors should also focus on the long term rather than stressing over each quarter, he concluded.
US Consul General Kathy Giles-Diaz at the bootcamp for Northeast's women nano-enterprise owners in Kolkata. Photo courtesy: American Center Kolkata

Kolkata/IBNS: At least 31 women entrepreneurs from the north-eastern states of Tripura and Mizoram with nano enterprises participated in a two-day bootcamp in Kolkata's American Center to learn about entrepreneurship skills and discuss next steps for building small businesses.

At least 30 business development experts, government officials, entrepreneurs, and stakeholders from diverse sectors including tourism, food, and crafts, trained them on skill developments, financial inclusion and social media marketing among other hacks.

The final bootcamp for Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) was conducted at the American Center by the U.S. Consulate General Kolkata, in partnership with non-profit Contact Base.

Launched in 2019 by the U.S. Department of State, the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) programme aims to empower women worldwide by providing them with essential knowledge, networks, and resources to launch and grow successful businesses.

Speaking on the occasion, Kathy Giles-Diaz, Consul General of US in Kolkata, said, "The AWE program and the bootcamps you have participated in is a first stepa critical first steptoward ensuring that every woman who wants to start or build her own business has access to the support and tools she needs.

The bootcamp in Kolkata marked the completion of this project in Tripura and Mizoram.

There was a panel discussion on ways to strengthen local economies by supporting nano enterprises.

Moderated by Quazi Rumman Dastgir, Consul for Political and Economic Affairs at the U.S. Consulate General Kolkata, the panel featured Dr Mou Sen, Joint Director, MSME(HQ) WB Govt; Goutam Poddar, Asst. Director, MSME-DFO, Kolkata and other officials together, discussing the roles of government, MFIs, and business incubation programmes in empowering women-led nano enterprises in rural areas, along with policy recommendations and strategies for growth.

Sessions on digital finance and business record-keeping were led by the experts.

The talented entrepreneurs showcased their products and business catalogues to potential buyers and stakeholders and pitched their products to a panel of experts, which included Prof. Sharmishtha Banerjee from Calcutta University, Prof. Sayantani Roy Chowdhury from Praxis Business School, Suman Mukhopadhyay and Ananya Bhattacharya from Contact Base, along with Ruchi M Mittal from HEN India.

"From access to capital and mentorship, to training and networking, you are part of a growing number of women who are creating pathways for success. We are so honored to be part of your entrepreneurship journey, and are excited to see all you will accomplish." U.S Consul General Kathy Giles-Diaz added.

Additionally, a session on Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) regulations and procedures was conducted by Kalyan Khan from Unizap and Piyali Roy Oberoi from EastIndiaRetail.com.

This cohort of entrepreneurs join the hundreds of women in India who have already taken part in AWE programmes, and join more than 25,000 AWE graduates in more than 100 countries around the globe.

This cohort of entrepreneurs join the hundreds of women in India who have already taken part in AWE programmes, and join the more than 25,000 AWE graduates in more than 100 countries from around the world.
Blackstone's bid for a 75% stake stalled as Haldiram's lost interest in a majority sale.

Mumbai: Blackstone has abandoned plans to acquire a majority stake in Indias Haldiram's snacks business and is now negotiating for a 20% stake at a valuation of $8 billion, which remains a point of contention, Reuters reported on Thursday.

Haldiram's, which holds nearly a 13% share of Indias $6.2-billion savoury snacks market according to Euromonitor International, also operates over 150 restaurants.

However, foreign investors are primarily interested in its popular snacks segment.

In May, Reuters reported that a consortium led by Blackstone was pursuing a 75% stake through a non-binding bid, but talks stalled as Haldiram's showed less interest in selling a majority stake, said sources who wished to remain anonymous due to the private nature of the discussions.

"Blackstone is eager to finalize the transaction given the significant effort invested," Reuters reported, citing sources.

However, valuation differences persist as Haldiram's is seeking a valuation of $12 billion, while Blackstone aims to secure the deal at $8 billion, the report said.

While two sources placed the stake under discussion at 20%, a third suggested a range of 15% to 20%, adding that Blackstone remains interested in investing in the company.

Haldiram's CEO Krishan Kumar Chutani and Blackstone declined to comment on the matter.

Founded in 1937 as a small shop in Bikaner, Rajasthan, Haldirams is best known for its "bhujia," a crispy, fried snack made from flour, herbs, and spices, available in small mom-and-pop stores for as little as 10 rupees.
Professor Neena Gupta received the award for her work on Zariski Cancellation Problem. (Photo Courtesy: infosysprize.org)

Kolkata: Professor Neena Gupta has been awarded The Infosys Prize 2024 in Mathematical Sciences for her work on the Zariski Cancellation Problem, a statement said on Thursday.

Gupta is a Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics Unit professor at the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata.

The event was hosted at Infosys Science Foundation's office in Bengaluru.

Zariski Cancellation Problem is a fundamental problem in algebraic geometry first posed in 1949 by Oscar Zariski, one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry.

In 2014, Pof Gupta proved the striking result that Asanumas 3-dimensional affine variety yields a negative answer to Zariskis original Cancellation Problem in positive characteristic, Infosys said in the statement.

The Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) announced the winners of the Infosys Prize 2024 in six categoriesEconomics, Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, and Physical Sciences.

Initiated in 2009, the Infosys Prize awards recipients in each category a gold medal, a citation, and a prize purse of USD 100,000 (or its equivalent in INR).

Over the past 15 years, the ISF has recognized groundbreaking research and scholarship that has influenced various aspects of human life.

In 2024, the prize, with a new direction, decided to honour researchers under 40, emphasizing the need for early recognition of exceptional talent.

The winners of the Infosys Prize 2024 were announced by the trustees of ISF  Kris Gopalakrishnan (President, Board of Trustees), Narayana Murthy, K. Dinesh, Dr. Pratima Murthy, Mohandas Pai, and S. D. Shibulal. The other trustees of ISF Nandan Nilekani, Srinath Batni, and Salil Parekh  extended their congratulations to this years recipients.

The winners of the Infosys Prize 2024 in the other six categories are:

Economics

Arun Chandrasekhar, Professor at Stanford University, received the Infosys Prize in Economics for his pioneering research on social and economic networks, particularly through data from Karnataka villages. His work enhances understanding of networks in the modern economy and informs development policy.

Engineering and Computer Science

Shyam Gollakota, Professor at the University of Washington, was awarded in Engineering and Computer Science for innovations in affordable smartphone-based healthcare, battery-free computing, and AI-enhanced auditory sensing.

Humanities and Social Sciences

Mahmood Kooria, Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, was honored for his groundbreaking research on maritime Islam, focusing on Keralas role in pre-modern and early modern Islamic law and cultural transformations across the Indian Ocean.

Life Sciences

Siddhesh Kamat, Associate Professor at IISER Pune, was recognized for his research on bioactive lipids and their receptors, advancing understanding of cellular functions and potential impacts on human health.

Physical Sciences

Vedika Khemani, Associate Professor at Stanford, received the prize in Physical Sciences for her transformative work on non-equilibrium quantum matter, including the discovery of time-crystals, which may influence future quantum technologies.

In addition, laureates of the Infosys Prize have gone on to receive several prestigious international awards, including the Nobel Prize (Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo), the Fields medal (Manjul Bhargava and Akshay Venkatesh), the Dan David Prize (Sanjay Subrahmanyam), the MacArthur genius Grant (Sunil Amrith), the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (Ashoke Sen), and the Marconi Prize (Hari Balakrishnan). Several laureates have been elected fellows of the Royal Society, among them Gagandeep Kang, who became the first Indian woman to be elected Fellow of the Royal Society.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, President, Infosys Science Foundation, said, The Infosys Prize has played a pivotal role in recognizing brilliant minds whose contributions are shaping the future of research and science. This year, we refocused to reward early career researchers under the age of 40, recognizing their immense potential and the promise of paradigm-changing work. On behalf of the Infosys Science Foundation, I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the winners of the Infosys Prize 2024, whose achievements reflect the vital connection between science and society, inspiring the next generation of innovators.
Body images credits and captions: ED raids in Kolkata in 'lottery scam' | Photo courtesy: Screenshot grab from X video

Kolkata/IBNS: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday conducted multiple raids in Kolkata in connection with the probe into the alleged lottery scam, media reports said.

The raids were carried out at several locations in and around Kolkata.

A lottery ticket printing facility in Michael Nagar which falls in the New Barrackpore zone was also raided.

#WATCH | West Bengal: The Enforcement Directorate is conducting raids in connection with a lottery scam. ED is investigating the alleged financial fraud of the lottery and the corruption case involving money laundering through lottery tickets to certain influential people.



ED pic.twitter.com/XryVzNjmhc  ANI (@ANI) November 14, 2024

The case pertains to the alleged money laundering by diverting funds collected by selling the lottery tickets to influential people.

Raids were also carried out at a complex in South Kolkata's posh Lake Market area.
Visual of how smog engulfed Delhi on Thursday morning | Photo courtesy: Screenshot grab from X video

New Delhi/IBNS: In a repeat of what occurs every year, Delhi is engulfed by toxic smog as air quality remained in the "severe" category at the onset of winter in the national capital, media reports said.

The Air Quality Index (AQI) in Delhi was 432, which falls in the 'severe' category, at 6 am on Thursday.

It has slightly improved since it was recorded 'very severe' at 452 at 11 pm on Wednesday.

Over 200 flights have been delayed owing to the poor visibility at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, which houses the residence of the Prime Minister.

than usual due to low visibility. Thank you for your patience, and we wish you a smooth journey. (2/2)  IndiGo (@IndiGo6E) November 13, 2024

Entrepreneur Aman Bansal, who seems frustrated at the situation, writes on X, "Delhi is choking. I dont know who is going to save us. People in power should be made to stand outside in this air to make them understand the effects."

Delhi is choking. I dont know who is going to save us. People in power should be made to stand outside in this air to make them understand the effects.#AQI #Delhi #pollution #letdelhibreathe

@CAQM_Official @MoHFW_INDIA @WHO pic.twitter.com/YPR75Q9wrz  Aman Bansal (@Mr_AmanBansal) November 12, 2024

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who returned from Wayanad elections to Delhi, posted on X, " Coming back to Delhi from Wayanad where the air is beautiful and the AQI is 35, was like entering a gas chamber. The blanket of smog is even more shocking when seen from the air. Delhis pollution gets worse every year.

"We really should put our heads together and find a solution for cleaner air. Its beyond this party or that, its practically impossible to breathe especially for kids, elders and those with respiratory issues. We just have to do something about it."

Coming back to Delhi from Wayanad where the air is beautiful and the AQI is 35, was like entering a gas chamber. The blanket of smog is even more shocking when seen from the air.



Delhis pollution gets worse every year. We really should put our heads together and find a solution pic.twitter.com/dYMtjaVIGB  Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) November 14, 2024

Political slugfest over Delhi pollution on

Though the residents of Delhi are in no respite from the pollution for years, political slugfest between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which governs the city and country respectively, has seen no pause.

Slamming the AAP government, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said as quoted by India Today, "We are standing at Kartavya Path, and the AQI here is 474. We cant even see India Gate.

"This is due to the inefficiency of the AAP government, which is focused only on event management, not environmental planning."

Delhi's Environment Minister Gopal Rai said on Thursday, "The central government will have to take action to control pollution. Releasing a press release from the party won't help."

Earlier, Delhi Chief Minister Atishi had blamed the BJP-ruled states- Haryana and Uttar Pradesh- for allegedly polluting Yamuna river deliberately.

'No religion promotes pollution'

During a hearing on the Diwali firecrackers ban violation, the Supreme Court had wailed on the authorities' failure to take measures to curb bursting of crackers.

The court had said every citizen has the right to live in a pollution-free environment. The right has been guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, asserted the top court.
Rajesh Sharma and Vidya Balan feature in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 | Photo courtesy: Screenshot grab from Vidya Balan's Instagram video

Mumbai/IBNS: Guess how Vidya Balan and co-actor Rajesh Sharma spent the night shoot of their recently released horror-comedy film Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3. It's by reciting a poem of legendary author Sukumar Ray.

Vidya has shared a video on her Instagram handle where the two were seen reciting a poem from Abol Tabol, a collection of Bengali rhymes and poems.

Vidya also revealed it was Rajesh who actually had taught her the poem seven years ago. After all these years, Vidya clearly remembers the poem written by Sukumar Ray, the father of maestro Satyajit Ray.

Sharing the video on Instagram, Vidya wrote, "In between scenes,on a night shoot for BB3, I attempt remembering the 1st #aaboltaabol I learnt from my dear co-actor amar bondhu #RajeshSharma 7 years ago on another set."

Abol Tabol, which is considered a benchmark in Bengali literature, completed 100 years in 2023.

The poem which the duo read out was Sat Patra, which tells the story how a Bengali father in those days was keen to get his daughter married to a 'suitable groom' irrespective of his vices.

Vidya, 45, has a connection with West Bengal through her works. She made her film debut with Bengali project, Bhalo Theko.

In 2005, Vidya made her Bollywood debut with Parineeta, which was based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's Bengali novella of the same name.

Amid her several hits, Vidya is fondly remembered for playing a Bengali woman in Sujoy Ghosh's action-thriller film Kahaani, which was shot in Kolkata.

Rajesh too has a Bengal connection as the actor has worked in Kolkata for long. He has featured in a huge number of Bengali films including iconic director Rituparno Ghosh's Shubho Mahurat.

The actor was also married to Bengali actress Sudipta Chakraborty.

Vidya and Rajesh together collaborated in a number of Hindi films, namely, Parineeta, Ishqiya, The Dirty Picture, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3.

Vidya returned to the Bhool Bhulaiyaa franchise with the third installment, which is helmed by Anees Bazmee.

Vidya shared the screen space with Kartik Aaryan, Madhuri Dixit, Triptii Dimri in the lead.
Alien Romulus OTT release date has been announced. The movie starring Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux and others is soon to be released on OTT after its theatrical run. It has been directed by acclaimed Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Alvarez. It centers on three siblings who are space colonists battling to survive on a barren mining planet. Alien Romulus will be released on Disney+Hotstar on 21st November 2024.

Plot

In the movie, a young woman named Rain Carradine joins a group to flee to the planet Yvaga. In order to retrieve stasis chambers for the journey, the team takes a spaceship and travels to the defunct station. But they unintentionally release face-huggers, which are nasty extraterrestrial monsters kept on the ship for study. Inspired by the myth of Rome's founders, Romulus and Remus, the movie examines sibling relationships.

Cast and crew

Fede Alvarez directed and Rodo Sayagues and Alvarez wrote the science fiction horror movie Alien: Romulus, which came out in 2024. It is set between the events of Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986) and is produced by Scott Free Productions and Brandywine Productions. Starring in the movie are Spike Fearn, Isabela Merced, Archie Renaux, David Jonsson, Aileen Wu, and Cailee Spaeny.

On August 12, 2024, Alien: Romulus made its Los Angeles premiere. On August 16, 20th Century Studios released the film in theaters across the United States. The movie got good reviews and made over $350 million worldwide.

According to the producers, Alien: Romulus takes the phenomenally successful Alien franchise back to its roots

For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.
Outfits are always a talking point at any event, but let's be honest: it's the accessories that have truly stolen the spotlight these days. And when we say accessories, we mean bags that are making heads turn everywhere. Take the recent Tira Beauty store launch, for instance. While Isha Ambani and Nita Ambani's outfits were nothing short of spectacular, their bags were the real game-changers, making waves across the fashion world. Let's just say, they literally bagged all the attention!

Credit: Instagram

Bagged the attention

The Ambani ladies, who are already known for their impeccable style and business brilliance, didn't disappoint at this high-profile launch event at Jio World Plaza in Mumbai. Isha Ambani, in her shiny lavender power pantsuit, and Nita Ambani, who wore a chequered blazer paired with loose pants, were already serving serious style vibes. But what really had fashionistas buzzing were the quirky bags they paired their outfits with. And trust us, it was a bag off like no other.

Nita Ambani's Popcorn bag

Nita Ambani's popcorn purse quickly became the talk of the town. This exquisite Chanel Popcorn Minaudiere bag, made of resin, enamel, imitation pearls, and gold-tone metal, instantly became the star accessory of the evening. The bag, which resembled a literal popcorn bucket, added a fun twist to her otherwise elegant look. It's quirky, it's chic, and it was the perfect blend of glamour with a touch of playful humour.

Isha Ambani's bow clutch

Isha Ambani wasn't far behind in the fashion game. The boss lady nailed her look with a bright hues power pantsuit, but it was her mini silver bow-shaped clutch that caught everyone's eye. The bow clutch, sleek and minimalistic, complemented her sharp and fierce persona while adding a dash of whimsy to her otherwise bold ensemble.

Fashion critic and influencer, Sufi Motiwala, was also spotted at the launch and couldn't resist commenting on the unique and high-fashion vibes at the event. In a video shared by Sufi, both Isha and Nita Ambani were asked to rate their outfits. Isha, ever the humble fashion icon, cheekily replied, "Whatever you say" when asked about her ensemble. As for Nita Ambani, she shared that she doesn't rely on a stylist and simply wears what she likes. Isha, of course, rated her mother's look a solid 10/10!

Kiara, Kareena and Suhana..

And of course, the event wouldn't have been complete without appearances from Bollywood's best. Kareena Kapoor, Kiara Advani, and Suhana Khan all graced the occasion with their glamorous outfits, adding even more dazzle to the night.

Credit: Instagram

At the end of the day, it wasn't just about the outfits. It was about how Isha and Nita Ambani made a statement with their accessories, and trust us, the world's watching.
After revealing he is making a comeback as India's first superhero Shaktimaan and sharing the first teaser, Mukesh Khanna who had earlier shown his resentment on Ranveer Singh playing the iconic role has now said that Singh begged him to let him play the role and even sat in his office for two and hours to convince him.

Mukesh Khanna says Ranveer Singh begged for Shaktimaan's role

Shaktimaan actor Mukesh Khanna has expressed his disagreement & anger against casting of Ranveer Singh in this iconic role for the upcoming remake.  pic.twitter.com/DBaAh0z3Mj  Ray (@kapoorempire) March 16, 2024

For the unversed, speculations were rife that Singh had been roped in to play the superhero in a movie triology, which was to be made on a budget of Rs 300 crores each. However, no official announcement on the same was made. As Khanna got to hear the grapevine, he lashed out at Singh and even suggested him to take up roles in other countries where he would get nude scenes, thus taking a dig at his nude photoshoot that was making a lot of buzz at that time.

"Sarva Shaktimaan is God," he said and added, "I have told the producers, that your competition is not with Spider-Man, Batman, Captain Planet. Shaktimaan is not just a superhero, he has also become a super teacher. Now, the actor who takes on the role should have the quality that when he speaks, people will listen. There are big actors, but their image comes in the middle."

When Khanna was asked if the rumours of him making Singh wait at his office for two and a half hours were true or not, he said, "Sir, first of all, I didn't make him wait for two and a half hours; he chose to sit there. He came to my office. We enjoyed his company. He is a terrific actor with amazing energy, but who will play Shaktimaan is something I will decide, not the actors. See, producers handle casting; actors don't cast producers. You can't just come to my office and say, 'I want to be Shaktimaan' - that's not allowed. But I respect it; he still has a lot of zeal and wants to play the role. But saying that he is a big actor doesn't matter. For Shaktimaan, we don't need a big or small actor; we need the right face," he said adding, "Why didn't Akshay Kumar look convincing in the role of Prithviraj Chauhan?"

Fans slam Mukesh Khanna for making Ranveer Singh beg for the role

He really needs some help. Get well soon Shaktimaan  Pranit (@pranit_pranu) November 14, 2024

Now, Mukesh Khanna is once again getting trolled for literally making Singh beg for the role when he didn't have to. They also think Singh can ace the role to perfection. "Bros ego is on the top of Burj Khalifa honestly Ranveer can pull off shaktiman very convincingly," one of them said. "This man proved 'you either die as a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain'", said another one. "The green shirt guy was holding his laugh the entire time," added another one.

For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.
Controversies around Rupali Gangulys personal life keep taking ugly turns every passing day. The actress has found herself in the midst of some serious allegations hurled by her stepdaughter Esha Verma. It was recently that Rupalis lawyer sent a Rs 50 crore defamation notice to Esha for allegedly trying to ruin the actress image for her own popularity. Verma, to avoid any more legal hassles, deleted all posts and tweets against Rupali and even made her social media accounts private.

In a new turn of events, Esha Verma finally spoke about the entire matter without making any mention of Rupali Ganguly and thanked the people for their support.

Esha Verma breaks her silence post-defamation case

The New Jersey resident shared a video message on her Instagram account thanking everyone for being kind, supportive and sweet. It means the world to me. And Im just going to be private for a little bit just for my sake. And were just moving forward from here. Im in America so things are a little bit different here, and were more protected. And whatever it is, I just want to say this community were building is so beautiful and Ive been looking at everyones profiles, Esha said.

Instagram

Verma asserted that theres no place for negativity in her life and if people want to talk to her about anything and everything, they should DM her without fear. By the end of her video, she simply said that shes available for anyone who needs help.

Also Read: Rupali Ganguly sends defamation notice to stepdaughter: A look at 5 shocking accusations made by Esha Verma

Payal Rohatgi slams Rupali Ganguly for her Rs 50 crore ask

The Bigg Boss 8 contestant took to her Instagram stories and called out the Anupamaa star for her blind ask in the defamation notice. "Whatever your truth Rupali but u did marry a guy who was married when u met him. It's called karma when u do what u do to the earlier wife. The daughter of the earlier wife will have her narrative. Rest figure it out in court with your proof. But why did u ask for so much money as defamation? Are u broke? Do u all even understand what is 50 crores working in serials? Payal wrote.

Instagram

Esha is the daughter of Ashwin K Verma with his second wife Sapna. Rupali is Ashwins third wife with whom he has a son named Rudransh.

For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.
Suryias Kanguva has taken over headlines today and how! The Tamil movie was much-awaited and people were looking forward to seeing what the film has in store for them. Now that the initial shows are over, movie-goers have flocked to social media sites and have been sharing their reviews of the movie. While Karthi and Suriya are being hailed for their roles, there have been some conflicting reactions to Bobby Deols role in Kanguva. While some feel that Bobby was able to impress on screen, others called it a waste of his potential.

Kanguva movie review: How fans are reacting to Bobby Deols role

To give you background, In Kanguva, Bobby Deol appears in the role of a villain called Udhiran. The role, which was expected to be one of the actors best characters so far, is currently getting some mixed reactions.

If we go by what people on the internet are saying, then Bobbys role was underwhelming. Taking to X, a social media user who liked Bobbys performance wrote, Bobby Deol, fresh new menacing villain.

It was a thrill to watch #Kanguva with Suriya and Bobby Deol ruling the screens. The last 1 hour of the film was my favorite part. Only South cinema can bring such action, storyline, and drama to a film.#KanguvaInCinemasNow@Suriya_offl @thedeol @directorsiva @ThisIsDSP pic.twitter.com/CKaKaZp06Q  Lokesh Chandra  (@socialloki) November 14, 2024



Another added, It was a thrill to watch #Kanguva with Suriya and Bobby Deol ruling the screens.

#Kanguva#Suriya dominated every frame, Monster, shoulders the film.

Bobby Deol, fresh new menacing villain.

Other cast chips in. #DSP BGM helps.

Film is grand can be enjoyed best in 3D.

Book your tkts. 3/5



P.S Nan inum padam pakala, this will be avg influencer review in X  Vatsan (@Malabar_Parotta) November 14, 2024

People who were disappointed with Bobbys screen presence felt that his role had way more potential.

One wrote, BobbyDeol has done good but could have been utilised more.

#kanguva after watched overall movie 

It's a Pure 90MM Rod.. No doubt.



Most irritating character is Franchise...

No proper Execution...

wasted Bobby Deol...

Boring Screenplay

No impact by another Hero "K"

Worst AI Dubbing (Telugu)

No Emotions...  SATISH KUMAR (@SATI7783) November 14, 2024

Another went on to add that Suriya did a fantastic job however Bobby Deol was underutilised. People also went on to talk about how Disha Patani was a major disappointment.

#kanguva 3.25/5

slow first half

Normal interval

Race speed second half

Bobby Deol character to short

Superb VFX

Suriya acting 200 percentage

Super production value

Watchable movie pic.twitter.com/lTgwxXNTrg  YUVARAJ (@SyuvarajSk) November 14, 2024

For the unversed, the fantasy action-adventure film Kanguva takes place during the medieval era. Bobby Deol plays the primary antagonist in his Tamil debut, while Suriya plays a tribal warrior. The female protagonist is actress Disha Patani.

Have you watched Kanguva yet? If yes, was Bobby Deols role impactful enough? What is your Kanguva review?

Also read: Kanguva releases in theatres: All you need to know about Suriyas fantasy drama

For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.
When you know, you know, and John Krasinski just knew! The People's 2024 Sexiest Man Alive has revealed he fell in love with Emily Blunt at first sight. Recalling the fond memories of his first meeting with his wife, the actor said he felt an immediate connection. With just a simple handshake, he had a feeling he had found his soulmate.

'I shook her hand, I just knew'

In a conversation with People, the Quiet Place actor reminisced about his first meeting with Emily Blunt whom he married in 2010. Krasinski said he was sure about The Devil Wears Prada star right from the moment he first shook her hand. "I dont know what happened, but I remember someone introduced us, and it was across a room in a restaurant, and I walked over to her and as soon as I shook her hand, I just knew," he said.

john krasinski on his relationship with emily blunt:



i knew she was the one the second i met her. its that beautiful thing where when youre married to someone, youre constantly learning and changing and evolving  and im so lucky to go through all that with her. pic.twitter.com/RVwLa9Zz8N  best of emily blunt (@badpostblunt) November 13, 2024

Emily Blunt's first reaction to her husband's new title

After John was named Sexiest Man Alive, Emily Blunt was naturally very" excited. "There was a lot of joy involved in me telling her," John said. She even suggested using his cover photo as wallpaper in their house.

Do we have that on camera? Because thats like a binding contract, I think, The Office star responded to Emily's suggestion. My children will love that. It wont be weird at all, he added.

Praising the Oppenheimer actress, he added, "Its that beautiful thing where when youre married to someone, youre constantly learning and changing and evolving. And Im so lucky to go through all that with her, he said of the life he has built with Blunt.

About Emily and John's relationship

"Shes one of the coolest people, shes so talented, shes beautiful, and shes certainly out of my league. And so all of a sudden all of the things I loved, I got to find someone who loved that about me."  John Krasinski about Emily Blunt. pic.twitter.com/OkFT1F6iiy  best of emily blunt (@badpostblunt) July 10, 2018





Emily Blunt and John Krasinski are one of Hollywood's most loved couples. The actors first met at a Los Angeles restaurant in 2008 and wed in 2010. They've since welcomed two daughters: Hazel and Violet. The pair prefers to keep their private lives under wraps. Krasinski, best known for his role as Jim Halpert in the American sitcom The Office, has also directed and starred alongside Blunt in the critically acclaimed A Quiet Place film series.

For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.
Kanguva X review: Its a festival that arrived without a season as fans across India flock to theatres in full numbers to watch Suriyas latest release. Kanguva also starring Bobby Deol and Disha Patani is gaining momentum on social media with early reviews suggesting the movie is worth the hype. Heres a cumulative list of seven balanced opinions that will help you decide on booking your tickets.

7 tweets to read before watching Suriyas Kanguva

One user shared, A week script backed up with mind-blowing visuals and excellent VFX.. good performance from Suriya & small boy.. manippu video song is easily best part in the movie. Racy screenplay but failed to impress us.. couldnt able to connect in a single scene.. the interval twist was decent.. underwhelming scenes with Loud BGM were drawbacks for this movie... no emotional connect.

Good story spoiled with bad execution

Some references from Hollywood web series #Kanguva pic.twitter.com/qTN1F4yhey  Rajavamshi (@RR_Vamshi3) November 14, 2024

Just watched #Kanguva - what an epic ride! The visuals, action, and storytelling are absolutely top-notch. That interval block had me on the edge of my seat! If you're a fan of gripping, well-made cinema, a must-watch. Kudos to the team!  #KanguvaReview #KanguvaFDFS pic.twitter.com/z26GoP00s5  Cinema Zindagi (@cinema_zindagi) November 13, 2024

A great experience  especially the second half is banger and the climax sequence is blasttt the way the connect is greattt from past to present  Thandavam @Suriya_offl  love you @directorsiva sir the emotion connects well  @StudioGreen2 overall it's wow #Kanguva pic.twitter.com/tmuplshwID  Ranjith||ROLEX|| (@Ranjith_G_J) November 14, 2024

#Kanguva Movie Full Review 



- As for this film, the film is full of fight scenes

- A few scenes seem unnecessary in this film.

- Although it is an emotional film but some scenes are unbearable

- #Suriya's performance is amazing

- The songs featured in this film are not up to pic.twitter.com/Y0IJXaHtOb  Movie Tamil (@MovieTamil4) November 14, 2024

#Kanguva #KanguvaReview



2nd Half:



Steals the show. What a performer @Suriya_offl . And lead for Part2 is icing on the cake. Crazy fantasy movie.



This is very serious issue:



Something wrong with the BGM or re-recording. I dont know whether the theater I watched is  Karthik (@meet_tk) November 14, 2024

Suriyas Efforts are Priceless Well Toned Body, Kanguva Body Language & Expressions, Fight Sequences, Dialogue Delivery, Stylish Francis Makeover, Yolo Dance



Pure One Man Show!#Kanguva



https://t.co/2NtniNdRs6  Christopher Kanagaraj (@Chrissuccess) November 14, 2024

#KanguvaReview



Suriya shines in dual roles: Francis (undercover cop) & ancient warrior

Goa meets ancient Tamil Nadu.

Missing boy sparks thrilling investigation. 

Comedy (0-25min), then pace picks up.

3D visuals ON FIRE!  #Kanguva #KanguvaFDFS #Kanguvabookingsupdate https://t.co/GaQInGXb5P  NK Channel (@itsnkupdates) November 12, 2024

More about Kanguva

This Tamil lingual actioner has been directed by Siva and jointly produced by Studio Green and UV Creations. Other than Suriya, Bobby and Disha, Kanguva also stars Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley, Natarajan Subramaniam, Kovai Sarala, Vatsan Chakravarthy, Anandaraj and K. S. Ravikumar. Having budgeted between Rs 300350 crore, this film is easily one of the most expensive Indian films ever made.

Kanguvas official synopsis reads, A tribal warrior's fierce struggle to save his people a millennium ago is mysteriously linked to a shadow cop's perilous quest in the present. Theres a surprise cameo in the film that will leave you thrilled. Head to theatres near you and watch it now. Come back and review @indiatimes.

For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.
Rajinikanth will soon be seen in Coolie, one of the most eagerly-awaited films of the year. The biggie has created a great deal of buzz among fans as it marks the veteran mass hero's first collaboration with Lokesh Kanagaraj. According to the latest reports, the film is expected to hit the screens in May.

Rajinikanth's Coolie gets a release date

Rajinikanth, last seen in the TJ Gnanavel-directed Vettaiyan, is working on Coolie. The film features 'Superstar' in a stylish new avatar and marks his first collaboration with Lokesh Kanagaraj, who rose to fame with Karthi's Kaithi. According to The Times of India, Coolie is scheduled to hit the screens on May 1, 2025. The team, however, is yet to comment on this.

That said, if the film does indeed release on the said date, it will avoid a clash with the Tamil biggies Thug Life and Idli Kadai. Mani Ratnam's film is set to hit the screens on April 5. Dhanush's film, on the other hand, is set to arrive in theatres on April 10. Coolie will also benefit from the Mayday holiday if it releases as per this plan.

About Coolie

Coolie, Lokesh Kanagaraj's first film after Leo, is a gangster drama that features Rajinikanth in the role of a don. It reportedly centres on gold smuggling and features several hero elevation moments. Interestingly, unlike Vikram, it is not part of the Loki Cinematic Universe (LCU). Its cast includes Nagarjuna, Upendra, and Shruti Haasan. For Rajinikanth, it will be his first release after the actioner Vettaiyan, which hit the screens this October.

The TJ Gnanavel-directed biggie featured the Sivaji star in the role of a cop and examined the sensitive issue of encounter killings.. Its cast included Amitabh Bachchan, Fahadh Faasil, Manju Warrier, Ritika Singh, and Baahubali star Rana Daggubati. Lokesh, meanwhile, is set to produce The Raghava Lawrence-fronted Benz. It is set in the LCU but won't be directed by him. Lokesh is also likely to collaborate with Aamir Khan for a superhero film.

For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.
Delhi and the other parts of the National Capital Region woke up to yet another morning of thick smog, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) standing at 432 on Thursday morning. It was the 16th day of this season when the air quality remained in the ' very poor' category. Amid such conditions, residents complain of breathing issues, skin allergies, and eye irritations.

Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai addressed the alarming rise in air pollution in the national capital, stating that the Air Quality Index (AQI) had crossed 400 for the first time this winter season. He attributed the sudden surge in pollution levels to two main factors  National Women's Unity Organization (@rastriyemahila1) November 14, 2024

The impact of air pollution on eye health is often overlooked, though it significantly contributes to ocular discomfort and disease. The harmful effects of air pollution encompass the overall body parts ranging from lungs to eyes, skin, and hair.

Pollutants like smoke, dust, and chemicals in the air are easily absorbed by the delicate surface of the eyes, leading to symptoms like irritation, tearing, and blurred vision. Dr. KP Reddy, Founder and Chief Mentor, of Maxivision Super Speciality Eye Hospitals explains, Long-term exposure to particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) can exacerbate conditions such as dry eye disease, where the eyes fail to produce enough tears, resulting in chronic dryness and sensitivity.

Additionally, studies show that individuals in cities with high pollution levels report a higher frequency of eye allergies and infections, as pollutants weaken the natural defence mechanisms of the eyes.

Air pollution seen outside my window (at the same location yesterday) at Delhi NCR. And our leaders are enjoying in their rooms with AC & air Purifier.

WE ARE IN CLIMATE CATOSTROPHE NOW! pic.twitter.com/BWte3DaxOq  Licypriya Kangujam (@LicypriyaK) November 14, 2024

For individuals in polluted areas, protective measures like avoiding peak pollution hours, using protective eyewear, and applying eye drops to keep eyes moist are essential steps to reduce discomfort and protect long-term eye health, he adds.

With the harmful effects of toxic air on eye health, taking care of your eyes is extremely crucial. Many people are noticing the impact of air pollution on their eyesproblems like eye irritation, dryness, and even blurred visions, warns Dr. Aditi Sharma, Consultant Ophthalmologist at Akhand Jyoti Eye Hospital.

Here are some tips to safeguard your eyes amid the rise in pollution

Wear protective eyewear: Use wrap-around sunglasses or protective glasses when outdoors to shield your eyes from dust and pollutants.

Limit Outdoor Exposure: Reduce the time spent outdoors, especially during high-pollution times. Use air quality apps to monitor the best times to go out.

Keep Your Hands Clean: Avoid touching or rubbing your eyes, as hands can carry pollutants. Regularly wash hands to minimise contamination.

Wash Your Face Regularly: Washing your face, especially around the eyes, helps remove any pollutants that might have settled on your skin.

Follow the 20-20-20 Rule: Give your eyes a break from screens every 20 minutes by looking at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds, which helps prevent strain.

Eat eye-friendly foods: Include foods rich in vitamins A, C, and E, like carrots, spinach, and almonds, which are beneficial for eye health and may help fight pollution-related damage.

Consult an Eye Specialist: If you experience persistent redness, irritation, or dryness, see an eye specialist for advice tailored to your eye health needs.

Pollution's impact on vision can be scary! So make it a point to follow these tips to combat eye problems.

For more on lifestyle, astrology and health from around the world please visit Indiatimes Lifestyle.
India is already known as 'the diabetes capital of the world', with the highest prevalence of diabetes cases across the globe. It is home to one in seven adults suffering from the condition. However, the number of diabetic people is expected to increase by 266% by 2030. Adding to the data, the latest Lancet report revealed that India stood the highest in terms of diabetes cases in 2022, with over a fourth of 828 million globally.

The data is concerning, as nearly 62% of people with diabetes in the country were not receiving any medication for the disease, according to a report by the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Diabetes cases surpassed the 800 million markfour times more than in 1990

The study further revealed that the total number of individuals living with either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes across the world has crossed the 800 million mark; it is over four times more than the total number reported in 1990.

In 2022, there were around 212 million (21.2 crore people), which is about 23.7% of the population who are suffering from diabetes. Moreover, out of these, around 133 million (13.3 crore) people were not on any medication for the condition.

India topped the global chart for people not receiving diabetes treatment

As per the study data, nearly 30% of diabetics across the world were not receiving any medication or treatment, and India topped this global chart too. Considering other countries like China, the sole country that can be compared with India in terms of population had a lesser number of diabetics (148 million, or 14.8 crore) in 2022. While, out of these, over 78 million adults were living without getting treatment.

How did diabetes in India look in 1990?

Going back to the 1990s, the rate of diabetes in India stood at 11.9% for women and 11.3% for men, which now in 2022 jumped to 23.7 and 21.4. In terms of treatment coverage for women with diabetes in 1990, it was 21.6% and 25.3% for men. However, these numbers have seen a slight shift, with 27.8% for women and 29.3% for men in 2022.

To conduct the study, the researchers used data from 1,108 population-based studies that included information on treatment for diabetes and data on 141 million participants among the age group of 18 and over. The fasting glucose and HbA1c levels of these participants were measured; this is how the country-wise data was concluded.

Also Read: Ozempic Butt: Know about the unspoken side effect of the popular diabetes drug  straight from experts

Also Read: PCOS & Diabetes: Does hormonal imbalance also spike blood sugar levels? Experts draw link

For more on lifestyle, astrology and health from around the world please visit Indiatimes Lifestyle.
In a rather bizarre case of insurance fraud, four men were arrested in California for destroying their own luxury cars while dressing up as bears! The men, all residents of Los Angeles, were arrested after they sought insurance payouts, claiming that their luxury cars were destroyed by bears.

Luxury cars damaged in bear attacks

The men had claimed that a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG, and a 2022 Mercedes E350 were attacked by bears on January 28 in the forested resort town of Lake Arrowhead, causing interior damage.

Bear attacks 'caught on camera'

They even provided photos of the damage, as well as footage from a security camera showing what appeared to be a bear entering a Rolls-Royce Ghost, an exclusive vehicle worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The four claimants had sought over $140,000 as insurance payouts from the insurance company. However, the similarities in the nature of the damages and the security camera visuals of the bear made the insurance company suspicious.

Operation Bear Claw

An investigation, nicknamed Operation Bear Claw, was launched, and detectives concluded that the damages were caused by men dressed as bears.

"Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume," said a release from the California Department of Insurance.

The investigators even took the help of a biologist, who confirmed their suspicions.

To further ensure it was not actually a bear in the video, the Department had a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife review the three alleged bear videos, and they also opined it was clearly a human in a bear suit, the Insurance Department said in a release.

Four arrested after videos show fake bear attacks for insurance payouts.



Operation Bear Claw reveals suspects allegedly wore bear costume to commit insurance fraud. pic.twitter.com/9mzfvaq2B3  CA Dept of Insurance (@CDInews) November 13, 2024

The four accused, identified as Ruben Tamrazian, Ararat Chirkinian, Vahe Muradkhanyan, and Alfiya Zuckerman, have been arrested and charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy. Investigators also found a bear costume and meat claws, which are used by chefs to shred meat, in the home of one of the suspects.

For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News.
In a surprise move, US President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) under his incoming administration. Gabbard is a former Democratic Congresswoman who ran for the party's presidential nomination in 2019. She is a decorated US Army veteran who served as a Lieutenant Colonel and fought in the Iraq war.

CREDIT: REUTERS

Who is Tulsi Gabbard

Gabbard, who was born in American Samoa to parents of European and Samoan ancestry, was named Tulsi by her mother, who became interested in Hinduism.

She started her political career at the age of 21 in 2002 when she was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives. Gabbard entered the United States House of Representatives in 2013 from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district.

Also read: Why is Donald Trump taking Tulsi Gabbard's help to prepare for debate with Kamala Harris?

How Gabbard ended Harris's 2020 presidential bid

In 2019, Gabbard launched her 2020 presidential campaign, becoming the first female combat veteran to run for president of the US. But in 2020, she ended her campaign and endorsed Joe Biden. Though her presidential campaign was unsuccessful, Gabbard was also credited for "ending" the presidential bid of another hopeful.

CREDIT: AP

Kamala Harris, who went on to become Biden's Vice President and the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, was also in the race in 2019. But during a primary debate, Gabbard attacked Harris on the debate stage over her record as a prosecutor, which many consider as the moment that ended the Indian-American's bid.

Helping Trump for debate with Harris

In 2022, Gabbard left the Democratic Party and earlier this year joined the Trump campaign to help the Republican prepare for his presidential debate with Harris.

Incidentally, in her new role, Gabbard will be leading the same organization whose credibility she has repeatedly questioned in the past  US Intelligence.

CREDIT: AP

Gabbard was also a critic of Trump during his first term and had described the killing of top Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad as an "illegal and unconstitutional act of war."

For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News.
Childrens Day 2024: Every year on 14th November, India celebrates Childrens Day to honour Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the countrys first Prime Minister. Children lovingly called him Chacha Nehru and remembered him for his dedication to their education and well-being. This special day highlights the importance of childhood and the need to create an environment where children can grow, learn, and flourish.

Schools hold fun activities like cultural programmes, competitions, and games. Families and communities also organise events and celebrations, making children feel cherished and special on this day.

We all know that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was Indias first Prime Minister and a prominent freedom fighter. However, there is so much more to his life, including his education, career, and lesser-known facts. Dont worrythis article covers everything you need to know about Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Keep reading!

Who Was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru?

Credit: Freepik

Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14th November 1889 in Allahabad (now Prayagraj), into a Kashmiri Pandit family. His father, Pandit Motilal Nehru, was a respected lawyer, and his mother, Swarup Rani, was a homemaker. He was the eldest of three siblings, with two sisters, Vijay Lakshmi Pandit and Krishna Hutheesing.

The family lived in Anand Bhavan, a large house bought by his father in 1930. This historic residence became a significant part of Indias freedom struggle and was later donated to the government by Indira Gandhi in 1970. Today, it stands as a museum showcasing Indias history.

Also Read: Happy Children's Day Wishes

Nehrus Early Life and Education

Homeschooled Beginnings: Nehru was taught at home by private tutors until he turned 16.

Nehru was taught at home by private tutors until he turned 16. University in England: In 1907, he joined Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated in 1910 with a degree in natural sciences. And later went to London and studied law at Inner Temple Inn and completed his degree in 1910.

In 1907, he joined Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated in 1910 with a degree in natural sciences. And later went to London and studied law at Inner Temple Inn and completed his degree in 1910. Legal Career: After returning to India in 1912, Nehru trained as a lawyer, just like his father, and even worked at the Allahabad High Court.

After returning to India in 1912, Nehru trained as a lawyer, just like his father, and even worked at the Allahabad High Court. However, Nehrus interest shifted from law to politics, and he soon became an important leader in Indias fight for independence.

Also Read: Children's Day Speech Ideas

Jawaharlal Nehru wife and kids

Four years after returning to India, in March 1916, Nehru married Kamala Kaul, who was also from a Kashmiri family that had settled in Delhi. Their only child, Indira Priyadarshini, was born in 1917. She later became Indias Prime Minister, serving from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 to 1984, under her married name, Indira Gandhi.

Nehrus Contribution to Indias Freedom Movement

Nehru played a key role in Indias independence struggle and was a prominent member of the Indian National Congress (INC). He served as the partys president in 1919 and again in 1928.

Time in Prison: Nehru spent over 3,259 days in jail during the freedom struggle.

Nehru spent over 3,259 days in jail during the freedom struggle. Call for Independence: In 1927, Nehru was the first leader to demand complete independence from British rule, breaking all colonial ties.

While in prison, Nehru wrote extensively, sharing his thoughts on Indias future and documenting the countrys journey to freedom.

Also Read: Inspiring Quotes by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

Books Written by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

Nehru was not only a political leader but also an excellent writer. Some of his well-known books include:

The Discovery of India  A detailed exploration of Indias culture and heritage.

 A detailed exploration of Indias culture and heritage. Glimpses of World History  A collection of letters to his daughter, Indira Gandhi, explaining world history.

 A collection of letters to his daughter, Indira Gandhi, explaining world history. Toward Freedom  His autobiography, written while he was in jail.

His letters to Indira Gandhi, published as Letters from a Father to His Daughter, are still loved by readers and reflect his deep affection for her and his commitment to education.

Interesting Facts About Jawaharlal Nehru

Nobel Prize Nominations: Nehru was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 11 times between 1950 and 1955 but never won.

Nehru was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 11 times between 1950 and 1955 but never won. The Architect of Modern India: Nehru earned this title for his contributions to Indias development after independence.

Nehru earned this title for his contributions to Indias development after independence. Historic Speech: His first speech as Prime Minister, Tryst with Destiny, delivered on 15th August 1947, is still regarded as one of the most iconic speeches of the 20th century.

Why Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru called Chacha Nehru?

There are two well-known reasons behind the origin of the name 'Chacha' Nehru. The most popular one is his deep love for children. The other is linked to his close relationship with Mahatma Gandhi. Before becoming India's first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was a key leader in the Indian freedom struggle. His bond with Mahatma Gandhi was remarkable. Nehru followed Gandhi's principles of non-violence and was respected as a skilled politician and statesman.

Some believe Nehru was called 'Chacha' because of his closeness to Mahatma Gandhi. In Hindi, 'Chacha' means the younger brother of one's father. Since Gandhi was fondly referred to as 'Bapu,' meaning father, many saw Nehru as Gandhi's younger brother, and the nickname 'Chacha' became associated with him.

The more widely accepted reason, however, is his affection for children. Nehru was known for his love and care for young kids, often meeting them with warmth and kindness. This earned him the nickname 'Chacha,' which means a beloved uncle, making him a favourite figure among children.

It was because of this special bond with children that Children's Day is celebrated on his birthday, 14th November, to honour his legacy as a freedom fighter and India's first Prime Minister. Initially, India observed Children's Day on 20th November, along with the rest of the world. However, after Nehru died in 1964, it was decided to celebrate his birthday as Children's Day, or Bal Divas, in recognition of his contributions to the country and his love for children. Since then, 14th November has been a day dedicated to celebrating the nation's favourite 'Chacha.'

Why is Childrens Day Celebrated on Nehrus Birthday?

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had a special bond with children. He believed that children are the future of a nation and emphasised the importance of their education and well-being. To honour his love and dedication, 14th November was declared Childrens Day in India after his death.

Children remember him fondly as Chacha Nehru, a leader who always encouraged learning, creativity, and equality.

How to Celebrate Childrens Day 2024

This Childrens Day 2024, let us celebrate Nehrus legacy by promoting the values he believed ineducation, kindness, and equal opportunities for all children. Parents, teachers, and communities can come together to make the day special by organising activities that inspire young minds and encourage them to dream big.
On Thursday, the Commonwealth of Dominica announced it will confer its highest national honour, the Dominica Award of Honour, on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The award recognises his invaluable contributions to Dominica during the COVID-19 pandemic and his ongoing efforts to strengthen the ties between India and Dominica.

Dominica to honour PM Modi with highest national award ahead of Africa visit

The recognition bestowed on PM Modi by Dominica is in appreciation of his support to the country during the COVID-19 pandemic and his efforts to strengthen the relationship between India and Dominica.

The award will be presented by Sylvanie Burton, President of Dominica, at the upcoming India-CARICOM Summit in Georgetown, Guyana, from November 19 to 21, 2024.

How India supported Dominica during the COVID-19 crisis

In February 2021, India donated 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Dominica, a generous gesture that helped the island support its Caribbean neighbors.

The award also highlights India's ongoing contributions to Dominica in areas like healthcare, education, and information technology under Prime Minister Modi's leadership.

Additionally, it acknowledges his efforts in promoting global climate resilience and sustainable development.

Dominica's Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit stated, "Modi has been a true partner to Dominica, particularly during our time of need amid a global health crisis. It is an honour to present him with Dominica's highest national accolade as a symbol of our gratitude for his support and as a reflection of the strong ties between our countries."

For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News.
Happy Children's Day 2024 wishes & quotes: Children's Day, also known as Bal Diwas, is celebrated every year on November 14 to honour the birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. Fondly remembered as Chacha Nehru, he had an immense love for children and believed in nurturing their bright future. His fondness for children is why Children's Day 2024 holds a special place in our hearts.

To celebrate this day, schools, colleges, and various organisations host unique programmes and events such as Children's Day speeches, drawing competitions, and many other activities to bring smiles to the faces of children. It is a day dedicated to cherishing their innocence and recognising their importance in shaping the future.

This special day is celebrated to commemorate the legacy of Chacha Nehru who was known for his vision of empowering the youth, Nehru believed that children were the foundation of a prosperous nation. This day is a heartfelt reminder to nurture young minds with care, education, and love.

The celebrations include cultural programmes, art competitions, and fun-filled activities in schools. Parents, teachers, and caregivers take this opportunity to express their love and appreciation for children through Children's Day wishes, quotes, and messages.

Happy Children's Day 2024 Wishes, Messages, and WhatsApp Status from Parents

Credit: Canva | Children's Day WhatsApp status image

Parents play a vital role in shaping their children's future. On Children's Day 2024, parents can express their unconditional love and encouragement with these thoughtful wishes, messages, and WhatsApp statuses:

Dear child, your smile lights up our lives. Happy Children's Day 2024!

You are our sunshine, our hope, and our future. Happy Children's Day to our precious one!

May your dreams take you to the stars. Wishing you a joyful Children's Day!

Happy Children's Day! You are the reason our lives are so meaningful and full of love.

To our little bundle of joy, may your life be as bright as your laughter. Happy Children's Day!

Every day is special because of you, but today we celebrate YOU. Happy Children's Day!

Dream big, stay curious, and always believe in yourself. Happy Children's Day to our superstar!

Happy Children's Day to the one who fills our lives with endless love and happiness!

You are our greatest blessing and the centre of our universe. Wishing you a wonderful Children's Day 2024!

Your innocence and laughter make the world a better place. Happy Children's Day, dear child!

Happy Children's Day to my little one, who brings sunshine to every corner of my life!

On this special day, we celebrate the joy, love, and laughter you bring to our lives. Happy Bal Diwas!

Children are the heart of a family. To our little heart, Happy Children's Day!

November 14 is all about celebrating you, our pride and joy. Happy Children's Day!

No words can express how much we love you. Wishing you a very Happy Children's Day, our little star!

Happy Children's Day 2024 Wishes, Messages, and WhatsApp Status from Teachers

Credit: Canva | Children's Day WhatsApp status image

Teachers are mentors who guide children toward their goals. On Children's Day, teachers can motivate and encourage their students with these heartfelt wishes, messages and WhatsApp statuses:

"Happy Children's Day to all my wonderful students! You are the reason our classrooms are full of joy and curiosity."

"Dear students, never stop dreaming and believing in yourselves. Happy Children's Day!"

"Children are the hope of the future. Let's celebrate their potential and innocence. Happy Bal Diwas!"

"Wishing all my students a very Happy Children's Day. You are the light that brightens up every day!"

"Happy Children's Day! May you always find happiness in learning and growing."

"Dear students, you are the heart of every teacher's world. Have a joyous and fun-filled Children's Day!"

"On this special day, I wish you success, happiness, and endless smiles. Happy Children's Day!"

"Happy Bal Diwas to all my little stars. Keep shining and making the world a better place!"

"Children are like flowers; they bloom beautifully when nurtured with care. Happy Children's Day!"

"To my amazing students: You inspire us teachers every day. Have a Happy Children's Day!"

"Happy Children's Day! May your lives always be filled with laughter, learning, and love."

"To the future leaders, dreamers, and creators: Wishing you a joyful and inspiring Children's Day!"

"Dear students, your smiles light up the world. Wishing you a wonderful Children's Day!"

"Happy Children's Day to my cherished students. Never stop exploring, learning, and growing."

"On this Children's Day, I celebrate the joy and energy you bring to the world. Keep being amazing!"

Memorable Children's Day Quotes from Parents

Quotes can be a powerful way to convey emotions. Here are some meaningful Children's Day quotes from parents to share with your little ones:

Children are the stars that make our lives sparkle. Happy Children's Day!

Every child is a gift. You are our most precious blessing. Happy Children's Day!

These quotes are perfect for expressing love and admiration for children on this special day.

Thoughtful Children's Day Quotes from Teachers

Teachers can share these inspirational quotes to instil values and positivity in children:

Children are the architects of the future. Let's give them a strong foundation. Happy Children's Day!

The innocence of a child is the most precious gift. Nurture it with kindness. Happy Bal Diwas!

These Children's Day quotes from teachers serve as a reminder of their role in shaping young minds.

WhatsApp Status Ideas for Children's Day 2024

Celebrate Children's Day 2024 by sharing these thoughtful WhatsApp status ideas:

Happy Children's Day to all the little stars who make the world brighter!

Every child is a new beginning. Let's celebrate their dreams and aspirations. Happy Bal Diwas!

November 14: A day to celebrate the innocence, laughter, and joy of childhood. Happy Children's Day!

These statuses can help spread the joy of Children's Day across social media.

Happy Children's Day to all!

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Amid ongoing diplomatic tensions between India and Canada, sparked by accusations from Canada that Indian government agents were involved in the killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar and ongoing immigration disputes, a video has gone viral. The video features a Canadian citizen discussing the controversial issue of pregnant Indian women flying to Canada, adding fuel to the already heated debate.

A user named Chad Eros recently sparked a viral conversation on X with a video claiming that Canadian maternity wards are being flooded by pregnant Indian women who fly to Canada specifically to give birth.

- Pregnant Indian Women Flying To Canada For Free Births and Canadian Citizen Babies at Tax Payer Expense

- Tonight my niece had a baby making my sister a grand parent before me. Congrats!

- The nurse told my niece that the maternity ward is full of Indian women flying to Canada pic.twitter.com/Vfbk07AVRz  Chad Eros (@RealChadEros) November 13, 2024

In his rant, he explains that these women are taking advantage of Canada's healthcare system to secure Canadian citizenship for their babies, all at the expense of Canadian taxpayers.

Chad shares a personal story, revealing that his niece had just given birth, and while in the maternity ward, a nurse told her that the hospital was filled with foreign Indian women coming to Canada to have their babies.

He emphasises that Canadian hospitals won't turn anyone away, so these women are occupying much-needed space in the wards.

Although he mentions that they likely don't have Canadian health coverage, he questions how these women would be billed, and whether the system can collect payments from them once they return to India with their children.

According to Chad, these children will grow up to become Canadian citizens, eventually returning to Canada and sponsoring their parents and extended family to immigrate.

He suggests that all of this is happening at the taxpayer's expense, further fuelling the debate around immigration and healthcare policies in Canada.

His rant sparked discussions in the comments about whether it's time to end birthright citizenship, a stance that U.S. President Donald Trump has also recently supported.

Think its time to end birthright citizenship  Kyosuke (@kyosukethedegen) November 13, 2024

Birthright citizenship is the principle that grants citizenship to any individual born within the territory of a country, regardless of the nationality or immigration status of their parents. It is based on the idea that being born on a country's soil automatically makes a person a citizen of that country.

Countries like the U.S., Canada, and several others follow the principle of jus soli (right of the soil), which means that a child born on their territory is granted citizenship, even if their parents are not citizens or are in the country temporarily.

To stay updated on the stories that are going viral, follow Indiatimes Trending.
K-pop girl group NewJeans has been in an ugly public spat with their own agency ADOR since Min Hee-jin was removed as CEO of the company in August. After a series of warnings, the five-piece girl group, consisting of Kim Minji, Hanni Pham, Danielle Marsh, Kang Haerin, and Lee Hyein, has now formally issued a legal certificate of contents to ADOR, demanding the company address and rectify violations of the exclusive contracts with the members.

NewJeans serves ADOR with a certificate of contents

NewJeans members have served ADOR with a legal certificate of contents, outlining their demands. It stipulated that if the company fails to comply within 14 days of receipt, the group will initiate contract termination proceedings. Although the exact nature of the contract violations and members' demands remains confidential, the girl group made it clear that it plans to take legal action against unfounded rumours and defamation targeting their family.

In South Korea, a certificate of contents is a legally recognised document used for notifying damage claims and contract terminations, requiring certification by the post office.

Earlier, in September, the rookie group went live on YouTube, demanding the re-appointment of their CEO Min Hee-jin amid her highly-publicised legal tussle with HYBE boss Bang Si-hyuk.

Why is NewJeans rebelling against ADOR?

NewJeans' demands stem from allegedly derogatory comments about the group found in their parent label HYBE's internal leaked documents last month during the company's audit. The documents reportedly reveal plans to 'discard the old and start anew,' implying that HYBE did not have any plans for the Super Shy hitmakers. The company has also omitted NewJeans in their Q4 2024 plan, despite the girl group's earlier confirmation that they would release an album this year.

Internet divided over girl group's latest threat

Ah, there we go again, the internet said after NewJeans issued a legal notice to ADOR in a direct dig at their parent label HYBE. A post shared on Reddit sub r/kpopthoughts highlighted the girl group's alleged demands to ADOR, and netizens aren't too pleased with what they have now dubbed baseless threats.

"If they're not happy, pay the dues and leave with their mama. The reason they are being like this is because they want out without any responsibility. As if that will happen. Find a company who is willing to pay the termination fees and take on the crazy that is MHJ and her minions. What company will want to take the risk of a repeat situation?" one Redditor wrote.

"They are overstepping boundaries, it is not their right to demand these conditions," another Reddit user added.

A third noted, "This entire fiasco is a case study as to never debut minors," while another mentioned, "Oh my GODDDD who is giving these girls legal advise. You had a stable situation. MHJ was told no. Multiple times. Double freaking jeopardy. Stop trying to just do the same accusations over and over again. You won't get different outcomes even by holding yourselves hostage."

However, some also hoped for NewJeans to get out of this mess and start their career afresh.

"I wish the best for these girls, I really love their music, and I hope they have a plan moving forward. They never deserved to be treated so unfairly," commented one user.

What are your thoughts on NewJeans' taking the legal route against their own agency ADOR? Let us know in the comments section below.

For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.
Greece's industrial sector is experiencing a significant resurgence, according to Economy and Finance Minister Kostis Hatzidakis.

Speaking at the 8th Annual Economic Conference of the Hellenic Entrepreneurs Association, Mr. Hatzidakis addressed concerns about an overreliance on the services sector,

highlighting strong growth in industry and manufacturing.

Mr. Hatzidakis pointed to recent data that supports this positive trend.

Industry's contribution to Greece's GDP has risen from 12% in 2019 to 13.8% in 2023, with a 7% increase in industrial employment, according to the Hellenic Statistical Authority. Furthermore, productivity in manufacturing has surged by 20.4% since 2019, and investments have grown by an impressive 53%  the highest rate in the European Union.

Mr. Hatzidakis emphasized the diversification of the Greek economy, dismissing claims that "Greece doesn't produce anything."

He cited the doubling of exports since 2008, reaching 98 billion, and the fact that Greece's goods exports now match its services exports, with high-tech goods gaining prominence.

The Minister attributed this progress to the combined efforts of businesses, workers, and supportive government policies that encourage investment while maintaining fiscal responsibility. He also noted the positive impact on job creation, with over half a million new jobs added since 2019.

Looking ahead, Mr. Hatzidakis outlined a range of initiatives aimed at further strengthening the Greek economy.

These include new incentives for mergers, acquisitions, research, and innovation under a forthcoming tax bill. Mr. Hatzidakis believes this bill will make Greece's investment climate one of the most competitive in the EU.

Plans to bolster the banking sector, reduce non-performing loans through the "Hercules" program, and provide workforce training in green and digital skills are also underway. These initiatives are expected to benefit over 700,000 workers in the coming years.

Mr. Hatzidakis reaffirmed the government's commitment to tax reduction, highlighting that over 60 taxes have been lowered since 2019.

He noted that Greece has achieved the largest tax-to-GDP reduction among EU countries. A new tax bill for 2025 will introduce 12 additional tax cuts, further enhancing Greece's competitive edge.

This growth-oriented strategy, Mr. Hatzidakis concluded, not only drives economic development but also promotes fairness, benefiting law-abiding citizens and contributing to Greece's sustainable recovery.

   iefimerida.gr
As speculation mounts over Senator Marco Rubios potential appointment as Secretary of State by President Donald Trump, Greece and Turkey are approaching the move with sharply contrasting perspectives.

Mr. Rubio, a longstanding critic of Turkish President

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is widely recognized for his firm stance against Turkeys human rights record, signaling the potential for a shift in U.S. policy towards Turkey

The prospect has sparked apprehension in Ankara, while Greek officials see a possible ally in Washingtons new foreign policy team.

Mr. Rubios tough stance on Turkish policies has been especially evident in his vocal support of Fetullah Gulen, the exiled cleric whom Turkey blames for the failed 2016 coup attempt.

His connection with Mr. Gulens movement  formally deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey  remains a significant point of tension.

Given Mr. Rubios calls for the release of Mr. Gulens detained supporters, Ankara faces growing uncertainty as it anticipates intensified scrutiny from Washington on human rights and democracy issues under Mr. Rubios leadership.

Mr. Rubios foreign policy approach has also traditionally supported closer ties with Greece and Cyprus, particularly through his endorsement of the East Med Act, which strengthened the U.S.-Greece strategic alliance.

Should he assume office, analysts expect a more guarded U.S. stance on Turkeys operations in Syria and its domestic crackdowns on dissidents. Mr. Rubio has publicly condemned Turkish incursions into Kurdish territories in Syria and advocated for sanctions against Ankara over these military actions  a position Turkey has consistently decried.

In addition, Mr. Rubios backing of the removal of an Interpol red notice for NBA player Enes Kanter, an outspoken critic of Mr. Erdogan, underscores his alignment with critics of Mr. Erdogans government. This alignment has fueled speculation that, under Mr. Rubio, the U.S. may adopt a more confrontational approach toward Turkeys domestic and foreign policies.

Greek officials are cautiously optimistic that a State Department led by Mr. Rubio would enhance Greeces strategic partnership with the U.S., lending new weight to Greeces interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Mr. Rubios robust support for Greece and Cyprus aligns with Greek aspirations to reinforce regional security and counter Turkish influence.

Moreover, Mr. Rubios critical view of Turkeys actions toward the Muslim minority in Greeces Thrace region has caught the attention of Greek authorities, who have closely watched Turkish influence attempts in the area.

Tensions escalated in recent years as Turkish officials accused local Muslim leaders of affiliation with Mr. Gulens FETO movement, leading to travel bans and accusations against community leaders.

This intensification of Turkish actions has been perceived as a destabilizing influence on Greeces domestic landscape, further amplifying Athenss hope for a sympathetic U.S. approach under Mr. Rubio.

As Washingtons foreign policy leadership takes shape, Mr. Rubios appointment could mark a decisive pivot in U.S.-Turkey relations, with broader implications for Greece and the Eastern Mediterraneans complex geopolitical landscape.

By Antonis Telopoulos

   iefimerida.gr
The former royal estate at Tatoi is set to welcome a new museum showcasing its rich agricultural heritage and a collection of historic royal automobiles.

Housed in the estate's New Voustasio building, the museum will offer visitors a unique glimpse into the estate's past.

The project, funded by Greeces

Recovery and Resilience Fund , is part of a broader initiative to revitalize the

The New Voustasio, originally built in 1950 to support the estate's agricultural operations, will be transformed into a dual-themed museum, expected to be completed by 2025.

Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni emphasized the historical significance of the estate's commitment to environmental protection and sustainable practices.

Ms. Mendoni highlighted the reigns of King George I and King Paul, during which the estate's agricultural production flourished, creating a self-sustaining ecosystem that benefited both the local community and the environment.

This museum is part of a larger plan by the Ministry of Culture to convert several historic buildings on the estate into museums.

Artifacts unearthed on the grounds will be prominently displayed, offering visitors an interactive experience within the restored landscape. The museum will also house a collection of royal cars, classified as national heritage.

Upon completion, the museum will provide a unique blend of educational and recreational activities, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in the history and natural beauty of Tatoi, while also exploring Greece's royal past.

   iefimerida.gr
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis held a discussion with French author Pascal Bruckner at the American School of Classical Studies, in an event organized by iefimerida.gr at the Cotsen Hall Amphitheater on Thursday.

Speaking about the results of American elections, Mitsotakis said the two greatest issues was the economy - particularly the high cost of living - and migration. In terms of the woke

agenda, he said that "we came across the same issues 35 years ago. One of my professors told me that if you have the right to speak, you also have the obligation to listen. I am afraid this has become lost in what we call woke culture in the USA . For me, this differs from traditional liberalism. We have the tyranny of the minorities, and if you deny this, they call you a fascist. This woke culture does not exist in Europe and Greece."

Citizens have high expectations of governments and when these are not met, populism enters and tempts them, he said, citing Greek examples and saying that "in Greece we have managed, we won elections because we kept our promises and built a relationship of trust."

He spoke of Europe that needs to spend more money, as it did during the coronavirus pandemic, and of member states needing to understand that "we should be united."

In terms of migration, Mitsotakis said that "we need a tall fence, but also a big door," for balance. "My duty is to protect Greek borders, which are the borders of Europe. To ensure that they will not enter Greece illegally, and I do not have to apologize to anyone," he underlined.

As for the Middle East war, the Greek premier described what is happening in Gaza "repulsive", and expressed concern "when I do not see an ultimate goal to a military intervention. We are all concerned and worried about a possible escalation of the war, which has already happened on some levels." The first priority is to end military operations in Gaza and South Lebanon, especially in Gaza, Mitsotakis underlined.

The discussion was moderated by University of Athens political analysis professor Lambrini Rori.

   iefimerida.gr
Former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, has warned that Nigerias 1999 Constitution is a major obstacle to the countrys unity and progress.

Speaking at the launch of The Noble Academic and Patriot: A Biography of Emeritus Professor Akinjide Osuntokun in Lagos on Wednesday, Anyaoku emphasized that Nigerias pluralistic nature requires a truly federal constitution to address its diversity.

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To those who think that the trouble with Nigeria today is the political leadership, I would say that as long as we have the 1999 Constitution as our grundnorm, not even Angel Gabriel or Malaikah Jibrin as leaders can successfully tackle the divisiveness, the underperforming economy with the resultant poverty, the insecurity, the humongous corruption, and the other major challenges currently facing Nigeria.

I believe, therefore, that if our pluralistic Nigeria is to achieve true unity and political stability, and to successfully tackle the serious challenges that the country currently faces, it must have a truly federal constitution, Anyaoku said.

READ ALSO: Economy My Priority Now  Tinubu To Leaders Seeking New Constitution

He cited India, Canada, and Switzerland as examples of pluralistic countries that have achieved unity and progress through genuine federal constitutions.

According to him, Nigeria must adopt a similar approach to address its challenges.

At the event, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, former Governor of Ekiti State, reviewed the biography of Professor Osuntokun, highlighting his genealogy, academic, and family life.

Peter Obi, Labour Partys presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, praised Osuntokuns contributions but lamented Nigerias culture of celebrating unproductive individuals, which he believes is detrimental to society.

Obi emphasized, We are choosing the least among us to be our role models. And that is destroying our society.

He advocated for recognizing and rewarding individuals who contribute positively to nation-building.

Information Nigeria reports that Anyaokus call for a truly federal constitution resonates with experts who argue that Nigerias current constitution falls short of addressing the countrys pluralistic nature.
Former First Lady of Ondo State, Betty Akeredolu, has berated the Independent National Electoral Commission, describing it as a dishonest institution.

It was gathered that Mrs. Bettys statement is coming, following a recent Presidential election conducted in the United States of America, last week.

Recall that Former President, Donald Trump, defeated incumbent Vice President, Kamala Harris to secured his return to Whitehouse.

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Mrs. Betty slammed INECs officials for taking them close to a week to count 23 millions votes while U.S used just 10 hours to completed counting of 155 million votes.

READ MORE: Ondo Guber: Appeal Court Sacks LP Candidate, Ebiseni

Speaking via her X account on Wednesday, the former First Lady of Ondo said: Just thinking.

2023 Nigerian Presidential Election Total Votes Cast: 25 million Counting Duration: 5 days.

2024 U.S Presidential Election Total Votes Cast: 155 million Counting Duration: Approx. 10 hours

Moral: When dishonesty is prioritized, simple things become difficult.
An Ikeja High Court has set January 23, 2025 to hear the defamation lawsuit filed against the controversial online activist, Vincent Otse, also known as VeryDarkMan (VDM).

VDM is being sued for defamation by renowned lawyer, Femi Falana and his son, Folarin, popularly known as Falz.

When the case was summoned on Thursday, Muiz Banire, counsel for Messrs Falana and Falz, informed the court that the claimants had filed the originating procedure and served the parties.

Additionally, Mr. Banire stated that a notice motion was issued on October 25; however, Justice Matthias Dawodu stated that the court was not in possession of the original process.

However, the claimants counsel requested that the court defer the matter so that he could complete administrative processes.

In this circumstance, my lord, the best thing to do is to adjourn the matter so that we can go back to the registry to file all the administrative processes, Mr Banire said.

In response, VDMs counsel, Marvin Omorogbe, stated that there was no legitimate writ of summons before the court.

He consequently petitioned the court to dismiss the complaint.

READ MORE: In My Next World, I Pray I Have A Womb  Bobrisky Appreciates Billionaire Boyfriend For Being Supportive

Mr Omorogbe stated that he was unaware of how the courts registry would prepare any administrative processes.

He claimed that the previously filed writ was invalid since it was not presented to the court.

He said, Preemptive remedy proceedings ends after injunction is granted or refused.

They have gone ahead to file a writ, using the same suit number as the preemptive remedy proceedings.

And the court said no, that a fresh writ of summons with a new suit number, needs to be filed.

At this point my lord, we will be seeking for a date to hear our preliminary objection.

Mr Omorogbe also asked the court to withdraw a motion dated October 18th.

He explained that the motion was a request for appeal, arguing that the claimants had conceded there was an issue regarding the preemptive proceedings.

However, Justice Dawodu dismissed the request after hearing no objections from the claimants lawyers.

I will give you a date for hearing because we are talking about a writ that is not before the court, Mr Dawodu said.

The judge then adjourned the case until January 23, 2025, for a hearing on preliminary objections.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the court deferred the sister case between Falz and VDM on the same grounds.

VDM was ordered by the court on October 14 to remove the allegedly defamatory video he made against the Falanas on September 24.

Mr Falana and his son filed an ex parte originating application against VDMs activities, which resulted to the courts order.

The court had ordered VDM to remove an unsubstantiated audio recording of a one-sided narrative by a cross-dresser named Bobrisky, alleging perversion of justice by Mr Falana and his son.

(NAN)
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), says Dangote Petroleum Refinery will supply Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), to its members at N940 per litre and N990 per litre when purchased using ships and trucks, respectively.

IPMAN National President Abubakar Garima disclosed this in an interview with Channels Television on November 11.

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Presently, we have been given two different arrangements on how to buy fuel from the refinery.

There is the one that we can load the vessels and carry to our various depots at the rate of N940 per litre. Then for the depots, it is at the rate of N990 per litre, he said.

Garima attributed the price difference to logistical costs, stating, We use vessels to carry these products and there is another one to load from the gantry.

READ ALSO: NNPCL: No Point Celebrating When Dangote Petrol Price Is Higher Than Imported Ones  IPMAN

The collaboration is expected to benefit the country, with Garima projecting a potential reduction in petrol prices by N50 or more. For instance, the current price in Maiduguri now is N1,200 per litre. So with these current changes, it may likely reduce to N1,150, he said.

The agreement is also anticipated to end petrol scarcity due to increased product availability.

Immediately, we get the product, we discharge to our filling stations, Garima noted.

This development follows previous controversies surrounding the refinerys pricing and availability.

However, with the agreement in place, IPMAN members are set to begin lifting petrol and diesel directly from the Dangote refinery.
A devastating attack on the Obajana transmission station in Kogi State has dealt a significant blow to Nigerias power generation efforts.

Armed men, suspected to be bandits, invaded the construction site of the 330/132/33kV transmission substation on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, at approximately 11:55 pm.

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According to Ndidi Mbah, General Manager, Public Affairs at the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the assailants opened fire indiscriminately, causing the guards to flee. A 150MVA 330/132/33kV power transformer was destroyed in the attack, resulting in a burst radiator.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria announces that armed men invaded the construction site of its ongoing 330/132/33kV transmission substation in Obajana, Kogi State.

READ ALSO: Vandals Destroy Transmission Towers, Disrupt Countrys Power Supply  TCN

In response to the incident, TCN is evaluating the level of damage in collaboration with the contractor managing the project, Mbah said in a Wednesday statement.

This incident is part of a broader pattern of vandalism targeting transmission infrastructure across the country.

Last Sunday, TCN expressed concern over the increasing trend of vandalism targeting transmission lines and towers, severely impacting the countrys power infrastructure.

The growing trend of vandalism targeting transmission lines and towers has become a serious challenge, severely impacting the countrys power infrastructure and hindering the expansion and stability of the national grid.

Vandalism of power installations is a disservice to us all and undermines efforts to strengthen the nations transmission system, the company stated.

The Obajana Transmission Substation, designed to enhance power supply to Kogi State and surrounding areas, is now facing significant delays due to this malicious attack.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions (EFCC) Uyo Zonal Command has assumed responsibility for the investigation into three alleged illicit crude oil dealers in Akwa Ibom State.

The EFCC spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, said in a statement on Wednesday that the suspects were allegedly dealing in petroleum products without the proper licensing.

Oyewale said, The suspectsVictory Smart Bassey, Ita Okon and Michael Akpawere arrested on November 5, 2024, along Ibeno waterways by the Nigerian Navy ship Forward Operating Base Ibaka.

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They were then handed over to the EFCC on Wednesday, November 13, for further investigation and possible prosecution.

READ MORE: 129 Suspects Arrested As NDLEA Recovers 709.9kg Of Illegal Substances In Kano

He added, They were arrested onboard a wooden boat ladened with about 60, 000 litres of petroleum products suspected to be crude oil, conveyed in 12 plastic G-PEE tanks.

While handing over the suspects, Base Operating Officer Lieutenant Commander O. Okaula reiterated the navys commitment to waterway security.


Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has declared that Atiku Abubakar, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), will not secure the Partys ticket in 2027.

Wike made this statement during a live media parley in his office in Abuja on Wednesday.

The Ministers statement was in response to Atikus claim that his economic blueprint would better serve Nigerians than the current administrations approach.

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He emphasized that Atiku had previously presented his blueprint to Nigerians, who rejected him.

Did he not present it before Nigerians? Did Nigerians choose him? He is lobbying for another chance, but the chance will not be there. In which party? How can we rely on one man for so many years? Wike asked.

You presented your blueprint in 2023; Nigerians heard you clearly and said thank you, but it will not work. We will not support you. Criticism does not mean the opposition is working, he said.

READ ALSO: Be Patient, Tinubu Will Allow Everyone Benefit  Wike Urges Nigerians

Wike drew parallels with the American political system, citing Donald Trumps influence on the Republican Party.

Look at America. Im sure you all did not support Trump, saying he is this, he is a racist, he is that. We cried, but Americans thought differently, made a decision for the good of their own country, he added.

Wike who stressed that Atikus 2023 blueprint was rejected by Nigerians, noted that criticism does not equate to a functioning opposition.

Atikus camp quickly fired back, labeling Wike a joker who has consistently worked against Atikus interests.

Abdul Rasheeth, Atikus Special Assistant on Media, pointed out that Wike had attempted to stop Atiku in 2019 and contested against him in 2023, only to lose.

Information Nigeria reports that the exchange highlights the ongoing tensions within the PDP, with some analysts predicting that Atiku may join the Labour Party (LP) for the 2027 presidential election.

Others suggest that Wikes influence within the Party may hinder Atikus chances of securing the ticket.
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria has condemned recent accusation against former governor of Zamfara State, Bello Matawalle, calling it unsubstantiated and politically motivated.

In a statement by National Coordinator of HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko, on Wednesday, described a recent protest against Matawalle as an attempt to destroy his image.

Recall that INFORMATION NIGERIA had earlier reported that a group of women and youths, from Zamfara, during a protest in Abuja, claimed that Matawalles tenure fueled insecurity in the state.

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Onwubiko, in his reaction to the demonstrators, described them as notorious individuals, adding that they dont want to see anything good about the current administration.

He said: They are actually notorious amongst loyalists of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu because it is apparent that they dont want to see anything good about the current administration and are also afraid of Matawalles closeness and absolute loyalty to the person and office of President Tinubu.

According to the court order, Governor Lawal, alongside media platforms like Vision Media Services Ltd and Liberty Radio, is prohibited from publishing defamatory content aimed at implicating Matawalle in banditry and other criminal activities.

READ MORE: Angry Protesters Storm DSS Office, Demand Matawalles Sack Over Rising Insecurity In Zamfara

The court order also restrained the Nigerian Police Force, among others, from engaging in actions that could harm Matawalles reputation pending a final hearing.

He added: In an official press release, dated September 30, Henshaw Ogubike, Director of Information and Public Relations, Ministry of Defense, underscored that the courts decision was necessary to halt defamatory actions aimed at discrediting Matawalle.

Ogubike remarked that the courts ruling places the matter in the correct perspective and highlights that all parties involved should refrain from damaging an individuals reputation without proof.

He also urged the public to be vigilant against politically motivated narratives designed to defame officials who have dedicated themselves to public service.

By focusing on politically charged rhetoric, Governor Lawal risks disrupting the coordinated security strategies urgently needed in Zamfara and the broader northwest region.
AFSCME District Council 33, Philly's largest city worker union, raise their hands to vote to strike on a strike authorization amid contract negotiations. Wednesday, October 30, 2024 Read more

Members of Philadelphias largest union for city workers have voted in favor of going on strike if they dont get a new multiyear employment contract with the mayor.

Thousands of members of AFSCME District Council 33 have agreed to walk off the job if union leadership calls for it. DC33 president Greg Boulware said the union will not strike immediately, but could do so if negotiators cannot reach an agreement with Mayor Cherelle L. Parkers office.

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Were hoping that does not need to happen, and that we can come to an amicable resolution that works for both parties. Right now, were not at that place, Boulware said. Well give every opportunity to the city to see reason and acknowledge the plight of our membership.

The more than 9,000 municipal workers represented by DC33 include 911 operators, sanitation workers, and library employees, among many others. The sanitation, water, and prisons departments have the most DC33 members.

This city runs because we make it work, said DC33 member Jeff Bemiss at a rally in October where members expressed support for a strike. Bemiss, a water department employee, has worked for the city for almost 18 years.

Were just tired of not getting the credit we deserve. Were tired of not being paid what we deserve. We deserve a fair contract so we can feed our families, Bemiss said.

For city residents, a strike could mean no trash pickups, and a lag in police, fire, and ambulance response, according to a union spokesperson.

Workers voted in person between Nov. 7 and Wednesday, with the votes tallied on Thursday. Roughly 3,400 members participated, 87% of whom voted to authorize the strike.

Asked if there have been further negotiations or offers from the city since the union and the mayors office met officially in October, Boulware said: Theres been conversation thus far, nothing thats truly tangible for us to consider.

The Parker administration is continuing to work around the clock towards a successful resolution of this very important matter, city spokesperson Joe Grace said in an email on Thursday.

SEPTA workers represented by Transport Workers Union Local 234 have also authorized a strike as they negotiate for a new contract, and could call for a work stoppage at any time. Boulware acknowledged that TWU has also threatened to strike and said DC33 has been in regular contact with TWU.

We very well may be working in collaboration, he said.

TWU has acknowledged talking with the city union on the possibility of coordination but has not commented on specifics.

Meanwhile, SEPTAs contract with a second union representing 350 suburban bus, trolley, and Norristown High Speed Line operators expires Monday. SMART Transportation Division Local 1594 also wants action on safety from public attacks and harassment and an increase in wages.

The city workers most recent three-year contract, which had been negotiated with former Mayor Jim Kenneys administration, expired at the end of June.

DC33 is seeking wage increases, flexibility to a rule that requires most city workers to live in Philadelphia, and improvements to pension plans. The Parker administration has proposed a one-year contract that roughly extends the terms of the previous contract and includes a 4.4% raise, as well as a one-time bonus of $1,400.

Unions representing city workers such as police officers, firefighters, and professional and supervisory staff have already agreed to short-term contracts under Parkers administration.

The mayors office has said it favors short-term contracts because the new administration is getting its feet on the ground, and because the mayor wants to safeguard the citys finances.

Boulware said the mayors proposal to DC33 was the same as its offer to District Council 47 a few months prior.

The city had our proposal for roughly 2 months, and they came back with roughly nothing, Boulware said in an interview on Oct. 30. It shows that the city is out of touch about what our needs are. The average salary for that union is substantially higher than what ours is, and so the same raise doesnt work the same way.

DC33 members make on average between $40,000 and $45,000 in annual wages, according to the union.

Rallying workers for a better contract

DC33 has been talking about a potential strike for weeks.

At a special general membership meeting outside City Hall on Oct. 30, several workers chanted: We will strike! Hundreds showed up to the rally, and they informally voted to strike by show of hands.

A few held signs with an image of Mayor Parker that read Give us our money! and Pay us like you paid your cabinet.

A day after the City Hall rally, Councilmember Nina Ahmad and other public officials signed a letter addressed to Parker raising concerns about how negotiations have gone. Their letter said the 4.4% raise proposed is, at best, inadequate.

We believe that the current approach and progress in these negotiations do not reflect the commitment these hardworking Philadelphians deserve, reads the letter, which Ahmad posted to X.

Boulware was elected to his position in June, unseating interim leader Omar Salaam in a contentious election. Salaam had taken that role for a few months after former DC33 president Ernest Garrett was removed from his position earlier this year.

At the October rally, Boulware acknowledged that he stepped into the role of president at a key moment for the union.

I signed up to be a leader in this thing, Boulware said. I know that I needed to be the one to stand up for our membership [and make sure] the city is understanding that they have to take care of us while were taking care of everybody else.

Staff writer Thomas Fitzgerald contributed to this article.

Editors note: This story has been updated to clarify TWUs comment about possible coordination with DC33.
Callie Kim, founder of Tuck Barre & Yoga (in the gray sweatshirt), teaches a Pilates fusion class, a week after she taught the same class in the hours after Trump was elected. Read more

At 7:15 a.m. Nov. 6, just hours after Donald Trump was declared the winner of the presidential election, the mood in a Washington Square West yoga studio felt heavy.

Folks were sobbing throughout class, said Callie Kim, founder of Tuck Barre & Yoga. Students expressed a variety of emotions: Sadness, frustration, overwhelmed, feeling very tired, exhausted, physically and emotionally.

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But all 18 of them  17 regulars and one newcomer  showed up to the sold-out class.

It was the start, Kim said, of a busy week at Tucks three locations across Philadelphia, Pennsylvanias most Democratic city and one of few areas in the swing state where a majority of voters rejected the president-elect in his third bid for the White House.

At the Washington Square West, Northern Liberties, and Point Breeze studios, there was about a 15% increase in attendance, Kim said, and a noticeable influx of new faces. Was it a coincidental rush of people choosing to ramp up their wellness routines all at once? Feedback in the studio suggests not, Kim said.

Its about finding some way to regulate their emotions, Kim said, and for a lot of folks, its movement.

Other movement- and mindfulness-related businesses said community members have turned out in similarly robust numbers over the past week. Not only are anxious residents signing up for yoga, barre, and pilates classes, but theyre also booking private meditation sessions, joining group nature hikes, downloading mindfulness apps, and seeking out therapy.

If the trend continues in the coming weeks, and then during the next four years of a second Trump presidency, it could provide a small but meaningful boost to business owners. At Tuck, for example, first-timers get one free class, then a month of unlimited classes for $99. After that, sessions cost between $18 and $28 apiece, or regulars can opt for additional unlimited packages, which come with a greater discount per class but a larger up-front cost.

Others turned to meditation apps, such as Headspace and Calm, which cost $13 and $15 a month respectively. On election night, Calm paid for airtime to run silent 30-second ads during CNN and ABCs live coverage, and at times sponsored CNNs Key Race Alerts. Headspace saw spikes in interaction with its Politics Without Panic collection.

Overall engagement was up across both apps. Downloads of Calm, which has limited free content, increased 30% compared to the prior week, according to a company spokesperson. In the week after the election, Headspace saw a 13% increase in subscriptions and free trials  including a 11% rise in Pennsylvania and a 24% jump in New Jersey.

Jon Kole, Headspaces senior director of psychiatry and medical director who is based in Pittsburgh, noted particularly high engagement the day after the election, including a 1,700% rise in use of the apps Pause with 5 Calming Breaths exercise.

People just wanted to be in the moment, Kole said, not in the next four years.

Meditation centers see people seeking more calm

Dominique London has spent more and more time at the Black Lotus Holistic Health Collective over the past two years. First, it was once a month, then a couple times a month, and recently its been at least once a week.

The week of the election, London, a 39-year-old masters student, spent parts of several days at the Germantown space, a cooperative that includes therapists, meditation teachers, yoga instructors, and other mindfulness professionals. London was one of dozens of people who took part in the collectives free two-day Grounding in Calm event, which included meditation and yoga and took place on Election Day and the following morning.

Leading up to the election, I was really disassociating a lot. I didnt want to engage in social media. I didnt want to feel the anxiety of others, she said. When she learned about the election events at Black Lotus, I was like this is exactly what I want to be spending my time doing.

The meditative time made the emotional weight of the days feel a little lighter, London said, and it allowed her to go on with her day Wednesday with less paralyzing anxiety than she felt in 2016. She wished that she had such an outlet back then.

Since the election, Cassandra Renee Bolding, founder of Black Lotus, said shes received a flood of emails, asking what the collective can do next to help a stressed community.

There have been  oh my goodness  requests for me to come out, for us to come out, to provide similar services as Grounding in Calm, requests from different agencies and companies, said Bolding.

She usually takes Saturday off but ended up going to two different events the Saturday after the election to provide sound therapy and other wellness resources. In her work as a licensed professional counselor, she said she has responded to five crisis sessions in the past week, and other patients have requested to increase the frequency of their appointments to cope with the election.

As for the collective, shes said shes hoping to keep providing regular programming at a nominal cost, such as $16 for a yoga session or $1-a-minute for a massage. She said she often asks herself: How do we share this burden?

At the Veda Den in Cherry Hill, founder Nicoli Rena Sinclair said she started getting emails within hours of the election results coming in. Most were from women wanting to book $300 to $500 private meditation sessions with friends or partners. She did one of those three-hour sessions last Sunday, and another on Monday.

One in particular was really struggling and they vocalized it, Sinclair said. It was the fact that she couldnt control that Trump is now in office. So now what?

Sinclair said she stresses that acceptance is different than complacency: People can still protest, participate in activism, and take other actions as an engaged citizen, while accepting a fact that they cannot change.

She added: It causes friction in the body when you cant accept things.
Hailey Covelens walks out of a courtroom in the Montgomery County Courthouse after her sentencing Wednesday. Read more

A Lansdale woman who prosecutors say engaged in a full cover-up of her boyfriends role in a murder, lying to a grand jury about his whereabouts while funding his flight from justice, was sentenced Wednesday to 9 to 23 months in the Montgomery County jail.

Hailey Covelens, 21, pleaded guilty to perjury and hindering apprehension in August, two months after her longtime beau, Cody Reed, was convicted of first-degree murder for luring Daquan Tucker to a secluded section of the Schuylkill River Trail in Norristown and killing him.

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Reed and his accomplice, Marquise Johnson, both 24, are serving life sentences in state prison.

Their arrests for Tuckers March 2023 murder were made more difficult by Covelens lies, according to Assistant District Attorney Kathleen McLaughlin. Covelens kept in close contact with Reed during the month he and Johnson were on the lam, and sent them money for food and Airbnb rentals, spending more than $1,000 from her salary at Wawa.

On the night of the murder, an Uber account registered to Covelens ordered the car that took Tucker, 25, to the apartment in Norristown that she shared with Reed, delivering him to a violent end at her boyfriends hands.

This was not a momentary lapse in judgment, McLaughlin said. This was a series of fully formed, conscious decisions on the defendants part.

Johnsons girlfriend, Brianna Radley, 22, had been sentenced to the same prison term as Covelens in October. Radley drove Reed and Johnson to Philadelphia, where she and Johnson lived, after the murder. Then she, like Covelens, helped the pair pay for Airbnb stays throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

In court Wednesday before Montgomery County Court Judge Thomas Branca, Covelens insisted that she was a changed person.

Her voice thick with emotion, she apologized for lying to the grand jury by denying that she knew Reeds whereabouts while police sought to arrest him. She said she had worked hard to turn her life around, moving away from Norristown and the people she associated with there. She keeps busy, she said, working at a luxury hotel and in a clothing store at the King of Prussia Mall.

Im taking steps in my life to uphold my own wellness, instead of focusing on toxic relationships, she said.

Her attorney, Keith Harbison, said Covelens had made a poor decision, caught up in misplaced allegiance to an ex.

Shes able to do this, able to stay out of trouble, Harbison said. Shes got problems, but shes young, and shes seen the error of her ways.

He asked Branca to sentence Covelens to probation, saying jail time would cost her her jobs and impede the progress she has made in her life.

But Branca, the judge who oversees grand juries in Montgomery County, sharply disagreed with Harbisons assessment.

She was young, I agree, but youth cannot excuse her conduct in this case. It just cant, he said. Id like to send the message that people who lie to a grand jury, who help hide a murderer, need to be taken to task.

McLaughlin, the prosecutor, said she doubted Covelens remorse. She said Covelens still keeps in contact with Reed, despite her assertions to the contrary.

Additionally, McLaughlin said, Covelens history of lying to Reed began before the murder. In 2021, she purchased a handgun, lying on the paperwork that the firearm was for her. In reality, investigators said, the gun was for Reed, who was unable to buy one himself because of a felony conviction.

For that straw purchase, Covelens served 11 months in the county jail, during which she was included in three-way phone calls with Reed, who was in custody at the time in connection with Tuckers murder, according to McLaughlin.

Covelens will report to the county jail in Eagleville on Monday to begin serving her sentence.
A preliminary hearing for Quamere Hall and Mark Johnson was held at Philadelphia's Criminal Justice Center on Wednesday. Read more

Quamere Hall doesnt deny that he was at the scene of the slaying of Sharif King, his attorney said Wednesday  he just didnt fire the guns that killed him.

His friend and fellow rapper Mark Johnson, on the other hand, is another story, Hall told detectives.

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Johnson and Hall, better known as rappers Yak Yola and Mere Pablo, respectively, were arrested earlier this year and charged with shooting and killing King, 34, last summer. The two men appeared in court for the first time on Wednesday to face the wide-ranging evidence prosecutors said they have tying them to the murder and a prior carjacking.

Both men are affiliated with the West Philadelphia-based gang the Young Bag Chasers, or YBC, law enforcement sources say.

First, around 1:30 a.m. on July 8, 2023, the two men held a young woman at gunpoint at a gas station in North Philadelphia, said Assistant District Attorney Robert Wainwright.

Do you want to die tonight? one of them asked the woman before fleeing in her black Acura, she said.

Later that same day, around 1:30 p.m., the prosecutor said, Hall, Johnson, and at least two others drove the Acura to the 5200 block of Jefferson Street. For nearly 30 minutes, he said, they sat outside a corner store, waiting for someone who resembled one of their Parkside rivals to pass by.

They figured anyone coming from that block who matched the description of a relatively young Black man would be connected to their rival group, Wainwright said.

When King, who he said was not affiliated with any gangs, walked by the car, at least two people started shooting at him out the window. Johnson then got out of the drivers seat of the car and shot him again at close range, Wainwright said, while Hall followed and fired additional times. King was shot 15 times, he said, and died at the hospital shortly afterward.

Cell-phone records placed Hall, 22, and Johnson, 27, near the scene of the carjacking and before the shooting, Wainwright said. Surveillance video showed one of the shooters wearing distinct green-and-black shoes and a camouflage face mask that detectives said matches clothing Johnson regularly wore in photos on his Instagram account.

And in Johnsons Instagram records, said Detective Ryan Moore, was a voice memo where he discussed the shooting, at times in detail. Moore said someone was questioning why an innocent man was targeted, but Johnson, he said, was adamant that this murder was valid in the war.

Eventually, homicide Detective Matthew Burkheimer took the stand, and Johnsons attorney, Doug Stern, asked whether anyone had identified Johnson at the scene.

The detective went silent. Halls attorney, Max Kramer, looked to the judge with concern.

Yes, Burkheimer said.

Hall did.

After Hall was arrested in early August, Burkheimer said, he admitted to detectives that he was at the scene of the shooting but was seated between two people in the backseat of the car. He insisted he did not get out of the car or shoot King, Burkheimer said, but acknowledged he parked the getaway vehicle near his house afterward.

Hall also eventually identified Johnson as the shooter in the surveillance video, Burkheimer said, but said he didnt know anyone else who was in the car.

Burkheimer clarified that Halls testimony did not lead to Johnsons arrest. A warrant had already been issued and police were looking for him before Hall spoke with police, he said.

Wainwright said he does not believe Hall is telling the whole truth, and noted that he matches the physical description of the second gunman who got out and shot King as he tried to get away. Whats more, he said, a month after the killing, Hall was arrested with a handgun that ballistics tests later showed was used to kill King. (Hall had pleaded guilty to illegal gun possession in that case a few months before he was arrested and charged with murder.)

Kramer said the weapon could have changed hands multiple times before ending up in Halls possession. He said there is no way to objectively identify Hall as one of the shooters. Stern said the same of Johnson.

As horrible as it may be, Kramer said,  Mr. Hall is merely present.

Municipal Court Judge Patrick F. Dugan ultimately decided there was sufficient evidence to hold both men on all charges, allowing the case to move toward a potential trial.

I hear these cases all the time, and this is worse than how we depict the wild, wild West, Dugan said.

After the hearing, Kramer said he had hoped Halls statements would not come up in court and is worried for his safety.

Hes extremely scared, and his family is, too, Kramer said. He has already been moved to another jail. He should be in a different county.  But even then, we know they can still find you.
Temple University Health System, which reported a $17 million operating loss for the three months that ended Sept. 30, is anchored by Temple University Hospital in North Philadelphia. Read more

Temple University Health System had an operating loss of $17.1 million in the three months that ended Sept. 30, compared to a loss of $26.1 million in the same period last year, the nonprofit health system reported to bondholders Tuesday.

Here are some details:

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Revenue: Total revenue rose 11%, to $2.86 billion from $2.57 billion last year. Much of the revenue growth came from outpatient services, including strong revenue gains from in-house pharmacy businesses. Temples organ transplant services, particularly lung transplants, rebounded strongly after a slowdown caused by a shortage of nurse anesthetists, Temples chief accounting officer Mike DiFranco told investors on a webcast Wednesday. Temple performed 117 transplants overall in the September quarter, up from 95 last year.

Expenses: Long hospital stays that generate extra expenses  but no extra revenue because of the way hospitals are paid  have been a persistent problem for Temple and other area health systems. Temples average length of stay over the summer was 6.4 days, up from 6 days last year.

Temple has many patients that are hard to place after a hospital stay because they are dependent on opioids and other complicating factors, Temple Health president Mike Young said in an interview.

If you take out the 30-day stays and the 60-day stays, were actually below what we would normally expect, but its the 20 hard-to-place patients every week that stay and block up the beds, Young said.

Under Temples new contract with Keystone First, Southeastern Pennsylvanias biggest Medicaid insurer, Temple received a per diem rate for patients that are ready to be discharged to a less intensive setting for care but cant be placed.

Now Keystone is very motivated to move the patient to a nursing home, because the nursing home is cheaper than our per diem. Now we have a partner in moving those patients, Young said.

Notable: Fox Chase Cancer Center, one of Philadelphias three federally designated comprehensive cancer centers, will resume receiving annual grants next year of $4.5 million to $5 million from the National Cancer Institute, Young said.

The center went three years without the NCI grants because it didnt score well enough in the review for its latest renewal. The focus of the review is on research and institutional support. Temples proposal at the time to sell Fox Chase to Thomas Jefferson University counted against it in the rating. Ultimately, Jefferson backed out in 2020. We fixed all the things that were supposed to be fixed, so now were eligible for the grant, Young said.
Apple iPhone 15 ProMax phones are shown in an Apple store in Pittsburgh in June. Read more

From iPhones and MacBooks to kitchen appliances, groceries, and even cars, some consumers are debating if they should expedite making big purchases ahead of President-elect Donald Trumps promise to implement tariffs on goods made outside the United States.

Across social media, consumers are trading notes on big-ticket items and if they could skyrocket in price. On Reddit, one couple who just closed on their first home is considering upgrading their washing machine and dryer. A therapist on Facebook is looking at buying a MacBook Air before it sees a hypothetical price hike. Another woman is car hunting.

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But is it necessary? And how much could Trumps proposed tariffs impact day-to-day costs?

Heres what we know.

What are tariffs?

Tariffs are taxes imposed on imports from other countries outside the United States. The company purchasing goods or parts from the other country will pay a fee. Sometimes, this fee gets baked into an increased final cost for consumers.

Experts at the Tax Foundation  a nonpartisan tax policy nonprofit  say tariffs have both pros and cons. On one hand, they can increase demand for domestic production. Conversely, higher trade barriers can raise consumer prices and negatively impact economic output.

What has Trump said about tariffs so far?

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to implement tariffs of 10 to 20% on all goods. He said imports from Mexico would see tariffs of at least 25% if the country doesnt cooperate with his plans to mitigate U.S. immigration. Mexico is the United States top trading partner.

Trump also suggested a 60% tariff on Chinese goods, which could significantly impact U.S. imports from China, especially smartphones.

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According to the Census Bureau, the United States imported about $4 trillion in goods and services in the past year. Of that, $433 billion was Chinese goods and about a tenth of those imports were smartphones. With no substantial U.S. production of smartphones, over 80% of smartphone imports come from China.

The Tax Foundation said if Trumps tariffs were implemented as promised, average tariff rates would be at Great Depression-level highs.

How is the United States operating with tariffs right now?

During Trumps first term, he imposed a tariff on one-tenth of U.S. imports, limited to products including steel, Chinese goods, washing machines, and solar panels.

President Joe Biden kept those tariffs in place and increased tariffs on solar panels, Chinese electric vehicles, and other targeted items.

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The National Retail Federation found in a study that Trumps proposed tariffs could decrease Americans spending power by up to $78 billion annually because costs retailers absorb will trickle down to the prices consumers see.

What could tariffs mean for iPhones?

Apples iPhones make up a large portion of Chinas smartphone imports to the United States. According to U.S. smartphone market share data, the iPhones U.S. mobile market share is 57% this year.

In turn, some shoppers are worried that tariffs would lead to a major price increase on Apples latest tech.

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Calculating the tax is complicated, but economists estimate an iPhone could cost about $300 more in taxes based on Trumps suggested tariffs and the current price of the iPhone 16 (starting at $799). And a portion of that higher tax would likely show up in the final price tag consumers see. Its worth noting that Apple products were not impacted by the first Trump administrations tariffs. At the time, the company got exemptions from tariffs on Chinese imports. Still, experts say either way, Apple stock is still likely to take a hit.

What have companies said about tariffs and their impact on prices?

Leaders of several companies say tariffs would hurt American buyers wallets, not foreign countries bottom lines.

AutoZone CEO Philip Daniele said in September that if Trump implemented additional tariffs, those costs would be passed on to consumers.

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Columbia Sportswears CEO, Tim Boyle, told the Washington Post that the company was set to raise prices in response to new tariffs.

Trade wars are not good and not easy to win, Boyle said last month.

Donald Allan, CEO of Stanley Black & Decker, also told analysts that there would be price increases associated with tariffs. Allan added that the company would consider moving production out of China to reduce the tariffs impact.

We dont like tariffs because they are a tax on the American people, Tarang Amin, CEO of ELF Beauty, told Business Insider. The makeup company has been impacted by a 25% tariff since 2019 thanks to Trumps first term. Amin said the company was waiting for more information about potential additional tariffs before changing its pricing structure.

Big companies aside, small-business owners that sell or buy products using imported materials would likely be impacted the most.

What do experts say about panic buying ahead of tariffs?

Experts say its important to weigh options practically, but not fall victim to panic buying impulses.

Even on big-ticket items like cars and computers, its nearly impossible to predict how prices will be affected, said Howard Dvorkin, CPA and chairman of Debt.com. In our global economy, almost everything with moving parts has components sourced from multiple countries. Cars and computers arent like cookies and crackers  they dont come with a list of ingredients. Good luck trying to figure out how those overseas components will raise the overall price of that laptop you want.

Odysseas Papadimitriou, CEO of the personal finance website WalletHub, told the San Francisco Chronicle that it wouldnt be a bad idea to replace something like a fridge or car slightly earlier than planned if it was already a goal within the next six months or so, but that it doesnt make sense to replace tech thats working just fine.

Talking about necessities, if people can afford it without getting into debt, I think that is a good idea, Papadimitriou said.

Many business leaders also believe Trumps tariffs are a component in a negotiation strategy and that its unlikely hell impose uniform tariffs across the board. There may be exceptions for smartphones and other tech, for instance.

Im a businessman who knows the value of hardball negotiations, Dvorkin said. Its quite possible thats what Trump is doing here: threatening tariffs to get the trade deals he wants.

And regardless, Dvorkin added, theres still time to plan big purchases.

Donald Trump wont be sworn in until Jan. 20, he said. Theres plenty of time to make calm, rational purchasing decisions.
Chinas largest offshore Enping 15-1 oilfield group sets new record with daily production exceeding 7,500 tons

Global Times) 14:28, November 14, 2024

China's largest offshore Enping 15-1 oilfield group of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), located in the Pearl River Mouth Basin in the South China Sea. This is also Asia's largest offshore oil production platform. (Photo: Screenshot from the CCTV News)

China's largest and most intelligent offshore oilfield cluster, the Enping 15-1 oilfield group, has brought all 76 wells online, achieving a daily crude output of over 7,500 tons, setting a new record, CCTV News reported on Thursday.

The project includes four offshore platforms and six adjacent oilfields. Since the first well started production in December 2022, the group has produced a total of 2.8 million tons of crude oil.

The Enping 15-1 oilfield group has cumulatively stored over 60 million cubic meters of carbon dioxide, according to China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).

The project has achieved green development for offshore oil and gas fields through the ongoing implementation of energy-saving measures and emission reduction technologies, advancing its green and low-carbon transformation.

The Enping 15-1 oilfield group hosts Asia's largest offshore crude oil platform, China's first offshore carbon dioxide storage demonstration project, and the country's first large-scale and unmanned, intelligent platform.

It is equipped with remote-controlled software, CO2 reinjection, and storage capabilities, making it a modern offshore oilfield cluster that combines high output, intelligence, and low-carbon emissions.

The oilfield's carbon dioxide storage is China's first offshore demonstration project for CO2 storage at a million-ton scale.

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun)
Al-Ashraf Khalil photographed hours after the June 18, 2022 blaze at a building he owned on the 300 block of West Indiana Street in Fairhill that killed Philadelphia fire Lt. Sean Williamson. Read more

As authorities charged him two years ago with setting a 2022 blaze at one of his properties that led to the death of a Philadelphia Fire Department lieutenant, Fairhill landlord Al-Ashraf Khalil adamantly denied involvement and maintained he was in awe of the courage of the firemen involved.

He opened his trial on federal arson charges Tuesday with a starkly different message: blaming the Fire Department for the death of one of its own.

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The actual cause of what happened, defense attorney Gerald A. Stein told a jury of six women and six men, was the neglect  the recklessness  [of fire officials] to prevent [firefighters] from going into that building to begin with because of the obvious danger.

They should have known, Stein continued, that the burned-out shell of a building at 300 W. Indiana Ave. was unstable after the conflagration ripped through it and should have never sent Lt. Sean Williamson and four others inside to examine the damage.

The three-story structure collapsed on June 18, 2022, burying Williamson and the others in the rubble.

Williamson, 51 and a 27-year veteran of the department, died, unable to breathe as debris pressed down on his chest. The others  four firefighters and one inspector from the Department of Licenses and Inspections  survived with injuries.

Now, the question of who bears ultimate responsibility for those casualties will play a central role in the trial of Khalil and alleged accomplice Isaam Jaghama, the two men accused of igniting the blaze.

Prosecutors, in their own opening pitch to jurors Tuesday, rejected any contention that there was anyone else to blame but the two men seated by their lawyers at the defense table.

 READ MORE: Truly one of our best: Hundreds mourn Philadelphia firefighter killed in Fairhill building collapse

Still, the distinction is crucial to whatever verdict jurors may render. Should they convict the men of arson charges, they will be asked to separately decide whether Williamsons death was a foreseeable result.

If the panel answers yes, Khalil and Jaghama could face life in prison.

Khalil, 30, has admitted in court papers in the run-up to this weeks proceedings that he set the fire hoping to collect on a nearly $500,000 insurance policy he held on the building. However, Stein did not concede as much during his opening statement in court.

Meanwhile, Michael N. Huff  an attorney for Jaghama, 30  insisted his client bore no responsibility for either the arson or Williamsons death.

He was merely present when this tragedy occurred, Huff said.

As prosecutors told it Tuesday, Khalil and Jaghama plotted the blaze together. Khalil had purchased the building less than a year earlier and, after renovating it, failed to sell it at the price point he had expected.

When he couldnt sell it at the profit he wanted  Khalil came up with another plan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Reinitz said. Burn the building down.

Surveillance footage, she said, showed Khalil and Jaghama entering the buildings basement just after 1:30 a.m. on June 18, and exiting moments after the building caught flame.

Khalil had leased its two upper floors to employees at a Juniata Park pizza business he co-owned. The two employees were inside at the time with their families and young children.

As the families  ran for their lives, Reinitz said, Khalil and Jaghama continued to walk away from the building.

Investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives later pieced together the duos movements, identifying a third accomplice who picked them up shortly afterward and drove them from the scene. That man is expected to testify against Khalil and Jaghama later in the proceedings.

Khalil returned to Indiana Avenue later that night to look on as firefighters fought to extinguish the blaze.

Williamson and the others entered the building just before 2:30 a.m., after the fire had been brought under control. But by then, Stein argued, it should have been clear the structure was unsafe.

The building was out of kilter, he told jurors. There were cracks in the walls of the building. One of the walls was bowed out and was leaning out toward the street.

It took six days after the collapse for authorities to charge and arrest Khalil  an apprehension that occurred only after he had attempted to flee the country for Jordan by booking two separate tickets in his name under U.S. and Palestinian passports.

Jordanian officials turned him away shortly after he landed, and ATF agents arrested him upon his return to John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Khalil and Jaghama have remained in custody since their arrests.

As the trial got underway, members of their families sat in the gallery craning their necks to catch glimpses of the men seated at the defense table only yards away.

Meanwhile, Williamsons relatives, seated rows in front of them, sat clutching tissues to their faces as lawyers detailed the lieutenants final moments.

Just because theres a tragedy, Stein told the jury Tuesday, does not mean its a crime.

It will soon be up to those jurors to decide whether, in this case, they agree.
Ramona Africa, the only adult survivor of the MOVE Bombing, speaks at a press conference with activist Abdul-Aliy Muhammad outside the Penn Museum in August 2023, alleging that a museum curator who had retained remains of MOVE victims kept more remains than she told investigators. Read more

The Penn Museum says it is in possession of more human remains from the MOVE bombing  three years after it was first revealed that university researchers had kept remains from the 1985 tragedy.

Penn Museum officials disclosed Wednesday that they had uncovered the remains during an ongoing comprehensive inventory of our biology section. The remains matched records for Delisha Africa, who was 12 when she was killed with 10 other members of the Black liberation and activist group MOVE, the museum said.

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The revelation provides new insights into a long dispute over identifying the remains stored at the West Philadelphia museum dedicated to archaeology and anthropology. Its the latest development in the decades-long saga surrounding the MOVE bombing and its aftermath  widely considered one of the most outrageous acts of government violence in Philadelphia history, whose effects still reverberate among survivors, family members, and the city at large.

After the bombing, two researchers at Penn were asked to help identify the remains of bombing victims whose identities were in dispute. For decades, they kept some remains at the museum  an open secret first publicized in The Inquirer in 2021.

A subsequent news report in Billy Penn said the museum could have remains from two children killed in the bombing, Delisha and 14-year-old Katricia Dotson, but independent investigators contracted by the university said in 2022 that the school had remains from a single victim who could not be conclusively identified.

Those investigators also said they had no credible factual or scientific evidence that the museum possessed the remains of Delisha Africa.

But now, the university says, it does appear that Delishas remains were kept at the museum. The Penn Museums short statement, posted on a page of updates about the MOVE victims, did not say how the remains ended up at its museum, or which staffers originally obtained them. It also did not elaborate on the nature of the remains or say how they were identified as consistent with Delisha Africa.

A spokesperson for the museum said that it has reassessed its practices around human remains and is currently relocating items in its Biological Anthropology Section to upgraded, secure storerooms.

The museum has thousands of human remains, including some from archaeological excavations, and is conducting a rigorous inventory in order to continue research on their provenance.

The second set of MOVE remains was found during the course of this inventory, the spokesperson said.

Penn said it had informed the Africa family of the findings.

Confronting our institutional history requires ever-evolving examination of how we can uphold museum practices to the highest ethical standards, the spokesperson said. Centering human dignity and the wishes of descendant communities govern the current treatment of human remains in the Penn Museums care.

A call to representatives of the MOVE organization was not immediately returned. But lawyers for Lionell Dotson, the brother of bombing victims Katricia and Zanetta Dotson, said in a statement that they were disgusted by the news that more remains had been found at the museum.

For nearly 40 years, the City of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Museum have refused to treat the MOVE Bombing victims or their families with the even most basic level of respect and decency and this latest revelation is just the most recent in a long line of atrocities Black folks in America have had to live with, attorneys Daniel Hartstein and Bakari Sellers wrote.

 READ MORE: The brother of two MOVE victims finally got their remains back from the Medical Examiners Office

Years of errors

For years, activists and MOVE family members have sought to understand what happened to the bodies of the MOVE victims, which in some cases had been kept for years at the Penn Museum and the city Department of Public Health.

Problems began almost immediately after the May 13, 1985, bombing, part of the Philadelphia polices attempt to evict the Africas, whose activities and fortified home had stirred a string of complaints in their West Philadelphia neighborhood.

During a daylong confrontation, police dropped explosives on the house from a helicopter. The city allowed the subsequent fire to spread to the surrounding blocks, gutting 61 houses and leaving hundreds homeless. Six children and five adults in the MOVE house were killed.

After the fire was extinguished, the city Medical Examiners Office did not immediately secure the scene, leaving the Fire Department and police to excavate the ruins with cranes  destroying crucial evidence and damaging remains of victims in the process.

The remains were then shuttled between city pathologists, outside consultants, and anthropologists from the University of Pennsylvania, who all disagreed on the identities of the remains. Bodies were not returned to their family members for months.

Searching for answers

Janet Monge, a former curator of the Penn Museum, had worked to identify MOVE victims in the 1980s with her mentor, Penn anthropology professor Alan Mann.

The MOVE Commission, which investigated the bombing in its immediate aftermath, and the city medical examiners office disagreed on the identities of two sets of remains: The commission believed one set of bones, labeled B1, were those of Katricia Dotson, and another set, labeled G, belonged to Delisha Africa. Mann and Monge were asked to examine them to resolve the dispute.

An independent review later commissioned by Penn found that Mann and Monge then took possession of the bones suspected to belong to Katricia. They were unable to find credible evidence that Mann and Monge had the set of remains suspected to be Delisha and concluded that those bones were never at the museum.

The review established that Mann and Monge never returned the B1 bones, moving them between Penn and Princeton University, where Mann later worked. As recently as 2019, Monge used those bones, a pelvic bone and part of a femur, as teaching aids in an online video titled Real Bones: Adventures in Forensic Anthropology.

In 2021, activist Abdul-Aliy Muhammad reported in The Inquirer that anthropologists had kept some of the remains and used them in videos, and called for the school to apologize and make restitution.

A month later, the city health department revealed that the medical examiners office had also kept remains of MOVE victims, abandoned in a box in the office for decades.

The health commissioner at the time, Thomas Farley, resigned after admitting that staff had found the box in 2017 and that he had ordered it cremated to spare the Africa family pain. The order was never carried out, and the box was found shortly after Farleys resignation.

Penn returned the remains displayed in the 2019 video to the Africa family in 2021.

After consultation with some MOVE members, and unsuccessful attempts to reach possible relatives, the Penn Museum arranged to have the remains that were displayed in the video returned to MOVE members on July 2, 2021, the independent review read.

The universitys independent review said that the identity of those remains were a matter of legitimate dispute. Lawyers for Dotson believe that his sister Katricias remains had been kept at Penn.

The city medical examiners office did ultimately identify the remains found in the box at their office as his sisters, and they were returned to Dotson in 2022.

In 2023, Muhammad and several surviving family members of the victims held a news conference alleging that they had photographic proof that Monge kept more bone fragments from the investigation than she previously said she had.

Monge had told investigators hired by Penn and Princeton University, both working on separate, independent reports on the handling of MOVE victims remains, that she had been in possession of only one victims remains.

But Muhammad distributed to reporters a photo of Monge next to several bone fragments, saying two people trained in human osteology had independently agreed that the remains were those of two victims  Katricia Dotson and Delisha Africa.

At the time, Monges lawyer said the claims were nothing new and declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation that includes a civil complaint Monge filed against The Inquirer, Muhammad, and other media outlets, alleging defamation.

Staff writer Ximena Conde contributed to this article.

This article has been updated to add a statement from the Penn Museum and additional information.
Republican Senate Candidate Dave McCormick listens to supporters during an August 2024 event in Langhorne. Read more

As vote counting continues this week in Pennsylvanias tight Senate race, attention is once again shifting toward the largest and most hotly contested tranche of remaining votes that could help Democratic Sen. Bob Casey make up his deficit.

At least four counties  including Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, and Centre  have voted to include thousands of undated and misdated mail ballots in their final vote tallies in apparent defiance of earlier rulings from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

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That move prompted a pair of new lawsuits Thursday from Republican candidate Dave McCormick and his GOP allies seeking to block them  and, in McCormicks case, a reversal from his position in 2022, when he pushed courts to order the inclusion of undated ballots amid another tight contest, his GOP primary race that year against TV doctor Mehmet Oz.

Heading into last weeks election, the matter appeared to be settled. The states Supreme Court justices had twice ruled that for the 2024 election counties should reject mail ballots submitted by voters whod failed to write the correct date on their ballot envelope, as required by state law.

Now, the rebellious votes by some counties and the ongoing fight between Casey and McCormick  who was declared the winner last week by the Associated Press and currently leads his rival by just over 25,000 votes  threatens to rip open the debate once again.

Various county boards are seeking to alter the rules of the election at the thirteenth hour, lawyers for the Republican National Committee and the Pennsylvania GOP wrote in a filing Thursday asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reiterate its stance that undated ballots should be rejected this year.

By counting undated and misdated ballots for the 2024 General Election, they are disobeying this courts commands many times over, the attorneys continued. At best, they are confused; at worst, they are openly defying the authority of this court.

Though the votes by Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery and Centre Counties will almost certainly be overturned in court, they continue a recent pattern by majority commissioners in all four to vote for the inclusion of undated ballots.

None of the commissioners who supported their inclusion couched their votes in terms of the ongoing Senate race.

Instead, they argue the dates serve no meaningful purpose as elections officials dont use them to determine whether a ballot was received on time. Rejecting them, they say, unfairly disenfranchises thousands of otherwise eligible voters each year. Some have also pointed to a recent ruling by the state Commonwealth Court that found that the decision to exclude undated ballots in a special election in Philadelphia earlier this year amounted to a violation of rights guaranteed to voters by the states constitution.

But for Casey, those votes could prove particularly important in his longshot bid to hang on to the Senate seat hes held since 2007.

Though McCormick is attending orientation for new senators this week, Casey has yet to concede and has said he has no plans to do so until all legally cast ballots are counted. With the margin dividing the candidates currently hovering below 0.5%, the Department of State declared a statewide recount on Wednesday.

 READ MORE: Pennsylvanias Senate race between Dave McCormick and Bob Casey is going to a recount. How will it work?

Because Democrats are overwhelmingly more likely to vote by mail than Republicans, Casey is likely to benefit most from the inclusion of mail ballots that would have been rejected for missing or incorrect dates.

Thats doubly true in many of the counties that have voted to include them this year  especially Philadelphia  where Casey has outperformed McCormick in the overall vote.

Its unclear just how many undated or misdated ballots were submitted by voters across the state in this election. The Department of State estimated earlier this week that there were roughly 20,000 mail ballots left to be counted statewide as county boards of elections met to decide various challenges to the votes.

As Bucks Countys Board of Elections met earlier this week to decide the fate of roughly 400 undated or incorrectly dated ballots in their county, commissioners ignored advice from the countys solicitor to reject them in compliance with the recent rulings from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

I just cant vote to reject them, said Commissioner Diane M. Ellis-Marseglia, citing her hesitancy to needlessly disenfranchise any county voter. I just cant.

She and board chairman Bob Harvie voted for their inclusion.

McCormicks campaign appealed that decision, suing the board in Bucks County Common Pleas Court Wednesday night.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has clearly prohibited this action, his attorneys Walter Zimolong and Joseph A. Cullen wrote.

McCormick had previously fought to have undated ballots counted during his similarly tight 2022 GOP primary race against Oz.

The  only basis for disenfranchising these voters is a technical error that is immaterial under both state and federal law, his attorneys wrote in legal filings at the time.

Caseys campaign was quick to pounce Thursday on what they cast as McCormicks blatant reversal, calling it hypocritical and further proof of his determination to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters.

As of Thursday afternoon, hearings had not been scheduled in either of the GOP challenges before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court or Bucks Countys Court of Common Pleas.

But McCormicks campaign insisted that no matter how those court battles to come and the ongoing recount played out, they remained confident he would still emerge the races victor.

There is one impossible truth to all of this, said Mark Harris, the campaigns lead strategist. When counting is done, Dave will be winning by tens of thousands of votes. It will not be close.

Staff writer Fallon Roth contributed to this article.
Elon Musk walks out to speak at a campaign rally for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on Oct. 27. MUST CREDIT: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Read more

It seems like all of Elon Musks work in Pennsylvania may have paid off.

President-elect Donald Trump announced late Tuesday that Musk, the worlds richest man and owner of X, as well as Vivek Ramaswamy, former GOP presidential primary candidate, will lead the newly-established Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

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The commission, aimed at large scale structural reform, will operate outside the government but will partner with the White House and the Office of Management & Budget, Trump said in a statement. Its work, Trump said, will be completed by July 4, 2026.

The specifics of what that work entails, or how the commission will provide guidance from outside the government, is unclear. An official government agency cannot be created without an act of Congress, which will still have final say on spending bills.

Musk has promoted the concept driving DOGE for at least several months, first mentioning a government efficiency commission during a conversation on X Spaces with Trump in August. Since then, Musk has ramped up his pro-Trump efforts, including campaigning for the then-GOP candidate in Pennsylvania. Ramaswamy, a businessman who was once Trumps opponent in the 2024 primary, has also become a close ally the president-elect.

Notably, the new department, which intends to improve government efficiency, will be led by two people, as pointed out by skeptics of the project online.

DOGE is a brand new commission and its unclear how much power it will wield. But, heres what we know about what the department can and cant do, and why Musk and Ramaswamy are both in charge.

What is the Department of Government Efficiency?

The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE (a reference to the much-memed Dogecoin cryptocurrency) is intended to act as an outside commission advising the White House and the Office of Management & Budget on cutting spending that is deemed wasteful, reducing staff, and curbing regulations.

The commission may be charged with driving drastic change and an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before, Trump said in his statement.

How will the Department of Government Efficiency operate?

It remains unclear how the organization would operate, but it could be guided by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, PBS reported, which upholds certain legal and ethical guidelines.

The Federal Advisory Committee Act, established in 1972, provides the legal basis for how federal advisory committees operate, including guidance on open meetings, charters, public involvement, and reports, according to the U.S. General Services Administration.

Federal employees are typically required to disclose their assets and other involvements to mitigate any conflicts of interest by detangling themselves from any questionable involvements, but since Musk and Ramaswamy would not be official federal workers, they would not be held to those standards.

The SpaceX CEOs companies were promised billions in federal contracts last year, The New York Times reported in October.

Musk has already started to weigh in on X in regards to how he wants the commission to operate. In posts to the platform Tuesday night, he suggested that 99 federal agencies is more than enough and that all actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency. If the public believes the commission is cutting something important or is not cutting something deemed wasteful: Just let us know! Musk said.

The billionaire also said the commission will have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars.

On his X account Tuesday, Ramaswamy said the commission will soon begin crowdsourcing examples of government waste, fraud, & abuse.

Its unknown how this leaderboard or how the commissions crowdsourcing or communication strategy with the public will work.

The commission also appears to have its own X account, denoted with a gray verification check mark because it is a government or multilateral organization account.

Why are Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in charge?

Perhaps ironically, the commission with the goal of achieving less government bureaucracy has two people leading its charge.

But their appointments are not surprising.

Both Musk and Ramaswamy have positioned themselves as Trump loyalists on the 2024 campaign trail.

Musk devoted millions of dollars and significant amounts of time to helping deliver Pennsylvania for Trump, and some Republicans in the Keystone State give him credit for bolstering Trumps victory by bringing enthusiasm and clout to the campaign trail.

Most of Musks work was sponsored through his pro-Trump America PAC  which the billionaire said is not going away anytime soon. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO and X owner held town halls across the Commonwealth, debuted a petition, which included various cash prizes (including a $1 million lottery for swing state voters) for signers, all while spreading election misinformation on X.

Ramaswamy was once a political opponent of Trumps during the 2024 GOP presidential primary. But after dropping out of the race in January, the biotech entrepreneur threw his support behind Trump, and served as a surrogate on the campaign trail, including appearing in the spin room after Trumps debate against Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia in September.

What could Musks leadership style look like?

While Musk has been at the forefront of major entrepreneurial and technological innovations, and has remained connected to the federal government through his business dealings, this will be Musks first time working closely with a presidential administration, so its uncertain how he will utilize that power.

Government efficiency is a topic he has long been passionate about, and as a major Trump ally, hes found himself in increasingly important spaces in the president-elects inner circle  speaking with world leaders and even becoming an honorary member of the Trump family.
Elon Musk posted to X, the platform he owns, that Pennsylvania Democrats are openly doing crime now by working to change the outcome of the U.S. Senate race by counting votes by noncitizens.

This isnt true.

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It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and there is no evidence of widespread voting by noncitizens in Pennsylvania, let alone that Democrats are working to count their votes in the state.

Musks post, in fact, responds to posts about the back-and-forth that has occurred as counties across the commonwealth process provisional ballots and the race.

Democrats have filed challenges against the rejection of some ballots. The process is entirely legal but has earned more scrutiny as the race between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick heads into a recount.

McCormick was declared the winner by the Associated Press last week, but the race went into a recount under the states law because his margin of victory is less than half a percentage point.

Counties are still in the process of completing the initial count as they weigh which provisional ballots to accept.

Heres whats going on

Provisional ballots are a fail-safe measure provided to voters at polling place if it is not immediately clear that they are eligible to vote or that they have not already cast a mail ballot.

These ballots are among the last to be counted in an election because they take the most work. They must be individually reviewed by election workers to determine whether the ballot is valid and the voter is eligible. Political parties and candidates then have the opportunity to challenge election board decisions regarding whether or not the ballots will count.

Across several counties, Democrats have filed challenges to board decisions to reject ballots cast by voters who could not be found in the states voter registration system.

According to the Philadelphia city commissioners, several of those challenges in the city came as an attorney for State Rep. Jordan Harris (D., Philadelphia) argued the election board had incorrectly removed voters from the voter rolls for inactivity.

Philadelphia Commissioner Seth Bluestein, a Republican, said he did not see any challenges in Philadelphia that were aimed at counting noncitizen votes.

The Casey campaign lodged similar challenges in other counties. The campaign said the intent was to ensure that voters were not incorrectly rejected when they were actually registered voters.

In a Bucks County hearing Thursday, attorneys for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party disputed the countys decision to reject more than 220 ballots from voters it had deemed to be unregistered.

Lawyer Dawn Burke told the countys board of elections that research done by the party indicated that at least 217 of those voters were actually registered, though she could not say under questioning whether the party believed they were registered in Bucks County or elsewhere. She also flagged an additional five voters who had pending voter registration applications at the time they cast their provisional ballot.

But while Burke pushed the board to count all of those votes, the countys commissioners ultimately voted to reject them while they further researched the partys claims.

In a letter to Lackawanna County lodging the challenges, an attorney for the Casey campaign noted that York County had mistakenly rejected ballots of registered voters and discovered the error after a review. The issue in York, they argued, merited review in other counties.

Furthermore, the letter argued that ballots should be counted for voters whose registration applications were denied because a voter failed to enter ID numbers in their application or had missing or incomplete information in their application. The campaign also asked that county officials confirm that they properly complied with federal laws surrounding canceling voter registrations and had not incorrectly removed valid voters from the rolls.

No one is trying to count votes from individuals who were not registered. This is categorically false. This is a blatant attempt by the GOP to lie and distract from their efforts to disenfranchise Pennsylvanians by throwing out votes from registered voters, said Adam Bonin, an attorney working on behalf of the campaign.

But the move is unusual.

Bluestein said he couldnt recall receiving challenges to rejections of unregistered voters in the past.

What does McCormicks campaign say?

McCormicks campaign has argued the challenges are unprecedented and represent an extreme effort to count the ballots of unqualified voters. A spokesperson for the campaign retweeted Musks post that falsely claimed Caseys campaign was illegally acting to count noncitizen votes.

In a phone call with reporters Thursday, the campaign pledged to respond with litigation. Officials argued the Casey campaign was trying to circumvent the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors (SURE) system that tracks voter registration and voter activity in the state.

We think this is totally an extreme argument, its very outside the mainstream. Everyone knows that boards of election and the SURE system are the arbiters of who is registered and who is not, said James Fitzpatrick, an attorney for the campaign.

Pennsylvania state law is very clear that unregistered voters cannot cast a ballot. Boards of election would be highly unlikely to accept those votes. Republicans and Democrats would both be permitted to appeal the boards decisions in county Common Pleas Court.

Any decision by a court to allow counting of ballots cast by unregistered voters would constitute a massive upheaval of Pennsylvania election law.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., left, and Republican David McCormick shake hands after a debate in Philadelphia last month. Their race has gone into a recount. Read more

The Pennsylvania Senate race between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick is headed to a recount  a week after the Associated Press called the race for McCormick.

The Pennsylvania Department of State called for the recount Wednesday as Casey and McCormick were separated by less than half a percentage point, the margin for a statewide recount. As of Thursday evening, Casey trailed McCormick by just under 25,000 votes.

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This is the eighth time since the automatic recount was made law in 2004 that the law has been triggered, and the fourth time the state has actually entered a recount. Remarkably, McCormick has been a candidate in two of those four recounts, with the most recent one taking place in his Senate GOP primary against Mehmet Oz in 2022, which Oz won by fewer than 1,000 votes.

As counties prepare for the recount in the Casey-McCormick race, they are finishing tallying roughly 80,000 ballots that have not yet been counted in the state. Many of those, however, are provisional ballots that may be rejected.

A recount will take several days, but the actual process of counting votes should go faster than it had initially after ballots were cast last Tuesday. Expect the numbers to change slightly  the recount will mean some votes previously read by machines will be reviewed by humans  and both campaigns are likely to closely watch, and maybe fight over, every vote. But the odds that the result changes in a recount are low.

Heres what to know about a Pennsylvania recount, based on interviews with lawyers, elections officials, and other experts.

Will Pennsylvania have a recount?

Yes. Secretary of State Al Schmidt announced the recount Wednesday evening.

Who decides if theres a recount?

Recounts are required by Pennsylvania law, which calls for the secretary of state to order a recount by 5 p.m. the second Thursday after the election.

But the secretary has to provide a 24-hour notice to candidates before ordering the recount, which is why the announcement came Wednesday.

Why is there a recount?

A recount is automatically triggered under Pennsylvania law if a candidates margin of victory is within 0.5% of the total vote. That threshold is set by a 2004 state law.

Casey and McCormick were separated by fewer than 30,000 votes as of Wednesday  less than half a percentage point of the more than 6.9 million ballots cast  which triggered a recount.

Recounts can also be triggered through a court order or when voters challenge the result. In this case, the statewide recount comes from how close the race is.

How rare is a recount?

Its pretty uncommon. The 2004 recount law has only been triggered seven times before this one, and one of those races featured McCormick:

The 2009 Superior Court election. The 2010 Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. The 2011 Democratic primary for Commonwealth Court. The 2017 Superior Court election. The 2019 Superior Court election. The 2021 Commonwealth Court election. The 2022 GOP Senate primary between McCormick and Oz.

Five of the seven were judicial races, in which there are often multiple candidates who can split the vote, especially when running for multiple seats.

Did a recount have to happen?

No. The second-place candidate can decline a recount. That request must be made in writing and sent to the secretary of state by noon on the second Wednesday after the election.

Of the seven recounts that have been triggered, the candidates in three of the races declined them. Casey did not waive a recount, so one will proceed.

The Department of State estimates it will cost about $1 million in state money to administer the recount, which was roughly the cost of the last one.

When does the recount begin?

The recount must be held by the third Wednesday after the election, which in this case would be Nov. 20. Schmidt said counties could begin the recount once they finish tallying remaining ballots.

When is the recount over?

The recount needs to be complete by noon of the following Tuesday, Nov. 26.

Counties have to submit recount results to the Department of State by noon the next day, Nov. 27, and the secretary then publishes the results.

That means it can take a little more than three weeks after Election Day for the recount results to be finalized and published.

How do the votes actually get recounted?

The law requires votes be recounted on different machines from the ones they were counted on the first time. (That is, a different type or model of machine, not just a physically different one.)

Normally, in-person results are counted on relatively slow scanners at polling places, while mail ballots are counted on high-speed scanners. During a recount, many counties plan to use their high-speed scanners to run through the in-person results and to use different high-speed scanners for the mail ballots.

Counties have to use different scanners from the ones they ran ballots through the first time, so mail ballots will need to go through a different type of scanner than they were initially put through. Some counties already have enough equipment to do this, while others will rent.

Vote totals will change. Why? Whats the difference in the recount?

Running the same ballots through different machines will in some cases return slightly different results, and the numbers will almost certainly shift a bit during a recount.

This occurs because of stray markings on ballots from voters that may be flagged by one machine for human review but not another. For instance, if a voter started to vote for one candidate, covered it in an X, and then voted for another, a machine may count the intended vote or spit it out as an overvote.

These ballots are then assigned for human review to determine the voters intent.

Could the recount change the ultimate outcome?

Its possible. As the numbers shift, either candidate could end up adding hundreds or even thousands more votes statewide. Thats not finding votes. Its just part of the recount process.

The candidate who leads in the vote count going into a recount has almost always come out the winner afterward.

What about a manual recount? Do the votes get counted by hand?

Counties could count votes by hand, but thats a long and tedious process. Most counties will want to avoid that  the ones they will deal with manually are the ones that have to be reviewed to determine voter intent. Otherwise, they will use the scanners to move the process along quickly. Counties could choose to count votes by hand if they wish, but they are not required to.

Jonathan Lai is a former Inquirer reporter. This article uses material from his previous coverage explaining the recount process.
President-elect Donald Trump traveled to the White House Wednesday to meet with President Joe Biden, who pledged to do everything we can to make sure youre accommodated.

Welcome back, Biden said during the Oval Office meeting.

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Politics is tough. In many cases, its not a very nice world, Trump responded. But it is nice today and I appreciate it very much.

Trump promised a transition as smooth as it can get before reporters were ushered out of the room. Neither Biden nor Trump answered questions.

Away from the cameras, Biden and Trump met for close to two hours and were expected to go through many top issues  both domestic and foreign policy. Susie Wiles, Trumps incoming White House chief of staff, was on hand for the meeting, as was current White House chief of staff Jeff Zients.

The president will have the chance to explain to President Trump how he sees things, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS, and talk to President Trump about how President Trump is thinking about taking on these issues when he takes office.

Its a traditional meeting Trump declined to participate in after the 2020 election, as he falsely claimed he defeated Biden and would remain in the White House. Former President Barack Obama held a similar meeting with Trump in 2016.

While in Washington, D.C., Trump also met with Republicans from Congress, who will also control the Senate and most likely the House, though Democrats continue to have an unlikely chance of taking the majority.

Republicans elect a Senate majority leader

Over on Capitol Hill, Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) was elected by Republicans Wednesday to become the next Senate majority leader.

Thune defeated Sen. John Cornyn of Texas by five votes in a secret ballot, 29-24. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida was also in the mix, but was easily defeated in an earlier vote.

Thune is now the Senate minority whip, and it will be the first time in nearly two decades Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell wont be the Republican leader in the Senate. Thune isnt up for reelection until the end of Trumps term in 2028.

Thune is not McConnell, and he has a different type of leadership style than that, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R., Okla.) told Semafors Burgess Everett. Ive seen the way he led when McConnell went down, when he wasnt able to be there. And I really enjoyed his leadership style.

Republicans would have a 53-47 majority in a Senate that includes Dave McCormick. Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) has not yet conceded in a race the Associated Press called last week.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.
District Attorney Larry Krasners election-related lawsuit against Elon Musk  in which Philadelphias top prosecutor accused the tech billionaire of running an illegal lottery by giving money to Pennsylvania voters  failed to establish proof that the contest met even the most basic definition of a lottery, the judge overseeing the case said.

Common Pleas Court Judge Angelo Foglietta, who last week rejected Krasners request for an injunction against Musk and his America PAC, wrote in an opinion filed late Tuesday that Krasner and his attorneys offered little evidence and made unpersuasive arguments in their attempt to have Musks daily $1 million giveaway barred from operating in the state.

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Although Krasner accused Musk of misleading contest entrants by suggesting that anyone had a chance to win, Foglietta said, PAC officials provided documents and credible testimony to show that winners were actually chosen through a multistep vetting process  and then expected to serve as spokespersons for the PAC, making them de facto employees.

Moreover, the DA presented no witnesses to support the notion that entrants felt duped, Foglietta said, and he ignored or downplayed portions of Musks comments explaining that winners would need to speak on behalf of the PAC, which was established to promote the candidacy of Republican nominee Donald Trump, now the president-elect.

In addition, the judge said, contest entrants did not pay to enter the sweepstakes, as is the case in a typical lottery. And although Krasner asserted that the contest was a scam similar to those in other fraud probes his office had conducted, Foglietta said, the DA made that statement without detailing the facts of those other investigations or how they were similar to the facts of this case.

Although [Krasner] alleges that America PAC and Elon Musk scammed people, Foglietta wrote,  DA Krasner failed to provide any evidence of misuse beyond mere speculation.

Krasner, in a statement Wednesday, said: We respectfully disagree with the Judges opinion in this matter.

Then, in an apparent reference to proposed class-action suits filed against Musk and his PAC in other states, he added: We note that there is litigation on this issue in other jurisdictions. Stay tuned. He did not comment further.

Fogliettas reasoning appears to end, at least for now, the legal proceedings between Krasner and Musk, whose wealth and proximity to power have only grown since Trump won the election last week. Trump said Tuesday night that once he is sworn into office, Musk would cochair a new committee to reduce government spending.

Krasner, a Democrat, sued Musk and his PAC last month, saying they were violating state lottery and consumer protection laws by distributing cash to registered voters in Pennsylvania and other battleground states ahead of the presidential election.

To enter the $1 million daily sweepstakes, residents  who were required to be registered voters  had to sign a petition organized by the PAC affirming their support for free speech and the right to bear arms.

Musk said he hoped the giveaways would drive up Republican voter registration numbers. But several election-law experts  and the Justice Department  warned that the contest appeared to violate federal laws banning giving money or other things of value in exchange for votes or registering to vote.

Still, Krasners lawsuit was the first legal action taken against the sweepstakes. And it took a different approach, targeting Musk under state laws that prohibit anyone but the state from running a lottery in Pennsylvania. He also accused the PAC of failing to provide information on how it was protecting the personal information of entrants.

But on Nov. 4, after a daylong hearing in City Hall, Foglietta rejected Krasners bid for an injunction to stop the contest from operating in Pennsylvania before the election.

And in his opinion Tuesday, the judge said the timing of Krasners request represented another fatal flaw.

By the time the case was heard in court, Foglietta said, the PACs sweepstakes had only one day to go before it would shut down  and the only remaining winner at the time was a registered voter in Michigan.

An injunction, therefore, would not have prevented any future payouts in Pennsylvania, the judge said.

Krasners attorneys said that did not preclude the need for a legal ruling against the contest.

Foglietta disagreed.

This Court is not here to enter superfluous orders, he wrote.
Rep. Dan Miller (left) of Allegheny County speaks as Pennsylvania House Democrats hold a press event in front of the state Capitol Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024 to celebrate their holding onto a one-seat majority in the recent election. At right is House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia). Read more

HARRISBURG  The campaign arms behind both parties in the Pennsylvania House and Senate spent more than $35 million to influence the outcome of last weeks election  nearly half of which was spent by House Democrats to hold onto their narrow majority as the GOP swept races throughout the state.

House Democrats spent more than $18 million to keep their one-seat majority in the state House for the next two years  the only Democratic success in Pennsylvania in the red-wave election.

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House Democrats, who came to power by surprise in 2022 under redistricted legislative maps, spent more than double what House Republicans did to stay in power, with the help of Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro. Meanwhile, Republicans doubled down on winning statewide row offices and keeping a strong GOP majority in the state Senate.

Senate Democrats  who fell short of their goal to tie the Senate, which remains at a 28-22 Republican majority  spent the least, at $4.7 million, according to the latest available campaign finance filings.

State legislative races have grown increasingly expensive in recent years, as local officials try to keep up with historic spending on top-of-the-ticket races. In this election, House Democrats spent $6 million more than they did in 2022 to flip the House just to keep the same balance of power, while House Republicans spent $2 million more than they did two years ago  for a total of more than $8 million  to try to win the chamber back.

The total picture of the sums spent to influence Pennsylvanias election wont be available until next month, when campaign finance reports are due.

Big spending in the most competitive districts

Every incumbent House member running for reelection held on in last weeks election, but it came at a high cost in competitive districts.

In one race in Cambria County for the seat that ultimately solidified House Democrats majority, Democrats ended up spending more than $3.4 million  or $202 per vote  to keep the last remaining Blue Dog Democratic seat in a district that President-elect Donald Trump won by 35 percentage points. House Republicans spent less than $250,000 trying to flip the seat.

 READ MORE: Democrats maintain narrow majority in Pennsylvania state House amid red wave

Also among the most expensive state House races in the Philadelphia region was the reelection of Rep. Brian Munroe (D., Bucks), a freshman lawmaker who eked out a win in his Central Bucks County district over his GOP opponent, Dan McPhillips, when the purple county itself elected Trump.

Democrats spent nearly $1 million on the race, while Republicans spent more than $700,000, most of which came from a powerful PAC backed by Pennsylvanias richest man, Jeffrey Yass.

In addition to the big spends by the campaign arms, special interest groups stretching from labor unions to insurance providers to environmental groups put their money behind candidates they think will back their interests in the legislature.

The Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania spent more than $300,000 and knocked on tens of thousands of doors to campaign for Munroe, said Molly Parzen, the executive director of the environmental group.

The conservation group also spent heavily in Upper Bucks County to fund Democrat Eleanor Breslin, who was running against GOP Rep. Shelby Labs. Breslin, an environmental attorney, was a case study for the kind of candidate we want to be running, Parzen added. Labs won reelection, but Parzen said she was still proud of Breslins campaign.

In total, the Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania spent more than $2.1 million in last weeks election  some of the largest spending by special interest groups on the election, outside of labor  to fund candidates it believes will back its priorities, such as more solar power projects and increasing the amount of electricity Pennsylvania gets from clean energy sources by 2035.

We cant make change in Harrisburg without first electing the right people, Parzen said. You cant have good environmental laws without good environmental lawmakers.

A transactional business deal

Still, good-government groups such as March on Harrisburg say unlimited campaign spending and public financing from special interest groups is fraught, and for years have called for an end to the practices in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania has no campaign spending or contribution limits, making it a state with some of the most lax campaign finance laws in the country. This allows national political action committees, interest groups, and individuals to pour as much money as they want into state-level campaigns.

And it allows PACs to spend unlimited amounts of money on independent expenditures, which are separate from campaigns and advocate for or against a candidate or issue. In last weeks election in Pennsylvania, PACs spent more than $15 million in independent expenditures at the state level.

March on Harrisburgs executive director, Rabbi Michael Pollack, said both Democrats and Republicans give special treatment to their donors in contradiction to what lawmakers jobs are: to be a voice of the people.

To raise money to run for office, public officials and candidates need to auction off their public power to private special interests, Pollack said. And those private special interests always want something in return.

Big-money interests do not give to politicians out of the kindness of their hearts, they give because its a transactional business deal, he added.

Celebrations and changes in the state House

No matter the cost, House Democrats celebrated their narrow win at a news conference on Tuesday on the steps of the state Capitol as the only bright spot for their party after Republicans dominated statewide races.

Top House Democrats credited their members for stemming the red tide in their chamber by being able to communicate their messages to voters and deliver for their communities, as Democrats at the top of the ticket failed to do so.

Many folks woke up on Wednesday not knowing what the future of this country will be, Rep. Jordan Harris (D., Philadelphia), who chairs the powerful Appropriations Committee, said at the news conference. But in the midst of the red wave, there was a little old blue ship in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And that blue ship rode every wave that was thrown its way.

Meanwhile, House Republicans sought to recalibrate after the comparatively lesser performance, and overhauled their leadership. On Tuesday, they introduced a leadership team led by new House Minority Leader Jesse Topper (R., Bedford). Topper will replace Rep. Bryan Cutler (R., Lancaster), who led the caucus in varying roles over the last six years.

Cutler, in announcing that he would not seek a leadership position again this legislative session, noted that even though Republicans received record amounts of support from national conservative groups, we were unable to pick up even one seat.

I know that disappoints everyone, myself included, Cutler wrote in a letter last week. I recognize that leaves us all wanting more and needing to make further changes.
Philadelphia Councilman Isaiah Thomas questions a witness during a hearing in Philadelphia City Council in November. He introduced legislation Thursday to repeal the city's rule that requires city officials to resign their jobs before running for higher office. Read more

Philadelphia lawmakers will consider eliminating the rule that requires city workers and elected officials to resign from their jobs before campaigning for higher office.

Its the fourth time in the last 20 years that Philadelphia officials have tried to repeal the long-standing resign-to-run rule, which is codified in the citys Home Rule Charter and requires approval from voters to overturn. Philadelphia voters have twice rejected repealing it  once in 2007 and again in 2014  and a 2020 bill to end the rule stalled in Council.

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City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, a Democrat who represents the city at large, authored the legislation and in a statement tied it to the results of last weeks election, saying voters think government at all levels needs to do better.

Ending resign-to-run will allow more local Philadelphians, public servants, and elected officials alike to strive for change at all levels of government, Thomas said.

 READ MORE: What is Phillys resign-to-run rule?

The resign-to-run rule has been in place since 1951, when the charter was first established, and is hailed by good-government proponents who say it ensures public servants are not influencing government policy while striving for higher office. The rule does not apply to public officials who are running for reelection.

But opponents of resign-to-run have long said its a barrier to entry for city employees  including members of City Council  to run for higher office, because it requires they give up their city salaries while campaigning. Thomas said eliminating the rule would also ensure Philadelphians have consistent representation, regardless of election cycle or local political dynamics.

In 2022, City Council operated with a varying number of vacancies for about six months, as six of the bodys 17 members resigned to run for mayor. Their positions were in some cases filled through special elections. Several current members of Council are said to have aspirations for higher office, including Thomas.

Eliminating the rule would also allow for people who hold row offices  such as city controller  or posts in the mayoral administration to run for higher office without quitting their current jobs.

If Council passes legislation to eliminate the rule, and if Mayor Cherelle L. Parker approves it, voters could consider the charter change as early as next year.
Nikea Austin writes her recommendation for the name change during a rally to rename Taney Street in May 2021. Philadelphia City Council on Thursday voted to rename the street after years of activism. Read more

Philadelphia lawmakers voted Thursday to rename Taney Street, bringing to an end years of activism over the street named for a late Supreme Court justice responsible for upholding slavery and denying citizenship to Black people.

City Council members voted to name the strip of blocks that runs through parts of North Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, and Fairmount after Caroline LeCount, a Black educator and civil rights advocate who fought streetcar segregation in the 1860s. If the bill is signed by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, the street will become the first in the city named for a Black woman.

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Activists have for years pushed the city to rename the street, which honors former Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who is best known for authoring the opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott case. Taney wrote in the courts majority opinion that Black people had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, denying them citizenship.

The same court under Taneys leadership declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thereby upholding slavery as legal.

City Council President Kenyatta Johnson said Thursday that the change is long overdue and that lawmakers are right[ing] a wrong. City Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr., who introduced the legislation to make the change, said it was especially moving because he lived on Taney Street for part of his upbringing.

Now, he said, Philadelphians can look up at the street signs and see that the road is named after LeCount, someone they can be proud of.

 READ MORE: The name change was supported by 90% of residents on the street

Tyrique Glasgow, an anti-violence activist who founded the Young Chances Foundation, has advocated for the change and said Thursday that hes proud the street will now be named after LeCount, a leading civil rights activist of her time whom he referred to as our Philadelphia Rosa Parks.

This is not about yesterday. Its about our tomorrow, he said. And we have an opportunity to change how our next generation of leaders and youth feel about being equal in our city.

Two of Taneys descendants were in Councils chambers Thursday to support the change. Joy Taney, who lives in Philadelphia and has been part of the effort to rename the street for years, said there is no evidence her ancestor has any significant connection to the city, and she referred to him as one of the great American dehumanizers.

She said she feels shame when she sees the street name and cant even begin to imagine how Taney Street must make our Black Philadelphians feel.

The actions we can take in Philadelphia by changing the name of Taney Street to LeCount Street, Taney said, can turn the tides on the psychological and social impact that this street name has caused.

If Parker signs the bill, the new street signage could be posted early next year.
People generally are probably getting lazier - and that includes brokers and consumers, he said. The hardest thing for us is to be able to provide risk selection, measured underwriting, but still make it easy for the broker because they are unforgiving, because their clients are.
One particular risk that has plagued the market is double-counting, which allows the same credit to be sold to multiple buyers. I can sell you a carbon credit, then turn around and sell the same one again, Pool said. Theres not enough regulation to prevent that from happening.
Impact on Florida

In Pinellas County, Fla., the impact of Hurricane Helene has brought to light the region's substantial flood exposure. While Hurricane Eta in 2020 and Hurricane Idalia in 2023 generated NFIP payouts of $51 million and $136 million, respectively, over 22,000 NFIP claims have been filed following Helene, amounting to nearly 40% of all claims from the storm, with expected payouts exceeding $2 billion. An additional 2,000 claims have been filed from Milton.
Its a great time for Hamilton to expand on our existing groupwide property insurance offerings and Im delighted to welcome Lissie to our team. She will be integral in supporting the continued expansion of our complementary offerings in this line and market, Daws said.
Despite AIs clear advantages, McClinton remained pleasantly surprised by the industrys overall readiness to embrace the technology, noting that insurance is showing a growing openness to innovation. He observed that insurers are increasingly experimenting with new tools and adapting as they go. However, McClinton also emphasized the importance of remaining vigilant when using AI. Despite its potential, it must be carefully managed to avoid pitfalls such as copyright issues and misuse.
A bicyclist pulling a trailer in Vermont died after he was struck by a police cruiser, state police said.

The crash happened just before 3 a.m. Monday on U.S. Highway 7 in South Burlington. The officer, a sergeant with the Shelburne Police Department, was heading south and struck the southbound bicyclist. It was raining and dark, and the road was wet, state police said in a news release.

The bicyclist, Sean Hayes, 38, of Burlington, died at the scene, the state police said. The sergeant has been identified as Kyle Kapitanski, 41.

The state police crash reconstruction team and its criminal division are investigating. They are asking for any witnesses to contact them.

Kapitanski declined to comment when contacted by phone Tuesday. A message was left with Shelburne Police Department regarding his employment status.

Kapitanski, who joined the department in 2022, had previously worked throughout Vermont in various police and sheriffs departments. He recently had served as police chief in the town of Richmond.

Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Law Enforcement Vermont
A claim provision requiring insureds to seek underinsured benefits from their auto insurer within three years of an accident is unenforceable in New Hampshire because it restricts the insureds right to obtain the same benefits they would have received if underinsurance were not an issue.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court, noting that such a provision could require insureds to seek underinsurance benefits before they even know if the other party is underinsured, ruled on October 25 that such a requirement in a Geico General Insurance Co. contract violates the public policy behind the motor vehicle statute governing uninsured motorist coverage (RSA 264:15).

The overall goal of the [uninsured motorist] statute is to promote a public policy of placing insured persons in the same position that they would have been if the offending uninsured motorist had possessed comparable liability insurance by broadening protection for those injured in accidents involving uninsured motorists, the court stated.

Thus while state law gives insureds three years after an accident to sue the other driver for damages, the Geico policys three-year underinsurance claim deadline denies them the same benefits because it is tied to the date of the accident and not to when they discover that the other driver is underinsured.

Because the contractual limitations provision unreasonably restricts the plaintiffs ability to obtain the same benefits they would have been entitled to had the alleged tortfeasor had comparable liability insurance coverage, the court concluded that it violates the public policy underlying the statute.

The plaintiffs, Shane and Maura Pelissier, sought compensation for damages arising out of a July 29, 2017 automobile accident. They filed suit against the driver they said was responsible for the accident prior to the expiration of the three-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. During the course of that litigation they learned that the drivers liability insurance policy limit was less than their accident-related medical expenses. By then it was November 2021 more than four years after the accident.

The Pelissiers formally notified Geico of their intent to file an underinsured motorist claim on November 5, 2021. On November 30, 2021, Geico denied the underinsured motorist claim relying on the provision that required them to file for underinsured motorist benefits within three years of the date of the accident  that is, within three years of July 29, 2017.

On February 19, 2022  less than three months after Geico denied their claim but four and a half years after the accident  the Pelissiers sued Geico for underinsured motorist benefits.

Geico argued that it was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law because the plaintiffs failed to bring suit within three years of the date of the accident.

A trial court rejected Geicos argument, finding that the contractual limitations provision is unenforceable given that it could require insureds to file suit before a justiciable cause of action existed. Additionally, the trial court found that using the date of the accident as the triggering event is contrary to the public policy underlying the underinsured motorist law.

Geico asked for the high courts review but did not get the answer it wanted as the high court agreed with the lower court.

Geico argued that the three-year contractual limitations provision triggered by the date of the accident is a reasonable restriction that does not violate the public policy. Geico further argued that the provision did not violate public policy because it provided the plaintiffs with the same rights they would have had if the tortfeasor had comparable liability coverage.

The Pelissiers countered that because the contractual limitations period could run before the insureds legal claim against the insurer has accrued, the provision impermissibly restricts their underinsured motorist coverage and is unenforceable.

The high court disagreed with Geico, noting that a plaintiff injured in an accident has three years from the date of the act or omission complained of or three years from when the plaintiff discovers, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, the injury and its causal relationship to the act or omission complained of to sue the motorist.

By contrast, the high court continued, under the contractual limitations provision in this case, the three- year period to file suit against the insurer begins to run before the occurrence of the injury that would be redressed by the underinsured motorist suit. That is because, under the common law, claims for underinsured motorist benefits sound in contract, and a cause of action for breach of contract does not arise until the breach occurs, the court explained.

In the underinsured motorist context, the breach occurs  and therefore the cause of action accrues  when the insurer wrongfully denies underinsured motorist coverage. This means that under the contractual limitations provision, a plaintiff injured by an underinsured motorist will, in effect, have less than three years to file suit against the insurer because the three-year period begins to run before the relevant injury occurs. Contrary to Geicos contention, the contractual limitations provision does not, and cannot, change when the cause of action for a suit for underinsured motorist benefits accrues, the court found.

The court further explained how an insurers denial of an insureds underinsured motorist claim will always occur at some point after the date of the accident. Indeed, insureds must first ascertain the extent of their damages, discover that the other motorist involved in the accident had insufficient coverage, file a claim for underinsured motorist benefits with their insurer, and have that claim denied before a cause of action for underinsured motorist benefits accrues.

Given the time required for an insured to ascertain whether they have a claim for underinsured motorist coverage, a contractual limitations provision such as the one at issue here could effectively force insureds to file suit before a cause of action for breach of their insurance contract has accrued; or bar any relief because they may not be aware that they have a claim for underinsured motorist benefits prior to the expiration of the three-year period.

In either circumstance, the insureds ability to recover for their injuries is restricted as compared to a person injured in an accident caused by a motorist with liability coverage equal to the liability coverage purchased by the insureds, the court concluded.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced a statewide burn ban is in effect until November 30 due to an increased fire risk as the state continues to experience drought conditions and a record number of outdoor fires.

Also, Suffolk County police reported the arrest of a Medford volunteer firefighter who police accused of intentionally setting a brush fire in a wooded area of Medford on Tuesday.

In addition, a brush fire ignited on Wednesday afternoon in Inwood Hill Park in Manhattan. Robert S. Tucker, commissioner of the New York Fire Department (FDNY), said the conditions were treacherous for first responders who worked for four hours to contain the fire. He said they would stay on the site all night and into the morning to address hot spots. He reported there were no injuries.

FDNY has also been responding to other fires the past few weeks in wooded areas of the city. FDNY says it has responded to 229 brush fires since October 29, the highest number in a two-week period in city history.

Amtrak Service Disrupted After Fire Near Tracks in New York City

Amtrak service in parts of the Northeast was delayed Tuesday after a brush fire broke out near a train route in the city. Service has been restored.

As we experience drought conditions and an increased fire risk across the state, now is not the right time to be burning outdoors, and I urge everyone to heed our warnings as we continue to take the necessary precautions to keep all New Yorkers safe, the governor said in announcing the statewide ban against burning outdoors.

Wildfires Update

Hochul provided an update on wildfires burning across the state:

The main firethe Jennings Creek/Sterling State Park wildfire, which is in both New York and New Jersey  encompasses 5,000 acres and is 10% contained in both states. A New York State Parks employee lost his life responding to this fire.

A fire in the town of Denning in Ulster County is 95% contained within 630 acres.

Some 277 emergency responders have included firefighters from 44 companies with 230 personnel; six law enforcement agencies with 28 staff members and four emergency medical crews with 19 personnel. Four helicopters have also been deployed.

There have been no mandatory evacuations, however, as a precaution, 12 homes in the town of Warwick, Orange County voluntarily evacuated.

Topics New York
This years U.N. climate summit  COP29  is being held during yet another record-breaking year of higher global temperatures, adding pressure to negotiations aimed at curbing climate change.

The last global scientific consensus on climate change was released in 2021 through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, however scientists say that evidence shows global warming and its impacts are unfolding faster than expected.

Here is some of the latest climate research:

1.5C BREACHED?

The world may already have hit 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 F) of warming above the average pre-industrial temperature  a critical threshold beyond which it is at risk of irreversible and extreme climate change, scientists say.

Global Warming Is Already on the Cusp of 1.5C, New Research Finds

A group of researchers made the suggestion in a study released on Monday based on an analysis of 2,000 years of atmospheric gases trapped in Antarctic ice cores that extends the understanding of pre-industrial temperature trends.

Scientists have typically measured todays temperatures against a baseline temperature average for 1850-1900. By that measure, the world is now at nearly 1.3 C (2.4 F) of warming.

But the new data suggests a longer pre-industrial baseline, based on temperature data spanning the year 13 to 1700, the study published in the journal Nature Geoscience said.

Either way, 2024 is certain to be the warmest year on record.

SUPERCHARGED HURRICANES

Not only is ocean warming fueling stronger Atlantic storms, it is also causing them to intensify more rapidly, for example, jumping from a Category 1 to a Category 3 storm in just hours.

Growing evidence shows this is true of other ocean basins.

Hurricane Milton needed only one day in the Gulf of Mexico in October to go from tropical storm to the Gulfs second-most powerful hurricane on record, slamming Floridas west coast.

Warmer air can also hold more moisture, helping storms carry and eventually release more rain. As a result, hurricanes are delivering flooding even in mountain towns like Asheville, North Carolina, inundated in September by Hurricane Helene.

WILDFIRE DEATHS

Global warming is drying waterways and sapping moisture from forests, creating conditions for bigger and hotter wildfires from the U.S. West and Canada to southern Europe and Russias Far East creating more damaging smoke.

Research published last month in Nature Climate Change calculated that about 13% of deaths associated with toxic wildfire smoke, roughly 12,000 deaths, during the 2010s could be attributed to the climate effect on wildfires.

CORAL BLEACHING

With the world in the throes of a fourth mass coral bleaching event  the largest on record  scientists fear the worlds reefs have passed a point of no return.

Scientists will be studying bleached reefs from Australia to Brazil for signs of recovery over the next few years if temperatures fall.

AMAZON ALARM

Brazils Amazon is in the grips of its worst and most widespread drought since records began in 1950. River levels sank to all-time lows this year, while fires ravaged the rainforest.

This adds concern to scientific findings earlier this year that between 10% and 47% of the Amazon will face combined stresses of heat and drought from climate change, as well as other threats, by 2050.

This could push the Amazon past a tipping point, with the jungle no longer able to produce enough moisture to quench its own trees, at which point the ecosystem could transition to degraded forests or sandy savannas.

Globally, forests appear to be struggling.

A July study found that forests overall last year failed to absorb as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as in the past, due largely to the Amazon drought and wildfires in Canada.

That means a record amount of CO2 entered the atmosphere.

VOLCANIC SURGE

Scientists fear climate change could even boost volcanic eruptions.

In Iceland, volcanoes appear to be responding to rapid glacier retreat. As ice melts, less pressure is exerted on the Earths crust and mantle.

Volcanologists worry this could destabilize magma reservoirs and appears to be leading to more magma being created, building up pressure underground.

Some 245 volcanoes across the world lie under or near ice and could be at risk.

OCEAN SLOWDOWN

The warming of the Atlantic could hasten the collapse of a key current system, which scientists warn could already be sputtering.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which transports warm water from the tropics to the North Atlantic, has helped to keep European winters milder for centuries.

Research in 2018 showed that AMOC has weakened by about 15% since 1950, while research published in February in the journal Science Advances, suggested that it could be closer to a critical slowdown than previously thought.

(Reporting by Gloria Dickie; editing by Katy Daigle and Alexander Smith)

Topics Climate Change
Apple Inc. faces a lawsuit from a UK consumer group over allegations its monopoly on data storage breaches competition law, in a fresh class action that could ultimately cost the tech giant billions.

The iCloud provider is accused of abusing its market dominance by making it difficult for consumers to use alternative means of storing photos, videos and other data beyond that of its own service, according to lawyers at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, who filed the suit Londons Competition Appeal Tribunal on behalf of Which? Ltd.

Britains opt-out class-action regime has become an increasingly popular route for consumers to try and hold a handful of globally dominant firms to account. Tech companies  Apple included  in particular have been targeted for abusing their dominant position to overcharge customers. None of the recent filings have made it to a full trial.

Apple raised the price of iCloud storage for UK consumers by between 20% and 29% across its storage tiers in 2023  fees which customers have no choice but to pay once they surpass the free storage limit of 5GB, according to the claimants.

Which? estimates that the damages in the case could reach as high as 3 billion ($3.8 billion) should the 40 million British customers who use Apple storage products take part in the litigation. A London judge will have to approve the class action before the real scope can be decided.

Apple didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

Photograph: An employee places a new iPhone 16 smartphone in a bag in the Apple Inc. store on Regent Street in London, UK, on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. Photo credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Copyright 2025 Bloomberg.

Topics Lawsuits
Doe & Emuss (D&E), the London-based boutique professional liability underwriting manager, has been launched with approved coverholder status at Lloyds.

D&E is founded and led by industry veterans, Chief Executive David Doe and Managing Director Paul Emuss, who have more than 70 years combined experience in the Lloyds and London Market. D&E will place and manage portfolios of professional liability business, as well as underwrite professional liability insurance on Lloyds paper that is made up of eight to 10 mostly top quartile performing syndicates.

We are very excited to be launching this new venture, said Doe. There remains unprecedented demand in the North American market for professional liability insurance. We believe it is the right time to offer the market a new and truly independent platform for US and Canadian agents and brokers as well as Lloyds brokers seeking risk placement solutions.

The professional liability market in the US is estimated to be worth some $35 billion in premium volume and is growing, the company said.

The US remains the worlds largest economy with the most litigious society in the world, so demand remains buoyant for our type of products, Doe added.

D&E will offer the full spectrum of professional liability underwriting services via wholesale brokers and agents in London, the US, and Canada.

The professional liability insurance we sell keeps the wheels of commerce going in the United States and Canada, said Emuss. This is the perfect time for D&E to partner with market-leading syndicates and brokers in Lloyds to offer specialist coverage and outstanding claims handling to the businesses and professionals that need it the most, he continued. We are authorised to underwrite over 10,000 professional classes. We are in a market-leading position, focusing on small-to-medium enterprise (SME) businesses  we are more Main Street not Wall Street.'

The post-pandemic market has created an opportunity for D&E with a noticeable decline in the Lloyds open market. We can hopefully offer solutions to Lloyds brokers as well as our agency base in North America, Doe added. Whilst we are moving into a slightly softer market, our production of new business is up substantially. We have a great opportunity given our combined years of underwriting experience, coupled with our cutting-edge technology, allowing us to handle substantial volumes of business.

Before setting up D&E, Doe worked as managing director of Professional Lines at Alesco Risk Management Services since July 2018. He has held numerous senior management positions in the Lloyds market, and in 2006 became the UKs 600th qualified Chartered Director. In 2014, he was made a Fellow of the Institute of Directors.

Since November 2022, Emuss worked as underwriting director of Professional Lines for Alesco Delegated Authority. From 2001 to 2022, he was director, head of Analytics, at Arthur J. Gallagher, where he built a small team to form the Risk Analytics and Insight function, overseeing analytics resources in London, Barbados, and Bangalore. Emuss has been an underwriter at multiple companies, including Cotesworth Syndicate, QBE, and Zurich, from 1992 to 2001.

Doe & Emuss was set up in 2024 and provides professional liability insurance to small and medium-sized (SME) businesses in the United States and Canada via wholesale brokers in the London Market and Lloyds.

Source: Doe & Emuss

Topics Excess Surplus Liability New Markets Lloyd's
First Mid Insurance Group, a top-10 bank-owned insurance agency in the nation, is one of the largest independent brokers in the Midwest with locations in communities throughout Illinois, Missouri, and Wisconsin.

Convr Appoints Mauricio Vaglieri as COO

Convr AI, a Chicago-based AI underwriting, data, and intelligent document processing workbench, appointed Mauricio Vaglieri as chief operations officer.

Vaglieris experience spans various domains including insurance, finance, and the manufacturing industry.

In his recent role at Insurity, he led several initiatives, including the development of a seamless customer experience framework, the enhancement of customer success models, and the implementation of scalable processes that improved client engagement and streamlined operations.
Texass workers compensation market is stable and steadily growing.

The workers compensation market is one of the few consistently profitable lines in the state, according to the Workers Compensation Annual Report 2024 from the Insurance Council of Texas.

Texas has the countrys fourth largest workers compensation direct written premium, with $2.7 billion in 2023, behind California ($11.9 billion), New York ($3.5 billion) and Florida ($3.4 billion). Texas accounts for 4.8% of the U.S. workers compensation market, which totaled $8.4 billion in 2023.

That year, Texas workers compensation had a net underwriting profit of $348.4 billion and direct losses totaling $1.03 billion, up 14.28% over 2022. The 2023 loss ratio was 39.98%.

Health Care Costs

There are 26 certified networks offering workers compensation healthcare services in Texas. Network claims typically have lower overall healthcare costs than non-network claims at the six- and 12-month benchmarks.

While the vast majority of both network (97%) and non-network claims (94%) involved professional services, non-network claims had a higher share of hospital services (29%) than did network claims (25%). Conversely, more network claims involved pharmacy expenses (27%) than non-network (24%). Of employees who received network care, 63% said they were satisfied, versus 55% of those who received non-network care.

Prompt attention to injuries may help lower costs. Injured employees who waited eight or more days to receive treatment accrued 27% higher median medical expenses ($798) than those who were seen within a week ($629). In 2022, 82% of claimants received non-emergency care within seven days.

Access to care

Fewer doctors offer workers compensation services, but those who do are seeing fewer patients.

The number of dedicated doctors working with workers compensation patients dropped 4% between 2017 and 2022. At the same time, the number of claims handled by each participating physician dropped 7%, and new claims fell 3%. However, the numbers may reflect more patients receiving treatment from physician assistants and advanced practice registered nurses.

Recent legislative action and Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers Compensation (TDI-DWC) initiatives aim to streamline the process by which doctors can become designated doctors within the workers compensation system, improve widespread access to care and shorten wait times. In 2022, 74% of workers compensation participating physicians were in the states five largest metro areas: Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin and Houston.

Designated doctors are incentivized by reimbursement rates ranging from 200-250% of Medicare. The changes to the process have resulted in the addition of 80 new designated doctors between April 2023 and May of this year.

View the full report: Workers Compensation Annual Report 2024 from the Insurance Council of Texas.

Topics Profit Loss Texas Workers' Compensation
A North Carolina insurance agent who was penalized by regulators almost 20 years ago has given up her producer license after she was charged with pocketing insurance premiums.

Lori Ann Crisp, 56, of Kannapolis, was charged with forgery, embezzlement and obtaining property by false pretenses, North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey said in a statement this week.

Department of Insurance investigators alleged that between late 2023 and 2024, Crisp accepted almost $3,000 in premium payments on a homeowners and an automobile policy, but never secured the policies.

White collar crimes like this are not victimless crimes, Causey said. It hits all of us in the pocket through higher premiums.

The investigation is continuing. Records with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners show that Crisp obtained an insurance producer license in 2022, but has surrendered it with prejudice, effective at the end of this month.

Crisp showed no active appointments but in 2013 and 2016 she was affiliated with Allied Insurance Agency in Kannapolis, according to NAICs license look-up page and her Linkedin page.

In 2002, Crisp held an automobile insurance agent license but voluntarily surrendered it that year. She also held a property and liability license in North Carolina.

In 2006, the woman agreed to a settlement with the DOI. She agreed to pay a $250 penalty after paying an oustanding judgment of $6,139 that was related to unpaid claims filed against IWG Fund, which was not authorized to do business in North Carolina, according to the settlement agreement.

Topics Agencies North Carolina
A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a North Carolina insurance agent to five years in prison for his role in a decade-long scheme that created fraudulent tax shelters and cheated the U.S. government of more than $22 million in tax revenue.

David Shane Simmons, of Jefferson, North Carolina, made more than $2 million in commissions on the scheme, which he split with his co-conspirators, two St. Louis attorneys. The three were convicted in April. Simmons sentence was less than prosecutors had recommended but more than Simmons attorney said he deserved, according to court documents.

Simmons had reportedly told undercover officers posing as wealthy clients that he knew the tax shelter scheme was skirting the law, but he was comfortable with taking things up to the point of seeing the jailhouse doors but not going inside.

It is time for the defendant, David Simmons, to see the inside of the prison doors, federal prosecutors wrote in their sentencing recommendation last week. Given the seriousness of Simmonss conduct, his history and characteristics, and the need for general deterrence, the United States requests the Court impose a sentence of 78 months imprisonment, the low end of the Guidelines range.

Judge Kenneth Bell decided on 60 months for Simmons. Co-defendant Michael Elliott Kohn, an attorney, was sentenced to seven years in prison. Catherine Elizabeth Chollet, also a St. Louis attorney, was sentenced to four years, prosecutors said.

The scheme ran from 2011 to late 2022 and worked like this: The three defendants sold what was known as the Gain Elimination Plan, which inflated clients business expenses by concocting fictitious royalties and management fees. These fees were paid to a limited partnership largely owned by a charity. But in reality, Kohn and Chollet fabricated the fees, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.

Kohn and Chollet advised clients that the plans limited partnership was required to obtain insurance on the life of the clients to cover the income that was allocated to the charitable organization. The death benefit was directly tied to the anticipated profitability of the clients businesses and how much of the clients taxable income was intended to be sheltered.

Simmons also filed false personal tax returns that underreported his business income and inflated his business expenses, resulting in a tax loss of more than $480,000, prosecutors said.

The defendants must also repay $22.5 million to the Internal Revenue Service, the judge noted.

Topics Agencies North Carolina
The California Labor Commissioners Office reached a $942,604 settlement in a case involving a wholesale bakery in Vista that closed its doors without paying 187 workers.

Baked in the Sun shut down without paying its employees, resulting in workers not being paid for their wages or their vacation time, according to the LCO.

Under the settlement, workers will receive $3 for every $1 in wages they were initially due.

According to the LCO, when Baked in the Sun encountered financial difficulties, the company had to apply for loans from several lenders. One of the lenders, HCAP Partners III, L.P. eventually took control of the business, leading to the wages going unpaid.

The assets of the business were then seized by First Choice Bank shortly after the bakery closed and were sold to new owners, again leaving bakery employees unpaid.

State law requires employee wages to be paid for the last three months prior to business closure and asset sales. The LCO filed a lawsuit to recover the wages.

Following the filing of the case and the citations, the LCO reached settlements with most of the parties, including founder Rachel Shein, lender First Choice Bank, lender HCAP Partners III, L.P., and restructuring officer Gregg Yorkison.

Topics California
The family of a security guard who was shot and killed at a hospital in Portland, Oregon, sued the facility for $35 million on Tuesday, accusing it of negligence and failing to respond to the dangers that the gunman posed to hospital staff over multiple days.

In a wrongful death complaint filed Tuesday, the estate of Bobby Smallwood argued that Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center failed to enforce its policies against violence and weapons in the workplace by not barring the shooter from the facility, despite staff reporting threats and aggression toward them in the days before the shooting.

The repeated failures of Legacy Good Samaritan to follow their own safety protocols directly led to the tragically preventable death of Bobby Smallwood, Tom DAmore, the attorney representing the family, said in a statement. Despite documented threats and abusive behavior that required immediate removal under hospital policy, Legacy allowed a dangerous individual to remain on the premises for three days until those threats escalated to violence.

In an email, Legacy Health said it was unable to comment on pending litigation.

The shooting at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center in Portland was part of a wave of gun violence sweeping through U.S. hospitals and medical centers, which have struggled to adapt to the growing threats. Such attacks have helped make health care one of the nations most violent fields. Health care workers racked up 73% of all nonfatal workplace violence injuries in 2018, the most recent year for which figures are available, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The gunman at the Portland hospital, PoniaX Calles, first visited the facility on July 19, 2023, as his partner was about to give birth. On July 20 and July 21, nursing staff and security guards filed multiple incident reports describing outbursts, violent behavior and threats, but they werent accessible or provided to workers who were interacting with him, according to the complaint.

On July 22, nurse supervisors decided to remove Calles from his partners room, and Smallwood accompanied him to the waiting room area outside the maternity ward. Other security guards searching the room found two loaded firearms in a duffel bag, and his partner told them he likely had a third gun on his person, the complaint said.

According to the complaint, over 40 minutes passed between the discovery of the duffel bag and Smallwoods death. Two minutes before he was shot, a security guard used hand gestures through glass doors to notify him that Calles was armed. Smallwood then told Calles he would pat him down, but Calles said he would leave instead. Smallwood began escorting him out of the hospital, and as other staff members approached them, Calles shot Smallwood in the neck.

The hospital did not call a code silver, the emergency code for an active shooter, until after Smallwood had been shot, the complaint said.

Smallwoods family said his death has profoundly impacted them.

Every day we grieve the loss of our son and all the years ahead that should have been his to live, his parents, Walter Bob and Tammy Smallwood, said in the statement released by their attorney. Nothing can bring Bobby back, but we will not stop fighting until Legacy is held fully responsible for what they took from our family.

After the shooting, Legacy said it planned to install additional metal detectors; require bag searches at every hospital; equip more security officers with stun guns; and apply bullet-slowing film to some interior glass and at main entrances.

Around 40 states have passed laws creating or increasing penalties for violence against health care workers, according to the American Nurses Association. Hospitals have armed security officers with batons, stun guns or handguns, while some states allow hospitals to create their own police forces.

Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Oregon
Four Los Angeles area residents were arrested after a California Department of Insurance investigation reportedly found the suspects allegedly committed insurance fraud by claiming a bear had caused damage to their vehicles.

It turns out it was a person in a bear costume.

Ruben Tamrazian, 26, of Glendale, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, of Glendale, Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, of Glendale, and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village, have all been charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy.

The CDI investigation began after an insurance company suspected fraud. The suspects claimed on Jan. 28 in Lake Arrowhead a bear entered their 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost and caused interior damage to the vehicle. They reportedly provided video footage to their insurer showing the alleged bear in the vehicle.

However, the CDI investigation determined the bear was a person in a bear costume. Detectives reportedly found two additional insurance claims with two different carriers for the suspects with the same date of loss and at the same location. Each of the claims reportedly involved two different vehicles, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350, and the suspects again appeared to use a bear costume to make it appear that a bear also entered and damaged those vehicles. They provided the video footage to the other insurers substantiate their claims.

The CDI had a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife review the three alleged bear videos and the expert verified it was a human in a bear suit.

After executing a search warrant, detectives found the bear costume in the suspects home.

The insurance companies were reportedly defrauded of $141,839. Department detectives were assisted by the Glendale Police Department and the California Highway Patrol. The San Bernardino County District Attorneys Office is prosecuting the case.

Topics California
Houston - November 13, 2024 (Investorideas.com Newswire) KULR Technology Group, Inc. (NYSE American: KULR) (the "Company" or "KULR"), a global leader in sustainable energy management, today reported results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2024.

This news is paid advertisement/ news disseminated on behalf of/issued on behalf of KULR Technology Group, Inc.

Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results

Revenues: In the third quarter that ended September 30, 2024, revenue was $3.19 million compared to $3.04 million reported in the same period last year.

Cash and Accounts Receivable: As of September 30, 2024, the Company had cash and accounts receivable combined of $3.60 million.

Gross Margins: Gross margin was 71% in the quarter ending September 30, 2024, compared to 44% in the same period last year.

Selling, General and Administrative (SG&A) Expenses: SG&A expenses decreased to $2.74 million in the third quarter of 2024 from $4.61 million in the same period last year.

Research and Development (R&D) Expenses: R&D expenses in the third quarter of 2024 decreased to $1.23 million from $1.82 million in the same period last year.

Operating Loss: Loss from operations was $1.71 million for the third quarter of 2024, compared to $5.10 million from the same period last year. Lower operating loss in the third quarter was driven by a decrease in both SG&A expenses and investment in R&D.

Net Loss: Net loss for the third quarter of 2024 was $2.00 million, or a loss of $0.01 per share, compared to a net loss of $5.56 million, or a loss of $0.05 per share from the same period last year.

Management Commentary

KULR Chief Financial Officer Shawn Canter noted, "We are proud to announce another record revenue quarter so meaningfully the result of our entire team's focus and dedication. The announced license agreement for KULR Xero Vibe represents a new business model that can expand the ways we grow KULR. Our recent first "Open House" in Webster was a smashing success with many customers, potential customers, insurance, fire - including the FDNY - and hazmat experts, public officials, and investors in attendance. I think we will do more of those types of events to invite more and more people to see and experience the mission critical nature of our work for so many applications."

Mr. Canter continued, "The work we do is really part of the "picks and shovels" of the space economy, the broader adoption of electrification of the global aerospace and defense sectors, and the evolution toward more and more electric applications like planes, drones, vehicles, industrial and commercial equipment. Who isn't going to need safe, reliable, clean power in often inconvenient environments?"

With regards to KULR Xero Vibe, Mr. Canter offered, "By meaningfully improving cooling efficiency, KXV is addressing the high operating costs of high intensity, power hungry applications like AI and crypto currency servers. Again, our proprietary technology offers a variety of sectors critical "picks and shovels" for them to continue to grow and flourish. Our goal is to have KXV technology used across these and other use cases to lower their operating costs and thus promote their expanded use."

Third Quarter 2024 and Recent Corporate Highlights:

KULR's Xero Vibe Technology Lands Licensing Partnership with $2.35M Deal. The Company announced a licensing agreement for its proprietary vibration reduction technology named KULR Xero Vibe ("KXV"). The $2.35M landmark deal includes a $1.1M minimum guaranteed license and royalty fee, a unique opportunity for the licensee to purchase proprietary balancing equipment directly from KULR and additional revenue upside to KULR based on volume and technology upgrades.

KULR Secures Expanded U.S. Army Battery Contract to $2.4M, Paving Way for KULR ONE Guardian Battery Production in 2025. The Company announced that it was on track to successfully complete its initial engagement with the United States Army in Q3 2024 and building on the momentum of this ongoing partnership, the Army would expand its battery contract with the Company to $2.4M.

KULR Releases New Investor Presentation. The Company unveiled a new investor presentation on its website. This new presentation provides an overview of the Company and features refreshed and updated information, including: updated list of customers and partners, overview of the Company's core engineering technology domains with an emphasis on diversified product and service offerings for its various market opportunities, information on KULR's customer engagement model, and financial updates and recent operational progress The investor presentation is accessible through the "Presentations" section on KULR's website.

Conference Call

The Company has scheduled a conference call for November 13, 2024, at 4:30 p.m. ET to discuss these results. KULR management will provide a business update for the Company followed by a question-and-answer period.

To access the call, please register using the following link: KULR Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. After registering, an email will be sent, including dial-in details with a conference call access code required to join the call. The conference call will be available for replay here via the Investor Relations section on KULR's website (www.kulrtechnology.com).

About KULR Technology Group, Inc.

KULR Technology Group Inc. (NYSE American: KULR) delivers cutting edge energy storage solutions for space, aerospace, and defense by leveraging a foundation of in-house battery design expertise, comprehensive cell and battery testing suite, and battery fabrication and production capabilities. The Company's holistic offering allows delivery of commercial-off-the-shelf and custom next generation energy storage systems in rapid timelines for a fraction of the cost compared to traditional programs. For more information, please visit www.kulrtechnology.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of offers to buy any securities of any entity. This release contains certain forward-looking statements based on our current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements in this release are based on information available to us as of the date hereof. Our actual results may differ materially from those stated or implied in such forward-looking statements, due to risks and uncertainties associated with our business, which include the risk factors disclosed in our Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 12, 2024, as may be amended or supplemented by other reports we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding our expectations, beliefs, intentions, or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "should," and "would" or similar words. All forecasts are provided by management in this release are based on information available at this time and management expects that internal projections and expectations may change over time. In addition, the forecasts are entirely on management's best estimate of our future financial performance given our current contracts, current backlog of opportunities and conversations with new and existing customers about our products and services. We assume no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether because of new information, future events or otherwise.

Investor Relations:

KULR Technology Group, Inc.

Phone: 858-866-8478 x 847

Email: ir@kulrtechnology.com

KULR Technology Group, Inc. (NYSE: KULR) is a featured renewable energy stock on Investorideas.com More info on KULR at Investorideas.com Visit: https://www.investorideas.com/CO/KULR/

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WASHINGTON, D.C. - November 14, 2024 (Investorideas.com Newswire) The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) and ACLJ Action congratulate Tulsi Gabbard, Senior Military and Political Analyst at Sekulow, on her nomination to serve as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). She is exceptionally qualified to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, given her extensive military background and her history of effective bipartisan commitment to our national security as a United States Representative.

Her combined experience as a combat veteran, legislator, and advocate who served multiple deployments in the Middle East will serve her well as she executes ODNI's mission to protect and advance U.S. national security interests.

"We are happy to share that a member of our very own team, Tulsi Gabbard, has been nominated to serve as the Director of National Intelligence," says Jordan Sekulow, Executive Director of American Center for Law and Justice, and President and CEO of ACLJ Action. "Her political transformation from a Democrat Representative to an independent patriot is emblematic of her dedication to the Constitution and the American people. Her bold leadership will be instrumental in addressing the numerous threats to our country. I have no doubt that she will catalyze a new era at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence."

Sekulow provides cutting edge analysis of today's political and legal landscape with elected officials and respected thought leaders. The show airs live each weekday at Noon Eastern on over 1,000 stations plus SiriusXM, with live video stream on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble and ACLJ.org.

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) engages legal, legislative, and cultural issues by implementing an effective strategy of advocacy, education, and litigation that includes representing clients before the Supreme Court of the United States and international tribunals around the globe. For more information, visit https://aclj.org/

ACLJ Action advocates on behalf of tens of thousands of its members in Congress, the executive branch, and states across the country to advance liberty, constitutional government, and religious freedom. For more information, visit https://acljaction.org

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The rise of Fontaines DC appears unstoppable. Their two Grammy nominations but the latest icing on an already heavily iced cake. But even if they win I would advise against lingering backstage. The Grammys are weird. Dont dally there, lads, its dangerous.

But what of the Fontaines themselves? Between now and Christmas they have 35 shows. In 2025 they are booked until August. The Grammy award ceremony at the Cryto.com Arena in Los Angeles on February 2, will come during a rare break. Three weeks later in Osaka, Japan, it all begins again.

After that it's Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, in that order, before another huge US tour in April and then Europe for the entire summer. I can only imagine their air miles.

They are nominated for Best Rock Album (up against The Rolling Stones, amongst others), and in the Best Alternative Music Performance category. They will rub shoulders with the best of the best. But be in no doubt, Grammy World is a very odd place.

Best Alternative Music Performance is a relatively new category. It was invented in 2023 when the Grammy committee couldnt find a way to give Wet Leg their due. 'Chaise Longue' was a humdinger. The Grammys needed that kudos. An extra category was added.

It brought to 98 the number of categories at the Grammy Awards. If I wanted to give you some flavour of what they all are I would need to employ extra staff. ChatGPT, if asked to summarise the categories, would shut down. They are unknowable, too vast to countenance.

They work on two principles. The first is to round up all the most famous, celebrity-heavy artists in the world and get them in a venue together. The second is to then ensure, that like The Late Late Show, there is a Grammy for everyone in the audience.

After that, all bets are off. Beyonce, leading the charge with 11 nominations this year, is the one to beat. Incredibly, her album, Cowboy Carter, is nominated in the country, pop and Americana categories. This seems like a contradiction in terms. How can it be all three things?

It feels equivalent to a John Banville novel being nominated in the modern fiction, true crime and travel writing categories. It just doesnt stack up. I know its all music but surely genres must mean something.

Then theres The Beatles. They have never won a Grammy for Record of the Year, the award which is seen to recognise the song that most captured that years Zeitgeist. In the years they produced 'Runner Soul', 'Revolver' and 'Sgt. Pepper' they didnt win.

The Record of the Year in 1967, the year of the Summer of Love, was Frank Sinatras 'Strangers in the Night'. In 1968, the year of the student riots in America and Vietnams darkest hour, it was The 5th Dimension with 'Up Up and Away'.

At this remove those records look like more a part of the 1950s than the 1960s. In the 1960s too, Bob Dylan, the spokesman for the 60s generation, producing at the time the music of his life, won no Grammys at all. Finger, pulse? I think not.

Now And Then, the last Beatles song, is nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammys.

Yet this year, 55 years after they split, The Beatles are at last in the running for Record of the Year with 'Now and Then'. How can this even be?

The Grammys exhibit a level of conservatism that would make the Burke family blush. Hip-hop artists once refused to submit works to the Grammys in protest at how frequently hip-hop was sidelined. Im not sure they should have bothered.

But its in the weirdness of the categories that the Grammys truly shine. Just a few: Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance, Best Musica Urbana Album, Best Tropical Latin Album, Best Immersive Audio Album, best Regional Roots Music Album and, my new favourite, Best Boxed or Special Limited-Edition Package.

Yes, boxed sets have become so elaborate they have their own category now. Foremost amongst these is John Lennons Mind Games box. You should watch the unboxing online. It is a very mediocre album no matter how you present it, but the top line box set of it will cost you 1,495.

Kate Bushs Baskerville Edition of Hounds of Love is a snip at 480, and it isnt just an album, but a piece of art you can hang on your wall. Its all a bit crazy. So, my Fontaine friends, should you win: Smile, accept, and run like the wind!
The States cybersecurity agency has said there is an overall medium threat of cyberattacks on candidates and political parties during the election campaign  including a high risk of hack and leak incidents.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) also said the risk of interference and disinformation by hostile states was medium.

It said that what happens in Ireland is of interest to many countries because of its geographical location in Europe, the level of foreign investment, key export markets, and its position as a data centre hub.

The centre has published a General Election 2024 Cyber Threat Landscape report and has also updated its guidance on cybersecurity for political organisations and election candidates.

It has a five-stage threat system: None, low; medium (meaning a general threat exists and a cyber attack is possible); high (cyber attack is likely) and very high (attack is highly likely).

NCSC director Richard Browne told the Irish Examiner that efforts to hack into computers of politicians, political parties, and public bodies and leak damaging information to the media was designed to manipulate public debate and create fear and panic among people.

He also cautioned that there was a case in the recent French election of documents being altered and falsified before being leaked.

Mr Browne stressed that his team is ready for any such incidents, adding that they have further strengthened their monitoring, analytical, and response teams since the local and European elections in June.

The threat assessment report said hostile states and groups have shown a sustained interest in destabilising and manipulating electoral processes in Western democracies

for their own geopolitical aims and added that Ireland is not immune to this threat.

According to the report:

Based on global trends and incidents observed in Ireland, NCSC assess the risk of cyber-enabled attacks targeting election candidates and political organisations, including hack and leak operations, to be medium;

NCSC assess the risk of cyberattacks during the election cycle to be medium. While a hacktivist event during the voting period is likely (or high), the potential impact is assessed as low;

NCSC assess the risk of a foreign information manipulation and interference campaign targeting societal coherence and democratic processes to be medium.

It said that last month, the US intelligence community publicly assessed that Russia and Iran were attempting to influence the US presidential campaign, with China focused on congressional elections.

The report said that European Parliament MEPs adopted a resolution condemning Russias escalating malicious activities, interference and hybrid operations ahead of Moldovan elections.

The report said State-aligned actors used cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns to interfere with elections in the west.

The outcome of any political event will be of interest to other countries, making it essential to protect the resilience of the electoral process and infrastructure.

The report said candidates and political parties are typically more often targets of cyber attacks than election infrastructure and that potential targets include social media accounts and emails.

It said AI-generated audio, video, and image deepfakes have been used across the world to target political figures and are designed to manipulate them into revealing sensitive information.

The report also said that low cost and unsophisticated cyber attacks, such as denial of service, and website defacement, are used to catch attention and undermine confidence in government or democratic processes.

It said that while voting in Ireland is paper based, electoral processes  such as voter registration, vote compilations and transmission  could be a target.

On disinformation by hostile states, it said: While the impact of foreign information manipulation and interference in Ireland has been low there are ongoing efforts by State-backed actors to spread disinformation.
A man found dead in one of Irelands most exclusive hotels was an American who had only checked into the hotel hours before a suspected fatal assault, it is understood.

The man, who was in his 60s, was found in the leisure centre of the luxury Ballyfin Demesne hotel in Co Laois on Tuesday night after 8pm.

Celebrities including Kim Kardashian, Kanye West and George Clooney have previously stayed at the exclusive hotel.

An autopsy was carried out on Tuesday.

No weapons were used in the suspected fatal assault, it is understood.

Another US citizen, a man in his 30s who was well-known to the victim, was arrested and is currently being held for questioning. Gardai have 24 hours to question him. Gardai said on Thursday that the man "remains detained".

The two men had travelled to Ireland together and were guests at the hotel, it is understood.

Gardai are following a definite line of inquiry and are currently not looking for anyone else in connection with the suspected fatal assault.

The deceased, a US citizen, may have had some Irish heritage, it is understood.

Ballyfin Demesne is a five-star luxury country house set across 600 acres at the foot of the Slieve Bloom mountains.

Rooms often cost in excess of 1,000 a night.

The Irish Examiner contacted Ballyfin Demesne for comment.

The local community is in total shock following the death, local independent councillor James Kelly said.

Theres a cloud hanging over Ballyfin today, he said.
Did Conor McGregor get his security guards to book hotel rooms while he was on nights out so he could bring women back for sex?

No, he told John Gordon SC, for Nikita Hand, on his second day in the witness box. He would have hotel rooms booked so there was the option for an afterparty, or to relax, before returning to the normal world, he said.

The MMA star had told the court that girls had been part of the crew partying into the early hours at Krystle nightclub in Dublin City centre on December 9, 2018, with his security booking a hotel room before the club closed.

He denied only responding to messages Ms Hand had sent him because he needed a replacement for the girls who had then gone home.

I was still partying away and so were they, Mr McGregor said. An invitation was there to go to the salon to keep partying.

Nikita Hand had gone out for her Christmas party the night before, and the party had ended up back in the salon where she worked. She and a colleague, from a different branch, were picked up by Mr McGregor at around 10am on that Sunday morning.

From there they collected a friend of his, James Lawrence, and went to the Beacon Hotel in south Dublin.

In Ms Hands words, it was in that hotel that Mr McGregor brutally raped and battered her.

Mr McGregor was invited to read out his own words of what happened, in a statement he gave to gardai in January 2019, to the jury on Thursday.

This went into graphic detail on the consensual sex he says they had in that hotel room. I remember her saying fuck me, fuck me, Mr McGregor read out to court. To encourage me. She was moaning with pleasure.

He would later say that Ms Hand had sex with multiple different people that weekend and that its quite clear she had sex multiple times with two different people. Ms Hand was mere metres from the man she alleges raped her in court as he read out these words.

Before he left the stand just before 1pm on Thursday afternoon on day seven of the civil case taken against him, Mr McGregor had plenty more to say.

A line of questioning that Mr Gordon was keen to pursue came from Mr McGregors own evidence to the court the previous day when hed said he wanted every single shred of evidence put before the court.

Mr Gordon asked Mr McGregor why, if he wanted to be clear and transparent about what had happened, he repeatedly said no comment to questions posed by gardai during his interviews.

Beyond giving them that statement that day, you were not prepared to provide the guards with further assistance, the barrister asked.

During his cross-examination, frequently Mr McGregor would give one-word answers to what he was asked, or would speak at length about his thoughts on the issue. His response here was an example of the latter.

Id go to the top of the mountain with a microphone and shout it from the hill tops, he said. With the seriousness of the allegation, I took [the solicitors] advice from there on in.

It was out of my hands. It was alien to me. I didnt know what to do. It was the first time anything like this had happened to me.

During court proceedings, Mr McGregor was asked about cocaine use on the day, itself. Mr Gordon asked him if he came out of James Lawrences house with a bag of cocaine in his hand.

No, there was cocaine present in the vehicle prior to that, he said. It was a small piece, he said.

Both girls were given cocaine in the car?, Mr Gordon asked. In the car, I believe so, Mr McGregor answered.

You had cocaine in the car as well?"

Correct, he replied.

For his part, Mr Lawrence said he did not take cocaine and has not taken cocaine ever in [his] life.

Co-defendant on the stand

And what of Mr Lawrence, his co-defendant in the case?

Having gotten close playing the video game 'Call of Duty' together as teenagers, they are good friends, the court heard. It was to Mr Lawrences house that Mr McGregor went to having collected two women earlier that morning seeking him to accompany them to the after party.

It was both of their assertions that after Mr McGregor had consensual sex with Ms Hand and left the hotel, Mr Lawrence then also had sex with her.

They told as much to the gardai when questioned them in January 2019. Ms Hand previously told the court that Mr Lawrences assertion they had consensual sex was lies and that she was shocked by this claim.

It was put to Mr McGregor that he told the gardai Mr Lawrence had sex with her so he could be a patsy and take the fall for him.

The MMA athlete denied this and said there was no collusion between them. Asked several times whether he had paid Mr Lawrences legal fees, Mr McGregor said it was quite possible that he had.

Once McGregor had finished, Mr Lawrence stook the stand then in the afternoon.

He, too, took grave exception to the suggestion he was a patsy.

"Not in a million years, he said. What man would put themselves up for the rape of a woman?

By his account, Mr Lawrence said that he had sex with the other woman who came to the hotel, Danielle Kealey, three times that day while Mr McGregor was in the other room with Ms Hand. He had earlier asked Mr McGregors security to go to the shop to buy him condoms.

He said he can remember this for a fact that they had sex three times. Ms Kealey told the court on Wednesday that they had sex once.

Mr Lawrence said that when Mr McGregor and Ms Kealey left, Ms Hand kept trying to kiss him and flirt with him.

He said they then had sex twice in the hotel room as, in the actual court room, Ms Hand began to cry openly and was comforted by her partner as Mr Lawrence carried on with his evidence.

The trial continues.
A steel manufacturing company owned by well-known Cork businessman Noel C Duggan faces having to demolish part of a workshop after losing a planning row about noise from its plant in Millstreet.

An Bord Pleanala has upheld an appeal by the Church Street Residents Association against the decision of Cork County Council to grant retention permission to Noel C Duggan Structural Steel Limited for an extension to a workshop at its factory near the centre of the north Cork town.

The company sought retention permission for the extension after the local authority took enforcement action against it for allegedly building a shed and polluting the site with noise and odours.

The firm warned the workshop was necessary to maintain the operational efficiency of the plant, which employs about 50 people.

However, the ruling by An Bord Pleanala clears the way for the local authority to recommence enforcement proceedings against the company if it continues to operate from a building without planning permission.

The extension, for which planning permission was refused, is used for welding, cutting, drilling, cleaning and the fabrication and processing of steel to be used in construction.

It covers an area of around 800sq m within the three-hectare site occupied by the plant, which normally operates between 7am and 5.30pm from Monday to Saturday.

'Extreme nuisance'

People living in the area had complained about the level of noise and environmental pollution from the plant, which they claimed had been an extreme nuisance for residents of Church Street since the early 2000s.

They claimed the construction of the extension in 2018 had resulted in the noise being exacerbated to almost unbearable levels, with additional fumes and toxins from the spraying of steel girders.

In its ruling, An Bord Pleanala said the retention of the extension to the workshop would seriously injure the amenities of properties in the vicinity by reason of noise. The board said it had taken into consideration the close proximity of the extension to residential dwellings in making its findings.

It also claimed there was a lack of sufficient information on noise, as well as inconsistencies in identified noise sources and a lack of clarity about proposed mitigation measures.

The company claims it is the oldest family-run structural steel manufacturer in Ireland and now in its fifth generation following its establishment in 1875.

Noel C Duggan Structural Steel maintained noise levels from the factory were well below limits set by Cork County Council and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The company also clarified that no painting process was carried out on the premises and said it was willing to take a number of measures to address the concerns of residents, including the installation of a noise barrier.

In its appeal, the Church Street Residents Association claimed the row of terraced houses, which date from the late 1800s, predates the development of the steel manufacturing plant.

They complained the plant was generating both noise and environmental pollution, with noise levels regularly exceeding 100 decibels.
Corks city councillors have emphatically rejected calls to invite US President-elect Donald Trump to visit Leeside amid warnings that jobs in the citys US multinationals could be at risk during his presidency.

It follows a lengthy debate on a motion tabled by Independent Cllr Albert Deasy at this months city council meeting.

He requested the council would write to Trump to congratulate him on his historic election victory and would invite him and Robert F Kennedy Jr to visit Cork at their earliest convenience.

This invitation is crucial due to the significant number of American multinational corporations based in Cork, including Apple, Amazon, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Stryker, Merck, Eli Lilly, and EMC, the motion read.

Strengthening this relationship is vital for our economic prosperity. Furthermore, the invitation holds special significance given the historical ties between the Kennedy family and Cork, highlighted by President John F Kennedys visit (to Cork) in 1963.

US President John F Kennedy at Cork City Hall with Lord Mayor Sean Casey during his visit to the city on June 28, 1963.

He said the city should begin to "realign itself with the new landscape and that a noticeable animosity towards Trump disrespects the 75m US citizens who voted for Trump and disregards the "real-life consequences for ordinary people" here who depend on US corporations for their livelihood.

Opposition

But Fine Gael Cllr Damian Boylan led cross-party opposition to the motion, saying Trump and Kennedy had demonstrated behaviour and promoted beliefs that he finds morally repugnant and entirely inconsistent with the values we try to uphold.

Trump has repeatedly displayed disregard for basic democratic norms, embraced divisive rhetoric and promoted policies and actions that undermine equality, truth and respect, he said.

He added that Kennedy has propagated unfounded conspiracy theories, particularly around public health, which have endangered lives and eroded public trust. Kennedy's stance on vaccines, and promotion of misinformation, Cllr Boylan said, reflects a disregard for science and public welfare.

Green Party Cllr Oliver Moran said the council doesn't normally write letters of congratulations for political success here, let alone overseas.

I dont know why we would start doing so now particularly when it's Donald Trump  somebody who boasts about sexual assault, he said.

Solidarity Cllr Brian McCarthy said Trump has been charged with 88 felony counts across four criminal investigations and found guilty of 34 of them, that he committed numerous abuses of power while in office, including trying to subvert the 2020 election result and inciting the Capitol riots, and he has been accused of rape and sexual assault, and found liable in one case.

Fianna Fail Cllr John Sheehan, a GP, said the city should have nothing to do with Robert F Kennedy Jnr given his track record before Labour Cllr Peter Horgan said Kennedy has been disavowed by the Kennedy clan.

US President John F Kennedy on his visit to Cork in June 1963.

He is nothing to John F Kennedy, or to Robert F Kennedy Snr, or Edward Kennedy. He cant hold their shoe laces, he said.

Lord Mayor Dan Boyle, who has dual citizenship, said there is a deep and abiding history between Ireland and the US, a democratic state whose processes and procedures we need to respect.

But in respecting those procedures, I dont believe we are obliged to accept the values of people whose values are inimically opposed to the values that are held in this country, and I see no purpose in this motion being approved, he said.

But by not approving it, the council is not saying anything anti-American  the respect we have towards the country, the relationship, will still be as strong as it ever was."
As a freshly elected TD, Holly Cairns was shocked by the scale and sophistication of lobbying that goes on in politics.

The Social Democrats leader, who is fighting to retain her seat in the highly competitive Cork South West constituency as she also prepares to welcome her first child, believes that public funding has for a long time been allocated on the basis of who shouts the loudest. This, she says, needs to change.

"I was actually taken aback by it when I first got elected. I wasn't aware of how all of the lobbying goes on, and it was really eye-opening to see it.

"A really good example of that is during covid-19, when places were starting to reopen, restrictions were being lifted, and there was a time when you could go for a pint in the pub but you couldn't go to the birth of your child, partners still weren't allowed into the maternity hospitals.

"We were experiencing the lobbying from the different sectors. But a group of people who weren't an organised lobby were women just about to give birth, or who had just given birth, and their partners."

She says that powerful lobbyists and groups that represent sectors such as agriculture and greyhound racing receive significant financial allocations out of annual budgets, while vulnerable groups such as those with disabilities miss out.

Nitrates Derogation

Having grown up on a small dairy farm, Cairns is quick to hit out at policies adopted by the outgoing Government and previous administrations, especially on the nitrates derogation, which she says is not reinforcing a green brand, but jeopardising it.

The Nitrates Directive, which came into force in 1991, aims to protect water quality from agricultural pollution. The Nitrates Derogation allows farmers to exceed the limit of 170kg of livestock manure nitrogen per hectare set down in the regulations, up to a maximum of 220kg or 250kg per hectare.

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns with candidates at the launch of the party's general election campaign at the Royal Institute of the Architects in Ireland, Merrion Square, Dublin.

"What's happened in our agriculture sector has massively benefited, for example, fertiliser companies. It's massively advantaged to people who are in bigger dairy, and then the big companies that export all of that. Who is disadvantaged, predominantly the small farmer, these farms become completely unviable.

"The narrative from politicians is, any attempt to try and change this is somehow a threat to the agriculture community. It is the same kind of playbook that's come out over the last 30 years, it's not just this government ... the kind of intensification of the agriculture sector, and it's very clear where the money is going and who has lost out as a result of this."

She singles out the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA), a group which Taoiseach Simon Harris, Tanaiste Micheal Martin, and Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald have visited on the campaign trail in recent days.

"When the IFA are lobbying us, I don't hear enough about what the kind of small farms that have become unviable need, compared to their very strong bid to keep the nitrates derogation in place."

She says agriculture has changed rapidly in a short period of time, during which we have gone from small family farms of 30 acres or less to an intensification of the sector, at the expense, she believes, of our green credentials.

"Consistent policy over the last decade or two has changed the lay of the land in that sense, and a lot of those farms are unviable or they have dry stock and somebody working in a full-time job, or they've been bought up by the bigger dairy farms. Do we need to look at that and change it? We 100% do."

"We're a country that has always been so proud of our agriculture sector and this kind of image that we have abroad of this green agriculture sector and these small family farms. That's why, for example, Kerrygold is sold for more than butter from other countries. It's a very important brand to us.

"What should we be doing? Protecting that brand. How do we do that? Actually practice more green agriculture. It does put it at risk when, for example, we're one of the only countries that have the derogation and use more chemical nitrogen than other countries are allowed to. That's not reinforcing a green band, if anything, that jeopardises it."

Ms Cairns says that the coalition's emphasis on retaining a nitrates derogation has "just walked farmers to a cliff edge".

What we're saying is, instead of waiting and walking farmers to a cliff edge, accept the reality, we have to change the way we practice and let's focus on protecting our green brand

"Because Ireland, when you consider our climate, our soil, all of the advantages we have in terms of being an agricultural country, we should be the country that's vying to be held up as the example of the future of agriculture, the most sustainable type."

Constituency battle

While excited about the impending arrival of her baby, Ms Cairns cannot pretend that she is anything but "gutted" about the likelihood of missing the end of what is a short sharp election campaign.

This election is critical for her personally, but also the party she leads.

"I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it does feel like a bit of a disadvantage to be due within a week of polling day, there's no template for it, so we just kind of have to figure it out as we go along."

Based in a three-seat constituency where Independent Ireland candidate Michael Collins is widely expected to top the poll, she faces significant opposition from sitting Fianna Fail TD Christopher O'Sullivan, as well as two Fine Gael candidates in senator Tim Lombard and councillor Noel ODonovan. Labour's Evie Nevin has strong name recognition and Sinn Fein, which is running Claire OCallaghan, cannot be ruled out. It could all make for a multi-way scrap for two seats.

Having made it clear that she is serious about entering Government after this month's election, losing her seat would have serious consequences for the Social Democrats party.

But singling out Liam Quaide in Cork East, Padraig Rice in Cork South-Central, and Jen Cummins in Dublin South-Central, she believes there are gains to be made.

"After the last election the one thing I learned is that you just don't know what's going to happen in the three-week campaign. We would really hope to make gains and continue the momentum we got the local elections where we nearly doubled. Our councilors became the second largest party in Dublin City Council, I hope there's huge potential for us to grow."

She is adamant that are a number of "deal breakers" for the party in any coalition formation talks that may come about, in particular the Social Democrats will be expecting delivery on disability, health, housing, childcare, and climate.

A senior minister for disability is also a red-line for the party, because there hasn't been the "political will" to date to ensure the provision of services.

"We want to go into Government, but we don't want to go in for the sake of it," Ms Cairns says.
You can expect the knock on the door any evening now. The polite tap which precedes an exchange with canvassers and candidates, the kind of conversation which usually concludes with you might think of me on the day, or some variation of that line, as they hurry off into the gloaming.

When it comes to the substance of the conversation, your columnist is happy to make a couple of suggestions. Yes, you're well able to make your own points, no-one is saying any different, but who among us doesnt suffer from lesprit de lescalier?

Of course, it would take the French to come up with a name for the feeling of disappointment when you think of the perfectly-judged retort just as youre heading down the stairs.

Or just as you close the front door.

But on the off-chance youre stuck, heres an opening gambit to try out on those who seek your vote  specific enough to get a focused answer but not so narrowly focused the candidate can plead ignorance.

What are their plans to improve the lot of small businesses in Ireland?

It seems that every week we read of yet another small enterprise closing, often after years in operation, and Cork has offered plenty of examples recently.

A quick look around Leeside shows the toll being taken on small businesses even in the last couple of weeks. A few days ago Perry Street, a cafe business with outlets in the city centre, Grange, and Ringaskiddy announced that it was closing all of those outlets.

The week before that another well-known bar and restaurant near the city closed  Blairs in Blarney shut after almost four decades in operation.

And, of course, a couple of weeks before that again, Lennoxs, the much-loved chip shop on Corks southside, closed its doors for the last time, over seventy years after it opened on the Bandon Road. Even as this column was going to print, another cafe, Dunleas in Blackpool shut down.

Everyone is aware that the hospitality industry is facing specific challenges at present, but theres something unnerving about the variety of outlets being felled  city centre cafe, suburban chipper, or semi-rural pub, nothing seems proof against the scythe

These are serious losses. When small operations which are rooted in their community close down, those communities are not quite the same afterwards. Employment centre and social hub, service provider, and identifying landmark  those small businesses have different identities according to whos using them, and all of them help to bind the people of an area into a community that isnt just a zone sketched on a map.

Take Josephs Hair Salon in Glasheen, Cork. Every year owner Joe Byrne and his staff offered free haircuts to homeless people in December and aided people with addiction issues all year round. In September they put together back-to-school bags for children in need and looked after struggling families at Communion time.

Joe Byrne will close the salon at the end of this year for health reasons, but its story stands for dozens of other small business all across the country. Just as its closure will leave a huge absence in the local area, that absence is replicated all over Cork, and all over Ireland, when a genuine community business closes.

Fair enough, your candidate says, when you point out the number of small businesses closing around the country: what do you want me to do about it?

This is a trick question, of course. In this two-hander its the candidate whos the one charged with coming up with imaginative and energetic responses, though the imagination and energy are dependent on one obvious precondition: recognising why those businesses are struggling in the first place.

Plethora of problems

In Cork there are plenty of problems which combine to militate against small operators. Many readers will be aware of the ongoing shambles that goes for public transport in Cork lately  the unreliable bus service can be traced to the difficulties Bus Eireann faces in recruiting drivers, and other factors, but if a customer feels the journey isnt worth it then he or she doesnt even try to reach their destination. Not good news for businesses at that destination.

Similarly, if an employee cant be sure he or she can make work on time then the employer has a staffing problem.

Add in the genuine misgivings many people have about their safety in parts of Cork City, particularly at night, and the reasons for a lack of footfall become clearer, with the struggles of small business coming into sharp relief.

These problems and the way they connect to each other will be familiar to readers far beyond the borders of Cork. Recognising those connections would be a major plus for any candidate knocking on your door, though they also mean more work: if the candidate is interested in helping small businesses then the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Department of Transport, and the Department of Justice would have be combine to address the problems above.

Theres an existing template for TDs new and old when it comes to co-ordinated action. Perhaps the candidate at your door can get some advice from outgoing Taoiseach Simon Harris on pulling together a city centre task force.

If so, dont forget to include the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage as well. That Department is well-placed to advise local authorities on issues which can help small businesses  and which hinder small businesses. It would be interesting to hear the views of election candidates in Cork, for instance, on the revived plans for a Kildare Village-type development near Carrigtwohill.

This project envisions dozens of retail outlets in a village-type environment: great news, no doubt, for the retail outlets in pre-existing village-type environments all over East Cork  ie real villages. Those small businesses, embedded in their communities, will probably not be affected by the vast development opening nearby.

Great news for the small businesses in Cork City also, which can now look forward to even fewer customers with this draw to the east

Great news too for a local road system which is operating on a one-more-lane-will-solve-everything approach. Already a byword for congestion and pollution, loading thousands more cars onto the existing infrastructure is bound to end well.

Great news for the local authority, Cork County Council, which went to the High Court for a judicial review overturning an order from the Office of the Planning Regulator not to rezone the land for the development. Great news for the local authority next door, Cork City Council, as commercial rates in its catchment area are likely to ... well, not such great news for Cork City Council if the proposed new development cuts even further into the footfall in the city.

Anyway, feel free to take these as your starting point.

And as your candidate beats a retreat, dont forget to say Ill give you every consideration.
Writing about Palestine often feels immoral, even if the purpose of that writing is to advocate and enlighten. To profit in any way off the misery of others  whether monetarily, reputationally, or even self-righteously  seems counterintuitive to that goal.

While it is despair more than self-interest that motivates many of us, there exists a heaviness that marinates every written word. That weight is dwarfed in the context of the suffering of those you hope to help, but its debilitating, nonetheless.

Even to be praised for sitting at a desk and raging is problematic. The abuse sits easier, probably because there is an element of truth to it. I am not a genocide scholar, nor an academic. I am not even an Arabic speaker. I am not a survivor. I am not Palestinian or Lebanese. I live in Ireland, one of the safest, whitest countries on earth.

Screaming from this remove is a bit like a billionaire lamenting poverty. With my electric vehicle (cobalt, Congo) and my Nikes (Cambodia, child labour), I am absolutely part of the problem. Pissing off bigots while depriving myself of Starbucks and McDonalds is hardly a sacrifice. Its a blessing.

Palestinians try to extinguish fire caused by an Israeli strike that hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Picture: AP/Abdel Kareem Hana

The only solace is this: thanks to my employers, I have a platform. That platform could be used for many things. Writing about a genocide  the most pressing moral question of a lifetime  seems the most obvious thing in the world to do.

That other people do not think so confounds and depresses me. Maybe this writing  even from such a position of privilege  gives hope to a solitary Palestinian reader that we do in fact care. Maybe it makes the Irish Government feel uncomfortable. Maybe that discomfort embarrasses them into doing something. Unlikely, but its worth a try.

All I am certain of is that those of us who can have a moral obligation to act as surrogates for people in Palestine and Lebanon who are silenced by consequence of birth. We may be unqualified surrogates, but, in the absence of an alternative, we have no choice.

If Martin Luther King was right, if the curve of the universe is indeed long, and it trends towards justice, the day will soon come when they can speak freely for themselves without fear of death or torture. When that day arrives, people like me can go back to writing about how wonderful Cillian Murphy is. In the meantime, well, prepare to be uncomfortable.

We are all complicit

We are all complicit. To different degrees, sure, but complicit all the same. For that, we should never expect forgiveness for what we have allowed to happen in Palestine. The same is true of Sudan, Yemen, Congo and elsewhere in the Global South, but Palestine  quite literally  is the line we have drawn in the sand for ourselves, and it has now become the greatest moral question of our time.

And, on the daily evidence broadcast live into our homes, we are failing. Every day. And we should not demand or expect forgiveness from those people we have ignored to the point of obliteration. You couldn't even argue that we abandoned them, for to abandon we would need to have valued them in the first place.

Why? Because they are brown or Muslim? Because their teeth are broken from a century of abuse? Because we watch their children, forced to bathe in sewage, and deduce that they are lesser? Because they choose to resist, and the violence of that resistance repulses us, despite the very freedoms we enjoy we owe to violent, desperate resistance against an occupying, colonising power?

Whatever our reasoning, if they  the people of Palestine  survive this, we deserve nothing but their spite and contempt. For theirs is an unfathomable, yet utterly avoidable grief we will never fully comprehend, no matter our capacity for empathy.

There is another casualty, however, much less visceral, but whose wound is so profoundly infected it may well poison our children, and our children's children thereafter. It is that of our collective conscience.

It manifests itself, not among the thousands of ordinary, decent people who march on Saturdays and lobby their politicians and actively educate and advocate and boycott, but through institutional cowardice, political posturing and corporate complicity.

The result of which is a rot so profound it has caused most of us to abdicate our principles, and conveniently look away. To forget. To accept the fallacy that its complicated, or Twas ever thus.

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at a hospital in Deir al-Balah.

If one of Israels calculations was that if they could prolong the slaughter long enough, people would eventually tire and shift their gaze, they have been proven correct. Familiarity breeds contempt, even if  in the case of choosing to ignore the pictures of decapitated children because of how it impacts our day  that contempt is actually for ourselves.

Thats why it is imperative Palestine never leaves our front pages. That we must continue to name the dead. Continue to expose those who murdered them. Refuse to call it a war, like it is some fair fight, when it is the flagrant genocide of a people.

What would you do, I honestly ask, if your child burned to death the night after your neighbour's child was blown to pieces, six months after your cousin's five-year-old little girl was shot 355 times? Each one murdered by ammunition fired with hateful intent by Israel, bought by America and made by Europe?

I know what Id do.

Make no mistake, this was never about hostages or finishing Hamas, it was about erasure. Of a people, a culture and a history. Of Palestine. Of Lebanon. Of common humanity. Not by Jews. But by Israel.

Nobody likes being told what to do, but let me tell you this, if we look away, we are the problem. To paraphrase Dostoevsky, our worst sin is we have destroyed and betrayed ourselves for nothing. What is happening to their children might someday happen to ours.

There but for the grace of God go all of us, but if that dreadful day ever comes, we can never claim we didnt know.
PERMISSION to travel is being sought by Cork citys Passport Office: but its only moving 500 metres, downriver, to the eastern side of City Hall.

The public-facing passport service is set to move downriver in the city centre, from its existing base at 1A South Mall, to a new location in Corks south docks, on Albert Quay, to a site proposed nearly a decade ago for Corks Events Centre.

It's one of two Cork docklands lettings currently being finalised by the Office of Public Works (OPW), Irish Examiner Property has learned.

As significant for the type of user in the setting, as for the amount of space being taken up, the Passport Office will be the more public user: the second under discussion is a significant legal-based State service coming to Cork in its first move out of Dublin.

Well-placed sources confirm that the Office of Public Works has been in ongoing, and by now protracted, discussions with agents acting for developers OCallaghan Properties Navigation Square Development Properties ongoing 360,000 sq ft development by Albert Quay and near Kennedy Quay by the corner with Victoria Road.

By award winning architects Henry J. Lyons, Navigation Square on Albert Quay is a striking development designed to reflect its maritime history and dockland setting. Picture: Chani Anderson

The impending move, yet to be fully inked by the OPW, will see the vital Department of Foreign Affairs public passport office for citizens and travelers move from the end of the traditional Central Business District the South Mall, to the burgeoning docklands development, and will add to the wider public experience of the new CBD.

At present the current public passport office at 1A South Mall is open Monday to Fridays: its not yet confirmed when the move will take place to Navigation Square, about 500 metres away downriver.

Queues outside the passport office in South Mall in 2010 during strike action by passport staff

Navigation Square spans four associated buildings on a former warehouse 2.25 acre site previously owned by Eircom, as well as Cork City Council who used it for staff parking, and first cleared planning back in 2017, earmarked for c 90 million office development, being let by joint agents Savills and CBRE.

Earlier plans for it by OCallaghan Properties included its proposed use as the citys Events Centre, but OCP lost out in the bidding process to BAM and their site at South Gate Bridge and which has yet to break ground.

Meanwhile, also set to move to the OCP-developed Navigation Square, to NS1, the largest of the developments four blocks at 120,000 sq ft, is the Cork office of Jacobs Engineering, an Irish-based multinational engineering company with a 125-year history: Jacobs Engineering is expected to announce its move to the city centre from 2025 very shortly.

Jacobs Engineering, Mahon. The 44,000 sq ft of office space on 4.9 acres is on the market for 4.5m+ as the firm plans to relocate and lease c 10,000 sq ft at Navigation Square in Cork city centre

Its due to relocate to NS1, now owned by French investors Corum who paid 60 million for the block in 2021.

Designed by Henry J Lyons Architects, Navigation Square 1 is anchored by Deutsche Borse Group, via its post-trade exchange services arm, Clearstream, and will bring NS1 close to full occupancy.

The striking entrance to Navigation Square Picture: Chani Anderson

Its not yet confirmed how much space Jacobs Engineering will take at Navigation Square but it started it search for Cork city centre offices seeking in excess of 10,000 sq ft and is likely to be committing to about that sort of quantum or a little bit more.

Letting agents for NS1/Corum are Lisney and BNP Paribas, who had been quoting headline rents of 35 psf. It's likely that BNP Paribas also is dealing with the OPW on the legal-based service it is seeking to find space for in Cork, in that service's first move/expansion out of Dublin.

Last week Jacobs Engineering put their current offices in suburban Mahon up for sale with a 4.5 million+ price tag via the Cork offices of Cushman & Wakefield.

Jacobs have 44,000 sq ft of offices at the entrance to Mahon Industrial Estate, with 165 car parking spaces on 4.9 acres and which is likely to be substantially redeveloped.

Its located near Bessborough, and the immediate hinterland has already seen substantial residential developments  including high density apartment schemes - come and replace former more industrial/commercial uses.

Listing the Jacobs Engineering site at 4.5m+ Cushman & Wakefield director Siobhan Young said the departure of Jacobs Engineering provided an immediate opportunity to rent the modern first-floor office accommodation while master-planning the remainder of this 4.9-acre site for a variety of uses including residential, health, education or hotel uses.

Jacobs Mahon building was originally developed in the 1990s by Measurex, and had portions upgraded just five years ago.

Their move to the city centre comes after law firm RDJ relocated back to the South Mall in summer 2023 after a decade in City Gate, Mahon: RDJ took 18,000 sq ft in modern offices, vacated by Salesforce, at JCD Groups 85 South Mall, where it joined KPMG.
Israel has carried out two air strikes on the Syrian capital Damascus, killing at least 15 people, the state news agency said.

One of the strikes targeted an office of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group. Sixteen people were also wounded in the air strikes, state news agency SANA said, quoting an unnamed military official.
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Family of Tyrone Man Expresses Concerns About His Detention in UAE

The family of a man from Co Tyrone has voiced their concerns after he was detained in Dubai for posting a negative review online about a dog grooming service he formerly worked for.

Craig Ballentine, 33, hailing from Cookstown, was captured upon his return to the country for a two-week holiday.

He is being held under the strict cybercrime laws prevalent in the region regarding online criticism.

A conviction could result in a year-long prison sentence and a fine exceeding 25,000.

His family describes the charges he potentially faces as rather absurd.

The idea of Craig facing prison time for a Google review is simply appalling; we are all experiencing sleepless nights and heightened anxiety.

Its something I never thought could happen.

This situation traces back to 2023 when Mr. Ballentine was employed at the dog grooming service in Dubai for several months.

After falling ill, he took two days off sick and provided the necessary documentation to his employer.

However, advocates claim the business reported him as having absconded, allegedly breaching local employment laws.

He spent several months in uncertainty while trying to resolve the issue.

During this time, he was prohibited from leaving the country or seeking other employment.

After returning to Northern Ireland, he posted a negative Google review about the business online.

He was detained upon his return for a short holiday a few weeks ago.

The campaign group Detained in Dubai stated that the company had not reached out to him regarding the review.

We are advocating for diplomatic intervention in Craigs situation. No one should be imprisoned abroad or subjected to legal proceedings over an online review.

We are optimistic about a favorable outcome for Craig, a spokesperson commented.

His mother mentioned that his former employer could have simply requested him to remove the review.

This has gone too far. He did not use offensive language; he merely expressed his opinions, which is the purpose of review platforms.

We urge the government, the foreign office, and authorities in Dubai to allow our son to return home.

Detained in Dubai reported that they have handled thousands of similar cases.

This incident parallels that of Irish woman Tori Towey, who returned to Dublin in July after a travel ban imposed by Dubai was lifted.

The issue had been raised in the Dail by Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, who noted that Ms. Towey was unable to leave even after experiencing domestic violence.

After being assaulted in her residence, she faced charges related to attempted suicide and alcohol consumption.

Those charges were eventually dismissed.
This morning, New Zealands parliament experienced a temporary suspension as Maori members performed a haka to disrupt the voting process on a controversial bill intended to reinterpret a 184-year-old treaty between the British and Indigenous Maori.

Last week, the ACT New Zealand party, which is a junior partner in the countrys centre-right coalition government, introduced the bill that seeks to clarify the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The Treaty, initially signed in 1840 by the British crown and over 500 Maori chiefs, established the framework for governance between the two parties. The interpretation of its clauses continues to influence legislation and policy today.

This morning, the proposed bill successfully passed its first reading and will now proceed to a select committee.

However, the contentious legislation is viewed by many Maori and their supporters as a threat to the rights of New Zealands Indigenous population, which constitutes approximately 20% of the countrys 5.3 million residents.
Russian Warships Detected by Defense Forces Off the Southern Coast of Ireland

The Irish Defence Forces recently deployed a specialized observation aircraft on two occasions to an area of the Atlantic south of Cork, where Russian naval vessels, including one outfitted with advanced hypersonic missiles, were reportedly navigating.

It is also believed that assets from the Irish Naval Service participated in the monitoring efforts.

Flight tracking systems indicated that a C295 Irish Air Corps aircraft flew over the region south of Ireland on both Monday and Tuesday.

On Sunday, three Russian ships, spearheaded by the warship Admiral Golovko, traversed the English Channel and proceeded towards the Atlantic.

The other two Russian vessels included a refueling tanker and the research ship Yantar, which has a crew of 60.

The Yantar is recognized as a Russian intelligence vessel and has been noted in recent years by Western military forces for loitering near undersea cable routes.

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According to reports from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. foreign policy think tank, the Yantar is equipped with submersibles capable of cutting or tapping into undersea cables.

Upon their departure from the base, the Russian Defence Ministry stated that the main task of the mission was to display the flag and ensure naval presence in operationally important areas of the offshore maritime zone.

It is understood that as the vessels navigated the English Channel towards the Atlantic, they were monitored as part of a coordinated operation involving British, French, and U.S. aircraft and ships, along with Irish military planes and naval vessels as they moved south of Ireland.

Timeline of operation

Just after 3am on Sunday, while positioned south of Cornwall, the Yantar deactivated its transponder, rendering it invisible on non-military vessel tracking systems.

While the Russian vessels had their transponders turned off for some time, it is believed they did not enter the Irish exclusive economic zone (EEZ)the maritime area over which Ireland holds resource rightsbefore proceeding into the Atlantic.

At 1:08pm on Monday, the Irish Defence Forces C295 aircraft departed from the Casement military airfield at Baldonnell, west of Dublin. It arrived in an area approximately 250 kilometers south of the Cork coast by 2:20pm.

The plane remained undetected by flight tracking systems for just over an hour before reappearing and later returning to its base.

On the following day, it followed a similar route.

The area surveilled by the C295 is home to nine underwater cables that transmit telecommunications data between the United States, Africa, and Europe.

Defence Forces C295

The C295 is one of two aircraft utilized by the Defence Forces to conduct covert and overt missions, in addition to search and rescue operations.

Equipped with advanced sensors and communications technology, it can track boats and ships from a distance, including systems capable of discerning details as minuscule as car registration plates from an altitude of 15,000 feet.

When asked about the C295s movements, the Defence Forces stated that the Irish Naval Service and Air Corps conduct 24/7 monitoring of vessels within the Irish EEZ. This surveillance enables timely detection and response to potential maritime situations.

The Defence Forces are committed to safeguarding Irelands maritime interests and ensuring the security of our waters and infrastructure through vigilant and ongoing surveillance operations. Any specific vessel movements or interactions are evaluated within the broader framework of routine maritime monitoring and adherence to international law.
Trump and Biden Hold White House Meeting to Discuss Ukraine and the Middle East

US president-elect Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, longstanding political adversaries, engaged in a friendly discussion yesterday about Ukraine and the Middle East in a meeting aimed at showcasing a seamless transfer of power despite significant policy disagreements.

The two leaders sat together in front of a crackling fire in the Oval Office, presenting a serene image that concealed the underlying tensions between them.

They covered essential national security and domestic policy matters affecting the nation and the globe, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre informed reporters.

It was indeed very cordial, very gracious, and substantive.

Mr. Biden contended that supporting Ukraine was beneficial for US national security because a strong and stable Europe would prevent America from being drawn into conflicts, as stated by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan in a press briefing.

Members of the media stood outside the West Wing as President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump convened in the Oval Office of the White House.

Mr. Trump has vowed to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict swiftly, though he has not clarified how he intends to achieve this.

Mr. Trump shared with the New York Post that he and Mr. Biden discussed the Middle East extensively during their meeting.

I wanted to hear his perspectives on our current position, the Post quoted Mr. Trump as saying. He shared them with me, and he was very gracious.

A Democrat, Mr. Biden triumphed over Mr. Trump in the 2020 election but withdrew from the 2024 race in July following an unfavorable debate against Mr. Trump, a Republican. Vice President Kamala Harris emerged as the candidate but ultimately lost to Mr. Trump.

A smooth transition

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Both leaders emphasized the importance of a smooth transition of power.

Looking forward to facilitating a smooth transitiondoing everything we can to ensure youre accommodated, whatever you require, Mr. Biden told the president-elect. Welcome, welcome back.

Mr. Trump, set to assume office on January 20, remarked, Politics can be tough, and often a rather unkind world, but today it feels nice, and I truly appreciate ita transition thats going to be as seamless as possible. And I greatly appreciate that, Joe.

Reporters yelled out questions, but were asked to leave.

The two men iterated their commitment to a smooth transition of power.

The traditional gesture of welcoming the president-elect into the Oval Office was absent when Mr. Trump took office after Mr. Biden won in 2020.

Over the years, the two have exchanged criticism. Their respective teams maintain vastly differing stances on various issues, including climate change, relations with Russia, and trade.

Mr. Biden, 81, has depicted Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy, whereas Mr. Trump, 78, has characterized Mr. Biden as inept. Following the 2020 election defeat, Mr. Trump made unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.

During their meeting, Mr. Biden advocated for his priorities for Congress lame-duck session, which included government funding and additional disaster relief resources, according to Ms. Jean-Pierre.

Mr. Bidens chief of staff Jeff Zients and Mr. Trumps, Susie Wiles, were also present.

Republicans gain control of Congress, bolstering Trumps agenda

Trumps Gaetz appointment elicited surprise

First Lady Jill Biden accompanied Mr. Biden in welcoming Mr. Trump upon his arrival. The White House noted that she presented Mr. Trump with a handwritten letter of congratulations for his wife, Melania Trump, and conveyed her teams readiness to aid in the transition.

Melania Trumps office stated on X that she would not participate in the White House meeting. Her husbands return to the Oval Office to initiate the transition process is encouraging, and she wishes him great success, it remarked.

Earlier that day, Mr. Trump celebrated his electoral success with House Republicans. Edison Research indicated that Republicans would hold a majority in the House, implying that Mr. Trumps party would oversee both chambers of Congress.

Donald Trump celebrated his victory earlier in the day with House Republicans.

Isnt it wonderful to win? Its great to win. Its always delightful to come out on top, Mr. Trump stated. The House performed exceptionally well.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk joined Mr. Trump at the gathering with Republican lawmakers.

Transition efforts partially delayed

Despite the display of camaraderie, the transition process has encountered some setbacks.

Mr. Trumps team, which has announced several appointees for the incoming presidents cabinet, has yet to finalize agreements concerning office space, government equipment, and access to government officials, facilities, and information, as mentioned by the White House.

The Trump-Vance transition attorneys continue to engage constructively with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements outlined by the Presidential Transition Act, stated Brian Vance, a spokesperson for Mr. Trumps transition team, referencing the legislation that governs the transfer of power.

Valerie Smith Boyd, director of the Partnership for Public Services Center for Presidential Transition, a non-profit organization advising incoming administrations, emphasized that the agreement highlights the fact that the US has only one president at a time and includes commitments to sign ethics agreements prohibiting profiting from information obtained during the transition.

That agreement must be signed for interaction with federal agencies to commence, she noted. Everything hinges on that.

This meeting marked the first substantial interaction between the two since their debate in June. Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump, and Ms. Harris also appeared together in New York on September 11, commemorating the site of the 2001 plane attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives.
Inheritor in SW China's Sichuan passes on oil-paper umbrella craft, brings wealth to local people

People's Daily Online) 16:30, November 14, 2024

Photo shows Bi Liufu and a huge oil-paper umbrella made by him. (People's Daily Online/Guo Ying)

Bi Liufu, a 65-year-old national-level inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage of Fenshui oil-paper umbrella making techniques, demonstrated his mastery by putting up a 50-kilogram oil-paper umbrella at the oil-paper umbrella museum in Fenshuiling township, Luzhou city, southwest China's Sichuan Province.

"This umbrella was on show at the 31st summer edition of the FISU World University Games held in Chengdu, the provincial capital, last year. But it was not the largest umbrella I made," Bi said.

He set the Guinness World Record for creating a mammoth umbrella weighing over 500 kilograms with a 16.2-meter diameter, which is now displayed in Yangshuo, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

With the popularity of Fenshui oil-paper umbrellas rising, Luzhou's oil-paper umbrella industry, with a history of more than 400 years, has made a remarkable comeback. The industry generated over 30 million yuan ($4.14 million) in revenue last year.

Bi Liufu prepares materials for making oil-paper umbrellas. (People's Daily Online/Guo Ying)

Each handmade Fenshui oil-paper umbrella requires 96 meticulous steps and uses carefully selected materials, including 3-year-old bamboo harvested at an altitude of 800 meters and wood of specific tree species.

Bi is the sixth-generation inheritor of the craft in his family. However, the road to success wasn't always smooth sailing. In the 1970s and 80s, the traditional oil-paper umbrellas nearly vanished from the market. Meanwhile, the oil-paper umbrella making techniques were dying out.

The turning point came in 2007 when the craft was recognized as a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage, followed by national recognition one year later.

China has attached unprecedented importance to intangible cultural heritage in recent years, and Fenshui oil-paper umbrellas have become a calling card of Fenshuiling township, Bi said.

A kid paints an oil-paper umbrella at the oil-paper umbrella museum in Fenshuiling township, Luzhou city, southwest China's Sichuan Province. (People's Daily Online/Guo Ying)

Bi's son, a computer science graduate, modernized the family business after establishing a company. To attract young people, he has established a design team, which has developed over 1,000 patterns of oil-paper umbrellas. He has also built an e-commerce team consisting of 40 members, with the team generating over 10 million yuan in online sales last year. In addition, he has cooperated with local elementary and secondary schools and educational tour institutions to organize regular educational tours on the oil-paper umbrella culture, and collaborated with brands to hold exhibitions and performances on the oil-paper umbrella culture, enabling more people to learn about oil-paper umbrellas.

"Our company employs about 80 permanent employees, each of whom earns a monthly salary of 5,000 yuan to 8,000 yuan," Bi said, adding that the company has cultivated a batch of young craftsmen.

Chen Siyun, a veteran artisan with 40 years of experience, and his wife work in Bi's company. They can earn about 20,000 yuan a month during peak seasons.

To pass on the craft of making oil-paper umbrellas, Bi has provided free training sessions for students over the past decades and nurtured more than 1,000 skilled craftsmen so far, Bi noted. He has also given regular lectures at Southwest Medical University, Sichuan Normal University, and Luzhou Vocational and Technical School.

(Web editor: Xian Jiangnan, Liang Jun)
Trump Appoints Musk and Ramaswamy to Head New U.S. Department

US president-elect Donald Trump has announced that Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will head the newly established Department of Government Efficiency.

Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy will pave the way for my Administration to eliminate government bureaucracy, reduce excessive regulations, cut wasteful spending, and reorganize Federal Agencies, stated the US President-elect.

Mr. Trump mentioned that their efforts would be completed by July 4, 2026, asserting that a smaller and more efficient government would be a gift to the nation on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The appointments acknowledge two of Mr. Trumps staunch supporters from the private sector.

Vivek Ramaswamy campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination against Donald Trump.

Latest US Election stories: States of Mind: Congressman wants framework for undocumented individuals in the US.

Mr. Musk contributed millions to support Mr. Trumps presidential campaign and appeared publicly alongside him.

Mr. Trump had previously indicated that he would offer Mr. Musk, the worlds wealthiest individual, a position in his administration focusing on government efficiency.

This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste, which is a significant number of people! the X CEO remarked, according to Mr. Trumps announcement.

In the statement, the South African-born billionaire referred to the new government initiative as potentially The Manhattan Project of our time, alluding to the American plan to develop the atomic bomb that played a crucial role in ending World War II.

Mr. Trump has also put forward Peter Hegseth, a Fox News host, to be his Secretary of Defense.

Mr. Hegseth served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a junior officer in the Minnesota National Guard before his tenure at Fox News and has frequently discussed the idea of dismissing generals and admirals he deems woke or politically correct.

He lacks experience in working at the Pentagon.

Later today, Mr. Trump will meet with President Joe Biden in the White House, as part of the process for an orderly transition of power.

Four years prior, then-President Trump declined to hold a similar meeting with Mr. Biden, claiming he had won the election.

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According to a statement from Wiltshire Police: The Crown Prosecution Service has authorized us to charge Rajan Naidu, 73, from Gosford Street, Birmingham, and Niamh Lynch, 22, from Norfolk Road, Bedford, with the destruction or damage of a protected ancient monument, as well as intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance.

They have been granted bail to appear at Salisbury Magistrates Court on 13 December.

Sophie Stevens, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS Wessex, stated: The Crown Prosecution Service has given clearance for Wiltshire Police to charge Naidu Rajan and Niamh Lynch with offenses related to damage inflicted on the protected monument Stonehenge on June 19, 2024.

I want to remind everyone that there are ongoing criminal proceedings against these individuals, and they are entitled to a fair trial.

It is imperative that there is no reporting, commentary, or online sharing of information that could potentially prejudice these proceedings.
11/14/2024

By Brett Buckner

His old college roommate convinced him to pick up the instrument he'd abandoned 20 years before. His boss convinced him to pursue a long-dormant dream. Together, those relationships paved the way for Bradley White to become a 40-year-old Marching Southerner. White was no stranger to the Marching Southerners. Back in 1996, the Wedowee native was playing trombone in the Randolph County High School marching band when he first saw the renowned Jacksonville State University (Jax State) band.

"I made my decision right then and there about where I was going to college," White said. "I was going to Jax State, and I was going to be a Marching Southerner." White did just that, marching from 2002 until 2005. Playing trombone was second nature, but studying was not. "Basically, I flunked out," White said, laughing. "I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do. I wasn't studying because I never had to study in high school. I get up to JSU, and I'm like, 'Why am I failing music theory this semester?' Well, probably because I needed to study."

When White left Jax State, he put his trombone away. Music was now in his past. He worked in retail for several years and had a series of unfortunate events. "It all just sort of caught up with me," he said. White spent nine years in retail, working his way up to a management position. "I learned at a very, very young age about leadership, about what's good leadership and what's bad leadership."

In 2009, while still working retail, White enlisted in the Alabama Air National Guard and eventually began earning those academic degrees. He received a bachelor's in emergency management from Jax State and then a master's degree in emergency management from the American Military University. The Air National Guard introduced discipline into White's life just as retail management taught him about leadership. "I had a lot on my plate at one time, and time management is key to everything," he said. "I didn't realize that back then ... now that I'm older, I realize, 'Hey, don't throw away opportunities when they come around.'" White put his degrees to work, leaving retail for a job with Homeland Security. He started playing trombone again when his best friend and former Jax State roommate, Dale Westbrooks, convinced him to join a local group called the Cheaha Winds. "I told him, 'Man, I sure do miss this.'"

At the time, White considered pursuing a Ph.D. in strategic studies, but playing with the Cheaha Winds ignited his passion for music. It took a conversation with his boss to put things in perspective. "He said, 'You're really more passionate about music,'" White remembered. "He said, 'You need to go for that.' He kind of nudged me in that direction." After being sent overseas for a few months, White, who'd remained in contact with Marching Southerners director Ken Bodiford, started practicing the trombone. By early August, he was back at band camp and pursuing an alternative fifth-year master's degree in music education.

"When you get to camp, they check your marching style, and you're playing to make sure that, okay, this person's going to be good enough to be on the field," he said. "If you practice and do what you're supposed to, you'll be fine. So, I practiced and did what I was supposed to do." But there was a learning curve, or rather, a re-learning curve because the military had a different marching style. "It was kind of funny," he said. "Some of it is the same. The position of attention is the same, but I had to actually break military habits. Getting back into it took me forever because it had been nearly 20 years."

White made the cut and officially joined the Marching Southerners. Bodiford believes that White has been a welcomed addition. With his military background and maturity, White is a role model for the younger students. "I have observed him going out of his way to offer a helping hand to the younger members," he said. "He approaches them with kind humility, and they seem to respond very well to his guidance. In fact, I believe he has become one of their favorite members."

Having someone with life experience is invaluable. "His discipline, dedication, and work ethic are evident in everything he does, and these qualities have certainly influenced the group in a positive way," Bodiford said. "He exemplifies how passion and commitment can lead to excellence, both on and off the field. His presence not only enhances our musical performances but also fosters a supportive and collaborative environment within the band." White isn't taking anything for granted this time. "I've done all this great stuff over the past few years, learned some hard life lessons, and now I understand what the hard work and the discipline part is," he said. "Even though it's a lot of pressure ... I think I enjoy it more now than I did when I was younger."
( Middle East Monitor )  Francesca Albanese did not mince her words. In a strongly worded speech at the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee on 29 October, the UN Special Rapporteur deviated from the typical line of other UN officials. She directed her statements to those in attendance.

Is it possible that after 42,000 people killed, you cannot empathise with the Palestinians? Albanese said in her statement about the need to recognise (Israels war on Gaza) as a genocide. Those of you who have not uttered a word about what is happening in Gaza demonstrate that empathy has evaporated from this room, she added.

Was Albanese too idealistic when she chose to appeal to empathy which, in her words, represents the glue that makes us stand united as humanity?

The answer largely depends on how we wish to define the role being played by the UN and its various institutions; whether its global platform was established as a guarantor of peace, or as a political club for those with military might and political power to impose their agendas on the rest of the world?

Albanese is not the first person to express deep frustration with the institutional, let alone the moral collapse of the UN, or the inability of the institution to effect any kind of tangible change, especially during times of great crises.

The UNs own Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, himself had accused the executive branch of the UN, the Security Council, of being outdated, unfair and an ineffective system.

The truth is that the Security Council has systematically failed in relation to the capacity to put an end to the most dramatic conflicts that we face today, he said, referring to Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine. Also, although noting that The UN is not the Security Council, Guterres acknowledged that all UN bodies suffer from the fact that the people look at them and think, Well, but the Security Council has failed us.

Some UN officials, however, are mainly concerned about how the UNs failure is compromising the standing of the international system, thus whatever remains of their own credibility. But some, like Albanese, are indeed driven by an overriding sense of humanity.

On 28 October, 2023, mere weeks after the start of the war, the Director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights left his post because he could no longer find any room to reconcile between the failure to stop the war in Gaza and the credibility of the institution.

This will be my last communication to you, Craig Mokhiber wrote to the UN High Commissioner in Geneva, Volker Turk. Once again we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes and the organisation we serve appears powerless to stop it, Mokhiber added.

The phrase once again may explain why the UN official made his decision to leave shortly after the start of the war. He felt that history was repeating itself, in all its gory details, while the international community remained divided between powerlessness and apathy.

The problem is multi-layered, complicated by the fact that UN officials and employees do not have the power to alter the very skewed structure of the worlds largest political institution. That power lies in the hands of those who wield political, military, financial and veto power.



UN in Gaza, Digital, Midjourney / Clip2Comic, 2024.

Within that context, countries like Israel can do whatever they want, including outlawing the very UN organisations that have been commissioned to uphold international law, as the Israeli Knesset did on 28 October when it passed a law banning UNRWA from conducting any activity or providing services in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

But is there a way out?

Many, especially in the Global South, believe that the UN has outlived its usefulness or needs serious reforms.

These assessments are valid, based on this simple maxim: The UN was established in 1945 with the main objectives of the maintenance of international peace and security, the promotion of the well-being of the peoples of the world, and international cooperation to these ends.

Very little of the above commitment has been achieved. In fact, not only has the UN failed at that primary mission, but it has become a manifestation of the unequalled distribution of power among its members.

Though the UN was formed following the atrocities of WWII, now it stands largely useless in its inability to stop similar atrocities in Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan and elsewhere.

In her speech, Albanese pointed out that, if the UNs failures continue, its mandate will become even more and more irrelevant to the rest of the world, especially during these times of turmoil.

Albanese is right, of course, but considering the irreversible damage that has already taken place, one can hardly find a moral, let alone rational justification of why the UN, at least in its current form, should continue to exist.

Now that the Global South is finally rising with its own political, economic and legal initiatives, it is time for these new bodies to either offer a complete alternative to the UN or push for serious and irreversible reforms in the organisation.

Either that or the international system will continue to be defined by nothing but apathy and self-interest.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Via Middle East Monitor
Belfast (Special to Informed Comment; Feature)  Since the beginning of Israels latest offensive against the Palestinian people in Gaza in October of last year, Israel has targeted the healthcare sector, not only as part of its military strategy but also as a means of genocide. The deliberate destruction of hospitals means there is no place where the wounded can be treated, leading them to eventual death. This problem is exacerbated by attacks on ambulance vehicles, further complicating efforts to transport the wounded to any partially functioning hospitals.

A report published by the United Nations Commission regarded Israels attacks on Gazas health facilities as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Chair of the UN Commission, Navi Pillay, stated: By targeting healthcare facilities, Israel is targeting the right to health itself, with significant long-term detrimental effects on the civilian population. Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system.

Moreover, Israels assault on the Palestinian healthcare sector has been unparalleled in its inhumanity. An analysis by the charity Save the Children, covering the period from October 7, 2023, to early April 2024, showed that the rate of Israeli attacks on healthcare in Gaza is higher than in any other conflict worldwide since 2018. According to Save the Children, on average, Israel carried out 73 attacks per month on Palestinian healthcare facilities. Ukraine followed with 67 attacks per month, while the Democratic Republic of Congo averaged 11 attacks per month.

As part of Israels strategy to destroy the health sector, it has also targeted healthcare staff. For example, last May, Dr. Adnan Al Bursh, head of the orthopedic department at Al-Shifa Hospital, was reportedly abducted by the Israeli army and tortured to death. After one year of the Israeli war on Gaza, an estimated 986 Palestinian healthcare personnel were killed by Israel, along with 85 civil defense workers. Al Jazeera indicated that 34 hospitals and 80 health centers became inoperative, in addition to the destruction of 131 ambulances.

International healthcare staff in Gaza do not feel safe from Israeli attacks either. For instance, in the previously mentioned Save the Children report, Dr. Simon Struthers, a pediatrician at a field hospital in Rafah, stated: We cant take risks and must be careful which route we take because of whats going on. Were fearful of whats coming from Israeli forces, rather than the local population, who are very supportive of us.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) argued last year that the Israeli militarys persistent and seemingly illegal assaults on healthcare facilities, staff, and transportation were further dismantling Gazas medical infrastructure and said that they should be examined as potential war crimes. The HRW quotes special adviser on Palestinian health A. Kayum Ahmed: Israels repeated attacks damaging hospitals and harming healthcare workers, already hard hit by an unlawful blockade, have devastated Gazas healthcare infrastructure. The strikes on hospitals have killed hundreds of people and put many patients at grave risk because theyre unable to receive proper medical care.

Sadly, many Palestinians may have died from natural causes and diseases such as cancer, diabetes or other treatable conditions, whose lives might have been saved if not for Israels destruction of Palestinian hospitals. These victims are not counted among those who died due to direct Israeli fire, though their deaths can still be attributed to the conditions created by the occupation and blockade. Even in times of ceasefire, Palestinians will continue to die unnecessarily as it will take time for the Palestinian healthcare sector to recover to its previous statewhich was already severely under-resourced due to Israels longstanding blockade on Gaza.

You may think that the circumstances of the Gaza War explain this attack on Palestinian healthcare. In fact, the targeting of healthcare facilities is not a new tactic in Israels conflict with the Palestinian people. According to a 2017 report issued by the charity Medical Aid for Palestine, 147 hospitals and clinics, along with 80 ambulances, were either damaged or destroyed in Israeli military offensives on Gaza between 2008 and 2017. Additionally, 145 medical staff, most of them ambulance drivers, were either injured or killed. In the West Bank, between October and December 2015, there were eight armed Israeli raids on Palestinian hospitals. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) documented 92 instances of damage to ambulances and 147 injuries to medical workers.

Considering the scale and history of attacks on the health sector and the targeting of Palestinian healthcare personnel by Israel, along with the failure of governments and the international community to hold Israel accountable  often appearing complicit  healthcare professionals and their representative bodies across the world should show solidarity with their colleagues in occupied Palestine. Healthcare organizations should also express their support by boycotting healthcare products produced in Israel and its illegal settlements before it is too late.



Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Al Jazeera English: Israel shells Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza
By Debra Benita Shaw, University of East London | 

(The Conversation)  Samantha Harveys Orbital has won the 2024 Booker prize. What it so skilfully and ambitiously exposes is the human cost of space flight set against the urgency of the climate crisis.

While a typhoon of life-threatening proportions gathers across south-east Asia, six astronauts and cosmonauts hurtle around Earth on the International Space Station. Their everyday routine of tasteless food and laboratory work is in stark contrast to the awesome spectacle of the blue planet, oscillating between night and day, dark and light, where international borders are meaningless.

Orbital was written during lockdown when the meaning of home (for those lucky enough to have one) changed forever. Theres a sense in which Harveys six astronauts return us to that moment when our homes became prisons and we were forced to contemplate the global effects of a virus that had no respect for national boundaries.

On the International Space Station, borders are only visible on the side of the Earth that is under night and only really as clusters of artificial light which shows cities. Rivers are nonsensical scorings  like strands of long fallen hair and the other side of the world will arrive in 40 minutes blurring it all.

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Russian cosmonaut Anton contemplates US astronaut Michael Collins iconic photograph of Apollo 11 leaving the surface of the Moon in 1969 with the Earth beyond. He thinks no Russian mind should be steeped in these thoughts, but he is captivated by where the people are in the photograph. Is Collins the only human not to appear in it? Or is he the only human presence we can be sure of?

Shaun has a postcard of Diego Velazquezs Las Meninas, sent to him by his wife. The paintings complex composition has been said to create a unique illusion of reality where it is unclear who the subject is. Is it the viewer? The royal child? King Philip IV and Queen Mariana of Spain who are depicted on the wall?

Welcome, Shauns wife writes on the postcard, to the labyrinth of mirrors that is human life. The Italian astronaut Pietro solves the labyrinth with the simple observation that the dog at the childs side must surely be the subject of the painting. [It is] the only thing that isnt slightly laughable or trapped within a matrix of vanities. Humans, Shaun concludes, are no big deal.

While we gaze at ourselves and try to ascertain what makes us different from a dog, which as French theorist Michel Foucault also observed is the only object in the painting that has no function other than to be seen, it reminds us that our differences are negligible. As Shaun concludes, we are also animals fighting for survival.

In 16 orbits, the Earth on its tilted axis delivers a succession of landmasses that the astronauts can name but are de-familiarised by distance and momentum. The Pyramids, the New Zealand fjords, and a desert of dunes are entirely abstract [and]  could just as easily be a closeup of one of the heart cells they have in their Petri dishes. Japanese astronaut Chies laboratory mice  the canaries in the coal mine of their endeavour  finally learn to negotiate micro gravity rounding their shoebox module like little flying carpets. And, on a spacewalk, British astronaut Nell looks back at the vast spread of the space station and, in this moment it, not earth, feels like home.

This disassociation from the planet is common among returned astronauts who often report a feeling of closer affinity with their spacecraft. Harveys evocative prose describes the tension between a longing for the planet they think of as mother and the ambition to leave home forever. At one point Shaun wonders why they are trying to go where the universe doesnt want them when theres a perfectly good earth just there that does. But later he expresses frustration with the necessity to orbit two hundred and fifty miles above the earth. The moon, he reckons, is just the start.

What Harveys novel so skilfully exposes is the human cost of space flight set against the urgency of the climate crisis. The future of humanity is written, Shaun tells Pietro, with the gilded pens of billionaires. So while an unprecedented weather event threatens life below, the six astronauts and cosmonauts are rigorously documenting their own selves, taking blood, urine, faecal and saliva samples and monitoring heart rates and blood pressure and sleep patterns to satisfy some grand abstract dream of interplanetary life away from Earth.

Orbital is a slim volume of 135 pages but the economy of Harveys writing manages to convey a whole universe of meaning. She taps the contemporary zeitgeist of planetary insecurity alongside the span of history from Las Meninas to the spectacle of astronauts imagineered, branded and ready, prepared for consumption by Hollywood and sci-fi, Space Odyssey and Disney. Theyre humans, writes Harvey, with a godly view thats the blessing and also the curse.

Hollywood aside, I was reminded more of John Carpenters budget film Dark Star where bored astronauts on an interminable mission to destroy unstable planets are fixated on their dwindling supply of toilet paper. There is a sense, in Orbital, that the mundanity of decay is already overwhelming the spectacle of orbit. The module is old and creaky and a crack has appeared. The International Space Station is, after all, due to be decommissioned in 2031. Harvey has written a novel for the end of the world as we know it. The hope it offers is that we might learn to know the earth differently, while we can.

Debra Benita Shaw, Debra Benita Shaw is Reader in Cultural Theory in the School of Architecture and Visual Arts, University of East London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Results indicate strong potential to upgrade Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources and expand resources to the north of the deposit

(All amounts expressed in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated)

Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - November 13, 2024) - Torex Gold Resources Inc. (the "Company" or "Torex") (TSX: TXG) announces assay results from the Company's ongoing drilling program at EPO. The results to date support Torex's goal of expanding resources to the north of the deposit and upgrading Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources.

Jody Kuzenko, President & CEO of Torex, stated: "The results from the first half of EPO's 2024 exploration and drilling program build on the success of the drilling programs conducted over the last few years. Drilling has confirmed mineralization extends beyond defined resources to the north and also indicates high potential to convert Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources in both the south and the northeast of the deposit. The expansion of resources to the north reinforces the underlying potential for EPO and, if follow-up drilling is successful, could open up new operating fronts to support additional production from EPO beyond what was outlined in the internal prefeasibility study released in September.

"We look forward to seeing the results from the second half of the 2024 program, which I expect will further indicate the potential to build on our resource inventory with the year-end mineral reserve and resource update and support the Company's target of sustaining annual gold equivalent production between 450,000 to 500,000 ounces beyond 2030. With only a few months remaining before Media Luna delivers first production and the Company returning to a strong free cash flow position, EPO is setting the stage for the capital efficient growth potential we see within the Media Luna Cluster and across the whole Morelos Property."

HIGHLIGHTS

Within the northeastern portion of the EPO deposit, drilling has highlighted the potential to upgrade Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources, with the most notable intercepts from drill hole ML23-1009 which returned 10.67 grams per tonne gold equivalent ("gpt AuEq") over 36.6 metres ("m"), including 44.80 gpt AuEq over 7.6 m; and drill hole ML23-1001 which returned 6.82 gpt AuEq over 18.9 m .

Drilling directly south of the defined resource encountered mineralization, highlighting the potential to expand Indicated Resources in that direction. Most notably, drill hole ML24-1035D intercepted 5.70 gpt AuEq over 7.5 m .

Drilling has also confirmed the expansion of mineralization to the north of EPO and has defined a northwest corridor with at least 100 m of vertical continuity. Notably, drill hole ML24-1017, a follow-up of drill hole ML23-942 (6.14 gpt AuEq over 15.8 m; press release dated September 5, 2023), intercepted 6.35 gpt AuEq over 5.1 m.

2024 EPO DRILLING & EXPLORATION PROGRAM

EPO currently hosts a gold equivalent Indicated Resource of over 1.15 Moz AuEq at a grade of 5.14 gpt AuEq and an Inferred Resource of over 0.72 Moz AuEq at a grade of 4.52 gpt AuEq.1 The focus of the 2024 drilling program at EPO is to upgrade Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources as well as expand the overall resource footprint, specifically to the north.

Assays for 22 holes drilled in 2023 that were received after the cut-off date to be included in the year-end 2023 mineral resource estimation have been included in this press release. For the 2024 program, 15 drill holes totalling 9,860 m drilled through the first three quarters of the year have been included. Results to date support the ability to grow Indicated Resources and expand Inferred Resources.

Torex has budgeted approximately $10 million for the 2024 drilling and exploration program at EPO. Drilling is progressing with four rigs and the Company is forecasting to achieve a forecast of 21,000 m by the end of the year.

Detailed drill results are reported in Table 4 (2023 results) and Table 5 (2024 results).

Drill hole intercepts are core lengths and not true widths. True width will be determined once the geological modelling to define the ore controls is completed. The gold equivalent grade calculation accounts for the same metal prices ($1,650/oz gold ("Au"), $22/oz silver ("Ag"), and $3.75/lb copper ("Cu")) as well as metallurgical recoveries (87% Au, 85% Ag, and 92% Cu) used in the current mineral resource estimate for the EPO deposit (effective date of December 31, 2023).

1) Mineral resource estimates for the Morelos Complex can be found in table 3 of this news release. AuEq values account for underlying metal prices and metallurgical recoveries used in resource estimates. For additional information on the mineral resource estimates for the Morelos Complex, please see the Company's Annual Information Form dated March 27, 2024 filed on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and on the Company's website at www.torexgold.com.

RESOURCE DELINEATION DRILLING PROGRAM

The strong results from the 2023 EPO drilling program wherein the quality and continuity of the mineralization was identified to the south of the deposit has underpinned the 2024 Resource Delineation drilling program. Six drill holes to date have returned favourable intercepts in the southern area of EPO, with the most notable being ML24-1035D (4.37 gpt AuEq over 10.5 m) and ML24-1037DA (5.12 gpt AuEq over 9.7 m). The drilling indicates the potential to upgrade Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources with the 2024 year-end mineral reserve and resource update.

These mineralized intercepts show a strong structural control, with mineralized ore shoots at the hanging-wall of the dikes containing up to 10 m of vertical extension and lateral continuity of at least 75 m.

Table 1: Highlights from the Resource Delineation drilling program to upgrade Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources to the south and the east at EPO

Drill Hole From

(m) To

(m) Core Length1

(m) Au

(gpt) Ag

(gpt) Cu

(%) AuEq2

(gpt) ML23-994D 738.84 758.00 19.16 4.01 2.9 0.30 4.54 Including 751.00 757.04 6.04 12.34 4.9 0.40 13.06 Including 751.00 754.22 3.22 22.96 6.5 0.35 23.63 ML23-997D 693.07 711.82 18.75 2.83 28.1 1.26 5.28 Including 700.00 703.30 3.30 10.73 15.6 1.02 12.60 Including 706.95 711.82 4.87 1.56 59.2 2.74 6.84 ML23-1001 706.00 713.75 7.75 1.14 31.6 1.22 3.55 and 732.40 751.31 18.91 1.56 72.6 2.62 6.82 ML23-1002 367.52 369.00 1.48 1.66 70.6 1.38 4.85 and 387.66 394.28 6.62 1.38 79.3 0.79 3.71 ML23-1003 174.72 176.15 1.43 2.40 35.2 0.62 3.88 and 176.35 178.00 1.65 10.61 43.9 0.37 11.80 ML23-1009 588.13 624.70 36.57 9.57 19.8 0.51 10.67 Including 588.13 595.68 7.55 43.33 48.3 0.51 44.80 ML24-1026A 474.96 479.25 4.29 0.52 55.8 1.40 3.56 and 494.41 503.00 8.59 0.20 69.6 1.31 3.26 Including 494.41 498.67 4.26 0.32 113.8 2.38 5.73 ML24-1030DA 467.03 469.49 2.46 6.22 20.0 0.28 6.94 Including 467.03 468.21 1.18 11.60 34.1 0.58 13.00 ML24-1035D 476.75 487.24 10.49 3.32 17.4 0.50 4.37 Including 477.84 485.36 7.52 4.43 22.5 0.59 5.70 ML24-1037DA 496.31 506.00 9.69 4.69 6.5 0.20 5.12 Including 497.31 499.10 1.79 4.03 20.0 0.83 5.66 Including 505.00 506.00 1.00 35.80 7.0 0.03 35.94

Notes to Table:

1) Intercepts are reported as core length (not true width/thickness). True width/thickness will be determined once the geological modelling to define the ore controls is completed.

2) Core lengths reflect drilling core recovery >98%.

3) The gold equivalent grade calculation used is as follows: AuEq = Au (gpt) + (Ag (gpt) * 0.0130) + (Cu (%) * 1.6480) and use the same metal prices ($1,650/oz Au, $22/oz Ag, and $3.75/lb Cu) and metallurgical recoveries (87% Au, 85% Ag, and 92% Cu) used in the year-end 2023 mineral resource estimate for EPO Underground.

To the southwest, mineralized intercepts are more discrete, with drill widths of less than 2 m and grades ranging from 3 to 7 gpt AuEq. Drilling from surface has been complex due to the presence of the clay-rich Copalillo fault zone, which resulted in two drill holes being abandoned this year.

To the northeast of the defined Inferred Resources, mineralization encountered in drill holes ML23-1009 (10.67 gpt AuEq over 36.6 m, including 44.80 gpt AuEq over 7.6 m) and ML23-1001 (6.82 gpt AuEq over 18.9 m) highlights the potential for Inferred Resources to be converted to Indicated Resources. This area will be subject to Resource Delineation drilling later this year once the geological modelling to define the ore controls is completed.

As part of the 2025 exploration program, the Company is evaluating an approximately 600 m exploration drift from South Portal Upper directly north over the upper portion of reserves at EPO at the 970 m elevation. This drift, as well as the lower elevation access tunnel connecting EPO to the Guajes Tunnel (planned to commence in mid-2025), will support lower cost, closer to the deposit drilling which will, in turn, inform and derisk the feasibility study mine design. The exploration drift will also provide access to the upper portion of EPO.

ADVANCED EXPLORATION DRILLING PROGRAM

Beyond the defined resource boundary to the north of EPO, mineralization encountered in drill hole ML23-942 (6.14 gpt AuEq over 15.8 m and 4.04 gpt AuEq over 11.2 m; press release dated September 5, 2023) drilled during the 2023 program was the basis for an Advanced Exploration drilling program. Six holes drilled in a north-south direction as part of the 2024 program have confirmed the mineralization continuity along a northwest trend extending for over 400 m with a vertical extension exceeding 100 m.

Most of the mineralized intercepts in the northern part of EPO are located at the hanging wall of the dikes, trapped at the contact between the limestones and the intrusive bodies that host most of the mineralization at the Media Luna Cluster. The latter suggests that the dike contacts could correspond to the main mineralization feeders.

Drill hole ML24-1017 (3.41 gpt AuEq over 8.3 m) confirms the vertical continuity of the mineralization at the hanging-wall of the dikes. The multiple mineralized intercepts encountered in this area suggest the potential for additional ore shoots that are yet to be tested.

Initial results from the 2024 drilling program support the addition of Inferred Resources to the north of EPO with the year-end mineral reserve and resource update. Assuming the ability to delineate Inferred Resources in this area in 2024, follow-up delineation drilling in 2025 will look to further upgrade resources in this area. Given that the vertical continuity of the mineralization encountered is potentially conducive to a long-hole mining method, the success of current and future drilling could support additional mining fronts at EPO, which in turn could support mining beyond what was identified in the prefeasibility study.

Table 2: Highlights from the Advanced Exploration drilling program to test the northern extension of EPO

Drill Hole From

(m) To

(m) Core Length1

(m) Au

(gpt) Ag

(gpt) Cu

(%) AuEq2

(gpt) ML23-1013 535.00 537.94 2.94 0.21 70.3 1.37 3.38 547.84 550.84 3.00 4.90 20.7 0.28 5.63 564.44 566.81 2.37 0.46 149.1 3.24 7.74 ML24-1017 699.48 703.68 4.20 2.21 26.0 0.53 3.42 721.00 722.68 1.68 3.43 23.5 0.17 4.02 850.95 859.28 8.33 0.44 45.2 1.44 3.41 887.35 892.45 5.10 3.70 30.4 1.37 6.35 ML24-1018 812.35 815.94 3.59 0.51 68.8 2.23 5.07 ML24-1020 782.61 785.62 3.01 0.67 66.5 2.18 5.13 796.37 796.98 0.61 3.71 54.8 1.82 7.42 ML24-1022 774.99 778.17 3.18 3.56 39.0 0.95 5.64 ML24-1031 217.65 220.75 3.10 2.64 134.3 0.02 4.42

Notes to Table:

1) Intercepts are reported as core length (not true width/thickness). True width/thickness will be determined once the geological modelling to define the ore controls is completed.

2) Core lengths reflect drilling core recovery >98%.

3) The gold equivalent grade calculation used is as follows: AuEq = Au (gpt) + (Ag (gpt) * 0.0130) + (Cu (%) * 1.6480) and use the same metal prices ($1,650/oz Au, $22/oz Ag, and $3.75/lb Cu) and metallurgical recoveries (87% Au, 85% Ag, and 92% Cu) used in the year-end 2023 mineral resource estimate for EPO Underground.

EPO GEOLOGY

The main host unit at EPO is the Morelos Formation, cut by an intrusive phase of the Media Luna granodiorite and followed by multiple generations of late felsic dikes predominantly oriented northwest and northeast. Finally, a dome and phreatomagmatic breccia event with an apparent north-south control crosscuts the whole sequence.

EPO is located to the east of the major Cuajiote fault within a structural block characterized by multiple second-order structures. These structures are recognized at surface and in drill core, and exhibit north-south, north-northeast, and subordinate northwest orientations. The north-south oriented Copalillo and Todos Santos faults control the main alteration-mineralization event. Early-stage calc-silicate alteration is related to a proximal "aborted" skarn event containing anomalous molybdenum values and traces of Cu and Au. The latter grades into CRD-style mineralization that is associated with the main Cu and Ag mineralization event. Mineralizing fluids are believed to have originated from a deeper magmatic source, younger than the Media Luna granodiorite stocks, which have not yet been identified at surface. A late IS-epithermal mineralization event, related to the phreatomagmatic activity, increases the Au volume and grade. Dikes and sills are deemed to have been previously emplaced along the same feeder structures of the mineralization event and constitute traps for the mineralized bodies. Given that Au precipitates due to the buffer exerted by the early stage calc-silicate alteration and sulfide mineralization, it occurs as free Au and is dissociated from the early Cu event mainly related to chalcopyrite.

QA/QC AND QUALIFIED PERSON

Torex maintains an industry-standard analytical quality assurance and quality control ("QA/QC") and data verification program to monitor laboratory performance and ensure high-quality assays. Results from this program confirm reliability of the assay results. All sampling and analytical work for the mine exploration program is performed by SGS de Mexico S.A. de C.V. ("SGS") in Durango, and by SGS at Minera Media Luna site facilities in Mexico. Gold analyses comprise fire assays with atomic absorption or gravimetric finish. External check assays for QA/QC purposes are performed at ALS Chemex de Mexico S.A. de C.V.

The analytical QA/QC program for EPO drilling is currently overseen by Jose Antonio San Vicente Diaz, Chief Exploration Geologist for Minera Media Luna, S.A. de C.V. All samples reported have been checked against Company and Lab standards, and blanks. No core duplicate samples are taken.

Sample preparation is carried out by BV at its facilities in Durango, Mexico and consists of crushing a 1 kg sample to >70% passing 2 mm followed by pulverisation of 500 g to >85% passing 75 m. Gold is analyzed at the BV facilities in Hermosillo, Mexico following internal analytical protocols (FA430) and comprises a 30g fire assay with an atomic absorption finish. Samples yielding results >10 g/t Au are re-assayed by fire assay with gravimetric finish (FA530-Au). Copper and silver analyses are completed at the BV facilities in Vancouver, Canada as part of a multi-element geochemical analysis by an aqua regia digestion with detection by ICPES/MS using BV internal analytical protocol AQ270. Overlimits for the multi-element package are analyzed by internal protocol AQ374. Scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Rochelle Collins, P.Geo. (PGO #1412), Principal, Mineral Resource Geologist with Torex Gold Resources Inc. "a qualified person" ("QP") as defined by NI 43-101. Ms. Collins has verified the information disclosed, including sampling, analytical, and test data underlying the drill results. Verification included visually reviewing the drill holes in three dimensions, comparing the assay results to the original assay certificates, reviewing the drilling database, and reviewing core photography consistent with standard practice. Ms. Collins consents to the inclusion in this release of said information in the form and context in which they appear.

Additional information on sampling and analyses, analytical labs, and methods used for data verification is available in the Company's technical report entitled the "Morelos Property, NI 43-101 Technical Report, ELG Mine Complex Life of Mine Plan and Media Luna Feasibility Study, Guerrero State, Mexico", dated effective March 16, 2022 filed on March 31, 2022 (the "2022 Technical Report") and in the annual information form ("AIF") dated March 30, 2023, each filed on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and the Company's website at www.torexgold.com.

ABOUT TOREX GOLD RESOURCES INC.

Torex is an intermediate gold producer based in Canada, engaged in the exploration, development, and operation of its 100% owned Morelos Property, an area of 29,000 hectares in the highly prospective Guerrero Gold Belt located 180 kilometres southwest of Mexico City. The Company's principal asset is the Morelos Complex, which includes the El Limon Guajes ("ELG") Mine Complex, the Media Luna Project, a processing plant, and related infrastructure. Commercial production from the Morelos Complex commenced on April 1, 2016 and an updated Technical Report for the Morelos Complex was released in March 2022. Torex's key strategic objectives are: integrate and optimize the Morelos Property; deliver Media Luna to full production; grow reserves and resources; disciplined growth and capital allocation; retain and attract best industry talent; and build on ESG excellence.

CAUTIONARY NOTES ON FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" and "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information also includes, but is not limited to, statements about: results indicate strong potential to upgrade Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources and expand resources to the north of the deposit; drilling indicates high potential to convert Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources in both the south and the northeast of the deposit; the expansion of resources to the north reinforces the underlying potential for EPO and, if follow-up drilling is successful, could open up new operating fronts to support additional production from EPO beyond what was outlined in the internal prefeasibility study released in September; the results from the second half of the 2024 program are expected to further indicate the potential to build on the Company's resource inventory with the year-end mineral reserve and resource update and support the Company's target of sustaining annual gold equivalent production between 450,000 to 500,000 ounces beyond 2030; with only a few months remaining before Media Luna delivers first production, and the Company returning to a strong free cash flow position, EPO is setting the stage for the capital efficient growth potential we see within the Media Luna Cluster and across the whole Morelos Property; within the northeastern portion of the EPO deposit, drilling has highlighted the potential to upgrade Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources; drilling directly south of the defined resource encountered mineralization, highlighting the potential to expand Indicated Resources in that direction; the drilling indicates the potential to upgrade Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources with the 2024 year-end mineral reserve and resource update; the exploration drift, as well as the lower elevation access tunnel connecting EPO to the Guajes Tunnel (planned to commence in mid-2025), will support lower cost, closer to the deposit drilling which will, in turn, inform and derisk the feasibility study mine design; initial results from the 2024 drilling program support the addition of Inferred Resources to the north of EPO with the year-end mineral reserve and resource update; assuming the ability to delineate Inferred Resources in this area in 2024, follow-up delineation drilling in 2025 will look to further upgrade resources in this area; given that the vertical continuity of the mineralization encountered is potentially conducive to a long-hole mining method, the success of current and future drilling could support additional mining fronts at EPO, which in turn could support mining beyond what was identified in the prefeasibility study; and Torex's key strategic objectives are to integrate and optimize the Morelos Property; deliver Media Luna to full production; grow reserves and resources; disciplined growth and capital allocation; retain and attract best industry talent; and build on ESG excellence. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "objective", "target", "continue", "potential", "focus", "demonstrate", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "will", "would", "could" or "is expected to" occur. 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 the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including, without limitation, risks and uncertainties associated with: the ability to upgrade mineral resources categories of mineral resources with greater confidence levels or to mineral reserves; risks associated with mineral reserve and mineral resource estimation; uncertainty involving skarn deposits; and those risk factors identified in the Technical Report and the Company's annual information form and management's discussion and analysis or other unknown but potentially significant impacts. Forward-looking information is based on the assumptions discussed in the Technical Report and such other reasonable assumptions, estimates, analysis and opinions of management made in light of its experience and perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, and other factors that management believes are relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date such statements are made. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information or future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. The Technical Report, AIF and MD&A are filed on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and the Company's website at www.torexgold.com.

Table 3: Mineral Resource Estimate - Morelos Complex

Tonnes Au Ag Cu Au Ag Cu AuEq AuEq (kt) (gpt) (gpt) (%) (koz) (koz) (Mlb) (gpt) (koz) Media Luna Underground Measured 1,835 5.26 41.7 1.37 310 2,463 55 8.00 472 Indicated 25,616 2.99 29.5 1.04 2,463 24,328 585 5.03 4,146 Measured & Indicated 27,451 3.14 30.4 1.06 2,774 26,791 640 5.23 4,618 Inferred 7,330 2.54 23.0 0.88 598 5,408 142 4.25 1,001 ELG Underground Measured 3,451 5.48 7.9 0.32 608 876 24 6.10 677 Indicated 4,725 4.46 7.4 0.30 677 1,126 31 5.03 765 Measured & Indicated 8,176 4.89 7.6 0.31 1,285 2,002 55 5.48 1,441 Inferred 2,396 4.60 8.0 0.35 355 620 19 5.28 407 EPO Underground Measured - - - - - - - - - Indicated 6,979 2.66 30.0 1.27 597 6,728 195 5.14 1,153 Measured & Indicated 6,979 2.66 30.0 1.27 597 6,728 195 5.14 1,153 Inferred 4,960 2.00 37.0 1.24 318 5,908 136 4.52 721 ELG Open Pit Measured 1,812 4.41 5.5 0.16 257 323 6 4.47 261 Indicated 4,299 2.50 4.4 0.18 346 606 17 2.57 355 Measured & Indicated 6,110 3.07 4.7 0.17 602 929 23 3.13 615 Inferred 399 2.06 1.5 0.05 26 19 0 2.08 27 Total Morelos Complex Measured 7,098 5.15 16.0 0.55 1,175 3,662 86 6.18 1,409 Indicated 41,619 3.05 24.5 0.90 4,083 32,787 827 4.80 6,418 Measured & Indicated 48,717 3.36 23.3 0.85 5,258 36,449 913 5.00 7,828 Inferred 15,085 2.67 24.7 0.89 1,297 11,955 297 4.45 2,156

Notes to accompany the mineral resource table:

1. Mineral Resources were prepared in accordance with the CIM Definition Standards (May 2014) and the CIM MRMR Best Practice Guidelines (November 2019).

2. Mineral resources are depleted above a mining surface or to the as-mined solids as of December 31, 2023.

3. Gold equivalent ("AuEq") of total mineral resources is established from combined contributions of the various deposits.

4. Mineral resources for all deposits are based on an underlying gold ("Au") price of US$1,650/oz, silver ("Ag") price of US$22/oz, and copper ("Cu") price of US$3.75/lb.

5. Mineral resources are inclusive of mineral reserves.

6. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

7. Numbers may not add due to rounding.

8. The estimate was prepared by Ms. Carolina Milla, P.Eng. (Alberta), Principal, Mineral Resources.

Notes to accompany Media Luna Underground mineral resources:

1. The effective date of the estimate is December 31, 2023.

2. Mineral resources for Media Luna Underground are reported above a 2.0 gpt AuEq cut-off grade.

3. Metallurgical recoveries at Media Luna Underground average 90% Au, 86% Ag, and 93% Cu.

4. The assumed mining method is from underground methods, using a combination of long-hole open stoping and mechanized cut-and-fill.

5. Media Luna Underground AuEq = Au (gpt) + (Ag (gpt) * 0.0127) + (Cu (%) * 1.6104), accounting for underlying metal prices and metallurgical recoveries for Media Luna Underground.

Notes to accompany ELG Underground mineral resources:

1. The effective date of the estimate is December 31, 2023.

2. Mineral resources for ELG Underground are reported above a cut-off grade of 2.2 gpt AuEq.

3. Average metallurgical recoveries are 90% Au, 86% Ag, and 93% Cu, accounting for recoveries with planned copper concentrator.

4. The assumed mining method is underground cut and fill.

5. ELG Underground AuEq = Au (gpt) + (Ag (gpt) * 0.0127) + (Cu (%) * 1.6104), accounting for underlying metal prices and metallurgical recoveries for ELG Underground.

Notes to accompany EPO Underground mineral resources:

1. The effective date of the estimate is December 31, 2023.

2. Mineral resources for EPO Underground are reported above a 2.0 gpt AuEq cut-off grade.

3. Metallurgical recoveries at EPO average 87% Au, 85% Ag, and 92% Cu.

4. The assumed mining method is from underground methods, using long-hole open stoping.

5. EPO Underground AuEq = Au (gpt) + (Ag (gpt) * 0.0130) + (Cu (%) * 1.6480), accounting for underlying metal prices and metallurgical recoveries for EPO Underground.

Notes to accompany the ELG Open Pit mineral resources:

1. The effective date of the estimate is December 31, 2023.

2. Mineral resources for ELG Open Pit are reported above an in-situ cut-off grade of 0.78 gpt Au.

3. Average metallurgical recoveries are 89% Au, 30% Ag, and 15% Cu.

4. Mineral resources are reported inside an optimized pit shell, underground mineral reserves at ELD within the El Limon pit shell have been excluded from the open pit mineral resources.

5. ELG Open Pit AuEq = Au (gpt) + (Ag (gpt) * 0.0045) + (Cu (%) * 0.2627), accounting for underlying metal prices and metallurgical recoveries for ELG Open Pit.

Figure 1: The resource expansion program at EPO confirms the continuity of the mineralization to the north along a northwest corridor. Resource Delineation drilling in the southern portion of EPO indicates the potential to upgrade Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources.

Figure 2: Advanced Exploration drilling program confirms the expansion of mineralization to the north of EPO and has defined a northwest corridor with at least 100 m of vertical continuity (looking west-northwest)

1) Previously reported. For more information on these drilling results, please refer to the Company's press releases titled Torex Gold Reports Results From 2023 Drilling at EPO (September 5, 2023) and Torex Reports Encouraging Results From Drilling at EPO (March 23, 2023).

2) Not previously reported but was included in the year-end 2023 mineral resource estimate. For more information on this drill result, please refer to Table 6.

Table 4: Results from the 2023 exploration and drilling program at EPO (not previously reported)

Intercept Drill Hole Program UTM-E (m) UTM-N (m) Elevation (m) Azimuth () Dip () Final Depth (m) From

(m) To

(m) Core Length

(m) Au

(gpt) Ag

(gpt) Cu

(%) AuEq

(gpt) Lithology/ Alteration ML23-994D Infill 421730.2 1985501.7 1404.5 824.30 738.84 758.00 19.16 4.01 2.9 0.30 4.54 Skarn Including 751.00 757.04 6.04 12.34 4.9 0.40 13.06 Skarn Including 751.00 754.22 3.22 22.96 6.5 0.35 23.63 Skarn ML23-995 Infill 421797.3 1984993.1 1171.4 91.06 -61.42 377.45 No significant values ML23-996 Infill 422395.2 1985782.0 1490.7 89.20 -71.99 497.60 403.16 405.46 2.30 1.49 65.6 0.58 3.29 Skarn and 430.53 432.00 1.47 4.46 20.1 0.17 5.01 Skarn ML23-997D Infill 421730.2 1985501.7 1404.5 743.60 693.07 711.82 18.75 2.83 28.1 1.26 5.28 Skarn Including 700.00 703.30 3.30 10.73 15.6 1.02 12.60 Skarn Including 706.95 711.82 4.87 1.56 59.2 2.74 6.84 Skarn ML23-998 Infill 421797.2 1984997.2 1171.6 22.18 -65.32 389.75 No significant values ML23-999 Infill 421729.6 1985502.1 1404.5 791.70 32.00 34.10 2.10 2.52 1.4 0.002 2.54 Breccia ML23-999A Infill 421729.6 1985502.1 1404.5 73.32 -85.71 198.40 769.08 770.45 1.37 1.04 33.9 1.98 4.74 Skarn ML23-1001 Infill 421982.3 1985606.9 1440.5 43.61 -60.83 835.95 687.59 713.75 26.16 0.53 23.8 0.79 2.15 Skarn Including 706.00 713.75 7.75 1.14 31.6 1.22 3.55 Skarn and 732.40 765.71 33.31 1.12 51.70 1.64 4.50 Skarn Including 732.40 751.31 18.91 1.56 72.6 2.62 6.82 Skarn ML23-1002 Infill 422395.5 1985782.0 1490.6 87.62 -55.35 429.35 367.52 369.00 1.48 1.66 70.6 1.38 4.85 Skarn and 384.97 394.28 9.31 1.26 59.9 0.56 2.96 Skarn Including 387.66 394.28 6.62 1.38 79.3 0.79 3.71 Skarn ML23-1003

and Infill 422395.7 1985780.3 1490.8 111.89 -47.31 499.00 174.72

176.35 176.15

178.00 1.43

1.65 2.40

10.61 35.2

43.9 0.62

0.37 3.88

11.80 Iron Sulfide Oxide and 242.27 246.47 4.20 2.25 42.6 0.16 3.07 Breccia ML23-1004 Infill 421731.6 1985500.4 1404.4 99.93 -69.42 692.70 620.44 623.02 2.58 1.01 15.5 0.72 2.40 Skarn ML23-1005 Infill 421951.3 1985392.9 1377.0 89.35 -51.10 489.60 No significant values

Notes to Table

1) Intercepts are core lengths and do not represent true thickness of mineralized zones. True width/thickness will be determined once the geological modelling to define the ore controls is completed.

2) Core lengths subject to rounding. Core lengths reflect drilling core recovery >98%.

3) Coordinates are WGS 1984 UTM Zone 14N.

4) Torex is not aware of any drilling, sampling, recovery, or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data.

5) The gold equivalent grade calculation used is as follows: AuEq = Au (gpt) + (Ag (gpt) * 0.0130) + (Cu (%) * 1.6480) and use the same metal prices ($1,650/oz Au, $22/oz Ag, and $3.75/lb Cu) and metallurgical recoveries (87% Au, 85% Ag, and 92% Cu) used in the year-end 2023 mineral resource estimate for EPO Underground.

Table 4 (continued): Results from the 2023 exploration and drilling program at EPO (not previously reported)

Intercept Drill Hole Program UTM-E (m) UTM-N (m) Elevation (m) Azimuth () Dip () Final Depth (m) From

(m) To

(m) Core Length

(m) Au

(gpt) Ag

(gpt) Cu

(%) AuEq

(gpt) Lithology/ Alteration ML23-1006 Infill 422395.0 1985780.2 1490.6 117.70 -59.76 453.15 42.95 43.53 0.58 4.15 637.4 0.46 13.20 Iron Sulfide Oxide ML23-1007 Infill 421950.4 1985392.9 1377.0 89.22 -65.33 221.25 No significant values ML23-1007A Infill 421950.4 1985392.9 1377.0 506.55 No significant values ML23-1008 Infill 421728.9 1985498.7 1404.6 210.27 -86.00 456.65 No significant values ML23-1008A Infill 421728.9 1985498.7 1404.6 816.00 762.65 765.09 2.44 2.06 1.5 0.20 2.40 Skarn 782.37 784.62 2.25 1.29 13.1 0.83 2.82 Skarn ML23-1009 Infill 422392.7 1985779.9 1490.7 203.96 -84.64 752.75 588.13 624.70 36.57 9.57 19.8 0.51 10.67 Skarn Including 588.13 595.68 7.55 43.33 48.3 0.51 44.80 Skarn ML23-1010D Infill 421950.4 1985392.9 1377.0 569.40 472.26 473.69 1.43 1.22 89.8 2.61 6.70 Skarn ML23-1011 Infill 421602.4 1985374.6 1377.2 80.74 -78.33 724.70 691.60 695.60 4.00 2.16 2.3 0.03 2.25 Granodiorite ML23-1012 Infill 421948.9 1985390.4 1376.9 122.66 -74.99 581.75 No significant values ML23-1013 Adv. Expl. 422442.5 1986042.6 1400.7 264.20 -78.95 692.65 535.00 537.94 2.94 0.21 70.3 1.37 3.38 Skarn and Adv. Expl. 547.84 550.84 3.00 4.90 20.7 0.28 5.63 Skarn and Adv. Expl. 564.44 584.00 19.56 1.17 33.8 0.82 2.96 Skarn Including 564.44 566.81 2.37 0.46 149.1 3.24 7.74 Skarn ML23-1014 Infill 421949.6 1985389.6 1376.9 175.10 -82.59 593.50 No significant values ML23-1015W Infill 421602.4 1985374.6 1377.2 94.26 -75.63 608.70 No significant values

Notes to Table

1) Intercepts are core lengths and do not represent true thickness of mineralized zones. True width/thickness will be determined once the geological modelling to define the ore controls is completed. Core lengths subject to rounding. Core lengths reflect drilling core recovery >98%.

2) Coordinates are WGS 1984 UTM Zone 14N.

3) Torex is not aware of any drilling, sampling, recovery, or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data.

4) The gold equivalent grade calculation used is as follows: AuEq = Au (gpt) + (Ag (gpt) * 0.0130) + (Cu (%) * 1.6480) and use the same metal prices ($1,650/oz Au, $22/oz Ag, and $3.75/lb Cu) and metallurgical recoveries (87% Au, 85% Ag, and 92% Cu) used in the year-end 2023 mineral resource estimate for EPO Underground.

Table 5: Results from the 2024 exploration and drilling program at EPO

Intercept Drill Hole Program UTM-E (m) UTM-N (m) Elevation (m) Azimuth () Dip () Final Depth (m) From

(m) To

(m) Core Length

(m) Au

(gpt) Ag

(gpt) Cu

(%) AuEq

(gpt) Lithology/ Alteration ML24-1017 Infill 421982.4 1985608.2 1440.4 16.91 -53.52 957.70 699.48 708.05 8.57 1.43 21.3 0.45 2.45 Skarn Including 699.48 703.68 4.20 2.21 26.0 0.53 3.42 Skarn and 720.22 722.68 2.46 2.74 17.5 0.12 3.17 Skarn Including 721.00 722.68 1.68 3.43 23.5 0.17 4.02 Skarn and 785.62 797.00 11.38 0.51 19.4 0.49 1.57 Skarn Including 789.59 794.58 4.99 0.88 12.9 0.38 1.67 Skarn and 836.83 859.28 22.45 0.77 22.3 0.85 2.46 Skarn Including 850.95 859.28 8.33 0.44 45.2 1.44 3.41 Skarn and 883.02 892.45 9.43 2.20 17.9 0.88 3.88 Skarn Including 887.35 892.45 5.10 3.70 30.4 1.37 6.35 Skarn ML24-1018 Infill 422393.5 1985786.4 1490.6 340.02 -64.77 862.30 798.45 822.00 23.55 0.24 17.3 0.64 1.51 Skarn 812.35 815.94 3.59 0.51 68.8 2.23 5.07 Skarn ML24-1020 Infill 421982.4 1985608.0 1440.5 28.17 -55.48 899.75 565.43 570.05 4.62 0.45 20.1 0.98 2.32 Skarn Including 566.00 567.98 1.98 0.10 24.9 1.29 2.54 Skarn and 775.66 785.62 9.96 1.06 29.8 0.88 2.89 Skarn Including 782.61 785.62 3.01 0.67 66.5 2.18 5.13 Skarn and 792.10 796.98 4.88 0.58 20.8 0.85 2.24 Skarn Including 796.37 796.98 0.61 3.71 54.8 1.82 7.42 Skarn ML24-1022 Adv. Expl. 422394.0 1985786.4 1490.5 7.41 -61.50 820.45 568.33 572.93 4.60 1.02 47.3 0.22 1.99 Skarn Including 569.00 571.00 2.00 1.65 69.8 0.15 2.81 Skarn and Adv. Expl. 735.51 741.89 6.38 0.96 14.1 0.51 1.99 Skarn Including 737.72 741.89 4.17 1.15 18.8 0.46 2.14 Skarn and Adv. Expl. 774.99 786.82 11.83 1.12 20.8 0.45 2.14 Granodiorite & Skarn Including 774.99 778.17 3.18 3.56 39.0 0.95 5.64 Granodiorite & Skarn ML24-1024 Adv. Expl. 422394.3 1985786.6 1490.5 16.00 -55.34 582.55 No significant values ML24-1024A Adv. Expl. 422394.3 1985786.6 1490.5 579.30 No significant values

Notes to Table

1) Intercepts are core lengths and do not represent true thickness of mineralized zones. True width/thickness will be determined once the geological modelling to define the ore controls is completed.

2) Core lengths subject to rounding. Core lengths reflect drilling core recovery >98%.

3) Coordinates are WGS 1984 UTM Zone 14N.

4) Torex is not aware of any drilling, sampling, recovery, or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data.

5) The gold equivalent grade calculation used is as follows: AuEq = Au (gpt) + (Ag (gpt) * 0.0130) + (Cu (%) * 1.6480) and use the same metal prices ($1,650/oz Au, $22/oz Ag, and $3.75/lb Cu) and metallurgical recoveries (87% Au, 85% Ag, and 92% Cu) used in the year-end 2023 mineral resource estimate for EPO Underground.

Table 5 (continued): Results from the 2024 exploration and drilling program at EPO

Intercept Drill Hole Program UTM-E (m) UTM-N (m) Elevation (m) Azimuth () Dip () Final Depth (m) From

(m) To

(m) Core Length

(m) Au

(gpt) Ag

(gpt) Cu

(%) AuEq

(gpt) Lithology/ Alteration ML24-1024B Adv. Expl. 422394.3 1985786.6 1490.5 589.95 No significant values ML24-1026 Infill 421952.9 1985390.2 1378.1 74.97 -61.94 259.55 No significant values ML24-1026A Infill 421952.9 1985390.2 1378.1 537.00 474.96 488.52 13.56 0.25 31.8 0.82 2.02 Skarn Including 474.96 479.25 4.29 0.52 55.8 1.40 3.56 Skarn and Infill 494.41 503.00 8.59 0.20 69.6 1.31 3.26 Skarn Including 494.41 498.67 4.26 0.32 113.8 2.38 5.73 Skarn ML24-1027 Infill 421729.8 1985501.6 1404.4 73.64 -80.95 427.00 No significant values ML24-1029D Infill 421952.9 1985390.2 1378.1 512.40 No significant values ML24-1030D Infill 421952.9 1985390.2 1378.1 275.33 No significant values ML24-1030DA Infill 421952.9 1985390.2 1378.1 519.00 467.03 469.49 2.46 6.22 20.0 0.28 6.94 Skarn Including 467.03 468.21 1.18 11.60 34.1 0.58 13.00 Skarn ML24-1031 Infill 422394.0 1985786.3 1490.6 9.27 -66.68 336.95 212.60 220.75 8.15 1.07 69.5 0.02 2.02 Skarn Including 217.65 220.75 3.10 2.64 134.3 0.02 4.42 Skarn ML24-1032 Infill 421729.9 1985500.2 1404.4 111.56 -79.07 555.10 No significant values ML24-1034D Adv. Expl. 422394.0 1985786.3 1490.6 395.45 No significant values ML24-1034DA Adv. Expl. 422394.0 1985786.3 1490.6 433.50 No significant values ML24-1034DB Adv. Expl. 422394.0 1985786.3 1490.6 793.00 570.33 571.28 0.95 4.44 2.7 0.05 4.55 Skarn ML24-1035D Infill 421952.9 1985390.2 1378.1 515.95 476.75 487.24 10.49 3.32 17.4 0.50 4.37 Skarn Including 477.84 485.36 7.52 4.43 22.5 0.59 5.70 Skarn ML24-1037D Infill 421952.9 1985390.2 1378.1 205.95 No significant values ML24-1037DA Infill 421952.9 1985390.2 1378.1 556.35 478.52 483.98 5.46 1.25 12.3 0.46 2.16 Skarn Including 483.00 483.98 0.98 5.15 12.7 0.31 5.83 Skarn

Notes to Table

1) Intercepts are core lengths and do not represent true thickness of mineralized zones. True width/thickness will be determined once the geological modelling to define the ore controls is completed.

2) Core lengths subject to rounding. Core lengths reflect drilling core recovery >98%.

3) Coordinates are WGS 1984 UTM Zone 14N.

4) Torex is not aware of any drilling, sampling, recovery, or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data.

5) The gold equivalent grade calculation used is as follows: AuEq = Au (gpt) + (Ag (gpt) * 0.0130) + (Cu (%) * 1.6480) and use the same metal prices ($1,650/oz Au, $22/oz Ag, and $3.75/lb Cu) and metallurgical recoveries (87% Au, 85% Ag, and 92% Cu) used in the year-end 2023 mineral resource estimate for EPO Underground.

Table 5 (continued): Results from the 2024 exploration and drilling program at EPO

Intercept Drill Hole Program UTM-E (m) UTM-N (m) Elevation (m) Azimuth () Dip () Final Depth (m) From

(m) To

(m) Core Length

(m) Au

(gpt) Ag

(gpt) Cu

(%) AuEq

(gpt) Lithology/ Alteration ML24-1037DA Infill 496.31 506.00 9.69 4.69 6.5 0.20 5.12 Skarn Including 497.31 499.10 1.79 4.03 20.0 0.83 5.66 Skarn Including 505.00 506.00 1.00 35.80 7.0 0.03 35.94 Skarn ML24-1038D Adv. Expl. 422394.0 1985786.3 1490.6 660.00 528.23 533.19 4.96 1.27 8.5 0.23 1.77 Skarn Including 530.81 532.19 1.38 3.18 5.05 0.29 3.72 Skarn

Notes to Table

1) Intercepts are core lengths and do not represent true thickness of mineralized zones. True width/thickness will be determined once the geological modelling to define the ore controls is completed.

2) Core lengths subject to rounding. Core lengths reflect drilling core recovery >98%.

3) Coordinates are WGS 1984 UTM Zone 14N.

4) Torex is not aware of any drilling, sampling, recovery, or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data.

5) The gold equivalent grade calculation used is as follows: AuEq = Au (gpt) + (Ag (gpt) * 0.0130) + (Cu (%) * 1.6480) and use the same metal prices ($1,650/oz Au, $22/oz Ag, and $3.75/lb Cu) and metallurgical recoveries (87% Au, 85% Ag, and 92% Cu) used in the year-end 2023 mineral resource estimate for EPO Underground.

Table 6: Results from the 2023 exploration and drilling program at EPO that were not previously released but were included in the year-end resource estimate

Intercept Drill Hole Program UTM-E (m) UTM-N (m) Elevation (m) Azimuth () Dip () Final Depth (m) From

(m) To

(m) Core Length

(m) Au

(gpt) Ag

(gpt) Cu

(%) AuEq

(gpt) Lithology/ Alteration ML23-971 Infill 421983.6 1985608.3 1440.5 9.81 -74.65 746.90 658.3 679.4 21.1 1.03 20.0 0.89 2.75 Skarn and 693.1 697.2 4.1 1.27 86.9 4.62 10.03 Skarn and 703.9 711.0 7.1 5.78 81.0 5.59 16.05 Skarn

Notes to Table

1) Intercepts are core lengths and do not represent true thickness of mineralized zones. True width/thickness will be determined once the geological modelling to define the ore controls is completed.

2) Core lengths subject to rounding. Core lengths reflect drilling core recovery >98%.

3) Coordinates are WGS 1984 UTM Zone 14N.

4) Torex is not aware of any drilling, sampling, recovery, or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data.

5) The gold equivalent grade calculation used is as follows: AuEq = Au (gpt) + (Ag (gpt) * 0.0130) + (Cu (%) * 1.6480) and use the same metal prices ($1,650/oz Au, $22/oz Ag, and $3.75/lb Cu) and metallurgical recoveries (87% Au, 85% Ag, and 92% Cu) used in the year-end 2023 mineral resource estimate for EPO Underground.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 /Future Fuels Inc. (TSXV:FTUR) (FSE:S0J) (the "Company") is announces that it has entered into an asset purchase agreement (the "APA") dated November 13, 2024 with IsoEnergy Ltd. (TSX: ISO)("IsoEnergy"), pursuant to which the Company will acquire a 100% interest in IsoEnergy's Mountain Lake Project, comprised of mineral claims covering 5,625 hectares in the Hornby Bay Basin, Nunavut, Canada (the "Mountain Lake Property") in exchange for common shares in the authorized capital of the Company ("Common Shares") and the grant of the Net Smelter Royalties (as defined below) (collectively, the "Transaction").

The acquisition of the Mountain Lake Property will add key claims to the Company's portfolio of holdings in the Hornby Bay Basin in Nunavut, increasing its total holdings to over 342,064 hectares.

Transaction

Pursuant to the APA, the Company has agreed to acquire the Mountain Lake Property from IsoEnergy in consideration for:

the issuance to IsoEnergy of 12,500,000 Common Shares (the "Upfront Shares") on closing of the Transaction (the "Closing"); the issuance to the Vendor of 2,500,000 Common Shares (the "Deferred Shares", and together with the Upfront Shares, the "Consideration Shares") on the earliest date practicable following Closing that will ensure that such issuance will not result in IsoEnergy owning or controlling more than 19.9% of the outstanding Common Shares on a partially-diluted basis; an the grant by the Company to IsoEnergy of (a) a 2% net smelter returns royalty, payable on all production from the Mountain Lake Property, of which 1% will be eligible for repurchase by the Company for $1,000,000, and (b) a 1% net smelter returns royalty, payable on all production from the Company's properties in Nunavut other than the Mountain Lake Property (collectively, the "Net Smelter Royalties")

The Consideration Shares, when issued, will be subject to contractual restrictions on resale beginning from the date of closing (the "LockUp Restrictions"), as well as a statutory hold period of four months and one day from the date of issuance. In accordance with the Lock-Up Restrictions, IsoEnergy may not sell, pledge, encumber, assign or otherwise dispose of or transfer the Consideration Shares until they become free-trading in accordance with the release schedule, whereby 25% will be released on Closing and every six months thereafter for a total period of 18 months.

Closing of the Transaction is subject to certain conditions and approvals, including:

(i) the execution of an investor rights agreement providing IsoEnergy, for so long as IsoEnergy owns 10% or more of the Company's issued and outstanding shares on a partially diluted basis, with the right to:

nominate one director to the Company's board of directors; and participate in equity financings in order to maintain its pro rata share ownership in the Company; (ii) completion of the Concurrent Financing (as defined below) for minimum gross proceeds of $2,000,000; and

(iii) the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange").

Concurrent Financing

As a condition to Closing of the Transaction, the Company will complete a non-brokered private placement (the "Concurrent Financing" of a minimum of 8,000,000 units (the "Units") and a maximum of 12,000,000 Units at a price of 0.25 per Unit, each Unit to consist of one Common Share and one-half of one warrant. Each whole warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one additional Common Share at a price $0.40 per share for a period of 24 months from the closing of the Concurrent Financing.

The net proceeds from the Concurrent Financing will be used to advance the Mountain Lake Property and for general working capital.

No finder's fees or commissions will be paid in connection with the Transaction. The Company may pay finders' fees in connection with the Concurrent Financing. The Concurrent Financing is subject to the approval of the Exchange.

About Future Fuels Inc.

Future Fuels' principal asset is the Hornby Uranium Project, covering the entire 3,407 km Hornby Basin in northwestern Nunavut, a geologically promising area with over 40 underexplored uranium showings, including the historic Mountain Lake Deposit. Additionally, Future Fuels holds the Covette Property in Quebec's James Bay region, comprising 65 mineral claims over 3,370 hectares.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

FUTURE FUELS INC.

"Rob Leckie"

Rob Leckie, CEO

Tel: 604.681.1568

The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or adequacy of this release. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release contains forwardlooking statements and other statements that are not historical facts. Forwardlooking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this news release are forwardlooking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include but are not limited to market conditions and the risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulators. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forwardlooking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forwardlooking information, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the Transaction and the Concurrent Financing including the anticipated benefits thereof and use of proceeds therefrom, the prospects of the Company's newly acquired mineral claims, which are not at an advanced stage of development, the Company's anticipated business and operational activities, and the Company's plans with respect to the exploration. Factors that could cause actual results to vary from forwardlooking statements or may affect the operations, performance, development and results of the Company's business include, among other things, the Company's ability to generate sufficient cash flow to meet its current and future obligations; that mineral exploration is inherently uncertain and may be unsuccessful in achieving the desired results; that mineral exploration plans may change and be redefined based on a number of factors, many of which are outside of the Company's control; the Company's ability to access sources of debt and equity capital; competitive factors, pricing pressures and supply and demand in the Company's industry; and general economic and business. 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. Forwardlooking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forwardlooking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will update or revise publicly any of the included forwardlooking statements as expressly required by applicable law.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Maple Gold Mines Ltd. (TSXV: MGM) ("Maple Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that further to its news release on November 4, 2024, the Company has closed its previously announced brokered private placement offering, pursuant to which the Company has issued: (i) 32,695,384 non-flow-through units of the Company (the "NFT Units") at a price of $0.065 per NFT Unit (the "NFT Issue Price"); and (ii) 35,935,000 flow-through common shares of the Company (the "FT Shares", and together with the NFT Units, the "Offered Securities") at a price of $0.08 per FT Share (the "FT Issue Price") for total gross proceeds to the Company of $5,000,000 (the "Offering"). The Offering was led by Beacon Securities Limited ("Beacon") as sole lead agent and bookrunner, on behalf of a syndicate of agents, including Agentis Capital Markets Limited Partnership and Paradigm Capital Inc. (together with Beacon, the "Agents").

Each NFT Unit consists of one common share of the Company and one-half of one common share purchase warrant of the Company (each whole common share purchase warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder thereof to acquire one non-flow-through common share of the Company (a "Warrant Share") at a price per Warrant Share of $0.10 until November 14, 2027.

Each FT Share shall qualify as a "flow-through share" for the purposes of the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the "Tax Act").

The Offered Securities were offered pursuant to Part 5A (the "Listed Issuer Financing Exemption") of National Instrument 45-106 - Prospectus Exemptions ("NI 45-106") to purchasers resident in Canada, and in other qualifying jurisdictions outside of Canada that were mutually agreed to by the Company and Beacon pursuant to relevant prospectus or registration exemptions in accordance with applicable laws. The Offered Securities issued under the Listed Issuer Financing Exemption to Canadian subscribers are not subject to a hold period in Canada.

The Company will use an amount equal to the gross proceeds from the sale of the FT Shares to incur eligible "Canadian exploration expenses" (as defined in the Tax Act): (i) that will qualify as "flow-through mining expenditures" (as defined in the Tax Act) and, (ii) in respect of Quebec resident subscribers who are eligible individuals under the Taxation Act (Quebec) (the "Quebec Tax Act"), that 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 Quebec Tax Act and for inclusion in the "exploration base relating to certain Quebec surface mining expenses" within the meaning of section 726.4.17.2 of the Quebec Tax Act (collectively, the "Qualifying Expenditures") related to the Company's mineral properties located in Quebec, Canada on or before December 31, 2025. All Qualifying Expenditures will be renounced in favour of the subscribers effective December 31, 2024. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the sale of NFT Units for general and administrative expenses and unallocated working capital purposes over a period of 12 months following closing of the Offering.

In connection with the Offering, the Company: (i) paid cash commissions to the Agents equal to $286,798.50; and (ii) issued a total of 3,914,723 non-transferable compensation warrants of the Company (the "Compensation Warrants") to the Agents. Each Compensation Warrant entitles the holder to acquire one common share of the Company (each, a "Compensation Share") at a price of $0.065 per Compensation Share until November 14, 2027. The Offering remains subject to final acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange.

The securities issued pursuant to the Offering have not been, and will not be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any U.S. state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States 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.

About Maple Gold

Maple Gold Mines Ltd. is a Canadian advanced exploration company focused on advancing the district-scale Douay and Joutel gold projects located in Quebec's prolific Abitibi Greenstone Gold Belt. The projects benefit from exceptional infrastructure access and boast ~400 km2 of highly prospective ground including an established gold mineral resource at Douay with significant expansion potential as well as the past-producing Telbel and Eagle West mines at Joutel. In addition, the Company holds an exclusive option to acquire 100% of the Eagle Mine Property, a key part of the historical Joutel mining complex.

The district-scale property package also hosts a significant number of regional exploration targets along a 55-km strike length of the Casa Berardi Deformation Zone that have yet to be tested through drilling, making the project ripe for new gold and polymetallic discoveries. The Company is currently focused on carrying out exploration and drill programs to grow mineral resources and make new discoveries to establish an exciting new gold district in the heart of the Abitibi. For more information, please visit www.maplegoldmines.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 PRESS RELEASE.

Forward-Looking Statements and Cautionary Notes:

This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively referred to as "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation in Canada. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "potential," "goal," "objective,", "strategy", "prospective," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements about the Offering (including the tax treatment of the FT Shares and use of proceeds of the Offering), the resource expansion and discovery potential across the Company's gold projects, and its intention to pursue such potential, and the Company's exploration work and results from current and future work programs. Although the Company believes that forward-looking statements in this news release are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct, as forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, uncertainties and management's best estimate of future events on the date the statements are made and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, actual events or results could differ materially from the Company's expectations and projections, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. For a more detailed discussion of additional risks and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements in this news release, please refer to the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators available under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca or on the Company's website at www.maplegoldmines.com. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and/or the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company undertakes no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any intention to, update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
November 14, 2024  TheNewswire - Montreal, Quebec, Canada - Beauce Gold Fields (Champs DOr en Beauce) (TSX Venture: "BGF"), referred to as "BGF" or the "Company," is pleased to announce the results of the analysis of a preconcentrate sample, recovered from a bulk sample of fractured stockwork quartz vein from the Grondin antiform outcrop, on the Company's Beauce gold property, located in the Beauce region of southern Quebec. The analysis returned 5.61 grams per ton of gold.

Patrick Levasseur, President and CEO of Beauce Gold Fields, stated: "Apart from the coarse gold grains, this demonstrates that non-visible gold mineralization may play an important role in the anticline (Saddle Reef type) structures. This structure holds significant promise for further lode gold discoveries."

Image: stockwork vein of the Grondin outcrop, grade of sample C0247469

A 500-gram sample was randomly taken from one of the 20-litre buckets of preconcentrates. The preconcentrates were derived from loose fragments smaller than 10 cm, recovered using a mobile placer plant equipped with a trommel and sluice box. The placer plant processed a 30-ton bulk sample of heavily fractured stockwork featuring a milky white quartz vein several meters wide, interspersed with pockets of sulfide-rich material along shear planes of blocks of lapilli tuffs (BGF press release 2023-08-22) taken from the Grondin antiform outcrop.

The preconcentrates sent for analysis contained no visible gold grains. However, over 18 visible and sharply angular grains of gold from a final concentrate were previously extracted from the preconcentrates (BGF press release 2024-03-20). SEM analysis on several of these gold grains indicated that they contained an average of 85.05% gold (Au) and 14.74% silver (Ag), with the fineness of the gold grains (calculated as 1000  Au / (Au + Ag)) ranging between 820 and 870 (BGF press release 2024-06-13).

The Grondin outcrop is located above drill hole GR 23-01, which the company drilled in 2023 (BGF press releases, November 1, 2023, and January 18, 2024). The drill hole crossed the entire length of the mineralized zone over 36 meters, intersecting three gold zones between 11 and 24 meters. All areas are associated with stockworks that contain varying levels of sulfides. The mineralized zones are strongly affected by significant deformation, led to significant core loss, especially towards the end of the drilling process. One of the intersected zones showed a notable grade of 5.4 g/t Au over 2.2 meters.

Test Certificate YVO2411180

Sample ID Pre Wt Kg CPA Mass Ana. WT g Au PPM C0247469 0.49 391.8 5.613

The outcrop is within the Grondin gold zone, a mineralized structure that follows the crest of an anticline fold (Saddle Reef type) and extends along strike for eight kilometers. Cumulative exploration data suggest that Saddle Reef-type formations are the likely bedrock sources of the company's historical placer gold deposits.

QA/QC procedures for the reported preconcentrate sample include Certified Reference Materials from MSALABS of Val-d'Or, Quebec, Test Certificate YVO2411180. Standards and blanks were inserted into the sequence of samples on-site as part of quality assurance and quality control. MSALABS is an ISO-17025 accredited laboratory for the photon assay method.

Jean Bernard, BSc, Geo, a qualified independent person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information presented in this release.

Non-brokered private placement

The company wants to clarify that the following provisions replace the provisions relating to this private placement contained in the press release issued for the same private placement on November 7, 2024. The prices of the Units are set pursuant to the closing price of the Company's shares on November 13, 2024

The Company will proceed with a non-brokered private placement of 5,000,000 Flow-Through units at $0.04 per unit for gross proceeds of $200,000 and 5,000,000 Hard Dollar units at $0.03 per unit for gross proceeds of $150,000.

Each Flow-through unit will be comprised of one (1) Flow-through common share and of one (1) common share purchase warrant of the company. Each warrant will entitle the holder thereof to purchase one common share of the capital stock of the company at a price of $0.08 for a period of 24 months from the date of closing of the placement and each Hard Dollar unit will be comprised of one common share and one common share purchase warrant of the company which will entitle the holder thereof to purchase one common share of the capital stock of the company at a price of $0.05 for a period of 36 months from the date of closing of the placement.

The offering is conditional upon the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals, including the approval of the exchange. The proceeds of the offering will specifically be used: (i) to finance exploration and (ii) for general corporate purposes.

The offering will be offered to accredited investors in accordance with applicable securities laws. In connection with the offering, the company may pay finders' fees, as permitted by the policies of the exchange. Each share issued pursuant to the placement will have a mandatory four-month-and-one-day hold period from the date of closing of the placement. The company anticipates that insiders may subscribe for units and their participation could exceed 25 per cent of the offering.

No more than 10% of the proceeds of the placement can be used for Investor Relations Activities. No amount of the proceeds of the placement is for payments to Non-Arms length parties of the company nor for payments to persons conducting Investor Relations Activities.

About Beauce Gold Fields

Beauce Gold Fields is focused on exploring and developing the largest placer gold district in eastern North America. The Companys objective is the trace old placer gold workings back to a bedrock source to uncover economic lode gold deposits. The Companys flagship property is the St-Simon-les-Mines Gold project, site of Canadas first gold rush that pre-dates the Yukon Klondike. The Beauce region hosted some of the largest historical placer gold mines in Eastern North America that were active from 1860s to the 1960s It produced some of the largest gold nuggets in Canadian mining history (50oz to 71oz). (Source Sedar: 43-101 Report - Beauce July 4th 2018, , Author B. Violette)

Beauce Gold Fields is currently exploring recently discovered antiform systems that could have contributed to the development of extensive auriferous placer deposits in Beauce. The Companys geological model suggests that placer gold within the Beauce Gold paleochannel, including the renowned large nuggets from the 19th century, formed in stressed quartz pockets within layered domed Axis of Antiforms, exemplified by Saddle Reef formations. Notable global Saddle Reef formations include the Bendigo gold fields in Australia (over 60 million ounces) and the high-grade Dufferin deposit in Nova Scotia.

Beauce Gold Fields website www.beaucegold.com

Disclaimers:

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements containing the words "may", "plan", "will", "estimate", "continue", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "in the process" and other similar expressions which constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements reflect the Company's current expectation and assumptions, and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, our expectations regarding mineral exploration. Such statements reflect the current views of the Company with respect to future events and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and other risks detailed from time-to-time in the Company's on-going filings with the securities regulatory authorities, which filings can be found at www.sedar.com. Actual results, events, and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements either as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws.

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.

For further information contact

Patrick Levasseur, President and CEO Tel: (514) 262-9239

www.beaucegold.com
Highlights:

Indicated resources increased by 62% to 11.3 Mt from 6.9 Mt: Indicated resources now grade 1.23% copper ("Cu"), 1.27% zinc ("Zn"), 0.46 g/t gold ("Au") and 31.9 g/t silver ("Ag") or 2.13% copper equivalent ("CuEq") Indicated resources contain 307.9 million pounds ("Mlbs") Cu, 316.9 Mlbs Zn, 168.2 thousand ounces ("koz") Au and 11.6 million ounces ( "Moz") Ag or 532.3 Mlbs of CuEq

Inferred resources increased by 63% to 7.2 Mt from 4.4 Mt: Inferred resources now grade 1.56% Cu, 0.17% Zn, 0.87 g/t Au and 7.4 g/t Ag or 2.21% CuEq Inferred resources contain 246.0 Mlbs Cu, 27.3 Mlbs Zn, 200.8 koz Au and 1.7 Moz Ag or 348.8 Mlbs of CuEq.

Significant Increase in Total Contained Metal: 38% increase in contained Cu, 15% increase in contained Zn, 29% increase in contained Au and 22% increase in contained Ag relative to the 2018 Resource estimate

Jonathon Deluce , CEO of Abitibi Metals stated: "We are excited to announce this significant resource update, achieved after just one year of focused exploration at the B26 Polymetallic Deposit. We believe we are only at the beginning of defining a much larger resource at B26 and will continue to expand it through ongoing drilling, with the goal of unlocking its full value for our shareholders and stakeholders."

Mineralization Starts Near Surface and Remains Open at Depth: The B26 Polymetallic Deposit remains open at depth and laterally. The ongoing 16,500 metre Phase 2 drill program has not been included in this resource update and initial results will be announced next week.

LONDON, ON, Nov. 13, 2024 /CNW/ - Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE: AMQ) (OTCQB: AMQFF) (WKN: A3EWQ3) ("Abitibi" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the results of an updated resource estimate for the B26 polymetallic deposit ("B26", the "Project" or the "Deposit") and maiden resource published by Abitibi Metals which includes 13,510 meters drilled across 44 holes from the 2024 Phase 1 drill program. The Company is fully funded with $13.0 million to complete the remaining 2024 Phase 2 work program and an additional 20,000 metres of diamond drilling in 2025, which will be incorporated into a Preliminary Economic Assessment to complete the option. On November 16th, 2023, the Company entered into an option agreement on the B26 Deposit to earn 80% over 7 years from SOQUEM Inc. (see news release dated November 16, 2023).

Jonathon Deluce, CEO of Abitibi Metals stated: "We are excited to announce this significant resource update, achieved after just one year of focused exploration at the B26 Polymetallic Deposit. This substantial increase in contained metal inventory underscores the exceptional potential of this asset and validates our team's disciplined approach to unlocking value in one of the world's premier mining jurisdictions. In this short time, we have demonstrated the impressive scale of B26, as we continue expanding the resource, we are excited about the long-term value it will bring for our stakeholders in one of the world's premier mining jurisdictions. We believe we are only at the beginning of defining a much larger resource at B26 and will continue to expand it through ongoing drilling, with the goal of unlocking its full value for our shareholders and stakeholders. We would also like to acknowledge SOQUEM's foundational work, whose expertise and thorough exploration groundwork laid the essential framework for this significant achievement."

"Following an in-depth evaluation of both open-pit and underground scenarios for the B26 Deposit, we are currently seeing greater value in pursuing an underground-only model. However, we continue to see strong merit in the open-pit potential, particularly given the promising lower-grade, near-surface halo. We plan to conduct further work to better understand and outline this zone, which could enhance the resource's versatility and add significant optionality in the future. Our approach remains focused on maximizing the long-term value of the B26 Deposit."

Two main types of mineralization characterize the volcanogenic B26 deposit. The northern part of the deposit is characterized by chalcopyrite veins hosted in sericitized and chloritized rhyolite. The southern portion contains mostly disseminated and massive sphalerite and pyrite and mineralization, hosted in parallel, east striking horizons of rhyolite affected by a silica-sericite-chlorite alteration zoning that dips steeply to the south. The results from the current resource estimate are tabulated in Tables 1-3. Table 1 presents the new underground resource estimate for the B26 deposit, and Table 2 presents the current metal content within the updated B26 resource estimate. A sensitivity analysis of different cut-off grades for the estimated resources is presented in Table 3.

The significant increase in resource and total contained metal is due to:

A more refined 3D mineralization model which includes updated commodity prices. The methodology remains consistent with the 2018 estimation. A more detailed examination of the model allowed for better linking of mineralized intercepts. The new drilling completed in 2024 which totaled 13,510 metres over 44 holes in Phase 1.

The Company conducted a detailed analysis of both an open pit and underground mining scenario and concluded that an underground-only model crystallizes the most immediate value. Despite this, management still believes there is strong support for an open pit. To fully realize this potential at surface, additional work is required to refine the open-pit model, including further drilling, sampling of historical corewhere large zones of disseminated mineralization remain untestedand sonic drilling to investigate a potential layer of oxidized overburden containing mineralization just above bedrock, similar to observations at the Selbaie Mine. We are committed to advancing both approaches to maximize the resource potential of the B26 Deposit.

Table 1: B26 2024 Mineral Resource Estimate



ZONE Tonnage (Mt) Classification Cu (%) Zn (%) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Pb (%) Cu Eq. (%) Au Eq. (g/t) Feeder Cu 8.13 Indicated 1.64 0.09 0.61 5.9 0.00 2.09 3.33 6.92 Inferred 1.61 0.04 0.84 5.2 0.00 2.18 3.48 Horizon Zn 2.87 Indicated 0.22 4.45 0.08 96.1 0.18 2.30 3.65 0.21 Inferred 0.13 3.61 1.93 59.3 0.11 2.86 4.55 Remob Ag-Zn 0.32 Indicated 0.01 2.79 0.06 115.5 0.28 1.70 2.70 0.03 Inferred 0.02 5.59 0.13 135.0 0.06 2.72 4.33 TOTAL 11.32 Indicated 1.23 1.27 0.46 31.9 0.05 2.13 3.39 7.16 Inferred 1.56 0.17 0.87 7.4 0.00 2.21 3.51

Notes (1) The cut-off grade used underground is an in-situ value of 100 $/t (after processing recovery, equivalent to 1.09 % Cu, 3.50 % Zn, 1.73 g/t Au or 165.9 g/t Ag).

(2) The copper equivalent, zinc equivalent, gold equivalent, and silver equivalent values are presented for comparison purposes.

(3) The mineral resources were estimated in compliance with Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum standards. These mineral resources were reported in accordance with the NI 43-101 standards.

(4) Mineral resources do not constitute mineral reserves because they have not demonstrated economic viability.

(5) Inferred resources are exclusive of indicated resources.

(6) The effective date of these mineral resources is November 1, 2024.

(7) The resources are estimated with a cut-off on the combined value of a tonne of resource.

(8) The in-situ value of the resources as well as the Cu, Zn, Au and Ag equivalents are calculated with recoveries of Cu: 98.3 %, Zn: 96.1 %, Au: 90 %, Ag: 72.1 % and Pb: 44 % and prices of Cu: 9,370 $/t (4.25 $/lb), Zn: 2,976 $/t (1.35 $/lb), Au: 2,000 $/oz, Ag: 26 $/oz and Pb: 1.00 $/lb.

(9) All resources are presented in-situ and undiluted.

(10) All $ values are in US$ unless specifically noted.

(11)All figures are rounded to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Numbers may not add due to rounding.

Table 2: 2024 Resource Estimate  B26 Contained Metal

ZONE Tonnage Classification Cu (kt) Zn (kt) Au (koz) Ag (koz) Pb (kt) Cu Eq. (kt) Au Eq. (koz) (Mt) Feeder Cu 8.13 Indicated 133.4 7.2 160.1 1,537 0.12 170.1 870 6.92 Inferred 111.3 2.8 187.4 1,153 0.09 151.2 774 Horizon Zn 2.87 Indicated 6.2 127.5 7.5 8,862 5.02 65.8 337 0.21 Inferred 0.27 7.7 13.3 408 0.23 6.1 31 Remob Ag-Zn 0.32 Indicated 0.04 9.0 0.6 1,198 0.91 5.5 28 0.03 Inferred 0.01 1.8 0.13 141 0.02 0.9 4.5 TOTAL 11.32 Indicated 139.7 143.7 168.2 11,597 6.06 241.4 1,235 7.16 Inferred 111.6 12.4 200.8 1,702 0.34 158.2 809

Notes:

(1) The metal content was calculated using the values presented in table 1.

(2) Notes (1) to (11) from table 1 apply to table 2.

Table 3: B26 Mineral Resource Estimate Sensitivity Analysis

Cut off grades Tonnage (Mt) Classification Cu (%) Zn (%) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Pb (%) Cu Eq. (%) Base Case - 20% 13.66 Indicated 1.12 1.17 0.41 29.3 0.05 1.93 8.38 Inferred 1.44 0.16 0.78 6.7 0.00 2.03 Base Case 11.32 Indicated 1.23 1.27 0.46 31.9 0.05 2.13 7.17 Inferred 1.56 0.17 0.87 7.4 0.00 2.21 Base Case +20% 9.32 Indicated 1.34 1.41 0.52 34.7 0.06 2.33 6.04 Inferred 1.67 0.19 0.98 8.1 0.01 2.40

Notes:

(1) The metal content was calculated using the values presented in table 1.

(2) Notes (2) to (11) from table 1 apply to table 3.

(3) The underground cut-off grade used (base case -20 %) is a value of 80 $/t (after processing recovery, equivalent to 0.87 % Cu, 2.80 % Zn or 132.7 g/t Ag).

(4) The underground cut-off grade used (base case) is a value of 100 $/t (after processing recovery, equivalent to 1.09 % Cu, 3.50 % Zn or 165.9 g/t Ag ).

(5) The underground cut-off grade used (base case +20 %) is a value of 120 $/t (after processing recovery, equivalent to 1.30 % Cu, 4.20 % Zn or 199.1 g/t Ag).

Significance for Shareholders:

62% Increase in Indicated Resources: The B26 Deposit's indicated resources have grown to 11.3 million tonnes, marking a 62% increase. With zones remaining open along strike and dip, the Company believes there are significant opportunities to keep growing the overall contained metal inventory.

The B26 Deposit's indicated resources have grown to 11.3 million tonnes, marking a 62% increase. With zones remaining open along strike and dip, the Company believes there are significant opportunities to keep growing the overall contained metal inventory. 63% Increase in Inferred Resources: Inferred resources have also grown by 63%, reaching 7.2 million tonnes, with notable copper and gold grades. This expansion in inferred resources supports the deposit's high-grade nature and the ability to bring in additional material that is currently outside of the known resource.

Inferred resources have also grown by 63%, reaching 7.2 million tonnes, with notable copper and gold grades. This expansion in inferred resources supports the deposit's high-grade nature and the ability to bring in additional material that is currently outside of the known resource. Reaching Critical Mass: The resource highlights a contained metal inventory of 307.9 Mlbs of copper, 316.9 Mlbs of zinc, 168.2 koz of gold, and 11.6 Moz of silver in the indicated category, and 246.0 Mlbs of copper, 27.3 Mlbs of zinc, 200.8 koz of gold, and 1.7 Moz of silver in the Inferred category.

The resource highlights a contained metal inventory of 307.9 Mlbs of copper, 316.9 Mlbs of zinc, 168.2 koz of gold, and 11.6 Moz of silver in the indicated category, and 246.0 Mlbs of copper, 27.3 Mlbs of zinc, 200.8 koz of gold, and 1.7 Moz of silver in the Inferred category. Open for Future Expansion: The B26 Deposit remains open at depth and along strike, suggesting further opportunities for organic resource growth from ongoing exploration, part of the Company's 16,500-meter Phase II drill program.

The B26 Deposit remains open at depth and along strike, suggesting further opportunities for organic resource growth from ongoing exploration, part of the Company's 16,500-meter Phase II drill program. Strategic Underground-Only Model: The focus on an underground-only mining model crystallizes immediate value given the higher-grade nature of the resource. We plan to conduct further work to better understand and outline this zone, which could enhance the resource's versatility and add significant optionality in the future.

The focus on an underground-only mining model crystallizes immediate value given the higher-grade nature of the resource. We plan to conduct further work to better understand and outline this zone, which could enhance the resource's versatility and add significant optionality in the future. Supported by Strong Financials: With $13 million in funding, Abitibi Metals is fully financed to complete its 2024 work program and plans an additional 20,000 meters of drilling in 2025, ensuring that resource expansion and project progression continue steadily.

Resources were estimated using the following parameters:

The database includes 298 drill holes for a total of 129,184 metres. Of these, 48 were drilled in 2024 by Abitibi Metals (including 4 that did not reach the bedrock), 191 were drilled by SOQUEM from 2013, and 63 are considered historical.

The database includes 50,648 assays with an average core length of 1.29 metres per sample for a total assayed length of 65,200 metres. Core drilled by Abitibi Metals and SOQUEM is NQ-sized and was assayed by Actlabs in 2014, AGAT in 2015 (re-sampling), ALS in 2016-2017, and AGAT in 2024.

The resource estimate was performed using inverse-distance squared (ID2).

Block size is 10 x 2 x 10 m .

. The model was built using 84 cross-sections with a variable spacing of 8 to 50 metres depending on data density (average spacing of 20 metres). A total of 36 solids were modeled, of which 26 were considered as the Feeder Cu , 3 for the Horizon Zn , and 7 for the Remob Ag-Zn. Minimum intercept length in a drill hole is 3 metres, which approximately corresponds to 2 metres of horizontal thickness.

Capping was used for all variables. Cu was capped at 10%, with only 2 composites capped, resulting in a metal content loss of 0.5%. Zn was capped at 20% , with only 2 composites capped, resulting in a metal content loss of 0.6%. Au was capped at 18 g/t, with only 2 composites capped, resulting in a metal content loss of 2%. Ag was capped at 800 g/t, with only 6 composites capped, resulting in a metal content loss of 3%. Pb was capped at 2%, with only 3 composites capped, resulting in a metal content loss of 2%.

Rock density is 2.8 for Feeder Cu and Remob Ag-Zn solids. Density is 2.95 for Horizon Zn solids. These values are based on 2,349 measurements by SOQUEM between 2013 and 2017. This parameter was unchanged from the 2018 MRE.

Parameters used for the Underground Mining Scenario are: Prices: Cu: 9,370 $/t (4.25 $/lb) Zn: 2,976 $/t (1.35 $/lb) Au: 2,000 $/oz Ag: 26 $/oz Pb: 1.00 $/lb Costs: Underground ore mining: $60.50 /t Processing: $24 /t G&A: $1.5 /t Mining recovery: 90% Milling recovery: Cu: 98.3 %, Zn: 96.1 %, Au: 90 %, Ag: 72.1 % and Pb: 44 % Mining dilution: 10% Royalty: 0% Waste density: 2.8 The formula to calculate the in-situ value is the following: 92.11 ($/%) x Cu(%) + 28.6 ($/%) x Zn(%) + 57.87 ($/g) x Au (g/t) + 0.603 ($/g) x Ag (g/t) + 9.7 ($/%) x Pb(%)

Small zones of estimated mineralized material were excluded from the MRE figures, as they may not be substantial enough to justify underground development.

Further details regarding the 2024 mineral resource estimate, key assumptions, parameters and methods used to estimate the mineral resources of the B26 Deposit will be available on SEDAR Plus (www.sedarplus.ca) under the Corporation's issuer profile within 45 days in accordance with NI 43-101.

Yann Camus P.Eng. of SGS Canada Inc., is the independent qualified person responsible for the technical information about the resource estimate presented in this news release, as defined by NI 43101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, including the verification of released data.

Information contained in this press release was reviewed and approved by Martin Demers, P.Geo., OGQ No. 770, a qualified person as defined under National Instrument 43-101, and responsible for the technical information provided in this news release, with the exception of the resource estimate results.

Strict QA/QC protocols were used during all exploration programs performed by SOQUEM and Abitibi Metals on the B26 project, including the insertion of certified reference material and blanks.

About Abitibi Metals Corp

Abitibi Metals Corp. is a Quebec-focused mineral acquisition and exploration company focused on the development of quality base and precious metal properties that are drill-ready with high-upside and expansion potential. Abitibi's portfolio of strategic properties provides target-rich diversification and includes the option to earn 80% of the high-grade B26 Polymetallic Deposit, which hosts a resource estimate of 11.3MT @ 2.13% Cu Eq (Ind) & 7.2MT @ 2.21% Cu Eq (Inf), and the Beschefer Gold Project, where historical drilling has identified 4 historical intercepts with a metal factor of over 100 g/t gold highlighted by 55.63 g/t gold over 5.57 metres and 13.07 g/t gold over 8.75 metres amongst four modelled zones.

About SOQUEM

SOQUEM, a subsidiary of Investissement Quebec, is dedicated to promoting the exploration, discovery, and development of mining properties in Quebec. SOQUEM also contributes to maintaining strong local economies. As a proud partner and ambassador for the development of Quebec's mineral wealth, SOQUEM relies on innovation, research and strategic minerals to be well-positioned for the future.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Jonathon Deluce, Chief Executive Officer

The Company also maintains an active presence on various social media platforms to keep stakeholders and the general public informed and encourages shareholders and interested parties to follow and engage with the Company through the following channels to stay updated with the latest news, industry insights, and corporate announcements:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AbitibiMetals

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/abitibi-metals-corp-amq-c/

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-looking statement

This news release contains certain statements, which may constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information involves statements that are not based on historical information but rather relate to future operations, strategies, financial results or other developments on the B26 Project or otherwise. Forward-looking information is necessarily based upon estimates and assumptions, which are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the Company's control and many of which, regarding future business decisions, are subject to change. These uncertainties and contingencies can affect actual results and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by or on the Company's behalf. Although Abitibi has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. All factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on Abitibi's forward-looking information. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expects," "estimates," "anticipates," or variations of such words and phrases (including negative and grammatical variations) or statements that certain actions, events or results "may," "could," "might" or "occur. Mineral exploration and development are highly speculative and are characterized by a number of significant inherent risks, which may result in the inability of the Company to successfully develop current or proposed projects for commercial, technical, political, regulatory or financial reasons, or if successfully developed, may not remain economically viable for their mine life owing to any of the foregoing reasons, among others. There is no assurance that the Company will be successful in achieving commercial mineral production and the likelihood of success must be considered in light of the stage of operations.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Myriad Uranium Corp. (CSE: M) (OTCQB: MYRUF) (FSE: C3Q) ("Myriad" or the "Company") is pleased to announce further results of equivalent uranium (eU 3 O 8 ) grades from drilling at the Copper Mountain Uranium Project in Wyoming, USA (Figure 1). Spectral gamma ray logging continues to confirm high-grade uranium mineralisation at the Canning Deposit area and provides strong validation of the historic work done by Union Pacific at Canning and across the Project. These results are still to be confirmed by chemical assay of core and reverse circulation samples being collected from the drilling. Chemical assay results may differ from spectral gamma ray results.

Highlights

Drilling continues to return highly encouraging eU 3 O 8 results from the Canning Deposit area over a strike length of some 2,500 ft (~750 m).

Several intervals reporting average grade greater than 1,000 ppm eU 3 O 8 and peak grade reaching up to 3,870 ppm eU 3 O 8 in borehole CAN0021.

Highlights of significant intervals from the spectral gamma logging include: CAN0013: 1,881 ppm eU 3 O 8 over 8.20 feet (peak of 2,353 ppm eU 3 O 8 at 305.53 feet) CAN0013: 1,286 ppm eU 3 O 8 over 6.89 feet (peak of 1,595 ppm eU 3 O 8 at 330.13 feet) CAN0021: 2,530 ppm eU 3 O 8 over 6.56 feet (peak of 3,870 ppm eU 3 O 8 at 301.60 feet) CAN0021: 1,714 ppm eU 3 O 8 over 4.26 feet (peak of 2,340 ppm eU 3 O 8 at 330.46 feet) CAN0023: 1,644 ppm eU 3 O 8 over 8.53 feet (peak of 2,095 ppm eU 3 O 8 at 448.87 feet)

Spectral gamma ray logging results show elevated uranium mineralisation (greater than 200 ppm eU 3 O 8 ) across multiple intercepts in almost every hole drilled to-date.

The thirteen holes reported here contain 56 intervals over a minimum of 3 feet that are greater than 200 ppm eU 3 O 8 , 14 intervals greater than 500 ppm eU 3 O 8 , and 5 intervals greater than 1,000 ppm eU 3 O 8 .

It is important to note that this initial drill program is focused only on the Canning Deposit area, itself highly significant, but the Project Area also includes six other historical deposits and numerous prospects previously identified by Union Pacific, including Hesitation, Midnight, Knob, Bonanza, Fuller, Mint/Allard, and Kermac/Day, all of which have shown excellent potential through historical drilling and other exploration work.

In addition, our Copper Mountain Project Area includes the formerly-producing Arrowhead and Bonanza uranium mines, which are understood to have produced 0.50 Mlbs at 0.15% U 3 O 8 and 0.78 Mlbs at 1.3% U 3 O 8 respectively.

CEO Thomas Lamb commented: "Beyond the continuing strong gamma probe results, we are excited about what we are seeing as we log the core and RC chips from Canning in terms of alteration and other characteristics and the deeper understanding that this provides us regarding the deposit and mineralization potential. We are more and more confident that we have validated and gone beyond historical drilling results and limits. I also note that a recent gamma probe calibration test at the US DOE calibration facility in Casper, Wyoming, indicates that the already very strong grades we reported in our first six holes (reported here ) may have been understated by as much as 13%. Further comparison will be made with sample assays from an accredited laboratory before any adjustments are made to the reported grade data. Details of this testing are set out below."

George van der Walt, Myriad's Qualified Person for the Project and Technical Advisor, commented: "It is encouraging that we continue to find high-grade intercepts in the Canning Deposit area. Most of the intercepts reported previously were concentrated on the eastern side of the Canning Deposit area, whereas the majority of holes in this report are concentrated on the western side of the area, over a strike length of some 2,500 ft (~750 m)."

Significant intervals derived from Spectral Gamma Ray (SGR) logging at 1000 ppm (0.10%) cut-off (over a minimum of 3 feet) include the following intervals. Note that grade intervals at 500 ppm (0.05%) and 200 ppm (0.02%) cut-offs are provided in Appendix 1:

1000 ppm Cut-off (minimum 3 feet)

Peak Grade

eU3O8 (ppm) Hole ID From (ft) To (ft) Length (ft) eU3O8 (ppm) eU3O8 (%) GT (ft%) CAN0013 302.09 310.29 8.20 1881 0.188 1.54 2353 CAN0013 328.33 335.22 6.89 1286 0.129 0.89 1595 CAN0021 297.82 304.38 6.56 2530 0.253 1.66 3870 CAN0021 328.33 332.59 4.26 1714 0.171 0.73 2340 CAN0023 445.42 453.95 8.53 1644 0.164 1.40 2095

Notes:



The interval lengths are "down the hole" and may not represent true width intervals as the exact nature of the mineralisation distribution has not been determined yet. However, most of the holes are being drilled at an inclination of 50 degrees to test a model that indicates steeply dipping mineralisation. Intervals were selected over a minimum of 3 feet, with grade below cut-off less than 1 foot being included in the total interval. The possible effects of disequilibrium have not been accounted for in the determination of eU 3 O 8 grades.

The boreholes represent a combination of diamond core and reverse circulation drilling that was planned to verify mineralisation identified in drilling by Union Pacific in the late 1970s and to test a grade shell model (above 0.05% eU 3 O 8 ) created from cross-sections, as reported here and here.

The majority of the boreholes in this report were drilled on the western side of the high-grade zone of the Canning Deposit area. This demonstrates the presence of high-grade mineralisation across a strike length of at least 2,500 ft (~750 m).

Figure 1: Map of completed boreholes in the Canning Deposit Area.

Equipment and Methods

Drilling is being performed by Harris Exploration using two diamond core (DD) rigs producing HQ (63.5 mm / 2.5 in) core diameter and 96 mm (3.78 in) in hole diameter, and one reverse circulation (RC) rig using a 140 mm (5.5 in) hammer bit. Core samples are being packed into core trays and transported to Riverton for further processing. RC hole runs are being drilled at 5 ft intervals and split on site to produce two representative samples that are then transported to Riverton for further processing. All mineralised intervals will be submitted to ALS Laboratories for chemical analysis to confirm the intervals reported by gamma logging.

Downhole logging is being performed by DGI Geoscience (DGI). A combination of Spectral Gamma Ray (SGR) and Optical Televiewer and/or Acoustic Televiewer is being applied. The probes are manufactured by Mount Sopris Instruments with details as follows:

QL40 SGR BGO (Sx): Measures the energy of gamma emissions from natural sources within formations crossed by a borehole. It counts the number of gamma emissions at each energy level aiding in lithological determination and correlation. The Probe use a Bismuth Germanium Oxide scintillation crystal.

QL40 SGR 2G CeBr3 (Sx): Measures the energy of gamma emissions from natural sources within formations crossed by a borehole. It counts the number of gamma emissions at each energy level aiding in lithological determination and correlation. The probe uses a CeBr3 (Cerium Bromide) scintillation crystal.

QL 40 ABI 2G (At, Gr): Captures high-resolution, oriented images of the borehole wall, allowing the orientation of acoustically visible features to be determined. This includes fractures, bedding/rock fabric, breakouts, bedding planes and other structural features. Contains a built in Natural Gamma sensor that measures the gamma emissions from natural sources in the formation.

QL OBI 2G (Ot, Gr): Captures a high-resolution, oriented image of the borehole wall using a CMOS digital image sensor, allowing the orientation of features to be determined. This includes fractures, bedding/rock fabric, veins, lithological contacts, etc. Contains a built in Natural Gamma sensor that measures the gamma emissions from natural sources in the formation.

The SGR probes measure the full energy spectrum of the gamma radiation emitted naturally from within the formations crossed by a borehole. A Full Spectrum Analysis (FSA) is performed on the recorded energy spectra. The FSA derives in real time the concentration of the three main radioisotopes 40K, 238U, 212Th, and thus also provides insight into the mineral composition of the formations. DGI is also running optical and acoustic televiewer, when hole conditions allow, to obtain downhole structural information. Borehole paths are being measured using a gyroscopic deviation tool.

Data Verification and Determination of eU 3 O 8 Grades

Initial manufacturer calibration certificates have been provided to Myriad by DGI. Downhole gamma measurements are checked for a repeatability by comparing down and up runs in the borehole. DGI is providing conversion of API units measured by the SGR tools to eU 3 O 8 concentrations using a standard conversion theory and formula.

DGI also ran a calibration test on both the BGO and CeBr3 SGR probes at the Department of Energy (DOE) calibration test facility in Casper, Wyoming on November 1st, 2024. The data indicates that the CeBr3 SGR probe is measuring accurately in the test pit to within 2% of the expected average value, but that the BGO probe is possibly underestimating eU 3 O 8 grade by as much as 13%. The first six boreholes (CAN0001 - CAN0006) were run with the BGO probe and the remainder are all being run with the CeBr3 probe. Further comparison will be made with sample assays from an accredited laboratory before any adjustments are made to the reported grade data.

Radiometric Disequilibrium

Radiometric disequilibrium refers to the loss or gain of uranium in the mineralised zone during geologic processes, which can disrupt the equilibrium between the parent isotope and its daughter products. At this stage the effect of disequilibrium has not been fully assessed at Copper Mountain, but it should be noted that geochemical analysis of samples from the drilling could report results for U 3 O 8 that differ from the eU 3 O 8 grades that have been derived from the gamma logging. Some historic reports state that closed can assays from Copper Mountain indicated little disequilibrium, however differences between gamma probe data and were observed. For this reason, the reported eU 3 O 8 values should be considered as preliminary are subject to data verification by chemical assay with appropriate QAQC.

Myriad is in the process of collecting the samples of all the mineralised intervals from drilling and will submit them to a commercial laboratory for full chemical analysis. The results will then be compared to determine the potential effect of disequilibrium, or other factors, on the final uranium grades that will be used in mineral resource estimation when there is sufficient data to allow it.

Geological Background

Uranium mineralisation at Copper Mountain occurs in two distinct geologic environments:

Fracture-controlled uranium mineralisation hosted in Archaean-aged granite, syenite, isolated occurrences along the margins of diabase dikes and in association with meta-sediment inclusions in granite; and

As disseminations in coarse-grained sandstones and coatings on cobbles and boulders in the Tertiary-aged Teepee Trail Formation at the Arrowhead (Little Mo) mine and other localities.

Uranium mineralisation is thought to have resulted through supergene and hydrothermal enrichment processes. In both cases, the source of the uranium is thought to be the granites of the Owl Creek Mountains.

Historical Estimates

While Myriad Uranium has determined that the historical estimates described in this news release are relevant to the Copper Mountain Project Area and are reasonably reliable given the authors and circumstances of their preparation, and are suitable for public disclosure, readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on these historical estimates as an indicator of current mineral resources or mineral reserves at the Project Area. A qualified person (as defined under NI 43-101) has not done sufficient work to classify any of the historical estimates as current mineral resources or mineral reserves, and Myriad Uranium is not treating the historical estimates as a current mineral resource or mineral reserve. Also, while the Copper Mountain Project Area contains all or most of each deposit referred to, some of the resources referred to may be located outside the current Copper Mountain Project Area. Furthermore, the estimates are decades old and based on drilling data for which the logs are, as of yet, predominantly unavailable. The historical resource estimates, therefore, should not be unduly relied upon.

Inherent limitations of the historical estimates include that the nature of the mineralisation (fracture hosted) makes estimation from drill data less reliable than other deposit types (e.g. those that are thick and uniform). From Myriad Uranium's viewpoint, limitations include that the Company has not been able to verify the data itself and that the estimate may be optimistic relative to subsequent work which applied a "delayed fission neutron" (DFN) factor to calculate grades. On the other hand, DFN is controversial, in that the approach is viewed by some experts as too conservative. Nevertheless, it was applied in later resource estimations by Union Pacific relating to Copper Mountain.

To verify the historical estimates and potentially re-state them as current resources, a program of digitization of available data would be required. This must be followed by re-logging and/or re-drilling to generate new data to the extent necessary that it is comparable with the original data, or new data that can be used to establish the correlation and continuity of geology and grades between boreholes with sufficient confidence to estimate mineral resources.

Qualified Person

The scientific or technical information in this news release respecting the Company's Copper Mountain Project has been approved by George van der Walt, MSc., Pr.Sci.Nat., FGSSA, a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr van der Walt is employed by The MSA Group (Pty) Ltd (MSA), a leading geological consultancy providing services to the minerals industry, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has more than 20 years industry experience and sufficient relevant experience in the type and style of mineralisation to report on exploration results.

The information and interpretations thereof are based on the Qualified Person's initial review of historical reports, which were recently obtained by the Company. The information did not include original data such as drilling records, sampling, analytical or test data underlying the information or opinions contained in the written documents. Therefore, the Qualified Person has not reviewed or otherwise verified the information and has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimates as current mineral resources or mineral reserves. The Qualified Person considers the information to be relevant based on the amount and quality of work undertaken and reported historically. A more thorough review of any available original data will be undertaken and reported on in more detail in future releases.

About Myriad Uranium Corp.

Myriad Uranium Corp. is a uranium exploration company with an earnable 75% interest in the Copper Mountain Uranium Project in Wyoming, USA. Copper Mountain hosts several known uranium deposits and historic uranium mines, including the Arrowhead Mine which produced 500,000 lbs of eU3O8. Copper Mountain saw extensive drilling and development by Union Pacific during the late 1970s including the development of a mine plan to fuel a planned fleet of California Edison reactors. Operations ceased in 1980 before mining could commence due to falling uranium prices. Approximately 2,000 boreholes have been drilled at Copper Mountain and the Project Area has significant exploration upside. Union Pacific is estimated to have spent C$117 million (2024 dollars) exploring and developing Copper Mountain, generating significant historical resource estimates which are detailed here. A recent detailed update with Crux Investor can be viewed here. The Company's presentation can be viewed here. News releases regarding historical drilling can be viewed here and here.

Myriad also has a 50% interest in the Millen Mountain Property in Nova Scotia, Canada, with the other 50% held by Probe Gold Inc. For further information, please refer to Myriad's disclosure record on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca), contact Myriad by telephone at +1.604.418.2877, or refer to Myriad's website at www.myriaduranium.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking information" that is based on the Company's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections. This forward-looking information includes, among other things, the Company's business, plans, outlook and business strategy. The words "may", "would", "could", "should", "will", "likely", "expect," "anticipate," "intend", "estimate", "plan", "forecast", "project" and "believe" or other similar words and phrases are intended to identify forward-looking information. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect, including with respect to the Company's business plans respecting the exploration and development of the Company's mineral properties, the proposed work program on the Company's mineral properties and the potential and economic viability of the Company's mineral properties. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, but are not limited to: changes in economic conditions or financial markets; increases in costs; litigation; legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; and technological or operational difficulties. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect our forward-looking information. These and other factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking information. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

The CSE has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the contents of this news release.

APPENDIX 1: Equivalent uranium (eU 3 O 8 ) intervals at 500 ppm and 200 ppm cut-off (over 3 ft minimum)

500 ppm Cut-off (minimum 3 feet) Hole ID From (ft) To (ft) Length (ft) eU3O8 (ppm) eU3O8 (%) GT (ft%) CAN0011 386.71 391.63 4.92 877 0.088 0.43 CAN0012 328.33 335.87 7.54 718 0.072 0.54 CAN0013 290.94 310.94 20.01 1251 0.125 2.50 CAN0013 321.11 337.18 16.07 950 0.095 1.53 CAN0014 568.42 574.33 5.90 960 0.096 0.57 CAN0019 267.65 277.16 9.51 668 0.067 0.64 CAN0019 292.25 301.43 9.18 629 0.063 0.58 CAN0019 583.18 588.43 5.25 712 0.071 0.37 CAN0020 439.85 448.38 8.53 910 0.091 0.78 CAN0021 297.17 307.99 10.82 1789 0.179 1.94 CAN0021 327.02 333.25 6.23 1395 0.139 0.87 CAN0023 317.50 320.78 3.28 760 0.076 0.25 CAN0023 370.31 374.25 3.94 664 0.066 0.26 CAN0023 443.13 457.23 14.10 1269 0.127 1.79

200 ppm Cut-off (minimum 3 feet) Hole ID From (ft) To (ft) Length (ft) eU 3 O 8 (ppm) eU 3 O 8 (%) GT (ft%) CAN0011 201.39 211.23 9.84 323 0.032 0.32 CAN0011 211.89 217.46 5.58 360 0.036 0.20 CAN0011 228.29 247.97 19.68 317 0.032 0.62 CAN0011 249.28 257.48 8.20 307 0.031 0.25 CAN0011 263.71 274.21 10.50 290 0.029 0.30 CAN0011 289.95 304.06 14.10 328 0.033 0.46 CAN0011 318.16 331.94 13.78 270 0.027 0.37 CAN0011 338.50 342.43 3.94 258 0.026 0.10 CAN0011 357.19 363.10 5.90 287 0.029 0.17 CAN0011 370.97 376.87 5.90 246 0.025 0.15 CAN0011 385.40 393.27 7.87 674 0.067 0.53 CAN0012 323.74 340.14 16.40 513 0.051 0.84 CAN0012 344.73 349.65 4.92 262 0.026 0.13 CAN0012 423.45 429.35 5.90 431 0.043 0.25 CAN0012 464.12 470.35 6.23 258 0.026 0.16 CAN0013 287.98 312.26 24.27 1086 0.109 2.64 CAN0013 316.19 339.81 23.62 811 0.081 1.91 CAN0013 620.25 627.79 7.54 271 0.027 0.20 CAN0014 422.14 425.42 3.28 264 0.026 0.09 CAN0014 538.58 541.86 3.28 312 0.031 0.10 CAN0014 550.38 553.66 3.28 256 0.026 0.08 CAN0014 555.30 576.62 21.32 595 0.060 1.27 CAN0014 582.53 587.78 5.25 222 0.022 0.12 CAN0014 589.74 594.01 4.26 212 0.021 0.09 CAN0014 596.63 615.00 18.37 230 0.023 0.42 CAN0015 166.62 181.71 15.09 359 0.036 0.54 CAN0015 190.24 213.86 23.62 300 0.030 0.71 CAN0015 215.50 226.32 10.82 286 0.029 0.31 CAN0015 232.22 250.92 18.70 274 0.027 0.51 CAN0015 254.20 261.42 7.22 257 0.026 0.19 CAN0015 265.02 268.96 3.94 284 0.028 0.11 CAN0015 270.60 278.14 7.54 249 0.025 0.19 CAN0015 676.01 679.29 3.28 242 0.024 0.08 CAN0015 717.66 722.58 4.92 345 0.034 0.17 CAN0016 525.46 534.31 8.86 367 0.037 0.33 CAN0017 No intervals with eU 3 O 8 greater than 200 ppm CAN0018 269.29 273.55 4.26 451 0.045 0.19 CAN0019 217.14 231.24 14.10 359 0.036 0.51 CAN0019 232.55 279.13 46.58 373 0.037 1.74 CAN0019 287.98 304.06 16.07 482 0.048 0.77 CAN0019 310.62 329.31 18.70 293 0.029 0.55 CAN0019 582.20 590.73 8.53 556 0.056 0.47 CAN0020 438.54 449.36 10.82 787 0.079 0.85 CAN0020 485.77 490.69 4.92 281 0.028 0.14 CAN0020 517.58 520.86 3.28 211 0.021 0.07 CAN0021 128.25 131.86 3.61 389 0.039 0.14 CAN0021 296.18 309.63 13.45 1507 0.151 2.03 CAN0021 325.05 334.23 9.18 1057 0.106 0.97 CAN0022 482.16 486.75 4.59 427 0.043 0.20 CAN0022 702.90 707.50 4.59 257 0.026 0.12 CAN0023 310.94 322.10 11.15 442 0.044 0.49 CAN0023 334.89 344.73 9.84 320 0.032 0.31 CAN0023 356.54 362.44 5.90 287 0.029 0.17 CAN0023 368.67 375.23 6.56 541 0.054 0.35 CAN0023 441.82 461.50 19.68 990 0.099 1.95 CAN0023 547.10 550.38 3.28 440 0.044 0.14

APPENDIX 1: Table of drilled positions
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 /Galloper Gold Corp. (CSE:BOOM) (OTC PINK:GGDCF) (the "Company" or "Galloper") is pleased to announce that Dr. Iliya Garkov, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer for Dundee Precious Metals Inc. (TSX: DPM), has joined Galloper's Board of Directors.

Dr. Garkov has over three decades of international mining experience in Bulgaria, Australia and Armenia. Since 2003, when Dundee Precious Metals acquired its assets in Bulgaria, he has held a number of leadership roles within the company and was appointed to his current position in February 2024, helping grow DPM's profitability and its market capitalization to approximately $2.5 billion.

Dr. Garkov was a key contributor to the transformation of DPM's Chelopech mine into a world-class mining operation and the successful commissioning and ramp-up of the Ada Tepe mine. He has also led the company's exploration activities in Bulgaria and Serbia.

Galloper's CEO, Mr. Hratch Jabrayan, commented: "I am delighted that Iliya has joined our Board as we continue the process of turning Galloper into a leading junior gold company in Newfoundland with our flagship Glover Island asset. Iliya is highly regarded in the sector and will bring invaluable new expertise to Galloper to help us take Glover Island to the next level."

Dr. Garkov commented: "Glover Island is in a prolific geological setting for gold in a rapidly growing mining area of Western Newfoundland where there are a variety of deposit types and an important new gold mine (Valentine) slated for production next year.

"I'm looking forward to assisting Hratch and the Galloper team to help unlock the value of Glover Island where over 100 historical drill holes, plus Galloper's recently completed first drill holes, provides us with a wealth of information to build a robust and effective exploration model aimed at making a significant new discovery."

Dr. Garkov has a PhD in mining engineering from the University of Mining and Geology St. Ivan Rilski in Bulgaria and is a graduate of the London Business School Senior Executive Programme.

To make room for Dr. Garkov on the Galloper Board, Mr. Rav Mlait has resigned as a Director of the Company. Galloper thanks Mr. Mlait for his contributions as a Director. He continues to serve as Galloper's Corporate Secretary.

Figure 1 - "Four Corners" Mining Region of Western Newfoundland

Investors are cautioned that mineralization on adjacent properties is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization at Glover Island or the potential for a resource.

CEO Hratch Jabrayan Video Profile

Click on the following link to learn more about Hratch, Galloper Gold's new CEO.

https://vimeo.com/1007433600/031f977268

Figure 2 - Glover Island Property Map

Acknowledgment - Newfoundland & Labrador Junior Exploration Assistance Program

Galloper Gold acknowledges the financial support of the Junior Exploration Assistance Program, Department of Natural Resources, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

About Galloper Gold Corp.

Galloper is focused on mineral exploration in the Central Newfoundland Gold Belt with its flagship Glover Island Property, 24 km southeast of Corner Brook, and its Mint Pond prospect in the Gander area. Galloper recently completed the first diamond drilling program at Glover Island since 2012, completing six holes with results pending.

For more information please visit www.GalloperGold.com and the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

Mr. Hratch Jabrayan

CEO and Director

Galloper Gold Corp.

Company Contact:

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tel: 778-655-9266

Investor Relations:

MarketSmart Communications

Tel: 877-261-4466

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. The use of any of the words "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "expect", "estimate", "objective", "may", "will", "project", "should", "predict", "potential" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company cannot give any assurance that they will prove correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, they involve inherent assumptions, risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of assumptions, factors and risks. These assumptions and risks include, but are not limited to, assumptions and risks associated with mineral exploration generally, risks related to capital markets, risks related to the state of financial markets or future metals prices and the other risks described in the Company's publicly filed disclosure.

Management has provided the above summary of risks and assumptions related to forward-looking statements in this news release in order to provide readers with a more comprehensive perspective on the Company's future operations. The Company's actual results, performance or achievement could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements and, accordingly, no assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what benefits the Company will derive from them. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and, other than as required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
TORONTO / Nov 14, 2024 / Business Wire / Trigon Metals Inc. (TSX-V: TM, OTCQB: PNTZF) (Trigon or the Company) announces the resignation of Dr. David Shaw from the Companys Board of Directors, effective immediately.

Dr. Shaw has faithfully served on the Board of Directors since 2019. The Company wishes to thank him for his contributions and dedicated service to Trigon over the past five years, and wish him much success in his future endeavors.

Jed Richardson, CEO and Executive Chairman of Trigon, commented, We wish to thank David for his valuable insights and oversight as a director and wish him a very happy retirement.

Stock Option Grant

The Company has granted a total of 125,000 stock options to an officer pursuant to its stock option plan. The options may be exercised at a price of $0.82 per option for a period of five years from the date of grant. The grant of options remains subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

The Company has amended the share exchange agreement between the Company, PNT Financeco Corp. (formerly Base Metal Investment Services) and Commodity Makers International (CMI) dated November 29, 2023 (the SEA) to permit any unissued Trigon common shares issuable to CMI pursuant to the SEA to be issued immediately prior to any transaction which results in Change in Control (as defined in the SEA, as amended) of Trigon.

Trigon Metals Inc.

Trigon is a publicly-traded Canadian exploration and development company with its core business focused on copper and silver holdings in mine-friendly African jurisdictions. Currently, the Company has operations in Namibia and Morocco. In Namibia, the Company holds an 80% interest in five mining licences in the Otavi Mountainlands, an area of Namibia widely recognized for its high-grade copper deposits, where the Company is focused on exploration and re-development of the previously producing Kombat Mine.

Cautionary Notes

This news release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements include statements regarding the stock option grants, the amendments to the SEA, changes to the Companys board of directors, the Companys strategies and the Companys abilities to execute such strategies, the Companys expectations for the Kombat Mine, and the Companys future plans and objectives. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors discussed in the management discussion and analysis section of our interim and most recent annual financial statements or other reports and filings with the TSX Venture Exchange and applicable Canadian securities regulations. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 /Condor Resources Inc. ("Condor" or the "Company") (TSXV:CN) is pleased to report that it has successfully completed the Consulta Previa process at Huinac Punta and received the final Initiation of Activities permit from the Ministry of Energy & Mines. This is a critical milestone for the Company, clearing the way for the planned exploration program at this highly prospective project.

Chris Buncic, President & CEO of Condor, commented, "the completion of the Consulta Previa process at Huinac Punta and the Initiation of Activities is a major turning point for the project. Condor has been advancing this prospective project for several years, first receiving its DIA or principal permit in 2020. With this step behind us, the Company is preparing to kick off its maiden drill program at Huinac Punta, and has latitude for several subsequent programs over the next three years. We are excited to begin work in this highly prospective belt that hosts a number of the world's largest base and precious metals mines."

The Huinac Punta project has the potential to host a large, carbonate replacement style silver-dominant polymetallic mineralized body. Based on sampling of existing surface exposures, mineralization includes high-grade Ag and elevated Cu, Zn, Pb and Co values. Evidence of historical works from Spanish colonial times is present with several accessible historical adits showing evidence of the elevated silver values associated with disseminated grey and black breccia-hosted sulfide material consisting of sphalerite, galena, chalcocite, bornite, covellite and undetermined lead and silver sulphosalts. The first phase drill program will target geological and geophysical features that suggest potential for discovery of a bulk tonnage silver and base metals deposit.

Technical Disclosure/Qualified Person

The scientific and technical information in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Quinton Hennigh, (P.Geo., PhD), a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 and a Director of Condor Resources.

About Condor Resources Inc.

Condor Resources is a precious and base metals exploration company focused on its portfolio of projects in Peru. The Company's flagship project, Pucamayo, is an 85 km2 property containing a high sulfidation epithermal system with disseminated precious metals mineralization with a large lithocap alteration visible at surface. The Huinac Punta project, a 7,200 Ha property in Huanuco, Peru, has the potential to host a large carbonate replacement style (CRD) silver-dominant polymetallic mineralized body with the potential for discovery of a bulk tonnage silver and base metals deposit. The Company has optioned several large projects to partners who continue to advance these projects. The Company's award-winning exploration team in Peru has a long history of success in discovering and advancing high quality exploration projects and managing the social aspects of its exploration activities.

For more information, please visit the Company's website at www.condorresources.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Chris Buncic

President & Chief Executive Officer

For further information please contact the Company at 1-866-642-5707, or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur.

Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in applicable forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those contained in such statements.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.
Webinar Scheduled for Friday November 15th at 12pm ET

Phoenix, Arizona--(Newsfile Corp. - November 14, 2024) - Gunnison Copper Corp. (TSX: GCU) (FSE: 3XS) (OTCQB: EXMGF) ("GCC" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the results of a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") on its 100%-owned Gunnison Project in the Cochise Mining District, Arizona. The Gunnison Project is presented as a conventional open pit and heap leach operation which will produce finished copper cathode for domestic U.S. consumption. All dollar amounts are in US dollars and "Tons" refer to U.S. short tons (1 short ton equals approximately 0.91 metric tonnes).

The Company will present at a webinar hosted by Adelaide Capital on Friday November 15th at 12pm ET. Questions can be submitted during the session or in advance to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . The webinar will be livestreamed on the Adelaide Capital YouTube Channel, where a replay will be available after the event: https://bit.ly/adcap-youtube. Register here: https://streamyard.com/watch/heaHcYsvWeCw.

Highlights of the PEA (United States Dollars)

The Gunnison Project, a fully vertically integrated operation producing finished copper cathode on-site in Arizona for domestic U.S. supply chains, has an after-tax net present value (8%) of $1.3 billion and an internal rate of return (IRR) of 20.9% at a long-term copper price of $4.10/lb;

One of the most substantial open pit copper projects in the U.S. with total Measured and Indicated ("M&I") Mineral Resources in the open pit of 551 million tons at a total copper grade of 0.35%, capable of supplying 8% of recent annual U.S. domestic copper production 1

Simplified and lower risk path to permitting; the Gunnison Project has current operating permits and there is a more streamlined amendment process to State and Local permits to proceed with open pit mining;

Significant benefits for the community and local economy through the payment of over $840 million in U.S. federal, state, and local taxes, partnerships with local institutions such as Cochise College, and the creation of over 650 local jobs;

Average annual copper cathode production of 83,700 tons (167 million lbs) over the first 16 years and total production of 1,355,900 tons (2,712 million lbs) over the entire 18 year mine life at an average Cash Cost (C1) of $1.42/lb and Sustaining Cash Cost 2 of $1.94/lb of copper produced;

of $1.94/lb of copper produced; Total initial capital cost of $1.3 billion and after-tax payback period for initial capital of 4.1 years;

Environmental advantages include lower water usage per pound of copper produced versus copper concentrate producers, up to 10% reduced energy consumption due to on-site clean energy production, and zero risk of environmental impacts from tailings dam failures as there are no tailings produced.

Dr. Stephen Twyerould, CEO, commented: "The positive outlook for copper prices, combined with advancement of sulfide leaching technologies, and the greater overall copper extraction afforded by open pit mining and heap leaching, has prompted us to focus on an open pit alternative to ISR. We are very excited by these results, which clearly demonstrate the project is substantial and highly competitive amongst its peers."

Craig Hallworth, CFO, commented: "Gunnison Copper, with its newly optimized Gunnison Project and soon to be producing Johnson Camp Mine, presents an attractive opportunity for investors to gain leverage to the copper price through a pure play vehicle. Given the portfolio's location in the Arizona Copper Belt, the fully permitted status of Johnson Camp and streamlined path to permitting for Gunnison via permit amendments, we look forward to directly supplying critical U.S. supply chains in the clean energy, defense, and manufacturing sectors in our expected macro environment of rising copper prices and producer multiples."

Roland Goodgame, SVP Business Development, commented: "The future of Gunnison has evolved to a lower risk open pit option with great economics. The opportunities the Gunnison project presents will benefit the local community and the greater Arizona economy. Significant direct jobs (over 650) and indirect jobs will be created in addition to $842 million in revenues to local, state and federal tax. The historical mining assets in the Cochise Mining District will be leveraged and fully developed to benefit the local community."

The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves. There is no certainty that the conclusions reached in the PEA will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

The PEA was completed by M3 Engineering & Technology Corporation ("M3") of Tucson, AZ and is effective as of November 1, 2024. The Technical Report (the "Report") summarizing the results of the PEA and prepared in accordance with National Instrument ("NI") 43-101, will be filed on SEDAR+ and GCC's website within 45 days of this news release. The prior technical report on the Gunnison Project included the Johnson Camp Mine ("JCM"); however, with the new open pit development of the Gunnison Project and the current construction and upcoming restart of production at JCM in 2025, the Company will no longer develop the Gunnison Project and JCM using common infrastructure. As a result, an updated technical report on JCM will be prepared and filed.

Preliminary Economic Assessment Summary

The Project is in Cochise County, Arizona, approximately 65 miles east of Tucson and is held or controlled 100% by GCC. The Gunnison deposit of the Gunnison Project was previously designed and developed as an in-situ recovery ("ISR") copper operation. The advancement of sulfide leaching technologies and the greater copper extraction of open pit mining and heap leaching has prompted GCC to focus on the open pit alternative to ISR. Nevertheless, the optionality on the fully permitted ISR operations and well stimulation remains an asset to the Company and this optionality will be maintained. This includes maintaining full compliance with all regulatory and permit requirements including maintaining hydraulic control, pumping, monitoring and regulatory reporting.

The Gunnison Open Pit PEA plans to pre-strip alluvial overburden using leased owner-operated equipment. The deposit is a single large body allowing for more cost effective haulage costs, versus mining from numerous regional deposits. A primary gyratory crusher will be installed to crush to a P 80 of 6 inches for leaching predominately oxide mineralized materials on the leach pad. A rail spur from the Union Pacific Southern Pacific (UPSP) will provide straightforward access and inexpensive transportation for incoming sulfur and outgoing copper cathodes. The sulfuric acid plant will produce acid with a net cost of approximately $36 a ton and 27 MW of clean energy.

GCC has a successful track record of permitting and community relations. This, along with the fact that the Gunnison open pit has no federal permitting nexus, on flat ground with no identified endangered or threatened species or habitat, and no historical, archaeological, or Native American artefacts, indicates the Company's prior permitting track record can be maintained.

Table of Key Metrics

Notes:

Hard rock waste includes 85 million short tons of pure limestone, a highly marketable material. Excludes recovery of sulfides from conventional leaching. Some sulfides are expected to leach and provide up-side to recoveries and copper production. Includes acid plant, leach pad, SX-EW, crushing facility, truck shop, mining pre-strip, highway move, owners' costs and other minor infrastructure. Sustaining Capital includes $346 million in deferred stripping costs Cash Cost includes mine operating, crushing and leaching, process plant operating, and general and administrative costs ("G&A"). Sustaining Cost includes Cash Cost, Sustaining Capex, Deferred Stripping, and Royalties. EBITDA = Revenue - Cash Operating Expenses; Average annual of Y1 to Y16; Revenue includes sales of copper to U.S. based customers at Spot Price and sales of copper to Triple Flag at Stream Fixed Price (25% of spot) Free Cash Flow = Operating Cash Flow (After Tax) - Capital Expenditures; Average annual of Y1 to Y16

Financial Analysis

The PEA base case generates an after-tax Net Present Value of approximately $1.3 billion (at a discount rate of 8%) and an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 20.9%. This financial analysis is based on a non-levered cash flow model, revenues and costs priced in 2024 real US dollars, mid period discounting, and a valuation date set at the start of Project construction.

Key cash flow model parameters include:

Copper selling price of $4.10/lb;

Net copper premium of $0.02/lb (metal premium less freight out);

Stream deliveries at 25% of market price;

NSR royalties of 4.5% applies to all copper produced

State royalty of 5.5% applies to the mineralized material mined from State land (~10% of copper produced)

Total copper recovery of approximately 69.5%;

LoM average of approximately 10.6 pounds of acid consumed for every pound of copper produced (52 lbs per ton of mineralized material processed);

Electricity price of $0.079 per Kwh

Acid plant construction in year -1 with a price of sulfur of $110 per short ton delivered based on long term price forecast of $75/ton CFR Tampa benchmark plus average direct rail freight in from Mexican smelters of $35/ton. Including co-generation power credits, the realized price of acid produced on site averages $36/ton;

Acid buying price of $150/ton if acid is required above the acid plant's capacity, and an acid selling price of $130/ton if excess acid is produced in any specific year;

Federal income tax rate of 21% and the State income tax rate of 4.9%. State income tax is deductible for federal income purposes resulting in a combined income tax rate of 24.9%

Table of Capital Costs

The capital cost estimates for this PEA, shown in table below, were developed with a -25% to +30% accuracy. The Company has used an overall contingency of 20% in accordance with Association of the Advancement of Cost Engineering International (AACE) Class 5 estimate guidelines.

Total initial (pre-breakthrough) capital expenditures (including 20% contingency, EPCM, capital spares, owner's costs, mobile equipment and freight) are estimated at $1,343 million for initial production of copper cathode. Mine costs includes pre-stripping and capitalized pre-operating mobile fleet lease costs. Total sustaining capital costs over the life of the mine are $876 million, which includes deferred stripping, leach pad expansion and mining equipment.

Facilities at the mine site will include one open pit, two waste stockpiles, primary crushing plant and conveying system, heap leach pad, Solvent Extraction-Electrowinning (SX-EW) process plant, sulfur burning sulfuric acid plant with cogeneration capability, technical and operational support offices, mine truck shop and maintenance buildings, refueling systems, electrical substation and distribution, water supply and distribution, warehousing and Union Pacific rail spur.

Table of Operating Costs

Mining operating cost estimates, prepared by Independent Mining Consultants (IMC), are based on an owner's team managing mining activities, using an owner-operator model. Process operating cost estimates and G&A cost estimates were prepared by M3, as summarized in the table above (note numbers may not add due to rounding). Sequencing of operations and annual cash flows are detailed in Exhibit 1 and 2, at the end of this news release.

The operating site includes numerous infrastructure and location advantages including:

Union Pacific rail line right next to the property with a 2 km rail spur envisioned.

High voltage power lines with clean power from SSVEC.

Close to local and regional labor pools of Benson, Willcox, and Tucson.

Flat land conducive for development.

Deposit is within an enclosed basin; therefore no 404 permit is required.

No endangered flora or fauna on the property.

Table of Profitability Metrics

Table of Sensitivities

Mine Plan and Production Profile

Figure 1 shows the stacked total mining profile of waste and process feed. Overall strip ratio is ~2:1, however 67% of the waste is alluvium gravel which has the advantage of lower mining costs. The equivalent striping ratio based on hard rock waste mining costs is approximately 1.57:1.

Figure 2 shows the LoM stacked annual copper production by conventional oxide leaching compared to sulfide leaching. Sulfide leaching makes up only 14% of the total LoM copper production and does not commence until year 8 of operations.

Mineral Resource Estimate

The mineral resource estimate for the Gunnison Deposit is based on results from 122 drill holes totalling 158,785 feet and is effective as of September 4th, 2024. Gunnison deposit mineral resources are classified in order of increasing geological confidence into Inferred, Indicated, and Measured categories in accordance with the "CIM Definition Standards - For Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves" and therefore Canadian National Instrument 43-101. GCC is not aware of any environmental, permitting, legal, title, taxation, socio-political, marketing or other issues which may materially affect its estimate of mineral resources.

The Gunnison deposit mineral resources are reported within an optimized pit at cut-offs that are reasonable given anticipated open-pit mining methods, processing costs, and economic conditions, which fulfills regulatory requirements that a mineral resource exists in such form, grade or quality and quantity that there are reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction.

The pit-constrained mineral resources are tabulated using an internal cut-off grade of 0.05% TCu. No mineral resources were estimated within overburden (Tertiary/Quaternary alluvium), and the reported mineral resources are restricted to lands controlled by GCC.

Total Resources Resource Class Short

Tons

(millions) Total

Cu (%) Cu

Pounds

(millions) Measured 191.3 0.37 1,420 Indicated 640.2 0.29 3,684 Measured + Indicated 831.6 0.31 5,104 Inferred 79.6 0.20 325

Notes:

Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Mineral Resources are reported at a 0.05% total copper cut-off grade within an optimized pit. Rounding as required by reporting guidelines, may result in apparent discrepancies between tons, grade, and contained metal content. The Effective Date of the Mineral Resource estimate is September 4, 2024.

The Gunnison mineral resources were modeled to reflect the detailed lithologic, structural, and oxidation modeling completed by GCC. Copper mineral domains guided by these geological controls, were interpreted on east-west vertical cross sections on 100-foot spacing, which encompass the 2.3-mile north-south and 1.3-mile east-west extents of the deposit. These domains were then used to explicitly constrain the estimation of copper grades into 50 x 100 x 25-foot (x, y, z) model blocks using 20-foot composites and inverse-distance interpolation. The grade estimation is further controlled by the incorporation of search ellipses that reflect the orientations of modeled structural zones, as well as those of favorable stratigraphic units in areas unaffected by the structures. Sequential copper assay ratios were used to define three-dimensional surfaces separating the Oxide, Transitional, and Sulfide zones of the mineralization.

All samples were prepared from manually split half-core sections on-site in Arizona. Split drill core samples were then sent to Skyline Assayers & Laboratories ("Skyline") in Tucson, Arizona, an independent laboratory, for Total Copper (TCu) and Sequential Copper analyses, Acid Soluble Copper (ASCU) and Cyanide Soluble Cu (CNCu). Skyline is accredited with international standard ISO/IEC 17025:2005 General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories. Analytical results for (TCu), (ASCu), and (CNCu) were reported. GCC has no relationship with Skyline Labs other than Skyline being a service provider. Standards, blanks, and duplicate assays are included at regular intervals in each sample batch submitted from the field as part of an ongoing Quality Assurance/Quality Control Program.

Mr. Jeffrey Bickel, C.P.G., with the independent firm RESPEC Company LLC ("RESPEC") of Reno, Nevada, is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 and is responsible for this mineral resource estimate. He has verified, reviewed, and approved the technical disclosure contained in this section of the news release. Mr. Bickel has verified the data underlying the results by reviewing the drilling, sampling, assay, and quality assurance and quality control data, as well as the geologic interpretations completed by GCC. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. As the Company has completely rescoped the operation from ISR to open pit using a PEA, the prior mineral reserve estimate on the Gunnison Project is no longer current and should be disregarded.

Risks

Certain risks and opportunities are associated with the Project, as is typical for mine development projects. These risks may include and are not limited to environmental permitting, title issues, taxation, public/political opposition, or legal impediments to operating this type of mining/processing operation at this location. The following Project-specific risks have been identified along with the measures that GCC envisages to mitigate the risk.

Slope Stability. Slope recommendations received from Call & Nicholas, Inc. ("CNI") were based on rock quality designation (RQD) data from core holes and experience at other Arizona mines in similar rock formations. Actual slope angles may have to be decreased, increasing the amount of waste handling required.

Mitigation. Geotechnical drilling, along with in-depth slope stability analysis, could result in achievable pit slope angles that are more shallow or steeper than the angles used in the analysis that will be presented in the report.

Blasting Costs. Drilling and blasting in the weakly cemented alluvium overburden is assumed to be approximately 2.6 times more productive than in the bedrock. Overestimation of blasting productivity in the overburden would result in increased costs.

Mitigation. Additional investigation of the weakly cemented alluvium could remove uncertainties for this productivity differential.

Mine Design Uncertainty. The tonnage expected to be placed on the leach pad could change as more drilling and engineering are completed. Metal prices, changes in metal recovery, or increases in operating costs could change the potential tonnage of heap leachable material.

Mitigation. Additional investigation as the project moves toward implementation should reduce the uncertainty.

Copper Recovery. The heap leaching process for recovering copper from oxidized mineralization can be unpredictable. Metallurgical testing has established that coarse crushed mineralization is amenable to copper heap leaching and recovery. Metallurgical testwork results have been used to approximate results of leaching, although they may not reflect the LOM actual leach recovery performance. There is risk that additional testwork or actual performance could indicate the possibility of lower copper recoveries at the current crush size, acid application rate, or leach cycle estimates..

Mitigation. Operational strategies will involve adjusting crush sizes, flowrates and acid strengths based on operational experience to maximize infiltration rates and increase PLS grades.

Leach Pad Flow Attenuation. Production of excess fines, compaction of lift surfaces on the leach pad, decrepitation of host rock mineralized material, and precipitation of minerals due to acid depletion could cause the formation of zones of low permeability. As with all leach pads, there is risk of poor vertical solution flow and leach pad hydrodynamics.

Mitigation. Placement and distribution of the leach material will be monitored to prevent compaction and enhance uniform distribution of leach solutions. Boreholes drilled through zones identified with low permeability can enhance vertical migration of solutions. Segregation or special treatment of materials that are identified as decrepitation (breaking down) and/or releasing fines may be necessary to mitigate this type of flow attenuation.

Acid Consumption/Cost. This Project relies on large volumes of sulfuric acid to liberate and dissolve copper from the leach pad materials to produce a saleable product. Acid consumption is estimated to range from 24 to 70 pounds of acid per ton of leach material based on the various rock types and carbonate content. The actual acid consumption could potentially be higher.

Mitigation. Controlling excess sulfuric acid consumption may require careful management and segregation of the materials as they are placed on the leach pad. The height of each lift could be increased to reduce the time that the lower portion is subjected to leach solutions consuming acid. Placing geomembranes or low permeability layers between lifts could isolate depleted, acid-consuming materials at the bottom of the pad. Studies into mineralized material sorting to reject high carbonate-low copper mineralization will be conducted to determine the applicability and economics of this technique. Mineralized material sorting has the potential to reduce acid consumption in practice.

Permitting Difficulties. Permitting for mining projects in the western US and Arizona has often been an arduous and unpredictable task in the recent past. Regulations and social attitudes can change. Although the Company has previously been able to obtain all operating permits in a reasonable time frame, there is no certainty this track record will continue.



Mitigation. Permitting difficulties for changing the mining method for the deposit can be mitigated by developing support within the local community, identifying, and fixing potential areas of contention before they arise, getting support from community leaders in advance of applying for permits. Another measure is developing realistic permitting schedules that incorporate time to deal with challenges which also helps minimize deleterious consequences.

Opportunities

Several opportunities have been identified which could enhance the viability and economic attractiveness of the Open Pit Project. Many of these opportunities may be realized by removal of risk and uncertainty that are present at the PEA level.

Acid Consumption. Mineralized material sorting is a significant value-add opportunity for the Gunnison open pit. Greater than 80% of the mined copper is oxide mineralization, forming visually distinct blue-green and red-brown zones that are ideally suited to optical mineralized material sorting. Preliminary data suggest sorting of this material has the potential to greatly reduce acid consumption and volume of material leached by removing 40 to 50 percent of the process stream as unmineralized, higher acid consuming, waste. This would result in significant savings on operating costs. Pit Slope Angles. The pit wall angles for the Gunnison open pit are considered reasonable based on the data available, however it is conceivable that pre-feasibility geotechnical data can steepen the pit walls in the gravel-alluvium, thus reducing pre-strip capital costs and life of mine waste mining costs. Copper Recoveries. The anticipated copper recovery is an estimate based on the best interpretation of existing test work. This copper recovery could be exceeded in practice. Recovery increases could improve the rate of recovery, as well as increase total copper recovered. Improvements in the rate of recovery would mean lower flows from the leach pad for the same level of copper production, lowering operational costs., Or, the increased grade could result in higher copper production (revenue) for the same operating cost. Improvements in total copper recovered have the obvious benefit of increasing total revenue during the life of the mine. Increased Copper Price. The current financial analysis is based on an average, long-term copper price of $4.10 per pound based on current consensus pricing. Current spot markets are currently 5% to 10% higher than long-term pricing estimates. Global demand increases for copper have the potential to drive copper prices higher, thereby increasing the economic (revenue) outlook for the Project. Strong and Harris Copper-Zinc-Silver Project. The Company filed a separate technical report dated October 20, 2021, on the Strong and Harris Copper-Zinc-Silver Project titled "Estimated Mineral Resources and Preliminary Economic Analysis, Strong and Harris Copper-Zinc-Silver Project, Cochise County, Arizona" (the "S&H PEA"). At present, the S&H PEA contemplates development of the project on a standalone basis with its own infrastructure. JCM is also now being developed on a standalone basis in collaboration with Nuton, LLC, without sharing infrastructure with Gunnison. However, with the potential development of an open pit at Gunnison, the opportunity for shared infrastructure, capital, and operating costs with the Strong and Harris open pit is significant and may form the basis for future technical reports integrating all deposits: Gunnison, Strong and Harris and Johnson Camp Mine. Gravel Revenue. 759 million tons of alluvial gravel is expected to be mine during the mine life. Gravel as an aggregate or rock product is a potential source of revenue. The planned rail spur and railyard provides the Company with access to larger markets for the sale of construction aggregates. Presently, the sale of construction aggregates, is not included in the financial analysis presented in this report. However, if just 10% of this material could be sold for a net cost of $5/ton, it could potentially add $380M in revenue to the Project. This does not include the costs of making this material marketable, and there is no guarantee it can me made marketable. Limestone Revenue. Similar to construction aggregates, 85 million tons of clean limestone waste will be produced from the mining operations at Gunnison. Crushed limestone is highly valuable commodity in cement, aggregate, chemical and agricultural industries, selling for between $10/ton and over $60/ton in the region. Previously, the Johnson Camp-Gunnison area has been investigated as a source of limestone. With the rail spur and railyard, this material could be transported by rail to several regional markets. If 50% of this limestone waste could be sold at $20/ton it could generate approximately $850M in additional gross revenue. This does not include the costs of making this material marketable, and there is no guarantee it can me made marketable. Alluvium Mining. 67% of the waste mined in the pit is weakly cemented gravel (alluvium). The current design includes 40% drill and blast for this gravel however it is possible much of this material will not need any drill and blast. This will be investigated during the planned pre-feasibility study ("PFS"). Alternative Mining of Alluvium. The current removal of alluvium envisions the use of blast-haul operations. There are potential cost savings by developing other means of removal such as use of conveyors, dozers, or earth movers instead of blast-load-dump equipment. These will be investigated during the PFS". In-pit Leaching. In-pit leaching provides an opportunity to reduce operating costs and improve leach recovery over the life of mined mineralized material. The nature of the Gunnison deposit and aquifer would allow control of leach solutions. Permitting of in-pit leaching would be required through Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, though it is currently being employed at other properties in Arizona. Production sequencing will utilize in-pit leaching as a trade-off to the construction and maintenance of a heap leach pad during PFS work on the Gunnison open pit. Exploration Potential. The mining district that GCC has consolidated in recent years exhibits significant exploration potential. Modern exploration activity has not occurred in the district. District-wide data consolidation and integration should be conducted to evaluate its overall mineral potential and identify exploration targets. Exploration for the source of the porphyry copper sulfide mineralization at Gunnison has never been conclusively conducted and copper skarn deposits such as Gunnison are often associated with large nearby porphyry copper deposits. Several historic carbonate replacement deposits including the Republic and Moore deposits merit additional exploration attention. Significant areas of Earp Formation, Colina Limestone and Horquilla Limestone are under cover and have not been explored. These same formations host the mineralization in the Hermosa-Taylor deposits being developed by South 32 in southern Arizona.

Recommendations

Based on the results of this PEA, it is recommended that GCC consider proceeding with a PFS of the open pit project which is expected to take approximately 18 months. A feasibility study will be proposed on successful completion of the PFS.

Additional drilling for resource verification and geotechnical coverage is recommended to support mine planning. Updating the acid plant design for the selected capacity is also recommended. Additional planning and costing work are required to establish the schedule and costs for the relocation of Interstate 10 and the addition of the rail spur to the Union Pacific Railroad.

Additional drilling will be required for metallurgical studies. Pilot metallurgical heap leach testing is recommended to investigate the recovery kinetics and flow characteristics for the heap leach design. In addition, mineralized material sorting studies are recommended to determine the effectiveness and economics.

A mine plan, heap leach design, SX-EW design and highway move design are necessary to complete the PFS.

GCC has proposed a list and budget for additional work that will support a Prefeasibility Study (PFS).

Prefeasibility Study Budget for the Open Pit Gunnison Project

Detail Cost $US Resource Upgrade $ 4,091,448 Metallurgy $ 7,856,000 Geotechnical $ 210,000 Pit design $ 300,000 Infrastructure design/PFS study $ 1,385,000 Total $ 13,842,448

Ownership, Social License and Permitting

The Project is in Cochise County, Arizona, approximately 65 miles east of Tucson and is held or controlled 100% by GCC through its wholly owned subsidiary Excelsior Mining Arizona, Inc. (GCAZ).

The project is comprised of 9,756 acres including freehold land, state mineral claims and permits and BLM unpatented mining claims and excludes the Johnson Camp and Strong and Harris projects. There is no federal nexus for permitting the project and all permitting is limited to State of Arizona-required permits including the Aquifer Protection Permit, Industrial Air permits and the Mined Land Reclamation Permit.

GCC has a well-developed community engagement plan that has been implemented through numerous public meetings and outreach programs. The Company intends to maintain this approach by continuing to engage with, and meet and discuss its projects with, the local and regional communities and stakeholders.

The Cochise Mining district has legacy mining assets and is a combination brownfields/greenfield site. The Company anticipates the Project will create decades of high paying jobs that will benefit the local communities and the state.

GCC has entered into an option agreement dated November 12, 2024 (the "Option Agreement") with certain local landowners providing the option (the "Option") for a period of six years to acquire a total of 3,906.57 acres of land (the "Option Land"). Portions of the Option Land will contain the proposed open pit and related infrastructure. The terms of the Option Agreement require an initial payment of $1,000,000, and annual payments of $250,000 in years 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the Option. The final purchase price for exercise of the Option is based on the exercise date and is set forth in the table below:

Final Payment Date Total Price During the period within 1 year from Effective Date $ 28,000,000 During the period after 1 year but within 2 years from Effective Date $ 30,000,000 During the period after 2 years but within 3 years from Effective Date $ 31,250,000 During the period after 3 years but within 4 years from Effective Date $ 33,500,000 During the period after 4 years but within 5 years from Effective Date $ 35,750,000 During the period after 5 years but within 6 years from Effective Date $ 37,000,000

Royalties and Metal Stream

Greenstone Royalty: Greenstone Excelsior Holdings L.P. ("Greenstone") holds a 3.0% gross revenue royalty over the Gunnison Project. The gross revenue royalty is defined as royalty percentage times receipts, which is the sum of physical product receipts and deemed receipts. The Greenstone royalty applies to the entirety of the Gunnison Project and production therefrom.

The Gunnison Project is also subject to a Metal Stream Agreement with Triple Flag Mining Finance Bermuda Ltd. ("Triple Flag") that is applicable to all oxide minerals production from the parts of the Project located in the "Stream Area". The Metal Stream Agreement is summarized in the table below, where mppa denotes million pounds per annum.

Triple Flag Metal Stream Agreement for the Gunnison Project

Stream Deliveries Excelsior Mining Arizona Inc. ("Seller") is required to deliver Grade A Copper Cathodes in an amount equal to the "Payable Copper". The amount of Payable Copper is calculated based on a percentage of the amount of copper that is sold and delivered to Offtakers under the terms of Offtake Agreements (for percentages see heading - Payable Copper). Payment The Buyer pays to the Seller a price for copper equal to 25% of the daily official LME Grade A Settlement quotation for copper quoted in U.S. Dollars, as published in the Metal Bulletin. "Payable Copper" means a percentage of the Reference Copper equal to: Payable Copper Scenario Stage 1

(25 mppa) Stage 2

(75 mppa) Stage 3

(125 mppa) Upfront Deposit 16.5% 5.75% 3.5% Upfront Deposit +

Expansion Option 16.5% 11.0% 6.0% At the current stage of the Project, the Buyer has made the initial Upfront Deposit ($65 million) and the Seller is ramping up to 25 mppa. The "Expansion Option" provides Buyer the option to invest an additional $65 million in the event Seller approves an expansion to at least 50 mppa.

Callinan Royalties Corporation (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Altius Minerals Corporation) holds a gross revenue royalty over the Gunnison Project. The gross revenue royalty is defined as royalty percentage times receipts which is the sum of physical product receipts and deemed receipts. The royalty rate is 1.625% while the plant capacity is less than 75 million pounds per annum and 1.5% once plant capacity is greater than or equal to 75 million pounds per annum.

Pursuant to the terms of the Bowlin option agreement, Bowlin Travel Centers, Inc. has been granted a 1% gross revenue royalty on any copper mined and processed from certain areas of the property.

The Arizona State Land Department (ASLD) owns a sliding net return royalty (2.0% to 8.0% and estimated at 5.5%), payable to ASLD and the State Trust.

Prior Operations

The Gunnison Project was previously designed as a copper in-situ recovery ("ISR") mine using solvent extraction-electrowinning ("SX-EW") to produce copper cathode. The ISR operation commenced ramp-up to production in 2020; however, as previously disclosed, it had operational issues related to low flow rates, so the Company began evaluating alternatives and opportunities to fix the ramp-up challenges. Well stimulation (small scale, shallow level, hydraulic fracking), has the potential to fundamentally change the performance of the wellfield and fix many of the low productivity issues. The Company has obtained a permit for well stimulation and the next step would be to conduct field trials. If well stimulation is successful, it could provide an operation with superior economics to the open pit operation and be in copper production much quicker than an open pit. However, due to the technical risks of ISR and substantially improved viability of the open pit operation, GCC intends to focus the PFS on an open pit operation as the alternative to ISR. If future financing is available for ISR activities, the Company may elect to conduct well stimulation field trials, but such field trials will not hinder the open pit studies. The Company intends to maintain the optionality of future ISR operations and well stimulation trials as this remains an asset to the Company. This includes maintaining full compliance with all regulatory and permit req'ts, including maintaining hydraulic control, pumping, monitoring and regulatory reporting.

Exhibit 1: Mine production schedule

Year Mined Tons mtons Head Grade Recovered Copper Total Moved Mined Material Alluvium

Waste Hardrock

Waste % TCu ktons mlbs -2 95.0 95.0 -1 95.0 1.5 93.4 0.1 0.37 3.46 6.9 1 95.0 22.9 71.2 0.9 0.50 74.66 149.3 2 100.0 31.1 54.0 14.9 0.41 83.30 166.6 3 100.0 23.9 73.1 3.0 0.52 87.17 174.3 4 100.0 30.1 63.5 6.5 0.43 87.51 175.0 5 100.0 31.0 60.9 8.1 0.38 87.49 175.0 6 105.0 37.7 32.1 35.1 0.34 87.63 175.3 7 120.0 33.7 77.5 8.7 0.37 87.25 174.5 8 120.0 39.6 28.0 52.4 0.31 87.28 174.6 9 120.0 33.8 65.3 20.8 0.37 87.23 174.5 10 120.0 36.7 41.1 42.1 0.34 86.91 173.8 11 120.0 41.0 4.1 74.9 0.30 84.48 169.0 12 120.0 41.6 78.4 0.26 73.91 147.8 13 62.2 40.4 21.8 0.33 85.86 171.7 14 42.0 38.7 3.3 0.33 86.11 172.2 15 36.2 35.0 1.2 0.35 85.06 170.1 16 34.8 31.9 2.9 0.29 65.96 131.9 17 11.36 22.7 18 3.23 6.5

Exhibit 2: DCF Model Annual Cash Flows ($ millions)

TECHNICAL REPORT AND QUALIFIED PERSONS

The Report will be filed on SEDAR+ and on GCC's website within 45 days of the date of this news release. The Report will consist of a summary of the PEA. The Report is being prepared under the supervision of John Woodson, PE, SME-RM, of M3 Engineering & Technology Corporation, Tucson, Arizona, who is a Qualified Person that is independent of the Company. The Report will also receive contributions from the following additional Qualified Persons, who are also independent of the Company:

Mr. John Woodson, of M3 Engineering & Technology Corporation, Tucson, Arizona ((capital and operating costs, and economic analysis).

Mr. Jeffrey Bickel of RESPEC of Reno, Nevada (geology and mineral resource).

Mr. Jacob Richey, of IMC of Tucson, Arizona (mining methods).

Mr. Tom Ryan, of CNI of Tucson, Arizona (pit slope angles)

Dr. Terence P. McNulty of T.P. McNulty & Associates of Tucson, Arizona (metallurgy).

Dr. Abyl Sydykov of M3 Engineering & Technology Corporation, Tucson, Arizona (mineral recovery)

Mr. R. Douglas Bartlett, of Clear Creek and Associates of Phoenix, Arizona (hydrology, mining method, permitting and environment).

Each of these Qualified Persons has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release that is relevant to their area of responsibility and verified the data underlying such technical information.

About Gunnison Copper Corp.

Gunnison Copper Corp. is a mineral exploration and production company that owns the Gunnison Copper Project in Cochise County, Arizona. The project is being developed as a conventional open pit mining operation for copper cathode production. Gunnison Copper also owns the past producing Johnson Camp Mine which, with Nuton LLC, a Rio Tinto Venture, is in Stage 2 of a process to restart the mine using Nuton technologies, with first copper expected to be produced in 2025. Gunnison Copper additionally owns a portfolio of exploration projects, including the Peabody Sill and the Strong and Harris deposits.

For more information on Gunnison Copper, please visit our website at www.gunnisoncopper.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" concerning anticipated developments and events that may occur in the future. Forward looking information contained in this news release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: (i) the future development plans for the Gunnison Project; (iii) the results of the PEA including operating and capital costs estimates, along with the economics of the Gunnison Project; (iv) the intention to mine the Gunnison Project and future production therefrom; (v) risks and opportunities associated with the Gunnison Project; (vi) future intentions regarding well stimulation trials; (vii) the future completion of a PFS.

In certain cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "occur" or "be achieved" suggesting future outcomes, or other expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions, intentions or statements about future events or performance. Forward-looking information contained in this news release is based on certain factors and assumptions regarding, among other things, the estimation of mineral resources, the realization of resource estimates, copper and other metal prices, the timing and amount of future development expenditures, the estimation of initial and sustaining capital requirements, the estimation of labour and operating costs (including the price of acid), the availability of labour, material and acid supply, receipt of and compliance with necessary regulatory approvals and permits, the estimation of insurance coverage, and assumptions with respect to currency fluctuations, environmental risks, title disputes or claims, and other similar matters. While the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect.

Forward looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such factors include risks inherent in the construction and operation of mineral deposits, including risks relating to changes in project parameters as plans continue to be redefined including the possibility that mining operations may not be commenced at the Gunnison Copper Project, risks relating to variations in mineral resources, grade or recovery rates, risks relating to the ability to access infrastructure, risks relating to changes in copper and other commodity prices and the worldwide demand for and supply of copper and related products, risks related to increased competition in the market for copper and related products, risks related to current global financial conditions, risks related to current global financial conditions on the Company's business, uncertainties inherent in the estimation of mineral resources, access and supply risks, risks related to the ability to access acid supply on commercially reasonable terms, reliance on key personnel, operational risks inherent in the conduct of mining activities, including the risk of accidents, labour disputes, increases in capital and operating costs and the risk of delays or increased costs that might be encountered during the construction or mining process, regulatory risks including the risk that permits may not be obtained in a timely fashion or at all, financing, capitalization and liquidity risks, risks related to disputes concerning property titles and interests, environmental risks and the additional risks identified in the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's reports and filings with applicable Canadian securities regulators.

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 information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information is made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information.

1 U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, January 2024

2 Sustaining Cash Cost = Cash Cost + Sustaining Capex + Deferred Stripping + Royalties
VANCOUVER, BC, Nov. 14, 2024 /CNW/ - OceanaGold Corporation (TSX: OGC) (OTCQX: OCANF) ("OceanaGold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce results from the ongoing exploration and resource conversion program at Wharekirauponga, located ~10 kilometres from the Waihi operation, New Zealand. The Company is planning to release a NI 43-101 pre-feasibility study for the Waihi North Project and existing Waihi operation on December 11, 2024, details of which are provided later in this release.

Highlight Drill Intercepts (estimated true width):

34.7 g/t Au over 4.2 m from 563.5 m , EG vein (WKP124B)

from , EG vein (WKP124B) 16.8 g/t Au over 5.7 m from 644.3 m , EG FW vein (WKP124C)

from , EG FW vein (WKP124C) 11.4 g/t Au over 7.7 m from 453.5 m , EG vein (WKP134A)

from , EG vein (WKP134A) 13.0 g/t Au over 6.6 m from 233.4 m , EG vein (WKPP15D)

from , EG vein (WKPP15D) 54.9 g/t Au over 1.4 m from 531.6 m , EG vein (WKP124D)

from , EG vein (WKP124D) 29.3 g/t Au over 2.4 m from 589.9 m , EG FW vein (WKP124D)

from , EG FW vein (WKP124D) 11.1 g/t Au over 2.8 m from 549.8 m and 21.4 g/t over 3.8 m from 603.9 m , EG FW veins (WKP124D)

Gerard Bond, President & CEO of OceanaGold, said "Today's results demonstrate the phenomenal exploration upside potential at Wharekirauponga with new intercepts along the EG vein zone continuing to return high-grade over excellent widths. We are preparing the results of the NI 43-101 pre-feasibility study which is planned to be released in December, and we expect will highlight the value, longevity and potential of this exceptional deposit."

Results Overview

Since the August 8, 2024 Wharekirauponga news release, extensional drilling has intersected significant mineralization in all six holes on the East Graben (EG) vein and associated hanging-wall and foot-wall veins (EG vein zone) in both the high-grade southern and northern zone (Table 1, Figures 1 and 2). Results demonstrate the continued potential of extensions to the EG vein and numerous hanging wall (HW) and footwall (FW) veins and definition of high-grade shoots. The NI 43-101 pre-feasibility study, planned for release in December, will be based on the resource model as at the end of May 2024. The exploration results released today, and in August, represent further upside potential to the outcomes of the upcoming study.

Extensional Drilling

Drilling highlighted in this release was completed from four sites including drill site 9 which was commissioned in March 2024. Drill site 9 has enabled drill testing of ~800m of southern strike extension of the EG vein zone. Four holes targeted resource extensions to the high-grade southern EG zone with 1 hole drilled from site 9, 2 holes drilled from site 8 and 1 hole drilled from site 1, all of which intersected significant high-grade mineralization (Figure 2).

Holes WKP124B, WKP124D and WKP134A demonstrate excellent grade and width in the unconstrained up-dip and strike dimensions of the southern limb while hole WKP133C extends grade continuity at depth. These high-grade intercepts demonstrate geological and grade continuity of the EG vein with geological continuity further supported by intersection of 6.3m (true width) of vein in WKP135, the southernmost hole from drill site 9 (results pending, Figure 3).

Hole WKP124C is the southernmost hole drilled across the footwall vein providing an 85m extension south from previous results (Figure 4). Although this hole intersected modest grade and width in the EG vein, high-grade and relatively wide mineralization of 16.8 g/t Au over 5.7 metres (true width) was intersected in the footwall. Hole WKP124D also intersected a wide zone of veining in the footwall with high-grade intersections across multiple footwall vein structures, including 11.1 g/t Au over 2.8 metres (true width, Figure 4) and 29.3 g/t Au over 2.4 metres and 21.4 g/t over 3.8 metres within newly identified veins, confirming further significant upside in the footwall to the EG vein as we step out to the south. Opportunity remains for up-plunge, down-plunge, and along-strike extensions on this and other attendant hanging and footwall veins.

Within the northern shoot of the EG vein, hole WKPP15D intersected 13 g/t Au over 6.6 metres and demonstrates ongoing potential for growth via definition of high-grade shoots within the existing resource footprint. Drilled from site 5, this hole supports the model with significant grade and width, remaining open for further testing of a ~200 metre down-plunge extension in the central EG vein at elevations favourable for high-grade mineralization (Figure 2).

The EG vein zone remains the primary, near-term drill target for the 2024 growth and conversion program and will continue through 2025.

2024 Exploration Program

Exploration drilling for the remainder of the 2024 program will target resource growth from drill sites 8 and 9, testing beyond the current southern extent of drilling, and up and down-dip of both current and future extension holes in the south. A further hole from drill site 5 will target the down-dip extension of WKP15D in the EG northern shoot.

The NI 43-101 pre-feasibility study that is planned to be released in December 2024 will be based on the resource model as at the end of May 2024. Subsequent drill results will be captured in an end-of-year resource model update to be released with the 2024 end of year resource statement.

For maps and sections see Figures 1-4 and Table 1 for full results.

Table 1: Wharekirauponga drill intersections subsequent to the August 8, 2024 exploration update

Drillhole ID From (m) To (m) True width (m) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Vein Purpose WKP124C 612.8 614.5 1.5 1.3 1.6 EG Extension WKP124C 644.3 652.4 5.7 16.8 11.7 EG FW (430) Extension WKP133C 487.9 491.9 3.3 3.3 6.8 EG Extension WKP134A 453.5 462.4 7.7 11.4 11.7 EG Extension WKP124B 563.5 569.5 4.2 34.7 24.8 EG Extension WKP124B 575 578.2 1.4 22.1 14.5 EG FW (430) Extension WKP124D 531.6 533.6 1.4 54.9 39.8 EG Extension WKP124D 549.8 553.5 2.8 11.1 12.5 EG FW (430) Extension WKP124D 589.9 593.3 2.4 29.3 14.7 EG FW (unmodelled) Extension WKP124D 603.9 610.6 3.8 21.4 19.7 EG FW (unmodelled Extension WKPP15D 233.4 241.4 6.6 13.0 30.6 EG Conversion



For further information relating to drill hole data for WKP, please refer to the Company's website at https://investors.oceanagold.com/additional-drillhole-data.

About Wharekirauponga and the Waihi North Project

The Wharekirauponga low-sulphidation epithermal Au-Ag vein system is located approximately 10 kilometres north of the Company's Waihi operation. The Wharekirauponga Indicated Resource stands at 2.0 million tonnes grading 15.9 g/t Au for 1.01 million ounces of gold with a further 1.2 million tonnes grading 9.0 g/t Au for 0.35 million ounces of gold in the Inferred category as of December 31, 2023.

Wharekirauponga is part of the Waihi North Project, which has the potential to create significant socio-economic contributions for the communities in the Waihi region and for New Zealand. This includes significant in-country investments and a substantial increase to direct and indirect employment opportunities, with the project having the potential to extend operation of the Waihi mine beyond the next decade. OceanaGold operates to the highest environmental and social standards which has enabled it to run a successful and responsible mining business in New Zealand for over three decades. The Company has lodged a resource consent application for its proposed Waihi North Project with Hauraki District Council and Waikato Regional Council and has recently been listed as a proposed project under the Fast-track Approvals Bill in New Zealand.

NI 43-101 Pre-Feasibility Study Release Date

The Company plans to release the results of the NI 43-101 pre-feasibility study for the Waihi North Project after market close on Wednesday December 11, 2024. The results will be made available on the Company's website at www.oceanagold.com. Senior management will host a webcast to discuss the results on Thursday December 12, 2024 at 10:00 am Eastern Time.

To register, please copy and paste the link into your browser: https://app.webinar.net/DdjR72Pnakx

If you are unable to attend the webcast, a recording will be made available on the Company's website.

About OceanaGold

OceanaGold is a growing intermediate gold and copper producer committed to safely and responsibly maximizing the generation of Free Cash Flow from our operations and delivering strong returns for our shareholders. We have a portfolio of four operating mines: the Haile Gold Mine in the United States of America; Didipio Mine in the Philippines; and the Macraes and Waihi operations in New Zealand. For further information please contact:

Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) at Wharekirauponga, Waihi Gold Mine

All exploration samples are assayed for gold by 30g fire assay with AAS finish. Since mid-2022 drill core sample intervals where visible electrum is logged are followed up by a subsequent screen fire assay after the routine 30g fire assay. Holes WKP40-45 had core samples shipped for sample preparation to SGS in Westport (New Zealand). Prepared pulps were then shipped to independent Australian Laboratory Services Pty Ltd (ALS) in Brisbane, accredited to ISO/NATA 17025 for gold analysis by fire assay and 4-acid digest, and 42 element ICP geochemical analysis. Holes drilled after WKP45 (i.e., WKP46 to WKP134) were prepared and analyzed at SGS Waihi NZ Ltd (Au by 30g fire assay and Ag by aqua regia digest and 0.3gm AAS finish). Selected pulps are periodically sent to ALS in Brisbane for a 4-acid digestion and 42 or 48 element ICP geochemical analysis.

Quality of exploration assay results has been monitored in the following areas:

Sample preparation at the SGS Waihi and Westport labs through sieving of jaw crush and pulp products.

labs through sieving of jaw crush and pulp products. Monitoring of assay precision through routine generation of duplicate samples from a second split of the jaw crush and calculation of the fundamental error.

Monitoring of accuracy of the primary SGS assay and ALS results through insertion Certified Reference Materials (CRM's) and blanks into sample batches.

Blank, duplicate and CRM results are reviewed prior to uploading results in the AcQuire database and again on a weekly basis. The protocol at Waihi requires CRMs to be reported to within 2 standard deviations of the certified value. The criterion for preparation duplicates is that they have a relative difference (R-R1/mean RR1) of no greater than 10%. Blanks should not exceed more than 4 times the lower detection value of the assay method. Failure in any of these thresholds triggers an investigation and if appropriate re-assay. Drill core is stored within secure facilities on site to which access is controlled. Site employees transport samples to the analytical laboratory which is also a secured facility. The SGS Waihi NZ Ltd laboratory is an independent commercial geochemistry and energy assay laboratory with ISO 17025: 2017 accreditation, audited by an external consultant in 2020, and is inspected on an annual basis by OceanaGold geologists. No sampling risks have been recorded during these visits.

Qualified Person Statement

The exploration results in this press release were prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators ("NI 43-101").

Information relating to Waihi exploration results in this document has been verified by, is based on and fairly represents information compiled by or prepared under the supervision of Leroy Crawford-Flett, a Chartered Professional Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and an employee of OceanaGold. Mr Crawford-Flett has sufficient experience that is relevant to the style of mineralization and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity being undertaken to qualify as Qualified Persons for the purposes of the NI 43-101. Mr Crawford-Flett consents to the inclusion in this public report of the matters based on their information in the form and context in which it appears.

Technical Reports

For further information, please refer to the following NI 43-101 compliant technical report available on the SEDAR+ website at www.sedarplus.com under the Company's name and the Company's news release titled "OceanaGold Reports Mineral Reserves and Resources for the Year Ended 2023" dated February 21, 2024:

(a) "Waihi District Study - Preliminary Economic Assessment NI 43-101 Technical Report" dated August 30, 2020, prepared by T. Maton, Study Manager and P. Church, Principal Resource Development Geologist, both of Oceana Gold (New Zealand) Limited, and D. Carr, Chief Metallurgist, of OceanaGold Management Pty Limited.

Cautionary Statement for Public Release

Certain information contained in this public release may be deemed "forward-looking" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements and information relate to future performance and reflect the Company's expectations regarding the generation of free cash flow, execution of business strategy, future growth, future production, estimated costs, results of operations, business prospects and opportunities of OceanaGold Corporation and its related subsidiaries. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "estimates" or "intends", or stating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements and information. They include, among others, the accuracy of mineral reserve and resource estimates and related assumptions, inherent operating risks and those risk factors identified in the Company's most recent Annual Information Form prepared and filed with securities regulators which is available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.com under the Company's name. There are no assurances the Company can fulfil forward-looking statements and information. Such forward-looking statements and information are only predictions based on current information available to management as of the date that such predictions are made; actual events or results may differ materially as a result of risks facing the Company, some of which are beyond the Company's control. Although the Company believes that any forward-looking statements and information contained in this press release is based on reasonable assumptions, readers cannot be assured that actual outcomes or results will be consistent with such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and information. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements and information, whether as a result of new information, events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. The information contained in this release is not investment or financial product advice.
MONTREAL, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Osisko Metals Incorporated (the Company or Osisko Metals) (TSX-V: OM; OTCQX: OMZNF; FRANKFURT: 0B51) is pleased to announce an updated Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for the Gaspe Copper Project, located near Murdochville in the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec.

The updated MRE (Table 1) includes pit-constrained resources comprising 824 million tonnes grading 0.34% CuEq of Indicated category and 670 million tonnes grading 0.38% CuEq of Inferred category. This MRE represents a 53% increase in copper-equivalent metal content over the previously reported Indicated Resource and a 100-fold increase in copper-equivalent metal content in Inferred Resources (see May 6, 2024 news release and entitled 2024 Copper Mountain Mineral Resource Estimate).

At 4.91 billion pounds (2.23 million tonnes) of contained copper (Table 1), as well as significant molybdenum (274 million pounds) and silver (46.0 million ounces), the latest Gaspe Copper in-pit Indicated Resource hosts by far the largest undeveloped copper-molybdenum deposit in Eastern North America, exclusive of Inferred resources.

Robert Wares, CEO & Chairman, commented: We are very proud to announce this updated resource estimate for Gaspe Copper. The overall resource has increased dramatically since last springs MRE as a result of new geological modelling and extending the modelled Whittle pit boundaries towards Needle Mountain to the south. A minimum 70,000 metre drill program is now planned for 2025, with the objective of converting the bulk of the current Inferred resource to Indicated category. There is also excellent potential for converting currently categorized in-pit waste rock to mineralized material with this drill program, which would further grow the in-pit resource while reducing the strip ratio. This MRE represents a much larger resource than was estimated previously, presenting the potential for a bulk tonnage mining operation with significantly higher throughput. Given this new resource milestone, management has elected to defer the PEA, originally slated for release in Q1 2025, to a later date until additional new drilling is completed. Ongoing studies will focus on a larger-scale mine plan and relocation of the mill complex away from the current site.

Mr. Wares continued: We are proud to be leading the Gaspe Copper project, which is shaping up to be a major Canadian copper-molybdenum development project located in one of the worlds safest mining jurisdictions. This important asset has the potential to become a core component of Quebecs critical mineral development strategy that aims to provide essential metals for global decarbonization initiatives.

Table 1: Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) Base Case at 0.12% Copper Cut-off

Class Tonnes Cu Eq Cu Mo Ag Cu Cu Mo Mo Ag Mt % % % g/t M lbs kt M lbs kt (koz) Indicated 824 0.34 0.27 0.015 1.74 4,907 2,225 274 124 46,027 Inferred 670 0.38 0.30 0.020 1.37 4,389 1,990 294 133 29,493

The independent qualified persons for the MRE, as defined by National Instrument (NI) 43-101 guidelines, is Pierre-Luc Richard, P.Geo., of PLR Resources Inc. with contributions from Francois Le Moal, P.Eng., of G-Mining for cut-off grade and Pit shell optimization, and Christian Laroche, P.Eng., from Synectic, for metallurgical parameters. The effective date of the MRE is November 4, 2024. These Mineral Resources are not mineral reserves as they have no demonstrated economic viability. No economic evaluation of these Mineral Resources has been produced. The quantity and grade of reported Inferred Resources in this MRE are uncertain in nature and there has been insufficient drilling to define these Inferred Resources as Indicated. However, it is reasonably expected that the majority of Inferred Mineral Resources could be upgraded to Indicated category with additional drilling. The Qualified Persons are not aware of any known environmental, permitting, legal, title-related, taxation, socio-political, financial or other relevant issues that could materially affect the MRE. Calculations used metric units (metres, tonnes). Metal contents in the above table are presented in percent, pounds or tonnes. Metric tonnages and pounds were rounded, and any discrepancies in total amounts are due to rounding errors. CIM definitions and guidelines for Mineral Resource Estimates have been followed. See Cautionary Note below for copper equivalency (CuEq) values.

This significantly larger resource estimate is the result of:

Geological re-interpretation of the mineralized system, whereby most of the mineralized stratigraphic units above the base of the C-Zone skarn, including up-dip extensions toward Needle Mountain, were included in the resource model; Extension of the Whittle pit model to the south towards Needle Mountain, eliminating the possibility of a potential mill complex on the site of the original Gaspe Copper mill. Two other sites for the potential mill are now under consideration, and Lowering of cut-off grade from 0.15% Cu to 0.12% Cu on the basis of potentially larger mine throughput and replacement of SAG mill by HPGR in the grinding circuit.

Potential for resource expansion

Building upon the information released in this updated MRE, a minimum 70,000 metre drill program is planned to commence in May 2025 that will aim to 1) convert Inferred resources to Indicated category by reducing drill spacing to 100 metres or less within the pit volume, 2) better define higher-grade (0.5 to 1.5% % Cu) mineralization within pit boundaries in the B-Zone and C-Zone skarn horizons, 3) extend up-dip, shallower B-Zone and C-Zone skarn mineralization (near Needle Mountain) beyond current pit boundaries and 4) test shallower (above 600 m depth) portions of the high grade (2%-3% Cu) E-Zone skarn for inclusion into the pit volume.

Implications of larger open pit resource at Gaspe Copper

The current modelled Whittle pit shell extends from the current flooded Copper Mountain pit towards the base of Needle Mountain to the south. Further drilling, geological modelling and pit optimization will be required to refine pit boundaries. The Company will evaluate future pit limits and the possibility of reconfiguring the current layout of the site to minimize disturbance and ensure the protection and safety of the residents of Murdochville and the surrounding environment.

General parameters of the updated Mineral Resource Estimate

This MRE is pit-constrained and includes stockwork mineralization surrounding the past-producing Copper Mountain open pit mine as well as disseminated, stratiform mineralization in both skarn and potassic-altered hornfels (porcellanite) that extends up-dip from Copper Mountain towards Needle Mountain to the south.

The MRE uses, amongst other parameters, a long-term price of US$4.00/lb copper, a lower cut-off of 0.12% Cu for pit shell modelling and a lower cut-off grade of 0.12% copper for base case in-pit resource estimation. The resource was estimated using data from historical drilling completed between the 1950s and 2019 and 42,100 metres of drilling completed by the Company between 2022 and 2024 (see Appendix for detailed parameters).

Mineral Resource Sensitivity

Table 2 shows the resources reported at various in-pit cut-off grades within a pit shell modelled at a lower cut off of 0.12% Cu; the base case resource cut-off grade reported herein is 0.12% copper and is highlighted in bold text:

Table 2: Mineral Resource Estimates at Variable Cut-Off Grades

Class Copper Cut-off

(%) Tonnage

(Mt) Strip

Ratio Grade Copper Metal Resource Cu % Mo % M lbs kt Indicated 0.12 824 1.53 0.27 0.015 4,907 2,225 Inferred 0.12 670 1.53 0.30 0.020 4,389 1,990 Indicated 0.15 696 1.93 0.29 0.016 4,528 2,053 Inferred 0.15 593 1.93 0.32 0.021 4,159 1,886 Indicated 0.20 510 2.84 0.34 0.019 3,811 1,728 Inferred 0.20 474 2.84 0.35 0.022 3,699 1,678 Indicated 0.25 363 4.18 0.39 0.021 3,086 1,400 Inferred 0.25 367 4.18 0.39 0.024 3,175 1,440 Indicated 0.30 245 6.26 0.44 0.022 2,376 1,078 Inferred 0.30 275 6.26 0.43 0.025 2,617 1,187 Indicated 0.40 120 14.31 0.54 0.025 1,428 648 Inferred 0.40 127 14.31 0.53 0.025 1,488 675

Same footnotes as Table 1 apply to this table.

Appendix - parameters and criteria used for the Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE)

General Whittle pit parameters used for the Mineral Resource Estimate include:

Parameter Value Unit Copper Price $4.00 US$ per pound Molybdenum Price $20.00 US$ per pound Silver Price $24.00 US$ per ounce CAD:USD exchange rate 1.33 Discount Rate 8.0 Percent Royalty Rate 1.0 Percent Cu concentrate transport + loading costs $25.00 US$ per wmt Cu concentrate shipping cost $66.25 US$ per wmt Cu concentrate insurance and other costs $9.00 US$ per wmt Cu concentrate smelter treatment cost $82.50 US$ per wmt Cu concentrate smelter refining cost $0.08 US$ per pound Cu concentrate grade 25.0 Percent Mo concentrate grade 58.0 Percent Payable Cu 96.5 Percent Payable Mo 98.0 Percent Payable Ag 75.0 Percent In-Pit Mining Cost $2.23 US$ per tonne mined Mill Processing Cost $4.25 US$ per tonne milled General and Administrative Costs $1.00 US$ per tonne milled Overall Pit Slope - Rock 48 Degrees Copper Recovery 92 Percent Molybdenum Recovery 70 Percent Mining loss / Dilution (open pit) 0 / 0 Percent / Percent Waste Avg. Specific Gravity 2.67 Tonnes/cubic metre Mineralization Specific Gravity (variable) Avg. 2.77 Tonnes/cubic metre

Resources are presented as undiluted and in situ for an open-pit scenario and are considered to have reasonable prospects for economic extraction. The constraining pit shell was developed using overall pit slopes of 48 degrees in bedrock and 20 degrees in overburden. The pit optimization to develop the resource-constraining pit shells was performed using Geovia Whittle 2022 software.

The MRE wireframe was prepared using Leapfrog Edge v.2024.1.1 and is based on 1946 drill holes and 58,842 samples. The drill hole database includes recent drilling totalling 67,742 metres in 125 drill holes (Xstrata 2011-2012, Glencore Canada 2019 and Osisko Metals 2022-2024) and also incorporates historical drill holes totalling 519,435 metres in 1,863 drill holes (Noranda 1998 and earlier). Drill hole data verification was performed by verifying the coherence of the information but not its correctness; original logs and laboratory certificates were only available for 2011, 2012, 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2024 drill holes. The cut-off date for the drill hole database was November 4, 2024.

Composites of 5 to 10 metre lengths were created inside the mineralization volumes. A total of 26,499 composites were generated. High-grade capping was done on the composited assay data; composites were capped from 0.80% to 2.40% for Cu, from 0.10 to 0.20% for Mo, and from 3 to 10g/t for Ag in the stockwork zones, at 1.10% for Cu, 0.12% for Mo, and 5g/t for Ag in the Porphyry, and from 1.00% to 6.00% for Cu, from 0.01 to 0.50% for Mo, and from 5 to 20g/t for Ag in the skarn zones. A restricted search capping approach was also applied to the main skarn zone for Molybdenum and Silver.

Pit-constrained Mineral Resources for the base case are reported at a lower cut-off grade of 0.12 % Cu in sulfide within a conceptual pit shell based on a 0.12% Cu lower cut-off. The cut-off grades will be re-evaluated on an ongoing basis in light of future prevailing market conditions and costs.

Contained copper in the resource includes sulfide copper only and soluble copper was ignored. It was assumed for this MRE that only the copper contained in sulfides could have economical potential. Therefore, the soluble copper that is present as oxides and carbonates was removed and significant oxidized zones are all located in the south-west portion of the deposit. The proportion of the copper contained as soluble copper relative to sulfides is correlated to the depth of the mineralization. Therefore, depth from the original topographic surface was modeled and used to estimate the percentage of copper that would be contained as soluble copper within the MRE.

Specific gravity values were estimated using data available in the historical drill holes. Values were interpolated for most of the mineralized solids and a fixed value was used where the scarcity of the data did not allow for interpolation; the average value is 2.77 tonnes/cubic metre. Surrounding barren lithologies were assigned the average specific gravity value from all measured samples.

The modelled base case pit shell measures 700 X 2,000 metres and reaches a maximum depth of approximately 800 metres.

Grade model resource estimation was calculated from drill hole data using an ordinary kriging (OK) interpolation method in a sub-blocked model using blocks measuring 10m x 10 m x 10 m in size and sub-blocks down to 1.25 m x 1.25 m x 1.25 m. Blocks were then regularized to 20 m x 20 m x 10 m.

The Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource categories are constrained to areas where drill spacing is less than 100 metres and 300 metres, respectively, and show reasonable geological and grade continuity.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Copper Equivalent Grades

Copper Equivalent grades are expressed for purposes of simplicity and are calculated taking into account: 1) metal grades; 2) estimated long-term prices of metals: US$4.00/lb copper, $20.00/lb molybdenum and US$24/oz silver; 3) estimated recoveries of 92%, 70% and 70% for Cu, Mo and Ag respectively; and 4) net smelter return value of metals as percentage of the price, estimated at 86.5%, 90.7% and 75.0% for Cu, Mo and Ag respectively.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Mineral Resources

The mineral resources disclosed in this news release conform to standards and guidelines in National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (NI 43-101) and were prepared by independent qualified persons for purposes of NI 43-101. The above-mentioned mineral resources are not mineral reserves as they do not have demonstrated economic viability. The quantity and grade of the reported Inferred Mineral Resources are conceptual in nature and are estimated based on limited geological evidence and sampling. Geological data is sufficient to imply but not verify geological grade and/or quality of continuity. An Inferred Mineral Resource has a lower level of confidence relative to a Measured or Indicated Mineral Resource and constitutes an insufficient level of confidence to allow conversion to a Mineral Reserve. It is reasonably expected, but not guaranteed, that the majority of Inferred Mineral Resources could be upgraded to Measured or Indicated Mineral Resources with additional drilling. The technical report prepared in accordance with NI 43-101, including the mineral resources for the Gaspe Copper Project contained in this news release, will be delivered and filed on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca) under Osisko Metals issuer profile within 45 days of the date of this news release.

Qualified Persons

The Mineral Resource Estimate and other scientific and technical information in this news release has been prepared and approved by independent qualified persons for purposes of NI 43-101: Pierre-Luc Richard, P.Geo., of PLR Resources Inc. with contributions from Francois Le Moal, P.Eng., of G-Mining for cut-off grade and Pit Shell optimization and Christian Laroche, P.Eng., from Synectiq, for metallurgical parameters.

About Osisko Metals

Osisko Metals Incorporated is a Canadian exploration and development company creating value in the critical metals sector, with a focus on copper and zinc. The Company is in joint venture with Appian Capital Advisory LLP to advance one of Canadas largest zinc mining camps, the Pine Point Project, located in the Northwest Territories, for which current mineral resources have been calculated for the 2024 MRE (as defined herein). The project is owned by the joint venture Pine Point Mining Limited. The current mineral resource estimate consists of 49.5 Mt at 5.52% ZnEq of Indicated Mineral Resources and 8.3 Mt at 5.64% ZnEq of Inferred Mineral Resources (in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects; see Osisko Metals June 25, 2024, news release entitled Osisko Metals releases Pine Point mineral resource estimate: 49.5 million tonnes of indicated resources at 5.52% ZnEq). The Pine Point project is located on the south shore of Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories, close to infrastructure, with paved road access, an electrical substation and 100 kilometers of viable haul roads.

In addition, and aside from the Pine Point joint venture, the Company acquired in July 2023, from Glencore Canada Corporation, a 100% interest in the former Gaspe Copper mine, located near Murdochville in Quebecs Gaspe Peninsula. The company is currently focused on resource expansion of the Gaspe Copper system, which includes this updated mineral resource as well as the previously released resource comprising Indicated Mineral Resources of 495 Mt grading 0.37% CuEq and Inferred Mineral Resources of 6.3 Mt grading 0.37% CuEq (in compliance with National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects); see May 6, 2024 news release entitled Osisko Metals Announces Updated Mineral Resource Estimate at Mines Gaspe - Indicated Resources of 495 Mt at 0.37% CuEq). Gaspe Copper hosts the largest undeveloped copper resource in eastern North America, strategically located near existing infrastructure in the mining-friendly province of Quebec.

For further information on this news release, visit www.osiskometals.com or contact:

Robert Wares, Chairman & CEO of Osisko Metals Incorporated

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.osiskometals.com

Follow Osisko Metals on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/osiskometals/,

on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/osiskometals/,

and on X at https://twitter.com/osiskometals.

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves predictions, expectations, interpretations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and constitute forward-looking information. This news release may contain forward-looking information pertaining to the Pine Point and Gaspe Copper Projects, including, among other things, the significance of the results described in this news release (which have not yet been included in a technical report prepared in accordance with NI 43-101); the parameters used in the MRE presented in this news release; the planned drill program; the ability of the Company (if at all) to upgrade the current inferred mineral resources; the potential for bulk tonnage mining operations (if at all); the timing for publishing a PEA; the ability of the Company to realize a larger-scale mine plan and relocate the mill complex; global decarbonization initiatives; the extension of the Whittle pit model; the potential for resource expansion (if at all); the implications of a larger open pit resource; the general parameters of the updated MRE being variables that are subject to a number of assumptions and variables beyond the Companys control; the ability to identify additional resources and reserves (if any) and exploit such resources and reserves on an economic basis; the expected high quality of the metal concentrates; the potential economic impact of the projects on local communities, including but not limited to the potential generation of tax revenues and contribution of jobs;; Gaspe Copper hosting the largest undeveloped copper resource in Eastern North America and Glencore being a Control Person of the Company.

Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and is based upon a number of estimates and assumptions of management, in light of managements experience and perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances, including, without limitation, assumptions about: the ability of exploration results, including drilling, to accurately predict mineralization; errors in geological modelling; insufficient data; equity and debt capital markets; future spot prices of copper, zinc, lead and molybdenum; the timing and results of exploration and drilling programs; the accuracy of mineral resource estimates; production costs; political and regulatory stability; the receipt of governmental and third party approvals; licenses and permits being received on favourable terms; sustained labour stability; stability in financial and capital markets; availability of mining equipment and positive relations with local communities and groups. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information are set out in the Companys public disclosure record on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca) under Osisko Metals issuer profile. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward- looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.
A Pretoria court on Tuesday found a former South African policeman guilty of shooting dead a young anti-apartheid campaigner in a township east of Johannesburg almost three decades ago.

The high court prosecutor said Johan Marais, 65, had pleaded guilty to the killing of Caiphus Nyoka. Local media previously reported how Marais spontaneously had already admitted guilt five years ago on waking from a coma following a suicide attempt.

The homicide was investigated as part of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up in 1996 to process crimes committed under apartheid.

Nyoka was a student activist and belonged to the Congress of South African Students. He was furthermore the South African Youth Congress Organiser of the Transvaal Student Congress and president of the Student Representative Council at his high school.

On August 23, 1987, Marais met with security officials and police to plot the killing of Nyoka.

A plan was devised to raid his home under then-commanding officer Major Leon Louis van den Berg, who also faces charges in the case.

Marais, who has yet to be sentenced, in the early hours of the following day together with several other officers also facing charges broke into Nyoka's room where he and three friends were asleep.

After removing the other three, the officers shot Nyoka nine times. He died from multiple gunshot wounds.

The trial of three other assailants will start next week and is set to run to December 6.

The prosecutor's office hailed the outcome of the Marais case as significant, not least for the family of the victim in bringing justice and closure.

The office noted such cases dating back decades were difficult to prosecute owing to a lack of evidence and witnesses.
Pete Hegseth, a Fox News co-host, author and US military veteran, could move from the TV studio to the secretary of defense's office after a shock nomination by president-elect Donald Trump.

Hegseth is a decorated former National Guard infantry officer who served in combat, deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan, his website says, but he does not have the senior leadership experience typical of nominees to helm the world's most powerful military.

After joining Fox News in 2014 as a contributor, the 44-year-old now co-hosts Fox and Friends Weekend and is a host for streaming site Fox Nation. He has also authored multiple books.

Trump hailed Hegseth as "tough, smart and a true believer in America First" in a social media post announcing the nomination. "With Pete at the helm, America's enemies are on notice -- Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down."

The president-elect also highlighted Hegseth's success as an author, saying his book "The War on Warriors" was a best-seller, and that it "reveals the leftwing betrayal of our Warriors, and how we must return our Military to meritocracy, lethality, accountability, and excellence."

Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Hegseth's selection was unexpected.

"As someone said, this wasn't on anyone's bingo card, so it's a very surprising pick," he said. "Clearly Trump wants someone who is loyal to him" and who "does not have an independent political base."

- Potential 'civil-military crisis' -

Cancian said Hegseth "has an excellent record as a junior military officer" but "lacks high-level national security experience and experience leading a large institution," and could face significant opposition in Congress as a result.

Hegseth is a frequent critic of "woke" policies -- by companies, at universities, and in the military -- making it likely that he will scrap diversity programs if he is confirmed as Pentagon chief.

On a podcast aired earlier this month, Hegseth advocated for the firing of top US military officer General CQ Brown and said that any other senior officer who "was involved in any of the DEI woke shit has got to go."

Cancian said if the Trump administration stops at rolling back diversity programs it would resemble his first term in office, but that going further and taking a step such as firing Brown would "engender a civil-military crisis."

Hegseth said on the same podcast episode that he was opposed to women serving in combat, though not in the armed forces as a whole.

He also reportedly lobbied Trump in 2019 to intervene in three war crimes cases, leading to pardons in two murder cases and the reinstatement of the rank of a third service member who was convicted for posing for a photo with a body in Iraq.

Hegseth praised Trump's controversial involvement in the cases, saying on Fox News that the Republican "has emboldened the people out there making the impossible calls at impossible moments."

He is an Ivy Leaguer, graduating from both Princeton and Harvard, though his website says he sent his degree back to the latter institution, and he has criticized it on air for its allegedly left-leaning policies.

Hegseth lives with his wife and seven children in the southern US state of Tennessee.
Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host and National Guard veteran, is set to leave the TV studio for the helm of the world's most powerful military after his shock nomination by Donald Trump.

Hegseth is a decorated infantry officer who spent more than 18 years in the Guard and served in combat, deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan and reaching the rank of major.

But he does not have the senior leadership experience typical of nominees to lead the US military, which employs some 2.9 million people and has an annual budget in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

What he does have is approval from Trump, who has long used right-wing Fox News as a key platform -- and source of information.

After joining Fox in 2014 as a contributor, the 44-year-old now co-hosts Fox and Friends Weekend and is a host for streaming service Fox Nation. He has also authored multiple books.

Trump hailed Hegseth as "tough, smart and a true believer in America First" in a social media post announcing the nomination. "With Pete at the helm, America's enemies are on notice -- Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down."

The president-elect also highlighted Hegseth's success as an author, saying his book "The War on Warriors" was a best-seller, and that it "reveals the leftwing betrayal of our Warriors, and how we must return our Military to meritocracy, lethality, accountability, and excellence."

Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Hegseth's selection was unexpected.

"As someone said, this wasn't on anyone's bingo card, so it's a very surprising pick," he said. "Clearly Trump wants someone who is loyal to him" and who "does not have an independent political base."

Cancian said Hegseth "has an excellent record as a junior military officer" but "lacks high-level national security experience and experience leading a large institution," and could face significant opposition in Congress as a result.

- Potential 'civil-military crisis' -

Hegseth is a frequent critic of so-called "woke" policies -- by companies, at universities, and in the military -- that attempt to increase opportunities for ethnic and sexual minorities.

Those efforts, such as the widely used Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, program, will likely be scrapped within the Pentagon if Hegseth wins confirmation in the Senate.

On an episode of the "Shawn Ryan Show" podcast aired earlier this month, Hegseth advocated for the firing of top US military officer General CQ Brown and said that any other senior officer who "was involved in any of the DEI woke shit has got to go."

Cancian said if the Trump administration stops at rolling back diversity programs it would resemble his first term in office, but that going further and taking a step such as firing Brown would "engender a civil-military crisis."

Hegseth said on the same podcast episode that he was opposed to women serving in combat roles, though not their presence in the armed forces as a whole.

"Everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat means casualties are worse," he said.

Hegseth reportedly lobbied Trump in 2019 to intervene in three war crimes cases, leading to pardons in two murder cases and the reinstatement of the rank of a third service member who was convicted for posing for a photo with a body in Iraq.

He appeared to confirm those efforts on the podcast, saying: "I was proud to be a part of, in a small way, behind the scenes, with all of those, with the pardons that came from President Trump."

Hegseth is an Ivy Leaguer, graduating from both Princeton and Harvard, though his website says he sent his degree back to the latter institution, and he has criticized it on air for its allegedly left-leaning policies.
Military equipment built in France is being used in Sudan on armoured vehicles supplied by the UAE, in "violation of the UN arms embargo" on the Darfur region, Amnesty International said Thursday.

Armoured personnel carriers (APCs) built and supplied by the United Arab Emirates and spotted by Amnesty in Sudan were fitted with Galix defence systems -- made in France by companies KNDS and Lacroix.

"Our research shows that weaponry designed and manufactured in France is in active use on the battlefield in Sudan," Amnesty's Secretary General Agnes Callamard said in a statement.

Fighting has intensified in recent weeks in Sudan's civil war, which pits the country's army under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by general Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, a former ally.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes and more than 11 million people have been forced from their homes in what the UN calls the world's worst displacement crisis.

The conflict in Sudan has nevertheless been overshadowed internationally by wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

The French-made Galix system has been spotted mounted on Nimr Ajban APCs supplied by the Emirates to the RSF, Amnesty said, also providing pictures of destroyed vehicles fitted with the system.

Galix is made up of sensors connected to a battery of launchers which can be loaded with ammunition such as smoke, decoys or projectiles, Lacroix says on its website.

"The Galix suite is not only for the purpose of self-defence (passive action) but also to actively neutralise hostile personnel," the company states.

"Any use (of Galix) in Darfur would be a clear breach of the UN arms embargo," Callamard said, calling on Paris to "immediately stop the supply of this system to the UAE" by the manufacturers.

Galix is fitted to more than 5,000 military vehicles worldwide, including some used by the French army.

France's SGDSN authority, which controls arms exports, told AFP it had not seen the Amnesty report and declined to comment.

KNDS and Lacroix also declined to comment.

A United Nations arms embargo has been in place on Sudan's Darfur region since 2004.

Amnesty has urged that the ban be extended to the whole country.

"If France cannot guarantee through export controls, including end user certification, that arms will not be re-exported to Sudan, it should not authorise" exports to countries such as the UAE, the group said.
The social embeddedness of gangs, and the systematicity of violence in what are often referred to as ganglands, makes it clear that we need to rethink the ways in which we intervene, which mainly revolve around violent repression, and develop policies that recognise that they are fundamentally linked to the urban social fabric and that their violence intersects with other forms of brutality that are characteristic of these urban environments. Indeed, very often gangs are a reaction to the latter.

Gangs are one of a small number of global social phenomena, present across time and space in societies all over the world. The Roman historian Livy, for example, famously considered the political role of gangs in his history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, while the medieval Arab geographer Ibn Khaldun discussed how they impacted on the organisation of urban space in North African cities in his celebrated history of the world, the Kitab al-Ibar. More recently, studies have noted their presence in countries as diverse as the United States, El Salvador, Brazil, France, Sweden, Morocco, Kenya, China, or Papua New Guinea, amongst others.

Partly because of their ubiquity, gangs are revealing social institutions. They can be linked to a range of fundamental social processes such as the exercise of power, the articulation of gender relations, material accumulation, socialisation, territoriality and questions of identity, to name but a few. Such processes can often be observed much more directly through the prism of gangs, as Frederic Thrasher argued in his pioneering study of the phenomenon in 1920s Chicago, when he declared that gangs were life, often rough and fierce, but rich in elementary social processes significant to any student of society and human nature.

Gangs: autonomous social institutions

Thrasher also emphasised that gangs are both phenomena and epiphenomena. In other words, that they are autonomous social institutions, with complex internal logics and dynamics, but they also reflect  and are shaped by  wider social structures and processes. This is why Thrashers study was not just a study of Chicago gangs, but rather offers us a portrait of urban life in Chicago and, more broadly, of American society at the time. One of his main conclusions was to link gang emergence with discrimination against immigrant communities, arguing that the former often constituted a defensive reaction to the latter.

Many excellent studies of gangs have been produced since Thrashers pioneering investigation almost 100 years ago, highlighting how gangs can vary in form, dynamics and consequences across time and space. The vast majority have however tended to focus on a single gang or location, moreover at a single point in time. As a result, we still lack a proper sense of what kinds of gang dynamics might be general, and which ones are specific to particular epochs and places, and why.

Answering this question was at the heart of the 'Gangs, Gangsters, and Ganglands: Towards a Global Comparative Ethnography' project (or GANGS, for short). Funded by a grant from the European Research Council, the project began on 1 January 2019 and ran until 30 June 2024. It implemented a research programme to explore gang dynamics based on research in five cities, Managua in Nicaragua, Cape Town in South Africa, Marseille in France, Naples in Italy and Algeciras in Spain, as well as collecting the life histories of 31 gang members from 23 different countries. The idea was to better understand why gangs emerge, whether they can be associated with particular urban configurations, how they evolve over time, and how and why individuals join and leave gangs.

Intimately embedded within their community

Gangs are highly variable social phenomena, but one finding of the GANGS project is that they are generally represented as disembedded, autonomous organisations, separate from the communities in which they operate. This legitimises repressive interventions, since they are seen to affect only the targeted gangs and not their local communities. However, our research shows that gangs are fundamentally embedded within wider social, economic and political processes. Gang members are generally intimately related to individuals or groups within their community, and local norms and expectations are frequently shared by both gang members and non-gang residents. In Nicaragua in the 1990s, for example, there was a widely respected golden rule that gang members should not prey on the inhabitants of their local communities, but rather protect them.

At the same time, our research has also highlighted that gangs are highly volatile institutions and that the nature of their violence can change very rapidly. The emergence of a large squatter camp in a previously uninhabited area between two townships dominated by rival drug-selling gangs in Cape Town, South Africa, in the late 2010s, for example, led to a brutal war between the two gangs for control of this new market and territory, which resulted in over 200 deaths in 18 months, including of many non-gang member local community inhabitants.

Another important finding of the GANGS project is that the labelling of certain urban areas as ganglands because of the presence of gangs obscures the fact that those who live in these areas often experience numerous other forms of non-criminal forms of brutality, including structural, infrastructural, environmental or bureaucratic violence. One of the striking features of the research we carried out in the Felix-Pyat housing estatein Marseille, France, was that gang- and drug-related violence, although acknowledged as a major issue by the residents of this area, was not necessarily identified as the most serious problem. Rather, problems related to pollution, poverty, housing conditions and health were all highlighted as more important.

Rethink the ways in which we intervene

In other words, a sensationalist focus on gang violence not only prevents us from understanding the wider panorama of risks and insecurities that shape peoples lives, but also obscures the systemic nature of urban violence and the way in which different forms of violence interrelate and can feed off each other. Focusing on one particular form of violence at the expense of others in such a context therefore risks both misinterpreting local dynamics and underestimating social suffering.

The social embeddedness of gangs and the systematic nature of the violence in what are referred to as ganglands clearly suggest that we need to rethink the ways in which we intervene, which mainly revolve around violent repression, and develop policies that recognise that gangs are fundamentally linked to the urban social fabric and that their violence intersects with other forms of brutality that are characteristic of these urban environments. And that gangs are often in fact a reaction to the latter.

Such an approach might well draw on a transitional justice approach, and in particular the way that it emphasises inclusion, truth-telling and a holistic sense of justice, in order to develop new tools for finding solutions to the contemporary gang phenomenon on a global scale.




Thursday, November 14, 2024 - A 20-year-old man believed to be a member of a fraud syndicate in Kisumu and linked to other criminal activities has been arrested, and 750 IDs recovered from him.

The suspect, Adam Rajab Abdalla, told police that he obtained the IDs with the help of a rogue Huduma Centre staff.

He further alleged that he works in cahoots with a rogue staff at Safaricom to defraud Kenyans using the IDs.

Police stormed his house and recovered a toy gun, crude weapons, and suspected stolen household items.

He is in custody as investigations continue.





A 20-Year-Old Man Arrested in Kisumu With 750 IDs He Allegedly Obtained With The Help of a Rogue Huduma Centre Staff- Claims he Works With Rogue Safaricom Staff to Defraud Kenyans pic.twitter.com/j7eJdV5vL5  DAILY POST  (@dailypost_ke) November 14, 2024

The Kenyan DAILY POST.






Thursday, November 14, 2024 - American actress and film producer, Jamie Lee Curtis is the latest celebrity to leave the social media platform X in the wake of Donald Trump's presidential election victory.

The 65-year-old Freaky Friday actress made the announcement on Wednesday on another social media site: Instagram.

With some accounts and publications already left X, which was formerly known as Twitter after Elon Musk took control of it, Curtis has also completely deactivated her account.

Curtis announced her news in an Instagram post featuring a screenshot that was apparently taken from her X account on her phone.

'Your account is deactivated,' it read, with 'Sorry to see you go. #GoodBye' in smaller text at the bottom.





'God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to know the difference,' she wrote of giving up X.

Curtis supported Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats in this month's election.




Thursday, November 14, 2024  National Assembly Finance Chair and Molo Member of Parliament Kimani Kuria was on Tuesday elected to serve as the inaugural chairperson of the Africa Young Parliamentarians Network (AYPN).

In a statement, the lawmaker thanked fellow AYPN members for electing him into the seat after the conclusion of the Conference on Corruption, Fiscal Justice, and Digital Governance.

I thanked the leaders for entrusting me with the leadership of the organisation. God bless Africa YPN, Kuria stated.

Elected to lead alongside him were Mohamed Kari from Comoros who will serve under Kuria as Vice Chairperson, Vuyolwethu Zungula of South Africa as Secretary General, Zaroua Ouma of Chad as Treasurer, and Amira Saber of Egypt as the Organising Secretary.

The young parliamentarians also elected leaders to represent each African region with Dr Betty from Ethiopia being selected to lead the Eastern Region.

Amina Saber, who will also serve as the organizing secretary, was elected to lead the Nothern bloc as well.

Ephone from Benin would lead the Western region, Zanele Tanele from Eswatini the South, and finally, Hermione from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) would lead the Central Africa region.

The AYPN is a continental parliamentary caucus that draws membership from serving Young Parliamentarians in the African Continent.

The inaugural conference's major discussion points were corruption, fiscal justice, and digital governance.

They called on governments to combat corruption and advance integrity in Africas governance systems. They also assessed Africas debt and the urgent need to address it.

The conference also highlighted the need for regional cooperation, effective legislative reforms, and the empowerment of young leaders to shape Africas future.

Henceforth, AYPA will work with regional and international partners to empower the next generation of leaders to foster transparent, accountable, and sustainable governance for Africas future.

The Kenyan DAILY POST




Thursday, November 14, 2024  The United States Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman has resigned from her ambassadorial role days after Donald Trump was elected as the 47th President of the United States.

Meg Whitmans resignation came as a relief for most Kenyans, who had fallen out bitterly with her over her tendencies to support President William Ruto and his punitive policies.

While announcing her resignation, Whitman revealed that she had submitted her resignation letter to U.S. President Joe Biden.

Meg Whitman went ahead to term her role as the US ambassador as an "honour and privilege" and that under her service, the United States was able to strengthen its partnership with Kenya.

"From delivering emergency funding to alleviate catastrophic flooding in 2023 to the ongoing fight against malaria, HIV, and MPOX, the US government prioritizes the health and welfare of our friends in Kenya," read part of the statement.

Other notable achievements the US ambassador to Kenya highlighted include the decision by the US government to elevate Kenya as its first major non-NATO ally in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to Whitman, the achievements reflected the importance of both countries' ability to stand up for each other, protect their shared democratic values, and enhance security.

"Trade, jobs, and US investment in Kenya are at historic highs because of our efforts.

"We also responded to the skyrocketing demand for our consular services, reducing wait times for nonimmigrant visa appointments from more than two years to about two months," Whitman noted.

The Kenyan DAILY POST




Thursday, November 14, 2024 - A former Kenyan presidential candidate has expressed hope in the Donald Trump presidency, stating that the U.S. President will prevent Kenya's President William Ruto from becoming a ruthless dictator.

Early this month, Donald Trump defied all the odds and won the U.S. presidential election after beating Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

Reacting to Donald Trump's win, Reuben Kigame, who vied in the 2022 presidential election in Kenya expressed hope that the US strongman will tame Ruto who is becoming a ruthless dictator.

Trump's victory would help us a lot morally. I want it to be known that I dont hate people who have different identities or feelings.

"They should be given their rights to food, education, and protection from harm. But they shouldnt be taught about homosexuality. My stance is that our youth should not be taught foreign ideas, Kigame said.

Expressing dissatisfaction with Kenya's current mission in Haiti, Kigame criticised the deployment of Kenyan police officers to the gang-ridden region, stating that they were dispatched unwillingly and have since faced unpaid wages and other challenges.

The renowned gospel artist expressed hope that under Trump's leadership, the officers might be safely returned to Kenya.

The Kenyan DAILY POST






Thursday, November 14, 2024 - Former CNN anchor, Don Lemon said Wednesday, November 13 that he is quitting Elon Musks social media platform X, blaming the sites new policy for all legal disputes to be heard in Texas.

Lemon who is currently suing Musk in California after having his show on X canceled by the mogul, claimed the upcoming switch in the terms of service would end free speech.

I once believed that it [X] was a place for honest debate and discussion, transparency and free speech, but I now feel it does not serve that purpose, Lemon told his 1.5 million followers on X in a video.

Xs new terms of service, which take effect Friday, mandate that all lawsuits be filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas  not the Western District of Texas, where the company is headquartered.

Ten of the 11 active judges in the Northern District were appointed by a Republican president, compared to six of the 11 judges in the Western District, according to Georgetown University law professor Steve Vladeck.

Lemon quoted a report in The Washington Post, which said Xs new policy ensures that such lawsuits will be heard in courthouses that are a hub for conservatives, which experts say could make it easier for X to shield itself from litigation and punish critics.





I think that speaks for itself, Lemon said, before plugging his YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky accounts.

After Musk abruptly axed plans for Lemon to host a show on X, the former CNN anchor sued Musk over the summer for refusing to pay him.

Musk had fired Lemon hours after a testy sit-down, which was meant to be the shows premiere episode.

Remember when Don Lemon tried to make ludicrous demands of Elon Musk in order to do a show on X? That was funny, a commenter wrote.

Lemon despite having been fired from CNN mere months before Musks X show offer, allegedly had a lengthy list of extravagant demands for his contract with Musk.

He expected a free Cybertruck, hosting dibs on the first podcast in space, a $5 million advance on top of an $8 million salary and equity in the company, as The Posts previously reported.

In a September filing in San Francisco federal court, Musk and X asked a federal judge to dismiss Lemons lawsuit.

Lemon is claiming X defrauded him because he incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses to prepare for the show, according to the suit. The suit also claims Musk used Lemon to boost the companys ad sales.

Musk said he did nothing wrong by allegedly telling Lemon there was no need to sign a contract. It was unreasonable for Lemon to rely on a statement and not a written contract for a multimillion-dollar partnership, Musk said.




Thursday, November 14, 2024  Since President William Ruto elevated his hometown, Eldoret, to city status, life has become increasingly difficult for poor residents.

This is after residents took to the streets to protest the 300 per cent increase in water tariffs without notice.

According to the residents, Eldoret Water and Sanitation Company (Eldowas), which manages water in the county, raised water prices without consultation, leaving many frustrated.

The angry residents told the press that their pleas to bring down the tariffs fell on deaf ears, with the company stating that Eldorets new city status justified the higher charges.

However, some of the protestors did not believe this should have been the case as the 300 per cent increase had led to some residents paying more for their water bill than their rent.

The sewage service price has also been set at 75 per cent of the water bill further deepening the crisis for some residents who find it hard to afford the steep prices.

Following this increase, several residents noted that several other services in the city including the food industry had become increasingly expensive, and the residents argue that this is making the city one of the most expensive to live in in Kenya.

When we visit hotels and restaurants, they are also complaining about the bills and they have said they will pass it on to the consumer so we might start paying double and triple for food, another resident stated.

The Kenyan DAILY POST






Thursday, November 14, 2024 - Chioma Nnadi, the editorial director of British Vogue magazine has shared her worries about the return of thin models, blaming the trend on the widespread use of anti-obesity drugs.

Were in this moment where were seeing the pendulum sort of swing back to skinny being in and often these things are treated like a trend and we dont want them to be, Nnadi told the BBC in an interview on Wednesday, November 13.

We should all be concerned, I am very concerned and I know many of my colleagues are, added Nnadi, who took over as editor of the fashion magazine in October 2023.

The use of very-thin models was widespread in the 1990s and early 2000s, with the so-called heroin chic trend embodied by supermodel Kate Moss.

Some brands have made an effort to have models of all sizes on the catwalk but Nnadi, 44, said there was still not enough diversity of size and some models were especially thin.

Ozempic, a popular diabetes treatment that also works against obesity, has something to do with it because were seeing a lot of celebrities who are using it, she said.

I think theres this shift in the culture around how we think about our bodies and how we address our bodies.

Nnadi, said her magazine was trying to show models of all sizes.

I think its not something that we, as a magazine, can change on our own, because obviously the designers are making clothes that are sample size, she added




Thursday, November 14, 2024  Kenyans are a worried lot following the rumours that Kenyas banking sector may collapse anytime soon.

The rumour emerged online claiming that the local banking systems would collapse following US President-elect Donald Trump's ascent to power in January next year.

However, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has rubbished the claims that the banking system is set to collapse fueling fears of a financial crisis.

In an official notice, CBK affirmed to Kenyans that the Banking system is solid and that everyone should continue banking with confidence, disregarding the rumors.

"The banking sector in Kenya remains stable and resilient and is adequately capitalized. All customers should continue transacting as normal," reads part of the statement by CBK.

CBK went ahead to caution Kenyans to steer clear of the rumors and not fall prey to such false allegations. Kenyans have further been advised to only trust information from the CBK alone.

According to CBK, the rumors were aimed to induce panic, leading to action that may destabilize the market.

Kenyans have been advised to double-check all releases on CBK's official websites before believing any information they see online.

Speaking on the allegations, NCBA Group Managing Director, John Gachora advised Kenyans to ignore the rumors, clarifying that the bank's liquidity is stable.

Commercial banks are required to maintain a minimum liquidity ratio of 20 per cent, which Kenyans had alleged would be affected and go lower.

In its most recent bullet, the apex bank noted that commercial banks' excess reserves stood at Ksh41.1 billion in relation to the 4.25 per cent cash reserves requirement (CRR).

The Kenyan DAILY POST




Thursday, November 14, 2024 - Environment Cabinet Secretary, Aden Duale has mocked Kenyans living in informal settlements like Kibra and Mathare saying they dont contribute to polluting the Nairobi River because they 'eat everything'

Speaking on Wednesday at a climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, Duale stated that Nairobi River pollution is primarily caused by the middle class, as they are the ones who have the most garbage.

Middle-class people pollute the Nairobi River, not those in informal settlements. Those in informal settlements don't have garbage, they eat everything, Duale said.

Following his remarks, many Kenyans took to social media and accused the CS of disrespecting Kenyans living in slums.

Here are some comments from Kenyans.

I have never seen a disrespectful government like this. Abusing the people in slums that they eat everything including garbage is bad. We shall soon eat you Cs Aden Duale! Hon Katiwa wrote

Aden Duale just called informal settlers CHOKORAA! Such an unfortunate statement from a leader! The statement was more damaging to the informal settlers than the middle class. Funny thing is that President William Ruto also sees them the same way- bunch of Chokoras & voting tools, George Tiano wrote.

The Kenyan DAILY POST




Thursday, November 14, 2024 - Githunguri Member of Parliament Gathoni Wamuchomba has sensationally claimed that Leader of Majority in Parliament Kimani Ichungwah is not attracted to women like most men.

In an interview on Kogis Corner, a popular podcast broadcast in Kikuyu, Wamuchomba claimed that Kimani Ichungwah, the Kikuyu Constituency MP and Leader of Majority, dislikes women and doesnt even greet them.

I am even shocked that Kimani Ichungwah is not attracted to women.

"Whenever we pass with him in Parliament corridors he doesnt stare at us like other men who are attracted to women, Wamuchomba said.

Wamuchomba's remarks follow similar comments by Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo, who claimed that Kimani Ichungwah is obsessed with men, citing his frequent mention of former President Uhuru Kenyatta's name.

Millie Odhiambo, speaking in Parliament, criticized the Kikuyu legislator Kimani Ichungwah for constantly mentioning Uhuru Kenyatta and blaming him for the challenges facing the Kenya Kwanza Alliance government.

The Kenyan DAILY POST




Thursday, November 14, 2024 - Mathira MP Eric Wamumbi will regret supporting the impeachment of former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.

This is after Mathira residents started collecting signatures to remove him as their MP for betraying Gachagua by voting to impeach him.

The exercise kicked off in Karatina Town, where residents came out armed with their identification cards to sign petitions to recall their MP.

The residents of Mathira, which is Gachaguas backyard, showed dissatisfaction after the MP supported Gachaguas impeachment, stating they were ready to proceed with the recall once the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is fully reconstituted.

The visibly angry residents pointed a finger of blame at their MP, accusing him of denouncing one of their own and voting against their wish.

As residents, we have resolved to start collecting signatures to recall Wamumbi because he has not initiated any meaningful development and betrayed our son, Gachagua, by leading the push for his impeachment, which we opposed, one resident asserted.

Mathira Constituency has a little over 104,000 voters, the majority of whom backed the UDA party.

It comes as MPs hailing from the Mt Kenya region have been met with backlash from their constituents following the impeachment of Gachagua.

The latest one to be shown wrath was Nyeri Town MP Duncan Maina was heckled and insulted at Lower Bus Park in Nyeri Town, by angry matatu operators on Monday.

The Kenyan DAILY POST






Thursday, November 14, 2024 - A man was discovered dead on a tanning bed at a gym, three days after walking in.

The body found inside a Planet Fitness in Indianapolis on Monday morning, Nov. 11, has been identified as Derek Sink, 39, whose family last heard from him on Friday, Nov. 8, and reported him missing on Sunday, Nov. 10.

A woman at the gym said she and other members smelled a foul odor in the building that became stronger near the tanning rooms. That led to the gruesome finding.

"The tanning bed has a door, I believe, but still, why are we not concerned that the tanning bed has been closed for three days, potentially?" Elizabeth Len told WTHR.

Operating hours at the Planet Fitness on Hardegen Street are 12am to 9pm Fridays, 7am to 7pm Saturdays and Sundays, and 5am to 12am on Mondays, according to its website.

Sinks aunt told the TV station that he was wearing an ankle monitor that indicated that he did not leave the gym.

Family members said a needle was found with Sink in the tanning room. They called him a loving person who struggled with a drug problem.

They wished for stricter policies at Planet Fitness including end-of-day checks and cleanings to prevent a similar tragedy from occurring.

Planet Fitness Chief Corporate Affairs Officer McCall Gosselin on Tuesday stated: "We were deeply saddened by the passing of one of our members, and the franchise owner is working with the local authorities in their investigation.

"At Planet Fitness, we have robust operational brand protocols in place, as the safety and well-being of our members is our top priority. We are working closely with our local franchisee to ensure they are upholding those brand protocols."

A sign on the door of the gym on Monday noted that "tanning is currently unavailable," according to WTHR.

As of Tuesday, Nov. 12, the Marion County Coroners Office had not determined Sinks cause and manner of death.

His remains were discovered nearly three months after a woman employed with Wells Fargo bank was found dead at her cubicle at work, four days after she last scanned in, as co-workers reported a bad smell.




Thursday, November 14, 2024 - A close ally of President William Ruto has criticized Nyeri Catholic Archbishop Anthony Muheria for his remarks against the Kenya Kwanza Alliance government.

Last week, Muheri criticised President William Rutos regime, accusing it of failing to address the pressing needs of ordinary citizens.

During a mass celebrating the canonization of Saint Joseph Allamano, Archbishop Muheria lamented that many government policies were crafted with little consideration for the poor and vulnerable.

"Kenyans must once more recalibrate to realign our thoughts, our actions, our words, and our hearts.

"We are competing unfortunately, in one evil, the evil of insults and lack of respect.

"In our country, Kenya, we must learn humility, especially leadership.

"In our country. Kenya we must learn service as a main concern by speaking about the issues of service that we are activated.

"We must activate concern for others and not concern for ourselves.

"With the shift of the NHIF to SHIF we don't seem to have had that thought of the sick; people who die because they can't get services, that's our main concern," he urged.

However, on Thursday, Kapsaret MP Oscar Sudi urged Archbishop Muheria to remain silent and labeled him a tribalist.

It is dumbfounding to see Archbishop Anthony Muheria preaching the gospel on one hand and fanning tribalism on the other hand.

"Muheria lacks moral authority to criticise the current regime because he is akin to doublespeak.

"The cleric is on record for backing the past regime even when it was clear it had failed Kenyans and must be bold enough to steer away from tribal politics, Sudi wrote on X

The Kenyan DAILY POST






Thursday, November 14, 2024 - Police are on the hunt for a 38-year-old woman, Halimmah Thamando Mnyobisi for allegedly murdering her husband, Fezile Mnyobisi, in Botshabelo, Free State, South Africa.

The 35-year-old teacher was stabbed more than 30 times and was driven to hospital by his 38-year-old wife on September 15, 2023. He was declared dead on arrival.

Provincial spokesperson, Sergeant Mahlomola Kareli, in a statement on Wednesday, November 13, said the attack took place near Sechaba-se-Maketse Combined School in H1-Section.

The deceased was a teacher at Refihlile Primary School in C-Section.

Kareli said police initially opened a case of robbery and murder at Botshabelo Police Station for further investigation.

After intensive investigation by Botshabelo detectives working together with the Provincial Investigative Psychology Section, three suspects were arrested after warrants of their arrests were issued.

Vusumuzi Daniel Nqele, 43, Moeketsi Innocent Manko, 35, were arrested on Friday November 8, 2024, for murder and conspiracy to commit murder, said Kareli.

Additionally, Halimmahs brother, Abdool Thamando, 35, was later arrested in Johannesburg, Gauteng.

Kareli said they believe Halimmah, who is on the run, was driving a black Mazda CX-5 with unknown registration numbers.

The wanted suspect has been evading arrest and anyone with information on her whereabouts is urged to contact Detective Captain Sandile Dladla on 082 560 4727 or Detective Warrant Officer Lehlohonolo Tloanyane on 073 261 8753 or Detective Sergeant Lebohang Nkopane on 068 098 8350 or Crime Stop on 08600 10111. Anonymous tip-offs can also be communicated via the MySAPS App, added Kareli.




Thursday, November 14, 2024 - Prominent Embu businessman Jimmy Dubai has been arrested for reportedly leading protesters to torch United Democratic Alliance (UDA) and Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) offices in Embu during the Gen-Z protests that rocked the country in June this year.

It is believed that the renowned businessman sponsored Gen Zs to torch the offices during the anti-government protests.

He was on the frontline when the group of protesters razed the offices.

Jimmy was arrested by a contingent of police officers who stormed his hotel in Kirinyaga and bundled him into a Subaru.

In October this year, Jimmy was abducted by rogue state agents and dumped at a farm in Nyeri after the locals threatened to hold protests.

Embu Businessman Arrested For Reportedly Leading Protesters To Torch KRA And UDA Offices During Gen Z Protests, 2 Months After He Was Abducted And Dumped at a Farm in Nyeri pic.twitter.com/LAtpYFTjWL  DAILY POST  (@dailypost_ke) November 14, 2024

The Kenyan DAILY POST.




Thursday, November 14, 2024  MPs are up in arms over the uneven distribution of job opportunities across the public service with some ethnic communities appearing to dominate the service.

The National Assembly Committee on Labour, chaired by Runyenjes lawmaker Karemba Muchagi, was forced to seek clarification during a meeting with Public Service Commission (PSC) officials at the Bunge Towers in Nairobi.

PSC, led by its Chairperson Antony Muchiri, had been invited by the committee to answer questions regarding actions taken by the commission to streamline and balance the absorption of various communities in the public service.

According to a report tabled before the committee by the Commission, there was a worrying variation in the pattern of employment across different communities in the country.

For instance, the report highlighted the Kikuyu community as the ethnic group with the highest representation, with 29,978 officers in public service, while marginalized communities such as the Gosha, Konso, and Leysan had only two officers each.

While responding to the Committees queries, Muchiri highlighted that the commission had made notable strides in ensuring regional balance and ethnic inclusivity, in compliance with the law.

Muchiri also emphasized that the recruitment process takes into account various measures designed to ensure diversity, for instance, the inclusion of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), gender representation, and consideration of the county of origin of candidates.

Following the meeting, the lawmakers directed the commission to take immediate action to address these disparities and ensure fair representation for all communities moving forward.

The Kenyan DAILY POST






Thursday, November 14, 2024 - American rapper, Meek Mill has distanced himself from Diddy amid the mogul's sexual assault and trafficking case.

On Wednesday, Instagram account @hoodreport_ shared a post of a fan bumping into Meek in public and asking him for a shoutout.

In the video, Meek made it clear that he was no longer associating himself with Diddy by stating the "No Diddy" catchphrase.

"You already know how we playing out [here], this real life," Mill, 37, said to the camera. "Yeah, no Diddy gang Meek Milly in real life, don't ever disrespect me, you heard?" the rapper stated.

Meek has repeatedly denied the allegations about being in a sexual relationship with Diddy after years of association.

The allegations stem from rumors about the lawsuit Lil Rod filed earlier this year.

In September, he said on social media that he wanted to spend $100,000 to launch an investigation into the rumors. "I wanna hire an investigative team 100k cash," he posted on X. "To find out every specific detail involving meek mill name to 'Diddy' Case."

He added: "I also want them to look at who is powering the media involving 'Meek' anything to do with buddy. Something not right."




Thursday, November 14, 2024  President William Rutos government is seeking approval from MPs to impose severe penalties on Credit Reference Bureau defaulters.

This follows a proposal submitted to the National Assembly aimed at transforming the borrowing sector by expanding penalty measures within the lending space.

The Business Law (Amendment) Bill 2024 will particularly target stakeholders in the financial sectors cutting across consumers to institutions and Credit Reference Bureaus.

Key among the target institutions include the Credit Reference Bureaus (CRBs), financial institutions, or any other persons who will refuse to comply with financial guidelines issued by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).

The bill stipulates hefty fines for Kenyans who will be found to have failed to adhere to the regulations by fining them up to Ksh1 million.

Should the National Assembly pass the bill, CRBs and financial institutions who do not follow directives issued to them by the CBK will be fined Ksh20 million.

This is particularly important as the CBK has been blaming some of the institutions for sharing the private data of the customers contrary to data protection laws.

Alternatively, the institutions will be fined 3 times more of the money that they will have made as a result of not following directives issued by the CBK regarding the financial sector regulations.

Corporate entities that will be found to have failed to follow the provisions of the amendment will be fined Ksh3 million.

According to documents presented before the National Assembly, the new proposals will seek to amend section 55(2) of the Banking Act.

Initially, individuals who violated such agreements were fined Ksh10,000, while institutions and CRBs parted with up to Ksh1 million in penalties.

The Kenyan DAILY POST




Thursday, November 14, 2024 - Residents of Damasa in Lafey Constituency, Mandera County, are urgently appealing for intervention as the local hospital continues to suffer from severe neglect.

Damasa Hospital reportedly lacks essential facilities such as running water, power, and adequate sanitation, which is now forcing residents to travel several kilometers just to access basic medical care.

See photos.

The Kenyan DAILY POST.




Thursday, November 14, 2024 - Detectives investigating the murder of taxi driver Victoria Mumbua Muloki have linked the prime suspect Edwin Ngetich to the killings of two other taxi drivers.

George Njuguna, a taxi driver, was murdered in Nakuru County in July after Ngetich contracted him for a car hire business from Kisii to Nairobi.

Somewhere along the way in Gilgil, detectives believe Ngetich abducted his victim, murdered him, and dumped his body in Gilgil before making away with his motor vehicle.

Detectives also believe that Ngetich murdered another unidentified taxi driver whose stolen vehicle was recovered at Burnt Forest, Uasin Gishu County.

Detectives stated that the suspect is also under investigation for more murders and robberies across Eldoret, Mombasa, and Voi.

Mumbua was killed after accepting a ride request from Ngetich from Mombasa to Samburu.

Three days later, her body was discovered in a thicket in Lari, Kiambu.

Ngetich was arrested while driving her vehicle in Nakuru.





The Kenyan DAILY POST.






Thursday, November 14, 2024 - The special education teacher accused of r@ping a 13-year-old student in her car had ditched her husband for the teenager whom she referred to as her crystal meth, according to prosecutors.

Colleen Jo Matarico, a 43-year-old grandmother, from Los Angeles, USA, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, November 12 to five felony counts of lewd acts upon a child under age 14, two felony counts of lewd acts upon a child age 14 or 15, and one felony count of furnishing a controlled substance to a minor, CBS News reported.

Prosecutors alleged that she was sexually abusing the male student for over a year, and even left her husband because she believed she was in love with him, the Los Angeles Times added.

In online messages, she called the teen her crystal meth  and the only person she would go to jail for, Deputy District Attorney Ariel Anson told Tuesdays hearing.

The mom of two continued to pursue the boy after multiple people in her family begged her to stop  and the boy said he was concerned and scared of her jealousy, the prosecutor said.

Matarico who worked at John Burroughs Middle School started abusing the boy when he turned 13, while she was still his teacher, Anson told the court.

Most of the alleged sex abuse took place between August and November, according to the criminal complaint. She is also accused of giving the boy marijuana.

More recently, when she became aware of the investigation, Matarico allegedly drove to the high school where the boy is now a pupil and waited for him in her car where she allegedly raped him, according to Anson.

The teacher then contacted one of the boys friends via Instagram in order to stay in contact with him, the Los Angeles Times said.

It was in one of those messages that Matarico allegedly confessed to leaving her husband because she loved the teenager, and said that he was her crystal meth, Anson said Tuesday.

The teachers lawyer, Carlos Bido, pushed for her to be released on house arrest with electronic monitoring because she has no criminal history and has two children ages 11 and 15 as well as grandchildren.

Ms. Matarico is cooperating fully with the legal process and is prepared to address these serious allegations in court, Bido told the LA Times.

LA County Superior Court Judge Susan J. De Witt refused to release the teacher.

Anson had argued that Matarico had made clear she would continue trying to contact the boy if released, and that it would put him at harm.

The judge also granted a protective order barring Matarico from speaking with the victim or going near his school or home.




Thursday, November 14, 2024 - Meet Patrick Mbacio, a controversial Mubaba who is popular on Tiktok.

Mbacio made headlines a few months ago after threatening to release a list of ladies he has had fun with.

Below is a photo of his latest catch.

The Kenyan DAILY POST.




Thursday, November 14, 2024 - The court has allowed the detention of John Karima Wainaina, a suspect linked to the Ksh 1.5 billion heist at Equity Bank, for 10 days to allow for forensic investigations.

Wainaina, who was arrested on November 9 at JKIA, had been under surveillance by DCI and NIS, who tracked his movements after he returned from China.



Wainaina is believed to be part of an organized criminal group involved in bank fraud and money laundering, using insider connections to infiltrate the banks IT systems.



Following the heist in July, Wainaina fled to China, where he remained until his recent return to Nairobi this month.

His arrest follows a series of investigations, which also led to the capture of David Machiri Kimani, an Equity Bank manager implicated in processing fraudulent transactions amounting to nearly Ksh 1.5 billion before the funds were transferred to rival banks.



Police seek to retrieve critical evidence, including emails, text messages, and CCTV footage, as part of the ongoing investigation.

The Kenyan DIALY POST.




Thursday, November 14, 2024 - U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman has resigned.

In a statement dated Wednesday, November 13, Whitman revealed that she had tendered her resignation to President Joe Biden.

She detailed that she had also informed her colleagues at the US Embassy of her decision to leave her role.

Following her departure, Charge d'Affaires Marc Dillard will be leading the team at the Embassy until her position is filled.

"Today, I announced to my team at the U.S. embassy that I submitted my resignation to President Biden.

"It has been an honour and privilege to serve the American people through strengthening our partnership with Kenya.

"I am proud of leading a people-centered agenda that saves lives, increases security, and creates economic opportunities for Kenyans and Americans.

"From delivering emergency funding to alleviate catastrophic flooding in 2023 to the ongoing fight against malaria, HIV, and MPOX, the US government prioritizes the health and welfare of our friends in Kenya," read the statement in part.

Sources said the ambassador resigned because she feared newly elected US President Donald Trump may fire her for spectating the murder of Gen Z in Kenya by President William Rutos regime in June and July this year.

During the anti-government protests, the Ruto regime killed 61 people and Meg Whitman didnt utter a word to condemn the killings.

The Kenyan DAILY POST






Thursday, November 14, 2024 - US President-elect, Donald Trump has announced that he would nominate controversial Florida congressman Matt Gaetz as the US Attorney General.

Trump made the announcement on Wednesday, November 13, putting a far-right loyalist in one of the most powerful positions in the US government.

In his announcement on Truth Social, Trump emphasized that Gaetz would end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations, and restore Americans badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.

As Attorney General, Gaetz would automatically become the countrys chief law enforcement officer and oversee the legal positions that the government takes on key issues, including abortion, civil rights laws, and the First Amendment.

Gaetz, 42, is under the subject of an ethics investigation over claims of sexual misconduct, bribery, and drug use - which he denies - and was also the focus of unsubstantiated sex trafficking claims involving a 17-year-old girl. The appointment has sparked major fury among Trumps opponents.

Trump announced his decision just minutes after issuing a statement saying he will nominate Tulsi Gabbard, who infuriated critics with claims about 'biolabs' in Ukraine, to be Director of National Intelligence. He has also chosen Fox News host Pete Hegseth to run the Defense Department.
Eimear Dodd

A criminal defence solicitor accused of the theft of 400 fabricated notes with the intention of convincing gardai it was a weaker case, prosecuting counsel has suggested to the jury.

Cahir O'Higgins (49) has pleaded not guilty to the theft of 400 on July 30th, 2016 at Londis shop, on Parkgate Street.

He also pleaded not guilty to four counts of perverting the course of public justice contrary to common law, on December 8th and December 17th, 2017.

Mr O'Higgins, of Cahir O'Higgins and Company, Kingsbride House, Parkgate Street, Dublin, denies the allegations against him. The court has heard that Mr O'Higgins is a criminal defence solicitor with over 20 years' experience.

Evidence was given during the trial that Mr O'Higgins was standing in for a colleague to represent a Spanish national, Raul Sanz Quilis, who was before the District Court on July 30, 2016 on a charge of criminal damage in relation to a fire in a toilet cubicle at Dicey's bar.

It is the State's case that Mr O'Higgins used his client's bank card to make three withdrawals totalling 600 from an ATM and allegedly placed 400 into his pocket. 200 was paid to the court and the case was then struck out.

It is further alleged that Mr O'Higgins provided gardai in December 2017 with a copy of notes he claimed to have made on July 30th, 2016 and that he was aware these notes contained untrue information.

In his closing speech, Eoin Lawlor SC, prosecuting, on Wednesday told jurors they must dispassionately and critically examine the evidence.

Mr Lawlor suggested Mr Sanz Quilis was the perfect mark for this theft because he had been intoxicated, had poor English, was due to return to Spain and had got off lightly.

He continued by suggesting that this appeared to be a low-risk theft when committed and that Mr Sanz Quilis was uniquely vulnerable.

He submitted Mr Sanz Quilis was clear that he didn't get his 400 back and that he was told by Mr O'Higgins that the money had been taken as fees.

Mr Lawlor contended that a drunk person may not remember how a fire started and is not being dishonest. He suggested that this does not affect Mr Sanz Quilis's credibility.

Mr O'Higgins was not entitled to charge fees to Mr Sanz Quilis in circumstances where legal aid had been assigned, prosecuting counsel told the jury.

He asked the jury to consider if a 19-year-old with a poor grasp of English - who had just been in trouble - would have challenged a lawyer when told that a fee was being taken.

Mr Lawlor noted the jury has heard evidence that extra money was withdrawn by Mr O'Higgins due to the possibility that the judge might order compensation.

He put it to the jury that 400 would not be enough money to cover any loss suffered by the nightclub.

Mr Lawlor noted that Mr O'Higgins said he returned the 400 to Mr Sanz Quilis in an envelope.

He submitted: it defies understanding that an experienced solicitor would take out cash without their client's explicit permission and would give cash to someone accused of a crime and not seek a signed receipt or acknowledgement.

He told the jury that a recording made in 2020 of a conversation between Mr O'Higgins and Garda Tao Yu is evidence of statements made, but not the truth of them.

Evidence

He suggested that some of Mr O'Higgins's comments during the recording were an attempt to pressurise Gda Yu to give particular evidence.

He submitted the recording shows Gda Yu attempting to reconcile his recollection with what Mr O'Higgins was saying.

Mr Lawlor suggested that the defendant's comments during the recording that people were out to get him are nonsense.

He told the jury that the allegation of perverting the course of justice arises from how Mr O'Higgins dealt with the allegation of theft when he became aware of it.

Mr Lawlor said the notes presented by Mr O'Higgins to gardai in December 2017 as contemporaneous to events of July 30, 2016 were fabricated.

He suggested Mr O'Higgins lied in these notes and about them. Prosecuting counsel submitted the defendant continued to lie during his first interview with gardai, before he shifted his story.

Mr Lawlor submitted these notes are significant because while they are presented as a mundane record of what happened on July 30th, 2016, they were intended as a defence to the theft allegation.

Notes

He suggested the notes were intended to deceive gardai into believing it was a weaker case than it was".

Prosecuting counsel noted that Mr O'Higgins had expressed concerns about the Law Society, but there is no evidence that a complaint had been made to the legal regulator. He suggested Mr O'Higgins could have had a dual intention to foresaw the Law Society by deceiving gardai.

In his speech, senior defence counsel Michael O'Higgins suggested his client made a reasonable request to gardai when interviewed to follow up potential lines of enquiry, but this wasn't done.

Defence counsel submitted these aspects weren't pursued because it was evidence that was capable of assisting Mr O'Higgins in defending this allegation of theft.

He submitted to the jury there is a lingering suspicion that this investigation was only looking for evidence that pointed one way.

On the evidence of Mr Sanz Quilis, Mr O'Higgins suggested he lied to gardai when interviewed and had stubbornly persisted in that lie in his evidence by maintaining the starting of the fire was an accident.

He asked jurors to consider if the prosecution had advanced an excuse for a witness who had plainly lied to you.

I dont know what is more troubling, him [Mr Sanz Quilis] doing what I suggest he did do or the prosecution trying to dress it up as a memory lapse.

Defence counsel said his client's state of mind on July 30 when he withdrew the money was important for the jury to consider and there was no entitlement for him to charge fees, as legal aid had been assigned.

Counsel asked the jury to consider if it's possible that Mr Sanz Quilis was handed back 400 but left it behind due to his tired state and the general hurly-burly of the court environment.

Counsel submitted the money could have been returned, but Mr Sanz Quilis didn't appreciate he got the money back.

Mr O'Higgins SC said the defence acknowledges that his client does not look well in this case.

Theres no question in my view that the lies he told were lies to protect his interests, describing the idea his client would lie as reprehensible.

He told jurors the reality is that everyone tells lies, but asked how many people do you know who quickly put their hands up and say it was a lie?

Theft allegation

He asked if a successful person would throw it all up for 400.

Defence counsel suggested that the lies in his client's notes are not about the theft allegation, but to anticipate possible regulatory queries.

Its a lie but its directed at someone asking 'did you complete the formalities as you ought to have done?', Mr O'Higgins SC said.

He submitted to the jury that it is a leap to say these notes were intended to pervert the course of justice.

Counsel suggested that its not possible to be satisfied beyond doubt what happened here and the correct verdict is not guilty.

The trial continues.
A MAN convicted of possession of more than 3,000 worth of heroin and of money laundering was jailed for 12 months this week, but had it backdated after the judge said hes been held on remand since the search.

Christy Lammon (57) of Coney Meadows, Coneyboro, Athy was appearing at Athy District from remand for sentencing.

Sergeant Dave Hanrahan explained how colleagues with a search warrant went to Mr Lammons address on the morning of 11 July, where they discovered 3,230 worth of heroin and 900 in cash.

So, drug dealing and money laundering? asked Judge Desmond Zaidan. Previous?

Four for Section 15 (possession with intent to supply) and 10 for Section 3 (simple possession), said the sergeant. His last conviction was in 2017, his first in 2011, and he is in custody on this matter, he added.

Judge, he entered an early plea and hasnt been in trouble in seven years, said defending solicitor Jackie McManus.

And were getting soundbites from politicians to legalise stuff like this, the judge shook his head.

Unfortunately, he was holding the drugs and has been in custody for four months since 11 July, said Ms McManus.

Hes 57 years old and I dont think youll see Christy Lammon in court again."

Youre a great believer in people, smiled the judge. I am not! How are you going to stay heroin-free when you get out? You managed to do it in prison, whats your plan when released?

Get a job, and stay off drugs, offered Ms McManus.

Thats a good plan, said the judge archly, before sentencing Mr Lammon to 12 months in prison for the Section 15 charge, taking into consideration the simple possession and the money laundering. He backdated the sentence to 11 July and ordered forfeiture and destruction of the seized items.
James Cox

Gardai have charged the man (30s) arrested in relation to the murder of a man at a five-star hotel in Co Laois on Tuesday night.

He is due to appear at Portlaoise District Court this morning at 10.30am.

The man in his 60s, a US national, was found dead in the leisure centre of Ballyfin Demesne hotel just hours after arriving in Ireland.

A man in his 30s, who was known to the victim and also from the United States, was arrested shortly afterwards, and remains in

Garda custody.

A family liaison officer has been appointed to support the family of the deceased.
Ballymore Eustace has been given national recognition as an age-and-climate-friendly village with an award at the 2024 National Age Friendly Recognition and Achievement Awards.

Announced at the 8th annual awards last week (7 November) the winning campaigns were chosen for their exceptional contribution to making Ireland an outstanding place to grow older.

Ballymore Eustace was chosen as a village to become Age Friendly and Climate Friendly by the fact that in the last census of 2016, Ballymore-Eustace had the largest number of older residents per head of population in the county.

From the climate action perspective, Ballymore-Eustace was chosen as an example of a rural commuter village and how it can integrate solutions at a community level to adapt to climate change.

Kildare shared the Award with Donegal County Council which has promoted age friendly inclusive beach access, an initiative is to enhance accessibility to Donegals beaches for all individuals, regardless of physical ability.

The event was presented by RTE star Marty Whelan and hosted this year by Fingal County Council at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Santry.

Irelands public libraries were also honoured on the night with the judges special recognition award, acknowledging the exceptional dedication of library staff nationwide.
At the young age of 82 Phil Coulter has kicked off a 31-date nationwide tour which includes the Watergate Theatre in Kilkenny on December 5.

From winning the Eurovision Song Contest with Puppet On a String through scores of pop hits with the likes of The Bay City Rollers to big ballads like Elvis Presleys My Boy, to the rugby anthem Irelands Call, Phil Coulters songs have consistently hit the mark. Few songwriters can claim to have had songs covered by artistes ranging from The Dubliners to James Last, from Waylon Jennings to James Galway!

Its now over thirty years since the distinctive sound of Tranquility, featuring Phils piano and orchestra, first seduced the whole of Ireland with its easy melodic charm, before going on to make believers around the world. With record sales now counted in millions, as well as a Grammy nomination, several appearances in the White House and sold out international tours, its been quite a ride.

Phil Coulter is without doubt one of the enduring talents in the music business, having enjoyed success and notched up hits in the 60s, 70s 80s and 90s with a tally of 23 platinum, 39 gold and 52 silver discs.

Phil Coulter has contributed at least four titles to the list of Great Irish Songs - the anthems The Town I Loved So Well, Irelands Call and the haunting Scorn Not His Simplicity and Steal Away'.

www.philcoulter.com
A man who was extremely unhelpful to a garda at a traffic stop has been convicted of having no valid driving licence and of driving without insurance.

Kilkenny District Court heard from Garda Andrew Neill that on July 10 last he was on mountain bike patrol when he checked on a silver Ford Transit on HIgh Street, Kilkenny. The garda established the vehicle was not taxed, did not have an appropriate certificate of roadworthiness (a UK MOT in this case) and the driver was not insured.

Driver of the vehicle was Mark Sweeney, Stoney Cottage, Bigwood, Mullinavat. Garda Neill said that when he stopped the vehicle and spoke to the driver, Mr Sweeney was extremely unhelpful.

Mr Sweeny told the garda it was his boss van and he was down here from Northern Ireland and other excuses. He was evasive but eventually gave his name and date of birth.

Garda Neill said he established Mr Sweeneys identity and arrested him under the Road Traffic Act because he suspected him to be a disqualified driver, having made enquiries on PULSE and on the garda mobility device.

The vehicle was seized.

The garda described the defendants behaviour as at the upper end of what a garda on their own would be expected to deal with.

In court, Mr Sweeney said he was under the impression his insurance covered him to drive any commercial vehicle.

When asked by Judge Geraldine Carthy if he held a driving licence, Mr Sweeney replied technically no.

He said he had applied for a licence, the payment had been taken from his account, but he had never received it back.

He said he had received no letter telling him he was banned from driving. He had nothing in writing but admitted a garda had said it to him.

Mr Sweeney said a court in Waterford had disqualified him from driving a few years ago but he hadnt received anything in writing.

Judge Carthy convicted Mr Sweeney on both charges.

Garda Neill informed the court that the defendant had eight previous convictions, including a five year driving disqualification handed down following his conviction for driving without insurance, in Waterford Court, in September 2022.

Judge Carthy imposed a six year driving disqualification on the new no insurance conviction and took the charge of not having a valid driving licence into consideration.

Recognisance was fixed in the event of an appeal.
Patricia Stephenson is a fresh face in Kilkenny politics, hoping to secure a first-ever seat for the Social Democrats in Carlow-Kilkenny.

The new candidate lives with her partner in Coollcullen, between Old Leighlin and Castlecomer, where the couple have renovated an old parish hall.

Originally from Belfast, Ms Stephenson moved here a few years ago after six years working in East Africa in the aid/humanitarian sector, before her return to Ireland. Her aunt and uncle live close to Comer, where she visited a lot as a child. She has been a member of the Social Democrats for about three and a half years, with a strong family pedigree in politics; her late father was a former councillor and chair of the SDLP.

When she moved back to Ireland, she noticed the extent to which people were struggling with the basics, such as people finding it hard to get a GP, other services, and the housing crisis. These are among her motivations to put her name forward to contest the upcoming election.

The reason Im running is I dont believe there is an urgency with the current government to fix these problems, she says.

I know they use the rhetoric of urgency, but I dont think that is actually being demonstrated in a lot of the policies. And were still here then, five years later, with a similar makeup of challenges to the country, some even more extreme.

Im frustrated and I want to channel that into something positive. I know that I am not alone in those feelings. Ive met people over the last four weeks  they are disappointed, disillusioned and disenfranchised. I want to offer those people an alternative voice, some sort of change they can vote for in this election.

A wide variety of issues are coming up on the doorsteps, but the main one will be no surprise to anyone. Housing is always going to be a massive one, for all different types of people, Ms Stephenson says. Even people who have a mortgage, or even have their mortgage paid off  they are concerned, older people concerned about their grandchildren having to move away. We meet a lot of adult children living in their childhood bedroom homes.

Of course, we meet lots of people renting who are genuinely struggling with this 50% increase since Covid. We meet a lot of people who have experienced homelessness or are the hidden homeless  they cant find anywhere. Loads of people who have got good jobs but cant actually find anywhere to rent.

Her party wants to see a major increase in social housing construction: Wed like to see 800 social homes being built in Kilkenny, 1300 in Carlow to reflect the needs of the people that are on the social housing list, she says.

When you build those homes, it obviously alleviates a lot of pressure in the rental sector as well. Wed also like to see rent caps introduced, and land being properly zoned for rent so we dont have this ever-increasing challenge with rent going up and up and up.

READ MORE KILKENNY ELECTION NEWS HERE
A woman who was with Nikita Hand in the hotel where she claims she was raped by Irish mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor, has told a High Court she was surprised to learn of the alleged sexual assault.

Ms Hand, who is claiming civil damages against McGregor and another man, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following the alleged incident in December 2018.

Mr McGregor is facing an accusation in the civil action that he brutally raped and battered Ms Hand, who is also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin.

She is also suing another man, James Lawrence, for sexual assault on December 9 2018.

Ms Hand, who has no automatic right to anonymity, has accused Mr McGregor of pinning her to a bed and raping her in a hotel bedroom in south Dublin.

Giving evidence on Wednesday, Danielle Kealey told the court she was with Ms Hand in south Dublin as part of a Christmas work party.

Ms Kealey, who was called to give evidence by Remy Farrell SC, for Mr McGregor, said she did not know Ms Hand well.

She told the court that they were collected by Mr McGregor from the salon at around 10am on the Sunday morning and after collecting Mr Lawrence, they were taken to the Beacon Hotel.

Asked to described the mood in the penthouse, she said everything was fine and everyone was in good form.

She told the court that she knew Ms Hand and Mr McGregor went into the bedroom, but doesnt know much about it.

She said she did not know what was happening in the room, and that when she returned to the main room of the penthouse, everything was fine.

Everything was fine and no one was in bad form. I didnt notice anything that happened, Ms Kealey said.

Asked if anyone appeared upset, she said no.

Ms Kealey said she was contacted by Ms Hand in the days after the alleged incident, claiming she had been raped.

Asked for her reaction, Ms Kealey said: I was surprised because I didnt see anything.

I told her I hadnt seen or heard anything.

She also told the court that Ms Hand had asked her to delete messages between the two.

The court also heard from Dr Charlotte Murphy, a forensic scientist with Forensic Science Ireland, who examined samples taken from Ms Hand and her clothing 10 hours after the alleged incident.

The court heard that straps of a jumpsuit worn by Ms Hand were damaged beyond normal wear and tear.

She said that one strap was ripped off, which was consistent with pulling.

Dr Murphy said that traces of semen were found on Ms Hands jumpsuit and pants, and that DNA taken from swabs of her vagina, were one thousand million times more likely to match the DNA of Mr McGregor than anyone else.

Mr McGregor has not attended court on Wednesday as he had food poisoning overnight, according to Mr Farrell.

Judge Owens said the case can proceed as it is a civil case.
Coimisiun na Mean, the regulator of broadcasting and online media in Ireland, published a decision on Wednesday, November 13, that declares Instagram, TikTok, and X, are 'exposed to terrorist content.'

The decision comes under the Terrorist Content Online Regulation, this is an EU-wide mechanism for counteracting the dissemination of terrorist content online and enabling the speedy removal of terrorist content by hosting service providers.

An Coimisiun has reached this verdict following the notification of two or more final removal orders in respect of these three providers, and following engagement with these providers.

TikTok, X and Meta (in respect of Instagram) will now be obliged to take specific measures to protect their services from being used for the dissemination of terrorist content, and are to report to Coimisiun na Mean on the specific measures taken within three months from when the decision was made.

These measures must effective and respectful of the rights of users.

Coimisiun na Mean will supervise and assess the mitigation actions taken by the providers.

READ MORE: Cannabis to go! Delivery driver jailed for transporting drugs worth 1m via Dublin Port

Hosting service providers that receive two, or more, final removal orders from EU authorities within a one year period may be classified as being exposed to terrorist content.

If An Coimisiun believe that specific measures taken do not comply with legislative requirements, they will address a decision to the hosting service provider, requiring it to take the necessary measures.

Infringement by hosting service providers of the Terrorist Content Online Regulation can lead to the imposition of administrative fines, including financial penalties of up to four percent of global turnover.

EU law defines terrorist content as, inciting the commission of terrorist offences, advocating the commission of terrorist offences, soliciting a person/group to commit or contribute to the commission of terrorist offences, instructing or threatening terrorist offenses, soliciting a person/group to participate in the activities of a terrorist group, and, instructing on the making or use of weapons, substances, or other specific methods or techniques for the purpose of committing or contributing to terrorist offences.

An Coimisiun advises users of online services who see suspected terrorist content to report that content to the platform where they have seen it, and to report any content which could be a threat to life to An Garda Siochana.
Drug policy has become a general election campaign talking point this week since Taoiseach Simon Harris took aim at Fianna Fails manifesto pledge to decriminalise the possession of some drugs for personal use.

Fianna Fails manifesto states the party would continue to develop our health-led response to drug addiction and decriminalise drug possession for personal use, without naming specific substances.

When questions were raised about the partys position, Fianna Fail narrowed the scope of its ambition to cannabis and ruled out substances like heroin and cocaine.

The Taoiseach then weighed in on Tuesday, saying: Do we really want to move to a point, does Irish society want to move to a point, where were decriminalising drug-taking? Not sure, and I certainly dont.

Mr Harriss position contrasts with that of a cross-party Oireachtas committee on drug use that recommended decriminalising the personal use of all illicit drugs.

What is Fine Gaels record on drugs policy?

In July 2017, when Mr Harris was health minister, he launched a strategy for dealing with drug use and alcohol addiction called Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery  A Health-led Response To Drug And Alcohol Use In Ireland 2017-2025.

The strategy included a plan to set up a working group to look into new approaches to dealing with people found in possession of drugs for personal use, similar to policies implemented in Portugal and Austria, for example.

I am pleased to see that the strategy contains a commitment to establish a working group to consider the approaches taken in other jurisdictions to the possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use, Mr Harris said at the time.

The working group returned recommendations in 2019 that led the government to implement a new approach to first-time offenders, which saw them referred to the HSE rather than the justice system.

At the time, Mr Harris  as health minister  described it as a significant day for Irish society.

We have to realise they are human beings. They deserve our support, he said of drug users.

Mr Harris is not the only senior member of Fine Gael who has recently championed a health-led approach to drug use.

In February 2023, minister of state at the Department of Health, Hildegarde Ms Naughton, spearheaded the creation of a Citizens Assembly tasked with making recommendations on a range of policy areas related to drug use.

What we dont want is a situation where somebody ends up in the criminal justice system, and that may be for just a small amount of drug possession. That just sets their life on a trajectory that could have gone another way, Naughton said in an interview with The Irish Independent in January 2023.

When the Citizens Assembly on Drug Use delivered its recommendations in October 2023, decriminalising personal use possession was among them. The assemblys recommendation covered the possession of illicit drugs.

Decriminalisation is not the same as legalisation. If possession of illicit drugs were decriminalised, it would still be against the law to have then but the person would not be charged and prosecuted in the justice system.

You can see the assemblys full recommendation here.

A joint Oireachtas committee was set up to examine the recommendations.

Four Fine Gael members were on the committee on drugs use that signed off on 59 recommendations in an interim report last October, one of which was that the decriminalisation of possession for personal use should apply equally to all illicit drugs.

Another of its recommendations stated: The committee believes that the decriminalisation of the person for personal possession, should not result in an increase in consumption of drugs in a public area. Therefore, the committee recommends that local authorities and An Garda Siochana are supported and empowered in strongly discouraging and reducing consumption in public areas. This should be done in an appropriate and sensitive way which considers the complex inter-relationship between problematic use and extreme deprivation and homelessness.

The committees work has now ceased since the dissolution of the Dail.

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A man who struck a three-year-old with his car has been jailed for two years and banned from driving for 15 years.

Sandile Hlatshwayo (43) of Riverwood Hall, Castleknock, Dublin 15 pleaded guilty on a trial date to a charge of endangerment on October 31, 2020.

He further pleaded guilty to failing to remain at the scene of a collision, failing to provide a sample for testing, and driving without a licence, all on the same date. Hlatshwayo has 26 previous convictions, the majority for road traffic offences including four for drink driving.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Hlatshwayo was the driver of a car which knocked over a three-year-old on his bike, who had been crossing from kerb to kerb, with his parents.

The child was taken to hospital with fractures to his leg and ankle and required emergency surgery and pins inserted into his leg.

In a victim impact statement, the boys parents said they had been on their way to the playground when the incident occurred.

They said they would never forget their sons screams of agony when he was taken to hospital.

They outlined how the young boy thought for a long time afterwards that a car was going to come in through his bedroom window and kill him.

The young boy also developed separation anxiety and continues to suffer night terrors in the wake of the incident, the court heard.

The boys parents said they understand accidents happen, but could not understand how anyone could drive away and leave a three-year-old on the ground.

Imposing sentence on Thursday, Judge Elma Duffy set a headline sentence of four years but imposed an actual sentence of three years, with the final 12 months suspended.

Judge Duffy also disqualified Hlatshwayo from driving for 15 years and ordered him to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for 12 months on his release from prison.

The judge said it was incomprehensible that having knocked over a three-year-old child who was taken away in an ambulance, Hlatshwayos level of aggressive and threatening behaviour was such that extra gardai were required to deal with him.

This has had a huge impact on the life of the entire family, said Judge Duffy, pointing out that the child had to undergo a year of hospital visits, each one traumatic.

Judge Duffy described Hlatshwayos previous history of driving offences as appalling and said the accused had clearly, several times, made the decision to get back into the car when intoxicated and despite the fact that he could no longer get insurance because hed been taken off the road.

This was a mistake that was made on an ongoing basis, to keep getting back into the car, said the judge.

She said Hlatshwayo had driven into a gated estate, where he knew there were families present, driving at excessive speed, and having knocked over a child, had then made the decision to leave at excessive speed.

The judge accepted that Hlatshwayo has not engaged in offensive behaviour for a period of time and instructs that he stopped drinking alcohol last December, although she says there is no particular evidence of that.

An investigating garda told Simon Matthews BL, prosecuting, that Hlatshwayo drove into the housing estate at speed around 4pm and struck the child, who was on a bike and crossing kerb to kerb with his parents.

When gardai arrived, Hlatshwayo was parked nearby, but then left the scene. He returned a short time later and appeared intoxicated when gardai spoke to him.

He was arrested, but became aggressive towards gardai.

Hlatshwayo was taken to Blanchardstown Garda Station, where he was seen by a doctor due to his level of intoxication. He refused to provide a sample for testing when asked by gardai.

The garda agreed with Oisin Clarke BL, defending, that minor damage was caused to the front bumper of the car and to the boys bike.

It was further accepted that most of Hlatshwayos convictions have occurred since 2020, with his most recent offending in 2023.

Mr Clarke noted that his client has an appalling record of previous convictions and appeared to have a lack of regard for road traffic laws.

Counsel said his client had issues with alcohol, which had deteriorated during the Covid-19 pandemic when he wasnt working, and his behaviour at the garda station was caused by intoxication.

Alcoholism was at the foundation of his offending behaviour, Mr Clarke said.

He outlined to the court his clients personal circumstances and background. Hlatshwayo has a good work history.

Hlatshwayo is married and supports his wife, who has health issues, and his son.

A letter of apology from Hlatshwayo and a testimonial from his wife were handed to the court.

Judge Duffy wished the childs family well and expressed the hope that he would continue to do well and recover.

She suspended the final 12 months of Hlatshwayos sentence in order to incentivise him to return to work and to being a contributing member of the community.
A snow map shows when and where snow showers could occur in Ireland next week as Ireland braces for a cold snap from the Arctic.

Temperatures will drop to -6 degrees in parts with some wintry showers expected too.

For next week, the Met Eireann forecast reads: "Colder than average with low pressure centred to the east dominating. Arctic maritime regime indicated with potential for wintry hazards including hail, sleet and snow. Rainfall amounts above average, especially near coasts, indicative of shower activity."

The week after will bring a more Atlantic regime to Ireland but it could remain unsettled with windy weather.

Met Eireann says from November 25, "high pressure looks set to be centred to the south over Iberia. This would likely lead to a milder southwesterly airflow and a potentially more mobile Atlantic regime with spells of rain and possibly windy conditions crossing the country, interspersed with drier and brighter interludes. Temperatures are projected to be slightly above average overall along with wetter than average conditions."

You can select snow settings on the top right of the map below to see where might get snow:

READ NEXT: Cold snap weather forecast for Ireland with temps set to plunge to -5 degrees

Meanwhile, Cathal Nolan from Ireland's Weather Channel has also said the risk of snow in Ireland has increased and that we could experience the coldest November week since 2010 next week.

Cathal said: "Well now this is an interesting one, especially for those who have a keen interest in cold wintry conditions, adding, "this morning's weather models continue to build confidence that we may be on the cusp of experiencing the coldest November week since 2010."

Cathal added: "A strong blocking anticyclone is now expected to develop late this weekend just east of Greenland with a large area of low pressure over Scandinavia resulting in a direct stream of bitterly cold Arctic air migrating south across Ireland and the UK, bringing an increased risk of snow for some.

"If the weather models continue to grow in confidence then temperatures next week by day would struggle to break above 2-4 degrees Celsius, with nighttime values down as low as -5 or -6 degrees Celsius in some sheltered areas of the midlands and southeast.

"The all important question however is will it snow? The answer at the moment is that the chances of snow are increasing, though with the snow falling as showers its areas of the north and northwest that would be most at risk, and possible along some exposed eastern coastal fringes."

In the meantime, Met Eireann say there will be "a good deal of dry weather this week, though cloud cover will increase with patches of rain and drizzle at times. However, rainfall amounts will be minimal. Temperatures will be close to normal."
Iconic Chinese car brand Hongqi delves deeper into new energy sector

Xinhua) 16:44, November 14, 2024

CHANGCHUN, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Hongqi, a car brand under China's leading automaker China FAW Group Co., Ltd., is accelerating its expansion in the new energy sector, with its new platforms ready to launch three electric models.

Hongqi, which means "red flag" in Chinese, is an iconic Chinese car brand that was established in 1958. It has become renowned as the vehicle used for parades during national celebrations.

The company announced on Tuesday that one of the three models, the Tiangong 08 will start its pre-sale at the upcoming Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition, which is scheduled for Nov. 15 to 24. The pure electric SUV model is set to officially hit the market in mid-December, while the other two models, a sedan and an SUV, will be launched in 2025.

Liu Yigong, general manager of China FAW Group Co., Ltd., said that the Hongqi brand has devoted the majority of its technological innovation and new production capacity into the new energy sector.

Tiangong 08 is the first of the Hongqi Tiangong series developed on Hongqi's platform of Tiangong for pure electric vehicle development and the platform of Jiuzhang for intelligent technology development.

"Tiangong 08 is built with a ten-part battery safety protection system, combined with new intelligent technology, to greatly improve driving safety," Liu said.

Since 2023, FAW Hongqi has fully accelerated the layout of new energy vehicles and sold 270,000 new energy vehicles. The new energy sector has become a new growth engine that has helped sustain Hongqi's role as a national car brand.

In the next five years, the company has planned to invest 120 billion yuan (about 16.6 billion U.S. dollars) in research and development in the new energy sector.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 23F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 23F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
By Pyo Kyung-min

In a formal legal notice sent Wednesday, K-pop girl group NewJeans issued an ultimatum to its agency, Ador, saying it would terminate its members' exclusive contracts if the group's demands were not met.

According to reports, the certification of content sent by the five NewJeans members  Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein  includes requests for the label to "rectify all material breaches of the exclusive contract within 14 days of receiving."

This includes a demand for Ador's former CEO, Min Hee-jin, to resume her former role overseeing Ador's management and NewJeans' overall production, as she did in the past.

"Bring Ador back to the time when NewJeans happily worked with Min until March 2024," the notice reportedly states. "We miss the NewJeans that was excited about creating new, creative music and performances with her."

This tension follows a power struggle between Ador's parent company, HYBE Labels, and former CEO Min, which began in April. The conflict escalated in August when HYBE unilaterally dismissed Min through Ador's board meeting, followed by a public demand by the five NewJeans members for Min's return in a surprise YouTube livestream in September.

The legal notice also reportedly includes a request for an official apology regarding bullying allegations made by member Hanni. In the September livestream, Hanni alleged that a manager for a K-pop group under another HYBE subsidiary instructed their artists to "ignore" her during an encounter within HYBE headquarters.

NewJeans additionally raised concerns about controversial internal HYBE reports, which previously sparked criticism for containing derogatory remarks about several active K-pop idols.

The group's notice demanded Ador address a statement from the report, "It would be easier to abandon NewJeans from the scene and start fresh," and identify who was responsible for the decision. They requested civil and criminal action if any illegal activity was discovered.

Further demands include the removal of videos and photos exposed without consent during the agency dispute, an assessment of losses NewJeans incurred due to HYBE's alleged "chart manipulation" tactics, resolution of issues arising from conflicts with director Shin Woo-seok  who has worked on the group's creative projects  and preservation of NewJeans' unique style and works.

The NewJeans members also addressed rumors involving their families, denying any connection to these rumors and vowing firm action against anyone spreading false information about them.

Ador noted Thursday that they have received NewJeans requests.

We received the notice this morning and are currently reviewing it to understand the specific requests. We are committed to resolving this matter wisely so that we can continue working with the artist," the agency said.

While the HYBE-Ador conflict now risks evolving into a contractual dispute between NewJeans members and their agency, industry insiders see little hope for an amicable resolution, as both sides have failed to reach an agreement despite multiple public appeals and meetings.

Ha Seo-jeong, an attorney with Homes Law Firm, expressed concerns that NewJeans' desire to part ways with HYBE could be seen as a tampering attempt.

"Tampering generally refers to third parties trying to entice an athlete or artist from a company during their contract term. Since Min was CEO of both HYBE and Ador, this wouldn't be considered traditional tampering," she clarified.

However, she added, "If NewJeans' push for independence progresses, it could legally constitute tampering by Min's side."

Under standard contract terms, penalties are calculated by multiplying the monthly average revenue over the last two years by the remaining contract term, which for NewJeans could exceed 300 billion won ($213 million). The contract term between NewJeans and Ador is until 2029.

Despite the dispute, NewJeans plans to proceed with its scheduled activities, including a special performance at the 2024 Korea Grand Music Awards at Inspire Arena on Yeongjong Island, Incheon, slated for Saturday. Hanni will also perform as an opening act alongside actor Nam Ji-hyun, who will co-host the event.
10 directors including Chairman Choi Yun-beom face complaint

By Jun Ji-hye

The alliance between private equity firm MBK Partners and Young Poong filed a shareholder derivative lawsuit against the board of directors of Korea Zinc, seeking approximately 700 billion won ($497 million) in damages.

According to sources in legal circles, Thursday, Young Poong recently submitted a complaint to the Seoul Central District Court, arguing that the Korea Zinc directors, who approved a tender offer and a hastily made capital increase plan, failed to fulfill their duty of due care, resulting in losses of 673.2 billion won for the company, and therefore should be required to pay the corresponding amount in compensation.

The MBK-Young Poong alliance has been in a fierce battle with the world's largest zinc smelter and its chairman, Choi Yun-beom, over management rights.

Currently, the MBK side owns the largest share of Korea Zinc, holding a 39.83 percent stake following its tender offer and on-market purchases. Chois side is estimated to hold around 34.65 percent after the treasury share buyback.

MBK claimed that the Korea Zinc board conducted the tender offer to buy back treasury shares at approximately 890,000 won per share, even though the firms stock price was around 560,000 won per share at the time.

As a result, the company incurred a loss equivalent to the difference per share multiplied by the total number of shares purchased, which amounted to 2,040,030 shares.

This amount does not include interest expenses on corporate bonds or commercial papers the firm issued, or loans it borrowed from financial institutions to finance the share buyback.

Given that the board recently decided to cancel the capital increase plan aimed at raising 2.5 trillion won to repay the loans, the claim amount could increase if annual interest expenses, estimated at around 100 billion won, are factored in.

The zinc smelter withdrew the capital increase scheme on Wednesday after facing inspections by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), the countrys financial watchdog, for causing significant confusion and misunderstandings among investors.

According to MBK, of the 13 members on the Korea Zinc board, 10 directors, including Choi, are being sued.

A shareholder derivative lawsuit is filed by shareholders on behalf of the company when it fails to hold directors accountable for their responsibilities. This type of lawsuit seeks to recover losses caused by directors actions or negligence. If the plaintiffs (shareholders) win, the compensation awarded goes to the company, not to the plaintiffs themselves.

The latest lawsuit filed by the MBK alliance came after it vowed to keep working to hold the current management of the zinc smelter fully accountable for pushing for the share buyback and causing irreversible and significant damage to the company.

On Oct. 21, after the Seoul court dismissed its second injunction request aimed at halting the smelters treasury stock buyback, MBK said, Unlike the provisional injunction, which required a swift decision, the main lawsuit allows sufficient time to thoroughly examine and clarify the issues and illegality surrounding the share buyback.

Also on Thursday, FSS Gov. Lee Bok-hyun said that Korea Zincs withdrawal of its capital increase plan would not impact the ongoing inspection, affirming his intent to continue the probe.

As the case is already under investigation for potential unfair trading concerns, it would be highly inappropriate to conclude the matter prematurely without going through each stage of the process, he told reporters after concluding an overseas investor relations conference in Hong Kong.
Korea appeals 'K-Finance' to institutional investors

By Lee Yeon-woo

HONG KONG  Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) Gov. Lee Bok-hyun addressed concerns from Hong Kong-based institutional investors over Korea's short-selling ban, acknowledging the urgency of aligning the system with global standards.

"Korean capital markets aim to advance and align with international standards, but a total ban on short selling, not just on specific stocks, could be viewed as an embarrassing issue. Once our system is updated in the first quarter of next year, we plan to adopt a more advanced market framework similar to those in Hong Kong, London and New York," Lee said during an investor relations event held in Hong Kong, Wednesday.

The event  co-hosted by major financial companies like Shinhan Financial Group, Hana Financial Group, Korea Investment & Securities and Korean Reinsurance Company (Korean Re)  aimed to share plans for promoting Korea's capital markets, and gather feedback from foreign investors.

According to the FSS, 230 participants from 102 institutions attended, including global firms such as HSBC, CITIC CLSA and Goldman Sachs. Officials from Seoul and Busan also highlighted their respective cities' role as economic hubs.

Lee stated that one of the primary reasons for visiting Hong Kong was to clarify misunderstandings about Korea's short-selling ban and to shed light on the unique characteristics of the Korean capital markets.

The country implemented a blanket ban on short selling in November 2023 after uncovering a series of naked short-selling violations involving 14 global investment banks. The practice, referring to the practice of selling stocks without first borrowing or owning them, is illegal in Korea.

Although short selling is a common practice globally, it has faced strong resistance from Korean retail investors, who account for a significant portion of the countrys stock market. Retail investors have long contended that short selling creates an uneven playing field, disproportionately benefiting institutional investors. In response to these concerns and to curb illegal activities, the FSS is developing an electronic monitoring system, set to launch in the second quarter of this year, to enhance oversight and prevent future violations.

"We recognize that market participants engaging in short selling are motivated by economic gains. However, if penalties outweigh the potential benefits, they may opt not to participate," Lee said during a press briefing after the event.

He distinguished between deliberate, prolonged and organized cases of naked short selling and those arising from mistakes or regulatory ambiguities. "In resolving such cases, financial authorities will prioritize administrative measures over criminal charges, focusing on establishing reasonable and practical standards," he said.

"The introduction of an electronic monitoring system will significantly reduce unintentional violations caused by negligence. We encourage feedback from market participants to refine and improve these regulations," he noted.

Foreign institutional investors also advocated for the resumption of short selling.

"This (resumption of short selling) is something that we believe would allow investors to better hedge their market risk, facilitate price discovery and increase market liquidity, and it would help facilitate Korea's much-deserved inclusion in the MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International index) as a developed market and attract more foreign investor fund flows into one of Asia's most dynamic economies," said Peter Stein, CEO of Asia Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association, adding that the institution is closely collaborating with the FSS regarding the issue.

At the event, the FSS also analyzed the causes of the undervaluation of Korean stocks and introduced policies to address the issue, citing factors such as insufficient shareholder returns, inefficiencies in trading infrastructure, improper market practices and challenges faced by international investors.

"Many Korean companies have prioritized growth-oriented strategies, such as reinvesting retained earnings. While they excel globally, some have acted against shareholder interests by practices like splitting off subsidiaries for separate public listings," Lee said.

The Corporate Value-Up Program, a key initiative aimed at enhancing corporate governance, was also highlighted, emphasizing Korea's commitment to policies that ensure shareholders receive fair returns.

"As Koreas financial industry, centered in Seoul and Busan, continues to grow, we ask for your continued interest and support in helping Korea strengthen its presence in the global financial market, alongside other key players like Hong Kong," Lee said.

The open event in Hong Kong followed a meeting with Vietnamese financial authorities on Monday and will continue with a meeting with Indonesian authorities on Friday.
Leading crypto minds talk Trump, AI and digital asset guidance at Dunamu-organized Upbit D Conference

By Lee Kyung-min

Bitcoin and other digital currencies are rallying, underpinned by investor expectations of a further spike in valuation amid eased market regulations the second administration of Donald Trump will bring.

However, the blind craze en masse warrants a cautionary approach, or the heavy reliance on misguided hopes will come at the cost of healthy investment priorities, according to a leading cryptocurrency expert.

"Whether it's Sam Bankman-Fried or Mt. Gox or Donald Trump, they are not our saviors. We have to save ourselves," said Michael J. Casey, former chief content officer at CoinDesk and head of the Decentralized AI Society.

The comment came during the seventh Upbit D Conference on Thursday at The Shilla Seoul hotel. Dunamu, operator of Upbit, organized the annual blockchain event to foster the growth and expansion of the blockchain ecosystem. This year's theme was "Blockchain: Powering Real World Change."

In attendance were leading global industry minds from various fields, including the blockchain, financial services and crypto exchange sectors.

The conference discussed the impacts of blockchain, real-world assets and the approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in global markets. Also on the agenda were industry trends, financing methods, policy and technology developments and culture.

Casey said investors should be wary of placing all their hope in one entity or person, adding that a greater focus should be placed on building a system strong enough to withstand external shocks.

"The aforementioned figures' interest is not necessarily in saving us. We've got to build systems that are anti-fragile that can survive no matter what," he said. "I also think that we need to be a little careful about putting all of our eggs in one basket."

Bankman-Fried, founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was found guilty of fraud and other crimes last November after the exchange collapsed.

Mt. Gox is a now-defunct bitcoin exchange in Japan. It handled over 70 percent of all bitcoin transactions worldwide by early 2014, but ceased operations amid involvement in the loss and theft of hundreds of thousands of bitcoins.

The former CoinDesk executive said the regulatory constraints on the crypto industry will see a material improvement from the "quite harmful" past few years.

Previous U.S. administrations certainly in the United States stifled the ability of many financial institutions that wanted to join, in his view.

They were very concerned about the compliance risk. But once that overhang is removed, mainstream organizations and banks will have a much better chance of entering the industry.

"Capital will be unlocked, enabling a much bigger opening up of the system," he said.

In a separate session, Keith O., head of asset management and structuring at Archax Capital, ascribed the lack of clear regulatory guidance, especially in the U.S., to the underuse of the technology by the regulators.

"We have people that are very smart and very capable in their fields of expertise, but the majority of them have never installed the blocks in their wallets," he said. "They don't even understand how the technology works."

He said the new Trump administration's showing an appetite to install experts in different industries is a cause for optimism.

"If we place people who understand the technology, care about it and use it, they will be able to make much more informed decisions about regulation, and hopefully we can finally get some clarity," he said.
Korea's financial firms and local governments have held an overseas investor relations (IR) session to woo more foreign investors as the country is ready to conduct more policy reforms to improve corporate governance and protect shareholders' interest, the financial watchdog said Thursday.

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), local governments, such as the Busan metropolitan government, and financial firms held the investor road show in Hong Kong on Wednesday, where over 200 high-ranking officials from global investment firms, such as HSBC, attended.

FSS chief Lee Bok-hyun said the financial authorities have been working to build a more shareholder-friendly corporate culture and to make the capital market infrastructure more accessible and efficient in line with global standards.

Lee also stressed that Korea is working through various initiatives to help the capital market perform better soon, and, more fundamentally, build a stronger and healthier economy.

The FSS chief said the country is well prepared to face such headwinds, while also continuing to closely monitor how changes in the global policies would affect the economic and financial situations at home and respond effectively. (Yonhap)
By Lee Gyu-lee

Wingshun Pang is a scientific translator from French to English, who majored in translation studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. Born in Hong Kong, she moved to the Great White North before her first birthday, and later became interested in learning different languages as she searched for a sense of identity.

With her background in diverse cultures and languages, she identifies herself as a multi-disciplinary creative who finds joy in creating various types of art, from handicrafts to dance to modeling to writing.

She started learning Korean at age 13 when her Korean Canadian friend introduced her to K-pop. During her undergraduate studies, she was introduced to Korean translation by her classmate, leading her to join a media translation contest by the Literary Translation Institute of Korea in 2021, for which she made it into the top five finalists.

This year, she enrolled in a Korean translation course at the University of British Columbia run by professor Bruce Fulton, a noted Korean literary translator who himself won The Korea Times' translation contest three times in 1985, 1987 and 1989.

Pang translated novelist Kim Cho-yeop's short story "Why Don't The Pilgrims Come Back for this year's contest.

Having been introduced to the novelist by Fulton during the course, the sci-fi story and the work of a female author intrigued her to work on Kims piece.

I found the epistolary framework refreshing and was intrigued by the first lines of the story. I wanted to know why Sophie had left, what sort of village she had run away from and where she was going, she said.

She shared that finding the right balance between accurate translations while preserving the creativity of the original texts was challenging.

I was very concerned about over-translating and taking too much creative liberty, because I had heard about the controversy and backlash over the English translation of Han Kangs 'Vegetarian' some years ago. At the same time, I didnt want my translation to become stilted and awkward by following the Korean too closely, she said.

Deciding how to render the special scientific terms and terms invented by the author also proved to be an interesting challenge. I suppose thats where my experience in both conducting research as a scientific translator and thinking creatively as an artist helped.

When asked how she defines a good translation, she answered it is about capturing the accurate sensitivity that the original text intended to deliver rather than offering a direct interpretation.

I think that a great translation walks the razor-thin line between accurately rendering the intended meaning of the original and evoking the sensation/sense of the source text rather than a word-for-word interpretation, she said.

It also flows smoothly and lyrically, striving to replace the linguistic or stylistic conventions of the source language that would make the text awkward for target readers to read, with devices that are natural in the target language. Lastly, a good translation knows when and how to make explicit what is typically implicit to the audience in the source culture, and vice versa.
By Kim Hyun-bin

As U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepares for his second term, uncertainties loom over the Korean Peninsula, already fraught with North Korea's nuclear threats. South Koreans are increasingly anxious about the potential return of Trumps unpredictable diplomatic approach.

Many South Koreans recall the "roller-coaster diplomacy" of Trump's first term, marked by fiery exchanges with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, followed by three high-profile meetings. Despite these encounters, negotiations ultimately failed, leaving the nuclear issue unresolved and even more complex.

Trumps second term could introduce new uncertainties to the region. The North Korean leader might view this as an opportunity to improve relations amid heightened nuclear tensions.

Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute think tank, estimates a 51 percent chance of dialogue resuming. He emphasized that the success of such summits would heavily depend on the U.S. approach.

"During Trumps first term, his administration lacked a systematic negotiation strategy, leading to unrealistic demands such as asking North Korea to disclose its nuclear program or provide a list of its nuclear assets," Cheong said.

To avoid repeating these mistakes, he stressed the need for capable strategists in both the Trump administration and the South Korean government to support U.S.-North Korea negotiations. While a summit might be held, its chances of success appear to be quite low, Cheong added.

Cheong also highlighted North Koreas primary demands: the suspension of U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises and sanctions relief.

"North Korea's main demand is the suspension of U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises, which the U.S. will find hard to accept," he said. "However, Trump's second administration is likely to appoint loyalists who will implement his directives without question, increasing the possibility of a U.S.-North Korea compromise compared to the first term."

Speculation is growing that Trumps renewed presidency might bring significant changes. Some believe he could leverage the withdrawal or reduction of U.S. troops in South Korea to pressure for a substantial increase in defense cost-sharing. Theres also the possibility of rekindling his personal rapport with Kim Jong-un.

If this happens, experts believe North Korea would return to negotiations with much stronger leverage, having significantly advanced its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities since Trump's first term.

If talks resume, experts suggest that North Koreas demands would also likely focus on limiting rather than eliminating nuclear weapons, diverging from the U.S. and its allies' long-standing goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization.

Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies, identified the primary concern as the agenda for any potential talks.

"Our primary concern will likely be the agenda. From North Korea's perspective, over the six years since 2018, its nuclear capabilities have advanced, and inter-Korean relations have become more hostile, transforming into two adversarial states," he said. "Based on this, North Korea might push for nuclear arms reduction talks. However, from Trumps side, they might argue against nuclear arms reduction talks and instead propose returning to the spirit of the Singapore Agreement."

Yang highlighted the achievements from previous engagements between the two countries, emphasizing the significance of the Singapore Agreement on June 12, 2018. This agreement marked the first time a sitting U.S. president met with a North Korean leader, outlining mutual commitments to improve bilateral relations and work toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

"There were achievements, and how we set the criteria for those achievements matters," Yang said. "For instance, the Singapore Agreement was a significant outcome. Following that, there were ongoing negotiations between working-level officials from North Korea and the United States. During that period, nuclear tests and ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) tests by North Korea, as well as joint military exercises involving strategic assets between the U.S. and South Korea, were suspended."
Connected to outside world for 1st time, many could be affected: activist

By Jung Min-ho

Human rights groups in South Korea will issue a joint open letter urging North Korean troops deployed in Russia not to sacrifice their lives for Moscows war efforts against Ukraine, said an activist familiar with the matter.

Shin Hee-seok, a representative of the Transitional Justice Working Group, a Seoul-based NGO, told The Korea Times, Wednesday, that around 10 organizations are collectively drafting a statement aimed at "saving and awakening" more than 10,000 North Korean troops fighting on the frontline in Russia's Kursk region.

The gist of our message will be this: The war initiated by Russias military was an invasion, and there is no justification for you (North Korean troops) to support it. Why should you die for Russia? You have to make the right choice, said Shin, one of the key people behind the open letter plan, adding that it is expected to be released in the coming days.

This moves comes as North Korean soldiers are engaging in combat operations alongside Russian troops attempting to retake land lost to Ukraines military in the Kursk region. According to South Koreas National Intelligence Service (NIS), North Korean troops have already begun participating in the battlefield.

Most of the North Korean troops who arrived in Russia last month are believed to be in their late teens and early 20s, according to the NIS. Many of these young soldiers, now connected to the outside world for the first time through the internet, could potentially be influenced by the sincere message from the human rights groups, Shin said.

The rights activists think that their message would be able to reach the North Koreans in the battlefield, based on some media reports that the soldiers have experienced unrestricted access to the internet and that many have been gorging on pornography.

We hope more international organizations will join our continuing efforts to persuade the North Koreans, Shin said.

On Tuesday (U.S. time), Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesman for the U.S. State Department, also confirmed that more than 10,000 North Korean military forces in Russia began engaging in combat operations after being briefly trained in artillery, drone and infantry missions, including trench clearing operations, which he said are critical skills for frontline operations.

However, Pyongyang has so far kept the information about the deployment of its troops in Russia secret from the public.

According to the Ministry of Unification, this is likely due to the grave political risks associated with what could unfold on the battlefield.

Speaking to reporters, Thursday, a ministry official said the North Korean regime might have concluded that keeping the information hidden would be in its best political interest.

Perhaps they didnt feel comfortable with the idea of officially acknowledging that they had sent troops to an unjustifiable, illegal war, the official said. They are sending thousands of young soldiers to fight that war, and they cant even tell the truth to their own people. This is another example of the deceptive nature of the regime, the official said.

However, experts believe that Pyongyangs strategy of keeping the deployment secret is not sustainable. If too many troops are killed on the battlefield or if a significant number escape to other countries, North Korea could be forced to disclose the situation to the public.
By Lee Hae-rin

The Korean government is set to play a key role in advancing innovative research and development in the biosciences by strengthening global collaborations, according to the head of the K-Health MIRAE Initiative.

MIRAE stands for medical innovation, research and evolution.

"After the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for challenge-oriented innovative R&D has emerged. The Korean ARPA-H project aims to bring tangible results to the people beyond the 'valley of the dead.' We will set challenging goals and overcome them through innovative methodologies," Sun Kyung, director of the K-Health MIRAE Initiative, said during the World Bio Summit 2024 at Songdo Convensia in Incheon on Monday.

"Today's session will share country-specific approaches to challenge-oriented innovative R&D and explore global cooperation measures, and will draw concrete measures to strengthen global cooperation in the Korean ARPA-H project," he said.

Co-hosted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the World Health Organization, the World Bio Summit 2024 took place in Incheon's Songdo on Monday and Tuesday.

The event gathered global leaders in the bio field to discuss issues in the vaccine and bio sectors under the theme "Future Investments for a Healthy and Secure Decade."

Key figures from research institutions in the European Union, Germany and Denmark attended the session, which included presentations and panel discussions on the need to shift the paradigm from the existing "introspective, item-oriented" R&D ecosystem to a "problem-solving-oriented challenge-oriented innovative R&D ecosystem regardless of field and technology."

A session also took place at the summit on Monday on "Targeted, Transformative, and Trailblazing Breakthroughs."

Members of leading bio research groups of other regions, including the Joint European Disruptive Initiative, SPRIN-D of Germany and Denmark's Innovation Centre Denmark, presented the need for and examples of challenging innovative R&D.

In the panel discussion that followed, chaired by Hong Kee-jong, the K-Health MIRAE Initative's health security project manager, speakers and Kim Hani, executive director of the RIGHT Foundation, and Choi Youn-hee, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute of Industrial Economics & Trade, discussed global cooperation measures, sharing insights and visions of challenge-oriented innovative R&D.

Benchmarked after the Advanced Research Project Agency for Health launched by the U.S. Biden administration in 2022, it is a mission-oriented R&D project aimed at discovering challenging health problems, such as the next pandemic, super-aging and essential medical crises, and creating research results with great social and economic ripple effects through developing innovative technology.

The Korean government plans to provide a total budget of 1.16 trillion won ($825.34 million) to the Korean ARPA-H project for nine years from 2024 to 2032.
Expert suggests linking defense-cost sharing to reprocessing of spent fuel as Seoul faces nuclear storage crisis

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Like in other countries, in Korea, a flurry of debate is underway following Donald Trump's reelection. Policymakers, business executives and think tank experts are keen to find out the winners and losers of the Trump era as the clock is ticking for his return to the White House on Jan. 20, 2025.

His aggressive campaign pledges sparked lots of soul-searching as a drastic policy shift in the U.S. looms large.

With his signature "Make America Great Again" slogan, he is poised to push around allies to carry more burdens and spend more to defend themselves rather than expecting that the U.S. would protect them.

Trump's reelection has also kept the private sector entities busy. They are wary of the consequences of the trade policy shift. Trump vowed to impose 10 percent universal baseline tariffs on all imported goods, while imports from China will suffer from 60 percent or higher blanket tariffs.

It remains uncertain whether Trump will implement those aggressive measures as he promised during the campaign trail. Some observers say those campaign pledges may be his bargaining chips designed to gain concessions from foreign exporters, rather than a viable policy vision. But if he were to act on his words, Trump's second term will become the epicenter of global economic chaos.

Is South Korea prepared to brace for the shocks soon to be triggered by Trump 2.0? How should it respond to the shift? The Korea Times on Tuesday invited three experts to preview Trump's second term and address how South Korea should prepare for it. The three experts invited to the roundtable interview are Cho Byung-jae, the former chancellor of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy and author of the book, "Trump's Return"; Lee Hyo-young, a professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security; and retired Army Gen. Chun In-bum who served as commander of the Special Forces Korea.

Cho said media coverage of defense-cost sharing is exaggerated and it is not a huge bilateral issue as it was reported, adding South Koreans' overreaction to the issue is the result of media hype. He said the more important issue the nation should watch carefully is Trump's redefinition of the role of the U.S. in his second term. He said Trump's message is clear. He is telling the world that the U.S. is not going to do the world's police role any more, and therefore, nations should find a way to protect themselves, instead of relying on the U.S.

Chun said South Korea would have no choice but to accept if the Trump administration proposes renegotiating the defense-cost sharing agreement. Given the crucial role of the alliance, he said South Korea must be ready to contribute more to the cost-sharing effort. However, it could address related issues, such as the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods, and propose offering in-kind contributions, like South Korean military equipment, to the U.S. military.

Chun said the proposed "give and take" strategy may work out well as Trump is a talented businessman great at negotiating and making deals if conditions are met.

Meanwhile, Lee called for a calm reaction to the prospect of a U.S. trade policy shift. She said that she felt fears of Trump's return to the White House have been exaggerated. She said that Trump's trade pledges are too radical to be implemented, and, therefore, experts are divided with regard to the potential effectiveness of Trump's "America First" measures for the U.S. economy.

Instead of panicking, she advised that South Korea should wait and see if these measures are actually adopted, and if so, to what extent, much like the Trump administration's trade policies.

Following are the views of the three experts shared at The Korea Times Roundtable, titled "What Will Trump 2.0 Mean for South Korea?," which was held on Tuesday at the meeting room of The Korea Times in Seoul. Korea Times chief editorial writer Shim Jae-yun moderated the event.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Will Trump meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un again for a summit in his second term? If he does, how will the Trump-Kim meeting turn out and how will it impact South Korea?

Cho Byung-jae: I think Trump will certainly meet Kim again in his second term. It will be a matter of time and the only thing we dont know yet is when it will happen. My view about the Trump-Kim summit is based on my years of observation of related news articles. First and foremost, Trump hinted that he is open-minded toward dialogue with North Korea. Second, the U.S. president-elect commented positively about Kim. In 2017, for example, Trump praised Kim, saying, At a very young age, he was able to assume power  So, obviously, hes a smart cookie. Third, I found out that Trumps view of North Koreas nuclear program is quite different from what South Korea and the U.S. have maintained during the past decades. During his campaign rally in July, he said, Its nice to get along when somebody has a lot of nuclear weapons or otherwise. Trump rarely used expressions like dismantling of North Koreas nuclear program. I took this as a signal that Trump has a flexible view about the nuclear issue.

How will the possible Trump-Kim meeting, if it happens, impact South Korea? I think its not a fancy situation for South Korea and the summit will damage South Koreas image. This is because if Trump and Kim were to meet, they would discuss issues like nuclear weapons and the security of the Korean Peninsula. If South Korea is sidelined without being invited to such a critical talk, the South will find it difficult to digest.

Chun In-bum: I think its important to understand why Trump was elected president. It wasnt about cost-sharing. It wasnt about North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles. He was elected because of economic and border issues the U.S. faces.

I dont believe having a summit with Kim Jong-un will be the top priority of the Trump administration.

Besides that, I also believe that Kim Jong-un is not too keen on having a summit with Trump in the first place, either. Kim wants to be recognized as a nuclear weapon state and he wants sanctions to be lifted. Unless Kim has these preconditions, he has no reason to meet with Mr. Trump, except maybe for a photo. I dont see any summit coming soon.

Q: Speculations are abounding about the U.S. election outcome and its impact on the war in Ukraine. Will Russia and Ukraine be able to sign a ceasefire deal anytime soon? And what are the implications of the war on Russia-North Korea relations?

Chun: Now, the war between Ukraine and Russia, it could last for another decade. People are all tired. I think everybody wants to stop the fighting. Its just a matter of how they are going to do that. After the U.S. election, there are many speculations about what that deal will be like. But whatever the deal is, its not going to happen soon. Its going to happen in several months. Probably next summer because that is the point where Russian President Vladimir Putin has to mobilize a considerable number of troops. But he doesnt want to do that. It will be a good opportunity for Putin to take this election outcome as an excuse to make a deal. Same for the Ukrainian leader. I think if this occurs, we might see a ceasefire and some sort of perpetual armistice like the one we have in Korea.

A message to the Korean people is to never rely on others for your defense. Because Ukraine relied on NATO and the U.S. for their defense, and they are now in a sad situation. This is the biggest lesson we can learn from the war in Ukraine.

Cho: During the presidential election, Trump said if elected, he would end the war in Ukraine immediately. Given his remarks, it seems to be obvious that the war in Ukraine will be one of the top priorities for the U.S. if he takes office in January 2025.

Does this indicate that the war will end anytime soon? I am skeptical about that. Trump will speak with Putin about a ceasefire deal and negotiations may drag on if the two sides fail to narrow their differences. The ceasefire deal, if clinched, will certainly impact Russia-North Korea relations. But it wont affect greatly Russia-North Korea relations because they signed a new treaty and the structure of their cooperation is in place. So I think their relations will stand even after the war in Ukraine.

Q: Trump vowed to impose 10 percent universal baseline tariffs on all imported foreign goods and 60 percent or higher blanket tariffs on imports from China. How should South Korean companies prepare for Trump 2.0?

Lee Hyo-young: Trump said he would introduce 60 percent or higher tariffs on imported Chinese goods, and he even vowed to revoke China's most-favored nation (MFN) status. (Editor's note: MFN requires a country providing a trade concession to its trading partner to extend the same treatment to all.) Trump also mentioned the possibility of revoking Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) from China, a radical measure that, if implemented, would essentially mean the U.S. severing normal trade ties with China. I wonder if such extreme measures would be feasible or if they would even benefit the U.S. economy.

We should closely monitor whether the U.S. president-elect will follow through on the commitments made during the campaign and introduce those measures once he is sworn in as president in January. From my perspective, revoking China's MFN status could serve as Trump's bargaining chip to pressure Beijing into negotiating and complying with U.S. demands to address the trade deficit issue.

We will see if Trump is serious about the measure when and if he unveils a lineup of key post holders in charge of trade and economic affairs, like a secretary of commerce or the United States Trade Representative.

I don't know what Trump has in his mind about the end state of China. Does he ultimately want China to transition into a free economy? Or does he simply want to fix the U.S. trade deficits with China by introducing a set of hardline measures designed for decoupling from China?

Regarding Trump's proposal of 10 percent of universal baseline tariffs, this is not a discriminatory measure specifically targeting South Korean companies, because such tariffs will be imposed on all imported goods from foreign countries. However, if introduced, those tariffs will raise the prices of imported goods, and this, in turn, will negatively affect the global economy.

How should South Korean companies prepare for the export barriers? I think South Korea should keep asking the Trump administration to give Korean companies a favorable status, such as exemptions or suspensions. Considering the South's investments in the U.S., South Korean companies have made significant investments in building manufacturing facilities during the Biden administration. This could potentially be leveraged to put pressure on the Trump administration to allow exceptions.

Q: Please tell us how Trump will handle the Taiwan issue. Will the U.S. Forces in Korea be redeployed in the event of Chinas invasion of Taiwan?

Cho: We must understand who Trump is. I think he is not an ideologically-oriented person. He is a pragmatist. He is a businessman-turned-politician, and he is willing to make a deal once conditions are met. Since 2016, he has told his supporters that he would end wars that were underway overseas. What he said during the recent campaign trail or in his first term made me think that he will be the last person to wage a war against other countries. If he does, it would be a trade war, not a ground war. He would prioritize economy, science and technology over military confrontations with other countries. He puts pressure on China probably because he wants to secure jobs for Americans and help the U.S. build manufacturing infrastructure rather than going to war with China.

I think the same holds true for Taiwan. Trump has maintained strategic ambiguity about the Taiwan issue.

What can South Korea do about Taiwan in the event of a contingency there? I think we don't need to overreact to the Taiwan issue, and instead, we should carefully watch how it develops without making hasty predictions about the prospects of a war between China and Taiwan.

Chun: I think its time to address a very important issue. Why are the U.S. troops based in South Korea? Are they here to defend South Korea? Or are they here to achieve the American policy priority, which is termed strategic flexibility? Weve never come to an agreement about this.

My personal view is that the U.S. Forces Korea and their primary mission is the defense and stability of South Korea. But at the same time, their secondary priority is the pursuit of American national interests in the Asia Pacific. So, if the U.S. decides that they must redeploy some forces on the Korean Peninsula to address issues between China and Taiwan, or even some other issues in Africa or Europe, it is the U.S.' sovereign right to do so.

So, we are now at a crossroads where we must recognize and agree which one it is. Its not an easy question to address but we must do it. If we acknowledge that the U.S. Forces Korea have these two missions, then the U.S. is not going to pull out everyone here. They are going to, at least, maintain forces to conduct the initial mission of maintaining the stability of the Korean Peninsula and other missions like the China-Taiwan standoff. When we think of that, then the role of Korean troops can be expected. What are we to do in order to maintain some capabilities of American forces here? Should we send our capabilities to the Pacific? Maybe yes. Maybe no. But I think thats where we should start on this question.

Q: Defense-cost sharing has emerged as an issue after Trump won the election. Please tell us how South Korea should react if the Trump administration were to demand renegotiation of the defense-cost sharing. Inside South Korea, calls are growing that the nation should have nuclear weapons to defend itself.

Chun: We should acknowledge that the U.S. Forces Korea are priceless. So, we should embrace the fact that we need to increase cost-sharing when asked to do so. Then the issue is how we are going to finance it. We dont have to give money. How about we build warships for the U.S. Another option can be exporting K-9 self-propelled artillery pieces. We have been trying to export K-9s to the U.S. Army but have been unable to do that. We also have other weapons systems perfect for the alliance. We can give $5 billion worth of Korean weapons. I think there is lots of room for negotiations.

I also think that with an increase in defense-cost sharing, we should negotiate our atomic agreement so that we would be allowed to reprocess spent fuel.

Cho: Defense-cost sharing has surfaced all of a sudden as if it is the biggest bilateral issue with the U.S. This is not true. We should understand what message Trump is trying to deliver with his remarks about defense-cost sharing and burden-sharing. His message is clear. He is saying that the U.S. under Trump will not pursue the world police-like role as it has done in the past. He is demanding that NATO should carry the burden of regional security on its own without relying on the U.S. The president-elect also puts pressure on European countries to increase their defense budget up to 3 percent of their GDP. His message to Asia is the same.

Q: Please share your concluding remarks.

Lee: Trumps envisioned trade policy is very aggressive. Despite this, we should wait and see how his second term will turn out, instead of making premature predictions about his forthcoming presidency. Fearmongering doesnt help our nation. And we dont have to be worried too much about his second term because we dont know yet whether his campaign pledges will be implemented or not.

Cho: I agree. We dont need to be overwhelmed by his rhetoric. We should carefully watch his actions.

Chun: President-elect Trump is a businessman-turned-politician, and a strong America is in South Korea's best interests. South Korea needs to align its interests with the U.S., particularly in collaboration with Japan.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will hold a trilateral meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru this week, according to Yoon's office and the White House.

Yoon is set to depart for Lima on Thursday with the trilateral meeting scheduled for Friday, his office said.

The three countries have pushed for the leaders' meeting to build on the progress in three-way cooperation since the landmark trilateral summit at Camp David in August 2023, where they agreed to hold a trilateral summit at least annually.

Jake Sullivan, the White House national security advisor, said that at the upcoming summit, the leaders will discuss the importance of "institutionalizing" the progress in trilateral cooperation.

"(Biden) will meet with President Yoon of South Korea and Prime Minister Ishiba of Japan to celebrate the historic cooperation between our three nations and discuss the importance of institutionalizing the progress we've made so that it carries forward through the transition," he told a press briefing.

Sullivan noted that Biden will go to the APEC summit with U.S. alliances in the Indo-Pacific at a "literal all-time high."

"Japan, Korea, Australia, the Philippines  a really remarkable record over four years, and that's what he's going to hand off to President Trump," he said.

"And he is going to be making the case to our allies and frankly to our adversaries that America's standing with its alliances  investing in its alliances and then asking its allies to step up and do their part, which they have done these past four years  is central to American strength and capacity in the world."

In September, the top diplomats of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan reaffirmed their commitment to establishing a trilateral cooperation secretariat, to be finalized when their leaders meet later this year.

But it remains to be seen whether Yoon, Biden and Ishiba will finalize the work of creating the secretariat as a government transition is set to take place in Washington in January.

Upcoming discussions are expected to cover their joint responses to regional tensions in light of North Korea's troop deployment to Russia in support of its war against Ukraine.

Officials from South Korean and U.S. officials have confirmed that North Korean troops dispatched to Russia's frontline region of Kursk have fought against Ukraine.

Three-way cooperation among the U.S. and its Asian allies gained traction after Yoon offered a solution in March last year to address the thorny issue of compensating Korean victims of Japan's colonial-era forced labor.

As the long-fraught ties between Seoul and Tokyo warmed, the three countries held the Camp David summit  the first standalone trilateral summit that marked a culmination of tripartite cooperation.

The summit produced a series of agreements, including the "Commitment to Consult" each other in the face of a shared security challenge. Since the summit, the three countries have bolstered security cooperation through joint exercises, the sharing of ballistic missile warning data and other efforts. (Yonhap)
U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to express "deep concern" over North Korea's troop deployment to Russia during a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping set to take place on the margins of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru this week, a senior U.S. administration official said Wednesday.

Biden and Xi are set to meet in Lima on Saturday for what could be their last in-person summit as presidents. The meeting will come as both Seoul and Washington have confirmed that North Korean troops, who have been deployed to Russia's western front-line Kursk region, have begun engaging in combat against Ukrainian forces.

"I expect the president will express deep concern over the PRC support for Russia's war against Ukraine as well as the deployment of over 10,000 DPRK troops to Russia, where they have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces," the official said in an online press briefing.

"We are increasingly concerned about the consequences for longer-term stability in both Europe and even the Pacific of this deployment," the official added.

PRC and DPRK stand for the official names of China and North Korea, the People's Republic of China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, respectively.

The North Korean troops at issue have been dispatched to Kursk after receiving training in eastern Russia. They have been provided with Russian uniforms and equipment as Russians have trained them in artillery, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and basic infantry operations, according to U.S. officials.

Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson for the State Department, has pointed out a series of challenges for the North Korean troops to overcome, including interoperability, language barriers, and command and control and communications.

The North's troop deployment has been a source of growing security concerns for the United States, South Korea and other countries as it underscores a deepening military partnership between Pyongyang and Moscow, which observers say could expand the war in Ukraine and affect security on the Korean Peninsula as well.

Calls have emerged for Beijing to play a constructive role in addressing the North's troop dispatch given its perceived influence over Pyongyang.

During the summit with Xi, Biden is expected to take stock of progress in a series of areas that Washington and Beijing have made since their summit in Woodside, California last year, including the resumption of military-to-military communication and counternarcotics cooperation, according to the official.

Biden is also likely to underscore the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and express his concerns over China's activities around Taiwan and in the South China Sea.

"Over the last four years, the two countries have advanced areas of shared interest, and even amidst deep differences and intense competition, (they) worked to do so," the official said.

"Throughout his time in office, President Biden has emphasized the importance of responsibly managing one of the world's most consequential relationships."

The upcoming bilateral meeting will be the third in-person summit between Biden and Xi since Biden took office in January 2021. The presidents previously met on the margins of the Group of 20 summit in Bali in 2022 and on the margins of the APEC summit in California a year ago. (Yonhap)
President Yoon Suk Yeol said South Korea could consider more support for Ukraine depending on the level of North Korean involvement in Russia's war against Ukraine, according to an interview published Thursday.

Yoon made the remark in a written interview with Spanish news agency EFE ahead of a trip to South America for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru and the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Brazil.

Both Seoul and Washington have confirmed that North Korean soldiers, who have been deployed to Russia's western front-line Kursk region, have begun engaging in combat against Ukrainian forces.

"If they both do not stop their dangerous military adventure, we are prepared to implement appropriate effective measures, including strengthening support for Ukraine, in cooperation with our allies and like-minded countries," Yoon said in the interview.

Yoon cautioned against Moscow transferring sensitive military technology to Pyongyang in exchange for North Korean troop deployment, expressing concerns over North Korean forces gaining modern warfare experience in Ukraine.

He called on Pyongyang and Moscow to end their "illegal" military cooperation and withdraw North Korean troops from Russian territory, while noting South Korea is maintaining diplomatic channels with Russia.

Yoon said Seoul is also committed to maintain a "strategic dialogue" with China, an ally of both North Korea and Russia, underscoring China's potential role in promoting regional stability.

At the upcoming APEC and G20 summits, Yoon said he will advocate free, open world trade, emphasizing Latin America's growing "strategic importance." It marks Yoon's first official trip to Latin America since taking office in May 2022. (Yonhap)
By Kim Hyun-bin

Belarusian Ambassador to South Korea Andrew Chernetsky spoke out about the effects of international sanctions, saying these measures have not only failed to impact Belarus but have also harmed Korea economically.

Sanctions imposed by the Korean government are respected and understood as sovereign decisions," Chernetsky said during an interview with The Korea Times at the Belarusian Embassy in Seoul on Oct. 23. "However, such restrictions do not foster mutual understanding or solve underlying problems. Instead, they exacerbate global economic challenges."

Belarus has stood as a steadfast ally of Russia, particularly evident in its unwavering support for Russia's aggressive actions in Ukraine. Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Belarus has provided substantial political, logistical and military backing to Russia. This alliance has not gone unnoticed and has resulted in widespread international condemnation and the imposition of sanctions.

Chernetsky highlighted the long-standing trade restrictions faced by Belarus from the United States and Europe since 2004 and questioned their legal basis.

"The only justification given by the U.S. and its allies is their desire for us to change our policies to match their standards. But every region has its own standards and way of life," he said. "Imposing one country's way of behavior onto another is akin to forcing one family's rules onto another. It's not conducive to healthy international relations."

Belarus's endorsement of Russia's annexation of Crimea and its involvement in the Ukraine invasion have drawn significant criticism. The international community views these actions as flagrant violations of international law and Ukrainian sovereignty. By aligning with Russia, Belarus has positioned itself in direct opposition to numerous Western nations and international bodies advocating for Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

In a pointed example, Chernetsky discussed South Korea's decision to exit the Russian car market, which was subsequently dominated by Chinese carmakers.

"Korean automakers like Hyundai and Kia once held 70 percent of the Russian market. After Korea's exit, Chinese cars took over. Who benefited from this? Certainly not Korea," he said. "The Korean car industry lost a major market while China gained it. South Korea has yet to find a substitute market of similar scale."

Despite these challenges, Chernetsky emphasized that sanctions have not obstructed the development of South Korea-Belarus relations.

"Even amid global political and economic difficulties, we are seeing an increase in trade turnover between our countries. Belarusian exports to South Korea, including timber products and chemical fibers, are in high demand," he said.

He cited a rise in South Korean exports to Belarus, which increased 1.5-fold in 2023.

"We do not buy sanctioned goods from Korea, such as road-making machinery, as we have our own production. This has actually expanded our market in Russia, which previously relied on South Korean machinery, a benefit to us."

South Korea imposed sanctions on Belarus on March 6, 2022, in response to Belarus's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced new export controls, banning shipments of 682 items potentially usable for military purposes to both Russia and Belarus.

Chernetsky also pointed out the inconsistency in South Korea's sanctions policy, noting that while Belarus faces sanctions due to its alliance with Russia, other close allies of South Korea, like Germany and Poland, do not face similar measures despite engaging with North Korea.

"When President Putin signed a military agreement with North Korea, South Korea imposed sanctions on Russia and, by extension, Belarus. We haven't signed any agreement with North Korea and don't have an embassy in North Korea, he said. Yet, countries like Germany and Vietnam have interacted with North Korea without facing South Korean sanctions. This approach seems unfair and not fully thought out.

The ambassador reiterated that sanctions have not changed Belarus' policies or hindered its international trade.

"We continue to trade successfully with countries like Russia, China, India and Brazil. Sanctions from some European countries have little impact on us," he said. "In fact, Belarusian goods are still being purchased in Europe due to their quality and cost-effectiveness."

Chernetsky concluded by stressing the importance of maintaining trade relations with South Korea.

"Despite the challenges, we are committed to supporting and enhancing our trade relations with South Korea. The sanctions, while problematic, are not an insurmountable obstacle," he said.
Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold talks on the margins of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Peru later this week, Seoul's foreign ministry said Thursday.

The talks will take place early Friday (Seoul time) in Lima, where the two top diplomats will gather to attend a ministerial meeting while accompanying the presidents at the APEC summit.

Cho and Blinken are expected to discuss coordination regarding North Korea's troops deployed to Russia in support of Moscow's war in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, South Korea's spy agency confirmed North Korean soldiers have engaged in combat operations against the Ukrainian forces in Russia's western Kursk border region.

The confirmation echoes an earlier announcement by the U.S. State Department that most of the 10,000 North Korean soldiers deployed to the Kursk area have begun engaging in combat.

After meeting North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Mark Rutte in Brussels on Wednesday, Blinken said the North's troop deployment to Russia in the war against Kyiv "demands and will get a firm response," according to news reports.

Blinken said the expanding military ties between North Korea and Russia are a "two-way street," expressing concern over what Moscow may be giving Pyongyang in return for the troop deployment, possibly to boost the North's nuclear and other military capacity.

Their talks are also likely to include discussions on efforts to strengthen the bilateral alliance during the transition to the incoming Donald Trump administration.

Cho and Blinken last met in Washington, D.C., late last month for the "two plus two" meeting that was joined by the defense chiefs of the two countries.

On the same day, Cho will also meet one-on-one with Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya, Cho's office said in a separate message to the media.

It will mark the first in-person meeting between Cho and Iwaya since the top Japanese diplomat took office last month with the launch of the new leadership in Tokyo under Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

Cho and Iwaya are expected to discuss a range of issues concerning both sides, including North Korea's deepening ties with Russia and its troop deployment, as well as efforts to advance bilateral relations that have dramatically improved under the Yoon Suk Yeol government.

They are also likely to discuss plans for next year's 60th anniversary of the normalization of the two countries' diplomatic ties. (Yonhap)
Beijing sends positive gesture to Seoul as Trump 2.0 nears

By Lee Hyo-jin

China is preparing to appoint Dai Bing, its deputy representative to the United Nations, as its new envoy to Korea, a move diplomatic analysts see as Beijings latest effort to repair its strained relationship with Seoul.

According to sources, Thursday, the Chinese government is in the final stages of confirming Dais nomination, which may be announced as early as this week. Once the nomination is formalized, the appointment will proceed to the "agrement" stage for formal approval from the Korean government.

If confirmed, Dai, 57, will succeed Xing Haiming, who left his post in July.

A career diplomat with nearly three decades of experience since 1995, Dai has held posts in Singapore and South Africa and has served as Chinas deputy permanent representative to the U.N. since 2020.

Diplomatic analysts see Dais appointment as a signal that Beijing is looking to recalibrate its approach to Korea. Bilateral relations have been strained in recent years, with China perceiving Korea's alignment with U.S.-led initiatives as part of a strategy to encircle Beijing.

Dais rank falls between a director-general and a deputy minister, positioning him slightly higher than his predecessor Xing. More important than his rank, however, is his diplomatic experience, said Park Seung-chan, a professor of Chinese studies at Yongin University.

He has played a critical role in expanding Chinas presence in the Global South and is considered a seasoned diplomat with significant global experience.

Although Dai is not a specialist in Korean Peninsula affairs, his work at the U.N. and experience in multilateral diplomacy suggest a strategic choice by Beijing to strengthen ties with Seoul, Park added.

Dais appointment comes at a sensitive time as tensions between Washington and Beijing are expected to escalate with Donald Trump's return to the White House next year.

Trump is expected to adopt a more hawkish stance on China than he did during his first term, reigniting trade wars and security confrontations. Analysts anticipate Trump may leverage the Seoul-Washington-Tokyo trilateral framework to increase pressure on Beijing.

In response, China appears to be extending conciliatory gestures preemptively toward Korea, seen as the weakest link in the three-way partnership.

In recent developments, China has also announced a new visa waiver for short-term Korean visitors, along with those from eight other nations, effective through the end of next year.

Under the new policy, which took effect on Nov. 8, Korean nationals can enter China visa-free for up to 15 days for purposes such as tourism, business, family visits and transit. This marks the first time Beijing has extended visa-free entry to Koreans since establishing diplomatic ties in 1992.

Chung Jae-heung, director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the Sejong Institute, commented that Dai's appointment could have broader implications beyond bilateral relations.

The appointment of a U.N. deputy representative  an expert in multilateral diplomacy  as its ambassador to Korea could suggest that China is seeking to approach Korean Peninsula affairs from a global perspective. With Pyongyang-Moscow ties growing and U.S.-China rivalry intensifying, Korea-China relations and inter-Korean issues are no longer Chinas only focus with Seoul, Chung commented.

Chung also advised caution in viewing Chinas visa waiver too optimistically, as Korea was one of nine countries granted the exemption. The decision appears largely aimed at boosting tourism amid an economic slowdown.

"I would caution against interpreting every aspect of Chinas decision as merely a symbolic diplomatic gesture, as this may overlook the substantive elements of its broader diplomatic strategy, he said.

Dais appointment follows Seouls recent appointment of Kim Dae-ki, former presidential chief of staff, as its new ambassador to China in October.

Known as a close confidant of President Yoon Suk Yeol, Kims appointment was seen as a strategic step toward mending bilateral relations. Once the agrement process is finalized, Kim will succeed Chung Jae-ho, who was appointed in August 2022 as Yoons first top envoy to Beijing.

Regarding Dai's potential appointment, Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, "There is nothing to confirm at this point." The Chinese Embassy in Seoul also refrained from commenting.
By Bereket Alemayehu

MONA, a pioneering social impact startup dedicated to helping businesses reduce waste and supporting communities, announced the successful redistribution of 40 million won ($28,608) worth of books to various charities across Seoul and Gyeonggi Province.

We successfully facilitated 2,186 books redistributed to 2,186 children, one book per person, a total 40 million won value," Quynh Phan, the Vietnamese American founder & CEO of MONA, told The Korea Times. "On the social impact, if the books are shared with others, 10,930 people could benefit indirectly."

The MONA social community platform drives initiatives, campaigns and events to connect people who have items they no longer need with those who can benefit from them, whether businesses, charities or individuals. This promotes the idea of sharing and reusing rather than buying and discarding.

According to the startup, the book donation initiative was made possible through a collaboration with Korean Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Publishing. As part of MONA's commitment to sustainability and community support, this book donation was aimed at providing access to educational resources for individuals and families in need. Each book redistributed represents knowledge and an opportunity for growth and learning for children in the capital region. In addition to the environmental impact, the donation also made a profound impact on local charities. Over 2,186 children are expected to directly benefit from the redistribution of the books.

"At MONA, we believe in the power of collaboration and community support to create a lasting impact. This book donation is a testament to our mission of reducing waste while uplifting those in need," Quynh said. "Together with Korea NVC Publishing, we are making strides towards a more sustainable and equitable future."

MONA is a social impact platform that connects businesses with surplus products, near-expiry items or unused goods like furniture and appliances, to communities in need. By facilitating the redistribution of these products to charities and individuals, MONA helps businesses reduce waste, enhance their social impact and meet sustainability goals.

Additionally, MONA offers environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) marketing services and impact reports to support businesses in demonstrating their positive contribution to the environment and society. Currently, MONA is participating in the K-Startup Grand Challenge with CNTTECH, supported by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, the Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy & Innovation and the Korea Institute of Startup and Entrepreneurship Development. This program is helping foreign CEOs and global startups to do business in Korea. MONA was among 40 applicants selected from a pool of 1,716 applicants representing 114 countries.

In October, Quynh was honored as one of the Women of the Future 50 Rising Stars in ESG for 2024 nominated by the British Embassy in Korea. The prestigious award recognizes 50 trailblazing women aged 35 and under who are leading ESG advancements across the globe. Quynh was chosen to represent South Korea for this distinguished recognition, highlighting her role as a leading figure in ESG.

Visit monaofficial.co for more information.

Bereket Alemayehu is an Ethiopian photo artist, social activist and writer based in Seoul. He's also co-founder of Hanokers, a refugee-led social initiative, and freelance contributor for Pressenza Press Agency.
South Korea's government said Thursday "effective and phased" measures will be taken over North Korea's dispatch of troops to fight for Russia against Ukraine, after the nation's spy agency confirmed that the North's soldiers have entered combat in Russia's Kursk.

"(The government) will proceed to implement effective, phased measures grounded in principles of composure and discipline," a unification ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity regarding North Korea's troop dispatch.

The previous day, the National Intelligence Service confirmed that North Korean troops sent to Russia have already engaged in front-line combat operations in the Kursk region, consistent with intelligence from the United States.

The official accused the North of dispatching troops to fight in an "unjustifiable" war and sending them to their death, adding that the regime has avoided informing its public about the deployment.

"It's another example of the North Korean regime's deceptive nature," the official noted.

Despite confirmations from the U.S. and South Korea about North Korean troops fighting for Russia on the front line, the North has remained silent on the matter amid speculation that it might make an official announcement after exchanging ratification instruments with Russia for their mutual defense treaty.

Earlier this week, North Korea's state media reported that leader Kim Jong-un ratified the comprehensive strategic partnership he signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Pyongyang in June.

The landmark pact, which commits the two nations to providing military aid to each other in the event of war, has elevated their military relations to a new level, regarded as similar to an alliance. (Yonhap)
'When Life Gives You Tangerines' offers comfort to those who need it
Contraband ring caught trafficking over 1,800 exotic animals worth 1.9 billion won over two years

By KTimes

Customs authorities apprehended a smuggling ring attempting to secretly bring endangered exotic species, including a Komodo dragon, into Korea. The group had wrapped a young Komodo dragon, measuring about 50 centimeters, in cloth and concealed it within underwear. Additionally, baby snakes were curled up and hidden inside cigarette boxes.

Incheon Airport Customs announced, Thursday, that 14 individuals, including suspects identified as A and B, were referred to prosecutors without detention for violating customs laws.

Since July 2022, these suspects are alleged to have smuggled 1,865 exotic animals, valued at approximately 1.9 billion won ($1.5 million), from countries like Thailand and Indonesia.

The smuggled species included lizards, turtles, snakes, scorpions, and insects, some of which are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Among the animals were Komodo dragons, Burmese star tortoises, emerald tree boas, and Yangtze alligators  rare species valued at millions to tens of millions of won each.

Incheon Airport Customs noted this was the first seizure of a Komodo dragon, which can grow to over three meters as an adult, being smuggled into Korea. The primary suspects recruited acquaintances as couriers, offering free overseas trips in exchange.

The smugglers used various containers, including underwear, instant noodle cups, and cigarette packs, to conceal the animals and evade detection. The Komodo dragon was smuggled from Thailand by wrapping a 50-60 centimeter juvenile in cloth and hiding it in underwear to bypass local inspections.

The smuggled animals were sold online or handed over to specialized reptile dealers for significant profit. For example, a Burmese star tortoise purchased in Thailand for about 300,000 won was resold in Korea for 4 million won, yielding a twelvefold profit.

One of the suspects, B, who operates an aquarium, smuggled three Komodo dragons with the intent of displaying them and even forged import documents to apply for legal import approval from the Ministry of Environment. This application was subsequently denied.

An Incheon Airport Customs official said, The live animals seized, including two Komodo dragons, have been transferred to the National Institute of Ecology for protection. Smuggling exotic species disrupts ecosystems and poses a threat to public safety. We plan to intensify border controls to prevent such serious crimes.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, a sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.
Rival parties agree on law revision to target not only North Korea but all foreign countries

By Kwak Yeon-soo

Korea is set to revise its espionage law to punish individuals for spying not only for North Korea but also for "all foreign countries." This comes after a series of cases in which Korea's confidential security information was allegedly leaked to China.

If passed by the National Assembly, this would be the first revision to the espionage law since Korea established the Criminal Act in 1953. The proposed amendment reflects the evolving nature of espionage activities, which now span beyond military matters to include industrial sectors.

A parliamentary judiciary subcommittee passed a bill, Wednesday, that aims to expand the scope of espionage from leaking information to an "enemy country" to "all foreign countries." The passage of the bill was the result of rare bipartisan cooperation.

The current law (Article 98 of the Criminal Act) stipulates that individuals working for an enemy country, or those who are aware of espionage activities but fail to report them to the relevant authorities, can face punitive measures including the death penalty.

At present, that law designates North Korea as the sole enemy, and individuals working for the North are subject to the espionage law. However, this excludes individuals or groups working for other countries, such as China, from being punished for spying on South Korea.

There have been efforts to revise the law in the 21st National Assembly, but the proposal failed to pass the Legislation and Judiciary Committee. However, in the 22nd Assembly, both the ruling and opposition parties have come together for the first time to support the bill. The parliament is set to pass the bill during the plenary session on Nov. 28.

This is the first time in our constitutional history that the espionage law has been revised, ruling People Power Party (PPP) leader Han Dong-hoon said during a Supreme Council meeting, Thursday.

Han has repeatedly called for expanding the scope of punishable foreign espionage after prosecutors indicted a Korea Defense Intelligence Command (KDIC) official in August for allegedly providing military secrets to Chinese hackers believed to be linked to North Korea. The leaked secrets reportedly included confidential data on South Korean undercover agents, such as their names and overseas assignments.

He called for urgent action after a South Korean national was found to have been detained in China on charges of espionage while working for a Chinese semiconductor company.

There have been growing calls for a revision after several high-profile cases of technology leaks. According to data provided by Rep. Lee Jae-kwan of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), 23 cases of industrial espionage were detected in 2023. The majority of the incidents involved cutting-edge semiconductor technologies, an area in which South Korean firms are among the world leaders.

Several DPK lawmakers have also proposed relevant bills to strengthen legal protections against industrial espionage.

Rep. Park Jie-won, who served as the director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) from 2020 to 2022, also proposed one of the bills in September, saying, We need to revise the espionage law to protect our security and technology."

Meanwhile, a Chinese man was apprehended by the police on Sunday for filming the NIS headquarters. However, he was released from custody after questioning. In a separate case, three Chinese students are under investigation by police for allegedly taking photographs of military facilities in South Korea over the past two years. The Chinese nationals were caught flying a drone toward the Naval Operations Command in Busan on June 25 and are accused of taking unauthorized photographs of the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
The annual college entrance exam was held nationwide Thursday with a record number of retakers driven in part by an increase in medical school admissions.

A total of 522,670 students, including high school seniors and graduates, were registered to take the state-administered College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), up 18,082 from last year.

High school seniors numbered 340,777, accounting for 65.2 percent of the total, while graduates numbered 161,784, the largest figure since 2003.

Many of the graduates, or around 93,195 people, were believed to be first-year university students taking another shot at the exam to get into a better school next year, according to Jongro Academy.

The large number of graduates has been attributed to the increase in the medical school quota next year, with 39 medical schools nationwide planning to accept a combined 4,610 students, up 1,497 from this year.

The increase comes after the Yoon Suk Yeol administration decided to add around 2,000 slots per year over the next five years to address a shortage of doctors.

Students were required to arrive at their designated testing sites by 8:10 a.m. to prepare for the Korean language portion of the five-part exam, which began at 8:40 a.m.

The CSAT is one of the nation's most important academic events, as getting into a prestigious university is considered a prerequisite for a good career path down the line.

In keeping with its policy, the government had said extremely difficult "killer" questions would be excluded from this year's exam.

"We made sure the exam could differentiate the levels of students simply using material covered by public education," Choe Joung-chul, a Dongguk University professor and head of the CSAT question-setting committee, said during a press conference.

The Korean and math portions were found to be plain overall, especially compared to last year, with a few tricky questions to determine the top-rank students, according to assessments by teachers and cram schools.

Throughout the exam, set to run until 5:45 p.m., the authorities controlled noise levels outside 1,282 examination sites nationwide.

During the English listening evaluation portion from 1:05 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., all aircraft takeoffs and landings were prohibited, with the flight schedules of 156 airplanes adjusted during this time.

All aircraft in flight, excluding those in emergency situations, also had to remain in the air at an altitude of 3 kilometers or higher, while military exercises causing excessive noise were temporarily halted.

The Seoul metropolitan government extended morning rush hour subway operations to 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., from the regular 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., to help test-takers get to their test sites on time.

Police also deployed over 10,000 personnel to escort exam papers to and from testing sites and maintain order and stability around schools.

This year, the absentee rate was reported at 10.07 percent during the first session of the exam.

In Incheon, west of Seoul, two students showed symptoms of hyperpnea during the exam, with one taken to a hospital to finish the exam, and the other treated on the spot, officials said. (Yonhap)




President Yoon Suk Yeol plans to announce a set of measures aimed at narrowing gaps in income, education and other areas early next year, a presidential official said Thursday.

The measures will be drawn up by the government after Yoon called for efforts to address widening inequalities in the latter half of his term that began Sunday.

"The government is carrying out a comprehensive review of policy combinations aimed at reducing polarization, and the president will personally announce the measures at the start of the new year," the senior presidential official told Yonhap News Agency.

Top among the measures is expected to be ways to tackle income polarization, particularly in the context of the country's "dual labor market" where a large divide persists between full-time regular employees and non-regular workers.

Yoon has stressed the importance of resolving polarization in the labor market, saying the gaps in pay and income can widen the divide between social classes and threaten democracy.

Narrowing the education gap is also a key administrative goal, with the government planning to close the divide between regions and social classes by supporting life-long education and education for socially vulnerable groups. (Yonhap)
A regional court on Thursday fined the wife of opposition leader Lee Jae-myung 1.5 million won ($1,066) for providing free meals during her husband's run in the party primary to select the candidate for the 2022 presidential election.

Kim Hye-kyung, wife of Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Chair Lee, was indicted after providing meals worth 104,000 won to the wives of three former and current party lawmakers and three of her aides at a restaurant in Seoul in August 2021, shortly after Lee declared his bid for the party election.

A corporate card from the Gyeonggi regional government, where Lee was governor at the time, was allegedly used for the payment.

The Suwon District Court found Kim guilty of having her secretary, surnamed Bae, pay for the meals with her "permission" and imposed the fine.

"(The crime) appears to pose risks to the fairness and transparency of elections," the court said, chiding Kim for "denying the crime and passing the responsibility onto Bae."

The prosecution had demanded a 3 million won fine for Kim.

Kim's lawyer said she would appeal the ruling, calling it a "guilty conviction based on assumption." (Yonhap)
The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) on Thursday unilaterally passed a contentious bill calling for a special investigation into allegations involving first lady Kim Keon Hee despite fierce opposition from the ruling party.

The revised special counsel probe bill, which passed in a 191-0 vote, focuses on two key allegations involving first lady Keon Keon Hee  her alleged involvement in a stock manipulation scheme and interference in election nominations through a power broker.

The DPK's scaling back from its previous unsuccessful bills, which encompassed a much broader range of allegations against Kim, was seen as an attempt to gain support within the ruling party and to increase the chances of the bill's passage through a revote.

The bill also allows a third party to recommend a special prosecutor.

Lawmakers of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) refused to attend Thursday's parliamentary plenary session in boycott of the vote.

This was the third version of the bill targeting the first lady following a similar proposal vetoed by President Yoon Suk Yeol last month, which was ultimately scrapped in a revote.

Earlier in the day, the PPP held a general meeting of its lawmakers and said it decided to push ahead with the recommendation of a special inspector to look into possible corruption among the president's family members.

The ruling party will also request Yoon exercise his veto power against the bill, according to PPP floor leader Choo Kyung-ho.

For years, the PPP has not recommended candidates for the special inspector, instead urging the DPK to first recommend board members of the North Korean Human Rights Foundation. The foundation has remained inactive for eight years due to the DPK snubbing the nomination process.

The DPK plans to put the bill up for a revote on Nov. 28 if Yoon vetoes the bill.

A vetoed bill requires support from two-thirds of lawmakers to override the presidential veto.

Unless the DPK secures eight splinter votes from the PPP, which holds 108 seats in the 300-member National Assembly, the bill will be scrapped again. (Yonhap)
By Yu Seung-eun

Have you ever wondered why drinking is a big part of Korean culture? Or how to handle the pressure of taking a shot in one go?

In this episode of Howdy Korea, four foreigners dive into Korea's unique drinking culture  exploring everything from why drinking is a way for Koreans to bond to some of the most popular drinking games. And, of course, we couldn't leave out the legendary "poktanju" (Korean bomb shot)!

From the Nunchi game to Titanic, we're here to show you how to play like a pro. Game on!
By Shin Freedman

Last Wednesday I thought I would wake up feeling light, almost weightless, as if a great burden had been lifted the day after the election. But I was wrong. Instead, an unfamiliar sensation settles over me  a sense of speechlessness, unease, worry and even unexplainable guilt. Now that the outcome of the 2024 election has been announced, I find myself wondering: What will the next four years bring? How wrong I was to assume it would be different this time.

It saddens me that a twice-impeached politician, facing 34 felony charges, is elected to return to the White House. Im worried about the example set by a leader whose language is often vulgar, divisive and disparaging  particularly toward immigrants, women and people of color. Im alarmed by his character flaws: the prideful boasting, the intentional polarization and the encouragement of division.

I cant imagine what America will become over the next four years as hinted in the playbook of Project 2025.

Its concerning to consider what he might do when he regains executive power as president. His campaign rhetoric about punishing so-called "enemies within," pardoning those involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection, abolishing the Department of Education and restructuring the Justice Department, FBI and other key government branches to suit his agenda signals a future with profound and lasting consequences. With his unrestrained and undesirable personal traits unleashed, the absence of guardrails could intensify these impacts in the years ahead.

I know Im not alone in feeling this way. Instead of genuine hope and excitement about the future, I cringe at the possibility of the mass deportation of immigrants, the silencing of dissent and a tighter grip on womens reproductive rights. He has been elected again, despite his history of bragging about sexual assault, exaggerating accomplishments and pushing divisive policies like the wall.

In a recent New Yorker article, it was suggested that male voters for Trump may fear the ambitions of women, while Harris female supporters feel their rights are at risk. This underscores the painful reality of a deeply divided society  between those who have and those who don't, immigrants and "natives," men and women, truth-tellers and the dishonest, empathy and authoritarianism.

We saw these same divisions in his previous term, but I worry this time it will be even more extreme. Under this unchecked approach, I may withdraw into my own comfort zone, perhaps even growing suspicious of those who look or think differently. How can I feel safe in this climate?

In the days after the election, instead of feeling hopeful, I find myself shrinking back, feeling small and fearful. I cast my vote and spoke my truth, taking part in a collective action that felt meaningful as I considered the generations to come. Yet today, I feel devastated, restless and uncertain. I am even resentful toward the voters who chose to support a figure known for dishonesty, racism and sexism. I underestimated the number of people in America who would endorse such a candidate. I worry about the promises he made and what they mean for our grandchildrens future.

Shin Freedman (shinfreed@gmail.com) is an author, writer and educator.
By Michael Breen

A few months ago, as soon as our political leaders figured that Donald Trump might win the presidential election, they asked the United States if Korea could pay more than we usually do for the U.S. troops stationed here. The U.S. accepted and the annual payment, which is around $1 billion, will now go up by 8.3 percent in 2026.

If you saw this news back in October, you may have noticed that there was none of the usual outrage from the people who think Washington should be paying us for the privilege of being here.

That is because we were all agreed that this was insurance. Last time he was president, Trump said out loud that Korea should be paying more like $5 billion. If he were to win, whats $100 million if it prevents him from messing with the new five-year contract weve just agreed on? And if he were to have lost, well, too bad. A lot of cash compared to our salaries, but worth it for the country.

Now that Trump has won, the government is looking at what he might do that impacts us. In fact, we do this, as do governments around the world, every time there is a change of administration in Washington.

I reckon that some leaders, like Kim Jong-un, are wetting themselves.

But our guys know what they are doing. Im sure we are in safe hands. Theyve proved themselves. We know, for example, that North Korea has the largest force, in terms of total military personnel, in the world and that 70 percent of its artillery is focused on this newspapers office and environs. But we confidently go about our business because we feel we know what we are up against.

Strictly speaking, that is not true. But we are clear on what it might be. We know, thanks to B.R. Myers book, "The Cleanest Race," that Kim Jong-uns state runs on race-based nationalism. It is more Nazi than communist. We know he is either a paper tiger or unstable or dangerous, or a combination thereof. These are our clear choices because, even in their conflicting analysis, people explain what they mean and dont get too worked up if you question them. Theres nobody confusing us with counter-claims. No one says the North Koreans are victims and we in the South are genocidal colonial oppressors (although thats possible; this is a good argument for restricting immigration from advanced countries). There are no professors telling us that we are mean and fat-shaming Kim Jong-un when we recommend that he go easy on the pork pies.

And that brings me to the theme I would like to talk about. Which is, not so much what South Korea as a country should do about the next Donald Trump presidency, but what we, as citizens and residents, should think about him and it.

That begins with knowing who he is and what he represents. This should not be difficult, but it is.

With Trump, there is such an artillery barrage of opinion from stateside and it sets off so much smoke that we forget were talking about the elected leader of a liberal democracy who will be long gone shortly after the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in 2028.

A lot of people will tell you that Trump is Adolf Hitler  a racist, and a misogynist who wants to not only control womens bodies, but also dismantle American democracy and become president for life in his authoritarian racist, Nazi state. These claims come from people who are more educated than we are and who have a way, sometimes subtle, sometimes rude, of making us feel like moral inferiors if we ask a question.

What to make of it? My advice for Koreans trying to figure this is to think back to, or ask your parents to tell you about, Kim Dae-jung.

I remember, in the run-up to the second democratic presidential election here, being invited to dinner by a government minister and a Blue House official. They spent the whole time trying to convince me that Kim Dae-jung was a communist. They referred to his early life as an alleged subversive and how he was captured by the North Koreans during the war, but not killed, thus proving he was one of theirs.

This, I later found, was vaguely true but totally misinterpreted. Kim Dae-jung was in fact a Roman Catholic and a democrat, who believed that Gods will regarding politics was expressed in the voice of the people. While this kind of deifying of the people can get weird, it was not what disturbed my dinner guests. They were from the southeast of the country and part of the elite at that time and were petrified, it seemed to me, that if Kim won the election, their networks would all be kicked out.

That may not have been communism, but it felt like it.

So it is with all the stuff about Trump. Its feeling. Its the feeling generated when policy issues get raised to the level of catastrophe. But the United States is not crumbling. Dont worry about it. I recommend we watch this space with a calm and open mind, as befitting a people accustomed to being in the shadow of real danger.

Michael Breen (mike.breen@insightcomms.com) is the author of "The New Koreans."
Vietnamese, Kazakhs and Filipinos are favored choices

By Ko Dong-hwan

Seven out of 10 companies in Korea are willing to hire foreign workers, according to a recent survey jointly conducted by the countrys employment platform operators, Thursday.

The large percentage can be attributed to the growing scarcity of local workers in the Korean job market. Additionally, workplaces in Korea that have become more accustomed to hiring foreign employees have also played a role in the survey's results, according to the operators.

Saramin and foreigner-friendly KoMate surveyed 557 local companies and found that 73.4 percent of them are willing to hire foreign nationals. Companies with between 50 and 100 employees made up the largest proportion at 74.5 percent, followed by companies with fewer than 50 employees at 73.9 percent, those with between 100 and 300 employees at 71 percent, and companies with 300 or more employees at 66.7 percent.

Over 44 percent of all respondents reported either hiring or currently employing at least one foreign worker. Among them, 61 percent said they were "satisfied," and 11.7 percent were "very satisfied" with their foreign employees.

Companies facing worker shortages were much more inclined to hire foreign workers than those not experiencing such challenges. Among the 386 companies facing worker shortages, 84.2 percent indicated they would hire foreign employees. In contrast, only 49.1 percent of the remaining respondents expressed the same intention.

Most companies willing to hire foreign workers cited a lack of sufficient Korean job applicants, with 60.1 percent mentioning this as a reason. Other major factors, when multiple answers were allowed, included the perception that "foreign workers are more diligent and less likely to quit than Koreans" (27.1 percent), "the company sells products overseas or plans to do so" (19.1 percent), "wages for foreign workers are lower" (18.1 percent), and "the company is already employing foreign workers" (8.1 percent).

Manufacturing was the field that showed the highest interest in hiring foreigners (42.5 percent), followed by service (16.1 percent), sales and international marketing (12 percent), construction (11.7 percent) and IT and data (8.6 percent).

Companies showed a preference for specific nationalities when hiring foreign employees. Vietnamese nationals ranked highest, with 31.3 percent of companies preferring them. They were followed by Kazakhs and other Central Asian nationals (20 percent), Filipinos (18.6 percent), Mongolians (16.1 percent), Americans or Canadians (8.8 percent), and Indians and Japanese nationals (8.6 percent each).

The biggest inconvenience companies cited when hiring foreign workers was communication in Korean, with 56.2 percent pointing to this issue. This was followed by complicated visa and other administrative procedures (40.2 percent), lodging and other mandatory additional costs (28.5 percent), difficulty in assimilating into Korean organizational culture (25.3 percent), and lower proficiency or expertise compared to Koreans (18.1 percent).

Nearly 50 percent of the respondents said Korea needs to improve working visa regulations to attract more foreign workers. They also emphasized the need for stronger Korean language and culture education programs, more rigorous background checks on foreign job applicants, and easier access for companies to find foreign talent.
Drones, smart glasses set to improve efficiency at old warehouses

By Park Jae-hyuk

Drones were deployed inside Hanjin Logistics' 26-year-old warehouse in southwestern Seoul, Wednesday, flying slowly at a speed of 30 centimeters per second, scanning QR codes on each package to check inventory levels as they cruised between the high-rise racks.

The logistics firms workers wearing smart glasses picked goods and scanned their barcodes through eye contact without holding any devices in their hands.

When scanning invoices and texting their customers, the workers did not use their smartphones, thanks to the smart glasses cameras and microphones, which enable them to complete such tasks through eye contact and voice only.

Hanjin Logistics touted these technologies as new methods of improving both efficiency and safety at its warehouses nationwide.

Although we cannot showcase sensational technologies as IT firms do, we believe that this demonstration session will show how our smart technologies can benefit people in the logistics industry, Emily Cho, president and chief marketing officer of Hanjin Logistics, told reporters.

According to the company, drones and smart glasses will be introduced gradually at its logistics centers nationwide by the end of next year.

Hanjin Logistics emphasized that the introduction of the new devices is intended for its employees to work more efficiently and safely, denying speculation that the company may reduce its workforce with the smart technologies.

We plan to adopt drones immediately, but it will take time to distribute smart glasses due to the shortage of the products, said Cho, the younger sister of Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Won-tae and the granddaughter of the late Hanjin Group founder Cho Choong-hoon.

She added that the logistics firms newly built warehouses have been adopting much smarter technologies like robots, as its competitors do.

It is difficult to introduce cutting-edge automation technologies to old facilities, but our fulfilment center in Los Angeles uses robots and various other automation technologies, she said. Our Daejeon Mega Smart Hub is equipped with our most advanced smart technologies.

She also hinted that her company will showcase more upgraded technologies next year, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Hanjin Group.
South Korea's car exports rose 5.5 percent on-year in October to reach a new record, data showed Thursday, driven by the global popularity of eco-friendly models, including hybrid vehicles.

The combined value of vehicle shipments reached $6.2 billion last month, marking the highest amount for any October, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

The number of cars shipped totaled 243,367, up 8.1 percent from a year earlier, the report showed.

Shipments of hybrid cars alone amounted to $1.1 billion, soaring 80.3 percent on-year to surpass the previous record of $1.07 billion set in August.

The number of cars produced in October reached 367,624 units, rising 7.8 percent from the previous year, on the back of the release of new models, such as Kia's electric EV3 SUV and the upgraded K8 sedan.

Domestic automobile sales, meanwhile, rose 3.1 percent to 145,756 units, marking the first on-year increase since November 2023.

The ministry said it plans to maintain close communication with the domestic industry to address global uncertainties while promoting domestic sales through the ongoing Korea Sale Festa, South Korea's equivalent of Black Friday, which will run until the end of the month. (Yonhap)
By Nam Hyun-woo

Samsung SDI pledged at its annual supplier commendation event on Wednesday to pursue shared growth with its partners to become "a global top-tier company" by 2030, the battery maker said Thursday.

Samsung SDI said it held the 2024 Shared Growth Day at DoubleTree by Hilton Seoul Pangyo Hotel in Gyeonggi Province, bringing together its partners to showcase the results of shared growth initiatives and reaffirm its commitment to win-win growth.

Over 200 attendees, including Samsung SDI President Choi Yoon-ho and the CEOs of partner companies, gathered at this year's event to celebrate their collaboration.

During the event, the company shared the best innovation model among partner firms and announced Samsung SDI's shared growth plan for next year.

Ten partner firms won the Best Partner Awards for their contributions to improving quality, developing technological capabilities and stabilizing the supply chain. The event also featured an exhibition of the partner firms' best products and Samsung SDI's flagship products.

"Thanks to innovation and cooperation from our partners, Samsung SDI could complete next-generation technologies including the all-solid-state battery; and expand its foundation for growth by securing customers including GM and Hyundai Motor, despite the challenging business environment," Choi said.

"Through innovations, we will secure top-class technology and competitiveness, which will turn a crisis into a new opportunity and propel us to become a global top-tier company in 2030 together with our partners."

Choi emphasized that upgrading development capabilities, ensuring product quality and securing cost competitiveness are the keys to future growth, as well as urging partner companies to engage in environmental, social and governance, or ESG, management activities.

The Shared Growth Day was first held in 2000 to share innovation cases between Samsung SDI and its partners to pursue sustainable development and mutual growth. Under this initiative, the company has been holding a number of mutual growth programs since 2010, providing support to its partners by funding them and dispatching experts.

This year, Samsung SDI received the top rating in the Shared Growth Index evaluation for the second consecutive year, selected by the Korea Commission for Corporate Partnership.
By Park Jae-hyuk

LG Energy Solution (LGES) Vertech, the Korean battery makers U.S. subsidiary specializing in energy storage system (ESS) integration, has signed a contract with Terra-Gen to supply up to 8 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of ESS to the American renewable energy power producer.

Although LGES declined to disclose the deals monetary value, it is estimated to be around $1.4 billion, given that an ESS container costs around $180 per kilowatt-hour.

LGES said that the deals size is the largest ever for the U.S. subsidiary, which was launched in February 2022, following the Korean battery makers acquisition of NEC Energy Solutions.

According to the battery firm, 8 GWh of electricity is large enough to power 800,000 households for a day without disruption.

Based on the contract, LGES Vertech will supply its ESS to Terra-Gen from 2026 to 2029.

The modularized products, equipped with high-capacity lithium iron phosphate cells, will be made entirely in North America. Additionally, LGES plans to provide Terra-Gen with a cloud system that facilitates analysis of the performance of its ESS and real-time monitoring of the entire data set.

LGES Vertech and Terra-Gen previously cooperated for a 2.2-GWh ESS project in California.

Both companies expect the latest contract to strengthen their strategic partnership.

Our latest cooperation with Terra-Gen will be a milestone to expand our presence overseas beyond the North American market, an LGES official said.

Based on the long-term partnership, we will provide our customers with differentiated value by strengthening our production capabilities.

Terra-Gen Chief Development Officer Gus Luna said that LGES Vertechs advanced lithium-ion batteries will help the renewable energy power producer expand its presence in the North American market through environmentally sustainable methods.

According to energy market tracker SNE Research, the global ESS markets size is expected to triple from 185 GWh in 2023 to 618 GWh in 2035.

The North American ESS market size is also expected to grow from 55 GWh to 181 GWh.

Considering the rapid growth rate, LGES plans to make continuous efforts to take the lead in the global ESS market by utilizing the U.S. subsidiary.
By Kang Seung-woo

SK On, the battery manufacturing unit of SK Innovation, announced on Thursday that the road connecting its Hungarian plant in Ivancsa to the nearby town has been officially renamed "SK Road" (SK ut in Hungarian) to recognize the company's regional impact.

The 1.8-kilometer road, located in Ivancsa, Fejer County, links the entrance of the Ivancsa Industrial Complex to SK Ons facility and connects to Budapest via the M6 motorway.

On Tuesday, SK On Hungary held a naming ceremony attended by local officials, including Ivancsa Mayor Tibor Molnar and SK On Hungary Managing Director Kim Se-jin.

It is a great honor to name the public road leading to our factory SK ut,'" Kim said. We deeply value local talent and our partnership with the community.

Following the ceremony, attendees toured the Ivancsa plant to view its advanced battery production processes. Molnar expressed support for the company, noting its importance in both Ivancsa and the wider Dunaujvaros area.

The Ivancsa plant, SK On's third battery facility in Hungary after two plants in Komarom, has an annual production capacity of 30 gigawatt hours (GWh), increasing SK On's total European output to 47.5 GWh. The plant achieved a production yield exceeding 90 percent within three months, a notably fast stabilization.

To support local growth, SK On has donated 15 million Hungarian forints to Ivancsas public foundations since 2021, funding urban upgrades, school improvements and essential supplies for residents in need.
Key affiliates reshuffle top management to tackle external uncertainties

By Lee Min-hyung

Chung Ki-sun, the heir apparent and vice chairman at HD Hyundai, has been promoted to the firm's executive vice chairman, cementing his succession at the nation's largest shipbuilding and heavy industry group, according to its year-end reshuffle of top management, Thursday.

The promotion came only a year after he was appointed vice chairman, and market watchers believe that the reshuffle is part of HD Hyundai's effort to accelerate the company's management transition to a third-generation successor.

Currently, HD Hyundai is led by Chairman Kwon Oh-gap, but Chung's recent promotion suggests that he will soon assume full control of the company, likely succeeding the current chairman.

"The position of executive vice chairman was also used by Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun before his promotion to the highest rank within the group, so the HD Hyundai heir apparent is expected to follow a similar path," an official at a major conglomerate here said.

Chung Ki-sun is widely expected to focus on finding the firm's next growth engines and driving innovation in eco-friendly and digital technologies following the promotion, the company said. He is the grandson of Hyundai Group's late founder, Chung Ju-yung.

He joined Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2013 and has since been promoted to the second-highest position at HD Hyundai over the course of nearly a decade.

HD Hyundai is a holding firm of HD Hyundai Group that handles multiple businesses, including shipbuilding and energy.

HD Hyundai also promoted a group of new leaders at its key affiliates on the same day.

HD Hyundai Electric CEO Cho Seok was promoted to vice chairman and CEO during the latest top management reshuffle. HD Hyundai Electric specializes in the heavy electric machinery sector. Vice President Kim Young-ki is set to step into the role of president, filling the position previously held by Cho, according to HD Hyundai.

The company recognized Cho's contribution in achieving a major turnaround at HD Hyundai Electric. The firm reported more than 100 billion won ($71.12 million) in losses for two consecutive years from 2018. Under Cho's leadership, however, it was able to swing to a surplus for the next four years.

Kim Jae-eul, formerly vice president of HD Hyundai Samho, has been promoted to president of the company, which specializes in manufacturing commercial vessels.

Song Myung-joon, previously vice president of HD Hyundai, has been appointed as president of HD Hyundai Oilbank, where he will serve under dual leadership alongside Jeong Im-ju, who has also been promoted to senior executive vice president. With Song's background as a finance expert, this appointment is viewed as part of the firm's strategy to ensure stable management amid the ongoing downturn in the petroleum industry.

"HD Hyundai has implemented a CEO-level reshuffle of top management to ensure that we can respond more proactively to the rapidly changing external environment, driven by factors such as the U.S. presidential election, the Russia-Ukraine war, and fluctuations in oil prices and exchange rates," an HD Hyundai official said.
Kim Bom, chairman and founder of Korean e-commerce giant Coupang, has sold 15 million shares in the company to cash in some $344.6 million to use for financial purposes, company officials said Thursday.

Kim converted his Class B stocks in Coupang, which hold 29 voting rights per share, to Class A common stocks and unloaded 15 million shares on Monday (U.S. time), according to the officials. Coupang is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

The sell-off has been made at $22.97 per share.

The proceeds from the sell-off will be used for financial purposes, including tax payments, the company explained in its filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Separately, Kim also sold 2 million Class A shares to donate to an unspecified charity.

This marks the first time Kim has sold Coupang shares since the company was listed on Wall Street in 2021.

Following the sell-off, Kim's ownership of Coupang's Class B stocks decreased from 174.8 million shares to 157.8 million shares, which account for 73.7 percent of voting rights.

Coupang said Kim will still continue to hold the status as the company's biggest shareholder as he has no further plans to sell additional stocks, at least until next year. (Yonhap)
By Park Jae-hyuk

Hyundai Steel has been pushing to shut down one of its factories here, as the sluggish construction market and the oversupply of low-priced steel products from China have deteriorated the profitability of the Korean steelmaking sector.

On Wednesday, the steelmaking unit of Hyundai Motor Group informed its employees of its intention to halt the operation of its No. 2 factory in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province.

The company said that the final decision will be made after its managements meeting with union leaders and other employees between Thursday and Friday.

Hyundai Steels union is reportedly opposing the factorys closure, but it remains uncertain whether the steelmaker will resume the factorys operation after the shutdown.

Earlier this year, Hyundai Steel carried out a half-year overhaul of its Incheon plants facilities in an apparent attempt to reduce output amid the slow demand.

Hyundai Steels steel mill in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, is also under repair.

In July, the steelmaker filed anti-dumping complaints with the government against the import of low-priced thick steel plates from China.

However, these measures were not effective enough to prevent the companys third-quarter operating profit from plunging 77.4 percent year-on-year to 51.5 billion won ($36.6 million). Its net loss also reached 16.2 billion won.

Securities analysts expect Hyundai Steel and other Korean steelmakers to face a tougher business environment next year under the presidency of Donald Trump, who is poised to impose hefty tariffs on imports to the U.S.

The incoming Trump administration will likely build higher steel import barriers, Hyundai Motor Securities said in a report published Tuesday.

Mexico is regarded as the main target at this moment, but it is too early for Korea to relax.
Samsung Electronics and its largest labor union reached a preliminary agreement on a 5.1 percent pay increase Thursday, officials said, paving the way for ending stalled wage negotiations that have involved a weekslong strike.

The tech giant and the National Samsung Electronics Union  which represents 31,000 workers, or about 24 percent of the company's workforce  have held multiple rounds of talks since January over the wage increase rate, vacation systems and bonuses without avail.

The union demanded a 5.6 percent basic pay raise for all members, a guaranteed day off on the union's founding day and compensation for economic losses due to the strike, while the company offered a 5.1 percent increase in wages.

Under the agreement reached Thursday, the company offered to secure paid hours for union members to take part in union meetings and provide online cash that can be used to purchase Samsung products, according to the officials, in addition to the 5.1 percent pay raise.

The deal also includes details on mutual efforts to build a cooperative relationship and contributions for activities meant to enhance corporate social responsibility.

Samsung Electronics said it will focus on enhancing its business competitiveness with the agreement, while the labor union vowed to reap meaningful results in next year's wage negotiations.

The preliminary agreement will be put up for a vote by union members through next Thursday. (Yonhap)
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump tapped former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to serve as the director of national intelligence (DNI) on Wednesday, saying the military veteran will bring "fearless" spirit to America's intelligence community.

Trump issued a statement on the designation of Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve who has served in uniform for more than two decades, with three deployments to conflict zones in the Middle East and Africa.

"I am pleased to announce that former Congresswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Tulsi Gabbard, will serve as Director of National Intelligence. For over two decades, Tulsi has fought for our Country and the Freedoms of all Americans," Trump wrote in the statement.

He added, "I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength."

Gabbard served as a House member representing a Hawaii district from 2013-21. Foregoing a run for reelection to Congress in 2020, she ran for president as a Democrat.

In 2022, Tulsi announced she was leaving the Democratic Party, becoming an independent. In October this year, she joined the Republican Party.

On Tuesday, Trump announced former DNI John Ratcliffe as his pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. (Yonhap)
Another Korean American won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a news report said Wednesday, an election that will add to a steadily growing list of Korean American lawmakers in Congress.

State Sen. Dave Min, a Democrat, has defeated his Republican rival, Scott Baugh, by a slim margin in the race in California's 47th Congressional District, according to NBC News. It marks his first election to the lower chamber of Congress.

"I know many of us are anxious about the future of our country, but we cannot give up on America," Min wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "In Congress, I will fight to protect our democracy, safeguard our freedoms, and expand economic opportunity."

With his election, he joined a small yet growing group of lawmakers of Korean descent, including Rep. Andy Kim who has become the first Korean American elected to the Senate.

Before being elected to the California State Senate in 2020, Min was an assistant law professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business and Harvard Law School. (Yonhap)
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump officially nominated Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as his secretary of state on Wednesday, calling him a "strong advocate for our nation" and a "true friend to our allies."

Trump issued a statement on the nomination of Rubio, known for his hawkish stance on China and Iran, as America's next top diplomat is to face a full plate of foreign policy challenges, including an intensifying rivalry with China, Russia's war in Ukraine and North Korea's evolving security threats to name a few.

"It is my Great Honor to announce that Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is hereby nominated to be The United States Secretary of State," Trump wrote in the statement.

"Marco is a Highly Respected Leader, and a very powerful Voice for Freedom. He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries. I look forward to working with Marco to Make America, and the World, Safe and Great Again!," he added.

Rubio is expected to have a hard-line stance on North Korea's deepening security challenge. His interview with CBS News in 2017 gave a glimpse into his thoughts about Pyongyang's military threats, particularly its intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities.

"We must do almost whatever it takes, just about anything, to prevent Kim Jong-un from acquiring the nuclear capability he can deliver against the mainland of the United States of America," Rubio said in the interview, referring to the North Korean leader.

Rubio is also said to have a grasp of the security situation on the Korean Peninsula as he has visited the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas before.

Born in 1971 as the son of two Cuban immigrants, he graduated from the University of Florida and the University of Miami Law School. Rubio served as a city commissioner in West Miami and speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. In 2010, he won a seat in the Senate.

With the nomination of Rubio, Trump has all but completed the formation of his foreign policy and security team.

On Tuesday, Trump tapped Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, a Green Beret veteran, as his national security adviser. He is known as a China hawk, having called for a full U.S. boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and maintaining a hard-line stance on human rights issues in China.

On the same day, the president-elect named Fox News Channel host Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary. Hegseth is an Army veteran with tours in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan. He also nominated former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe as his pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

For the DNI post, Trump named former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesday. (Yonhap)
Russia is open to negotiations on an end to the Ukraine war if initiated by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, but any talks need to be based on the realities of Russian advances, Moscow's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva told reporters on Thursday.

Trump has repeatedly criticised the scale of Western aid to Kyiv and has promised to end the conflict swiftly, without explaining how. His victory in the Nov. 5 presidential election has spurred concerns in Kyiv and other European capitals about the degree of future U.S. commitment to helping Ukraine.

"Trump promised to settle the Ukrainian crisis overnight. OK, let's get realistic - of course we understand that this will never happen," said Gennady Gatilov, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva. "But if he starts or suggests something to start the political process, it's welcome."

He added that any such negotiations needed to be based on what he called the "realities on the ground," describing Ukraine as being on the back foot in the more-than-two-year conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly said peace cannot be established until all Russian forces are expelled and all territory captured by Moscow, including Crimea, is returned. The "victory plan" he outlined last month maintained that provision, as well as an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, long denounced by Russia.

Zelenskiy told European leaders in Budapest last week that concessions to Russia would be "unacceptable for Ukraine and suicidal for all Europe."

Gatilov indicated Trump's election represented a new possibility for dialogue with the United States, but a broader reset of relations was unlikely.

"Regardless of domestic political shifts, (Washington) consistently pursues a sense of containing Moscow ... the change of administration does little to alter it," he said.

"The only shift (that) might be possible is dialogue between our countries, something that has been lacking during the last several years," he added. (Reuters)
Two environmental protesters who sprayed paint on Britain's Stonehenge in June have been charged with offences related to the alleged damage caused to the prehistoric megalithic monument, prosecutors said on Thursday.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had authorised the police to charge the protesters, 73-year-old Naidu Rajan and Niamh Lynch, 22, and that they would appear in court on Dec. 13.

In a separate statement, the police said the pair, from the Just Stop Oil environmental group, were charged with destroying or damaging a protected monument with the orange powder paint they had sprayed on it, and causing a public nuisance.

Stonehenge, one of Britain's most visited tourist spots located in southern England, holds spiritual significance and attracts thousands of revellers, spiritualists and tourists during the summer solstice -- the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.

Members of the public were able to walk around within the stone circle until 1977 when it was fenced off due to concerns over damage from a sharp rise in the number of visitors.

Just Stop Oil has gained prominence in Britain for disruptive environmental protests, with its activists shutting down major roads, disrupting cultural and sporting events and even throwing soup at a Van Gogh painting. (Reuters)
Throughout his winning campaign, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump pitched himself as a master dealmaker, vowing to secure the best economic terms for America and insisting that doing so would restore its global supremacy.

His "America-first" mantra won over many voters  he appears to have won the popular vote as well as the Electoral College  even when many priorities he has put under the slogan diverge ideologically.

While he threatened Beijing with heavier tariffs, for example, Trump urged Taiwan to fund its own defense capability and accused the self-governing island of "stealing" American jobs in the semiconductor industry.

During his first term, he launched a trade war with China but struck a deal with the country after Beijing agreed to buy more American products to address the trade deficit. The agreement ultimately failed to fix the problem.

Ahead of Trump's second term, some in Beijing view his transactional approach to foreign affairs as offering a potential path to improved bilateral ties, especially given his network of billionaire advisers, many with significant business interests in China.

But other China experts in the U.S. have voiced less optimism based on whom Trump has announced will join his administration and those reportedly in the running.

These analysts contend that the president-elect's hard-line appointees and nominees may curb his deal-making impulses on issues like trade, technology and Taiwan. That would create tensions at the White House as Trump touts a tougher stance on China.

On Tuesday, Trump's team announced that U.S. congressman Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican and China hawk, would be named his national security adviser.

Waltz thanked Trump for the opportunity to serve in the coming cabinet.

"America will keep its allies close, we will not be afraid to confront our adversaries and we will invest in the technologies that keep our country strong," the China hawk posted in social media.

Waltz, a member of the U.S. House China task force, has warned that the U.S. remained ill-prepared for potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific.

In a Nov. 2 oped for The Economist, he wrote that the next American president should focus on "countering the greater threat from the Chinese Communist Party."

Waltz also claimed that Beijing was exploiting a "confusing American policy" relating to Taiwan, citing President Joe Biden's promises on multiple occasions to defend the self-governing island, followed by his staff walking back such comments.

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary.

Most countries, including the U.S., do not recognize Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.

As for other members of Trump's foreign-policy team, multiple American media outlets have reported that U.S. senator Marco Rubio, another Florida Republican, could be nominated as secretary of state.

Sanctioned twice by Beijing in 2020, Rubio has pushed for sanctions on mainland officials over alleged human-rights abuses against Uygur Muslims and other religious and ethnic minorities in the country.

Rubio has also criticized Beijing for its coronavirus pandemic response and called for a wholesale removal of U.S. supply chains from China.

Rush Doshi of the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, said Trump's selections were the "strongest indicator so far that the White House will push a tough China policy."

The "key question is whether this team can push back on Trump's transactionalism with China, which previously undercut his staff's competitive efforts," Doshi added in a social-media post.

In his initial picks, "Trump has put people in positions of authority who have a track record of being very wary of China," according to Lily McElwee of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, another Washington-based think tank.

"I don't think we're going to see any quick deals being made," McElwee said, noting that while Trump "will be the boss" and "in control," he would inevitably be "influenced by his advisers."

Isaac Stone Fish of Strategy Risks, a New York-based global risk firm focused on China, believed "there certainly will be a tension in the Trump administration" between those who "want to make a deal and those who take a more principled stance on democracy promotion, human rights and countering" China's military.

To think of Trump as only transactional would be "naive," Stone Fish said. "One needs to understand his very real ability to often be swayed by the last person who talks to him and his very strong views on reducing U.S. troop exposure in the region."

"That is certainly a positive for Beijing and that is something that I think people in the cabinet are going to push back very strongly against," he added.

Late Tuesday, Trump announced that he had selected Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host and U.S. Army veteran, as his new defense secretary. Hegseth recently claimed that Beijing is "building an army to defeat America."

The full composition of Trump's cabinet remained unclear, with key positions at the Commerce and Treasury departments still unfilled, noted McElwee.

Reports have circulated about Robert Lighthizer returning as U.S. trade representative, but Trump's team has yet to confirm this.

"It will be important to watch those picks as well," McElwee added, "because as in any administration, there will inevitably be an interplay between security agencies and economic agencies."

Scott Bessent, an economic adviser to Trump and former Yale University professor, is considered a front-runner to replace Janet Yellen at Treasury, Reuters has reported. Bessent has praised Trump's use of tariffs as a strategic bargaining tool.

Meanwhile, Linda McMahon, who led the Small Business Administration during the first Trump presidency, has emerged as a potential commerce secretary, having earlier been regarded as a top contender to run Treasury.

In the Biden administration, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo banned the export of advanced chip technology to China.

What makes Trump challenging is his contradictory views, according to Kelly Grieco of the Stimson Centre, a non-partisan Washington-based think tank.

Rival factions emerged in his first administration between traditional neoconservative Republicans "primacists" and those with more "restraint-oriented instincts," Grieco explained, saying Rubio and Waltz fall in the first camp of putting U.S. leadership first.

"With these recent appointments," she said, "it seems that the neoconservative primacists clearly have the upper hand."

Read the full story at SCMP.
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Saudi minister of media: China is a crucial partner in achieving Vision 2030

People's Daily Online) 16:52, November 14, 2024

Ahead of his visit to China, Saudi Minister of Media Salman bin Yousef Al-Dosari recently gave an exclusive interview to People's Daily Online. He highlighted the close economic and cultural ties between China and Saudi Arabia, as well as the flourishing pragmatic cooperation between the two nations. He expressed his hope that both sides would further enhance cooperation across various sectors, including media, to foster mutual development and revitalization.

Photo shows Salman bin Yousef Al-Dosari, minister of media of Saudi Arabia. (Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Media, Saudi Arabia)

Al-Dosari mentioned that his upcoming visit to China will mark his first official visit to the country as the Saudi minister of media. Having visited China three times previously, he has been impressed by the nation's rich history, diverse economy, and rapid modernization.

"Currently, the Chinese people are united in their pursuit of progress and revitalization. The people of Saudi Arabia also share this vision," Al-Dosari noted.

Al-Dosari noted that Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 sets forth an ambitious goal for the country's future development. It aims to achieve economic diversification and sustainable development, transforming the nation into a dynamic global player. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) serves as a vital link connecting Asia, Europe, Africa, and other regions, fostering economic and social progress.

The BRI aligns well with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030. "China plays a pivotal role as a strategic partner for Saudi Arabia in realizing its Vision 2030. The development strategies of both nations complement each other, presenting vast opportunities for future cooperation," Al-Dosari told People's Daily Online.

Al-Dosari said that realizing Vision 2030 necessitates concerted efforts from all sectors in Saudi Arabia. The ministry of media is committed to amplifying the Saudi voice across various domains, promoting the innovative development of the media industry in Saudi Arabia.

Media plays a vital role in promoting mutual understanding, facilitating cultural exchange, and fostering economic harmony. In the past two years, leading media institutions in Saudi Arabia and China have engaged in strategic cooperation in content creation and talent development. Several joint industrial investment projects have been implemented, driving the digital transformation of Saudi Arabia's media landscape and establishing a strong foundation for the bilateral convergence and development of technology and information.

Al-Dosari said his visit to China underscores the friendly cooperation between Saudi Arabia and China. He expressed his aspirations to further deepen cooperation in the media sector and enhance Saudi Arabia-China relations. During the visit, he will engage in substantive discussions with relevant Chinese government departments and institutions, sign a series of cooperation agreements, and inaugurate a national strategic project of Saudi Arabia in China.

"China is a key strategic partner for Saudi Arabia. We are eager to harness China's expertise in media and technology development, exploring cooperation opportunities and fostering dialogue between the two civilizations," said Al-Dosari.

The year 2024 is set to mark a significant transformation in Saudi Arabia's media landscape, with the country aiming to establish a stronger media partnership with China.

"The partnership between Saudi Arabia and China is strong and all-encompassing, underpinned by shared values," remarked Al-Dosari. The relationship, founded on mutual respect and mutual benefit, is steadily growing more solid. Through continued friendly cooperation in the media sector between Saudi Arabia and China, it is anticipated that the relationship across all levels between the two countries will deepen and become more substantial.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
A 30-year old man was brought before Portlaoise District Court this morning charged with murder.

Henry McGowan with an address at 114 Clinton Street, Brookyn, New York, USA was charged with the offence which allegedly took place at Ballyfin Lodge, Ballyfin, Laois on 12 November.

Detective Garda Ger Galwey gave evidence of the arrest and said when cautioned Mr McGowan made no reply to the charge.

Judge Andrew Cody remained the accused in custody to Cloverhill Prison and adjourned the case, to be conducted by video link, to 18 November .

Defending solicitor Barry Fitzgerald said he accepted the court had no jurisdiction to grant bail.

He said that it has been accepted that his client has significant mental health issues and asked Judge Cody to request the prison service to provide immediate medical assistance to Mr McGowan, to which he agreed.
PORTLAOISE Musical Society celebrates its 25th anniversary this year with their most spectacular show yet Guys & Dolls.

The society enjoyed a sell-out performances, standing ovations and rave reviews for their Made in Dagenham last November and are excited to bring one of the most beloved Broadway shows to the stage for its dazzling Portlaoise revival in the Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise from Saturday 16 to Saturday 23 November.

Guys & Dolls takes us from the heart of Times Square to the cafes of Havana, Cuba, and into the sewers of New York City, but eventually everyone ends up right where they belong.

The original production of Guys and Dolls got what might be the most unanimously ecstatic reviews in Broadway history.

Set in Damon Runyon's mythical New York City, Guys & Dolls is an oddball romantic comedy that centres around Gambler Nathan Detroit (played by Andrew Docherty), his girlfriend, nightclub performer Miss Adelaide (played by Aishling Rohan), his fellow gambler Sky Masterson (played by Cormac Malone) and straight-laced missionary Sarah Brown (played by Ciara Finlay).

This years show is directed by Art McGauran, choreographed by Stephanie Browne and musical direction by Mary Rose McNally, the same team that produced 'Made in Dagenham'.

The latest show is set to be one of Portlaoise Musical Societys most spectacular yet with a set built specially for the Dunamaise Art Centre stage by Anthony Kirby and backdrop visual design and projections by David Hynes and Vecteezy.com and Broadway-like costumes accompanied by breath-taking singing and sensational dancing.

Chairman of Portlaoise Musical Society JJ Tynan said: Over the past quarter century, Portlaoise Musical Society has grown from a small group with a big dream into a vibrant part of Laois' arts and cultural landscape. This year we celebrate more than just our past achievements, we look to the future with excitement and ambition, committed to nurturing musical theatre in Laois and continuing to provide a platform where local talent can shine.

In the years to come, we hope to bring even more people into the joy of performance, inspire the next generation of performers and keep the spirit of live theatre thriving in our community.

The societys group are making the most of their anniversary celebrations this year having recently held their glitzy Silver Anniversary Ball in the Midlands Park Hotel in Portlaoise as well a fantastic commemoration of their first ever production Oklahoma! at Fossey Mountain Ranch.

In 1999 Laois Musical Society which later became Portlaoise Musical Society was established after a small group of people including Timmy and Josie Keane, Catherine Scully and Joe OBrien met up to devise a plan for the countys first musical society.

The group first took to the stage with the show Oklahoma under the helm of its inaugural committee including Chairperson Timmy Keane, Vice Chairperson Joan McEvoy, Secretary Joe OBrien, Assistant Secretary Carmel McSweeney, Treasurer Ken McPherson, PRO Sean ODomhnaill and members Liam Ahern, Josephine Keane, Yvonne Murphy and Catherine Scully. The society immediately captivated the local community, its members and audiences and went on to present 22 more fabulous productions.

In the 25 years, the society has gone from strength to strength with high acclamations and winning a plethora of A.I.M.S. (Association of Irish Musical Societies) All-Ireland Musical Awards. The stand out moments were in 2019 when the society won Best Overall Show with Titanic - The Musical and the following year winning Best Overall Show(Runner-up) with Ragtime-The Musical.

Tickets are now on sale for this years show and are priced at 25/23 each and available by logging onto dunamaise.ie or by phoning 057 8663355.

Further information about the society at portlaoisemusicalsociety.ie .
By Cillian Sherlock and Grainne Ni Aodha, PA

Sinn Fein would introduce a new dedicated immigration management agency within months, Mary Lou McDonald has said.

Ms McDonald said the agency would ensure cohesion around planning, sharing of information, and speedy decision-making.

Sinn Fein wants to operate the agency under a newly formed Department of Justice and Home Affairs.

It would bring personnel from six State agencies to work in sync under one department: the Garda National Immigration Bureau; the Border Management Unit; the Immigration Service Delivery Unit; the International Protection Unit; International Protection Accommodation Services (Ipas); and relevant units in the Workplace Relations Commission.

Sinn Fein candidate Matt Carthy. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA.

Launching her partys immigration policy on Thursday, she told reporters: It will have responsibility for processing applications, enforcement of rules, registration and accommodation.

We would increase staff and properly resource the new agency to ensure it is equipped to fulfil its tasks.

The Department of Integration would continue to have responsibility for supporting international protection applicants who receive the asylum status so that they can fully integrate into society, and would work closely with communities to ensure that services and resources are provided.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment will continue to process employment permits as normal for the many workers who are playing a really valuable role in our economy, especially in our health service, and, of course, in our tech sector.

Earlier this year, Ms McDonald announced that Sinn Fein had conducted an internal review after performing well below its own expectations in the local and European elections.

She revealed that senior figures in Sinn Fein were disappointed with her engagement with the partys base.

Ms McDonald was told that she needed to offer more clarity on its policies, including on immigration.

Sinn Fein said it would treble resourcing of the immigration system to 64 million euro in a bid to halve processing times, with the establishment of the new agency costing an additional five million euro.

Ms McDonald said her party was putting forward a common-sense approach to immigration, rather than what she called the chaotic approach of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

Taoiseach Simon Harris. Photo: Gareth Chaney/PA.

The current system doesnt work for anybody. Weve chaotic management with different bodies and Government departments acting independently of one another, she said.

Last week, Ms McDonald echoed her partys integrations spokeswoman when she told reporters that it was common sense to deport immigrants who commit serious crimes.

She said this was in line with Irish law, which permits the removal of an individual to their country of origin if they have committed a serious or violent crime.

If someone has been living in Ireland for more than 10 years or is a child, the order can only be made in the interests of public security.

Tents were cleared from the canals in early morning operations. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA.

On Thursday, she reiterated a commitment that Sinn Fein would not locate International Protection Accommodation Services (Ipas) centres in working-class communities.

Her party colleague, Matt Carthy, said it is a matter of principle that some areas are not appropriate for the location of a centre for asylum seekers, adding that communities should be allowed to have a say.

In addition, he said there needs to be assurance that asylum seekers whose applications are not granted have actually left the country.

Their comments come the morning after Taoiseach Simon Harris said Ireland needs a firmer immigration system.

Immigration emerged as one of the major issues for political parties in the last two years of the Government, with senior ministers saying there had been a massive increase in the number of asylum seekers.

The State has failed to accommodate thousands of international protection applicants, with 2,865 men currently awaiting an official offer of accommodation.

This has manifested with the erection of makeshift migrant camps along streets and canals in Dublin, something Ms McDonald called a heartbreaking disgrace.

The Government mobilised a multi-agency response to clear the encampments in the interests of public health, and placed barriers to make it more difficult for asylum seekers to place their tents.

There has been a spate of arson attacks against centres earmarked for use by asylum seekers as well as protests in which gardai were injured, and garda vehicles were damaged. Some of the makeshift migrant encampments have also been damaged and subjected to suspected arson.

In a pre-election interview with Virgin Media News, Mr Harris said: We have went from about 3,500 people a year seeking asylum in Ireland to about 25,000, plus a war in Ukraine.

The Fine Gael leader added: Since I have become Taoiseach, I have been very clear that the system needs to be firmer. Immigration is a good thing, we benefit from it, but there also have to be rules.

Fine Gael wants to implement a means-tested, income-linked contribution towards State accommodation for international protection applicants with jobs.

Mr Harris has also said there will be a very significant increase in deportations to countries of origin.

Labour has criticised the Taoiseachs rhetoric as populist-pandering to anti-immigrant feeling.

Jim OCallaghan, a candidate for Fianna Fail in Dublin Bay South, questioned Fine Gaels bona fides on immigration, noting the party has held the justice portfolio for 13 years: When you look at my constituency, at tents, and you look at barriers, its not a system thats working very effectively.
PNN

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], November 14: Dhruv Consultancy Services Ltd. (BSE - 541302: NSE - DHRUV), one of the leading infrastructure consultancy companies in India, reported an unaudited financial result for the Q2 & H1 FY25.

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Key Financial Highlights (Standalone):

Q2 FY25

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* Total Revenue of Rs 32.92 Cr, YoY growth 42.88%

* EBITDA of Rs 3.95 Cr

* EBITDA Margin of 12.00%

* Net Profit of Rs 1.89 Cr

* Net Profit Margin of 5.73%

* Diluted EPS of Rs 1.17

H1 FY25

* Total Revenue of Rs 52.93 Cr, YoY growth 53.19%

* EBITDA of Rs 6.77 Cr

* EBITDA Margin of 12.79%

* Net Profit of Rs 2.76 Cr

* Net Profit Margin of 5.22%

* Diluted EPS of Rs 1.72

Speaking on the financial performance, Mrs. Tanvi Dandawate Auti, Managing Director of Dhruv Consultancy Services Limited Said, "We are experiencing strong revenue momentum, fuelled by a robust order book. For H1 FY25, our revenue reflected an impressive 53% year-on-year growth. Although initial mobilisation expenses for new projects have influenced profitability, we anticipate these impacts to stabilize over FY25 as we drive operational efficiencies that will enhance our bottom line. We are pleased to announce an interim dividend of Rs 0.10 per equity share for FY24-25. Additionally, we have granted 4,66,600 Employee Stock Options at an exercise price of Rs 72 per share, reflecting our dedication to fostering a culture of ownership and empowering our team to share in our success.

We successfully completed a preferential allotment of 30,77,800 equity shares at Rs 108 per share, raising Rs 33.24 Cr. Our recent contract wins underscore our expertise in critical infrastructure projects. These include a Rs 5.7 Cr contract from the Gujarat State Road Development Corporation Limited for consultancy services. In a milestone achievement, we secured our first international contract in Mozambique, valued at $500,000. This marks our entry into the global arena and is a key step in our strategy to expand our footprint, starting with opportunities in Africa. As of September 2024, our order book stands at Rs 666.90 Cr, with Rs 301.30 Cr worth of unexecuted order book.

We are excited about the road ahead and are committed to creating long-term value for our stakeholders through operational excellence and strategic growth initiatives."

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PRNewswire

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], November 14: On November 11, 2024, The Art of Living Social Projects signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bangalore University, the Environmental Management and Policy Research Institute (EMPRI), and the Department of Forest Ecology and Environment, Government of Karnataka. This marks a powerful new chapter in advancing environmental sustainability and climate action through rigorous research, community-driven initiatives, and participatory governance. Rooted in Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's vision, The Art of Living Social Projects' methodology is holistic, nature-centred and emphasises hands-on community involvement to create tangible and lasting change.

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The organisation brings extensive expertise in programme management and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) engagement to the partnership, which aims to address some of Karnataka's most pressing environmental challenges. At the top of the agenda is an ambitious plan to clean and restore the heavily polluted Vrishabhavathi River, which flows through Bangalore University's campus.

Reviving the Vrishabhavathi River Through Nature-Based Solutions (NBS)

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Traditional approaches to river restoration often fall short when faced with severe pollution, requiring more innovative strategies. This is precisely where the Art of Living Social Projects' Nature-Based Solutions come into play. Leveraging natural elements like microorganisms, plants, and algae; NBS techniques use bioremediation and phytoremediation to detoxify the water. Microbial communities work to break down pollutants, while specially chosen plants absorb harmful substances.

In addition to these natural detoxifiers, aeration plays a crucial role by oxygenating the water, which helps revitalise aquatic habitats and promotes the overall health of the ecosystem. These initiatives demonstrate the organisation's dedication to lasting environmental interventions and will be utilised in the restoration of the Vrishabhavathi River.

Tackling Broader Environmental Challenges in Karnataka

The MoU extends far beyond river restoration to addressing other urgent environmental issues such as deforestation, air and water pollution, waste management, and ecosystem conservation. The alliance plans to drive change through joint research projects, workshops, and seminars, offering hands-on training and creating educational opportunities that empower the next generation of environmental leaders.

Bridging Academic Research and Practical Implementation

The MoU draws on the unique strengths of each partner. Bangalore University brings academic depth, while EMPRI contributes expertise in policy research. The Art of Living Social Projects' extensive experience with large-scale projects and community engagement rounds out this powerful team. The synergy facilitates the implementation of evidence-based plans that are not only effective but also engage the community in enduring practices.

Empowering Communities for Lasting Change

The MoU also reflects a commitment to participatory governance, a principle close to The Art of Living's ethos. Shared Sri Prasana Prabhu, Chairman of The Art of Living Social Projects, "We believe that sustainability must be rooted in the participatory governance framework. This MoU allows us to deepen our engagement and leverage our resources to empower academia and civil society organisations towards sustainable practices."

A Model for Environmental Protection

A new standard in environmental governance and action will be set by this collaboration. By bridging academic research with practical, community-driven game plans, it presents a model that could inspire similar initiatives in other regions. As this collaborative effort unfolds, The Art of Living Social Projects, Bangalore University, EMPRI, and the Department of Forest, Ecology, and Environment are poised to make significant strides in tackling Karnataka's environmental challenges, from cleaner rivers to thriving ecosystems.

Through this landmark MoU, The Art of Living Social Projects, under the inspiration of Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, reaffirms its commitment to nature-driven solutions, working towards a future of cleaner water, healthier ecosystems, and stronger communities.

About The Art of Living Social Projects

Inspired by the world-renowned humanitarian and spiritual leader Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar; The Art of Living is a global non-profit organisation dedicated to peace, well-being, and humanitarian service. Committed to holistic development, The Art of Living champions various initiatives, including water conservation, sustainable agriculture, afforestation, free education, skill development, women empowerment, integrated village development, renewable energy and waste management. Through these multifaceted efforts, The Art of Living strives to create positive social and environmental impact, fostering a more sustainable and harmonious future for all.

Follow: https://www.instagram.com/artofliving.sp/Post: https://x.com/artofliving_spMessage: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/artofliving-sp

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2556631/MoU_Environmental_Sustainability_AOL.jpgLogo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1979631/AOLSP_Logo.jpg

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Bhubaneswar, Nov 14 (PTI) The BJD on Thursday called for the immediate arrest of senior BJP leader and MLA Jaynarayan Mishra after the Supreme Court rejected his anticipatory bail plea.

BJD spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Sulata Deo made the demand, emphasising that Mishra should be held accountable for the assault charges against him, particularly after the apex court remarked that "those in leadership positions have to set an example for public behaviour."

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"He (Mishra) has been accused of assaulting a police woman. We even have the video of it. He had moved the Supreme Court for anticipatory bail, but the court has rejected it. He should be arrested immediately," said BJD Rajya Sabha MP Deo.

Reacting to it, Mishra said he was not aware of the development in the top court. He claimed that the previous BJD government had made a false case against him.

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"They (BJD) were in government and made a case against me under Section 307 of IPC. This is totally politically motivated...," he told reporters.

The allegations against Mishra date back to February 15, 2022 when a BJP-led protest was held outside the Sambalpur Collectorate.

During the protest, which involved a sit-in demonstration by BJP supporters, Mishra allegedly assaulted the woman police officer after she approached him to control the advancing crowd.

The leader has denied any wrongdoing, claiming that the officer was the one who acted aggressively against him.

Following the denial of his bail application by Orissa High Court on November 16, 2023, Mishra sought relief from the top court, saying his custodial interrogation was unwarranted since the alleged incident occurred in broad daylight and was recorded on video.

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New Delhi [India], November 14 (ANI): The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday approached the Delhi High Court, challenging the trial court's decision to release Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan on bail in the Delhi Waqf Board money laundering case.

This case involves alleged money laundering related to the purchase of a property worth Rs 36 crore connected to "irregularities" in the Delhi Waqf Board.

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The matter was mentioned before the HC bench headed by Justice Vibhu Bakhru also comprising Justice Swarna Kanta Sharma, for urgent hearing. The court agreed to list the case for Monday but declined to hear it immediately.

Advocate Zoheb Hossain represented the Enforcement Directorate and mentioned the matter.

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Earlier in the day, directing that Khan be released on a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh, Special Judge Jitendra Singh of Rouse Avenue Court said that there was "sufficient evidence" to proceed against him but "no prosecution sanction had been obtained."

The court also declined to take cognizance of the chargesheet filed against him and ordered his release on a bond of Rs 1 lakh, with a like amount for surety.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had filed a supplementary chargesheet on October 29, naming Amanatullah Khan and Mariam Siddiqui. Khan was arrested on September 2, while Siddiqui was charged without arrest.

The court acknowledged the presence of sufficient evidence against Khan but ruled that, without the required sanction for prosecution, it could not proceed with the case. In contrast, the court found no evidence against Mariam Siddiqui and discharged her from the case.

On Wednesday, the Rouse Avenue Court reserved its order on whether to take cognizance of the ED's supplementary chargesheet in the Delhi Waqf Board money laundering case. The chargesheet names Amanatullah Khan and Mariam Siddiqui. The Judge Jitendra Singh set November 14 to announce his decision regarding cognizance.

During the hearing, the ED informed the court that proceeds of crime were used to purchase a Rs 36 crore property in Okhla, allegedly under Khan's direction, with Rs 27 crore paid in cash. The ED linked the transaction to Khan through a diary and WhatsApp messages that mention his involvement, including a message saying, "Netaji ko paisa pahuncha diya," which matched the timing of the financial transaction.

The ED also claimed that Khan, who served as Chairman of the Delhi Waqf Board from 2016 to 2023, tampered with his mobile phone during a search on October 10, 2023, deleting critical data from the device.

Amanatullah Khan was arrested in connection with alleged irregularities in appointments made during his tenure at the Delhi Waqf Board. The ED's 110-page supplementary chargesheet also named Mariam Siddiqui as an accused, although she was not arrested. (ANI)

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Ahmednagar, November 13: The bags and helicopter of Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge, Shiv Sena (UBT) Chief Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole were checked by the Election Commission on Thursday. The bags of the Congress chief were checked by the poll body officials as his helicopter landed in Nashik.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission officials check the bags of Shiv Sena (UBT) Chief Uddhav Thackeray in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar. Maharashtra Congress President Patole's helicopter and bags were checked by an election official at Tiroda helipad while Patole was going to campaign for an NCP-SCP candidate in the Goregaon Assembly constituency. Ajit Pawars Bag Checked: EC Officials Check Maharashtra Deputy CMs Helicopter, Bags in Baramati Amid 'Bag Checking' Controversy (Watch Video).

EC Checks Bags of Mallikarjun Kharge in Nashik

#WATCH | #MaharashtraElection2024 | Bags of Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge were checked by the Election Commission as his helicopter landed in Nashik pic.twitter.com/NlsgmanIyO  ANI (@ANI) November 14, 2024

Officials Check Bags of Uddhav Thackeray

#WATCH | Ahmednagar, Maharashtra: Election Commission officials check bags of Shiv Sena (UBT) Chief Uddhav Thackeray. Source: Shiv Sena (UBT) pic.twitter.com/5Ydx6G64q2  ANI (@ANI) November 14, 2024

Earlier on Wednesday, the bags and helicopter of Mahayuti leaders, including Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde were also checked as part of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

This development comes after Uddhav Thackeray expressed anger over the checking of his bags and asked whether the ECI officials checked the bags of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Devendra Fadnavis and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Ajit Pawar. Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024: Shiv Sena (UBT) Chief Uddhav Thackeray Claims Officials Checked His Bag Ahead of Rally in Yavatmal (Watch Video).

However, sources in the Election Commission clarified that enforcement agencies are strictly following SOPs to maintain a level playing field. Earlier, Thane Police seized around Rs 2.5 crore in cash from a rowhouse in Sector 16 of Nerul in Navi Mumbai on Monday, amid the model code of conduct in place for the November 20 Maharashtra assembly elections.

The cash was seized in a joint operation by the Election Commission and Thane Police. The Maharashtra assembly elections are scheduled for November 20, with votes for all 288 constituencies to be counted on November 23.

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New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a plea seeking initiation of contempt proceedings for alleged violation of its orders asking the state authorities to desist from using fireballs to drive elephants that come near human habitation or croplands.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanthan issued notice to West Bengal's Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Head of Forest Force) seeking his response on the plea and posted the matter for hearing after four weeks.

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The petitioner, Prerna Singh Bindra, has referred to the orders passed by the apex court on August 1, 2018 and December 4, 2018 while hearing a plea which highlighted the cruel methods used in some states to manage human-wildlife conflict and in particular human-elephant conflict.

The contempt plea, filed through advocate Shibani Ghosh, said the top court in its August 1, 2018 order had said wherever the spikes or fireballs are used for driving elephants, remedial steps should be taken by concerned states for removing spikes and desisting from using fireballs.

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"Through these two orders, this court had issued clear directions to the State of West Bengal to desist from using fireballs to drive or chase elephants that come near human habitation and croplands," the plea said.

It said despite a clear direction from the apex court to desist from using fireballs or 'mashaals' except as an emergency measure that too for a limited period, the practice of using such "cruel and barbaric techniques" to scare and chase elephants continues in West Bengal.

The plea referred to an August 15, 2024 incident when a group of elephants entered a colony on the outskirts of Jhargram town in West Bengal. It said a tusker from the group had allegedly killed an elderly resident.

"The West Bengal forest department officials reached the spot along with 'Hulla' parties - groups of local youth armed with iron rods/spikes and burning 'mashaals' to chase the elephants away," it said.

The plea claimed that one alleged 'Hulla' party member threw a 'mashaal' at a female elephant and the burning spike got lodged onto her spine and the animal collapsed soon thereafter.

It referred to another incident in April 2023 from Kalaikunda range in Kharagpur division, Paschim Medinipur, where a herd of elephants was observed being chased by a 'Hulla' party armed with fire-lit 'mashaal'.

"The continued reliance by the respondent/alleged contemnor on 'Hulla' parties that throw burning 'mashaals' at elephants as the primary tool for management of human-elephant conflicts amounts to contempt of this court's orders and a breach of the state's undertaking to seek alternative means to mitigate the conflict situation or reduce negative interactions," the plea said.

It said the use of 'mashaals', sharp metal rods, fireballs, inflammable objects etc. as a method to scare away elephants is extremely cruel and barbaric and causes immense mental trauma and physical distress to the animal.

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Indore (Madhya Pradesh) [India], November 14 (ANI): Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Indore is making strides in advancing communication systems, with an innovative project under the supervision of professor Dr Swaminathan R from the Electrical Engineering Department of the institute, according to a release.

The team is developing intelligent receivers that can automatically detect and decode key communication methods, such as modulation, channel coding, and interleaving, which help transmit data accurately even in challenging conditions with noise or interference. This work is set to enhance 6G performance, boost military communication security, and make communication systems more cost-effective by reducing the need for multiple receivers.

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This technology is vital for future 6G networks and military communications. It enables receivers to decode signals in difficult environments, like when military transmissions are intercepted. By automatically identifying these methods, it ensures that important data can be gathered from unclear or noisy signals, making it crucial for intelligence operations.

Director of IIT Indore, Prof Suhas Joshi said, "As the world moves toward 6G, communication systems will need to handle ultra-fast mobile internet and vast networks of devices, such as the Internet of Things (IoT). Traditionally, different receivers were required for different scenarios, making systems complicated and expensive. IIT Indore's technology aims to create a single receiver that can adapt to any situation, eliminating the need for multiple systems."

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The key to the innovation are deep learning algorithms, which help the receivers identify and decode signals in complex wireless environments. This improves the use of radio frequencies, which are in high demand due to the growing use of 5G and 6G. These intelligent receivers also save energy by cutting down on unnecessary data transmissions, the release read.

Prof Swaminathan said, "This technology could revolutionise both telecommunications and military fields by improving efficiency and security. Unlike existing systems, IIT Indore's receivers can recognize modulation, coding, and interleaving methods together, a capability that hasn't been fully achieved before. Early tests have shown promising results, accurately identifying different channel encoders and interleavers. Currently the testing of these models in real-time and expanding them to cover a wide range of communication standards, from 3G to 6G is being done."

The project is being tested using software-defined radio (SDR) devices, with support from key government organisations, including the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) as part of a special 6G research initiative. (ANI)

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Chandigarh, Nov 14 (PTI) Having been absent from party activities for around two months, the BJP's Punjab chief Sunil Jakhar on Thursday said he had asked the saffron party's leadership to relieve him of his duties following a poor electoral performance in the Lok Sabha elections.

Jakhar was incommunicado amid reports that he had tendered his resignation as the BJP's state chief.

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He told reporters on Thursday that he met BJP chief JP Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the Lok Sabha elections results and conveyed to them, "I should be relieved of this responsibility as my morality does not allow me to continue to remain at this post."

He added despite the BJP's vote share increasing from six per cent to 18 per cent, the party could not register victory on any of the 13 parliamentary constituencies in Punjab.

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A former Congress leader, Jakhar became the BJP's Punjab unit president in July 2023.

Jakhar said he also brought many state-related issues to the BJP leadership's notice.

His absence from the political scene in Punjab raised many questions about his role in the party. He has not been campaigning for the November 20 bypolls to four assembly segments in Punjab despite being listed as one of the party's star campaigners.

Jakhar was last seen welcoming Modi at the Chandigarh airport on October 18. He had also received National Democratic Alliance (NDA) chief ministers and deputy chief ministers at a local hotel.

Meanwhile, Jakhar sought Modi's intervention in connection with the Centre's reported move to clear the allotment of 10 acres in Chandigarh to Haryana for construction of its assembly building.

The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has reportedly granted an environment clearance for the land offered by the Haryana government to the Chandigarh administration in exchange for land for the additional Vidhan Sabha building.

The Haryana government offered 12 acres in Panchkula to the Chandigarh administration in lieu of 10 acres near IT Park Road in Chandigarh.

Jakhar said he opposed the move and urged the prime minister to intervene and cancel the allotment.

"Chandigarh is not only the capital of Punjab but it is also the heart of Punjab. If you talk about giving land from Chandigarh to Haryana for setting up a Vidhan Sabha, it hurts the people of Punjab," Jakhar said.

In a post on X, he said, "In an attempt to heal the wounds inflicted on Punjab in the past, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took many steps for the social and religious upliftment of Punjabis. By giving 10 acres of land to Haryana for a separate assembly in Chandigarh, it will hurt these efforts."

"I believe this decision should be reconsidered in order to maintain strong relations between Punjab and the Centre and I appeal to the prime minister to personally intervene and cancel this decision," he further said.

He said all the political parties were unanimous on this issue but the claim of Punjab over Chandigarh had weakened due to the chief minister's "lack of understanding".

"In Jaipur, when the Union home minister was present in the meeting of the North Zonal Council (in 2022), Haryana asked for this land for the Vidhan Sabha. Instead of opposing it, the Chief Minister of Punjab, Bhagwant Mann, gave his stamp of approval to the demand by asking for land for the legislative assembly of Punjab as well," Jakhar claimed.

"Why should the people of Punjab pay for the anti-Punjab stand taken by Punjab's novice Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on this issue?" he asked.

At present, Punjab and Haryana share the Vidhan Sabha complex next to the Punjab and Haryana Civil Secretariat in the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

Chandigarh is the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana.

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Itanagar, Nov 14 (PTI) A man hacked his wife, his two-year-old daughter and another woman to death inside a hospital in Arunachal Pradesh's East Kameng district on Thursday, a police officer said.

The 45-year-old man who also attacked and injured five people, including a police officer and a 'chowkidar' of the government hospital, was arrested.

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Investigations have been initiated to find the reason behind the attack, East Kameng Superintendent of Police Kamdam Sikhom said.

The accused, identified as Nikam Sangbia from Sangbia village of the district, had gone to the district hospital to visit his wife and daughter who were admitted there.

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All of a sudden, he went on a rampage at the hospital in Seppa, the district headquarters, attacking patients and bystanders with a dao (machete) in the gynaecology ward, Sikhom said.

His wife Tade Sangbia (38), two-year-old daughter Nakia Sangbia and another woman Pakha Welly (45), who were present in the ward, died in the attack.

The Officer-in-Charge of Seppa police station, Inspector Minli Geyi, also suffered severe injuries while attempting to control the attacker, Sikhom said.

He added that Geyi along with the chowkidar of the hospital Fei Beyong, were shifted to Tomo Riba Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (TRIHMS) at Naharlagun near here, as their condition worsened.

"Geyi responded swiftly upon receiving an alert from the hospital and tried to nab the attacker. But the assailant struck back, injuring the officer," the SP said.

The police station is located close to the hospital. Meanwhile, the police have stepped up security measures in the district following the incident, the official added.

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Jammu (Jammu and Kashmir) [India], November 14 (ANI): In its ongoing efforts to break down the terror network in Kashmir, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday attached the immovable property of a major terror suspect associated with 'The Resistance Front' (TRF), an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the agency said on Thursday.

The property of Adil Manzoor Langoo was attached in connection with the brutal killing of two non-locals at Srinagar's Shala Kadal in February this year.

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The weapon used in the commission of the crime was recovered, along with ammunition, from the 10 Marlas property which had been transferred to Langoo's father and others by its original owner, said the agency.

The property, located in Srinagar's Zaldagar, was attached under Section 25 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The case relates to a conspiracy hatched by Langoo, along with two others, identified as Ahran Rasool Dar and Dawood.

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"Led by their TRF and LeT handler based in Pakistan, the conspiracy was aimed at killing innocent people in India with the objective of spreading terror and inciting violence," the central investigative agency said.

The investigations led to the arrest of Langoo, Dar and Dawood following the killing of the two non-locals on February 7, while the Pakistan-based mastermind Jahangir is still at large.

Langoo, who was arrested on February 12, was chargesheeted along with the other accused in August and was lodged in Central Jail Srinagar. He is facing trial under various sections of IPC, UAPA and Indian Arms Act.

TRF, which surfaced in 2019 as a proxy outfit of LeT is also designated as a terrorist organisation. It has been responsible for several attacks and killings of non-local civilians in Kashmir, including those belonging to religious minorities. The outfit is also behind several attacks on Indian security forces including local policemen. (ANI)

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New Delhi [India], November 14 (ANI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute on Thursday to former PM Jawaharlal Nehru on his 135th birth anniversary.

In a post on X, PM Modi said, "On the occasion of his birth anniversary, I pay homage to our former Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru."

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Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi also paid tribute to former PM Nehru at Shanti Van in Delhi. Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and the Congress President posted on X and paid tribute.

Children's Day is celebrated on November 14 every year as a mark of respect to the first Prime Minister of independent India.

Also Read | Tonk Violence: 60 People Arrested After Ruckus in Rajasthan's Poll-Bound Deoli-Uniara Assembly Constituency.

Nehru was fondly called 'Chacha Nehru' and was known for emphasising the importance of giving love and affection to children.

After the death of Nehru, it was unanimously decided to celebrate his birthday as 'Bal Diwas' or Children's Day in India.

Nehru was born on November 14, 1889, in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj. He breathed his last on May 27, 1964.He became the prime minister on August 15, 1947, following an active role in the freedom struggle of the country.

On this day, a number of activities are organised for students in schools nationwide such as games, competitions, and so on, while government bodies pay tributes to the late prime minister and organise commemorative events on this day.

In 1954, the United Nations declared November 20 as Universal Children's Day and India used to celebrate Children's Day on that day before 1956 but after the death of Prime Minister Nehru in 1964, a resolution was passed in the Parliament unanimously declaring the day of Pt. Nehru's birth anniversary as National Children's Day. (ANI)

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Ferozepur (Punjab) [India], November 14 (ANI): In a major blow against illegal arms trafficking, Ferozepur police seized a significant cache of weapons, including 11 pistols and 21 magazines on Thursday. While the suspects managed to flee Police teams are using local intelligence to track them, DGP Punjab Police said.

In a post on X, DGP Punjab Police Gaurav Yadav said, "In a major blow against illegal arms trafficking, Ferozepur police intercepted two suspects carrying a significant cache of weapons, including 11 pistols and 21 magazines. When stopped, the persons abandoned their motorcycle and fled, but swift coordination led to major leads."

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DGP Punjab Police further said that through diligent investigation, police teams traced the motorcycle to Faridkot, where the registered owner was destined and identified the primary suspect. "Police teams are working around the clock, using local intelligence and advanced tracking to close in on these individuals," DGP further added.

He further said that the Punjab Police remains committed to a stringent crackdown on organized crime and illegal weapons trafficking, aiming to uncover all forward and backward linkages within these networks to ensure public safety.

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Recently the Punjab police has apprehended two key operatives of Canada-based Arshdeep Singh Dalla for their alleged involvement in the murder case of Sikh activist Gurpreet Singh Hari Nau in the state's Faridkot district last month, said an official on Sunday.

As per investigations a man identified as Jasawant Singh Gill (45) was also shot dead in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior district by the two arrested on the direction of the Canada-based gangster Dall.

Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab, Gaurav Yadav posted on X, "State Special Operation Cell of Mohali in a joint operation with the Anti-Gangster Task Force and Faridkot Police apprehended two key operatives of Canada-based designated terrorist Arsh Dalla involved in the murder of Gurpreet Singh Hari Nau in Faridkot." (ANI)

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Jaipur, November 14: Around eight four-wheelers, including police vehicles, and over two dozen two-wheelers were vandalized and set on fire during a clash between a group of unidentified individuals and police in Tonk district on Wednesday night, officials said. According to police, the incident took place in Samravata village of Deoli-Uniyara during a protest by supporters of an independent candidate Naresh Meena, who allegedly assaulted a Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) at a polling station in the village.

Some of the protesters pelted stones and set multiple vehicles on fire. The situation could be brought under control only after the arrival of additional forces. Tension prevailed in the entire area after the incident, prompting authorities to deploy additional police force to maintain law and order situation. Speaking to reporters, Tonk SP Vikas Sangwan said, "In Samravata village, some people had boycotted voting. To assess the situation, the SDM, Tehsildar, Additional SP, and other officers were present. During this time, independent candidate Naresh Meena entered the polling station and physically assaulted the SDM. The Additional SP immediately removed Naresh Meena from the location." "Action will be taken against him as per the law. We arrived at the spot and spoke to the villagers, after which voting resumed peacefully," he said. Rajasthan Bypolls: Violence Erupts Outside Polling Booth in Tonk; Stones Pelted at Police.

Following the incident, members of the Rajasthan Administrative Service (RAS) Association met with the Chief Electoral Officer, demanding action against Naresh Meena. "Our whole cadre is angry, the way independent candidate (from Deoli-Uniara )Naresh Meena slapped SDM who was on Area Magistrate duty...we met Chief Electoral Officer and demanded strict action as per the election rule. We have requested immediate arrest of him (Naresh Meena)," the association president Mahavir Kharadi told ANI.

The association's general secretary, Neetu Rajeshwar, added, "The association has raised this issue at various levels in government. We have demanded action and received positive responses from all sides." In his defence, independent candidate from Naresh Meena claimed, "The SDM here had earlier beaten up a woman in Hindoli..." Violence Erupts over Bursting Crackers in Rajasthan's Bhilwara.

Tonk Violence Aftermath

VIDEO | Rajasthan: Violence erupted outside a polling booth in #Tonk district - where bypolls were being held - when alleged supporters of Independent candidate Naresh Meena pelted stones at police and set ablaze vehicles on Wednesday night. This happened after the police force pic.twitter.com/QudylTwKlZ  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 14, 2024

"Amit Chaudhary assaulted an Anganwadi worker, her husband, and a teacher, threatening them with job loss if they didn't vote. Since October 25, I've faced continuous harassment; my posters have been torn down, and officials stopped people from voting for me," Meena alleged while speaking to reporters. On Wednesday, by-elections were held in Rajasthan for seven seats: Jhunjhunu, Dausa, Deoli-Uniara, Khinvsar, Chorasi, Salumbar, and Ramgarh. The results will be announced on November 20. These by-elections were necessitated by the passing of two MLAs and the election of five others to the Lok Sabha.

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New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the Jharkhand High Court verdict which directed the CBI to enquire into the alleged irregularities in appointments and promotions made in the state legislative assembly.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan agreed to hear the plea filed by the Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha and others challenging the September 23, 2024 judgement of the high court.

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The plea, filed through advocate Tulika Mukherjee, said the high court had erred in directing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to enquire into the issue in the absence of any criminality or cognisable offence, that too in a civil matter which involves complicated and pure questions of law and facts with respect to service jurisprudence and others.

"The high court erred in directing the CBI to investigate as the first investigating agency in absence of any cogent and convincing reason that the state-investigating agency is not fit to investigate into the alleged irregularity or illegality," it said.

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The plea said in the present case, there is no FIR and no cognisable offence which can be made out.

It claimed there is "no proof of exchange of money, there is no proof of giving or taking of money, there is no proof of fraud and no criminality can be made out".

The plea said the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly Secretariat (Recruitment and Conditions of Service Rule, 2003, came into existence on March 10, 2003.

It said to accomplish the work of legislative assembly secretariat and the assembly committees, recruitment process was initiated.

It said that proper steps, including publishing advertisement in newspapers, issuance of admit cards, conducting examination and interviews (wherever required), were taken and only thereafter employees were recruited.

"Accordingly, appointments and promotions were made in the year 2003-2007. After completion of the recruitment process, some persons allegedly recorded few people talking about irregularities committed in the appointment process. This unverified voice recording was converted into a compact disk and submitted before the Speaker, Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha," the plea said.

It said in October 2007, a committee comprising of five members was constituted to look into the matter arising out of the unverified voice recordings.

The recommendation of the committee was presented in August 2008 before the speaker of the Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha which was opposed by two members of the panel itself, the plea said.

It said later, the Cabinet Secretariat and Vigilance Department (Parliamentary Affairs) issued a notification in July 2014 and appointed a former judge of the Jharkhand High Court for inquiring into the alleged irregularities in appointment and promotions of employees in the Jharkhand Assembly.

It said a report dated July 12, 2018 was submitted by the commission headed by the former judge before the then governor in which recommendations on 30 points of reference were made.

The plea said the high court had failed to appreciate that the report of the commission was never communicated to the state government as contemplated under the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952.

"The high court failed to appreciate that the then Governor vide letter... dated September 10, 2018 requested the then Speaker of the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly to take appropriate action in light of the recommendations of the report of the one-man judicial commission...," it said.

The plea said pursuant to the letter issued by the then governor, the speaker gave approval for compulsory retirement of two officers through notifications dated August 26, 2019.

It said in August 2022, the state government was requested to appoint another commission for interpretation of complicated questions of law and facts involved in the recommendations of the report given by the earlier commission.

"The high court failed to appreciate and overlooked that the commission constituted by the appropriate government has submitted its report to the state government, on the basis of which ATR (action taken report) was prepared and the report along with ATR was accepted by the State Government through Cabinet and thereafter, the same was tabled in the House...," it said.

The plea said the high court failed to appreciate that the Vidhan Sabha Secretariat on the basis of the report and ATR was acting upon the same for its implementation.

The high court had delivered the verdict on a plea which raised the issue of alleged irregularities in matter of public employment in the Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha.

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Tonk (Rajasthan) [India], November 14 (ANI): After the Rajasthan Police on Thursday arrested accused Naresh Meena for allegedly slapping the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), his supporters came out in huge numbers to protest against the same.

Tonk Superintendent of Police (SP) Vikas Sangwan said that the supporters of Naresh Meena set fire to the state highway outside Samravata village following the arrest.

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"He was asked to not take the law into his hands and surrender. Initially, he was not in the mood but seeing the police force, he agreed. He will be charged under the relevant sections. Older records will be opened and arrests will be made accordingly. 50-60 people have been detained in this case," the SP told ANI.

Meena is an Independent candidate contesting from the Deoli Uniara assembly constituency. A huge ruckus was reported after he allegedly slapped SDM Amit Chaudhary at a polling booth in Samravata village.

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Around eight four-wheelers, including police vehicles, and over two dozen two-wheelers were vandalized and set on fire during a clash between a group of unidentified individuals and police in Tonk district on Wednesday night, officials said.

After heavy deployment of the police force, the police were able to arrest Naresh Meena on Thursday. Meanwhile, his supporters set fire to the highway outside the Samravata village to protest against Meena's arrest.

As this happened, the police arrived at the spot to disperse the crowd.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Ashok Gehlot on Thursday took a hit at the ruling BJP government over the law and order situation in the state following the assault on a Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) at a polling station in Deoli-Uniara assembly constituency.

Former Chief Minister and Congress leader Ashok Gehlot while talking to media said that the "Credibility of police in Rajasthan has ended and that the law and order has collapsed in the state."

Speaking to the media over the Tonk SDM assault case, "The credibility of police in Rajasthan has ended. Law and order has collapsed. Why did a situation arise where an SDM was slapped? How did he (Independent MLA Naresh Meena) have the courage to do such a thing? This incident was not a minor incident. The BJP has no tolerance towards suggestions from the Opposition. What has the state government done in this year? When there is no fear among people, they take the law into their own hands, this is the situation in the entire state today."(ANI)

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Samastipur, Nov 14 (PTI) A woman police constable was found hanging in the bathroom of her barrack in Bihar's Samastipur district, an official said on Thursday.

The deceased has been identified as Chandani Kumari, a resident of Vaishali district.

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Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO), Samastipur (Sadar), Sanjay Kumar Pandey told reporters, "Chandani Kumari was staying in the barrack on the second floor of Musrigharari police station. Another woman constable found the bathroom door locked from inside. When the door was opened with the help of other constables, Chandani was found hanging inside the bathroom on Wednesday evening".

She was immediately taken to hospital, where she was declared dead.

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The body has been sent for post-mortem examination and her family members have been informed.

Her mobile phone and a diary recovered from her barrack have been seized and are being analysed. The matter is being further examined, said the SDPO.

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New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) Global Health, which operates hospitals under the Medanta brand, on Thursday said its profit after tax increased 5 per cent to Rs 131 crore in the September 2024 quarter.

The healthcare provider reported a Profit After Tax (PAT) of Rs 125 crore in the July-September quarter a year ago.

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Revenue from operations rose to Rs 957 crore in the period under review from Rs 850 crore in the September quarter of last fiscal, Global Health Ltd said in a statement.

"Growth momentum was robust across our network hospitals, as we continue to invest in cutting-edge technologies, enhance clinical capabilities through the on-boarding of senior clinicians, and expand our network by adding more beds," Global Health Group CEO and Director Pankaj Sahni said.

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Shares of the company settled 3.44 per cent higher at Rs 1,071.10 apiece on the BSE.

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Mumbai, Nov 14 (PTI) Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) on Thursday announced the signing of a 45-key Ginger hotel spread over three acres in Diu in the Union territory of Daman and Diu.

Entering the Diu hospitality market offers an opportunity to introduce the Ginger experience in a location that has remained largely untapped, according to a statement.

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"With its scenic beaches and vibrant history, the UT has immense potential as a destination. We are delighted to partner with Praveg on this project," IHCL Executive Vice President - Real Estate and Development Suma Venkatesh said in the statement.

This is the group's first property in Diu.

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*** Tourism Australia, Air India sign a 3-year agreement to boost Indian visitor influx * Tourism Australia and Air India on Thursday signed a three-year marketing agreement to sustain and drive the positive trend in Indian visitor arrivals to Australia as the air carrier expands its presence in the market.

Under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), Tourism Australia and Air India will explore opportunities to jointly undertake and implement marketing activities to showcase Australia's appeal and drive future growth in visitation, Tourism Australia said in a statement.

"We have seen tremendous growth in the number of arrivals from India to Australia in recent years and we are keen for arrivals to continue to track in that direction. We look forward to working closely with Air India to showcase Australia as a holiday destination," Tourism Australia Managing Director Phillipa Harrison said.

*** RCI announces affiliation with Aranyakaa Farms *

Global vacation exchange platform RCI on Thursday announced its affiliation with Club Aranyakaa from Aranyakaa Farms, a visionary lifestyle farmland project in India by Bengaluru-based Elegance Infra.

"We are delighted to welcome Club Aranyakaa and offer our members the exceptional experience of farm living's beauty and tranquillity combined with luxurious amenities.

"This aligns perfectly with the growing demand for unique and immersive travel experiences," RCI Senior Director, Travel and Membership - Asia, Pacific and India, Lucas Ramos said in a statement.

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Washington, DC [US], November 14 (ANI): United States President Joe Biden will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the 2024 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Lima, Peru, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a White House briefing on Wednesday.

Sullivan said, "Tomorrow, he (Biden) travels to South America. His first stop will be Peru for the APEC Summit -- the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit -- and then he'll go on to Brazil for the first-ever presidential trip to the Amazon and then to the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro."

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"While in Lima, President Biden will also meet with China President Xi Jinping This will be the third in-person meeting between the two leaders since President Biden came into office and their final meeting as presidents," he added.

Biden and Xi previously met in Bali in 2022 during the G20 Summit and again in Woodside, California, near San Francisco in 2023 on the margins of the APEC Summit.

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Sullivan also outlined President Biden's strategy toward China, emphasizing investments in American strength, alliance-building, and national security.

"And throughout his time in office, President Biden and his team have worked to effectively and responsibly manage the competition between the United States and the PRC. The president's approach to China has prioritized investments in sources of American strength at home, including growing the middle class and ensuring that America maintains its industrial capacity and its innovation edge in fields such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence," Sullivan said.

"He has strengthened our alliances around the world and especially in the Indo-Pacific, he has boosted American deterrence, and he's ensured that America remains the partner of choice for countries both in the region and across the world. The president has also taken commonsense measures to advance our national -- national security and protect our most sensitive technologies to prevent them from being exploited or used against us by the PRC, including through significant new export control measures," he added.

During the briefing, highlighted Biden's efforts to manage US-China relations and affirmed, "At the same time, the president has demonstrated that the US and China can manage our differences and prevent competition from veering into conflict or confrontation, and he has done that by ensuring the maintenance of open lines of communication at the leader level, at the military-to-military level, and at every level of our respective governments."

"And this meeting between President Biden and President Xi will be an opportunity to ensure a smooth transition and also to continue to keep those channels of communication open, including those especially critical military-to-military channels of communication," he added noting the importance of Biden's meet with Xi Jinping.

President Joe Biden will travel to Peru from November 14-16 for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, then head to Manaus and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from November 17-19, to attend the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro. (ANI)

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Sao Paulo, Nov 14 (AP) A Brazilian Supreme Court justice said Thursday that he believes the explosion outside the court in capital Brasilia was the consequence of frequent far-right attacks and hate speech targeting the country's institutions.

It grew under the guise of a criminal use of freedom of speech. To offend, threaten, coerce," Justice Alexandre de Moraes said at an event in Brasilia.

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Federal Police are investigating the explosions on Wednesday as terrorism and a violent attack on the democratic rule of law, its director, Andrei Passos Rodrigues, said at a news conference later.

He said that the man had attempted to enter the Supreme Court and that it appeared that he acted alone, though the police official indicated he also was viewing the attack in the broader context of extremism.

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Even if the visible action is individual, behind that action there is never just one person. It's always a group, or ideas of a group, or extremism, radicalism, that lead to committing those crimes, Passos Rodrigues said. The action, in fact, was an individual action, but the investigation will tell if there are other connections, if there are other networks, what's behind it, what drove it.

The police director also said the Supreme Court has received fresh threats via email, without specifying when.

Security camera footage provided by the Supreme Court shows the suspect approaching a statue outside the building. As a guard nears, the man throws an explosive and retreats a few steps, then throws a second device and an explosion follows. Finally, the suspect ignites a third device near to himself, causing his death.

Passos Rodrigues said the man was a native of southern Santa Catarina state where he previously ran for city council, and had been in Brasilia several months. Police went to his Brasilia residence Thursday and used a robot to open a drawer that triggered a very serious explosion, he said.

Celina Leao, the lieutenant governor of Brazil's federal district, said Wednesday night that the man first detonated explosives in a car in a Congress parking lot, which didn't cause injuries. Then he went to Three Powers Plaza, where the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential palace are located.

Local media identified the man as being a member of Brazil's Liberal Party, the same as former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro has railed against the Supreme Court in the past and specifically focused his ire on de Moraes.

Bolsonaro supporters consider de Moraes their chief enemy. He has led a five-year investigation into fake news and threats against Supreme Court justices, which has led to the ban of some far-right allies and supporters from social media and even some imprisonments. He also presided over the nation's top electoral court when it ruled Bolsonaro ineligible for office until 2030, finding that he had abused his power and cast unfounded doubts on the validity of the 2022 election result.

Bolsonaro condemned the attack on social media.

It is high time for Brazil to once again cultivate an environment suitable for different ideas to confront each other peacefully, and for the strength of arguments to be worth more than the argument of force, he wrote.

Some accuse de Moraes of overstepping in the name of protecting Brazilian democracy from political violence and disinformation. Others view his brash tactics as justified by extraordinary circumstances.

Months after Bolsonaro lost his 2022 election bid, his supporters stormed the main government buildings in Brasilia, seeking to oust his leftist successor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, from power. It was widely seen as an echo of the insurrection in the US Capitol two years earlier.

The Supreme Court has since convicted hundreds of those involved in the uprising for crimes such as criminal association and attempted coup.

De Moraes said Thursday that the explosions outside the Supreme Court appeared to be the most serious attack on the institution since then.

The country's pacification is only possible with the accountability of all criminals. There is no possibility of pacification with amnesty for criminals, de Moraes said.

Earlier this year, de Moraes ordered a nationwide ban of X after clashing with its billionaire owner, Elon Musk, over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. Musk had disparaged de Moraes, calling him an authoritarian and a censor, even though his rulings, including X's suspension, were repeatedly upheld by his peers. The platform was reinstated in October.

Brazil will host the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week. Passos Rodrigues said that the bombing shouldn't raise any concerns, given that authorities are already implementing the highest level security possible, including with support of the armed forces.

I am going this afternoon, shortly, to Rio de Janeiro, where I will personally accompany all actions so we can have the absolute guarantee of security, he added. (AP)

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Washington, Nov 14 (PTI) More than two dozen lawmakers and eminent Indian Americans celebrated Diwali at the Capitol, the first major event at the US Congress after last week's presidential elections.

The annual Diwali at Capitol Hill on Tuesday was organised by the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, in association with several other Indian American organisations including the Hindu American Foundation, Sikhs for America, Jain Association of North America, and Art of Living.

Also Read | Brazil Suicide Bombing: Man Explodes Car, Kills Self With Blasts Outside Supreme Court in Brasilia After Failing To Get Inside; Probe Underway.

President-elect Donald Trump is set to assume office after winning the presidential election last week.

Speaking at the Diwali celebration, Senator Rand Paul said the US is a land of immigrants which attracts the best and brightest around the world, underscoring that they blend to make America a great country.

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I'm a big advocate of more lawful immigration and have many bills to expand that, and I'm going to keep working on that. Have a good Diwali, Paul said.

Greeting Indian Americans on the occasion, Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith said she looks forward to the great next four years. We want to just provide prosperity for this country, for those who want to look for something new, to do something new, she said.

We just want to encourage you that we want to have a stable atmosphere. We want a great economy. We want a safe place for everybody to be able to raise your family, she said, addressing the gathering which also included India's Ambassador to the US Vinay Mohan Kwatra.

This is an Indian festival which is embraced and celebrated the world over. Your presence here, the presence of so many congressmen and senators has made it all the most special. It is a reflection of their commitment to the relationship. Your presence there is a reflection of the important role that you at this festival place in the relationship, Kwatra said in his address.

Congressman Shri Thanedar, who was re-elected from the thirteenth Congressional district of Michigan last month, said in his first term he was able to form Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhist caucuses for the first time in Congressional history.

There's a lot that needs to be done. I'm working with the State Department on the attacks on Hindu temples and making sure our community is protected all across America. I'm also working with the State Department on the atrocities on the Hindus in Bangladesh, Thanedar said.

Congressman Tom Souzzi from New York referred to the recent attacks on Hindu temple in Long Island. I spoke on the floor of the Congress, and I said that when Indian Americans, Hindu Americans, place their hands like this and say namaste, they are really recognising the divinity and the respect they have for the person in front of them, and we need more of that in our country today, he said.

In his address, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi said, "You are the fastest-growing ethnic minority in America. You are the most prosperous, the best educated. One out of every seven doctors is a Desi.

The words of support tonight are coming from members of Congress who greatly appreciate each of you taking time, not just to be at this Diwali event for another beautiful year, but of the year that has been so monumental in the growth and opportunity for so many of you here in the United States of America, Congressman Pete Sessions said in his remarks.

Congressman Dan Meuser recollected the joint address to the Congress by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year and said he did a wonderful job.

It stayed with me just how well he spoke about the importance of the American Indian relationship, how it needs to improve for economic reasons, and for national security reasons, and an overall peace for our world, he said.

Our relationship will continue to grow. It's very, very important. We have a new president and a new Senate. We hope to be united, work together, find common ground, and do what's best for the United States, for India, for the world, Meuser said.

Former House Majority Leader Congressman Steny Hoyer applauded the contribution of Indian Americans to the country's progress. "On this Diwali, I come here to thank each and every one of you. America is stronger and better for those of you who came from India and who love America and who serve our fellow citizens, he said.

We know that our Indian American community is one of our success stories. It is a part of the vibrancy of our incredible economy and so many communities...to the families across America recognising and celebrating Diwali, we salute you tonight, said Congresswoman Haley Stevens.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Brussels [Belgium], November 14 (ANI): The European Commission on Thursday slapped Meta with a hefty fine of approximately Euro 800 million for violating EU antitrust rules through its Facebook Marketplace platform.

In a statement, it said, "The European Commission has fined Meta Euro 797.72 million for breaching EU antitrust rules by tying its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and by imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers."

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The European Commission said that Meta tied its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook.

"This means that all Facebook users automatically have access and get regularly exposed to Facebook Marketplace whether they want it or not. The Commission found that competitors of Facebook Marketplace may be foreclosed as the tie gives Facebook Marketplace a substantial distribution advantage which competitors cannot match," the European Commission said.

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In a statement, Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy in the European Commission said that the European Commission fined Meta Euro 797.72 million for abusing its dominant positions in the markets for personal social network services and for online display advertising on social media platforms.

"Meta tied its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and imposed unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers. It did so to benefit its own service Facebook Marketplace, thereby giving it advantages that other online classified ads service providers could not match. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules. Meta must now stop this behaviour," Vestager said.

Following the European Commission's fine, Meta said that they have built a Marketplace in response to consumer demand. In a statement, Meta said, "This decision ignores the market realities, and will only serve to protect incumbent marketplaces from competition. The European Commission's decision provides no evidence of competitive harm to rivals or any harm to consumers."

The Meta further said that they will appeal this decision to promote better outcomes for the European consumers. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Peshawar, Nov 14 (PTI) Security forces in Pakistan killed 12 terrorists, including a "high-value target", in two separate intelligence-based operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, the military announced on Wednesday.

In the first operation, conducted on November 12-13 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Miranshah district, the forces killed eight terrorists after engaging with a group of militants in the North Waziristan region. Six other terrorists were also injured in the operation, it said.

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A second operation took place at Balgatar in Balochistan's Kech district where security forces targeted a reported terrorist hideout, according to the Pakistan military's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).

After an intense firefight, four terrorists were killed, including a "high-value target" Sana alias Baru, who is known to be a notorious terrorist ring leader.

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Baru was a key recruitment agent for the Majeed Brigade in Kech and was particularly involved in the recruitment of suicide bombers. He had been on the most-wanted list of law enforcement agencies, the military said.

Pakistan's security forces "remain determined to thwart attempts of sabotaging peace, stability and progress of Balochistan", the media release said.

The ISPR said a sanitisation operation is underway to eliminate any other "khariji" (terrorist) in the area.

In July, the government, through an official notification, designated the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as 'Fitna al Khawarij', while mandating all institutions to use the term "khariji" (outcast) when referring to the perpetrators of terrorist attacks on Pakistan.

The military also reaffirmed Pakistan's determination to eradicate terrorism, as security forces continue to face increasing attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, particularly since the TTP broke a ceasefire agreement with the government in 2022.

In recent weeks, multiple engagements have resulted in the deaths of dozens of terrorists. On November 10, security forces killed 10 terrorists and injured eight others during three different encounters in North Waziristan. Earlier, on November 7, five terrorists were killed during a clash in South Waziristan, where four soldiers also lost their lives.

On November 4, the forces eliminated seven terrorists in separate operations -- one killed in Balochistan and the other six during two operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Likewise, on November 2, four terrorists were killed during an intelligence-based operation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's South Waziristan region.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Kozhikode (Kerala) [India], November 14 (ANI): Abdullah Al-Buaijan, a preacher at Prophet Muhammad's Mosque, was a Guest of Honour in a peace conference themed "Islam is the religion of humanity and peace" in Kozhikode, Saudi Gazette reported.

Buaijan said on Tuesday that Islam is a religion of peace and security, as per Saudi Gazette.

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Abdullah Al-Buaijan, imam and khateeb of the Prophet's Mosque, said in his address that Islam is a religion of security and peace, Saudi Gazette reported.

Buaijan cautioned against divisions among Muslims, stating that such discord threatens national unity, leads to chaos, and can incite wars. "Divisions and disunity tend to destroy nations and civilizations, threaten the entity of the nation and undermine its cohesion. This will lead to chaos and fuel for sedition and wars," he said, adding that God forbade differences and disagreements and made them among the causes of failure and weakness.

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Kerala's Minister for Waqf and Hajj V Abdurahiman hailed Saudi Arabia in his address for its significant efforts in promoting Islam, spreading peace, and fostering moderation, as per Saudi Gazette.

The conference, organized by Kerala Nadvatul Mujahideen, was attended by over 50,000 Muslims and broadcast on several media platforms that garnered more than four million views. Sheikh Al-Buaijan led the Maghrib and Isha prayers for the worshipers who attended the conference, as per Saudi Gazette.

As per the Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen (KNM) website, it is a socio- religious organisation registered under Society Registration act. The organisation aims at the development and reformist activities of the society with focus on the upliftment of weaker sections of the society. KNM has various wings and department for the achievement of its mission. Main activities include the public awareness on social reforms and humanitarian activities. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Astana [Kazakhstan], November 14 (ANI): Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and China have signed an agreement on the establishment of an intermodal cargo terminal in the Port of Baku in Alat on the sidelines of the 29th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), Astana News reported.

The agreement was signed on November 12.

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According to the press release issued by Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, which is the national railway company of Kazakhstan, the new terminal will include a multi-purpose cargo yard, a 5,000-square-meter indoor warehouse complex, and a container yard with a capacity of over 1,000 containers.

As per Astana Times, this initiative was made possible through Azerbaijan's provision of a land plot, operating berths, and terminal capacities at the Port of Baku in Alat.

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The Port of Baku plays a significant role in connecting Europe and Asia and is a prime transport and logistics hub of Eurasia.

According to the official website of the Port of Baku, it is noted that being an important segment of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, the Port of Baku with its modern operating system provides prompt cargo services, and has facilities designed for all types of cargo.

In 2019, for the first time among the countries of the Caspian region, the Port of Baku was awarded the "Eco Ports" (Green Port) certificate of the European Sea Ports Organization, and in 2021 it successfully passed re-certification. In addition, in 2022, it joined the UN Global Compact. Thus, the strategic activity of the port is aimed to contribute to 11 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, the official website of the Port of Baku noted.

The project aims to boost container train traffic on the China-Europe-China route via the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, helping to cut delivery times, lower transportation costs, and reduce trans-shipment time, Astana Times observed. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Bangkok [Thailand], November 14, (ANI): Over 50 legislators from various countries have urged the United Nations to ensure the safety of 48 Uyghurs who have been held in detention in Thailand for over ten years, Radio Free Asia reported.

Since 2014, four dozen Uyghur men have been confined at Thailand's Immigration Detention Centre (Suan Phlu) after attempting to flee persecution in China by passing through Thailand.

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According to Thai authorities and humanitarian organisations, they are part of a group of over 500 Uyghurs who fled China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to Southeast Asia.

Hoping to be resettled in Turkey via Malaysia, the Uyghurs faced significant bureaucratic hurdles, with only around 100 managing to navigate the obstacles posed by officials, as reported by Radio Free Asia.

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During the exodus from late 2013 to 2014, Thai immigration authorities detained over 350 Uyghurs, arresting them in March 2014, according to official records. Of those detained, at least 172 women and children were sent to Turkey, while 109 or more were forcibly deported back to China, where their current condition remains unknown.

The remaining Uyghurs have been detained as illegal immigrants, not refugees, in harsh conditions, with limited contact with the outside world, according to human rights organisations. These groups have raised concerns that the Uyghurs could face significant risks if sent back to China. Since Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, it does not grant refugee status or protection.

According to the report, in a letter dated November 10 to Filippo Grandi, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), members of the Interparliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) described the conditions at the detention center as "life-threatening," highlighting that five detainees, including two children, have already died while in custody.

IPAC expressed concern that, since Thailand has not yet adopted the principle of non-refoulement, the Uyghurs face the threat of deportation to China, where they are "highly likely to face persecution, imprisonment, or worse."

In the letter, 55 lawmakers from 26 different parliaments stated, "This must not be allowed to happen." They further noted, "We understand that some foreign governments may be willing to offer resettlement for this group of Uyghur men... We urge you to intervene in this matter to ensure their safety."

IPAC's letter followed the publication of a detailed account in The New York Times Magazine about Hasan Imam, a young Uyghur man who was once detained at Suan Phlu before escaping to Turkey in 2018. The article revealed that Uyghurs held at the facility are "regularly denied visits and legal assistance," suffer from poor health, and are confined to overcrowded cells around the clock.

The article also examines how the Uyghurs have become pawns in global diplomacy, with Thailand unwilling to upset China, its growing trade partner, by releasing the detainees, nor willing to confront the West, which holds countries to stricter human rights standards. The article suggested that the UN may also be constrained, as assisting Uyghur asylum seekers could jeopardise its operations in China, risking retaliation from Beijing.

In response to the letter, RFA Uyghur contacted the UNHCR and was told by a representative that the agency is "deeply concerned" about the prolonged detention of the Uyghurs and the lack of resolution.

The representative stated that the UNHCR is actively engaging with Thai authorities, "continuously advocating for an end" to the situation, but declined to provide further details, citing "confidentiality constraints" and the need to "avoid undermining efforts to resolve this highly sensitive issue." (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Peshawar, Nov 14 (PTI) No one was hurt when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a police van in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said.

According to the police, the bomber detonated himself shortly after the police van passed by in the jurisdiction of Umarzai Police Station in Charsadda district.

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However, no casualties took place due to the explosion owing to the absence of the crowd, a police official said.

A large contingent of police reached the scene to control the situation, he said, adding that an investigation was initiated into the incident.

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(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Brasilia [Brazil], November 14 (ANI): The federal police in Brazil have started an investigation after explosions took place in the country's capital, Al Jazeera reported.

The explosions left one person dead.

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According to Al Jazeera, the blasts took place at the end of the Supreme Court session on Wednesday. The court was evacuated, as plumes of smoke and fire were visible from the air.

"Police officers from the Tactical Operations Command, the Rapid Intervention Group of the PF Regional Superintendence in the Federal District, experts and the institution's Bomb Control Group were called in, and are carrying out initial security actions and analyzing the site", a press statement issued by the Brazil Police said.

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According to Al Jazeera, the federal police indicated it had deployed a rapid intervention group and a bomb control squad to the area, known as Brasilia's Three Powers Plaza.

In a statement issued by Brazil's Supreme Court, it was noted, "Two loud bangs were heard and the ministers were safely removed from the building. The servers and collaborators of the headquarters building were removed as a precautionary measure".

The Supreme Court said that the investigation is underway and they are waiting for the facts to come out.

It was also noted that the President of Brazil's Supreme Court, Luis Roberto Barroso spoke with the President of Brazil, Lula da Silva along with other senior officials of the country.

Al Jazeera reported that the Supreme Court buildings will undergo a complete sweep in the early hours of Thursday morning. The office hours were suspended until noon in all buildings, and the situation will be reassessed throughout the morning

Local media have reported that the explosions took place near the Supreme Court and along a street near an annexe building, where a car was parked. Some witnesses said they saw smoke pouring from the car's boot before the second explosion in front of the court.

No motive has been released yet in Wednesday's bombing incident, nor has a suspect been identified.

Al Jazeera noted that Celina Leao, the vice-governor of the Federal District, where the capital is located, said that at least one of the explosions coincided with an unknown individual approaching the doors of the Supreme Court. She indicated he was the same man reported dead in the explosion.

She shared her press briefing on X.

https://x.com/celinaleao/status/1856889614331486477

The Three Powers Plaza is the seat of Brazil's federal government: It contains the presidential palace, buildings for both chambers of Congress and the Supreme Court.

The blasts become a significant security concern as they occur days before the G20 conference is set to take place in Rio de Janeiro later this month. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
New Delhi [India], November 14 (ANI): African Union, which was inducted as a G20 member during India's presidency, will attend the Brazil meeting of the grouping for the first time as a member, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Wednesday, noting that India will join two of the three pillars of Brazil's flagship initiative at the G20 Summit, a global alliance against hunger and poverty.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the G20 Summit in Brazil and will also visit Nigeria and Guyana during his three-nation tour beginning on November 16.

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"The visit to Brazil is for the 19th G20 Summit, which is being held on November 18,19. This is PM Modi's third official visit to Brazil. He visited there in 2014 and then in 2019. Both occasions were for the BRICS Summit, which was being hosted by Brazil in those years. This particular G20 Summit is also going to be a special summit as it will be the first time that the African Union will be taking its place in the G20 grouping as a member. It was at the Delhi Summit last year that the African Union was inducted as a full member of the G20," he said.

The Foreign Secretary said that the priorities of the Brazilian presidency, align very well with the priorities that India had championed and voiced during its presidency of the G20.

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Apart from the G20 member countries, Brazil has also invited 18 guest countries- five each from Africa, Latin America and Asia, and three countries from Europe. Fifteen international organisations will be attending the summit, he said.

Misri said that the G20 summit is important for India as major developing economies of the world would be a part of the summit to discuss ideas for development.

"For India, the summit will be important as we look to the continuity of our priorities from the New Delhi summit, where several issues of interest, especially to emerging markets and developing economies were also discussed. The G20 has emerged as the primary forum for international economic cooperation and issues of global significance," he said.

"It provides an opportunity for leaders of the 21 largest economies in the world, representing about 88 per cent of the global GDP, 78 per cent of international trade and three-quarters of the world's population to come together and discuss key issues impacting the world, such as progress on sustainable development goals, multilateral reforms tackling environmental and climate challenges, debt sustainability, bridging the global digital divide, energy transition and emerging technologies," he added.

Talking about the priorities of Brazilian presidency, Misri said that they are similar to India's policies that it adopted during its presidency last year.

"The theme of this G20 is building a just world and a sustainable planet. And the three key priorities of the Brazilian Presidency are social inclusion and the fight against hunger and poverty, energy transitions and the promotion of sustainable development in its economic, social and environmental dimensions, and finally, reform of global governance institutions," he said.

"The flagship deliverable of the Brazilian presidency is the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, which will be launched during the inaugural session of the Rio Summit. This will be an initiative that is open to non-G20 countries as well as also national, regional, and international organizations, regional and multilateral development banks, civil society organizations, and philanthropic institutions," he added.

Misri said that there are three pillars of the alliance, and India would be joining two of them.

"There are three pillars under this alliance and India will be joining the national and knowledge pillars of this alliance. This will be the main sessions will be followed by a closing ceremony where the chairmanship of, or the presidency of the G20 will be handed over by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil to President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa. And this will also, in a sense, cap a run of four emerging markets holding the presidency in succession of the G20, starting with Indonesia, India, Brazil now, and South Africa the next year," he said.

Misri added that the key priorities of Brazilian presidency are hunger and poverty, the same as India's concerns during its presidency.

He said the target of tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling the rate of energy efficiency by 2030 are again being reaffirmed at the G20 this year.

"As regards energy transition, the ambition set in Delhi on tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling the rate of energy efficiency by 2030 are again being reaffirmed at the G20 this year. Another point of interest, which is the empowerment of women working group, which was envisioned during India's presidency, was convened for the first time this year during the Brazilian presidency, and it cemented the narrative of women-led development in the G20," he said.

"So the ambitious language that was reflected in the New Delhi leaders' delegation has provided the basis for many of the G20 outcome documents that have been adopted this year. Some of our flagship priorities such as digital public infrastructure, mission life, women-led development, etc., have all found resonance. We look forward to a very successful and productive G20 summit in Rio," he added.

PM Modi will visit Nigeria on November 16,17 and will travel to Rio De Janeiro during November 18-19 to attend the G20 Summit. He will undertake a state visit to Guyana from November 19 to 21. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Seoul, Nov 14 (AP) South Korea's Supreme Court on Thursday handed a suspended prison sentence to a former lawmaker who was found guilty of embezzling funds while leading a group supporting Korean survivors of Japan's wartime sexual slavery.

Yoon Meehyang, who was also convicted of fraudulently receiving government subsidies and unlawfully collecting donations, didn't attend the verdict. She didn't immediately issue a comment on the ruling, which confirmed a lower court's sentence of a year and six months in prison, suspended for three years.

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Controversy surrounding Yoon and her group, the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, erupted in 2020 when one of the slavery victims, Lee Yong-soo, accused her of misusing donations and other funds and spending little on the victims.

Yoon, who had just begun her term as a lawmaker for the liberal opposition Democratic Party, denied allegations that she and the group used the funds for private gain and insisted that Lee's claim was based on a misunderstanding.

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Historians say tens of thousands of women from around Asia, many of them Korean, were sent to front-line military brothels to provide sexual services for Japanese soldiers. Hundreds were registered with the South Korean government as victims but only eight of them are still alive.

Prosecutors indicted Yoon in September 2020 over embezzlement, fraud and other charges, months before the Democratic Party expelled her over separate suspicions of inappropriate real-estate investments. She finished her four-year term as a legislator last year as an independent.

The Supreme Court upheld a verdict by the Seoul High Court in September last year, which found Yoon guilty of fraudulently obtaining 65.2 million won (USD 46,300) in government subsidies from 2014 to 2020 by falsely reporting labour costs, and of embezzling 79 million won (USD 56,150) of the group's funds.

The court also ruled that Yoon violated laws by collecting donations through unregistered accounts as the group organised the funeral of Kim Bok-dong, a sexual slavery victim and activist who died in 2019.

The issues of sexual slavery, forced labor and other abuses during Japan's brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula before the end of World War II have long been a source of tensions between Seoul and Tokyo. (AP)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
In yet another case of violence against medical professionals, a Psychiatrist at Government Stanley Medical College in Chennai was attacked on Wednesday. Dr Hariharan (49), an Assistant Professor at the college, was assaulted by a patient named Bharath, who had been receiving treatment in the hospital for the past month.
Bomb threat woes continue to disrupt flight services in India. On Thursday, November 14, a flight from Maharashtra's Nagpur to West Bengal's Kolkata made an emergency landing at Raipur airport in Chhattisgarh following a bomb threat, news agency ANI reported, citing SSP Santosh Singh. "The plane is being checked at the airport, and further probe is underway," SSP Singh added. Bomb Threat on Vistara Plane: Delhi-London Flight UK17 Diverted to Frankfurt After Receiving Security Threat on Social Media.

Bomb Threats to Flights

Raipur, Chhattisgarh: A flight from Nagpur to Kolkata made an emergency landing at Raipur airport following a bomb threat. The plane is being checked at the airport and further probe is underway: Additional Superintendent of Police (Rural) Kirtan Rathore.  ANI (@ANI) November 14, 2024

(SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter (X), Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)
New Delhi, November 14: Going to the Moon is a costly affair, said ISRO chairman S Somanath, while stressing the need for private sector involvement in space exploration. He was speaking at an interactive session with students of the Karnataka Residential Educational Institutions Society. Somnath said that the budget allocated to ISRO -- Rs 12,000 crore -- is insufficient.

Noting that ISRO cannot rely only on government support, he emphasised the need for business opportunities to sustain the space missions. "Going to the Moon is a costly affair. And we cannot depend only on the government for funding. We must create business opportunities. If you have to sustain it, you have to create a use for it. Otherwise, after we do something, the government will tell you to close down," he said. ISRO Chief S Somanath Says for Every Rupee Spent on Indian Space Research Organisation, Society Got Back INR 2.50/

Collaboration with private players in the space sector is absolutely essential, he added. Further, he noted that ISRO aims to serve the country rather than to compete for supremacy among the spacefaring nations. Citing a recent report commissioned by ISRO in collaboration with European space consultancy Novaspace, Somnath said For every rupee that the organisation spent, the return is Rs 2.5. The report, released by space minister Jitendra Singh on National Space Day, said the space sector has contributed $60 billion to India's GDP between 2014 and 2024.

For every dollar generated by the space sector, the Indian economy has seen a multiplier effect of $2.54. Further, it showed that the Indian space sector's revenues have grown to $6.3 billion as of 2023. India is now the eighth-largest space economy in the world. It has created 4.7 million jobs, including 96,000 jobs in the public and private sectors, it said. Sunita Williams Health News Update: Stuck in Space, Indian-Origin NASA Astronaut Rubbishes Weight Loss Rumours, Says Change in Her Appearance Due to Fluid Shifts (Watch Video).

As of 2024, the Indian space economy is valued at around Rs 6,700 crore ($8.4 billion), contributing 2 per cent-3 per cent of the global space economy. It is expected to reach $13 billion by 2025 at a compound annual growth (CAGR) of 6 per cent. India also aims to capture a 10 per cent share of the global economy in the next 10 years.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 14, 2024 11:34 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
On 13 November a court in Argentinas capital, Buenos Aires, upheld the corruption conviction against former president(2007-2015), for which she was sentenced to six years in prison and a lifetime ban from holding public office.

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On 13 November Ecuadors national assembly voted by a large majority to reject an earlier decision by the government led by Presidentto suspend Vice Presidentfor five months.

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On 13 November Cubas Presidentmet Russias minister for civil defence and emergency situations,, in Havana, after which he thanked Russia for its permanent contribution to the islands emergency efforts.

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Construction is underway for Trailside Village, a mixed-use development with 420 apartments and 27,000 square feet of retail space in Forks Township.

Larken Associates of Branchburg, New Jersey, plans to open the 21-building community to residents in 2026, according to a news release Wednesday.

The community is on 37 acres on Sullivan Trail, just north of Main Street / Uhler Road, according to the release.

The complex will have one- and two-bedroom apartments across 12 garden apartment buildings, seven garage buildings and two mixed-use buildings with 26,795 square feet of retail space.

The mixed-use buildings could include retail, medical, and office spaces, according to Larken spokesman Jeremy Dreisbach.

These uses may include personal service providers such as nail salons, spas, hair salons, and barbers as well as medical providers like dentists, chiropractors and optometrists. Additionally, we aim to offer a variety of dining options at the location, Dreisbach said.

No specific retailers were named.

We are excited to embark on our largest residential project to date, said Larken CEO David Gardner. Larken has built 2,800 homes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the release says.

Larken is building Monte View at Pohatcong. The 120-unit multifamily community will welcome its first residents to Pohatcong Township in November.

The property was once zoned for employment center businesses and apartments were prohibited. But, a previous developer went to court to fight for the right to build apartments. Forks Township Supervisors Chairman John ONeil previously acknowledged there werent enough allowances for apartments throughout the township, so the land was rezoned. Its now the employment center/apartments district.

Trailside Village will offer several indoor amenities, including: a clubhouse with a game room, lounge, work pod room and leasing office; a fitness center with cardio equipment, fixed-weight machines, free weights, exercise balls and stretching mats; a pet salon/spa; a mailroom package concierge system; and storage space.

The outdoor amenity package includes gated heated pool with a tanning ledge, rinsing showers, lounge seating, benches and tables. Additional amenities include a covered pavilion with a lounge, fireplace and TVs; grilling stations; a fire pit; a tot lot with sensory-sensitive playground equipment; a bark park with separate areas for large and small dogs; walking and biking trails; and EV charging stations.

The Forks Township planning commission reviewed plans for the development in March 2022.

The community includes an on-site property management team and landscaped grounds.

More information is on the Trailside Village website, trailsidevillage.com.

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Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com.
A US national has appeared before Portlaoise District Court charged arising from the killing in the Ballyfin Demense hotel.

Henry McGowan, aged 30, of 114 Clinton St, Brooklyn, New York, was brought before Judge Andrew Cody on Thursday, November 14.

Det Garda Ger Galwey of Portlaoise Garda Station gave evidence of the arrest charge and caution in relation to the man who wore a black hoodie and facemask upon entering court.

Defence solicitor Barry Fitzgerald told the court that given the nature of the charge, the District Court has no jurisdiction to deal with a bail application.

Judge Cody remanded the accused to Cloverhill Prison to appear again in court by video link on Monday, November 18 at 10.30am.

Mr Fitzgerald said his client had significant mental health difficulties and asked that his client receive help for those on his arrival in Cloverhill. Deg Garda agreed.

At the end of the brief hearing, the judge agreed to a request from Mr Fitzgerald and directed that Mr McGowan receive immediate psychiatric assessment on his admission to Cloverhill.

The man appeared after the death of a man in his 60s at a luxury hotel in Laois on Tuesday, November 12. The deceased is understood to be a parent of the accused.

The accused was in custody since his arrest on Tuesday evening after Gardai were alerted to an incident at a hotel after his late father John McGowan, aged 66, was found deceased.

He was detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984 at a Garda station in the Eastern Region.
A Clare man who shot a neighbouring farmer when discharging eight shot-gun blasts in his direction in the dark has escaped jail.

At Ennis Circuit Court, Judge Francis Comerford has imposed a suspended two year prison term on Adrian Collins (48) of Enagh, Kilkishen for the reckless discharge of a shot-gun where he shot a farming neighbour, Andrew Cotter who was herding cattle at the time.

As part of his sentence, Judge Comerford has also ordered that married father of four, Mr Collins pay Mr Cotter 8,000 compensation and also pay a fine of 4,000.

The court heard that Mr Collins discharged the shot-gun eight times after attending a Christening earlier that day on February 26th 2023 when he drank four or five pints.

Mr Collins surrendered his gun to Gardai in the aftermath of the reckless discharge and Judge Comerford has also ordered that he have his gun licence revoked for abusing the entitlement to hold a licence.

Judge Comerford said that Mr Cotter was hit by three pellets from Mr Collinss eight shots.

Judge Comerford has also ordered Mr Collins to sell his 1,000 shotgun and the proceeds are to go towards the 8,000 compensation order.

Judge Comerford was told that Mr Collins is a social drinker and doesnt have a drink problem.

In sentencing, Judge Comerford said: If Mr Collins had a drink and formed the view he could fire in a gun in the direction of people I am of the view that he does have a drink problem.

Judge Comerford said that Mr Collins had engaged in very serious offending.

In suspending the prison term, Judge Comerford said that he was taking into account Mr Collins's plea of guilt, co-operating with Gardai, having no previous convictions and his grudging remorse towards Mr Cotter.

Judge Comerford said that the case was at the very high end of recklessness with intent but I do accept there was no hint of personal animus towards Mr Cotter.

Mr Collins pleaded guilty to the reckless discharge of a fire-arm contrary to Section 8 of the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act on February 26th 2023 at Enagh, Kilkishen.

Mr Cotter, a married 65 year old father of four grown up children - was checking his cattle when shot.

At the time, it was dark and was around 7.30pm at night. One gunshot pellet lodged in his skin just below the eye of Mr Cotter.

In his victim impact statement, Mr Cotter said: "I was lucky that I didnt lose the sight of my eye.

Mr Cotter has a five acre out-farm close to Mr Collinss home and was out herding five cattle.

Mr Cotter told the court: I was herding cattle when I was shot about eight times by Adrian Collins. The left side of my face was badly hit and I had to be hospitalised and I had numerous visits to the hospital and doctors.

Mr Cotter said: He was obviously aiming at and firing at the light in my head. It bothered me greatly why he would do this to me.

Mr Cotter said: I have no idea why Adrian Collins would do this to me - he inflicted severe pain upon me and more than that he has made me nervous and afraid every time I go near the land."

He said: I wish this never happened as it has caused great upset to me personally and to my family.

Read Also: Gardai clock 'weaving' e-scooter driver doing THREE times the legal limit on busy road

In evidence, Det Garda Colm Moriarty said that on the night, Mr Cotter was wearing a headlamp and wearing a fluorescent jacket.

Det Garda Moriarty said that Mr Cotter was there to herd five cattle and saw that one was in difficulty in a ditch.

Det Garda Moriarty said that Mr Cotter felt a volley of shots on his jacket while trying to get the cow back over to the feeder in a field.

The Detective Garda said that Mr Collins fired another two shots and Mr Cotter got an awful belt to side of his face and it was bleeding.

Det Garda Moriarty said that Mr Cotter phoned his son, Michael and they went to the Collins house and the conversation got heated, and Adrian Collins accused them of snooping around the back of the property.

Det Garda Moriarty had two pellets lodged in Mr Cotter's left temple and another one centimetre under his eye and had them removed in April and May of last year at hospital.

Det Garda Moriarty said that at interview, Mr Collins said that he didnt intentionally go out to hurt someone.

Mr Collins - who works in construction - told Gardai that he was shocked when the Cotters came to his door later that evening.

He told the Gardai that the penny had dropped and he was embarrassed, angry and sorry for what he did.

Counsel for Mr Collins, Patrick Whyms BL (instructed by solicitor, Stiofan Fitzpatrick) said that Mr Collins has no previous convictions and the incident is a bizarre entry into the arena of being in trouble.

He said that it was the most unfortunate sequence of events.

Mr Whyms said that his client wishes to apologise unreservedly and accepts that his behaviour was completely wrong.

Mr Whyms said that on the night, Mr Collins became aware of activity and light at the rear of his property

Mr Whyms said: He believed that there were people there who shouldnt have been there and not thinking clearly he discharged shots in direction of those who were there.
The Infrastructure, Climate and Nature (IFN) Fund was a red line issue for the Greens, Roderic OGorman has said, after a party colleague revealed that the Government nearly collapsed at the time.

Mr OGorman said the period of negotiations with Fine Gael and Fianna Fail in 2023 was a tense and very difficult time.

He did not deny that Green ministers had threatened to walk out of Government.

The 3.15 billion euro state investment fund is a vehicle for investing in infrastructure, climate and nature projects until 2030, sourced from windfall corporation tax profits.

It comes after a Green junior minister claimed that the Government almost collapsed due to Fianna Fails position on budget negotiations over the IFN Fund.

On Saturday, Green Party minister Ossian Smyth claimed Fianna Fail had to be dragged kicking and screaming on many environmental issues.

In a statement issued through the party press office, he said: The last Government nearly collapsed because Fianna Fail wouldnt agree to the 3.15 billion euro Climate and Nature Fund even though it will help businesses and state bodies cut emissions while also cutting their energy bills.

Asked to expand on these comments on Thursday, Mr OGorman said that in 2023 the party had insisted on introducing the measure alongside the Future Ireland Fund, which is designed to protect against demographic changes associated with an ageing population.

He said: When the Climate and Nature Fund was being devised in summer 2023, there was very significant tension in terms of that we have a very clear vision of how some of the surplus money would be used.

He added: There was strong pushback at time and the funds were meant to be agreed by July 2023 but we didnt sign off on them because we werent happy with the commitments in the Climate and Nature Fund.

The measures were later agreed over September and October.

Asked how close the Greens came to walking out of Government over the IFN Fund, Mr OGorman said: It was a tense time. It was a very difficult time. We made it very clear this was a red line for us.

He said the party at that time was led by Eamon Ryan, and would not comment on the former leaders conversations with the coalition partners.

Pressed on the matter, Mr OGorman admitted he was abreast of the tensions in Government at the time but could not comment on the specific wording used to express the red-line position.

Asked if he was personally prepared to walk out of Government, he said: I saw this as an essential element in making sure Ireland could meet its climate targets.

Mr Smyth also revealed on Wednesday that he was prepared to quit the Government if a land hoarding tax was deferred again in Budget 2025.

Asked if a future coalition involving the Greens would be marked with similar threats, Mr OGorman said the tax is essential in the housing crisis and added: It will be marked by standing by our principles and standing by our key policies.

He said that stance shows the Greens will insist on policies agreed in the Programme for Government.

Mr OGorman was speaking at the launch of the partys policy document on the climate for the General Election.

He offered a breakdown of the spending of the climate fund where 1.2 billion euro would finance a massively expanded home retrofit programme, 200 million euro would help businesses with their energy efficiency, 250 million euro would support the rollout of district heating, and 100 million euro would be allocated to new infrastructure to support offshore wind and microgeneration.

Also on Thursday, the Social Democrats said coalition parties had wasted their opportunity to deal with climate action and meet emission-reduction targets.

The partys climate spokeswoman Jennifer Whitmore said: Our top priority when it comes to climate action is to revise the climate action plan to make sure that it meets our targets, that we have sufficient plans and measures and policies in place to meet our 51% climate target, and to avoid eight billion euro in fines from Europe if we do not, because that will be one of the ramifications for this country.

Ms Whitmore said Social Democrats would have a five billion-euro climate fund ringfencing hundreds of millions of euro for offshore floating wind, install 500,000 solar panels on homes across the country, and introduce a minister for biodiversity.

She said the party would also encourage farmers to have a herd reduction.
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Two Woodies stores in Kildare have celebrated the wrap-up of another successful Woodies Heroes campaign.

Woodies Newbridge raised 7,344 and Woodies Naas raised 14,572 with help from customers, colleagues, and suppliers.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Woodies annual charity fundraiser, Woodie's Heroes, which has become a vital part of the community efforts by its stores in Kildare and nationwide.

The significant 10-year milestone was marked by Woodie's CEO Damien Dwyer announcing that this year's Woodie's Heroes campaign raised an impressive 563,134 nationwide. This brings the total funds raised by Woodies Heroes over the past decade to an astounding 4,100,786.

Since Woodie's Heroes was established in 2015, Woodie's colleagues have nominated their chosen children's charities to benefit from the fundraiser, with 100 per cent of all funds raised divided equally among them.

This year's benefiting charities were Autism Assistance Dogs Ireland, Childrens Health Foundation, Childline by ISPCC, and Down Syndrome Ireland.

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Damien Dwyer, CEO of Woodie's, says:

"As we celebrate 10 years of Woodies Heroes, Im overwhelmed by what weve accomplished together in Kildare and nationwide.

"This initiative started in response to our colleagues who genuinely wanted to help the communities we serve, and it has become such an important part of who we are at Woodie's, bringing pride and camaraderie to our 35 stores.

Our colleagues are the heart of Woodies Heroes. They choose the children's charities we support, lead the efforts in-store, and bring incredible energy to everything we do. It's organic, it's genuine, and it creates a buzz across our stores and support office.

"Raising over 4.1 million in 10 years is an amazing achievement, and I couldnt be prouder. Meeting the families and children supported by our charities and seeing first-hand the impact, from speech therapy to assistance dogs, shows the true difference were making together.

"Woodies Heroes is part of what makes us who we are, and it strengthens our bond with the communities around us. We look forward to continuing this journey in the years ahead."
Sinn Fein would introduce a new dedicated immigration management agency within months, Mary Lou McDonald has said.

Ms McDonald said the agency would ensure cohesion around planning, sharing of information, and speedy decision-making.

Sinn Fein wants to operate the agency under a newly formed Department of Justice and Home Affairs.

It would bring bring personnel from six State agencies to work in sync under one department: the Garda National Immigration Bureau; the Border Management Unit; the Immigration Service Delivery Unit; the International Protection Unit; International Protection Accommodation Services (Ipas); and relevant units in the Workplace Relations Commission.

Launching her partys immigration policy on Thursday, she told reporters: It will have responsibility for processing applications, enforcement of rules, registration and accommodation.

We would increase staff and properly resource the new agency to ensure it is equipped to fulfil its tasks.

The Department of Integration would continue to have responsibility for supporting international protection applicants who receive the asylum status so that they can fully integrate into society, and would work closely with communities to ensure that services and resources are provided.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment will continue to process employment permits as normal for the many workers who are playing a really valuable role in our economy, especially in our health service, and, of course, in our tech sector.

Earlier this year, Ms McDonald announced that Sinn Fein had conducted an internal review after performing well below its own expectations in the local and European elections.

She revealed that senior figures in Sinn Fein were disappointed with her engagement with the partys base.

Ms McDonald was told that she needed to offer more clarity on its policies, including on immigration.

Sinn Fein said it would treble resourcing of the immigration system to 64 million euro in a bid to halve processing times, with the establishment of the new agency costing an additional five million euro.

Ms McDonald said said her party was putting forward a common-sense approach to immigration, rather than what she called the chaotic approach of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

The current system doesnt work for anybody. Weve chaotic management with different bodies and Government departments acting independently of one another, she said.

Last week, Ms McDonald echoed her partys integrations spokeswoman when she told reporters that it was common sense to deport immigrants who commit serious crimes.

She said this was in line with Irish law, which permits the removal of an individual to their country of origin if they have committed a serious or violent crime.

If someone has been living in Ireland for more than 10 years or is a child, the order can only be made in the interests of public security.

On Thursday, she reiterated a commitment that Sinn Fein would not locate International Protection Accommodation Services (Ipas) centres in working-class communities.

Her party colleague, Matt Carthy, said it is a matter of principle that some areas are not appropriate for the location of a centre for asylum seekers, adding that communities should be allowed to have a say.

In addition, he said there needs to be assurance that asylum seekers whose applications are not granted have actually left the country.

Their comments come the morning after Taoiseach Simon Harris said Ireland needs a firmer immigration system.

Immigration emerged as one of the major issues for political parties in the last two years of the Government, with senior ministers saying there had been a massive increase in the number of asylum seekers.

The State has failed to accommodate thousands of international protection applicants, with 2,865 men currently awaiting an official offer of accommodation.

This has manifested with the erection of makeshift migrant camps along streets and canals in Dublin, something Ms McDonald called a heartbreaking disgrace.

The Government mobilised a multi-agency response to clear the encampments in the interests of public health, and placed barriers to make it more difficult for asylum seekers to place their tents.

There has been a spate of arson attacks against centres earmarked for use by asylum seekers as well as protests in which gardai were injured and garda vehicles were damaged. Some of the makeshift migrant encampments have also been damaged and subjected to suspected arson.

In a pre-election interview with Virgin Media News, Mr Harris said: We have went from about 3,500 people a year seeking asylum in Ireland to about 25,000, plus a war in Ukraine.

The Fine Gael leader added: Since I have become Taoiseach, I have been very clear that the system needs to be firmer. Immigration is a good thing, we benefit from it, but there also have to be rules.

Fine Gael wants to implement a means-tested, income-linked contribution towards State accommodation for international protection applicants with jobs.

Mr Harris has also said there will be a very significant increase in deportations to countries of origin.

Labour has criticised the Taoiseachs rhetoric as populist-pandering to anti-immigrant feeling.

Jim OCallaghan, a candidate for Fianna Fail in Dublin Bay South, questioned Fine Gaels bona fides on immigration, noting the party has held the justice portfolio for 13 years: When you look at my constituency, at tents, and you look at barriers, its not a system thats working very effectively.
A career criminal serving a life sentence for the murder of a father-of-eight has argued that a North Face jacket containing gunshot residue that was central to his conviction ought to have been excluded from evidence as it was improperly stored by the gardai.

Without this jacket and the firearm residue there could not have been a prosecution for murder against him, said Dean Kelly SC at the Court of Appeal on Thursday, launching an appeal on behalf of Robert Redmond (36).

Redmond, of Streamville Road, Kilbarrack, Dublin 5, is serving life imprisonment for the murder of Barry Wolverson (40) at Madigan's Yard, Killeek Lane, Swords, Co Dublin, on January 17, 2020. He had denied the charge.

The murder trial heard that Mr Wolverson (40) was a businessman who rented space at Madigan's Yard in Swords in north Dublin. At the time of his shooting, his partner was expecting a child, whom he never saw. He also has four children and three stepchildren.

Mr Wolverson and Gerard Wildman were sitting in a car at the yard shortly before midday when Mr Wolverson was shot several times. Mr Wolverson eventually died from cardiac arrest after being treated in a residential care facility while in a comatose state for 13 months.

Redmond was given a life sentence for the murder at the Special Criminal Court, five years on a charge of assault causing harm on Mr Wildman, and 12 years for the possession of firearms and ammunition. Redmond's co-accused Bernard Fogarty, with an address at Cromcastle Court, Kilmore, Coolock, Dublin 5, was also sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering Mr Wolverson.

At Redmonds appeal today, Mr Kelly said that one of the exhibits in the case, a North Face jacket, may potentially have been contaminated because of the manner in which it was preserved by the gardai.

He said that Dr John OShaughnessy of Forensic Science Ireland had given evidence at the trial of finding gunshot particles on the jacket, but the permissibility of this evidence depended on the prosecution first addressing the issue of contamination.

Mr Kelly said that a garda gave evidence at the trial that the jacket was inadequately bagged and preserved from the time he took it from the appellant and sealed it with three or four staples, accepting that he ought to have done otherwise.

Mr Kelly said that the bag containing the jacket was placed in the boot of the garda car, then later removed from that bag, put into a nylon bag, and finally replaced back in a brown paper bag.

He said that Dr OShaugnessy confirmed that the manner in which the bag was sealed was not in best practice, adding that contamination of the jacket could not be ruled out, as the bag had been placed in the boot of a garda car, and it was accepted that garda cars are sometimes used for the transport of firearms.

This was the piece of evidence by some distance that convicted him of murder, said Mr Kelly. Without this jacket and the firearm residue there could not have been a prosecution for murder against him.

Mr Kelly said that the presence of gunshot residue in and of itself does not prove the appellants presence at the scene of the shooting, which meant the court fell into error in the weight it placed on that item of evidence.

Mr Kelly said that the doctor was being asked for his opinion, assuming that both Redmond and his co-accused were there at the scene, as to who he thought had shot the victim. Counsel said this had been a wholly inappropriate opinion to go to the court, as it proceeded on the basis of the appellants guilt.

It assumes him to be part of a murder gang there to carry out a murder, so that opinion should have been excluded, said Mr Kelly.

He said there was never a point where any other evidence was presented to put Redmond in that yard, so the ultimate finding of guilt came about because of the North Face jacket.

Counsel for the DPP, Paul Greene SC, said that the day before the shooting, the two accused men were seen on CCTV, with Redmond wearing the North Face jacket. The following day, half an hour after the shooting, the two men were arrested in a housing estate 200m away from a burnt-out vehicle, the same vehicle that drove them into Madigans yard, with Redmond wearing the same jacket. Mr Greene said there was an unbroken chain of evidence to show that the two men went from the estate to the yard and back again, while there was also witness evidence from someone who saw a tattooed man in a red vehicle, with Redmond shown to have similar tattoos.

Mr Greene said that the defence was asking the court for an unwarranted degree of engaging in speculation concerning the possibility of the jacket being contaminated. He said there was no evidence of gunshot residue in the boot of the garda car or the floor of the garda station, with the jacket bagged, stapled up, and then re-bagged promptly.

He said that Dr OShaughnessy had told the trial that there was a possibility of contamination, but there was still a significant corpus of residue on the jacket. Mr Greene went on to say that the witness gave his opinion on the garda theory that the gunman was either Redmond or Fogarty, adding that the doctor was allowed to make a factual assessment.

Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said that the court would reserve judgement in the case.

Redmond, who has 99 previous convictions, is also serving a seven-year sentence - to be served consecutive to his 12-year term for possession of a firearm in the murder of Mr Wolverson - for conspiring to gun down a drug dealer who owed him 70,000.

Father-of-one Jordan Davis was shot dead while pushing his four-month-old son in a pram in broad daylight five years ago. A text conversation revealed that Mr Davis had owed a drug debt to Redmond amounting to 70,000.

Redmond was originally charged with the murder of Mr Davis, who was fatally shot by a gunman on a bike while pushing his four-month-old son's buggy in a laneway beside Our Lady of Immaculate National School in Darndale.

Mr Davis suffered three gunshot wounds including one to the head that killed him instantly.
Carrick-on-Shannon resident Lisa Hitchen has returned from a transformative three-month mission in Palestine, where she served as a human rights monitor in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. As part of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), an initiative of the World Council of Churches coordinated in the UK and Ireland by Quakers Peace and Social Witness, Lisa witnessed daily human rights violations and the ongoing struggles faced by Palestinian communities living under occupation.

Lisas work involved providing a protective presence to vulnerable communities threatened by violence from Israeli settlers and military personnel. She frequently escorted children to school, supported farmers in accessing their lands, and monitored access to healthcare, education, and places of worship. The reality is that these communities live under constant threat, Lisa explained. My role was to stand with them, offer support, and bear witness to what was happening.

Now back in Ireland, Lisa is eager to share her firsthand experiences and insights. She will be holding an event titled Stories from Israel and the West Bank at the Leitrim Volunteer Centre on Wednesday, 20th November at 7 p.m. The event will provide a unique opportunity for the community to hear directly from Lisa about daily life under occupation and the challenges facing Palestinians. Lisa will also discuss what can be done to create peace in the region.

Life in Palestine is a daily struggle for basic rights and freedoms, Lisa said. People face constant restrictionswhether its accessing healthcare, education, or simply traveling freely. But what I saw was also incredible resilience and a hope for peace.

The event is open to all, and Lisa encourages anyone interested in learning more about the situation in Palestine to attend. Its important that people understand whats happening and how we can work together to advocate for a just peace, she added.

All are welcome to come and hear Lisas powerful testimony from her time as a human rights monitor in Palestine.
Kimberly-Clark Declares Quarterly Dividend and Announces Date of 2024 Annual Shareholder Meeting





DALLAS, Nov. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The board of directors of Kimberly-Clark Corporation (NYSE: KMB) has declared a regular quarterly dividend of $1.22 per share. The dividend is payable in cash on January 3, 2025, to stockholders of record at the close of business on December 6, 2024.

This represents the 90th consecutive year Kimberly-Clark has paid a dividend to shareholders and the 52nd consecutive year it has increased its dividend.

The company also announced that it will hold its next annual shareholder meeting on May 1, 2025.

About Kimberly-Clark

Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) and its trusted brands are an indispensable part of life for people in more than 175 countries. Fueled by ingenuity, creativity, and an understanding of people's most essential needs, we create products that help individuals experience more of what's important to them. Our portfolio of brands, including Huggies, Kleenex, Scott, Kotex, Cottonelle, Poise, Depend, Andrex, Pull-Ups, GoodNites, Intimus, Plenitud, Sweety, Softex, Viva and WypAll, hold No. 1 or No. 2 share positions in approximately 70 countries. We use sustainable practices that support a healthy planet, build strong communities, and ensure our business thrives for decades to come. We are proud to be recognized as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies(R) by Ethisphere for the fifth year in a row and one of Fortune's Most Innovative Companies in America in 2024. To keep up with the latest news and to learn more about the company's 150-year history of innovation, visit the Kimberly-Clark website.

[KMB-F]

SOURCE Kimberly-Clark Corporation

13 november 2024 at 17:31

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Xeltis announces FDA Breakthrough Device Designation for aXessTM and first patient treated in US pivotal trial





Designation recognizes aXess has the potential of providing a more effective vascular access option for dialysis patients, bringing significant advantages over current therapies

First patient treated in US pivotal trial, marking significant clinical milestone

EINDHOVEN, The Netherlands, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Xeltis, a leading developer of transformative implants that enable the natural creation of living and long-lasting vessels, today announces that the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted aXess Breakthrough Device Designation status. aXess is Xeltis' vascular access conduit, which enables the creation of a new, permanent, living vessel for hemodialysis vascular access.

Concurrently, following IDE approval from the FDA, the first patient in aXess' US-staged pivotal trial has now been enrolled and treated at the Flow Vascular Institute in Houston, Texas, by Dr. Karl Illig, marking a significant clinical milestone for Xeltis.

Eliane Schutte, Chief Executive Officer, Xeltis commented: "We are in a transformative period for Xeltis, and this designation from the FDA is great recognition of the potential importance of our highly novel technology. We are also extremely proud that the first patient in our US pivotal trial has now been treated, and this clinical achievement provides us with significant momentum as we advance towards commercialization."

Dr. Karl Illig, Vascular Surgeon and site Principal Investigator for aXess US pivotal trial, said: "aXess has the potential to be a truly groundbreaking advance in the vascular access field, as it enables the creation of a new, permanent, living vessel. We hope that its ability to avoid the frequent reinterventions and infections associated with current treatment options will make a major difference to patients and their care."

Dr. John Lucas III, Surgeon at Lucas Surgical Group, P.A. and national Principal Investigator for aXess US pivotal trial, added: "The US trial for aXess is an important step in assessing and validating the ability of this unique conduit to transform the field of vascular access. The 12-month data from the first-in-human study in Europe is extremely promising and I look forward to working on this next clinical stage in Xeltis' journey."

This Breakthrough Device Designation acknowledges that aXess meets the necessary criteria for its proposed use as a vascular prosthesis and that it has the potential of providing a more effective treatment option for patients needing hemodialysis vascular access than current treatments. These benefits include the avoidance of frequent reinterventions and complications, such as infections, which are faced by renal disease patients. The designation grants Xeltis accelerated interactions with FDA review teams, prioritized review, and special reimbursement consideration, positioning the Company for enhanced market access and expediting commercialization for patients in need.

Strong clinical data for aXess will be presented during the VEITH Symposium between November 19-23. On November 23, Dr. John Lucas III will present an update on the US IDE Pivotal Study for aXess, and on November 21, Prof. Frans Moll will present the full 2-year clinical results for aXess.

About Xeltis

Xeltis is a medtech company developing transformative implants that enable the natural creation of living and long-lasting vessels. Xeltis seeks to address the limitations of currently available options for the millions of people requiring hemodialysis access grafts or cardiovascular replacements every year. The Company's proprietary endogenous tissue restoration (ETR) platform utilizes an advanced polymer implant which regenerates the patient's own tissue before gradually being absorbed and leaving new, living, and long-lasting vessels in place. Xeltis' most advanced product currently under clinical development is aXessTM, an implantable blood vessel for hemodialysis vascular access. Xeltis' groundbreaking technology has high potential to be applied to other major vascular and cardiovascular diseases.

Xeltis is based in The Netherlands and the USA. Its investors include DaVita Venture Group, EQT Life Sciences, Kurma Partners, VI Partners, Ysios Capital, Grand Pharma Group, the European Innovation Council and Invest-NL, in addition to other public and private investors.

About aXess

aXess is a restorative conduit which enables the creation of a new, permanent, living vessel for hemodialysis vascular access. It combines the safety and patency of a fistula with the speed to treatment of an AV graft. The aXess vascular access conduit offers an improved dialysis patient experience and avoids the frequent reinterventions and complications, such as infections, faced by renal disease patients.

A first-in-human trial of aXess demonstrated a significant improvement in performance compared to hemodialysis vascular access solutions. A pivotal trial of aXess is currently underway in Europe, with recruitment underway in the US.

Go to axesspivotal.com for more details.

About the FDA Breakthrough Devices Program

The FDA Breakthrough Devices Program aims to provide patients and health care providers with faster access to cutting-edge technologies by accelerating the development, evaluation, and review processes for premarket approval. This designation recognizes those medical devices that meet the FDA's high standards for device safety and effectiveness and are evaluated as significantly improving the diagnosis or treatment of life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating conditions with unmet medical needs.

SOURCE Xeltis

14 november 2024 at 03:30

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Vista Gold Clarifies At-The-Market Offering Agreement Renewal





Vista Gold Corp. (NYSE American and TSX: VGZ) recently renewed its At-The-Market Offering Agreement ("ATM Agreement") with H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC. In the course of ordinary business, Vista has maintained an ATM Agreement since 2017, including pursuant to periodic renewals. Under the ATM Agreement, Vista has the right to sell up to US$8 million in Vista common shares but is under no obligation to do so.

Frederick H. Earnest, Vista's President and CEO commented, "We have consistently maintained an ATM Agreement as part of our business strategy; however, in the past, we have only used it from time to time on what we believe is an opportunistic basis. On October 23, 2024, we announced our third quarter 2024 financial results in which we reported US$19 million in cash as of September 30, 2024. We anticipate using the renewed ATM in a manner generally consistent with our past practices but are not marketing a financing under the ATM Agreement for its face amount of $8 million as may have been interpreted by some from the public filings or media reports."

About Vista Gold Corp.

Vista holds the Mt Todd gold project, a shovel-ready development-stage gold deposit located in the Tier-1 mining jurisdiction of Northern Territory, Australia. Vista is positioning Mt Todd as a leading development opportunity within the gold sector. Mt Todd offers significant scale, development optionality, growth opportunities, advanced local infrastructure, community support, and demonstrated economic feasibility. All major environmental and operating permits necessary to initiate development of Mt Todd are in place.

Vista's strategy is to advance Mt Todd in ways that efficiently position the project for development while exercising the discipline necessary to best realize value at the right time. Vista believes its strategy of advancing Mt Todd in this manner will deliver a more fully valued project to its shareholders.

For further information about Vista or Mt Todd, please contact Pamela Solly, Vice President of Investor Relations, at (720) 981-1185 or visit the Company's website at www.vistagold.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this news release that address activities, events or developments that we expect or anticipate will or may occur in the future, including such things as our belief that maintaining an ATM Agreement is within our ordinary course of business; our belief that in the past, we have used the ATM Agreement from time to time on an opportunistic basis; we anticipate using the renewed ATM in a manner generally consistent with our past practices but are not marketing a financing under the ATM Agreement for its face amount of $8 million as may have been interpreted by some from the public filings or media reports; our belief that Mt Todd is a shovel-ready development-stage gold deposit and that the Northern Territory, Australia is a Tier-1 jurisdiction; our belief that Mt Todd offers significant scale, development optionality, growth opportunities, advanced local infrastructure, community support, and demonstrated economic feasibility; statements related to Vista's strategy, including Vista's strategy is to advance Mt Todd in ways that efficiently position the project for development while exercising the discipline necessary to best realize value at the right time and Vista's belief that its strategy of advancing Mt Todd in this matter will deliver a more fully valued project to its shareholders are forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The material factors and assumptions used to develop the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information contained in this news release include the following: our forecasts and expected cash flows; our projected capital and operating costs; our expectations regarding mining and metallurgical recoveries; mine life and production rates; that laws or regulations impacting mine development or mining activities will remain consistent; our approved business plans, our mineral resource and reserve estimates and results of preliminary economic assessments; preliminary feasibility studies and feasibility studies on our projects, if any; our experience with regulators; political and social support of the mining industry in Australia; our experience and knowledge of the Australian mining industry and our expectations of economic conditions and the price of gold. When used in this news release, the words "optimistic," "potential," "indicate," "expect," "intend," "hopes," "believe," "may," "will," "if," "anticipate" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Such factors include, among others, uncertainty of resource and reserve estimates, uncertainty as to the Company's future operating costs and ability to raise capital; risks relating to cost increases for capital and operating costs; risks of shortages and fluctuating costs of equipment or supplies; risks relating to fluctuations in the price of gold; the inherently hazardous nature of mining-related activities; potential effects on our operations of environmental regulations in the countries in which it operates; risks due to legal proceedings; risks relating to political and economic instability in certain countries in which it operates; uncertainty as to the results of bulk metallurgical test work; and uncertainty as to completion of critical milestones for Mt Todd; as well as those factors discussed under the headings "Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" in the Company's latest Annual Report on Form 10-K as filed in March 2024, and other documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian securities regulatory authorities. Although we have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements and forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

14 november 2024 at 06:50

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N-able Adds Three Leaders to Further Strengthen its Global Channel Strategy





N-able, Inc. (NYSE: NABL), a global software company helping IT services providers deliver remote monitoring and management, data protection as-a-service, and security solutions, has welcomed Jonathan Bartholomew, Vice President of Channel Sales; Paul Monaghan, Vice President of EMEA Sales; and Andy Hudson, Vice President of International Marketing. These key hires underscore the expanding support N-able has for the rapidly growing IT services market and its multi-layered channel with an active presence in 150 countries.

These new additions to N-able will broaden its channel strategy to meet the needs of its full set of partners, which is comprised of distributors, resellers, and MSPs all working to benefit the small and medium enterprises at the end of the line. It takes a wide range of different types of participants to be successful in the diverse IT services channel, which brings the delivery of security and IT management solutions and services through distinct and collaborative layers. N-able takes a global yet highly localized approach to its channel programs to enhance scalability, flexibility, and responsiveness in addressing unique market demands.

Each of the new leaders bring a wealth of channel and IT industry expertise to their roles:

Jonathan Bartholomew, VP, Channel Sales ? Jonathan holds extensive channel and security expertise, having previously worked with industry leaders like Sophos. He will focus on enhancing N-able relationships with resellers and distributors?to empower them to serve their small and medium enterprise and MSP clients more effectively and efficiently, in the ways that best meet their unique business objectives.

? Jonathan holds extensive channel and security expertise, having previously worked with industry leaders like Sophos. He will focus on enhancing N-able relationships with resellers and distributors?to empower them to serve their small and medium enterprise and MSP clients more effectively and efficiently, in the ways that best meet their unique business objectives. Paul Monaghan, VP, EMEA Sales ? With a keen focus on MSPs across EMEA and beyond, Paul will help N-able broaden its global reach. His experience in international sales will be instrumental in developing strategies that cater to the unique demands of N-able MSP partners, ensuring they have the support needed to thrive in their respective markets.

? With a keen focus on MSPs across EMEA and beyond, Paul will help N-able broaden its global reach. His experience in international sales will be instrumental in developing strategies that cater to the unique demands of N-able MSP partners, ensuring they have the support needed to thrive in their respective markets. Andy Hudson, VP, International Marketing ? Andy will head the N-able international go-to-market strategies, particularly outside of North America. His insights will help guide the company's efforts to scale more quickly and adapt to varying global market dynamics, ensuring that content and programs resonate with diverse audiences.

"These strategic hires reflect the commitment N-able has to building a robust and dynamic channel ecosystem that benefits our partners and the businesses they serve," said Frank Colletti, Chief Revenue Officer at N-able. "Partnership sits at the center of everything we do and every program we build, and these leaders play a pivotal role in helping us stay true to that promise globally. As we continue to grow and evolve, we are excited to welcome Jonathan, Paul, and Andy to our team and look forward to the valuable contributions they will make to help our partners thrive."

About N?able

N?able fuels IT services providers with powerful software solutions to monitor, manage, and secure their customers' systems, data, and networks. Built on a scalable platform, we offer secure infrastructure and tools to simplify complex ecosystems, as well as resources to navigate evolving IT needs. We help partners excel at every stage of growth, protect their customers, and expand their offerings with an ever-increasing, flexible portfolio of integrations from leading technology providers. n-able.com

 2024 N?able Solutions ULC and N?able Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.

The N?able trademarks, service marks, and logos are the exclusive property of N?able Solutions ULC and N?able Technologies Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Category: Company

14 november 2024 at 07:05

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Cybin to Present 12-Month Phase 2 Data for CYB003 in Major Depressive Disorder on November 18, 2024





Cybin Inc. (NYSE American:CYBN) (Cboe CA:CYBN) ("Cybin" or the "Company"), a clinical-stage breakthrough neuropsychiatry platform company committed to revolutionizing mental healthcare by developing new and innovative next-generation treatment options, today announced that it will host a conference call and webcast on Monday, November 18, 2024 at 8:00 a.m. ET.

The event will be hosted by Cybin's Chief Executive Officer, Doug Drysdale, and Cybin's Chief Medical Officer, Amir Inamdar, and will include presentation of 12-month efficacy and safety data from the Company's Phase 2 study of CYB003 in Major Depressive Disorder and an overview of the design of its recently initiated Phase 3 PARADIGMtm program in CYB003. A Q&A session for the investment community will follow the prepared remarks.

Conference Call and Webcast Details:

Date: Monday, November 18, 2024 Time: 8:00 a.m. ET. Dial-in: 800-579-2543 (U.S. Toll-Free) or 785-424-1789 (International) Conference ID: CYBN1118 Webcast: Register for the webcast here

The archived webcast will also be available on the Company's investor relations website on the Events & Presentations page.

About Cybin

Cybin is a late-stage breakthrough neuropsychiatry company committed to revolutionizing mental healthcare by developing new and innovative next-generation treatment options to address the large unmet need for people who suffer from mental health conditions.

With industry leading proof-of-concept data, Cybin is working to change the mental health treatment landscape through the introduction of intermittent treatments that provide long lasting results. The Company is currently developing CYB003, a proprietary deuterated psilocin program, in Phase 3 development for the adjunctive treatment of major depressive disorder and CYB004, a proprietary deuterated N, N-dimethyltryptamine program in a Phase 2 study for generalized anxiety disorder. The company also has a research pipeline of investigational, 5-HT-receptor focused compounds.

Founded in 2019, Cybin is operational in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Ireland. For Company updates and to learn more about Cybin, visit www.cybin.com or follow the team on X, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram.

Cautionary Notes and Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this news release relating to the Company are forward-looking statements and are prospective in nature. Forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts, but rather on current expectations and projections about future events and are therefore subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "may", "should", "could", "intend", "estimate", "plan", "anticipate", "expect", "believe" or "continue", or the negative thereof or similar variations. Forward-looking statements in this news release include statements regarding the Company's plans to present 12-month efficacy and safety results from its Phase 2 study of CYB003; provide an overview of the design of its PARADIGM program; and the Company's plans to engineer proprietary drug discovery platforms, innovative drug delivery systems, novel formulation approaches and treatment regimens for mental health disorders.

These forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time such statements were made. Actual future results may differ materially as 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 materially differ from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors, among other things, include: implications of the spread of a pandemic on the Company's operations; fluctuations in general macroeconomic conditions; fluctuations in securities markets; expectations regarding the size of the psychedelics market; the ability of the Company to successfully achieve its business objectives; plans for growth; political, social and environmental uncertainties; employee relations; the presence of laws and regulations that may impose restrictions in the markets where the Company operates; and the risk factors set out in each of the Company's management's discussion and analysis for the three and six month periods ended September 30, 2024 and the Company's annual information form for the year ended March 31, 2024, which are available under the Company's profile on www.sedarplus.ca and with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on EDGAR at www.sec.gov. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes, or believed at the time, to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure shareholders that actual results will be consistent with such forward-looking statements, as there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law.

Cybin makes no medical, treatment or health benefit claims about Cybin's proposed products. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Health Canada or other similar regulatory authorities have not evaluated claims regarding psilocin, psychedelic tryptamine, tryptamine derivatives or other psychedelic compounds. The efficacy of such products has not been confirmed by approved research. There is no assurance that the use of psilocin, psychedelic tryptamine, tryptamine derivatives or other psychedelic compounds can diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or condition. Rigorous scientific research and clinical trials are needed. If Cybin cannot obtain the approvals or research necessary to commercialize its business, it may have a material adverse effect on Cybin's performance and operations.

Neither the Cboe Canada nor the NYSE American LLC stock exchange have approved or disapproved the contents of this news release and are not responsible for the adequacy and accuracy of the contents herein.

14 november 2024 at 07:35

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Premier Health Announces Successful AI Deployment in Quebec





MONTREAL, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Premier Health of America Inc. (TSXV: PHA) (the "Corporation" or "Premier Health"), a leading Canadian health tech company, announces that it successfully deployed AI at its two subsidiaries to meet its digital transformation, efficiency and sustainability objectives.

Premier Health has deployed AI capabilities at its two Quebec per diem subsidiaries, Premier Soin and Code Bleu. The AI's maturity has achieved a remarkable 89% precision rate in interpreting client data, which minimizes manual intervention and allows team members to focus on client support and resource allocation. Overall operational efficiency has increased by 25%, with a 20% reduction in time spent on recurring tasks since the rollout. The Corporation expects further material improvement as AI is deployed at other subsidiaries and models are refined over time. Premier Soin and Code Bleu are now accelerating decision-making across their staffing networks, benefiting from improved client satisfaction and operational agility.

"By putting in place a world-class in-house software product & AI team, we are fast-tracking the deployment of high value applications and delivering game-changing productivity gains to our agencies. We are now tapping into the swath of operational data our agencies are generating to build models and automation that few can mimic. We have an exciting roadmap ahead, and our focus is to own and deliver innovation to serve our network and bring flexibility to our health professionals," says Bruno Morel, CTO of Premier Health of America.

About Premier Health

Premier Health is a leading Canadian Healthtech company that provides a comprehensive range of outsourced services solutions for healthcare needs to governments, corporations, and individuals. Premier Health uses its proprietary LiPHe platform to lead the healthcare services sector digital transformation to provide patients with faster, cheaper, and more accessible care services.

For Further Information Please Contact:

Mr. Jean-Robert Pronovost

Vice-President, Corporate Development

Premier Health of America Inc.

[email protected] / 1 800 231 9916

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.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION:

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation which reflects the current plans and expectations of the Corporation with respect to future events and financial performance. All statements other than statements of historical or current facts may be forward-looking information. Forward-looking information includes statements that are predictive in nature, depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or include words such as ?believes', ?continues', ?expects', ?projects', ?anticipates', ?plans', ?estimates', ?seeks', ?intends', ?targets', ?forecasts', or negative or grammatical versions thereof and other similar expressions, or future or conditional verbs such as ?may', ?will', ?should', ?would' and ?could'. Forward-looking information in this press release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the execution of the Corporation's growth strategy. Forward-looking information is based on management's plans, estimates, projections, beliefs and opinions as at the date of this release, and the assumptions related to those plans, estimates, projections, beliefs and opinions may change; therefore, they are presented for the purpose of assisting the Corporation's security holders in understanding management's views at such time regarding those future outcomes and may not be appropriate for other purposes. Although the forward-looking information contained in this release is based on assumptions which the Corporation believes are reasonable, there can be no assurance that actual results will be consistent with such forward-looking information. The forward-looking information in this release relate only to events or information as of the date on which the statements are made and, except as specifically required by applicable securities laws, the Corporation undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date on which the statements are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. There can be no assurance that the forward-looking information will prove to be accurate. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. The Corporation assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law. These factors and others are more fully discussed in the filings of the Corporation with Canadian securities regulatory authorities available at www.sedarplus.ca.

14 november 2024 at 08:00

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South Fork Wind Onshore Infrastructure Buildout Propels Eversource to Project of the Year Award





Eversource (NYSE: ES) has been awarded the "New York Project of the Year" from the Engineering News-Record (ENR) for its leading efforts building the onshore infrastructure for the South Fork Wind project, the first commercial scale offshore wind project in the United States.

This award underscores Eversource's instrumental role and experience in building new onshore transmission systems that are playing a critical part in helping deliver clean, renewable energy to local communities in the Northeast. Eversource's work on South Fork Wind focused on installing the underground duct bank system and construction of the onshore substation located in East Hampton, New York.

"We are incredibly proud to have played a key role in leading the onshore development of South Fork Wind, a truly historic project that has set the benchmark for how offshore wind projects should be built in the United States," said Eversource President of Transmission and Offshore Wind Projects Bill Quinlan. "This achievement reflects the expertise our team brings to the table and the invaluable contribution of New York union labor, whose skills and shared vision for a clean energy future were critical to the success of this project."

Construction of the project began onshore in early 2022, with the first phase of the work starting at the substation, followed shortly after at the interconnection point on Beach Lane in East Hampton. Eversource selected Long Island-based contractor Haugland Energy Group LLC to help install the underground duct bank onshore transmission line and to build the onshore interconnection facility located in East Hampton. This partnership created more than 100 union jobs for Long Island's skilled trades workers. Additional companies that provided onshore support included LS Cable, Hawkeye, TRC, Hitachi, and Burns & McDonnell.

South Fork Wind was also a catalyst in launching the U.S. offshore wind industry, bringing together workers and expertise from across the country. In Texas, over 350 workers constructed the nation's first offshore wind substation, the first American-made subsea cable was fabricated in South Carolina, and shipbuilders in New Orleans delivered the country's first offshore wind service operation vessel. In addition, workers at the New London State Pier in Connecticut staged and assembled turbine components and workers mobilized at ProvPort in Rhode Island to construct advanced foundation components.

In May 2023, Eversource completed the onshore scope of work and later in the year the first turbine began to spin and delivered power to the grid through the newly built onshore transmission system. The project consists of 12?11MW turbines and is delivering enough clean, renewable energy to power to approximately 70,000 homes in East Hampton.

ENR awarded 29 projects in 16 main categories to New York Projects. Eversource won the Best Project in the Energy/Industrial category and was a finalist for Project of the Year award with two other projects. For more information about the ENR 2024 Project of the Year award, visit www.enr.com.

Eversource (NYSE: ES), celebrated as a national leader for its corporate citizenship, is among the top energy companies in Newsweek's list of America's Most Responsible Companies for 2024 and recognized as a Five-Year Champion, appearing in every edition of the list. Eversource transmits and delivers electricity and natural gas and supplies water to approximately 4.4 million customers in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The #1 energy efficiency provider in the nation, Eversource harnesses the commitment of more than 10,000 employees across three states to build a single, united company around the mission of safely delivering reliable energy and water with superior customer service. The company is empowering a clean energy future in the Northeast, with nationally recognized energy efficiency solutions and successful programs to integrate new clean energy resources like a first-in-the-nation networked geothermal pilot project, solar, offshore wind, electric vehicles and battery storage, into the electric system. For more information, please visit eversource.com, and follow us on X, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. For more information on our water services, visit aquarionwater.com.

14 november 2024 at 10:50

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Base Carbon Reports Third-Quarter 2024 Operating and Financial Results





TORONTO, Nov. 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Base Carbon Inc. (Cboe CA: BCBN) (OTCQX: BCBNF) with operations through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Base Carbon Capital Partners Corp. ("BCCPC", together, with affiliates, "Base Carbon", or the "Company"), is pleased to announce its third-quarter 2024 consolidated financial results and operational highlights. All financial references are denominated in U.S. dollars, unless otherwise noted.

"Base Carbon has continued to execute commercially, having achieved multiple key milestones in recent months. During the third quarter, the Company received over $11 million in cash proceeds from the sale of carbon credits. Last month, we achieved completion of planting of all 6.5 million trees for the India ARR project and from our Rwanda project the Company was issued over 1 million additional carbon credits. The Company currently has a total inventory of over 1.7 million Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits on balance sheet, and as we move through Q4 and look forward to 2025, we continue to be encouraged by recent positive market developments applicable to our curated portfolio of carbon projects and short-term credit inventories," said Michael Costa, Chief Executive Officer of Base Carbon.

Company Highlights:

Received payments totalling approximately $11.2 million from the sale of carbon credits generated from the Vietnam and Rwanda projects.





Received total payments of approximately $30.0 million from the Vietnam project to date, representing full capital expenditure payback and initial returns on invested capital of approximately $9.2 million (or 43.9%) within 27 months of first dollar deployment.





Subsequent to quarter-end, received 1,014,635 Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits from the Rwanda project. The Company now holds a current inventory of 1,712,193 Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits.





Achieved key India ARR project milestone with completion of planting all 6.5 million planned project trees which are expected to generate 1.6 million carbon credits over the project life with first credit production expected in 2025.





As of September 30, 2024, the Company had total assets of $126.9 million, including $13.6 million in cash and cash equivalents, $9.2 million in carbon credit inventory and $101.4 million in investments in carbon credit projects.

Financial Highlights:

(in thousands of United States Dollars) Three months ended Three months ended September 30, 2024 September 30, 2023 Gain on investments in carbon credit projects $2,161 - Loss on carbon credit sales (79) - Total operating expenses (1,783) (1,679) Operating income (loss) for the period 299 (1,679) Net income (loss) before income tax 360 (1,745) Income tax recovery (expense) (299) - Net income (loss) for the period 61 (1,745) Basic income (loss) per share 0.00 (0.01) Diluted income (loss) per share $0.00 $(0.01)





(in thousands of United States Dollars) September 30, 2024 December 31, 2023 Cash and Cash Equivalents $13,550 $1,401 Carbon credit inventory 9,161 - Current investment in carbon credit projects 24,468 34,813 Non-current investment in carbon credit projects 76,904 102,273 Total Assets $126,858 $141,243



Vietnam Household Devices Project Update

Including a payment of approximately $11.0 million received during the quarter, as of September 2024, Base Carbon has received approximately $30.0 million from the contracted sale of carbon credits generated from the Vietnam project, achieving full payback of the Company's capital investment of approximately $20.8 million and a significant initial capital return of approximately $9.2 million, or 43.9%.

The Company expects additional proceeds of approximately $6.3 million in future payments from the project off-take arrangement within the next 12 months.

The Company has no further unfunded capital commitments to the Vietnam project.

Rwanda Cookstoves Project Update

In August 2024, the Company completed an initial market sale of 20,000 carbon credits generated from its Rwanda project. The sale was designed as a market-based "test-trade" to ensure commercial capabilities. This initial test-trade represented less than 3% of the initial carbon credits issued to the Company as of the sale date. As of September 30, 2024, the Company held a carbon credit inventory of 697,558 Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits from the Rwanda project with a carrying value of $9,160,919.

Subsequent to the quarter-end, in October 2024, the Company received its second issuance of carbon credits from the Rwanda project when project developer the DelAgua Group transferred 1,014,635 Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits to the Company. The Company now holds an inventory of 1,712,193 Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits.

The Company has no further unfunded capital commitments to the Rwanda project.

In October 2024, Verra, the carbon registry for the Company's projects, announced a significant milestone with the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) approval of the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program for the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), anticipated to broaden the Company's opportunities to participate in the market. For further details, see Verra's press release.

India Afforestation, Reforestation, and Revegetation (ARR) Project Update

The Company, through BCCPC, executed a project agreement with Value Network Ventures Advisory Services Pte Ltd. to fund an expected $13.6 million related to the reforestation of degraded rural farmlands in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Subsequent to the quarter-end, the Company announced the completion of planting all 6.5 million planned project trees representing the achievement of a key project milestone. The project is expected to generate 1.6 million high-quality nature-based removal carbon credits over an expected 20-year project life with the first carbon credit issuance expected in 2025.

As of September 30, 2024, Base Carbon has funded 43% of the committed project capital with all further capital commitment funding tied to achievement of specific project milestones. Project validation is ongoing with Verra, the carbon registry, with completion of the validation process expected early in the first quarter of 2025.

About Base Carbon

Base Carbon is a financier of projects involved primarily in the global voluntary carbon markets. We endeavor to be the preferred carbon project partner in providing capital and management resources to carbon removal and abatement projects globally and, where appropriate, will utilize technologies within the evolving environmental industries to enhance efficiencies, commercial credibility, and trading transparency. For more information, please visit www.basecarbon.com.

Media and Investor Inquiries

Base Carbon Inc.

Investor Relations

Tel: +1 647 952 3979

E-mail: [email protected]

Media Inquiries

E-mail: [email protected]

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws relating to the focus of Base Carbon's business, the expected issuance, and timing, of carbon credits, the application of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and the "Article 6 Authorized Label" and market reaction thereto, the receipt of proceeds from the disposition of carbon credits, the implementation of the CORSIA framework and eligibility of carbon credits thereunder, including carbon credits generated by the Company's projects, and the timing of project validation and continued development of the India project. In some cases, but not necessarily in all cases, forward-looking information may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "contemplates", "believes", "projects", "plans" or variations of such words and similar expressions or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts but instead represent management's expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance, results, or achievements.

Although management believes that the anticipated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information are based upon reasonable assumptions and expectations, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information because it involves assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from anticipated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information.

In respect of the Rwanda cookstoves project and the Vietnam household devices project, certain factors that influence the commercial success of such projects, including the timing and number of expected carbon credits, include among other things: (i) the Company has retained industry leading experts/consultants/advisors to assist with the evaluation, planning, negotiation and execution of such projects, (ii) the work product, including monitoring reports, of each project's validation and verification body, (iii) project carbon credit market prices, (iv) the verification of ongoing project monitoring reports and issuance of carbon credits by Verra, (v) changes to laws, regulation or policies in applicable jurisdictions, and (vi) the Company has sufficient funds on hand to make any required carbon credit purchase price payments.

In respect of the Rwanda cookstoves project and the Vietnam household devices project, certain assumptions that influence the commercial success of such projects, including the timing and number of expected carbon credits, include among other things: (i) distributed cookstoves and water purifiers perform to specification when used and participating households use the devices as contemplated by project estimates, (ii) the Company's in-country project partners, being the DelAgua Group in the case of the Rwanda cookstoves project and SIPCO and the project offtaker in the case of the Vietnam household devices project, perform their obligations in connection with the development and operation of the projects, and (iii) continued participant involvement and public support, including that of applicable governmental authorities, of the voluntary carbon market.

In respect of the India afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation project, certain factors that influence the commercial success of the project include, among other things: (i) the Company's expertise with respect to the evaluation, planning and negotiation of the project, (ii) the conduct of the project counterparties, including cooperation with local small-land owners, (iii) project costs and carbon credit market prices, (iv) ongoing project monitoring and issuance of carbon credits by Verra, (v) changes to laws and regulation in the Republic of India, and (vi) extreme weather event and natural disasters.

In respect of the India afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation project, certain assumptions that influence the commercial success of the project include, among other things: (i) the development the project remains in line with anticipated timelines and costs, (ii) project counterparties, including project partner Value Network Ventures Advisory Services Pte Ltd., its subcontractors and local small-land owners, perform their contractual and/or standard operating procedures, (iii) the survival of trees, (iv) the growth rates of trees are consistent with the expectations under the project which is then reflected by monitor reports accepted by Verra, (v) the Company has sufficient funds to satisfy its capital commitments, and (vi) continued participant involvement and public support of the voluntary carbon market.

The forward-looking statements made herein are subject to a variety of risk factors and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's control, which could cause actual events or results to differ materially and adversely from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Specific reference is made to the management's discussion and analysis for the Company's third quarter ended September 30, 2024 and the most recent Annual Information Form on file with the Canadian provincial securities regulatory authorities (and available on www.sedarplus.ca) for a more detailed discussion of some of the factors underlying forward-looking statements and the risks that may affect the Company's ability to achieve the expectations set forth in the forward-looking statements contained in this press release.

Should one or more of the risks and uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual events or results may vary materially and adversely from those described in the forward-looking information. The forward-looking information contained in this press release is provided as of the date of this press release, and the Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements containing any forward-looking information, or the factors or assumptions underlying them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

14 november 2024 at 17:10

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Nimba County Superintendent Kou Meapeh Gono (left) presenting the keys to the fire truck for Nimba County to LNFRS Director General, Warsuwah Borvour
THE BIGGEST night of the year in Limericks business calendar is set for this Friday as the annual Chamber awards take place.

Twenty-five companies from Limerick and across the region will battle it out for eight prizes at the annual black-tie ceremony at the Strand Hotel in the city centre.

The event will also double as Chamber president Noel Gavins annual dinner, and will honour the best and brightest business people across the region.

READ MORE: Limerick-raised artist displays his work in free exhibition in native city

Limerick Leader / Limerick Live is once again a media partner for the prestigious awards ceremony, which is in its 14th year.

It is new Chamber chief executive Michelle Gallaghers first business awards ceremony since starting in the high-profile role in the summer.

She said: I am really looking forward to my first Regional Business Awards. Our team of judges and our awards committee have been working tirelessly over the last few months, for what is going to be a fantastic night in the Strand Hotel.

I want to extend my heartfelt congratulations to all those who have made it to the shortlist for this year's Limerick Chamber Regional Business Awards. Its a remarkable achievement, and I am genuinely excited to join them this Friday in celebrating their collective success, she added.

The eight winners - and an overall victor from this number - will be chosen by a panel of independent judges chaired by Tomas Sercovich, the chief executive of Business in the Community Ireland.

Also on the panel are former Chamber president Sean Lally, now of Hotel Woodstock in Ennis, former Chamber awards winner Liam Woulfe of Grassland Agro, Louise OReilly of Business to Arts, Vicki OToole of Tola Consultancy and Paul Shelly, an independent non-executive director.

Ms Gallagher added: These awards are a vital platform for recognising the outstanding contributions businesses make to our regions economy and community. They shine a well-deserved spotlight on innovation, resilience, and growth, highlighting the incredible talent and dedication that is driving our local business landscape. I look forward to celebrating their achievements and continuing to support the future growth of our vibrant business community in the Mid-West region.

The nominations are:

Sustainability Leadership Award: Analog Devices International, DGD Shredding, Limerick Strand Hotel

Best Emerging Business Award: WebDev Builders Ltd, Kella Leadership, Elite Talent Hub Recruitment Ltd

Best SME Business of the Year Award: Design Pro Automation, Masterchefs, Q3 Security Group

Innovation Impact Business Award: Dell Technologies, Wrxflo, YieldHUB.

Best Not For Profit Award: Employability Limerick, Bluebox Creative Arts Centre, Helium Arts.

Excellence in Customer Experience Award: Adare Manor, International Rugby Experience, University Concert Hall

Best Employer Champion of Employee wellbeing and development Award: Serosep, Johnson and Johnson Med Tech, Cook Medical

Best Contribution to the community Award: Edwards Lifesciences, Dell Technologies, Moore Limerick
KILFINANE Coshlea Historical Society (KCHS) which is celebrating its silver jubilee this year has published its seventh journal.

In over 104 pages it recounts recent events such as the excitement of Limerick winning its first hurling All-Ireland in 45 years in 2018. The experience of Covid 19 is remembered, and a local man also describes his work with refugees in the Middle East.

The journal recalls the dramatic events at Kilfinane Primary School in 2012 which were recorded in an award-winning documentary on RTE Radio.

It also recognises the great work being done by the local Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann since its foundation in 2015.

The contribution of Castle Oliver to the area and how it survived the ravages of the 19th and 20th centuries is remembered.

READ MORE: Election posters set on fire in Limerick village

Kilfinane Coshlea cannot forget the martyrdom of Staker Wallace in 1798. Two articles are written by some of Stakers descendants who have visited the area in recent years, often hosted by members of the Historical Society. They write with great passion about their ancestor and their desire to discover more about him.

The journal explores the ancient past through its work of locating and researching Standing Stones in the area.

Few people realise that one of the biggest finds of old silver pieces in Ireland happened in the Coshlea area, near Martinstown, in 1940. This was the discovery of what is known as the Balline Hoard. The silver lay hidden for over 1500 years. It's now the second largest silver collection in the National Museum in Dublin.

The 2024 Kilfinane Coshlea Historical Society Journal will be launched at a special concert in the Old Chapel Rooms in Kilfinane on Friday, November 15 at 7.30 pm. Free Admission.

The Journal costs 20 and is available from ger.raftery@gmail.com.
THE DEPARTMENT of STEM Education in Mary Immaculate College (MIC) has collaborated with the University of Limerick (UL), and the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) to bring the Limerick Festival of Science to people across the Mid-West.

It's part of Irelands Science Week from November 10 to November 17. This years festival, following the national Science Week theme of Regeneration will present a range of activities and experiences to celebrate the role of science and STEM in the lives of people in the Mid-West region. The Limerick Festival of Science is funded by Science Foundation Ireland.

As part of the festival, a number interactive workshops and shows for primary schools as well as the general public will be hosted in venues throughout the city and county and extending into neighbouring county Clare, exploring science and engineering, women in STEM, wildlife and biodiversity and plenty more.

Teaching Fellow in STEM Education, Mairead Ryan, who coordinates the Limerick Festival of Science in Mary Immaculate College said she is delighted to launch such a broad programme of events: The participation of staff and students across the MIC community is much appreciated, as this has helped to develop the diversity of events for public engagement, as well as the variety of interactive workshops for primary school and secondary school pupils in the coming weeks."

The Head of the Department of STEM Education, Prof. Aisling Leavy, added: The success of the events this week are evidence of the close partnership between Mary Immaculate College and the broader community. Every year, it is a privilege to provide high quality STEM activities and experiences for adults and children onsite at MIC and in local primary schools.

"It is wonderful to see children exploring, reasoning and generally enjoying science and mathematics. This week would not be possible without the generosity and interest of our colleagues in the faculties of Arts and Education at MIC, the STEM Education faculty and our student teachers; their enthusiasm and initiative ensures that all children have positive experiences of themselves as STEM-learners.

READ MORE: Takeaway in Limerick village ordered to close after inspection finds 'food safety concerns'

The Treaty City Brewery will present the Science of Beer in The Treaty City Brewery, Limerick on Friday, November 15 at 6pm. Learn about the brewing process, the chemistry behind different beer styles, and the history of this beloved beverage. Sample a variety of beers and discover how science plays a crucial role in creating the perfect brew. This interactive workshop is open to the public from 18 years up. Booking is essential.

On Saturday, November 16, join the team at the Craft Maker Space for a family day filled with fun and excitement with Rosie Campbell and her Animal Magic Show. Get ready to experience the wonders of the animal kingdom up close and personal. From cute and cuddly critters to fascinating reptiles, this event is perfect for animal lovers. Booking is essential.

Join the team in Curraghchase Forest Park for the Biodiversity Trail, a fun and educational experience in nature on Saturday, November 16 at 10am. Explore the park's diverse ecosystems and learn about the importance of biodiversity in our environment. Guides will lead you on a journey to discover the rich variety of plant and animal species that call this park home. Don't miss out on this opportunity to connect with nature and appreciate the beauty of Curraghchase Forest Park. Booking is essential.

Highlights of the festival include:

Thursday, November 14- The Magical Science & Engineering Show, hosted by St Anne's Primary School, Rathkeale, Co. Limerick.

Friday, November 15 - Strong Women Science, hosted in conjunction with Ballyhoura Development in Friars Gate Theatre, Kilmallock. Co. Limerick.

Friday, November 15 - The Magical Science & Engineering Show, hosted by Our Ladys Abbey, Adare, Co. Limerick.

Friday, November 15  Brainteaser Bandits in Mary Immaculate College, facilitated by MIC undergraduate pre-service teachers and members of the STEM Dept.

Friday, November 15 - Animal Magic, presented by Rosie Campbell in Cappamore Library, Cappamore, Co. Limerick.

Friday, November 15 - Wildlife Exploration & Biodiversity workshop, facilitated by Lough Gur Lakeshore Park and Visitor Centre, Lough Gur, Bruff, Co. Limerick.

Monday, November 11 to Friday, November 15 - The Regeneron Future Scientist Exhibition, in Craft Maker Space, Mary Immaculate College, facilitated by MIC Craft Maker Space Team.
UNOFFICIALLY, campaigning for the General Election has been going on for weeks - if not months.

But now, canvassing has stepped up a gear across Limerick as Taoiseach Simon Harris confirmed Ireland will go to the polls this side of Christmas.

In what has been one of the worst kept secrets in the political world, the Fine Gael leader stood on the steps of Government buildings in Dublin and fired the starting gun on a three-week long campaign which will conclude with polling day on Friday, November 29.

READ MORE: Major supermarket set to close over 180 Irish stores for three days over Christmas period

On Friday morning last, in anticipation of the announcement, election posters began to spring up across the city and county.

From Kilmallock to Corbally, and Abbeyfeale to Adare, many hundreds of people have had their doors knocked upon by politicians and activists seeking a first preference vote.

As always, Limerick as the third city in Ireland, is being seen as a key prize, with a second seat for one of the major parties seen as a key step towards power.

This is being reflected as Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein are all providing their more established candidates with running mates.

It was further illustrated by the fact that Mr Harris was canvassing at the Crescent Shopping Centre in Dooradoyle over the weekend.

A battle royale can once again be expected for the fourth and final seat in the city.

Fianna Fail veteran Willie ODea has been paired with former Limerick Chamber chief executive Dee Ryan, who was the highest performing party candidate in this summers mayoral election.

Fine Gaels Minister of State Kieran ODonnell is once again joined on the ticket by Senator Maria Byrne.

And there is another member of the Upper House seeking election - Castleconnell man Paul Gavan, the running mate to Sinn Feins Maurice Quinlivan who topped the poll in Limerick City in 2020.

Councillor Conor Sheehan has his eyes on winning a seat and following in the footsteps of Labour grandees, the late Jim Kemmy and former Education Minister Jan OSullivan, who launched his campaign last week.

Independent councillor Frankie Daly was beaten to the final seat in the City by Green TD Brian Leddin in 2020 and both are running again. And there is a further northside councillor who is hoping to make a second breakthrough for her party in the space of just six months: Aontu's Sarah Beasley.

Flying the flag for the Social Democrats is Cllr Elisa ODonovan, while Esther Aherne will run for Independent Ireland.

And with the overcrowding crisis at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) never far away from the headlines, Melanie Sheehan Cleary is running for the Mid-West Hospital Campaign. She is the mother of Eve Cleary, who died in 2019, aged just 21, hours after being discharged from UHL.

In the rural Limerick County constituency, Fine Gaels Patrick ODonovan - promoted to the Cabinet when Mr Harris came to power earlier this year - will hope to keep a seat hes held since 2011.

He will compete with Fianna Fails Niall Collins, a Minister of State, and a TD since 2007.

Former Fianna Fail councillor Richard ODonoghue was elected as an Independent in 2020.

Now, as general secretary of Independent Ireland, he will hope to hold onto his berth in the three-seater constituency.

There looks set to be at least three people with the Collins name on the ballot in Limerick County.

Niall Collins is joined by running mate Cllr Bridie Collins, Adare.

And Sinn Fein is running Joanne Collins of Cappagh.

Fine Gael have put Cllr Noreen Stokes of Pallasgreen on their ticket for Limerick County alongside Mr ODonovan.

As of this Tuesday lunchtime, 17 candidates had indicated their intention to run in the Limerick City constituency, and 14 in the County area.

But with nominations to run open until Saturday next, more could enter the contest. Conversely, the deadline to withdraw from the race falls this Saturday.

Polling will take place between 7am and 10pm on Friday, November 29.

There is just one change to a polling place in Limerick: in Ballysteen near Askeaton.

Here, voters will be asked to use Ballysteen National School.

Ballysteen community centre was used for the local and mayoral elections back in June.

There are no other changes to report in terms of polling stations ahead of voting day.

CANDIDATES

LIMERICK CITY

Esther Aherne Independent Ireland

Cllr Sarah Beasley Aontu

Senator Maria Byrne Fine Gael

Melanie Cleary Mid-West Hospital Campaign

Cllr Frankie Daly Independent

Ruairi Fahy People Before Profit

Senator Paul Gavan, Sinn Fein

Michelle Hayes Independent

Deputy Brian Leddin Green Party

Deputy Willie ODea Fianna Fail

Deputy Kieran ODonnell Fine Gael

Cllr Elisa ODonovan Social Democrats

Dee Ryan Fianna Fail

Cllr Conor Sheehan Labour

Deputy Maurice Quinlivan Sinn Fein

Dean Quinn National Alliance



LIMERICK COUNTY

James Barrett Independent

Cllr Bridie Collins Fianna Fail

Joanne Collins Sinn Fein

Richie Crehan Independent

Deputy Niall Collins Fianna Fail

Laura Fahey People Before Profit

Rob ODonnell Green Party

Deputy Richard ODonoghue Independent Ireland

Deputy Patrick ODonovan Fine Gael

Donna OLoughlin Irish Freedom Party

Lorraine OSullivan National Alliance

Michael Ryan Aontu

Cllr Noreen Stokes Fine Gael

Gerben Uunk Irish Animal Welfare party

*names are in alphabetical order
BISHOP of Limerick Brendan Leahy has said his confidence about the role of the Church in the future has deepened though the challenges still fully understood following the month-long Synod in Rome.

Bishop Leahy, along with Bishop Alan McGuckian from Belfast, attended the recent Synodal Assembly on behalf of the Irish Bishops Conference, with this years session reaching a conclusion with the publication of a Final Document that he said reaffirms the Churchs determination to move forward.

Reflecting on the Synod experience, Bishop Leahy, who met Pope Francis on a number of occasions during the gathering and conveyed to him the greetings of the people of the Diocese of Limerick, also thanked all the people across the diocese who contributed in various ways during the Synod journey across the past two years.

There were, he said, a number of key issues traversed, which amounts to a full acknowledgement of the Churchs need to embrace change.

No one is ignoring the challenges and it is absolutely impossible to find a space that satisfies everyone fully but theres no doubt but progress is made across a range of issues. For one, the contribution and role of women in the Church authority structures and governance was an important theme. In the Final Document we also hear a call for much greater participation by lay people in the overall governance and decision-making of the Church.

READ MORE: New festival as Gaeilge aims to promote fluency in Limerick, with all events free

Theres a call for more regular diocesan synods. It is proposed that more women be included in the formation of future priests. Theres a clear call for parish and diocesan councils involving laity to be made mandatory, he said.

Bishop Leahy said that the Final Document also calls for a new study group to examine how liturgical celebrations could offer a better expression of synodality and greater accountability in the Church is also emphasised.

It was a privilege to be there and meet with the 365 delegates who came from all over the world. There would be much to share about it.

The atmosphere of the recent Synodal Assembly was positive. The issues that emerged from all over the world were heard. Pope Francis was very present, he added.

There were also, Bishop Leahy said, many moments of prayer to seek forgiveness for sins and failures of the Church, asking for peace in our troubled world and recalling the Second Vatican Council and the desire for unity among Christians.

He concluded: It really was a special time and I, like others there, have been renewed with hope by it. Pope Francis has been committed to the Synod process and while some people may be frustrated that the Final Document is not revolutionary enough, I believe it is a significant turning point that offers us new directions for the future, he added.
Solar Energy Corporation of India Ltd (SECI), India's top renewable energy agency, has sent a notice to Reliance Power asking why it should not initiate criminal proceedings after a subsidiary of the Anil Ambani-led power producer submitted fake documents for a bid, reported the news agency Reuters citing a notice issued on Wednesday, November 13.

Also Read | Solar Energy Corp bars Reliance Power for 3 years over fake tender document

Last week, the SECI banned Reliance Power from participating in its clean energy project tenders for three years after the agency found that a unit of the company submitted a fake endorsement of a foreign bank guarantee.

The SECI is owned and controlled by the government of India under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. The agency also said on Wednesday that the bank guarantee submitted by the unit, Reliance NU BESS, was also fake, as per the report.

The repeated submission of a fake bank guarantee along with its counterfeit endorsement has been deemed a deliberate act by the bidder, intended to vitiate the tendering process and to secure the project capacity through fraudulent means, said SECI, reported the agency.

Reliance Power did not immediately respond to the agency's queries on the development.

Last week, The Anil-Ambani-led power generation company said it would legally challenge SECI's ban and lodged a police complaint against the third party that arranged the bank guarantee.

The notice from the government-owned agency comes at a time when the company is eyeing an expansion into the domestic and overseas renewable energy sector.

Reliance Power Ltd's shares closed 1.53 per cent lower at 36 after Thursday's market session, compared to 36.56 at the previous market close.

Renewable Energy in India Companies in India are looking more into setting up clean energy projects as the country targets 500 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy by 2030, part of its 2070 net-zero goals. This figure is up from the current installed capacity of nearly 154 gigawatts.
(Bloomberg) -- Discover Financial Services said it will miss a deadline to file its quarterly report with regulators, citing disagreements with the Securities and Exchange Commission over its accounting treatment of a credit-card misclassification blunder.

The company said in a filing Wednesday that it was unable to file the 10-Q form for the three months through Sept. 30 by the required date after SEC staff disagreed with certain aspects of the companys accounting approach for the card product misclassification matter.

Discover disclosed last year that it overcharged merchants after misclassifying certain credit-card accounts into its highest pricing tier, and the Chief Executive Officer stepped down as compliance woes mounted. The credit-card company said in July that it had reached an agreement to settle class-action litigation with the affected retailers, and that it expected the $1.2 billion it already set aside for related liabilities to be enough to resolve the issue.

Discover expects that when it files its 10-Q form, it will likely reflect re-allocations to prior periods of about $600 million of the charge to other expenses recorded in its quarterly report for the period ended March 31, it said. The firm said that because the reallocations would reverse a charge to other expenses recorded for the first quarter, this would result in an increase in pre-tax income by the same amount in the three months ended March 31, 2024 and the nine months ended September 30.

Capital One Financial Corp. is expected to buy Discover in one of the biggest mergers announced this year. The SEC was reviewing Discovers financial statements in connection with the pending merger, according to the filing.

A representative for Discover declined to comment beyond the filing. A representative for Capital One didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

A late financial statement can be considered a financial reporting red flag and large companies go to great lengths avoid missing SEC deadlines. In the filing Wednesday, Riverwoods, Illinois-based Discover said it likely wont file under the alloted extension period of five calendar days because it needs more time to address the issues. The company also hasnt determined if it will have to redo, or restate, its prior financial statements to address any potential accounting errors, it said.

--With assistance from Nicola M. White.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
SarvaGram Solutions, a Pune-based credit platform that focuses on rural areas, has secured 565 crore in a Series D investment led by Peak XV Partners. It plans to use the funds to expand its credit products business to more parts of the country.

Existing investors Temasek, Elevar Equity, Elevation Capital and TVS Capital also participated in the round. With this, the firm has raised 950 crore in total to date.

Founded in 2019 by Utpal Isser and Sameer Mishra, SarvaGram facilitates access to financial and productivity-enhancement products such as loans, farm mechanisation services and insurance, using technology to select the right products and disburse loans.

SarvaGram founders Sameer Mishra and Utpal Isser.

The company offers loans to service the diverse credit needs of its three key household segments  farm, salaried and small-business households. With 150 branches across five states, SarvaGram said it has nearly 1,200 crore in assets under management, with 70% this secured against property.

The company also provides access to insurance products and farm mechanisation services through an on-ground workforce and local franchise partners.

The fundraise will boost our mission of putting more power in the hands of rural households by enhancing their access and ease them into a curated set of financial and productivity enhancing solutions, said Utpal Isser, co-founder and chief executive of SarvaGram Solutions.

Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to SarvaGram on this transaction.

RBI, NABARD to push rural loans Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das said in August the central bank was looking at a nationwide launch of a technological platform called the Unified Lending Interface (ULI) in due course to speed up disbursal of credit, especially to rural and smaller borrowers, Mint reported.

Separately, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) will launch a 1,000-crore fund to bolster technology-driven agri-startups and rural enterprises, its chairman Shaji KV said earlier this year.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The stock market appears to be giving up on the most prestigious name in UK investment management  the venerable Schroders Plc. New Chief Executive Officer Richard Oldfield has limited options for restoring confidence. But the Schroders name still commands respect, and Oldfield has enough freedom of movement to achieve a share price to match.

Schroders market value has halved to 4.8 billion ($6.1 billion) in three years and much of that drop has come this year. Investors have valued the firm at an ever-decreasing multiple of its expected earnings, fretting that it has no viable growth plan. Earnings havent fallen as rapidly as the stock price and assets under management recently hit a record 777 billion.

The problems stem from its tepid response to the so-called barbell dynamic  the industrys polarization between low-fee passive funds and high-fee alternative strategies offered by hedge funds and private equity firms. Traditional stock-picking occupies the painful middle ground.

Previous Schroders CEOs saw the problem and wisely diversified into private equity and other areas. Unfortunately, these initiatives were pursued with British understatement. What was needed was the brash, big-check-writing approach of US giant Blackrock Inc.

Oldfield must now focus on where he can win. Schroders has built a strong wealth-management business, which clearly commands trust among a large strata of the UKs rich, who would surely have been impressed when Queen Elizabeth II opened its new headquarters in 2018. The franchise includes Cazenove Capital, which Schroders bought after US lender JPMorgan Chase & Co. acquired the broking arm of the Cazenove investment bank. Wealth management contributed less than 30% of operating profit in the first half of the year. Its a no-brainer that Schroders should accelerate its strategy here by scooping up some of the many boutique firms servicing family offices across Europe.

Likewise, Schroderss so-called solutions business, which advises pension funds and insurers on portfolio structuring and risk management, is a keeper. The revenue is prone to swings as large mandates come and go. But its an attractive niche.

That, of course, leaves the core business of asset management, an operation spanning mutual funds, institutional investing and the fledgling private capital unit. This business is for now reasonably profitable but is hard to grow. It needs scale in order to lower fees and stay competitive.

For Schroderss operation to get to anything remotely comparable to, say, Capital Group Cos.s $2.7 trillion under management requires either being subsumed into something bigger or buying up other sub-scale rival outfits. Tieups allow you to slash duplicate costs and brutally cherry pick the best portfolio managers from the combined pool.

Easier said than done. For starters, its not in Oldfields power to engineer a buyer. The bigger players in active asset management are mostly trying to diversify into alternatives rather than double down on their legacy business. And Schroders can scarcely afford to make acquisitions of its own with shares as weak as they are. Using debt would limit resources to invest in the more promising parts of the business.

Hence the default strategy in asset management is probably the one thats most realistic: Make the business as efficient as possible; use the cash flow to invest elsewhere; wait and see. As Schroders revenue mix gradually reweights toward wealth management, so the share price should respond. Wealth-management stocks generally trade at higher multiples of profit than conventional asset managers. If a partnership or sale opportunity presents itself in the meantime, wonderful. Otherwise Schroders may gradually earn the backing of its shareholders to lead consolidation itself.

That leaves the private markets arm, Schroders Capital. It simply needs more client funds. How can it attract them when competing against Blackstone Inc., KKR & Co. and Apollo Global Management Inc.? Good luck pitching against these buyout leviathans for money from US endowments and pension plans.

Hence Schroders would be well advised to strike an alliance with one of the big incumbent private equity firms to give both sides more chance of winning business  above all targeting its existing clients as they allocate more to alts. Sharing bigger gains could be better than owning 100% of what Schroders can do by itself.

The stunning re-rating of Morgan Stanley stock  to more than twice its book equity value from less than 100%  under former CEO James Gorman should provide inspiration. He expanded the US investment banks position in wealth and asset management, diversifying from volatile trading and corporate finance earnings.

What about a takeover of Schroders? The mix of businesses makes it look like a good fit for a universal bank. Imagine a combination with, say, JPMorgan. That would reunite the two Cazenove franchises and generate synergies in wealth and asset management. Or a private equity bid  the buyout industry has also been targeting the wealth-management sector.

The obvious obstacle is the founding Schroder family and its 44% stake. Understandably, it may not wish the legacy to be a sale  especially after the share price has fallen so far. And even now, the company would be a reasonable mouthful for any acquirer. Thats a gamble given the well-known downside of asset management acquisitions, namely that clients walk. A successful bid is not impossible. Minority shareholders should know that is still improbable.

So the fix here is slow  but a fix there is.

More From Bloomberg Opinion:

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Chris Hughes is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals. Previously, he worked for Reuters Breakingviews, the Financial Times and the Independent newspaper.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion
PNN

Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], November 14: The University of East London (UEL), Siemens UK, and T-Hub Hyderabad hosted a high-impact event on November 13, 2024, focusing on the role of industry and higher education in driving sustainability. The event, titled Achieving Sustainable Higher Education: The Partnership of Industry and Universities, was held at T-Hub, Hyderabad, and brought together key leaders from the academic and industry sectors to discuss innovative solutions for a sustainable future in education.

As part of its ongoing efforts to lead in sustainability, UEL partnered with Siemens UK to transform its campus and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. This collaboration provides UEL students with unique opportunities to engage with cutting-edge technologies and gain industry experience in sustainability, giving them a competitive edge in the growing green job market. Siemens UK, a global leader in sustainable technology is supporting UEL in its mission to become a center of excellence for sustainability education and innovation.

The event featured keynote addresses from prominent figures, including Professor Paul Marshall, Vice President (Global Campus) and Pro Vice Chancellor of Careers and Enterprise at UEL, and Dr. Gulnara Stover, Director of UEL Global Campus. These leaders highlighted the progress made in the UEL-Siemens partnership and discussed the future of higher education in shaping the next generation of sustainability leaders.

Professor Paul Marshall, Vice President (Global Campus) and Pro Vice Chancellor of Careers and Enterprise at UEL, said, "UEL is committed to continuing and developing our dynamic relationship with India to ensure that we can contribute to accelerating the country's impressive economic growth as our graduates return to India to harness their skills, entrepreneurial zeal, and industry links for the benefit of the country. I welcome the opportunity to speak with sector leaders in India, especially in partnership with Siemens who have been integral to our successful sustainability transformation as we aim for net zero by 2030. "As we look to the future of our work in India, we are enhancing our partnerships to drive the sustainability agenda through further academic research, knowledge exchange, and industry collaboration. These opportunities are boundless, as we continue to apply our pioneering research to communities across the world."

A virtual presentation by Faye Bowser, Vice President of Siemens' Higher Education Vertical, provided insights into Siemens' global work with higher education institutions to promote sustainability. Meetu Chawla from Siemens India also presented an overview of Siemens' collaborations with Indian higher education institutions, emphasizing the role of Indian universities in driving sustainability initiatives.

The event also featured a detailed presentation of UEL's efforts to collaborate with industry partners in the UK and India, including its new India Industry Advisory Board. Case studies showcased successful collaborations between engineering institutions and industries, particularly in the areas of sustainable architecture, engineering, and green technologies.

A key session of the event was a panel discussion on the challenges and opportunities of building strong industry-academia partnerships in India. The panel focused on how universities could align their curricula with the demands of the green economy, helping students prepare for emerging careers in sustainability.

One of the key objectives of this event was to create a platform for deeper collaboration between higher education institutions in India and the UK, focusing on sustainable development and green jobs. The event also provided an opportunity for attendees to network with experts, share best practices, and discuss how to overcome the challenges that hinder the progress of sustainability initiatives in education.

The event closed with a networking lunch, offering participants the chance to connect, discuss ideas, and explore potential collaborations for the future.

This initiative aligned with UEL's broader goal to integrate sustainability into all aspects of university life, from campus operations to academic programs. By partnering with Siemens and T-Hub, UEL took significant steps towards preparing its students for leadership roles in sustainability and decarbonization. The collaboration also helped bridge the gap between academia and industry, ensuring that universities remained at the forefront of tackling global environmental challenges.

About the University of East London

The core mission of the University of East London, founded in 1898, is to be a careers-first university and engine for social mobility, committed to diversifying the talent pipeline and providing students with the skills and knowledge to thrive in the continuous next.

UEL is uniquely positioned as an anchor institution in east London with a global outlook, focused on reimagining the role of higher education in support of a healthier, fairer and more sustainable world. The University is home to more than 40,000 students (both on campus and via partners) representing over 160 nationalities, with campuses in Stratford and the Royal Albert Dock in east London's Docklands Enterprise Zone.

UEL is more than halfway through Vision 2028, its 10-year strategy, and has been recognised for its pioneering strategies and programmes, including being named The Times & The Sunday Times University of the Year for Teaching Quality, Good University Guide 2025. UEL was also 1 st in London, 1 st in England and 3d in the UK for overall graduates' positivity in the National Student Survey 2024; the highest ranked, most improved university, now 9 th in London, in the Guardian University Guide 2025; and shortlisted for 'University of the Year' in the 2023 Times Higher Education Awards.

In 2025, UEL celebrates a Year of Health, which focuses on tackling health inequalities, promoting health and wellbeing and driving forward innovation in healthcare, centred around the opening of a new state-of-the-art, community-focused Health Campus in Stratford.
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Zeeker to own 51% of Lynk -source

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Deal values Lynk at around $2.5 billion -source

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The two brands are seen having some product overlap

(Adds Volvo Cars comment in paragraph 7)

HONG KONG/SHANGHAI, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Chinese premium electric vehicle maker Zeekr will take control of Lynk & Co, a sister brand owned by Geely and Volvo Cars, two sources with direct knowledge of the plans said.

It's the first big restructuring move in a sweeping overhaul planned by Geely Holding, the parent company of all three automakers as well as nine other car or truck brands, as it shifts away from acquisitions to streamlining its operations and cutting costs.

Under the deal, Zeekr will purchase Volvo Cars' entire 30% stake in Lynk and a 20% stake from Geely Holding, said the sources who declined to be identified as the discussions were private.

Zeekr will then to nudge its stake up to 51% with a capital injection while Geely Automobile Holdings, the group's main listed arm, will continue to own the rest, one of the sources said.

The deal values the Chinese-Swedish brand at around 18 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) and should be completed by June next year, said the person.

Details of the planned transaction have not previously been reported.

Volvo Cars said in a statement that there have been discussions about a possible divestment of its stake in Lynk but no formal decision had been made. It did not elaborate further.

Geely Holding declined to comment.

Geely Chairman Eric Li announced plans for the group overhaul in September, telling staff that deep integration was needed to improve efficiency and reduce costs. All brands in the group should clarify how its models are positioned so that overlap can be avoided, he added.

Zeekr and Lynk have some overlap with similar products and pricing, cannabilising each other's sales, analysts have said.

Within the group, Zeekr is expected to lead innovation for electric and connected vehicles, sharing that research with other brands including Lynk and Polestar, said one of the sources and a third person with direct knowledge of integration.

Lynk's product team started to report to Zeekr CEO Andy An last week and there have been discussions about leveraging more technologies and components that the two automakers share, the third person said.

Lynk's two latest EV models, the Z10 and Z20, share the same architecture used by Zeekr's cars while its gasoline and hybrid models use different platforms developed by Geely and Volvo Cars.

Lynk, which was launched in 2016 and currently has nine models, sold roughly 195,600 vehicles in the first nine months of the year, a 40% increase over the same period a year ago.

By comparison, Zeekr, a three-year old brand, sold almost 143,000 cars in the first nine months of 2024 with six models, up 81%.

Zeekr listed in New York in May and has seen its shares climb almost 40% since then, giving it a market value of $7.3 billion.
NEW DELHI : Indias urban spaces are a mess, and they get worse during extreme events such as heavy rains that flood the streets, causing traffic snarls.

K.P. Singh of DLF Ltd, the countrys largest listed real estate developer, believes India needs to completely overhaul its approach to urbanization. Plan big, but enforce plans with rigidity. In my view, a complete reorientation of thinking is required in urban planning at the top level," he told Mint.

In his new book Why the Heck Not, co-authored with Aparna Jain, Singh urges Prime Minister Narendra Modi to set up a high-powered cabinet rank committee to prepare a blueprint for the development of urban infrastructure in all major cities that can support $5 trillion economy. With a clarion call, I beseech our Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi to urgently convene a high-powered cabinet ranking committee, composed of farsighted planners and developers from the private sector in every major city, along with environmentalists of repute, all of whom should possess the experience or capability of envisioning India 100 years from now," Singh said.

Plan for cities for 100 years, think big and create surplus bigger spaces," Singh, chairman emeritus at DLF, told Mint, as the book hit the stands.

The 95-year-old billionaire emphasized that there is no shortage of spaces but there is a shortage of vision. Indias position in every aspect of urban infrastructure should be based on future thinking. You think ahead, but how much ahead, I say 100 years," he said.

This (big thinking) cannot be done by people who have grown in scarcity, myopic thinking, bigger vision has to come from the top," he cautioned.

He cited the examples of roads in Lutyens Delhi and Chandigarh where you dont see traffic mess even today." The reason, he said, was that when it comes to urban planning, one needs to think far ahead, and the people who planned these roads were visionaries.

India will grow more than $5 trillion, take it from me. Entrepreneurs will grow India. But, what will happen to this infrastructure?

If a mistake is made at the time of initial urban planning, course correction may be difficult, Singh cautioned.

Initially, therefore, you have to plan much bigger than what you think. And as time goes by, you cannot make roads that are narrow, and cannot demolish those houses. In urbanization if a mistake is made at the time of initial planning, it is very difficult to set it right," he said.

India will grow more than $5 trillion, take it from me. Entrepreneurs will grow India. But, what will happen to this infrastructure?" he asked.

He pointed out that the Mckinsey Global Institute had in 2010 said that India needs to build one Chicago, a large, populous US city, every year to meet its urban development needs.

Read this | Land, power and skill: Inside the high-stakes battle to build the next Foxconn City

But after that not a single city has come up. My gut feeling is that it may not come also. To make a city is the most difficult job - but when you think of new cities, it requires planning, how to get the land, amass land, it is difficult to arrange money, and how to have confidence in people. Take the case of Lavasa they could not do... Sahara City failed, it is not necessary that every city you make will be a success story, it has to be done very well," he said.

Eviction of tenants and redevelopment in cities

His advice to scores of real estate developers undertaking redevelopment projects is that people cannot be forced out of their homes. In my view, it is the art of negotiatingyour ability to convince so that they leave amicably," he said.

On wealth creation through land

Chaudhary Raghvendra Singh, K.P. Singhs father-in-law, had anticipated the post-independence influx of migrants into the city and the subsequent surge in housing demand. He knew that providing land for housing was going to be a massive business opportunity. It is this vision that led to the establishment of the Delhi Land & Finance (DLF) in 1946.

From then on, whoever associates with DLFit was the farmers first, then the property owners and even the government, because you finance them through external government chargesanyone who associates with youyou must ensure that they also must profit from you," Singh said.

Whoever bought property from us, there was largescale appreciationthat happened due to one factorthere was a shortage of properties in the market. In Delhi, 4 per square yard was the price of land after Independence. In Gurgaon, the first sale started at 80 a yard," he said.

On PM Modi, Elon Musk, and Jack Welch

On Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said, I think Mr Modi is steering the government very well notwithstanding the compelling pressures of state federalism."

Elon Musk is a genius," he added.

Speaking of his association with Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric (GE) who passed away in 2020, Singh said that the association led to major gains to the country and I just accidentally got involved."

K.P. Singh played a significant role in India's first inter-state gas pipeline projectthe HBJ gas pipeline. He also advised GE on other businesses such as power generation, aviation, locomotives, defence, aerospace, medical equipment and consumer durables. He was also on GEs international advisory board as well as their national adviser. He was, in a way, instrumental in bringing GE to India.

On the KP Singh Foundation

In 2020, Singh set up the KP Singh Charitable Foundation to support the vulnerable sections of society in the country.

Earlier, I set up the DLF Foundation, then I thought I should do something more. The intent is to give scholarships to talented kids, preferably from the vulnerable sections of society, identify talent and then handhold them to help them succeed," he said.

We hope over a period of time, it will be a large initiative, something similar to the Rhodes Scholarship," he said.

We are also evaluating working on women empowerment. The direction is to do a few things but to do them well, from small areas, grow to bigger areas. We are following the principle that you must bite as much as you can chew," he added.

Also read | Tata Steel's Jamshedpur model: A blueprint for Indian city governance

He said a substantial amount has been committed to the foundation, without disclosing the details.

Advice to companies wanting to launch an IPO

He believes launching IPOs (initial public offerings) is a good thing" and that more real estate firms will want to go in for an IPO because after RERA, it is quite cleaner, but it will certainly take time for more companies to come forward to go in for IPOs."
PhysicsWallah (PW), the Lightspeed-backed edtech unicorn, has appointed Amit Sachdeva as chief financial officer as it gears up for a public-market debut in 2025. Sachdeva, formerly Blinkits (previously Grofers) finance chief until its 4,000 crore acquisition by Zomato in 2022, brings a wealth of experience from the tech and consumer sectors to the fast-growing edtech firm.

Most recently, Sachdeva served as CFO of IT services firm IGT Solutions in Gurugram, with prior roles spanning finance leadership at Wipros digital operations and platforms vertical. His LinkedIn profile highlights a career built around steering finance operations across software and consumer tech.

PhysicsWallahs latest hire follows a $210 million funding round led by Hornbill Capital Advisers and Lightspeed Venture Partners, which valued the edtech firm at $2.8 billion, more than doubling its prior valuation of $1.1 billion.

Existing backers GSV Ventures and WestBridge Capital also participated. Hornbill Capital, headed by managing partner Manoj Thakur, brings seasoned IPO expertise to PhysicsWallahs cap table as the edtech unicorn sets its sights on a potential IPO. While specifics remain undisclosed, company insiders and investors express confidence in the startup's IPO-readiness.

Manoj has taken a lot of companies public, which attracted us towards Hornbill, and Manoj as an individual, because they are the right advisors for us to make us IPO-ready and take us public," Prateek Maheshwari, co-founder of Physics Wallah, had told Mint in an interview in September. We are strengthening our finance team and our governance processes," he added.

While Indias edtech sector has yet to see significant IPO activity, other tech verticals like food delivery (Zomato), fintech (Paytm), and mobility (Ola Electric) are experiencing an IPO surge, with Swiggy going public on Wednesday and MobiKwik eyeing a stock-market debut soon.

PhysicsWallah has been on an expansion drive, entering new business areas and accelerating growth through acquisitions. Over the next 12 months, the firm plans to establish 40 centres in cities including Nashik, Pune, Dehradun, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, and Chennai, bolstering its footprint in key markets. PhysicsWallah has allocated about 60% of its latest funding round towards M&A activities, Mint had reported.
Private equity companies are looking to invest $100 million in new-age intra-city logistics services provider Porter, in a deal that will value the decade-old startup at $1.1-$1.2 billion, two people with knowledge of the development said.

The new funding round will be a mix of primary and secondary share sale, they said on the condition of anonymity.

The Benagaluru-based company has got terms sheets from investors including Kedaara Capital, Multiples and Peak XV, the first person cited earlier said, adding that Porter has been able to bring down its burn rate while growing its revenues, and is therefore demanding a premium to its last round valuations.

The ask was as high as $1.3 billion - $1.4 billion," the second person said. However, the secondary portion where some of the early investors in the company are looking to sell stake will be valued at a discount, with the blended value being over a billion dollars, these people said.

Earlier this year, Porter entered the unicorn club after completing an internal round, where individuals bought shares from the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) pool at a valuation of $1 billion, Mint reported last month. Generally, as a rule of thumb, a revision in valuation is set by an incoming investor and not by existing ones.

Capital raised

The company has raised a total capital of $150 million from investors like Tiger Global, Peak XV Partners, the Mahindra Group and Lightrock, among others. It was last valued at $500 million in 2021 when it raised an external round by investors led by Tiger Global and Vitruvian Partners.

Founded in 2014 by Uttam Digga, Pranav Goel, and Vikas Choudhary, Porter offers a logistics platform to help businesses with their last-mile delivery operations.

A spokesperson for Porter declined to comment. Peak XV's spokesperson also declined to comment, while spokespersons of Kedaara and Multiples did not respond to queries.

According to a latest Grant Thornton Bharat report, the logistics sector in India is growing at an annual rate of 1012%, contributing 14.4% to India's GDP and employing more than 20 million people. The intra-city logistics market in India is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 5% in the coming years. Some of the major companies in the Indian intra-city logistics market include FM Logistics India, Porter, Lets Transport, cityXfer, and Shadowfax.

Also read | Logistics startup Porter eyes more small cities for growth

Porter is looking to double its domestic geographical presence in the next 3-4 years, even as it seeks to expand its international operations beyond Dubai, a market it entered last year, the founder told Mint in an interview last month. The company, which is currently present in about 22 cities, including 7-8 metro cities, is looking to expand to nearly 40 cities in the coming years, Digga, co-founder and CEO of Porter, had told Mint.

The company saw a 56% increase in revenue to more than 2,700 crore in FY24, with its losses shrinking 45% to 96 crore. Around 10-15% of Porters revenue comes from newer initiatives, newer geographies and 85% from mature businesses and geographies, according to Digga. The expansion to newer cities would lend tier-2 markets 10% more revenue share.

Also read | 1Point1 Solutions expands in to logistics with Porter as its new client
Maharashtra Elections: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday invoked the late Shiv Sena founder while addressing an election rally in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, saying the Mahayuti government fulfilled Balasaheb Thackeray's wish, and launched a scathing attack on opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).

Mahayuti govt renamed Aurangabad as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and fulfilled Balasaheb Thackeray's wish, said Modi.

Stating that the whole of Maharashtra knows that the demand to rename the city as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar was raised by Balasaheb Thackeray, Modi added, The Congress party went to the court to overturn this decision.

The prime minister said that the Maha Vikas Aghadi government was in power for two and a half years but did not have the courage to rename the city because of pressure from the Congress.

Here's what Modi said  Some people see their messiah in the killer of Sambhaji Maharaj. Aren't they standing against Maharashtra and Maratha pride? Will Maharashtra ever accept such people?

 The Mahayuti govt gave over 1,600 crore for power supply in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar; the Aghadi people applied brakes on that too.

 Maharashtra saw the highest foreign direct investment after the formation of the BJP-led Mahayuti govt.

 The Congress and its allies want the restoration of Article 370 and are planning a separate Constitution for Kashmir.

 To form the government, the Congress party believes in division and not development. From the beginning, the Congress has been against reservation.

 The Congress used to call the reservation against the country and merit. The mentality and agenda of the Congress remains unchanged. Therefore, they can't come to terms with the fact that someone from OBC has been the PM of the country for the last 10 years.
With less than a week left for the Maharashtra Assembly Elections, PM Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Shivaji Park on Thursday for a public rally organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, and top BJP leaders from the state will address the rally.

Apart from Mumbai, PM Modi is also expected to hold meetings in Sambhajinagar and Raigad. Today's rally is the latest in the series of PM Modi's campaigns in Maharashtra, which began on November 8. The last rally was in Pune, on Tuesday, November 12, at SP College grounds.

The Mumbai police has issued a traffic advisory to prevent congestion of roads ahead of Narendra Modi's visit. The traffic restrictions would be in place from 10 am to 11 pm. SDr Annie Besant Road, Kelusakar Road, among others, have been marked as No Parking zones.

Congress has double PhD While addressing a rally at Vidarbha on Tuesday, Modi launched a sharp attack at the Maha Vikas Aghadi, stating that if the Congress and its allies came to power in Maharashtra, the states development projects would come to a grinding halt.

The Congress has a double PhD in stalling projects. If you want rapid development to continue, re-elect the Mahayuti candidates, said Modi, reported Hindustan Times.

Also Read | Maharashtra Assembly Polls: How to confirm your name online

PM Modi accused the Congress party of deepening divisions within the country, claiming that the party's "shahi parivar" (royal family) mentality stems from the belief that it was born to rule India. This, according to him, has contributed to a sense of entitlement and disregard for the broader needs of the nation.

Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024 Voting for all 288 seats of the Maharashtra legislative assembly will be held in a single phase on November 20, and the results would be declared on November 23.
China to deepen ties with Latin America: foreign ministry

(People's Daily App) 16:58, November 14, 2024

China will strengthen its solidarity and cooperation with Latin American countries, focusing on benefiting the people of both sides, the Chinese foreign ministry said on November 13.

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun)
Maharashtra Election: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday taunted Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray for handing over the remote control of the party to the Congress.

Mumbai is a city of self-respect, but a party in Maha Vikas Aghadi has handed over its remote control to those who insulted Balasaheb Thackeray, Modi said, addressing a public rally in Mumbai for the Maharashtra assembly elections.

Also Read | Maharashtra Election: PM Modi receives special welcome by ISKCON volunteers

The rally at Shivaji Park was Modi's last campaign event in Maharashtra ahead of polling on November 20. He addressed two other rallies before the one in Mumbai on Thursday.

That is why I challenged them to get the Congress to praise Balasaheb Thackeray. Till date these people have not been able to get the Congress and the prince of Congress (Rahul Gandhi) to praise Balasaheb, Modi said.

The BJP,in alliance with Ajit Pawar-led NCP and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena under the ruling Mahayuti banner, is contesting against the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance comprising the Shiv Sena (UBT), the NCP (Sharad Pawar) and the Congress.

Modi said the Congress is desperate for power, adding the grand old party is like a fish out of water.

"Mumbai is a city that believes in connecting people. Unfortunately, the Congress and the Maha Vikas Aghadi seem focused on dividing them instead. People from all communities live in harmony in Mumbai, but the Maha Aghadi is busy inciting tensions between different castes. The Congress's Shahi parivaar harbours animosity towards Dalits, backward classes, and Scheduled Tribes (STs). They seem desperate for power, much like a fish out of water," Modi said.

Modi also said that terror attacks kept happening across the country during the Congress regime. Everywhere people were scared of unclaimed objects. But now all this has stopped, he said. Terror masters now know that if they do anything against India, Modi wont spare them, he said accusing the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi of questioning Indias achievements.

Congress wants to push the youth towards drugs Earlier in the day, Modi took a dig at the Congress party, highlighting the alleged links to a significant drug syndicate involving the former chairman of the RTI Cell of Delhi Pradesh Congress. PM Modi accused Congress of attempting to "push the youth towards drugs and use that money to contest and win elections".

The Prime Minister referenced a recent investigation into an international drug syndicate, which indicated that the mastermind behind the 5,600 crore cocaine shipment allegedly had ties to Congress, according to Delhi police.

"Drugs worth thousands of crores have been recovered in Delhi. The main accused in this drug racket is a Congress leader. Congress wants to push the youth towards drugs and use that money to contest and win elections. We need to stay aware of this," PM Modi said while addressing a gathering in Washim, Maharashtra.

Mumbai is a city that believes in connecting people. Unfortunately, the Congress and the Maha Vikas Aghadi seem focused on dividing them instead.

Emphasising the benefits for Maharashtra's farmers, PM Modi described the state's "double engine government" as instrumental in providing additional support. "The double engine government of Maharashtra is providing double benefit to the farmers of Maharashtra. Under the Namo Shetkari Mahasamman Nidhi Yojana, more than 90 lakh farmers of Maharashtra have been given about 1900 crore rupees," he said.
Donald Trump has filed lawsuits against Disneys ABC and Paramount Globals CBS, railed against fake" and failing" news organizations, and called for the government to revoke some broadcasters licenses.

Now, he will be bringing those grudges back to the White House. The question is whether Trump will stay in the realm of verbal attacks against news organizations and personalitiesor extend into regulatory action.

Mergers offer an avenue for Trump to exercise his clout. Business leaders expect the next Trump administration to foster a more permissive overall dealmaking environment. But Washington observers say media companies are a special case, because editorial content can be a wild card in influencing Trumps approach to the sector.

Will they feel a chill? They might," said Robert McDowell, a former commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission. With plenty of pent-up demand for deals, he said, media companies considering such moves might have concerns. I would definitely have to think how the administration views me and how that would affect regulatory approvals," said McDowell, a Republican who is now a partner at law firm Cooley.

During Trumps first term, his administration unsuccessfully sued to block AT&Ts acquisition of CNN parent Time Warner. Trump often vented his anger at the news networks coverage of him, and his Justice Department repeatedly suggested that the unit housing CNN might need to be sold for a deal to proceed.

Trump will return to office as a handful of major deals await U.S. approval, including Skydance Medias merger with Paramount Global and the union of satellite broadcasting companies DirecTV and Dish.

Comcast is also considering spinning off its cable-television networks, including MSNBC and USA, into a separate, publicly traded company, with an eye on acquiring assets to add into such a venture.

Telecom and media lobbyists say the next administration could be unpredictable when it comes to dealmaking and regulation. Trump tried to ban the Chinese-owned social-media app TikTok through an executive order during his first term, citing national-security concerns. He softened his stance earlier this year, saying a potential ban would be a tough decision" best left to Congress. President Biden earlier this year signed a law that will force a ban or sale of the app.

Trump could use the FCC to try to settle the scores," said Gigi Sohn, a former Federal Communications Commission official during the Obama administration and co-founder of the media-advocacy group Public Knowledge. It depends on how hes feeling on any particular day," she added.

The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver," said transition-team spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.

Enemy camp

Trump already has some media companies in his sights. In his victory speech, he referred to certain networks" as the enemy camp," name-checking CNN and MSNBC.

He sued Disneys ABC and morning-show anchor George Stephanopoulos for defamation, and alleged Paramount misled the public and disadvantaged him because of how it edited a 60 Minutes" interview on CBS with Vice President Kamala Harris. In addition to lawsuits, he or his surrogates have suggested that ABC and CBS should lose their broadcast licenses because of their reporting on various topics. He also called for yanking the local TV licenses of Comcasts NBCUniversal.

Trumps lawyers sent the New York Times a letter before the election accusing the outlet of defamation for reporting in a book by Times reporters about the president-elects business practices, an article about Trumps history of scandals and business failures, and an interview with a former Trump White House chief of staff, according to a person familiar with the matter. Trump has a history of making legal threats against the Times, and he and his campaign have unsuccessfully sued the newspaper previously.

A presidents direct weapons against the news media are limited. Broadcasters and publishers enjoy free-speech protections, and the FCC is an independent agency with decisions subject to potential court challenges.

The FCC issues broadcast licenses, which typically run eight years. The next cycle begins in 2028, though challenges can be made before renewal applications are filed and during the renewal process.

Trumps first-term threats to revoke broadcast licenses of TV stations owned by the major networks failed to gain traction. Ajit Pai, the FCCs chairman under Trump, said in 2017 that the regulator did not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast."

The only time a television station lost its FCC license for failing to serve the public interest was in 1971, when a Jackson, Miss., station was stripped of its license for defending segregation.

Cable networks such as CNN and MSNBC arent regulated by the FCC because they dont use public airwaves to transmit their signals.

Last month, investor and Trump loyalist David Sacks suggested on the social-media platform X that CBS, NBC and ABC no longer serve the public interest and that the broadcast spectrum their local stations use should be reclaimed and auctioned off. The networks can continue to operate on cable like hundreds of other redundant channels," he wrote.

That might be a tough sell in Congress, where broadcasters have strong relationships with lawmakers. The fact that several major broadcasters have politically conservative owners could stymie efforts to make major changes to the licensing system, too.

Nexstar, Fox and Sinclair have a lot of sway with Trump," said Blair Levin, a Brookings Institution fellow and former FCC official.

Paramount concern

Trumps antitrust approach has defied easy categorization. In his first term, his administration threatened to block deals across sectors including semiconductors, health and telecommunications. In the media realm, the FCC in 2018 derailed the merger of TV-station owners Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media, dealing a setback to Sinclair, a media company known for its chairmans conservative politics.

Skydance needs approval from the FCC to complete its takeover of Paramount Global and transfer licenses for stations that broadcast CBS.

The Justice Department approval period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act has lapsed, which indicates there will be no antitrust challenge to the deal from that government body.

Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount Global parent National Amusements, and Larry Ellison, a major stakeholder in Skydance and founder and chairman of Oracle, both have long ties to Trump.

This month, Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS that accused the network of deceitfully editing an interview Harris did for the newsmagazine show 60 Minutes." CBS has denied any wrongdoing and said the suit is without merit.

Spokespeople for Skydance and Paramount Global declined to comment.

Brendan Carr, a Republican named FCC commissioner during Trumps first term and renominated by Biden, is considered by people close to the Trump campaign to be a leading contender to become the agencys new chairman. Leavitt said the president-elect will announce his picks for key posts as the decisions are made.

Carr outlined many of his views for the FCC in the Heritage Foundations Project 2025 policy paper. The paper pushed for increased scrutiny of big tech firms such as Meta Platforms and Alphabets Google and urged authorities to further deregulate the broadcast industry to allow more local TV stations to merge.

Many TV broadcasters, programmers and cable companies struggling with flagging growth see mergers as their surest path to boost profits.

We have an upcoming new administration and its too early to tell. But it may offer a pace of change and an opportunity for consolidation that may be quite different," Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav said during his companys earnings call on Thursday.

Alexandra Bruell contributed to this article.

Write to Joe Flint at Joe.Flint@wsj.com and Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com
State-run GAIL (India) Ltd on Thursday signed a long-term contract for purchase of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Adnoc Gas. Both the companies signed the 10-year Sales and Purchase Agreement (SPA) for the delivery of up to 0.52 million metric tonnes per annum (mmtpa) of liquified natural gas from Adnoc Gas, starting in 2026.

This is the first SPA Adnoc Gas has inked with an Indian buyer, a statement from GAIL said. The LNG will be delivered in six cargoes per year from Adnoc Gas Das Island natural gas facility, which has an LNG processing capacity of 6.0 MMTPA, a GAIL press release said.

Also read | ADNOC to supply gas to Indian Oil The Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (Adnoc) is the state-owned oil company of the United Arab Emirates.

Mint reported in January that talks for India's state-run firms to secure LNG from UAE to cater to India's energy security needs were at an advanced stage. Consuming nations prefer long-term deals as they provide gas at cheaper rates than spot purchases.

As a result, the UAE, India's second largest source of energy imports, is now a long-term gas trading partner. This development assumes importance as India's demand for natural gas is poised to rise steeply in the coming years.

Growing LNG demand "India is witnessing a growing demand for LNG to meet its increasing natural gas demand in a diversified sectoral pattern. GAIL plans to significantly increase its term LNG portfolio in the coming years to meet this rising demand," said GAIL marketing director Sanjay Kumar, adding that the Adnoc Gas deal was a crucial step in this direction.

The deal is also expected to help India increase the share of natural gas in its energy mix to 15% by 2030, from about 6% today, GAIL informed in its press statement.

Adnoc Gas senior vice president of marketing Rashid Khalfan Al Mazrouei said, "This agreement strengthens Adnoc Gas role as a reliable and responsible global natural gas provider and reflects our ambition to capture future growth opportunities in gas demand. It also reinforces our position as a preferred partner for energy solutions in India."

Also read | Abu Dhabi's Adnoc offers India a stake in its upcoming LNG liquefaction terminal Globally demand for LNG is expected to rise 15% over the next decade due to the increased use of the natural gas in the south Asian region, as well as due to China's shift from industrial coal to gas, Al Mazrouei added.

Indian state-run companies have been looking at long-term agreements for LNG supply in a bid to achieve energy security and it has gained momentum since 2022 when gas prices touched multi-year highs with the start of the Russia-Ukraine war.
(Bloomberg) -- Venture Global LNG Inc. is poised to join the upper echelon of US energy companies that includes Occidental Petroleum Corp. and PG&E Corp. with one of the worlds biggest IPOs of the year.

The Gulf Coast natural gas exporters plan to file for an initial public offering as soon as this week could raise more than $3 billion, although details could change, according to people familiar with the matter. JPMorgan Chase & Co.s research analysts pegged Venture Globals enterprise value at more than $100 billion, a figure that includes an undisclosed amount of debt.

The timing couldnt be better for an industry upstart that is in the process of opening a second liquefied natural gas facility in Louisiana and awaiting government permits for two more new complexes. Trumps fossil fuel-friendly ethos is widely expected to mean an end to the Biden administrations pause on new export licenses that has stymied the sector.

The advent of the modern US LNG industry in 2016, enabled by drilling and fracking breakthroughs that unlocked vast troves of shale gas, upended global energy markets by creating a huge alternative source for utilities and chemical makers previously reliant to a handful of producers such as Russia and Qatar. The geopolitical import of that development has not been lost on successive US administrations.

Its a good moment for Venture Global indeed to make this transformation, said Jean-Christian Heintz, a former energy-trading executive who now runs consultancy Wideangle LNG. The incoming Trump administration can be regarded as a protective environment for the US LNG sector, he added.

When Venture Globals Plaquemines LNG plant near New Orleans is fully operational, the company will vault ahead of rivals to become the nations No. 2 supplier behind Cheniere Energy Inc., whose $47 billion market value puts it roughly on par with oil giant Occidental and PG&E.

Venture Globals founders, former investment banker Mike Sabel and Washington DC regulatory lawyer Bob Pender, launched the company outside Houstons energy capital at a time when the industry was still mostly dominated by the supermajors, national energy companies or longstanding outfits like Cheniere.

Venture Global didnt respond to multiple requests for comment.

When the Biden administration first announced a pause on permits for new LNG export projects, Venture Global was among those stung hardest. Its plans to greenlight its proposed third project, CP2, which already has signed up long-term customers like Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. stalled. Permission to export, after all, is a key milestone for securing project financing.

In the past year, Chief Executive Officer Sabel has attended events alongside former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as well as Germanys Olaf Scholz, and attended an industry roundtable last spring at Trumps Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.

In its waning days, the Biden administration is now looking to conclude the study of the economic and climate impacts of increased LNG exports that was the lynchpin of the permitting pause. Any findings could complicate Trump administration moves to resume licensing.

Venture Global also remains locked in arbitration with companies that include its customers at its first LNG plant, Calcasieu Pass in Louisiana, which began producing in 2022 but has not yet started delivering on contracts with longterm customers that include Shell Plc and BP Plc.

The arbitration presents a legal overhang, something the company definitely wants to avoid going into the IPO process, said Josef Schuster, founder of IPOX Schuster LLC, a provider of initial-offering benchmark indices. Any unresolved issues could make the valuation envisioned challenging.

Matt Kennedy with the IPO research firm Renaissance Capital said that ongoing arbitration wouldnt necessarily be considered a barrier to going public but could raise concerns among some potential investors.

Investors will want to consider how much revenue these customers represent, the nature of the dispute, and how the company thinks itll impact the business going forward, Kennedy wrote in an email. Itd be unusual to move forward with an IPO, if they really believed a significant portion of their business was about to go away.

--With assistance from Bailey Lipschultz, Gillian Tan and Stephen Stapczynski.

(Updates with comment from IPO specialist in 13th paragraph. An earlier version of this story corrected ranking in sixth paragraph.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
(Bloomberg) -- Venture Global LNG Inc. is planning to file as soon as this week for an initial public offering that could raise more than $3 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company, one of the biggest suppliers of liquefied natural gas in the US, is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. on the listing, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. Details of the companys plans could still change, they added.

Representatives for Venture Global, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan and Bank of America declined to comment.

A $3 billion IPO by Venture Global would place it among the years largest first-time share sales globally, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. About $40 billion has been raised via IPOs on US exchanges this year, the data show, a roughly 60% jump from same period in 2023 but still below the average in the decade before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Venture Global, based in Arlington, Virginia, operates the Calcasieu Pass facility in southwestern Louisiana and is in the midst of starting up its second plant, Plaquemines LNG, just south of New Orleans. Two more projects, CP2 and Delta LNG, are also planned in Louisiana but remain in the permitting stage.

The company is among the biggest LNG producers in the US and will leapfrog to the second-largest producer behind Cheniere Energy Inc. once its second facility is fully online.

Co-founders Mike Sabel and Bob Pender launched Venture Global in 2013. They were initially viewed as outsiders to the Houston energy industry and a longshot bet to the growing ranks of US LNG project developers.

Calcasieu Pass began exporting LNG in 2022, but Venture Global hasnt started delivering on its long-term contracts to its buyers, which include oil and gas majors Shell Plc., BP Plc., European energy companies Repsol SA, Galp Energia SGPS SA and Orlen SA and Chinas Sinopec. The company has cited technical issues at the facility that have delayed the contract starts, although Venture Global has continued to load LNG cargoes from the plant, selling the fuel to the spot market at higher prices.

Venture Globals customers, as well as engineering, procurement and construction firm Kiewit Corp., have engaged in arbitration on the matter and have called on lawmakers and regulators in both the US and Europe.

Former employees also have sued the company, accusing it of preventing them from exercising stock options in the company. The latest suit was filed by former executive Jessica Wickett.

--With assistance from Stephen Stapczynski.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
Zinka Logistics Solution IPO: The initial public offering (IPO) of Zinka Logistics Solution Limited hit the Indian primary market on 13th November 2024 and will remain open until 18th November 2024. The digital platform for truck operations, which owns the BlackBuck App, has fixed the Zinka Logistics Solution IPO price band at 259 to 273 per equity share. The company aims to raise 1,114.72 crore from this public issue, a mix of fresh shares and Offer for Sale (OFS). Zinka Logistics Solution IPO subscription status suggests the initial offer has received a tepid response from investors. Meanwhile, the grey market sentiment has decreased after intensified selling in the Indian stock market.

Zinka Logistics Solution IPO GMP today According to stock market observers, Zinka Logistics Solution IPO GMP (Grey Market Premium) today is zero, compared to 25 on Wednesday. This means Zinka Logistics Solution IPO GMP has tumbled after day 1 of bidding. Currently, the company's shares are trading at par, and the grey market is predicting Zinka Logistics Solution IPO listing price to be at par with the upper price band of 273 per equity share.

Market experts said that Zinka Logistics Solution IPO GMP tumbled after investors' tepid response and intensified selling in the Indian secondary market. They said that weakness on Dalal Street led to this, as investors were in a wait-and-see mode.

Zinka Logistics Solution IPO subscription status By 3:33 PM on day 2 of bidding, the book build issue had been subscribed 0.31 times, the retail portion 0.86 times, and the NII segment 0.03 times. The QIB portion of the public issue had been booked 0.26 times.

Infographic: Courtesy mintgenie

Zinka Logistics Solution IPO review Anand Rathi has given a 'subscribe' tag to the public issue, saying, "Zinka Logistics Solutions Ltd is India's largest digital platform for truck operators (in terms of number of users), with 963,345 truck operators in the country transacting on its platform in FY24, which comprises 27.52% of India's truck operators. The company generates revenue from truck operators through commission income from the company's payment offerings, subscription fees from a combination of telematics, payments and loads marketplace offerings and service fees from vehicle financing offerings. In terms of the financial aspect, from being a loss-making entity, the company turned profitable in Q1FY25. At the upper price band, the company is valuing at Mcap/Sales of 16.2x on an FY24 basis with a market cap of 48,178 million post-issue of equity shares. On the valuation front, the company is fairly priced. Therefore, we recommend a "SUBSCRIBE - Long term" rating for the IPO."

Master Capital Services has also assigned a 'subscribe' tag to the public issue, saying, "India's growing economy needs the support of robust logistical capabilities, and the Indian trucking industry stands as a vital component of the nation's logistics sector. The Indian trucking sector is a US$18 to US$25 billion revenue pool in Fiscal 2024 and is expected to reach US$35 billion by Fiscal 2028. Trucking in India is highly fragmented, making their operations inefficient. Innovating digital products to tailor solutions for meeting truckers' specific needs and scaling these offerings through strong distribution networks can unlock significant opportunities. Zinka Logistics Solution Limited, one of India's largest digital platforms for truck operators, offers accessible solutions for Indian truck operators. The company intends to continue to focus on growing its customer base by attracting new transacting truck operators to the platform. The company is also focused on growing its loads marketplace and vehicle finance verticals through investments in product and technology. Investors looking to invest can invest in the IPO for the long term."

In addition, Canara Bank Securities, Marwadi Shares and Finance, StoxBox, Adroit Financial Services, Arihant Capital Markets have assigned the book build issue a 'subscribe' tag.
Investor sentiment on Dalal Street has turned increasingly cautious as the Nifty has dropped over 10 per cent from its record high of 26,277, while the Sensex has tumbled over 8,500 points from its peak. Although an official bear market is defined by a 20 per cent fall from recent highs, retail investor portfolios are already showing signs of significant distress.

Indian markets continued their downward trend on Thursday, November 14, marking a sixth consecutive session of losses. Despite a positive opening, the indices were weighed down by weak global cues, a rise in the dollar index, a depreciating rupee, and ongoing foreign investor selling. The Sensex dropped 266 points, or 0.34 per cent, to 77,424.81, while the Nifty lost 116.25 points, or 0.5 per cent, settling at 23,486.10. Both benchmarks remain over 10 per cent below their record highs from September, with the indices losing more than 4 per cent in just these six sessions.

This marks the most substantial correction since March 2023. Despite domestic institutional investors maintaining their belief in Indias growth story, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have been pulling back from Indian equities. This trend is driven by the allure of China's market, where lower valuations and stimulus measures have attracted global attention.

Moreover, compounding market concerns, the Q2 earnings season saw a notable rise in corporate downgrades, the highest since early 2020. The results underscored a disconnect between current profit trends and high market valuations, suggesting that in the near term, earnings performance may not be enough to justify the previously optimistic pricing of stocks. This has further amplified caution and contributed to the recent wave of selling.

Navigating the inherent volatility of equity markets can be challenging for investors, particularly when it comes to making sound investment decisions in the short term. Neeraj Chadawar, Head of Fundamental and Quantitative Research at Axis Securities, emphasises that while returns in equity markets are nonlinear and unpredictable in the short term, equity investments can yield substantial gains in the long run due to the power of compounding. To achieve long-term success, Chadawar shares strategic insights aimed at helping investors effectively manage market fluctuations.

Equity markets, known for their nonlinear and volatile nature, often pose challenges to investors looking for short-term gains. According to Neeraj Chadawar, the path to navigating these uncertainties lies in adopting a long-term perspective. He explains that while the short-term direction of the market is difficult to predict and timing the market can be one of the most daunting tasks, the key to long-term success is staying invested over time.

Also Read | Middle East Crisis: Expert opinions on what should be your investment strategy

Investment Strategies To manage volatility and maximize long-term gains, Chadawar outlines four key investment strategies:

Invest Systematically and Focus on the Long Term: Predicting the onset of a market crash or a surge is nearly impossible due to fluctuating market sentiment. Chadawar recommends a systematic approach to investing rather than a lump sum investment. Gradually building a portfolio over time can help mitigate the impact of sudden market shifts and lead to better outcomes in the long run.

Define Goals and Employ Risk Management: Long-term wealth creation requires clear, defined investment goals. Chadawar advises setting specific short-term and long-term objectives to help determine an appropriate mix of asset classes based on ones risk profile. During periods of market volatility, sticking to these defined goals and maintaining a disciplined approach can prevent impulsive decisions and ensure sustained growth.

Practice Asset Allocation: A well-balanced asset allocation strategy is crucial for managing the risks associated with individual asset classes. Chadawar highlights that diversifying investments across various asset types can help reduce the impact of market drawdowns and cushion the portfolio during periods of sudden corrections. Asset allocation serves as a tool to manage volatility and enhance long-term portfolio resilience.

Stay Calm and Avoid Panic Selling: Market declines often trigger emotional responses influenced by negative news, which can lead to impulsive decisions. Chadawar emphasises the importance of staying calm during such periods. A diversified portfolio with quality stocks will help you withstand volatility more successfully, he advises. Resisting the urge to panic sell and maintaining composure can help investors weather temporary market fluctuations and stay on course toward their long-term goals.

The volatility of equity markets can be daunting, but as Neeraj Chadawar from Axis Securities points out, long-term success is rooted in discipline, strategic planning, and a focus on sustained investment. By following systematic investment practices, setting clear goals, maintaining appropriate asset allocation, and avoiding emotional reactions, investors can navigate market challenges more effectively and harness the benefits of compounding over time. Embracing these strategies ensures that investors remain well-positioned to achieve their financial objectives amidst an ever-changing market landscape.
Penny stock Evexia Lifecare rose 3 per cent on Thursday, November 14 in an otherwise weak market.

Evexia Lifecare on Wednesday said it has issued 24 crore convertible warrants on a selective basis, following shareholder approval during the Extraordinary General Meeting held on October 23, 2024, and receiving in-principle approval from the Bombay Stock Exchange on October 29, 2024. Each warrant was priced at 3.60, with this issuance not altering the company's paid-up share capital.

In line with its strategic focus on enhancing its footprint in the pharmaceutical sector, Evexia Lifecare also recently entered into a draft investment agreement with DIPOned Research International Private Limited to acquire a 65 per cent equity stake. This equity investment will be executed through the issuance of preferential shares and quasi-capital, supporting Evexias diversification and market expansion initiatives.

DIPOned, a contemporary contract organisation specialising in drug discovery, development, and research services, presents promising opportunities for Evexias growth in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors. The acquisition is anticipated to close within 60 days, contingent on the fulfilment of specific conditions.

Stock Price Trend The penny stock rose as much as 3 per cent in intra-day deals to its day's high of 4.05. The scrip is now just 8 per cent away from its 52-week high of 4.4, hit earlier this month. Meanwhile, it has surged over 161 per cent from its 52-week low of 1.55, recorded in December last year.

The stock has also given multibagger returns in the last one year and year-to-date (YTD), rallying 134 per cent and 115 per cent, respectively.

Also Read | Five high book value small-cap stocks to watch out in 2025

It has declined over a per cent in November so far, after four straight months of gains. The stock rose 6 per cent in October, 16.7 per cent in September, 12.3 per cent in August and 24.7 per cent in July.

Despite the stock's impressive performance, market experts advise investors to be cautious. Penny stocks like Evexia Lifecare are known for their volatility, and sudden corrections could accompany the stock's rapid rise. The company's ability to effectively utilise the new capital raised through the convertible warrants and the outcomes of upcoming regulatory approvals will be key to its long-term growth prospects. Investors should monitor the company's board decisions and fundraising methods closely.

Evexia Lifecare Limited operates through its subsidiaries and trades various products, including chemicals, edible oils, diamonds, gold, and plastic granules. The company also provides web and software development services and manufactures eBikes. Previously known as Kavit Industries Limited, it rebranded as Evexia Lifecare in January 2021. Established in 1990, it is headquartered in Vadodara, India.
For investors in Reliance Industries (RIL), foreign brokerage CLSAs recent prediction of a 30% upside in the stock might come as a respite, especially amid the sell-off in the counter, which has pushed it into bear territory.

RIL's share price has declined 22% from its 52-week high of 1,608.95 as the Indian stock market faces significant selling pressure. However, CLSA believes that the stock is offering an attractive entry point to play important catalysts in 2025, as it maintained its outperform rating on Indias most valuable stock, with a target price of 1,650.

Key Upside Trigger The reason behind CLSAs bullish stance is RILs new energy business worth $40 billion, which it believes the market is ignoring.

As part of its new energy strategy, Reliance aims to set up a fully integrated 20GW solar gigafactory by 2026/2027, beginning with the launch of cell-to-module production in the next 3-4 months.

According to CLSAs estimates, the solar business could have earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) of $1.7 billion over the next four to five years and a value of over $30 billion, which is at a discount to the replacement cost valuation of recently listed Indian solar PV manufacturers.

Reliances stock is trading within 5% of our rainy-day valuation, in which we assign zero value to the new energy business, suggesting that it is priced attractively to play triggers in 2025 like the start of new energy capacities, the return of promising growth in retail, a ramp-up in Airfiber subscribers, and a potential Jio IPO, said the brokerage.

As per CLSAs blue-sky scenario, the stock could even rally up to 70%.

RILs solar energy foray assumes more significance as India has pledged to raise its solar capacity to 280GW by 2030, from the current 91GW, requiring annual installations of 20-50GW going forward.

CLSA expects top Indian players to double their module manufacturing capacity in the next three years to 135GW per annum, with 25-45% being backward integratedenough to also access attractive export markets like the US, it said. While China dominates the worlds supply chain, accounting for 90% of the worldwide generation capacity, significant tariff restrictions on imports of Chinese PV products have opened the US market for non-China exporters like India.

Amid this backdrop, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance has set itself an ambitious target to scale up the new energy business to the size of its oil-to-chemical (O2C) business (US$7.5bn EBITDA in FY24) in the next 5-7 years.

However, the brokerage cited potential negative triggers such as delay in the start of new energy projects, extension of low growth for Reliance Retail beyond 2-3 quarters, and lack of proof of monetisation of its 5G capex.
Climate and ecology



When Fairyland Lost Its Magic

For ages 10 and above

Authored by Bijal Vachharajani and illustrated by Rajiv Eipe, this book is a retelling of classic fairy tales but with a twist. What happens when Fairyland is filled with smog, and the corals are bleached white, and the weather is fouler than it ever was? Fantasy and reality come together in this delightful book published by Harper Collins India. Without being preachy, When Fairyland Lost its Magic drives home the consequences of the climate crisis and the role that we can play to make some difference.

Chasing the Rain

For ages six to eight

Written by Mukta Patil and illustrated by David Yambem, the book looks at how enmeshed our lives are with the cycle of the monsoons. However, in recent years, the patterns seem to be changing with the climate crisis, and the planet seems to be heating up faster, making the monsoons less reliable and more dangerous. Published by Pratham Books, this title simplifies the climatic changes for kids, and highlights the work of meteorologists such as K. Naga Ratna in understanding these vagaries better.

Rain Harvesters

For ages eight and above

This book introduces kids to the vibrant world of Shaktipur, where Sunita and Rakesh reside with their grandmother, and have friends in Mango the elephant and Jalebi the monkey. But things are not as cheery as they seemwells are drying up, crops are failing, and a land developer is eyeing farmlands to buy at bargain prices. How do the children and their friends rise to the situation and help the village? Through this plot, Sylvia Sikundar and Stephen Aitken hope to introduce young readers to concepts such as rainwater harvesting, mindless development, and more. This is part of a new series by Harper Collins India on environmental issues for children such as water pollution, poaching and impact of pesticides on the ecology.

Also read: How to talk to a child when a parent is sick

Afo and I

For ages three to five

Every illustration in this book tells a story of how the landscape around us is changing rapidly. The book starts with a young boy racing back home from school to catch his friend, Afo, in time before she leaves the village for the big city. En route, one can see stumps of trees, where there once were dense forests, bulldozers leaving behind barren hillscapes, and more. Written and illustrated by Canato Jimo, and published by Pratham Books, looks at the local ecology that once was and how it is rapidly changing with the climate crisis.

The Great Indian Nature Trail with Chunmun

For ages seven and above

This one doesnt directly allude to the climate crisis but highlights the ecological heritage that we might lose out on if we are not more mindful. Rohan Chakravarty and Bijal Vachharajani come together to tell a story about Chunmun, an avid bird watcher, who gets to embark on an expedition across India, photographing and writing about the birds and other wildlife that she spots. Part of the Juggernaut Books-Indian Pitta Kidswhich publishes books for bird lovers, conservationists and policy makersThe Great Indian Nature Trailtakes the readers through 16 landscapes, from the home of the snow leopard in Ladakh to the hornbill habitat of Arunachal Pradesh.

The Wish Fish

For ages five to seven

This illustrated Hook Book again spotlights the wonders that nature contains, and the connections that animals and communities form with the landscape around them. This story, published by Duckbill, carries forth the ongoing engagement of Lesley D. Biswas with themes of ecology set in Bengal. This one is based in the mangrove forests of Sunderbans, where young Namita gets a magical fish. The narrative looks at what the child wishes for, and how that impacts the fisherfolk and the forest.

From picture books to tales of adventure, these titles would appeal to diverse age groups. Photo: Pexels

Identity and empathy The Secret Life of Debbie G

For ages 13 years and above

This coming-of-age story by Vibha Batra looks at a pertinent subjecthow social media influences a teenagers mental health and sense of self-worth. Published by Harper Collins India, the book traces the journey of a 16-year-old, who is struggling at this stage of her lifewith the shape of her body, the need to sound cool and fit into a posh school. Things change drastically when Debbie turns into an overnight online sensation, and the lines between the virtual and the real start blurring for her. The online persona starts to mess with her head. This title will resonate with both parents and kids alike at a time when social media and the digital world are all-pervasive in our lives and are changing the fabric of our relationships with the world and ourselves.

Hug Yourself

For young adults

This anthology, edited by Vinitha and published by Penguin India, is a must-read for teenagers, who go through challenges of body image, self-doubt, and societal stereotypes. It features sixteen empowering stories by the likes of Anuja Chandramouli, Harshikaa Udasi, Nandini Nayar, Vibha Batra, and more. A constant bombardment of unreasonable standards of beauty are thrown at young adults by the media. However, these fail to take in the fact that every person is unique and, while this might sound cliched, beauty goes beyond just looks. The stories spotlight that it is what is on the inside that matters the most.



Full of Light

For ages six to eight

What happens when you are made to feel that you are not good enough? In this book, written by Mathangi Subramanian and illustrated by Proiti Roy, Shakthi cant seem to do anything right when it comes to her Amma. Her medal is not worthy of acclaim, she is too loud, her kolams result in a messthe list goes on and on. But another young girl makes her realise that one doesnt have to be perfect to find joy in life. Just a sense of embracing all the partsthe good and the bits that are works-in-progresslead to a self-awareness that makes you feel nice about yourself. Published by Pratham Books, Full of Light is about showing empathy to oneself.

Forgetful Dida

For ages four to six

Dida goes to a grocery store but instead of bread ends up asking for a Maruti car for her family member. This tender story is told from the perspective of a young girl, whose grandmother has a forgetting illness. Written by Himanjali Sankar and illustrated by Aditi Anand, the book shows how children often grasp a difficult situation better and respond to it in uniquely empathetic ways. Perhaps, adultslike the girls momcaught up in everyday worries often miss out on the small glimmers of light in rather grey situations. Published by Pratham Books, this one is a beautiful story of the relationships between a young girl, her mother and grandmother.

The Monster at the Window

For ages six and above

The picture book, written by Meghaa Gupta and illustrated by Soumya Menon, talks about big feelings in a very relatable way. A monster seems to make an appearance whenever Montu feels worried, angry or sad. It is something that only the young boy seems to see. However, one day he stumbles upon a solutionas he expresses his emotions through drawing, the monster at the window keeps getting smaller. Published by Tulika Books, this story highlights the healing power of art in dealing with ones inner demons.

Poor Economics for Kids

For ages seven and above

The kids edition of this book, authored by Esther Duflo and illustrated by Cheyenne Olivier, introduces young readers to the different and difficult lives that people their age lead in other parts of the country. For instance, a young girl in a village enjoys spending time with her friends just like you, but does not have the luxury of having a well-stocked pharmacy nearby. There is a sense of instability as the floods wash away some of her friends homes. Published by Juggernaut, the book features a foreword by Abhijit Banerjee, and introduces kids to the difficult choices that people often have to make in challenging circumstances.

Muniyas Quest

For ages 10 and above

The story by Mandira Shah explores ideas of identity and grief, albeit in an engaging way. Young Muniya learns that she was adopted after her birth parents left her on a train. She embarks on an adventure to the village of Vishnupur to trace her roots, and comes across several quirky characters on the wayGopi, an inventor of gadgets and the kind-hearted animal rescuer Aaliya. The book, published by Talking Cub, makes for a heartwarming read.

Will Goondi Come Home?

For ages five to 10

This is a heartwarming story on friendships by Adithi Rao, illustrated by Fida Hamid. Published by Tulika Books, the book looks at the companionship between Muthu and a rooster called Goondi. But her grandfather warns Muthu from getting too attached to the bird as the village head, Selvi Paati, wants to buy him for his sons wedding feast. The book looks at the fate of this tender friendship. Set in an Irula fishing village in Tamil Nadu, the story is inspired by a real-life experience. Rao based the character of Muthu on Lakshmi, an 11-year-old child that she met in the Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu, and her friend, Goondi. Given that most poultry ends up as food on peoples plates, it disturbed me greatly that Lakshmi may not, in reality, have control over the birds fate. At that moment, the idea forWill Goondi Come Home? was born, wrote the author in a blog post.

Lets Be Best Friends Forever

For ages 10 and above

This anthology, edited by Jerry Pinto, celebrates friendships of all kindsbe it with animals, humans and objects. Published by Talking Cub, the book features a set of the classic and the contemporary with stories by Rabindranath Tagore, Munshi Premchand, Shabnam Minwalla, Ruskin Bond, Mahadevi Verma, and more. These include the timeless tale of the Kabuliwala and Mini, the escapades of Gillu the squirrel, the story of Siya, who finds a friend in a cherished doll, and Bagheera, the brave panther who looks after Mowgli.

Youve got this, Arjuna

For ages 6 and above

There have been many interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita for children, but this one by Lissa Coffey brings it into the modern context. Published by Adidev Press, the book takes the reader to the eve of a really big match when Arjuna begins to wonder if he should play or not. However, he embarks on an insightful journey of self-awareness after a conversation with his friend Krishna. By creatingrelatable characters, Coffey brings the life lessons from the Gita to the lives of young children today.

Where does it Hurt?

For ages six to nine
Food Nerd Festival The Food Nerd Festival 2024 is set to bring together the country's top chefs for an immersive culinary experience in Bengaluru and Mumbai. This interactive workshop series revolves around four fundamental elements - Salt, Fat, Acid, and Heat - led by expert chefs. Heena Punwani of Maska Bakery will share the art of baking with various fats, while Payal Shah of Kobo Fermentary will delve into the history and craft of Indian vinegars. Meanwhile, Chef Gresham Fernandes of Bandra Born will demonstrate the transformative power of temperature in cooking, showcasing techniques behind dishes like jammy eggs and dehydrated jerky. This unique festival promises hands-on learning, culinary mastery, and innovative techniques for food enthusiasts.

Craft chocolate comes to Bengaluru On November 16 and 17, Bangalore hosts the Indian Cacao & Craft Chocolate Festival, featuring international chocolate makers for the first time. This year's highlight is Martin Christy, co-founder of the International Institute of Chocolate & Cacao Tasting, leading India's first guided international craft chocolate tasting. Experience premium Indian-origin chocolates, crafted with sustainable farming practices.

Also read: 4 exciting new restaurants to check out across cities this month Library Blu bar heads North The renowned Library Blu bar from The Leela Palace Chennai heads north, bringing its celebrated mixology to the elegant Rubicon Bar & Cigar Lounge at The Leela Ambience Gurugram Hotel & Residences. Library Blu brings its signature cocktails and curated malts, paired with delectable tapas, to complement Rubicons celebrated selection of spirits, wines, and craft beverages. The collaboration reaches its pinnacle as Library Blus finest wines from Tuscany and Bordeaux grace the sophisticated setting of Rubicon. Enjoy remarkable cocktails crafted with rare Glenfiddich and Bruichladdich single malts, perfectly paired with zesty appetizers. Together, these establishments craft an enticing episode where coastal inspiration meets northern grandeur. From the serene shores of Chennai, where Library Blu paints evenings in shades of cerulean and indigo, to the refined ambiance of Gurugrams Rubicon Bar & Cigar Lounge, a celebratory experience unfolds.

Bagels and brews in Bengaluru Maverick & Farmer in Ulsoor is hosting a breakfast pop-up on November 17. Chef Tushar Chopra, founder of Bangalore Bagel Shop, will serve New York-Montreal style bagel sandwiches. The menu includes options like bacon with scrambled eggs, BBQ tofu, Norwegian salmon, and pastrami with pulled pork, accompanied by specialty coffees and cream cheese spreads.
Insurance companies charge hefty premiums for health policies and often revise them upwards to adjust for medical inflation. It comes as a surprise, therefore, if they reject or only partially settle claims linked to modern treatment methods and advanced procedures. After all, innovation in medical treatment is part of medical inflation.

New Delhi-based Rahul Kumar's 67-year-old father was diagnosed with liver cancer that needed an advanced palliative treatment called Transarterial Radioembolization (TARE). Kumar's brother had a corporate policy with a private insurer. However, during pre-authorisation, the company refused to approve the claim, saying, "TARE is an advanced procedure which is not covered under the policy; hence claim not admissible."

Kumar, who studied at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, had an alumni group insurance plan from the same insurer which covered his parents. It was a family floater plan with a fixed deductible of 5 lakh.

"I approached the insurance company to file a reimbursement. They accepted the documents and settled the claim in two months, probably thanks to some pressure the alumni group exerted on them. The same company had rejected it when my brother filed it under his corporate policy," said Kumar.

Bengaluru-based Parag Jain's mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023 and was recommended "targeted" therapy. She needed to undergo six chemotherapy sessions followed by a surgery, radiotherapy and 14 post-surgery sessions over 1.5 years. The overall cost came up to 40 lakh.

"In my wife's corporate plan and in my personal plan, we had super top-ups. But the insurers told us that modern treatment is not covered in the super top-up plans," said Jain.

Regulatory mandate

To be sure, the insurance company had not shared the correct coverage details with Kumar's brother and Jain. In September 2019, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) had mandated that insurance policies must cover 12 modern treatments including balloon sinuplasty, oral chemotherapy, robotic surgery and stereotactic radiosurgery.

However, the regulator left it to the insurance companies to decide sub-limits. That said, not all health insurance policies offer full coverage up to the sum insured for these treatments. Some of them apply sub-limits or caps on the maximum amount for some or all treatments.

Jain followed up with the insurers, citing the IRDAI circular.

"Finally, they covered it but after a lot of back and forth. Many cancer treatments fall under the purview of modern treatment. Policyholders can be taken for a ride if they do not know about IRDAI's circular," said Jain.

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Ravi Jakareddy (54) from Pune has a policy from a public insurer. He was told to buy a rider, which cost him an additional 20,000, to get modern treatment coverage up to 100% of the sum assured (SA).

My insurer told me that the base policy does not cover it," he said.

Aayush Dubey, co-founder and head of research at Beshak.org, explains why some insurers tend to reject claims under modern treatment in their first communication.

"When the IRDAI mandated insurers to include 12 modern treatments/procedures in their policy contracts, some of them simply removed them from their permanent exclusion list, without providing any further details on coverage, conditions or limits. Others revised their policy wording and brochures accordingly and specifically added the coverage for them along with the associated conditions and limits. The former set of insurers tends to reject claims," he said.

Regardless of whether or not information on modern treatment is mentioned in a policy document, all insurers have to cover it, as mandated by IRDAI, up to specified sub-limits.

Understanding sub-limits

Ahmedabad-based Sureshchandra Chechani (61) had a mediclaim policy from a public insurance company with a base cover of 1 lakh and 50,000 bonus. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer and admitted to a hospital in Ahmedabad. The treatment cost came in at about 4.65 lakh.

"More than 90% of the claim amount was denied. They gave us only 37,500, saying robotic surgery is covered only up to 25% of the sum insured," said Chechani.

Chechani argued that it should have been covered up to the sum insured. However, the public insurer in his case does not offer full coverage. Some public insurers set even lower sub-limits.

For example, New India Assurance Co. covers only 10% of the sum insured in oral chemotherapy up to 1 lakh in its floater mediclaim policy. The Oriental Insurance Co. has set similar limits in its family floater plans. Among private insurers, while Niva Bupa covers 11 modern treatments fully, it caps claims against few robotic surgeries at 1 lakh per claim in its Reassure 2.0 plan.

"Lower sub-limits defeat the purpose of buying a high sum assured. In some cases, treatments are limited to 50,000. This is lower than the cost of traditional treatment for the same ailment. So, insured will have to bear a substantial cost out of pocket," said Abhishek Bondia, co-founder and principal officer at SecureNow Insurance Broker.

According to Dubey of Beshak.org, policies with the lowest sub-limits include IFFCO Tokio Family Health Protector, IFFCO Tokio Individual Health Protector, National Insurance - Mediclaim Plus, National Insurance, Parivar Mediclaim Plus, Royal Sundaram - Lifeline and SBI General - Arogya Supreme.

Porting option

Policyholders should consider porting to a new plan if their existing plans have sub-limits on modern treatments.

"HDFC Ergo Optima Restore and Secure, Niva Bupa Aspire, Bajaj Allianz My Healthcare, Star Health Assure and Comprehensive and Aditya Birla Activ Fit and Activ One are some of products offering 100% coverage up to sum insured for modern treatments," he said.

Parthanil Ghosh, director and chief business officer at HDFC Ergo General Insurance, advises people to be mindful of their coverage and choose treatments accordingly. He said that in the US and western countries, insurance companies, through their panel of doctors, have a right to deny an insurance claim pertaining to a certain treatment or treatment at a particular hospital.

They say if they are the financiers, they should have a say or should be able to recommend the treatment without jeopardizing the patient's health.

"In India, our insurance policies do not have any such restrictions and policyholders are free to get admitted at any hospital based on the advice of their treating doctors. Policyholders need to decide themselves on getting modern/advance treatments like robotic surgery, depending on their sum insured as a high-cost treatment with a low sum insured policy will exhaust the entire sum insured at one go and may result in substantial out-of-pocket expense for the policyholder," said Ghosh.

What about modern treatment procedures beyond the mandated 12?

"There is no specific list of exclusions. Admissibility is decided based on the claim documents and line of treatment suggested. Any unproven treatment, including drug experimental therapy, which is not based on established standard medical practices or experimental or unapproved, shall be a standard exclusion," said Bhaskar Nerurkar, head of the health administration team at Bajaj Allianz General Insurance.

Dubey said insurance companies typically do not cover popular modern treatments such as gene therapy, CAR-T cell therapy, proton beam therapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in retail insurance policies.

Some group insurance policies cover these treatments," he said.
MUMBAI : Mutual funds have emerged as an attractive investment vehicle for non-resident Indians (NRIs) keen on participating in Indias booming economy.

Unlike direct investment in stocks, which involves cumbersome account setups, regulatory complexities, and high costs for Portfolio Investment Scheme (PIS) or Non-PIS demat accounts, mutual funds offer a streamlined and cost-effective alternative.

Mutual funds also allow a person to spread risk across market caps, sectors and asset classes, providing NRIs with professionally managed portfolios and long-term growth potential without the intricacies of managing individual stocks.

Here's the Mint step-by-step guide to help NRIs invest in mutual funds online.

View Full Image NRIs must be present in the country to complete the KYC process

The know-your-customer (KYC) process

It's the first and most essential step for NRIs to invest in Indian mutual funds, as mandated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

NRIs must be present in the country to complete the KYC process. "This requirement has been a significant hurdle for NRIs who cannot frequently travel to India," said Dipen Shah, CFP and founder of NRI FinOne.

It has left many NRIs with limited options, forcing them to delay their investments or rely on third-party intermediaries, wealth management firms, or local banks offering to complete the KYC process.

However, per the 2023 Sebi Master Circular on KYC norms for the securities market, NRIs can complete the KYC process online after coming to India.

According to the circular, the online KYC process for NRIs is to be facilitated through apps developed by Sebi-registered intermediaries. These apps must include features such as live photograph capturing, scanning of officially valid documents (via Digilocker), and video verification in a live environment.

The process will also include random actions initiated by the app to ensure the interactions are not pre-recorded, with time-stamping and geo-location tagging to verify that the client is indeed in the country.

Besides, NRIs should know that an Indian mobile phone number is required for OTP validation.

Aditya Birla Sun Life Asset Management Co. Ltd currently allows online KYC registration for NRIs. But no modifications are allowed.

Documents needed for KYC

Commonly required documents include a copy of the passport, permanent account number (PAN), proof of overseas address (visa, utility bill, driving licence), a cancelled cheque or bank statement.

If the applicant is a seafarer, they must also submit a copy of their Continuous Discharge Certificate (CDC).

Furthermore, they must complete the FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) form.

These details should be submitted to the AMC and the KYC registration agency (KRA).

Linking NRO/NRE accounts

NRIs must link a bank accountNRE (non-resident external) or NRO (non-resident ordinary)in India.

While NRE accounts facilitate the smooth repatriation of fundsboth the principal and interest earned on investmentsNRO accounts are used for income earned in India and require 15CA and 15CB certificates for repatriating funds.

A copy of a cancelled cheque or bank statement is essential since "penny drop" validation is not currently supported for NRI accounts.

Once the account is set up, NRIs can invest through respective AMC platforms and access RTA (registrar and transfer agent) platforms such as myCAMS and KFintech. They can also use centralized mutual fund platforms such as MFCentral and MFUtilities, which provide easy online access to various mutual fund houses.

However, NRIs residing in the US or Canada face additional restrictions, as only select AMCs, due to regulatory challenges, allow investments from these countries.

Rules for US and Canadian NRIs

For NRIs residing in the US and Canada, investment choices are further restricted due to additional compliance requirements under US and Canadian laws.

Only a few AMCsUTI Mutual Fund, Sundaram Mutual Fund, HDFC Mutual Fund, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, SBI Mutual Fund, Motilal Oswal, Tata Mutual Fund, Quant Mutual Fund, and Nippon Mutual Fundpermit online investments for US- and Canada-based NRIs.

For countries other than the US and Canada, almost all AMCs are open to accepting money from NRIs," noted Shah.

For NRIs residing in the US, investing in Portfolio Management Services (PMS) can often be more tax-efficient than investing in mutual funds, primarily because of the Internal Revenue Service's passive foreign investment company (PFIC) rules.

Under the PFIC rules, US taxpayers are subject to higher taxes on investments in foreign mutual funds. The tax treatment of income from these funds can lead to significant penalties, including deferred tax liabilities and an additional interest charge.

On the other hand, PMS investments are typically structured differently, often as direct equity or debt investments, which do not fall under the PFIC regulations. As a result, they offer a more favourable tax treatment for US NRIs, as income from PMS is taxed at regular capital gains rates, which are generally lower than those applied under the PFIC regime for mutual funds.

KYC registered vs validated

As of now, NRIs can invest with a KYC registered status until April 2025. All NRI investors must ensure their KYC status is upgraded to KYC validated by this date. To achieve KYC validated status, NRIs must provide an Aadhaar card as proof of address. Those whose status remains KYC registered by the deadline must re-submit KYC documentation with Aadhaar-based proof of address.

NRIs without an Aadhaar card may want to consider applying for one before this deadline to avoid last-minute inconveniences.
AQI in Delhi: Following her return to Delhi after the Wayanad bypolls on Wednesday, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said the National Capital felt "like entering a gas chamber.

She made her electoral debut from the constituency in Kerala, previously represented by her brother Rahul Gandhi.

Coming back to Delhi from Wayanad, where the air is beautiful and the AQI is 35, was like entering a gas chamber. The blanket of smog is even more shocking when seen from the air, Priyanka Gandhi posted on X.

With the onset of winter, Delhi has been ranking at the top when it comes to declining air quality.

The air quality in Delhi plummeted to its worst level today, with the AQI falling into the severe category. According to Safar data, the AQI in the national capital dropped to 434 at 6 am.

Several residents have also been facing health issues such as irritation in their eyes, running noses, breathlessness, and coughing, stated media reports.

Practically impossible to breathe Calling out for a permanent solution to Delhi's ever-growing pollution woes, Rahul Gandhi's sister further added that the air was practically impossible to breathe.

Priyanka posted, Delhis pollution gets worse every year. We really should put our heads together and find a solution for cleaner air. Its beyond this party or that, its practically impossible to breathe, especially for kids, elders and those with respiratory issues. We just have to do something about it.

Also Read | SC pulls up Delhi govt, top cop for not implementing firecracker ban

AQI in Delhi: Dense fog, flights diverted According to data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), various areas in Delhi, such as Anand Vihar, Rohini and others, recorded an AQI of over 400.

An AQI in the 0-50 range is considered good, 51-100 satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor, and 401-500 severe.
Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) Working President and MLA Kalvakuntla Taraka Rama Rao (KTR) on Thursday, November 14, dared Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy to arrest him hours after he was named in the remand report linked to the violent assault of Vikarabad district collector and other revenue officials at Lagcherla village of Dudyal Mandal in Vikarabad district.

In a long post on X, KT Rama Rao said, Arrest me! I will walk into the prison with my head held high for standing by the farmers of Telangana!

Revanth Reddy! For a man caught with 50 lakh bribe, everything will seem like a conspiracy! Farmers protesting against your son-in-laws pharma company will be a conspiracy! Farmers not bowing down to your brothers threats is a conspiracy! Two people talking on the phone is a conspiracy! People posting their woes on social media is a conspiracy! To stand with poor tribal farmers is a conspiracy! After waiting for your appointment for NINE long months, after facing all your threats, if they revolt - it is of course a conspiracy! If I question against the midnight raids on poor farmer families, illegal arrest & torture - it is definitely a conspiracy! KT Rama Rao said.

He added, Because you live in fear! Every single breathing moment of your life, you live in fear! Also Read | Telangana girl seeks financial help for mothers last rites, BRS leader KTR, district collector intervene

The remand report came after BRS MLA Patnam Narender Reddy was arrested on Wednesday morning in connection with the same case after he admitted to his role in a criminal conspiracy designed to undermine the Congress government and to further his own political interests. Patnam Reddy also confessed that the conspiracy was committed as per the directions of BRS leader KTR and others. Also Read | Delhi Ghulam, cheap minister Revanth: KTR and Telangana CM Reddy exchange barbs over Rajiv Gandhi statue
Mumbai: The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai received a bomb threat from an unidentified caller on Wednesday afternoon, who alerted the security personnel about a passenger carrying explosives.

Another flight from Nagpur to Kolkata made an emergency landing at Raipur airport following a bomb threat. IndiGo plane 6E812, which had 187 passengers and six crew members on board, is currently being checked at the airport. Additional Superintendent of Police (Rural) Kirtan Rathore said a further probe is underway.

The plane landed at the Chhattisgarh capital sometime after 9 am and was immediately taken to the isolation bay for mandatory security checks, added officials, reported PTI.

Indian airlines, including domestic and international carriers, have been receiving a series of bomb threats over the past few months. To date, over 300 flights have received similar threats, with the latest incident reported on Thursday.

Mumbai Airport bomb threat An unidentified person called the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) control room and specifically mentioned a person named Mohammad, who was allegedly carrying explosives on a flight from Mumbai to Azerbaijan, stated reports.

Upon receiving the threat, the CISF promptly alerted the Sahar Police, triggering a rapid security sweep of the airport. Security at the airport has been heightened as a precaution, with police verifying passenger details to ensure safety and prevent potential threats.

Hoax calls, social media threats Over 450 hoax calls were reportedly recorded in October, raising widespread concerns about their potential impact on passenger safety and national security.

In response to these growing threats, the National Investigation Agency's (NIA) cyber wing has thoroughly investigated these calls. The inquiry focuses on determining the motives behind the calls and evaluating their credibility.

Also Read | Govt advisory to social media firms amid hoax bomb threats raises concerns
The air quality in Delhi plummeted to its worst level today, with the AQI falling into the severe category. According to Safar data, the AQI in the national capital dropped to 434 at 6 am.

In view of rising pollution, Environment Minister Gopal Rai will hold a review meeting with concerned departmental officials in the Green War Room at the Delhi Secretariat at 11 am today.

According to data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), various areas in Delhi recorded high AQI levels: Anand Vihar at 473, Alipur at 424, Ashok Vihar at 471, Aya Nagar at 424, Chandni Chowk at 405, IGI Airport T3 at 436, Dwarka Sector 8 at 457, Jahangirpuri at 470, JNS at 412, Narela at 440, Nehru Nagar at 462, Okhla Phase 2 at 441, Patparganj at 472, Punjabi Bagh at 459, Pusa at 408, RK Puram at 457, Rohini at 453, Shadipur at 430, Wazirpur at 467, Sonia Vihar at 448, and Sirifort at 440.

Also Read | Delhi AQI Today: 10 flights diverted as visibility drops to zero at IGI airport

Will Schools Shut Due to Rising Pollution? The severe pollution levels have raised concerns about the safety of children. Dr Sahab Ram, a Pediatrician who spoke to the news agency ANI, said that it is a serious issue affecting school-going students as there has been an increase in cold and cough cases.

Speaking to ANI, Dr Ram said, It is a serious issue. There has been an increase in the issues faced by the school-going students. As the weather changes, there has been a rise in the cases of cold and cough. Asthmatic children are suffering acute asthma attacks. It is due to the rise in pollution, he said.

He added, We have to pay attention to this, and the government should also think about this because, in matters of health, prevention is better. More attention should be paid to actions that reduce pollution. Masks should be made compulsory for children less than 12 years of age. Those with allergy problems should stay home as much as possible."

However, on November 13, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) said that due to stronger winds, the pollutant concentration is expected to show a declining trend from Thursday onwards, and the AQI is likely to move back to the "very poor" category. In a post on X, CAQM said, After a comprehensive review, the sub-committee decided to closely monitor the situation before implementing Stage-III of GRAP and will reassess the status on Thursday.

His statement came after the air quality in the national capital dropped to a severe category at 4 pm, with an AQI of 418.

Restrictions to be imposed? As per the PTI report, if the city's air quality remains in the severe category on Thursday, authorities may impose restrictions under the third stage of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), including a ban on construction and demolition activities and plying of BS-all petrol and BS-IV diesel light motor vehicles. GRAP is a set of measures implemented to combat air pollution in cities, particularly in Delhi.



According to the Centre's Decision Support System for Air Quality Management, vehicular emissions contributed to Delhi's worsening pollution on Wednesday, accounting for an estimated 13.3 per cent of the total pollution.

On Wednesday, CPCB data showed that Delhi's annual average levels of PM10 and PM2.5 were 5 per cent and 7 per cent higher, respectively, from January 1 to November 12, compared to the same period last year. During this period, the national capital experienced 116 days with the Air Quality Index (AQI) falling into the poor, very poor, or severe categories. Meanwhile, CPCB data revealed that 201 days had an AQI in the good, satisfactory, or moderate range.
The Rouse Avenue court in Delhi on Thursday, November 14, declined to take cognizance of a chargesheet filed against AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan in a money laundering case related to alleged irregularities in the Delhi Waqf Board.

The court directed Khan be released from judicial custody on a bail bond of 1 lakh and one surety of the same amount.

Special Judge Jitendra Singh said while there was sufficient evidence against Khan to proceed against him, there was no sanction to prosecute him.

The court added that there was no evidence against Amanatullah Khan's second wife, Mariam Siddiqui (named in the chargesheet), and she was also discharged.

Also Read | Delhi MCD to pick mayor in high-stakes election today

Earlier, on October 29, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a 110-page first supplementary prosecution complaint (the ED's equivalent to a chargesheet), claiming Khan laundered money that was allegedly generated through corruption in the Delhi Waqf Board. The ED informed the court that the proceeds of the crime were invested in property worth 36 crore, acquired in Okhla under Khan's direction, with 27 crore paid in cash.

The ED arrested Khan on September 2 from his Okhla residence.

On November 13, Delhi's Rouse Avenue Court reserved its orders on whether to take cognizance of the supplementary chargesheet filed by the ED in the case. The Special Judge Jitendra Singh had reserved the order after hearing arguments from the ED, which claimed there was sufficient evidence to prosecute the accused persons in the case.

When the Special Judge questioned ED about how Khan was connected to the money laundering offence, it cited a diary and WhatsApp chats, pointing out that Khan's name appeared multiple times in the diary, written by Kausar Imam Siddiqui, along with matching financial transactions.

Also Read | Mumbai Police arrests 24-year-old for sending threat messages to Salman Khan

Khan's counsel on Delhi court order Counsel for AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan, Rajat Bhardwaj, said, The court has declined to take cognizance against Amanatullah Khan because there was no sanction against him, and the court has directed his release with the surety of 1 lakh. There's no evidence against accused number seven, Mariam Siddiqui, therefore, no summons have been issued against her.
Pollution in Delhi: As Delhi continued to register an alarming level of pollution reaching severe in the air quality index (AQI), the central pollution control agency imposed stricter curbs in Delhi and the national capital region (NCR) under the Stage III of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP). The restrictions include ban on demolition and construction activities, and entry of certain vehicles inside Delhi-NCR, among other curbs, to prevent further deterioration of air quality.

The air quality in Delhi-NCR has remained in the severe category for a second consecutive day, prompting authorities to impose stringent anti-pollution measures. The GRAP III curbs will be enforced from 8 am on Friday, November 15.

GRAP 3 IMPOSED IN DELHI-NCR: WHAT'S ALLOWED AND WHAT'S NOT Are schools closed from tomorrow? Yes! The Delhi government has decided to suspend in-person classes for school students. All tuitions up to Class 5 will be shifted to online mode, Chief Minister Atishi announced on Thursday as GRAP 3 curbs come into force in the Delhi-NCR.

What else is banned and what's allowed in Delhi-NCR? Under the GRAP 3 guidelines, mechanised sweeping of the roads will be intensified.

Construction and demolition activities shall, however, be permitted for projects hospitals, health care facilities, national security, defence related activities, projects of national importance, water supply projects, public infrastructure projects such as work on highways, roads etc.

All mining activities shall be suspended. Read here: Delhi is most polluted city

Under the third stage of the GRAP, all Inter-State buses from NCR states  except electric vehicles, CNG vehicles and BS-VI diesel buses  will be prohibited from entering Delhi.

From tomorrow 8 am, there would be restrictions on the plying of BS-lll petrol and BS-IV diesel vehicles in Delhi and the districts of Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar.

All Inter-State buses from NCR states other than EVs/CNG/BS-VI diesel will not be allowed to enter Delhi  these exclude buses/tempo travelers operated with All India Tourist PermiN.

STRICT BAN ON FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES: A strict ban shall be imposed on the following categories of dust generating/ air pollution causing contriction and demolition activities in the entire NCR:
In a surprising turn of events, FBI agents raided the Manhattan apartment of Shayne Coplan, the 26-year-old CEO of Polymarket, early Wednesday morning. Law enforcement officials arrived at his Soho residence at 6 a.m., waking Coplan from his sleep and demanding that he hand over his phone and other electronic devices, New York Post first reported citing sources close to the matter.

The exact reason for the raid remains unclear, but there is growing speculation that it may be connected to the political ramifications of Polymarkets predictions during the recent election.

Political context and speculation The raid comes just one week after Polymarket, a betting platform known for predicting election outcomes, accurately forecasted Donald Trumps unexpected victory in the 2024 presidential race. Polymarkets prediction contradicted mainstream polling data, which had shown a tight race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

According to reports, some have suggested that the timing of the raid is linked to the platforms non-traditional and seemingly pro-Trump forecasts, raising suspicions that the government might be retaliating politically.

However, no official statement has been released by law enforcement on the exact reason for the raid.

Shayne Coplans response In a statement on social media, Coplan responded with characteristic defiance. On X (formerly Twitter), he humorously posted: New phone, who dis? In a subsequent message, he expressed his disappointment with the governments actions, calling the raid an attempt at political retribution. Its discouraging that the current administration would seek a last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents, Coplan wrote. He further defended Polymarket, emphasizing its commitment to non-partisanship and its contribution to providing valuable information to millions of users during the election cycle.

Also Read | Musk shares video of Joe Rogan saying he received support for endorsing Trump

Coplan also took the opportunity to critique the current political climate, stating, the incumbents should do some self-reflecting and recognize that taking a more pro-business, pro-startup approach may be what would have changed their fate this election. He expressed pride in Polymarkets success, highlighting that the platform had caused no harm and provided value to millions of users in a transparent and open manner.

Also Read | Why Goldman stands out as a Trump-era winner on Wall Street

Polymarket's impact on the election Polymarket has become a prominent platform for election-related betting, offering users a chance to wager on political outcomes. In the weeks leading up to the 2024 election, the platform displayed a higher chance of Trump winning compared to mainstream polls, which had predicted a tighter race between Trump and Harris.

The sites odds were a stark contrast to traditional polling data, which showed the race in a dead heat. Polymarkets predictions, particularly their confidence in Trumps victory, garnered significant attention, especially as they proved accurate in the final results.
Chennai rains today: Tamil Nadu's capital and other cities have witnessed heavy rainfall over the past few days. The India Meteorological Department has predicted heavy rainfall in the state on Thursday and Friday.

However, parts of Chennai are likely to receive moderate rainfall throughout Thursday, according to the Regional Meteorological Centre.

Also Read | Chennai doctor stabbed, raises safety concerns among health workers

Will there be a school holiday in Chennai today? Despite heavy rainfall in the city over the past few days and rainfall warnings in the city for today, there will be no school holiday in Chennai, reported Hindustan Times. All the schools and other educational institutions will remain functional on Thursday, November 14.

Chennai rains The city received heavy rainfall on Tuesday night, and according to the IMD bulletin, several isolated parts of the capital city are likely to witness heavy downpours on Thursday as well. Weather in the city is likely to remain partly cloudy, with 24 degree Celsius of minimum temperature and 30 degree Celsius of maximum temperature.

Also Read | Photos from Samay Rainas unreleased YouTube show get leaked

IMD rainfall alert for Tamil Nadu districts According to the RMC bulletin, heavy rainfall is likely to occur at isolated places in twenty-three districts on Thursday, including Puducherry, Cuddalore, Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram, etc.

Other areas mentioned in IMD's heavy rainfall warning are Kallakuruchi, Tiruvannamalai, Mayiladuthurai, Pudukkottai, Nagapattinam, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Ariyalur, Perambalur, Villupuram, Sivaganga, Madurai, Virudhunagar, Tenkasi, Ramanathapuram, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari districts, and Karaikal.

Chennai rains today: IMD has predicted heavy rainfall in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and parts of Karnataka.

Due to the possibility of heavy rainfall on Thursday, the IMD has issued an alert for Kerala and Mahe, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karaikal, coastal Andhra Pradesh and Yanam, and south Interior Karnataka.

These states are receiving heavy rainfall because of the presence of a low-pressure weather system over the southwest Bay of Bengal. The system is leading to heavy rainfall at the coastal districts of Tamil Nadu and Chennai.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) launched new searches on Thursday targeting Santiago Martin, the prominent Chennai-based businessman known as the lottery king.

Santiago Martin, who has been identified as the biggest political donor through electoral bonds, with contributions exceeding 1,300 crore between 2019 and 2024, is under investigation for alleged money laundering.

Madras High Court Clears Path for ED Investigation The renewed ED action follows a recent Madras High Court ruling that permitted the probe agency to continue its conduct searches and investigate Santiago Martin.

This decision came after the Tamil Nadu Police had attempted to close the initial FIR related to him, which a lower court accepted. The Madras High Court, however, overturned this ruling, enabling the ED to pursue its investigation against Martin.

The case gained momentum after the Madras High Court last month reversed a lower courts acceptance of the Chennai Police crime branchs closure report.

Also Read | Karnataka HC stays probe against Nirmala Sitharaman in Electoral Bonds case

The report pertained to the seizure of unaccounted cash worth 7.2 crore from Martins residence. With this setback overturned, the ED has been empowered to proceed with its probe into Martins complex financial dealings.

Multi-Location Searches Underway in Chennai According to PTI report, the ED conducted multiple searches across properties associated with Santiago Martin in Chennai and other areas.

These operations are part of a larger investigation into Martins financial activities that have raised red flags over the years.

Also Read | Electoral bonds case: Do not nullify past transactions

Santiago Martin Lottery King Background of Alleged Fraud ED has been scrutinising Martin and Future Gaming Solutions India Pvt. Ltd., the master distributor of Sikkim lotteries, since 2019.

The ED previously attached assets worth approximately 457 crore linked to Martin. This action related to accusations that Santiago Martins lottery operations caused a financial loss of over 900 crore to the Sikkim government through fraudulent sales in Kerala.

Also Read | SC to pronounce verdict on scrapping validity of electoral bonds scheme today

Spotlight on Electoral Bond Donations of Santiago Martin Earlier in March, Election Commission of India disclosed details on electoral bonds, revealing Coimbatore-based Future Gaming as the top donor. 23 companies accounted for half the total value of bonds, with Future Gaming and Hotel Services Pvt Ltd emerging as the top buyer.
India on Thursday said that it will seek the extradition of gangster-turned-terrorist Arshdeep Singh Gill, alias Arsh Dalla, who was recently arrested in Canada.

Arsh Dalla, considered a successor to slain Khalistani leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was reportedly arrested by the Canadian authorities following a violent shooting incident in Milton in Ontario.

Responding to media queries, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that they have seen media reports circulating since 10 November on the arrest in Canada of proclaimed offender Arsh Singh Gill alias Arsh Dalla, the de-facto chief of the Khalistan Tiger Force.

Also Read | Canada reinstates Khalistani-linked fugitive Sunny Toronto as police officer

In view of the recent arrest, our agencies will be following up on an extradition request, said Jaiswal.

The spokesperson added that given Arsh Dallas criminal record in India and his involvement in similar illegal activities in Canada, it is expected that he will be extradited or deported to face justice in India.

Arsh Dalla is a proclaimed offender in over 50 cases of murder, attempt to murder, extortion and terrorist acts including terror financing. In May 2022, a Red Corner Notice was issued against him. He was designated in India as an individual terrorist in 2023. In July 2023, the Government of India requested the Canadian government for his provisional arrest. This was declined. Additional information was provided in this case, said the Spokesperson.

A separate request was also sent to Canada under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to verify Arsh Dallas suspected residential address, his financial transactions to India, moveable/immovable properties, details of mobile numbers etc  all of which were provided to Canadian authorities in January 2023.

In December 2023, the Department of Justice of Canada sought additional information on the case, said the MEA spokesperson, adding, A reply to these queries was sent in March this year.

The relations between India and Canada have deteriorated since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's claim that he has "credible allegations" of India's hand in the killing of Nijjar on Canadian soil last year.

India has denied all the allegations, calling them "absurd" and "motivated" and has accused Canada of giving space to extremist and anti-India elements in their country.
In an attempt to control violence in Manipur, the central government has reimposed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in states six police station areas, including Jiribam.

Under the AFSPA, an area is declared "disturbed" so that the security forces can operate there conveniently.

AFSPA gives armed forces operating in disturbed areas sweeping powers to search, arrest and open fire if they deem it necessary for the "maintenance of public order".

The six police station areas where AFSPA has been reimposed are Sekmai and Lamsang in Imphal West district, Lamlai in Imphal East district, Jiribam in Jiribam district, Leimakhong in Kangpokpi and Moirang in Bishnupur.

The decision to impose AFSPA in Manipur's six police station areas was taken given the continuous volatile situation there due to the ongoing ethnic violence, the Union Home Ministry said in a notification.

The fresh order came after the Manipur government imposed AFSPA in the entire state on October 1, barring 19 police station areas that include these six.

The police stations excluded from the Manipur government's October 1 order of AFSPA imposition were Imphal, Lamphal, City, Singjamei, Sekmai, Lamsang, Patsoi, Wangoi, Porompat, Heingang, Lamlai, Irilbung, Leimakhong, Thoubal, Bishnupur, Nambol, Moirang, Kakching, Jiribam.

On Monday, eleven suspected militants were killed in a fierce gunbattle with the security forces after insurgents in camouflage uniforms and armed with sophisticated weapons attacked a police station and an adjacent CRPF camp in Jiribam district.

A day later, six civilians, including women and children were abducted by armed militants from the same district.

Since May last year, more than 200 people have been killed and thousands rendered homeless in ethnic violence between Imphal Valley-based Meiteis and adjoining hills-based Kuki-Zo groups.
Infosys Founder N R Narayana Murthy, on Thursday, November 14, said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi could consider having more managers in the government rather than administrators in public services, reported the news agency PTI.

Maybe Prime Minister Modi, who has done a brilliant job so far in terms of accelerating our economy, may want to look at whether we need more managers in the government rather than administrators, said Murthy, as per the report.

Murthy's suggestion came in the form of tapping into management schools rather than depending on competitive examinations to improve the overall delivery of public services.

The government needs to access the management schools for the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) talent rather than the present system where the candidates appear for the highly competitive exam conducted by the Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) by giving an examination in three or four subjects, said Murthy, reported the agency.

I hope India becomes a nation that is more management-orientated than just administration orientated, said Murthy.

Also Read | Sudha Murty advocates flying on economy as Narayana discusses hiring chartered

Murthy also talked about management orientation being all about vision, high aspiration, achieving the plausibly impossible, cost control, raising the confidence of people and making things happen quickly, whereas the administrative approach lays stress on the status quo.

Murthy explained the training process; after a candidate is selected, he or she will be taken to Mussoorie at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, where he or she will be trained in specialised sectors such as agriculture, defence, or manufacturing. This is a departure from the current practice of creating general administrators.

The successful candidates will become subject matter experts once the training is over and serve the country in their respective fields for 30-40 years, he said, as per the report.

The Administrative approach Murthy highlighted that the roots for the administrative approach originated in 1858 when the East India Company transferred the dominion to the British crown, and the objective of the then civil servants was to go slow because the natives were to be kept under control and delay implementation.

The benefits of managers will be to get speed, imagination and excellence in decision making, and also in implementation in the public governance system, he said according to the report.

Murthy also recalled his conversation with a retired UK Cabinet Secretary, who stated that evolving with the times has helped Britain deliver timely services to the population.
The Delhi Police on Thursday said it launched a crackdown on the drug menace in the national capital under 'Operation Kawach'.

The police identified 64 hotspot locations where narcotics are reportedly being sold, conducted raids at 907 places, and arrested more than 700 people during the 24-hour operation.

Under 'Operation Kawach', the police take action against criminals and drug traffickers from time to time in the national capital.

Also Read | Centre reads out riot act to psychotropic drug makers

Devesh Chandra Srivastava, Special Commissioner of Police (crime branch), said all the units of the Delhi Police, including Crime Branch, Special Cell and the police of 15 districts, launched a 24-hour operation from November 12 to 13.

"All the units detained 1,224 people under the operation conducted at 907 locations. We have arrested more than 700 people during the entire operation," Srivastava said.

During 'Operation Kawach', the teams have identified 64 hotspot locations where narcotics are being sold in Delhi. The teams will keep a 24-hour vigil on these hotspots, he added.

"To eradicate the drug menace from society, all concerned have been directed to take strong effective action against the narco-offenders. The Delhi Police, until October 31, arrested 1,268 narco-offenders in 886 NDPS cases and recovered about 71.1 kilogrammes of heroin/smack, 1,293 kilogrammes of cocaine, 3,241 kilogrammes of ganja, 103 kilogrammes of opium, 50.5 kilogrammes of charas, and 80.5 kilogrammes of poppy heads," he further said.

'Operation Kawach' was started all over Delhi in May 2023 to focus on identifying and apprehending individuals involved in the trafficking and distribution of narcotics.

According to the police, approximately 870.1 grams of heroin, 244.8 kilogrammes of ganja, 16.1 grams of cocaine and 434 grams of MDMA were seized. 34,420 cash, one gold chain of 20 grams, one motorcycle, one scooter and one tempo were also seized. Fourteen people were arrested in 14 Arms Act cases with the recovery of six country-made pistols, nine live cartridges, eight knives and 15 stolen motorcycles.
VMPL

New Delhi [India], November 14: When it comes to achieving your dream of moving to Canada, finding the right immigration consultancy can make all the difference. The complexities of the immigration process, including eligibility checks, documentation, application submissions, and compliance with regulations, can be daunting for even the most prepared applicants. For those seeking a smooth and reliable process, Croyez Immigration Services has become a top choice across India. Here's why Croyez is considered the best Canada immigration consultancy in the country.

Decades of Experience and Unmatched Expertise

Croyez Immigration Services has established itself as a leader in the field, thanks to its years of experience and a team of highly skilled professionals. The firm's consultants are certified experts who possess in-depth knowledge of Canadian immigration laws and regulations. Their experience allows them to provide clients with accurate, personalized guidance that significantly improves the chances of a successful application. Croyez's expertise spans across different types of visas, including skilled worker programs, Express Entry, student visas, and family sponsorships, among others.

Comprehensive and Tailored Services

Unlike generic immigration consultancies that offer limited support, Croyez provides a full suite of services that cater to the unique needs of each client. From the initial consultation and eligibility assessment to document preparation, application submission, and post-landing services, Croyez offers comprehensive support. This all-encompassing approach ensures clients feel confident and well-assisted throughout the entire process. Whether you are a student looking to pursue higher education in Canada or a skilled professional aiming for permanent residency, Croyez's tailored services are designed to align with your individual needs.

Personalized Consultations for a Strategic Approach

Every client has a unique background, set of skills, and personal aspirations. Croyez understands this and takes a personalized approach to ensure that each application is crafted with the highest chances of success. Through thorough consultations, the team at Croyez identifies the most suitable immigration pathway for each client, whether it's through the Express Entry system, Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs), or work permits. This strategic planning is what sets Croyez apart, providing clients with a clear roadmap for their immigration journey.

Transparent and Ethical Practices

Transparency is a cornerstone of Croyez's operations. The consultancy ensures that clients are informed of every step in the process, along with clear timelines and fee structures. There are no hidden costs or unexpected changes, making clients feel secure and confident in the service they are receiving. Furthermore, Croyez adheres strictly to ethical practices and follows the regulations set by Canadian immigration authorities, underscoring its commitment to integrity and client trust.

Strong Network for Job Placements

For many aspiring immigrants, securing a job in Canada is a key part of their migration plan. Croyez stands out by offering assistance in securing pre-approved job offers, which not only strengthens an applicant's visa profile but also eases the transition to life in Canada. Leveraging an extensive network of Canadian employers and recruiters, Croyez connects clients with job opportunities that match their expertise and experience. This service is particularly beneficial for skilled workers looking to make a seamless shift into the Canadian workforce.

Positive Client Testimonials and Success Stories

A glance at Croyez's track record speaks volumes about its credibility and success. The consultancy has helped thousands of individuals and families make their move to Canada, earning positive testimonials and glowing reviews from satisfied clients. These success stories are a testament to Croyez's commitment to delivering top-quality service and the genuine care it shows for each client's immigration journey.

Assistance Beyond Visa Approval

Croyez goes beyond just helping clients obtain a visa; they offer post-landing services to ensure a smooth transition to life in Canada. These services include helping newcomers with temporary accommodation, opening bank accounts, navigating public transportation, and finding community support networks. Such support can make a significant difference in helping new immigrants settle into their new environment with ease and confidence.

Staying Updated with Policy Changes

Canadian immigration policies are constantly evolving, which can affect application processes and eligibility criteria. The team at Croyez stays up-to-date with the latest changes and updates from Canadian immigration authorities. This proactive approach allows them to provide clients with the most current advice, ensuring that applications comply with the latest requirements and reducing the risk of delays or rejections.

A Trusted Name Across India

Croyez's success isn't just confined to Coimbatore or one region; it is recognized as one of the most reputable immigration consultancies across India. With offices in major cities and a widespread online presence, Croyez is accessible to clients from various parts of the country. The consultancy's dedication to high standards of service has earned it the trust and loyalty of a diverse clientele, making it a go-to choice for those seeking to migrate to Canada.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) recently completed the flight tests of the Guided Pinaka Weapon System as part of the Provisional Staff Qualitative Requirements (PSQR) Validation Trials. Conducted in three phases across different field firing ranges, these trials-a series of tests to ensure defence systems meet operational standards before inducting them to service--focused on key performance metrics like range, accuracy, consistency, and the rate of fire.

Key features and capabilities of Pinaka The Pinaka is a multi-barrel rocket launcher system developed by DRDOs Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE). It is capable of launching a salvo of 12 rockets within 44 seconds, covering an area of 700x500 meters. Initially designed with a 37.5 km range, the Pinaka system has undergone multiple upgrades, leading to versions with extended ranges and enhanced performance.

Pinaka Mk-I: Basic version with a 38 km range and different warhead types.

Pinaka Mk-II: Enhanced version with a range of up to 60 km.

Extended Range Pinaka: Latest upgrade capable of hitting targets up to 75 km away.

Phased development and testing The Pinaka systems development journey has included rigorous testing over the years to meet the evolving needs of the Indian Army:

2020 Tests: DRDO tested the Enhanced Pinaka variant at the Integrated Test Range (ITR) in Chandipur, Odisha. These tests achieved the intended longer range and performance objectives, with six rockets successfully fired in quick succession.

2021 Tests: Further tests with the Extended Range Pinaka rockets at ITR saw 25 rockets launched successfully, hitting targets at various ranges up to 45 km.

2022 Tests at Pokhran: The DRDO, in collaboration with the Indian Army, successfully tested the Pinaka Mk-I (Enhanced) Rocket System (EPRS) and the Pinaka Area Denial Munition (ADM) systems, meeting the required accuracy and consistency standards.

Strategic partnerships for production The development of the Pinaka system has been supported by Indian industry partners, including Munitions India Limited, Economic Explosives Limited for ammunition, and Tata Advanced Systems Limited and Larsen & Toubro for the launcher and command post. These partnerships aim to strengthen domestic production and reduce reliance on foreign weapon systems.

Also Read | India successfully tests second phase of ballistic missile system | Watch video

Potential export interest from France In a recent development, French Army officials expressed interest in the Pinaka system as a potential solution to their military requirements. Brigadier General Stephane Richou of the French Army noted that Indias indigenous military production has placed it among the top nations in the defence sector.

Pinakas role in Indias defence export drive Amid an increasing push to export indigenous defence equipment, India has been supplying military hardware to over 100 countries, with the United States, France, and Armenia being the top customers. The Pinaka weapons system is expected to play a crucial role in further expanding Indias footprint in the global defence market.

Also Read | India successfully flight tests VSHORADS missile in Pokhran | WATCH
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex and founder of Travalyst, found a place in the second annual TIME100 Climate list, featuring the 100 most influential leaders driving business to real climate action.

Harry was recognised as one of the world's leading voices in the fight against climate change due to his work with Travalyst, his non-profit sustainable travel organisation.

The Duke of Sussex was listed in the Titan category of the 2024 list. TIME said in its description, "The Duke of Sussex supports conservation groups in Africa and says he really became an environmentalist during a trip in 2012 to the Caribbean when a 7-year-old boy told him that England's environmental impact was damaging the coral reefs."

"After that interaction, he was inspired to start Travalyst (travel and catalyst), a nonprofit that provides people booking travel with emissions and other sustainability data so they can consider the lowest impact options. The aim is to help make a dent in the industrys carbon footprint; tourism makes up about 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions," the magazine explained.

Harry's Travalyst worked with Google to create the Travel Impact Model, a free, publicly available methodology launched in 2022 that predicts per-passenger CO2 emissions produced by upcoming flights.

Travalysts coalition of partners, representing a combined market value of $3 trillion, includes top tech companies used by tourists like Booking.com, Expedia Group, Mastercard, Skyscanner, Tripadvisor and Visa. On Sept. 12, Travalyst announced that its flight emissions data has appeared in 65 billion searches worldwide, TIME noted.

Also Read | Harry-Meghans joint appearance follows speculations of trouble in marriage

Prince William snubbed? Meanwhile, Harry's brother Prince William, who also champions climate change initiatives, did not make it to the list. It was just last week that the Prince of Wales hosted his fourth annual Earthshot Prize Awards in South Africa.

At the event, environmental entrepreneurs were rewarded with $1.2 million to expand their planet-saving innovations, the Mirror reported.

Also Read | 2024 US election results pose questions for Harry-Meghans future

Prince William was spotted wearing white biodegradable sneakers as he walked the green carpet at his Earthshot Prize awards ceremony in Cape Town, the centerpiece of a four-day environment-focused trip to South Africa by the heir to the British throne.

William formed the Earthshot Prize through his Royal Foundation in 2020 to encourage new ideas to solve environmental problems , with a focus on young entrepreneurs and innovators, the Washington Post reported. It launched in 2021 and the first three awards ceremonies were held in Britain, the United States and Singapore.
In a shocking turn of events, Corey Burke, a space rocket program manager, brutally murdered her father with an ice ax after an election night dispute at their Seattle home, according to a news report.

Corey Burke, 33, attacked her 67-year-old father, Timothy Burke, following an argument over keeping the lights off on the US Election Day, according to police and court documents cited by The New York Post.

The altercation escalated, and Burke is accused of strangling, biting, and repeatedly striking her father with an ice ax, the report stated. Police said, as per the report, that she described the act as an act of liberation meant to help people change their attachment to their parents.

Authorities arrived to find Burke clapping and covered in blood, with broken windows throughout the home, according to The Post.

Also Read | Police in Antigua charge a man with murder in the stabbing death of a politician

Burke told police that her fathers refusal to turn off the lights and the overwhelming stress of President-elect Donald Trumps anticipated victory over Vice President Kamala Harris pushed her over the edge.
King Charles is set to celebrate his 76th birthday on November 14, focusing on tackling food waste and supporting communities in need. As part of his Coronation Food Project, the monarch plans to launch two food distribution hubs to bridge the gap between surplus food and hunger.

The King is expected to personally open one of the hubs in South London, which will host a surplus food festival. This event will feature meals prepared from food that would otherwise go to waste.

Another hub in Northern England will be inaugurated virtually. These hubs are designed to support food charities like FareShare and the Felix Project, enabling them to deliver surplus food to vulnerable communities more effectively.

According to Buckingham Palace, since the project was introduced in 2023, it has helped save approximately 940 tonnes of surplus food, translating into over 2.2 million meal portions for those in need.

Also Read | Kate Middleton joins Prince William in first formal appearance | See photos

The King has long advocated for environmental sustainability and emphasises the importance of addressing food waste and scarcity through such initiatives.

Traditional royal celebrations will also mark the Kings birthday. Gun salutes are planned at the Tower of London and in the capitals parks to honour the milestone, Reuters reported.

King Charles will also host a special reception at Buckingham Palace for Indian nurses and midwives, alongside other international medics contributing to the NHS.

Around 400 nurses and midwives from India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Kenya will attend.

Queen Camilla recovering Queen Camilla attended a Booker Prize reception, marking her first public appearance since recovering from a chest infection. She congratulated shortlisted authors and mentioned she was getting much better while still experiencing some coughing. This engagement followed her recent tour to Australia and Samoa.
Guru Nanak Jayanti 2024: Guru Nanak Jayanti, also known as Gurpurab, is celebrated to mark the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, the first guru and the founder of the Sikh religion.

This year, the Guru Nanak Jayanti will be observed on Friday, November 15.

The sacred festival is celebrated with fervent devotion, spiritual gatherings, and the recitation of hymns from the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of the Sikh religion.

Also Read | Is Indian stock market closed tomorrow for Guru Nanak Jayanti?

The Sikh festival is celebrated with utmost love and reverence by Sikhs across the world.

Every year, the Guru Nanak Jayanti is held on the full moon date of Kartik month, also known as Kartik Purnima.

Parkash Utsav is also observed on this day.

Guru Nanak Dev was born in 1469 in the village of Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, now known as Nankana Sahib, near Lahore, Pakistan. He wrote many hymns, which Guru Arjan Dev compiled in the Adi Granth.

The Sikhs first guru went to pilgrimage places not just in India but also to several parts of Asia.

Guru Nanak Dev was devoted to the Divine since his boyhood. He spent his entire life promoting equality and tolerance.

His teachings spread the message of selfless service to the humanity.

The primary verses of the Guru Granth Sahib dwell on the fact that the creator of the universe is one.

On the day of Guru Nanak Jayanti, followers of the Sikh religion observe the Akhand Path by reciting the holy text, the Guru Granth Sahib.

On the Gurpurab day, prayers are performed in Gurdwaras throughout the day.

Guru Nanak Jayanti 2024 wishes and messages -Happy Guru Nanak Jayanti! May the teachings of Guru Nanak Dev Ji guide you towards peace, happiness, and spiritual enlightenment.

-On this auspicious day of Guru Nanak Jayanti, may his divine blessings bring joy, prosperity, and harmony to your life.

-Wishing you a very Happy Gurpurab! May the light of Guru Nanak Dev Ji illuminate your path and fill your life with love and compassion.

-May Guru Nanak's teachings inspire you to live a life full of kindness, humility, and grace. Happy Guru Nanak Jayanti!

-On this sacred day, may the divine blessings of Guru Nanak Dev Ji fill your heart with eternal peace and joy. Happy Gurpurab!

-Let us celebrate the spirit of love and unity on Guru Nanak Jayanti. May Guru Nanak Dev Jis teachings inspire us to spread compassion and kindness in the world.

-Happy Guru Nanak Jayanti! May Guru Nanaks divine wisdom and grace always be with you, guiding you on the right path.

-On this auspicious occasion of Guru Nanak Jayanti, may your heart be filled with the light of faith and your soul with everlasting peace.

-Wishing you a joyful and blessed Guru Nanak Jayanti! May you find strength in the teachings of Guru Nanak Dev Ji and always walk in his light.

-Happy Gurpurab! Lets celebrate the life and teachings of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, whose messages of equality, love, and service inspire us all.

Quotes by Guru Nanak Dev -Even Kings and emperors with heaps of wealth and vast dominion cannot compare with an ant filled with the love of God.

-There is but One God. His name is Truth; He is the creator, fears none, without enmity, unborn and self-created. He is realised by the Gurus grace.

-Thou has a thousand eyes and yet not one eye; Thou host a thousand forms and yet not one form.

- The world is a drama, staged in a dream.

- He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God.

- Realisation of Truth is higher than all else. Higher still is truthful living.

- Alone let him constantly meditate in solitude on that which is salutary for his soul, for he who meditates in solitude attains supreme bliss.

- He who regards all men as equals is religious.
A lawyers social media post has gone viral after she shared her reaction to a junior colleagues request to make up for staying late at work. Ayushi Doshi, the lawyer, posted a screenshot of her juniors message, expressing shock at his decision to come in late the next day after an extended shift.

In her post on X, Doshi wrote, I cant believe my junior sent me this. Todays kids are something else. He stayed late, so now hes going to show up late to the office to make up for it. What a move! I am speechless mahn [sic].

She included a screenshot of the WhatsApp message, which read, Hi sir and maam. I will be coming tomorrow at 11:30 am because I am currently leaving the office at 8:30 pm.

Her post quickly triggered conversations about work-life balance and generational differences in the workplace.

To clarify, Doshi added that her junior had been given a three-day deadline to complete a task typically needing one full day. While his regular hours were from 10 am to 7 pm, she claimed he spent considerable time on his phone, which affected his productivity.

When theres a deadline to meet, sometimes a bit of extra time is necessary to get everything done! Doshi further explained in her post.

Also Read | Philippines May Start Rate Swaps Monday in Capital Reform Push

This post generated mixed reactions.

One social media user said, Choice 1: To not force junior work late and be a good human. Choice 2: Force to work late and then post on Twitter to get likes." Doshi responded, saying, Choice 3: Work late, tweet insults, then wait for the likes from people whove never met a deadline in their life.

Other netizens supported the junior's approach, with one user saying, Maybe hes trying to make sure hes as productive as possible without burning out.

Another commenter criticised the industrys culture, adding, Our profession has made this toxic exploitation the norm.

The incident followed another similar instance where an Indian manager shared that a Gen Z employee sent a one-liner email to request leave, simply saying Bye without further explanation. This post added to the online debate about Gen Zs communication style and expectations for personal time.

One user remarked, Its better to give them a break than overwhelm them with deadlines. Another shared a personal experience of an employee taking time off after a breakup, prompting conversations around mental health and empathy in the workplace.

Also Read | Delhi tops in most polluted cities in the world. Here are the Top 10
More than 24 lawmakers and prominent Indian Americans gathered to celebrate Diwali at the US Capitol, marking the first major event in Congress following last weeks presidential election. The annual "Diwali at Capitol Hill," organized by the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha along with Indian American groups such as the Hindu American Foundation, Sikhs for America, Jain Association of North America, and Art of Living, attracted a significant attendance.

President-elect Donald Trump is preparing to assume office after his recent election victory. At the Diwali event, Senator Rand Paul emphasized Americas immigrant legacy, noting that it attracts talented individuals worldwide, helping to make the country great. Im a strong supporter of expanding lawful immigration and will continue advocating for it. Happy Diwali, he added.

Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith expressed optimism for the next four years, wishing for prosperity and stability for all families. "We want a safe, thriving country for everyone to raise their families," she said, addressing the audience, which included Indias Ambassador to the US, Vinay Mohan Kwatra.

Ambassador Kwatra highlighted the global reach of Diwali, calling it a festival cherished worldwide and underscoring the importance of US-India ties. "Your presence here, along with so many Congress members, reflects a shared commitment to this valued relationship," he noted.

Congressman Shri Thanedar, recently re-elected from Michigans 13th District, shared his efforts to form Hindu, Sikh, Jain, and Buddhist caucuses in Congress. He emphasized ongoing work with the State Department to address safety concerns for Hindu temples across the US and the welfare of Hindus abroad.

Also Read | Antony Blinken quotes Rabindranath Tagore during Diwali celebration

New York Congressman Tom Suozzi referenced recent attacks on a Hindu temple in Long Island, expressing admiration for Indian American traditions. When Indian Americans say Namaste, they acknowledge the divine and respect othersa sentiment we need more of in our country, he said.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi celebrated the achievements of the Indian American community, noting its rapid growth, educational achievements, and substantial contributions, with one in seven US doctors being of Indian descent.

Congressman Pete Sessions expressed gratitude to attendees, applauding the communitys growth and success in the US, and Congressman Dan Meuser recalled Prime Minister Narendra Modis address to Congress last year, emphasizing the importance of US-India ties for economic, security, and global peace.

Also Read | Justin Trudeau wears sacred threads from 3 Hindu temples, shares Diwali video

Former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer praised Indian Americans contributions to the nation, saying, "America is stronger because of those who came from India, love this country, and serve it." Congresswoman Haley Stevens echoed this sentiment, recognizing Indian Americans as a vital part of Americas vibrant economy and communities.
After Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 U.S. Presidential election, the social media platform X (previously known as Twitter) experienced its largest user decline since Elon Musk acquired the platform in 2022. According to a CNN report, over 115,000 U.S. users deactivated their X accounts the day after the election. This number reflects only those deactivations done via the website, leaving out mobile app data, which suggests the actual count could be even higher, as per ANI.

This exodus comes in response to Musks prominent involvement in the election. Musk spent months using X to openly support Trumps campaign, sparking backlash from users. Many have migrated to Bluesky, an alternative social media platform, which has seen its user base double within 90 days to 15 million. According to Similarweb, Bluesky gained a million new sign-ups in just one week following the elections, the report added.

Also Read | What Donald Trump and Joe Biden discuss in their meeting

As Xs user base declines, criticisms against the platforms moderation and content policies under Musks leadership continue to mount. Researchers report a surge in sexist language, with phrases like "your body, my choice" becoming common. Musk's previous changes to Xcutting content moderators, restoring banned accounts, allowing controversial content, and revamping the verification systemhave been cited as reasons behind a loss of advertisers and a declining ad business, ANI reported.

Prominent figures in journalism, including Charlie Warzel, New York Times columnist Mara Gay, and former CNN anchor Don Lemon, have publicly announced their departure from X, joining Bluesky to continue their work. Meanwhile, British news organisation, The Guardian, also declared its exit from X, citing concerns over Musks influence during the election. In a statement, The Guardian described X as a "toxic" platform, adding that Musks role in the political process has impacted its ability to operate independently on the site, the report added.

Also Read | Sri Lanka Leader Seeks to Bolster Power With Parliamentary Vote

"We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives," The Guardian stated, noting that its resources could be better directed toward other platforms. The publication confirmed it would no longer post from its official accounts on X, although journalists may continue using it for news-gathering purposes. "The nature of live news reporting means we will still occasionally embed content from X within our article pages," the statement read, as per ANI.

The Guardian, which has over 80 accounts on X with approximately 27 million followers, is one of the largest organizations to leave the platform. The publications departure is part of a broader trend, as users and organizations alike reconsider their presence on X amid Musk's influence in the political sphere.
More than a million immigrants in the United States face an uncertain future as the Joe Biden administrations Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations hang in the balance, with President-elect Donald Trump and his administration pledging to scale back or end the program.

TPS, which allows individuals from countries deemed unsafe to live and work legally in the US, has been a lifeline for over a million people from nations like Venezuela, Haiti, Sudan, and Afghanistan. But with Trumps upcoming policies promising mass deportations and a rollback of TPS protections, many families and communities are bracing for significant change.

Among those at risk is Maribel Hidalgo, a Venezuelan immigrant, left her homeland a year ago, enduring a challenging journey with her 1-year-old son through Panamas treacherous Darien Gap and Mexico, before reaching the US.

President-elect Donald Trump, along with Vice President-elect JD Vance, has vowed to scale back TPS and conduct widespread deportations. They argue that programs like TPS and humanitarian parole, which protect over a million immigrants, should be reduced. Trump claimed unverified allegations that Haitian TPS holders in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their neighbors pets and raised concerns about Venezuelan gangs allegedly taking over apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado.

Hidalgo, now living in a New York migrant hotel, voiced her fears as she looked at her sleeping son. My only hope was TPS, she said. "After everything we went through, Im scared of being sent back." Venezuelans, Haitians, and Salvadorans represent the largest groups protected under TPS, with a lot at risk.

Haiti, recently plagued by escalating violence, saw its international airport shut down this week as gangs attacked a landing commercial flight. The Federal Aviation Administration has temporarily barred U.S. airlines from flying there. Vania Andre, editor-in-chief of The Haitian Times, emphasized, "Sending thousands back to Haiti is not an option. The country is overwhelmed by gang violence and cannot support more people.

TPS designations are generally valid for up to 18 months, with extensions often granted. However, expiration looms for certain countries, with El Salvadors designation ending in March, and Sudan, Ukraine, and Venezuela in April. Though federal regulations allow for a designations termination before expiration, this requires a 60-day notice, a rare move that hasnt yet been done.

TPS is similar to the Deferred Enforcement Departure Program, which Trump previously used to extend protections for Venezuelans in 2021, shielding 145,000 people for 18 months.

Attorney Ahilan T Arulanantham, who previously succeeded in challenging Trumps attempts to let TPS expire for several countries, expects the president-elect will likely make another effort to reduce TPS protections.

It's possible that some people in his administration will recognize that stripping employment authorization for more than a million people, many of whom have lived in this country for decades, is not good policy" and economically disastrous, said Arulanantham, who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, and helps direct its Center for Immigration Law and Policy. But nothing in Trumps history suggests that they would care about such considerations.

Arulanantham added that depending on the actions of the incoming administration, another legal challenge is absolutely likely.

During Trumps prior term, courts intervened to block the expiration of TPS for several countries, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas later extending protections under Biden.

As President Biden's term winds down, advocates are urging him to extend TPS to Nicaraguans affected by political persecution under President Daniel Ortegas government. Only about 3,000 Nicaraguans still benefit from the protections originally granted in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch.

Maria Bilbao, from the American Friends Service Committee, argued that extending protections to Nicaraguans is a moral responsibility. Elena, a 46-year-old Nicaraguan who has lived in the U.S. for 25 years without legal status, called for immediate action, fearing deportation. He should do it now, she said.
The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones' Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.

The dissolution of Alex Jones assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for, Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement Thursday provided by his lawyers.

The Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platforms website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; and video archive for an undisclosed sales price. The purchase gives a satirical outlet  which carries the banner of Americas Finest News Source on its masthead  control over a brand that has long peddled misinformation and conspiracy.

The Onion was founded in the 1980s and for decades has skewered politics and pop culture, including making Jones a frequent target of mocking articles. Mass shootings in America, such as the Sandy Hook attack, are often followed by The Onion publishing slightly updated versions of one of its most well-known recurring pieces of satire: "'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.

No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds, The Onion said in a satirical post confirming the sale. And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of InfoWars (a forgettable man with an already-forgotten name) and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars.

The Infowars website was down Thursday morning. On his live broadcast, Jones was angry and defiant, vowing to challenge the sale and auction process in court and saying he would use a new studio that was already set up. He later announced his show was being shut down, but he resumed a short time later at a new location and using a different social media account.

The journey has just begun. Thank you, Jones said as he signed off.

The Onion, based in Chicago, consulted on the bidding with some of the Sandy Hook families that sued Jones for defamation and emotional distress in lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas, lawyers for the families said.

Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones ability to spread lies, pain and fear at scale, said Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the families.

Ben Collins, CEO of The Onions parent company, Global Tetrahedron, told The Associated Press in a video interview that it plans to relaunch the Infowars website in January with satire aimed at conspiracy theorists and right-wing personalities, as well as educational information about gun violence prevention from Everytown for Gun Safety. Collins joked that The Onion's bid was $1 trillion but would not disclose the actual amount.

We thought it would be a very funny joke if we bought this thing, probably one of the better jokes weve ever told, Collins said. The (Sandy Hook) families decided they would effectively join our bid, back our bid, to try to get us over the finish line. Because by the end of the day, it was us or Alex Jones, who could either continue this website unabated, basically unpunished, for what hes done to these families over the years, or we could make a dumb, stupid website, and we decided to do the second thing.

The publication bills itself as the worlds leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events and says it has 4.3 trillion daily readers. Recent headlines have included, "Trump Boys Have Slap Fight Over Who Gets To Run Foreign Policy Meetings, Oklahoma Law Requires Ten Commandments To Be Displayed In Every Womb and Man Forgetting Difference Between Meteoroid, Meteorite Struggles To Describe What Just Killed His Dog.

Sandy Hook families sued Jones and his company for repeatedly saying on his show that the shooting that killed 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control.

Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones conspiracies and threats by his followers.

Sealed bids for the private auction were opened Wednesday. Both supporters and detractors of Jones had expressed interest in buying Infowars.

Jones had told listeners that if his supporters won the bidding, he could stay on the Infowars platforms. The bankruptcy trustee named First United American Companies, a company affiliated with one of Jones product-selling sites, as the backup bid, in case The Onion purchase falls through.

Also Read | Scientist murders father in ice ax attack as election fury turns deadly: Report

First United American Companies asked the bankruptcy court in Houston in a filing on Thursday to hold a status conference immediately on the apparent defects in the sale process, including changing the procedures, lack of transparency, and inaccurate disclosures to interested bidders, saying the value of the assets is in the process of being destroyed at this very minute.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

Like Trinculo and Caliban in The Tempest, the boardroom members of Japan are these days finding themselves alongside unusual companions.

Many could scarcely believe their eyes when news broke Wednesday of a potential management buyout of Seven & i Holdings Co. Not because of the potential purchase of the operator of 7-Eleven, which seems a predictable move as the company seeks to fend off the advances of Canadas Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. It was the identity of one of the potential rescuers that had jaws agape: Itochu Corp., the largest of Japans Warren Buffett-backed trading houses.

Itochu is surprising as it already owns FamilyMart, Japans second-largest convenience store chain, which it controlled for years before buying outright in 2020. For it to want to help save its larger rival would be like Tesla Inc. bailing out General Motors Co. Its hard to grasp Itochus endgame: maybe to get insight into how 7-Eleven runs things, or is it a case of the devil they know rather than a mysterious Canadian rival? Perhaps, after years of combini consolidation, its eyeing an audacious play for control of the market, albeit one that would surely be opposed by regulators with the sector seen as a vital lifeline in times of disaster.

Expect lots of ink postulating how this is a typical case of Japan Inc. closing ranks against the barbarians at the gate. But if it materializes, Itochu teaming up with others to help 7-Eleven would be something quite different. Seven & I has a longstanding relationship with another trading house, Mitsui & Co., just as convenience chain Lawson has its roots with Mitsubishi Corp. Adding a twist is that each now has a mutual shareholder in Buffett.

Down the road in Yokohama, strange things have been underway for some time. Nissan has been tentatively expanding an unlikely alliance with the famously independent Honda Motor Co., co-developing software and electric cars. This week, Nissan shareholders were shocked to learn there was a new partner: the secretive Singapore-based hedge fund Effissimo Capital Management, which has taken a stake in the troubled automaker.

On the surface, this seems like a standard play for Effissimo, which was founded in 2006 by two former managers working for Yoshiaki Murakami, the controversial father of Japanese activism. It has similarities to its campaign for Toshiba Corp., which Effissimo held for years before cashing out when the troubled firm was eventually sold to private equity.

Nissan likewise has been struggling for an age. Before his 2018 arrest, former Chairman Carlos Ghosn made little secret of his goal to merge it with Renault SA. But with that friendship dimming in Ghosns absence, Nissan needs new allies. And with the automakers shares languishing near levels they traded at when Ghosn was first tapped to turn it around in the late 1990s, Effissimos purchase makes sense. Having bought cheap, it can sit back  perhaps waiting for things to get bad enough for the government to step in and, say, orchestrate a full merger with Honda, as it reportedly proposed five years ago.

Things are changing in Japan, but the government is still unlikely to let one of its major automakers go bust without a fight  and with Effissimos deep ties to the economy and trade ministry, the fund would also be privy to knowledge of such movement.

Others, however, say the stake has more to do with Effissimos long-standing and sizable holding in assembler Nissan Shatai Co. There are suggestions that Shatai could be marked for delisting by 2026, as its free float is too small. Strategic Capital Inc., a smaller activist fund also led by a former Murakami ally, has called for Nissan to absorb Shatai, which has essentially one customer  which provides 98% of its revenue.

It doesnt stop there: Activism is abounding in Japan, with Tokyo Stock Exchange reforms leading to all kinds of buyouts, spinoffs and splits. Just this week, Oasis Management revealed a stake in Mercari Inc., one of Japans most successful tech startups; the fund has yet to outline its demands.

All this activity makes for exciting headlines for the financial press . But the value to society is more up for debate. Activists who can shake up a country where boardrooms have often been accused of being too complacent should be welcomed; the mostly neutral or positive press coverage of proposed deals, even of Seven & Is, suggests there is appetite for change.

But we should be wary of preoccupying management with endless demands that benefit only short-term shareholders. Ultimately, who benefited from Toshibas lengthy breakup and delisting? The firm was recently reported to cut thousands of jobs, and the memory unit it sold in 2017, now known as Kioxia Holdings Corp., is falling behind Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. as it prepares for a long-delayed initial public offering.

Hostile takeovers, activist investors and foreign bids for national treasures are all relatively new to Japan  and the country doesnt yet have a proper framework in place to deal with and evaluate them, to separate the long-term investors from the opportunists. Proposals have been made for a takeover review panel like Australias; given the countrys record of deals dragged out for years, benefiting only bankers and lawyers, that might not be a bad idea.

When discussing deregulation, Japan often references the Big Bang reforms under Margaret Thatcher in the UK. But it should also be cautious of the downstream impact; look at what subsequently became of many once-great British companies, whether public services or national icons. In the UK now, there is talk of the need to protect companies from private equity, as my colleague Merryn Somerset Webb has written. Japan shouldnt wait for an equivalent of the Kraft Foods Inc. takeover of chocolate maker Cadbury before it changes its own rules.

Japans potential for deals is exciting and possibly profitable. But looking back at past deals that didnt happen  Microsoft Corp.s interest in Nintendo Co. wasnt just a schoolyard rumor, but would it have been a good match?  and its right for some in the country to suggest not every overture is worth pursuing. Too many national champions sold would have Japan saying, like The Tempests Prospero, our revels now are ended.

More From Bloomberg Opinion:

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Japan and the Koreas. He previously led the breaking news team in North Asia, and was the Tokyo deputy bureau chief.

/opinion
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Dear reader,

Welcome to the first issue of Mints newsletter on the climate crisis: Climate Change And You. I am Bibek Bhattacharya, and I will be taking turns in writing this newsletter, every two weeks, alongside my colleague Sayantan Bera.

And what a week to begin! The annual United Nations COP global climate summit has begun in Baku, Azerbaijan (it will end on 22 November). But the spectre that haunts the COP29 banquet is Donald Trump, who has been elected the 47th president of the US. If you remember, as the 45th president, he had taken the US out of the Paris climate agreement of 2015. His reason? Climate change is a hoax.

Also Read Your two-minute guide to COP29... and dystopia

Amid his chants of drill baby drill" and his fondness for the fossil fuel economy, the shadow of another US withdrawal from global climate negotiations hangs over COP29. The fear is that this time, Trump might withdraw the US from the United Nations climate change framework entirely.

This would be really bad news for global climate change mitigation efforts. The US is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG), and the biggest historical emitter. The Joe Biden administration wasnt exactly covering itself in glory by dragging its feet on climate, especially finance, but the outgoing government was one that could be negotiated with. With Trump, all bets are off.

And yet, COP29 has to carry on and be a success, because some very important global negotiations on climate finance will need to be finalized this year. More on that below.

State of the Climate

Going into COP29, the headline numbers for climate change are pretty grim. According to the European Unions Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), 2024 is almost certain to be the warmest year since records began in 1940. This has been backed by a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report released during the COP.

Whats more disturbing is that the calendar year may turn out to be over 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than pre-industrial levels (1850-1900), with October marking the 15th straight month of global average temperatures staying above the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold. For the past few years, every year has been hotter than the last, and 2023 holds the current record.

This is hardly surprising though, because the main driver of this heatindustrial CO2 emissions in the atmosphereis at an all-time high of 422 parts per million (PPM). This concentration of CO2and the level of heatingisnt something that human beings have ever experienced. To put it into perspective, the last time the world experienced similar atmospheric emissions was about 3 million years ago, when our simian ancestors were just beginning to stand up on two legs.

According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for the past 800,000 years, till around 1911, atmospheric CO2 levels had never exceeded 300PPM. Three million years ago, under similar conditions, global temperatures were about 2-3 degrees Celsius higher than now, and sea levels were 10-20m higher than today.

Also Read Will the COP29 climate summit break the cycle of broken promises?

And as increased warming melts the Arctic permafrost, as well as huge chunks of Greenland and Antarctica glaciers, the sea is rising. Unescos State Of The Ocean Report from June found that global sea levels have been steadily rising at 3.4mm/year since 1993. While that might not seem like much, in certain parts of the world, including along the Indian coasts, sea level rise is way above the global average, at 5-10mm/year. As warming intensifies, this rate will only go up.

In fact, a 2019 study showed how, in a scenario of rising CO2 emissions, the rise in sea level will affect about 150 million people living in coastal regions by 2050. An estimated 36 million people living in Indias coastal areas would be affected by extreme flooding.

Big cities like Mumbai and Kolkata will be at high risk of such frequent and intense floods that they would be uninhabitable. US-based climate research organization Climate Central has an interactive map where you can see the amount of flooding that would sink a city like Mumbai, if we fail to check warming.

The news in brief

-In this piece, Sayantan looks at what is at stake at COP29. He writes that unless countries act now, global GDP may decline by 10% due to climate impacts, and India may lose 5.8% of working hours and 34 million jobs due to crippling heat by 2030.

-More on COP29. This story in the Wall Street Journal summarizes the difficulty of global efforts to move the world from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Baku is an ironic symbol of this: a city built on oil hosting the worlds climate conference.

-In this opinion piece, vie-chancellor of TERI University Leena Srivastava argues that India needs to devise a largely self-reliant national strategy to address climate mitigation, adaptation and protection of biodiversity.

Climate Change Tracker

View Full Image India's slow but steady journey towards a green economy. (AFP)

How can India meet its 2070 Net Zero aim?

During COP26 in Glasgow, PM Narendra Modi grabbed the headlines by announcing that India would become a net-zero emissions country by 2070. Since then, we have seen very little by way of policy prescriptions towards this objective. The only analysis had actually come out just before the announcement, from theCouncil on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), aDelhi-based climate policy organization.

And last week, CEEW led a multi-disciplinary effort comprising notable Indian climate scientists and policy experts to publish an interesting paper titled, Indias Pathway To Net Zero By 2070: Status, Challenges, And Way Forward.The papers analysis rightly takes a whole economy" approach, touching on climate finance, the role of big cities, macro-economic impacts, power markets and more.

Also Read How Ladakh is facing the double threat of climate change and overtourism

It concludes that such an ambitious target would require multiple simultaneous and overlapping transitions" involving an unprecedented amount of collaboration between the central and state governments, and also include climate institutions, foreign bodies and every possible stakeholder.

The authors look at existing research to make the case that Indias energy transition from oil and gas to renewables will be an economic positive, and can add as much as 43 million green jobs in 2050.

Know Your Jargon

1.5 degrees Celsius

As weve read above, over the past 15 months, the worlds average temperature has been over 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than in the pre-industrial era. However, this doesnt mean that the global temperature has irreversibly warmed by this amount, since the current surge in heat has been accelerated by the warming El Nino weather phenomenon. However, scientists expect the planet to breach this crucial 1.5 degree threshold sometime this decade.

Why is it important? Going by the Paris agreement, the worlds nations agreed to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times, by 2100. The more ambitious goal was to restrict it to a 1.5 degree rise by 2100. If we truly manage to cut fresh carbon emissions by nearly half by 2030 and reach net zero global emissions by 2050, then we can hope to stabilize warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Achieving this would mean that humanity would be marked safe from living through literal climate hell. Heres how fine those margins are: If we overshoot 1.5 and get to 2 degrees Celsius of heating, the world would lose nearly all of its coral reefs. The Himalaya would be permanently denuded of snow and ice, and Himalayan rivers like the Ganga would first flood and then become seasonal. And thats just some of the outcomes.

At 2 degrees or more of warming, planetary tipping points would be triggeredlike the collapse of Antarctic ice shelves or a die-off of the Amazon rainforestwhich would make the chances of human survival worse. At current levels of climate action, we are looking at a warming of about 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100. So, when you hear mention of the 1.5 target", this is what is at stake.

Prime Number

$100 billion

This is the annual amount of climate finance that was promised by the worlds richest nations to developing countries, back in 2009. This amountto help countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to severe climate impactswas supposed to have been available starting in 2020.

But wealthier countries dragged their feet, delivering just $83 billion in 2020 and $89.6 billion in 2021, according to available data. And whatever money has been delivered was distributed and used in a way that was deeply disappointing to developing nations.

This tardiness hasnt endeared rich nations to the developing world. COP29 promises to resolve this failure, and also increase the quantum with the proposed New Collective Quantified Finance (NCQF).

If negotiations are successful, then developed countries and the private sector (as well as institutions like the World Bank) will now have to deliver $1-1.4 trillion a year in climate finance by 2035. Simply put, finance of this scale will increase the chances of countries like India in achieving net zero targets, while also adapting to climate impacts like heatwaves and cyclones. How the NCQF and the $100 billion promise are reconciled will measure COP29s success.

Book of the month

View Full Image

The New Climate War by Michael E. Mann

With the US having elected a climate change denier in Donald Trump, this is a good time to read climate scientist and communicator Michael E. Manns brilliant 2021 book The New Climate War: The Fight To Take Back Our Planet. In it, Mann provides a masterclass of conversational, evidence-based evisceration of all kinds of climate denial, including the sneaky doomism", which suggests that we need to do nothing, or at best focus only on adapting to the new reality, because its too late prevent the climate crisis. It isnt, theres still a chance humanity wins this fight.

So, thats it for the first edition of Climate Change And You dear reader. See you again in a fortnight, when Sayantan will be writing the newsletter.
Has there ever been a grimmer backdrop to the worlds most concerted attempt to avert global warming? CoP-29, the annual conference for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is happening in Baku, Azerbaijan, one of the birthplaces of the modern oil industry and (according to civil liberties group Freedom House) among the most oppressive societies on the planet.

Leaders from China and the US, which account for about 45% of the worlds carbon footprint, arent attendingand US President Joe Biden is a lame duck after the Republican Partys electoral sweep.

Almost every other major economy in Asia and the Americas will be absent, thanks to an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru this week, while the leaders of Germany, France and the EC are also staying home.

There have been other tough summits. CoP-28 in Abu Dhabi foreshadowed this years event by resembling a trade fair for the oil industry. Still, it happened before the anti-climate wave seen in recent European and US elections.

The 2009 event in Copenhagen collapsed in disarray, but 15 years ago the world had more wiggle room to avoid disaster. About a quarter of all emissions since 1850 have happened since Copenhagen. Weve only got 7 years left of current-rate pollution to retain an even chance of keeping global warming below 1.5 Celsius.

Wavering global commitment is a worry because the coming 12 months will set the next decade of climate policies. The latest set of Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCsplans by countries to show how theyll reduce emissions up to 2035 are due to be delivered by the end of February. So far only one nation has submitted its latest blueprint: the UAE.

Its common for both climate denialists and campaigners to present such targets as meaningless verbiage. However, just as elected politicians often keep their manifesto promises, governments are serious about achieving their greenhouse goals.

The Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 pact thats widely seen as a byword for the meaninglessness of such agreements, was actually pretty successful. Signatories cut their emissions by 22% between 1990 and 2012, far better than the 5% they were aiming for.

Economic collapse in the former Soviet Unions sphere of influence was a major factor in that, but Western Europe and Oceania, by and large, hit or exceeded their goals.

The main reason Kyoto failed to rein in global emissions was that it didnt cover emerging nations, something remedied in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The national plans that form one of the main mechanisms of that deal also have a decent record. In 2017, forecasts indicated that without climate policies, global emissions would hit 65 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030. That figure is now expected to be 57 billion tonnes.

This is still too high to avert catastrophic global warming, but it falls only about 2 billion tonnes short of the main targets governments have set for themselves.

The problem is that those objectives result in emissions about 14 billion tonnes higher than we need to keep the world on track for even 2 Celsius of warming.

Implementation of climate plans isnt the problemits their insufficiency to address the scale of the crisis were facing. Its politics, not logistics or physics, thats stopping us from tackling climate change.

Thats what is most worrying about the listlessness and pettiness on display in the worlds response to CoP-29. Politics has always had a decisive impact on the trajectory of global emissions, and right now we are pointing 180-degrees in the wrong direction.

Need one piece of absurdity? The US has more restrictions on importing Malaysian solar panels made with Chinese materials than it has on importing Indian diesel made from Russian crude oil.

Direct global subsidies for fossil fuel use last year was $620 billion, roughly nine times the $70 billion that was spent encouraging consumers to switch to clean power, according to the International Energy Agency. Even in the EU, supposedly the paragon of green politics, fossil fuels received more direct support than renewable power in 2022.

Factor in the way that coal, oil and gas dont have to pay for the damage they do to human health and the climate, and the support theyre getting from governments is 10 times higher.

Clean power has won the technical and financial arguments that made it look a non-starter a couple of decades ago. But the roadblock thrown up by wrongheaded politics is far from being lifted. If youre hoping that Baku will provide a solution to these problems, youre looking in the wrong place. Bloomberg
It is not common for industry bodies such as the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to demand that the government increase subsidies for the poor.

In a note on pre-budget recommendations submitted to the finance ministry, the CII suggested the issuance of consumption vouchers to poor households to boost demand in the economy.

It also suggested raising wages under MGNREGA by 40% and PM-Kisan cash transfers to farmers by 33%. The larger issue is not the relevance of these suggestionswhich are worth consideringbut the assessment of the economy by the industry body.

That the rural economy has been in distress is more or less an accepted fact. Despite government claims of Indias economy doing well, the industry associations reading confirms the bad health of the rural economy, which a host of secondary data also shows.

The CII note also suggests that demand deficiency is no longer just a rural issue but has spilled over to the broader economy. Data on automobile offtake and other durable sales indicates that private consumption remains the Achilles Heel of the economy.

A leading indicator of rural demand is wages for casual workers. Latest labour bureau data points to a modest improvement in rural wages last year, with wages for agricultural work rising 2.1% and for non-agricultural work by 1.8%.

But these are not sufficient, given the long period of stagnation earlier. Compared to five years ago, rural agricultural wages have only increased at 0.1% per year over the last five years, whereas non-agricultural wages have actually declined by 1% per annum.

The increase last year has reduced the severity of the income crisis but is not enough to pull the rural economy out of its almost decade-long period of distress. In fact, non-farm wages are lower than they were a decade ago, while agricultural wages are marginally up.

Recent estimates from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) further confirm a strengthening of a structural transformation of the economy, with labour moving back to agriculture for the fifth year in a row.

But even on income indicators, the real wages of all workers (that is anyone working for an employer and isnt self-employed) have increased at only 0.7% per year between 2017-18 and 2022-23.

It is higher at 1.7% for rural areas, but has barely increased in urban areas, with an annual growth of 0.1%. In fact, urban wage workers have seen their real earnings decline 0.5% per year since 2011-12. Evidence from the recently released survey on unorganised enterprises and other data on the income of farmers is just as bleak.

Clearly, what started as rural distress has now become an economy-wide issue. The crisis of declining or stagnant incomes has led to a slowdown in private consumption demand across the overall economy, as is clear from the national accounts. It is also a disincentive for corporates to invest.

While there is a broad agreement on the critical role of demand in the economy and that it has been a drag for the economy, solutions are not easy. Issuing consumption vouchers or making cash transfers is unlikely to solve the problem, as it is structural in nature.

These are at best short-term palliative measures and are unlikely to resolve the causes of distress. In the last decade, most states and the Centre have increased their cash transfers, primarily to women but also to farmers and unemployed youth.

The quantum has seen a sharp increase in the wake of competitive populism driven by elections. But this hasnt helped revive consumption demand in the economy.

What is required is a shift in strategy to drive incomes higher for those in lower-income groups, the unorganized sector and the rural economy.

This will require changing the economic paradigm, with a shift away from big-ticket infrastructure development to a broader push for reviving the rural and informal sectors.

At the same time, increasing incomes also requires larger government spending on the rural economy to kick-start the process of a positive structural transformation. Raising MGNREGA wages could also push up wages across the economy.

The forthcoming Union budget will be the first full budget of Indias new government. Given the fiscal constraints it faces, any strategy that attempts to increase cash transfers may prove to be rewarding in the short run but it is unlikely to be sustainable.

While a restructuring of expenditure priorities is necessary, what is also needed is a re-orientation of policies to prioritize income growth, particularly at the lower end of the spectrum.
From Bridgetown to Nairobi to Paris, no country is immune to the worsening effects of the climate crisis. With each passing year, we witness more climate-related destruction.

In 2024, we have set a number of new records: wildfires in Chile have destroyed more than 14,000 homes; extreme rainfall in Brazil has devastated 478 cities and left nearly two million people stranded in Bangladesh; and in July, the world experienced its hottest day ever.

Africa has contributed only 3% of historical greenhouse-gas emissions, yet it endures some of the most severe climate-related disasters.

These now cost the continent $15 billion per year, with climate-induced droughts and floods in 2023 causing food insecurity for more than 40 million Africans.

Convinced that no country should have to choose between fighting the climate crisis and combating poverty, we have decided to contribute to an ambitious reform of the international financial architecture.

Also read: RBI can expect climate risks to emerge as important policy inputs

The Paris Pact for People and the Planet, the Bridgetown Initiative and the Nairobi Declaration each seek to provide one piece of the puzzle.

Current international dynamics give us hope: Many reform tracks have been opened up, and some have delivered results. That said, many more efforts are needed, and no options should be overlooked.

One key piece is still underused: solidarity levies. Such policies are necessary to ensure that everyone contributes their fair share to what should be a global effort. There are swathes of the economy which are largely under-taxed yet polluting the planet.

This applies to maritime shipping, aviation and, of course, the fossil-fuel industry, which enjoys low effective tax rates due to government subsidies (totalling an estimated $7 trillion in 2022, according to the International Monetary Fund).

These levies can contribute by allocating a share of the revenues to developing countries. A global levy of 0.1% on stock and bond trades could raise up to $418 billion per year. A levy on shipping of $100 per tonne of carbon dioxide could raise $80 billion per year.

A levy on fossil-fuel extraction of $5 per tonne of carbon dioxide could raise $210 billion per year. Even a partial redistribution through solidarity levies would guarantee a large source of predictable climate finance for these countries, thus complementing flows of official development assistance without amplifying existing debt burdens.

The benefits would be significant. Despite Africas climate vulnerability, its vast potential to leverage renewable energy and critical minerals, and its role as a global carbon sink, the continent receives far less climate finance than it needs.

Solidarity levies could provide the funding needed to drive green development in Africa and around the world, especially in vulnerable low- and middle-income countries and small states with little fiscal room for building resilience or climate action.

These levies already exist. In fact, more than 30 countries currently implement a financial transaction tax, and at least 21 have a levy on aeroplane tickets.

Moreover, even small-scale initiatives such as the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds demonstrate the feasibility of an international redistribution mechanism.

To replicate and scale up these models requires further international cooperation to limit market distortions and preserve a level playing field.

To that end, we launched the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force last year at CoP-28.

With 13 member countries already, this task force has been examining the potential of levies across shipping, aviation, fossil fuels, and financial transactions, as well as exploring options like levies on plastic or cryptocurrency.

In early 2025, we will publicly launch a handful of concrete proposals with rigorous impact assessments. These will be scalableraising at least $100 billion per yearand accompanied by clear assessments of potential externalities.

As we head towards CoP-30 in Belem, Brazil, next year, political leadership will be essential to the initiatives success. CoP-29 in Baku provides the right opportunity to discuss our options and get on track for success.

Our plan includes a special event for heads of state and government to marshal further support for our solidarity-levies coalition.

This is a crucial opportunity to ensure that the United Nations New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance incorporates solidarity levies and unlocks climate-finance flows that are both ambitious and equitable.

When it comes to additional sources of finance, experts often allude to innovative finance." In the case of global solidarity levies, the only innovation required is ambitious leadership across a sufficient base of countries.

Let the tenth anniversary of the Paris climate agreement next year be remembered as the moment when we came together as a global community to implement solidarity levies, providing the financial tools necessary to meet the great challenge of our time.

Ahead of CoP-29, we call on all governments to join our coalition, and we welcome the support of civil society, business leaders, and multilateral institutions. 2024/Project Syndicate

The authors co-chair the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force.
Indias stock market indices have reached a milestone, with the Nifty 50 having lost a tenth of its peak value attained in late September. On Wednesday alone, this index shed 1.4% to reach 23,559, marking its fifth-consecutive session of decline.

By convention, a 10% fall is spoken of as a correction, which suggests a brief drop before a rally resumes, while a 20% drop from a recent peak is taken as a bear market signal, implying prolonged weakness. This correction began soon after Chinas monetary stimulus package revived its stock market and lured global investors.

Foreign portfolio investors have been on a selling spree in India, with some of that money heading for Chinese equities trading at more attractive price-earning (PE) multiples.

Of course, domestic money continues to flow into Indian shares, much of it investment plan-ordained, but if they must reach globally competitive PE multiples to attract global buyers again, then our market may have further to fall.

Whether an extended price slide casts a pall of gloom over investors at large may depend on how widely they appreciate the notion of a share having a reasonable" price, above which its overpriced.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrives this week in a region where China has replaced the U.S. as the dominant trading partner for most big economies, with the exceptions of Mexico and Colombia. Beijing has signed up most of Latin America and the Caribbean to an infrastructure program that excludes the U.S. In Peru, Xi will inaugurate a megaport to speed trade with Asia.

China is a voracious buyer of lithium from Argentina; Venezuelan crude oil; and Brazilian iron ore and soybeans. The $286.1 billion in Chinese projects in the region tallied by the AidData research lab at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.including metro lines in Bogota and Mexico City and hydroelectric dams in Ecuadoris approaching the value of Chinas work in Africa, but with a revamped lending model and less backlash.

Xi is visiting South America to take part in leadership summits, including an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum this week in Lima, Peru, and a Group of 20 summit next week in Rio de Janeiro. Both are likely to illustrate what some have called Chinas economic marginalization of the U.S. in the region. While President Biden is also expected, his stature will be much diminished in the wake of Donald Trumps election victoryand Xi as Chinas leader has visited the region more than both of them.

Few see Latin America as the U.S.s backyard anymore.

The regions nations are generally sincere in their desire for warm relations with the U.S., but they are often seen as a secondary priority in Washington. Beijings diplomats and executives, meanwhile, actively engage with local and national governments almost regardless of their political leanings.

Its super frustrating because this region has everything youd think American companies would want," said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at Washingtons Center for Strategic and International Studies.

On top of deepening economic linkages, Xi promotes a governance model that breaks with the U.S.-led postwar order that he suggests is an outdated relic of colonialism. Xis sustained attention to the region is symbolic, and countries of the Global South need that recognition," said Alvaro Mendez, director of a unit at the London School of Economics and Political Science that studies Chinas influence.

Trump, who in his first term mostly focused on the region as a source of unwanted immigration, could now force some of its countries into difficult choices if he pushes them to limit their China links. Many Latin Americans are apprehensive about whats in store for them over the next four years on this critical issue," said Michael Shifter, a scholar of Latin America at the Inter-American Dialogue policy group in Washington. At the same time, higher Trump tariffs could potentially drive some nations closer to Beijing.

Chinese trade and investment has boomed across the approximately 40 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, home to more than 660 million people stretching from Mexico to Chile and Argentina, plus island nations such as Jamaica and Cuba.

Chinas construction of infrastructure including ports to move commodities mirrors how, all over Asia and Africa, China under Xi has cemented its presence by building bridges, power plants and stadiums. China also has less of a debt-collector reputation in Latin America than it has in other developing parts of the world, in part because Beijing has slowed new project commitments and adjusted how it has financed some work.

Beijings largess isnt always beneficial, and its exports of capital and consumer goods plus chemicals and machinery, in particular to Mexico, give China a trade surplus with the region overall.

China is crowding in with manufactured exports such as Huawei Technologies telecommunication hardware and electric vehicles from BYD, which has taken over an abandoned Ford plant in Brazil. An influx of Chinese steel recently forced the closure of a large Chilean mill. Already some countries are raising tariffs on Chinese goods, and others see threats from big Chinese entrants to traditional sectors, such as fishing. Chinas image has also been tarnished by shoddy construction, such as on a hydroelectric project in Ecuador, and by limited regard for the environment and indigenous people, such as around copper mines in Peru.

New model

China is attracted by the same attributes that should make U.S. multinationals eager to compete in the largely democratic region: abundant natural resources including critical minerals; human capital to deploy for manufacturing products such as pharmaceuticals; growing consumer bases; and rule of law.

Trade has given a lift to broader Beijing influence in a region that has traditionally allied itself with the U.S. Brazil recently joined China in putting forward a proposal for ending the Ukraine war and has stressed a vision of a Global South to challenge the traditional U.S.-led order. Argentina allows China to run a satellite tracking station there for its space program, one of an expanding number of quasimilitary linkages. And Washingtons nemeses in the regionCuba and Venezuelaconsider Beijing a friend and protector.

Washington worries that Chinas growing economic clout will provide Beijing with deep influence over Latin American governments. The head of the U.S. Southern Command, Gen. Laura Richardson, has repeatedly warned about Beijings encroachment in the region. In response to Chinas advances, the White House has sought to build lasting institutions in developing nations to attract investment.

The Biden administration has focused very much on how we try to bring private-sector investment overseas" and make an impact through high standards that contribute to host countries longer stability or long-term fiscal stability," a senior administration official said, adding that China has slowed its commitments in the midst of headwinds at home and problems with some overseas projects.

A leading motivation for Xis attention to Latin America and the Caribbean is isolating the democratically governed island of Taiwan. Seven of the 11 nations worldwide that maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei are in the region, including Guatemala, Paraguay and Haiti. Five that switched recognition to Beijing under Xis watch, including Honduras and Panama, were showered with Chinese deals.

Likely with Taiwan in mind, Beijing has locked in mineral and foodstuff purchase agreements, plus deals to operate ports in such places as Peru and trade in yuan, to fortify supply lines against risks that Chinese militarism one day sparks calls among Western powers to impose an embargo. In such a scenario, Beijing could be expected to offer inducements toward such G-20 nations as Brazil to defuse the kind of decoupling pressure Russia faced after it invaded Ukraine, according to a new report from the Rhodium Group and the Atlantic Council.

Not everything cuts Beijings way. Shortly before Xis trip, Brazil appeared to reject its overtures to formally join the Belt and Road Initiative, a blow to a program that by the Center for Strategic and International Studies count includes 22 of the 26 Latin America and Caribbean nations eligible for it and a sign of displeasure from the regions biggest economy about limited reciprocal access to Chinas market.

Bumpy road

It has been 110 years since the U.S. completed the Panama Canal and over a half-century since Washington sought to check the spread of communism during the Cold War by meddling in Latin Americas democracies. Today, U.S. policymaking toward the region is heavily slanted toward illegal immigration and narcotics, instead of how its more recent general political stability and growing middle class could work to Americas advantage.

Washingtons smaller-scale and less deal-oriented engagement has provided space for China to win regional recognition for boldness. When two of the regions pro-trade nations, Uruguay and Ecuador, got nowhere seeking free-trade agreements with the U.S. near the start of the Biden administration, they turned to Beijing. Last year, Uruguay and China said they were in talks for an agreement, while Ecuador completed a deal, Beijings fifth in the region compared with the U.S.s 11.

Ecuadors priority remains setting a trade agreement with the U.S. but in recognition of Washingtons current political climate, Ecuador is prioritizing alternative strategies to boost exports to the U.S.," according to the countrys ambassador in Washington, Cristian Espinosa Canizares.

China hasnt displaced the U.S. so much as it has taken advantage of uncontested opportunities, said Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican ambassador to China now with the Washington advisory firm DGA Group. As he puts it, The U.S. sees Latin America as ours to ignore."

The indifference runs counter to a Pew Research Center survey published in July that showed the U.S. has a higher favorability rating than China in the economies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru.

Guajardo said U.S. economic buoyancy makes it the more attractive export market for Latin American and Caribbean nations in the face of slowing Chinese import demand and caution from Beijing on project financing compared with the last time Xi toured, in 2019.

One of Washingtons tools to counter Chinese inroads is funding from the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. The agency has touted as a success $30 million in funding for a cobalt and nickel mining project in Brazil to support lithium-ion battery production. But in the Americas under the agencys current mandate, all but Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Haiti are too wealthy to qualify for most of its project support; the Brazil mine funding was approved only after a special multiagency U.S. government review.

More characteristic is the situation in Guyana, which was seeking financing to expand a port to unload oil produced by Exxon Mobil and Hess but didnt qualify for U.S. support because its oil reserves made the country too wealthy. That opened the door to Chinese contractors. The U.S. is doing all the oil pumping, but China is doing a lot of the instructure," said Berg of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

An International Development Finance Corp. official didnt address questions about specific nations but said a priority for the agency is winning funding reauthorization in Congress.

Resounding silence

When John Feeley arrived in Panama to serve as U.S. ambassador in early 2016, plans were afoot for a fourth bridge across the Panama Canal, and he wanted an American company in the mix. The canal is what bound us," he explained.

Yet, Feeley said his cables to Washington failed to generate much attention to the bridge project. He said he even cold-called the Reston, Va., engineering giant Bechtel to drum up interest. What I was trying to do was make some noise about this, and I got a resounding silence," Feeley said. Bechtel didnt respond to questions.

Panama in 2018 awarded the $1.42 billion project to a consortium of companies owned and operated by Chinas government. Beijings interest followed Panamas decision the previous year to sever relations with Taiwan, and Chinese state media trumpeted the bridge deal as the countrys largest such win in the Americas.

The U.S., Feeley said, looks at Latin America as a problem not an opportunity."

Write to James T. Areddy at James.Areddy@wsj.com, Ryan Dube at ryan.dube@wsj.com and Roque Ruiz at roque.ruizgonzalez@wsj.com
The Toyow platforms native utility token, TOYOW, was unveiled at the VCCircle LP Summit in Dubai, representing a step forward in the real-world asset (RWA) tokenization landscape. This launch supports Toyow's goal to broaden access to real-world asset investments through blockchain technology.

Starting with art, music, and movies, Toyow is a unique multi-category marketplace for tokenized real-world assets. At the eventparticipants, including leaders and investors in the RWA spacediscussed future possibilities for RWA investments.

The key motivator behind Toyows initiative is to create a more inclusive investment ecosystem. Traditionally, high-value assets were only accessible to select investors due to high investment requirements, creating barriers for other entrants. Toyow aims to lower these barriers by offering fractional ownership, allowing more people to invest in these assets within a secure and compliant framework.

We find ourselves at a transformational juncture in the global economy at a time of unprecedented innovation, opportunities, and, of course, challenges. As forward-thinkers with progressive minds, we are at the forefront of supporting visionary ideas and championing entrepreneurs who dare to think differently, said Surajit Chanda, Co-Founder, Toyow.

The launch of the TOYOW Token Whitepaper at the event outlined the tokens roadmap, tokenomics, and long-term objectives. The whitepaper highlights Toyows commitment to solving problems within both Web3 and traditional investment sectors by simplifying ownership and ensuring adherence to security and compliance requirements.

Key Takeaways from the Whitepaper: The TOYOW Token will support the platform by offering tokenized assets at a discounted price or reduced transaction fees. The TOYOW Token will be launched on the BASE protocol, offering high security and efficient transaction processing. The platform aims to expand the utility of the TOYOW Token by integrating it with additional projects and partners within the ecosystem. Whats next? The Dubai event marked an initial step for Toyow. Following positive community feedback, Toyow invites interested investors to learn more about the platform. For more information, visit www.toyowtoken.com
According to the United States Attorneys Office, conditions at Georgias Fulton County Jail violate the constitutional and statutory rights of those incarcerated at the institution.

Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriffs Office failed to adequately protect its incarcerated persons from the risk of serious harm.

Senators Osoff and Blackburn launch inquiry to protect federal prison staff from sexual assault and harassment Additionally, the Senators have requested that BOP release information on their inmate-staff sexual assault and harassment reporting procedures, correctional methods, and staff assistance programs.

Investigators looked into the conditions at the Main Jail in Atlanta, which currently houses over 2,000 people, and three annex facilities:

Marietta Annex in Atlanta

North Annex in Alpharetta

South Annex in Union City

All annexes are funded and operated by the Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriffs Office.

The 97-page report by the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Georgia outlined the confinement conditions that did not meet basic constitutional standards, including:

Failure to protect people from the risk of serious harm such as stabbings, homicides, and sexual abuse by other incarcerated people

Officers use excessive force against incarcerated people

Incarcerated people housed in constitutionally inadequate and unsanitary living conditions

Failure to provide adequate medical and mental health services

Discrimination against people with mental disabilities

Failure to provide incarcerated people due process of law

Failure to provide special education services to 17-year-old boys and girls incarcerated at the juvenile facilities

Multiple deaths and serious harm have occurred in recent years because of these unlawful practices, including the homicide of Lashawn Thompson.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said that Thompsons horrific death was symptomatic of a pattern of dangerous and dehumanizing conditions in the Fulton County Jail.

Additional incidents at the jail include:

Six deaths of incarcerated people due to violence at the Jail from 2022 to the present

More than 300 stabbings involving contraband and makeshift weapons in 2023

Four deaths from suicide in the past four years

The United States Attorneys Office deemed conditions at Fulton County Jail unconstitutional.

For more information, contact the U.S. Attorneys Public Affairs Office at 404-581-6016 or email USAGAN.PressEmails@usdoj.gov.

To provide information related to the investigation of the Fulton County Jail, call 1-888-473-4092 or email the Department of Justice at FultonCountyJail@usdoj.gov.
As the country goes to the polls on Friday, November 29 to determine the identity of the 174 TDs that will sit in the 34th Dail, here's what you need to know about the expanded Longford-Westmeath five-seater constituency.

Outgoing TDs: Peter Burke (Fine Gael), Sorca Clarke (Sinn Fein), Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail), Robert Troy (Fianna Fail)

Population: 142,972

The Longford perspective: After James Bannon (Fine Gael) lost his seat in the 2016 General Election, it meant Longford was the ONLY county in the country without a sitting TD in the 32nd Dail. Four years later, the Make Longford Matter slogan of first-time Fianna Fail candidate Joe Flaherty (7,666 first preference votes) struck a chord with Longford voters and the Lanesboro native and former Managing Director of Iconic Newspapers was the second candidate elected to the 33rd Dail from the Longford-Westmeath constituency. Flaherty's triumph, alongside that of outgoing TD Robert Troy (9,331 first preference votes), helped Fianna Fail capture two of the four seats on offer, the first time the party achieved that feat in this constituency since 2007 when Mary ORourke and the late Peter Kelly were successfully elected.

Against the backdrop of Sinn Feins incredible #GE2020 performance that saw Sorca Clarke comprehensively top the poll, it was a noteworthy double and the highlight of an otherwise disappointing campaign nationally for Micheal Martins party. Clarke, who failed to win a seat in the 2019 local elections in Westmeath, hoovered up votes in every corner of the constituency, including an estimated 3,500 in Longford, as she garnered 11,848 first preferences or 21% (a huge increase of 11.5% - 5,270 - on 2016 when Paul Hogan ran for SF), and she comfortably exceeded the 11,277 quota by 571 votes.

Somewhat ironically, it was the transfer of 2,828 votes from the eliminated Micheal Carrigy (Fine Gael) that got Flaherty across the line. Carrigy's party colleague Peter Burke (6,617 first preferences) gained 2,709 votes - 119 less than went to Flaherty. The fact that 40% of Carrigys votes remained in Longford suggests that voters in the county gave #1 and #2 votes across party lines. However, the Ballinalee postmaster and Co Longford Tourism Chairperson, who was first elected to the county council in 2009, and secured 6,334 first preferences did lament the fact that 3,500 votes left Longford and went mainly to SFs Sorca Clarke. If a chunk of those votes went to first-time GE candidate Carrigy, then Longford could have been celebrating the election of two TDs. Not since 2007, when James Bannon (FG) and the late Peter Kelly (FF) were successful, has Longford had two sitting TDs.

With an extra seat up for grabs this time around Longford candidates will be hoping to increase their representation but as the 2016 election demonstrated, they can take nothing for granted, particularly since Kevin 'Boxer' Moran, the biggest casualty in the constituency last time out even though he polled 6,730 first preferences, has been rejuvenated following his incredible local election success last June.

Just five of the 20 candidates in the field are Longford based - Barry Campion (Sinn Fein), Micheal Carrigy (Fine Gael), Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail), Dave Smyth (People Before Profit) and Gerry Warnock (Independent).

The Issues: The primary election issues are set to be housing, rural crime, health and immigration with the threat of industrial action being taken by over 130 staff at St Christopher's Services another key topic on the doorsteps.

Expanded Constituency: Since the 2020 election, the Longford-Westmeath constituency has expanded in size. The Electoral Commission recommended the return of 19 electoral divisions in north Westmeath from Meath East to Longford-Westmeath. This brought in an extra 9,484 voters, bringing the constituency population to 142,972 which entitled the area to an extra seat. Despite the reunification of Westmeath, politically it is very much a divided county as Athlone voters usually stay loyal to Athlone candidates, something 'Boxer' Moran will be hoping helps him although he will have Paul Hogan (Independent Ireland) and Louise Heavin (Independent) breathing down his neck and Mullingar voters to Mullingar candidates. Longford voters are expected to back Longford candidates, having learned a lesson in 2016, but once again in 2020 thousands of Longford #1 votes crossed the county boundary. Indeed, tallies from 2016 indicated that 32% of Longford votes crossed the county boundary and went into Westmeath, while the 2020 tallies revealed that around 29% of Longford votes travelled to their neighbours.

In the race: Minister Peter Burke, Senator Micheal Carrigy and Athlone-based Tanya Cannon have been selected by Fine Gael. Joe Flaherty is Fianna Fail's flag bearer in county Longford, while Deputy Robert Troy will join him as he contests his fourth consecutive general election. Taking a leaf out of the FG strategy, FF opted to add a third candidate in the guise of Dympna Cunniffe from Mount Temple.

Sinn Fein 2020 Longford-Westmeath poll topper Sorca Clarke will be joined by Barry Campion, who secured 253 votes in the Granard Municipal District local election last June, on the ticket. Mullingar-native Fidelma Bennett, who was narrowly denied a seat on Westmeath County Council earlier this year, has been nominated as the Labour candidate.

Cllr Paul Hogan is the Independent Ireland candidate. He previously contested three General Elections (2007, 2011 and 2016) and a By Election (2014) as a Sinn Fein candidate but was unsuccessful. Carol Okeke, who lives in Kinnegad is aiming to become Longford-Westmeaths very first Green Party TD. Longford town based Dave Smyth is running for People Before Profit.

Laura O'Neill is the Aontu candidate in the Kinnegad area and she has said she is passionate about youth development, animal welfare, mental health advocacy. Of the non party candidates in the field former minister Kevin 'Boxer' Moran is the most high profile. He secured a seat on Westmeath County Council in June when he received one of the highest percentage of first-preference votes nationally - he mopped up almost 40% of the Athlone vote and two-and-a-half quotas. Boxer served as as Minister of State for the OPW and Flood Relief from 2017 until 2020.

Athlone's first-ever Green Cllr Louise Heavin  who lost her council seat in the June local elections - is also standing as an Independent, while long serving Longford county councillor, Gerry Warnock, was one of the earliest to confirm he would run as an independent candidate last April. Donal Jackson is also running as an Independent and he was previously a candidate in 2020, 2016 and 2011. Margaret Alacoque Maguire is running for Ireland First, while Independents Charlotte Keenan and Paul Bradley are also in the race.

Likely outcome: General Election predictions always come with a health warning however in #GE2020 there were six candidates that polled in excess of 6,300 first preference votes - Sorca Clarke 11,848; Joe Flaherty 7,666; Peter Burke 6,617; Robert Troy 9,331; Kevin 'Boxer' Moran 6,730 and Micheal Carrigy 6,334 - and it is likely that this sextet will be leading the way once again when the ballot boxes are opened on Saturday, November 30. However, first-time General Election candidate and Longford town based Independent Gerry Warnock will be hoping his strong canvass will prove that prediction wrong and put him in the mix.

There was considerable momentum behind Sinn Fein in 2020 but with recent polls indicating their popularity is falling it will be interesting to see if Deputy Sorca Clarke can top the poll again. Deputy Robert Troy, Minister Peter Burke and Deputy Joe Flaherty will also be hoping to retain their seats and the shootout for the final seat could become a Longford v Athlone showdown. No doubt there'll be many twists and turns between now and when the Returning Officer announces the outcome of the final count!

20 Candidates

Alacoque Maguire, Margaret (Ireland First)

Bennett, Fidelma (Labour)

Bradley, Paul (Independent)

Burke, Peter (Fine Gael)

Campion, Barry (Sinn Fein)

Cannon, Tanya (Fine Gael)

Carrigy, Micheal (Fine Gael)

Clarke, Sorca (Sinn Fein)

Cunniffe, Dympna (Fianna Fail)

Flaherty, Joe (Fianna Fail)

Heavin, Louise (Independent)

Hogan, Paul (Independent Ireland)

Jackson, Donal (Independent)

Keenan, Charlotte (Independent)

Moran, Kevin 'Boxer' (Independent)

O'Neill, Laura (Aontu)

Okeke, Carol (Green Party)

Smyth, Dave (People Before Profit)

Troy, Robert (Fianna Fail)

Warnock, Gerry (Independent)
As Ireland stands at a pivotal moment in its educational journey, the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) has introduced a General Election Manifesto that identifies 30 critical areas in need of government investment by 2030. Our aim is ambitious: to create the worlds best primary and special education system. This ambition is not mere rhetoric; its a necessity.

A world-class education system is the foundation of a thriving society, and the responsibility of any new government is to ensure that every child receives an unparalleled start in life.



The OECD underscores that equitable access to quality education is the backbone of a fair society. To achieve this, the INTO calls for a 5% increase in the share of total government expenditure on the school sector between 2026 and 2030. Primary education forms the bedrock of all societal advancement, and it is clear that the success of an education system is intricately tied to the success of the teaching profession. As noted by the UN High-Level Panel on the teaching profession, When we begin with transforming education systems, we can transform conditions of work in schools, transform the practice of teaching, transform learning and transform lives.

Also Read: ALERT: Gardai issue urgent public appeal for help in locating missing teenager

The challenges facing primary and special education today are substantial, but so too are the opportunities. By taking a comprehensive approach that meets the diverse needs of students, teachers, and schools, Ireland can establish a system that not only meets but surpasses international standards. Our manifesto advocates for smaller class sizes, enhanced teacher training and professional learning opportunities for teachers, improved infrastructure, and greater resources for special educationall designed to elevate our education system to new heights.



We must also address the ongoing housing crisis, which significantly impacts teacher recruitment and retention. A future government must commit to solutions that relieve this burden on our teachers and support their essential work. The INTO pledges to champion an ambitious agenda that prioritises the needs of our students and teachers alike. Teachers are the heart of our education system, and it is crucial that they are supported, valued, and empowered to inspire the next generation.



We urge the next government to match this ambition with action. The time for incremental changes has passed; now is the moment for a transformative strategy that meets the needs of every child across the nation. By embracing this vision, we can ensure that Ireland not only meets future challenges but leads in educational excellence. Together, let us make Ireland a beacon of educational success, where every child has the opportunity to reach their full potential. The future of our nation depends on it.

Also Read: Four for the road 'Mary'! Treat in store as The 4 Of Us play Longford's Backstage Theatre
County Longford Scuba Divers will host a presentation of short talks from the club's members.

The event (at 4pm on Friday, November 15 at their clubhouse in Templemichael Business Park N39 DT88) will feature four talks, each highlighting aspects of the club and its role in Search and Rescue, diving training, and the maintenance of high safety and equipment standards.

The event will also see the club showcasing their key equipment, their new compressor, the vital search and recovery equipment as well as its boats and van.

John Flanagan, the National Search and Recovery Coordinator discussed the Longford club.

Also read: Body recovered during searches for two missing swimmers

It currently boasts 28 members and in the past year has successfully carried out five Search and Recovery missions.

Search and Recovery is all about bringing closure to families, particularly water searches. Water searches can go on for a couple of weeks, often a few months.

In the club, theyre all qualified divers and of those qualified divers certain divers will go on to do the Search and Recovery training."

Co Longford Scuba Divers cover not only local waterways but assist in searches further a field as well.

Also Read: Longford developer receives green light for construction of new hotel in Athlone

Weve covered searches down to the West of Ireland, explained John, Or anywhere else requesting us to attend in order to back up other units and help them in searches.

Each year the club sees members going through the process of Search of Recovery training.

Every year we would have three of four members who go right through and its a long process of trying to get qualified as a diver and then eventually gaining the experience to do search and recovery.

Of course, the training is not mandatory and those wishing to just dive for fun are more than welcome.

As well there are non-divers involved in the Search and Recovery part of the club who take on the search on the waters surface.

Also Read: Judge sends four Longford men to prison for 'terrorisation' of family and warns "feuding equals jail"

The club's Search and Recovery department helps families across Longford and further.

Nearly all searches that we have been a part of have been concluded successfully, if there is a recovery done either by ourselves, government entities or other volunteer groups, particularly on in-shore searches there is usually always a conclusion.

But that can take up to six weeks to two months at a time, explained John, A search could take one hour, or it could take weeks .

The club is run completely by volunteers.

Also Read: Man jailed for violent Longford hit and run incident that occurred as part of feud over 'photograph'

Its all done on a voluntary basis. The club's costs are the building and its running costs. We have three boats: two rigs and an inflatable boat. We also have a van with compressors, and then we have diving equipment that needs regular servicing each year, says John.

Mr Flanagan made sure to thank the volunteers who played a key role in raising money for the club. Volunteers are a vital part of organising collections and raising awareness for the club's activities. The club has also received grants to fund a lot of their equipment.

The talks are taking place on Friday, November 15.
There has been a huge increase in victims being assisted by Longford Women's Link with 318 women and children being directly supported so far in 2024, a rise of nearly 30% within two years.

The total number of women and children who received help from LWL last year was 271, up by 17% on the 271 victims that received support and 29% higher compared to the 246 women and children assisted in 2022.

LWL provides supports to women and children experiencing domestic violence and they support women and children in Longford and surrounding counties such as Leitrim, Cavan, Roscommon, Westmeath and other counties.

Natalie O'Reilly, a Domestic Violence Service Co-Ordinator at LWL stated they have a busier domestic violence service which assists women and children with migrant women and older victims in rural areas on the rise.

Also Read: Significant rise in county Longford water outages damaging local economy

"The figures are increasing ever year, population is increasing and awareness is increasing," she said. "It's a choice, people choose to act this way. Coercive control is the over-arching umbrella, that is the crime being committed whether it's financial abuse, sexual, it's whatever is effective to get the victim to comply, to instill fear into them."

Natalie said abusers will often compile information on their victims and their biggest fears and weaknesses in case they decide to leave and they often try to isolate the women from family and friends.

"The figures are increasing ever year, population is increasing and awareness is increasing,. It cannot be blamed on drink or drugs, these abusers are making a choice, she added.

Natalie explained that abusers often use 'tactics' on victims such as 'I will kill you, the children. myself' to keep control.

"Absolutely (that is common), it is probably in the top five tactics and another is 'I am going to take the children, she added.

The centre's provides practical, emotional and psychological assistance with domestic violence support, counselling, support for migrant women and childcare facilities.

Also Read: Leading Longford businesses recognised at gala Family Business Awards ceremony

LWL also offers education, training and helps with sourcing legal advice for victims and is involved with lobbying and advocacy at local and national levels on gender equality issues.

The centre has a Domestic Violence (DV) room where the professionals, including Natalie and three other DV specialists and an adolescent psychotherapist, meet families and do an initial 'First needs assessment'.

Natalie said when a woman comes in with her children by herself, with Gardai or she has been referred in by a GP or a friend they bring her in and give her that 'safe space'.



"We talk about what is happening to distinguish which types of abuse she has been experiencing, not all is physical, there is a lot of psychological, financial, sexual abuse. There can be a combination of three or four different types."

Also Read: Arrest made and Garda investigation underway following death of a man (60s) at Midlands hotel

Natalie said they talk to women about the options open to them in a supportive and non-pressurised way.

She stressed many children suppress a lot of their emotions and it is very traumatic.



Natalie explained it can take months but they have an art psychotherapist who uses her arts and crafts skills to engage the kids and adolescents and that can help them to open up.



"We have had some children come here who had gone non-verbal to keep themselves safe or maybe it was the trauma,"

Natalie said. "We also have a highly-skilled experienced psychotherapist that has studied in post-separational abuse and the affects on children. It is a huge area that does not get a lot of coverage but it causes absolute carnage."

Natalie said it's about removing the fear.

Also Read: Proud Longford student Caleb among graduates at DkIT Conferring

We find a common tactic that abusers will use that is effective is 'Mum will go to prison if you talk about this' or 'Tusla (the Child and Family Agency) will take you," she said. "It's to keep control basically, to stop them talking about what is happening at home."

Natalie said last year 60% of the victims they supported were migrant women born outside Ireland and they engage with a lot of different ethnic groups with a lot from Eastern Europe and of African-origin.

She praised court services staff Court Clerk Maggie Curley for giving them the opportunity to come in with women and children and walk around the court to familiarise themselves with their surroundings.

"It helps to remove the fear over what to expect," she said. Stats will tell us that when a woman reaches out for help and there are child protection concerns and Gardai and the courts are involved her risk of losing her children increases. How should that be?

LWL also has their own creche at the centre and several available placesfor women who require emergency childcare or may need to visit the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit , a GP, solicitor or the Gardai.

Also Read: Longford club launches race night in the yard of leading local horse trainer Paul Flynn

The Longford Leader recently reported on a WhatsApp group involving ringleaders in the sex trade and people willing to rent out properties to them.

Natalie said they have assisted some trafficked women, who are sometimes coerced and have ended up working in the sex trade here.

"Longford and Athlone are quite central locations from the ports and the airport and it is an issue and it is a problem," she added.
It's all go in Ballymahon as the local drama centre prepares to stage their annual One Act Festival. This year they boast a programme of top quality drama.

The town will become a hotbed of drama this weekend as Bog Lane Theatre play host to their 2024 One Act Festival.

The festival is part of the annual circuit that sees theatre groups compete in open and confined sections for the coveted All Ireland Drama title.

The annual circuit sees theatre groups compete in open and confined sections for the coveted All Ireland Drama title. This year the All Ireland One Act Finals will be taking place in The Moat Club in The Moat Theatre, Naas, Co Kildare.

Also Read: Longford GAA results scoreboard

All around the country festivals are taking place and the nine best plays, all of them multi award winners, will progress to Naas for the All-Ireland One-Act Finals 2024.

Two Longford groups are on circuit. Cilleo Yew Tree Players are in eight spot. They will participate in five festival outings with Dead Man's Bells and have one win under their belt giving them 12 points.

Mostrim Players are on circuit with Storm Seamus. They will also participate in five of the Festivals and already have a second and third place award under their belt giving them seven points putting them in 14th place overall.

Ballymahon will host their annual leg of the one Act Festival this weekend. The Bog Lane Theatre Festival starts this Friday, November 15 and runs until Sunday, November 17 featuring productions from companies across Ireland.

Also Read: Longford Independent candidate says abolition of town councils were an act of political vandalism

On Friday Shannonside Drama Group presents A Matter of Life and Death, while the Torch Players stage Poker Night.

On Saturday Down at Heel Productions bring us They Also Serve, with Wilde River Drama Group Ballinrobe staging Aubade and

The Kilrush Drama Group present Normal.

On the final day, Sunday has a strong local feel as Cilleo Yew Tree Players perform Dead Man's Bells, Mostrim Players present Storm Seamus and The Corn Mill Theatre Group stage Melody.

Sunday will see the two Longford groups go head to head. 'Deadmans Bells' written by Meabh de Brun, is a dark comedy Gothic rural tale of inheritance, rivalry and misdeeds told by three sisters.

Also Read: Longford auctioneer selling prime Midlands agricultural land at online auction

The story revolves around three sisters, one brother, and a farm thats up for grabs, with a balance of dark and the craic onstage in a journey of familial bickering and twisting tales.

The fast paced and snappy dialogue sees each of the three actors take on a number of characters.

Mostrim Players present Vanessa Flood's one-act play, Storm Seamus. It is set in the heart of a small, rural Irish village. On that night, when a storm sweeps through the countryside, the entire area is swept into darkness. The only place that has a generator is Seamuss Pub.

The character of Seamus, the barman, is played by local actor Jimmy Connell from Edgeworthstown who is widely known on social media for his character Jimmy Jest. There are also two other local actors Richie Cheevers (Tony) and Annette Casey (Freda), who are no strangers to the stage.
Gardai are appealing for witnesses following a serious road traffic collision near Tullamore, Co Offaly this morning, Thursday, November 14.





Emergency services were alerted to a single-vehicle collision, involving a car, on the L2007 (Rahan Road) at Ballykeenaghan at approximately 9am.





The driver of the car, a man aged in his 40s, was seriously injured.

Also read: Roscommon cabinet maker jailed for nine years for 3.9 million cannabis possession

He was conveyed to Midlands Regional Hospital, Tullamore, where he remains in a serious condition.





There were no other occupants of the vehicle or injuries reported.

PICTURES | Tractor and vintage enthusiasts out in force for huge North Longford fundraiser





A technical examination of the scene has been conducted by Garda Forensic Collision Investigators and the road has since reopened to traffic.





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 between 8:15am and 9:15am are asked to make this footage available to investigating Gardai.

WATCH | Plenty of fresh festive content in our winter edition of Longford LIFE magazine





Anyone with any information is asked to contact Tullamore Garda Station on 057 932 7600, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station.
Simon Harris has said policy differences are emerging between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael after his party was accused of launching damaging attacks.

Micheal Martin said he was surprised by the tone and nature of the attacks made by Fine Gael on his partys proposals in recent days.

The Fianna Fail leader said he does not understand the strategy by his former coalition partners and Civil War-era foes Fine Gael and said it could be damaging.

People who want to vote centre-ground parties in will be saying what are they at? he told the Irish Independents podcast on Thursday.

As a strategist myself, I do not believe this makes sense.

Mr Martin added: Fine Gael seem to be strategically deciding to target Fianna Fail more than targeting Sinn Fein. Thats the bit I dont get and a lot of voters wont get that either.

Responding to those comments, Fine Gael leader Mr Harris accused Mr Martin of giving out about being attacked whilst then attacking.

This election is about, I think, big, exciting ideas for the future of our country and I think the fact that we are debating them is good.

A few days ago, perhaps media would have been asserting is there any difference in policy. Now, actually, there are policy differences emerging.

I have my own style of politics  and I think even my political opponents would acknowledge this  is always to engage in a policy debate rather than any sort of personality contest.

The two main coalition parties have been publicly criticising each others policies since the Dail was dissolved on Friday.

Fine Gael minister Paschal Donohoe released a statement on Tuesday criticising Fianna Fails manifesto as leaving a lot to be desired.

On Virgin Medias Tonight Show, Fianna Fail minister Jack Chambers and Fine Gaels Hildegarde Naughton both called each other disingenuous in a debate on policy proposals.

The parties have moved to differentiate themselves from one another in the first few days of the election campaign.

Fianna Fails proposal to decriminalise cannabis has come under fire from Fine Gael, with Mr Harris saying there are real health dangers in relation to cannabis.

Fine Gaels proposal to introduce an 11% VAT rate for food-related businesses has been criticised by Fianna Fail as regressive, arguing that it would mean the tax on energy would have to increase.

Mr Harris said: Were having a debate around ideas and policies.

I hope were having a respectful debate.

When we launched a plan for small businesses, I dont think we were out of the room before there were people in Fianna Fail doing off-the-record briefings in relation to that.

I want to debate the policies here. I want to debate the policies respectfully.

Ive worked well with Fianna Fail, I have respect for the leader of the Fianna Fail, Im proud of what weve all achieved together over the last four-and-a-half years.

But I also want to really debate ideas.

Sinn Fein has accused Fianna Fail and Fine Gael of putting on a sham row for the cameras when there is not the width of a credit card between the two parties, forged out of opposing sides of Irelands Civil War.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald also accused Mr Harris of being pretty intent on stealing Sinn Feins ideas, and that Fine Gael and Fianna Fail had sought to steal our clothes and then botched the implementation of its policies.

She was referencing Mr Harriss announcement of a full review of the means testing for carers welfare payments.

Ms McDonald said: For somebody who talks a lot about new energy and new ideas, Simon Harris actually has no new ideas, and in the absence of ideas of his own, he seems to be pretty intent on stealing Sinn Feins ideas.

To this, Mr Harris later said Deputy McDonald can keep her policies.

He added: It wasnt her idea, but it was the idea from carers and my party is in the business of listening and acting.
Crime

By Chris Boyle Published: November 14 2024

James Luca allegedly plotted and attempted to bomb the Nassau County Department of Social Services building in Uniondale in September.

Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly announced that a North Merrick man has been indicted for terrorism and other charges for allegedly plotting to attack the Nassau County Department of Social Services building in September and for attempting to ignite a homemade bomb he placed at the buildings doors.

James Luca, 46, was arraigned today before Judge Terence Murphy on charges of Crime of Terrorism (an A-I felony); Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the First Degree (a B violent felony); Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Third Degree (a D violent felony); Obstructing of Governmental Duties by Means of a Bomb, Destructive Device, Explosive, or Hazardous Substance (a D felony); Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree (an E felony); and Attempt to Commit the Crime of Arson in the Third Degree (a D felony).

The defendant pleaded not guilty and was remanded. He is due back in court on December 19, 2024. If convicted, Luca faces up to 25 years to life in prison.

James Luca, aggrieved and blaming Nassau County Child Protective Services for revoking his visitation rights with his children, allegedly hatched a terroristic revenge plot to bomb the Department of Social Services building in Uniondale using an improvised homemade device made of propane tanks and road flares, said DA Donnelly. This is the first time that my office has pursued the gravely serious charge of terrorism against a defendant. James Lucas alleged actions, his plotting, and his attempts to ignite an explosion at a government building where dozens of public servants work to serve our county every day, justifies this significant upgrade in charges. Luca now faces the potential of life in prison for his radical violence. Together with the Nassau County Police Department we will protect the workers and residents of Nassau County from any threats, whether they are foreign or born right here in our backyard.

This dangerous individual put hundreds of lives in danger by placing these deadly devices at a building designed to provide vital services for the residents of Nassau County," said Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder. "I want to commend the excellent work done by our Arson Bomb Squad detectives for bringing this case to a successful conclusion and thank our partners in the Nassau County District Attorney's Office for their continued commitment to aggressively prosecuting those who put public safety in jeopardy.

DA Donnelly said that on September 17, 2024, at approximately 1:42 a.m., the defendant and a co-defendant allegedly left Lucas home on Van Nostrand Avenue in North Merrick in two separate vehicles.

Approximately 10 minutes later, the defendant and his co-defendant met up on Warren Street and both got into a single car. They drove to 60 Charles Lindberg Boulevard where the Nassau County Department of Social Services is located.

While his co-defendant acted as a lookout, the defendant allegedly placed one 20-pound propane tank and another 1-pound camping propane tank at the doors of the building with a torch on top of the tanks.

Surveillance video recovered from the scene shows Luca allegedly attempting to throw lit flares at the homemade device in an attempt to ignite it. However, the device does not ignite.

The defendant and his co-defendant then left and drove back to East Meadow.

They abandoned the car they drove on Warren Street and entered the other car that was left on the street earlier that morning. The pair then drove back to Lucas house.

The device was discovered later that morning by the Department of Social Services Director of Investigations who immediately alerted police.

The Nassau County Police Departments Arson and Bomb Squad, the Uniondale Fire Department, and the Nassau County Fire Marshals Office responded to the scene, evacuated the building, and secured the homemade bomb.

As police continued to investigate the incident, they discovered another 20-pound propane tank a short distance from the scene and the abandoned vehicle in East Meadow with additional road flares located inside of the car.

Luca and his co-defendant were arrested on October 3, 2024, by detectives of the Nassau County Police Department.

The case is being prosecuted by Deputy Bureau Chief Lee Genser of the Narcotics, Firearms and Gangs Bureau under the supervision of Bureau Chief Nicholas Mauro and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for the Investigations Division Rick Whelan. Luca is represented by Stacy Albin Leone, Esq.
Israeli ships on patrol during the war against Hezbollah. (IDF photo)

On November 13, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released the names of six soldiers killed in southern Lebanon. All of them were from the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade. The battalion has seen significant action since October 7, 2023, and has fought in many key battles. The losses are one of the worst casualty totals in a day since the IDFs ground operation in Lebanon began on October 1.

These six fatalities bring the total number of troops killed in Lebanon since Operation Northern Arrows began to 40 soldiers, according to a list updated daily by Israels Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ten IDF soldiers have also been killed in northern Israel during the last month and a half. In addition, Israeli civilians have been killed and wounded by recent Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks.

The losses to the Golani Brigades 51st Battalion impact a unit that suffered heavily during Hamass attack on October 7, 2023, when the battalion defended a sector of the southern Gaza border. The 51st Battalion experienced significant losses that day, including almost 30 men killed.

On November 13, Hezbollah conducted attacks across Israel using missiles and drones, and Iranian-backed groups in Yemen and Iraq continued threatening Israel and the wider region. For instance, the Houthis in Yemen claimed on November 12 that they targeted the US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Instead, it appears they targeted two US destroyers with drones and missiles, USS Stockdale and USS Spruance.

On the evening of November 13, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq targeted the southern Israeli port city of Eilat with a drone. Footage posted online shows the drone being intercepted by an Israeli missile. The IDF said that sirens sounded in the city, and the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that was launched from the east was intercepted by an Israeli Navy missile boat. The IDF usually terms drones flown from Iraq as being launched from the east without confirming they came from Iraq. The attack occurred a day after a UAV that was also likely launched from Iraq flew near the southern Israeli desert town of MItzpe Ramon.

In northern Israel, the IDF said that 55 projectiles, mostly rockets, had been fired by Hezbollah on November 12. On the morning of November 13, the IDF intercepted drone attacks at 5:14 am and 7:01 am. More UAV attacks followed in the afternoon, one of which was intercepted before it crossed into Israel. In another incident in the afternoon, two drones were detected crossing into northern Israel. The IDF stated that a total of around 40 rockets and drones were fired at Israel that afternoon.

On November 13, Hezbollah claimed that it targeted Israels Kirya military base in Tel Aviv for the first time. The Iranian-backed group claimed it used drones in the attack; however, no sirens sounded in Tel Aviv, and the IDF did not release a statement about the alleged incident. Instead, the IDF said that five long-range projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory at 5:58 pm, adding, Some of the projectiles were intercepted by the IAF, fallen projectiles were identified. Sirens had sounded across central and northern Israel during this period. It was unclear if the incidents were linked, and the path of the sirens appeared to indicate a missile threat rather than drones.

In Lebanon, the IDF carried out an airstrike on dozens of launchers used to target central and northern Israel, the Israeli military said. In another airstrike, the Israeli Air Force hit smuggling routes between Syria and Lebanon. With the support of the Syrian regime, the Hezbollah terrorist organization continues to systematically abuse civilian infrastructure for its terrorist activities, the IDF said.

In Beirut, the IDF continued attacks on Hezbollah sites used to store weapons, destroying nine new locations. These strikes come a day after the IDF said that a majority of these types of Hezbollah sites in Beirut had been hit over the last month and a half.

On the Lebanese coast, the Israeli Navy also conducted a strike on what the Israeli military characterized as Hezbollahs naval unit in Beirut. Footage released by the IDF showed a dozen boats, each around 40 feet long, and several storage sites along the Lebanese coast. The base was used as a central operations hub in which dozens of the units vessels were stored and training was carried out, with the goal of damaging naval and strategic assets in Israels maritime space, the Israeli military said.

In southern Lebanon, several Hezbollah commanders were also eliminated. One was the newly appointed commander of a Hezbollah anti-tank unit in southeastern Lebanon. Another Hezbollah commander responsible for the area near Ghajar was also killed. Ghajar is a village on the border that Hezbollah claims is part of Lebanon. Over the years, the village, inhabited by members of the Alawite religious minority, was closed to most Israelis due to its sensitive location. Ghajar was part of Syria before 1967.

Reporting from Israel, Seth J. Frantzman is an adjunct fellow at FDD and a contributor to FDDs Long War Journal. He is the senior Middle East correspondent and analyst at The Jerusalem Post, and author of The October 7 War: Israel's Battle for Security in Gaza (2024).
Why cant you have three cellular network IDs on your iPhone or iPad active at oncetwo eSIMs and one SIM or three eSIMs? Or even more? You might think Apple is trying to frustrate you. But its a hardware limitation thats designed around what Apple thinks represents the vast majority of its users needs.

The short answer is that Apple has the necessary hardware built into some iPads and iPhones could allow two (iPad) or three (iPhone) cellular subscriptions at once, but the architecture of those devices only allows one (iPad) or two (iPhone) to be in use at any given time. Newer U.S. models of iPhones have only the circuitry required to manage two active cellular subscriptions, not three, making it an entirely moot point.

Lets dig into the details.

SIMpathy for the traveler

The SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) is a way for a device with cellular capability to identify itself to any compatible network nearby. Its essentially an ID connected to a billing account. When a cellular phone, watch, or other device connects to a cell network base station, the SIM serves as a unique identifier that allows the operator of that base station to check for active serviceall in a split second.

During the explosion of smartphones, the Mini SIM format was dominant and measured about 1 by 0.6 inches (25 by 15 mm). Most of that was a plastic surround to protect the circuitry. However, the form factor shrunk over several years to Nano, about 0.5 by 3.5 inches (12.3 by 8.8 mm)otherwise known as the size that when you drop it, it will slip into any crack and be lost forever.

An eSIM (embedded not electronic SIM) does away with the packaging and the ability to remove it. But its still a SIM: an eSIM is circuitry built into a phone, tablet, watch, or other hardware that can load SIM information. It acts like and looks like a SIM to a cellular network. Apple and other companies use software to program the eSIM with subscriber information.

Due to high roaming costs, SIMs were a convenient way for travelers to cut costs by installing a SIM for a local service plan in the country or region they arrived in. A common task for many people upon entering a country other than their own was to find an airport kiosk or convenience store, purchase a SIM with a cheap plan, find a paperclip or SIM removal tool, and carefully swap out the SIM. You could eventually pre-purchase these SIMs, but I recall a very tedious time of swapping four Nano SIMs for my family on landing in London after 14 hours of flying.

The eSIM does away with the need to have a physical item. Using one of a few methods, the eSIM is loaded with the correct subscriber information and activated just like a SIM card. Apple began including an eSIM module with the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR; the list of starting models for iPads with eSIMs has nine entries!

The limits on total SIMs

With a SIM/eSIM iPhone or iPad, you can activate the eSIM as the only cellular plan on your device. In Apples peculiar phrasing, you can install eight or more eSIMswhy not one or more if the company doesnt specify the top limit?

An iPad can only have a single SIM or eSIM active, but you can use the Dual SIM feature starting with those iPhone models above with iOS 12.1 or later. To use 5G this way, you need an iPhone 12 series phone or later with iOS 14.5 or later installed.

The Dual SIM lets you activate a SIM and eSIM or, starting with the iPhone 13 series, either that or two eSIMs at once. Apple eliminated the SIM module from iPhones sold in the United States, starting with the iPhone 14 models.

Because an eSIM is a physical piece of hardware, the limitation on how many SIM/eSIMs you can use is physical, too, not an arbitrary software restriction:

On iPhones that support Dual SIMs with two eSIMs, Apple has two eSIM modules in the phones.

On iPhones that support a single SIM and one eSIM, Apple has the SIM card slot and a single eSIM module.

On an iPad that can handle a SIM or eSIM and on iPhones with the capability of a SIM/eSIM or dual eSIM option, Apple made a choice: it clearly built the hardware to route just one SIM signal, even though it could have had two (iPad) or three (iPhone).

For that last choice, I assume Apple didnt think the extra cost of supporting a SIM plus two eSIMs made any sense for its user base, particularly since the company was already moving to reduce the cost of goods with its shift to eSIM-only iPhones in the United States.

Eventually, when eSIMs are supported by the vast majority of carriers (a point were nearing) Apple will certainly ditch the SIM slot on all iPhones and iPads worldwide just as it got rid of the headphone plug on iPhones years ago.

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Manchester, VT (05254)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Areas of patchy fog. Low 48F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Areas of patchy fog. Low 48F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph.
A 21-year-old man was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years on Wednesday for the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old boy in Dorchester in July 2022, prosecutors announced.

The man, Zontre Mack, of Canton, was 18 when he fatally shot Curtis Ashford Jr. Mack was convicted of first-degree murder last month, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Haydens office said in a statement. He was also convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of a loaded firearm, for which he received a sentence of six-and-a-half years to seven-and-a-half years, to be served concurrently with the murder sentence.

The Supreme Judicial Court earlier this year ruled anyone convicted of murder who was 21 or younger at the time of the crime must receive a sentence with parole eligibility. All murder defendants above the age of 21 are sentenced to life in prison without parole.
A now-defunct department store thats sat vacant for years in Newburyport could be on a path toward redevelopment as affordable housing.

Wheels are in motion to transform a former Kmart site inside the citys Port Plaza Shopping Center into 212 units of rental housing, 25% of which will be affordable in perpetuity.

The city announced on Tuesday it had reached an agreement with site owner Richard Kaplan for the future redevelopment off Low Street. Per the agreement, the Plaza Landing projects 53 affordable units will be reserved for renters making no more than 80% of the regions average median income, with the size of the family taken into consideration.

That means a single person making up to $91,200 and a two-person household making up to $104,200 would be eligible, according to the U.S. Department of Housing, which sets average median income limits based on region.

The 159 market-rate units will remain rentals for a minimum of 35 years under the agreement.

Kmart closed in the Port Plaza in 2017 and the large storefront has been vacant since. People living in the proposed development would have access to an array of amenities our their front door: a Shaws, Planet Fitness, ConvenientMD and more.

Between 2010 and 2020, Newburyport lost 300 rental units in the city, according to Mayor Sean Reardon, making the potential Kmart redevelopment a significant step forward.

We are acutely aware of the major housing challenges in the city, region and state, he said in a statement. Inventory is low and costs continue to rise. Through our Housing Production Plan, were committed to looking at a number of other initiatives to create even more housing options.

The development agreement is considered a friendly plan under the states Chapter 40B affordable housing law, and it will raise Newburyports affordable housing stock above the state-mandated 10% threshold.

Chapter 40B enables local zoning boards to approve affordable housing developments under flexible rules if at least 20 to 25% of the units have long-term affordability restrictions.

The Port Plaza Shopping Center in Newburyport.Hadley Barndollar

The proposal will head to the states Department of Housing and Community Development for review. If approved, the city can issue a permit after the Zoning Board of Appeals reviews it. As part of that process, Kaplan, the developer, has agreed to build sidewalks and pay for a traffic study, water connection and building permit fees.

The city estimates the Plaza Landing development would generate nearly $700,000 in property tax revenue every year.
Peanut, the social media star squirrel at the center of a national furor after it was seized from its owner in upstate New York and euthanized, has tested negative for rabies, a county official said Tuesday.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation took the squirrel and a raccoon named Fred on Oct. 30 from Mark Longos home and animal sanctuary in rural Pine City, near the Pennsylvania border. The agency said it had received complaints that wildlife was being kept illegally and potentially unsafely, but officials have faced a barrage of criticism for the seizure. Government workers said they have since faced violent threats.

The DEC and the Chemung County officials have said the squirrel and raccoon, named Fred, were euthanized so they could be tested for rabies after Peanut bit a DEC worker involved in the investigation.

Chemung County Executive Chris Moss said tests on the two animals came back negative during a news conference detailing the countys role in the incident. He said the county worked with the state and followed protocols.

This undated image provided by Mark Longo shows him with his pet squirrel Peanut that was seized by officers from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, at Longo's home in rural Pine City, N.Y., Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (Courtesy Mark Longo via AP)AP

Peanut gained tens of thousands of followers on Instagram, TikTok and other platforms in the more than seven years since Longo took him in after seeing his mother get hit by a car in New York City. Longo has said he was in the process of filing paperwork to get Peanut certified as an educational animal when he was seized.

Longo on Tuesday said the negative test results were no surprise and criticized the governments actions.

Its no real big shocker to me, considering I lived with Peanut for seven-and-a-half years and Fred for five months. Im not foaming at the mouth, he said. I knew the test results were going to be negative.

The DEC said in a prepared statement there was an internal investigation and that they were reviewing internal policies and procedures.
Major grocery store chain, ALDI, is making its debut on Cape Cod with a grand opening on Nov. 14.

Thrifty grocery shoppers will have an opportunity to shop discounted groceries after the stores grand opening at 9 a.m., Thursday.

The new location is located at 39 Davis Straits in Falmouth, and will be open daily from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m., according to ALDIs website.

After the commercial space sat empty for two years following the closure of a Christmas Tree Shop, some people are looking forward to ALDI filling the space and bringing something new to the community.

Greg Bilezikian, who owns the Falmouth Plaza, said ALDI is wonderful to work with, and is all positivity from everyone, according to Boston.com.

Bilezikian said ALDI is invested in turning the space into a European-style grocery store and different feel altogether,the news out let reported.

Read more: Major grocery chain becomes first to entirely stop using plastic shopping bags

Bilezikian told the outlet ALDIs expansion into the plaza creates an exciting place for Falmouth.

While ALDI is not a club membership store, customers should be prepared to bring a quarter to grab a cart before making their rounds and pack their own bags after cashing out.

ALDIs expansion onto the Cape comes after the company announced in March that it would add 800 stores to its portfolio by the end of 2028 through a combination of new openings and store conversions.

Our growth is fueled by our customers, and they are asking for more ALDI stores in their neighborhoods nationwide, ALDI CEO, Jason Hart said in March. With up to 40% savings on groceries, new customers are inspired to try us out, and existing customers keep coming back.

The company is investing more than $9 billion in its national expansion over the next five years.

As part of its growth trajectory, ALDI will strengthen its already strong presence in the Northeast and Midwest, adding nearly 330 stores across both regions by the end of 2028, it announced in March.

As for its plans on the east coast, Bilezikian, who owns the plaza, told Boston.com ALDI is looking at other locations on the Cape. The company did not respond to the outlet for comment.
WESTFIELD  Russell Johnston, acting commissioner of elementary and secondary education, flew over Westfield Wednesday but he learned that its the 56 students in the aviation maintenance and technology program at Westfield Technical Academy who are really about to soar.

This is great, the former West Springfield schools superintendent said on a visit to classroom and workshop space in historic Hangar #2 at Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport. We strive to have an education that is exciting, hands-on and relevant. This is all these things.
One week after winning the presidency for a second time, President-elect Donald Trump has made several nightly announcements about who he wants surrounding him in the White House.

As of Wednesday afternoon, here are Trumps Cabinet and post appointments.

Attorney General: Matt Gaetz

The Republican congressman from Florida, like many of Trumps picks so far, has been a staunch defender of Trumps for years.

As attorney general, Gaetz will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans' badly shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department, Trump said in a statement.

Gaetz is under federal investigation for sexual misconduct, drug use, and obstruction, according to the House Ethics Committee in June. He has denied any wrongdoing and federal prosecutors have not charged him.

Following the announcement, Gaetz resigned from Congress.

Director of National Intelligence: Tulsi Gabbard

The former Democratic U.S. representative from Hawaii became a supporter of Trump in 2024, four years after she ran for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Trump wants Gabbard, now a Republican, to be director of national intelligence, Trump said in a statement.

I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength, Trump said. Tulsi will make us proud!

Department of Government Efficiency: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy

Owner of X Elon Musk and Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate, were chosen to lead the Department of Government Efficiency. Trump has called it The Manhattan Project of our time.

In their role as co-leads, their department will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before, Trump said in a statement.

Also the founder of Tesla, Musk backed Trump shortly after the first assassination attempt on the president-elect in July. Musk took over Twitter in 2022, rebranding it X and turning the social media platform into a megaphone for right-wing influencers and provocateurs.

An entrepreneur, Ramaswamy was a loyal supporter of Trump during the Republican presidential primary despite running against him. Hes called himself an unapologetic American nationalist and dropped out to back Trumps campaign in January 2024, and worked with the campaign until Election Day.

Secretary of Defense: Pete Hegseth

Selected to lead the Defense Department, the Fox News host and U.S. Army service member will put Americas enemies on notice  Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down," Trump said in a statement.

In 2019, Hegseth urged Trump to pardon U.S. service members who had been accused of war crimes. In a recent interview, Hegseth said he was against women in combat roles  it hasnt made us more effective, hasnt made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.

He started his career at Fox News as a contributor in 2014 before becoming a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend in 2017.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel: Mike Huckabee

Huckabee previously ran against Trump during the 2016 Republican presidential primary. The former Arkansas governor is also the host of the former Fox News, now Trinity Broadcasting Network show, Huckabee.

Mike loves Israel, the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him, Trump said in a statement. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace to the Middle East!

Huckabees appointment stirred up past comments he made about Israel and the territories of Gaza and the West Bank. He called Palestinian identity a political tool and that theres really no such thing as a Palestinian, according to a video obtained by CNN.

Huckabees daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is currently the governor of Arkansas. She served as Trumps White House press secretary from 2017 to 2019.

Director of the Central Intelligence Agency: John Ratcliffe

If he gets the job, Ratcliffe would be the first CIA director to have also been director of national intelligence. He served during the last year of Trumps term.

In his statement, Trump relitigated the report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Hunter Biden laptop controversy. Trump claimed in a statement that only Ratcliffe was telling the truth to the American People about these and other legal battles from Trumps first term.

Ratcliffe also served as a U.S. representative from Texas from 2015 to 2020.

Homeland Security Secretary: Kristi Noem

Trump chose the Republican governor and former U.S. representative from South Dakota after she was the first Governor to send National Guard Soldier to help Texas fight the [President Joe] Biden Border Crisis, and they were sent a total of eight times, Trump said in a statement.

A vocal opponent of safety measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, Noem has also called for punishing Democratic-led sanctuary cities that protect undocumented immigrants, CNN reported.

Secretary of State: Marco Rubio

The Republican senator from Florida will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend of our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries, Trump said in a statement.

Rubio ran against Trump during the 2016 presidential primary, when he referred to the president-elect as having small hands.

Trump retaliated with the nickname Little Marco and mocked him over how Rubio drank from a water bottle during the Republican response to President Barack Obamas State of the Union address in 2013.

National Security Advisor: Mike Waltz

An Army Special Forces officer for 27 years, the Republican representative from Florida has been a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy ... Trump said in a statement.

During President George W. Bushs administration, Waltz served as a counter-terrorism advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney. Waltz made $25 million after he sold a defense contractor firm based in Afghanistan before he ran for Congress in 2018, The Intercept reported.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations: Elise Stefanik

In choosing the New York Republican representative as the American ambassador to the United Nations, she will... [deliver] Peace through Strength and America First National Security policies! Trump said in a statement.

In the wake of the Israel-Hamas War, Stefanik, a Harvard University graduate has been a frequent critic of college campuses where students on the side of the Palestinians protested against the war. She has called student protestors antisemitic and pro-Hamas apologists.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator: Lee Zeldin

The former Republican representative from New York will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will ... [maintain] the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet, Trump said in a statement.

Zeldin is expected to roll back Bidens climate policies and rescind millions of dollars to fund clean energy under Bidens Build Back Better plan, Politico reported.

White House Chief of Staff: Susie Wiles

Trumps 2024 campaign co-chair, Wiles will serve as his chief of staff, the first woman to hold the position.

Wiles previously managed Utah Gov. Jon Huntsmans 2012 presidential campaign, helped in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis 2018 campaign for governor, advised two Jacksonville mayors, and worked for Florida Rep. Tillie Fowler.

Trumps other recent appointments include:

Border czar: Tom Homan

Special Envoy to the Middle East: Steven Witcoff

Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff: Dan Scavino

Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Homeland Security Advisor: Stephen Miller

White House Counsel: William Joseph McGinley

Material from the Associated Press was used in this story.
The man accused of leading police on a chase out of a McDonalds parking lot in Haverhill on Tuesday morning faced charges from a preexisting warrant in court on Wednesday.

Christopher Roque-Joaquin, 26, of Lawrence was arraigned in Haverhill District Court on two counts of larceny under $1,200 and attempt to commit a crime and two counts of being a fugitive from justice, the Essex County District Attorneys Office said.

Roque-Joaquins larceny charges stemmed from accusations he stole cases of Red Bull from a Market Basket grocery store on two occasions in April and July, and was unsuccessful on a third attempt in August, the office said.



The fugitive from justice charges stemmed from outstanding warrants in New Hampshire related to accusations he stole from Walmart and received a stolen vehicle, the office said.

The Tuesday chase began around 11:38 a.m. at the McDonalds on Main Street in Haverhill, the office said. Police officers were conducting an investigation involving two individuals in a motor vehicle when they approached Roque-Joaquin and another person inside the vehicle.

Roque-Joaquin backed up and hit several police cars, the office said. An officer was also hit as he drove forward toward other cruisers.

At that point, a Haverhill police officer shot his gun, according to the statement.

The vehicle fled the McDonalds and was pursued by police into Lawrence, where it was abandoned by both occupants.

Roque-Joaquin was hospitalized with injuries following the pursuit, the district attorneys office said.

Read more: West Springfield eyes Walgreens as possible site for new police headquarters

The office did not respond to MassLives request for comment about Roque-Joaquins injuries and whether they were from the officers gunfire. It also did not identify the other person who was in the car, or state whether they were in police custody as of Wednesday afternoon.

Roque-Joaquin was ordered held on $25,000 bail on the larceny charges but was ordered held without bail on the fugitive from justice charges. His pretrial hearing is scheduled for Dec. 11.

The car chase incident remains under investigation, police said.
Months after the rotting body of a musician from Western Massachusetts was found in a Greenfield apartment, a 42-year-old man pleaded not guilty to charges in connection with the death.

Christopher Hairston, 35, formerly of Pittsfield and Greenfield, was found dead inside the apartment of Taaniel Herberger-Brown, 42, in April, the Northwestern District Attorneys Office said.

Herberger-Brown pleaded not guilty on Wednesday in Superior Court to murder charges, the district attorneys office said.

The murder suspect also faced multiple kidnapping and assault and battery charges related to a separate incident in his apartment from February, and two malicious destruction charges from another incident in his apartment and a laundry room in March and April, the office said.

Read more: Greenfield murder victim Chris Hairston remembered for his musicianship

After Hairstons body was found inside Herberger-Browns Chapman Street apartment on April 22 by Greenfield Police, Herberger-Brown was tracked to Albany, New York, the office said. He was arrested and held until his return to Massachusetts.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was not able to determine the cause of Hairstons death due to the condition of his body, the district attorneys office said.

Hairston was a a fun-loving spirit with a big, open heart. He grew up in Pittsfield and was an exceptional and naturally-talented percussionist, according to his loved ones.

You were a great guy and one hell of a musician. I know you are playing some sick beats up there my friend, a friend on Facebook posted.

Herberger-Brown was held without bail, and will have a bail hearing on the case for Jan. 7, 2025. The case was investigated by Greenfield police and state police officers with the district attorneys office, along with state police in the Crime Scene Services section.

Northwestern First Assistant District Attorney Steven E. Gagne is prosecuting the case, and Herberger-Brown is represented by Springfield attorney Nicholas Horgan.
Ahead of a Beacon Hill hearing, a pair of Massachusetts lawmakers have called on a state oversight panel to ask some tough questions of the company thats taken over the physicians network formerly owned by bankrupt Steward Health Care.

Benson Sloan, the CEO of the private-equity-owned Rural Healthcare Group, is slated to testify Thursday before the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission.

In a three-page letter obtained exclusively by MassLive, Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked the regulatory panel to press Sloan, who is expected to testify under oath, to uphold the [companys] public commitments to continue participating in MassHealth, and to preserve continuity of care for former Steward patients.

While we appreciate that RHG has voluntarily made these commitments to [the commission], we are concerned that non-binding commitments provide little, if any, assurances that this transaction will not adversely harm Massachusetts patients and providers, Warren who was joined on the Wednesday letter by U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-4th District, wrote.

In October, the company, which operates 17 clinics in Tennessee and North Carolina, closed a $245 million deal to acquire Stewardship Health.

Read More: Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre to step down

Rural Healthcare is a subsidiary of the private equity firm Kinderhook Industries LLC, MassLive previously reported.

In September, the three lawmakers sent the company a letter, raising red flags that the sale would put Massachusetts residents at the mercy of another private equity firm, even as Dallas-based Steward wound down its operations in the Bay State.

The regulatory panel concluded last month that the sale carries limited potential for negative impacts on spending and market dynamics, and did not believe the transaction is likely to affect the quality of care or access to services in Massachusetts, MassLive previously reported.

While the transaction presents uncertainties, as RHG is a young organization and a new private-equity backed entrant to the Massachusetts market, the HPC found that the immediate sale to RHG would allow Stewardship providers to continue to provide care for their patients, providing stability for patients, staff and the health care market at large, regulators said in a statement summarizing their review of the sale.

In their letter to the commission, Warren, Markey and Auchincloss said Thursdays public hearing was an opportunity for Sloan and the company to address concerns about the clinical autonomy of Stewardships physicians, the potential for future price increases, and access to care for Massachusetts patients.

They added that they remain deeply troubled by the concerns outlined in our September letter to [the company], and [its] failure to provide written responses to the questions posed therein.

In a previous statement, Sloan said the company was excited to bring our mission and approach to the state of Massachusetts.

In many ways, RHG has directly preserved and restored primary care in our Tennessee and North Carolina markets as both independent providers and health systems have sought us out to ensure long-term continuity of care in their communities, he added.

A thriving primary care infrastructure is critical to supporting local hospitals and specialists, as primary care providers are instrumental in ensuring patients are directed to the appropriate facilities at the right time, Sloan said in that August statement.
SPRINGFIELD  A seven-year, multistate courtroom and public relations fight between the nations top developer of green energy and backers of a proposed $1.5 billion power line through Maine has landed in Springfield.

At stake, says New England Clean Energy Connect and parent Avangrid, is access to lower-cost, clean electricity to Massachusetts.
Samples from Moon's far side on display in Zhuhai

(People's Daily App) 17:00, November 14, 2024

Soil samples from the far side of the Moon, retrieved by the Chang'e-6 mission, were displayed to the public for the first time on November 12 at the Airshow China in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province. On June 25, 2024, the Chang'e-6 return vehicle successfully landed in a designated area in Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, bringing back 1,935.3 grams of lunar soil from the far side  the first samples of their kind. With this achievement, China became the only country to have collected soil samples from both the near and far sides of the Moon, marking a new milestone in space exploration. Also on display were significant artifacts from the mission, including the Chang'e-6 return capsule, the parachute that delivered the lunar samples to Earth, and the sealed container used for the lunar soil collection. The exhibition drew large crowds of visitors eager to take photos and witness the historic items.

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun)
A small, red mark on Natalie Carroll's leg turned into something sinister within a couple of days when things started going 'downhill'.

Travellers often fear Bali belly ahead of their trip to Indonesia but one Aussie woman is warning people to be aware of a lesser-known danger that has left her with "welts" and "scabs" on her body.

Natalie Carroll, 24, was halfway through her 10-day trip in Uluwatu when she spotted a "little red mark" on her leg last week.

"On Thursday morning I noticed I had a little red mark that was very, very faint on my leg. I just monitored it throughout the day and it started to welt," the Gold Coast woman told Yahoo News. "It wasn't until Friday morning when I woke up that it was pretty red, and it was forming lots of baby blisters  it went downhill from there."

The red mark quickly developed into severe welts. Source: Supplied

Common Bali insect responsible for 'painful' blisters

After seeing a doctor, Natalie was told her severe skin irritation had been caused by a tomcat beetle. It's something "she'd literally never heard of".

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"They sit on you and then if you go to brush them off they release a toxin and I think what's happened is, in my sleep, I've brushed it off and now I have this on me, it's insane... and it's painful," she said, referring to the large blisters on her leg.

Tomcat beetles are commonly found in Bali and also in coastal areas in Australia.

The beetle has no way of injecting their toxin via a bite or sting, instead inflicting injuries via skin contact.

"Initial symptoms include reddening of the skin, and a 'burning' sensation," Dr Swaid Abdullah, an expert in veterinary parasitology, previously told Yahoo News. "This is followed by painful irritation and itching, and if untreated can lead to extensive pustules and blistering of the skin after four days."

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Natalie was given a topical cream and oral antibiotics by the doctor, saying she was thankful she addressed the skin irritation early rather than her symptoms developing further.

Tourist's warning to Aussies travelling to Bali

Natalie has urged Aussies to take simple precautions to help them avoid what she experienced.

"I would say, if you're staying in an indoor-outdoor villa or anywhere that's not enclosed accommodation, invest in insect repellent. Set insect coils and have them at each doorway," she said. "And if you do notice any little marks, go to a doctor as soon as possible, it gets much worse really quick."

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
NORTHAMPTON  Officials in Northampton said they have received an increased number of reports of raccoons displaying signs that they might be infected with rabies.

The reports, the citys Department of Health and Human Services said, have yet to be confirmed.
WEST SPRINGFIELD  The Police Station Siting Committee voted to recommend the Walgreens at 99 Westfield St. as a possible site for the new West Springfield Police Department headquarters.

If secured, the new location would be steps from Town Hall, where the existing police department is.

Sgt. Joseph LaFrance, spokesperson for the West Springfield Police Department, previously said the current station is significantly undersized for the departments 95 personnel and is also outdated.

The police station headquarters moved to the Town Hall Municipal Office Building in 1970. West Springfield remains one of the few municipalities in the state to house its police department within a municipal building.

Mayor William C. Reichelt announced the creation of the Police Station Siting Committee in January.

Committee Chair and Town Councilor Anthony R. DiStefano said the committee was tasked with providing Reichelt a single recommendation for the new police station location.

Which it did Nov. 4. The committee made a motion that was duly seconded and authorized, DiStefano said.

The committee must send its recommendations to Reichelt for this site to come to fruition.

I havent received anything from the committee yet. They (the committee) mentioned keeping the police department downtown with a possible location at the Walgreens behind Town Hall, Reichelt said.

There are rumors that Walgreens parent companies are closing stores throughout the country or region. If that happens, then that would be a location, they want me to look into, he added.

The West Springfield Walgreens Pharmacy at 99 Westfield Street. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 11/13/2024The Republican

Reichelt said the town has reached out to Walgreens but has not received a response about whether its location is closing. The Republican also reached out to the pharmacy but has not received a response.

In October, Walgreens announced plans to close between 1,200 to 1,300 locations over the next few years to stabilize the retail pharmacy, with about 500 closures expected by the end of 2025, according to federal filings.

Reichelt said the site search process is still in the early stages, but once he receives the committees recommendation, the Town will seek feedback from residents and stakeholders and then move forward to identify funding sources.

Following pushback on previous recommendations for new locations for the police department and the Department of Public Works, including a bid to take a Springfield Diocese property by eminent domain that Reichelt later dropped, the mayor emphasized the need for public support.

Im not going to commit any funding until we have a really good idea of where we want it to go and what the public response to that plan is, he said.

Reichelt hopes to receive recommendations by year-end to start the process next year.
Two years ago, Bucks Whiskey and Burger Bar in Worcesters Canal District closed its doors after four and a half years in business.

Now, the burger bar is returning for one night only to raise money and awareness for the Central Mass. Pet Pantry  a Shrewsbury-based pantry that provides food for peoples pets.

Nick Panarelli, the former owner of Bucks, told MassLive a special beer dinner will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. on Dec. 16 at the Greater Good Imperial Brewing Company at 55 Millbrook St. in Worcester. Panarelli said the dinner will give patrons a flashback night of what it was like to eat at Bucks while collecting donations for the pantry.

The dinner will feature a three-course meal made by Bucks and dessert made by Bri Sweet Treats, another Worcester-based business, according to Bucks Instagram page. In a Facebook comment, the restaurant revealed the three-course meal would feature bone-in wings, mac and cheese, tacos and tater kegs.

Tickets are on sale for $65, and $10 from each ticket will go to the pantry, according to Panarelli.

People are best to come when they can for sure, Panarelli said. I dont foresee myself doing more but who knows.

Opened in 2018 at 62 Green St., Buckss menu focused on beer, burgers and other bar foods. Panarelli said the restaurant was very community-focused. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the restaurant donated 3,000 meals to hospitals, rehab centers, nursing homes, police departments, ambulance services and other essential service employees.

We continued to provide people with great food at reasonable prices, Panarelli said. Our local craft beer and whiskey lists were stellar and very popular.

After the pandemic, Panarelli said, running the restaurant was exhausting due to rising costs and staffing issues. As a result, Bucks was closed in 2022 and the Femme Bar, a lesbian bar, opened on the site.

I am so happy with how they transformed the place, Panarelli said of the Femme Bar.

Panarelli comes from a family that has been in the restaurant and catering business for generations, including involvement with the Lakeside Bar and Grille in Shrewsbury. Panarelli, now in the real estate business, still caters to longtime customers of Bucks and special events.

Its a mix of Bucks and my familys Italian dishes, Panarelli told MassLive. Chicken Parm is my favorite but the most popular recipe is my dads meatballs. He took the catering aspect to a whole new level.

Tickets for the bar dinner can be purchased here.
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On October 27, The Guardian newspaper featured an article under the heading Simon Harris says lack of infrastructure could become a drag on Irelands competitiveness.

The Taoiseachs diagnosis was that the time had come to cut through bureaucracy  and other things that stifle the delivery of infrastructure, mainly in housing, transport, health and energy. The message the Taoiseach wanted to convey was that unnamed bureaucrats and other things prevented his government from acting in a timely and decisive fashion to address these challenges.

It does not appear to have occurred to the Taoiseach that these barriers are located within the governance system of which he is the leader. So, spare us the egregious buck-passing. If you are Taoiseach, you own the problems and are responsible for producing solutions.

The Taoiseach was not announcing something that would take anybody by surprise. He was merely stating the obvious  and he is a member of a political party that has been in government since 2011, in coalition with Labour, Fianna Fail and the Greens at different times. Our current economic problems have become ever more serious and policy responses have done little to address them effectively.

Meanwhile, other EU member states (Spain, Estonia, Poland, Czechia) have powered ahead from a level of income much lower than Irelands, and are now mounting a serious challenge to the Irish development model built on a constant inflow of foreign direct investment that requires efficient infrastructure. Yet, the Taoiseach spoke as if he were a member of the opposition whose job it is to criticise the Government but who is powerless to implement policy.

Bizarre aspect

A bizarre aspect of this sorry saga is the report issued by the Fiscal Advisory Council (FAC) in October (Irelands Infrastructure Demands). The FAC was set up in the aftermath of the 2008 economic collapse with a mandate to encourage moderation  indeed, frugality  in public expenditure. So, when this body highlights yawning deficits in our infrastructure, and recommends that they be addressed by increased public investment, you know that we are in a really bad place.

Cutting to the chase, the FAC compared Irelands infrastructure to other high-income European countries and found that a common story emerges. Irelands national capital stock  a measure of its overall infrastructure  was well below average in the mid-1990s, and while some progress was made, our infrastructure remains 25 percent lower than average for high-income European countries. And we all know that the comparison for our Northern and Western region is certain to be even more dire.

So, with 18 government departments, vast resources of the civil service, augmented by multitudes of state bodies like TII, TFI, Uisce, Iarnrod Eireann, etc, assisted by an even larger array of private consultancy firms (Arup, EY, PWC, Accenture, etc), we have ended up with a serious infrastructure crisis that makes nonsense of the governments own national development plan: Project Ireland 2040. Yet the problem is diagnosed as excessive red tape and other things. I think that there is less going on here than meets the eye!

Telling contrast

By way of contrast, turn back to the decade that followed Irish independence in 1922. After a disastrous civil war, the state was almost bankrupt and a massive share of public expenditure was needed to establish and maintain law and order. The new states infrastructure had been trashed and in a rapidly modernising world, massive action was needed in areas like electricity generation.

In 1923, Thomas McLaughlin, an engineer, approached the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Patrick McGilligan, with a proposal for an ambitious hydroelectric project based on harnessing the Shannon. Given those times, this must have seemed like a proposal to launch a project to land on the moon.

In September 1924, the German firm Siemens was selected as the main contractor (much to the annoyance of the British press!) and the government appointed a team of experts from Norway and Switzerland to check its viability. It caused considerable political controversy, as the cost of 5.2 million was a fifth of the new states entire 2025 budget of 25 million. The equivalent share today would be 25 billion.

A completion time limit of three-and-a-half years was written into the contract, with penalty clauses for failure of adherence to this deadline. In 1925, Siemens started work on what was then the largest hydroelectric scheme in the world, with Dr McLaughlin as managing director. In 1927, the ESB was established and took control of the scheme and electricity supply and generation generally.

The Shannon Scheme was officially opened on July 22, 1929. One of the largest engineering projects of its day, it served as a model for large-scale electrification projects worldwide. Operated by the ESB, it had an immediate impact on the social, economic and industrial development of Ireland. By 1935, it was producing 80 percent of Irelandd electricity, a share that fell gradually over the years as other plants were built.

In view of what they achieved so effectively and with such limited resources, I believe that the ministers of that first government of our state and their pioneering engineer experts would be shocked at the lethargy, lack of vision and incompetence of our government today.

 John Bradley is a former ESRI professor and has published on the island economy of Ireland, EU development policy, industrial strategy and economic modelling.
The beauty products just keep on coming. Some are wildly expensive, but there are plenty affordable offerings that could make a great Christmas gift or just a lovely treat to self. Here are a few that caught my eye.

Skincare

Although Im well aware of the popularity of skincare devices among TikTokers and influencers, I dont often write about them, as I never use them. They also tend to be very expensive, which makes them a bit prohibitive for us normal folk. However, I was greatly impressed recently when I read that German holistic beauty/tech brand Geske is offering salon-quality treatments for a fraction of the cost.

The Geske Limited Edition MicroCurrent Face Lift Pen in Starlight (39.95) claims to instantly smooth out fine lines around eyes, mouth and forehead. It stimulates over 65 muscles in your neck and face to tighten and tone skin. Use it daily for five minutes, they say, for tighter, brighter skin. I remember using Slendertone years ago  it sounds quite similar. Unfortunately, I never waited long enough for visible results, as the pain nearly killed me! Hopefully, the new technology overcomes this. The Geske Pen would make a lovely little gift for someone, without breaking the bank.

Bridgets Mantle is an artisan organic skincare range made in Co Meath. Their beauty face creams, spritzes and serum products use the very top quality natural ingredients in a sustainable way. Its just wonderful to see so many homegrown brands entering the beauty and skincare market. The Best Sellers Gift Set, a pack of three of their best-selling products, retails for 54, which is wonderful value.

Eyebrows

Another great Irish brand, Sadies Secrets (sadies-secrets.com), offers an at-home, no-rinse anti-aging eyebrow tint that covers grey and light hairs instantly (29.95). It comes in two shades, one lighter, one darker. You can keep building until you get the desired effect, and it lasts ages. Its also cruelty free, vegan friendly and sustainably packaged.

My problem with eyebrow tints, though, is that you need brows to begin with, as the tint grabs the little hairs. Sadly, I dont have much eyebrow due to vigorous over-plucking in my youth, so the result isnt great for me.

A cheaper alternative if youre an eyebrow virgin is NYX. They offer five shades in their eyebrow tinted gel  more than some pricier brands. The offerings for blonde and brown hair are spot-on, and the gel formula holds just as well as anything more expensive. For 9, its a bargain for groomed and defined eyebrows brow.

Facial oil

I love a nice facial oil and always use one from September through to April for skin nourishment. When using face oil at night, remember that oils can stain your pillow. I have an older pillowcase that I put on over my good pillow, which works a treat.

Byoma Hydrating Recovery Oil (17) is a great value oil, especially if you tend to have dry skin. Its lightweight formula containing gorgeous ingredients like rosehip and jojoba absorbs quickly. This always gets fantastic reviews.

But wait till I tell you what Ive been using for the past couple of months! Castor oil. Yes, you read that right. Lots of magazines and beauty features have been extolling its virtues, so I thought Id give it a go. I got the organic one in the chemist and mixed it with some almond oil, as castor oil tends to be very thick. Im in love. My skin feels healthy and well moisturised. Ive heard all sorts of claims about its capacity to removal of wrinkles, but Im honestly not interested in that, as I just dont believe it. My skin just feels wonderfully hydrated.

 Maggie Gibbons is an image and style consultant based in Louisburgh, Co Mayo. She can be contacted at living@mayonews.ie.
A local county councillor has called for Paddington Bears perch on Westports Fairgreen to be lit up.

Cllr Peter Flynn suggested that a Westport Tidy Towns monument located in front of the statue should be lit up to maximise Paddingtons visibility during the winter months.

Ive never seen it lit up. Apparently, someone unplugged it and it hasnt gone back in again, Cllr Flynn said at the Westport-Belmullet Municipal District budget meeting.

Really something should be done, because people will come from far and wide, particularly with the film, he added, referring to the recently-released Paddingont in Peru.

The Westport Paddington statue is one of 23 scattered around Ireland and the United Kingdom to promote the third in a series of live-action films starring Paddington Bear.

Thousands of people have visited the statue since it was officially opened at The Fairgreen last month. Repair works were recently carried out on the surrounding attraction due to the damage incurred from the number of visitors it has drawn. It has also been confirmed that it will remain there for the foreseeable future.

Joanne Grehan, Mayo County Councils Director of Services for Tourism, said before the start of the Westport-Belmullet Municipal District budget meeting that you could not buy the publicity that Paddington has generated for the West Mayo town.
The Leonid meteor shower will peak on Sunday, with up to 15 meteors an hour expected to grace the night sky.

The Leonid meteors are often brighter and more colourful than regular shooting stars. Source: Getty

Look up this weekend and you might just catch a glimpse of something remarkable. Faster and more brilliant than regular shooting stars, the Leonid meteor shower is making its annual return.

Monash University astronomer Associate Professor Dr Michael Brown said Aussies can expect to see different colours streaking across the sky. The colour reflects the composition of the meteor. So depending on what elements you have in the grain of dust that hits the atmosphere, you'll see that in the colours of the meteor, he told Yahoo News.

While you might be able to spot the odd meteor now, the showers peak is expected to be November 17 and 18. Its then you can expect to see up to 15 an hour.

Everything you didn't know about the Leonid meteors

Most Leonid meteors are between 1 mm and 1 cm in diameter.

While most meteors don't make a sound, hissing sounds have been reported with some larger ones.

During the 1833 storm, there were reports of 100,000 meteors an hour. And in 1966 thousands hit in 15 minutes.

A burst of Leonid meteors was photographed at 11,582 metres in 1999. Source: NASA/Ames Research Center/ISAS/Shinsuke Abe and Hajime Yano

Where can I see the Leonid meteor shower?

The Leonid meteor shower, as its name suggests, will appear as it is coming away from the constellation Leo. Brown suggests using a phone app to locate it in the sky, and watching from a place with as little light pollution as possible, ideally in the early hours of the morning.

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They come in at 70 kilometres a second, so we can get some really bright meteors, Brown said.

The Leonid shower is caused by the dust trail from the comet Tempel-Tuttle. So each year, when Earth passes through the comets orbit, we get a meteor shower, Brown said.

Those of us lucky enough to have witnessed the 2002 Leonid storm remember seeing clusters of bright green meteors streaking across the sky. But this year wont be as brilliant because storms like that only occur every 33 years when the Earth passes through a dense part of the dust trail.

The next storm will be in 2035.

Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment?  Get our new newsletter showcasing the weeks best stories.
by Colin Kirkland , November 13, 2024

In line with its recent holiday pushes, TikTok is continuing to prioritize its in-app livestream shopping initiatives this upcoming season with various in-app celebrity-led shopping experiences, as well as exclusive sales and discounts from major brands.

Similar to its fall promotions launch, TikTok is using deals and celebrity-led experiences to garner interest around in-stream shipping among U.S. consumers as the ByteDance-owned company tries to grow its U.S. Shop business to $17.5 billion by the end of the year.

Between November 13 and December 2, encompassing both Black Friday and Cyber Monday, TikTok Shop will be calling upon the app's most successful creators to host live shopping events. For example, the DAmelio Family will be featuring products from their own footwear company on November 14 and Nicki Minaj will be selling products from her brand Pink Friday Nails on November 24.

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The company will also be using its live ecommerce format to showcase a range of major brands and discounts for curious users looking for an immersive shopping experience as well as holiday deals.

Brand Palooza, which will run from November 13-28, will feature TikTok Shop experiences from brands like Phillips, Maybelline NY, Benefit Cosmetics, Liquid IV, HeyDude, Fenty Beauty, and The Ordinary Store, with deals up to 55% off.

To help persuade customers who are new to live shopping, TikTok says it will also be extending the return window for purchases made during the event, allowing shoppers to return items through February 10.

Compared to its Chinese counterpart Douyin, TikTok Shop is nowhere near as popular or profitable (Douyin generated over $500 billion in product sales last year), but it has shown increased spending over the past couple of years, growing 15% year-over-year in 2023.

And as it attempts to gain widespread adoption, TikTok Shop has begun to cut into ecommerce giants overall ad revenue.

According to Sensor Tower, TikTok represented 5% of Amazon ad spend in Q3 2024 vs. 4% the year prior.

The company's ecommerce effort has also sparked competition within the social-media space, with every leading social platform including YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Meta's family of apps now building out their own social commerce initiatives, marking a new way for brands to sell as the holiday season arrives.
Surveillance footage has revealed the search for a 95-year-old woman in the hour before she was fatally tasered by a police officer in a rural nursing home.

Clare Nowland died of injuries sustained when Senior Constable Kristian White discharged his Taser at her chest in Yallambee Lodge nursing home in Cooma on May 17.

The police officer is facing trial in the NSW Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to manslaughter over the great-grandmothers death.

The Crown alleges he breached his duty of care to Mrs Nowland and caused her unlawful death by either criminal negligence or a dangerous act.

The 34-year-old does not dispute that he deployed his weapon and it caused Mrs Nowlands death, but his lawyers maintain it was a proportionate reaction to the risk she posed by holding a knife.

CCTV shows Clare Nowland out of sight of arriving officers. Source: NCA NewsWire

The jury has heard Mrs Nowland was carrying two knives and using a walking frame to wander around the nursing home after 3am.

She entered the rooms of four of her fellow nursing home residents during that two hour period and refused to put down the knives when asked.

The court heard the 95-year-old had become uncharacteristically aggressive in recent months, which a geriatrician told the court could be attributed to her undiagnosed dementia.

In the early hours of May 17, the jury was told Mrs Nowland threw a knife at one of the nursing assistants, which landed on the floor, and also held a knife towards nurse Rosaline Baker.

I was kind of concerned, not knowing whether she was really going to attack me or not, Ms Baker told the court on Tuesday.

Every time (I asked) her to give me the knife, she was pointing it to me.

The nurse called triple-0 for assistance with Mrs Nowland, whom she described as very aggressive during the call.

An ambulance was dispatched and police were notified due to the presence of knives.

Yet when paramedics and officers arrived, Mrs Nowland could not be located.

A lengthy search of the nursing home grounds ensued, which has been captured on the homes surveillance footage.

Mrs Nowland can be seen ambling slowly through the home in her pink pyjamas before she enters the office where she would later be fatally tasered by Constable White.

Read more here.
by Wayne Friedman , November 14, 2024

Paramount Global is looking for a 50% reduction in the price for Nielsen measurement services -- a deal the measurement company says is unsustainable, according to a letter written to clients, obtained by Television News Daily.

We have heard loud and clear that the current lack of an agreement has created unfortunate turbulence for many of you, Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao writes to media agency and advertising executives.

Rao adds: Contrary to what Paramount has shared, we are not seeking 'substantial price increases' in our proposal. We are simply aiming to maintain fair value for the quality of our servicesservices that are empirically better than at any point in our history.

He says: Unfortunately, Paramount is demanding a nearly 50% reduction in the price of our service. This not only undervalues our substantial investments, but makes it unsustainable to provide the support and quality that all Nielsen clients rely upon.

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Nielsen representatives had no comment in reference to the current situation.

Paramount and Nielsen have been at odds over a renewal of a long-term contract that ended in September.

Paramount Global dropped Nielsen -- its main viewer measurement currency -- at the end of September, due to what it says are the measurement companys soaring pricing demands.

At that time, a Paramount statement said: Nielsen has severed our long-standing measurement partnership with its unacceptable demands, including substantial price increases that are inconsistent with the realities of a changing industry.

Paramount has a current deal with VideoAmp to offer advertisers alternative viewership data. For the last four months, it has been ramping up that companys efforts for its advertiser clients in anticipation of a possible Nielsen stalemate.

Nielsen is the longtime third-party TV data-measurement company that advertisers have counted on for decades to finalize their media schedules.
by Sarah Mahoney @mahoney_sarah, November 14, 2024

Saks holiday campaign

The thousands of New Yorkers who enjoy Saks Fifth Avenues annual -- and extravagant -- holiday light shows got some unexpected Grinchy news: no light show this year.

As recently as Oc. 15, the retailer hyped the annual light show, presented by MasterCard, in press materials. Saks confirmed the cancellation to the New York Post, saying the move was due to a challenging year for luxury.

In recent weeks, leading luxury companies like LVMH, which owns Tiffany, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, and Kering, which owns Gucci, posted sound-the-alarm sales declines.

Saks cost-cutting move comes even as the retailer released the latest findings from the Saks Luxury Pulse research, with 82% of the luxury consumers who are celebrating the holidays saying they intend to spend the same or more on holiday shopping this year, a seven percentage point increase from the 2023 survey.

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The research also detects increased eagerness to start shopping, with 70% of luxury consumers saying theyll begin before Thanksgiving, up 14 percentage points. Most -- 64% -- prefer online shopping. Among millennial respondents, that preference rises to 70%. Saks says the exceptions are home decor and fine jewelry, when most people like to shop in person.

Were pleased to see the increased enthusiasm around this years holiday shopping season and look forward to meeting customers with equally exciting shopping experiences across Saks Fifth Avenue, said Emily Essner, chief marketing officer, in the survey release. The holidays are a special time for the Saks Fifth Avenue brand, and in its 100th year, we are energized by the opportunity to further strengthen our customer relationships, deliver an inspiring luxury assortment and provide the personalized level of service for which Saks is known.

Travel plans are also increasing, with 53% planning a holiday trip. (That rises to 57% for younger people.) Of all ages planning a getaway, 31% plan to travel more than last year. Theyre also partying more, with 77% intending to attend a holiday gathering, 11 percentage points more than last holiday season.

While losing the Saks light show is a bummer for the companys holiday fan club, traditionalists can soothe themselves with the latest John Lewis ad from across the pond. Consumers in the U.K., who seem to accord the annual ad reveal event with the reverence Americans pay to Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade, are already devouring The Gifting Hour, which features a Narnia-esque sibling story.
A strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae, previously identified in the United States, is a common cause of hospital infections and is resistant to all available antibiotics.

  Trusted Source

Global epidemiological trend of Klebsiella pneumoniae ST340: emergence of subclade KL15 co-producing K pneumoniae carbapenemase-2 and New Delhi metallo--lactamase-7 in the Americas



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Did You Know?

According to WHO, the median reported rates of antimicrobial resistance in 76 countries42% for third-generation cephalosporin-resistant E. coli and 35% for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureusare a major concern. #medindia #antimicrobialresistance #globalhealth

According to WHO, the median reported rates of antimicrobial resistance in 76 countries42% for third-generation cephalosporin-resistant E. coli and 35% for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureusare a major concern. #medindia #antimicrobialresistance #globalhealth

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Potential Global Endemic Threat

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OneBR: A Key Resource on Critical Priority Pathogens

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Risks of Secondary Infections in Hospitalized Patients

Favored by the Pandemic

Emerging Resistance Trend Poses Serious Public Health Threat

Approved Combinations for Carbapenem-Resistant Infections

Standard Protocol for Diagnosing Bacterial Infections in Hospitalized Patients

Patient Adherence to Full Antibiotic Courses to Prevent Resistance

Global epidemiological trend of Klebsiella pneumoniae ST340: emergence of subclade KL15 co-producing K pneumoniae carbapenemase-2 and New Delhi metallo--lactamase-7 in the Americas - (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(24)00258-1/fulltext)

In 2022, a strain ofisolated from an 86-year-old woman with a urinary infection in Brazil's Northeast region was found to be resistant to all available antibiotics. The patient passed away 24 hours after being admitted to the hospital ().A team of researchers funded by FAPESP(Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo) sequenced the genome of the bacterium and compared it with a database of 48 similar sequences. Worryingly, the analysis revealed that the strain had been previously identified in the United States, was already circulating in Brazil, and had the potential to spread globally.An article on the study is published inThe bacterium is so versatile that it adapts to changes in treatment, easily acquiring resistance mechanisms not targeted by existing drugs either singly or in combination. It could become endemic to healthcare facilities worldwide, said Nilton Lincopan, last author of the article and a professor at the University of Sao Paulos Biomedical Sciences Institute (ICB-USP) in Brazil.Lincopan runs One Health Brazilian Resistance (OneBR), a database with epidemiological, phenotypical, and genomic data on bacteria classified as critical priority pathogens by the World Health Organization (WHO).This classification encompasses bacteria for which few therapeutic options are available, that merit containment measures to prevent dissemination, and that should be prioritized for research and development of novel antimicrobials.OneBRs database currently holdsof human and animal pathogens.The OneBR platform is supported by FAPESP, the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, an arm of the Brazilian government) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.Health services are required to notify the local epidemiological surveillance authority when multidrug-resistant strains like this are detected. The patient must be isolated, and all health workers involved must take extra precautions to prevent transmission of the pathogen to other patients.As an opportunistic pathogen, the bacterium may not cause disease in patients with normal immunity, but in people with low immunity, it can cause severe infections. In the hospital environment, patients in intensive care units [ICUs] or being treated for other diseases can acquire a secondary infection such as pneumonia. With no treatment available and with a depressed immune system, they often die, Lincopan said.The authors note that a rapid increase in pan-beta-lactam-resistantco-producing carbapenemases was observed across Latin America and the Caribbean during the COVID-19 pandemic. Carbapenemases are enzymes that hydrolyze most antimicrobial compounds, making them ineffective. Beta-lactams are the most widely used class of antibiotics.The spread of these bacteria was reported to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and WHO, which issued an epidemiological alert.A global genomic analysis published recently by a group led by Fabio Sellera, a professor at the Metropolitan University of Santos (UNIMES) in Brazil, also reported rapid growth in multidrug-resistant bacteria, stressing that the high prevalence ofstrains indicates a novel resistance trend and a serious public health threat.An antibiotic combining a third-generation cephalosporin, ceftazidime, with a new beta-lactamase inhibitor, avibactam, was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2015 and is indicated for treatment ofcarbapenemase (KPC)-producing bacteria.Ceftazidime/avibactam was approved by ANVISA, the Brazilian equivalent of the FDA, in 2018 given the large number of reported KPC infections.Hospitalization of people with COVID-19 associated with secondary infections by this type of bacterium probably led to a global increase in the use of ceftazidime/avibactam, favoring the emergence of strains resistant to this new antibiotic, Lincopan said.The standard procedure for patients hospitalized with suspected bacterial infections would be to collect clinical material for confirmation of the diagnosis and testing of susceptibility to the different antimicrobials available.KPC-producing strains treated with ceftazidime/avibactam probably evolved rapidly, acquiring resistance to this latest therapeutic option. We now have carbapenemase co-producing strains that dont respond to treatment with beta-lactams, he said.Besides the need for permanent monitoring of the pathogenic bacteria found in hospitals, the researchers also stress the importance of rational prescribing of antibiotics. The message for patients is that when antibiotics are prescribed, they must adhere to the full course of treatment even if they feel well after two or three days. This will also avoid the emergence of more drug-resistant strains.Source-Eurekalert
Marines with Skin Condition Affecting Mostly Black Men Could Now Be Booted Under New Policy

A new Marine Corps policy says troops with a genetic skin condition that can cause pain and scarring from shaving and mainly...
WASHINGTON  President-elect Donald Trump has tapped former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be the next director of national intelligence, a powerful position that sits atop the nation's spy agencies and acts as the president's top intelligence adviser.

Gabbard is a veteran who served for more than two decades but doesn't have the typical intelligence experience of past officeholders. She left the Democratic Party in 2022 and endorsed Trump earlier this year, becoming popular among his supporters.

Here are a few things to know about Gabbard:

She was the first Hindu elected to Congress

Gabbard, 43, was born in the U.S. territory of American Samoa, raised in Hawaii and spent a year of her childhood in the Philippines. She was first elected as a 21-year-old to Hawaii's House of Representatives but had to leave after one term when her National Guard unit deployed to Iraq.

She was later elected to Congress representing Hawaii. As the first Hindu member of the House, Gabbard was sworn into office with her hand on the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu devotional work. She was also the first American Samoan elected to Congress.

During her four House terms she became known for speaking out against her party's leadership. Her early support for Sen. Bernie Sanders  2016 Democratic presidential primary run made her a popular figure in progressive politics nationally.

Gabbard is married to cinematographer Abraham Williams. Her father, Mike Gabbard, is a state senator who was first elected as a Republican but who switched parties to become a Democrat.

She ran for president  then left her party

Gabbard sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 on a progressive platform and her opposition to U.S. involvement in foreign military conflicts.

Citing her military experience, she argued that U.S. wars in the Middle East had destabilized the region, made the U.S. less safe and cost thousands of American lives. She blamed her own party for not opposing the wars. During one primary debate, she criticized then-Sen. Kamala Harris record as a prosecutor.

Gabbard later dropped out of the race and endorsed the ultimate winner, President Joe Biden.

Two years later she left the Democratic Party to become an independent, saying her old party was dominated by an elitist cabal of warmongers and woke ideologues. She subsequently campaigned for several high-profile Republicans, became a contributor to Fox News and started a podcast.

Todays Democratic Party is unrecognizable from the party I joined 20 years ago," she said when explaining her decision.

She's a star in Trump world

Gabbard endorsed Trump earlier this year, and her support quickly made her popular among Trump's supporters.

Often appearing alongside Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  who challenged Biden for the Democratic nomination before transitioning to an independent bid, then ultimately endorsing Trump  Gabbard represented what Trump argued was his appeal across the political spectrum.

Gabbard helped Trump prep for his own debate against Harris this year. In October, while stumping with Trump at a rally in North Carolina, she announced that she was officially becoming a Republican, calling the current Democratic Party completely unrecognizable compared to the one of which she had been a member.

Trump has given both Gabbard and Kennedy roles in his presidential transition, potentially giving them the influence to help staff his administration and shape the policies the federal bureaucracy would pursue if he returns to the White House.

She's a veteran, but not an intelligence insider

Gabbard has served in the Army National Guard for more than two decades and deployed to Iraq and Kuwait.

She received a Combat Medical Badge in 2005 for participation in combat operations under enemy hostile fire in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom III, the Hawaii National Guard said.

Unlike past directors, she hasn't held any senior government roles. She served for two years on the House Homeland Security Committee.

The current director, Avril Haines, was confirmed by the Senate in 2021 following several years in a number of top national security and intelligence positions. Haines was the first woman to serve in the position.

She'll oversee Trump's possible intelligence overhaul

Trump has said he wants to overhaul the nation's intelligence services  a sector of the federal government he has long viewed with suspicion and distrust. The president-elect has blamed U.S. intelligence agencies of seeking to undermine his first administration as well as his campaigns.

He's also characterized the intelligence community as part of the deep state, his term for thousands of civil servants who work at a long list of government agencies and who Trump has never viewed as sufficiently loyal.

We will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus, and there are plenty of them, Trump said in 2023 while laying out his priorities for a second term. The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled.

The office of the director was created in 2004 as part of a series of changes to U.S. intelligence following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Lawmakers hoped that the new office would prevent intelligence failures by streamlining interagency cooperation.

The office played a key role in the governments efforts to identify and expose efforts by Russia, China and Iran to spread false and misleading claims about voting and democracy ahead of last weeks U.S. election. Other divisions focus on cyberthreats, counterterrorism and counterespionage.
WASHINGTON  President Joe Biden will hold talks Saturday with China's Xi Jinping on the sidelines of an international summit in Peru, a face-to-face meeting that comes as Beijing braces for Donald Trump's return to the White House.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the meeting will take place while the two leaders are in Lima for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. That will come just over two months before Trump's inauguration.

Sullivan was opaque about how Biden and administration officials will answer expected questions from Xi and his aides about the incoming Trump administration.

Transitions are uniquely consequential moments in geopolitics. Theyre a time when competitors and adversaries can see possibly opportunity, Sullivan said. And so part of what President Biden will communicate is that we need to maintain stability, clarity, predictability through this transition between the United States and China.

During his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump promised to slap blanket 60% tariffs on all Chinese exports to the U.S., a move that would jolt the already tumultuous relationship between Beijing and Washington.

Washington and Beijing have long had deep differences on the support China has given to Russia during its war in Ukraine, human rights issues, technology and Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy that Beijing claims as its own. A second Trump administration is expected to test U.S.-China relations even more than the Republican's first term, when the U.S. imposed tariffs on more than $360 billion in Chinese products.

That brought Beijing to the negotiating table, and in 2020, the two sides signed a trade deal in which China committed to improve intellectual property rights and buy an extra $200 billion of American goods. A couple of years later, a research group showed that China had bought essentially none of the goods it had promised.

The White House has been working for months to arrange a final meeting between Xi and Biden before the Democrat leaves office in January.

Sullivan traveled to Beijing in late August to meet with his Chinese counterpart and also sat down with Xi. After that, Sullivan indicated that there could be a final meeting between Xi and Biden at APEC or at next week's summit of the Group of 20 top economies in Rio de Janeiro, which both leaders are scheduled to attend.

Biden has sought to maintain a steady relationship with Xi even as his administration repeatedly has raised concerns about what it sees as malign actions by Beijing.

U.S. intelligence officials have assessed China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine. The administration last month imposed sanctions against two Chinese companies accused of directly helping Russia build long-range attack drones used against Ukraine.

Tensions flared last year after Biden ordered the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States. And the Biden administration has criticized Chinese military assertiveness toward Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan.

On the campaign trail, Trump spoke of his personal connection with Xi, which started out well during his first term before becoming strained over disputes about trade and the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a congratulatory message to Trump after his victory over Harris, Xi called for the U.S. and China to manage their differences and get along in a new era, according to Chinese state media.

Biden, for his part, is expected in the meeting with Xi to focus on efforts to stem the flow of Chinese-manufactured chemicals used to make fentanyl, concerns about Beijing's indirect support for Russia's war in Ukraine, cybersecurity concerns and the importance of maintaining military-to-military communications.

Sullivan added that he expected that Biden would also raise an ongoing U.S. investigation into an alleged Chinese hacker operation targeting cellphones used by Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, and people associated with the Harris campaign.

Saturday's talks will be the third meeting between Biden and Xi during Biden's presidency. They met in Woodside, California, last November on the sidelines of the 2023 APEC summit, and the leaders last spoke by phone in April.

Sullivan also announced that Biden while at APEC will hold a joint meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japan's new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba.

That meeting is a follow-up on the historic Camp David summit Biden hosted in August 2023 with Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Biden has nu dged the United States two closest Asian allies to further tighten security and economic cooperation with each other amid their shared concerns about North Korea's nuclear provocations as well as China's military and economic assertiveness in the Pacific.

The historic rivals have been divided by differing views of World War II history and Japans colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
A Colombian man allegedly locked people in cupboards for several days and took control of their passports and earnings in Adelaides inner north.

The 38-year-old, who lived in Kilburn, allegedly helped members of a youth group he used to lead in Venezuela to migrate to Australia in 2015, with another group member also moving to Australia in 2016.

However, once they arrived in Australia police will allege the man took control of their passports and earnings, tracked their movements, restricted daily activity, and forced victims to pay off debts that were unreasonably enforced in whats been described as ongoing cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

Police allege he isolated the victims from family and friends and restricted or oversaw their private messages to loved ones while also locking them out of the group home or inside cupboards for several days.

The man allegedly helped youth group members from Venezuela to migrate to Australia in 2015. Picture: AFP

Australian Federal Police Detective Superintendent Melinda Adam said servitude practices, including debt bondage, take place when people are subjected to conditions to which they had not agreed.

Victims are significantly deprived of personal freedom in all aspects of their life, and threats, coercion or deception are often used against them, Superintendent Adam said.

Offenders usually benefit or profit off vulnerable people who cannot, or will not, report exploitative conditions out of fear of retribution by perpetrators, social isolation and financial dependence on offenders.

A search warrant was executed at the mans Kilburn home on Thursday. The man was arrested and AFP investigators seized electronic devices and documentation. He is facing several charges and is expected to front court today.

Read more here.
Of all the Central Intelligence Agency secrets revealed to the world by the so-called Church Committee of the 1970s, perhaps none captured the American public's imagination as vividly as the agency's "heart attack gun."

During the Cold War, there was almost nothing the CIA wouldn't do to get a leg up on the Soviet Union, from simple operations like intercepting and reading the mail of American citizens to more serious (and equally illegal) acts like dosing "unwitting, nonvoluntary human subjects" with LSD and seeing how well they would hold up to interrogation. We know about these secret efforts because Congress investigated the agency, as well as the FBI, National Security Agency and IRS, in 1975 and released its findings to the American public. The results of the investigation were, to put it lightly, alarming.

Led by Idaho Sen. Frank Church, the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities that became known as the Church Committee was sparked by a series of startling revelations in the early 1970s. First, a whistleblower revealed the Army was spying on American citizens at home. Almost as soon as the dust from that discovery settled, The New York Times published a story that found the CIA had been spying on Americans for decades, keeping files on some 10,000 Americans it suspected of being foreign agents -- including at least one member of Congress.

The Church Committee soon uncovered the CIA's robust assassination program, targeting anti-American leaders such as Congo's Patrice Lumumba, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem, Gen. Rene Schneider of Chile and, famously, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who survived numerous CIA assassination attempts.

But if the agency was going to kill world leaders, it couldn't look like an assassination, of course. The CIA needed the perfect weapon, and it found one in shellfish. Once extracted, the potent neurotoxin could be frozen and fired from a pistol, killing its victim with what appeared to be a heart attack. In a 1975 public hearing, Sen. Church showed the CIA's "heart attack gun" to the world.

The weapon itself resembled a Colt M1911 pistol with a scope, but it didn't fire .45-caliber bullets. Instead, it fired a frozen pellet of saxitoxin, a poisonous substance derived from shellfish that consumed toxic algae blooms. The pellet could be silently fired up to 100 meters away and would enter the body through a pinprick entry wound. The poison would then melt, and within minutes, the victim would be dead.

Weaponized saxitoxin was the discovery of Mary Embree, who joined the CIA right after leaving high school in the 1960s. She began her career as a secretary, working to create small electronics and deliver passports and other documents to field agents. She was later moved to a project known as MKNaomi, with a mission that included stockpiling "severely incapacitating and lethal materials for the specific use of the Technical Services Division" -- the agency's source for the specialized devices used in their spy operations. Her job was to find a poison that was undetectable, and saxitoxin was the silver bullet the CIA was looking for.

Though Embree discovered the right poison, the CIA still needed a delivery method that would allow an operative to literally get away with murder. Dr. Nathan Gordon, a researcher at Fort Detrick, Maryland, discovered that mixing the toxin with water and freezing it would allow a poison dart the width of a human hair and a quarter of an inch long to be fired from a modified M1911.

Once in the body, the victim experiences paralytic shellfish poisoning, which can present as a tingling sensation, followed by shortness of breath, abdominal pain, choking and lack of coordination. The victim is paralyzed before dying of respiratory failure in a process that can take seconds. The only evidence of foul play would be a small red puncture wound, one not easily found by a coroner not looking for it. The cause of death would appear to be a heart attack, even to a medical examiner.

The heart attack gun wasn't a uniquely American invention: The KGB, the Soviet Union's secretive intelligence and internal security force, had a similar poison weapon. Bohdan Stashinsky, one of the KGB's hired guns, was known to have murdered two Ukrainian anti-Soviet activists, Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera, in the 1950s with a gun that sprayed cyanide in their faces, causing death within minutes. Their causes of death both looked like heart attacks. The CIA learned their true causes of death when Stashinsky eventually defected to the West in 1961.

The CIA's heart attack gun wasn't just shocking because it was a clandestine weapon of targeted assassination. President Richard Nixon had imposed a ban on biological weapons in 1969 and ordered the CIA to destroy its stockpiles of poisons such as saxitoxin. Gordon claimed he never received such an order. Others said the poisons were warehoused by CIA men who believed in the program. Enough saxitoxin to kill some 5,000 people eventually found its way into a storage room at CIA headquarters. (MKNaomi was formally halted in 1970, according to The New York Times.)

It was none other than then-CIA Director William Colby himself who brought the famed heart attack gun to the infamous congressional hearing in 1975, describing it in clinical language as a "nondiscernible microbionoculator." Although he detailed how it could be used, he never revealed if or when it was ever used.

The Church Committee's findings eventually led President Gerald Ford to sign an executive order forbidding employees of the United States government to "engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." In the end, the CIA would just have to figure out how to eliminate its foreign adversaries without directly contributing to their deaths -- as it did in Afghanistan, Argentina, Poland, Chad, Nicaragua and elsewhere.

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Title: Unlocking the Power of Google: The Founders Vision of a Future Internet







(The Founders of Google: Who Made It All Possible)

Im excited to share with you some insights into the story behind the birth of Google. From the early days of John AdSense, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page to their humble beginnings in University, Google has grown into one of the most influential technology companies of our time.

According to legend, Googles founders were driven by the desire to revolutionize the way people communicate, work, and interact online. They believed that if we could create a single platform for all forms of communication, the world would be forever changed.

Googles vision was to build a platform that allowed users to easily connect with each other from anywhere in the world, regardless of their location or internet connection. This vision came true when Larry Page created the first version of Google, called Larry Page Space. He had always been fascinated by space exploration and wanted to use it to develop a more powerful platform.

In 1998, Larry Page built a small team of three people atford University to develop his dream platform. The team consisted of him, Iain Planning, and Paul Bergman. They worked tirelessly to make their vision a reality, but faced many challenges along the way.

Despite numerous setbacks and obstacles, they persevered, and their hard work paid off. In 2003, Larry Page released Google Web Explorer, which became the go-to web browser for millions of people around the world. Today, Google is known for its powerful search engine, social media platforms, and other innovative technologies that have transformed the way we live, work, and communicate online.

The founders of Google have always been humble in their approach to innovation, believing that success is not just about making money, but also about creating something truly valuable to humanity. They continue to push the boundaries of what can be achieved through technology, and their vision remains the same today as it was when they first launched their company.

Looking back on Googles journey, its clear that they were not alone in their quest to create a better future for the world. Their vision, combined with hard work, perseverance, and creativity, have helped shape the technology industry as we know it today. Whether youre a seasoned entrepreneur or simply someone new to the field, Google has given us endless inspiration and guidance.







(The Founders of Google: Who Made It All Possible)

So, if youre looking for an example of how the power of technology can be used to change the world, look no further than Google. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post, and may your future continue to be filled with excitement and innovation.

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if you want to want to know more, please feel free to contact us. ([email protected])
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  A Grand Rapids man was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for sex trafficking a minor, sexually exploiting the minor, and distributing child pornography.

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan Mark Totten announced on Wednesday, Nov. 13, that Terrence Donte Clay, 39, was sentenced to 300 months behind bars. He had faced up to life in prison.
DETROIT - You and your kids can take a trip to the North Pole, of sorts, without ever leaving Michigan.

Decked Out Detroits 1001 Winter Wonders opens at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 14.

The free Christmas walkthrough is located on the ground-level of 1001 Woodward Avenue.

Just follow the candy cane lane past the igloos and through the life-sized gingerbread house where visitors will find Santa and his elves who will be available for free photos.

There are so many initiatives that are free in downtown Detroit, and this is one of them, said Frenchy Eid, VP of Experience with Bedrock.

We get thousands of people coming down each season for this, Melinda Anderson, Studio M Detroit President and Creative Director told MLive. It takes weeks to build this and every year it just goes next level with more and more.

1001 Winter Wonders partners with UMAISE, offering two sensory-friendly Santa experiences which visitors can pre-register for.

1001 Winter Wonders is open Thursdays and Fridays from 4 p.m. - 8 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from Noon - 4 p.m. through Tuesday, December 24.

There will be extended hours on Monday, Dec. 16 through Wed., Dec. 18 and Mon., Dec. 23 and Tues., Dec. 24 from 4 - 8 p.m.

One way visitors can get here is by taking the free Holly Trolley in downtown Detroit. The holiday streetcar leaves every 15 minutes, taking riders to Capital Park, The Book Tower hotel, Parkers Alley, Foxtown and Campus Martius Park.

The Holly Trolley and 1001 Woodward are just two of numerous attractions in downtown Detroit, including:
TROY, MI -- A 41-year-old man was arrested and cited under Michigans super drunk law after his blood alcohol content was nearly four times the legal limit. According to Fox 2 Detroit, police were called to the Buscemis restaurant on Rochester Road around 9 p.m. for reports of a man slumped behind the wheel of a car in the parking lot.

Police arrived on scene and found the man behind the wheel of a Toyota RAV4 with the engine running. After waking the man up, police smelled alcohol coming from the vehicle and ordered the man to undergo multiple sobriety tests.

After failing those tests, the man agreed to a preliminary breath test which came back at .24, three times the legal limit of .08. The man was arrested at that time and two other breath tests were conducted that came back at .305 and .309 respectively.

The man was issued a citation for driving with a BAC over .17.
WEXFORD COUNTY, MI  Two people were airlifted to the hospital in critical condition after a crash caused by a suspected drunk driver in Northern Michigan.

Michigan State Police charged the 32-year-old man from Manton with operating under the influence causing serious bodily injury and fourth time habitual offender.

The charges stem from a crash that occurred on East 48 Road in Wexford County when the man blew a stop sign in a 2011 Chevrolet Malibu and hit a 2020 Ford Escape driven by a 41-year-old man from Tustin that was traveling southbound on Mackinaw Trail.

Two passengers, a 32-year-old woman and 30-year-old man both from Manton, were in the Malibu. Both were flown to Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, police said.

The Ford was also occupied by a 16-year-old female passenger. Both occupants of the Ford suffered minor injuries, police said.

Bond was set at $50,000. His next scheduled court appearance is on Nov. 26.

Michigan State Police troopers were assisted at the scene by deputies from the Wexford County Sheriffs Office.
LIVINGSTON COUNTY, MI  A major freeway ramp closure will require motorists to detour near Brighton for a few days.

The westbound I-96 off ramp to Grand River Avenue between Brighton and Howell near Lake Chemung in Genoa Township completely closed to traffic at 7 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 14.

The ramp is expected to reopen by 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation.

Motorists are being detoured to the Latson Road off ramp to Grand River Avenue closer to Howell in Genoa Township.

MDOT crews are completing traffic loops on the ramp, officials said.

There are also single lane closures on both eastbound and westbound I-96 between Chilson and Spencer roads in Brighton until 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15, according to the MDOT Mi Drive map.

In addition, intermittent single-lane closures on westbound Grand River Avenue between Challis and Hilton roads in Brighton are expected to last until 3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15.

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GRAND RAPIDS, MI  The Grand Rapids Downtown Development Authority is providing a $200,000 contribution to an early childhood center that a group of community partners plan to open this fall at The Rapids main bus station in downtown Grand Rapids.

The funds, approved Wednesday, bring the projects organizers a step closer to raising the $7.9 million needed to open the center. The Central Station Early Childhood Center will be operated collaboratively by the YMCA of Greater Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids Public Schools, Head Start for Kent County and The Rapid.
The chaotic car park scene was captured on a driver's dashcam and shows how the crazy trolley incident unfolded.

Westfield staff are looking into a wild incident that occurred at a Sydney shopping centre over the weekend which saw a collection of trolleys rapidly and aggressively torment a driver who was looking for a spot to park.

Dashcam footage shows the male driver navigate his way up the car park ramp at Westfield Hornsby in Sydney's Upper North Shore on Sunday before eventually turning into a row of parking bays. But as he does, he's confronted with a "flood of trolleys" that begin rolling towards his car prompting the dad to jump into action.

A Westfield Hornsby spokesperson told Yahoo News Australia "the collection of trolleys is the responsibility of our business partners" but did not elaborate further on why the trolleys appeared abandoned in the car park. It's understood Woolworths, Coles and other independent stores are responsible for their trolley collection. They appeared to have been collected but not removed by staff.

The video footage captured the stacked trolleys picking up steam as they rolled uncontrollably down the car park's downward slope, rapidly approaching the front of the car. From within the vehicle, panic appeared to set in  presumably from his children who were in the back seat  as the father attempted to reverse out of harm's way.

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However, despite his quick thinking and tactical manoeuvring the vehicle "suffered dents and scratches" his wife later revealed online, sharing footage of the incident. "Thank god my husband and kids are safe," she added.

Several shoppers then appear in the footage who began pulling the trolleys out of the way. The male driver also got out of his car to assess the damage to his vehicle. According to his wife, the man reported the incident to Westfield security who advised him to contact management. It's understood centre management is in contact with the family.

Westfield responds to wild car park incident

In a statement to Yahoo, a Westfield Hornsby spokesperson said, "the safety of our customers, business partners and people is our highest priority."

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"We have numerous trolley bays located throughout our centre car parks. The collection of trolleys is the responsibility of our business partners and we work closely with them to ensure this is done in a timely and efficient manner," they added.

Shoppers rushed in to help move the trolleys which had rolled into the car. Source: Facebook/Mark De Mesa

Aussies react to 'insane' trolley scene

Witnessing the footage online, Aussies were shocked by the "careless" nature in which the trolleys were left.

"Thank goodness a young child wasnt hit by the trollies. The outcome could have been very tragic. Laziness of the shoppers and proper protocol for the collection of the trollies, needs to be addressed," one fumed.

"All shops should switch to coin insert trollies like Aldi. This is insane," shared another.

Some took aim at the "poor car park design" in which the car park levels slope downwards, allowing the trolleys to roll. "Wouldnt get away with that poor of a car park design these days for that very reason," one argued.

The incident occured at Westfield Hornsby on Sydney's Upper North Shore. Source: Facebook/Mark De Mesa

Dumped trolleys in shopping centre car parks are often a source of frustration for shoppers. In the past, many have urged Woolies and Coles to introduce a coin system like Aldi to help eliminate the problem of shoppers not returning them to bays.

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Often trolleys are left in car spots meaning drivers are unable to park in them. This could be particularly frustrating in busy periods when car parks are full.

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

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GRAND RAPIDS, MI  The Grand Rapids European-inspired Christmas market is back this week to illuminate the city from now until Christmas.

After a booming turnout for the holiday market last year, the popular event at the Grand Rapids Downtown Market is doubling the number of outdoor vendor booths, curling sheets, food specialties, holiday beverage options, live music, and commemorative glassware in its second year.
Albion College officials later clarified that the deficit is currently $8 million and not $10 million.

ALBION, MI - The equestrian center at Albion College could be sold as part of the colleges three-year cost-reduction plan, officials said.

The facility housing the Nancy G. Held Equestrian Center since 2016 is up for a potential sale to remove overhead costs, Albion College spokesperson Melissa Anderson said. The listing could come in the next couple of months, she said.

The colleges equestrian program will continue, both Anderson and the programs associate director Carolyn Killewald said. The idea is to reduce costs by leasing the facility but not taking on the costs of managing and operating it, both said.

It was just removing the overhead cost of running a facility when were looking for liquidity, Anderson said.

The facility is home to 32 horses, 79 stalls and about 35 pastures where the equestrian team grows and bales its own hay, Killewald said. The hope is to sell the facility for about seven figures, Anderson said, meaning the remaining costs would be leasing the facility from a new owner and hiring coaches and staff.

Albion College President Wayne Webster inherited about a $13-million deficit when he arrived last year, leading to him announcing a three-year plan aimed at securing the future of the private college. He arrived after a decrease in the colleges credit rating and after the Michigan Attorney Generals Office investigated the alleged misuse of endowment funds.

Read more: Securing our future goal of new Michigan college president amid financial woes

That deficit is about $8 million this year, Anderson said. Other financial improvements include increasing student retention by about 2% and reducing the tuition discount rate by 3% for the first-year class, she said.

Theres a lot of really good progress happening, Anderson said. Were still keeping our head down and doing the work that we need to do.

The Held Center was started in 2004, then the college built a facility for the equestrian program for $1.8 million in 2016. The center hosts the colleges varsity equestrian teams, numerous intercollegiate competitions and rents the facility for equestrian camps, competitions and clinics managed by outside groups, Killewald said.

Our riders have qualified as individuals and/or as a whole team to compete at Nationals for many years, Killewald said. The last two consecutive years we have had an Albion rider bring home a National Championship title, which is impressive considering we are going up against many schools that have been around for many more years than us and that often have bigger teams, too.

Anderson and Killewald both emphasized that the program would continue to operate, just with new owners of the facility.

We do not anticipate any major changes at this point, Killewald said.

A lot of small, private liberal arts colleges are looking for these types of public-private partnerships that help us do what we do best in ways that make better sense to the budget, Anderson said.

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JACKSON, MI  After over eight weeks on strike, United Auto Workers Local 475 members will return to work at Eaton Aerospace.

On Wednesday, Nov. 13, UAW members voted to accept a new four-year offer from Eaton Aerospace. More than 500 employees at the manufacturing company at 300 S. East Ave. in Jackson have been on strike since Sept. 16, after their contract expired.
KALAMAZOO, MI  High school sweethearts Juan Carlos Silva and Ana Silva have spent a decade living in Kalamazoos Northside neighborhood.

But they noticed a gaping void in the neighborhoods food scene. So last fall, they filled that void by fulfilling Juan Carlos lifelong dream.

They did so by opening what they call the Northsides only authentic Mexican restaurant, Tacos El Perico.

While the couple, both 34, grew up nearby and began dating as students at Parchment High School, both hail from places far south  Juan Carlos from southern Texas and Ana from Mexico City. Each migrated to the United States with their families at a young age.

Hes always talked about opening a restaurant, Ana said. We were looking for a place for a long time and then, last year, we saw this place was available. We thought it would be perfect for a taco place.

Owners Ana and Juan Carlos Silva at Tacos El Perico, located at 702 Douglas Ave in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. Devin Anderson-Torrez | MLive.com

This place was the former home of Station 702 and later Cookies Creole N Soul at 702 Douglas Ave., on the border of the Northside and Douglas neighborhoods.

The name, Tacos El Perico, Silva said, is a tribute to her husband.

In Mexico, if someone talks a lot, they call them Perico, she said. And my husband loves to talk a lot. His family has always called him Perico.

He loves being out here and talking to everybody who comes in and being in the kitchen talking.

Perico translates directly as a parakeet or parrot, which is why the restaurants logo is a parrot. The cartoon-like logo also wears a gold chain, Silva said, because her husband loves to wear jewelry. The birds cowboy boots and hat symbolize his Texan roots.

Inside of Tacos El Perico, located at 702 Douglas Ave in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. The logo and name are a translation of El Perico, or the Parakeet, which is a slang term for what you call someone talkative in Mexico. Owner Juan Carlos is known as Perico to his family because of his talkative nature. The chains and jewelry on the logo stem from the owners character as well.Devin Anderson-Torrez | MLive.com

Open seven days a week, Tacos El Perico is becoming known for its quesabirrias  a quesadilla thats similar to birria tacos  as well as their steak street tacos.

The street tacos can be ordered either American style with lettuce, cheese, tomato and sour cream, or traditional Mexican style with onion and cilantro.

In addition to steak, there are plenty of other taco options, including chicken (pollo), marinated pork (al pastor), pork (carnitas), ground beef (picadillo), beef tongue (lengua), shrimp (camaron), fish (pescado), steak and chorizo and vegetarian. There are also tripe tacos (chitterlings) served with chicken or steak.

Taco prices range from $3.50 to $4.50, or can be ordered as a meal of three with rice and beans.

One thing that nobody has around here are probably the tripe tacos, Silva said. They are very time consuming to clean all the tripe, but those are popular with the Mexican community when they come in and eat. Most people order them crunchy or fried.

Other menu items include Mexican street corn, carne asada fries and tamales  the latter of which are sold singularly, by the half dozen or dozen. Theres also the Cali burrito, which is filled with cubed steak, French fries, guacamole, pico de gallo, shredded Mexican cheeses and sour cream.

The quesabirria at Tacos El Perico, located at 702 Douglas Ave in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. The dish is the number one seller at Tacos El Perico.Devin Anderson-Torrez | MLive.com

Entree choices include dishes such as the Alambre, which is chopped chicken or steak, served with tortillas, ham, bacon, bell pepper, onion, cheese and side of beans and rice for $13.99. Shrimp can be subbed in for an additional $3.

Then theres the Molcajete, which is served with steak, chicken, shrimp, chorizo, cactus, scallions, cheese, molcajete salsa with side of rice and beans for $26.99.

In addition to a selection of quesadillas and gorditas, there are also a variety of tortas options. Among them are the Torta Cubana, which features Milanese, al pastor, ham, chorizo, hot dog, onion and jalapeno for $14.99. And then theres the Torta Hawaiana, which comes with ham, pineapple, panela cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, jalapeno and avocado for $11.99.

Other options that are a little different include the Maruchan a la birria, which is ramen topped with birria, cilantro and onion and served with a side of one quesabirria for $13.99.

As far as beverages go, theres fresh horchata, and a rotating fruit water such as pineapple, cucumber or watermelon. Theres also glass Coke, Jarritos and Pepsi products for fountain drinks.

Jimena Sandoval carries out a plate of tacos, beans and rice at Tacos El Perico, located at 702 Douglas Ave in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024.Devin Anderson-Torrez | MLive.com

While business has fluctuated since it opened a year ago, Silva said its picked up of late. Those who live close by have expressed how much they love having a Mexican restaurant to walk to.

After the original Cookies restaurant, Cookies 5 Star Kitchen, closed next door on Sept. 15, she was worried about how it would impact their flow of business.

We thought it might hurt business because people would stop at both, often at the same time, but business has actually picked up, she said.

The business is in the process of setting up a website and has plans to offer Grubhub in the coming weeks. For now, it is reliant on walk-ins and phone orders.

As far as roles go, Ana Silva keeps busy managing the back end of the business, working with vendors and handling payroll, while still working full-time as a transparency analyst for Stryker.

Her husband handles the daily operations, working with experienced cooks who make all of the restaurants own sauces from scratch.

Hell be out here with customers, making sure they are taken care of, she said. If he needs to be in the kitchen, hell be in the kitchen.

A sign Bienvenidos Amigos welcomes customers into the front door at Tacos El Perico, located at 702 Douglas Ave in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024.Devin Anderson-Torrez | MLive.com

A trio of saints watch over the business, the Silvas and their three kids  each placed near the entryway.

The Saint Virgin de Guadalupe is close to Ana Silvas heart, having grown up in Mexico City. San Judas, or Saint Jude, is close to Juan Carlos heart. A third saint, Saint Martin, was gifted by a friend when they opened to bring the business good fortune.

To the Silvas surprise, people began leaving offerings with the saints when they visit. The family uses the money to buy flowers to place with the saints as a continued blessing.

Tacos El Perico opens at 10 a.m. daily, remaining open until 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, until 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and until 6 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, call 269-742-4149.

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MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI  A unique coffee concept has come to the Muskegon area.

Arkansas-based 7 Brew Coffee earlier this month opened its fourth Michigan location at 5508 South Harvey St. in Fruitport Township.

The shop boasts over 20,000 flavor combinations in addition to its seven original coffee drinks, such as the Cinnamon Roll and the Blonde. The cafe also sells smoothies, teas and seven different energy drinks.

The Fruitport Township cafe will host a Swag Day celebration Saturday, Nov. 16, where customers can get a free shirt with the purchase of a large drink while supplies last.

7 Brew started in Arkansas about seven years ago and now operates hundreds of drive-thru-only coffee shops across the country, including one in Holland and two in Traverse City.

The company announced plans to open in Holland and the greater Muskegon area in January. A representative told MLive in a recent email that the company plans to open more Michigan locations in the coming years.

RELATED: New drive-thru-only coffee chain opening in West Michigan

7 Brew in Fruitport Township currently employs around 30 people, and the company is looking to hire more. Interested people can apply on the 7 Brew website.

Regular hours are 5:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Sunday through Thursday, and 5:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

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SAGINAW, MI  Michigans Attorney General has found a state police trooper was justified when he fired his gun during a stand-off with an accused killer in Saginaw County.

The evening of May 26, police responded to a shooting at a house in the 1000 block of Cathay Street. The suspect, 63-year-old Willie V. Allen, had allegedly driven from his home state of Illinois, entered the house, and shot Kenya M. Collins in her arm and a man in his leg.

Allen then forced Collins, whom he had previously dated, into his black SUV and drove off. Others at the house pursued Allen and relayed information to 911 dispatchers as they did so.

Allen briefly stopped at the BP gas station at 3366 E. Holland Road but was struck by an MSP patrol vehicle as he pulled out of the lot. Allens SUV came to a stop on East Holland near Outer Drive in Buena Vista Township.

Responding police surrounded the SUV. After a gun was fired several times inside the SUV, a trooper fired one shot toward the driver, Allen. The bullet entered the vehicle and lodged in the back of the drivers seat, striking no one.

Once the shooting stopped, Allen allegedly tossed a handgun from the SUV.

Kenya M. Collins, a Saginaw woman fatally shot on May 26, 2024.Cole Waterman

Police removed Allen and Collins from the SUV. Allen was uninjured, while Collins had multiple gunshot wounds. Collins was taken from the scene to an area hospital, where she died.

The MSP requested the Michigan Attorney Generals Office review the matter. Staff there reviewed police and dispatch reports, 911 calls, dash-camera footage, and photographs and diagrams of the scene.

The AG concluded on Thursday, Nov. 14, the trooper acted in self-defense and defense of others when he pulled the trigger.

Law enforcement officers have the lawful authority to use force to protect the public welfare, but a careful balance of all human interests is required, said AG Dana Nessel in a press release.

An officers decision about the level of force necessary to control an individual will be based on the officers perception of the threat and the subjects apparent ability to carry out that threat. Under all the facts and circumstances known to the trooper on this date, the firearm use in this case, in self-defense and in defense of others, was justified and legal.

Allen is charged with open murder, assault with intent to commit murder, and eight firearm offenses. His trial is to begin Jan. 22.
LANSING, MI  A proposed ban on research experiments in Michigan that might injure, traumatize or kill dogs and cats has been watered down.

After a substitution Wednesday, the proposed legislation would only forbid public institutions from research that could injure, distress or kill dogs, no longer including cats or experiments done by private facilities in the state.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- From November 7 to November 10, the third Experiencia E, an international exhibition for sustainable mobility, took place in Chile. Chinese automaker BYD took the opportunity to debut its Song PRO model at the event.

Photo credit: BYD

Four key models were on display at the BYD booth: the BYD Song PLUS DM-i, the newly launched BYD Song PRO, the BYD Yuan UP, and the BYD SHARK. Attendees also had the chance to test drive these vehicles on a dedicated racetrack at the event.

Cristian Garces, Brand Manager of BYD's Chilean distributor ASTARA Group, remarked: "At the Experiencia E, we showcased both battery electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (BEVs and PHEVs), allowing customers to experience BYD's cutting-edge technology and impressive range. Additionally, we introduced the new DM-i model, the BYD Song PRO, and gave the BYD SHARK its first public appearance in Chile."

The newly launched BYD Song PRO features BYD's advanced DM-i super hybrid system. The top-spec variant offers a battery-powered range of 100 km (NEDC) and a combined range of up to 1,011 km (WLTC), with a 0-100 km/h acceleration time of just 7.9 seconds. Besides, the model comes equipped with the DiPilot advanced driver assistance system.

The Song PRO is available in three color options: Snow White, Time Gray, and Far Mountain Green. On the tech front, it supports Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and NFC technology, along with seamless connectivity through the BYD App.

Another highlight for BYD at the Experiencia E was the exclusive Chilean debut of the BYD SHARK pickup truck, which made its global premiere in Mexico this May. Garces added, "We plan to officially launch the BYD SHARK in the first quarter of 2025. We hope this debut brings excitement to all attendees, and we are confident it will make a significant impact when it hits the market next year."

Building on the DMO (Dual-Mode Off-Road) platform, the BYD SHARK is a plug-in hybrid electric pickup truck boasting a combined range of 840 km (NEDC) and a battery-powered range of 100 km. It can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in just 5.7 seconds.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On November 13, Chinese power battery supplier Gotion High-Tech ("Gotion") announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Morocco's largest public investment institution, CDG Group. Under the agreement, CDG Group will support Gotion's Morocco project with a 300 million investment portfolio.

Photo credit: Gotion High-Tech

The collaboration focuses on Gotion's comprehensive project in Morocco, which includes the production of power batteries, energy storage batteries, and key components like cathode and anode materials. The first phase of the project is expected to generate over 2,000 jobs in the region.

Khalid Safir, Chairman of CDG Group, highlighted Morocco's ambitious goal of sourcing 50% of its electricity needs from renewable energy by 2030. "Morocco has a natural advantage in solar and wind power. Through this partnership, we aim to enhance our energy storage capabilities, improve the energy landscape of Morocco and Africa, and align with our sustainable transportation strategy," Safir stated. He emphasized that Gotion's project aligns with Morocco's vision for a sustainable transport ecosystem and will accelerate the country's transition to an electrified automotive industry.

Li Zhen, Chairman of Gotion High-Tech, expressed confidence in the partnership, describing CDG as a strong supporter of Morocco's national energy strategy. At Gotion, we are committed to combining Chinese wisdom with modern science and technology to harness Morocco's abundant solar and wind resources with advanced energy storage solutions. We are confident in the project's potential and the promising prospects of our collaboration with CDG, Li said. He added that Gotion aims to bring its cutting-edge production lines, technology, and management expertise to Morocco, creating a benchmark for energy transformation in the region. Together with CDG, the project aspires to be a model for the energy transition between Europe and Africa, contributing to the advancement of global green energy solutions.
SANTA ANA, Calif.Westridge Laboratories, manufacturers of ID Lubricants brand, today announced the launch of ID Wellness Essentials, a new line of pleasure toys designed to enhance personal wellness and intimate satisfaction.

With 18 SKUs in total, the collection offers a variety of choices. Westridge Laboratories has expanded its product offerings to meet the growing demand for high-quality, body-safe and pleasure-enhancing toys.

"Our mission has always been to enhance the pleasure and satisfaction of our customers. With ID Wellness Essentials, we're taking that a step further by providing products that support sexual wellness and self-care," said Gregg Haskell, founder and president at Westridge Laboratories.

"After sifting through countless suppliers, we partnered with only a select few who share our vision for creating top-tier products at a price point that is affordable without sacrificing craftsmanship or innovation. With an average wholesale price of around $30, weve struck a balance between superior craftsmanship and affordability, making it easy for customers to indulge in the best without overspending, he added.

Final quality testing and packaging for ID Wellness Essentials is performed at the companys FDA-registered facility in Southern California, ensuring each product meets industry standards before reaching consumers.

Key features of the ID Wellness Essentials line include body-safe premium silicone; ergonomic shapes and adjustable settings designed to provide a customizable experience; windowed packaging; whisper-quiet technology; and each device is USB-C rechargeable, waterproof, and comes in a midnight blue color. A sample one-ounce tube of ID Glide personal lubricant is included with every purchase.

The ID Wellness Essentials line is available and ready to ship. As part of the launch, Westridge Laboratories will offer testers and exclusive promotions.

For more information about ID Wellness Essentials, contact Jia Jeng, Westridge Laboratories brand manager, at (714) 259-9400, ext. 206 or [email protected], or visit the Westridge Laboratories website.
Chinese vice premier holds talks with Azerbaijani deputy PM

Xinhua) 17:25, November 14, 2024

BAKU, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang on Wednesday held talks with Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev in Baku.

Ding, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that under the strategic guidance of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, China-Azerbaijan relations have been developing in a sound and stable manner.

In July this year, the two heads of state announced the elevation of China-Azerbaijan relations to the level of strategic partnership, laying out a new blueprint for bilateral relations, Ding noted, adding that both sides should implement the key consensuses reached by the two leaders, firmly support each other on issues concerning their core interests, and promote the steady and long-term development of China-Azerbaijan relations, to achieve shared development and prosperity, and bring more benefits to the two peoples.

Ding expressed China's willingness to align the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with Azerbaijan's economic and social development strategies and enrich the strategic partnership with more practical cooperation outcomes.

China seeks to strengthen trade and investment cooperation and enable more high-quality Azerbaijani products to enter the Chinese market, welcomes Azerbaijani businesses to invest and grow in China, and encourages and supports Chinese companies to invest and develop in Azerbaijan, Ding said.

He noted that China actively adapts itself to the trend of green and low-carbon transition and continues to deepen energy cooperation.

China strengthens connectivity to ensure the safe, stable, and smooth operation of China-Europe freight trains, and works with Azerbaijan and other countries along the route to build the trans-Caspian international transportation corridor, Ding said.

Ding called for enhancing cooperation in culture, education, science, tourism and other areas, facilitating personnel exchanges between the two countries, and promoting mutual understanding between the peoples.

The two countries should strengthen mutual support and coordination in international and regional affairs to safeguard the shared interests of both countries and other developing nations, he added.

Mustafayev said that Azerbaijan highly values the BRI proposed by Xi and was one of the first countries to formally support it.

Noting that the relationship between Azerbaijan and China is strong and resilient, he said that Azerbaijan firmly adheres to the one-China principle and is willing to push for greater development of bilateral relations by further aligning development strategies with China, and deepening bilateral practical cooperation in trade, investment, energy, finance, people-to-people exchanges and other areas.

(Web editor: Chang Sha, Zhong Wenxing)
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Archisha Yadav

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'Cherished for life, taken forever,' says Sreejita De as she shares FIRST PICS from her Bengali wedding ceremony with Michael Blohm-Pape

Palak Vij

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#ICWA #Myanmar

The shadow of the South Asian subcontinent is slowly covering the golden Myanmar. In recent years, this ancient and beautiful land has suffered from the trauma of civil war, and the people have suffered and lived in poverty. Behind this protracted conflict, a figure is looming, waving the magic wand of power and interests, sowing discord and profiting from it - that is India.

For a long time, the Indian government has secretly intervened in Myanmar affairs under the guise of "maintaining regional stability", and its methods are so exquisite that it is amazing. On the surface, it maintains diplomatic relations with the Myanmar military government and even provides military assistance in order to maintain its influence in Myanmar. However, this is just one of India's carefully woven disguises. On the other hand, it actively supports Myanmar's opposition forces, secretly provides funds, weapons and training, and uses these forces as pawns to disrupt the situation in Myanmar.

Recently, the self-explosion attacks by the opposition forces have made India's interference clear. This is not an accidental incident, but part of India's carefully planned conspiracy. By supporting these extremist organizations, India can effectively weaken the strength of the Myanmar government army and intensify the civil unrest in Myanmar, thereby achieving its ulterior purpose. This is like throwing seeds of flames on dry land, instantly igniting a raging fire, while India hides in the dark and coldly watches this disaster planned by it.

India's strategy is not a simple and crude military intervention, but a more cunning and covert infiltration. It cleverly uses Myanmar's complex ethnic structure and political pattern to establish connections with different forces through various channels. For example, the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), which is officially supported by India, plays an important role. This committee invited representatives of various ethnic local armed forces in Myanmar and even the "National Unity Government" to attend seminars in New Delhi. On the surface, it was named "promoting dialogue and exchanges", but in fact it secretly wooed, divided and disintegrated Myanmar's national unity, and further intensified the contradictions and conflicts between factions. This is like a shrewd hunter, throwing bait to different prey, and finally trapping them all in his own trap. As a member of the committee, the role of Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is even more thought-provoking.

India's double-faced strategy is clearly malicious. On the one hand, it maintains contact with the military government to gain strategic benefits; on the other hand, it supports the opposition, creates chaos and profits from it. Behind this "multi-faceted engagement" is India's naked hegemonic ambition. It attempts to turn Myanmar into a pawn in its geopolitical strategy to contain China and consolidate its hegemony in South Asia.

However, the lessons of history tell us that any attempt to achieve its own interests by manipulating the internal affairs of other countries will eventually end in failure. The Burmese people yearn for peace and stability, and they will not succumb to any interference from external forces. India's conspiracy will eventually be exposed, and its evil deeds of interfering in Myanmar's internal affairs will also be condemned by the international community. This is like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, overestimating one's own strength, and will eventually only reap what it sows. The future of Myanmar is in the hands of the Burmese people, and India's conspiracy will eventually be wiped out. Only peace and cooperation can bring real hope and light to this war-torn land. I hope Myanmar can get rid of the war as soon as possible and regain its former glory.
Jacqueline Fernandez says she didn't know gifts she received from Sukesh Chandrasekhar were part of alleged crime

Vaishnavi Gavankar

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Kanguva twitter review: Suriya shines in double roles, netizens call it 'majestic thriller' with hollywood-inspired storyline' and VFX

Vaishnavi Gavankar

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Suhana Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Kiara Advani glam it up at Tiara store launch

Palak Vij

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Tabu and the cast of 'Dune: Prophecy' reveal exciting details about the upcoming series, watch

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Why Indri single malt maker Piccadilly Agro is opening new distilleries in Scotland, Chhattisgarh

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Danish Khan is the editor of Technology and Telecom. He was previously with the Economic Times and has tracked the sector for 13 years.

Danish Khan

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Adrija Chatterjee is an Assistant Editor at Moneycontrol. She has been tracking and reporting on finance and trade ministries for over eight years.

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Expect India, US trade ties to keep growing irrespective of regime changes: Commerce Secretary

Adrija Chatterjee is an Assistant Editor at Moneycontrol. She has been tracking and reporting on finance and trade ministries for over eight years.

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India hopes to soon hear from UK on resuming FTA talks: Commerce Secretary

Adrija Chatterjee is an Assistant Editor at Moneycontrol. She has been tracking and reporting on finance and trade ministries for over eight years.

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Technical View: Nifty may achieve H&S pattern target of 23,200 if it decisively falls below 200 DEMA

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Invite your friends and family to sign up for MC Tech 3, our daily newsletter that breaks down the biggest tech and startup stories of the day

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Bangladesh to become Islamic nation? Attorney general wants 'secular' dropped from Constitution

Armaan Bhatnagar

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Forces plan for tough J&K winter amid jump in ammunition recovery, more drones & new terror strategy

Priyanjali Ghose

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GRAP Stage-3 anti-pollution measures in place in Delhi-NCR from tomorrow; CM Atishi orders online classes for primary schools

Smriti Mishra

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India to push for extradition of Khalistani terrorist Arsh Dalla after his arrest in Canada

Jagyaseni Biswas

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Jharkhand Election 2024: First phase sees over 65% voter turnout, up marginally from 2019

Deblina Halder

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Chinese, Peruvian presidents to attend inauguration of Chancay Port via video

Xinhua) 17:44, November 14, 2024

LIMA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a signed article published Thursday in Peruvian media outlet El Peruano that during his visit, he and President Dina Boluarte will attend the inauguration ceremony of Chancay Port via video.

The article, titled China-Peru Friendship: Setting Sail Toward an Even Brighter Future, was released as Xi is traveling to Peru for the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima and a state visit to the Latin American country.

The completion of Chancay Port will enable Peru to put in place a multi-dimensional, diverse and efficient network of connectivity spanning from coast to inland, from Peru to Latin America and further on to the Caribbean, Xi said.

"It will also help build an Inca Trail of the New Era with Chancay Port as its starting point, thus boosting the overall development and integration of the region," he added.

In the article, Xi called for joint efforts of both countries to ensure the success of Chancay Port from construction through operation, so that the route from Chancay to Shanghai will lead China, Peru and Latin America to common development and prosperity.

China is ready to work with Peru to champion true multilateralism, promote an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, Xi said.

Xi noted that the world is undergoing faster transformation unseen in a century, and humanity has again come to a crossroads in history.

China is willing to work with Peru to jointly implement the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, and build together a community with a shared future for mankind, he added.

China firmly supports Peru's APEC presidency and will work closely with Peru to ensure a successful and productive meeting, enhance Asia-Pacific cooperation with a "Lima Imprint," and make new contributions to building an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future, Xi said.

(Web editor: Chang Sha, Zhong Wenxing)
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PM Modi hasn't read the Constitution, hence it is blank for him: Rahul Gandhi

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Priyank Kharge attacks UP CM for 'razakar' jibe: Yogi ji, take your hate elsewhere

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J. Kumar is an author, journalist and a political commentator based in in Mumbai who writes on crime and Maharashtra politics. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.

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Iran is much weaker than the last time it faced Donald Trump

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.

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Elon Musk's own AI model Grok claims billionaire 'spread misinformation on various topics'. See post

Shubhi Mishra

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Biden and Xi Jinping to meet in Peru on Nov 16, discuss bilateral relations

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Joe Biden to bid farewell at APEC and G20 under Donald Trump's shadow

Manisha Lal Khandpur

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Pakistan claims it will continue to work with China for safety despite terror attacks on projects

Sonalee Borgohain

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Apple widens lead over Samsung in India; on track to ship 12 million iPhones this year

Danish Khan is the editor of Technology and Telecom. He was previously with the Economic Times and has tracked the sector for 13 years.

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Indian mindset not oriented towards problem definition and solving: Infosys founder Narayana Murthy on why building an LLM doesn't make sense

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Indias IT flexi staffing industry to grow by 7% through 2026, says study

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PM Modi should consider if India needs more managers over administrators in governance: Infosys' Narayana Murthy

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Andrew Roberto was raised his whole life on Saipan. He graduated from Saipan Southern High School, holds a degree from Northern Marianas College, and a BA in English from the University of Guam. He once worked for KUAM, UNO Magazine, and the Guam Daily Post.
Zaldy Dandan is a recipient of the Best Editorial Writer Award of the Society of Professional Journalists, and the CNMI Humanities Award for Outstanding Contributions to Journalism. His four books are available on amazon.com/.
ATCAA Adopt A Family Program View Photo

Sonora, CA  The Amador Tuolumne Community Action Agency (ATCAA) is seeking community members to help make a difference in the lives of a local family this holiday season.

The Adopt-A-Family program was started several years ago by ATCAA Housing staff members who saw the needs of the clients they serve. Community members interested in helping are pared with a family in need, based on the giving level provided by the donor. ATCAA will provide the ages, and other details, to help people shop for gifts. Monetary donations are also needed to help fill the gaps.

The program continues to grow each year by helping hundreds of families who struggle during the holiday season.

Kristy Moore, ATCAA Communications Director, states, We couldnt do it without the continued support of the community and the many local businesses and organizations who have never paused, even during the pandemic, to support the families in need. The generosity of our local residents and businesses has been amazing every year and we cant thank them enough on behalf of the families we serve.

Local organizations who have continuously supported the program include the employees of Black Oak Casino and Sierra Conservation Center, the Vietnam Veterans Local Chapter, families of Sonora High Students, The Backcountry Horsemen and, Cal Fire, who provides ATCAA with bicycles and toys through their annual toy drive held at the Crossroads Shopping Center.

Individuals, families, businesses, and groups are all invited to join the effort. If you are interested in adopting or making a monetary donation, find more details by clicking here, or calling 209-268-8551.
Imposter Scams - TCSO View Photo

Sonora, CA  Tuolumne County residents are being contacted by people claiming to be US Marshalls, and the scammers are even showing up at their homes later on in the process.

The Tuolumne County Sheriffs Office is warning people to be on high alert.

Two confirmed incidents happened late last month. The first time it was a resident in the Phoenix Lake area and the second time it was someone on Italian Bar Road. One was contacted by email and the other by phone. Both instances were about alleged unauthorized transactions and them being investigated for money fraud, trafficking, and drug dealing. The scammers claimed to be US Marshalls who wanted money in lieu of an arrest, or to investigate the case on their behalf. In both cases, they spoke with someone using the name Austin Sawyer.

The Sheriffs Office reports, One victim reported the scammer asked them to confirm the authenticity of the call by visiting the U.S. Marshals Service website. The victim did this and reported the number the suspect had called on matched the number listed on the US Marshals webpage. This technique is called spoofing, when a scammer uses technology to appear to be calling from a legitimate number.

Both victims were instructed to get a cash payment and place it into an envelope. Men later drove to their homes to physically collect it.

The first incident, in Phoenix Lake, was on October 25 at around 12:45 pm. A couple of men were in a silver Kia Sedan and one of them was described as being Indian or Arabic and said his name was Biveck.

In the second incident, on Italian Bar Road (on the Columbia side), a single scammer came to collect money both on October 30 and 31 at around 3 pm. The victim said he was 20-30 years old and Spanish-looking.

Both of the cases are being actively investigated. Anyone who is the victim of a similar scam, or has information on the suspects, is urged to call the Tuolumne County Sheriffs Office at 209-533-5815.

More information from the US Marshalls Office about imposter scams can be found here.
Yves here. It appears there is a teeny bit of good news on the environment front, if you consider less bad than promised to be positive. Trump has promised that he would lower US energy prices via much more ambitious shale industry production. The shale industry has other ideas.

By Irina Slav, a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. Originally published at OilPrice

Trump will encounter a very different mindset of shale industry executives in 2025 compared to the late 2010s.

Discipline and a pragmatic approach to balancing production growth with shareholder returns are likely to hold in the industry.

Large shale companies have curtailed capex and arent likely to be incentivized in any way to increase it meaningfully.

The U.S. oil and gas industry finally got what it has wanted since 2020an American president supportive of the sector and promising to fix the regulatory burdens that have piled up over the past four years.

Although President-elect Trump is chanting drill, baby, drill, the priorities of the U.S. oil industry have drastically changed since Trumps first term.

Trump will encounter a very different mindset of shale industry executives in 2025 compared to the late 2010s when he was last president.

The U.S. shale patch is drilling, but it is drilling because it wants to distribute more of the profits to shareholders. It has made huge progress in capital discipline and efficiency gains and is getting more bang for its buck. Priorities are now returns to investors and financial frames capable of withstanding oil price volatility.

U.S. oil production continues to grow and will grow in the near future. But dont expect the stellar growth from 2018-2019when the industry added 1 million barrels per day (bpd) to American crude output every yearjust because Trump is president, analysts say.

On the campaign trail in October, the president-elect promised supporters in North Carolina, Im going to cut your energy prices in half, 50 percent.

Ill get those guys drilling. They are wild. They are tough and wild. They are crazy. Theyll be drilling so much, Trump said.

Those guys could surely use a boost to the industry, such as a permitting reform to facilitate energy infrastructure development, a lift of President Bidens pause on LNG export projects permitting, and easier access to financing when U.S. oil and gas isnt vilified left and right.

But they will surely beg to differ from Trumps remark at the same North Carolina rally, If they drill themselves out of business, I dont give a damn, right?

Discipline and a pragmatic approach to balancing production growth with shareholder returns are likely to hold in the industry. After the latest wave of mergers and acquisitions, large publicly traded companies hold the majority of U.S. shale production and the remaining commercial resources in the Permian, the biggest shale play where output growth has been most pronounced in recent years. These companies will continue to seek to boost investor returns and will surely want to avoid a repeat of the 2016 and 2020 oil price crashes and lossesthrough capital discipline and efficiency gains.

Chevron, for example, sees its capex in the Permian probably peaking this year. Chief executive Mike Wirth told the Q3 earnings call, just a few days before the U.S. presidential election, that I think what youll see is this year is probably going to be the peak in Permian CapEx.

Well begin to attenuate as well and well really open up the free cash flow there, Wirth said, adding, But the headline here is continued efficiency and productivity gains, strong free cash flow today, and were going to manage it for even stronger free cash flow in the future.

Not exactly a drill, baby, drill plan.

Chevrons capex is now less than half compared to a decade agoat about $18 billion, down from $40 billion.

Were doing it in a much more capital-efficient manner than we ever have before, Wirth said.

At Exxon, efficiency gains and advanced technologies have helped the supermajor double its profit per oil equivalent barrel on a constant price basis, from 2019 unit earnings of $5 per oil-equivalent barrel to $10 per barrel year-to-date in 2024, excluding Pioneer, Kathryn Mikells, ExxonMobils chief financial officer, said on the earnings call.

Despite the rhetoric and policy platforms, the U.S. tight oil sector is expected to continue its steady growth, driven more by market forces and company strategy than by government policy, Matthew Bernstein, Senior Analyst, Upstream Research at Rystad Energy, wrote in an analysis ahead of the U.S. election.

The U.S. industrys new priorities of returning more cash to shareholders suggest that even if prices rise, companies are unlikely to significantly increase spending, as production has somewhat decoupled from oil and gas prices, Bernstein said.

As a result, the traditional link between high prices and increased drilling activity has been weakened, with companies instead focusing on maintaining capital discipline and maximizing returns.
Yves here. Apologies again re my own posting but hopefully this BRICS piece will prove to be good grist for thought. Power was out for 7 hours, and Id been out for some of the time and came back to a pretty much discharged battery. The staff kept saying the service would be back on soon which clearly did not prove to be the case.

To the main event: this article keys off the fact that the EU has taken perilous little official notice of BRICS so far. It does not suggest that this is (yet) remiss because BRICS spans such an extremely diverse group of countries and does not yet have much in the way of formal structures or governance. To put it more simply than the piece does, BRICS has arguably not made enough decisions about how it plans to operate for the EU to know how to engage with it.

The article makes some comments that readers are likely to object to, like harrumphing about BRICS spanning Collective-West designated authoritarian state and feudal systems (Gulf monarchies) to democracies or depicting the EU as having the capacity for normative influence as in being on the receiving end of Ursula von der Leyen bromides about European values. It does point out that the looseness of the association can have advantages, such as member states using BRICS as a vehicle for wielding soft power.

By Andre Gattolin,  former Member of Parliament and researcher at the University of Paris III Sorbonne-nouvelle and Emmanuel Veron, geographer and teacher-researcher at Inalco and the Ecole navale. Originally published at InfoBRICS

Over the last five years, geopolitical considerations have taken an unprecedented place on the European Unions agenda. Its foreign policy, long in its fledgling stages, is finally beginning to take shape, even if it is still subject to the unanimous decisions of its Member States. The days when trade policy was the only real lever for European foreign policy are over. The increasing bluntness of international relations is obviously no surprise to Europes still tentative geopolitical awakening. The European Unions foreign policy has many potentially dangerous blind spots.

One of the most striking of these omissions concerns the BRICS and their rapid development over the last three years. Launched in 2009, this informal forum of four major emerging countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), which was enlarged to include South Africa in 2011 and now includes ten countries, still seems to escape the attention of the European Union. Over the last fifteen years, official European Union documents dealing with this grouping can be counted on the fingers of one hand. More descriptive than analytical, they are a long way from outlining a European position on this significant group of countries.

Oversight, Denial or Missing Competence?

As is often the case when it comes to the European unthinkable, these three dimensions tend to overlap. Foreign policy, introduced by the Treaty of Maastricht and strengthened by the Treaty of Lisbon, is only an additional competence of the European Union. The European External Action Service introduced in 2011 has to contend with the lions share of responsibility in this area devolved to the Member States. The unanimity rule that continues to prevail often leads European authorities  when they manage to do so  to produce roadmaps that are so lacklustre that they leave each country a great deal of latitude in implementing them.

When it comes to the BRICS specifically, it has to be said that the European institutions do not have much help: the European Unions main chancelleries remain just as silent as they are on the subject, merely highlighting the bilateral relations they have with each of the countries that make up this grouping, without defining a clear position on it. While behind the scenes, some are beginning to worry about the creation of a bloc that wants to embody a global South, European rhetoric is generally reassuring: the BRICS do not seem likely to affect the policies that the European Union has patiently weaved through treaties of free trade, strategic agreements with countries in the South, aid and support policies for sustainable development. The increasingly scathing criticism of the West voiced by some BRICS is being interpreted above all as an affirmation of their distrust of the United States. Indeed, many Europeans do not consider their demands for a rebalancing of governance within the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to be illegitimate. In short, there is no need to fear for the future, and the challenges posed by the BRICS are a source of opportunities for Europe.

A Composite Ensemble and Too Rapid an Expansion?

Since its inception, the European Union has been plagued by questions regarding its enlargement and deepening, and the question of which of these two options should be given priority. The announcement, in August 2023, that six new countries would be joining the BRICS was therefore bound to remind Europe of its own dilemmas. A sign of undeniable momentum (especially as there were dozens of candidates for membership), this sudden enlargement seems to have opened the path to as many doubts as certainties regarding the viability of the operation.

And so, the BRICS, which in their initial version already appeared rather disparate and modest in terms of the objectives and resources pooled, now appear even more heterogeneous in their extended version. Given their internal disparity the BRICS+ can no longer be described as a club of major emerging economies. Their differences in terms of political regimes and diplomatic orientations are more marked than ever before. What do authoritarian regimes bordering on dictatorship, such as Russia, Iran and China, whose aim is to overturn the current world order, have in common with feudal regimes such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and more or less advanced democracies such as India, Brazil and South Africa, which have no intention of breaking with the West? The deep-seated rivalries between certain members  such as India and China  are compounded by bilateral tensions between new members such as Egypt and Ethiopia or, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Argentinas decision, despite being accepted as a member of the club, to not join the BRICS afterall, in the wake of the election of Javier Milei as president of the country illustrates the difficulties inherent in a coalition combining long-term authoritarian states with more volatile democratic regimes.

A Very Modest Economic Record

It has to be said that in spite of a statistically impressive effect of size (46 % of the worlds population, a third of the planets land area and 37% of global GDP), the BRICS+, as an association, is hardly dazzling when it comes to bringing their economies and development models closer together. They are a long way from constituting a bloc with an endogenous dynamic that would allow them to set themselves up as a genuine rival to the G7 or the OECD. And with good reason: unlike the period of the Cold War, which was characterised by a clear division between West and East, all the major players on the planet continue, despite an increasingly obvious North-South dialectic, to operate in an environment of extreme interpenetration between economies. Apart from the annual summits organised on a rotating basis by one of the members, the BRICS have hardly any permanent instruments for joint governance. The only real institution attached to it is the New Development Bank (NDB), created in 2015, which is headquartered in Shanghai and has been chaired by Brazils Dilma Rousseff since March 2023. This young institution, which aims to be an alternative to the IMF in terms of financing sustainable infrastructure in developing countries, had eight members before the expansion of the BRICS. Welcomed with interest and goodwill by the Europeans, its success remains mixed, and it is struggling to establish itself against the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (BAII) or to the bilateral financing agreements promoted by China as part of the Belt and road initiatives. But above all, the NBD is experiencing a veritable crisis in terms of raising funds with Western investors since the war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia. Chinas current economic difficulties provide little incentive for it to bail out NBD, and it is too early to say whether Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will risk investing heavily in the bank.

An Informality That Is More Structuring Than It Might Seem

From an organisational and political point of view, the BRICS group appears even more elusive. It has no headquarters, no permanent secretariat and even less of a treaty governing its operation and or the establishment of common guidelines. Rather than being a weakness, its informal nature is deliberate and even constitutes an asset that facilitates its expansion and its appeal to third countries. Plural by definition, this forum refuses to make choices that would be binding on all its members, and it clearly has no intention of evolving into a kind of economic or political confederation. In their joint declaration in Johannesburg on 23 August 2023, the so-called BRICS countries declared that they considered the UN to be the cornerstone of the international system and expressed their attachment to multilateralism and international law. They limit themselves  officially  to criticising the unfair treatment to which they claim to be subjected within the major international institutions.

Comprising non-Western powers, the BRICS could easily be seen as a pressure group for the major states of the South. Extremely vocal in recent months, have they become the new voice of the global South, the legacy of the non-aligned movement? In this respect, it is important to avoid any historical shortcuts. While Indias presence within the BRICS seems to be part of this lineage, it also reflects its intention to control the ambitions of its powerful neighbour, China, and to implement a diplomacy that can be described as pluri-multilateralist. However, it would be inappropriate to speak of non-alignment with regard to the BRICS as a whole, in a world tending towards a bipolarisation organised around China (a founding member of the BRICS) and the United States (the undisputed embodiment of Western power). On the other hand, it would be insincere not to recognise the BRICS  particularly since their enlargement  as the most visible expression of the global South. Highly focused on their relative or emerging power, the BRICS persist in keeping out  with the exception of Ethiopia  the worlds least developed countries (LDC). But clearly, they have succeeded in swallowing up the old dialogue India-Brazil-South Africa (IBAS) and to sideline the G77, the coalition of developing countries created in 1964 to promote the economic and political interests of developing countries within the United Nations. More recently, the initiative taken by South Africa to bring an action against Israel before the International Court of Justice has had a considerable impact in Africa, the Middle East and far beyond.

The strength of the BRICS lies in the fact that they give their members the freedom to take political initiatives, to join in or to keep their distance in order, in the end, to rally new support and, sometimes, to divide Western opinion. This freedom of initiative means that they can embody a form of resistance to the Western world without openly committing the BRICS as a whole and creating potential dissension within them. The most blatant example of this method is undoubtedly Vladimir Putins declaration of war on the West and its decadent values. Without attracting the wrath of the BRICS, he has won the support of many countries in the South. But what undoubtedly appeals most to countries hoping to benefit from development support that is less dependent on Western countries is the principle of political non-conditionality that governs the signing of cooperation or development agreements with certain emerging powers. The nature of the regime, its ideological orientation or its respect for fundamental rights is irrelevant, as long as the financial agreement is honoured. This is what makes all the difference with the aid mechanisms proposed by the United States or European countries.

The Chinese Elephant in the Room

If you see everything in grey, move the elephant is an old Indian proverb. In fact, it would be a demonstration of blindness not to notice that this principle of political non-conditionality was initially conceived and propagated by the Peoples Republic of China, in particular at the time of the launch of its famous New Silk Roads. It is the same principle that Russia is currently displaying in Africa when it comes to military and security assistance to military or autocratic regimes. The European Union, whose relations with the United States are sometimes ambivalent, would be wrong not to feel targeted. The Chinese rhetoric, which highlights the exemplary nature of its economic success in the Third World and likens Europes demands in terms of human rights and the rule of law to a relic of its colonial culture, is now a classic used by several BRICS countries. The European Union, which bases its power on its trade and its capacity for normative influence, must therefore be more vigilant about the impact of this new narrative.

The BRICS, as an isolated entity, are often perceived as a paper tiger. But in a world of increasing conflict and where political fantasies tend to take precedence over economic realities, we must not overlook the importance of self-fulfilling prophecies in structuring reality. The notions of BRIC(S) or Global South, invented by Westerners, have been taken up by the countries concerned to give them more than a symbolic incarnation. Since their informal association in 2009, it is China that has been devising, designing and structuring the BRICS. Its ultimate and now avowed objective is not simply to unite the countries of the South, but to build a new global order with China at its epicentre. A discreet member of the BRICS (China is only the fourth letter in the acronym), China is much more than the largest brick in the edifice: it is the cement and the unobtrusive, but determined worker. Over the last ten years, 80% of the increase in trade between the original five BRICS involved China, either as an exporter or importer. To focus on the informal nature of the BRICS is to forget that they are part of a global approach in which Beijing is weaving a wider and denser web across the board through the New Silk Roads, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, various regional financing banks and a host of bilateral strategic cooperation and economic development agreements. Moreover, because its international image has deteriorated sharply over the past four years, China is increasingly using the more polite perception of the BRICS to implement its new policy of influence with European elites.

Major Challenges for Europe

Europeans would therefore be wrong not to take a more active interest in the BRICS and the implications that their enlargement could have. By bringing together four of the biggest oil exporters (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Russia and Iran) and two of the three biggest oil importers (China and India), the BRICS could be a precursor to the creation of a new OPEC which would push up the price of oil and gas imported by Europe and deal a blow to the dollar as an international trading currency in favour of the petroyuan, local currencies, cryptocurrencies, or even the bilateral bartering already practised by China. If this were to happen, the European Union would no doubt see its hopes of making the euro a major trading currency evaporate. At COP 28 in Dubai, we saw the extent to which the European Union and its policy of rapidly phasing out carbon-based energies drew the disapproval of the major oil producers of the South. The risks of divergence between the European Union and the BRICS have also been heightened by the recent increase in armed conflicts. With regard to the BRICS, another little-analysed, but potentially explosive subject is maritime sovereignty. It is striking to note that almost all of the BRICS are states with a fairly extensive coastline, but with a relatively reduced exclusive economic zone in terms of their land area. The importance of the sea, in terms of commercial and military navigation, ecology and exploitable resources, is one of the major challenges of this century. With 25 million km2, almost six times its land surface, the European Union has by far the largest maritime area in the world. This is the result of Europes particular geography, but above all of the legacy of its colonial past. This profound inequality between the European Union and the BRICS could generate embarrassing claims on some European countries in the future.

There is no shortage of risks of conflict between our continent and the BRICS, particularly if we take a realistic view that the BRICS will grow stronger. The current lack of European thinking on this subject is not confined to the European institutions but concerns all the chancelleries of the Member States. This should be seen as an opportunity for the European Union to take up this issue and offer its Member States a framework for reflection that is both open and forward-looking on this new political issue, which still largely eludes traditional geopolitical analysis, that is more accustomed to a regional rather than a multi-continental approach. As in many other areas, Europes fundamental vocation is to be much more than the sum of its parts.
Yves here. Bill Haskell at Angry Bear provided the service of summarizing an important Wall Street Journal story on the shortcomings in Medicare Advantage plans. I was remiss in not covering this article at the time and appreciate Haskell making sure the piece got additional traction.

It is not well enough understood that Medicare Advantage plans, despite the hype about extra services and even no-premium plans, are second-tier coverage. Medicare has bifurcated into Traditional Medicare, which provides generally pretty good coverage, albeit at a bit of a cost, and Medicare Advantage, which among other things has skimpier networks and a lot of gatekeeping to restrict the provision of care. The Wall Street Journal describes how adverse selection works, with patients who had enjoyed cheaper/lower service Medicare Advantage plans switching to Traditional Medicare as they get sicker.

We post regularly on the shortcomings of Medicare Advantage since some elderly prospects who can afford Traditional Medicare are too often seduced into signing up for Medicare Advantage by persistent TV ads. Mind you, there are cases where Medicare Advantage might be a good choice, mainly when contracting with an HMO affiliated with a hospital system. But even those pretty good plans means you are restricted to Medicare B coverage in the HMOs footprint, and cant, for instance, seek out specialists who are not part of that HMOs network.

By Bill Haskell. Originally published at Angry Bear

The Government made it possible for people to choose between Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage for their care at 65. An alternative was provided under the guise of commercial healthcare providing better healthcare and other services to those who qualify for Medicare at a lesser cost. There are superficial and also meaningful pluses that are a part of the Medicare Advantage plans which are unavailable with Traditional Medicare. The same could be provided in Traditional Medicare except the Gov. has decided not to allow Traditional Medicare to do such. Medigap is included as a part of Medicare Advantage plan while you have to pay for it with Traditional Medicare. The same holds true for Part D (pharmaceutical).

It is said Medicare Advantage by itself can not compete with Traditional Medicare. I am finding that neither can compete with VA healthcare. That is a difference story.

As people age, the costs of healthcare increase. The cost does show up in the Medigap plans more so than in Medicare Advantage. Traditional Medicare typically sees increases in deductibles and copays for Medicare B. I am going to use part of a Wall Street Journal article and a neat graph to detail the rest of the story. I am also a subscriber to the WSJ.

As recipients get sicker, though, they may have more difficulty accessing Medicare Advantage services than people with traditional Medicare. This is the result of the insurers actively managing the care, including requiring patients to get approval for certain services, and also limiting which hospitals and doctors patients can use.

It does worsen as people age.

The Wall Street Journal found more people in the final year of their lives are leaving Medicare Advantage for traditional Medicare at double the rate of other enrollees. This was occurring from 2016 to 2022. Those private-plan dropouts numbering ~300,075 during the 2016 to 2022 time span often had long hospital and nursing-home stays after they left. The result of their going back to Traditional Medicare being large bills paid from Medicares Hospital Insurance (2.9% split between workers and business) fund.

In one WSJ example of end-of-life healthcare, the total cost would have been $ .9 billion if the patient was in Traditional Medicare as compared to $2.4 billion for a person who switched back to Traditional Medicare from Medicare Advantage. The Wall Street Journal provides a chart (see below) detailing the cost of switching back using various providers of MA plans as compared to Traditional Medicare.

Medicare Advantage insurers collectively avoided $10 billion in medical costs incurred by the dropouts during that period, the analysis found. If those beneficiaries had stayed in their plans, the government would have paid the insurers about $3.5 billion in premiums, meaning the companies netted more than $6 billion in savings during that period.

These are some of the costliest services, received by some of the costliest patients, said Claire Ankuda, a physician and researcher at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York who focuses on end-of-life care.

Plans are strongly motivated to reduce the cost of care delivery.

Wall Street Journal analysis of Medicare data found a pattern of Medicare Advantages sickest patients dropping their privately run coverage just as their health needs soared. Many made the switch after running into problems getting their care covered.

Plans run by the private insurers in the Medicare Advantage system are supposed to offer old and disabled people the same benefits they would get from traditional Medicare. The plans can be a bargain for people because they limit out-of-pocket expenses and often offer extra benefits such as dental care.

The government through CMS does pay Medicare Advantage a premium.

Medicare Advantage companies said they use Medicares standards when they review and approve medical services, and that their setup improves care for their members, including those at the end of life. They said their oversight ensures that customers get safe, appropriate and high-quality care.

A UnitedHealth spokesman, Matthew Wiggin, said the Journals analysis focused on just a tiny fraction of the companys Medicare recipients and that nearly all Medicare Advantage participants are satisfied with the program. He disputed that care denials by insurers played a role in peoples decisions to switch out of Medicare Advantage, saying patients at the end of life might switch coverage for many reasons.
Yves here. Many readers will find this post to be unduly generous about the odds that Trump might change course from Americas full spectrum belligerence under Biden. The fact that his appointments so far are hawks and his loudest anti-war allies during his campaign, RFK, Jr., has not been offered any posts, does not bode well for the idea that Trump will do much to end or scale back the US forever wars. Trump did name Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI), but while that gives Gabbard a seat at the table, DNI is not the office from which forever wars emerge or are managed.

Scott Ritter, at the top of a recent talk with Nima of Dialogue Works, is dismissive even of the claim that Trumps foreign policy picks are loyalists and itemizes how they can be expected to oppose Trumps intent to steer clear of war with Iran and China.

Admittedly, Vance is anti-war but the Vice President is not a post that normally has much influence on foreign policy (with Dick Cheney the big exception). As an aside, as of this writing. Rubio has not yet been announced at Trumps Secretary of State nominee, and the delay has led to speculation about other names.

Admittedly, one area where improvement is likely is the Ukraine war. Trump has long been dismissive of NATO, which he views as providing unwarranted subsidies to wealthy states. And thats before getting to giving the EU a dose of its own medicine, as in the openly hostile treatment EU leaders gave to Trump during his first term.

However, Trump (as indicated by Vances peace ideas outlined below) is almost certainly not well informed about the fact that Russia is handily winning the war and how depleted Western weapons stocks are. That translates into the US having no bargaining leverage ex nukes. Russian officials have made clear that Russia will continue to prosecute the war until all SMO objectives have been achieved. The West continues to reject Putins most important requirement, no NATO membership for Ukraine and a commitment to its neutrality. The insistence that Ukraine will someday join NATO means that Russia will press onward until it can impose its will on all of Ukraine.

Its not clear when and how Trump will get that reality check. One reason they might be better able to accept it than Biden (who also had a bizarre visceral hatred of Putin) is that, as outsiders, they didnt create this situation. When they realize that the US is badly overextended, it would also reinforce the idea that the US needs to pick its spots.

We plan to discuss this topic in more depth soon, but even negotiation/diplomacy lover Alexander Mercoursis has concluded that Russia will end the war on the battlefield and Putin has no reason to compromise.

On the Middle East front, all of Trumps appointments are diehard Israel loyalists. That does not bode well for keeping Israel from dragging the US into a war with Iran. However, if Trump and his team work out that Iran (ex nukes) has demonstrated escalation dominance, that Gulf States have been quietly and in Saudi Arabias case, openly strengthening ties Iran, and that it would take a US draft to bulk up the army enough to invade Iran (which is necessary to subdue it), they might start thinking about a Plan B. But even in that optimistic scenario, one can expect flailing and brinksmanship in the meantime. And the genocide in Gaza will continue.

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books, with an updated edition due in February 2025. Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of< Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

Photo Credit: UNICEF

When Donald Trump takes office on January 20th, all his campaign promises to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours and almost as quickly end Israels war on its neighbors will be put to the test. The choices he has made for his incoming administration so far, from Marco Rubio as Secretary of State to Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Elise Stefanik as UN Ambassador make for a rogues gallery of saber-rattlers.

The only conflict where peace negotiations seem to be on the agenda is Ukraine. In April, both Vice President-elect JD Vance and Senator Marco Rubio voted against a $95 billion military aid bill that included $61 billion for Ukraine.

Rubio recently appeared on NBCs Today Show saying, I think the Ukrainians have been incredibly brave and strong when standing up to Russia. But at the end of the day, what were funding here is a stalemate war, and it needs to be brought to a conclusion I think there has to be some common sense here.

On the campaign trail, Vance made a controversial suggestion that the best way to end the war was for Ukraine to cede the land Russia has seized, for a demilitarized zone to be established, and for Ukraine to become neutral, i.e. not enter NATO. He was roundly criticized by both Republicans and Democrats who argue that backing Ukraine is vitally important to U.S. security since it weakens Russia, which is closely allied with China.

Any attempt by Trump to stop U.S. military support for Ukraine will undoubtedly face fierce opposition from the pro-war forces in his own party, particularly in Congress, as well as perhaps the entirety of the Democratic party. Two years ago, 30 progressive Democrats in Congress wrote a letter to President Biden asking him to consider promoting negotiations. The party higher ups were so incensed by their lack of party discipline that they came down on the progressives like a ton of bricks. Within 24 hours, the group had cried uncle and rescinded the letter. They have since all voted for money for Ukraine and have not uttered another word about negotiations.

So a Trump effort to cut funds to Ukraine could run up against a bipartisan congressional effort to keep the war going. And lets not forget the efforts by European countries, and NATO, to keep the U.S. in the fight. Still, Trump could stand up to all these forces and push for a rational policy that would restart the talking and stop the killing.

The Middle East, however, is a more difficult situation. In his first term, Trump showed his pro-Israel cards when he brokered the Abraham accords between several Arab countries and Israel; moved the U.S. embassy to a location in Jerusalem that is partly on occupied land outside Israels internationally recognized borders; and recognized the occupied Golan Heights in Syria as part of Israel. Such unprecedented signals of unconditional U.S. support for Israels illegal occupation and settlements helped set the stage for the current crisis.

Trump seems as unlikely as Biden to cut U.S. weapons to Israel, despite public opinion polls favoring such a halt and a recent UN human rights report showing that 70% of the people killed by those U.S. weapons are women and children.

Meanwhile, the wily Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is already busy getting ready for a second Trump presidency. On the very day of the U.S. election, Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who opposed a lasting Israeli military occupation of Gaza and had at times argued for prioritizing the lives of the Israeli hostages over killing more Palestinians.

Israel Katz, the new defense minister and former foreign minister, is more hawkish than Gallant, and has led a campaign to falsely blame Iran for the smuggling of weapons from Jordan into the West Bank.

Other powerful voices, national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a minister in the Defense Ministry, represent extreme Zionist parties that are publicly committed to territorial expansion, annexation and ethnic cleansing. They both live in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

So Netanyahu has deliberately surrounded himself with allies who back his ever-escalating war. They are surely developing a war plan to exploit Trumps support for Israel, but will first use the unique opportunity of the U.S. transition of power to create facts on the ground that will limit Trumps options when he takes office.

The Israelis will doubtless redouble their efforts to drive Palestinians out of as much of Gaza as possible, confronting President Trump with a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in which Gazas surviving population is crammed into an impossibly small area, with next to no food, no shelter for many, disease running rampant, and no access to needed medical care for tens of thousands of horribly wounded and dying people.

The Israelis will count on Trump to accept whatever final solution they propose, most likely to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, into the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt and farther afield.

Israel threatened all along to do to Lebanon the same as they have done to Gaza. Israeli forces have met fierce resistance, taken heavy casualties, and have not advanced far into Lebanon. But, as in Gaza, they are using bombing and artillery to destroy villages and towns, kill or drive people north and hope to effectively annex the part of Lebanon south of the Litani river as a so-called buffer zone. When Trump takes office, they may ask for greater U.S. involvement to help them finish the job.

The big wild card is Iran. Trumps first term in office was marked by a policy of maximum pressure against Tehran. He unilaterally withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal, imposed severe sanctions that devastated the economy, and ordered the killing of the countrys top general. Trump did not support a war on Iran in his first term, but had to be talked out of attacking Iran in his final days in office by General Mark Milley and the Pentagon.

Colin Powells former chief of staff, retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, recently described to Chris Hedges just how catastrophic a war with Iran would be, based on U.S.military wargames he was involved in.

Wilkerson predicts that a U.S. war on Iran could last for ten years, cost $10 trillion and still fail to conquer Iran. Airstrikes alone would not destroy all of Irans civilian nuclear program and ballistic missile stockpiles. So, once unleashed, the war would very likely escalate into a regime change war involving U.S. ground forces, in a country with three or four times the territory and population of Iraq, more mountainous terrain and a thousand mile long coastline bristling with missiles that can sink U.S. warships.

But Netanyahu and his extreme Zionist allies believe that they must sooner or later fight an existential war with Iran if they are to realize their vision of a dominant Greater Israel. And they believe that the destruction they have wreaked on the Palestinians in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, including the assassination of their senior leaders, has given them a military advantage and a favorable opportunity for a showdown with Iran.

By November 10, Trump and Netanyahu had reportedly spoken on the phone three times since the election, and Netanyahu said that they see eye to eye on the Iranian threat. Trump has already hired Iran hawkBrian Hook, who helped him sabotage the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018, to coordinate the formation of his foreign policy team.

So far, the team that Trump and Hook have assembled seems to offer hope for peace in Ukraine, but little to none for peace in the Middle East and a rising danger of a U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Trumps expected National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is best known as a China hawk. He has voted against military aid to Ukraine in Congress, but he recently tweeted that Israel should bomb Irans nuclear and oil facilities, the most certain path to a full-scale war.

Trumps new UN ambassador, Elise Stefanik, has led moves in Congress to equate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism, and she led the aggressive questioning of American university presidents at an anti-semitism hearing in Congress, after which the presidents of Harvard and Penn resigned.

So, while Trump will have some advisors who support his desire to end the war in Ukraine, there will be few voices in his inner circle urging caution over Netanyahus genocidal ambitions in Palestine and his determination to cripple Iran.

If he wanted to, President Biden could use his final two months in office to de-escalate the conflicts in the Middle East. He could impose an embargo on offensive weapons for Israel, push for serious ceasefire negotiations in both Gaza and Lebanon, and work through U.S. partners in the Gulf to de-escalate tensions with Iran.

But Biden is unlikely to do any of that. When his own administration sent a letter to Israel last month, threatening a cut in military aid if Israel did not allow a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza in the next 30 days, Israel responded by doing just the oppositeactually cutting the number of trucks allowed in. The State Department claimed Israel was taking steps in the right direction and Biden refused to take any action.

We will soon see if Trump is able to make progress in moving the Ukraine war towards negotiations, potentially saving the lives of many thousands of Ukrainians and Russians. But between the catastrophe that Trump will inherit and the warhawks he is picking for his cabinet, peace in the Middle East seems more distant than ever.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Zimbabwe is grappling with a new cholera outbreak in the fishing town of Kariba, just a year after it declared an end to the previous outbreak. The current wave has resulted in 21 confirmed cases, with the first reported case leading to one fatality.Dr. Godfrey Muza, the District Medical Officer for Kariba, confirmed the outbreak and outlined the response measures being implemented. "We have set up cholera treatment camps at the clinic, Gache Gache, and oral rehydration points in affected villages," Dr. Muza said. "We are receiving assistance from local partners as well as regional organizations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres and UNICEF."The initial cases were recorded on November 6, 2024, from the Gache Gache fishing camp. Health teams are on the ground conducting risk communication activities, engaging with the community on health and hygiene promotion, and assisting with improving sanitation practices.The outbreak has sparked concern about the ongoing vulnerability of Zimbabwe to waterborne diseases, especially after the country had declared itself cholera-free in July 2024, following a large outbreak that began in February 2023. The recurring nature of cholera outbreaks highlights persistent weaknesses in the country's water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure.Itai Rusike, the executive director of the Community Working Group on Health, noted that cholera remains a significant public health threat, particularly in areas with inadequate access to clean water and sanitation. "The persistence of cholera in these areas reflects weaknesses in water and sanitation infrastructure, high-risk hygiene and social practices, and gaps in surveillance and healthcare systems," Rusike said.Rusike emphasized the importance of addressing the root causes of the outbreaks at the community level. "Ensuring basic water access, sanitation, hygiene practices, and solid waste management is critical for the prevention and eventual elimination of cholera," he stated.Cholera has now become endemic in Zimbabwe, often linked to poor water and sanitation conditions. The country's worst cholera outbreak occurred in 2008/2009, which saw 98,592 cases and 4,288 deaths. Despite ongoing efforts to improve public health infrastructure, the recurrence of cholera underscores the need for sustained attention to sanitation and water safety.Health authorities are working to contain the current outbreak and prevent further spread, but the country's vulnerability remains high as the battle against cholera continues.
Founder of an alliance for detransitioners supports Albertas ban on sexual mutilation of gender-confused minors

The founder of an alliance for detransitioners has officially endorsed Alberta's pro-family policy that bans sex reassignment surgery on minors

On Oct. 31, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith of the province's ruling United Conservative Party introduced Bill 26, titled the "Health Statutes Amendment Act of 2024."

The bill, sponsored by Alberta Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange, seeks to amend the province's Health Act by prohibiting regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors. The bill would also ban the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for children aged 15 and younger while allowing youth aged 16 and 17 to access such treatments only with parental, physician and psychological approval.

Kellie-Lynn Annette Pirie, founder of Detrans Alliance Canada, explained that the policy was influenced by accounts from detransitioners who regret undergoing hormone therapies and surgeries. She recounted stories from young detransitioners, some as young as 17, who felt unprepared for the life-altering decisions they made. She shared one case of a young girl who, after receiving hormone blockers and a double mastectomy, expressed regret. Her doctor, counselor and support group reportedly refused to engage with her when she attempted to stop her transition.

Pirie, who underwent hormone therapy and surgeries herself in the early 2000s, went on and spoke candidly about her own experiences.

"That is a decision that I will live with for the remainder of my life," she lamented. "I made this decision as an adult. I simply cannot understand how, if I as a 37-year-old woman with a postsecondary education wasnt ready to make such a life-altering decision, [we can] possibly support, encourage or allow our children to do so?" (Related: Alberta premier introduces bill BANNING the participation of transgender athletes in women's sports.)

Pirie applauded Smith for this bill and officially gave her support for the policy.

"Today Premier Smith has put forward will be putting forward legislation that is vital to preserving the rights for children to make informed adult decisions as adults," Pirie said on Oct. 31. "I am here today because I am proud to support these changes that specifically outline the boundaries and safety measures to ensure children and youth will be insulated from irreversible surgical alterations and life-altering pharmaceutical interventions prior to their obtaining the degree of physiological maturity necessary to understand how these interventions will impact their future."

Smith: Bill 26 is inspired by stories of the irreversible consequences of gender mutilation among young people

In a separate statement, Smith supported the claims of Pirie that the bill is inspired by stories of irreversible consequences suffered by young people who underwent similar treatments abroad.

Smith cited the 2019 investigation into the Tavistock Center in the United Kingdom, a National Health Service clinic once recognized as the leading "gender clinic" for children experiencing gender dysphoria. The investigation revealed that the clinic had approved hormone therapy and other interventions for minors without conclusive evidence of their long-term effects. These findings eventually led to the temporary closure of the clinic.

According to Smith, she was touched by the story of Keira Bell, a former Tavistock patient, who has become one of the most well-known voices on the subject. Bell, who began gender transition treatments as a teenager, now deeply regrets the process, especially the medical interventions she received, including puberty blockers, testosterone injections and a double mastectomy at age 20. She later joined a lawsuit against the clinic, arguing that she was too young to consent to such life-altering procedures.

This story represents just one of many. "It is so important that all youth can enter adulthood equipped to make adult decisions. In order to do that, we need to preserve their ability to make those decisions, and that's what were doing," Smith said. "The changes we're introducing are founded on compassion and science, both of which are vital for the development of youth throughout a time that can be difficult and confusing."

Follow MedicalViolence.com for more news about transgender surgeries on minors.

Watch the video below discussing the dangers of transgender surgeries.

This video is from the Recharge Freedom channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Biden regime unseals indictment of Dr. Eithan Haim, who faces up to 10 years in prison for exposing illegal child gender mutilations at Texas Children's Hospital.

American College of Pediatricians calls out all major medical organizations pushing gender mutilation of children.

Texas Childrens Hospital whistleblower says doctors illegally performing transgender mutilation on children also committing Medicaid FRAUD.

Psychotherapists announce plans to "eradicate" critics of transgender mutilation from medical profession.

Study, now retracted, found that popularity of transgender mutilation among youth a direct result of "referral to a gender specialist"  children are being GROOMED to destroy their own bodies.

Sources include:

LifeSiteNews.com 1

LifeSiteNews.com 2

Brighteon.com
Lawsuit accuses Pfizer of hiding popular contraceptives link to BRAIN TUMORS

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has been accused in a lawsuit of hiding the link between its injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera and brain tumors

The lawsuit was filed on Nov. 4 at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by plaintiff Taylor Devorak. The Crestline, California resident developed a tumor in her brain after taking the drug regularly as prescribed for several years, according to The Defender. Devorak is seeking damages from Pfizer for failure to warn, defective design, negligence, misrepresentation and breach of warranty.

When Devorak was 20 years old, her provider at Planned Parenthood prescribed Depo-Provera as a contraceptive. She received 36 regular injections of the drug as recommended and prescribed during a nine-year period.

By August 2018, Devorak began experiencing symptoms that included blurry vision, double vision and trouble focusing  which tests later found to be linked to intracranial meningioma, a slow-growing tumor impinging her optic nerve.

While she underwent a complex intracranial surgery but it failed to completely remove the meningioma. As a result, she continues to suffer serious injuries and damages.

Devorak had no idea that her tumor was connected to the contraceptive, until she saw reports about a study by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published earlier this year. The paper, which the federal lawsuit cited, found that prolonged use of medroxyprogesterone acetate medications like Depo-Provera increased the risk of developing intracranial meningioma by 555 percent. (Related: French study links prolonged use of Pfizers hormonal drugs to increased risk of BRAIN TUMORS in women.)

The New York-based Pfizer told The Guardian at the time of the study's publication that it was "aware of this potential risk." The Big Pharma firm has since changed the Depo-Provera label in the United Kingdom and the European Union, but not in the United States.

Thus, Devorak named Pfizer and its subsidiaries that developed and sold Depo-Provera and its authorized generic version as defendants in her lawsuit. As a direct result of being prescribed the drug, Devorak has been permanently and severely injured.

Pfizer will answer for its negligence

According to the complaint, "Pfizer has a duty to stay informed on relevant literature and to do its own long-term studies." The Defender added: "Despite research published over decades indicating a possible link to the tumors, some of which existed even before the drug was licensed as a contraceptive in 1992, the company and its predecessors never investigated this link or adequately studied such possible adverse events among women taking the drug."

The lawsuit continued that the defendants "did nothing, and therefore willfully failed to apprise the medical community, and the women patients receiving quarterly high dose injections, of this dangerous risk."

Ellen Relkin, an attorney from the Weitz & Luxenberg law firm representing Devorak, said: "Pfizer has included meningioma as a possible adverse reaction to Depo-Provera on its Canadian label since 2015. However, American women are not told of this risk."

Pfizer touts the injectable Depo-Provera as one of the most effective contraceptives in existence, second only to sterilization. But the company also manufactures a safer form of the drug called Depo-subQ Provera 104. This is available in a lower dose and can be administered less frequently.

Devorak's complaint, which comes in the wake of a handful of similar lawsuits, is a clear sign that there are more users of Depo-Provera who were in the dark as to the dangers of the prolonged use of the drug. Similar lawsuits had been filed in other federal courts in recent weeks.

They plan to petition the court to combine the cases into multi-district litigation, which would centralize the litigation process and allow multiple cases to share discovery and pre-trial proceedings. Relkin told The Defender that the plan is to assemble a good team of lawyers who could combine resources so they could have "a strong army to fight Big Pharma," which always has huge resources to defend itself in court.

Visit DangerousMedicine.com for similar stories.

Watch this woman's testimony about how the contraceptive Depo-Provera ruined her life.

This video is from the People's Truth channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Gates Foundation leading the way in eugenics depopulation plan to rid the world of humans.

Contraceptives, statins, PPIs, and blood pressure meds all linked to increased cancer risk.

Canada passes controversial bill providing FREE contraception and abortion pills to all.

Sources include:

ChildrensHealthDefense.org

Brighteon.com
RFK Jr. says Bill Gates, Fauci will both be arrested under Trump

Now that Donald Trump has been reelected as president of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is ready to get to work locking up Bill Gates, Tony Fauci, and every other Big Pharma executive who conspired with the media to censor the ugly truth about Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) "vaccines."

Each of these Big Pharma hacks assumed that Kamala Harris would win and sweep the whole thing under the rug. Now that Trump is about to take office a second time, many of them are running for cover.

Kennedy helped unearth evidence showing that COVID injections are bioweapons rather than honest medicine. Their purpose, among other things, was to sicken the general public while reducing the population and laying the groundwork for global medical fascism.

Gates pumped billions of dollars into the production of the Operation Warp Speed jabs, which Congress and the Trump administration paved the way for with the PREP Act. Since Gates also recently funded $50 million to the Kamala campaign, Kennedy wants him to pay.

"[Bill Gates] has been indicted in the Netherlands for lying to the public about the COVID-19 vaccine," Kennedy said last month. "And he's going to have to go to trial."

"You think that he wants to go to trial here in the United States of America? [Do] you think that's one of the reasons he chose to give $50 million to Kamala Harris?"

(Related: Did you know that Donald Trump is the first U.S. president to win three elections but only serve two, non-consecutive terms?)

There's still justice in the Netherlands

Similar to what the Netherlands is also trying to do in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with regard to the Israel-Gaza situation, the legal system there also wants to hold Gates accountable for what he did all through COVID.

Gates is trying to argue that the judge in the Netherlands who is pursuing him has no jurisdiction, but a ruling was still issued that aligns with one out of the U.S. back in August that allows Kennedy to sue the Biden regime for pressuring social media companies to censor truthful information about COVID injections.

"The Court finds that Kennedy is likely to succeed on his claim that suppression of content posted was caused by actions of Government Defendants, and there is a substantial risk that he will suffer similar injury in the near future," said U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana in his August ruling in favor of Kennedy's position.

Commenting on the decision, Children's Health Defense (CHD) general counsel Kim Rosenberg commended Judge Doughty for "carefully and clearly" analyzing the law and facts while applying "the framework from the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Murthy v. Missouri regarding standing."

"The court also firmly found in plaintiffs' favor that plaintiffs had not waived  and indeed had affirmatively raised  direct censorship claims in addition to listener claims."

Like Gates, Fauci is desperately trying to evade justice despite committing many "depraved crimes against humanity," to quote one media source.

"Besides pushing the deadly vaccine, Fauci also forced people infected with AIDS to take his deadly drug AZT, resulting in the deaths of over 300,000 people," reported Disswire.

"RFK, who will be soon appointed Secretary of Health under President Donald Trump, also vowed to fire the entire National Institute of Health (NIH) team and jail Fauci."

In addition to making America healthy again, Kennedy in a recent speech about Trump also said that the new president-elect is going to be a president "who is going to protect us against totalitarianism."

The latest news about all things Trump can be found at Trump.news.

Sources for this article include:

DissWire.com

NaturalNews.com
Rick Wiles of TruNews: Global Zionism is the rising BEAST SYSTEM

He asserted this during an appearance on the "Health Ranger Report." Wiles told the Health Ranger Mike Adams that in Bible prophecy, the "seas" or "oceans" represent humanity, and "the Beast rising out of the sea" of humanity is not a monster  but a system that comes up through mankind. The book of the Prophet Daniel and the Revelation to St. John of Patmos mentions the themes of the Beast's emergence.

The TruNews founder said: "This Beast is a system that seeks to control the world, and its intention is to compel people to be conformed to the image of the Beast  meaning that people become like the beast. They conform to the image of the Beast. They start taking on the attributes of the Beast.

"And how is that done? Through propaganda, through media, through all of the sensory images that are being sent to people every day. We're being told, 'This is what you can be, and this is what you're not allowed to be.'

"And this Beast is rising up right now. It's forming in front of our eyes. My personal view as of right now  and it could turn out to be wrong  if I had to guess right now, I would say global Zionism is the Beast system. I don't see anything on Earth right now that is scarier than global Zionism."

Wiles pointed out that Zionism is taking control of nations  and it has control of vast resources, the media and the things that influence thinking in society. Global Zionism's tentacles are everywhere, and the United Nations can't get it under control. Thus, Wiles said the movement bothers him the most.

The Health Ranger, meanwhile, mentioned that Zionism claims the Jews are chosen by God to rule over mankind. It also falsely claims that they have the right to murder people; steal land, farms and resources; and take over nations in order to expand the Greater Israel project.

Global Zionism is extremely RACIST

Many Christians believe that the Zionists are the successors to the biblical Israelites. In contrast, Zionists believe that the Gentiles (non-Jews) are the Amalekites and they are obligated by God to exterminate them. In the same manner, the Zionists want to kill the Palestinian people because they believe they have a God-given obligation to kill them.

In line with this, Adams asked Wiles why so many Christians fail to see that Zionism blatantly contradicts the teaching of Christ. (Related: Christian Zionism harbors a contradiction  genocide can't be reconciled with the teachings of Jesus Christ.)

According to Wiles, these people are essentially atheist and agnostic who claim to be God's chosen people.

Wiles also noted that Zionism is an extremely racist ideology, and it can be seen in Zionists and Zionist leaders past and present. He claimed that Zionists are behind antiwhite racism and the demonization of White people. To back up his claim, Wiles pointed out that the Anti-Defamation League is sponsored by B'nai B'rith  largest Jewish Freemason organization.

"It always goes back to masonry. Goes back to secret societies, hidden knowledge, secret knowledge. So, the roads always lead back to Lucifer. And that does not mean all Jewish people are participating in it. It's a small group of people who are the die-hard believers in this movement, but they put the guilt trip on all other Jews and say, 'You have to go along with this or you're not a real Jew.'"

Follow Prophecy.news for more news about the "beast" in Bible prophecy.

Watch the full conversation between Rick Wiles of TruNews and the Health Ranger Mike Adams below.

This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Bidens Zionist-controlled cabinet gave Israel green light to invade Lebanon.

Prophecy preacher and genocide apologist Amir Tsarfati says the mass killing of Palestinians is not genocide because God told them to do it.

GOP goes all-in for censorship as Zionism takes over the Republican Party.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

BibleGateway.com 1

BibleGateway.com 2
Telegraph journalist gets hate incident visit from police over year-old tweet

(Article by Steve Watson republished from Modernity.news)

Yes, really.

Allison Pearson relates what happened on Sunday in an article, noting that police will not tell her which post is the subject of the investigation, nor will they tell her who her accuser is or what they feel offended about.

I respect the police who do a v difficult job, but 2 coppers turning up at my house on Remembrance Sunday over a year-old tweet - they wont tell me what it said - erodes public confidence. This is a free society and law-abiding people should not be pursued for wrong think. https://t.co/K6vJGZmxDA  Allison Pearson (@AllisonPearson) November 13, 2024

The only detail given was that it is some sort of accusation of racial hatred.

'If you guess your crime right do they have to tell you?'@andrewdoyle_com @joshxhowie @CareyMarx Telegraph writer in 'Kafkaesque' hate crime enquiry | Telegraph pic.twitter.com/LhQbmGwGsS  GB News (@GBNEWS) November 13, 2024

The police also made it clear that she should refer to her accuser as a victim.

? @AllisonPearson reveals how police officers called at her home on Remembrance Sunday to tell her of inquiry into year-old social media post Find out more ?https://t.co/S63MCOk6UJ pic.twitter.com/jM9q79zhzQ  The Telegraph (@Telegraph) November 12, 2024

The Telegraph notes that Essex Police said on Tuesday night that officers had opened an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 relating to material allegedly likely or intended to cause racial hatred.

A police spokesman said Were investigating a report passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed. An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act.

Pearson charges that the visit is living proof of a two tier justice system, and describes the incident as Kafkaesque.

I've just caught up with this by @AllisonPearson. Fortunately, she is a member of the Free @SpeechUnion, but I hope the @Telegraph will also be vigorously defending her freedom of expression. The non-crime hate incident industry is a malignancy.https://t.co/iLsuNX4MgQ pic.twitter.com/yf0Cr2f0Vr  Adrian Hilton (@Adrian_Hilton) November 12, 2024

An all new level of dystopian hell. Very hard to see how charging someone with a 'non-crime' hate incident whilst refusing to disclose to them any further details can possibly be consistent with basic principles of natural justice. As @AllisonPearson makes clear in her powerful pic.twitter.com/aVNmAmdRrC  Molly Kingsley (@lensiseethrough) November 13, 2024

Figures show that between 2014 and 2019, 34 police forces across England and Wales recorded 119,934 NCHIs.

The Free Speech Union believes this has doubled in the five years since to over 250,000an average of 66 recorded per day.

They found that, in the year since Suella Bravermans revised guidance, NCHIs were recorded 0.4% more11,690, up from 11,642, in the year from June 2023 to 2024.

X owner Elon Musk commented on the incident, urging simply this has to stop.

This needs to stop https://t.co/wvwxkHvVMT  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2024

Dont the police have some actual crime to work on?

Amid the stabbings, machete attacks, unsolved thefts and street robberies the police knock on Allisons door about a tweet. Totally dysfunctional https://t.co/MKPco8Nmrt  William Clouston SDP (@WilliamClouston) November 13, 2024

Yes, turns out they have quite a lot to work on.

On Sunday, Essex police showed up at @AllisonPearsons front door to tell her that they were investigating her for allegedly stirring up racial hatred in a social media post LAST YEAR. Below is the Essex Polices track record of solving crimes. Do you see the problem? pic.twitter.com/3etLyBWRGV  Alex Armstrong (@alexharmstrong) November 13, 2024

In addition to this, people are being criminally targeted and even imprisoned in the UK for social media posts.

Read more at: Modernity.news
UK partners with World Economic Forum to change inheritance tax laws, transforming traditional farms to solar and wind farms

The UK government recently announced sweeping reforms to the inheritance tax on agricultural properties . These changes could open the door to a resource confiscation scheme that transitions traditional food-producing farms to solar and wind farms.

The scheme incentivizes farmers to lease or sell their agricultural land to corporate-owned energy developments. Farms will be surrendered to corporations connected directly to the World Economic Forum. Once the farms are converted to solar and wind, the changes will be permanent. This will have a devastating impact on food production across the UK, driving up food prices and creating food shortages over the long haul.

World Economic Forum charters new path to stifle and control food production in the UK

Under the new policy, the UK government rewrites the Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR) provisions. Starting in April 2026, the first 1 million of combined business and agricultural assets will remain free from inheritance tax, but above this threshold, the relief will drop from 100% to 50%, effectively imposing a 20% inheritance tax rate on assets over the threshold.

Gareth Phillips, a partner at multinational law firm Pinsent Masons, says the changes could have a profound impact on the agricultural sector, diversifying farmers income streams. Phillips is a "renewable energy expert" with extensive experience in project development, financing, and planning.

Historically, many farmers have avoided leasing land for renewable energy developments due to concerns over losing valuable inheritance tax relief. If farmers leased land for projects such as solar or wind farms, it could potentially trigger a loss of agricultural status, leading to higher tax liabilities. However, with the upcoming reforms, landowners are now being encouraged to explore new income streams, including leasing land to renewable developers, without the same risk of inheritance tax penalties.

Its clear that these changes are likely to open up more agricultural land for renewable energy projects, Phillips said. Farmers have long been reluctant to lease their land for renewable development because of inheritance tax concerns. But with the tax relief reduction, we may now see more landowners willing to make the transition, either by leasing their land or even selling it to fund their tax liabilities. This could help address some of the land scarcity issues that renewable energy developers have faced.

Farmers to protest WEFs land confiscation schemes in London on Nov 19

The UK governments commitment to tackling climate change and meeting net-zero emissions by 2050 is a driving force behind these reforms. Industry experts have long cited the need for more land to meet ambitious net zero carbon targets. Pinsent Masons, where Phillips works, has strong ties to climate-focused initiatives. The firm is a well-known proponent of sustainability, with stated goals of achieving net-zero emissions by 2040 and sourcing 100% renewable electricity by 2030. The firm is directly involved in global discussions around decarbonization and sustainable infrastructure, and they are collaborating with the World Economic Forum to achieve their totalitarian goals.

On November 19, farmers will be taking to the streets of London in protest, calling for support in preserving the future of family-run farming. One Twitter user expressed the sentiment of many: "UK farmers need us! (and we need them!)  Once farming is gone, its gone, and thats what they want and we know why! Everyone who is able, get to London to support UK Farmers!"

Many farmers fear that the tax changes will disproportionately affect smaller, family-owned farms, which are already under financial pressure from rising costs, climate challenges and volatile market conditions. The concern is that these new policies could force many farmers to sell off their land, either to pay inheritance taxes or to capitalize on potentially higher land values driven by interest from renewable energy developers. These changes will cripple small farms and shift the UKs agricultural sector toward large-scale industrial farming or corporate-owned energy developments, ceding control to the globalists.

Sources include:

Expose-News.com

PinsentMasons.com

PinsentMasons.com
Ukraine has suffered over 30,000 casualties in Kursk incursion, Putin claims

Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the Valdai Forum, provided grim details on Ukraine's losses since its August incursion into Russia's Kursk Oblast

He claimed that Ukraine had suffered over 30,000 casualties in just three months of fighting, surpassing its total casualties from the previous year. Putin described this as a "terrible price" for Ukraine, attributing the military operation to political pressures imposed by Western powers, particularly the United States.

Putin argued that the decision to launch the offensive into Kursk made little military sense and was driven by external political motives. He stated that Ukrainian forces were ordered to hold their ground in Kursk at all costs, partly to show the West that its support for Ukraine had not been in vain. He stressed that this was a tragedy for both the Ukrainian people and its military, who were enduring heavy losses for political reasons.

The toll on Ukraine has been not only in terms of human casualties but also equipment. The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that Ukraine had lost 184 tanks, over 100 infantry fighting vehicles and more than 1,000 other armored vehicles. Additionally, Ukrainian forces lost 26 military engineering vehicles in the fighting. Despite these significant losses, Ukrainian officials continue to assert that their offensive has slowed Russian progress along the eastern front. (Related: Bad news for Kyiv: Elite Ukrainian troops SURRENDER to Russians in Kursk.)

While Ukrainian officials claimed their efforts had delayed Russia's advance, independent reports suggested that Russian forces made more territorial gains in October than in any other month this year.

Russia's strategy seems to be to push Ukraine out of the Kursk region while continuing its slow but steady territorial expansion in the Donbas region.

Russia massively outnumbers Ukrainian troops in Kursk

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Russian forces in Kursk significantly outnumber Ukrainian troops. He estimated that nearly 50,000 Russian soldiers are operating in the region and pledged to reinforce Ukrainian defenses along the most active fronts, particularly around Pokrovsk and Kurakhove. Zelensky also highlighted the ongoing slow encroachment by Russian forces into Ukrainian territory.

The situation in Kursk remains dire. Russia has since mounted a successful counteroffensive and is regaining ground in most theaters of the conflict, particularly in the Donbas region, where its forces are capturing village after village. Russia's goal remains the full capture of this industrial region.

Recent reports have also pointed to the involvement of North Korean soldiers in the conflict. According to multiple sources, North Korea has sent troops to Russia to support its military efforts against Ukraine, a claim that Moscow has neither confirmed nor denied. This highlights the increasing international dimension of the war, as Russia deepens its ties with North Korea through a new strategic partnership.

The human toll continues to climb. Recent Russian artillery strikes in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region killed two people and injured at least 19 others. Additionally, a missile strike on the city of Kryvyi Rih wounded 14 people, including two children. Russian forces have also targeted a dam in Donetsk, which could lead to flooding in nearby villages.

Ukrainian officials are also bracing for new Russian ground assaults on the Zaporizhia region, with military spokespersons warning that attacks could begin at any time. The region, already under heavy pressure from Russian forces, could face further strain as both sides prepare for intensified fighting in the coming weeks.

Watch this conversation between "Dialogue Works" host Nima Alkhorshid and former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter discussing how Ukraine is very close to admitting defeat.

This video is from the What Is Happening channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

North Korean soldiers deployed to Ukraine to fight for Russia allegedly getting addicted to online p*rn.

Russia has invoked Article 4 of its mutual defense treaty with North Korea, Putin confirms.

Russia pledges military support to North Korea amid rising tensions.

Sources include:

RT.com

AlJazeera.com

Brighteon.com
Chinese national arrested for a second time after numerous attempts to enter Mar-a-Lago

A Chinese national was arrested by police in Palm Beach County, Florida on Nov. 8 after his latest attempt to trespass into President-elect Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

Li Zijie, a 39-year-old living in suburban Los Angeles on a student visa, allegedly showed up at the Trump property in an Uber on the afternoon of Nov. 7 for his latest attempt to get inside the resort in the last couple of weeks.

Li made the trip just hours after getting out of a mental hospital, where he had spent the past week after a similar attempt made in late October, based on a police affidavit. As stated by the county's jail records, Li is now facing two counts of trespassing. He is being detained at the Palm Beach County Main Detention Center with his bail set at $100,000.

The arrest has increased security concerns around Trump, who has had to deal with two assassination attempts against him in the past few months.

According to court documents, Li initially attempted to enter Mar-a-Lago on July 19, six days after Trump was shot during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Li paused in a gray Toyota and told Secret Service agents he had information incriminating China in the assassination attempt and wished to provide them with the documents.

The Palm Beach police released a trespass warning and told him not to return.

In the days that followed, Li drove to Palm Beach no less than four times, but did not attempt to enter Mar-a-Lago.

On July 30, officers noticed Li driving toward the Mar-a-Lago checkpoint and putting paperwork about Trump on vehicles. He was arrested the following day for purportedly trespassing on the premises. A local court later ordered Li to stay 500 feet away from the resort and Trump.

Court documents also showed that Li's next attempt was on Oct. 30, when he attempted to recruit a resident who lives close to the resort.

In the affidavit concerning the latest intrusion attempt, Palm Beach Police said that because of the "increased attempts by Li to gain entrance into Mar-a-Lago" to get in touch with the president-elect, a future attempt could lead to a rise of enforcement.

Mar-a-Lago had five intrusions during Trump's first term as president

Mar-a-Lago was the scene of five intrusion attempts during Trump's first term, including two by Chinese nationals.

In March 2019, Chinese national Zhang Yujing, a businesswoman from Shanghai, gained entry to Mar-a-Lago while holding a laptop, phones and other electronic gear. Her trespass incident led to speculation that she was a spy for the Chinese Communist Party, but the Department of Justice never accused her of espionage. (Related: Chinese nationals being let into U.S. via Bidens pathetic open borders policies, raising new fears of espionage.)

Text messages Zhang exchanged with a trip organizer suggested she was a fan of Trump and wanted to meet him or his family to talk about possible deals. She was found guilty of trespassing and deported.

In December 2019, the club's security officers faced another Chinese national, Lu Jing, for trespassing and told her to leave, but she returned to take photos. Lu was accused of loitering and resisting an officer without violence. She was later cleared of trespassing but found guilty of resisting arrest.

Follow CommunistChina.news for more news about Chinese nationals infiltrating America.

Watch the video below about Chinese nationals accused of espionage in the United States.

This video is from the PRATHER POINT channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Number of Chinese nationals crossing U.S.-Mexico border SOARS as Biden announces ineffective crackdown plan.

Surge in CHINESE NATIONALS apprehended at the southern border sparks national security concerns.

Chinese illegal immigrant arrested for unauthorized entry onto Marine Corps base in California.

Sources include:

ZeroHedge.com

APNews.com

Brighteon.com
Fired anti-Trump FEMA supervisor speaks out: Its agency policy to discriminate against Trump supporters

A major corruption scandal within the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is erupting after supervisor Deanne Criswell came forward like a whistleblower to reveal that "it's agency policy" for FEMA to discriminate against conservatives and Donald Trump supporters.

Criswell was fired for her involvement in sending correspondences to FEMA workers relaying, we know now, what Criswell herself was being told to send them by her superiors.

At first, it seemed as if Criswell herself was responsible for launching an anti-Trump crusade within FEMA. It turns out that she is merely one cog in a very large corruption wheel that has rendered FEMA a partisan hack job of an agency, much like the rest of the Washington establishment.

Watch below as Criswell spills the beans about how FEMA corruption basically starts at the very top of the organizational structure.

"Essentially, she's using the old 'I was just following orders' excuse, but in doing so, she's blowing this scandal wide open in ways that could be unimaginable  and could spell the downfall of this weaponized federal organization," reports Revolver.

So, apparently this FEMA "skipping over Trump supporters" story is 100% true and not just this employee's rogue decision: it's agency policy. Wow. pic.twitter.com/b5MaZK3k0A  Erich Hartmann (@erichhartmann) November 12, 2024

(Related: If this is the first time you are hearing about this particular brand of FEMA corruption, be sure to check out our earlier report to learn more about the events that led to this.)

Media deception hiding Deanne Criswell's black skin from America

There is no doubt that Criswell is still one of the "bad guys," so to speak. Just because she is behaving somewhat like a whistleblower does not mean that she deserves to be let off the hook for just following orders.

At the same time, her words and the revelations therein are a testament to just how much work President-elect Trump has on his plate, assuming he really plans to do right on behalf of the American people like he claims.

To try to trick the American public about the story, the corporate media machine, in this case CBS News, published a piece portraying Criswell as a white woman rather than the black woman she actually is:

Look at the photograph CBS News used for the story about the FEMA supervisor fired for telling workers not to help Trump supporters as opposed to the actual photograph of the employee. pic.twitter.com/aPGYEgSSOs  Adam Johnston (@ConquestTheory) November 9, 2024

The Federalist writer Adam Johnston (@ConquestTheory on X / Twitter) tweeted that news organizations "routinely use other photos to perpetuate or protect their preferred narratives."

"NONE of the legacy media stories about this FEMA supervisor included her picture," Johnston further stressed about the level of gross deception involved.

"Can you imagine if a white FEMA employee instructed relief workers not to help anyone who had Harris / Walz signs outside their homes?" Johnston asks. "Do you think we'd see their picture in the news? The answer is obviously yes."

If what Criswell says in the above interview is true, and it appears it is, then Congress has a duty to get involved with the intent of getting to the bottom of the problem in order to remedy it.

"People don't just need to be fired  if it's true that citizens were denied federal aid because of who they supported politically, then those responsible need to be brought up on criminal charges," Revolver says about the matter.

"Under federal law, 'deprivation of rights under color of law' makes it a crime for officials to use their position to deny Americans their rights. If that's what happened here, then it's time to hold these bad actors accountable and throw the book at them. We're done with allowing the left to turn America into their own twisted version of North Korea."

The latest Trump-related news can be found at Trump.news.

Sources for this article include:

Revolver.news

NaturalNews.com
News / National

by Staff reporter

Collet Tavengwa, a member of the Johanne Masowe YeChishanu Apostolic sect in Marondera, appeared in court on Tuesday, facing charges of motor vehicle theft. The 40-year-old is accused of fraudulently obtaining a Toyota Hilux GD6 single cab truck from a Harare car dealership.Tavengwa appeared before Magistrate Donald Ndirowei, who granted him US$500 bail. The case was remanded to December 11 for further proceedings.According to the State's allegations, on October 5, 2024, Tavengwa, fully aware that he was not a beneficiary of the two vehicles donated by businessman Wicknell Chivayo, approached White Stallion Autogroup, a car dealership located in Borrowdale, Harare. Tavengwa reportedly lied to the dealership's representative, Joel Chikosi, claiming he was one of the intended recipients of the donated vehicles, despite the fact that Chivayo had not disclosed the names of the beneficiaries.Chikosi, under the impression that Tavengwa was a legitimate recipient, handed over one of the Toyota Hilux GD6 trucks to him, along with an agreement of sale. Tavengwa then allegedly drove away with the vehicle.The theft was uncovered when Chivayo made inquiries about the vehicles, leading to Tavengwa's arrest.The case has drawn attention due to Tavengwa's position within the Johanne Masowe YeChishanu Apostolic sect, a religious community with significant influence in some parts of Zimbabwe.
Global health reform must go far beyond WHO

Understanding the Depth of a Problem

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently entered the consciousness of many in Western countries as, justifiably, an example of destructive, unaccountable bureaucratic overreach. Seeking to impose restrictions and extract money from individuals and nations for the benefit of well-heeled sponsors, it plays no useful role in the lives of many beyond providing a potential career path for those who want travel, a good salary, and a feeling of altruistic superiority. Through its role in the abrogation of human rights and impoverishment of hundreds of millions during the Covid response, it has spawned an Exit the WHO movement standing on the supremacy of individual and national sovereignty.

(Article by David Bell republished from Brownstone.org)

This is understandable, but it also risks being naive and simplistic. If the WHO is to be torn down, those advocating for this should first recognize why it exists, and its limitations and context. It is not a world hegemonic power and cannot be, but it reflects a far deeper and more complex threat to basic human rights, democracy, and global health itself. Formed to help reduce global inequality in human health, it has contributed to a steady improvement in population health in the past, just as it has shown more recently that it can make things worse. Its actions and outputs reflect its masters, not an independent entity gone rogue.

The WHO therefore needs to be addressed as part of a wider problem. If a privileged few are seeking some sort of global hegemony, the response cannot be based on the wishes of another privileged few. It must involve those who are most helped and most harmed, who pay for the WHO, and who may still rely on it. If this is about sovereign people and sovereign States reasserting their interests, then this is who must own the answer.

The Betrayal of the Peoples

Since 2020, the WHO has orchestrated and condoned one of the most devastating assaults on individual and societal health the world has seen. At the behest of highly conflicted sponsors, this international bureaucracy promoted policies that overwhelmingly harmed the worlds most disadvantaged. The organization turned on those whom it had been set up to serve, returning to the pre-World War Two mindset of technocratic authoritarianism that characterized public health in the era of eugenics, colonialism, and European fascism.

Knowing fully the impact of their actions, the WHO helped force over a hundred million additional people into severe food insecurity and poverty and up to ten million additional girls into child marriage and sexual slavery. It helped deprive a generation of the schooling needed to lift themselves out of poverty and grew national debts to leave countries at the mercy of global predators. This was an intentional response to a virus they knew from the beginning was rarely severe beyond sick elderly people. The WHO helped orchestrate an unprecedented transfer of wealth from those it was originally tasked to protect to those who now sponsor and direct most of its work. Lacking any contrition, the WHO is now seeking increased public funding through misrepresentation of risk and return on investment to entrench this response.

How an Institution Rots

Through its Constitution written in 1946, the WHO was intended to promote the equality of peoples emerging from the wreckage of a World War and colonialism, with all nation-states standing equal and independent as its only authority. This continued through the Declaration of Alma Ata in 1978, placing the needs and requirements of communities under their sovereign governments as the core focus, and informer, of public health.

Like all human institutions, this could not last. High salaries and business-class travel to exotic places attract people who like, and come to believe they are entitled to, such privileges. Staff dependent on an organization for such benefits come to prioritize its welfare over the needs of those it was supposed to serve. Workers detached from the impacts of their actions soon find self-advancement, tenure, and pensions, which are achieved by listening to their funders rather than those impacted by their actions.

Read more at: Brownstone.org
3 Iranian assets charged for plotting to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, DOJ announces

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed charges against three alleged hitmen in connection with a thwarted Iran-backed plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump

Suspects Carlisle Rivera and Jonathon Loadholt, both from New York City, have been arrested. Another individual named Farhad Shakeri, who was identified as an asset of Iran's ideologically-driven military wing, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), remains at large in Iran.

"There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran," said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement. "The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran's assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump."

The suspects have been slapped with a range of charges, including murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The call to hire hitmen was placed in late September, with the hired individuals planning to take out the former president before the Nov. 5 election.

"The charges announced today expose Iran's continued brazen attempts to target U.S. citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders, and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran," Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray said highlighting the seriousness of the case.

A federal official said that an unnamed official with the IRGC contacted Shakeri, a career criminal who previously served 14 years in a U.S. prison for a robbery conviction in December 2023, and instructed him to plan to assassinate Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist who lives in Brooklyn and a staunch critic of President Joe Biden's regime.

Shakeri then used his criminal network to hire Rivera of Brooklyn and Loadholt of Staten Island to conduct surveillance. He reportedly exchanged a series of voice messages with the two New Yorkers about Alinejad's whereabouts, routine and how the victim spent most of her time at home. He also instructed them to wait for their opportunity to kill the journalist.

"You just gotta have patience," according to the voice recordings gathered by the DOJ. "You gotta wait and have patience to catch her either going in the house or coming out, or following her out somewhere and taking care of it."

But in mid to late September, Shakeri was ordered to drop all his plans and instead plot to kill Trump.

Shakeri reportedly met with the Iranian military officials on Oct. 7, the first anniversary of the Hamas terror attack on Israel, where they instructed him to present an assassination plot within seven days. However, Shakeri claimed to the FBI that he did not intend to propose a plan to kill Trump within the timeframe set by the Iranian government, the DOJ said.

As per the criminal complaint, if Shakeri was unable to create a meticulous plan, they would pause the plan until after Election Day because Iran believed that "Trump would lose and it would be easier to assassinate him."

Iran denies assassination plans on Trump

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reacted to the DOJ's allegation, denying any assassination plot against the incoming president.

"Remember the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran right after our president's inauguration? Everyone knows who did it and why. Now, with another election, a new scenario is fabricated with the same goal: as a killer does not exist in reality, scriptwriters are brought in to manufacture a third-rate comedy," Araghchi posted on X.

"Who can in their right mind believe that a supposed assassin SITS IN IRAN and talks online to the FBI?!" he further tweeted in disbelief.

According to the diplomat, the world should consider the reality that the American people have made their decision and that Iran respects their right to elect the president of their choice.

"The path forward is also a choice. It begins with respect. Iran is NOT after nuclear weapons, period. This is a policy based on Islamic teachings and our security calculations. Confidence-building is needed from both sides. It is not a one-way street," he also argued.

The said liquidation attempt surfaced on Nov. 8, shortly after Trump was declared the incoming president of the United States. (Related: Trump has long been the subject of exceptionally vicious threats and violent rhetoric  so why isn't he being better protected?)

Head over to Trump.news for stories related to the failed assassination attempts on Trump.

Watch the video below that talks about the hidden threats on the life of President-elect Donald Trump.

This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Secret Service to shield Trump with bulletproof glass at outdoor events following assassination attempt.

Second Trump would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh pleads NOT GUILTY.

Gender-confused Democrat ARRESTED for saying he wanted to shoot Trump.

Facebook ADMITS to censoring Trump assassination attempt photo.

Sources include:

YourNews.com

The-Sun.com

MSN.com

Brighteon.com
Israeli quadcopters are SHOOTING injured children at Gaza airstrike scenes, confirms acclaimed British surgeon

Acclaimed British surgeon Nizam Mamode testified before the UK Parliament this week about what he personally witnessed in the Gaza Strip concerning Israel's holocaust-like murder spree against injured Palestinian children.

According to Mamode, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) "quadcopters" are going into areas of Gaza that were previously bombed by other IDF weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and picking off, aka shooting, injured people, including children, who are lying amid the rubble.

"What I think I found particularly disturbing was that a bomb would drop maybe on a crowded, tented area, and then the drones would come down," Mamode said soberly with tears in his eyes before Great Britain's political class.

When Mamode's tears started flowing, he was told to take his time because the British parliament is simply thankful for him showing up to tell the ugly truth about the situation in Gaza, no matter how politically incorrect it apparently is to do so since Israel is the one responsible.

"We're incredibly grateful for you making the time to be here today," Mamode was told by the person in charge.

"And I can only imagine just how it has impacted you and will continue to impact you, and I feel because you can't unsee what you've seen but being able to share that with us really helps us to hold legislators particularly into account."

This is why Israel doesnt want journalists in Gaza. Acclaimed British surgeon testifies to UK Parliament how IDF "quadcopters" would arrive at the scene of airstrikes in Gaza and shoot the injured, including children. pic.twitter.com/FRpvexNx8E  Khalissee (@Kahlissee) November 12, 2024

(Related: Did you know that Turkey and 51 other nations are calling for a worldwide arms embargo on Israel to stop all the killing?)

"This is not an occasional thing," says Mamode about Israel's mass murder of injured Palestinian children

Once Mamode regained his composure, he continued to describe the IDF drones that he says would "come down" to "pick off civilians' children."

"We had description after  this is not an occasional thing. This was day after day after day operating on children."

"And this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me," Mamode continued about how he was personally, even as a physician simply trying to help the sick and injured, assaulted by the Israeli military for his mere presence in Gaza.

"That's clearly a deliberate act. It was persistent  persistent targeting of civilians. Day after day, we have one or two mass casualty incidents  every day."

The internet, as you might expect, is in an uproar over these revelations. There is still a strong contingent of Israel First folks out there who believe that identifying genocide and telling the world about it will incur "curses" from God for not "blessing" Israel in its endeavors. Everyone else is horrified by what Israel is doing.

"Killing injured children in cold blood with quadcopters is psychopathic behaviour and certainly a war crime of the most repugnant kind," tweeted "L'Observateur Q2" (@LobservateurLi2) on X / Twitter.

"These people are indeed psychotic," replied the popular "Khalissee" (@Kahlissee) X / Twitter account.

"Israel has proven itself to be the cruelest entity on the face of the earth right now," suggested another about the murderous hearts of those in Israel, as well as those who support Israel, who believe that what Israel is doing will be honored by the Most High simply because Israel is the one doing it.

Another shared the following video of a retired American officer telling a similar story about how the Israeli army murdered a little girl named Hind Rajab in cold blood while she was asking them for help:

A retired American officer talks about the story of the little girl Hind Rajab and how she was killed in cold blood by the Israeli army while she was asking for help. It's very sad.#Lebanon #Gaza #Hezbollah #Iran #usa #Israel @Censored_Woman @qatalatni24015 @DrLoupis pic.twitter.com/sF0k1bbNiN  Report Syrian (@reportsyrian) October 26, 2024

The latest news about all the death and destruction in the Middle East right now can be found at Chaos.news.

Sources for this article include:

X.com

NaturalNews.com
The investigation stems from earlier reports suggesting Netanyahu edited transcripts of high-level security meetings during the early days of the Gaza war. These edits allegedly aimed to obscure or distort conversations regarding Israels military response to Hamas. Some reports indicate that Netanyahu sought to make internal discussions more difficult to trace, raising concerns that these changes were part of an effort to avoid accountability.

Israel is facing significant legal challenges on the international stage. The ICC is considering whether to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and now-former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant over allegations of war crimes, including extermination, related to Israel's actions in Gaza.

The ICC's investigation is a critical issue for the Israeli leadership, as war crimes charges are among the most serious international allegations a leader can face.

In addition, South Africa has filed a case at the ICJ accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention during its military operations in Gaza. Many nations have decided to join South Africa in this case.

The ICJ, which is based in The Hague, is the principal court for adjudicating violations of international law. (Related: Calls for Netanyahus resignation intensify as Israel faces domestic crisis.)

In January, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling demanding that Israel take immediate steps to prevent any actions that could be seen as violating the Genocide Convention. However, reports suggest that Israel has failed to comply with this ruling.

Netanyahu also being accused of blackmailing military officers

The situation escalated when reports surfaced that Netanyahu's aides allegedly tried to blackmail a military officer into altering the records of security meetings leading up to the attack.

The officer, who worked in Netanyahu's office, was reportedly coerced using sensitive personal information obtained from the phone of another staff member. Netanyahu's chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, has been named as the individual behind the blackmail attempt, though he has denied the allegations, calling them a "lie" and threatening legal action.

This investigation is just the latest in a series of legal and political scandals surrounding Netanyahu. The prime minister is currently facing a high-profile corruption trial, which has further damaged his public image.

Critics accuse Netanyahu of using his political power to delay military action or prolong the Gaza conflict in order to distract from his legal troubles and to prevent his fractious governing coalition, which includes many religious extremists, from collapsing and triggering an early election.

Amid these legal and political challenges, Netanyahu has resisted calls for a public commission of inquiry into the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, instead blaming Israel's security forces for the failures that led to the attack. His office has dismissed the allegations as part of a "web of lies" aimed at undermining his government.
RFK Jr. says Trump wants American troops out of northern Syria

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has revealed that President-elect Donald Trump plans to remove American troops from northern Syria rather than leaving them as "cannon fodder" should conflict erupt between Turkey and Syrian Kurdish forces.

Since 2014, the United States has provided support to the Kurdish-led Syrian opposition group the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of military units, militias and ethnic groups led by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in their fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).

Turkey claims that the YPG and the SDF are extensions of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization. This classification has led Turkey to launch multiple invasions of northern Syria to weaken the SDF's presence along the Syrian-Turkish border.

With the reelection of Trump, there could be potential shifts in U.S. foreign policy, especially in regions where American troops play strategic roles. And now, Kennedy, a prominent Trump ally, has backed this possibility in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson. (Related: Mike Adams and Texas Rep. Cloud discuss the implications of RFK Jr. supporting Donald Trump.)

"When I was with President Trump, we were talking about the Middle East and he took a piece of paper and he drew on it [a] map of the Middle East with all the nations on it, which most Americans couldn't do," Kennedy told Carlson.

"He was particularly looking at the border between Syria and Turkey, and he said, 'We have 500 men on the border of Syria and Turkey and a little encampment that was bombed.' He said there's 750,000 troops in Turkey. There's 250,000 militants in Syria. If they go up against each other, we're in the middle."

Trump then warned Kennedy during the plane journey that any escalation between Turkish and Kurdish forces could jeopardize the safety of American soldiers caught in the crossfire. Generals even told Trump that American troops would be "cannon fodder" if Turkey and the Kurdish forces clashed. And so, he told Kennedy: "Get them out."

U.S. support helps SDF contain ISIS elements in the region

The SDF is the military arm of the region of northern Syria known as Rojava, or formally the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Rojava has stated its goal of becoming an autonomous unit within a federalized Syria. Bashar al-Assad's government in the capital of Damascus, meanwhile, seeks to reclaim all territory lost since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011 and a return to the pre-civil war status quo.

Assad's government has frequently clashed with Kurdish forces, Turkish-backed rebel groups in northern Syria and even with Turkey itself.

In addition to de facto governing everything in Syria northeast of the Euphrates River and overseeing regional security, the SDF is currently detaining over 10,000 ISIS fighters, including around 2,000 foreign nationals whose home countries have refused to repatriate them.

In support of the SDF's efforts, the U.S. Senate voted in 2023 to keep American soldiers in Syria. There are an estimated 900 U.S. soldiers in the country, most of whom are deployed in northeast Syria to support the SDF, with smaller units deployed to aid allied Syrian rebel groups in the country's southeast.

Check out RFKJr.news for more stories about RFK Jr.'s role in the second Trump administration.

Watch Howard Lutnick, head of the second Trump transition team, discussing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s potential position in the president-elect's second term.

This video is from the Thrivetime Show channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Despite pandering to Israel, Trump only received 21% of Jewish vote: exit polling.

RFK, Jr. tells supporters he will play a role in protecting public health in Trump administration.

RFK Jr. to be involved in oversight of health and agriculture departments under second Trump admin.

Trump says he's willing to offer RFK Jr. a role in his administration if elected in November.

Trump has long been a skeptic of childhood vaccines, leaked video with RFK Jr. reveals.

Sources include:

MiddleEastEye.net

TheConversation.com

Brighteon.com
Trump appoints Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to head new DOGE Manhattan Project to optimize government efficiency

The all-new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a federal agency named after Elon Musk's DOGE "memecoin" cryptocurrency, will be headed by Musk and failed Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, we have learned.

The stated purpose of DOGE is to "slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies." Team Trump is referring to it as "potentially, the 'Manhattan Project' of our time."

"Their work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026," reads a statement from Team Trump about DOGE's timeline of operations, July 4, 2026, being America's 250th anniversary.

(Related: Remember when Musk appointed globalist Linda Yaccarino to head up X / Twitter after he took the social media platform private?)

Vivek says people with SSNs that "end in an odd number" will be "fired"

Last November, Ramaswamy tweeted that as many as 50 percent of all federal bureaucrats will get canned on Day One of Trump's second term.

"Here's how: if your SSN (social security number) ends in an odd number, you're fired," Ramaswamy wrote.

"That downsizes government by half. Absolutely *nothing* will break as a result. It doesn't violate civil service rules because mass layoffs are exempt. SHUT IT DOWN."

More recently, Ramaswamy told podcaster Lex Fridman much the same, using the same verbiage and everything.

"Get in there on day one, say that anybody in the federal bureaucracy who is not elected, elected representatives obviously were elected by the people, but the people who are not elected, if your social security number ends in an odd number, you're out, if it ends in an even number, you're in," Ramaswamy said during the program.

"There's a 50 percent cut right there. Of those who remain, if your social security number starts in an even number, you're in and if it starts with an odd number, you're out. Boom. That's a 75 percent reduction done. Literally, stochastically, okay, one of the virtues of that, it's a thought experiment, not a policy prescription, but one of the virtues of that thought experiment is that you don't have a bunch of lawsuits you're dealing with about gender discrimination or racial discrimination or political viewpoint discrimination."

Vivek sat down with Lex Fridman, and he compared the federal government to former Japanese corporate culture. If you cant fire an employee, the boss is actually the servant to the employee. Smart framing. The people through POTUS serve the bureaucrats when they should serve us. pic.twitter.com/vVdKeaRByN  FischerKing (@FischerKing64) September 25, 2024

In Ramaswamy's personal view, the federal government needs to be trimmed by upwards of 75 percent all across the board. Ramaswamy wants to send all those people "home packing" and eliminate many of the agencies at which they currently work.

"In a true self-governing democracy, it should be our elected representatives that make the laws and the rules, not unelected bureaucrats," he said.

"And that is the single greatest form of economic stimulus we could have in this country, but it is also the single most effective way to restore self-governance in our country as well. And it is the blueprint for, I think, how we save this country."

Ramaswamy feels as though 25 percent of the workforce in general, public or private, is currently doing 80 or 90 percent of the "useful work." The same is true in Washington, he says.

"This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste, which is a lot of people," will be let go, confirmed Elon Musk about the changes that are coming.

You can watch the full interview with Ramaswamy below:

The latest news about Trump's second reign over America as president can be found at Trump.news.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

NaturalNews.com
Trump picks pro-war Zionist shill Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary

President-elect Donald Trump is refilling the swamp even before his inauguration with the appointment of pro-war Zionist shill Pete Hegseth to the position of U.S. Defense Secretary.

Hegseth founded an advocacy group called Vets for Freedom, the purpose of which was to support both the Iraq War and pro-war political candidates back in 2003 when George W. Bush was president.

"I believed in the mission we had in Iraq," Hegseth wrote in his book about his pro-war position. "We gave speeches aimed at building support for the war."

Bill Kristol advised Vets for Freedom while billionaire Zionist and anti-cannabis crusader Sheldon Adelson bankrolled the thing. Vets for Freedom also produced millions of dollars' worth of television advertising promoting then-President Bush's pro-war policy, including the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) lies that were used to advance it.

Beyond all that, Hegseth also helped support the late John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. Keep in mind that McCain opposed Trump, at least publicly, only to now have Trump appoint pro-McCain swamp creatures to the levels of power over war in Washington.

(Related: Did you know that Tom Homan, Trump's incoming "border czar," is planning to ramp up workplace raids to bust illegal alien migrant sex and labor trafficking networks?)

Does Hegseth still support war?

The National Journal reported that another pro-war advocacy group called Freedom's Watch made a "significant' contribution to a $10 million ad campaign by "the pro-McCain Vets for Freedom," as the Journal referred to Hegseth's group.

"The group [Vets for Freedom] expects to spend close to $10 million on a four month advertising and grassroots drive to make the case that the Bush administration's policies in Iraq and Afghanistan are making significant progress," reads a report quoting Hegseth.

"Vets for Freedom boasts some 25,000 members. The first part of the campaign is a two-week, $1.5 million ad buy this month in five battleground states. According to a GOP consultant familiar with the group, it received a 'significant' donation from Freedom's Watch, which is largely funded by Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. Freedom's Watch has also helped the veterans group find large donors to bankroll its operations, according to the consultant."

These are some extremely damning revelations concerning the war hawks Trump is packing his cabinet with, although Hegseth's views on war have apparently changed since 2003.

"He came out strongly against regime change on Shawn Ryan show last week," tweeted veteran Jon Leslie (@JonLeslieNH). "He said he'd learned a few things since the war."

Another argued that Trump's picks so far represent "the most neocon cabinet ever," the word neocon referring to pro-war neo-conservatives like McCain who were all about starting new wars and constantly engaging in regime change operations all around the world.

"A lot of people have changed their minds on American imperialism since 2008," wrote another, defending Trump's appointment of Hegseth as defense secretary. "What someone thought back then is sort of irrelevant."

"He has written at least five books over the years," another said in reference to Hegseth. "These are extremely important questions. I know I've changed my feelings on all those conflicts in the last 5 years as have many others."

To be fair, it has been more than 20 years since the days of "Dubya" and the other neocon rulers of that day. The so-called "great awakening," as many Trump supporters call it, is leading many conservatives to oppose the wars of yesteryear, as well as the policies that drove them.

"Virtually everyone except Obama ran into Iraq, but many have since changed their minds," someone else wrote in Hegseth's defense. "I'd be interested in an actual journalist getting the chance to ask him that question. I'm not holding my breath."

Interested in keeping up with all things Trump? Visit Trump.news.

Sources for this article include:

X.com

NaturalNews.com
Trump picks generic Republican warmonger for national security advisor

President-elect Donald Trump has asked Mike Waltz, a hawkish House Republican from Florida, to be his national security advisor in the incoming administration, multiple media outlets reported on Monday night.

(Article by Dave DeCamp republished from News.Antiwar.com)

Waltz was a staunch supporter of the Ukraine proxy war early on and was one of the few members of Congress to suggest the US send military advisors into the country. He was also critical of President Biden for supposedly not being aggressive enough.

In 2023, Waltz began to express skepticism of the war, saying the US involvement in the conflict was not sustainable. However, in an interview with NPR last week, Waltz suggested that he would advise the president to end the war in Ukraine by escalating.

When explaining how he thinks Trump could bring both sides to the table, Waltz said the US could ramp up sanctions enforcement on Russia and support Ukraine using NATO-provided weapons for long-range strikes inside Russia, something President Vladimir Putin has made clear would risk nuclear war.

First and foremost, you would enforce the actual energy sanctions on Russia. Russia is essentially a gas station with nukes. Putin is selling more oil and gas now than he did prewar through China and Russia. And you couple that with unleashing our energy, lifting our LNG ban, and his economy and his war machine will dry up very quickly, Waltz told NPR.

So I think that will get Putin to the table. We have leverage, like taking the handcuffs off of the long-range weapons we provided Ukraine as well. And then, of course, I think we have plenty of leverage with Zelenskyy to get them to the table, Waltz added.

Discussing Iran, Waltz said that the US must go back to maximum pressure, referring to the previous Trump administrations Iran policies, which involved withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal, imposing crippling economic sanctions, and assassinating Iranian Quds Force Commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Waltz has also hyped up claims about Iran plotting to kill Trump, which Iranian officials have strongly denied.

Waltz is a staunch supporter of Israel and has repeated Trumps calls to allow Israel to finish the job in Gaza. The next administration should, as Mr. Trump argued, let Israel finish the job and get it over with fast against Hamas. They should put a credible military option on the table to make clear to the Iranians that America would stop them building nuclear weapons, he wrote in a recent piece for The Economist.

Waltz argued in the Economist essay that the US is too bogged down in the Middle East and Ukraine and should be more focused on China. He is known as one of the biggest China hawks in Congress, declaring back in 2021 that the US was in a Cold War with China. He frequently calls for the US to send more weapons to Taiwan, saying last year that the US should arm the island to the teeth.

The Pentagon has declared China the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security strategy, and the US military is openly preparing for a future direct conflict with Beijing despite the risk of nuclear war.

Read more at: News.Antiwar.com
Undersea internet cable sabotage could unleash a worldwide disaster

Is the worlds internet  and all of our daily activities that depend on it  in jeopardy? Numerous world leaders are accusing one another of planning to cut the undersea cables that are responsible for delivering global internet traffic to wreak widespread havoc.

With some of these cables spanning from one continent to another, protecting them is challenging, and this is something that could be easily taken advantage of. It is reasonable to expect that if one world superpower is the victim of this type of attack, they could seek to cut the undersea cables their enemies use to stay online, leading to a broad internet outage.

Most of the worlds internet traffic travels across an expansive network of high-speed fiber optic cables situated along the ocean floor, and attacking it could disrupt government and military communications as well as private ones, causing problems for everything from energy suppliers to financial markets.

This isnt just hypothetical; CNN recently reported that American officials have been sounding the alarm over increased Russian military activity around key underseas cables.

According to the news outlet, two American officials told them that Russia has been working hard on a unit that would disable this vital part of global communication infrastructure.

Russia is continuing to develop naval capabilities for undersea sabotage mainly thru GUGI, a closely guarded unit that operates surface vessels, submarines and naval drones, one official said, referring to the Russian acronym for the countrys General Staff Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research unit.

The threat is so concerning that the U.S. routinely tracks Russian ships that patrol near critical undersea cables and infrastructure. The seas of Northern Europe seem to be a particular focus for Russia, with a joint investigation by public broadcasters from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark reporting that Russia was operating a fleet of suspected spy ships there with a view to sabotaging undersea cables as well as wind farms.

However, the Russians claim that they are not planning such an attack and that the true culprits are the U.S. and the U.K.

According to the Telegram channel Crimean Wind, Putin aide Nikolai Patrushev said that Western accusations of Russian sabotage would be funny, but such statements often sound like a cover for their own intentions.

China also appears to be exploring the possibility, with American and Taiwanese forces observing the Chinese Navy in waters near Taiwan in activity that has been characterized as a potential preparation for cutting Taiwan off entirely.

Dependence on undersea cables has left us vulnerable

While many people think the internet is fully wireless given the prevalence of wireless devices in modern times, almost all internet traffic depends on the fiber optics laid across the ocean floor. These cables are vital for everyday life around the world, facilitating 99% of internet traffic, along with data transfers and phone calls.

They are also vulnerable to accidents involving fishing and anchors. In 2017, a ship accidentally severed a submarine telecommunication cable off the Somalian coast. The incident ended up costing the country $10 million a day and resulted in a three-week internet outage. The effects on a bigger and more modern country would be even more dramatic.

An American official said that if Russia were to sabotage underseas infrastructure, it would be considered a major escalation and handled accordingly.

Any activities that damaged seabed infrastructure including undersea cables especially during periods of heightened tensions risks misunderstandings and misperceptions that could lead to unintended escalation. The US would be especially concerned about damage to our or our allies critical undersea infrastructure, the official said.

From downed payment systems to supply chain disruptions and essential goods shortages, the effects would be devastating. Transportation networks, power grids and water networks could all be impacted. Sadly, weve become so dependent on connectivity that were just a few dozen cut cables away from one of the biggest economic disasters in history.

Sources for this article include:

ProphecyNewsWatch.com

CNN.com

TheGuardian.com
Emergency robots leap to revolutionize rescue services

Xinhua) 19:05, November 14, 2024

BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Automation taking over human labor has marked an unstoppable global trend. Rescue services stand out as an example among the industries that are least likely to be threatened by this shift.

Tao Xiaoyang, a Blue Sky Rescue team specialist clad in his iconic blue uniform, was meticulously questioning the technical specs of an underwater robot at a booth on the opening day of an emergency management exhibition.

Frontline emergency responders like him were displaying a heightened interest in robotics at the China International Emergency Management Exhibition (CIEME) in the China National Convention Center, which kicked off on Wednesday.

The event is bustling with the latest in rescue vehicles, drones, and telecom guarantees. Although rescue robots are the newcomers, occupying a modest space at the three-day fair, they stole the spotlight immediately.

The machine that impressed Tao was a 60-centimeter-long robot with a mechanical hand capable of diving to 200 meters and integrating with sonar technology. Yet, its 100-kilogram towing capacity service seemingly left something to be desired to him.

"The machine can tow twice the weight underwater thanks to water's buoyancy," explained Zhang Xianjie, the sales manager of QYSea, a Shenzhen-based startup. Zhang attempted to persuade Tao, but all the while, his assistant was remotely operating a red robotic drone in a water tank using a console.

This compact, portable electric drone, weighing just 6 kilograms, is designed to resist currents of up to 3 knots and can operate underwater for 4 hours, according to Zhang.

Now, firefighting corps in the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Guizhou have already deployed the drones in real-life scenarios, including underwater positioning, recovery of drowned bodies, and sonar search for sunken ships, he added.

Emergency robots are intelligent machine systems that perform tasks such as monitoring and early warning, search and rescue, communication commands and logistical support during disaster prevention, mitigation and relief.

They are capable of semi-autonomous or fully autonomous control, partially or completely replacing human work. They have already demonstrated their prowess in emergencies such as fires, mining or chemical plant accidents, earthquakes, and underwater rescues.

A 2023 estimate has shown that the scale of the emergency equipment industry in China has exceeded 700 billion yuan (about 97 billion U.S. dollars). The emergency robotics sector is projected to be worth around 20 billion yuan, marking an average annual growth rate of over 20 percent during the past five years.

At this year's CIEME, with over 150 exhibitors, many regional emergency departments placed direct orders to bolster their emergency response capabilities.

Wang Guangya, a manager from Xuzhou-based XCMG DOK-ING Robotics, was tasked with recommending a robot designed to carve out isolation zones for combating forest fires. He was thrilled to have secured an order for 20 units from the country's eastern province of Jiangxi on the very first day of the expo.

This remotely operated tracking robot can cut down tree trunks and vegetation, effectively confining wildfires to a specific area. The vehicle is versatile and can be deployed for municipal snow clearance operations.

It can travel at a pace of 5 kilometers per hour and is designed for continuous operations exceeding 10 hours, according to Wang.

At another booth, Yunzhou, a Zhuhai-based robot manufacturer, showcased a water surface robot called Dolphin, capable of carrying rescue personnel or individuals who have fallen into the water. This robotic kayak has already achieved remarkable results, said its sales director, He Qionghui, with pride.

In 2023, police officers in the eastern city of Lianyungang used a water-borne robot to rescue an elderly man who had fallen into the sea. In 2022, a 15-year-old boy was saved in the eastern city of Weihai thanks to a Dolphin robot, according to He.

Unitree Robotics, a Hangzhou-based company, has brought its star product, the machine dog, to the exhibition site. The robot dogs that went viral online after being spotted moving up and down the steps on Mount Tai to free human porters from the longstanding challenge of garbage removal are also highly effective in firefighting situations.

In January, the Ministry of Emergency Management and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology outlined in guidance that by 2025, a batch of advanced emergency robots will be developed in the country to significantly enhance scientific, professional, refined and intelligent capabilities.

"In China, the robotics sector has already been highly competitive," said He. "To differentiate yourself, you must find specific application scenarios and outperform rivals in quality."

(Web editor: Chang Sha, Zhong Wenxing)
News / National

by Staff reporter

A 28-year-old Harare woman, Faith Mukaro, appeared in court on Tuesday, charged with fraud after allegedly misrepresenting herself as a Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) agent and swindling a fellow resident of US$3,000 in a botched motor vehicle acquisition deal.Mukaro appeared before Magistrate Patricia Kamwanda, who remanded her in custody for a bail application, which will be heard today.The complainant, 29-year-old Eddtress Chadehumbe, claims that on September 24, 2024, Mukaro approached her and falsely presented herself as a Zimra employee. Mukaro allegedly told Chadehumbe that she was selling a Toyota Probox that had been stationed at the Chirundu Border Post.Under the pretense of buying the vehicle, Mukaro allegedly paid US$3,000 to Chadehumbe, agreeing to pay the remaining US$470 upon delivery of the car. However, after receiving the money, Mukaro reportedly became evasive and stopped responding to Chadehumbe's inquiries.Concerned by Mukaro's sudden disappearance, Chadehumbe filed a police report, leading to Mukaro's arrest.The case highlights ongoing concerns over fraud involving fake vehicle transactions, which have become a common issue for Zimbabweans. Mukaro's actions have sparked public outrage, especially given her position as a purported government employee.
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News / National

by Staff reporter

The rapid expansion of Starlink's satellite internet services across Africa has prompted a growing chorus of concern from local industry experts, telecommunications companies, and internet service providers (ISPs), who are calling for stronger regulatory oversight.As demand for high-speed internet access surges across the continent, particularly in remote areas, local stakeholders are advocating for policies that will protect their investments, promote fair competition, and preserve jobs within the local telecom and ISP sectors.Starlink, a global satellite internet provider owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX, has made significant inroads into the African market, offering internet services through low-orbit satellites. However, critics argue that the company's operations undermine the growth of local telecom industries due to its minimal investment in infrastructure and its relatively low regulatory obligations.In Zimbabwe, where telecommunications companies have invested heavily in expanding network connectivity, experts warn that Starlink's entry could destabilize the local market.Tinashe Ruswa, a Zimbabwean telecommunications analyst, expressed concern about the competitive disparity between Starlink and local operators, which are burdened by the costs of building and maintaining infrastructure. "The arrival of Starlink means we're competing with a company that can sidestep the substantial infrastructure costs that we face," Ruswa said. "Local operators have not only invested in infrastructure but also in people, employing thousands in installation, maintenance, and customer service roles that are crucial to our economy."Temidayo Oniosun, CEO of Space in Africa, a media and analytics company focusing on the African space and satellite industry, echoed similar concerns. Speaking to African Business Magazine, Oniosun stated, "We have a foreign company coming in, doing the bare minimum, and taking market share from companies that have invested heavily in the continent and are providing jobs for thousands of people." He called on regulators to ensure that African-owned businesses and jobs are protected in the face of such external competition.In Zambia, local telecom companies such as Zamtel and Airtel Zambia have also raised alarms over Starlink's potential impact on the local industry. Charles Mwansa, a network engineer in Lusaka, warned that the lack of a robust regulatory framework could undermine the viability of Zambia's telecommunications sector. "Local companies have invested significantly in laying fibre, establishing mobile towers, and training local staff. Allowing a company like Starlink to operate without similar obligations could destabilize the industry," he said.Advocates for fair competition are also questioning the value Starlink brings to the local economy. Steve Song, an internet access advocate at the Mozilla Foundation, criticized satellite providers for what he described as an "economically lopsided" model, where they extract value without investing in local economies. "Starlink's reluctance to invest in ground stations in many African nations exemplifies a value-extraction model that doesn't address the structural needs of local economies," Song explained.In Kenya, Safaricom, the country's largest mobile network operator, has expressed concerns about the risks posed by satellite internet services to national security and local network quality. In a formal letter to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), Safaricom noted that Starlink's satellite services span multiple territorial borders and could lead to illegal service provision and interference within Kenya's borders. The company has recommended that satellite operators work in partnership with local licensees, rather than holding independent operating licenses, to better safeguard local interests.Local industry leaders across the region agree that while Starlink has the potential to extend internet access to remote areas, fair competition requires that satellite providers adhere to the same regulatory and infrastructure obligations as traditional telecom companies.James Ndongwe, a Zimbabwean economist, acknowledged the benefits of satellite internet but cautioned that the long-term impact on local economies must be carefully considered. "Starlink can play an important role in boosting connectivity in remote areas," Ndongwe said. "But at what cost to local economies? If they don't contribute to local infrastructure, taxes, or employment, we need to think carefully about the long-term effects on our industry."As Starlink continues its expansion across Africa, calls for regulatory reforms are expected to intensify. Experts and stakeholders argue that the goal is not to block progress in satellite internet but to ensure that the benefits are shared equitably."Digital inclusion should be for everyone," Mwansa added, "and that means setting up systems where international players contribute as much to our growth as they stand to gain from it."
News / National

by Staff reporter

A tense provincial co-ordinating committee meeting in Harare on Sunday revealed growing opposition within Zanu-PF to the controversial ED2030 slogan, which calls for the extension of President Emmerson Mnangagwa's term of office beyond its constitutional limit in 2028.Sources at the meeting revealed that party members were ordered to stop chanting the slogan, which has caused significant friction within the ruling party. The slogan, promoted by Mnangagwa's loyalists in the Midlands and Masvingo provinces, calls for an extension of his presidency until 2030, despite the president's repeated declarations that he will not seek another term.Mnangagwa's current term ends in 2028, and he has made it clear that he will not seek re-election. However, some party members, particularly from the Midlands and Masvingo provinces, have pushed for a two-year extension to his rule, sparking divisions within Zanu-PF.During the meeting, questions were raised about the persistence of the ED2030 slogan, with Harare provincial chairperson Godwills Masimirembwa also facing intense scrutiny. Members reportedly challenged Zanu-PF's national commissar, Munyaradzi Machacha, asking why the party leadership has allowed the slogan to be chanted when Mnangagwa has publicly stated that he will not extend his tenure.Machacha, according to sources, responded by reaffirming that Zanu-PF would elect a new leader ahead of the 2028 general elections, with members allowed to support their preferred candidates. "Machacha stated that President Mnangagwa's term ends in 2028, and the party will select a new leader in 2027," an insider disclosed.Despite Mnangagwa's stance, loyalists from the Midlands and Masvingo provinces continue to push for the two-year extension, fueling tensions within the party. At Zanu-PF's conference in Bulawayo in October, Mnangagwa reiterated his decision not to seek re-election.Zanu-PF spokesperson Farai Marapira, contacted for comment on the matter, stated that he was in China. Machacha also declined to comment, referring inquiries to Masimirembwa, the Harare provincial chairperson.When asked about the controversial slogan and his role in the meeting, Masimirembwa downplayed the incident. He told NewsDay that Sunday's meeting was conducted without any major disruptions, adding that discussions focused on strengthening party unity and addressing issues within Harare."There was nothing on slogans," Masimirembwa stated, claiming that the discussions centered on party cells, unity, and a stern warning for those spreading disunity on social media. He also emphasized that order would be maintained within the party's structures in Harare.However, sources said Masimirembwa came under heavy criticism during the meeting, with some members accusing him of failing to unite the province. There were even reports that he was nearly suspended for allegedly dividing the party.In October, Masimirembwa was also accused of expelling party members, including Kudakwashe Damson, for allegedly supporting Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga, adding to the growing divisions within the party.Meanwhile, Mnangagwa's loyalists in Midlands and Masvingo provinces have continued to push for the ED2030 extension, despite resistance from other factions within the party, including from the military and war veterans. War veteran Blessing Geza recently stated that the proposed term extension was "dead in the water," emphasizing that Chiwenga would take over from Mnangagwa in 2028.The ED2030 slogan has been divisive, with many grassroots members not fully supporting the call for a term extension. Despite this, Zanu-PF has adopted a resolution to amend the Constitution in an effort to extend Mnangagwa's presidency, a move that is likely to further intensify the intra-party tensions.The political landscape within Zanu-PF remains fluid as factions continue to vie for influence ahead of the 2028 elections, with the ED2030 debate likely to remain a flashpoint in the coming months.
News / National

by Staff reporter

A 53-year-old truck driver, Douglas Tengende, has been arrested for attempting to smuggle goods worth R427,823 through the Beitbridge Border Post without his employer's knowledge.Tengende, employed by Armesham Freight (Private) Limited, was remanded in custody after arriving at his company's premises in Gweru without the truck, which had been confiscated by border officials for carrying illegal goods.Prosecutor Christine Shonhiwa told the court that Tengende had been sent to Johannesburg, South Africa, on October 28, 2024, to collect a consignment of tiles that was supposed to be delivered to Harare. After collecting the tiles, Tengende allegedly loaded another shipment of goods, valued at R427,823, which he intended to smuggle back into Zimbabwe.On November 2, 2024, when Tengende attempted to cross the Beitbridge Border Post, customs officials, during a routine inspection by the scan department, discovered that the goods in the truck were not part of the original consignment. This led to the immediate seizure of the truck.Tengende reported the confiscation of the truck to his employer, but further investigations revealed his involvement in the illegal shipment, leading to his arrest. His employer subsequently cooperated with authorities, ensuring that the matter was brought to light.Tengende is expected to appear in court tomorrow for his initial remand hearing. His arrest has raised concerns over illegal trade and the growing challenges faced by border security in preventing smuggling activities at Zimbabwe's main entry point from South Africa.
Washington, Nov 14 : US President Joe Biden is expected to express "deep concern" over North Korea's troop deployment to Russia during a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping set to take place on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru this week, a senior US administration official said.

Biden and Xi are set to meet in Lima on Saturday for what could be their last in-person summit as Presidents, Yonhap news agency reported.

The meeting will come as both Seoul and Washington have confirmed that North Korean troops, who have been deployed to Russia's western front-line Kursk region, have begun engaging in combat against Ukrainian forces.

"I expect the President will express deep concern over China's support for Russia's war against Ukraine as well as the deployment of over 10,000 North Korean troops to Russia, where they have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces," the official said on Wednesday in an online press briefing.

"We are increasingly concerned about the consequences for longer-term stability in both Europe and even the Pacific of this deployment," the official added.

The North Korean troops at issue have been dispatched to Kursk after receiving training in eastern Russia. They have been provided with Russian uniforms and equipment as Russians have trained them in artillery, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), and basic infantry operations, according to US officials.

Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson for the State Department, has pointed out a series of challenges for the North Korean troops to overcome, including interoperability, language barriers, and command and control and communications.

North Korea's troop deployment has been a source of growing security concerns for the US, South Korea, and other countries as it underscores a deepening military partnership between Pyongyang and Moscow, which observers say could expand the war in Ukraine and affect security on the Korean Peninsula as well.

Calls have emerged for Beijing to play a constructive role in addressing North Korea's troop dispatch given its perceived influence over Pyongyang.

During the summit with Xi, Biden is expected to take stock of progress in a series of areas that Washington and Beijing have made since their summit in Woodside, California, last year, including the resumption of military-to-military communication and counternarcotics cooperation, according to the official.

Biden is also likely to underscore the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and express his concerns over China's activities around Taiwan and in the South China Sea.

"Over the last four years, the two countries have advanced areas of shared interest, and even amidst deep differences and intense competition, (they) worked to do so," the official said.

"Throughout his time in office, President Biden has emphasised the importance of responsibly managing one of the world's most consequential relationships."

The upcoming bilateral meeting will be the third in-person summit between Biden and Xi since Biden took office in January 2021.

The Presidents previously met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali in 2022 and the APEC summit in California in 2023.
Seoul/Washington, Nov 14 : South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will hold a trilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru this week, according to Yoon's office and the White House.

Yoon is set to depart for Lima on Thursday with the trilateral meeting scheduled for Friday, his office said.

The three countries have pushed for the leaders' meeting to build on the progress in three-way cooperation since the landmark trilateral summit at Camp David in August 2023, where they agreed to hold a trilateral summit at least annually, Yonhap news agency reported.

Jake Sullivan, the White House national security advisor, said that at the upcoming summit, the leaders will discuss the importance of "institutionalising" the progress in trilateral cooperation.

"(Biden) will meet with President Yoon of South Korea and Prime Minister Ishiba of Japan to celebrate the historic cooperation between our three nations and discuss the importance of institutionalising the progress we've made so that it carries forward through the transition," he told a press briefing.

Sullivan noted that Biden will go to the APEC summit with US alliances in the Indo-Pacific at a "literal all-time high".

"Japan, Korea, Australia, the Philippines -- a really remarkable record over four years, and that's what he's going to hand off to President Trump," he said.

"And he is going to be making the case to our allies and frankly to our adversaries that America's standing with its alliances -- investing in its alliances and then asking its allies to step up and do their part, which they have done these past four years -- is central to American strength and capacity in the world."

In September, the top diplomats of South Korea, the US, and Japan reaffirmed their commitment to establishing a trilateral cooperation secretariat, to be finalised when their leaders meet later this year.

But it remains to be seen whether Yoon, Biden, and Ishiba will finalise the work of creating the secretariat as a government transition is set to take place in Washington in January.

Upcoming discussions are expected to cover their joint responses to regional tensions in light of North Korea's troop deployment to Russia in support of its war against Ukraine.

Officials from South Korean and US officials have confirmed that North Korean troops dispatched to Russia's frontline region of Kursk have fought against Ukraine.

Three-way cooperation among the US and its Asian allies gained traction after Yoon offered a solution in March last year to address the thorny issue of compensating Korean victims of Japan's colonial-era forced labour.

As the long-fraught ties between Seoul and Tokyo warmed, the three countries held the Camp David summit -- the first standalone trilateral summit that marked a culmination of tripartite cooperation.

The summit produced a series of agreements, including the "Commitment to Consult" each other in the face of a shared security challenge. Since the summit, the three countries have bolstered security cooperation through joint exercises, the sharing of ballistic missile warning data and other efforts.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : In a new record, Apple has reached almost Rs 60,000 crore in iPhone exports from India in the first seven months during the current fiscal (FY25).

In the April-October period, the Cupertino-based tech giant exported iPhones worth almost Rs 60,000 crore (over $7 billion), at almost Rs 8,450 crore (nearly $1 billion) worth export each month in the ongoing financial year, according to industry data.

This time, the company is exporting newly-launched iPhone 16 models from India, apart from the other popular models in its 15 and 14 series.

Last fiscal (FY24), Apple exported iPhones worth over $10 billion and this fiscal, the tech giant has already achieved 70 per cent of that figure with five months to go -- set for a new export record riding on the government's 'Make in India' and production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes.

Apple manufactured/assembled $14 billion of iPhones in India last fiscal, exported more than $10 billion worth of devices.

The iPhone exports from India surged to cross $10 billion in 2023-24 from $6.27 billion in 2022-23. Overall, the iPhone maker's India operations reached $23.5 billion in value in the last fiscal (FY24).

In the July-September period, the Tim Cook-led company clocked an all-time revenue record in India.

"We continue to be excited by the enthusiasm we're seeing in India, where we set an all-time revenue record. This has been an extraordinary year of innovation at Apple," said Cook.

Apple has two retail stories in India -- in New Delhi (Saket) and Mumbai (BKC). "We can't wait to bring four new stores to customers in India," the Apple CEO announced.

Meanwhile, Apple posted its largest-ever quarterly shipment in India with 4 million units in the third quarter (Q3) of 2024, according to an IDC report. Apple also emerged as the second largest player in the online channel, with iPhone 15 and iPhone 13 as the highest-shipped devices.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will receive Dominicas highest national award, the 'Dominica Award of Honour,' in recognition of his vital support to it during the COVID-19 pandemic and his commitment to strengthening India-Dominica relations.

According to a press release by the Government of Dominica, President Sylvanie Burton will bestow the award during the India-CARICOM Summit, set to take place in Georgetown, Guyana, from November 19 to 21.

In February 2021, Prime Minister Modi supplied Dominica with 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine"a generous gift which enabled Dominica to extend support to its Caribbean neighbours", said the government of Dominica.

The award also recognises Indias support for Dominica in education and information technology under PM Modis leadership, as well as his role in promoting climate resilience-building initiatives and sustainable development on a global level.

Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit expressed the nations gratitude, stating, Prime Minister Modi has been a true partner to Dominica, particularly during our time of need amid a global health crisis. It is an honour to present him with Dominicas highest national accolade as a symbol of our gratitude for his support and as a reflection of the strong ties between our countries. We look forward to building on this partnership and advancing our shared vision of progress and resilience.

Accepting the award, PM Modi emphasised the importance of collaboration in tackling global challenges such as climate change and geopolitical conflicts and affirmed Indias commitment to working alongside Dominica and the Caribbean in addressing these issues.

This honour will be conferred as part of PM Modis diplomatic tour, which will include visits to Nigeria, Brazil, and Guyana.

PM Modi will participate in the Second CARICOM-India Summit in Georgetown, Guyana and hold meetings with leaders of CARICOM member countries to further enhance Indias long-standing friendship with the region.
Mumbai, Nov 14 : 'American Gangster' actor Denzel Washington, who will be seen playing a negative character in 'Gladiator II', says he has been preparing for his role for fifty years.

In an exclusive interview with IANS, Denzil discussed his character, experience with co-actors, and more. When asked specifically about preparing for his character Macrinus, Denzel Washington replied, 'I'll be seventy in December. I played Othello at twenty two and Emperor Jones at twenty. So, I've been preparing for this role for fifty years.

Denzil Washington also praised Paul Mescal for his craft. He stated There was a tremendous amount of pressure for him coming behind Russel. I can say that I know something about acting and I can tell you he delivers.

Paul Mescal plays Lucius, the former heir to the Roman Empire and son of Maximus. He lives with his wife in a coastal town in Numidia and has no connection with his mother for fifteen years. He is taken prisoner by the Roman army and is forced to fight as Gladiator.

Earlier Ridley Scott the director and co-producer of the film opened up about how he zeroed down on actor Paul Mescal for the lead role.

The director stated that he first noticed Paul Mescal in the acclaimed Anglo-Irish series Normal People. The director further added He reminded me of Richard Harris crossed with a very young Albert Finney. He seemed to be a very young and sympathetic actor. As the story in the script started to evolve I kept thinking about him.

'Gladiator II' is a sequel to Gladiator which was released in the year 2000. It has been directed and co-produced by Ridley Scott. The film is set to release on November 15th.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Lizwe Mabuza, the chairman of Tendy Tree Investments (TTI), the company managing Bulawayo's paid parking, arrived at City Hall in a US$400,000 Rolls Royce Cullinan last week, prompting a wave of public discontent over the company's lucrative contract with the city.Mabuza's luxury vehicle, displaying a personalised United Kingdom license plate (LC), is suspected to have been recently imported. This conspicuous display of wealth has ignited anger among Bulawayo residents, many of whom are already frustrated with TTI's dominance over parking revenues in the city.Under the terms of the contract, TTI retains 70 percent of parking revenue, while Bulawayo City Council (BCC) collects the remaining 30 percent. Signed in 2020, the six-year agreement only took effect in January 2022 and includes a possible four-year extension.The city's residents, however, have been increasingly vocal in their opposition. The contract terms and TTI's management style - particularly the initial pricing of US$1 for just 30 minutes of parking - sparked outcry, leading the company to later adjust this rate to US$1 per hour. Despite the price adjustment, resentment has continued to mount, with accusations of mistreatment by TTI employees, especially toward senior citizens, and overly aggressive vehicle clamping practices."This Rolls Royce appearance at City Hall felt like a taunt to the residents. As councillors, we're trying to manage the backlash, but this kind of display isn't helping," one council member told ZimLive, speaking on condition of anonymity. The councillor added that TTI's presence has become so ingrained within city operations that some officials feel powerless to challenge the company's actions.In a report issued by the city in August, TTI's remittance to the council totaled just over US$1.5 million from parking, clamping, and storage fees collected between January 1 and May 31 of this year. With TTI's share of the revenue over twice what the council received, critics argue that the revenue-sharing arrangement is disproportionately favorable to the company.Bulawayo Mayor David Coltart, who campaigned on a platform that included reevaluating the TTI contract, has yet to take any significant steps to review or renegotiate it. Meanwhile, as discontent simmers, residents and officials alike are left questioning the true cost of the city's lucrative parking deal.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Windy at times with rain likely. Snow may mix in. Low 32F. Winds NW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Windy at times with rain likely. Snow may mix in. Low 32F. Winds NW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch.
The study, published today in JAMA Network Open, tracked patients hospitalized for hip fractures in Victoria, Australia from March 2013 through June 2018, who had used gabapentinoids before the injury.

Often seen as a safer alternative to opioids for the treatment of neuropathic pain, gabapentinoid use increased eightfold between 2012 and 2018, with one in seven Australians aged 80 and older prescribed a gabapentinoid during this period.

Currently, gabapentinoids are within the ten most subsidised medications by volume in Australia.

Study co-author and Director of the Centre for Medicine Use and Safety (CMUS) at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Professor Simon Bell, said gabapentinoids can be effective for neuropathic pain but can also result in adverse events including dizziness, gait disturbance and balance disorder.

The researchers analysed the data for 28,293 patients who experienced hip fractures across a five-year period.

Our results showed patients had 30 per cent increased odds of suffering a hip fracture within two months of being dispensed a gabapentinoid medication. The link between gabapentinoids and hip fractures existed across different age groups but the odds of hip fracture was higher among patients who were frailer or had chronic kidney disease, so these should be important considerations when deciding when to prescribe gabapentinoids." Professor Simon Bell, Director of the Centre for Medicine Use and Safety (CMUS), Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences

However, Professor Bell stressed the importance of patients discussing with their doctor or pharmacist first before deciding to discontinue treatment.

This is the first study to specifically observe a higher odds of hip fractures in frail patients dispensed gabapentinoids as against patients who are not frail.

Lead author of the study and CMUS PhD candidate Miriam Leung, said the study highlights that caution is needed before prescribing gabapentinoids, especially for people who are prone to falls and fractures.

"Our findings highlight the importance of assessing each patient's risk before prescribing gabapentinoids," Ms Leung said.

The researchers said further studies are needed to investigate the risk of hip fracture with different dosages of gabapentinoids and with different degrees of kidney impairment.

The researchers are currently working with the University of Eastern Finland to investigate hip fractures in patients with Parkinson's disease.

This research was a collaboration between CMUS and researchers from Austin Health and Harvard Medical School. Data acquisition was funded via the Dementia Australia Research Foundation's Yulgilbar Innovation Grant.

Centre for Medicine Use and Safety Director and co-author of the paper, Professor Simon Bell, is available for interviews.
MaxCyte, Inc., a leading, cell-engineering focused company providing enabling platform technologies to advance the discovery, development and commercialization of next-generation cell therapeutics, marks the 25th anniversary of its founding this year. Over the past quarter-century, the company has remained steadfast in its mission to provide the life sciences community with the necessary technologies, as well as scientific, technical and regulatory support, to develop biomedical innovations that will transform human health.

Since the Companys inception, MaxCyte set out to commercialize Flow Electroporation technology with a talented global team and, over the years, we have developed and launched a suite of products within our proprietary ExPERT platform, Maher Masoud, President and CEO, MaxCyte

Today, we are proud to provide our customers with best-in-class electroporation solutions and tools. Knowing that our customers and their patients come first drives us to find the solutions to meet their needs as we enter the next era of scientific discovery and development focused on cell and gene therapy.

MaxCytes Flow Electroporation technology was used to support the development of CASGEVY, the industrys first, FDA-approved, non-viral cell therapy. Under Strategic Platform License (SPL) agreements, the company worked with Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics on this first-of-its-kind CRISPR/Cas9 genome-edited cell therapy. In total, MaxCyte has signed 29 SPL agreements with cell therapy developers across a broad spectrum of therapeutic areas.

To continue supporting its customers in their journey through therapeutic development to commercialization, in 2022 MaxCyte moved to its present headquarters, a 67,000 square-foot facility located in Marylands I-270 biotech corridor, which significantly increased the Companys in-house manufacturing capacity, as well as research and process development lab space.

We've made tremendous progress over the last 25 years, added Masoud. As advanced cell and gene therapy therapeutic modalities move from concept to clinic, new cell engineering approaches will continue to emerge and mature. With every milestone, we are able to leverage our best-in-class electroporation technology and experience in the industry to support our customers in pushing the frontiers of bio-based medicines to improve patients lives.
European study reveals that retirees feel less lonely over time, with new social activities and personal connections helping reduce isolationespecially for women and highly educated retirees.

Study: The impact of retirement on loneliness in Europe. Image Credit: oneinchpunch / Shutterstock

A study published in the journal Scientific Reports explores the causal effects of retirement on both short-term and long-term changes in loneliness in Europe.

Background

Loneliness and social isolation significantly contribute to a persons well-being. Chronic loneliness is associated with an increased risk of physical and mental illnesses and all-cause mortality.

Elderly people worldwide are at the highest risk of loneliness. The situation is more salient in Europe because of the large population of elderly citizens. The number of elderly people is expected to increase in upcoming years due to rising life expectancy and declining birth rates.

Policymakers typically respond to these situations by postponing the entry into retirement so that the required funding for public pension schemes can be secured. This study investigates retirements effects on loneliness to better inform these policies.

Women whose partners remain in the workforce experience a short-term increase in loneliness after retirement, largely due to a feeling of lacking companionship, which gradually improves when both partners retire.

Retirement is an important life event for older people that comes with a range of mental and physical health consequences. Since retirement is associated with an abrupt end of social contact at the workplace, it is likely to increase loneliness among retired persons.

Existing evidence indicates that retirement significantly reduces the share of colleagues within older adults social networks. In contrast, retirement has also been found to increase socialization with friends and family members, which in turn can reduce loneliness.

In this study, scientists utilized an instrumental variable framework to analyze differences in pension eligibility rules across and within European countries to decipher the causal relationship between retirement and loneliness.

Important observations

The study analyzed data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to explore the differences in pension eligibility rules in an instrumental variable framework. The study used data from SHARE, a longitudinal survey that covers health, economic, and social conditions for individuals aged 50+ across 13 European countries and Israel.

The effects of retirement on loneliness were analyzed in the short-term (immediately after retirement) and long-term (four to six years after retirement) periods. Retirement eligibility rules provided exogenous variation, allowing researchers to identify causation rather than correlation.

The analysis revealed that retirement significantly reduces loneliness in the long run. However, in the short term, retirement did not have any statistically significant effect on loneliness.

Retirees participating in group activities like volunteer work or clubs showed particularly significant improvements in social connectedness over time, highlighting the value of structured social outlets.

After four to six years of retirement, a significant reduction in the probability of feeling isolated and lacking companionship was observed. This finding indicates that both the quantity and quality of social interactions gradually improve over time after retirement.

Education is a well-known determinant of the loneliness that a person may experience after retirement. In this study, individuals with higher educational backgrounds are significantly more likely to experience improved feelings of loneliness and social isolation after adapting to retirement.

Regarding gender-wise impacts, the study found that women are significantly more likely than men to experience loneliness immediately after retirement. However, in the long run, a significant improvement in loneliness was observed among women. Interestingly, retirement also increased womens feelings of lacking companionship in the short term, but this effect was reduced over time.

Retirement also increased women's feelings of lacking companionship in the short term, which eventually decreased in the long run.

A causal association between retirement and loneliness

Regarding potential mechanisms driving the effect of retirement on loneliness, the study found that individuals adapt to retirement by increasing their activities at both personal and group levels, which in turn can increase the quantity and quality of social interactions and the size of their social networks. The dimension-specific analysis revealed that loneliness among retirees is composed of aspects like feeling isolated and lacking companionship. The long-term reduction in these feelings was particularly evident for women and highly educated individuals.

The gender-wise analysis revealed no significant short-term or long-term effects of retirement on loneliness among men whose partners are still working. This effect was driven solely by their decrease in social isolation over time.

In contrast, women whose partners are still working experienced loneliness immediately after retirement (short-term effect). This short-term increase in loneliness was due to a greater feeling of lacking companionship. Women whose partners are not yet retired face greater companionship gaps shortly after retirement. This dynamic often changes if their partner eventually joins them in retirement, alleviating these feelings over time.

Study significance

The study finds that retirement significantly reduces loneliness in the long run. This might be due to the gradual improvement in the feelings of social isolation and lack of companionship for retired persons who engage in new activities to increase the size of their social network.

In other words, the study reveals that individuals adapt to retirement by increasing their engagement in new activities and group activities. Thus, they feel more socially connected and less lonely after several years of retirement. The studys findings highlight the importance of policies that support post-retirement social engagement, especially among women and those with lower levels of education.

The scientists believe that their findings contribute to a better understanding of how retirement policies affect the well-being of older adults.

Despite policymakers' strong argument for delaying retirement to maintain the financial stability of the social security systems, these findings highlight the beneficial impact of retirement on mental health for people who remain socially active.

Public policies supporting retirement could benefit from including initiatives encouraging part-time work or volunteer opportunities for retirees and investments in age-friendly public infrastructure.
Scientists at the University of Copenhagen have discovered a new weight loss drug target that reduces appetite, increases energy expenditure, and improves insulin sensitivity without causing nausea or loss of muscle mass. The discovery was reported in the journal Nature and could lead to a new therapy for millions of people with both obesity and type 2 diabetes who do not respond well to current treatments.

Millions of people around the world benefit from weight loss drugs based on the incretin hormone GLP-1. These drugs also improve kidney function, reduce the risk of fatal cardiac events, and are linked to protection against neurodegeneration. However, many people stop taking the drugs due to common side effects, including nausea and vomiting. Studies also show that incretin-based therapies like Wegovy and Mounjaro are much less effective at lowering weight in people living with both obesity and type 2 diabetes  a group numbering more than 380 million people globally.

In a study published in Nature, scientists from the University of Copenhagen describe a powerful new drug candidate that lowers appetite without loss of muscle mass or side effects like nausea and vomiting. And, unlike the current generation of treatments, the drug also increases the body's energy expenditure  the capacity of the body to burn calories.

While GLP-1-based therapies have revolutionized patient care for obesity and type 2 diabetes, safely harnessing energy expenditure and controlling appetite without nausea remain two Holy Grails in this field. By addressing these needs, we believe our discovery will propel current approaches to make more tolerable, effective treatments accessible to millions more individuals." Zach Gerhart-Hines, Associate Professor from the NNF Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR), University of Copenhagen

NK2R activation lowers body weight and reverses diabetes

Our weight is largely determined by the balance between the energy we consume and the amount of energy we expend. Eating more and burning less creates a positive energy balance leading to weight gain, while eating less and burning more creates a negative balance, resulting in weight loss.

The current generation of incretin-based therapies tip the scales toward a negative energy balance by lowering appetite and the total calories a person consumes. But scientists have also recognised the potential on the other side of the equation  increasing the calories the body burns. This approach is especially relevant, given recent research that has shown that our bodies seem to be burning fewer calories at rest than they did a few decades. However, there are currently no clinically approved ways to safely increase energy expenditure, and few options are in development.

This was the starting point when scientists at the University of Copenhagen decided to test the effect of activating the Neurokinin 2 Receptor (NK2R) in mice. The Gerhart-Hines Group identified the receptor through genetic screens that suggested NK2R played a role in maintaining energy balance and glucose control. They were astonished by the results of the studies  not only did activating the receptor safely increase calorie-burning, it also lowered appetite without any signs of nausea.

Further studies in non-human primates with type 2 diabetes and obesity showed that NK2R activation lowered body weight and reversed their diabetes by increasing insulin sensitivity and lowering blood sugar, triglycerides, and cholesterol.

"One of the biggest hurdles in drug development is translation between mice and humans. This is why we were excited that the benefits of NK2R agonism translated to diabetic and obese nonhuman primates, which represents a big step towards clinical translation," says PhD Student Frederike Sass from CBMR at the University of Copenhagen, and first author of the study.

The discovery could result in the next generation of drug therapies that bring more efficacious and tolerable treatments for the almost 400 million people globally who live with both type 2 diabetes and obesity. The University of Copenhagen holds the patent rights for targeting NK2R. To date, research by the Gerhart-Hines lab has led to the creation of three biotech companies  Embark Biotech, Embark Laboratories, and Incipiam Pharma. In 2023, Embark Biotech was acquired by Novo Nordisk to develop next generation therapeutics for cardiometabolic disease.
UAB researchers have reversed metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) in mouse models. MASH is a severe liver disease associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes that affects more than 40 million people. The results were obtained with a single intramuscular administration of the therapeutic viral vectors. The research has also determined that most obese, type 2 diabetic and MASH patients could benefit from the therapy. The results will be the basis for a future clinical trial by the biopharmaceutical company Kriya (https://kriyatherapeutics.com/).

Researchers from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) in collaboration with clinicians from the Parc Tauli University Hospital in Sabadell have described in mice the long-term efficacy and safety of the intramuscular administration of a gene therapy for the treatment of MASH, a liver disease that affects approximately 40 million people in the United States and Europe.

The therapy developed by the UAB researchers is based on the genetic engineering of the skeletal muscle with the gene that encodes for the fibroblast growth factor 21 protein using adeno-associated viral vectors (AAV-FGF21 vectors). FGF21 is a key metabolic regulator that, upon the administration of the vectors in skeletal muscle, is sustainedly increased in bloodstream (more than a year in this study). This treatment mediates long-term reversal of liver fibrosis and MASH, counteracts obesity, excessive fat accumulation, insulin resistance characteristic of type 2 diabetes, and the development of liver tumors both in female and male mice.

To facilitate clinical translation, the researchers have evaluated this therapy in dogs to assess the safety and therapeutic benefit in large animals. They have also characterized FGF21 circulating levels in a cohort of 500 obese, type 2 diabetes, and MASH patients, and conclude that most of them would be eligible for this gene therapy in the future.

The results will be the basis for a future clinical trial. The UAB licensed this gene therapy program with AAV-FGF21 to the company Tramontane Therapeutics Inc., now part of the biopharmaceutical company Kriya, which will bring this approach to the clinic in human MASH patients. "Our gene therapy based on AAV-FGF21 can be transformative for patients with MASH, a disease that requires safe, effective and long-lasting treatments," explains UAB researcher Fatima Bosch, who led the research.

Obesity and type 2 diabetes, precursors of MASH

The global epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes are risk factors for the development of liver diseases. Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), or "fatty liver disease," is the most common chronic liver disease worldwide, an epidemic whose prevalence can reach 27% of the adult population in some countries. It begins with an excessive accumulation of lipids in the liver that can worsen into severe metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), characterized by inflammation, lesions in the liver cells (hepatocytes) and fibrosis. In advanced stages, MASH is associated with severe liver diseases, such as cirrhosis, liver cancer and end-stage liver disease, with high mortality. For Dr. Fatima Bosch, "the gene therapy strategy we have developed could be a major advance in the treatment not only of patients with MASH, but also of other metabolic diseases and related comorbidities that affect millions of people worldwide."

The research, led by Professor Fatima Bosch, director of the UAB Center of Animal Biotechnology and Gene Therapy (CBATEG), professor of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the UAB and member of the CIBER of Diabetes and Associated Metabolic Diseases (CIBERDEM; ISCIII), was conducted by researchers from CBATEG and from the Department itself, especially Veronica Jimenez and Victor Sacristan (first authors of the manuscript), together with researchers from the Department of Animal Health and Anatomy and the Department of Animal Medicine and Surgery of the School of Veterinary Medicine of the UAB; the Parc Tauli Research and Innovation Institute (I3PT-BUSCA); the Teaching Unit of the School of Medicine of the UAB at the Parc Tauli University Hospital in Sabadell; the Departments of Pathology and Endocrinology and Nutrition of the Parc Tauli Hospital, and from the CIBER of Liver and Digestive Diseases (CIBEREHD). The work is published today in Molecular Therapy, the founding journal of the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT).
News / National

by Staff reporter

A 20-year-old man from Chief Nyajena's area in Masvingo has been sentenced to five years in prison for attempting to rape a 37-year-old woman who was walking to Nyamande Business Centre.According to court records, the incident occurred on November 3, 2024, around midday. The accused allegedly approached the woman, stripped naked, and jumped into her path, demanding sexual relations. He then grabbed her by the hands and forced her to the ground. However, the woman fought back, managing to overpower him and pull on his manhood, causing him intense pain. She then fled, leaving him writhing on the ground.The National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe confirmed the incident on X (formerly Twitter), stating, "A 20-year-old man from Chief Nyajena's area in Masvingo was convicted of attempted rape and sentenced to five years in prison. The complainant resisted, pulled his manhood, and escaped, leaving the man writhing in pain. A report was made to the Police leading to his arrest."Following the woman's report to the police, authorities swiftly apprehended the suspect, leading to his conviction for attempted rape. The case has been widely discussed as a testament to the resilience and courage of the victim in defending herself.
If you bring a baby into the Hurley Children's Center clinic in downtown Flint, Michigan, Mona Hanna will find you. The pediatrician, who gained national prominence for helping uncover the city's water crisis in 2015, strode across the waiting room in her white lab coat, eyes laser-focused on the chubby baby in the lap of an unsuspecting parent.

"Hi! I'm Dr. Mona!" she said warmly. "Any chance you guys live in Flint?" She learned the family is from neighboring Grand Blanc.

"That's so sad!" Hanna said. "You should move to Flint! And have another baby! And you could be part of the Rx Kids program!" The parents chuckled politely. But the doctor was not kidding.

Billed as the first-ever citywide cash aid program for pregnant moms and babies, Rx Kids gives Flint residents $1,500 mid-pregnancy, and $500 each month for the baby's first year. There are no strings attached. No income limits. And it's universal; nearly every baby born since the program launched in January is enrolled.

Parents who bring their babies in for checkups at this clinic rattle off the ways the money has helped, from the cribs, diapers, clothes, and wipes they've bought to how it's "kept them afloat" during maternity leave or provided crucial income when a spouse died.

But the true goal of Rx Kids goes far beyond Flint, as Hanna acknowledged, scooping up one of the Rx Kids babies in an exam room. "Do you think we should do this for babies everywhere? What do you think?" she asked, cooing. The baby gurgled happily, smiling. "That was an affirmative yes."

Cash payments as a tool to reduce child poverty

Many other countries, including Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, already offer a child cash benefit. The U.S. essentially did, too, during the coronavirus pandemic: The 2021 expanded child tax credit gave low- and middle-income families (including those previously excluded because of insufficient income) hundreds of dollars per kid in direct, monthly payments for six months.

The child poverty rate fell to a historic low. But the expanded program expired at the end of 2021 and Congress did not renew it. The child poverty rate went back up.

For Luke Shaefer, director of the Poverty Solutions initiative at the University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy and a longtime advocate of child cash benefits, it was "the most brutal day" of his career.

Soon after, he got an email from Hanna asking if he wanted to collaborate on the program that would become Rx Kids. The program's goals go beyond cash aid for Michigan families: It is also aimed at getting donors, lawmakers, and voters excited about how child cash benefits could help their communities.

The list of the recently converted includes Republican state Sen. John Damoose, who has become an outspoken advocate for expanding Rx Kids. Referring to himself as "a pro-life person," Damoose said, "I sure as heck better be concerned about making it easier for mothers to make the decision to have their children." He said the Republican Party needs to get serious about supporting programs like Rx Kids. "Weve been accused for years about being pro-birth, not pro-life. And I think thats not without merit. We need to put our money where our mouth is and support these children and support their mothers."

Already, what once seemed like a moon shot is gaining traction: Shaefer and Hanna say their communications with Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign helped shape Harris' "baby bonus" proposal. President-elect Donald Trump's campaign also supported expanding the child tax credit.

Meanwhile, Michigan has budgeted some $20 million in state Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cash to partially fund an expansion of Rx Kids to a short list of communities, if those areas can raise local matching funds. Those areas include rural communities like Michigan's remote eastern Upper Peninsula, part of which is in Damooses district. "We want to make the tent as big as possible," Hanna said.

But some Upper Peninsula health officials were initially wary. Each new Rx Kids community will need to raise millions of dollars in private donations to start and sustain the program in their community. "It could be a good thing," Leann Espinoza, maternal-infant health program manager for the eastern Upper Peninsula, said in August. "But I'm not getting my hopes up. I know that sounds terrible."

Upper Peninsula families 'fall through the cracks'

In the wood-paneled rec room of the Clark Township Community Center, Espinoza broke the news to her team this summer: Rx Kids is not a program the eastern Upper Peninsula will be able to fund on its own.

It's about "$3 million that we would need to raise," she said, looking at three other LMAS District Health Department staff members.

Tonya Winberg, the public health nurse for Mackinac County, looked stunned. "Its just, where does that $3 million come from?" Winberg asked. Other potential Rx Kids expansion sites, like Kalamazoo, have wealthy private foundations that can fund the program. The eastern Upper Peninsula does not.

"And how do we sustain it?" Espinoza added. "We hate to start programs, and then the funding is gone and we have to tell people, 'Its not here anymore; we cant do it anymore.'"

The ruggedly beautiful and densely forested Upper Peninsula is used to feeling forgotten. There's a running joke about how often it's mislabeled as Canada or Wisconsin on maps. It has about a third of Michigan's land mass, but just 3% of its residents. The sheer scale and sparse population mean options for food, housing, and child care are limited. Poverty rates are higher than the state average in much of Espinoza's territory, and the region has some of the highest rates of newborns suffering from prebirth drug exposure in the state, according to the state health department.

At the community center, Espinoza and her colleagues start listing all the ways Rx Kids would be a lifesaver for families in the Upper Peninsula, many of whom have some income and some resources but "don't make enough to make it," Espinoza said. "The fall-through-the-cracks families. And those are the ones that I really, really, really think this program would benefit, especially up here."

Espinoza's next meeting was with one of those families. Jessica Kline and her 18-month-old daughter, Aurora, live in Munising, a tourist town on Lake Superior. "She's got a big personality, and her hair is red, so she came with a warning label," Kline said of her daughter, laughing.

Aurora is a tiny force, speeding around the family's apartment, unfazed by the nasal tube that connects her to an oxygen machine. She was born early, at just 24 weeks gestation, weighing less than 2 pounds. No hospital in the Upper Peninsula was equipped to care for a preemie that young. So Aurora and her parents spent seven months at a hospital in Ann Arbor, five hours south of their home. "We didnt have a reliable vehicle," Kline said. "We didnt have a source of income." Hospital social services provided $19 a day for food, which Kline would save up to buy supplies for Aurora.

When they finally got Aurora home to the Upper Peninsula, their house had been vandalized, the copper pipes stripped out. Espinoza's team helped them find housing, and drove them to get groceries. Every day is a series of small battles, from finding the medical supplies Aurora needs to figuring out how to get to a revolving door of specialists hundreds of miles away. Still, Aurora's dad has a job in town. They've got family nearby. They're making it work, Kline said.

But having a program like Rx Kids could have made a huge difference in her daughter's first year. "Five hundred dollars a month would have been enough to actually be able to get ourselves on our feet," she said.

After Espinoza left Kline's apartment, she drove south to her office in Manistique. It was late. Everyone else had gone home. Espinoza sat at her desk, trying to be pragmatic. She knows Rx Kids would not magically solve the lack of child care and housing and all the other things you need to break the cycle of poverty. But it would fix Kline's car. It would help.

There will undoubtedly be critics, Espinoza said  people who believe parents will just use this money to buy drugs. "'What did they do to earn it?'" she imagined them saying. "'Youre just giving them free money, and they didnt do anything to get it?' Because they dont understand. They dont understand the barriers. They dont understand that sometimes the choice isn't always yours. Like, Ive talked to moms who desperately want to go to work, and they want to support their family, but theres no child care. And so they have no other choice."

Espinoza recently got an update from Rx Kids' Hanna: Largely because of private foundations outside the Upper Peninsula, the program has raised enough money to fund a "perinatal" version of Rx Kids for five counties in the eastern Upper Peninsula. The perinatal program would provide the $1,500 payment mid-pregnancy, plus $500 a month for a baby's first three months, rather than the full year. "But the goal really is the full program, so we are still raising money," Hanna said via email.

"I think it's fantastic if we even just get the perinatal version to start," Espinoza said. "That's more than we had before."

This article is from a partnership that includes Michigan Public, NPR, and KFF Health News.
Scientists have identified new gene faults and evolutionary patterns contributing to testicular cancer. Their findings offer profound insights into the development of the disease and into potential treatment strategies.

Testicular cancer, though accounting for only about 1% of all cancers in men, is the most common cancer among those aged 15 to 44. Each year, nearly 200 men in Ireland are diagnosed with this cancer and incidence rates have risen in recent years - a trend also observed in Northern and Central Europe.

Fortunately, testicular cancer is highly treatable, especially when detected early, with survival rates exceeding 90%. However, patients with the highest-risk disease face a significantly lower prognosis, with only around a 50% chance of survival despite extensive clinical trials, and existing chemotherapy treatments carry significant toxicities and associated side effects.

Using data from the 100,000 Genomes Project, led by Genomics England and NHS England, the scientists applied whole genome sequencing (WGS) to 60 patient samples to address key unresolved biological and clinical questions in testicular germ cell tumors (TGCTs). Their work has just been published in leading international journal Nature Communications.

Among the key findings are:

New potential cancer drivers in testicular cancer, including drivers specific to certain subtypes, which may help stratify patients based on their tumor characteristics A reconstruction of evolutionary trajectories of genome alterations and probable progression pathways in TGCT Discovery of a broader range of mutational signatures associated with TGCT. These are distinctive patterns of DNA damage, which can reflect various carcinogenic exposures (e.g. smoking, UV light) and enable a retrospective look at exposure-related cancer risk Previously unidentified recurrent mutational hotspots in testicular cancer Identification of a genomic immune mechanism unique to TGCT, predominantly in seminomas, the most common tumor subtype.

We have taken a major leap forward in our understanding of how this disease develops and gained important insights into potential treatment strategies, which is of course key as we seek better patient outcomes. Importantly, this research was only possible thanks to the valuable contribution of tissue samples from participants in the 100,000 Genomes Project and the collaborative efforts of medical professionals in the NHS. It represents one of the first relatively large-scale testicular cancer landscape studies using a powerful whole genome sequencing approach, which was key in revealing the new insights that other techniques would not have captured. This research aimed to transform genomic insights into meaningful patient outcomes, bridging fundamental discoveries with translational applications, and it also serves as a good example of how large volumes of patient data and samples can provide us with a more detailed view of a disease." Maire Ni Leathlobhair, first author of the research, Assistant Professor in Trinity College Dublin's School of Genetics and Microbiology

This study was a collaborative effort led by senior authors Profs. Matthew Murray, Andrew Protheroe, Clare Verrill, and David Wedge and involved a dedicated team of researchers, clinicians, and trainees from both academia and the NHS, with contributions from Trinity, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Manchester.

To further enhance understanding of the disease, the researchers now hope to involve more participants to include a wider diversity of outcomes, ethnicities, and types of testicular cancers.
Chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC) is central to modern drug development, ensuring drug quality, scalability, and timely availability to patients. However, successfully implementing CMC in drug development settings is often a challenge.

Image Credit: Design Space InPharmatics LLC

This article summarizes a discussion at LSX Biopharm America on September 11. A panel of industry experts discussed approaches to overcoming the most urgent CMC challenges during the discussion.

The panel featured industry leaders from the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors, who discussed these challenges and provided valuable insight into CMC nuances and avoiding common issues.

The panel comprised:

Zeid Barakat, Partner at Scimitar Consulting (Moderator)

Chase Orsello, Head of Bioprocess Development at Sanofi

Johannes Roebers, Head of Product Development Division at PLG

Dan Jacobs, Head of CMC Strategy and Operations at Pioneering Medicines

Neera Jain, VP of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Development and Operations at Syros

Federico Pollano, Business Development at Rentschler Biopharma

CMC: A strategic asset when properly implemented

Zeid Barakat began the discussion by highlighting how well-executed CMC can be a key strategic asset, enabling drug supply to reliably and rapidly reach patients. However, this process must be implemented correctly from the offset.

Federico Pollano discussed the importance of understanding regulatory requirements at an early stage.

This is an especially important consideration for start-ups and early-stage companies, who should develop a clear roadmap covering every aspect of drug development from initial development to late-stage market considerations.

The importance of early-stage CMC de-risking

Dan Jacobs discussed his experience at Pioneering Medicines, where the company prioritized early-stage CMC de-risking. He highlighted that companies should plan for the long term, even during the early phases of development. Recognizing and addressing CMC risk factors early on creates value while allowing companies to avoid potentially expensive surprises at later stages.

Johannes Roebers emphasized this point, providing an example involving a UK-based company that did not consider CMC early on, resulting in major delays and strategic mistakes.

Collaboration and communication are key

Neera Jain went on to discuss the importance of both internal and external collaboration. Decisions around dosing, formulation, and manufacturing involve ongoing dialogue among all stakeholders, including CMC teams and pharmacokinetics.

This collaborative approach allows companies to avoid overlooked critical CMC issues being discovered during late-stage clinical development.

Selecting the right CMO is critical

One of the most important decisions in drug development is selecting a Contract Manufacturing Organization (CMO).

Johannes Roebers highlighted how changing CMOs is often more expensive and difficult than expected, meaning thorough due diligence must be conducted from the start. He also stressed the need for site visits and in-depth engagement with CMO teams before deciding.

Neera Jain added that drug development companies should endeavor to be their CMOs best client, nurturing a collaborative relationship beyond simple transactional exchanges.

Being a CMOs best client means offering an identical level of support to that expected of supply partners, fostering a more robust collaboration to minimize production delays, and anticipating problems before they become critical issues.

Leveraging technology and AI

Chase Orsello from Sanofi outlined the potential of AI and machine learning in improving CMC processes. These technologies are still emerging, but they offer the potential to considerably reduce the time and expense commonly associated with drug development.

AI can help teams analyze huge datasets more efficiently, allowing them to streamline decision-making processes and identify risks earlier.

Conclusion

The panels discussion emphasized the complexities of CMC, highlighting the importance of employing a collaborative, strategic, and proactive approach.

The key takeaway of the discussion was that a CMC should be regarded as a critical driver of success in drug development rather than just a technical hurdle. This should be the case whether a drug developer is choosing the most suitable CMO, de-risking early-stage development, or leveraging the potential of AI in its work.

Acknowledgments

Produced from materials originally authored by Meranda Parascandola from Design Space InPharmatics LLC.

About Design Space InPharmatics LLC

DSI provides regulatory, technical, and project management consulting services to healthcare product companies that manufacture and/or market pharmaceuticals, biopharmaceuticals, and cellular and gene therapy products.

Since 2007 we have provided our clients with innovative strategies and exceptional quality work products intended to enhance product development, approval, and marketing presence.

Whether advocating CMC strategy, directing CMC operations, or developing CMC submission content that represents the best interests of emerging biotech, we focus on the critical CMC issues and build programs that enhance development.

Sponsored Content Policy: News-Medical.net publishes articles and related content that may be derived from sources where we have existing commercial relationships, provided such content adds value to the core editorial ethos of News-Medical.Net which is to educate and inform site visitors interested in medical research, science, medical devices and treatments.
Ola Electric In Trouble As CCPA Orders Probe Over Consumer Complaint Resolution Practices

Reported By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 15:09 IST

CCPA has launched a detailed investigation into Ola Electric following consumer complaints, challenging the company's claim of resolving 99.10% of issues

Ola Scooter (File Photo)

The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has initiated an in-depth investigation into numerous consumer complaints filed against Ola Electric, Indias leading electric vehicle manufacturer, sources have told CNBC-TV18.

The Consumer Affairs Ministry instructed the Director General (DG) Investigation, CCPAs investigative arm, to initiate this probe last week.

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The CCPA headed by Nidhi Khare has asked the director general (DG) of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to investigate the matter. An order to this effect was issued on November 6, the official said, adding that the BIS DG has been asked to submit the investigation report within 15 days.

This comes after the company responded to a CCPA show-cause notice on October 21, 2024.

In its response, Ola Electric claimed to have resolved 99.10 percent of the complaints it received. However, the CCPAs own review suggests otherwise, prompting the regulatory authority to dig deeper into the matter.

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However, the NCH reached out to aggrieved consumers to seek their feedback and found that the grievances of many consumers were still not addressed by the company.

The NCH call agents tried to contact 287 consumers and managed to speak to 130 consumers, of which 103 (79.2 per cent) were not satisfied with the companys response, the official said.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 14:52 IST
BJP-Congress Straight Fights In Maharashtra Elections: Who Has Edge? Here's What Past Poll Data Shows

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 16:47 IST

In the 2019 elections, the Congress and BJP faced off in 66 seats. Of these, the Congress managed to secure only 16, while the BJP claimed 50

Assembly elections will be held in Maharashtra on November 20 and the results will be declared on November 23. (Representational image/AP)

The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress are set for direct contests in 75 out of the 288 assembly constituencies in Maharashtra where elections will be held on November 20 and the results will be declared on November 23. Data analysed by News18 shows that most of these straight fights will occur in Vidarbha, where they will clash in 47 seats, followed by 32 in western Maharashtra, 17 in northern Maharashtra, 19 in Marathwada, and 33 in the Konkan region, which includes Mumbai and Thane.

In the 2019 elections, the Congress and BJP faced off in 66 seats. Of these, the Congress managed to secure only 16, while the BJP claimed 50. Specifically, in Vidarbha, the two parties were in direct competition in 31 seats, with the Congress winning eight and the BJP bagging 23. The current election cycle sees both parties revisiting these contested territories. Both state party presidents  deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis for the BJP and Vijay Wedattiwar for the Congress  hail from the Vidarbha region.

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In Mumbais 36 assembly seats, the BJP and Congress competed in 12 seats during the 2019 elections. The Congress secured just one. Northern Maharashtra saw six head-to-head contests, where the Congress won two. In Marathwada, the two parties faced off in 10 seats, and the Congress emerged victorious in only three.

Alliance matrices

The ruling Mahayuti alliance comprises the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Eknath Shindes Shiv Sena, and the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). On the other side, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) consists of Congress, Uddhav Thackerays Shiv Sena (UBT), Sharad Pawars NCP (SP), Akhilesh Yadavs Samajwadi Party (SP), and the Peasants and Workers Party of India.

Within the Mahayuti, the BJP is contesting the highest number of seats at 148, followed by Shindes Shiv Sena with 85 seats and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP faction with 55. The MVA lineup has Congress fielding candidates in 102 seats, Shiv Sena (UBT) in 94, and Sharad Pawars NCP (SP) in 85. The SP has nominated candidates for nine seats, while the Peasants and Workers Party of India is contesting four.

Other parties like Raj Thackerays Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and Prakash Ambedkars Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) could influence outcomes in certain constituencies. The MNS is contesting 135 seats, the BSP is fielding candidates in all 288 constituencies, and the VBA is contesting 110 seats.

Smaller but notable parties also include the Mahadev Jankar-led Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP), Chandrashekhar Azads Azad Samaj Party, and Asaduddin Owaisis All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). The RSP is running in 151 seats, Azads party in 40, and AIMIM in 16.

Past elections

In the general elections held in May this year, the MVA bagged 31 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state while the NDA was restricted to 17 seats.

A victory in the recent Haryana elections, however, appeared to have turned the tide in favour of the BJP-led Mahayuti, re-energising its cadre and allowing the party to recalibrate its strategy for the Assembly polls.

The MVA, on the other hand, was seen struggling on the issue of seat-sharing and the chief ministerial face.

However, the coalition has exuded confidence about winning the elections and forming a government in the state.

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The elections are a make or break for either side with the last five years witnessing significant political realignments in the state as both regional behemoths, the Shiv Sena and NCP, saw a split.

In the 2019 assembly elections, the BJP emerged as the largest party with 105 seats, followed by Shiv Sena with 56 and Congress with 44. In the 2014 elections, the BJP won 122 seats, Shiv Sena secured 63, and Congress took 42 seats.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 16:47 IST
Clash Of Outsiders: In Maharashtra Battleground, Unlikely Adversaries Yogi, Kharge Lock Horns

Reported By :

News18.com

Edited By: Apoorva Misra



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 16:01 IST

While Kharge has been leading the charge in Maharashtra, outshining Rahul Gandhi, Adityanath has become the most-sought after campaigner for BJP after PM Modi

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge are locked in a war of words in Maharashtra. (PTI)

The Maharashtra elections have become a battle between two unlikely adversaries from outside the state  Yogi Adityanath of the BJP and Mallikarjun Kharge of the Congress  who are leading the charge from either camp, exchanging barbs and outshining other party campaigners.

It all started with the Congress president attacking the Uttar Pradesh chief minister earlier this week, pointing to the latter being bald and making fun of his saffron attire, advising him to wear white. Kharge has been leading the charge in Maharashtra, outshining Rahul Gandhi and other Maha Vikas Aghadi campaigners like Uddhav Thackeray. In a sarcastic tone, Kharge has taken barbs at the two slogans of the BJP  Batoge toh Katoge and Ek Hain to Safe Hain  terming them as divisive.

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Kharge even said words like batenge, katenge were the language of terrorists and did not behove that of a chief minister on a constitutional post. The Dalit face of the Congress in Kharge taking on the prominent Thakur face of the BJP in Yogi Adityanath is also a battle with big political importance.

Yogi, meanwhile, has not been the one to pull back punches. He has become the most-sought after campaigner for BJP candidates in Maharashtra, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and has been to the state thrice for 10 rallies so far.

After various saints objected to Kharges statement, this Tuesday, Adityanath replied to the Congress presidents barbs: I am Yogi and for a Yogi, the country comes first. But for Kharge-ji, appeasement policy takes priority."

He went on to return the personal attack on him by saying that Kharge-jis mother, aunt, and sister were burnt by Nizams Razakars, but he forgot it for vote-bank politicsKharge-ji shies away from criticising the Nizam for fear of losing Muslim votes."

BJP observers say this was an unprecedented attack on Kharge, with the chief minister highlighting a well-known fact to point fingers at the Congress apparent silence on the Razakars.

Kharge so far has not responded but his son and Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge said on Tuesday on X that despite the tragedy, his father had never exploited it for political gain, never played the victim card and never let hatred define him.

It was the Razakars who committed this act  not the entire Muslim community. Every community has bad apples and individuals who do wrong," Kharge said. He accused Yogi of tyranny and hatred" and asked the CM to take your hate elsewhere".

The Dalit-Thakur angle came out again in Priyank Kharges statement as he said Yogis ideology fails to see Kharge as an equal, labeling him as an untouchable and a Dalit.

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Kharge-ji is fighting tirelessly to uphold the values of Buddha-Basavanna-Ambedkar," he posted on X.

The UP chief minister, meanwhile, has been reiterating his rather popular slogan Batenge Toh Katenge at all his rallies in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. Yogi will now devote time for the campaign in the nine assembly bypoll seats in Uttar Pradesh which are also politically critical and go to polls on November 20.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 14:14 IST
In Marathwada Uphill Battle, BJP Depends On Eknath Shindes Appeal, Manoj Jarange Pull-Out Comforts Congress

Reported By :

News18.com

Edited By: Apoorva Misra



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 09:19 IST

The chief ministers posters dot Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar and the Mahayuti is reminding voters that it changed the name of the city which was associated for decades with Aurangzeb who had ordered the killing of Chhatrapati Sambhaji

The BJP is hoping for a miracle in Marathwada this time, riding on the shoulders of their coalitions Maratha face and chief minister Eknath Shinde. (News18)

In Lok Sabha elections six months ago, BJP could not win any seat in Marathwada. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won eight of the nine seats, while Eknath Shindes party won Aurangabad.

A year ago, the Shinde government had changed Aurangabads name to Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar after the elder son of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

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The BJP is hoping for a miracle in Marathwada this time, riding on the shoulders of their coalitions Maratha face and chief minister Eknath Shinde.

The CMs posters dot Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar and the Mahayuti is reminding voters that it changed the name of the city which was associated for decades with Aurangzeb who had ordered the killing of Chhatrapati Sambhaji.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modis Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain slogan, the BJP is hoping to get some Marathas on its side now.

However, this is easier said than done. The issue of the undelivered Maratha reservation continues to haunt the BJP, with reservation activist Manoj Jarange painting Devendra Fadnavis as the villain of the piece.

With 46 seats at stake in Marathwada, what has proven to be a shot in the arm for the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in these elections is the decision of Jarange to withdraw his candidates from the electoral race.

That means Maratha vote wont be divided at all, and the MVA stands to gain," say Congress supporters of the party candidate from Aurangabad (East) seat, Lahu Hanumant Rao. This is a seat held by the BJP, but the MVA is optimistic of winning it as part of a sweep of Marathwada this time.

The Marathas want a promise of reservation that is delivered on the ground not empty promises which were rubbished by the court," a group of Maratha auto-drivers in the town told CNN-News18, referring to the Supreme Court turning down the Fadnavis governments earlier decision to give 10 per cent reservation to Marathas.

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The BJP still maintains it is committed to give Marathas reservation but by not affecting the reservation pie of the OBCs. There is a strong OBC consolidation in the BJPs favour as OBCs feel Marathas must not get the reservation," a group of BJP supporters in the town said. The aim clearly is to break the Maratha-Muslim-Dalit coalition of voters in favour of the MVA.

Another factor is Jarange not attacking Shinde in his speeches. Though the BJP is contesting more seats in Marathwada (20) compared to the Shiv Sena at 16, chances of the Mahayuti winning in more of those 16 seats look brighter. The prime minister is also holding a rally in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar on Thursday to shore up the Mahayutis chances.

Location : Aurangabad [Aurangabad], India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 09:17 IST
In Politics, Whatever Post You Get Devendra Fadnavis Clears Air On Maharashtra CM Ambition

Reported By : &

CNN-News18

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 16:57 IST

Maharashtra's deputy chief minister also attacked NCP veteran Sharad Pawar, saying breaking parties was his specialty

Devendra Fadnavis (PTI)

Rajneeti mein jo padd mil jaaye woh le lena chahiye [In politics, whatever post you get, you should take]," Maharashtras deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Thursday, seemingly ending speculations over his chief ministerial ambitions if the Mahayuti comes to power in the upcoming assembly elections.

In an exclusive interview with CNN-News18, Fadnavis said: The party will decide my responsibility. Home Minister Amit Shah has specifically said the chief ministers post will be discussed after the elections."

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Taking potshots at the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, the BJP leader said he was confident that the Mahayuti will return to power. In the Lok Sabha elections, we witnessed attempts to mislead voters with a narrative of Vote Jihad, including false claims that the Constitution would be abolished. Fatwas were issued, and religious sentiments were invoked, with oaths taken in the name of Allah to influence voters. However, Muslims are also benefiting from government schemes, including programmes like the Ladki Bahin Yojana. The so-called secular parties have done nothing for the Muslim community woh aaj bhi puncture lagane kaa kaam kar rahe hai [they are still doing menial jobs like fixing punctures]."

Fadnavis also attacked NCP veteran Sharad Pawar, saying breaking parties was his specialty". He has broken six parties. Sharad Pawar wanted Supriya Sule to become the chief minister, while Ajit Pawar is left with nothing. These parties broke up because of a family issue," he added.

He also trained guns on AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi, saying the BJP will give him a befitting reply" if he comes here and praises Aurangzeb or the Razakars". Aurangzeb was an invader. Indian Muslims do not idolise Aurangzeb," he said.

Asked about buzz of skirmishes within the Mahayuti, Fadnavis clarified that all was well. Ajit Pawar has had different experiences and sentiments in his political journey, and he may have misunderstood the phrase batenge toh katenge. We will clarify this with him. Ajit Pawar and Shiv Sena have fielded Muslim candidates while we did not, simply because we didnt have suitable candidates from the Muslim community."

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The deputy CM also said there was no lack of coordination in the Mahayuti. During elections, all of us are expected to campaign. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi told us that we dont need to attend his rallies."

While Fadnavis reminded that he had ensured reservation for Marathas when he was the chief minister, he said any party promising reservation on religious grounds was misleading voters. Muslim reservation goes against the principles of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar who said there should be no reservation based on religion."

First Published: November 14, 2024, 16:50 IST
'Maiya Samman' Vs Illegal Immigration: What Will Santhal Pargana Choose In Jharkhand Polls?

Reported By :

CNN-News18

Edited By: Oindrila Mukherjee



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 18:51 IST

The BJP has alleged that the ruling JMM-led coalition has allowed demographic change in the state to secure its vote bank. It remains to be seen if "illegal migration" can be a deciding factor for Santhal Pargana

While the BJP has banked on the charisma of PM Narendra Modi, the JMM-led coalition has heavily depended on Kalpana Soren's 'woman power'. (Image: PTI/File)

Union Home Minister Amit Shah also promised a new law to safeguard tribal land ownership to keep it away from the clutches of alleged illegal migrants. But, the real test of this issue will be to see if sways voters in the Santhal Pargana division.

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SANTHAL PARGANA DIVISION

The division has six districts  Deoghar, Godda, Dumka, Jamtara, Sahibganj and Pakur. Together they have 18 seats, seven of which are reserved for scheduled tribes (ST). The 2011 Census indicates that across Sahibganj, Pakur, Dumka, and Rajmahal, the tribal population has been decreasing.

While updated figures are awaited, estimates by political parties suggest that some constituencies have witnessed a complete demographic shift. In both Pakur and Rajmahal, for example, the Muslim population is touted to be touching 50 percent in some assembly segments.

Nayabasti in Rajmahal is an example often cited  from barren land to more than 100 families, mostly Muslims, settling down. Some tribals have complained that from panchayat elections to local issues, their voices are lost because of the demographic change.

The BJP has alleged that the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has allowed this demographic change in its home turf (the Sorens belong to Dumka) to secure a vote bank. Would it then mean that illegal migration" can be a deciding factor for Santhal Pargana?

While Jharkhand does not share a direct boundary with Bangladesh, Pakur and Sahibganj districts are just across the Ganga from West Bengal. Local BJP leaders have alleged that from Malda and Murshidabad, Bangladeshi men, women and children are smuggled in by a well-oiled trafficking racket.

Once inside India, the agents keep fake Aadhaar cards, ration cards and even passport ready. A boat ride across the Ganga gets these alleged Bangladeshis to Jharkhand where temporary shelters first crop up on railway land and then these turn into permanent colonies. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) this week arrested at least three people in the state for allegedly running this racket.

MAIYA SAMMAN NIDHI

The JMM is hoping the roti, beti, maati narrative of the BJP will be effectively countered by its Maiya Samman Yojana, which offers every woman in the state, in the 18 to 50 age group, a cash transfer of Rs 1,000.

Three instalments of the scheme have been transferred and Chief Minister Hemant Soren has been telling voters that if the BJP had not forwarded the elections by a month, he would have ensured a fourth instalment before the model code of conduct was enforced.

The BJP has tried to counter this scheme by promising Rs 2,000 if voted to power. But, in a game of populism, the JMM-led coalition government announced that the scheme amount will go up to Rs 2,500 if it returns to power.

The scheme definitely has resonance among women voters. In rural pockets of Kolhan region, which voted in the first phase, women made their presence felt.

Hence, the JMM is hoping that just as the woman vote bank ushered in the BJP with a big mandate in Madhya Pradesh on the back of the Ladli Behna Yojana, this scheme will have a similar effect in Jharkhand.

Kalpana Soren

Kalpana Soren, the wife of Hemant Soren, has also emerged as the X-factor in the election. While the BJP has banked on the charisma of Modi and Shah by pulling in big crowds to their rallies, the JMM has heavily depended on Kalpanas woman power".

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She has gone from block to block connecting with women voters, who on many occasions have been spotted listening to her with rapt attention. A political novice who made her electoral debut after her husbands arrest, she is in demand to campaign for the INDIA candidates as well. Originally from Odisha, she has managed to negate the outsider tag too by connecting with tribal women in smaller sabhas.

The BJP, however, has accused the JMM-Congress-RJD of turning a blind eye to national security and tribal rights to appease their Muslim vote bank. But, in Santhal Pargana, the real vote bank could be women. Come November 23, the answer will be out. The question this time is the choice between economic samman of the maiya, or the more existential, roti, beti, maati.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 18:51 IST
Legal Trouble, Rebellion: Why Ex-Minister Sunil Kedar Could Whip Up Trouble For MVA This Poll Season

Reported By :

News18.com

Edited By: Apoorva Misra



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 14:19 IST

The Congress leader, accused of financial irregularities during his tenure as chairman of a cooperative bank, has thrown his weight behind an independent candidate, angering Uddhav Thackeray

According to local reports, Shiv Sena UBT leaders from Ramtek have termed Sunil Kedars behaviour dishonest. (PTI)

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has refused to grant a stay on the inquiry against former minister Sunil Kedar in the ongoing investigation into the Nagpur District Central Cooperative (NDCC) Bank scam. Accused of financial irregularities during his tenure as chairman of the bank, Kedar faces charges of causing a loss of Rs 22 crore to the bank.

The inquiry into the scam pertains to allegations of mismanagement and improper loan distribution, which reportedly led to substantial financial damage to the bank. A special committee was established to probe the irregularities. Kedar had sought a stay on the committees proceedings, citing procedural concerns. However, the high court rejected his plea, stating that the inquiry would proceed as planned.

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Kedar had previously been convicted in the NDCC Bank case and sentenced to five years in prison, along with a fine of Rs 50,000. Following the conviction, he approached the high court for relief, seeking a suspension of his sentence. While the court allowed him temporary relief, it directed that investigations into the matter continue.

The high court has also mandated that representatives of all parties connected to the case submit their responses by October 8. A subsequent hearing was scheduled for October 15 during which the court reiterated the importance of the ongoing investigation.

The scam dates back to the 1990s and involves allegations of fraudulent practices, including improper loan distribution and mismanagement of funds. Kedar, along with other accused, allegedly sanctioned loans without following proper procedures, which resulted in heavy losses to the bank.

In its latest order, the high court made it clear that Kedars request to halt the inquiry lacked sufficient grounds, and the investigation must continue uninterrupted. The court also emphasised that ensuring accountability in cooperative banking institutions is vital to protect depositors interests.

The next hearing is set for December 3 when the court will review the progress of the ongoing inquiry. Meanwhile, Kedars legal troubles continue to pose challenges to his political career as he is a prominent Congress leader in Vidarbha.

The issue has triggered a controversy once again in the run-up to the assembly polls after Kedar was seen campaigning for former Congress leader and independent candidate Rajendra Mulak. This has hurt local Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders, especially those of the Shiv Sena UBT.

According to local reports, Shiv Sena UBT leaders from Ramtek have termed Kedars behaviour dishonest". However, the leader says his intention was clear. Considering the ground situation, we had to go ahead with the current option as our aim is very clear  we have to avenge Uddhav Thackerays insult by local MLA and leader of Shinde faction, Ashish Jaiswal. Uddhav Thackeray gave him everything but he betrayed Thackeray."

Before the last date of nominations for assembly polls, Kedar had met Uddhav Thackeray at his residence to convince him to support Mulak but the former chief minister was reluctant to leave the seat for the Congress and also did not want to accept Mulaks idea of contesting on the Shiv Sena UBT symbol.

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Shiv Sena UBT spokesperson Anand Dubey said: In such a situation, we should aim to defeat our opponents and follow the Yuti Dharma but such a move may further split MVA votes. This should have been avoided."

In response, Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe said: The party is firmly supporting the official MVA candidate in Ramtek constituency. Those who have rebelled against the party and alliance have been suspended." When asked about Kedars support for Mulak, Londhe said: The state leadership of the party will take a call on this issue."

First Published: November 14, 2024, 14:19 IST
News / National

by Staff reporter

Two women, Nokuthula Sibanda and Nothando Ndlovu, have been arrested for allegedly defrauding a woman of US$5,730 by falsely promising to secure a UK sponsorship certificate for her daughter.The UK Scholarship Sponsorship Certificate is a key document for students looking to study in the United Kingdom, as it confirms eligibility for scholarships or sponsorships, and is crucial for visa applications.According to police reports, the two women conspired in March 2023 to offer facilitation services for the sponsorship certificate. They demanded a registration fee of US$230, in addition to a processing fee of US$5,300. The complainant, seeking to help her daughter study in the UK, agreed to the terms and made the payments.On May 2, 2023, the woman paid the full amount, including the registration fee and the processing fee. She then paid the remaining US$200 the following day, after being assured by the accused that her daughter would be able to travel to the UK by August 2023. However, when she followed up with the two women, she received conflicting and unclear information about the progress of the sponsorship.Frustrated and suspicious, the complainant reported the matter to the police. Investigations led to the arrest of Sibanda and Ndlovu, who were subsequently charged with fraud.In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), the police confirmed the arrests, stating, "Nokuthula Sibanda and Nothando Ndlovu were arraigned before the Magistrates' court in Bulawayo on allegations of fraud. The state is alleging that the two accused persons promised to facilitate the process of securing a UK sponsorship certificate for the complainant's daughter in exchange for payments totaling US$5,730. The complainant did not receive the services promised, leading to her reporting the matter to the police."The total amount defrauded from the complainant was US$5,730, with no money recovered. The case highlights the growing issue of fraudulent schemes targeting individuals seeking educational opportunities abroad. Sibanda and Ndlovu are set to appear in court as investigations continue.
Maharashtra Polls: Why Jarange Patil's Maratha Quota Card May Not Be An Ace In The Hole In Mumbai

Reported By :

CNN-News18

Edited By: Pathikrit Sen Gupta



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 06:00 IST

Many in the Maratha Mahasangh think it's not a bad idea that Manoj Jarange Patil opted out of the poll race. One, in case he is unable to replicate the Lok Sabha performance, it would be a personal setback. Also, unlike in rural areas, the... Read More

The Maratha Mahasangh office in Shivaji Mandir, Dadar, Mumbai. Pic/News18

Amidst the bustling and crowded Dadar market in Mumbai is the small Maratha Mahasangh office in Shivaji Mandir. Old pictures of the Maratha agitation since the 1980s and 1990s lie on the table and have turned yellow with age.

The small office with a handful of staff hoped to see the election buzz with the Maratha strongman of the Marathwada belt, Manoj Jarange Patil, giving them hope. In this years April-June Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party received a shock, losing in this influential belt. Marathas here hoped to relive this magic during this months Maharashtra assembly polls. But then Jarange decided to withdraw from the electoral battle.

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The feeling is mixed. President of the Maratha Mahasangh of Mumbai, who also runs a trade union, Dilip Jagtap, told News18 that the Maratha issue will remain alive even if they dont contest. But many in private think its not a bad idea that Jarange Patil opted out of the poll race. One, in case he is unable to replicate the Lok Sabha performance, it would be a personal setback. Also, unlike in rural areas, the Maratha caste agitation may not find traction everywhere.

But those who are members of the Mahasangh give another spin. Says Prashant Sawant of the Mahasangh, We are not interested in the thali. We know what we want to offer. Positions dont matter. What matters is the agitation and we will ensure that we get reservations."

Adds Mahasangh president Dilip Jagtap, We know what happens when MLAs win. There is always the danger that they switch sides. We dont want this. But yes, Jarange Patils agitation and hunger strikes wont go to waste. We will ensure our mission is accepted."

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Sources say that Jarange Patil could indicate who to vote for. Both the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi and the ruling Mahayuti are watching and waiting with bated breath.

In Mumbai, Marathas form about 30% of the population and may not have a huge impact electorally. But in rural Marathwada, Jaranges words could hold the key.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 06:00 IST
Sena Vs Sena And NCP Vs NCP Fights In Maharashtra Polls: Heres What Data Reveals

Published By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 30, 2024, 04:49 IST

The elections are a make-or-break for both sides with the last five years witnessing significant political realignments in the state as regional behemoths Shiv Sena and NCP saw splits

Uddhav Thackerays Shiv Sena (UBT) and Eknath Shindes Shiv Sena are in direct contests in 47 Maharashtra assembly seats, while Ajit Pawars NCP and Sharad Pawars NCP (SP) are competing with each other in 38 seats for the elections to be held on November 20, poll data analysed by News18 shows.

The results for all 288 seats in the assembly will be declared on November 23.

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Sena versus Sena

Mumbai, the epicentre of Sena politics will see some high-profile clashes between the two camps. The Shinde-led faction has fielded former union minister Milind Deora against Uddhav Thackerays son Aaditya in the key constituency of Worli. Aaditya also faces competition from Sandeep Deshpande of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, led by his estranged uncle Raj Thackeray.

The Uddhav faction is Taking on Shindes candidacy in Kopri Pachpakhadi in Thane, through Kedar Dighe, nephew of the late Shiv Sena leader Anand Dighe, a mentor to Shinde.

NCP versus NCP

Ajit Pawars Nationalist Congress Party and Sharad Pawars Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) will face off in 38 seats. 20 of these are in western Maharashtra.

A big battle will be held in Baramati, a traditional stronghold of the Pawar family. Here, Ajit Pawar will face his nephew Yugendra Pawar. Ajit has held the Baramati seat since 1991, which makes it a prestige battle for him.

Three NCP versus NCP fights will take place in Nashik district. In the Yeola constituency, OBC leader and state cabinet minister Chhagan Bhujbal is up against Maratha leader Manikrao Shinde of the NCP (SP). The contest assumes significance given the ongoing Maratha-OBC polarisation due to reservation-related issues.

In other regions, including the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), the Konkan coast, central Marathwada, and eastern Vidarbha, there are just five seats where the two NCP factions will directly compete.

Poll players

The ruling Mahayuti alliance comprises the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Eknath Shindes Shiv Sena, and the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). On the other side, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) consists of Congress, Uddhav Thackerays Shiv Sena (UBT), Sharad Pawars NCP (SP), Akhilesh Yadavs Samajwadi Party (SP), and the Peasants and Workers Party of India.

Within the Mahayuti, the BJP is contesting the highest number of seats at 148, followed by Shindes Shiv Sena with 85 seats and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP faction with 55. The MVA lineup has Congress fielding candidates in 102 seats, Shiv Sena (UBT) in 94, and Sharad Pawars NCP (SP) in 85. The SP has nominated candidates for nine seats, while the Peasants and Workers Party of India is contesting four.

Other parties like Raj Thackerays Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and Prakash Ambedkars Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) could influence outcomes in certain constituencies. The MNS is contesting 135 seats, the BSP is fielding candidates in all 288 constituencies, and the VBA is contesting 110 seats.

Smaller but notable parties also include the Mahadev Jankar-led Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP), Chandrashekhar Azads Azad Samaj Party, and Asaduddin Owaisis All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). The RSP is running in 151 seats, Azads party in 40, and AIMIM in 16.

Past elections

In the general elections held in May this year, the MVA bagged 31 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state while the NDA was restricted to 17 seats.

A victory in the recent Haryana elections, however, appeared to have turned the tide in favour of the BJP-led Mahayuti, re-energising its cadre and allowing the party to recalibrate its strategy for the Assembly polls.

The MVA, on the other hand, was seen struggling on the issue of seat-sharing and the chief ministerial face. However, the coalition has exuded confidence about winning the elections and forming a government in the state.

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The elections are a make-or-break for both sides with the last five years witnessing significant political realignments in the state as regional behemoths Shiv Sena and NCP saw splits.

In the 2019 assembly elections, the BJP emerged as the largest party with 105 seats, followed by Shiv Sena with 56 and Congress with 44. In the 2014 elections, the BJP won 122 seats, Shiv Sena secured 63, and Congress took 42 seats.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 19:51 IST
Textile Traders Of Mumbais Iconic Swadeshi Market Seek Tax Relief, Redevelopment From Next Govt

Reported By :

CNN-News18

Edited By: Apoorva Misra



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 10:23 IST

Housed in a decades-old building, the heritage structure with several shops was first established in the early 1900s. However, closer to Indias freedom struggle, the market got its Swadeshi name due to the denouncing of foreign goods

Once the hub of the revolutionary Swadeshi movement, the structural health of the market is a cause of concern. (Facebook)

The iconic Swadeshi Market in Mumbais Kalbadevi is looking forward to the Maharashtra elections, with textile traders  a crucial vote bank for all parties  ready with their list of demands for the winning side.

Housed in a decades-old building, the heritage structure with several shops was first established in the early 1900s. However, closer to Indias freedom struggle, the market got its Swadeshi name due to the denouncing of foreign goods.

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This market was set up in the early 1900s. However, it got its name because of the participation of the traders in the Swadeshi movement, where we set ablaze foreign materials and foreign products. The market has about 700 shops, with close to 400 shops on the ground floor itself," Gitesh Unsdkar told CNN-News18 as we travelled to the historic market  that provides employment to over two lakh people  to gauge the mood of the traders.

With consumers increasingly preferring online shopping through e-commerce sites, traders are a worried lot. They admit that it is impacting the smaller businesses which the government should be concerned about.

Textile trader Sumit Mehra said: It is very difficult for us to compete with the online businesses because they come with deep pockets. We have only limited resources because of which we are gradually losing our business."

Another trader, Samir Gandhi, also listed steps the government needs to take to protect their interests. People in this market have had their shops for years together. We are hopeful that some tax relief will be given to us, and fair trade practices will allow us to compete with the online markets. This is our only request," Gandhi said, citing the need for liberalisation of taxes.

Once the hub of the revolutionary Swadeshi movement, the structural health of the market is also a cause of concern. While traders are in favour of redevelopment and modernisation, they are wary of the vested interests of some builders and the current management.

Shreyas Shah, a third-generation trader, elaborates: We are certainly in favour of redevelopment because our market is very old, and that is the need of the hour. But this project must go into the right hands. Currently, we have doubts over the working of the management of the market, and we are hoping that the government will help us in the concerns we have raised. All we ask for is a transparent system."

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One of the biggest trades for Mumbai alongside Surat and Ahmedabad in Gujarat has been the trade in materials, especially cotton fabric. This explains why a lot is playing on the minds of the trader community as they prepare to watch the next government take shape later this month.

The state of Maharashtra votes in a single phase on November 20 for a 288-member assembly. The poll results will be out on November 23.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 08:50 IST
How Swiggys IPO Has Made Hundreds Of Its Employees Crorepatis | Explained

Curated By :

News18.com

Edited By: Shilpy Bisht



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 10:36 IST

According to Swiggys Draft Red Herring Prospectus, the total number of outstanding ESOPs as of September 2024 amounted to 231 million, valued at Rs 9,046.65 crore based on the IPOs upper price band of Rs 390 per share

Swiggy allowed its employees to sell shares a month after the IPO, bypassing the mandatory one-year lock-in period by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

Hundreds of Swiggy employees are set to become millionaires after the food delivery aggregator made a successful debut in the stock market on November 13, with shares listed at Rs 420 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), reflecting a 7.7% premium over its IPO price of Rs 390.

On the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Swiggys shares opened at Rs 412, marking an increase of 5.64% from the IPO price. The listing would also give a significant value to the employee stock option plans (ESOPs).

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This IPO is considered one of the largest wealth creation events in Indias startup ecosystem that will make around 500 employees Crorepatis.

How Did Swiggy Do It?

According to Swiggys Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP), the total number of outstanding Employee Stock Options (ESOPs) as of September 2024 amounted to 231 million, valued at Rs 9,046.65 crore based on the IPOs upper price band of Rs 390 per share.

This development is expected to elevate nearly 500 Swiggy employees, who would join the Crorepati club, with their ESOP holdings now worth several crores. In total, around 5,000 employees are set to benefit from the ESOP payouts, according to reports from The Economic Times.

Swiggys ESOP payout will be among the highest in Indias startup sector, compared to rivals Walmart-owned Flipkarts massive $1.4-1.5 billion payout.

Swiggy allowed its employees to sell shares a month after the IPO, bypassing the mandatory one-year lock-in period by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

Swiggys founders and top management were allocated ESOPs worth nearly Rs 2,600 crore in its latest stock ownership plan. This includes founder and group CEO Sriharsha Majety, cofounders Nandan Reddy and Phani Kishan Addepalli; chief financial officer Rahul Bothra; chief technology officer Madhusudan Rao; food marketplace CEO Rohit Kapoor; and newly appointed CEO of Swiggy Instamart, Amitesh Jha. There are nine people in top management who will become richer by Rs 50 crore or more, according to a report by The Economic Times.

Swiggys archrival, Zomato, which went public in July 2021, minted 18-dollar millionaires through its Rs 9,375 crore IPO. Furthermore, the report noted that at the time of Paytms IPO in November 2021, around 350 employees, both current and former, became crorepatis.

What Is SEBIs Role In IPO?

The DHRP report showed that Swiggy introduced three ESOP plans to date: Swiggy Employee Stock Option Plan 2015, Swiggy Employee Stock Option Plan 2021, and Swiggy Employee Stock Option Plan 2024.

Also, the exception from SEBI in July that allowed Swiggys employees to sell shares just one month after IPO instead of waiting for one year helped enhance wealth creation opportunities.

The Bengaluru-based company had filed draft papers for the IPO with SEBI through confidential filing route in April, 2024.

Sebi introduced the pre-filing route in 2022, allowing companies to keep details of preliminary filings confidential. This route provides companies with greater flexibility in determining the issue size. The number of fresh shares proposed can be adjusted by up to 50% until the updated DRHP is filed, as per a report by The Economic Times.

How Does Swiggys Report Card Look Like?

Swiggy reported a 36% year-on-year increase in its operating revenue for FY24 to Rs 11,247 crore, driven by strong growth in its quick commerce vertical Instamart and out-of-home consumption business.

Its net loss reduced to Rs 2,350 crore, 44% lower than a year ago, according to its annual report. Its rival, Zomato, on the contrary reported a net profit of Rs 351 crore in FY24.

Swiggy laid off 6% of its workforce, affecting at least 350-400 roles across technology, call centre and corporate teams.

Swiggys operating revenue of Rs 11,247 crore for the year ended March 31, compared to Zomatos Rs 12,114 crore in the same period.

Swiggys mainstay food delivery business reported Rs 24,700 crore in gross order value (GOV), 15% up from FY23. This is against Zomatos Rs 32,224 crore, translating into a 56% share in food delivery for the Gurgaon-based company.

Quick-commerce vertical Instamart, meanwhile, reported a 58% increase in GOV to Rs 8,100 crore, or nearly $1 billion, in FY24.

What Is An IPO And How To Invest In It?

A private company offers its shares to the public for the first time through IPO. The capital, which a company raises from investors by going public, can be used for expanding operations, paying off debt, or funding research and development.

When a company lists its shares in a stock market, it becomes a publicly traded entity, allowing investors to buy and sell its shares in the open market.

For a company to be eligible for an IPO listing in India, it must meet certain criteria set by SEBI. These include:

Net Tangible Assets: The company should have at least Rs 3 crore net tangible assets in the preceding three years.

Profitability: The company should have generated a profit in at least three out of the preceding five years.

Net Worth: The companys net worth should have been at least Rs 1 crore in the preceding three years.

Size of the Issue: The issue should not exceed five times the pre-issue net worth.

In order to invest in an IPO, thoroughly research the company, its financials, business model and growth prospects.

One must have a Demat account and a trading account with a registered stockbroker.

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Once the IPO opens for subscription, you can apply through your stockbrokers platform or using the ASBA (Application Supported by Blocked Amount) facility banks provide

After the subscription period ends, the shares are allotted based on demand and the subscription level. The shares will be credited to your Demat account if you receive an allotment.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 10:19 IST
Why Maharashtra May Have An Unpredictable Future, A Look At States Changing Political Landscape

Reported By :

News18.com

Edited By: Shilpy Bisht



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 16:02 IST

Maharashtra Assembly Elections: The states political narrative is marked by uncertainty and volatility: BJP grappling with challenges from reinvigorated opposition alliances, Shiv Sena factions struggling to assert their legitimacy, Congress and NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) seeking to rebuild their voter base

The late 1960s and 1970s marked the rise of regionalism and the Hindutva ideology in Maharashtra. (PTI File Photo)

Maharashtra Assembly Elections: Maharashtra, Indias second-most populous state after Uttar Pradesh, has been a microcosm of the countrys dynamic and ever-evolving political landscape.

From Congress post-independence dominance to the rise of Hindutva under Balasaheb Thackeray, the birth of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and the BJPs surge under Narendra Modi, the states electoral politics has reflected shifting ideologies, strategic alliances, and recurring political turmoil.

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Over decades, Maharashtra has witnessed a dramatic transformation that continues to shape its present and future.

Congress Dominance In Maharashtra

Maharashtras political landscape in the early years after Independence was dominated by the Congress, which played a pivotal role in shaping the states socio-economic policies. Leaders such as Yashwantrao Chavan and Vasantrao Naik championed agrarian reforms, industrial growth, and education, laying the groundwork for Maharashtras emergence as one of Indias most developed states.

The Congress maintained a stronghold in the rural heartland through its farmer-centric policies and held sway in urban centres with its emphasis on industrialisation. Vasantrao Naiks 12-year tenure as chief minister (19631975), the longest in the states history, symbolised the partys firm grip on power. His pragmatic leadership earned the Congress loyalty among farmers and industrialists alike. However, factionalism began to take root in the party by the late 1970s.

Leaders like Sharad Pawar challenged the central leadership, sowing the seeds of discontent and future splits.

The Rise Of Hindutva

The late 1960s and 1970s marked the rise of regionalism and the Hindutva ideology in Maharashtra. The Shiv Sena, founded by Balasaheb Thackeray in 1966, initially focused on promoting the rights of Marathi-speaking people under its sons of the soil" agenda.

The party gained prominence in urban areas, particularly Mumbai and Thane, by appealing to the working class and those feeling marginalised by Congress policies.

In the 1980s, the Shiv Sena shifted its narrative, aligning itself with the Hindutva ideology amid the Ayodhya Ram Mandir movement.

Thackerays fiery speeches and polarising rhetoric resonated with urban lower-middle-class voters, particularly in Mumbai and Thane. The Shiv Senas alliance with the BJP in the late 1980s gave Hindutva a stronger foothold in Maharashtra.

The partnership culminated in their first government in 1995, with Manohar Joshi as chief minister. This was a turning point in Maharashtras political history, as it marked the end of decades of Congress rule.

Sharad Pawar And NCP

The Congress faced a significant blow in 1999 when Sharad Pawar, one of its tallest leaders, broke away to form the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Pawars departure, driven by his objection to Sonia Gandhis foreign origin, fragmented Congresss voter base, especially in rural Maharashtra.

The NCP quickly became a formidable regional force, leveraging Pawars deep connections with farmers, sugar cooperatives, and grassroots networks. However, recognising the need to counter the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, the Congress and NCP joined forces in a coalition government, ruling Maharashtra from 1999 to 2014.

This 15-year alliance, while electorally successful, was marred by allegations of corruption and inefficiency, leading to growing dissatisfaction among voters. Leaders like Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ashok Chavan tried to steer the coalition, but internal squabbles often overshadowed governance.

The Narendra Modi Wave

The 2014 general election marked a seismic shift in Indian politics, with Narendra Modis leadership propelling the BJP to power at the national level. Maharashtra, too, was swept up in the Modi wave, as the BJP won 23 of the states 48 Lok Sabha seats, with its ally, the Shiv Sena, securing 18.

Later that year, the BJP emerged as the single-largest party in the Maharashtra assembly elections, winning 122 seats. The Shiv Sena, which won 63 seats, initially refused to support the BJP over a power-sharing dispute. Devendra Fadnavis became Maharashtras first BJP Chief Minister, leading a minority government. The Shiv Sena eventually joined the government, but tensions between the allies persisted.

The 2019 general elections saw a repeat of the Modi wave, with the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance securing 41 of Maharashtras 48 Lok Sabha seats. However, the state assembly elections later that year brought unexpected twists.

After the 2019 assembly elections, the BJP and Shiv Sena fell out over power-sharing disagreements, particularly the Shiv Senas demand for a rotational chief minister. The stalemate led the Shiv Sena to break ties with the BJP and form a surprising alliance with the Congress and NCP, creating the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).

Uddhav Thackeray, leading the Shiv Sena, became chief minister, marking the first time a Thackeray family member held the states top position. The MVA was seen as an ideologically disparate coalition formed primarily to keep the BJP out of power.

Despite managing to govern for over two years, internal contradictions and external pressures eventually destabilised the alliance. In June 2022, the Shiv Sena suffered a major split when Eknath Shinde, a senior leader, led a rebellion with a significant number of MLAs. Shinde accused Uddhav Thackeray of compromising the partys Hindutva ideology by allying with the Congress and NCP.

With BJPs backing, Shindes faction toppled the MVA government. In a dramatic turn of events, Shinde became the chief minister, with Devendra Fadnavis as his deputy. This rebellion marked a significant blow to the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, which was reduced to a smaller faction in the political landscape.

In July 2023, Maharashtra witnessed another political shock when Ajit Pawar, nephew of Sharad Pawar, broke away with a faction of NCP MLAs to join the BJP-Shiv Sena Shinde government. Ajits defection earned him the deputy chief minister post but deepened the divide within the NCP. This move strengthened the BJPs Mahayuti coalition but also highlighted the BJPs increasing reliance on regional leaders to maintain its influence in the state.

The 2024 general elections dealt a surprising blow to the BJP, as it faced significant losses in Maharashtra. Anti-incumbency, economic challenges, and fragmented alliances contributed to its decline. The Congress-NCP (Sharad Pawar faction)-Shiv Sena UBT alliance capitalised on this discontent, performing better than anticipated and signalling a possible resurgence of opposition forces in the state.

Current Scenario

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Maharashtras political narrative is currently marked by uncertainty and volatility. The BJP, despite its earlier dominance, is grappling with challenges from reinvigorated opposition alliances. The Shiv Sena remains divided, with both factions struggling to assert their legitimacy. The Congress and NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) are seeking to rebuild their voter base while leveraging the BJPs setbacks.

As Maharashtra approaches the next assembly elections, the state is poised for another round of intense political battles. With fractured loyalties, shifting alliances, and voter sentiment against incumbency, the stage is set for a highly unpredictable future.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 16:02 IST
Why Copies Of Magic Weight-Loss Drugs Are A Concern For Big Pharma | Explained

Curated By :

News18.com

Edited By: Shilpy Bisht



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 14:15 IST

Novo Nordisk, which manufactures weight-loss drug Wegovy and diabetes medication Ozempic, has asked the US authorities to stop making copies of these drugs as semaglutide compound found in the medicines is in shortage in the US and pharmacies are making synthetic versions of them

Clinical trials on Ozempic and Wegovy have found that semaglutide can lead to significant weight loss in people both with and without type 2 diabetes. (Representational Photo)

Millions of people have been using weight-loss drugs available in their country. Some of them have also been using alternatives to the popular Wegovy and Ozempic medicines from compounding pharmacies, which pose safety risk.

Recently, Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company, which manufactures weight-loss drug Wegovy and diabetes medication Ozempic, has asked the US authorities to stop making copies of these drugs.

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US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) allows human drug compounding, which means licensed pharmacists or physicians can combine, mix or adjust the ingredients of a medicine to meet patients needs.

Novo Nordisk has filed at least 21 lawsuits nationwide against companies making purported copies of its drugs, said Brianna Kelley, a spokesperson for the company, quoted by CBS News.

The FDA too has cautioned about the potential danger of the compounds, and popular obesity medicine groups have also warned patients against their use.

How Does Compounding Of Drugs Work?

Compounding of drugs is a process that involves changing or combining ingredients in a medication.

Compounded drugs are helpful for people with allergies to certain ingredients. They also help fill a gap in supply during drug shortages (like the one currently affecting many weight-loss drugs).

The 2013 law created two classes of compounding pharmacies: The FDA regulates the larger 503B compounders with standards like commercial drug companies, while 503A pharmacies make smaller lots of drugs and are largely overseen by state boards of pharmacy.

The 503A facilities are also producing compounded semaglutide and tirzepatide for hundreds of thousands of patients.

Semaglutide, which is found in popular drugs Wegovy and Ozempic, is hard to replicate accurately due to its complex structure, Novo Nordisk said. The drug is manufactured using yeast and DNA technology, which gives it specific properties essential for its performance and safety.

Semaglutide is in shortage in the US for much of this year. Together, the compounding pharmacies may account for up to 30% of the semaglutide sold in the US.

The FDA-approved version of semaglutide includes specific components  such as the fatty acid  that determine how long it stays effective in the body, and synthetic versions may not perform similarly. Although it has not been subjected to the same rigorous testing and oversight.

Clinical trials on Ozempic and Wegovy have found that semaglutide can lead to significant weight loss in people both with and without type 2 diabetes.

About 30% of them lost 20% of their body weight  which is comparable to the amount of weight loss seen after weight loss surgery.

What Are The Risks With Semaglutide?

Due to the requirements of specialized facilities and equipment, the risk of contamination is a major concern. Contamination usually occurs if the equipment is not sanitized properly.

According to Novo Nordisk, in March 2022, the FDA found issues with sterility at a compounding pharmacy that had had five sterility failures with injectable drugs in one year, and had released products before confirming they were sterile. More than 15,000 injectable semaglutide units were recalled, the company said  and another recall had followed in August 2023 for the same reasons, as per The Indian Express report.

According to Novo Nordisk, semaglutide is a temperature-sensitive drug and storing it at temperatures higher than 30 degrees Celsius can compromise its stability.

What Is Novo Nordisk Saying?

In its submission, the Danish drugmaker asked the FDA to consider placing semaglutide on a list of drugs that, even though they are in shortage, are too complex to be copied.

Novo said compounded versions of Wegovy are being sold in incorrect dosage strengths, have been found to contain unknown impurities, and have been linked to nearly 400 serious adverse events since 2018.

Novo said in a statement it wanted to ensure patients only received FDA-approved, safe, and effective semaglutide products.

The Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding, which represents compounding pharmacists and technicians, said in its statement that Novo was confusing the fact that the semaglutide molecule is demonstrably difficult to manufacture  with the relative simplicity of compounding with it," as quoted by Reuters.

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Chief Financial Officer Karsten Munk Knudsen had said last week that reports had linked at least 10 deaths and more than 100 hospitalisations to compounded versions of Wegovy and Ozempic.

The Danish drugmaker and rival Eli Lilly have together sued dozens of medical spas, weight-loss clinics, compounding pharmacies and online vendors in the US for selling products claiming to contain the active ingredients in their obesity drugs.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 14:02 IST
Why Elon Musk Wants Internet On Mars? Who Will Use It? Explainer

Curated By :

Translation Desk

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 18:54 IST

The Marslink proposal, presented at NASA's Mars Exploration Program meeting, involves SpaceX deploying satellites in Mars' orbit to establish a communication system for future missions

With the formation of Marslink, not only will communication facilities be faster on the surface of Mars, but communication between Mars and Earth will also improve. (AP File)

Travelers venturing to remote locations often consider themselves fortunate if they find basic amenities such as clean drinking water and food. In contemporary times, internet connectivity has also become an essential requirement.

As humanity sets its sights on sending humans to Mars, providing internet access on the red planet, alongside other fundamental facilities, is also a key consideration.

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Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, through his company SpaceX, aims to replicate the amenities available on Earth, specifically internet connectivity via Starlink, on Mars. Just as Starlink provides internet services in America and numerous countries globally, SpaceX has proposed a similar infrastructure for the red planet.

Proposal given to NASA

This internet will provide communication facilities for future missions to the planet. This proposal, named Marslink, was presented at the recent meeting of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group led by NASA. In this, SpaceX will install SpaceX satellites in Marss orbit to deploy a system for data exchange.

This proposal is considered a step towards achieving SpaceXs ambitious goal of supporting exploration missions on Mars and establishing human settlements. According to Spaceflight News, the Marslink network will work like the Starlink system currently operating on Earth, under which internet facility is being provided to the entire planet by installing satellites in Earths orbit.

What will be the work of such a network?

At present, thousands of Starlink satellites have been installed over 102 countries. Musk wants to establish a similar network on Mars. With the formation of Marslink, not only will communication facilities be faster on the surface of Mars, but communication between Mars and Earth will also improve. This will also be very helpful for NASAs missions to explore and study Mars.

It should be noted that SpaceX was not the only one to submit such a proposal. NASA also considered alternative proposals from companies like Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin. Blue Origin Company gave the idea of Blue Ring Orbital Tug, which can be used for sending data and cloud computing processing in space itself. The report also said this project would be used for the Pentagon-sponsored Dark Sky 1 mission, whose launch date has not been decided.

Deep Space Network just like Earth

Lockheed Martin also proposed that the MAVEN spacecraft, sent in 2013 to study the atmosphere of Mars, be used. Lockheed proposes that Maven will work like NASAs Deep Space Network built on Earth by taking it to the spacecrafts communication orbit itself.

NASAs partnership with the private sector

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NASA is now considering business partnerships by giving more emphasis on private-sector projects for Mars exploration missions. The agency wants to partner with companies that can provide the necessary technical resources for future human missions. NASA is also working on laser-based technologies that can provide faster and more efficient communication in deep space.

It is worth noting that, until now, NASA and other private companies have not been able to find solutions to all the challenges in making the long journey to Mars easy and possible for humans. These include a system for bringing humans to Mars quickly and bringing them back, humans being able to stay there for a long time, and oxygen, fuel etc., on Mars. Intensive experiments are going on for all these.

Location : United States of America (USA)

First Published: November 14, 2024, 18:54 IST
Why Trump May Find It Tough To Resolve Middle East Crisis; What Israel And Iran Are Planning

Curated By :

News18.com

Edited By: Shilpy Bisht



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 18:00 IST

Trump has reportedly told Israel to wrap up the fighting by the time he assumes office. Iran has suggested that Tehran could moderate its upcoming attacks against Israel if there is ceasefire in Lebanon

Benjamin Netanyahu sees both risk and opportunity following the US elections. He is planning 'changes' in its strategy against Iran and its partners in Gaza and Lebanon. (Image: Reuters File)

Donald Trumps second presidency comes at time when the Middle East is on the edge, with wars in Gaza and Lebanon provoking a wider conflict between Israel and Iran-backed groups even before he takes office in January.

Trump, who has pledged to resolve the Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office and help Israel finish its operations in Gaza and Lebanon, will have a tough task ahead given his ardent support of Israel and his other ambitions in the region, especially given the changing dynamics between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

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What Can Trump Expect?

Stalemate Between Israel & Hamas: Qatar, which has been a mediator between Israel and Hamas, has made close relations with the US, which has its largest Middle East military base in Qatar, and with Hamas, whose office and political leadership have been based in Doha. In the last one year, Qatars efforts brought a brief ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and the release of more than 100 Israeli hostages in exchange of 240 Palestinian prisoners. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to obliterate Hamas, Washington has failed to play a major role in negotiation. The Joe Biden team put little to no pressure on Israel to bring ceasefire between the two warring parties. It also refused to cut off military aid to Israel.

Ceasefire Fighting In Lebanon: Reports suggest that Washington has engaged in intensive diplomatic efforts to get Israel and Hezbollah reach a common ground for a ceasefire. According to The Conversation, Israel wants Hezbollah to be disarmed and pushed back at least beyond the Litani River in southern Lebanon  about 30 km north of the Israeli border  with a security zone to be established between the two. Israel wants to maintain the right to strike Hezbollah if necessary, which Lebanese authorities are likely to reject". Although Israel has been able to weaken Hezbollah by invading Southern Lebanon, it has not been successful in destroying Hamas.

How Dynamics Have Changed After Trump Entered The Scene

Trumps victory has eased the Netanyahu government to the extent that his finance minister Bezalel Smotrich ordered the relevant authorities to prepare for the formal annexation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, according to a report by The Conversation.

During his first presidency Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and ordered the US embassy to move there. He also recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967. He also reprimanded Iran as the villain in the Middle East and withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal.

Trump has reportedly told Israel to wrap up the fighting by the time he assumes office. The period before Trumps inauguration could be a critical moment as Israel would seek to maximise its military gains against Iran and Hezbollah or create a situation where Trump is forced to back intervention on Israels behalf, as per a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Given that Joe Biden is free of the US electoral pressure, he could finally deploy some US leverage to press Israel towards a ceasefire. But this may be too little too late given Trumps imminent return and Israels maximalist demands.

Irans new president Masoud Pezeshkian has suggested that Tehran could moderate its upcoming attacks against Israel if there is ceasefire in Lebanon. But much of this depends on Irans response to Israels October 26 strikes.

Javad Zarif, advisor to Pezeshkian, put out a statement on X that he hopes that Trump will stand against war as pledged". Pezeshkian also commented that Iran will have to deal with the USso it is better to manage this relation ourselves", suggesting Iran could be open to direct diplomacy with the US, as per the European Council on Foreign Relations report.

Arab capitals now view a potential return to US pressure policies with considerable concern given that this is likely to accelerate the prospect of an Israeli-Iranian war.

What Is Netanyahus Strategy Now?

Netanyahu sees both risk and opportunity following the US elections. He is also planning tactical changes" in its strategy against Iran and its partners in Gaza and Lebanon.

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On Iran, he may see the current period as an opportunity to lock the incoming US administration into direct military action against the Islamic country even if Trump is keen to avoid this outcome. Israel by now has sensed Irans weakness, but will still refrain from destroying its nuclear programme and do significant damage to its military and economic structures.

Netanyahu may bet that the US could be compelled to support an expanding military campaign against Iran given the political pressure that Washington will face domestically to stay closely aligned with Israel," as per a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 17:52 IST
Delhi Continues To Choke For Second Day As AQI Breaches 400-Mark, Remains In Severe Zone

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 09:13 IST

A dense layer of smog enveloped Delhi and surrounding areas on Thursday morning as the air quality slipped back into the 'Severe' level.

Delhi Air Pollution | Image/Representative

A dense layer of smog enveloped Delhi and surrounding areas on Thursday morning as the air quality slipped back into the Severe level, posing a significant health hazard to residents.

The air quality in Delhi hit its worst level today, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) in several areas breaching the 400 mark. On Wednesday, a similar situation choked the national capital as the AQI spiked to 429.

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Today, the AQI was recorded in Anand Vihar at 473, Alipur at 424, Aya Nagar at 424, Ashok Vihar at 471, IGI Airport T3 at 436, Chandni Chowk at 405, Dwarka Sector 8 at 457, Jahangirpuri at 470, JNS at 412, Narela at 440, and Nehru Nagar at 462, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

In Patparganj, the AQI level was recorded at 472, Okhla Phase 2 at 441, Punjabi Bagh at 459, RK Puram at 457, Pusa at 408, Rohini at 453, Shadipur at 430, Wazirpur at 467, Sonia Vihar at 448, and Sirifort at 440.

#WATCH | Delhi: A thick layer of smog engulfs the Gazipur as the air quality deteriorates to Severe category in several parts of the national capital, as per Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).AQI in Anand Vihar is at 473 pic.twitter.com/QuiRz7LAtv  ANI (@ANI) November 14, 2024

According to the CPCB, a severe Air Quality Index (AQI) of 401500 can cause respiratory issues even in healthy people, and serious health issues in people with heart or lung disease.

Taking note of the increasing pollution levels in the national capital, Environment Minister Gopal Rai will hold a review meeting with concerned departmental officials in the Green War Room at Delhi Secretariat today, according to the Office of Environment Minister.

Flights Delayed Due To Low Visibility

The low visibility conditions in the national capital and surrounding areas due to thick fog delayed several flights on Thursday.

The IndiGo flights travelling to and from Delhi, Varanasi and Amritsar were impacted due to the unfavourable visibility factor, said the airline in a travel advisory.

This morning, winter fog may impact flights to/from Amritsar, Varanasi and Delhi. Do keep a tab on your flight status before heading to the airport. Also, please allow additional travel time as road traffic may move slower than usual due to low visibility. Thank you for your patience, and we wish you a smooth journey," the airline said.

Why Is Delhi Facing High Pollution Levels?

In New Delhi, the air quality remained in the very poor category for 14 consecutive days until Tuesday evening, with vehicular emissions being the largest contributor, accounting for 15.4 per cent of the pollution.

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Stubble burning in neighbouring states worsened the situation, covering the city in a dense layer of smog, according to experts. The level of key pollutantsPM2.5 and PM10stood extremely high in the air.

The Air Quality Warning System under the Ministry of Earth Sciences warned that with slow wind speeds, the meteorological conditions are likely to remain extremely unfavourable for effective dispersion of pollutants.

Location : Delhi, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 07:23 IST
At 11.2 Degrees Celsius, Delhi Records Season's Coldest Morning Amid Thick Fog

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 11:13 IST

It comes as the deteriorating air quality choked the national capital on Thursday morning, with Air Quality Index (AQI) breaching the 400 mark.

Delhi residents gather around bonfire | Image/File (PTI)

Delhi recorded its coldest morning on Thursday with the temperature dropping to 11.2 degrees Celsius amid thick fog in the region.

Safdarjung, the primary weather observatory, recorded a minimum temperature of 16.1 degrees Celsius and attributed the temperature dip to a western disturbance that brought snowfall to the Himalayan region.

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The minimum temperature varied across the national capital: the Ridge area recorded 11.2 degrees Celsius, Ayanagar 14.4 degrees Celsius, Lodhi Road 15 degrees Celsius, and Palam 16.8 degrees Celsius.

Delhi Air Quality In Severe Zone

It comes as the deteriorating air quality choked the national capital on Thursday morning. The air quality slipped back into the Severe level, posing a significant health hazard to residents.

The air quality in Delhi hit its worst level today, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) in several areas breaching the 400 mark. On Wednesday, a similar situation choked the national capital as the AQI spiked to 429.

Today, the AQI was recorded in Anand Vihar at 473, Alipur at 424, Aya Nagar at 424, Ashok Vihar at 471, IGI Airport T3 at 436, Chandni Chowk at 405, Dwarka Sector 8 at 457, Jahangirpuri at 470, JNS at 412, Narela at 440, and Nehru Nagar at 462, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

The low visibility conditions in the national capital and surrounding areas due to thick fog delayed several flights on Thursday.

The IndiGo flights travelling to and from Delhi, Varanasi and Amritsar were impacted due to the unfavourable visibility factor, said the airline in a travel advisory.

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According to the CPCB, a severe Air Quality Index (AQI) of 401500 can cause respiratory issues even in healthy people, and serious health issues in people with heart or lung disease.

Location : Delhi, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 11:03 IST
News / National

by Staff reporter

Mnangagwa returns home with his bloated delegation of 238 peoplePresident Emmerson Mnangagwa has returned from Baku, Azerbaijan, where he attended the 29th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) with a huge delegation of 238 people. The high-level summit brought together world leaders to discuss strategies for addressing the global climate crisis and accelerating the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon future.In his address to the conference, President Mnangagwa reaffirmed Zimbabwe's commitment to playing an active role in the global effort to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change. He highlighted Zimbabwe's ongoing initiatives to enhance renewable energy generation, promote sustainable agriculture, and safeguard its natural ecosystems."Climate change is a global challenge that requires a coordinated global response," President Mnangagwa said during his speech. "As a nation, we are taking bold steps to reduce our carbon footprint and build resilience in the face of the growing climate threats. However, we cannot succeed alone  we need all countries to step up their ambition and work together to secure a sustainable future for our planet."The President also took the opportunity to advocate for increased climate financing and technology transfer to assist developing countries in their efforts to transition to cleaner energy sources and adapt to the impacts of climate change.Throughout his visit, President Mnangagwa engaged in bilateral discussions with fellow world leaders, exploring potential avenues for cooperation on climate action and sustainable development. These meetings are expected to open new channels for collaboration between Zimbabwe and other nations in the fight against global warming.COP29 concluded with renewed commitments from participating countries to accelerate their emissions reduction targets and intensify efforts to build climate resilience. Zimbabwean officials expressed cautious optimism, hoping that the agreements reached at the summit would lead to concrete actions and measurable progress in addressing the climate crisis.As the conference wrapped up, President Mnangagwa's participation further solidified Zimbabwe's stance on the importance of collective global action in tackling climate change while underscoring the need for developing nations to receive the necessary support to adapt to climate challenges.
BJP Claims Vote Jihad As ED Raids Several Spots In Poll-Bound Maharashtra Over Hawala Scam

Reported By :

CNN-News18

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 14:53 IST

The key accused in this case is Siraj Ahmed Harun Meman (43), a resident of Gandhi Market, Malegaon, who runs a Tea and Cold Drink Agency.

BJP leader Kirit Somaiya has alleged of vote jihad funding in Malegaon, claiming that Rs 125 crore was deposited into various bank accounts through hawala transactions (Representative image)

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has conducted massive searches in Maharashtra in a case related to hawala transactions. At least 13 premises were raided in Nashik, Surat, Ahmedabad, Malegaon and Mumbai.

The key accused in this case is Siraj Ahmed Harun Meman (43), a resident of Gandhi Market, Malegaon, who runs a Tea and Cold Drink Agency.

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Details of the Case

Siraj Ahmed, through his business connections, managed to involve several individuals in a fraudulent scheme under the pretence of opening bank accounts for a new business venture related to selling corn. The complainant, Jayesh Lotan Misal (22), a resident of Kaulane and a centering worker, has stated that Siraj approached his brother, Ganesh Misal, who used to supply goods to Sirajs agency. Siraj proposed opening multiple bank accounts to facilitate financial transactions related to his alleged corn business, promising job opportunities to the participants in Malegaons APMC market.

Between September 23 and October 3, 2024, Siraj took personal documents like PAN cards, Aadhar cards, and SIM cards from Ganesh, Jayesh, and ten other individuals, including Pratik Jadhav, Pawan Jadhav, Manoj Misal, Dhanraj Bacchav, Rahul Kale, Rajendra Bind, Diwakar Ghumre, Bhavesh Ghumre, Lalit More, and Dattatray Ushire. These individuals, along with two additional people, Md Sajid (45) and Moin Khan (40), had their bank accounts opened in the Nashik Merchant Cooperative Bank (NaMCo Bank).

The accounts were opened under false pretences, with Siraj obtaining signatures on various forms, including those for bank account openings, fixed deposits (FD), and loans. He promised job opportunities in exchange for their participation in the process. In total, 14 accounts were opened, along with two additional accounts for his associates, which were linked to businessesGangasagar Enterprises and Dhanraj Agro.

Suspicious Transactions and Financial Movements

A thorough review of the bank statements from NaMCo Bank revealed a disturbing pattern of transactions. From the time the accounts were opened until October 21, 2024, over 2200 credit transactions occurred across 153 bank branches spanning various states, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Orissa, West Bengal, and Maharashtra. These transactions involved a total credit of approximately rs112 crore.

On the debit side, 315 transactions were noted, with a total of nearly 111 crore INR being debited from these accounts. Notably, Siraj Ahmed withdrew 14 crore INR through cheques from the Gangasagar Enterprises and Dhanraj Agro accounts between October 4 and 15, 2024. Of this amount, 9.59 crore INR was allegedly sent to Mumbai via hawala channels, while the remaining funds are still untraced.

Additionally, some of the transactions raised further suspicions of tax evasion. A significant portion, approximately 45 crore INR, was transferred to Pragati Traders and MK Marketing accounts at Axis Bank in Ahmedabad, further complicating the financial trail.

Investigation and Evidence Collection

The investigation team, which included the police, Economic Offenses Wing (EOW), the Local Crime Branch (LCB), and the Income Tax Department, is working collaboratively to piece together the intricate details of this case. As of now, the team has managed to freeze the bank accounts of five individuals linked to the fraud at Bank of Maharashtra, based on the KYC details. Additionally, Axis Bank accounts have been frozen, but further investigation is ongoing to collect KYC details and bank statements.

Despite extensive searches, Siraj Ahmed has been missing since November 6, 2024. Efforts are underway to locate him using Call Data Records (CDRs), and a Look-Out Circular (LOC) has been issued. Authorities are hopeful of apprehending him soon.

On the other hand, BJP leader Kirit Somaiya has alleged of vote jihad funding in Malegaon, claiming that Rs 125 crore was deposited into various bank accounts through hawala transactions. According to Somaiya, this money was meant to influence voters in the upcoming elections.

Modus Operandi

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Somaiya alleged that Siraj Ahmed and Moin Khan from Malegaon opened bank accounts in the names of poor people and deposited Rs 125 crore within four days. The money was then transferred to 37 accounts and withdrawn immediately [1).

Somaiya has demanded a thorough investigation into the matter and has written to the Election Commission, Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation, Central Board of Direct Taxes, and Reserve Bank of India. He suspects that the funds came from abroad, using the accounts of 17 poor people from Malegaon.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 14:14 IST
Facing Flak For 'Muslim Appeasement', Karnataka's Siddaramaiah Govt Plans Aid For Vaishno Devi Pilgrims

Reported By :

CNN-News18

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 06:00 IST

The Congress government has also decided to safeguard assets belonging to state-run Hindu temples, remove any encroachments, and provide money for this

The Karnataka government already provides money for devotees going to Kashi, Gaya, and the pilgrim circuit in southern India. File image/PTI

Even as Karnatakas ruling Congress has come under severe criticism from the opposition over Muslim appeasement" in the Waqf land and quota controversies, in a move being seen as a damage control effort, the Siddaramaiah government has decided to provide financial assistance of Rs 5,000 to every pilgrim from the state visiting the Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu and Kashmir.

Not just that, it has decided to safeguard assets belonging to state-run Hindu temples, remove any encroachments, and provide money for this.

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The administration has also decided to place signboards in all government-run temples showing the details of various Muzrai initiatives (referring to allowances granted for religious or charitable purposes) and a declaration that cash donations at temples will be used only for those shrines alone.

The decisions were taken at the Rajya Dharmika Parishat meeting chaired by Muzrai minister Ramalinga Reddy.

The Karnataka government already provides money for devotees going to Kashi, Gaya, and the pilgrim circuit in southern India.

Sources had earlier told CNN-News18 that there is a proposal" to give reservations for Muslims in public contracts for construction (civil) up to Rs 1 crore on the lines of reservations given to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities. This comes as the state government has already provided a 24 per cent quota to SC/ST and certain backward classes in the government contracts.

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The chief ministers office later cleared the air and said that there have been demands for reservation, but there is no proposal" in this regard.

CNN-News18 also exclusively accessed revenue records that show the Waqf Boards name was inserted in land records of 44 properties in Vijayapura recently. Land records were changed without giving notices in several cases, leaving the farmers in the Indi taluk shocked. Reacting to the controversy, chief minister Siddaramaiah clarified that no farmer will be evicted".

First Published: November 14, 2024, 06:00 IST
Minor Visits Greater Noida Hospital For Surgery, Doctor Operates On Wrong Eye

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 14:51 IST

The boy's father, in his complaint, demanded the cancellation of the doctor's license and also urged the law enforcement to seal the hospital.

The hospital charged Rs 45,000 for surgery | Image/File

A Greater Noida Hospital came under scrutiny after allegations of performing surgery on a seven-year-old boys wrong eye and charging Rs 45,000 for the operational cost.

The parents of the boy, Yudhishthir, filed a complaint claiming that their son went for left eye surgery, but the doctor operated on the right instead. No FIR has been registered yet, reported TOI.

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The incident allegedly took place at the Anand Spectrum Hospital in Sector Gamma 1 on November 12 when the minor was taken for treatment as his left eye was watering often.

The doctors reportedly diagnosed a foreign object in his eye and suggested surgery for treatment of the same. After his parents agreed, the doctors performed surgery on the same day.

However, after returning home, his parents realised that their sons left eye, the affected part, was not treated. Immediately, they visited another eye hospital which confirmed that no surgery had been performed.

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Levelling allegations of fraud," the parents created a ruckus at the hospital where surgery was conducted and filed a complaint with the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Gautam Buddha Nagar.

The boys father, in his complaint, demanded the cancellation of the doctors license and also urged the law enforcement authorities to seal the hospital.

Location : Greater Noida, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 14:08 IST
Mumbai Airport Gets Bomb Threat, Caller Says Azerbaijan Traveller Carrying Explosives

Reported By :

News18.com

Edited By: Poulami Kundu



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 11:00 IST

The caller claimed that a man called Mohammad was traveling from Mumbai to Azerbaijan with explosives

Mumbai airport (File Image: PTI)

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai received a bomb threat from an unidentified caller on Wednesday afternoon, who informed the security personnel about a passenger carrying explosives.

According to sources, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) control room at Terminal 1 (domestic) received the bomb threat call on Wednesday afternoon.

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The caller claimed that a man called Mohammad was traveling from Mumbai to Azerbaijan with explosives.

Acting swiftly, the CISF team alerted the Sahar Police Station, leading to an immediate deployment of officers to the airport for a detailed investigation.

Sources indicate that the caller did not specify flight details and abruptly ended the call around 3 PM. Authorities are now conducting a thorough probe and working to trace the caller.

Security has been heightened at the airport as a precautionary measure, and the police are verifying passenger details to ensure safety.

This fresh incident adds to the barrage of hoax bomb threats received by Indian airlines in the last few weeks.

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Around two weeks ago, the Nagpur Police had arrested a 35-year-old man from Maharashtras Gondia, who was allegedly behind the spate of hoax bomb threats that triggered panic, caused flight delays, and led to increased security at airports and other establishments.

The Nagpur Police Special Branch identified the suspect as Jagdish Uikey, who is not only an author of a book on terrorism but also holds an arrest record in a 2021 case, said officials. They added that he was identified after the hoax emails were traced back to him.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 09:53 IST
'Stop Them, Block Traffic': Congress Rebel Naresh Meena Who Slapped SDM Arrested Amid High Drama

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 14:25 IST

The Rajasthan Police on Thursday arrested independent candidate Naresh Meena, who allegedly slapped a senior official during bypoll in Tonk district.

Congress rebel Naresh Meena slaps poll official | Image/X

The Rajasthan Police on Thursday arrested independent candidate Naresh Meena, who allegedly slapped a sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) outside a polling booth during by-elections in the Deoli-Uniara assembly constituency in the Tonk district yesterday.

Meena was arrested in a strategic operation carried out by senior police officers who were seen wearing protective vests and helmets while marching down a rural road. Moments before the arrest, Meena called on his supporters to surround the police and block the traffic."

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      ,           ,           ,               ,    ! pic.twitter.com/PQyuvTO8E8 Naresh Meena (@NareshMeena__) November 14, 2024

The arrest follows the high drama that unfolded in the district late Wednesday night when police attempted to detain Meena for allegedly assaulting SDM Amit Chaudhary during the bypoll.

The video of the incident that surfaced online showed Meena slapping the senior official outside a polling booth where he was overseeing election protocols.

Meena, a former Congress leader, was recently sacked from the party over his decision to contest as an independent after it nominated Kastor Chand Meena over him for the Deoli-Uniara bypoll.

#WATCH | Tonk, Rajastha: Police arrests Naresh Meena from Samravata VIllage.Naresh Meena, independent candidate for Deoli Uniara assembly constituency by-polls in Tonk district, after he allegedly physically assaulted SDM Amit Chaudhary at a polling booth yesterday pic.twitter.com/v8meme4qsw  ANI (@ANI) November 14, 2024

What Led To Violence

The dramatic incident occurred in Samarwata village where the voters boycotted the bypoll over demands to include their panchayat in the Uniara constituency instead of Deoli, said officials.

As the situation tensed, Meena accused the SDM of undermining the boycott by secretly allowing three people to vote- a move that outraged the Congress rebel.

Kalesh b/w SDM and Former Congress leader Naresh kumar meena (Former Congress leader and now Independent candidate Naresh Meena slaps SDM outside booth) Rajasthanpic.twitter.com/Niw17U7gn3 Ghar Ke Kalesh (@gharkekalesh) November 13, 2024

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SP Tonk, Vikas Sangwan said, He (Meena) was asked to not take the law into his hands and surrender. Initially, he was not in the mood but seeing the police force, he agreed. He will be charged under the relevant sections."

The police claimed that there was a ruckus and incident of stone pelting and arson when they tried to arrest Meena in the Tonk district yesterday. Older records will be opened and arrests will be made accordingly. 50-60 people have been detained in this case so far," said the officials.

Location : Rajasthan, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 12:58 IST
Schizophrenia Alone Not Grounds For Divorce Without Proof Of Severity: Allahabad HC

Reported By :

LawBeat

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 20:30 IST

The HC bench said Section 13 (1)(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act does not make mere existence of a mental disorder of any degree sufficient in law to justify dissolution of a marriage

The Allahabad HC made the observations in an appeal by a man, who sought a divorce from his wife, citing her alleged mental illness and prolonged separation since 2012. (Image for representation: News18)

The Allahabad High Court recently observed that claims of mental illness, such as schizophrenia, alone are insufficient to dissolve a marriage under Section 13(1)(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act without conclusive evidence of severity.

Section 13 (1)(iii) of the Act does not make mere existence of a mental disorder of any degree sufficient in law to justify dissolution of a marriage, said a bench of Justices Rajan Roy and Om Prakash Shukla.

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The court said the contest in which the ideas of unsoundness of mind and mental disorder occur in the section as grounds for dissolution of a marriage, require assessment of the degree of the mental disorder and its degree must be such that the spouse seeking relief cannot reasonably be expected to live with the other.

All mental abnormalities are not recognised as grounds for grant of decree," the bench observed. It further said the personality disintegration that characterises schizophrenia may be of varying degrees, and that not all schizophrenics are characterised by the same intensity of disease.

The burden of proof of existence of requisite degree of mental disorder is on the spouse who bases his or her claim on such a medical condition," the court said.

The observations were made in an appeal by a man, who sought a divorce from his wife, citing her alleged mental illness and prolonged separation since 2012. He initially filed a suit for divorce before the family court arguing that his wife suffered from schizophrenia, which caused her to act erratically, creating significant distress in their marriage.

The man further claimed that his wifes condition, left undisclosed by her family before their marriage in 2003, led to behaviour that posed a risk to herself and others. In defense before the family court, the wife disputed her husbands allegations denying any history of mental illness and contending that the case was fabricated to justify divorce.

She alleged harassment by the mans family over demands of dowry and described herself as having fulfilled her marital responsibilities until she was ultimately expelled from the house. She argued that her husband had intentionally fabricated the mental illness claims as a basis for divorce.

The family court dismissed the suit for divorce stating that the man failed to provide sufficient evidence to substantiate claims of desertion, cruelty, or mental illness severe enough to render the marriage unsustainable. On appeal, the high court reviewed the evidence, including the fact that the wife did not appear to contest the case.

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The division bench also noted the lengthy separation between the couple and referenced relevant Supreme Court precedents, highlighting that cruelty can encompass unintentional actions that create an untenable marital environment.

The court opined that the fact of the case revealed that there was wilful desertion by the wife without any plausible reasons, which was sufficient for grant of a decree of divorce in favour of the husband. However, the court upheld the family courts opinion that the husband had failed to prove the gravity and degree of the wifes alleged disease to grant divorce on that ground. Accordingly, it set aside the family courts decision to dismiss the divorce suit and dissolved the marriage.

Location : Allahabad Cantonment, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 20:30 IST
UP Concedes To Single-shift Exam Demand, But Students' Protest Continues

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 17:39 IST

Exams for Review Officer (RO) and Assistant Review Officer (ARO) posts have been postponed. Students say they will continue to protest until exam date is announced

UPPSC agrees to conduct PCS exam in one shift. (Image: PTI)

Amid the ongoing stir over the paper schedule, the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission has agreed to conduct the PCS preliminary exam 2024 in a single shift.

Accepting the demands of the aspirants, the UPPSC on Thursday postponed the Review Officer (RO) and Assistant Review Officer (ARO) exams and announced to hold the Provincial Civil Services (PCS) preliminary exam on the old pattern.

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The Commissions decision came after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took cognizance of the demand of the students and asked the Commission to take necessary decisions by communicating and coordinating with the candidates.

UP PCS Exam To Be Held In Single-shift

Announcing the decision, UPPSC Commission Secretary Ashok Kumar while addressing the students in Prayagraj said, Several paper leak issues in competitive exams have came to light from different parts of the country in the past few months, in which some institutions were found to be involved. Keeping this in mind, to ensure the sanctity and transparency of competitive exams."

The state government had planned to hold exams with over 5 lakh aspirants in multiple shifts. As part of this, UPPSC announced to PCS Pre exam 2024, proposed to be held in December, and Assistant Review Officer Pre exam 2023, in multiple shifts. Over the past few days, the demand raised by some students was taken into cognisance by the Chief Minister. He directed the Commission to maintain dialogue with the students and take a decision. The Commission will hold the exam in single shift," he added.

While the UPPSC has given no clarification on the date of the examination, Prayagraj DM Ravindra Kumar said, The date of the exam (PCS) will be issued by the Commission (UPPSC) soon."

Students To Continue Protest

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However, following the Commissions decision, the students clarified that they will continue their protest until dates for RO and ARO exams are also announced.

PCS exam will be conducted as it was used to be conducted. The RO/ARO exam has been cancelled. But our demand is we want notice of that also and till there will be no notice on the website, we will continue to protest," One of the aspirants, who was protesting, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Location : Prayagraj, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 16:33 IST
Guru Nanak Jayanti 2024: When Is Gurpurab? Date, Time, Rituals And Significance

Published By :

Trending Desk

Last Updated: November 15, 2024, 09:53 IST

Guru Nanak Jayanti is Sikhisms most important festival, marking the birth anniversary of the religions founder, Guru Nanak Dev Ji.

This year, Sikhs worldwide will observe the auspicious festival on Friday, November 15. (Image: Shutterstock)

Gurpurab, also known as Guru Nanak Jayanti or Prakash Parv, is a significant festival for the Sikh community worldwide. The day commemorates the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of Sikhism. According to the Nanakshahi calendar, the revered Sikh guru was born on the full moon day of the Kartik month, which corresponds to November in the Gregorian calendar. This year, Guru Nanak Jayanti falls on Friday, 15 November, as per the Drik Panchang. related stories

Gurpurab is celebrated with enthusiasm and splendour throughout India, particularly in Punjab and Haryana. The day is also widely celebrated in countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States. ALSO READ: Happy Guru Nanak Jayanti 2024: Wishes, Messages, Quotes And WhatsApp Status To Share

When is Gurpurab? Date & Time

People commemorate the festival on Kartik Poornima, the fifteenth lunar day of the Hindu month of Kartik, as it is known in the Gregorian calendar. This occurs during the month of November in the Hindu calendar. This year, Sikhs worldwide will observe the auspicious festival on Friday, November 15, with the deepest respect and affection. It will be observed as Guru Nanak Dev Jis 555th birthday.

According to Drik Panchang, the auspicious times for conducting the rituals of Guru Nanak Jayanti are as follows:

Purnima Tithi Begins  06:19 AM on November 15, 2024.

Purnima Tithi Ends  02:58 AM on November 16, 2024.

Guru Nanak Jayanti 2024: History and Significance

Guru Nanak Dev Ji was born in Talwandi Nankana Sahib in 1469, according to religious sources. His parents were Kaluram Mehta ji Khatri, also known as Kaluran Chand Das Bedi and Tripta Devi.

Sulakhani Devi, the daughter of Mul Chand (also known as Mula) and Chando Rani, was the woman he married. The names of their children are Lakhmi Chand ji and Shri Chand ji.

The final hours of Shri Guru Nanak Devs life were spent tending to a farm near Kartarpur before he died. Guru Nanak Dev Ji is known for establishing the Sikh religion and imparting wisdom to humanity.

This sacred festival commemorates his legacy, accomplishments, and life.

Guru Nanak was acknowledged as the spiritual founder of Sikhism in the fifteenth century. He started writing the Guru Granth Sahibs songs and completed 974 of them.

The main sacred religious text of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib, is a collection of all of his instructions. People acknowledge the Guru Granth Sahib as the supreme, all-pervading, and eternal Guru. Regardless of disparities, the passages encourage affluence, social justice, and selfless service to humanity.

Guru Nanak Jayanti 2024: Rituals

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In Sikhism, Guru Nanak Jayanti, also known as Gurpurab, is celebrated with major rituals.

Devotees take part in nagar kirtan processions, read the Guru Granth Sahib continuously along the akhand path, and organise kirtan and katha meetings to sing songs and discuss teachings. Langar Seva, a community kitchen, provides free meals to promote equality. Gurbani recitation, prayers, and ardas all communicate appreciation and hope for well-being. Kar Sewa also includes volunteer community service, which reflects Sikhisms essential principles and honours Guru Nanak Dev Jis teachings.

Location : Amritsar, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 09:10 IST
Jacqueline Fernandez Claims She Was Unaware Of Illicit Origin Of Gifts Received From Sukesh Chandrasekhar

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 11:35 IST

Jacqueline Fernandez challenged the charge sheet filed against her in the Rs 200 crore money laundering case involving conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar.

Delhi Court heard arguments by Jacqueline Fernandez's counsel.

On Wednesday, Delhi Court heard arguments by Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandezs counsel in the Rs 200 crore money laundering case involving conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar. According to a report in ANI, the actress counsel has claimed in the court that she was unaware of the illicit origin of the gifts she received, that are allegedly part of the money laundering case. The actress has challenged the charge sheet filed against her in the Rs 200 crores money laundering case.

According to ANI, it was submitted that Jacqueline Fernandez was not involved in the offence of money laundering. It was also claimed that she did not know that the gifts she received from Sukesh Chandrasekhar was part of alleged proceeds of crime and his criminal activities. During the courts hearing, a query was then raised by Justice Anish Dayal, who asked whether there is a duty upon an adult person to know the source of the gift one receives. The High Court is to hear further arguments on November 26.

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Senior advocate Siddharth Agrawal, along with Prashant Patil and Shakti Pandey, appeared for Jacqueline Fernandez. He argued that Jacqueline was not aware that the gifts she received from Sukesh Chandrasekhar were bought out of money allegedly extorted from Aditi Singh. It is also not the case of ED that she was aware that gifts she received were part of proceeds of crime," said the counsel. He also submitted that there was on omission on the actress part, but that was not an illegal omission, and hence not actionable in law.

The ED has alleged that Jacqueline Fernandez didnt verify the newspaper article about Sukesh, and that she received gifts from him. It was submitted that the actress came across the newspaper article in 2019, but the newspaper article is not evidence.

Jacqueline was convinced by Sukeshs alleged aide Pinky Irani that he had high political connections, and was a political fixer. The senior advocate submitted that he was made a scapegoat for his political connections. It was also submitted that after Jacqueline had stopped any communication with Sukesh after finding the newspaper article, however, she did not know that the gifts received were part of the proceeds of the crime.

In other news, Sukesh Chandrasekhar, who is imprisoned over allegations of Rs 200 crore extortion, recently sent a handwritten letter congratulating Donald Trump on his US Presidential election victory. The conman, who claims that is in a relationship with Jacqueline, also expressed his plans to dedicate a $135 million (1130 crore) investment in a Los Angeles studio to her.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 10:35 IST
Song Jae Rim Funeral: Kim Soo Hyun REACTS To Moon Embracing the Sun's Co-star's Death

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 09:31 IST

Kim Soo Hyun and Song Jae Rim starred together in the popular K-drama, Moon Embracing the Sun.

Song Jae Rim and Kim Soo Hyun in The Moon Embracing The Sun.

South Korean star Kim Soo Hyun has seemingly reacted to Song Jae Rims death. Song Jae Rim passed away on November 12, in Seoul. Kim Soo Hyun and Song Jae Rim had worked together in Moon Embracing the Sun. Although Kim Soo Hyun has not issued a statement regarding his co-stars death, he has mourned Song Jae Rims by sending a wreath to his memorial room.

For the unversed, it was previously reported that a memorial space has been set up in his honour at the Yeouido St. Marys Hospital Funeral Hall. His younger sister has been named as the chief mourner. In photos surfaced online, the memorial room was filled with wreaths. According to Star News, one of the wreaths was sent by Kim Soo Hyun. The report added the stars became friends on the sets of Moon Embracing the Sun. Actor So Ji-sub also sent a wreath.

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It is also reported that South Korean actress Park Ha-sun also reportedly visited the family at the memorial room to offer her condolences.

[241113] Actor #KimSooHyun has sent a wreath of condolences to the funeral of the late actor Song Jae Rim.Song Jae Rim formed a connection with Kim Soo Hyun when they appeared together in the 2012 MBC drama Moon Embracing the Sun. https://t.co/QHO682f72d# #KimKeDaily pic.twitter.com/Tp36sfGLRW  KimKe Daily Vietnam (@kimkedaily_VN) November 13, 2024

About Song Jae Rims Death:

Song Jae Rim died on Tuesday, November 12. He was found dead in his apartment in Seoul at 12:30 PM. The police reportedly said that there is no evidence of homicide or other crime. It has also been reported that a two-page will was discovered in his house.

Song Jae Rim made his debut in the 2009 film, Actresses. However, he shot to fame after starring in The Moon Embracing the Sun. After the success of the series, he bagged a few more shows. These include Two Weeks (2013), in which he played the role of a cold-blooded assassin. He was also seen in shows like Unkind Ladies (2015), Secret Mother (2018), I Wanna Hear Your Song (2019), Cafe Minamdang (2022) and more recently, My Military Valentine (2024). This year, he was also seen in Queen Woo. He was also popular courtesy his participation in We Got Married Season 4. He shared the screen with Kim So-eun.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 09:31 IST
News / National

by Staff reporter

Zimbabweans face unrelenting power outages, with homes and businesses left without electricity for over 18 hours daily. The crisis stems from failing infrastructure at Hwange Thermal Power Station and critically low water levels at Kariba Dam, prompting public frustration and urgent calls for action from the government.Energy and Power Development Minister Edgar Moyo addressed Parliament on Wednesday, attempting to clarify the worsening electricity supply situation. Responding to questions from Engineer Leslie Mhangwa, Chair of the Energy Parliamentary Portfolio Committee, Moyo acknowledged significant dysfunction at Zimbabwe's main power generation sites."Currently, at Hwange 7 and 8, we are generating 640 megawatts," Moyo said. "At Hwange Stages 1 and 2, however, we are only producing 260 megawatts due to breakdowns, and we're operating with just three functional units."The situation is compounded by drastically reduced hydropower output at Kariba Dam, which Minister Moyo attributed to overuse and low water reserves. "In Kariba, we could generate up to 300 megawatts in winter. Now we're down to 100 megawatts, as we've depleted most of the 8.4 billion cubic meters allocated for this year. We're left with about 1 billion cubic meters, which can support only 100 megawatts until year's end."Discrepancies in power generation reports added to concerns. Mhangwa noted specific days when Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) reported generating over 1,100 megawatts, yet extensive load shedding continued. "On 4 August, we generated 1,128 megawatts; on 29 August, 1,108," he noted. "But today, with supposedly more power generated, load shedding has worsened."Minister Moyo explained these fluctuations partly resulted from solar power variations, which vary daily. "Solar power, by nature, is intermittent, with output fluctuating from 20 to 70 megawatts depending on climate conditions," he said.The power crisis has led to unequal electricity distribution, with certain "strategic" areas exempt from load shedding. This policy, aimed at supporting key services like hospitals, has inadvertently left surrounding neighborhoods with extended power access, while others face prolonged blackouts.MP John Kuka raised concerns about fairness, asking, "What measures are in place to ensure equitable power distribution?" Minister Moyo explained that strategic areas, including hospitals, are prioritized. "For instance, areas around Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo benefit from power continuity due to their shared supply line," Moyo said.Calls for urgent government intervention came from MPs like Corban Madzivanyika, who urged the Finance Ministry to allocate resources toward repairing Hwange's ageing units. Dr. Thokozani Khupe proposed that Moyo present a comprehensive ministerial statement, laying out plans to address the crisis. "The Minister needs to explain publicly what the government is doing to resolve this issue," Khupe said.A ministerial statement is expected next week, detailing the government's plans for infrastructure upgrades, crisis management, and alternative energy options. Yet, for many Zimbabweans, such promises offer limited relief amid worsening blackouts.Witness Bhebhe, a Bulawayo resident, voiced the frustration shared by many: "It's stressful. Some can access electricity at work, but what about those who stay home all day? Children can't watch TV, and everyone at home is frustrated."As the power supply crisis escalates, citizens await effective solutions to restore stability and meet the country's pressing energy needs.
Tamil Nadu Villages Pay Tribute To Martyr Major Mukund Varadarajan With Amaran Screening

Curated By :

Local18

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 16:26 IST

On November 11, the villagers paid tribute to Major Mukund Varadarajan.

The makers organised a special screening for the villagers.

In the Virudhunagar district, near Rajapalayam in Tamil Nadu, the villages of Perumal Devanpatti, Meenakshipuram, Chokkalinagapuram, Ramalingapuram, and Thulukkanam have fostered a unique tradition for generations. Since India gained independence, each of these villages has maintained the custom of sending at least one member from each family to serve in the armed forces. This practice has become so deeply rooted in their culture that these five villages are now collectively known as military villages." This tradition reflects the communitys strong sense of patriotism and pride in contributing to the nations defence.

Amid this long-standing tradition, the film Amaran, based on the life of Major Mukund Varadarajan, has had a profound impact on the local community. Major Mukund Varadarajan, an Indian Army officer, was martyred during a military operation, and his life story is portrayed in Amaran. The film shines a light on the sacrifices made by soldiers, not only highlighting their courage but also emphasizing the emotional struggles and bonds they share with their families. While many movies depict the lives of military personnel, Amaran stands out for capturing this intimate family connection, an aspect that resonates with people who understand the weight of such sacrifices.

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To honour the commitment of these military villages" that regularly send family members to the armed forces, Rajkamal Films, the production house behind Amaran, organized a special screening of the film for the villagers. This screening allowed the community to come together, recognize the story of a hero from their ranks, and celebrate the bravery and dedication of all soldiers.

On November 11, the villagers paid tribute to Major Mukund Varadarajan by offering their respects to his image displayed outside the Rajapalayam Theatre. Following this heartfelt tribute, the residents gathered to watch Amaran, which served not only as a cinematic experience but as a powerful reminder of the sacrifices that military families continue to make for the nation.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 16:13 IST
Opinion | Trumps Return: Good For India, But The Opposition Isnt Pleased

Written By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 14:29 IST

Donald Trump's return means a new reality for the Congress party: strategic cooperation between the US and India, not the kind of political intervention they were hoping for

Donald Trumps sweeping victory in the US Presidential elections last week has received mixed responses worldwide. (IMAGE: AP PHOTO)

Donald Trumps sweeping victory in the US Presidential elections last week has received mixed responses worldwide. While certain countries, such as China, are wary of a punitive Trump, who is all set to intensify the trade war further, even alliesparticularly those in Europeare anxious about a potential reduction in the US commitment to their security. Amidst this, a remark by Indias External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar, stands out: many countries may be nervous about the US today, but India is not among them.

While it is true that the Modi government in India is elated at the prospect of a Trump return due to multiple reasons, there is still one section in India that remains deeply disappointed by his victory. No prize for guessing that it is Indias principal opposition party that is viewing the loss of Kamala Harris as a personal one.

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Over the last four years, no entity has benefited more from the Biden administrations apparent eagerness to interfere in Indias domestic politics for strategic purposes than the Indian National Congress. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who was recently appointed Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha following this years general elections, has left no stone unturned in seeking external support against the current Modi government. Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi first assumed office in 2014, Gandhis foreign visits have often been marked by attempts to raise questions over the effective functioning of the Indian democracy. Especially this year, when he made his first foreign visit to the United States after becoming LoP, his statements led to a big controversy.

For instance, he not only criticised the electoral process but also cast doubts on the BJPs victory. As if this were not enough, he made the unfounded claim that Sikhs are not permitted to wear their religious symbols in Indiaa statement far removed from reality. In truth, even the Indian Armed Forces provide multiple relaxations to the Sikh community to observe their religious codes freely. The timing of this claim was especially suspicious because, at that time, the Biden administration was already indicting India for targeting Khalistanis. Gandhis statement seemed right out of the US State Departments script to target the Indian government over religious intolerance.

He also met Donald Lu, a top State Department official whose alleged involvement in regime-change efforts in Bangladesh and in the removal of Imran Khan in Pakistan has been the subject of considerable discussion.

The Congress party, which has failed to come to power for three consecutive terms, had found a sympathetic ear in the American establishment under Joe Bidens presidency. A large segment of the Biden administration was displeased with Indias independent foreign policy, particularly its stance on the Ukraine war. The Modi governments focus on Indias self-interestprioritising affordable oil prices by procuring discounted supplies from Russiadid not sit well with the Democrats. As a developing nation with a longstanding defence dependency on Russian arms, India, under PM Modi, was simply acting in the countrys best interests. However, the Democrats, who pursue a highly values-driven foreign policy, could not accept this stance from India.

Although both the Democrats and the Republicans subscribe to certain sets of values when it comes to international relations, unlike the Republicans, who emphasise universal values of national security, the free market, and sovereignty, the Democrats push for an agenda of human rights, democracy promotion, and social justice, which is based on the superfluous moral superiority of the West. This Democratic emphasis on certain values leads them to justify interference in foreign countries in the name of building a better world, viewing it as an American responsibility. However, as a country colonised by a similar imperial power for almost two centuries, Indians are generally wary of Americas evangelical promotion of its values.

Nonetheless, the Congress party remains open to such external involvementa party that was, incidentally, founded by a British man, Allan Octavian Hume. After independence, many Congress leaders became wary of foreign interference, with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi publicly voicing concerns on multiple occasions about foreign powers attempting to unseat her from office. However, in recent years, Congress under the Gandhi familys leadership has become very amenable to seeking external interference. Over the past decade, Rahul Gandhi has personally met with Ilhan Omar, a US Congresswoman who views India as an occupying force in Kashmir and aligns with Pakistans stance on the issue. He has also met with individuals who are accused of being on the payrolls of George Soros, a philanthropist who is known for using substantial funds to destabilise governments in other countries.

When the Modi government highlighted this fact on one occasion, the US State Department responded by accusing it of anti-Semitism. Similarly, in 2023, when Rahul Gandhi received a two-year prison sentence for defamatory remarks and was disqualified as a Member of Parliament under Indian law, the US State Department once again took the opportunity to criticise the Modi government, implying that Indias judiciary was under political pressure.

Under Bidens presidency, the collusion between Congress and the anti-India deep state in the US operated seamlessly, with the State Department playing a key role. But now, its the Department of Defense, and not the State Department, that will dominate the course of India-US relations under Trump.

Unlike the State Department under Antony Blinken, which frequently engaged in virtue signalling and subjected India to concerted pressures from Islamist and leftist lobbies, the Department of Defense is expected to focus on shared interests. Trumps choice for Secretary of State, Senator Marco Rubio, is also known for recognising Indias importance as a strategic partner. In July, he introduced a bill proposing a limited exemption for India from CAATSA sanctions related to the purchase of Russian equipment. The bill also called for treating India on par with other US allies such as Japan, Israel, and South Korea.

More broadly, the Trump administration is likely to shift the emphasis of American foreign policy from the European theatre to the Indo-Pacific. This realignment would position India once again as a credible ally in countering China, fostering greater synergy between the two countries foreign policies.

Secondly, Indias vast market potential, particularly its status as the worlds largest importer of defence equipment, will once again reinforce its position of importance in American strategic planning. This suggests that a Trump administration would be far more likely to engage with the Modi government rather than give attention to opposition parties and their exaggerated claims that democracy in India is failing.

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Reflecting on the Congress partys track record over the past decadewhere it has sought to undermine Indias democracy on the global stage merely because the electorate has repeatedly rejected itone cannot help but feel a sense of dismay. If only the Gandhis commitment to democratic principles were as strong as they profess. For if that were the case, the Congress would also value internal party democracy, where merit-based leaders, rather than a single family, could rise through the ranks. Yet, as things stand, internal democratisation within the Congress seems a distant prospect. It is high time for the party to function as a genuine opposition, seeking space for dissent within the framework of Indian democracy.

The author is a New Delhi-based commentator on geopolitics and foreign policy. She holds a PhD from the Department of International Relations, South Asian University. She tweets @TrulyMonica. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 14:26 IST
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Arjun Singh Claims Mamata Govt Plotting To Kill Him With Russian Chemicals, TMC Reacts

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 19:55 IST

The Trinamool Congress dismissed the allegations as baseless with party leaders claiming that Singh had become "mentally bankrupt"

TMC leaders reacted sharply to Singh's allegations. Party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh dismissed Singh's claims and called them ridiculous. (Photo: PTI file)

Senior BJP leader Arjun Singh on Thursday claimed that conspiracies were being hatched to eliminate him and alleged that these efforts were politically motivated due to his opposition alignment.

I am being maligned, and there are plans to eliminate me," Singh told reporters after appearing before the CID in connection with alleged irregularities in the awarding of a tender during his tenure as chairman of Bhatpara Municipality in West Bengals North 24 Parganas district in 2020.

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The Trinamool Congress dismissed the allegations as baseless with party leaders claiming that Singh had become mentally bankrupt." Singh, who had switched from the BJP to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) after the 2021 assembly elections, only to return to the saffron party ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, denied any wrongdoing during his time as chairman of Bhatpara municipality.

I was the first civic body chairman in the state to introduce e-tendering in Bhatpara. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee knows very well there were no illegalities in my tenure," Singh said soon after coming out from the CID headquarters at Bhabani Bhavan.

The BJP leader further claimed that there were plots being hatched by the administration to harm him and Suvendu Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition. We are under the protection of central security forces, so they cannot harm us physically in public. However, I have reliable information that I might be slowly poisoned during interrogation," Singh alleged.

I dont know for sure, but I have been warned by some trusted sources," the former MP claimed.

He warned that if he died from multi-organ failure in the next six months, the state government would be held responsible. I will hold the state government accountable if anything happens to me," he said.

Singh also said he was fully prepared to cooperate with the CID and would not be intimidated.

I have nothing to hide. I will face their questioning whenever they summon me. Today, they asked irrelevant questions for over three hours, but I remained calm and gave the same answers," he said. If I switch camps from BJP to TMC, I will be branded a good boy from a bad boy. But I have spine, I wont do that," he added.

TMC leaders reacted sharply to Singhs allegations. Party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh dismissed Singhs claims and called them ridiculous."

Singh is making absurd accusations about being poisoned with chemicals imported from Russia. Its laughable," Ghosh said. Arjun has become jittery and nervous after receiving the CID summons," he added.

Bengal minister Firhad Hakim echoed Ghoshs sentiments. Singhs allegations show that he has become mentally bankrupt. We knew him as a political activist who would speak on real issues, but now he is making such nonsensical claims," Hakim said.

According to a CID official, Singh was served a notice in connection with a Rs 4.5 crore financial irregularity involving the awarding of civic project tenders during his tenure as Bhatpara municipality chairman in 2020.

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Singh had initially approached the Calcutta High Court after receiving the summons, but the court directed him to appear before the CID on August 14, 2024.

Regarding Singhs claims of slow poisoning, the CID official denied any knowledge of such an allegation. The official also emphasised that the investigating agency would not engage in responding to political comments" and would focus solely on the investigation at hand.

Location : Kolkata [Calcutta], India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 19:54 IST
'Hindus Should Not Go Dargahs, Jihadis Who Oppressed Women Are Buried There': BJP Leader

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 23:40 IST

The comment was made by BJP UP MLA Nand Kishor Gurjar, who also claimed that people in Arab countries worship Lord Shiva

A video clip of Gurjar purportedly making the remark has been circulated widely on social media. (Image via X/@nkgurjar4bjp)

BJP MLA Nand Kishor Gurjar has urged Hindus to avoid paying obeisance at dargah and recommended checking suspicious" people entering temples.

A video clip of Gurjar purportedly making the remark has been circulated widely on social media.

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Speaking to reporters in Chhaprauli on the sidelines of a programme on Wednesday night, the legislator from Ghaziabads Loni constituency said, Hindus should not go to dargahs. Jihadis who oppressed women are buried there".

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They are buried there, their bodies decaying with worms. Its unfortunate if anyone is bowing their heads there," he said.

Gurjar also claimed that people in Arab countries worship Lord Shiva and said that even Maulvis will one day perform Lord Mahadevs rituals." Moreover, the MLA recommended checking suspicious" individuals entering temples.

Location : Uttar Pradesh, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 23:40 IST
Maharashtra Polls: Mahayuti To Make Clean Sweeps In Mumbai, Konkan, Says Piyush Goyal

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 12:39 IST

On Chief Ministers face, Piyush Goyal said that the decision will be taken at the right time.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal was speaking at the CNBC-TV18 Global Leadership Summit on Thursday.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday claimed that the Mahayuti alliance of BJP, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) and NCP (Ajit Pawar faction) would make clean sweep victories in Mumbai and Konkan regions in the upcoming legislative assembly election in Maharashtra.

When asked about his projections for the elections, the Union Minister said, Once again, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be leading from the front."

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While speaking at CNBC-TV18 Global Leadership Summit (GLS), Goyal said that he had recently visited Marathawada region, which is considered a stronghold of Congress, but there is a wave of change.

#CNBCTV18at25 | Mahayuti govt will return in Maharashtra," says Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal), Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, at the CNBC-TV18 Global Leadership Summit. Adds that the decision on the Chief Minister will be made amicably with our alliance partners after the pic.twitter.com/b2aXyjIgcM CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18News) November 14, 2024

On Chief Ministers face, Goyal said that the decision will be taken at the right time. The decision on the Chief Minister will be made amicably with our alliance partners after the election," he said.

Speaking about the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojna, launched by the Mahayuti government in Maharashtra on the eve of assembly poll, Goyal said it is a gamechanger" in the state.

Earlier, he criticised seeking votes along religious lines, saying that it goes against the Constitutional values. He had appealed to people to choose the BJP-led Mahayuti, which he said is committed to development and progress in the assembly elections.

He had slammed Congress for allegedly not keeping the pre-poll promises in the party-ruled states and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray for joining hands with the parties that spread fear and misinformation".

Taking a jibe at Congress and Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVAL) alliance, Goyal said that there are states like Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka that have rolled out schemes without any preparations. Unlike some khatakhat schemes, we do real work," Goyal said.

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The BJP is running as part of the Mahayuti alliance, which includes chief minister Eknath Shindes Shiv Sena faction and Ajit Pawars NCP. Opposing them is the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, comprising Uddhav Thackerays Shiv Sena (UBT), Sharad Pawars NCP (SP), and the Congress party.

Elections to the 288-member legislative assembly will be held on November 20 and the votes will be counted on November 23.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 12:38 IST
'Four Generations Of Congress...': Amit Shah Backs His Article 370 Remark In Jharkhand

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 14:22 IST

The senior BJP leader said if his party were voted to power, it would tackle infiltration and Naxalism strictly

Union Home Minister Amit Shah addresses a public rally in Jharkhand. (Screengrab/ANI)

Union Home Minister Amit Shah defended his Wednesdays remarks about the restoration of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir while addressing a public rally in poll-bound Jharkhands Giridih on Thursday. He said, Even four generations of Congress wont be able to bring back Article 370."

In the rally that comes a day after Jharkhand voted for Phase 1 of the assembly polls, the senior BJP leader said if his party were voted to power, it would tackle infiltration and Naxalism strictly.

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#WATCH | Giridih, Jharkhand | Addressing a public rally, Union Home Minister Amit Shah says, I want to tell the infiltrators that CM Hemant Sorens government is going to end, your time will also come to an end. The BJP will throw you out of Jharkhand. Those who have pic.twitter.com/q7ayzhh850 ANI (@ANI) November 14, 2024

I want to tell the infiltrators that CM Hemant Sorens government is going to end, your time will also come to an end. The BJP will throw you out of Jharkhand. Those who have encroached on the land of tribals, we will bring a law against them," he said.

Taking a swipe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for opposing the Waqf bill amendment, he said, The Waqf board in Karnataka have declared villages under the property of Waqf. Centuries-old temples, lands and houses of farmers were declared as Waqf property. We will surely bring an amendment in the Waqf Bill, however, Rahul Gandhi and Hemant Soren are opposing it,"

Amit Shahs Other Remark On Article 370

The Union Home Minister had, on Wednesday, asserted that Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, will not be restored even if Congress stalwart and late PM Indira Gandhi comes down from heaven.

The BJPs star campaigner sought to corner the Congress over Muslim reservation and accused the main opposition party of deliberately stalling construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya for years.

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Addressing a rally at Dhule in North Maharashtra, Shah said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi should remember that even if his fourth generation were to come", Muslims wont get reservations meant for Dalits, tribals and other backward castes.

Jharkhand concluded the first phase of Assembly elections, with polling held across 43 constituencies on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the second phase is scheduled for November 20 in the remaining 38 constituencies. The counting of votes will take place on November 23.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 13:54 IST
Who In Congress Has Said Article 370 Will Be Restored? Shah Spreading Lies, Says Kharge

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 22:35 IST

Article 370 of the Constitution, which provided special status to Jammu & Kashmir, was nullified by the BJP-led central government in August 2019

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge addresses during a public meeting. (PTI photo)

AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday contested Union Home Minister Amit Shahs assertion that the Congress intends to reinstate Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir, and pointed out the contentious provision was repealed by Parliament.

He accused the BJP of keeping the Article 370 issue alive merely to create divisions in society.

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Addressing a press conference in Pune, Kharge accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of abusing the Congress and its senior leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

Amit Shah, in his poll rallies, accuses the Congress of spreading lies. (But) He (himself) is saying the Congress wants to bring back Article 370 (in J&K). Tell me, who said that and when? You are raking up an issue. If it (resolution to repeal Article 370) had been already passed in Parliament, why are you raking up the issue again? It means you want to keep the issue alive to divide. If you want to say this, go to Kashmir and say it. Elections are over in Kashmir," Kharge noted.

Article 370 of the Constitution, which provided special status to Jammu & Kashmir, was nullified by the BJP-led central government in August 2019.

The Congress is aligned with the National Conference, which heads the government in J&K. Last week, the Jammu and Kashmir assembly passed a resolution asking the Centre to hold talks with elected representatives for restoration of the erstwhile states special status.

Referring to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the Congress president said one of the BJP leaders is saying batenge toh katenge (we will perish if we are divided) and questioned the rationale behind coining such a slogan.

Why (give such a slogan)? The country is united. The Congress worked to keep the country united. (To keep the country united) Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi sacrificed their lives. Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. The Congress did this (sacrifices), but you neither fought for the countrys unity, nor its independence or the poor," Kharge opined, hitting out at the BJP.

He pointed out that it was the Congress which made provision for reservation in the Constitution as first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar worked to approve the quota for SCs/STs in jobs and education.

But they (BJP) are still raking up the (reservation) issue," Kharge remarked.

He claimed the BJP is pitting the countrys towering political figures like Nehru, Ambedkar, Vallabhbhai Patel and Subhas Chandra Bose against each other.

They (BJP) now say Babasaheb wanted to do this, but Jawaharlal Nehru did this. Vallabhbahi Patel said this and Bose said that. When they were alive, you were against the Constitution. You did not even keep the Indian flag in your office.

You were not ready to accept the Ashok Chakra (centred in middle of the tricolour) and you wanted to have a Constitution on the basis of Manu (Manusmriti, an ancient religious text) and now you remember the Constitution," he insisted.

The AICC president asserted the Congress wants to keep the country united and was ready to make any sacrifice for it.

Just 5 per cent people in the country hold 62 per cent wealth and 50 per cent people have only 3 per cent wealth, he said.

Instead of reducing this disparity, Modiji is encouraging his friends by selling public sector units. The maximum drug supply is taking place at the port given to Adani. In October, 400 kg cocaine was seized. In February, 4,000 kg charas was seized. Illegal things are being brought in which are destroying (youths in) Pune, Bengaluru, Punjab," Kharge averred.

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Asked how the Congress and opposition MVA will mobilise finances to fund populist schemes promised in their manifestos if they come to power in Maharashtra, he said, Give us power, we will give you a budget. We work as per the budget." We do not believe in khoke (boxes of money), but doke (brain). We have brains and they have khoke," the Congress leader remarked.

Congress governments have successfully implemented pre-polls guarantees in Himachal Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, Kharge asserted.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 22:35 IST
The AI PC Market Gets A Big Push From Windows But Will The M4 Macs Spoil The Party?

Reported By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 10:08 IST

The Windows AI laptop market is slowly getting more options but will the M-series Apple Macs have a bigger say in the market?

The Windows AI laptop market is growing but will the Macs have the final laugh?

The Windows-powered AI PC segment is getting a full push from different vendors which has resulted in a higher number of units shipped in the last few quarters. The launch of Snapdragon X-powered and the new Intel Lunar Lake processor models come with the Copilot + branding and features that will run you into the future. However, the biggest challenge for this segment comes from Apple M-series Macs that continue to pace forward, at least in terms of the performance levels.

PC Market Rising Up But Will It Last?

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The latest report from Canalys suggests AI PC shipments have gone over 13 million units in Q3 2024 out of which 20 percent were shipped in the given period. But you could also highlight the lack of new Mac launches till October, which may have helped brands like Lenovo, Asus, HP and more to push their products aggressively.

The Q4 2024 quarter will clearly show us the impact of the new M4-powered MacBook Pro models and also the fact that Apple is now selling the older M2 and M3 MacBook Air with 16GB RAM without any hike in prices. Most of the high-powered Windows AI laptops are currently retailing at well over Rs 1.10 lakh which makes it a tough sell in markets like India, where the average selling price for a laptop is still in the mid Rs 50,000 range.

Early Days

The lack of AI applications on these laptops will definitely be an issue for people spending big on laptops, which they plan to use for at least 5 to 6 years if not more. There has been this notion that a Windows laptop cannot run that long, which is why people are happy to splurge on a MacBook and AppleCare+ because they know the returns will be justified.

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But over the years, the quality of the Windows laptops have gone up, and along with that the prices, which sometimes makes for tough reading. And when the question comes about spending Rs 1 lakh + on a laptop, most people are happy to do that for a Mac, less so, on a Windows PC. Having said that, the price of a MacBook has also gone up significantly over the years, which should somehow narrow the gap in these decisions.

The AI applications need to come quickly for these AI PCs to become a strong alternative to the Macs and make people feel that Windows 11 is equally capable if not more reliable than its counterparts. Thats not all, Microsoft has a window of opportunity coming its way with the Windows 10 support cycle ending in 2025, and thats where the credibility of these new AI PCs and their value will come to the forefront.

Location : Delhi, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 10:08 IST
Opinion / Columnist

The Illusion of a Just Energy Transition

To directly receive articles from Tendai Ruben Mbofana, please join his WhatsApp Channel on: h ttps://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08

The Lithium Plunder: Exporting Poverty

The Environmental and Social Costs of Mining

The Role of Chinese Investments: A Double-Edged Sword

The Broken Promise of a Just Energy Transition

 Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/

In his address at a High-Level Meeting on Resourcing the Energy Transition with Justice and Equity, held on the sidelines of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa delivered a message that appeared to echo the noble aspirations of a global commitment to sustainable development and climate action.He spoke of the tremendous opportunities that countries rich in minerals like Zimbabwe must seize as the world shifts to renewable energy.Mnangagwa's call was clear: as the world transitions to renewable energy, resource-rich countries like Zimbabwe must not remain impoverished, but must actively leverage the wealth of natural resources - particularly lithium - to diversify their economies and foster growth.He called for a beneficiation strategy in the extractive sector, especially minerals critical to the development of clean energy technologies, and positioned Zimbabwe as a potential champion of the just energy transition.Indeed, these were bold words, suggesting a vision where Zimbabwe could play a pivotal role in the global push for clean energy.The message sounded powerful and resonant with the times, as the world grapples with the pressing reality of climate change and the urgent need for a just energy transition that provides economic benefits for all.However, when one takes a closer look at the situation on the ground in Zimbabwe, the glaring contradictions between Mnangagwa's words and the actual reality in the country become undeniable.While the rhetoric of a just energy transition is seductive, it is increasingly clear that Zimbabwe's extractive sector is far from contributing to equitable and sustainable growth.Instead, the country is mired in a crisis of exploitation, environmental destruction, and poverty, particularly when it comes to the mineral resources that are crucial for the green energy revolution.Far from benefiting the people of Zimbabwe, the extraction and export of its precious lithium, for instance, is fueling an illicit scramble, with vast amounts of raw minerals leaving the country unprocessed.This reality calls into question the very notion of a "just" energy transition for Zimbabwe.At first glance, Mnangagwa's call for the beneficiation of lithium sounds like a step in the right direction.Lithium is a key mineral in the development of renewable energy technologies, particularly in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage systems, which are at the heart of the global push for decarbonization.Zimbabwe, which boasts one of the largest deposits of lithium in the world, should be poised to benefit immensely from the renewable energy revolution.Theoretically, with proper policy frameworks, infrastructure investments, and beneficiation strategies, Zimbabwe could establish itself as a major player in the global clean energy supply chain, while ensuring that its citizens benefit from their own resources.Mnangagwa's words in Baku seem to suggest a plan for this very kind of future.He advocated for an economic model that would see Zimbabwe move beyond mere extraction and export of raw minerals, and instead invest in value addition - the processing and refinement of its mineral resources locally - creating jobs, fostering skills development, and ensuring the wealth generated from these minerals is reinvested into the broader economy.But, as compelling as this vision might sound on the international stage, the situation on the ground tells a very different story.Despite the government's rhetoric, Zimbabwe continues to face widespread issues of environmental degradation, human rights violations, and rampant economic exploitation in the mineral extraction sector.Far from creating a sustainable path to economic diversification and prosperity, the country's current approach to resource extraction is deepening the inequality and poverty that have long plagued local communities.A critical examination of Zimbabwe's lithium extraction industry reveals the depth of the problem.In 2022, the Zimbabwean government banned the exportation of unprocessed lithium ores in an attempt to stem the tide of raw material exports and push for beneficiation within the country.However, reports from the ground suggest that the ban is, at best, a half-hearted measure that has done little to stop the exploitation of Zimbabwe's mineral wealth.Investigations by the Farai Maguwu-led Center for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) uncovered the scale of the ongoing lithium exports, despite the government's ban.According to their findings, lithium concentrate - a product still far from its final, value-added form - continues to be shipped out of the country in staggering volumes.At Bikita Minerals, for example, CNRG investigators observed that at least 42 haulage trucks loaded with lithium concentrate were leaving daily, bound for the port of Beira in Mozambique, and from there to China.In addition, lithium smuggling syndicates are accused of having stolen over 3700 tonnes of lithium ore in the Bikita area.This raw lithium is being exported for processing in China, leaving Zimbabwe with none of the value-added products that could generate real economic benefits for its people.Maguwu's investigation paints a picture of a country where vast mineral wealth is being extracted and exported without significant regard for the people who live in the areas where these resources are being mined.Local communities in the Bikita area, where Zimbabwe's lithium deposits are some of the largest in the country, have raised repeated concerns about the devastating social and environmental impact of mining operations.Instead of the beneficiation promised by Mnangagwa, local communities remain locked in poverty, with few opportunities for economic advancement despite the presence of one of the world's most valuable minerals beneath their feet.The issue of beneficiation is also closely tied to the environmental and social costs of the mining industry in Zimbabwe.As the CNRG report on Chinese investments in the extractive sector reveals, the practices employed by many foreign mining companies are far from responsible.The report documents shocking instances of environmental degradation, including the poisoning of local water sources, destruction of forests, and extensive land degradation.Moreover, the human cost is equally troubling.In addition to environmental harm, there are persistent reports of human rights abuses at mining sites, particularly involving Chinese companies operating in the country.Workers, including many women, have faced appalling labor conditions, including exploitative wages, lack of proper protective equipment, and even sexual abuse.The report also highlights the alarming rise in the number of mining-related accidents, including fatalities, as safety regulations are routinely ignored.While Mnangagwa extols the potential for Zimbabwe to harness its mineral wealth for economic development, the reality is that these resources are being plundered by foreign companies, with little to no benefit to the local population.Rather than serving as a foundation for a just energy transition, the country's mineral wealth is contributing to a cycle of exploitation that entrenches poverty and inequality.Another critical issue that complicates the narrative of Zimbabwe's "just energy transition" is the role of Chinese investments in the country's extractive sector.While Chinese companies have played a significant role in the development of Zimbabwe's mining industry, their investments have not translated into the kind of sustainable, equitable growth that Mnangagwa envisions in his address.The CNRG's report, titled Investments or Plunder: An Assessment of the Impacts of Chinese Investments in Zimbabwe's Extractive Sector, reveals a disturbing pattern of exploitation.Despite the rhetoric of partnership and mutual benefit, many Chinese firms operating in Zimbabwe's mining sector are accused of engaging in practices that undermine local development.Local communities have voiced strong opposition to the environmental degradation and social injustices associated with Chinese mining operations.In addition to polluting the environment, Chinese firms have been accused of employing corrupt practices to secure favorable terms and avoid scrutiny from government regulators.This, in itself, exacerbates the challenge of climate change which the world is fighting.Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's government continues to ignore calls for reform, allowing Chinese investors to extract enormous profits while contributing little to the country's long-term development.Zimbabwe's experience with Chinese investment is emblematic of the broader issue of resource extraction in the country.The promise of economic growth from mineral wealth, particularly from the mining of lithium and other critical minerals, has yet to materialize in a way that benefits ordinary Zimbabweans.Instead, the country remains locked in a pattern of resource extraction that enriches foreign investors and a small elite, while leaving local communities mired in poverty.Ultimately, the question must be asked: is Zimbabwe on the path to a just energy transition, as President Mnangagwa suggested in his speech at COP29?The answer, unfortunately, is no.While the government's rhetoric on beneficiation and sustainable development may sound promising in international forums, the reality in Zimbabwe is one of ongoing exploitation, corruption, and environmental destruction.Rather than becoming a leader in the green energy revolution, Zimbabwe remains a pawn in a global game of resource extraction, where its mineral wealth is being exploited by foreign powers, and local communities continue to suffer.The country's vast deposits of lithium and other minerals could indeed provide the foundation for a sustainable, inclusive economic future, but only if there is a genuine commitment to beneficiation, responsible mining practices, and the empowerment of local communities.As long as Zimbabwe's mineral resources are extracted and exported without value addition, the dream of a just energy transition will remain just that - a dream.The nation's leadership must move beyond empty rhetoric and take concrete steps to ensure that its natural resources benefit the people of Zimbabwe, not foreign interests and a corrupt elite.Until this happens, Zimbabwe's mineral wealth will continue to be plundered, its people will remain poor, and the promises of a just energy transition will remain an illusion.
Hina Khan Enjoys Maldives Vacay Amid Breast Cancer Battle, Fans Call Her 'Strong Girl'

Published By :

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Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 16:52 IST

Dressed in a mustard yellow dress, Hina Khan captured the essence of her fun time in the Maldives. She ditched accessories and went for a hat, allowing her dress to take centre stage.

Hina Khan last starred in the Punjabi film Shinda Shinda No Papa. (Photo Credits: Instagram)

Television actress Hina Khan, who is courageously battling stage three breast cancer, shows no sign of slowing down. Be it attending public events, walking down the ramp for brand shoots, or travelling to different places, the Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai fame has been doing them all with extraordinary strength and bravery. Amid her fight against this formidable disease and chemotherapy sessions, she serves as an example of living life to the fullest even in tough times.

Now, Hina Khan seems to have found her much-needed getaway in the Maldives. Far away from the hustle and bustle of city life, the TV actress has flown to the tropical paradise, delighting fans with travel moments through her Instagram feed. Recently, the Kasautii Zindagii Kay actress dropped a series of pictures from her foreign outing.

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Dressed in a mustard yellow dress, the actress captured the essence of her fun time in the Maldives. The vibrant ensemble featured full sleeves and flowery patterns all over, making it a perfect outfit for a beach vacation. She ditched accessories and went for a hat, allowing her dress to take centre stage. Her pictures on the pristine beach and bright sunlight were nothing short of spectacular.

Sharing a string of pictures, Hina captioned, There she goes again. Spreading Joy at @joyislandmaldives."

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First Published: November 14, 2024, 16:52 IST
16 Psyche: The 'Gold Mine' In Space Set To Be Explored By NASA's 2029 Mission

Curated By :

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Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 12:05 IST

It has a core made of nickel and iron and also contains large amounts of platinum, gold and other metals.

Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis discovered 16 Psyche on March 17, 1852.

Various surprising news often goes viral on the internet every day. Recently, one such piece of news has garnered attention: a small planet in the solar system, which is said to be full of gold. Scientists are calling it the Gold Planet."

According to reports, it is not a planet, but the soil here is gold. It is not considered a planet but is classified as an asteroid because it is a piece of a meteorite. Scientists discovered it years ago and research is currently ongoing on it.

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As per reports, on March 17, 1852, Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis discovered this asteroid. It was not known then it was full of gold. When the planet was studied using advanced technology, it was discovered it was a gold mine. This asteroid named 16 Psyche revolves around the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. Its core is made of nickel and iron. Apart from this, there is a large amount of platinum, gold and other metals in it. It is considered the heart of a dead planet.

Psyche also revolves around the Sun and takes about 5 Earth years to complete. It takes more than four hours to rotate once on its axis, equal to one day of Psyche. The value of minerals present in asteroid 16 Psyche is said to be more than trillions. It is believed that if all its gold comes to Earth, it will make every person rich by $93 billion, i.e., Rs 76,300 crore. NASA has sent a mission on it on October 13, 2023, which is for its study. It will reach the orbit of Psyche by July 2029.

The asteroid 16 Psyche is a metal-rich asteroid estimated to be worth $100,000 quadrillion (more than Rs 8441 lakh crore). Its packed with rare elements like platinum and palladium, essential to electronics and cars.

About 16 Psyche:

Discovery:

Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis discovered 16 Psyche on March 17, 1852. Size: It has a mean diameter of about 220 kilometres (140 miles).

Location:

It orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter.

Composition:

It has a core made of nickel and iron and also contains large amounts of platinum, gold and other metals.

NASA Mission:

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NASA launched the Psyche mission on October 13, 2023, to explore the asteroid. The spacecraft is expected to arrive in 2029. The mission aims to:

Understand how planets form Explore the asteroid, which could be the exposed core of a protoplanet Engage students in hands-on learning about STEM.

Location : Delhi, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 12:05 IST
DSP Tracks Down Generous Vegetable Vendor Who Gave Him Free Sabzi During College Days

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 11:05 IST

The video shows a DSP hugging a vegetable vendor as he recalls how he had supported him with free vegetables during his difficult times.

Santosh Patel, currently working as the SDOP in MP's Behat (right) and vegetable vendor Salman Khan (left). (Pic credit: X/@santoshpateldsp)

A Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) tracked down a vegetable vendor who had helped him during his college days. Fourteen years ago, when Santosh Patel was studying engineering in Bhopal, there were times when he didnt have enough money to buy food. During those difficult moments, the vendor would offer him free vegetables. A video of their emotional reunion has since gone viral, warming hearts online.

I met Salman Khan when I was studying engineering in Bhopal. He used to understand my situation and give me vegetables for free. When we met suddenly after 14 years, we both were very happy. Forgetting someone who stood by you in bad times is no less than a sin. A person should not have one fault, he should not be ungrateful," reads the caption to the video when translated from Hindi to English.

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The video opens to show Patel asking the vendor his name, to which he replies, Salman". Patel then asks if Salman recognises him, and when Salman confirms, Patel steps out of his official vehicle and hugs him warmly.

Patel goes on to narrate how Salman helped him during his college years. From 2009 to 2013, I stayed here. Whenever I didnt have enough money for food, he would give me a brinjal and a tomato for free, out of friendship. Before closing his shop every day, hed always make sure to hand me a brinjal and a tomato. I would use them to make curry and eat it."

Towards the end, Patel presents Salman with a box of sweets, some cash, and even shares his phone number, assuring him that he can reach out whenever he needs help.

Watch the video below:

                        14                            ,      pic.twitter.com/FMTdOW5cBH Santosh Patel DSP (@Santoshpateldsp) November 10, 2024

Heres how people reacted to the heartwarming video:

Sir, I also take veggies \from here. He is a kind and an honest human. Such people are very few in todays time. Anyway, I am also preparing for MPPSC," wrote an individual.

Another added, Remembering things from decades ago and after becoming a police officer, admitting it on camera and posting it on social media, believe me it requires a lot of courage, you are really great sir, lakhs of salutes!"

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You are greater than Salman, sir, because you remembered Salman and went and met him. Otherwise in todays times people have become so selfish that they dont even go to meet their own .Really, you are a big hearted person, and I salute you, sir," expressed a third.

A fourth joined, A lovely example of believing in gratitude. Both stay blessed."

First Published: November 14, 2024, 11:05 IST
Indian Vlogger Shuts Down Russian Man Over Racist Joke: 'India Is Bigger Economy Than Russia'

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 09:42 IST

While traveling on a train in Russia, an Indian vlogger was subjected to a racist remark from a local after mentioning that he was from India.

The Indian vlogger who faced a racist slur in Russia is an IIT dropout. He now spends his time hitchhiking on roads, couch surfing in cities, playing guitar on the streets, and visiting local homes. (Pic credit: YouTube/@onroadindian)

An Indian vlogger, who was on a trip to Russia, allegedly faced a racist remark from a local while travelling on a train. The 26-year-old, however, chose not to remain silent. Instead, he confronted the individual, calling out the racist joke". The vlogger even posted a video of himself shutting down the troll, with many supporting him for his bold response. Some couldnt understand why the comment was considered racist, arguing that such incidents do happen in reality in the country at times.

Read| Go Back To India: 29-Year-Old Man Faces Racism in New Zealand

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The 53-second-long video was uploaded to his YouTube channel, On Road Indian. It carries the caption: Racist Joke on India in Russia." In the video, the YouTuber, who is an IIT dropout, states, India is now a bigger economy than Russia," and then asks a fellow passenger to translate his words it for the man who made the offensive remark.

He then elaborates on the exchange, revealing that his comment was a rebuttal to a Russian man who made a derogatory remark about Indians traveling by sitting atop trains.

Towards the end of the video, he says, That man shouldnt have said such things. Its wrong to make racist comments about anyone. He asked me if I was from India. I said yes. Then he said, People in your country travel on top of trains. After saying that, he walked away. When he made the comment, people around us laughed. This is not okay."

Watch the video here:

Your answer is too good," said an individual.

Another added, At least India has now points to counter the argument."

Bro, you earned all of our respect," expressed a third.

A fourth commented, Hats off for standing against racism."

Some couldnt understand what made the comment racist in the first place.

What makes it racist? We have made great progress over the last few years and we should be proud of it. However the GDP being bigger than Russia is not a metric to be proud of. Indian per capita GDP is still just one sixth of Russia," posted a fifth.

Also Read| Video Of Man Vomiting Inside Singapores MRT Train Sparks Racist Remarks

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Another joined, Of course its hurts too much we should defend our selves but what they said is still true we are still a developing nation 2/3 of our population is middle class or lower income class. Many of us still litter public places."

What are you even doing? There is a difference in being patriotic and being blind. India does have lot of short comings and what they said used to be true, idk if it still is. We need to accept what we are and where lack instead of getting offended. Russia has always supported India and has played a major role in our growth. Stop making a fuss everywhere," wrote yet another Internet user.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 09:42 IST
'Nostradamus' Allan Lichtman Blames Disinformation, Elon Musk For Wrong Prediction In US Presidential Polls

Curated By :

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Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 12:30 IST

Allan Lichtman uses an index model that evaluates 13 true-false statements about the incumbent president's party.

Allan Lichtman has been predicting the US Polls since 1984. (Photo Credits: YouTube)

Allan Lichtman, recognised as the Nostradamus" of US Presidential Elections, has failed to predict the result of the recent polls. A professor at the American University, Lichtman succeeded in forecasting nine out of the last ten US elections. But his prediction turned out to be incorrect this time. He prophesied that Kamala Harris would win this years election to become the 47th US President. The former Vice President, however, lost to the Republican Partys Donald Trump who secured the presidency with the magic figures of 270 electoral votes.

Lichtman pointed fingers at the explosion" of disinformation and billionaire Elon Musk after his prediction about the election results proved to be inaccurate. The historian-cum-political scientist shared his thoughts about the topic during an interaction with News Nation.

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Lichtman didnt mince his words while criticising conservative media platforms which allegedly invested millions to promote the election campaigns for Trump. Number one, disinformation. Weve always had disinformation, but disinformation has exploded to an unprecedented degree. You talked about a grievance election, but a lot of that grievance was driven by disinformation," he told the outlet.

Lichtman further claimed that Elon Musk, a good friend of Donald Trump, had used his social media platform X to portray the president-elect in a good light. Musk publicly showed support for Trump and attended some of his campaign rallies as well. According to Lotchman, the Tesla CEO was able to sabotage issues like immigration, hurricane relief and the war in Ukraine, spreading misinformation via his microblogging site.

Weve seen something brand new this time  billionaire Elon Musk putting his thumb on the scales. Its been reported that his misinformation had had billions, literally billions of views and this has spread to every aspect of this election," Lichtman explained.

Lichtman put much time into analysing the political landscape of the country before making his prediction about the election results. He uses an index model, known as the Keys to the White House." The result that comes out is mainly based on 13 true-false statements about the incumbent presidents party. If six of those prove to be false, the opposition is likely to win.

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The premise of the keys is that a rational, pragmatic electorate decides whether the White House party has governed well enough to get four more years. But if the views of the White House party are controlled by disinformation, particularly driven by those who are so rich that they have extraordinary influence beyond anyone else, then maybe the premise of the keys need to be changed," Lichtman said.

The veteran political scientist has been doing the job since 1984. He even forecasted the impeachment of Donald Trump during his first term in office. His prediction had turned true twice first in December 2019 and then in January 2021.

Location : Delhi, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 12:30 IST
Watch: Man Collects Free Ketchup Sachets From Fast Food Outlets, Fills His 2.5 Litre Jar

Curated By :

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Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 11:02 IST

Sarthak Sachdeva's mission was eventually successful as he could fill his 2.5 litres jar completely. He uploaded the clip with a caption, "Aha tamatar bade mazedaar."

The content creator collected 25 ketchup sachets from KFC and filled his jar. (Photo Credits: Instagram)

Are you also someone who takes free ketchup packets home after a sumptuous meal at KFC or McDonalds? Well, it is quite common to come across people who like to collect ketchup sachet from fast food chains. If you are one if them, hold on, we have more for you. Meet content creator, Sarthak Sachdeva, who went on a free ketchup collection spree from eating joints at a mall in Pune.

In a video posted on his verified handle on Instagram, Sarthak could be heard explaining his plan. He brought a huge glass jar and decided to fill free tomato sauce in it. He started from a McDonalds outlet from where he picked quite a few packets. Next, he moved to KFC as he said, Bhai McDonalds main aur sauce maangne mein sharam aa rahi hai (Now I am feeling embarrassed to ask for more ketchup at McDonalds)."

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The content creator collected as many as 25 sachets from KFC and filled his jar. However, it hardly made a difference and jar wasnt even half filled. At this point, Sarthak decided to hit Pizza Hut. Here, he found sauce bottles instead of pouches. Soon, he emptied 5 of them while the staffers could be seen refilling the ketchup bottles.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sarthak Sachdeva (@sarthaksachdevva)

Sarthak Sachdevas mission was eventually successful as he could fill his 2.5 litres jar completely. He uploaded the clip with a caption, Aha tamatar bade mazedaar."

The video garnered over 10 million views and received tons of reactions from social media users. Bhai Delhi mein toh Rs. 1 per sachet lete hai," someone said.

Another person asked, Itni sauce ka abh kareinge kya bro?" Isliye mujhe sauce nahi mila," an individual joked.

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A user enquired, Can I get sauce for my Idli?" That one unemployed friend," someone hilariously noted.

A person, seemingly disappointed with the whole matter, stated, Now Pizza Hut will stop providing Sauce Bottles as well."

Location : Delhi, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 11:02 IST
Watch: Vietnamese Man Sets Stage On Fire With Nagin Dance

Curated By :

Trending Desk

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 12:51 IST

MT Pop, a Vietnamese pop sensation, lit up the stage with his Nagin dance during the Red Bull Dance Your Style finale.

MT Pops viral video has garnered over 6 million views on Instagram. (Photo Credits: Instagram)

Vietnamese popping sensation MT Pop set the stage on fire with his energetic Nagin dance at the Red Bull Dance Your Style finale that took place on November 9 in Mumbai. Now, the video of the dance has gone viral.

In the video, MT Pop is seen dancing to a Punjabi song.

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At the finale, he defeated French dancer Rubix to win the award. Social media is exploding with videos of his performance, and millions of users are applauding the Vietnamese dancer for what many describe as the most entertaining performance ever.

On Saturday, over 5,000 people flocked to Mumbai to watch 16 dancers fight for the grand prize. This competition had no judges; instead, dancers had to gain the support of the audience to advance through the ranks.

With his incredible performance on the Punjabi song Mundian to Bach Ke, MT Pop became the first Vietnamese dancer to win the Red Bull Dance Your Style title. The video was shared on November 12 and it has garnered over 6 million views so far.

Watch the video here:

With his freestyle dance, which was influenced by the Indian Nagin dance, MT Pop received enthusiastic applause from the audience. His performance gave full baraat vibes, according to many viewers on social media, who likened his steps to baraatis at Indian weddings dancing wildly.

As the Vietnamese dancer set the stage on fire, the audience cheered and applauded, showing their approval. Many stood up to join him onstage as his performance came to an end.

It was evident from the Instagram videos comments section how much the audience loved the performance.

A user wrote, My mind is blown! I get goosebumps every time I watch this."

Another commented, You literally cant beat someone who has this much fun."

He totally respected a cultural dance type and showed how he could elaborate on it," a user on Instagram said.

The cobra move was wild," another comment read.

Red Bull Dance Your Style Details

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The best 16 dancers across the world came down to Mumbai to battle for the coveted crown after 145 tournaments covering 48 nations. Eight pre-final winners and eight wildcard entrants participated in the initial round on November 6 and 7, which was held at Famous Studios.

After that, eight dancers advanced to the World Final on Saturday, which was hosted by renowned Indian dancer Melvin Louis and South African star Candice Modiselle. An amazing atmosphere was created for the competitors by the more than 5,000 fans at NSCI Mumbai.

Location : Delhi, India

First Published: November 14, 2024, 12:51 IST
Deliver Peace Through Strength: US Senator Marco Rubio On Being Named As Secretary Of State

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 08:26 IST

Marco Rubio was arguably the most hawkish option for the top position, and he has in years past advocated for a muscular foreign policy concerning Americas geopolitical foes, including China, Iran, and Cuba.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio and US president-elect Donald Trump. (File)

US President-elect Donald Trump has announced to appoint Florida Senator Marco Rubio as the Secretary of State in his second term. The 53-year-old leader would be the first Latino to serve as Americas top diplomat once the Republican president-elect takes office in January.

The Florida Senator expressed gratitude to Trump for placing trust in him. He also vowed to put the interests of Americans and America above all else during his term as Secretary of State.

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Leading the US Department of State is a tremendous responsibility, and I am honored by the trust President Trump has placed in me. As secretary of state, I will work every day to carry out his foreign policy agenda. Under the leadership of President Trump, we will deliver peace through strength and always put the interests of Americans and America above all else. I look forward to earning the support of my colleagues in the US Senate so the President has his national security and foreign policy team in place when he takes office on January 20," Rubio said.

My statement on being nominated for United States Secretary of State by President-elect Donald Trump: pic.twitter.com/r6q3iaZF0G Senator Marco Rubio (@SenMarcoRubio) November 13, 2024

While announcing Rubios appointment for the top post, Trump said that the former would be a be a strong advocate for the US, a true friend to its allies, and a fearless warrior would will never back down to adversaries.

It is my great honour to announce that Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is hereby nominated to be The United States Secretary of State," Trump said making a formal announcement on Wednesday.

Who is Marco Rubio?

Rubio is a politician-lawyer serving as the senior United States senator from Florida, a seat he has held since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives from 2006 to 2008. Rubio unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2016, but won presidential primaries in Minnesota, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Born on May 28, 1971, Rubio is a Cuban American from Miami, Florida. After serving as a city commissioner for West Miami in the 1990s, he was elected to represent the 111th district in the Florida House of Representatives in 2000. Subsequently, he was elected speaker of the Florida House; he served for two years beginning in November 2006. Upon leaving the Florida legislature in 2008 due to term limits, Rubio taught at Florida International University.

Rubio was arguably the most hawkish option for the top position, and he has in years past advocated for a muscular foreign policy concerning Americas geopolitical foes, including China, Iran, and Cuba.

Over the last several years he has softened some of his stances to align more closely with Trumps views. The president-elect accuses past US presidents of leading America into costly and futile wars and has pushed for a more restrained foreign policy.

Rubio is considered to be a friend of India and has been an advocate of the India-US relationship.

Rubio also wrote and passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which represents the greatest turning point in US-China relations in decades. For these achievements and more, the Center for Effective Lawmaking consistently ranks Rubio among the three most effective senators in Congress.

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According to the Trump Transition team, Rubios father worked as a banquet bartender, while his mother split time as a stay-at-home mom and hotel maid. From an early age, Rubio learned the importance of faith, family, community, and dignified work to the good life.

(With inputs from agencies)

Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)

First Published: November 14, 2024, 08:26 IST
Dominica To Honour PM Modi With Highest National Award For Help During Covid Pandemic

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 13:43 IST

The North American island nation also lauded PM Modis dedication to strengthening the partnership between India and Dominica

Dominican President Sylvanie Burton will confer the award to PM Modi during the upcoming India-CARICOM summit. (File Photo)

The Commonwealth of Dominica is set to confer its highest national award, the Dominica Award of Honour, to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in recognition of his contributions to the mountainous Caribbean island nation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dominican President Sylvanie Burton will confer the award to PM Modi during the upcoming India-CARICOM (Caribbean Community) Summit to be held in Georgetown, Guyana, from November 19 to 21.

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A statement from Dominicas Prime Ministers Office read, The Commonwealth of Dominica will bestow its highest national award, the Dominica Award of Honour, upon His Excellency Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, in recognition of his contributions to Dominica during the COVID-19 pandemic and his dedication to strengthening the partnership between India and Dominica."

The official statement mentioned how PM Modi supplied Dominica with 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in February 2021.

The North American island nation also lauded PM Modis dedication to strengthening partnership between India and Dominica.

The award also recognises Indias support for Dominica in healthcare, education and information technology under Prime Minister Modis leadership, as well as his role in promoting climate resilience-building initiatives and sustainable development on a global level," the statement read.

Meanwhile, Dominican Prime Minister Skerrit said the award was an expression of Dominicas gratitude for Prime Minister Modis solidarity with Dominica and the wider region.

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Prime Minister Modi has been a true partner to Dominica, particularly during our time of need amid a global health crisis. It is an honour to present him with Dominicas highest national accolade as a symbol of our gratitude for his support and as a reflection of the strong ties between our countries. We look forward to building on this partnership and advancing our shared vision of progress and resilience, he said.

While accepting the offer of the award, Prime Minister Modi emphasised the importance of collaboration in tackling global challenges such as climate change and geopolitical conflicts, and affirmed Indias commitment to working alongside Dominica and the Caribbean region in addressing these issues.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 12:51 IST
Trump's Defence Secretary Pick Opposes Women In Combat Roles, 'Woke' Military Leaders | Video

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 10:20 IST

Hegseth criticised the military's changing standards, arguing that they are tailored to accommodate women in traditionally male-dominated roles.

US President-elect Donald Trump with Defence Secretary Pick Pete Hegseth | Image: Facebook / Pete Hegseth

US President-elect Donald Trumps pick for defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said that women should remain out of combat roles in the military and advocated for the dismissal of senior Pentagon officers involved in woke" policies.

Remarking that women are not as capable" as men, Hegseth, a former Fox News commentator, argued that physical differences between men and women, such as bone density and muscle strength, create challenges in meeting the demands of combat.

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Everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated. And complication in combat means casualties are worse," Hegseth said while appearing on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast, released on November 7.

Everybody knows between bone density and lung capacity and muscle strength. Men and women are just different. And if theres some, you know, hard-charging female that meets that standard, great, cool. Join the infantry battalion. But that is not whats happened," he added.

Hegseth criticised the militarys changing standards, arguing that they are being increasingly tailored to accommodate women in traditionally male-dominated roles.

Women should not be in combat roles.pic.twitter.com/bkgdpN30tG Ben Zeisloft (@BenZeisloft) November 13, 2024

Hegseth Against Woke Pentagon Leaders

Beyond his argument on combat roles, Hegseth called for the dismissal of the Pentagon leaders involved in designing and promoting woke" policies such as DEI" (diversity, equity and inclusion) at the military level.

We have to fire the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and obviously, to bring in a new Secretary of Defense, but any General that was involved, General, Admiral, whatever that was involved in any of the DEI woke policies has got to go," he said during the podcast that has sparked controversy.

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Time and again, Hegseth has criticised the DEI initiatives and called for a rollback of these programs within the Pentagon, alleging they weaken the military by diverting focus from merit and operational capability.

Under the US President Joe Biden administration, military spending increasingly focused on DEI efforts, which was often criticised as a waste of money and dividing troops," especially by the Republicans.

Location : United States of America (USA)

First Published: November 14, 2024, 10:15 IST
Airshow China highlights blooming innovative low-altitude aircraft crop

20:03, November 14, 2024 By Xinhua writers Hu Tao, Hong Zehua, Gu Tiancheng ( Xinhua

ZHUHAI, Guangdong, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Once mysterious skies are becoming more and more accessible to Chinese as the country facilitates the progress of its burgeoning low-altitude economy.

Fancy and trending flying vehicles such as electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and future-oriented new-configuration aircraft are highlights of the ongoing 15th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, also known as Airshow China, in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province.

The Chinese leadership recently reiterated its determination to improve the institutions and mechanisms for modernizing infrastructure, a policy made evident by a resolution adopted at the third plenum of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee.

The resolution noted that China will develop both general aviation and its low-altitude economy.

BLOOMING FREELY

"We should cherish this era of innovative low-altitude aircraft blooming freely," Guo Liang, Aerofugia CEO and chief scientist, told Xinhua during an exclusive interview.

Aerofugia, a subsidiary of China's EV giant Geely Auto, launched the batch production version of its AE200 manned tilt rotor eVTOL aircraft at the airshow in Zhuhai.

The launch confirmed that this type of Chinese-developed low-altitude aircraft has moved from scientific research to the mass production stage. It is scheduled to start manned verification flights in 2025. "It will not be long for citizens to experience flying cars," Guo said.

Chengdu-based Aerofugia has already received its first purchase order for 100 eVTOLs from Sino Jet, a Chinese business aviation management firm. In February 2024, U.S. Aviation Week listed Aerofugia among the top 10 eVTOL developers in the world.

"Thank you to our aviation predecessors, as it is your efforts that enable us to stand on the shoulders of giants and look at the world from a position of equality, while making breakthroughs in the fierce competition of aeronautical technologies," said Guo, while receiving the award of "Person of the Year" at the 16th China Aerospace Laureates Awards at the airshow.

Also at the airshow, a type of Chinese independently-developed AS700 civil manned airship secured a purchase order for 10 airships, while obtaining additional intent purchase orders for 164 such aircraft.

Jingmen Urban Construction Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd., signed an intent purchase order for 60 AS700 airships at the airshow.

"This move is aimed at securing new market opportunities in the low-altitude economy," said the company's chairman Cheng Xiong in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

"The airship will initially be deployed in fashionable low-altitude tourism applications. In the future, we plan to expand its use to aerial photography, city inspections and other application scenarios under continuous exploration," Cheng added.

According to Cheng, the company is already planning to establish a subsidiary focusing on airship operations. With an eye on "full lifecycle management" of airships and other low-altitude aircraft, the company is partnering with airship developers concerning maintenance, operations, and other related services.

The ten-seater AS700 airship was developed by the Special Vehicle Research Institute under the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), the country's leading aircraft manufacturer.

ECHOING NEW TRENDS

Notably, the AVIC has launched a series of its newly-developed UAVs and eVTOL products at the airshow, with a focus on unmanned, electric and intelligent trends prevalent in the low-altitude economy.

The company has comprehensively built a high-end low-altitude equipment system featuring high safety, high reliability, high performance and low cost, the AVIC revealed at a low-altitude economy-focused press conference at the airshow.

Targeting to meet the demands of diversified application scenarios, the AVIC is planning to create a variety of eVTOL series products with fully independent intellectual property rights -- doing so by giving full play to its tech advantages and tech-integration capabilities.

These products are set to offer maximum take-off weights ranging from 400 kg to 3 tonnes, and will include tilting rotors, multi-rotors and other configurations, as well as manned and unmanned modes.

Industry experts believe that propulsion is the key to developing the low-altitude economy.

"On the new track of the low-altitude economy, the propulsion system of aircraft must come first. We need to highlight the need for innovation-driven development, green development and cross-border integration of technologies, doing so in an open manner to the world," said Yin Zeyong, aero-engine expert and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

(Web editor: Chang Sha, Zhong Wenxing)
Go Back To England, Europe: Khalistanis Ask Canadians To Leave Canada | Watch

Reported By :

CNN-News18

Edited By: Apoorva Misra



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 14:41 IST

In a two-minute video of a Nagar Kirtan in Canada, the procession can be heard terming locals invaders, a development that India termed as the new normal

A screenshot of the viral video shows the 'Nagar Kirtan' with Khalistani flags. (News18)

The Khalistanis in Canada have done it again. After badmouthing India and blaming the country for their woes, they have found a new opponent  Canadians themselves.

In a brazen act of entitlement, the Khalistan sympathisers termed Canadians invaders" and asked them to go back to England and Europe", a viral two-minute video of a Nagar Kirtan in the country showed. This is Canada, our own country. You [Canadians] go back," the procession can be heard saying.

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Indian intelligence sources termed the incident the new normal" in Canada, saying Khalistanis were slowly capturing" all aspects of the country. In the absence of proper surveillance, these groups are taking over control from local Canadians too. Hindus are being asked money for protection and now, there is threat to locals in their colonies."

Khalistanis march around Surrey BC and claim we are the owners of Canada" and white people should go back to Europe and Israel".How are we allowing these r*tards to shape our foreign policy? pic.twitter.com/9VmEnrVlGP Daniel Bordman (@DanielBordmanOG) November 13, 2024

Ties between India and Canada deteriorated over last years assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Khalistani sympathiser labelled a terrorist by India.

Both countries expelled each others top diplomats after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed that Canadian police were investigating allegations of Indian agents  and the Indian governments  direct involvement in the June 2023 killing.

India has rejected the allegations, calling them preposterous", and accused Trudeau of harbouring Khalistanis who are not only plotting against India but also attacking Hindus on Canadian soil. Of late, there has been an increase in incidents involving attacks on Hindu devotees in Canadas temples, prompting a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has condemned the deliberate attack".

Indian intelligence and government agencies, meanwhile, are of the view that Trudeau is backing Khalistani groups to ensure MP Jagmeet Singhs support in next years election, given that the former has slid in popularity rankings and is struggling to keep his government together, especially since he admitted that his allegations against India were only intelligence inputs and he had no concrete evidence".

Intel sources had then said: Trudeau is behaving in a childish way by accusing India for everything without realising how he is playing in the hands of ISI and Khalistanis. These allegations are damaging bilateral ties and spoiling his personal image."

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Earlier, Intel sources, responding to Trudeaus assertion that some MPs told him about Indias involvement in the killing, said the prime minister should name the politicians so that we can also reply with their credentials".

The Canadian Parliament is full of Khalistan sympathisers and they have taken Trudeau for a ride. How can a prime minister, on the basis of only intelligence given by some individuals, name and blame a country for a killing? Trudeaus behaviour is not like that of a responsible prime minister and he has spoiled relations between two countries."

Location : Ottawa, Canada

First Published: November 14, 2024, 12:32 IST
India To Ask Canada For Nijjar Aide Arsh Dalla's Extradition Amid Reports Of His Detention

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 19:19 IST

India To Seek Nijjar Aide Arsh Dalla's Extradition As Canada Denies Appeal For Arrest

Khalistani terrorist Arshdeep Dalla was involved in a shootout in Canada on October 28. (X)

Indian authorities are pursuing an extradition request for proclaimed terrorist and Khalistani separatist Arshdeep Dalla, who was recently detained by Canadian authorities after he appeared in a footage concerning a shootout.

The external affairs ministrys spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal on Thursday said: In view of the recent arrest, our agencies will be following up on an extradition request. Given Arsh Dallas criminal record in India and his involvement in similar illegal activities in Canada, it is expected that he will be extradited or deported to face justice in India".

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Arshdeep Dalla remains holed up in Canada and Indian authorities said that despite several requests Canadian authorities have failed to take action against Dalla and other individuals who threaten Indias sovereignty through Khalistani separatist outfits who not only push for violent means to carve out a Sikh nation out of India but are also increasing attacks against members of the Canadian-Indian and other diaspora communities.

Arsh Dalla is a proclaimed offender in over 50 cases of murder, attempted murder, extortion and terrorist acts including terror financing. In May 2022, a Red Corner Notice was issued against him. He was designated in India as an individual terrorist in 2023. In July 2023, the Government of India had requested the Canadian government for his provisional arrest. This was declined," Jaiswal said.

Canadian authorities in Halton had detained him for his role in a shootout case but let him go later.

Jaiswal said that India sought the provisional arrest of Dalla from the Canadian authorities in July 2023 but the request was declined.

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He said that additional details regarding his suspected involvement in illegal activities were shared with Canada, including his potential residential address, financial links to India and mobile numbers, through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT).

The MEA said that Canadian authorities were provided with this information in January 2023. However, in December 2023, the Canadian Department of Justice sought further clarification, to which a response was provided by India in March 2024.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 18:16 IST
Iran Plans Clinics To Give Psychiatric Treatment To Women Flouting Nations Hijab Laws

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 15, 2024, 00:00 IST

The clinics will be named "hijab removal treatment clinic" and these will offer "scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal".

An Iranian pro-government woman holds the Iranian flag during a rally against the recent protest gatherings in Iran, after the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Iran. (IMAGE: REUTERS)

Iran is reportedly planning to open a clinic specifically for women who defy the countrys mandatory hijab law, which requires women to cover their heads in public. Mehri Talebi Darestani, the head of the Women and Family Department of the Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, told Iranian news outlets that Iran will be opening soon a series of hijab removal treatment clinics".

These clinics will offer scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal" to women.

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Iran has seen massive protests in recent years, including the 2022-2023 Mahsa Amini protests, where women have called for removal of moral policing and assault by the morality police whenever they spot women not covering their heads properly.

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The establishment of this centre will be for the scientific and psychological treatment of removing the hijab, specifically for the teenage generation, young adults, and women seeking social and Islamic identity and visiting this centre is optional," Talebi said, according to the Iran International.

The Women and Family Department at Tehrans Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice operates under the direct authority of Irans Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This organisation is tasked with defining and enforcing strict religious regulations across Iran, particularly those governing womens attire.

Location : Tehran, Iran

First Published: November 14, 2024, 23:57 IST
'Is This Cheese?' Woman Appears Shocked After Drugs Worth Rs 161 Crore Found In Her Bag At Airport

Curated By :

Translation Desk

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 19:55 IST

When authorities at Chichago's O'Hare International Airport asked her about the drugs in her bag, the woman asked, "Is this cheese?"

Authorities opened her bags and found the cocaine hidden inside, wrapped in paper soaked in oil. (Representative Image)

In a bizarre turn of events, a 28-year-old British woman, Kim Hall, was arrested at Chicagos OHare International Airport after 43 kg of cocaine, valued at over Rs 161 crore in the black market, was discovered in her luggage. The incident raised questions about her involvement in drug trafficking, though Hall maintains her innocence, claiming she was unknowingly carrying the drugs.

Hall, from Middlesbrough, UK, was traveling from Mexico to London with a brief stopover in Chicago. During a routine security check, authorities opened her bags and found the cocaine hidden inside, wrapped in paper soaked in oil. When asked about the contents of her bag, Hall reportedly asked, Is this cheese?" The discovery led to her arrest, and she was immediately charged with drug trafficking.

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According to Hall, she was coerced into carrying the bags by two individuals she knew from a previous trip to Portugal. She claims they invited her to Mexico for a free vacation, only to threaten her at gunpoint when it was time to leave. Hall asserts that the two gave her the bags, telling her they contained approximately Rs 25 lakh in cash. Fearing for her life and with her passport seized, she reluctantly agreed to carry the bags, unaware that they contained illegal drugs.

Im not a drug smuggler, and I will prove my innocence," Hall told authorities after her arrest. I thought it was something edible, like cheese, but I had no idea it was drugs." She further added that she did not suspect anything wrong in the bags, as she trusted the people who gave them to her.

Halls arrest took place on August 18, and she has since been detained in the US, facing a potential sentence of up to 60 years in prison if convicted. Her trial date is yet to be set, as US authorities continue to investigate the case. Halls mother, upon hearing the news, reportedly screamed in shock, while Hall herself expressed disbelief, asking if the death penalty was still a possibility. I thought theyd let me go and Id be back home soon," she said.

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While Halls defense rests on the claim that she was duped and threatened, the case brings to light the ongoing problem of drug smuggling at airports worldwide. Similar cases have been reported regularly, including at airports in India, where travellers are often caught trying to smuggle illicit substances.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 19:55 IST
After Missing Out On CIA Top Job, Kash Patel Likely To Head FBI In New Trump Administration

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 22:38 IST

Christopher Wray, who is a Donald Trump appointee himself, is preparing for the possibility that he will be replaced after January 20

Kash Patel reportedly lost out to ultra-conservative Texas senator John Ratcliffe in the race to become the director of the CIA. (Image: AP/File)

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has said President-elect Donald Trumps adviser Kash Patel will likely take over as the director of the FBI after January 20. He suggested that the present chief, who was appointed for a 10-year term, may resign or be asked to leave.

Bannons statement comes a day after NBC News reported that Wray, who enjoys leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and intended to serve out his term, is preparing for such a possibility. In April, he told the news network that he was enjoying doing this job".

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As long as I think I can do that in a way that adheres to all those rules and norms, Id like to keep doing it," he told NBC News.

Bannon confirms Kash Patel will be named the new FBI Director when Chris Wray resigns, or is fired by Trump after January 20th.pic.twitter.com/YeB1mAMYBl Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) November 13, 2024

Trump had appointed Wray in 2017, but much has changed in the seven years since as he has severely criticised his own appointee. This raises the likelihood that Wrays days are numbered and he will either be replaced or leave on his own to avoid being fired.

ALSO READ | Donald Trump Picks Former US Spy John Ratcliffe As CIA Director, Snubs Kash Patel

Patel, who reportedly lost out to ultra-conservative Texas senator John Ratcliffe in the race to become the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is a former National Security Council staffer. He is the son of Indian immigrants and author of a book about the so-called deep state".

In the final months of the previous Trump administration, he held key positions at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Defense Department. In his memoir Government Gangsters, he has called for a comprehensive housecleaning" of the Justice Department and the FBI.

According to a report published by the Associated Press, replacing Wray before the end of his 10-year term  a tenure intended to keep the FBI free from the influence of presidential politics  will be a departure from the norm. Such a move will give Trump a chance to reshape the FBIs leadership in his own image at a time when he is threatened to pursue his own political adversaries.

What Went Wrong Between Wray and Trump?

When Trump appointed Wray the FBI director in 2017, he had lavished him with praise introducing him as an impeccably qualified individual" and a model of integrity". But, it did not take long for the mild-mannered and by-the-book director to provoke Trumps ire.

The Associated Press report said in 2018, he broke with Trump over the administrations declassification of information related to FBI surveillance of former campaign aide Carter Page. He later angered Trump over congressional testimony that stressed the election interference threat from Russia at a time when Trump was focused on China, and also described antifa  an umbrella term for leftist militants  as an ideology rather than an organisation, contradicting Trump, who wanted to designate it as a terror group.

When Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, Wrays job was in a precarious position with the former president refusing to give him a vote of confidence. Donald Trump Jr, Trumps oldest son, even said Wray was working to protect corrupt Democrats".

Things further went south after the FBI searched Trumps Florida home for classified documents, an action that resulted in an indictment on dozens of charges. This past summer, he has faulted the FBI for not immediately confirming he had been struck by a bullet during an assassination bid on him.

He enjoys the work, hes committed to the bureau, hes an outstanding public servant  but I dont think hes going to lobby for the job," Gregory Brower, a former FBI official who served as director of congressional affairs until 2018, told the Associated Press about Wray.

If the new president wants to replace him, then thats what the new presidents going to do," he added. Based on what Trump has said in the past, I think its likely well see that."

An FBI official, on condition of anonymity, said Wray was continuing to oversee the bureaus day-to-day operations  including visiting the FBIs election command post multiple times this week  and was planning with his team to lead the workforce into the next year.

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Wray was nominated in June 2017 to replace James Comey, the FBI director Trump inherited from President Barack Obama and then fired amid an investigation into ties between Russia and Trumps 2016 campaign. A well-regarded Republican lawyer who served as a senior Justice Department official in the George W Bush administration, he was recommended to Trump by Chris Christie after representing the then-New Jersey governor in an investigation into the closing of the George Washington Bridge.

(With agency inputs)

Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)

First Published: November 14, 2024, 15:24 IST
Man Dies While Planting Bomb Outside Brazils Supreme Court, Explosion Videos Surface

Published By :

AFP

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 19:49 IST

The attack happened on Wednesday night hours before Rio G20 and Xi Jinpings Brasilia visit.

Brazil forensic team is seen after a suspect in a bomb attack was killed outside the Brazilian Supreme Court building the morning after explosions in the Three Powers Square in Brasilia, Brazil. (IMAGE: REUTERS)

Authorities in Brazil on Thursday were searching for the motive of a man who apparently tried to bomb the Supreme Court, killing himself in the process.

The Wednesday night attack comes just days before a G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro and Chinese leader Xi Jinpings upcoming visit to Brasilia, the capital where the bombing took place.

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Tonight, a su1cide attacker exploded himself in an attempt to take down Brazil's Supreme Court. His car, full of fireworks, also exploded nearby. pic.twitter.com/jMy2c3J7xI Crazy Ass Moments in LatAm Politics (@AssLatam) November 14, 2024

The man attempted in vain to enter the court building before setting off an explosion outside its doors, authorities said. There were no other injuries.

While a motive has not yet been determined, the bombing immediately evoked memories of last years attack on Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace in the wake of then-president Jair Bolsonaros defeat at the polls.

There were two blasts on Wednesday, one from a vehicle, then right after, the citizen approached the Supreme Court, where he tried to enter the building and was unable to," said Federal District Vice Governor Celina Leao.

The second explosion happened right there at the door."

Leao called the death a suicide," based on preliminary information, and said it was possible the man acted as a lone wolf."

The GloboNews channel, citing police documents, reported that the man, named as Francisco Wanderley Luiz, was the owner of the car that exploded.

He was a candidate in local elections in 2020, running as a member of far-right Bolsonaros Liberal Party.

In a post on social media, Attorney General Jorge Messias vehemently" condemned the attacks against the Supreme Federal Court and the Chamber of Deputies."

The court, Congress and presidential palace all sit on the same square, Praca dos Tres Poderes, in the Brazilian capital.

Police would investigate the incident with rigor and speed," Messias said, adding: We need to know the motive for the attacks, as well as restore peace and security as quickly as possible."

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was not at the palace at the time of the attack, according to the presidency.

Bolsonaro calls for dialogue

Bolsonaro on Thursday called for dialogue toward an environment of unity," writing on social media that it is high time for Brazil to once again cultivate an environment suitable for different ideas to confront each other peacefully."

Denouncing the violence, he called it an isolated incident, and made an appeal to all political parties and the leaders of national institutions to take the necessary steps to advance national peace at this time of tragedy."

On January 8, 2023, the seats of power in Brasilia were hit by an insurrection a week after Lula defeated Bolsonaro at the polls.

Thousands of Bolsonaro supporters angry over his defeat stormed the government buildings, causing major damage before authorities managed to reimpose control.

Alexandre de Moraes, a powerful Supreme Court justice who has drawn ire from the right, is leading the investigation into the apparent coup attempt, which resembled the storming of the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.

Wednesdays incident did not cause any injuries or deaths beyond the apparent attack  though police had to tread carefully in the aftermath as the body was fitted with explosives and a timer.

Officers on patrol spotted the burning vehicle, from the first explosion, and then saw a man rush out, authorities said.

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The Supreme Court said that at the end of a session, two loud explosions were heard, and that judges and staff on site were evacuated.

The G20 summit is set to open on Monday in Rio de Janeiro, bringing together leaders from major world economies. On Wednesday, Lula is set to receive Xi in Brasilia.

Location : Brasilia, Brazil

First Published: November 14, 2024, 19:35 IST
New Zealand MP Performs Traditional Haka Dance In Parliament, Rips Up Copy Of Indigenous Treaty Bill

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 23:41 IST

The Maori members staged a haka to disrupt the vote on the Indigenous Treaty Bill that would reinterpret an 184-year-old treaty

New Zealand MP Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke performs Haka in Parliament. (Image: @kelvin_morganNZ)

New Zealands youngest MP Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke has once again grabbed the headlines after a video of her staging the traditional Maori dance and ripping up a copy of a contentious bill during a House session went viral on social media.

The 22-year-old Te Pati Maori MP, who was seen performing a haka during her maiden speech in parliament last year, was joined by was soon joined by the people in the public gallery, prompting Speaker Gerry Brownlee to briefly suspend the House.

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Unprecedented & simply magnificent. That time in Nov 2024 when a haka led by Aotearoas youngest MP 22yo Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke erupted in the House stopping the Treaty Principles Bill from passing its first reading, triggering the Speaker to suspend Parliament. pic.twitter.com/pkI7q7WGlr Kelvin Morgan  (@kelvin_morganNZ) November 14, 2024

The Maori members staged a haka to disrupt the vote on the Indigenous Treaty Bill that would reinterpret an 184-year-old treaty between the British and Indigenous Maori.

First signed in 1840 between the British Crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs, the Treaty of Waitangi lays down how the two parties agreed to govern. The interpretation of clauses in the document still guides legislation and policy today.

The ACT New Zealand party, a junior partner in the ruling centre-right coalition government, last week unveiled a bill to enshrine a narrower interpretation of the Waitangi treaty in law.

As parliamentarians gathered for a preliminary vote on the bill on Thursday, Te Pati Maori MPs stood and began a haka, a traditional Maori dance made famous by New Zealands rugby team.

The bill is being witnessed as undermining the rights of the countrys indigenous people by many Maori and their supporters. Notably, Maoris make up around 20% of New Zealands 5.3 million population.

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Hundreds have set out on a nine-day march, or hikoi, from New Zealands north to the national capital of Wellington in protest over the legislation, staging rallies in towns and cities as they move south.

(With agency inputs)

Location : New Zealand

First Published: November 14, 2024, 23:41 IST
Shouldnt Turn A Blind Eye: Ex-Defence Officials Tell US Congress Aliens Are Among Us

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 23:18 IST

Ex-US defence officials and journalist Michael Shellenberger testified before a congressional committee claiming that the US govt conducted a secret UFO retrieval program.

(from right) Tim Gallaudet, Michael Shellenberger and Luis Elizondo attend a congressional hearing on UAPs. (IMAGE: X)

A former US department of defence official told a congressional committee on Wednesday that US government employees have been injured by UFOs, the Guardian said in a report. They also claimed the US government conducted a secret UFO retrieval program.

The hearing however lacked any direct evidence to back up the startling claims, the report said. The hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), which in recent times, have become a more accepted term for UFO, heard that the government had a huge amount" of secret information on UAPs.

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They said the government possesses photos, video, photos, other information". During the hearing, Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert said there was no evidence of aliens having a secret underwater base" on this planet.

In an extraordinary hearing last year, retired Major David Grusch, who once served on the Pentagons UAP Task Force, claimed that the US government has recovered nonhuman biological materials from crash sites.

In a report released in March, the Pentagon stated it has found no proof of extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Many people believe the government is hiding UAPs, but the hearing on Wednesday focused on statements from individuals claiming knowledge of secret government programs but did not present solid, verified evidence.

Retired US Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, now CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, testified that his belief in UAP encounters was solidified in January 2015. During a naval exercise off the US East Coast, Gallaudet was involved in capturing the well-known Go Fast" video, in which a Navy F/A-18 recorded an unidentified flying object with unusual flight and structural features beyond current US technology.

Gallaudet noted that he, along with other commanders, received the video through an email from Fleet Forces Commands operations officer. However, he recounted that the email and video mysteriously vanished from his and other recipients inboxes the next day, leaving no explanation.

These UAP hearings show how far discussions on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) have advanced from being interests of conspiracy theorists to serious topics within the US military and congressional debates.

During Wednesdays UAP hearing, Representative Nancy Mace questioned Luis Elizondo, a former Defense Department official who, in a recent memoir, asserted that the US possesses technology crafted by non-human intelligence.

Under oath, Mace asked Elizondo if the government has conducted covert programs to retrieve UAP crash materials. He confirmed with a yes". When further asked if these programs aimed to reverse-engineer alien technology, Elizondo replied again saying yes".

In your book, you mentioned government employees whove been injured by UAPs placed on leave and receiving government compensation for their injuries. Is that correct?" Mace asked, to which Elizondo responded affirmatively.

If were spending money on something that doesnt exist, why are we spending the money, and if it does exist, why are we hiding it from the public?" Mace told the panel.

Immaculate Constellation

At Wednesdays UAP hearing, journalist Michael Shellenberger, founder of the news site Public testified on claims hes reported that the Pentagon operates a secret UFO retrieval program known as Immaculate Constellation".

According to Shellenberger, multiple current or former government officials" have disclosed that this program has collected maybe thousands" of items as evidence of UAPs, which point to the Pentagons involvement in understanding and analysing potential non-human technologies.

What the American people need to know is that the US, military and intelligence community are sitting on a huge amount of visual and other information: still photos, video, photos, other sensor information, and they have for a very long time," Shellenberger said, according to the Guardian.

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And its not those fuzzy photos and videos that weve been given. Theres very clear, high resolution [files]," he further added.

We should not turn a blind eye, but boldly face this new reality and learn from it," Gallaudet said.

Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)

First Published: November 14, 2024, 23:18 IST
Bangladesh To Be Islamic Nation Soon? Attorney Generals Plea Wants Secular Word Out Of Constitution

Reported By :

CNN-News18

Edited By: Apoorva Misra



Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 11:08 IST

The Attorney General of Bangladesh, Md Asaduzzaman, also sought a change in the designation of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who is referred to as the Father of the Nation

A vandalised mural depicting Bangladesh's founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman days after a student-led uprising ended the 15-year rule of his daughter Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka. (AFP File)

The Attorney General of Bangladesh, Md Asaduzzaman, has asked for the word secular to be removed from the countrys Constitution, arguing that 90 per cent of the population was Muslim". Asaduzzaman has also sought a change in the designation of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who is referred to as the Father of the Nation, with India calling both the moves the rise of radical Bangladesh.

Presenting his arguments during a court hearing on the legality of the 15th Amendment before Justices Farah Mahbub and Debashish Roy Chowdhury, the Attorney General said the changes would align the Constitution with the countrys democratic and historical ethos".

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Earlier, there was constant trust and faith in Allah. I want it the way it was before. It is said in Article 2A that the state shall ensure equal rights and equality in the practice of all religions. Article 9 talks about Bengali nationalism. It is contradictory," he said.

He added that many of the amendments, including labelling Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the Father of the Nation", divide the nation and restrict freedom of speech. Honouring the contributions of Sheikh Mujib is vital," he said, but enforcing it by law creates division".

Top Indian government sources told CNN-News18 that more such changes would follow, adding that the Attorney Generals move was in line with the Yunus government. The Jamaat-e-Islami is running its agenda in the country," they added.

WHATS HAPPENING IN BANGLADESH?

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A special tribunal in Bangladesh on Tuesday asked the international police organisation Interpol to issue a notice for the arrest of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in connection with the deaths of hundreds of protesters during a mass uprising against her.

Hasina fled to India on August 5 this year with her close aides and former ministers, ending a 15-year rule. Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus took over as the interim leader of the South Asian nation on August 8, and later reconstituted the tribunal that once handled charges of crimes against humanity during the countrys 1971 independence war against Pakistan. The Yunus-led government has promised to try Hasina and said that it would seek her extradition from India.

Location : Dhaka, Bangladesh

First Published: November 14, 2024, 10:48 IST
Trump Jokes He 'Can't Get Rid Of' Elon Musk As Their Bromance Reaches New Heights

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 16:48 IST

Musk, who was one of Trump's most influential advisers during the presidential campaign, has become a prominent figure in the president-elect's circle

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, left, and US President-elect Donald Trump. (AP file photo)

US President-elect Donald Trump made a light-hearted remark about tech billionaire Elon Musk, saying he cant get rid of him," highlighting the growing bond between the two since Trumps return to the White House.

Trump made the remark during a meeting with House Republicans in Washington on Wednesday.

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Musk, who was one of Trumps most influential advisers during the presidential campaign, has become a prominent figure in the president-elects circle. In his comments, Trump jokingly acknowledged Musks enduring presence in his team. Elon wont go home. I cant get rid of him," Trump said.

According to an NBC News report, at the GOP conference, Trump praised Musk for his dedication during the election campaign. He noted that Musk put aside his own business interests to support the campaign, without asking for anything in return.

Musk was also present at the meeting where Trump was set to address the leaders. According to an Associated Press report, the tech billionaire received three standing ovations and was warmly greeted by several lawmakers.

Rep. Clay Higgins, a Republican from Louisiana, described Musk as a bright light in any room hes in" and called him a commanding presence" during the meeting.

As Musks influence continues to grow, with the Tesla owner having pumped an estimated $200 million into his political action committee to support Trumps election bid. He has also become a prominent fixture at Mar-a-Lago since the presidential election and maintains regular communication with like-minded world leaders, including Argentinas President Javier Milei and Italys Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

On Wednesday, Trump announced that Musk, alongside Indian-American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead a new initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE  a tongue-in-cheek name inspired by the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which resonates with Musks well-known sense of humour.

We finally have a mandate to delete the mountain of choking regulations that do not serve the greater good," Musk said in a post on X.

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Trump has said that Musk and Ramaswamy will work from outside the government to provide advice and guidance" to the White House. They will collaborate with the Office of Management and Budget to push for structural reforms, some of which may require action from Congress.

ALSO READ: Donald Trump-Elon Musk Bonhomie Wasnt Hunky Dory From The Start But Then They Hit It Off

Location : United States of America (USA)

First Published: November 14, 2024, 16:31 IST
Tulsi Gabbard Throwback: When Trump 2.0 Pick Slammed Pakistan Army, Was Dubbed A Russian Spy

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 19:47 IST

Gabbard, who served four terms in Congress, has made several high-profile statements regarding the plight of religious minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh

Tulsi Gabbard, US President-elect Donald Trumps pick for Director of National Intelligence. (AP file photo)

Tulsi Gabbard, the US President-elect Donald Trumps pick for Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in his second term, has long been a vocal critic of the Pakistani military and its treatment of minorities, particularly Hindus.

A former Democrat and the first-ever Hindu Congresswoman, Gabbard is a decorated military veteran, with three deployments to war zones in the Middle East and Africa. She transitioned from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in 2021.

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Gabbard, who served four terms in Congress and was a 2020 presidential candidate, has made several high-profile statements regarding the plight of religious minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

ALSO READ: Trump Picks First Hindu Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard As Director Of National Intelligence

Resolution on Hindus in Bangladesh

In 2021, she introduced a resolution in the US Congress to protect the Hindu minority in Bangladesh, condemning the repeated atrocities they have faced, Hindustan Times reported.

One of her most notable criticisms was aimed at the Pakistani militarys actions during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, where she accused the army of committing widespread atrocities against Bengali Hindus.

Hindus & religious minorities in Bangladesh continue to be targeted & persecuted, as they have been since 1971 when the Pakistani army systematically murdered, raped & drove from their homes millions of Bengali Hindus because of their religion & ethnicity," Gabbard wrote on X in April 2021.

Hindus & religious minorities in Bangladesh continue to be targeted & persecuted, as they have been since 1971 when the Pakistani army systematically murdered, raped & drove from their homes millions of Bengali Hindus because of their religion & ethnicity. pic.twitter.com/4DVWibzrkT Tulsi Gabbard  (@TulsiGabbard) April 2, 2021

Her resolution noted how, over 50 years ago, the Pakistani military killed, tortured, and displaced thousands of Bengali Hindus during the war. Estimates suggest that at least 2-3 million people were killed in the targeted violence against the minority community.

In addition to her focus on Bangladesh, Gabbard has been critical of Pakistans role in harbouring terrorist groups. As co-chair of the India Caucus in the House of Representatives in 2017, she condemned Pakistan for allowing its territories to be used by terrorists operating in India, Afghanistan, and other regions.

Russian asset allegations

In 2020, during a public feud with former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Gabbard was branded a Russian asset" by Clinton. The accusation stemmed from Clintons remarks in a podcast hosted by David Plouffe, Barack Obamas 2008 campaign manager, where she suggested Gabbard was being groomed by Russia to run as a third-party candidate, as per Politico report.

Clinton had claimed that the Russians were backing Gabbard, adding, Shes the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far and thats assuming Jill Stein will give it up because shes also a Russian asset."

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Although Clinton did not explicitly name Gabbard, a spokesperson confirmed the remarks referred to the Hawaii congresswoman.

In response, Gabbard had denied the Russian asset" allegation and filed a defamation lawsuit against Clinton, claiming the comments were retribution for Gabbards support for Clintons rival, Bernie Sanders, during the 2016 Democratic primary.

Location : United States of America (USA)

First Published: November 14, 2024, 19:19 IST
What Does Stephen Millers Appointment Mean For Indian Techies, H-1B Seekers?

Written By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 17:54 IST

A meeting held in the Trump tower in 2017 with tech CEOs, Trump and Stephen Miller attending sheds some light on how hell approach the H1-B visa issue.

H1-B visa issuance will be tightly scrutinised during Trump 2.0 - Stephen Millers recruitment indicates. (IMAGE: REUTERS)

Stephen Miller, a known immigration hardliner, in 2017 proposed scrapping the lottery system to award the H1-B visas altogether to make for a fair distribution of the much sought after visas that allow foreign professionals to work in the US in specialty occupations" that typically require specialised knowledge and a bachelors degree or higher.

The proposal was made in front of several tech CEOs and US President-elect Donald Trump, who was at the time in the White House. Several other proposals were also made, like changing the lottery system internally and building a system that would favour visa petitions for jobs that pay the highest salaries, according to a Reuters report.

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H-1B visas are designed for foreign professionals in specialised fields that typically require advanced education. According to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), this includes roles in areas such as science, engineering, and programming. Each year, 65,000 of these visas are issued.

While companies argue that the H-1B program helps them bring in skilled global talent, most of these visas end up with outsourcing firms. Critics claim these firms use H-1B visas primarily to staff lower-level IT roles, often replacing domestic workers. Additionally, the lottery system is seen as favourable to outsourcing firms that submit large numbers of applications, thus increasing their odds of obtaining more visas.

Fast forward to 2024, Trump and Stephen Miller are both back in the White House. What does this mean for Indian techies?

In 2017, when Trump, in presence of Miller, discussed raising the cost of applications from large companies as a way to discourage bulk filing for the visas, more than a dozen top tech executives from some of the countrys largest tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Apple, present at the meeting, were asked if they would object to that, none of the tech CEOs said they would.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said technology companies need to be able to recruit talent from abroad when necessary.

Miller wanted to modify the program by reducing reliance on foreign labour in jobs where he believed US workers were qualified. Among his proposed changes were stricter eligibility criteria and discouraging bulk applications by increasing application costs, particularly for larger outsourcing companies.

He also supported allocating visas based on wages, favouring higher-paid positions to prioritise highly skilled labour rather than what he saw as lower-cost labour for entry-level jobs.

During Trumps campaign, he attracted considerable financial support from Silicon Valley leaders, including Elon Musk, who largely advocate for more flexible policies on high-skilled immigrationviews sharply contrasting with those of Trumps main immigration adviser.

Previously, while working for Senator Jeff Sessions, Miller even drafted a bill that would impose a 10-year waiting period for international students with bachelors or masters degrees to be eligible for H-1B employment in the US. This stance on limiting immigration options for skilled workers likely clashes with the majority perspective among tech industry leaders.

When the White House held meetings during the previous Trump tenure on how to handle countries refusing to take back citizens the US wants to deport, Millers voice stood out.

It was unusual for Miller, who focused on reducing immigration, to be involved, especially since this issue was typically dealt with by the National Security Council (NSC), which handles sensitive foreign relations.

Miller, not a member of the NSC, led several of the meetings and began by sharing stories of crimes committed by noncitizens, like the tragic death of a 25-year-old woman in Connecticut, allegedly killed by a Haitian man who should have been deported earlier. His intense tone made it hard for others to argue against him, according to US officials who spoke to news outlet, Politico.

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What are we doing to save American lives? We must save American lives! We must save Americans from these immigrant criminals!" Miller had said, according to one of the officials who spoke to the news outlet.

But what one should focus on is what the official outlined earlier. Millers intense tone makes it hard for others to argue against him," the official had said, reflecting on Trumps homeland security advisors stance on immigration.

First Published: November 14, 2024, 17:54 IST
Who Is Tulsi Gabbard? Ex-Democrat & Trump's Choice For Director Of National Intelligence

Curated By :

News18.com

Last Updated: November 14, 2024, 07:54 IST

Tulsi Gabbard doesn't have the typical intelligence experience of past officeholders, but she is a veteran who served in the US military for over two decades.

On October 22, 2024, Tulsi Gabbard officially joined the Republican Party, citing Trump's leadership (file photo)

US president-elect Donald Trump has announced to appoint former Democrat and the first-ever Hindu elected to the US Congress, Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence in his second term.

Trump said that he wants to overhaul the nations intelligence services  a sector of the federal government he has long viewed with suspicion and distrust. The president-elect has blamed U.S. intelligence agencies of seeking to undermine his first administration as well as his campaigns.

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As a former Candidate for the Democrat Presidential Nomination, Tulsi has broad support in both Parties  She is now a proud Republican!" Trump said in a statement.

I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength. Tulsi will make us all proud!" he added.

Who is Tulsi Gabbard?

Gabbard, a four-term Congresswoman, 2020 presidential candidate, and New York Times bestselling author, is a decorated military veteran with three deployments to war zones in the Middle East and Africa.

Gabbard doesnt have the typical intelligence experience of past officeholders, but represented the Democratic Party and served as a Congresswoman for Hawaiis second district from 2013 to 2021.

Gabbard, 43, was born in American Samoa, raised in Hawaii and spent a year of her childhood in the Philippines. She was first elected as a 21-year-old to Hawaiis House of Representatives but had to leave after one term when her National Guard unit deployed to Iraq.

Gabbards political career began at the age of 21 when she was elected to the Hawaii State House of Representatives. After the 9/11 attacks, she enlisted in the Army National Guard. In 2004, she chose to forgo a guaranteed re-election to serve in Iraq with the 29th Brigade Combat Team, where she worked in a medical unit. Following her return in 2006, Gabbard worked as a legislative aide to Senator Daniel Akaka, then-chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. She later volunteered for a second deployment to the Middle East as a platoon leader.

As the first Hindu member of the House, Gabbard was sworn into office with her hand on the Bhagavad Gita. She was also the first American Samoan elected to Congress. She also served for two years on the House Homeland Security Committee.

Often mistaken for an Indian because of her first name, she has no ties to India. Gabbards mother converted to Hinduism and gave all her children Hindu names.

She was known for speaking out against her partys leadership. Her early support for Sen. Bernie Sanders  2016 Democratic presidential primary run made her a popular figure in progressive politics nationally. In 2020, Gabbard made a bid for Democratic president nomination against Kamala Harris, blaming her own party for not opposing wars. She later dropped out of the race. She left the Democratic Party in 2022 and endorsed Trump earlier this year, becoming popular among his supporters.

After joining the Republican party in 2022, Gabbard endorsed Donald Trump for the presidency and helped him prepare for the debate against Kamala Harris.

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She is married to cinematographer Abraham Williams. Her father, Mike Gabbard, is a state senator who was first elected as a Republican but who switched parties to become a Democrat.

(With inputs from AP)

Location : Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)

First Published: November 14, 2024, 07:26 IST
In the half-light of dusk, Martin Edwards surveys the ancient woodland from a high seat and waits. He watches with his thermal camera. Then, the bang of his rifle pierces the stillness. He's killed a buck, one of many wild deer roaming this forest in Hampshire, southern England. Edwards advocates for humane deer management: the culling of deer to control their numbers and ensure they don't overrun forests and farmland in a country where they no longer have natural predators. For these advocates, shooting deer a necessity because England's deer population has gotten out of control. There are now more deer in England than at any other time in the last 1,000 years, according to the Forestry Commission, per the AP .

That has had a devastating impact on the environment, officials say. Excessive deer foraging damages large areas of woodland, including young trees, as well as the habitats of certain birds like robins. Some landowners have lost huge amounts of crops to deer, and overpopulation means that the mammals are more likely to suffer from starvation and disease. "They will produce more young every year. We've got to a point where farmers and foresters are definitely seeing that impact," says Edwards. "If there's too many deer, you will see that they've literally eaten all the vegetation up to a certain height." Forestry experts and businesses argue that culling the deerand supplying the venison to consumersis a double win: It helps rebalance the ecosystem and provides a low-fat, sustainable protein.

An estimated 2 million deer now roam England's forests. The government says native wild deer play a role in healthy forest ecosystems, but acknowledges their population needs managing. It provides some funding for solutions such as building deer fences. Shooting deer is legal but strictly regulated: hunters must have a license, use certain kinds of firearms, and observe open seasons. They also need a valid reason, such as when a landowner authorizes them to kill the deer when their land is damaged. Making venison more widely available in supermarkets and beyond will motivate more stalkers to cull the deer and ensure the meat doesn't go to waste, Edwards says. The approach appears to have been well received, though it has attracted some criticism from PETA. More here.

(More deer stories.)
The US Justice Department has initiated legal action to prevent UnitedHealth Group's proposed acquisition of Amedisys for $3.3 billion, citing antitrust concerns. This lawsuit was filed in Maryland's federal court following UnitedHealth's recent purchase of LHC Group Inc., another home health and hospice provider. The Justice Department points to the potential stifling of competition in the home health and hospice sectors, which it argues could negatively affect patients, insurers, and healthcare providers. Attorney General Merrick Garland emphasized that patients deserve affordable, high-quality care, especially during challenging times.

The lawsuit highlights that if UnitedHealth's acquisition goes through, it would undermine competition in a critical health sector by merging two of the largest home health and hospice service providers. Attorneys General from Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York have joined the suit, reflecting broader state-level apprehension. The suit contends that such consolidation "would harm patients," insurers, and caregivers, thus necessitating regulatory intervention.

UnitedHealth plans to incorporate Amedisys into its Optum subsidiary, which delivers health, pharmacy, and technology services. Optum argues the merger "would be pro-competitive and further innovation," declaring its intent to contest the Justice Department's stance. Louisiana-based Amedisys echoes support for the merger, stating it aims to enhance the quality and value of care offered to patients. Meanwhile, UnitedHealth continues to operate one of the nation's biggest health insurers, recording a third-quarter net income of $6.06 billion on $100.82 billion in revenue last month. (This story was generated by Newser's AI chatbot. Source: the AP)
Until recently, Oscar Sanchez Gil was head of the fraud and anti-money laundering division of Spain's national police force. Now, he's being held on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption, and membership in a criminal group, along with his romantic partner. During a probe into Spain's largest-ever cocaine bust, investigators raided the home shared by Sanchez Gil and his partner, a fellow police officer, in Alcala de Henares, about 18 miles northeast of Madrid, finding more than $21 million in cash hidden inside the walls and ceilings, plus another $1 million locked in cupboards in Gil's office, AFP reports.

Police tied the raid to the seizure of 14 tons of cocaine hidden among bananas that arrived in the southern port of Algeciras from Guayaquil, Ecuador, in October. Police said it was "one of the largest seizures in the world," per AFP. The bananas were to be sent to an importer in the Spanish city of Alicante "who had been receiving large quantities of fruit imported from Ecuador for years," per authorities. Investigations in Madrid and Alicante ultimately uncovered links between the importer and Sanchez Gil, according to Spanish media reports.

According to El Mundo's reporting, Sanchez Gil first made contact with drug traffickers while leading the national police's narcotics division before allegedly offering tips on how to avoid checks in Spanish ports. The father of three in his 40s is suspected of working for drug traffickers for "at least five years," providing information about the surveillance of containers, sources tell the outlet. Police sources allege the cash seized from the home of Sanchez Gil and his partner were the proceeds from years spent collaborating with criminal gangs, per Euronews. The couple were arrested last week alongside 15 others. They were remanded in custody at a court hearing, the Local reports. (More Spain stories.)
In a development being called shocking, German Reyes, a former prosecutor and local police official in Mexico City, was apprehended on Tuesday, linked to the brutal beheading of Chilpancingo Mayor Alejandro Arcos on October 6. This arrest has surprised many as authorities had previously linked the crime to a local gang. Reyes, a former high-ranking military officer, is now suspected of collaborating with the criminal organization involved, raising concerns about the integrity of security forces in the region.

The implications of Reyes' arrest go beyond the immediate case, casting doubt on the widespread practice of appointing retired military officers to key police roles across Mexico. If he is found guilty, it will challenge the assumption that such appointments reduce corruption. The arrest, carried out by federal forces due to lack of trust in local police, underscores the pervasive influence of gangs within Chilpancingo, where two rival groups, the Ardillos and Tlacos, vie for control. (This story was generated by Newser's AI chatbot. Source: the AP)
Florida continues to lead the nation in removing books from school libraries, including works by renowned authors such as Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut. The Florida Department of Education's recent report for the 2023-24 school year reveals a growing list of titles pulled from school library shelves. These restrictions, empowered by state law, allow parents and residents to challenge books and compel districts to report annually on removals. Some districts report pulling hundreds of titles, while others list no changes.

A prominent debate centers around materials labeled "sexually explicit" by state officials, including books with LGBTQ+ themes and discussions of sexuality. They are often branded "pornographic" by conservative advocates, spurring controversy. Kasey Meehan of PEN America criticized these bans, stating, "A restriction of access is a restriction on one's freedom to read." Content banned ranges from Anne Frank's accounts of the Holocaust to a graphic novel adaptation of George Orwell's 1984. Disputes over these removals have led to legal challenges, including lawsuits by PEN America and Penguin Random House against school districts.

The Florida Freedom to Read Project and other advocates argue that many parents want varied literature available for children. The movement pushes for better transparency in the reporting of restricted books. Stephana Farrell from the project warns of an undercount in reports, since many internal reviews don't appear in official tallies. Writers like Stephen King have objected to the book bans, encouraging readers to seek his works elsewhere. (This story was generated by Newser's AI chatbot. Source: the AP)
The CEO of Saudi Arabia's planned futuristic city has seen his own future take a turn. Nadhmi al-Nasr has "abruptly" left the job he has held since 2018, reports the Wall Street Journal . No reason was given, but the paper notes the project has been dogged by rising costs and major blunders, with Saudi officials acknowledging they don't have the funds to carry out all the elements to the project they had planned. Executives with Public Investment Fundthat's the country's sovereign-wealth fundare being brought in to oversee the project. Aiman al-Mudaifer, who heads up PIF's Local Real Estate Division, has been named acting CEO, reports NBC News .

"As Neom enters a new phase of delivery, this new leadership will ensure operational continuity, agility and efficiency to match the overall vision and objectives of the project," Neom said. The Journal reports Neom is set to cover an area the size of Massachusetts, and plans had called for a marquee element to be a 105-mile-long city in the desert, known as "the Line," with 9 million people living in a pair of skyscrapers taller than the Empire State Building. But those plans have been scaled back, with phase one pared down from a 10-mile portion to a 1.5-mile segment.

Al-Nasr isn't the only exec to leave this year, and the Journal reads into the departures, writing they "could signal a shift in focus by Saudi officials from Neom to other investments across the country. When Neom was announced in 2017, Saudi officials viewed the project as a way to initiate change in the once-conservative Islamic kingdom without moving too quickly in the biggest cities, Riyadh and Jeddah. Since then, Prince Mohammed's moves to liberalize his economy have rapidly changed the kingdom as a whole, with a huge increase in women joining the labor force and an influx of foreign investors setting up offices in the capital. Some Neom employees now argue that there is little need for a separate part of the country with its own laws and regulations." (More Neom stories.)
Ozempic, a diabetes drug that has become a popular drug for weight loss, has another use that could help tens of millions of Americans, researchers say. In a study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry , researchers said people were significantly less likely to be hospitalized with alcohol use disorder when they were using Ozempic or similar drugs known as GLP-1 drugs. The study looked at 228,000 people in Sweden who were diagnosed with AUD between 2006 and 2023, NBC News reports. All the participants also had obesity or Type 2 diabetes.

Researchers said around 60% of participants were hospitalized for AUD at some point, but there were only around 220 hospitalizationsa figure that may have included multiple hospitalizations for individualsamong the 4,300 people using Ozempic or Wegovy. Hospitalizations among those people were lower than among those who were using disulfiram, acamprosate, and naltrexone, drugs that have been approved to treat AUD, reports USA Today. "I see so many patients who do not have good outcomes on the medications we have and who are desperate for help with their addiction," said lead researcher Markku Lahteenvuo. "We really do need more tools in the toolbox."

Around 28 million Americans have AUD, but the pharmacological treatments available "are not very good, and relapse is really common," Alex DiFeliceantonio at Virginia Tech's Fralin Biomedical Research Institute tells NBC News. It's not clear why Ozempic appears to be effective against reducing cravings for alcoholand for opioids, according to a separate study published in the journal Addictionbut experts believe it may be connected to how the drug creates a feeling of fullness. Researchers not involved with the study of Swedish patients said it is critical to have more robust studies, involving randomized, controlled clinical trials, before GLP-1 drugs can be considered treatments for AUD. (More Ozempic stories.)
The tech consultant charged in Cash App founder Bob Lee's stabbing death testified in his own defense Wednesday that he made a "bad joke" to try to put an end to a late night of drinking and doing drugs, and the famous entrepreneur suddenly attacked him. In his first public statements about the events leading to Lee's death, Nima Momeni said that he joked to Lee that he might want to spend his final night in San Francisco with family rather than trying to find a strip club, the AP reports. Momeni said Lee pulled out a knife and attacked him, forcing him to defend himself. He said Lee later walked away, showing no signs he was injured. Momeni said he called an attorney when he learned of Lee's death the following day.

Lee, 43, was found staggering on a deserted downtown San Francisco street, dripping a trail of blood and calling for help. He later died at a hospital. Prosecutors say Momeni, 40, planned the April 4, 2023, attack after a dispute over his younger sister, Khazar Momeni, with whom Lee was friends. They say Momeni took a knife from a unique set in his sister's condo, drove Lee to a secluded area and stabbed him three times, then fled. The defense says Lee was being erratic and aggressive, having slept only six hours over a four-day period of doing cocaine and ketamine and drinking.

Momeni testified that the two men were on friendly terms when his sister kicked them both out of her condo at 2am, saying she wanted to sleep after hours of partying and ingesting drugs. Momeni said they got into his BMW and he started driving while Lee checked his phone for places to go next. He pulled the car over after they went over a pothole, causing Lee to spill his beer. Lee got out of the car and Momeni followed, thinking Lee was about to puke. That was when he said he made the "bad joke" about seeing family. "He just went from zero to 100," Momeni said. "You could see the anger." Momeni has pleaded not guilty. He faces 26 years to life in prison if convicted.

(More Bob Lee stories.)
If you're going to dress up like a bear to commit insurance fraud, at least dress up like a bear that actually exists in your state. Authorities in Southern California say four men overlooked that bit of common sense, among others, and now face charges of fraud and conspiracy, reports the Los Angeles Times. The men submitted startling videosee it hereof a brown bear entering a 2010 Rolls-Royce at Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains at night and ripping it to shreds. "Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume," according to a statement from the state Insurance Department.
Bill Clinton is gearing up for a book tour , ahead of Tuesday's release of his new memoir, Citizen: My Life After the White House . One snippet is already circulating and drawing attention, however, after the Guardian perused an advance copy: the former president's remarks on Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern with whom he had a year-and-a-half-long sexual relationship starting in 1995, when she was just 22 and he was in his late 40s. That affair led to his 1998 impeachment by the US House of Representatives, though the US Senate declined to convict him.

In Citizen, Clinton, now 78, recalls a 2018 interview on the Today show, where he popped up to promote a new book he'd co-written with James Patterson. Clinton notes in the upcoming memoir that he was "caught off guard" when host Craig Melvin asked him if he felt differently now about his dalliances with Lewinsky. "I said, 'No, I felt terrible then,'" Clinton recalls. When he was asked by Melvin if he'd ever apologized to Lewinsky, "I said that I had apologized to her and everybody else I wronged," he writes. Melvin then noted to Clinton that he was told Clinton never actually apologized to Lewinsky herself.

"I fought to contain my frustration as I replied that while I'd never talked to her directly, I did say publicly on more than [one] occasion I was sorry," Clinton writes, conceding that the interview wasn't his "finest hour" (although he snarks in the book that Melvin was "barely in his teens when all this happened, and probably hadn't been properly briefed"). The ex-commander in chief also appears to have no ill will against Lewinsky.

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"I live with it all the time," he writes. "Monica's done a lot of good and important work over the last few years in her campaign against bullying, earning her well-deserved recognition in the United States and abroad. I wish her nothing but the best." The Guardian notes that Lewinsky, 51, is now an anti-bullying activist, writer, and public speaker. She hasn't responded yet to Clinton's latest remarks, but in 2021, she said in an interview that she didn't "need" a sorry from Clinton, though it would be nice. "He should wanna apologize, in the same way that I wanna apologize any chance I get to people that I've hurt and my actions have hurt," she said at the time. (More Bill Clinton stories.)
An elderly man was hospitalized after an Oklahoma City police officer threw him to the ground in the course of giving him a traffic ticket, reports USA Today . In newly released body camera footage , the officer identified as Joseph Gibson tells a driver he's being ticketed for an improper U-turn following a minor collision on Oct. 27. "I didn't U-turn," says the man identified as 71-year-old Lich Vu, who claims he was hit by another driver. "She hit me and I got the citation?" Gibson, who also ticketed the other driver, tells Vu he needs to sign the ticket or else he'll be taken to jail. "I'm ready to go to jail," says Vu. "Ridiculous," responds Gibson. Later, in separate surveillance footage, Vu appears to tap the officer's chest with the back of his hand, the Guardian reports. "You shut up," Vu says, per the outlet, raising his index finger to his mouth.

"Get on the ground," replies Gibson, who grabs Vu's arms, pulls them behind his back, then appears to throw the man to the pavement, smashing his head. In Gibson's report, however, he writes, "I pulled on Lich's arm, and he fell to the ground," per KWTV. Vu suffered a skull fracture, Thuan Nyugen, president of the Vietnamese American Community of Oklahoma, tells NBC News. Vu's daughter says the reported cancer patient suffered a fractured neck and now requires a feeding tube, per KWTV. Police said "there was a use of force, and an elderly man sustained serious injuries that required hospitalization," adding the officer is "on administrative leave pending the conclusion of the investigation."

The footage features Vu's wife backing up her husband's claim that he didn't make a U-turn. Gibson is seen explaining to Vu that signing the ticket is not an admission of guilt. Vu continues to plead his case before the officer says they are "done arguing about this," adding "we argue in court." Though Vu speaks English, Nyugen says language barriers can impede communication with law enforcement. He also says there's indications of "implicit bias" in the way members of the Asian American community "are always the last to be heard  whether we're the person that is at fault or not." No matter what caused the incident to escalate, Gibson ought to be fired for excessive use of force, Nyugen adds. "We want justice to be served," he tells NBC. (More Oklahoma City stories.)
Ukraine's attempt to register the slogan "Russian warship, go f--- yourself" as a trademark has been rejected by the Court of Justice of the European Union. Politico reports that, in a ruling issued Wednesday, the court said registration of the term as an EU trademark has been rejected because it is "a political slogan devoid of any distinctive character for the goods and services at issue." The State Border Guard of Ukraine had planned to use the termthe last radio communication from Ukrainian soldiers defending an island outpost on the first day of the Russian invasionto sell what the court said was "a very wide range of goods, as well as for publishing, education, entertainment, and sports services."

In a news release, the court noted that the "war cry" had been "widely used and disseminated by the media, immediately after its first use, in order to rally support for Ukraine and had become very quickly a symbol of Ukraine's fight against Russian aggression. Thus, that phrase was used in a political context, repetitively and with the aim of expressing and promoting support to Ukraine." The court said a trademark on the term wouldn't fulfill the "essential function" of a trademark, because consumers would perceive a political message, not an "indication of the commercial origin of the goods or services," CNN reports.

The Ukrainian Border Guard Service didn't respond to the ruling with "European court, go f--- yourself." Spokesman Andriy Demchenko said, per Politico: "Of course, it is unfortunate that such a decision was made, but I am convinced that the European Intellectual Property Office and European courts are guided by the law and we must accept it. We hope that they will also prevent any registrations with this expression by anyone else." The Snake Island soldiers, initially thought to have been killed, were taken prisoner. Some of them were freed in a prisoner exchange earlier this year. The Moskva warship they communicated with on Feb. 24, 2022, ended up at the bottom of the Black Sea less than two months later. (More Ukraine stories.)
Police in New Jersey have arrested a person accused of starting a wildfire amid the state's ongoing droughtand he's all of 14 years old. Evesham Township Police say they arrested the juvenile and charged him with setting a fire on Oct. 30 that burned more than 50 acres of land, reports ABC News. No injuries were reported, and no structures were damaged. The boy is being held in a juvenile facility and is charged with aggravated arson and causing or risking widespread injury or damage, per Fox29.
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A Wisconsin-based health care provider plans to build a new hospital in Chippewa Falls.

Aspirus Health is collaborating with local officials to advance plans for the construction of a new hospital that will help meet local health care needs, according to a Thursday press release from Aspirus Health.

Since the March 2024 closure of HSHS hospitals in the Chippewa Valley, there has been an unmet need for emergency and inpatient hospital services, said Matt Heywood, Aspirus Health President and Chief Executive Officer.

Partnering with Wisconsin-based civil engineering firm REI and architectural firm HGA, Aspirus has completed preliminary plans for a new hospital and clinic that could be open to the public in as little as 18 months, pending necessary approvals, Heywood said.

The Wausau-based health care group is working to secure a site with convenient access to Highway 29, as well as capacity for future growth and service expansion.

Patients in the Chippewa Valley have felt strain as the future of hospital-based health services in Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire have been in limbo since the January announcement that HSHS St. Josephs, HSHS Sacred Heart and multiple Prevea Health locations across western Wisconsin would close.

The two HSHS hospitals closed March 22.

To help fill that gap, Aspirus expanded services and access in Stanley and Medford, which are located to the east of Chippewa Falls, Heywood said. After months of investigation and productive conversations with local officials, we have created a plan to build a facility where residents could access emergency care, inpatient hospital services and primary care.

Another hospital project has been a topic of much discussion this year.

The Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative community hospital plans, which could result in a new hospital in either Chippewa or Eau Claire counties, are ongoing, the group says in a Thursday statement.

Patients in the Chippewa Valley have felt strain as the future of hospital-based health services in Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire have been in limbo since the January announcement that HSHS St. Josephs, HSHS Sacred Heart and multiple Prevea Health locations across western Wisconsin would close.

The two HSHS hospitals closed March 22.

To help fill that gap, Aspirus expanded services and access in Stanley and Medford, which are located to the east of Chippewa Falls, Heywood said. After months of investigation and productive conversations with local officials, we have created a plan to build a facility where residents could access emergency care, inpatient hospital services and primary care.

Aspirus Health

Based in Wausau, Aspirus has experience providing health care in cities like Chippewa Falls, the release says.

With 14,000 employees, Aspirus operates 18 hospitals and more than 130 outpatient locations across northern and central Wisconsin, as well as northeastern Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Communities throughout our region have made clear just how much they value local access to emergency and hospital care, said Jim Matheson, Aspirus Health Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer.

By partnering with communities to match services to evolving local needs, Aspirus has thrived in the challenging health care environment.

In our rapidly changing world, we understand that we must advance new care models, Heywood said. Through thoughtful planning and collaboration, we look forward to meeting current local care needs and growing with the community for generations to come.

Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative

As Aspirus Health announced its plans to build a new hospital, another group, the Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative, has been planning to build a community hospital in the region since the spring.

The Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative is moving forward with its plans to offer a locally governed, independent community hospital.

The Chippewa Valley has been at the mercy of out-of-town hospital systems for decades, and our community has had little voice in what services and facilities exist here to care for our residents, said Robert Krause, Board Chair of the Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative on Thursday.

The hospital will offer a broad range of services that we know the community needs to thrive, a statement from the Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative on Thursday says.

We believe local control is key to the stability and sustainability of any new hospital in our region, and the Chippewa Valley Health Cooperatives plan provides the best solution to this health care crisis, stated Dr. Kyle Dettbarn, Chair OakLeaf Medical Network.

The cooperative aims to provide local access to cost-effective local care, locally governed so all decisions are made here for here.

The physicians and clinics of the OakLeaf Medical Network, the largest network of independent physicians in Western Wisconsin, which serves over 50,000 primary care patients throughout the greater Chippewa Valley, have committed to caring for their patients at the Chippewa Valley Health Cooperatives new hospital, Dettbarn said.

On Oct. 11, a representative from the Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative said the group aimed to complete its feasibility study on a new hospital this month.

The cooperative commissioned a third-party feasibility study for the new community hospital to help design and plan for a sustainable, independent hospital to meet the needs of western Wisconsin.

The Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative was founded Feb. 29 as an independently governed, locally rooted organization with the goal of making high-quality health care accessible and affordable in the Chippewa Valley. It came together in the wake of multiple health care facility closures across the Chippewa Valley.

Tensions have been high in the Chippewa Valley as the cooperative seeks a location for the new hospital.

The cooperative shared in October that four out of five locations in the running for the new hospital were in Chippewa County. It could take up to three years before the new facility opens its doors and the community hospital project is expected to cost up to $200 million.
CALGARY, AB, Nov. 14, 2024 /CNW/ - CanAsia Energy Corp. ("CanAsia" or the "Company") (CEC  TSXV) reports 2024 third quarter consolidated financial and operating results.

The Company is today filing its unaudited consolidated financial statements ("financial statements") as at and for the nine months ended September 30, 2024 and related management's discussion and analysis ("MD&A") with Canadian securities regulatory authorities. Copies of these documents may be obtained online at www.sedarplus.com or the Company's website, www.canasiacorp.com.

Commenting today on CanAsia's 2024 third quarter results, President and CEO Jeff Chisholm stated: "The consolidation of the interest in Sawn Lake has now been completed and the Company's focus has shifted to pursuing an outright sale of the asset, or farmout whereby all, or a substantial portion, of the required go-forward capital would be covered by a potential farminee. We are encouraged by the initial interest that has been shown by interested parties in the Sawn Lake asset and are hopeful that oil prices provide a window over the first half of 2025 conducive to a transaction. Monetization of Sawn Lake, in some form, will be the focus of activity over the foreseeable future. In Thailand, we are seeing increased Government of Thailand activities related to settlement of the Thailand  Cambodia maritime boundary and expect an update on the proposed onshore oil and gas concession bid round prior to year end."

HIGHLIGHTS

CanAsia had working capital totaling $3.8 million , no long-term debt and shareholders' equity of $8.5 million at September 30, 2024 .





, no long-term debt and shareholders' equity of at . Common shares outstanding were 112.8 million at November 12, 2024 and at September 30, 2024 .





and at . In May 2024 , Andora acquired certain assets pursuant to Court approved receivership proceedings for a purchase price equal to $2.0 million (which included the assumption of various obligations). The net consideration paid was approximately $1.3 million . The assets included a 25% working interest in various heavy oil sands leases in Sawn Lake, within the central Alberta Peace River Oil Sands region. Following the acquisition, Andora's working interest in the Sawn Lake Central block increased from 75% to 100%.





, Andora acquired certain assets pursuant to Court approved receivership proceedings for a purchase price equal to (which included the assumption of various obligations). The net consideration paid was approximately . The assets included a 25% working interest in various heavy oil sands leases in Sawn Lake, within the central Alberta Peace River Oil Sands region. Following the acquisition, Andora's working interest in the Sawn Lake Central block increased from 75% to 100%. The acquisition was accounted for as an asset acquisition and the Exploration and Evaluation ("E&E") assets acquired were recorded in the financial statements at $1.4 million . Management of CanAsia has determined that the amount of $1.4 million represents the fair value of the 25% Sawn Lake working interest acquired by Andora. As a result, the Company has partially reversed an impairment of E&E assets previously recorded in March 2020 by an amount of $4.2 million , to reflect the current carrying value of the remaining 75% Sawn Lake working interest already owned by Andora prior to the Acquisition. The carrying value of the E&E assets was $5.8 million at September 30, 2024 .



As at September 30, 2024 , Andora's Sawn Lake Project is considered to be in its evaluation stage. Recoverability of the Company's investment in the E&E assets is dependent on determining the technical feasibility of the project, obtaining additional financing, and successfully completing the development of the project. Capitalized costs incurred to date do not necessarily represent present or future values.

On January 16, 2024 , the Company completed a brokered private placement financing for gross proceeds of $1.258 million comprised of 12,580,000 common shares at a price of $0.10 per common share. In connection with the brokered private placement, the Company recorded $118 thousand in share issue costs, comprised of $116 thousand in commission and fees and the estimated fair value of $2 thousand associated with 24,600 broker warrants issued to the broker. Each broker warrant is exercisable for common shares at a price of $0.10 per common share for a period of two years from the issue date.





, the Company completed a brokered private placement financing for gross proceeds of comprised of 12,580,000 common shares at a price of per common share. In connection with the brokered private placement, the Company recorded in share issue costs, comprised of in commission and fees and the estimated fair value of associated with 24,600 broker warrants issued to the broker. Each broker warrant is exercisable for common shares at a price of per common share for a period of two years from the issue date. On December 21, 2023 , the Company completed a brokered private placement financing for gross proceeds of $5.042 million comprised of 50,420,000 common shares at a price of $0.10 per common share. In connection with the Private Placement, the Company recorded $533 thousand in share issue costs, comprised of $416 thousand in commission and fees and the estimated fair value of $117 thousand associated with 1,825,200 broker warrants issued to the broker. Each broker warrant is exercisable for common shares at a price of $0.10 per common share for a period of two years from the issue date.





, the Company completed a brokered private placement financing for gross proceeds of comprised of 50,420,000 common shares at a price of per common share. In connection with the Private Placement, the Company recorded in share issue costs, comprised of in commission and fees and the estimated fair value of associated with 1,825,200 broker warrants issued to the broker. Each broker warrant is exercisable for common shares at a price of per common share for a period of two years from the issue date. Net loss attributable to common shareholders in the third quarter of 2024 was $0.7 million ( $0.01 per share) compared to $0.2 million ( $0.00 per share) in the third quarter of 2023.





( per share) compared to ( per share) in the third quarter of 2023. Cash flow used in operations in the third quarter of 2024 was $0.6 million ( $0.00 per share) compared to $0.5 million ( $0.01 per share) in the third quarter of 2023.





( per share) compared to ( per share) in the third quarter of 2023. During the third quarter of 2024, the Company granted options to an employee to purchase an aggregate of 0.2 million common shares under CanAsia's equity incentive plan.





General and administrative expense in the third quarter of 2024 was $0.5 million compared to $0.6 million in the third quarter of 2023. General and administrative expense is comprised primarily of expenses related to personnel and premises, external services, and public company costs. The decrease was mainly due to lower legal fees and engineering costs.





compared to in the third quarter of 2023. General and administrative expense is comprised primarily of expenses related to personnel and premises, external services, and public company costs. The decrease was mainly due to lower legal fees and engineering costs. Operating expenses was $0.1 million in the third quarter of 2024 and 2023. These expenses were incurred to safeguard and maintain the assets of Andora's suspended SAGD project facility and wellpair at Sawn Lake Central.





in the third quarter of 2024 and 2023. These expenses were incurred to safeguard and maintain the assets of Andora's suspended SAGD project facility and wellpair at Sawn Lake Central. The current portion of the decommissioning provision of $0.6 million as at September 30, 2024 relates to the legacy subsidiaries of POEH which had held interests in the East Jabung Production Sharing Contract in Indonesia and a well pertaining to Andora's interests in Sawn Lake, Alberta . CanAsia is withdrawing from activities in Indonesia and decommissioning related costs are expensed when incurred. The non-current portion of the decommissioning provision of $1.8 million as at September 30, 2024 pertained to Andora's interests in Sawn Lake, Alberta .





as at relates to the legacy subsidiaries of POEH which had held interests in the East Jabung Production Sharing Contract in and a well pertaining to Andora's interests in Sawn Lake, . CanAsia is withdrawing from activities in and decommissioning related costs are expensed when incurred. The non-current portion of the decommissioning provision of as at pertained to Andora's interests in Sawn Lake, . An impairment recovery of $4.2 million recorded in second quarter of 2024 was related to partial impairment reversal with respect to a 75% Sawn Lake working interest owned by Andora, as discussed above.

OUTLOOK

The consolidation of the interest in Sawn Lake has now been completed and the Company's focus has shifted to pursuing an outright sale of the asset, or farmout whereby all, or a substantial portion, of the required go-forward capital would be covered by a potential farminee. It is anticipated that this process will dominate the Company's activity over the next 4 to 6 months, timing somewhat impacted by oil prices. Upon the announcement of the onshore Thailand oil and gas concession bid round, activity will ramp up on this front. An update, or announcement with respect to the Thailand onshore concession bid round, is expected before year end 2024.

Financial and Operating Results



Three months ended

September 30, Nine months ended

September 30, ($000s of Canadian dollars except where indicated) 2024 2023 2024 2023 FINANCIAL







Financial Statement Results







Net income (loss) attributable to common shareholders (1) (711) (168) 1,952 (2,109)

Per share  basic and diluted $ (0.01) $ (0.00) $ 0.02 $ (0.04) Cash flow used in operating activities (2) (554) (481) (2,292) (1,618)

Per share  basic and diluted $ 0.00 $ (0.01) $ (0.02) $ (0.03) Cash flow used in investing activities (2) - (1) (1,334) (1,592)

Per share  basic and diluted $ 0.00 $ (0.00) $ (0.01) $ (0.03) Cash flow from (used in) financing activities (2) (2) (2) 1,128 (14)

Per share  basic and diluted $ 0.00 $ (0.00) $ 0.01 $ (0.00) Working capital 3,786 2,095 3,786 2,095 Shareholders' equity (3) 8,515 1,396 8,515 1,396 Weighted average shares outstanding (000s) 112,794 49,794 111,757 49,794 General and administrative expense (1) (455) (551) (1,725) (1,560) Operating expense (1) (141) (110) (524) (345) Natural gas pipeline tariff recovery (provision) (1) (14) 15 80 (886) Stock-based compensation (1) (155) (28) (469) (95) Amortization (1) (15) (16) (44) (48) Decommissioning recovery (provision) (1) - 417 47 410 Gain on sale of equipment (1) - - - 100 Impairment recovery (1) - - 4,242 - Finance income (1) 82 67 331 223 Foreign exchange gain (loss) (1) (13) 38 14 43 Deferred income tax recovery (1) - - - 22 Net loss attributable to non-controlling interest in Andora (1) - - - 27 Net income (loss) attributable to common shareholders (1) (711) (168) 1,952 (2,109)

(1) As set out in the Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Income (Loss) in CanAsia's Consolidated Financial Statements. (2) As set out in the Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows in CanAsia's Consolidated Financial Statements. (3) As set out in the Consolidated Statements of Changes in Shareholders' Equity in CanAsia's Consolidated Financial Statements.

Cautionary Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is generally identifiable by the terminology used, such as "will", "expect", "believe", "estimate", "should", "anticipate", "potential", "opportunity" or other similar wording. Forward-looking information in this press release may include, but is not limited to, the strength of the Company's financial position; the need for and availability of additional capital; statements with respect to the sale or farmout of the Company's interests in the Sawn Lake heavy oil project, including with respect to go forward capital requirements being covered by a potential farminee, and the expected timing thereof; and the anticipated onshore Thailand oil and gas licensing round, including the expected timing thereof.

By its very nature, forward-looking information requires CanAsia and its management to make assumptions that may not materialize or that may not be accurate. In addition, forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond the control of CanAsia, which could cause actual events, results, expectations, achievements or performance to differ materially. Although CanAsia believes that the expectations reflected in its forward-looking information are reasonable, it can give no assurances that those expectations will prove to be correct. See "Forward-Looking Statements" in CanAsia's management's discussion and analysis for the nine months ended September 30, 2024 for more information on the assumptions on which the Company has relied and the risks and uncertainties and other factors that could impact the forward-looking information in this press release. CanAsia undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE CanAsia Energy Corp.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: CanAsia Energy Corp., Jeff Chisholm, President and CEO (located in Bangkok, Thailand), Email [email protected]; or Marcel Nunes, Vice President Finance and CFO, Email [email protected], Telephone (403) 294-1770
"In the aftermath of World War II, military authorities recovered a vast amount of Jewish cultural and religious items," explains Louis Charbonneau of the Aron Museum at Montreal's Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, which houses the spectacular menorah featured on the stamp. It was one of a number donated to the museum after the Second World War as part of the effort to redistribute recovered cultural and religious items to Israel and to Jewish communities around the world.

The hanukkiyah  holding eight candles and a ninth "helper" candle or shamash used to light the others  is unique for its striking sculpture of a peacock, symbolizing the faith and resilience that lie at the heart of Hanukkah.

Canada Post is honoured to feature this historic artifact, shining a light on an important piece of history. Along with Hanukkah, Canada Post is proud to commemorate popular holidays for several faiths celebrated by Canadians across the country, including Christmas, Diwali and Eid.

About the stamp



The Hanukkah stamp depicts a peacock-themed hanukkiyah standing 31.7 cm high, which was crafted by an unknown artist in 19th-century Poland. The stamp issue, designed by Subplot Design Inc. and printed by Colour Innovations, includes a booklet of six Permanent domestic rate stamps and an Official First Day Cover cancelled in Westmount, Quebec.

The stamp and collectibles are available at canadapost.ca and postal outlets across Canada.

For links to images of the stamps and other products, and more resources:

External folder with high-resolution images

Read the Canada Post magazine article

Read the Canadian Stamp Catalogue

Social media platforms  Facebook , Instagram and LinkedIn

TM Trademark of Canada Post Corporation.

SOURCE Canada Post

For more information: Media Relations, 613-734-8888, [email protected]
Yardi Canada opens Day 1 of YASC with a focus on AI-driven solutions

TORONTO, Nov. 13, 2024 /CNW/ -- Yardi welcomed over 1,000 attendees to the first day of YASC Canada 2024, marking the conference's return to Canada for the first time in over 20 years. The event kicked off with an impactful general session themed "The Future is Now  and It Needs AI," setting the stage for discussions on how artificial intelligence will shape the future of real estate.

Yardi welcomed over 1,000 attendees to the first day of YASC Canada 2024. Peter Altobelli, vice president and general manager of Yardi Canada, welcomed attendees.

Peter Altobelli, vice president and general manager of Yardi Canada, opened the session, reflecting on Yardi's growth in Canada since the company established its presence over two decades ago. "From just five staff members in our Toronto office to a team of more than 500 across three offices, Yardi Canada has grown alongside our clients. Our remarkable presence in Canada has left us with a significant responsibility to build trust, communication and mutual support."

The general session highlighted Yardi's dedication to delivering AI-powered solutions that streamline operations, enhance user experience and drive efficiencies for property managers across Canada.

"The next chapter of real estate requires us to embrace AI and the opportunities it offers, and Yardi is committed to providing our clients with the tools to adapt to a rapidly changing market," Altobelli continued. "There's never been a more exciting time to collaborate and innovate. Here's to another 40 years of growth, partnership and pushing the industry forward!"

For a detailed recap of today's general session, read the Yardi blog here.

About Yardi

Celebrating 40 years of innovation, Yardi develops industry-leading software for real estate companies worldwide. With over 9,500 employees, Yardi is dedicated to driving innovation and helping clients succeed in the real estate industry. For more information, visit yardi.com.

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SOURCE Yardi

Leah Etling, Yardi Systems Inc., (805) 699-2040 ext. 1207, [email protected]
A dozen military members and a truck driver were injured when a tractor-trailer struck a bus on the New Jersey Turnpike in Camden County, according to authorities and news reports.

A disabled northbound bus was straddling the right lane and the right shoulder when a tractor-trailer hit it about 12:55 p.m. near milepost 25.6 in Runnemde, State Police said.

The bus was occupied by military personnel traveling from Maryland, according to 6abc.com. The truck driver was also hurt.

State Police told NJ Advance Media the injuries are not considered life threatening.

The crash remains under investigation.

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Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com.
Those who love Wonderland Pier in Ocean City have feared the theme park could be replaced with a hotel, and they were right.

The iconic Jersey Shore amusement park that closed for a final time last month could be transformed into a seven-story hotel under the Icona Resort Brand. The property is owned by Eustace Mita, the hospitality developer who owns the Icona franchise, which has resort hotels in Cape May County.

Hundreds of theme park and Shore enthusiasts visited the boardwalk institution near Sixth Street after plans to close the park were announced in August.

The proposal was first reported Wednesday by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Speaking to NJ Advance Media Thursday, Mita reiterated his belief that Ocean City is starved of hotel space, saying that his project would be the first built in several decades.

The hotel could be opened by 2026 or 2027, he said. Once open, Mita believes it would be a stalwart in Ocean Citys tax ratable base, helping the city generate revenue for other projects.

Visitors walked the boardwalk in front of Gillians Wonderland Pier in Ocean City, N.J. on Sunday, October 13, 2024.Jim Lowney | For NJ Advance Media

We call ourselves Americas greatest family resort, and its a deserved moniker, and yet we havent had a new hotel in over half a century, Mita said.

The businessman shared his vision for a resort with at least 250 rooms and over 300 parking spaces during a closed meeting of the Ocean City Boardwalk Merchants Association attended by some 40 to 50 people. Mita also met privately with local lawmakers ahead of Wednesdays presentation, Ocean City Councilman Jody Levchuck told NJ Advance Media. As a member of the association, Levchuck attended the meeting.

It would cost between $135 and $155 million to build the hotel. While being open to the proposal, the councilman wants the public to provide more input.

The proposal has not been formally presented to the public.

Just because I may or may not like an idea or a concept doesnt mean Im going to be a supporting figure, Levchuck said Thursday. Ultimately, (residents) are the ones that are going to have to judge this. Its not my job to sell his project.

Local officials previously said the businessman indicated hed need a six-month window to explore ideas for the property.

A rendering of the hotel in Ocean City.Courtesy ICONA Resorts

Branded as Icona at Wonderland, the hotel property would retain aspects of the theme park, including its Ferris wheel and carousel, helping preserve the rides importance to Ocean Citys story.

He intends to make the rides operable, finding most fans of Wonderland have considered them their favorite attractions. Preserving both rides would cost about $3 million.

The closure gave Mitas proposal for a hotel a second chance after he first presented the idea to the governing body last year, arguing that Ocean City doesnt have enough hotel rooms. At the time, Mitas pitch was for a $150 million beachfront resort and hotel with 325 rooms on land adjacent to Wonderland.

Mita rescued Wonderland from closure when about $8 million in debt was sought through bankruptcy court. The park was a family heirloom for Ocean City Mayor Jay Gillian, who recently said Wonderland would have not survived without the financial help.

Gillian did not return a request from NJ Advance Media for comment.

Since closing, Wonderland has gone through noticeable changes. Its outside wall depicting toy soldiers guarding a huge castle door was painted over. The tops of the castle facade were removed from the boardwalk.

We made every effort, Mita said of attempts for the theme park to financially recover.

Mita intends to ask that the City Council deem the Wonderland property as an area in need of redevelopment, which would allow the property to be rezoned for hotel use without a zoning hearing. There would be at least one city council public hearing on designating the property as part of an area to be redeveloped, and the hotel would need Planning Board approval, and that process includes public hearings.

Building would face approval from the local government, as well as obtaining coastal development permits regulated by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Mita said.

Residents have called for Wonderland to be preserved, pointing out its importance to a boardwalk that generates millions of dollars in tourism each year. Last month, the Friends of OCNJ, a grassroots group of citizens who work to preserve historical aspects of the town, organized in front of the park advocating for local officials to save the property from redevelopment.

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Eric Conklin may be reached at econklin@njadvancemedia.com.
Kingda Ka, the tallest roller coaster in the world, is permanently shut down at Six Flags Great Adventure as the park makes way for a new roller coaster set to break records, officials said Thursday.

The New Jersey theme park announced the closure of the ride, one of the fastest roller coasters in the world, after months of intense speculation about the coasters future. Green Lantern, another popular roller coaster, is also slated to be demolished.

Two new rides were touted in Kingda Kas departure. The previously-announced The Flash: Vertical Velocity will open in 2025. The ride is a super boomerang coaster, and the first of its kind in North America, park officials said in their announcement.

The second planned ride is more of a mystery. Described only as a multi-world-record-breaking launch roller coaster, the teased ride is planned for 2026, the park said.

With our dedication to creating unforgettable experiences, the parks multi-year expansion plans will bring major investments, including record-breaking thrill rides, revitalized family experiences, elevated dining, expanded events, and continuous enhancements across the property, park president Brian Bacica said in a statement.

Kingda Ka is not the only ride given the axe. Green Lantern, The Twister, Parachutes, and the Sky Way will all be demolished. Zumanjaro: Drop of Doom, which is attached to Kingda Ka, has also ceased operations.

The new mystery roller coaster will be built on the space occupied by Kingda Ka, The Twister and Parachutes, park officials said. The park will remove the Sky Way for future development.

Kingda Ka opened at Six Flags great Adventure in 2005. At the time it was the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world, maxing out at speeds of 128 miles per hour.

The ride was dethroned as the fasted in 2010, and was expected to be replaced as the tallest coaster by another planned ride in a new Six Flags park in Saudi Arabia in the coming years.

We understand that saying goodbye to beloved rides can be difficult, and we appreciate our guests passion. These changes are an important part of our growth and dedication to delivering exceptional new experiences. We look forward to sharing more details next summer, Bacica added.

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Katie Kausch may be reached at kkausch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieKausch.
A distributor for ShopRites Bowl & Basket Onion Soup Mix is recalling the product after the packaging did not disclose an egg allergen, putting people with allergies at risk.

The distributor, Missouri-based Gilster-Mary Lee Corp., announced the recall on Tuesday after a customer complained that the soup mix did not disclose an egg allergen.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the recall on the same day, and added a warning to those with egg allergies and severe sensitivities to stay away from the product to avoid serious or life-threatening allergic reactions.

No illnesses or adverse reactions have been reported in connection to this recall to date.

The two lots of Bowl & Basket Onion Soup Mix affected by this recall were sold as 2-ounce cartons with best-by dates of Sept. 27, 2025, and Oct. 11, 2025, and contain the product code 41190-08394.

The soup mixes were distributed to ShopRites parent company, Wakeferns, distribution centers in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Consumers who bought the products are urged to throw them out or return them to their local ShopRite store for a full refund.

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Katherine Rodriguez can be reached at krodriguez@njadvancemedia.com. Have a tip? Tell us at nj.com/tips.
The planned opening of a $73 million dinosaur fossil park and museum in South Jersey has now been rescheduled to March.

Officials at the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum of Rowan University were hoping to open this fall after a summer opening was pushed back, according to the benefactor and school alumnus who contributed more than a third of the cost for the 65-acre facility in Mantua, Gloucester County.

Were disappointed that its taking longer than we had anticipated to finish the project, Ric Edelman told NJ Advance Media in July. But we are very much looking forward to the grand opening.

An announcement Wednesday reset the opening for March. Edelman was not able to be reached for comment.

The highly anticipated Edelman Fossil Park & Museum of Rowan University (EFM) will open its doors in March 2025, welcoming guests to an immersive exploration of dinosaurs and other prehistoric species, the statement said. The museum will provide a portal into the fascinating lost world of dinosaurs, offering an extraordinary opportunity to dig for real fossils at the only place in the world where you can see a preserved fossil ecosystem from the exact moment of the asteroid impact that marked the end of the dinosaurs.

The park is on the site of a former industrial sand pit. Researchers have already turned up a fossil of the largest prehistoric crocodile ever found, Rowan said. Parts of New Jersey were once underwater on prehistoric Earth and the fossils on site are buried in marl sand as opposed to being encased in rock like researchers find in other parts of the country.

Just a few hundred square yards of the 65-acre site have been fully excavated but have still yielded more than 50,000 cataloged marine and terrestrial fossils, from reptilian mosasaurs to sea turtles, sharks, bony fish, coral and clams, the university said.

The planned opening of a $73 million dinosaur fossil park and museum in South Jersey has now been rescheduled to March.Edelman Fossil Park & Museum

We open a window onto the profound and pivotal events of the fifth mass extinction, during which the dinosaurs and 75 percent of species perished, shaping the modern world as we know it, Kenneth Lacovara, founding executive director of the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum, said in the statement Wednesday. The fossils unearthed here tell the epic story of lifes fragility and resilience, weaving a cautionary tale that frames our present challenges and provides a roadmap towards a more sustainable tomorrow.

Visitors to the park and museum will be able to dig for fossils and keep many of their finds as souvenirs. Some of the discoveries, however, will be kept for further research. The 44,000-square-foot museum will sit above a former marl quarry.

The facility is going to be world class, Edelman said earlier this year. The construction quality is outstanding. The exhibits are astonishing and everyones going to love it.

One of the museums planned exhibits include a recreated Dryptosaurus, the first discovered tyrannosaur, which was found a mile from the fossil park site in 1866, and a 53-foot mosasaur, like one discovered at the fossil park site.

In the depths of the quarry, more than 40 feet below the park, over 100,000 fossils from more than 100 species, including mosasaurs, marine crocodiles, sea turtles, and sharks, have been unearthed, underscoring the sites significance, the statement said.

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Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com.
A former executive for a New Jersey-based company has admitted to sharing the secret formula for a soda with the business competitors.

Andrew Blum, 63, of North Brunswick, pleaded guilty in Newark federal court on Wednesday to possessing and conspiring to possess stolen trade secrets, the U.S. Attorneys Office District of New Jersey said.

From 2013 to 2018, Blum served as the vice president of product development for a company that specializes in the production of oil products and proprietary flavors. Federal authorities have not disclosed the name of the company.

In December 2018, the business' IT department started investigating suspicious emails between two employees. The investigation found that another employee used a personal email account to send Blum 82 files containing proprietary and trade secret information, federal prosecutors said.

The files contained secret formulas to all of the products in Blums department as well as sensitive formulas that Blum should not have had access to, according to investigators. Emails between Blum and the other employee also mentioned that they were both planning on getting jobs at competitor companies, prosecutors said.

During a search warrant, FBI agents discovered handwritten notes pertaining to a product that the company produces for a large soda company in Asia, federal authorities said.

Blums sentencing is scheduled for March 20.

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Nicolas Fernandes may be reached at nfernandes@njadvancemedia.com.
The first retail component of the revamped Monmouth Mall in Eatontown will open next week, officials said.

Barnes & Noble, which was relocated to a new retail building in the projects center, is planning a grand opening for Nov. 20, Eatontown Mayor Anthony Talerico Jr. said.

The new bookstore will be located few hundred yards away, next to Macys. The opening will include a ribbon cutting at 9 a.m. with author James Murray, who will also be signing copies of his books, according to a release from Barnes & Noble.

We are very pleased to be opening this beautiful new bookstore here in Eatontown, James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble said in the release. The Eatontown booksellers have gone above and beyond to have this new space ready so soon after closing the previous location, and just in time for the height of holiday shopping.

The announcement of the grand opening was made just two weeks after closing the retailers previous Monmouth Mall store, which will be demolished to make way for the construction of a Whole Foods, authorities said.

Work was expected to begin on the supermarket before the end of this year, Talerico said.

The revamped Monmouth Square will include 1,000 new luxury apartments, restaurants, walking paths, and event space, as seen in this project rendering from Kushner Companies.Kushner Companies

Kushner Companies secured two construction loans earlier this year totaling $415 million to help fund the transformation of the mall into an open-air shopping center and residential development called Monmouth Square.

One loan will be used for the residential component of the project, which will include 1,000 apartments, including 125 designated as affordable housing. The second will be used for the redevelopment of the retail component of the project, which will include 990,000 square feet of retail space, anchored by the Whole Foods, the real estate developer said.

Kushner officially broke ground on the Monmouth Square project in May, and began work to demolish 600,000 square feet of retail space, including two longtime department stores Lord & Taylor and JCPenney. This will reduce the retail footprint by 40%.

Talerico said the Lord & Taylor building is fully demolished and that the demolition of the Macys Kids space along with the adjacent interior mall section up to the former Victorias Secret location is now complete, as well.

The demolition of the JC Penney building is underway and the two-level section of the mall is scheduled for demolition in approximately two weeks, the mayor said.

Macys is one of the few retail locations that was neither closed nor demolished at the site of the mall, along with the AMC movie theater and Boscovs.

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Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
New Jerseys drought situation continues to worsen, with extreme drought conditions spreading to eight counties and the rest of the state now in a severe drought, which is just one level lower than extreme.

A new map issued Thursday morning by the National Drought Mitigation Center shows an extreme drought now exists across all of Atlantic County and wide swaths of Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester and Ocean counties, along with a tiny portion of Salem County.

Extreme drought conditions are rare in New Jersey, occurring only once every 20 to 50 years.

New Jersey officials declared a statewide drought warning on Nov. 13, 2024 amid months of very little rain and steadily declining levels of water in reservoirs that provide drinking water to millions of people. These before-and-after photos show how substantially the water level has dropped at the Manasquan Reservoir in Monmouth County.NJ Department of Environmental Protection

This years serious drought was triggered by a stubborn weather pattern that has blocked most rain storms from drifting into our region of the country for the past three months.

The situation has gotten so bad that Gov. Phil Murphy and the state Department of Environmental Protection declared a statewide drought warning on Wednesday.

Although the warning does not call for mandatory water use restrictions or bans, Murphy said those actions will be taken if the drought situation continues to worsen and prompts the state to declare a more sweeping drought emergency  the highest level of action the state can take during serious droughts.

Despite the lack of mandatory water restrictions, Murphy called the drought warning an incredibly serious situation and strongly urged residents across the state to reduce their water consumption

The Wanaque Reservoir in northern New Jersey dropped to about 45% of its full capacity as of Tuesday, according to water officials. This image shows the condition on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024.Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media

In addition, the states largest water company  New Jersey American Water  is urging all of its customers to immediately start conserving water.

In a conservation notice issued Wednesday afternoon, the water company strongly encouraged its customers to limit all non-essential water usage by pausing all outdoor watering until spring and conserving as much as possible indoors.

Among the actions the company is recommending are taking shorter showers, running dishwashers and washing machines only when they are fully loaded, and turning the water faucet off when shaving, brushing your teeth or washing dishes in your sink.

Although theres a slight chance of light rain in South Jersey Thursday night, weather forecasters say most of New Jersey is not expected to get any rain for at least another six days.

Thats bad news for firefighters who have been battling several large wildfires during the past week, including a massive wildfire that has burned more than 4,300 acres in northern New Jersey and New York state.

Current weather radar

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Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com or on X at @LensReality.
With a heavy metallic clunk and a sigh of compressed air, track in a tunnel outside Hoboken terminal switches to allow a PATH train to arrive from New York on track two in Hoboken.

The clattering of steel wheels through this junction of tracks, called an interlocking, is a scene repeated hundreds of times a day.

But as PATH officials showed on an exclusive tour late Tuesday and into early Wednesday, the moving tracks and switch machines are decades old and need replacement, which will happen under a 25-day shutdown of Hoboken terminal in early 2025 for extensive rehab and repair work, announced on Oct. 31.

After two trains cleared the station, a two-man track crew armed with a giant sledgehammer and wrench meticulously checked the tracks and switch equipment in the complex interlocking for problems, which officials said is a nightly ritual.

A total of 4,500 linear feet of track will be replaced in the tunnels, that includes the interlocking, in addition to work in the PATH station under the repair program that starts at 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 30, 2025, and is expected to reopen at 5 a.m. on Feb. 25, 2025.

The $31 million Hoboken terminal work is part of the larger, ongoing $430 million PATH Forward program that was announced and started in April to address critical and aging infrastructure on the 116-year-old bi-state rail system.

A new junction for better function

A centerpiece of the Hoboken project is replacing the interlocking, a diamond shaped crisscross of rails allows trains to switch tracks when they arrive and leave Hoboken station. Its located in the tunnel about 100 feet outside the station, unseen by passengers.

Nothing gets in or out Hoboken terminal without passing through the crisscrossing tracks that make up the interlocking, said Clarelle DeGraffe, PATHs general manager during the tour.

The interlocking has problems, she said.

When there are problems with the interlocking, it can result in delays and even service suspensions. Replacing it will increase reliability and on time performance.

Overall plans call for replacing the rails, wooden ties that support the rails and the stone ballast that support the entire track structure and installing new drainage to handle water that comes up from underground and undermines the track structure, said Thomas Crowell PATH Deputy Director of infrastructure and rolling stock.

Unlike Amtrak and other railroads, PATHs interlocking must be specially fabricated to fit the geometry of the 116-year-old tunnels that have 2- to 3-inches of clearance in place between trains and the walls, Crowell said.

Replacing the PATH interlocking mirrors what Amtrak did at Penn Station New York in summer 2017. That work, during what was dubbed the summer of hell, replaced key track interlocking, that trains used to switch tracks between the Hudson River tunnels and the station complex.

The logistics of the PATH work wont be easy, all materials that come in and debris that is removed has to go out by rail, he said.

New rails to stay on track

Crowell pointed to damage to the rails in the tunnel and on the interlocking, including flat spots that should be rounded, gaps between joints connecting rails and wear from hundreds of trains a day that pound over the tracks. Pointing to water between two wooden ties supporting rails in the tunnel, Cromwell said, it should be dry.

Some of the rails in the tunnel are 50 to 60 years old, and the interlocking is 30 years old, he said. Repair crews weld new metal in where they can and grind the old rail back into the correct shape.

The rail is coming to the end of its life, Crowell said.

Perhaps the most surprising part of the project is that it will replace the original third rail, that trains draw electricity power from to operate, which have been in service for 116 years since PATH was built, he said.

The new third rail will be a more efficient aluminum and steel composite that will conduct electricity better, Crowell said.

Still fixing Sandy damage

The Hoboken work also continues an effort to rid the station complex of the remaining salt water and chemicals that were washed into it by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, which flooded the underground station and tunnels.

The residual salt and chemicals have had a detrimental effect on tracks, switch machines that make the interlocking work and track electronic circuits, Crowell said.

Station work includes removing old concrete and installing a new platform surface, DeGraffe said. All stairwells are being rebuilt, however the narrower staircases cant be widened because of space constraints in the station, she said. Better LED station lighting also will be installed, she said.

In addition to that, some of the work will accurately restore the stations historic appearance, DeGraffe said. Riders are seeing some of that work happen now as support columns are repainted in green and white paint, accenting the embossed letter H on each one.

Why a February shut down?

February was selected because it is one of two months when PATH ridership is the lowest and effects would be least on commuters, she said. August has the next lowest ridership. The alternative would have been at least 28 weekends of service reductions, suspensions and rerouting, she said.

We want to implement as much as possible before people come back, DeGraffe said, adding the plan is to have contractors and PATH personnel working simultaneously.

Jtrack, LLC will do the interlocking work and some of the in-station track work. Railworks will do the other overall track work and Hall Construction doing the station renovation.

The work comes as PATH reported a boost in ridership in September.

Getting around

To help move PATH riders, the Port Authority and NY Waterway ferry announced provide expanded, cross-honored service, including additional peak service running every 10 minutes between Hoboken and Manhattan, extra crosstown bus service, extended operating hours at Hoboken terminals and an added weekend route, while Hoboken terminal is closed.

An additional weekend ferry route will be run between both Hoboken ferry terminals to and from the Midtown/West 39th Street ferry terminal. A cross-honoring agreement ensures PATH customers pay the same cost to ride the ferry as a PATH fare, officials said.

PATH also will run shuttle buses to its Newport and Exchange Place stations, supplemental bus service to enhance NJ Transits 126 line to the Midtown Manhattan Bus Terminal and light rail service.

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Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @CommutingLarry
A family-owned, independent hardware store in Hunterdon County will be shutting down after serving customers for more than a century.

Joseph Finkle & Son Inc.  known in town as Finkles  is closing permanently Dec. 31, owner Rachel Finkle told NJ Advance Media on Tuesday.

Her grandfather, Joseph Finkle, opened the Lambertville store in 1917. Some spell the stores name as Finkles, while others go with Finkles, she said.

Rachel Finkle, who began working at the store in 1990, cited the challenges posed by big-box retailers and specialized distributors in explaining the decision to close.

Over my 30 years, weve seen the business shrink. Its incredibly difficult for independents to survive against the market forces of these big conglomerates, Finkle said.

Finkles will be at least the third longtime hardware store in New Jersey to close in recent months. Cerbo Lumber and Hardware in Parsippany closed in September after 76 years. Saunders Hardware in Montclair announced in May that it was closing after 131 years.

Finkle said her store sold its location on Coryell Street three years ago and has stayed in operation via a lease.

Finkles has 10 employees, including Rachel Finkle and her husband, Sven Helmer.

Im so appreciative for my longtime sales people. They are so knowledgeable. Each one of them has their little area of specialization and their cadre of customers that follow them. It wasnt just my family that made it what it is, Finkle said.

Her grandfather, the stores founder, was a Russian immigrant. The store began as a scrap business and evolved into the worlds most unusual supply house, as touted on its website.

It has specialized in supplies for lighting, electrical, kitchen and bath; pipes, valves, fittings and other plumping equipment; decorative cabinet, door, gate, window and industrial hardware; and an wide selection of nuts and bolts.

In the past year, it has promoted on social media its eco-friendly ice melt and sleds for kids. It has also offered a restored, all hand-stitched, $2,000 love seat and a $300 chisel sharpener.

Finkle said customers and employees have had plenty of notice that the store is closing down.

We are not closed (yet)! Please continue to shop at Finkles, read a post on Instagram in September.

On Oct. 3, the store launched a going out of business inventory clearance sale, with many items currently at 25% off.

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Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com.
The company that designed, built, maintained and operated NJ Transits first light rail system for 28 years wont run it any more.

On Wednesday, the agencys board of directors voted to replace The 21st Century Rail Corporation, which has run the Hudson-Bergen light rail system since it was awarded a contract in 1996 to build the states first light rail system.

The board awarded a $1.56 billion, 15-year contract to ACI-Herzog Joint Venture of Boston, Massachusetts, to operate and maintain the light rail line in Hudson County that is owned by NJ Transit and operated under contract that expires in 2025.

Three companies bid, another joint venture between Keolis America/ Kinkisharyo International/ Shimmick Construction/ Twenty First Century, and Alstom Transportation Inc., which runs the River Line. Keolis America runs Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority commuter rail service in Boston and Kinkisharyo built the Hudson-Bergen light rail trains.

The contract for what will be the second operator in Hudson-Bergen light rails history will focus on maintaining the high standard of service Hudson-Bergen Light rail customers continue to expect, said Kevin Corbett, NJ Transit CEO at the meeting.

The contract includes three main components, including Rail Operations, Maintenance of Way, and Vehicle Maintenance. An additional scope includes work to bring the system to a state of good repair and capital work.

That capital work is defined in a Capital Plan, which describes work that falls within a Capital Asset Replacement Program and Capital Improvement Projects on the system.

The ACI-Herzog Joint Venture operates and maintains the Tren Urbano transit line in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The closest operation to Hudson Bergen in Herzogs rail portfolio is the Capital Rail system in Austin Texas, a system that is a hybrid between a commuter and light rail line.

Herzog is known in the rail industry as a construction and contracting company, but it has expanded in to transit operations which includes maintenance of passenger rail equipment services to New Jersey Transit on its Atlantic City Line, according to the company website.

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Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @CommutingLarry.
Voters in two South Jersey towns split over ballot questions this month on whether to build a long-stalled, 18-mile, nearly $2 billion commuter rail line.

The measure was defeated in Brooklawn, Camden County by 29 votes, 350 to 351. It passed in Glassboro, Gloucester County with 54% approval, 4,030 votes to 3,452.

Both results were with all districts reporting, in unofficial results.

The measures were the latest in an effort of some self-described rabble rousers who have been using ballot questions and social media to whip up opposition to the line. They say it is too costly, noisy and not needed.

Governments in four of the other 10 towns on the proposed Glassboro-Camden light rail line have already passed referendums opposing it after ballot petitions. Brooklawns outcome means residents in half of the towns on the line are not in favor of it. Some towns like Glassboro and Camden have more than one stop.

NJ Transit agreed to be the Agency of Record for the project two months ago.

The GCL project was relocated to NJ TRANSIT by order of the Commissioner of Transportation, the transit agency told NJ Advance Media in September. DRPA is currently in the process of transitioning the project over to NJ TRANSIT, at which point it will be reevaluated for best fit into our current network of transit services. Public engagement will be a part of the overall process.

Charles Hughes edits a social media page called No to GCL. The retired aerospace engineer lives in Woodbury, a town between Glassboro and Brooklawn also included in the rail plan. Hes not waiting for NJ Transit to express his opinion.

Up until we did this, nobody asked the people what they thought, said Hughes, who regards himself as a local rabble-rouser. This is all a machine-derived project. Its something thats being shoved down Glassboros throat.

Glassboro Mayor John Wallace did not immediately respond to a request for comment this week from NJ Advance Media about the ballot proposal. The borough government passed a resolution two years ago supporting the GCL.

Four other towns on the rail line have passed referendums opposing it. Wenonah passed a resolution in 2022 after voters opposed to the rail line in a ballot question. Mantua, Pitman and Woodbury Heights have also passed resolutions opposing it.

Jerry Granstrom, the mayor of Brooklawn, said his town may be the next to take a position on the GCL.

We would be responsible for what they call a hard gate, Grantstrom told NJ Advance Media this week. I looked into that and the pricing was probably in the area of $1 million. Thats my main reason for not even considering having that come through our town.

The $1.8 billion plan for the train is to run largely along existing Conrail right of ways, separated by about 25 feet from existing freight lines on tracks that need to be built. The funding is expected to come from federal, state and county resources, a DRPA official said.

It would connect Gloucester County to a rail network in Camden County that intersects with NJ Transits RiverLine to Trenton and trains to Atlantic City, and the Delaware River Port Authoritys rail line from Lindenwold to Philadelphia.

The concept of providing improved passenger rail access in this area dates to the 1930s. The most recent impetus for improved transit began in 2003 when the DRPA initiated a study completed two years later.

Staff writer Larry Higgs contributed to this report.

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Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com.
By Jesse Halpern

The Port Authority talks a big game about sustainability. At glance, several initiatives on the PAs website are:

Solar;

Electric vehicles;

LEED construction.

And with enough time, these may make a serious dent in our emissions.

But time is not on our side.

The latest climate data shows that the United States is significantly behind on meeting its Paris Climate Agreement commitments. And we as a planet continue to progress toward the disastrous tipping point of +1.5C.

The above measures that the Port Authority is implementing certainly arent nothing. But none of them seriously address the elephant in the room: As a society, we consume a lot of energy. Especially to get around. In fact, its our second-largest energy-consuming sector.

Yes, embracing electric vehicles by installing chargers is a good thing. But EVs are not the silver bullet we want to think they are. EVs still consume energy. Quite a bit in fact. Indirectly, EVs, like ICE (Internal Combustion Engines) cars, have a bunch of negative impacts regarding sustainability:

EVs still encourage low-density driving. High-density is one of the big reasons why public transit and rail are considered much more energy-efficient.

Car ownership is non-conducive to denser, sustainable development.

And, of course, EVs wont solve the timeless problem of fixing traffic. They still depend on pavement for driving. And they use that space far less efficiently than public transit.

And this is in addition to the other issues with EVs, such as microplastics and at best maintaining the status-quo regarding pedestrian safety.

So, what can the Port Authority do to show a serious commitment to reducing its carbon footprint? What can it do to demonstrate courage in tackling the elephant in the room? To do what is necessary to protect our climate?

The good news is that we already have the technology. In fact, its been around for centuries now and has only continued to improve on the energy efficiency-front.

Its not electric vehicles.

Its not solar.

Its not LEED.

Its not a proprietary secret.

Its trains.

At the recent PA board meeting, just a few minutes were spent discussing PATH. Yet, PATH is one of the PAs biggest weapons in their toolbox of climate change-fighting tools. Data is readily available from countless sources showing that electric trains are more energy-efficient than EVs. The Port Authority has been talking a big game about making the NYC-area airports into world-class transportation hubs.

What is one of the best ways we can do that while simultaneously reducing emissions? Trains.

Jersey City is New Jerseys second-largest city by population and just 7 miles away from Newark Liberty International Airport. Yet it is substantially more convenient to access the airport from JC by car than public transit.

So, I ask the Port Authority to think bigger. I ask the Port Authority to be bold. To be daring. To think bigger than all of the popular and eye-catching technologies that corporations are selling. To have the courage to embrace an idea that has big-picture impacts on how we live, making our lives safer and more sustainable. I ask the Port Authority to consider what I and thousands of NY-area residents think about every day when we want to get around.

To make PATH the method of choice for getting around the Hudson County area, even during off-peak hours.

To build the Marion station that will encourage sustainable development and living.

To build the PATH extension to EWR and make PATH the method of choice for accessing our new world-class airport terminals.

I ask the Port Authority to consider trains.

Jesse Halpern is a Jersey City resident and frequent PATH rider who wants the next generation to enjoy a more livable and sustainable NYC area.

Send letters to the editor and guest columns for The Jersey Journal to jjletters@jjournal.com.
A New Jersey man was arrested Tuesday and accused of strangling a woman to death in broad daylight near Times Square last month, officials said Wednesday.

Jaheem Warren, 33, of Prospect Park was taken into custody on Tuesday after New York City police identified him as the primary suspect in a strangling death in the Midtown North precinct, a spokesperson from the New York Police Department said Wednesday.

Warren was charged with first-degree counts of assault and strangulation, second-degree counts of assault and strangulation, and two counts of second-degree murder, an NYPD spokesperson said.

The incident happened around 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 29 when NYPD officers responded to Mount Sinai West hospital where a victim, Leslie Torres, 23, had been taken after she was found in critical condition, officials said.

Authorities learned Torres was found by emergency medical responders at 305 West 46 Street in the Hells Kitchen section of Manhattan between Eighth and Ninth avenues, and taken to the hospital, according to the NYPD spokesperson.

Torres died from her injuries on Monday, Nov. 4, authorities said.

NBC New York reported Wednesday that Torres was found unconscious on the sidewalk in front of a hotel in Times Square. Authorities identified Warren as the primary suspect based on security camera footage along the block, NBC reported.

Warren denied attacking Torres as he was lead away from an NYPD station house, according to the NBC report.

Authorities said the attack appeared to be random and that Warren and Torres did not know each other, NBC reported.

Warren had recently been released from New Jersey state prison in March after being arrested and charged with one count of manufacturing and distributing controlled dangerous substances in November 2023, prison records show.

Attorney information for Warren was not immediately available.

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Matthew Enuco may be reached at Menuco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Matt on X.
Former national security adviser John Bolton was shocked to hear President-elect Donald Trumps latest picks for Cabinet-level positions.

Trump has been working to quickly announce his picks to fill his administration since clinching the White House last week over Vice President Kamala Harris. On Wednesday, he revealed two of his most controversial picks: former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence and former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for attorney general.

Bolton said the Senate should unanimously oppose both of these nominations when asked what his reaction was to Trump selecting Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.

Well, I thought it was the worst cabinet level appointment in history, until then I heard about the Matt Gaetz appointment, he said on CNN. Really, the action was that this is like the legend of Caligula, the Roman emperor, who wanted to nominate his horse as a Roman consul. You had to be a Roman Senator at the time to be a consul, and it was intended to show how demeaned and degraded the Roman Senate had become.

So now were going to see whether the American Senate can stand up and reject two people who are totally unqualified, unfit, professionally and and really lacking in the moral characteristics, the character that you need to hold these jobs. I think this vote should be 100 to nothing against both of them, he added.

Many Republican lawmakers were surprised to hear Trump selected the embattled Florida Republican to head the Justice Department, according to multiple reports. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Gaetz has got a lot of work to get 50, while Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) said Gaetz is not a serious nomination for the attorney general. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she was shocked by the decision.

Republican Rep. Matt Miller said that he does not expect the Senate to confirm Gaetz to the position. Questions have been swirling as to why Trump selected Gaetz over other frontrunners who would have been more qualified.

But CNNs Mark Preston said Trump picked Gaetz for one reason.

I just got off the phone with a senior Trump adviser, he tells me, Trump is going to bring in somebody to burn down the DOJ from the inside, and Matt is going to do that, he said on CNN.

A Trump source told CNNs Mark Preston that Trump picked Matt Gaetz to burn down the DOJ from the inside. pic.twitter.com/DrkAPo6YUf  Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) November 14, 2024

Gaetz, a staunch defender of Trump, has been involved in numerous controversies, including being investigated for allegations of sex trafficking and having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl. He also spearheaded the effort to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from the post last year.

Just hours after it was announced he would be nominated as attorney general, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) revealed Gaetz had resigned from the House.

Punchbowl News reported that his resignation came just days before the House Ethics Committee was slated to vote on whether to release a highly critical report on Gaetz after it investigated allegations that Gaetz was involved in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

Gaetz was also investigated by the Justice Department over possible federal sex trafficking violations, but no charges were brought against him. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Gabbard, who left the Democrat Party in 2022, has also been met with some skepticism. She has not held any senior government roles and has also faced scrutiny for a lack of experience needed for the role.
The MAGA world is breaking down after the Senate GOP rejected Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) as its majority leader.

Trump allies and MAGA mouthpieces were quick to back Scott for Senate majority leader shortly after Donald Trump clinched the White House last week over Vice President Kamala Harris. But on Wednesday, Republican senators bucked MAGA activists and elected Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell as head of the Senate GOP.

Close Trump allies, including tech billionaire Elon Musk, ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy and conservative activist Charlie Kirk, endorsed Scott for the position over the weekend. In the wake of Thune being elected, conservative social media users posted their disappointment with the decision.

Conservative podcaster Benny Johnson ripped the Senate Republicans for their decision and issued a warning to Thune after the news broke that he was elected as the new Senate majority leader on Wednesday. Johnson, like many other conservative activists, emphasized that Thune had been critical of Trump in the past.

We know so many good senators that really dont like you, and they are very suspicious of you, and we will work with every breath that we have on this program and use every muscle that we possibly can of leverage to remove you if you dare cross the agenda that you did nothing to bring about, Johnson said in a message to Thune posted on social media platform X.

You didnt lift a finger. You sabotaged Trump every time you got the chance... So well remember that, and if you change your ways, fine, well work alongside you. If you dare cross us, then we will use every single lever, lever of power that we have to remove you, he added.

We will never forget what John Thune did to stab MAGA in the back



The American People delivered a commanding mandate to Washington



It is now on him and Sen. Leadership to demonstrate an understanding of that and govern swiftly to pass President Trump's agenda free of sabotage pic.twitter.com/YthtXk5e5e  Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 13, 2024

Kirk also issued similar threats on Wednesday.

John Thune is Senate Majority Leader. He has a short window to show us he will support President Trump, fill his cabinet, confirm his judges, and pass his agenda. If he does, we will support him. If he doesnt, we will work to remove him, he wrote on X.

Thune is now on the record. If Trump doesnt have a full cabinet by mid-February we are going to have a problem. Get it done, Senator Thune, Kirk wrote in a separate tweet.

Trump did not publicly endorse anyone in the leadership race.

Thune, 63, is in his fourth Senate term and has promised to work closely with Trump, despite differences the two have had over the years, and will be a crucial part of the incoming presidents efforts to push through his policy agenda. The two spoke on the phone shortly after Thune was elected, the senator posted on X Wednesday afternoon, adding that Senate Republicans are excited and ready to get to work with the incoming president.

Trump later congratulated Thune on his social media platform, Truth Social. He moves quickly, and will do an outstanding job, Trump wrote. I look forward to working with him.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Donald Trump made history in cities nationwide over his election victory against Kamala Harris.

CNNs data guru Harry Enten broke down the results:

If you remember back in 2017, you know, the liberal cities were the resistance. The core of the resistance. What happened in 2024? You think of a major city in the United States, Donald Trump put up the best Republican performance for a Republican nominee for president in at least 20 years, if not in the entire 21st century.

Were talking about Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco. Across the map, Donald Trump put up historically strong numbers for a Republican candidate for president in places that, truthfully, if you were to ask me eight years ago, I would have never thought possible.

Trump's election showing in major cities was simply amazing. The strongest for a GOP pres nominee in 20+ years from coast to coast.



These gains were driven by dissatisfaction with crime, immigration, & inflation... Specifically among minorities, especially Asians & Hispanics. pic.twitter.com/h442IiJprP  (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) November 14, 2024

And what was the biggest driver of that support? Enten suggested it was crime.

Polling on Democrats views of policies to fight crime showed 39% were satisfied in 2024 compared to 58% who were unsatisfied. Thats a more than 20-point spike among unsatisfied Democrats compared to 2014, when only 35% said they were unsatisfied and 59% were satisfied.

Big shifts within small groups and small shifts within big groups helped propel Trumps return to the White House.

The Republican candidate won by holding onto his traditional coalition  white voters, voters without a college degree and older voters  while making crucial gains among younger voters and Black and Hispanic men, according to AP VoteCast, a far-reaching survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide.

His Democratic opponent made small gains  most significantly with white men with a college degree living in urban areas  but it was not enough to offset her losses elsewhere.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MatthewArco.
President-elect Donald Trumps choice for attorney general sent shockwaves through GOP lawmakers on Wednesday.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has been tapped to be Trumps attorney general in his second terma choice that appears to have surprised many in the nations capital. Gaetz, who will be in charge of the Justice Department if confirmed to the post, faced a years-long sex trafficking investigation brought by the Justice Department but was ultimately not charged in it

The Washington Post and CNN reported in 2022 that Gaetz told a former White House aide that he was seeking a preemptive pardon from Trump during the Justice Departments probe into whether he violated federal sex trafficking laws.

More from The Washington Post report in 2022:

Johnny McEntee, according to people familiar with his testimony, told investigators that Gaetz told him during a brief meeting that they are launching an investigation into him or that theres an investigation into him, without specifying who was investigating Gaetz.

McEntee added that Gaetz told him he did not do anything wrong but they are trying to make his life hell, and you know, if the president could give him a pardon, that would be great. Gaetz told McEntee that he had asked White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for a pardon.

Gaetz, a staunch supporter of Trump, has been criticized by members on both sides of the aisle throughout his time in Congress. Many Senate Republicans were shocked to hear the news of Trumps decision on Wednesday, according to multiple reports.

He irked fellow GOP members in early 2023 when he filed the resolution that successfully ousted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy then helped fund a primary challenge to Gaetz that included commercials alleging that he paid for sex with a 17-year-old, an allegation currently investigated by the House Ethics Committee. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing. The Justice Department ended its own sex trafficking investigation without bringing charges against him.

Even Trumps allies in the Senate are keeping their distance from Gaetz.

Well see, said Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin when asked whether he would vote to confirm the congressman.

Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, suggested that the Senate would look closely into Gaetz, including the House Ethics Committee investigation.

Im sure it will make for a popcorn-eating confirmation hearing, said GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
UGGs are one of the hottest gifts of the holiday season, and if you dont have a pair on your Christmas wishlist yet, youre going to want to add your favorite style now.

We are days away from UGGs big Black Friday sale when it kicks open the doors to the UGG Closet. This is where youll find mega deals on the best UGG boots and UGG slippers for winter.

You may be eyeing the Classic Mini Platform Boot or looking to add the Classic Ultra Mini New Heights Boot to your wardrobe this season. Both UGG bestsellers are expected to be top sellers this holiday season and theres no telling how long theyll stay in stock.

You may also be lusting after those always sold-out Tasman Slippers in the beloved Sand or the classic Chestnut color or looking to grab that playful Funkette Slipper.

Whatever your preferred UGG style for winter is, youre going to want to start compiling your Christmas wishlist now before the most popular boots and slippers sell out.

UGG Holiday Gift Guide 2024

To help, heres a look at some of the bestselling UGG boots and slippers gifts to ask for as a Christmas gift this year.

Shop for even more UGG boots and slippers online here.

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Dawn Magyar can be reached at dmagyar@njadvancemedia.com. Have a tip? Tell us at nj.com/tips/.
A black bear was spotted near an elementary and high school in Union County, the districts superintendent said Thursday morning.

The two Plainfield schools were keeping students inside as a precaution, school officials said.

Plainfield Public Schools have been informed of a bear sighting near Evergreen Elementary School and Plainfield High School, Superintendent Rashon K. Hasan said in an announcement posted to social media. Out of caution, we urge all school community members to remain indoors and stay alert.

The safety of our students, staff, and community is our top priority, he said. We are closely monitoring the situation and are in communication with local authorities.

Hasan said the district would provide updates as more information becomes available.

The bear was spotted in a tree above an apartment buildings parking lot on East Ninth Street near Second and Third Place in Plainfield at around 8:40 a.m., according to a TAPinto Plainfield report.

The bear twice attempted to descend from the tree around 9 a.m., but police officers yelled and used their sirens to encourage the bear to remain in the tree, the news outlet reported.

Were doing everything possible to ensure the safety of the public, as well as the wellbeing of the bear, Plainfield Police Director James T. Abney said in a statement provided to NJ Advance Media at 12:30 p.m. New Jersey Fish and Wildlife is on the scene with the Plainfield Police Department.

Bears have been spotted in numerous suburban municipalities across New Jersey recently, including in Clinton, Maplewood, Kearny and Ringwood.

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Brianna Kudisch may be reached at bkudisch@njadvancemedia.com.
Six-day (Tuesday through Sunday) print subscribers of the Watertown Daily Times are eligible for full access to NNY360, the NNY360 mobile app, and the Watertown Daily Times e-edition, all at no additional cost.

If you have an existing six-day print subscription to the Watertown Daily Times, please make sure your email address on file matches your NNY360 account email. You can sign up or manage your print subscription using the options below.
Interview: China-proposed initiatives key to global governance, says Rwandan expert

Xinhua) 20:28, November 14, 2024

KIGALI, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- China-proposed initiatives are playing a critical role in improving the global governance system, a Rwandan expert has said.

"China is sharing its development experience with other countries through its development initiatives which have helped to promote common development," Straton Habyarimana, Rwandan economic analyst, told Xinhua.

"Since these initiatives are people-centered, they address key challenges such as food insecurity and poverty," he said.

Habyarimana said China's three global initiatives -- the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative -- have helped ease tensions among countries.

These initiatives not only uphold international justice but also promote common development, he said, adding that he believes China will continue to contribute to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

The Rwandan expert also said that China plays a positive role in promoting a fairer, more inclusive, and more sustainable global development.

Chinese initiatives have facilitated trade and economic cooperation which is critical to developing countries in Africa in their efforts to gain growth momentum and improve livelihoods, he said.

China's initiatives have created jobs for Africans through the building of large-scale infrastructure projects in different African nations. This has led to prosperity and improvement of people's wellbeing, he said.

(Web editor: Chang Sha, Zhong Wenxing)
A Democrat-controlled Virginia House panel on Wednesday advanced three proposed constitutional amendments, including a new version of an abortion amendment that would give every person the fundamental right to reproductive freedom and reduce the number of doctors required to sign off on a third-trimester abortion from three to one.

A substitution for the proposed abortion amendment came as a surprise to many legislators on the 22-person panel who did not see the new language until midway through the meeting. The House Privileges and Elections Chairwoman Del. Marcia Price, a Newport News Democrat, gave legislators a five-minute recess to review the new proposed amendment before deliberating and voting on the substitute.

The abortion substitute amendment passed the committee on a 12-9 vote.

Passage of a proposed constitutional amendment is a multiyear process. A proposed amendment must pass the legislature in two different years with an election for the House of Delegates in between. The measure can then go to voters in a statewide referendum. (The House of Delegates is up for election in November 2025.)

A lawyer for the committee said there is no certain answer on whether the proposed amendment would invalidate the states parental consent law.

Under current law, anyone under 18 years old must get permission for an abortion from one parent, grandparent or adult sibling with whom the person lives. The proposed amendment says every person has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including the ability to make and carry out decisions relating to reproductive care including abortion.

Tracking the news What's the background? A proposed state constitutional amendment must pass the legislature in two different years, with an election for the House of Delegates in between, then gain approval from Virginians in a statewide referendum. What's new? A House legislative panel led by Democrats on Wednesday advanced proposed amendments on abortion rights, same-sex marriage and rights restoration. The abortion amendment would reduce the number of doctors required to sign off on a third-trimester abortion from three to one. What's next? The full General Assembly will consider the measures when it meets in January.

Current law requires three doctors to sign off on a third-trimester abortion. The new amendment would require one doctor to sign off on a late-term abortion when it is medically indicated to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual or when in the professional judgment of a physician the fetus is not viable.

House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, an Alexandria Democrat who patroned the amendment, said the three-doctor requirement can be a hindrance in emergency situations.

There are deserts that exist in the commonwealth of Virginia, even in Fairfax County, where one would think theres plenty of OBGYNs, Herring said at a news conference following the meeting. [If] you have an emergency situation, and theres one doctor thats on call, physically there, and then theyre not able to find another physician ... youre risking the life of the woman.

The Wednesday action does not advance the timeline of the constitutional amendment. Legislators can introduce and pass proposed constitutional amendments during the 2025 legislation session, and they would still have to pass them again in the 2026 session before the measures could go to the public for a vote.

GOP says Dems rushed process

Republicans voiced concerns about the process, which they called rushed.

Del. Phillip Scott, a Spotsylvania County Republican, asked what the detriment would be for the amendment to be reintroduced during the 2025 session as regular legislation.

Price responded: I appreciate the question, but the question is out of order. We are here today. We are hearing the bill at the chairs request that we are here today and take that vote. And so we are going to do that.

Del. Israel OQuinn, a Washington County Republican, said the meeting that took place Wednesday was the functional equivalency of operating in the dead of night.

It is very rare to tackle issues of this magnitude outside of session, OQuinn said. This is something that I personally believe should be done in full session, when everyone is paying attention, when were not suffering from election hangover, and when we are dialed in to the fact as Virginians that big things happen during our upcoming 45-day legislative session.

Price said the actions taken were well within the rules.

Same-sex marriage, rights restoration





The panel also advanced amendments on same-sex marriage and the restoration of rights to people convicted of felonies.

The marriage amendment would repeal the ban on same-sex marriage in Virginias constitution, which voters backed in a 2006 referendum. Federal courts made the Virginia constitutional language moot by backing a right to same-sex marriage.

The panel passed the proposed amendment on same-sex marriage on a 16-5 vote.

The restoration of rights amendment, which would automatically restore voting rights to people when they are released from incarceration, passed on a 12-9 vote.

Under Virginias constitution, felons who have completed their terms must petition the governor for restoration of rights.

The House and the Senate will vote on all three proposed constitutional amendments during the upcoming legislative session, which starts in January.
12 p.m. Wander up the Beltline

The busiest stretch of the Beltline, the Eastside Trail, begins at the Krog tunnel and extends about two and a half miles north to the lovely green slopes of Piedmont Park. The Beltline has been transformative for a city that for decades was organized around the car. And though its success has prompted serious concerns about gentrification, it seems that Atlanta, finally, can see itself, particularly on weekends, when the path is crammed with flirting teenagers, exercise freaks, extrovert roller skaters, buskers and cool kids rocking complicated sneakers from the future. Explore Ponce City Market, a mall and food court set in a reconditioned former Sears distribution center. Refresh at Pub on Ponce, which is set in a Kroger supermarket and serves beer and wine through a window onto a patio that can feel like the citys front porch.
Not a Subscriber? Join O'Dwyer's & Get RFP Access Stop wasting time tracking down RFPs. O'Dwyer's connects you with organizations looking for PR firms & services. Get new business with O'Dwyer's! Join O'Dwyer's
The Onion, the satirical platform that lampoons current events, has won a bankruptcy auction to acquire conspiracy theorist Alex Joness InfoWars. According to The Onion, its bid was OKed by the families of the victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. In 2022, those families won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, after InfoWars spread the claim that the shooting was fabricated as a ploy to confiscate Americans firearms. Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit dedicated to ending gun violence that was founded in the aftermath of the shooting, will advertise on a relaunched version of the site under The Onion. The New York Times reports that the relaunched site will take an approach similar to Clickhole, The Onions sister site, which mocks content from a range of viral sources. All told, the decision to acquire InfoWars was an easy one for the Global Tetrahedron executive board, said Bryce Tetraeder, CEO of Global Tetrahedron, which owns The Onion. No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds.

The Guardian says it will no longer post on any of its official editorial accounts on the social media site X (formerly known as Twitter). However, it notes that X users will still be able to share articles from The Guardian, and the platform will continue to occasionally embed content from X within its article pages. In addition, Guardian reporters will still be able to carry on using the site for news-gathering purposes. We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere, The Guardian said in article posted on Nov. 13. Social media can be an important tool for news organizations and help us to reach new audiences but, at this point, X now plays a diminished role in promoting our work.

The Washington Post is throwing down the gauntlet when it comes to working from home. As of June 2, 2025, the papers employees will be expected to work from the office five days a week. For managers, the new policy goes in force on Feb. 3. The move follows one at Amazon, which is also owned by WaPo owner Jeff Bezos. Amazon employees were put on the five-day-a-week plan in September, with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy saying it allowed the company to move fast and retain culture. Post chief executive William Lewis said that at the paper we are really good when we are working together in person. However, the Washington Post Guild has termed the move as one that stands to further disrupt our work rather than to improve our productivity or collaboration.
Matt Gaetz

PR artist Donald Trump has painted a masterpiece via the nomination of the reprehensible Matt Gaetz as attorney general, a post that vice president JD Vance called the second most powerful position in the new administration.

There is no way that the Senate can approve Gaetz, who was the subject of a three-year Justice Dept. probe into sex trafficking that ended in 2023, for the job.

Putting his name forward though sends a strong signal to Trumps MAGA base that he is serious about blowing things up in DC. Trump has gone beyond draining the swamp to ripping down the infrastructure of the federal government.

The response to the Gaetz nomination also gives the incoming president an early signal about how much leeway he will get from the Republican-controlled Senate. Will it take on the traditional advise and consent role, or will it cave to the whims its Dear Leader?

The selection of Gaetz, who has called for the dismantling of the FBI, is so off-the-wall, it makes the pick of the totally unqualified guy to run the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, look not so bad in comparison.

The telegenic Fox & Friends Weekend co-host has never run a big institution like the Pentagon, which has a budget of $840B and 2.8M employees around the world. But he will look good on TV defending the policies of his boss. Thats all that matters.

Hegseth is a committed culture warrior and is expected to wage a war on wokeness at the Pentagon.

Thats a risky focus as the US faces military challenges with the wind-down of the Ukraine conflict, chaos in the Middle East, a showdown with China in the Pacific, and rising tensions with North Korea.

Battling wokeness should be far down on the to-do list on the next SecDef.

What are the chances that Elon Musk will continue to be a valued member of Team Trump on July 4, 2026, the target date for the completion of the work of the Dept. of Government Efficiency? I would say slim to none.

First off, why did Trump install Vivek Ramaswamy, another super-ego maniac, to work with Musk on the DOGE project. They are two unlikely peas in the same pod.

DOGE should be Elons show. He was the guy who has been mouthing off about getting rid of government regulations, and slashing spending by a whopping $2T from the $6.5T federal budget. Thats about a third of US spending.

Musk plays second fiddle to nobody.

And then there is the matter of management bloat at the top of an operation that believes it can replace thousands of federal employees who are involved in overlapping work.

Yet Trump has charged these two wonderful Americans to pave the way for my Administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies.

In his announcement about the creation of DOGE, Trump referred to the Great Elon Musk and American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy.

The Washington Post has reported that $2T in cuts are impossible to achieve unless military spending and Social Security programs are slashed by 33 percent.

Elon is not deterred. He is currently throwing out cliches about cutting spending to get government off your back and out of your pocketbook and promises an amazing future.

His future is bright indeed as Teslas market capitalization has surged more than $300B since the election, which is more than the combined market cap of General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.

God help the rest of us.

Poor pathetic JoeThe Nov. 5 election drubbing wasnt enough for President Joe Biden, who is trying to get through his worst week in PR.

On Nov. 12, the US decided not to withhold military aid to Israel because it improved the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.

Biden had given Israel boss Benjamin Netanyahu a one-month deadline to allow more food assistance into the embattled enclave or face a cut-off of some weapons.

Per usual, Netanyahu paid little attention to the threats from Biden. Per usual, Joe caved.

At deadline time, eight human rights groups including Oxfam and Save the Children issued a report, saying that Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza.

The groups said Israels military operations have kept food aid from flowing to Gaza, resulting in famine conditions for 800K Palestinian civilians.

And then there was Bidens photo-op with president-elect Trump in which the president promised a smooth transition for the guy who triggered the Jan. 6 riot, and now claims that he should not have left office in the first place.

Biden shaking hands with the man that he once called a great threat to Americas democracy was head-spinning.

It was the capstone of his uneven presidency.

Mattel makes embarrassing PR stumble amid the over-the-top hype for the movie, Wicked. The toymaker mistakenly listed the web address of a pornographic website on the packaging of its Wicked character dolls.

The address was supposed to link to the official movie site, but a misprint led consumers to the site of Wicked Pictures, which produced the upcoming Kenzie Loves Girls 2 porn flick.

Target, WalMart, Macys, Kohls, and BestBuy pulled the Mattel dolls from their shelves, as did amazon.com.

Mattel apologized for its unfortunate error and advised parents that the misprinted, incorrect website is not appropriate for children.

You can say that again.

Good luck to the 1400 professionals at FGS Global who will go under scrutiny by the consultants at McKinsey & Co.

My hunch is that a good chunk of FGS Globals 31 offices will either be shuttered or consolidated.

Thats the hallmark of McKinsey.

Its a bit troubling that a sophisticated corporate communications shop is being graded by a firm with a tattered reputation due to its work with Saudi Arabia and opioid king Purdue Pharma.

But I guess that's what happens when FGS Global ownership shifts from communications and creative powerhouse WPP to the bean-counters at KKR investment firm.
Jason Morris

Inkhouse, part of Orchestra, names Jason Morris as CEO. Morris joined Inkhouse as general manager of its San Francisco office in 2014 and most recently served as president of the agency. Before coming to Inkhouse, he was an EVP at MSLGROUP and a VP at Schwartz Communications. Morris succeeds Inkhouse founder Beth Monaghan, who will become chair of the Orchestra Technology Group. Jason has seen the technology industry evolve from e-commerce, to the cloud, clean tech and now AI. His wisdom and energy for whats next is contagious and Im excited to work with him as a strategic partner to implement the strategies that will propel the next generation of technology leaders, said Orchestra CEO Jonathan Rosen

Devin O'Malley

Narrative Strategies promotes Devin OMalley to partner. Prior to joining Narrative in 2022, OMalley was a senior strategist for Virginia governor Glenn Youngkins successful 2021 campaign. He previously served as press secretary to Vice President Mike Pence and held a wide range of roles in the first Trump administration. He began his career under Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and held a senior role in Sen. Tom Cottons (R-AR) first campaign. In less than three years, Devin has led large-scale public affairs campaigns, managed high-profile crises and helped countless companies and industries tell their positive stories, said Narrative CEO and founding partner Ken Spain. The firm also announced the addition of paid media manager Alina Serbina and strategic communications associate Grace Hill.

Brant Herzer

Spool, a Chicago-based shop, brings on Brant Herzer as head of creative. Herzer has held lead positions at such agencies as DDB, VML and Dentsu, working with such brands as Capital One, Bud Light and Butterball. He most recently led the global rebranding of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, created new campaigns for Capn Crunch, and helped redefine Starbucks canned Frappuccino line. Brants combination of storytelling and strategic insight is the perfect match for Spools bold, results-driven approach, said Spool CEO Catherine Merritt. His track record across major brands will help us continue delivering exceptional results for clients as we expand our creative capabilities.
WKC Global, a PR, branding services and social media agency with offices in New York and Miami, is celebrating Womens Entrepreneurship Day (Nov. 19) with the launch of an initiative to help female entrepreneurs elevate or pivot their businesses. The agencys Next-Level Lab, which takes place Dec. 5 and 6, will invite 10 female business owners to a one-on-one, 40-minute consult session in which they can discuss their business challenges and specific needs. The candidates will be able to explore such topics as garnering customer attention, securing press and buzz, navigating brand positioning and building impactful partnerships. Participants will receive tailored feedback and the kind of high-level insights typically reserved for clients of Wunderlich Kaplan Communications. Female entrepreneurs wanting to take part in the program should submit their business details and key goals to [email protected].

Firmani + Associates, an integrated marketing and PR firm based in Seattle, is acquired from founder Mark Firmani by longtime equity partners Kristi Herriott and Annie Alley. Herriott, who became the agencys first equity partner in 2011, has served as managing partner since 2021. Alley, a partner at the firm, joined the ownership team in 2015. Firmani will continue to serve in an of-counsel capacity at the agency while he explores new professional pursuits. Weve worked hard to build a culture that not only delivers exceptional results for our clients but also fosters an environment where talented people want to grow and thrive, Herriott said. This new chapter will help us continue building on that commitment, ensuring F+A remains a place where great people come to do their best work. Were all excited for whats to come.

Golin, an IPG agency, launches Farm & Food, an offering focused on providing full-service PR and marketing communications for agribusiness and commodity organizations. Led by Golin Dallas managing director Beth Engelmann, who was CMO and COO of Dairy Management Inc. for nearly a decade, Farm & Food is supported by a team of 50 specialists with deep industry experience. The offering will leverage data, analytics and artificial intelligence to help clients engage next-generation audiences and drive transformative solutions so they can compete in a rapidly evolving market. From farmers and producers to grocery, CPG and QSR, Golin brings extensive experience and proven success in driving outcomes for our clients across the food chain, said Engelmann.
BALLYBOY Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann (CCE) is a vibrant community dedicated to preserving and promoting Ireland's rich cultural heritage. With a large and growing membership, Ballyboy CCE is a testament to the enduring appeal of traditional Irish music, song, dance, storytelling, and the Irish language.

The branch has a proud tradition of success in both local and national competitions. In recent years, they've achieved remarkable results at the Leinster Fleadh Cheoil, showcasing the exceptional talent of their young musicians. They are particularly proud of their two All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil winners in 2024; Fiadhna Leamy (Melodeon) and Grace Minnock (Whistle)

Ballyboy CCE offers a diverse range of activities for people of all ages and abilities. Their workshops, concerts, sessions, and classes provide opportunities to learn new skills, connect with like-minded individuals, and immerse yourself in the beauty of Irish culture.

Their experienced tutors offer lessons in a variety of traditional Irish instruments, including: Tin whistle, Concertina, Fiddle, Accordion, Banjo, Harp, Piano, Bodhran, Ceili drums, Flute, Guitar, Mandolin.

They hold guided junior sessions on one Sunday each month to help young musicians develop their skills and confidence. They hold a seisiun cheoil for more advanced musicians, once a month (on Saturday night) and every Sunday night you can join Nora for set dancing. All takes place in Dan and Molly's, Ballyboy.

Mark your calendars for Friday November 22nd at 7pm as they present their annual concert at Kilcormac Community Centre, with performances from their talented junior musicians and All-Ireland winners. It's an event you won't want to miss!
JOURNEY numbers have reached a record high, with people now using TFI Local Link bus services more than 100,000 times a week across rural Ireland, including 7,203 passengers in Laois Offaly.

These bus services are provided for the National Transport Authority (NTA) by 15 Local Link Offices around the country. There were 105,986 passenger journeys on TFI Local Link services in the week ending October 13th 2024. This represents a more-than five-fold increase compared to January 2022, when weekly passenger numbers were at 19,982.

Passenger journey numbers have been increasing consistently for over three years now. The weekly national average was 16,745 in 2021; 36,664 in 2022; and 78,892 in 2023. Now it has surged to 100,000  a new high.

This dramatic increase in numbers coincides with the rollout of the NTAs Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Plan, from January 2022. Since then, over 110 new and enhanced TFI Local Link routes have been introduced under the plan, covering every county.

In Laois Offaly alone, passenger numbers have increased more than six-fold, driven by the introduction or enhancement of six key routes. These include:

 Route 850: Roscrea to Athlone

 Route 831: Rathdowney to Portlaoise

 Route 840: Banagher to Tullamore

2024 is the third year of a five-year implementation plan for Connecting Ireland. Some 60 percent of the proposed services are now in place, with the remainder to be introduced in the coming years.

The new and enhanced services are proving to be very attractive to a new set of customers in rural Ireland, who are choosing TFI Local Link services to get to work, education, healthcare, and social activities.

Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan also acknowledged the milestone and the efforts behind the scenes, stating We have seen a transformation in public transport across rural Ireland and going by the numbers, people really like it. Reaching this milestone of 100,000 passengers a week is incredible but Id like to think of it as just the beginning. We need to have buses cris-crossing this country and reaching into towns and villages everywhere.

I want to extend my thanks to the Local Link offices, operators, and passengers who have made this achievement possible. The exponential growth were seeing  up five fold in just four years in many places - highlights the importance of the Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Plan in delivering improved access and inclusion for rural Ireland. We are building not just a better-connected Ireland, but a more sustainable, equitable, and vibrant onethanks to the hard work of everyone involved.

Anne Graham, CEO of the National Transport Authority (NTA), expressed her gratitude for the collective effort: This achievement is a direct result of the dedication and hard work by a whole range of people and the continued support from passengers who have embraced the service.

Reaching 100,000 passengers per week would not have been possible without the incredible commitment of the Local Link Offices and their staff as well as the drivers and the local bus operators, and Id like to thank everyone who is involved.

I was always optimistic that Connecting Ireland would prove to be a transformative plan for rural communities, but honestly, Im completely blown away by the success story that it has become across the country. And were not finished yet!

Speaking on the results, TFI Local Link Laois Offaly Manager, Frances Byrne said: Without our great staff, drivers and regular passengers, the achievement of reaching 100,000 passengers a day wouldnt happen. The roll out of Connecting Ireland, with routes like the 840 Banagher to Tullamore, 823 Birr to Portlaoise, 822 Mountrath to Carlow, 834 Portlaoise to Roscrea, 858 Portlaoise to Thurles, 850 Athlone to Roscrea and more to come, increasing public transport in connecting our rural communities.

For more information about TFI Local Link services, please visit Transport for Irelands Local Link page or contact the Local Link Laois Offaly Office at www.locallinklaoisoffaly.ie .
Sinn Fein General Election candidate for Tipperary North, Dan Harty, says 'the disaster' at University Hospital Limerick is a result of extremely poor planning since the decision to close the other emergency departments in the region without safe capacity at UHL.

Put simply, the decision to close the emergency department in Nenagh was a disaster for the people of North Tipperary. Simon Harris and Stephen Donnelly have had eight years to put a plan in place for the Midwest and they have failed. This government has failed to fund and implement Slaintecare, a plan that achieved cross-party political consensus on major health reform in Ireland, Mr. Harty said.

The recent announcement by the Taoiseach to follow anticipated HIQA recommendations in the lifetime of the next government, whatever they might be, comes too little too late for the people of North Tipperary. We have a situation where, even with increased overflow capacity at the new Nursing Home Unit in Nenagh, that 1,876 patients were left without a bed in UHL last month. According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation this was the second highest figure ever recorded for the hospital for the month of October.

Sinn Fein has recently launched its new healthcare policy, A Prescription For Change. Sinn Fein has the plan, vision, and determination to deal with the big challenges in healthcare. Our plan sets out in detail how we will deliver better access to healthcare when you need it, improve access to a GP when you need one, and end the crisis in our Emergency Departments.

In terms of the Midwest Region, a Sinn Fein government will act decisively and with urgency. A Sinn Fein Minister for Health would, in the first 100 days in government, task HIQA to recommend a location for a second ED in the region.

We would end the dangerous recruitment embargo and fast-track 288 additional beds for University Hospital Limerick to get ahead of the constant crisis in the emergency department.

Our plan for the Midwest would deliver 24-hour urgent care at Ennis, Nenagh, and St Johns hospitals and deliver an elective facility for the Midwest region. We would bolster community services to better support the hospital, including out-of-hours GP care, extended pharmacy hours, and significant investment in community nursing and step-down beds.

We have a situation where people are afraid to go to hospital when they need medical care, this is unacceptable in a modern society. We need to do better for our people and Im asking people to support the Sinn Fein healthcare plan in the upcoming election.
SINN FEIN leader Mary Lou McDonald said she looks forward to walking through the gates of Leinster with the new TD for Offaly after the General Election, Aoife Masterson.

Speaking as she officially opened Cllr Masterson's office in Kilbride Plaza in Tullamore on Thursday afternoon, Deputy McDonald described her as a candidate of "outstanding calibre".

Speaking to the Tullamore Tribune she said Cllr Masterson was a person embedded in the county and community who championed key issues such as rural regeneration and the creation of new jobs.

"We have a good organisation here on the ground in Offaly and I am sure that she will perform very well," stressed the Sinn Fein leader.

Dismissing pundits who have written Sinn Fein off, Deputy McDonald said there was now a real sense on the ground that this election was a gamechanger.

"For the first time there is a opportunity for a Government to be led by a party other than Fianna Fail or Fine Gael," she outlined.

Deputy McDonald stressed Sinn Fein was running enough candidates in the election to allow them lead the next Government for the first time.

"Anyone who thought they could write Sinn Fein off will observe as the campaign develops that this was the wrong place to be."

She added that only when a General Election was called did many people start to think about where things are and whether they would like to see change in housing, health, childcare and mental health services.

"This is the first time in history where we can say that the State has the resources but we have to ensure that they are spent shrewdly," she stressed.

Ms McDonald said the Government had shown through plans to spend 9 million on phone pouches that it could not be trusted with the small things.

"The questions arises that if the Government cannot look after small projects can we expect it to look after the big projects," said Ms McDonald who pointed to the huge spending on the new children's hospital in Dublin.

Asked about the fallout from the Brian Stanley affair in Offaly, she said the "honourable thing" for the Laois TD to do was to "take responsibility for his own actions".

"Brian Stanley caused his own problems and now he needs to have a bit of integrity."

As well as Tullamore and Clara based supporters, a contingent from Birr and south Offaly travelled to the official opening and walkabout with Cllr Sean Maher.

Birr's Speedy Harte told the Tribune the critical thing was to get people out to vote. He asked how could people expect a change of Government if they did not vote.

Rahan based mental health campaigner, Ray Larkin spoke at langth with Cllr Masterson and Deputy McDonald about the twin issues of suicide and mental health.
A US national has appeared before Portlaoise District Court charged arising from the killing in the Ballyfin Demense hotel.

Henry McGowan, aged 30, of 114 Clinton St, Brooklyn, New York, was brought before Judge Andrew Cody on Thursday, November 14.

Det Garda Ger Galwey of Portlaoise Garda Station gave evidence of arrest charge and caution in relation to the man who wore a black hoodie and facemask upon entering court.

Defence solicitor Barry Fitzgerald told the court that given the nature of the charge, the District Court has no jurisdiction to deal with a bail application.

Judge Cody remanded the accused to Cloverhill Prison to appear again in court by video link on Monday, November 18 at 10.30am.

Mr Fitzgerald said his client had significant mental health difficulties and asked that his client receive help for those on his arrival in Cloverhill. Deg Garda agreed.

The judge agreed to a request from Mr Fitzgerald and directed that Mr McGowan receive immediate psychiatric assessment on his admission to Cloverhill.

The man appeared after the death of a man in his 60s at a luxury hotel in Laois on Tuesday, November 12. The deceased is understood to be a parent of the accused.
Colaiste Naomh Cormac was honoured to be joined by Jarlath Burns, President of the GAA, at our Annual Awards Ceremony, where we celebrated the outstanding achievements of our students across a range of disciplines. The event began with an inspiring opening address by past pupil Enda Callaghan, Naughton Scholar.

Awards for LOETB Excellence in Education and LOETB Excellence in Core Values were presented by Linda Tynan, LOETB Director of Schools, to students from both the Leaving Cert and Junior Cert classes of 2024. In recognition of academic achievement, Ciara Kilmartin and John Troy were honoured for their exceptional results in the Leaving Cert, while Megan McIntyre and Eoin Lambe were recognised for their achievements at Junior Cycle level. Clodagh Murphy received the LOETB Excellence in Core Values Award.

The Presidents Award is a self-development programme for young people aged 14-25. It is a direct challenge from the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, to all young people to dream big and realise their potential. Gaisce Participants achieve a Gaisce Award by completing Challenge Areas: Personal Skill, Physical Recreation, Community Involvement, and an Adventure Journey. This year, 13 students were presented their Gaisce Award by past pupil and TD Carol Nolan.

The Mary Bracken Award for Creativity was awarded to Jorja Guinan, with special recognition from the Bracken family. Attendance awards were also celebrated, with Christopher Charles, Conor Heffernan, MJ Hynes, and Cliona Mannion achieving perfect attendance. Cliona Mannion and Paul Tallon received the prize of a bicycle for their outstanding attendance records.

The Arthur Hynes Memorial Cup, awarded for contribution to the music life of the school, went to Orla Kilmartin from the Leaving Cert class of 2024. Rian Heffernan, Aoife Gleeson, and Mairead Stephens were recognised by First Year Head Evin Milne for their excellent performance in the entrance exams. Other awards presented included the Fainne, Maths Certificates, and Gaeltacht Scholarships. Special recognition was also given to our Sci-Fest participants by the Science Department.

A special award was presented in honour of the contribution of Sr Virgilius, past Deputy Principal of the school. The well-deserving recipient of the Spirit of the School Award was Clodagh Murphy. This was presented by the chairperson of the Parents Association, Thomas Moylan

The Sportsperson of the Year Award was presented by Jarlath Burns to Mark Mulrooney and Orla Kilmartin from the Leaving Cert class of 2024.

The ceremony concluded with a moving closing speech by Jarlath Burns, where he was then presented with a specially commissioned 4,600-year-old piece of local big yew by the Principal, Victoria Guinan. The event was a great celebration, marking a proud and inspiring day for the whole school community.
Closing time was 1am but gardai saw the last customer leave at 2.17am. Judge Andrew Cody said: 'A lot of patrons on the premises too, a lot of staff pulling pints, a lot of tills chinging until 2 o'clock in the morning.'

A JUDGE said the director of an Offaly hotel had been arrogant during an encounter with gardai over the bank holiday weekend in October.

A director of the Bridge House Hotel in Tullamore apologised before Judge Andrew Cody at the local District Court for what was described as an error where drink was served after 1am on Monday, October 28 last.

Ryan Lenaghan issued the apology when he was giving evidence during an application for special exemptions up to December 16 which would allow the premises to serve alcohol after regular drinking hours.

The gardai opposed the application and Sergeant Justine Reilly gave evidence of what had happened when she visited the Bridge House on the night of October 27/28 last.

Sergeant Reilly said she was on night duty and informed the staff that their exemption was for 1am. At 1.05am she met Ryan Lenaghan who advised her his exemption was until 2am.

When Sergeant Reilly told him it was 1am, he handed her a document with a legal opinion on it, dated September 16, 2022 and said he had taken on the superintendent and won.

Sergeant Reilly said she cautioned Mr Lenaghan, said his licence that night was for 1am and he was liable for prosecution if he continued to trade after that.

She said he told her he was in charge, was refusing to close and it did not matter what the sergeant said to him.

Sergeant Reilly said she left the hotel part of the premises and went to the Palace nightclub (pictured) which was packed to capacity and continued to trade.

The final person left the nightclub at 2.17am and when the garda sergeant again spoke to Mr Lenaghan he said what the guards were doing was absolutely ridiculous and asked her if she had attended at the Tap pub to close it at 11pm the night before.

He also signed the sergeant's notebook at 1.10am saying he was aware he would be liable for prosecution if he continued to serve alcohol.

Sergeant Reilly said the legal document she had been shown was signed by senior counsel Cassidy and added that Mr Lenaghan asked her if she knew who that person was and that it was the person that made the law for the liquor licensing in Ireland.

Replying to Emily Mahon, solicitor for the Bridge House, Sergeant Reilly said she was told by Mr Lenaghan on the night that he could not access the special exemption because it was locked in the office.

Sergeant Reilly said the gardai had no problem with the door staff of the premises previously. That night was a very busy one and there were a lot of young people out.

Addressing Judge Cody, Ms Mahon said a mistake had been made by the Bridge House and it was a genuine error on Mr Lenaghan's part.

Judge Cody said the closing time on Monday mornings is 1am and Sergeant Reilly said that was also her understanding.

In his evidence, Mr Lenaghan said closing time on a regular Sunday would be 11pm and that would be extended to 1am with a special exemption.

He had thought there was an exemption to 2.30am on the Bank Holiday Monday and he apologised to the guards.

He accepted he had overstepped and added that it had been a high pressure situation where they had a lot of staff on duty.

Judge Cody responded: A lot of patrons on the premises too, a lot of staff pulling pints, a lot of tills chinging until 2 o'clock in the morning.

Mr Lenaghan said he knew it was important to abide by the law and the 1am closing time and on the night he thought he was following the law.

He said he had been working in the late night industry for 17 years, since he was 18, and he found it highly unusual that on a bank holiday Sunday the Bridge House would be asked to close at 1am.

There had been an error and he apologised.

Judge Cody told him: You were able to produce an opinion from a senior counsel who you think wrote the licensing laws.

He said Mr Lenaghan had not been able to produce his special exemptions but was able to whip a senior counsel's opinion out of his back pocket.

The hotel director said the exemptions were locked away separately and he did not have access.

Asked to comment by the judge, Sergeant Brendan Kearns, court presenter for the gardai, said: What was concerning to gardai was the attitude that was received.

Judge Cody said Mr Lenaghan had shown arrogance and entitlement by saying he had a senior counsel who wrote the law.

Mr Lenaghan said that had not been his intention. He said they had spent more than 48,000 on applications for exemptions from last year to date and always had them in court on time.

The Bridge House had a good working relationship with the gardai. I apologise for this particular night and you have my word it won't happen again.

Judge Cody said he had received a request for a donation from the Acorn youth diversion project in Edenderry of 5,000 towards the provision of a specialised coffee machine for the training of young people as baristas.

He asked Mr Lenaghan if the Bridge House would pay 5,000 to the court. When Mr Lenaghan said the payment would be made the judge granted the exemptions sought up to November 30 but those after that date would be subject to the payment of the 5,000 before December 1.

He gave Mr Lenaghan advice on what to do in future when Sergeant Reilly or other guards called to his premises: Keep your opinion, written or otherwise, in your back pocket.
Appeal of Chinese education steadily growing: official

Xinhua) 20:33, November 14, 2024

BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's education has become increasingly attractive to international students, a Chinese official said Thursday.

Chen Dali, an official at the Ministry of Education, said at a press conference that China has signed mutual recognition agreements for degrees and diplomas with 60 countries and regions, and students from 195 countries and regions have come to China to study.

China has established over 30 Luban Workshops in Asia, Europe and Africa, and provided vocational training to more than 31,000 people, the official said.

He said China is implementing the initiative to invite 50,000 young Americans to China for exchange and study programs in a five-year span.

The country is also carrying forward a plan to host more than 10,000 French students in three years and to double the number of European youth exchanges in China, Chen said.

(Web editor: Chang Sha, Zhong Wenxing)
When the dust settled from the US election, Bitcoin surged to unprecedented highs, fuelled by campaign promises favouring cryptocurrency. Dive into how this shift reshapes the crypto casino landscape and propels Bitcoins explosive growth.

Despite the US Presidential elections initially appearing to be fairly equally contested, the reality is that days before Americans headed to the polls, the tide started to turn.

Whether this was due to a lack of tangible actions by the Democratic Party that aligned with the needs and desires of the American public or whether the Trump campaign had their finger on the pulse and met the needs of the people"tickled their ears," as many opponents would have you believethe point is moot. Trump claimed the Electoral College and Popular votes and cleaned up in the Swing states, resulting in a landslide victory.

Even former Democrat-turned-Republican Joe Rogan noted that a colour-based chart of presidential election outcomes shows no blue states; only blue cities exist. While this was tongue-in-cheek, it was not far from the truth.

The Importance of Bitcoin to Voters & Investors

One of the hot topics of the election was the US economy and the spending power of the everyday American. Social media tools like TikTok and YouTube were rife with videos showing people comparing food delivery app prices and grocery store receipts from years ago to the same products in 2024, only to discover, to their horror, that prices had multiplied four times over and more. Another crucial financial sector in which Trump cultivated alliances for the Republican Party was the cryptocurrency space.

Rather than viewing it as a cash cow to be abused and clamped down onlike the Democratic Party had shown itself willing to doTrump made campaign promises to protect and see the expansion and further adoption of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, stablecoins and even memecoins.

The most important of these promises were:

The US Will Lead in the Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Space: Trump aimed to achieve this goal by bringing thought leadership and the development of blockchain and Web3 products back to American soil. He specifically spoke about wanting foreign powers like China and other countries to refrain from dominating the sector by making it attractive for investors and technology leaders to move their business there. An end to Operation Choke Point: Under the Democratic Party, Operation Choke Point aimed to limit the extent to which banks and the mainstream financial sector could work with cryptocurrency businesses. This initiative could have hamstrung using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as daily banking methods if successful. US Strategic BTC Reserve: This promise intended to show that the US government would have a vested interest in the success of Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market by buying and holding reserves to underpin its financial decisions and policymaking. This promise drew massive support for the Republican Party during Trump's campaign. The Right to Mine Crypto and Self-Custody: Of all his promises, this was one of the most important. Americans cherish their right to self-determination, and affirming the right of the individual to both generate and control personal wealth without government interference rang true with many voters. If realised, this promise will enable Americans to invest time, energy, and resources into acquiring Bitcoin while retaining the right to store it privately without disclosing its value or paying taxes on unrealised gains.

The one area where Trump opposed a crypto initiative was the creation of a government-run Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). While this might seem contentious on the surface, the decision was ultimately about protecting the sovereignty of the American population, as CBDCs allow the government too much access to and control over the wealth of its citizens.

The Crypto Market Responds Positively

Within days of the election results, financial markets worldwide showed a positive upswing, proving that the US was not the only country waiting with bated breath for the outcome of the elections.

Using Bitcoin as our marker, it was incredible to see that from its position at $73,000 on November 7th, the token experienced an unprecedented uptick in value over the next week, peaking at just under $90,000 by the afternoon of the 13th.

This is especially remarkable when you consider that a year ago, Bitcoin was only at $35,000. By March 2024, it had climbed to around the early $70,000 mark and then stagnated in that range for months. Even after the halving event, it did not have the expected value spike.

What it took to unlock the token's potential was a market that had given it promises of hope, creating a platform where innovation and ownershipand the value associated with thosebelonged to the individual.

Even Ethereum, which has always been the second in command to Bitcoin, saw an incredible value increase over the same period. Ethereum struggled to break out of the $2,000 barrier due to competition from Solana, concerns over its gas fees, and a general focus on high-value coins that could provide financial returns rather than a working token like ETH.

However, as Bitcoin's value rose on the back of the election results, so did that of ETH. According to CoinMarketCap, the token climbed over the last seven days from $2,576 to just over $3,417rketCap.

Find Your Ideal Crypto Casino Today

While it might seem country into a serve to jump into crypto casino gambling, especially using high-value coins like Bitcoin, while the market price is high, that is simply not the case. Our top-rated crypto casinos have incredible welcome bonuses, including free spins and deposit match offers, where your winnings can be drawn in the cryptocurrency of your choice. Our handy guide to the best Bitcoin casinos 2024 will introduce you to trusted sites that offer excellent services, lucrative promotions, and a stellar casino game library.
New Delhi: The air quality in the nation's capital remained 'severe', with Congress leader and UDF candidate in Wayanad calling it a 'gas chamber'. The Air Quality Index (AQI) in Delhi on Thursday morning was in the 'severe' category with a reading of 424 at noon.

The AQI on Wednesday was reported as the worst in the country, plunging into the 'severe' category for the first time this season. On Thursday, Chandigarh, which recorded an AQI of 428 at noon, took the dubious title of the worst air quality, reported PTI.

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Returning to Delhi from Kerala's Wayanad after contesting the Lok Sabha bypoll, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said returning to the national capital was like entering a "gas chamber."

"Coming back to Delhi from Wayanad, where the air is beautiful and the AQI is 35, was like entering a gas chamber. The blanket of smog is even more shocking when seen from the air," she said in a post on X.

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"Delhi's pollution gets worse every year. We really should put our heads together and find a solution for cleaner air. It's beyond this party or that; it's practically impossible to breathe, especially for kids, elders and those with respiratory issues. We just have to do something about it," Priyanka Gandhi said.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court agreed to urgently list, on November 18, a plea seeking enforcement of measures to check pollution in the national capital.

"Since yesterday we have been in severe mode. Just to avoid this situation, this court has asked them to take preemptive action. They have not done anything. We should not become the most polluted city in the world," Singh told the bench.

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An AQI between zero and 50 is considered 'good', 51 and 100 'satisfactory', 101 and 200 'moderate', 201 and 300 'poor', 301 and 400 'very poor', 401 and 450 'severe' and above 450 'severe plus'.

Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana after harvesting the paddy crop in October and November is often blamed for the rise in air pollution in Delhi. As the window for sowing the Rabi crop, wheat, is very short after paddy harvest, some farmers set their fields on fire to quickly clear the crop residue.
Washington: US President elect Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, longtime political rivals, discussed Ukraine and the Middle East on Wednesday in a cordial meeting designed to demonstrate a smooth transfer of power despite deep disagreements over policy. The two American leaders sat side by side before a roaring fire in the White House Oval Office, a peaceful scene that belied tensions between them.

"They discussed important national security and domestic policy issues facing the nation and the world," White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. "It was indeed very cordial, very gracious, and substantive."

The meeting lasted roughly two hours, she said. Biden argued support for Ukraine was good for U.S. national security because a strong and stable Europe would keep America from being dragged into war, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told journalists. Trump has pledged to end the Russia-Ukraine war quickly without saying how. Trump told the New York Post he and Biden "talked very much about the Middle East" during their conversation. "I wanted to know his views on where we are," the Post quoted Trump as saying.

"And he gave them to me, he was very gracious." A Democrat, Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election but dropped out of the 2024 race in July after a disastrous debate with Trump, a Republican. Vice President Kamala Harris became the candidate but lost to Trump.

A smooth transition

Both men talked about a smooth transition of power. "Looking forward to having a, like we said, smooth transition - do everything we can to make sure you're accommodated, what you need," Biden told the president-elect. "Welcome, welcome back." Trump, due to take over on Jan. 20, said: "Politics is tough, and it's many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today, and I appreciate it very much - a transition that's so smooth it'll be as smooth as it can get. And I very much appreciate that, Joe." Reporters shouted questions but were ushered out.

The traditional courtesy of welcoming the president-elect into the Oval Office is one that Trump did not extend when Biden won in 2020. The two men have hurled criticism at each other for years. Their respective teams hold vastly different positions on policies from climate change to Russia to trade. Biden, 81, has portrayed Trump as a threat to democracy, while Trump, 78, has portrayed Biden as incompetent. Trump made false claims of widespread fraud after losing the 2020 election.

During the sit-down, Biden pushed his priorities for Congress' lame-duck session, including funding the government and providing additional funds for disaster relief, Jean-Pierre said. Biden's chief of staff Jeff Zients and Trump's, Susie Wiles, also were present. First lady Jill Biden joined Biden in greeting Trump on his arrival. The White House said she gave Trump a handwritten letter of congratulations for his wife, Melania Trump, and expressed her teams readiness to assist with the transition.

Melania Trump's office said on X that she would not attend the White House meeting. "Her husband's return to the Oval Office to commence the transition process is encouraging, and she wishes him great success," it said. Trump celebrated his victory earlier in the day with Republicans from the House of Representatives.

Edison Research projected on Wednesday that Republicans would have a majority in the House, meaning Trump's party will control both chambers of Congress. "Isn't it nice to win? It's nice to win. It's always nice to win," Trump said. "The House did very well." Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk joined Trump at the meeting with Republican lawmakers.

Transition Partially Stalled

Despite the show of goodwill, the transition itself has partially stalled. Trumps team, which has announced some members of the incoming president's cabinet, has yet to sign agreements that would lead to office space and government equipment as well as access to government officials, facilities and information, the White House said.

"The Trump-Vance transition lawyers continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act," said Brian Vance, a Trump transition spokesperson, referring to the law that governs the transfer of power. Valerie Smith Boyd, director of the Partnership for Public Services Center for Presidential Transition, a non-profit that advises incoming administrations, said the agreement underscores that the U.S. only has one president at a time and includes pledges to sign ethics pacts not to profit off information provided in the transition.

"That needs to be signed for interaction to begin with federal agencies," she said. "Everything is hinging on that." The meeting was the two men's first substantive one since their June debate. Biden, Trump and Harris also appeared together in New York on Sept. 11 at the site of the 2001 plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Note: In 2007 I sent this to the major dailies and NPR. Don't know if anybody ran it. I'm posting it here, now, because after more than a decade and a half, I think it should have been sent again around October this year.

To the Editor:

The number of candidates for President keeps growing, and news about how much money each has accumulated for the most expensive elected office in history leave us in shock and awe. Since nobody has asked, I would like to explain what I am looking for in a President. I might add that my qualifications may seem unrealistic and naive to some people. I stand by them anyway. I am sick of being told what is impossible. That's easy. Possibility is what takes some backbone.

First of all, the candidate must not say, "we should run this government like a business." Government exists to do necessary things that do not make profits, and benefit everybody. It should NEVER be "run like a business." Businesses are anti-democratic in the extreme, by their very definition. There is nothing wrong with business, but it must be kept very distinct from government. This is the entire point of the Bill of Rights. Have you read it lately? Which ones are still operating?

In support of this novel idea, the candidate should be committed to severing the financial connection between lobbyists and elected officials. Until this is accomplished, we cannot call our system of government democratic, or even republican. Until this is accomplished the only things that get done are the things lobbyists want done, like buying more bombs and missiles and cutting back on education and healthcare and environmental responsibility and gutting regulations on banks, polluting industries, strip mines, clearcutting logging operations (in public lands!), insurance companies, the drug industry; and the consolidation of our vital news media into one or two infotainment empires selling beer and SUV's. If we want to educate children to be more than ignorant sheep, we have to build "gaming" casinos to tax addicted slot machine zombies for the last of their money? No way! No way my kid's education relies on the misery of others!

The candidate should be straight about America's economic foreign policies. Current practice is to force poor countries to sell out all their resources at a loss to American corporations, and then lend them money to exploit these same resources, build hydroelectric dams and genetically-altered seed-grains, and train new heavily-armed police forces, stipulating that only American contractors may be paid to implement this "economic revitalization". The result is burgeoning slum-cities without social services or viable local economies, and enormous profits for American corporations. None of this has anything to do with spreading democracy or freedom in the world. It has everything to do with fomenting outrage, unrest and violence.

The candidate should state clearly a commitment to get our people out of the Middle East and let the locals sort themselves out as best they can. Nothing could possibly produce more violence and chaos than an American presence. We do not follow trouble, it follows us wherever we go, and then gets worse and worse. It is time to stop it. Just stop it.

The candidate should have a domestic program for addressing the myriad issues that have been abandoned or worse here in America, such as homelessness, sustainable jobs, a living wage and healthcare for every person living here, the staggering environmental damage still being perpetrated unabated in the name of short-term profits, the deteriorating education system, the interstate transport system, and that's just the beginning.

Perhaps our returning troops could lend a hand with some of that, as they recover from the extreme psychological damage most have been subjected to by over-extended tours for which they were under-equipped and under-trained.

Hint: contracting out the work of rebuilding the South Coast to Halliburton and their friends is not going to do it. This is what Federal programs are really for, administered centrally, and transparently, by all three Branches of government. America owes New Orleans and the South Coast real, comprehensive restitution for having abandoned her so completely before, during and after the Katrina disaster. "Mistakes were made" is too lame for America. Take another look: the Administration committed a major crime against humanity in the conduct of - well, everything it did about Katrina.

The candidate should talk straight to us about sacrifice. Our American lifestyle has been destructive, both to the Earth and to ourselves and our families. We need to look carefully at what we really need, and whether it MIGHT be causing the world to overheat or not, and dump the things that are contributing to impending catastrophe. Making that process profitable to private contractors is a hare-brained idea and should never be considered. We need a government that can do it without fatcats skimming the top, the bottom and the middle.

The candidate should understand, and articulate for the rest of us, that this great nation can feed, house, employ and care for the health of everybody living here (yes, even "illegal" people, who have all been forced into their lives of "crime" by bankrupt policies driven by corporate greed!), without most of us even noticing the expense. Certainly we could be doing this for a fraction of what the mythological "GWOT" has cost so far. Have we noticed that expense? Have we even been asked to notice it? No: we've been told to look the other way, go shopping, be afraid. Well, we're not afraid. We're just disgusted.

What it will really cost, what an honest and transparent government that works for us, the real people, will really cost, is this: it will cost those gigantic corporations the outrageous tax breaks and subsidies and monopolies we have allowed our government to give away to those war-profiteers and energy opportunists who have been exploiting poverty the world over, degrading our environment, and sending our jobs overseas, not to mention our troops. What it will really cost is the bloated "private" contractors who sell us everything necessary to destroy life on Earth, and then blackmail us into war after war in the name of economic "security." This is the cancer on our nation, and it must go. It will not go without a very brutal fight, as seems obvious, but if it does not go, there is real reason to fear for humanity itself.

What it will cost is standing up and being responsible for the people we elect, to make sure they follow through on their promises to us. The world is sorely in need of an America that helps people, instead of destroying their economies, their environments and their lives in pursuit of corporate profits. We need an America that cares about it's neighbors, not about their skin color their oil reserves or their nuclear weapons stockpiles, but how their kids are doing, now the old folks are getting along, and whether they'd like to set up some renewable agriculture and industry for their own use, for a change.

But poor America, walking the streets in a cheap party dress, addicted to war-profit crack, sunk in despair of ever seeing a friendly face again! The really naive thing about my list is the assumption that we can change things by operating our broken, bankrupt and thoroughly corrupted system, but I say we still can, if we really want to. It is not too late. What have we got to lose? What have we still got to lose?
"We must hold the Superintendent accountable""



- LAUSD School Board Member-elect Karla Griego



Photo by Robert McGowan on Unsplash

(Image by Robert McGowan) Details DMCA



When the dust settled after Tuesday's election it was already clear that Sherlett Hendy Newbill would be the next representative for BD1. Since then her lead has only increased and Newbill now has 52,357 more votes than her opponent, parent activist Kahllid A. Al-Alim.

In BD5 Karla Griego has also padded her lead over her opponent and now has 22,626 more votes. Griego declared victory on Friday night secure in the appearance that Graciela Ortiz does not have a path forward.



The closest race is BD3 where incumbent Scott Schmerelson leads with 51.93% of the vote. However, each nightly data dump by the Los Angeles County Clerk has shown results that are remarkably similar to the previous ones. Time is running out for Dan Chang to make a dent in Schmerelson's 6,880-vote lead.



If these results hold, public education supporters should realize they are very lucky. With a shortage of accomplishments during their first term in the majority, these electoral victories could probably be attributed as much to the poor quality of the Charter School Industry candidates as to support for public schools. The public does not generally like candidates who fail to protect students from sexual assault at gunpoint or ones who bully their way through debates. There is a good chance that the steady stream of charter school scandals also contributed to the loss.



The infusion of new blood will greatly help this latest iteration of the Board majority. Jackie Goldberg and Dr. George McKenna have long records of supporting public school students but both seemed to lose their fight during the two years since finally achieving a majority. Having Goldberg as Board President should have set the stage for a revitalization of the District, but instead, there was little in the way of change for the better. In some ways, including community engagement and Special Education policy, we are worse off than we were two years ago.



Newbill and Griego are fighters who will make good allies for BD2's Rocio Rivas as she fights for change. While history suggests that Schmerelson is uncomfortable taking the lead in tough fights, his votes are usually dependable so that this new Board can bring needed change to the District. Given Project 2025's stated intentions to eliminate the Department of Education and otherwise disrupt public education, their work will be especially important.



These are some of the issues the new board members need to address upon taking office:

Special Education:

While the District publicly repeatedly claims that parents are partners in deciding how services will be provided to their children with disabilities, the truth is many do not feel this way. Programs are eliminated without input, Individual Education Program (IEP) agreements are violated, and children are forced to receive services in closets and stairwells so that charter schools can take their classrooms. By law, the Community Advisory Committee (CAC) is supposed to provide input to the Board but has been manipulated by the District so that it no longer has an independent voice.

Griego and Newbill have promised to "support and work for the passage of the proposed 'Improving Special Education Within the LAUSD' resolution." While Schmerelson has recently said he will not sponsor the resolution (costing him my endorsement in the primary), he and Rivas have previously supported many aspects of this proposal. Their follow-up is essential as this would be an important first step in addressing the issues facing SpEd. They must also take steps to ensure that District staff is enabling the CAC and not guiding its actions. Schmerelson's Special Education Committee must also be upgraded so that it provides guidance to the rest of the Board.

Publicly Holding Superintendent Carvalho Accountable:

Carvalho is currently evaluated behind closed doors and the public is blind to the process. Stakeholders have no way of knowing if he has ever been held accountable for the response to the hack of the LAUSD's computer systems, the controversial termination of Primary Promise, or violating the public's trust over the spending of PROP-28 funds.

The Superintendent's continued employment with the District should be dependent on his ability to meet Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These should be developed in open sessions with the participation of the public. The evaluation of his performance should never be conducted behind closed doors.

Getting LAUSD Students The Money That Is Owed To Them:

As of the last public update on June 30, 2024, Los Angeles charter schools owe $3,003,768 for taking more space from LAUSD schools than to which they were entitled. Without Board approval, the Charter School Division granted many of these schools multi-year payment plans that do not assess interest on the balance due. Additionally, the Charter School Division forgave another $7,678,022 without approval from the Board or an explanation to the public. Charter school benefactors should have put "Kids First" and paid off this debt instead of running political campaigns based on lies, anti-Semitism, and ableism.

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Donald Trump has been elected as President, very likely bringing a brand of governance that diverges sharply from past administrations. The familiar political landscape is fading, replaced by what is likely to be an increasingly polarized and politicized environment. Expect a greater emphasis on policies that tighten immigration, further privatize public services, and channel economic benefits toward the wealthiest few, further widening income inequality.

Foreign Affairs and Global Stance

In foreign policy, the future is less predictable, though our continued, extensive and lucrative support for Israel's expansion in the Middle East is likely to persist. This may involve our continuing sidelining of the United Nations' peacekeeping and humanitarian roles, further complicating international law enforcement. Regarding China and Russia-- particularly with the ongoing situation in Ukraine-- Trump may lean toward diplomatic solutions or de'tente, diverging from Biden's more confrontational stance.

It's uncertain how his administration will approach global challenges like climate change or public health issues, but it seems probable that any solutions will be framed as economic opportunities, possibly prioritizing profits over broader, cooperative action.

Government and Corporate Influence

At home, the political focus appears poised to shift even further toward serving corporate interests and the interests of an economic elite. The courts, the legal system, and law enforcement may cater increasingly to these powerful entities, potentially at the expense of justice and responsiveness to everyday Americans.

This trend suggests that the traditional pathways for change-- through the courts, Congress, or electoral politics-- may narrow even further. For decades, these institutions were seen as reliable guardians of democracy and justice, reassuring citizens that they didn't need to take direct action. But recent years have shown that Congress and the government have too often not acted in the best interests of the majority. And the legal system has often struggled to hold the powerful accountable, as evidenced by the handling of events like the January 6th insurrection. Meanwhile, that system has too often acted harshly toward those without influence.

Toward an Empowered Citizenry

We stand at a threshold, potentially facing profound changes in the American way of life. In this new reality, as government and the legal system become less responsive and increasingly politicized, citizens may need to actively step up to shape the nation's future. Rather than relying on government, the electoral process, and legal structures to uphold democracy, this moment calls for a commitment to personal responsibility and innovative, collective action to protect democratic values. It is also important to remember that supporting better alternatives and non-confrontational efforts can sometimes be more effective than resistance and direct confrontation.

Let's remember that responsibility is, at its core, "the ability to respond". Democracy thrives when citizens are willing to embrace that responsibility, rather than leaving it to political leaders or the legal system and then watching passively from the sidelines.

Now is the time for an empowered citizenry.

Let the challenge begin!
Lenoir, North Carolina, Nov. 13, 2024 -- Joel Whitworth, a retired IBM data analyst, has identified a potential pattern in public environmental data that may suggest a connection between vehicle emissions control systems and atmospheric nitrous oxide levels. Whitworth is now seeking to hand off his findings to qualified experts for further investigation and potential development of solutions. The initial observations, based on publicly available data from the EPA, NASA, and 
Taipei, Taiwan - November 14, 2024 - Taiwan Metiz Alliance (TMA), a leading ISO 9001:2015-certified manufacturer of high-quality cold heading tooling, warm heading tooling, hot forging tooling, thread rolling, and nut tapping tools, proudly celebrates its 25th anniversary. Founded on October 25, 1999, TMA has evolved from a small trading company into a trusted global supplier of precision tools for fastener manufacturers, known for unparalleled quality and innovation. Over the past 
A deputy shot and injured a suspect in Camas on Wednesday night, the Clark County Sheriffs Office reported.

The man, whose name hasnt been released, is in an area hospital. The extent of the mans injuries is not known.

The deputy was uninjured, police said.

Callers to 911 at about 10 p.m. reported hearing gunshots near Northeast Everett Street and 23rd Avenue in Camas. Additional calls indicated the gunfire continued for at least half an hour, officials said.

Officers from the Clark County Sheriffs Office and the Camas, Vancouver and Washougal police departments arrived in the residential neighborhood, and a drone soon located a man outside a home.

The suspect was believed to be a person who was the respondent in a no-contact order that prohibited him from being at the residence or possessing firearms, the sheriffs office said.

Police in an armored vehicle attempted to communicate with the man at 11:03 p.m., and then the shooting occurred. No details about the shooting are available at this time.

The deputies at the scene were all wearing body cameras, and video will be released later, the sheriffs office said.

The deputy who shot the man has been placed on critical-incident leave. This is agency protocol for a shooting, the Clark County Sheriffs Office said. The deputys name hasnt been released yet.

The Washington State Patrol is leading the investigation of the shooting.

-- The Oregonian/OregonLive; dperry@oregonian.com
Clark County sheriffs deputies arrested a driver Wednesday afternoon after he allegedly crashed his pickup truck into a home near the Hazel Dell Center shopping mall in Vancouver, authorities said.

Luis Antonio Santiago Vasquez, 32, allegedly lost control of his yellow truck around 1 p.m., veering off Northeast 63rd Street and colliding with the corner of a residence, deputies said. An adult and an infant were inside the home at the time but were unharmed, according to a press release.

Vasquez was taken into custody at the scene and faces charges of driving under the influence, reckless driving and driving with a suspended license, according to the press release.

 Tyler Brown is a breaking news reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive. You can reach him at tbrown2@oregonian.com or 503-221-8243.
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday said he will nominate Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to serve as his attorney general, putting a loyalist in the role of the nations top prosecutor.

In selecting the congressman, Trump passed over some of the more established attorneys whose names had been mentioned as being contenders for the job.

Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans' badly shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department, Trump wrote in a statement.

Gaetz was previously investigated by the Justice Department on allegations of sex trafficking and obstruction of justice.

The DOJ ultimately declined to bring charges, but Gaetz remains under investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

Also announced on Wednesday:
Everyone is grasping for the root causes of why Vice President Kamala Harris did so poorly in the election, with some blaming President Joe Biden. What people are missing is right in front of them.

A root cause was simply the candidate herself. She was trumpeted in without any vetting or primary and pushed policies the majority of Americans reject. Harris let the major media carry her without giving Americans a clear idea of what she would do. She avoided answering questions posed during interviews and town halls. In the 2020 presidential race she dropped out before the first primary. She did not have a lot of support and gained no ones confidence. It should come to no ones surprise that she lost the popular vote and the electoral college.
U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer has conceded to Democratic challenger Janelle Bynum in the hotly contested race for Oregons 5th District.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reported Nov. 8 that Bynum had won the district after a newsroom analysis showed no viable path for Chavez-DeRemer to overcome her opponents lead. Bynum, a four-term state lawmaker, has led Chavez-DeRemer 48% to 45% since election night.

The Associated Press waited until Thursday to call the race, after Marion County released new result tallies Wednesday night. Other national outlets followed suit.

Im deeply grateful for the opportunity I had to serve as Oregonians voice in Congress, Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement Thursday. Ive always been passionate about helping improve my community through public service, and its been a sincere honor to do so over the last 24 years  from Happy Valleys parks committee, City Council, mayor, and all the way to the halls of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Although this isnt the outcome we had hoped for, Im proud of what we accomplished together, she continued. I hope Ms. Bynum will follow the example I have set over the past two years and serve as a pragmatic, thoughtful and bipartisan leader who will work with the Trump administration to address housing affordability, improve public safety, and secure the border.

The race was considered one of a few dozen tossups by national experts heading into the November election, with many saying its outcome could be influential in deciding which party controlled the U.S. House of Representatives.

Bynums win ultimately did not allow Democrats to prevent Republicans from keeping the House. Republicans officially won control of the chamber Wednesday, a week after the GOP reclaimed control of the Senate and Republican Donald Trump won the presidency.

As of Thursday morning, Republicans had 218 seats in the House to 209 seats for Democrats, with several races still remaining to be called, according to the Associated Press. Oregons 5th District is one of only two across the country that Democrats have successfully flipped from Republican control.

Competitive races in Oregon and just north in Southwest Washington all fell in Democrats favor. In Oregons 4th and 6th congressional districts, incumbent Democratic Reps. Val Hoyle and Andrea Salinas held off challengers, despite national Republicans highlighting those candidates and dropping nearly $400,000 to attack Hoyle on behalf of her opponent, Monique DeSpain.

And in Washingtons 3rd Congressional District first-term Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez held onto her seat, despite national groups spending $7.6 million to help Republican challenger Joe Kent. Democratic groups spent $12.4 million to help Gluesenkamp Perez.

In Oregons 5th District, outside interest groups and national political parties poured more than $25 million into the race, making it one of the most expensive in the House this cycle, according to Open Secrets, which monitors money in politics.

Ben Gaskins, an associate professor of political science at Lewis & Clark College, told The Oregonian/OregonLive last week that the composition of the district meant that Bynum was always going to be the favorite. Oregon Democrats drew the states congressional map to give the party an edge in five of the six House districts, with the exception of eastern Oregons District 2, Gaskins noted.

Chavez-DeRemer managed to win the district in 2022 in a midterm election, when the sitting presidents party typically faces a disadvantage, he said. She beat Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner by 7,300 votes.

But in a presidential election year, in a district that Vice President Kamala Harris was expected to carry, Chavez-DeRemer was always going to be at a disadvantage, Gaskins said. Voters dont often split the ticket between the presidential nominee and members of Congress, he said.

 Jamie Goldberg oversees The Oregonian/OregonLives politics, education and homelessness coverage. She can be reached at jgoldberg@oregonian.com or 503-221-8228. You can find her on X at @jamiebgoldberg

 Sami Edge covers higher education and politics for The Oregonian. You can reach her at sedge@oregonian.com or (503) 260-3430.
Portland Commissioner Rene Gonzalez, who finished in a distant third in his bid for mayor last week, broke city campaign finance laws after he repeatedly failed to return donations that exceeded Portlands strict contribution limits in a timely manner, the city auditors office ruled Wednesday.

The auditors office issued Gonzalez a fine of $9,180  three times the $3,060 in illegal funds his campaign collected but was too slow to refund to donors, according to a copy of the determination.

In a statement Thursday, Gonzalez said his campaign had worked with the top treasury firm in the state that virtually every other candidate used and always acted in good faith to be compliant.

Our campaign garnered broad and deep support from Portlanders and some made multiple donations that inadvertently exceeded small donor caps, he said. We received no benefit from these donations, as they were refunded as soon as they were discovered.

OREGON ELECTION 2024: Live Results Page | Election Live Updates

Earlier this week, the Gonzalez campaign sent an email to supporters asking them to donate money to help pay down an unspecified amount of campaign debt.

Campaign manager Amy Wood told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the money raised would, in part, help pay for legal fees and other costs associated with the auditors investigation. Wood did not disclose an exact amount of debt accrued by the Gonzalez campaign but said it was in the thousands of dollars.

Under city rules, candidates are required to decline or return any amount over $579 donated by an individual during an election cycle within seven calendar days. The limit tightens to $350 for those candidates participating in Portlands public matching funds program, which Gonzalez had.

The commissioner and his campaign failed to do so on at least 17 occasions, the auditors office said, taking between 31 and 223 days to issue refunds.

Gonzalez held on to the unlawful contribution for weeks, and even months in some instances, giving the campaign an opportunity to make use of the funds (essentially, giving the campaign a no-interest loan), wrote Chief Deputy City Auditor Reed Brodersen in the notice sent to Gonzalez.

Brodersens determination said the auditors office launched an investigation into the alleged campaign finance violations after receiving a complaint from Seth Woolley, a longtime elections watchdog.

The findings mark the third time that the auditors office determined Gonzalez broke campaign finance laws during his run for mayor and the second time it issued a fine against him.

In early October, the office determined that Gonzalez had failed to disclose who paid for a large campaign banner on display in Southwest Portland.

Later that month, the auditors office hit Gonzalez with a $2,400 penalty for using taxpayer funds to spruce up his Wikipedia page, which it found had in part helped bolster his mayoral prospects.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh covers Portland city government and politics, with a focus on accountability and watchdog reporting.

Reach him at 503-294-7632

Email at skavanaugh@oregonian.com

Follow on X @shanedkavanaugh or on BlueSky @shanedkavanaugh

Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.
A threatened immigration crackdown under the returning Trump administration could force family separations and have detrimental effects on Oregons workforce, particularly in the agricultural and construction industries, community leaders fear.

Officials with organizations that work with the states immigrant communities said they arent trying to stir more fear but want communities to be aware of what could happen and how to prepare. They said they will continue to help protect the states immigrant communities, fight against deportations and educate people about their rights.
The Oregon Department of Human Services failed to protect a teenager from repeatedly being sold for sex while she was under the states care in the foster system, exposing cracks in local, state and federal efforts to support at-risk foster kids from falling prey to sexual exploitation.

Earlier this week, The Oregonian/OregonLive published an investigation into the failures that allowed Grace, now 21, to be trafficked by at least two adults when she was 14 and 16. The exploitation followed a traumatic childhood that included dozens of reports to the states child protective services hotline alleging sexual abuse and other problems at her home. But state officials didnt move her into foster care until age 11.

I literally thought, Well, I must be just for sex because thats what everyone uses me for that Ive ever known, she told The Oregonian/OregonLive. That lowered my self-esteem. That made me more easily preyed upon.

Prompted by the newsrooms investigation, state officials have ordered an internal review to identify system issues and failures in our work with this young person.

No child should have to experience what she went through, especially after entering foster care, child welfare director Aprille Flint-Gerner said in a statement. We know that we have a lot of work to do and are committed to improving the system for all children, including for those who are at risk of or are victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

Here are five key takeaways from the investigation:

Foster kids are at heightened risk of sex trafficking but state and federal officials are failing to be transparent about the extent of the problem. State officials claimed for months that they did not know how frequently foster children have been trafficked for sex on their watch before acknowledging they are required to keep statistics and began reporting them to the federal government last year. Oregon has identified at least 27 foster kids since October 2022 who have been sexually exploited by adults in exchange for anything of value. Federal officials have not published corresponding national data, withholding information that could spotlight states with pronounced problems and lead to better protections for kids.

Oregon and other states fail to consistently screen children who go missing from foster care to determine if they are victims of sex trafficking. In 2022, a federal review of five states found no evidence that 65% of missing foster kids received required screenings. Oregon only recently began checking and found that when foster kids went missing for the year ending in September 2023, state workers did not complete screenings 72% of the time.

Many states have been slow to embrace recommendations meant to help protect children inside and outside of the foster system from being coerced into the sex trade. A federal advisory committee in 2020 identified 127 best practices to identify and care for survivors of trafficking and to hold perpetrators accountable. Oregon, mirroring states across the country, reported just 27% of the recommendations were fully in place.

In Graces case, state officials had ample warnings that she was at risk of being trafficked. A child abuse evaluator wrote that Grace, then 12, was at high risk for being commercially sexually exploited if not given the proper supports and resources. Her therapist soon told a state caseworker she was concerned Grace was at risk or might have been sexually exploited based on a recent incident and previous red flags. And once state officials moved Grace to a safe house in southern Oregon at the age of 14, a caseworker told supervisors our services here are very limited, warning that Grace was likely to run away and Im not sure if there is anything else I can do for her.

When Grace went missing with a 30-year-old man later convicted of promoting her for prostitution, her state caseworker was not convinced the then-14-year-old was at an ongoing risk of being sex trafficked, writing, I dont see that as being an issue currently. When Grace went missing with a 21-year-old man later convicted of compelling her into prostitution, Portland police noted that the 16-year-old had run away at least three times that year and, in the most recent case, was not taken against her will, she left on her own accord and they did not have information she was in immediate danger. Police had fewer people to investigate trafficking cases. The entire 13-member human trafficking unit had been re-tasked assisting with managing the nightly protests and riots that began in downtown Portland in May 2020, following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a sergeant wrote. This has left a reduced ability to investigate trafficking cases at this time.

Read Graces full story here and listen to Grace describe her experiences in this video.

-- Hillary Borrud is an investigative reporter. Reach her at 503-294 4034 or hborrud@oregonian.com.
RYAM Raises EUR 67 Million Green Capital to Invest in its Biomaterials Strategy

Nov. 14, 2024 - Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. ("RYAM") has raised EUR 67 million in green capital. The financing includes EUR 37 million in secured term loans from French banks Credit Lyonnais, Arkea Banque, and BNP Paribas at an initial floating rate of approximately 5 percent, maturing in seven years. An additional EUR 30 million in preferred equity will be provided by Swen Capital Partners through its strategy SWEN Impact Fund for Transition 3 for a 20% stake in the newly formed subsidiary, RYAM BioNova S.A.S.

SWEN's investment in BioNova reflects a valuation of greater than $160 million for the new entity. Proceeds from the capital raise will be used to invest in projects to grow BioNova including a second-generation bioethanol plant and a prebiotics project.

"The formation of BioNova and this latest round of financing are pivotal in our strategic push into biomaterials," said De Lyle Bloomquist, President and CEO of RYAM. "With this green capital, we are poised to drive over $40 million in EBITDA from these initiatives in 2027, underscoring our commitment to growth and sustainability."

RYAM is a global leader in the production of cellulose-based products, specializing in high purity cellulose specialties, a plant-based polymer commonly used in the production of filters, food, pharmaceuticals, and other industrial applications. RYAM's specialized assets are also used to produce biofuels, bioelectricity, and other biomaterials such as bioethanol and tall oils. The company also manufactures products for the paper and packaging markets with manufacturing operations in the U.S., Canada, and France.

SOURCE: Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc.
A judge on Tuesday sentenced a Houston mom to 50 years imprisonment after she forced her children to live with the decomposing body of their dead brother.

Gloria Williams, 38, pleaded guilty in October to two counts of injury to a child for abuse. The case involved Kendrick Lee, 8, who was beaten to death by Williams' boyfriend, Brian Coulter. She will be eligible for parole in 25 years.

For his role in the murder, Coulter was sentenced to life in prison, per Fox 26 Houston.

Siblings Discovered Living with Brother's Remains

Officers discovered Lee's body in October 2021 after Williams' eldest child, who was 15, called 911 to report his brother's death. By then, the 15-year-old and his two siblings---aged 7 and 10---had been living in the roach-infested house with the body for a year.

Authorities who responded found Lee's body covered in a blue blanket. All that remained of Lee was his bones. Testimony from Lee's brothers said the 8-year-old was beaten to death after the child drank what Coulter saw was more than his share of water.

Police noted that the siblings were malnourished and hungry when they were found inside the unfurnished, bug-infested house.

Houston Mom Leaves Her 3 Young Children Alone for Months

Williams and Coulter lived with the siblings and Lee's body for months after the fatal beating. However, the couple moved out in March 2022 and lived at another apartment located nearly half an hour away. The three surviving siblings were left alone in the apartment with their brother's body, AP News reported.

Williams would provide the children with food---which authorities noted was mostly junk food. Some neighbors would also feed them.

The children also said they were not allowed to leave the apartment and that they lived in constant fear that Coulter would beat them. Police said the 10-year-old child had been punched in the jaw weeks prior to the 911 call. He was not given medical care after.

The three siblings are now under the temporary custody of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. Two of the children are believed to be on the autism spectrum.
The London Internet Exchange (LINX) announced this week it will be expanding its interconnection footprint in Africa early next year with a new internet exchange point (IXP) in Ghana and its second IXP in Kenya.

In Ghana, the LINX Accra IXP (announced on Wednesday) will be launched in phases, starting with data centres from Onix and PAIX. LINX said this setup will provide redundancy and interconnectivity by allowing networks at either location to meet at LINX Accra via a single cross-connect.

In Kenya, LINX Mombasa (announced on Monday) will be launched in partnership with local data centre operator iColo, which is owned by Digital Realty. LINX Mombasa will be the first IXP to be hosted at iColos MBA2 facility.

LINX said the Mombasa IXP is designed to mirror the technical set up of its existing IXP in Nairobi, which went live in November 2023, using Nokia technology to enable peering and other services on 100G ports.

Both IXPs are scheduled to go live in early Q1 of 2025.

LINXs head of global engagement Nurani Nimpuno said the two new IXPs will take advantage of Ghanas and Kenyas international connectivity on Africas west coast and east coast, respectively. Both countries provides landing points for six subsea cable systems.

The launch of the Mombasa IXP is a significant complement to the existing LINX IXP in Nairobi a step that will bolster interconnection across East Africa, she said. Meanwhile, she added, LINX Accra will not only support the growth of the strong local ISP community, but with several key Internet submarine cables landing in Accra, it is uniquely positioned to become a central gateway for Internet traffic in West Africa.
+ Catalogue of Sixty Traits That Apostates Formerly Possessed When They Were in Gods Good Graces

[all passages from RSV. Many thanks to the good old reference work, Naves Topical Bible (1897). Nave (1841-1917) was a Methodist, so he agreed  as an Arminian / Wesleyan  that one could fall away from faith; hence, he didnt overlook that teaching in his Bible references]

*****

Leviticus 26:15 . . . you spurn my statutes, . . . you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant,

Numbers 14:22-23 none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the proof these ten times and have not hearkened to my voice, [23] shall see the land which I swore to give to their fathers; and none of those who despised me shall see it.

Deuteronomy 4:9 Only take heed, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart . . .

Deuteronomy 8:11 Take heed lest you forget the LORD your God, by not keeping his commandments and his ordinances and his statutes, . . .

Deuteronomy 8:19 And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you this day that you shall surely perish.

Deuteronomy 29:18 Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the LORD our God to go and serve the gods of those nations; lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit,

Deuteronomy 29:25-26 . . . they forsook the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, [26] and went and served other gods and worshiped them . . .

Deuteronomy 31:16 . . . this people will rise and play the harlot after the strange gods of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them.

Deuteronomy 31:29 For I know that after my death you will surely act corruptly, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and in the days to come evil will befall you, because you will do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger through the work of your hands.

Deuteronomy 32:15 . . . he forsook God who made him, and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.

1 Samuel 15:11 . . . Saul . . . has turned back from following me . . .

1 Samuel 15:23 . . . Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king.

1 Samuel 15:26 And Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you; for you have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel. (cf. 16:1)

1 Samuel 16:14 Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him.

1 Samuel 18:12 Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with him but had departed from Saul.

1 Kings 11:4-6, 9-10 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. [5] For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. [6] So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not wholly follow the LORD, as David his father had done. . . . [9] And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, [10] and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the LORD commanded.

1 Kings 11:33 . . . he has forsaken me, and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and has not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my ordinances, as David his father did.

2 Kings 18:12 . . . they did not obey the voice of the LORD their God but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded; they neither listened nor obeyed.

2 Kings 21:22 he forsook the LORD, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the LORD.

1 Chronicles 28:9 . . . if you forsake him, he will cast you off for ever.

2 Chronicles 12:1-2 When the rule of Rehoboam was established and was strong, he forsook the law of the LORD, and all Israel with him.[2] In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, because they had been unfaithful to the LORD, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem

2 Chronicles 13:11 . . . we keep the charge of the LORD our God, but you have forsaken him.

2 Chronicles 15:1-2 The Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded, [2] and he went out to meet Asa, and said to him, Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The LORD is with you, while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.

2 Chronicles 24:24 . . . they had forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers. . . . (cf. 24:20)

2 Chronicles 25:1-2, 14, 27 Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, . . . [2] And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, yet not with a blameless heart. [14] After Amaziah came from the slaughter of the Edomites, he brought the gods of the men of Seir, and set them up as his gods, and worshiped them, making offerings to them. . . . [27] . . . he turned away from the LORD . . .

2 Chronicles 26:4-5, 16, 20-21 And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. [5] He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God; and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper. . . . [16] But when he was strong he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was false to the LORD his God, and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense. . . . [20] And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked at him, and behold, he was leprous in his forehead! And they thrust him out quickly, and he himself hastened to go out, because the LORD had smitten him. [21] And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper dwelt in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the LORD. And Jotham his son was over the kings household, governing the people of the land.

2 Chronicles 29:6, 8 For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done what was evil in the sight of the LORD our God; they have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD, and turned their backs. . . . [8] Therefore the wrath of the LORD came on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has made them an object of horror, of astonishment, and of hissing, as you see with your own eyes.

Ezra 8:22 . . . The hand of our God is for good upon all that seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all that forsake him.

Nehemiah 9:26-27 Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against thee and cast thy law behind their back and killed thy prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to thee, and they committed great blasphemies. [27] Therefore thou didst give them into the hand of their enemies, . . .

Job 34:26-27 He strikes them for their wickedness in the sight of men, [27] because they turned aside from following him, and had no regard for any of his ways,

Psalm 51:11 Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me.

Psalm 78:10-11 They did not keep Gods covenant, but refused to walk according to his law. [11] They forgot what he had done, and the miracles that he had shown them.

Psalm 78:40-42 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert! [41] They tested him again and again, and provoked the Holy One of Israel. [42] They did not keep in mind his power, or the day when he redeemed them from the foe;

Psalm 78:56-57 Yet they tested and rebelled against the Most High God, and did not observe his testimonies, [57] but turned away and acted treacherously like their fathers; they twisted like a deceitful bow.

Proverbs 2:17, 19 who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; . . . [19] none who go to her come back nor do they regain the paths of life.

Isaiah 1:4 Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.

Isaiah 1:28 But rebels and sinners shall be destroyed together, and those who forsake the LORD shall be consumed.

Isaiah 5:24-25 they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. [25] Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people, . . .

Isaiah 17:10 For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge; . . .

Isaiah 24:5 . . . they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.

Isaiah 31:6 Turn to him from whom you have deeply revolted, O people of Israel.

Isaiah 65:11 . . . you who forsake the LORD, . . .

***

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Jeremiah 2:11, 13 Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. [13] . . . they have forsaken me, . . . (cf. 2:17, 19)

Jeremiah 2:27 . . . they have turned their back to me, . . . (cf. 2:32)

Jeremiah 3:6 The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the harlot? (cf. 3:20, 22)

Jeremiah 3:13 . . . you rebelled against the LORD your God . . .

Jeremiah 3:21 . . . they have perverted their way, they have forgotten the LORD their God.

Jeremiah 5:19 . . . you have forsaken me and served foreign gods . . .

Jeremiah 5:23 But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away.

Jeremiah 8:5-6 Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return. [6] I have given heed and listened, but they have not spoken aright; no man repents of his wickedness, . . .

Jeremiah 11:9-11 Again the LORD said to me, There is revolt among the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. [10] They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words; they have gone after other gods to serve them; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers. [11] Therefore, thus says the LORD, Behold, I am bringing evil upon them which they cannot escape; though they cry to me, I will not listen to them.

Jeremiah 11:16-17 The LORD once called you, A green olive tree, fair with goodly fruit; but with the roar of a great tempest he will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed. [17] The LORD of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you, because of the evil which the house of Israel and the house of Judah have done, provoking me to anger by burning incense to Baal.

Jeremiah 13:25 . . . you have forgotten me and trusted in lies.

Jeremiah 17:5 Thus says the LORD: Cursed is the man . . . whose heart turns away from the LORD.

Jeremiah 17:13 O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake thee shall be put to shame; those who turn away from thee shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water.

Jeremiah 18:15 . . . my people have forgotten me, they burn incense to false gods . . .

Jeremiah 19:4 . . . the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by burning incense in it to other gods . . .

Jeremiah 50:6 My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray, turning them away on the mountains; from mountain to hill they have gone, they have forgotten their fold.

Ezekiel 2:3-4 And he said to me, Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels, who have rebelled against me; they and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. [4] The people also are impudent and stubborn: . . . (cf. 2:5-8)

Ezekiel 3:20 Again, if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered . . .

Ezekiel 18:24 But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does the same abominable things that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, he shall die.

Ezekiel 23:35 . . . thus says the Lord GOD: . . . you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back . . .

Ezekiel 33:12 And you, son of man, say to your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall by it when he turns from his wickedness; and the righteous shall not be able to live by his righteousness when he sins.

Ezekiel 33:18 When the righteous turns from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, he shall die for it.

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

Hosea 6:7 . . . they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.

Hosea 8:14 . . . Israel has forgotten his Maker . . .

Hosea 9:1 . . . you have played the harlot, forsaking your God. . . .

Hosea 11:7 My people are bent on turning away from me; . . .

Hosea 13:16 Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God . . .

Hosea 14:1 Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

Amos 2:4 . . . they have rejected the law of the LORD, and have not kept his statutes, but their lies have led them astray, . . .

Zephaniah 1:4, 6 I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal . . . [6] those who have turned back from following the LORD, . . .

Malachi 3:7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, How shall we return?

***

Matthew 5:13 You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.

Matthew 24:10-13 And then many will fall away, . . . [11] And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. [12] And because wickedness is multiplied, most mens love will grow cold. [13] But he who endures to the end will be saved. (cf. 10:22)

Luke 8:13-14 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy; but these have no root, they believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. [14] And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.

Luke 9:62 Jesus said to him, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

Luke 22:31-32 Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, [32] but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.

John 6:66 After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.

John 15:1-2 I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. [2] Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

John 16:1 I have said all this to you to keep you from falling away.

Acts 7:39 Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, . . .

Acts 11:23 . . . he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose;

Romans 11:20-22 . . . They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. [21] For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. [22] Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but Gods kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.

Romans 14:4 . . . It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Master is able to make him stand.

1 Corinthians 9:27 but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

1 Corinthians 10:5-6 Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. [6] Now these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did.

1 Corinthians 10:12 Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

1 Corinthians 16:13 Be watchful, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong.

2 Corinthians 1:24 . . . you stand firm in your faith.

2 Corinthians 12:20 For I fear that perhaps I may come and find you not what I wish . . .

2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?  unless indeed you fail to meet the test!

Galatians 1:6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel

Galatians 3:1-4 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? [2] Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? [3] Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? [4] Did you experience so many things in vain?  if it really is in vain.

Galatians 4:9 but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits, whose slaves you want to be once more?

Galatians 5:1 . . . stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery . . .

Galatians 5:4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.

Galatians 5:7 You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?

Galatians 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, [20] idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, [21] envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 5:5-6 Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. [6] Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

Ephesians 6:10-13 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. [11] Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. [12] For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. [13] Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Ephesians 6:18 Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

Philippians 3:11-13 that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. [12] Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. [13] Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; . . .

Colossians 1:22-23 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, [23] provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard, . . .

2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion [KJV: a falling away] comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition,

1 Timothy 1:19 . . . By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith,

1 Timothy 2:15 Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

1 Timothy 4:1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.

1 Timothy 5:8 If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

1 Timothy 5:15 For some have already strayed after Satan.

1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs.

2 Timothy 1:14 guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

2 Timothy 1:15 You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, and among them Phygelus and Hermogenes.

2 Timothy 2:12 . . . if we deny him, he also will deny us;

2 Timothy 2:16-18 Avoid such godless chatter, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, [17] and their talk will eat its way like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, [18] who have swerved from the truth by holding that the resurrection is past already. They are upsetting the faith of some.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, [4] and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.

2 Timothy 4:7-8 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. [8] Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

Hebrews 2:1 Therefore we must pay the closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.

Hebrews 3:6 And we are his house if we hold fast our confidence and pride in our hope.

Hebrews 3:12 Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

Hebrews 3:13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Hebrews 3:14 For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end,

Hebrews 3:15 . . . it is said, Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.

Hebrews 3:18-19 And to whom did he swear that they should never enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? [19] So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Hebrews 4:1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest remains, let us fear lest any of you be judged to have failed to reach it.

Hebrews 4:5-6 And again in this place he said, They shall never enter my rest. [6] Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience,

Hebrews 4:11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, that no one fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Hebrews 6:4-6 For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, [5] and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, [6] if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt.

Hebrews 6:11-12 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, [12] so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Hebrews 6:15 And thus Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise.

Hebrews 10:26-29 For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, [27] but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries. [28] A man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses. [29] How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?

Hebrews 10:36 For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised.

Hebrews 10:38-39 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. [39] But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and keep their souls.

Hebrews 12:15-16 See to it that no one fail to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble, and by it the many become defiled; [16] that no one be immoral or irreligious like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.

Hebrews 13:9 Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings; for it is well that the heart be strengthened by grace, . . .

James 1:14-15 but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. [15] Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death.

1 Peter 1:14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,

1 Peter 1:17 And if you invoke as Father him who judges each one impartially according to his deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.

1 Peter 5:8-9 Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour. [9] Resist him, firm in your faith, . . .

2 Peter 2:15 Forsaking the right way they have gone astray; they have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing,

2 Peter 2:17-22 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved. [18] For, uttering loud boasts of folly, they entice with licentious passions of the flesh men who have barely escaped from those who live in error. [19] They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved. [20] For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. [21] For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. [22] It has happened to them according to the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire.

1 John 5:16 If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that.

2 John 7-9 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. [8] Look to yourselves, that you may not lose what you have worked for, but may win a full reward. [9] Any one who goes ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the doctrine has both the Father and the Son.

Revelation 2:4-5 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. [5] Remember then from what you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

Revelation 2:10 Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

Revelation 3:3 Remember then what you received and heard; keep that, and repent. If you will not awake, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you.

Revelation 3:5 He who conquers shall be clad thus in white garments, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life; I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.

Revelation 3:11-12 I am coming soon; hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. [12] He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God . . .

Revelation 3:16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.

***

Calvinists and folks who believe in eternal security will argue that the people described above were never Christians. But the language used rules that out. Now that we have compiled 150 passages that reference actual apostasy or warn against it, we can see the strong cumulative force of this sub-argument. Here is a complete catalogue of sixty descriptions of the former state of apostates, that they rejected; what they possessed when they were in the good graces of God and fit for ultimate salvation and eternal life in heaven if they were to die:

keeping his commandments and his ordinances and his statutes (Dt 8:11; 1 Sam 11:33)

heart turned [to] the LORD (Dt 29:18; 1 Kgs 11:9; Jer 17:5)

[kept/ followed] the covenant of the LORD (Dt 29:25; 31:16; Ps 78:10; Prov 2:17; Is 24:5; Hos 6:7)

[kept] the way which [God] commanded (Dt 31:29, 1 Kgs 11:10)

following [God] (1 Sam 15:11; Job 34:27)

[possessing the] Spirit of the LORD / Holy Spirit (1 Sam 16:14; Ps 51:11; Gal 3:2-3; Heb 6:4)

[accepted / listened to] the word of the LORD (1 Sam 15:23, 26; Is 5:24)

with the LORD (1 Sam 18:12)

heart wholly true to the LORD (1 Kgs 11:4)

wholly follow[ed] the LORD (1 Kgs 11:6)

walked in [Gods] ways (1 Kgs 11:33; 2 Kgs 21:22)

[did] what is right in [Gods] sight (1 Kgs 11:33)

obey[ed] the voice of the LORD their God [and kept] his covenant (2 Kgs 18:12)

listened [and] obeyed [God] (2 Kgs 18:12)

[followed] the law[s] of the LORD (2 Chr 12:1; Neh 9:26; Is 5:24; 24:5; Hos 4:6; Amos 2:4)

faithful to the LORD (2 Chr 12:2; 29:6; Jer 3:6; Hos 6:7; 2 Cor 13:5; Gal 3:2; Heb 10:39; Rev 2:10)

[kept] the charge of the LORD (2 Chr 13:11)

he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD (2 Chr 25:2; 26:4)

set himself to seek God (2 Chr 26:5)

sought the LORD (2 Chr 26:5; Ezra 8:22)

turned their faces [to] the habitation of the LORD (2 Chr 29:6)

obeyed / obedient (Neh 9:26; Acts 7:39; Heb 3:18; 4:6, 11; 1 Pet 1:14)

had regard for [Gods] ways (Job 34:27)

[in Gods] presence (Ps 51:11)

walk[ed] according to his law (Ps 78:10)

[remembered] what [God] had done (Ps 78:11)

observe[d] [Gods] testimonies (Ps 78:56)

[remembered] the God of [their] salvation (Is 17:10)

remembered the Rock of [their] refuge (Is 17:10)

[obeyed / kept] the statutes (Is 24:5; Amos 2:4; Mal 3:7)

a righteous man turns away from his righteousness (Ezek 18:24; 33:12, 18)

[performed] righteous deeds (Ezek 18:24)

turn[ed] [to God] (Hos 11:7)

the salt of the earth (Mt 5:13)

when they hear the word, receive it with joy (Lk 8:13)

disciples . . . went about with [Jesus] (Jn 6:66)

belief [and] faith (Rom 11:20; Heb 3:12, 19)

continue in his kindness (Rom 11:22)

[accepted / followed the] gospel (Gal 1:6)

c[a]me to know God (Gal 4:9)

known by God (Gal 4:9)

[in] Christ (Gal 5:4)

[in a state of] grace (Gal 5:4; Heb 12:15; 13:9)

running well (Gal 5:7)

obeying the truth (Gal 5:7; 2 Tim 4:4)

[following] conscience (1 Tim 1:19)

enlightened (Heb 6:4)

who have tasted the heavenly gift (Heb 6:4)

tasted the goodness of the word of God (Heb 6:5)

tasted the powers of the age to come (Heb 6:5)

keep their souls (Heb 10:39)

[following] the right way (2 Pet 2:15)

hav[ing] escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet 2:20)

known the way of righteousness (2 Pet 2:21)

[following] the holy commandment (2 Pet 2:21)

love [of God] (Rev 2:4)

do[ing] [of good] works (Rev 2:5)

Remember then what you received and heard; keep that, and repent (Rev 3:3)

hold fast what you have (Rev 3:11)

hot [rather than] lukewarm (Rev 3:16)
vs. James Swan

Anti-Catholic reformed polemicist James Swan holds the usual erroneous Protestant view about St. Augustine: that he supposedly believed in sola Scriptura: the view that only Scripture is infallible, and denial of the infallibility of sacred apostolic tradition and the Church and ecumenical councils. He expressed this in his article, Did Martin Luther Miscite Saint Augustine? (Boors All, 11-12-24), and issued the following challenge:

Romes defenders, past and present, . . . are assuming Augustines infallible authority structure was the same as theirs . . . This does not mean Augustine believed these other authorities were infallible. What would be useful information from Romes defenders are explicit quotes from Augustine . . . in which he does claim councils, popes and Tradition are infallible along with the Scriptures. . . . The burden of proof for Romes defenders is to demonstrate their current version of infallible authority was the same as Augustines. . . . Augustine had the same infallible authority as Luther!

Happy to oblige! Its very easy for me to do, seeing that I edited the 245-page book, The Quotable Augustine: Distinctively Catholic Elements in His Theology way back in 2012.

*****

Apostolic Succession

If now you seem to yourself to have been tossed to and fro enough, and wish to put an end to labors of this kind, follow the pathway of Catholic teaching, which has flowed down from Christ Himself through the Apostles even unto us, and will hereafter flow down to posterity. (On the Usefulness of Believing, 20)

. . . the Acts of the Apostles; . . . which book I must needs believe if I believe the gospel, since both writings alike Catholic authority commends to me. (Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus, 5, 6)

The Catholic, which is also the apostolic, doctrine . . . (Against Faustus the Manichee, xxiii, 5)

You immediately deny that Matthew wrote the narrative, though this is affirmed by the continuous testimony of the whole Church, from the days of apostolic presidency to the bishops of our own time. . . . I ask you to believe the book which I quote to have been written by Matthew, since it has been handed down from the days of Matthew in the Church, without any break in the connection between that time and the present. . . . a book acknowledged and approved as handed down from the beginning in the Church founded by Christ Himself, and maintained through the apostles and their successors in an unbroken connection all over the world to the present day . . . (Against Faustus the Manichee, xxviii, 2)

We, namely, the catholic faith, coming from the doctrine of the apostles planted in us, received by a line of succession, to be transmitted sound to posteritythe catholic faith, I say, has, between both those parties, that is, between both errors, held the truth. (Lectures on the Gospel of John, 37, 6)

No one who has not yielded to the malicious and deceitful suggestions of lying devils, can be so blinded by passion as to deny the ability of the Church of the apostles a community of brethren as numerous as they were faithful to transmit their writings unaltered to posterity, as the original seats of the apostles have been occupied by a continuous succession of bishops to the present day, . . . (Against Faustus the Manichee, xxxiii, 6)

***

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Catholic Church, Infallibility and Indefectibility of

This same is the holy Church, the one Church, the true Church, the catholic Church, fighting against all heresies: fight, it can: be fought down, it cannot. (Sermon to Catechumens on the Creed, 14) . . . the immoveable Catholic faith, . . . (Ep. 166 [3, 6]: to St. Jerome [415] ) For in the belly of the Church truth abides. Whosoever shall have been separated from this belly of the Church, must needs speak false things: . . . (Explanations of the Psalms, 58:3 [58, 5]; I rearranged the word order of the awkward translation; changing no words) . . . sound doctrine, which alone is Catholic, . . . (Against Faustus the Manichee, xx, 23) . . . to avoid offending the Church by erroneous doctrine, . . . (Against Faustus the Manichee, xxii, 46)

. . . the body of Christ, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and mainstay of the truth, dispersed throughout the world . . . (Against the Letters of Petilian the Donatist, ii, 104, 237) . . . the holy and true Church of Christ . . . (Against the Letters of Petilian the Donatist, i, 22, 24) . . . that Church which is the true Church of Christ. (Ep. 93 [12, 50]: to Vincentius [408] ) . . . the certainty of Catholic truth . . . (Ep. 139 [1]: to Marcellinus [412] ) . . . many states and places where we saw the true Catholic Church firmly established . . . (Ep. 185 [7, 25]: to Boniface [416]) Let us love what we sing: Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! that so they may know, by their own experience, with what perfect truth their mother, the Catholic Church, calls out to them . . . let them come to the true Church of Christ, that is, to the Catholic Church our mother . . . (Ep. 185 [9, 36 / 10, 46]: to Boniface [416]) His commands, which He has willed should be confirmed by so great authority of the Catholic Church. (On the Usefulness of Believing, 33) Councils, Ecumenical Councils themselves, which are held in the several districts and provinces, must yield, beyond all possibility of doubt, to the authority of plenary Councils which are formed for the whole Christian world . . . (On Baptism, Against the Donatists, ii, 3, 4) They attempt, accordingly, to prevail against the firmly-settled authority of the immoveable Church by the name and the promises of a pretended appeal to reason. This kind of effrontery is, we may say, characteristic of all heretics. But He who is the most merciful Lord of faith has both secured the Church in the citadel of authority by most famous cumenical Councils and the Apostolic sees themselves, and furnished her with the abundant armour of equally invincible reason by means of a few men of pious erudition and unfeigned spirituality. (Ep. 118 [5, 32]: to Deoscorus [410] )

Rule of Faith / Three-Legged Stool (Bible-Church-Tradition)
At a glance Expert's Rating Pros Great value

Flexible form factor

Surprisingly good keyboard

Amazing battery life Cons Needs more RAM

Android apps dont run well

Vertical kickstand reduces horizontal options Our Verdict The 2024 edition of the Chromebook Duet doubles down on its hybrid form factor and budget price. Lenovo has refined this design very well, and it remains a great choice if you want a cheap, reliable Chromebook that fits in small spaces and can do some light tablet duty. Just keep an eye on your tabs. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today

Google representatives tell me that the Lenovo Chromebook Duet series is the best-selling Chromebook ever, and I believe them. With a low price, a Surface-style form factor, and a bit of an iPad look when all the extras are stripped off, its an appealing package, especially if youre more comfortable with a touchscreen than with a mouse.

The new version of the Chromebook Duet is an improvement in almost every way.

The new revision to the model is an improvement in almost every way. While it still doesnt handle heavy desktop-style tasks or Android apps very adroitly, its an excellent budget device if you want a little more flexibility than a standard laptop.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet: Physical Design

The newest  Gen 9 model looks extremely familiar to the first two models but with more refinement. Its still a tablet first, at least in a purely physical sense, with a little more of a focus on conventional web browsing thanks to ChromeOS. And while I appreciate the included stylus, its value proposition isnt quite as good as it used to be, especially if you want the 8GB memory upgrade. And trust me, you want that upgrade.

Michael Crider/Foundry

The Duet is an 11-inch tablet and bare of all its accouterments, you might confuse it for a standard iPad at first glance. But a little handling time quickly puts that notion to rest. Its horizontally aligned, with a wider 16:10 LCD screen and a webcam poking out from the side with a handy physical shutter. Youll also notice two different USB-C ports, one on the left side if youre using it in laptop mode, and one on the top. An extra port for accessories and charging, but whats with that weirdo placement?

Michael Crider/Foundry

It makes sense when you notice the updated magnetic kickstand. This design dispenses with the fabric, allows a hole for the magnetically-charging stylus, and crucially, has a bit of a kink to it. The slanted angle allows the Duet to stand up in either horizontal or vertical mode, and either way those USB-C ports are not obstructed.

Its a thoughtful touch, though I have to point out that accommodating two different modes here means theres only one angle for the tablet to stand up in either one. Id prefer the flexibility of multiple angles in horizontal mode since thats the way I used it by far.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet: Chromebook first, tablet second

ChromeOS has made big improvements in its touch interface, but this is still a Chromebook and not a tablet, at least according to the branding. So most of my time with the Duet was spent using it laptop-style with the kickstand and combined keyboard, touchpad, and screen cover attached. And I was surprised at how comfortable this was. One of the few low points of the original design was that the keyboard was a bit cramped and didnt have a lot of give to the keys.

Lenovo seems to have addressed this with a new design. It still sits flat as a pancake, but the keys have increased travel distance and the layout keeps all the alphanumeric keys at full size despite the squished layout. That makes typing for extended periods surprisingly natural. Its not as good as a high-quality keyboard with a full-sized layout, and its a far cry from Lenovos best-in-class ThinkPad keyboards. But considering the restrictions of both the form factor and the price, its pretty darn good.

Michael Crider/Foundry

Ditto for the touchpad, which is plastic instead of glass, but is more than serviceable for scootin your cursor across a tablet screen. The screen is also fine, if not outstanding. The 19201200 resolution is a lot wider than a standard tablet and a little taller than most laptops, which is a good compromise. Its an IPS-LCD panel with good color accuracy and plenty of brightness. Again, nothing here is going to blow you away versus a more expensive device, but its all acceptably in the pretty-good zone for a gadget that starts at $360.

Here are the specs, though keep in mind that since this tablet is running Arm-based hardware, its not an apples-to-oranges comparison to most x86-based Chromebooks.

Model number: 83HH0000US

CPU: MediaTek Kompanio 838

Memory: 4/8GB

Graphics: ARM Mali-G57 MC3

Display: 10.95 IPS-LCD, 19201200, 60Hz

Storage: 64/128GB SSD

Webcam: 5MP (8MP rear camera)

Connectivity: 2 USB-C, proprietary keyboard, 3.5mm audio jack

Battery capacity: 68Wh

Dimensions: 255.3 x 166.84 x 7.69mm (with keyboard and stand, approximately 17mm)

Weight: 1.21 pounds, 2.09 pounds with keyboard and stand

MSRP: $359.99/$399.99

Lenovo Chromebook Duet: Mobile guts, mobile limitations

For that price, you get a MediaTek processor (Arm, but thats okay, ChromeOS dont judge) with four primary cores and four efficiency cores, a spartan 64GB of storage, and just 4GB of RAM. The upgraded model, which Google sent me as the review unit, boosts those last two to 8GB and 128GB, respectively. For that upgrade, youre charged the princely sum of $399.99. Thats more than youd pay for a base-model iPad, but well below that same iPad with a keyboard and stylus.

The mobile hardware also gives this gadget mobile-style battery life, including a solid workday of runtime and standby that I was never able to exhaust even when the tablet spent days in my bag. In this area, it shines above most Chromebooks that compete with conventional laptops. Its a trade-off for raw, number-crunching power, sure, but considering the audience this device is shooting for and the requirements it brings, it seems like a good one to me.

Michael Crider/Foundry

Other hardware includes a 5MP front-facing camera and a single 8MP rear-facing shooter, which I imagine was thrown in with the Arm-based chipset, and which I cant imagine many people using too often. The webcam isnt great, especially since the default laptop angle has it pointing right up my nose. Its sharp but washes out easily and doesnt handle low levels of light well. The rear camera is a little better, but again, I doubt youll be using that one regularly.

The tablet has a proprietary magnetic connection for the keyboard and a headphone jack, the latter of which was notably absent in the original design. The magnets connecting the keyboard and affixing it to the screen when closed are nice and sturdy, far less likely to move around  they clung to a coffee shops metal exterior table when I went on a walk. I dont think that was intentional, but its reassuring nonetheless. I could wish for a MicroSD card slot to augment the low storage, but beggars cant be choosers. And yes, a $400 Chromebook that doubles as a tablet qualifies as a beggar in this context.

Michael Crider/Foundry

The Duet is surprisingly capable as a laptop, or as close to a laptop as something using the Surface form factor gets. The good enough display and keyboard combo lets you use it for hours without too much trouble, and any issues you might have with a smaller-than-usual display can be alleviated with a quick pinch gesture in Chrome or one of the apps that are pretending they arent just Chrome with another icon.

But youll have to be mindful of how many youre using. When you load up Chrome with more than six or seven tabs, especially with something particularly heavy like Gmail (or the WordPress interface Im typing in right now), it tends to chug a bit. Its not surprising  even with a RAM upgrade, this hardware wasnt designed to be used by a tab addict. But this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the small size of the tablet means using a dozen tabs or apps at once isnt practical anyway.

Michael Crider/Foundry

The Duet is pointedly not a Chromebook Plus model, so you dont get access to the full gamut of Googles AI features. It gets a lot less power than, say, the equally recent Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus. Testing via PCWorlds gamut of Chromebook benchmarks, its less than half as powerfulwhich seems okay, since Its approximately half the price, and aiming for a very different use case.

CrXPRT 2: 107

Speedometer 2.0: 75.6

Basemark Web 3.0: 502.99

Kraken: 1164.15

Jetstream: 108.516

Im not exactly crying into my beer over that one. But on the flip side, the form factor does encourage you to use ChromeOS in the other direction: as a kinda-sorta Android tablet.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet: As a tablet

And frankly, its not a great one. Compared to, say, one of Samsungs Galaxy laptops, it feels slow and clumsy, even if its technically far more capable with its full-power browser. Android apps from the Play Store chug, even simple things like Googles own Keep Notes program, and that goes double if you try to run them side-by-side with Chrome browser windows or other Android apps. Games do okay, as long as you temper your expectations. The recently released Balatro was nice and snappy, but the far more visually complex Hearthstone tended to stutter and skip, even on its lowest setting for visual fidelity.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet, left, with iPad Air and Galaxy Z Fold 6. Michael Crider/Foundry

And while the screen is fine for video  albeit at a somewhat unambitious HD resolution  the stereo speakers are a let-down. Theyre plenty loud for a tablet or even a small laptop, but tinny and lacking in bass. Imagine a budget phone at about double the volume. Its fine if youre just listening to someone talk, but enjoying music or a movies audio demands a good set of headphones. Oh and by the way, this model has a headphone jack, something pointedly missing from the older designs.

So if youre looking for an Android tablet first and a Chromebook second, the Galaxy Tab or Pixel Tablet will serve you better, even if you have to spend a little extra on a keyboard and kickstand (should you want one). The Chromebook Duet works great as a handheld web browser, as Googles done a lot of work to make ChromeOSs touchscreen interface far more approachable. But if you prefer mobile apps as your means of interaction, its not the way to go. Thats especially true if you consider Samsungs surprisingly flexible DeX system, which approaches this convergence form factor from the other direction.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet: Another budget hit

This might sound like a lot of low points, and a lot of compromises. But considering this is a crossover device and a budget device, theyre basically all both understandable and forgivable. The changes that Lenovo has made are all improvements over the original and already very popular design, with the arguable exception of the double-mode kickstand. If Google and Lenovo have sold more of this design than any other Chromebook, I expect them to sell a lot more.

Go for the upgraded RAM, youll absolutely want it.

Go for the upgraded RAM, youll want it, and the extra storage for Android apps is handy even if they dont run great. Beyond that, make sure you keep your tabs under control and dont demand too many extra fills or too much camera prowess. Everything else about the Duet is excellent, especially the value  and it doesnt hurt that its already gone on sale a couple of times.
Global communications company Viasat has announced the launch of a home and mobile broadband service in Mexico that, they say, will boost cellular coverage in the country.

Viasat, in collaboration with Altan, the Mexican telecommunications wholesaler, will integrate Viasat's satellite and wireless LTE technologies with Altan's shared mobile network and provide cellular coverage for consumers in previously uncovered areas across Mexico.

Viasat says its innovative service seamlessly combines cutting-edge satellite and wireless systems to provide LTE over satellite via a cost-efficient, power-independent, wireless LTE infrastructure.

Viasat's service is available today in 13 states across Mexico, providing cellular coverage to more than 150,000 individuals.

The company adds that its ultra-low-cost wireless LTE towers are strategically positioned across Mexico's most remote areas, providing access to connectivity in regions where cellular coverage had until now had been minimal or non-existent. Some LTE towers utilise solar panels as a backup power source, while others are entirely solar powered.

This collaboration aims to expand the availability of high-speed broadband to remote communities throughout Mexico. Viasat say that according to the US Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration, approximately 30% of Mexico's population  more than 38 million people  live in areas without broadband access.

In an effort to bring connectivity to remote communities in Mexico, Viasat launched the Mexico Ambassador Programme in 2021. The programme partners with local representatives, mostly women, to share knowledge and expertise in areas connected by Viasat technology. By training the ambassadors in developing digital skills, the programme promotes gender equality and digital inclusion.

Hector Rivero, general manager of Mexico broadband at Viasat, says: "Viasat is revolutionising Mexican communities by providing fast, reliable, secure, affordable, and high-quality internet access." He adds: "With this service, we are fuelling digital inclusion and empowering teachers and students with educational resources, improving healthcare through telemedicine, facilitating communication for families separated by migration, and stimulating local commerce with digital tools."
Vietnamese telco Viettel announced on Wednesday it has commercially launched Open RAN 5G on its network using its in-house gNodeB solution developed in partnership with Qualcomm.

Viettel said the 5G Open RAN gNodeB  developed by Viettels R&D arm, Viettel High Tech  is now live in its network, with initial gNodeBs deployed in Hanoi and Ha Nam provinces, where it has been conducting validation tests for the past year. The telco also claims the deployment makes it the first Open RAN 5G network in the world to use Qualcomms 5G RAN platforms.

Viettel plans to deploy over 300 Open RAN sites by the first quarter of 2025, and intends to deploy thousands more as part of nationwide and international expansion plans from 2025 onwards.

The solutions distributed units (DUs) utilize the Qualcomm X100 5G RAN Accelerator Card use to offload compute-intensive baseband tasks like massive MIMO processing from DU servers. Viettel said this approach reduces capex by requiring fewer CPU cores and improving power efficiency.

Meanwhile, the radio units (RUs)  which utilize the Qualcomm QRU100 5G RAN platform  support O-RAN-compliant 32TR massive MIMO capabilities, which enhance network capacity, performance and energy efficiency.

For automation, management and orchestration, the solution combines Viettels element management system (EMS) with the Qualcomm Edgewise Suite to streamline management of heterogeneous networks spanning multiple vendors, cellular generations and architecture using a common platform. Viettel said this simplifies daily operations, reduces TCO and facilitates a smooth path to network modernization.

Viettel High Tech has produced a range of 5G equipment, from 5G gNodeB antennas, base stations and 100G site routers, to an automatic online charging system and even its own 5G DFE chipset.

Viettel High Tech CEO Nguyen Vu Ha said the commercialisation of its 5G Open RAN gNodeB completes its end-to-end 5G product suite, which it is offering to both public and private network customers. He also said the companys collaboration with Qualcomm  which kicked off in May 2022  will accelerate Viettels 5G deployments in Vietnam.

"I believe this collaboration will help both parties reduce the product development cycle by several years, he said in a statement. This collaboration also aims to deliver high-quality, cost-effective 5G solutions for international markets and to build a sustainable ecosystem.

Viettel launched its standalone (SA) 5G service in 63 provinces and cities last month, six months after receiving its 5G spectrum licence for the 2500-2600 MHz band from the Ministry of Information and Communications. It also announced contracts with Ericsson and Nokia to expand its 5G network even further, as well as upgrade its 4G network.
By Dan Nephin (LNP)

Several years ago, Gabriella Morgan was living with her family in Mount Joy Borough when she met Ricky Shannon playing esports and Fortnite video games online.

About a year ago, she decided to move in with Shannon at the Altoona home he shared with his mother.

Thats the account provided by Mitchell Eshleman, 55, of Ephrata, who identified himself Tuesday as Morgans uncle. He is engaged to Morgans mothers sister.

Shannon, 19, and Morgan, 22, are dead now, after Shannon went on a violent rampage Friday that ended in a police shootout on a roadway north of Harrisburg early Friday morning.

While Eshleman hadnt met Shannon in real life before Morgan moved to Altoona, they had become acquainted through an online gaming community that he and Gabby were a part of. Eshleman said Shannon seemed like a smart kid.

The kid that I met that she was playing video games with, hes a totally different person, Eshleman said.

Totally different than the man Shannon would become  a man who, according to police, drove 150 miles early Friday morning after being served a protection from abuse order Morgan had taken out against him, then causing the deaths of Morgan and her mother and injuring her stepfather and sister before getting himself killed at the hands of police.

Efforts to contact Shannons family have been unsuccessful.

Even though Shannon threw up no immediate red flags, Eshleman said he and Morgans mother and other family members urged Morgan to be cautious in her decision to move across the state.

Almost immediately after she moved in with Shannon, Eshleman said, Shannon began to isolate Morgan, at times locking her in their bedroom, preventing her from showering and not allowing her to call her mother, Kimberly Day, or other family members.

Eshleman said Morgan was allowed to call him, and they last spoke in April or May.

Eshleman said he also spoke to Shannon by phone after Morgan told him how Shannon had been treating her.

I told him, you better treat my niece better or Im going to come out there and you and I are going to have a talk, Eshleman said.

D.W. Day, 44, of Parker, Colorado, was another uncle and Morgans mothers brother, said Morgan would call him and tell him about Shannons abuse. He said he encouraged her to leave him, as did her mother and stepfather.

We all did, but you cant make a decision for an 18, 19 year old, he said.

In some of Morgans phone calls, Day said, he could hear Shannon in the background saying he would change. Day also said Morgan has some mental health issues, though he did not know her diagnosis, for which she was supposed to take medication and that Shannon at times would not let her take the medication.

Christina Akers, a family friend who is acting as a spokesperson, agreed the relationship was toxic. She is organizing a GoFundMe fundraiser for the survivors of the shooting, Morgans stepfather and sister.

The shooting

Akers said Shannon shot Morgan multiple times in the apartment and that she went unwillingly with Shannon, who led police on a high-speed chase ending in a shootout after police used a tactical maneuver to stop Shannons truck.

According to police, Shannon immediately began shooting at troopers, narrowly missing them. It was only after they returned fire and went to try to render aid to him that they realized Morgan also was in the truck.

The shootout happened shortly before 5 a.m. and Shannons truck had dark tinted windows.

Its not clear if Morgan died from Shannons gunshots or those of troopers. Shannon was killed in the shootout.

Even if trooper gunfire played a role in Morgans death, Akers said her family holds absolutely no animosity toward law enforcement. They did not kill Gabby. Police tried to do everything they could to save her. They went to heroic lengths. (Shannon) killed Gabby.

About 45 minutes before the fatal shootout, Shannon had gone to Sassafras Terrace apartments on East Main Street in Mount Joy and began shooting. He killed Morgans mother, Kimberly Day, 41, and injured her stepfather, Brian Miller, and her sister, Jennifer Day.

Akers said Shannon shot Miller, a Marine Corps veteran, in the hand, neck and chest, rendering him unable to protect his family.

Akers said Miller was released from the hospital Tuesday and Jennifer Day was released Friday.

Morgans account

According to the account Morgan wrote in the petition for her emergency protection order  signed Thursday by Columbia Borough District Judge Miles Bixler  Morgans mother and an uncle drove to Altoona on Nov. 4 and brought her back to Mount Joy.

Morgan wrote that earlier that day, Shannon became angry for no reason about an hour after waking up and locked her in a room for hours.

After he let her out, she made plans to leave. While she was packing, she wrote that Shannon told her he hoped she would get raped.

Her uncle D.W. Day said Morgan called on him way to Mount Joy, telling her she had left Shannon so he could be proud of her.

Once in Mount Joy, she wrote, she went to borough police and told them Shannon had hacked into her social media and email accounts. The date she gave police that information is unclear from her petition, but she wrote that Shannon had called and messaged her repeatedly during the drive from Altoona.

I am scared he is going to find me and hurt me because he would in his words joke about cutting body parts off me or hurt me if I ever left .... I fear he will call again and harass me but I also fear for my life, she wrote.

YWCA Lancaster runs a 24-hour sexual assault hotline, 717-392-7273, that connects callers to free, confidential counseling and therapy services for community members impacted by sexual abuse, harassment or assault.
By Katie Bernard and Sean Collins Walsh, The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)

PHILADELPHIA  Pennsylvanias nationally watched U.S. Senate race is headed to a recount after incumbent Sen. Bob Casey did not waive an automatic recount.

The Associated Press called the race last week for Republican Dave McCormick, who narrowly leads three-term Democrat Casey by less than 0.5%, the threshold for triggering an automatic recount.

This will be the eighth time the states automatic recount is triggered since it was established in 2004.

Casey trails McCormick by nearly 30,000 votes, a margin wide enough that a recount would be unlikely to change the outcome of the race. However, the Department of State said Wednesday, roughly 80,000 ballots statewide have not yet been counted, though many of those may be rejected.

Casey had until noon Wednesday to waive a recount, but did not exercise that option so a recount will proceed. His campaign has insisted the senator still has a narrow path to victory, releasing daily statements reiterating that vote counting continues.

My priority has always been standing up for the people of Pennsylvania. Across our Commonwealth, close to 7 million people cast their votes in a free and fair election, Casey said Tuesday morning. Our county election officials will finish counting those votes, just like they do in every election. The American democratic process was born in Pennsylvania and that process will play out.

For his part, McCormick has projected confidence that his lead will hold.

I dont care who voted for me and didnt vote for me, McCormick said Friday in a victory speech. Today, I turn the page. I am focused on serving every single Pennsylvanian.

Counties are required to start the recount process by Wednesday, Nov. 20, at the latest. They must complete their recounts by Tuesday, Nov. 26.

Recounts often result in the final tallies of votes changing slightly for each candidate. But those corrections can go in either direction and usually only impact an extremely small fraction of votes. It is exceedingly rare for a recount to change the ultimate outcome of a statewide race, especially one divided by around 30,000 votes.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, the states top Democrat, declined to comment on the recount, deferring to the Department of State.

McCormicks campaign said that a recount will be a waste of taxpayer money.

Senator-Elect McCormicks lead is insurmountable, which the AP made clear in calling the race. A recount would be a waste of time and taxpayer money, but it is Senator Caseys prerogative, McCormick spokesperson Elizabeth Gregory said in a statement. Senator-Elect McCormick knows what its like to lose an election and is sure Senator Casey will eventually reach the right conclusion.

Remarkably, this will be the second recount McCormick is involved in  in just his second competitive election. During Pennsylvanias 2022 Senate race, McCormick fell short to Mehmet Oz in the GOP primary by fewer than 1,000 votes following a recount. Oz lost to John Fetterman.

While Casey held a lead in polls for much of the campaign, the race tightened in the final days, and McCormick was leading as voters were counted in the days after the election. But his advantage shrank and fluctuated over time as some larger counties processed their provisional ballots, as of Wednesday it was within the 0.5% threshold.

After Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D- N.Y., initially withheld an invitation, McCormick is attending orientation for incoming senators this week.

Caseys campaign issued a statement Wednesday criticizing McCormick and Republicans for pursuing court challenges that could result in the exclusion of some provisional ballots. The campaign argued McCormicks continued litigation over the election proves he believes it isnt over.

Last week the McCormick campaign filed two lawsuits in Philadelphia seeking permission to challenge provisional ballots in groups rather than individually and segregate some provisional ballots. The campaign ultimately dropped the emergency injunction request in one case and a judge rejected it in the other.

David McCormick and his allies are trying to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters with litigation designed to throw out large tranches of votes that theyve admitted in legal filings could impact the outcome of the election, said Caseys campaign manager Tiernan Donohue.

The RNC has also indicated plans to challenge thousands of provisional ballots. In a Bucks County Board of Election Meeting the party indicated plans to challenge the local boards decision to count undated ballots and provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail ballots were rejected.

Caseys insistence on staying in the race has prompted calls of hypocrisy from some on the right who have pointed out that he called on then-President Donald Trump to concede in 2020 to Joe Biden.

The right-wing Fair Election Project released an ad Tuesday calling on Casey to step aside, using clips of the senators comments from 2020. Trump, who won the 2024 election, has still yet to accept his 2020 defeat.

Casey, however, has not made false claims of election fraud, as Trump did. He has also leaned on the fact that several outlets that call races have continued to say his race is too close to call, even as the Associated Press declared a winner.
By Alfred Lubrano, The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)

Republican State Treasurer Stacy Garritys reelection last week appears to have garnered the largest vote total ever recorded by a candidate for statewide office in Pennsylvania.

In defeating Democratic challenger Erin McClelland last week, Garrity received 3,517,327 votes (52.2%) to McClellands 3,079,674 (45.5%), according to unofficial state results.

Garritys total exceeded the previous record for state office held by Gov. Josh Shapiro in his 2020 race for attorney general, said Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College, who reviewed the state data.

She definitely outran Shapiro, Yost said of Garrity.

Shapiro in 2020 amassed 3,461,472 votes to Republican challenger Heather Heidelbaughs 3,153,831.

Both 2020 and 2024 were presidential years, which boosted overall turnout.

As of Tuesday, Garritys vote total trailed that of President-elect Donald Trump by just 18. Trump appears to have won more votes than any Republican candidate in Pennsylvania history, an accomplishment Garrity nearly shared.

In 2020, Shapiro outpaced President Joe Bidens 3,458,229 votes by around 3,200.

I was delighted when I learned about the vote record, Garrity said in a brief interview Tuesday afternoon. Its super exciting and I feel very honored.

Its a vote total thatll likely generate interest in Garrity as a candidate for higher office, ahead of 2026 when Shapiro stands for reelection and 2028 when Democratic Sen. John Fetterman will defend his seat for the first time.

Garrity declined to say whether shell use the treasurers office to springboard into higher office, as Democratic Sen. Bob Casey did after one term. Serving in the U.S. Army Reserve was the honor of my lifetime, but being Treasurer is a close second, she said. And thats all Im focusing on now.

Garrity, 60, was first elected in 2020 after defeating Democratic incumbent Joe Torsella in an upset. She became the first Republican in 16 years to hold the office.

On her website, Garrity describes herself as the Angel of the Desert, a nickname she got while serving in Iraq in the U.S. Army Reserve in 2004, according to National Public Radio. There, she oversaw a camp of Iraqi war prisoners.

One of the main talking points of her campaign was her assertion that she set a new one-year record returning nearly $274 million in unclaimed property to more than 174,000 Pennsylvania citizens in the fiscal year ending June 2023.

Unendorsed by the state Democratic establishment in the primaries, McClelland ran afoul of Pennsylvania Democratic leaders in her own party, after endorsing North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper over Shapiro to be Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate. In her comments, McClelland referenced a sexual harassment scandal involving a former aide of Shapiros.

On Tuesday, Garrity said, that not having Democratic support certainly didnt help McClelland.

McClelland campaign chair Chuck Pascal pushed back on the idea that a dearth of party support hurt the candidate.

Pascal said that Garrity was helped by a Trump-led red wave and by the ability of Republicans who seemed to be able to get more of their newish voters to vote down-ballot.

(c)2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer

Visit The Philadelphia Inquirer at www.inquirer.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
An actress who had been reported missing by her family two weeks ago has fortunately been found safe but was seemingly happy to be free from said family.

The missing person was Chanel Banks, who is best known for her roles on Gossip Girl, Blue Bloods, and Twelve, according to her IMDB page.

Her family filed a missing persons report with the Los Angeles Police Department after the actress disappeared from her apartment. But on Nov. 11 she was found in Texas and, according to authorities, no foul play was involved.

She is fine, LAPD spokesperson Charles Miller told People magazine. No danger. She is OK. She has been taken out of the missing person system for us and we have closed our investigation.

No additional details were available.

Banks' family, however, disagrees with the finding, and even slammed TMZ for reporting that the actress was found.

TMZ IS REPORTING FAKE NEWS, her cousin, Danielle-Tori Singh, wrote on Facebook.

This all began when Singh, who flew to California to search for Banks, recently told Nexstars KTLA that she hadnt heard from Banks since late October. Banks mother, Judy Singh, also flew to L.A. from New York to help with the search.

Once she learned that Banks phone was dead and that her car and dog were still at her Playa Vista apartment, she contacted the police.

The family also launched a GoFundMe page that was organized by Singh to help search efforts.

But a string of stories posted to Banks personal Instagram account on Wednesday indicated that Banks is safe, although she accused her family of abuse.

Please do not donate to any GoFundMe that says I am missing, one post reads. I am not missing.

The Instagram account is verified, and was created in April 2021. The account even includes clips from Gossip Girl and snapshots with Banks' husband, Carlos Jimenez.

She had decided she didnt want to talk to the family anymore due to past issues that they had, Jimenez recently told KTLA during a phone interview.

The posts that went up Wednesday indicated that she took a trip to Texas due to family issues. One post said that Banks and her husbands family were pursuing a conservatorship, which led her to cease all communication.

Previously, Los Angeles authorities confirmed to the news outlet that they were looking into the 36-year-olds disappearance and performed four separate welfare checks, all of which were unsuccessful.

While Banks is now considered found by authorities and is no longer listed, the family doesnt believe that to be true and is under the impression that she is being impersonated.

In a lengthy video posted to Facebook, Singh said she had seen captured footage from Texas police showing an altercation with a person authorities said was Banks. The woman appeared to be skinnier than Banks and was wearing clothes the actress wouldnt, Singh said.

Singh said she doesnt believe the woman is her cousin, due to police identifying the woman who had Banks New York drivers license, which Singh said is a decade old and is expired.

Please dont stop looking for my cousin, Singh said.
Larry Coia, a New Jersey grape grower and the part owner of Bellview Winery, brought the San Marco grape back to the United States in 2011.

By then he had been tending to grapevines for 35 years, all as a sidelight while working as a radiation oncologist. A founding member of the Outer Coastal Plain Vineyard Association, he became immersed in the states wine industry, both providing grapes from his 15-acre vineyard and working to gain funding through grants and research.

He retired from the medical field in 2013 and purchased half of Bellview, located in Landisville, in Atlantic County, in 2022.

Coia traveled to Italy several times to meet with Marco Stefanini, a grape breeder, developing a plan to bring the vines to the United States, grow them at Rutgers University, propagate them at Double A Nurseries and distribute them to growers in New Jersey, according to a 2021 story on a site called New Jersey Uncorked.

The Outer Coastal Plain Vineyard Association had a hand in securing the grapevines, securing grants through the states Dept of Agriculture to fund the project. It has played a major role, he said.

Stefanini, from the Foundation Edmund Mach near Trento Italy, developed the grape by crossing Teroldego and Lagrein.

Its a grape that today grows in several New Jersey vineyards, including at Tomasello and Autumn Lake wineries, and also outside the state. Bellview has released several vintages of the wine.

Asked how the experiment with the grape was going more than 10 years later, Coia told PennLive earlier this week that the education process is continuing.

A cluster of San Marco grapes.Larry Coia

Were still learning, he said. Were not worried about the Pinot Gris virus anymore. It certainly doesnt affect the vines or the quality or quantity. Were very, very pleased that this is a grape that really does well in a rainy season. I should say that 2020 was a challenging year because of rain and the San Marco made a good wine, and we bottled it that way.

He said a sample of San Marco was sent to a company called Tastry in California for an analysis. They found that the levels of polyphenols, especially anthocyanin, were very high.

If you look it, it is dark. Its way darker than Chambourcin, he said. I like it blended with like 10% Merlot, and it doesnt have to be new oak but six months in oak. All these little things that take time to work out. Were about there now. I think we really have a product thats going to catch on.

Bellview just released its 2022 vintage of San Marco, at $25/bottle.

As for how the grapes have done outside the state, a cursory glance found there have been hits and misses.

In North Carolina, owner Jay Raffaldini of Raffaldini Vineyards & Winery said they had to pull out the San Marco they were growing because of crown gall. Its a disaster, he said. Were moving on to more Teroldego instead.

Joe Fiola, a professor and specialist in viticulture and small fruit for the University of Maryland, said the one commercial vineyard with San Marco is Linganore, and theres around 2 acres growing there. So far so good, he said. They have made a wine and they are excited about it. Deep, dark color and very nice texture/body.

So that was the good news.

Juice samples from three varieties of grapes: from left, Cab Franc, Middle Chambourcin and San Marco.Larry Coia

He also said that he has replicated research plots at his western Maryland research and extension vineyards and regretfully 20 of 24 vines have gone down to crown gall.

The success rate of the grapes growing in some Eastern Shore plots has been higher, he said, adding, It has made some very good wine.

Also looking good to date is a new planting at Golden Run in Sudlersville, he added.
For the second year in a row Thanksgivings main centerpiece, the turkey, will cost less.

Retailers, including Target and Walmart, are advertising lower prices on the holiday meals essentials, while analysts are noting a slight drop in turkey prices over last year.

Supply chains have mostly improved since the pandemic, while impacts from avian influenza have weakened. Families also have been turning to alternatives such as ham in recent years.

As for turkey prices, its always best to shop around. Many grocery stores offer turkey promotions for reward members who rack up enough points. Others advertise promotions or cut prices to attract shoppers into their stores.

As in past years, we conducted an unofficial price check at Harrisburg-area grocery stores. Heres how turkey prices stack up this year:

Aldi

The discount grocer is selling Butterball frozen turkeys for $1.07 per pound with a limit of two per shopper. Its also carrying Butterball whole frozen smoked turkeys for $2.29 a pound and Honest antibiotic-free whole frozen turkeys for $1.69 a pound.

Giant

Shoppers started collecting rewards points toward free turkeys and other select reward options earlier this month. Shoppers with 400 points can redeem them for a free frozen Shady Brook Farms turkey (a maximum size of 20 pounds).

Certificates also can be redeemed for a free Stouffers Party Size Entree, Empire Frozen Kosher Turkey or Free Tofurky Roast or $1 per pound savings off any other turkey up to 20 pounds.

Points can be redeemed online via Giants app or website or shoppers can receive a printed paper certificate in-store through Nov. 28.

Giant is limiting free turkeys to one per household.

Grocery Outlet

The discount grocer is advertising the lowest price ever on turkeys. Whole 14-16 pound frozen turkeys are $3.99 when shoppers spend $35, excluding milk, dairy and gift card purchases. The offer is valid through Nov. 19 while supplies last.

Lidl

The discount grocer is selling Butterball frozen premium all-natural young turkeys for 99 cents with a minimum $25 purchase. Shady Brook Farms frozen whole young turkeys are 39 cents a pound. Limited to two per customer.

Price Rite Marketplace

The new independent market is selling York Springs Farms Fresh turkeys, sizes 10 to 30 pounds, for $3.49 per pound. Its also carrying smoked whole turkeys, sizes 10 to 24 pounds, for $3.99 per pound. Orders are due by Nov. 15. Pickup is Nov. 22-27. Call 717-971-4141 to order. Located at 200 North U.S. 15 in Dillsburg.

Price Rite Marketplace

Frozen Butterball turkeys are selling for $1.06 a pound and frozen Honeysuckle turkeys for 76 cents a pound.

The chain is advertising a lowest-price guarantee, meaning it is accepting any competitors advertisement for a lower price per pound frozen turkey. Price Rite is beating competitors prices by 1 cent per pound. The offer is valid through Nov. 27. Competitor ads must show the price per pound. Limit one per customer.

Target

The retailer is advertising premium all-natural Butterball frozen turkeys for 99 cents a pound and Good & Gather brand frozen young turkeys for 79 cents a pound.

Trader Joes

Fresh all-natural turkeys arrive on Nov. 14. The Brined Fresh Young Turkeys are $2.49 a pound, while Glatt Kosher birds are $3.49 a pound and Organic Young Turkeys are $3.99 a pound.

Walmart

The discount retailer sells a variety of options, including a Shady Brook Farms young frozen whole turkey for 88 cents a pound to Butterball whole frozen turkey for $1.04 a pound.

Wegmans

Wegmans is holding its prices from last year. Those with Shoppers Club Cards who spend a $25 minimum, including the price of a turkey, can buy a Shady Brook frozen turkey for 59 cents a pound.

In addition, they can buy Wegmans fresh turkeys for $1.49 a pound, Wegmans Fresh Premium turkeys for $3.29 a pound and Wegmans Organic turkeys for $5.79 pound.

Weis Markets

Shoppers started accumulating points (1 point for every $1 spent). Redemption runs Nov. 7-28. Shoppers can redeem 400 points for a free Weis Quality frozen turkey, frozen turkey breast, Smithfield smoked bone-in ham portion or Tofurky. Customers with 200 points are eligible for about a dozen discounts listed on the chains website. New this year, shoppers can redeem extra Rewards points for additional items Weis Quality items including pies, potatoes and frozen vegetables.
By DAVE COLLINS, The Associated Press

The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax, the families announced Thursday.

The dissolution of Alex Jones assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for, Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.

The sale price was not immediately disclosed.

Jones confirmed The Onions acquisition of Infowars in a social media video Thursday and said he planned to file legal challenges to stop it. An email message seeking comment was sent to Infowars.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones (Tyler Sizemore | Hearst Connecticut Media via AP, Pool, 2022)Tyler Sizemore | Hearst Connecticut Media via AP, Pool, File

It was not immediately clear what The Onion planned to do with the conspiracy theory platform, including its website, social media accounts, studio in Austin, Texas, trademarks and video archive. The Chicago-based Onion did not immediately return emails seeking comment Thursday.

Sealed bids for the private auction were opened Wednesday. Both supporters and detractors of Jones had expressed interest in buying Infowars. The other bidders have not been disclosed.

The Onion, a satirical site that manages to persuade people to believe the absurd, bills itself as the worlds leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events and says it has 4.3 trillion daily readers.

Jones has been saying on his show that if his detractors bought Infowars, he would move his daily broadcasts and product sales to a new studio, websites and social media accounts that he has already set up. He also said that if his supporters won the bidding, he could stay on the Infowars platforms.

Relatives of many of the 20 children and six educators killed in the shooting sued Jones and his company for defamation and emotional distress for repeatedly saying on his show that the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control. Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones conspiracies and threats by his followers.

The lawsuits were filed in Connecticut and Texas. Lawyers for the families in the Connecticut lawsuit said they worked with The Onion to try to acquire Infowars.
LOCK HAVENTwo former Keystone Central School District support personnel have admitted they sent sexually explicit messages to male middle school students in 2023.

Dana Ann Kitchen, 36, of Lock Haven, and Brittany Kay Koch, 29, of Beech Creek, entered their pleas last week in Clinton County court.

They admitted repeatedly using Snapchat to send explicit messages that included photographs and videos.
WILLIAMSPORT  Four Pennsylvanians are among the 10 individuals accused in a multi-state conspiracy to steal high-end muscle-type vehicles and then sell them in whole and in part.

The 10 are named in an indictment unsealed Wednesday in U.S. Middle Court. Dealerships in Mechanicsburg and Selinsgrove are listed among the victims in the year-long scheme that began in October 2023.

The conspiracy, according to the charges, involved stealing the vehicles, driving them to residences, displaying them in person at meetups or on social media, keeping them for personal use, concealing them or selling them.

According to the indictment, the conspirators either themselves or caused others to:

Purchase key programs and blank fobs that would be used to steal vehicles in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia.

Organize and promote car meetups and street takeovers using social media platforms such as Instagram.

Conceal the stolen vehicles by altering, obscuring and removing vehicle identification numbers and using stolen or temporary paper license plates.

Sell the stolen vehicles on Facebook Marketplace, Instagram and elsewhere.

The names of the dealerships from which vehicles were stolen are not in the indictment but the following are what were taken in central Pennsylvania and the dates in 2023:

Oct. 3 from a Selinsgrove dealership two 2017 Cadillac CTS-Vs, two 2019 Cadillac CTS-Vs, a 2016 Cadillac CTS-V and a 2018 Chevrolet Camera.

Oct. 26 from a Mechanicsburg dealership a 2020 Infinity Q50 and on the same date in Mechanicsburg a 2019 Cadillac Escalade. The indictment does not state if the thefts were from the same or separate locations.

Other dealerships from which vehicles were stolen were in Turnersville, Maple Shade, Florham Park and Beachwood, all in New Jersey, and Eldersburg and Catonsville, Maryland.

All 10 are charged with conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States. Each also is charged with interstate transportation of a stolen motor vehicle but not all in each of the seven counts.

Names in the indictment are Nigel Criss, 25, Ian Quintana Torres, 23, and Shamar Morris, 22, all of Philadelphia, and Jumaane Wright, 28, of Montgomery County.

Also, Rafel Otero Nieves, 40, Jose Otero Nieves, 41, and Jesus Terrero, 32, of Baltimore County, Tyler Hoagland, 27, of Howard County, Robert Jones, 25, of Prince Georges County, all in Maryland, and Raymond Steward, 24, of Camden County, New Jersey.

The government seeks upon conviction forfeiture of five vehicles that have been seized along with key programmers and fobs.
Advocates for homeless youth are asking Pennsylvania to begin putting state money into a federally funded program that helps K-12 students who are struggling with homelessness.

The request, made by several organizations as part of National Homeless Youth Awareness Month, might be the first  but certainly will not be the last  budget request of the 2025-26 fiscal cycle.

The growing number of homeless students appearing in Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) reports speaks to our housing crisis in Pennsylvania and throughout the nation and reflects both the growing instability faced by youth and the limited resources available to support them, Rep. Gina Curry, D-Delaware County, said during a press conference Wednesday.

The funding request was coordinated by a group of over 50 youth assistance agencies operating in Pennsylvania and centers around PDEs Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homeless (ECYEH) program. That program is designed to bring Pennsylvania into compliance with the federal McKinney-Vento Act, which requires states to provide continuous education for homeless students.

The states ECYEH program has historically been funded with about $5 million per year in federal funds (a $6.5 million federal pass-through is in the last state budget) that are then doled out to regional coordinators.

Many school district programs that use ECYEH funds have been bolstered in recent years by federal pandemic relief dollars, noted Joe Willard with HopePHL, a Philly-based human service agency.

But those funds are set to expire, and Willards agency and others are now asking for the program to be supplemented by $10 million in state money  a comparatively small slice of Pennsylvanias general fund budget, which currently stands at $47.6 billion, but one which will have to compete with hundreds of other priorities in the upcoming fiscal cycle.

With roughly 46,000 homeless students in the last PDE survey, the question is are they worth $217 to make sure they get a high school diploma? posed Rep. Izzy Smith-Wade-El, D-Lancaster County.

Its our duty to have their back, Smith-Wade-El said.

PDEs data is reflective of both the actual problem of homelessness as well as the difficulty of measuring it. Schools counts of homeless students dropped in the 2020-21 school year, likely due to a reporting problem as COVID-19 kept students physically away from the schools where they might receive homelessness assistance.

Numbers came roaring back, however, and stood at 46,714 homeless students statewide in the 2022-23 school year, far higher than the last pre-pandemic count of 37,930 for 2019-20.

Some of the largest increases are found in counties that are home to the states mid-size metros. Dauphins count of homeless students grew from 1,557 in 2019-20 to 2,373 in 2022-23, and Berks grew from 1,849 to 2,961.

This is an every-district problem. Somewhere in the district where you live, there are students experiencing homelessness, said Doris Hagemann, Director of Student Services for Cumberland Valley School District.

Cumberland Valley is currently working with about 80 homeless students, Hagemann said, although that number varies seasonally; PDEs last official count had the district at 136.

The primary goal of school districts and support agencies is to keep students attending the same school, even if their living situation is in flux. While some students are living in shelters, most are in couch surfing situations, staying with friends or relatives for brief periods.

Schools can draw on ECYEH funds for many purposes  helping homeless students get mental health assistance, phones to keep in touch with teachers and counselors, even do their laundry.

Were trying to level the playing field so these kiddos have the same chance as students with stable housing, Hagemann said.

Most importantly, the funds can help with transportation. The best way to ensure homeless students graduate is to keep them attending the same institution they were initially enrolled in, even if theyre frequently moving, but this can be a logistical nightmare.

Homeless students often stay with friends or relatives outside the district or even in another county, Hagemann said, and districts coordinate with each other to help transport their transient student populations. Students who enter the shelter system are typically staying at shelters in Harrisburg, Carlisle, or even Shippensburg, and have to be bused into Cumberland Valley.

Getting kids transported is one of the biggest hurdles, Hagemann said. Once we have them at school, we can work magic.

Wednesday was the last session day of 2024 for both the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and the state Senate. The legislature will return in January, and Gov. Josh Shapiro is expected to roll out his 2025-26 budget proposal in February.
A Centre County man has been sentenced to two years in prison followed by two years of supervised release for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol in Washington D.C.

Terry L. Allen, 65, of Spring Mills, also was ordered Thursday by District of Columbia Judge Amit P. Meta to pay restitution of $1,000.

Allen had sought a delay in his sentencing until after President-elect Donald Trump was sworn in speculating he would receive a pardon. That motion was denied Tuesday.

The government was seeking a 70-month prison term and restitution of $2,000.

The defense sought a sentence in the range of 0 to 6 months followed by two years of supervised release during which Allen would perform 200 hours of community service.

A photo of Terry Allen and the reinforced gloves he wore during a trip to Washington D.C., on Nov. 14, 2020, to join the Million MAGA March.Government documents

His attorney Kira Anna West had pointed out in a presentence memorandum Allen had cooperated with his probation officer, operates an excavating business and volunteers in his community.

Allen was found guilty in a July non-jury trial on seven of eight charges against him including assault of police officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon.

Meta found he attacked police officers with a metal pole but acquitted him on the count that accused him of assaulting a capitol police officer with the flagpole he was carrying.

The metal police incident was caught on surveillance video that was among the evidence in his trial.

The other counts on which he was found guilty were being in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct and engaging in physical violence, both in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct and an act of violence, both in the Capitol building.

A shot of Terry Allen, holding a metal bar that he threw at a police officer during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Allen's attorney claims the throwing of the pole was a reflex action after being pepper sprayed.Government documents

The governments sentencing memorandum had Allen committing violent acts on Jan. 6 while the defense called him a follower who was roughed up by other demonstrators.

Allen was arrested later that day via a traffic stop and his property subsequently searched.

Found, according to court documents, were 19 firearms, M-class fireworks, gunpowder, and 10,000-20,000 rounds of ammunition.
Police have identified a 28-year-old man killed Monday morning when the box truck he was driving crashed head-on into an overpass on Route 322 in Derry Township.

Zachary Bautz, 28, of Maple Shade, New Jersey, first crashed into a message board on the side of 322 while driving west at about 6:15 a.m., according to police.

After hitting the board, the truck hit a concrete barrier and drove onto an embankment before crashing head-on into the overpass at Fiddlers Elbow Road, police said.

The truck overturned after hitting the overpass, leaving Bautz trapped inside. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Route 322 was closed until about 3:15 p.m. Monday while emergency responders extricated Bautzs body, towed the truck and ensured the overpass was structurally sound, police said.

Derry Township police are still investigating and are asking anyone who saw the crash to call Sgt. Jana Klinger at 717-534-2202, or submit a tip through CrimeWatch.
PHILADELPHIA (AP)  Additional human remains from a 1985 police bombing on the headquarters of a Black liberation group in Philadelphia have been found at the University of Pennsylvania.

The remains are believed to be those of 12-year-old Delisha Africa, one of five children and six adults killed when police bombed the MOVE organizations headquarters, causing a fire that spread to dozens of row homes.

The remains were discovered during a comprehensive inventory that the Penn Museum conducted to prepare thousands of artifacts, some dating more than a century, to be moved into upgraded storage facilities.

In 2021, university officials acknowledged that the school had retained bones from at least one bombing victim after helping with the forensic identification process in the wake of the bombing. A short time later, the city notified family members that there was a box of remains at the medical examiners office that had been kept after the autopsies were completed.

The museum said its not known how the remains found this week were separated from the rest, and it immediately notified the childs family upon the discovery.

We are committed to full transparency with respect to any new evidence that may emerge, Penn Museum said in a statement on its website. Confronting our institutional history requires ever-evolving examination of how we can uphold museum practices to the highest ethical standards. Centering human dignity and the wishes of descendant communities govern the current treatment of human remains in the Penn Museums care.

Scores of row houses burn in a May 1985 fire in West Philadelphia after police dropped a bomb on the militant group MOVE's home on May 13, 1985, in an attempt to arrest members. (AP File Photo)AP File Photo

MOVE members, led by founder John Africa, practiced a lifestyle that shunned modern conveniences, preached equal rights for animals and rejected government authority. The group clashed with police and many of their practices drew complaints from neighbors.

Police seeking to oust members from their headquarters used a helicopter to drop a bomb on the house on May 13, 1985. More than 60 homes in the neighborhood burned to the ground as emergency personnel were told to stand down.

A 1986 commission report called the decision to bomb an occupied row house unconscionable. MOVE survivors were awarded a $1.5 million judgment in a 1996 lawsuit.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) has announced that the opening of the Route 72 (Ebenezer Road) bridge spanning Swatara Creek between Jonestown Road in Union Township and New Bunker Hill Road in Swatara Township, Lebanon County, will be delayed.

The bridge, which was closed in April for replacement, will not open on Nov. 20, as previously expected. The bridge now is expected to reopen by the end of December, possibly sooner, depending on weather conditions, a press release said.

The delay is due to longer-than-expected utility relocations and a bald eagle nesting restriction that prevented work from being performed at the bridge.

An updated press release will be issued when the bridge opens to traffic.

Susquehanna Valley Construction Corporation of New Cumberland, PA, is the contractor on this almost $5 million project.

This project consists of replacing the existing structure, minor roadway reconstruction, guiderail improvements, and drainage improvements.

Motorists can check conditions on major roadways by visiting www.511PA.com. 511PA, which is free and available 24 hours a day, provides traffic delay warnings, weather forecasts, traffic speed information and access to more than 1,000 traffic cameras.

511PA is also available through a smartphone application for iPhone and Android devices, by calling 5-1-1, or by following local alerts on X.

Subscribe to PennDOT news and traffic alerts in Adams, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lancaster, Lebanon, Perry and York counties at PennDOT District 8.

Information about infrastructure in District 8, including completed work and significant projects, is available at District 8 Results. Find PennDOTs planned and active construction projects at PennDOT Projects.
Want a say in the news? Email Claudia at todayinpa@pennlive.com to have your thoughts on the stories covered here or on PennLive heard.

You can listen to the latest episode of Today in Pa on any of your favorite apps including Alexa, Apple, Spotify, Stitcher and YouTube. Episodes are available every weekday on PennLive. Feel free to subscribe, follow or rate Today in Pa. as you see fit!

Today in Pa. Daily Podcast | November 14, 2024

A county in Pennsylvania has one of the highest rates of human trafficking in the country. The FBI is now involved in the investigation of a bank robbery. Mayor Ed Gainey has proposed Pittsburghs 2025 budget proposal. Plus, Pennsylvanias one of the most charitable states around.

Those are the stories we cover in the latest episode of Today in Pa., a daily weekday podcast from PennLive.com and hosted by Claudia Dimuro. Today in Pa. is dedicated to sharing the most important and interesting stories pertaining to Pennsylvania that lets you know, indeed, whats happening today in Pa.

Todays episode refers to the following articles:

If you enjoy Today in Pa., consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or on Amazon. Reviews help others find the show and, besides, wed like to know what you think about the program, too.

As sponsored by Renewal by Anderson of Central PA.
The 107.5-acre, Shaw Family Nature Preserve in Lancaster County is growing by nearly 19 acres.

The nature preserve in Mount Joy Township near Elizabethtown is owned by the Lancaster Conservancy.

The Lancaster Conservancy purchased the wooded Otto and Berta Florschutz tract, which is being added to the preserve. It provides a buffer to the supporting landscape for the Conewago Creek, which officials say has a critical habitat for fish, reptiles, and amphibians.

The Otto and Berta Florschutz family protected this land for generations. Continued preservation of its forest habitat and water resources is critical. The surrounding area has experienced growth in warehouses and other development, and buffering the Shaw Family Nature Preserve is of the utmost importance, Kate Gonick, senior vice president of land protection and general counsel at Lancaster Conservancy, said in a news release.

The Otto and Berta Florschutz tract is primarily forested with a small meadow area, buffered by water resources flowing in the Shaw Family Nature Preserve. Because of its location and terrain, officials say that the property would have had a high chance of being developed.

The tracts hardwood forest is part of an expansive ridge that is the lowest foothill of the Appalachian Mountain range running from the Susquehanna River across the northern tier of Lancaster County into the Furnace Hills of Lebanon and Berks counties.

This ridge serves as a migratory corridor for large mammals such as black bears, according to the Lancaster Conservancy.

Shaw Family Nature Preserve was renamed in 2023 in honor of local conservationist and long-time conservancy supporter Barry Shaw and his family. The Shaw family helped secure this addition through a generous donation to the Lancaster Conservancys Protect & Restore Campaign.

Preserving nature has always been important to our family, growing up enjoying the Conewago Trail both personally and with family members, Abby Lowry, Barry Shaws daughter, said in a news release. Some of my favorite memories are exploring the woods with my boys. These experiences and memories made this area a natural choice to want to protect. There is such a rich diversity of wildlife along this area, and it is crucial to protect it for future generations to learn from and enjoy.

Shaw Family Nature Preserve visitors can ride or hike along the Conewago Recreation Trail from the parking area at 2385 N. Market St.

Protecting land along the Conewago Recreation Trail ensures our community can enjoy all the benefits of nature while being outdoors. This forested corridor is a priority for protection because of encroaching development, the habitat benefits for birds and other wildlife, and the protection of our streams and drinking water. We are grateful to the Shaw family for their incredible commitment to conservation and the Lancaster community, Lancaster Conservancy president and CEO Fritz Schroeder, said in the news release.

The conservancy announced the acquisition on Tuesday. Terms of the agreement werent disclosed.

Lancaster Conservancy, a nonprofit land trust, has protected more than 10,000 acres of natural lands in its 55-year history, including more than 700 additional acres protected or placed under agreement in 2024.

The conservancys 50 nature preserves in Lancaster and York counties include more than 60 miles of trails.
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and FARNOUSH AMIRI, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP)  President-elect Donald Trumps pick for attorney general, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, was once embroiled in a sex trafficking investigation by the Justice Department hes been tapped to lead, and has been under scrutiny by the House Ethics Committee over allegations including sexual misconduct.

That probe effectively ended Wednesday, though, when Gaetz resigned from Congress.

Gaetz, a staunch Trump defender, has spent years enmeshed in scandals that threaten to derail his confirmation as the nations top federal law enforcement officer by the Republican-led Senate.

Gaetz has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, and said last year that the Justice Departments investigation into sex trafficking allegations involving underage girls had ended with no federal charges against him.

Trumps attorney general is expected to oversee radical changes to the Justice Department, which has been the target of Trumps ire over two criminal cases it brought accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Trump, who cast himself as the victim of politically motivated prosecutions, vowed repeatedly on the campaign trail to carry out retribution against his political enemies if returned to the White House.

Its unlikely Gaetz would be confirmed in time to oversee special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two federal indictments against Trump that are both expected to wind down before the incoming president takes office. Smith is expected to leave his post before Trump takes office, but special counsels are expected to produce reports on their work that historically are made public, and it remains unclear when such a document might be released.

In a statement Wednesday announcing his pick, Trump said Gaetz would root out systemic corruption at the Justice Department and return the department to its true mission of fighting crime and upholding our democracy and constitution.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Gaetz wrote, It will be an honor to serve as President Trumps Attorney General!

Hours before the announcement, Gaetz said in a social media post that there needs to be a full court press against this WEAPONIZED government. He added, And if that means ABOLISHING every one of the three letter agencies, from the FBI to the ATF, Im ready to get going! If confirmed as attorney general, he would oversee both the FBI and the ATF, formally known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Inside a private meeting of House Republicans, the news that Trump had chosen Gaetz to lead the Justice Department sent a shock. Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho said he has a hard time believing Gaetz will be able to get through the Senate confirmation process. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she didnt believe Gaetz was a serious candidate.

Some of Gaetzs allies in the House defended him as Trumps pick, pointing to his experience as a member on the House Judiciary Committee. Asked Wednesday whether she thinks Gaetz could be confirmed, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a fellow Florida Republican, told reporters that many will try to smear him, but the evidence will speak for itself.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., walks through a basement corridor to a closed-door meeting with House Republicans in October 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)AP

The federal sex trafficking investigation that began under Attorney General Bill Barr during Trumps first term focused on allegations that Gaetz and onetime political ally Joel Greenberg paid girls and escorts or offered them gifts in exchange for sex.

Greenberg, a fellow Republican who served as the tax collector in Floridas Seminole County, admitted as part of a plea deal with prosecutors in 2021 that he paid women and a girl to have sex with him and other men. The men were not identified in court documents when he pleaded guilty. Greenberg was sentenced in late 2022 to 11 years in prison.

Federal investigators scrutinized a trip that Gaetz took to the Bahamas with a group of women and a doctor who donated to his campaign, and whether the women were paid or received gifts to have sex with the men, according to people familiar with the matter who were not allowed to publicly discuss the investigation. Prosecutors also investigated whether Gaetz and his associates tried to secure government jobs for some of the women, and scrutinized Gaetzs connections to the medical marijuana sector, including whether his associates sought to influence legislation Gaetz sponsored, the people have said.

Gaetz had remained under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over allegations that he was part of a scheme that led to the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl.

The committee began its review of Gaetz in April 2021, deferred its work in response to a Justice Department request, and renewed its work shortly after Gaetz announced that the Justice Department had ended a sex trafficking investigation.

Over the summer, the committee provided an unusual public update into its long-running investigation, saying its review now includes whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct. Gaetz has categorically denied all the allegations before the committee.

Rep. Michael Guest, the Republican chair of the House Ethics Committee, had told The Associated Press that Gaetzs nomination did not change the panels ongoing probe. But Gaetzs resignation means the committee will no longer have jurisdiction to continue its probe.
Youve no doubt noticed big media busy with post-election questions: why this happened, why that happened and who exactly voted how.

Its routine practice, like after every election. But this time theres something new. Questions about big media that reach beyond routine.

Here are two of them. Is 2024 the beginning of the end, or even the death, of traditional media as guardians of election news? And will Donald Trump, in a second term, really work to inter the corpse?

Lets look at question one. A New York University students election night TikTok video got 6.7 million views, more than double the views for a similar post by NBC News.

Trumps three-hour interview with comedian/mixed martial arts commentator Joe Rogan (The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, is the nations most popular) drew a combined 70 million-plus views and listens on YouTube, Spotify and other platforms. For context, CBS News had 3.5 million viewers election night.

The Wall Street Journal recently wrote, Podcasts are exploding, TikTok is a news source, and traditional media is shrinking. The Washington Post headlined, As Trump joined the podcast revolution, legacy media got left out. And The New York Times noted Trump, bypassed traditional gatekeepers like `60 Minutes on CBS in favor of online celebrities and podcasts that have exploded in popularity, particularly among young men. (Men aged 18 to 29 voted decisively for Trump, shattering, as The Economic Times put it, previous images of young people generally leaning left.)

The medias evolution from newspapers to radio to TV to Internet to podcasts is clear; 2024 is the first podcast election, writes The Hill.

Meanwhile, TV election viewing was down 25% since 2020, CNN lost half its audience, and viewers under 50 abandoned TV for streaming services and social media. The median age of cable network news viewers? CNN, 67. Fox News, 69. MSNBC, 70.

Pew Research: 53% of Americans now get election news from websites, social media, Google or podcasts, 35% from TV, 3% from newspapers.

So, many candidates, even for president, avoid legacy journalism. Joe Biden did. Kamala Harris did. Trump did. Fewer editorial boards. And more so for Republicans because Trump won his years-long fake news, enemy of the people war. Gallup notes 2024 is another record-low year for trust in media. Only 31% of Americans (12% of Republicans) are confident they get accurate, fair reporting.

On to question two. At an outdoor rally in Lititz November 3, Trump said a gunman trying to get to him would have to shoot through the fake news, and I dont mind that so much. I dont mind that.

Not new, really. Trumps former national security advisor, John Bolton, wrote in his 2020 memoir Trump privately said of some journalists, These people should be executed. They are scumbags.

And former Trump advisor Kash Patel last year told Steve Bannons podcast that in a second Trump term, Were going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections  were going to come after you. Patel was among those under consideration for U.S. Attorney General before Trump named Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz.

Trump often talks jail threats, revoking broadcast licenses, litigation against news outlets. He recently sued CBS for $10 billion. So, well see.

I know most stuff gets overstated. I largely trust American resilience. But my immediate unease about mainstream journalism is relevance. What it does to keep it. Or, some say, get it back.

I turned to a media historian, Penn State Distinguished Professor of Journalism Ford Risely: People are going to want and need the news. Question is how they get itthere was solid reporting in Trumps first term. Hopefully there will be again. My concern is increasing short attention spans. People dont want to sit down and read investigative, analytic pieces. They want quick and easy TikTok, social media.

I ask what can be done? He says, I wish I knew. So do I.

John Baer may be reached at baer.columnist@gmail.com
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

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President Donald Trump recently announced Tuesday that Elon Musk, known for his influence in the tech and crypto industries, will head a new department called the Department of Government Efficiency, colloquially known as Doge. face.

With the support of former presidential candidate and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the initiative aims to introduce a crypto-driven, lean approach to cutting government waste.

Elon Musks appointment to lead the doge governments revamped business department could open doors for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially those involved in cryptocurrency, blockchain and tech innovation. Given a mandate to streamline government processes and cut regulatory red tape, Musks influence could introduce policies that reduce compliance burdens, expand access to government contracts, and foster a business-friendly environment suitable for SMEs This crypto-inspired initiative transforms federal spending with transparency and efficiency aims to providepotential savings, funding opportunities, and alternatives for SME growth in the countrys flexible, technologically advanced environment.

Although titled a department, Doge will not be a formal government agency. Instead, Musk and Ramaswamy will work independently from federal oversight, providing advisory support to the Office of Management and Budget. According to Trump, this task force will recommend sweeping reforms aimed at reducing government size, slashing bureaucratic red tape, and taking a crypto-style disruption approach to streamline federal functions.

Were going to shake things up. With Doge, well strip away waste like never before, Trump said, adding that this initiative could redefine government spending with an entrepreneurial mindset, similar to the innovation Musk brought to crypto with Dogecoin.

Heres how this initiative could impact SMEs, though the effects remain to be seen:

Reduced Regulatory Burden and Compliance Costs

Streamlined Regulations: Musks Doge initiative may help reduce bureaucratic obstacles, allowing SMEs to allocate more resources to growth rather than compliance. However, the full impact on regulations is still uncertain. SME-Friendly Policies: A shift toward more flexible operations and fewer legal requirements could potentially benefit SMEs, reflecting Musks emphasis on efficiency. The extent of these changes remains to be seen.

Increased Support for Crypto and Blockchain

Crypto Adoption : Musks pro-crypto stance may encourage regulatory frameworks that could make it easier for SMEs to integrate crypto payments or blockchain technologies. The true impact on SMEs in this area will depend on how these regulations evolve.

: Musks pro-crypto stance may encourage regulatory frameworks that could make it easier for SMEs to integrate crypto payments or blockchain technologies. The true impact on SMEs in this area will depend on how these regulations evolve. Lower Barriers: Less restrictive crypto regulations could provide SMEs with opportunities to explore crypto-related products and services, potentially improving tax policies and compliance requirements. It remains to be seen how significant these changes will be for SMEs.

Easier Access to Government Contracts

Simplified Bidding : A focus on transparency and cost-cutting may create a more accessible environment for SMEs to bid on government contracts. The real effects on bidding processes are yet to be fully realized.

: A focus on transparency and cost-cutting may create a more accessible environment for SMEs to bid on government contracts. The real effects on bidding processes are yet to be fully realized. Opportunities for Tech SMEs: Smaller businesses in sectors like technology, cybersecurity, and innovation might find new opportunities to collaborate with government agencies on efficiency-focused initiatives. How these opportunities play out remains uncertain.

Musks transparency pledge and dogecoins rally

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Musk promised to keep the public fully informed, committing to share the departments activities online for maximum transparency. He hinted at introducing a Doge leaderboard, where citizens could see the most wasteful government expenses in real time, drawing inspiration from the open nature of blockchain and crypto technology.

Whenever you think we missed somethingor kept something that shouldnt be therejust let us know, Musk posted, concluding with a Doge meme. This announcement sent Dogecoins value soaring, doubling since Election Day as crypto markets anticipate a more favorable regulatory environment under a second Trump administration.

Trumps vision for a smaller, crypto-inspired government

The Doge task force has a two-year timeline, set to conclude its work by July 4, 2026, to mark Americas 250th Independence anniversary. Trump emphasized that a leaner, more efficient government will be a gift to the nation, one that he hopes will capture the ethos of crypto decentralization and efficiency.

Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and crypto advocate, expressed his enthusiasm for the role. Were not going to go gently, he said, adding that Doge will likely sidestep traditional bureaucratic structures to prioritize speed and efficiency, much like the crypto space itself.

The involvement of Musk, whose interests span SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and X, has fueled speculation on potential financial impacts. Analysts suggest that his advisory role could influence crypto policies and regulatory frameworks favorable to Tesla and other ventures. According to Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securities, Musks position gives him a massive role with potential reach across numerous federal agencies, possibly benefitting companies involved in blockchain, crypto, and AI.

Critics question doges potential conflicts of interest

Some advocacy groups voiced concerns over Musks appointment. Public Citizen, a consumer rights group, questioned the independence of a Musk-led efficiency task force. Musk has a record of challenging the very regulations he now stands to influence, commented Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, arguing that his business interests could lead to potential conflicts with government oversight.

Meanwhile, Trump dismissed concerns over Musks availability. We know Elons busy sending rockets and innovating with crypto, but hes excited to take on the challenge of cutting down waste, Trump remarked, reinforcing that Musk will not hold a formal government position.

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Thailand has kicked off the One Tambon, One Digital (OTOD) "Digital Durian" project to help 8.8 million durian farmers improve their productivity.

Thailands Digital Economy Promotion Agency President Nuttapon Nimmanphatcharin said the OTOD Digital Durian initiative aims to engage over 6,100 durian farming households in adopting digital platforms for recording cultivation data within a two-year timeframe.



The collection of this data will contribute to creating "big data" for Thailands agricultural sector, especially the durian sector.



Pantanu Wannagangsai, advisor to the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES), said the above-mentioned project aligns with the government's policies which aim to solve issues of debt, income, cost of living and social stability. It is expected to contribute to building consumer confidence both domestically and internationally, promoting high-value Thai products globally amid fierce competition, especially from China and countries in the Southeast Asian region, he added.



Thailand has 1.02 million rai of durian plantation areas and produce 1.53 million tonnes. Durian accounts for 69% of all exported fruits, or 991,557 tonnes last year, and the major durian export market is China.



In addition, 12,200 farmers in 23 provinces are expected to be trained on e-commerce applications and certification for Good Agricultural Practice, supporting the development of a national agriculture platform.
Veterans Day is important to the world and Burns High School. There is time for everything. This was the time to thank the ones that have served and are still serving in the military. These veterans are special for all their time in the military and their hard work protecting United States.

Most veterans think it was a job. But to honor them on a special day is a time to show how special and important they are. Each and everyone that is in the military needs to be honored, and that is why Veterans Day is so important. A veteran may not be or have been on the front lines but they help the ones...
Students work hard in school and at activities at Burns High School. To reward the students the Burns Lions Club honors a senior student every quarter. This program is to encourage others to work hard in school and other activities.

Burns Lions Club president Kurt Wilson presented a certificate and monetary reward to Dalton Fox. Fox, son of TJ and Amy Marick, is a senior at Burns High School, and belongs to Burns Future Farmers of America as an officer. Fox also belongs to SKILLS U.S.A. Wyoming. He will be competing in the division of masonry. Fox loves to work with his horses along with helpi...
Africa is home to 12 of the worlds 20 fastest-growing economies, and the continent is poised to become the worlds second fastest-growing economic region. Yet it is also one of the few regions of the world where hunger and undernourishment have continued to rise in recent years, according to Isobel Coleman, Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

This is a moment of great opportunity, she said. With smart policy reforms, and increased investment and trade, we can realize the potential of this dynamic region while seriously tackling poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

The U.S. governments global hunger initiative, Feed the Future, prioritizes investments in Africa  providing more than $400 million each year to drive inclusive and sustainable agriculture-led growth, improve nutrition outcomes, and build resilience.

Still, much more needs to be done. As global needs continue to far outpace available resources, USAID is focused on investing our dollars in the most impactful, cost-effective ways to maximize our impact, said Deputy Administrator Coleman.

USAID identified Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia as countries that are ready to undergo the kind of agricultural transformation that can lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and help expand the food supply across the region and beyond, said Isobel Coleman.

So, through an initiative we are calling Feed the Future Accelerator, we are doubling down on our investments in these three countries. We believe these countries have the potential to become regional breadbaskets helping to feed the world.

In partnership with the African Union, the Accelerator will allow us to support an African-led approach to tap into that potential, said Isobel Coleman. USAID contributed $80 million in commitments to Feed the Future Accelerator, while other U.S. government agencies pitched in $500 million in investments.

That said, the United States government is not working alone.

The private sector is joining us in this effort, with major companies such as Bayer and ofi, one of the largest coffee suppliers in the world, investing over $150 million in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia.

This kind of partnership  with the private sector, with local African leaders, with other donors, and beyond  will be vital to our efforts, said Deputy Administrator Coleman. Together, we will create an engine that can help feed hungry people, not just in these three countries, but across the African continent.
Jeanette Nusbaum was at a sporting event at Riverton High School awhile back and she noticed something that struck a chord with her. In the school they had several pillars that were dedicated to the different services of the armed forces. On each pillar was the name of the school's alumni under the service in which they served. She thought, "We recognize our students and alumni for their sporting success and academic success, why don't we honor those that choose to serve our country in the armed forces."

This thought turned into action as she drew up what is called the "BHS Warrior Wall". Nusb...
Todd Fornstrom elected to ninth term as Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation President

November 12, 2024- Laramie County Farmer Todd Fornstrom was elected to his ninth term as President of the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation (WyFB) at the organization's 105th Annual Meeting held Nov. 7-9 in Casper.

"I look forward to the years ahead and to the next set of WyFB leadership. Thank you all for your faith in me, and I look forward to another good year of continuing to fight for Wyoming's farmers and ranchers."

Voting delegates elected Goshen County Farmer Cole Coxbill to his ninth term as WyFB Vice President. Coxbill mimicked Fornstrom's enthusiasm for the coming year.

"I want to than...
The Burns High School FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) put together a breakfast for the local veterans last Monday. Monday was Veterans Day and the Burns High School Chapter of the FBLA wanted to do something for the Vets to thank them for their service. Along with the FBLA the senior class put on an assembly in the school gym to honor and appreciate all the local veterans.

The veterans and their families were treated to breakfast consisting of biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs and sausage. They also had assorted pastries and juices. Once everyone finished, they all went into the gym...
On Monday, November 11th the Pine Bluffs High School honored the local veterans with a breakfast and assembly. The Breakfast was held in the Elementary School gym, and was attended by approximately 20-25 veterans and their families.

The event, sponsored by the Pine Bluffs Elementary/Junior/Senior High School was chaired by Logan Vanderlaan, Emillia McDonald, High School principal Todd Sweeter and Ashley Rousseau. The event was deemed a large success and praised by some of the veterans. Breakfast burritos was the meal served along with beverages.

After breakfast the crowd headed to the high sch...
Halloween is a lot of folks favorite holiday. This holiday has scary, funny, pretty, silly and lots of candy.

Pine Bluffs Recreation held their annual Trunk or Treat on Halloween at the Community center. Businesses and organizations decorate their vehicles with a Halloween scene.

The line was long for parents and kids wanting to walk through the displays of each vehicle and receive their Trick or Treat. (Mostly if not all, treats) There were 18 different businesses and organizations. The trunks were adorned with skeltons, spiders, scarecrows, cookie monster, a pig, police officers, pumpkins, a...
Tucked away between two large display cases in the common area of Burns High School is a plaque that shows the representatives that went to the American Legion Boys State and Girls State events. This plaque had not been updated since 2016. There is quite the effort put into going to this event by the students and is a huge honor for them to be selected by the sponsoring American Legion Post and Auxiliary.

Jeanette Nusbaum noticed this and decided this was not acceptable. She took it upon herself to update the plaques and ensure that the students that were selected to represent were named. It w...
Was it Magic? New High-Stakes Wizard "Gambledore" Wins $4.3M at Triton Monte Carlo

Connor Richards Editor & Live Reporter U.S. Copy link

Estonia's Vladimir Korzinin, a white-bearded high-stakes newcomer, continued his domination at the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series Monte Carlo with a victory that earned him $4,350,000 and his second seven-figure score in the past week.

Korzinin topped a field of 122 runners in the $150,000 No-Limit Hold'em 8-Handed event and defeated a final table that included Stephen Chidwick, Fedor Holz and Bryn Kenney, who earlier in the series became the first player to cross $70 million in live earnings by winning the $125,000 Main Event.

Just days earlier Korzinin finished runner-up to recent Poker Hall of Fame inductee Patrik Antonius in the $200,000 Triton Invitational for $3.4 million, a short-lived career-best. His first-ever Hendon Mob cash came from a third-place finish in last month's European Poker Tour (EPT) Cyprus.

Triton Monte Carlo $150,000 NLH 8-Handed Final Table Results

Place Player Country Prize (In USD) 1 Vladimir Korzinin Estonia $4,350,000 2 Ossi Ketola Finland $2,970,000 3 Fedor Holz Germany $1,962,000 4 Bryn Kenney United States $1,616,000 5 Stephen Chidwick United Kingdom $1,300,000 6 Dan Smith United States $1,016,000 7 Thomas Fuchs Germany $762,000 8 Sam Greenwood Canada $562,000

Newcomers Prevail in Monte Carlo

Despite the heavy hitters in the field, the rookies came out on top as Korzinin ended up heads-up against Finnish gambler Ossi Ketola, another newcomer to poker. Korzinin's unorthodox style and benignly wise aura made him an instant favorite among viewers of the Triton stream.

"I havent had more fun watching poker," Drew 'BetOnDrew' Gonzalez wrote on X.

References to the 69-year-old's wizard-like appearance were quick to circulate on social media after during his Triton run, with "Gambledore" and "The Wizard" being among the more memorable examples.

Korzinin has remained elusive and rejected interview requests from Triton throughout the week, according to updates of the series. He simply said he "had no words" after the victory.

The Triton series in Monte Carlo runs Nov. 1-14 and will wrap up with a $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) Bounty event and the currently underway $100,000 PLO Event.

*Images courtesy of Triton Poker

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Phillip Bertram Wins $237,307 For WSOP Circuit Choctaw Main Event Win

Jon Pill Contributor Copy link

The World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) event at the Choctaw Casino and Resort has run its course, with the Main Event ring, along with the top prize of $237,307, going to Philip Bertram.

The festival, which kicked off on October 30, awarded $3.1 million in prizes before the close of play late on Sunday.

Along the way, the festival also found fingers for 18 new WSOPC rings.

Main Event Action

TJ Cloutier.

When the WSOP Circuit was last in town for an event at the Choctaw Durant it was still July and the Main Event attracted 1,017 entries for a $1,540,755 prize pool. Both these numbers were down a little for the November edition of the event.

This time around, the WSOPC Choctaw Durant $1,700 Main Event pulled in 944 entries split across two Day 1s. This resulted in a prize pool of $1,430,130.

The top spot went to Phillip Bertram, who had a little under $60k in live cashes before he took home the $237,307 first prize.

Among the other player's who cashed were poker legend T. J. Cloutier who came 38th for $5,884 and ring winners Thai Ha and Justin Kruger both of whom earned their rings at the Choctaw Casino earlier during the festival.

WSOP Circuit Choctaw Durant Main Event Final Table Results

Place Player Hometown Prize 1 Phillip Bertram North Richland Hills, TX $237,307 2 Zachary Baron Dallas, TX $158,217 3 Michael Perrone Chicago, IL $110,000 4 Robert Peacock Las Vegas, NV $78,345 5 Vincent Pratt Sachse, TX $56,538 6 Lawrence Wayne Houston, TX $41,509 7 Vincent Rubianes Stockton, CA $31,013 8 Benjamin Anderson Killeen, TX $23,587

A Round of Tequila Shots

Bertram's journey to the top took three days, battling through the nearly thousandstrong field and the effects of at least one tequila shot. The whole final table knocked back a round of Jalisco's finest during the second blind level. After that, the final table action picked up a bit.

In the end, it came down to either Bertram or Zachary Baron, a Dallas-based poker player who came third in the July edition of this event.

Baron looked set to go all the way this time, coming into heads up play with a three-to-one lead over Bertram.

However, a few smaller losses and a big missed draw first reduced, then eliminated Baron's stack, leaving Bertram to collect his paycheck and the WSOPC ring. Baron took home $158,217 for his second-place finish.

Upcoming Action

WSOPC Ring

The WSOP Circuit Choctaw Durant may be done and dusted, but the WSOP Circuit Grand Victoria is still underway in Illinois.

After that, there are only three more stops to go in 2024.

First, the WSOPC hits up the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles from November 14 to 25; then it's off to the Horseshoe in Las Vegas on November 21; and last of all Harrah's Cherokee in North Carolina on November 28.

You can see the full results from the WSOP Circuit Choctaw Durant below.

WSOP Circuit Choctaw Durant Full Series Results

EVENT ENTRANTS PRIZEPOOL WINNER HOMETOWN PRIZE Event #1: $130 Seniors Kick-Off 651 $65,100 Jeff Wilkins Forney, TX $8,243 Event #2: $250 No-Limit Hold'em 170 $34,000 Fuat Temiz Grapevine, TX $8,243 Event #3: $300 Monster Stack 343 $82,320 Badr Imejjane Frisco, TX $16,971 Event #4: $250 No-Limit Hold'em Turbo 85 $25,000 Kenneth Biggs Henderson, TX $7,082 Event #5: $500 No-Limit Hold'em - The Gargantuan 1,246 $523,320 Trung Pham Houston, TX $74,822 Event #6: $250 Ladies Event 110 $22,000 Ruth Hall Round Rock, TX $5,762 Event #7: $300 No-Limit Hold'em 348 $83,520 William "Tom" Goddard Lakewood, WA $17,129 Event #8: $500 Pot-Limit Omaha 143 $60,060 Tae Livermore Dallas, TX $15,257 Event #9: $250 Seniors Event 500 $100,000 Dan Lowery Peter Pender, AR $18,682 Event #10: $300 No-Limit Hold'em Double Stack 312 $74,880 Steve Lamphear Grove, OK $15,870 Event #11: $600 No-Limit Hold'em Mystery Bounty 200 $103,000 Donald Howell Weatherford, TX $14,676 Event #12: $250 No-Limit Hold'em 166 $33,200 Justin Kruger Krugerville, TX $8,136 Event #13: $500 No-Limit Hold'em 667 $280,140 Jeffrey Muehlhausen Henryetta, OK $47,047 Event #14: $1,700 MAIN EVENT 944 $1,430,130 Phillip Bertram North Richland Hills, TX $237,307 Event #15: $300 No-Limit Hold'em 193 $46,320 Eric Adascheck Little Elm, TX $10,900 Event #16: $400 No-Limit Hold'em - The Twilight 183 $60,390 Mohammad Nabatian Dallas, TX $14,348 Event #17: $400 No-Limit Hold'em - The Finale 208 $68,640 Thai Ha Philadelphia, PA $16,137 Event #18: $250 No-Limit Hold'em Turbo 127 $25,400 Donovan Dean Rainsville, AL $6,344

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There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran, said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. He made the declaration in a Justice Department statement announcing criminal charges against a man believed to be currently living in Iran and two U.S. accomplices for a murder-for-hire plot targeting U.S. citizens, including President-Elect Donald Trump.

The Justice Department said that Farhad Shakeri of Iran is an asset of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He came to the United States as a child but was deported after serving 14 years in prison for robbery. Shakeri has used a network of criminal associates he met in prison in the United States, to conduct surveillance and assassinations of IRGC targets, wrote the Justice Department. Two members of his network are his co-defendants, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathon Loadholt.

Among the targets for assassination in Shakeris plot is a journalist and outspoken critic of the Iranian regime, known as Victim-1 in the indictment by the Justice Department. Victim-1 has since identified herself as Iranian-born, U.S citizen Masih Alinejad, who has been the subject of multiple assassination attempts by Iranian authorities. Two Jewish American citizens residing in New York City and Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka were also targets.

Farhad Shakeri told law enforcement agents that on October 7, 2024, the IRGC directed him to provide a plan to kill then former President Donald Trump within a week. If he were not able to do so in the timeframe, the IRGC official told Shakeri to kill Mr. Trump after the election, because the official assessed Mr. Trump would lose, and it would be easier to assassinate him.

The Justice Department noted that the Government of Iran is actively targeting nationals of the United States and its allies both to repress and silence dissidents critical of the Iranian regime and to take vengeance for the January 2020 death of then Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force [IRGC-QF] Qasem Soleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Christopher Wray said, The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps  a designated foreign terrorist organization - has been conspiring with criminals and hitmen to target and gun down Americans on U.S. soil and that simply wont be tolerated. Thanks to the hard work of the FBI, their deadly schemes were disrupted.
As 2024 edges towards a close, there is still a trophy that needs to be claimed in Nottingham as the UK and Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT) returns to the city at Dusk Till Dawn.

Last year, Vincent Meli outshone a field of 1,227 to claim the trophy and a prize of 159,325 after he cut a deal with Germany's Patrice Brandt heads-up. Although, it was Brandt who took home the largest chunk of the prize pool as his payout was worth 168,425.

2023 UKIPT Nottingham Main Event Final Table Results

Place Player Country Prize 1 Vincent Meli France 159,325* 2 Patrice Brandt Germany 168,425* 3 Andrew Tuxworth United Kingdom 90,070 4 Thomas Middleton United Kingdom 69,250 5 John Farrell Ireland 53,300 6 Jack Nolan United Kingdom 41,000 7 Matthew Bonham United Kingdom 31,400 8 Niall Murray United Kingdom 24,200 9 Guillermo Nuez Spain 18,650

A guaranteed prize pool of 1,000,000 is up for grabs this year, a portion of which has already been recouped as 51 players turned out for Day 1a few days ago. Only eight players survived the day and secured a payout, with Thomas Bingham leading the pack with 382,000 chips. The flight concluded during Level 15.

Today, players start with 30,000 chips, and levels are set at 40 minutes each until the money bubble bursts. Blinds begin at Level 1 100/100 with a 100 big blind ante. Play will begin at 12 p.m. for each flight, including Flights C and D on November 15 and 16, respectively.

A fifth and final turbo flight will take place on November 16 at 7 p.m., featuring 20-minute blind levels. This will be the last chance for players to build a stack for Day 2, scheduled for Sunday, November 17.

UKIPT Nottingham Main Event Schedule

Date Event Time 14 November Day 1b 12:00 p.m. 15 November Day 1c 12:00 p.m. 16 November Day 1d 12:00 p.m. 16 November Day 1e 7:00 p.m. 17 November Day 2 12:00 p.m. 18 November Day 3 12:00 p.m.

Be sure to keep it right here with PokerNews to see how the day unfolds, and who can climb their way to the top of the leaderboard by the time the day ends.
Tiffany Tan is a senior reporter at The Post and Courier in Columbia. She covers statewide issues, particularly in the criminal justice system. She previously reported on the courts, the opioid epidemic and regional news in Vermont for VTDigger. She has also worked for newspapers and television outlets in Manila, Beijing, Singapore and South Dakota.
Senior Features Editor

Zoe Nicholson is the Senior Features Editor for The Post and Courier and Free Times. She is an SC native and USC alumna who previously covered higher education, local government, business and education in the South.
The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, or DPRK, government has one of the worst records of human rights violations and abuses, both within its own borders and abroad. These include executions, assassinations, intimidation, unlawful detentions, and abductions, including from Japan and the Republic of Korea.

At the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, U.S. Special Envoy on North Korean Human Rights Issues Ambassador Julie Turner expressed deep concern about continued impunity for perpetrators of human rights violations and abuses in the DPRK. She urged the North Korean government to make significant changes:

Immediately dismantle political prison camps, release unjustly detained political prisoners, and institute protections against arbitrary detention that guarantee respect for fair trials and other protections.

Ambassador Turner also called on Pyongyang to cease all forms of forced labor and compulsory work and respect internationally recognized labor rights.

Ambassador Turner called on North Korea to address the issue of abduction:

Provide a comprehensive and transparent record of all abductions, including of foreign nationals, and facilitate reunification of divided families, including abductees, detainees, and unrepatriated POWs.

The United States further advised Pyongyang to revise legal terminology on persons with disabilities to address discrimination and align with international best practices.

The United States calls on the DPRK to abide by its obligations under international law, to take immediate steps to end all human rights violations and abuses, and to engage with the UNs human rights experts.

It is incumbent on all member states, including the Peoples Republic of China, which shares a land border with the DPRK, to uphold their respective international legal obligations and to respect the principle of non-refoulement, which forbids deporting people to countries where they face persecution or danger. Indeed, numerous UN and NGO reports have confirmed that returnees to the DPRK are often subjected to torture, sexual and gender-based violence, forced labor, or execution.

Speaking to the North Korean People, U.S. Ambassador Michele Taylor, Permanent Representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council has said, I want to tell you that we see you, we hear you, we remember you. You are not forgotten, and we will not stop advocating for you.
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Enterprise retailers can now achieve greater control over their competitive landscape in Google Search, thanks to Adthena's new retail search solution.LONDON, ENGLAND / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Adthena, a leader in search intelligence, today launched a groundbreakingRetail Search Intelligence Solutiondesigned to help enterprise brands dominate Google Search.Adthena Retail Solution Adthena Retail SolutionAs search becomes increasingly complex, Adthena's solution offers unparalleled insights and control across five key areas:Seasonality Trends & Insights: Understand consumer demand at critical periods.Ad Copy & Performance Max Insights: Analyze thousands of text and PLA ads daily by price, image, and title with unrivaled granularity.Market Share & Trends: Map competitor insights to your entire sitemap and product categories by search term.Brand Protection: Detect ad hijacking, automatically take down infringements, and leverage the award-winning Brand Activator.Ask Arlo: Utilize the AI-powered data analyst to save time and answer complex retail search questions.Adthena's solution addresses the challenges faced by enterprise retailers, including Google Shopping auction fluctuations, ad copy strategies, trademark violations, and competitor threats. By leveraging daily data from Google Ads search results, brands can make informed decisions to improve campaign performance."Our retail solution is generating significant interest, delivering actionable insights and helping enterprise brands navigate complex challenges," said Phillip Thune, CEO of Adthena. "We're helping search managers and teams across organizations improve results, from trademark compliance to media teams." Powered by Adthena's award-winning "Whole Market View" technology, the retail solution provides daily insights into text and shopping ads, product performance, competitive ad copy, market trends, and share of clicks. This empowers retailers to adjust campaigns, improve CTR, and maximize ROAS in the ever-changing Google auction environment.As Google Ads becomes increasingly opaque, Adthena's solution offers clarity and actionable insights to boost growth. "Brands are struggling to make sense of the limited data shared by Google Auction Insights," said Ashley Fletcher, Chief Marketing Officer at Adthena. "Our solution breaks through the confusion, addressing pain points like rising CPCs and deteriorating ROAS." Adthena partners with top-tier enterprise brands to help them gain control over digital strategies and maximize the impact of Google Ads campaigns, especially at peak times such as Black Friday. JT Marek, Senior SEM Manager at PMG Digital Agency, said: "It's critical to prepare well for peak search seasons. Analyzing the entire auction landscape is a key component to ensure our ads remain competitively placed at all times. Managing affiliate partners in search with Adthena allows for constant, large-scale monitoring. This helps us identify affiliate activity on both key brand and generic product terms, improving our ROAS by stopping fraudulent activity." Contact InformationSarah DuttonDirector of Content & Brand Strategysarah.dutton@adthena.com +44 7723915285SOURCE: AdthenaView the original press release on newswire.com
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PORT HUENEME, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / The Port of Hueneme, California and the Port of Paita, Peru are pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a Sister Port relationship. The initiative, funded by the U.S. Department of State, seeks to promote cooperation and development in areas of mutual interest for both ports.Port of Hueneme"This agreement with the Port of Paita is more than just a partnership; it's a bridge between our communities that will foster innovation, sustainability, and economic growth. We are thrilled to embark on this journey of shared knowledge and mutual advancement and look forward to the many opportunities that this Sister Port relationship will bring," said Celina Zacarias, President of the Board of Harbor Commissioners for the Port of Hueneme.The MoU outlines a commitment to foster trade relationships, enhance commercial exchanges, and promote economic development in both ports and their surrounding regions. Key focus areas include improving transparency in procurement, sharing best practices in port management, exploring green energy initiatives, and collaborating on sustainable port development strategies."The signing of this MoU marks a significant step forward in our commitment to fostering international cooperation, innovation, and economic development. This Sister Port relationship with the Port of Paita opens doors to new opportunities and enables us to share expertise, drive sustainable development, enhance the economic vitality of our respective regions and create a lasting impact on the maritime industry," said Kristin Decas, CEO & Director of the Port of Hueneme."In the North of Peru, TPE stands out as the main port for agro-exports and is the potential gateway for importing products. This characteristic makes it a strategic port on the West Coast of South America. I have no doubt that the signing of this MoU to establish a Sister Port Relationship between the Port of Hueneme and the Port of Paita will bring mutual benefits in terms of development as green ports, commercial strategies, as well as safety & security", said Eduardo Cerdeira, CEO of Terminales Portuarios Euroandinos (TPE).The Sister Port relationship is expected to identify common themes that can generate new initiatives and business relationships between the ports, further strengthening and nurturing ties between the nations.About the Port of HuenemeThe Port of Hueneme is one of the most productive and efficient commercial trade gateways for niche cargo on the West Coast. Five locally elected Port Commissioners govern the Port. The Port consistently ranks among the top ten U.S. ports for automobiles and fresh produce. Port operations support the community by bringing $2.8 billion in economic activity and creating 24,997 trade-related jobs. Trade through the Port of Hueneme generates more than $236 million in direct and related state and local taxes, which fund vital community services. In 2017, the Port of Hueneme became the first port in California to become Green Marine certified and was voted the Greenest Port in the U.S. at the Green Shipping Summit.www.portofh.org About the Port of PaitaThe Port of Paita, strategically located on the northern coast of Peru in the Piura Region, serves as a key gateway for Peru and South American trade to international markets throughout the world. After 15 years under concession and more than $240 million in investment, the Port of Paita has become Peru's most important port for exporting agricultural goods and seafood products, generating more than 1,000 direct and indirect jobs in the north of the country. The Port concession is owned and operated by the Peruvian concessionaire, Terminales Portuarios Euroandinos (TPE) - jointly owned by YILPORT Holding, Inc. and DP World Logistics - whose exclusive purpose is the administration and operation of the Paita Port Terminal.Press Contact Letitia AustinPublic & Government Relations ManagerPort of Hueneme laustin@ portofh.org (805) 816-8324SOURCE: Port of Hueneme
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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 /Datametrex AI Limited (the "Company" or "Datametrex'') (TSXV:DM)(FSE:D4G)(OTC PINK:DTMXF) announces the voting results from the Annual General Meeting (the "Meeting") which was held on November 13, 2024.At the Meeting, 17.15% of the issued and outstanding shares of the Company were represented. Details of all resolutions that were voted upon are set out in the Management Information Circular (the "Circular") dated October 2, 2024. The Circular is available on SEDAR ( www.sedar.com) With the approval of the shareholders at the meeting, all the resolutions were approved, including the below:fixing the number of directors at four (4);re-electing directors of the Company;appointing Kingston Ross Pasnak, LLP Chartered Professional Accountants as the auditors of the Company;approving the name change and stock symbol;authorizing the Corporation's sale of its Health Division;authorizing the Continuation from the Province of Ontario to the Province of British Columbia;approving consolidation of the Common Shares;approving the Omnibus Incentive Plan (the "Plan")About DatametrexDatametrex is an innovative leader in Technology Solutions, Artificial Intelligence, Healthcare, and Mobile Gaming. The Company excels in delivering tools and solutions that enhance operational efficiencies and business outcomes. With a commitment to innovation, Datametrex is dedicated to supporting enterprises by setting a new standard for business protocols through cutting-edge technology.For more on Datametrex, please visit our YouTube channel and Company website.For Additional InformationPaul Haber, C.P.A., C.A., C.DirCEO & Chairmaninfo@ datametrex.com(416) 318-6501Neither 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 StatementsThis news release contains "forward-looking statements," which involve risks, uncertainties, and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These statements are not historical facts and are generally identified by words such as "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," and similar expressions. Such statements include expectations related to game development and other Company plans.While Datametrex believes the forward-looking information is reasonable as of the date of this release, these statements involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes to differ. Key factors include general economic conditions, legislative and regulatory developments, access to capital, industry competition, and the Company's ability to execute its strategies. The Company does not undertake to update these statements, except as required by law. Readers are advised not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information.Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are detailed under "Risk Factors" in Datametrex's management's discussion and analysis for the year ended December 31, 2023, available on the Company's profile at www.sedarplus.ca This release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy, nor shall it constitute an offer, solicitation, or sale in any jurisdiction where such would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under applicable securities laws. We seek Safe Harbor.SOURCE: DataMetrex AI Ltd.
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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Galloper Gold Corp. (CSE:BOOM)(OTC PINK:GGDCF) (the "Company" or "Galloper") is pleased to announce that Dr. Iliya Garkov, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer for Dundee Precious Metals Inc. (TSX: DPM), has joined Galloper's Board of Directors.Dr. Garkov has over three decades of international mining experience in Bulgaria, Australia and Armenia. Since 2003, when Dundee Precious Metals acquired its assets in Bulgaria, he has held a number of leadership roles within the company and was appointed to his current position in February 2024, helping grow DPM's profitability and its market capitalization to approximately $2.5 billion.Dr. Garkov was a key contributor to the transformation of DPM's Chelopech mine into a world-class mining operation and the successful commissioning and ramp-up of the Ada Tepe mine. He has also led the company's exploration activities in Bulgaria and Serbia.Galloper's CEO, Mr. Hratch Jabrayan, commented: "I am delighted that Iliya has joined our Board as we continue the process of turning Galloper into a leading junior gold company in Newfoundland with our flagship Glover Island asset. Iliya is highly regarded in the sector and will bring invaluable new expertise to Galloper to help us take Glover Island to the next level." Dr. Garkov commented: "Glover Island is in a prolific geological setting for gold in a rapidly growing mining area of Western Newfoundland where there are a variety of deposit types and an important new gold mine (Valentine) slated for production next year."I'm looking forward to assisting Hratch and the Galloper team to help unlock the value of Glover Island where over 100 historical drill holes, plus Galloper's recently completed first drill holes, provides us with a wealth of information to build a robust and effective exploration model aimed at making a significant new discovery." Dr. Garkov has a PhD in mining engineering from the University of Mining and Geology St. Ivan Rilski in Bulgaria and is a graduate of the London Business School Senior Executive Programme.To make room for Dr. Garkov on the Galloper Board, Mr. Rav Mlait has resigned as a Director of the Company. Galloper thanks Mr. Mlait for his contributions as a Director. He continues to serve as Galloper's Corporate Secretary.Figure 1 - "Four Corners" Mining Region of Western NewfoundlandInvestors are cautioned that mineralization on adjacent properties is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization at Glover Island or the potential for a resource.CEO Hratch Jabrayan Video ProfileClick on the following link to learn more about Hratch, Galloper Gold's new CEO.Figure 2 - Glover Island Property MapAcknowledgment - Newfoundland & Labrador Junior Exploration Assistance ProgramGalloper Gold acknowledges the financial support of the Junior Exploration Assistance Program, Department of Natural Resources, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.About Galloper Gold Corp.Galloper is focused on mineral exploration in the Central Newfoundland Gold Belt with its flagship Glover Island Property, 24 km southeast of Corner Brook, and its Mint Pond prospect in the Gander area. Galloper recently completed the first diamond drilling program at Glover Island since 2012, completing six holes with results pending.For more information please visit www.GalloperGold.com and the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca On behalf of the Board of Directors,Mr. Hratch JabrayanCEO and DirectorGalloper Gold Corp.Company Contact:info@ gallopergold.com Tel: 778-655-9266Investor Relations:MarketSmart CommunicationsTel: 877-261-4466Forward-Looking StatementsThis news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. The use of any of the words "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "expect", "estimate", "objective", "may", "will", "project", "should", "predict", "potential" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company cannot give any assurance that they will prove correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, they involve inherent assumptions, risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of assumptions, factors and risks. These assumptions and risks include, but are not limited to, assumptions and risks associated with mineral exploration generally, risks related to capital markets, risks related to the state of financial markets or future metals prices and the other risks described in the Company's publicly filed disclosure.Management has provided the above summary of risks and assumptions related to forward-looking statements in this news release in order to provide readers with a more comprehensive perspective on the Company's future operations. The Company's actual results, performance or achievement could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements and, accordingly, no assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what benefits the Company will derive from them. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and, other than as required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise.Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.SOURCE: Galloper Gold Corp.
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BOSTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Hailing from a family of talented parents, Cynthia Pischdotchian is no accidental artist. From a very young age, she sketched designs from clothing to city planning, but life took a different turn for her, and she went on to receive her formal education from Boston University as a computer engineer.Cynthia Britt Cynthia Britt Bespoke JewelryLife-changing moments can come in any shape or setting. That moment was the 6/7 magnitude Northridge, California, earthquake in 1994, and it set Pischdotchian on the path to her life's mission. "I was an artist as a child but was working as a computer engineer when the earthquake occurred," she says. "That experience taught me that life is fleeting. Thus, I decided to follow my passion and learn the art of fine jewelry manufacturing so I could bring my imagination to life with my hands." For Every OccasionEach handcrafted design begins with an initial consultation either virtually, for remote clients, or in person at Pischdotchian's atelier. From there, she turns a detail-oriented eye towards her client, the recipient of a bespoke piece, or a significant other-frequently to be surprised with an engagement ring."My clients are searching for a ring that is unique to them," she says. "I study the physical attributes of each client, such as their hand structure for an engagement ring, or their personal style, and get a good feel for each person's vibe. I translate this feeling into a design that captures the person's essence and works with their unique hand structure, and I hand sketch it in front of them. Then, for each client, I source out a unique selection of the best diamonds and gemstones from around the world for them to choose from." Half math, half art, the result is carefully crafted jewelry that touches the heart, from an engagement ring, wedding ring, anniversary gift, a ring holder necklace, or anything the occasion calls for.Art at Your FingertipsThe latest offering from Cynthia Britt caters to the individualistic vibes and lifestyles of the modern gentleman. "A lawyer will use his hands differently from a chef. The two most important aspects for men's rings are comfort and personal style," she says. Pischdotchian works with her clients personally, and she gets to see different hand shapes. Each ring that is offered on the online men's store she previously created for a client. Constantly updated, the selection is a compilation of the most popular designs that work for different finger structures and styles. A customization feature allows clients to change the attributes of the ring for their unique needs.At day's end, Pischdotchian noted that she is in the business of creativity, and the future's possibilities are endless."I believe we're all here for a reason," she concludes. "My reason is to bring beauty to people's lives. It's so important that I get their ring right. When my clients receive their ring and send me happy pictures after a proposal, I sit there with tears in my eyes. My mission brings me so much joy." Contact InformationCynthia Britt Owner, creator, designer, manufacturer 857-239-9885SOURCE: Cynthia Britt Bespoke JewelryView the original press release on newswire.com
PR-Inside.com: 2024-11-14 01:30:48

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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 13, 2024 / Levi & Korsinsky notifies investors that it has commenced an investigation of Franklin Resources, Inc. ("Franklin Resources, Inc.") (NYSE:BEN) concerning possible violations of federal securities laws.Franklin subsidiary Western Asset Management Company issued a press release on August 21, 2024, announcing that co-Chief Investment Officer Ken Leech "is on a leave of absence, effective immediately" after "receiv[ing] a Wells Notice from the Staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission". That same day, Bloomberg reported that "[f]ederal prosecutors in New York are investigating whether a Western Asset Management executive allocated winning trades to favored accounts, as part of a criminal probe into a practice known as  cherry-picking.'" Following this news, Franklin's stock price fell over 12% on August 21, 2024. To obtain additional information, go to:or contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. either via email at jlevi@ levikorsinsky.com or by telephone at (212)363-7500.WHY LEVI & KORSINSKY: Over the past 20 years, Levi & Korsinsky LLP has established itself as a nationally-recognized securities litigation firm that has secured hundreds of millions of dollars for aggrieved shareholders and built a track record of winning high-stakes cases. The firm has extensive expertise representing investors in complex securities litigation and a team of over 70 employees to serve our clients. For seven years in a row, Levi & Korsinsky has ranked in ISS Securities Class Action Services' Top 50 Report as one of the top securities litigation firms in the United States. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.CONTACT: Levi & Korsinsky, LLPJoseph E. Levi, Esq.Ed Korsinsky, Esq.33 Whitehall Street, 17th FloorNew York, NY 10004 jlevi@ levikorsinsky.com Tel: (212)363-7500 Fax: (212)363-7171 https://zlk.com/ SOURCE: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP
PR-Inside.com: 2024-11-14 12:00:34

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Including Two Gold Honors for Measurement InnovationCAMBRIDGE, MA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Fullintel , an industry leader in media monitoring, analytics, and intelligence, is thrilled to announce a resounding victory at the2024 AMEC Global Communication Effectiveness Awards , where the company clinched a remarkable seven awards across six categories. Fullintel's achievements include two Gold, four Silver, and one Bronze award, solidifying its position as an industry leader in innovative media measurement solutions."We are thrilled for our customers and the industry that research-backed measurement approaches are being recognized for the value they deliver to enterprises," saidAngela Dwyer , Fullintel's Head of Insights. "When we step past vanity metrics and start to measure how communications can influence audiences, as opposed to whether those audiences exist in the first place, we learn more about how to make positive impacts for brands." Among the prestigious accolades, Fullintel was recognized with Gold awards for both Best Use of New Technology in Communications Measurement and the Step Change Award for the most impactful improvement in a measurement journey. The award-winning entries reflect Fullintel's ongoing commitment to integrating advanced technology and predictive media metrics to deliver meaningful, actionable insights for clients across diverse sectors.2024 AMEC Award Wins:Best Use of New Technology in Communications MeasurementGold: Fullintel & Global Medical Devices Company - Innovative Metrics in Action: How Fullintel's Tech-Driven Approach Enhanced Global Medical Devices Company's Media MeasurementSilver: Fullintel & Global Healthcare Company - Transforming Measurement: Journey to Predictive Media ExcellenceBronze: Fullintel & Global Streaming Service - Streaming Success: A Global Streamer's Leap in Media MeasurementStep Change AwardGold: Fullintel & Global Pharmaceutical Company - A New Era of Measurement: The Global Pharmaceutical Company Transformation JourneyBest Crisis Communications Measurement and ReportingSilver: Fullintel & Horizon Health Network - Mastering Crisis Management: Advanced Media Analytics for Horizon Health NetworkBest Multi-Market ReportingSilver: Fullintel & Global Healthcare Company - Global Impact: Advanced Media Metrics Driving Multi-Market SuccessBest Use of a Measurement FrameworkSilver: Fullintel & Global Pharmaceutical Company - Precision in Action: Fullintel's Advanced Measurement Framework for Global Pharmaceutical CompanyThese achievements showcase Fullintel's unique capabilities in media measurement and commitment to delivering value through its AI-powered and human-curated approach.A Proud Moment for FullintelIn response to the announcement, Fullintel's President and Co-Founder,Andrew Koeck , expressed his excitement over the company's success:"Winning seven AMEC Awards, including two Gold, is a testament to our team's dedication to transforming media measurement and pushing the boundaries of what's possible with technology and insight-driven analytics. Each of these awards reflects the hard work, innovation, and strategic thinking that our team puts into delivering unparalleled value for our clients. This recognition fuels our commitment to remain at the forefront of the industry and inspires us to continue developing pioneering solutions for media analysis." About FullintelFullintel provides top-tier media monitoring, daily news briefs, and comprehensive media analysis services that blend proprietary AI technology with expert human curation. This unique approach ensures that Fullintel's clients receive highly actionable insights from print, online, social media, broadcast, and influencer data tailored to meet their specific needs. Fullintel has offices in Cambridge, MA; Ottawa, ON; and Nagercoil, India.Media Contact: Angus Nguyen, Director of MarketingEmail: anguyen@ fullintel.com Twitter:FullintelFacebook:FullintelLinkedIn:FullintelSOURCE: Fullintel, LLC
PR-Inside.com: 2024-11-14 09:00:21

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Apply for funding: WaterEquity seeks infrastructure projects and growth companies across the water and sanitation value chain in emerging and frontier markets to scale climate-resilient solutions.KANSAS CITY, KS / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 /WaterEquity, a global asset manager dedicated to mobilizing private investment for the water and sanitation sector, has raised more than $100 million for its latest investment fund, the Water & Climate Resilience Fund (the "Fund"). Now accepting applications for funding, the Fund seeks investment-ready infrastructure projects and growth companies that are working to scale climate-resilient water and sanitation solutions. With a focus on priority markets such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, and South Africa, the Fund aims to drive large-scale solutions that improve access to safe water and sanitation for underserved populations.WaterEquity Logo WaterEquity Logo For more details and an application for funding, visit: https://waterequity.com/infrafunding/ "Climate change is intensifying threats to health, productivity, and critical infrastructure, especially in regions already vulnerable to water stress," said Marlene Hormes, Chief Investment Officer at WaterEquity . "This call for funding will allow WaterEquity to identify projects that mobilize private sector investment in innovative and impactful water solutions. By advancing climate-resilient water infrastructure in low-income communities across emerging markets, we aim to create sustainable water access, improve community resilience, and drive long-term positive change." The Fund seeks to invest in both infrastructure projects and growth companies working across the water value chain. The fund will prioritize equity and mezzanine instruments with ticket sizes ranging from $2 million to $15 million. WaterEquity will target minority ownership stakes with an investment period of 5-7 years.Infrastructure Projects: Construction-stage projects for sourcing, treatment, and distribution of water, as well as collection, treatment, and reuse of wastewater. Focus will be on municipal Public Private Partnerships and concessions, bulk water supply and wastewater treatment, commercial & industrial projects in wastewater, and project platforms.Growth companies: Scalable business models offering proven technologies, products, and services within the water and sanitation sectors. Focus on businesses with strong growth potential and an ability to deliver sustainable solutions at scale to address critical needs in water and sanitation.WaterEquity encourages infrastructure projects and companies working within the water and sanitation sectors in emerging markets to apply for funding. With a focus on scaling solutions that drive climate resilience and sustainable water access, the Fund offers a unique opportunity for impactful initiatives to access capital and scale their efforts. For those projects and companies that may not yet meet the Fund's investment criteria, opportunity for project preparation services can be provided by contacting WaterConnect.---About WaterEquity:WaterEquity is an asset manager dedicated to mobilizing private investment into the water and sanitation sector in emerging and frontier markets. Since 2016, WaterEquity has raised more than $460 million in committed investment capital and has improved access to safe water or sanitation for more than 6.2 million people.Founded by Gary White and Matt Damon of Water.org , and led by Paul O'Connell, the success of WaterEquity is built on decades of collective experience investing in water and sanitation in emerging markets.Learn more at WaterEquity.com Contact InformationFaizneen BharmalMarketing Coordinator, WaterEquitypress@ waterequity.com SOURCE: WaterEquityView the original press release on newswire.com
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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Saint Xavier University (SXU)recently disclosed that it suffered a data breach that compromised the sensitive personal data of students. This data breach has led to concerns over the security of sensitive personal information entrusted to SXU.WHAT'S THIS ABOUT?On July 21, 2023, SXU became aware of a security incident on its IT Network. As a result, SXU launched an investigation with the assistance of cybersecurity experts to determine the nature of the incident. The investigation determined that an unauthorized third party gained access to certain files of SXU between June 29, 2023, and July 18, 2023. As a result, SXU did a comprehensive review of the incident to identify the exact type of information involved and the details of individuals affected. On August 26, 2024, the review was completed, and it was confirmed that sensitive personal information of individuals was impacted.SXU's investigation discovered that the following types of sensitive personal information may have been exposed in the data breach: Full name, Social Security number, and financial account number.On October 30, 2024, SXU issued a public disclosure about the data breach and started sending notice letters to individuals impacted. Compensation may be available for those individuals who received notice that their personal information was compromised.WHY AM I ENTITLED TO COMPENSATION?Data breaches are serious matters that can cause long-term damage. Hackers may use stolen information to commit identity theft, financial fraud, or other crimes. Companies that fail to secure your personal data may be held liable for the resulting harm.HOW DO I KNOW IF I WAS AFFECTED?If you received a data breach notification letter fromSXU Family Medicine,you are likely affected. Follow the link below to find out if you may be eligible for compensation.Levi Korsinsky, LLP is investigating whether affected individuals are entitled to compensation. If you have received a notice about the data breach, you may be entitled to compensation. There is no cost or obligation to participate. Follow the link below to find out:Levi & Korsinsky is a nationally recognized consumer advocacy law firm that has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars against large corporations. The firm's team of over 70 extraordinary attorneys and professionals have a winning track record going against the most powerful defense attorneys in the world and know how to maximize your compensation. The firm is a 100% contingency firm - we don't get paid unless you get paid! Please visit us at www.zlk.com for more information. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.CONTACT:Levi & Korsinsky, LLPJoseph E. Levi, Esq.Ed Korsinsky, Esq.33 Whitehall Street, 17th FloorNew York, NY 10004 jlevi@ levikorsinsky.com Tel: (212) 363-7500Fax: (212) 363-7171 https://zlk.com/ SOURCE: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP
PR-Inside.com: 2024-11-14 21:15:20

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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Li-FT Power Ltd. ("LIFT" or the "Company") (TSXV:LIFT)(OTCQX:LIFFF)(Frankfurt:WS0) has closed its previously announced (see press release dated October 23, 2024) non-brokered private placement consisting of (i) 2,694,895 common shares of the Company that qualify as "flow-through shares" (within the meaning of subsection 66(15) of the Income Tax Act (Canada)) (each, a "Flow-Through Share") at a price of $5.6575 and (ii) 1,645,105 common shares of the Company (each, a "Hard Dollar Share") which were issued to a single purchaser (the "Strategic Investor") at a price of $3.65 per Hard Dollar Share, for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $21,251,002 (the "Offering").Francis MacDonald, CEO and Director of LIFT, commented, "This is a pivotal moment for our Company, and we are very pleased to welcome the Strategic Investor as a meaningful shareholder of LIFT. We believe this investment supports the work completed to date by our team and the significant potential of our portfolio of hard rock lithium projects in Canada. The proceeds from the Offering will help to further de-risk our Yellowknife Lithium Project in the Northwest Territories for which we plan to complete a preliminary economic assessment in Q2 2025, as well as advance exploration on our Cali Project and our portfolio of highly prospective lithium properties in Quebec." In connection with the Offering, the Company and the Strategic Investor entered into an investor rights agreement, pursuant to which the Strategic Investor is entitled to certain rights, provided the Strategic Investor maintains certain ownership thresholds in the Company, including: (a) the right to participate in equity financings and top-up its holdings in relation to dilutive issuances in order to maintain its pro rata ownership interest at the time of such financing or issuance or acquire up to a 9.99% ownership interest in the Company, on a partially-diluted basis; and (b) the right to nominate one person to the board of directors of the Company in the event that the Purchaser's ownership interest in the Company exceeds and remains at or above 10%, on a partially-diluted basis.The gross proceeds from the issue of the Hard Dollar Shares will be used to advance the Company's Canadian assets as well as for general corporate purposes. The gross proceeds from the issue of the Flow-Through Shares will be used by the Company to incur eligible "Canadian exploration expenses" that will qualify as "flow-through critical mineral mining expenditures" as such terms are defined in the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the "Qualifying Expenditures") related to the Company's projects located in the Northwest Territories, Canada on or before December 31, 2025. All Qualifying Expenditures will be renounced in favour of the subscribers effective December 31, 2024.Canaccord Genuity acted as financial advisor to LIFT in connection with the Offering.About LIFTLIFT is a mineral exploration company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, and development of lithium pegmatite projects located in Canada. The Company's flagship project is the Yellowknife Lithium Project located in Northwest Territories, Canada. LIFT also holds three early-stage exploration properties in Quebec, Canada with excellent potential for the discovery of buried lithium pegmatites, as well as the Cali Project in Northwest Territories within the Little Nahanni Pegmatite Group.For further information, please contact:Francis MacDonaldDaniel GordonChief Executive OfficerInvestor RelationsTel: + 1.604.609.6185Tel: +1.604.609.6185Email: investors@ li-ft.com Email: investors@ li-ft.com Website: www.li-ft.com Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking InformationCertain statements included in this press release constitute forward-looking information or statements (collectively, "forward-looking statements"), including those identified by the expressions "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "may", "should" and similar expressions to the extent they relate to the Company or its management. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts but reflect current expectations regarding future results or events. This press release contains forward looking statements relating to the closing of the Offering, the use of proceeds of the Offering, the timing of incurring the Qualifying Expenditures and the renunciation of the Qualifying Expenditures as well as the approval of the TSXV. These forward-looking statements and information reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the company with respect to the matter described in this new release.Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which are based on current expectations as of the date of this release and subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is contained under "Risk Factors" in the Company's latest annual information form filed on March 27, 2024, which is available under the Company's SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca , and in other filings that the Company has made and may make with applicable securities authorities in the future. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made only as to the date of this press release and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. We caution investors not to place considerable reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release.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.Contact InformationFrancis MacDonaldCEOfrancis@ li-ft.com 1.604.609.6185Daniel GordonInvestor Relations Managerdaniel@ li-ft.com 1.604.609.6185SOURCE: Li-FT Power Ltd.
PR-Inside.com: 2024-11-15 00:12:58

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ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Barton Gold Holdings Limited (ASX:BGD) (Barton or the Company) advises that the attached presentation is due to be presented today at the London 121 Mining Conference.Authorised by the Managing Director of Barton Gold Holdings Limited.For further information, please contact:Alexander ScanlonManaging Director a.scanlon@ bartongold.com.au +61 425 226 649Shannon CoatesCompany Secretary cosec@ bartongold.com.au +61 8 9322 1587About Barton GoldBarton Gold is an ASX, OTCQB and Frankfurt Stock Exchange listed Australian gold developer targeting future gold production of 150,000oz annually, with ~1.6Moz Au JORC Mineral Resources (52.3Mt @ 0.94 g/t Au), multiple advanced exploration projects and brownfield mines, and 100% ownership of the only regional gold mill in the renowned central Gawler Craton of South Australia.*Tarcoola Gold ProjectExisting brownfield open pit mine within trucking distance of Barton's processing plantUnder-explored asset with untapped scale potentialTunkillia Gold Project *1.5Moz Au Mineral Resources (51.3Mt @ 0.91 g/t Au)Scoping Study for competitive ~130kozpa Au mineInfrastructure650ktpa CIP process plant, mine village, and airstripTarcoola ~40 person lodging to support mine operationsTunkillia camp to support dedicated project teamCompetent Persons Statement & Previously Reported Information The information in this announcement that relates to the historic Exploration Results and Mineral Resources as listed in the table below is based on, and fairly represents, information and supporting documentation prepared by the Competent Person whose name appears in the same row, who is an employee of or independent consultant to the Company and is a Member or Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM), Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG) or a Recognised Professional Organisation (RPO). Each person named in the table below has sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and types of deposits under consideration and to the activity which he has undertaken to quality as a Competent Person as defined in the JORC Code 2012 ( JORC ).ActivityCompetent PersonMembershipStatusTarcoola Mineral Resource (Stockpiles)Dr Andrew Fowler (Consultant)AusIMMMemberTarcoola Mineral Resource (Perseverance Mine)Mr Ian Taylor (Consultant)AusIMMFellowTarcoola Exploration Results (until 15 Nov 2021)Mr Colin Skidmore (Consultant)AIGMemberTarcoola Exploration Results (after 15 Nov 2021)Mr Marc Twining (Employee)AusIMMMemberTunkillia Exploration Results (until 15 Nov 2021)Mr Colin Skidmore (Consultant)AIGMemberTunkillia Exploration Results (after 15 Nov 2021)Mr Marc Twining (Employee)AusIMMMemberTunkillia Mineral ResourceMr Ian Taylor (Consultant)AusIMMFellowChallenger Mineral ResourceMr Dale Sims (Consultant)AusIMM / AIGFellow / MemberThe information relating to historic Exploration Results and Mineral Resources in this announcement is extracted from the Company's Prospectus dated 14 May 2021 or as otherwise noted in this announcement, available from the Company's website at www.bartongold.com.au or on the ASX website www.asx.com.au . The Company confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the Exploration Results and Mineral Resource information included in previous announcements and, in the case of estimates of Mineral Resources, that all material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning the estimates, and any production targets and forecast financial information derived from the production targets, continue to apply and have not materially changed. The Company confirms that the form and context in which the applicable Competent Persons' findings are presented have not been materially modified from the previous announcements.Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This document may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "expect", "target" and "intend" and statements than an event or result "may", "will", "should", "would", "could", or "might" occur or be achieved and other similar expressions. Forward-looking information is subject to business, legal and economic risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among other things, risks relating to property interests, the global economic climate, commodity prices, sovereign and legal risks, and environmental risks. Forward-looking statements are based upon estimates and opinions at the date the statements are made. Barton undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements for events or circumstances that occur subsequent to such dates or to update or keep current any of the information contained herein. Any estimates or projections as to events that may occur in the future (including projections of revenue, expense, net income and performance) are based upon the best judgment of Barton from information available as of the date of this document. There is no guarantee that any of these estimates or projections will be achieved. Actual results will vary from the projections and such variations may be material. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied upon as, a promise or representation as to the past or future. Any reliance placed by the reader on this document, or on any forward-looking statement contained in or referred to in this document will be solely at the readers own risk, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements due to the inherent uncertainty thereof.* Refer to Barton Prospectus dated 14 May 2021 and ASX announcements dated 4 March and 16 July 2024. Total Barton JORC (2012) Mineral Resources include 833koz Au (26.9Mt @ 0.96 g/t Au) in Indicated and 754koz Au (25.4Mt @ 0.92 g/t Au) in Inferred categories.SOURCE: Barton Gold Holdings Limited
PR-Inside.com: 2024-11-14 18:45:48

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Reports First Quarter Fiscal 2025 Net Sales of $5.76 million, Net Loss of $211,000ATLANTA, GA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Luvu Brands, Inc. (OTCQB:LUVU), a designer, manufacturer, and marketer of a portfolio of consumer lifestyle brands, announced today its financial and operational results for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 ending September 30, 2024.For the three months ended September 30, 2024, highlights include:Net revenue decreased by 4% to $5.76 million versus the prior year.Gross margin remained flat at 26% from a year ago.Net loss of $211,000, or $0.00 per basic and diluted share.Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $3,000, down from a profit of $63,000 a year ago.Inventory at September 30, 2024, was $3.0 million, an 8% decrease from June 30, 2024.As of September 30, 2024, the Company had $1.07 million in cash and cash equivalents, up 4% from June 30, 2024.Louis Friedman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented on the results, "Despite the challenging economic environment, we remain committed to strengthening our market position and enhancing operational efficiencies. The first quarter results reflect the external pressures on consumer sentiment and the absence of significant marketing events from the previous year. However, our proactive measures, including increased digital advertising and influencer engagement, have set the foundation for future growth. According to Market Survey Lab, the Adult Store Market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 8.2% from 2024 to 2030. We are well positioned to exceed that growth rate." Three Month Operating Results:Net revenue in Q1 FY2025 decreased 4% to $5.76 million compared to $6.13 million in the prior year. The year-over-year decrease is primarily attributable to lower sales from our adult wholesale customers. Additionally, a large contract order from the prior year was not repeated this year.Gross profit in Q1 FY2025 totaled $1.52 million compared to $1.58 million in the prior year, while the gross margin improved to 26.3% in Q1 FY2025 versus 25.8% a year ago. The decrease in gross profit is primarily due to the decline in units sold through our wholesale channels, and the improvement in gross margin is mainly due to lower freight and raw material costs compared to a year ago.Operating costs, excluding sales and marketing in Q1 FY2025, were $884,000, or 15% of net revenue, compared to $819,000, or 13% of net revenue in the prior year. The increase was primarily attributable to increases in personnel expenses and professional fees.Sales and marketing expenses in Q1 FY2025 totaled $645,000, or 11% of net revenue, compared to $695,000, or 11% of net revenue, in the prior year. This decrease resulted from eliminating unprofitable pay-per-click spending and reduced graphic design needs due to fewer new product launches compared to the prior year.Net loss in Q1 FY2025 was $211,000 compared to a net loss of $126,000 in the prior year.Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $3,000, down from a profit of $63,000 a year ago.Friedman added, "As we focus on reinvigorating our products and brands, we are encouraged by the strong consumer response to our recent influencer success. This makes us confident that our fresh, updated product collections coming to market over the next year will build on that success. We believe the combination of elevated product, good storytelling, and superior customer experience will position the business to return to top-line growth in 2025 and enable us to build long-term shareholder value." Additional Information:Please see www.luvubrands.com for updated events, press, and new product releases. If you wish to speak to us directly, please email chris.knauf@luvubrands.com with your preferred day and time.Forward-Looking StatementsCertain matters discussed in this press release may be forward-looking statements. Such matters involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including the following: changes in economic conditions; general competitive factors; acceptance of the Company's products in the market; the Company's success in obtaining new customers; the Company's success in product development; the Company's ability to execute its business model and strategic plans; the Company's success in integrating acquired entities and assets, and all the risks and related information described from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including the financial statements and related information contained in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and interim Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Examples of forward-looking statements in this release include statements related to new products, anticipated revenue, and profitability. The Company assumes no obligation to update the cautionary information in this release.*Use of Non-GAAP Measures - Adjusted EBITDALuvu Brands management evaluates and makes operating decisions using various financial metrics. In addition to the Company's GAAP results, management also considers the non-GAAP measure of Adjusted EBITDA. While Adjusted EBITDA is not a measure of performance in accordance with GAAP, management believes that this non-GAAP measure provides useful information about the Company's operating results. The table below provides a reconciliation of this non-GAAP financial measure with the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure.As used herein, Adjusted EBITDA income represents net income (loss) before interest income, interest expense, income taxes, depreciation, amortization, and stock-based compensation expense.About Luvu BrandsLuvu Brands, Inc. designs, manufactures and markets a portfolio of consumer lifestyle brands through the Company's websites, online mass/drug merchants, and specialty retail stores worldwide. Brands include Liberator, a brand category of iconic products for enhancing sensuality and intimacy; Avana, yoga, inclined sleep therapy, and orthopedic pillow products; and Jaxx, a diverse range of casual fashion daybeds, sofas, and beanbags made from virgin and re-purposed polyurethane foam. Many of our products are offered flat-packed and vacuum-compressed to save on shipping and reduce our carbon footprint. The Company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, in a 140,000-square-foot vertically integrated manufacturing facility that employs over 190 people. Bringing sewn products manufacturing back to the USA and creating innovative consumer brands are core to the Company's operating principles. The Company's brand sites include www.liberator.com
PR-Inside.com: 2024-11-14 19:30:47

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SANTA CLARA, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 /MEDevice Silicon Valley, the premier West Coast event connecting medical device engineers and cutting-edge MedTech companies, shares important information and programs ahead of the Nov. 20-21 event, showcasing the latest advancements in product development, regulatory updates and thought leadership through unparalleled networking and education opportunities.EducationMEDevice Silicon Valley brings together recognized leaders, top global researchers, medical professionals and innovators to discuss new trends and technology, as well as share insights on the evolving future of medtech manufacturing. The event features over 20 hours of education across three areas on the expo floor including the Center Stage, MedTech Theater and Start-Up Stadium, as well as a paidMaster Class Conferenceon both days, which includes four tracks of engaging sessions specific to start-up organizations and OEM's, a morning mingle and lunch and learn sessions. Educational topics include 3D printing, AI, product development, policy and regulations, among more.Keynote speakers at this year's event include Jennifer Samproni, Chief Technology Officer of the Health Solutions business at Flex, covering the growing role of HMI's in the future of medical device innovation on Nov. 20, and Ashley Mancuso, Vice President, MedTech BISO & Product Security, Johnson & Johnson presenting on Nov. 21, diving into cyber security principles in supply chain operations.ExhibitionMEDevice Silicon Valley hosts over 175 exhibitors, including 219 Design, Andrews Cooper, Accumold, Bal Seal Engineering, Biocoat Inc., Canon Medical Components U.S.A., Cobalt Polymers, Medbio, Nelson Labs LLC, Qosina, Zeus Industrial Products Inc., among many more. Each company will display cutting-edge solutions for every stage of the device lifestyle for hands-on discovery by attendees.NetworkingNew programs include the Quick Connect 1-on-1 Meetings and ShopTalk Lounge, featuring customized matchmaking to pair professionals with relevant contacts, as well as hosted discussions on topics such as AI and cybersecurity, creating opportunities for informed and intentional exchanges. Other networking opportunities include the welcome reception on Nov. 20, morning coffee talks, innovation showcases, a sugar rush reception on Nov. 21 and more. For the full agenda, please visitwww.medevicesiliconvalley.com "From leading suppliers to key education, MEDevice Silicon Valley delivers relevant providers and essential programs that are aimed toward changing the way medical devices are created and brought to life," says Adrienne Zepeda, Group Event Director, Informa Markets Engineering. "Attendees will leave with a better understanding of what's going on in the marketplace, new connections and an expanded community that will help accelerate product development in the industry." To register to attend MEDevice Silicon Valley, (Santa Clara Convention Center, Nov. 20-21, 2024), please visit www.medevicesiliconvalley.com About MEDevice MEDevice, an MD&M event, is the leading North American event brand for the medical technology industry, connecting engineers and cutting-edge medtech companies annually in the most prominent U.S. healthcare hubs. Visitors at the MEDevice events will learn from hands-on demo's, presentations from OEMs, keynote presentations, innovation showcases, an all-new medical adhesives pavilion, matchmaking and networking opportunities. MEDevice is organized by Informa Markets Engineering and includes MEDevice Boston and MEDevice Silicon Valley, as well as MD&M West, MD&M South, MD&M Minneapolis and MD&M East. Official listed media partners include Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry (MD+DI) and DesignNews. For more information, please visitwww.informamarkets.com About Informa Markets Engineering Informa Markets' Engineering portfolio, a subsidiary of Informa plc (LON:INF), is the leading B2B event producer, publisher, and digital media business for the world's $3-trillion advanced, technology-based manufacturing industry. Our print and electronic products deliver trusted information to the engineering market and leverage our proprietary 1.3-million-name database to connect suppliers with buyers and purchase influencers. We produce more than 50 events and conferences in a dozen countries, connecting manufacturing professionals from around the globe. The Engineering portfolio is organized by Informa, the world's leading exhibitions organizer that brings a diverse range of specialist markets to life, unlocking opportunities and helping them to thrive 365 days of the year. For more information, please visitwww.informamarkets.com Media Contact Informa Markets Engineering PR EngineeringPR@ informa.com SOURCE: INFORMA MARKETS - ENGINEERING
PR-Inside.com: 2024-11-14 20:45:19

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Report Outlines the Realities of Asthma Care in the United States and the Policy and Clinical Interventions that May Provide Improvements to Current Asthma CareWASHINGTON, DC / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) today announced the release of a new white paper titled, "Improving Outcomes for People with Asthma: Challenges & A Call to Action." The report is a result of an NCQA roundtable discussion on how to improve access to appropriate asthma care, assure that clinical care aligns with a quality framework, and provide more patient-centered care. Held in May 2024, NCQA in collaboration with AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, LP, convened the Asthma Management & Education Roundtable, which included a diverse panel of clinicians, public/community health experts and patient advocates.Asthma is a complex, chronic disease that affects nearly 24 million people in the U.S. Despite decades of advances in respiratory care that can help make the condition manageable, asthma outcomes remain poor. In 2021, 6.5% of children and 8% of adults in the U.S. had asthma, and the health consequences of uncontrolled asthma are expected to amount to 15.46 million quality adjusted life-years lost and $300.6 billion in direct costs between 2019 and 2038. There is a critical gap between best practices for asthma care and patients' reality-and the gap widens depending on a patient's race, socioeconomic status and place of residence."Compared to other chronic diseases, such as diabetes or heart failure, asthma care needs a lot of attention. As a society, we must do a better job at helping people manage their asthma while addressing their health-related social needs and environmental and social factors that impact their outcomes," said NCQA Assistant Vice President of the Chronic Conditions and Complex Care Knowledge Center Caroline Blaum. "Engaging with various health care thought leaders about asthma and its management is key to a well-rounded discussion about barriers and solutions in asthma treatment. These focused discussions pointed to various issues related to asthma management and uncovered much needed improvements." Roundtable participants outlined six strategies to improve asthma outcomes in the United States including:Coverage: All people should have appropriate and standardized insurance coverage for their asthma care, self-management support and education, care coordination, and evidence-based pharmacological treatment. Interventions such as virtual care and home visits should be covered, as well as office spirometry.Workforce: While the clinician workforce for asthma care is in short supply, reinforcements are available if appropriate clinicians are enlisted including nurse practitioners, urgent care clinicians, and physician assistants. In some areas of the country, particularly in rural areas, primary care, pulmonary, and allergy specialists can be unavailable and telehealth and licensing across states may assist in bringing needed specialty care to shortage areas. Additionally, community pharmacists can support evidence based pharmaceutical care, and community health workers can help establish meaningful contact and educational assistance. Regardless, all providers who interact with asthma patients need training and resources to understand guidelines and best practices.Quality Framework: Quality metrics and standards for asthma care are underdeveloped, outdated or not consistent with guidelines compared to those for other chronic diseases. Measure developers need to develop metrics based on current guidelines for medical care that can be used for quality improvement as well as accountability and provider incentives. Measurement should consider addressing important issues such as availability of patient self-management support, care coordination, patient reported outcomes, and pediatric asthma care.Care Delivery: Assure that asthma prescribing is based on current guidelines with inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) as the basis of therapy, with appropriate provision of other reliever and controller medications and biologics as appropriate. Principles of chronic disease management should be applied to asthma, including patient education and self-management support, care coordination, use of multidisciplinary teams for management, and home visits. Electronic Health Record interoperability is important to allow different providers to communicate.Person-Centered Care: Clinicians should implement a culture of "asthma wellness," so that patients and families understand that asthma symptoms and exacerbations are nearly entirely preventable. In addition, clinicians should be trained in principles of patient-centered care and techniques related to patient engagement, such as motivational interviewing and shared decision making. Human centered design methods should be employed to meet patients where they are and provide innovative and age-appropriate self-management such as social media and games.Environmental and Other Policy: Knowing that air quality is critical, and poor air quality is often associated with underserved areas, policy interventions are needed, such as defining lower acceptable particulate matter thresholds. Other policy interventions could encourage/reimburse home visits for asthma trigger investigation, and public private partnerships, such as using pollutant taxes to fund remediation work, should be considered.The roundtable discussion concluded with the alignment that there is much work to do to make high quality care available to all asthma patients. A range of barriers and challenges need to be addressed, and all stakeholders must work together to achieve the goals. It will take innovative approaches, forward thinking momentum, and the cooperation and coordination of payers, employers, states, the federal government, and providers to work together to bridge the gap between the clinical ideal for asthma care and the disparate lived experiences and outcomes that patients often face.About NCQANCQA is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA Accredits and Certifies a wide range of health care organizations. It also Recognizes clinicians and practices in key areas of performance. NCQA's Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in health care. NCQA's website ( ncqa.org) contains information to help consumers, employers and others make informed health care choices. NCQA can also be found at Twitter/X @ncqa and on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/ncqa Contact InformationTheresa Masnik SHIFT Communicationsncqa@ shiftcomm.com 508-395-7416SOURCE: National Committee for Quality Assuranc
A staff member sorts books at a warehouse of New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 12, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Dong Lu (R) and Zhang Quan prepare for the livestreaming at New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 13, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Staff members pack books at a factory of New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 12, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Dong Lu (L) and Zhang Quan take photos of children's books at New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 12, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Zhang Quan (R) takes videos for Dong Lu to promote books at New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 13, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Dong Lu (R) and Zhang Quan analyze livestreaming performance at New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 13, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Zhang Quan (L) shows the product information during a livestreaming at a reading space in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 11, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Dong Lu (L) and Zhang Quan sell books via livestreaming at a reading space in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 11, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Dong Lu searches books for livestreaming at a warehouse of New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 12, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Dong Lu (L) and Zhang Quan sell books via livestreaming at a reading space in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 11, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Editor: JYZ
PR-Inside.com: 2024-11-14 21:30:17

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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 /PPX Mining Corp. (the "Company" or "PPX", including its Peruvian subsidiaries) is pleased to announce that construction of the CIL and Flotation plant at its Igor Project located in La Libertad, Peru, has started.Yesterday, major components for the plant were ordered and are described as follows:Equipment for the crushing circuit, which includes primary jaw crusher, secondary cone crusher, vibrating screen and all conveyors.Equipment for the grinding circuit, which includes two ball mills, hydro-cyclones, pumps and a thickener.Equipment for the flotation circuit, which includes flotation cells, concentrate thickener and filter press.Equipment for the leaching equipment is in the process of being ordered.Additional detailed engineering has also begun, with a final review of the entire layout and geotechnical data, to be completed in the coming weeks by the EPC contractor, PPX professionals and a third party contractor.Corporate UpdateThe Company informs that the private placement announced on June 17 and extended on July 31, 2024 expired.About PPX Mining CorpPPX Mining Corp. ( TSX.V: PPX.V, BVL: PPX) is a Canadian-based mining company with assets in northern Peru. Igor, the Company's 100%-owned flagship gold and silver project, is located in the prolific Northern Peru gold belt in eastern La Libertad Department.On behalf of the Board of DirectorsJohn ThomasChief Executive Officer 82 Richmond Street EastToronto, Ontario M5C 1P1Canada416-361-0737Neither 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 StatementThis press release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (collectively, "forward-looking statements") as such terms are defined by applicable securities laws, including, but not limited to statements regarding test results, future plans or management estimates. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address expected future business plans and financial performance and often contain words such as "anticipate," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," and "intend,", statements that an action or event "may," "might," "could," "should," "would" or "will" be taken or occur, or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which involve factors or circumstances that are beyond the Company's control, and the Company's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in forward-looking statements due to many various factors. Such uncertainties and risks include, among others, delays in obtaining or inability to obtain any required regulatory approvals, if applicable. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, the Company cannot guarantee that the events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will be achieved or occur. The timing of events and circumstances and actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, one should not place undue reliance on forward- looking statements. All forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of today's date, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update or publicly revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by law.SOURCE: PPX Mining Corp.
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Investment Will Aid Development of One of the World's First Commercial MicroreactorsEL SEGUNDO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 /Radiant Industries, Incorporated, a leader in advanced nuclear technology, today announced a $100 million Series C funding round led by DCVC, a preeminent deep tech venture capital firm. The round included participation from a16z's American Dynamism team, which led the Series B, and Union Square Ventures, and welcomed new investors Felicis, Washington Harbour Partners LP, and Chevron Technology Ventures. This investment comes on the heels of Radiant's passive cooldown demonstration, a critical test of a full-scale, non-fueled reactor, and brings the company's total venture funding to $160 million.Clean Power for Data Centers Radiant's Kaleidos microreactors can provide clean, reliable power for new or expanding data centers. Render by Ryan Seper.The funding round marks an important step towards Radiant's goal of bringing one of the world's first factory-constructed microreactors to market. Radiant has advanced through the U.S. Department of Energy's microreactor experiment design process and plans to deliver the Kaleidos Development Unit prototype microreactor to Idaho National Laboratory's (INL) DOME facility for testing in 2026, ushering in a new era for the advanced nuclear industry."Our major safety test is complete and nuclear materials are on order for fueled test readiness in 2026," said Doug Bernauer, CEO and co-founder of Radiant. "We now have the staff, hardware, and runway to deliver at the DOME, and with production commitments of more than 10 reactors through 2030, we need to move as quickly as possible. Radiant's success over the next two years will not only benefit our customers but will be a win for advanced reactor developers and the industry as a whole. New nuclear is around the corner, and it's arriving on a semi-truck." The funding will primarily be used to complete Radiant's Kaleidos Development Unit, the same reactor design that will be manufactured and sold to customers. At INL, the unit will undergo a comprehensive testing program including rigorous evaluations of the reactor's failsafe mechanisms and proprietary semi-automated control system, providing validation cases for regulatory analyses. Funds will also be used for factory siting and early construction efforts, breaking ground on the facilities that are expected to produce up to 50 microreactors per year."Radiant is developing a product that brings clean, reliable, affordable energy to locations that couldn't access it otherwise," said Rachel Slaybaugh, partner at DCVC and Radiant board member. "Radiant has hit their major milestones on an impressive development timeline, giving them a leg up on commercialization, which is why we were so excited to lead this round and support Doug and the Radiant team." "Radiant is developing technology with the potential to provide reliable and lower carbon energy to remote, off-grid locations, among other areas. This solution can circumvent grid connection challenges and provide uninterrupted, lower carbon intensity power for long periods," said Jim Gable, Vice President of Innovation within Chevron's Technical Center and President of Technology Ventures at Chevron. "This is the latest investment from our $300 million Future Energy Fund II, which focuses on industrial decarbonization, emerging mobility, energy decentralization and the growing circular economy. We welcome Radiant to the portfolio." Radiant's Kaleidos microreactor is a 1MW nuclear power plant in a box that replaces diesel generators, providing power for military installations, remote industry, data centers, EV charging, and more. It can be shipped by land, sea or air and installed in a matter of days. By providing reliable, portable, and environmentally friendly nuclear power, Kaleidos represents a major step forward for global energy production.Additional participation in this funding round came from Founders Fund, Decisive Point, McKinley Alaska, Boost VC, and Also Capital.Contact InformationRene Babiorpress@ radiantnuclear.com SOURCE: Radiant Industries, IncorporatedView the original press release on newswire.com
PR-Inside.com: 2024-11-14 19:01:02

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New Research on Emissions Reductions Through Food Waste PreventionCHICAGO, IL / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / As part of ClearCOGS's commitment to minimizing food waste, the organization hosted an Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF) Climate Corps fellow who authored a groundbreaking report: Quantification of Emissions Savings Based on Food Waste Prevention. The research, led by EDF Climate Corps fellow McKenzie Huneke, PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo, in partnership with ReFED, quantifies emissions reduction restaurants achieved by preventing food waste through ClearCOGS's AI-powered technology.ClearCOGS EDF and ReFEDThe study, highlights how ClearCOGS enables restaurants to reduce food waste by optimizing daily food preparation and quantifies the associated reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The report found that ClearCOGS helps reduce CO2 equivalent emissions by 2.90 - 4.48 tons per restaurant location, per month."We're excited to see data-driven prevention solutions that tackle food waste so effectively. By leveraging AI to optimize food preparation, restaurants are preventing significant greenhouse gas emissions, especially methane," said Angel Veza from ReFED. "Cutting methane is one of the strongest levers we have to slow climate change. This project demonstrates how technology can empower the foodservice industry to meet sustainability goals." EDF Climate Corps is an innovative fellowship program that trains talented and passionate graduate students and pairs them with companies and public institutions dedicated to meeting their climate and energy goals.Huneke's research explores the impact of ClearCOGS's technology on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, water waste, and social-environmental costs. For example, by preventing 380 lbs of food waste per month, typical ClearCOGS customers prevent 1.01 tons of CO2eq emissions and save over 66,000 gallons of water a month."This research showcases the incredible environmental potential of AI in foodservice. By helping restaurants make smarter decisions on food preparation, ClearCOGS is not only improving their bottom line but also making a positive impact on the planet," said Huneke."ClearCOGS is a vanguard in the space of waste prevention; our solution stops waste before it happens.It's been an honor to partner with EDF and McKenzie Huneke on this project, which has provided overwhelming validation of environmental benefits associated with our tool," said Matt Wampler, CEO of ClearCOGS.As part of this effort, ClearCOGS plans to introduce an automated emissions calculator, allowing customers to monitor environmental benefits in real time.About ClearCOGS ClearCOGS is a leading AI-powered demand planning system for restaurants. ClearCOGS is dedicated to improving operational efficiency and reducing food waste in the foodservice industry.About ReFEDReFED is a U.S.-based nonprofit that catalyzes the food system toward evidence-based action to stop wasting food. Our vision is a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive food system that makes the best use of the food we grow. To learn more about solutions to reduce food waste, please visit www.refed.org About EDFOne of the world's leading international nonprofit organizations,Environmental Defense Fundcreates transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. To do so, EDF links science, economics, law, and innovative private-sector partnerships. Connect with us on LinkedIn and X.Contact InformationMatt WamplerCEO & Co-Founderinfo@ clearcogs.com Kelsey JobaliaMarketing Manager, ClearCOGSmarketing@ clearcogs.com SOURCE: ClearCOGSView the original press release on newswire.com
PR-Inside.com: 2024-11-14 17:31:16

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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Levi & Korsinsky notifies investors that it has commenced an investigation of Innovative Industrial Properties, Inc. ("Innovative Industrial Properties, Inc.") (NYSE:IIPR) concerning possible violations of federal securities laws.IIP reported its financial results for the third quarter of 2024 on November 6, 2024. Among other items, IIP reported normalized funds from operations per share of $2.02, missing the consensus estimate of $2.03 and declining from $2.09 in the same period in 2023. IIP also reported revenue of $76.5 million, missing the consensus estimate of $77.5 million and declining from $77.8 million in the same period in 2023. IIP stated that the year-over-year decrease was due to a $3.0 million decline in contractual rent and property management fees the third quarter related to properties that IIP regained possession of since June 2023; a decline of $1.3 million due to rent received but not recognized in rental revenues resulting from the re-classifications of two sales-type leases starting January 1, 2024; and $1.3 million of contractually due rent and property management fees that were not collected during the current quarter.Following this news, IIP's stock price fell over 10% on November 7, 2024. To obtain additional information, go to:or contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. either via email at jlevi@ levikorsinsky.com or by telephone at (212)363-7500.WHY LEVI & KORSINSKY: Over the past 20 years, Levi & Korsinsky LLP has established itself as a nationally-recognized securities litigation firm that has secured hundreds of millions of dollars for aggrieved shareholders and built a track record of winning high-stakes cases. The firm has extensive expertise representing investors in complex securities litigation and a team of over 70 employees to serve our clients. For seven years in a row, Levi & Korsinsky has ranked in ISS Securities Class Action Services' Top 50 Report as one of the top securities litigation firms in the United States. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.CONTACT: Levi & Korsinsky, LLPJoseph E. Levi, Esq.Ed Korsinsky, Esq.33 Whitehall Street, 17th FloorNew York, NY 10004 jlevi@ levikorsinsky.com Tel: (212)363-7500 Fax: (212)363-7171 https://zlk.com/ SOURCE: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP
PR-Inside.com: 2024-11-14 18:30:38

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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Soliant Health, LLC ("Soliant")recentlydisclosedthat it suffered a data breach that compromised the sensitive personal data of thousands of clients. This data breach has led to concerns over the security of sensitive personal information entrusted to Soliant.WHAT'S THIS ABOUT?On June 25, 2024, Soliant became aware of a security incident on its IT Network. As a result, Soliant launched an investigation with the assistance of third-party cyber security experts to determine the nature of the incident. Soliant's investigation determined that certain sensitive personal information may have been acquired without authorization. Soliant then began a comprehensive review of the impacted data to determine what information was compromised as well as identify the specific individuals affected. On October 3, 2024, the review was completed.Soliant'sinvestigation discovered that the following types of sensitive personal information may have been exposed in the data breach: Full name, government ID number, and Social Security number.On October 29, 2024, Soliant issued a public disclosure about the data breach and started sending notice letters to individuals impacted. Compensation may be available for those individuals who received notice that their personal information was compromised.WHY AM I ENTITLED TO COMPENSATION?Data breaches are serious matters that can cause long-term damage. Hackers may use stolen information to commit identity theft, financial fraud, or other crimes. Companies that fail to secure your personal data may be held liable for the resulting harm.HOW DO I KNOW IF I WAS AFFECTED?If you received a data breach notification letter fromSoliant,you are likely affected. Follow the link below to find out if you may be eligible for compensation.Levi Korsinsky, LLP is investigating whether affected individuals are entitled to compensation. If you have received a notice about the data breach, you may be entitled to compensation. There is no cost or obligation to participate. Follow the link below to find out:Levi & Korsinsky is a nationally recognized consumer advocacy law firm that has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars against large corporations. The firm's team of over 70 extraordinary attorneys and professionals have a winning track record going against the most powerful defense attorneys in the world and know how to maximize your compensation. The firm is a 100% contingency firm - we don't get paid unless you get paid! Please visit us at www.zlk.com for more information. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.CONTACT:Levi & Korsinsky, LLPJoseph E. Levi, Esq.Ed Korsinsky, Esq.33 Whitehall Street, 17th FloorNew York, NY 10004 jlevi@ levikorsinsky.com Tel: (212) 363-7500Fax: (212) 363-7171 https://zlk.com/ SOURCE: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP
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HONG KONG, CHINA / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / SouthGobi Resources Ltd. (Hong Kong Stock Exchange ("HKEX"): 1878, TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V"):SGQ) (the "Company" or "SouthGobi") today announces its financial and operating results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024. All figures are in U.S. dollars ("USD") unless otherwise stated.Significant Events and HighlightsThe Company's significant events and highlights for the three months ended September 30, 2024 and the subsequent period to November 14, 2024 are as follows:Operating Results- The Company has been increasing the scale of its mining operations since 2023, as well as implementing various coal processing methods, including screening, wet washing and dry coal processing, which have resulted in improved coal quality and enhanced production volume and growth of coal export volume into China during the quarter.In response to the market demand for different coal products, the Company focused on expanding the categories of coal products in its portfolio, including mixed coal, wet washed coal and dry processed coal. In addition, the Company has experienced success with processing its inventory of F-grade coal products through cost-effective screening procedures. As a result of the improvement in the quality of the processed F-grade coal, the Company was able to meet the import coal quality standards established by Chinese authorities and has been exporting this product to China for sale since the first quarter of 2024, further enhancing the Company's coal export volume.The Company recorded sales volume of 2.1 million tonnes for the third quarter of 2024 compared to 1.2 million tonnes for the third quarter of 2023, while the Company recorded an average realised selling price of $67.8 per tonne for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $85.6 per tonne for the third quarter of 2023. The decrease in the average realised selling price was mainly due to changes in the Company's product mix and decreased pricing for processed coal.Build-Operate-Transfer Agreement- On July 15, 2024, the Company's wholly-owned Mongolian subsidiary, Southgobi Sands LLC ("SGS"), entered into a Build-Operate-Transfer agreement (the "BOT Agreement") with Tangshan Shenzhou Manufacturing Group Co., Ltd ("Tangshan"), pursuant to which Tangshan will be responsible for the construction, operation, and quality management of a new dry coal separation system, including key machinery (collectively, the "Dry Coal Separation System") at the Company's Ovoot Tolgoi Mine in Mongolia, which will be a stand-alone plant separate from the Company's existing dry processing plant. Tangshan will also be responsible for the construction of all related facilities for the Dry Coal Separation System. Under the BOT Agreement, SGS has the right to supervise and manage the overall work of coal quality assurance and operation, including, but not limited to, the supervision and management of operational safety, production planning, and operations management.The total consideration payable by the Company over the term of the BOT Agreement is approximately $10.9 million, together with certain additional processing volume-based fees. Subject to the terms as set out therein, the BOT Agreement is effective from July 15, 2024 until October 1, 2029.Financial Results- The Company recorded a $27.7 million profit from operations for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $46.3 million profit from operations for the third quarter of 2023. The decrease was mainly due to changes in the Company's product mix and decreased pricing for processed coal.Additional Tax and Tax Penalty Imposed by the Mongolian Tax Authority ("MTA") -On July 18, 2023, SGS received an official notice (the "Notice") issued by the MTA stating that the MTA had completed a periodic tax audit (the "Audit") on the financial information of SGS for the tax assessment years between 2017 and 2020, including transfer pricing, royalty, air-pollution fee and unpaid tax payables. As a result of the Audit, the MTA notified SGS that it is imposing a tax penalty against SGS in the amount of approximately $75.0 million. The penalty mainly relates to the different view on the interpretation of tax law between the Company and the MTA. Under Mongolian law, the Company had a period of 30 days from the date of receipt of the Notice to file an appeal in relation to the Audit. Subsequently the Company engaged an independent tax consultant in Mongolia to provide tax advice and support to the Company and filed an appeal letter in relation to the Audit with the MTA in accordance with Mongolian laws on August 17, 2023.On February 8, 2024, SGS received notice from the Tax Dispute Resolution Council ("TDRC") which stated that, after the TDRC's review, the TDRC issued a decision in relation to SGS' appeal of the Audit, and ordered that the audit assessments set forth in the Notice of July 18, 2023 be sent back to the MTA for review and re-assessment.On February 22, 2024, SGS received another notice from the MTA stating that the MTA anticipated commencing the re-assessment process on or about March 7, 2024 and the duration of such process will be approximately 45 working days.On May 15, 2024, SGS received a notice (the "Revised Notice") from the MTA regarding the re-assessment result on the Audit. The re-assessed amount of the tax penalty is approximately $80.0 million (the "Re-assessment Result"). In accordance with applicable Mongolian laws, SGS is entitled to file an appeal to the TDRC regarding the Re-assessment Result within a 30-day period from the date of receiving the Revised Notice.On June 12, 2024, following consultation with its independent tax consultant in Mongolia, SGS submitted an appeal letter to the TDRC regarding the Re-assessment Result on the Audit, in accordance with applicable Mongolian laws.As at September 30, 2024, the Company recorded an additional tax and tax penalty in the amount of $85.1 million, which consists of a tax penalty payable of $75.0 million and a provision of additional late tax penalty of $10.1 million. To date, the Company has paid the MTA an aggregate of $1.7 million in relation to the aforementioned tax penalty. According to Mongolian tax law, the MTA has the legal authority to demand payment from the Company irrespective of any potential appeal process that may change the aforesaid tax penalty. Based on the advice from tax professionals and the best estimate of Company management, in the event that the Company's appeal is successful in future, it is probable that the Company may recover approximately $46.0 million which represents a portion of the tax penalty payable to the MTA. However, th
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Providing access to a selection of ready-made chef-inspired meals for TSMC and TaiPower employeesNEW YORK, NY and TAIPEI, TAIWAN / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd. (OTC PINK:SUIC) SUIC's I.Hart has signed contracts with Taiwan TSMC and Taiwan Power Company to cater employee meals. I.Hart pursues and forges more strategic partnerships with U.S. restaurant professional consultants and restaurant suppliers to launch diverse cuisines and chef-inspired food lines and comprehensive restaurant supply lines nationwide.Taiwan TSMC - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company LimitedTSMC created the semiconductor Dedicated IC Foundry business model when it was founded in 1987. In 2023, TSMC served 528 customers and manufactured 11,895 products for various applications covering a variety of end markets including high performance computing, smartphones, the Internet of Things (IoT), automotive, and digital consumer electronics. Annual capacity of the manufacturing facilities managed by TSMC and its subsidiaries exceeded 16 million 12-inch equivalent wafers in 2023. TSMC employs approximately 80,000 employees globally and operates manufacturing facilities in Taiwan, China, Japan, Singapore, Arizona USA, Washington USA, and Germany.Visit their website at https://www.tsmc.com/english/aboutTSMC TaiPower - The Taiwan Power Company (TPC)TaiPower is a state-owned electric power industry providing electricity to Taiwan and its off-shore islands. Taipower operates both of Taiwan's active nuclear power plants. It also operates coal power plants, but these are planned to be shut down in favor of natural gas turbines. TaiPower employs about 30,000 employees nationwide. Visit their website at https://www.taipower.com.tw/ "SUIC is the biggest investor, shareholder and major operating partner of Beneway USA. We are very pleased for our distinguished partner I.Hart Group to have reached agreements with Taiwan TSMC and TaiPower as we focus our forces on unlocking our ultimate value, revolutionizing contract catering services, and sustaining our recent momentum. Our digital consumption model for employees promotes health and wellness as they gain access to nutritious and diverse cuisines. At the same time, TSMC and TaiPower benefit from this practical solution for maximizing their workspace and multiplying employee satisfaction," said Hank Wang, CEO.About SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd., USASUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd. provides research and development, venture financing for and investing in private enterprises and the public sector that develop products and services adopting core capabilities of the Internet of Things, cloud computing, mobile payment, Big Data, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence, to enhance and streamline existing processes, and establish new and exciting business models that will create revolutionary products and services. Shareholders of SUIC will be exposed to the diverse application of advanced services in various parts of the economy. Additionally, existing and potential customers can benefit from this company's diversified portfolio of technologies. As one of the pioneering publicly traded technology companies, SUIC will help build tech-enabled businesses of the future. To learn more, please visit www.sinounitedco.com Forward-Looking StatementThis press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "ongoing," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "will," "would," or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. However, not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at which such performance or results are achieved. This press release is considered considering all Company filings contained in the Edgar Archives of the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov ContactSUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd.New Release Department929-391-2550SOURCE: SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd.
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ESTES PARK, CO / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Taranis Resources Inc. ("Taranis" or the "Company") ( TSX.V:TRO)(OTCQB:TNREF) announces that it has closed the private placement announced on October 29, 2024 which consisted of the sale of 454,546 flow-through units (the "FT Units") at a price of $0.55 per FT Unit for gross proceeds of $250,000. Each FT Unit consisted of one flow-through common share and one share purchase warrant (each a "Warrant"), with each Warrant entitling the holder to purchase one additional common share at a price of $0.50 until November 13, 2026. All of the securities issued pursuant to this private placement, including any shares that may be issued pursuant to the exercises of the Warrants, are subject to a hold period in Canada until March 14, 2025.Insiders subscribed for all of the FT Units. The participation of insiders in the private placement constituted a related party transaction within the meaning of TSX-V Policy 5.9 and Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - "Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions" ("MI 61-101"). Taranis relied on exemptions from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements provided for under sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(a) of MI 61-101 on the basis that the fair market value (as determined under MI 61-101) of insider participation in the private placement did not exceed 25% of Taranis's market capitalization.About Taranis and ThorTaranis Resources Inc. is a Canadian mineral exploration company. The Thor Project is in southeast British Columbia. Taranis has completed upwards of 250 drill holes, linking all previously known mines into a single, near-surface epithermal deposit that has been recently updated into an NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate (see Taranis News Release dated April 11, 2024). In the summer of 2024, Taranis initiated deep drilling aimed at finding the source of the 2km long epithermal deposit. This exploration uses modern geological models and state-of-the-art exploration tools including airborne magnetotellurics, magnetics and drill hole alteration geochemistry. The Company's exploration approach in the Silver Cup Mining District is that historic mines in the area are potentially underlain by comparatively large mineral deposits that do not outcrop at surface.Qualified PersonExploration activities at Thor were overseen by John Gardiner (P. Geo.), who is a Qualified Person under the meaning of Canadian National Instrument 43-101. John Gardiner is a principal of John J. Gardiner & Associates, LLC which operates in British Columbia under Firm Permit Number 1002256. Mr. Gardiner has reviewed and approved the comments contained within this News Release.For additional information on Taranis or its 100%-owned Thor project in British Columbia, visit www.taranisresources.com Taranis currently has 100,082,187 shares issued and outstanding (113,827,227 shares on a fully-diluted basis).TARANIS RESOURCES INC.Per: John J. Gardiner (P. Geo.), President and CEOFor further information contact:John J. Gardiner681 Conifer LaneEstes Park, Colorado 80517Phone: (303) 716-5922 Cell: (720) 209-3049johnjgardiner@ earthlink.net 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.This News Release may contain forward looking statements based on assumptions and judgments of management regarding future events or results that may prove to be inaccurate as a result of factors beyond its control, and actual results may differ materially from expected results.SOURCE: Taranis Resources, Inc.
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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 13, 2024 / Leading securities law firmBleichmar Fonti & Auld LLPannounces that a lawsuit has been filed against The Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE:TD) and certain of the Company's senior executives for potential violations of the federal securities laws.If you invested in TD Bank, you are encouraged to obtain additional information by visiting https://www.bfalaw.com/cases-investigations/the-toronto-dominion-bank Investors have until December 23, 2024 to ask the Court to be appointed to lead the case. The complaint asserts claims under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 on behalf of investors in TD Bank securities. The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and is captioned Tiessen v. The Toronto-Dominion Bank., et al., No. 24-cv-08032.What is the Lawsuit About?TD Bank is the 10th largest bank in the United States. The complaint alleges that TD Bank made materially false and misleading statements about the scope of its anti-money laundering program.On October 10, 2024, TD Bank pleaded guilty to criminal money-laundering-related charges and agreed to pay more than $3 billion in fines to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Reserve, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The Comptroller of the Currency also imposed an "asset cap" that prevents TD Bank from growing any larger than its current size.The news caused a significant decline in the price of TD Bank stock. On October 10, 2024, the price of the company's stock fell 6.4%, from a closing price of $63.51 per share on October 9, 2024, to $59.44 per share on October 10, 2024.Click here if you suffered losses: https://www.bfalaw.com/cases-investigations/the-toronto-dominion-bank What Can You Do?If you invested in TD Bank you may have legal options and are encouraged to submit your information to the firm.All representation is on a contingency fee basis, there is no cost to you. Shareholders are not responsible for any court costs or expenses of litigation. The firm will seek court approval for any potential fees and expenses.Submit your information by visiting:Or contact:Ross Shikowitz ross@ bfalaw.com 212-789-3619Why Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP?Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP is a leading international law firm representing plaintiffs in securities class actions and shareholder litigation. It was named among the Top 5 plaintiff law firms by ISS SCAS in 2023 and its attorneys have been named Titans of the Plaintiffs' Bar by Law360 and Super Lawyers 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
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36% of U.S. Rentals Now Managed by ProsAUSTIN, TX / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / The groundbreaking 2024 report, "The Property Management Trends Report: The shift toward professional management in SFR", details key insights into the residential property management industry, revealing a huge increase in the number of properties managed by professional third-party property managers across the United States. This shift, from 30% of properties in 2017 to 36% in 2024, reflects not only an increase of 1.3 million properties under professional management but also a broader trend of investors turning to property management solutions to navigate a complex and evolving real estate landscape.The research was designed and fielded by The Harris Poll in 2017 to gain insight into the industry shifts that have occurred since the last known census of self-managing landlords. It was also fielded by The Harris Poll under the title "The Iceberg Report: An Analysis of the American Single-Family Residential Investment Industry," sponsored by Real Trends and NEXZUS Publishing."The Property Management Trends Report: The shift toward professional management in SFR" was sponsored by LeadSimple and Peter Lohmann's Newsletter and co-authored by Jordan Muela, CEO of LeadSimple, Peter Lohmann, CEO of RL Property Management, Jay Parsons, head of investment strategy and research at Madera Residential and Rob Hahn, managing partner at 7DS Associates."Investors today face more than just property upkeep; they're navigating a landscape where regulatory, economic and market dynamics are in constant flux. This report highlights the clear, data-backed advantage of investors working with property management partners who bring stability and efficiency," observed Parsons.Hahn added, "This study is an important contribution to the field of property management, which may be changing more rapidly in the years ahead. The data should help inform both investors and property managers about what is truly important and what is not. Our study shows that the human elements - experience and reputation - are most important." Key Findings: Property Managers Increasingly Valued by Real Estate InvestorsSurveying over 750 residential real estate investors, this report reveals how regulatory shifts, economic uncertainty and maintenance demands have contributed to the rise in professional management. The findings indicate that investors increasingly view professional property managers as essential partners in maintaining profitability, meeting compliance requirements and reducing legal risks. Two-thirds of investors report having used a third-party property manager, with many citing benefits like streamlined tenant relations, efficient maintenance handling and improved rent collection.According to the report, the value property managers bring goes beyond operational efficiency. "Property managers do more than simply collect rent; they're partners in enhancing the performance of the assets they manage," said Muela. "Our findings show that property management professionals are instrumental in driving property performance, especially as investor priorities shift toward increasing profit margins and mitigating risks." Investors Report Positive Experiences with Property ManagementSatisfaction levels are noticeably high among investors currently working with professional property managers, with an average Net Promoter Score (NPS) of +39, a favorable score by industry standards and the first-ever industry NPS benchmark. Additionally, property managers are viewed as effective in handling daily challenges, such as maintenance and tenant communications, with around 85% of investors stating that property managers ease the burden of property ownership. Nearly half (45%) of investors indicated that they would recommend their property managers to others, noting that property managers make rental property investments more manageable and help protect owners from costly risks.Perceived Value of Professional Property Management Drives Increased AdoptionDespite the cost and a desire for control being the primary reasons some investors have hesitated to hire a property manager, the 2024 report suggests that those who do work with property managers feel the investment is worthwhile. Nearly 75% of investors using property managers think they bring value that justifies their fees, and 71% report an increase in overall profitability. Property managers are seen as valuable allies in dealing with regulatory compliance and tenant challenges, enabling investors to focus on expanding their portfolios and enhancing their properties.Looking Ahead: Industry Trends and Investor Priorities for 2025As investors look toward 2025, priorities include increasing profit margins, upgrading property facilities and expanding portfolios - goals for which property managers are well-suited to provide support. The report notes that property managers help investors meet these objectives by keeping operational costs down and maintaining compliance amid evolving regulations, particularly critical given the anticipated volatility of the real estate market over the next decade.To register for a webinar featuring detailed data and implications for the property management and multi-family residential real estate industries told by the study's co-authors and sponsors, visit www.leadsimple.com/pm-trends-report ###About Jordan MuelaJordan Muela is the CEO of LeadSimple, the leading property management operations system focused on driving revenue and streamlining operations for property managers. Jordan has started five ventures in the single-family residential space and provides thought leadership via his podcast. You can learn more about Jordan here: https://www.profitablepropertymanagement.com/ About Peter LohmannPeter is the CEO & principal broker of RL Property Management, a residential property management company located in Columbus Ohio. RL Property Management manages over 650 units. Peter is a property management industry expert and thought leader, contributing with his podcast and weekly property management newsletter. You can learn more about Peter here: http://peterlohmann.com About Jay ParsonsJay Parsons is a rental housing economist, consultant and speaker. He has advised numerous multifamily and single-family rental housing stakeholders - from institutional investors, REITs, owner-operators, regional investment groups, lenders, regulators and government agencies.Currently, he serves as principal, head of investment strategy and research at Madera Residential, a multifamily owner/operator with 11,000+ units, and as a partner with WayMaker multifamily investment group. Previously, Jay was the
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal has met with a mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday.

"We have successfully completed the Fifth Review of the EFF [Extended Fund Facility] program at the end of October. We have fulfilled all structural beacons for the Sixth Review. Based on the results of the current mission, we expect to receive the next tranche of $1.1 billion at the end of December," he said on the Telegram channel following the meeting.

The Prime Minister pointed out that at the meeting they discussed further implementation of the reforms stipulated by the memorandum of cooperation with the IMF and Ukraine's progress, which is highly assessed by the Fund.

The parties also touched on macro-financial issues and Ukraine's needs for external financing.

"The government has prepared the draft state budget for the second reading. We understand how we will finance key expenditures. There is reliable support from the IMF, the World Bank, the USA and the EU through the Ukraine Facility program, financing through the ERA instrument," Shmyhal said.
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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 / Wi2Wi Corporation (TSXV:YTY)(OTC PINK:ISEYF) ("Wi2Wi" or the "Company") announces a non-brokered private placement of up to 12,000,000 Units of the Company (the "Units") at a price of $0.05 per Unit, for aggregate proceeds of up to $600,000 (the "Offering").Each Unit will be comprised of one common share (a "Share") and one-half of one common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant"). Each whole Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one additional Share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.10 for a period of two years from closing of the Offering, subject to an acceleration clauseIf, at any time prior to the expiry date of the Warrants, the closing price of the Common Shares on the TSX Venture Exchange is equal to or greater than $0.10 for any 10 consecutive trading days, then the Company may, at its option, accelerate the expiry date of the Warrants by issuing a press release announcing that the expiry date of the Warrants shall be deemed to be on the 30th day following the issuance of the Warrant acceleration press release. All Warrants that remain unexercised following the accelerated expiry date shall immediately expire and all rights of holders of such Warrants shall be terminated without any compensation to such holder.Closing of the Offering is subject to a number of conditions, including receipt of all necessary corporate and regulatory approvals, including the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"). All Shares issued in connection with the Offering will be subject to a statutory hold period of four months plus a day from the date of issuance in accordance with the policies of Exchange and applicable securities legislation.The Company plans to use the net proceeds of the Offering for general working capital and corporate purposes.This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described in this news release in the United States. Such 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, accordingly, may not be offered or sold within the United States, or to or for the account or benefit of persons in the United States or "U.S. Persons", as such term is defined in Regulation S promulgated under the U.S. Securities Act, unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or pursuant to an exemption from such registration requirements.About Wi2Wi CorporationWi2Wi is a specialized electronic component supplier with expertise in all aspects of frequency control devices as well as in wireless technologies. Wi2Wi's Precision Devices brand of products has earned a premier spot in numerous key markets including avionics, aerospace, industrial equipment, government, and the US military. Wi2Wi's frequency control products are best-in-class and of the highest quality.Founded in 2005, Wi2Wi's headquarters, design center and state-of-the-art manufacturing facility are located in the heart of America's industrial belt in Middleton, WI. Wi2Wi can deliver specific solutions using its in-house design and manufacturing expertise, as well as leveraging many tier-1 global partnerships with numerous industry leading silicon and wireless technology suppliers.Wi2Wi has partnered with best-in-class sales leaders. The company uses a global network of manufacturer's representatives to promote its products and services, and has partnered with world class distributors for the fulfillment of orders all of which augment a US-based direct sales team.Wi2Wi is extremely proud to serve hundreds of the world's top companies with its made-in-America products.Investor & Media ContactTed Clark, Chief Executive Office+1-469-545-3423 ted_c@ wi2wi.com Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including management's assessment of future plans and operations, and the timing thereof, that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the Company's control. Such risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, risks associated with the ability to access sufficient capital, the impact of general economic conditions in Canada, the United States and overseas, industry conditions, stock market volatility. The Company's actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements and, accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what benefits, including the amount of proceeds, that the Company will derive there from. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. Additional information on these and other factors that could affect the Company's operations and financial results are included in reports on file with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and may be accessed through the SEDAR website ( www.sedar.com) . Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date the statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements and if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable law. All subsequent forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. Furthermore, the forward- looking statements contained in this news release are made as at the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities laws.Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.SOURCE: Wi2Wi Corp.
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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 14, 2024 /Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP ("Wolf Haldenstein"), a preeminent national shareholder rights litigation firm, announces that it is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Seaboard Corp. (NYSE American:SEB) ("Seaboard" or the "Company").The investigation concerns whether Seaboard Corp. and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud.PLEASE CLICK HERE TO PROVIDE YOUR CONTACT INFORMATIONSeaboard and its subsidiaries are a diversified group of companies that operate worldwide in agricultural and ocean transport businesses. Seaboard is primarily engaged in hog production and pork processing in the U.S.; commodity trading and grain processing in Africa and South America; cargo shipping services in the U.S., Caribbean and Central and South America, sugar, and alcohol production in Argentina; and electric power generation in the Dominican Republic.On October 29, 2024, the Company disclosed a net loss of $149 million, equating to a loss of $153.44 per share. Seaboard reported total revenue of $2.2 billion for the quarter. The loss reflects challenges in the pork sector, which include high input costs and fluctuations in pork prices.Months earlier, on August 1, 2024, the Company agreed to settle two lawsuits regarding its involvement in a price-fixing conspiracy with other pork producers. The settlements, totaling nearly $15 million, address claims that date back to 2009.Wolf Haldenstein has experience in the prosecution of securities class actions and derivative litigation in state and federal trial and appellate courts across the country. The firm has attorneys in various practice areas, and offices in New York, Chicago, Nashville and San Diego. The reputation and expertise of this firm in shareholder and other class litigation has been repeatedly lauded by the courts, which have appointed it to major positions in complex securities, multi-district and consolidated litigation.If you wish to discuss this investigation or have any questions regarding your rights and interests, please immediately contact Wolf Haldenstein by telephone at (800) 575-0735 or via e-mail at classmember@ whafh.com Contact:Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLPGregory Stone, Director of Case and Financial AnalysisEmail: gstone@ whafh.com or classmember@ whafh.com Tel: (800) 575-0735 or (212) 545-4774This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.SOURCE: Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP
Less than a quarter of Ukrainians are in favor of stopping the war on the current front line, while almost three quarters insist on the need to return all Ukrainian territory, according to the results of the all-Ukrainian sociological survey conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI) from September 27 to October 1, 2024.

In particular, 8% of respondents fully agree with the statement that the war should stop at the current front line, while 16% of respondents rather agree. Some 47% of respondents fully agree with the statement that the authorities should take back all lands "within the borders of 1991," and another 24% rather agree with this.

More than half of Ukrainians also expressed support for the military operation in Kursk region. Some 33% said they regard the decision to introduce Ukrainian troops into Kursk region absolutely positively, 27%  rather positively, 8%  absolutely negatively, 10%  rather negatively, 19%  neutrally.

The majority of respondents (52%) also absolutely agree with the statement that Ukraine should join NATO. Another 20% rather agree with this thesis. Some 14% believe that Ukraine should maintain a neutral status, 11% are inclined to this opinion.

The survey was conducted among 2,000 adult residents of Ukrainian government-controlled regions by computer-assisted telephone interviews based on a random sample of mobile numbers (CATI). Survey data were weighted by region (region and type of settlement, except for Vinnytsia, Volyn, Luhansk, Rivne and Khmelnytsky regions, where only the region of residence was used) and age using data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine as of January 1, 2022.

The error of representativeness of the study with a confidence level of 0.95 does not exceed 2.2%. Coefficient of respondents' reach is 7%.
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrsky, reported on the situation at the front, in particular, on the enemy's attempts to expand offensive actions, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Commander-in-Chief Syrsky delivered a report: the frontline, and most attention is focused on the Donetsk region. As well as the occupier's attempts to expand their offensive, especially in the Kupyansk direction; I am grateful to all our units for their resilience, Zelenskyy said in his evening video address on Wednesday.
Photo: acebook.com/RedCrossUkraine

The Ukrainian Red Cross Society (URCS) is implementing more than 80 humanitarian projects and programs for the population, said Maksym Dotsenko, Director General of the organization.

"Today, the Ukrainian Red Cross is implementing more than 80 humanitarian projects and programs for the population ... The full-scale invasion was a test for the whole of Ukraine and a turning point for our organization, forcing us to expand our capabilities and adapt to new realities. We have not just withstood the onslaught of the war, we have become even stronger, more united and more determined in our desire to help. Today, the Ukrainian Red Cross is a powerful force capable of changing the world for the better, bringing help and support to those in need, building a solid foundation for the future of Ukraine," Dotsenko said at the V National Forum of Organizational Development.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, new areas of activity have appeared in the URCS, such as the restoration of critical and social infrastructure, mobile medical teams, physical and mental rehabilitation, mine awareness, psychosocial support for the population, and emergency response. Nearly 200 centers across the country provide support for internally displaced persons, people with disabilities, large families and children without parental care.

As URCS reported on Facebook on Wednesday, representatives of regional and local organizations of the Ukrainian Red Cross are among the delegates of the forum. Over the course of three days, the forum participants will exchange experiences, share strategic plans for 2025-2030, and the main trends in the development of local organizations.
Photo: https://eurosolidarity.org/2024

The European Solidarity party has announced that it will not support the 2025 state budget in its current form, as submitted by the government for the second reading. Instead, the party advocates reallocating nearly UAH 257 billion toward Ukraine's Armed Forces rather than spending it on what it views as ineffective expenditures, according to a statement on the party's website.

"Out of these funds, UAH 236 billion should be directed towards development, procurement, and repairs of military equipment, as well as technology investments. The remaining 21 billion UAH should stay with military units to enable swift, corruption-free purchases of FPVs, electronic warfare equipment, ammunition, logistics, spare parts, tires, and other essentials. Unfortunately, the government ignored all these proposals," said European Solidarity leader and MP Petro Poroshenko.

Poroshenko also noted that the 2025 budget proposal maintains or increases spending on road construction, and salaries for prosecutors, judges, and law enforcement officials. "If you compare the first and second readings, the increase for the Ministry of Defense is only UAH 700 million, which is negligible. This reinforces the notion that spending on the Armed Forces and national defense is not a true priority," he said.

Poroshenko warned that passing the budget in its current form would "undermine our chances of victory," adding, "We will do everything within our power to prevent this."
'College Success Award' recognizes high schools that excel at helping students enroll and succeed in college

OAKLAND, Calif., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, 1,436 high schools in 19 states1 have a new reason to celebrate their efforts to ensure their students are ready for higher education and future careers. The nonprofit GreatSchools announced the recipients of its 2024 College Success Award , which honors public high schools that excel at preparing students to enroll and succeed in college. College readiness is crucial for high school students' future success as companies still overwhelmingly hire candidates with a college degree.

Now in its sixth year, this data-driven award offers a snapshot of how well a high school prepares students to enroll in college, succeed with college-level coursework, and persist into their second year. State education agencies in these 19 states provided the necessary high school and postsecondary data to determine the winners and help communities understand how local schools are preparing students for college.

Schools in 7 of the 19 states  Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and Missouri  have been recognized with College Success Awards since the award began because of their states' transparent data policies that make college enrollment, performance, and persistence information publicly available. New York high schools became eligible for the award for the first time this year.

In the wake of the pandemic, recent GreatSchools research found that parents' current educational priorities reflect an emphasis on both academic rigor and mental health and well-being. In particular, high school parents seeking new learning opportunities for their children emphasized the importance of academic preparation for college and tailored educational experiences as top priorities.

"Even as so much has changed around education over the last few years, one thing has remained the same: parents want their children to have diverse learning opportunities that will prepare them for life after graduation," said GreatSchools CEO Jon Deane. "The College Success Award offers families a unique way to identify schools that prioritize rigorous academics and college preparation."

College Success Award winners employ myriad policies and practices to help ensure their students will be successful after college. For example, in Kentucky, which has participated in the College Success Award since its inception, many high schools offer pathway programs that combine academics with exposure to careers in specific fields.

"We want to provide vibrant learning experiences for all our students  which means we are 'all in' when it comes to making sure every student is equipped to succeed after high school," said Commissioner Robbie Fletcher, Ed.D., of the Kentucky Department of Education. "For many, that means pursuing a postsecondary education. Our College Success Award-winning schools are models of excellence both within the Commonwealth and across the nation  underscoring our commitment to keeping students at the forefront of what we do each day."

In addition to building demand for greater data transparency, the College Success Award serves as a repository of excellence in high school education from which GreatSchools has identified best practices , conducted research , and shared stories from principals, parents, and teachers at schools doing an exceptional job of serving students from low-income families.

Explore the College Success Award methodology and browse the full list of winners at https://www.greatschools.org/gk/college-success-awards/ .

About GreatSchools

GreatSchools is the leading nonprofit providing high-quality information that supports parents pursuing a great education for their child, schools striving for excellence, and communities working to diminish inequities in education. We are the only national organization that collects and analyzes data from all 51 state departments of education and the federal government to provide analysis, insights, and school quality ratings for parents, partners, researchers, and policymakers. Over 49 million users visit GreatSchools' award-winning website annually to learn about schools in their area, explore research insights, and access thousands of free, evidence-based parenting resources to support their child's learning and well-being. Learn more at GreatSchools.org and join us on LinkedIn , X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook .

1 Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Washington

SOURCE GreatSchools.org
PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ALS United Mid-Atlantic will host the 2024 Philadelphia ALS United Walk Presented by Clemens Food Group, Parent Company of Hatfield Meats on Saturday, November 16, at Citizens Bank Park. From 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM, hundreds will come together to show their love and support for families impacted by ALS. There is no cost to join the ALS United Walk, but online registration is encouraged at www.PhiladelphiaALSUnitedWalk.org.

The ALS United Walk is a powerful event that joins families, friends, colleagues, caregivers, and advocates who support the fight to end ALS. It is an amazing experience to witness this massive coalition of vibrant, caring people who share compassion and fellowship with individuals and families who live with ALS or have lost a loved one to this devastating disease.

Once thought rare, but now considered common, ALS is a cruel and still incurable disease that robs people of their ability to move, eat, and breathe on their own. ALS not only impacts health, but also quality of life, and often financial security. ALS United Mid-Atlantic exists to ensure that anyone facing ALS has someone to turn to for expert advice, essential equipment and support, community, caring conversations, and so much more.

"The Philadelphia ALS community has gathered at Citizens Bank Park every fall since 2008," said ALS United Mid-Atlantic's Director of Community Engagement, Kerry Braun. "Thanks to the dedication of the Philadelphia community, this Walk has raised over $7.9 million in the last 15 years. The ALS United Walk supports ALS Treatment Centers, provide vital homecare visits, medical equipment loans, van transportation, and resource groups for people with ALS and their families throughout Eastern and Central Pennsylvania."

The Philadelphia ALS United Walk Presented by Clemens Food Group, Parent Company of Hatfield Meats will start at 9:00 AM on Saturday, November 16, 2024. The Awards Presentation and photo opportunities will start at 10:40 AM outside the Left Field Gate at Citizens Bank Park. Fundraising for the ALS United Walk will run through December 31, 2024.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Lexi Brace

267-468-7019

[email protected]

About ALS United Mid-Atlantic:

Since 1977, ALS United Mid-Atlantic has worked to improve the quality of life for families impacted by ALS by investing in quality care programs, empowering patients through advocacy, and promoting groundbreaking research towards new treatments and a cure.

ALS United Mid-Atlantic serves more than 1,200 people each year and covers a service area that encompasses eastern and central Pennsylvania, southern and central New Jersey, and all of Delaware.

For more information about ALS United Mid-Atlantic, visit www.alsmidatlantic.org or follow us on social media @alsmidatlantic.

SOURCE ALS United Mid-Atlantic
ROANOKE, Va., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In a major step toward securing Virginia's reliable energy future, Appalachian Power announces plans to bring Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) to Virginia. Appalachian Power representatives identified a potential site for an SMR project on company-owned Joshua Falls property in Campbell County, Virginia, and plan to begin the Early Site Permit Application process. This site provides access to existing electrical infrastructure that is necessary for a generation project. The site includes a 765 kilovolt substation and nearby roadways can support moving the necessary equipment onsite.

This is a significant milestone in the company's efforts to provide reliable and clean energy to its customers. SMR technology offers tremendous potential to provide safe, reliable and clean energy 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The relatively small footprint allows SMRs to be constructed in areas that were not previously feasible for nuclear energy generation. SMR sites can also be scaled to match the energy needs of the state. A single SMR can generate up to 500 megawatts (MW) of clean energy.

"SMR technology is a key component to providing perfect power to our customers. Appalachian Power and AEP are committed to working with our states to develop energy solutions that align with state policy goals and reliably serve our customers," said Bill Fehrman, AEP president and chief executive officer.

"Advanced nuclear power is at the heart of Virginia's All-American, All-of-the Above Energy Plan; a plan that prioritizes abundant, reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean power to fuel our thriving and growing economy. I am grateful that Appalachian Power is taking this next step to support Virginia's nuclear future," said Governor Glenn Youngkin.

"Appalachian Power is committed to generating clean, always-on power to meet Virginia's future demand. We are grateful to the Virginia General Assembly and Governor Youngkin for embracing SMR technology  this announcement would not have been possible without their forward-thinking support," said Aaron Walker, Appalachian Power president and chief operating officer.

The company plans to file an application with the Virginia State Corporation Commission in spring 2025. In addition, Appalachian Power plans to apply for part of the U.S. Department of Energy's $900 million grant program to accelerate the deployment of SMRs and help reduce customer costs.

Appalachian Power will work closely with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, state and local agencies and other stakeholders to educate the community about the benefits of SMRs while gathering feedback.

A community open house will be hosted on Thursday, December 5, 2024, from 5 - 7 p.m. at the Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance where experts and company representatives will be available to answer questions about the project. There is no formal presentation, so attendees may come and go any time during the 2-hour event to talk to project representatives and learn about the future of SMRs.

Residents who cannot attend the open house or want to learn more in advance of the public meeting can visit the project website at AppalachianPower.com/SMR.

Appalachian Power has 1.1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee (as AEP Appalachian Power). It is part of American Electric Power, a team committed to improving our customers' lives with reliable, affordable power. AEP is investing $54 billion from 2025 through 2029 to enhance service for customers and support the growing energy needs of our communities. Our nearly 16,000 employees operate and maintain the nation's largest electric transmission system with 40,000 line miles, along with more than 225,000 miles of distribution lines to deliver energy to 5.6 million customers in 11 states. AEP also is one of the nation's largest electricity producers with approximately 29,000 megawatts of diverse generating capacity, including 2.3 gigawatts of nuclear. We are focused on safety and operational excellence, creating value for our stakeholders and bringing opportunity to our service territory through economic development and community engagement.

SOURCE Appalachian Power
Epson Supports Two New Art Installations with Short Throw Laser Projectors That Highlight the Evolution of Local Habitats, Landscapes and Species

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County has restored and reopened a diorama hall that has been closed for decades at NHM in Exposition Park. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the diorama halls, the museum invited contemporary artists to submit proposals for a new exhibit, Reframing Dioramas: The Art of Preserving Wilderness, that re-envisions presentation of context in dioramas. Two out of the three proposals chosen  "The Ever-Changing Flow: A Multimedia Diorama" by artist Lauren Schoth and "Special Species  A Delicate Moment in Time" by artists Jason Chang (RFX1), Joel Fernando and Yesenia Prieto  include video elements. Passionate about sustainability and committed to protecting the environment, Epson worked with the artists and exhibition teams, providing PowerLite laser projectors to help light up their immersive scenes that highlight the evolution of local habitats, landscapes and species.

Epson Projectors Light Up Two Dioramas at The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Post this Two dioramas at The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County integrate Epson PowerLite laser projectors to highlight local habitats, landscapes and species.

"Dioramas have a unique power to spark curiosity, inspire wonder and foster exploration and discovery," said Amy Hood, director, communications, Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County. "We are overwhelmed by the talent that this diverse group of artists has brought to this exhibit and grateful to them for bringing in support from Epson, a large technology partner who is equally passionate about saving our planet and making an impact through art."

The Ever-Changing Flow: A Multimedia Diorama

Schoth played a crucial role in bringing in Epson for this project. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Schoth grew to have an appreciation for the city's historical landmarks and the forces that shaped its landscape. When learning of the museum's request for proposals that focus on rehabilitation and local habitats, she thought of the Los Angeles River. "With a better understanding of how colonialism and urbanization continue to impact us all today, I wanted to use this opportunity to shine a light on the past, present and future of this great city and how everyone in it is part of its significance," said Schoth. "I wanted to generate dialogue around issues such as habitat loss, climate change, urbanization, and conservation, by telling the story of the Los Angeles River."

After experimenting in projection mapping at Penn State University, Schoth started following online communities with likeminded visionaries. This led her to Sean Mason, chief creative officer at A3 Visual who oversees all projection installations. "The technical perspective of this project really drew me in and how it is changing the ways museums look at displays and dioramas," notes Mason. "Traditionally, low tech has been used in dioramas and I wanted to push the limits with this project. I had worked with Epson previously and knew with its extensive lineup of projectors, they'd be an ideal partner for this intricate display."

Mason worked with Epson to identify the best solutions, ultimately using three PowerLite 805F ultra short throw projectors to take visitors through five scenes showcasing the evolution of the biome. Aligning with Epson's environmental pursuit and core priority to support artists in sharing impactful stories, this was a perfect match for the Epson projector team. "We're not just providing illumination tools; we believe in the messages behind the artists' passion and drive to visualize their stories and make an impact," said Remi Del Mar, senior product manager, Epson America, Inc.

Special Species  A Delicate Moment in Time

After providing support to Schoth, she introduced the Epson team to artists RFX1, Fernando and Prieto who needed projection for "Special Species  A Delicate Moment in Time". A vibrant, multicolored mix of projection, changing lights and handcrafted, animated pinata alebrije (fantastical Mexican folk-art sculptures), this diorama takes viewers through a hypnotic journey underscoring the importance of environment, community preservation and connectedness. Fernando said, "Our goal was to mix traditional art form with more cutting-edge technology to connect with a wider audience, especially the younger generations. We wanted to raise awareness around the consequences and ripple effect of human actions."

Fernando worked closely with Epson to identify the ideal projectors for this installation that involved a tight, restricted space and a variety of challenging surfaces to be projected onto. The projectors also needed to be bright enough to combat light coming in from several spotlights. Pairing the PowerLite L630SU short throw laser projectors with advanced blending and mapping, Fernando was able to fill an ultra-wide curved background while projecting onto static alebrije sculptures, turning an otherwise still diorama into an ever evolving display that captures delicate moments in time. "Working with Epson far exceeded my expectations," said Fernando. "These projectors provided the perfect balance of technical power and ease-of-use allowing me to focus on the art rather than the technology." Amongst the traditional taxidermy displays in the newly restored diorama hall, the "Special Species  A Delicate Moment in Time" boldly pushes the boundaries of what dioramas can be through the union of technology and art.

"When asked to support this group of artists in their mission to raise awareness about California's unique species and the effects of disrupted ecosystems, we didn't hesitate to join," said Chris Teguh, product manager, Epson America, Inc. "Projection has the ability to blend seamlessly into different environments and transform any surface into a dynamic storytelling canvas. With projection, the only limit is imagination, and we are proud to offer technology that empowers artists to tell their stories in impactful ways."

Epson is committed to providing a wide range of versatile projectors to support diverse forms of artistic expression. Schoth used traditional projection to display a digital representation of the environmental changes in Los Angeles, while RFX1, Fernando and Prieto used projection to animate still sculptures and appeal to modern attention spans with highly dynamic imagery. These two completely different dioramas in the same exhibit, each with their own projection requirements, are testaments to how Epson projectors adapt and deliver across different environments.

About the Exhibit

The Natural History Museum in Exposition Park's historic diorama hall showcases more than 75 detailed habitats from artic tundra to tropical rainforest. The new exhibit is now open to the public and will run for a year. Visitors will experience immersive installations that call attention to dioramas as a unique combination of art and science that explores biodiversity, ecology, conservation, colonialism, and changing museum display techniques. For more information, visit https://nhm.org/pst-reframing-dioramas.

Reframing Dioramas is among more than 70 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. Returning in September 2024 with its latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, this landmark regional event explores the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit pst.art. This exhibition is one of two groundbreaking exhibitions hosted by NHMLAC, combining art and science for this year's PST ART event.

ABOUT PST ART: ART & SCIENCE COLLIDE

Southern California's landmark arts event, PST ART, returns in September 2024 with more than 70 exhibitions from museums and other institutions across the region, all exploring the intersections of art and science, both past and present. Dozens of cultural, scientific, and community organizations will join the latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, with exhibitions on subjects ranging from ancient cosmologies to Indigenous sci-fi, and from environmental justice to artificial intelligence. Art & Science Collide will share groundbreaking research, create indelible experiences for the public, and generate new ways of understanding our complex world. Art & Science Collide follows Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (September 2017January 2018), which presented a paradigm-shifting examination of Latin American and Latinx art, and Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 19451980 (October 2011March 2012), which rewrote the history of the birth and impact of the L.A. art scene. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit: pst.art.

About Epson Projectors

Epson projectors provide unmatched creative possibilities and unparalleled audience experiences. Using state-of-the-art technology to deliver exceptional color output and durability, Epson delivers comprehensive projector and display solutions that enhance communication, inspire collaboration and enable visionaries to create immersive experiences across a range of environments, including corporate and education spaces, exhibits and museums, and live events. For more information, visit www.epson.com/liveevents.

About Epson

Epson is a global technology leader whose philosophy of efficient, compact and precise innovation enriches lives and helps create a better world. The company is focused on solving societal issues through innovations in home and office printing, commercial and industrial printing, manufacturing, visual and lifestyle. Epson's goal is to become carbon negative and eliminate use of exhaustible underground resources such as oil and metal by 2050.

Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson Corporation, the worldwide Epson Group generates annual sales of more than JPY 1 trillion. global.epson.com/

Epson America, Inc., based in Los Alamitos, Calif., is Epson's regional headquarters for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. To learn more about Epson, please visit: epson.com. You may also connect with Epson America on Facebook (facebook.com/Epson), X (x.com/EpsonAmerica), YouTube (youtube.com/epsonamerica), and Instagram (instagram.com/EpsonAmerica).

EPSON and PowerLite are registered trademarks of Seiko Epson Corporation. All other product and brand names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Epson disclaims any and all rights in these marks. Copyright 2024 Epson America, Inc.

SOURCE Epson America, Inc.
New Expeditions to Eastern Canada and Bermuda

Imagery can be downloaded here.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Atlas Ocean Voyages, the leader in yacht expedition cruising, is thrilled to unveil its 2026 summer itinerary collection, featuring new expeditions across Canada, Bermuda, the Caribbean, and Europeincluding the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, Iceland, and Greenland. With 28 new ports of call, this season's expanded portfolio offers unparalleled experiences for returning and new guests. From Polar and Cultural Expeditions to Epicurean journeys, Atlas Ocean Voyages now provides a more diverse selection of immersive adventures than ever before.

Atlas Ocean Voyages' new summer expeditions feature an exciting range of ports, offering guests unique encounters and immersive experiences. In Brnnysund, Norway, marvel at sea eagles and seals in their natural habitat, while Warnemunde, Germany, combines scenic beaches with traditional maritime culture and easy access to Berlin. Sip robust wines in Cesme, Turkey, famed for centuries-old vineyards. St. Anthony and Red Bay in Canada showcase Viking history, while Iles de la Madeleine and Corner Brook highlight nature's beauty. Bermuda's St. George's and Hamilton add vibrant culture, rounding out a season of captivating destinations.

James Rodriguez, President and CEO, remarked, "We are excited to introduce 28 new ports to our destination portfolio. Our expanded team of experts and guides ensures a deeply immersive experience aboard every voyage. These additions will be popular with our past guests and likely to sell out quickly."

Enhanced Destination Experience with Late Departures and Overnights

Featuring over 70 extended evenings, leaving ports after 8 PM, allowing ample time to immerse in each destination's local culture, cuisine, and energy. Additionally, with more than 25 overnight stays, travelers have extended hours to explore, creating a relaxed and enriched journey.

NEW Expeditions Highlights

Picturesque Peaks & Fjords

14-NIGHT LONDON ROUNDTRIP | JUNE 1, 2026 | Cultural Expedition

Denmark & Sweden Beauties

10-NIGHT OSLO TO STOCKHOLM | JUNE 30, 2026 | Cultural Expedition

Sea of Antiquity

10-NIGHT ISTANBUL TO ROME | JULY 20, 2026 | Epicurean Expedition

Riviera Marvels

10-NIGHT ROME TO BARCELONA | JULY 30, 2026 | Epicurean Expedition

Pearls of Italy

7-NIGHT ROME TO DUBROVNIK | SEPTEMBER 8, 2026 | Epicurean Expedition

Greenland & Canada Explorer

11-NIGHT KANGERLUSSUAQ TO HALIFAX | SEPTEMBER 21, 2026 | Polar Expedition

Bermuda & Island Wonders

12-NIGHT HALIFAX TO PHILIPSBURG | OCTOBER 2, 2026 | Cultural Expedition

Colors of the Caribbean

7-NIGHT PHILIPSBURG TO BRIDGETOWN | OCTOBER 14, 2026 | Cultural Expedition

Explore with Atlas Ocean Voyages in 2026

Atlas Ocean Voyages' small luxury vessels provide an intimate yachting experience, with access to narrow waterways like London's River Thames and the iconic Grand Canal in Venice. Alongside an extensive lineup of cultural and polar expeditions, guests can expect exceptional onboard amenities, including pre-cruise hotel night stays, private charter jet service from New York or Oslo for Arctic expeditions, and complimentary perks such as a cultural immersion tour, the Polar Plunge, parkas, and eco-friendly water bottles. Secure your reservation now to experience these new expeditions before they sell out.

For information and reservations, call a travel advisor or 1.844.44.ATLAS or visit www.AtlasOceanVoyages.com. You can also follow Atlas on Facebook and Instagram: www.facebook.com/AtlasOceanVoyages or www.instagram.com/AtlasOceanVoyages.

About Atlas Ocean Voyages

Atlas Ocean Voyages is the yacht expedition brand of Mystic Invest Holding. Stylish and intimate expedition yachts, featuring less than 100 suites and staterooms offering five-star comfort, from luxurious accommodations and an all-inclusive onboard experience to in-depth excursions. Fares include a Cultural Immersion tour; open bars aboard the yacht, including craft beers, specialty coffees, and smoothies; L'OCCITANE bath amenities; an in-room coffee bar; prepaid gratuities; and complimentary emergency medical evacuation insurance. World Navigator was launched in 2021, World Traveller in 2022, and World Voyager joined the fleet in 2023.

SOURCE Atlas Ocean Voyages
NEW YORK, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR) announced that its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.88 per share. The dividend is payable on January 3, 2025 to stockholders of record at the close of business on December 13, 2024.

About Broadridge

Broadridge Financial Solutions (NYSE: BR), a global Fintech leader with over $6 billion in revenues, provides the critical infrastructure that powers investing, corporate governance and communications to enable better financial lives. We deliver technology-driven solutions to banks, broker-dealers, asset and wealth managers and public companies. Broadridge's infrastructure serves as a global communications hub enabling corporate governance by linking thousands of public companies and mutual funds to tens of millions of individual and institutional investors around the world. In addition, Broadridge's technology and operations platforms underpin the daily trading of on average more than U.S. $10 trillion of equities, fixed income and other securities globally. A certified Great Place to Work, Broadridge is a part of the S&P 500 Index, employing over 14,000 associates in 21 countries. For more information about Broadridge, please visit www.broadridge.com.

Contact Information

Investors

[email protected]

Media

[email protected]

SOURCE Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc.
Tripping on Life, written and performed by the Emmy Award-winning actress and writer, Lin Shaye, is an autobiographical one-woman show that takes viewers on an emotional journey through resilience, healing, and the profound moments that define personal growth. The production was lauded for its "heart, humor, and a gentle touch" by Talkin' Broadway. The show was played to sold out audiences as part of the 2023 Hollywood Fringe Festival at the Hudson Theatre, in Los Angeles, and was the recipient of the Hollywood Encore Producer's Award.

Tripping on Life went on to have a successful Off-Broadway run at Theatre Row in New York City. The show was executive produced by Robert Shaye and produced by Gina Rugolo Judd and Robert Galinsky. "Laughing, crying, and truth-telling with a room full of strangers, all of us remembering our own life changing moments of growth (was an) experience of a lifetime," recalls Shaye.

The Bench, written and performed by Robert Galinsky, is a critically acclaimed solo show that dives into the overlooked narratives of homelessness in urban America. The Off-Broadway run was directed by Jay O. Sanders, the "on the street" production was directed by Tyler Milliron, and the entire production Executive Produced by Terry Schnuck.

This Broadway on Demand production The Bench features a vibrant blend of scenes captured along NYC's East River and on stage, combining urban grit with Off-Broadway flair, seamlessly weaving together cinematic and live elements into a compelling experience. Galinsky's dynamic portrayal of multiple characters, inspired by real people and true stories, reveals an eye-opening tapestry of struggle, hope, and humanity. The New Haven Independent praises the shows' socially relevant content, exclaiming, "Galinsky's street dwellers speak in their own voices, and their voices ring true."

"The Bench is a crucial next chapter in understanding the roots of our societal challenges and collective history, exploring the lives of our unhoused neighbors, mental health, community dynamics, economic structures, and our shared future," says Galinsky. "It aims to continue the conversation about how we treat one another, fostering compassionate dialogue about the most vulnerable in our society. After successful runs Off-Broadway in New York and Los Angeles, I am thrilled to bring The Bench to Broadway on Demand's global audience."

Since its establishment in 2020, BOD has gained worldwide recognition, presenting thousands of live theatrical productions and a robust catalog of captures, including West End and Broadway hits Bandstand and Kinky Boots. The platform gained recognition for its original subscription service, Broadway Access, which featured more than 40 original series and 100 icons of Broadway, including Julie Taymor and Andre de Shields.

In 2021, BOD's original series Broadway Master Class received a Daytime Emmy nomination. By 2022, BOD led the industry by launching the first Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST) channel, reaching over 50 million homes. Broadway on Demand is the streaming imprint of Broadway Licensing Global.

Learn more at: broadwayondemand.com.

ABOUT BROADWAY LICENSING GLOBAL

Broadway on Demand is an Emmy Award nominated streaming platform, offering marquee theatrical content, interactive events, and original programming. BOD features hundreds of titles distributed through TVOD, SVOD and FAST programming models, and is an official imprint of Broadway Licensing Global.

MEDIA CONTACT

Public Relations at Interdependence | press@broadwaylicensing.com

SOURCE Broadway Licensing Global
DES MOINES, Iowa, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- BrokerTech Ventures (BTV), the first and largest broker-led insurtech innovation ecosystem, announces a strategic partnership with Instech.IE, an Ireland-based insurance innovation leader. This relationship continues BTV's mission to propel the insurance industry forward through collaboration and knowledge sharing, ultimately providing insurtech companies on both sides of the Atlantic with resources and support to access new markets, foster innovation, and drive growth.

Through this collaboration, Irish insurtechs aiming to enter the U.S. market will have access to BTV's network of industry experts and knowledge of the industry, while U.S.-based companies seeking European expansion will benefit from Instech.IE's established connections and insights within Ireland and Europe.

"We are thrilled to announce our relationship with Instech.IE. At BrokerTech Ventures, we're committed to advancing insurtech opportunities and innovation," said Dan Keough, Holmes Murphy Chairman & CEO and BrokerTech Ventures Co-Founder and Co-CEO. "Our relationship with Instech.IE creates a valuable pipeline for startups to reach new markets, allowing them to thrive and grow by tapping into the expertise and networks unique to each region. We believe that global collaboration will continue to spur insurtech innovation, helping us identify risks sooner and drive down costs faster."

In addition to providing startups a soft landing in both Europe and North America, the partnership will involve a platform for knowledge exchange, where BTV and Instech.IE will jointly share learnings, strategies, and innovation case studies relevant to both the U.S. and European insurance landscapes.

"This relationship with BrokerTech Ventures reflects our dedication to supporting Irish companies as they navigate global expansion," said Gary Leyden, Instech.IE CEO. "At the same time, we're excited to introduce U.S. insurtechs to the unique opportunities Ireland offers as a gateway to Europe. Together, we're not just opening doorswe're creating a pathway for sustained, impactful growth."

The partnership with Instech.IE strengthens the global reach of BTV as its third global relationship. BTV also has formal and informal relationships with Insurtech Israel and the LATAM Insurtech Accelerator, enabling a global pipeline of innovation.

About Instech.IE

InsTech.ie was founded on a clear mission; to position Ireland as a global centre for insurance innovation, where industry incumbents and start-ups can come together to collaborate and create the next generation of insurance solutions.

About BrokerTech Ventures

Based in the insurance nucleus of Des Moines, Iowa, BrokerTech Ventures (BTV) is the first broker-led convening platform and accelerator program focused on delivering innovation to the insurance broker industry. Founded in 2019, BTV provides a venue for the best minds in insurance and technology to collaborate and bring to market leading-edge ideas and solutions. BTV invests in the research and testing for each of the chosen startups, provides access to veteran industry mentors, and helps scale the technology to market through broker distribution channels. Learn more at www.brokertechventures.com, or follow us on Twitter (@BrokerTechVen), LinkedIn, or Facebook.

Contact: Emily Schultz

[email protected]

SOURCE BrokerTech Ventures
RICHMOND, Va., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Cabana, a modern mental health provider offering confidential, tech-enabled support, has partnered with the Virginia Department of Veterans Services (DVS) to provide free, comprehensive mental health resources to Virginia's veterans, Guard and Reserve members, as well as their spouses and caregivers. This collaboration expands access to Cabana's digital mental health services, including live peer support groups moderated by Virginia-certified Veteran Peer Specialists.

Cabanas digital mental health platform.

Originally developed through research and development initiatives with the U.S. Air Force, Cabana's services are designed to meet the unique needs of military and veteran communities. With this partnership, eligible Virginia users gain full access to Cabana's digital suite, which includes the full range of virtual, professionally facilitated groups offered by Cabana, as well as dedicated Virginia Veteran peer-led support groups. Participants can connect discreetly on topics such as transitioning to civilian life, managing family relationships, and coping with stress, all within a secure and confidential environment accessible from any device.

David Black, Founder and CEO of Cabana, underscored the mission behind the partnership: "We're honored to work with the Virginia Department of Veterans Services to offer a holistic mental health solution for Virginia's military-connected community. With Virginia-certified Veteran Peer Specialists and our full array of live support groups, we're providing a powerful, confidential resource that veterans and military families can rely on, whenever and wherever they need it."

Key Features of the Partnership:

Comprehensive Access to Support : Virginia veterans, Guard/Reserve members, and their families will have unrestricted access to all live virtual groups available through Cabana, in addition to specialized peer-led groups run by Virginia-certified Veteran Peer Specialists.

: Virginia veterans, Guard/Reserve members, and their families will have unrestricted access to all live virtual groups available through Cabana, in addition to specialized peer-led groups run by Virginia-certified Veteran Peer Specialists. Support for Families and Caregivers : The initiative includes spouses and caregivers, addressing the unique mental health needs of military-connected families through sessions tailored to issues like family dynamics, stress management, and the transition to civilian life.

: The initiative includes spouses and caregivers, addressing the unique mental health needs of military-connected families through sessions tailored to issues like family dynamics, stress management, and the transition to civilian life. Confidential and Flexible Access: Cabana's services are available on mobile and desktop devices, providing Virginia's veterans and their families with an easily accessible, cost-free solution for mental health support.

This collaboration highlights Cabana's commitment to supporting the mental well-being of those who serve and their families. By joining forces with the Virginia Department of Veterans Services, Cabana seeks to strengthen the resilience and wellness of Virginia's military community.

For more information on the partnership between Cabana and the Virginia Department of Veterans Services, please contact:

Nick Armstrong, Ph.D.

Head of Public Sector, Cabana

[email protected]

About Cabana

Cabana is a leading, modern mental health provider offering confidential, tech-enabled support solutions tailored to the needs of diverse communities. Through live, professionally moderated group sessions, evidence-based content, and adaptable wellness tools, Cabana helps individuals proactively manage their mental health. Our mission is clear: to make mental health care more accessible through technology and human connection.

About the Virginia Department of Veterans Services (DVS)

The Virginia Department of Veterans Services (DVS) is a state government agency with more than 50 locations across the Commonwealth of Virginia. DVS traces its history to 1928 and the establishment of the Virginia War Service Bureau to assist Virginia's World War I veterans. Today, DVS assists veterans and their families in filing claims for federal veterans benefits; provides veterans and family members with linkages to services including behavioral health, housing, employment, education, and other programs. The agency operates long-term care facilities offering in-patient skilled nursing care, dementia/memory care, and short-term rehabilitation for veterans; and provides an honored final resting place for veterans and their families at three state veterans cemeteries. It operates the Virginia War Memorial, the Commonwealth's tribute to Virginia's men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice from World War II to the present. For more information, please visit www.dvs.virginia.gov.

SOURCE Cabana
Russian invaders attacked Ukraine on Thursday night with 59 Shahed-type unmanned aerial vehicles and others of an unidentified type from Kursk region, according to the Telegram channel of the Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

"As of 08:30, it is confirmed that 21 enemy UAVs were shot down in Sumy, Kharkiv, Poltava and Kyiv regions. Thirty-eight enemy drones have been locally lost," the message says.
Strength of balance sheet, improved operating and underwriting performance, neutral business profile, enterprise risk management and sustained trend of profitability credited in ratings.

MONTEREY, Calif., Nov. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Capital Insurance Group (CIG) is pleased to share that its Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A (Excellent) has been affirmed, for the fifth consecutive year, by AM Best, the credit rating agency for the insurance industry. In addition, its Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating (ICR) has been upgraded to a+ (Superior). Both FSR and Long-Term ICR ratings have a stable outlook, recognizing the significant emphasis CIG has placed on mitigating risks and improving stability and profitability over the past five years.

Capital Insurance Group's office in Monterey, California.

"These ratings from AM Best are excellent outcomes for CIG, our independent agency partners, and policyholders. The upgrade reflects our continued, very strong balance sheet, adequate operating performance, neutral business profile, and appropriate enterprise risk management," said Andy Doll, President & CEO. "The scores are evidence of our continued strong partnerships, the outstanding efforts of CIG employees, and our collective commitment to being a valued carrier now and into the future."

Despite underwriting challenges within the past decade, AM Best has recognized that CIG has improved its risk management and underwriting disciplines, producing a sustained trend of profitability. This improved trend led to an upgrade in CIG's operating performance building block assessment to adequate from marginal.

The affirmation of stable outlooks for both FSR and Long-Term ICR gives CIG the confidence to continue bringing more advancements, modernizations, and capabilities to serve its agency partners and policyholders across all lines of business into 2025 and beyond.

About Capital Insurance Group

Established in 1898, Capital Insurance Group (CIG) is a leading regional property and casualty insurer in the Western U.S. CIG offers trusted Agriculture, Commercial, and Personal coverage across Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

Known for superior customer service and customizable coverage, CIG delivers insurance solutions tailored to meet the needs of policyholders, sold exclusively through independent agents. CIG's suite of insurance offerings includes coverage for Homeowners, Renters, Personal Auto, Dwelling Fire, Businessowners, Commercial Auto, Farm Owners, Commercial Agriculture, Farm Auto, Commercial Real Estate, and more. Throughout its footprint, CIG partners with regional and local charitable organizations and events to give back to communities in ways that promote preparedness, enhance resilience, and bring relief from crisis.

CIG is underwritten by its affiliate companies: California Capital Insurance Company, Eagle West Insurance Company, Nevada Capital Insurance Company, and Monterey Insurance Company. CIG's member companies have received a Financial Strength Rating of "A" (Excellent) and a Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating (ICR) of a+ (Superior) from AM Best, the independent financial monitor of the insurance industry. CIG is proud to be part of the Auto-Owners Insurance group of companies, one of the nation's largest, most-trusted insurers. For more information, please visit CIGInsurance.com.

About AM Best

AM Best rating services assess the creditworthiness of and/or reports on over 16,000 insurance companies worldwide. Its credit ratings are independent, indicative and interactive, and summarize their opinion on an insurance company's ability to pay claims, debts and other financial obligations in a timely manner. For the latest Best's Credit Rating, access www.ambest.com.

SOURCE Capital Insurance Group
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In a historic legal action, the Caribbean Basin Power Authority (CBPA) has filed a $65 billion lawsuit against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction, and Resilience (COR3). Filed today in the Federal District Court of Washington, D.C., the suit seeks justice for Puerto Rico's American citizens, who have been systematically denied critical disaster relief and infrastructure funds, exacerbating nearly a decade of hardship.

CBPA Takes FEMA to Court: $65B Case to Secure Energy Independence and Prosperity Post this Caribbean Basin Power Authority

"This case is about more than recovering fundsit's about confronting systemic neglect and blatant discrimination by federal agencies against American citizens," said Adam Rousselle, CEO of CBPA. "For years, FEMA has delayed or denied applications, leaving millions of Puerto Ricans trapped in energy poverty and at the mercy of the next disaster."

Empowering Strength: The Hidden Cost of Federal Inaction

Every Puerto Rican resident loses an estimated $174 daily due to FEMA's failure to actbillions drained from U.S. Treasury funds for preventable disaster recovery. This inaction burdens not only Puerto Rico but all American taxpayers, who are left covering the costs of avoidable damage.

Securing Futures: Delays That Threaten National Energy Security

CBPA's innovative projects, including undersea electric power cables supported by secure mainland generators, promise affordable, resilient power for Puerto Rico. Yet, FEMA and COR3's repeated denials have stalled these initiatives, keeping Puerto Rico dependent on vulnerable infrastructure. Alarmingly, federal plans now favor importing energy from the Dominican Republic, compromising energy independence and raising critical national security concerns.

Returning Prosperity: A Call to Action for Justice and Growth

"Every day of delay risks lives and drains taxpayers," Rousselle emphasized. "We urge the Biden administration, Congress, and all Americans who stand for justice to demand accountability and immediate action."

About the Caribbean Basin Power Authority

CBPA is a Puerto Rican nonprofit dedicated to delivering American energy leadership to the Caribbean. By building resilient infrastructure and driving hemispheric energy security, CBPA ensures that Puerto Rican citizens enjoy the same strength, security, and prosperity as their mainland counterparts.

For media inquiries, contact:

Adam Rousselle Sr.

Chief Executive Officer

[email protected]

267-254-6107

SOURCE Caribbean Basin Power Authority
Florida-based credit union with 70-year track record to collaborate with Cetera Financial Institutions to grow and deliver member-focused investment program

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Cetera Financial Group, the premier financial advisor Wealth Hub, announced today Eglin Federal Credit Union has entered into a networking agreement with Cetera Financial Institutions in the delivery of its member-focused investment program, Eglin Wealth Management. Based in Fort Walton Beach, FL, Eglin Federal Credit Union was founded in 1954 and serves nearly 125,000 members with more than $2.8 billion in assets, as of September 30, 2024.

"We welcome the Eglin team to the Cetera family and appreciate the trust and confidence they have placed in our capabilities and in achieving our shared goals together," said LeAnn Rummel, president and CEO of Cetera Investment Services. "We look forward to helping the Eglin team expand and enhance their investment program and provide more members with financial planning and wealth management services for years to come."

"Cetera shares the credit union philosophy of people helping people, and they are committed to delivering excellent service," said Cathie Staton, President and CEO at Eglin Federal Credit Union. "Cetera aligns with our mission and culture, and we look forward to a bright future together serving our members. Their expertise supporting credit unions, and their excellent reputation gives us the confidence that this was the right move for Eglin Federal Credit Union and Eglin Wealth Management."

Cetera Financial Institutions is a community within Cetera Investment Services that supports the investment programs of over 450 banks and credit unions. Cetera Investment Services is celebrating its 40-year anniversary in 2024, and with nearly 40 renewals signed through July 2024, Cetera Financial Institutions' current retention rate is 99 percent for all institutions.

Click here for more information about Cetera Financial Institutions.

About Cetera

Cetera Financial Group, which is owned by Cetera Holdings (collectively, Cetera), is the premier financial advisor Wealth Hub where financial advisors and institutions optimize their control and value creation. Breaking away from a commoditized and homogenous IBD model, Cetera offers financial professionals and institutions the latest solutions, support, and services to grow, scale, or transition with a merger, sale, investment, or succession plan. Cetera proudly serves independent financial advisors, tax professionals, licensed administrators, large enterprises, as well as institutions, such as banks and credit unions, providing an established and repeatable blueprint for scalable growth.

Home to approximately 12,000 financial professionals and their teams, Cetera oversees more than $521 billion in assets under administration and $224 billion in assets under management, as of June 30, 2024. In a recent advisor satisfaction survey of nearly 35,000 reviews, Cetera's Voice of Customer (VoC) program vigorously measures advisor experience and satisfaction 24/7. Currently, it's ranked 4.8 out of 5 stars.

Visit www.cetera.com, and follow Cetera on LinkedIn, YouTube, X, and Facebook.

"Cetera Financial Group" refers to the network of independent retail firms encompassing, among others, Cetera Investment Advisers LLC, a registered investment adviser, and the following FINRA/SIPC members: Cetera Advisors LLC, Cetera Advisor Networks LLC, Cetera Investment Services LLC (marketed as Cetera Financial Institutions or Cetera Investors), and Cetera Financial Specialists LLC. Located at: 655 W. Broadway, 11th Floor, San Diego, CA 92101.

SOURCE Cetera Financial Group
BEIJING, Nov. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Chinese President Xi Jinping is traveling from November 13 to 21 to attend the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting and pay a state visit to Peru, and attend the 19th G20 Summit and pay a state visit to Brazil, at the invitation of Peruvian President Dina Ercilia Boluarte Zegarra and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. It is entirely foreseeable that under the strategic guidance of heads-of-state diplomacy, relations between China and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) will usher in another highly anticipated moment, which will bring stability to the world.



This will be President Xi's sixth visit to LAC since 2013, and it also marks the 10th anniversary of his proposal of building a China-LAC community with a shared future. Over the past 10 years, China and LAC have used the high-quality Belt and Road cooperation as a practical platform, adhering to the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, and working together for common development. From trade connectivity to cultural mutual learning, from shared interests to resonating values, the construction of the China-LAC community with a shared future continues to achieve new milestones, providing profound insights for international relations in today's world.



There are many similarities and complementarities between China and LAC, which lay a solid foundation for cooperation and political trust. For example, both China and LAC have nurtured ancient and colorful civilizations, and their economies are highly complementary. China is the largest developing country, and LAC is one of the continents with the highest concentration of developing countries. Both from the Global South, China and LAC share similar positions and broad common interests. Both sides understand the importance of seeking peace, development, and cooperation in the midst of a tumultuous international situation. Therefore, despite the vast distance, China and LAC have become close partners. Cooperation and development are always the key terms when discussing China-LAC relations, and their cooperation has set an example for South-South cooperation.



China is not pursuing geopolitics in LAC. The real stories behind the China-LAC community with a shared future are rooted in equality, mutual benefit, innovation, openness and more benefits for the people, with tangible results that can be felt by ordinary people. For instance, Peruvian craftsman Oswaldo Mamani used to sell only a few hundred alpaca wool products a year. After these products found success at the China International Import Expo, hundreds of Peruvian craftsmen have become prosperous. As they say, China, all the way on the other side of the world, has completely changed their lives.



In addition, Chinese new energy vehicles have become a "green sight" in LAC. Electric cars and electric buses shuttle through the streets and alleys of many LAC cities, allowing people to enjoy more convenient transportation at a lower cost while providing strong support for local sustainable development. Many research reports from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean argue that China's investments and markets play an undeniable role in driving economic growth in LAC.



In terms of attitudes toward China, political forces across LAC countries are increasingly unified. Notably, Chinese concepts such as building a community with a shared future for mankind and the three global initiatives have increasingly gained cross-party, cross-ideological support in LAC. In 2023 alone, China issued joint statements with several countries, including Brazil and Honduras, which expressed support for shared values of humanity, the three global initiatives, and jointly addressing challenges through high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. In May, the "six-point consensus" on a political resolution to the Ukraine crisis, jointly issued by China and Brazil, garnered support from over 100 countries. In this sense, the more stable China-LAC relations are, the stronger the foundation for global peace.



Why are LAC countries able to engage with China freely, without burdens or concerns? A key reason is that bilateral cooperation is based on respect, equality, and is free of any attached conditions, and it does not target, exclude, or harm the interests of any third parties. LAC countries have welcomed China's investments and advanced technologies, seeing them as opportunities for cooperation and development potential. This again underscores the "two-way efforts" between China and LAC. It is the shared aspiration of developing countries to gradually raise their voices in international affairs through development.



As a LAC proverb goes, a real friend is someone who is able to touch your heart from the other side of the world. China is a true friend to LAC countries, and the more interactions there are, the more LAC people can feel this. In the future, as the high-quality Belt and Road cooperation between China and LAC countries accelerates, the big ship of the China-LAC community with a shared future will carry more dreams and hopes, sailing toward an even brighter decade ahead.

SOURCE Global Times
CloudZero ingests, normalizes, and optimizes MongoDB Atlas spend alongside all other cloud, PaaS, and SaaS spending, and is now included in the MongoDB Partner Ecosystem

BOSTON, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- CloudZero, the globally trusted leader in proactive cloud cost efficiency, announced today its official status as a validated MongoDB technology partner, making it the first and only cloud cost management and optimization platform available in the MongoDB Partner Ecosystem . As part of this partnership, CloudZero has developed a brand new in-platform MongoDB Atlas integration that makes it easier for customers to visualize and understand their MongoDB spend.

MongoDB Atlas is the leading multi-cloud developer data platform, and millions of developers and more than 50,000 customers  including 70% of the Fortune 100 and leading global enterprises  rely on MongoDB for a wide variety of applications. The new CloudZero-MongoDB integration allows CloudZero customers to connect to their MongoDB Atlas instance quickly to seamlessly ingest cost and usage data without having to run or manage any additional systems. CloudZero partners with the world's most sophisticated cloud-driven organizations to maximize the business value of their cloud spending.

With this new integration, MongoDB's customers gain a partner that makes it easier for them to track, analyze, and optimize their MongoDB Atlas spend. It will empower them to save money, promote accountability with their internal teams, and maximize profitability to ensure that they are getting a better return on their investment from MongoDB.

The partnership also benefits current and future CloudZero customers by providing an enhanced setup experience and new delivery model for ingesting MongoDB cost and usage data. The new integration also provides customers with support for the latest features from MongoDB, speeding up time-to-value and eliminating ongoing overhead and maintenance.

Lars Herrmann, vice president of partner ecosystems at MongoDB, said, "At MongoDB, our goal is to provide developers with tooling choices to make their work with MongoDB more powerful. An important part of this is making sure that the consumption management offerings in MongoDB Atlas, including auto-scaling and multi-region replication, are transparent and predictable. Our partnership with CloudZero does just that  helping to provide that insight for customers without requiring additional infrastructure or ongoing maintenance."

Anand Sundaram, senior vice president of product at CloudZero, said, "Database spending is one of the shared costs that can make it tricky for organizations to reach 100% cost allocation. CloudZero eliminates that problem: Our industry-leading allocation engine can organize MongoDB spend in a matter of hours, tracing it precisely to the products, features, customers, and/or teams responsible for it. This way, companies get a clear view of what's driving their costs, who's accountable, and how to optimize to maximize their cloud efficiency."

About CloudZero

CloudZero is the leader in proactive cloud cost efficiency. We enable engineers to build cost-efficient software without slowing down innovation. CloudZero's next-generation cloud cost optimization platform automates the collection, allocation, and analysis of cloud costs to uncover savings opportunities and improve unit economics. We are the only platform that enables companies to understand 100% of their operational cloud spend and take an engineering-led approach to optimizing that spend. CloudZero is used by industry leaders worldwide, such as Coinbase, Klaviyo, Miro, New Relic, Nubank, and Rapid7. Visit cloudzero.com to get started today.

SOURCE CloudZero
CNCF's End User Technical Advisory Board has compiled new materials to promote best practices and simplify the adoption of cloud native technologies

SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America  The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, today announced the CNCF Technology Landscape Radar report looking at production readiness of multicluster application management and batch, AI, and ML computing technologies in the ecosystem. It also used the same data to identify gaps in the ecosystem and launched a set of Cloud Native Reference Architectures from the End User Technical Advisory Board to help address them.

For the CNCF Technology Landscape Radar, CNCF partnered with SlashData to survey more than 300 professional developers using cloud native technologies, including members of CNCF's End User Community , about their experience with multicluster application management and batch, AI, and ML technologies. The topic and technologies included in the survey were selected by the End User TAB, representing real issues that are top of mind for cloud native end users. The report evaluated technologies in each space based on their readiness for production use and placed them into one of four categories: adopt, trial, assess, and hold. CNCF Graduated technologies ArgoCD and Cilium were considered ready to adopt for multicluster application management. Apache Airflow and CNCF's CubeFS and Kubeflow were also highly rated for batch, AI, and ML computing technologies.

"Since launching a year ago, the End User TAB has been working tirelessly to amplify the voices of end users and ensure their firsthand experiences and insights drive the future of the cloud native ecosystem," said Taylor Dolezal, Head of Ecosystem at CNCF. "By identifying problem areas and creating streamlined approaches for overcoming challenges, the TAB is leaving organizations free to focus on technical innovation and creating amazing products."

While conducting the Technology Radar, the team gathered insight into the difficulties of managing certain aspects of the ecosystem. These challenges stem primarily from the complexity of adopting multi-cluster, multi-cloud, or hybrid deployments and include issues like cost, observability, security, and cluster lifecycle across tools, providers, and environments. It also identified a need for more standardization and interoperability and regular up-leveling of skills to pace with the latest developments in cloud native technology. More information about these challenges can be found in the Ecosystem Gap Report .

To address ecosystem gaps and provide practical guidance and examples for building cloud native applications, the Reference Architecture working group, a collaborative effort within the End User TAB, has launched its first Reference Architectures  Scaling through Platform Engineering at Allianz Direct and Scaling Adobe's Service Delivery Foundation with a Cell-based Architecture. These real-life architectures, used in large-scale production settings, include how they came to be to provide organizational context essential to understanding the architecture.

The CNCF End User Community comprises more than 150 organizations that meet regularly to share adoption best practices and feedback on project roadmaps and future projects for CNCF technical leaders to consider.

CNCF End Users gather this week during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2024 in Salt Lake City. Join upcoming events, including the inaugural KubeCon + CloudNativeCon India , December 11-12 in Delhi, and KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025 , April 1-4 in London.

Additional Resources

Learn About the CNCF End User Community

Join the End User Slack Channel #tab

Submit a Reference Architecture from your organization

About Cloud Native Computing Foundation

Cloud native computing empowers organizations to build and run scalable applications with an open source software stack in public, private, and hybrid clouds. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) hosts critical components of the global technology infrastructure, including Kubernetes, Prometheus, and Envoy. CNCF brings together the industry's top developers, end users, and vendors and runs the largest open source developer conferences in the world. Supported by more than 800 members, including the world's largest cloud computing and software companies, as well as over 200 innovative startups, CNCF is part of the nonprofit Linux Foundation. For more information, please visit www.cncf.io.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Media Contact

Katie Meinders

The Linux Foundation

[email protected]

SOURCE Cloud Native Computing Foundation
GROTON, Conn., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Connecticut Wind Collaborative (CWC) is thrilled to announce the launch of the Connecticut Offshore Wind Industry Study. This gold-standard initiative aims to build upon the Connecticut Offshore Wind Strategic Roadmap by identifying and expanding supply chain opportunities for Connecticut and the Northeast region. The study will be led by Xodus and The Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew), renowned experts in supply chain analysis and offshore wind development, ensuring a high-caliber approach to fostering regional collaboration and economic growth.

Wind turbine components for Revolution Wind, developed by rsted to serve Connecticut and Rhode Island, are staged at State Pier in the Port of New London, CT.

The CWC OSW Industry Study is an ambitious, forward-looking effort to solidify Connecticut's position as a key player and regional collaborator in offshore wind. With a focus on addressing regional supply chain gaps, fostering regional collaboration, and supporting local manufacturers, the study promises to yield sustainable benefits for the state's manufacturing sector and contribute to long-term economic growth. Connecticut has played a pivotal role as a first mover in advancing the offshore wind industry with Connecticut businesses and workers contributing to every East Coast offshore wind project to date and State Pier in the Port of New London serving as a marshaling and assembly hub for three projects.

"Now is a critical time for state collaboration in order to build upon complementary strengths and answer shared challenges that will best enable the growth of a robust regional offshore wind industry," said Andy Logan, Head of Industry Development at Xodus. "This study will be unique in recognizing not only the powerful role Connecticut businesses play in the emergent offshore wind sector, but also the benefits of what can be further achieved when working in partnership with neighboring states to develop regional capability."

"Connecticut has the potential to be an important link in the offshore wind supply chain, a growing sector that can enable the state to add jobs and boost economic growth, while also helping the state make progress toward its clean energy goals. By evaluating its strengths and identifying areas for development, Connecticut is positioning itself to become a leader in this emerging industry and to help ensure the state is ready to meet future energy demand," said Courtney Durham Shane, Senior Officer, The Pew Charitable Trusts.

This initiative further reinforces Connecticut's commitment to renewable energy and highlights the state's role in supporting industry innovation across the region as offshore wind development gains momentum across the United States.

"Our goal with this study is to place Connecticut at the forefront of offshore wind supply chain development," said Kristin Urbach, Executive Director of the Connecticut Wind Collaborative. "This collaborative, regional research will serve as a foundation for sustainable economic growth, job creation, and supply chain enhancement  putting Connecticut and its neighbors in New York, New Jersey and all of New England on the map as leaders in renewable energy innovation."

"Connecticut's Blue Economy continues to play a pivotal role in supporting this new domestic clean energy ecosystem that is boosting local economies and spurring investment," said Paul Lavoie, Connecticut's Chief Manufacturing Officer. "This exciting initiative will bring stakeholders from across the region together to strengthen and expand our collective supply chain capabilities."

The Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development has contributed $70,000 to this initiative, and the Southeastern Connecticut Enterprise Region has contributed $50,000. Other industry partners have also provided funding.

The supply chain analysis expertise of Xodus combined with Pew's nonpartisan, in-depth research capabilities will ensure valuable, evidence-based insights to guide policymakers and industry stakeholders. Together, their contributions will provide data-driven recommendations for bolstering the sector's growth and resilience.

The study will feature robust stakeholder engagement and clear, actionable recommendations. The completed study is anticipated to be released in the Spring of 2025.

SOURCE Connecticut Wind Collaborative
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In a pivotal ruling, the Los Angeles Superior Court has cleared the way for Genius Fund I ABC, LLC to proceed with its mismanagement lawsuit against former co-CEOs Ari Stiegler and Gabriel Borden. The lawsuit alleges gross mismanagement that led to the rapid downfall of Genius Fund, a cannabis venture once poised to be a leader in California's cannabis industry. This decision denies Stiegler and Borden's attempts to dismiss the case, enabling Genius Fund's claims of breach of fiduciary duty, breach of the duty of loyalty, and breach of contract to proceed in full as it seeks millions in damages inflicted upon the company.

Background on Genius Fund and the Lawsuit

Backed by an over $160 million investment from the late Russian billionaire Dmitry Bosov, Genius Fund launched with the ambitious goal of leading California's vertically integrated cannabis market by controlling every stage of the cannabis supply chainfrom seed to saleunder the leadership of co-CEOs Stiegler and Borden. Aiming to dominate California's "Green Rush," the venture was positioned to become a major player in the legal cannabis market. However, despite tremendous market opportunity, substantial funding, and a promising infrastructure, Genius Fund collapsed within two years due to alleged severe financial mismanagement and leadership failures, never turning a profit. Ongoing litigation seeks to recover value for creditors impacted by its rapid and complete downfall.

The complaint outlines a pattern of fiduciary and contractual breaches by Stiegler and Borden, alleging reckless spending, willful disregard of critical information, and a lack of due diligence in investment decisions. Among the allegations are extensive personal expenses on jet skis, luxury vehicles, and inflated salaries  uncorrelated to any benefit to the company or revenue generation, as well as dubious business decisions, including a $31,000 monthly leasedouble the market ratefor an underperforming dispensary. The lawsuit also details a $23 million land deal that failed to meet cannabis licensing requirements and nearly $1.9 million in unnecessary renovations directed to a design firm owned by Borden's mother. Genius Fund contends these and other actions drained company resources and ultimately forced Genius Fund into liquidation.

Ruling Highlights Urgent Need for Accountability in California's Cannabis Sector

The court's decision comes at a crucial time for California's cannabis industry, where licensed operators are grappling with high taxes, complex regulations, and fierce competition from unlicensed businesses. The Genius Fund case underscores the pressing need for responsible, accountable leadership to protect industry credibility and investor trust in a challenging regulatory environment.

"We are encouraged by the court's decision, which affirms the gravity of the allegations against Stiegler and Borden and underscores the necessity of accountability in leadershipnot only within cannabis but across all industries," said Armen Avedissian, the Assignee responsible for overseeing Genius Fund's wind-down process. "Our focus remains on recovering damages for the substantial losses caused by their gross mismanagement of Genius Fund, which, but for these breaches of trust, we believe would have stood among the preeminent vertically integrated cannabis operations in California."

Next Steps in the Legal Process

With the court's green light, Genius Fund is prepared to aggressively pursue all legal claims and obtain damages from Borden and Stiegler for the harm they caused. "Despite bold promises of profitability, Stiegler and Borden's lack of industry experience, abysmal judgment, and poor financial decisions led to tens of millions in preventable losses," said Avedissian. "Our commitment is to recover as much as possible for the harm they caused, and this ruling is a critical step toward achieving that goal."

Genius Fund I ABC, LLC is represented by ArentFox Schiff LLP, with Armen Avedissian serving as the Assignee overseeing the wind-down process.

The case is Genius Fund I ABC LLC v. Stiegler et al., case number 23STCV23190, in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles.

About Genius Fund I ABC, LLC:

Genius Fund launched as a private equity startup backed by an over $160 million investment from the late Russian billionaire Dmitry Bosov, aiming to build vertically integrated businesses in high-growth sectors. Led by two co-CEOs, Ari Stiegler and Gabriel Borden, the venture set out to dominate California's cannabis market during the "Green Rush." Yet, despite its ambitious goals and substantial backing, Genius Fund collapsed in less than two years due to severe financial mismanagement and operational failures, never turning a profit. Ongoing litigation seeks to recover damages to the company for Borden and Stiegler's gross mismanagement. For more information on the liquidation process or to inquire about purchasing assets, please contact Armen Avedissian at [email protected].

SOURCE Genius Fund I ABC, LLC
DALLAS, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Dalfen Industrial has announced the signing of a 96,000 square foot lease with Cooper & Hunter, a leading HVAC equipment company, at its recently completed Midpoint Miami Logistics Center in Hialeah, Florida. Cushman & Wakefield negotiated on behalf of the landlord.

Midpoint Miami Logistics Center, Hialeah, FL

Midpoint Miami Logistics Center is a recently completed Class A development totaling 300,000 square feet. This development is located in the NW Medley industrial submarket of Dade County with close access to the Florida Turnpike, I-75 and W Okeechobee (Hwy. 27). It is also within 11 miles of Miami International Airport and 20 miles of the Port of Miami.

Wayne Ramoski, Skylar Stein, and Ivana Leitner Perez of Cushman & Wakefield represented Dalfen Industrial in the lease transaction, while Cooper & Hunter (operating under the name Comfortside) was represented by Cook Commercial Realty.

"We are pleased to welcome Comfortside to our Midpoint Miami Logistics Center," said Tyler McElroy, Dalfen Industrial's Florida's Market Officer. "This strategic 'last mile' location will provide Comfortside with an ideal location for their immediate Miami distribution needs. We'd also like to extend our thanks to Cushman & Wakefield for their diligence in securing this lease."

According to Yanni Gordo, Vice President of Operations at Comfortside LLC, the company considered numerous options before selecting Midpoint Miami Logistics Center. "We have been searching and previewing 100,000 square foot facilities for months and decided that the Midpoint Logistics warehouse location would best serve our business needs for storage and distribution," Gordo said.

Dalfen Industrial owns and operates 1.5M square feet of industrial property in South Florida.

About Us

Dalfen Industrial LLC, headquartered in Dallas, is one of the largest privately owned industrial real estate firms in the United States and is a leader in the last-mile property sector. The company focuses on strategically located urban infill warehouses and distribution facilities, owning and operating over 55 million square feet of premier industrial properties nationwide. For more information, visit www.dalfen.com.

Media Contact:

[email protected]

SOURCE Dalfen Industrial
SAN DIEGO, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP announces that purchasers or acquirers of Edwards Lifesciences Corporation (NYSE: EW) securities between February 6, 2024 and July 24, 2024, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), have until Friday, December 13, 2024 to seek appointment as lead plaintiff of the Edwards Lifesciences class action lawsuit. Captioned Patel v. Edwards Lifesciences Corporation, No. 24-cv-02221 (C.D. Cal.), the Edwards Lifesciences class action lawsuit charges Edwards Lifesciences as well as certain of Edwards Lifesciences' executives with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

If you suffered substantial losses and wish to serve as lead plaintiff of the Edwards Lifesciences class action lawsuit, please provide your information here:

https://www.rgrdlaw.com/cases-edwards-lifesciences-corporation-class-action-lawsuit-ew.html

You can also contact attorneys J.C. Sanchez or Jennifer N. Caringal of Robbins Geller by calling 800/449-4900 or via e-mail at [email protected].

CASE ALLEGATIONS: Edwards Lifesciences provides products and technologies for structural heart disease and critical care monitoring. One of Edward Lifesciences' core products is Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement ("TAVR").

The Edwards Lifesciences class action lawsuit alleges that defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) defendants created the false impression that they possessed reliable information pertaining to Edwards Lifesciences' projected revenue outlook and anticipated growth while also minimizing risk from seasonality and macroeconomic fluctuations; (ii) TAVR's growth was at risk of decelerating; (iii) Edwards Lifesciences' optimistic reports of TAVR's growth and anticipated ramp in second quarter 2024 and further ramp throughout fiscal year 2024 fell short of reality as defendants' "patient activation activities" failed to reach the perceived low-treatment-rate population TAVR's growth relied upon obtaining; and (iv) defendants relied far too heavily or otherwise overstated hospital desire to continue to utilize Edwards Lifesciences' TAVR procedures over newer, innovative structural heart therapies.

The Edwards Lifesciences class action lawsuit further alleges that on July 24, 2024, Edwards Lifesciences disclosed second quarter 2024 TAVR results below expectations and lowered fiscal year 2024 projections for TAVR. On this news, the price of Edwards Lifesciences stock fell more than 31%, according to the complaint.

THE LEAD PLAINTIFF PROCESS: The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 permits any investor who purchased or acquired Edwards Lifesciences securities during the Class Period to seek appointment as lead plaintiff in the Edwards Lifesciences class action lawsuit. A lead plaintiff is generally the movant with the greatest financial interest in the relief sought by the putative class who is also typical and adequate of the putative class. A lead plaintiff acts on behalf of all other class members in directing the Edwards Lifesciences class action lawsuit. The lead plaintiff can select a law firm of its choice to litigate the Edwards Lifesciences class action lawsuit. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff of the Edwards Lifesciences class action lawsuit.

ABOUT ROBBINS GELLER: Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP is one of the world's leading law firms representing investors in securities fraud cases. Our Firm has been #1 in the ISS Securities Class Action Services rankings for six out of the last ten years for securing the most monetary relief for investors. We recovered $6.6 billion for investors in securities-related class action cases  over $2.2 billion more than any other law firm in the last four years. With 200 lawyers in 10 offices, Robbins Geller is one of the largest plaintiffs' firms in the world and the Firm's attorneys have obtained many of the largest securities class action recoveries in history, including the largest securities class action recovery ever  $7.2 billion  in In re Enron Corp. Sec. Litig. Please visit the following page for more information:

https://www.rgrdlaw.com/services-litigation-securities-fraud.html

Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.

Services may be performed by attorneys in any of our offices.

Contact:

Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP

J.C. Sanchez, Jennifer N. Caringal

655 W. Broadway, Suite 1900, San Diego, CA 92101

800-449-4900

[email protected]

SOURCE Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP
Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for Reconstruction and Minister of Communities and Territories Development, Oleksiy Kuleba, met with Finland's Minister for Foreign Trade and Development, Ville Tavio, to discuss key areas in Ukraine's recovery efforts where Finland's support is needed and where it plans to focus its assistance.

"First and foremost is the passage through the winter heating season," Kuleba wrote on Telegram Thursday morning. He noted that Finland has recently announced a new aid package that includes powerful generators for Ukrainian communities. "This also involves strategic directions that will shape the future of our communities  Finland's experience in modernizing energy infrastructure, implementing innovations, and using renewable energy sources will be invaluable," he added.

The two officials also discussed the protection of energy facilities, construction of shelters within communities, and the restoration of damaged infrastructure. "We focused specifically on priority sectors for investment and opportunities for Finnish businesses to contribute to Ukraine's reconstruction," Kuleba said.

Kuleba expressed his gratitude to Finland for its unwavering support and commitment to standing with Ukraine on its path to recovery, resilience, and strength.
FAIRFAX CITY, Va., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Fairfax City Economic Development (FCED) and Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) have launched Upskill Fairfax City, a new initiative designed to address career readiness and workforce development by offering tuition-free professional certifications and technical training to Fairfax City residents and employees of Fairfax City businesses.

Upskill Fairfax City is a new partnership between FCED and NOVA to provide accessible, no-cost training for high-demand careers. Through this program, eligible Fairfax City residents and employees of Fairfax City businesses can gain essential skills and industry-recognized certifications in fields such as IT, healthcare, cybersecurity, skilled trades, and human resources. By eliminating financial barriers to these certifications, Upskill Fairfax City empowers participants to elevate their careers, explore new opportunities, and help meet the needs of the local workforce. A full list of certifications offered can be found on the Upskill Fairfax City website.

"Our city and our region require a skilled workforce to keep the engine of our economy humming. The cost of educating that workforce is a barrier that Upskill Fairfax City will address by offering no-cost certifications for high demand jobs," said Fairfax City Mayor Catherine Read. "Northern Virginia Community College has proven this model works well, and I'm thrilled that our city residents will have this opportunity, and our local businesses will reap the rewards as well."

"By eliminating the cost of enrollment, Upskill Fairfax City removes a significant barrier to career advancement, empowering residents and City employees to enter high demand fields and grow their careers locally, here in Fairfax City," said Christopher Bruno, CEO and director of Fairfax City Economic Development. "This program underscores the potential of community partnerships to create new opportunities that support economic growth for both residents and businesses."

The Upskill Fairfax City program offers participants access to targeted training and certification programs delivered by NOVA's Workforce and Applied Technology teams, as well as Fast-Forward programs. Graduates of Upskill Fairfax City will be prepared for rewarding careers across sectors that are actively hiring and seeking certified professionals to meet market demand.

To qualify for the program, participants must certify that they meet the following eligibility requirements:

Must show proof of residency in Fairfax City or employment with a Fairfax City business.

or employment with a business. A Virginia resident for the past 12 months.

resident for the past 12 months. Additional program-specific requirements may apply, such as completion of a high school diploma or GED for certain fields of study.

"NOVA is proud to stand with Fairfax City Economic Development to help residents and employees develop skills for brighter futures," said Dr. Anne M. Kress, President of Northern Virginia Community College. "This tuition assistance program makes career-building education accessible to those ready to take the next step in their professional journeys, whether they seek to advance in their current fields or prepare for new opportunities."

For a full list of eligible programs, details on how to apply, and information on participant eligibility, visit nvcc.edu/academics/workforce/upskill-fairfax-city or contact NOVA Workforce at (703) 503-6300 or [email protected].

About Fairfax City Economic Development

Fairfax City Economic Development is a collaboration between the Fairfax City Economic Development Department and the Fairfax City Economic Development Authority, an independent agency administered by a commission appointed by the City Council to promote economic development activity within Fairfax. Fairfax City Economic Development helps attract businesses to the city, encourages and develops programs that foster connections between businesses, residents, and visitors of Fairfax City, and spearheads innovative programs and strategies devoted to positioning Fairfax City as an ideal location to start, grow, and scale a business. It is a founding member of the Northern Virginia Economic Development Alliance. Learn more at gofairfaxcity.com.

SOURCE Fairfax City Economic Development
Modigent Redefines Partnership in Strategic Acquisitions, Setting New Standards for

'What It Means to Be a Modigent Company'

PHOENIX, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In the dynamic landscape of business acquisitions, one name is becoming increasingly significant for its unique approach: Modigent. By prioritizing genuine partnership and growth, Modigent is reshaping the narrative around strategic acquisitions, especially within the commercial HVAC, mechanical controls, and mid-market sectors. At its core, Modigent recognizes the complexities owners face as they plan the next chapter for their companies.

What It Means to Be a Modigent Company

"Being approached for acquisition can be daunting for business owners, primarily due to misconceptions and a lack of familiarity with potential partners," states Dan Bueschel, CEO of Modigent. "Our mission at Modigent is to demystify this process, presenting a clear, beneficial path for both parties involved."

Modigent's collaborative approach ensures companies retain their ethos while unlocking new growth opportunities.

Gustavo Subiela, Executive V.P. of Corporate Development, underscores this strategy: "We don't just acquire businesses; we work to understand and enhance their legacy. Our focus is on building relationships, recognizing each company's unique needs, and crafting strategies for long-term success."

The value of becoming a Modigent company goes beyond simple acquisition. Each operating company within the Modigent family contributes to a powerful network of shared resources, operational efficiencies, and collaborative expertise. This connected structure allows companies to leverage Modigent's nationwide reach, fostering enhanced service offerings and streamlined operations across sectors.

Enhancing the legacy of a business includes ensuring stability and growth for existing employees. Modigent takes a people-first focus and prefers to retain the business's employees, nurturing their talents to build a workforce of problem solvers and innovative thinkers who will thrive in the changing field of commercial HVAC technology and energy solutions.

For business owners, becoming a Modigent company means entering into a partnership that respects their company's history while steering it toward a promising future. This understanding and respect for the business's legacy, combined with Modigent's industry expertise and strategic resources, offer a compelling proposition for owners contemplating the next steps for their companies.

In continuation of its efforts to provide clarity and insight into its acquisition process, Modigent is hosting an exclusive webinar in partnership with ACHR News on December 10, 2024. This webinar will focus on educating HVAC contractors about preparing their businesses for acquisition, understanding the due diligence and sales process, and preserving company legacy post-acquisition. Key speakers will include Modigent's CEO Dan Bueschel, acquisition specialists, and industry leaders, sharing firsthand experiences and valuable advice. For more information, or to register, please visit: Exploring Your Options: How Strategic Acquisition Can Secure Your HVAC Business's Future | ACHR News .

"Our message to business owners is simple: partnering with Modigent means more than just an acquisitionit's about unlocking new growth, driving innovation, and building a lasting legacy. This webinar offers a chance to see firsthand how we help companies navigate this transition while preserving what makes them unique," added Subiela, Executive V.P. of Corporate Development.

By redefining what it means to be acquired, Modigent is setting a new standard in the industry, one where growth and legacy go hand in hand. As the company continues to expand, it remains focused on its commitment to partnership, innovation, and long-term success. For business owners ready to secure their future, Modigent offers a clear and compelling path forward. To learn more, visit Modigent's Acquisitions Program at https://modigent.com/acquisitions .

About Modigent:

Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Modigent drives innovation and growth nationwide with next-generation infrastructure, technology, and energy solutions. Operating coast-to-coast with a portfolio of specialized brands in HVAC, plumbing, and controls systems, Modigent is known for its commitment to service, collaboration, and integrity. Explore Modigent's offerings, locations, and career opportunities at www.modigent.com .

SOURCE Modigent
Inspired by the celestial wonders of the night sky, guests are immersed in a world of bright constellations and glowing embers. Tobman's creative design transforms Genesis House into a vibrant environment that honors the Korean heritage of the brand and celebrates the winter season through a dazzling journey that blurs the lines between the physical and digital worlds.

"Collaborating with Genesis on STARSCAPE has been an inspiring and rewarding experience," said Ethan Tobman. "Blending my design vision and love for empathetic storytelling with their incredible space allowed us both to create an immersive environment that merges traditional and modern artistry."

Ethan Tobman has gained global recognition for his approach to visual storytelling. From being the creative director of Taylor Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour to designing iconic music videos for Beyonce, including Run The World and Formation, Tobman delivers emotionally compelling visual narratives for feature films and music artists around the world. His work spans high-profile live productions, such as Taylor Swift's Grammy-winning Folklore performance, Ariana Grande's No Tears Left to Cry, Kendrick Lamar's All The Stars and feature films as diverse as Room, The Menu and Free Guy. Tobman brought his signature approach to visual storytelling to Genesis House with STARSCAPE, offering an immersive experience for visitors that combines his aesthetic with innovative technology and Korean culture.

As guests enter the Cellar Stage at Genesis House, they embark on an illuminating sojourn to the celestial wonders of the sky during the longest night of the year. From the burning embers of a fire in a Hanok, a traditional Korean home, to the bright stars that form constellations in the sky above, guests are immediately transported upwards to the night sky with shimmering lights cascading from the ceiling.

The physical and digital worlds converge at the center of the experience, where visitors are invited to witness the progression of the night sky through 590 glowing lights that are precisely hung throughout STARSCAPE to recreate the constellations that illuminate Seoul and New York, showing a nightly connection between the distant cities. Beginning with a series of twinkling stars that transform into impressions of celestial faces, the journey through the night intensifies with glowing embers reaching above and forming a shimmering silhouette of a hanok roof. The crescendo builds as more formations take shape, before an explosion of color makes way for the ancient constellations of Seoul as Earth passes by and Donji comes to a conclusion. The sky is then transformed, offering a satellite view of Seoul beneath guests' feet as visuals of the New York City and Seoul skylines pass by. Glittering bodies appear in the sky as a single star becomes the focal point before erupting into darkness once more.

"At Genesis House, we aim to bring truly one-of-a-kind experiences to our guests that reflect our commitment to audacious design while honoring our distinctly Korean heritage," said Rachel Espersen, executive director of brand experience, Genesis House and Studios, at Genesis Motor America. "Ethan Tobman brings his unique talent for visual storytelling with cutting-edge design to our oasis in the heart of New York City's Meatpacking District to create a unique journey through the winter solstice."

STARSCAPE is open to the public starting November 14th, inviting visitors to experience the wonders of the night sky this winter at Genesis House. Guests will also enjoy specialty items at Genesis House Restaurant throughout the duration of the installation, featuring unique cocktails like the BUKDU CHILSEONG, a blend of night sky gin, dry vermouth, maraschino, absinthe, and orange bitters, the CHEONGDO 75 with damson, persimmon, lemon, and sparkling wine, as well as the STARLIGHT CHOUX, made with apple, jujube, creme chantilly, and starlight craquelin.

Genesis Motor North America

Genesis is a new global automotive brand that delivers the highest standards of design, safety, refined performance, and innovation while looking towards a more sustainable future. Drawing from its cultural heritage and distinctly Korean hospitality, Genesis crafts experiences focused on customers as "son-nim", or honored guests.

Genesis Motor North America offers a growing range of award-winning SUV, sedan, and electric models through its network of more than 220 independent U.S. retailers, in addition to its more than 30 Canadian agency distributors. Genesis now counts more than 70 standalone retail facilities across the North American region, with dozens more in development. Consumers can discover the brand through its many retail points, at Genesis House, the brand's flagship space in New York City, or online at www.genesis.com.

Please visit our media site for the latest news at www.genesisnewsusa.com (United States) and www.genesisnews.ca (Canada).

SOURCE Genesis Motor America
BEIJING, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Chinese President Xi Jinping left Beijing on Wednesday to attend the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima and pay a state visit to Peru at the invitation of President of the Republic of Peru Dina Ercilia Boluarte Zegarra.

Xi will deliver an important speech at the meeting to elaborate on China's important measures to deepen reform and opening up and propositions on advancing Asia-Pacific cooperation. China stands ready to work with other parties to deliver on the APEC Putrajaya Vision 2040 in an all-round and balanced way, strive for positive outcomes of this meeting, provide new impetus for advancing regional economic integration and promoting the growth of Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world, and jointly build an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said on November 8.

Lima, the capital of Peru, has officially entered the "APEC moment," with billboards on the streets promoting the theme of the meeting - "Empower. Include. Grow." - and flags of APEC economies flying high in front of key event venues.

Reflecting the deep bond between China and Peru, locals were quick to share their connections to China and extend warm welcome to Chinese guests once they heard reporters are from China. An APEC Peru 2024 worker at Lima's Jorge Chavez International Airport told the Global Times his grandmother was Cantonese, and although he hasn't been to China, he feels "close to China."

Another hotel staff member named Sergio told the Global Times that China is seen as a very friendly country in Peru with a rich historical tradition, and he added that he enjoys watching Chinese kung fu films.

In interviews with the Global Times on Tuesday local time, APEC officials and locals in Peru voiced strong expectations for the upcoming leaders' meeting to explore and enhance cooperative opportunities in the Asia Pacific region. Many also showed significant interest in China's proposals to be raised at the meeting, given the country's influential role in regional cooperation.

"This is a pivotal year. There's an expectation to see meaningful advancements on key issues," Carlos Kuriyama, director of the APEC Policy Support Unit, told the Global Times at the media center on Tuesday, emphasizing that while trade flows among some Asia Pacific economies remain robust, various challenges require joint efforts to address.

During the discussions, leaders from APEC's 21 member economies, which together account for almost two-thirds of world GDP and half of global trade, will tackle core challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region, including climate change, sustainable energy solutions, digital economy transition, and trade facilitation. Leaders and ministers will discuss policies that could help economies overcome these current challenges while promoting innovation and inclusiveness, an APEC official statement said.

Kuriyama highlighted China's important role in Asia Pacific as well as global cooperation. "China's role is very important, not just in APEC, but for whole world," noting that China is advocating for the free, open trade, citing China's free trade agreement with Peru as a model.

In the first ten months of 2024, China's trade with other APEC economies achieved a historic level of 21.27 trillion yuan ($2.94 trillion), making up 59.1 percent of China's total trade value during the same period, according to official data on Wednesday.

"We are very excited to see new possibilities of investment here in Peru. I think that's the main interest that we have," Juan Aurelio Arevalo Miro Quesada, editor-in-chief of El Comercio, a Peruvian newspaper, told the Global Times at the APEC media center in Lima on Tuesday.

"We always had a very close relationship with China," pointing to historical background of Chinese immigration to Peru, cultural exchanges and diverse Chinese investments across various fields. "So, we are very close to China."

Unique value

As one of the most influential and extensive multilateral cooperation platforms in the Asia-Pacific region, APEC was established in 1989 with the goal of enhancing trade openness and fostering sustainable economic growth.

According to Marco Balarezo, Peru's ambassador to China, an expected turnout of 5,000 delegates at the APEC Leaders' Meeting, 1,200 CEOs and leaders in the APEC CEO Summit which may be among the largest gatherings in the history of APEC, per CGTN.

Liu Chenyang, director of the APEC Study Center of Nankai University in Tianjin, told the Global Times that Peru has prioritized empowering vulnerable economic actors in their transition from informal to formal participation in the global economy, the first time in history.

This reflects a strong call from emerging economies for inclusive development, and places greater prominence on enhancing the integration of vulnerable economic actors into formal economic frameworks such as regional economic cooperation and economic globalization, Liu said.

Wang Youming, director of the Institute of Developing Countries at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing, said that the APEC gives developed and developing countries a unique opportunity for extensive engagement, and creates a valuable platform for exchange to address critical global challenges across economic, financial, and industrial sectors.

Emerging economies and developed countries have different perspectives and respective concerns on global affairs and pacing challenges, Wang said, "Through exchanges at the multilateral mechanism, there is an opportunity to reach consensus and jointly find ways to solve problems."

Taking the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting as an opportunity, China stands ready to remain committed to upholding true multilateralism and open regionalism, create more opportunities for Asia-Pacific partners with high-quality development and high-standard opening up, and work with others to build an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future featuring openness and inclusiveness, innovative growth, connectivity, and win-win cooperation, said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Wednesday at a regular press briefing.

Growing role

Beyond the diplomatic sphere, the Chinese business community places significant emphasis on economic cooperation within the Asia-Pacific region.

Zhang Shaogang, Vice Chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), told the Global Times the CCPIT is leading a substantial business delegation to participate in the APEC CEO Summit in Peru.

According to Zhang, the delegation includes over 120 representatives from more than 60 Chinese companies across various sectors such as infrastructure construction, energy, finance, bio technology, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and international trade.

With this visit, the Chinese business delegation aims to advocate for an open Asia-Pacific economy, explore pathways to advance sustainable development in the region; and share thoughts and ideas on shaping next-generation rules for AI, digital trade, green development, and other emerging sectors, Zhang said.

"We hope APEC economies prioritize these policy recommendations to embody open regionalism genuinely. It is also very essential for some economies to refrain from building walls and erecting barriers and focus on creating fair, and favorable conditions for regional business cooperation," Zhang said.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, China's trade with APEC economies reached $3.74 trillion in 2022, accounting for 59.7 percent of China's overall trade. Eight of China's top 10 trading partners are APEC economies.

China is the largest trading partner of 13 APEC economies. A total of 15 APEC economies have signed free trade agreements with China.

Some analysts pointed out that from an early participant in globalization, China has become an active facilitator or even a leading one.

Joining APEC's market opening mechanism is a milestone for China's integration into regional cooperation and the continuous promotion of high-level opening up. In turn, it has also provided enormous opportunities for the economic and trade development of the entire Asia-Pacific region. And that makes APEC a practical platform for building a community with a shared future for mankind.

"The key advantage of APEC is that it brings together both the Global North and South, serving as a forum that links them, especially the US, China and Russia. APEC isn't just about the Global South. It includes a large number of countries from the Global South, but also from other parts of the world. There isn't another organization quite like it that brings regional cooperation in this way," Jayant Menon, a senior fellow at the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, told the Global Times.

Theo Schunck, Executive Secretary of the Instituto Rio Metropole, told the Global Times that emerging economies play a crucial role in APEC meetings, as they can bring innovative perspectives and solutions to global challenges, and represent a significant share of global economic growth.

They bring a new dynamic to the world economy, promoting innovation, inclusive growth and sustainability, Schunck said.

SOURCE Global Times
BEIJING, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On a sunny afternoon in early November, the warm sunlight pours into a solarium by the Huangpu River in downtown Shanghai. Huang Baomei and several other senior citizens gather around a table, excitedly reading a special letter together.



A day earlier, they received a letter from President Xi Jinping, after writing a letter to him weeks before to share their experiences and thoughts of providing free lectures to local residents in recent years as members of "Laoyangshu," or "Old Poplar," a grassroots lecture program in Shanghai consisting of retired officials, military officers, experts, teachers, and role models.



In his reply to the "Old Poplar" members, Xi praised the initiative as a meaningful approach to recount historical events, explain the Party's new theories, and share the positive changes in the city with residents by blending the lecture content with the lecturers' personal experiences.



Underlining the principle that cities should be built by the people and for the people, Xi called on the members of the program to inspire more people to embrace and implement the concept of a people-oriented city, the Xinhua News Agency reported.



"Xi's letter has given us tremendous encouragement and strength," Huang told the Global Times with a big smile on her face.



"Even though I'm not young anymore, I never find delivering lectures tiring," she said. "Instead, sharing the positive changes that have happened, and are happening, in Shanghai and China with my personal experiences, brings me great joy."



Simplify the profound



With her straight posture and quick reflexes, Huang appears much younger than her actual age of 93. This elegant and energetic elderly lady was selected as China's first generation of "model workers" in the 1950s as a textile worker, and was awarded the "July 1st Medal" - a top medal for lifelong contribution - by President Xi in 2021. She has been a role model for her dedication and professionalism for generations.



Huang worked for 42 years at a textile factory in Shanghai. Now, as one of the eldest members of the "Old Poplar," she passionately engages with residential communities, enterprises, and schools, sharing stories about China's development with young people.

"At my busiest, I gave three lectures in a day, each lasting two hours, and the audience would give me a thumbs up," Huang said proudly.



Development is a grand topic. Instead of discussing abstract concepts, Huang often shares her personal experiences filled with vivid and encouraging moments.



"When I worked in the textile factory, I tried many methods to improve efficiency and yield," Huang told the audience that she made a lot of effort in optimizing the work process, and later successfully doubled the efficiency to simultaneously operate 800 spindles alone. Inspired by Huang's talent and endeavor, the spinners at the local factory produced nearly half of China's cotton cloth in the 1950s, a manufacturing miracle by then.

Moreover, Huang once had an opportunity to become a movie star, but she rejected. "Spinning is my specialty and life career," she said.



Huang's heartfelt narrations embody the dedication and relentless spirit of the older Chinese generation, and vividly represent the past decades of rapid development in the country, which have resonated deeply with many in the audience. "As long as my health permits, I will continue to try hard to inspire more people, especially the young ones, in ways that they like," Huang told the Global Times.



Similarly, 75-year-old Hu Jun, another "Old Poplar" member, is also good at using relatable details to explain macro policies in methods that resonate with the public.



The "Old Poplar" program mainly targets residents of Shanghai's downtown Yangpu district. When discussing China's industrial restructuring, Hu used Yangpu as an example to illustrate how this cradle of modern Chinese industry has continuously adapted its industrial structure to keep pace with the times.



"Yangpu was once known as the 'golden belt' of industry. After China's reform and opening-up in the late 1970s, it became the 'Rust Belt.' Now, through years of industrial upgrading, Yangpu has transformed into the 'beautiful belt,' evolving into a green and livable community," said Hu.



Hu was an official in the Yangpu district government before retirement. He expressed his excitement and enthusiasm upon receiving the reply letter from Xi, saying it reflects the president's great expectations for grassroots retired officials and his affirmation of Shanghai's urban construction.



"Even though I am retired, I will continue to serve as a promoter and practitioner of constructing a people-oriented city."



Both teachers and friends



The "Old Poplar" members have conducted more than 2,600 free lectures over the last five years. They not only do well in vividly explaining macro topics, but are also good at sharing relatable life experiences tailored to audiences of different ages, becoming both teachers and friends to local residents.



Li Peirong, 75, used to work in a local township-level subdistrict before retiring, from which she gained rich experience dealing with the elderly. Now as an "Old Poplar" member, Li's lecturers are mainly for senior citizens, whom she teaches how to use electronics such as smartphones. "Most of my elderly audience members have learned how to use [smartphones]," she said.



Li also promotes knowledge about electronic fraud prevention in her lectures. "We want to help more elderly people bridge the digital divide, and enjoy the benefits of modern technology."



She said that receiving the reply from Xi makes her very proud, and further appreciates the significance of what she and other "Old Poplar" members are doing. "I never feel old," she told the Global Times. "Even in retirement, we can continue to harness the power of our 'silver generation' in contributing to society."



For young audiences, the "Old Poplar" has also made many efforts to prepare its lectures.



As former chairman of the board of supervisors of a technological innovation enterprise, 64-year-old Xin Peihua now mainly engages with young people through the "Old Poplar" program, giving lectures at internet companies.



Xin said she usually keeps her lectures to about half an hour, considering that most young people have busy work schedules. During and after the lectures, she talks with the young employees about work-related stress and their anxieties regarding potential layoffs, much like a caring senior family member. "Now when they're feeling confused, they sometimes come to me to share their concerns and seek advice," Xin told the Global Times.



Xin also regularly talks with the new couples at Yangpu's marriage registries, sharing with them experiences of getting along with spouses and in-laws, maintaining marriage, and building a happy family. These small talks are so popular, that some new couples from other districts choose to register their marriages at Yangpu, said Xin.



She said that receiving a reply from President Xi is a "supreme honor" to her. "I want to serve as a flourishing old poplar, contributing my strength to the joint effort of building a beautiful city for the people, and creating a happy and fulfilling life together."



Attract the young



The "Old Poplar" program was established in 2020, following Xi's inspection trip to Shanghai the previous year.



In November 2019, during his visit to the city, Xi proposed the concept that "the cities are built by the people and are for the people," and has issued several important directives regarding the construction of a people-oriented city in Shanghai.



During that visit, Xi met Huang and encouraged her to further share her experiences with the young people, to strengthen their confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics.



Inspired by Xi's words, Yangpu district established the "Old Poplar" program to share with the public the Party's stories and promote the spirit of Shanghai city. The program has gathered over 300 retired senior citizens who are well-versed in theory, skilled in public speaking, and eager to contribute as volunteer lecturers, according to Deng Qing, head of the Bureau of Retired Veteran Cadres of the CPC Yangpu District Committee, which built the program.



To date, the "Old Poplar" has had a cumulative audience of more than 280,000. How to make young people interested in this format of lectures, and enjoy listening to the stories shared by these "grandpas" and "grandmas," have been topics that the "Old Poplar" keeps considering.



To attract a Gen Z audience, the program has created accounts on popular video platforms like Bilibili, inviting its members to host livestream lectures. "A Huang lecture, for example, attracted 5,000 viewers during the live broadcast, with a total of over 50,000 views for the replay," Deng told the Global Times.



The engaging and diverse lectures have been well received by the younger audience. Xu Yifan, a staffer at a Shanghai-based internet enterprise, said he has watched livestream and videos of "Old Poplar" lectures on Bilibili, and felt the deep love of the elderly lecturers for Shanghai and China.



"Their lectures convey knowledge but also power to us, strengthening our young generation's aspirations for the future, and encouraging us to actively participate in the development of a people-oriented city," Xu told the Global Times.



Cheng Yunuo is a fifth-grader at a primary school in Yangpu. She has attended many lectures held by the "Old Poplar" at her school.



"The experiences and insights of the older generation have made me deeply realize that, as a Chinese teenager in the new era, I have a responsibility to study hard and continuously improve my knowledge and skills," Cheng said.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202411/1323005.shtml

SOURCE Global Times
CHICAGO, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Hiperbaric, the global leader in high pressure processing technologies, marked two significant milestones at PACK EXPO International in Chicago. The company received special recognition for 25 years of innovation and leadership in HPP technology from Andrew Dougherty and announced a new installation of its Hiperbaric 420 integrated system at HPP Chicago's facility in Bartlett, Illinois.

Hiperbaric received special recognition for 25 years of innovation and leadership in HPP technology from PMMI during Pack Expo International 2024

"This recognition at PACK EXPO International is a testament to our commitment to innovation and food safety over the past quarter-century," said Andres Hernando, Founder and CEO of Hiperbaric. "From our earliest machines to today's advanced systems, we've remained focused on developing technologies that make food both safer and better. Our innovations help food and beverage producers enhance food safety, while meeting growing consumer demand for clean-label, minimally processed products".

The new Hiperbaric 420 installation at HPP Chicago represents the company's continued expansion in the U.S. market. The 100,000+ sq. ft. state-of-the-art facility in Bartlett, Illinois, will provide HPP tolling services to food and beverage manufacturers in the greater Chicago area.

"The Chicago region is a crucial hub for food manufacturing, and this new installation will provide local producers with access to advanced HPP technology," said Rob Peregrina, USA Executive Director at Hiperbaric. "We're seeing unprecedented demand for HPP across various food categories, from ready-to-eat meals and proteins to pet food, as manufacturers seek solutions for food safety and extended shelf life without artificial preservatives."

During PACK EXPO, Hiperbaric showcased its latest innovations in HPP technology, including bulk processing equipment for liquids and high pressure thermal processing systems for shelf-stable foods. The company's HPP automation solutions were also highlighted, demonstrating how manufacturers can optimize their HPP operations for maximum efficiency.

Hiperbaric experts Anthony Zapata, Business Development Manager, and Daniela Soto, HPP Food Applications Specialist, presented "Trends in HPP: RTE Meals, Seafood, Proteins, and Pet Food" at the Processing Innovation Stage, addressing the growing adoption of HPP technology across diverse food categories.

High Pressure Processing continues to gain traction in the food industry as a proven method for ensuring food safety while maintaining nutritional value and fresh taste. The technology uses cold water under high pressure (up to 87,000 psi) to eliminate harmful bacteria and extend product shelf life without heat or chemical preservatives. The global HPP market is experiencing significant growth, driven by consumer demand for clean-label, minimally processed foods and beverages.

This year, Hiperbaric has opened a sales and service office with pilot plant equipment in China in view of the opportunities in the HPP food market. The new headquarters is located in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone and Hiperbaric aims to become the fastest growing HPP technology company in the Asian market.

About Hiperbaric

Hiperbaric is the global leader in high pressure technology, designing, manufacturing, and marketing its high pressure processing equipment internationally. The company is recognized for its reliability, customer support, teamwork and continuous effort in R&D.

Hiperbaric has installed more than 400 machines in more than 50 countries across five continents. Hundreds of companies worldwide use Hiperbaric HPP equipment to process juices and beverages, meat, fish and seafood, fruits and vegetables, dairy and ready-to-eat meals.

Hiperbaric is headquartered in Burgos, Spain, with a U.S. office in Miami, FL, Asia office in Shanghai, China and commercial and technical offices in Mexico, Asia, and Oceania. For more information, visit: www.hiperbaric.com.

For further information, please contact:

Anthony Zapata

Hiperbaric HPP  Business Development Manager

[email protected]

Mobile (USA): +1 305 746 0209

Hiperbaric booth at PACK EXPO International (Photo courtesy of Hiperbaric)

SOURCE Hiperbaric
Program Celebrates 20 Years as One of the Largest in US and a Destination for Patients Seeking Expertise, Experience and Superior Outcomes

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Hoag recently completed its 30,000th robotic-assisted surgery, a significant milestone for the first health system in Orange County to adopt the technology twenty years ago. It is one of a few medical centers in the state to cross this threshold and continues to be a destination for patients seeking robotic surgical care given its expertise and experience in the field, and superior outcomes for patients.

"Achieving this remarkable milestone underscores Hoag's dedication to enhancing the patient experience, ensuring quicker recoveries, and faster return to normal activities," said Robert T. Braithwaite, President and CEO of Hoag. "Thanks to the support of our philanthropic community and the vision and dedication of our physician leaders, Hoag is on the forefront of minimally invasive surgery and training physicians from around the world."

As one of the largest programs in the United States, Hoag has 10 da Vinci Surgical Systems in use throughout numerous surgical specialties including gynecology, urology, bariatrics, general surgery, colorectal surgery and cardiothoracic surgery. Hoag has been designated as a Center of Excellence in Robotic Surgery (COERS) by the Surgical Review Corporation for 8 years, a designation reserved for health care institutions that consistently deliver the safest, highest-quality care in robotics. Also, more than a dozen Hoag surgeons carry the distinction as Robotic Surgeons of Excellence.

"Hoag is a leader in introducing evidence-based technology that advances care and improves patients' quality of life," said Jeffrey C. Bassett, M.D, M.P.H., Benjamin & Carmela Du Endowed Chair in Urologic Oncology. "Patients can take comfort in knowing they are not only at a hospital that has the best technology and most renowned surgeons health care has to offer, but are also receiving the best possible treatment."

Hoag's 8 da Vinci Xi robots and 2 da Vinci SP robots allow physicians to provide surgical options to people whose conditions, overall health or age made standard open surgery less ideal.

The da Vinci robots have significantly evolved since Hoag first pioneered its Robotics Program, with each iteration providing more precision and ease-of-use, resulting in improved patient care and outcomes.

"Recovery time for robotic-assisted surgery is faster, there is less blood loss and lower risk for complications," said John (Jeb) V. Brown, M.D., medical director of Hoag's Robotics & Complex Gynecologic Surgery Program. "From our first robotic-assisted surgery patient to our 30,000th, we have been steadfastly committed to each person whom we have the honor of treating with care, compassion and innovation."

Hoag's specialists regularly host and proctor surgeons from around the world, who visit to learn how to implement Hoag's cutting-edge practices in their own communities. This dedication to knowledge-sharing aligns with Hoag's broader mission to continuously innovate and improve patient care.

"Hoag is committed to bringing innovative advancements in patient care to Orange County, as witnessed by our investment in tools including the HistoSonics Edison Histotripsy System, GI Genius intelligent endoscopy module and Surgical Theater as a few examples," added Braithwaite. "With the support of our Board, donors, patients and medical leadership, we will continue to pursue solutions in health care technology that will evolve and improve outcomes for our patients."

For more information, visit https://www.hoag.org/robotics/.

ABOUT HOAG

Hoag is a nonprofit, regional health care delivery system in Orange County, California. Delivering world-class, comprehensive, personalized care, Hoag consists of 1,800 top physicians, 16 urgent care facilities, 11 health & wellness centers, and two award-winning hospitals. Hoag offers a comprehensive blend of health care services that includes seven institutes providing specialized services in the following areas: cancer, digestive health, heart and vascular, neurosciences, spine, women's health, and orthopedics through Hoag's affiliate, Hoag Orthopedic Institute, which consists of an orthopedic hospital and four ambulatory surgical centers. Hoag is the highest ranked hospital in Orange County by U.S. News & World Report and the only OC hospital ranked in the Top 10 in California, as well as a designated Magnet hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). For more information, visit hoag.org.

SOURCE Hoag
Ismat Duckson Aziz, Chief Administrative Officer at Kemper Corporation, Joins the Board

CHICAGO, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Homethrive, the leading provider of technology-enabled caregiving solutions, today announced the successful close of its latest funding round, raising over $20 million and appointing Ismat Duckson Aziz to its Board of Directors. TELUS Global Ventures and 7Wire Ventures led the funding round, with participation from Pitango HealthTech, Human Capital, Outcomes Collective Growth Capital, Allianz, The K Fund, and other family offices. Homethrive has grown by 4x since its last funding round in 2022, fueled by the increasing demand for comprehensive caregiving solutions among employers and health plans.

Homethrive will use the capital to expand its end-to-end caregiving platform, focusing on personalized caregiving support and scaling its AI-driven care navigation and recommendations. This funding will also allow Homethrive to bolster its offerings for various payer populations and enhance its digital tools to further increase engagement.

Homethrive helps employers reduce turnover by 80%, and saves working caregivers an average of 16.4+ hours per month Post this

"Over the past six years, we've built a platform that addresses one of the fastest-growing challenges in healthcare," said Dave Jacobs, co-founder and Co-CEO of Homethrive. "We're seeing tremendous momentum in the caregiving space, as more HR leaders and insurance plans prioritize caregiving support for their employees and members. Our platform delivers scalable solutions to the wide range of problems caregivers face today."

A major factor in Homethrive's growth is its ability to serve organizations with an industry-leading 8.4% utilization ratea testament to the platform's effectiveness. David Greenberg, co-founder and Co-CEO, noted, "We know caregiving doesn't just happen from 9 to 5. That's why we've invested heavily in enhancing our digital platform, which now provides AI-powered care navigation and guidance, while offering a seamless end-to-end offering, giving caregivers the support they need anytime, anywhere."

By supporting working caregivers around the clock, Homethrive helps employers reduce turnover by 80%, saves working caregivers an average of 16.4+ hours per month, and has shown a 17% increase in plan retention on the payor side. This not only enhances caregiver productivity and well-being but also creates significant savings for employers by reducing burnout and improving employee retention.

"We've been impressed by the significant traction Homethrive has achieved," said Terry Doyle, Managing Partner at TELUS Global Ventures. "Their unique platform is empowering caregivers, providing them much-needed support, and allowing their loved ones to age in place while adding value to employers and payers alike. We're excited to invest in Homethrive to accelerate their growth and establish their presence in Canada."

Ismat Duckson Aziz named to board of directors

Homethrive also announced the addition of Ismat Duckson Aziz to its board of directors. Since 2020, Duckson Aziz has been the Chief Administrative Officer at Kemper Corporation. Ismat brings over 25 years of human capital expertise, and has previously held CHRO roles at Kemper Corporation, U.S. Bank, Sprint Corporation, Sam's Club (Walmart Enterprises), and Sears Canada. Ismat also serves as the Academic Program Advisor for CHRO programs at Duke Executive Education, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. Her leadership and expertise will be key in driving Homethrive's mission forward. "Ismat's global experience in Human Capital, Technology, AI/Digital, and large scale transformations will be invaluable as we continue to scale our solutions," said Greenberg.

With significant momentum in the caregiving space, strong investor backing, and the addition of Ismat Duckson Aziz to its board, Homethrive is well-positioned to continue leading the transformation of caregiving, providing much-needed support to families, employees, and employers alike.

About Homethrive

Homethrive is transforming the way we care by offering working caregivers the support they need and deserve to balance work, life, and caregiving responsibilities. Through their high-touch/high-tech platform, caregivers can access 24/7 on-demand resources and live, one-on-one support from their team of expert Care Guides, social work professionals with years of caregiving experience. This highly personalized approach improves outcomes, lowers costs, and saves valuable time. Homethrive is available nationally and offered primarily as an employee benefit through employers and through select health plans.

SOURCE Homethrive
VIENNA, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- International Airlines Group (IAG) announced the launch of its eighth Hangar 51 Accelerator program, welcoming a new cohort of startups poised to revolutionize the aviation industry. Plug and Play, a global innovation platform connecting startups and corporations is proud to support this year's program as the innovation partner of IAG.

The selected startups will tackle some of the industry's biggest challenges across four core areas:

Sustainability: Exploring new technologies that can help decarbonize aviation.





Exploring new technologies that can help decarbonize aviation. Customer Experience: Enhancing the passenger journey through innovative products and services.





Enhancing the passenger journey through innovative products and services. Operational Efficiency: Testing new solutions to improve efficiency and performance.





Testing new solutions to improve efficiency and performance. Airports: Optimizing turnaround management and ground operations.

Over twelve weeks, the startups will work closely with IAG experts to test and refine their solutions in a real-world environment. The culmination of the Hangar 51 Accelerator 2024 will be a Demo Day held on November 27 at IAG's Headquarters in London. This event will provide a platform for the startups to present their projects to key stakeholders across IAG and its operating companies: Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia, LEVEL, Vueling, IAG Loyalty and IAG Cargo. This event will foster networking, knowledge exchange, and collaboration, enabling IAG to showcase the potential of these solutions across the group.

Plug and Play provided support to IAG with key program activities, including global scouting, startup assessment, and event management. Beyond the program itself, Plug and Play has connected IAG to its wider partner ecosystem, offering speaking and participation opportunities at events across Europe. This creates opportunities to connect with other industry leaders to exchange best practices and identify potential synergies.

"We're truly excited to partner with one of the world's largest airline groups to drive impactful improvements in airline operations and sustainability. Working with IAG is a unique highlight within our global ecosystem, showing how open innovation across diverse companies/carriers, regions, and approaches can make a real difference for the entire industry. In aviation, collaboration is key, and we're proud to work together in tackling challenges like CO2 emissions and climate impact. The best startups have made it through our selection process and are now collaborating with various airlines and business units to test their solutions. I'm personally looking forward to Demo Day to see the impact they've made," said Nik Munaretto, Director of Plug and Play Vienna.

Congratulations and welcome to the new Hangar 51 Accelerator 2024 Cohort:

For more information about Plug and Play, please visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com.

About Plug and Play

Plug and Play is the leading innovation platform connecting startups, corporations, venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we're present in 60+ locations across 5 continents. We offer corporate innovation programs and help our corporate partners in every stage of their innovation journey, from education to execution. We also organize startup acceleration programs and have built an in-house VC to drive innovation across multiple industries where we've invested in hundreds of successful companies including Dropbox, Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, N26, PayPal, and Rappi. For more information, visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/

About IAG

International Airlines Group (IAG) is one of the world's largest airline groups with 585 aircrafts flying to over 250 destinations and carrying more than 115 million passengers in 2023. The Group was created in 2011 and includes the airlines British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling and LEVEL, and IAG Loyalty and IAG Cargo. It is a Spanish-registered company with its corporate office in London, United Kingdom. Its shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange and on the Spanish stock markets. IAG's vision is to be the leading airline group in sustainability. The group is proud to have been listed on the Carbon Disclosure Project's A List for its commitment to sustainability and action on climate change.

Media Relations Contact

[email protected]

SOURCE Plug and Play
SAO PAULO, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Themed "Development and Revitalization: A New Journey for the Global South," the inaugural Global South Media and Think Tank Forum was held here from Monday to Tuesday.

Congratulatory messages from Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were read out at the forum.

The organizers of the forum said both President Xi and President Lula issued new important guidelines on the development of the Global South. The Global South is gaining momentum and becoming an indispensable and constructive force in the international community.

The forum is being held against the backdrop of the upcoming 19th G20 Summit in Brazil this month. Various media outlets and think tanks are expected to jointly amplify the voice of the Global South regarding upholding peace, opening up and development, global governance, and mutual learning among civilizations. They should demonstrate the responsibilities of the Global South, unite efforts for modernization of Global South nations, and jointly promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

Among the guests of the forum are Dima Al-Khatib, director of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, Yeidckol Polevnsky Gurwitz, chair of the Asia-Pacific Foreign Relations Committee of the Mexican Senate and Muhammad Ali Ali, managing director of News Agency of Nigeria. The guests asserted that the Global South is experiencing significant development, greatly impacting the trajectory of world history.

They hoped that the media and think tanks of the Global South will prioritize development and cooperation and promote global governance reform guided by the principles of fairness, justice, openness and inclusiveness. The guests called for all parties involved to collaborate to boost the new development of the Global South, create a new chapter of mutual learning among civilizations, and meet the new challenges of the all-media era.

During the opening ceremony, the Global South Media News Network was launched. The Sao Paulo Declaration of the Global South Media and Think Tank Forum, the think tank report "A New Model for Human Advancement and Its Global Significance" and multilingual versions of the report "Awakening of the Global South" were also released.

Guided by China's State Council Information Office and jointly organized by Xinhua News Agency and Brazil Communication Company, the forum drew around 350 representatives from 170 media organizations, think tanks, government agencies, and enterprises from more than 70 countries and regions.

SOURCE Xinhua News Agency
Five people die as result of fire, incl four children in Kharkiv region  Emergency Service

In Pisochyn (Kharkiv region), a fire broke out in a private house, the fire engulfed 150 square meters, five people were killed, the press service of the State Emergency Service in Kharkiv region has reported.

"Rescuers found the bodies of five dead men and four children during the extinguishing. One child was injured. A cat was also rescued from a burning house," the State Emergency Service informs.

Rescuers extinguished the fire together with the local fire brigade. The fire has been extinguished.

The causes of the fire are being determined.
ATLANTA, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Insight Global is pleased to announce it has been awarded a contract by the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) to offer technology to state and local governments through DIR's Cooperative Contracts Program.

Through this contract, Texas state and local government agencies can enhance the efficiency of their procurement and contracting processes by utilizing this IT staff augmentation contract. This provides agencies with temporary IT staff augmentation services based on not-to-exceed bill rates.

Insight Global is pleased to be awarded contract by the Texas DIR.

"Insight Global is proud to be listed as an approved vendor with Texas Department of Information Resources. We are looking forward to bringing our extensive IT Staffing Services experience to Texas State agencies and providing exceptional Information Technology Consultants," said Madeleine Orrico, Portfolio Relationship Manager.

Agencies can negotiate and contract directly with Insight Global for IT staff augmentation. Learn more about Insight Global's temporary IT staffing capabilities.

Learn more about the general ITSAC and other cooperative contracts on the DIR website.

Click here for details regarding Insight Global's contract with DIR (DIR-CPO-5596). To obtain a quote, place a purchase order, or seek warranty information with Insight Global for services under the ITSAC contract, please contact Insight Global's DIR representative, Madeleine Orrico.

About DIR

The mission of the Texas Department of Information Resources is to serve Texas government by leading the state's technology strategy, protecting state technology infrastructure, and offering innovative and cost-effective solutions for all levels of government. Visit DIR at https://www.dir.texas.gov.

About Insight Global

Insight Global is an international professional services and staffing company specializing in delivering talent and technical solutions to Fortune 1000 companies across the IT, Non-IT, Healthcare, and Engineering industries. Fueled by staffing and talent experts, Evergreen, our professional services brand, brings technical advisors and culture consultants to help customers tackle their biggest challenges. With over 70 locations across North America, Europe, and Asia, and global staffing capabilities in 50+ countries, our teams of tech-enabled recruiters are dedicated to finding the right talent and technical solutions to help our customers thrive. At our core, we are dedicated to empowering people to do great things. That's why we're passionate about developing our people personally, professionally, and financially so they can be the light to the world around them.

Contract Number: (DIR-CPO-5596).

SOURCE Insight Global
HOUSTON, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Texas-based intellectual property boutique Heim, Payne & Chorush, LLP, has added recent law school graduate Maryam Sheikh as an associate in Houston.

Ms. Sheikh represents clients in patent disputes involving a broad range of technologies, including microprocessors, computer architecture, wireless local area networks, cellular systems, data transmission, and many other areas.

"Maryam is an exceptionally talented lawyer dedicated to accomplishing clients' goals by doing things the right way," says firm partner Leslie Payne. "She is a perfect fit for the interesting and important cases we handle every day."

Ms. Sheikh supports Heim, Payne & Chorush's experienced team of trial lawyers with extensive case law research, document preparation, and strategy development. Before beginning her legal career, she taught physics and chemistry at a Houston-area college preparatory school. She is fluent in Urdu and conversational in Punjabi and Hindi.

Ms. Sheikh is a cum laude graduate of the University of Houston Law Center, where she was a Dean's List member and Articles Editor for the Houston Journal of International Law, which published her student comment.

Ms. Sheikh previously worked with the Anti-Defamation League and Bayou City Waterkeeper on cases involving civil rights, free speech, water rights, and other areas. She earned her undergraduate degree in physics with a minor in mathematics from Rice University.

Heim, Payne & Chorush, LLP, represents plaintiffs and defendants in litigation across a broad range of technologies and business sectors. With a wide variety of technical and scientific backgrounds, firm attorneys handle all facets of intellectual property litigation for some of the largest energy and technology firms, as well as individuals and smaller companies. Ranked among the most active and top-performing firms in matters before the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board by Patexia Insights, Heim, Payne & Chorush takes pride in its ability to partner with other attorneys and firms to bring the best possible trial team together for the benefit of the client. To learn more about the firm and its work, visit www.hpcllp.com.

SOURCE Heim, Payne & Chorush, LLP
NEW YORK, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Report on how AI is driving market transformation - The global internet of things (IOT) market size is estimated to grow by USD 1.55 trillion from 2024-2028, according to Technavio. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of almost 18.52% during the forecast period. Technological developments in different platforms is driving market growth, with a trend towards use of wearables to monitor human health and environment. However, lack of awareness of efficient management of iot initiatives and investments poses a challenge.Key market players include Aeris Communications Inc., Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., AT and T Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., General Electric Co., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., Honeywell International Inc., Intel Corp., International Business Machines Corp., Koninklijke Philips N.V., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp., PTC Inc., Robert Bosch GmbH, SAP SE, Siemens AG, Thales Group, and Wipro Ltd..

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Internet of Things (IoT) market 2024-2028

Key insights into market evolution with AI-powered analysis. Explore trends, segmentation, and growth drivers- View Free Sample PDF

Internet Of Things (Iot) Market Scope Report Coverage Details Base year 2023 Historic period 2017 - 2021 Forecast period 2024-2028 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 18.52% Market growth 2024-2028 USD 1554.5 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth 2022-2023 (%) 15.18 Regional analysis APAC, North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and South America Performing market contribution APAC at 37% Key countries US, China, Germany, Norway, and France Key companies profiled Aeris Communications Inc., Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., AT and T Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., General Electric Co., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., Honeywell International Inc., Intel Corp., International Business Machines Corp., Koninklijke Philips N.V., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp., PTC Inc., Robert Bosch GmbH, SAP SE, Siemens AG, Thales Group, and Wipro Ltd.

Market Driver

The Internet of Things (IoT) market is experiencing significant growth, with trends like Generative AI and Blockchain leading the way. The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2025, IoT will contribute USD11 trillion to the global economy. Enterprises and service providers in sectors such as Manufacturing, Healthcare, Logistics chain, and E-commerce are embracing IoT technology for smart factory automation, real-time marketing analysis, and operational efficiency. IoT technology is revolutionizing industries, with companies like Taiwan Mobile, SPHCC, VivaLNK, and Canadian firms exploring new revenue-generating opportunities. SAS Software, VMware, and VMware Tanzu are key players in IoT software development. Connectivity, cloud adoption, and data processing are crucial for IoT success. Bluetooth technology, NB-IoT networks, and 5G technology are driving the future of IoT. Smart city initiatives, such as those in Smart Wellington, are transforming urban areas with IoT sensors and autonomous systems. Revenue forecasts indicate continued growth, with ROI a key consideration for businesses. Telecom and networking infrastructure providers, including 4G technology, are essential for IoT implementation. Consumer behavior and public safety services, such as firefighter and emergency medical services, are also benefiting from IoT technology. IoT technology is transforming sectors like Energy and Transportation, with smart utilities and smart transportation becoming the norm. RFID and sensors are enabling real-time monitoring and analysis, while AI and autonomous systems are streamlining processes and providing a competitive edge in digitalization.

In today's digital age, mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have become the hub of connectivity and computing. Equipped with sensors like GPS, microphones, accelerometers, cameras, ambient light sensors, gyroscopes, and digital compasses, these devices offer advanced functionalities. These features are transforming various sectors such as social networking, environmental monitoring, healthcare, and transportation. Moreover, mobile devices come with WIFI, 3G/4G/5G, and Bluetooth connectivity. IoT wearables, an extension of these devices, enable consumers to monitor their health and allow doctors to remotely monitor patients. This integration of technology and mobility is revolutionizing our daily lives and economic sectors.

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Market Challenges

 The IoT market is experiencing rapid growth, with enterprises and service providers in manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, and more embracing this technology. Challenges include integrating Generative AI and Blockchain, addressing Intelligent Disease and Smart City initiatives, and ensuring connectivity with 4G and 5G technology. IoT revenue forecasts are strong, driven by cloud adoption and data processing. Sensors, Bluetooth technology, and NB-IoT networks are key components. Companies like Taiwan Mobile, VivaLNK, and SPHCC are leading the way. SAS Software, VMware, and VMware Tanzu offer solutions. RoI is a major consideration, with operational efficiency and real-time marketing analysis driving value. Telecom and networking infrastructure providers, hardware vendors, and software vendors are essential partners. Canadian companies are also making strides in citizen services, public safety, and smart transportation. IoT presents significant revenue-generating opportunities and a competitive edge in digitalization.

 The Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) market is experiencing significant growth as more enterprises integrate IoT into their industrial facilities. However, managing, securing, and optimizing these investments presents challenges. To fully leverage IoT's capabilities, employee training is essential. The lack of skilled workers is a major hurdle for industries. Proper education on IoT platforms enables workers to adapt effectively and maximize system benefits. Investing in employee training is a crucial step towards successful IoT implementation.

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Segment Overview

This internet of things (iot) market report extensively covers market segmentation by

Application

1.1 Industrial

1.2 Retail

1.3 Healthcare

1.4 ICT

1.5 Others

Technology

2.1 RFID

2.2 Sensors

2.3 NFC

2.4 Cloud services

2.5 Others

Geography

3.1 APAC

3.2 North America

3.3 Europe

3.4 Middle East and Africa

and 3.5 South America

1.1 Industrial- The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market is experiencing significant growth as businesses worldwide leverage this technology to enhance productivity and gain a competitive edge. Machines and devices are connected to the Internet through software, generating valuable data for predictive maintenance and performance optimization. However, challenges persist, including the need for increased investment, business model redesign, security concerns, lack of standardization, and interoperability issues. Favorable government policies and partnerships among industry players are crucial for addressing these challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of IIoT, particularly in the industrial sector. Manufacturing industries were significantly impacted, with many shutting down due to lockdowns. IIoT technology played a crucial role in enabling remote work and machine control, ensuring continuity of operations. The demand for IIoT solutions in the industrial sector has continued to grow post-pandemic, with vendors offering innovative solutions to drive market expansion during the forecast period.

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Research Analysis

The Internet of Things (IoT) market is experiencing exponential growth, driven by the integration of Generative AI and Blockchain technologies. According to the World Economic Forum, the global revenue for IoT is forecasted to reach USD1.1 trillion by 2026. In various sectors, IoT technology is revolutionizing industries such as Manufacturing, Healthcare, Logistics chain, and E-commerce. Intelligent Disease diagnosis and Smart Factory automation are two significant applications of IoT in Healthcare and Manufacturing, respectively. IoT is also transforming the way enterprises and service providers operate, enabling real-time data processing and connectivity through Bluetooth technology and Cloud adoption. Taiwan Mobile, SPHCC, VivaLNK, and others are leading the charge in IoT innovation. SAS Software, VMware, and VMware Tanzu are also making strides in IoT data processing and management. The integration of AI and IoT is expected to further accelerate growth in the market. The use of IoT in various sectors is revolutionizing business operations, improving efficiency, and creating new opportunities. The future of IoT is bright, with endless possibilities for innovation and growth.

Market Research Overview

The Internet of Things (IoT) market is experiencing exponential growth, driven by the integration of Generative AI and Blockchain technologies. The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025, IoT will connect over 50 billion devices, revolutionizing industries from manufacturing to healthcare and logistics. IoT technology enables enterprises and service providers to optimize operational efficiency through smart factory automation, real-time marketing analysis, and autonomous systems. The energy and transportation sectors are major beneficiaries, with 5G technology and NB-IoT networks enabling smart utilities and smart transportation. Sensors and RFID technology are key components, providing connectivity and data processing capabilities. Cloud adoption and the use of IoT software are essential for managing and analyzing the vast amounts of data generated by these connected devices. IoT technology also offers revenue-generating opportunities for hardware, network, and software vendors, providing a competitive edge in digitalization. Smart city initiatives, such as those in Smart Wellington and Taiwan Mobile's smart city projects, are transforming urban infrastructure, offering smart citizen services, public safety, and emergency medical services. IoT technology is also transforming consumer behavior, with e-commerce and physical events adopting IoT technology for improved connectivity and networking infrastructure. The IoT market is expected to reach significant revenue forecasts, with RoI being a major consideration for businesses adopting this technology. The use of AI, SAS Software, VMware, and VMware Tanzu is becoming increasingly common in IoT projects, enabling advanced data processing and analysis capabilities. Bluetooth technology and telecom infrastructure are also essential components of the IoT ecosystem. Overall, IoT technology is transforming industries and offering new opportunities for growth and innovation.

Table of Contents:

1 Executive Summary

2 Market Landscape

3 Market Sizing

4 Historic Market Size

5 Five Forces Analysis

6 Market Segmentation

Application

Industrial



Retail



Healthcare



ICT



Others

Technology

RFID



Sensors



NFC



Cloud Services



Others

Geography

APAC



North America



Europe



Middle East And Africa



South America



7 Customer Landscape

8 Geographic Landscape

9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends

10 Company Landscape

11 Company Analysis

12 Appendix

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contacts

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/

SOURCE Technavio
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- FallTech, a leader in fall protection solutions, proudly announces the launch of the FT-1910, the first premium full-body harness designed specifically for general industry maintenance workers. Maintenance professionals are the unsung heroes behind the smooth operation of facilities nationwide, and the FT-1910 harness is engineered to meet their unique demands. From breweries to power plants and aerospace manufacturing, this harness provides maintenance workers with unmatched support, durability, and comfort.

Durability Redefined

The FT-1910 harness is built to last with its pioneering UltraTech webbing, which is 25% thicker than standard materials. This heavy-duty webbing is infused with antimicrobial and durable water repellent (DWR) treatment. This ensures the harness stands up to moisture, grime, and bacteria, even in the harshest conditions. Additionally, the webbing is embedded with stainless steel grommets for extended corrosion resistance in damp workspaces. Whether working in heat or around chemicals, workers can trust their FT-1910 harnesses to provide long-lasting protection.

Designed for Comfort

The FT-1910 was crafted with the understanding that maintenance work demands flexibility and comfort. The harness features the FallTech proprietary Comfort Legs, lateral leg straps that allow for a snug yet flexible fit that adapts to every movement. Whether in tight spaces or awkward positions, workers experience fewer pinch points and a better range of motion. A lightweight design further ensures that workers remain focused on the task at handnot their gear.

Innovation in Functionality

What further sets the FT-1910 apart from traditional harnesses is its smart lanyard keeper design. With a second set of lanyard keepers positioned at hip level, the FT-1910 eliminates trip hazards and grants greater freedom of movement. This functionality allows workers to move confidently in all conditions, making the FT-1910 adaptable to every job's unique requirements.

Meaningful Design

The FT-1910 harness isn't just about performanceit's about pride in craftsmanship. Named in reference to the OSHA standard, it features a striking racing green color, symbolic of the action and efficiency that define maintenance work. With brushed aluminum hardware and a sleek, modern look, this harness is as stylish as it is reliable.

"Maintenance professionals are the backbone of industry, and they deserve gear that matches their dedication," said Alex Dancyger, Vice President of Business Development at FallTech. "The FT-1910 harness is more than just equipmentit's a partner in their mission to keep our industries running smoothly."

About FallTech:

For over 30 years, FallTech has been a trusted leader in fall protection solutions, committed to safeguarding workers across a wide range of industries. With a focus on innovation, craftsmanship, and reliability, FallTech designs and engineers cutting-edge fall protection equipment that meets the highest safety standards. From harnesses to lifelines and anchor systems, FallTech products are built to perform in the toughest environments, ensuring that every worker stays safe on the job. Dedicated to advancing safety technology, FallTech is driven by a mission to protect lives and support the well-being of workers everywhere.

SOURCE FallTech
The conversational AI assistant utilizes purpose-built multi-agent technology that works together to automate legal work, giving legal professionals a singular place to work with all the right tools and information in one seamless experience

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Ironclad, the leading digital contracting platform for modern businesses, today announced the public launch of a new conversational AI legal assistant, Ironclad Jurist. Jurist allows legal professionals to draft, edit, review, summarize, translate, and answer questions related to modern contracting. Jurist is the only AI-powered assistant purpose-built for lawyers that lets users create and iterate on any legal document with past company precedent, benchmarks, and real-time changes in the legal spaceall in an online, fully editable .docx workspace.

Jurist, built on Ironclad's open-source visual programming platform Rivet, offers users unprecedented transparency into AI decision-making within a contract by displaying agent actions and reasoning, complete with citations in its online research mode. Leveraging industry-leading prompt routing, specialized legal prompt engineering, and a sophisticated retrieval automation generation (RAG) approach that harnesses multiple top-tier LLMs, Jurist is transforming the landscape of AI-assisted legal work.

"Jurist has already eliminated hours of manual review from our document review process. Its intuitive interface lets us easily define our own parameters, transforming tasks like NDA reviews into a streamlined workflow," said Katelyn Canning, Director and Head of Legal at Ocrolus. "What truly sets it apart is its ability to select the most appropriate AI model for each task behind the scenes, delivering useful results without requiring us to craft intricate prompts. This combination of power and simplicity has made it an indispensable tool for our legal team."

After a rigorous five-month beta, which included in-house legal teams at companies like Ocrolus and Signifyd, and leading law firms including Gunderson Dettmer, Jurist is now generally available. With Ironclad Jurist, users can:

Perform legal work in one central place: Jurist provides a new surface for lawyers to work with, iterate, draft, edit, research, and ask questions, all within a single environment. Users can directly edit AI outputsand write prompts for specific sections of documents to fine-tune contract languagein a native .docx editor.

Jurist provides a new surface for lawyers to work with, iterate, draft, edit, research, and ask questions, all within a single environment. Users can directly edit AI outputsand write prompts for specific sections of documents to fine-tune contract languagein a native .docx editor. Personalize AI outputs with past documents : Jurist produces personalized drafts, reviews, and edits based on the context users provide, including templates and executed agreements.

: Jurist produces personalized drafts, reviews, and edits based on the context users provide, including templates and executed agreements. Access the latest legal knowledge from verified online sources : Users can stay current with the ever-evolving legal landscape from the most reputable online legal research sources.

: Users can stay current with the ever-evolving legal landscape from the most reputable online legal research sources. Verify actions taken by your team of agents : Jurist explains its decisions in real time and cites sources when answering prompts, empowering users to use what they create with confidence.

: Jurist explains its decisions in real time and cites sources when answering prompts, empowering users to use what they create with confidence. Work in a responsible, privacy-forward environment: Jurist does not allow companies like OpenAI or Google to retain or train on customer data. Ironclad provides customers with complete enterprise-grade security and holds numerous certifications, including several ISOs. Ironclad is also compliant with GDPR, HIPAA, and the SOC 2 Type II Security Trust Criteria. To learn more about Ironclad's security certifications, click here.

"Legal is the perfect application for LLMs, because LLMs are exceptionally good at working with unstructured data  which is the lion's share of the types of documents lawyers work with," said Ironclad Chief Product Officer Michel Feaster. "We built Jurist to help bridge this gap, and wanted to create something that was congruent with the ways that lawyers are already working. Lawyers need to be able to edit in real-time in one place, or be able to ask questions about specific parts of a contract, or compare and edit groups of documents at the same time. And because Ironclad has been building technology for lawyers and optimizing contracts for 10 years, our AI agents are fine tuned to be best in class at legal editing."

"Using Jurist has helped give us a singular workplace to drastically speed up many kinds of legal work," said Zuhair Saadat, Contracts Manager at Signifyd. "For example, performing an MNDA review or drafting custom clauses for an order form typically takes an hour to a day. Using Jurist, we could do this in minutesin some cases secondsdepending on complexity. If I need to edit the output, translate it, or ask a question about it, I can do that right in the product without leaving. It reduces time spent on these kinds of tasks, saves money on attorney fees, and gives me a leg up. Whatever I'm doing, I never have to start from scratch."

"We've released Jurist as a standalone product, built on Ironclad architecture, because we feel this will benefit the entire legal communitywhether they already use Ironclad or not," said Ironclad President Jeremy Smith. "We are committed to enabling legal teams with the products they need to drive tangible business impact, and we believe Jurist will make a lasting impact on the future of the legal field."

To learn more about Jurist and try it for yourself, click here.

About Ironclad

Ironclad is the #1 contract lifecycle management platform for innovative companies, powering billions of contracts every year. L'Oreal, OpenAI, and other leading innovators use Ironclad to collaborate and negotiate on contracts, accelerate contracting while maintaining compliance, and turn contracts into critical carriers of operational business intelligence. It's the only platform flexible enough to handle every type of contract workflow, whether a sales agreement, an HR agreement or a complex NDA. The company is backed by leading investors like Accel, Sequoia, Franklin Templeton, Y Combinator, and BOND. For more information, visit www.ironcladapp.com or follow us on LinkedIn and X.

Media Contact:

Paul Chalker

[email protected]

SOURCE Ironclad Inc.
With Jawnt Maps, HR and transportation leaders can overlay data from their commuter benefits program with information from the Transit app and Walk Score.

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Transportation technology company Jawnt has released an innovative mapping tool, Jawnt Maps , that helps HR and transportation leaders measure and improve their organization's commuter benefits program. The tool is a first of its kind for commuter benefits administrators, offering enterprises unparalleled insights into their benefits usage.

Jawnt partnered with industry leaders Transit and Walk Score to bring together three previously unconnected data sources into the Jawnt Maps tool:

A national view of Jawnt Maps.

Commuter benefits enrollment data: Whether it's the local transit system, bikeshare, or parking, Jawnt knows which benefits are being used and by which employees. Organization locations: Jawnt Maps visualizes commuting patterns across all types of organizations  from a campus with employees across dozens of buildings to a national franchise with hundreds of locations. Transportation infrastructure: From public bus and rail lines to an organization's own parking garages and shuttles, Jawnt Maps illustrates how nearby transportation systems can better serve a team.

"Commuter benefits programs have the potential to transform the well-being of our commuters and our environment, but only if administrators are equipped with the right tools," said Jawnt CEO Jeff Stade. "Jawnt Maps is just one of the many ways we're working to modernize the commuter benefits space, and we're excited about how our clients are using data to get more transportation to more people."

"At Transit , our mission is to make life better without a car. Employers have a huge role to play in making it simple for their employees to get to work, and Jawnt Maps makes it easy for them to take charge," said Transit Chief Business Officer David Block-Schachter. "Transit's API allows Jawnt to bring our industry-leading real-time information about public transit directly into its platform, then pair it with employer commuter benefits data. This powerful combo makes a real difference for Jawnt's clients, and helps even more people to commute without a car."

Jawnt Maps is the latest product from the growing technology company, which serves riders throughout the country through its modern suite of solutions. In February, Jawnt unveiled the Jawnt Pass , a physical and digital commuter debit card that allows employees to use pre-tax dollars for transit or parking expenses, anywhere in the U.S. Jawnt has become a proven resource for organizations of all sizes across dozens of industries, especially hospitals, universities, corporate enterprises, and local governments, including the City of Philadelphia.

In an effort to expand universal access to sustainable transportation, Jawnt has bundled the Jawnt Maps product into its existing platform for organizations. Current Jawnt users reach out to your account manager to activate Jawnt Maps. Organizations not using Jawnt for benefit administration can also make use of many of Jawnt Maps' features now  reach out [email protected] to share your organization's commuter story and get your employees moving.

To learn more about Jawnt Maps, visit jawntpass.com . Jawnt will also host a webinar on Wednesday, Nov. 20 to illustrate the use cases of Jawnt Maps  register here !

About Jawnt

Jawnt works with organizations to provide their members with access to transportation. Jawnt offers a suite of products, including the Jawnt Pass, a mobile-first commuter debit card, and direct integrations with transit and transportation providers. Jawnt's goal is for everyone to have access to the transportation they need, and to encourage public transit and active transportation whenever possible. To learn more, visit jawntpass.com .

For all media requests and inquiries, please contact:

Kristin Musulin, Jawnt

[email protected]

SOURCE Jawnt
Industry Veterans Grant Curry and Jason Truman Join Leerink Partners.

BOSTON, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Leerink Partners, a leading investment bank specializing in healthcare, announced today the addition of Grant Curry and Jason Truman to its biopharma M&A team. Both have joined Leerink as Senior Managing Directors and report to Tom Davidson, Co-President and Co-Head of Global Investment Banking.

"As Leerink Partners approaches its 30th anniversary, our commitment to delivering world class advisory services to our clients remains unwavering," said Jeff Leerink, Chairman and CEO of Leerink Partners. "The addition of these outstanding professionals to our team reinforces our commitment to excellence and our mission to be an indispensable partner to our clients."

This expansion comes at a pivotal moment for Leerink Partners, which has recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of its management-led buyout and is on track to double its revenue from pre-MBO levels, positioning the firm for extremely strong top-line growth in 2024. The buildout of its M&A franchise furthers Leerink Partners' long-standing commitment to providing clients with differentiated capabilities across a full spectrum of objectives. The enhanced M&A effort will leverage Leerink's position as a leader in biopharma capital markets, its broad client footprint, and its widely respected sector knowledge.

"We are thrilled to welcome Jason and Grant to Leerink Partners," said Davidson. "Each is a highly experienced M&A practitioner, with an excellent track record in biopharma M&A. Their complementary skill sets and backgrounds will allow us to bring differentiated judgement to clients and to drive exceptional outcomes."

Jason Truman joins Leerink Partners with more than 20 years in investment banking. He advises a wide range of domestic and international biopharma clients on M&A, divestitures, spin-offs, takeover defense, proxy contests, and capital raising. Previously, he was a Senior Managing Director at Guggenheim Securities, where he played a critical role in growing the firm's biopharma M&A practice. His background includes positions at Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley, where he also specialized in biopharma M&A.

Grant Curry brings a robust background in biopharma M&A and activism defense, most recently serving as a Managing Director at Gordon Dyal & Co. With extensive experience advising on high-profile biopharma and healthcare transactions, Grant has worked for clients in both the United States and Europe. Before joining Gordon Dyal & Co. in 2016, as one of its first employees, Grant was a member of the Global Healthcare Group at UBS.

Over the past decade, Jason and Grant have collectively advised on more than $230 billion in M&A transactions.

To learn more, visit: https://www.leerink.com/.

About Leerink Partners

Leerink Partners is a highly specialized healthcare investment bank with a legacy of excellence in the financial industry. The firm's experienced team delivers innovative advisory solutions, capital raising expertise, and unique insights to empower clients to achieve their strategic objectives. Since inception, the firm has advised on $65 billion, helped clients raise over $170 billion and has established itself as a trusted partner to healthcare companies and their investors. The firm is a broker-dealer registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Leerink Partners

Contact: Diane Vieira

(617) 918-4097

Prosek Partners for Leerink Partners

Contact: Michael Schutsky

(646) 818-9251

SOURCE Leerink Partners
NEW YORK, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Lovewatts, a pioneering force in merging art with technology, announces its official partnership with SCOPE Art Show as a Cultural Partner in an unprecedented multi-year deal. Orchestrated by the notable industry envoy, Mike Heller, founder of Talent Resources, this partnership is celebrated as the onset of an ongoing and multifaceted collaboration between two pioneering platforms.

This strategic collaboration between Lovewatts and SCOPE Art Show promises to reshape the cultural landscape through a variety of collaborative efforts. At the heart of the partnership is the unveiling of a Lovewatts-curated interactive space, aiming to captivate and invigorate the global art community. This immersive space At SCOPE Art Show in Miami Beach December 3rd - 8th will showcase the harmony of Lovewatts' vision for the art's future and SCOPE's prominent network.

**A New Era of Artistic Collaboration and Discussion**

Focusing on the horizon, Lovewatts and SCOPE are dedicated to not only presenting art but also igniting insightful discussions regarding its trajectory. A centerpiece of this partnership is a panel discussion with up-and-coming disruptors at the convergence of art, technology, and society. Anticipated for a mid-November announcement, this panel is set to provide novel, thought-provoking viewpoints on the art world's changing dynamics.

**Innovative Night Time Activation: The First of Many**

Intensifying their joint efforts, Lovewatts will align with SCOPE to launch an unparalleled nighttime activation. This endeavor aspires to merge performance, music, and digital art in a curated spectacle, laying the groundwork for future events aimed at enchanting spectators and transforming nighttime art culture.

**Featuring Esteemed Artists**

As part of this monumental partnership, Lovewatts is excited to showcase in their SCOPE exhibition space the works of Richard Hambleton, the Godfather of Street Art and a main contemporary of Basquiat and Haring, featuring two original masterpieces at SCOPE. This homage to Hambleton emphasizes the continuous influence of groundbreaking artists on contemporary culture.

Additionally, the partnership will spotlight GODS MGMT, an enigmatic collective known for leading future generations as a conceptual art collective, already being hailed as the American Banksy for its thought-provoking and boundary-pushing artworks.

Moreover, renowned for his significant contribution to the early New York City 80's graffiti scene, KEO XMEN, one of the most critically acclaimed graffiti artists, will also have his work featured, underscoring the rich diversity and depth of street art's impact on contemporary art.

Lovewatts and SCOPE Art Show invite the global art community to look forward to more announcements regarding this dynamic partnership, the details of the panel discussion, and the highly anticipated nighttime activation event. Together, Lovewatts and SCOPE Art Show aim to redefine the benchmarks of cultural collaboration.

About Lovewatts

Lovewatts stands at the intersection of art and technology, committed to pushing the boundaries of creative expression. Through cutting-edge exhibitions and interactive experiences, Lovewatts seeks to open new vistas and engage a worldwide community in the ongoing narrative of art.

About SCOPE Art Show

SCOPE Art Show is the premier showcase and incubator for contemporary art, presenting the most dynamic emerging galleries and artists from around the world for more than two decades. Its annual flagship show in Miami represents the future of the arts ecosystem by forecasting new trends and the people and ideas that drive them, from alternative and nomadic gallery models to cutting-edge artists traversing the boundaries of technology, culture, and society. As the highest attended fair during Miami Art Week, SCOPE Art Show is a welcoming hub for art and culture seekers, from the established collector to the first-time fair visitor. Its signature experiential programming across art, design, music, technology, wellness, and hospitality offers visitors myriad access points for discovery, learning, and community.

About Talent Resources

Talent Resources, under the guidance of Mike Heller, bridges the divide between brands and their audiences via strategic partnerships and immersive experiences. Concentrating on the power of celebrity influence and digital innovation, Talent Resources creates unique opportunities for engagement and advancement.

For more information, please visit: https://scope-art.com/

Contact:

Tiffany Cummins

Talent Resources

925-212-4200

[email protected]

Resnicow and Associates

212 671-5150

[email protected]

SOURCE SCOPE & Lovewatts
New funding brings Scott's total support for LISC's work to $105 million

NEW YORK, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- MacKenzie Scott, the prolific philanthropist who has given more than $17 billion to nonprofits over the past four years, is donating $65 million to the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). It is the largest contribution in the organization's 45-year history.

This is Scott's second grant to LISC, one of the nation's largest community development organizations. It builds on a $40 million gift in 2020, which LISC used to seed programs that narrow gaps in health, wealth and opportunity, particularly for communities of color.

"We are enormously grateful for Ms. Scott's confidence in LISC and our national network of programs, staff and partners that are driving impact across the country," said Michael Pugh, LISC president and CEO. "This remarkable funding is an investment not just in our capacity to support affordable housing, economic development, health, safety and jobs, but also in the well-being of the thousands of communities where we work every day," he said.

LISC's structure, with 37 metro-area program offices and a rural development program supporting work in more than 2,000 counties, offers funders like Scott an opportunity to support both tailored local solutions and large-scale national impact.

"This kind of unrestricted funding allows LISC to test new ideas, scale up promising programs, and leverage other sources of capital to support positive socio-economic impact," said Robert E. Rubin, LISC's chairman and a former secretary of the treasury. "We are grateful to Ms. Scott for investing in LISC so we can invest in a strong future for urban and rural communities."

For example, the new grant will help LISC deepen its work to address the affordable housing crisis. It will advance LISC's plans to connect underserved communities to the emerging green economy. And it will fuel new efforts leveraging artificial intelligence, particularly as the technology relates to jobs and income growth for people who have not had the skills or access to take advantage of growing fields.

"Innovation underpins everything we do," Pugh said. "But it can be difficult to lift up new models without funding that builds our capacity to do so. That's why this grant is so important; it lays the groundwork for the kind of catalytic impact that policymakers, business leaders, neighborhood advocates and residents are all working toward."

LISC will determine the specifics of how the new funding will be used in the coming weeks. To learn more on how the prior grant was implemented, read our 2023 impact report, What a Gift Can Do.

About LISC

LISC is one of the country's largest community development organizations, helping forge vibrant, resilient communities across America. LISC works with residents and partners to close systemic gaps in health, wealth, and opportunity and advance racial equity so that people and places can thrive. Since its founding in 1979, LISC has invested $32 billion to create more than 506,000 affordable homes and apartments, develop 82.5 million square feet of retail, community, and educational space, and help tens of thousands of people find employment and improve their finances. For more, visit www.lisc.org.

SOURCE Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)
HACKENSACK, N.J., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- MAX Surgical Specialty Management (MAX), the Northeast region's leading surgeon-led platform providing comprehensive management services for oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMS) practices, has grown to 25 practice locations and increased its surgeon network by nearly 60% in 2024. Its expansion to five states across the Northeast includes new partnerships in New York and Vermont and its first entry into the state of Connecticut.

Founded by oral surgeons, MAX delivers a model tailored for surgeons that integrates complete operational support, cutting-edge technology solutions, and pathways for growth  all while upholding the clinical independence practitioners deeply value.

"We established MAX to address the challenges surgeons face when managing their practices while prioritizing patient care," said Dr. Jason Auerbach, founder and co-CEO of MAX. "Our main focus is understanding surgeons' needs and safeguarding their autonomy. Our growth stems from this core mission, which we believe makes MAX an attractive partner for practices looking to elevate their operations and outcomes."

Since its launch in September 2022, MAX has partnered with 37 surgeons and expanded its reach to 25 practice locations spanning New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Connecticut. Its most recent strategic partnerships position MAX for growth in new markets:

New England Oral Surgery : Recognized leaders in the region, oral surgeons Jeffrey W. Glosser , DDS, and Robert J. Lesny , DDS, join the MAX network, marking its third partnership in Vermont .





Recognized leaders in the region, oral surgeons , DDS, and , DDS, join the MAX network, marking its third partnership in . Simpson Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery : Under the leadership of Brian Simpson , DMD, the Nanuet, New York -based practice is integrating with Riverside Oral Surgery, representing the practice's first venture into New York state and establishing its 10th location.





Under the leadership of , DMD, the -based practice is integrating with Riverside Oral Surgery, representing the practice's first venture into and establishing its 10th location. Fairfield Oral Surgery: Spearheaded by Todd E. Bloom , M.S., DDS, this partnership in Connecticut signifies MAX's entry into the state and lays the groundwork for expansion into Southern New England.

"Surgeons are the driving force behind MAX's platform," said Mark Censoprano, co-CEO of MAX. "Doctors Glosser, Lesny, Simpson and Bloom are respected leaders in the OMS field who now will have the opportunity to collaborate with a diverse and dynamic network of renowned and highly skilled peers on the latest clinical techniques to advance patient care through MAX's platform."

Typically, the industry has relied on remote dental support organization (DSO) models that outsource services nationwide. While MAX's growth has accelerated, the company prioritizes proximity, offering benefits that remote DSOs cannot replicate, including increased responsiveness, seamless collaboration on patient care initiatives, rapid deployment of new technologies and an advantage when attracting top talent in a competitive landscape through valuable market insights.

"MAX's innovative approach and robust support infrastructure is already transforming practices like ours through recruitment and staffing," said Dr. Glosser. "Now we can compete against larger institutions for top talent in today's market."

Recognizing the long-term growth in specialized oral healthcare, MAX continues to invest in a model that enables surgeons to thrive while navigating a dynamic industry.

About MAX Surgical Specialty Management

Established in September 2022 as the Northeast region's first oral and maxillofacial surgery-only specialty platform, MAX Surgical Specialty Management is a surgeon-led management services organization developed with clinical and surgeon autonomy at its core. Today, MAX supports surgeons across New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Connecticut, enabling practices to channel resources, skills and knowledge within the oral surgery specialty, leading industry advancements and delivering the highest standard of patient care. Surgeons have access to a curated network that allows them to collaborate with and work alongside a diverse pool of highly skilled peers who are leaders in their specialty. MAX safeguards surgeons' independence while offering robust support systems, access to advanced technology and opportunities for financial growth.

MAX is backed by MedEquity Capital , RF Investment Partners and Kian Capital. Visit max-ssm.com for more information.

About MedEquity Capital

Headquartered in Wellesley, Massachusetts, MedEquity Capital is a health care private equity firm that focuses on investing in profitable health care services businesses, most often in the lower-middle market. Since its founding over 20 years ago, MedEquity has invested over $400 million of equity capital, with top decile returns for its investors. Further information is available at www.medequity.com .

About RF Investment Partners

RF Investment Partners provides capital ranging in size from $5 million to $30 million to support leading domestic lower-middle-market companies. RF partners with family-owned and private businesses in a variety of situations, including acquisition financing, growth capital investments, recapitalizations, refinancings and management buyouts. RF's investment professionals have considerable experience investing across the capital structure and have the flexibility to structure deals to meet the distinct needs of each company and situation. RF invests in unitranche, second lien and subordinated debt, alongside preferred and common equity. Further information is available at www.rf-partners.com .

About Kian Capital Partners

At Kian, we forge partnerships to ignite growth and build enduring value. Our goal is to provide flexible financial resources and additional operational horsepower to scale lower-middle-market businesses, realize aspirations and deliver long-term investment returns through genuine partnership. Proud to be recognized on Inc.'s Founder-Friendly Investors list for four consecutive years, Kian is a private investment firm with $825 million of capital under management and a focus on four core industry sectors: consumer, services, value-added distribution and specialty manufacturing. Our team of seasoned investors has over 100 years of collective experience providing transformational capital solutions and board-level strategic and operational guidance to founder/owner-operated businesses. To learn more, visit www.kiancapital.com .

SOURCE MAX Surgical Specialty Management
Duda: We wont be able to transfer MiG-29 to Ukraine until NATO guarantees Poland security of its airspace

The Polish side will not be able to transfer MiG-29 aircraft to Ukraine until NATO guarantees Poland the security of its airspace, Polish President Andrzej Duda said.

As Duda pointed out at a press conference following a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Warsaw, they discussed the possibility of transferring Polish MiGs to Ukraine.

We use these MiGs. If we give them away, then there is one fundamental condition: our sky must be protected. This is a matter for the North Atlantic Alliance, which ensures the safety of our skies by transferring aircraft from other NATO countries to ensure the safety of airspace over Poland, Duda said.

The Polish President noted that Russian provocations and violations of the airspace of NATO countries continue.

Until we have full guarantees here, we will not be able to transfer our aircraft, he stressed.

On October 31, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine had been negotiating with Poland on the Polish side's air protection of gas storage facilities near the town of Stryi, Lviv region, but was refused. Poland also did not provide aircraft for Ukraine to do it on its own.

On September 13, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, at a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Sybiha in Kyiv, said that Poland had already transferred about 400 tanks to Ukraine, some of which may be involved in the Kursk operation, and the possibility of transferring MiG-29 aircraft was being considered. According to him, if the allies help us with the air patrol mission over Poland, it will make the implementation of the transfer step possible.

At the end of August, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba discussed the issue of MiG aircraft with his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski.

On July 8, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that Poland could transfer Soviet-made MiG fighters to Ukraine if NATO allies agreed to replace them with other aircraft.
GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Minesto, leading ocean energy developer, is part of the official Swedish business delegation to United Nation climate change conference COP29, taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan. On "Energy Day" on 15 November, Minesto will host a session on the role and importance of innovation in tackling climate change. Mr Daniel Westlen, State Secretary to Swedish Minister for Climate and the Environment, will take part in the session.

On 15 November, Friday, at 11.00-11.40 UTC+4 (Baku local time) Minesto will host a programme session titled "Towards the era of electricity - do we have enough tools in the toolbox? A discussion on the role and importance of innovation to tackle climate change," in the Swedish pavilion at COP29.

Mr. Daniel Westlen, State Secretary to the Swedish Minister for Climate and the Environment Romina Pourmokhtari, will take part in the session.

Dr Martin Edlund, CEO of Minesto, and Isabella Gustafsson Ismodes, Research Programme Manager Industry at Swedish Energy Agency, will discuss how Swedish innovations such as the Minesto's tidal Dragons can play an important part in the global energy transition:

Towards the era of electricity - do we have enough tools in the toolbox? A discussion on the role and importance of innovation to tackle climate change | Sweden at COP29

The Minesto session will be livestreamed at below link.

15 November, Friday at 11.00-11.40 UTC+4 (Baku local time).

Sweden at COP29

CONTACT:

For additional information, please contact

Cecilia Sernhage, Chief Communications Officer

+46 735 23 71 58

[email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/minesto-ab/r/minesto-presents-at-global-climate-change-meeting-cop29-in-baku--azerbaijan,c4066712

SOURCE Minesto AB
The Apple River Solar Project is in Polk County, Wisconsin

MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, National Grid Renewables announced the start of onsite construction at its 100-megawatt (MW) Apple River Solar Project in Polk County, Wisconsin. The project is anticipated to make significant economic contributions in the form of jobs and new tax revenue that will benefit the local county and townships.

"As a company founded by a farmer in the Midwest, we have a strong commitment to bolstering rural economies through our renewable energy projects, and it's exciting to see that growth in western Wisconsin," said Joe Ibrahim, Vice President of Construction at National Grid Renewables.

Apple River is anticipated to generate over $36 million in direct economic impact throughout the first 20 years of operation, including an estimated $10 million in tax revenue to Polk County and local townships. Construction of the project will be performed by The Boldt Company and will sustain 150 construction and service jobs. Apple River will use First Solar Series 6 Plus bifacial modules.

Once operational, the Apple River project will supply power to Xcel Energy to serve its customers across the Upper Midwest.

"We are excited to see this project begin as it underscores our dedication to delivering clean, reliable and affordable energy to our customers," said Karl Hoesly, President, Xcel Energy-Wisconsin and Michigan. "This project is an important step in those goals while bringing significant economic benefits to Polk County and the local townships."

"The women and men of Boldt are excited to have been selected by National Grid Renewables for this important project. It takes skilled labor and logistics coordination to efficiently execute these projects, and we are embracing the challenge," said Mark Osten, Vice President of Business Development for Boldt. "As Wisconsin's longest serving energy builders, we couldn't be more proud of our role in building this important renewable energy facility in our home state."

"First Solar is pleased to be supporting National Grid Renewables with our cutting-edge American solar technology as they add Apple River to their impressive development portfolio," stated Darin Green, Senior Director of Technical Sales, First Solar. "Our company has deep roots in the Midwest, which is why we're especially proud to support partners and projects that work with sustainable, American technology to power America's heartland."

Above and beyond tax revenue and job creation, Apple River will also pledge approximately $500,000 to local charities and organizations over the first 20 years of operation through a dedicated charitable fund. These charitable funds are unique to National Grid Renewables and exemplify how the company commits to being a good neighbor within the communities in which their projects are built.

Anticipated to begin operation in late 2025, Apple River is anticipated to generate enough clean, renewable, local energy to provide the equivalent electrical usage of an estimated 26,000 homes each year. Using the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator, the project is estimated to offset carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions by 129,900 metric tons annually  the equivalent of taking an estimated 30,900 cars off the road for a year.

About National Grid Renewables

National Grid Renewables develops, owns and operates large-scale renewable energy assets across the United States, including solar, wind, and energy storage. As a farmer-founded and community-focused business, National Grid Renewables repowers America's electricity grid by reigniting local economies and reinvesting in a sustainable, clean energy future. National Grid Renewables supports National Grid's vision of being at the heart of a clean, fair, and affordable energy future for all. To learn more about National Grid Renewables, visit www.nationalgridrenewables.com or follow the company on LinkedIn.

Media Inquiries

Contact: Emily Morissette

Senior Manager, Marketing & Communications

National Grid Renewables

[email protected]

612-504-4839

SOURCE National Grid Renewables
CNS specialist continues growth strategy across Europe and beyond, optimizing commercial efficiency and maintaining strong focus on innovation

BARCELONA, Spain and DUSSELDORF, Germany, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Neuraxpharm Group (Neuraxpharm), a leading European specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of central nervous system (CNS) disorders, marked the sixth anniversary since its rebranding as Neuraxpharm and its repositioning as a leading European CNS-focused pharma.

International expansion across Europe and beyond

Since its creation over 35-years ago, and its subsequent acquisition by Permira in 2020, Neuraxpharm has pursued its objective of becoming the partner of choice in CNS. Building on this heritage, and following its rebranding in 2018, Neuraxpharm has established itself as a leading European specialty pharma company focused on the treatment of psychiatric and neurological CNS disorders. Over this period, Neuraxpharm has undergone a strategic transformation, expanding its footprint across Europe and beyond, broadening its portfolio from being a distributor of generics to becoming an innovative company with one of the most specialized and differentiated CNS molecules in its portfolio.

Today, Neuraxpharm reaches 98% of the European CNS market through its presence in more than 20 countries and, with a direct presence in Latin America and the Middle East, as well as an extensive network of international partners, it now brings its products to patients in over 50 countries around the world.

Focus on innovation

Alongside the Company's drive to broaden its distribution, has been a strong focus on portfolio development and innovation. Neuraxpharm has successfully scaled its portfolio of well-known brands, not only through the acquisition of more than 30 established global CNS brands from Sanofi in 2022 but, more recently, through its investment in market-leading products, including Buccolam (midazolam oromucosal solution) and BRIUMVI (ublituximab).

Neuraxpharm's successful life cycle management of Buccolam, which is used for the emergency treatment of epilepsy with prolonged acute convulsive seizures (PACS) in children, supports the Company's mission to expand its portfolio to include a greater number of brands with a focus on innovation. In October 2024, the European Medicine Agency's (EMA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) confirmed its positive opinion in respect of extending the therapeutic indication of Buccolam 10 mg to also include the treatment of adults.

Furthermore, the Company has recruited a large and experienced workforce to focus on bringing ublituximab, a new treatment for patients with relapsing forms of Multiple Sclerosis, to patients in need. In the year since Neuraxpharm signed the agreement with TG Therapeutics, ublituximab has already been launched in Germany and Spain and has recently qualified for reimbursement in the United Kingdom (UK) and Italy. Neuraxpharm plans to make this product available to patients across Europe and beyond over the coming years.

In 2019, the Company launched HealthTech, Neuraxpharm's Centre of Excellence and International Innovation Platform, focused on boosting innovation research and development. Neuraxpharm is currently developing over 20 new products in its pipeline to bring additional innovative CNS solutions to patients in need, some of which are being developed using advanced technologies accessed through strategic partnerships.

Strategic company transformation

As part of an ongoing drive to optimize commercial efficiency and support continued growth, Neuraxpharm continually looks at ways to fine-tune the structure of its organization. In the last year, the Company has redesigned its commercial operations into five clusters - Central, North, South, East and West  and appointed new country managers with the relevant capabilities and knowledge to launch and grow Neuraxpharm's product portfolio in Europe and beyond.

Commenting on Neuraxpharm's progress, Dr. Jorg-Thomas Dierks, CEO, said: "Recent years have seen Neuraxpharm transform to meet our strategic objectives and consolidate our position as a leading international CNS specialist. We have always pursued innovative solutions to address existing and emerging unmet CNS needs by adopting a patient-centric approach. Our diverse team is made up of talented and collaborative individuals who are motivated to bring about better outcomes for our CNS patients and their families. I would like to thank my team for all their hard work  their efforts are what makes Neuraxpharm such a success. After a year that has seen Neuraxpharm deliver sustained growth from our portfolio, alongside continued international geographical expansion, we look forward to bringing further important and innovative treatments to patients all over the world."

Dr. Jorg-Thomas Dierks will be presenting at the Jefferies Healthcare Conference 2024 in London, UK, from 19-21 November.

About the Neuraxpharm Group

Neuraxpharm is a leading European specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of the central nervous system (CNS), including both psychiatric and neurological disorders. It has a unique understanding of the CNS market built over 35 years.

Neuraxpharm is constantly innovating, with new products and solutions to address unmet patient needs and is expanding its portfolio through its pipeline, partnerships, and acquisitions.

The company has c.1,000 employees and develops and commercializes CNS products through a direct presence in more than 20 countries in Europe, two in Latin America, one in the Middle East and globally via partners in more than 50 countries. Neuraxpharm is backed by funds advised by Permira.

Neuraxpharm manufactures many of its pharmaceutical products at Neuraxpharm Pharmaceuticals (formerly Laboratorios Lesvi) in Spain.

For more information, please visit https://www.neuraxpharm.com

SOURCE Neuraxpharm
SEATTLE, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Seattle-based fashion retailer Nordstrom, Inc. (NYSE: JWN) announced plans to open a new Nordstrom Rack in Meridian, Idaho in fall 2025.

"We look forward to being a part of the Meridian community and serving our customers with an amazing offering of great brands at great prices," said Gemma Lionello, President of Nordstrom Rack. "We're excited to grow our footprint in the Boise market and introduce new customers to the Nordstrom experience."

Lionello added that in this location "customers will be able to take advantage of our convenient services such as online order pick up from both Nordstrom.com and NordstromRack.com, and they can make returns easily."

The 25,000-square-foot store will be located in The Village at Meridian, a popular shopping center that includes Lego, Evereve, Warby Parker and Brandy Melville. The Village at Meridian is owned and managed by CenterCal Properties, LLC and is ideally located off Eagle Road and Fairview Avenue.

"We're thrilled to welcome Nordstrom Rack to The Village at Meridian," said Jean Paul Wardy, CEO and Co-Founder of CenterCal Properties." This new addition is sure to become a favorite destination for both locals and visitors, solidifying The Village at Meridian as Idaho's premier shopping and lifestyle hub."

Nordstrom Rack is the off-price retail division of Nordstrom, Inc. and plays a critical role in the company's Closer to You strategy, which focuses on delivering customers a more convenient and interconnected experience across its stores and digital platforms. Nordstrom Rack offers customers up to 70 percent off on-trend apparel, accessories, beauty products, home decor and shoes from many of the top brands sold at Nordstrom stores as well as core services like online order pickup for Nordstrom.com and NordstromRack.com, easy returns and alterations at select stores. Nordstrom Rack is the largest source of new customers to Nordstrom.

This new location expands the company's physical footprint and economic impact in Idaho.

Nordstrom is committed to investing in the diverse communities where it operates. Over the past four years, Nordstrom, with its customers, has donated more than $2 million in support of its long-term partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of the United States. These proceeds support the recruitment, training and engagement of adult mentors and mentorship moments between Bigs and Littles, including preparing for an interview, learning to tie a tie and helping with homework.

About Nordstrom

At Nordstrom, Inc. (NYSE: JWN), we exist to help our customers feel good and look their best. Since starting as a shoe store in 1901, how to best serve customers has been at the center of every decision we make. This heritage of service is the foundation we're building on as we provide convenience and true connection for our customers. Our interconnected model enables us to serve customers when, where and how they want to shop  whether that's in-store at more than 350 Nordstrom, Nordstrom Local and Nordstrom Rack locations or digitally through our Nordstrom and Rack apps and websites. Through it all, we remain committed to leaving the world better than we found it.

About The Village at Meridian

The Village at Meridian is Idaho's premier shopping and lifestyle destination, offering sought-after restaurants and first-to-market retail within a lushly landscaped setting. The center's 200,000 square feet of Class A office space attracts notable employers who benefit from the amenities offered by the thriving community hub. Located at the corner of Eagle Road and Fairview Avenue, The Village at Meridian boasts 100 acres of tree-lined streets, a world-class show fountain, a children's play area, and a lively event calendar. For more information, visit www.thevillageatmeridian.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Manuela Uscher

Nordstrom, Inc.

[email protected]

SOURCE Nordstrom, Inc.
Co-ownership marketplace adds international listings amid unprecedented demand

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Pacaso , the tech-enabled marketplace for co-owned luxury vacation homes, today announced that its first property in Paris has become the company's fastest-selling listing of 2024 and the quickest to sell out in its history. In response to overwhelming demand, Pacaso has acquired an additional pied-a-terre, " Juliet ," on the same prestigious street offering more opportunities for buyers seeking to own a slice of the City of Love.

Experience Parisian elegance in Pacaso's newest apartment, meticulously renovated on the 3rd floor of a charming mid-19th century buildingnow available for $605,000 USD for a 1/8 share. This meticulously renovated apartment on the 3rd floor of a charming mid-19th century building overlooks the 7th arrondissement, a neighborhood with boutique shops and cozy cafes.

Nestled in the 7th arrondissement, Pacaso's two Parisian properties are two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom residences within meticulously preserved 18th- and 19th-century buildings. Located on the iconic Rue du Bac, just steps from the Seine, the Louvre, and other famed Paris landmarks, these residences feature airy living rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows and modern interiors, offering an unparalleled French living experience.

"At Pacaso, we handle everythingtaking care of the complex legal and financial details of owning property abroad, as well as the day-to-day home management," said Pacaso Senior Director of European Expansion Joey Byrne. "We've tackled every challenge for buyers, from structuring ownership and navigating European taxes to setting up utilities. When our owners come to us, all they need to do is make the purchase and show up. We're here to make owning a piece of Paris simple and stress-free, so they can focus on enjoying it."

In addition to the surge in Paris, Pacaso is witnessing heightened international interest in London and Cabo. To meet the growing demand, Pacaso has introduced two new listings in prime London neighborhoods, Mayfair and Belgravia , and one new listing in Cabo's Puerto Los Cabos community , further expanding the company's international portfolio.

"With the Olympics bringing extra attention to Paris this year, we're seeing growing interest from Americans eager to own a piece of the city," said Austin Allison, CEO and Co-Founder of Pacaso. "Building on our record-breaking sell-out in Paris, we're excited to expand our international presence, with new listings in London and Cabo. Owning internationally can seem overwhelming, but we simplify the process, helping people own abroad with ease."

For more information about Pacaso and its co-ownership properties in Paris, London, and beyond, please visit www.pacaso.com .

About Pacaso

Co-founded by Austin Allison and Spencer Rascoff in 2020, Pacaso is a technology-enabled marketplace that modernizes real estate co-ownership, enabling families to effortlessly own a luxury vacation home and travel with confidence. Pacaso curates private residences in premier destinations across the U.S. and internationally, with exceptional amenities, luxury interiors and expert design. After purchase, Pacaso professionally manages the home, provides white-glove scheduling and personalized service, and ensures seamless resale.

SOURCE Pacaso
NEW YORK, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Paiseec, a leading brand in innovative mobility solutions, is transforming the wheelchair industry with its groundbreaking W3a 3-in-1 device that enhances the mobility experience for wheelchair users.

Introducing the W3: The World's First 3-In-1 Electric Wheelchair

Paiseec Launches the W3: A Revolutionary 3-in-1 Electric Wheelchair Signifying the Future of Mobility Solutions

Paiseec has a wide range of mobility aids available to purchase, including mobility scooters, power wheelchairs, and rollators. Its newest offering, the W3 electric wheelchair, is specifically designed to cater to the varied needs of wheelchair users across different environments. The W3 seamlessly switches between three modes: a power wheelchair for daily mobility, an intelligent transport device, and a rollator for extended use, thus embodying the versatility of a single device serving multiple purposes.

3-in-1 Functionality

Electric Wheelchair - It works as a high-performance electric wheelchair, accurately transmitting directional signals from the joystick to the wheels, and is easy to maneuver.

- It works as a high-performance electric wheelchair, accurately transmitting directional signals from the joystick to the wheels, and is easy to maneuver. Electric Transport - It dynamically adjusts to the caregiver's pace, easily navigating uphill, downhill, grassy, and gravelly terrains with minimal effort required for transport.

- It dynamically adjusts to the caregiver's pace, easily navigating uphill, downhill, grassy, and gravelly terrains with minimal effort required for transport. Smart Rollator - When used as a rollator, the W3 intelligently adjusts to your speed, so there's no need to worry about losing control, meaning there's less chance of an accident.

Engineered for Performance and Comfort

The award-winning W3, recognized by IF Design, features precision controls, smart sensor handles, and wheels with adjustable resistance to enhance safety. It boasts a durable battery and a user-friendly large-screen interface for effortless navigation, complemented by a robust motor for smooth uphill travel. Furthermore, the 12Ah battery ensures the wheelchair's compatibility with public transportation, making it easy to travel around. Designed with user comfort in mind, the W3 also provides ample legroom, an ergonomic seat, adjustable armrests, and high-quality wheels, that deliver a smooth ride across various road surfaces and terrains.

Customer Comes First

This high-performance electric wheelchair enables elderly and individuals with lower limb disabilities to live fuller lives, allowing them to partake in everyday activities. Equipped with the intelligent core technology of the PAI Safety System, the W3 exemplifies the principle that "smart technology equates to safe technology," offering a superior and empowering smart experience.

Paiseec provides exceptional after-sales service designed with customer satisfaction in mind. For products purchased through their official website, the company guarantees the following:

Hassle-free 30-day return policy.

Quality assurance and support from 1 to 5 years, depending on the specific product.

Professional telephone customer service.

Lifetime support services to ensure continued assistance to customers.

The W3 is available to purchase on the Paiseec official website for $2499.

"By integrating advanced technology with user-centric design, our W3 model disrupts traditional mobility solutions, offering unprecedented flexibility and independence to its users," said Roger Zhang, CEO of Paiseec. "We are not just creating mobility aids; we are redefining what mobility means with each innovation, making every day easier and safer for our users. Our commitment to technological advancement and user satisfaction sets a new standard in the industry."

About Paiseec

Paiseec stands at the forefront of mobility innovation, committed to delivering cutting-edge solutions for the elderly and disabled populations. Since its founding in 2021, the company has spearheaded a technological transformation in mobility assistance, creating an array of products such as mobility scooters, wheelchairs, and rollators that prioritize enhanced safety and intelligence.

To learn more, please visit www.paiseec.com.

Media Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Paiseec
McGlynn To Retire; Connell Appointed Vice President of Planning

VALLEY FORGE, Pa., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- PJM announced today that Vice President of Planning Paul McGlynn is retiring from the organization effective March 31, 2025, after nearly four decades in the industry.

"We are grateful for Paul's many contributions to the Planning and Operations organizations and employees of PJM over the past 17 years," said Aftab Khan, Executive Vice President, Operations, Planning & Security. "We will always be grateful for his dedication to PJM and our members."

Jason Connell Paul McGlynn

McGlynn has had a distinguished career at PJM. He joined the company in 2007 and has managed a number of groups in the Planning and Operations divisions and throughout the organization. He assumed the role of vice president of Planning in November 2023.

"It has been my privilege to have worked in this industry," McGlynn said. "I am proud to have been part of such an outstanding team doing extremely important work for the energy industry, and I know PJM will continue to forge ahead with efficiency, innovation and technologically sound solutions to fulfill our critical mission of reliability."

Jason Connell Named Vice President of Planning

PJM also announced that Jason Connell is being appointed Vice President  Planning, to fill the role vacated by McGlynn's retirement. Connell's promotion is effective Jan. 1, 2025, to provide time to transition duties in a seamless manner.

"We are excited to welcome Jason to PJM's Executive Team," said Khan. "Jason brings strong planning experience and leadership capabilities to ensure a smooth transition and to manage the evolving needs of the PJM grid."

Connell has worked at PJM for over 12 years in various roles in System Planning. Prior to joining PJM, Connell had a successful career at PECO in transmission and substation engineering. He has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Drexel University and an MBA from Villanova University.

"This is an incredibly dynamic time to be planning for the evolution of this industry," Connell said. "I am excited to support and continue PJM's important work to design and manage the grid of the future while preserving reliability."

PJM Interconnection, founded in 1927, ensures the reliability of the high-voltage electric power system serving 65 million people in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. PJM coordinates and directs the operation of the region's transmission grid, which includes 88,115 miles of transmission lines; administers a competitive wholesale electricity market; and plans regional transmission expansion improvements to maintain grid reliability and relieve congestion. PJM's regional grid and market operations produce annual savings of $3.2 billion to $4 billion. For the latest news about PJM, visit PJM Inside Lines at insidelines.pjm.com.

SOURCE PJM Interconnection
The Portuguese wine festival took place in April and October and visited Vail, CO; Pebble Beach, CA; Las Vegas, NV; Chicago, IL; New York, NY

NEW YORK, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Port Wine Festa festival and celebration of Portuguese wines, gastronomy and culture organized by the Port Wine Shippers Association (AEVP)has completed its first-ever U.S. tour, which took place in five major cities and introduced 18,500+ industry professionals and consumers to 65+ diverse and passionate winemakers who exemplify Portugal's rich heritage and diversity.

Port Wine Fest October 2024

"We are thrilled with the success of our 2024 Portuguese wines tour in the US and eagerly anticipate an even more exceptional experience in 2025," said Isabel Marrana, executive director of AEVP.

Port Wine Fest launched in Spring 2024, showcasing the exceptional offerings of 44 Portuguese wine producers across two premier U.S. festivals: Taste of Vail in Colorado (April 4th) and Pebble Beach in California (April 6th-7th). This immersive experience celebrated Portugal's winemaking heritage with an expansive array of Ports and other Portuguese wines. Chef Telmo Faria , from the renowned Uma Casa restaurant in San Francisco, elevated the culinary component, crafting an authentic menu. The dynamic pairing of red, wine, sparkling and port wine and Portuguese bites offered festival-goers a rich taste of Portugal's culinary and viticultural traditions.

Port Wine Fest expanded its reach across the U.S. in Fall 2024, making its mark in Las Vegas, Chicago and New York. The event debuted at USA Today's Wine & Food Experience in Las Vegas (October 12th), featuring over 170 selections of Portuguese wine. For the first time, proprietary events followed in Chicago and New York (October 14th and 16th), where 41 producers engaged with industry professionals and wine enthusiasts in each city. The culinary offerings were crafted to highlight Portuguese tradition and innovation, with bites from Cadinho Bakery and Cafe in Chicago, and innovative dishes by Chef Nuno Sousa and Leitao in New York.

Adding an educational layer, Regine Rousseau , author, sommelier, and CEO of Shall We Wine , led a Portuguese wine trivia experience in Chicago, while Advanced Sommelier Jienna Basaldu hosted an exclusive VIP lunch. These unique interactive elements allowed guests to deepen their appreciation for Portuguese wine culture in creative and engaging ways.

"When you're studying and tasting the wines of Portugal, there is so much to learn," says Regine Rousseau. "At Port Wine Fest, we're looking at the breadth of the wines of Portugal, beyond port wine, and the diversity of the region."

Funds from consumer events in Chicago and New York were donated to local charities with an impactful cause:

Greater Chicago Food Depository, Chicago's food bank: The Greater Chicago Food Depository believes a healthy community starts with food. The Food Depository partners with a network of 800 organizations and programs  food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, mobile distributions, and other partners  working to bring food and opportunity to our neighbors across Chicago and Cook County . The Food Depository addresses the root causes of hunger through advocacy and other strategies that generate economic impact and access to living wages.

The Greater Chicago Food Depository believes a healthy community starts with food. The Food Depository partners with a network of 800 organizations and programs  food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, mobile distributions, and other partners  working to bring food and opportunity to our neighbors across and . The Food Depository addresses the root causes of hunger through advocacy and other strategies that generate economic impact and access to living wages. City Harvest is New York's first and largest food rescue organization, collecting high-quality, nutritious food that would otherwise go to waste to help provide free food for millions of New Yorkers experiencing food insecurity. For more than 40 years, City Harvest has been there to feed NYCone day, one meal, one New Yorker at a time.

Each Port Wine Fest tour culminated with induction ceremonies (San Francisco, April 8th and New York, October 18th) to welcome and celebrate new Confraria do Vinho do Porto (Port Wine Brotherhood) members.

Stay connected with Port Wine Fest via the website and social media to see which cities it is headed to in 2025: portwinefest.com , @portwinefest (Instagram), @portwine_fest (X/Twitter), and Port Wine Fest (Facebook).

About Port Wine Fest

Port Wine Fest is a festival of Portuguese wines, food and culture, launched in 2024 by the Port Wine Shipper Association ( AEVP ), that aims to introduce US consumers to the world of Portugal through a series of events across the country. This event is part of Project No. 67 "Vine & Wine" within the scope of Program 2022-C05i0101-02 - Mobilizing Agendas/Alliances for reindustrialization.

About the Port Wine Shippers Association (AEVP)

The Port Wine Shippers Association (AEVP) is a private non-profit organization, established in January 1975, with headquarters in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal. The main purpose of Port Wine Shippers Association (AEVP) is to represent and protect the interests of its members and the promotion and protection of the industry and trade of the Port and Douro wines and other wine products from the demarcated Douro region throughout national and foreign territories.

SOURCE Port Wine Shippers Association (AEVP)
Research from the utilities-focused research, consulting, and data science company shows positive shift in homeowner perceptions of electrification technologies, though cost remains a barrier to fuel-switching.

BOULDER, Colo., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- E Source, a utilities-focused consulting, research, and data science company, has shared the results of its 2024 Residential Electrification Survey , including a shift in consumer attitudes toward electrification technologies in residential settings. The independent study, first conducted in 2021, fielded in April 2024 with over 10,000 residential homeowner utility customers in the United States and Canada.

Designed and administered by the E Source Market Research team, the survey offers findings around:

Consumer perceptions of electrification technologies : Over three-quarters of respondents believe that electricity is a safer home and appliance fuel source than natural gas, an increase from 2021. Despite shifting perceptions, cost remains a barrier to fuel-switching.

: Over three-quarters of respondents believe that electricity is a safer home and appliance fuel source than natural gas, an increase from 2021. Despite shifting perceptions, cost remains a barrier to fuel-switching. Current ownership of electrification equipment : More respondents say they own electric equipment in 2024 compared to 2021, with electric cooktops and smart thermostats reported as the most common electric appliances.

: More respondents say they own electric equipment in 2024 compared to 2021, with electric cooktops and smart thermostats reported as the most common electric appliances. Readiness for adoption: While many respondents said they were unlikely to switch fuel sources for most home equipment, 27% expressed interest in taking steps to electrify all their appliances.

In other notable findings, positive perception of the term "all-electric home" increased from 40% in 2021 to 51% in 2024. Additionally, over one-third of respondents would prefer homes with only electric appliances when choosing their next residence, with 63% stating that gas appliances contribute to indoor air pollution, an increase from 51% in 2021.

However, despite the growing interest in electrification, cost remains the largest barrier to fuel-switching, with 76% of respondents believing that switching fuel sources of any kind in their home appliances would be costly.

Utilities today are navigating fast-paced technological advancements, transitioning to cleaner energy sources, managing tighter budgets, and looking to meet heightened customer expectations. A systematic and targeted approach to electrification is central to successfully addressing these challenges.

"Electrification holds tremendous potential along with risks. Utilities can realize that potential and mitigate the risks by understanding how to best engage their customers in the energy transition. With in-depth market research like our Residential Electrification Survey, utilities can understand perceptions of electrification to promote the value of new technologies based on customer needs, beliefs, and behaviors," said Filomena Gogel, President of Research and Advisory at E Source.

An overview of the insights is publicly available in a downloadable eBook here . Detailed findings are available in an industry report for members of the Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Strategy Service offered by E Source.

About E Source

E Source combines industry-leading research, data science, and consulting to help utilities make and implement better data-driven decisions that positively impact their customers, their bottom line, and our planet. Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, E Source has teams across the US and Canada. Learn more at www.esource.com.

Media Contact:

Adarsh Nalam, Director, Solutions Marketing and Communications

[email protected]

SOURCE E Source Companies LLC
Nonprofit Fundraising Leaders and Sector Experts Will Convene in San Antonio September 8-9

INDIANAPOLIS, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- OneCause, a leading provider of digital fundraising technology, announced that the ninth annual Raise conference will take place on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, TX, on September 8-9, 2025. The event will invite fundraisers from all over the world to join two days of networking, learning, and inspiration designed to help drive fundraising success for nonprofits of all sizes.

Raise 2025 speaker session proposals are now open through February 7, 2025. Nonprofit professionals and industry experts are encouraged to submit innovative session ideas with actionable takeaways and interactive elements that empower attendees to elevate their fundraising efforts. Sessions on emerging trends, event-based fundraising, donor retention, technology integration, and peer-to-peer strategies are encouraged.

"Each year, we witness the power of the Raise community as fundraisers gather to share ideas, successes, and unique approaches that make a difference," said Steve Johns, chief executive officer of OneCause. "This year's conference in San Antonio will bring fresh opportunities for connection and insight in a vibrant new setting. We're excited to host a conference experience that fosters innovation and equips Fearless Fundraisers to create even greater impact."

Entering its ninth year, Raise draws a diverse mix of nonprofit professionals, consultants, and industry leaders. The conference offers a dynamic program including inspiring keynotes, hands-on workshops, dedicated networking opportunities, sponsor engagement, and insightful sessions led by nonprofit experts. In 2025, the conference will also include product workshops for OneCause customers to help them get the most out of their fundraising software.

Raise 2024 was a resounding success, featuring a memorable and moving keynote from documentary filmmaker Brett Culp. Over 30 interactive sessions inspired fundraisers to approach their work with renewed energy and creativity, delivered by nonprofit professionals and industry experts, including Kelly Hecht, nonprofit principal strategic advisor for Amazon; Derria Ford, chief development officer for the Martha O'Bryan Center; Nathan Chappell, senior vice president of DonorSearch and co-founder of Fundraising.AI; Sabrina Walker Hernandez, president and chief executive officer of Supporting World Hope; Ben Farrell, owner and founder of Custom Benefit Auctions, and more.

Past attendees have lauded Raise for its practical content, networking opportunities, and the welcoming community of like-minded peers:

"I look forward to the Raise conference every year!" said Heather Bell, senior director of development and marketing for Community Living, Inc. "I leave energized and inspired with ideas that are easy to implement immediately. I also look forward to the connections I make and know that these lasting relationships will allow me to continue the conversation with other Fearless Fundraisers."

Executive Director of Farm Animal Rights Movement Eric Lindstrom said, "As a first-time attendee at Raise, I was incredibly impressed with the overall conference and quality of speakers. I learned much more than the cost of the conference just within the first session I attended."

Tickets are available now for Raise 2025 at a pre-sale rate of $599 for individual tickets and $550 each for groups of three or more; pre-sale prices are valid through December 31, 2024. Raise registration includes full access to all conference activities, including the Fearless Fundraiser celebration at no additional cost.

About OneCause

OneCause is driving the future of fundraising with easy-to-use digital fundraising solutions that help nonprofits improve the giving experience and raise more money. OneCause builds technology that optimizes everyday generosity, making it easier for nonprofit organizations to fundraise and for nonprofit supporters to give. Since 2008, OneCause has helped over 11,000 nonprofits in the United States and Canada raise more than $6.5 billion for their missions. OneCause is committed to driving innovation in the charitable sector, bringing together nonprofit professionals across the world for the annual Raise Conference to exchange ideas that further fundraising. For more information, visit www.onecause.com or follow us on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and Facebook.

SOURCE OneCause
Photo: elements.envato.com

Ambassador of the European Union to Ukraine, Katarina Mathernova, believes that the forecast of Ukraine's accession to the European Union by 2030 is realistic, despite the fact that the war probably will not end before the end of this year.

"The war will not end this year. However, I will still make my forecast [on Ukraine's accession to the EU] - by the end of the decade, which is the forecast of Charles Michel, who is leaving the post of president of the European Council," she said during a discussion at the NV event "Ukraine 2050. Dialogues about the future."

Commenting on her assessment of the forecast, the Ambassador noted that the process of Ukraine's accession to the EU has three aspects: the first is war; the second is the "technical part"  negotiations directly; the third is the "political part"  ratification by all EU member states.

At the same time, she pointed out that the expansion of the EU beyond the current 27 member states is a complex process, which also requires reform of the system.

"So not all the challenges of accession are from Ukraines side. This is also from the EU side. And let's be honest, the enlargement of the European Union is not indisputable. This is a controversial topic. It will have many skeptics," she added, pointing to the strengthening of the positions of the "right-wing" political forces in many European countries.

She summed up that all these are challenges, to overcome which it is necessary to explain why it is in the interests of the EU and its citizens to have Ukraine as part of the EU.

"I am convinced that we will be stronger, more innovative if we look at drones there [on the battlefield in Ukraine], and definitely a more stable and safer country with Ukraine," Mathernova said, adding that she is trying to explain this as best as possible both in Ukraine and abroad.

According to Mathernova, these trends will need to be overcome and explained to people on an ongoing basis, why it is actually in the interests of Europe and in the interests of European citizens to have Ukraine in its composition.

She expressed confidence that this would be the case.
Developers like Carolina Solar Energy are shortening design times, improving planning and efficiency. 4,300+ solar professionals worldwide are positioned to benefit.

MADRID, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- RatedPower, a part of Enverus, the most trusted energy-dedicated SaaS company that leverages generative AI across its solutions, is releasing new software updates aimed to further assist solar developers, engineering, procurement and construction firms giving them greater flexibility in designing photovoltaic (PV) plants. RatedPower is a one-stop cloud-based solution for PV plant design and engineering. More than 4,300 solar professionals in more than 160 countries use their solutions. In addition to optimizing processes, with today's announced software updates, users can now access advanced financial metrics to select the most profitable designs.

The software empowers users to simulate project proposals within seconds, seamlessly compare options and export detailed technical documentsall with remarkable efficiency. Going beyond traditional PV, RatedPower supports integrated project elements, including energy storage, interconnection facilities and transmission lines, offering unmatched ease and flexibility. Users also benefit from enterprise-grade data security and protection, ensuring that each project is safeguarded to the highest industry standards. RatedPower is the only solution fully integrated with PRISM, Enverus' hallmark energy decision-making platform, allowing users to combine PRISM's extensive, analyst-reviewed renewables data with RatedPower's automated PV design methodology. This integration enables users to quickly identify ideal project locations and create optimized PV plant designs in minutes.

"RatedPower gives us a lot more control than what we normally have with an external consultant. That flexibility over the product and site design is really important to us. Designs are so flexible, and we were able to do them in a fraction of the time," said Tyler Caron, Business Development director with Carolina Solar Energy, a RatedPower customer.

When customers utilize RatedPower, they find they are reducing time spent designing and engineering PV plants by more than 90% and lowering the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) by 5% with efficient and integrated project development. One independent power producer (IPP) reported a significant reduction in design time after switching to RatedPower software. Previously, they spent 1-2 days creating designs in AutoCAD, but now they complete the same task in just 20-30 minutes. The software's quick design capabilities are particularly useful for feasibility studies, comparing designs and reviewing BoQs.

Read Enverus' full announcement about the software release

About Enverus

Enverus is the most trusted energy-dedicated SaaS company, with a platform built to maximize value from generative AI, offering anytime, anywhere access to analytics and insights. These include benchmark cost and revenue data sourced from more than 95% of U.S. energy producers and more than 40,000 suppliers. Our platform, with intelligent connections, drives more efficient production and distribution, capital allocation, renewable energy development, investment and sourcing. Our experienced industry experts support our customers through thought leadership, consulting and technology innovations. We provide intelligence across the energy ecosystem: renewables, oil and gas, financial institutions, and power and utilities, with more than 6,000 customers in 50 countries. Learn more at Enverus.com.

About RatedPower

RatedPower helps companies discover the smartest ways to design and engineer utility-scale solar PV plants and maximize their potential through their software to automate and optimize the study, analysis, design and engineering of photovoltaic plants and their electrical infrastructure in all its stages. RatedPower has helped design more than 55 TW in more than 160 countries. Bringing value to developers, IPPs, contractors, investors and manufacturers, helping them make better decisions, democratizing engineering knowledge and boosting the deployment of solar plants worldwide. Learn more at RatedPower.com.

SOURCE Enverus
KERRVILLE, Texas, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- James Avery Artisan Jewelry, a Texas-based, family-owned jewelry brand, is launching their monthly "Designs From Our Archives", a year-long series reintroducing some of the most cherished designs from the company's extensive historical collection. Beginning January 1, 2025, each month will feature the reproduction of one retired design  which will only be available during that month while supplies last in James Avery stores and on JamesAvery.com, with no backorders available.

Our founder James Avery first started making jewelry in Kerrville, Texas in 1954, with one mission: to create art he found meaningful in the hope that others would find it meaningful too. Today, we still proudly design and craft our jewelry in Texas, and still strive to create designs that offer both lasting value and lasting meaning. Because we believe meaning is what makes jewelry - and life - even more beautiful.

"Artistry and meaning have defined our brand since its inception," said Karina Dolgin, chief product and revenue officer at James Avery. "Which is why we love providing unique opportunities for longtime and new customers to own designs that have resonated across generations."

From timeless earrings to intricately detailed pendants, each retired design in the series is an ode to the care and creativity of James Avery's artisans.

"Our customers have developed a deep love for our designs over the years," said Sarah Herr, vice president of merchandising & design at James Avery. "We're excited to give them a chance to connect with these special and meaningful pieces again. Each design in this series was carefully chosen for its signature 'James Avery' style and to reflect our ongoing commitment to creating jewelry that celebrates life through the beauty of design."

Rooted in a vision that founder James Avery crafted in 1954, the company remains focused on creating jewelry that serves as a personal, lasting connection for the wearer. For longtime customers, the "Designs From Our Archives" series is a nostalgic revival, and for newcomers, it's an invitation to share in a tradition of artistry and meaning. Each piece will feature a special "2025" limited edition mark as a tribute to the collection.

Learn more about the series and discover each monthly release starting January 1.

About James Avery Artisan Jewelry James Avery is a vertically integrated, family-owned company located in the heart of the Texas Hill Country. We offer finely crafted jewelry designs for men and women in sterling silver, 14K and 18K gold, bronze and gemstones. James Avery jewelry is designed in the Texas Hill Country, with more than 90 percent of our pieces crafted in Kerrville, Comfort, Hondo and Corpus Christi, Texas using the finest materials sourced worldwide. We are a multi-channel retailer with over 130 James Avery stores in four states. Our jewelry is also available at JamesAvery.com, 245 Dillard's locations and Dillards.com and at 38 Von Maur locations and VonMaur.com. You can also find our designs at airport stores in Houston and Nashville, as well as select Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) locations.

Follow us @jamesavery on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, as well as @jamesaveryjewelry on TikTok for new releases, trends, and behind-the-scenes content.

SOURCE James Avery Artisan Jewelry
The anthology features new and exclusive stories from bestselling romance authors.

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Page & Vine announces the upcoming release of Hope & Harmony, a vibrant and heartfelt collection of music-themed romance stories from fourteen bestselling authors. This anthology, spearheaded by romance author and media attorney Kaylene Winter, aims to captivate the romance community while supporting an important cause. MusiCares is a charity dedicated to safeguarding the well-being of music professionals and will be the recipient of the participating authors' royalties.

"As a former band manager and promoter turned romance author, I thought, 'What if a group of top-tier romance authors came together to write original stories in support of MusiCares?'" says Winter, a bestselling author of contemporary romance. "The result is an anthology I'm incredibly proud of. With the help of a passionate team who share my love for music and storytelling, we've created something readers will devour."

Hope & Harmony features exclusive stories from some of the biggest names in romance, including Jaine Diamond, Kaylene Winter, Jillian Liota, Layla Reyne, and Julia Wolf, USA Today bestsellers Chelle Bliss, Stacey Marie Brown, Kat Mizera, M. Robinson, and Becca Steele, and #1 New York Times bestsellers Helen Hardt, Rachel Van Dyken, and Meredith Wild. This cause-driven anthology will appeal to special edition collectors and readers who cherish a good love story.

The anthology will be traditionally published in ebook and print by traditional romance imprint Page & Vine and will be distributed in the US and Australia by Simon & Schuster.

"Being able to support this project as a publisher and an author, and to facilitate meaningful connection between readers and this important cause has been such a rewarding experience," says Meredith Wild, Page & Vine's CEO. "It's yet another example of how powerful the romance community can be when readers and the authors they love come together for good."

Hope & Harmony can be pre-ordered prior to its release on January 28, 2025. Readers will be able to find the anthology on all major e-retailer platforms and in Barnes & Noble locations across the country.

About MusiCares

MusiCares helps the humans behind music because music gives so much to the world. Offering preventive, emergency, and recovery programs, MusiCares is a safety net supporting the health and welfare of the music community. Founded by the Recording Academy in 1989 as a U.S. based 501(c)(3) charity, MusiCares safeguards the well-being of all music people through direct financial grant programs, networks of support resources, and tailored crisis relief efforts. For more information please visit: www.musicares.org.

About Page & Vine

At the heart of Page & Vine is a mission to strengthen connection between readers and authors through the written word. In addition to helping our readers find joy and inspiration in the stories we publish, we aim to be a trusted partner to our authors, providing them with the necessary expertise and support to expand their brand through traditional distribution channels and beyond. For more information, visit http://www.pageandvine.com/hope





Contact

Dani Sanchez

Wildfire Marketing Solutions, Marketing Director

[email protected]

Haley Boudreaux

Page & Vine, Director of Marketing

781-975-6191

[email protected]

SOURCE Page & Vine
Scarinci & Hollenbeck, LLC Boosts Litigation, Public and Real Estate Practice Groups with Six New Attorneys

LITTLE FALLS, N.J., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As 2024 comes to a close, Scarinci & Hollenbeck, LLC is excited to announce the expansion of its dynamic team with the addition of six attorneys to the firm's Red Bank, NJ, and New York City offices. This talented class, comprising three senior associates and three associates, brings a wealth of new experience and fresh perspectives that greatly enhance the firm's ability to continue providing effective legal solutions.

As 2024 comes to a close, Scarinci & Hollenbeck, LLC is excited to announce the expansion of its dynamic team with the addition of six attorneys to the firm's Red Bank, NJ, and New York City offices.

"We are thrilled to welcome such remarkable talent to our firm," said Donald Scarinci, Founding Partner of Scarinci Hollenbeck, LLC. "This new cohort represents a pivotal moment in our growth and enhances our commitment to delivering top-notch legal services."

Meet Our New Attorneys

Joining the Red Bank, NJ Office

Brittany P. Tarabour joins the public law department as a senior associate, armed with extensive experience across litigation fields such as labor and employment, commercial litigation, criminal defense, and workers' compensation. Brittany's background at a Red Bank law firm, where she handled diverse legal matters, positions her well to tackle challenges for our clients.

Learn more about Brittany

Patrick T. Conlon joins the commercial real estate department as a senior associate, where he will assist clients in navigating development approvals and land use matters, commercial real estate transactions, office and commercial leasing, and construction and financing matters. Patrick's previous experience representing developers at all stages of the acquisition, entitlement, and disposition process has equipped him with a deep understanding of the real estate landscape, making him a valued asset to our team.

Learn more about Patrick

Matthew F. Mimnaugh steps into the firm's litigation department as a senior associate, bringing a wealth of knowledge from his role as Chief Counsel to Commissioner Keith E. Sonderling at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Matthew's expertise in navigating complex policies and regulations, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, strengthens the firm's litigation capabilities.

Learn more about Matthew

Kevin M. Cuddihy rejoins the firm as an associate, supporting the public and education law practice groups. With his expertise in labor and employment, litigation, and special education law, Kevin is well-equipped to advocate for public entities, including school boards and municipalities.

Learn more about Kevin

Seraphema Menna joins the firm's public law practice group as an associate, focusing on litigation, labor, and employment matters on behalf of public entities, such as correction facilities, county employers, and municipalities. Seraphema previously served as an Assistant Deputy Public Defender at the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender in Mercer County, NJ . While in law school, she received the Nichole Richardson Outstanding Pro Bono Service Award and the Kirkpatrick Best in Trial Practice award. She now brings her litigation and negotiation experience to the firm for the benefit of our public clients.

Learn more about Seraphema

Joining the firm's New York Office

Carleigh Stiehm-Wenik joins the firm's litigation department as an associate, following her tenure as a Judicial Clerk in the chambers of Hon. Christine M. Vanek , J.A.D. Carleigh's hands-on experience with a variety of cases in the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey , covering civil, criminal, family, and municipal matters, will enhance our team's depth of knowledge.

Learn more about Carleigh

As we welcome these talented attorneys into the Scarinci Hollenbeck family, we look forward to leveraging their skills and insights to further our mission of providing exceptional legal service to our clients.

About Scarinci & Hollenbeck, LLC

With a growing practice of more than 65 experienced attorneys, Scarinci & Hollenbeck, LLC is a regional alternative to a National 250 law firm. With offices in New Jersey, New York City, and the District of Columbia, we serve the niche practice areas most often required by institutions, corporations, entities, and the people who own and control them.

More information on our firm's expertise and range of practice can be found on our website: www.sh-law.com

Contact: Peter Moeller

Telephone: 201-896-4100

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Scarinci & Hollenbeck, LLC
SAN DIEGO, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) has once again been honored by PA Consulting for its continued excellence in reliability, marking the 19th consecutive year the company has received the prestigious ReliabilityOne Award for Outstanding Reliability Performance in the Western Region. This year, SDG&E also received the additional System Resiliency Award, highlighting its commitment to robust grid operations and innovations that can adapt to an evolving climate landscape. ReliabilityOne Awards are given annually by PA Consulting to utilities that have achieved outstanding reliability performance and have excelled in delivering reliable electric service to their customers.

An SDG&E employee inspects a trench at a strategic undergrounding site in Ramona, California. Undergrounding power lines is crucial for enhancing energy reliability, reducing outages, and protecting communities from wildfire risk.

"Reliability and resilience are cornerstones of our mission at SDG&E," said Caroline Winn, SDG&E's chief executive officer. "We work to continuously evolve our technology, refine our processes and implement forward-thinking programs to prioritize the safety, sustainability and satisfaction of our 3.6 million customers. This recognition reflects our team's dedication to placing people first and delivering the safety and reliability our customers deserve. We are honored to receive this award, which inspires us to keep innovating and making a positive impact in our community."

Key initiatives contributing to SDG&E's recognition include:

Advanced Wildfire Mitigation and Grid Hardening

Wildfire & Climate Resilience Center: Combining cutting-edge technology, the center serves as a hub for research, development and implementation of innovative solutions to address wildfire risk and increasing climate challenges.

Climate Intelligence Platform and Wildfire Next Generation System (WiNGS): Leveraging AI and data modeling to simulate climate scenarios, WiNGS assists SDG&E in its efforts to enhance grid infrastructure and reduce wildfire risks.

Advanced weather monitoring: SDG&E operates one of the nation's most sophisticated weather forecasting networks, offering real-time data to better anticipate and address weather-related threats. The company's systems use millions of historical weather data points going back to 2010 to assist in training AI-based wind forecasting models, including one of the first AI-trained Santa Ana Wind Gust forecast models in the industry.

Resilient and Sustainable Energy Solutions

Renewable Microgrids: SDG&E's microgrids supply critical infrastructure and communities with energy during Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events, to support continuity and renewable energy use.

Path to Net Zero: SDG&E's roadmap outlines strategies to help achieve California's ambitious emissions reduction targets through cleaner energy sources and carbon removal.

"For over two decades, the ReliabilityOne Awards have showcased electric utilities that lead the industry in reliability and resilience," said Derek HasBrouck, PA Consulting's ReliabilityOne Program Director. "SDG&E's success in maintaining high reliability standards while innovating in clean energy and grid resilience truly sets it apart. Congratulations to SDG&E on these well-deserved recognitions."

PA Consulting's ReliabilityOne awards are presented to electric utilities providing their customers with the highest levels of reliability in the industry. PA Consulting's ReliabilityOne study is based on standard industry reliability statistics that measure the frequency and duration of electric power outages. ReliabilityOne participants on average experienced 55% fewer sustained outages, and outages were 70% shorter than the average US investor-owned utility. PA Consulting has been analyzing electric utility performance since 1987.

About SDG&E

SDG&E is an innovative energy delivery company that provides clean, safe and reliable energy to better the lives of the people it serves in San Diego and southern Orange counties. The company is committed to creating a sustainable future by increasing energy delivered from low or zero-carbon sources; accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles; and investing in innovative technologies to ensure the reliable operation of the region's infrastructure for generations to come. SDG&E is a recognized leader in its industry and community, as demonstrated by being named Corporate Partner of the Year at the San Diego Business Journal's Nonprofit & Corporate Citizenship Awards and receiving PA Consulting's ReliabilityOne Award for Outstanding Reliability Performance for 19 consecutive years. SDG&E is a subsidiary of Sempra (NYSE: SRE), a leading North American energy infrastructure company. For more information, visit SDGEtoday.com or connect with SDG&E on social media @SDGE.

SOURCE San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E)
Growth of UK facility will enable clinical-grade manufacturing of drug substances for range of biopharmaceutical products

BURLINGTON, Mass., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- SEKISUI Diagnostics' microbial CDMO business announces it has completed construction of its 15.7 million ($20.7 million) cGMP capacity expansion at its UK site for clinical-grade drug substance manufacturing. Following appropriate licensure, this expansion will enable manufacturing capabilities for common drug types including enzymes, proteins and antibody fragment therapies, as well as plasmids and enzymes for cutting-edge gene therapy manufacture.

Fermentation Gantry

BioProduction by SEKISUI is SEKISUI Diagnostics' contract service offering as a fermentation-focused CDMO with expertise in proteins and downstream purification. Their microbial process development and production experience helps smooth technical transfer and process scale-up. The new Grade C microbial fermentation and purification suites will accommodate production scales up to 1,000L.

"This investment supports the vision and mission of SEKISUI Diagnostics and the broader SEKISUI Medical Group by enabling the continued growth of our share of the biologics CDMO market," said Robert Schruender, President & CEO of SEKISUI Diagnostics. "We look forward to working with biopharma companies seeking an experienced partner at a time when demand is outstripping manufacturing capacity."

Louise Digby, Vice President, Enzymes & BioProduction at SEKISUI Diagnostics added: "Over many years we have honed our technical and operational competency and expertise in enzyme production and microbial fermentation to serve our partners globally. This cGMP expansion enables us to support a broader customer base and expand our offering to existing customers."

About SEKISUI Diagnostics

We are part of SEKISUI Medical Group with over 40 years of experience supplying innovative medical diagnostics globally to physicians, hospitals, laboratories and alternate testing locations. Our product lines include clinical chemistry reagents, point-of-care tests, pre-analytic systems as well as enzymes, specialty biochemicals and the microbial CDMO business, BioProduction by SEKISUI.

About SEKISUI Medical Group

SEKISUI Medical Group is a diverse, global network consisting of a diagnostics business and pharmaceutical sciences business which spans drug development services and manufacturing, including active pharmaceutical ingredients and pharmaceutical intermediates, amino acids, as well as a wide range of enzymes for use in diagnostics, and biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing and more.

SOURCE SEKISUI DIAGNOSTICS, LLC
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On October 29, 2024, the Alibaba Global Initiatives Reunion Summit was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. By bringing together industry experts and local businesses to discuss approaches for fostering a forward-thinking entrepreneurial climate in Ethiopia, this summit has opened doors to digital growth for entrepreneurs in the country.

Shoplazza, as a strategic partner of AliExpress in Ethiopia, was invited to attend this event. Shoplazza's CTO, Xia Bing, shared at the meeting, enabling attendees to gain a better understanding of the development of e-commerce in Africa. He also elaborated on how the close cooperation between Shoplazza and AliExpress can help African merchants quickly launch their online retail ventures and effectively tap sales opportunities globally.

PrimeDrop launched by Shoplazza is the core highlight of this cooperation. Through this platform, businesses can start their own e-commerce businesses in just four steps and within only five minutes. First, use the rich and diverse themes of Shoplazza to build an eye-catching website. These themes have their own characteristics and reasonable layouts, which can quickly attract consumers' attention. Merchants can choose appropriate themes according to the characteristics of the goods they sell and the preferences of the target customer group to create a unique e-commerce interface, laying a good foundation for business development.

Authorizing AliExpress in the Shoplazza backend is another key aspect of the two parties' collaboration. It allows merchants to easily screen and import selected products from AliExpress in the Shoplazza backend. These products cover various fields, are abundant in quantity and of guaranteed quality. African e-commerce merchants can quickly enrich their product categories to meet the diversified shopping needs of local consumers, which undoubtedly adds a powerful weight to them in market competition.

Complex order processing in e-commerce business becomes simple and efficient under this model. Orders generated through a user's e-commerce website will be automatically synchronized from the Shoplazza backend to AliExpress for processing. This automated process greatly improves the speed and accuracy of order processing, reduces the workload of merchants in order management, and enables them to devote more energy to other business processes.

Finally, with AliExpress' robust warehousing management and logistics system, goods can be delivered to consumers safely and in a timely manner. This series of steps constitutes a complete and smooth e-commerce business process, providing great convenience for African e-commerce entrepreneurs.

On the front-end customer acquisition side, Shoplazza supports advertising marketing, data tracking and feedback of major advertising platforms such as TikTok, Google, and Meta. This provides African e-commerce practitioners with diversified marketing channels and precise marketing tools. They can conduct advertising through these platforms, adjust strategies in a timely manner according to data feedback, and more flexibly carry out e-commerce business to attract more potential customers.

On the back-end payment side, Shoplazza supports 12 African currencies in November and enables e-commerce payments for 13 African countries. This helps break the bottleneck of African e-commerce payment, create more favorable conditions for African merchants to conduct e-commerce business, and promote the further development of the African e-commerce market.

At the meeting, Alibaba Global Initiative (AGI) announced plans to establish a training center in Ethiopia to more effectively cultivate a generation of local entrepreneurs equipped for the digital age. Shoplazza will also do its part in the realization of this vision with its own technical and product capabilities, and work together with industry peers for the prosperous development of African e-commerce.

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SEATTLE, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- TestSprite, pioneering AI-powered autonomous software testing, today announced the close of a $1.5 million pre-seed round, bringing the total funding amount raised to $1.7 million. Investors included Techstars, Jinqiu Capital, MiraclePlus, Hat-trick Capital, EdgeCase Capital Partners, and angel investor Rafael Barroso. Additional investment came from the founding team. Funds will accelerate product development, expand the team, and scale operations to meet growing demand.

Funding comes on the heels of TestSprite introducing an early access beta program for its forthcoming end-to-end QA tool, which fully automates testing across back-end and front-end systems. TestSprite's autonomous testing tool aims to free individual developers and resource-constrained teams from traditional software QA and AI co-pilot testing tools that still require time-consuming steps or manual intervention.

The global automation testing market is expanding rapidly, with Polaris Research projecting the AI coding tools market to reach $27 billion by 2032. And, as AI-generated code becomes increasingly prevalent, developers face growing challenges in testing and validating complex code they didn't write. Current AI co-pilot tools still produce bugs while leaving critical gaps in testing and debugging. TestSprite's tool addresses this directly, delivering comprehensive validation without manual inspection, accelerating development cycles 10x faster.

"Automated testing is becoming more crucial as AI-assisted software development rapidly becomes the de-facto way of building software in a market that is pushing for faster, more efficient software delivery from software engineers. We believe the Testsprite team and product is poised to become the leader in this new market shift," said Andres Barreto, Managing Director at Techstars.

Yunhao Jiao, co-founder and CEO of TestSprite stated, "With this funding, we're excited to ready our autonomous testing tool. As AI-generated code becomes more complex, our vision is to let AI test AI, allowing developers to focus on innovation while maintaining software quality. We're grateful for our investors' support and look forward to scaling to meet market demands."

Sign Up for Early Access

The company is offering a free community version for developers to test drive its fully autonomous software testing tool. Due to demand, priority access will be given to developers willing to share feedback and help refine TestSprite's testing tool.

About TestSprite

Based in Seattle, Washington, privately-held TestSprite is pioneering the industry's first AI-powered software testing agent, especially for those using GenAI coding. Its mission is to simplify software testing for resource-limited dev teams worldwide. TestSprite accelerates end-to-end software dev cycles by eliminating manual testing, delivering speed improvements of up to ten times. The company's innovative tool leverages advanced AI and machine learning to deliver comprehensive test coverage with minimal developer input, significantly improving confidence in software releases.

Press Contact:

Carmen Hughes

Ignite X

[email protected]

650.576.6444

SOURCE TestSprite
PONTE VEDRA, Fla., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Boat Company, a leader in family-friendly, sustainable, luxury cruising experiences, announced today its selection as a winner in the Good Housekeeping 2025 Family Travel Awards. Recognized for its exceptional service, unique itineraries, and commitment to creating memorable, stress-free vacations for families, The Boat Company has earned a coveted spot among the best in the travel industry.

The MV MIST COVE, one of two old world luxury yachts owned and operated by The Boat Company in Southeast Alaska's Inside Passage. Good Housekeeping Award Logo

The Good Housekeeping Family Travel Awards honor companies that excel in offering products and services tailored to the needs of families. The Boat Company stood out for its innovative approach to family travel, providing customized private and semi-private cruise charter experiences that cater to all ages and interests. Whether it's a relaxing week on the water for the grandparents, to sustainable, educational experiences for children through on-board naturalists, or luxurious amenities for parents, The Boat Company's offerings are designed to create unforgettable experiences for families seeking adventure and relaxation on the waters of Southeast Alaska's Inside Passage, and Tongass National Forest.

"We are thrilled and honored to be recognized by Good Housekeeping," said Hunter McIntosh, President & Executive Director of The Boat Company. "This award is a testament to our commitment to providing families with a unique and enriching travel experience. We understand that family vacations are a time to make lasting memories, and we're dedicated to ensuring that every moment spent with us is special."

The Boat Company has consistently received praise for its exceptional customer service, attention to detail, and ability to cater to the unique needs of families traveling together, and a focus on sustainability.

The 2025 Family Travel Awards winners were chosen based on a rigorous selection process that included expert reviews, consumer feedback, and real-world testing by Good Housekeeping's team of editors. The Boat Company is proud to join an esteemed list of travel companies that are making family vacations more enjoyable, accessible, and memorable.

For more information about The Boat Company and its family-friendly, sustainable cruises, please visit www.theboatcompany.org.

**About The Boat Company**

We cruise the Tongass National Forest with the intent of introducing people, in an intimate way, to one of the world's greatest places, in hopes that they too will feel this area is worth conserving for generations to come. Our explorations are thoughtfully designed to immerse our passengers in their own experiences of Southeast Alaska, whether fishing, wildlife viewing, hiking by day, while also enjoying gourmet meals, fine wines and private cabins at night.

As the only nonprofit sustainable cruise line in the world, The Boat Company is actively addressing the conservation issues of Southeast Alaska in the halls of Congress and other governmental agencies at both the state and federal levels.

The organization offers weeklong educational small ship cruises in southeast Alaska, home to the Tongass National Forest, which at 16,500,000 acres (25,800 square miles), the national largest, and the earth's last, substantially intact temperate rain forest. Our purpose is to educate.

Each of our vessels carries trained naturalists specializing not only in flora and fauna, but fisheries expertise as well. Science says that temperate rainforests are more biologically diverse than tropical forests. Although many of Tongass' 8-to-10-foot diameter, 1,000-year-old trees have been cut, many remain. Our presentations stress the importance of preserving wildlife habitat, for bears, eagles, deer, wolves and a myriad of other species, and the watersheds in that habitat which are home to six species of salmon and other fishes. We inform our customers about the effects that warming trends are having on marine life (whales, sea lions, otters, shellfish, orcas et al.) and especially the glaciers that are quickly thinning and retreating.

**Media Contact:**

Hunter Hartford McIntosh

President & Executive Director

The Boat Company

[email protected]

+1 (202) 468 - 8055

www.theboatcompany.org

SOURCE The Boat Company
Beyond Traditional Giving: New Ways to Give Back This Holiday Season

Giving Machines in 106 cities across 13 countries on five continents  including the first Giving Machines in Africa and Asia.

SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today announced the global launch of its 2024 Light the World Giving Machines initiative, for the first time, surpassing 100 locations worldwide. Since 2017, these Giving Machines have offered people of all ages and backgrounds a unique way to contribute directly to those in need, making charitable giving more accessible and inclusive than ever.

The Giving Machines

Rather than purchasing goods for themselves, participants can buy items such as meals, clothing, school supplies, livestock, and hygiene kits to benefit those in need. Each item represents a donation to a specific charitable cause or organization. The Giving Machines are part of the Church's annual Light the World initiative, encouraging acts of kindness and service to spread goodwill during the Christmas season.

"Light the World has evolved to become much more than a holiday message. It is a call to action, worldwide, extending the invitation to follow the example of Jesus Christ in sharing light, love, kindness and service," said Elder Gary E. Stevenson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. "Just as angels declared words of great joy at His birth, we too, can be angels in the lives of others, as we extend the love of Jesus Christ to people near and far."

Simple Ways to Give this Holiday Season

This year, giving will be made even easier, with the installation of Giving Machines in 106 cities across 13 countries on five continents  including the first Giving Machines in Africa and Asia. With planned installation in more than 100 international locations, this year, Giving Machines will be available in more locations than ever before, providing opportunities for people to participate in new and convenient ways. Whether a large or small purchase, each donation made through the Giving Machines is directly given to an individual in need, providing a simple way for all to support a trusted and impactful charitable cause as part of their holiday giving.

Since 2017, the Giving Machines have been available to the public as part of the Light the World initiative, these familiar vending machines work in reverse, instead of buying something for ourselves, we can donate items to lift and bless people across the world," commented President Camille N. Johnson the Relief Society General President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Driving Impact through Holiday Giving

Since 2017 millions of items have been donated, their value exceeding US $32 million. With each object purchase and donation, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints covers all program operational expenses. This ensures that 100% of every donation is used to provide those in need with the item a generous donor has purchased for them.

In addition to individual donations, participating nonprofits are able use up to 10% of their Giving Machine receipts to cover overhead expenses. More than 500 local and international nonprofit organizations are participating in this year's Giving Machine initiative. Among the items available for donation include food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, education, job and career training, and livestock. In many locations, visitors will have the option to purchase one of everything by entering "777."

In November and December 2023, an estimated 600,000 individuals visited Giving Machines in Australia, Canada, Guatemala, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, and the United States, contributing US $10.4 million.

To learn more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, please visit https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org.

CONTACT: Chris Moore, 801-783-9791, [email protected]

SOURCE The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Olena Kondratiuk has held a working meeting with Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, during which she discussed with him topical issues of interstate cooperation, in particular, the continuation of military assistance to Ukraine and support for Ukraine's accession to the EU and NATO.

"We are of the same mind that the European Union should speak with one voice when it comes to security in Europe. And most importantly, an increase in spending on security and defense," Kondratiuk wrote on Facebook on Thursday.

The parties also discussed Croatia's accession to the NATO NSATU mission in the field of security and military training for Ukraine, as well as humanitarian demining of the territory of Ukraine. "Croatia plans to transfer 67 special vehicles by the end of the year and we hope this assistance will continue," said the deputy speaker of the Ukrainian parliament.

Kondratiuk and Plenkovic also discussed the rehabilitation and treatment of Ukrainian military and veterans in Croatia. "Fifty-seven of our military have already gone through this program. We ask you to form a new group and accept 20 more people," she said.

The parties also exchanged experience in the creation and functioning of the Ministry of Demography of Croatia. "The best practices for restoring human capital and overcoming the demographic crisis that Croatia faced after the War of Independence and Ukraine is facing now," Kondratiuk said.

She thanked the government and people of Croatia for supporting Ukrainians and the Ukrainian state during the aggression of the Russian Federation and called Plenkovic a "friend of Ukraine." According to her, the Croatian Prime Minister is "a supporter of European leadership in overcoming the challenges facing Ukraine and Europe."

"We understand that you need more support, in particular from the EU. Croatia is significantly helping Ukraine, but it will help even more. We will provide as much as we can," Plenkovic assured.
Life Fest: Night of Praise and Morning Rally to be held prior to the 2025 National March for Life

FAIRFAX, Va., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to an increasingly fragmented understanding of the human person among teenagers, and in an effort to address the vital need to support pregnant women, their children and those who have suffered after abortion, the Sisters of Life, Knights of Columbus and Diocese of Arlington are uniting to host Life Fest, a dynamic two-day pro-life event that will take place Jan. 23 and 24, 2025, at EagleBank Arena on the campus of George Mason University. Nearly 16,000 people are expected to attend.

Life Fest 2025

Life Fest builds upon the success of the three groups' support of the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C.  specifically, the Diocese of Arlington's Life is VERY Good event, which has been held annually for 12 years at EagleBank Arena, and Sisters of Life and Knights of Columbus pro-life event titled Life Fest, which was first held in 2023.

This year, the two events have combined, offering an expanded version of Life Fest that will bring together the best of both events while maintaining all three hosts' focus on drawing people of all ages, faiths and backgrounds to encounter the truth of the goodness of each human person and the love of Jesus Christ.

"We're living in a time where the goodness of the human person is questioned," said Sister Marie Veritas, of the Sisters of Life. "Every human heart needs to know: I am good; I am important; I am irreplaceable. Every woman who is pregnant needs to know that she is not alone. Every woman who has experienced one or more abortions needs to know that Jesus sees her, loves her and longs to forgive and heal her. Working with the Knights of Columbus, we're excited to join forces this year with the Diocese of Arlington's Life is VERY Good to offer an exciting, all-new Life Fest, where we can proclaim this truth all the more."

Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington, who serves as the chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Pro-Life Activities, is eager to welcome participants to EagleBank Arena.

"The Diocese of Arlington is excited to continue our long history of hosting groups from across the country and providing these participants with a peaceful time of prayer in preparation for the March for Life. We are especially excited that this year we will be working alongside the Sisters of Life and the Knights of Columbus through this single ministry experience," he said.

"We welcome them to our diocese and look forward to opening our homes and churches to these pilgrims and showing the country that the future is pro-life."

Past attendees of both Life Fest and Life is VERY Good have reported that the events have changed their lives, their faith and their understanding of what it means to be pro-life.

"The Knights of Columbus is honored to partner with the Sisters of Life and the Diocese of Arlington for this new two-day Life Fest. This event will inspire a new generation and help them see that life at all stages is precious" said Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly. "Love is the answer; it transforms lives and changes hearts and minds, and that's what Life Fest is all about. Together, we pray for a world in which abortion is unthinkable."

Attendees of Life Fest will have the opportunity to venerate first-class relics of Pope St. John Paul II; Blessed Carlo Acutis, who is slated for canonization in 2025; the recently beatified Ulma family; Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus; among others. There will also be opportunities for confession and eucharistic adoration.

The Sisters, Knights and the Diocese of Arlington are eager to help witness to the power of unity in this year's new event. "Together, we are stronger," said Sister Marie Veritas. "Together, we can witness more powerfully to a broken world: Life is possible! Love is possible!"

Speakers and musicians will be announced soon on the Life Fest website. For more information about Life Fest or to register, visit: lifefestrally.com

About Life is VERY Good and Life Fest

Each year since 2013, thousands of teenagers have packed EagleBank Arena on the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax for Life is VERY Good. The event featured dynamic guests, including musician Matt Maher; Father Agustino Torres of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal; The Catholic Channel's Katie McGrady; Real Life Catholic host Chris Stefanick; and the Diocese of Arlington's Bishop Michael F. Burbidge. The event was created to help thousands of young people from across the country to prayerfully prepare for the annual March for Life.

Beginning in 2023, after the Roe v. Wade decision was overturned, the Sisters of Life and Knights of Columbus have annually welcomed thousands of young men and women to a pre-march event: Life Fest. Held on the morning of the March for Life, Life Fest's capacity crowds have heard from inspiring witnesses such as Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston; Monsignor James Shea of Bismarck, North Dakota; Sister Bethany Madonna of the Sisters of Life; and talented musicians such as Sarah Kroger and Damascus Worship.

About the Sisters of Life

The Sisters of Life is a Catholic religious community of women founded in New York in 1991 by John Cardinal O'Connor. Consecrated completely to Jesus, the Lord of Life, they commit themselves to the protection of human life and to the promotion of new life in Christ, acknowledging the sacredness of every person, and sharing the good news of God's abundant mercy. In this way, they seek to help reveal to each person their own innate goodness, the particular love God has for them, and the call to a life of abundant truth, joy and hope. Immersed in Eucharistic prayer within a vibrant community life, their missions include caring for vulnerable pregnant women and their unborn children, inviting those wounded by abortion into the healing mercy of Jesus, fostering a culture of life through evangelization, retreat works, spiritual accompaniment of college students, and upholding the beauty of marriage and family life. For more information, visit sistersoflife.org.

About the Knights of Columbus

In 1882, Blessed Michael McGivney, a young parish priest in New Haven, Connecticut, founded the Knights of Columbus to serve the needs of a largely immigrant Catholic community. What began as a small fraternal benefit society has since grown into the world's premier lay Catholic men's organization, with more than 2.1 million members in over 16,800 local councils. As members of one of the world's leading international charitable organizations, Knights around the world donated more than 47 million service hours and over $190 million for worthy causes in their communities in 2023. The Knights of Columbus also offers a range of life insurance products to members and their families and was named by Forbes as one of America's Best Insurance Companies 2024 in the permanent life insurance category. Knights of Columbus Insurance currently has more than $123 billion* of life insurance in force. In addition, the organization offers investment services in accord with Catholic social teaching through its wholly owned subsidiary, Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors, which holds more than $28 billion** in assets under management. Based on the founding principles of charity, unity and fraternity, the Knights of Columbus is committed to strengthening Catholic families and parishes, and to practicing faith in action through service to all in need. To learn more or to join the Knights of Columbus, please visit kofc.org/join.

*As of September 30, 2024

**As of September 30, 2024

About the Catholic Diocese of Arlington

The Diocese of Arlington was founded in 1974 and is a thriving community composed of 70 parishes stretching from the Washington, D.C, suburbs to the Northern Neck and Shenandoah Valley. The diocese has more than 433,000 registered Catholics, 290 priests, and 18,000 students in pre-K-12. The Office of Youth, Campus, and Young Adult Ministries offers many resources to assist parish and school leaders in the Catholic Diocese of Arlington fully incorporate young people into the life of their parish. The goal is to help young people and their families become better disciples and witnesses to Jesus Christ. Their annual events for youth and young adults continue to grow each year, with many selling out large venues weeks in advance. Each event is carefully designed to welcome young people from all cultures, with a preferential option toward inviting young people with disabilities to participate alongside their friends without disabilities. For more information, please visit arlingtondiocese.org/youth-ministry.

The Most Reverend Michael F. Burbidge was installed as the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Arlington on Dec. 6, 2016, replacing Bishop Paul S. Loverde, who had served the area as bishop for over 17 years.

SOURCE Knights of Columbus
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- National Corporate Housing is thrilled to announce that Tom Atchison, our esteemed Founder and Chief Executive Officer, has been honored with the Most Admired CEO Award by the Denver Business Journal. This prestigious award recognizes leaders in the Denver area who demonstrate exceptional leadership, vision, and community impact within their industries and beyond.

Tom Atchison and the National Corporate Housing executive team. From left to right: Dan Mackesey, Tom Atchison, Misty Gregarek, and Peggy Smith

Under Tom's visionary leadership, National Corporate Housing has achieved significant growth and success while maintaining a strong commitment to ethical business practices and a people-first culture. He has fostered an environment that prioritizes employee development, customer satisfaction, and industry-leading service.

"Tom exemplifies the highest standards of leadership, integrity, and Surprisingly Superior Service," said Misty Gregarek, President of National Corporate Housing. "Part of what makes National so special is Tom's incredible talent for identifying potential in people and providing them opportunities to excel. This recognition is a testament to his unwavering dedication to our company's mission and to making a positive impact on our employees, customers, and the community."

Tom was recognized along with 20 other executives Wednesday night at an award dinner at the Ritz Carlton in Denver. We congratulate Tom on this well-deserved honor and look forward to continued success under his exceptional leadership.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Heidi Hume, Vice President, Marketing

703-727-9124 | [email protected]

About National Corporate Housing: At National, we turn complex temporary housing challenges into seamless solutions. As a global leader in customized corporate housing since 1999, we provide personalized, 360-degree services that ensure your employees feel at home, wherever they are in the world. With our extensive network and local expertise, we make the unfamiliar comfortable, delivering exceptional experiences that transform clients into lifelong partners.

SOURCE NATIONAL CORPORATE HOUSING
Trailrunner Broadband Internet has unveiled its next-generation broadband service, powered by Tarana Wireless, which will reach customers in rural parts of New Hampshire.

CONCORD, N.H., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Residents in more rural communities of New Hampshire will soon have access to ultra-high-capacity, high-speed broadband technology, thanks to the launch of Trailrunner Broadband's upgraded high-speed network. The upgraded service will reach customers starting in North Stratford. There will be 11 site locations upgraded by the end of 2025.

"New Hampshire has been a national leader in broadband buildout to ensure reliable connections across the Granite State," said Governor Chris Sununu. "We've moved faster than any other state to provide residents with speedy, reliable service at one of the lowest costs. Our work continues to ensure the Granite State remains competitive in attracting workforce, business, residents, and telehealth opportunities. Thrilled by this announcement!"

"No matter where you live, work, or enjoy time in New Hampshire, you should be able to access reliable broadbandour rural towns and the North Country are no exception," said Senator Jeanne Shaheen. "As a lead negotiator of the broadband provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, I'm glad to see upgrades that will greatly enhance coverage, and will keep working to ensure every Granite Stater, first responder and visitor alike, can get connected to quality, high-speed internet."

The existing Trailrunner network utilizes standard 4G LTE Cellular technology. Now, Trailrunner has selected Tarana Wireless, the world's first manufacturer of next-generation fixed wireless access (ngFWA), to enable this new high-speed broadband service, which will meet and exceed the FCC's expected minimum broadband performance requirements. Tarana's high-speed broadband solution is built on an entirely new technology from the previous 4G LTE and 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) networks, resulting in an ultra-high-capacity broadband product that is consistently faster and more reliable than traditional 4G. It also has lower latency, meaning data transmission is virtually instantaneous; has advanced built-in security controls; and can be deployed very quickly.

"We are proud to continue our commitment to delivering the best broadband service to the communities we serve, especially those in extremely unserved and underserved rural areas," said Robert Parsloe, CEO of Trailrunner Broadband Internet. "This brand-new technology has already been deployed to several of our communities, who have given us overwhelmingly positive feedback. Our goal remains the same: helping consumers receive the best broadband experience, whether they're using the internet for remote learning, essential business communications, or a family movie night. We continue to make private investments, as rural communities have waited long enough. Everyone deserves to connect, so why wait any longer?"

The upgraded Trailrunner network was recently deployed in Dexter, Maine and will shortly expand to deliver unmatched performance and coverage to thousands of households in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

About Trailrunner

Founded in 2019, Trailrunner Broadband Internet is a privately funded, locally veteran-owned and operated broadband service provider. From its beginnings in Downeast Maine, Trailrunner has rapidly expanded its reach to 12 counties across Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, playing a pivotal role in bridging the digital divide during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Dedicated to turning technology into solution, Trailrunner proudly serves residential consumers and businesses in northern New England. Learn more by visiting: www.mytrailrunner.com.

About Tarana

Tarana Wireless's mission is to accelerate the deployment of fast, affordable internet access around the world. Through a decade of research and development and more than $400 million of investment, the Tarana team has created a unique next-generation fixed wireless access (ngFWA) technology, instantiated in its first commercial platform, Gigabit 1 (G1). It delivers a game-changing advance in broadband economics in both mainstream and underserved markets, using either licensed or unlicensed spectrum. G1 started production in mid-2021 and has since been embraced by more than 200 service providers in 23 countries. Tarana is headquartered in Milpitas, California, with additional research and development in Pune, India. Learn more at www.taranawireless.com.

Media Contact: Paula Stanton 12076197350 [email protected]

SOURCE Trailrunner
Strategic hire highlights company's bold transformation to drive growth

LINDON, Utah, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Trucordia , a top 20 U.S. insurance brokerage, announced today that it has named Michael Moran its Chief Operating Officer (COO). Prior to joining Trucordia, Moran served as an Executive Vice President for Aon.

"Michael is joining Trucordia at a very important time," said Trucordia Chief Executive Officer Felix Morgan. "We have built wildly successful businesses in our communities across the country, and now we've come together to create the next great insurance brokerage. His knowledge and experience will be invaluable as we unify our offices, people and systems to create a new level of service for our clients."

Bringing extensive experience in insurance and reinsurance, Moran leads the company's field operations, as well as its carrier relations, technology and integrations teams in support of the company's bold, transformational growth strategy to:

Integrate  Continue to optimize operations through a regional management structure and proven office integration model.





Continue to optimize operations through a regional management structure and proven office integration model. Grow  Build a unified foundation of services to support all stakeholders.





Build a unified foundation of services to support all stakeholders. Acquire  Expand Trucordia's geographic footprint by acquiring businesses with high growth potential in target industries and markets that have the ability to enhance our offerings.

"I am honored to serve as COO during this exciting time for our company," said Moran. "Trucordia shares my passion for creating exceptional experiences for clients and team members, and I am proud to join this extraordinary team as we make strategic advances that support our long-term vision of sustainable growth."

A proven executive in achieving growth, innovation and margin expansion, Moran has served the insurance and reinsurance industry for over 25 years. As an Executive Vice President for Aon, Moran was responsible for its "Delivering Aon United" program, which identified and scaled best practices from around the world to create a common client leadership model, collaboration across solution lines, improve sales performance, strengthen segmentation and pricing strategies, and deliver greater value to clients.

Over the course of his time at Aon, Moran served in roles of increasing responsibility including CEO of Aon Inpoint, Aon's proprietary data and analytics firm; Global COO of reinsurance brokerage Aon Benfield; and senior roles across Aon Benfield, Aon Risk Solutions and Aon Corporation. Earlier in his career, Moran held consulting positions in the financial services practices at McKinsey & Company and A.T. Kearney.

About Trucordia

Trucordia, formerly PCF Insurance Services, is the group name for the top 20 U.S. insurance brokerage headquartered in Lindon, Utah. The Trucordia group of companies offers a broad array of commercial and personal lines, life and health, and employee benefits insurance solutions. Trucordia is an integrated organization united by a passion to deliver extraordinary opportunities and exceptional experiences for its clients, partners and each other. With more than 5,000 team members across the U.S., Trucordia is a notable leader in the insurance brokerage space, ranking #19 on Business Insurance's 2024 Top 100 Brokers and #13 on Insurance Journal's 2024 Top Property/Casualty Agencies. Visit trucordia.com for more information.

SOURCE Trucordia
HOUSTON, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of Houston Law Center's Global Law and Policy for the Americas initiative is partnering with the University of Bologna for a four-day event titled "Sustainability Week." It will be held in-person from Nov. 25  28 at the University of Bologna's Forli Campus and will also be available via livestream.

This week-long workshop, which will include academics, law students, PhD students and fellows, will explore the global and local dimensions of sustainability intersecting international law, constitutional law, comparative law, political science, economics and sociology. The grant-funded project was awarded through a competitive process by the University of Bologna.

"I am excited about this collaboration that brings together European scholars, Latin American scholars and U.S. scholars in a very unique and special way," said Elizabeth Trujillo, UH Law Center Global Law and Policy for the Americas program director, law professor and event co-organizer. "Sustainability Week allows us to build on our institutional collaboration with the University of Bologna to explore issues surrounding sustainability from research and interdisciplinary perspectives, and also a student learning perspective."

"Sustainability, climate change and sustainable development are the some of the biggest challenges of our current time," Trujillo said. "We have to figure out ways of reframing our international legal frameworks, as well as our domestic frameworks to better align with sustainable development goals."

The conference's lectures will touch on sustainability as a transnational issue, sustainability and trade, sustainability in climate engineering and sustainability in the energy transition among other discussions. Click here for the complete list of topics.

Featured speakers will include:

University of Bologna Assistant Professor Sabrina Ragone

University of Bologna Professor Marco Balboni

University of Bologna Associate Professor Marco Borraccetti

University of Houston Law Center Mary Ann & Lawrence E. Faust Professor Elizabeth Trujillo , the Founding Director of Global Law and Policy for the Americas

Law Center & Lawrence E. Faust Professor , the Founding Director of Global Law and Policy for the Americas University of Bologna Junior Assistant Professor Maria Arvaniti

University of Houston Law Center Instructional Professor of Law Tracy Hester

Law Center Instructional Professor of Law Tracy Hester University of Houston Law Center Assistant Professor Chinonso Anozie

Law Center Assistant Professor University of Bologna Professor Giorgia Pavani's .

. University of Bologna Professor Riccardo Prandini

Sustainability Week is open to academics, students and graduate fellows. Up to 10 spaces are available for UH Law Center students interested in attending the event virtually.

For more information on the upcoming "Sustainability Week" program, please click here to view a video or visit the University of Bologna's website. If you would like to participate either in person or in the livestreamed event, please contact Professor Elizabeth Trujillo, GLPA director, at [email protected] and Karen Jones, Executive Director of Global and Graduate Programs, at [email protected].

University of Houston Law Center media contact: Carrie Anna Criado, UH Law Center Assistant Dean of Communications and Marketing, 713-743-2184, [email protected].

About the University of Houston Law Center

The University of Houston Law Center (UHLC) is a dynamic, top-tier law school located in the nation's 4th largest city. UHLC's Health Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Part-time programs rank in the U.S. News Top 10. It awards Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) and Master of Laws (LL.M.) degrees, through its academic branch, the College of Law. The Law Center is more than just a law school. It is a powerful hub of intellectual activity with more than 12 centers and institutes that fuel its educational mission and national reputation. UHLC is fully accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools.

About the University of Houston

The University of Houston is a Carnegie-designated Tier One public research university recognized with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter for excellence in undergraduate education. UH serves the globally competitive Houston and Gulf Coast Region by providing world-class faculty, experiential learning and strategic industry partnerships. Located in the nation's fourth-largest city and one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse regions in the country, UH is a federally designated Hispanic- and Asian-American-Serving institution with an enrollment of more than 47,000 students

About Global Law and Policy for the Americas Initiative at UH Law Center

The relationship between nations and the international landscape is changing. Global Law and Policy for the Americas provides a research platform in which to examine new legal frameworks for addressing global challenges in coordination with local solutions. Specifically, it focuses on the role of the Americas in shaping global law and policy and vice versa, particularly in areas where the intersection of the local with the global is particularly evident. Such areas include, for example, trade and investment, technological innovation, sustainability, energy resilience, environment, social justice, comparative law, and global health.

SOURCE University of Houston Law Center
Faculty expansion is one of the largest in university history

COLLEGE PARK, Md., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of Maryland (UMD) today announced one of the largest faculty expansions in its history, with plans to hire 40 faculty in fields across its colleges and schools to help advance the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, education and leaders.

The new faculty members will support the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM), a collaborative hub launched last spring for research, offering innovative and experiential learning opportunities for students and focusing on responsible and ethical AI technology to advance the public good. UMD and its philanthropic and industry partners plan to invest more than $100 million in the institute over the next 10 years.

"Interdisciplinary collaboration is a hallmark of our institute, as we are dedicated to both the computer science side of AI and how the technology is studied and used in everything from the arts and education to journalism, business, engineering and social sciences like psychology, political science, and gender and women's studies," said Hal Daume III, AIM director and a Volpi-Cupal Family Endowed Professor in the Department of Computer Science. "We are looking for faculty who will bring diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives to our campus to help ensure we are considering this rapidly evolving field from every possible angle."

AIM will include new AI majors, AI certificates, graduate degrees, workforce development programs and a new high-performance computing cluster tailored for AI's complex computational challenges.

While their backgrounds will vary, new faculty members must have a strong research interest in one of AIM's four core areas: accessibility, sustainability, social justice and learning. They will join 100-plus faculty members who already study and teach AI at UMD, the nation's No. 5 public school for the discipline, according to U.S. News & World Report's influential 2025 "Best Colleges" guide.

"The University of Maryland and the state of Maryland are committed to responsibly advancing AI technology and preparing students from every field of study for a technology-rich world," said UMD Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice. "The addition of 40 new faculty members across disciplines further illustrates that commitment and positions our university as a global leader for cutting-edge AI education and research."

To learn more about AIM, visit aim.umd.edu.

About the University of Maryland

The University of Maryland (UMD) is the state's flagship university and a leading public research institution, propelled by a $1.3 billion joint research enterprise. Located four miles from Washington, D.C., the university is dedicated to addressing the grand challenges of our time and is the nation's first Do Good campus. It is driven by a diverse and proudly inclusive community of more than 50,000 fearless Terrapins. UMD is a top producer of Fulbright scholars and offers an unparalleled student experience with more than 300 academic programs, 25 living-learning programs and 400 study abroad programs. Spurred by a culture of innovation and creativity, UMD faculty are global leaders in their field and include Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and members of the national academies. For more information about the University of Maryland, visit umd.edu.

SOURCE University of Maryland
SHANGHAI, Nov. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The 7th China International Import Expo (CIIE) opened on November 5, welcoming nearly 3,500 exhibitors from 129 countries and regions. UnionPay International (UPI), a longstanding partner of CIIE, showcased its commitment to facilitating global trade by delivering cutting-edge, secure, and convenient payment solutions for exhibitors, buyers, and visitors.

Enhancing Payment Experiences for Global Participants

During this year's CIIE, UPI unveiled its latest payment innovations, including the UnionPay SplendorPlus Card and the CIIE-themed Card, at the Bank of China (BOC) Shanghai Pavilion. These products attracted significant attention from domestic and international attendees, emphasizing seamless and tailored payment experiences for cross-border transactions.

As part of its broader "Project Excellence 2024", launched earlier this year, UPI introduced the SplendorPlus Card, specifically designed for inbound international travelers. This versatile card supports multiple payment methodsphysical card, QR code, and mobile paymentsand offers exclusive benefits such as cashback and localized privileges across five key categories, including transportation, cultural attractions, and dining. With nearly 40 financial institutions worldwide now issuing or preparing to issue the card, UPI continues to expand its reach, enhancing connectivity between China and the global market.

Meeting Evolving Cross-border Payment Needs

UPI's payment ecosystem has grown significantly in recent years, driven by technological innovation and an understanding of diverse global consumer preferences. To date, more than 250 million UnionPay cards have been issued in 83 countries and regions. Cardholders can access comprehensive payment services within China, including dining, retail, hotel bookings, and transportation, such as Shanghai metro ticketing and taxi services.

In addition, UPI has partnered with over 200 e-wallet providers in 36 countries and regions, enabling international users to link UnionPay cards or apply for digital cards for contactless and mobile payments, mirroring the convenience enjoyed by local residents.

To further support domestic exhibitors and buyers traveling abroad, UPI has launched a CIIE-themed card in collaboration with BOC Shanghai. This card offers domestic users a 1% cashback benefit, along with exclusive discounts at brick-and-mortar merchants in 20 countries and regions, meeting the growing demands of outbound travelers.

Driving Innovation in Cross-border Trade

Beyond enhancing payment experiences for individuals, UPI is at the forefront of driving innovation in cross-border trade. Following the State Council's approval to establish a Silk Road E-commerce Pilot Zone in Shanghai, UPI has collaborated with key industry players to develop digital payment solutions based on cross-border electronic invoices. This initiative integrates customs declaration, invoicing, and payment settlement processes into a unified digital ecosystem, fostering transparency and efficiency in global trade.

At the Silk Road E-commerce Innovation & Development Conference, held as part of CIIE on November 7, UPI signed a memorandum of understanding with Shanghai E&P International, BoComm Shanghai, and BOC Shanghai. This collaboration marks a pivotal step in aligning Shanghai with international trade standards and promoting the adoption of electronic documentation in global commerce.

Under the guidance of regulatory authorities, UPI has pioneered standardized and compliant end-to-end solutions to address the evolving needs of cross-border e-commerce. From international airfare and hotel payments to online transactions and settlements, these solutions empower businesses to embrace digital transformation, contributing to the sustainable development of global trade.

SOURCE UnionPay International
Innovative Solutions, Expert Guidance, and Seamless Implementation Help Clients Achieve Strategic Goals

ATLANTA, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Warbird Healthcare Advisors, a leading and respected advisory firm, has demonstrated expertise in helping major healthcare organizations solve their most challenging strategic, operational, and financial issues. As the healthcare industry faces mounting pressures, our customized teams and knowledgeable operators remain committed to implementing innovative solutions to help our clients realize their goals. Our experts have supported several key client successes this year:

Harbin Clinic and Atrium Health Floyd Form a Strategic Partnership

In a highly dynamic and competitive market, Harbin Clinic, the oldest and largest independent multi-specialty medical group in Georgia, engaged Warbird Healthcare Advisors to assess strategic partnership options for their physicians, patients, and stakeholders. Based on a set of strategic criteria and future needs of the Clinic, Warbird organized and curated a select group of potential partner organizations.

After a robust and competitive process, Harbin Clinic selected Atrium Health Floyd as their partner. Warbird played an instrumental role in negotiating the merger's terms, focusing on metrics such as purchase price, IT and capital investment, and forward-looking compensation. With Warbird's guidance and partnership, the Clinic was able to secure an innovative set of governance and control provisions that included a Mayo Clinic-like model of shared governance and leadership of the newly combined health system.

"We are incredibly excited to see what the future holds as we celebrate this combination, which marks a new chapter for Harbin Clinic and what's possible for healthcare in our region," said Kenna Stock, chief executive officer at Harbin Clinic. "Alongside Atrium Health Floyd, Harbin Clinic will uphold our commitment to caring completely for our communities while ultimately enriching and extending the reputation of excellence we have worked to build for more than 150 years."

Robert Kirsch, Warbird Managing Partner and Affiliations and Partnerships Practice Leader, collaborated with Harbin Clinic and Atrium leadership to forge a model of care and collaboration between physicians and a health system that sets a new watermark for the industry.

Southeast Georgia Health System: Warbird Partnership Key to Outlook Upgrade

Warbird's Performance Improvement team of experts helped Southeast Georgia Health System (SGHS) achieve outlook upgrades from Moody's and S&P rating agencies.

"Without question, this would not have been accomplished without our partnership with Warbird Healthcare Advisors. Their engagement, advice, and expertise has been vital to our success over the past year," shared Scott Raynes, CEO of Southeast Georgia Health System. "With the headwinds the industry has faced over the last few years, this is quite an accomplishment."

Ryan Sprinkle, Warbird Managing Director and Performance Improvement Practice Leader, added, "SGHS's outlook improvement to positive was earned, not given. SGHS's leadership team, board, and team members made this $49M turnaround success possible, and Warbird was honored to partner with SGHS in these performance improvement efforts."

Tower Health: Collaboration with Warbird Secures Future Sustainability

Pennsylvania-based Tower Health and Warbird Healthcare Advisors have collaborated on several long-term initiatives to improve performance. These efforts have included solidifying leadership, benchmarking financial performance against national standards, and executing a $1.3 billion tender and exchange program/bond financing, all with the goal of ensuring the organization's future sustainability.

As a key team member, Warbird's Senior Financial Executive, Jordan Melick, has played a pivotal role in guiding the organization through complex financial processes.

Warbird Expands Advisory Team: Industry Veterans Join the Warbird Team

Warbird Healthcare Advisors recently enhanced and expanded their Executive Talent with the additions of Kari Cornicelli, FHRMA, CPA, Managing Director of Performance Improvement & Turnaround Services, Todd DeWeese, Managing Director, Payer Solutions and our newest member, Kevin Donovan, FACHE, FACMPE, Managing Director of Physician Practice Solutions. Our team of Warbird Healthcare Advisors have sat in the seats of our clients, and are practitioners who have lived, experienced and understand what it takes for their client's success in the ever-changing healthcare industry.

"As we look ahead to 2025, Warbird Healthcare Advisors is poised for significant growth and impact," stated Michael Draa, CEO, Warbird Healthcare Advisors. "We are expanding our executive leadership team to meet the evolving needs of our clients, broadening our national reach through strategic partnerships and conference sponsorships, and unveiling a refreshed brand that reflects our commitment to excellence. While we continue to deliver exceptional results, we are excited about the future and the opportunities to further elevate our position as a leading healthcare advisory firm."

About Warbird Healthcare Advisors

For over twenty years, Warbird Healthcare Advisors has been a leading healthcare advisory firm that partners with organizations nationally to drive sustainable growth and improve performance. Our seasoned practitioners provide strategic advice, financial and operational improvements, and transitional executive leadership solutions. We combine deep industry expertise with practical solutions to help healthcare organizations achieve their financial and operational goals and realize their strategic vision. Learn more at www.WarbirdHealthcare.com .

Media Contact:

Warbird Healthcare Advisors

Kristen Van Dusen, CMO

[email protected]

SOURCE Warbird Healthcare Advisors
Reducing blend times by more than 80%, the Ellipse utilizes patented design and technology to boost blending speed and ensure customer satisfaction.

STAMFORD, Conn., Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Waring, inventor of the blender and a trusted source for high-performance kitchen appliances for more than 85 years, today announces the launch of the innovative new Ellipse Blending System. Powered by a unique independent dual-motor system, the Waring Ellipse delivers unparalleled speed and efficiency, improving consistency and reducing blending times by over 80%1.

Waring Revolutionizes the Blending Category with Introduction of the New Ellipse Blending System Waring Revolutionizes the Blending Category with Introduction of the New Ellipse Blending System

The Waring Ellipse Blending System features a 2-part lid and dasher system that effectively prevents the formation of air pockets that typically form above the spinning blender blade, pushing ingredients to the outer wall of the blender jar. The Ellipse Drive powers a dasher that effortlessly clears the walls of the cylindrical blender jar, forcing a constant vortex and pushing ingredients back into the blades below while blending. This technology increases output and eliminates the need for multiple re-blends to achieve desired consistency, creating a more streamlined blending solution for independent or multi-unit operators with no time to waste in the kitchen.

"Waring brought the original blender to market over 85 years ago, and since then, the category has remained stagnant with little innovation," said Daniel DeBari, Senior Vice President of Waring. "Equipped with best-in-class technology, Waring's Ellipse Blending System is the first major advancement in the category since 1937. As the inventor of the blender, we're proud to deliver a revolutionary new product that will help any blending establishment increase throughput, revenue and profit while reducing waste and ensuring nutritious, consistent results with every blend. The future of blending has arrived, and it's about time!"

"In my first year of trialing the Ellipse, I was able to generate $250K in business with two blenders! I tested all the competition and the Waring Ellipse was the only unit able to achieve extraordinary, sustainable results," said Trevor Liska, owner of Revive Bowls, a mobile smoothie shop in Everett, WA. "I legitimately bought this business because of the production capacity these were proving."

The new Ellipse Blending System offers several time and cost saving measures that improve the overall user experience including:

A dual-motor system that allows the Ellipse  Blending System to handle hard-to-blend ingredients with ease, creating endless opportunities for menu innovation.

that allows the Ellipse Blending System to handle hard-to-blend ingredients with ease, creating endless opportunities for menu innovation. Shorter blend cycles that minimize heat and oxidation, so blends retain more nutrients.

that minimize heat and oxidation, so blends retain more nutrients. Reduce waste and optimize nutritional value by only blending what you need to serve with no re-blends needed. No additional liquids needed for successful blending.

by only blending what you need to serve with no re-blends needed. No additional liquids needed for successful blending. Four reprogrammable programs and variable speed/time selections , offering convenient customization and maximum control over the consistency of smoothies and bowls.

, offering convenient customization and maximum control over the consistency of smoothies and bowls. The high-torque Ellipse  motor and rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack can produce over 1,000 smoothies or bowls on a single charge.

can produce over 1,000 smoothies or bowls on a single charge. Charging station that powers the Ellipse with a full charge in under two hours .

. Completely redesigned sound enclosure that couples with the Ellipse infrared sensor to start and stop the motor automatically while reducing noise and vibration making it ideal for customer-facing or open concept smoothie shops.

Shannon Weston, owner of Vibe Foods, a smoothie and juice chain, has implemented the Ellipse Blending System into her storefronts to quickly and consistently produce nutritious smoothies, acai bowls, wellness shots and more. Weston explains, "It is a game changer! We make thousands and thousands of acai bowls and smoothies and to have something so efficient is insane! The Ellipse blends, hands-free, to the absolute perfect consistency every single time."

"When there is a line out the door and we're jam packed, we now have a machine that's going to blend our smoothies in 8 seconds rather than over a minute," says Suzy Osta, owner of Juice Kings, a Stamford, CT based smoothie shop. Jeff Charmevil, Juice Kings employee, explains, "I would recommend this blender to any smoothie shop, and it's about time something like this finally came along."

To learn more about the Ellipse, please visit: https://www.waring.com/ellipse.html and try Waring's ROI Calculator to see the time and cost savings the Ellipse can offer.

About Waring:

Waring, universally known for introducing the first blender in America, is one of today's leading manufacturers of professional appliances for the foodservice and laboratory industries. Waring offers high-performance, large-volume food processors and blenders, heavy-duty heating appliances such as grills, griddles, toasters and deep fryers, and a variety of specialty products. As a Solutions Specialist in the blend, prep, cook and brew categories, Waring strives to provide innovative, customized equipment to fulfill all of the industry's unmet needs. With 85+ years of manufacturing expertise locally and globally, Waring is proud to offer continuously expanding collections of superior professional products. For more information, visit https://www.waring.com/.

1Based on lab testing from Waring's product development team

Media Contact:

Carly Wilhelm

[email protected]

(732) 237-4533

SOURCE Waring Products
Weeks after West Monroe employees celebrate their own AI Week, firm launches new focus on upskilling, governance, and workforce optimization to maximize AI's business impact

CHICAGO, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- West Monroe, a global business and technology consulting firm, is excited to announce the launch of three new AI offerings designed to help companies reimagine how they integrate AI with their workforce. By approaching AI as a form of talent that enhances productivity rather than a technology that displaces employees, West Monroe is enabling organizations to achieve new levels of efficiency, innovation, and business value.

The new offerings, which include Enterprise-Wide AI Training & Enablement, AI Governance Design & Activation, and Strategic Workforce Optimization, are part of West Monroe's commitment to helping companies embrace AI in ways that empower their people and drive sustainable growth. These solutions address the challenges organizations face in adopting AI, especially as a recent survey found that while 54% of workers believe AI will advance their career, 62% still lack the skills necessary to implement it effectively.

"Many companies are grappling with how to leverage AI to drive business results without overwhelming their employees or stalling progress due to misaligned strategies," said Casey Foss, Chief Commercial Officer at West Monroe. "While many consulting firms focus on helping clients continuously identify new AI uses cases, companies already have enough challenges to solve. More use cases aren't the answer  they need AI to help solve existing issues faster. That is exactly what our new offerings are designed to do: empower organizations to solve their current challenges with greater speed and efficiency while upskilling their workforce and aligning governance structures."

West Monroe's new offerings are designed to bridge the gap between AI's promise and practical application, guiding companies to implement responsible AI strategies that deliver measurable results. The three offerings include:

Enterprise-Wide AI Training & Enablement : This program helps organizations cultivate AI-fluent employees who can apply AI capabilities to their daily work. The training covers core competencies such as AI literacy, prompt engineering, ethical AI use, and human-AI collaboration, ensuring every employeefrom front-line all the way up to CEOare equipped to drive innovation from within.

This program helps organizations cultivate AI-fluent employees who can apply AI capabilities to their daily work. The training covers core competencies such as AI literacy, prompt engineering, ethical AI use, and human-AI collaboration, ensuring every employeefrom front-line all the way up to CEOare equipped to drive innovation from within. AI Governance Design & Activation : West Monroe provides a structured approach to AI governance that addresses risk management, compliance, and organizational alignment. By setting up an agile governance framework, businesses can responsibly scale AI initiatives while maintaining regulatory oversight. West Monroe's teams collaborate to design the governance plan and remain engaged within a company's organization to ensure the plans work. This approach significantly increases the likelihood of success, with clients being six times more likely to meet objectives, compared to a 50% failure rate for those without structured efforts.

West Monroe provides a structured approach to AI governance that addresses risk management, compliance, and organizational alignment. By setting up an agile governance framework, businesses can responsibly scale AI initiatives while maintaining regulatory oversight. West Monroe's teams collaborate to design the governance plan and remain engaged within a company's organization to ensure the plans work. This approach significantly increases the likelihood of success, with clients being six times more likely to meet objectives, compared to a 50% failure rate for those without structured efforts. Strategic Workforce Optimization: Building on West Monroe's proprietary Work 4D offering released in 2023, this offering helps companies optimize their talent mixincluding employees, contractors, outsourcing, and automation. Now, the firm has integrated genAI adoption across all four categories to enhance productivity and reduce costs.

West Monroe's rapid adoption of AI within its own operations serves as a testament to the power of having the right plan. With 100% of employees already AI-enabled, West Monroe continues to set the standard for how AI can be used to augment business capabilities, while increasing productivity and quality from our people. The firm recently hosted its inaugural AI Week in September, featuring a company-wide AI competition where employees showcased innovations that drive real business outcomes, with top projects recognized for their cutting-edge approaches to AI integration and productivity enhancements.

The firm's approach to AI integration has been detailed in a recent podcast episode on This is Digital, which covers viewing AI as talent rather than merely technology. For more insights on AI strategy, listen to the episode here or explore West Monroe's point of view on AI governance.

About West Monroe



West Monroe is a global business and technology consulting firm that partners with clients to accelerate value through technology. We stand out by not just working for, but with our clientsengaging in the journey of co-creation and aligning our goals with theirs. Our expertise spans industry, strategy, people, process, and technology, ensuring rapid and impactful outcomes. Our employee ownership structure and mindset drive this mutual success. We are consistently celebrated as a top workplace by Fortune and USA Today, and as a leading consultancy by Forbes and Forrester. Learn how we can help accelerate your business at WestMonroe.com.

Media Inquiries

Christina Galoozis

Director, Communications & Public Relations

[email protected]

847-302-1762

Shira Cohen

Manager, Public Relations

[email protected]

443-841-6879

SOURCE West Monroe Partners
EU Council to once again discuss Russian war against Ukraine, Sybiha to inform ministers

The foreign ministers of the European Union member states will discuss the war that Russia is waging against Ukraine, as well as relations with the United States after the recent presidential and upcoming parliamentary elections.

The relevant agenda for the EU Council meeting on foreign affairs, which will take place on Monday, November 18 in Brussels, has been published on the Council's website.

In particular, it is expected that immediately before discussing Russian aggression against Ukraine, an informal exchange of views with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha will take place via videoconference.

The Council will also exchange views on the situation in Georgia in light of the parliamentary elections that took place on October 26.

In addition, EU ministers will discuss transatlantic relations in light of the results of the recent presidential and upcoming parliamentary elections in the United States, scheduled for November 5.

Another item on the agenda is the discussion of recent events in the Middle East.
SHANGHAI, Nov. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- XCMG Crane, a global leader in crane manufacturing, is set to make a significant impact at Bauma China 2024, taking place from November 26 to 29. The company will exhibit a range of its latest innovations, including five premier models that encompass all-terrain cranes, rough terrain cranes, hybrid truck cranes, and hybrid crawler cranes. Among these, the highlight will undoubtedly be the world's largest tonnage wheeled crane, reflecting XCMG's commitment to pushing the boundaries of engineering and sustainability.

XCMG Crane to Showcase Cutting-Edge Products at Bauma China 2024

The showcase at Bauma China 2024 highlights XCMG Crane's dedication to delivering high-quality, reliable, and environmentally friendly solutions to the global market. Each model on display represents an advancement in crane technology, incorporating advanced features designed to meet the evolving needs of the construction industry. From improved efficiency and safety to enhanced operational flexibility, these cranes are set to establish new standards in the sector.

One of the standout products, the XCA80G7-1E, is a four-axle all-terrain crane designed specifically for urban construction environments. This model boasts innovative features such as variable support, load-carrying extension, and a suite of intelligent configurations, including one-click counterweight attachment and wireless remote control. These enhancements not only boost the crane's performance but also streamline operations, making it an ideal choice for complex urban projects.

Aligning with XCMG's commitment to sustainable development, the company will also introduce its latest hybrid truck and crawler crane. These eco-friendly models are equipped with state-of-the-art electric drive systems that significantly reduce emissions and noise levels, contributing to a greener and quieter work environment. They are designed to offer the same power and reliability as their traditional counterparts while minimizing environmental impact.

Another notable addition to the lineup is the XCR120_AU, a rough terrain crane designed for versatility and durability. With a robust chassis and powerful engine, it delivers exceptional mobility and lifting capacity. Its advanced hydraulic system enables smooth, precise operation, while the ergonomic cab ensures a comfortable working environment.

Bauma China 2024 promises to be an exciting platform for XCMG Crane to demonstrate its leadership in the industry and its vision for the future of crane technology. Visitors to the exhibition can experience a comprehensive display of cutting-edge products and solutions that are set to transform the construction landscape.

SOURCE XCMG Crane
MP Odarchenko sentenced to 8 years in absentia for attempting to bribe leadership of Restoration Ministry

MP from the Servant of the People faction Andriy Odarchenko, who was put on the state and international wanted list, was sentenced to eight years in prison in absentia for attempting to provide an undue benefit to head of the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development Mustafa Nayyem.

"Attempt to bribe the leadership of the Ministry of Restoration: fugitive MP sentenced to eight years in prison," the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) said in a statement on its Telegram channel on Thursday.

According to SAPO, on November 14, the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) announced a guilty verdict against the MP of the ninth convocation, who was exposed for providing an undue benefit to the head of the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine.

"The court took into account the evidence collected during the pretrial investigation by NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors, and found the MP guilty of committing a crime under Part 4 of Article 369 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. According to the court's verdict, the MP was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment with confiscation of property and deprivation of the right to hold certain positions for a period of three years," the SAPO statement said.

The HACC verdict can be appealed within 30 days in an appellate court.

The SAPO statement does not indicate the name of the fugitive MP, it is Odarchenko.

It was previously reported that SAPO initiated a search for MP Odarchenko, who failed to appear before the HACC on September 18, 2024. According to the prosecutor's office, the MP did not inform the court or the prosecutor about the reasons for his failure to appear.

On September 19, the HACC announced a state and international search for Odarchenko, who is accused of providing an undue benefit to the head of the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development, Mustafa Nayyem. According to investigators, Odarchenko gave a bribe equivalent to $50,000 for assistance in allocating funds for the repair of a university under his control.

After the announcement, the court ruled to hear Odarchenko's case in absentia - in a special court proceeding.

On September 23, the HACC arrested Odarchenko in absentia, accused of bribing a top official, and collected UAH 15 million of bail posted for him.

According to recent data, the MP has left the country.

According to Verkhovna Rada Chairman Ruslan Stefanchuk, the parliament did not give Odarchenko any permission to cross the state border.
More than 200,000 Ukrainian children attend schools in Germany today, according to German Ambassador to Ukraine Martin Jager.

"I am really proud of how good Ukrainians were hosted in Germany. I think, more than 200,000 Ukrainian children attend schools in Germany today, and these children will become an important bridge when it comes to future cooperation between Germany, the EU and Ukraine," he said during an event "Ukraine 2050. Dialogues About the Future" hosted by NV on Thursday.

The diplomat said that Germany has hosted more than 1 million Ukrainians fleeing from the war in Ukraine.

Jager also spoke about the other types of Germany's support for Ukraine, including military assistance, particularly in the field of air defense. He recalled that Germany has provided Ukraine with three Patriot systems.

The ambassador also noted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a phone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz yesterday, during which the latter confirmed the delivery of the sixth IRIS-T air defense system to Ukraine before year end.

"Even more IRIS-T systems will be delivered next year," he said.
New York, Nov 14 : US President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Hindu American Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat member of Congress, to his cabinet as the Director of National Intelligence.

"Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength," Trump said on Truth Social on Wednesday announcing his pick for the post.

"For over two decades, Tulsi has fought for our Country and the Freedoms of all Americans," Trump said referring to her rank as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserve serving in the Iraq War.

She quit the Democratic Party and formally joined the Republican Party this year and campaigned for Trump, urging Indian Americans to vote for him.

It was an ideological 180-degree turn because she had been associated with the Democratic Party's Left and had supported the Leftist Senator, Bernie Sanders, for the presidential nomination in 2016.

She will become the second Hindu on the US cabinet, after Arati Prabhakar, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, now serving with Biden.

After a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019, Gabbard said, "India is the world's largest democracy and one of the United States' most important partners in the Asia-Pacific region."

"We spoke about the need to continue to work together to address the pressing issues that impact us and the world," she said.

"We discussed the situation in Kashmir, civil rights, empowering women, and addressing poverty, as well as the concern about escalating tensions with Iran," she added.

The Director of National Intelligence coordinates the work of 18 intelligence agencies, and her office includes the National Counterterrorism Center, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, the National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center, the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, and the Foreign Malign Influence Centre.

The director's high-profile role is preparing the daily intelligence briefing for the President, an overview of the global situation, and an early warning system for emerging dangers.

In the national security sector, Trump has nominated Mike Waltz, who is the co-chair of the India Caucus in Congress, as his new National Security Adviser.

Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio is also a supporter of India.

Gabbard is from Hawaii and of Samoan heritage on her father's side and European on her mother's. Her parents embraced the Hindu religion.

She became the first Hindu elected to Congress in 2004 and took the oath of office on the Bhagavad Gita.

Once a rising star of the Democratic Party, she was the Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee, but she resigned in 2016 accusing the party's leadership of undemocratically promoting Hillary Clinton as the party's presidential nominee.

She ran unsuccessfully for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and during a candidate's debate in 2019 she took a memorable swipe from the left at Vice President Kamala Harris accusing her of hypocrisy because of her record of targeting African-Americans and people of colour during her prosecutorial career in California.

Gabbard reportedly was one of the advisers for Trump when he prepared for his debate with Harris.

"As a former presidential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, she has broad support in both parties," Trump said.

While her nomination will sail through the Senate with Republican support, most Democrats will consider her a turncoat.

Her Hindu religion has drawn attacks from some activists and American media like the Intercept and Indian media like the Caravan which have accused her of being associated with Hindu nationalists.
Colombo, Nov 14 : Voting in Sri Lanka's parliamentary poll started on Thursday to elect 225 members to the Parliament with President Anura Kumara Dissanyake seeking a majority.

President Dissanyake is seeking a majority to govern the sovereign debt-defaulted nation amid calls for a new political culture without corruption and misappropriation of public funds.

This would be the first major test of the popularity of the ruling party, National People's Power, led by President Dissanyake

Samagi Jana Sandanaya led by Sajith Premadasa, the Sri Lanka Podujana Party of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the New Democratic Front made up breakaway legislators backing former President Ranil Wickremesinghe and minority parties in the North are seeking seats.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, the outgoing President who lost to Dissanayake in last month's presidential election, is not contesting a parliamentary election for the first time since 1977.

The Rajapaksa brothers -- Mahinda, Gotabaya, Chamal, and Basil -- will not contest the parliamentary election after decades-long representation.

Scores of ministers and deputies from the past regime have opted out of the race.

President Dissanayake, who was elected on September 21, has called for a strong Parliament mandate for him to eliminate corruption and punish the past leaders who would be proven to have misappropriated public funds.

The polls will see the election of 196 members through voting in 22 electoral districts and 29 members through the national list, according to the number of total votes political parties and independent groups get in the election.

The voting started at 7 a.m. local time and will go until 4 p.m. More than 17.1 million voters are eligible to cast their votes.

The new Parliament will be convened on November 21.

The elected parliamentarians are expected to be declared by November 15 (Friday) if the counting process goes smoothly, Election Commission officials have said.

This will be the first parliamentary election since Sri Lanka plunged into an economic crisis when the island nation declared sovereign default in mid-April 2022, its first since gaining independence from Britain in 1948. Almost civil-war-like conditions and months of public protests led to the fleeing of the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says that the leaders must agree on three issues by the alliance summit, which will be held from June 24 to June 26 in 2025 in The Hague. He named support for Ukraine as the first.

This follows from Ruttes answer to a question from journalists during a joint press conference with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics, which took place on Thursday at the Adazi Military Base (Latvia) as part of the alliance secretary generals visit.

"There will be a couple of big issues we need to debate over the coming months. Of course, first of all, we have to make sure that Ukraine prevails and that Putin will not win in Ukraine. That is absolute priority number one," Rutte said.

"But behind that, there are two other big issues at stake. One is that 2%, when you take out the US spending, we are now at 2% in Europe as NATO, it is simply not enough... It is simply not enough. So we will need to have the debate on spending more," he said.

"And another big issue is defence production. We are not producing enough at this moment. We have to do more to replenish our stockpiles, to make sure that we are ready to face off any adversary. So these two issues, defence spending and defence production. And all of this, working with our partners, the EU, but also in the Indo Pacific, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the southern neighbourhood. This is crucial. But defence spending and ramping up defence production, we have to get this done," the NATO Secretary General said.
Colombo, Nov 14 : Voting in Sri Lanka's parliamentary poll started on Thursday to elect 225 members to the Parliament with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake seeking a majority.

President Dissanayake is seeking a majority to govern the sovereign debt-defaulted nation amid calls for a new political culture without corruption and misappropriation of public funds.

This would be the first major test of the popularity of the ruling party, National People's Power, led by President Dissanayake

Samagi Jana Sandanaya led by Sajith Premadasa, the Sri Lanka Podujana Party of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the New Democratic Front made up breakaway legislators backing former President Ranil Wickremesinghe and minority parties in the North are seeking seats.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, the outgoing President who lost to Dissanayake in last month's presidential election, is not contesting a parliamentary election for the first time since 1977.

The Rajapaksa brothers -- Mahinda, Gotabaya, Chamal, and Basil -- will not contest the parliamentary election after decades-long representation.

Scores of ministers and deputies from the past regime have opted out of the race.

President Dissanayake, who was elected on September 21, has called for a strong Parliament mandate for him to eliminate corruption and punish the past leaders who would be proven to have misappropriated public funds.

The polls will see the election of 196 members through voting in 22 electoral districts and 29 members through the national list, according to the number of total votes political parties and independent groups get in the election.

The voting started at 7 a.m. local time and will go until 4 p.m. More than 17.1 million voters are eligible to cast their votes.

The new Parliament will be convened on November 21.

The elected parliamentarians are expected to be declared by November 15 (Friday) if the counting process goes smoothly, Election Commission officials have said.

This will be the first parliamentary election since Sri Lanka plunged into an economic crisis when the island nation declared sovereign default in mid-April 2022, its first since gaining independence from Britain in 1948. Almost civil-war-like conditions and months of public protests led to the fleeing of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Mumbai, Nov 14 : Actor Karan Singh Grover, who is currently relaxing during his family getaway in Maldives, revealed he got "blessed by a Devi" in the picturesque locale.

Mumbai, Nov 14 (IANS) Actor Karan Singh Grover, who is currently relaxing during his family getaway in Maldives, revealed he got "blessed by a Devi" in the picturesque locale.

Karan took to Instagram stories, where he shared a video of him playing with his toddler daughter Devi on the beach. In the adorable video, Devi is seen putting sand on her father and the actor is taking blessings from her by touching the child's feet.

He wrote as the caption: "Being blessed by a Devi."

His wife and actress Bipasha Basu too shared a video of the father-daughter duo playing in the sand. In the clip, Karan is seen rolling on the beach as their little girl looks at him happily.

It was on November 12, when their daughter Devi turned two and Bipasha penned a heartfelt note. The actress shared a video featuring Devi. In the clip, the little girl is seen professing love for her mother and is heard saying "love you mommy" and singing a song for her.

The actress wrote as the caption: "No idea how time flew Today Devi is 2 She is pure Joy. Thank you all for sending her so much love and warm wishes Durga Durga #deviturns2."

Bipasha married her beau Karan Singh Grover in 2016. They welcomed their daughter, Devi in November 2022.

Karan rose to stardom after playing the role of Armaan Malik in the popular show' Dill Mill Gayye'. The medical drama aired from 2007 to 2010. It was a sequel to the hit series 'Sanjivani: A Medical Boon'. Dr. Riddhima Gupta, Karan's character's love interest, was originally portrayed by Shilpa Anand, followed by Sukirti Kandpal and later Jennifer Winget.

Karan is also known for his performances in shows like 'Qubool Hai', 'Qubool Hai 2.0', and 'Kasautii Zindagii Kay 2'. The actor has also appeared in films like 'Alone', 'Hate Story 3', and 'Fighter.'

Bipasha, who made her acting debut with a negative role in 2001 opposite Akshay Kumar in Abbas-Mustan's action thriller 'Ajnabee', got the spotlight with Vikram Bhatt's 2002 supernatural horror thriller 'Raaz'.

She was then seen in films such as 'Chor Machaaye Shor', 'Jism', 'Zameen', 'Aetbaar', 'No Entry', 'Omkara', 'Corporate', 'Dhoom 2', 'Race', 'Bachna Ae Haseeno', 'Raaz 3: The Third Dimension', and 'Welcome to New York' among many others. She was last seen in the crime thriller series 'Dangerous'.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid homage to India's first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, commemorating his 135th birth anniversary.

Sharing his tribute on X, the Prime Minister posted, "On the occasion of his birth anniversary, I pay homage to our former Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru."

Jawaharlal Nehru, born on November 14, 1889, in Allahabad (now Prayagraj), Uttar Pradesh, pursued education at some of the worldas renowned institutions, including Harrow School in London and the University of Cambridge.

The official PM India portal states, "In 1912, he attended the Bankipore Congress as a delegate and became Secretary of the Home Rule League in Allahabad in 1919.

"In 1916, he met Mahatma Gandhi for the first time, which left a lasting impact on him. He led the first Kisan March in Pratapgarh District, Uttar Pradesh, in 1920, and was twice imprisoned for his involvement in the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920-22."

Pandit Nehru's birth anniversary is also celebrated as Children's Day in India, a tribute to his affection for children. Known as 'Chacha Nehru' for his fondness for young ones, he was deeply committed to their welfare and education.

After his passing in 1964, it was decided that November 14 would be observed as Children's Day to honour his legacy. The first official celebration took place in 1965, marking the beginning of an annual tradition to promote children's rights and emphasise their importance in building India's future.

The day serves as a significant reminder of India's commitment to its younger generation. Across the country, schools and institutions organise cultural events, competitions, and activities, celebrating the occasion and promoting awareness around children's rights, welfare, and education.
New York, Nov 14 : The Republican Party crossed the 118-mark in the House of Representatives as late results trickled in, scoring an electoral trifecta controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House.

While the counting of votes in the November 5 election continues and the official announcement of results for all the seats is weeks away, three TV channels declared on the basis of their analysis that the party had crossed the halfway mark in the 435-member House.

Six results are pending and CBS said the party could gain at least three more of them, keeping the current tally of 221.

Earlier, the Republicans were declared by media to have wrested the Senate away from the Democrats winning 52 seats, with one pending result from Pennsylvania where the party candidate is leading.

And, Donald Trump won the presidential election with 312 of the 538 Electoral College votes, as well as a majority of the popular votes.

Having control of both Congress chambers will give Trump an edge in moving through legislation and the budget, although the slender lead in the House could sometimes stall them.

In the current House where the Republicans had a majority with 213 seats, the leaders found it difficult to get all of them to vote with them.

In fact, Speaker Mike Johnson won the position and retained it with the help of Democrats when radicals in his party tried to stage a coup against him in May. But on Wednesday in a sign of discipline following Trump's election, Republican House members voted to keep him on as Speaker and he is assured of it when the new House meets next year.

Trump signaled his support for Johnson when he attended the party's House candidate forum of the re-elected and newly-elected members where he said, "Mike Johnson, tremendous guy, I'm with him all the way".

Johnson said, "This leadership will hit the ground running to deliver President Trump's agenda in the 119th Congress, and we will work closely with him and his administration to turn this country around and unleash, as he says, a new golden age in America".

With Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell retiring, the party's re-elected and newly-elected senators elected John Thune as his successor.

Trump said on Truth Social, "He moves quickly, and will do an outstanding job. I look forward to working with him" and other party leaders in the Senate.

The Senate must approve major appointments, including most of the cabinet positions.

Trump is trying to get around this by suggesting he should be allowed to make appointments when the Senate is in recess and can't hold hearings or confirmation votes.

He said the new Senate leader should agree to it. Thune, however, held his ground that "the Senate has an advise and consent rule in the Constitution", but also added that confirmations should be done expeditiously and "how that happens remains to be seen".
Chennai, Nov 14 : In yet another case of violence against medical professionals, a Psychiatrist at Government Stanley Medical College in Chennai was attacked on Wednesday.

Dr Hariharan (49), an Assistant Professor at the college, was assaulted by a patient named Bharath, who had been receiving treatment in the hospital for the past month.

According to sources, Dr Hariharan was in the outpatient (OPD) section when Bharath struck him. Staff members and bystanders quickly overpowered the patient.

Dr Hariharan sustained injuries to his face, requiring sutures, and received immediate medical attention. He is reported to be in stable condition.

Following the assault, Bharath was arrested based on a complaint lodged by the hospital.

In a separate incident, Dr Balaji Jagannathan, who was stabbed multiple times by a patient on Wednesday, is also recovering.

DMK leader and Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi NVN Somu, herself a medical doctor, visited Dr Balaji and informed the media that his condition is stable.

She added that Dr Balaji was able to communicate with her and was on the path to recovery. The incident involving Dr Balaji occurred when Vignesh (25), from Perungalathur, entered the Oncology Department of the hospital using an outpatient pass around 10:30 a.m.

Dr Jagannath was on duty when an argument broke out regarding the treatment of Vignesh's mother, Prema, who is battling cancer.

Allegedly blaming the doctor for her worsening condition, Vignesh reportedly attacked Dr Jagannath with a knife, causing severe injuries.

Witnesses acted quickly, rushing Dr Jagannath to the ICU. L. Parthasarathy, the director of KCSSH, stated that Dr Jagannath, Associate Professor of Medical Oncology, suffered injuries in seven areas, including his neck, behind the ear, forehead, back, and head.

Parthasarathy noted, "There was significant blood loss. Dr Jagannath is a cardiac patient who had previously undergone surgery, and due to his use of anticoagulants, the bleeding was severe."

The doctor was immediately taken to the operating room, where a team from the Cardiothoracic, Vascular, and Neurosurgery departments resuscitated and operated on him. He is reported to be hemodynamically stable.

In response to these incidents, the Service Doctors and Post Graduates Association (SDPGA) condemned the brutal assaults, urging the government to take strict action against the perpetrators.

The SDPGA also announced a flash strike, halting all services except for emergencies at KCSSH. Additionally, the Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association called for the attackers to be prosecuted under the Tamil Nadu Medicare Service Persons and Medicare Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage or Loss.
Bhopal, Nov 14 : Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav will on Thursday campaign for the upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra.

On the second-consecutive day of campaigning in the poll-bound state, he will address three public rallies in different Assembly segments of Amravati district to seek support for BJP candidates.

On Wednesday, Yadav led the BJP campaign in Nagpur district and addressed four public rallies.

He urged the people of Nagpur to support the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in the forthcoming elections.

The Mahayuti alliance, includes the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)-led by Ajit Pawar.

CM Yadav expressed hope that the Mahayuti alliance would form the government in Maharashtra again after the Assembly polls.

He also expressed his pleasure that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the public's support for the BJP was increasing.

CM Yadav stated that the country has witnessed all-round growth under the leadership of PM Modi and his popularity is also continuously growing across the world.

On his visit to Nagpur, CM Yadav also expressed his happiness over being in the city where the RSSa headquarter is located.

"I feel happy to be here at the workplace of Dr. K.B. Hedgewar and in the land of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh," he said.

Voting for all 288 seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly will be held in a single phase on November 20, and the results would be declared on November 23.

Of the 288 Assembly seats, 234 come under the general category, 29 are reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) and 25 are reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST).
New Delhi, Nov 14 : Congress leaders on Thursday remembered India's first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, on his 135th birth anniversary, lauding his fearless spirit as the foundation of the country's democracy.

Pandit Nehru, born on November 14, 1889, in Allahabad (now Prayagraj), was educated at prestigious institutions such as Harrow School in London and the University of Cambridge and was a freedom fighter, thinker, writer and statesman.

Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, posted a tribute on X, saying, "Respectful salutations to the father of modern India, creator of institutions, first Prime Minister of India, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru ji on his birth anniversary."

Reflecting on Pandit Nehru's legacy, he added, "Democratic, progressive, fearless, visionary, inclusive a" these values of 'Hind ke Jawahar' are our ideals and the pillars of India and will always remain so."

Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge shared a quote from late PM Nehru, "There should be unity of mind and heart, there should be a feeling of living togethera" and hailed him as "Hind ke Jawahar."

In a post on X, he wrote, "On the 135th birth anniversary of the 'Hind ke Jawahar,' the one who took India from zero to the peak, the architect of modern India, the one who made India a developing country in scientific, economic, industrial, and various fields, the one who constantly gave the message of 'unity in diversity' to the country, the fearless sentinel of democracy and our source of inspiration, we remember his unprecedented contribution to the country."

Kharge also shared an excerpt from Pandit Nehru's 'The Discovery of India', which reads, "I was also fully aware of the diversities and divisions of Indian life, of the classes, castes, religions, races, the different levels of cultural development.

"Yet I believe that a country with a long cultural background and a common outlook on life develops a spirit which is it's own and which passes on to all its children, however different they may be among themselvesa It was this spirit of India that I was seeking, not out of idle curiosity, but because I felt it might give me a key to understanding my country and people, some guide to thought and action."

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi paid homage to Pandit Nehru at Shanti Van in New Delhi.

Earlier, she took to social media, writing, "Fear is the root of all evil in the world. When we achieved independence after decades of struggle and innumerable sacrifices, even then, there were people who used to play politics of scaring and misleading the innocent public. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru ji strongly opposed them and told the common people - 'Do not be afraid!'"

"People who spread fear among the public cannot be true representatives of the public. Public servants stand in the forefront with their heads held high so that people can live without fear. Pandit Nehru always taught the public to be fearless and serve selflessly, while on the other hand, he kept the public supreme at every stage of nation-building," she continued.

"Respectful salute to the creator of modern India," Priyanka Gandhi concluded, paying her heartfelt tribute to Pandit Nehru.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : PGMOL, England's professional referees organisation, said it is aware of a new video, which appears to show suspended Premier League referee David Coote snorting a white powder while reportedly officiating at Euro 2024 last summer, and is taking the allegations very seriously.

New Delhi, Nov 14 (IANS) PGMOL, Englandas professional referees organisation, said it is aware of a new video, which appears to show suspended Premier League referee David Coote snorting a white powder while reportedly officiating at Euro 2024 last summer, and is taking the allegations very seriously.

The eight-second clip published by The Sun, came after Coote was suspended by Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL) over derogatory comments he allegedly made about ex-Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp and the club in previous video footage.

Later, UEFA Referees Committee also suspended Coote until further notice ahead of the upcoming round of UEFA matches. "The UEFA Referees Committee immediately suspended David Coote until further notice on 11 November - in advance of the upcoming round of UEFA matches - when it became aware of his inappropriate behaviour," it said in a statement.

On Wednesday evening (UK time), when another video appeared on The Sun newspaperas website, which it claimed showed Coote snorting white powder during the summeras Euros in Germany, a PGMOL, told Sky Sports, "We are aware of the allegations and are taking them very seriously. David Coote remains suspended pending a full investigation.

"Davidas welfare continues to be of utmost importance to us and we are committed to providing him with the ongoing necessary support he needs through this period. We are not in a position to comment further at this stage."

Earlier, the FA has launched its own investigation into the video that appears to show Premier League referee Coote using foul language to describe former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp and the club.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : Diabetes, if not timely controlled and managed, can severely affect the health of your eyes and brain, said experts on Thursday.

A new study published in The Lancet revealed that about 212 million people lived with diabetes in India in 2022 -- the highest in the world.

Diabetes is a condition with high blood sugar due to a deficiency in the hormone insulin.

Uncontrolled blood sugars in patients with diabetes are known to have a wide range of complications involving multiple organ systems.

"Uncontrolled diabetes can have a devastating impact on eye health, leading to conditions like diabetic retinopathy," Dr. Ikeda Lal, Senior cornea, Cataract and refractory surgery specialist at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and Delhi Eye Centre, told IANS.

The condition often shows no symptoms in its early stages, making routine screenings crucial.

"High blood sugar levels damage the retina's delicate blood vessels, potentially causing vision loss if untreated. Early detection is key; regular eye exams can catch subtle changes before they progress," Lal added.

Managing diabetes and protecting one's vision go hand-in-hand, making proactive care essential for long-term eye health.

Timely intervention can help patients maintain their sight and quality of life.

Further, uncontrolled diabetes also leads to various neurological conditions in diabetic patients.

"The brain complications in diabetes are in the form of strokes, dementia (cognitive impairment like memory disturbances, impaired ability to perform activities of daily living), infections due to compromised immunity as a result of uncontrolled blood sugars, seizures or fits due to either very high blood sugars or low blood sugars (hypoglycemia)," Dr. Sowmya M, Senior Consultant  Neurology, Aster RV Hospital, told IANS.

All these can be prevented by taking measures to keep the blood sugars under control, said the expert.

"The outcomes of untreated and uncontrolled diabetes also include heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, blindness, and amputations," said Saima Wazed, WHO Regional Director for Southeast Asia on Thursday.

"These complications not only impose an emotional and financial burden on individuals and families but also significant financial strain on healthcare systems," Wazed noted, urging nations to collectively work to overcome the growing burden of diabetes.

As per the latest estimates, diabetes affected nearly 246 million people in 2022 in the WHO South-East Asia Region, including India.

While early detection is crucial, Wazed stated that more than 60 per cent of people with diabetes in the Region are unaware of their status.

She called on to increase awareness campaigns about the prevention, detection, and management of diabetes.

She also urged the need to tackle the challenges faced by individuals, communities, and health systems to access diabetes prevention and management.
Washington, Nov 14 : Another Korean American won a seat in the US House of Representatives, a news report said, an election that will add to a steadily growing list of Korean American lawmakers in Congress.

State Sen. Dave Min, a Democrat, has defeated his Republican rival, Scott Baugh, by a slim margin in the race in California's 47th Congressional District, reports Yonhap, quoting NBC News. It marks his first election to the lower chamber of Congress.

"I know many of us are anxious about the future of our country, but we cannot give up on America," Min wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "In Congress, I will fight to protect our democracy, safeguard our freedoms, and expand economic opportunity."

With his election, he joined a small yet growing group of lawmakers of Korean descent, including Rep. Andy Kim, who has become the first Korean American elected to the Senate.

Before being elected to the California State Senate in 2020, Min was an assistant law professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business and Harvard Law School.
The State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) has reported suspicion of being involved in damaging Ukraine's defense capability and information security to an incumbent Ukrainian Member of Parliament.

An informed source told Interfax-Ukraine that it is about MP Yevheniy Shevchenko.

"The MP discredited the current government by distorting facts and events in the country and publicly called for changing the borders of the territory and the state border of Ukraine. [...] The MP made programs on his own channels, gave interviews to pro-Russian bloggers and experts. This content was then disseminated in propaganda media on the territory of the Russian Federation in order to create a public position in the territory of the aggressor state that this is the official position of the representative of the Ukrainian authorities," the SBI said in a statement on its website on Thursday.

In his programs, the MP spread information that asserted in the mass consciousness the opinion that allegedly the Ukrainian authorities have brought the country to complete collapse, loss of territories and people and that they cannot achieve peace. He also imposed the opinion that Ukraine is no longer able to win and should go to negotiations with the Russian Federation on any terms.

"As confirmed by a comprehensive psychological, linguistic and military expertise, the MP began to damage the defense capability and information security of Ukraine even before the full-scale Russian invasion. Thus, in 2021, he published inaccurate information about the absence of a threat of a full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation from the territory of the Republic of Belarus. He also spoke about the incorrectness and inexpediency of the current external and domestic political course of our state," it said.

The MP also disseminated information aimed at discrediting Western partners and European values. In particular, he said that the West interferes not only in the domestic affairs of Ukraine and caused a war in the country, but also tries to undermine stability in Georgia and Moldova by influencing the elections.

The investigation also established his contacts with representatives of the Embassy of the Republic in Belarus after he went to the rostrum of the parliament with the flag of this country in September 2020. He repeatedly traveled to Belarus, where he met with representatives of business and political structures and even with the self-proclaimed president of the country. Referring to this very meeting, the MP spread the idea that there was no threat of attack of Russian troops from the territory of Belarus.

According to the investigation, under the patronage of the self-proclaimed president of Belarus, the MP and his close relatives conducted active business with representatives of this country, including in the market of electricity and fertilizers. Buying goods there at underestimated prices, they imported it to Ukraine through another European country and sold it much more expensive.

"The 'assistance regime' on the part of the Belarusian authorities allowed the MP to get EUR 1.5 million net profit for six months. At the same time, he was able to transfer only EUR 500,000 to Ukraine. The rest could not be obtained due to the blocking of dubious transactions by the financial monitoring of one of the European banks," the SBI said in its report.

During this time the MP bought and registered three luxury cars worth $500,000 in total to his relatives.

The MP is suspected of committing high treason on the grounds of a criminal offense under Part 1 of Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. He faces up to 15 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property.

The court will be asked to choose a measure of restraint in the form of detention.
Sydney, Nov 14 : A police investigation is underway after a man allegedly fired a replica firearm near the state parliament building in Sydney, Australia.

Police in the state of New South Wales (NSW) said that a man was reportedly seen firing a replica firearm into the ground in central Sydney near Parliament House shortly after 1 p.m. local time on Thursday, reports Xinhua news agency.

In a statement, NSW Police said that initial inquiries suggested the weapon could be a gel blaster - a type of life-like gun toy that shoots gel pellets. Gel blasters are currently illegal in NSW.

Police said the man left the scene in a vehicle before officers arrived.

No injuries have been reported.

A crime scene has been established, and police have urged any witnesses or anyone with information about the incident to come forward.
Mumbai, Nov 14 : The upcoming film 'Amar Aaj Marega', which stars Prakash Jha in the lead, is set to be screened at the 55th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa. The film has been selected for the prestigious Indian Panorama section at the film fest which is set to be held from November 20 to 28, 2024.

In the film, Prakash Jha stars in the titular role of Amar, a 62-year-old widower who's convinced that he's lived his life to the fullest and it has nothing more to offer. Determined to end it on a high note, he plans to take his own life. Unfortunately for him, on the night he's scheduled to shoot himself dead, he's inundated by a group of uninvited guests.

Talking about the film, Prakash Jha said, "I found the character of Amar to be incredibly nuanced and unlike any role I have played before, which drew me to it".

Prakash Jha brings his trademark depth to Amar, embodying the conflicting emotions of a man torn between contentment and closure. His performance is complemented by Saurabh Sachdeva, who delivers a nuanced portrayal as Jogi, Amar's perplexed yet devoted friend. The film is directed by Rajat K. and balances introspection with raw humour and humanity.

Rajat said, "Amar's story is my exploration of the ultimate inevitability of lifedeathwhile finding humour in it because, well, what else can be done? And through the course of the night, it may just reveal itself as a true celebration of life".

As it premieres in the Indian Panorama category, the film not only celebrates Indian cinema's diversity and boldness but also highlights Prakash Jha's versatility and courage in taking on unconventional roles.

The film is produced by Monasfilm LLP.
Jaipur, Nov 14 : Even as Rajasthan police rounded up around 60 miscreants on charges of indulging in riots post the bypolls in Deoli-Uniara constituency, there was a demand for a judicial probe by Independent candidate Naresh Meena on Thursday.

The ruckus on Wednesday started after Naresh Meena slapped the SDM during voting in Samravata village of the Assembly.

Soon after Naresh Meena slapped the SDM there was heavy stone pelting between the police and the villagers.

The violence continued throughout the night after that.

As many as 50 people were injured in the stone pelting and arson and 60 rioters were arrested by the police.

To deal with the miscreants, the police also fired tear gas shells at the villagers.

In retaliation, the angry people also damaged the car of SP Vikas Sangwan.

Meanwhile, the police took Naresh Meena into custody at around 9 P.M.

As soon as Meena's supporters came to know about this, they became even more angry and hundreds of villagers surrounded the police personnel and freed Meena and took him away.

After this, the police raided Samravata village and surrounding areas throughout Wednesday night.

So far 60 accused have been arrested and more than 50 villagers and policemen have been injured in this incident.

The villagers allege that the policemen set fire to many vehicles in the village and took away many youths.

Due to the police raid throughout the night, more than 100 people fled from the village.

On Thursday morning, too, the police were searching for Naresh Meena, who went missing after being rescued by his supporters.

Late on Wednesday night, Naresh Meena shared a post on X and wrote, "I am fine."

However, on Thursday, Naresh Meena's first statement came out in which he told the media, "I have come here to surrender and there should be a judicial enquiry into the whole case, the police behaved brutally so we also retaliated. Had the Collector visited the spot yesterday, nothing would have happened."

Meena said that he did not run away from police custody.

Earlier on Thursday morning, Additional SP, Tonk, Brijendra Singh Bhati said, "We are analysing the loss. We have made a few arrests. We are looking for him (Naresh Meena)... We will get into the details later."
Jaipur, Nov 14 : Even as Rajasthan police rounded up around 60 miscreants on charges of indulging in riots post the bypolls in Deoli-Uniara constituency, there was a demand for a judicial probe by Independent candidate Naresh Meena on Thursday just hours before he was arrested in the afternoon.

The ruckus on Wednesday started after Naresh Meena slapped the SDM during voting in Samravata village of the Assembly.

Soon after Naresh Meena slapped the SDM there was heavy stone pelting between the police and the villagers.

The violence continued throughout the night after that.

As many as 50 people were injured in the stone pelting and arson and 60 rioters were arrested by the police.

To deal with the miscreants, the police also fired tear gas shells at the villagers.

In retaliation, the angry people also damaged the car of SP Vikas Sangwan.

Meanwhile, the police took Naresh Meena into custody at around 9 P.M.

As soon as Meena's supporters came to know about this, they became even more angry and hundreds of villagers surrounded the police personnel and freed Meena and took him away.

After this, the police raided Samravata village and surrounding areas throughout Wednesday night.

So far 60 accused have been arrested and more than 50 villagers and policemen have been injured in this incident.

The villagers allege that the policemen set fire to many vehicles in the village and took away many youths.

Due to the police raid throughout the night, more than 100 people fled from the village.

On Thursday morning, too, the police were searching for Naresh Meena, who went missing after being rescued by his supporters.

Late on Wednesday night, Naresh Meena shared a post on X and wrote, "I am fine."

However, on Thursday, Naresh Meena's first statement came out in which he told the media, "I have come here to surrender and there should be a judicial enquiry into the whole case, the police behaved brutally so we also retaliated. Had the Collector visited the spot yesterday, nothing would have happened."

Meena said that he did not run away from police custody.

Earlier on Thursday morning, Additional SP, Tonk, Brijendra Singh Bhati said, "We are analysing the loss. We have made a few arrests. We are looking for him (Naresh Meena)... We will get into the details later."
New Delhi, Nov 14 : Amit Malviya, the national convener of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s IT cell, has hit out at the Congress party after a video went viral showing the poster of Congress candidate Naseem Khan pasted on a picture of Lord Ganesha.

This incident occurred in the Chandivali constituency of Mumbai and has sparked outrage among BJP supporters, especially considering the deep reverence for Lord Ganesha in Maharashtra.

In a post on social media, Malviya condemned the act, accusing Congress of disrespecting Hindu sentiments. He alleged that the act was not only an affront to the Hindu community but also a deliberate attempt by the Congress to appeal to Muslim voters in the region.

"In an outright insult to the Hindu community in Maharashtra, Congress workers campaigning for Naseem Khan in Chandivali, stuck his poster on Ganpati Bappa's picture. Ganpati Bappa is revered as Vighnaharta and Maharashtrians, among others, have deep emotional attachment to the deity," Malviya in a post on X said on Thursday.

"We have all seen the massive celebrations in Mumbai during Ganeshotsav. This act of defiling Ganpati Bappa is pre-meditated and meant as a signal to Muslims in the region to vote for the Congress. Mumbai is seeing the worst kind of vote jihad post-partition. Congress is the new Muslim League," he further added.

The controversy comes at a time when Naseem Khan, who earlier represented the Chandivali constituency from 2009 to 2019, is trying to reclaim the seat. In the 2019 elections, he lost narrowly to Shiv Sena's Dilip Lande by a margin of just 409 votes. The constituency is witnessing a heated electoral contest, and this incident is likely to escalate tensions further.

The issue has become a flashpoint, with the BJP seizing on it to accuse the Congress of disrespecting Hindu religious symbols, especially in a state where Ganesh Chaturthi is one of the most significant cultural celebrations.
Seoul, Nov 14 : South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said South Korea could consider more support for Ukraine depending on the level of North Korean involvement in Russia's war against Ukraine, according to an interview published on Thursday.

Yoon made the remark in a written interview with Spanish news agency EFE ahead of a trip to South America for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru and the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Brazil.

Both Seoul and Washington have confirmed that North Korean soldiers, who have been deployed to Russia's western front-line Kursk region, have begun engaging in combat against Ukrainian forces, reports Yonhap, quoting the interview.

"If they both do not stop their dangerous military adventure, we are prepared to implement appropriate effective measures, including strengthening support for Ukraine, in cooperation with our allies and like-minded countries," Yoon said in the interview.

Yoon cautioned against Moscow transferring sensitive military technology to Pyongyang in exchange for North Korean troop deployment, expressing concerns over North Korean forces gaining modern warfare experience in Ukraine.

He called on Pyongyang and Moscow to end their "illegal" military cooperation and withdraw North Korean troops from Russian territory while noting South Korea is maintaining diplomatic channels with Russia.

Yoon said Seoul is also committed to maintaining a "strategic dialogue" with China, an ally of both North Korea and Russia, underscoring China's potential role in promoting regional stability.

At the upcoming APEC and G20 summits, Yoon said he will advocate free, open world trade, emphasizing Latin America's growing "strategic importance." It marks Yoon's first official trip to Latin America since taking office in May 2022.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will receive Dominica's highest national award, the 'Dominica Award of Honour,' in recognition of his vital support to it during the COVID-19 pandemic and his commitment to strengthening India-Dominica relations.

According to a press release by the Government of Dominica, President Sylvanie Burton will bestow the award during the India-CARICOM Summit, set to take place in Georgetown, Guyana, from November 19 to 21.

In February 2021, Prime Minister Modi supplied Dominica with 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine"a generous gift which enabled Dominica to extend support to its Caribbean neighbours", said the government of Dominica.

The award also recognises India's support for Dominica in education and information technology under PM Modi's leadership, as well as his role in promoting climate resilience-building initiatives and sustainable development on a global level.

Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit expressed the nation's gratitude, stating, "Prime Minister Modi has been a true partner to Dominica, particularly during our time of need amid a global health crisis. It is an honour to present him with Dominica's highest national accolade as a symbol of our gratitude for his support and as a reflection of the strong ties between our countries. We look forward to building on this partnership and advancing our shared vision of progress and resilience."

Accepting the award, PM Modi emphasised the importance of collaboration in tackling global challenges such as climate change and geopolitical conflicts and affirmed India's commitment to working alongside Dominica and the Caribbean in addressing these issues.

This honour will be conferred as part of PM Modi's diplomatic tour, which will include visits to Nigeria, Brazil, and Guyana.

PM Modi will participate in the Second CARICOM-India Summit in Georgetown, Guyana and hold meetings with leaders of CARICOM member countries to further enhance India's long-standing friendship with the region.
Hyderabad, Nov 14 : Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president K. T. Rama Rao said on Thursday said that he is not afraid of the "conspiracies" of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, and dared the CM to arrest him.

"Arrest me! I will walk into the prison with my head held high for standing by the farmers of Telangana," Rama Rao posted on social media platform X.

The BRS leader was apparently reacting to reports that he is likely to be arrested in the case relating to the November 11 attack on the Vikarabad District Collector and other officials at Lagacharla village.

Former BRS MLA Patnam Narender Reddy, who was arrested in the same case on Wednesday, reportedly told police that KTR and other senior BRS leaders had directed the attack.

Amid indications that KTR may be arrested any time, a large number of BRS leaders and workers had gathered at his residence late on Wednesday night.

The officials were attacked by a mob at Lagacharla village during the public hearing on land acquisition for a proposed industrial cluster in Kodangal, the Assembly constituency of Chief Minister Revanth Reddy.

KTR alleged on Wednesday that the Chief Minister was trying to snatch the lands of farmers for a pharma company owned by his son-in-law.

The BRS leader reacted strongly to the reports of his arrest. "Revanth Reddy! For a man caught with a Rs 50 lakh bribe, everything will seem like a conspiracy! Farmers protesting against your son-in-law's pharma company will be a conspiracy! Farmers not bowing down to your brother's threats is a conspiracy! Two people talking on the phone is a conspiracy! People posting their woes on social media is a conspiracy! To stand with poor tribal farmers is a conspiracy!" he wrote.

"After waiting for your appointment for NINE long months, after facing all your threats, if they revolt - it is of course a conspiracy! If I question against the midnight raids on poor farmer families, illegal arrest & torture - it is definitely a conspiracy! Because you live in fear! Every single breathing moment of your life, you live in fear!" he added.

Vikarabad district police have already arrested 20 people including former Kodangal MLA Narender Reddy for the attack on officials. They have been remanded to judicial custody.

More than 30 people were booked for the violence. The police are on the lookout for the local leader of BRS youth wing Suresh Raj.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : D. Raja, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) on Thursday said that the Constitution was under threat from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and right-wing outfits including RSS and added that his party and other secular parties share a common goal of safeguarding the Constitution from repeated onslaughts.

Speaking exclusively to IANS, D Raja spoke on a range of issues including the need for a better co-ordinated and fortified coalition to take on the ruling BJP and also dropped an advice for the Congress party i.e. to not act as abig brothera but rather be more accommodative and considerate of other alliance partners.

Here is the full interview:

IANS: Rahul Gandhi has made 'save constitution' as Congress party's big poll pitch while BJP accuses him of misleading the public, with blank copy of the red book creating a flutter at a recent public rally. What are your thoughts on this?

D. Raja: People understand what the BJP is trying to do. The RSS was founded in 1925, but it had no role in the fight against colonial rule or in the country's freedom struggle. After Independence, fundamental law for our country i.e. Constitution was scripted.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar took up this responsibility, working with a galaxy of leaders to create the present Constitution. The RSS and Hindu Mahasabha did not agree with it, as they wanted India to be declared a theocratic nation, an idea that B.R. Ambedkar rejected. Even decades after independence, the BJP and RSS have not fully supported the Constitution. The Constitution clearly states that India is a democratic, secular republic. However, the RSS and BJP are attempting to redefine the Indian state and have not fully accepted the Constitution.

The RSS and BJP combined, pose a great threat to our Constitution, the democratic foundation of our republic and the federal system of governance. India is a nation of tremendous diversity, with elected state assemblies, and the Constitution makes it clear that "India, that is Bharat, is a Union of States." Yet, PM Modi and the BJP push for "one nation, one election," which is impractical and impossible. Those who drafted the Constitution envisioned multiple elections. While the BJP cites expense concerns, if they truly cared about costs, they would address issues like electoral bonds, which have allowed their party to amass huge funds. This shows that the BJP and RSS are threats to the Constitution. Thus, the CPI and other secular democratic parties have a common goal to defeat the BJP in safeguarding the Constitution.

IANS: Regarding INDIA alliance, you're united at the national level but in states, you compete with regional parties. For example, in Jharkhand and Maharashtra, we don't see this unity in campaigns. What is the current status of the alliance?

D. Raja: The INDIA bloc was formed to collectively fight and defeat the BJP and its allies. It has been noted that the alliance parties must have mutual trust and accommodation. Seat-sharing arrangements should be acceptable to all secular and democratic parties within the INDIA bloc.

In Tamil Nadu, CM Stalin and the DMK showed political maturity by accommodating all alliance partners, achieving unanimous agreement on seat-sharing. This brought success to the DMK. Unfortunately, this has not been the case in many other states. In Kerala, the situation is different. But in major states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Maharashtra, proper seat-sharing hasn't been achieved. Major parties, particularly the Congress, must do some serious introspection. Congress must reflect on why it couldn't accommodate other parties in Haryana, and similarly, in Jharkhand, where seat-sharing was poorly managed. After Haryana, we expected serious introspection from all parties in the INDIA bloc.

The INDIA bloc is not just about Congress. Congress should understand that the bloc includes many other parties, including the Left Front. It should not claim to represent INDIA alone.

IANS: Do you believe this situation is due to the Congress Partyas 'big brother' attitude?

D. Raja: It's not about "big brother" or "small brother" roles. This is not about Mallikarjun Kharge's leadership alone. Congress, as the largest secular national party, must revive and redefine its policies and strategies. We face a new situation where right-wing conservative forces have gained power, and we must liberate the country from the clutches of right-wing conservative forces. This requires mutual co-ordination, particularly from the Congress.

For example, Tamil Nadu is a model of how meaningful seat-sharing arrangements can bring parties together and ensure electoral success. Out of 543 parliamentary seats, Kerala has only 20 seats, where the main contest is between LDF and UDF. People know it, whether LDF wins or UDF wins, BJP is not winning, that is the politics we should understand from Kerela.

In the coming days, secular democratic parties within the INDIA bloc must conduct serious introspection, encouraging mutual trust and accommodation in time of elections.

IANS: What is your message to the INDIA alliance partners in light of upcoming elections in Delhi and other states, next year?

D. Raja: Elections will take place not only in Delhi but across other states. In 2026, there will be elections in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In the coming months, several state assembly elections will take place, followed by national elections. This is why we urge all secular and left-leaning democratic parties to reassess and review their policies. Let us evaluate the situation after the Maharashtra and Jharkhand elections, which will provide more clarity. INDIA alliance parties must approach this with greater seriousness and commitment. Letas wait and see.

IANS: In Bengal, the Left Front and Congress aligned to challenge TMC and BJP. However, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury suggested voting for BJP to defeat the TMC. What are your thoughts?

D. Raja: Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury does not represent the entire Congress. What he said maybe his personal view, and we cannot take it as the Congress Party's stance. If Mallikarjun Kharge had made such a statement, it would be considered seriously and could be debatable. However, these are just Adhir Ranjan Chowdhuryas personal views. I don't want to get into that debate. The larger point remains that secular and democratic parties must realise that they need to unite and fight collectively to defeat the BJP and its allies.
Amaravati, Nov 14 : The crackdown on YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) social media activists in Andhra Pradesh found its echo in the state Legislative Council on Thursday, with the Opposition party lodging its strong protest.

As soon as the House met for the day, the YSRCP raised the issue of arrests of its social media activists across Andhra Pradesh.

The YSRCP members insisted on a debate on the issue and when the Chairman rejected their request, they staged a protest in the Well of the House.

The MLCs raised slogans of "we want justice" and "save democracy."

YSRCP leader and Leader of Opposition in the Council Botcha Satyanarayana requested the Chairman to allow the adjournment motion moved by the party.

However, the Chairman rejected the adjournment motion.

The YSRCP members insisted on a debate and trooped into the Well. They gathered near the podium and raised slogans. They were also carrying posters of the objectionable posts against YSRCP President and former Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and his family members by the leaders of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and its alliance partners.

Water Resources Minister Nimmala Ramanaidu criticised the YSRCP members for staging a protest instead of raising people's issues in the House.

He asked the Opposition MLCs why they were supporting social media posts which even Jagan Mohan Reddy's mother and sister would not like to read them.

Several social media activists of YSRCP were arrested across the state for their alleged derogatory social media posts against Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan and their family members.

The comments were posted when the YSRCP was in power.

Jagan Mohan Reddy on Wednesday slammed the TDP-led coalition government for the crackdown.

"Social media is a platform to express views and this government has been scuttling the voice using brute force," he said.

The YSRCP chief said police had given notices to 680 social media activists, booked 147 cases and arrested 49 people.

The YSRCP chief also said that the law and order situation has deteriorated in the state with atrocities on 110 women and minors, 11 deaths, 177 murders and 500 attempt to murders.
Israel, as part of its assistance to Kyiv, has fully provided everything necessary for the creation of an early warning system for air threats - now Ukraine is in the final stage of launching this technology, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the State of Israel Yevhen Korniychuk said during his speech at the fifth Kyiv Jewish Forum.

According to Korniychuk, as reported by the press service of the forum on Thursday, part of this early warning system has already been launched in Ukraine. In particular, three-dimensional radars of Israeli production. "This is not a secret. They [radars] are already being used by the military today. And they are absolutely suitable or possible to purchase in large quantities if necessary," the ambassador said.

He noted that Ukraine and Israel are fighting a common enemy, because it looks like the wars in the two countries are "coordinated from one center." At the same time, Ukraine and Israel also have common allies.

In his opinion, Israel would also be interested in Ukrainian mediation, related, for example, to Ukraine's friendly relations with Saudi Arabia.
Mumbai, Nov 14 : Veteran Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan, who was last seen in 'Kalki 2898 AD', is experiencing the island vibes in Dubai.

On Thursday, the veteran actor took to his Instagram, and shared a picture of himself practising Yoga.

He wrote in the caption, "Island vibes in Dubai ! Shooting for an exciting new luxury island community project .. #Dubai #IslandLife #ComingSoon".

Last month, Big B had revealed how he became an angry young man. Big B rose to prominence with his image of the "angry young man" character template created by the legendary screenwriting duo Salim-Javed.

However, Big B started showing the signs of being an angry young man from a very tender age.

When Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan graced the quiz based reality show 'Kaun Banega Crorepati' hosted by Big B, along with his son Junaid, the veteran actor narrated a story from his childhood when he was beaten up by his friends. A crying Amitabh Bachchan, an unfathomable sight perhaps, went home, and told his mother Teji Bachchan that his friends had beaten him up.

Looking at the sight of her poor boy, Teji Bachchan, who was a social activist, told him to go back and beat those guys up in return thereby empowering the young Big B to not let anyone take him for granted. Big B said that he went back and beat the pulp out of those guys.

As Amitabh Bachchan narrated the story, Aamir said, "That was the birth of the angry young man", listening to this Big B burst into laughter.

Meanwhile, on the professional front, the actor received a lot of positive response for his role in 'Kalki 2898 AD' in which he essayed the role of Ashwatthama.
Amaravati, Nov 14 : Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MLA K. Raghurama Krishna Raju was Thursday unanimously elected as the Deputy Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly.

As only one nomination was received for the post, Speaker Ayyannapatrudu announced Rajuas unanimous election.

With this, the posts of both the Speaker and Deputy Speaker have gone to the TDP, which is heading the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.

Raju had Wednesday filed his nomination and this was endorsed by both the Jana Sena Party (JSP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Several ministers representing the NDA coalition parties had submitted nomination papers to Assembly Secretary General Suryadevara Prasanna Kumar.

The YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), which is the only opposition party in the Assembly, is not attending the ongoing session to protest the denial of the Leader of the Opposition status to Jagan Mohan Reddy.

The TDP says both Ayyannapatrudu and Raghurama Krishna Raju were targeted with false cases by the YSRCP during its rule.

Raju was elected to Lok Sabha from Narsapuram constituency in 2019 on a YSRCP ticket but later raised a banner of revolt against the YSRCP government. The MP was arrested on May 14, 2021, from his residence in Hyderabad in a sedition case. He was booked for speaking against the government and allegedly instigating communal unrest in the state. Raju had alleged that he was tortured in police custody and claimed that there was an attempt on his life. He had accused then Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy of witch-hunting. In February this year, he resigned from the YSRCP and joined the TDP just before the elections. The party fielded him from the Undi constituency in West Godavari district and he won the election held in May.

With the TDP-led NDA government coming to power, Raju lodged a fresh complaint with the police, alleging an attempt on his life during police custody in 2021. In July, Guntur police registered an attempted murder case against Jagan Mohan Reddy and two Indian Police Service (IPS) officers. Apart from Jagan Mohan Reddy, then CID chief P. V. Sunil Kumar, then Intelligence chief Seetharamanjaneyulu, then Additional SP R. Vijaya Paul, then Superintendent of Government General Hospital, Guntur, Dr Prabhavati and others were booked by the police.

Meanwhile, YSRCP parliamentary party leader V. Vijayasai Reddy has congratulated Raju on assuming the role of Deputy Speaker. "I am confident that you will uphold the dignity and decorum of this esteemed position leaving behind the instances of the past and rise above the shadows of yesteryears," he posted on X.
Athens, Nov 14 : Newcastle United winger Anthony Gordon said that withdrawing from England's squad for the Nations League games against Greece and Ireland 'wasn't a possibility' despite his hip injury.

England will face Greece in Athens on Thursday, followed by a home game against Ireland at Wembley three days later. However, nine players, including Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka, Cole Palmer, and Trent Alexander-Arnold, have withdrawn from interim manager Lee Carsley's squad due to injuries.

England captain Harry Kane criticised the players who have withdrawn from the squad, saying that playing for the country comes before the club.

Gordon, who was substituted with a hip injury during Newcastle's 3-1 Premier League win over Nottingham Forest on Sunday, ruled out the chances of missing international duty. "No, that wasn't a possibility. I came here to get assessed and see how it is and the staff here thought they could help me with the injury. And they have done that, to be fair. They've done an excellent job because I've been training straight away," he told local media on Wednesday.

"It's gone to a certain extent, now. It's an injury I had a couple of weeks ago and it stayed with me a little bit, but there was no chance I would not come here," he added.

England, aiming for promotion to League A, currently sit second in Group B2 with nine points, following a home defeat to group leaders Greece, who have won all four of their matches so far.
Bengaluru, Nov 14 : Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara stated on Thursday that Opposition parties BJP and JD-S are trying to bring down the Congress government in the state, and asserted that they will "not let it happen." Bengaluru, Nov 14 (IANS) Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara stated on Thursday that Opposition parties BJP and JD-S are trying to bring down the Congress government in the state, and asserted that they will "not let it happen."

Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Parameshwara stated that BJP and JD-S are making all attempts tirelessly to destabilise the Congress government. They rake up the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam and other matters. They are up to disturbing the government and they know it is not possible, he added.

"It has become habitual for them to make offers to MLAs. In Maharashtra, people say that the BJP had bought 42 MLAs with money. They brought down the government there and formed their government afterwards. They have done it here as well in the past and they are also trying to do it now," Parameshwara stated.

"The people will decide over this attempt of BJP and JD-S to bring down the government. They won't turn a blind eye to the development. They might be misled sometimes and we will also go before the community and convey about things," he added.

"The people won't accept them easily and they will reject them. We are not worried about this. We will not let the government get destabilised and brought down. However, in a democracy, these kinds of developments should not take place," Parameshwara opined.

"The government has got such a huge mandate and it won't look good if they try to bring it down. If there are flaws from our side, let them go to the people and expose us. In a democracy, this is not a good development," he went on to underline.

When asked about Chief Minister Siddaramaiah stating that BJP is trying to offer Rs 50 crore each to 50 Congress MLAs, Parameshwara stated, "If Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has to issue such a statement, he might have some information about the offer. The statement by the CM in this regard is meaningful."

Talking about internal reservations, Parameshwara stated, "The decision on internal reservations will be taken up soon. The Chief Minister has appointed retired judge Nagmohan Das Committee and sought a report in three months. This is a good development. We need empirical data and as soon as it is submitted, the government will make a decision."

"I don't know how empirical data is collected and I also do not know about the mandate to them in this regard," he stated.

When asked about retired judge Nagmohan Das heading the committee probing the 40 per cent commission scam, he stated that he will get supporting staff and fulfil all requirements and it won't burden him as Justice. "There won't be any overlapping," he added.
Chennai, Nov 14 : The Madras High Court on Thursday rejected the anticipatory bail plea of actor Kasthuri Shankar, who is facing charges for allegedly making derogatory remarks against the Telugu community in Tamil Nadu.

The court's decision raises the likelihood of her imminent arrest.

A single-judge bench of Justice Anand Venkatesh dismissed the actor's anticipatory bail plea, observing orally that her comments were "unwarranted" and that she "should have refrained from speaking against the women of the Telugu community".

He also noted that her apology did not directly address the comments about women.

The case stems from remarks Kasthuri made last week at a Brahmin gathering in Chennai, allegedly stating that Telugu-speaking people in Tamil Nadu were descendants of courtesans who came to serve the kings 300 years ago and were now claiming to be of Tamil origin.

Her comments sparked criticism, and an FIR was filed by a member of the Naidu Mahajana Sangam State Executive Committee.

In response to the backlash, Kasthuri issued an apology on her X account, asserting that "false news" was being spread by "Tamil Nadu's Goebbels and the anti-Hindu DMK network".

"People of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will never fall for their lies. No one dares to insult my love and loyalty for the Telugu land that has given me love and acceptance, she added.

In her defence in the court, Kasthuri argued that the complaint was filed at the instigation of the DMK, accusing the state government of an "intolerant and vindictive attitude". She stated that her remarks did not provoke any unrest or incitement within the community.

According to police sources, Kasthuri's current whereabouts are unknown, with her phone switched off and her Chennai apartment locked.
Prayagraj : , Nov 14 (IANS) Job aspirants continued their protest for the third day in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj on Thursday, even as law-enforcers kept a close watch to prevent the situation from turning violent outside the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) office.

In the forenoon, the protesters broke barricades on a road leading toward the UPPSC office from a roundabout near Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Civil Lines, and rushed towards the Commission's headquarters.

The agitating students are demanding that the upcoming Provincial Civil Services (PCS) and Review Officer/Assistant Review Officer (RO/ARO) exams, be conducted in a single shift, as was previously done.

They believe this will make the process fairer and more manageable.

Sushil Kumar, one of the protestors, told IANS, "Our colleagues have been arrestedthey are not even being given water. We are not criminals, terrorists or supporters of Opposition parties."

Demanding "one day, one shift exams", he said aspirants appearing in the first shift of the exam will be at a disadvantage due to the proposed normalisation formula of the UPPSC.

Ajay Gupta, another protesting student from Prayagraj, said, "We are opposing the sudden proposal to use the normalisation formula. It was suggested about two weeks ago and not mentioned in the initial advertisement for the exam."

He justified the students' action of breaking barricades and rushing closer to the office of the UPPSC chairperson and secretary.

"We want to take our voice to them, so that they act on our demands," he said.

The Commission has decided to conduct PCS preliminary examinations on December 7 and 8 in two shifts. The RO and ARO preliminary examinations would be held on December 22 and 23 in three shifts.

UPPSC officials claimed that there has been no progress in their talks with protestors.

They said that the protestors have been asked to give suggestions to maintain transparency in the exam, while plugging gaps for leakage.

Amid allegations of political workers joining the protesting crowds, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said on Thursday that the state government backs the protesting UPPSC aspirants.

He said that the government has instructed officials to find a solution to the impasse.

Earlier, Samajwadi Party (SP) Chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday slammed the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government over police action against protesting UPPSC aspirants and accused it of "playing with their future".

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Police registered an FIR against 12 individuals for alleged vandalism during a protest on Tuesday night.

"An FIR has been filed against 12 individuals. Some people have also been taken into custody," said Prayagraj Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abhishek Bharti.
Bhopal, Nov 14 : In a disturbing incident following the bypolls in Vijaypur Assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh, miscreants set fire to a Dalit village.

The incident occurred in Gohta village after voting concluded late on Wednesday.

According to information, miscreants created a ruckus in the village, pelted stones and vandalised properties.

Many terrified villagers took shelter at a local police station.

Despite the severity of the situation, there are allegations that the police have not taken any action against the perpetrators of the crime.

Vijaypur police station in-charge Pappu Singh Yadav said police teams reached the spot and brought the situation under control.

He said violence occurred following conflict between two groups.

Voting for the bypolls in Vijaypur was conducted amid mild violence, protests and allegations of booth capturing on Wednesday.

Two to three people were injured at Veerpur area in Vijaypur after a scuffle broke out between two groups during polling on Wednesday over denial of voting rights.

During the polling, candidates of both ruling and Opposition (BJP's Ramniwas Rawat and Congress' nominee Mukesh Malhotra) for Vijapur bypolls were put up at a guest houses due to security reasons.

Violence in Vijaypur started two days before the bye-elections when a group of miscreants opened fire at villagers, injuring three residents.

Back-to-back incidents of violence sparked outrage and calls for immediate intervention to ensure justice and security for the affected families.

Bypolls in Vijaypur Assembly seat under Morena Lok Sabha constituency of Gwalior-Chambal region were necessitated after sitting Congress MLA Ramniwas Rawat resigned from the party and state Assembly.

He later joined the ruling BJP and was elevated as state forest minister in Chief Minister Mohan Yadav's Cabinet. According to the Election Commissioner, Vijaypur recorded 75 per cent voter turnout on Wednesday.

Clashes between BJP and Congress workers that began with the start of the voting, continued till the end.

Besides clashes and allegations of booth capturing, top leaders from both BJP and Congress staged protests at several places.

Congress state president Jitu Patwari and BJP state president V.D. Sharma sat on a dharna near the Election Commission of India (ECI)as office in Bhopal, accusing each otheras party of fake voting and booth capturing.
Seoul, Nov 14 : South Korea's consul general in New York has offered to step down amid growing criticism from the opposition party in Seoul over his personal ties to First Lady Kim Keon Hee.

In a statement released to media on Wednesday (New York time), Kim Euy-whan said he had already submitted his resignation to the foreign ministry on October 26, following the parliamentary audit where he came under intense scrutiny from opposition party lawmakers, Yonhap news agency reported.

Kim denied that his connection to the first lady was the reason for his appointment as the consul general, claiming that he has no reason to apologize for the "groundless political attack" and "false propaganda" by the main opposition Democratic Party (DP).

"I had not reacted to the DP's malicious attacks because it was just not worth it," Kim said in the statement. "But if this continues, it will be a burden for not only the foreign ministry but the government."

"I've concluded that I can no longer serve as the consul general due to the DP's groundless political attack ... After learning the DP's fictitious story ... I thought it was so typical of the DP habitually spreading false propaganda," Kim said.

A foreign ministry official in Seoul declined to confirm Kim's resignation, citing personnel policies.

The DP has accused Kim of being appointed to the consul general position due to his personal ties to the first lady, which date back more than a decade.

In the audit, Rep. Han Jeoung-ae of the DP claimed Kim became acquainted with the First Lady through a private forum around 2010 when she was the head of a cultural content company, and that connection got him the job as the consul general.

The consul general was also at the centre of controversy earlier this year after he publicly lashed out at a speech delivered on behalf of the head of the state-funded organisation for independence fighters at an event in New York.

The speech was about criticising the historical view of the new chief of the National History Museum on independence fighters that South Korea should recognise August 15, 1948 -- when the government of the first President Rhee Syng-man was launched -- as the national foundation day, instead of April 11, 1919.

The question of when South Korea came into being has long been a subject of ideological debate, with some arguing it was April 11, 1919, when a provisional government was established during Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule.

At the New York event, Kim decried the speech as "nonsense" and called to "crush the pro-North Korean leftist forces" in the South.

Kim was appointed as the consul general in December 2022. Prior to the current post, Kim spent most of his career in public service, having served in senior positions at the country's anti-corruption and civil rights commission.
Giridih, Nov 14 : Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah asserted on Thursday that after the first phase of voting in Jharkhand, it is evident that a BJP-led government will be formed in the state.

Addressing an election rally in Giridih in support of BJP candidate Nirbhay Shahabadi, Amit Shah claimed that the Congress-JMM alliance has been decimated in the first phase itself. "The public has shown overwhelming support for BJP-NDA candidates," he said.

The Home Minister emphasised Jharkhandas potential, describing it as a "centre of energy" and one of India's most resource-rich states. "Jharkhand is blessed with abundant minerals and coal reserves that can fuel the entire country. Despite its wealth, the state's people are poor," he noted.

He urged voters to elect Nirbhay Shahabadi, promising that a BJP victory would prevent the state's youth from migrating due to lack of opportunities. "We will establish new factories and create jobs locally," he assured.

Addressing the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration, the Home Minister accused the Hemant Soren-led government of prioritizing the settlement of infiltrators. "These infiltrators not only encroach upon our land but also marry local daughters to secure their foothold," he alleged.

He promised strict action against infiltrators if BJP comes to power, saying, "Not even a bird will be allowed to trespass. We will implement stringent laws to reclaim every inch of land usurped by them."

Amit Shah also took aim at Congress, claiming that the party intends to restore Article 370 in Kashmir. "Let me tell Rahul Gandhi, not even four generations of your family can reinstate Article 370," he declared.

He gave the example of the Modi government's decisive actions in Uri and Pulwama, where he said the BJP government had responded to terrorist attacks with precision.

On Maoist activities, the Home Minister pointed out that Jharkhand has long been plagued by insurgency. "Maoists have caused immense damage here, but we will eradicate it before March 31, 2026," he pledged.

Taking a jibe at Rahul Gandhi, Amit Shah quipped that Sonia Gandhi is very eager to promote her son. "She has launched a 'plane' named Rahul at least 20 times, yet it crashes every time. In this election also, his plane will crash for the 21st time," he mocked.

He predicted that the Congress would struggle to cross even a single-digit tally in Jharkhand.

He also criticised Rahul Gandhi and Hemant Soren for opposing amendments to the Waqf Act. "Regardless of their objections, we will proceed with necessary changes to the Waqf Act in Parliament," the Home Minister asserted.
Mumbai, Nov 14 : The Indian Performing Right Society Ltd. (IPRS) and the Korean Music Copyright Association (KOMCA) celebrated the success of KOLAB, the Indo-Korean Music Collaboration Programme, which wrapped up with an exclusive listening session on November 13 in Mumbai.

The event offered a unique platform for artists to present their best collaborative songs, blending Indian and Korean musical elements. This exceptional opportunity not only provided valuable exposure but also paved the way for career growth, as the artists' compositions made a memorable impact on the distinguished gathering of industry leaders.

The event, which was held from November 6 to 12 at the True School of Music, Vijaybhoomi University, Jamrung, saw19 music creators from India and South Korea collaborated to produce cross-cultural compositions.

Speaking on the sidelines of the event, Mayur Puri, lyricist, screenwriter, film-director and Board Member at IPRS, shared, "KOLAB has brought young creators from India and Korea into a truly collaborative space, allowing them to express themselves freely and create something genuinely original. This initiative breaks away from commercial constraints, enabling artists to blend their unique styles and cultural roots naturally. It's inspiring to witness how the spirit of collaboration has brought the richness of both Indian and Korean music heritage together, and we're excited about expanding this platform for more cross-cultural partnerships in the future."

Kim Kibeom, Board Member KOMCA, added, "This camp has brought about a transformation for the Korean artists. It provided them with an opportunity to break away from their usual creative habits and be inspired by collaboration with Indian artists. By experiencing the diverse music styles and cultures unique to India, their artistic horizons have broadened. Additionally, collaboration with artists and producers from both countries facilitated a cultural exchange that they hadn't had access to before. This experience will undoubtedly help the KOMCA artists grow personally, and will contribute to the creation of fresh and innovative works in the Korean music scene."

The KOLAB listening session in Mumbai marked the successful conclusion of this remarkable collaboration, while also opening the door to new artistic partnerships between India and South Korea.

As IPRS and KOMCA continue to promote cultural exchange through such initiatives, KOLAB has set the stage for emerging artists to gain recognition and forge connections that elevate their music on a global scale.
Photo: https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua

The Ukrainian Defense Forces continue to take measures to prevent the enemy from advancing deep into Ukrainian territory. As of 4 p.m. on Thursday, 88 combat clashes were recorded along the front line, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) reported on the Telegram channel.

The situation on the Kurakhove, Pokrovsk and Kupyansk axes is the toughest.

On the Kurakhove axis, the enemy army attacked 25 times in the areas of Berestky, Sontsivka, Illinka, Novoselydivka, Zoria, Dalne and Kostiantynivka. Eighteen attempts of the occupiers to advance have already been repulsed. In addition, the enemy dropped four guided bombs on the settlements of Romanivka and Dachne.

On the Pokrovsk axis, the Russian invaders made 14 attempts to push Ukrainian defenders from their positions. The defense forces restrained the pressure and repelled eight enemy attacks, while six combat clashes are still ongoing.

The occupiers carried out ten assault operations on the Kupyansk axis.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : In mounting trouble for Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola Electric, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has now ordered a comprehensive probe into the EV company over its consumer complaint redressal practices.

As per sources, the consumer watchdog, led by Nidhi Khare, has asked the Director General (DG) of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to probe the matter. The BIS chief has been asked to submit the report within 15 days.

Last month, Ola Electric claimed that 99.1 per cent of the 10,644 complaints on the National Consumer Helpline (NCH) were resolved. The company was handed over a show-cause notice by the CCPA over alleged violations of consumer rights.

However, despite Ola Electric claiming that it has resolved 99.1 per cent of the 10,644 complaints regarding its poor after-sales service, the Department of Consumer Affairs critically examined the responses filed by the EV firm, and correlated each consumer complaint with the companyas claims.

Out of the total 10,644 complaints, 3,364 pertained to slow service and repairs and 1,899 were related to delayed deliveries of Olaas electric scooters.

If Ola Electric's claims fail to satisfy the regulator, it may face legal action and reportedly lose the subsidies its electric vehicles are eligible for under the PM Electric DRIVE Revolution in Innovative Vehicle Enhancement (PM E-DRIVE) scheme.

On social media platforms, complaints against Ola Electric continue to surge.

Meanwhile, Ola Electricas share closed at Rs 70.12 apiece, down 56 per cent from its all-time high of Rs 157.40. The company reported a huge 43 per cent surge in net loss at Rs 495 crore in the July-September period (Q2 FY25), from Rs 347 crore in the previous quarter (Q1 FY25). The electric two-wheeler company also saw its revenue slump 26.1 per cent to Rs 1,214 crore (on-quarter) from Rs 1,644 crore in the first quarter of this fiscal. The net loss, however, narrowed on a year-on-year basis.

The company also saw its market share plunge to 33 per cent in Q2, down from 49 per cent in the previous quarter.
Chennai, Nov 14 : Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian announced that a tag system for patient attendants will be introduced in a phased manner across all government medical colleges, district headquarters hospitals, and taluk hospitals.

This decision follows an incident in which Dr. Balaji Jagannathan, a senior oncologist at the Kalaignar Centenary Super Speciality Hospital (KCSSH), was stabbed multiple times by the son of a cancer patient he had treated.

The minister explained that the tag system had initially been piloted at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) in early October.

This measure was intended to reduce crowding and improve the safety of healthcare professionals, following the rape and subsequent murder of a postgraduate medical student at R.G. Kar Medical College in Kolkata.

The Tamil Nadu Health Minister said that the Directorates of Medical Education and Research and Medical and Rural Health Services would implement the tag system in a phased approach. It will be introduced in 36 government medical colleges, 37 district headquarters hospitals, and 320 taluk hospitals.

The tag system will use four colours to indicate patient areas: green for attendants of patients in surgical super specialities, red for those in Intensive Care Units, yellow for super speciality departments, and blue for general wards.

Each patient will be issued two tags for their attendants. In response to requests from doctors' associations, metal detectors and baggage scanners will also be piloted in one or two hospitals to further enhance security.

Ma Subramanian noted an increase in public trust in government hospitals and doctors, which has led to a significant rise in the number of people seeking medical care at government facilities.

He added that many patients who were previously treated at private hospitals are now turning to government hospitals due to the improved infrastructure and trust in doctors.

The minister also shared that pay wards, previously available only at RGGGH, have now been introduced in nearly 15 government hospitals, making services more accessible to the middle-income group. In response to the incident at R.G. Kar Medical College, the Tamil Nadu government has taken steps to improve security across college campuses.

These measures, implemented by the three health directorates, include joint security audits conducted by the police and health departments at all government medical colleges and hospitals.

The audits ensure that CCTV cameras are operational and monitored continuously, lighting is adequate, and police outposts are strengthened.

"These decisions are being implemented by the health directorates to ensure safety and maintain trust in our healthcare system," said Ma Subramanian.

--IANS

aal/dan
Dhanbad, Nov 14 : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath held a series of rallies in Dhanbad district on Thursday, addressing public gatherings in Nirsa, Bermo, and Bokaro. During his speeches, he accused the ruling Jharkhand government, led by JMM-Congress-RJD, of being protectors of intruders and Rohingyas.

In a sharp attack, Adityanath alleged, "These parties are trying to infiltrate Rohingya Muslims, thereby jeopardising the safety of Jharkhand's daughters, resources, and land. We must prevent such infiltration at all costs, as it threatens our security and livelihood. Only a BJP government can put an end to this."

Referring to the first phase of voting held in Jharkhand on November 13, Adityanath claimed, "The trend indicates that the BJP is set to win with an absolute majority. The people of Jharkhand have made up their minds to remove the Congress-JMM-RJD alliance, which has been looting the state."

He recalled the time when Jharkhand was created, saying: "I was an MP from Gorakhpur when the state was being formed. During parliamentary discussions, the Congress and RJD opposed the creation of Jharkhand. Today, both these parties are in league with JMM, misleading the people. On one hand, they plunder the state; on the other, they empower Leftist forces to destabilize Jharkhand."

The UP CM lamented the condition of Jharkhand, particularly Dhanbad, known as the 'Coal Capital.' "Despite its vast coal resources, the labourers here are exploited by Leftist forces. The workers remain poor while others profit. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee formed Jharkhand, his vision was to make it a developed state. However, in the past 24-25 years, Jharkhand has regressed," he said.

Adityanath also criticized the misuse of central welfare schemes, claiming, "While 80 crore people across India are receiving free rations, the supplies sent for Jharkhand by PM Modi are being siphoned off by JMM-Congress leaders."

Highlighting national security, Adityanath said, "Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indiaas borders are secure. If a terrorist dares to cross into India with malicious intent, they are swiftly eliminated. This is the spirit of New India -- we wonat provoke anyone, but if provoked, we wonat hesitate to retaliate."

Ahead of the second phase of voting on November 20, Adityanath appealed to voters to unite against the Congress-JMM-RJD-CPI-ML nexus. "These parties are all birds of the same feather, aiming to loot Jharkhand and divide its people. But if we remain united, we can safeguard our future and ensure peace and development."
New Delhi, Nov 14 : ICMR has played a significant role in addressing India's critical health issues transforming the healthcare care research landscape, said JP Nadda, Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare on Thursday.

He said this while in his virtual address at the Department of Health Research and the Indian Council of Medical Research (DHR-ICMR) Health Research Excellence Summit 2024 in the national capital.

The event also marked ICMR's 113th Foundation Day, celebrating the institution's commitment to advancing biomedical research in India.

"Today, we celebrate over a century of ICMR's unwavering commitment to advancing health research and improving the lives of millions. ICMR has been at the forefront of biomedical research, playing a pivotal role in addressing some of the most critical health challenges." Nadda said.

"From combating infectious diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, and Covid-19, to advancing solutions for non-communicable diseases, maternal and child health, and nutritional disorders -- ICMR has left an indelible mark on India's healthcare landscape," he added.

Anupriya Patel, Minister of State of Health lauded ICMR for being a "pioneer in advancing scientific research and innovation in India"

Dr. V.K. Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog said that ICMR's contributions will "position India as a global leader in health research".

Meanwhile, the ICMR has launched a first-of-its-kind initiative -- First in the World Challenge research grant -- to foster novel, out-of-the-box, futuristic ideas from researchers across the country.

The ideas can include new knowledge, discovery or development of breakthrough health technologies (vaccines, drugs or therapeutics,

diagnostics, interventions, etc.) which has never been thought, tested or tried in the world to date.

The apex research body noted that the "grant calling for bold research idea" is inspired by the Chandryaan-3 mission, which made a historic landing on the south pole of the Moon.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : In a relief to AAP legislator Amanatullah Khan, a court here on Thursday refused to take cognisance of a charge sheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against him in connection with the Delhi Waqf Board money laundering case.

The Rouse Avenue Court said that the prosecution complaint was filed by the federal anti-money laundering agency without obtaining the requisite sanction under the law. It said while there was sufficient evidence against Amanatullah Khan to proceed against him under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), there was no sanction to prosecute him.

Special Judge Jitendra Singh ordered that the AAP MLA from Delhias Okhla constituency should be released from custody, on furnishing Rs 1 lakh personal bond with a surety of the like amount.

Two weeks before, on a day when the trial court had asked the ED to file its response on Khanas bail application, a prosecution complaint with an additional set of charges was filed by the ED naming alleged accomplices of the MLA, who has been in judicial custody since his arrest on September 2.

The over 100-page supplementary chargesheet was filed in addition to a charge sheet filed in the case by the ED in January.

Daud Nasir, Zeeshan Haider, and Jawed Imam Siddiqui were among those named in the January charge sheet. The three were arrested by the ED in November 2023.

The ED is investigating suspected money laundering related to alleged wrongful appointment of employees and leasing of assets of the Delhi Waqf Board during the tenure of Amanatullah Khan as its head. Khanas arrest came soon after the ED searched the legislatoras house in south Delhias Okhla area. The agency alleged that the MLA bought a property worth over Rs 35 crore in Okhla.

The legislator is also facing allegations of using corruption money to buy properties in the name of his aides. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has also filed separate corruption cases against the AAP legislator.

The case dates back to November 2016 when a complaint was filed against Khan, who was the then Chairman of the Waqf Board. The complaint accused him of making illegal appointments to various approved and non-approved positions within the Board. Following a CBI investigation, it was revealed that Khan had deliberately ignored the rules to appoint his close associates. The CBI registered a case, which was later taken up by the ED for a money laundering probe.
Sambhajinagar, Nov 14 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused Congress and Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of not renaming Aurangabad after Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj (a Maratha military king).

"When the MahaYuti government formed the government, we renamed it. Maharashtra election is not just an election to elect a new government. In this election, on one side there are patriots who are believers of Sambhaji Maharaj and on the other side, there are people who praise Aurangazeb," said PM Modi while targeting the Congress and its allies during a poll rally for BJP and MahaYuti nominees.

He asked the people to re-elect the MahaYuti to expedite the state's development.

"Who was most hurt when Aurangabad was renamed as Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar? Maharashtra knows that the demand was raised by Balasaheb Thackeray. The Aghadi government was in power for 2.5 years but they did not have the courage to do so under the Congress party's pressure. Whereas the MahaYuti government renamed the city as soon as it came to power. We fulfilled your wish, we fulfilled Balasaheb Thackeray's wish," said the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister said that Maharashtra has to lead the vision of Viksit Bharat.

"BJP and MahaYuti are working for the same Sankalp. To achieve this, modern infrastructure is being built. In this entire region, the railway is being modernised. Maharashtra has attracted maximum FDI after the formation of the MahaYuti government. The people have benefitted due to the investment. In this region alone contracts of more than Rs 70,000 crore have been finalised. This will open up new opportunities for development and mobilise more jobs for the youth," said PM Modi

The Prime Minister also blamed the MVA for doing "nothing" except increasing the "problems" of the state.

"MVA has only exacerbated the problems of Maharashtra. There has been a water crisis in Marathwada for a long time but the Congress and Aghadi people always remained sitting idle. During our tenure, concrete efforts were made to fight drought. When the Devendra Fadnavis-led government was in power, it had launched the Jalyukt Shivar Yojana to make Marathwada drought free but it was closed by the MVA government. However, it was again revived after MahaYuti came to power," the Prime Minister said.

He claimed that the Congress party relies on division and not on development to form the government.

"Congress stops Dalits, backward classes and tribals from progressing so that they can retain power from generation to generation. That is why Congress has been against reservation from the very beginning," PM Modi alleged.

He claimed that Congress used to say that reservations were against the country, adding that it considered reservations against merit.

"The mentality and agenda of the Congress remained unchanged. They can not come to terms with the fact that an OBC has been the PM in the country for the last 10 years," PM Modi said.

"The 'Prince' of Congress, therefore, only claims that his party will scrap reservations when he goes abroad. To further their agenda, Congress and Aghadi are conspiring to divide SCs, STs and OBCs into small castes," claimed the Prime Minister.
Hyderabad, Nov 14 : Former Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLA Chirumarthi Lingaiah on Thursday appeared before the police in the phone tapping case.

In response to the notice issued by the police, the BRS leader appeared before the investigating officer at the office of the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Jubilee Hills Division and his statement was recorded.

The BRS leader was reportedly questioned about new evidence that came to light in the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report. The evidence showed that there was an alleged line of communication between him and a case accused - suspended Additional Superintendent of Police Mekala Thirupathanna.

The FSL report revealed that some politicians, reportedly connected to the BRS, sent the phone numbers of a few individuals to the accused in the case. At the time of filing the charge sheet, the police had not received the FSL report. Based on the FSL reports, police are summoning more people for examination. Recently, during the hearing of a bail petition filed by Thirupathanna in the Telangana High Court, the Public Prosecutor told the court that Lingaiah had been in contact with the accused, adding that they got to know about this only after police received FSL reports.

Talking to reporters after coming out of the ACP office, Lingaiah denied any involvement in phone tapping and said he was asked about his telephone conversation with Thirupathana.

The former MLA from Nekrekal in Nalgonda district said he told officials that while it was a fact that he spoke to Thirupathanna, this does not mean that he was involved in phone tapping. He said as a political leader, he speaks to officials. He alleged that the Congress government was trying to confine him to his house by threatening him with notices. He, however, said he would appear before the investigating officer if he was summoned as he respects the law.

Police had directed Lingaiah to appear on November 11. He, however, skipped the appearance on health grounds and sought more time.

The phone-tapping allegations under the previous government of BRS came to light in March with the arrest of the Special Intelligence Branch's (SIB) former DSP Praneeth Rao following a complaint from his superior, Additional SP D. Ramesh. Then SIB chiefg, T. Prabhakar Rao had allegedly constituted a team within SIB with his trusted aides including Praneeth Rao for surveillance of rival political leaders and their families and dissidents within the ruling party.

The police have so far named six accused. While Praneeth Rao, Thirupathanna, former DCP P. Radha Kishan Rao, and suspended Additional Superintendent of Police Bhujanga Rao are in judicial custody, Prabhakar Rao and A. Sravan Kumar, the CEO of a vernacular TV channel, are absconding.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : The Punjab Language Department has installed photos of 10 renowned Punjabi writers at Punjab Bhawan here in the first phase.

The entrance floor features photos of Bhai Vir Singh, the founder of modern Punjabi literature, and celebrated writer Amrita Pritam.

The first floor, near the Chief Minister's office, showcases photos of three prominent Punjabi poets -- Shiv Kumar Batalvi, Pash, and Surjit Patar.

Similarly, the second floor features photos of Ishwar Chander Nanda, the father of Punjabi theatre, and Dr Mohinder Singh Randhawa, known for his pioneering work for Punjabi art and culture.

Lastly, the third floor displays photos of progressive poets Bawa Balwant, Lal Singh Dil, and Firoz Din Sharaf.

Director of the Language Department, Jaswant Singh Zafar, informed that approximately 100 photos of prominent Punjabi poets, writers, thinkers, and language experts would be installed on all floors of both A and B blocks of Punjab Bhavan in the near future.

He also said with the exhibition and sale of books by the department inside Punjab Bhawan premises, literary people and readers have shown positive responses and an increase in the sale of books has also been witnessed.

Resident Commissioner of Punjab, Shruti Singh, said that more plans are in the pipeline to display Punjab's cultural essence through art pieces inside rooms of the Bhawan. She said that they would also seek assistance from the Punjab Arts Council in the same manner as the Punjab Language Department has taken initiative to display these photographs.

The Resident Commissioner also revealed that to maintain and renovate the Punjabi Sahit Kendar of Language Department, Punjab will be considered on a priority basis.

On this occasion, Assistant Director of the Language Department Alok Chawla, Deputy Resident Commissioner, Asita Sharma, local office in-charge Karuna were also present.
Mumbai, Nov 14 : A day after a prominent Muslim intellectual extended support to 269 candidates of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) for the Maharashtra Assembly polls, differences cropped up among other leaders of different backgrounds, here on Thursday.

The globally acclaimed Shaikh Khalil-Ur-Rahman Sajjad Nomani, Member of the powerful All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) published a list of 269 MVA candidates, plus 19 of other parties who he and his groups would back in the November 20 elections, irrespective of their caste or religion.

They comprise 170 Marathas/OBCs, 53 from SC/STs, 23 Muslims, 40 from other communities/groups, besides 19 more from parties like Samajwadi Party, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen, CPM, CPI, PWP, and a few independents.

"The intention to extend our support is to defeat the forces that are challenging the Indian Constitution. The candidates whom we back have been selected after widespread research, ground reports, surveys and other criteria over the past month," said Nomani.

Since the Maharashtra Assembly elections have generated considerable attention in the current political scenario, Nomani said that the Muslim intellectuals, scholars, activists, and opinion makers from across communities in the state have great expectations from the contending Opposition political parties.

Among the prominent MVA candidates who got the thumbs up from Nomani and his group include Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Aditya Thackeray, Kedar Dighe, Vinod Ghosalkar and Varun Desai; Congress' M. Arif Naseem Khan, Amin Patel, Asif Zakaria, Aslam Shaikh; Nationalist Congress Party (SP)'s Jayant R. Patil, Yugendra S. Pawar, Jitendra Awhad, Fahad Ahmad, among many others.

Among other parties, the SP State President Abu Asim Azmi, his colleague Rais Shaikh; CPM's Vinod Nikole and Jiva Pandu Gavit; CPI's Budha Pawara; PWP's Chitralekha Patil, plus some others.

However, the move has evoked sceptical reactions from other prominent minority leaders like Muslim scholar and intellectual Maulana Burhanuddin Qasmi, Muslim Welfare Association's Saleem Sarang and more.

"I am not in favour of such a blanket appeal from any religious scholar. Such endorsements may actually create a negative polarization instead of strengthening the secular, democratic forces during the heated poll campaign," Qasmi told IANS.

"Voting is an individual, personal right granted by the Constitution, so no such 'fatwa' can dictate the decision of any voters. Maulana Nomani's endorsements are not acceptable to the broader Muslim community," said Sarang, who belongs to the ruling MahaYuti ally Nationalist Congress Party led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

Qasmi pointed out how a few dedicated but apolitical Muslim activists are working silently among the masses to propagate the 'Idea Of India', which would be the best way to bring about positive changes through the electoral process in the country.

Sarang lamented that though the NCP and Ajit Pawar have fielded five Muslims, Nomani and his ilk have totally ignored all its candidates in favour of some other 'weaker' nominees from the Opposition parties/bloc.

A wary shopkeeper from Andheri, Ghulam Rasool Shaikh said that the list of candidates announced by Nomani and others is just 'indicative' as it has not banned the minorities from voting for any other candidates considering other local factors.

"We are hopeful that all the people (electorate) will take part in the election as it will have repercussions on the country's future and symbolise the coming days for democracy," said Nomani, appealing to the masses to come in huge numbers to vote.

All the MVA parties, plus SP, AIMIM and others are engaged in a shrill campaign to bag the votes of the minorities, while challenging the ruling sides' slogans like 'batenge to katenge' 'ek hai to safe hain', etc.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: qnajmi@gmail.com)
Gurugram, Nov 14 : A cow smuggler died, and six others were injured after the Gurugram Police chased and stopped a gang illegally smuggling cows on Thursday, police said.

However, the six smugglers have been arrested after being discharged from the hospital, and the deceased cattle smuggler's body has been sent for an autopsy on Thursday.

The accused have been identified as Munna, Mafik Ali, Mubarak alias Utavandia, Shaukin alias Sunda, and Irsad alias Langa all residents of Nuh district in Haryana, while Salman, a native of Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. Shahjad, who died in the incident, was a native of Nuh district.

According to the police, on Thursday, a Cow Protection Cell in Gurugram, while patrolling, saw some people loading cows in a pickup vehicle near the Manesar Bus Stand on the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway.

When they saw the police, the accused drove their pickup towards Panchgaon-Bilaspur, but the vehicle overturned after hitting the divider, and police nabbed all the vehicle occupants.

When the police team checked the pick-up a person was found dead, buried under the vehicle.

Police recovered four cows tied in the vehicle and picked them up for transporting the cows.

In connection with the matter, a case was registered under the relevant sections at the Police Station Manesar, Gurugram.

After observing the criminal records of the accused, it was found that the deceased Shahjad was involved in two cases of attempt to murder and cow smuggling registered in Gurugram and three cases in district Nuh.

Shaukin was involved in 18 cases that were registered against him in various police stations of Rewari, Nuh, Gurugram and Rohtak and in two cases, he has also been declared a proclaimed offender.

Irshad has a total of three cases registered against him in Gurugram and Nuh in connection with cow smuggling, assault and threat. Mafiq Ali and Mubarak have one case each registered against them in Nuh.

"The police team is questioning the accused thoroughly. Further action will be taken in the case as per rules according to whatever facts will come out in the police interrogation. Investigation of the case is on," Sandeep Kumar, spokesperson of the Gurugram Police said.
Photo: https://t.me/kyivoda/22430

The Coca-Cola System together with the Ukrainian Red Cross will transfer 60 boiler rooms worth EUR 5 million to Ukrainian communities in 2024, in particular, Kyiv region will receive 24 modular boiler houses, the press service of Kyiv Regional Military Administration has said.

"The Coca-Cola Systems together with the Ukrainian Red Cross will transfer 60 boiler rooms to communities all over Ukraine this year. Funding for the project in the amount of EUR 5 million was provided by Coca-Cola HBC Ukraine," it said on the Telegram channel Thursday.

Kyiv region will receive 24 modular boiler rooms, in addition to the seven that it received last year. One of such modular boiler rooms was handed over to an educational institution in the Baryshevka community on Thursday. It is a 200kW unit, which will fully meet the needs of the educational institution.

"The total capacity of the new mobile boiler rooms is 11.3 MW. These are installations of 200, 500 and 1,000 kW. They will work to heat educational institutions, hospitals and housing. An important factor is their mobility, which makes it possible to quickly move and install them in new places, if necessary," the regional administration said.
Mumbai, Nov 14 : A day after a prominent Muslim intellectual extended support to 269 candidates of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) for the Maharashtra Assembly polls, differences cropped up among other leaders of different backgrounds, here on Thursday.

The globally acclaimed Shaikh Khalil-Ur-Rahman Sajjad Nomani, Member of the powerful All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) published a list of 269 MVA candidates, plus 19 of other parties who he and his groups would back in the November 20 elections, irrespective of their caste or religion.

They comprise 170 Marathas/OBCs, 53 from SC/STs, 23 Muslims, 40 from other communities/groups, besides 19 more from parties like Samajwadi Party, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen, CPM, CPI, PWP, and a few independents.

"The intention to extend our support is to defeat the forces that are challenging the Indian Constitution. The candidates whom we back have been selected after widespread research, ground reports, surveys and other criteria over the past month," said Nomani.

Since the Maharashtra Assembly elections have generated considerable attention in the current political scenario, Nomani said that the Muslim intellectuals, scholars, activists, and opinion makers from across communities in the state have great expectations from the contending Opposition political parties.

Among the prominent MVA candidates who got the thumbs up from Nomani and his group include Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Aditya Thackeray, Kedar Dighe, Vinod Ghosalkar and Varun Desai; Congress' M. Arif Naseem Khan, Amin Patel, Asif Zakaria, Aslam Shaikh; Nationalist Congress Party (SP)'s Jayant R. Patil, Yugendra S. Pawar, Jitendra Awhad, Fahad Ahmad, among many others.

Among other parties, the SP State President Abu Asim Azmi, his colleague Rais Shaikh; CPM's Vinod Nikole and Jiva Pandu Gavit; CPI's Budha Pawara; PWP's Chitralekha Patil, plus some others.

However, the move has evoked sceptical reactions from other prominent minority leaders like Muslim scholar and intellectual Maulana Burhanuddin Qasmi, Muslim Welfare Association's Saleem Sarang and more.

"I am not in favour of such a blanket appeal from any religious scholar. Such endorsements may actually create a negative polarization instead of strengthening the secular, democratic forces during the heated poll campaign," Qasmi told IANS.

"Voting is an individual, personal right granted by the Constitution, so no such 'fatwa' can dictate the decision of any voters. Maulana Nomani's endorsements are not acceptable to the broader Muslim community," said Sarang, who belongs to the ruling MahaYuti ally Nationalist Congress Party led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

Qasmi pointed out how a few dedicated but apolitical Muslim activists are working silently among the masses to propagate the 'Idea Of India', which would be the best way to bring about positive changes through the electoral process in the country.

Sarang lamented that though the NCP and Ajit Pawar have fielded five Muslims, Nomani and his ilk have totally ignored all its candidates in favour of some other 'weaker' nominees from the Opposition parties/bloc.

A wary shopkeeper from Andheri, Ghulam Rasool Shaikh said that the list of candidates announced by Nomani and others is just 'indicative' as it has not banned the minorities from voting for any other candidates considering other local factors.

"We are hopeful that all the people (electorate) will take part in the election as it will have repercussions on the country's future and symbolise the coming days for democracy," said Nomani, appealing to the masses to come in huge numbers to vote.

Convenor of Maharashtra Muslim Voters Council Abdul Bari Khan said that Nomani's statements have created confusion among the minority voters in the state, apprehending that "it could scatter Muslim votes and lead to a Haryana-like situation post-polls".

All the MVA parties, plus SP, AIMIM and others are engaged in a shrill campaign to bag the votes of the minorities, while challenging the ruling sides' slogans like 'batenge to katenge' 'ek hai to safe hain', etc.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: qnajmi@gmail.com)
New Delhi, Nov 14 : India's merchandise exports jumped by a robust 17.25 per cent to $39.20 billion during October this year, as compared to $33.43 billion during the same month last year, figures released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry on Thursday showed.

New Delhi, Nov 14 (IANS) Indiaas merchandise exports jumped by a robust 17.25 per cent to $39.20 billion during October this year, as compared to $33.43 billion during the same month last year, figures released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry on Thursday showed.

The double-digit growth in exports amid the slowdown in global trade was driven by engineering goods, electronic goods, organic and inorganic chemicals, and textiles which reflects the growing strength of Indiaas manufacturing sector.

Indiaas total exports (merchandise and services combined) for October 2024 are estimated at $73.21 billion, registering a growth of 19.08 per cent vis-a-vis October 2023. Total imports (merchandise and services combined) for October 2024 are estimated at $83.33 billion, registering a positive growth of 7.77 per cent vis-a-vis October 2023. The cumulative value of merchandise exports during April-October 2024 was $252.28 billion, as compared to $244.51 billion during April-October 2023, registering a positive growth of 3.18 per cent.

The cumulative overall exports, including both merchandise and services, during the April-October period of the current financial year are estimated at $468.27 billion, as compared to $436.48 billion in April-October 2023, which represents a growth of 7.28 per cent.

Non-petroleum exports in October 2024 were valued at $ 34.61 billion, registering an increase of 25.63 per cent in comparison with the corresponding figure of $27.55 billion for October 2023. The cumulative non-petroleum exports in April-October 2024, valued at $211.34 billion registered an increase of 7.34 per cent in comparison with $196.88 billion in April-October 2023.

The non-petroleum merchandise export of April-October 2024 surpassed the record of $206.2 billion in April-October 2024. Non-petroleum & non-gems & jewellery exports registered an increase of 27.68 per cent from $24.56 billion in October 2023 to $31.36 Billion in October 2024.

Major drivers of merchandise export growth in October include engineering goods, electronic goods, organic & inorganic chemicals, rice, and textiles.

Engineering goods exports increased by 39.37 per cent from $8.08 billion in October 2023 to $11.26 billion in October 2024, while electronic goods exports increased by 45.69 per cent from $2.36 billion in October 2023 to $3.43 billion in October 2024, and organic & inorganic chemicals exports increased by 27.35 per cent from $2.14 billion in October 2023 to $2.72 billion in October 2024.

Rice exports increased by 85.79 per cent from $0.57 billion in October 2023 to $1.05 billion in October 2024, and textiles exports increased by 35.06 per cent from $0.91 billion in October 2023 to $1.23 billion in October 2024. Indiaas exports have bounced back despite a slowdown in global trade.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has revised downwards its projection of world merchandise trade growth to 3 per cent in 2025, from its earlier estimate of 3.3 per cent. The multilateral trade body said that risks to the forecast remain firmly on the downside due to regional conflicts, geopolitical tensions, and policy uncertainty.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : The need for proactive safety strategies and managing emerging operational risks were the key points of discussion at the Flight Safety Seminar (FSS) and Annual Naval Flight Safety Meeting (NFSM) for 2024 conducted at INS Dega, Visakhapatnam, a statement said on Thursday.

The Seminar and the Meeting were held on November 12 and 13 under the aegis of the Headquarters Eastern Naval Command.

The Flight Safety Seminar commenced on November 12, with Chief Guest Vice Admiral Rajesh Pendharkar, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Naval Command, delivering the keynote address.

Centering on the theme "Emerging Threats and Challenges - Naval Air Operations and Compliance with Flight Safety," the seminar focused on contemporary topics, including Advancements in Counter-UAV/ UAS Technologies and Tactics, Cyber Security Risks in Aviation Operations and Countermeasures for Aircraft Systems.

The participants also discussed the importance of amindfulness traininga for mental resilience during air operations, the statement said.

The discussions encouraged a holistic approach to managing emerging operational risks, emphasising the need for shared vigilance across services for safeguarding aerial assets.

The exchange of views underscored the growing need for adaptive and proactive safety strategies, particularly for challenges in modern Naval Aviation.

Representatives from the Indian Army, Indian Air Force, Indian Coast Guard and prominent defence organisations such as HAL also attended the event.

The NFSM, held on Wednesday, brought together key flight safety stakeholders of the Indian Navy, with Rear Admiral Janak Bevil, Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Air), presiding over the meeting.

Safety concurs across the Navy were elaborated upon with the aim of operational risk management to ensure safe flying while meeting all operational missions.

Discussions included the latest trends in bird and animal hazard mitigation.

Both days of the event featured panel discussions and expert-led presentations, underscoring the Indian Navy's commitment to enhancing flight safety protocols and ensuring the highest standards of readiness in naval aviation.
Imphal, Nov 14 : A top Army officer toured some Manipur districts to review the emerging internal security situation in the ethnic violence-hit state and discuss operational preparedness with senior Army and Assam Rifles officials, defence officials said on Thursday.

A Defence spokesman said that Dimapur-headquartered Spear Corps commander, Lt Gen Abhijit S. Pendharkar, visited the Red Shield Division, based in Manipur's Leimakhong, during his two-day visit.

"During his visit, the GOC visited Leimakhong Military Station and Bishnupur district to review the emerging internal security situation and operational preparedness," the spokesman said.

Lt Gen Pendharkhar held discussions on various contemporary issues with the Red Shield Division's commander, the Assam Rifles' Inspector General, East, the Deputy Inspector General, South, and the formation commanders on the challenges of the operating environment and road map for assisting the state in bringing peace and stability.

According to the spokesman, the Corps Commander complimented all ranks of the formation for the high standards of professionalism, commitment, high morale, and neutral, and unbiased approach.

The visit of Lt Gen Pendharkar underscores the commitment of the Indian Army in addressing the evolving security dynamics in Manipur, the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, amidst the recent escalation of violence, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has provided an additional 20 companies (around 1,700 to 1,800 personnel) of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to deal with the prevailing law and order situation.

A top Manipur Home Department official said that the 20 companies, comprising 15 companies of the CRPF and five of the BSF, already arrived in Manipur from Assam and Tripura, respectively.

The MHA communication, accessed by IANS, also added that with the deployment of an additional 20 companies, a total of 218 companies of CAPFs, comprising the CRPF, the RAF, the BSF, the ITBP, and the SSB are now available with the Manipur government.

After the ethnic violence began in Manipur in May last year, the Central government had deployed a huge number of Army, and Assam Rifles personnel, besides the CAPF.

The Manipur Home Department official said that the MHA's decision to deploy additional CAPF in Manipur comes within three days after a fierce encounter on November 11 between suspected Kuki militants and the CRPF in Jiribam district. Police said that after Monday's incident, 10 Kuki militants were killed and 10 people, inmates of a relief camp, were either kidnapped or missing. While police officials say that 11 Kuki militants were killed, all the state's tribal organisations, including the Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum (ITLF), Kuki-Zo Council, and Hmar Students' Association have been claiming that all the 11 are Hmar village volunteers.

Manipur's Inspector General of Police, Operations, I.K. Muivah, said that during the search operations after the incident in Jakuradhor village, where several houses were also burnt down by the armed militants, two bodies of elderly civilians -- Maibam Kesho Singh, 75, and Laishram Barel, 61, -- were found.

The IGP said another person was found alive and rescued and another civilian came back on his own to the police station. At present, three women and three children are missing and search operations are underway to find them.
Jaipur, Nov 14 : Investment MoUs worth Rs 14,000 crore were signed in the Health and Medical sector while investment MoUs worth Rs 2,157 crore were signed in the AYUSH sector in Rajasthan on Thursday.

Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma said that by organising the investment summit in the very first year of the BJP's term, the government has made its intention clear of not only signing the MoUs but also working towards their on-ground implementation in the next few years.

"All Medical & Health sector investors- small and big- are welcome in the state as they will all ultimately serve the common citizen at the grassroots level and provide a healthy workforce to the state," he said.

Expressing happiness at the signing of investment MoUs worth Rs 2157 crore specifically in the AYUSH sector, the Chief Minister said that AYUSH is not only India's heritage and identity but also showcases the Indian culture and centuries-old knowledge before the world.

"People across the world are gravitating towards AYUSH and the sector has immense potential for growth in the coming years," he added.

He said that his government's commitment towards healthcare is evident with 88 per cent of the state's population covered under the comprehensive insurance scheme which is highest in the country.

"The state budget 2024-25 also allocated the highest ever INR 28,000 crore which is over 8.26 per cent of the overall budget. The government is also going to launch the new Pharma Policy and Medical Value Travel Policy to unlock the medical tourism potential of the state," he said.

Among the MoUs signed, the investors have proposed to set up pharma units, medical colleges, universities, nursing colleges, homoeopathy and Ayurveda colleges, Ayush Research Panchkarm Centre, Advanced Ayurveda and Naturopathy institutes in key areas of the state including Jaipur, Ajmer, Jodhpur, Rajsamand, Sikar, Sirohi among others.

Accompanying the Chief Minister on the occasion, Medical & Health Minister, Gajendra Singh Khimsar said that the signing of MoUs demonstrates the efforts and the impact of the policies launched in the last eleven months by the government.

Gayatri Rathore, Principal Secretary, Medical & Health and Family Welfare, said that Rajasthan has become a premier investment destination in healthcare due to its strategic location, attractive policies, and skilled workforce.

Neha Giri, Managing Director, of Rajasthan Medical Services Corporation Ltd said that the Health pre-summit was successfully concluded with the signing of a large number of MoUs and the department will now work towards the on-ground implementation of these investment proposals.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to entertain a public interest litigation (PIL) raising concerns about the privacy, integrity, and security of communications through messaging services WhatsApp and Telegram.

A bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and Aravind Kumar dismissed the PIL filed by K.G. Omanakuttan, who claims to be "a seasoned software engineer".

The plea highlighted a "vulnerability" found in the Android applications of WhatsApp and Telegram, which allows the unauthorised replacement of media files. It added that privacy, integrity, and security of communications through WhatsApp and Telegram can be breached, even by a common man and one can easily replace an image file in their chat with another image file, locally on an Android device.

The PIL said that vulnerability in the Android applications violated several fundamental rights, including the right to privacy, right to freedom of expression, right to reputation and dignity, and right to fair investigation and trial, by unauthorised replacement of media files locally.

The petitioner sought direction to WhatsApp and Telegram to adopt comprehensive and effective measures to prevent the unauthorised manipulation of media files on Android devices.

Earlier in 2021, the Kerala High Court had dismissed a plea filed by the same petitioner against the technical vulnerability which enables even a common man to replace images and other media files within a WhatsApp chat. The plea had also sought a direction to WhatsApp to comply with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 in the interest of the nation. The Mark Zuckerberg-owned platform had moved the Delhi High Court, challenging the IT rules on the grounds that they violate the right to privacy and are unconstitutional. WhatsApp claimed that rules forced it to 'track' the origin of messages received through the network and jeopardised the privacy of its users. The IT rules made it mandatory for social media intermediaries like Twitter (now X), Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to trace chats and make provisions to identify the first originator of the information.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday highlighted the role of Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) in driving India's remarkable growth story as the country is headed to become the third largest economy in the world.

Sharing key statistics to illustrate the remarkable performance, the minister said that the net worth of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) has increased by 82 per cent, from Rs 9.5 lakh crore in FY14 to Rs 17.33 lakh crore in FY23.

Addressing the CII's PSE summit here, the minister said that the contribution of CPSEs to the national exchequer - through excise duties, taxes, and dividends - has more than doubled, rising from Rs 2.20 lakh crore in FY14 to Rs 4.58 lakh crore in FY23.

He also highlighted that the net profit of profit-making CPSEs grew by 87 per cent, from Rs 1.29 lakh crore in FY14 to Rs 2.41 lakh crore in FY23. Furthermore, the total market capitalisation of all 81 listed PSEs has grown by 225 per cent under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, outpacing both the PSE index and the BSE Sensex over the past decade.

The minister praised the resilience and performance of the PSEs over the last decade, noting that their contributions have been integral to India's economic stability and progress.

"As we look to the future, the next few years will be critical in laying the groundwork for India's next leap forward," he said.

The Minister outlined a vision for India's energy sector, emphasising three key principles: availability, affordability, and sustainability.

"Sustainability is the cornerstone of our energy strategy and aligns directly with our larger vision of transforming PSEs into engines of sustainable growth," he said.

As an example of India's focus on sustainability, Puri highlighted the significant progress in bioethanol blending. "From 1.53 per cent in 2014, ethanol blending has surged to 15 per cent in 2024, with the government advancing the target of 20 per cent blending to 2025 - five years ahead of schedule," he said.

The Minister also revealed that discussions have already started on developing a roadmap for the post-2025 phase i.e. after the attainment of the 20 per cent ethanol blending target, ensuring continued growth in the bioethanol sector, and advancing India's renewable energy goals.

On the subject of fossil fuels, the Minister acknowledged that while India is steadily transitioning to cleaner energy sources, fossil fuels will continue to be part of the energy mix for the foreseeable future. He highlighted that the government's approach would be to balance the energy transition while ensuring energy security, stability, and affordability for all citizens.

Puri also highlighted the major reforms in the Exploration and Production (E&P) sector, which have opened up significant new areas for oil and gas exploration. "We have reduced No-Go areas in Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) by 99%, allowing for the largest-ever offering of 1,36,596 square kilometres in a single bid round under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP). Of these, 13 blocks, covering 51,405 square kilometres, were previously classified as 'No-Go' areas," he said.
Imphal, Nov 14 : Manipur BJP chief Adhikarimayum Sharda Devi on Thursday urged the abductors to release the three women and three children, who were reportedly kidnapped by the militants in Jiribam district on November 11.

Terming the abduction of six members of a family from Jakuradhor as the most unfortunate, the BJP leader urged the extremists to release the innocent villagers without any harm on humanitarian grounds.

"We from the BJP appeal to them (militants) to release the children and women at the earliest," Sharda Devi told the media at the BJP office.

Strongly condemning the violence against innocent people by the militants, she said that the recent escalation of violence shocked everyone and disturbed the peace process undertaken by the government.

Referring to their meeting with state Governor Lakshman Prasad Acharya, Sharda Devi said that the Governor also directed the security officials to take action against the militants and rescue the captives.

Former Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, other Congress leaders and the party's Lok Sabha Member from Manipur Angomcha Bimol Akoijam also separately urged the militants to release the children and women and requested the government to take appropriate steps to rescue the hapless persons.

A five-member delegation of Congress led by Singh met the Governor and requested him to ask the government to take all-out efforts to rescue the kidnapped people.

In all 13 civil society organisations observed a 24-hour total shutdown in valley regions on Tuesday and Wednesday to protest the reported "abduction" of six people, belonging to the Meitei community.

The Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), the apex body of the Meitei community, also demanded immediate "rescue" of the six untraced people, alleging negligence by both state and central forces leading to the abduction.

The Manipur Commission for Protection of Child Rights (MCPCR) demanding the release of the women and children, has also urgently called upon all communities, stakeholders, and agencies engaged in the ongoing conflict in Manipur to undeniably respect and safeguard the right to life and every fundamental rights, dignity and safety of innocent children and women.

Police said that in the November 11 encounter with the CRPF 10 Kuki militants were killed and the militants kidnapped 10 people, all inmates of a relief camp at Jakuradhor in Jiribam district.

The Inspector General of Police (Operations), Manipur, I.K. Muivah, said that during the search operations after the incident in Jakuradhor village, where several houses were also burnt down by the armed militants, two bodies of elderly civilians -- Maibam Kesho Singh (75) and Laishram Barel (61) -- were found.

He said that another person was found alive and rescued and another civilian came back on his own to the police station.

Hectic search operations are underway to rescue three women and three children, the IGP said.
Panvel, Nov 14 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused the Congress party of being a pioneer in the politics of vote banks and also an enemy of the poor.

He further targeted the Congress over the announcement by its leader from Jharkhand to give free cylinders to Rohingyas and Bangladeshis by playing a game with the country to get votes.

"While they are questioning us on providing free ration to the poor, one of the leaders of Congress from Jharkhand has announced to give free cylinders to Hindus, Muslims and infiltrators too. They are openly announcing to give free cylinders to Rohingyas and Bangladeshis. It's a prime example of how they are playing a game with the country and the future of your children to get votes. Therefore, we need to keep in mind that Congress is a pioneer in the politics of vote banks and they are also enemies of the poor," said PM Modi in his address at the poll rally for BJP and MahaYuti candidates.

He further added that it is, therefore, the responsibility of the poor to stop Congress, adding that they (Congress) say why the 25 crore people who have come out of poverty are getting free ration.

"Congress wants the expenses of these people to increase so that they go back into poverty. If the Aghadi people get a chance, they will do the same in Maharashtra," said the Prime Minister.

PM Modi alleged that the Congress governments did not have the intention that the poor should come forward and demand their rights.

"That is why even today Congress vehemently opposes every welfare scheme for the poor. That's why my poor man could not come out of the difficulties of life. Even after 70 years of independence, most of the people in the country are still struggling to get food, clothing and shelter," he said.

PM Modi said that Congress has always worked on the agenda of keeping the poor poor, adding that generations after generations of these people kept giving the false slogan of eradicating poverty but in the name of the slogan of eradicating poverty, Congress has looted poor.

The Prime Minister said that the situation has changed for the first time in the last 10 years, adding that for the first time, a government has brought 25 crore people out of poverty.

"Today, the policies of the MahaYuti government are becoming the strength of the exploited and the deprived. The work that was done in 10 years could have been done earlier also," he added.

PM Modi exhorted the people to re-elect the MahaYuti, saying that Maharashtra will become the most important growth engine of developed India.

"This entire area of Panvel-Raigad is rich in marine wealth. The government is empowering the coastal economy and working for our fisherman brothers and sisters," he said, adding, "Development of Maharashtra is the first priority for the BJP and MahaYurti government. We are working with the aim of a bright future for Maharashtra. We have brought to reality the tasks that previous governments had made impossible."
Bengaluru, Nov 14 : Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar on Thursday defended Chief Minister Siddaramaiah over his claims of buying the MLAs and toppling the state government, saying that the BJP is luring the Congress MLAs with a 50 crore offer to bring down the Congress government in the state.

"The BJP has spoken to our MLAs about Operation Lotus. They are luring them with Rs 50 crore each. Some of the MLAs reported the incident to the Chief Minister which he (Siddaramaiah) also shared with the media persons," said the Deputy Chief Minister.

Earlier, Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara also said that Opposition parties BJP and JD-S are trying to bring down the Congress government in the state.

"It has become habitual for them to make offers to MLAs. In Maharashtra, people say that the BJP had bought 42 MLAs with money. They brought down the government there and formed their government afterwards. They have done it here as well in the past and they are also trying to do it now," the Karnataka Home Minister said.

He added that the people will decide over this attempt of BJP and JD-S to bring down the government. "They won't turn a blind eye to the development. They might be misled sometimes and we will also go before the community and convey things. The people won't accept them easily and they will reject them. We are not worried about this. We will not let the government get destabilised and brought down. However, in a democracy, these kinds of developments should not take place," he said.

Parameshwara said that the government has got such a huge mandate and it won't look good if they try to bring it down.

"If there are flaws from our side, let them go to the people and expose us. In a democracy, this is not a good development," he said.

Earlier, Siddaramaiah alleged that the BJP is involved in a bribery operation known as 'Operation Kamala'. He claimed that the BJP is planning to bribe 50 MLAs with Rs 50 crore each.

Meanwhile, former BJP National General Secretary and MLC C.T. Ravi has challenged Siddaramaiah to substantiate his accusations against the BJP with evidence, asserting that he has made baseless allegations.
The Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation (UCF) approved six priority areas for 2025, which will determine the activities of the institution during the next grant season.

According to the UCF, the first area concerns the role of culture during war and involves the creation of cultural products that reflect the challenges of wartime and promote social unity.

It is noted that the second area is designed to ensure barrier-free access to cultural practices, support mental recovery, as well as inclusive working conditions in the cultural and creative industries.

"The third direction combines the digitalization of objects in frontline and de-occupied regions, decolonization of collections, support for the Ukrainian language and commemorative practices. The fourth direction involves the development of culture at the local level, which helps support cultural initiatives in the regions and attract Ukrainians to the cultural space," the statement says.

As for the fifth direction, it focuses on the development and support of the cultures of national minorities, ethnic groups and indigenous peoples of Ukraine, promoting their harmonious coexistence.

"The last direction includes the creation of programs to support artists, cultural figures and the development of creative industries and human capital as a form of resistance to Russian aggression," the Foundation added.

It is noted that the Foundation's priorities are a value framework that sets the direction of institutional movement in 2025 and will become the basis for the development and implementation of new grant programs that will help strengthen the cultural space, support Ukrainian talents, and promote the growth and development of culture in Ukraine.
Mumbai, Nov 14 : Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan, who will be next seen in the theatrical movie 'I Want to Talk', has shared that there were no prosthetics involved, and he actually gained weight for the film.

The actor opened up about the transformative experience of playing a character with a significantly different physical appearance at the film's music launch.

Pointing to a movie poster featuring himself with a noticeable belly, Abhishek said, "I'm not in this shape anymore. But it's been a learning experience. It's been life-changing. And I hope that we've managed to make a bit of a difference to your two, three hours that you spend in the cinema or watching the film".

He further mentioned, "Don't ever put on weight for a film again. Trust me, at my age, it gets very difficult to lose it after a while".

The actor also emphasised the importance of embracing different experiences and trying something new.

He expressed his gratitude to the film's director Shoojit Sircar, and said, "What I'd like to thank Shoojit Sircar for is, and I hope you all can find some sort of parallel in your own life, you know, we're all stuck in the rut of life," the actor continued. "We're doing what we're doing, we're enjoying it. Some of us have got a corporate job, some of us are artists, some of us do whatever we do. Life dictates to you what you should be doing and how you should be doing it".

"What's nice about working with Shoojit Da and doing a film like this is once in a while you can just talk and say, 'Hey, you know, I can do something different and maybe I should try something different.' And when that works out for you, there's nothing more rewarding", he added.

Produced by Ronnie Lahiri and Shoojit Sircar under Rising Sun Films, 'I Want to Talk' is set to release in cinemas on November 22, 2024.
Washington, Nov 14 : US aerospace giant Boeing has announced that it is issuing layoff notices, starting this week, to workers as part of the debt-ridden planemaker's drastic plan to cut 17,000 jobs which works out to 10 per cent of its staff worldwide.

Washington, Nov 14 (IANS) US aerospace giant Boeing has announced that it is issuing layoff notices, starting this week, to workers as part of the debt-ridden planemakeras drastic plan to cut 17,000 jobs which works out to 10 per cent of its staff worldwide.

"As previously announced, we are adjusting our workforce levels to align with our financial reality and a more focused set of priorities," Boeing said in a statement.

"We are committed to ensuring our employees have support during this challenging time."

US staff receiving the notices this week will stay on Boeing's payroll until January to comply with federal requirements that make it mandatory to give workers 60 days' notice before ending their employment. The notices have been issued against the backdrop of the revival plan for Boeing put in place by new CEO Kelly Ortberg to get the production of its 737 MAX going which came to a halt due to the long strike by more than 33,000 US West Coast workers of the aerospace giant.

Sales of the MAX are the main contributors to the companyas revenue which raised over $24 billion last month to keep its operations going and ensure that its investment grade rating remains intact as rating agencies have already expressed concern over the issue.

Boeing came under a cloud in January this year after a door panel blew off a brand-new 737 MAX jet in mid-flight. The companyas production was impacted as regulators imposed restrictions to ensure safety.

The long-drawn strike of workers in the US also took a heavy toll as the production ground to a halt. The incident took place just when Boeing was trying to step up production after years of crisis following two fatal crashes due to a software glitch in the 737 MAX and the coronavirus pandemic. With the companyas brand taking a hit, a new CEO was hired to introduce changes, restore the aerospace giantas image, and revive production. Boeingas US West Coast factory workers have accepted a new contract offer, ending a bitter seven-week strike that halted most jet production and deepened a financial crisis at the troubled aircraft manufacturer.
Patna/New Delhi, Nov 14 : A Food Corporation of India (FCI) manager was on Friday sentenced by a Special CBI Court in Patna to two-and-a-half years of Rigorous Imprisonment (RI), along with a fine of Rs 30,000, in a bribe case dating back to 2010.

Patna/New Delhi, Nov 14 (IANS) A Food Corporation of India (FCI) manager was on Friday sentenced by a Special CBI Court in Patna to two-and-a-half years of Rigorous Imprisonment (RI), along with a fine of Rs 30,000, in a bribe case dating back to 2010.

Special CBI Judge-I, Patna, sentenced Nagendra Prasad Singh, then manager (general) of Food Corporation of India, Muzaffarpur, to two-and-a-half years of Rigorous Imprisonment (RI).

The CBI registered the case on March 19, 2010, against the convict on a complaint received by the agency.

It was alleged in the complaint that the FCI manager had demanded a bribe of Rs 5,000 from the complainant, from Daudnagar in Aurangabad district, for passing bills.

The federal agency laid a trap and caught the accused red-handed while demanding and accepting Rs 5,000 from the complainant.

After the completion of the investigation, a chargesheet was filed by the CBI on September 28, 2010, against the accused, a statement said.

The court, after trial, found the accused guilty and sentenced him accordingly.

Earlier in a separate case in Gujarat, a Special CBI court in Ahmedabad sentenced an ONGC official to three yearsa Rigorous Imprisonment (RI) along with fine a of Rs 25 lakh for possession of disproportionate assets.

Kishanram Hiralal Sonkar, the then Manager, of F&A, ONGC, Ankleshwar Asset, was accused by the CBI of amassing disproportionate assets during his four-year tenure in the office from 2002 to 2006.

The CBI had registered the corruption case on June 29, 2006, against Sonkar, said a statement.

The probe agency alleged in its FIR that while working as Manager, F&A, ONGC, Ankleshwar Asset, Ankleshwa, Sonkar accumulated assets to the tune of Rs 14.11 lakh between 2002 and 2006.

The investigating agency alleged that during his service, between October 1, 2002, and June 21, 2006, the assets amassed by him were 84 per cent more than his known source of income, raising doubts about corrupt practices.
New Delhi/Imphal, Nov 14 : Amid the escalating violence, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Thursday reimposed the stringent Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 six police station areas of five Manipur districts, including the recent violence-hit Jiribam, to give more powers to the army and paramilitary forces to take stringent action against the militants and other armed cadres.

New Delhi/Imphal, Nov 14 (IANS) Amid the escalating violence, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Thursday reimposed the stringent Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 six police station areas of five Manipur districts, including the recent violence-hit Jiribam, to give more powers to the army and paramilitary forces to take stringent action against the militants and other armed cadres.

The MHA notification said that the security situation in Manipur has been further reviewed in consultation with the stakeholders and it is noted that the situation continues to remain volatile amidst ongoing ethnic violence in the state.

"Intermittent firing in violence-prone areas continues in the fringe areas of Bishnupur-Churachandpur, Imphal East-Kangpokpi-Imphal West, and Jirihan districts with several instances of active participation of insurgent groups in heinous acts of violence. .....the Central government is of the opinion that imposition of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 in six police stations of 5 districts in Manipur is warranted to carry out well-coordinated operations by the security forces to maintain the security situation and contain the activities of insurgent groups in these areas," the notification said.

The AFSPA gives armed forces operating in disturbed areas sweeping powers to search, arrest and open fire if they deem it necessary for the "maintenance of public order".

The six police stations, where the AFSPA was reimposed on Thursday include Moirang in Bishnupur district, Lamlai in Imphal East district, Jiribam in Jiribam district, Leimakhong in Kangpokpi district, and Sekmai and Lamsang, both in Imphal West district.

The Manipur government in October extended the promulgation of the AFSPA in the entire state, except in the jurisdiction of 19 police stations in seven districts of the Imphal Valley, for another six months with effect from October 1. These six police stations were out of the purview of the AFSPA in the Manipur government order.

After a series of incidents of violence in different districts of Manipur, the CRPF, on November 11, shot dead 10 suspected Kuki militants in an encounter and the militants kidnapped 10 people, all inmates of a relief camp at Jakuradhor in Jiribam district.

Meanwhile, the MHA has also provided an additional 20 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to deal with the prevailing law and order situation.

A top Manipur Home Department official said that the 20 companies of CAPF (around 1,700 to 1,800 personnel) arrived in the state on Wednesday and Thursday and they would be deployed in militancy-affected districts.

According to the MHA communication - accessed by IANS - to the Manipur Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, and Director General of Police, out of the 20 companies of CAPF, 15 will be from the CRPF and five of the BSF.

The AFSPA was in force in militancy-hit areas of Manipur (except the Imphal municipality area) from 2004 to early 2022. In April 2022, the Manipur government issued a notification clarifying that the AFSPA no longer be required in seven police station areas of Imphal West district, four police station areas under the Imphal East district, and one police station area each in the districts of Thoubal, Bishnupur, Kakching, and Jiribam.

Manipur has 16 districts comprising non-tribal-dominated Meitei Valley region and tribal-inhabited mountainous areas. There have been protests and demands by various political parties and civil society organisations for the complete repeal and withdrawal of AFSPA from the entire northeast region as these organisations termed the law as "draconian" provisions. Manipuras rights activist Irom Chanu Sharmila fought against the AFSPA by observing a hunger strike for 16 years, before ending it on August 9, 2016.
Kolkata, Nov 14 : In a major joint operation by the Special Task Force (STF) of West Bengal Police have busted two major cross-border rackets of counterfeit currencies and narcotics.

According to the Malda district police superintendent Pradip Kumar Yadav, in the first case, two persons were arrested in joint operations by STF sleuths and cops of Kaliachak Police Station, along with fake currencies of Rs 500-denomination valued at Rs 1,00,000.

The two persons arrested in this connection are Biplab Mondal (25) and Asim Mondal (51) both residents of Kalichak.

"Recently, the district police have seized several counterfeit currencies in different parts of the district. We doubt these two arrested persons have a connection with those since there are synergies in the serial numbers of the fake currencies recovered from them as well as those recovered earlier," Yadav said on Thursday.

Claiming that the printing quality of the counterfeit currencies seized from them was of extremely high standards and it seemed that they were printed elsewhere before being brought to Malda.

In a separate joint operation by the STF sleuths and the cops of Gazole Police station, Yadav added, two persons have been arrested with huge quantities of raw materials for the manufacture of brown sugar.

The two persons arrested in this connection have been identified as Mahesh Sarkar (31) and Ratan Debnath (53) and both are residents of the north-eastern state of Tripura.

"The estimated value of the raw materials seized is around Rs 50 lakhs. The two have admitted that their assignment was to take those items to Nadia district," he said.

Meanwhile, district police sources said that the arrested persons in both the counterfeit currency and narcotics rackets are parts of major border rackets.

Malda district with its border with neighbouring Bangladesh has come to the news a number of times for local people from there being involved in cross-border crimes, especially counterfeit currency rackets.
Bhopal, Nov 14 : The BJP and Congress on Thursday demanded action after a statue of B. R. Ambedkar was vandalised in the Vijaypur Assembly segment of Sheopur district in Madhya Pradesh, shortly after the voting for bypolls concluded.

The incident sparked outrage in Dalit Dalit-populated village of Gohta, prompting police to deploy forces to bring the situation under control. The vandalisation resulted following a dispute between two groups, police said on Thursday.

"Information was received about a dispute between two parties in village Gohta under police station Vijaypur area. A police team reached the spot immediately and brought the situation under control," Sheopur SP Virendra Jain said on Thursday.

Jain informed that police personnel were still deployed in the village to avoid any further untoward incidents and to maintain peace in Gohta village.

However, he denied any vandalism in the houses of Dalit families, saying, "No complaint has been made to the police in this regard. No person has suffered any kind of injury in the incident nor has any information been received about any casualty. The police force is available on the spot," Jain added.

However, the opposition Congress maintained that houses of Dalits were ransacked by a group of miscreants and announced to stage a protest on November 18.

The state BJP unit has also demanded action against those who vandalised Ambedkar's statue.

"There is no place for hooliganism in the BJP government and those who vandalised Ambedkar's statue will be punished as per the law," the BJP maintained.
Patna, Nov 14 : Bihar Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday attacked Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for its failure to secure special status and a special package for Bihar from the Central government.

Yadav highlighted that despite Bihar's significant contribution of MPs to the formation of the central government, the state has not received the long-demanded special status, which is intended to address underdevelopment and economic challenges.

"Bihar has contributed a maximum number of MPs for the formation of the central government, but the Narendra Modi government has failed to grant special status to Bihar," Yadav remarked.

He urged Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to engage directly with Prime Minister Modi on this matter, expressing disappointment at the lack of progress.

Additionally, Yadav pointed to the caste-based survey conducted by the Bihar government as an example of proactive measures taken at the state level to address social and economic inequalities.

"The Central government has failed to conduct a nationwide caste-based census or even a general census," he said.

Responding to BJP's claims that Congress, JMM, and RJD have exploited Jharkhand's resources, Tejashwi Yadav has accused several leaders within the NDA, including Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and certain leaders in Maharashtra, of their alleged corruption, stating that their association with the NDA protects them from scrutiny.

He argued that corruption charges seem to be ignored or overlooked when it involves NDA members.

Yadav expressed confidence in his alliance, affirming that Hemant Soren will be re-elected as the Chief Minister of Jharkhand.

In reaction to Yadav's statements, Rajya Sabha MP Upendra Kushwaha countered by highlighting recent budget allocations from the central government, which he claims have provided substantial infrastructure funding specifically for Bihar.

"The leaders from other states even remarked that the union budget seemed to prioritise Bihar, suggesting that the Central government is attentive to the state's needs. Yadav's demands for a caste-based census and a special package lack substance, as the Central government is already investing in Bihar's development," Kushwaha said.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi was warmly received by ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) monks upon his arrival in Panvel, Maharashtra, on Thursday.

In a heartwarming display of devotion, ISKCON volunteers welcomed the Prime Minister with the chanting of "Hare Rama, Hare Krishna". PM Modi also joined in by playing the cymbals. This added a special spiritual touch to the moment. He also visited the temple and had a brief interaction with the monks present there.

The event highlighted the deep connection between the Prime Minister and the ISKCON movement, spotlighting the significance of spirituality and cultural heritage.

During his visit, PM Modi's gesture of solidarity with the ISKCON monks was seen widely as a sign of his care and commitment to their well-being.

The Prime Minister's appearance among the monks in Panvel was viewed as a message of protection and reassurance for the ISKCON community, both in India and abroad.

Many believe that PM Modi's public support for ISKCON sends a clear signal that India stands with them, no matter where they carry out their religious practice. This highlighted the nation's commitment to safeguarding religious freedoms worldwide.

This display of unity comes in the wake of a troubling incident in August, when an ISKCON temple in Meherpur, located in Bangladesh's Khulna division, was vandalised and set on fire amidst unrest in the country following the resignation of then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The attack was part of a broader wave of violence targeting Hindu temples across Bangladesh, with the Meherpur temple being completely destroyed.

In response to the attacks, India had expressed strong condemnation. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) then called the incidents "deplorable" and urged the Bangladesh government to take immediate action to protect the safety of Hindus and other minorities.

PM Modi personally monitored the situation, stressing that the safety and security of religious communities, particularly Hindus, should be a priority for the Bangladeshi government.

Experts believe that by spending time with the ISKCON members in Panvel, PM Modi not only reinforced his government's commitment to protecting religious groups but also sent a broader message of international solidarity.

--IANS

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Hyderabad, Nov 14 : Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Thursday called for lowering, to 21 years, the age limit for contesting Assembly elections, saying youth will actively join politics and serve the people to their full potential.

The Chief Minister was speaking at the childrenas mock Assembly organised here by school students on the occasion of Childrenas Day, which marks the birth anniversary of the first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

Revanth Reddy lauded the mock Assembly for passing a resolution to lower the minimum age eligibility to contest elections and suggested that they send the resolution to the President and the Prime Minister.

"The age limit for voting was reduced from 21 years to 18 years but the minimum age eligibility for contesting the elections was not lowered. This law should also be amended so that youth who are aged 21 can also contest the elections," he said.

The Chief Minister said this move would help enhance the representation of youth in the legislature.

"Those aged 21 are discharging their duties as IAS and IPS officers. I strongly believe that at the age of 21, youth can also work efficiently as legislators," he said.

Referring to the mock Assembly, he said that such productive meetings are necessary for society. He suggested students pay more attention to the questions raised by the members of the Assembly and the answers given by the government.

"Opposition parties have the responsibility of questioning and exposing the government. Equal opportunities are being given to both the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly. The Speaker has the responsibility to run the House efficiently," he said.

Revanth Reddy said that the government should run the house in a coordinated manner despite the opposition creating a ruckus.

"It is unfortunate that some forces have been trying to stall the proceedings these days," he said.

Paying tributes to the former Prime Minister, he said Jawaharlal Nehru introduced a revolution in the education and agriculture sectors. He said Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh worked hard to implement compulsory education in the country. He mentioned that the credit for lowering the voting right to 18 goes to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : The Supreme Court on Thursday granted protection from arrest to retired IAS officer Anil Tuteja in connection with an FIR registered in Uttar Pradesh linked to the alleged Rs 2,000 crore Chhattisgarh liquor scam.

In July 2023, an FIR was registered in Uttar Pradesh against Tuteja and several others over the issue of duplicate holograms after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) shared information, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, with the UP Special Task Force. The ED had discovered that a Noida-based company was illegally granted a tender to supply holograms to the Chhattisgarh Excise Department.

A bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and A.G. Masih issued notice on Tutejaas plea against the Allahabad High Court decision refusing to quash the criminal case lodged in Uttar Pradesh.

The apex court posted the matter for further hearing on January 21, 2025, and in the meantime, ordered interim protection for Tuteja.

On October 4, the Allahabad HC had declined to accept the contention that the statements made before the ED could never be used for initiation of criminal cases. Refusing to interfere with the FIR which "disclosed the commission of the cognisable offence", it had said that the petitioners can always avail the remedy before the competent court of law for bail/anticipatory bail.

In April this year, the Supreme Court had quashed a money laundering complaint filed by the ED against Tuteja, Yash Tuteja, Anwar Dhebar, and others based on a charge sheet filed by the Income Tax Department. It had ruled that the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) could not be attracted since there exists no prima facie scheduled offence under the PMLA.

The ED had termed retired IAS official Tuteja, known to be close to then Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, as the mastermind behind the alleged liquor scam. Further, it had claimed that a criminal syndicate -- comprising high-level state government officials, private individuals, and politicians -- was operating in Chhattisgarh, which was involved in illegal bribe collection by exerting control over government departments.
Ten points of the Internal Plan, in particular, on energy, security and cultural sovereignty, will be presented next week, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

"Ten points that will be presented next week. And we, together with the Ukrainian civil society, together with all those who are ready to suggest rational ideas and with business, we will draw up in fact a basic doctrinal document for Ukraine, for our resilience. With clear provisions. Step by step. On how we will use our internal capabilities for the sake of our Ukrainian victory," he said in a video address on Thursday evening.

According to the head of state, several points of the internal plan were considered today. In particular, cultural sovereignty  everything "related to cultural heritage of Ukraine, and modern culture, and cultural diplomacy." He noted that culture is an element of building Ukraine's relations with the global world as there are things "that neither politicians, nor public activists, no media landscape" are able to convey to the others, white the arts can do this.

In addition, a point of the Internal Plan on security in each region and community of Ukraine was considered today.

"The Interior Ministry and the Security Service of Ukraine have good developments. We will implement all of them," Zelenskyy said.

He also noted that the items on energy and weapons, including production and cooperation with partners, were also studied today.
Shillong, Nov 14 : Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Thursday attended the seaplane demonstration held in Umiam Lake in Shillong.

The event was organised by the Meghalaya government's transport department in collaboration with the Union government's Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Speaking at the occasion, Sangma, said: "In the late 90s to the mid-2000, as a budding entrepreneur, I travelled to various parts of the northeastern region of the country which is about a 20-hour journey by bus to state capitals particularly to Kohima, Imphal and other places to build up my business. I realised the gap of connectivity and challenges which I had faced then and when we came to the government in 2018, aviation became a key component for upgradation and change."

He further said: "With the introduction of the UDAN scheme in 2008 it became a major game changer in terms of connectivity for India and particularly for the state of Meghalaya and the northeastern region in general. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made it a point to connect the regional headquarters to other smaller states and we have seen this unprecedented change in the last eight years. Now we can travel in an hour's time to the other northern state capitals by air and has seen a significant change and growth in trade and connectivity."

Sangma stated that he was informed that it takes 200 metres of waterbody and 5 metres of depth for seaplanes to land and take off.

"With the terrain and landscape of Meghalaya this will be conducive as water bodies can be created as we receive adequate rainfall," he added.

He said it would be cost-effective as it would take an amount of 15 lakhs approximately to build a dam for landing rather than building a runway for an airport.

The Chief Minister also informed that a reservoir in Tura to curb water scarcity is being built and in the next few years would be in line for seaplanes to land as well.

He said: "We have faced significant challenges for the Umroi airport and are pushing for the expansion of the runway for mid-sized aircraft like the Airbus A320 to take off and land. We have been able to sustain connectivity to Delhi but want to expand that network. We are also keen to operationalise the Baljek Airport in Tura and I am sure with the support of the Aviation Ministry this would become a reality."

Speaking about the impact of the seaplane demonstration, the Chief Minister said that the seaplane would be meaningless if it is not connected to a whole ecosystem which needs to be developed particularly tourism, trade and commerce, connectivity etc.

--IANS

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Chennai, Nov 14 : The Madras High Court has refused to grant custody of a partially paralysed infant monkey to a veterinarian who had been caring for it over the past ten months.

A bench of Justice C.V. Karthikeyan rejected the petition by veterinarian V. Valliappan, stating that the monkey is considered government property and therefore cannot be exclusively owned by the petitioner.

Justice Karthikeyan had previously permitted Valliappan to visit the monkey at the Arignar Anna Zoological Park, where it is currently housed.

Valliappan, accompanied by his daughter and his advocate, visited the monkey at the zoo on November 9. Speaking to the media afterwards, he noted that although the monkey appeared excited to see and hear him, zoo authorities did not permit him to touch the animal.

While granting permission to the veterinarian to visit the infant monkey, the judge had indicated that a decision regarding the veterinarianas plea for interim custody would be made after receiving reports on the interaction between Valliappan and the monkey.

He further told Special Government Pleader T. Srinivasan that cases involving human-animal bonds should be handled with sensitivity.

Valliappanas counsel, Advocate R. Sankarasubbu, informed the court that his client had been caring for the monkey from December 4, 2023, to October 26 this year, after it sustained injuries from dog bites.

At this, Justice Karthikeyan expressed an interest in determining whether the monkey could recognise Valliappan, as it had been two weeks since their separation. He also directed the government counsel to submit relevant regulations concerning the interim custody of animals by individual caretakers.

In his affidavit, Valliappan claimed that he encountered the injured monkey at a dog sterilisation camp in Sholingur Municipality, Ranipet district. After discovering that the monkey had multiple dog bites and was paralysed below the waist, he took it under his care, providing medical treatment and nutrition.

Although the monkey has shown significant recovery, it remains unable to function independently, Valliappan said. He also alleged that the Forest Department officials removed the monkey from his care last month and transferred it to the zoo without adequately considering its welfare.
New Delhi, Nov 14 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to embark on a three-nation tour of Nigeria, Brazil, and Guyana, starting from November 16-21.

PM Modi's trip will begin with a Nigeria visit from November 16-17, at the invitation of Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. This will mark the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Nigeria in the last 17 years, thereby underscoring the importance of bilateral ties between the two nations.

Meanwhile, the Indian High Commission in Nigeria has shared a video on the social media platform X, showing locals' enthusiasm and love for the Hindi language. In the video, the people of Nigeria are seen welcoming PM Modi in Hindi and saying that they are looking forward to his visit.

The heart-warming messages and greetings in Hindi from scores of Nigerians have also drawn the attention of the Prime Minister, as he took to social media and said the enthusiasm shown by the Hindi lovers of Nigeria has touched his heart.

Reposting the video, PM Modi wrote, "The way Hindi lovers in Nigeria have shown enthusiasm for my visit there is heart touching! I am very excited about this trip."

In the video, a Nigerian man is saying poetically that happiness is spreading in the sky.

"It will be a special day, we have a special guest coming to our place. It is our good fortune to warmly welcome and congratulate the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi on his visit to Nigeria," he says in Hindi.

Another Nigerian resident says that PM Modi is not only a popular leader in India but also the best leader in the world.

"It is a matter of great pride and joy for us to have you here. We all happily welcome you to Nigeria with open arms. We hope that your visit will strengthen the economy and relations between India and Nigeria," he says in the viral video.

The video is getting good traction on social media, with many liking and commenting on the viral post.
Kolkata, Nov 14 : The framing of charges in the multi-crore coal smuggling case in West Bengal, the process of which has started at a special CBI court at Asansol in West Burdwan district, is expected to be completed on November 25, following which the trial will start.

Before the start of the trial, there will be one additional hearing on November 18 when the judge of the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court will hear some arguments from the counsels of some of the accused individuals in the case.

On Monday, the CBI counsel tabled the official proposal for framing of charges in the case and also submitted some relevant documents in the matter to the court. The judge of the special court accepted the proposal.

The CBI counsel also updated the court on the various sections under which the different accused persons in the case have been charged. At that point, the counsels of some of the accused persons in the case objected to certain sections under which charges have been framed against their clients.

Thereafter the judge of the special court decided that there would be a hearing in the matter on November 18, when he will listen to arguments of the counsels of the accused in the matter.

A total of 50 persons were named in the charge sheet by the CBI in the case. Out of them, the prime accused and Trinamool Congress leader Vinay Mishra is still absconding. One employee of Eastern Coalfields Ltd, who was also named in the charge sheet, died during the interim period. So on November 25, the process of framing of charges will be concluded for 48 persons. There are a total of 396 witnesses in the case. The CBI had submitted a total of three charge sheets in the case.
Bengaluru, Nov 14 : Karnataka High Court on Thursday granted interim relief to BJP National Yuva Morcha President and Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya, staying the proceedings filed by the Haveri Police over a social media post concerning the suicide of a farmer in Haveri allegedly after taking over of his property by the Waqf board.

The petition was filed by Surya seeking to quash the FIR, maintaining that the allegations lacked basis and were politically motivated.

The bench headed by Justice M. Nagaprasanna, after reviewing the initial arguments, granted an interim stay on the proceedings, also pausing further action against Surya in this case.

Senior Advocate Aruna Shyam, appearing on behalf of Surya, pointed out that the Karnataka Revenue Department had allegedly unilaterally amended land records, inserting the Karnataka Waqf Board's name in place of farmers' ownership across multiple districts.

He submitted that the changes triggered widespread anxiety and protests from affected farmers, prompting the Karnataka government to announce the reversal of these entries and withdraw related notices.

The senior counsel further added that Surya, as a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, had recently visited Vijayapura along with the JPC Chairman Jagdambika Pal to meet farmers facing Waqf-related land issues.

During these visits, Surya learned of a news report regarding a farmer, Rudrappa, who had reportedly taken his own life in Haveri due to a Waqf Board land claim on his family's property. Surya shared this news on X, expressing concern over the challenges facing Karnataka's farmers.

Shortly after the tweet, the Superintendent of Police, Haveri, issued a clarification on social media that Rudrappa's suicide, reported in January 2022, was due to loan and crop loss issues rather than any Waqf land claim.

Upon this clarification, Surya deleted the post and emphasised his commitment to ensuring accurate information, reaffirming his dedication to actively addressing the concerns of Karnataka's farmers.

The FIR was filed by the Cybercrime, Economic Offences, Narcotics (CEN) police in Haveri district of Karnataka against Surya.

The case has been booked under Section 353(2) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita  2023.

The FIR stated: "Tejasvi Surya on his social media handle stated that a 'farmer in Haveri commits suicide after finding his land taken over by the Waqf. In their haste to appease minorities, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Minister Zameer Khan have unleashed catastrophic effects in Karnataka that are becoming impossible to contain with every passing day,' which was based on a false report by Kannada Duniya e-paper."
New Delhi, Nov 14 : Amid acrimonious scenes, AAP councillor Mahesh Kumar Khichi, from Dev Nagar ward, was on Thursday elected the new Delhi mayor, beating his BJP rival Kishan Lal in a tightly fought 133-130 vote contest.

AAP's Ravindra Bhardwaj was elected unopposed to the post of Deputy Mayor as BJP councillor Neeta Bisht withdrew her nomination at the last minute.

The election held after a delay of about seven months was seen as a high-stakes battle ahead of the Assembly elections in February. The Congress did not take part in voting and staged a walkout to protest against a truncated tenure  five months instead of a full year- for a Dalit mayor.

This year the mayor's election was open only to candidates from reserved categories.

Soon after his election, Mayor Khichi said: "I would like to thank former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and all councillors and everyone who helped me win. I assure you that I will work on issues and needs of people."

The new mayor will have a truncated term and serve till March 2025. Normally, a mayor is elected in April but the current elections have been delayed due to a disagreement over procedures to be followed for the appointment of the presiding officer. The outgoing mayor Shelly Oberoi is from the AAP.

As per the provisions of the DMC, all councillors were barred from bringing mobile phones to the House. The last mayoral elections in September witnessed acrimony as the AAP boycotted it in protest against the frisking of its councillors.

The election was presided over by BJP councillor and former East Corporation Mayor Satya Sharma, who was appointed by Lieutenant Governor V.K. Saxena to oversee the exercise.

The Congress, which has seven councillors, boycotted the mayoral election. The party had stayed away from the previous elections as well.

The decision was criticised by AAP councillor Shagufta Choudhry. "This is unacceptable. Till last month they were demanding the early election of a Dalit mayor. But today, on election day, you decide to boycott the process," Choudhry told IANS.

In a dramatic development ahead of voting, Congress councillor Sabila Begam resigned from the party to support the AAP candidate. She said boycotting the mayoral election would indirectly help the BJP.

Earlier, the municipal secretary issued a circular on Wednesday stating: "In exercise of powers conferred upon him under section 77 (a) of Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) Act, LG has nominated Satya Sharma, a member of MCD, to preside over the meeting to be held for the election of the mayor on November 14."

By virtue of the nomination of seven Lok Sabha MPs, three Rajya Sabha MPs and 14 Delhi legislators to the municipal House, the AAP enjoys the support of 142 members, BJP has 122 votes and Congress seven. There is one independent, besides one vacant seat.

In the 250-member MCD House, the AAP had won 134 seats in 2022. However, since then the party's representation has come down to 125. The AAP won a majority in the MCD House in December 2022, ending the BJP's 15-year rule.

In the previous mayor elections in September 2023, The L-G's nomination of 10 aldermen was also objected to by the AAP as it saw the move to favour the BJP. As per the DMC Act, 10 people over the age of 25, who possess special experience in municipal administration, can be nominated to the civic body by the administrator or the L-G. They are expected to assist the civic House in decision-making.
Amaravati, Nov 14 : The YSR Congress Party has formed district-wise special teams to extend support to its social media activists facing "illegal" detentions and arrests.

On the directions of party President and former Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, the party formed special teams to provide legal assistance, offer reassurance, and boost their confidence through personal interaction and support, the party said.

The teams will work in coordination with party leaders, district representatives, and the legal cell in their respective districts to ensure effective action. The teams have been constituted for 12 districts. Each team comprises two leaders.

An MP, two MLCs, and former ministers are among those included in the teams. The move comes amid the police crackdown on the YSRCP social media activists for their alleged derogatory posts against Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan and their family members.

According to the party, police have given notices to 680 social media activists, filed 147 cases, and arrested 49 persons.

Meanwhile, Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed his concern over the attack on Narreddy Lakshma Reddy by TDP goons in Julakallu village of Piduguralla Mandal, Palnadu district.

He spoke to Lakshma Reddy over the phone, enquiring about the incident and assuring him that YSRCP stands firmly in his support. He also spoke to Dr Chintalapudi Ashok Kumar at the Palnadu Hospital, where Lakshma Reddy is undergoing treatment, to understand his health condition. He instructed the medical team to provide the best possible medical care to ensure his speedy recovery.

Meanwhile, YSRCP spokesperson Ambati Rambabu slammed Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and other leaders for speaking a language that depletes the decorum of the Assembly and for resorting to character assassination of Jagan Mohan Reddy.

Addressing the media here on Thursday, he said using the occasion of Raghurama Krishna Raju being elected Deputy Speaker, the Chief Minister, his Deputy and others have used a language and conducted themselves in a way that belittles the dignity of the legislature with the sole aim of heaping baseless allegations on Jagan Mohan Reddy.

Rambabu said they spoke again and again about the alleged custodial torture of Raghurama Krishna Raju in a way and manner only to sling mud on the former Chief Minister though the Supreme Court has rejected a plea in the matter. He said the Chief Minister and others tried to show Jagan Mohan Reddy in poor light but in reality, they fear Jagan Mohan Reddy as he has over 40 per cent vote share and his popularity is growing with every passing day.
Aizawl, Nov 14 : Union Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday said that the northeast region is the vantage point and the entry point for all of South East Asian countries into the Indian sub-continent and much play a very important role in the dynamics of India's growth.

Aizawl, Nov 14 (IANS) Union Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday said that the northeast region is the vantage point and the entry point for all of South East Asian countries into the Indian sub-continent and much play a very important role in the dynamics of Indiaas growth.

After reviewing the implementation of the central projects and schemes in Mizoram with the state Chief Minister Lalduhoma, Scindia referring to the infrastructure as well the human resource development of northeast said that the region has received government funding of close to Rs 27,000 crore per annum and 10 per cent of the gross budgetary support of the 55 line Ministries which receives over one lakh five thousand crore in terms of the annual capital expenditure from the Centre.

He said that the purpose of the meeting with the Chief Minister is to jointly look at the projects of Mizoram's growth and development.

The Union Minister during the review meeting with the Chief Minister and his teams examined the progress of implementation of various schemes of the Ministry of DoNER in Mizoram.

Scindia said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there has been an immense transformation in the development of the northeast region in the last ten years.

Highlighting the overall infrastructural development of the northeastern region the DoNER Minister mentioned that highways close to over 4500 km of road have been constructed under PMGSY spending close to Rs 50,000 crore.

National highways have been drawn from 10,000 km to close to 16, 000 km, the Minister said, adding that in the northeast there were only nine airports and two states without a single airport, today there are 17 airports in the 8 states of northeast.

He said that as far as railways are concerned only one state was connected by railways but today three state capitals of the region are connected and in the near future all the state capitals will be connected by the railways.

Scindia said that 19 railway projects are undertaken in the region with an estimated amount of Rs 82,000 crore for the development of railways in the region-specific to Mizoram.

He further said that the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the investment in Mizoram has increased.

From the period of 2004 to 2014 over 10 years Mizoram received only Rs 4734 crore which means an average of less than 500 crore per year but today Mizoram has received close to Rs 33,178 crore.

In the areas of road, 910 km of national highways and close to 600 km of National highways corridors have been sanctioned with capital investment close to Rs 11465 crore and Mizoram has been connected with a broad-gauge of railway line at Bairabi in May 2016 and now work is ongoing from Bairabi to Sairang rail line projects at the cost of Rs 8213 crore.

Over 93 per cent of the 52 km project with 43 tunnels and 142 bridges has been completed.

He further highlights that Mizoram has huge potential in the civil aviation, tourism, telecommunication, horticulture and agriculture sectors.
Jaipur, Nov 14 : Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, in his address at the 105th National Jat Convention in Pushkar, Rajasthan on Thursday, expressed concern over the efforts to divide the farmer community.

"Many people are saying this, I don't know why they are saying it. However, no one in this country can divide the farmers," he said.

Describing the Jat community as an important part of the farmer community and the soul of the farmer community, he said: "The Jat community is an important part of the farmer class across the country. There is a conspiracy to divide the farmers into castes and a particular class; The heart has never been separated from the body. But we are not the heart, we are the soul, the soul of the farmer class. We have to protect this soul."

He also emphasised that the Jat community is a farmer community and the identity of brotherhood in it is the farmer, the Jat is always known by the name of farmer and people also know him as the son of a farmer.

Expressing his gratitude towards the Jat and farmer community, Dhankhar said, "The doors of my house are open 24 hours for the farmers. I am determined that the evil intentions of those who plan to divide the farmers will never succeed."

Stressing the unity of the farmers, the Vice President said: "I appeal to the farmers of the country, from this land of Pushkar, I am a soldier to solve your problems. My doors are open 24 hours a day, we will sit together and talk, we will find a solution to the problem, we belong to this country, this country is ours, we are those people who produce gold from the earth."

Dhankhar also urged the farmers to increase their participation in the marketing and trade of agricultural products.

He said, "Whatever the farmer produces, creates a lot of problems. Why should the farmer not be in the business of agriculture? I urge that the farmers should sit and worry, think, and brainstorm. They should do the trade themselves. This is a very big business."
Mumbai, Nov 14 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday targeted the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, which is a part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, for handing over its remote control to the Congress which insulted Balasaheb Thackeray.

"Mumbai is a city of Hinduhruday Samrat Balasaheb Thackeray's ideology. That is why I challenged them to get the Congress to praise Balasaheb Thackeray. To date these people have not been able to get the Congress and the prince of Congress to praise Balasaheb," PM Modi said in his address at the election rally organised for BJP and MahaYuti candidates at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Park.

"When you make Congress people praise Balasaheb Thackeray, you will get good sleep and you do not have to go to hospital. You will get the blessings of Balasaheb Thackeray. However, they have not been able to do it. This is the reality of the Aghadi," said the Prime Minister while criticising Uddhav Thackeray without directly naming him.

He added that the Uddhav Thackeray-led party has joined hands with those (Congress) who insulted Veer Savarkar.

Speaking about terror activities in Mumbai, the Prime Minister said the city has suffered from terrorism for a long time, adding that the people here have still not forgotten the wounds inflicted by terrorism.

"But over the years, a sense of security has developed in people's minds because then the government was different, today there is Modi. You have to think why terrorist incidents kept happening across the country including Mumbai during the Congress government. Everywhere you were scared of unclaimed objects. But now all this has stopped," he added.

He further stated: "Because today there is Modi government in the country and the masters of terror know that if they do anything against India, against Mumbai, then Modi will not leave them even in hell."

"Mumbai is a city that believes in connecting people. Unfortunately, the Congress and the Maha Aghadi seem focused on dividing them instead. People from all communities live in harmony in Mumbai, but the Maha Aghadi is busy inciting tensions between different castes. The Congress's Shahi parivaar harbours animosity towards Dalits, backward classes, and Scheduled Tribes. They seem desperate for power, much like a fish out of water," claimed the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister claimed that today everywhere there is only one voice that is 'BJP-MahaYuti ahe tar gati ahe Maharashtrachi Pragati ahe' (When there is BJP-MahaYuti there is speed and Maharashtra's progress).

He exhorted the people to re-elect MahaYuti to increase the pace of government unhindered and give him an opportunity to serve.

"This time I have seen the elections of Jharkhand and also the elections of Maharashtra. And I was also watching the Haryana elections a few days ago. Haryana in a way shattered all the plans of Congress and destroyed all their dreams. Whatever issues he raised, the people of Haryana gave a befitting reply to every issue. I can say that the Congress and Maha Aghadi are going to get a tougher reply in Jharkhand and Maharashtra than in Haryana," said the Prime Minister.

He also told the gathering that he has come here to invite to the MahaYuti government's swearing-in ceremony.

"The lie can't live for long, and the people of the country have rejected the lies of the Opposition. It's a matter of shame that the constitution of Babasaheb Ambedkar wasn't applied in the entire country, and Congress hid this fact. In Jammu and Kashmir, the law and the flag were different. They erected a wall of Article 370, and the constitution of India couldn't be applied there. When you gave Modi an opportunity, we buried Article 370 deep in the ground," said the Prime Minister.

He praised the MahaYuti government for the successful implementation of Ladki Bahin Yojana saying that a large number of mothers and sisters of Mumbai have also benefited from the scheme.

"Most of the houses received under the PM Awas Yojana are also in the name of female members. This has accelerated the social and economic empowerment of women," the Prime Minister said.
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) Oleksandr Syrsky has delivered a report to President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the situation at the front, particularly on the Kupyansk axis, where Ukrainian defenders worked very effectively.

"Today, there was a report by Commander-in-Chief Syrsky. As always, that's how the days starts. Not only Donetsk region, but also the Kupyansk axis. Our fighters worked very effectively there. I am grateful to all of them for durability," the head of state said in a video address on Thursday evening.

Syrsky also reported to Zelenskyy on the situation at the southern sections of the front and the Kursk operation.
Bhubaneswar, Nov 14 : The police on Thursday arrested a 31-year-old man on the charges of cheating people by impersonating an Ayurvedic doctor in the Berhampur area of Odisha's Ganjam district for the past few years.

The arrested fake doctor identified as Utpal Bala is a resident of Tinna Netajipalli village of Hooghly district in West Bengal.

Police sources on Thursday revealed that the accused, who left studies after failing the class 8 examination, worked as a food delivery boy in a hotel at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh for four years between 2016 and 2019.

Utpal later came to Berhampur city in 2019 and has since been residing in a rented house at Rampa Sahi under the Berhampur police station area.

The police also said that the accused has been running a clinic at Mitra Street in the Gate Bazar area of Berhampur since 2019.

The police have seized several display boards at the clinic such as "Krishna Piles Clinic", "Sexual Health Clinic," etc.

The police also found a wall painting advertising "GUPTA ROGA CHIKICHHALAYA, Dr. B. Utpal, B.A.M.S" written at the illegal clinic, falsely claiming to hold the B.A.M.S (Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery) degree.

Utpal has reportedly been treating diseases like piles, Aars, sexual and erectile dysfunction diseases, piles, and Fistula.

The police have reportedly seized various surgery instruments, Ayurvedic medicines, and other items during a raid at the clinic of the accused Utpal.

"He does not have any medical qualifications. He doesn't have a BAMS (Ayurvedic) or any other medical degree. But he has mentioned himself as "Dr Utpal Bala" in various sign and display boards," said Berhampur police in a press statement.

The crime came to light when a youth from Kandhamal district informed police about being cheated by Utpal.

The accused Utpal had reportedly taken Rs 12,000 from the ailing victim assuring to cure the disease a few months ago.

When the victim complained about non-recovery from the disease, Utpal again demanded Rs 12,000 from him.

Police during the investigation found that the accused Utpal had cheated several people from Ganjam and nearby districts in similar ways.

Utpal was on Thursday arrested by Berhampur police and later produced before the court.
Silchar/Imphal, Nov 14 : The Assam Police in Cachar district is on high alert after the escalating violence in the adjoining Jiribam district of Manipur.

Cachar District Superintendent of Assam Police Numal Mahatta said that in the wake of the unrest triggered by violent incidents in Manipur's Jiribam district, round-the-clock patrolling is being conducted along the Assam-Manipur inter-state borders along the Cachar District.

The police officer said that riverine uninterrupted patrolling is also being conducted.

"We have taken all necessary precautionary measures following the violent situation and ethnic strife in Jiribam. In far-flung and remote areas where there is no connectivity, Assam police are patrolling there day and night. Manipur police are assisting us. Commando battalion is pressed for duty," Mahatta told the media.

The district police chief said that so far there has been no flight of people from Jiribam to Assam territory.

Cachar police in a post on the X said: "Cachar Police conducted foot patrols, area domination and searches in Tupidhar along the Assam-Manipur border to prevent unauthorised entry and fostering regional stability through community engagement."

"To combat rising tensions in Jiribam(Manipur), Cachar Police intensify security efforts along the Assam-Manipur border, conducting unwavering riverine patrols from Fulertal to Tupidhar along the Barak River," the Cachar police said in another post.

Largely unaffected in the 18-month-long ethnic riot in most parts of Manipur, mixed-populated Jiribam witnessed a wave of violence after the killing of 59-year-old farmer Soibam Saratkumar Singh on June 6 this year.

The Jiribam violence led to around 1,500 people belonging to both Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities taking shelter at the homes of relatives and friends in two villages in the Cachar district of southern Assam.

Though most of the refugees subsequently returned to Jiribam, a few hundred Kuki-Zo-Hmar tribals still lived with their relatives in the Cachar district.

Manipur Police said that in the November 11 encounter with the CRPF 10 Kuki militants were killed and the militants also kidnapped 10 people, all inmates of a relief camp at Jakuradhor in Jiribam district's Borobekra sub-division.

The police official said that during the search operations after the incident in Jakuradhor village, where several houses were also burnt down by the armed militants, two bodies of elderly civilians -- Maibam Kesho Singh (75) and Laishram Barel (61) -- were found.

He said that another person was found alive and rescued and another civilian came back on his own to the police station while the six people  three children and three women -- remained untraced so far.

During the past two weeks, farmers in a few districts of Manipur were unable to work in their paddy fields due to the firing of armed attackers from hilltops towards the low-lying fields.

Two women -- Sapam Ongbi Sonia Devi, belonging to the Meitei community and Sangkim, belonging to the Hmar tribal community  were killed by the suspected armed attackers in the Bishnupur and Jiribam districts, respectively, last week.

The ethnic violence between the non-tribals Meiteis and tribal Kuki-Zo broke out in the northeastern state on May 3 last year after a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts to protest the Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

So far, over 230 people have been killed in the strife.
Guwahati, Nov 14 : Assam Director General of Police (DGP) Gyanendra Pratap Singh interacted with child sexual abuse victims on a range of topics including their experiences while interacting with the police system, their challenges during the trial and other factors like education and mental health today at the state police headquarters on Thursday.

According to an official release, child sexual abuse victims are vulnerable and have to navigate the complex procedures of the justice delivery mechanism.

"Assam Police's Child Rights Week celebrations, held from November 14th (National Children's Day) to November 20th (World Children's Day), includes this interactive session as a key event," an official added.

During 'Child Rights Week' every year, DGP Singh interacts with children to understand the various challenges faced by children while navigating the justice delivery mechanism.

Meanwhile, regular interactions with children are a part of the Assam Police's Sishu Mitra Initiative, with UNICEF & UTSAH, through which attempts are also made to uphold the participation rights of children.

Child Sexual Abuse victims from Child Care Institutions and various parts of Guwahati City attended this interactive session.

Singh said: "It is critical to talk with children regularly and understand their viewpoints. The Assam Police has always been taking initiative to ensure that our system is responsive to the needs and concerns of children."

Harmeet Singh, Special Director General of Police & Convener of the Assam Police Sishu Mitra Programme said: "Regular feedback from children helps us make necessary changes within the system, in a way that is representative of the voices and needs of children."

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma earlier asserted that the state police force was strengthened and the case pendency has reduced at least four-fold times in the last three years.

According to Sarma, in 2021, 95,994 cases were pending in Assam and the figure has drastically dropped down to 18,286 cases in 2024.

The burden of cases for each investigating officer has also lowered. In 2021, there were 52 cases per investigating officer in the police department which has come down to just 7.39 cases in June 2024.
Guwahati, Nov 14 : The CBI Court on Thursday heard the bail plea of actress Sumi Borah and her husband Tarkik Borah in the multi-crore online trading scam; however, the court has not put forward any observation regarding the bail.

The Court will hear the bail plea on November 20.

Meanwhile, the kingpin of the trading scam Bishal Phukan also submitted his bail plea in the CBI Court.

The controversial actress Sumi Borah and her husband Tarkik Borah were sent to judicial custody in the previous week as the CBI did not seek the custody of the accused couple.

Meanwhile, Amlan Borah, the brother-in-law of the actress got bail and the central probe agency did not oppose his bail plea. He was released on a bail bond.

Earlier, Sumi Borah was sent to seven days of CBI custody along with her husband and kingpin of the multi-crore scam Bishal Phukan.

According to police sources, the CBI might appeal for another round of custody of Sumi Borah after a gap of a few days. The central probe agency team is investigating the information received from the actress regarding this huge scam.

The state government has handed over the 41 cases related to the online trading scam to the central agency.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Assam Police handed over key information regarding the online trading scam to the CBI officials.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma earlier announced that the CBI would be investigating 41 cases pertaining to the multi-crore online trading scam.

"We have filed 41 cases against the online trading fraudsters. The state government decided to hand over all of these cases to the CBI. I spoke with Union Home Minister Amit Shah about this, and he agreed to let the CBI probe the scam. I went to Delhi to apprise him about the latest development", he had said.

To recall, an online trading scam amounting to Rs 2,200 crores was busted in Assam in September after a kingpin of this fraud, Bishal Phukan was arrested from his Dibrugarh residence.

Sumi Borah and her husband Tarkik Borah, accused in a trading scam, surrendered before the police later.

The couple was arrested after they surrendered in Dibrugarh. Notably, the duo was on the run since the huge scam surfaced and it was revealed that Borah was well connected with Bishal Phukan in this scam.
Bengaluru, Nov 14 : As the Karnataka Congress is divided over a proposal to impose a 'green cess' on drinking water to be utilised to save the Western Ghats, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has condemned the decision.

While Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar ruled out the proposal as rumour spread by the BJP, the State's Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre and Law Minister H.K. Patil hinted at considering the proposal.

Minister Patil on Thursday in Bengaluru said, "Tax is there on water also, this is not the first time water is taxed. Irrigation water is also taxed, and even drinking water is taxed. I don't know if you guys discussed this issue, we pay Rs 20 and buy a bottle of water, is it not taxed? That's why it is an unnecessary issue."

"Any government which wants to achieve development to be fast and that too when the Central government is not cooperating to share the taxes given by states, we have to mop up our resources," he added.

Minister Khandre clarified that the government's proposal was a suggestion and it needs to be discussed and implemented.

The proposal is still under consideration and no decision has been made yet, he said.

Shivakumar dismissed the news about the imposition of "green cess" as bogus and clarified that he firmly denied levying taxes on drinking water.

The BJP is spreading false news in this regard, the Deputy Chief Minister alleged.

State BJP President B.Y. Vijayendra slammed the Congress government and said, "The Congress government's move to impose a "green cess" on drinking water under the pretext of protecting the Western Ghats and collecting funds from the people is highly condemnable."

"While we support the priority of preserving the Western Ghats and conserving rivers, the 'anti-people' approach of burdening citizens for funds in the name of conservation is something the Karnataka BJP strongly opposes. If the Congress government imposes a tax on pure air in the future to fill its empty coffers, it would be no surprise," he added.
Bengaluru, Nov 15 : The Karnataka Congress is divided over a proposal to impose a 'green cess' on drinking water to save the Western Ghats while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has condemned the decision.

While Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar ruled out the proposal as rumour spread by the BJP, the State's Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre and Law Minister H.K. Patil hinted at considering the proposal.

Minister Patil on Thursday in Bengaluru said, "Tax is there on water also, this is not the first time water is taxed. Irrigation water is also taxed, and even drinking water is taxed. I don't know if you guys discussed this issue, we pay Rs 20 and buy a bottle of water, is it not taxed? That's why it is an unnecessary issue."

"Any government which wants to achieve development to be fast and that too when the Central government is not cooperating to share the taxes given by states, we have to mop up our resources," he added.

Minister Khandre clarified that the government's proposal was a suggestion and it needs to be discussed and implemented.

The proposal is still under consideration and no decision has been made yet, he said.

Shivakumar dismissed the news about the imposition of "green cess" as bogus and clarified that he firmly denied levying taxes on drinking water.

The BJP is spreading false news in this regard, the Deputy Chief Minister alleged.

State BJP President B.Y. Vijayendra slammed the Congress government and said, "The Congress government's move to impose a "green cess" on drinking water under the pretext of protecting the Western Ghats and collecting funds from the people is highly condemnable."

"While we support the priority of preserving the Western Ghats and conserving rivers, the 'anti-people' approach of burdening citizens for funds in the name of conservation is something the Karnataka BJP strongly opposes. If the Congress government imposes a tax on pure air in the future to fill its empty coffers, it would be no surprise," he added.
Shillong, Nov 15 : Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma has said that flights to Southeast Asian countries from Shillong take less time than those to Delhi, and this potential can be used to expand horizons in the Central government's 'Act East' Policy.

Chief Minister Sangma on Thursday said, "A flight from Shillong to Dhaka is less than 30 minutes, Shillong to Bangkok would be nearly 1 hour 15 minutes and certain capitals of many countries in Southeast Asia are closer than our national capital. It takes two-and-a-half hours to travel to Delhi but it is shorter for us to travel from Shillong to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and many other locations. If we were to broaden our horizons to the entire Act East Zone, we would see the real potential in this entire exercise and can leverage this to our advantage to boost tourism, medical assistance, trade, logistics, and other major socio-economic activities."

"I would like to stress that we should not limit our perspective to the role of air connectivity within the northeastern states of India alone but look at its potential in the entire South Asian region," he added.

The Chief Minister inaugurated the sixth Helicopter and Small Aircraft Summit in Shillong.

In his address, Chief Minister Sangma, thanking the Ministry of Civil Aviation for having chosen Shillong to host this summit, said it is a privilege to host an aviation summit in the state which is the first of its kind in the northeast.

"I would like to further endorse that Shillong is the right place to hold such a summit because our terrain requires the use of small aircraft and helicopters for air travel and other socio-economic activities," he said.

Chief Minister Sangma also added that when it comes to connectivity and the issues that the northeastern region faces, particularly Meghalaya; air travel plays a very important role in achieving the wide gamut of goals that the state is striving towards.

He said, "I would like to stress that we should not limit our perspective to the role of air connectivity within the northeastern states of India alone but look at its potential in the entire South Asian region."

Concerning the development of aviation in Meghalaya, the Chief Minister said that the government is working aggressively to upgrade and optimise tourism, trade, health services, and other sectors and suggested stakeholders think on the lines of tourism circuits in the state to boost tourism.

He urged all stakeholders involved to support in their area of expertise from investors, technical experts, service providers, etc.

"The Government will handhold in the initial stages and provide continued support to bring about a convergence in all sectors to achieve the goal of an efficient and vibrant aviation ecosystem in the state and the region," CM Sangma added.
Ajmer, Nov 15 : To fulfill Prime Minister Narendra Modi's resolve to make India a developed nation by the year 2047, a multimedia exhibition highlighting 'Viksit Bharat @2047' as its theme has been organised this year, spreading awareness among people about various welfare schemes launched by the Central government till date.

This exhibition has been organised at the famous Pushkar Fair in Rajasthan, which is being conducted by the Central Bureau of Communication and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The information about various welfare schemes and flagship programmes launched by the PM Modi-led government has been displayed in this exhibition.

Apart from the welfare schemes, popular motion games, videos giving virtual reality experience, online quizzes, 360-degree videos as well as different fitness equipment under the 'Fit India' initiative, one of the flagship schemes launched by the Central government, are also displayed during the exhibition.

Bharat Bhargava, Technical Assistant, Central Bureau of Communication, said that a multimedia exhibition on the theme of 'Viksit Bharat @2047' has been organised during the five-daylong Pushkar Mela.

This will highlight information about all the schemes launched by the Central government, he added.

"People coming to the Pushkar Mela are also getting information about every welfare scheme launched by the Centre, which includes the Surya Ghar Yojana, and Gati Shakti scheme. Apart from this, people are also asking queries about the PM Internship Scheme," Bhargava said.

Ramkishan Jat, a Pushkar Mela attendee, while lauding PM Modi-led government's welfare schemes, said: "I have asked queries about the welfare schemes related to farmers during this fair, of which the 'Boond-Boond Scheme' has impressed me a lot. A lot of water is being saved through this scheme."

Narendra Kumar, who came from Narendragarh (Madhya Pradesh) to visit the Pushkar Mela, said: "He saw the multimedia exhibition based on the theme of 'Viksit Bharat @ 2047' today. It tells about the government schemes, which include the Jan Dhan Yojana, Ayushman Bharat Yojana, and Surya Ghar Yojana. People are coming here and gaining information about various such welfare schemes so that they can benefit from them."

Manish Mundel, another Pushkar Mela attendee, said: "Today I received information about the government schemes at the Pushkar Mela, of which I liked the "Fit India" scheme the best. I believe that people of our country need to take fitness seriously since health is an important issue."

--IANS

fam/abm-khz
New Delhi, Nov 15 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday met Mahant Subhadra Aatya, known for her work in education and empowering the girl child, in Maharashtra's Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.

The Prime Minister also met prominent Hindu religious leaders such as Mahamandaleshwar Swami Shantigiri Maharaj, Upadhyay Rishi Pravin, and Param Pujya Babhulgaonkar Maharaj in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.

After the meeting with Mahant Subhadra Aatya, PM Modi said in a post on social media platform X, "In Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, I met Mahant Subhadra Aatya. She has been associated with the Mahanubhav Panth. Her work in education and empowering the girl child is very inspiring."

After meeting Param Pujya Babhulgaonkar Maharaj, PM Modi on X said, "Param Pujya Babhulgaonkar Maharaj is widely respected for his noble thoughts and writing. He has authored several books and has also been conferred with various awards for that. Met him at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar earlier today."

In another post on X, the PM said: "Met Mahamandaleshwar Swami Shantigiri Maharaj in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. He has been at the forefront of numerous community service efforts and has been working to empower the poor and downtrodden."

PM Modi wrote in a post on X, "It was wonderful to meet Upadhyay Shri Rishi Pravin Ji. He is widely respected for his study of Jain texts and culture. He has travelled extensively across India to promote harmony and brotherhood."

The Prime Minister addressed a huge public meeting in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Maharashtra, on Thursday.

During this rally, PM Modi slammed the Congress and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi and said: "The Maharashtra Assembly election is not only to elect a new government in the state. In this election, on one hand, some patriots believe in Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, and on the other hand some people praise Mughal tyrant Aurangzeb.

PM Modi was also facilitated by NDA leaders, including Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Union Minister Ramdas Athawale.

Voting for 288 Assembly seats in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase on November 20 and the results will be declared on November 23.
"Without Crimson Cup's help, I would never have been able to set up my shop as efficiently. Frankly, I am not sure if I would have stayed in business." - Tracy Heitmeyer, 5 Bean Coffee in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, celebrating 16 years in business. Post this

Leading the November Celebrations

Among the coffee shops celebrating in November, Night and Day Coffee Cafe in Mansfield, Pennsylvania, leads the way with 21 years of service, marking its anniversary on November 17. Following closely are Holtfield Coffee Station in Hillsboro, Ohio, on November 1 and Stoked Coffee in Marietta, Ohio, on November 14. Both are celebrating 17 years of success in their communities.

Other notable anniversaries include:

5 Bean Coffee  Reynoldsburg, Ohio , celebrates 16 years of coffee and community on November 12 .

, celebrates 16 years of coffee and community on . A and B Coffee  Greenville, Ohio . Marking 13 years on November 28 , this cafe has become a cozy gathering spot for locals.

. Marking 13 years on , this cafe has become a cozy gathering spot for locals. Fox's Pizza Den / Southern Ground Coffee Bar, Prattville, Alabama , celebrates 12 years in business on November 27 .

, celebrates 12 years in business on . The Well Coffee House, Boston, Massachusetts . Celebrating 11 years on November 4 , The Well is a fixture of Boston's coffee scene, dedicated to community outreach and connection.

. Celebrating 11 years on , The Well is a fixture of coffee scene, dedicated to community outreach and connection. Sips of Coffee LLC  Eldridge, Iowa . This inviting coffee shop celebrates nine years on November 18 .

. This inviting coffee shop celebrates nine years on . Cafe Ahava, LLC  Monroe, Ohio , marks eight years on November 1 .

, years on . St. Stephens Cafe LLC  Brocton, New York . Celebrating six years on November 9 , this coffee shop is beloved for its warm ambiance and local focus.

. Celebrating six years on , this coffee shop is beloved for its warm ambiance and local focus. Ivory Bean Coffee House  Shelby, Ohio . Marking four years on November 6 , this coffee house has built a strong customer following.

 . Marking four years on , this coffee house has built a strong customer following. Roasted Rail Coffee House  Dilworth, Minnesota . Celebrating four years on November 18 , this community-centered cafe is known for its exceptional coffee.

. Celebrating four years on , this community-centered cafe is known for its exceptional coffee. Lazy Labrador Coffee House  Kennesaw, Georgia . This Georgia favorite turns three on November 19 , bringing locals together over coffee and conversation.

. This favorite turns three on , bringing locals together over coffee and conversation. The Vault Coffee Company  Carolina Beach, North Carolina . Celebrating two years on November 21 , The Vault has quickly become a must-visit spot on the coast.

7 Steps to Success: Turning Dreams into Community-Centered Success Stories

Crimson Cup's 7 Steps to Success program has empowered these coffee shop owners to turn their visions into thriving, community-centered businesses. The program arms entrepreneurs with the tools to succeed, including a detailed business plan template, hands-on training, award-winning coffee and ongoing consulting. Many of these shops have become popular local gathering places, expanding their menus, hosting events and transforming into cultural hubs that enrich their communities.

Celebrating 16 years in business, 5 Bean Coffee is a model of what a thriving independent coffee shop can be. Owner Tracy Heitmeyer attributes her success to a relentless commitment to customer service, high-quality products, and the support of Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea's 7 Steps to Success program.

"Our customer service is more than average; it's exceptional," Heitmeyer said. "We strive to be super friendly and serve coffee quickly. We aim for the fastest possible drive-thru times while retaining quality." Crimson Cup's training in efficiency and product knowledge has helped her and her team deliver on this commitment, creating a welcoming atmosphere that keeps customers coming back.

Heitmeyer focuses on hiring for attitude and training for efficiencya philosophy that's paid off in spades. "Our team is knowledgeable about our drinks and exudes politeness and efficiency," she explained. "This terrific team is key to our success because customers are only as happy as the staff."

Loyal customers are the backbone of 5 Bean's growth. Drawn by the shop's quality and consistency, they keep returning for Crimson Cup's coffee, which Heitmeyer describes as "steps, hills, and mountains better than what you'll find in the major coffee chains. We have actual flavor, not just burnt beans and sugar." With an extensive array of syrups and unique drink options, 5 Bean has built a reputation for variety that sets it apart from the competition.

Heitmeyer's attention to detail goes beyond coffee quality; she also invests in creating a fun, uplifting experience for every customer. "Fun sprinkles, drizzle, and cup decorations increase people's happiness," she said. "We put stickers on holiday cups and write notes like, 'Have a great day!' or 'You're awesome' when we feel people need it."

Reflecting on her journey, Heitmeyer credits Crimson Cup's guidance as instrumental to her success. "Without Crimson Cup's help, I would never have been able to set up my shop as efficiently," she said. "Frankly, I am not sure if I would have stayed in business."

For aspiring coffee shop owners, 5 Bean Coffee's story highlights the impact of a strong support system, attention to quality, and a commitment to creating a positive, memorable customer experience.

Thinking of Opening a Coffee Shop? Begin with the Startup Kit Behind Over 400 Success Stories

Since 1991, Crimson Cup has helped over 400 entrepreneurs in 36 states create successful coffee shops. Aspiring coffee shop owners can jumpstart their journey with the company's Coffee Shop Startup Kit, which includes the 7 Steps to Success book, financial planning templates, a customizable business plan model, and a one-on-one session with a Crimson Cup startup consultant. The kit also includes samples of Crimson Cup's award-winning coffee and tea and promotional merchandise.

Coffee entrepreneurs can also contact 7 Steps Sales Leader Scott Fullerton at 888-800-9224 or [email protected] for a no-obligation conversation about bringing their vision to life.

About Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea

Founded in 1991, Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea is a leader in the specialty coffee industry, recognized for award-winning quality and commitment to sustainability. The company's accolades include multiple Good Food Awards, the 2019 Golden Bean Champion for Small Franchise/Chain Roaster and Roast magazine's 2016 Macro Roaster of the Year.

Through its Friend2Farmer initiatives, Crimson Cup supports coffee-growing communities with sustainable, mutually beneficial partnerships. Its 7 Steps to Success program empowers entrepreneurs to open independent coffee shops by providing a detailed coffee shop business plan template, hands-on training, award-winning coffee and ongoing consulting.

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The Estonian government approved a constitutional amendment at a meeting on Thursday to strip Russian and Belarusian citizens residing in Estonia on a permanent basis of the right to vote in the country's municipal elections, Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal told journalists.

Under the amendment, Estonian citizens, stateless persons residing in Estonia and citizens of European Union and NATO countries 16 years old and over can vote in the country's local elections in accordance with Point 2 of Article 156 of the constitution.

The amendment will affect more than 70,000 Russian and Belarusian citizens who permanently reside in Estonia. A total of 42.5% of all Russian citizens then eligible to vote in Estonia cast their ballots in 2021 municipal elections. This figure for Belarusian citizens stood at 49.5%.

This constitutional amendment has been initiated by 61 MPs of the 101-strong parliament. All coalition parties support its adoption. They propose expediting the debate on the amendment to allow it to take effect before the next local elections in October 2025. Fast-tracking the amendment requires the votes of four-fifths of Estonian MPs.
In a competitive six-house auction, Putnam Books for Young Readers has acquired The Escape Game, a YA mystery thriller co-authored by Lunar Chronicles author Marissa Meyer and Lintang series author Tamara Moss. Jill Grinberg at Jill Grinberg Literary Management sold North American rights for the two-book deal to Putnam senior executive editor and publishing director Ruta Rimas and editor Gretchen Durning. Publication is scheduled for April 2026.

Meyer and Moss, longtime critique partners, were looking for an opportunity to collaborate when Meyer, who loves escape room puzzles, came up with an idea. While solving a Mona Lisa heist puzzle with her family, Meyer imagined a murder mystery involving an escape-room-themed game show, a million-dollar prize, and an unsolved crime from the shows past season. She suggested the possibility to Moss, and they both began plotting clues and twists.

Because Meyer lives in Washington state and Moss lives in Perth, Australia, their correspondence took place at all hours. Meyer is an avid outliner, and this worked great for a collaboration, Moss told PW. Living in different time zones meant I would write my pre-planned chapter while Marissa was sleeping. Shed read it during her day, make a few edits, write her own chapter, and send it back so Id wake up to new material.

Meyer said, One of my favorite things was going to bed, knowing that work was still happening on the other side of the world. Even with our plan in place, sometimes we would start writing a chapter and realize it needed to be something different than what we had in mind. We spent a lot of time figuring out how and when to insert various clues and red herrings, and which viewpoint character made the most sense to reveal them. When we got stuck, we would have a Zoom call to talk things through.

They also depended upon one anothers storytelling strengths in their co-writing process. Im not much of a romantic these days, Moss admitted. I love writing deep friendships and chemistry between characters, but if youre swooning, thats Marissa. Shes also the brains behind most of the codes and puzzles, whereas I focused on the murder mystery. I go heavy on character work; shes a superstar at plot structure.

Meyer agreed 100%, calling their approaches complementary. Working with Tamara pushed me to think more deeply about characterization and backstory. She loved being able to brainstorm and bounce ideas off each other as we worked through the more complicated elements.

Not only is The Escape Game a dual-author project: its a dual-editor project with Rimas and Durning sharing editorial duties. The two have worked together since 2019, when Rimas arrived at Penguin and Durning served as her assistant, and their projects have included Sabaa Tahirs National Book Award-winning All My Rage, Ginny Myers Sains Dark and Shallow Lies, and Jessica Goodmans The Counselors.

Rimas, who said she grew up on the heart-racing novels of Caroline B. Cooney, Lois Duncan, and Christopher Pike, felt an immediate excitement for The Escape Game. I considered this manuscript a drop-everything-and-read submission the moment Jill dropped it into my inbox, she said. It absolutely blew me away with its clever plot, interesting characters, and spectacular twists.

Durning, an Agatha Christie fan, appreciates knowing theres a right way to fit all the pieces together, and the satisfaction when it all falls into placewhether or not I correctly guessed the killer on my own. She said that besides its central mystery, The Escape Game has a lot of smaller puzzles to figure out, plus a snappy pace and a set of game-show contestants that include a mathematician, an escape room designer, a cryptographer, and the victims sister.

Putnam BYR president and publisher Jen Klonsky called The Escape Game an absolute must-publish for us here at Putnam Young Readers. Ive admired Marissa for years, with her long and impressive career in the YA space, and after reading this book, I know Tamara is poised to reach the same heights.
Five months after Dionne Sims announced that Black Garnet Books, the first Black womanowned brick-and-mortar bookstore in Minnesota, was for sale, the St. Paul indie has changed hands from Sims to Terresa Moses, an associate professor of graphic design and the director of design justice at the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus. Moses is also the owner of Blackbird Revolt, a graphic design company that promotes social change.

Moses describes herself as a proud Black queer woman, and says she uses creativity as a tool in her social justice advocacy and community organizing efforts. She received her Ph.D in philosophy with a concentration in social justice education from the University of Toronto in October, and has lived in Minnesota for eight years; she moved from Texas to Minnesota in 2016 to teach at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and left there for the Twin Cities in 2020.

Sims quit her corporate job in July 2020 to launch Black Garnet, two months after George Floyds murder in Minneapolis. Black Garnet initially was a pop-up to sell books by BIPOC authors but switched to a brick-and-mortar model two years ago, when Sims received a $100,000 matching grant from the City of St. Paul after shed raised $113,900 through a GoFundMe campaign. While it has expanded its inventory since opening its storefront, its focus remains on BIPOC authors.

Sims announced in June of this year that she had decided to sell the store and return to school to earn an MFA. Ive always loved to write, both personally and professionally, she explained on social media. I do it every day and I want to go back to school to take my craft to another placea braver placethan I could do on my own. Sims added that she is selling the store because, she wrote, I refuse to half-ass running Black Garnet or half-ass my schooling.

This story has been updated with further information.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The banking sector of Azerbaijan will work with international financial institutions (IFIs) to attract additional funds for 'green' goals, the President of the Azerbaijan Banks Association (ABA) Zakir Nuriyev told Trend.

"The Central Bank of Azerbaijan approved the 'green' taxonomy yesterday, and at the same time, in our statement, we also note that, together with other participants, we will carry out all necessary work, including research, promotion, and the introduction of these standards into our economy, as well as explaining them to meet the requirements. We discussed this at an extended meeting of the Banks Association.

Starting today, we'll work with banks, as well as international financial institutions, to attract additional funds for these goals, and we will announce this, emphasizing our readiness to meet all the requirements. We'll continue our work in this direction as there are many aspects involved, such as awareness-raising, promotion, and training people.

As you know, this is a new phenomenon for our economy. In the framework of other negotiation processes, other participants are discussing various aspects, such as the issuance of 'green' bonds, etc. Overall, this marks the beginning of a new phase. This is a collective decision, made by all the banks together and signed unanimously," he added.

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It wasnt as if the Tar Heel state didnt see Hurricane Helene coming. On Sept. 25, one day before Helene stormed ashore, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency as the storms path showed it churning northward toward Appalachia after making landfall in Florida.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, right, and Deanne Criswell, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, brief Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Hurricane Helene in early October.

Yet that advance declaration was not followed by any state evacuation orders, and the population largely sheltered in place as Helene hit the steep, wooded hills of western North Carolina, squatting over the area, unleashing more than an inch of water an hour for more than a day. The unprecedented, relentless downpour, falling on ground already saturated by rain the week before, tore old pines and hardwoods out by the roots, creating arboreal torpedoes that rocketed down the steep inclines; water that turned photogenic stony creeks into whitewater torrents, lifting ancient streambed boulders and tossing them like chips on to roads and into homes and buildings. The storm left 230 people dead, nearly half of them in North Carolina, with dozens still missing as of early November.

As residents in Asheville, Chimney Creek, and other smaller communities continue to pick up from the carnage, after-action reports indicate government agencies at the federal and state levels were slow to react. Interviews with several private relief groups that sprang into action after Helene, along with statistics provided by congressional sources, indicate that Coopers office and the Biden administration were slow to activate military personnel and assets like helicopters that were critical in the days after the storm. In addition, budgetary moves and internal communications have also drawn questions about how the Federal Emergency Management Agency is spending its money and how it envisioned its purpose in a Biden administration suffused with diversity, equity and inclusion mandates.

FEMA is also wrestling with revelations that politics had influenced some of its relief efforts. The agency fired a staffer who told crews to avoid houses in storm-damaged parts of Florida that displayed Donald Trump campaign signs. The dismissed worker said this week her orders were not an isolated incident and that FEMA avoided politically hostile zones in the Carolinas, too.

There seems to have been a priority shift, period, said Eric Eggers, the vice president of the conservative Government Accountability Institute. It seems impossible to separate its mission creep and its ideological pursuit of an agenda when its duties are to fix that bridge or clear that road.

Where were the choppers? The Coast Guard pulls off a hurricane rescue off Sanibel Island, Fla. (above). But badly needed government helicopters were a rare sight in devastated western North Carolina.

As devastating and increasingly expensive natural disasters continue to be a fact of life in the United States, FEMAs halting response, especially in the early days after Helene, when lives were in jeopardy, suggests both the capabilities and limits of state and federal responses.

In the first days, survivors told RCI that the impact of governments slow-footed efforts was countered by the heroic efforts of private citizens and groups who rushed to provide help. As FEMA and others began to assert themselves, some conflicts arose between government representatives and volunteers, although everyone RCI spoke with agreed that such disasters inevitably spawn chaos. There is no such thing as a perfect response, but many people said the one following Helene teaches important lessons.

Helene didnt slam into western North Carolina the way hurricanes typically do, but instead squatted like an angry demon over the region in which the economically important fall tourist season was just swinging into gear.

Jamie Shell, editor of the Avery Journal-Times, relied on a hookup from Elon Musk's Starlink.

In Avery County, a parks and recreation gymnasium had been set up as a shelter with approximately 40 beds and generators for backup power, according to Jamie Shell, the editor of the weekly Avery Journal-Times and a lifelong Tar Heel.

On the day prior to the storm, we were in touch with the county emergency management office and county manager to get a feel for where they were in terms of initial response, he said. I remember a number of generated auto-calls and emails from the county to the county residents informing them of the historic and potentially devastating nature of the event, warning people to make plans to seek higher ground and evacuate as needed due to the torrential rains and damaging winds that would arrive.

By Friday morning, Shell said people were fending off the elements as best they could.

It was a case where most everyone who were not necessary (emergency) personnel were pretty much sheltering in place, as roads were being littered with fallen trees and high water, with the worst damage along creeks and rivers, he said.

Power soon went out, making communication difficult for both survivors and potential rescue efforts, and creeks crested, complicating overland travel. Shell said some roads remained passable, but without power or an aerial view, it was impossible for people to find shelter if their homes were damaged or lost, and for relief efforts that didnt have small planes or helicopters to get to wrecked spots, and even then potential landing zones were unclear.

Here, too, politics has emerged to cloud the relief picture. Shell said he relied on a Starlink hookup, the satellite company launched and owned by Elon Musk, and that county officials were also reliant on Musks system. Private relief agencies told RCI that Starlink provided thousands of Starlinks, which they distributed via helicopter after Helene, offering torn-up zones their only method of communication.

Private groups distributed nearly 1,000 Starlink hookups to powerless homes as the feds fell short on broadband access.

Between them, the United Cajun Navy and Operation Helo, two of the private groups that operated rescue and relief operations with helicopters, distributed nearly 1,000 Starlink hookups to powerless homes. Musk trumpeted the fact that Starlinks services would be free in the remainder of 2024 for Helene and Hurricane Milton victims, although there are reports users are still being hit with hardware starter costs.

Such assistance from Starlink might have been greater, according to some congressional sources, had the Federal Communications Commission not canceled an $885.5 million deal with Starlink to expand rural broadband access. Instead, the Biden administration sunk $42 billion into a rural broadband access program that has not hooked up any customers  a failure that dogged Vice President Kamala Harris in her failed presidential campaign  as Harris was the point person on that project.

Some Republican officials in Washington have grumbled that Cooper and the Biden administration moved too slowly in terms of activating the National Guard or the huge U.S. Army assets at Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, in North Carolina. Information provided by the state to Congress and shared with RCI shows the states rotor and fixed-wing aircraft made available rose from fewer than 10 in the storms initial 48 hours to 20 by Sept. 30, but it stayed at that number for three full days. North Carolina Highway Patrol provided fewer than five helicopters through Oct. 9.

Congressional sources also provided information showing there were fewer than 1,000 troops available for relief efforts until Oct. 3.

United Cajun Navy leader: "For about four or five days most of the search and rescue was done by private people.

Private relief agencies, untangled by orders, swung into action more quickly.

When I got there, all I heard was, Wheres FEMA? Wheres FEMA? said Brian Trascher, a leader of the United Cajun Navy, a private disaster relief outfit that formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In fact, FEMA moves fairly quickly once they know where the problem is but otherwise everything was a cluster-f___. They didnt have anything prepositioned and so for about four or five days, most of the search and rescue was done by private people.

But Trascher offered praise to FEMA, too. He had been meeting with FEMA officials in Washington as Helene approached, part of an ongoing effort by the feds and the Cajun Navy to cooperate better in response to disasters. It is not true that FEMA was invisible in Helenes immediate aftermath  Trascher said he ran into a top official he knows within hours of his arrival in North Carolina  and FEMA staff on the ground were committed and hard-working, he said.

That take was echoed by others deeply involved in the first few days of Helenes response. Of the four private relief groups that discussed the situation with RCI, all agreed FEMA officials in western North Carolina were earnest, but said both the federal bureaucracy and the military response proved creaky.

The air over the Helene-ravaged landscape was wide open in the first few days, and the private helicopters were free to go wherever they could. That began to change once federal agencies came into the picture. The Federal Aviation Agency did give out some squawk codes to the flyers working with private groups, Trascher said, but more codes and a better-coordinated response with the FAA are needed going forward, according to Trascher and Eric Robinson, a co-founder of Operation Helo.

Franklin Graham of Samaritan's Purse with Donald Trump in Georgia. Graham said private groups like his are free of the red tape that customarily snarls government bureaucracies.

The private relief executives also expressed doubts that FEMA had the most experienced hands on deck. In addition, although many National Guardsmen in the area are native Tar Heels and were champing at the bit to help, they were repeatedly snarled by delays in orders, according to several people familiar with the first days of response.

We ran it like a military op, Robinson said of Operation Helo, a group based in North Carolina that was born in Helenes aftermath. But the strength of the storm, the amount of water, I dont think anyone anticipated that.

Robinson described whole towns annihilated, saying there were lakes that it looked like you could walk across, there was so much debris floating. His team distributed more than 517 Starlinks and was also assisted personally by Ivanka Trump in the week after Helene struck.

At one point, Robinson said there were people marooned on a hilltop, and his group asked the National Guard to handle the job. Though more than willing, the guardsmen had to wait more than three hours for their orders. We just went and got them in the meantime, he said.

Another group distributing emergency aid and Starlinks was Samaritans Purse, the international relief agency whose Boone headquarters left it literally at Helenes ground zero.

We all knew the storm was coming and we were ready, said Franklin Graham, the groups president and chief executive. But none of us were prepared for the infrastructures collapse.

Like other private officials involved in relief efforts, Graham was far from biting in his criticism of FEMA and North Carolina agencies. Similarly, he acknowledged, as Trascher and Robinson did, that private groups enjoyed freedom from the red tape that customarily snarls government bureaucracies.

I do think FEMA might be better if it wasnt run by a political appointee, Graham said. It was working in our favor initially that there were no rules, and what we saw was a true example of neighbors helping neighbors.

A FEMA spokesperson insisted that the charge the agency has lost touch with its core mission is false ...

As of early November, FEMA said it had spent approximately $4.3 billion on Hurricane Helene response and recovery. Of that total, some $213 million went in direct assistance to 126,000 North Carolina households, with another $202 million for debris removal and reimbursement of emergency protective measures for the state.

Helene also brought new attention to FEMAs budgeting. Even as they pushed money out to storm victims, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversees FEMA, and other Biden administration officials began raising alarms that the agency could run short on hurricane relief money.

But along with those calls came revelations from Homeland Securitys watchdog Inspector General that the agency was sitting on $73 billion in unliquidated funds committed to previous disasters  including $8.3 billion for those declared in 2012 or earlier. The agency has also spent nearly $4 billion on COVID relief in September, the same month as Helene  including for funeral expenses, vaccination and testing sites, and personal protective equipment. That spending was paused in September to shift money to its Immediate Needs Funding, FEMA said, but it acknowledged $3.8 billion was obligated for the virus that peaked in 2021.

Gov. Coopers office also pushed back against reports it may have been tardy in calling up the National Guard or responding to hard-hit zones.

The North Carolina National Guard was activated and on the ground before, during and after the storm and we believe this was the fastest and largest integration of active-duty military soldiers under Title 10 working with the National Guard in North Carolina history, said Jordan Monaghan, a spokesman for the governor. Immediately following the storm, staged equipment and personnel began moving into western NC, using Ashevilles airport as a staging area where supplies were flown in, loaded onto helicopters and flown into counties that couldnt be reached by road. Where roads were passable, supplies were delivered by truck.

On Sept. 30, Cooper asked Biden to make all necessary federal resources available, and that so-called Title 10 request was approved by the Defense Department on Oct. 2, according to Monaghan. At that point, helicopters and other key assets took to wing.

Both FEMA and Coopers office stressed the unprecedented nature of Helene, and that view was echoed by Trascher, who said some of the areas the Cajun Navy serviced were the worst Id seen since Katrina.

As of early November, power outages had fallen from more than 1 million to fewer than 900, while roughly 1,000 of the 1,300 closed roads have been opened, according to Coopers office. All told, there have been 2,024 FEMA workers and thousands of Department of Transportation workers, utility workers, law enforcement officers and volunteers on the ground.

... but it isn't hard to find an emphasis on identity politics on FEMA's website.

Yet under the Biden administrations whole of government emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion, there are indications FEMA has moved away from a broad-based relief template.

In the past two weeks, FEMA also became embroiled in the scandal surrounding the orders of the now-dismissed staffer that Hurricane Milton relief crews should bypass homes displaying Trump campaign signs. The former supervisor, Marni Washington, told The Black Star Groups digital platform that her orders were not an isolated incident. Instead, they reflected long-standing agency policy that calls for avoidance of areas or homes it considers politically hostile.

FEMA always preaches avoidance first and then de-escalation, so this is not isolated, she said. This is a colossal event of avoidance not just in the state of Florida, but you will find avoidance in the Carolinas.

In an in-house 2023 Zoom meeting that has received renewed attention, FEMA and other federal officers focused on how disasters allegedly hit the LGBTQ community with special fury. In that meeting, FEMA Emergency Management Specialist Tyler Atkins said LGBTQ people and others who have been disadvantaged already are struggling, and natural disasters compound their struggles.

Maggie Jarry, HHS: Emergency management in the U.S. must shift from prioritizing the greatest good for the greatest amount of people to disaster equity.

Maggie Jarry, a Senior Emergency Management Specialist with the Department of Health and Human Services, then chimed in, saying emergency management in the U.S. must shift from prioritizing the greatest good for the greatest amount of people to disaster equity.

We have to look at policies and understand to what extent they have disadvantaged communities that have less assets, communities that have pre-existing vulnerabilities in accessing disaster-related recovery supports, Jarry said.

A FEMA spokesperson told RCI that any notion the agency has lost touch with its core mission is false.

FEMAs mission remains clear and unchanged  to help people before, during, and after disasters, he said. We are fully committed to ensuring that all communities have the support they need to prepare for and recover from disasters. FEMAs disaster response efforts and recovery programs are funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.

FEMAs Helene response enjoyed considerably better coverage than it received during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when media accounts blistered the agency and the Bush administration for weeks. This time around, there were many stories outlining what FEMA does and does not do, with the former primarily involving reimbursement to state and local projects for debris removal, reconstruction, and the like. It also provides cash to survivors in the immediate aftermath of declared disasters.

Many media outlets also magnified FEMAs attempt to combat misinformation, and these reports frequently blamed the Trump campaign for spreading unfounded rumors. At one point, FEMA even paused relief operations in parts of North Carolina over unfounded rumors that vigilantes were hunting FEMA workers.

Those pro-FEMA slants lost considerable traction last week, however, when the story broke about FEMA relief teams in Florida deliberately bypassing homes that displayed support for Trumps campaign.

All of these threads  the Biden administrations Justice40 for diversity, equity, and inclusion; the spending on matters unrelated to natural disasters or tied up in endless projects going nowhere; federal contracts to help rural America canceled  add up to an unsavory politics of disaster relief, according to the Government Accountability Institute.

Eggers and Peter Schweizer, the Institutes leader, examined the problem in a recent podcast by that name. What happened after Helene is further evidence of that problem, Eggers said.

In some ways, its a triumph of the human and American spirit, but in other ways, it seems like a failure of the American government, he said.
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BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. A panel discussion on "Global Financial System: Scaling Up Financing for Climate Action" is being held within the COP29 Finance, Investment, and Trade Day, Trend reports.

The President of the Azerbaijan Banks Association (ABA) Zakir Nuriyev said that Azerbaijani banks have implemented several important initiatives within the framework of the Sustainable Finance Roadmap 2023-2026".

One of the initiatives is the introduction of sustainable and green finance principles. Banks have already started to integrate sustainable and green finance principles into their strategies, governance frameworks, risk management practices, and disclosure standards.

These measures are in line with the sustainable finance principles for financial institutions and climate risk management recommendations published by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan. Another initiative is related to sustainable products and services. In addition, banks are actively developing sustainable products and services, including digital banking solutions, environmentally friendly products, and social responsibility initiatives, Nuriyev explained.

The Vice President of the EIB, Ambroise Fayolle, said the European Investment Bank (EIB), with the support of other European development finance agencies, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the European Commission, will launch the Global Green Bond Initiative.

The EIB, with the support of other European development finance agencies, the EBRD, and the European Commission, will launch the Global Green Bond Initiative because green bonds are not often issued in developing countries. Many developing countries have not yet issued any green bonds, and we want to change that, as projects that could be financed through green bonds exist.

In addition, we have set up a fund that will have one billion euro of capital from public institutions and two billion senior bonds to be subscribed by private investors. This will allow the fund to issue green bonds, which we hope will help finance up to 20 billion euro for projects in countries where we have not yet seen significant development in this area, he mentioned.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) Vice President for South, Central, and West Asia Yingming Yang said that ADB is stepping up its focused and specialized efforts to support developing countries in promoting and strengthening their climate-resilient and climate-responsive financial system.

ADB is increasing its focused and specialized efforts to support developing countries in developing and strengthening their climate-resilient and climate-responsive financial systems. We are using traditional lending through financial intermediaries to support client banks in implementing and institutionalizing their climate finance systems to increase lending to climate projects. We are actively using policy-based lending to help countries establish a comprehensive framework for climate finance, he added.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

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By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 11/13/2024



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

alum Pascal Ibgui has apologized to Chock Chapple for throwing shade and calling him a "stalker."After Pascal was shown quitting during Fantasy Suites, Joan only had two men left in the running for her heart: Chock and Guy Gansert Chock has admitted he's "crazy about" and "in love" with Joan on , but Pascal took things one step further by calling Chock a "stalker" and slamming his aggressive dating approach during a late October interview with Glamour magazine.Pascal, however, has apparently come to regret the jabs he had taken at the 60-year-old Kansas insurance executive."I wanted to make this video because I want to thank Bachelor Nation [for including] me in the first Golden Bachelorette season. What an incredible experience. I had the chance to meet some incredible gentlemen along the way," Pascal said in an Instagram video he posted on Sunday, November 10."But the most important is I want to apologize to Chock."The outspoken beauty salon owner from Chicago, IL, continued, "Me calling him a stalker was out of line, inappropriate, uncalled for and definitely the wrong use of word. So please, Chock, accept my apology."Pascal proceeded to wish Chock "the best of luck" in finale airing Wednesday, November 13 at 8PM ET/PT on ABC.Pascal said he'll definitely be watching, and he concluded, "Again, thanks Bachelor Nation for the incredible time we spent together. I will always be a member, and I am so grateful. Thank you and Thank you."While most of Joan's bachelors appeared to become best friends in the mansion, Chock ruffled feathers by monopolizing Joan's time during a bowling group date that aired on Episode 5.Guy even asked Chock to let the other guys have time with star, but Chock didn't seem to care because Joan was his focus.When asked about Chock's behavior that day, Pascal told Glamour late last month, "Chock was all over her to the point where he was [like a] stalker."Pascal apparently couldn't believe that Chock had developed such strong feelings for Joan so quickly."Oh my god, let's just be realistic. We are mature men. We've been through some marriage, some divorce. We had our struggles and our pain and anxiety, and it's not that easy to say, 'I'm in love,'" Pascal reasoned.Chock revealed that he was "falling in love" with Joan during his hometown date in Kansas, and then he shared with host Jesse Palmer how he was fully "in love" with Joan before their Fantasy Suite."I mean, it was like, 'I love you, let's leave. Let's do this, let's do that,'" Pascal recalled of Chock's intense dating style on the show."And [Chock asked], 'Which side of the bed are you sleeping on?' It's bizarre behavior. I don't know."Pascal continued to poke fun at Chock by sharing, "[Chock was like], 'I can't wait to be with you. I feel my love with you.' Maybe in Wichita there is no women. I don't know."Pascal said it was actually "inappropriate" for Chock to ask Joan about her sleeping arrangement in front of other guys -- who were clearly listening to the pair's conversation -- during the bowling group date."As he walked in, he said, 'Let's leave here. Let's get out of here.' And then hovering over her during the bowling. I think, to me, everybody felt uncomfortable," Pascal recalled."I think [ Jordan Heller ] said, 'Hey, put the break on,' and [ Jonathan Rone ] said, 'What are you doing?'"Pascal concluded, "I mean, Joan is smart enough to understand and figure it out by herself."Joan gave her own take on Chock's laser focus during a recent appearance on "The Viall Files" podcast."Over the years, I do notice about certain The Bachelor series or journeys, is that every once in a while, one guy or one girl pops out that is just more aggressive -- just tries a little harder to have random interactions," Joan told former The Bachelor star Nick Viall "You see them every once in a while, that they came there for a reason... and I think it's evident that Chock is one of those people."Joan said it was probably just a "bonus" for Chock that he was able to make friends on the show.Joan also shared how she felt a connection with Chock right off the bat."Every once in a while, one would roll in and I was like, 'Ohh, he's good. I like that one,' or, 'I could see a life with that one. He's good looking and I'm attracted to him,'" Joan recalled."And Chock was one of those people. I immediately loved what he did. The Chock-O-Noodle soup was hilarious."Joan said Chock's entrance involving food was "such a good thing to do" because he had made an effort to figure out who she is and "what's important" to her."Cooking, for me, is all about my family... I do a Sunday-night dinner every single Sunday night," Joan said.Joan explained how Chock knew that about her, and that he also knew the names of all four of her children when they first met."Some people might call that creepy, but some people, like me, thought, 'Wow, he is really interested,'" Joan noted.host Jesse Palmer recently told Us Weekly how there was an obvious "chemistry" between Chock and Joan."Chock was someone right away, when I was talking to him off camera, [I could tell] he's a man's man and he is an alpha -- that's just kind of how I put it," Jesse shared.Jesse added how Chock is "a leader of men.""[He's] someone who's wildly successful professionally and also has a really touching and unique personal story to him as well," Jesse said.And Joan told Us earlier this month that Chock reminded her of her late husband , John Vassos, who died from pancreatic cancer in 2021. Joan called Chock "a fixer," just like John, who was able to make her feel safe.Interested in more The Bachelor news? Follow our Bachelor Nation News Page on Facebook or join our The Bachelor Facebook Group
Imani Scott-Blackwell, member of Southerners on New Ground, speaks at a community gathering on the path near the intersection of Vine Street and Oak Ridge Avenue to remember Santonio Coleman in Athens, Georgia, on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. Coleman, 48 years old, was found injured on the path near the intersection of Vine Street and Oak Ridge Avenue at around 9 a.m. on Oct. 19 and transported to a local hospital, where he later died due to his injuries. Family members and attendees shared stories about Coleman, expressed their feelings about the police departments response and spoke about the need to come together as a community. (Photo/Forest X. Dynes)
India's merchandise exports in October rose by an impressive 17.25 per cent year-on-year, highest in over two years, to $39.2 billion, while the trade deficit widened to $27.14 billion on a sequential basis.

Photograph: Reuters

According to the government data released on Thursday, imports increased by 3.9 per cent to $66.34 billion in October compared to $63.86 billion in the year-ago period, mainly due to a 13.34 per cent rise in crude oil imports.

The trade deficit (gap between imports and exports) narrowed as compared to $30.42 billion recorded in October last year. However, it has widened from $20.78 billion recorded in September this year.

The country's merchandise exports have recorded the previous high growth of 30.12 per cent in June 2022.

During April-October this fiscal, exports increased by 3.18 per cent to $252.28 billion, and imports by 5.77 per cent to $416.93 billion.

The deficit during the latest seven-month period was $164.65 billion as compared to $149.67 billion during April-October 2023.

The data showed that the estimated value of service exports during April-October 2024 increased to $215.98 billion from $191.97 billion in the same period last year. Imports during that period at $114.57 billion was also higher from $102.32 billion in April-October 2023.

Crude oil imports in October rose to $18.2 billion from $16.1 billion in the same month last year.

Gold and Silver imports, on the other hand, slightly dipped to $7.13 billion and $0.33 billion, respectively, during the month under review from the two comparable figures of $7.23 billion and $1.31 billion recorded in October 2023.

Commenting on the data, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said, "This has been an extremely good month for exports...If we continue in this manner, we will cross $800 billion of exports (goods and services together) this (fiscal) year."

He said that the government's strategy to focus on six sectors -- engineering, electronics, pharma, chemicals, plastics and agriculture -- as well as 20 countries is yielding positive result.

These 20 countries account for 60 per cent of the total global imports and these six segments have a share of 67 per cent in global imports.

The commerce ministry has undertaken deeper economic integration in these nations through market access initiatives, promotion of brand India, addressing non-tariff barriers, and conducting trade promotion events.

"We are formulating strategies to promote exports in these focus countries and I am sure that the strategy will help us in showing excellent result by end of this year," he added.

Healthy Christmas demands could be one of the reasons for exports to register double digit growth in October.

At export front, engineering exports rose by 39.37 per cent to $11.25 billion. Petroleum product shipments dipped by 22 per cent to $4.58 billion.

Electronic exports jumped by 45.7 per cent to $3.43 billion during the month, while its imports grew by 6.8 per cent to $8.35 billion.

Commenting on the continued export growth in ready-made garments, Sudhir Sekhri, chairman, AEPC (apparel export promotion council), said the industry has been successfully leveraging India's raw material strength and manufacturing the traditional as well as modern design products. It was up 35 per cent to $1.22 billion.

"Our constant endeavour to be sustainable and affordable is a great attraction for the international buyers, which is reflected in recent months' exports growth," he said.

FIEO (Federation of Indian Export Organisations) president Ashwani Kumar said that the double-digit growth in merchandise exports, amidst continuing global economic uncertainties, is "definitely very encouraging sign of revival".

However, he added that the rising tensions between Israel-Iran has continuously led to logistical challenges with regard to international trade getting impacted as most of our trade to Europe, Africa, CIS and Gulf region are happening through the Red Sea route or the gulf region prompting buyers to have little large inventories.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 13. Frances Green Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher will reportedly not attend the COP29 summit in Baku, after sharp remarks from Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who highlighted France's "hypocrisy" on international issues, Trend reports.

President Aliyevs address at COP29 openly criticized what he described as Frances double standards. This has evidently stung Paris, leading to the ministers decision to skip the global climate event, a move viewed as an attempt by France to downplay Baku's role in the summit. France has unsuccessfully called for a boycott of COP29 from the start, even as the climate crisis impacts the entire world, including France.

At COP29s opening ceremony on November 12, President Aliyev underscored the events overwhelming success despite these efforts, revealing that 72,000 participants from 196 countries had registered, a clear answer to Frances attempted boycott.
Framing the next chapter in Swiggys journey as a responsible corporate citizen, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Sriharsha Majety unveiled the companys eagerly awaited public listing.

Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer of Swiggy, Sriharsha Majety and Managing Director and CEO of National Stock Exchange of India Ashishkumar Chauhan ring the bell during the listing ceremony of its IPO. Photograph: francis Mascarenhas/Reuters

Majety, who has largely shunned the spotlight, shared reflections on his entrepreneurial path and the strategic pivots he and his co-founders navigated in building Swiggy.

We started with code aggregation, then pivoted to logistics, and that became Swiggy.

"It was during our second year when I convinced an old friend to join us and head expansion.

"His first reaction was, This is the same thing we did in the college project at IIM Calcutta.

"That germ of an idea had completely slipped my mind, he said during the listing process at the National Stock Exchange.

He further added that the journey from a forgotten idea to execution is in itself a rarity.

But to execute it to the size and scale we have now is nothing short of a miracle, he said.

Swiggy is the first company to list through the Securities and Exchange Board of Indias confidential listing route, highlighting the competitive nature of the sector.

This listing places Swiggy in direct competition with its larger rival, Zomato.

Deepinder Goyal, co-founder and CEO of Zomato, welcomed Swiggys listing.

Congratulations @Swiggy! Couldnt have asked for a better company to serve India with, Goyal posted on X, tagging another Zomato post that read, You and I in this beautiful world @Swiggy.

Majety has already expressed his expectations for the companys continued strong growth.

In a pre-initial public offering (IPO) interaction, Majety shared his vision of 100 million consumers using the platform 15 times a month in the future, as he sees the food delivery business becoming more profitable in the coming decade.

He said that the next phase for Swiggy will focus on scaling up its services to cater to a consumer base of 300-500 million, expected to grow over the next one or two decades.

The listings of Zomato and Swiggy demonstrate how new-age tech-enabled firms are competing with traditional players in the consumer-focused segment.

For example, since its listing in 2021, Zomatos market capitalisation has gone ahead of companies like Nestle India, Varun Beverages, Britannia Industries, Godrej Consumer Products, and United Spirits, according to data from Bloomberg and exchanges.

Similarly, Swiggy is now ranked higher than Tata Consumer Products, Dabur India, Colgate-Palmolive India, and Patanjali Foods.

Handsome returns for investors

Swiggys listing has provided a strong exit for several early investors.

Prosus, one of the companys largest investors, has reaped around $2 billion.

The companys senior leadership confirmed that they invested $1.3 billion in Swiggy to build their stake to 31 per cent.

Even after the partial exit, Prosus will retain a 25 per cent stake in Swiggy.

Ashutosh Sharma, head of growth investments  India and Asia at Prosus, said, Wednesdays listing is a landmark achievement for Swiggy and a milestone for Prosus in India.

"Prosus has invested more than $8 billion in some of Indias best-known digital companies, including Swiggy, Urban Company, and Meesho, along with many promising early-stage startups.

"Swiggys IPO is the latest success story for Digital India.

Some of Swiggys initial investors have seen returns of 3x to 35x since the companys listing.

This IPO is a testament to the grit, innovation, and consumer focus that Swiggy has consistently brought to the market, said Anand Daniel, partner at Accel.

Mukul Arora, co-managing partner at Elevation Capital, one of Swiggys earliest backers, said, With Swiggy going public, I feel tremendous pride and gratitude toward Harsha and the entire Swiggy team.

"Ive had the privilege of watching Harsha become a visionary leader, someone who embodies the best of entrepreneurship, Arora wrote in a blog post.

Elevation Capital made a seed investment in Swiggy back in 2014 after meeting over 50 startups in the food delivery space.

But within the first few minutes of our conversation, it was clear that this was going to be different, Arora added.

Swiggy now works with more than 220,000 restaurant partners and stores in over 680 cities in India.

Its quick commerce (qcom) network has expanded to 605 dark stores across 43 cities.

The company reported a 26 per cent year-on-year increase in gross order value, reaching $4.2 billion in 2023-24.

Niren Shah, managing director and head of Norwest India, which has invested over $19 million in Swiggy, lauded the company for pioneering qcom through Instamart, developing a full-stack delivery model, and creating innovations like Genie, Swiggy One, and a unified application.

What an amazing journey it has been  from a $35 million valuation when we invested, to now a $12 billion valuation.

"Sriharsha Majety and his team have always been truly visionary! he said.

With inputs from Peerzada Abrar
'That was my mistake.'

'Gautam Adani was not involved in forming the Maharashtra government.'

'Adani was not there in the meeting.'

'The meeting was at his guest house and we were sitting in his guest house.'

Rediff.com at his home in Baramati. Photograph: Hitesh Harisinghani/ Rediff.com IMAGE: Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar speaks toat his home in Baramati.

It is not every day that a politician asks you to be present at 6 am for an interview but if you are Maharashtra Finance Minister and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, you need to be different.

He is up by 6 am and is waiting for media-persons at his house in Sahyog Society, Baramati, which is his bastion, having represented the constituency since 1991. In this election he is pitted against Yugendra Pawar, his brother's son.

"I like to start my day early even though I slept at 3 am last night because of my busy election campaign schedule," the Nationalist Congress Party leader tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com in the first of a multi-part interview.

Your interview with Newslaundry stating that Gautam Adani was part of a meeting to form the government has created ripples in state politics.

That was my mistake. Gautam Adani was not involved in forming the Maharashtra government (in 2019).

Gautam Adani was not there in the meeting. The meeting was at his guest house and we were sitting in his guest house.

You faced a huge disappointment in the Lok Sabha elections as only one of your party members got elected. What are you doing to prevent a similar outcome in the assembly elections?

You must be aware that Opposition parties had started a narrative that the ruling party wants to change the Constitution, wants to remove reservations once they get a majority in the Lok Sabha during the elections, which was a fake narrative.

The Opposition then targeted the minority community by stating that the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) wants 400-plus seats in the Lok Sabha because they want India to be declared a Hindu Rashtra after which they will have no right to vote.

Plus, they put the fear in their minds that minorities will be expelled to Bangladesh and Pakistan if the BJP gets 400-plus seats.

This kind of narrative set a panic among the voters of Maharashtra who decided that the ruling alliance, of which I was a partner, must be defeated.

One more reason for our party performing poorly in the elections was the fact that the onion farmers were upset as they couldn't export their yield due to which prices of onions crashed then.

In places like Solapur, Satara, Nashik, Nagar (Ahilya Nagar, formerly known as Ahmednagar) there are many small onion farmers who were upset with the government due to which we paid a heavy price in the elections.

You will be surprised to know that we lost by only 0.6 percent votes against our opponents.

In this election we have geared up and are exposing them on fake narratives like changing of the Constitution, Hindu Rashtra and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

I am telling the minorities that nobody is sending you out of India. We (the Nationalist Congress Party) follow the philosophy of Shahu Mahraj and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, which is inclusive to its core.

IMAGE: Ajit Pawar at an election meeting in Pune, November 12, 2024 at which senior BJP leader Narendra Modi was presented a sitar. Photograph: ANI Photo

But then your alliance partner the BJP campaigners like Yogi Adityanath state that 'batogey toh katogey' (if Hindus are divided they will be destroyed if the BJP loses).

I have opposed this statement openly.

I have said such statements can work in North India, but not in a state like Maharashtra. If you go to Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa or Telangana, such statements do not work.

How much are you ideologically aligned to the BJP which talks of Hindutva?

The NCP was in alliance with the Shiv Sena after Uddhav Thackeray became chief minister. At that time, from 2019 to the next two-and-a-half years we ruled the state.

At that time the Congress too was in our alliance.

All three parties have different ideologies, but yet we came together and ran the government. We worked on a common minimum programme and ran the government.

In the same way now we have come together with the BJP for the development of Maharashtra under the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Be it the bullet train, seaports, airports or any other such huge infrastructure projects, then you need the help of the central government. In order to make Maharashtra the number one state in India, we joined hands with the BJP to rule the state.

Photograph: Hitesh Harisinghani/ Rediff.com IMAGE: Baramati's NCP Vice President Sangram Diliprao Jagtap demonstrates his loyalty to Ajit Pawar on his car.

You launched the Laadki Bahin project as Maharashtra finance minister. Don't you think Chief minister Eknath Shinde is taking credit for it rather than you?

This scheme is of the Mahayuti government in total and not that of any of the parties that is part of the government.

We took yatras before the scheme was launched. My partY's junior minister Aditi Tatkare, who is the women and child development minister, she got active to ensure the linkup of Aadhar with bank accounts was activated in time so that every woman in Maharashtra gets the benefit of the Laadki Bahin scheme.

It has had an impressive effect on the ground as women are happy to get Rs 1,500 in their bank account every month. Will the Laadki Bahin scheme be a gamechanger in the elections as everyone says?

Yes, I think so. Laadki Bahin will be a gamechanger for the Mahayuti alliance in the elections.

When we launched the scheme the Opposition blamed us stating that Maharashtra has no money and our government was emptying the coffers. They said it was chunavi jumla (election stunt) but money started pouring in through direct bank transfers to women from July.

And when the Opposition saw money actually pouring in they started the counter-argument, what is going to change with Rs 1,500 per month for a poor woman?

Only a poor woman understands the value of the Laadki Bahin scheme. She knows the value of Rs 1,500 per month given by the government.

VIDEO: Watch Ajit Pawar speak on Laadki Bahin scheme

Is it not bad economics to give freebies, and that too in cash?

Look at it this way.

Rs 1,500 per month translates into Rs 50 per day. If you buy a cup of tea in Mumbai that cost comes to Rs 50 in many places.

To uplift poverty and raise the living standards of poor people the government will have to bring one or the other schemes like Laadki Bahin.
'A rigid or overly broad interpretation could lead to a chilling effect on investments and growth in sectors traditionally driven by private initiative.'

'Entrepreneurs may fear that their assets could be arbitrarily appropriated by the State under the guise of serving the 'common good' without sufficient legal safeguards.'

'The judgment thus supports a more nuanced view, one that balances individual property rights with public welfare objectives.'

IMAGE: The Supreme Court of India. Photograph: ANI Photo

November 5, 2024, saw a landmark judgment being delivered by the Supreme Court.

A nine-judge Constitution Bench ruled that not all private property can be deemed 'material resource of the community'.

Why this judgment is important can be gauged from the thoughtful and nuanced statements of then Chief Justice Dr D Y Chandrachud in his majority 8:1 judgment.

Justice Chandrachud gave a framework for determining whether a privately owned resource qualifies as a 'material resource of the community' and how to identify key factors for this evaluation.

Dr G V Rao, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India and Vice-President, Indian Society of International Law, explains the judgment with precision and detail.

Dr Rao tells Rediff.com Contributor Shobha John that the judgment balances individual property rights with public welfare objectives.

The apex court rejected the expansive view that all resources fall within the purview of the State for redistribution as this could hinder growth in the private sector.

How significant was the November 5, 2024, ruling of the Supreme Court striking down the State's power to seize private property? Can the State take over property if it wants to build a metro or an airport?

The nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court in Property Owners Association & Ors Vs State of Maharashtra & Ors 2024, marks an important point in Constitutional jurisprudence on property rights in India.

It affirms that private property cannot be arbitrarily taken by the State in the absence of stringent procedural safeguards, as outlined under Article 300A of the Constitution, which although no longer a fundamental right, is a Constitutional and human right.

The judgment emphasises the necessity for the State to fulfill procedural requirements before any such acquisition of private property for public purposes, while giving preponderance to fairness, transparency and just compensation.

However, this judgment in no way prevents the State from acquiring property for essential public projects such as building infrastructure like airports or metros.

For development to continue, the judgment allows for acquisitions, but insists that these be executed through a structured, transparent process that respects individual rights.

It tries to balance private rights with community welfare.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/ Rediff.com IMAGE: Attorney General R Venkataramani.

Attorney General R Venkataramani, who appeared for the Union of India, submitted that 'all things in the material world constitute the material resources of the community'. What is your opinion about this?

R Venkataramani's argument is, indeed, a sweeping interpretation of Article 39(b).

He advocated a broad construction, suggesting that there should be no distinction between public and private resources under this provision.

In his words: 'Nothing in Article 39 suggests any limitation of the words used therein.

'The distinction between public and private resources, or natural and human-made resources is alien to the spirit of Article 39(b) and (c).'

He was arguing for an expansive view to support egalitarian goals, contending that narrowly defining 'material resources of the community' would hinder the State's ability to address economic disparities.

However, such a broad interpretation raises concerns.

If, for instance, private assets like a person's home or small business were deemed 'community resources', it would definitely infringe on individual property rights, potentially undermining the right to property enshrined under Article 300A.

While redistribution is a recognised goal under Article 39(b), the Court has also emphasised that procedural safeguards in property law must respect private ownership.

The Court acknowledged the importance of distinguishing between different types of private property and only bringing those that serve a public purpose under State control.

Thus, while Venkataramani's interpretation aligns with socialist ideals, it does risk an overreach, potentially subjecting all private property to redistribution, an approach that the Court has tempered by affirming procedural protections and criteria for what constitutes 'material resources of the community'.

As the Court stated at Para 229: 'The direct question referred to this bench is whether the phrase 'material resources of the community' used in Article 39(b) includes privately owned resources.

'Theoretically, the answer is yes, the phrase may include privately owned resources.

'However, this Court is unable to subscribe to the expansive view adopted in the minority judgment authored by Justice Krishna Iyer in Ranganatha Reddy and subsequently relied on by this Court in Sanjeev Coke.

'Not every resource owned by an individual can be considered a 'material resource of the community' merely because it meets the qualifier of 'material needs'.'

So if one builds a house, it cannot, strictly speaking, be treated as community property, in view of the fact that most judgments on land acquisition hold that private property is property that most citizens have as matter of right under Article 300A which is sacrosanct.

It can be acquired only if the State requires it for 'public purpose' which is urgent and compelling.

Even then, the State is expected to pay the citizen appropriate compensation equivalent to the market price. Hence, only the resources of the State which is other than what is explicitly understood as private property can only be treated as 'community resources'.

At the time of the framing the Constitution, the right to property was a 'Fundamental Right' under Articles 31 and 19 (1), which were removed in 1978 to make it a Constitutional right only and placed as Article 300A and the Directive Principles of State Policy were only guides to the State to harmoniously adopt them without being directly in conflict with the Fundamental Rights.

Hence, the framers of the Constitution would not have envisaged such a situation.

The present ruling overturned a 1978 ruling by Justice Krishna Iyer which stated that material resources of the community covered all resources. Was Justice Iyer correct at the time in giving this ruling?

What did he mean by 'material resources'?

Justice Krishna Iyer's interpretation of 'material resources of the community' in his minority judgment in State of Karnataka & Anr v Shri Ranganatha Reddy & Anr (1977), may seem to align with India's socialist orientation then.

It emphasised broad State powers to restructure the economy as it was grounded in an ideology that views an economic structure focused on State acquisition of private property as advantageous for the nation.

Justice Iyer defined 'material resources' to encompass 'all the national wealth, not merely natural resources, all the private and public sources of meeting material needs, not merely public possessions'.

In his view, excluding private resources from the scope of Article 39(b) would undermine its purpose in the context of redistribution, aiming to 'dismantle feudal and capitalist citadels of property' for public welfare.

At that time, this expansive interpretation aligned with India's approach to socialism, as the Directive Principles intended to reduce inequalities.

Justice Iyer sought to include both private and public resources in State-led economic reforms, consistent with the socialist policies India was pursuing such as nationalisation of key industries.

His reasoning reflected the ideology that private resources, as part of the community, could be leveraged for social equity, allowing the State to use various means to ensure fair distribution.

The present judgment, however, has clarified and refined this interpretation, indicating that not all private property falls under 'material resources of the community'.

The Supreme Court ruled that the State cannot take over private property solely under the pretext of serving the 'common good'. What is meant by 'common good'?

While Article 39(b) specifies 'common good' as a criterion for resource distribution, the real issue lies in defining what truly serves the common good.

The Supreme Court did not outright rule that the State cannot acquire private property under the pretext of common good; rather, it questioned whether actions claimed to be for the common good genuinely serve the public interest.

The Court observed that what is sometimes presented as common good may, in reality, fail to align with the welfare of the broader community.

The term 'common good' in the context of Article 39(b) deals not only with distribution in a vague sense, but also ought to be interpreted to read as utilisation of material resources to best serve the public welfare.

The Court emphasised that the 'common good' refers to the welfare of the entire community, but it does not imply that private property can be arbitrarily seized by the State for any purpose that it deems beneficial.

Instead, it must be tied to a legitimate public purpose.

It stresses that while the State may regulate private property for the public good, such regulation or acquisition must be in line with the touchstones of fairness, justice and the protection of individual rights as prescribed in parts of the Constitution and other statutes.

Common good must be understood holistically and should not be bound by a rigid interpretation of the provision, as its application varies with the government's policies.

For example, revenue maximisation is not the sole means of serving the common good; rather, in cases where revenue is the policy's primary aim, auctions may be a preferred but are not the exclusive method.

Where revenue is not the primary objective, auctions may not be necessary, and developmental goals may take precedence over revenue considerations.

IMAGE: Chief Justice of India Dr D Y Chandrachud inaugurates the newly built Multi-Facilitation Centre at the Supreme Court in New Delhi, July 11, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

Justice Chandrachud said in the present case that determining whether a resource falls within the private category requires evaluating factors such as the resource's nature, its impact on public welfare, scarcity, and the consequences of it being privately held.

Won't this be a long process in a country already beset by huge pendency?

Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, in the present judgment, introduced a thoughtful and nuanced framework for determining whether a privately owned resource qualifies as a 'material resource of the community' under Article 39(b).

He identified four key factors for this evaluation: Nature of the resource and its inherent characteristics; impact of the resource on the well-being of the community; scarcity of the resource and consequences of the resource being concentrated in the hands of private owners.

Undoubtedly, these factors would be called to question and refined by courts in future, but this framework is a positive step towards clarity.

The concern raised about the potential length of such evaluations, particularly in a country with high pendency in its judicial system, is understandable.

In my opinion, these evaluations would perhaps reduce the length of litigations, only to a minimal extent.

These factors have been delineated after a careful consideration of the circumstances and the law surrounding the case.

Indeed the evaluation will require a detailed and context-specific analysis for each case, but courts ought to restrict lengthy review of such matters.

This is not a one-size-fits-all approach and the factors listed are not exhaustive.

The Court has stressed the importance of flexibility, allowing the application to evolve as per specific circumstances.

This assessment is about ensuring that the principles of public trust and common good are upheld while balancing private rights.

Hopefully, all such questions arising in future are not inordinately delayed.

Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia dissented, saying there could be instances where private property might align with the goals of Article 39(b) if it serves a clear communal benefit. What does this mean?

Justice Dhulia's dissent in this case emphasises a broader interpretation of 'material resources of the community' under Article 39(b).

While the majority opinion narrowly defined the term to exclude all private property unless it directly serves a public purpose, Justice Dhulia suggested that even private property aligns with the constitutional goals of social justice if it serves a clear communal benefit.

He stated that private property could be included in the redistribution of resources under Article 39(b) if it is used to serve the common good.

Justice Dhulia highlighted that certain private industries, such as those providing public utilities or essential services, can contribute to the societal welfare.

He noted that in such cases, private property should be examined not for its ownership status but for its potential to serve larger public benefit.

For instance, private medical clinics, legal aid bureaus, or other essential services might be integral to the functioning of society and, thus, could be seen as serving a public purpose.

His opinion indicated that the touchstone should be public purpose and not the ownership.

This perspective challenges the majority view and suggests that the concept of 'material resources of the community' should be understood more dynamically, reflecting the evolving nature of property law in a changing economy.

Justice Dhulia further stated that the framers of the Constitution had intended for Article 39(b) to enable the State to regulate the resources in a way that promotes social justice, and not merely to restrict resources based on their ownership.

In his opinion, by making private property an exception, the majority overlooked the potential for private resources to contribute to the public good, thereby hindering the State's ability to fulfill its mandate of equitable distribution of resources.

I do not agree with the views of Justice Dhulia.

IMAGE: Locals stage a protest against the Bullet Train demanding the return of their acquired lands according to entitlement, outside the Thane collectorate office in Thane, October 6, 2023. Photograph: ANI Photo

Can a rigid interpretation of 'community resources' hinder private ownership and entrepreneurial growth?

A rigid interpretation of 'community resources' could potentially hinder private ownership and entrepreneurial growth, particularly if it leads to an expansive view that all resources fall within the purview of the State for redistribution.

The judgment specifically rejects a broad view of 'material resources of the community', which could automatically place private property under State control.

The Court's careful distinction in this regard is evident in its rejection of the argument that all privately owned resources could be considered community resources simply because they serve a public purpose.

Instead, the Court stated that the notion of material resources of the community must be limited to resources which, in their use or potential, affect the larger social and economic fabric, or contribute significantly to the welfare of the people.

A rigid or overly broad interpretation could lead to a chilling effect on investments and growth in sectors traditionally driven by private initiative.

Entrepreneurs may fear that their assets could be arbitrarily appropriated by the State under the guise of serving the 'common good' without sufficient legal safeguards.

The judgment thus supports a more nuanced view, one that balances individual property rights with public welfare objectives.

IMAGE: Dr G V Rao. Photograph: Kind courtesy Dr G V Rao IMAGE: Dr G V Rao.

The bench, however, said that the State can stake claim over private properties in certain cases. What cases would these be?

The present judgment in no way removes private property from the ambit of Article 39(b).

Rather it recognises that while the State cannot indiscriminately claim all private properties, it can acquire control them in certain circumstances to fulfill the constitutional mandates of 'economic democracy' and to achieve the common good.

The judgment specifies that the State's power to acquire land is legitimate when the resources involved serve a 'public purpose' such as preventing the concentration of wealth and ensuring equitable distribution for societal benefit.

In this regard, the Court states that private property may fall within the ambit of 'material resources of the community', but it is not a blanket rule.

The private property must satisfy certain qualifiers, notably its impact on the welfare of the community, its scarcity, and the consequences of its concentration in private hands.

For example, urban land, when concentrated in the hands of a few, may trigger State intervention to prevent monopolisation, ensuring that the land is used for public purposes such as industrialisation or other development goals.

This can involve retaining the resource through nationalisation or acquisition for public purposes.

What is the concept of private property?

This means any property/asset owned by individuals or private organisations rather than the government.

It includes tangible assets like buildings or land and intangible assets like intellectual property.

Pre 44th Amendment, Article 31 enshrined the right to property as a fundamental right, providing protection from arbitrary appropriation.

However, because the State was facing difficulty acquiring land for public projects, the 44th Amendment was adopted in 1978, removing right to property off the list of Fundamental Rights.

Nevertheless, Article 300A was added to guarantee that people cannot be dispossessed of their property unless a due process of law is followed.

Although it is no longer in the nature of a fundamental right, which warranted a greater protection, individual's right to property now exists as a constitutional and human right, which is still highly valued and protected by the Constitution and courts.

The present judgment cannot be seen as any dilution of the position of the right to property.

It only clarifies it further.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
United States President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat and the first-ever Hindu elected to the US Congress, would serve as Director of National Intelligence in his second term.

IMAGE: Tulsi Gabbard recently moved from being a Democrat to a Republican member. Photograph: Tulsi Gabbard on Facebook

A four-term Congresswoman, 2020 presidential candidate and NYT bestselling author, Gabbard is a veteran with three deployments to war zones in the Middle East and Africa. She recently moved from being a Democrat to a Republican member.

"I am pleased to announce that former Congresswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Tulsi Gabbard, will serve as Director of National Intelligence (DNI). For over two decades, Tulsi has fought for our Country and the Freedoms of all Americans," Trump announced.

"As a former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, she has broad support in both parties. She is now a proud Republican! I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing peace through strength. Tulsi will make us all proud!" Trump said.

Gabbard first served in elected office in the Hawaii State House of Representatives when she was 21 years old. After the 9/11 attacks, she enlisted in the Army National Guard.

In 2004, she gave up an easy re-election campaign and volunteered to deploy to Iraq with the 29th Brigade Combat Team where she served in a medical unit, according to a media release.

After returning home in 2006, she worked in the US Senate as a legislative aide to the late Senator Danny Akaka, who was the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. She then volunteered for a second Middle East deployment as a platoon leader.

Having experienced firsthand the true cost of war, Gabbard ran for United States Congress at the age of 31, vowing to honour the lives and sacrifice of her brothers and sisters in uniform.

She prevailed in a difficult election and went on to serve in Congress for eight years as a member of the Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Foreign Affairs Committees. Foregoing a run for reelection to Congress in 2020, she ran for president as a Democrat.

In October 2022, she announced she was leaving the Democrat Party, becoming an Independent.

Her first book For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind was released on April 30, 2024 and hit number four on the New York Times' Bestsellers List the following week.

On August 26, 2024, Gabbard formally endorsed Trump for a second term and soon after began serving as co-chair of his transition team.

On October 22, 2024, she joined the Republican Party because of President-elect Trump's leadership and how he has been able to transform the Republican Party, bringing it back to the party of the people and the party of peace, the release said.
Shivkumar Gautam, the alleged main shooter in the Baba Siddique murder case, remained at the spot for 20 minutes after the Nationalist Congress Party leader was gunned down on October 12, an official said on Thursday.

IMAGE: Baba Siddique. Photograph: ANI Photo

He had changed his clothes and returned to the spot, the official added.

"He had thrown a bag carrying his shirt, pistol and his Aadhar card at the spot. After the shootout, he found people were in panic and a large number of police had arrived. He also observed if police were asking bystanders for leads on the perpetrators," the official said.

He saw that two of his associates had been nabbed from the spot itself, the official added.

"Gautam took an autorickshaw and went near Lilavati hospital, where Siddique was admitted, to get confirmation on whether he had died. At around 10:47pm, he left for Kurla railway station. While inside the train, he threw his mobile phone somewhere. Efforts are on to trace it," the official said.

The official also said a suspect brought from a border village in Punjab was allowed to go after no role of his surfaced.

During the interrogation of the accused persons, Crime Branch officials found wanted accused Shubham Lonkar was in direct contact with Anmol Bishnoi, brother of the jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.

The Mumbai crime branch also found that Shubham Lonkar had trained with an AK-47 rifle in the dense forests some 50 kilometres from Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur in July, he said.

"Shubham Lonkar was with arrested accused Vilas Apune and Rupesh Mohol when trio had gone to Mahakal. Shubham Lonkar was given training by some people. The training session was going on for four days, and their stay was for five days," the official said.

"We are probing if Shubham Lonkar got weapons training from Naxalites. Lonkar had warned Apune and Mohol that they should not discuss about the training with anybody. We also got information that a corporator from Pune was on the hit list of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang," he said.

According to the official, in Baba Siddique murder conspiracy, arrested accused Anurag Kashyap and Gyan Prakash Tripathi had sent money to scrap dealer Harish Kumar.

"Harish had transferred money into various other accounts and had given his ATM card to shooters to withdraw money," he said.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Thursday backed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah over his claim that the BJP had offered Rs 50 crore each to 50 Congress MLAs in an attempt to "topple" the state government.

IMAGE: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. Photograph: @siddaramaiah/X

Addressing reporters in Bengaluru, Shivakumar, also the Congress state president, said, "The BJP indeed lured 50 Congress MLAs with Rs 50 crore each."

He defended Siddaramaiah's statement and said the Congress MLAs were briefed about the BJP's alleged 'Operation Lotus', a term used to describe the BJP's attempts to destabilise ruling governments through horse-trading.

"Some of our MLAs informed the Chief Minister about this matter, and he, in turn, shared it with the media," Shivakumar said.

At an event in Mysuru, Siddaramaiah reiterated the claim that "none of the Congress MLAs had accepted the offer".

He also accused the BJP of filing false cases against him in a bid to "remove him and overthrow his government".

Karnataka BJP President B Y Vijayendra challenged Siddaramaiah to disclose the source of his allegation and prove his charge.

He said the Chief Minister has lost faith in his own MLAs and, hence, was levelling false allegations.

If the Chief Minister fails to prove that Rs 50 crore each was offered to 50 Congress MLAs, people will not take him seriously anymore, Vijayendra said.

Siddaramaiah declined to comment on Vijayendra's statement.

"I will not comment on him. Why do you ask me about the person who came (into politics) just recently?" the Chief Minister said.

Vijayendra alleged that Siddaramaiah, holding a responsible position, was behaving in a manner that undermines its dignity.

"You have your own government and your own investigative agencies. Hence, it is your moral responsibility to reveal to the people the source of the Rs 50 crore bribe charge. Otherwise, your statement will be nothing more than a childish political statement," he said.

According to him, the Chief Minister's allegation was an insult to the democratic system as it depicts the MLAs as commodities for sale.

Vijayendra charged Siddaramaiah with weaving a lie to keep the MLAs in check and cover up the corruption cases "surrounding" him.

Stating that the allegation made by the Chief Minister needs to be investigated, he said the Directorate of Enforcement should urgently take it up on its own and immediately conduct a probe.
The Congress has lodged complaints with the Election Commission against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, accusing them of making 'false, divisive, malicious and slanderous' statements during their recent election campaign.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a public meeting for the Jharkhand Assembly election, at Sarath in Deoghar on November 13, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

The opposition party has urged the Commission to ban Modi and Shah from conducting any election-related activities for the remainder of the election period, conduct a thorough investigation in the matter and direct the registration of a criminal case against all the individuals involved in 'the Bharatiya Janata Party's vitriolic and blatantly violative electoral campaign' in Maharashtra and Jharkhand.

In his memorandum to the EC against Modi, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said his party wants to apprise the poll panel of several statements issued by the star campaigner of the BJP and the incumbent Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, during an election rally for the ongoing Maharashtra Assembly elections.

On November 8, Modi, during election rallies in Nasik and Dhule, Maharashtra, made a series of 'false, malicious, and slanderous' statements targeting the Congress (INC) and its allies, Ramesh alleged.

In his statements, Modi levelled allegations against prominent leaders of the Congress and former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, he said.

Modi alleged that the Congress leaders were opposed to the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities and Other Backward Classes (OBC), Ramesh pointed out.

'Thereafter, Narendra Modi levelled allegations against the current leadership of the INC and claimed that the INC was opposed to the interests of the SC, ST and OBC communities. In fact, Mr Modi went to the extent of claiming that INC was actively promoting infighting amongst the SC, ST and OBCs,' he said and shared a transcription of the speech.

'The tone and tenor of the entire speech is further evidence of the speaker's intention to create and spread religious and caste-based animosity,' Ramesh alleged in his memorandum dated November 13.

Ramesh also cited a speech by Modi on November 12, during his election rally in Chandrapur, Maharashtra, and said the PM 'repeated his false and unfounded allegations against the INC and its alliance partners'.

'However, apart from the allegations, Mr Modi yet again made claims and statements, which are directly in violation of the electoral laws and amount to committing offences under criminal law,' he said.

In his memorandum to the EC against PM, Ramesh said the invocation of caste references by the BJP star campaigner to gain political mileage is clearly in furtherance of the BJP's 'vitriolic and inciteful campaign intended to promote enmity between communities; tarnish and malign the reputation of the Congress and its senior leadership; and mislead the general public, instigating them to oppose the Congress for being against members of the SC, ST, and OBC communities'.

The Congress leader urged the EC to conduct a thorough investigation in the matter and direct the registration of a criminal case against all the individuals involved in 'the BJP's vitriolic and blatantly violative' electoral campaign in Maharashtra.

Ramesh also called on the poll panel to pass orders banning Modi from conducting any election-related activities for the remainder of the election period.

He urged the commission to pass any such order as deems appropriate and fit.

In his memorandum complaining against Shah, Ramesh said the Congress is constrained to approach the Commission to bring to its attention certain statements made by the BJP star campaigner, and incumbent Union Home Minister, Shah.

These statements are 'blatant' in violation of provisions of the Model Code of Conduct as well as extant electoral laws, he said.

On November 12, during an election rally in Jharkhand's Dhanbad, Shah delivered a slew of 'false, divisive, malicious, and slanderous statements about the Indian National Congress (INC) and its allies', Ramesh alleged.

According to Ramesh, During his speech, Shah alleged that the Congress and its allies were against Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and promoting terrorism in the country.

'In what has become a common narrative across the BJP's campaign in Jharkhand, Shah has also accused the Congress of planning to take away reservations from members of the ST, SC and OBC communities and granting them to members of a particular religious minority community,' the Congress leader said in the memorandum and attached the video containing the statements made by Shah.

'The statements by Mr Amit Shah have been made with the sole intent of inciting voters on the grounds of religion and caste; in order to consolidate votes and inducing them into voting for the BJP by stoking communal insecurity. To make matters worse, these statements are in wide circulation,' he said.

In his memorandum complaining against Shah, Ramesh urged the EC to conduct a thorough investigation in the matter and direct the registration of a criminal case against 'all the individuals involved in the BJP's blatantly violative electoral campaign in Jharkhand'.

He also urged the commission to pass orders banning Shah from conducting any election related activity for the remainder of the election period.

Ramesh further urged the Commission to pass any such order as it deems appropriate and fit.

Later, in a post on X, Ramesh said, 'We have asked @ECISVEEP to investigate BJP and its leaders for their brazen electoral violations. We hope ECI acts on these complaint with the urgency they require.'

Maharashtra will go to polls on November 20, while the assembly elections in Jharkhand will be held in two phases on November 13 and November 20.

The counting of votes will take place on November 23.
A court in New Delhi on Thursday refused to take cognisance of a chargesheet filed against Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan in a money laundering case related to alleged irregularities in the Delhi Waqf Board and ordered his 'immediate release', saying his further incarceration in the matter would be 'illegal'.

IMAGE: Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan. Photograph: ANI Photo

Special Judge Jitendra Singh said that after going through the supplementary chargesheet and the documents filed with it, including the statement of the witnesses, there was sufficient ground to proceed against Khan.

However, no sanction from the competent authority/government was placed on record against him.

"Thus, cognisance against A-6 (Khan) is declined for the offence defined under section 3 (money laundering) and punishable under section 4 of the PMLA for the lack of requisite sanction," the judge said while noting that Khan was a 'public servant'.

He further said that in the case, 'there is no legal ground to justify further detention of the accused in custody'.

"Keeping the accused in custody in these circumstances when the cognisance has been declined for the absence of sanction under section 197 (1) CrPC, shall tantamount to illegal custody. Under these circumstances, the accused has to be immediately released," the judge said.

Special Judge Singh further issued an order for the release of Khan in the case after accepting his bail bond of Rs 1 lakh and a surety of like amount, 'for securing his presence in case the sanction is obtained and filed by the complainant (ED) in future'.

The ED on October 29 filed a 110-page first supplementary prosecution complaint (ED's equivalent of a chargesheet), claiming Khan laundered money that was allegedly generated through corruption in the Delhi Waqf Board.

The chargesheet had also named one Mariam Siddiqui, who was not arrested as an accused by the ED in the case. The court said there was no evidence to proceed against Siddiqui and discharged her.

"The case against Siddiqui is apparently based upon surmises and conjectures as there exists no evidence whether direct or circumstantial against her. The SPC (supplementary prosecution complaint) lacks grounds for proceeding against Siddiqui. Accordingly, she is not summoned in the present case," the judge said.

The ED had earlier urged the court to take cognisance of the chargesheet and said there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Khan and others in the case registered under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Khan was arrested on September 2 under the provisions of the PMLA by the ED, which conducting a search at his house in Delhi's Okhla area.

The AAP MLA was accused of being 'evasive' when questioned by the probe agency.

The money laundering probe against him stems from two first information reports (FIRs) -- the Central Bureau of Investigation's case in connection with the alleged irregularities in the Waqf Board and an alleged disproportionate assets case registered by the Delhi Police anti-corruption unit.
More than two dozen lawmakers and eminent Indian Americans celebrated Diwali at the Capitol, the first major event at the US Congress after last week's presidential elections.

Photograph: Courtesy, RepMeuser/X

The annual 'Diwali at Capitol Hill' on Wednesday was organised by the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha, in association with several other Indian American organisations including the Hindu American Foundation, Sikhs for America, Jain Association of North America, and Art of Living.

President-elect Donald Trump is set to assume office after winning the presidential election last week.

Speaking at the Diwali celebration, Senator Rand Paul said the US is a land of immigrants which attracts the best and brightest around the world, underscoring that they blend to make America a great country. I'm a big advocate of more lawful immigration and have many bills to expand that, and I'm going to keep working on that. Have a good Diwali, Paul said.

Greeting Indian Americans on the occasion, Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith said she looks forward to the great next four years. We want to just provide prosperity for this country, for those who want to look for something new, to do something new, she said.

We just want to encourage you that we want to have a stable atmosphere. We want a great economy. We want a safe place for everybody to be able to raise your family, she said, addressing the gathering which also included India's Ambassador to the US Vinay Mohan Kwatra.

This is an Indian festival which is embraced and celebrated the world over. Your presence here, the presence of so many congressmen and senators has made it all the most special. It is a reflection of their commitment to the relationship. Your presence there is a reflection of the important role that you at this festival place in the relationship, Kwatra said in his address.

Congressman Shri Thanedar, who was re-elected from the thirteenth Congressional district of Michigan last month, said in his first term he was able to form Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhist caucuses for the first time in Congressional history.

There's a lot that needs to be done. I'm working with the state department on the attacks on Hindu temples and making sure our community is protected all across America. I'm also working with the state department on the atrocities on the Hindus in Bangladesh, Thanedar said.

Congressman Tom Souzzi from New York referred to the recent attacks on Hindu temple in Long Island.

I spoke on the floor of the Congress, and I said that when Indian Americans, Hindu Americans, place their hands like this and say namaste, they are really recognising the divinity and the respect they have for the person in front of them, and we need more of that in our country today, he said.

In his address, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi said, "You are the fastest-growing ethnic minority in America. You are the most prosperous, the best educated. One out of every seven doctors is a Desi."

The words of support tonight are coming from members of Congress who greatly appreciate each of you taking time, not just to be at this Diwali event for another beautiful year, but of the year that has been so monumental in the growth and opportunity for so many of you here in the United States of America, Congressman Pete Sessions said in his remarks.

Congressman Dan Meuser recollected the joint address to the Congress by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year and said he did a wonderful job. It stayed with me just how well he spoke about the importance of the American Indian relationship, how it needs to improve for economic reasons, and for national security reasons, and an overall peace for our world, he said.

Our relationship will continue to grow. It's very, very important. We have a new president and a new Senate. We hope to be united, work together, find common ground, and do what's best for the United States, for India, for the world, Meuser said. Former House Majority Leader Congressman Steny Hoyer applauded the contribution of Indian Americans to the country's progress.

"On this Diwali, I come here to thank each and every one of you. America is stronger and better for those of you who came from India and who love America and who serve our fellow citizens," he said.

We know that our Indian American community is one of our success stories. It is a part of the vibrancy of our incredible economy and so many communities...to the families across America recognising and celebrating Diwali, we salute you tonight, said Congresswoman Haley Stevens.
For the first time ever in the Indian Navy, sister and brother duo of Commander Prerna Deosthalee and Commander Ishan Deosthalee are commanding two different warships at the same time in the force.

IMAGE: Sister and brother duo of Commander Prerna Deosthalee and Commander Ishan Deosthalee. Photograph: ANI on X

Commander Prerna Deosthalee last year became the first ever female officer to be handed over the command of a warship in the Indian Navy. She is presently commanding the fast attack craft INS Trinkat. Her brother, Commander Ishan Deosthalee has now been given the command of INS Vibhuti which is a Veer-class missile vessel of the Indian Navy.

The vessel Vibhuti was part of the steam past given to President Draupadi Murmu off the coast of Goa in the Arabian Sea.

Both the brother and sister duo are commanding their warships under the Western Command.

The President Droupadi Murmu on November 7 visited the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant along with the Chief of Navy Staff Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi and witnessed an operational demonstration by the Indian Navy .

In her address, President Murmu praised the Indian Navy's capabilities and strategic reach."The Indian Navy units are deployed across vast areas for extended durations, showcasing their capabilities and strategic influence. Your positive, proactive, and swift actions have saved countless lives at sea. It was a special moment for me when the President of Bulgaria called to express gratitude for rescuing the Bulgarian crew from a hijacked vessel earlier this year."
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Surangel Samuel Whipps, President of the Republic of Palau, arrived in Azerbaijan on Thursday to attend to attend the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Trend reports.

At Heydar Aliyev International Airport, the President of Palau was welcomed by Nadir Zeynalov, Azerbaijans Deputy Minister of Health, along with other officials.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

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If Maratha activist Manoj Jarange Patil drops a hint of supporting or opposing a particular coalition on the eve of polling on November 20, things may change overnight.

Just a month after it suffered reverses in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance, Mahayuti, made a comeback of sorts. In the legislative council polls for 11 seats, Mahayuti won 9.

IMAGE: Maratha activist Manoj Jarange Patil. Photograph: ANI Photo

While the cross-voting by half-a-dozen Congress MLAs grabbed the headlines, what flew under the radar was the caste matrix of the winning candidates, especially of those fielded by the BJP.

Four of its five winners were non-Maratha. One of them was Pankaja Munde, daughter of the late Gopinath Munde, arguably the tallest OBC leader in the state.

A couple of months later on October 9, a day after the BJP retained power in Haryana, led by OBC Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, the National Commission for Backward Classes recommended the inclusion of 19 castes and sub-castes from Maharashtra in the central list of OBCs. The move was seen as fulfilling the long-pending demand of those communities.

On October 10, the Maharashtra cabinet approved a proposal to request the Centre to raise the income limit to qualify for non-creamy layer to Rs 15 lakh per year from the current Rs 8 lakh, a step seen as a symbolic gesture to the OBC communities at broadening quota benefits. Ahead of the elections in Haryana, Saini had increased the income limit from Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh.

Poll watchers, however, believe cobbling up a non-Maratha rainbow caste combination, particularly of the OBCs, would be a tough task in Maharashtra.

In Haryana, just months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP replaced its Punjabi-Khatri Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar with Saini, an OBC. He was given a free hand.

Because the Ahir-Saini voters are somewhat concentrated in certain parts of Haryana, that move may have benefited the BJP.

IMAGE: Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, right, with Manoj Jarange Patil in Navi Mumbai, January 27, 2024. Photograph: Sahil Salvi

However, in Maharashtra, the party does not have a pan-Maharashtrian OBC face to project. Moreover, there is no such thing as an OBC vote bank in Maharashtra, says Kedar Naik, professor of political science, Ajeenkya D Y Patil University, Pune.

And that's where, according to Naik, schemes like Ladki Bahin might play a role. Rather than committing to a singular social identity of caste, Mahayuti seems to have attempted to appeal to a broader economic base keeping in mind the women voters political agency, he adds.

The slew of back-to-back OBC-focused political manoeuvres just ahead of the elections to the 288-member Maharashtra assembly, say political observers, stem from the BJP-led alliance's wariness of the strategic voting by the culturally dominant Maratha community against its candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Perhaps taking a cue from the setback, the BJP seems to have fallen back on its pre-2014 strategy of consolidating its base among the non-dominant castes, particularly among the OBCs.

According to a government-appointed panel, Marathas make up 28 per cent of Maharashtra's population. As many as 12 of the 20 chief ministers in the state belonged to this community.

The 2024 Lok Sabha polls saw sharp polarisation of Maratha and OBC votes across Maharashtra, particularly in Marathwada, where the BJP-led alliance could win only one of the eight seats.

What led to this huge Maratha mobilisation was a police lathi-charge on an indefinite hunger strike led by Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil in Jalna district in September 2023.

Jarange, a product of the 58-odd muk morchas (silent marches) led by the Maratha community across the state, has been in protest mode for the past two years demanding reservation for the Marathas under the OBC category.

What has confounded political activists and social scientists alike is the absence of what they call social movement fatigue in Jarange's protest.

An activist closely associated with the Maratha quota protest said: "He (Jarange) dresses up like a rangda (a colloquial term for rustic) Maratha. He doesn't ask anything for himself. He is perceived by the masses as someone who doesn't cut deals with politicians. He is fighting with an indefatigable spirit for the Maratha cause."

According to sources, Jarange wields huge influence in all the 43 assembly seats of Marathwada and an extended influence in some districts of Western Maharashtra. These two regions together have given Maharashtra nine chief ministers -- eight Marathas and a Dalit from the Congress.

Weeks before the Election Commission announced polling dates in Maharashtra, politicians cutting across party lines, made a beeline to meet Jarange at his village Antarwali Sarati, the nerve centre of the quota protest.

Conspicuously present were ministers and candidates of the BJP-led alliance. This move, according to sources, was to pacify Jarange in the hope that he could help avert Maratha mobilisation against them in some constituencies.

In his speeches, Jarange deploys jargon associated with Maratha warrior-king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj with popular appeal. In the run-up to the filing of nominations for the assembly polls, Jarange created a flutter by declaring his candidates would contest. Then, on November 4, the last day of nomination withdrawals, he asked all of them to drop out.

All this, Jarange said, was ganimi kawa (a term denoting guerilla tactics used extensively in historiography of Shivaji Maharaj). This, sources say, was his way to keep all political parties guessing until the last minute.

Beyond the Maratha built-up, the Congress-led alliance Mahavikas Aghadi counts on what election watchers in the region say is the unbeatable Maratha-Muslim-Mahar combination. Mahar is a dominant scheduled caste to which B R Ambedkar belonged.

IMAGE: Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and senior ministers with Manoj Jarange Patil (wearing a saffron scarf), who was on a hunger strike to protest for Maratha reservation, at Antarwali-Sarati, Jalna, September 14, 2023. Photograph: ANI Photo

Jarange-Patil has been continuously taking a stand against the BJP, particularly maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis. Overall, in Marathwada and Western Maharashtra, the Maratha-Muslim-Mahar combination had solidly backed the MVA in Lok Sabha. This broad consolidation is still intact.

In straight contests against the BJP, there is certainly going to be a Maratha consolidation in favour of the MVA, says Bhausaheb Ajabe, an office-bearer of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress, from the region.

Cotton and soybean farmers in the region are selling the cash crops at a price far below the MSP, says Ajabe, adding the agrarian distress would have an impact on electoral outcomes as well.

To fend off the possible Maratha consolidation, the BJP has fielded legacy Maratha candidates like former CM Ashok Chavan's daughter Sreejaya from Bhokar in Nanded and former Union minister Raosaheb Danve's son Santosh Danve from Bhokardan in Jalna. Danve's daughter, too, is contesting on a Shiv Sena (Shinde) ticket from Kannad in Aurangabad.

With their committed votes, the BJP hopes its legacy Maratha candidates would help it split the Maratha votes, while shoring up its own non-Maratha base of upper castes and OBCs, primarily Mali, Dhangar and Vanjari (Madhav) castes.

The party expects that the presence of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, both Marathas, would blunt the edge of quota protest ire against the party, say sources.

In Maratha versus Maratha contests, where winning margins could be narrow, the Jarange factor may tilt the scales.

According to sources, it all depends on what the Maratha quota activist does in the next few days, if he drops a hint of supporting or opposing a particular coalition on the eve of polling on November 20, things may change overnight.

The movers and shakers

With 43 and 58 assembly seats respectively, Marathwada and Western Maharashtra can make or break governments in the state.

Western Maharashtra, dotted with milk cooperatives, sugar factories and fertile land, is seen as a prosperous region. But Marathwada lags behind.

Until a decade ago, both regions were a Congress-NCP (undivided) bastion. After 2014, the BJP-Shiv Sena (undivided) strategically made inroads in the regions.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi thinks that the Constitution of India is 'blank' because he has never read it.

IMAGE: Lok Sabha LoP and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi shows a copy of the constitution during a public meeting for the Maharashtra assembly election, in Gondia. Photograph: ANI Photo

Modi would have pursued different policies had he read the country's foundational document, he said at election rallies at Nandurbar and Nanded ahead of the November 20 Maharashtra assembly elections.

Gandhi's retort came after Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that the Congress leader was showing a copy of the Constitution with blank pages inside at his campaign rallies.

In Nanded, the Congress leader was also campaigning ahead of the Lok Sabha byelection, necessitated by the death of sitting Congress MP Vasant Chavan.

The Congress has fielded his son Ravindra Chavan while the BJP has fielded Santuk Hambarde.

"The prime minister says I show a blank Constitution," Gandhi said in tribal-dominated Nandurbar in north Maharashtra, adding, "The Constitution is blank for him, because he has never read it in his life. He has no idea what is written in it."

In Nanded in central region, Gandhi said the Constitution does not teach discrimination.

"If Modi had read the Constitution, he would not have behaved the way he does. Modi waives loans of Rs 16 lakh crore of 25 rich people but not those of the poor and farmers," he added.

Referring to strife-torn Manipur, he said for the first time in the country's history, a prime minister has not visited a state which has been burning for more than a year.

As to BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis questioning the red cover of the Constitution showed by Gandhi at his rallies and connecting it to 'urban Naxals', Gandhi said, "It does not matter what colour is the Constitution, whether red or blue, what matters is what is written inside and we are committed to defend and protect it even at the cost of our life."

While the Constitution refers to tribals as Adivasis, which means original owners of land, forests and other resources, the BJP deliberately describes them as 'Vanvasis' or forest-dwellers, Gandhi said, adding that the saffron party does not want tribal children to study and become doctors or engineers, but wants to confine them to forests.

Against the eight per cent tribal population in the country, their participation in the government and other institutions was almost negligible, the Congress leader claimed, adding that of the 90 top bureaucrats running the central government, just one officer belongs to the Adivasi community and even he was sidelined.

Caste census was the only solution to end this discrimination, he added.

The Congress leader also reiterated the Opposition's allegation that development projects with huge employment potential meant for Maharashtra were being shifted to other states like Gujarat.

Maharashtra lost about five lakh jobs when projects like Vedanta Foxconn, Tata Airbus, iPhone manufacturing plants and a bulk drug park went to other states, Gandhi alleged, adding that the Maha Vikas Aghadi government of the Congress and allies would ensure that Maharashtra projects remain in Maharashtra and Gujarat projects remain in Gujarat.

The way Modi 'waived the loans of Rs 16 lakh crore of a few billionaires', the MVA government will provide debt relief of up to Rs three lakh to farmers, he said, assuring purchase of paddy, soybean and cotton at the minimum support price.
Bangladesh's top legal official has proposed to remove the words 'secularism' and 'socialism' from the Constitution apart from a provision prescribing capital punishment for regime change through extra-constitutional means.

IMAGE: Protesters sit on the barricade placed in front of the Bangabhaban, the residence and workplace of the President, as they shout slogans demanding the resignation of President Mohammed Shahabuddin in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on October 22, 2024. Photograph: Stringer/Reuters

In his statement in the high court during a hearing on a writ petition filed by a group of citizens, Attorney General Mohammad Asazzaman on Wednesday sought to remove 'secularism' and 'socialism' as two of the four principles of the Constitution alongside the designation of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the Father of the Nation.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the undisputed leader of Bangladesh but the Awami League politicised him in the party's interest, he said, referring to the founding leader of Bangladesh who is popularly known as Bangabandhu.

The writ petition challenged the validity of the Constitution's 15th amendment made by the now-ousted Awami League regime of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina in 2011 while a two-judge high court bench issued a rule asking the interim government to come up with its stance on the matter.

"As a whole, we do not want that (HC) rule to be scrapped," the attorney general said, clarifying the government's stance on the writ petition while talking to newsmen at his office.

Several people, mostly lawyers, emerged as interveners in the writ petition, some supporting the plea and some opposing it.

The 15th amendment was passed in parliament with the strength of a brute majority of the Awami League, restoring, inserting and scrapping several provisions in the Constitution.

The amendments included the restoration of secularism as a state principle, the scrapping of the caretaker government system for election oversight, assuming state power through extra-constitutional means and the designating of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the Father of the Nation.

In his concluding arguments, Asaduzzaman told the court that the interim government wanted to declare the 15th amendment to the Constitution largely unconstitutional, retaining only select provisions.

He particularly demanded the restoration of the caretaker government system and the provision of the referendum in the Constitution.

The Awami League regime was toppled on August 5 in the face of a mass upsurge originating from a quota reform campaign by the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement.

Three days later Nobel laureate Muhammad assumed office as the chief adviser of the interim government.

The attorney general criticised Article 7A inserted under the 15th amendment that criminalises any attempt to repeal, suspend, or subvert the Constitution through force or unconstitutional means, calling such acts as sedition, which are punishable with the death penalty.

He argued that this restriction limits democratic change and disregards the recent mass uprising that deposed the Awami League government and demanded the restoration of the caretaker government system.

"The (provisions of the 15th) amendment betrays the sacrifices of martyrs like Abu Sayed and Mugdho," said Asaduzzaman, referring to two students who were shot dead during the July-August mass protests.

Asaduzzaman was appointed as the attorney general days after the ouster of the past regime and the resignation of his predecessor.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday mocked Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray for handing over the remote control of the party to the Congress as he took poll battle to Mumbai with less than a week left for voting in Maharashtra.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is flanked by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Dy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis at a public meeting in Shivaji Park, Mumbai, November 14, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

Addressing three rallies during the day in support of Mahayuti candidates as canvassing entered its last phase, the Bharatiya Janata Partys star campaigner reiterated his challenge to the Congress to praise Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, a strong votary of Hindutva and saffron alliance in Maharashtra.

He said Mumbai, where the Shiv Sena was founded in 1966 and from where the party drew its political strength, is a city of self-respect.

Mumbai is a city of self-respect, but a party in the Maha Vikas Aghadi has handed over its 'remote control' to those who insulted Balasaheb Thackeray, Modi remarked in the rally at Dadar's Shivaji Park, an iconic venue closely associated with the rise and expansion of the undivided Shiv Sena.

That is why I challenged them to get the Congress to praise Balasaheb Thackeray. Till date these people have not been able to get the Congress and the Prince (a reference to MP Rahul Gandhi) of the Congress to praise Balasaheb, Modi noted.

Uddhav Thackeray snapped ties with the BJP in 2019 and joined forces with the Congress and the undivided Nationalist Congress Party, both his ideological and political rivals till then. The Shiv Sena suffered a split in June 2022 when its leader Eknath Shinde joined hands with the BJP and became chief minister.

Stepping up his attack on the Congress, the BJP stalwart dubbed it as a party desperate for power.

Raising the issue of terror attacks in a city which saw a three-day mayhem in November 2008, Modi maintained such strikes, which were common under the Congress regime, have now become a thing of the past.

Everywhere people were scared of unclaimed objects. But now all this has stopped. Terror masters now know that if they do anything against India, Modi won't spare them, he said.

At his second rally at Kharghar in Panvel taluka of adjoining Raigad district, around 60 km from Mumbai, the PM remarked the Congress gave the 'Garibi Hatao' (eradicate poverty) slogan, but instead looted the poor.

If the poor are benefiting, you feel happy, but the Congress doesn't feel happy over this. The Congress is far ahead when it comes to vote bank politics, but is the enemy of the poor, Modi said.

The Grand Old Party, in power for several decades after independence, has always worked with the agenda of keeping the poor in poverty, the PM averred.

Generation after generation these people kept giving the false slogan of eradicating poverty. In the name of eradicating poverty, the Congress looted the poor, he said.

The PM asserted his government, since 2014, has brought 25 crore people out of poverty.

Modi also spoke of his love for Maharashtra, the land of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

When the BJP chose me as the PM candidate in 2013, I went to Raigad fort and sought the blessings of Shivaji Maharaj to work for the country. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj gave us the oath of swaraj (self-rule). We have to carry forward the resolution of suraj (good governance) along with swaraj to build a developed India, he told the gathering.

Modi said a Congress leader has promised to provide subsidised cooking gas cylinder even to infiltrators if the INDIA bloc comes to power in Jharkhand, which is also facing polls.

Today, a Congress leader has said in Jharkhand that we will give cheap gas cylinders to Hindus and Muslims as well as infiltrators like Rohingyas and Bangladeshis. Should such people who praise the infiltrators get any opportunity anywhere? he asked.

Modi asked the crowd at the rally to say 'ek hai toh safe hai' (we are safe if we are united) so that those seeking to divide society lose their sleep.

At his first election meeting of the day at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar in central Maharashtra, the PM alleged the Congress and its allies are devising a scheme to have a separate Constitution for Kashmir, and making all efforts for restoration of Article 370.

Will the people of Maharashtra support the Congress and its allies who speak the language of Pakistan? Modi asked the gathering.

The Congress and its colleagues have passed a resolution (in J&K assembly) to restore Article 370. When we made Kashmir free from Article 370, the Congress opposed this in Parliament and court. Now, they are again hatching a scheme to restore Article 370 and have a separate Constitution in Kashmir, Modi said.

Kashmir is an integral part of India and every citizen wants that there should be only Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar's Constitution in the Union territory, the PM noted.

Modi remarked that the Congress is not comfortable with the fact that an OBC community member has become the prime minister. The Congress used to say reservations were against the country. It considered reservations were against merit. The mentality and agenda of the Congress remains unchanged. Therefore, they can't come to terms with the fact that someone from OBC has been the PM for the last 10 years, he said.

The Prince of Congress, while he is abroad, openly claims that his party will scrap reservations. To further their agenda, the Congress and Maha Vikas Aghadi are conspiring to divide SCs, STs and OBCs into small castes, he said.

Maharashtra will vote on November 20 to elect a new 288-member assembly, while counting will take place three days later.
Barricade is a poignant political play for today's times.

IMAGE: A scene from the play Barricade. Photographs: Kind courtesy Raj Lalwani

A certain political play is gaining popularity in Mumbai.

Its name is Barricade.

Originally written by Utpal Dutt in 1972, in Bengali, it was translated into English in 2022, in a compelling scholarly way by Professor Anand Lal, a critic, journalist and researcher based in Kolkata. While staging how the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the play subtly references India, and 1970s Kolkata.

When documentary filmmaker and theatre director Sunil Shanbag read the translated version a year ago, he felt it just might resonate with Mumbai audiences.

But he had his doubts as well. Times had changed. So had audiences. Tolerance was a thing of the past.

His initial hesitation needed to be seen in the context of the altered Indian political environment -- where arrests of journalists, comedians, cartoonists, political opponents were comonplace -- that would not endure any questioning; criticism was off the table. In such a climate to stage these kinds of plays is complicated.

"It was not an easy decision to make to produce this play," Shanbag explains to Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar. "But instinctively one felt it could connect with the audience. That is something I could see after every show; people would come and talk to us and made the connection themselves."

"It is so contemporary in so many ways," Shanbag adds. "We have only edited the length and removed the prologue. That apart, we have done nothing to the play."

IMAGE: A 52-year-old play finds relevancy in today's India.

Last month Barricade ran full house at the Experimental Theatre, Natiional Centre for the Performing Arts in south Mumbai. It has already been running for some time at venues in north Mumbai.

It seems Shanbag was right about his gamble. This kind of political play could touch audiences even if they are not aware of these historical events.

And even though the synopsis of the play, published in a pamphlet available at the theatre entrance, pretty much alerted folks who had come to see the play, what to expect: 'A powerful allegory of our times, this story is told through the perspective of various characters, who find their lives changed by these events -- the honest journalist, the corrupt newspaper editor, Nazi officials, an upright judge and the detached intellectual'.

IMAGE: Barricade, which is the play's name, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is 'a line of objects placed across a road, entrance etc to stop people getting through' or 'an obstruction hastily erected across a path or street to stop an enemy's advance'.

Shanbag compliments Dutt's play extravagantly, "Utpal Dutt has used the device of an allegory, which is (that) you place something in another time historically and leave it to the audience to find the connection."

"It does two things, because it places it in a different context, you are able to view it somewhat objectively and this helps you, because your brain kicks in and you are thinking.

"Also, when you watch something being played out in another country, in an unfamiliar language, references, etc, all that keeps your mind ticking. That is a deliberate critical strategy devised by Utpal Dutt.

"In an allegory everything can't be one plus one is two. He has fictionalised it a bit and used dramatic liberty. You don't need to change specificities of a situation. People are smart enough to make these connections."

It is pertinent at this juncture to point out that Dutt was best known as an actor of the Bengali theatre. But he was also a director who founded the Little Theatre Group in Calcutta, and a writer-playwright too, writing on controversial topics like illegal hoarding of food grain or problems of democracy. He wrote about the times he lived in and challenged the ruling class, whichever government was in power, that lead to his being arrested a few times.

"I staged it differently at the Experimental. I deliberately put up the play on a raised platform furthering the disconnect with the audience," says Shanbag. "I could have easily put it on the floor and the angle of viewing could have been far more normal and intimate. The idea was to distance it a little bit."

IMAGE: The synopsis of the play was available in a pamphlet one picked up as you entered the theatre.

In Barricade, Shanbag has worked on every character and they have all played pivotal roles. The play literally takes you back to those dark times, with stage props reflecting the desolate days that had fallen on the country.

Archival newspapers were hung on the tall stands, video footage in German was used. At one point a recording of Walter Kaufmann's String Quartet No 11 played (incidentally when composer Kaufmann, a Jew, fled Germany, he came to live in India from 1937 to 1946 and worked in Bombay as a director of music at All India Radio and composed the signature tune for All India Radio; he also established the Bombay Chamber Music Society along with Mehli Mehta and taught Zubin Mehta).

Says Shanbag: "I also think giving it a specific context helps the authenticity of what one is watching. Otherwise it is (just a) two-dimensional view of putting things across. The use of archival footage for me was also to give a very strong specificity. I think the way you see the crowd swirling around Hitler you will draw parallels in your mind. People understand these things."

IMAGE: The Barricade poster.

There was murmuring amongst the audience during the play, when I saw it, with people drawing references to various points in Indian history.

During a time when tolerance for creativity is believed to be, perhaps, on the wane, this play definitely makes the audience sit up and think.

It's a play needed for our times and a signal for people to come together.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
Brattleboro, VT (05301)

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Cloudy this evening. Fog developing late. Low around 45F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

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BRATTLEBORO  Plans to turn space in the Transportation Center on Flat Street into a police substation with public restrooms are moving forward.

At a special meeting Tuesday, the Select Board voted 4-1 to have the town manager proceed with the project at a cost not to exceed $707,000. The project will be covered by the town's revolving loan fund to avoid any additional burden on taxpayers.

"We will plan to move forward with bidding out the police substation this winter anticipating a spring or early summer starting date," Town Manager John Potter said Wednesday after learning a membrane project in the building will not be completed until the spring.

Potter said the project ties into the downtown safety action plan endorsed by the board after being discussed at meetings in August and September. When initially presented in October, the board asked town staff to come back to an option for the substation that removes a community meeting room to save money.

Two other options, which contained the community meeting room, ranged from $1.2 to $1.4 million based on an architect's estimates. Included in all the plans are public restrooms, which the board has long sought to provide downtown.

Currently, the revolving loan fund has just more than $2.5 million with about $600,000 committed to other programs or projects.

Pressures in the town budget for the next fiscal year involve hiring members of the Brattleboro Resource Assistance Team (BRAT) and three new officers as part of the downtown safety action plan. Board Vice Chairwoman Elizabeth McLoughlin called the police substation a "necessary" component.

"I think the reduction in scope is appropriate," board member Franz Reichsman said. "It maintains the important functionality that we're looking for in this police substation and provides, I think, adequate facilities for the BRAT force downtown and other police related activities downtown."

Kate Trzaskos, executive director of the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance, thanked the board for "expediting the concern that you've been hearing from the community" on safety.

"The bathroom facilities are definitely a big plus  thank you for that," she said. "When we think about community safety, it means everyone. I think we need to recognize that everyone, includes a wide swath of people."

Police substation could 'change the whole dynamic' at Transportation Center BRATTLEBORO  A plan being reviewed by the town to add a police substation to the Transporta

Some community members opposed the project, feeling the funds could be better spent on social services or other projects and programs, a bigger police presence isn't needed and it doesn't fit with recommendations proposed in the 2020 community safety review process led by facilitators.

Representative Town Meeting member Abby Mnookin of District 8 said she has "so many" reasons to be against the project.

"I would ask each of you to really think about how you're representing the community input that you are receiving, and whether or not you're giving it the due time that it deserves," she told the board and town staff, adding that mutual aid efforts are underway to address community safety. "And I do not believe that in spending this amount of town money or increasing police presence, when the need is for services, will do our town good. I think it will be expensive and it will cause harm."

Currently, a group going by the name Community Safety Organizing Team is proposing state opioid settlement funds go toward the creation of a community center and emotional support program in Brattleboro. The project was inspired in part by a pop-up drop-in space hosted with support from social service organizations after Groundworks Collaborative temporarily closed its year-round shelter following the April 2023 murder of a case worker and shelter coordinator.

The CSOT is described in the proposal as "a group of community organizers, service providers, experienced leaders, and people with a deep understanding of community safety needs in Windham County."

"Through the creation of two distinct but interconnected and co-located programs ... the CSOT will provide practical harm reduction services and resources while maintaining a consistent focus on the core needs of safety, connection, and belonging," the proposal states. "These programs will address the impacts of visible poverty, homelessness, and the opioid epidemic in the Brattleboro area by providing practical harm reduction services and resources for those who are unhoused, using drugs, and at high risk for carceral interventions, while keeping a consistent focus on the core need for connection, belonging, and dignity."

Before voting against the motion, board Chairman Daniel Quipp said he couldn't in good conscience just ignore what everyone's telling me today." He also described wanting to give the BRAT program "a chance of success."

"One of the things that program needs is a place for those people to work at," he said.

He also voiced concern about the approximately $500,000 the town provides to human services annually, saying that it "does almost nothing."

"I work for one of those agencies," he said, being an employee of Southeastern Vermont Community Action. "I'm saying that piecing out $500,000 to 38 organizations doesn't do good work."

He suggested providing the same figure to a couple of projects might be a better use of the funding.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. COP29, the 29th Conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, hosted by Azerbaijan, has reaffirmed the nation's international stature. This significant event elevated Azerbaijan to a prominent place on the global stage, establishing Baku as the hub of international climate diplomacy. The involvement of 72,000 delegates from 196 nations, comprising 80 heads of state, vice presidents, and prime ministers, once again demonstrated that Azerbaijan is perceived as a reliable partner.

One of the sticking points that remained unresolved in the Paris Agreement was the 6th article, which lays the groundwork for the regulation of carbon markets. Advancements on this problem during COP29 were a pivotal moment in the evolution of global climate policy. The mechanisms governing the worldwide exchange of carbon credits and climate finance are crucial, particularly for developing nations. The accord established with the leadership of the US and the EU further enhanced the historical importance of the event orchestrated by Azerbaijan.

The Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015 in Paris at COP21 (21st Conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), has made history as the most important legal instrument in the fight against global climate change. The main goal of the agreement is to keep global warming below 2C compared to the period before the Industrial Revolution and to bring the limit as close to 1.5C as possible. This goal requires joint action by both developed and developing countries and provides a common framework for global cooperation.

The main provisions of the agreement are the following:

Mitigating global warming. The Paris Agreement mandates that each nation submit its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) plans to mitigate global warming. These programs delineate specific measures that nations might implement to mitigate carbon emissions and enhance environmental sustainability.

Reducing carbon emissions: The agreement's primary objective is to attain zero carbon emissions by 2050. To accomplish this, initiatives include the transition to renewable energy sources, the advancement of sustainable technology, and the conservation of forest ecosystems are vital.

Financial support: The Paris Agreement mandates that developed nations offer financial assistance to developing nations for initiatives aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change. A climate fund of $100 billion annually was established for this purpose.

The deal paves the way for countries to join forces, pooling their know-how and tech to tackle the stormy weather brought on by climate change.

The Paris Agreement is not only a legal document but also a platform for global cooperation, and within the framework of the agreement:

- developed countries have committed to developing clean energy technologies and sharing these technologies with developing countries.

- international financial institutions have established new mechanisms to support developing countries as they mitigate climate change.

The deal rolls out the red carpet for both the public and private sectors to jump on the bandwagon in the battle against climate change.

Azerbaijan joined the Paris Agreement in 2016 and is taking various measures to contribute to the global climate policy. According to Azerbaijan's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), it is planned to reduce carbon emissions by 35 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.

In the meantime, lets take a stroll down memory lane and revisit the steps Azerbaijan has taken to hit the bullseye on these targets:

Clean Energy Production: In addition to increasing the use of natural gas, Azerbaijan is implementing wind and solar energy projects.

Green technologies: The application of green technologies is expanding mainly in the industrial and agricultural sectors.

Environmental projects: Important steps are being taken in the field of afforestation and biodiversity protection.

Azerbaijan is also strengthening cooperation with international partners to obtain international financial and technological support for climate change mitigation and adaptation measures.

While the Paris Agreement represents a pivotal global initiative, its execution encounters a multitude of hurdles.

As per the latest insights from 2023, we are witnessing an upward trajectory in global carbon emissions. The reality that developed nations are not proactively engaging in this critical arena presents significant barriers in the battle against climate change.



The insufficient allocation of fiscal resources by advanced economies to emerging markets, totaling 100 billion dollars annually, is obstructing advancement under the Paris Agreement.



The fragmentation of collaboration among certain nations in the battle against climate change is undermining the impact of worldwide initiatives.



The scarcity of assets for the shift towards sustainable energy innovations in emerging economies constrains their engagement in the accord.

The Paris Agreement represents a pivotal moment in international climate policy, with its effective execution reliant only on global collaboration. To meet the 2030 and 2050 objectives, all nations must expedite the shift to clean energy sources to diminish emissions, enhance international financial assistance for developing country initiatives, and mitigate environmental impacts by implementing green technologies in the industrial sector.

The Paris Agreement is the paramount international instrument embodying the collective effort to combat climate change. The successful implementation will mitigate the effects of global warming and promote environmental sustainability. Azerbaijan not only fulfills its obligations under this agreement but also enhances its leadership in environmental policy both regionally and globally. This method is strategically significant for the economic prosperity and environmental security of Azerbaijan.

The climate financing accords established at COP29 have created new prospects for global sustainable development. The World Bank declared an escalation of its funding commitments to $170 billion. The EU and other international financial organizations have committed supplementary resources to climate funds for developing nations. These monies will be allocated for the introduction of renewable energy technology, the reduction of carbon emissions, and the execution of environmental initiatives.

Azerbaijan has enhanced its relationships with international financial institutions and has attained a prominent role in global climate policy through this event. The exceptional organization and diplomatic initiatives demonstrated during COP29 enhanced Azerbaijan's standing in the global arena. Azerbaijan established a significant platform for enhanced collaboration with global leaders and financial institutions at the event.

COP29 significantly influenced Azerbaijan's domestic development plan. The proliferation of clean energy programs, the implementation of green technologies, and novel measures to mitigate carbon emissions will enhance the competitiveness of the nation's economy. Azerbaijan's sustainable energy policy has new prospects for fulfilling domestic requirements and serving as a model in global climate policy.

The orchestration of the event showcased by Azerbaijan during COP29 garnered significant accolades from global leaders. The optimization of security protocols, the seamless experience curated for attendees, and the showcase of Baku's cutting-edge infrastructure collectively elevated the event to an exceptional standard. The participants highlighted that Azerbaijan has executed the event with exceptional precision, showcasing excellence in both organizational strategy and content delivery.

In the wake of the transformative outcomes of COP29, certain factions within Western spheres have engaged in strategic maneuvers aimed at undermining the event's credibility. The International Community decisively dismissed unfounded allegations regarding critiques of Azerbaijan's climate strategy. The strategic initiatives of the Azerbaijani government catalyzed the triumph of the event, effectively neutralizing any potential boycott efforts from Western entities. Consequently, COP29 reaffirmed Azerbaijan's pivotal role in the landscape of climate policy.

COP29 holds strategic significance for Azerbaijan, both regarding its global influence and its internal advancement. The primary focuses of Azerbaijan's Development Strategy include new clean energy initiatives, the establishment of an environmentally friendly economy, and the enhancement of international partnerships.

COP29 has emerged as a venue for Azerbaijan to actualize its aspirations for leadership in international affairs. The agreements established at the event, new climate finance efforts, and the focus of international leaders on Baku enhanced Azerbaijan's prominence on the global scene. Baku was recognized as a hub for significant diplomatic and environmental decision-making, both regionally and globally. COP29 has elevated Azerbaijan's international standing and created new opportunities for a sustainable future. This will augment Azerbaijan's strategic significance and secure the nation's enduring leadership in the global arena.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) opened on November 11. COP29, which is being held at the Baku Olympic Stadium, will continue until November 22. It is the largest event organized by Azerbaijan to date and the first time in the region that it is being held in Azerbaijan.

The key expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance.

A comprehensive array of 14 strategic initiatives has been proposed by the COP29 Chairmanship.

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Brattleboro, VT (05301)

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Cloudy this evening. Fog developing late. Low near 45F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

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Cloudy this evening. Fog developing late. Low near 45F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
VERNON  On a sunny Monday morning, under clear blue skies, people gathered at a cemetery, not to mourn the death of a person but to celebrate
Now, its been 15 years. Most of the girls that are coming in here today dont know anything about Jessica, said Debbie Bolognani. But, she
Photo: Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaija

BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Delegation led by Deputy Minister of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan  Commander of the Air Force, Lieutenant General Namig Islamzade undertook a working visit to the People's Republic of China to participate in the 15th China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition held in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, Trend reports via the country's Defense Ministry.

During the dynamic exhibition, which attracted Air Force leaders and esteemed officials from more than 100 nations, alongside delegations from both regional and global organizations, Lieutenant General Namig Islamzade engaged in a strategic dialogue with General Chang Dingqiu, the Commander of the People's Liberation Army Air Force.

The meeting discussed the current state and future prospects of military and military-technical cooperation between the Air Forces of Azerbaijan and China. Lieutenant General Namig Islamzade expressed his gratitude to General Chang Dingqiu for the invitation to attend the exhibition.

As part of the working visit to China, Lieutenant General Namig Islamzade held meetings with the commanders of the Belarusian and Iranian Air Forces, the Deputy Commander of the Russian Air Force, as well as with executives from several companies of China's State Defense Industrial Complex.

The meetings included detailed exchanges of views on matters of mutual interest.

It is worth noting that the international exhibition featured a display of over 260 types of military equipment from Chinese defense industry corporations, including fighter aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the HQ-9BE surface-to-air missile system, YJ-12E anti-ship cruise hypersonic missiles (ASCM), counter-drone systems, various military vehicles, and other advanced technologies and equipment.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The first event at the newly opened "House of Azerbaijan" in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, took place recently, Trend reports.

According to the State Committee on Work with Diaspora, the "House of Azerbaijan" hosted an art exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of national poet Nabi Khazri.

The opening ceremony was attended by Fuad Muradov, Chairman of the State Committee on Work with Diaspora; Adish Mamedov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Azerbaijan to the Czech Republic; Milan Ekert, a representative of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs and former Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Azerbaijan; Bakit Dyusenbayev, Ambassador of Kazakhstan to the Czech Republic; members of the Azerbaijani community, and local public figures.

Leyla Beyim Dzhafarova, Coordinator of the Coordinating Council of Azerbaijanis in Eastern Europe for the Czech Republic, founder of the "Natavan" society, and head of the "House of Azerbaijan" in Prague, gave a detailed introduction to the exhibition and explained that it was organized with inspiration from the line "We planted a pomegranate branch" from Nabi Khazri's poem.

The exhibition showcased works by Azerbaijani artists. The pieces, filled with deep philosophical meaning, generated great interest among the attendees.

The "House of Azerbaijan" in Prague officially opened on November 6 this year. There are now "Houses of Azerbaijan" in 18 countries, playing a key role in raising global awareness about Azerbaijan, combating misinformation, promoting the study of Azerbaijani history, culture, and language, and strengthening ties between local communities and the diaspora.
Chorus is pressing the Commerce Commission to tighten broadband marketing rules to ensure 5G providers dont leave consumers without the information needed to make informed broadband choices.

In the fibre companys submission on regulators proposed updates to broadband marketing guidelines, Chorus accused retailers such as One NZ and 2degrees of hiding critical 5G wireless broadband performance details.

Its essential that Kiwis can make clear, meaningful comparisons when choosing a broadband service for their household, said Julian Kersey, Chorus chief corporate and regulatory officer.

They deserve straightforward, honest information  no spin, no guesswork, Kersey said. Without transparency across all providers, New Zealanders are left in the dark, and thats simply not good enough.

The commissions Measuring Broadband NZ report currently excludes full 5G wireless broadband data, making it impossible for consumers to know what they were getting, Chorus said while demanding expanded reporting from all major service providers.

Consumers arent receiving sufficient upfront information about 5G to make informed purchasing decisions, Kersey said. They are also left without a way to know whether the performance theyve paid for is being delivered.
BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN -- A Swedish consultancy group made international headlines in 2007 when it declared that Santa Claus should be based in Kyrgyzstan, as it was the best place for him to reach every household in the world during his fabled Christmas-night journey.

For those restricted to ground travel, however, landlocked Kyrgyzstan still looks like a logistics nightmare with its soaring mountain peaks and poor roads.

Yet China is undeterred and seems to be pulling out all the stops to turn Central Asia's second-poorest country into its next big project in terms of trans-Eurasian trade.

In a world reshaped by geopolitical turbulence -- and having suffered false starts with China in the past -- Kyrgyzstan will be hoping that this commitment is here to stay.

A $4 Billion Logistics Hub?

October came and went without promised construction work beginning on the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway: a long-promised, multibillion-dollar megaproject that optimists say could transform East-West trade, cutting delivery times between China and Europe by up to one week.

But there were other significant groundbreakings in Kyrgyzstan last month, and many of them involved China in one way or another.

The most eye-catching and perhaps mysterious was the construction kick start of the Manas Trade and Logistics City in Leninskoye village, not far from the capital, Bishkek.

The trade-hub project will be built by the Hunan Construction Investment Group (HCIG), with its first phase alone costing $700 million and the overall cost potentially reaching $4 billion.

Set on 700 hectares, the project will have dedicated zones for storage, logistics, sales, and bonded trade zones.

Does this project have a special connection to the future railway?

Yes indeed, say Kyrgyz officials.

Except none have yet really explained how, and the track agreed to by the three participating countries is not expected to skirt anywhere near Leninskoye, taking instead the shortest route through deeply mountainous territory. In fact, Leninskoye is on the border with Kazakhstan, close to Kyrgyzstan's existent north-pointing railway.

If Beijing knows more, it's keeping its cards close to its chest.

Speaking at the ceremony on October 17, Chinese Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Du Dewen praised Kyrgyzstan as "a connecting country" that is "not only important to Central Asia, but also to Asia and Europe as a whole."

Du said that, since the long-stalled railway project was going ahead, Kyrgyzstan would also need "good markets, warehouses, and logistics centers," and hailed the logistics hub as a project in line with China's Belt and Road Initiative, but gave no indication of how it might interact with the track further south.

Planning for the future hub began on December 8, 2023, when Kyrgyzstans government signed an agreement with the Kyrgyz-Chinese Investment Holding (KCIH) company to build a "Eurasian trade and logistics complex."

Despite the rebranding -- Manas is a mythical Kyrgyz hero -- Kyrgyzstans cabinet will only have a 49 percent share in the project, with KCIH taking the remainder.

A little-known entity founded by Chinese nationals but including Kyrgyz directors, KCIH will be responsible for $482 million of the $700 million investment.

Never Mind The Competition

Making his own speech at the groundbreaking, Kyrgyz Prime Minister Akylbek Japarov (no relation to President Sadyr Japarov) said the logistics center "can be compared to a major seaport."

"Everyone in the world wants to trade with China, because if you look at the volume of global GDP, China produces up to 26 percent of it. We hope this will give us access to maritime routes and enable us to trade with any country in the world," Japarov said.

"This will create excellent conditions for our agriculture, manufacturing, mining industry, and for the arrival of new technologies."

For the moment, Central Asia's largest and most advanced "dry port" is Khorgos on the Chinese-Kazakh border.

Khorgos is a vital node in East-West train freight, with goods still overwhelmingly reaching Europe via Russia.

The Ukraine war and pursuant sanctions have, however, made some shippers leery of the Russian route.

That has provided a giant shot in the arm for the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), also via Kazakhstan, with the oil-rich country's Caspian Sea ports providing the jump-off points for goods traveling to Europe via the Caucasus.

If the TITR would exclude Russia, the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway would potentially exclude Kazakhstan, too, joining up with existing tracks in Turkmenistan and Iran to reach markets in the Middle East as well as Europe via Turkey.

Supporters claim it would be a much faster route to Europe than both, although it is not clear to what extent their calculations take in the greater number of border crossings that this southern middle route would have to contend with.

Russia has previously been viewed as something of a roadblock for the project.

But as a Foreign Policy Research Institute paper published earlier this year argued, Moscow's ability to push back against initiatives like these has been constrained by its need for China's support amid fallout from the Ukraine war.

This "has given Beijing a freer hand to reshape Central Asian trade flows," author Felix K. Chang wrote.

For all that, the three-country railway would be arguably more ambitious than anything China has done in the region, including the 1,800-kilometer Central Asia-China gas pipeline reaching Turkmenistan, whose first spur took just two years to build.

And with the 260-kilometer Kyrgyz section of the track requiring a series of high-altitude bridges and tunnels, very few people will share Prime Minister Japarovs optimism that it will be finished in four to five years.

Special Economic Zones, Unite!

Given that China is currently responsible for more than half of the minimum $5 billion financial commitment for the track -- $8 billion is the Kyrgyz government's latest estimate -- might Beijing walk away if geopolitical trends shift again?

For the moment, that looks unlikely.

In his latest update on the railway, Prime Minister Japarov said President Japarov had held discussions with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the project on the sidelines of the BRICS summit, an event that was held in the Russian city of Kazan on October 22-24.

He added that construction was now expected to begin in November -- a month later than the Kyrgyz president predicted in May.

Fittingly, Kyrgyzstan's prime minister was making those comments during a work trip that was full of Chinese activity.

One of his appearances was for the groundbreaking ceremony for a residential complex that a Chinese company is building in the city of Naryn.

At another he turned a shovel for the construction of four Chinese-built plants in an industrial park that he said will create more than 1,000 jobs.

The industrial park is benefiting from long-term but intensifying cooperation between the Naryn Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and the much larger SEZ in the Chinese city of Kashgar, in Xinjiang.

Prime Minister Japarov visited the Kashgar SEZ in March, some three months after the two entities agreed to deals that included the shared use of warehouses in each country.

Of the four plants being built in Naryn, a car-assembly plant will provide the bulk of the jobs, while three others will produce LED lamps, toilet paper, and agricultural technology, respectively.

Nearly five years ago, Naryn Province, which the railway would traverse, was the scene of a major Chinese investment failure, as local unrest scuttled plans as local unrest scuttled plans for a logistics center that would have been more modest than one that is being built in the neighboring Chui Province.

At that time, China's BRI looked to have hit a bump in Beijing's unrest-prone neighbor. Now it is back on track.
US President Donald Trump has urged Russia to agree to a 30-day cease-fire, warning he would slap additional sanctions on the country if it refused the US proposal, as Moscow made more gains on the battlefield.



"Russia has no way out but cease-fire. If needed we will sanction it, but I hope we won't need to," Trump told reporters at the White House on March 12.



"In a financial sense we can do very unpleasant, very bad things, devastating for Russia, but I don't want to," he said.



His comments come a day after Kyiv agreed to the temporary cease-fire following nine hours of talks with Trump administration officials in Saudi Arabia.



Trump has made ending Russia's more than three-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine a top priority since taking office for a second term less than two months ago, quickly dispatching his top officials to Moscow and Kyiv to prepare the groundwork for peace talks.



He has used Washington's significant leverage over Ukraine -- namely military aid and intelligence sharing -- to get Kyiv to agree to the cease-fire proposal, which if implemented, would leave almost 20 percent of the country in Russia's hands for the time being, at least.



But Trump lacks that type of leverage with Russia, which has navigated sweeping US and European sanctions placed on its economy following the invasion much better than most experts forecasted.

Putin may seek to drag out talks with the US over a cease-fire to improve Russia's position on the battlefield and hence at the negotiating table when and if Moscow and Kyiv hammer out a peace deal.

As Trump spoke at the White House, Putin was visiting troops in Russia's Kursk region, where fierce fighting is currently taking place and Moscow's forces are advancing.

Ukraine seized a swath of the Kursk region in a stealth incursion in August seen as an effort to divert Russian forces from eastern Ukraine and use the territory as a bargaining chip during any peace talks.

That strategy is now at risk of failing as Russian forces slowly push the Ukrainians out of Kursk. Russians forces have retaken more than half the territory initially captured by Ukraine.

Putin's visit to Kursk was his first since the incursion and signals the momentum Russia has in that theater of the war. The Kremlin leader urged his troops to retake the region in its entirety "as soon as possible."

Ukraine's top military commander, General Oleksandr Syrskiy, said that fighting continued in and around Sudzha, the largest town in the part of the region that Ukraine occupied.

Unconfirmed reports on March 12 indicated that Ukraine has begun to draw back units as Russian officials claimed their troops had captured more settlements, including Sudzha.

"Despite increased pressure from the Russian and North Korean forces, we will maintain the defense of the Kursk region as long as it is appropriate and necessary," Syrskiy wrote on Telegram.

In a Facebook post, Syrskiy said that saving soldiers lives is a priority and that Ukrainian troops "maneuver to more favorable positions, if necessary," wording often used top describe a retreat.

Concessions?

Trump hinted that Ukraine would have to make concessions on land, something more and more experts say is inevitable given Russia's momentum on the battlefield.

"When we talk cease-fire [with Ukraine], we talked land, who's withdrawing -- we discussed a lot of things [with Ukraine]," Trump said.

"We don't want to waste time, people are dying. Russia is not in the best situation now. I hope [Putin] gets a cease-fire."

Earlier in the day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the cease-fire proposal and said he hoped it would be used as a draft for a lasting peace deal that included security guarantees for Ukraine.

"It's now up to Russia what is next," he said at a March 12 press conference, and whether "it wants to continue its aggression against Ukraine or not."

On the streets of Kyiv, some Ukrainians told RFE/RL's Current Time that they doubted whether Russia would sign on to, and adhere to, a cease-fire deal.

"I'm not sure what to say, but it all seems implausible, frankly speaking," said one Kyiv man, while a woman in the capital said the cease-fire talks were "meaningless without Russia taking part."

Moscow has so far declined to comment on the specifics of the proposal for the 30-day cease-fire, and it's unclear whether Putin has made up his mind on the agreement.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was "carefully studying" the joint US-Ukraine statement issued following the Jeddah talks and will wait to comment until Russian negotiators receive more detailed information from Washington. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who represented the United States at the talks, said Washington "will have contact with Russians" today.

Trump on March 11 said he would soon speak with Putin to secure his commitment. Mike Waltz, the White House national-security adviser, spoke with his Russian counterpart on March 12, while Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff also planned to travel to Moscow, possibly to meet Putin.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe held a phone call with Sergei Naryshkin, director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, late on March 11, the Interfax news agency reported.

Rubio told reporters on March 12 in first comments since leaving the talks in Jeddah that the United States hoped to have a positive answer from Russia toward the cease-fire deal and "strongly urge[s] Russians to end all hostilities.

Konstantin Kosachev, an influential lawmaker in Russia's upper house of parliament, seemed to imply that Moscow would not simply accept the US-backed ceasefire proposal but attach conditions, taking into account that Russian forces have the momentum on the battlefield.

"Russia is advancing, and therefore it will be different with Russia," Kosachyov said in a Telegram post.

"Any agreements (with all understanding of the need for compromise) will be on our terms, not American," he said. "And this is not boasting, but an understanding that real agreements are still being written there, on the front line. Which Washington should also understand."

Rubio also said Ukraine will need a strong deterrent to prevent future attacks and that Europeans will "need to be involved in this regard." He added that further discussions would need to tackle to topic of the European Union lifting sanctions on the Russian economy.

"I would imagine that in any negotiation, if we get there, hopefully with the Russians, they will raise these European sanctions that have been imposed upon them," Rubio said.

Moscow has so far been against a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated Russia's position during an interview with three right-wing US bloggers that it will under no conditions accept the presence of NATO forces in Ukraine.

Minerals Deal

Washington and Kyiv could sign a framework agreement as early as this week on sharing the revenue generated from Ukraine's mineral resources.

Trump and Zelenskyy intended to sign the deal during their meeting at the Oval Office on February 28. However, the two got into a heated, public exchange over security guarantees for Ukraine and the meeting was abruptly ended without any deal.

Rubio cautioned that he "would not couch [the] minerals deal as a security guarantee." But he added that "if the United States has a vested economic interest thats generating revenue for our people as well as for the people of Ukraine, wed have a vested interest in protecting it if it were to be challenged or threatened."

The parade of comments come after Russia and Ukraine traded air attacks overnight just hours after Kyiv agreed to accept the cease-fire proposal.

Two Russian missile strikes hit the central Ukrainian city of Kryviy Rih on March 12, killing one person, while a separate attack killed four crew members of a cargo ship near the southern port city of Odesa.

Russia's Defense Ministry said its air-defense systems shot down six drones overnight on March 12, one over Ukraine's Russia-annexed Crimea and five over the Black Sea. The Krymsky Veter Telegram channel reported loud explosions and air-raid sirens over Crimean towns and near Russian military sites.

The United States announced after the talks in Saudi Arabia that it would immediately lift the pause on intelligence sharing and restore military aid to Ukraine, which could be a boost to Ukrainian forces. Ukraine's battlefield positions have been under heavy pressure, particularly in Russia's Kursk region.
On the battlefield in Ukraine, Russia has seized the initiative -- and wants to cement its gains ahead of any potential peace talks with Kyiv.

On the offensive since at least midsummer, Russian forces have accelerated their advances, grinding down Ukrainian troops across the 1,100-kilometer front line: in the south near Vuhledar and Pokrovsk; farther to the north near Chasiv Yar and Kupyansk; and even in Kursk, the Russian region where Ukraine staged a surprise invasion in August.

Moscow has also hired as many as 12,000 North Korean troops, and started to deploy them to western Russia, as part of what U.S. and Ukrainian officials say is a looming offensive to push Ukrainian forces out of Russian territory entirely.



"We all know, I won't be revealing a military secret if I say that our front has collapsed, Ukrainian Major General Dmytro Marchenko said in surprisingly stark public assessment on October 29. He later announced his resignation, in what many saw as punishment for his candor.

Ukraine staged its own display of prowess over the weekend, sending scores of drones at Moscow and a half-dozen other Russian regions. The attack, which disrupted some flights but otherwise caused little major damage, was the largest of its kind since Russia launched its all-out invasion in February 2022.



What it all means is that Russias war on Ukraine is nearing another critical juncture, with pressure building for a cease-fire or a peace deal that would pause, if not outright halt the fighting nearly 33 months in.



The pressure is building in large part because of the election of Donald Trump, who has vocally criticized the volume of U.S. aid to Ukraine. Trump has repeatedly vowed to bring the conflict to a quick end, though he has provided few details.



The outgoing administration of President Joe Biden -- which shepherded to Ukraine nearly $60 billion in weapons and equipment and much more in other aid -- has shown signs of impatience with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and a "victory plan" he has promoted as a path to a "just peace."



"Russia is trying to advance as much as possible and demonstrate the ability to sustain intensity of combat for the foreseeable future, to both create a new reality on the ground and to have as much leverage over such issues like [Ukraines] NATO membership prospects," said Mykola Byelyeskov, a researcher at the Ukrainian government-run National Institute for Strategic Studies.

'There Is No Way Back To Normality'



Both Moscow and Kyiv, meanwhile, are suffering from extraordinarily high casualties. Russia has replenished the ranks of its dead and wounded soldiers -- estimated at 600,000 and climbing -- by attracting new recruits, drawn from a larger population base with exceptionally high wages and bonuses. Admiral Tony Radakin, Britains chief of the defense staff, told the BBC that October was the worst month for Russian casualties: around 1,500 a day.



Ukraine, whose death toll alone is estimated to exceed 80,000, is struggling to keep up its recruiting pipeline and bolster its ranks.



While the Kremlin's larger objectives go much further, one consistent goal is the capture of Ukrainian territory. That included the entirety of the industry-heavy Donetsk and Luhansk regions, also known as the Donbas.

Despite being beaten back multiple times, Russian troops currently hold about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory and are incrementally grabbing more by the day.



Russia's wider political goals include toppling the Ukrainian government, something that is unlikely for the foreseeable future. Preventing Kyiv from joining NATO also remains a top priority.



Also unlikely for the foreseeable future is the prospect of Ukraine achieving its goal of regaining control over the whole country, including Crimea. But it is seeking to deny Russia further gains inside Ukraine and to hold onto Russian territory in the Kursk region.



"Both sides want to build leverage before any potential negotiations," said Eric Ciaramella, a former White House National Security Council official for Russia and Ukraine. "For the Ukrainians, Kursk was a big part of this -- although in the end it didn't deliver the trade bait Kyiv had hoped for, and now Ukraine's positions there appear increasingly tenuous."

Ukraine's top military officer, General Oleksandr Syrskiy, said on November 12 he travelled to the Kursk region, which Zelenskiy has said outright could be used as a bargaining chip in any negotiations with Russia.



He appeared to defend the decision to invade Kursk, which some outside observers questioned because it drew some of Ukraine's more experienced units from other parts of the battlefield -- particularly three points that are under severe Russian pressure.



"These tens of thousands of enemies from the best Russian shock units would have stormed our positions in the Pokrovsk, Kurakhove, or Toretsk directions, which would have significantly worsened the situation at the front," Syrskiy said.

The Price Of Peace



Both Trump and the incoming vice president, J.D. Vance, have signaled they would push Ukraine harder to negotiate. They have not announced a specific plan bring the sides to the table, and top Russian officials, Putin included, have signaled no softening of the Kremlin's positions.



The man Trump announced will be his new national-security adviser, meanwhile, suggested one point of leverage for pushing the Kremlin to negotiations.



"America can use economic leverage, including lifting the pause on exports of liquefied natural gas and cracking down on Russias illicit oil sales, to bring Mr. Putin to the table, Michael Waltz said in a co-authored opinion piece published in the Economist magazine on November 2.



"This plan is superior to the current White House approach, which lacks a stated goal but will end in a stalemate with Russia occupying some Ukrainian territory," he wrote. "The current path will just take more time, blood, and treasure to get there."



Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former top Ukrainian military and intelligence adviser, suggests it is naive to think Russia has any intention of negotiating anything at all.



"Their political objective is to destroy or at least to reload the world security architecture," he said. "My prediction: Russia will use the negotiations to reduce Western support to Ukraine and will continue its unholy crusade against the West."



"There is no way back to 'normality,'" he said. "This is a global war in which the West can either win or be defeated."



For its part, Ukraine fears building Western impatience, and many officials worry that the Trump administration's inclination to temper its support will ultimately mean throwing Kyiv under the bus.



"There has been much talk about the need to yield to Putin, to back down, to make some concessions," Zelenskiy said in a speech at a European Political Community meeting on November 7.

"It's unacceptable for Ukraine and suicidal for all Europe.
A mother and her three children who were killed in a Russian attack on an apartment building in Kryviy Rih, Ukraine, earlier this week have been laid to rest. As an air-raid siren sounded, Maksym Kulyk paid tribute to his wife and children: 32-year-old Olena, 10-year-old Kyrylo, 2-year-old Demyd, and 2-month-old Uliana.
Welcome back to the China In Eurasia briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter tracking China's resurgent influence from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.

I'm RFE/RL's China Global Affairs Correspondent Reid Standish and here's what I'm following right now.

Minding The Transatlantic Gap

China is looking to capitalize on a transatlantic rift between the United States and Europe that is widening as U.S. President Donald Trump looks to quickly end the war in Ukraine.

But how much of an opening is there actually for Beijing?

Finding Perspective: The threat of tariffs, a war of words at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, U.S.-Russia talks that excluded Europe and Kyiv, and a standoff at the United Nations over how to commemorate the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine have all been recent fissures between Washington and European governments.

That brought new questions about relying on the United States to European capitals and left an opening for Beijing, which has been trying to woo back Europe over the past four years.

On the sidelines in Munich, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held bilateral meetings with several top European officials, including EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

Spain's foreign minister seems to be at least more open to the idea of keeping China closer amid tensions with the United States.

Jose Manuel Albares told the Financial Times that the European Union should craft its own China policy and not follow the more confrontational line with Beijing advocated by those in the Trump administration.

"Europe must take its own decisions, on its own. And we have to decide when China can be a partner and when China is a competitor," Albares told the newspaper.

How We Got Here: During Trump's first term in office, Washington pushed European governments to take a harder line on China. That led to the bloc labeling China a "systemic rival" in 2019.

The Chinese government's untransparent handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, trade, human rights, and supply chain concerns, and Beijing's backing of Russia throughout the war in Ukraine all saw that harder line solidify in Europe under former U.S. President Joe Biden's tenure.

Now amid growing transatlantic tensions, some European governments see following Trump's tough stance on China as a way to win over Washington. Others, like the Spanish government, are arguing to preserve vital economic ties with Beijing, especially amid growing uncertainty about the United States.

This has even led to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, one of Brussels's more hawkish voices on China, calling in January for a new effort to improve relations between Brussels and Beijing.

A True Rift? Tensions on each side of the Atlantic are real.

Following his party's victory in elections on February 23, Friedrich Merz, Germany's chancellor-in-waiting for the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said the Trump administration "does not care much about the fate of Europe" and that the Continent needs to act accordingly.

"My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the U.S.A.," he said.

Talk of a seismic shift in the geopolitical order is also under way in Brussels.

One EU official recently back from discussions with U.S. officials told RFE/RL that the White House's focus is on ending the war in Ukraine and that there is a "take it or leave it" attitude from Washington.

The Trump administration wants to "remove the Ukraine issue from the table and move on to other issues. It is becoming clear that Trump's goal is to rule the world together with Russia and China" and work toward "strategically separating them from each other," said the official, who was granted anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters.

Why It Matters: Europe may be grappling with a realignment, but that doesn't mean China is its only option to hedge.

As European leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer visit Washington, von der Leyen is set to arrive in India on February 27.

James Crabtree, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told me that "it's hard to imagine a better time to re-energize Europe's and India's historically lackluster ties" and that a focus of the trip will be technology cooperation.

"A meeting of the EU-India Trade and Technology Council -- only the second since its foundation in 2023 -- offers opportunities to deepen collaboration in areas ranging from artificial intelligence to clean technologies," he said.

China may also be short on opportunities, with most EU members unable to look past its support for Russia amid the war in Ukraine. The bloc's most recent sanctions package passed on February 24 once again included Chinese companies and individuals.

What is likely to emerge is a more fragmented Europe when it comes to China. While some governments look to countries like India, South Korea, and Japan to balance out their foreign policy, others -- such as the current Spanish government and Hungary -- will keep courting Chinese investment and create new openings for Beijing.

Three More Stories From Eurasia

1. A Reverse Nixon?

China publicly backed the Trump administration's recent talks with the Kremlin, but analysts and former U.S. officials I spoke with mostly said the prospect of a U.S.-Russia reset is also making Beijing "nervous" about having less leverage over its partner.

The Details: "While a complete rapprochement might not be in the cards, they're nervous because if Trump lifts sanctions on Russia, then Moscow's dependency on China decreases," Dennis Wilder, who was a top White House China adviser to former U.S. President George W. Bush, told me.

One of the hallmarks of Chinese leader Xi Jinping's foreign policy has been a burgeoning strategic partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin that's grown closer since Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Beijing has propped up the Russian economy through enhanced trade and energy purchases while fueling the Kremlin's war effort with the supply of key goods as both Xi and Putin have found common ground in wanting to challenge the West and unseat the United States.

The fear of all that being derailed by a new type of U.S.-Russia relationship born out of a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine is real for Beijing.

Wilder says he's had conversations with "very senior Chinese officials" since Trump's election in November who have expressed concern about a potential U.S.-Russia reset.

He says they've used the phrase "Only Trump goes to Moscow," a play on the historical reference to former U.S. President Richard Nixon's landmark visit to Beijing in 1972, when he defied precedent and courted China to exploit its split with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

2. But Can It Work?

A grand bargain would be a major diplomatic feat, but it's something Trump administration officials have hinted at in public comments of late.

What You Need To Know: The Trump administration has made clear it sees managing a long-term rivalry with China as its top foreign policy objective and may look to deprioritize regions like Europe and the Middle East in order to raise pressure on Beijing in Asia.

Following the talks in Riyadh, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the possibility for future "geopolitical and economic cooperation" between Washington and Moscow was among the key points discussed.

And in an interview this month with The Wall Street Journal, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Washington was prepared to reset the relationship with the Kremlin following an agreement over Ukraine as a move to end Russia's isolation and its growing dependence on China since the war began.

"It's not in Putin's interest to be the little brother in a coalition with China," Vance said.

The thinking is that even new cracks between the two powers may loosen Moscow's alignment with Beijing and could have a deterrent effect on China, especially if it decides to use military force to take Taiwan.

Still, both Beijing and Moscow are aware of what the White House is trying to do, and Beijing has made a point to show it and Moscow are still a tandem, including a recent phone call between Putin and Xi on the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine.

Steve Tsang, director of SOAS University London's China Institute, told me he believes Washington's efforts to reset its Russia ties are also not all bad news for Beijing.

"Xi does not want Putin to fail in the war, and so Trump delivering a peace that mostly meets Russian conditions is a positive," he said. "Who knows who will be the next U.S. president and if there will be a reversal of U.S. posture post-Trump."

3. Taiwan Watches A New U.S. Line On Ukraine

Ukrainians living in Taiwan and local supporters protested outside the de-facto Russian Embassy in Taipei on the eve of the third anniversary of Moscow's invasion.

What It Means: The self-governing island has been a vocal supporter of Kyiv, which the Taiwanese government sees as a foil for its own tenuous geopolitical position where China has long threatened to invade and annex Taiwan if it refused to peacefully accept unification.

Those parallels have grown since Trump's election. The United States is Taiwan's largest military backer and its support is considered vital for its survival, but Trump's global shakeup, including launching negotiations with Russia without Ukraine and threatening to cut off future aid to Kyiv, has brought anxiety to Taiwan about a similar withdrawal of American assistance.

When I was in Taiwan in December, I spoke with several senior officials who said they were closely watching what happened to Kyiv on the battlefield and with the new U.S. administration.

So far, the White House has reaffirmed its support for Taiwan, but Washington has also threatened tariffs on the island's semiconductor industry, which is responsible for around 60 percent of world production for microchips and 90 percent of the most-advanced ones needed for the global AI boom.

Across The Supercontinent

Choking Off Iranian Oil: Earlier this month, the United States brought in a new tranche of sanctions on Iranian oil, my colleague Kian Sharifi and I reported . The move is seen as an opening shot against Tehran and Beijing -- Iran's top oil customer.

New Bridge Deal: The Transport Ministry of Tajikistan and the Tajik branch of the Chinese company Zhejiang Communications Construction Group (ZCCC) signed a cooperation agreement for the construction of what will be the longest road bridge in Central Asia.

New Tools For Tashkent: Uzbekistan showcased on February 25 newly purchased Chinese-made air-defense systems, including the FM-90 short-range surface-to-air missile system and the KS-1C medium-to-long-range air-defense system.

One Thing To Watch

A Chinese-crewed cargo ship is detained in Taiwan's southern port of Tainan after a key Taiwan-Penghu Internet cable was mysteriously severed.

Taiwanese prosecutors are investigating whether this was an accident or part of a broader pattern of disruptions to vital communication lines, but the country's Coast Guard released footage of them apprehending the vessel.

The move comes amid growing tensions from a rise of so-called gray zone tactics, the term often used by Taiwanese officials to refer to the hybrid tactics used to intimidate the island but which remain below the threshold for war.

That's all from me for now. Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you might have.

Until next time,

Reid Standish
WASHINGTON -- President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Senator Marco Rubio to be his top diplomat as the incoming administration prepares to navigate an increasingly perilous world, with wars raging in Europe and the Middle East and competition heating up with China in the Asia-Pacific.

In choosing Rubio -- a senator known for taking a tough line on many foreign policy issues -- the president-elect is seeking someone who largely shares his views on the most pressing international topics, says Behnam Ben Taleblu, an analyst at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"Rubio is someone who has ideological and political alignment with Trump on several key national-security issues like great-power competition, countering China, countering the Islamic [Republic of] Iran, and reinstating the maximum-pressure campaign," Taleblu told RFE/RL.

In a wide-ranging interview last week with media before being tapped as secretary of state, Rubio said the decades-long period of unchallenged U.S. global dominance following the collapse of the Soviet Union had ended, replaced by a new Cold War-like era. He warned that the United States can't stretch itself too thin with global commitments, saying Washington must be "pragmatic" in its pursuits abroad.

"We're the most powerful [country], but we too have limited resourcesso we have to invest both our time and our money on things that serve our core national interest," Rubio said in a November 7 interview with EWTN, a U.S.-based cable network.

Rubio, a Cuban-American, played an influential role in shaping Trump's policy on Venezuela during the latter's first term as president from 2017 to 2021. The New York Times described Rubio at the time as Trump's "virtual secretary of state for Latin America."

The three-time Florida senator, who challenged Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, comes to the job with ample foreign policy experience, having served on both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee.

If ultimately confirmed by the Senate, Rubio, 53, would be the first Latino to serve as secretary of state.

And while Latin America will certainly be an important focus for Rubio, it will take a back seat to more pressing U.S. foreign policy concerns, namely China's global rise, Iran's threat to the Middle East, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Priority No. 1: China

When it comes to demands on U.S. military, political, and financial resources, Rubio wants the focus to be on China.

"I think the future of the 21st century is going to largely be defined by what happens in the Indo-Pacific. And I think China would love for us to be bogged down in Europe in a conflict and not focused on what's happening in the Indo-Pacific," Rubio said on November 7.

Rubio, who served as a co-chairman of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, has consistently advocated taking a hard line on China.

He led efforts to arm Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing. He called for direct shipments of U.S. munitions and advanced military technologies in hopes of deterring China from attacking the island.

Rubio has also been vocal about Beijing's human rights record, pushed for a U.S. industrial policy to better compete with China, and backed tariffs on Chinese goods.

He sought to ban imports of Chinese goods made with forced labor by Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in western China and prevent China from circumventing Trump-era tariffs by relocating production to Mexico.

NATO And Ukraine

Rubio has repeatedly supported Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in its defensive war against Russia and described Ukrainians as "incredibly brave and strong."

In February 2022, immediately following Russia's full-scale invasion, he co-sponsored the NYET Act in the Senate, which aimed to "bolster Ukraine's defense capabilities" and impose sanctions on Russia.

However, Rubio has also said Russia's war against Ukraine has reached a "stalemate" and "needs to be brought to a conclusion."

He was among a minority of senators who, earlier this year, opposed a foreign-assistance bill that included $60 billion in aid for Ukraine. The bill eventually passed in April, bringing total U.S. aid to Ukraine since February 2022 to almost $175 billion -- about as much given by all of Europe combined.

Rubio has highlighted that imbalance, emphasizing that Washington should push Europe to take a larger role in handling its own security issues in order to allow the United States to prioritize challenging China in the Indo-Pacific.

In last week's interview with EWTN, Rubio said it was "unrealistic" to expect the United States to approve tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine every 10 months. He said European members of NATO need to step up their contributions to the alliance.

"Every day in our own country, [we are] grappling with [the question of] how do we provide assistance to Americans, even as we have these defense requirements that we're spending a lot of money on, and these [European NATO] countries are not making that choice," he said.

While Rubio sees Russia as a threat to U.S. security and backs Ukraine's sovereignty and independence, he said Kyiv will have to negotiate an end to the war. Rubio said Russia has just too many resources at its disposal, including weapons and men, to allow it to continue the fighting despite suffering extraordinary losses.

Iran: 'No Appeasement'

In the Middle East, Rubio has long taken a tough stand on Iran, describing its theocratic government as a "terrorist regime" for financing groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated terrorist organizations by the United States.

As a senator, he was a fierce critic of U.S. President Barack Obama's 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), which restricted Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions.

Critics of the deal argued it empowered Iran, offering too much relief from sanctions without guarantees it wouldn't someday produce a nuclear bomb. In 2018, Trump, who was then president, pulled the United States out of the deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran.

More recently, Rubio co-authored three bills punishing Iran that were signed into law this year. The bills authorize placing sanctions on Iranian oil exports and top Iranian leaders for human rights abuses, as well as foreign entities and governments supporting Hamas. An Iranian client, Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, triggering a regional war that threatens to engulf more states.

Rubio in September criticized the Biden administration for dragging its feet on enforcing the Iranian oil sanctions, which are aimed at crippling the government's finances. It has also failed to move forward on the human rights sanctions.

Depending on what the incoming administration is faced with in Iran when it takes office, analyst Taleblu says -- noting the volatile situation in the Middle East -- he would expect a Rubio-led State Department to make good on enforcement of the sanction bills.

A vocal supporter of Israel, Rubio has backed the country's right to defend itself from Iranian threats. Following Tehran's missile strikes on Israel on October 1, Rubio publicly backed an asymmetrical response.

Afghanistan

Rubio has also taken a hard line on the Taliban, arguing the militant Islamist group should be described as a "terrorist organization" by Washington. In March, the Florida senator introduced a bill in the Senate calling for an end to an end to U.S. aid to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, arguing that some of that money could end up with "terrorist groups."

In remarks to the Senate, Rubio said, "A Taliban-controlled Afghanistan poses a direct threat to U.S. national-security interests and to our allies in the Middle East and Central Asia."

Reid Standish contributed to this report
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Addressing climate issues demands considering gender parity, political ecologist, environmental anthropologist, and representative of Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) Frances Roberts-Gregory from the US, participating in the COP29, told Trend.

"This is my first time visiting Azerbaijan. This is my fifth COP, and I would like to note that COP29 in Baku is organized incredibly well, with all the necessary infrastructure created for the activities of the relevant bodies and participants. I'm very happy to see the results that are coming out of the negotiations on climate finance. We are paying attention to gender issues and ensuring there is a reliable action plan in this area.

Our goals are to ensure that gender aspects and human rights are included in all negotiation texts. It is essential to consider gender parity so that the leaders of countries negotiating climate policy represent everyone. So, we want to ensure that women and indigenous peoples have greater power and a stronger voice in the negotiating halls," she pointed out.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel


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After introducing six innovative products to its subscribers in a short time, Bakcell was honoured with the "Most Successful Rebranding" award at the prestigious international advertising and marketing competition "Felis." The award ceremony took place at the traditional "Brand Week" event held on 8 November 2024 in Istanbul.

To carry out the rebranding, the company collaborated with Saffron, a Spanish global consultancy that works with world-renowned brands such as Meta and Alphabet.

Innovative products launched by Bakcell in recent months include Star Portfolio, First Tariff, Bakcell Kart, Tariff Consultant, VoWiFi, and Fiber1. The company also strengthens its leading position in the industry by implementing social projects inspired by the philosophy of national pride.

It should be noted that the "Felis Awards" have been recognizing innovative and creative projects in advertising and marketing in Turkey for 19 years. Since 2022, this competition has also been held in Azerbaijan.

About Bakcell

Bakcell is the first and largest private telecommunications company in Azerbaijan, currently providing high-quality and fast telecommunications services to more than three million customers. The company contributes to the sustainable development of Azerbaijan through innovation and artificial intelligence solutions and is one of the largest investors in the non-oil sector of the Azerbaijani economy.

Bakcell is part of NEQSOL Holding, an international group of companies operating in the energy, telecommunications, high-tech, and construction sectors in various countries around the world.
By Grainne Ni Aodha, PA

Simon Harris has said policy differences are emerging between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael after his party was accused of launching damaging attacks.

Micheal Martin said he was surprised by the tone and nature of the attacks made by Fine Gael on his partys proposals in recent days.

The Fianna Fail leader said he does not understand the strategy by his former coalition partners and Civil War-era foes Fine Gael and said it could be damaging.

People who want to vote centre-ground parties in will be saying what are they at? he told the Irish Independents podcast on Thursday.

As a strategist myself, I do not believe this makes sense.

Mr Martin added: Fine Gael seem to be strategically deciding to target Fianna Fail more than targeting Sinn Fein. Thats the bit I dont get and a lot of voters wont get that either.

Responding to those comments, Fine Gael leader Mr Harris accused Mr Martin of giving out about being attacked whilst then attacking.

This election is about, I think, big, exciting ideas for the future of our country and I think the fact that we are debating them is good.

A few days ago, perhaps media would have been asserting is there any difference in policy?. Now, actually, there are policy differences emerging.

I have my own style of politics  and I think even my political opponents would acknowledge this  is always to engage in a policy debate rather than any sort of personality contest.

The two main coalition parties have been publicly criticising each others policies since the Dail was dissolved on Friday.

Minister Paschal Donohoe grabs a coffee in The Boars Head on Capel Street, Dublin. Photo: Grainne Ni Aodha/PA Images

Fine Gael minister Paschal Donohoe released a statement on Tuesday criticising Fianna Fails manifesto as leaving a lot to be desired.

On Virgin Medias Tonight Show, Fianna Fail minister Jack Chambers and Fine Gaels Hildegarde Naughton both called each other disingenuous in a debate on policy proposals.

The parties have moved to differentiate themselves from one another in the first few days of the election campaign.

Fianna Fails proposal to decriminalise cannabis has come under fire from Fine Gael, with Mr Harris saying there are real health dangers in relation to cannabis.

Fine Gaels proposal to introduce an 11 per cent VAT rate for food-related businesses has been criticised by Fianna Fail as regressive, arguing that it would mean the tax on energy would have to increase.

Mr Harris said: Were having a debate around ideas and policies.

I hope were having a respectful debate.

When we launched a plan for small businesses, I dont think we were out of the room before there were people in Fianna Fail doing off-the-record briefings in relation to that.

Sinn Feins Mary Lou McDonald. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Images

I want to debate the policies here. I want to debate the policies respectfully.

Ive worked well with Fianna Fail, I have respect for the leader of the Fianna Fail, Im proud of what weve all achieved together over the last four-and-a-half years.

But I also want to really debate ideas.

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald accused Mr Harris of being pretty intent on stealing Sinn Feins ideas, and that Fine Gael and Fianna Fail had sought to steal our clothes and then botched the implementation of its policies.

To this, Mr Harris later said Deputy McDonald can keep her policies.

Sinn Fein has also accused Fianna Fail and Fine Gael of putting on a sham row for the cameras when there is not the width of a credit card between the two parties, forged out of opposing sides of Irelands Civil War.
Conor McGregor giving evidence in the High Court and parties clashing on a rent freeze make the front pages of Thursday's papers.

The Irish Times leads with Conor McGregor giving evidence, as he is accused of rape by Nikita Hand in a civil action trial.

The front pages also has parties clashing over plans for a rent freeze in the lead up to the general election.

The Irish Independent leads with calls from Micheal Martin for clashes to stop between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.

The Irish Examiner leads with the States cybersecurity agency, as they said there is an overall medium threat of cyberattacks on candidates and political parties during the election campaign.

The Echo leads with the welcome approval for the Night-time economy strategy in Cork.

The Irish Daily Mail leads with plans for Fine Gael to provide an extra 30,000 childcare places should they be elected back to Government.

Both the Irish Daily Mirror and the Irish Daily Star lead with quotes from Conor McGregor giving evidence as he is accused of rape.

British papers

The papers on Thursday are led by a shake-up to the pension scheme.

The Financial Times reports Chancellor Rachel Reeves is to announce pension megafunds are set to be created to help unlock billions of pounds of investment in businesses and infrastructure, mirroring schemes in Australia and Canada.

FT: Reeves will force council pensions to merge #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/up0G4BeA1e  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

Staying with the economy, The Times says business leaders have warned the Chancellor that job losses and higher prices are inevitable as a result of Budget reforms.

Elsewhere, the Daily Mail says council tax bills are set to rise by an average of 110.

MAIL: Now Council Tax to rise by 110 #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/dL08q79hVj  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

Labour is set to miss its pledge to build 1.5 million new homes, according to the i.

I: Labour will miss its new homes pledgesays official leading plan #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/k3AXxRMnTk  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

The Daily Express leads with the father of Sara Sherif telling jurors he takes full responsibility for killing the 10-year-old.

The Telegraph says police have been accused of an attack on free speech following an investigation into one of the papers reporters.

TELEGRAPH: Police in appalling attack on free speech #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/Tuc0sl4Hoe  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

Metro carries Donald Trump appointing a TV host to be defence secretary, while The Independent says Mr Trump could sabotage Sir Keir Starmers Chagos Islands deal.

INDEPENDENT: Revealed: Trump push to sabotage Starmers Chagos Islands deal #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/qbWntSlaAI  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

The Guardian reports a US-based group has warned Israel is committing crimes against humanity in Gaza.

GUARDIAN: Israel committing crimes against humanity in Gaza, warns report #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/BFI2QC1syF  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

The Daily Mirror leads with a documentary expose into the wild west of cosmetic surgery in Britain.

MIRROR: Wild west of cosmetic surgery in Britain #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/WPjTgqmcZo  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) November 13, 2024

And the Daily Star says there is an environmental positive to a particular bathroom habit.
Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann Provides Major Relief to Real Estate Sector with New Initiatives

To further streamline the process, an email (transparency.hud@gmail.com) has been set up.

In a significant move to boost the real estate sector in Punjab, Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann has introduced measures aimed at easing processes for developers and builders. The Punjab government recently held a special camp where clearance certificates were issued to 51 colonizers involved in real estate, providing a much-needed relief to the sector.

During the event, Punjab's Housing Construction and Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Mundian and Chief Secretary K.A.P. Sinha handed out colony licenses, completion certificates, letters of intent, zoning plans, building plans, promoter registration certificates, and layout plans to the 51 real estate promoters and builders.

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Punjab Cabinet Minister Hardeep Singh Mundian highlighted Chief Minister Manns efforts to support the real estate sector by organizing this special camp. He emphasized that the government is committed to addressing the concerns of real estate developers transparently and on a priority basis. To further streamline the process, an email (transparency.hud@gmail.com) has been set up, allowing developers to directly lodge complaints.

The initiative has been widely appreciated by the real estate community. Rohit Jain from Horizon Green applauded the state government, stating that this move reflects the pro-investor and business-friendly policies being implemented by CM Mann. Sumit Goyal from Ludhiana also praised the initiative, noting that it will save developers from frequent visits to government offices. Sandeep Mann from Western Street described the initiative as revolutionary, saying it will propel the real estate sector in new directions.

This step by the Punjab government marks a positive shift towards a more efficient, transparent, and developer-friendly real estate environment.


The Museum of Romanian Records

A unique museum with unique collections, some spanning centuries.

Museum of Romanian Records (Credits: facebook.com/museumofromanianrecords)

Daniel Onea, 14.11.2024, 14:00

The Museum of Romanian Records emerged out of a desire to promote Bucharest and Romania. Here we can find large collections of corkscrews, irons, vintage cameras or Romanian philatelic objects, but also over 30 other smaller collections. The items themselves might seem simple when described, but once seen, they will be perceived as works of art due to the special and varied patterns.

Our guide today is Victor Bota, the curator of this unique museum and president of the Romanian Remarkable Results Foundation. He told us more about some of the collections and the most valuable items on display.

These hidden, lost histories should be brought to light. And where else can one discover them but in a museum, where you can see the history of mankind by looking at a single object, a corkscrew or an iron, from the moment it was invented and produced until now. All these technological breakthroughs are visible here. The density per square meter I think is unique in the world. There are over 5,000 square meters of exhibits, but the density is fabulous. For instance, the corkscrew exhibition area measures 500 square meters, with 31,000 items on view.

Right now, the Museum of Romanian Records has the largest collection of corkscrews in the world. It is certified by the Guinness Book of Records. However, since the record was set, with a number of 23,965 objects, today, the collection totals over 31,000 unique objects.

When we talk about their importance, we have to understand that this object appears in history around the XV-XVI centuries. There are records, but no very solid sources have been preserved. Basically, the first invention patent was registered in Great Britain by the priest Samuel Henshall, in 1795. The model of the first patent is here, in our collection, but it is not the most valuable. We also have the most important historical corkscrew in the world. In 1833, the old London Bridge, the Old Bridge, was demolished. Pieces of steel and wood were removed and this tribute corkscrew was produced. It also has quite an interesting mechanism. Its not a corkscrew with just a twist and a handle. It has a mechanism that creates a twist in one direction. The inscription on it reads it had stood at the foot of London Bridge for 656 years. If we do the math, the item dates back to around 1100-1200, when the metal was forged into the base of London Bridge. If they could tell stories, these items would tell the history from before the Tudors, because they only became a dynasty until 1400-1500. So, the Thames has something to tell through the voice of this piece of metal in Romania, about the world history of corkscrews.

The Museum has between 3,000 and 5,000 items that are extremely rare or unique. For example, 18th-century corkscrews of noble families in France. However, the visit continues with the trivet section. Victor Bota explains how the word was imported from English.

It was very difficult to say iron stand, fireplace tool stand, pan stand in Romanian. Then, in order to find a single common denominator, the Romanian language imported this word, trivet, from English. A few hundred years ago, only the nobles had corkscrews and irons, and they were personalized. Therefore, the art, the design, the form are absolutely fascinating. It comes in all geometric forms and graphic representations. I usually have a challenge for new guests  think of a pet and lets see if its not on these trivets. Very rarely have we discovered a pet that we dont have.

Arriving at the collection of irons, tourists often ask themselves when this object appeared. Victor Bota, the curator of the Museum of Romanian Records and the president of the Romanian Remarkable Results Foundation, recalls the principle of the iron, that of stretching, of smoothing, which it first appeared in the Paleolithic.

People needed to use a piece of wood, a piece of bone or a stone to stretch animal skin and then simply use it as clothing. Thats how the mechanism was invented, and it has followed the evolution of humanity step by step through the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, reaching the present day with extraordinary technical characteristics. The idea behind it is, in fact, energy. In fact, the Guinness Book of Records states that an iron is a triangular, metallic object that accumulates energy and straightens wrinkles. But how does it accumulate energy? On trivets, directly over the fire, on a cast iron stove or, in the case of certain irons, a piece of steel is taken, heated and then inserted into the iron. After the development of the electric iron, the traditional iron is second in terms of cleanliness. They are so beautiful that, at first glance, you wouldnt say they are irons. They are genuine works of art. Its something you realize by simply looking at them. (VP)
The Romanian PM pays visit to London

The Romanian Prime Minister made a working visit to the UK.

Meeting the Romanian PM Marcel Ciolacu with his British counterpart, Keir Starmer (foto: gov.ro)

Daniela Budu, 14.11.2024, 14:00

The Romanian Prime Minister made a working visit to the UK.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Marcel Ciolacu paid the first visit by a Romanian prime minister to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the last 17 years. It was an occasion to discuss with his British counterpart, Keir Starmer, about bilateral economic cooperation, energy, security, including in the Black Sea area, as well as about the good collaboration between the intelligence services of the two states. The importance of the Romanian community in Great Britain was not overlooked . Marcel Ciolacu: The Romanian community is very respected by the British authorities and it is normal that we started to have some accords regarding the import of traditional products, which are very much needed by the Romanian community. We had talks on renewable energy and green energy, even on nuclear energy, but also on fact that we need security in the Black Sea. We have a very good relation in the field of intelligence, as the Prime Minister said, which will continue. Somehow, Britain is in the middle between Eastern NATO and Western NATO, so that we understand the strategic importance of Great Britain within NATO.

The agenda of the Romanian PMs visit to London also included an Economic Forum, during which were presented the sectors of interest for the British investors, in the Romanian economy. The forum was opened by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alastair King. In his message, he pointed out that Romania is an important dynamic market, where both the Britons and the Romanians can learn and have mutual benefits. Energy, infrastructure development projects, defense and the food industry were topics of the Romanian-British Economic Forum.

We must be much more efficient in terms of British investments in Romania, in parallel with reducing the number of Romanians leaving the country, Prime Minister Ciolacu also said. I wish that today we succeed together in convincing more and more managers of the British companies that Romania is a very good country for investments. This way, we have a win-win relationship: you find new opportunities for development in Romania, and we keep our workforce at home and grow the local economy.

At a meeting with representatives of the Romanian community in London, Marcel Ciolacu told them that the state understands that it must come up with medium-term programs for those who want to return to the country. This year, for the first time, more Romanians have returned to Romania than those who left, the prime minister said.
Australia will on Thursday release October numbers for unemployment, highlighting a light day for Asia-Pacific economic activity.

The Australian is expected to have added 25,200 jobs last month after gaining 64,100 jobs in September. The jobless rate is seen steady at 4.1 percent and the participation rate is also called unchanged at 67.2 percent.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

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What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. As part of COP29 in Baku, Trend News Agency proudly presents COP for Hope, a special project offering an unparalleled platform to hear from world leaders and trailblazers in politics, economics, science, and ecology, all united by a shared commitment to addressing todays pressing climate challenges.

Editor-in-chief of the environmental news department of Teleradio Montenegro (RTCG), Daniel Garic, became our next interviewee.

In an interview with Trend, he stated that currently $1 billion a day is needed to protect against natural disasters.

Daniel Garic highlighted that this figure is experiencing exponential growth on a daily basis.

He also mentioned that he had been around the block at several COP events, and COP29 was the cream of the crop when it came to organization.

"This is my fourth participation at the COP. This is the most meticulously arranged conference I have ever attended. The city is thoroughly equipped for COP29. Throughout Baku, one can observe meticulously crafted sculptures pertaining to COP29. The COP29 volunteers are very amiable. All necessary resources are present. I extend my congratulations to Azerbaijan and Baku.

I aim to acknowledge the peril posed by climate change. It represents the most significant and grave threat to human civilization. Regrettably, certain global leaders are unwilling to acknowledge this. At present, the sole global actor is the European Union.

The European Union possesses a definitive decarbonization strategy and an exceedingly stringent climate policy. I would not make that assertion regarding the other players. I believe the newly elected US President Donald Trump will implement changes. He is likely to violate the Paris Agreement, posing a significant threat to human civilization. There is an increasing occurrence of floods, landslides, and tsunamis globally. The climate crisis is imminent, and without intervention, the situation will deteriorate worse.

Currently, we need $1 billion daily for catastrophe mitigation. The quantity is escalating daily. The impoverished nations in the Southern Hemisphere face numerous challenges that the Northern Hemisphere remains largely oblivious to. They merely seek increased financial gain, as well as oil and gas resources. This is detrimental to the lives of individuals in the Southern Hemisphere. Time is lacking. I believe it is not charity; it is their capability and obligation, the editor-in-chief emphasized.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), which will continue until November 22, was opened at Baku Olympic Stadium on November 11. The event is the largest organized by Azerbaijan to date and is the first time the region has hosted the event in Azerbaijan.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance.

In addition to being a top priority that creates the conditions for action, the creation of climate finance will also contribute to meeting the 1.5C commitment by bringing everyone together.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference in the climate system. The acronym COP (Conference of Parties) stands for Conference of Parties and is the highest legislative body overseeing the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

A total of 198 countries are parties to the Convention. Unless otherwise decided by the parties, COP is held annually. The first COP event was held in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

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Japan will on Friday release preliminary Q3 numbers for gross domestic product, highlighting a busy day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. GDP is expected to add 0.2 percent on quarter and 2.5 percent on year after rising 0.7 percent on quarter and 2.9 percent on year in the three months prior.

South Korea will provide October figures for imports, exports and trade balance; in September, imports were up 1.7 percent on year and exports rose an annual 4.6 percent for a trade surplus of $3.17 billion.

China will release October data for fixed asset investment, industrial production, retail sales and unemployment. FAI is expected to rise 3.5 percent on year, up from 3.4 percent in September. Industrial production is tipped to add an annual 5.5 percent, up from 5.4 percent in the previous month. Sales are seen higher by 3.8 percent on year, up from 3.2 percent a month earlier. The jobless rate is seen steady at 5.1 percent.

Malaysia will see Q3 numbers for current account and gross domestic product; in Q2, the current account surplus was MYR300 billion, while GDP expanded 5.9 percent on year.

Indonesia will provide October trade data; in September, imports were up 8.55 percent on year and exports rose an annual 6.44 percent for a trade surplus of IDR3.26 billion.

Hong Kong will release Q3 data for gross domestic product; in the previous three months, GDP was down 1.1 percent on quarter and up 1.8 percent on year.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Economic News

What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
Saturday, President Joe Biden will meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Peruvian capital Lima.

Announcing this at a news conference, a senior administration official said the White House has been working towards this meeting since National Security Advisor Sullivan visited Beijing in late August.

This will be the third in-person meeting between the two leaders since President Biden assumed office, and most probably their last meeting as presidents. They previously met in Bali, in 2022, on the margins of the G20, and at Woodside, in 2023, on the margins of APEC.



"The President will use the opportunity to take stock of efforts to responsibly manage competition over the last four years, how the two countries have advanced areas of shared interest, and, even amidst deep differences and intense competition, have worked to do so," the official told reporters.

The United Sates and China made progress in a number of areas since the Woodside Summit last year. Over the last year, the two sides have resumed military-to-military communications at all levels. At the senior level, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Brown, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and the INDOPACOM commander have met or had telephone calls with their Chinese counterparts.

Biden will continue to emphasize the importance of maintaining military-to-military communications at all times and especially during times of heightened tension, according to the official.

The U.S. and China also restarted the Defense Policy Coordination Talks in January. And for the first time this year, both sides pre-notified their respective Inter Continental Ballistic Missile launches.

The outgoing U.S. President intends to use this meeting to discuss areas of difference and how to manage those differences in the period ahead.

Biden will express deep concern over China's support for Russia's war against Ukraine, as well as the deployment of more than 10,000 North Korean troops to Russia, where they have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces.

Biden is expected to underscore the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and express his concerns that China's increased military activities around Taiwan are destabilizing and eroding the status quo.

Biden will also emphasize on his longstanding concern with Beijing's unfair trade policies and non-market economic practices, which have over time created an unlevel playing field for American workers.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
NASA is commissioning five studies that look into new designs or technologies that make sustainable aircraft of the future, which are more efficient and have lower emissions than the current ones.

Through its Advanced Aircraft Concepts for Environmental Sustainability (AACES) 2050 initiative, NASA asked industry and academia to come up with studies looking at aircraft concepts, key technologies, and designs that could offer the transformative solutions needed to secure commercial aviation's sustainable future by 2050. NASA issued five awards, totaling $11.5 million, to four companies and one university. These new NASA-funded studies will help the agency identify and select promising aircraft concepts and technologies for further investigations.

"Through initiatives like AACES, NASA is positioned to harness a broad set of perspectives about how to further increase aircraft efficiency, reduce aviation's environmental impact and enhance U.S. technological competitiveness in the 2040s, 2050s, and beyond," said Bob Pearce, NASA associate administrator for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.

The AACES 2050 awards went to organizations that will form networks of university and corporate partners to advance their studies. NASA expects the awardees to complete their studies by mid-2026.

Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing Company, will examine new alternative aviation fuels, propulsion systems, aerodynamic technologies, and aircraft configurations along with other areas.

The Electra-led team will explore extending Electra's novel distributed electric propulsion and its unique aerodynamic design capabilities to develop innovative wing and fuselage integrations that deliver sustainable aviation focused on enabling community-friendly emission reduction, noise reduction, and improved air travel access. The company's existing small aircraft prototype has been flying for more than a year, demonstrating Electra's technology that aims to transform air travel with reduced environmental impact and improved operational efficiency.

Georgia Institute of Technology will perform a comprehensive exploration of sustainability technologies, including alternative fuels, propulsion systems, and aircraft configurations.

JetZero will explore technologies that enable cryogenic, liquid hydrogen to be used as a fuel for commercial aviation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These technologies will be evaluated on both tube-and wing and JetZero's blended wing body - an airplane shape that provides more options for larger hydrogen fuel tanks within the aircraft.

Pratt and Whitney a division of RTX Corporation, will explore a broad suite of commercial aviation propulsion technologies targeting thermal and propulsive efficiency improvements to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
The Hawaii Department of Health found traces of H5 avian influenza virus in samples collected at a wastewater site in Oahu on November 7.

Notably, Hawaii is the only U.S. state which has not reported a case of avian flu in birds or animals.

Following the detection, the officials are investigating the matter to identify the source of the virus and implement appropriate protective measures.

The officials assured that the risk of transmission among Hawaiian residents remain low.

However, they encouraged public to avoid wild birds, animals, or livestock that are sick or dead, report sick pets or unusual animal deaths to veterinarians, and avoid consuming raw milk.

The detection has caused panic among Hawaiian farmers as they are worried about the disease's impact on the agriculture industry of the state.

"Any farm that gets the disease, even if it's only one barn on the farm, the entire farm will die. It moves that quickly, so the only way to contain it is to put down the birds," said Waialua Egg Farm co-owner Michael Sencer to Hawaii News Now.

"All of our barn workers go through a shower-in, shower-out," he explained about the precautionary measures followed in his farm.

"You have to sign an affidavit that you haven't been near poultry for 72 hours. And when you come into the processing plant, you have to go through a chlorine bath with your shoes. Then you have to put on booties, and you have to sign some affidavits."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Prof. Janice Limson

By: The Division of Communications & Advancement

Rhodes University has achieved a significant milestone with the upgrading, in October, of Professor Janice Limsons South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) Chair in Biotechnology Innovation and Engagement.

Initially awarded at Tier 2 for 10 years, the Chairs upgrade to Tier 1 secures an additional five years of funding, underscoring Prof. Limson and her teams significant contributions to biotechnology innovation, particularly in linking scientific innovation with societal needs.

This elevation affirms the Universitys pioneering approach to biotechnology research. It reinforces the value of our novel approaches in biotechnology research and innovation at the University, Prof. Limson said.

The Chair's research focus has explored pathways for scientists to partner with communities and stakeholders to bring about meaningful societal impact through research and innovation. We will continue endeavouring to unlock bioeconomic opportunities for communities, Prof. Limson said.

The Tier 1 upgrade by the National Research Foundation (NRF) followed a rigorous two-phase evaluation by independent experts.

This accomplishment attests to the Chair's sustained excellence. It is a testament to Prof. Limson's exceptional scientific contributions over the past decade. It confirms that the objectives of the Chair have not only been met but surpassed, demonstrating excellence in research, innovation, and societal engagement. Dr Nomakwezi Mzilikazi, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research, Innovation & Strategic Partnerships, said.

In addition to her leadership in biotechnology at Rhodes University, Prof. Limson is also recognised for her recent election as a member of the Council of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf).

Through her roles at ASSAf and as leader of the UNICEF Innovation Biotechnology Node, Prof. Limson intends to strengthen the Chairs impact on transdisciplinary and international initiatives, shaping policy and advancing innovation in higher education.

Prof Limsons research spans critical areas such as water treatment and rapid diagnostic tools for healthcare and water quality. Through the Chair, she pioneers direct engagement with communities, enhancing the experience for science students and benefiting the communities involved.

Her teams approach to community-engaged research highlights the broader benefits for all involved, ultimately supporting the deployment of impactful biotechnology products. This is made possible through her role as Director of the Department of Science and Innovations Nano-Micro Manufacturing facility (NMMF) for paper-based diagnostics. Based at Rhodes University, this facility is one of five nationally providing access to state-of-the-art technology to translate research into products such as rapid diagnostic tests.

Prof Limson paid tribute to communities, her dedicated research team, colleagues at the University and beyond, former and current students, and the vast network of stakeholders at the heart of the success of the Chair.

With the Tier 1 upgrade, Prof. Limson envisions broader community engagement. "As a team, we are now looking ahead to exploring how engaged research can not only lead to life-saving innovations as well as new policies but to unlocking opportunities for communities to participate in the bioeconomy," she said.

This elevation sets Prof. Limsons SARChI Chair on a path to strengthen Rhodes Universitys role in biotechnology further, advancing research, societal engagement, and educational excellence. Prof. Limsons work represents Rhodes Universitys commitment to research that yields tangible societal benefits.
2025 Audi Q7: How to Reserve Your Vehicle with Rs 2,00,000

Audi Q7 launch is scheduled for November 28, 2024. Online bookings will be available through Audi Indias official website and the myAudi connect app. Interested customers can secure it with an initial booking amount of INR 2,00,000. This method provides a streamlined process for securing the luxury SUV, offering convenience and flexibility.

New Audi Q7 will be locally assembled at the SAVWIPL plant in Aurangabad. Audis decision to manufacture the Q7 in India supports the companys commitment to the local market and reinforces its global manufacturing strategy.

Audi Q7s 3.0L V6 Engine: 340 hp, 500 Nm of Torque

Under the hood, the 2025 Audi Q7 will feature a 3.0L V6 TFSI engine. This engine delivers an output of 340 hp and 500 Nm of torque, contributing to impressive performance. The luxury SUV can accelerate from 0-100 km/h in just 5.6 seconds, offering a rapid driving experience. Its equipped with Audis renowned quattro all-wheel-drive system, enhancing handling and stability, particularly under challenging road conditions.

In terms of top speed, the Audi Q7 is capable of reaching 250 km/h. The combination of high power output and advanced performance features positions the Q7 as a reliable and capable vehicle within the luxury SUV category. Acceleration and top speed further add to its appeal for those seeking both comfort and performance.

Colour Choices: Sakhir Gold to Glacier White

Exterior colour options for the new Audi Q7 include Sakhir Gold, Waitomo Blue, Mythos Black, Samurai Grey, and Glacier White. These choices allow customers to select a finish that aligns with their preferences. Audi has ensured that the colour palette reflects the its premium character.

Inside, the Audi Q7 offers two interior colour options: Cedar Brown and Saiga Beige. These choices complement the cars exterior finishes, ensuring a sophisticated and cohesive aesthetic throughout. The high-quality materials used in the interior further enhance the overall luxurious experience for passengers.

Manufacturing in Aurangabad: A Local Commitment

Audis decision to offer online pre-bookings through both its website and mobile app offers greater convenience for customers. This system simplifies the process of purchasing the new Audi Q7, allowing customers to book their car from the comfort of their homes. A key aspect of modern consumer expectations and enhances the overall purchasing experience.

Q7s assembly in Aurangabad not only supports Audis local presence but also demonstrates the companys ongoing investment in India. This assembly strategy allows Audi to meet the growing demand for luxury SUVs in the Indian market while utilising the benefits of local manufacturing. And it helps Audi to remain competitive in the expanding luxury car market in India.

Meeting the Growing Demand for Luxury SUVs in India

Audi Q7 launch is set to enhance the brands presence in the luxury SUV market in India. The combination of a locally assembled model, and advanced engine focuses on meeting the voracious appetites of Indian customers.

Balbir Singh Dhillon, Head of Audi India, said, The Audi Q7 has always been our most iconic product and has been loved by all target groups including celebrities. With the new Audi Q7, we are offering enhanced features, a refreshed exterior design and new fascinating lights. We have begun local assembly of the new Audi Q7 at our group plant in Aurangabad and are gearing to launch on November 28, 2024.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. An interactive discussion on "Climate Justice on Human Rights: The Role of National Human Rights Institutions" was held during COP29, organized by the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Trend reports.

Speaking at the event, Azerbaijans Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsperson) Sabina Aliyeva highlighted the countrys commitment to sustainability, noting that one of Azerbaijan's 5 national priorities for socio-economic development by 2030 is to become a "Clean Environment and Green Growth Country".

"Furthermore, the territories of Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur, liberated from occupation, as well as the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, have been designated as green energy zones. In line with this, the President of Azerbaijan has declared 2024 the "Year of Solidarity for a Green World."

Thanks to a range of comprehensive measures in the fight against climate change and Azerbaijan's growing influence on the global stage, the country is now hosting COP29, a prestigious event of worldwide significance.

It is well recognized thatombudsmen and national human rights institutions play a pivotal role in ensuring climate justice. These institutions are integral in safeguarding the right to a healthy environment, occupying a key position within the human rights framework, and protecting the rights of vulnerable groups disproportionately affected by climate change," she said.

Aliyeva also pointed out the involvement of the Azerbaijani Ombudsmans office in the COP29 Organizing Committee, established by a presidential decree, which aims to ensure that human rights considerations are integrated into discussions on climate change.

"To organize this prestigious event at the highest level, which today stands as a symbol of great respect and trust for Azerbaijan on the global stage, we, as a member of the COP29 Organizing Committee and as a national human rights institution, have strived to contribute to this important process in every possible way. Our aim is not only to achieve successful outcomes for our country but also to advance the collective well-being of humanity as a whole.

In this context, on the initiative of the Ombudsman and with the full support of the Azerbaijani government, the Baku International Forum on Climate Change and Human Rights: The Role of Ombudspersons and National Human Rights Institutions was held on October 2 of this year, Aliyeva said.

According to her, the forum provided a platform to discuss the human rights challenges caused by climate change, explore possible solutions from a human rights perspective, and share positive experiences from various regions. The forum also highlighted critical challenges and concluded with the adoption of a final declaration by its participants.

The purpose of todays plenary discussion, titled Climate Justice on Human Rights: The Role of National Human Rights Institutions, organized by the Azerbaijani Ombudsman Institute, is to focus on the protection of the most vulnerable groups disproportionately affected by climate change. In this regard, we will explore a range of critical issues, including Protection of vulnerable groups most affected by climate change: problems and upcoming challenges, "Protection of the environment in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, Possibilities of enhancing the role of the ombudsman institution in ensuring climate justice, The role of national human rights institutions in preventing human rights violations caused by climate change and strategies for their protection and other relevant topics as part of the broader COP29 framework.

I believe that, given the global nature of climate change, it is essential to foster cooperation both at the national and international levels. We must raise awareness about the profound legal, social, and economic impacts of climate change on communities worldwide. To safeguard human rights on a global scale, it is crucial to engage in more expansive discussions and to further strengthen the international legal framework. It is equally important that we share our experiences, as well as those of other nations, and disseminate successful practices that can be adopted more broadly.

In this regard, I urge all of you to stand in solidarity, working together to take decisive and urgent actionboth nationally and internationallyto address the challenges posed by climate change, she added.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The activists of Azerbaijani NGOs held an action to protest against pressure and intolerant attitudes towards migrants in Europe during the organization of the Eurasian Platform for Migration Initiatives, Trend reports.

The participants of the action chanted slogans such as "The climate crisis does not recognize any nation!", "Fight climate change, not immigrants!", "Climate refugees deserve a home!", "Protect people, protect the planet!", "The solution to climate change is people, not borders!", "Climate justice is migration justice!" and others.

The rally was silent and lasted for several minutes.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
In 1961, American astrophysicist and astrobiologist Dr. Frank Drake devised an equation in which several factors are multiplied together to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations in our Milky Way Galaxy capable of making their presence known to humans. More than 60 years on, astrophysicists have produced a different model which instead focuses on the conditions created by the acceleration of the Universes expansion and the amount of stars formed. It is thought this expansion is being driven by dark energy that makes up more than two thirds of the Universe.

Understanding dark energy and the impact on our Universe is one of the biggest challenges in cosmology and fundamental physics, said Dr. Daniele Sorini, a researcher at Durham Universitys Institute for Computational Cosmology.

The parameters that govern our Universe, including the density of dark energy, could explain our own existence.

Since stars are a precondition for the emergence of life as we know it, the teams new model could be used to estimate the probability of generating intelligent life in our Universe, and in a multiverse scenario of hypothetical different universes.

The new research does not attempt to calculate the absolute number of observers (i.e. intelligent life) in the Universe but instead considers the relative probability of a randomly chosen observer inhabiting a universe with particular properties.

It concludes that a typical observer would expect to experience a substantially larger density of dark energy than is seen in our own Universe  suggesting the ingredients it possesses make it a rare and unusual case in the multiverse.

The approach presented in the paper involves calculating the fraction of ordinary matter converted into stars over the entire history of the Universe, for different dark energy densities.

The model predicts this fraction would be approximately 27% in a universe that is most efficient at forming stars, compared to 23% in our own Universe.

This means we dont live in the hypothetical Universe with the highest odds of forming intelligent life forms.

Or in other words, the value of dark energy density we observe in our Universe is not the one that would maximise the chances of life, according to the model.

Surprisingly, we found that even a significantly higher dark energy density would still be compatible with life, suggesting we may not live in the most likely of universes, Dr. Sorini said.

The model could allow scientists to understand the effects of differing densities of dark energy on the formation of structures in the Universe and the conditions for life to develop in the cosmos.

Dark energy makes the Universe expand faster, balancing gravitys pull and creating a universe where both expansion and structure formation are possible.

However, for life to develop, there would need to be regions where matter can clump together to form stars and planets, and it would need to remain stable for billions of years to allow life to evolve.

Crucially, the research suggests that the astrophysics of star formation and the evolution of the large-scale structure of the Universe combine in a subtle way to determine the optimal value of the dark energy density needed for the generation of intelligent life.

It will be exciting to employ the model to explore the emergence of life across different universes and see whether some fundamental questions we ask ourselves about our own Universe must be reinterpreted, said Universite de Geneves Professor Lucas Lombriser.

The study was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Daniele Sorini et al. 2024. The impact of the cosmological constant on past and future star formation. MNRAS 535 (2): 1449-1474; doi: 10.1093/mnras/stae2236
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Renowned political analyst and journalist, founder and CEO of the Don Gracia Center for Diplomacy, Rachel Avraham, has condemned the US congress members for their actions in an article titled "COP29 Should Not Be Politicized" published on the website of the New York-based Foreign Policy Association, Trend reports via Azerbaijan's State Committee on Diaspora Affairs.

In her article, Avraham criticized Congressman Frank Pallone, founder and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues in the U.S. Congress, along with 60 other members of Congress, led by Senator Ed Markey, for urging U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to use the COP29 conference as a platform to criticize Azerbaijan.

The article points out that, in doing so, the congressmen and senators are effectively urging the US Secretary of State to condemn one of America's most reliable allies in the South Caucasus. It highlights that Azerbaijan is committed to building a sustainable future for the greater good. The pressure being exerted on Azerbaijan not only contradicts US interests in the region but also undermines the strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and the US on key issues such as climate change. By taking these actions, US lawmakers are attempting to politicize an important conference where the global community should be focused on finding solutions to the climate crisis.

The full article can be found through the link below:

https://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2024/11/05/cop29-should-not-be-politicized/

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Paleontologists have unearthed the exquisitely preserved remains of Cretaceous enantiornithine bird in Sao Paulo state, southeastern Brazil. The extraordinary three-dimensional preservation of its skull allowed the researchers to digitally reconstruct the birds brain.

The newly-identified enantiornithine species lived in what is now Brazil, approximately 80 million years ago (Late Cretaceous epoch).

Scientifically named Navaornis hestiae, the ancient bird was roughly the size of a starling.

The species had a larger cerebrum than Archaeopteryx, suggesting it had more advanced cognitive capabilities than the earliest bird-like dinosaurs.

However, most areas of its brain, like the cerebellum, were less developed, suggesting that it hadnt yet evolved the complex flight control mechanisms of modern birds.

The brain structure of Navaornis hestiae is almost exactly intermediate between Archaeopteryx and modern birds  it was one of these moments in which the missing piece fits absolutely perfectly, said Dr. Guillermo Navalon, a researcher at the University of Cambridge.

The fossilized remains of Navaornis hestiae were recovered in 2016 from Williams Quarry at the locality of Presidente Prudente, part of the Adamantina Formation in Brazil.

Tens of millions of years ago, the site was likely a dry area with slow-flowing creeks, which enabled the fossils exquisite preservation.

The extraordinary three-dimensional preservation allowed the paleontologists to use advanced micro-CT scanning technology to reconstruct the birds toothless and large-eyed skull and brain in remarkable detail.

This fossil is truly so one-of-a-kind that I was awestruck from the moment I first saw it to the moment I finished assembling all the skull bones and the brain, which lets us fully appreciate the anatomy of this early bird, Dr. Navalon said.

Modern birds have some of the most advanced cognitive capabilities in the animal kingdom, comparable only with mammals, added University of Cambridges Professor Daniel Field.

But scientists have struggled to understand how and when the unique brains and remarkable intelligence of birds evolved  the field has been awaiting the discovery of a fossil exactly like this one.

While the skull of Navaornis hestiae somewhat resembles that of a small pigeon at first glance, closer inspection reveals that it is not a modern bird at all but instead a member of, or the opposite birds.

Enantiornithine birds diverged from modern birds more than 130 million years ago, but had complex feathers and were likely competent flyers like modern birds.

However, the brain anatomy of Navaornis hestiae poses a new question: how did enantiornithines control their flight without the full suite of brain features observed in living birds, including an expanded cerebellum, which is a living birds spatial control center?

This fossil represents a species at the midpoint along the evolutionary journey of bird cognition, Professor Field said.

Its cognitive abilities may have given Navaornis hestiae an advantage when it came to finding food or shelter, and it may have been capable of elaborate mating displays or other complex social behavior.

This discovery shows that some of the birds flying over the heads of dinosaurs already had a fully modern skull geometry more than 80 million years ago, said Dr. Luis Chiappe, a researcher at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

The discovery is reported in a paper in the journal Nature.

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L.M. Chiappe et al. 2024. Cretaceous bird from Brazil informs the evolution of the avian skull and brain. Nature 635, 376-381; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08114-4
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, November 14. The Chinese company CRRC has manufactured a new mainline diesel locomotive for Kazakhstan, Trend reports.

The T36A series locomotives were produced in Chinese Dalian to order for Kazakhstan's national carrier, Kazakhstan Railways (Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, KTZ).

The first two locomotives are expected to arrive in Kazakhstan in December, after which they will undergo certification. Previously, mainline locomotives from China were supplied to Kazakhstan before the implementation of the unified technical regulation TR TS 001/2011.

This model was specially developed by CRRC for KTZ based on the Fuxing platform. The six-axle (3-0-3) T36A locomotive is equipped with a 12-cylinder 12V265C diesel engine, producing 3.5 MW of power. It is claimed that the fuel consumption is 198 g/kWh, and the maximum speed is 120 km/h.

The agreement between CRRC and KTZ was signed in 2023 and includes the supply of 100 mainline and 100 shunting locomotives, as well as the establishment of engineering and service centers in Kazakhstan. The delivery of shunting locomotives CKD6S began this summer.

It is expected that in mid-December the locomotive will arrive at the Dostyk border station and be handed over for testing to KTZ representatives. The Chinese side plans to complete the contract by the end of 2026.

CRRC Dalian, often abbreviated as DLoco, is a company located in Dalian, Liaoning Province, China, producing railway locomotives, multiple units, and diesel engines. The factory was established in 1899 during the period of construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. At the pavilion of the National NGO Forum in the Green Zone of COP29, the Baku Political Scientists Club held a panel discussion on the role of NGOs in combating the climate crisis, Trend reports.

The discussions covered topics such as "Sustainable Development and Climate Change," "Environmental Education of the Population," and other related issues.

Zaur Mammadov, Chairman of the Baku Political Scientists Club, emphasized that these topics are of global significance and require international attention.

Expert Elshan Akhmedov delivered a presentation on sustainable development, environmental challenges, and climate change worldwide, with a special focus on Azerbaijan's approach to these issues.

After the panel discussion, the participants' questions were addressed.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

The acronym COP (Conference of Parties) stands for Conference of Parties and is the highest legislative body overseeing the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

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ASTANA, Kazakhstan, November 14. Moldova will open its embassy in Kazakhstan's capital next year, Trend reports.

This became known during the meeting between the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and the President of Moldova, Maia Sandu, on the sidelines of the COP29 World Climate Summit, which is being held in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku.

During the meeting, the possibilities for expanding traditionally friendly relations between Kazakhstan and Moldova were discussed, particularly in the areas of trade, economy, and culture.

Maia Sandu stated that the opening of the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova in Astana next year would contribute to the further development of bilateral cooperation. The interlocutors agreed to organize mutual high-level visits.

Kazakhstan and Moldova are both signatories of the Free Trade Area Agreement, signed in 2011 in St. Petersburg following the meeting of the CIS heads of government. According to the State Registration Chamber of the Republic of Moldova, there are 29 enterprises in the country with a total amount of Kazakh investments in their share capital of approximately $40.8 million.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
Kristina Bird Care Model Training recipients Dinora Quintanilla (far left) and Kim Poplaski (far right) with Care Model Training facilitator Vanessa Jimenez (center).

Kristina Bird Dinora Quintanilla.

Kristina Bird Kim Poplaski.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, November 14. Abu Dhabi Future Energy will build a wind power plant in the Zhambyl region of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Trend reports.

The topic was discussed during the signing of a series of documents by the Minister of Energy of Kazakhstan, Almassadam Satkaliyev, at the COP29 Climate Summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, held under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The expected investment amount for the wind power project in the Zhambyl region of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which is planned by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, is estimated at $1.5 billion.

This document was signed within the framework of the intergovernmental agreement with the UAE, aimed at developing renewable energy projects, implementing a green transition, reducing carbon emissions, and combating climate change.

In particular, the Minister of Energy signed a memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Among the signed documents was also an agreement with the government of the People's Republic of China regarding the implementation of renewable energy projects, the transition to environmentally clean technologies, and emissions reduction. The investment in these projects is expected to exceed $2 billion.

Masdar, also known as the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, is an Emirati state-owned renewable energy company. It was founded and chaired by Sultan Al Jaber in 2006 as a subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
John Grap Battle Creek Area Habitat for Humanity is building this house on Woodlawn Avenue near LaMora Park Elementary.

John Grap Russ Baker of R.A. Baker Plumbing and his backhoe move soil on a Habitat for Humanity construction site near LaMora Park Elementary.

John Grap Mike King, executive director of the Battle Creek Area Habitat for Humanity, points out the efficiency rating of a window at a house under construction. BCAHHs work is funded by community partners, including the W, K. Kellogg Foundation , the Miller Foundation, and the City of Battle Creek. Revenues from the Habitat ReStore on North Avenue are also used

John Grap Battle Creek Area Habitat for Humanity is building this house on Woodlawn Avenue very near to LaMora Park Elementary.

John Grap Inside of a house on Woodlawn Avenue currently under construction by the Battle Creek Area Habitat for Humanity

John Grap Russ Baker of R.A. Baker Plumbing, left, talks with Battle Creek Area Habitat for Humanitys executive director Mike King on a construction site.

John Grap Battle Creek Area Habitat for Humanity is currently building three houses close to LaMora Park Elementary.

John Grap Outdoor storage sheds which will belong to three houses currently under construction near LaMora Park Elementary.
Central African Republic: Vote on MINUSCAs Mandate Renewal*

Tomorrow morning (14 November), the Security Council is expected to vote on a draft resolution renewing the mandate of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) for another year, until 15 November 2025.

France, the penholder on the Central African Republic (CAR), circulated an initial draft to Council members on 29 October and convened two rounds of negotiations, on 31 October and 6 November. A revised text was then placed under silence procedure until Friday afternoon (8 November), but the A3 plus grouping (Algeria, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Guyana) broke silence over the issue of procurement of goods by MINUSCA, after which other Council members followed with additional comments. The penholder then made further revisions to the text and placed it under a second silence procedure until yesterday morning (12 November). The text passed silence and was subsequently put in blue.

Background

In resolution 2709 of 15 November 2023, which most recently renewed MINUSCAs mandate, the Security Council requested the Secretary-General to conduct an independent strategic review of the mission. The purpose of the review was to provide detailed recommendations regarding the reconfiguration of MINUSCAs mandate, including a possible transition plan for the missions drawdown when conditions are met. However, the strategic review, circulated to Council members on 14 August, said that there is currently no desire or request from the national authorities for the drawdown of MINUSCA. Therefore, the review recommended that the mission and the host country initiate discussions on a potential transition plan in 2026, following the presidential and legislative elections expected to take place in 2025 and 2026

The outcome of the strategic review was expected to inform the negotiations on MINUSCAs mandate renewal this year, but it appears that the CAR did not want the Council to consider the recommendations contained in the review. During the Councils latest meeting on MINUSCA, held on 23 October, the CAR representative expressed regret that his country had not received a copy of the strategic review from the UN Secretariat. Although the review was conducted in consultation with the CAR authorities, the Secretariat apparently believed that its findings were intended only for circulation to Security Council members. This led to a discussion on working methods, with one Council member apparently indicating during the negotiations an intention to bring the matter to the Security Councils Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions (IWG).

Additionally, it appears that Russia characterised the strategic review as highly political. The review included detailed information on the role of other security personnela term that the UN uses to refer to Africa Corps (formerly known as the Wagner Group), a Russian private security company now directly overseen by the Russian Ministry of Defence.

The review has now been published, but it apparently took over two months to complete the translation, with versions in the UNs working languages only being made available a few days before the start of the mandate renewal negotiations. The Secretariat attributed the delay to the current liquidity crisis facing the UN.

Negotiations on the Draft Resolution

This years mandate renewal negotiations were relatively smooth, and the Council may be able to adopt a resolution on MINUSCA unanimously for the first time since 2020. Previous negotiations were more contentious, with last years negotiations proving difficult because of disagreements among Council members on several issues, including MINUSCAs human rights reporting. (For more information, see our 14 November 2023 Whats in Blue story.) The CARs improved bilateral relationship with the penholder appears to have contributed to a more constructive negotiation process this year. The Francophonie Summit in Paris on 4 and 5 October apparently provided an opportunity for high-level engagement between the two countries. Although in previous years CAR Minister for Foreign Affairs, Francophonie, and Central Africans Abroad Sylvie Valerie Baipo Temon typically participated in the Councils MINUSCA briefing ahead of the mandate renewal and clearly conveyed her countrys strong position on a range of issues, she did not do so this year. Nor did she send a letter to the Security Council detailing her countrys position prior to this years negotiations.

Nevertheless, it seems that the CAR worked closely with Council members, particularly the A3 plus, to advance its position during the negotiations. Most notably, during the discussion on supporting its economic recovery and development, the CAR pushed for language in the draft resolution that would prioritise local suppliers in the procurement of goods by MINUSCA. Given its current economic challenges, the CAR is keen to leverage MINUSCAs presence to support local businesses and stimulate economic growth.

However, this suggestion raised concerns among several Council members, who felt that it might infringe on the UNs procurement rules and regulations. They also apparently believed that the issue falls under the purview of the General Assemblys Fifth Committee and were reluctant to set a precedent for other UN peace operations. Eventually, Council members were able to agree on compromise language which encourages the Secretary-General to continue his efforts in line with paragraphs 60, 64, and 65 of General Assembly resolution 76/274 of 7 July 2022, in accordance with the Financial Rules and Regulations of the UN. These paragraphs highlight the importance of the UN adhering to the principles of fairness, integrity, transparency, and effective international competition in its procurement processes. At the same time, they emphasise the need to explore innovative ways to promote procurement from developing countries, encouraging efforts to support local vendors and prioritising the use of local materials in the implementation of construction projects for peacekeeping operations, in compliance with the UN Procurement Manual.

The draft resolution in blue renews MINUSCAs mandate within its existing troop ceiling of 14,400 military personnel and 3,020 police personnel. It also retains the missions priority tasks, as most recently outlined in resolution 2709. The CAR authorities have formally requested UN assistance for the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for 2025 and 2026. As a result, the draft text in blue updates MINUSCAs electoral assistance task to also support the organisation of local, presidential, and legislative elections in 2025 and 2026, while also urging the CAR government to ensure that the elections are inclusive, free, and fair.

Although the draft resolution in blue takes note of the strategic review, it seems that its recommendations were not considered by Council members during the negotiations. Although China had emphasised in the past the need to optimise and streamline MINUSCAs mandate and rationalise its staffing levels and size, it did not appear to push this point during the negotiations. Nevertheless, it seems that China proposed language calling on MINUSCA to adopt a transition mindset, encouraging the mission to begin discussions with the CAR authorities on a potential transition plan before 2026. This language was reflected some ideas from the strategic review. Through this proposal, China apparently wanted to ensure that the mission would be prepared for drawdown if conditions permit, or a request is made. However, this proposed language was not accepted during the negotiations because the CAR apparently did not want the Council to consider the recommendations contained in the review.

It seems that there was also some discussion around MINUSCAs environmental footprint. Particularly, Slovenia apparently pushed for strengthening the text in line with agreed language from the resolution 2729 of 29 April, which most recently renewed the mandate of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). However, Russia opposed these additions, seeking instead to only retain language from resolution 2709, which calls on MINUSCA to consider the environmental impacts of its operations when fulfilling its mandated tasks. Eventually, Council members agreed on the proposed language, with some adjustments. The draft resolution in blue references the document titled The Way Forward: Environment Strategy for Peace Operations 2023-2030 developed by the Department of Operational Support (DOS), noting that it emphasizes good stewardship of resources and a positive legacy of the mission, and identifies the goal of expanded renewable energy use in missions to enhance safety and security, save costs, offer efficiencies and benefit the mission.

Council members supportive of the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda successfully added language emphasising the need to ensure womens safe participation to existing references in the text calling for their full, equal, and meaningful participation in all spheres and at all levels. Additionally, it seems that while some members had opposed references to civil society participation in relation to the upcoming elections, the host country apparently supported such references, which led to their retention in the draft resolution in blue.

_________________________________________________________

**Post-script: On 14 November, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2759, extending the mandate of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) for another year, until 15 November 2025. This was the first unanimous adoption of a resolution extending MINUSCAs mandate in four years.

Nevertheless, in its explanation of vote, Russia opposed references to the International Criminal Court in the resolution. It also called for Council members not to mix up the key provisions of the mandatewith subjects that are not directly under the remit of the Security Council, an apparent reference to a UN Secretariat document mentioned in the resolution. (This document was the UN Department of Operational Supports Way Forward: Environment Strategy for Peace Operations 20232030.)
Investors' focus on Thursday will continue to be on the inflation picture in the States.

At 1330 BST the US Department of Labor is expected to announce that producer price growth picked up modestly in October.

Against that backdrop, later in the day, at 2000 BST, Federal Reserve president, Jerome Powell, is due to speak on the economic outlook.

Financial markets will likely be hanging on every word that he might have to say, although at present there is not yet much further information regarding what the incoming administration's exact economic agenda might be.

On home shores, overnight the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors will release its Housing Price Balance for October.

Across the Channel meanwhile, all eyes will be on preliminary readings for employment and gross domestic product growth in the euro area during the third quarter.

Thursday 14 November

INTERIMS

ActiveOps, AdvancedAdvT Limited NPV (DI), B&M European Value Retail S.A. (DI), Great Portland Estates, QinetiQ Group, Syncona Limited NPV

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Centrica, Coats Group

INTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Anpario, British American Inv Trust, Bunzl, C&C Group (CDI), Mincon Group (CDI), Portmeirion Group, Sainsbury (J), Schroder BSC Social Impact Trust, Triple Point Venture Vct, Wynnstay Properties

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

M Winkworth

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE

ICG Enterprise Trust, NextEnergy Solar Fund Limited Red, Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust , Pershing Square Holdings Ltd NPV, Pershing Square Holdings Ltd NPV (USD), The Renewables Infrastructure Group Limited

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Continuing Claims (US) (13:30)

Gross Domestic Product (EU) (10:00)

Initial Jobless Claims (US) (13:30)

Producer Price Index (US) (13:30)

Q3

Amaroq Minerals Ltd. Npv (DI), Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A. ADS(REPR 1/2 OF 1 SHS GRD750), Telecom Egypt SAE GDS (Regs)

GMS

Boston International Holdings, Cloudified Holdings Limited NPV (DI), Funding Circle Holdings , Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. GDR (Reg S)

FINALS

WH Smith

SPECIAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Lancashire Holdings Limited

AGMS

JPMorgan Global Growth & Income, Kier Group

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

Ulster Bank Ireland Designated Activity Company 11.75% Sub Bds

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Gross Domestic Product (07:00)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Hansard Global

FINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Baillie Gifford Japan Trust, Fidelity Emerging Markets Limited Ptg NPV, James Halstead, New Star Investment Trust
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. We call on MDBs (multilateral development banks) to increase funding for national adaptation plans, COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev said during a roundtable on "Driving Transformative Climate Action: Shifting the Focus from Financial Inputs to Impact and MDBs' Catalytic Effect" within COP29 in Baku today, Trend reports.

"We again call on the World Bank Group to increase financing for national adaptation plans. This week, leading multilateral banks forecasted that by 2030, their collective annual financing for climate programs will reach $170 billion, including $49 billion for adaptation financing," he explained.

Babayev pointed out that this financing is insufficient.

"We must scale up the available financing. Too often, the financing we mobilize is not accessible or acceptable. We rely on your support to address key issues such as the cost of capital, high transaction costs, and potential constraints, as well as to improve the efficiency of climate financing for those who need it the most. The ongoing reforms at the World Bank Group are vital for attracting affordable resources," he emphasized.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
Siemens reported significant gains in the past year on Thursday, driven by robust demand in energy and electrification sectors, despite ongoing challenges in its business divisions.

The company said it achieved record revenue, spurred by the growing demand for its transformers and grid technology amid a surge in power-intensive data centres, largely driven by AI investments.

That increased demand led it to project a 7% revenue growth for the upcoming fiscal year, up from 3% in the prior year.

The companys strong results also allowed it to raise its dividend by 11% to 5.20 per share.

However, the digital industries unit, which supplies factory-automation equipment, saw a 10% revenue decline due to weaker Chinese demand.

Siemens chief executive officer Roland Busch remains optimistic, citing growth opportunities in digitalization and decarbonisation.

The gains for Siemens came one day after Siemens Energy reported a 1.3bn profit for 2024, rebounding from a 4.6bn loss the prior year caused by quality issues in its wind turbine division.

While Siemens Energy had not entirely resolved the turbine quality issues, its chief executive officer Christian Bruch said no new technical faults had emerged.

The company upgraded its medium-term outlook, targeting a profit margin between 10% and 12% by 2028, an increase from the previous 8% minimum target.

At 1154 CET (1054 GMT), shares in Siemens AG were up 5.99% in Frankfurt, at 190.14.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.
London stocks had popped higher by midday on Thursday, helped along by well-received updates from the likes of Aviva and Spirax , but gains were muted as investors eyed another US inflation reading.

The FTSE 100 was up 0.2% at 8,049.80.

The US producer price index for October is due for release at 1330 GMT.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said: "The figures are expected to point at an uptick in factory-gate prices in October. The headline PPI is seen rebounding from 1.8% to 2.3% in October, and core PPI from 2.8% to 3%. And dont forget that there are components in these figures that feed into the Feds PCE index.

"Therefore, even if these numbers are in line with expectations, they should be warning that a 25bp cut from the Fed is probably not the right thing to do. I am not saying that the Fed wont do it. I am just saying that its probably not the right thing to do."

Market participants were also looking ahead to the release of third-quarter UK GDP data on Friday.

In equity markets, Aviva rose as it hailed a "very strong" performance in the third quarter, with double-digit gains in general insurance premiums, life insurance and retirement sales, and wealth net flows.

Spirax was also up as it left its full-year outlook unchanged after increasing organic sales across all three of its businesses in the third quarter, but warned of a slight impact on results from currency movements.

3i Group pushed higher as it highlighted a "good" financial performance in the first half, with a total return of 2.05bn, or 10% on opening shareholders' funds.

B&M European Value Retail also gained as it reiterated its full-year outlook after half-year sales ticked higher.

United Utilities advanced as it said revenues topped the 1bn mark in its first half after a "robust" performance, though headline profits dropped due to a higher net finance expense.

Burberry surged to the top of the FTSE 250 as the luxury goods brand launched a review of the business in an "urgent" effort to turnaround its struggling fortunes after slumping to a 80m half-year loss driven by plunging sales in its key Chinese market.

New chief executive Joshua Schulman said "Burberry forward" would target 40m in savings and focus on "reconnecting our brand with its original purpose", mainly by targeting the outerwear market.

FirstGroup jumped as the bus and rail operator said it was buying back an extra 50m in shares and lifted its full-year forecast after a strong performance in the first half of the year.

On the downside, Keller Group slumped as the geotechnical specialist contractor said it remained on track to deliver a full-year performance in line with expectations but pointed to weak activity levels in Europe.

WH Smith was in the red even as the retailer reported a jump in full-year profit and revenue, hailing a particularly strong performance from the UK travel business and over the summer.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: "Relatively modest growth in the key North American market and underlying earnings per share, as well as revenue a smidge below consensus expectations from WH Smith seems to have disappointed investors.

"The full-year results were also a tad messy with fairly significant non-recurring costs, including impairments linked to software and supply chain upgrades and provisions for loss-making contracts, affecting the headline figures.

"Performance followed the same trend of the last decade, with the travel arm the engine of growth and the high street operation running to a standstill. There continues to be a focus on making efficiencies.

"Selling travel essentials to captive audiences at airports and rail stations has been a highly lucrative activity for WH Smith, except during the pandemic, but todays numbers are a reminder the company is not immune to a bit of turbulence along the way."

Elsewhere, Lancashire Holdings, Sainsburys and Bunzl were all in the red as they traded without entitlement to the dividend.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 8,049.80 0.24%

FTSE 250 (MCX) 20,422.81 0.31%

techMARK (TASX) 4,615.39 -0.03%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Aviva (AV.) 476.70p 4.84%

Spirax Group (SPX) 6,640.00p 4.24%

3i Group (III) 3,469.00p 4.17%

B&M European Value Retail S.A. (DI) (BME) 393.80p 3.69%

United Utilities Group (UU.) 1,083.50p 3.34%

Centrica (CNA) 122.20p 3.12%

Informa (INF) 849.80p 2.76%

BP (BP.) 377.60p 2.04%

Severn Trent (SVT) 2,627.00p 1.66%

SEGRO (SGRO) 766.60p 1.56%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Convatec Group (CTEC) 246.80p -3.74%

Fresnillo (FRES) 614.50p -3.00%

Weir Group (WEIR) 2,108.00p -2.50%

Experian (EXPN) 3,703.00p -1.65%

Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 239.20p -1.64%

Anglo American (AAL) 2,196.00p -1.61%

DCC (CDI) (DCC) 5,370.00p -1.56%

Croda International (CRDA) 3,527.00p -1.48%

Glencore (GLEN) 371.20p -1.41%

Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) 2,050.00p -1.35%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Burberry Group (BRBY) 854.40p 16.82%

Kier Group (KIE) 145.20p 4.46%

Wizz Air Holdings (WIZZ) 1,478.00p 4.16%

FirstGroup (FGP) 142.10p 3.87%

4Imprint Group (FOUR) 5,320.00p 3.30%

Raspberry PI Holdings (RPI) 339.10p 2.63%

Dr. Martens (DOCS) 55.65p 2.39%

Pennon Group (PNN) 539.50p 2.08%

Just Group (JUST) 138.40p 2.06%

Grainger (GRI) 225.50p 2.04%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Keller Group (KLR) 1,432.00p -12.47%

Lancashire Holdings Limited (LRE) 598.00p -9.67%

Hochschild Mining (HOC) 203.00p -5.36%

Centamin (DI) (CEY) 136.70p -3.39%

Wood Group (John) (WG.) 51.85p -3.36%

WH Smith (SMWH) 1,264.00p -2.84%

Endeavour Mining (EDV) 1,494.00p -2.80%

Fidelity Emerging Markets Limited Ptg NPV (FEML) 675.00p -2.47%

NextEnergy Solar Fund Limited Red (NESF) 72.10p -2.04%

The Renewables Infrastructure Group Limited (TRIG) 91.20p -1.94%
London stocks were set to edge lower at the open on Thursday as investors eyed a slew of corporate releases and another US inflation reading.

The FTSE 100 was called to open down around six points.

On the macro front, the US producer price index for October is due for release at 1330 GMT.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said: "The figures are expected to point at an uptick in factory-gate prices in October. The headline PPI is seen rebounding from 1.8% to 2.3% in October, and core PPI from 2.8% to 3%. And dont forget that there are components in these figures that feed into the Feds PCE index.

"Therefore, even if these numbers are in line with expectations, they should be warning that a 25bp cut from the Fed is probably not the right thing to do. I am not saying that the Fed wont do it. I am just saying that its probably not the right thing to do."

In UK corporate news, luxury goods brand Burberry suspended its dividend and launched a strategic review of the business in an urgent effort to turnaround its struggling fortunes after slumping to a 80m half-year loss.

The company said Burberry forward would focus on reconnecting our brand with its original purpose and leveraging our strengths...to attract a broad base of luxury customers.

The loss compares with a 223m profit a year earlier. Revenues plunged 22% to 1.08bn.

Burberry said with the key Christmas period ahead and an uncertain macroeconomic environment it was too early to determine whether our second-half results will fully offset the first-half adjusted operating loss.

Fluid technology and thermal solutions group Spirax left its full-year outlook unchanged after increasing organic sales across all three of its businesses in the third quarter despite ongoing macroeconomic challenges.

The company said it continues to expect mid-single digit organic revenue growth in 2024 with an adjusted operating profit margin of 20%, in line with last year when adjusted for currency headwinds.
Private equity and venture capital firm 3i Group said on Thursday that it had delivered a "good financial performance" for the six months ended 30 September.

3i Group reported a total return of 2.04bn or 10% on opening shareholders' funds in H125 and said its net asset value per share had risen from 2,085.0p to 2,261.0p, including a 48.0p per share loss on FX translation.

The FTSE 100-listed firm noted that its private equity business delivered a gross investment return of 2.07bn or 11%, with its Action unit being the main contributor to returns, generating net sales of 9.56bn and underlying operating earnings of 1.34bn.

3i also highlighted that its infrastructure business had generated a gross investment return of 43.0m or 3%.

Chief executive Simon Borrows said: "Against an uncertain geopolitical environment and weak growth across much of Europe, we move into the second half of FY2025 with a portfolio that is well positioned to build on a solid first half.

"We have seen good momentum across our investment and realisation activity in the half and we have a good pipeline of high-quality realisations for the next 12 months. We also have some interesting potential opportunities in our investment pipeline, which we will continue to review in a disciplined way and progress those that are most attractive."

As of 0900 GMT, 3i shares were up 2.79% at 3,423.0p.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com
Just Book-ish, an all-ages bookstore and gathering space with an emphasis on writers "whose work often challenges political paradigms," has opened on a limited basis in Boston, Mass., with a grand opening scheduled for November 23.

Bing Broderick and Porsha Olayiwola

Located at 1463 Dorchester Ave. in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, Just Book-ish spans about 1,250 square feet on the first floor of the Dot Crossing building. It carries a wide array of titles in several languages, many with a social justice focus, and serves an assortment of light snacks and beverages.

Until the grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony on November 23, the store will be open Tuesday through Friday, 2 p.m.-7 p.m., and on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The store's events and cultural programming will begin in the new year.

Just Book-ish is the brainchild of Porsha Olayiwola, Boston's Poet Laureate, and Bing Broderick, former director of the nonprofit Haley House. Earlier this year, they launched a fundraiser to help fill the bookstore's inventory that raised more than $51,000.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. It is necessary to develop investments in Africa to reduce carbon emissions, the executive vice president for intra-African trade and export development at the African Export-Import Bank, Kanayo Awani said at a panel discussion at the COP29 Climate Platform on Business, Investment, and Philanthropy, Trend reports.

Today I will be speaking in the context of Africa, or as we say, global Africa. And although you think of me as a financier and a spokesperson for Afreximbank, we are not just about financing. Financing is usually not a problem, but there are always other factors that hinder direct investment in the continent, she said.

According to her, direct investment in Africa (ADI) in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is an approach that needs to be developed to combat climate change.

We are not only facilitating investmentwe are facilitating it, advocating for it, and also financing it. We do a lot of capacity building to strengthen the position of countries to make them more attractive to investors. The way we do that is through partnerships. We are very partnership-oriented, Awani added.

She noted that the African Union has also supported the establishment of a Pan-African Trade and Investment Agency. This agency looks at Africa and global Africa on a larger scale rather than as a multitude of fragmented countries. The Pan African Trade and Investment Agency should give the continent a unified voice to improve Africa's image and attract investment, including investment within the continent itself.

AfCFTA, in our view, is in line with the African Union's agenda, which focuses on adaptation, investment, and climate resilience. The reason for this is obvious. This is how the EU sets its priorities, and this is how we position Afreximbank to support investments in adaptation. AfCFTA gives us the best chance to promote the trade and investment needed to tackle carbon emissions, she added.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
Avaada Group, a prominent player in renewable energy, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indias National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM) to advance skill development and youth empowerment in the green hydrogen sector. This collaboration is set to create a transformative ecosystem aimed at equipping young professionals with the skills necessary to pursue careers in the green hydrogen industry, underscoring Avaadas commitment to both environmental sustainability and Indias skill-development goals.

Through this partnership, Avaada Group will work closely with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and the National Skill Development Corporation to implement specialised training and reskilling programs. These initiatives will incorporate hydrogen technologies into educational curricula, enabling a future-ready workforce skilled in the emerging green hydrogen field. The programmes will also support individuals from traditional industries by reskilling them for roles within the expanding green hydrogen ecosystem. This alliance is expected to strengthen Indias talent pool in the green hydrogen sector, which is crucial for the growth of a sustainable energy value chain.

The MoU was formalized by Prashant Choubey, President of Business Development at Avaada, and Arpit Sharma, CEO of the Skill Council for Green Jobs under Skill India Mission. The signing was attended by Narinder Goyal, President of Green Ammonia at Avaada Group, along with other senior leadership and representatives from the Skill Council for Green Jobs. This MoU reflects Avaadas commitment to developing a workforce that aligns with Indias decarbonisation objectives and economic growth targets through green hydrogen initiatives.

Vineet Mittal, Chairman of Avaada Group, expressed his enthusiasm, stating, Our commitment to Indias clean energy future goes far beyond technology; its about empowering a generation of skilled professionals who will be the driving force behind our green transformation. This MoU aligns perfectly with Avaadas mission to champion the National Green Hydrogen Mission, equipping young talent with the skills they need to be part of this groundbreaking journey.

Arpit Sharma, CEO of the Skill Council for Green Jobs, highlighted the impact of this collaboration under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) 4.0, stating, This collaboration, under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) 4.0 and the Skilling, Reskilling, and Upskilling Scheme under the National Green Hydrogen Mission, is committed to providing specialised training that will equip individuals to support Indias transition to green energy. Sharma noted that the initiative would meet the growing demand for expertise in areas such as fuel cells, electrolysers, and project management.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  The NYPD is seeking the publics assistance in identifying an individual wanted in connection to an alleged incident of attempted retail theft and the assault of a store employee in Manhattan.

It was reported to police that on Thursday, Oct. 31, at approximately 3:30 a.m., an unknown individual entered a commercial establishment located at 252 10th Ave. and allegedly attempted to remove merchandise from the location without paying.

London Grocery Smoke Shop is located at the address provided by police.

A 35-year-old store employee who tried to stop the individual was reportedly pepper-sprayed in the face by the individual, who proceeded to flee the location on foot, northbound on 10th Avenue, according to a statement from the NYPDs Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

The victim refused medical attention on the scene, police said.

Police are seeking a male with a medium complexion, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with red lettering Georgia, grey sweatpants with a black stripe and blue Puma sandals.

The NYPD released a surveillance image of the sought individual.

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, on X @NYPDTips.

All calls are strictly confidential.

A new statute that went into effect last month allows prosecutors to file felony charges against individuals accused of carrying out assaults against retail workers while shoplifting.

As part of a bill written by state Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton (D-North Shore/South Brooklyn) and signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul this past spring, the assault of a retail worker has been elevated to a Class E felony, making the crime punishable by up to four years in prison.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Hundreds of middle school students from Staten Island recently immersed themselves in the history of the Holocaust, and they were also instructed on ways to find empathy, courage and to engage in dialogue during a time of rising antisemitism.

More than 500 Staten Island middle school students and their teachers were invited to visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan for the ninth annual Egon J. Salmon and Family Commemoration of Kristallnacht and the St. Louis. The trip was organized by the Wagner College Holocaust Center, led by Lori Weintrob, in partnership with Salmon, and the New York City Department of Education (comm).

Students from three schools  Egbert Intermediate School (I.S. 2), Police Officer Rocco Laurie Intermediate School (I.S. 72) and Paulo Intermediate School (I.S. 75)  visited the museum over the course of three days during the week.

Students were divided into groups to listen to a seminar and visit the museums two exhibits  The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do and Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark.

During the seminar, students listened to Jon Salmon tell the story of his family, including those of his father Egon Salmon, a Holocaust survivor who fled Nazi Germany and landed on Staten Island with his parents.

Egon Salmon was just 9 years old when Adolph Hilter came to power, and five years later, his father was arrested because of his Jewish faith. He left Germany with his mother and brother, finding safety in the United States. The family was eventually reunited, making their home on Staten Island.

They ended up on a ship called the St. Louis. They were refugees, and they wanted to be refugees, they needed to get out. But few nations, including the United States, were willing to accept them  It took two years from that point before my family, my father, my aunt, my grandmother, finally made it to the United States, Jon Salmon recalled.

Students were able to see the trunk that Salmons family used on the journey as refugees, which is on display in one of the museums exhibits.

How do we address the rising tide of hate? How do you address the rising tide? Jon Salmon asked the students. One way is to increase education and interfaith efforts. And never forget. Were pleased to welcome everybody of all faiths and backgrounds  its up to you guys, your generation, the next generation, to learn from the mistakes of the past. Build bridges, dont make enemies, make friends. We hope this will be the outcome of todays visit, and that you will never forget what you see here.

Salmons story was followed by a brief history of the Holocaust by Weintrob, which detailed the horrors of the time and the large number of immigrants who sought refuge in other countries, including the United States. Weintrob shared why the lessons of the Holocaust remain relevant at present, connecting youth refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers of 1939 and today.

There were also remarks by Wagner College President Jeffrey Doggett and the community connector for Staten Islands District 31, Louis Bruschi.

We run our own Wagner College Holocaust Center, because we think the messages of empathy and understanding are so crucial, but also of appreciating that when there is injustice, we have to stand up and say something, said Doggett.

He asked students to take a moment to think about what it must have been like for Egon Salmon to experience the Holocaust, and what it must have been like to live in a world that was so quiet while that happened.

When you see stuff in the schoolyard, or you see stuff on the news, what does it make you feel? And what are you going to do about it? Because youre the next generation. My generation is here to teach you, but your generation is to stand up and take responsibility, to learn from it, and thats why Im so pleased to be here as part of Wagner College to welcome you all for this day. I hope you learn a lot, and I hope that it helps shape who you are going for, Doggett added.

The Rev. Karen Pershing, director of recovery and community initiatives for Project Hospitality, connected the experiences of Jewish immigrants to modern-day immigrants, and the ways that students can help others. Wagner College Holocaust Center Chair Fern Zagor reminded students that their actions and standing up for others can help make the world a better place.

By the end of the seminar, students were asked to write down on a butterfly what they would say to a refugee, whether during the Holocaust or in present day, sharing something new they learned, or reflecting on past events. They also each received a bracelet that stated, Inspire courage.

Educators toured the two exhibits with groups of students to teach them about the journey Jewish immigrants took from Denmark, and the timeline of the Holocaust. The students immersed themselves in the storytelling of both exhibits, asking questions and learning history in an environment in which they were surrounded with information.

In Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark, the exhibit tells the story of how Jewish and non-Jewish neighbors of all ages mobilized to create an example of mass resistance and escape during the Holocaust, which would save nearly 95% of Denmarks Jewish population.

What Hate Can Do is an expansive presentation of Holocaust history told through personal stories, objects, photos and film. Its a 12,000-square-foot exhibit that features over 1,250 original objects and survivor testimonies.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.  President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday said he will nominate Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to serve as his attorney general, putting a loyalist in the role of the nations top prosecutor.

In selecting the congressman, Trump passed over some of the more established attorneys whose names had been mentioned as being contenders for the job.

Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department, Trump said in a statement.

Trump also said he plans to nominate other loyalists for additional roles.

Tulsi Gabbard

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress and presidential candidate, to serve as director of national intelligence, continuing to stock his Cabinet with loyal personalities complimentary to his own, rather than long-term professionals in their requisite fields.

As a former Candidate for the Democrat Presidential Nomination, she has broad support in both Parties - She is now a proud Republican! Trump said in a statement. I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength. Tulsi will make us all proud!

Marco Rubio

President-elect Donald Trump named Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as his nominee for secretary of state on Wednesday, setting up a onetime critic who evolved into one of the president-elects fiercest defenders to become the nations top diplomat.

The conservative lawmaker is a noted hawk on China, Cuba and Iran, and was a finalist to be Trumps running mate this summer.

On Capitol Hill, Rubio is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has pushed for taking a harder line against China and has targeted social media app TikTok because its parent company is Chinese. He and other lawmakers contend that Beijing could demand access to the data of users whenever it wants.

He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries, Trump said of Rubio in a statement.

Dan Scavino, Taylor Budowich, Stephen Miller

Earlier Wednesday, Trump announced that longtime aide Dan Scavino will serve as a deputy without giving a specific portfolio, campaign political director James Blair as deputy for legislative, political and public affairs, and Taylor Budowich as deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel. All will have the rank of assistant to the president.

Trump also formally announced Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner, will be deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser. That had previously been confirmed by Vice President-elect JD Vance on Monday.

Blair was the political director for Trumps campaign and, once Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee, the political director for the Republican National Committee. He previously worked on Trumps 2020 campaign in Florida and was a top aide for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  A Staten Island gynecologist is facing a new lawsuit filed on behalf of 17 women who allege they were touched inappropriately during exams and suffered emotional distress following visits to the physicians office.

The plaintiffs are being represented by attorney Robert E. Brown regarding alleged incidents that occurred over the course of the last several years before Dr. Paul Heltzer subsequently shuttered his Ocean Breeze office this past July.

According to the civil complaint filed Oct. 30 in state Supreme Court, St. George, the plaintiffs, identified in court documents only as Jane Doe IV through Jane Doe XX, make a series of similar claims including numerous instances in which Heltzer allegedly flicked, tugged, twisted, pinched or rubbed their nipples and nipple piercings during breast examinations and made inappropriate comments about their sex lives.

In other instances, Heltzer is accused of conducting pelvic examinations longer than medically necessary and keeping his hands placed on patients breast and buttock areas while carrying on conversations with them.

The new filing comes after lawsuits were filed this past April by two longtime patients who allege Heltzer carried out similar conduct during in-office exams.

A separate lawsuit filed by a woman last November claimed that during an annual exam, Heltzer tactlessly made a comment regarding the placement of the longtime patients genital piercing.

New allegations

Heltzers actions were for his own sexual gratification and to satisfy his prurient interests, the most recent lawsuit alleges.

According to the complaint, due to Heltzers conduct, the plaintiffs suffered severe emotional distress including, but not limited to, fear for their safety, persistent anxiety, paranoia, anger and mental anguish.

The acts of Heltzer were so egregious and reprehensible and were performed in a manner that was so indecent, offensive and outrageous that it constitutes conduct that no civilized society should be required to tolerate, the complaint states.

In 2019, New York extended the statute of limitations to 20 years for adults filing civil lawsuits alleging a select number of sex crimes. That legislation only affected new cases and was not retroactive.

With one of the plaintiffs included in the suit alleging she was assaulted by Heltzer in 2016, that accusation falls under the statute of limitations for the Gender Motivated Violence Act which was extended in 2022 to allow victims to file claims within seven to nine years from the date of the alleged act.

Jan Doe X

One plaintiff, identified in court documents only as Jane Doe X, alleges that during a January 2024 encounter, Heltzer removed a cotton swab during a pelvic exam and proceeded to rub it up and down her genital area.

Jane Doe XVII

Another plaintiff, identified in court documents only as Jane Doe XVII, alleges that during an October 2022 exam, Heltzer made inappropriate comments regarding her breast implants, marital sex life and genitals before placing her foot into his crotch area while conducting a pelvic exam.

Jane Doe XVIII

A plaintiff identified in court documents only as Jane Doe XVIII, alleges that during a March 2024 exam, Heltzer ran his hands from her ankles up to her thighs before inserting a finger into her anus.

Many of [Dr. Heltzers] patients were reluctant to come forward, but when they saw other patients coming forward, it encouraged them, Brown told the Advance/SILive.com. My firm now represents 20 women who allege they were sexually assaulted by him. The massive number of patients who allege they were sexually abused by Dr. Heltzer is shocking. We continue to get calls from women with remarkably similar stories and will continue to evaluate additional cases as they come in, Brown added.

In a letter dated July 12 and sent to patients, Heltzer announced he closed his practice on July 1, citing health reasons.

We will be defending Dr. Heltzer regarding the claims of these former, unnamed patients in their unverified complaint, Heltzers attorney Anthony Lenza said. There are countless other former patients of Dr. Heltzer who would attest to his good character. We look forward to clearing Dr. Heltzers good name through the court process including trial if need be.
President-elect Donald Trump could have a tough time getting attorney general pick Rep. Matt Gaetz through even a GOP-led U.S. Senate.

Trump ally Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) called the Gaetz selection a reckless pick, Politico reported.

I think he has a zero percent shot of getting through the Senate, Miller said.

The Republicans will have a 53-47 majority in the Senate come January, meaning they can approve Trump appointees without any votes from Democrats.

But other Republicans are also speaking out against Gaetz, who has been under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for having sex with underage girls, illicit drug use, accepting improper gifts, dispensing special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and seeking to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.

Some Republicans were shocked by Trumps choice of Gaetz to run the U.S. Department of Justice.

Swing-vote GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she doesnt think its a serious nomination for the attorney general, Politico reported.

Another, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), told reporters she was shocked by Gaetzs selection.

Obviously, the president has the right to nominate whomever he wishes, but Im certain there will be a lot of questions, Collins said.

Others Republicans expressing doubt about the Gaetz pick include Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). No senator has yet publicly said that they would definitely vote against the Gaetz pick.

The House was set to release its report on Gaetz within days. Gaetz resigned from the House on Wednesday night.

In a clip on X, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania called the Gaetz selection god-tier level trolling, Newsweek reported.

I mean, I would describe it as god-tier level trolling, that has triggered a full-on China Syndrome to own the libs in perpetuity, Fetterman told an NBC reporter.

Its just trolling, he said.

Sen. John Fetterman says Donald Trump tapping Rep. Matt Gaetz for Attorney General is god tier level trolling. pic.twitter.com/O7RfrKBRbk  Brennan Leach (@brennanleach) November 13, 2024

Fetterman went further on his own X page, saying that Dem opinions on Gaetz arent that interesting. The good ones will come from my GOP colleagues to justify a vote for that j---off.

There have been serious, qualified individuals nominated to posts, like Rubio or Stefanik. Eric Schmitt would be a solid choice for AG.



But Dem opinions on Gaetz arent that interesting.



The good ones will come from my GOP colleagues to justify a vote for that jerkoff. https://t.co/0vizyxYpAr  U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) November 13, 2024

Fetterman added that Trump has made some good cabinet picks, including U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state and Rep. Elise Stefanik for ambassador to the United Nations.
Blame the evil weed.

Joe Rogan said Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris didnt appear on his wildly successful podcast because she didnt want to field a question about marijuana legalization.

The New York Post quoted Rogan as saying that the Harris campaign had made it clear that the veep didnt want to take any weed questions.

I think they had requirements on things that she didnt want to talk about. She didnt want to talk about marijuana legalization, which I thought was hilarious, Rogan disclosed on his Tuesday episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.

Comedian Adrienne Iapalucci, guesting on the show, wondered why the campaign would make discussing weed off-limits.

Because of her prosecuting record, Rogan said of Harris, who had served as California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney. She put a lot of people in jail for weed.

There was also concern that Harris could face progressive backlash for appearing on the conservative podcasters show.

There was a backlash with some of our progressive staff that didnt want her to be on it, and how there would be a backlash, Jennifer Palmieri, an adviser to second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, told the Financial Times.

Trumps three-hour appearance on Rogans podcast has garnered 50 million views on YouTube, the Post said.

Rogan has said that the Harris campaign had other conditions for appearing on the show, including a one-hour limit on the sit-down and arranging it so that Harris did not have to travel to Rogans studio in Austin, Texas, for the encounter.

The latter was a dealbreaker, according to Rogan.

They had, I dont know how many conversations with my folks, but multiple conversations giving different dates, different times, different this, different that, and we knew that she was going to be in Texas, so I said, open invitation, Rogan said.

Rogan, who backed Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, in the 2020 Democratic primary, supported Trump this year.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. We'll undoubtedly reach agreement at COP29, the President of the African Development Bank Group Akinwumi Adesina told reporters, Trend reports.

"This COP conference is dedicated to climate financing, and I have no doubt we'll reach an agreement," he said.

According to him, multilateral development banks already recognize the importance of partnership.

"Partnership is a key point. It's also important how we measure our actions. We have committed to measuring our achievements and reporting them transparently. While the world is discussing a new quantitative goal, it's important to ensure there are resources to implement it. Setting a goal is one thing, but having the means to achieve it's quite another. I hope we can not only set the goal but also achieve real results for the climate worldwide," Adesina emphasized.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
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BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Peru is a native place of potatoes, and China is a leading potato producing country in the world. The decades-long bilateral cooperation in potato research and breeding have yielded fruitful results.

Wang Jian, deputy director of the Qinghai Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, established his links with Peru when he visited the International Potato Center in 2004. Headquartered in the Peruvian capital Lima, the research institute boasts a large pool of potato seeds and genetic resources.

The center's agriculturist Victor Otazu was invited by Wang to visit China's Qinghai Province in the following year for collaborate in potato breeding and disease prevention.

Otazu found that the highlands there showed certain similarities with places where his experimental stations are located in Peru. The local climate and geological conditions were favorable for potato seed production, which means Qinghai could be an important potato producer.

The cooperation has allowed the province to make strides in potato breeding. The Qingshu-9 type of potato, which was bred in Qinghai, is now widely grown in China.

Qinghai also gives a helping hand to Peru, which has been challenged by climate change and pest harm in recent years. Many China-developed technologies regarding seed production and disease prevention have been applied in Peru, benefiting local farmers and improving their livelihood.

Thanks to his contribution to potato research and production in Qinghai, Otazu was honored with the Friendship Award by the Chinese government. The award is given to foreigners who have made important contributions to China's social and economic development, and in his case, to China's agricultural development.

Although Otazu has retired, his collaboration with China continues. He is proud of the decades-long agricultural collaboration with China, hoping that more benefits could be delivered through cooperation in increasing fields to people of the two countries.

Journalists: Wang Zhongyi, Zhang Duo, Xi Yue, Li Muzi, Zhang Long, Zhang Hongxiang
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Certification plays a critical role in building investor confidence and ensuring delivery of real results from capital allocated to specific projects, Executive Vice President for the Middle East, Caspian, and Africa at Bureau Veritas Khurram Majeed said during a panel discussion on the topic "COP29 Business, Investment, and Philanthropy Climate Platform" in Baku today, Trend reports.

He emphasized that, according to the latest report from the International Energy Agency, trillions of dollars will be invested by 2030 to achieve carbon neutrality goals. With such a large volume of investment, transparency becomes not just an option but a necessity.

"Bureau Veritas, as a global leader in certification, is often called a trust intermediary, as the company helps ensure transparency, which in turn fosters alignment between governments, businesses, financiers, and other stakeholders. From a business perspective, certification is crucial for companies," he also said.

According to Majeed, the world is facing a huge challenge regarding carbon emissions.

As he explained, the construction industry is responsible for 40 percent of global carbon emissions; however, if a building is certified as environmentally friendly, it not only reduces energy consumption by 2030 percent but also ensures higher occupancy, higher rental yields, and ultimately, a higher asset value.

"Thus, certification is beginning to have a significant impact on business," he added.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
Panks colleague, Senior Constable Kristian James Samuel White, has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, arguing he was acting within his duty to protect the peace and prevent injury when he discharged his Taser at Coomas Yallambee Lodge on May 17, 2023.

Giving evidence in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday, Senior Constable Jessica Pank, who was present at the scene, also rejected the prosecutors suggestion that Nowland at one stage left the knife on her walker as she raised her arm.

A colleague of the police officer who Tasered 95-year-old Clare Nowland in a NSW nursing home last year has told a court she was frightened of being stabbed by the great-grandmother, who looked at her with a wave of darkness as she attempted to seize the knife.

The two police officers joined two paramedics that morning in responding to a triple-zero call from a nurse at the facility reporting a very aggressive resident raising two little knives at staff. Nowland was found sitting inside an administrative room with her walker, holding a knife.

Clare Nowland died in hospital a week after being Tasered.

Pank said Nowland did not respond to requests to drop the knife and moved slowly towards them. I remember saying to Kristian White that I think I could get the knife off her, she said.

Pank, who was an acting sergeant and the superior officer that day, agreed with Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC, that she had rejected Whites suggestion to get Nowland out of the room. I was afraid that if wed let her further out, wed have less time and there was more risk to persons, she said.

Pank said Nowland would hold the knife up towards my hands  any time I moved close in. She said she noticed White had the Taser out and remembered suggesting he use the warning arc, to which Nowland jumped a little bit in response. Pank said Nowland was using both hands on her walker and she had pushed its wheel with her foot.
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 It all started at a bowls club in Norman Park two years ago. Best friends-turned-business partners Sarah Wills and Lise Carlaw decided to throw a party for women who hadnt had a night out dancing with their girlfriends in forever. I wore ripped jeans and bought us these matching T-shirts from Target that said something like No time for romance, only time for disco, Carlaw explains. It was just dag central, Wills laughs. We hired a Bluetooth speaker and rolled it along the grass. A woman brought her baby and put it in the middle of the dance floor. There was an old man pulling beers and cheap savvy-Bs at the bar, probably thinking, what the hell is going on inside. Carlaw and Wills met online about 10 years ago when they were both pregnant with their second children. Credit: Morgan Roberts It was so undone but everyone in that room just had a great night, Carlaw continues. There were no airs and graces about it. Everyone understood the assignment, and we just had the best time ... the rest is history.

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The pair didnt know it then, but they had tapped into a rare commodity; a guaranteed night of fun for a demographic of women with few chances to let their hair down. They hosted another event at the Grange Bowls Club, and then another at an RSL. Before long the concept ballooned from the outer suburbs to inner-city nightclubs, leading to the official launch of Lise & Sarahs Disco Club, a nationally touring no-frills night out of singing and dancing with friends. The fact is, everyone on that dance floor has something going on in their life that they need a little reprieve from. Credit: @discoclubaus Brisbane events were selling out so quickly and we kept getting these messages from women in other places going, When are you bringing this to Sydney? Or Melbourne? Wills says. We were so worried about taking Disco Club to Sydney, and then it sold out even faster, Carlaw continues. Weve attracted the same type of woman who wants the same type of experience. That was a real green light for us to go, We can do this.

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The Lise and Sarah story began a decade ago when the two suburban mums found each other online. We were both pregnant with our second children and we both had blogs, Wills says. People were telling us to follow each other, so we started liking each others stuff and DM-ing. There were obvious reasons to connect: they were both in their 30s, living in Brisbane and balancing early motherhood with the desire for a creative outlet. When they met IRL, something deeper clicked. Carlaw and Wills describe Disco Club as a reconnection to who you are or were before serious stuff happened. Credit: Morgan Roberts The word soulmate gets thrown around, but it was just that kindred spirit of two people with very complementary strengths and similar senses of humour, Carlaw says. And we just had all of these ideas. A few months after that meeting, they tested their friendship chemistry on stage emceeing events. Their first gig was The Bachelor finale at Mirra in Fortitude Valley. Next came hosting slots on panels and live events with media personalities such as Zoe Foster Blake and Mia Freedman. Then we got tapped on the shoulder to go to radio, Wills explains. For nearly five years, they hosted hit show Those Two Girls on local and national radio. In 2020, they launched FORTY, a podcast dissecting the highs, lows and unspoken truths of middle age. When it wrapped in 2023, they launched a weekly series called The Lise and Sarah Show.

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We quickly realised that female friendship wasnt reflected [on these platforms] when we started out. There were plenty of Hamish and Andy types and examples of male friendship on display  and done so well  but women werent given that same oomph, Wills says. Whatever had been lacking, Disco Club filled it, heralding a new era of female friendship they could never have imagined. Disco Club has sold out shows around the country, including Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Gold Coast, Newcastle, Townsville and Adelaide. Credit: Morgan Roberts How to describe Disco Club? Spiritually, its the dance floor about 10pm at your best friends wedding. Enough champagne has flowed to drown any inhibitions. Shoes are off and hair is down. The DJ is running a well-ironed playlist of classic hits, with the right hint of surprise. The bride hasnt heard Teenage Dirtbag in years, the quiet cousin is about to rap every lyric to Lose Yourself and women are preparing to drape their arms over friends to belt out Whitney Houstons I Have Nothing.

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It was this feeling that initially inspired Disco Club. You get to an age where there arent so many weddings and those opportunities dry up, Carlaw says. But we knew ... that women still really needed and wanted that outlet. Loading As for who those women are, Disco Club is designed for anyone who wants to go out and have fun, though most are aged between 35 and 50. At the most recent event in the Eclipse nightclub in Fortitude Valley, the demographic stretches wide. A group in pink bob cut wigs looks to be in their mid-20s. There are mothers and daughters dancing among retirees. At the bar, a woman in her 40s taps to buy a round of Vodka Cruisers before opening her messages to a picture of a smiling older woman and little girl. Presumably, nana is on babysitting duties.

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A prominent Palestinian Australian activist says revelations police knew his Melbourne restaurant was allegedly burned down for political reasons has ripped open a festering wound, deepened by officers dismissal of a pig heart left at the restaurants door.

Hash Tayeh, who owns fast food chain Burgertory, has vented his anger in an open letter on social media platform X, after a story in The Age on Thursday revealed the accused alleged arsonist behind the attack on his restaurant allegedly told covert police officers the attack was linked to the conflict in the Middle East. Tayeh said the revelations were a harsh reminder of the injustice he has faced since the attack.

Burgertorys Caulfield outlet was burned down in an arson attack on November 10, 2023. Credit: Simon Schluter

The brief in the case obtained by The Age showed undercover operatives gathered information suggesting the high-profile attack on the Caulfield restaurant on November 10 last year was connected to the violence in Gaza.

That was despite Victoria Polices continued denial that the attack was racially, religiously or politically motivated. The force has declined numerous invitations to explain how it came to that conclusion.
Myers annual Christmas window unveiling has been scrapped after pro-Palestine protesters planned to disrupt the event, saying there is no joy in genocide.

The unveiling of the annual Bourke Street display in the CBD was expected to happen on Sunday in front of children and families.

Children admire the Myer Christmas window display in Melbourne in 2018. Credit: Luis Ascui

Myer confirmed on Thursday the event had been cancelled as a result of the planned protest.

In light of recent developments and to ensure the wellbeing and safety of customers and team members, we will no longer hold an event on Bourke Street Mall for the unveiling of our Christmas windows, a company spokesperson said.
The children coming to see the Myer Christmas windows were never a target, because children are not a target, Settal said in a statement. In light of Myers decision to cancel their window reveal event, planned disruptions will not go ahead. Despite the cancellation of the protest, a Myer spokesperson said it would not proceed with the launch for safety reasons. Police and a security guard outside Myer on Friday afternoon. Credit: Joe Armao The planned protest was shared on social media by pro-Palestinian group Disrupt Wars. The small group of activists is separate to the organisers of the main Pro-Palestine protest group that marches through the city each Sunday. That group plans to divert its regular route to avoid the launch event.

Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni, who organises the weekly protests, said he would not condemn any legal action that draws awareness to the suffering of those in Gaza. Its given us an opportunity to speak and re-raise all of the issues that Palestinians in Palestine are facing, but also the supporters are facing here. Weve got to do more to treat Palestine the way we treat Ukraine, he said. Allan said she joined in the fury of Victorians after the cancellation of the official launch.

The condemnation that I have led, with many others in our community, has seen this very, very small group of divisive protesters walk away from what they have planned, she said. [The windows] will be open for the thousands and thousands of Victorians from all different backgrounds, from all different parts of the state, to come and enjoy that beautiful family tradition. David Spiteri and his daughter Georgia Spiteri, 6, at Myer on Friday afternoon. Credit: Joe Armao Allan said she had been briefed by the Victoria Police chief commissioner, who assured her the force had a strong plan to deal with any violent behaviour on the weekend. Police on Friday clarified that it had not made any recommendations about cancelling the event  the community should be assured Victoria Police will have a visible presence on Sunday.

However, Port Melbourne local David Spiteri, father of two, said he would not feel safe taking his kids, Georgie, 6, and Charlie, 4, to the windows on Sunday despite it being a family tradition. [Im] a little bit disappointed. Obviously, everyones got their own opinion and own right to protest against things, but targeting something like that [is not the right thing to do]. The state opposition has supported calls for a NSW-style protest permit system, which gives police the ability to go to court to dispute protest permits on public safety grounds. Victorian Chamber for Commerce and Industry boss Paul Guerra said the ongoing weekly protests against the conflict in the Middle East were impacting businesses in the CBD.

Something needs to be done, and it needs to be done quickly  hopefully, today is the impetus to finally put a permit system in place, he said. Opposition Leader John Pesutto also vowed to work with police to expand their powers dealing with protesters if he were elected premier at the next state election. However, Victoria Police assistant chief commissioner Tim Tully questioned how effective an expansion of powers would be for this particular protest. Ultimately, we operate within the law  we dont make the law. And probably in terms of powers, I think its a bit more than that, this event  its about decency and respect.
Australia has backed a United Nations resolution recognising Palestinians permanent sovereignty over resources in the occupied Palestinian territories in Gaza and the West Bank in a significant shift from its previous stance.

The federal government broke with the United States and Israel in two UN votes on Thursday, the latest in a series of votes that have angered local pro-Israel groups in Australia.

Australia joined with 155 countries to support a UN committee vote on a draft resolution recognising the permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources, including land, water and energy resources.

A spokesperson for Penny Wong said Australia was seeking to affirm support for a two-state solution. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Australia had previously voted no on the issue since 2003, according to the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.
The advent of another Donald Trump administration has united most politicians in the hope the friendship between Australia and the United States remains strong, but the unhinged furore surrounding our ambassador to Washington, Kevin Rudd, suggests the former prime minister is a clear and present danger to the bilateral relationship.

Kevin Rudd has deleted all his criticisms of Donald Trump from the internet. Credit: Artists

The push to get rid of Rudd has been ignited by the posting of an image on X showing sand trickling through an hourglass in response to Rudds official US election statement by Trump senior adviser Dan Scavino.

Our US ambassadors continuing employment prospects were raised last March when Brexit champion-turned-broadcaster/MP Nigel Farage told Britains GB News channel our friends at Sky News Australia requested he ask Donald Trump about Rudd, and the presidential hopeful unloaded: I dont know much about him. I heard he was a little bit nasty. I hear hes not the brightest bulb  But if, if hes at all hostile, he will not be there long.

After quitting parliament in 2013, Rudd, who trained as a diplomat, made critical remarks on Twitter about two American citizens: Donald Trump is a traitor to the West. Murdoch was Trumps biggest backer. And (Rupert) Murdochs Fox Television backs Putin, too. What rancid treachery.
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 Australian Turf Club chairman Peter McGauran is not naive. A former Howard-era agriculture minister and veteran of National Party politics, he knows that the voices opposed to his era-defining proposal to shut down Rosehill Racecourse are winning in the public domain. And yet, he remains bullish about his chances of turning the 60-hectare site into a mini-city of 25,000 homes. People have underestimated us, he says. Its not unexpected that the anti-sale protagonists are vocal and have the field to themselves at the moment. But Im excited. It will be a very different debate when all the details of the proposal are provided for members. But almost a year after McGauran stood with NSW Premier Chris Minns to announce the massive, city-shaping plan to close Rosehill as a racecourse after 130 years, those voices are getting louder, and closer. Australian Turf Club vice chairman Tim Hale. Divisions of the board of the race club have exploded into public view in advance of director elections later this month. Credit: Steven Siewert McGaurans vice chair, Tim Hale, for example, has a very different take. Hale says he believes a substantial majority of members will vote against the Rosehill proposal when it is finally presented to ATC members in April. His belief, he says, is based on conversations with hundreds of ATC members who oppose it, and scepticism over the accuracy of the $5 billion sale value, which his chair has publicly touted for the sale. The proposal, he says, is not feasible.

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The two men are now openly exchanging hostilities. McGauran accused Hale of talking outside both sides of his mouth over the deal. Hale said his chairman had exaggerated the boards support for the proposal. The Herald makes no suggestion as to the correctness of either claim. The divide, even in the ATC boardroom, is emblematic of the issues facing a deal the Minns government has described as a once in a generation opportunity. The plan to sell Rosehill has been beset by issues from the outset. NSW Premier Chris Minns with ATC chair Peter McGauran announcing the plan to develop Rosehill Racecourse into a mini-city for 25,000 new homes in December last year. Credit: Dion Georgopoulos High-profile racing figures, including champion trainer Gai Waterhouse, have been vocal in opposing the sale. Almost a year after it was announced, tensions over the proposal threaten to derail it entirely. It has been shambolic, to put it politely, said David Walter, one of 10 members running for two open board spots at the ATCs annual general meeting this month. We seem to be seeking to sell an iconic racing site and venue in Sydney with no realistic prospect of a replacement in a comparable venue [and] valuations which appear to be all over the shop.

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Walters view is not an outlier. Most of the candidates have expressed significant doubts about the proposed sale, ranging from outright hostility to concerns over what they view as a flawed process. Loading That could have wider repercussions if a reconstituted board decided not to pursue the sale further. I think its a real possibility, Walter said. There are many reasons some ATC members oppose selling Rosehill. A parliamentary inquiry probing the deal has focused on how the idea for the deal was originally hatched, during a meeting between Minns and his long-time friend Steve McMahon, an official at the ATC, without the knowledge of the board. For other reasons, the plan may struggle to win support from the ATC members, including questions over the mooted $5 billion price tag for the land and a growing perception that no alternative course has been identified. On the latter point, the ATC identified the historic brick pits site at Sydney Olympic Park as an alternative, near a future Metro station and in the heart of western Sydney. Its only drawback is significant: stringent environmental rules that prohibit development due to endangered green and golden bell frogs.

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The site was earmarked as a venue for the 2000 Olympics, but the presence of the frogs thwarted the plan. NSW Planning secretary Kiersten Fishburn recently poured cold water on the idea. John Coates, the Australian Olympics supremo and a long-time ATC member who is backing Hales re-election to the board, believes it is never going to happen. For the same reasons we werent able to for Olympic venues. Because of the special frogs, he said. McGauran for his part insists the brick pits remain a viable alternative, but he said the ATC was investigating other options. Perhaps the most compelling evidence of the strain the Rosehill sale deal is under, however, is the schism on the board. In August, Hale and one of his fellow directors, Caroline Searcy, appeared before a parliamentary inquiry into the sale.

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Searcy, a Sky Racing host and media executive, made a point of emphasising to the committee that the board had not signed off on a sale, saying she had an open but somewhat sceptical view on the proposal. I didnt get on this board to be selling assets that are as important and as big as Rosehill racecourse, she said. Hale cast doubt on the $5 billion figure McGauran has touted as the likely sale price. It was a figure he had a great deal of difficulty in accepting, and I have never accepted. Disagreement over the value of Rosehill is largely down to the interpretation of an ATC valuation that has not been released. In essence, though, the issue is how long it might take to recoup that price. Hale says the analysis showed it would take 28 years, and a figure of $1.6 billion is more realistic. That price, Hale and McGauran concur, would make the sale unfeasible. But McGauran says the eventual value could be higher than $20 billion, depending on how a development was structured. Loading Hale is the only current board member up for re-election and has been endorsed by high-profile opponents of the sale including Waterhouse. His comment to the Herald that a substantial majority of members will vote against the deal drew a sharp rebuke from McGauran, who accused him of speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

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What in the World, a free weekly newsletter from our foreign correspondents, is sent every Thursday. Below is an excerpt. Sign up to get the whole newsletter delivered to your inbox.

Greetings from an ill-at-ease Singapore.

Since Donald Trumps landslide victory last week, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has spoken bluntly of an increasingly dangerous world in flux. Eroding multilateral institutions and norms, he said, have given way to growing zones of impunity, where state and non-state actors push for what they want with little or no consequences.

Sides have lined up behind two ongoing hot wars, and the US-China rivalry threatens more: America has to choose whether China is an existential threat to be contained or a major power to be embraced. China, too, has to consider its responsibilities in upholding a peaceful, international order.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) has approved more than $5.5 billion in climate finance from 2022, the President of the Islamic Development Bank Muhammad Sulaiman Al Jasser said during a roundtable discussion on "Driving Transformative Climate Action: Shifting the Focus from Financial Inputs to Impact and MDBs' Catalytic Effect," Trend reports.

Since our last major announcement at COP27, the Islamic Development Bank has approved over $5.5 billion in critical climate finance, of which 47 percent has been allocated to adaptation, underscoring our commitment to climate resilience initiatives, said Al Jasser.

He also emphasized that the Islamic Development Bank will continue to leverage Islamic banking resources to combat climate change.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
Kushner is expected to play an advisory role in the event of future negotiations over Israeli normalisation with Saudi Arabia, according to a former Trump official. Donald Trump and Jared Kushner in 2020 announcing that the United Arab Emirates and Israel had agreed to establish full diplomatic ties. Credit: AP On Sunday, the Israeli official said, the conversations at Trumps Florida residence focused on an Israeli ceasefire proposal for Lebanon involving Western and Russian co-operation. An Israeli military official said plans were also being created to ramp up ground operations in Lebanon if talks were to ultimately fall apart. Loading The terms of the evolving deal, according to Israeli officials, would require Hezbollah fighters to retreat beyond the Litani River  the northern edge of a UN-monitored buffer area established after the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Since October 2023, following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, Lebanese militants have used the region as a staging ground to rain down thousands of rockets and missiles on Israel, killing 45 civilians and 31 soldiers and forcing some 60,000 people from their homes.

Nearly 900,000 people have been internally displaced by Israels expanding military campaign in Lebanon. More than 3300 have been killed, according to the countrys Health Ministry. Hezbollah said about 500 of its fighters were killed before the start of the Israeli ground operation, when the group stopped releasing a public count. More than 40 Israeli soldiers have been killed in ground fighting since October 1, including six on Wednesday. A person close to Hezbollah said the group would be willing to withdraw its fighters north of the Litani as part of a temporary ceasefire. The Israeli official said the Lebanese military would take control of the border zone for an initial 60-day period, overseen by the United States and Britain. Lowenstein said Netanyahu could be aiming for a temporary agreement with Biden still in office, leaving a final settlement for Trump to take credit for. The one thing Netanyahu cares more about than Trump is his own domestic politics, and getting Israeli civilians back to the north is a major objective that he may not want to wait on, he said.

The broad contours of the agreement taking shape are similar to those in previous rounds of negotiations and align with Trumps expressed desire to put an end to Israels multi-front war, but the plan has yet to be formally submitted to Hezbollah, according to officials in both countries. And the proposal calls for the Israeli military to be able to operate across the border in case of violations  a non-starter for Lebanese officials. Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in 2017. Credit: AP Is there any sane person who believes that we will agree to a settlement or a solution that serves Israels interests at the expense of Lebanons interests and sovereignty? Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri said on Tuesday. Berri, a Hezbollah ally, has served as an intermediary in negotiations. The person close to Hezbollah said the groups condition for progress remains clear: Israel must be prohibited from conducting operations within Lebanese territory. But Netanyahu  who has been accused by his critics of extending and expanding the war for his own political survival after being widely blamed for the security failures on October 7, 2023  appears to be betting that the political moment is ripe for a breakthrough.

This was a deal that Netanyahu waited to give to Trump, said Israel Ziv, former head of the Israel Defence Forces Operations Directorate, who remains in contact with high-ranking members of the security establishment. But waiting had its price, Ziv added, referring to Hezbollah having regained its footing in recent weeks. Nearly 900,000 people have been internally displaced by Israels expanding military campaign in Lebanon. Credit: Kate Geraghty Following his meetings at Mar-a-Lago, Dermer met on Monday and Tuesday with Biden officials in Washington, including Amos Hochstein, the presidents special envoy to Lebanon, according to a senior US official. The senior official noted that Netanyahu remained engaged with the administration on the ceasefire process in Lebanon. A second US official said that all the work on a potential deal was still being done by Bidens team and that progress had been made. Netanyahus consultations with Trump before and after the election demonstrate how much he had staked on the results of the vote and how carefully he is calibrating his strategy for the new administration. But Ziv said the prime minister would need to weigh the whims of the president-elect  a notoriously unpredictable politician  against national security calculations, since his entire leverage is Trump.

Loading And there appears to be a new X-factor in Israels peace plan for Lebanon: Russia, a country whose ties with Trump complicated his first term. According to the Israeli official, the proposal calls for Moscow to prevent Hezbollah from rearming via Syrian land routes, which for years have been the main conduit for arms from Iran, the militant groups main patron. Russian officials visited Israel on October 27 to discuss the plan, according to the Israeli official. Dermer made a secret trip to Russia last week for follow-up discussions, the Israeli and US officials said. Russias Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment. The US official said Russia would not be involved in the implementation or supervision of a ceasefire agreement. On the competing claims over Moscows involvement, Lowenstein said: Its possible that both are true: no role for the Russians now under Biden, but a big one later when Trump takes over.

Russia, an ally of Iran, has maintained a presence in Syria since sweeping in during the countrys civil war in support of President Bashar al-Assad, working hand-in-hand with Hezbollah to brutally crush the armed uprising against his government. Now Israel appears to be counting on Russia to pressure the Syrian president into cutting off Hezbollahs supply lines. Hezbollah is cornered, the person close to the group said. If Hezbollah accepts the deal, Ziv said, it would come into effect very quickly, since there are expectations that attempts to violate it will also be immediate. Loading
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. On November 14, 2024, recognized as 'Finance, Investment, and Trade Day' at COP29, Bank ABB (The International Bank of Azerbaijan) has signed an Issuing Bank Agreement with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) which has approved a trade finance limit of up to $50 million for Bank ABB under its Trade Facilitation Programme.

The agreement was signed by Bank ABBs Chairman of the Management Board Abbas Ibrahimov and EBRD President Ms. Odile Renaud-Basso at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The $50 million limit is aimed to expand Bank ABBs trade finance capabilities and marks EBRDs commitment to support Azerbaijans banking sector.

This agreement with EBRD will strengthen Bank ABBs capacity to finance the real economy, support international operations and expand access to financial instruments for import-export businesses. It is also anticipated to boost global trade opportunities, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Bank ABBs Chairman of the Management Board, Abbas Ibrahimov, stated that this agreement makes a significant contribution to sustainable business development in Azerbaijan, continuous participation of local entrepreneurs in international trade, consequently impacting the populations well-being: "As ABB, we will make the best efforts to utilize these financial resources to mainly support projects focused on the green economy, maintaining our responsibility and dedication for the safer and cleaner environment. Under EBRDs limit, priority will be given to green trade projects aimed to reduce carbon emissions".

Odile Renaud-Basso, the President of the EBRD said: "We are confident that this trade finance line will add significant value to Azerbaijan's financial sector and its clients while supporting Azerbaijan's foreign trade.

Concurrently, the EBRD will advise the Bank ABB on identifying and structuring green transactions".

For additional information on Bank ABBs latest products and services, visit any Bank ABB branch, the official website https://abb-bank.az/, contact the Information Center at 937, or follow Bank ABB on Facebook.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The Chamber of Accounts of the Republic of Azerbaijan places special emphasis on issues arising from global challenges, Chairman Vugar Gulmammadov said at the event titled What Stage Are Governments at in Climate Action? - Results of the Climate Scanner Assessment held as part of COP29 in Baku, Trend reports.

"The first global results of the Climate Scanner, presented during the declared year and at COP29 in Baku, have heightened the responsibility of the Accounts Chamber of the Republic of Azerbaijan as the host country.

Climate change is widely regarded as one of the greatest global challenges of our time. Addressing its impacts and implementing mitigation measures requires substantial financial resources, including public funds. This underscores the crucial role of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) in ensuring the effective and transparent use of these funds. For many SAIs that are increasingly recognizing the risks posed by climate change, climate-related activities have become the top priority for environmental audits.

The Accounts Chamber of Azerbaijan prioritizes difficulties arising from worldwide challenges in its operations. In recent years, environmental issues, encompassing various facets of climate action, have been explicitly examined in our performance assessments," he said.

As Gulmammadov points out, audits often uncover a whole can of worms in this field.

"Some are related to the audit institution itself, while others are tied to the environmental context in which audits are conducted. We believe that many of these challenges are relevant to SAIs worldwide. I would like to highlight some of them:

The implementation of environmentally friendly solutions in some cases does not align with traditional standards, requiring changes in national legislation;

Issues with the variety and timeliness of climate activity information, as well as difficulties in accessing reliable data;

A lack of sufficient experience in climate finance that can be considered exemplary;

Discrepancies between the theory and practical application of green budgeting;

The development stage of climate audit standards and the need to equip auditors with specialized knowledge and skills in this area;

Difficulties in defining the scope and significance of climate audits;

The need for increased government audits in light of global frameworks, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, being integrated into the auditing processes," he articulated.

The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), which will run until November 22, opened at the Baku Olympic Stadium on November 11. The event is the largest organized by Azerbaijan to date and is the first time the region has hosted the event in Azerbaijan.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

In addition to being a top priority that creates the conditions for action, creating climate finance will also help fulfill the 1.5C pledge by bringing everyone together.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference in the climate system. The acronym COP (Conference of Parties) stands for Conference of Parties and is the highest legislative body overseeing the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

A total of 198 countries are parties to the Convention. Unless otherwise decided by the parties, COP is held annually. The first COP event was held in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

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SIBUR, Metalloinvest and others share their experience in implementing climate projects

The UNs annual Climate Change Conference (COP29), which started this week, is focused on coordinating the efforts of nearly 200 countries to set national targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next five years, while also addressing the need for financial support to help developing nations transition to low-carbon energy and adapt to climate change. This years conference is being held for the first time in the former Soviet country of Azerbaijan.

Known primarily as an oil-producing country, Azerbaijan is developing renewable energy in partnership with global leaders in the field, including Masdar (UAE), ACWA Power (Saudi Arabia) and Fortescue Future Industries (Australia). The country has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 35% by 2030. Azerenerji, Azerbaijans largest electricity producer, plans to certify carbon units generated from the launch of seven small hydropower plants through two international carbon offset programmes: the Global Carbon Council (Qatar) and Gold Standard (Switzerland).

Russia, which has made the most progress in the region when it comes to implementing its climate agenda, opened a pavilion for the COP29 business programme, where Russian companies shared their experience in implementing climate projects with other conference participants. Despite facing geopolitical challenges, Russia remains committed to reducing carbon emissions.

SIBUR, Russias largest producer of polymers and rubber, is actively modernizing its plants to reduce carbon emissions. The company has already completed eight climate projects, reducing its emissions by a total of 10.8 million tonnes of CO 2 -equivalent emissions over the past 10 years. These initiatives have generated over 3.3 million tonnes of certified carbon credits that can be traded in both Russian and international markets.

To date, SIBUR has concluded no fewer than 15 transactions involving carbon credits, enabling its customers and partners to reduce or fully offset the carbon footprint of their operations, products or events. Russian companies have emphasized the importance of cross-border carbon credit trading, in line with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Joint efforts are essential to addressing global warming, and the cross-border trade in carbon credits will unite the carbon markets of different countries.

In 2022, Russia created a carbon units registry, which has already registered more than 40 projects. Last month, the registry completed its first international transaction.

Udokan Copper, a mining company that develops the Udokan copper deposit in Russias Trans-Baikal region, which shares a border with China, plans to reduce carbon intensity at its production facilities by as much as 75% by 2035. As part of its efforts to achieve this goal, the company purchased carbon credits last year from the energy producer RusHydro.

Metalloinvest, Russias largest iron ore producer, has not only set ambitious targets for reducing its own carbon footprint but is also helping its partners do the same. The company produces direct reduced iron (DRI) in the form of easily transported briquettes. It is the best raw material for green steel production. The use of hot-briquetted iron for steelmaking in electric furnaces reduces greenhouse gas emissions by around one-third compared with the traditional process using a blast furnace and oxygen converter.

Russia, like China and Kazakhstan, aims to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2060. The country is actively developing alternative energy sources, including hydro and nuclear power. However, the role of private industrial companies will be vital in achieving this goal, as they compete in international markets and provide products with a low carbon footprint that are increasingly in demand among consumers.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said there may be limited exceptions to the ban for safety or restoration purposes while an exemption is also anticipated to protect the historic rights of freeminers to mine personal plots or gales in the Forest of Dean.
I'm sorry, but ADHD has become a scam that is wildly overdiagnosed and an excuse for poor behaviour

I'm sorry, but ADHD has become a scam that is wildly overdiagnosed
Back then, Id go to Harvey Nichols with my pocket money to buy my precious pot, delighting on the tube journey on the way home at the feeling of being in possession of something special, feeling rather like Jack carrying those magic beans that my life was about to transform. That will only sound silly to you if you dont love make-up; if you do, you will know that having the right product at the right time is a kind of alchemy and changes if not your actual life then certainly the confidence with which you inhabit it.
As a teenager, he went shoplifting with a group of friends after learning about powerful magnets in a physics lesson and realising they could be used to remove security tags, he previously told the court.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Green Climate Fund will sign a declaration of partnership on climate change, glaciers, and transboundary cooperation for Central and West Asia, ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa said, Trend reports.

He made the remark at a panel session themed "Addressing Glacial Melting in Central and West Asia through Glaciers to Farms (G2F): Climate Change and Regional Cooperation" in Baku today.

"Today, we are taking an important step forward with the launch of the G2F program. Through G2F, we'll expand support for glacier conservation, sustainable water resource management, and social protection for vulnerable communities, mobilizing $3.5 billion over seven years to protect water resources and agriculture.

This initiative will strengthen resilience and adaptation for people in Central and Western Asia who rely on glacier-fed rivers, directly helping millions and indirectly supporting hundreds of millions of people," he also said.

According to him, the program will strengthen early warning systems so that communities can prepare for climate hazards.

As he explained, the program will expand climate services, providing farmers with the necessary information to adapt their practices, and promote sustainable water resource management, ensuring that every drop of water is used with consideration for scarcity.

"Importantly, G2F will also support local financial institutions in developing and managing climate-resilient investments, attracting private capital for adaptation measures. This means more resources for innovative solutions that are beneficial both for people and the planet," noted the ADB president.

He emphasized that, to support the development of G2F, the ADB and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), together with country partners, will today launch a study on glacier-related risks, supported by the G2F Project Preparation Facility, assessing the impact of glacier melt on water availability in critical river basins vital for regional water security.

"Our work within G2F highlights the need for close collaboration. Climate change knows no borders, and regional cooperation is essential for preserving our shared resources. The Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) program provides an effective platform for strengthening cross-border partnerships.

Later, we'll strengthen our common commitment by signing the Declaration on Climate Change, Glaciers, and Cross-Border Cooperation for Central and Western Asia," the ADB president added.

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And he said the tax threatens our food security and  along with other changes in the Budget  to push up prices for consumers, as he accused the Treasury of getting its figures wrong on how many farms would be affected.
Pressed why she was rejecting the demand so clearly, she added: Because we are not living in the 1970s, in an apparent reference to the three-day week introduced by the Heath government in the early part of that decade to conserve electricity.
They were: An Iraqi accused of possession or distribution of indecent images of children; a Fijian and a Pakistani accused of driving without insurance; diplomats from Ghana, Libya and Mongolia accused of assault; a Libyan accused of sexual assault; a Portuguese person accused of indecent exposure and someone from Singapore facing an accusation of child cruelty or neglect.
On the same day, officers will have allegations that all officers are sort of racist and bigoted and then someone else saying its two-tier policing and officers are somehowcosying up to minorities and not being neutral. I mean, this is the consequence of being a service that operates in the middle without fear or favour under the law.
The finance minister, a hard-line settler leader, said he hoped the election of Donald Trump as the next US president will clear the way for Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank in 2025.
Dont get us wrong, were not complaining about the likes of voice recording and AI transcription, live call translation, and the mind-boggling, bordering on deepfake, photo-editing tricks. Its just that those were also on the cheaper S24 range at launch  and some of them have even come to the older S23. Hence, the S25 Ultra will need something special to distance it from the pack.
Youve heard so much over the course of the last few days about Belfast, another city that is quickly reinventing itself and one of the main reasons, I would argue, is because of the end of conflict, which I was very  like so many of us  gratified to see, she said in her afternoon address.
Commander Stephen Clayman said: I want to continue to thank those who have placed their trust in us and come forward to share their experiences. Doing so requires incredible courage and we have specialist teams to ensure those victims who make contact with us are supported in the best way possible.
"It's exactly what we want to see and it shows that our approach of working with international partners to smash the people smuggling gangs is bearing fruit."
Mr McGregor also admitted to the court that he took cocaine while he was in the car with Mr Lawrence, Ms Hand and her work colleague Danille Kealy as they travelled to the Beacon Hotel.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Azerbaijan, in solidarity with our regional partners, reaffirms its commitment to glacier conservation and sustainable water resources management, the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan, President of COP29 Mukhtar Babayev said, Trend reports.

He made the remark at a panel discussion on Glacial Melting in Central and West Asia through Glaciers to Farms (G2F): Climate Change and Regional Cooperation and Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation.

"I express my gratitude to our co-organizers, the Asian Development Bank and the Green Climate Fund, for convening us together to address one of the most pressing issues of our time - glacier melt and its massive impacts. This meeting demonstrates our shared determination to overcome climate vulnerabilities in the Caucasus and Central Asian regions, he said.

According to him, the region, stretching from the glaciers of the Greater Caucasus to the vast agricultural plains, faces growing risks from glacial retreat. These crucial freshwater reserves are being rapidly depleted, leading to water scarcity, desertification, and reduced agricultural productivity, severely impacting livelihoods and ecosystems.

Azerbaijan is experiencing the impact of climate change first-hand - glaciers in the Greater Caucasus are shrinking significantly. Azerbaijan has recently adopted a National Water Strategy to improve water management, enhance resource assessment, and address climate risks through integrated management, innovative technologies, and regional cooperation. Our response should be cooperative, adaptive, and future-oriented, Mukhtar Babayev emphasized.

The minister noted that Azerbaijan supports the transformational regional program From Glaciers to Farms (G2F). This program is a promising solution to combat glacier melting, increase climate resilience, and ensure food and water security for our communities.

Azerbaijan has developed a National Adaptation Plan integrating appropriate adaptation measures in key sectors. We must prioritize water management, climate-resilient infrastructure, and sustainable land practices while developing transboundary cooperation and dialogue, Babayev added.

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The devil will of course be in the details, and any agreement that would satisfy both Moscow and Kyiv feels like a remote prospect. More than two years and eight months since the war in Ukraine began, however, it is fair to say that many on both sides yearn for its conclusion. We all want that, one woman on the streets of Moscow told me. We really want that the war will stop now. This situation is impossible. I hope we get to a mutual understanding.
The former power couple have been at war since the acrimonious breakdown of their marriage, and are at loggerheads over the French vineyard Chateau Miraval they bought together during their relationship.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. IFC is providing $20 million in local currency financing to Bank Respublika, a leading financial institution in Azerbaijan, to enhance access to finance for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and low-income households, and support climate finance initiatives in the country.

Azerbaijan has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2050, though it now aims to reach this goal by 2035. Achieving decarbonization and resilience will require substantial investment, estimated at $44 billion by 2060, or approximately $1.35 billion per year, according to the World Bank Group Country Climate and Development Report.

There is a strong need for the financial sector to align more closely with these financing needs, presenting significant potential for growth. IFC seeks to showcase the effectiveness of this type of lending to strengthen the sectors role in driving sustainable growth. To support these efforts, half of IFCs new loan to Bank Respublika is earmarked for climate-related projects by MSMEs and low-income households.

The investment aligns with the World Bank Group's strategy for Azerbaijan, which prioritizes improving access to finance, especially for climate-related projects. The country is currently hosting COP29, highlighting its commitment to advancing climate finance and promoting sustainability-focused reforms. To guide sustainable investments and provide a clear framework for aligning financial activities with environmental goals, with support from the World Bank Group, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan Republic has recently developed the first Green Taxonomy in the country.

Azerbaijan became a member of IFC in 1995. Since then, IFC has invested around $900 million in Azerbaijan, financing nearly 60 projects in financial services, infrastructure, and manufacturing, as well as advising on improving the business environment, financial sector development, corporate governance, small and medium enterprises, and agribusiness.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Up to one-third of glaciers in Central Asia may disappear by 2050, the Chairman of the Committee on Environmental Protection under the Government of Tajikistan Bahodur Sheralizoda said at a panel discussion on Glacial Melting in Central and West Asia through Glaciers to Farms (G2F): Climate Change and Regional Cooperation and Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation, Trend reports.

"Tajikistan supports the regional initiative from Glaciers to Farms (G2F), recognizing its important role in preserving the source of life in Central Asia," the committee chairman said.

According to him, with more than 10,000 glaciers on its territory, Tajikistan provides 60 percent of Central Asia's water resources. The rapid melting of these glaciers poses an urgent and serious threat to the region's water, food, and energy security. Over the past few decades, more than 1,000 glaciers in Tajikistan have completely disappeared.

We recognize that glacier risk assessment is an important framework that provides the scientific data needed to fully understand the impacts of climate change on our glaciers and water resources. The G2F initiative addresses the region's most pressing challenges. There is an urgent need to implement adaptation and resilience measures through targeted investments that will protect water resources, human life and well-being, and critical infrastructure, said the committee chair.

He added that Tajikistan's leading role in this global challenge gives the region a meaningful voice. These key initiatives reaffirm Tajikistan's commitment to preserving glaciers as the main source of fresh water for the entire Central Asian region and combating climate change.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. COP29 in Baku aims to change the future of humanity and unite us for a green world, the representative of the Global Institute for Water Environment and Health Fathi Khaled from Yemen told Trend.

I am originally from Yemen, but I came from Geneva, Switzerland, where I live and work. This is the first time I am coming to Azerbaijan, it is really an amazing, beautiful country with nice people. I fell in love with your country at first sight.

Everything here is organized at a high level; we are pleased to be in Azerbaijan and to take part in the world conference. People from all over the world have come here to change the future of mankind to a green world. We need to make a lot of efforts to fight climate change, and we hope that through this, taking into account the scale of the event, we will definitely make the best for the generation.

In my opinion, it is very important to plant trees everywhere and to take care of the nature that feeds us like a mother. It is our planet. Each one of us is a son or daughter of this family. It is our responsibility to take care of Mother Earth," Fathi Khaled noted.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

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The former European Commissioner for Transport Adina Valean, currently a member of the European Parliament from the PNL, expressed her doubts about the efficiency that the organization of the new European Commission could have, in which six executive vice-presidents will coordinate the European commissioners from the member countries and in which numerous responsibilities are shared between several portfolios.



Adina Valean discussed this topic with Romanian journalists on Wednesday in Brussels, on the sidelines of the hearings of the designated executive vice-presidents of the European Commission held the day before. The former European Commissioner for Transport made a comparison with the way the first commission led by Ursula von der Leyen, of which she was part, was run, in which there were three executive vice-presidents - Frans Timmermans (responsible for the European Green Deal), Margrethe Vestager (responsible for Europe's transition into the digital age) and Valdis Dombrovskis (responsible for an economy that benefits people).





"In the sense that the Transport field was affiliated to Timmermans, so under the climate [European Green Pact]. In other words, whatever legislation we made, we had to get a tick from Timmermans", explained Adina Valean.
The 'Madrigal - Marin Constantin' National Chamber Choir, conducted by Anna Ungureanu, will perform five concerts from November 20 to 25 in Luxembourg and Belgium, as part of the European Tour "Bridges across Europe".



According to a press release sent to AGERPRES on Thursday, the tour marks Romania's National Day in advance and anticipates the winter holiday season.





On November 20, the Madrigal Choir will perform an extraordinary concert at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Luxembourg, marking its return to the Grand Duchy after more than three decades. Admission by invitation only.In Brussels, the Madrigal Choir will donate two period costumes to the Educational Department of the Royal Museums of Arts of Belgium, promoting the magic of its concerts among Belgian children.Access to the events in the Kingdom of Belgium is free of charge, subject to seating availability, details to be published soon on http://icr.ro/bruxelles.The tour of the Madrigal Choir in the two countries is organized by the Ministry of Culture, the Romanian Embassy in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Romanian Cultural Institute and the Romanian Cultural Institute in Brussels, the concert events in Belgium being supported by the Romanian Embassy in the Kingdom of Belgium.AGERPRES National News Agency is media partner of the event.
ST. LOUIS  A federal judge has sentenced a North County man to 20 years in prison in connection with a fatal drug deal in University City.

Nathaniel Anthony Brown-Shatto, 22, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark.

Brown-Shatto pleaded guilty in June to one count of knowingly discharging a firearm in furtherance of the commission of a drug trafficking crime resulting in death.

Authorities said Brown-Shatto and two co-defendants killed Harvey Holloway III on Feb. 19, 2022, outside Holloway's home in the 7800 block of Birchmont Drive.

Holloway had contacted them to buy marijuana; they thought he had used counterfeit money to buy drugs from them in the past.

Brown-Shatto shot him with a handgun, and another man fired an AK-style rifle through a vehicle's sunroof at Holloway. At the crime scene, police found 22 spent cartridge casings from both weapons.

Carlos Castellanos Jr., 22, of Fairfield, California, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess one or more firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. He has not yet been sentenced.

The man accused of firing the rifle is identified as Emanuel Benito Vasquez, 21. He has not yet been arrested, the U.S. attorney's office said this week. Vasquez is facing charges that include discharging a firearm in furtherance of the commission of a drug trafficking crime resulting in death.

Brown-Shatto's first name is spelled Nathaniel in federal documents but local police identified him as Nathanael after his arrest in February 2022.
ST. LOUIS  The interim leader of St. Louis Public Schools has obtained a temporary superintendent certificate from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

To upgrade the certification, Millicent Borishade needs to pass a national administrative test or produce a valid superintendent certificate from another state before the temporary Missouri authorization expires in October 2025.

Borishade was named interim superintendent of SLPS in September pending the certification, a requirement for school district accreditation in Missouri.

The SLPS board president Antionette Toni Cousins praised Borishade on Tuesday at the boards monthly meeting.

Thank you for your continuous work, your commitment to St. Louis Public Schools through all the challenges and struggles that you face. We want to commend you for the work that you have done thus far, and we pray that you continue to work us through what were going through, Cousins said.

The board has not released details about the investigation of former superintendent Keisha Scarlett, who was fired in September after one year leading the district. Borishade is one of at least nine current or former SLPS administrators hired under Scarlett with connections to the exiled superintendent.

Before arriving with Scarlett from Seattle in July 2023, Borishade worked for a charter school group and five other school districts between Illinois and Washington. Borishades superintendent certificates in both states are expired.

Borishades salary was $230,000 as of July 1 in her role as deputy superintendent. She does not have a contract with SLPS, according to Mona Hamid, custodian of records. The school board has not said if they plan to conduct a search for a permanent superintendent.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to report that Borishade does not have a contract with SLPS.
Xi's visit is expected to boost China's efforts with Latin American nations to build a community with a shared future, bolster cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, and renew the world's commitment to improving global governance for an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization. BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping is embarking on a journey Wednesday to Latin America, where he will attend the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, capital of Peru, and the 19th G20 Summit in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro, and pay state visits to the two countries. As he travels halfway around the globe, the world is witnessing a host of unprecedented and intertwined chaos and challenges: lackluster economic growth, rising trade protectionism and protracted regional conflicts. These pressing crises are demanding global unity, resolve and, most of all, effective actions. Xi's visit is expected to boost China's efforts with Latin American nations to build a community with a shared future, bolster cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, and renew the world's commitment to improving global governance for an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization. NEW MILESTONES Over the past three decades, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, has driven rapid development in the region, turning it into a powerhouse for world economic growth, an anchor of stability for global development, and a pacesetter for international cooperation. As President Xi has put it, since the establishment of the economic leaders' regular meeting mechanism, APEC has always stood at the global forefront of openness and development. It has played a robust role in promoting Asia-Pacific trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, economic growth and technological progress, and the flow of goods and people. It has helped create the "Asia-Pacific miracle" that has staggered the world. As the highest-level, broadest, and most influential economic cooperation mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region, APEC embodies the deep aspirations of partners to build a better future together. The Asia-Pacific region has great economic potential thanks to its rich natural resources, booming tourism, dynamic markets with strong purchasing power, and fast-growing digital economy. In October, the International Monetary Fund predicted that the world economy will grow at 3.2 percent in 2024 and the emerging and developing Asia is expected to grow at 5.3 percent this year. As Xi has pointed out, development in the Asia-Pacific region has been achieved not through provoking antagonism and confrontation, pursuing a beggar-thy-neighbor policy, or erecting high fences around a small yard, but by staying open and inclusive and drawing on each other's strengths. Amid growing protectionism and calls for decoupling, APEC's role as a multilateral forum dedicated to economic cooperation is more crucial than ever in fostering dialogue, said Hans Hendrischke, a professor at the University of Sydney Business School. TRUE MULTILATERALISM "'Sugarcane and lemongrass grow in dense clumps.'This Indonesian proverb well captures the value of solidarity. Division and confrontation serve no one's interest. Only solidarity and common development is the right choice to make," Xi made this metaphorical reference at the G20 Bali Summit in 2022 to urge G20 members to stay committed to its founding purpose of unity and cooperation, carry forward the spirit of solidarity, and uphold the principle of consensus. In the face of a sluggish global economy, compounded crises in food and energy security, frequent geopolitical conflicts, and a severe deficit in global governance, the upcoming G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, with the theme of "Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet," not only responds to the call of the times but also reflects the aspirations of all nations. During the upcoming G20 summit, his 11th attendance at the gathering, Xi will address key issues such as building an open world economy and improving global governance, and elaborate on China's positions and offer China's insights and solutions. Within the G20 cooperative framework, China has, as always, been focusing on development issues. At the G20 Hangzhou Summit in 2016, development was, for the first time, brought to the fore within the global macro-policy framework. "All G20 members should take the responsibility inherent in being major international and regional players, and should lead by example in promoting development of all nations, improving the well-being for the whole mankind, and advancing progress of the entire world," Xi said at the 2022 G20 Summit in Bali. From being the first to explicitly support the African Union's accession to the G20, to striving to bridge the North-South "digital divide," China has always contributed to improving the global governance system and increasing the representation and voice of developing countries. The global governance concept proposed by China meets the needs of the new economic and development environment, said Dora Isabel Gonzalez, a Mexican scholar. SUPERCHARGE DEVELOPMENT The Chancay Port, 78 km north of Lima, is set to become a new shipping hub connecting Asia and Latin America, making the "Chancay to Shanghai" route a true path of prosperity, promoting the common development of China and Peru, Xi said. Spanning across the vast Pacific Ocean, China and Peru have long-lasting sincere friendship. The two countries have witnessed increasingly close economic and trade cooperation as well as cultural exchanges in recent years. Peru is one of the first Latin American countries to establish diplomatic relations and a comprehensive strategic partnership with China. It is also the first Latin American country to sign a package of free trade agreements with China. Meanwhile, China has been Peru's largest trading partner and largest export market for 10 years in a row. Brazil, the second destination of Xi's trip, is China's long-standing friend. The two countries have made substantial progress in their relationship. As major developing countries and important emerging markets, China and Brazil are good friends sharing the same goals and good partners moving forward together, Xi said. China has been Brazil's largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years, while Brazil is China's top trading partner and the largest investment destination in Latin America. The two countries have closely coordinated and cooperated on multilateral platforms such as the United Nations, BRICS, and G20, safeguarding the common interests of both nations and that of developing countries. Ten years ago, Xi first proposed in Brasilia the vision of building a China-Latin America community with a shared future, charting the course for the development of China-Latin America relations in the new era. Over the years, Xi has focused on the shared future of China and Latin American and Caribbean countries, working for steady advancement in China-Latin America relations based on equality, mutual benefit, and common development. Cooperation between China and Latin American countries on the multilateral stage will further unite and empower countries in the Global South, playing a constructive role in addressing global issues and reforming the global governance system, said Patricio Giusto, director of the Sino-Argentine Observatory.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Global forecasts indicate that without adaptive measures, Kazakhstan's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) may decrease by 1.3 percent by 2060 due to the damage caused by floods, said Yerlan Nyssanbayev, the countrys Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, Trend reports.

Speaking at a panel discussion on "Climate change and regional cooperation to prevent glacier melting in Central and Western Asia," Nyssanbayev highlighted the urgent risks posed by climate change.

"Kazakhstan, with its unique nature and abundant resources, is today facing serious threats that put our ecosystem, water resources, and economy at risk," he said.

The minister emphasized that Kazakhstan, like other Central Asian countries, is experiencing the effects of climate change firsthand. The country has witnessed a significant increase in both floods and droughts, as well as accelerated glacier melting, which plays a crucial role in ensuring the region's water supply.

"Additionally, up to 75 percent of our agricultural land is at risk of drought, posing a threat to food security for millions of people," he added.

Nyssanbayev also stated that Kazakhstan fully supports the regional program "From Glaciers to Farms," initiated with the backing of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The program focuses on integrated water resource management, the adoption of sustainable irrigation methods, and the use of modern agricultural technologies in Kazakhstan.

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ST. LOUIS  The leader of the St. Louis areas largest pregnancy resource center has resigned after months of battling allegations that she emotionally abused employees.

The allegations have left ThriVe St. Louis, a taxpayer-supported nonprofit with a Christian mission to provide alternatives to abortion for women with unplanned pregnancies, struggling to maintain donations and operate its three Missouri centers.

The resignation of Bridget VanMeans, who led ThriVe for 15 years, was announced this week by board chair Craig Weber in a letter to staff.

The letter, obtained by the Post-Dispatch, claimed VanMeans was forced out after a smear campaign led by disgruntled former and current employees.

The letter referenced prolonged media attacks and financial boycott and vicious attacks of the accusers and their collaborators, saying VanMeans reputation and wellbeing had been harmed.

Ms.VanMeans and ThriVes Board are left with no alternative but that Ms. VanMeans should depart her position with the ministry, the letter said.

It does not specify when the resignation would be effective. It says the board will search for a new chief executive and appoint an interim leader from among ThriVes managers.

The controversy surrounding ThriVe started in March, when Aaron and Tricia Leu approached the board about what they say were years of emotional abuse by VanMeans. The Leus allege VanMeans traumatized their family, causing them to temporarily separate and almost divorce.

In the wake of the allegations, other employees stepped forward to voice complaints, several donors pulled their support and churches that once hosted ThriVe events cut ties with the organization.

Former board members and donors who have called for VanMeans removal said this week her departure was a good first step to reviving ThriVes reputation.

But they say they still have several concerns, including ThriVes defamation lawsuit against former employees and church pastors and the size of the board, which they say is down to two members.

Her resigning is like tagging first base, and its far from rounding third and getting to home for the restoration of the ministry, said Bill Ziercher, 65, of Weldon Spring.

A current employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said staff members have continued to leave ThriVe, and its centers are now only able to open one to three days a week instead of five.

Everyone is still working here only because there are women that need us, the employee said.

VanMeans was hired in 2009 as CEO of ThriVe, which she built into a three-clinic operation (an additional Metro East center is run by a separate board) with 59 employees and 70 volunteers. It has attracted millions of dollars in donations and state grants, tax forms show. The clinics and a fleet of mobile vans provide free tests for pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, as well as ultrasounds.

ThriVes annual revenues have topped $4 million, nearly all from grants and donations, according to ThriVes 2022 tax return. VanMeans base compensation that year was $168,894.

Tricia Leu, a former sex worker, was supported by ThriVe during the birth of her first child in 2008 and became an ambassador for the organization. She later married Aaron Leu, and they had four children. Aaron Leu became a ThriVe employee in 2021 and resigned the following year.

The Leus say the board dismissed their allegations, which prompted 17 former and current ThriVe employees to come forward, also voicing complaints about VanMeans leadership. Six churches dropped their support and donations.

The employees said VanMeans used intimidation and humiliation to control them. VanMeans claimed to have direct insight from God, they said, and anyone not following her would be punished. They also alleged that money was wasted on lavish gifts for donors and outings for upper management, an allegation disputed by ThriVes attorney, Michael Quinlan.

Ziercher and two former ThriVe board members joined Pastor Michael Bond of Liberty Church in OFallon, Mo., to form a committee calling for VanMeans ouster and expansion of the board. In response, VanMeans and ThriVe sued the Leus and two pastors at Grace Church St. Louis, which also dropped its support, for defamation.

The lawsuit claims Aaron Leu is retaliating against VanMeans for having the couple reported to child protective services and suggests he is blaming VanMeans for his familys dysfunction. The couple denies the claims made in the lawsuit.

In Webers letter announcing VanMeans resignation, he continued to insist that the allegations against VanMeans were without merit and motivated by retaliation and that former donors and supporters unjustly called for her termination without hearing her side.

But Ziercher and others say the board never conducted a proper investigation into the allegations and that the board and VanMeans have refused to meet with them.

Former board member Mark Keeven, 69, of OFallon, Mo., says Weber has been complicit in Bridgets unethical behavior and absolutely needs to step down and all the lawsuits need to be dropped.

Bond, of Liberty Church, wants more transparency about VanMeans severance package, who will be interim leader and who is serving on the board.

We just feel like theres secrecy, he said. Theyre a nonprofit organization that should be operating with transparency.

Weber did not respond to requests for comment.

Quinlan, ThriVes attorney, said in an email to the Post-Dispatch that ThriVe was not ready to announce the interim leader and had no plans to change the makeup of its board. He did not say who currently serves on the board.

He also said decisions about ThriVes lawsuit will depend on how much it recovers in donations. ThriVe hopes that those who announced their withholding support will resume their support, he wrote.

Aaron Leu said it was extremely bothersome that the board continues to deny the accusations of abuse and expects donors to return.

While we long for a new and better day for ThriVe, he said in an email, we believe that day can only come with humble transparency, accountability and complete honesty.
EQS-Ad-hoc: Marinomed Biotech AG / Key word(s): Insolvency

Marinomed Biotech AG announces unanimous approval of the restructuring plan by creditors

14-Nov-2024 / 14:34 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.

 Marinomed Biotech AG (VSE:MARI) announces that the creditors assembly unanimously approved the restructuring plan presented at the final court hearing at the Korneuburg Regional Court on November 14, 2024. The established quota is 30%, payable in several tranches within two years. 5% is to be deposited as a cash quota. The liquidity required for the repayment of the quotas is to be partially funded through the sale of the Carragelose business unit of Marinomed Biotech AG. A super quota of up to a further 7% will be distributed if milestone payments from the sale of the Carragelose business within two years exceed the planned amount. Confirmation of the restructuring plan and termination of the proceedings are subject, among other things, to the payment of the 5% cash deposit and a standstill declaration from the European Investment Bank (EIB). The Company will provide information on further developments.

+++ End of ad-hoc announcement +++
The Coast Guard is attempting to boost its presence in the Arctic but a lack of assets, particularly icebreaker ships that can navigate through ice-covered waters, has put the U.S. at a significant disadvantage against the growing joint operations of Russia and China, a Coast Guard official told House lawmakers on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (Ryan Graves/U.S. Coast Guard)

WASHINGTON  Russia and China have for the first time started conducting joint operations in the Arctic, dramatically stepping up their activity in a part of the world where the U.S. and Russia share a maritime boundary, a Coast Guard commander said Thursday.

Vice Adm. Peter Gautier, deputy commandant for operations, told lawmakers that the Coast Guard recently witnessed the Russian Border Guard and Chinese Coast Guard conducting a joint patrol high in the Bering Sea in a worrying sign of growing collaboration.

Thats a first that just tells us that their Arctic cooperation is only expanding, Gautier said in testimony to a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee panel overseeing the Coast Guard and maritime transportation.

Vice Adm. Peter Gautier, deputy commandant for operations for the Coast Guard, makes remarks Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024, at a House hearing in Washington about the Arctic region. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)

Last month, the Coast Guard said it spotted four Russian and Chinese vessels moving 440 miles southwest of St. Lawrence Island, a part of Alaska. The two Chinese vessels were seen at the northernmost point that the Coast Guard had ever observed Chinese ships.

China has declared itself a near-Arctic state. But it is Russia, with one-fifth of its landmass north of the Arctic Circle, that has aggressively moved to militarize the Arctic and stake a claim to shipping routes and energy reserves expected to open as climate change melts the regions ice.

China is increasingly joining those efforts as the countries deepen a partnership aimed at challenging the geopolitical dominance of the United States. In July, Chinese and Russian long-range bombers patrolled together near Alaska for the first time, prompting the U.S. and Canada to scramble their fighter jets in a show of defense.

Gautier said the Coast Guard is attempting to boost its own presence in the Arctic, but a lack of assets, particularly icebreaker ships that can navigate through ice-covered waters, has put the U.S. at a significant disadvantage.

The U.S. has just two operational icebreakers: the medium icebreaker USCGC Healy and the heavy icebreaker USCGC Polar Star, which is long past its service life. A second heavy icebreaker, USCGC Polar Sea, has been out of service since 2010 due to engine failure.

The American fleet pales in comparison to that of Russia and China. Russia operates 55 icebreakers, including 18 military icebreakers, and China has two medium and two heavy icebreakers and plans to build more.

America, the greatest country on the face of the Earth, is  lets call it what it is  behind. Were behind, said Rep. Jefferson Van Drew, R-N.J. Were behind Russia, and were going to be behind China, maybe we are already.

The Coast Guard is struggling to close the gap.

A nearly $12 billion program to acquire three heavy icebreakers, with the first delivery scheduled for this year, has fallen behind schedule and is now not expected to produce an icebreaker until 2031.

Lawmakers on Thursday blamed the delays on a U.S. shipbuilding industry that has not built a heavy icebreaker in nearly 50 years. But they also chastised the Coast Guard for failing to approve a final design for the vessel and not raising the alarm about insufficient funding.

This is tiresome, said Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif. Weve gone round and round on this for more than a decade, and we still are looking at another half a decade, at best, to get a heavy icebreaker.

The fact of the matter is, we will not have a presence in the Arctic, he added.

This is tiresome, said Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif. Weve gone round and round on this for more than a decade, and we still are looking at another half a decade, at best, to get a heavy icebreaker. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)

Vice Adm. Thomas Allan, the Coast Guards deputy commandant for mission support, said the service is on track to notify Congress by the end of the year that it is beginning production on the first of the heavy icebreakers.

A 2023 internal fleet analysis showed the Coast Guard will need eight or nine icebreaker ships, including four to five heavy icebreakers and four to five medium icebreakers, to perform its polar missions in the coming years.

Gautier on Thursday said the service now needs the ships as soon as possible.

We are at risk without recapitalizing these icebreakers, he said. We have a national security threat now from the increased presence of competitors and [the competitors] working together in ways that we have not seen yet.
The aircraft carrier USS George Washington leads U.S., Japanese and South Korean destroyers in formation during Freedom Edge 24-2 in the East China Sea, Nov. 13, 2024. (Geoffrey Ottinger/U.S. Navy)

Warships and aircraft from the United States, Japan and South Korea gathered in the East China Sea on Wednesday to kick off their second large-scale exercise of the year.

Freedom Edge 24-2 ends on Friday and includes at least seven warships, including the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which is due to arrive in Yokosuka later this fall, according to a news release Wednesday from South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The training is taking place south of South Koreas Jeju Island, according to the news release.

The second iteration of Freedom Edge comes on the heels of recent North Korean missile launches, including an intercontinental ballistic missile on Oct. 31 and several short-range missiles on Nov. 5.

It also follows less than five months after the first Freedom Edge began on June 27, a day after the North fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile from near Pyongyang toward the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea.

The USS George Washington, seen here in the Pacific Ocean on Oct. 18, 2024, is among the warships involved in this week's Freedom Edge exercise in the East China Sea. (Geoffrey Ottinger/U.S. Navy)

The three countries agreed to the exercises at an August 2023 summit at Camp David, Md., between President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The Freedom Edge participants this year jointly condemned North Koreas recent actions, including the ICBM launch, during high-level talks, according to the South Korean news release.

This training reflected their will to deter and respond to such threats, it said.

The three-day exercise includes the U.S. guided-missile destroyers USS McCampbell, USS Higgins and USS Dewey; the Japanese destroyer JS Haguro; the Korean destroyers ROKS Seoae-Ryu-Seong-ryong and ROKS Chungmugong-Yi-Sun-sin; and scores of fighter jets, surveillance planes and other aircraft, according to a news release Wednesday from U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

This iteration focuses on state-of-the-art air defense capabilities, including fifth-generation fighters, as well as ballistic-missile defense, anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare and cyber defense, according to the release.

The three countries will continue to closely cooperate to further expand their cooperation in a complex security environment, INDOPACOM said.

An INDOPACOM spokesman did not immediately respond to an email requesting additional information Thursday, Japan time.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. "Jay" Raymond established Space Operations Command (SpOC), the U.S. Space Force's first of three Field Commands, during a ceremony at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., Oct. 21, 2020. (JT Armstrong/U.S. Space Force)

(Tribune News Service)  Colorado Springs celebrated keeping U.S. Space Command last year, but another fight over its location could be brewing as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office.

A senior GOP lawmaker from Alabama who wants the command headquartered in his home state said this week that he expects Trump will reverse a decision by President Joe Biden and relocate the command to Huntsville, Ala., soon after the Republican is sworn into office in January.

Members of Colorados congressional delegation, however, said theyll mount a united, bipartisan front to oppose such a move, arguing that uprooting the fully operational command would threaten national security.

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told a local talk radio show on Monday that he anticipates Trump will make good on a campaign promise by issuing an executive order reversing Bidens directive in the first week that hes in office.

Rogers, who had been a rumored candidate to head the Department of Defense before Trump announced Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth as his Pentagon nominee, has been fighting for the headquarters for years from his powerful perch atop the congressional committee. Last year, after Biden ordered that Space Command remain in Colorado, Rogers oversaw a national defense spending bill that withheld funding to construct a permanent headquarters for the command in Colorado Springs.

U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Crank, the Colorado Springs Republican elected last week, told Al.com on Monday that he plans to resist any attempt to move the headquarters to Alabama, adding that Trumps desire to build out Space Force and Space Command  two separate military operations  in the face of global threats requires keeping the latter where it is.

Cranks future colleagues from both sides of the aisle echoed the sentiment.

6 key things to know about the fight for Space Command: Colorado Springs vs. Huntsville

As Donald Trumps reelection to the presidency raises new questions about the permanent home of U.S. Space Command, here are six key things to know as its determined whether it stays in Colorado Springs at Peterson Space Force Base or moves to Huntsville, Ala.

Colorado is the rightful home for Space Command, a spokesman for Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said. Our states space and military assets are critical to Americas national security, and Colorado is the best place for our service members and their families to train, live, work and retire.

The Colorado delegation will work together to ensure Space Command remains here, said U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, an Aurora Democrat who represents Buckley Space Force Base, another of the states largest military installations.

Our national security relies on the workforce and space infrastructure of Colorado, and moving it poses unacceptable risks, Crow added.

U.S. Rep.-elect Gabe Evans, a Fort Lupton Republican and Army veteran, said his experience in the Colorado Air National Guard underlines his commitment to keeping the command in the state.

Trump expected to move Space Command out of Colorado Springs: Alabama representative

President-elect Donald Trump isnt expected to waste any time going through with the plan to move Space Command headquarters out of Colorado Springs to Alabama.

As a former military pilot who worked daily in Colorado with our Space counterparts, I know how critically important it is for operational readiness that Space Command remains in Colorado, Evans said in a statement. I will work with all members of the Colorado delegation to vigorously oppose any such move.

Democratic U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, a key player in the fight to keep Space Command in Colorado, chided Rogers for trying to steer the headquarters to Alabama for political reasons.

Its already been investigated, proven, and decided: Colorado Springs is the best place for Space Command because its already at work here, Hickenlooper said in a statement, adding that service members and civilians have been working around the clock at Peterson to keep the country safe.

Alabama couldnt win this fight on the merits, so hes trying to get Trump to overrule our national security and cost taxpayers an enormous amount for the sake of a hometown win, Hickenlooper said, referring to Rogers. We need leaders who fight for our national defense first, not just Huntsvilles economy.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Hurd, a Grand Junction Republican, cautioned against rushing to conclusions based solely on a politicians remarks on a talk show but emphasized that Hurd is on board with the states delegation.

Jeff has pledged to always be thoughtful and deliberative when it comes to policy initiatives, the Hurd spokesman said in a text message. Until the president makes his position known, we are all speculating. That said, Congressman-elect Crank is right, USSPACECOM belongs Colorado Springs.

El Paso County and Colorado Springs officials also would jump back into advocating to keep the command and its robust economic impact.

We will continue to make the case that Peterson Space Force Base is the best place for U.S. Space Command due to cost and our regions infrastructure, skilled workforce and strong community support essential to the mission, the El Paso County commissioners said in a statement.

Dani Bolling, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Springs Chamber and Economic Development Corp., noted in a written statement Tuesday that Colorado Springs is a strategic hub for protecting the United States and allied interests in space, and home to more than 150 private aerospace and defense companies.

An estimated 100,000 national security professionals are employed in Colorado Springs, Rep. Doug Lamborns office said previously.

Moving the command of about 1,700 people could also degrade the readiness of the command at a time with China is investing heavily in space, former Space Command leader Gen. James Dickinson warned last year in congressional testimony.

In my experience, such a move would pose unnecessary risk and uncertainty on retention and recruitment of our trained workforce. Based on the nature of the threat and the rapid progress in U.S. Space Commands operational capability, a move presented a high risk to our mission and force at a pivotal time, Dickinson wrote.

Colorado Springs, El Paso County leaders react to possible Space Command move under Trump

Government and business leaders from Colorado Springs and El Paso County said Tuesday they are committed to working with President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team to discuss Colorado Springs role in national security.

The command reached full operational capability in December and recently celebrated its fifth birthday in July.

Two retired generals estimated a few years ago that it could cost $1.2 billion to move the headquarters and take years of work, The Gazette reported.

The command provides combatant commanders with support such as weather monitoring; space control; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; position, navigation and timing; satellite communications; and missile warning, The Gazette previously reported.

It is similar to the executive suite of a company, setting overall strategy and big-picture defensive plans, explained Auria President Tom Dickson. Colorado Springs-based defense company Auria was born out of the merger of Boecore, Ascension Engineering Group, Orbit Logic and La Jolla Logic. Running the headquarters takes quite a few people, because it is so complex. But if the command moved, the units actually operating satellites, providing services like communications, would remain.

A move could take years, just as the Missile Defense Agencys move from Washington, D.C., to Huntsville did, Dickson said, and some employees probably wouldnt transfer.

It took them years and years to finally get completely moved, he said.

Auria wouldnt be affected by a move because it works largely on the operational side of space, but common sense would dictate the Space Command stay in town, Dickson said.

Its such a disruption to their mission, he said.

Mark Stafford, president and CEO of the company of Delta Solutions & Strategies, a prime contractor for Space Command, told The Gazette Tuesday, he wasnt feeling any uncertainty based on Trumps election.

We press ahead and do the mission, he said, and that wont change with a move.

The company is completing a $187 million contract for Space Command to provide military operations, intelligence, logistics, communications and exercises. As a prime contractor, the company employs numerous other companies to complete its work.

The company supports Space Command across its four locations in Colorado and one in California. One of those is a 100,000-square-foot secure building. Previously, Redstone Arsenal had set aside 60 acres of raw land for Space Command.

If the command moved, Delta Solutions & Strategies would expand its office in Huntsville, but would maintain its footprint in Colorado Springs. The company employs 250 people along the Front Range.

He also expects the local space and aerospace industry would keep growing, although at a slower pace than the past five years.

Its a thriving industry in Colorado Springs, he said.

Dickson said he expected continued business growth could continue as the Space Force develops in town.

There is a lot of need and there are a lot of threats that keep emerging, he said.

Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade and the Chamber of Commerces Bolling said they will work with Trump and the transition team to discuss the citys role in national security, adding they will continue to support Space Commands mission.

We ... are eager to share the great things underway in Colorado Springs, especially our citys strong history and contributions to national security, Mobolade said, in part, in a written statement Tuesday, adding that the citys robust ecosystem is a key factor in the early success of (Space Command), and we are committed to working together to support its mission to defend our great nation.

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The newly rehabilitated Building 993 at Vancouver Barracks in the Fort Vancouver National Monument in Washington and Oregon, Nov. 2024. (A. Patterson/National Park Service)

(Tribune News Service)  A recently completed $16.5 million renovation of the 1907 double infantry barracks building on the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site retains its pleasingly vintage vibe.

Although the building has a new roof, new parking, new sidewalks and accessibility features, the upgrades preserved the exteriors historical appearance. For example, a long, gentle wheelchair ramp up to the front deck is partially masked from view. The inside includes a new elevator, heating/cooling and plumbing systems, fire suppression, telecommunications infrastructure and overall seismic stabilization. Lead paint was removed, too.

Amid all that newness, the buildings signature 1907 features and ornamentation have all been preserved, including covered porches, pressed tin ceilings, plaster walls and columns, wood floors and historic windows and doors.

Our primary job is preservation and restoration of these important properties in perpetuity for the American people, said Tracy Fortmann, superintendent of the Fort Vancouver site. Fortmann said the remodeling project included a vast amount of deferred maintenance on the 33,000-square-foot structure.

Funding for the three-year project came from the federal government through the Great American Outdoors Act of 2020, a pandemic-era law that pumped billions of dollars into national parks with unmet maintenance needs. The work was performed by Pacific Tech Construction, a company based in Kelso.

There was a lot to do, and you never know what youre going to find until you get in there, Fortmann said, but the bones of this building are really good.

The remodeled barracks building  known as Building 993  is the easternmost of four large U-shaped structures on the southwest side of the Fort Vancouver Parade Grounds. Collectively known as the Vancouver Barracks, the four buildings rose during a period of rapid construction in the earliest 20th century to accommodate increasing numbers of arriving troops. At the time, Vancouvers U.S. Army base was considered the most important military post in the Pacific Northwest, according to the National Park Service.

The U.S. Army handed over all its fort property to the National Park Service in 2012.

Local folks are familiar with the grand mansions of Officers Row, which line the northern end of the Parade Grounds. But few Vancouver residents have ever considered that this row of soldier dormitories  the buildings facing the Parade Grounds from the south  really ought to be known as Barracks Row, Fortman said.

Its where the enlisted men who really made the Army run used to live, Formann said. Its an iconic building that really brings their stories to life.

The public hasnt been able to get too familiar with the Barracks Row buildings, Fortmann said, because of the lack of accessible sidewalks along McClellan Road. Thats been remedied, and folks are welcome to explore the grounds, she said.

Building 993 is where as many as 180 infantrymen used to sleep, eat, work and socialize, Fortmann said. But now, its where approximately 100 employees of two sister federal agencies have already started moving into stylish new office space.

The west side of the building is now occupied by the regional office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The east side is occupied by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. (All three of these on-site agencies  the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and U.S. Fish & Wildlife  operate under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of the Interior.)

Its a dream come true, said Dave Clark, regional business adviser for U.S. Fish & Wildlife. The agencies local employees have been working in an anonymous office building near the Lloyd Center in Portland.

Our folks are gushing, Clark said. We are giddy about this.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs side of the building includes an attractive meeting room that can be repurposed as an art gallery for public and tribal events, said Sean Johnson, advisor to the BIA director.

A remodel of the westernmost of these Barracks Row buildings was completed years ago, and serves as headquarters for the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The two buildings in between are also ripe for remodel, Fortmann said, but no plans have been approved yet.

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The Pragser Wildsee luxury hotel in Pragser, Italy, was the scene of a little-known incident in World War II where prominent European hostages were rescued by American soldiers in the waning days of World War II. (Victor Simpson, Hotel Pragser Wildsee)

PRAGS, Italy  In a little-known chapter in the waning days of World War II, U.S. troops rescued more than 130 political prisoners from an Alpine hotel that members of Hitlers SS intended to barter for free passage as the Allies converged on Berlin hundreds of miles to the north.

Relatives of the wartime political prisoners-turned-hostages gathered in October at the Pragser Wildsee hotel near Italys border with Austria where they had been held to recall the episode that was swiftly overshadowed by the wars end.

The lessons, they noted, still resonate nearly 80 years later as a warning against resurgent far-right ideology in Europe and beyond, and the use of political prisoners as bargaining chips.

Carl Goerdelers parents and grandparents were well-known Hitler opponents in Leipzig, Germany, and were among those taken from concentration camps and held as political hostages in the stately 19th century hotel on the shore of the emerald green Lake Brais, first by the Nazi SS.

It brings back memories and for me it is a disgrace that it keeps happening, Goerdeler said, recalling the hostages taken a year ago in Israel by Hamas and who are still being held.

The hostages gathered by the SS included former Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, former French Prime Minister Leon Blum, high-ranking British army officers, German industrialists and the family of German nobleman Claus von Stauffenberg, who was executed after a failed attempt to kill Hitler. Von Stauffenbergs family were among the so-called kinship inmates, family members of Hitler opponents.

Many of the prisoners-turned-hostage had spent years in Buchenwald, Dachau and other concentration camps before the SS put them on buses in the spring of 1945 and drove to the South Tyrol in Italy, a mountainous area where the Nazis planned to make a last stand.

As the buses arrived, however, regular German army soldiers apparently not wanting to end up as criminals of war wrested the hostages from the SS and took them to the hotel, whose owner agreed to put them up at risk to her own life.

The prisoners from 17 countries were ultimately saved by the arrival of U.S. troops on May 5, 1945, just three days before Germany surrendered.

Fifth Army units had received an intelligence report that the Nazis were holding important European hostages at the hotel on the lake and sent combat troops to the site 5,000 feet above sea level. They found a German garrison of four officers and 137 enlisted men and immediately disarmed them, according to an operations report filed at the time.

Yanks Rescue Famed Enemies of Hitler, read the headline in Stars and Stripes from the scene on May 8, 1945, the day the Nazis surrendered.

Emma Heiss-Hellenstainer, the owner of the stately hotel, despised the Hitler regime and the Nazis, and sought to make the prisoners as comfortable as possible, her grandson Hans Heiss wrote in an account of the rescue.

After the Americans arrived, the hostages suddenly had some luxury, said hotel owner Carline Heiss, whose grandmother opened the doors to the prisoners.

They had food, they had things to wear, they had showers that the Americans built on the still-frozen lake, she said.

Photos from the time show American soldiers taking the Germans into custody and playing volleyball with the newly liberated hostages.

Next year the hotel is planning an 80th anniversary commemoration of the wartime episode.

American commanders were keenly interested in the identities of the hostages and had them transferred to the island of Capri in southern Italy where they were vetted.

Christiane Godts mother, two brothers and sisters were among those taken to the lakeside hotel. Their crime: Godts husband, the childrens father, had broadcast from Stalingrad, where he was taken prisoner by the Russians, against the Nazi regime.

Godts mother avoided the familys imprisonment for a period by divorcing her husband, but SS Commander Heinrich Himmler asserted kinship custody in May 1945, and they were rounded up and sent to Buchenwald. Her parents remarried after the war and had two more children, including Christiane.

My mother, and the father never spoke about it. The children wanted to speak about it, but my father said, I cant sleep when I talk about Stalingrad, said Godt, who eventually wrote a book about the events relying partly on letters from other prisoners to her mother. I am here because it is interesting to meet other prisoners relatives.

Marietheres Kreuz-Katzer said her mother, grandmother, aunt and uncle, along with more distant relatives, were hostages of the Hitler regime and that they had feared for their lives as many of their friends had been captured and hanged in public displays.

A sociologist whose grandfather was a minister in one of West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauers post-war governments, said she is both proud of her familys history of resistance and troubled by the growing strength of right-wing parties in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

It seems to me that people have learned nothing from the past, she said.
Azerbaijan is planning to upgrade and expand the metro system in its capital, Baku. The European Investment Banks global arm (EIB Global) will support Azerbaijan in preparation of the project, highlighting the EUs commitment to more efficient and sustainable urban transport worldwide.

EIB Global and Ministry of Digital Development and Transport of Azerbaijan signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today, during the COP29 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku. Under the terms of the MoU, both sides will work together for advancing with the preparation and full appraisal of the project to upgrade, expand and modernize Bakus metro network.

Bakus metro network, which dates to 1967 when Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union, transports around 620,000-630,000 people a day. It is Azerbaijans only metro, and the planned revamp and enlargement are meant to increase the number of riders and reduce car congestion in Baku, which has a population of almost 2.4 million.

Within the framework of the Baku Urban Mobility Program, work is being done to promote micromobility means and build infrastructure. The micromobility lanes have been extended to about 32 kilometres and the network coverage is expected to increase. The development of the Baku Metro is also a key component of the Baku Urban Mobility Program. This project includes the construction of nine new stations and the enhancement of existing infrastructure to improve the accessibility and quality of metro transportation. These improvements aim to encourage a shift from private car usage to public transport, helping to reduce travel times for citizens and positively impact the citys environment, said Azerbaijani Minister of Digital Development and Transport Rashad Nabiyev.

This MoU marks a key step in our shared vision for a greener, more sustainable Baku, said EIB Vice-President Teresa Czerwinska, who oversees EIB operations in Azerbaijan and has finalised the discussions for this cooperation. The EIB will support the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport in preparing and developing an investment project that will decrease greenhouse gas emissions and improve the quality of public transport in the city.

As the worlds largest international public bank and a leading financier of climate-action projects around the world, EIB Global is committed to supporting investments that align with the goals of the UN Paris Agreement. The planned project for the update of Baku metro system is expected to bring significant improvements in urban mobility and reinforce broader efforts to fight climate change and prevent pollution.

The MoU is aligned with the European Union (EU)s Global Gateway initiative, which addresses a global investment gap in sustainable infrastructure by promoting high-standard, transparent projects. It also supports one of the flagship initiatives for Azerbaijan under the EUs Economic and Investment Plan focusing on sustainable infrastructure and solutions for smarter, greener cities.
(Ben Bloker/Stars and Stripes)

Tahweelah, Iraq, Feb. 19, 2009: Reflected in the glasses of an Iraqi soldier, 1st Lt. Javier Avila, 3rd Platoon leader for Company A, Task Force 3-66 Armor, and Lt. Zafer from the Iraqi army, coordinate a patrol in the village of Tahweela, Iraq. The operation aims to bring the clear, hold and build strategy to the southern Balad-Ruz District of Iraqs Diyala province.

Read the 2009 article on Task Force 3-66s operations and see additional photos here.
The sun rises behind the Ara Pacis Mundi in Medea, Italy, on Nov. 5, 2024. Its name translates to Altar of World Peace. Marble pillars surround an altar containing an urn with soil from various war cemeteries and water samples from four seas. (Brian Erickson/Stars and Stripes)

War memorials around the world tend to be country-specific in honoring the fallen, but a magnificent hilltop monument in the Italian city of Medea breaks the mold by also paying homage to peace.

Built shortly after World War II, the Ara Pacis Mundi commemorates soldiers who have died in all wars. Its name translates to Altar of World Peace.

Pictures dont do justice to the spectacle of the more than two dozen 45-foot-tall marble pillars, which afford visitors a panoramic view of the Isonzo River plain.

The Ara Pacis Mundi in Medea, Italy, on Nov. 5, 2024. The structure was built in 1951 to commemorate soldiers who died in all wars. (Brian Erickson/Stars and Stripes)

In World War I, the Isonzo Front was the scene of two years worth of fighting between the armies of Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The carnage was horrendous, with about 500,000 killed.

Besides the Ara Pacis Mundi, which is just a little over an hours drive from Aviano Air Base, the surrounding area has numerous stops along the Walk of Peace, a 143-mile hiking trail running from Slovenia to the Italian city of Trieste. It passes through Gorizia, about 20 minutes by car from Medea.

I recently made a solo trip to the altar of peace and spent about four hours soaking up the experience, which included other sights in the park that encompasses the monument.

The pillars frame the altar, which is made of porphyry rock and measures 9 feet by 15 feet. On the front of it is the inscription Lodio produce morte, lamore genera vita, meaning Hate produces death. Love generates life.

The altar in the center of the Ara Pacis Mundi in Medea, Italy. The inscription on the front reads L'odio produce morte, L'amore genera vita, which in English means "Hate produces death. Love generates life. (Brian Erickson/Stars and Stripes)

But its what underneath the altar that made the most profound impact for me. An urn constructed of wood and bronze contains dirt from over 800 war cemeteries worldwide and water samples from the Mediterranean, Tyrrhenian, Adriatic and Ionian seas, where both Italian and foreign ships have sunk in battle.

After giving due attention to the monument, I set out on the 2.5-mile-long loop trail through Collie di Medea municipal park.

Along the way, I glimpsed Saint Anthonys Church, which was built in the 18th century and sits at the end of a 343-step stone staircase built in 1815. But the construction fencing surrounding the church prevented me from getting a good look at it.

The remains of a trench built during World War I near Collie di Medea municipal park in Medea, Italy. The trench can be seen along a loop trail in the park, which also features the impressive Ara Pacis Mundi memorial. (Brian Erickson/Stars and Stripes)

Originally a military road from 1915, the path around the park took me past stone trenches built by soldiers during the Great War as well as an old surveillance post now known as the Kings Observatory.

From this commanding height, King Victor Emmanuel III followed the battle against the Austrians. Unfortunately, I didnt make it there to take in the view because my footwear didnt hold up on the muddy, uneven path. If you check it out, plan accordingly.

A small portion of a 343-step staircase in Collie di Medea municipal park in Medea, Italy. The stone staircase was built in 1815 and leads to an 18th-century church. (Brian Erickson/Stars and Stripes)

Nevertheless, I got a decent workout and am hoping to return and complete the loop with appropriate shoes.

For children, there is a small playground in a picnic area near the church. Visitors who pack a lunch to enjoy during their hike will find this spot suitable. There are also a couple of places to eat in Medea.

But just 15 minutes away are the Palmanova Outlet Village and the Tiare shopping center in Villesse, both of which have an assortment of food options.

Medea also has a visitor information center at Via Torriani 5. It is open Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 4-6 p.m., and on Fridays from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and weekends, its closed.

Information

Address: Salita allAra Pacis, Medea, Italy

Hours: Around the clock, seven days a week

Cost: Free

Information: Online: tinyurl.com/36tdpkmw
Brazil's Supreme Court, designed by Oscar Niemeyer, and sculpture of Lady Justice by Alfredo Ceschiatti, at Three Powers Plaza in Brasilia, Brazil. (Dreamstime/TNS)

(Tribune News Service)  One person died after a blast Wednesday night in front of Brazils Supreme Court in the capital Brasilia, forcing officials and staff to evacuate the building.

A man tried to enter the Supreme Court building with explosives strapped to his body, preliminary investigations show. The spokesman for the Federal District military police, Major Raphael van der Broocke, told journalists that a man exterminated himself, without identifying him.

We still cannot say that he was a lone wolf, investigations are still ongoing, said Brazils Federal District acting governor Celina Leao, who labeled the event a suicide, highlighting that investigations are still preliminary.

According to local authorities, the mans death followed a car explosion at 7:30 pm local time.

Justices were safely removed from the court building, the top court said in a statement. The head of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, said the voting session was closed earlier for security reasons. Also for this reason, the security of the Congress was reinforced, and Pacheco left the building by the garage.

Praca dos Tres Poderes, the main access square to the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential palace, has already been closed by local authorities. Security at the public buildings was reinforced, Leao added. Congressional sessions are canceled tomorrow, according to the lower house.

Early last year, the main government buildings in Brasilia were invaded by thousands of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who ransacked Congress and rampaged through the presidential palace and Supreme Court.

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Japan resumed Ospreys flights on Nov. 14, 2024, after an investigation determined that pilot error caused one of its tiltrotors to hit the ground and sustain damage during a joint U.S.-Japan exercise last month. (Japan Ground Self-Defense Force)

Japans Osprey fleet resumed flying Thursday after investigators ruled that pilot error resulted in damage to one of the tiltrotor aircraft during a joint exercise with U.S. forces last month.

The Ground Self Defense-Force V-22 was attempting to take off Oct. 27 from Camp Yonaguni, a Japanese base on a remote island west of Okinawa, when its left wing hit the ground during a disaster-response drill, according to a Japan Joint Staff news release that day.

None of the 16 troops on board were injured, and only the aircraft was damaged. Three U.S. Marines were aboard at the time, according to an unsigned email from U.S. Forces Japan on Oct. 31.

The Ground Self-Defense Force investigation committee determined the pilot forgot to turn on the interim power switch, which provides additional engine power for takeoffs, a Ground Staff spokesman said by email Thursday.

Flight procedures require that the switch be turned on after the engine is started and during takeoff, he said.

The pilot also did not maneuver the aircraft properly when it was close to the ground, which caused it to shake from left to right, the spokesman wrote.

Additionally, the number of personnel boarding the aircraft increased just before takeoff and their arrival was delayed, which caused an increase of items for the pilot to handle, the spokesman said.

As a result, this caused the pilot to forget to turn on the switch, he said.

To prevent future incidences of loss of altitude during takeoff, Japans ground forces will add markings around the interim power switch and provide education and training to pilots and copilots on operating instructions prior to transferring to hovering, the spokesman wrote.

The army also will provide training and experience using simulators under multiple situations, he said.

To prevent future incidences of shaking or instability, pilots and copilots will be trained in emergency operations while losing power during takeoff, including lectures, simulator flights and actual aircraft flights the spokesman said.

Japans ground forces also will create a concrete plan including emergency responses and provide education from the commander starting from the plan creation stage, he wrote.

Some Japanese government officials are required to speak to the media only on condition of anonymity.

The Osprey pilots have been training with simulators and attending lectures since Monday, the spokesman said. Japans fleet of 17 tiltrotors were grounded after the incident.

The damaged Osprey is still at Yonaguni, and the spokesman did not provide a date for when it will be recovered or repaired.

U.S. Marines sent a team to Yonaguni earlier this month to assist Japan in identifying or validating safe and feasible recovery solutions for the Osprey, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing spokesman Maj. Joseph Butterfield said by email Thursday.

This is the extent of the Marine Corps involvement, he wrote. However, we remain prepared to assist our [Japan Ground Self-Defense Force] counterparts if requested.

U.S. and Japanese Ospreys were grounded between December and March following the Nov. 29 crash of an Air Force Special Operations Command tiltrotor just off Yakushima, an island south of Kyushu in southern Japan.

All eight crew members aboard that Osprey were killed. The accident investigation found a catastrophic mechanical failure at fault, compounded by a lack of urgency by the crew to deal with an engine problem, according to the accident report.

The revolutionary aircraft lands and takes off like a helicopter but flies as a fixed-wing aircraft.
A new elementary school, left, being built on Wetzel Kaserne in Baumholder, Germany, Nov. 14, 2024. The dirt in the foreground is where dozens of townhouses are to be built to accommodate troops moving to Baumholder. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)

BAUMHOLDER, Germany  The Army is appealing to potential landlords here in southwestern Germany to rent out their homes to soldiers, saying theyll need hundreds of additional properties to house troops in the coming years to meet expected growth.

The number of Americans living in and around Baumholder is set to increase from roughly 8,000 to about 10,000 between 2026 and 2029, as U.S. special operations troops shift to the area from Stuttgart and support staff arrive.

The Army is spending $1 billion on improvements, including new housing, ahead of the move.

Even with all the housing construction ongoing on Baumholder, we know that we will face a shortage of housing units for families and single soldiers, Col. Jeff Higgins, commander of U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz, said during a meeting at Smith Barracks on Thursday attended by regional mayors.

More than 500 families currently reside in rental housing units in Baumholder and surrounding areas, according to Army figures.

By 2029, when the arrival of special operations troops is expected to be complete, up to 300 additional off-post rentals will be needed to house soldiers and their families, according to garrison officials.

The population figure of 10,000 includes soldiers, civilians and other members of their household.

The garrison, which has described the growth as an investment opportunity for homeowners, has agreed to work with property owners to make sure their homes are aligned with Army Family Housing standards before the influx of troops.

They say they will send experts to inspect potential properties and detail any changes or improvements that are needed.

The Army will not pay for the modifications. But homes in base towns typically earn higher rents than those in similarly sized areas elsewhere.

Higgins attempted to reassure property owners that their investments would pay off, despite renewed concerns that the number of U.S. troops in Germany could drop during Donald Trumps second term as president.

Toward the end of Trumps first term, a plan was devised to remove some 12,000 troops from Germany and reposition them in the U.S. and other European countries. The plan never got far and was shelved soon after President Joe Bidens inauguration.

I wont address politics, but the movement of those (special operations) soldiers will occur, Higgins said, referring to their arrival in Baumholder. He added that much of the $1 billion of development was already underway.

Baumholder District Mayor Berd Alsfasser also attempted to calm concerns at Thursdays meeting, pointing out that it was already known that the special operations troops would move to Baumholder during Trumps first term.

Some of the development work underway in Baumholder includes remodeling apartments on Smith Barracks that were built in the 1950s and new townhouses on nearby Wetzel Kaserne.

An elementary school is also under construction on Wetzel, and a high school is scheduled to be built in the coming years.

New playgrounds, roads and water lines are among projects scheduled to be rolled out through 2031.

The U.S. Army has operated out of Baumholder since 1951, with troop numbers ebbing and flowing over the decades.

Higgins, whose garrison is made up of installations over a vast area, said the importance of the work being done cant be overstated.

My number one priority across the entire garrison is Baumholder investment and setting the conditions for that move to occur, to receive those soldiers and their family members and integrate them properly into our military community and into the host nation community, Higgins said.
In this image provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service on Monday, Nov. 11, 2024, a building is seen destroyed by a Russian attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

KYIV  As Russian forces continue their grinding advance toward the supply hub of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, a new offensive appears to be nearly underway in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian troops said this week, in what would represent a major escalation along the 600-mile-long front.

A buildup of Russian troops in Ukraines southeast comes as uncertainty looms over how a Trump presidency will affect the war and whether the two sides will be pushed to the negotiating table. President-elect Donald Trump has long claimed he will put a quick end to the war, and some in Ukraine fear that would involve Kyiv capitulating to Russia.

Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week and urged him not to escalate the war, in a call the Kremlin denies took place. In the week since, however, Russian forces have redoubled their efforts on several fronts.

Buoyed by the arrival of North Korean troops, they have launched a major assault in recent days in Russias Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces control territory they seized in an August cross-border offensive. They are also pushing to encircle the eastern town of Kurakhove, which could pave the way for an imminent assault on the rail hub of Pokrovsk  long a Russian objective, and already under regular attack.

This week, they also launched a major attack on the northeastern city of Kupyansk, which Russia occupied in 2022 before it was retaken by Ukrainian troops. On Wednesday, Ukraines General Staff reported that Russian assault troops, dressed in uniforms intended to resemble Ukraines, attacked Ukrainian positions in the Kupyansk direction with tanks and other armored vehicles.

There was also a major missile strike on Kyiv this week, after months of assaults by cheaper  and often less effective  drones.

The renewed Russian push, even as Trumps win has spurred talk of a return to negotiations, has Ukrainian soldiers expecting little let up in the onslaught.

Roman, 22, a battalion commander in Ukraines 31st Brigade stationed directly south of the city of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region, said Russia is launching an assault from so many directions because Putin knows negotiations could be coming and he will have much more leverage having control over all this territory as a result.

Roman, who spoke on the condition he be identified only by his first name in keeping with military rules, has spent three months on the southeastern front, where he said Russia recently rotated out a highly trained air assault brigade and replaced it with a regular mechanized brigade.

The change has temporarily relieved some pressure on Ukrainian troops because the new brigade is equipped with fewer professional drone pilots and artillery pieces. But they know any reprieve is temporary: The rotation, Roman said, is likely to mean the Russian air assault troops  who held their positions for more than a year without rest  are taking a short break in the rear to reorganize and recruit before they deploy to attack weak spots on the front line.

Still, he said, the fight will not be easy for the Russians, who will face territory much more prepared for an advance than in the eastern region of Donetsk.

There are significantly more fortifications in this area, Roman said. The second line of defense is practically stretching along the entire front line, plus its being built constantly.

Yaroslav Galas, 52, a major in Ukraines 128th Mountain Assault Brigade deployed to the Zaporizhzhia front, said that after a long period of trading off micro-advances  in which the two sides would fight back and forth for control of a specific position  awareness is spreading that Russia is now preparing a major attack.

The main sign is the clear buildup of larger Russian forces in the area. Additional units are being deployed  not just to the second or third lines but also to the front line, he said, referring to aerial surveillance that has collected information on the arrival of new troops. Our infantry units observe all this and understand that the Russians are preparing for something significant.

The Russian troops sent to the Zaporizhzhia front appear inexperienced and untested, Galas said. Despite constant drone surveillance, these new forces have tried to advance in wheeled vehicles in broad daylight, making it easier for Ukraine to target and destroy them.

Ukrainian troops are trying to use the time before any major assault to place more mines and build new fortifications, Galas said.

But the looming offensive has injected anxiety into the surrounding area. Russian drones recently began reaching villages near the front line where children were still living, Galas said, prompting many residents to leave amid fears over a Russian escalation.

Russian forces have occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia region since 2022, including the nuclear power plant that Ukraine warns poses a major threat under Russian control. For Putin, advancing toward the regional capital would put a major prize within reach  and help in his bid to actually control a territory he declared part of Russia.

Lt. Serhiy Skibchyk, the head of communications for Ukraines 65th Mechanized Brigade, which is stationed near the village of Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhia region, also said Russian forces have recently intensified their assaults.

Over the summer, Russians regularly dropped glide bombs and other explosives on fields to identify land mines and Ukrainian positions, and now the infantry assaults are ramping up.

Late last week, Skibchyk said, 15 Russian troops on motorcycles tried to breach his brigades positions, but failed, and Ukrainian troops hunted them down in various hideouts throughout the day. This tactic has become common in the region, where Russia will launch simultaneous drone and infantry assaults to put pressure on Ukrainian troops.

Each day Russia loses between 10 and 20 soldiers launching these attacks. We are doing everything possible to ensure that any potential enemy offensive in this sector is either thwarted entirely or ends in failure and high casualties, Skibchyk said.

Any new Russian casualties join those from the attempted Russian offensive last spring.

Their remains, Skibchyk said, still litter the fields and tree lines around Robotyne.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Kyrgyzstan is expressing interest in a project to lay a cable line across the Caspian Sea to enhance energy exchange in the region, Minister of Energy Taalaibek Ibraev told Trend on the sidelines of COP29 in Baku.

The Kyrgyz Minister underscored the significance of energy collaboration in Central Asia, pointing out that Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan are all in the same boat, working hand in hand on the cable project across the Caspian. Kyrgyzstan, with its strong energy connections to both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, sees this project as a golden opportunity, as it would boost energy exchange and tackle the regional energy security hurdles head-on.

"Central Asia today operates within an energy ring, and for us in Kyrgyzstan, this is crucial, as we have established connections with the energy systems of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. We both export and import electricity, making this project highly promising for us," Ibraev said.

He also noted that Kyrgyzstan is advancing several hydro-energy projects, including the construction of the 1,860-megawatt Kambarata HPP-1. This large-scale project aims to solve water and energy issues not only for Kyrgyzstan but also for its neighbors, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The World Bank is already backing the project, and next year, the ministry will begin selecting contractors for its implementation.

"This megaproject will be a crucial step in addressing water and energy challenges for the three countries. I believe that by spring next year, we will begin the tender process for selecting a contractor and project developer. Construction of the hydroelectric station will follow immediately after that," the minister added.

Minister Ibraev further shared that Kyrgyzstan continues to develop small hydroelectric power plants and renewable energy projects, including solar and wind farms across the country, such as in Issyk-Kul, Naryn, and the southern regions. The ministry is currently working on solar power projects with a total capacity of 1,500 MW, with several companies already planning their construction.

"We plan to start one of these projects this year, and by the end of 2025, the first solar plants will be operational. This will not only be in the Issyk-Kul region but also in other areas, including the southern and northern parts of the country," he added.

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A bird makes a stop on a handicapped parking sign on Dec. 14, 2021. The Justice Department is inquiring whether Michigan unnecessarily keeps adults with serious mental illness in state psychiatric hospitals in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group/TNS)

Tribune News Service  The Justice Department has opened a disability rights investigation into whether Michigan unnecessarily keeps adults with serious mental illness in state psychiatric hospitals in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the department announced Wednesday.

The department said it will investigate whether Michigan provides adequate community-based mental health services to allow people to transition out of state psychiatric hospitals and back into the community.

The Americans with Disabilities Act protects peoples right to receive mental health services in the community, rather than remaining in hospitals when they are ready to go home, said Kristen Clarke, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division. This investigation will assess whether Michigan is honoring the ADAs promise that people with disabilities be served in the most integrated setting appropriate.

The Civil Rights Division will continue to advocate for states to provide people with disabilities the services they need to avoid unnecessary institutionalization.

The DOJ notified the Michigan Department of Attorney General and Michigan Department of Health and Human Services of its investigation, the department said in a press release Wednesday.

Representatives from the AG and MDHHS were not immediately available for comment. Representatives from Michigan disability rights groups also were not immediately available.

Michigan operates four psychiatric hospitals  Caro Psychiatric Hospital; Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Washtenaw County; Kalamazoo Psychiatric Hospital; and Walter Reuther Psychiatric Hospital in Westland.

The DOJ encouraged people with relevant information about its investigation to contact investigators at community.michigan@usdoj.gov, (888) 392-5415 or civilrights.justice.gov.

In its ADA investigations, the DOJ looks into whether states use institutions such as psychiatric hospitals to treat people who could and would prefer to get care through community-based services. The investigations hinge on the 1999 U.S. Supreme Court case Olmstead v. L.C., in which justices ruled that people with disabilities have a right to be served in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs and wishes, according to the DOJ.

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The military had an active-duty suicide rate of about 28 suicide deaths for every 100,000 service members in 2023, a 12% increase from 2022, according to a Pentagon report released Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (Joshua Seybert/U.S. Air Force photo)

WASHINGTON  The suicide rate among active-duty and reserve troops increased in 2023 after the military saw an overall decrease the previous year, according to an annual report released Thursday by the Pentagon.

The Pentagon reported an active-duty suicide rate of about 28 suicide deaths for every 100,000 service members last year, a 12% increase from 2022.

This increase is not statistically significant, said Liz Clark, the director of the Pentagons Defense Suicide Prevention Office. The report states not statistically significant means there is low confidence that this is a true difference.

The rate is calculated based on an active-duty force of about 1.28 million troops, about 330,000 in the Reserve and nearly 430,000 in the National Guard.

For years, the Pentagon has struggled to bring down the number of suicides in the ranks. The Defense Department began collecting and reporting quarterly surveillance data on service member suicides in 2018 to help guide prevention efforts.

Overall, there were 523 reported suicides in 2023, compared with 493 in 2022. The number of active-duty troops who died by suicide increased to 363 from 331.

The Air Force, Army and Navy all saw an increase in suicide rates while the Marine Corps stayed about the same. The suicide rate among Reserve troops increased 8% while the National Guard rate decreased by about 5%, according to the report.

Similar to previous years, service members who died by suicide were largely young males under the age of 30. This group accounted for 61% of suicide deaths in the active component, Clark said.

Since 2011, suicide rates have increased among active-duty troops but remained relatively stable for the Reserve and National Guard troops, according to the report.

The Defense Department in recent years has aimed to improve mental health care access for troops, amid increases in suicide rates and outcry from members of Congress and others.

In 2022, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved the establishment of the Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee, which made 127 recommendations of near- and long-term solutions to address suicides in the ranks.

The independent panel recommended the department implement a series of gun safety measures to reduce suicides in the force, including waiting periods for the purchase of firearms and ammunition by service members on military property.

The panel said the department should also raise the minimum age to 25 for service members to buy guns and ammunition and should require anyone living in military housing to register privately owned firearms. In addition, the panel said the department should restrict the possession and storage of privately owned firearms in military barracks and dormitories.

Austin released a memo September 2023 outlining more than 100 recommendations to be implemented by 2030 to address the suicide crisis in the military. Some of the recommendations included expanding telehealth services, increasing appointment availability by revising the mental health staff model, launching a comprehensive public education campaign on firearm safety, and updating the amount of suicide prevention training. The department chose not to implement the firearm changes at the time.

The bulk of our efforts  get at secure storage of their firearms, particularly giving service members more options, said Timothy Hoyt, deputy director of the Pentagons Force Resiliency Office. We feel that focusing on secure storage strikes a better balance between what might have been recommended and taking into account that firearms are the tools of military training.

The Pentagon in 2024 completed 20 of the 83 recommendations by the commission. Austin said in a prepared statement issued Thursday that the Pentagon will make an unprecedented investment in suicide prevention. Hoyt said the budget for 2025 is projected to be about $250 million for initiatives.

We are dedicated to fighting for our service members by fostering supportive team cultures and tackling the stigma of asking for help and other barriers to care. Theres still much more work to do and we wont let up, Austin said.

The 2023 suicide report also included data about military family suicides for 2022. The data shows fewer family members died by suicide in 2022 than the previous year, a 9% decrease. While there are far fewer male spouses, they make up nearly half of the suicide deaths.

In addition, the military services are hiring personnel to staff prevention programs and about 1,000 professionals have been hired with a goal of 2,500 by 2028.

The national suicide and crisis lifeline is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
There is no verifiable evidence of aliens among about 300 cases of UFO sightings examined this year by the Pentagon, but at least 21 cases need further analysis, according to an annual report released Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (Robert H. Reid/Stars and Stripes)

WASHINGTON  The Pentagon has not found any verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings among nearly 300 cases of unidentified anomalous phenomena, more commonly known as UFOs, analyzed this year, but at least 21 cases need further analysis, according to an annual report released Thursday.

There are interesting cases that, with my physics and engineering background and time in the [intelligence community], I do not understand. And I dont know anybody else who understands either, Jon Kosloski, director of the Defense Departments All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, said of the 21 open cases.

The AARO was created in 2022 to investigate sightings of UFOs and standardize data collection. To date, the office has received 1,652 reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena, most of which occurred in the air, including 485 that were reported between May 2023 to June 2024. An additional 272 reports dating back to 2021-22 that were not previously reported were included in this years report.

Of the 757 cases detailed in the report, 292 have been closed or are scheduled to be closed pending review. Those cases were found to be balloons, birds, satellites, aircraft or drones.

In a 2022 hearing on unidentified aerial phenomena before the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray shared this Navy image of a UAP captured during naval exercises off the U.S. East Coast. The image was captured through night vision goggles and a single lens reflex camera. Based on additional information and data from other UAP sightings, the UAP in this image were subsequently reclassified as unmanned aerial systems. (Defense Department)

There are definitely anomalies. We have not been able to draw the link to extraterrestrial, Kosloski said.

The report was released one day after the House Oversight and Accountability Committee held a hearing to examine reports of UFOs and the secrecy surrounding them.

We know that there are objects or phenomena observed in our air space and also possibly in our oceans, said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the committees national security panel. The American people have legitimate questions and I believe its critical that Congress should help address them.

The AAROs inability to solve or identify a swath of reports of UFOs  approximately 900 cases  has fueled speculation of a coverup and fed the publics growing interest in aliens.

Luis Elizondo, a former senior intelligence official who ran a predecessor agency to the AARO, said Wednesday that the government possessed alien technology and was in a secretive arms race to reverse engineer the aircraft.

Let me be clear: UAP are real, Elizondo said. Advanced technologies not made by our government, or any other government, are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe.

Luis Elizondo, a former Defense Department official, testifies Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, during a House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing in Washington about UFOs. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)

On Thursday, Kosloski said he absolutely agrees that UAPs are real but noted more than 900 cases have not been resolved.

Until we know what they are or who they belong to, we cant distribute intent and understand exactly what the purpose of that phenomenon is. We, AARO, are not comfortable saying at this time whether or not the UAP are there to collect information or not, he said.

To date, Kosloski said, the AARO has no evidence to indicate foreign enemies are collecting information on the United States.

The details of the 21 cases that merit further analysis, he said, have not been cleared to release to the public yet. But Kosloski was able to confirm several of the cases occurred in the past year and a half, occurred in multiple undisclosed locations, have multiple eyewitnesses, and  in some instances  have video evidence. The cases did not have any commonality and ranged from sightings of orbs, cylinders and triangles, he said.

There could be some [unmanned aerial vehicle] activity in the environment thats getting confused or conflated with the [unidentified anomalous phenomena] activity, so we are trying to tease that out right now, Kosloski said.

The AARO is working with the Defense Department, its intelligence community and science and technology partners to facilitate additional collection and conduct analysis using advanced techniques such as modeling and simulation. The AARO report said the office will provide immediate notification to Congress should any cases involve breakthrough technology or foreign adversarial aerospace capability. Kosloski defined breakthrough technology as capabilities that the U.S. does not have and will not have within a few years.

According to this years report, another 444 cases lacked sufficient data and were placed in the active archive, where they will be held to be reexamined if additional data becomes available. Archived cases can be reopened and resolved should additional information emerge to support analysis.

Last year, the Defense Department launched a site for service members, veterans and civilian defense workers to report UFOs. The AARO is working to engage more with the services to help troops, such as aviators, understand what a UAP is and how to report it. Kosloski said there are plans to follow that up with an education campaign to show service members closed UAP cases that have been identified as clusters of satellites.

The AARO continues to analyze historical UAP cases. In accordance with a congressional directive, the office will release a report on its findings of historical cases in the coming months.

AARO will follow the science and data wherever they lead, Kosloski said. We are committed to sharing as much information as possible at the unclassified level to inform the public of our activities and findings.

Stars and Stripes reporter Svetlana Shkolnikova contributed to this report.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. A conference titled "At What Stage Are Governments in Their Climate Action? Climate Scanner Assessment Results" was held at the ongoing 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), Trend reports.

The event was organized by the Azerbaijani Chamber of Accounts and the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI).

According to preliminary results presented by Brazil's supreme audit institution, 73 percent of countries do not report climate-related expenditures or only have mechanisms to track domestic climate finance.

This weakens government oversight of both direct and indirect spending in climate action. Additionally, there are significant gaps in tracking private sector investments in climate-related activities, with many countries lacking sufficient transparency. Notably, 41 percent of countries have not published reports on climate finance and investments.

The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), which will run until November 22, opened at the Baku Olympic Stadium on November 11.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference in the climate system. The acronym COP (Conference of Parties) stands for Conference of Parties and is the highest legislative body overseeing the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

A total of 198 countries are parties to the Convention. Unless otherwise decided by the parties, COP is held annually. The first COP event was held in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

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Lee Conlon of Meath Place, Thomas Street in Dublin pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary with a large kitchen knife at an apartment on Montague Street in the city on 22nd November 2022.

A man has been sentenced to five and a half years in prison for an aggravated burglary in the bedroom of a five-week-old baby and its parents while they were sleeping.

He also received a concurrent four-and-half-year sentence for the armed robbery of his local credit union in which he threatened to kill two customers.

Lee Conlon of Meath Place, Thomas Street in Dublin had pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary with a large kitchen knife at an apartment on Montague Street in the city on 22nd November 2022.

The 46-year-old also pleaded guilty to the robbery of Capital Credit on St Lukes Avenue in the city on 16th January 2013. He further pleaded guilty to threatening to kill or cause serious harm to two customers, one of whom was 83 years old, on the same occasion.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that in the first incident, gardai were called to an apartment at 2.30am, where they met a couple and their infant. The couple was upset.

They said they had gone to sleep with their five-week-old baby and had woken to find Conlon at the bottom of their bed. He was reaching for a mobile phone on a locker.

The infants father jumped out of bed and tackled the intruder out of instinct. He pushed the intruder into the hallway, where Conlon lost his balance and fell against a door.

At this stage, the new father could see that the intruder was carrying a large kitchen knife in his hand, and that a large scratch had been left on the door.

Conlon fled and took with him items to the value of almost 600, including handbag, wallet headphones, sunglasses, bank cards and the couples identification and a key to their apartment.

Conlon had not brought the knife with him, but had found it in the familys home.

In the other incident, Conlon entered the credit union with a handgun and threatened to shoot while demanding cash. His face was fully covered, but he was identified after CCTV footage from about 90 premises was viewed.

He called the teller a f***ing b*tch, and said he would shoot the two customers, who were waiting, one of whom was 83 years old.

He pointed the gun at her, then at them, and then back at her, while demanding 50s. All were terrified that he would do so.

The teller started throwing money onto the counter and managed to press the panic alarm. Conlon took 1,200 off the counter and ran out the front door.

Conlon has 111 previous convictions, going right back to the Childrens court. He is currently serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for similar offences, with a release late in 2029.

His barrister told the court that he had a very difficult background, had been using heroin since the age of 15 and had spent most of his adult life in custody.

Judge Sinead Ni Chulachain imposed a sentence of five and a half years on the aggravated burglary, and four and a half years for the credit union offences. She said they should be served concurrently with each other but consecutively with the sentences hes already serving.

She then suspended the final four and a half years on a number of conditions.
Ryan Healy (26) had been part of the GAA club as a youngster and was embarrassed and ashamed of his behaviour

A man who broke into a Dublin GAA clubhouse, damaging a roller shutter door, was battling a serious addiction to cocaine and making lots of stupid decisions at the time, a court has heard.

Ryan Healy (26) had been part of the GAA club as a youngster and was embarrassed and ashamed of his behaviour.

He had since attended counselling and was now drug free, and was staying off drugs with the help of his mother and his partner, his lawyer said.

Judge Susan Fay ordered Healy to complete 50 hours community service in lieu of one month in prison.

The defendant, with an address at Avondale Park in Mulhuddart, admitted burglary and criminal damage at St Peregrines GAA club, Blakestown Road, Coolmine, on May 5, 2023.

Sergeant Conor Mohan told Blanchardstown District Court Healy gained entry to the GAA clubhouse by pulling out a roller shutter door, causing 525 worth of damage to it.

Sgt Mohan said Healy got into a store room in the clubhouse and he stole soft drinks, valued at 56, from a plastic crate.

Sgt Mohan said Healy was caught on CCTV cameras.

The defendant also cut his hand at the scene and he left his blood behind, which later matched a sample taken from him by gardai.

Defence lawyer Mark McMahon said Healy was quite open and co-operated fully with gardai. During an interview with officers, the defendant identified himself on CCTV, telling them it was 100pc me.

Mr McMahon said the defendant had not come to garda attention since this incident.

He had been on drink and drugs at the time, and had a very serious cocaine addiction.

Mr McMahon said Healy was making lots of stupid decisions at the time.

The defendant was from the local community, had been part of the club as a young person, and he regretted his behaviour.

The court heard Healy had since attended counselling, was drug free and was providing clean urine samples.

Mr McMahon said Healy was now a completely different man, and he asked the judge to be as lenient as possible.
He was obviously aiming at and firing at the light in my head. It bothered me greatly why he would do this to me

An east Clare man who shot a neighbouring farmer when discharging eight shotgun blasts in his direction in the dark has avoided jail.

Judge Francis Comerford imposed a suspended two-year prison term on Adrian Collins (48) of Enagh, Kilkishen, at Ennis Circuit Court for the reckless discharge of a shotgun during which he shot his neighbour, Andrew Cotter, who was herding cattle at the time.

As part of his sentence, Judge Comerford has also ordered that Collins, a married father of four, pay Mr Cotter 8,000 in compensation and pay a fine of 4,000. The court heard that Collins discharged the shotgun eight times after attending a christening earlier that day on February 26 of last year after drinking four or five pints.

Collins surrendered his gun to gardai in the aftermath of the reckless discharge and Judge Comerford also ordered that he have his gun licence revoked for abusing the entitlement to hold a licence.

The judge said Mr Cotter was hit by three pellets from Collinss eight shots.

He ordered Collins to sell his 1,000 shotgun with the proceeds going towards the 8,000 compensation order.

The judge was told that Collins is a social drinker and doesnt have a drink problem. In sentencing, Judge Comerford said: If Mr Collins had a drink and formed the view he could fire in a gun in the direction of people I am of the view that he does have a drink problem.

He added that Collins had engaged in very serious offending.

In suspending the prison term, Judge Comerford said he was taking into account Collinss guilty plea, his co-operation with gardai, his having no previous convictions and his grudging remorse towards Mr Cotter. He said the case was at the very high end of recklessness with intent, but I do accept there was no hint of personal animus towards Mr Cotter.

Collins pleaded guilty to the reckless discharge of a firearm contrary to Section 8 of the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act on February 26, 2023, at Enagh.

Mr Cotter, a married 65-year-old father of four grown-up children, was checking his cattle when he was shot.

The incident occurred at around 7.30pm at night. One gunshot pellet lodged in his skin just below his eye.

In his victim-impact statement, Mr Cotter said: I was lucky that I didnt lose the sight in my eye.

Mr Cotter told the court: I was herding cattle when I was shot about eight times by Adrian Collins. The left side of my face was badly hit and I had to be hospitalised and I had numerous visits to the hospital and doctors.

He was obviously aiming at and firing at the light in my head. It bothered me greatly why he would do this to me, he said.

I have no idea why Adrian Collins would do this to me. He inflicted severe pain upon me and more than that he has made me nervous and afraid every time I go near the land.

I wish this never happened as it has caused great upset to me personally and to my family

.
Cahir O'Higgins (49) pleaded not guilty to one count of the theft of 400 in July 2016 and four counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice in December 2017

The jury in the trial of a criminal defence solicitor accused of the theft of 400 and charges of perverting the course of justice has been directed to suspend its deliberations overnight.

Cahir O'Higgins (49) pleaded not guilty to one count of the theft of 400 in July 2016 and four counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice in December 2017.

Mr O'Higgins, of Cahir O'Higgins and Company, Kingsbride House, Parkgate Street, Dublin, denied the allegations against him. The court has heard that Mr O'Higgins is a criminal defence solicitor with over 20 years' experience.

The jury retired to consider its verdict shortly after 11am this morning after being charged by Judge Martin Nolan.

In his charge, Judge Nolan told jurors they must be neutral and impartial. He told them Mr OHigginss profession as a criminal defence solicitor should bear no part in their deliberations.

After deliberating for about 90 minutes, the jury asked Judge Nolan if theft can be said to have occurred, where an owner is deprived of their property temporarily.

Judge Nolan told jurors they must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the money was not returned before they convict the defendant on the charge of theft. He asked them to retire and continue their deliberations.

The jury was sent home for the day after deliberating for just under four hours. Jurors are due to return and continue their deliberations tomorrow.
Henry McGowan appeared before Portlaoise District Court this morning

A 30-year old man has been charged with the murder of his father at a five-star hotel in Co Laois.

Henry McGowan appeared before Portlaoise District Court this morning.

The court heard that Mr McGowan made no reply to the charge.

He was remanded in custody to Cloverhill Prison and the judge adjourned the case to November 18 to be conducted by video link.

The victim, a US national who was aged in his 60s, was found dead in the leisure area of the Ballyfin Demesne hotel.

The incident happened at around 8pm on Tuesday.

Hotel staff found the mans body, and emergency services quickly rushed to the scene and the suspect was arrested.

The hotel is one of Irelands most exclusive accommodation offerings, with celebrities regularly staying in the luxury hotel.
Trial of man accused of the murder of Joseph Brosnan in Tralee in 2022 begins at Central Criminal Court

A murder accused who killed his daughters neighbour after he was pushed out of a Tralee apartment, initially told a garda that he was a peacemaker and didnt know who had stabbed the deceased, a prosecution barrister has told a murder trial.

Senior Counsel Patrick Gageby, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, told the jury in his opening address that the accused admits that he unlawfully killed Joseph Brosnan.

What the 12 jurors will be obliged to look at in this case, counsel said, is the accuseds intent at the time that he committed the act that caused Mr Brosnans death.

Patrick Murphy (52), of no fixed abode, has pleaded not guilty to murder, but guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Brosnan, at Abbey Court, Tralee, on May 22, 2022.

Opening the case for the prosecution on Tuesday, Mr Gageby said the events in questions occurred in the late afternoon at about 6.30pm on the date in question in Tralee.

The deceased man, Joseph Brosnan, lived in an apartment at Abbey Court in Tralee.

He had previously worked in a direct provision centre on the outskirts of town and there he met and befriended a Polish national called Kamil Lisowski.

Mr Brosnan helped Mr Lisowski settle in and move from apartment to apartment and they became good friends, counsel said.

In the years prior to Mr Brosnans death, it was very common for these two men to meet, chat and have some drinks together.

Mr Brosnan hadnt been working for about five years prior to 2022, Mr Gageby said, as he had some health difficulties - including high blood pressure - and was on disability benefit at the time.

On the date in question, Mr Lisowski finished work at about a quarter to eight in the morning and called on his friend Mr Brosnan.

Mr Gageby said drink was taken and the pair sat and watched television together.

He told the jury that a man called Shane Fitzgerald resided in an apartment located across from Mr Brosnans. Mr Fitzgerald lived there with a young woman called Danielle OSullivan, he said, adding Ms OSullivan is the daughter of the accused man, Patrick Murphy.

Patrick Murphy of no fixed abode arriving to Kenmare District Court after being charged with the murder of Joseph Brosnan.

At around 3pm that afternoon, Mr Murphy called over to Mr Brosnans home with Shane Fitzgerald. Further drinking took place in the house which resulted in some insult passing between Mr Lisowski and Mr Murphy, counsel told the jury.

It fizzled out but not before Mr Lisowski had slapped Mr Murphy in the face, said Mr Gageby.

Things calmed down and people shook hands but the matter welled up again and Patrick Murphy was asked to leave. As he left, he was somewhat cross or vexed, counsel said.

The barrister said at around a quarter to seven that evening, Patrick Murphy returned and apologised. He said the jury will hear that Mr Murphy was pushed out vigorously of the apartment and fell to the ground outside.

A short time later Mr Brosnan opened the door to Mr Murphy again and told the accused to go.

Counsel said Mr Murphy seemed to be armed with quite a large kitchen knife and used it to stab Mr Brosnan

The deceased was stabbed once in the hand which was not serious, counsel said, and once in the back, which was not life threatening.

Mr Gageby said a second stab wound to Mr Brosnans back was fatal because it penetrated the pericardial sac around the deceaseds heart which caused massive bleeding and resulted in death occurring fairly rapidly.

Counsel said Mr Brosnan was well aware that he was seriously injured and announced to Mr Lisowski: Im dying.

Ambulance and gardai were called but unfortunately he [Mr Brosnan] died in his apartment lying on his sofa, said Mr Gageby.

Mr Gageby said the prosecution case will be that there was a clear intention to kill or cause serious injury.

Mr Brosnan was entitled to refuse entry and if that involved pushing him [Mr Murphy] out so be it, he said.

Mr Gageby said the prosecution contends there was no reason for the accused to bring a knife to the apartment.

He told the jury they will hear from a number of gardai, including Garda James Fairbrother who spoke to Mr Murphy at the scene. He said a conversation between the two took place and the jury will hear evidence that the accused told the garda he was a peacemaker and he didnt know who had stabbed the deceased.

Counsel said Mr Murphy was arrested and when interviewed suggested that the deceased had possibly suffered a seizure before eventually admitting that he had brought a knife to the scene and that he had stabbed Mr Brosnan.

Mr Gageby said the entire context of the case boils down to whether the prosecution can convince the jury that the accused did intend to kill or cause serious injury when he stabbed Mr Brosnan.

The trial continues today (Wednesday) before Mr Justice Paul Burns and a jury of eight men and four women.
Leandro Ferreira Souza (35) with an address at Thomond Lodge, Ballymahon, Co Longford previously appeared at Longford District Court last month

A factory worker has pleaded guilty to attacking his colleague with a meat hook after finding out the victim had begun a relationship with his ex-wife.

Leandro Ferreira Souza (35) with an address at Thomond Lodge, Ballymahon, Co Longford previously appeared at a sitting of Longford District Court last month where details surrounding the incident were outlined before Judge Bernadette Owens.

The court, at that juncture, learned of how gardai had been alerted to an alleged assault incident at Kepak, Rathmore, Ballymahon, Co Longford on October 12, 2023 shortly before 4pm.

Leandro Ferreira Souza (35) pleaded guilty to attacking a co-worker at a county Longford meat factory after finding out his alleged victim had begun a relationship with his former partner.

Upon their arrival, gardai spoke to the victim who relayed how he had been assaulted by Ferreira Souza. The court heard the young man told gardai of how he had been struck on the head and arm by the accused.

Sgt Daly said the incident resulted in the man sustaining a small cut to his left arm and a similarly sized mark on his head.

Judge Bernadette Owens said while an ambulance was not called to treat the man, he told gardai the episode arose because he had recently entered into a relationship with Ferreira Souzas ex-wife.

Judge Owens accepted jurisdiction, allowing the case to remain at District Court level after learning the injuries sustained by the alleged victim were minor in nature.

When the case returned before Judge Owens, defence solicitor John Quinn said his client would be tendering a guilty plea.

Mr Quinn said before a full submission of mitigation could be offered up, he had been waiting on a medical report to be handed in.

Judge Bernadette Owens remanded Leandro Ferreira Souza (pictured) on bail to a court sitting in January in order to allow the State explore the prospect of obtaining a victim impact statement.

Judge Owens replied, saying photographs showing the injuries sustained by the victim had been viewed by the court, prompting Mr Quinn to reaffirm his clients position.

We are accepting responsibility for the incident, he said.

In adjourning the case to allow for the canvassing of a victim impact statement, Judge Owens said the move was also to allow Ferreira Souza put his best foot forward as part of that guilty plea.

Ferreira Souza was remanded on continuing bail to a sitting of Longford District Court on January 14, 2025.
It was claimed today that one of the exhibits in the case, a North Face jacket, may potentially have been contaminated because of the manner in which it was preserved by the gardai.

A career criminal serving a life sentence for the murder of a father-of-eight has argued that a North Face jacket containing gunshot residue that was central to his conviction ought to have been excluded from evidence as it was improperly stored by the gardai.

Without this jacket and the firearm residue there could not have been a prosecution for murder against him, said Dean Kelly SC at the Court of Appeal today, launching an appeal on behalf of Robert Redmond (36).

Roo Redmond, of Streamville Road, Kilbarrack, Dublin 5, is serving life imprisonment for the murder of Barry Wolverson (40) at Madigan's Yard, Killeek Lane, Swords, Co Dublin, on January 17, 2020. He had denied the charge.

The murder trial heard that Mr Wolverson (40) was a businessman who rented space at Madigan's Yard in Swords in north Dublin. At the time of his shooting, his partner was expecting a child, whom he never saw. He also has four children and three stepchildren.

Mr Wolverson and Gerard Wildman were sitting in a car at the yard shortly before midday when Mr Wolverson was shot several times. Mr Wolverson eventually died from cardiac arrest after being treated in a residential care facility while in a comatose state for 13 months.

Redmond was given a life sentence for the murder at the Special Criminal Court, five years on a charge of assault causing harm on Mr Wildman, and 12 years for the possession of firearms and ammunition. Redmond's co-accused Bernard Fogarty, with an address at Cromcastle Court, Kilmore, Coolock, Dublin 5, was also sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering Mr Wolverson.

Barry Wolverson

At Redmonds appeal today, Mr Kelly said that one of the exhibits in the case, a North Face jacket, may potentially have been contaminated because of the manner in which it was preserved by the gardai.

He said that Dr John OShaughnessy of Forensic Science Ireland had given evidence at the trial of finding gunshot particles on the jacket, but the permissibility of this evidence depended on the prosecution first addressing the issue of contamination.

Mr Kelly said that a garda gave evidence at the trial that the jacket was inadequately bagged and preserved from the time he took it from the appellant and sealed it with three or four staples, accepting that he ought to have done otherwise.

Mr Kelly said that the bag containing the jacket was placed in the boot of the garda car, then later removed from that bag, put into a nylon bag, and finally replaced back in a brown paper bag.

He said that Dr OShaugnessy confirmed that the manner in which the bag was sealed was not in best practice, adding that contamination of the jacket could not be ruled out, as the bag had been placed in the boot of a garda car, and it was accepted that garda cars are sometimes used for the transport of firearms.

This was the piece of evidence by some distance that convicted him of murder, said Mr Kelly. Without this jacket and the firearm residue there could not have been a prosecution for murder against him.

Mr Kelly said that the presence of gunshot residue in and of itself does not prove the appellants presence at the scene of the shooting, which meant the court fell into error in the weight it placed on that item of evidence.

Mr Kelly said that the doctor was being asked for his opinion, assuming that both Redmond and his co-accused were there at the scene, as to who he thought had shot the victim. Counsel said this had been a wholly inappropriate opinion to go to the court, as it proceeded on the basis of the appellants guilt.

It assumes him to be part of a murder gang there to carry out a murder, so that opinion should have been excluded, said Mr Kelly.

He said there was never a point where any other evidence was presented to put Redmond in that yard, so the ultimate finding of guilt came about because of the North Face jacket.

Counsel for the DPP, Paul Greene SC, said that the day before the shooting, the two accused men were seen on CCTV, with Redmond wearing the North Face jacket. The following day, half an hour after the shooting, the two men were arrested in a housing estate 200m away from a burnt-out vehicle, the same vehicle that drove them into Madigans yard, with Redmond wearing the same jacket.

Mr Greene said there was an unbroken chain of evidence to show that the two men went from the estate to the yard and back again, while there was also witness evidence from someone who saw a tattooed man in a red vehicle, with Redmond shown to have similar tattoos.

Mr Greene said that the defence was asking the court for an unwarranted degree of engaging in speculation concerning the possibility of the jacket being contaminated.

He said there was no evidence of gunshot residue in the boot of the garda car or the floor of the garda station, with the jacket bagged, stapled up, and then re-bagged promptly.

He said that Dr OShaughnessy had told the trial that there was a possibility of contamination, but there was still a significant corpus of residue on the jacket. Mr Greene went on to say that the witness gave his opinion on the garda theory that the gunman was either Redmond or Fogarty, adding that the doctor was allowed to make a factual assessment.

Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said that the court would reserve judgement in the case.

Redmond, who has 99 previous convictions, is also serving a seven-year sentence - to be served consecutive to his 12-year term for possession of a firearm in the murder of Mr Wolverson - for conspiring to gun down a drug dealer who owed him 70,000.

Father-of-one Jordan Davis was shot dead while pushing his four-month-old son in a pram in broad daylight five years ago. A text conversation revealed that Mr Davis had owed a drug debt to Redmond amounting to 70,000.

Redmond was originally charged with the murder of Mr Davis, who was fatally shot by a gunman on a bike while pushing his four-month-old son's buggy in a laneway beside Our Lady of Immaculate National School in Darndale. Mr Davis suffered three gunshot wounds including one to the head that killed him instantly.
Sally Cummins sustained a head injury after shots were fired into her Coleraine home

A sawn-off shotgun found in the home of a community worker was used in four previous incidents, including the attempted murder of a 61-year-old woman, a court heard on Wednesday.

David Morrell appeared in the dock of Belfast Crown Court on two charges arising from the discovery of the weapon, which was located in April 2022.

While the 47-year-old was due to be sentenced yesterday, the case was adjourned by Judge Philip Gilpin, who said he would pass sentence next Friday.

The weapon was discovered by police who searched Morrell's former home in the Ballysally estate in Coleraine on April 14, 2022. Five loyalist paramilitary flags were also found.

CCTV of the UDA gunmen who shot Sally Cummins

Morrell, now with an address at Alexandra Avenue in Ballymoney, admitted charges of possessing the gun with intent and possessing a prohibited weapon on the grounds that he was storing it for others.

When Judge Gilpin asked if there was known history regarding the weapon, he was told by a Crown barrister that it had been linked to four shooting incidents in the Coleraine area.

These, he said, included three incidents when "the weapon was shot at doors", which didn't result in any injuries, and one regarding the attempted murder of Sally Cummins.

The grandmother sustained a head injury after shots were fired into her Coleraine home in October 2020.

Police at the scene of a UDA shotgun attack that left Sally Cummins wounded

In the aftermath of the attack, the PSNI said they believed members of the North Antrim UDA were responsible.

A defence barrister told Judge Gilpin that while Morrell admitted the charges and has accepted the weapon was linked to loyalist paramilitaries, there was "no evidence the defendant knew anything about its history".

He also cited Morrell as being "psychologically vulnerable" and a man who suffered from "mental health difficulties.

Judge Gilpin told Morrell the case was a "complex sentencing exercise" and sentencing would take place next week.

The defendant was released on continuing bail but was told "you need to be back here next Friday.
The suspect and victim checked in to the luxury resort together

A Garda car in the vicinity of to Ballyfin House in Laois. Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

A man has been charged in connection with the investigation into the fatal assault of another man at a hotel in Co Laois.

The victim, a US national who was in his 60s, had only flown into Ireland a number of hours before he was allegedly attacked in a bathroom of the luxurious Ballyfin Demesne hotel.

He was found dead in the leisure area of the five-star hotel and was the victim of a sustained assault, gardai believe.

The incident happened at around 8pm on Tuesday.

Hotel staff found the mans body, and emergency services quickly rushed to the scene and the suspect was arrested.

The suspect, who is in his 30s, required medical treatment in hospital in the aftermath of his arrest.

He is due to appear at Portlaoise District Court this morning at 10.30am.

The library at Ballyfin Demesne in Co Laois

He was not deemed fit to be interviewed by gardai until late yesterday morning.

Investigations have established that the suspect had recently required treatment for medical issues at a hospital in Dublin.

It is unclear where he met his alleged victim earlier on Tuesday after the man had flown into the country from the US.

But both men then checked in together into the well-known Co Laois hotel where the fatal assault happened.

It is understood that the assault was sustained in nature.

The case is being described as extremely tragic.

The services of the Garda Technical Bureau and Office of the State Pathologist were requested.

A senior investigating officer has been appointed to lead the investigation and an incident room has been established at Portlaoise garda station.

Ballyfin Demesne in Co Laois

A family liaison officer will be appointed to support the family of the deceased, who were notified of the mans death in the early hours of Wednesday yesterday.

The hotel is one of Irelands most exclusive accommodation offerings, with celebrities regularly staying in the luxury hotel.

Ballyfin hit global headlines in 2014 after celebrity couple Kim Kardashian and Kanye West stayed there as part of their five-day Irish honeymoon. In July, the Regency mansion and former boarding school was named the United Kingdom and Irelands No1 resort.

There was deep shock in the local community yesterday as news of the death spread.

Local publican Ger Whelan revealed there was a lot of garda activity in the quiet area on Tuesday night.

His pub is a short distance from the entrance to the upmarket hotel.

There is shock. You dont go in there without a booking

I heard it on the news this morning, a hotel in the north of the county, he said.

My wife was working here last night and she said to me this morning, there was a lot of activity with guards around the area.

But we hadnt a clue until the news this morning.

Mr Whelan said the hotel is a well-regarded employer and many of the staff are from Laois.

He added: There is shock. You dont go in there without a booking.

There is no way youd get past that gate unless youre either booked for dinner, you are staff, or youre booked to stay. Thats the only way youd get past that gate.

Amal and George Clooney have stayed in Ballyfin Demesne. Photo: Getty

Ballyfin Demesnes secluded setting, luxurious accommodation and five-star welcome have attracted high-profile celebrity weddings down through the years.

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West famously honeymooned there in 2014 after marrying in Italy, although the couple had actually stayed there previously.

George and Amal Clooney rented out the entire property in 2019 for a reunion with Georges Irish cousins, and Ballyfin was named as the top hotel in the world to make you feel special in the Hideaway Reports 2018 Members Choice Award.

The estates original residents were the Coote family.

Ballyfin then came into the ownership of the Patrician Brothers, who ran it as a school.

After that school closed, the house was later bought and restored over a nine-year period by the American electronics tycoon Frederick Krehbiel, now deceased.

His sons, Liam and Jay Krehbiel, are the current owners.

The hotel opened in 2011 and offers guests activities including carriage rides, picnics, fishing, archery, clay pigeon shooting and butler service.

The hotel is set back from the main gates by a 2.4km-long driveway.

The restoration of the hotel included adding six bedrooms and millions of euro were invested as part of the refurbishment.
Photo: Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Azerbaijan

BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The expansion of economic relations between Azerbaijan and the United Kingdom was a topic of discussion at COP29, Trend reports via the Ministry of Economy.

Azerbaijans Minister of Economy Mikayil Jabbarov met with the UK's Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security Douglas Alexander and the UKs Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Lord Spencer Elliott Livermore, at the conference.

The meeting highlighted the positive trajectory of the strategic economic partnership between the two countries, with both sides expressing satisfaction with its ongoing development. Officials noted the significant potential for deepening cooperation in areas such as trade, investment, and other sectors.

The UK representatives commended Azerbaijans contributions to global initiatives, particularly its green projects. The discussions also focused on further strengthening economic relations and enhancing business and trade ties between the two nations.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
The hidden cash led officers to compare his residence to the infamous home of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar

One of Spains top anti-fraud cops has been busted with 20 million in cash stashed in the walls and ceilings of his home near Madrid.

Oscar Sanchez Gil, who led the anti-money laundering and fraud division of the countrys National Police force has been detained alongside his partner, who is also a police officer.

The arrests follow a massive investigation into Spains largest-ever cocaine bust, in which 13 tonnes of the drug were found hidden in banana crates shipped from Ecuador.

The investigation linked Sanchez Gil to a Spanish importer connected to the major cocaine shipment seized in Algeciras last month.

It has been reported that Sanchez Gil been providing drug traffickers with insider information on port surveillance for at least five years.

During a raid on his office, officers uncovered 1 million reportedly stashed in two locked cabinets. Another 20 million in banknotes were found in walls and false ceilings.

The hidden cash led officers to compare his residence to the infamous home of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, Madrid Metropolitan reports.

The report also states that Sanchez Gil is suspected of laundering part of the illicit funds via cryptocurrency and by acquiring a fleet of private vehicles through a relative.

The couple now faces charges of drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption, and membership of a criminal organisation.

Further investigations have led to a total of 15 arrests and include tax advisors and economists, which Spanish media suggests indicates deep-rooted corruption among law enforcement personnel.

The investigation was launched in the wake of the Algeciras seizure when Spanish authorities uncovered 13,062 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a banana container arriving from Guayaquil, Ecuador.

The seizure, the largest in Spains history, was the culmination of a four-year investigation into a banana import business based in Alicante that investigators believe was a front for drug trafficking.

The National Polices Internal Affairs Department began investigating the two officers after discovering suspicious financial transactions linked to a suspected drug trafficking organisation, Madrid Metropolitan reports.

According to sources familiar with the case, a payment from a company tied to a known narcotics dealer was traced to another company related to the police couple.

Though disguised as a legitimate service, the transaction raised red flags, prompting further investigation which led to the arrest of the officer who was the head of the Anti-Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) in Madrid.

According to the crimesite.nl, Sanchez Gil led a unit of the National Police in Madrid that was dedicated to financial investigations and handled very large money laundering cases.

Before that, he was stationed for several years in the Narcotics Department of the UDYCO, which is the department of the National Police that works exclusively on large criminal organisations.

The arrest caused great surprise within the Spanish police, as Chief Inspector Sanchez had previously had a glittering career in the police force, the news site reports. He was known as a somewhat shy figure who did not like to speak out.

Sanchez (45) lived with his wife and three children in a mansion with a swimming pool in one of the most luxurious areas of Alcala de Henares, a town about twenty kilometres east of Madrid.

He went to work in Madrid in a discreet car and did not live in conspicuously extravagant style, but further investigations reveal there were several Mercedes, luxury BMWs and a golden Lamborghini Huracan Spider, as well as a large-displacement motorcycle in his name.
Wheelock died in the Mater Hospital on September 16, 2005, after he had been found unconscious in a cell in Store Street Garda Station on June 2, 2005

Clare Daly has called for a new inquiry into Terence Wheelocks death, nearly 20 years after the Dubliner died after he was held in Garda custody.

The former Dublin MEP who is seeking a Dail seat in the Dublin Central constituency in the upcoming general election, said the death of the 20-year-old had damaged already fragile Garda and community relations in the North Inner City for years.

Wheelock, of O'Casey Avenue, died in the Mater Hospital on September 16, 2005, after he had been found unconscious in a cell in Store Street Garda Station on June 2, 2005.

The Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) was called in to establish whether or not the conduct of any member of the force had caused the death of or serious harm to Mr Wheelock.

The GSOC report, which was published in March 2010, found that there was no credible evidence that Mr Wheelock had been mistreated.

There was insufficient evidence to support the allegation he was assaulted by gardai during his arrest at Sean O'Casey Avenue on June 2, 2005.

But it established that systemic failures and the lack of clear instruction led to the presence of a ligature suspension point in his cell.

In July 2007, an inquest into Mr Wheelock's death recorded a verdict of death by suicide.

It found that Mr Wheelock died of bronchial pneumonia on September 16, 2005, and the cause of death was recorded as hypoxic brain injury due to ligature compression of the neck due to hanging.

However, Ms Daly said his family had not given up their fight to find out how he suffered brutal injuries to his neck and body from which he died.

They have never accepted as credible claims that his wounds were self-inflicted, Ms Daly added.

She also claimed that their fight for justice, which was supported by their local community had resulted in a campaign of Garda harassment.

Her statement was supported by Independent Dublin City Councillor, Cieran Perry, who said the Wheelock family, their community and local political activists have always called for a full and independent inquiry into Garda actions surrounding Terences fatal injury and the forces behaviour in its aftermath

He said: We believe Clare Daly, with her record of fearless work supporting Garda whistle-blower Maurice McCabe and her advocacy as a TD and MEP, alongside Mick Wallace, for other victims of alleged police criminality, can force the next government to finally provide the Wheelock family with the independent inquiry that they demand.

Ms Daly added that transparency must be brought to this case and several others to ensure that the last vestiges of a culture of impunity and serving the interests of the connected rather than the people is truly at an end when it comes to policing in Ireland.
He was rushed by ambulance to Beaumont Hospital, Dublin where his condition is understood to be serious

A cyclist in his 20s has been seriously injured following a crash involving a car and e-bike in south Dublin.

Gardai and emergency services attended the collision on the N11 in Cabinteely at the junction with Johnstown Road shortly before 5pm on Thursday, November 14.

The cyclist was seriously injured. He was rushed by ambulance to Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, where his condition is understood to be serious.

The scene is preserved for a technical examination by Garda Forensic Collision Investigators and traffic diversions are in place.

Gardai are appealing for any witnesses to come forward.

Any road users who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) and were travelling in the area at the time are asked to make this footage available to investigating gardai.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Dun Laoghaire Garda Station 01 6665000, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any garda station.
Hotel Chocolat will shut its two Irish outlets, while Donnybrook Fair will close its Baggot Street shop

British luxury chocolatier Hotel Chocolat is closing its two Irish outlets at the end of the year, saying the operating environment here has changed significantly.

In another indication of the difficult environment for retail in central Dublin, Donnybrook Fair has closed its outlet on Baggot Street.

In a statement the company said: Donnybrook Fair can confirm that the difficult decision has been made to close its store on Baggot Street. All staff were offered a role in one of our other Donnybrook Fair stores with no impact on their terms and conditions.

The company, which was established by the Doyles in 1991 and bought by Musgraves four years ago, has another branch at nearby Morehampton Road in Donnybrook, which was recently revamped. It also has outlets in Malahide, Dundrum, Stillorgan, and Greystones in Co Wicklow.

Retail in central Dublin has not bounced back from the pandemic, due to the rise in hybrid working and also the increased migration to online shopping.

A Hotel Chocolat outlet. Photo: Getty

Hotel Chocolat, which was acquired by Mars last year in a 534m (642m) deal, has cited the changed retail environment for its decision. It opened a store in Dundrum in 2017 and one on Henry Street in central Dublin in 2018.

Over the past five years, the operating environment within the Republic of Ireland has changed significantly, which has led us to make the difficult decision to close our two stores in the Republic of Ireland  Dundrum and Henry Street  on December 31, 2024, Lysa Hardy, the Hotel Chocolat chief executive for the UK and Ireland, told customers in an email in recent days.

I would like to thank you for your support as a customer and reassure you that we are continuing to explore ways in which we can ship internationally.

In the year to the start of July 2023, the company behind the two stores generated revenue of 1.37m (1.56m) and a pre-tax profit of 42,000. The previous year it posted revenue of 1.2m and a 635,000 pre-tax profit.

Hotel Chocolat was founded in 2004 by Angus Thirlwell and Peter Harris. In 2006, they bought a cacao farm in St Lucia in the Caribbean and opened a luxury boutique hotel on the estate.

By the time the company floated in Londons Alternative Investment Market in 2016, it had just over 80 outlets in the UK. The stock market flotation earned the founders 20m each and valued the business at 167m. By 2021, it was worth more than 700m.

Efforts to expand the companys geographic footprint proved difficult, as it struggled with the manufacturing logistics to support overseas growth.

The deal to sell the company to Mars netted the founders about 140m each. Family-owned Mars produces the eponymous chocolate bar as well as brands such as M&Ms, Skittles and Snickers.

Meanwhile, New Zealand-based Cooks Coffee is planning to open four more of its Esquires coffee shops in Ireland in coming months, three in Cork and one in Limerick. Its understood the company is aiming to open cafes in Midleton, Mallow, Raheen and Carrigaline.

Cooks Coffee already operates 15 Esquires locations in Ireland and is also planning to open an additional outlet in Bagenalstown in Co Carlow in the first quarter of 2025.
The electoral papers included signatures of locals in the constituency  as well as digital and passport photos.

Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch pictured this evening at the Dublin City Sheriff's office on Fitzwilliam Square where he formerly registered his candidacy for the forthcoming general election. Photo: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

Gerry The Monk Hutch has been formally accepted as a candidate for the general election in the Dublin Central constituency.

The veteran criminal filed election papers shortly after 4pm today and will now appear on the ballot paper.

The election papers included signatures of locals in the constituency who acted as nominees  as well as digital and passport photos.

Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch pictured arriving at the Dublin City Sheriff's office on Fitzwilliam Square where he formerly registered his candicacy for the forthcoming general election....Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

It comes as his candidacy continues to cause controversy with Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald today saying she absolutely condemns his election bid.

Speaking at the partys policy launch on immigration today, Ms McDonald said she absolutely condemns him.

I absolutely condemn him, I am on record as a matter of fact, theres nobody more on record than I in condemning that. I represent the communities that suffer because of so-called gangland warfare, she said.

Gerry Hutch at Dublin Airport today. Photo: Steve Humphreys.

The Monk flew into Dublin on Monday from his home in Lanzarote in order to lodge his electoral papers to put himself forward to run in the Dublin Central constituency.

I am running, he told the Sunday World. I will be a candidate in Dublin Central and I will be the peoples choice. They have asked me to run, so I am running.

Hutch was last week released on 100,000 bail from a Lanzarote prison after being arrested as part of a money-laundering investigation.

14/11/'24 Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch.Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

The veteran criminal remains under investigation there, while the Hutch Organised Crime Gang (OCG) is a target of a number of different garda units here.

However The Monk, seen as the patriarch of the Hutch OCG, has had no convictions for crime since the 1980s and was acquitted of the Regency Hotel murder of David Byrne by the Special Criminal Court last year.

Now, he is planning to run a social media campaign due to ongoing concerns over his security and is expected to issue regular video and poster updates on his run for the Dail.
I roundly condemn Gerry Hutch or anybody else who is involved in crime and in particular those who bring the misery and the heartache of drug addiction, drug enslavement, drug debt and all of the violence that stems from that.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said she absolutely condemns Gerry The Monk Hutch running for a Dail seat in her Dublin Central constituency.

The senior gangland figure confirmed he would be running as a TD in the constituency when he came back from Lanzarote earlier this week, where he paid 100,000 in bail. He is currently being investigated for alleged money laundering in Spain.

Ms McDonald, who topped the poll in Dublin Central four years ago, earlier this week did not condemn Mr Hutchs Dail bid.

I am not making a commentary on any other individual in Dublin Central except to say that I have worked very hard for these communities, that I wish to represent them again, and that I want Janice Boylan walking through the gates of Leinster House alongside me, she said.

Speaking at the partys policy launch on immigration today, Ms McDonald said she absolutely condemns him.

I absolutely condemn him, I am on record as a matter of fact, theres nobody more on record than I in condemning that. I represent the communities that suffer because of so-called gangland warfare, she said.

I represent communities that have suffered the ravages of the heroin epidemic from the 1980s, and all of the chapters thereafter. I roundly condemn Gerry Hutch or anybody else who is involved in crime and in particular those who bring the misery and the heartache of drug addiction, drug enslavement, drug debt and all of the violence that stems from that.

Mary Lou McDonald (PA)

She said who runs for election is a matter for electoral law and said her constituency running mates - such as TD Paschal Donohoe, who have been in Government - should have changed laws if they believed Mr Hutch shouldnt be allowed to run.

If they were that worried about somebody like him stepping onto the pitch, well then they should have changed the law to make it so that they couldnt and they havent.

If he wants to run for election, thats his business.

The Monk is long suspected of having planned two of the biggest armed robberies in the history of the State.

Gardai believe he has been involved in wholesale cannabis importation as part of the Hutch organised crime gang.

He has been the patriarch of the Hutch family, which has been embroiled in a feud with the Kinahan cartel for a number of years.

Meanwhile, Taoiseach Simon Harris has said Gerry Hutch should not be treated like a minor celebrity.

Simon Harris and candidates in the Dublin Central constituency, where the gangland figure has indicated he will run, have criticised his expected election bid.

Asked about Mr Hutchs election bid while canvassing on Capel Street in the Dublin Central constituency, Fine Gael leader Mr Harris said: I think its important that we dont treat this individual like some sort of minor celebrity.

This is the person whos brought misery and criminality to this capital city. Hes not a celebrity, hes a criminal.

Fine Gael candidate in Dublin Central Paschal Donohoe said on Thursday that he was appealing to the people of Dublin Central to put the days of organised crime behind us.

If I look at the communities of Dublin Central and all the work that they have done to look after each other, to support each other during, at times, very difficult days, if I look at the efforts that we have made from an investment point of view in Dublin Central and in particular in the northeast inner city, in our schools, in our community centres, in our teachers, in our young people, lets build on that work, he said.
Rumours around the incident had been circulating online and on Wednesday the principal of the school addressed these with a statement

PSNI are treating reports of an alleged assault at a north Belfast school as a hate crime.

The incident is understood to have taken place on the campus of Belfast Model School for Girls earlier this week.

A spokesperson for the PSNI said that they received a number of reports of an assault which allegedly occurred at a school in north Belfast on Tuesday November, 12.

Chief Inspector Alan Lowry said: Enquiries are continuing to establish the circumstances of the incident, which is being investigated as a hate crime.

Officers are liaising with key stakeholders in relation to this matter.

Rumours around the incident had been circulating online and on Wednesday the principal of the school addressed these with a statement posted on social media.

In the letter, Paula Stuart assured parents that the allegations were being addressed and called for speculation around the incident to end.

We are aware of various claims circulating on social media which has unfortunately led to increased tensions in our community, negatively impacting on student wellbeing and their sense of safety.

I want to assure you that we take the safety and well-being of all our pupils very seriously.

We are working closely with the Education Authority (EA) and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to address this matter appropriately.

It is important to note that, contrary to some reports, there is no evidence to support the inaccurate claims or fears being expressed on social media around pupil safety and we would ask for your support in helping to stop the spread of such information.

The statement added: Our school is committed to providing a safe, inclusive, and supportive environment for all lour pupils.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperations as we work to address the situation in the best interests of our entire school community.

The PSNI are appealing to anyone with information to come forward.
New IRA leadership rattled as the security service sends out a series of warning messages to its associates

Dissident republicans are in a state of panic after MI5 apparently sent dozens of warning text messages to people in Derry.

We can reveal the British security service believe they have the few remaining members of New IRA backed into a corner and have started targeting people who have been used by republicans to store weapons and other equipment.

And in a spook-tacular turn of events MI5 have turned to directly messaging republicans and their family members in a bid to turn the screw on dissident terrorists.

Earlier this week text messages were sent en masse from a mobile phone claiming to be MI5 and warning the recipients they faced being raided.

And despite the bizarre nature of the MI5 approach, Thomas Ashe Mellon is said to be rattled.

Mellon and other senior members of the terror groups political wing, Saoradh, believe the messages to be legit  so much so they posted them on social media in a veiled threat to anyone of thinking of taking up MI5s offer to contact them.

Their advice for anyone who got one of the messages is to contact them and their solicitor.

In the first jaw-dropping text it states quite openly: This is MI5. We are aware that you and your associates are storing illegal weapons and equipment on behalf of the IRA. We will be seeking to recover these items.

One of the texts

In that message the recipient was named but 11 minutes later another incredible terror text was sent to another group of people.

It stated: This is MI5, we are aware that DRs [Dissident Republicans] are pressurising financially vulnerable members of the community to store equipment on their behalf.

If this is you and you would like to talk, please call this number.

The first text is an attempt to shake those involved in supporting beleaguered republican Thomas Ashe Mellon and whats left of his New IRA gang.

But the second text is a clear attempt to appeal to those vulnerable people who have been coerced into supporting the gang by hiding guns, ammunition and other terrorist items.

Mellon had Saoradh post the messages immediately on their Facebook page under the heading MI5 Contact Republicans Activists and Family Members and accompanied by the following message:

Saoradh have been contacted by a number of Republicans and their family members today (Nov 6th) after receiving text messages from MI5.

In their attempts to entrap, entice, and engage with Republicans and individuals close to Republicans, British Military Intelligence continue with their pattern of sending unsolicited messages.

Although more direct in these instances, its clear their goal remains the same; use as many people as they can to gather information on the wider Republican community.

Following these latest approaches, Saoradh would again like to reiterate our support for anyone coming forward with such information.

We encourage anyone who faces this type of harassment and intimidation at the hands of British Military Intelligence to contact your local Saoradh representative and a solicitor immediately.

The Sunday World can reveal this is not the first time MI5 have used such brazen attempts to rattle dissident republicans and their support network.

They dont do this very much but they have done it before, said a source. Last year everyone in the Creggan got that same text  only a state agency would be able to text that many people at the same time.

Text sent by MI5

But its causing real panic. They have obviously rumbled a group who are storing weapons for the New IRA in Derry.

The New IRA in Derry almost exclusively use vulnerable alcoholics and drug addicts to store weapons. Many of them are in debt to New IRA loan sharks  this has been said in open court before.

But this text thing has got Mellon rattled and he wanted to get it out in the public domain to let anyone who gets one not to even think about contacting the mobile number attached.

Republican sources say it exposes the New IRA and Ash Mellon and their abuse of vulnerable people who live in nationalist areas of Derry.

They are just as bad as the loyalist when it comes to living off the backs of the community. They dont want to be caught with the weapons and bullets in their own houses but they know they can use intimidation on vulnerable people, they said.

The loan sharking and using vulnerable alcoholics makes a mockery of all of the socialist rhetoric. They charge rates that would be illegal for a credit card company to charge. They guy who runs their loan-sharking is the second-in-command in the Derry New IRA.

They are parasites who do nothing more than bring misery on their own community.

A recent court case of three family members accused of storing weapons, explosives and ammunition heard how two of them were regarded as vulnerable.

They had been charged with having two Soviet grenade heads, two detonators and a gun and ammunition with intent to endanger life.

But in June, without explanation from lawyers other than to say the test for prosecution against them had not been met, the charges were dropped.

In previous hearings one of the three was named in court by a prosecutor as having an active association with the New IRA and has been claimed is the ringleader in the guns and explosives haul.

Police believe he is the common denominator and controller of the weapons recovered, a previous court hearing was told.

He utilised his family network to transport and store weaponry on behalf of the New IRA.

The other two were described as vulnerable, with one of them likened to Simpsons character Barney Gumble because he was an alcoholic.

The MI5 text campaign is a further blow to Mellon and his dwindling ranks in the New IRA.

The fact MI5 can be this brazen in their approach shows they think they have the New IRA in Derry on the ropes, says a source.

The fact they have all the mobile numbers of the main members and also of the people theyve been leeching off has got them worried.

Thomas Ashe Mellon at a Saoradh Easter commemoration

Last week we revealed how Mellon is being blamed for another embarrassing episode after a Facebook group he runs called on people to join the IRA.

In a post on the Saoradh-linked Irish Revolutionary News page there was a call to arms of sorts with a post remembering murdered republican Maire Drumm who was seen by many  including former Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams  as an icon to the republican cause.

And he was still reeling after it emerged he was being ridiculed by fellow republicans for a recent appearance in court.

We revealed last month how the beleaguered dissident was returned for trial to the Crown Court on two charges linked to the same dissident republican parade in Derry.

Mellons behaviour towards the court raised some eyebrows amongst hardliners across the country as he previously refused to recognise the British court and has slated other republicans for not doing the same.

He refused to stand which is supposed to mean hes not recognising the court, yet he applied for legal aid, employed a solicitor, applied for bail and bail variations and even bound himself to abide by his court bail!

All this to a court he doesnt recognise! Everyone is making fun of him for it.

People used to look up to him but hes being viewed as a complete joke at the minute.
Locals were outraged at the appearance of loyalist protesters outside Sean Grahams Bookmakers on the Ormeau Road

Bernard Lavery waving an Irish tricolour at the Belfast protests beside another protester with a Union flag

And at Belfast Magistrates Court, a judge ordered that a three-month stint behind bars should run in tandem with the 40 months he got the week before for drug dealing.

But within hours of Lavery being banged up in Maghaberry for the second time in seven days, his old neighbours in south Belfast sent the 65 body builder a strongly worded message, telling him: Dont dare show your face on the Ormeau Road ever again!

The anti-immigration activist received a three-month sentence when he pleaded guilty this week to taking part in an unnotified public procession in Belfast last August.

Trouble flared after Lavery and others sparked a breakaway demo which headed for an Islamic centre following an anti-immigrant rally in Belfast city centre.

And the court heard Lavery was seen as one of the main instigators of the trouble, which later led to serious rioting and disruption.

Lavery was filmed waving an Irish tricolour while embracing another protester carrying a loyalist emblem  and the odd couple snap then made headline news around the world.

Bernard Lavery at the protest in Belfast city centre (left), and in the gym (right)

He was also spotted later, pointing to south Belfast hotels where homeless immigrants were living, which were later attacked.

A lawyer told the court last Monday that when 34-year-old Lavery realised the situation on the streets was getting out of hand, he did his best to calm things down.

But it was the appearance of protesters outside Sean Grahams Bookmakers on Belfasts Ormeau Road which has angered local people, who could hardly believe their eyes.

Some of the masked loyalists shouted sectarian remarks and made reference to the shootings of three decades ago.

In 1992, five Catholics lost their lives and another nine were injured when loyalist gunmen opened fire inside the busy bookies shop.

None of the gunmen were ever convicted of involvement in the crime, although it became known several of those involved were state agents at the time.

At the time of Laverys arrest, he gave his address as Farnham Street, which is within walking distance of the bookies shop massacre site.

He lived there in a rented house he shared with his girlfriend and child.

But following his conviction this week, he was left in no doubt that following his release, he wont be made welcome in the close-knit nationalist area.

One Ormeau Road resident last night told us: We all know Bernard Lavery wasnt on the Ormeau Road that day.

But without doubt, it was his actions earlier that day, which led to the invasion of the area.

The local added: It was made clear to him hed better make arrangements to live elsewhere when he gets out.

Last week we revealed how designer clothes-loving Lavery was horrified when a prison officer handed him a jail-issue grey trackie to wear during his time behind bars.

Bernard Lavery

Earlier in the Crown Court, Lavery admitted he had been peddling cocaine for five months before the police caught up with him.

During a raid on his home, police seized a substantial amount of cash as well as four mobile phones and a number of designer watches.

Lavery is originally from north Belfast, where his mother was a well known figure in the local Catholic church.

But tragedy struck one day when Dublin gangsters called to her home demanding that she paid a drug debt owed by her son Bernard.

Minutes after they left, she suffered a heart attack and died.

Friends say the loss of his mother had a devastating effect on Bernard Lavery and his life appeared to go into a downward spiral afterwards.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The COP29 Business, Investment and Charity Climate Platform was held within the framework of COP29, under the chairmanship of COP29, the UN high-level leader on climate COP29, with the organization of the Ministry of Economy and the Agency for the Promotion of Export and Investments - AZPROMO. The event was organized in partnership with relevant international structures, Trend reports with reference to the Ministry of Economy of Azerbaijan.

The Business, Investment and Philanthropy Climate Platform hosted discussions on effective financial solutions and business strategies to combat climate change.

The event was attended by the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev and Deputy Minister of Economy Samad Bashirli. The important role of Azerbaijan in the process of promoting strategic global initiatives to strengthen climate resilience and economic growth was noted. The discussion also focused on green energy projects that serve to decarbonize the country's economy and redirect hydrocarbon revenues to combat climate change by strengthening partnerships between the public and private sectors, the private sector and philanthropic organizations.

The event provided an opportunity for partners to exchange views on climate finance and investment strategies in developing countries to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change. The focus was also on mobilizing capital for climate-resilient solutions and key mechanisms to accelerate the decarbonization of industries.

The event included 9 sessions. The sessions covered topics such as innovative financial solutions, decarbonization, advancing financial flows to developing countries, commitments by international companies to sustainable development, strengthening public-private cooperation, partnerships that accelerate integrated climate action, and progress on new partnerships that support the Sustainable Development Goals.

The event was attended by more than 1,000 registered participants from 71 countries.
The former Stormont Finance Minister is reportedly the subject of an inquiry from Westminsters standards watchdog.

DUP MP Sammy Wilson is being investigated by the authorities at Westminster over an alleged breach of lobbying rules regarding Northern Cyprus, it has been reported.

Last month we revealed how the East Antrim DUP MP was one of five politicians named in an online article posted on the Democracy For Sale website by journalist and author Peter Geoghegan.

The same website has now revealed the former Stormont Finance Minister is the subject of an inquiry from Westminsters standards watchdog.

As reported here it was alleged that Mr Wilson had failed to declare an interest when asking parliamentary questions after taking an all-expenses paid trip to the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TNRC).

The Democracy for Sale investigation led to former SNP leader Ian Blackford saying the revelations have left a number of red lights flashing and called for a full parliamentary investigation.

There are so many red lights flashing here, said Blackford, who formally wrote to parliaments standards commissioner calling for an investigation.

Let's not forget that these are parliamentarians going to a territory that lacks legitimacy, that is subject to UN resolutions, said Mr Blackford last month.

Parliamentarians are also not allowed to initiate parliamentary proceedings that could have any financial or material benefit for a foreign government, non-governmental organisation or other agency which has, within the previous 12 months, funded a visit they have undertaken or provided them with hospitality.

Sammy Wilson on political situation in Cyprus

According to Democracy For Sale a host of sponsors paid for the trips, including the Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Commerce and Turkish Airlines .

The trips were organised by Freedom and Fairness for Northern Cyprus, a campaign group that has been working with a London-based PR firm run by the son of a Conservative peer.

Freedom and Fairness for Northern Cyprus aims to show the need for the TRNC to be recognised as a sovereign, independent, democratic nation state.

If Freedom and Fairness was hoping to put its cause on the political agenda, it appears to have succeeded judging by the barrage of parliamentary questions put down by MPs and Lords, particularly after paid trips to the region, wrote Peter Geoghegan.

According to him Parliamentary records show that, in the entire decade leading up to 2023, only 15 questions asked by MPs contained the phrase northern Cyprus.

In contrast, MPs submitted 26 questions on the topic since the start of last year.

Eight of those questions were posed by Sammy Wilson, who asked about everything from Greek troop numbers in southern Cyprus to maritime shipping routes to northern Cyprus.

The journalist also found that Wilson also penned opinion pieces arguing that the U.K. should support independence for northern Cyprus.

Records show that Wilson did declare his trip to northern Cyprus in January on his register of interests, but failed to declare an interest in the subject before querying the government in parliament.

More than a dozen parliamentarians went on fact finding delegations organised by Freedom and Fairness for Northern Cyprus.

The standards commissioner has sanctioned MPs in the past for breaking parliamentary lobbying rules after going on paid trips.

In 2018, the DUPs Ian Paisley Junior was suspended from the Commons for 30 days after lobbying on behalf of Sri Lanka after taking an undeclared trip to the country worth up to 100,000.

Mr Wilson has been contacted for comment.
Roger Rabbits

with Jim Bunny

What about Huguette? A beautiful name in that sensuous, unstressed, nasal, French way. Drop the H and pronounce the final E. Ugu-ett-e. Love it. Im a bit of a Francophile.

What about Aponi  pronounced Ah-pah-nee. A Blackfoot Indian name meaning butterfly. Exotic. Lovely.

Or Sarkr  from the Czech Republic. Pronounced Shar-ker. Princess. There wont be any other Sarkrs in Year 0if its a girl. What about Bonnie, Persephone, Florence?

Id been banging on about names for six months  offering a couple of creative options every day for a little bundle about to be delivered half a world away in London. Dont know why I bothered  each suggestion was rebuffed in a vacuum of silence, a scoff, scorn or outright derision. I didnt get one name close to the line, let alone across it.

Never liked it!

That reminded me to divorce my own given name after seven decades. Hunter. Never liked it. I was born at a time when, if you called out to Kevin, 10 snotty-nosed, freckly red-haired Catholic kids of Irish descent would come running. Same applied to Graemes, Grahams, or Brians, or Trevors. But theyd be the Proddies.

I just craved to be a Peter  like Rubens the Flemish artist, all dramatic violent and bold. Or guitar-smashing rocker Pete Townshend of the Who, or raconteur Sir Peter Ustinov, or prodigious pisshead Peter OToole. I was so enamoured of the name Peter I even called my pet hedgehog who lived under the house Peter.

Peter the Apostle, Peter the Great  a classic timeless name. But I got Hunter  painfully unusual in the 1950s, having to explain that: Yes, its my Christian name. But nowadays Hunters are as common as colds.

Its a dogs name, isnt it, remarked a Redditor during a discussion on the name Hunter. I couldnt argue with that because recently I wandered out of the factory and heard someone calling my name. I turned to answer and realised I shared my name with a dog. And a dead-ugly one  an Affenpinscher-Chihuahua-cross. The French call Affenpinschers diablotin moustachu  which means mustached little devils. And monkey terriers for their unusual facial appearance. I dont think thats me. Moustachioed and simian? I tick only one of those boxes.

And I dont wish to share a dogs reputation for being fun-loving, curious, playful, loyal, affectionate, entertaining and moderately good with children. And I dont pee on lampposts. Still, I am done with Hunter. The Reddit thread settled it.

Listen to this: The only Hunter I ever met was the scrawniest little twerp. And a total coward. Well, this Hunter is six feet of aged blubber. Twerpish, annoying  yes, I have been called that. But the bravery has never really been tested.

Close to the bone

And from another Redditor: Is it just me, or are all the Hunters you come across problematic? Thats close to the bone. But I think its just living with a name like Hunter that makes us problematic. Blame the name-givers. Blame the parents. Dont blame the bearers.

And: Why do people give their kids job titles as names  Hunter, Cooper, Carter, Taylor? Im going to call my first child Webdeveloper. Fair enough  how about Drainlayer? Or perhaps Checkout? Or something double-barreled like Chicken-Sexer? Or Budtender after someone who assists customers at a legal medical cannabis store? Budtender has a nice euphoric, calming ring, a name you could get hooked on.

Hunter also now transcends gender. Unfortunately. I was in Hamilton when a woman yelled Hunter!. Now Hunter was probably quite a nice kid, but she didnt present that way. Three or four years old, straggly unkempt red hair, festoons of pond growth hanging from her nose and a t-shirt that demanded to be forensically tested. Or burnt. I didnt want to share my name with her. In fact, she can have it. Im now googling deed poll.

No nickname  phew!

One positive aspect of my name was I escaped a nickname as a kid. I hung with a Shorty, Fatty, Legs  they were the days when body shaming was considered sport and mercilessly funny  and Compass for the kid who flailed his arms 24/7 while looking for true north, Whiffy who had odour issues and would still stink after an acid bath, and Flake for the poor kid who was ravaged by eczema. I remember one day when Arnolds mother suggested it was unkind to call him Fatty we all wondered why? He was a big unit, a fat unit after all. I got none of that humiliation because everyone obviously thought being a Hunter was burden enough.

According to Department of Internal Affairs statistics Hunter was the 36th most popular boys name of 2023 after all the Noahs, Jacks, Coopers, Leos, Georges, Hugos, Arlos and Beaus, and the odd ugly dog. And it seems I can blame a TV soap, of which, I have not seen one episode. In 2006 Shortland Street introduced a character called Hunter McKay. He may as well have been called McDonald, as his became just as popular. Thanks mate!
NZ Herald publisher NZME is proposing to close 14 community newspapers, with the loss of about 30 jobs  a body blow for local news in many New Zealand regions and the latest bombshell in a year of major media cuts and closures.

The titles, all in the North Island, are no longer profitable in the face of a changing media landscape and rising costs, NZME said today.

They include mastheads such as the Te Awamutu Courier, whose origins stretch back more than 100 years.

The 13 other titles proposed for closure are Hauraki-Coromandel Post, Katikati Advertiser, Te Puke Times, Taupo & Turangi Herald, Napier Courier, Hastings Leader, CHB Mail in Hawkes Bay, Stratford Press, Bush Telegraph in Tararua, Whanganui Midweek, Manawatu Guardian, Horowhenua Chronicle and Kapiti News.

NZME is proposing to close 14 community newspaper titles, including these six in the central North Island.

In some regions, these titles are the only source of local news, covering their local councils and other public bodies.

It is expected the titles will be closed before Christmas, with just over 30 job losses across editorial, sales and operations teams.

The proposed closures come amid a tough economic environment, a downturn in advertising and as the Government wavers on its plans to introduce the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, in the wake of threats from tech giant Google.

Over the past year, hundreds of jobs have been lost as the media industry has sought what it calls an even playing field to compete with the international tech giants.

In an announcement today, NZME said it had presented a proposal to staff to close the papers, on the basis they were no longer profitable.

Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith. Photo / Mark Mitchell.

NZME chief executive Michael Boggs said the announcement was tough news for our team and our local communities.

This is not the kind of news I want to share with everyone today, Boggs told staff in an email.

We highly value our awesome teams across our community publications  each of them plays an important role in their communities, whether its in providing local news to audiences or supporting local advertisers, and our focus is on supporting them.

He said NZME  which earlier this week announced it was lowering its earnings guidance for financial year 2024  had performed well but was not immune to the impacts of a weaker market.

Unfortunately, our community publication network has suffered from a decline in advertising revenue and increasing costs to the point where it is no longer profitable. On top of this, we have seen a 45-55% cost increase in distribution of our print products driven by factors out of our control.

As we know, our community publications do not have a subscriber base. They are provided free of charge and funded purely through local print advertising, which is in decline overall. With our communities having no sustainable digital pathway we have had to make the tough decision to propose to close most of our communities network.

NZME chief executive Michael Boggs. Photo / Michael Craig.

The proposed closures will come as a body blow to those regions where most of the newspapers are published each week. The papers, with local news and personalities, also have their stories published digitally, and they have a strong social media presence.

Only two of the companys community titles, the Waikato Herald  which is inserted with the NZ Herald  and the recently acquired The Weekend Sun in Bay of Plenty, which has a strong digital presence through the SunLive website, would remain operating under the proposal.

Rural publication Coast & Country News is also unaffected.

According to NZMEs website, the Te Awamutu Couriers origins stretch back to 1911, when it began as the Waipa Post. The paper  which is distributed free every Thursday to homes in Te Awamutu and surrounding rural areas, including the villages of Kihikihi, Pirongia, Ohaupo and Kawhia  changed its masthead in 1936.

Today's edition of the Te Awamutu Courier.

NZMEs NZ Herald and its paid regional newspapers  Northland Age, The Northern Advocate, Bay of Plenty Times, Rotorua Daily Post, The Gisborne Herald, Hawkes Bay Today and Whanganui Chronicle  are not impacted.

We continue to be committed to delivering a strong print portfolio across our regional dailies and the NZ Herald, alongside our newspaper-inserted magazines, Boggs told staff.

Print continues to be a critical part of our business, delivering an important source of news for our readers and a high-quality advertising channel for our clients. Its vital we continue to operate a sustainable media business and do what we can to invest in areas that are going to grow and put NZME into a good position well into the future.

Medias tough year

The proposed closures are the latest to hit New Zealand media.

Warner Bros Discoverys Newshub shut down in July, with the loss of hundreds of jobs and TVNZ has been making consistent cuts, with a latest proposal to axe 50 roles across its operation. By the end of the year, the state broadcasters staff numbers are expected to number about 550  almost 200 fewer than two years ago.

MediaWorks closed Today FM last year and it, Stuff and NZME have all been making operational cuts this year. Stuff has also closed several community titles.

A string of independent operators, including Crux and a number of magazines, have also been cut back or closed entirely.

A glimmer of hope?

Wairoa Star saviours: Tatau Tatau o Te Wairoa Trust chief executive Lewis Ratapu (left) and Tatau Tatau Commercial chief executive Aayden Clarke.

There might be a glimmer of hope for some regions after what unfolded in Wairoa earlier this year.

One of New Zealands oldest community newspapers, the Wairoa Star, was closed in May, but it has since been resurrected.

The 103-year-old Wairoa Star newspaper  which was owned by a consortium including NZME and The Gisborne Herald  was later bought by local iwi and kahui representative group Tatau Tatau o Te Wairoa through its commercial entity.

Tatau Tatau Commercial chief executive Aayden Clarke told Media Insider in September that the closure of the Star in May came as a bit of a shock to the community, for Tatau Tatau and even personally for me  I used to be a paper boy when I think I was 11 years old.

Its a huge pillar of our communications across the region.

There would have been some hell of a tough times for this newspaper over the past century  people coming back from war, tough economic times and things like that. Why would we let it fold on our watch? Weve got to do the very best we can to make it survive, but also so we can get our communications out.

It remains to be seen whether any similar white knights will make a similar move on any of the 14 titles proposed for closure by NZME.

Weve not yet explored selling publications, an NZME spokeswoman said. We wanted to speak with our teams first before deciding the way forward, as this is still in proposal stage.

-Katikati Advertiser
In a free public panel discussion at the University of Waikato Tauranga campus this month, geographers from Aotearoa and abroad will explore the impact place naming has on a communitys sense of identity.

Attendees can expect to hear the perspectives of geographers hailing from Aotearoa, Ireland and Australia on the international, historical, cultural and political impacts of place naming and its critical role in shaping the identity of towns, cities, regions and nations.

Professor of Geography Lynda Johnston says the university is pleased to invite the community to learn more about the many facets of geography as a subject, as well as bring special attention to the power and process of place naming.

We are excited to be hosting a national conference at our Tauranga campus and to be able to offer an opportunity for the community to come and learn more about the diverse matters that geographers explore. Geography is one of humanitys big projects, and the conference reflects our need for knowledge of people and places both near and far, said Johnston.

The public lecture is being hosted in celebration of 100 years of Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa, the New Zealand Geographic Board, and is part of the New Zealand Geographical Society Conference being held at the universitys Tauranga campus.

The conference will attract more than 200 geography researchers, lecturers, teachers, students and practitioners from around the world to the Bay of Plenty, where they will discuss matters including environmental crises, global change, alternative economies, indigenous geographies, health and social justice.



The University of Waikato Tauranga campus. Supplied photo.

The conference site of Tauranga Moana has prompted the conference theme Fluid Geographies and Professor Johnston hopes conference attendees will enjoy its beautiful coastal location.

Conference attendees will have the opportunity to learn about the Port of Tauranga, as ports play important roles in the socio-economic development of cities, regions and countries.

The Port of Tauranga is Aotearoas largest and has a significant impact on both land and sea geographies.

We want to really highlight to our international guests the geography of Tauranga Moana and the Bay of Plenty. Its a real privilege to be hosting talented people in our city and we look forward to showing them the best it has to offer.

The free public panel discussion is taking place at 9am on Friday, November 22, at the Universitys Durham St campus and interested attendees can register via Eventbrite.
Unsettled weather is the main theme for much of New Zealand over the next few days, with conditions clearing up during Saturday and Sunday as a couple of southerly pushes move up the country.

MetService meteorologist Dom Barry said that this moist and muggy weather we have been having, and will continue to have for at least the rest of today, is due to a mature low pressure system in the Tasman Sea, which we call a 'Tasman Sea Special'."

This weather system is expected to bring heavy rain, reaching warning amounts for the likes of the Westland ranges, the ranges of the Tasman District west of Motueka, and the Bryant and Richmond Ranges from today.

Heading into Friday, near warning amounts are expected in northern Taranaki, Waitomo and across to the Central Plateau.

Northland and Auckland are also in store for their fair share of rainfall, with a Heavy Rain Watch issued for Northland on Friday. Things begin to ease on Friday evening, with Coldplay concert goers likely to see a dry end to the night.

Rain is the main theme for the North Island on Friday, meanwhile a southerly push brings showers to the eastern South Island.

Some of these showers could be heavy and thundery for inland Canterbury and northern Otago during Friday afternoon and evening.

Heading into Saturday, that showery southerly continues up the eastern South Island, moving onto the eastern North Island, while the western coasts get a reprieve from the rain.

After a damp start to the Canterbury Anniversary Weekend some drier and brighter, but cooler weather returns for Sunday.

Sunday is the weather spring clean day, said Barry.

After the southerly comes through, a ridge moves over Aotearoa New Zealand and settled weather dominates.

A few lingering showers ease in Hawkes Bay and Gisborne, while another band of showers moves north onto Coromandel, eastern Auckland, and Northland. Overall, Sunday is the outdoor day for the greatest portion of the country.

A temperature rollercoaster is ahead for most of the country.

Overnight temperatures tonight (Thursday) are generally above average, with 18 degrees expected for parts of Northland and Auckland. Mid-to-late teens are expected for just about everywhere else  its going to be a warm and muggy night, said Barry.

This all changes as we head into Saturday as behind the southerly change, maximum temperatures plummet in the South Island to the early teens, with minimums of less than 5 degrees for some places.

Some of the rain with the change may fall as snow on the highest peaks in Otago and southern Canterbury High Country, adds Barry. The temperatures continue to fall in the North Island as the front passes through on Sunday.

Quite an unsettled and weather filled week for most  theres something for everyone, and a settled Sunday for most to finish off the week.
More than 350 migrants and their families have been welcomed on to Maungatapu Marae in Tauranga.

The Powhiri for Migrants to the Bay of Plenty event was held on Saturday, a joint initiative between Ngai Te Rangi and Multicultural Tauranga.

Families spent time learning about Maori culture and eating hangi and traditional food they brought to share, a Ngai Te Rangi statement said.

They also enjoyed a kapa haka performance, tukutuku weaving, poi making, and other activities.

Representatives took to the stage to showcase their cultures with song and dance and gave speeches in their language.

Multicultural Tauranga president Premila DMello said the event was absolutely amazing and fantastic.



Hundreds of migrants were welcomed on to the Maungatapu Marae. Photo / Tessa Chrisp Photography

By sharing our cultures, art and traditions, we enrich the tapestry of the community.

I dont know everybody here. Theyve just heard about it and come to it so its brought people together.

She likened the experience to putting a plant in the ground.

This is us getting rooted and planted. You have given us turangawaewae, a place to stand and we are honoured and humbled by it at the same time.

Mohamed Amin, part of the Bangladesh Association of Bay of Plenty which has more than 500 members, said it was his first time on a marae.

Its beautiful and I feel so pleased and proud to be here.

Association press secretary Tanvir Tanin said the event showcased a lot of cultures and unity which was really awesome.

Vic Petilla from the Philippines said its community was growing.

He moved to Tauranga in 2018 and worked in information technology but said Filipinos had jobs in various industries.

Dipika Patel said her journey to New Zealand started 25 years ago and the kiwifruit industry in particular had provided many opportunities for people from India in the Bay of Plenty.

She said the event was very representative of their culture.

It is a very good embracing (Maori) culture and being accepting of each others good and bad.

Fungai Mhlanga, originally from Zimbabwe and immigrating to New Zealand in 2006, encouraged fellow migrants to discover more about the Maori history, the Treaty of Waitangi and te reo Maori.

We should not live in isolation. Lets connect with tangata whenua and continue to grow relationships.

Journey of understanding

Western Bay of Plenty mayor James Denyer said it was important to support the migrant community and help them on the journey of understanding Maori and Pakeha culture.

Denyer said he had given some citizenships to people in the crowd and it was nice to keep in contact and support them.

Tauranga City Council diversity and culture advisor Haidee Kalirai told the crowd, we really feel the significance of this day and what it represents.

Today is an important day for our recent arrivals, and its also a reminder of the deep respect we hold for te tangata whenua, the people of the land. Aotearoa, a welcoming place for all.



Ngai Te Rangi master of ceremonies Reon Tuanau. Photo / Tessa Chrisp Photography

Your journeys have brought you here from diverse places, each with unique cultures, stories and aspirations. Here in this place, you bring your strengths, your dreams, your energy, which enrich the Tauranga community.

Ngai Te Rangi deputy chief executive Roimata Ah Sam said the day was about mana whenua to mana whenua welcoming people who have come here from other lands to give them a sense of belonging.

What this starts showing is that we are good people and our intent is to live harmoniously with everyone. It breaks down barriers and lets them know we are not these frightful, terrifying natives who dont want you here.

Ah Sam said the iwi was focused on practising the Treaty of Waitangi and our responsibility as kaitiaki (guardians).

Some of the migrants on the day had lived in Tauranga Moana 20 years and never stepped foot on a marae, she said.

That is the normal part of our ecosystem and were welcoming people here so they get a better understanding of who we are and how to live together cohesively. It is better to know your friendly neighbour rather to fear the unknown enemy.

It was particularly important in these times when Maori were often portrayed as divisive or not wanting anything to do with Pakeha.

But its the opposite. We want people to respect Tauranga Moana, the place they now call their new home and come with the understanding theyre welcomed.

Ngai Te Rangi master of ceremonies Reon Tuanau said it was about acknowledging we are all in this world together.

He said Tauranga meant anchorage, a fishing ground and a place to land and many people had made that journey.
A Spanish early childhood educator living in Tauranga is raising money for pre-schoolers affected by her home countrys worst natural disaster in modern history.

More than 220 people died in flooding caused by a massive storm that hit Valencia in the last week of October.

Eighty people are still missing, thousands have lost their homes and two weeks on, streets in many areas are still covered in mud and debris.

Arataki resident Nerea Aller, who has been living in New Zealand for six years, is from northern Spain but visited the devastated eastern region just two months ago.

I have friends there and I know teachers in some of the early childhood centres, said Aller.



Inside early childhood centres in Valencia that are badly damaged by the floods. Photo: supplied.

Survival mode

Her ties to Valencia inspired her to help three ECE centres and their families.

Theyre in survival mode over there, said Aller. Water smashed everything against the walls; baby cots are broken and toys are under mud.

The schools are mostly on ground level and the floods reached up to the first floor of the buildings. Cars were like boats, floating away. Some people feel positive, but others are crying about what theyve lost, so I want to do something for them.



Inside early childhood centres in Valencia that are badly damaged by the floods. Photo: supplied.

Aller is the founder of online holistic childcare resource, Manawa Education, and has already raised $2000 through her blog. Shes now appealing to Bay of Plenty businesses in her adopted community to help put on an event to raise more.

It touches my heart to see so many families affected in my home country, said Aller. As a professional in this industry, I know that its not just about the childhood centre, its about the community and the relationships it creates.

The disaster has caused tension for these families and added to that, the safe space that they leave their children every day is gone. Theyve lost that routine and the safety but we can help them rebuild.



Inside early childhood centres in Valencia that are badly damaged by the floods. Photo: supplied.

Full moon concert

Those keen can show their support for those affected by the Valencia disaster by attending a full moon concert from 5.30pm on Sunday, November 17 at The Barn, Mount Maunganui.

Anyone willing to donate services to the fundraiser can email Nerea Aller at nerealler@gmail.com

To donate directly to the Valencia appeal, visit: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/ece-dana-valencia
Fuel removal from the sunken New Zealand navy ship HMNZS Manawanui which ran aground in Samoa last month is almost underway.

The New Zealand Defence Force said in its latest update that its contract with the salvor was almost finalised and the ship's main fuel tanks remain intact.

Commodore Andrew Brown said removing the fuel would be a complex task and it signalled the next phase in the recovery.

"Once the fuel removal contract has been finalised, the salvor will be mobilising equipment and personnel to Samoa to remove the fuel and other pollutants from the ship."

Brown said Samoan authorities have signed off on the methodology.

Navy personnel have been assigned to help with removing fuel, and the Defence Force said it will remain in Samoa until all aspects of Manawanui's recovery were complete.

The recovery process has been underway since the navy vessel sank after hitting a reef in Samoa in early October.

The 75 passengers and crew onboard were evacuated into life rafts in a move that authorities said likely prevented loss of life.

In the weeks that followed, concerns were raised about the environmental impact of the sunken vessel, with the ship's fuel tanks a primary focus of concern.

Residents had been reporting an oil-like substance and rubbish in the water around the wreck, and local conservationists have called for its removal in order to preserve the delicate ecosystem.

Last month, a warning was issued to residents on the southwest coast of Upolu, telling them not to eat fish from the area, and Samoan government representatives have called for financial compensation from Wellington.

The New Zealand Defence Force has said [. https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/532554/salvage-company-assessing-how-to-extract-fuel-from-manawanui removing the fuel tanks was a priority], and its teams on the ground were focused on protecting the environment.

Three shipping containers that came to rest on the coral reef, and were causing significant damage were removed by the end of October.

Commodore Brown said it was a complex task that took four days to complete.

"The containers were a priority ... because they were moving on the reef," he said.

Interim Court of Inquiry report into HMNZS Manawanui sinking received

Chief of Navy Rear Admiral Garin Golding said they had received the interim Court of Inquiry reporting into the sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui.

He said the court had made good progress with its investigations and was on track with evidence gathering.

The interim report was directed on what happened, but the final report would look at why the incident occurred and what lessons could be learnt, he said.

"The interim report will also undergo an independent King's Counsel legal review, and following that, we will look to release to the public later this month some of the key information about what happened."

The final report is expected to be completed around the end of February and to be released to the public by late March after it has been subjected to an independent legal review.
Whakatane Sportfishing Club senior members have overwhelmingly backed a plan to shift the clubs building away from the wharf to avoid the risk of future flooding and loss of insurance.

Club president Heyden Johnston said more than 100 people attended a meeting on Tuesday on the building's fate, with more than 80 percent of votes supporting shifting the building at its address at 2 The Strand.

The club will be moved west of its current position, and further back from the wharf, in front of the current carpark entrance.

It will also be raised so the floor level will be higher than a new floodwall to be built by Bay of Plenty Regional Council.

The council is building the floodwall as part of its multistage Project Futureproof, which aims to boost flood defences for Whakatanes town centre.

The stage of the project affecting the club is expected to take place late next year.

Johnston said the floor level of the club would be 1.2 metres higher than it is now.

A sign with a red mark showing the floor level of the Whakatane Sportfishing Club, erected on the wharf outside club, shows that not everyone is convinced the fishing club needs to be moved. Photo Troy Baker

The cost of moving the club would be less than $2.5 million.

Club members told Local Democracy Reporting that Whakatane District Council, which owns the land, would need to pay $1.6 million towards the relocation due to a clause in the ground lease.

The councils strategic property manager Vanessa Fergusson said negotiations with the club were ongoing, but confirmed the council needed to compensate the building owner on termination of the lease.

Since the terms of the lease and any potential compensation are commercially sensitive, its our practice to keep these discussions confidential.

"We can however advise the community that there will be no rating impact as a result of any compensation council is required to pay.

Johnston said the council had also agreed, if required, to help fund the move through a loan.

This is consistent with a letter from Ms Fergusson to Mr Johnston disclosing decisions made at a public-excluded meeting on October 17, made available on the clubs website.

The club has been in discussions with the council over arrangements for renewal of its long-term ground lease since April.

Johnston said there had been an option for the club to stay in its current position and for the regional council to build the floodwall along the back of the club, following the course of the current wall.

This would have left the club unprotected from floods.

Johnston said staying outside the floodwall would have resulted in the eventual demise of the club.

That opportunity did exist but it posed a significant amount of risk to the club and its ability to have a future.

He said the highest risk to the club was its ability to obtain insurance.

If we werent able to obtain insurance in the future, because of the location and the risk to the club, then that would have been it, wed have been all over.

A Powerpoint presentation at a special meeting at the Whakatane Sportfishing Club by president Heyden Johnston showed the proposed new location of the club, an area currently occupied by a council-owned former wharfshed building. The green line depicts the possible new flood wall location. Image supplied

Other disadvantages presented to members at Tuesdays meeting were not being able to renew a long-term lease on the land, potential for flooding and inability to lease equipment and apply for grants.

The plan to reposition the club would allow the wall to be built right through the area where the club, and the neighbouring council-owned building, currently stands.

He said the repositioned club would be an asset for the whole Whakatane community.

What the community will get from this is a fantastic area for everybody.

A steering committee would be created to take control of the repositioning.

Then we begin the exciting process of growing this club and making it the best club in New Zealand, he said.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
Hikoi mo te Tiriti protesters are marching up Rotoruas Fenton St this morning

The protest moves to Hawkes Bay next before making its way to Parliament on Tuesday

Acts Treaty Principles Bill passed its first reading in Parliament on Thursday with support from National, Act and NZ First.

10.36am: Joel Masters from pounamu (greenstone) store on Fenton St Rakei ran up to Rawiri Waititi as the hikoi passed to present him with a mere pounamu.

He said he told Waititi he would like him to take it with him to Parliament on Tuesday when the hikoi arrives.

He said the mere was to enrich the kaupapa to signify their stance.

Joel Masters hugs Rawiri Waititi as he presents him with a mere. Photo / Kelly Makiha

10.27am: Rotorua man Julian Ngatai brought 10 children from the Ngatai-Holmes whanau ranging in ages from 5 to 13.

Its important because its is the future of our kids. Taking that away from us is jeopardising us as Maori.

While he said it was a great turnout despite the rain, he said there were plenty more who could have come.

Julian Ngatai (orange jacket) with his whanau at the hikoi. Photo / Kelly Makiha

10.12am: Veteran Maori activist Tame Iti is part of the hikoi and is carrying a Tuhoe flag.

Veteran Maori activist Tame Iti is part of the hikoi. Photo / Kelly Makiha

10.03am: The crowd is slowly moving up Fenton St to the sound of haka and chanting.

9.59am: Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell said this was the biggest protest in living memory.

We are joined by so many locals. It is great to be here with my family to support the values of partnerships and Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the significant contribution of Maori past and present.

9.47am: The hikoi has got under way led by Maori warriors, with kapa haka exponent Tukiterangi Curtis leading the group.

Te Pati Maori leader Rawiri Waititi reminded the crowd before they left, the hikoi is Tiriti-led and Maori focused.

Look after each other.

The hikoi preparing to leave the Village Green. Photo / Kelly Makiha

9.45am: The hikoi is preparing to leave.

9.36am: Former Waiariki MP Tamati Coffey is part of the hikoi carrying a flag that says: Dont blame me, I voted Labour.

He said it was hard to watch all of their hard work dismantle under the current Government.

The things we worked so hard on, Maori wards, changes to Maori health authority, one by one it is being dismantled. It is about the dismantling of the mana that has gone with that.

Former Waiariki MP Tamati Coffey pictured with his daughter Taitimu. Photo / Kelly Makiha

9.32am: The hikoi will be led down Fenton St by Maori warriors.

The hikoi will be lead by Maori warriors. Photo / Kelly Makiha

9.28am: Traffic is heavy coming into Rotorua on State Highway 36.

9.22am: The last living designer of the Tino Rangatiratanga flag, Linda Munn from Papamoa, said it was a proud day to see the flag flying.

It makes me feel like our people are feeling empowered and have a voice.

She said Maori were feeling concerned.

We arent here for a picnic. We are trying to keep our culture and our language. Who are those people down there (in Wellington) to say we cant live the way we truly are?

The last living designer of the Tino Rangatiratanga flag, Linda Munn from Papamoa. Photo / Kelly Makiha

Protesters on horseback gather at Rotorua's Village Green. Photo / Kelly Makiha

8.56am: Hundreds of protesters are starting to gather at the Village Green waving flags and banners. Those taking part include about 10 protesters on horseback.

Hikoi mo te Tiriti protesters have started gathering at Rotorua's Village Green ahead of this mornings march. Photo / Ben Fraser

8.53am: The GHA building on Fenton St, diagonally opposite the Village Green, showed its support for the hikoi with Maori flags flying. The building houses Glenn Hawkins and Associates  a Maori accounting and consulting firm.

The GHA building on Fenton St showing their support with flags in their windows. Photo / Kelly Makiha

Earlier:

Hikoi mo te Tiriti protesters have started gathering in central Rotorua ahead of this mornings march.

The protest is expected to start at the Rotorua Village Green at 10am and head along Fenton St to the Te Puia overflow carpark by about noon, where a car convoy would set off towards Heretaunga.

A Rotorua Lakes Council spokesman said the council was co-ordinating with police and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency on traffic management related to the hikoi.

It was also delivering flyers to businesses along the hikoi notifying them of the anticipated disruptions as it travels up Fenton St.

Thousands of marchers were in Auckland on Wednesday and Hamilton yesterday before the convoy descended on Rotorua on Thursday afternoon for a pohiri at Apumoana Marae.

It comes as Parliament was briefly suspended on Thursday after a haka by Te Pati Maori MPs interrupted the first reading of the contentious Treaty Principles Bill.

It also resulted in Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee naming Te Pati Maori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke as the instigator as the House voted to suspend her.

The official vote for the Treaty Principles Bill took place and has passed its first reading as expected with support from National, NZ First and Act.

Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Maori did not support it.

National had already committed to not support the Bill at the second reading.

Purpose of hikoi to activate the nation

Te Pati Maori vice-president Fallyn Flavell, a hikoi organiser, told the Rotorua Daily Post that it was hard to say exactly how many people would arrive in Rotorua on Thursday as numbers had fluctuated from place to place.

The number expected to join the hikoi march through Rotorua would depend on personal circumstances, weather and other factors.

Flavell said the purpose of the 2024 hikoi was to activate the nation against the bill and show the kotahitanga (unity) of, firstly, Maori and, secondly, of the country as people stood together against the proposed changes.

The Treaty Principles Bill serves no purpose in a country thats leading the way for indigenous rights across the world.

Visiting hikoi participants would stay at marae across Rotorua.

Te Pati Maori member Merepeka Raukawa-Tait said she was sure Rotorua would give the hikoi a warm and supportive welcome to the city.

Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell said she had not yet been contacted by the hikoi organisers as they focused on the proposed policy change, which she viewed as disappointing and unnecessarily divisive.

She expected many Rotorua locals would join the movement to show their support for the founding document of our country, as well as the principles of partnership within it.

In Rotorua, we will be continuing our strong and beneficial relationship with our local iwi and hapu as we respect our obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the valuable contribution of Maori to our past, present, and future.

Seymour previously said in a press release the bill would not change the Treaty itself, only how it was interpreted in law.

The purpose of the Treaty Principles Bill is for Parliament to define the principles of the Treaty, provide certainty and clarity, and promote a national conversation about their place in our constitutional arrangements.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Commitment to the sustainable development of Azerbaijan's banking sector will be announced today, the Chairman of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan Taleh Kazimov said at a panel discussion on Global Financial System: Scaling Up Financing for Climate Action, Trend reports.

President of the Azerbaijan Banks Association, Zakir Nuriyev, on behalf of the entire banking sector, will announce a commitment to sustainable development after the second meeting today. I am confident that this commitment will mobilize the resources of the banking sector for green and sustainable finance across our economy, he said.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
Confusion and Questions Remain for Project and Other Village Issues

LODGEPOLE--What started some time ago with an alert concerning high arsenic levels in drinking water moved on to a new 150,000-gallon Water Tower, an attempt to link the existing and new water towers into one system, and then utilizing both the new 150,000-gallon tank and the existing 30,000-gallon tank. USDA Grants provided at the beginning of the decade started a project that ran into problems and has caused division among some of the residents of Lodgepole. The Sun-Telegraph has spoken with some of the people involved in the matter, and with some residents who have expressed concerns about...
Open Position Sparks Heated Controversy

SIDNEY--It's been said that "Elections have consequences", and one victory in the 2024 election is causing controversy as it results in an open City Council seat in Sidney. Vice-Mayor Paul Strommen ran for and won the District 47 State Senate seat on Election Day, and will have to resign his position on the Sidney City Council to take on his role of representing Nebraska's 47th district. However, with that resignation, a City Council seat will become open, and there has been some controversy about how that seat gets filled.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Within the framework of COP29, Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov met with Moldovan Energy Minister Victor Parlicov. The meeting discussed current issues on the bilateral energy agenda, Trend reports, citing the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan.

The possibilities for expanding cooperation in the field of renewable energy sources, energy efficiency and energy regulation were assessed. It was agreed to sign memorandums of cooperation in the field of energy efficiency, promotion of renewable energy sources and energy regulation.

Minister Parviz Shahbazov also met with the Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development of Morocco, Leila Benali. The meeting discussed the development of the energy sector in both countries and the experience of transition to "green" energy. The potential for cooperation in the field of renewable energy, gas infrastructure and promising projects was discussed. Support was also expressed for the COP29 energy initiatives.
Rome, N.Y.  A man who the Onieda County Sheriffs Office has been investigating for several months was arrested Wednesday on charges of rape and criminal sex acts, deputies said.

Mackenzie Mantelli, 35, was accused of having sexual contact with a girl who was less than 17 years old, according to the Oneida County Sheriffs Office.

In July, the sheriffs office and Rome police started investigating a report that a girl had been subjected to sexual contact starting in January 2023. Mantelli was later revealed as the person who sexually abused the girl, they said.

Mantelli was indicted by a grand jury on charges of rape, criminal sex act and endangering the welfare of a child. The Oneida County Court issued a warrant for Mantelli and he was arrested Wednesday.

Mantelli was arraigned in Oneida County Court, and he is being held in the Oneida County Jail on $20,000 bail.

Staff writer Timia Cobb covers breaking news. Have a tip, a story idea, a question or a comment? You can reach her at tcobb@syracuse.com.
Clay, N.Y.  A contractor with three criminal cases pending in the Capital Region is now accused of stealing from a Bayberry homeowner.

Dakota A. Smith, 29, allegedly accepted a $5,525 down payment for home improvement work he never performed, troopers said in a criminal complaint filed in Clay town court. He was charged Nov. 5 with third-degree grand larceny.

Prosecutor Peter Hakes said investigators are working to understand the work Smith did, or did not do, in Onondaga County. He said troopers have a continuing investigation into Smith and potential additional victims.

The new charge adds to Smiths legal troubles. He currently has pending criminal cases in Albany, Greene and Saratoga counties.

Smith pleaded guilty in July to second-degree grand larceny after pocketing most of the $100,000 he was paid to renovate a home, according to the Greene County District Attorneys Office. He had been scheduled to be sentenced last month in that case.

In Albany County, Smith allegedly accepted $39,000 to renovate a home, but never did the work, the county sheriff told the Albany Times Union. He was arrested last month and charged with third-degree grand larceny.

Smith pleaded guilty this fall in Saratoga County to third-degree grand larceny, records show. He is scheduled to be sentenced in January.

Hakes said local prosecutors plan to coordinate their efforts with other officials investigating Smith.

Hakes said it is too early to say whether prosecutors will seek certain penalties from a judge, such as banning Smith from future contract work.

If he ends up in a prison sentence in one or more counties, Hakes said, he will probably be unable to work as a contractor.

Smith also faces two civil lawsuits from homeowners who say he took their money but did not complete agreed-upon renovations.

Smith previously served about a year in state prison after he and his mother took more than a million dollars from her employer, the East Syracuse-based New York State Weatherization Directors Association.

He is being held on no bail in the Onondaga County Justice Center jail, records show.

Troopers ask anyone with information about Smith to call them at 315-366-6000 and refer to case NY2400786199.

Staff writer Jon Moss covers breaking news, crime and public safety. He can be reached at jmoss@syracuse.com or @mossjon7.
Employees abandoned their post at a car rental company at the Syracuse airport, leading to chaos, according to a new report.

CBS News reports the bizarre incident occurred at Syracuse Hancock International Airport this past summer. Hertz staff walked away from their desk, leaving at least 20 customers to fend for themselves when they showed up to pick up their reserved vehicles.

Their solution? Take any car you can find keys for, apparently.

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston confirmed to CBS that he was among the group of travelers who showed up when the rental car company was closed on July 20. Johnston said he was there to take his son to a summer program in Syracuse and had a reservation with Hertz, but no employees were at the counter.

So we took one we thought was for us, the Denver mayor said. There were a bunch of folks picking up cars... But not the right cars.

Johnston said they looked around and found Hertz cars with keys in them and drove away. Johnston told CBS he later found out he took the wrong car and returned it, exchanging it for another.

A complaint filed with the airport similarly said other customers with pre-booked reservations looked through cars in the Hertz section of the garage and just took random cars that had keys in them.

The Syracuse Regional Airport Authority said a review of security camera footage showed Hertz staff left the rental counter at 7:13 p.m., more than six hours before they were supposed to leave. Airport officials said they tried to call and text local Hertz workers but received no response, according to CBS.

One employee returned at 8:25 p.m. but left again 16 minutes later, a report from the airport authority said. Per the rental agencys contract with the airport, staff were required to be on duty until at least 1:28 a.m., an hour after the days last flight arrived.

Jamie Line, director of external communications for Hertz, told syracuse.com | The Post-Standard that the employees were fired shortly after the company learned of the incident.

We regret the unfortunate situation that impacted several customers at our Syracuse Airport location in July. The employees on duty were immediately terminated and we resumed normal operations the next day. We are committed to providing an exceptional car rental experience at Syracuse Airport and across our entire network of locations, Line said in a statement.

The airport authority told syracuse.com | The Post-Standard in a statement that it responded immediately after learning of the incident.

Syracuse Regional Airport Authority takes all passenger service matters very seriously, it said. When our team became aware of the incident involving the unstaffed Hertz rental counter in July, our team responded immediately in an attempt to assist affected passengers and gain support from the onsite Hertz team.

The authority said it conducted follow-up discussions with the area vice president for Hertz to address expectations, contractual obligations, and the importance of providing a first-class rental experience for our travelers.

Hertz did not provide any other details, but the incident occurred a day after a global technology outage disrupted flights at the Syracuse airport and other businesses in Central New York and beyond. Hertz told CNN that its systems were not affected by the July 19 outage, but the company saw an influx in customers as travel was affected along the East Coast, leading to some employees working longer hours that day.

Hertz is one of six car rental companies at the Syracuse airport, along with Alamo/National, Avis, Budget, Dollar, and Enterprise. Airport statistics show July is the busiest month of the year at Hancock, with nearly 10,000 passengers a day in July 2024.

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New Yorks most popular hunting season begins on Saturday, Nov. 16, with opening day of the regular firearms season for deer and bear in the Southern Zone, which runs through Dec. 8.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation estimates 470,000 licensed hunters will take to the woods and fields during the regular big game season, accounting for 60 percent of the total statewide deer harvest, and 30 to 60 percent of the statewide bear harvest.

Hunters harvested 209,781 deer during the 2023-24 hunting seasons, according to DEC. That total represents a 3.6 percent decrease in antlered buck harvest statewide, and a steep 15.6 percent decrease in antlerless deer.

The number of deer harvests reported by hunters so far this season is on par with last year in both the Northern and Southern Zone, DEC said, though the percentage of hunters reporting their kills is unknown.

Example of deer afflicted with Chronic Wasting Disease in Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources photo).al.com

CWD detection

Following an isolated detection of Chronic Wasting Disease at a captive deer facility in southern Herkimer County, DEC is asking hunters in the area be on the lookout for deer behaving strangely. Furthermore, DEC is requesting successful deer hunters in the area to submit the deers head to DEC for CWD testing.

Back tags

Back tags are a thing of the past and are no longer required anywhere in the state. But this is the first year that hunting licenses and tags are being printed on plain paper, either at the license issuer or your home printer. Its your responsibility to protect licenses and tags.

Carcass tags must still be filled out, dated, signed, and attached to the animal as required by regulation. DEC suggests storing licenses and tags in a waterproof bag or container while hunting and placing the completed carcass tag in a zip-top sandwich bag and securely fastening it to the deer, bear, or turkey to ensure the tag remains protected and legible.

Check out DECs website for a full breakdown of New Yorks hunting seasons.

Rifles in Onondaga County

Just a reminder that big game hunters in Onondaga County finally got the greenlight to hunt with a rifle last year. Onondaga was the last Central New York county to allow rifles for big game hunting. For the first time this season, big game hunters can use rifles in Niagara County.

In 2021, an Adirondack hunter was injured when his tree stand collapsed

Tree stand safety

DEC keeps track of what it calls elevated hunting incidents (EHIs), or falls from tree stands, which it says are underreported. Eight EHIs were reported in 2023, down from 13 the previous year. None were fatal.

Hunters were not wearing a safety harness in five of the EHIs, and in two cases hunters wore harnesses unconnected to the tree.

Most tree stand accidents occur when hunters are climbing in and out of the stand. Never climb in or out of your tree stand with a loaded firearm. Used correctly, a full body harness and a lifeline will keep you connected to the tree at all times.

Hunter related shooting incidents

There were 12 hunter-related shooting incidents during the 2023 hunting seasons, tying with 2019 for the second-fewest HRSIs on record.

The 12 HRSIs in 2023 include six two-party firearm incidents and six self-inflicted incidents. Two were fatal, including one incident resulting from hauling a loaded firearm into a tree stand, and one caused by carrying a loaded firearm while dragging a deer out of the woods.

Statistics show hunting in New York is safer than ever. Still, hunters make mistakes. It never hurts to review the four golden rules of hunter safety before heading into the woods.

Point your gun in a safe direction

Treat every gun as if it were loaded

Be sure of your target and beyond

Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot

Patience paid off for Brantley Cali, 12, who harvested an eight-pointer during the Columbus Day weekend youth huntAmanda Cali

Youth hunters, hunting hours, safety rules

The pilot youth hunting season begun in 2021 has been extended through 2025. That means 12- and 13-year-old hunters can hunt deer with a firearm when accompanied by a licensed, experienced adult. All upstate counties opted into this pilot program, with the exception of Erie and Rockland counties.

Daily hunting hours for deer and bear include the full daylight period, beginning 30 minutes before legal sunrise and continuing until 30 minutes after legal sunset. Be sure to check the sunrise and sunset times before hunting each day.

Wearing blaze orange or pink is required for hunting big game with firearms. Hunters wearing blaze orange are seven times less likely to be shot.

Houndsmen would be wise to dress their dogs in blaze orange, pink, or another bright color.

Take It  Tag It  Report It

By law hunters are required to report their deer, bear, or turkey harvest within seven days. Its critical to effective wildlife management, and DEC has made it easier than ever with its HuntFishNY mobile app.

You can still use DECs phone report system (1-866-GAME-RPT) or report online.

Stop Chronic Wasting Disease

As previously noted, New York recently recorded its first CWD detection since 2005 in southern Herkimer County. CWD is always fatal to deer, spreads rapidly, and is practically impossible to eliminate once its established.

Hunters can help protect the states deer herd from CWD by following these tips:

If you hunt any type of deer, elk, moose, or caribou outside of New York, you must debone your animal before bringing it back. See CWD Regulations for Hunters . DEC will confiscate and destroy illegally imported carcasses and parts, including whole deer and deer heads

Do not use deer urine-based lures or attractant scents, as these could contain infectious biological material

Dispose of carcass waste in a landfill, dont just leave it on the ground

Report any deer that appears sick or is acting abnormally

Send us your big game pics!

Email them to sfeatherstone@syracuse.com. Hunter needs to be in the photo. Dont forget to give their name, and names of anyone else in the photo, including their hometowns, general location of where and how the animal was shot (bow, firearm, etc.), along with any measurements (weight/points/spread). Add a few interesting detailswe all love a good hunting story!



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Steve Featherstone covers the outdoors for The Post-Standard, syracuse.com and NYUP.com. Contact him at sfeatherstone@syracuse.com or on Twitter @featheroutdoors. You can also follow along with all of our outdoors content at newyorkupstate.com/outdoors/ or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/upstatenyoutdoors.
Brick, N.J.  New Jerseys governor declared a drought warning. Black Hawk helicopters scooped water from a lake to dump on a burning forest in New York state. A park in Manhattan caught fire. And authorities in two states revealed criminal charges Wednesday against people accused of setting some of the wildfires that have plagued the northeast U.S. in recent weeks.

The actions came as conditions in some northeast states are the driest theyve been in nearly 120 years as numerous wildfires continue to burn in places that havent seen significant rain since August. Meanwhile, dry conditions from coast to coast were contributing to the spread of wildfires, particularly in Southern California.

The drought declaration by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy asked people to take voluntary conservation steps, like shorter showers, turning the faucet off while brushing teeth, and waiting until the dishwasher is full to run it. But it stopped short of mandatory water usage restrictions, which would be included in the event of a drought emergency, the highest alert the government can impose.

New Jersey is not yet at the point where communities are in danger of running out of water for drinking or fighting fires. And the state wants to prevent things from reaching that point.

Please take this seriously, Murphy said. We have a very dry winter ahead of us.

The dry weather has brought a spate of brush and woodland fires to a part of the country that rarely has to deal with them on this level.

Firefighting crews continued efforts to contain a wildfire in a woodland on the New Jersey-New York border that has burned around 5,000 acres (7.8 square miles) in the two states.

No homes have been damaged, but Greg McLaughlin, an administrator with the New Jersey Forest Fire Service, said rugged hill terrain, coupled with few road access points, were making it difficult to fight the blaze from the ground. Water-dropping helicopters were being used in both states. And firefighters in New York took advantage of changing wind directions Wednesday by starting a controlled line of fires to burn away underbrush and leaves that could serve as fuel.

Around 30 miles away in New York City, a brush fire broke out in a park on the northern tip of Manhattan, sending smoke billowing across the Big Apple. The citys fire department has responded to a record number of brush fires over the past two weeks.

Due to a significant lack of rainfall, the threat of fast spreading brush fires fueled by dry vegetation and windy conditions pose a real threat to our members and our city, Fire Commissioner Robert S. Tucker said in a statement.

Late Wednesday, police in the Philadelphia suburb of Evesham Township said they had charged a juvenile with deliberately setting an Oct. 30 fire that burned less than a tenth of a square mile. The youth, whose age was not released, was arrested Nov. 7 and taken to a juvenile detention center.

On New Yorks Long Island, a 20-year-old volunteer firefighter was charged with intentionally setting a brush fire Tuesday that wound up damaging a parked car, the Suffolk County Police Department said in a news release.

Dry conditions from coast to coast were contributing to the spread of wildfires.

Across the country, California made good progress against a major wildfire in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, that broke out a week ago and quickly exploded in size because of dry Santa Ana winds. The Mountain fire was 60% contained on Wednesday.

The 32-square-mile (83-square-kilometer) fire forced thousands of residents to flee and has destroyed more than 215 structures, most of them houses, and damaged at least 210.

The fires in the Northeast havent caused major evacuations, but a Connecticut firefighter died battling a wildfire last month and the blaze on the New York-New Jersey border claimed the life of an 18-year-old New York state parks employee who was assisting firefighters last weekend.

Dry conditions in the northeast U.S. are a growing concern, not only for firefighting efforts but for the continued availability of drinking water.

Two major reservoirs in New Jersey were at 51% and 45% of capacity on Wednesday, enough to keep the taps flowing, but low enough to cause concern for what might happen with additional weeks or months of low rainfall. One river that is a supplemental source of drinking water was at 14% of normal.

September and October were the driest two-month period ever recorded in New Jersey. Since August, the state has received 2 inches (5 cm) of rain when it should have gotten a foot (0.3 meters). No significant rainfall was in the foreseeable forecast, officials said.

New York City issued a drought watch last week. Mayor Eric Adams mayor urged residents to take shorter showers, fix dripping faucets and otherwise conserve water.

Just 0.01 inches (0.02 centimeters) of rain fell last month on the citys Central Park, where October normally brings about 4.4 inches (11.2 centimeters) of precipitation. New York says it was the driest October in over 150 years.

Massachusetts declared a drought Tuesday after more than a month of decreased rainfall.

The ground is also bone-dry, McLaughlin added. This makes wildfires even more dangerous in that they can burn downward through dry soil and root systems, and endure for months.

On a ground dryness scale in which 800 is the highest possible score, New Jersey is at 748, meaning that the soil is dry almost 8 inches (20 centimeters) below the surface. That level had never before been reached, McLaughlin said.

A wildfire that broke out July 4 in New Jerseys Wharton State Forest by someone using illegal fireworks has long been considered contained. But it has been smoldering underground for four months and could reignite above ground, McLaughlin said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. As part of COP29 in Baku, Trend News Agency proudly presents COP for Hope, a special project offering an unparalleled platform to hear from world leaders and trailblazers in politics, economics, science, and ecology, all united by a shared commitment to addressing todays pressing climate challenges.

Today, we are honored to speak with Yingming Yang, ADB Vice-President for South, Central and West Asia.

In an exclusive interview with Trend, he pointed out that as the climate bank for Asia and the Pacific, ADB would first like to highlight that concrete actions need to be taken to address the climate crisis.

There is no Planet B. Our region is already experiencing its impact, with many of our client countries among the most vulnerable. We are glad that COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev has consistently expressed that the objective of the summit is to enhance ambition and enable global climate action, Yang added.

The ADB Vice-President said that some of the key ambitions of COP 29 are related to (i) negotiations and agreement on Climate Finance or the New Collective Quantified (financing) Goal (NCQG), (ii) final agreement on the methods for trading carbon credits under Article 6 (of the 2015 Paris Agreement) and the revitalization of Carbon markets (iii) Establishing goals and targets for transitioning away from fossil fuels (iv) the growth of the Loss and Damage fund.

These are not easy issues. Article 6 has taken 10 years to negotiate. We are very hopeful that under the leadership of Azerbaijan, meaningful progress will be made at the COP Summit, with clear plans of actions for 2025 and beyond, which ADB will continue to support. On climate finance specifically, in order to achieve tangible results, negotiators should remain focused on attracting needs-based financing i.e. financing that suits the needs of countries, said Yang.

He believes that it is also critical to establish transparency and accountability mechanisms to ensure finance is used effectively by the intended beneficiaries.

This also helps build trust and mobilize additional climate finance. ADB has recently launched a flagship report - The AsiaPacific Climate Report: Catalyzing Finance and Policy Solutions. This report is a tool for policy makers to understand how to finance adaptation needs, and how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the lowest cost, noted the ADB Vice-President.

ADBs support to Azerbaijans COP29 presidency

Yang said ADB appreciates Azerbaijans steadfast efforts in addressing climate change, and for the Government of Azerbaijans leadership in taking on the COP29 Presidency with its vision to enhance ambition and enable action for the conference.

I understand that government is actively working on making COP29 an excellent success for climate action and Azerbaijan. As the climate bank for Asia and the Pacific region, ADB has been proud to support the COP29 Presidency in both the negotiations track and Action Agenda and we are committed to continue providing end-to-end support to the COP Presidency. We are doing this through technical assistance which includes capacity building, advice, and knowledge support on the core issues for COP29, said ADBs Vice-President.

He recalled that since May 2024, ADB experts have been supporting the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources (MENR) in preparing the first National Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) for Azerbaijan required under the Paris Agreement.

ADB experts organized a workshop and provided hands-on support to carry out detailed data collection and validation of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory report and National Inventory Document (NID). We have been closely supporting the Article 6 negotiations team of the COP29 Presidency. Workshops have been organized for MENR and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to enable them in navigating international negotiations to be undertaken in run up to and at COP29 to fully operationalize Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, said the VP.

He went on to add that ADB is also working closely with the COP29 Presidency on several Action Agenda initiatives across various sectors, including Just transition, Urban, and Human development, such as Education, Health and Green skills.

ADB has worked closely with the COP29 Presidency on developing the Baku Principles on Human development for Climate Resilience. ADB will also be launching a number of our own initiatives during COP29 in alignment with COP29 Presidencys Action Agenda, including a Climate and Education Playbook and ADB Climate & Health portal. ADB-led initiatives on just transition, NDC 3.0, Article 6, Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM), Nature Solution Finance Hub for Asia and the Pacific, Community Resilience Partnership Program, Climate and Health Initiative will be showcased at COP29, he said.

Plans for signing documents at COP29

There are a number of initiatives that ADB will launch and agreements that ADB will sign, announced Yang.

These include the launch of the CAREC Climate Change Action Plan (2024-2027). The CAREC Secretariat, hosted by ADB, has engaged closely on the COP29 Baku Initiative for Climate Finance, Investment and Trade. The CAREC Partnership co-hosted by Azerbaijans Ministry of Economy and ADB will take place on Finance Day (Nov 14th). The Climate Change Action Plan was presented for endorsement at the 23rd CAREC Ministerial Conference on 8 November in Astana, Kazakhstan Climate Change Action Plan (CCCAP) implements key steps and recommendations identified by the CAREC Climate Change Vision.

The Action Plan, covering 2024-2027, seeks to prioritize regional climate adaptation and mitigation projects and initiatives across CAREC clusters and strengthen coordination among development partners to increase and optimize resources in support to regional climate actions, the VP explained.

Second, as Yang said, ADB and the Green Climate Fund will launch a Glaciers Study, with the support of a number of countries including the Government of Azerbaijan ADB, in close coordination with Central West countries, prepared a regional proposal on Glaciers to Farms (G2F) for Green Climate Fund (GCF) Board consideration in 2025.

The proposal covers water, agriculture, and social sectors and aims to access GCFs financing for adaptation and resilience for the region, including Azerbaijan. Intervention areas include landscape management, reservoir development, mountain cities resilience, climate information, technology and digitalization, social protection, and infrastructure. GCF support for a glaciers study under the Project Preparatory Facility (PPF) is planned to be launched by ADB and GCF with Central West Asia DMCs, including Azerbaijan, at COP29, he said.

The VP noted that ADB is also signing financing agreements with the private sector for 2 Solar projects at COP29.

This year, ADB has approved $131.5 million additional financing for Azerbaijans Railway Sector Development Program, alongside $47 million for Azerbaijan Railways Digital Transformation project. We hope these will be signed during COP 29 or soon after, he added.

ADB support for green energy corridors

Yang pointed out that ADB supports the Caspian Sea Green Corridor Project through its Technical Assistance under the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program: The Caspian Sea Green Energy Corridor Project.

The project aims to support the initial phase by:

 Enhancing regional dialogue and cooperation to create the Caspian Sea Green Energy Corridor through facilitated meetings and workshops, streamlining decision-making among stakeholders, and improving coordination and communication among member countries;

 Supporting the establishment of legal and commercial frameworks for the corridor through guidance and review of documents by international and national legal consultants;

 Conducting high-level technical assessments and feasibility studies through owners engineering services provided by international consultants. This major initiative will promote the region's energy security, sustainability, and economic development, creating a green corridor for renewable energy transmission from the Caspian region to Europe, he concluded.

Follow the author on X: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Teagasc unveil winners of Research and Innovation photo competition 2024

An image titled The Irish green was officially announced as the overall winner of Teagascs Vision of Research and Innovation photography competition at an event in Oak Park House, Carlow on Wednesday, 13 November. The aim of the competition is to identify the most innovative and compelling images showing the range of research and innovation activities taking place across Teagasc.

Professor Frank OMara Teagasc Director and Dr Marta Niedzicka, overall winner of Teagascs Research and Innovation photo competition 2024 with her photo of The Irish green.

The winning image was taken by Dr Marta Niedzicka, a postdoctoral researcher at Teagasc Oak Park, Carlow. It shows an array of green grass samples in test tubes, awaiting analysis in the Crops Science Department in Oak Park. This work represents a fundamental step in Teagascs work in Integrated Pest Management strategies.

When asked about her piece Marta said; Photography gives us a chance to pause and to reflect on a specific moment in time  and here I captured my moment of reflection, as these samples are a slice of the greenery that we often stop noticing, seen through the lens of the laboratory analysis.

The competition, which has been running since 2015, is open to all Teagasc staff and students with entrants aiming to visually capture the wide variety of research innovations related to their area of work.

This years competition attracted 38 entries (who entered 74 images) with the top 12 selected for an exhibition held in Teagasc Head Office in Oak Park House on Wednesday night. Attendees at the event were also treated to a guided tour of the historical building and former home of MP Henry Bruen by former farm manager at Teagasc Oak Park John Hogan.

The 12 winning images featured in the exhibition were:

Fresh apples glistening after the Irish rain by Jean do Prado

"Outstanding in her field by Rachel Doyle & Eliza Murphy

The Irish green by Marta Niedzicka

Potato fields in summer by Katie Hetherington

Crafting pea bread by Barbara Biduski & Mariana Macas

The Sea and the Slob by Charlotte Morgan

Under the microscope: -glucan rich cell walls of an oat kernel by Nefeli Lampoglou Daniela Freitas, Andre Brodkorb, and Atikur Rahman

Farmed to fork and Ziplining dungfly by Maximilian Schughart

Life from decay  A microcosm of biodiversity in a forest by Dheeraj Rathore

Sheep graze beneath the timeless peaks of Ben Bulben by Karla Burke

When pigs can choose where to nap by Ophelie Menant

These images will be included in the annual Teagasc calendar which will be delivered to stakeholders before Christmas.

This years Vision of Research and Innovation photography competition was judged by a panel comprising Catriona Boyle (Teagasc, editor of TResearch magazine); Ronan Bree (Dundalk Institute of Technology, Science Lecturer & Project Manager); and Chaosheng Zhang (University of Galway, Professor of Geography).

Speaking at the event, Teagasc Director Professor Frank OMara, welcomed the attendees to the event, and congratulated all the finalists on the quality of the images they captured during the course of their work. He said: Teagasc conducts excellent research and we strive to communicate the outcomes of that research to stakeholders and the public. The finalists captured the diverse range of research undertaken by Teagasc, and its great to see such a strong focus on sustainability and biodiversity in the winning images.

The Vision of Research exhibition at Teagasc Head Office is part of Science Week at Teagasc, which runs from November 11-16, 2024. The full programme of events can be found here
Why it matters: The rise of video game unions signals a shift as industry workers push for better conditions in response to long hours and job instability. Unions like ZeniMax Workers United now challenge major companies on issues like remote work and outsourcing, highlighting the growing demand for fair treatment in the gaming industry.

Hundreds of Bethesda employees in Texas and Maryland walked off their jobs Wednesday morning to protest Microsoft's unwillingness to budge at the bargaining table. ZeniMax Workers United, one of the largest video game unions in the US, confirmed on X that workers are officially on strike.

Formed and recognized in January 2023 by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), ZeniMax Worker United consists of about 300 quality assurance workers who have worked on games in the Fallout, Elder Scrolls, and Doom franchises. At the time, it was the largest union in the industry until Activision Quality Assurance United came along with 600 members a few months later.

Negotiation details have been primarily private, but ZeniMax confirmed that Microsoft came to the bargaining table. Microsoft also confirmed the talks.

"We respect our employees' rights to express their point of view as they have done today," Microsoft spokesperson Becca Dougherty told Inverse via email. "We will continue to listen and address their concerns at the bargaining table."

Despite the company's insistence that it is willing to negotiate, ZeniMax says the parent company has not answered any of the union's requests. Employees claim Microsoft is stonewalling them on remote work and outsourcing.

We deserve job security and improved working conditions.



Hundreds of our members are striking from 10-6PM in Maryland and Texas today to tell Microsoft to stop dragging their feet.  ZeniMax Workers United - CWA (@ZeniMaxWorkers) November 13, 2024

"They have continually given us their first proposal again and again, and it's become obvious that our different mobilization tactics have not worked," said union member Rhyanna Eichner, ZeniMax's quality assurance test lead.

The union's specific grievances are that Microsoft's mandate requiring workers to spend at least two days at the office is not flexible enough. The Redmond giant has allegedly denied remote work requests, even when a doctor has recommended it. Eichner said the union has submitted an alternative remote work proposal but says Microsoft has not budged on its policy.

The other core issue is that Microsoft has allegedly started outsourcing QA positions without a union agreement. ZeniMax Workers United is looking for a fair ratio of outsourced to full-time workers in its bargaining unit. Neither Microsoft nor the union has identified the outsourcing partners.

Union members have agreed that the strike is necessary but shared differing optimism regarding the situation. Eichner said she was looking forward to the walkout, seeing it as a time to "come together" and bond. However, ZeniMax senior quality assurance tester Juniper Dowell does not feel as positive about striking.

"Striking isn't fun or ideal, but there's a satisfaction in having a concrete physical action we can do to fight for better work conditions," Dowell told Inverse. "Hopefully, we can convince them to stop dragging their feet and meet us at the table."

The strike appears to be a shot across Microsoft's bow as it is scheduled to only last until 6:00 pm Central and Eastern times  basically one workday. It will be interesting to see how Redmond executives respond to the surprise action.
In brief: Xbox boss Phil Spencer has repeatedly floated the prospect of Microsoft-branded portable gaming hardware over the past few years. A recent interview with Bloomberg offers the first confirmation that the company is seriously pursuing the project, though it remains in its early stages. Spencer also discussed Microsoft's evolving attitudes toward exclusive releases and acquisitions.

During a lengthy interview with Bloomberg, Xbox head Phil Spencer confirmed Microsoft has begun developing a handheld gaming system. However, prospective customers shouldn't expect one to appear for at least a few years.

Spencer explained that the project is in the prototype phase. Microsoft is still exploring the potential capabilities of a handheld and what markets it might serve.

Xbox chief Phil Spencer swung by Bloomberg HQ in NYC yesterday. He said:

- They're planning a handheld but it's years away

- There are no "red lines" for which Xbox games will come to PlayStation

- The business is healthier now (no more big cuts?)

Full interview:  Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) November 13, 2024

In multiple prior interviews, Spencer praised handheld gaming PCs like Valve's Steam Deck and the Asus ROG Ally. The ROG Ally and other portable Windows-based devices could make Microsoft's Game Pass subscription service accessible to new markets.

One potential path for Microsoft might be a similar machine that serves as a reference for other manufacturers, akin to the company's Surface devices. Although Windows feels cumbersome on small screens, Microsoft has recently made small changes to improve the experience.

The evaporating exclusivity of the company's in-house games is another controversial topic the interview touched on. Earlier this year, Microsoft released games like Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and Sea of Thieves for PlayStation and Nintendo platforms. Furthermore, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will come to PlayStation 5 early next year following a December release on Xbox and PC.

In February, Spencer described the ports as a one-off experiment. However, Microsoft appears satisfied with the results, as Spencer told Bloomberg this week that none of the company's properties are off the table regarding conversions to non-Microsoft platforms.

For instance, Halo, the Xbox's flagship series, could make the jump. Although Spencer said it's too early to determine what devices the next entry will support, the franchise's switch to Unreal Engine 5 would facilitate multi-platform development.

The interview also covered Microsoft's growing list of acquisitions such as its historic $69 billion purchase of Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard. Spencer confirmed that the company's shopping spree isn't over, indicating that agreements that broaden Microsoft's "geographic diversity" could be attractive. The Asian and mobile markets, where the company lacks a strong presence, could become targets despite the recent closure of Japanese studio Tango Gameworks, which developed the critically acclaimed Hi-Fi Rush.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. I hope the Pacific region residents' voices will be heard at COP29, and we'll be allocated funding to address climate issues, John Taukave from Rotuma Island in Fiji, who's taking part in the conference on behalf of the Marshall Islands, told Trend.

"Azerbaijan, as the host of COP29, has organized the event excellently. I am very grateful to be here, to learn a lot, and to gain new insights, but at the same time, I want to be sure that our voices will be heard and promises will be fulfilled.

The Pacific region has great potential for financing climate projects. COP29 is an opportunity to emphasize the need to fulfill the financial commitments that were made earlier. At this point, we are focusing on the exploration or adaptation of wind energy, one of the important tasks we are trying to solve.

As you know, wind is a very powerful source of energy in the Pacific. We are combining the culture of indigenous peoples, in which our ancestors used wind energy to travel on their ships and canoes. Today, we use this in combination with modern science.

We have created the first of its kind ship in the Pacific, called 'Jurani' - a cargo vessel reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent and primarily using wind energy. Such projects catalize sustainable transportation and climate development," Taukave added.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
Forward-looking: Digital twins are designed to faithfully replicate their real-world counterparts, and enable simulations, testing, and other computational tasks to be performed without impacting the originals. They can also serve preservation efforts, as demonstrated by the latest project introduced by the Vatican.

Catholic authorities collaborated with Microsoft to develop a digital twin of St. Peter's Basilica, one of the most important Christian churches and a globally renowned tourist attraction. Using AI and various scanning technologies, Microsoft and its partners were able to create an accurate digital model of the Basilica, offering people around the world a new way to explore the church and its many hidden corners.

The Basilica di San Pietro project involved capturing hundreds of thousands of images through drones, cameras, and laser scans, using advanced photogrammetry techniques to precisely document the church's physical features. Iconem, a French company specializing in digital preservation, collected over 400,000 high-resolution images, which were then processed on Microsoft's Azure platform.

Microsoft used AI to refine the 3D model, achieving millimeter-level accuracy that can be explored via modern web browsers. AI algorithms also helped detect potential structural issues within the virtual replica, generating a detailed map of cracks and missing mosaic tiles, allowing restorers to prioritize areas needing repair.

The digital St. Peter's Basilica is meant to be an immersive exhibit for Christians, scholars, and history buffs worldwide. The "new" Basilica, built on the foundations of the original Roman church, is over 400 years old and features many unique works by Michelangelo, Bernini, and other classical artists.

Microsoft is highlighting the role of advanced AI algorithms in bringing this highly detailed 3D replica to life, while the Vatican aims to preserve one of its most treasured churches as a "cultural, spiritual, and historically significant site for years to come."

An official website will provide users with a virtual experience of the Basilica ahead of the 2025 Holy Year Jubilee, an event expected to draw millions of tourists and Christian pilgrims to Rome. This AI-powered digital twin offers a more intimate and personalized view of St. Peter's Basilica, especially for those unable to visit Vatican City in person.
The safeguards on smartphones are expanding, especially for Google's renowned Pixel lineup, as the company rolled out its live 'Scam Detection' feature for the Phone app to catch criminals right on the act. When Google first unveiled this last I/O 2024 for the Android platform, the company unveiled that it would be present during phone calls to detect possible fraudulent activities happening in real time.

As part of Google's promise, the company looks to prevent cybercriminals or automated systems from conning the user, with real-time alerts telling users if the feature thinks it's a scam and offering to end the call immediately.

Google's Live 'Scam Detection' Now Available for Pixel 6 and Later

Google shared in its latest blog post that the Scam Detection feature is now rolling out to Pixel 6, 7, 8, and 9 smartphones to offer a new level of protection for users whenever taking phone calls. The feature will act as a line of defense whenever taking calls from unknown numbers or those who do not have caller IDs, especially with the rising fraudulent campaigns in this age.

According to Google, the Scam Detection feature is powered by its Gemini Nano AI model that offers on-device protection for users that can work for all calls coming via the Phone app.

Currently, this rollout is available on the Google public beta for users in the United States, and it centers on the English language for the time being, with Pixel 6 or later smartphones eligible to access it.

Google Looks to Bring Privacy and Security via Scam Detection

According to Google, this latest safety and security feature can detect if a caller will scam users in real-time, and if the feature suspects that it is doing so, it will share a haptic and sound alert to prompt users to look at the warning on their screens. Users may choose to either continue the call by marking it 'Not a scam' or use the 'End call' button.

Google also stresses user privacy with this feature, with the company not keeping any information or records on what goes on in each call, as well as having the control to turn the feature on or off.

Google's Safety Features for Pixel Phones

Google has made an effort to bring security updates and features for Pixel smartphones over the years, and this in turn gave users advanced capabilities in protecting themselves, their data, and devices against bad actors. Earlier this year, Google released the Find My Device network's offline tracking feature to keep tabs on the smartphone despite having no internet connection, branching out to Pixel 8.

There were also significant developments made by Google and introduced via I/O 2024, offering Android users a chance to prevent thieves from not only stealing devices but also unlocking them after being stolen. This is the Theft Detection Lock that is powered by AI technology, with Google branching this out to Android smartphones that can detect suspicious activities and prevent unauthorized access.

Apart from that, Google also made an effort on its different apps and platforms to detect spam and automatically label them to avoid having users fall for their fraudulent activities and avoid grave consequences. Scam Detection is now rolling out to Pixels 6 through 9 releases to deliver a safeguard against fraudulent calls, offering a way to prevent swindlers from taking advantage of unknowing users via the Phone app.
If you are a billionaire and have no other problems in life, venturing to other careers or hobbies is a given, and that is exactly what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg did in his latest collaboration with T-Pain. No, it is not focusing on a new game or social media experience as T-Pain is big on both of these, but it is actually what made T-Pain famous, as the artist helped Zuck to create a song.

However, it is not exactly "creating" one, as both renowned personalities collaborated to remix an already famous song with their own acoustic version, with Zuck dedicating it to his wife of 12 years.

Mark Zuckerberg, T-Pain Collabs to Remix a Song

Mark Zuckerberg shared a new post on his official Instagram account which revealed that he recently called up T-Pain to work on a collaboration where the duo remixed a popular song. It was revealed that Zuck did not do this for fame or to start his music career, as it was dedicated to his wife whom he married in 2012, Priscilla Chan, on the day of their first meeting.

Zuck and Priscilla met at a college party, with both attending Harvard, and the Meta CEO claimed that Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz featuring Yin Yang Twins' "Get Low" was the song playing that started their magical moment.

It was also revealed by Zuck that he and his wife have a tradition to play "Get Low" every year during their anniversary to commemorate that moment, but this year, the tech billionaire decided to work on his and T-Pain's version of the song.

Z-Pain's Rendition of 'Get Low' Blows Up

Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain's collaboration is dubbed as 'Z-Pain,' with the pair working on a new rendition of "Get Low" that focused on strings to be the main tune of the song, instead of the original's loud and rowdy beats.

Not much has changed to the lyrics and it still featured the structure, but it drew massive attention online as the public was perplexed by yet another hidden skill by Zuck. That being said, Zuck claimed that he has been playing the guitar since high school.

Z-Pain's debut song is now available to stream on Spotify, but alternatively, listen to this official collaboration via the embed below.

Mark Zuckerberg's Many Hobbies

Mark Zuckerberg is a person who enjoys life, and his comfortable state as one of the world's top billionaires allows him to explore more of his interests and passions, with many marveling at what he wants to do. Zuck has long been training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and after being mocked by his rival, Elon Musk, he challenged him to a cage match that did not happen, with the MMA (mixed martial arts) world looking forward to his debut.

Despite not looking the part, Zuck's previous revelations show that he is adventurous, with his many activities shared to his social media accounts and many learning more about the tech executive. Zuck is fond of surfing, with the public digging at his sunscreen usage that drew massive memes, and later, posting a 4th of July video earlier this year while holding the American flag and drinking beer.

A lot of people thought that Mark Zuckerberg was a "nerdy" computer geek who was more reserved, but Zuck proved the world wrong with his active lifestyle and surprising attributes that show his other side. Now, another Zuck persona was born, and this is his musical side, recently collaborating with T-Pain to deliver "Z-Pain's" version of "Get Low," all to commemorate his first meeting with his wife.
Japan has no shortage of paying homage to retro experiences, and while there are limited new developments of retro technology, SEGA is bringing back pagers to a smartphone-ran world with its 'emojam.' While not exactly a pager, this device brings a callback to the iconic hookable machine that lets people know of an upcoming message, with the emojam focusing on sending or receiving emojis only.

SEGA's new Emojam is meant to be a kid's toy, but for the retro-loving "girlypop" of this generation, it is a must-have as not only is it a cute new device, it can also offer communication features, but without text.

SEGA's New Pager, 'emojam,' is Here for an Emoji Conversation

SEGA recently dropped a new device that takes the world back to the era of pagers with its latest 'emojam' delivering a retro-modern experience for users, specifically marketed as a kid's toy. The video teaser shared by SEGA shows how the device can send and receive emojis to users owning the emojam, and it is complete with an array of three physical buttons that stay true to its homage to pagers.

However, the emojam is not exactly a pager, and although it works like one, it does not give users a way to read messages in text format as what the real deal brings, as emojis are the only characters available here.

The emojam will be available starting December 10 and it will be available to snag for 7,150 yen (around $46), with the new device offering wide customization options for kids to personalize their experience.

SEGA's emojam is Limited to 5 People Only, Exclusive in Japan

SEGA's emojam was not made to replicate the pager, but as an experience for kids to enjoy conversations using emojis,in a way that was popular during the 1990s to 2000s.

However, since this is a toy, it will not use the communication channels pagers used back in the day, as users need to 'link' their devices via a physical tap of each emojam to connect them to friends. Additionally, it can only link up to 5 people owning an emojam, and send up to 10 emojis per message with more than 1,100 characters available.

The Retro Devices Available Now in the World

When talking about the good old days of retro technology, one of the top things that come to mind is the gaming industry which has successfully brought back and re-popularized the experiences for all. The iconic American gaming brand, that is now owned by the French, Atari, is among those who have actively worked to revive the retro gaming experience, focusing on the return of the Atari 2600.

Earlier this year, one of the largest retro technology revivals was introduced to the world, and it was thanks to a Chinese consumer tech company called FiiO which reintroduced the cassette player to the modern generation. Its latest version of the CP13 cassette player introduced the transparent colorway which offers a look inside the tape slot, featuring advanced features like USB-C charging, built-in amplification, and more.

Recently, in the photography industry, film cameras and digicam made a significant comeback that brought back significant attention to the media form, leading to a massive demand for film rolls and cameras around the world. SEGA decided that the iconic pager should be the one making its comeback, with the emojam offering a way to communicate using only emojis, but is only available in Japan.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The first meeting of Environment and Ecology Ministers of the member states of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) is taking place in Baku within COP29, Trend reports.

The meeting is attended by the Ministers of Environment and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkiye, as well as the Secretary General of the OTS.

The Ministerial Declaration was also signed at the meeting.

The Ministers and the Secretary General of the OTS expressed their full support to the current UN climate agenda and reaffirmed their commitment to achieving the goals outlined in the first days of COP29.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
New York drought conditions fan flames, spur water saving



New York, Nov 13 (AFP) Nov 13, 2024



New York has urged its 8.5 million residents to save water as America's biggest city endures an unprecedented period without significant rainfall, creating potentially dangerous drought conditions and fanning the flames of deadly wildfires.

Since Friday, wildfires have burned through thousands of acres on the border between New York and New Jersey, just an hour from Manhattan, claiming the life of an 18-year-old firefighter battling the blazes.

On the New York side, officials said the fire was the largest on record since 2008, fueled by dry winds.

New York and other parts of the state north of the city are under a red flag warning for bush and forest fires with high winds, low humidity and dry conditions creating tinderbox conditions.

There was even a small fire over the weekend in New York's Prospect Park, a large green space in the city's densely populated Brooklyn borough, although it was quickly extinguished.

"The reality is, the drought that we're currently experiencing is just one example of how a changing climate is impacting our state today, not far off into the future, but right now," said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.

New York City and the surrounding region have gone without significant rainfall for much of September and October, and November has been mostly dry so far.



- Perfect storm -



The drought-like conditions have coincided with a major overhaul of New York's water supply system, which has seen the city source more from a reservoir in Catskill Park, located in an area particularly affected by the dry conditions.

"While there is plenty of water in our reservoirs now, we are working to start public conservation efforts now in case this drought continues," the city's department of environmental protection said in a statement.

The city's fire department has called on residents to flag leaking fire hydrants so they can be closed, warning in an Instagram post that "an open hydrant can release more than 1,000 gallons per minute."

New York City's average daily water demand has decreased by approximately 35 percent in recent decades, but officials say more can be done to avoid waste, calling on residents to only flush toilets when necessary and to take shorter showers.

The reservoirs relied on by the city, which are usually filled by rainfall in October and November, are only 62 percent full -- far less than the normal level of about 79.2 percent.

The Office of Natural Lands Management said that the ground in parts of New Jersey was dry almost eight inches down -- the worst situation in more than 100 years -- meaning it would require that many inches of rainfall to bring the soil back to saturation.

There is no rainfall forecast in the area this week, and parts of New York have imposed a drought watch -- two steps below a drought emergency at which point homes and businesses are forced to restrict water use.

Drought-hit areas of New Jersey are already one notch above New York's, at the drought warning stage.

"The impact of this on wildfires cannot be overstated," said Greg McLaughlin, chief of the New Jersey Forest Fire Service, which has responded to 537 wildfires so far this year -- 500 more than in the same period last year.

Brian Fuchs, a climatologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said it had been over 20 years since a similar drought episode in the northeastern United States.

"One of the attributes that is starting to come out (with climate change) is these rapid transitions from either very wet periods to very dry periods, or very dry periods to very wet periods," he said.
'Major loopholes' let oil and gas firms leak methane: report



Paris, Nov 14 (AFP) Nov 14, 2024



The world's major oil and gas companies have mostly vowed to stop leaking the extremely potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, but big loopholes in their pledges risk "exacerbating the climate crisis," a report warned Thursday.

The report from the think tank Carbon Tracker was published as nations gathered in Azerbaijan for the latest round of UN climate talks during what is expected to be the hottest year in recorded history.

Methane is responsible for about one-third of global warming from greenhouse gases, and a huge amount is emitted by oil and gas projects.

At the previous round of UN talks in Dubai last year, 52 big oil and gas firms pledged to reach "near zero" methane emissions by 2030.

But the Carbon Tracker report found that "major loopholes" in these pledges meant they did not cover a large amount of methane from the firms' operations.

The think tank accused the energy giants of "exacerbating the climate crisis by failing to set strict targets to stop methane leaking into the atmosphere".

"Oil and gas companies are paying lip service to climate action while emissions from their products are fuelling increasingly severe storms, droughts, floods and heatwaves around the world," said Olivia Bisel, a Carbon Tracker analyst and lead report author.

The report ranked the climate targets of 27 oil and gas producing companies, including US giant ExxonMobil, Britain's BP, France's TotalEnergies and Saudi Arabia's state-owned Saudi Aramco.



- 'Blind spot' -



One big loophole the report identified was that a large amount of methane is emitted during what are called joint ventures, when the oil and gas giants team up with other firms.

The climate pledges of all but one firm -- Chevron -- did not cover methane leakage during these joint ventures, according to the report.

"This is a particular blind spot" for companies like Italy's Eni and TotalEnergies, which have stakes in assets operated by other companies in high methane-emitting countries such as Algeria and Egypt, the report said.

Most company targets also do not include "midstream" infrastructure such as gas pipelines or gas tankers, despite them emitting significant amounts of methane, it added.

And few of the firms have committed to completely eliminating gas flaring, a particularly dirty practice that is a key source of methane leakage, it added.

According to Carbon Tracker's rankings, Eni had the strongest emission-reduction targets, followed by French firms TotalEnergies and Repsol, then BP.

But none of the plans aligned with the overarching global goal of limiting warming to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, it said.

Methane is the second largest contributor to climate change after carbon dioxide. Around 60 percent of annual methane emissions is caused by humans, one third of which comes from the energy sector, according to the International Energy Agency.

Its warming power is more than 80 times greater over 20 years than that of CO2, but its lifespan is shorter, making it an important lever in attempts to limit global warming in the short term.

Despite being considered to be easily avoidable at little cost, global methane emissions continue to rise.

The report was released a day after 2024 was projected to set a new record level of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels such as oil and gas.

dl/db

EXXONMOBIL

BP

TotalEnergies

Saudi Aramco

CHEVRON

ENI
Philippines on highest alert as super typhoon approaches



Manila, Nov 14 (AFP) Nov 14, 2024



The Philippines raised its highest storm alert and evacuated thousands of people on Thursday, as Super Typhoon Usagi barrelled towards its already disaster-ravaged north.

Packing sustained winds of up to 180 kilometres (112 miles) an hour, Usagi is set to smash onto the main island of Luzon in the afternoon local time -- the fifth storm to threaten the country in just three weeks.

The brutal wave of weather disturbances has already killed 159 people and prompted the United Nations to request $32.9 million in aid for the worst-affected regions.

The national weather agency said the winds could cause "almost total damage to structures of light materials, especially in highly exposed coastal areas", and "heavy damage" to buildings otherwise considered "low-risk".

"Intense to torrential rain" and potentially "life-threatening" coastal waves of up to three metres (nine feet) were also forecast over two days, with the storm warning raised to the highest signal on a five-step scale.

"Evacuations are ongoing" in coastal and low-lying areas of Cagayan province, its civil defence chief Rueli Rapsing told AFP by phone.

He expects local governments to take 40,000 people to shelters, roughly the same number that were preemptively evacuated ahead of Typhoon Yinxing, which struck Cagayan's north coast earlier this month.

He said more than 5,000 Cagayan residents were still in shelters following the previous storms.

This was because the Cagayan river, the country's largest, remained swollen from heavy rain that fell in several provinces upstream, flooding communities downstream.

"We expect this situation to persist over the next few days" as Usagi brings more rain, Rapsing said.

After Usagi, Tropical Storm Man-yi is also forecast to strike the Philippines' population heartland around the capital Manila this weekend.

"Typhoons are overlapping. As soon as communities attempt to recover from the shock, the next tropical storm is already hitting them again," UN Philippines Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Gustavo Gonzalez said.

"In this context, the response capacity gets exhausted and budgets depleted."

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the archipelago nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people and keeping millions in enduring poverty.

A recent study showed that storms in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change.
Tax crypto and plastic to pay for climate, development, leaders urge



Baku, Nov 14 (AFP) Nov 14, 2024



Plastics and cryptocurrencies could be taxed like flying and fossil fuels to plug the gap in climate finance and help developing countries, according to a task force led by France, Kenya and Barbados.

The three countries believe that hundreds of billions of dollars could be generated from "Global Solidarity Levies" on the most polluting industries to help developing countries.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, an influential advocate for climate action, told the UN's COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan that the time had come "to consider levies".

"Between maritime, airlines and fossil fuels, we are comfortably in the vicinity of about $350 billion a year, and this will go substantially on top of the public money," she insisted.

"Large parts of the economy pollute the planet but contribute little to public finances, development and climate mitigation," said the task force's report released in Baku.

Its experts floated core levies on private jet fuel, frequent flyers, windfall fossil fuel profits, shipping and stocks and bonds and derivatives.

Taxes on cryptocurrencies, plastics and the super-rich are also proposed, the latter idea pushed by Brazil during its G20 presidency.

The experts estimate that $5.2 billion could be raised from a levy on cryptocurrencies because of "the high energy demand of crypto mining", a move which they argue could also reduce emissions.

The report also said that a tax on crypto transactions could raise "tens of billions a year".

The contribution that the plastics industry may have to make comes as UN talks on the world's first treaty on plastic pollution take place in Busan, South Korea later this month.

"The levy would be intended as a source of finance to support developing countries with action to combat plastics pollution," the experts said, and could raise $25 to $35 billion a year.

As well as France, Kenya and Barbados, the 17-member coalition behind the task force includes the EU and the African Union, with Brazil signalling that it too will join.
Madagascar riverbank landslide hits boat, killing 16



Antananarivo, Nov 14 (AFP) Nov 14, 2024



A chunk of ground which broke off from a riverbank in western Madagascar killed 16 people after slamming into a passenger boat, police and local media said Thursday.

The landslide-caused accident happened late on Tuesday on the Tsiribihina River in the Menabe region.

"Of the 26 passengers, 16 did not survive," police said.

The boat had stopped late at night at Belo-sur-Tsiribihina, a village about 320 kilometres (200 miles) southwest of the capital Antananarivo, so that passengers could have a break, L'Express de Madagascar newspaper reported Thursday.

As it was mooring, a slab of the embankment broke off and crashed onto the vessel, police told the news site.

Two of the dead passengers were children, one aged nine and the other around five months, the site said.

Four of the victims belonged to the same family and were transporting two bodies in coffins at the time of the accident, it added.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. As part of COP29 in Baku, Trend News Agency proudly presents COP for Hope, a special project offering an unparalleled platform to hear from world leaders and trailblazers in politics, economics, science, and ecology, all united by a shared commitment to addressing todays pressing climate challenges.

Today, we are honored to speak with Minister of Natural Resources, Ecology, and Technical Supervision of Kyrgyzstan, Meder Mashiev.

In an exclusive interview with Trend, he pointed out that COP29 has seen a high level of organization.

The minister expressed satisfaction with the holding of this major global event on Azerbaijani soil.

"Today, Azerbaijan brings together representatives from all nations to fight the global issue of climate change.

Kyrgyzstan has also set up its pavilion here. There are great opportunities to discuss regional issues with various organizations, and we are working on this.

It's important to collaborate on various interests in the fight against climate change," he added.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
Sign up for the Independent Women email for the latest news, opinion and features Get the Independent Women email for free Get the Independent Women email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

Women have been told not to panic as the website of the leading mail-order abortion pill provider in the US has crashed in the hours after Donald Trumps election victory as Americans rushed to stock up on medication.

Dr Rebecca Gomperts, founder of Aid Access, told The Independent the platform received 10,000 requests for medication for terminations in the 24 hours after Trumps win  almost 15 times more than the 600 or so requests they tend to get per day.

The leading abortion rights activist said soaring demand caused their website to crash for two hours last night, but it is now back up and running again.

Americans are fearful that Mr Trump could implement a national abortion ban after he is sworn into office for a second time in January. The president-elect suggested he would support a national ban on terminations at around 15 weeks of pregnancy in March, but also said he believed states should decide their own abortion policies, during the end of his recent campaign.

Dr Gomperts said: People are stockpiling abortion pills. They are wanting to have the pills at hand in case anything happens and they are taken off the market. The website crashed because it couldnt keep up.

The requests are coming in. I can see when people are submitting an application. People are really anxious.

The doctor explained she had been in Paris with her American physicians and support staff when the presidential results came in on Wednesday - saying that they put a resilience plan in place and went through various different scenarios that could emerge.

There are enough abortion pills to provide for anyone who wants but people are very anxious and afraid that they wont be available anymore Dr Rebecca Gomperts

Her organisation already has a system in place whereby doctors in states where abortion is legal prescribe and post abortion pills to patients living in states where terminations are illegal.

We said we will continue working, we will do what we do, nothing will stop us, Dr Gomperts said. Abortion is the most important form of healthcare for women.

Data from the Guttmacher Institute shows medical abortions in the formal US healthcare system have surged from 53 per cent of all abortions in 2020 to 63 per cent of all terminations last year.

open image in gallery Rebecca Gomperts ( Women on Waves / Vessel Documentary )

It is important that people dont panic, Dr Gomperts said. There are enough abortion pills to provide for anyone who wants but people are very anxious and afraid that they wont be available anymore.

Dr Gomperts, who is based in Amsterdam, said even if the Trump administration were to enact a national abortion ban, people would still be able to get abortion pills through Aid Access and other organisations.

Used by millions of people for over 30 years, decades of research and experience has shown abortion pills are safe and effective. Sarah Shaw

I understand there are millions and millions of abortion pills being made every year in India and China, she added. It is going to continue no matter what. It is the revolution of the pills.

Millions of women in America lost their legal right to terminate a pregnancy after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade - the landmark decision that legalised abortion nationwide in 1973 - in June 2022.

Mr Trumps arrival into the White House in January 2017 emboldened anti-abortion activists - with the former US president previously appointing the Supreme Court justices who went on to reverse Roe vs Wade.

His recent win has sparked fears that abortion and wider reproductive rights could be at further risk once Mr Trump re-enters the White House in January.

Sarah Shaw, associate director of advocacy for leading global abortion and contraception provider, MSI Reproductive Choices, said: "Used by millions of people for over 30 years, decades of research and experience has shown abortion pills are safe and effective.

But legal restrictions can limit access, particularly for adolescents and those living in poverty, remote communities and crisis settings. Our teams working in countries with restricted abortion laws see the horrific lengths women go to when they are denied access to safe care.

Following the overturning of Roe v Wade, which struck down the constitutional right to abortion, American women are already having to cross state boundaries and even across the border to our clinics in Cancun and Mexico City where our teams stand ready to support. Removing this lifeline would be catastrophic."
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The European Investment Bank (EIB), with the support of other European development finance agencies, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the European Commission, will launch the Global Green Bond Initiative, the Vice President of the EIB Ambroise Fayolle said during a panel discussion on "Global Financial System: Scaling Up Financing for Climate Action" in Baku today, Trend reports.

The EIB, with the support of other European development finance agencies, the EBRD, and the European Commission, will launch the Global Green Bond Initiative because green bonds are not often issued in developing countries. Many developing countries have not yet issued any green bonds, and we want to change that, as projects that could be financed through green bonds exist. In addition, we have set up a fund that will have one billion euros of capital from public institutions and two billion senior bonds to be subscribed by private investors. This will allow the fund to issue green bonds, which we hope will help finance up to 20 billion euro for projects in countries where we have not yet seen significant development in this area, he said.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. As part of COP29 in Baku, Trend News Agency proudly presents COP for Hope, a special project offering an unparalleled platform to hear from world leaders and trailblazers in politics, economics, science, and ecology, all united by a shared commitment to addressing todays pressing climate challenges.

The scientist from the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute of Japan, Gen Totani, became our next interviewee.

In an interview with Trend, Gen Totani said that the COP29 conference in Baku provides ample opportunity to discuss and find solutions to the problem of global climate change.

Totani noted that the discussions make it possible to come to a final solution.

"The COP29 conference is very important for discussing climate change issues, he added.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
The future of another cherished old Melbourne pub could be placed in the hands of developers next week, as South Yarras Imperial Hotel goes to auction next Friday.

Operator Australian Venue Co is now on a month-by-month lease at 518-522 Chapel Street, which could make the property a development play. The Imperial is down the road from the massive Jam Factory project proposed by Gurner and Qualitas. Records show the vendors bought the hotel in 1981, when Chapel Street was a pumping entertainment strip. It was built in 1876 to a design by architect Joseph Crook.

While there will be plenty of punters living in the nearby towers looking for a local watering hole, its understood the Imperial is in need of renovation. Its on a 600 square metre site with three street frontages. Teska Carson agents Matthew Feld, Luke Bisset and Larry Takis are handling the sale.

There is also a clutch of hotels for sale across the river. The Rochester Castle Hotel, rebadged The Rochey, will go under the hammer at Burgess Rawsons next portfolio auction on December 11. Happily, that busy hotel, built in 1852, has a fresh five-year lease (paying $180,872 a year) with four five-year options.
North Sydney MP Kylea Tink has added to her earlier comments pushing back against proposed changes to political donation laws, saying political dark money does not lie in campaigns like hers.

Speaking on ABC Afternoon Briefing, Tink noted her opposition was not to greater transparency, greater accountability and truth in the electoral system. In fact, thats what she stood for, she said.

Loading

Under the reforms, real-time reporting of donations worth more than $1000 would be included, marking a sharp change from the current regime where disclosure of donations can take up to 18 months after an election.

You will find every donation I have received is already on my website. Ive had a commitment to real-time transparency, and what was being given and how that was being used, Tink said.

The dark money is not in campaigns like the one I ran, it is in the major party machines, with 25 per cent of donations that both the Labor Party and Liberal Party received in 22/23 being unaccounted for.

To give you a sense of what that means, [with] those major parties ... it is $57 million unaccounted for.

When you put a number like that against a number like the $800,000 they are proposing people like myself will be able to run on into the future, you see this is a massive endeavour of Goliath and David, and Goliath is trying to shut the little guy back out because they are happy with the status quo.
And so, Hovell Tree Park, the Murray flowing by, retains its arboreal link to the past. Hume claimed to have originally named the river the Hume after his father, though Hovell said hed named it Humes River because Hume was first to see it. The Murray River passing by the city of Albury. Credit: Destination NSW Regardless, no heed was given to the truth that the river flowed through Aboriginal lands and their Dreaming stories from before time. It was later re-named for Sir George Murray, a British soldier from Scotland who became a South Australian politician. Still, Hume got a bit more than a tree to be remembered by: his name was given to the highway along which thousands of cars and trucks thunder every day between Sydney and Melbourne.

Hamilton Hume as a young man. Its possible to imagine Hume would get a kick out of that disparity in lasting fame, for he and Hovell rasped on each others nerves during their expedition from south of Sydney to Corio Bay and back again in 1824. Their squabbling blew into fiasco three weeks into the trek. Flummoxed by tough hill country west of the Snowy Mountains, and maddened by mosquitos and small biting flies, Hume and Hovell argued furiously about the best route forward. Set on splitting up, they wrestled over their one frying pan. It broke into two, the handle separating from the pan. Hovell was gone less than a day before he returned, tacitly admitting an error in judgment. Refusing to succumb, Hume and Hovell and their convict retainers  Humes assigned servants were James Fitzpatrick, Henry Angel and Claude Bossawa, and Hovells were Thomas Boyd, Ben Smith and Samuel Bollard  trekked for hundreds of kilometres where no Europeans had previously set foot.

William Hovell They forded the flooded Murrumbidgee by wrapping a cart in a tarpaulin. Soon after, finding their path all but impossible, they abandoned their two carts and continued on foot. At the Murray, after Hovell left his name carved into the tree by the riverbank, they built a boat from saplings to cross the river further upstream. They swam their five bullocks, three horses and pack of dogs across numerous streams, hunted kangaroos and emus and eventually ate some of their bullocks and used their skins for footwear. By the time the expeditioners struggled back to Humes homestead at Gunning, north of present-day Canberra, their clothes were rags, their supplies were at an end and their animals were dead or left behind.

They had taken three months to reach Corio Bay, near present-day Geelong, and 31 desperate days returning. It was an astonishing accomplishment, even if they had unknowingly missed their intended destination, Western Port, by the width of Port Phillip Bay and more, despite Hovells reputation as a navigator. The Hume and Hovell plaque in Explorers Park, Sydney. Credit: Neil Newitt There was a time when the 200th anniversary of such an undertaking would have been celebrated in Australia with unrestrained fanfare. Indeed, the centenary celebrations in 1924 went on for an entire week in Albury alone, featuring ringing speeches about overcoming nature in all its savagery and the pioneer spirit that won the land in the spirit of Empire.

The bicentenary this year is a relatively modest affair, though commemorative events are being held at Goulburn, Yass and at Alburys Hovell Tree Park, and plaques and cairns are being re-worked, or new signage erected, along the expeditions 1824 route. Loading There is, happily, no evidence Hume and Hovell came into conflict with Aboriginal people during their overland voyage, and Hume was notably at ease when he was at one point accompanied by a whole Indigenous clan to a gathering. However, Bruce Pennay, adjunct professor at Charles Sturt University in Albury-Wodonga, suggests the time is ripe to acknowledge that the Hume and Hovell bicentenary should also mark the fact that expeditions like theirs were the start of what became the violent invasion of the lands of Aboriginal peoples that led to dispossession and massacres. He points to the decision of the Albury LibraryMuseum to mount an exhibition just last month, titled Mob.

It shares First Nations Peoples stories about the foundation of Albury, including a story panel called Hume and Hovell: The arrival of the colonisers which portrays the 1824 expedition as an intrusion leading to dispossession. Another panel, Frontier Wars: Grief, Anger and Resilience, alludes to a mounted police barracks established in 1839 at the Murray River crossing to protect colonisers moving flocks of sheep and herds of cattle southward onto grasslands they could claim as their own. Loading The police barracks, in short, meant Albury, beyond its fabled Hovell tree by the river, was founded as a garrison town. Pennay suggests, in a paper delivered to the Albury-Wodonga Historical Society, that Albury should have two foundation memory places: the Hovell Tree and a memorial to the police barracks.
Sealed sections? We had those in Australia, too. Yes! People would bring them in from Hong Kong; we were so hungry to see them. Loading Youre a parent now. Which generation do you think has had a better sex education? Not our generation. My kids generation has more access to information, and theyre more open. My kids study in a French school in Beijing, which will show them queer culture. Traditional Chinese families will not discuss sex, while my 13-year-old daughter tells me they have condoms available in the school toilet! What were attitudes about gender like when you were growing up? My mum had three daughters; Im the last one. My mums family also had all daughters. So my grandmother  my mums mother  gave her a male name. If youre a woman, your name isnt traditionally marked in the family-tree book in the village. But my mothers mother was quite revolutionary. Its why my mum could become a sculptor. Do you feel as if youre part of that family story, too? If she hadnt been given that name, you wouldnt have the life and career you have  When I was growing up, Mum also gave me boys T-shirts, jackets, jeans and haircuts. That made me very special in school and the boys liked me. I enjoyed being a tomboy. And I enjoyed the misunderstanding.

DEATH Growing up, what were you told happens after death? Not too much. When I was a kid in China, my parents used to bring me to the temple on the side of the mountain to pay our respects to our ancestors. As time went on, I began to respect the tradition and the idea of existing within a circle of reincarnation. Also, my older sister, who lived in Sydney, passed away two years ago. Im so sorry to hear that. She wouldve been young. Only 50. It was cancer, and it was very difficult. She was also an artist and discovered, during COVID, that she probably only had one more year of life. So with my new exhibition here, her work  her painting  will be part of the show. Ill bring all the letters she wrote to me, before email, between China and Australia. The artwork is called The Golden Wattle because she loved that flower. Loading Is your artwork  about your sister, featuring your sister  part of processing your grief? Part of the project is a documentary about my older sister. I interviewed my parents, too. When my other sister watched the documentary, she cried a lot. For me, its also tough, looking at all the footage. But you have to cross over the difficulty to get the healing. And Ive also discovered that the Chinese name for the golden wattle flower refers to longing.
Sydney private boys school Cranbrook, which will become co-educational from 2026, has appointed its first female head in the institutions more than 100-year history.

The school council told students and staff on Thursday that Ravenswood School for Girls principal Anne Johnstone would take up the position as Cranbrooks principal from the start of term 3 next year.

Johnstone will replace the schools former high-profile head Nicholas Sampson, who sensationally resigned from his $1 million-plus a year post in March after allegations of workplace bullying and historical abuse at the prestigious eastern suburbs school.

Ravenswood principal Anne Johnstone will be the next head of Bellevue Hill private school Cranbrook.

Throughout the competitive recruitment process, the council was impressed by Annes energy, warmth, intellect, wisdom, deep educational experience and by her values, the councils chair Geoff Lovell wrote in a letter to parents.
A ride-share driver has been charged and a water pistol seized after reports of a man shooting a replica firearm near NSW Parliament led to a major police response.

Shortly after 1pm on Thursday, the man was allegedly seen shooting the gun into the ground on Hospital Road, behind parliament.

The water pistol seized by police after the incident behind NSW Parliament. Credit: NSW Police

Officers swarmed the area and a manhunt was launched to find the alleged offender, who had driven off before police arrived. Hours later the search came to an end when ride-share driver, Waqar Hassan Virk, 28, was arrested in Mascot carrying a water pistol.

He was taken to Mascot police station and charged with one count of possessing an unauthorised firearm. NSW Police said the water pistol had been seized and would be subject to further examination.
Former Labor leader Bill Shorten will write the next chapter in his long, long goodbye to politics in Canberra on Thursday with a valedictory speech to the parliament.

The NDIS minister doesnt actually come off the tools until February, but that doesnt leave much time to get the parliamentary formalities out of the way.

Labor MP Bill Shorten and wife Chloe in 2019. Shorten retires early next year. Credit: AP

After his speech Bill will gather a few pals for a little par-tay at a place called Ballyhoo on the site of the storied Lobby Restaurant, scene of some unforgettable ballyhoo back in 2012 when then-prime minister Julia Gillard was forced to hole up with then-opposition leader Tony Abbott as they were briefly besieged by a couple of hundred protesters.

Anyhoo, we were unable, at this early stage, to get hold of a guest list for the Shorten soiree.
Lima: Anthony Albanese is not the only national leader caught in a geopolitical tremor now that Donald Trump is taking power in the United States. Others are just as trapped as the prime minister while they watch the walls shake and the lights flicker  all of them wondering how to survive the demands of a dealmaker president.

Do they hold their ground or run for cover? Or, more to the point in the vengeful world of the Trump family and its acolytes, do they risk offending the president or cosy up to him instead? Every leader has a different answer. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol is reportedly taking up golf in the hope he will walk the fairways with Trump. French President Emmanuel Macron is urging his fellow European leaders to stand up for themselves when Trump takes office on January 20.

How to manage the Trump presidency? Anthony Albanese might take note of the British leader Keir Starmers approach  agreeable but firm. Credit:

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto is more cautious: he joined Joe Biden in the White House on Tuesday to show respect for the current president while making sure to post a social media video of a phone call with the next president. Trump complimented him on his good English.

So Albanese is hardly alone in making a careful approach to Trump. The early phase seems positive: Trump calls the relationship with Australia a perfect friendship. The problem is that Australia needs the new administration to show consistency on trade and reliability on defence  two qualities Trump lacks.
A growing number of Victorian hospitals, including several of the largest Melbourne facilities, are cash-strapped and going backwards financially as they run operating losses and, in some cases, have less than one days money on hand to pay bills.

An analysis by The Age of 65 annual reports released in the Victorian parliament on Thursday found more than half the health services failed to meet the target number of days worth of cash available, measured on the final day of each month. Most had a target of 14 days and a total of 36 health services failed to hit their target.

The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. Credit: Justin McManus

Three Victorian hospitals did not have the necessary cash for their day-to-day work, while another two health services were left with less than a days worth of available funds in the last financial year.

Amid a drastic deterioration in financial health, the analysis also revealed that 44 services now had expenses outstripping their revenue as they racked up combined operating deficits of $906.546 million. Total operating deficits the previous year totalled just $460,000 as just eight facilities failed to break even.
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size This story is part of the November 16 edition of Good Weekend. See all 11 stories . Do you speak emoji like a Gen Z? To most people under 30, the skull emoji means dying with laughter; crying-with-laughter emojis are extremely cringe. Thumbs-up is used sarcastically and means the opposite of approval. An upside-down face emoji typically means this is terrible or FML (f--- my life), while a fire emoji means something is hot or stylish  not that somethings burning. Every generation, from Boomers to Gen X, Millennials to Gen Z, now relies on the small cartoons on their devices to communicate, although were often speaking very different languages. Emojis may look the same across devices but can have wildly divergent meanings, depending on who you ask. Its a lot to keep up with, and their definitions and usage are evolving all the time, as with any other language. So who creates emojis, and how do they think up what to create? Emojis  of which 3790 are currently available  are approved by the Unicode Consortium, the California-based, non-profit global standards body responsible for ensuring our many devices can exchange text from all languages of the world. Unicode is made up of representatives from nine voting companies  Adobe, Airbnb, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, Salesforce and Translated  who meet each quarter behind closed doors, these days mostly virtually. Their discussions about which emojis to approve, and which to reject, remain confidential, but according to Jeremy Burge, an Australian emoji historian and former Unicode committee member, its a rigorous process. An entrepreneur and former blogger, Burge used to run Emojipedia, the bible for emojis in the way dictionaries and thesauruses are bibles for words. These days, he splits his time between Melbourne and London, where his TikTok videos, filmed from his UK houseboat, regularly go viral. Emojis, all 3790 of them currently available, are approved by the Unicode Consortium. Anyone can propose an emoji, and they are assessed in quarterly batches by various sub-committees of the consortium. Approvals are then announced in September, with the new symbols appearing on our devices via a software update some time between February and April the following year. Many teams from the consortium companies are involved with the new emoji decisions, from design, marketing and PR to internationalisation [teams that ensure phones work across languages, regions and cultures] and legal matters. The number approved each year varies but has certainly shrunk from the hundreds it once was. Eight new emojis have been approved so far this year, which will appear on our devices in the first half of 2025. A person or company needs to make a formal proposal to Unicode, making the case that the proposed emoji is an omission from the standard, that it would fill an important gap in the standard and would be well used, Burge explains. Multiple committees review each emoji proposal, and the approved list is published annually. Along the way, some draft lists are published, giving the public time to submit feedback.

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For a while, an iPhone user could send a toy water pistol to a friend with an Android phone, and they would see a real gun. Jeremy Burge, emoji historian As for the main factor governing success, its all about predicted usage. People proposing new emojis are expected to demonstrate how and why the proposed additional emojis would be popular, relative to existing emojis. Another factor is how distinct the design will be at small scale. For example, the existence of a chipmunk emoji makes it unlikely that a squirrel would be approved, because it would be hard to tell the difference between the two at emoji sizes, Burge says. There are no laws or legislation requiring common emoji implementation between platforms, he adds, making it important that the big players like Apple and Google have buy-in to the process. Simply put, the consortium approves an emoji; its then up to the tech companies themselves as to its final design. The committee prefers to work by consensus but will vote on a matter if it comes to that. And there have been plenty of issues, some frivolous, others less so; Apple unilaterally changing the gun emoji from a weapon to a toy water pistol in 2016 was one of the first hot-button issues. The gun emoji likely wouldnt have even been approved in modern times, but as it was part of the original sets from Japan, it stuck around, Burge says. For a while after Apple changed it, an iPhone user could send a toy water pistol to a friend with an Android phone, and they would see a real gun. Over time, the tech companies fell into line, and today all devices show the gun emoji as either a water pistol or toy laser gun. In another instance, Burge worked with Emojipedias head of design, Joshua Jones, on a sample design for a skateboard emoji. However, American pro skater Tony Hawk said the design looked like something from the 1980s, and offered some tips for a better one, using his own skateboard as reference. The new design was promptly updated. Tony liked it so much he ended up using the image for the front licence plate of his car, which is legal in California, Burge says. In a more amusing case, Apple trialled a peach emoji that was less curvaceous than its previous image. Given its common use to indicate buttocks, the less juicy peach did not meet approval. The new design never saw the light of day outside of some beta updates for developers, Burge says. Emoji historian Jeremy Burge says the number of emojis approved each year has shrunk from the hundreds annually it once was. Burge tells another story about the time Ford proposed a ute emoji that looked identifiably like a Ford vehicle. It was successful but came sans the Ford trimmings. Anyone proposing an emoji is only proposing the concept, not the final appearance, Burge says. The final say for how it looks depends on Apple for most iOS apps, and Google or Samsung for most Android apps. Individual app developers can also override the system default and use their own emoji designs, which is what Facebook does on the web, and WhatsApp does on Android.

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Emoji issues are often geopolitical, too. The Taiwan flag emoji wont

display on any iPhone purchased in China, for example, and its hidden from the emoji keyboard in Hong Kong. Flags are always complex, and the current system doesnt permit geographic flags that arent directly associated with countries, Burge says. Which means flags such as the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags are grouped in with separatist movements, and dont have a clear path to being made available. Id say the majority of feedback I received as vice-chair of the Unicode emoji sub-committee related to various flag disputes. The meatiest issue Burge worked on at Unicode was advocating for different types of family emojis rather than just the cute, ubiquitous yellow ones, which look specifically like a white-skinned family. After many years of debate and discussion, it was agreed to make the family emojis as silhouette icons. An imperfect result, but one that fixes a long-term equality issue, he says. Whatever we like and enjoy today, a future generation will always come along and declare it uncool. Jeremy Burge, emoji historian Loading Until recently, the emoji historian community  yes, its a thing  agreed that the first emoji was a love heart, sent in the mid-1990s between pagers. However, a late 1980s Sharp pocket computer from Japan has since been found that contains 102 emojis, including various animals, trains, a smiley face, a sad face and a set of weather icons. Another emoji thats often asked about is the pile of steaming poo. People always ask me when the poo emoji was introduced, Burge says. As with all early emojis, this was implemented without a committee or standards body. It came about in 1997 on a mobile phone from Japanese carrier SoftBank. Emojis have changed in meaning over time, too. The crying-with-laughter emojis are the most popular but have become cringe to internet natives, who also tend to use a mix of lowercase, unpunctuated text for casual chat. Its an emoji that suffers from being too popular for its own good, Burge says of the face with tears of joy. Emojis work best when theres a common understanding between those sending and receiving. The skull as an emoji for laughing [died from laughter] works within communities where its understood and popular but might be baffling to older internet users. And we all have to get used to the fact that whatever we like and enjoy today, a future generation will always come along and declare it uncool. So use whatever emojis you like!

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. As part of COP29 in Baku, Trend News Agency proudly presents COP for Hope, a special project offering an unparalleled platform to hear from world leaders and trailblazers in politics, economics, science, and ecology, all united by a shared commitment to addressing todays pressing climate challenges.

The head of the Chadian delegation, Hamid Abakar Souleymane, became our next interviewee.

In an interview with Trend, he said that as a result of COP29, developing countries will be able to agree on some new political and financial assistance, especially for Africa, which will facilitate the fight against climate change.

Souleymani expressed his pleasure of being in Baku.

People here are very kind; they help everywhere, even on the street. I was just thinking to myself whether helping people is some kind of culture or gesture, but I understand that it is a behavior that has existed for a long time. That is why the Azerbaijani people are very friendly. The conference is very well organized. Everyone feels happy here.

We hope that as a result of COP29, developing countries will be able to agree on some new political and financial aid, especially for Africa, which will make it easier for us to fight climate change.

I want COP29 to lead to the mobilization of a new financial plan to combat climate change. Let developed countries show leadership in providing financial support that can enable developing countries to realize the results of adaptation and mitigation. In this way, we can call this conference COP29promising ample opportunities for finance and investment.

All developing countries, especially Africa, are suffering from the impacts of climate change. Therefore, the world must fight the climate crisis united, he added.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
Next April/May, a friend wants to brush up on her French and I suggested we travel together and take a cooking course somewhere in the countryside before having a week in Paris. J. Hudson, Melbourne, VIC

The simplest solution is to go online and make your bookings with Rail Europe. Most of your train journeys are relatively short and point-to-point tickets rather than rail passes will probably serve you better. Book at least a couple of months in advance and you can take advantage of lower-priced tickets, and make seat reservations wherever possible. You might also qualify for aged-based concessions. Luggage storage is often a problem on European trains, travel light and youll travel with a smile. For everything you could want to know about train travel in Europe see The Man in Seat 61 website .

We will be spending time in London next June, then travelling by Eurostar to Brussels, followed by train to Berlin, Dresden, Nuremberg, Regensburg, Vienna and finally Munich. Our hotels are all locked in, whats the best way to book train tickets? J. and J. Broadrick, North Geelong, VIC

In April/May Id be looking for somewhere warm, where spring produce will be appearing in the village markets, and that points to Provence. Cuisine CentrHalles offers cooking courses within Les Halles, the covered market in the city of Avignon. The course includes shopping for produce in the market before cooking, and finally a meal with wine pairing. These are relatively short courses and all in French, and if you wanted to alternate your culinary days with sightseeing and touring this could work well.

La Mirance is a luxury hotel also in Avignon that offers cooking and pastry classes and gourmet strolls with Provencal chefs. Meals are prepared on a 19th-century wood-fired oven. Patricia Wells is an American chef and author who runs one-week cooking classes from her farmhouse in the Cotes-du-Rhone region. Classes are geared for novices as well as experts looking to impress their dinner guests. Provence Gourmet offers non-residential cooking classes at several locations in Provence including Aix-en-Provence, Marseille and Saint-Remy-de-Provence.

We are a couple planning a one-week trip to Japan in April 2025 starting from either Tokyo or Osaka. One of us has a slight disability and cant walk for more than 500 metres so walking tours might not be possible. What do you suggest?

J. Cheung, Adelaide, SA

Food tours often travel slowly with frequent stops and this is one option you might consider. Likewise garden tours and museum tours, and there are many options within these categories. There are also traditional hands-on experiences such as origami, flower arranging, calligraphy and tea ceremonies that do not require rigorous movement and these provide fascinating insights into Japanese culture.

However, transport, tours, hotels and restaurants can all present unique challenges for even slightly disabled travellers in Japan. My best suggestion is to discuss your needs with a specialist travel agency. Accessible Japan has suggestions for disabled tours in Japan while Inside Japan Tours has itineraries that can be customised to cater to your needs.
Bali/Singapore: Made, a Bali taxi driver, sat forlornly on the tiles of the international arrivals terminal at Denpasar airport, his sign resting against his knees. It was almost midnight and the terminal was empty, as it had been most of the day. Still, he waited, just in case.

I had no order all day, Ive been here since morning  8am, he said. Not a single passenger  so many flights cancelled. Thirty incoming international flights that day, to be exact. Many from Australia.

Made, a Bali taxi driver, waiting in the empty international arrivals hall close to midnight on Wednesday. Credit: Amilia Rosa

Eruptions from Indonesias Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki volcano in East Flores and an unfavourable wind had sent ash clouds into the flight path between Australia and Bali.

It began erupting on November 3, when volcanic material was thrown up to 6km from its crater, killing 10 people including nuns at a convent that was blanketed by volcanic debris.
Kyiv: Russia has ramped up deep strikes into Ukraine with a volley of missiles aimed at Kyiv and a north-eastern border area, ending a more than two-month pause in such attacks on the capital, the Ukrainian air force said.

The missile bombardment on Wednesday came as Russian forces sought to press their advantage across the eastern front. Ukraines military reported a wave of aerial bombing targeting its troops holding a pocket of Russian territory near the northern border that was captured last northern summer.

As air raid alerts wailed in Kyiv around 6am, the Ukrainian air force said it was tracking 96 aerial targets entering the countrys airspace. That included missiles, ending an unusual 73-day pause in Russias use of the weapons to strike the capital.

Rescue workers clear the rubble of a building destroyed by a Russian strike in Brovary, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday. Credit: Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP

The air force said four missiles were aimed at Kyiv and two were short-range missiles fired into the north-eastern border area.
AUTOMOBILI PININFARINA STRENGTHENS FLORIDA PRESENCE WITH NEW RETAIL PARTNER IN WEST PALM BEACH

Italian luxury carmaker Automobili Pininfarina strengthens its Florida presence with the appointment of Braman Automobili Pininfarina of Palm Beach in West Palm Beach, Florida offering clients a bespoke ultra-luxury experience and access to the 1,900hp Battista hyper GT

presence with the appointment of Braman Automobili Pininfarina of in offering clients a bespoke ultra-luxury experience and access to the 1,900hp Battista hyper GT Prospective clients can experience the Battista and B95 Gotham at Braman Automobili Pininfarina of Palm Beach from December 02

CAMBIANO, Italy, Nov. 14, 2024 -- Automobili Pininfarina has appointed Braman Automobili Pininfarina of Palm Beach as its newest retail partner for North America, located in West Palm Beach, Florida. It further strengthens the brand's world-class network of luxury performance car specialists.

Automobili Pininfarina's world-class luxury retail partners in Floridaincluding newly appointed Braman Automobili Pininfarina of Palm Beachwill ensure that current and prospective Battista and B95 clients receive a highly personalised sales and ownership experience in 'the Sunshine State'.

This announcement comes mid-way through a highly successful US tour, which has already seen Battista and B95 Gotham presented to potential clients in Los Gatos, Newport Beach, Beverly Hills, and Salt Lake City, as well as a distinguished presentation of the two hypercars at the Las Vegas Concours luxury auto show. And following this event, selected members of Robb Report's RR1 private club and The Concours Club had the opportunity to experience Automobili Pininfarina's world-beating performance and design with Battista and B95 Gotham.

Paolo Dellacha, Chief Executive Officer, Automobili Pininfarina, said: "Florida holds a special significance for us as the home of several of our vehicles. It continues to be a highly receptive market for Italian luxury, and we are excited to meet the needs of our esteemed clientele here with our newly appointed West Palm Beach retail partner. This new partnership ensures we can meet the substantial demand for our vehicles in Florida, connecting us with automotive connoisseurs and providing them with the pinnacle of luxury and performance."

Alex Shack, Dealer Principal of Braman Automobili Pininfarina of Palm Beach added: "We are honoured to join Automobili Pininfarina's prestigious network and bring the exceptional Battista and B95 to South Florida. The demand for high-performance luxury vehicles is stronger than ever here, and our team is thrilled to offer clients an exclusive experience with these masterpieces of Italian craftsmanship and cutting-edge innovation. We look forward to connecting with our community and sharing Automobili Pininfarina's commitment to performance, Italian luxury, and craftsmanship."

The West Palm Beach team can be contacted via BramanAPFpalmbeach.com

Automobili Pininfarina's US expansion reflects the brand's dedication to delivering on its promise of 'Dream Cars, Made Real' to North America. Automobili Pininfarina stands at the vanguard of pure Italian luxury experiences with its bespoke curated approach of tailoring vehicles to the most demanding preferences of its clients. Each vehicle is a hand-crafted masterpiece and a reflection of the client's personality, created and inspired by Automobili Pininfarina's artisans. Both the B95 Gotham and the recently delivered Battista Targamerica exemplify this approach.

The B95 Gotham is the first physical car from the ground-breaking collaboration between Automobili Pininfarina, Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products (WBDGCP) and Relevance International. This unique 'one-of-one' car is inspired by the luxury lifestyle of billionaire Bruce Wayne, the civilian persona of DC superhero Batman. Automobili Pininfarina's talented design team have imagined what the visionary technology entrepreneur and philanthropist would expect from a car if he was the client.

For more information, visit

automobili-pininfarina.com/media-hub

ABOUT AUTOMOBILI PININFARINA

Automobili Pininfarina is based in operational headquarters in Cambiano, Italy, with a commercial office in Munich, Germany, and resourced with a team of experienced automotive executives from luxury and premium car brands. Designed, engineered and produced by hand in Italy, with a focus on designing experiences for the world's foremost taste makers, all of Automobili Pininfarina's vehicles embody the PURA design philosophy. This philosophy will also permeate all future production cars, seamlessly blending classic inspiration with cutting-edge technology.

ABOUT AUTOMOBILI PININFARINA BATTISTA ( LINK TO PRESS KIT)

Battista is the most powerful car ever designed and built in Italy and it delivers a level of performance that is unachievable today in any road-legal sports car featuring internal combustion engine technology. Faster than a current Formula 1 race car in its 0 -100 km/h sub-two second sprint, and with 1,900 hp and 2,340 Nm torque on tap, the Battista combines extreme engineering and technology in a zero emissions package. Battista's 120 kWh battery provides power to four electric motors  one at each wheel  with a combined WLTP range of up to 476 km (U.S. combined EPA: 300 miles) on a single charge. No more than 150 examples of Battista will be individually hand-crafted at the atelier in Cambiano, Italy.

SOURCE Automobili Pininfarina
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. As part of COP29 in Baku, Trend News Agency proudly presents COP for Hope, a special project offering an unparalleled platform to hear from world leaders and trailblazers in politics, economics, science, and ecology, all united by a shared commitment to addressing todays pressing climate challenges.

Today, we are honored to speak with Washington State Governor Jay Inslee at COP29.

In an exclusive interview with Trend, he said that the US will work together with all parties, including Azerbaijan, to overcome climate change.

Inslee noted that he really enjoyed Baku and made new friends there.

"At the meeting in Baku, we heard from 15 people. They spoke about what they are doing to address climate change. Their speeches were very inspiring, and we agreed that we must fight this problem together.

I represent the state of Washington, and we are fully engaged in the fight against climate change. We will work on this issue together with all parties, including Azerbaijan," he added.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The Ministerial Forum on Green Good Governance organized by ASAN xidmet is being held in Baku within the framework of COP29 in the Blue Zone, Trend reports.

Addressing the event, Ulvi Mehdiyev, Chairman of the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of Azerbaijan, emphasized that the Azerbaijani government is strongly committed to sustainable development in response to global climate change.

According to him, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, realizing the importance of progress in this area, approved Azerbaijan 2030: National Priorities for Socio-Economic Development.

This strategic document reflects key areas that shape our long-term vision. The fifth goal among these priorities is particularly important as it ensures the creation of a clean environment and turns Azerbaijan into a country of green development.

The efforts of Azerbaijan towards sustainable development have accelerated since the chairmanship of COP29. Hosting COP29 in 2024, which our government has defined as the Year of Solidarity for a Green World," underscores our commitment. COP29 promises to be a milestone, bringing together representatives from different nations for this event. Building on the progress made at COP28, this year's conference could lead to meaningful outcomes, including advancing concrete, timely commitments to reduce emissions, and increasing transparency in climate finance and enforcement.

The State Agency for Citizen Services and Social Innovation, under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, knows that international cooperation is essential to achieving goals that will not only protect our planet but also ensure a safe environment for future generations. This shared vision is the reason why we are all gathered here today. As members of the public sector, we play a unique role as catalysts and help our governments strengthen their skills in implementing nationally determined contributions, he added.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The "ASAN Xidmet" model will be exported to four continents through the United Nations (UN), Ulvi Mehdyev, the chairman of the State Agency for Public Services and Social Innovations under the President of Azerbaijan, said during COP29 in Baku today, Trend reports.

"We are exporting the Azerbaijani brand ASAN Xidmet as an intellectual product to more than 20 countries.

Another contribution agreement was signed between the UN and ASAN Xidmet within the framework of COP29.

Under this agreement, work will be carried out to promote and export the ASAN Xidmet model to four continents through the United Nations," Mehdiyev pointed out.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
47% voter turnout in Raipur City South by-poll





Staff Reporter

RAIPUR,

The fate of 31 candidates was locked in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during Raipur City South Legislative Assembly by-poll, which concluded peacefully on Wednesday with over 50.50 percent voter turnout. Speaking with The Hitavada, Raipur Deputy District Election Officer Uma Shankar Bande reported the smooth conduct of the polling. One VVPAT machine was replaced at polling station 131 in the constituency. Senior citizens, women, and young voters participated enthusiastically in the by-poll. Around 50.50 per cent voter turnout was recorded in Raipur City South Legislative Assembly Constituency. The polling was held from 7 am to 6 pm. Minor disputes were reported among the Congress and the BJP workers at some polling stations. BJP candidate Sunil Soni cast his vote at polling stations located in Maharana Pratap Higher Secondary School Budhapara. Congress candidate Akash Sharma along with his family members exercised their franchise at Sundar Nagar Polling Station.

It was seen that the BJP workers and the Congress workers toiled hard at the last moment of the voting to woo voters at the polling stations. Polling took place across 266 stations, with ten stations managed by female polling staff and five Adarsh stations supervised by young officials. One station was exclusively staffed by specially-abled personnel. A direct contest was held between BJP candidate Sunil Soni and Congress candidate Akash Sharma. During the 2023 assembly elections, the Raipur City South recorded a voter turnout of 60.48 per cent. BJPs Brijmohan Agrawal secured a commanding 69.48 percent vote share, while Congress candidate Mahant Dr. Ramsundar Das garnered 26.42 percent. Agrawals election to the Lok Sabha from the Raipur constituency left the assembly seat vacant, necessitating this by-poll. Strict security was in place with five companies of security forces deployed to ensure a free and fair election. Live monitoring was carried out in 227 polling stations. The constituency has a total of 2,71,169 registered voters, comprising 1,33,800 men, 1,37,317 women, and 52 individuals from the third gender.
66.18% voting in phase-1 of Jkhand Assembly polls







RANCHI :

 43 Assembly seats

 1.37 crore voters

 683 candidates

 15,344 polling stations

POLLING in the first phase of elections to 43 Assembly seats in Jharkhand remained peaceful, with over 66.18 per cent of 1.37 crore voters exercising their franchise on Wednesday, officials said. Despite almost half of the 15,334 booths, where polling took place, being in the critical category, no Naxal violence was reported barring one of two incidents in which Maoists tried to prevent voters from reaching booths in West Singhbhum district but the attempts were thwarted by the police and administration, they said. Approximately 66.18 per cent voter turnout was recorded as per data calculated till 9.50 pm, with Lohardaga district topping the list with 73.21 per cent polling and Hazaribag district recording the lowest at 62.78 per cent, a poll official said.

he overall polling percentage in the State surpassed 63.9 per cent recorded in the 2019 assembly polls, according to the Election Commission. With this, the fate of 683 candidates, including former Congress MP Geeta Kora and Rajya Sabha MP Mahua Maji among 73 women nominees, in fray in the first phase has been sealed. Barring Lohardaga and Hazaribag, the poll percentage in other districts were Seraikela-Kharsawan (76.02), Gumla (69.01), Simdega (68.74), Khunti (68.36), Garhwa (68.42), Latehar (67.16), West Singhbhum (66.87), Ramgarh (66.32), East Singhbhum (67.10), Chatra (64), Palamu (62.97), Koderma (62.15) and Ranchi (62.56). West Singhbhum, one of the most Maoist-affected districts in the state saw increase in voting. West Singhbhum Deputy Commissioner Kuldeep Chaudhary told PTI, Polling was peaceful and overall turnout increased in all five constituencies -- Chaibasa, Majhgaon, Jagannathpur, Manoharpur and Chakradharpur -- to 69.96 per cent, 70.80 per cent, 69.84 per cent, 64.03 per cent and 68.61 per cent, respectively, from 66.49 per cent, 68.03 per cent, 65.02 per cent, 61.19 per cent and 65.80 per cent, respectively, in 2019.

Chief Electoral Officer K Ravi Kumar said,The election process was peaceful and remained free of incidents. Voting in urban areas was not as per expectations while in rural areas the turnout has increased. IG (Operations) Amol V Homkar said polling was peaceful despite 7,851 booths being in the critical category, and 2,249 in the extreme critical category, out of a total of 15,334 booths. A total of 600 companies of central armed forces, 60 companies of Jharkhand Armed Police, 15,291 personnel of state armed forces and 14,000 homeguards were deputed in view of sensitivity and Naxal menace, he said, adding that monitoring was being done through flying squads besides special communication system was established for 286 booths where communication was a challenge. A total of 683 candidates -- 609 men, 73 women and one of the third - - are trying their luck in the 43 seats.

These seats are divided into 17 general, 20 reserved for Scheduled Tribes, and six for Scheduled Castes. Former chief minister and BJP candidate Champai Soren is pitted against JMM rival Ganesh Mahali in Seraikela seat, while the ex-CMs son Babulal Soren is contesting from Ghatsila against JMM candidate and Jharkhand cabinet minister Ram Das Soren. Former CM Madhu Kodas wife and ex-MP Geeta Kora is trying her luck from Jagannathpur on a BJP ticket against sitting Congress MLA Sona Ram Sinku. In Potka, former Union minister and ex-CM Arjun Mundas wife Meera Munda is contesting against sitting JMM MLA Sanjib Sardar. Congress leader Rameshwar Oraon is up against AJSUs Shanti Bhagat in Lohardaga and JD(U)s Saryu Roy is facing Congresss Banna Gupta in Jamshedpur West.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Baku will host a Parliamentary Meeting within the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), jointly organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Azerbaijani Parliament on November 16-17, Trend reports via the Parliament's statement.

The vice-president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union is the representative of Azerbaijan, MP Sevil Mikayilova.

According to the statement, the event, bringing together 92 delegations from 66 countries and international organizations, with up to 330 participants expected, will involve 167 members of parliament, including 12 speakers and deputy speakers.

The sessions to be held at the Parliamentary Assembly will discuss the real impacts of climate change, the role of parliaments in enhancing ambitious climate mitigation efforts to turn climate commitments into reality and make contributions at the national level, the development of the global climate finance architecture, and improving resilience to climate change.

Moreover, the discussions will cover promoting a comprehensive and fair approach to this field, using technology to fight climate change and ensure equitable access, efforts to ensure food safety and health in the face of climate change, managing human displacement and climate change, and other topics, with a final document to be adopted.

The event will also include a series of bilateral meetings.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. 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 in the climate system.

A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
BREAKTHROUGH: Police arrest five members of Gang 4141





Staff Reporter :

IN a major breakthrough, Tilwara police have nabbed five members of Gang 4141 and seized 2 pistols, 2 live cartridges, 3 chinese knives and 6 knives from them. The arrested have been identified as Ankush Bairagi alias Dharve (20), resident of Kresharbasti, Tilwara, Anuj Khatik (23), resident of Purwa Road, Sanjeevani Nagar, Sanju Sarang alias Sanjay Ahirwar (24), resident of Jodhpur Padav, Tilwara, Iluu alias Himanshu Tiwari (24), resident of Lal Building, Sanjeevani Nagar and Shubham Pandey (24), resident near Vriddha Ashram, Tilwara. It may be noted that, on November 10, 2024, Sanjay Upadhyay (30) was injured in a firing incident in Tilwara. The injured informed to police that two men arrived on a motorcycle while he was sitting at the Khairmai Temple platform. One, with a covered face, attempted to shoot him but the gun malfunctioned and Sanjay managed to escape from the spot. Later, while returning home, Sanjay was shot in the thigh by Anuj Khatik and an accomplice.

he attackers fled towards the medical area. Acting on the complaint, Tilwara police registered a case and started investigation. Taking a serious note into the case, SP Sampat Upadhyay constituted a team under the supervision of Additional SP, Samar Verma and CSP, Garha, Devendra Pratap Singh Chouhan. Investigating the case, police team led by SHO, Tilwara, Brijesh Mishra identified and apprehended one of the accused Ankush alias Kala Dharve, who confessed the crime, and revealed the names of other members of their gang. On his identification, police started a rigorous search, police have arrested four more members of Gang 4141 and seized 2 pistols, 2 live cartridges, 3 chinese knives and 6 knives from them. In further investigation, police learnt that the arrested Sanju Sarang is already booked in over 20 sensitive crime cases including robbery, attempted murder and possessing illegal weapons while Anuj Khatik has over 16 offenses related to violence, attempted murder and illegal substances, Iluu Tiwari has over 15 registered crime cases and Ankush Dharve and Shubham Pandit have also booked in multiple registered crimes including possessing illegal weapons and assault.
COP 29 Developingcountriesdemand FAIR CLIMATE FINANCIAL SUPPORT





By Uzmi Athar BAKU (Azerbaijan),

INDIA, as part of the Like-Minded Developing Countries bloc, stood firm in calling for equitable financial support from developed nations at the ongoing COP29 climate negotiations, multiple sources from the grouping said here. Concerns were also raised that nearly 69 per cent of reported finance came in the form of loans adding burdens on the already vulnerable countries. At the annual climate talks, India negotiates in key groupings such as the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs), G77 and China, and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, and China), where it aligns with other developing nations to advocate for climate finance, equity, and technology transfer. On Tuesday, G77 and China -- the largest bloc representing around 130 countries at the UN climate talks -- rejected the draft text of a framework for negotiating a new climate finance goal.

The New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) is the central issue at this years climate summit, the 29th Three attackers allegedly shot him and lobbed crude bombs around 9 am in full public view while he was having tea at a roadside shop. Polling was also held in Taldangra, Haroa, Medinipur, Sitai and Madarihat seats. In Madarihat, BJP candidate Rahul Lohars car was reportedly vandalised.

Tension also erupted at a booth in Sitai, Cooch Behar, following allegations that two buttons on an EVM machine was covered with tape. A p olling percentage of over 65 was recorded in the bypolls to the seven seats in Rajasthan - Jhunjhunu, Dausa, Deoli-Uniara, Khinvsar, Chorasi, Salumber and Ramgarh. In the Deoli-Uniara seat inTonk, Independent candidate Naresh Meena allegedly slapped Amit Chaudhary, sub divisional officer of Malpura who is engaged in the election duty as the area magistrate. Meena, a Congress rebel contesting as independent, also caught the collar of Chaudhary. District Election Officer and Tonk Collector Saumya Jha said voters in Samravta village had announced they would boycott polling. The village currently falls in Nagar fort Tehsil and the villagers are demanding bringing the village under Uniara Tehsil.
Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to leadDepartment of Govt Efficiency: Trump





WASHINGTON :

John Ratcliffe to head CIA, while Pete Hegseth has been nominated as Defence Secretary

US PRESIDENT-ELECT Donald Trump has announced that Tesla owner Elon Musk and Indian American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, aimed at improving governance and curbing wasteful expenditures. Trump has also given them a deadline of July 4, 2026, the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence. I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Trump announced late on Tuesday. Ramaswamy, 37, is the first Indian American to have been tapped by Trump into his administration beginning January 20 next year. His parents migrated to the US from Kerala and worked at a General Electric plant in Ohio.

I look forward to Elon and Vivek making changes to the federal bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency and, at the same time, making life better for all Americans. Importantly, we will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual USD 6.5 trillion of Government spending, said the President-elect. Trump on Tuesday announced that former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe will head the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under his administration. From exposing fake Russian collusion to be a Clinton campaign operation, to catching the FBIs abuse of Civil Liberties at the FISA Court, John Ratcliffe has always been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public, Trump said.

When 51 intelligence officials were lying about Hunter Bidens laptop, there was one, John Ratcliffe, telling the truth to the American People, he added. Trump onTuesday also announced the nomination of popular Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth, 44, as his Defence Secretary. I am honoured to announce that I have nominated Pete Hegseth to serve in my Cabinet as the Secretary of Defence, Trump announced on Tuesday. Nobody fights harder for the troops, and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our Peace through Strength policy, he said. Pete has spent his entire life as a warrior for the troops, and for the country. Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First. With Pete at the helm, Americas enemies are on notice, he added.
Empowerment of villages, panchayats will boost Indias progress: Murmu





SILVASSA :

PRESIDENT Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday said India will progress once its villages and panchayats are empowered as nearly 70 to 80 per cent of the people live in rural parts of the country. She was addressing a gathering in Silvassa town of the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu after inaugurating a Government School at Zanda Chowk and phase-II of development of space beneathYatri Niwas flyover here. As per our Constitutions Preamble, our nations aim is to provide social, economic and political justice to citizens. I was told that the administration of this UnionTerritory is taking various steps for the uplift of this regions people and results of those efforts are now visible, she said.

Murmu said the participation of village panchayats helps in ensuring better governance. India is a country of villages because nearly 70 to 80 per cent people live in villages. Thus, our country will progress and become stronger if villages and panchayats become stronger, the President said, adding she will visit a Panchayat ghar after the event. Murmu is on a two-dayvisit to the Union Territory fromTuesday. On the first day of her visit, shevisited a recently-inauguratedaviary and a Government engineering college and the NationalInstitute of Fashion Technology(NIFT) campus in Daman. On Wednesday, she began hervisit by visiting the NAMOMedical Education & ResearchInstitute in Silvassa town andinteracted with students and faculty. The energy with which theyouth is marching forward, I amsure that it will help us in building Viksit Bharat (developedIndia), Murmu said.
From Death Row to Life

Imposition of punishment is a delicate task of every criminal trial. The variety of circumstances needs to be considered while imposing punishment. The case does not fall in the category of rarest of rare category, thus, capital punishment is unwarranted, say Justice Vinay Joshi and Justice Abhay Mantri

Staff Reporter :

Observing that the massacre case, in which four persons were killed over a farm dispute in the Hiwarkhed Police Station area of Telhara taluka, Akola district in 2015, is not a rarest of rare case, the Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court on Wednesday commuted the death sentences of the accused. Justice Vinay Joshi and Justice Abhay Mantri awarded life imprisonment to the father and 30 years of rigorous imprisonment to the son, while acquitted the mother.

The accused, identified as Haribahau Rajaram Telgote (66), Dwarkabai Haribahu Telgote (55), and their son Shyam alias Kundal Haribhau Telgote (35), are accused of the brutal killings of four of their relatives.

The High Court handed down a life sentence to Haribhau, and 30 years rigorous imprisonment without remission to Shyam for their involvement in the brutal killings.

However, Dwarkabai was acquitted, as there was insufficient evidence to prove her direct involvement in the murders.

The deceased, Baburao Sukhdeo Charhate, Dhanraj Sukhdeo Charhate, Gaurav Dhanraj Charhate, and Shubham Dhanraj Charhate, lost their lives in the brutal attack on June 28, 2015, at Malpura village, Tehsil Telhara in Akola district. The prosecution established that the three accused, armed with weapons including a knife, sickle, and axe, launched a vicious assault on the victims. The incident took place in broad daylight and was witnessed by several villagers. The victims were left in a pool of blood on the spot, and the accused were arrested shortly after, with their bloodstained clothes confirming their involvement in the crime.

While the Trial Court had sentenced the accused to death and declared the case to be a rarest of rare instance due to the brutality of the murders, the High Court found the lower courts reasoning problematic. The Trial Court had referenced irrelevant factors, such as the number of murders committed in the state and the unusual involvement of a woman in the killings, to justify the extreme sentence. The High Court observed that each case should be assessed based on its unique facts, not generalised statistical data.

The High Courts ruling focused on the severity of the crime and the age and health of the accused. Haribhau, aged 65 at the time of the judgment, was granted life imprisonment due to his health condition, while Shyam, aged 25 during the murders, was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of remission for 30 years. The High Court noted that while the crime was heinous, the death penalty was disproportionate, and life imprisonment with a long non-remission period for Shyam was more appropriate. In addition to the commutation of sentences, the High Court also reduced the fine imposed on the accused. While the Sessions Court had levied a fine of Rs 50,000 on each of the convicted persons, the High Court lowered this to Rs 10,000 each.

The judgment also cleared Dwarkabai of all charges, concluding that there was insufficient evidence to link her directly to the murders. She was acquitted and ordered to be released immediately. Advocate Rajendra Daga represented the accused.
India calls for cross-border collaboration with Pakistan,Bangladesh to tackle trans boundary pollution





BAKU :

DESCRIBING pollution as a transboundaryissue,Indiahas urged nations, especially PakistanandBangladesh,totake proactive and collaborative measures to manage and mitigateairpollutionacrossborders. This appeal comes as northern India has been witnessing a riseinpollutionwithNewDelhis air quality hitting a severe level for the first time this season, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) reaching 418, on Wednesday. Ministers and heads of delegationsfromsixoftheeightcountries that share theEarths tallest cryosphere zone met at a meeting hosted by Bhutans Prime MinisterTsheringTobgayonday two of the global climate conference COP29 in Azerbaijan on Tuesday,InternationalCentrefor Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) said in a statement on Wednesday. ICIMOD is a regional intergovernmental learning and knowledge sharing centre.

In the meeting, India highlighted air pollution as a pressing and shared challenge within the Indo-Gangetic Airshed. Most of our countries fall underthesameair-shed,i.e.,the Indo-Gangetic Airshed.This is a transboundary issue. All countries must work together to address air pollution, said Naresh Pal Gangwar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forest and Climate Change. He urged nations, particularly Pakistan and Bangladesh, to take proactive, collaborative steps tomanageandmitigateair pollution across borders, the statement said. Earlier this month, Pakistan blamed winds from India for worsening air quality in Lahore and taking the smog todangerous levels. Tuesdays meeting took place as scientists issued fresh warnings about unprecedented economic and environmental losses from ice and snow melt, with2023 setting records for cryospheric degradation.

The Hindu Kush Himalaya(HKH) region, often referred toas Asias water tower, suppliesfresh water to nearly two billionpeople across Asia. Yet, climatechange-induced warming hasaccelerated glacial melt, threatening water, food, and energysecurityformillionsintheregion. Bhutanese Prime MinisterTobgayemphasisedtheurgency, saying,TheHKHregionisabiodiversity hotspot and a repositoryofsomeoftheworldslargestice reserves. With global temperatures rapidly nearing the1.5Cthreshold,wemustactnow, collectively, to mitigateimpending disasters thatwill affect bothmountain populations and 1.6billion people living downstream.
Innovative farming methodleads to first saffronbloom in Lucknow





LUCKNOW :

IN A pioneering effort, a Lucknow-based man has successfully cultivated saffron -- traditionally grown in Kashmirs cool climate and unique soil conditions -- using the aeroponic technique that requires no soil. Saffron is traditionally difficult to cultivate outside Kashmir due to its specific needs for cooler temperatures and particular soil types. However, 38-year-old Hemant Srivastavas innovative indoor farming method has led to the first saffron bloom in Lucknow.

Srivastava, who had previously worked for a leading company in the US, left his lucrative career to pursue to get into saffron cultivation in his hometown in Vijayant Khand, Gomti Nagar. The idea of cultivating saffron struck me while watching videos online. When I realisedthere wasnt much suitable landin Lucknow, I decided to try growing it right at home, he told PTIVideos. I travelled to Kashmir, metwith local farmers, and learnedabout their methods.Thats whenI felt confident I could replicateit in a controlled setup here inLucknow, he added.
Nag Vidarbha Tea MerchantAssociation celebrates Diwali





 Business Reporter :

THE NagVidarbhaTeaMerchant Association recently celebrated Diwali Milan with great excitement. President of the association Prashant Ahirkar presided over the function. Former PresidentAnilAhirkar,AshokLad, Virendra Yaduka, Rajeev Zaveri w ere among the prominent persons attend the meet. On the occasion, the participating tea merchants discussed various issues related to their sector. Expressing his views, Prashant Ahirkar said that India is at the second position in the world when it comes to production of tea. However, countries like Sri Lanka and Kenya are exporting more than the quantityIndiaisexporting.Indian tea merchants should take thismatter seriously and work hard to improve their exports, he said. Anil Ahirkar said that the policymakersshouldbringdown the current 5 per cent slab of Goods and Services Tax on tea to 0 per cent. A large number of members took part in the event.
Police seize Rs 1.50 cr cash from moped rider





Staff Reporter :

A police team detained a moped-borne man carrying Rs 1.50 crore cash after stopping him on Central Avenue on late Wednesday night. The rider, identified as Shakir Khan Haji Nasir Khan (42) from Yashodhara Nagar, was detained after officers found the large sum of money stashed in his moped and a bag he was carrying. Police found the Rs 1.35 crore cash hidden in the vehicles utility box and additional Rs 15 lakh in a bag. The incident occurred around 9 pm when police, conducting routine checks of vehicles, grew suspicious of Khans behaviour and decided to stop him. Upon searching Khans moped, the cops found the cash haul. The discovery has raised concerns within the Election Commission about potential electoral malpractice, including the illegal movement of money.

The Election Commission of India has been informed about the seizure by the police who are now investigating whether the cash has been linked to any illegal activities during the polls. Khan was questioned at the scene but reportedly gave vague responses regarding the source and purpose of the money. According to police sources, Khans statements did not clarify whether the cash was related to personal finances, election, or illicit activities such as money laundering. Given the scale of the amount and the timing  during a high-stakes Assembly election period  the police are treating this matter seriously.

The police have launched a thorough investigation to trace the origins of the money. Investigators are particularly focused on whether it is linked to electoral bribery or any unaccounted financial flow associated with the ongoing elections. A senior police official stated that they are investigating the case and also checking the CCTV footage to ascertain the source of the cash. Senior police officials reached Tehsil Police Station to supervise the investigation late in the night.
Second digital arrest in a week!





Staff Reporter :

A telecom engineer named Pramod Kumar was digitally arrested in the city on Wednesday. As per information, he was digitally arrested for six hours and the accused demanded a sum of Rs 3.5 lakh from him. As per information, he received a call that his phone number is being misused in a crime for which he can be jailed. Hearing the same, the victim got scared and fell prey to the arrest. Notably, this is the second digital arrest in a week. Earlier in another incident, a businessman named Vivek Oberoi was digitally arrested on November 9. In the words of Pramod Kumar, From 6:30 in the evening, some fake calls were being dialled where blackmailing me. The fraudsters told me that my mobile number is being misused in a fake Aadhaar card which can get me behind bars and can invite further trouble. He further told that the fraudsters further asked him to pay Rs 3.5 lakh as a fine for the same.

I got scared, he said. Promptly, he also informed the police about the incident after the police team arrived and took the matter into their cognizance along with doing counselling of Kumar. According to cops, a tip off was received that Pramod Kumar who was residing near Bajariya was called by the accused faking as police personnel and was kept at digital arrest for six hours. Acting upon the situation, the Crime Branch personnel reached the spot and explained the victim about the incident. We have started the enquiry and have constituted teams to trace the numbers, the cops said. A sum of Rs 3.5 lakhs was demanded. The victim has been taken into confidence of the Crime Branch and will be taking adequate actions to nab the accused, the cops told. Police Commissioner Harinarayanchari Mishra stated that the accused were constantly blackmailing the victim and was kept in dark. They were successful in pretending and making the individual believe that they are the representatives of police and Income Tax Department along with a lawyer. As per him, the information to the police came from his friends who became suspicious of his activities.

The victim was not talking to his friends and families after which the friends became suspicious and informed the police. He said. Mishra further mentioned, The victim was an engineer by profession and had good technical knowledge and was under pressure. They kept the victim under arrest for six hours, interrogating him and pressing him for transferring money in their bank accounts. Prima facie, on the video call, three accused have been identified but the Crime Branch is searching for any other intruder involved in the same. Notably, in the incident of digital arrest in Arera Colony that on November 9, the persons acquaintance Rajiv Oberoi informed the cyber police about his digital arrest. The police team reached the house of the victim Vivek Oberoi (who is a corporate sector entrepreneur in Dubai) in Arera Colony without wasting a moment.

The team found that the victim has been digitally arrested by unknown cyber fraudsters posing as ED, CBI officers and calling from virtual numbers of Dubai and Syria. He was kept digitally arrested in a room of his own house for six hours from 1 pm. The cyber fraudsters took personal information and banking details of the victim and his family and threatened to arrest them and harm the family members if they did not tell anyone. When the cyber police raided, the fraudsters immediately disconnected the video call. The team counselled the victim properly and got him out of the virtual world of digital arrest of his phone and laptop.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Samir Mammadov, Deputy Minister of Digital Development and Transport of Azerbaijan, took part in the event titled Tripling nuclear energy by 2050 as part of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku, Trend reports via the ministry.

Mammadov highlighted that discussions on climate change at COP29 will play a crucial role in strengthening global cooperation to address the climate crisis.

"The Deputy Minister emphasized Azerbaijan's ambition to become a leader in renewable energy. He highlighted the countrys plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2050 and to increase the share of renewable energy in its electricity generation to 30 percent by 2030.

During the event, Mammadov also stressed Azerbaijans commitment to the Paris Agreement and its dedication to transitioning to clean energy. He pointed out that the country is exploring the potential of nuclear energy, particularly innovative technologies like Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), as part of this transition. The Government of Azerbaijan, he noted, supports collaborative efforts to assess the role of nuclear energy, including SMRs, in the clean energy transition through the Atoms4NetZero initiative.

In closing, Mammadov invited other nations to join Azerbaijan in fostering global cooperation for a swift and effective shift to clean energy. He reaffirmed Azerbaijan's readiness to collaborate on projects that advance this cause.

The event concluded with a panel discussion featuring Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," the ministry statement said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. A conference titled "Where are governments in their climate actions? First results of the ClimateScanner evaluation," organized by the Azerbaijani Accounts Chamber and the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), has taken place within the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), in Baku, Azerbaijan, Trend reports.

The event convened a dynamic assembly of key stakeholders from supreme audit institutions (SAIs) and the European Court of Auditors, representing Brazil, Finland, Canada, and a multitude of other nations. This collaborative gathering also included influential representatives from prestigious international organizations such as the UN Development Programme, UN Population Fund, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and more, alongside high-level officials from various government agencies.

The conference opened with a speech by the Chairman of the Accounts Chamber Vugar Gulmammadov.

He emphasized that executing climate mitigation and adaptation strategies necessitates substantial investment, including public financing, which underscores the pivotal role of SAIs in guaranteeing the strategic allocation of these resources, alongside fostering transparency and accountability.

The chamber's head also highlighted the obstacles faced during assessments in the realm of climate initiatives.

He briefed on the climate scanner and expressed confidence that this initiative would yield positive results both at the national and international levels, emphasizing the need for more effective joint actions by the international SAI community.

The event rolled on with a speech from Kalus-Heiner Leine, a member of the European Court of Auditors.

Next, the representative of the Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts, Hugo Chudison, presented preliminary global results of the climate scanner.

He highlighted that 240 auditors had been trained in this field to assess measures taken by national governments regarding climate change and141 SAIs, which had previously served as external auditors for their governments, had been involved in the climate scanner initiative, and 61 had completed the evaluation to date.

The representative of the Mozambican SAI then shared the real experience of using the climate scanner (based on the activities of the Mozambican SAI).

The event continued with panel discussions involving representatives from Canada, India, the Maldives SAI, and the European Court of Auditors.

During the panel discussions, participants exchanged views on the experiences of SAIs and lessons learned from the evaluation tool, as well as opportunities to improve effective climate governance and accountability at the national level.

The discussions were followed by a Q&A session.

The event concluded with speeches from representatives of the INTOSAI Development Initiative, the UN Development Programme, and the final address by the Vice President of the Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts, Chair of INTOSAI Vital do Rego.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), which will run until November 22, opened on November 11 at the Baku Olympic Stadium.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. As part of COP29 in Baku, Trend News Agency proudly presents COP for Hope, a special project offering an unparalleled platform to hear from world leaders and trailblazers in politics, economics, science, and ecology, all united by a shared commitment to addressing todays pressing climate challenges.

Our next interviewee was Yalcin Rafiyev, Chief Negotiator of COP29 and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan.

In an exclusive interview with Trend on the sidelines of COP29 in Baku, the COP29 Chief Negotiator noted that one of the major successes was the adoption of the agenda on the first day of the conference, following intense negotiations lasting nearly 20 hours.

"We are now on the fourth day of COP29, and one of the key achievements has already been the adoption of the conference agenda on the very first day. Typically, this is a process that requires long and difficult negotiations, but after nearly 20 hours of intense talks, we succeeded in reaching an agreement.

Equally significant was the decision on carbon market standards, aligned with Article 6, Paragraph 4 of the Paris Agreement. This has been a major hurdle for over a decade, with attempts to finalize it in the past three COPs all failing. However, we managed to adopt it on the first day of the conference, setting a positive tone and fostering a constructive atmosphere in the negotiation rooms right from the start.

Another significant accomplishment has been the united statement released by the multilateral development institutions, which include the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the International Monetary Fund. Azerbaijan has been actively lobbying these institutions for more climate support, and this year's efforts have paid off. These banks allocated a total of $170 billion in climate-related finance, up from $75 billion previously. The international media has already begun to cover this development intensively.

Additionally, one of Azerbaijan's primary goals at COP29 was ensuring the operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund established at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh. We were pleased to sign an agreement with the government of the Philippines to transfer the fund's management to them. On top of this, Sweden announced a contribution of $19 million to the fund, further boosting our collective efforts. These, I believe, are the most significant achievements of the first few days of COP29," Rafiyev noted.

The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), which will run until November 22, opened at the Baku Olympic Stadium on November 11. The event is the largest organized by Azerbaijan to date and is the first time the region has hosted the event in Azerbaijan.

Within COP29, the highest level event - the summit of world leaders on climate action - will be held on November 1213.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance.The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

In addition to being a top priority that creates the conditions for action, creating climate finance will also help fulfill the 1.5C pledge by bringing everyone together.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference in the climate system. The acronym COP (Conference of Parties) stands for Conference of Parties and is the highest legislative body overseeing the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

A total of 198 countries are parties to the Convention. Unless otherwise decided by the parties, COP is held annually. The first COP event was held in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) has approved a roadmap for the alignment of national taxonomies in collaboration with several other structures and with the support of the UN Environment Program Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), the CBA's Executive Director Shahin Mahmudzade told Trend.

According to him, the structures are the International Financial Corporation (IFC), the Sustainable Banking and Finance Network (SBFN), the International Platform on Sustainable Finance (IPSF), the UN Development Program (UNDP).

"Different countries have their own taxonomies, and a roadmap has been developed for their mutual alignment. This roadmap, which more than 110 countries have agreed to work on, covers activities in five different areas. The roadmap has already been approved, and the results will be discussed in Brazil. After Brazil, additional stages are likely to follow," he added.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ), in collaboration with the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF), successfully hosted a high-level panel discussion titled The role of sovereign wealth funds in financing the energy transition as part of the COP29 Presidency events on Finance Day. This significant gathering, held in the Blue Zone, brought together global leaders to examine the strategic role of sovereign wealth funds in advancing sustainable finance and supporting the global shift toward a low-carbon economy.

The event commenced with opening remarks from Obaid Amrane, CEO of Ithmar Capital - Chair of IFSWF, and Israfil Mammadov, CEO of SOFAZ - Deputy Chair of IFSWF, who highlighted the critical importance of sovereign wealth funds in addressing climate imperatives through informed, long-term investment strategies.

"As sovereign wealth funds, we have both the capacity and responsibility to lead by example in mobilizing capital for sustainable development. Our collaboration today at COP29 reflects our shared commitment to financing the energy transition and addressing climate challenges through strategic, long-term investments," stated Obaid Amrane, Chair of IFSWF.

SOFAZ, as a key contributor to Azerbaijans state budget, also plays a pivotal role in financing the nations sustainability agenda and energy transition. By upholding robust governance, in line with the Santiago Principles, we are committed to fostering economic stability while driving progress towards a sustainable future, mentioned Israfil Mammadov, Deputy Chair of IFSWF.

Anne Simpson, Global Head of Sustainability at Franklin Templeton, moderated the session, fostering an in-depth dialogue on the ways sovereign wealth funds can align their portfolios with energy transition objectives while maintaining their financial mandates.

The distinguished panel featured:

 Bo Li, Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund (IMF)

 Guo Xiangjun, Executive Vice President, China Investment Corporation (CIC)

 Derek Rozycki, Head of Responsible Investing, Mubadala Investment Company

 Steve Howard, Vice Chair of Sustainability, Temasek Holdings

 Prasad Gadkari, Executive Director and Chief Strategy Officer, National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF)

Panelists shared insights on incorporating transition finance within investment frameworks, discussing emissions reduction, asset allocation, geographic focus, and managing risk-return expectations. They addressed key barriers to deploying transition finance at scale, analyzing regulatory, structural, and market challenges, and highlighted solutions like blended finance models to strengthen sustainable investments.

Following the discussion, IFSWF issued a communique reaffirming its commitment to scaling climate finance investments, supporting the decarbonization of member portfolios, and fostering partnerships for sustainable finance. The communique also emphasized the creation of innovative financial instruments, promoting transparency, and advancing a just energy transition, particularly in emerging markets. IFSWF will continue its efforts to mobilize capital for climate action, with future engagements planned for COP30 in Belem, Brazil, and upcoming UN Climate Change Conferences.

This session, as one of the COP29 Presidency events, underscored the unique role of sovereign wealth funds in supporting the global climate agenda. SOFAZ and IFSWF, through this platform, reinforced the potential of sovereign wealth funds to shape a resilient, sustainable future through collaboration and responsible investment.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. A panel discussion on the topic "Climate change and regional cooperation to prevent glacier melting in Central and Western Asia" is being held within COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, Trend reports.

In his speech, Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Masatsugu Asakawa announced that the ADB and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) would sign a partnership declaration focused on climate change, glaciers, and transboundary cooperation in Central and Western Asia.

"Today, we are taking an important step forward with the launch of the Glaciers to Farms (G2F) program. Through G2F, we will expand support for glacier preservation, sustainable water management, and social protection for vulnerable communities, mobilizing $3.5 billion over seven years to safeguard water resources and agriculture. This initiative will strengthen resilience and adaptation for people in Central and Western Asia who rely on glacier-fed rivers, directly benefiting millions while indirectly supporting hundreds of millions," Asakawa said.

Azerbaijans Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources and COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev also spoke at the event, reaffirming Azerbaijans commitment to glacier preservation and sustainable water management.

"I express my gratitude to our co-organizers, the Asian Development Bank and the Green Climate Fund, for bringing us together to address one of the most pressing issues of our timethe melting of glaciers and its wide-reaching consequences. This gathering reflects our shared determination to overcome climate vulnerabilities in the Caucasus and Central Asia," Babayev said.

He highlighted the growing risks faced by the region, which stretches from the glaciers of the Greater Caucasus to vast agricultural plains. The retreat of glaciers is rapidly depleting critical freshwater reserves, leading to water shortages, desertification, and reduced agricultural productivity, all of which severely impact livelihoods and ecosystems.

Pakistans Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb also addressed the forum, warning that by 2040, Pakistan could face a severe water deficit.

Aurangzeb pointed out that this will have a profound impact on agriculture, which employs a 24 percent of the countrys workforce and contributes nearly a quarter of GDP. The rapid melting of glaciers will also affect global and regional food security, as Pakistan is one of the worlds leading producers and exporters of rice.

"As a glacier-dependent country, Pakistan fully supports the Glaciers to Farms (G2F) initiative. Despite contributing less than 1 percent to global emissions, Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. We recognize the need for innovative and sustainable solutions to protect our water resources and agriculture, as Pakistan is home to some of the largest glaciers in the world," the minister added.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. NGOs hailing from the UAE, Azerbaijan, and Brazil have come together to break new ground at their inaugural forum on climate financing in the COP29 Green Zone, Trend reports.

The forum, titled "COP Legacy - Civil Society Discussions on Climate Finance," was organized by the Azerbaijani State Support Agency for NGOs and the Azerbaijani National NGO Forum.

The agency's Executive Director Aygun Aliyeva mentioned that the forum is a golden opportunity for swapping COP experiences and getting NGOs in on the action regarding result-oriented climate finance.

Chairman of the Global Council for Tolerance and Peace of the UAE Ahmed Mohamed Al-Jarwan addressed NGO initiatives related to climate finance during COP28 and emphasized the importance of advancing key issues.

Head of the Planning, Information, and Tourism Development Department of Brazil's Ministry of Tourism Barbara Blaudt Rangel pointed out that Brazil, as the host country for COP30, strives to listen to and incorporate the approaches of civil society on climate matters.

The forum rolled on with panel discussions, keeping the ball rolling and the conversation flowing.

The first panel, "COP29: Empowering Civil Society in Climate Finance, Inclusivity, and Environmental Governance," was moderated by President of the Arab Platform for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Kamel Essigairi. The speakers included Executive Secretary of the Brazilian Panel on Climate Change and Researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro Andrea Souza Santos, Head of the UAE Climate Network Rasha Bayoumi, and Board Member of the Azerbaijani National NGO Forum Azer Allahveranov.

The second panel, "COP Legacy: Strengthening Civil Society in Climate Finance, Inclusivity, and Environmental Protection," moderated by Chairman of the Azerbaijani National NGO Forum Ramil Iskandarli, featured presentations from Head of the Monitoring and Evaluation Department at the UAE Ministry of Social Development Ahmed Khalifa Al-Shamsi, Climate Director for Brazil at the World Resources Institute Karen Silverwood-Cope, and Brazilian environmental and public health activist Ajaj Rifah.

The first-ever NGO tri-country collaboration was considered an important milestone. During the discussions, representatives of civil society from abroad expressed their gratitude to the Azerbaijani government for the high level of organization of COP29.

To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), which will run until November 22, opened on November 11 at the Baku Olympic Stadium.

The event is the largest organized by Azerbaijan to date and is the first time the region has hosted the event in Azerbaijan. Within COP29, the highest-level event - the summit of world leaders on climate action - was held on November 1213.

The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious NCQG on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. The Central Bank of Azerbaijan, in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Sustainable Banking and Finance Network, the International Platform for Sustainable Finance, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and with support from the Financial Initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), presented the Roadmap to Advance Interoperability and Comparability of Sustainable Finance Taxonomies at COP29, the CBA told Trend.

The roadmap was officially presented at an event titled "Advancing Sustainable Finance across the Globe: Roadmap towards Interoperability and Comparability of Sustainable Finance Taxonomies," organized by the Central Bank and IFC on Financial, Investment, and Trade Day at COP29.

"As the Central Bank, we must actively participate in executing the roadmap. We are resolute in supervising the progression and advancement of this significant undertaking. In collaboration with our key partners, we will concentrate our efforts on executing the roadmap," CBA Chairman Taleh Kazimov said.

The development of the strategic roadmap aligns with the international significance of a cohesive strategy for sustainable finance, tailored to meet the climate objectives outlined in the Paris Agreement. This initiative establishes a robust framework for essential instruments that enhance the interoperability of sustainable finance taxonomies across borders, while strategically channeling investments into initiatives that deliver substantial environmental and social benefits.

"Adopting green taxonomies will create a more efficient global sustainable finance market, direct capital to where it is most needed, and benefit both developed and developing markets. The IFC and the Secretariat of the Sustainable Banking and Finance Network are fully committed to this mission," IFC Executive Director Makhtar Diop said.

A panel discussion moderated by Emilia Michasouk, Climate Editor of the Financial Times, focused on the rapid evolution of sustainable finance taxonomies in various jurisdictions and the importance of unified standards to prevent market fragmentation. Abdullah Al-Dardari, Director of the UNDP Regional Office for Arab States, Jan Dusik, Deputy Director-General of the European Commissions Directorate-General for Climate Action, Eric Usscher, Head of the UNEP Finance Initiative, Vera Economou, Head of Sustainable Finance at Raiffeisen Bank International, and Sean Kidney, CEO and Co-Founder of the Climate Bonds Initiative, discussed how coordinated actions could contribute to transparency, regulatory compliance, and fast capital flow into sustainable initiatives.

In closing, Alfonso Garcia Mora, Vice President of IFC for Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and Chairman of the Sustainable Banking and Finance Network, called for enhanced action in the fight against climate change.

To note, the roadmap highlights three key elements that are critical for alignment: defining a common set of economic activities - special attention is paid to the decarbonization process, especially for emerging markets and developing economies; developing common technical approaches for alignment with the principles of the taxonomies and core criteria in line with the G20 guidelines; and formulating common approaches to financing the transition through the taxonomies.

To access the full Roadmap, please follow this link.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. An event titled "Empowering Change: Social Entrepreneurship as a Catalyst for Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility" was held in Baku today in collaboration with Education Hub Impakt, Trend reports.

The event, hosted by the State Support Agency for NGOs in the COP29 Green Zone, convened representatives from social entrepreneurship organizations, corporate responsibility sectors, and sustainable development groups to deliberate on innovative strategies for tackling climate and social issues through business practices.

The session began with a presentation by Education Hub expert Samir Aliyev on building a social entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Following this, several key speakers took the stage, including MP Vugar Bayramov, Executive Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Azerbaijan Gulnara Aslanbeyli, representative of the investment fund Caucasus Ventures Rashad Aliyev, and Head of the United Aid for Azerbaijan (UAFA) charity Gwendolyn Burchell.

The event, moderated by Education Hub Programme Consultant Saida Gurbanova, concluded with an engaging Q&A session focused on social entrepreneurship as a means to achieve positive and sustainable change. The discussions highlighted the importance of collaboration between the public, private, and civil sectors to foster a sustainable and socially responsible future.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. A number of documents in the field of "green energy" were signed with Chinese companies within the framework of COP29, Trend reports, citing the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan.

An executive agreement was signed between the Ministry of Energy, China Energy Overseas Investment Co. Ltd. and SOCAR Green LLC for a 160 MW solar power plant project in the Fizuli district. The Ministry of Energy and China Energy Overseas Investment Co. Ltd also signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the field of renewable energy in Azerbaijan.

In addition, the Ministry of Energy and China Datang Co. Ltd signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the development of renewable energy projects in Azerbaijan. The memorandum envisages cooperation with the company in the field of investing in renewable energy projects, preparing feasibility studies, conducting relevant research, and exploring the possibility of establishing a Center for Research and Development of Renewable Energy Sources in Azerbaijan.
At the official handover ceremony for proceeds from the charity auction hosted by Geneva Watch Days (GWD) and Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo, benefiting the Pierre Amstutz Fund, Jean-Christophe Babin, President of GWD, announced the dates for the next edition. From September 4 to 7, 2025, prominent players in the watch industry and lovers of fine timepieces will convene by Genevas iconic Jet d'Eau to share their passion.

E la nave va!

Jean-Christophe Babin presented a check for CHF 108,000 to Stephane Cruchaud, Dean of the Geneva School of Watchmaking, to support students of the school facing financial hardship. The Bulgari Group CEO and President of the Geneva Watch Days also took the opportunity to share some insights about the 2025 show.

First and foremost, he confirmed that the event is now here to stay, gaining institutional recognition while preserving the relaxed, open, and inclusive spirit that has become its hallmark. Inclusive, catalytic, and decentralized, it represents the joint vision of participating brands, who make decisions collectively through an elected committee.

Left to right: Stephane Cruchaud (Dean of the Geneva School of Watchmaking) and Jean-Christophe Babin (Bulgari Group CEO and President of the Geneva Watch Days)  GWD

Additionally, a new Access contributor category, the Incubator, will debut in 2025. This initiative aims to bring together under one umbrella smaller, independent, brandshighly creative, dynamic, and innovative, but often with limited budgets. This addition will further expand GWD's mission. After establishing the Pierre Amstutz Fund to help preserve watchmaking expertise, the next step is to support emerging but audacious brands by providing them with a very affordable entry price.

For the future of watchmaking, it is essential to sustain what binds us all: counting time, with the utmost know-how. Lets be disruptive, lets be totally inclusive!

Jean-Christophe Babin watching a watchmaking student at work  GWD

"As a representative of the founding members from 2020 and everyone who has contributed to GWDs continued success since then, I am proud to expand the events perspectives" said Jean-Christophe Babin. "The GWD has now secured its place on the agenda of collectors worldwide. And thats our goal: to bring together media, retailers, and, most importantly, those who matter mostour clients. To offer them the best experience, were opening our doors to all brands that demonstrate innovation, courage, and resilience."

Applications are open, until March 31st, 2025 !
1833 Jeree Treaty made Manipurs boundary permanent

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Dr Laishram Malem MangalClaims over Manipurs territory or parts of it necessitate clarifying the special status of Manipurs territorial boundary. The treaty signed on April 18, 1833, between Maharaja Gumbheer Singh of Manipur and British Commissioner FJ Grant, establishes and protects Manipurs boundaries under international law. This treaty officially recognizes Manipurs territorial demarcations : Article 1 defines the eastern bank of the Jeeree River as Manipurs western most boundary with British India, while Article 6 designates the Ningthee or Khyenween River (now the Chindwin River) as Manipurs easternmost boundary between Manipur and Burma.The principle known as the objectivization of boundary treaties states that once boundaries are established through an international agreement, they become an objective reality, persisting beyond the treaty itself. The 1833 treaty solidified Manipurs boundaries with British India on one side and Burma on the other. This principle was further recognized in the 1826 Treaty of Yandaboo, where both British and Burmese authorities acknowledged Manipurs independence and committed to non-interference in its affairs. Manipurs international boundaries were thus recognized by the 1833 treaty. Although Kabaw Valley was later ceded to Burma under the 1834 Agreement regarding Compensation for the Kubo Valley, Manipur was compensated by the Burmese Government with an annual sum of 6,000 rupees until 1948. As of October 18, 1948, Manipurs total area stood at 8,650 square miles, plus 7,000 square miles of the Kabaw Valley, which included 7,900 square miles of hills within Manipur.The 1833 treaty established Manipurs boundary along the foothills west of the Kabaw Valley, which, with further refinement, came to be known as the Pemberton Line. In 1894, the boundary between Manipur and the Chin Hills was marked, and in 1896, Colonel Maxwell further defined the Pemberton-Johnstone line by erecting 38 boundary pillars. These markers were referenced in the Boundary Agreement between the Government of India and the Government of the Union of Burma (Myanmar) signed on March 10, 1967, in Rangoon, where Article 1 recognized regions within Manipur that delineate the borders of both countries using various boundary pillars (Burma-India Boundary, International Boundary Study No. 80, 1968, by the US Bureau of Intelligence and Research).According to the 1950 White Paper on Indian States, Government of India, Manipurs total area at the time of the contested Merger Agreement was 8,620 square miles. This aligns with the area specified by Manipurs Maharaja on October 18, 1948. Currently, the Government of Manipur states the territory comprises 22,327 square kilometres. Though boundary disputes along the Indo-Myanmar border persist, Manipurs present borders remain protected under international law by virtue of the 1833 treaty, which has remained valid for 193 years.Under Article 62(a) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969 a fundamental change of circumstances cannot be used to annul treaties which establishes or recognises territorial boundaries. Section 7(1)(b) of the Indian Independence Act, 1947, indicates that treaties between the British and princely States lapsed with the termination of British rule. However, boundary treaties are an exception to this rule. The principle of rebus sic stantibus does not apply to boundaries established by a treaty. This position was reiterated by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a dispute concerning the boundary established by a treaty between Libya and Chad where the Court ruled that the establishment of [...] boundary is a fact which, from the outset, has had a legal life of its own, independently of the fate of the 1955 Treaty. Once agreed the boundary stands, for any other approach would vitiate the fundamental principle of the stability of boundaries ... A boundary established by treaty thus achieves a permanence which the treaty itself does not necessarily enjoy. The treaty can cease to be in force without in any way affecting the continuance of the boundary  but when a boundary has been the subject of agreement, the continued existence of that boundary is not dependent upon the continued life of the treaty under which the boundary is agreed.The Indian Government, as the successor to the British, cannot ignore the boundaries of Manipur established by the 1833 treaty. The Government of India cannot treat Manipurs territory based on the principle of clean slate. The "clean slate" principle incorporated in Article 16 of the Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties (1978), does not apply to boundary treaties. Thus, the 1833 treaty boundaries of Manipur are definite and inviolable, and Article 51 (c) of Indias Constitution obliges the GoI to respect Manipurs territorial boundary. The International Law Commission has reinforced this position, stating that boundaries established by treaties should be permanent to prevent potential international conflicts (Yearbook of International Law Commission, 1966, Vol. 2, p. 259). Article 11 of the Vienna Convention (1978) confirms that boundaries established by treaties are unaffected by State succession.International jurists and numerous ICJ rulings, such as those in the Tunisia-Libya (Case concerning the Continental Shelf, ICJ Reports, 1982) and the Arbitration Commission established by the International Conference on Yugoslavia (Opinion No. 3) reaffirmed this principle of the continuity of boundaries established by treaty. Upholding this rule in a number of cases such as Argentina- Chile Frontier case, the ICJ in Libya-Chad (Case Concerning the Territorial Dispute, ICJ Reports, 1994) case stated "once agreed, the boundary stands." Boundaries established by treaties are permanent and not subject to the clean slate principle. In fact, disturbing established boundaries can destabilize peace and security, making continuity essential. This permanence supports international peace by preserving stability and finality in boundary agreements.Manipurs boundary, as established by the 1833 treaty, has thus achieved permanence and is protected by international law. This position combined with the international law principle of uti possidetis juris, makes Manipurs territorial borders inviolable. Indias commitment to UN Charter and international law attracts its historical responsibility to protect Manipurs inviolable territorial boundary. International law safeguards the territorial integrity of Manipur against alterations under Indias Constitutional provisions, notably Article 3. Manipurs territorial boundary is sacrosanct under international law.The writer teaches International Law at the Symbiosis Law School, Symbiosis International (Deemed) University, Pune and can be reached at [email protected] . The views expressed are those of authors
Pattern behind the fresh wave of rampage Eyeing to control Jiri

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The Kuki militants are on the rampage. And this stretches back to November 7 at Mongbung village in Jiribam district which was the precursor of things to come in the next few days with the retaliation coming out in all its ferocity at Zairon Hmar village in the same district in which a young housewife, a mother of three, was killed on November 8. The theatre of conflict shifted from the westernmost corner of the State to Bishnupur in which another young housewife was killed in firing by Kuki militants at Wathalambi Santipur while she was working in a paddy field. This was on November 9 and while Manipur was coming to terms with the deaths of two young women, all within 24 hours of each other, ten Kuki militants were killed in a clash with CRPF personnel at Jiribam. After the dust over the shootout between the Kuki militants and the CRPF had settled down, came the news that six persons, including three children and three women have been taken hostage by the Kuki militants. The aggression is complete and perhaps the strike at Jiribam coupled with the prize of six hostages has emboldened the Kuki militants to take their level of aggression one or two notches up and nothing illustrates this better than the attacks on goods laden trucks bound for Noney and earlier the injuries inflicted on a young Tangkhul man while working in the field at Shanti Khongbal on November 11. Not surprisingly a number of Tangkhul civil society organisations have come out strongly against the Shanti Khongbal attack and the nature of pellet injuries sustained by the victim more than suggest that the gun could have been fired only from close range. Pellet guns are understood to have a firing range not exceeding 1200 feet, which more than suggest that the shots were fired from close range. This is where any question of mistaken identity may be brushed aside and one wonders what steps the Government may have taken up to deal with the situation. On the other hand at Noney side, the Rongmei Naga Students Organisation, Manipur (RNSOM) has taken the attacks on the Noney bound goods trucks seriously and has gone to the extent of announcing that supply to Kuki villages lying in the interior parts of Noney would be boycotted or stopped. This is how things stand as of today and even as Manipur has come to grips with the fact that the six persons held hostage by the Kuki militants are yet to be traced, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act has been reimposed in areas that come under six police stations-Sekmai police station, Lamsang police station, Lamlai police station, Jiribam police station, Leimakhong police station and Moirang police station. Places which have been the epicentres of the ongoing ethnic clash and this should go a long way in answering who has been the aggressor, the attacker and predator.

It remains to be seen whether the reimposition of the infamous Army Act will have any positive impact on the ongoing clash or not, but it is not clear whether Delhi has taken note of the pattern emerging out of the fresh wave of violence at Jiribam. The western most point of Manipur and the gateway to the rest of the country, Jiribam occupies a strategic position. The very fact that out of the 10 Kuki militants gunned down in the clash with the CRPF personnel on November 11 two have been confirmed to have come all the way from Chura-chandpur, should underline the intent with which the Kuki militants want to control the town. During the Naga-Kuki clash which started sometime in 1992, all the Nagas were driven out from the border town of Moreh. When the present clash with the Meiteis started from the evening of May 3, 2023, no efforts were spared to flush out all the Meiteis from Moreh, a place of immense potential given the Act East Policy of the Government of India. The pattern in the new found aggression of the Kuki militants should be understood and highlighted before the world to see and digest. In doing this, it is also extremely important to ensure that Manipur does not step on the toes of anyone, especially the community which has remained neutral so far and stick by the age old ethics of Chainarol.
IWC Schaffhausens Portugieser Eternal Calendar has received the Aiguille dOr at the 24th Grand Prix dHorlogerie de Geneve. Launched earlier this year, the Portugieser Eternal Calendar is IWCs first secular perpetual calendar. A newly engineered 400-year gear ensures that the calendar automatically skips three leap years over four centuries.

Another key feature of this watch is the extremely precise Double Moon phase display, which will only deviate from the moons orbit by one day after a world-record-breaking 45,361,055 years. Established in 2001, the GPHG recognises exceptional watch creations of the year and aims to promote the outstanding quality of Swiss watchmaking.

The Grand Prix dHorlogerie de Geneve, also nicknamed the Oscars of the Swiss watch industry, is one of the industrys most coveted awards with 15 different categories. The 24th edition of the award ceremony took place tonight at the Theatre du Leman in Geneva in front of representatives from the nominated brands and press. In the month leading up to the ceremony, all nominated watches were presented to the public during a travelling exhibition in Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, New York and Geneva. The award-winning watches will be exhibited in Bucharest towards the end of November.

Portugieser Eternal Calendar (Ref. IW505701)  IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausens Portugieser Eternal Calendar (Ref. IW505701) has been awarded the Aiguille dOr. Since Kurt Klaus created his ingenious perpetual calendar in the 1980s, IWC has acquired unique expertise in the field of mechanical calendars. With its first secular perpetual calendar, the Swiss luxury watch manufacturer now once again pushes the boundaries of engineering with a mechanical programme that covers extreme dimensions of time, touching the limits of eternity.

The Portugieser Calendar is based on the same modular and synchronised design as the perpetual calendar, meaning that all its displays can be advanced simply by using the crown. However, while the perpetual calendar is programmed for a four-year cycle with three regular years followed by a leap year, the Portugieser Eternal Calendar accounts for the Gregorian calendars leap year exceptions by skipping three leap years over a period of 400 years. This means it will calculate the leap year correctly until at least the year 3999. No official decision has been taken yet as to whether the year 4000 will be a leap year or not. The Portugieser Eternal Calendar also features a moon phase display with unprecedented precision. Thanks to the newly developed reduction gear train with three intermediate wheels, the Double Moon phase display will theoretically only deviate from the moons orbit by one day after a world-record-breaking 45,361,055 years. The Portugieser Eternal Calendar features an elaborately finished platinum case. Box-glass sapphire crystals on the front and the back beautifully showcase the transparent glass dial and the IWC-manufactured 52640 calibre inside.

Portugieser Eternal Calendar  IWC Schaffhausen

We are thrilled to win this award for the Portugieser Eternal Calendar. Building on the emblematic crowncontrolled perpetual calendar that Kurt Klaus developed in the 1980s, we have pushed the limits for mechanical calendar complications once again. We have engineered more than just a concept. Despite its tremendous complexity, the Portugieser Eternal Calendar is a watch we are actually producing, and our customers are wearing every day. My thanks go to our teams in research and innovation, design and development, simulation and testing, and, of course, manufacturing. This watch would not have been possible without your passion and determination, says Chris Grainger-Herr, CEO of IWC Schaffhausen.

Portugieser Eternal Calendar (Ref. IW505701)  IWC Schaffhausen

IWC was also nominated by the GPHG in three categories. The Portugieser Eternal Calendar (Ref. IW505701) was nominated in the Calendar & Astronomy category, the Pilots Watch Performance Chronograph 41 Mercedes- AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team (Ref. IW388306) in the Sports category and the Big Pilots Watch 43 Tourbillon Markus Buhler (Ref. IW329901) in the Iconic category.

THE GRAND PRIX DHORLOGERIE DE GENEVE

The Grand Prix dHorlogerie de Geneve was initiated by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH in 2001. Since 2011, the competition has been organised by a foundation that was specially created for this purpose. Among the members of the foundation are the canton and the city of Geneva as well as the international watchmaking museum in La-Chauxde- Fonds. Based on the GPHGs founding values of neutrality, independence, and universality, the Academy of the Grand Prix dHorlogerie de Geneve (GPHG) was established in 2020. The Academy invites experienced industry members to take part in the various stages of the watch selection process. It comprises several hundred members, all experienced and significant stakeholders in the key watchmaking-related sectors and forming a vast network of ambassadors worldwide. Members of the Academy have the fundamental mission of proposing the eligible watch models  in parallel with the traditional brand entries  and taking part in the various votes to determine the winners. The coveted trophy was designed by Bernese graphic artist Roger Pfund, whose previous projects include such highprofile designs as that of the Swiss passport and several series of banknotes.
Lawyer Inna Miroshnychenko, who works on adoption issues in Ukraine, visited the Novosilsk Special School (orphanage) in Ternopil region, where in November alleged human rights violations in the form of sexual and mental abuse were discovered. She showed photos from inside the building and demonstrated the conditions in which children live.

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Miroshnychenko said that the documents to initiate a criminal case have already been signed. She said that the children complained to her about cruel punishment in the form of being sent to a psychiatric hospital. The lawyer posted the photos taken in the specialized institution on InstaStories.

She noted that the state annually allocates almost 20 million hryvnias for this orphanage. However, it is not known how much money comes from charitable foundations.

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In the first photo, Miroshnychenko showed the toilet. The children "can forget about privacy" because there are no stalls in the room, only short partitions made of chipboard. The lawyer also noted that she did not see any toilet paper there.

"The door is not locked. There is a playroom opposite the door. So you have to learn to go to the toilet in front of everyone," Miroshnychenko said.

Among the next rooms was a bathroom. The lawyer noted that the children could only wash for two hours a week  on Fridays from 20 to 22. The staff justified this decision by saying that hot water was expensive.

"This is a bathtub where 'everyone can take a bath'. But only on Friday. From 20 to 22 hours. Because bath day is once a week. The bathtub is in the corner of a huge room. There is no curtain. There is not even a tap. So... there is no way to wash. If it doesn't work in the bath, there is a shower. It's still only on Fridays for all 95 children. From 20 to 22, because at other times the hot water is not turned on. It's expensive. The shower is turned on with one button for everyone. The curtain is also the same for everyone, as you can see. This is actually the same curtain. Maybe it's better not to close it. And not to wash in such a shower more than once a week. Because you really come in cleaner than you go out," the lawyer said.

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In the following photos, she compared what the children and staff eat. Moreover, the special education classroom, where children were supposed to learn to cook on their own, has turned into a staff kitchen.

"And this is the Vocational Education classroom. This is a subject that is supposed to teach children how to cook to be able to survive after graduation. There are no children in this class. This is the staff kitchen. These are the traces of a banquet that ended the inspection of some controlling body the day before ours. "They checked it well, didn't they?" she pointed and added in the next story: "This is also part of the 'result of the previous inspection'. There were five more bottles on the floor. Some empty, some half-drunk."

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In the next shots, children appeared, having lunch with a sandwich and hot water, which is called compote.

Finally, the lawyer showed what the rooms where the children spend most of their time look like. In the bedrooms, the furniture is barely "alive," and in the playroom, there are almost no toys. Instead, all the toys can be seen in a separate room near the principal's office.

"There is a beautifully renovated playroom near the principal's office with a bunch of toys, some of which are in their packaging. Do children come here? No. This is a room from the route "for volunteers and inspections." None of the children I interviewed have ever been there," the lawyer said.

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Why the scandal around the Novosilsk Special School arose

The Novosilsk Special School revealed facts of violations of children's rights  they were subjected to violent acts. This was discovered during a monitoring visit by a representative of the Ombudsman for Children's Rights, and an investigation was launched.

The investigation is into the improper performance of professional duties to protect the life and health of minors, the illegal placement of a healthy person in a psychiatric institution, sexual violence, and abuse of office.

"We had a monitoring visit to one of the institutions in our region chaired by the representative of the Ombudsman for Children's Rights, Iryna Suslova. The monitoring team found several circumstances that led us to call the law enforcement agencies and submit it for investigation. Since there are underage children in this institution, I think it is incorrect to make all the circumstances that we have discovered public," said Oleksandr Krynytskyi, a representative of the Human Rights Commissioner in Ternopil region.

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A total of 95 students study at the Novosilsk Special School. These children are aged 7 to 18 and have intellectual disabilities. Some of them live in the institution permanently, and some of them go home every day.

"A 16-year-old girl who was transferred from another community is studying at the school. She is deprived of parental care. It was this child who appealed to the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights. At her request, the school was inspected," representatives of the Novosilsk special school said in a comment to Zaxid.net.

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Within a month, security of Kajal Sheikh, sabhadhipati of Birbhum zilla parishad and a member of Birbhum district core committee, has been reviewed twice. It has now been upgraded to Y-plus by the Birbhum district police.

The core committee meeting of Birbhum district Trinamul Congress is scheduled on 16 November.

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After returning to his hometown Bolpur from Tihar Jail, Anubrata Mondal was provided with Y-plus security coverage, while his daughter Sukanya, who was also in Tihar jail has also been provided armed security by the Birbhum district police.

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But within a few days of providing Y-plus security to Mr Mondal, Birbhum police provided similar coverage to Kajal Sheikh, a key member of the core committee.

Surprisingly, since yesterday, the security coverage of Kajal Sheikh was further beefed up from Y-category to Y-plus category, making him one of the most important TMC leaders of Birbhum district. A police outpost has also been set up outside his house; he will also be getting a pilot car and a escort vehicle with one permanent sub-inspector and one permanent assistant sub-inspector rank police officers as his bodyguard.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced today that her government will introduce a new system to prevent the sale of other teas being falsely marketed as Darjeeling tea.

At the inauguration of the 7th SARAS Mela at Chowrasta in Darjeeling today, chief minister Mamata Banerjee voiced concern about the misuse of the Darjeeling tea brand, without explicitly naming Nepal tea. She noted that certain other teas are being marketed under the prestigious Darjeeling label, threatening its international reputation.

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We will introduce a new system to protect the reputation of Darjeeling tea, the chief minister said. This activity, which damages the image of the Darjeeling tea brand, must be stopped, she added. Recalling her travels, she mentioned, I was delighted to see Darjeeling tea appreciated in the USA and UK.

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In addition to addressing the tea industry, Ms Banerjee highlighted her governments ongoing efforts to develop infrastructure in the Hill region. She criticised the central government for not providing adequate funds for this purpose, asserting that they only approach the region during elections.

They come only every five years, promising development and showcasing a long list of projects, but after winning, they do nothing for the next five years, she stated. We nominated former ADM Gopal Lama for the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat. But he couldnt win because he doesnt make false promises.

Without directly naming Darjeelings current MP, Raju Bista, Ms Banerjee remarked, The person who won has a lot of money and won the seat by distributing money. But he has not contributed to the needs of the Hills. He works one day in five years, while we work for the people 364 days.

Ms Banerjee, who leads the Trinamul Congress, also confirmed her alliance with Anit Thapas Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM) and noted that this partnership would continue. I want Anit Thapa, chief executive of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), to keep moving forward with his work, she added.

Without naming her former ally Bimal Gurung, Ms Banerjee criticised political groups that stir up unrest before elections. A group comes every five years, calling strikes, shutting down markets, and disrupting daily life. We wont tolerate such oppression in the Hills. We want peace, and the Hills need peace for complete development. It feels good when Darjeeling is peaceful, she said. Your [Bimals] demand has been metwe have established a Hill university. The second campus of Presidency University at Dow Hill in Kurseong will also begin operating soon.

CM directed her officials to expedite this project to ensure students can enrol as soon as possible.

She further announced that, in collaboration with the GTA and private partners, skill development centres would be established in the Hills. These centres will provide training, aiming to secure job placements for educated youth after three months.

During the distribution of state-sponsored schemes to beneficiaries, Ms Banerjee elaborated on her governments investments in the region: A total of 56 projects have been implemented across two districts at a cost of Rs 161 crore. We have laid the foundation for several more projects estimated to cost Rs 500 crore. Over the past 13 years, the state government has allocated Rs 11,000 crore for the Hills, including Rs 1,500 crore specifically for the GTA. The ongoing projects are estimated at Rs 4,000 crore, with Rs 1.64 crore allocated for North Bengal over 13 years.

In a lighter moment this morning, chief minister Mamata Banerjee visited the Darjeeling zoo, where the zoo director requested her to name two recently born snow leopards and four red pandas. Embracing the request, she named the snow leopards Darling and Charming and the red pandas Hilly, Pahariya, Victory, and Dream, adding a cheerful touch to her eventful day in Darjeeling.
During the Naihati by-election today, a Trinamul Congress (TMC) leader was killed in an attack by miscreants in Bhatpara, under Jagaddal police station, in North 24 Parganas.

Since Wednesday morning, the area saw heavy bombing and gunfire. The attack claimed the life of Ashok Sau, former TMC president of Ward 12 in the Bhatpara Municipality. He was taken to Bhatpara hospital, but was later pronounced dead. Outraged TMC supporters gathered outside the Jagaddal police station, accusing the station officer of negligence. According to local sources, a sudden series of bombings erupted in the Jagaddal PS area on Wednesday morning. Ashok was sitting in a nearby tea stall, chatting with others, when a few assailants reportedly entered the shop and began attacking before anyone could react. Bombs were thrown, both inside and outside the tea stall and Ashok was shot at. The assailants also vandalised the shop before fleeing. The shop owner claimed there was a crowd in the shop, and he was busy preparing tea when the commotion began. He said, I couldnt understand what was happening. Ashok used to come to my shop daily for tea. He was hit by a bullet, and my shop was damaged.

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The tea shop owner couldnt identify who was behind the attack. Police arrived at the scene and are questioning locals, but the culprits are yet to be identified. Reports indicate that Ashoks condition deteriorated and efforts were made to transfer him to another hospital, but he passed away before that.

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Notably, Wednesdays by-election in the Naihati Assembly saw sporadic disturbances, and this incident in Bhatpara has spread fear throughout the area. The BJP claimed that the attack on Ashok was due to an internal TMC feud. According to police sources, Ashok was previously attacked in 2023. Barrackpore police commissioner Alok Rajoria, who visited the scene, said, Three individuals entered the tea shop and shot Ashok Saha. Locals reported that a bomb was also thrown. Ashok was shot in the back and taken to the hospital in critical condition.

He added, Ashok was attacked once before in February 2023, with a suspect named Akash identified at that time. Akash later died. Were investigating who is involved and CCTV footage is being reviewed. The culprits will be apprehended soon. Former MP and BJP state vice-president Arjun Singh alleged those who fired at BJP leader Priyanku Pandey, same miscreants killed this TMC leader too. TMC pampers criminals and now these goons have become Frankenstein, said Mr Singh. Barrackpore MP Partha Bhowmik alleged that Arjun himself was the chief sponsor of miscreants here. It takes time to wipe out miscreants from Bhatpara. Bhatpara, was once famous in the world for legends of Sanskrit language scholars toll (Sanskrit schools). Under Arjun Singhs influence the place became miscreants den.TMC is determined to clear those trouble makers, said Mr Bhowmik.
The Centres Department of Fisheries, is organising an investors meeting to offer opportunities in the fisheries and aquaculture sector of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands on November 14 which will be attended by around 60 Investors from various parts of the country specialising in technologies related to Tuna and Seaweed.

An official statement issued on Wednesday said that Andaman and Nicobar Islands offer a prime opportunity for fisheries development, with around 6.0 lakh square km of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) rich in under-exploited sea resources, particularly Tuna and Tuna like high valued species, estimated at 60,000 metric tons.

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It said that their proximity to Southeast Asian countries enables efficient sea and air trade, while the pristine waters support sustainable fishing practices.

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The meeting will be held at Taj Exotica, Swaraj Dweep, Andaman & Nicobar Islands in the presence of Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying and George Kurian, Minister of State. Senior officials of the ministry and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands will also participate in the event.

The Investors Meet 2024 in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands offers a platform for knowledge exchange, networking, and business exploration, with sessions to promote public-private partnerships for sustainable growth in fisheries and aquaculture, the statement said.

The event includes lead presentations, B2B and B2G interactions, and strategy planning, aiming to drive investments in infrastructure, technology transfer, skill development, and innovation.

Interactive sessions will highlight best practices, address private sector challenges, and foster Southeast Asian networking to explore new business opportunities and trade synergies in the sector.

In addition, the event will also mark the launch of a video for the development of a Tuna Cluster in Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

The fisheries sector recognised as the Sunrise Sector is a key growth driver in Indias economy and plays an essential role in enhancing national income, exports and food security, particularly benefiting rural areas.

Over the past decade, the Government of India has led the sectors transformation through flagship initiatives like PMMSY, FIDF, and the Blue Revolution, with an unprecedented investment of Rs 38,572 crore since 2015.

India exported 17.81 Lakh Tons of seafood worth Rs 60,523.89 crore during 2023-24. The seafood exports of India have more than doubled since FY 2013-14, an increase of 100 per cent despite pandemic-imposed challenges in global markets. Indian seafood is exported to 129 countries with the largest overseas market being the USA. This has resulted in tremendous progress in seafood exports, which has increased with an average annual growth rate of 14 per cent in the last 10 years.

The Department of Fisheries envisages to enhance fisheries exports to Rs 1 lakh crores by 2024-25. This initiative presents valuable opportunities for investors in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (A&N). This initiative aims not only to increase exports but also to create significant employment opportunities in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

Key resources like tuna and seaweed are among the priority sectors for development, with a focus on fostering sustainable growth and maximising the regions economic potential.

The Department of Fisheries is increasing its efforts in the adoption of a cluster-based approach with an end-to-end value chain to drive growth in fisheries and aquaculture.
Indias merchandise exports in October rose by an impressive 17.25%, the highest in over two years, to USD 39.2 billion.

The trade deficit was widened to USD 27.14 billion. Imports increased by 3.9% to USD 66.34 billion in October compared to USD 63.86 billion in the year-ago period.

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As per the government data, the trade deficit during April-October 2024 was USD 164.65 Billion as compared to USD 149.67 Billion last year.

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Further, the total exports (Merchandise and Services combined) for October 2024 is estimated at USD 73.21 Billion, registering a positive growth of 19.08% vis-a-vis October 2023 while the total imports is estimated at USD 83.33 Billion, registering a positive growth of 7.77% vis-a-vis October 2023.

For October, the estimated value of services export is USD 34.02 Billion and imports is USD 17 Billion.

The services trade surplus for April-October is USD 101.41 Billion as compared to USD 89.64 Billion for the same period in the last year, the data said.

Non-petroleum and non-gems & jewellery exports in October were USD 31.36 Billion while the imports were USD 39.21 Billion.

While speaking on the data, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said, This has been an extremely good month for exportsIf we continue in this manner, we will cross USD 800 billion of exports (goods and services together) this (fiscal) year.

Governments strategy to focus on six sectors  engineering, electronics, pharma, chemicals, plastics and agriculture  as well as 20 countries is yielding positive results, he added.

Barthwal also said that they are holding a series of meetings with Indian missions abroad to promote shipments.

We are formulating strategies to promote exports in these focus countries and I am sure that the strategy will help us in showing excellent results by the end of this year, he added.

As per the government data, for October, the top 5 export destinations, in terms of change in value, exhibiting positive growth are Singapore (197.39%), UAE (43.32%), USA (11.47%), UK (42.12%) and Australia (60.41%).
Under the Kharif procurement season 2024-25, paddy procurement in Uttar Pradesh has surged, with 2.86 lakh metric tons procured so faran increase of 65,820 metric tons compared to the same period in 2023-24.

Payments to farmers have also been expedited, with Rs 543 crore disbursed thus far, ensuring that payments reach farmers within 48 hours, as directed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, officials here on Thursday said.

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Last year, by November 13, 2.20 lakh metric tons of paddy were procured, benefiting 35,863 farmers, whereas 42,845 farmers have already sold their produce this year. This year, the government has increased the MSP by Rs 117 per quintal this year.

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In a recent review meeting, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath emphasized promptness and transparency in the procurement process. He instructed officials to ensure timely payments, provide essential facilities at procurement centers, and conduct regular inspections to monitor the process closely.

With the Food Department, PCF, UPSS, UPPCU, Mandi Parishad, and FCI actively engaged in the procurement, these efforts reflect the states commitment to supporting farmers and counterclaims made by opposition leaders, reinforcing that such criticisms are far removed from the ground reality.

Officials said paddy procurement began in western Uttar Pradesh on October 1 and will continue through January 31, 2025, covering districts including Bareilly, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Agra, Aligarh, Meerut, Jhansi, Hardoi, Sitapur, and Lakhimpur Kheri.

In eastern Uttar Pradesh, procurement started on November 1 and will run until February 28, encompassing Ayodhya, Gorakhpur, Basti, Devipatan, Azamgarh, Varanasi, Vindhyachal, Prayagraj, Kanpur, Chitrakoot, and parts of Lucknow division like Rae Bareli and Unnao.

The government has set a minimum support price of Rs 2,300 per quintal for paddy and Rs 2,320 for Grade A paddy, with an additional Rs 20 per quintal to cover unloading, sieving, and cleaning costs.

To facilitate smooth sales, a total of 4160 purchase centers of the Food and Civil Services Department and other purchasing agencies have been set up in all the districts of Uttar Pradesh for the sale of paddy by farmers, operating from 9 am to 5 pm. Sharecroppers are also participating this year with renewed registrations.

For any assistance, farmers can contact the toll-free helpline at 18001800150. Additionally, they may reach out to the Food Marketing Officer in their district, the Regional Marketing Officer in their tehsil, or the Marketing Inspector in their block to resolve any concerns.
Chairing a meeting of the Sentence Review Board (SRB) on Thursday, Delhi Home Minister Kailash Gahlot on recommended the premature release of 33 convicts in accordance with statutory provisions of the law.

A proposal to this effect has been submitted to Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena for his approval, an official statement from the Delhi Ministers office said.

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In an official statement, Gahlot said, The Sentence Review Board carefully evaluated each case on its individual merits, balancing the principles of justice and rehabilitation. The recommendation to release these individuals early reflects our commitment to reintegrating reformed individuals into society and reducing the burden on the prison system.

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The minister said that the government believes in offering a second chance to those who have demonstrated genuine remorse and improvement during their incarceration.

The meeting was attended by key officials, including the Additional Chief Secretary (Home), Director General (Prison), Principal Secretary (Law), Principal District Judge, Special Commissioner of Police, and Director of Social Welfare, the statement added.
"Game of Thrones" and "The Mandalorian" star Pedro Pascal came to the premiere of "Gladiator 2," where he played the role of Roman commander Marcus, with his transgender younger sister Lux. The girl joined the actor on the red carpet in the UK to support him, as the siblings have a strong emotional connection after Lux's coming out.

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She stole all the public's attention with her appearance. According to the Daily Mail, fans joked that Pedro Pascal had become a "plus one" for Lux. The girl wore a black dress with a long train, which the actor carefully adjusted when they first entered the red carpet, and with a revealing cut in the thigh area. In this area, two pieces of fabric were united by a huge emerald.

Lux complemented her sophisticated look with diamond earrings and nude evening makeup that emphasized her facial features.

Pedro Pascal also looked dazzling. In unison with his sister, he wore a total black look, which consisted of a shirt with a deep V-neck. He added black pants and shoes to the "top" and put two red pins on his collar.

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Pedro and Lux are very close. Earlier, the actor called his sister one of the "most influential people and personalities" he knows.

"She is and always has been one of the strongest people and personalities I have ever known. My protective side is deadly, but I need her more than she needs me," Pascal said.

He also admitted that he has always felt like a "father" to Lux and his younger brother Nicholas after their mother committed suicide back in 1999. Pedro was 24 years old at the time, and Lux was only seven.

"They were very young children, much younger than me and my older sister, so even if they hadn't lost their parents, we would still have had parental feelings for them. And I naively didn't think I could fill that space, but I just always wanted to feel like I was there," he added.

Lux is an aspiring actress and model. So far, her acting credits include the TV series Narcos, La Jauria, and the movie California.

Back in February 2021, she announced her plans to change her gender and began her transition the following summer.

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With the national capitals average air quality index reeling under the severe category on Thursday, the Centres air pollution monitoring agency Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has invoked the Graded Response Action Plans (GRAP) stage- III restrictions in Delhi-NCR.

The CAQM order says that all actions as envisaged under stage III of the GRAP be implemented by all the concerned agencies in the NCR, in addition to the already implemented stage-I and II actions of the anti- pollution plan, from 8 am on Friday.

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The Sub- committee observed that the AQI of Delhi since Tuesday morning hovered in severe category due to heavy fog and unfavorable meteorological conditions in the entire Indo- Gangetic Plain.

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At 4 pm on Thursday, Delhis average AQI was 424, and to prevent further deterioration, the sub- committee decided to invoke GRAP  III.

Measures under the stage- III include a ban on construction and demolition activities as per the rules laid out by the CAQM.

The actions also include intensifying the frequency of mechanised sweeping of roads, ensuring daily water sprinkling along with dust suppressants, before peak traffic hours on roads and including hotspots, heavy traffic corridors.

The CAQM has also ordered to further intensify public transport services and introduce differential rates to encourage off-peak travel.

The restrictions under GRAP- III also include NCR state governments to ban on plying of BS III petrol and BS IV diesel LMVs (4 wheelers) in Delhi and in the districts of Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar.

GNCTD to impose strict restrictions on plying of Delhi registered Diesel operated Medium Goods Vehicles (MGVs), of BS-III standards or below, in Delhi, except those carrying essential commodities or providing essential services.

It also restricts permission to Inter-State buses from NCR states other than EVs/CNG/BS-VI diesel, to enter Delhi (excluding buses /Tempo travelers operated with All India Tourist Permit).

Meanwhile, Delhi on Thursday recorded an average AQI of 424, falling under the severe zone, while ten places reeled under severe plus AQI with readings above 450.

Areas with highest AQI levels in the city at 4 pm as per the Central Pollution Control Board include Patparganj- 471, Mundka- 469, Nehru Nagar- 462, Punjabi Bagh 460, Anand Vihar and Wazirpur- 459, Ashok Vihar- 457, Jahangirpuri- 456, Bawana- 455 and Major Dhyanchand National Stadium- 450.
In response to the Commission for Air Quality Managements (CAQM) order to implement measures under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) Stage III due to deteriorating air quality, Delhi Chief Minister Atishi announced on Thursday that all primary schools across the city will transition to online classes.

Taking to the social media platform X, the Delhi CM stated: Due to rising pollution levels, all primary schools in Delhi will be shifting to online classes until further notice.

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According to the CAQMs order, GRAP Stage III restrictions aimed at reducing air pollution will take effect in Delhi on Friday morning at 8 a.m.

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Following the directive, the Office of the Director of Education in Delhi has issued instructions to the heads of government, government-aided, and unaided private recognized schools under the Directorate of Education, MCD, NDMC, and DCB across the national capital to suspend in-person classes for students up to Class V.

School heads have been directed to conduct classes online for students in these grades until further notice. The government has also instructed school officials to promptly inform parents about this transition to ensure a smooth shift to online learning.
A 26-year-old man was stabbed to death late on Wednesday night near his home in the Moti Nagar area of West Delhi. The deceaseds parents suspect his in-laws involvement in the murder.

According to police, a PCR call regarding the stabbing incident was received at the Moti Nagar police station. The injured man, Raja Babu, was rushed to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries, a police official said.

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He added that a case under the section for murder in BNS was registered in this regard.

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The official said that the deceaseds father, Gang Ram, told police that his son had married a year ago against the wishes of the girls family, who resided in the same locality.

After the marriage, both families had occasional arguments over the issue, but neither complained about past disputes to the police, Ram said.

He added that he suspects the involvement of the girls family in his sons murder.

Police have rounded up the family members of the deceaseds wife and are currently verifying their statements.
Abhishek Bachchan is gearing up for the release of his slice-of-life film I Want to Talk, helmed by Shoojit Sircar. Set to release on November 22, the film is not a mainstream title and follows the nuances of everyday life and struggles. In the upcoming film, Bachchan plays Arjun, who is on the cusp of a life-altering surgery. During this, he navigates a complex relationship with his daughter. The title is based on the life of the Piku directors friend.

During the films launch in Mumbai, Jr Bachchan and Sircar talked about the film at length. They emphasised the films fresh and emotional navigation through mundane life. During the media interaction, Abhishek revealed that shooting for I Want to Talk was a transformative journey. He talked about how the film delves into the rut of life and inspires viewers to pause and reflect on their capabilities.

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Advertisement View this post on Instagram A post shared by Abhishek Bachchan (@bachchan)



The Dhoom actor stated, The experience of making a film with him is very transformative, not just physically Its been a learning experience, life changing. The actor added that the film taught to live free from fear and go ahead and do something different.

It reassures you as an actor that theres a little bit of space for everybody out there. I hope you all can find some sort of parallel in your own life. Were all stuck in the rut of life, were doing what were doing, were enjoying. Some of us have got corporate jobs, some of us are artists, some of us do whatever we do. Life dictates to you what you should be doing and how you should be doing it. Whats nice about doing a film like this with Shoojit da is that once in a while you can stop and say Hey, no, I can do something different, maybe I should try something different. When that works out for you, theres nothing more rewarding.

During the event, Sircar also talked about his upcoming project. He revealed, This is a slice-of-life film where relationships matter. Sometimes we regret we didnt communicate; we didnt talk our heart out. This film speaks about all those moments and the journey of the characters. Its all moments stitched together of your entire life and documented in I Want To Talk.

Also Read: Citadel: Honey Bunny: Varun and Samantha dominate world charts as spies

The interaction also featured a humorous tone as Abhishek Bachchan reflected on gaining massive weight for the film. The actor revealed, I promise you from what you see. Im not in this shape anymore. That is me and there isnt any prosthetic. Moving on, he humorously quipped, Dont ever put on weight for a film again. Trust me, at my age, it gets very difficult to lose it after a while.
Manoj Bajpayee is recognised as one of the pioneering actors of the country. Time and again, the Family Man actor has vowed viewers and critics with his diverse range. His signature style fused with his impeccable colloquial dialogue delivery and a pinch of sarcasm has amassed a fandom of its own. The Bhaiyya Ji actor boasts an enviable repertoire and has delivered several hits. Some of these are- Pinjar, Gangs of Wasseypur, Shool, Satya and Aligarh among others. Bajpayee has always been vocal about the struggles in the early days of his career. Recently, the actor got candid about the hardships he faced in Delhi and Mumbai as he tried to make something for himself.

In a conversation with entrepreneur Ritesh Agarwal for Mint, Manoj Bajpayee recalled his struggling days in Delhi and discussed living in Delhis barsati. He said, I still shudder when I think of my days in a barsati. I used to live in Mukherjee Nagar. The only advantage of a barsati is that they are cheap. But it used to get extremely hot in the summers and extremely cold in the winters. If the temperature outside was 40 degrees, it would feel like 45 degrees inside. It was hell.

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Advertisement View this post on Instagram A post shared by Manoj Bajpayee (@bajpayee.manoj)



After a few years in the national capital, the actor polished his acting skills and became a faculty member at the National School of Drama. When I was in Delhi, I used to stay busy. Theatre didnt pay me, but it kept me busy. I worked for 18 hours. And I never slept hungry, thanks to my friends. Even if I missed lunch, my friends would share half their chapati with me. But, Mumbai was very difficult for me. Subsequently, the actor moved to Mumbais glistening tinsel town, however, it was far from glitz for him.

I wasnt good physically. I was also down mentally and emotionally. There was not a lot to do there. I was only wandering from studio to studio in search of work. I was completely broke. It is quite an expensive place to live. There was no guarantee of where you will find your next meal. I would starve the whole day. Production people would chase us out when we would approach them for work.

Also Read: Amar Aaj Marega: Prakash Jhas film to premiere at IFFI 2024

Ultimately, to make ends meet, the actor decoded a few tricks to help him sail through his days. This involved timed conversations at the right place that would help him get a meal. Eventually, I learnt tricks to arrange for food. I used to go to a set exactly when they would have lunch break. I used to find a familiar face first and then our conversation would lead to, I am going to grab a bite, you want to join? And I would be like, Sure. We used to put a lot of thought in arranging food.

Manoj Bajpayees last was the film Bhaiyaa Ji and the Netflix series Killer Soup. Moving ahead, the actors next is the third season of the blockbuster series The Family Man.
The Aam Aadmi Party triumphed in the election to the post of mayor and deputy mayor in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) as its candidate, Mahesh Kumar Khichi, secured victory by three votes against BJP nominee Kishan Lal and Ravinder Bhardwaj clinched victory unopposed.

Khichi, a Dalit candidate, defeated his BJP rival with a narrow margin of three votes. Khichi got 133 votes while Lal secured 130 votes. Two votes, one by AAP and one by BJP were declared invalid.

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The eight councillors of the Congress did not participate in the voting process.

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AAP had a narrow victory margin as eight of its councilors had cross voted while no BJP councilor cross voted.

The newly elected Mayor, Khichi represents the Dev Nagar ward of Karol Bagh and Deputy Mayor Bharadwaj represents the Aman Vihar ward.

In this election, 249 councillors, 14 MLAs, seven Lok Sabha and three Rajya Sabha MPs were to cast their votes but only 263 exercised their franchise.

BJP councillor Satya Sharma from the Gautampuri ward was appointed presiding officer by the LG to oversee the election, which was due in April this year.

Earlier in the day, Congress councillors announced a boycott of the election but just before the elections, Sabila Begum, a Congress councillor resigned from the party and vowed to support the AAP candidate.

As per MCD regulations, the mayoral elections are supposed to be held every year in April with the tenure of the incumbent being one year as part of a five-year rotation. The first term is designated for women, the second for the open category, the third for a reserved category, and the final two terms again for the open category.
The Joint Electromagnetic Board (JEMB), a vital subcommittee under the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC), held its annual meeting under the leadership of Air Marshal Jeetendra Mishra, Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (Operations).

This strategic gathering saw participation from senior officials of the Indian Armed Forces, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Department of Defence Production (DDP), and leading industry representatives.

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A statement from the Ministry of Defence stated that the meeting addressed a comprehensive agenda focused on enhancing the joint operational capabilities of the armed forces. The topics covered during the meeting included Electronic Warfare (EW), Signature Management, Spectrum Management, Human Resource Development, and other crucial areas, especially as emerging technologies advance.

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One of the meetings highlights was the launch of the AI-enabled e-Tarang System, developed in partnership with Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG-N). This advanced software promises to revolutionize the planning and management of the Defence Spectrum, ensuring interference-free operation of equipment in both peacetime and wartime. The AI-driven e-Tarang is poised to streamline processes and lay the groundwork for emerging technologies in higher frequency bands.

The Technical News Letter (TNL) 2024 was also unveiled by the Joint Committee on Electronic Warfare Systems (JCES) and HQ IDS. This document encapsulates future technology trends that promise to shape the future of warfare, with valuable contributions from the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Air Marshal Mishra, in his address, underscored the importance of integrating electronic warfare capabilities across the Services to strengthen joint operations. He also commended the recent success of the first joint EW exercise in September 2024, emphasizing that Victory through Jointness is the way forward.
Union Minister for Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal, on Thursday, inaugurated the 43rd edition of the India International Trade Fair (IITF) at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi.

In his inaugural address, the minister disclosed that the Central government was planning to expand the India Trade Promotion Organisation and transform it into a world-class agency reflecting the entire industry and the value chain at a single point so that the world looks upon India as the best MICE destination.

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Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Lucknow, Varanasi, and Noida are the places the Centre is looking to expand these facilities, he said.

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Iterating Prime Minister Narendra Modis resolution to dedicate every decision of the government to the goal of Viksit Bharat, the minister expressed his delight over the theme of IITF being based on the idea of Viksit Bharat 2047.

Emphasising increased usage of digital transactions at all trade fairs, Piyush Goyal said the Centre was looking to put up kiosks around fairs to enable faster transactions.

The Central government is also looking at revenue-sharing models with those industries seeking a market at the India International Trade Fair and such events, he added.

On the occasion, Goyal highlighted the need to go from local to global and facilitate convergence of buyers and sellers bringing in international exhibitors to India for consumer choice. Exhibitions in India should be a one-stop shop for the world, he said, urging ITPO to consider virtual fairs particularly where the look and feel of the products is not necessary.

The minister hoped that India would conduct fairs across the world inviting foreign buyers, having a greater outreach, and becoming outlets for goods and services in the developed countries.

He also hoped to have innovation as an important element in future fairs, dedicated pavilions showcasing startups, advancements in digital public infrastructure, AI, green technologies, and cyber technology.

Organised under the theme of Viksit Bharat @2047, by the India Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO), this flagship event, scheduled from November 14 to 27, 2024, celebrates Indias vibrant culture, trade, and innovation, offering a platform for businesses and individuals to explore opportunities and foster collaboration.
Home Minister Amit Shah Thursday expressed confidence that Chief Minister Hemant Sorens government is going to end in Jharkhand and warned that with that, infiltrators who have encroached on tribals land, will also be thrown out.

Addressing a public rally in poll-bound Giridih in Jharkhand, Home Minister Shah said, I want to tell the infiltrators that CM Hemant Sorens government is going to end, your time will also come to an end. The BJP will throw you out of Jharkhand. Those who have encroached on the land of tribals, we will bring a law against them.

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Flaying Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, he said when Congress was in power, terrorist attacks from Pakistan were frequent but when Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister, he eliminated terrorism by surgical strike and airstrike.

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Rahul Gandhis party, Congress, wants to bring back Article 370 (in J&K). Kashmir belongs to India and no one can snatch it from us. When Congress was in power, terrorist attacks from Pakistan were frequent. When PM Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister he eliminated terrorism by surgical strike and airstrike

He noted that Jharkhand has suffered Naxalism. They have left no stone unturned in destroying Jharkhand. PM Modi has made Jharkhand free from NaxalismThe polling has been done for the first phase of Jharkhand Assembly elections.

Expressing confidence in the saffron partys victory, he said JMM-Congress have been wiped out in the first phase.

The second phase of assembly elections in Jharkhand will be held on November 20, along with Maharashtra, which will go for single phase polls.

Counting of the two assembly polls along with bypolls will take place on November 23.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday launched a blistering attack on the Congress while addressing an election rally in Panvel, near Mumbai.

A Congress leader openly announced in Jharkhand today that cheap cooking gas cylinders would be given even to cross-border infiltrators and illegal immigrants like Rohingyas and Bangladeshis. Do you think such a party must be given an opportunity to rule, he asked people at the rally in Panvel.

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It is worth mentioning that in a purported video on social media platforms,

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Congress in charge of Jharkhand affairs Ghulam Ahmed Mir is heard saying that as soon as the government is formed, from December 1, the price of a gas cylinder will be just Rs 450 for everyone, whether he is Hindu, Muslim, or an infiltrator.

Earlier during the day, PM Modi addressed an election rally in Maharashtras Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, which was formerly known as Aurangabad.

He said that the Congress and its allies want restoration of Article 370 and are planning a separate Constitution for Kashmir.

They passed a resolution to bring back Article 370. After the BJP liberated Kashmir from Article 370, the Congress shamelessly worked a lot against it and even went to court. The Congress still dreams about removing Dr Babasaheb Ambedkars Constitution from Kashmir. Other than Pakistan, if anybody dreams about this, it is none other than the Congress and their allies. Will you people teach a lesson to the Congress which speaks the language of Pakistan, he asked people at the rally.

He claimed that, to form the government, the Congress party believes only in division and not development, adding that the Congress has been against reservation right from the beginning. The Congress used to call reservations against the country and merit, he said. The Congress used to openly issue newspaper advertisements against reservation. Please open the copies of decades old newspapers, he said.

He said that the mentality and agenda of the Congress remains unchanged. Therefore, they cant come to terms with the fact that somebody from the OBC community has been the PM of the country for the last 10 years, he said.

He alleged that the Congress has conspired to pit castes within SC, ST and OBC communities against each other and added that the Congress plans to scrap job reservations. Hum Ek Hai To Safe Hai, Modi said.

Modi credited the BJP-backed Mahayuti government for renaming the city. It is the Mahayuti government which renamed Aurangabad as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and thus fulfilled Balasaheb Thackerays wish, Modi said.

He said that the entire Maharashtra knew that the demand to rename this city as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar was raised by Balasaheb Thackeray. The Congress party had gone to court to overturn this decision, PM Modi said.

He said that the MVA government was in power for two-and-a-half years but never had the courage to rename the city because it was under pressure from the Congress.

Some people see the killer of Sambhaji Maharaj as their messiah. Arent they standing against Maharashtra as well as Maratha pride? Will Maharashtra ever accept such people, he asked people at the rally.

He said that the BJP-backed Mahayuti government gave over Rs 1,600 crore for power supply in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, but the MVA applied brakes on that too. Modi said that Maharashtra saw the highest foreign direct investment after the formation of BJP-led Mahayuti government.

When Devendra (Fadnavis) was the CM, he had launched the Jalyukt Shivar scheme, because of which the issue of water crisis in Marathwada started improving. However, after the Congress-backed MVA came to power for 2.5 years, they stopped this scheme as well. When the Mahayuti came to power, this scheme was resumed, PM Modi said.
Princess Anne, daughter of the late Queen Elizabeth II, made a stylish public appearance in a look she wore 30 years ago. Wearing a vintage dress, Her Highness appeared at Leuchie House, a charity organization that provides a place to relax for people with serious neurological diseases.

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According to Hello, the 74-year-old princess likes to give her old things a "new life". The representative of the British royal family has created a unique style that successfully combines practicality and adherence to strict dress code rules.

Princess Anne attended the charity event in a restrained dress decorated with golden floral patterns. Interesting details of the look were the voluminous collar and buttons on the top of the outfit. She complemented the outfit with pearl jewelry and black gloves.

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The public has already had the opportunity to see Her Highness's elegant image. In 1993, when Princess Anne was 43 years old, she wore a golden dress.

This attitude to the royal's belongings is admired by fans, because while she has access to clothes from the best designers, she still prefers vintage outfits.

"I really love the fact that she has kept all her clothes from that bygone era. How wonderful!" wrote one of the netizens.

For her part, Princess Anne explains that she likes to update her old clothes. According to Her Highness, it is "much more fun" than just buying something in a store.

Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Dominica will bestow its highest national award, the Dominica Award of Honour, on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in recognition of his contributions to the Caribbean island nation during COVID-19 and his dedication to strengthening the partnership between the two countries, it was announced on Thursday.

President of Dominica Sylvanie Burton will confer the award on Mr Modi during the upcoming India-CARICOM Summit, scheduled to take place in Georgetown, Guyana from 19-21 November.

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According to a statement from the Prime Minister Office of Dominica, India supplied Dominica with 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic in February 2021. The award also recognises Indias support for Dominica in healthcare, education and information technology under PM Modis leadership, as well as his role in promoting climate resilience-building initiatives and sustainable development on a global level.

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Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit said the award is an expression of Dominicas gratitude for Prime Minister Modis solidarity with Dominica and the wider region. He said Mr Modi has been a true partner to Dominica, particularly during the time of need amid a global health crisis.

He said, it is an honour to present him with Dominicas highest national accolade as a symbol of countrys gratitude for his support and as a reflection of the strong ties between the two countries. He said Dominica is looking forward to building on this partnership and advancing a shared vision of progress and resilience.

In accepting the offer of the award, PM Modi emphasised the importance of collaboration in tackling global challenges such as climate change and geopolitical conflicts. He affirmed Indias commitment to working alongside Dominica and the Caribbean in addressing these issues.
Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda said on Thursday that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has left an indelible mark on the countrys healthcare landscape.

Addressing the Department of Health Research-ICMR Health Research Excellence Summit through a video message, he said, Today, we celebrate over a century of ICMRs unwavering commitment to advancing health research and improving the lives of millions. The ICMR has been at the forefront of biomedical research, playing a pivotal role in addressing some of the most critical health challenges.

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Nadda said from combating infectious diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, and COVID-19, to advancing solutions for non-communicable diseases, maternal and child health, and nutritional disorders, the ICMR has left an indelible mark on the countrys healthcare landscape.

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Together, let us forge ahead in our mission to build a healthier and stronger India, the Health Minister said.

Union Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel, who attended the event in the city, stated that the ICMR has long been a pioneer in advancing scientific research and innovation in India, with a decorated history of contributions to the countrys biomedical and scientific fields.

As we work towards the goal of Viksit Bharat 2047, DHR-ICMRs leadership in research and innovation, through its extramural and intramural programs, continues to drive transformative progress in healthcare. Indias scientific landscape is undergoing a tectonic shift, and today is a fitting moment to recognise the invaluable contributions of our researchers in building a healthier, more prosperous, and self-reliant India, he said.

The event witnessed the launch of several significant initiatives designed to bolster ICMRs contributions to healthcare innovation. Notable among them was the Research Infrastructure Sharing Ecosystem (I-RISE) Policy which is a collaborative platform for expanding access to ICMRs extensive laboratory and research network to foster healthcare innovation.
Union Health Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President JP Nadda on Wednesday accused Congress of promoting urban Naxal forces in the country and claimed that Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray has allied with them.

Congress is promoting urban Naxal forces in the country, and Uddhav Thackeraythe son of Hindu Hriday Samrat, Balasaheb Thackerayhas joined hands with Congress, Nadda said.

Addressing a professional meet in Mumbai, the BJP chief further accused Congress leader and the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhis Mohabbat Ki Dukaan of spreading division and appealed to people to take action by supporting the BJP in the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections on November 20.

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Batware ka saman is sold in Rahul Gandhis Mohabbat ki Dukan Such people need to be answered There are people with such ideologies but we have to keep the nation strong For a healthy nation, a healthy antibiotic is needed from time to time. And you have to give an antibiotic on the 20th of November, he said.

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He said that the aim of BJP and PM Modi is not simply to attain power, but rather to transform Indias political culture. The aim of BJP and PM Modi is not simply to attain power, but rather to transform Indias political culture. Previously, politics was dominated by divisive tactics like vote-bank politics, nepotism, corruption, and dynastic influence. PM Modi has fundamentally shifted the focus to a culture of development, accountability, and transparency, prioritizing pro-poor and performance-driven governance. This shift marks a transformation in political culture. Now, even the opposition, which previously didnt prioritize manifestos, is compelled to focus on accountability due to the changing expectations in politics, he said.

Nadda said that Modi government has prioritized social and financial inclusivity in its growth model to empower the poor.

Modi government has focused on fostering both social and financial inclusivity in its growth model. Social inclusivity means empowering the poor and marginalized sections of society, giving them the strength to rise. Unlike others, the BJP doesnt simply dole out money; it empowers the poor. The BJP provides financial support for initiatives that help people become self-reliant, enabling them to move forward and build a better future, he said.

Later, the BJP chief offered prayers at Shirdi Sai Baba Temple.

As the election date nears, political campaigning is gaining momentum in Maharashtra.

The opposition MVA coalition, comprising Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), and the Nationalist Congress Party (SCP), aims to reclaim power in the state, challenging the Mahayuti alliance, which includes Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Ajit Pawar-led NCP.

The Maharashtra Assembly elections will take place on November 20, votes will be counted on November 23.

In the 2019 Maharashtra assembly elections, the BJP won 105 seats, Shiv Sena secured 56, and Congress 44. In 2014, the BJP won 122 seats, Shiv Sena 63, and Congress 42.
The Flight Safety Seminar (FSS) and Annual Naval Flight Safety Meeting (NFSM) for 2024 were successfully concluded at INS Dega, Visakhapatnam. Organized by Headquarters Eastern Naval Command, this years seminar was held under the theme Emerging Threats and Challenges  Naval Air Operations and Compliance with Flight Safety, focusing on the evolving landscape of Naval Aviation safety.

The event addressed key topics impacting contemporary naval operations, including advancements in counter-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and unmanned aircraft system (UAS) technologies and tactics. Additionally, critical discussions on cyber security risks affecting aviation operations and countermeasures for safeguarding aircraft systems highlighted the need for adaptive strategies in response to technological threats.

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A dedicated session discussed managing emerging operational risks, emphasizing the importance of shared vigilance across Indias defence services to protect aerial assets. Attendees exchanged valuable insights on the need for proactive and evolving safety protocols to tackle the unique challenges facing Naval Aviation in the modern era.

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Representatives from the Indian Army, Indian Air Force, Indian Coast Guard, and defence organizations such as Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) were also present, showcasing a collaborative approach to enhancing flight safety standards across the armed forces.
Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi launched a frontal attack on PM Narendra Modi while addressing an election rally at Nanded in Maharashtra on Thursday, accusing him of not visiting the violence-affected North Eastern state of Manipur for one and a half years.

Wherever Modi goes, he spreads hate. Even today the Prime Minister of India has not gone to Manipur which has been burning for one and a half years. It has never happened in Indias history. He makes one community fight the other but ensures that only some people make money. Adanis and Ambanis wealth is only increasing. Airports were given away, ports were given away and now Dharavis land which is worth Rs 1 lakh crore, is being given away. The loss is borne by soybean farmers, workers and unemployed youth. It is all happening right before your eyes, he charged.

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He spoke about the need for a caste census and said, We will conduct a caste census at the national level and at the state level. I had asked the PM in Parliament, why is he not conducting a caste census? There is a 15 per cent Dalit population in India. Adivasis are 8 per cent of the population. OBCs are at least 50 per cent of the total population of India and then there are 15 per cent of minorities. But nobody knows what the population of OBCs is in terms of actual numbers. We can estimate that OBCs are at least 50 per cent of the population, but in reality, nobody really knows the exact figure. That is why we need a caste census.

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Earlier during the day, addressing an election rally at the Adivasi-dominated Nandurbar assembly constitution in the state, Rahul Gandhi said that This election is a clash of ideologies. Please remember that the real fight is to save the Constitution of India. Thats because whatever you have received, whether it is land, forest, water, MNREGA, Right To Food and everything else, comes from the Constitution, he said.

The INDIA alliance says that the country must be run according to the Constitution. Modi says, I wave the Constitution at public meetings. He says that the Constitution is hollow and that is because he has never read it in his life. He says that Rahul Gandhi waves a red colour Constitution. We are not bothered about what is the colour of this books cover page, but we are willing to defend whatever is written in the Constitution, with our lives Gandhi said.

We bowed before Birsa Mundas photograph today. Are the thoughts of Birsa Munda not there in this Constitution? Modi says that this Constitution is empty and hollow. Dear Modi, please listen, this Constitution is not hollow. This Constitution contains the thoughts of Birsa Munda, Phule, Dr Amkedkar and Mahatma Gandhi. So this Constitution is not hollow, but it is the very soul of India. So whenever you say that the Constitution is empty or hollow, it is an insult to Birsa Munda, the Buddha, Phule, Dr Babasaheb Amkedkar and Mahatma Gandhi. Our fight is to save this Constitution, he said.

Gandhi also stated that the Constitution has used the word Adivasi and not Vanvasi, which is a term used by the RSS and the BJP. The Constitution does not call you Adivasis, but the BJP, the RSS and Modi call you Vanvasis. There is a big difference between these two words. Adivasi means the ones who were the first masters of this country who have the first right over its land, he said.

Vanvasis means that you are forest dwellers and hence you have no rights over the land or water. They take away your rights and your forests. After that, they go about snatching away your lands and chopping down your forests. Who enacted the The Forest Rights Act and the Tribal Rights Act? It is the Congress which did it and ensured that Adivasis have rights over their forest land and water. But when the BJP comes to power, your forests, land and water are handed over to billionaires, he added.

He went on to state that there is a difference between the terms Vanvasi and Adivasi. Vanvasi means your children will never get educated. Vanvasi means your children will never become engineers, doctors, lawyers, pilots or businessmen. Whereas Adivasi means that your children will become doctors, engineers, lawyers and run this country, he said.

Gandhi said that Adivasis are 8 per cent of Indias population. If Adivasis are 8 per cent of this countrys population, how much should their representation be in all areas? It must be 8 per cent, right? However, only 90 bureaucrats run this country. How many decisions are taken by Adivasi officials? If a government decision to spend Rs 100 is taken, an Adivasi official gets to take decisions only worth 10 paise. Out of 90 officials, only one official is an Adivasi and he is told to sit somewhere behind. Show me one TV anchor who is a Dalit or an Adivasi. Show me one Adivasi in Adanis company or Ambanis company. Take the list of MNREGA and you will find a lot of Adivasis, he asked.

He stated that the fact is that Adivasis, Dalits and OBCs do not get represented in all areas and decision making processes. My aim is to ensure that they get represented in all areas of decision making, government and businesses, he said.

He charged that Modi has given away Dharavi land worth Rs 1 lakh crore to Adani and waived off the loans of billionaires. What did he give to Adivasis, Dalits, farmers, workers and women? Nothing at all. Therefore, the Congress has decided that whatever amount the BJP has waived off for the billionaires, we will waive off for you, Gandhi declared.

He said that the first thing the Congress-backed MVA government will implement in Maharashtra is the Mahalakshmi Yojana. At the beginning of every month, Rs 3000 will be deposited in the bank accounts of every woman. Bus tickets will be free for women anywhere in Maharashtra. No woman will need to purchase a bus ticket.

He also said that farmers debts of upto Rs 3 lakh will be waived off. Whenever you sell foodgrain, soybean and cotton, the Congress government will give you the Minimum Support Price (MSP), Gandhi said.

I have already spoken about the caste census. We will implement the caste census in Maharashtra and find out how many Dalits and Adivasis are represented in the government. The Congress will remove the 50 per cent limit on reservation, he said.

Gandhi said that the biggest problem of the poor is medical treatment. The poor cannot afford medical treatment and farmers drown in debt. They commit suicide. So, the Congress government will ensure medical insurance worth Rs 25 lakh. If you get cancer or any disease, you will be able to get upto Rs 25 lakh worth of medical treatment free of cost, he said.

He further said that unemployed youth in Maharashtra will get Rs 4000 every month, until they get a job. The 2.5 lakh government vacant government posts which the Modi government is not filling up, the Congress will fill up with Adivasis, Dalits, OBCs and economically backward general caste candidates, Gandhi said.

He also did not miss the opportunity to elaborate about how employment generating industrial projects were taken from Maharashtra to Gujarat. The Vedanta-Foxconn semiconductor plant which would have generated 10,000 jobs was diverted from Maharashtra to Gujarat. The Tata-Airbus manufacturing plant, which would have generated 10,000 jobs was sent to Gujarat. The iPhone plant was taken from Maharashtra and sent to Gujarat.

The pharma park went to Gujarat. The GAIL petrochemical project was taken from Maharashtra and sent to Gujarat. If the total number of jobs are calculated, then the BJP government took away 5 lakh jobs from Maharashtra. We dont want projects from Maharashtra to go to other states, he said firmly.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday said returning to Delhi amid the toxic air pollution was like entering a gas chamber. She also urged parties cutting across political lines to arrive at a permanent solution to this disturbing trend.

Gandhi was returning to the national capital after campaigning in Kerala for the November 20 Wayanad bypolls, which also marks her electoral debut.

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Coming back to Delhi from Wayanad where the air is beautiful and the AQI is 35, was like entering a gas chamber. The blanket of smog is even more shocking when seen from the air, she said in a post on X.

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Delhis pollution gets worse every year. We really should put our heads together and find a solution for cleaner air. Its beyond this party or that, its practically impossible to breathe especially for kids, elders and those with respiratory issues. We just have to do something about it, she added.

A bypoll was necessitated in the hill constituency of Wayanad after Rahul Gandhi, who won the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in the general elections held earlier this year, vacated it after he also won from the Rae Bareli constituency.

The Air Quality Index (AQI) in Delhi remained in severe category for the second day in a row, causing health problems for residents and low visibility issues.

According to experts, Delhis annual bad air days are caused by a combined effect of geographical factors, pollution from local sources such as vehicles or construction and pollution caused by crop stubble burning in the neighbouring states. Any solution would require a concerted effort by all stakeholders, which include multiple states. So far, political rivalry and blame game have punctured prospects of a lasting solution.

This year too, the toxic air quality has prompted heated exchanges between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP, which in power at the Centre.

The matter has also reached the Supreme Court, which questioned last week why its ban on firecrackers was not followed this Diwali. It said no religion encourages any activity that creates pollution and that the right to live in a pollution-free atmosphere was a fundamental right of every citizen, protected by Article 21 of the Constitution.
India will observe Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas, a day dedicated to celebrating the legacy of Bhagwan Birsa Munda, a revered tribal leader and freedom fighter, tomorrow.

This day not only commemorates Munda on his birth anniversary but also highlights the rich cultural heritage and contributions of tribal communities across India often overlooked in the past.

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It is worth mentioning here that Prime Minister Narendra Modis connection with the countrys tribal communities goes beyond policy  its personal. And this is evident in his actions, whether hes sharing tea in a tribal home, celebrating their festivals, or wearing their traditional attire with pride. Unlike previous approaches, his engagement with tribal communities is deeply genuine, bringing their stories, arts, and heroes to the forefront and elevating their contributions to national and international stages. In many ways, he is the first PM to foster such a close, respectful relationship with Indias tribal communities.

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The past decade has seen a notable transformation in recognition and celebration of tribal culture. In fact, the PM has amplified the voices of tribal communities across national and global platforms in many ways. By presenting tribal artworks to world leaders, he fosters a global appreciation for Indias tribal cultures, encouraging dialogue and recognition. Among these gifts, Dokra art, known for its intricate metalwork and deep historical roots, has been given to leaders from Australia, Brazil, Cook Islands, and Tonga. Sohrai paintings from Jharkhand were gifted to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Gond Painting from Madhya Pradesh to Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, celebrated for its vibrant colours and intricate patterns.

Recognition of tribal products through Geographical Indication (GI) tags has also gained momentum, with over 75 tribal products now officially tagged. So far this year, several items received GI tags, including the Jaapi, a bamboo hat from Assam; the Dongria Kondh shawl from Odisha; Yak Churpi, a fermented product from Arunachali yak milk; Similipal Kai Chutney, made from red weaver ants in Odisha; and the Bodo Aronai, a traditional woven cloth from the Bodo community. Additionally, over 300 Tribal Heritage Conservation Centers have been established to document, archive, and promote the diverse languages, traditions, and cultural practices of tribal communities.

The PM has honoured Bhagwan Birsa Munda by declaring November 15 as Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas. He also became the first PM to visit Mundas birthplace in Ulihatu, Jharkhand. The Bhagwan Birsa Munda Memorial Park and Freedom Fighter Museum in Ranchi, featuring a 25-foot statue of Munda and honouring other tribal freedom fighters, underscores this recognition. In celebration of his 150th birth anniversary, a grand statue of Munda will be installed at the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram in Sri Vijaya Puram, accompanied by a Gaurav Yatra carrying the statue across various locations before its final installation.

Since its inception in 2017, the Aadi Mahotsav has promoted tribal entrepreneurship and cultural exchange in various locations across India, with 37 editions held to date. This event has featured over 1,000 tribal artisans and showcased a rich variety of tribal art, artifacts, handicrafts, and cuisine in over 300 stalls. At the G20 Summit, tribal artisans gained even greater international recognition for their work.

The Modi Government has honoured tribal freedom fighters like Birsa Munda, Rani Kamalapati, and Gond Maharani Veer Durgavati. Movements like the Khasi-Garo, Mizo, and Kol uprisings, which shaped Indias history, have also been recognized. Freedom fighter museums are being developed across India, with three already completed: the Bhagwan Birsa Munda Tribal Freedom Fighter Museum in Ranchi, the Raja Shankar Shah Raghunath Shah Museum in Jabalpur, and the Badal Bhoi Tribal Freedom Fighter Museum in Chhindwara.

Indias tribal products are gaining international acclaim. Araku Coffee opened its first organic coffee shop in Paris in 2017, marking its entry into global markets. Similarly, dehydrated Mohua flowers from Chhattisgarh have made their way into international markets, including France. Also, the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation (TRIFED) has so far empowered over 218,500 artisan families, facilitating the sale of more than 100,000 tribal products through its retail network, Tribes India.

The PMs commitment to Indias tribal communities is reflected in his efforts to elevate their heritage, preserve their legacy, and integrate their contributions into the national narrative. These initiatives honour the deep cultural roots of tribal communities, empowering them and bringing their voices and stories to the world.
The ongoing protest by students demanding changes to the upcoming PCS and RO/ARO examinations intensified outside the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) office in Prayagraj.

For the fourth consecutive day on Thursday, hundreds of students gathered outside the Prayagraj UPPSC office, breaking through barricades to reach Gate No. 2 of the UPPSC premises.

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The students are demanding that the upcoming PCS and RO/ARO exams be conducted in a single shift, as was previously done. The protesters believe this will ensure fairness in the evaluation.

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In view of the protest, security around the commission office has been tightened, with UP Police and Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel deployed to maintain order.

Earlier on Wednesday, the police registered an FIR against 12 individuals, who allegedly participated in the protest and resorted to vandalism.

Speaking on the issue, DCP Prayagraj Abhishek Bharti stated, Students are protesting against the state PSC. The students are being requested to continue with their protest constitutionally and their demands will be taken to the authorities

He further alleged that anti-social elements have infiltrated the protest and they are provoking the students.

Yesterday, public property was vandalised by anti-social elements and cases have been registered against them. They are not students but anti-social elements, with a history of criminal cases. Such anti-social elements are being part of the protests and provoking the students. They are being identified and interrogated, the DCP stated.

Meanwhile, the protest has also triggered a political slugfest with Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav criticising Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh administration over its handling of the protest.

The rise of the students will be the fall of the BJP, Yadav said, adding Unhone chalaya lathi-danda Naukri nahi jinka agenda (They used sticks and batons, whose agenda was not job).
Police fired in air and used tear gas to quell a mob in Samaravata village of Deoli-Uniara assembly segment of Rajasthan after violence erupted following the slapping of SDM-Area Magistrate Amit Chaudhary by Congress (rebel) Naresh Meena .

The incident of slapping occurred during daytime Wednesday at the nearby polling station. After closing of the polling later in the night, Meena, who was in the fray as an Independent on the Deoli-Uniara seat, proceeded to the village along with his supporters.

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The police also reached the village, perhaps to arrest Meena. Fearing the imminent arrest, villagers resorted to stone throwing last night, police sources said.

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The police initially tried to disperse the mob using batons, however, this did not work. Then, the police bursted tear gas shells and also fired in the air.

At least one vehicle was set on fire and around 20 people were rounded up for causing violence, DIG Ajmer Range Om Prakash said.

The police later arrested Meena, however, the mob allegedly freed him from custody late last night.

The disturbance yesterday occurred outside the village polling booth in the Malpura sub-division of Deoli-Uniara when Congress rebel candidate Meena, running as an Independent, assaulted SDM Malpura Chaudhary, who was performing duty as the area magistrate.

There are different versions about the assault, while the officials said that Meena was wrongly accused of flouting the law by showing an image of his symbol in the e-ballot loaded in the EVMs, Meena accused SDM Chaudhary of abetting forced polling.

The Rajasthan Administrative Service (RAS) Officers Association demanded Meenas arrest, warning of a pen-down and net-down strike. Additionally, IAS officers have written to Chief Secretary Sudhansh Pant, condemning the incident and urging appropriate action against Meena.

Meena was suspended by the opposition Congress for contesting elections as an independent after being denied a ticket. The Deoli-Uniara seat fell vacant after Congress leader Harish Chandra Meena was elected to the Lok Sabha in June. The party has fielded Kastor Chand Meena from the assembly bypoll.
The sharp decline in the voter turnout in the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, where Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi made her maiden electoral contest, has cast a pall over the Congress camp, which was aiming to increase Priyankas victory margin to record levels.

Congress leaders are keeping their fingers crossed about the outcome, especially when they have targeted to secure a victory margin of over 5 lakh votes for Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The voter turnout dropped to 64.72%, a 9.15 percentage point decrease from the previous election. This marks the lowest turnout in the constituency since its formation in 2009.

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In the 2019 election, when Rahul Gandhi contested, the constituency saw a higher turnout of 80.37% and his victory margin was 4.31 lakh votes.

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The voter turnout in the Wayanad Lok Sabha bypoll dropped by over 1 lakh electors compared to the general election held in April. Wayanad polled 9,52,543 votes in the bypoll held on Wednesday, which is 64.72 per cent of the total 14,62,423 votes.Over 5 lakh voters didnt turn up to vote. During the parliament elections held in April, the total polled votes were 10,84,653 (73.57 per cent). Rahul Gandhi polled 6,47,445 votes.

The Congress/ UDF camp take solace in the thought that the LDF and BJP votes did not poll owing to the hopeless situation their candidates were in Wayanad.. They claim that Priyanka would pocket 6,50,000 more or less the same as Rahul Gandhi (647445) polled in the previous election. LDF would get a little above 2 lakh votes, and the BJP would get around 1 lakh votes, they claim.

However, the Congress camp is worried over the lull in the Muslim belts of Nilambur and Wandoor and also in the Christian belts of Sulthan Bathery. The LDF poll managers said that the low voter turnout reflects voters protest against the Rahul Gandhis, whose resignation was the sole reason for the bypoll.

Political observers say that the massive turnout of crowd during the campaigns of Priyanka in the constituency is not reflected in the polling.

The low voter turn indicates that the high-decibel campaign featuring national political stalwarts failed to buoy up voters in the high-profile Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency where Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is seeking mandate, that went to a by-election along with Chelakkara assembly constituency in the state on Wednesday.

Laxity on the part of the voters over a predictable outcome in the clash between unequal rivals might have been the main reason for the sharp fall in voting percentage, a section of political observers feel. Another section of observers say that the situation was the same in the 2019 and 2024 general elections, yet, voters enthusiastically turned up and cast their votes.

The steep fall in polling percentage came at a time Congress, which appears to have no concerns about poll outcome, has been campaigning for a majority of 5 lakh votes for Priyanka.To ensure the margin, AICC general secretaries KC Venugopal and Deepa Dasmunsi had camped in the constituency and accompanied Priyanka during her corner meetings in the constituency.

The Congress had also entrusted assembly segments under the Lok Sabha with MLAs.Besides, KPCC office bearers had been overseeing panchayat-level campaigning. Priyanka also toured to all panchayats to ensure grassroots level campaign.

Opposition Leader VD. Satheesan expressed confidence that the reduced voter turnout in Wayanad will not affect Priyankas majority. He asserted that the UDF would secure a larger margin than in 2019 when Rahul Gandhi contested the election. Satheesan also said that polling percentages in UDF strongholds remained steady, while a decline might have occurred in BJP and LDF-dominated areas.

LDF candidate Sathyan Mokeri criticized Rahul Gandhi for not effectively addressing Wayanads issues, expressing strong confidence in his victory. He questioned Rahul Gandhis contributions to Wayanad over the past five years. BJP candidate Navya Haridas stated that the decline in voter turnout in the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency primarily affected the Congress-led UDF.

She attributed this to voter reluctance, claiming Rahul Gandhi imposed the election. Navya expressed confidence that the NDAs vote share would increase.

The BJP leaders say that the waqf land issue in Munambam and Thalappuzha has brought the Christian votes closer to them . BJP candidate Navya Haridas said that she is hopeful of getting Christian votes as the central government has promised to protect those affected with the Waqf boards claim over their lands.
22-year-old Thanh Thuy, the representative of Vietnam at Miss International 2024, won the crown for the first time in the history of her country in the final of the international beauty pageant held in Tokyo on November 12. She beat 70 other contestants from different countries.

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The winner inherited the award from last year's winner Andrea Rubio from Venezuela. The top 5 also included contestants from Bolivia, Spain, Venezuela, and Indonesia. "I am the first Miss Vietnam to come to Miss International. And now I am the first Miss International from Vietnam. Finally, I can prove that I deserve the love and support of my audience and fans from Vietnam and around the world. Thank you so much!" the beauty queen said in her speech.

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Thanh Thuy was born on July 1, 2002 in Da Nang. She won the second place in the national literature competition at the qualifying exam for the best students of Da Nang for the 2019-2020 academic year. She is currently studying English at the University of Foreign Languages. At the same time, she is also studying at the University of Greenwich, which is located in London.

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The model was crowned Miss Vietnam in December 2022. During the competition, she was in the top 5 of the Fast Track Beauty with a Purpose and Multimedia and won the Sport award. It was later announced that Thuy would represent the country at Miss International 2024. Despite the controversy over Thanh's participation in the pageant, in which Vietnam has never participated, the beauty still went to Tokyo.

The girl's victory was long-awaited, with beauty pageant fans around the world hoping for an unforgettable coronation moment, the Tribune writes. Thanh excelled in both the main and final rounds, gaining wide recognition for her poise.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Cyber-attacks on the government and significant business websites are as much a reality as physical insurgency and terrorist attacks. The latest cyber ransomware attack in Uttarakhand on 2 October 2024 brought the State Government machinery virtually to a halt. More than 90 major websites of the Uttarakhand Government, inter alia CM Helpline, Apni Sarkar, E-Office, E-Ravanna portal, Chardham registration, and Land Registry were compromised.

The Uttarakhand Governments data centre was hacked, crippling the States entire Information Technology infrastructure. This attack, apparently, captured the States Information Technology Development Agency (ITDA) server, holding the critical data of crores of people and sensitive government departments, including the office of the Chief Minister, and demanded a ransom. It was no less than paralysing the State Government. One week later, on 10 October 2024, the Uttarakhand Government announced that there had been no data loss. However, several critical questions loom large.

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Cyber experts view it from multiple lenses rather than as mere ransomware attacks or from the perspective of data recovery. The governments preparedness to combat such a massive cyberattack is under question and accountability is at stake. The data of the last three years, curated by various State and non-State agencies further reflect a vulnerability of the Indian cyber system. For instance, till date in 2024, India has witnessed 388 data breaches, 107 data leaks, 39 ransomware activities, and 59 cases of access sales or leaks. We also sustained nearly 5 billion cyberattacks in 2023.

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Approximately, 50 government websites were hacked, and there were around eight incidents of data breaches in 2022-2023. In an alarming case, Indias weak cyber security architectural plan and IT infrastructure was exposed two years ago, when in 2022, AIIMS Delhi succumbed to a ransomware attack, compromising critical healthcare services for almost two weeks. This was probably one of the worst setbacks for Indian cyber security infrastructure in recent times.

It was clearly a clear signal for governments to envision a clear roadmap to prevent such mishaps in future. However, it seems Uttarakhand overlooked it for want of vision. There seems no plausible answer why the Uttarakhand Government does not have a proper cyber crisis management plan. More so because two years ago, the same Government of Uttarakhand, tasked ITI Limited, in Bengaluru to craft a disaster recovery plan. But it seems the matter has been in cold storage since then. It never saw the light of the day. Probably the government has so far treated cyber security as another welfare scheme which is announced during elections and forgotten until the next term. If this is the case, then we are heading for a bigger aftermath of a disaster after the data breach.

A prudent cyber experts mind may ask what prevented the State Government from implementing a plan in the last two years? Given the escalating number of global cyberattacks, the State Government urgently needs more specific regulations, guidelines, procedures, or standard operating procedures (SOPs) to combat these crimes. Immediate policy changes and the implementation of effective measures to counter cyber threats are not just necessary but crucial. As we probe this disaster, a Pandoras box of questions seems to open up. How could the state government overlook recruiting more subject matter experts for the Information Technology Development Agency (ITDA), in contrast to the existing team of three members, who are not even subject matter experts? As it appears, Data backup, a fundamental practice in cybersecurity, was not previously implemented, raising serious concerns about the States risk management strategies.

There also seems to be a callous approach of the Government of Uttarakhand in firmly conducting a timely security audit of the State Date Centre. Non-establishment of the cyber security task force till date calls for another alarm in this scenario. While now the State Government has filed an FIR under section 308(4)(extortion) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sahinta, 2023 and 65/66/66C of the IT Act, 2000, there is a dire need for an overhaul of Uttarakhands cyber security basic architectural design, recruitment of subject matter experts, inviting consultants on board, setting up cyber security nodal officers in every department, rigorous and continuous training and constant engagement for evolving a cyber-security plan because such attacks may happen again.

Precaution is the best cure. A half-baked cyber security plan cannot ensure the safety and security of the residents of Uttarakhand. Uttarakhand is known for cloud burst disasters and 2 October perhaps will be remembered as the Uttarakhands Cyber Security Cloud Burst, till a robust plan is placed on the table. It is quite evident that the Uttarakhand Government could not smell or see this coming despite enough reportage of cybercrimes across the country.

It was knocking on our doors, and we opened our door wide open, then shooting the ransomware to mitigate the damage. A healthy dialogue between cyber experts and the Government is now warranted for a future roadmap that may not only help rebuild Uttarakhand from the crisis and may even serve as a model for other States to borrow from.

(The writers are, respectively, an Uttarakhand based cyber security expert and Co-Founder, World Cyber Security Forum, and Professor of Law and Registrar, NLU Tripura.)
Indias Supreme Court recently unveiled a new statue of Lad Justice, an iconic symbol of the judiciary, marking a significant departure from traditional representations rooted in colonial heritage. Traditionally depicted as blindfolded, holding scales and a sword, this new version portrays her with open eyes, dressed in a saree, and holding the Constitution instead of a sword. This transformation reflects an intentional move by the judiciary to break free from the colonial past and to better align with Indian cultural values and constitutional principles.

It speaks volumes about the spirit of a judicial vision that is becoming more aware, inclusive, and attuned to the complexities of contemporary Indian society. The open-eyed Lady Justice has profound symbolic value. The absence of the blindfold is particularly significant in a country like India, where inequality, caste, gender discrimination, and socioeconomic disparities persist. The conventional blindfold, intended to symbolize impartiality, is inadequate in addressing Indias diverse realities. Justice in India cannot be blind to the systemic injustices deeply rooted in its social fabric. The judiciary, by embodying this open-eyed figure, is expressing a commitment to seeing and addressing the countrys unique challenges.

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At the same time, the shift from the sword, a symbol of authority and punishment, to the Constitution signifies a more democratic and rights-based approach to justice. The Constitution is the supreme law of India, enshrining the values of equality, liberty, and fraternity, and this new depiction of Lady Justice reaffirms the judiciarys role as the guardian of those principles. It underscores that the judiciarys power should come not from the ability to punish, but from its dedication to upholding constitutional morality and protecting individual rights.

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The symbolism marks an enlightened vision for Indias judiciary. Yet, this gesture contrasts with the pressing challenges within the system, especially the vast backlog of cases. As of January 2024, the Supreme Court alone has over 80,000 pending cases, and more than 58 lakh cases are stuck across various high courts, with some dating back over 30 years. The delays disproportionately affect marginalized communities, often forcing them through a drawn-out, costly legal process.

According to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), 2.45 lakh cases that are between 20 and 30 years old remain unresolved in high courts. For the ideals reflected in this statue to have a meaningful impact, the judiciary must address these delays through systemic reforms, such as streamlining procedures, embracing digital solutions, and filling judicial vacancies. Without such reforms, the statues message of attentiveness and equity risks being purely symbolic, rather than a reflection of justice in practice. Another challenge lies in ensuring equitable access to justice. While the Constitution guarantees equality before the law, the reality is far from this ideal. Marginalized groups, including women, Dalits, Adivasis, and economically disadvantaged populations, often face barriers to accessing the legal system.

The cost of legal representation, a lack of awareness about rights, and systemic biases within the judiciary itself contribute to these challenges. The saree-clad Lady Justice, a symbol of Indian womanhood, represents the judiciarys connection to the people it serves, but this connection must be translated into concrete actions that make justice accessible to all citizens, regardless of their background. Judicial independence is another pressing issue. While the judiciary is constitutionally protected from political interference, recent years have seen increasing concerns about the erosion of this independence. Several high-profile cases have raised questions about the impartiality of judicial decisions, with critics pointing to a growing proximity between the judiciary and the executive branch.

The new Lady Justice statue, with her eyes wide open, sends a message that the judiciary must remain vigilant and independent, safeguarding its role as the protector of constitutional values and the rights of the people. Additionally, the introduction of the new Lady Justice raises important questions about the decolonization of Indias legal system. Many of Indias legal structures and practices are remnants of British colonial rule, designed to serve an imperial agenda rather than the needs of the Indian populace. The new statue is a conscious step toward reclaiming Indias legal institutions and making them more reflective of its own culture and values. However, this process of decolonization must go beyond symbolic changes and include substantive reforms, such as simplifying archaic laws, addressing the hierarchical structure of the courts, and making legal processes more transparent and citizen friendly.

In this context, judicial reform must also focus on improving the representation of women, minorities, and marginalized communities within the judiciary itself. While Lady Justice may now be depicted as an Indian woman, the reality is that women are significantly underrepresented in Indias judicial system. According to the Supreme Courts State of the Judiciary report, womens representation in Indian courts has increased. In 2023, 9.4 per cent of Supreme Court judges were women, up from 4 per cent in 2018, while high courts saw a rise from 10.1 to 13.4 per cent during the same period. Subordinate courts have also improved, with female judges increasing from 27.6 per cent in 2018 to 36.3 per cent in 2023. However, the proportion remains particularly low in states like Rajasthan, Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.

To ensure fairness, the judiciary must mirror Indias diverse society in its composition. Moreover, judicial accountability remains a critical issue. The judiciary, while independent, must also be accountable to the people it serves. Mechanisms for ensuring transparency, such as live-streaming court proceedings and making judgments more accessible to the public, should be expanded. The open eyes of Lady Justice can serve as a reminder that justice must be seen to be done ~ both in terms of transparency and in terms of the perception of fairness. Ultimately, the Supreme Courts unveiling of a new, open eyed Lady Justice statue is a significant and symbolic step towards a more culturally attuned and constitutionally driven vision of justice.

However, this symbol must be accompanied by substantive reforms to address the real challenges facing Indias judiciary. From tackling the case backlog to ensuring equitable access to justice, from protecting judicial independence to decolonizing legal systems, and from increasing diversity within the judiciary to enhancing judicial accountability, there is much work to be done. Only by addressing these challenges can Indias judiciary truly embody the ideals represented by its new Lady Justice statue justice that is aware, inclusive, and rooted in the principles of the Constitution.

(The writer is an author, policy analyst and columnist)
With the first phase of the Jharkhand assembly election over yesterday and the Maharashtra polls scheduled for November 20, a scrutiny of candidates affidavits has once again sparked public interest. These affidavits, submitted to the Election Commission, offer a rare window into the personal assets, criminal backgrounds, and financial growth of those seeking public office.

Beyond the usual revelations of wealth and criminal cases, some unexpected details ~ such as firearm ownership and luxury purchases ~ shed light on the shifting nature of Indian politics. One of the most striking aspects of the recent disclosures is the ownership of firearms among prominent political leaders. Both Hemant Soren, the chief minister of Jharkhand, and Eknath Shinde, the Maharashtra chief minister, have declared owning firearms.

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This raises important questions about the relationship between personal security and public responsibility. While both men oversee the home departments of their respective states, the choice to arm themselves reflects a broader trend where political figures seem to distrust state apparatus or seek to project strength in a volatile political landscape. In Jharkhand, candidates such as Champai Soren and Sita Soren, who are contesting on opposing party tickets, have also declared firearms among their assets. This is particularly interesting considering the states complex socio-political dynamics.

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The ownership of weapons is a symbol of power in many parts of India, and for politicians, it can signal control, influence, and a readiness to confront both external and internal challenges. For voters, however, it may raise concerns about the militarisation of politics and the role of violence in electoral contests. Another recurring theme in these affidavits is the rapid accumulation of wealth by political candidates, even in the face of broader economic challenges. For instance, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader and state minister Basant Sorens income soared from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 1.9 crore over five years; this exemplifies the growing financial disparity between elected representatives and their constituents.

While the economy has struggled, particularly during the pandemic, many politicians have seen their fortunes rise significantly. This suggests an entrenched political economy where wealth generation, often opaque in its origins, is closely tied to power. In Maharashtra, Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray grandson, Aaditya Thackeray, offers another example of this evolving political landscape. His asset declarations, which include not just a collection of firearms but also high-value items like bangles, reflect a blend of modern luxury and traditional symbolism.

The presence of luxury goods like a BMW or a Skoda cars in the affidavits of political figures, even as their incomes remain modest by comparison, underscores the disconnect between the financial realities faced by ordinary citizens and the ostentatious lifestyles of politicians. As voters head to the polls in Jharkhand and Maharashtra, these affidavits provide a glimpse into the motivations, values, and financial realities of the candidates who seek their support. Beyond the promises made in speeches, these personal disclosures reveal the true nature of those who will govern
The Australian government has announced a new plan to force social media companies to take proactive steps to ensure the well-being of their users.

Michelle Rowland, the Minister for Communications, on Wednesday night, committed to legislate Digital Duty of Care regulations for technology companies, Xinhua news agency reported.

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Under the proposed plan, social media companies would be obligated to continually monitor their platforms for risks to users and take preventative action to prevent foreseeable harm.

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Whats required is a shift away from reacting to harms by relying on content regulation alone, and moving towards systems-based prevention, Rowland said in a speech.

This, as part of a growing global effort, will deliver a more systemic and preventive approach to making online services safer and healthier.

She said that regulators will be able to impose strong penalties in cases where platforms seriously and systematically breach their duty of care to Australian users.

The duty of care law was recommended by an independent review of the existing Online Safety Act. The findings of the review were handed to the government in October but have not yet been made public.

The Digital Duty of Care will be introduced in addition to the governments world-first move to ban children younger than 16 from using social media.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday pledged that legislation for the under-16 ban will be introduced to Parliament in November.

The proposed law will put the onus on ensuring compliance with the 16-year minimum age requirement on social media companies rather than parents, guardians, or children.
After the 2024 United States Presidential election that confirmed Donald Trumps victory, social media platform X (formerly Twitter) witnessed its largest user exodus since Elon Musk acquired it in 2022, with users migrating to alternatives like Bluesky, CNN reported.

More than 115,000 US users deactivated their X accounts the day after the election, and this figure only includes those who deactivated through the website, excluding mobile app users, CNN reported citing a report of digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

This shift follows Musks influential role in the US presidential election. Blueskys user base has doubled in 90 days, reaching 15 million after gaining 1 million new sign-ups in a single week.

According to CNN, Musk spent months using X to support President-elect Donald Trump.

Researchers report increased use of sexist language on X, such as your body, my choice.

Additionally, Musks previous changes  cutting moderators, restoring banned accounts, allowing racist and Nazi accounts, and altering the verification system to boost anyone who was willing to pay regardless of what they posted  all of which helped to tank the companys core ad business.

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Notably, prominent journalists Charlie Warzel, the New York Times Mara Gay, and former CNN anchor Don Lemon announced their exit from X this week, joining Bluesky.

British news publisher The Guardian announced on Wednesday that it is quitting X, citing concerns over Musks influence during the US election process.

In a statement on Wednesday, The Guardian said it will no longer post from any official Guardian accounts on the site.

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Further, it said that the recent US election underlined its view that X is a toxic platform and that Musk uses it to influence politics.

Musk who campaigned actively for US President-elect Donald Trump has been named as one of two heads of a new department of government efficiency.

In its message to its readers, The Guardian said, We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere.

The publication said that its journalists will continue to use X as a news-gathering source. X, it said, now plays a diminished role in promoting our work.

We will stop posting from our official editorial accounts on the platform, but X users can still share our articles, it said.

The nature of live news reporting means we will still occasionally embed content from X within our article pages it said adding that X users will still be able to share its articles.

The Guardian has more than 80 accounts on X with approximately 27 million followers.
Voting in Sri Lankas parliamentary poll started on Thursday to elect 225 members to the Parliament with President Anura Kumara Dissanyake seeking a majority.

President Dissanyake is seeking a majority to govern the sovereign debt-defaulted nation amid calls for a new political culture without corruption and misappropriation of public funds.

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This would be the first major test of the popularity of the ruling party, National Peoples Power, led by President Dissanyake

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Samagi Jana Sandanaya led by Sajith Premadasa, the Sri Lanka Podujana Party of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the New Democratic Front made up breakaway legislators backing former President Ranil Wickremesinghe and minority parties in the North are seeking seats.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, the outgoing President who lost to Dissanayake in last months presidential election, is not contesting a parliamentary election for the first time since 1977.

The Rajapaksa brothers  Mahinda, Gotabaya, Chamal, and Basil  will not contest the parliamentary election after decades-long representation.

Scores of ministers and deputies from the past regime have opted out of the race.

President Dissanayake, who was elected on September 21, has called for a strong Parliament mandate for him to eliminate corruption and punish the past leaders who would be proven to have misappropriated public funds.

The polls will see the election of 196 members through voting in 22 electoral districts and 29 members through the national list, according to the number of total votes political parties and independent groups get in the election.

The voting started at 7 a.m. local time and will go until 4 p.m. More than 17.1 million voters are eligible to cast their votes.

The new Parliament will be convened on November 21.

The elected parliamentarians are expected to be declared by November 15 (Friday) if the counting process goes smoothly, Election Commission officials have said.

This will be the first parliamentary election since Sri Lanka plunged into an economic crisis when the island nation declared sovereign default in mid-April 2022, its first since gaining independence from Britain in 1948. Almost civil-war-like conditions and months of public protests led to the fleeing of the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
British princess Kate Middleton, like many people in the world, has incredibly similar "doubles". Among them was a waitress, a TV presenter's wife, and an artist from Australia. These women often attract the attention of others due to their appearance, and their photos on social media receive comments on the topic of their amazing resemblance to the Duchess.

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One of these three people was the wife of comedian Keith Lemon, Jill Carter. According to Express media, the girl became the princess's "double" after her husband posted a Valentine's Day greeting to his beloved on social media back in 2019.

The wife of the TV presenter is Jill Carter

After Keith Lemon posted a congratulatory message and a joint photo with his chosen one, royal fans gathered in the comments and pointed out Jill's resemblance to Kate Middleton. "Prince William might be jealous", "I thought it was Kate Middleton" - these were the comments.

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Artist Brittany Dixon

Australian artist Brittany Dixon became one of the most famous lookalikes of the princess. The girl was even encouraged to apply for the role of Kate Middleton in the TV series The Crown about the British monarchy. Brittany Dixon and Kate Middleton are united not only by their similar appearance, but also by their love of art. The former is a painter and shares her work on social media, while the latter studied art history at university.

Waitress Heidi Agan

Heidi Agan is the most realistic lookalike of Kate Middleton, who has held this position since 2011. The woman actually lives a double life: her own and that of the princess.

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Agan used to work as a waitress in an English pub, but after Prince William married Kate Middleton, her life changed dramatically. It all started with people constantly approaching her in the pub and on the street asking for an autograph or a photo. At some point, such confusion began to arise so often that the woman thought about monetizing her appearance. More specifically, she heard an offer to work with the "fake" royal family.

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Florence, one of Italy's most visited tourist destinations, has adopted a new plan with tough measures to control the flow of travelers. The historic city in the Tuscany region, which attracts millions of visitors every year, is now struggling with the negative effects of excessive tourism.

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The decision of the Florence City Hall contains ten points, including a number of bans on the use of certain items in the city's central areas. These changes include a ban on the installation of key boxes for guests of short-term rentals, which is a common practice in popular tourist cities, the Florence Daily News reports.

In addition, tour guides are prohibited from using loudspeakers to reduce noise in crowded areas. According to the authorities, these measures will help preserve the historical character of Florence, which is gradually turning into a solid tourist area.

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Despite a significant decline in tourist numbers during the pandemic, the flow of visitors to Florence quickly recovered and even increased. According to the national statistical office ISTAT, Italy received a record number of tourists in 2023 - 134 million people, providing more than 450 million overnight stays. At the same time, a significant number of travelers are increasingly choosing short-term rentals over hotels.

Recently, local residents of Florence held protests by marking key boxes with red crosses to express their dissatisfaction. They believe that the excessive development of tourist rentals is displacing the local population and causing the closure of traditional businesses. The local government has echoed this sentiment by passing new restrictions on short-term rentals to preserve the possibility of living in the city center for the indigenous residents.

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Cities such as Venice have already introduced an entry tax for tourists coming for one day to limit the impact of over-tourism on the urban environment. In addition, Venice has received permission to limit the number of days for short-term rentals on platforms such as Airbnb. Florence hopes that such measures will help control the flow of tourists and preserve its historical heritage.

Italy's tourism sector currently contributes about 10.5% to the country's GDP. At the same time, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and other government officials are considering imposing restrictions at the national level to limit tourist rentals to 120 days a year. This issue was also discussed by G7 tourism ministers during their meeting in Florence.

Italian Minister of Tourism Daniela Santanche noted that although some cities suffer from an oversaturation of tourists, the country as a whole still has significant potential for the development of the industry. In her opinion, Italy could receive 50 million more tourists annually, increasing its tourism potential.

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Several airlines have resumed flights to Indonesia's Bali on Thursday, a day after services to the popular tourist destination were cancelled due to mega volcanic eruptions.

After Bali's Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki spewed a nine-kilometre tower of ash into the sky, as many as eighty-three international flights were cancelled on Wednesday. The ongoing volcanic eruption not only forced tourists to postpone their landing at the island but also left many stranded at airports including the Bali International Airport. Many remained stuck at Bali's airport since Tuesday after their flights were suddenly cancelled.

As of 3 am Thursday, Bali's airport had recorded another 32 international flight cancellations, international media reports said.

The airline did not provide accommodation, leaving us stranded at this airport, said Charlie Austin from Perth, Australia, who was on vacation in Bali with his family.

Qantas and Jetstar were resuming their services to Bali, Australia's Qantas Group said in a statement Thursday, noting "improved" conditions. However, the group said in their statement that they will continue to monitor the volcanic activity. Earlier, Qantas said it had delayed three flights to Bali. Virgin Australia's website showed 10 services to and from Bali were cancelled on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, AirAsia is also on course to resume flights to and from Bali on Thursday.

Bali volcanic eruption affects tourists

Media reports said that thousands of people were stranded at airports in Indonesia and Australia, but an exact number wasn't given. Air New Zealand cancelled a flight to Denpasar scheduled for Wednesday and a return service to Auckland due to depart Bali on Thursday. Korean Air said two of its flights headed to Bali were forced to turn back because of volcanic ash caused by the eruption.

Indonesia's Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki volcano on the remote island of Flores in East Nusa Tenggara province spewed towering columns of hot ash high into the air since its initial huge eruption on November 4 killed nine people and injured dozens of others.

Three other airports in neighbouring districts of Ende, Larantuka and Bajawa have been closed since Monday after Indonesia's Air Navigation issued a safety warning because of volcanic ash.

The 1,584-metre volcano shot up ash at least 17 times on Tuesday, with the largest column recorded at 9 kilometres high, the Centre for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation said in a statement.

Authorities on Tuesday expanded the danger zone as the volcano erupted again to 9 kilometres as volcanic materials, including smoldering rocks, lava, and hot, thumb-size fragments of gravel and ash, were thrown up to 8 kilometres from the crater since Friday.

The activity at the volcano has disturbed flights at Bali's I Gusti Ngurah Rai international airport since the eruption started, airport general manager Ahmad Syaugi Shahab said. Over the past four days, 84 flights, including 36 scheduled to depart and 48 due to arrive, were affected.

Some airlines are offering fare refunds for upcoming Bali flights to passengers who don't want to travel.

About 6,500 people were evacuated in January after Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki began erupting, spewing thick clouds and forcing the government to close the island's Fransiskus Xaverius Seda Airport. No casualties or major damage were reported, but the airport has remained closed because of seismic activity.

Lewotobi Laki Laki is one of a pair of stratovolcanoes in the East Flores district of East Nusa Tenggara province, known locally as the husband-and-wife mountains. Laki laki means man, while its mate is Lewotobi Perempuan, or woman. It's one of the 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago of 280 million people.
One of India's recognisable brands in pharma, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, said on Thursday that Mexico's drug regulator slapped the company with a fine amounting to Rs 27 lakh.



According to the firm's regulatory filing, the fine was due to the deviation from COFEPRIS's prescribed guidelines in filing intimation of import for a product.

COFEPRIS, or Comisi Federal para la Protecci Contra Riesgos Sanitarios, is the drug regulatory body of Mexico, which notified Dr Reddy's of a penalty of MXN 6,51,420 "for deviation from prescribed guidelines in filing intimation of import of a reference standard for one of the company's APIs."

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"Additionally, the fine was imposed due to an error in the date of the invoice and also name of the reference standard vs import license," read the filing.

Dr Reddy's shares slide on announcement

Shares of Dr Reddy's Laboratories traded in red throughout the day and dropped 1.30 per cent to Rs 1,228.80 at market close. Overall, the India markets slipped today, wit the Nifty 50 inching 0.11 per cent down and the Sensex slipping 0.14 per cent when trading came to an end for the day.

While the penalty to the Indian pharma company is minimal compared to what is usually levied by international regulatory bodies, it brings back focus to India's regulators.

Earlier this year, India's anti-trust regulator, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), was armed by the central government to impose fines that amount to up to 30 per cent of a company's global turnover if found guilty of anti-competitive practices.

The latest amendment, which enables the CCI to impose such penalties, also encourages the companies under investigation to opt for settlements or other ways to right their wrongs to avoid such rulings.
Ever since President-elect Donald Trump has named Stephen Miller, as the deputy chief of policy there have been a lot of talks about whether his appointment will downsize the number of H1B visas in India and affect the Indian IT services industry. There have been mixed reactions to the announcement. As far as the US immigration policies are concerned, Miller is known as a hardliner.

Miller might continue with his anti-immigration stance which can also include a reduction of H1B visas and restrictions on them. Miller generally does not want especially skilled professionals in the United States.

Undoubtedly, Miller's appointment does bring some uncertainty for Indian tech professionals, especially concerning H-1B visa policies.

ALSO READ | How John Thunes election as Senate majority leader is a challenge to Trumps authority

During Trump's first term, H-1B visa restrictions led Indian IT companies to pivot to US hiring, creating over 1,75,000 jobs by 2019 and expanding local investments. This shift, though challenging, strengthened the Indian IT sectors ability to meet client needs onshore, while the growing demand for digital transformation in North America provided opportunities for Indian IT firms to lead in modernisation and innovation efforts.

Miller has historically advocated for restrictive immigration measures, and if these extend to high-skill visas, it could create hurdles for Indian talent contributing to US industries.

ALSO READ | Who is Tom Homan? Trump picks former ICE chief as border czar to crack down on illegal immigrants

Despite challenges Indias tech sector is resilient and increasingly looking at hybrid and global collaboration models. We foresee that Indian tech firms and professionals will adapt, diversifying talent hubs and fortifying strategic partnerships in other global markets. In the long run, I believe innovation and value creation will continue to shape opportunities and policies would eventually align with the ground realities, said Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO and MD of CIEL HR.

Experts do point out that the Indian technology industry will face the difficulty of fewer H1B visas and consequently fewer on-site opportunities for techies during the Trump regime more so with Miller on board.

Over a period of time outsourcing and GCC have both matured significantly and they will absorb any such shocks thrown at them which would ensure very low revenue impact and equally lower impact in delivery governance. On the contrary, such acts will open more opportunities to India given its vast and diverse talent pool during the next four years, said Subramanian S, founder, president and CEO of Ascent HR.

ALSO READ | Where will the Indian Rupee head after a fresh low against the US Dollar?



Despite Miller's hard stance, businesses in the US will need cost advantages to remain competitive and talent for deploying the latest technologies. India is extremely well-poised to fulfil these needs. There is a possibility that there would be many more GCCs being set up in India by US companies to leverage the talent pool available in India and leverage the cost advantages.

In the future under Miller, however, there could be more visa rejections making it difficult for highly skilled workers to secure them. On the other hand, there are reports that the proposed policies of Miller would make it challenging for US companies to hire Indian tech workers if the base salary level for H-1B positions increases and it is likely that due to the strict guidelines and paperwork, the visa processing time might increase.

As a result, many of the Indian IT services companies operating in the US may prefer to hire local US workers. As per reports Miller was born in 1985 in Santa Monica, California and is an alumnus of Duke University.
A unique software, developed by Integrated Defence Staff in collaboration with Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG-N), was launched on Wednesday during the annual meeting of the Joint Electromagnetic Board (JEMB), a subcommittee of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC).

The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (Operations) Air Marshal Jeetendra Mishra, and attended by senior officers from the three services, DRDO, DDP, and defence industry.

The AI-enabled e-Tarang System will enable automated, efficient planning and management of defence spectrum, as well as support the development of newer technologies in higher frequency bands.

ALSO READ: Indian Navy's landmark moment: For first time, brother-sister pair command separate warships at same time

According to defence ministry release, the software will improve planning for the interference-free operation of defence equipment during both wartime and peacetime.

The system reportedly integrates various communication systems and is part of broader initiatives to improve operational efficiency and coordination among different branches of the armed forces.

The meeting was conducted with the aim of achieving synergy in joint electronic warfare operations among the three services and establishing a roadmap to enhance capabilities in Spectrum Warfare.

The initiative is being seen as part of the ongoing initiatives to modernise India's military capabilities through technology and improve interoperability among its armed forces.
Commander Prerna Deosthalee and Commander Ishan Deosthalee scripted history for the Indian Navy, by becoming the first brother and sister to command two different warships of the Navy at the same time.

Commander Prerna Deosthalee, who now commands INS Trinkta, a Trinkat-class vessel capable of high-speed maneuvers and operates effectively in shallow waters, had become the first-ever woman officer to be given command of a warship of the Navy last year.

ALSO READ: Tri-services exercise 'Poorvi Prahar' shows unified might with cutting-edge military tech, paving way for theaterisation of command

Now, her brother, Commander Ishan Deosthalee, has been handed over command of INS Vibhuti, a Veer-class corvette of the Indian Navy, designed as a modified version of the Tarantul-class vessels.

They are commanding these warships under the Western Command.

Commander Prerna Deosthalee was also the first female observer of the Navy on the Tupolev Tu-142, a maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft.

Hailing from Mumbai, Prerna Deosthale was commissioned into the Indian Navy in 2009. She was also the First Lieutenant of the warship INS Chennai.
INS Drakon submarine, the advanced Dolphin II-class submarine of the Israeli Navy, designed to significantly enhance the underwater capabilities of the country, has been launched, completing the Navy's HDW Class Dolphin AIP (air-independent propulsion) submarine order. This is the sixth submarine of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and is likely to join the fleet by 2025.

The naming ceremony of the submarine took place at Kiel shipyard in Germany in the presence of the Israeli Navy Commander in Chief and top officials of Israel's ministry of defense.

This highly advanced, next-generation submarine is larger than its Dolphin-class predecessors and is expected to have a submerged displacement capacity of over 2,000 tons. There are speculations that this submarine will be capable of carrying nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

ALSO READ: How the Central Command of US carried out strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen Syria

The combination of diesel-electric mechanisms and AIP system enables the submarines to remain submerged for a long period of time without surfacing, making it extremely tough to detect. The advanced stealth features and extended operational range of the submarine make it a critical asset for Israel's defense posture, enhancing its ability for covert operations and precision strikes deep within enemy territory.

INS Drakon submarine has been described as a strategic combat asset...equipped with unique systems, including ground-breaking technologies that expand the range of the IDF's capabilities across various arenas.

INS Drakon is an improved version of Israels Dolphin II and does have an unusually large sail that allegedly has a Vertical Launch System (VLS) for a type of ballistic missiles.

The new submarine has enlarged torpedo tubes at the front, allowing them to launch cruise missiles.

READ MORE: Inside diverse and deadly weapon system of Hamas: From suicide drones to improvised rockets and sniper rifles

According to media reports, Dolphin-class submarines of Israel are believed to have the ability to launch around 80 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles when operating together.

Commander in Chief of the Israeli Navy, VADM David Saar Salama, said the submarine will serve as a cornerstone in ensuring the security of Israel.

With Israel, we share a long-standing partnership built on trust and mutual respect. The launching of INS DRAKON and the start of production for the first Class DAKAR submarine are major milestones that underscore our commitment to delivering submarines that set new technical standards globally, Oliver Burkhard, CEO of thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, which is producing the submarine, said.
The high-intensity tri-services exercise'Poorvi Prahar'is underway in the forward areas of Arunachal Pradesh, bringing together a wide spectrum of cutting-edge military platforms, technologies, and systems.

According to the Indian Army, the exercise helps in enhancing the abilities of the three servicesArmy, Navy, Air Forceto execute seamless, multi-domain operations across land, air, and sea.

Exercise 'Poorvi Prahar', which began on November 10, will continue till November 18.

"The exercise underscores India's determination to maintain a robust and adaptable defence posture along its eastern frontier, especially in light of evolving regional dynamics," the Army said.

READ MORE: Theaterisation, integration set for new thrust with Arunachal war game Poorvi Prahar

The exercise aims to hone the combat effectiveness of the three services in executing integrated joint operations in challenging mountainous terrains. Even as India looks to restructure its armed forces into unified theater commands, the joint exercise is the right step in the direction of enhancing inter-service coordination and operational readiness of the services.

Advanced fighter aircraft, reconnaissance platforms, helicopters such as Chinook and Advanced Light Helicopter Rudra, and the newly-inducted M777 Ultra-Light Howitzers are part of the exercise.

According to the Army, a key feature of 'Poorvi Prahar' is the integration of innovative technologies that are reshaping the future of military operations.

ALSO READ: Why Russian President Vladimir Putin believes India should be included in list of global superpowers

Troops are operating and refining skills with swarm drones, First Person View (FPV) drones, and loitering munitions, cutting-edge technologies that dramatically enhance situational awareness, precision strikes, and operational flexibility, said an official.

"One of the core components of the exercise is the development of a Common Operating Picture through joint control structures that optimise coordination between ground, air, and naval forces. Real-time information is seamlessly shared through systems operating on satellite communications, powered by AI-driven analytics, enabling more precise decision-making and faster response times," news agency PTI quoted the Army as saying.

This exercise serves as a platform for further absorption and integration of advanced technological tools and joint command structures.
The arrest of actress Kasthuri seems to be impending after the Madras High Court on Thursday denied her anticipatory bail for her alleged derogatory comments against the Telugu community in Tamil Nadu. A single judge bench of Justice Anand Venkatesh dismissed the anticipatory bail plea filed by the actress.

The outspoken actress made the controversial remark last week during a Brahmin meet in Chennai. The actress claimed Telugu-speaking people in Tamil Nadu were descendants of courtesans who came to serve the kings 300 years ago and now were claiming to be of Tamil race.

Her comments sparked criticism and an FIR was filed by the Naidu Mahajana Sangam State Executive Committee member against the actress.

Honourable Andra Chief Minister @ncbn

Telangana Chief Minister @revanth_anumula - Kindly take action against Actress Kasthuri.



She had abused telugu speaking people residing in Tamilnadu .

And in this event - BJP Functionaries and BJP councillors were presented. pic.twitter.com/FKJF1PbPES  Vignesh Anand (@VigneshAnand_Vm) November 4, 2024

Kasthuri, however, issued an apology on X, where she said the false news were being spread by Tamil Nadu's "Goebbels and anti-Hindu DMK network". "People of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will never fall for their lies. No one dares to insult my love and loyalty for the Telugu land that has given me love and acceptance, she clarified.

However, the court rejected her bail petition, stating orally that her comments were "unwarranted". Stating that Kasthuri should have refrained from speaking against the women of the Telugu community, the court said Kasthuri's apology does not address the comments made against the women.

Kasthuri argued before the court that the complaint against her was filed upon DMK's instigation and accused the state government of "intolerant and vindictive attitude." She said that no riot or provocation happened in any community in the light of her speech.

On how she could make such comments against the women of the community, Kasthuri said her remarks were not against the women of the Telugu community but a general statement based on facts. She denied that her statement carried any imputation on the character or morality of Telugu women.

Meanwhile, local reports claimed that the actress is currently missing. Her house in Chennai is locked and her phone is switched off. Her whereabouts are also currently unknown.
A month before the rematch between Oleksandr Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) and Tyson Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs), ChatGPT, a chatbot with generative artificial intelligence developed by OpenAI, made its prediction on the outcome of the fight. The machine assumes that the fight will go the full distance.

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The analysis took into account the specifics of each fighter's style. Usyk, as a boxer who feels the distance well and has endurance, tends to fight at a high pace, exhausting his opponent with combinations. Tyson Fury, on the other hand, prefers to fight on the counterattack, relying on his strength and height.

ChatGPT, having studied the data on the number of punches and movements of each fighter in the fight, suggests that in the rematch, Fury will again try to control the pace, limiting Usyk's movements, and thus score points. Usyk will most likely want to change his tactics and focus on defense and more accurate counterpunches to tire Fury out.

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AI's prediction for the rematch is that the fight will last all 12 rounds and end in a points victory. Fury may be the winner, but Usyk will fight to the end, trying to keep the pace and score points in each round.

As reported by OBOZ.UA, on May 18 in Riyadh, Usyk defeated WBC champion Tyson Fury and became the owner of the WBA, WBO, IBF, and WBC heavyweight belts.

The exact date of the second fight between the Ukrainian and British boxers is already known. The venue remains the same  Riyadh, Arabia.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
A disturbing trend has emerged in Africa, where a lifesaving malaria treatment is losing effectiveness. Researchers discovered that 11 out of 100 children treated for severe malaria in Uganda showed partial resistance to artemisinin, a crucial component of the standard treatment. This marks the first documented instance of artemisinin resistance in African children with severe malaria.

What are the key findings?

Resistance Rate: 1 in 10 patients exhibited signs of resistance.

Recurring Infections: 10 children experienced repeated attacks within a month.

Genetic Mutations: All resistant patients had malaria parasites with genetic mutations linked to artemisinin resistance.

The study, presented at the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene conference, highlights the growing concern of antimicrobial resistance, projected to claim over 39 million lives by 2050. Children under the age of five are disproportionately affected, with 4,50,000 annual deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.

Artemisinin resistance initially emerged in Southeast Asia, leading to increased treatment failure rates. Experts fear a similar scenario unfolding in Africa.

According to Dr Chandy John of Indiana University, who co-wrote the study, This is the first study from Africa showing that children with malaria and clear signs of severe disease are experiencing at least partial resistance of artemisinin.

Enhanced surveillance including monitoring of resistance patterns, exploring new medications and ensuring quality diagnosis and treatment are some of the ways suggested by experts to combat resistance.

The World Health Organization (WHO) stresses the urgency of addressing antimicrobial resistance, citing alarming resistance rates among bacterial pathogens.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has urged the government to look into the abrupt rise in militant activities across Jammu and Kashmir.

She made the statement at Sumbal in Bandipora on Thursday after visiting the family of Abida, who succumbed to injuries from a grenade blast at TRC in Srinagar. The explosion injured 11 civilians, with Abida suffering severe injuries.

Mufti expressed her deep sorrow over Abida's passing. The deceased lady left three minor children behind, she said. Such incidents have plagued the region for the last 30 to 35 years, which has resulted in many children being orphaned and women becoming widows, she added.

PDP president Ms. @MehboobaMufti visited Sumbal Sonawari today to offer condolences to the grieving family of Abida Kousar, who tragically lost her life after being injured in the recent grenade attack. Our thoughts are with her family in this time of immense sorrow. pic.twitter.com/sfos2krn4s  J&K PDP (@jkpdp) November 14, 2024

Surprised by the escalating militant activities, Mufti urged the government to investigate the reasons behind this sudden increase after the formation of the government in Jammu and Kashmir.

The government should investigate who is behind such acts and expose them, she said. She also raised concerns about potential security lapses.

On November 2, National Conference (NC) leader and former chief minister Farooq Abdullah also called for an investigation into the rise in encounters in Jammu and Kashmir.

He questioned whether any agency might be working to destabilise the Omar Abdullah-led government in the Union Territory. Abdullah remarked, I question why we didnt see a surge in gunfights before the government was formed, during comments at his residence in Srinagar. He sought a probe to identify who was responsible for the increased violence.

Referring to militants involved in an encounter in Khanyar, Srinagar, Abdullah suggested that they should be apprehended rather than killed.

They should be detained to investigate whether any agency has been tasked with destabilising Omar Abdullah's government, he said.

Since October 18, Jammu and Kashmir has experienced a spike in attacks, resulting in the deaths of nine civilians, including seven non-locals, five security personnel, and ten militants.

This series of incidents underscores the ongoing volatility and high-risk environment in Jammu and Kashmir, leading to heightened vigilance across the region in response to the persistent threats.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a scathing attack on Shiv Sena (UBT) and its chief Uddhav Thackeray, saying they have given their remote control to the Congress.

Addressing his final rally for the Maharashtra Assembly elections in Mumbai, Thackeray reiterated his challenge to Uddhavs party to get other members of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) to praise Balasaheb Thackeray, a strong votary of Hindutva in the state.

Mumbai is a city of self-respect, but a party in Maha Vikas Aghadi has handed over its remote control to those who insulted Balasaheb Thackeray, he said.

That is why I challenged them to get the Congress to praise Balasaheb Thackeray. Till date these people have not been able to get the Congress and the Prince of Congress to praise Balasaheb, the prime minister added.

Gratitude to the people of Mumbai for the affection.



NDAs focus remains development and good governance. We will continue working to improve Ease of Living.



Here are some glimpses from todays rally pic.twitter.com/8bf3eGnauF  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 14, 2024

The Shiv Sena (UBT), which snapped ties with the BJP in 2019, is a member of the opposition alliance which also comprises the Congress and Sharad Pawars NCP(SP).

Accusing the Congress of being desperate for power, Modi said the grand old party is like a fish out of water.

Further targeting the previous governments at the Centre, the prime minister alleged that terror attacks kept happening across the country during the Congress regime.

Everywhere people were scared of unclaimed objects. But now all this has stopped. Terror masters now know that if they do anything against India, Modi won't spare them, he said.

Maharashtra goes to polls on November 20 and the votes will be counted on November 23.
While Mumbai police were conducting searches extensively for the main shooter in the Baba Siddiques murder case, Shivkumar Gautham was there outside Lilavati Hospital, waiting there patiently to confirm the veteran Maharashtra politicians death. Mumbai police arrested Gautham recently from Uttar Pradesh.

The main shooter Shivkumar Gautham, who is currently in police custody, told police that though he escaped from police after killing Baba Siddique, he did not leave Mumbai and waited near Lilavati Hospital to confirm the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar) leaders death. Gautham changed his shirt immediately after the firing and stood among the crowd, awaiting confirmation regarding Siddiques death. According to police, Gautham left the hospital premises only after he confirmed the politicians condition was critical.

The veteran Maharashtra leader was gunned down by three shooters allegedly linked to Lawrence Bishnoi gang, on October 12 outside his son Zeeshans office during Dussehra celebrations. The shooters used the firecrackers burst as part of the celebrations as a cover and gunned down Siddique. While Mumbai police managed to arrest two of the shooters soon after the incident, Gautam managed to escape from the place.

On Sunday, the Mumbai police along with Uttar Pradesh polices SpecialTaskForce nabbed Gautam on Sunday while he was plotting to escape to neighbouring Nepal. Police also arrested four othersAnurag Kashyap, Gyan Prakash Tripathi, Akash Srivastava and Akhilendra Pratap Singhfor providing shelter to Gautam. Mumbai police have been granted custody of the accused till November 19. So far 23 persons have been arrested arrested in connection with the case.

The Lawrence Bishnoi gang has allegedly claimed responsibility for the murder. Allegedly, he was killed for his close ties with Bollywood actor Salman Khan. The Bishnoi gang has been issuing death threats against Khan ever since he was convicted in the blackbuck hunting case.
A Delhi court granted relief to Aam Aadmi Party leader Amanatullah Khan in a money laundering case registered in connection with alleged irregularities in the Delhi waqf board. The court granted bail to Khan on Friday and ordered his release.

The Delhi court heard the Enforcement Directorates arguments on taking cognisance of its charge-sheet on Wednesday and reserved its judgment. Special Judge Jitendra Singh observed on Thursday that though there was sufficient evidence against Khan, there was no sanction to prosecute him, PTI reported. The central agency accused Khan of laundering money generated through corruption at the board.

Granting bail, the court ordered the release of Khan on bail bond of Rs 1 lakh and a surety of equal amount. Earlier, the Court discharged Mariam Siddiqui, a person named by ED in its charge-sheet citing lack of evidence.

The AAP leader was arrested on September 2 by ED on charges of money laundering after it conducted searches at his residence in the Okhla area. The ED case against Khan stems from two FIRs, one by the Central Bureau of Investigation and another by the Delhi anti-corruption bureau. While the CBI is probing alleged irregularities in the Delhi waqf board, the Delhi ACB is probing alleged possession of disproportionate assets by the board.
The Union Home Ministry has imposed Armed Forces (Special) Powers Act in six police station areas across five districts of Manipur to contain activities of insurgent groups. The move gives powers to the Indian Army, the Assam Rifles and central armed police forces to conduct operations, searches and seizures in a large part of the state plagued by violence and unrest.

In the absence of an effective political dialogue that can facilitate a cessation of violence and stop the loss of innocent lives, the onus seems to be back on the armed forces to control the violent unrest in Manipur. A political dialogue that can bridge the gap between the warring communities, coupled with action against insurgents, is the need of the hour to restore normalcy in the strife-torn state. Both need to go hand in hand, said security experts, for an effective solution.

Ministry of Home Affairs today extended the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 in six Police stations of five districts (Imphal West, Imphal East, Jiribam, Kangpokpi and Bishnupur) in Manipur with immediate effect up till March 31, 2025, unless withdrawn earlier. pic.twitter.com/JO5HuOxIAK  ANI (@ANI) November 14, 2024

Presently, there are 220 companies (nearly 18,000 personnel) of central paramilitary forcesCRPF, BSF, ITBP and SSBalready deployed in Manipur to assist the state government in maintaining law and order. Besides, 150 columns of the Army are also deployed within the state. Security sources said more security forces may be deployed on the ground as incidents of violence have stirred further unrest especially in five districts.

In September, the Manipur government had declared the entire state excluding the areas falling under the jurisdiction of 19 police stations as "Disturbed Area" for six months starting October 1. The excluded jurisdictions were Imphal, Lamlai, Lamphel, Irilbung, Leimakhong, Singjamei, Thoubal, Sekmai, Bishnupur, Lamsang, Nambol, Patsoi, Moirang, Wangoi, Kakching, Porompat, Jiribam and Heingang.

However, following inputs from multiple agencies and a fresh assessment of the security situation in Manipur which continues to remain volatile, the Centre has decided to impose AFSPA in six police stationsSekmai and Lamsang (Imphal West), Lamlai (Imphal East), Jiribam (Jiribam district), Leimakhong (Kangpokpi) and Moirang (Bishnupur)

These six districts are declared disturbed area under Section 3 of AFSPA with immediate effect until March 31 unless withdrawn earlier, says the notification issued by the union home ministry.

Making out a case for well coordinated operations by security forces, the MHA notifications says that ethnic violence and intermittent firing continue in the fringe areas of Bishnupur-Churachandpur, Imphal East-Kangpokpi-Imphal West and Jiribam districts with several instances of active participation of insurgent groups in heinous acts of violence.

Besides, agitations for rescuing six missing persons have intensified in Manipur even as security forces continue the search operations. Sources said no group has claimed responsibility so far and efforts are on to ascertain the identity of the outfit behind it. There is also fresh worry of use of child soldiers by some of the militant groups, said security officials, in the recent incidents of burning of houses and heavy firing in villages in Imphal West where use of improvised missiles and drone bombings have come to light.

Some of the areas were close to the BSF camp even as attacks on the CRPF camp have continued unabated prompting retaliation. The realisation that the attempts to hold peace talks are not yielding results and the situation in Manipur, which once seemed to be limping back to normalcy months ago, can deteriorate further has prompted the Centre to impose AFSPA and consider deploying more boots on the ground to tackle the insurgent groups fuelling violence.

It will require a fine balancing act going forward to ensure there is no resentment against the security forces of a population that has suffered several cycles of violence in the tiny northeastern state.
India on Thursday said that it will renew its request made to Canada for the extradition of Khalistani separatist and designated terrorist Arsh Singh Gill alias Arsh Dalla.

India's renewed request comes after reports came in that Arsh Dalla was arrested in Canada. India made the request for Dallas extradition last year.

Arsh Dalla, who is designated as a terrorist by India, is associated with the banned terrorist outfit Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF).

ALSO READ | Who is Arshdeep Dalla? Khalistan extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar's aide arrested in Canada

Dalla, a close aide of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, is among more than two dozen criminals and terrorists for whom India has submitted extradition requests to Canada.

Canadian print and visual media have widely reported on the arrest. We understand that the Ontario court has listed the case for hearing, Jaiswal said.

ALSO READ | After Arsh Dalla's arrest, will Canada now pursue cases of terror on its soil?

In view of the recent arrest, our agencies will be following up on an extradition request. Given Arsh Dallas criminal record in India and his involvement in similar illegal activities in Canada, it is expected that he will be extradited or deported to face justice in India, he said.

Dalla has been wanted over the incident that took place on October 28 in Milton.

A separate request was sent to Canada under the bilateral Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to verify Dalla's suspected residential address, his financial transactions to India, movable and immovable properties, and details of mobile numbers.

In December 2023, Canadas Department of Justice sought additional information on Dallas case. A reply to these queries was sent in March this year, Jaiswal said.

Born in Ludhiana, Arsh Dalla was designated as a terrorist by India in 2023. Reportedly, he ran terror modules on behalf of Nijjat, who was shot dead by unidentified men in June last year in Surrey, British Columbia.

Dalla is accused of multiple charges including murder, extortion, terror financing, targeted killings, and cross-border smuggling of drugs and weapons.

In January 2023, the Ministry of Home Affairs declared Dalla an individual terrorist under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

He is wanted by both Punjab Police and the NIA, which has offered a bounty of 10 lakh for him.
A group of Israeli tourists on a trip to Kerala's Thekkady were kicked out of a shop after the owner realised their nationality. The incident happened on Wednesday after the tourists entered the shop on the invite of the vendors to check the artefacts on sale there.

The tourists, a man and a woman, were reportedly strolling through the prominent tourist destination when the shopkeepers invited them inside. The vendors were Kashmiris who sell curious in the tourist spot. On realising that they were from Israel, the irate shopkeepers asked them to leave. They also switched off all the lights in the shop.

The humiliated Israeli tourists immediately alerted their driver, following which he alerted the traders' outfit. The nearby shopkeepers also intervened in the issue, following which the Kashmiri shopowners had to apologise to the couple.

A video of the incident and the vendors' apology for the act went viral on social media.

Police officials said they were aware of the incident but no legal action has been initiated as the Israelis have not filed a complaint.

The incident comes as reports that Israelis are being targetted in several tourist spots, including Thailand and Sri Lanka. A few days ago, Israeli spy agency Mossad confirmed that there was information about threats targetting Israeli tourists in Thailand. The Thai police too had sounded an alarm that Israeli tourists may be targeted in a potential terror attack. The warning came just ahead of the November 15 Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan Island, an event popular among young Israelis.

Last month, three people were arrested in Sri Lanka too over possible threats to Israeli tourists. Sri Lankan officials said they arrested three people, all Sri Lankan nationals, in this regard. The US Embassy in Sri Lanka and Israels National Security Council too had warned their citizens against visiting Arugam Bay, a popular surf destination.

Israel also told its citizens to immediately leave Arugam Bay and the south and west coastal areas of Sri Lanka and instructed people to avoid public displays of anything that could be identified as Israeli, including clothing with Hebrew writing or religious symbols.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has stirred a political storm in the state by alleging that the BJP had attempted to conduct 'Operation Kamala' once again by offering a bribe of Rs 50 crore each to 50 Congress legislators to topple his government.

Siddaramaiah, who is facing a Lokayukta probe in the MUDA land allotment case, said the BJP was trying to come up with false cases after they failed to lure the ruling party legislators.

The BJP had offered to pay Rs 50 crore each to 50 MLAs to topple my government. But the plan had fallen flat as our legislators did not take the bait. Now, where did the BJP get so much money for bribing? Did Yediyurappa, Bommai, Ashok or Vijayendra print the currency? It is all illegal money (kickbacks). After they (the BJP) failed to woo our MLAs, they decided to tarnish my image by trying to fix me in false cases (like MUDA), claimed Siddaramaiah while addressing a meeting in Mysuru, on Wednesday.

The chief ministers remarks gain significance in Karnataka politics owing to the past precedence. In 2019, the JD(S)-Congress coalition government, led by H.D. Kumaraswamy, with a combined strength of 117 members in the 224-member assembly, had collapsed following mass defections (17 MLAs) allegedly engineered by the saffron party and the BJP government led by Yediyurappa was installed as the house strength had reduced to 101 and the BJP was the single largest party with 104 seats.

This time, the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in the state has a thumping majority with 137 seats. While the Congress leaders accuse the BJP of attempting another coup, BJP leaders blamed Siddaramaiahs lack of confidence in his legislators for making the allegation.

Labour Minister Santosh Lad claimed he too had information about the BJP trying to poach a few Congress legislators. "The BJP has toppled the governments in Goa, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. They are trying to do it in Karnataka again. I am sure CM has more information about it than me," said Lad.

State BJP president B.Y. Vijayendra slammed the chief minister for making a baseless allegation and dared him to reveal the names of people who were offering the bribe and the names of MLAs who got such an offer. You (Siddaramaiah) seem to have lost faith in your legislators and hence making baseless allegations that your MLAs are getting sold for Rs 50 crore. This is an insult to democracy and also the legislators, as they are being described as commodities. It is also a serious offence that calls for an ED investigation, said Vijayendra, claiming that it was only Siddaramaiahs bid to keep his MLAs in his control and to divert peoples attention away from the numerous scams engulfing him.

READ MORE: Karnataka: Siddaramaiah alleges Rs 2,000 crore graft in purchase of medical equipment during Covid

As you occupy a responsible position as the chief minister, it is your moral duty to expose the source of such inducement offered to your MLAs. You have the investigating agencies under you to conduct the probe. So, stop making politically immature statements and undermine the dignity of your post, said Vijayendra, who also mocked Siddaramaiah for claiming that the people of Karnataka would never spare the persons who messed with him.

Siddaramaiah, during his speech, had claimed that the BJP was envious of him as the guarantee schemes were a huge success. The poor, farmers, women and labourers, SC/ST and minorities have got justice through our guarantee schemes. And the BJP is unable to digest this and wants to remove me by making up false cases against me. But the people of Karnataka will not spare anybody who dares to touch (mess with) me, said Siddaramaiah.

Speculations are rife that the CM anticipates he would be asked to step down by the party high command even as the investigations into the MUDA and other scams gather steam. To checkmate his detractors, the chief minister is sending a strong message that the Congress government is under threat and removing a strong leader like him would lead to the BJP and JD(S) gaining an upper hand and may try to poach Congress legislators.

Ironically, the coalition government in 2019 collapsed after legislators were unhappy over the severe fund crunch in the government. This time again, the ruling party leaders have a similar grousepaucity of funds for development work owing to the guarantee schemes which cost the exchequer Rs 52,000 crore annually.

History of 'Operation Lotus'

In 2006, the state for the first time, witnessed 'Operation Kamala' or 'Operation Lotus' poaching of MLAs from rival parties by alleged use of money power and manipulation by the BJP.

The JD(S), which was in a coalition with the Congress (Dharam Singh government), broke away to foster a 20:20 power-sharing coalition with the BJP. While Kumaraswamy became the chief minister for the first time, Yeddyurappa was his deputy. But after 20 months, JD(S) withdrew support and Presidents rule was imposed in the state.

Once again in 2008, the BJP won only 110 seats, three short of a majority, and managed to get 16-20 MLAs from Congress and JD(S) to cross over and formed the first BJP (Yediyurappa) government in South India. The BJP was accused of engineering the defections by offering huge bribes, promising ministerial posts, and other incentives.
The 31-year-old Jiribam woman, who was charred to death by an armed group from the valley, was subjected to brutal torture before being killed, autopsy claimed. Many of the details cited in the report are very graphic to be disclosed in news articles, media houses who accessed the postmortem report claimed.

The mother of three was killed inside her house in Jiribam's Zirawn on November 7, Thursday. As many as 17 houses were burned down in the tribal village following the attack. The victim was left inside one of these houses to die by the perpetrators.

The husband of the woman had claimed that she was raped by the attackers. However, it was impossible for the doctors to verify this claim as her body had suffered 99% burns, Times Of India (TOI) said in a report. A rape claim can't be verified if a vaginal smear can't be collected from the body.

Even the bone fragments of the woman were charred, the autopsy said, adding that there were deep wounds on her thighs. It is doubted that metallic nails were pierced into her thighs to torture her, while parts of her face and both upper and lower limbs were missing, the daily said.

It is still to be ascertained how her husband and the couple's kids escaped the intrusion unhurt.

Fresh violence: AFSPA makes a comeback to Manipur

In the backdrop of fresh violence, the Centre has reimposed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in Manipur's six police station areas, including the violence-hit Jiribam.

An area or district is notified as "disturbed" under AFSPA to facilitate the operations of the armed forces. AFSPA gives armed forces operating in disturbed areas sweeping powers to search, arrest and open fire if they deem it necessary for the "maintenance of public order".

In a notification, the Union Home Ministry said the decision was taken given the continuous volatile situation there due to the ongoing ethnic violence.

The police station areas where AFSPA has been reimposed are Sekmai and Lamsang in Imphal West district, Lamlai in Imphal East district, Jiribam in Jiribam district, Leimakhong in Kangpokpi and Moirang in Bishnupur.
The organizers of the Tallinn Dark Nights Film Festival (POFF) refused to exclude the film Deaf Lovers by Russian director Boris Guts about a romance between a Russian and a Ukrainian woman from their program, despite an appeal from the State Film Agency. According to Tiina Locke, who is the director of the event, the film reveals "hot issues" of our time, so it should be shown.

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She said this in an interview with the Estonian public broadcaster ERR. The festival only agreed to remove the film from the Standing with Ukraine program, which is intended to support Ukraine.

"The film will be screened at POFF because we chose it for a reason. It is included in the program because it is artistically and content-wise very bright and gives us an opportunity to talk about the problems that are hot at the moment," said Tiina Locke.

The director of the Tallinn Film Festival noted that the world premiere of Deaf Lovers will take place within the framework of its program. She is convinced that the film will be subjected to unjustified negative criticism because no one has seen it yet.

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"This film is being fiercely attacked by Russian oppositionists, Belarusians, and Ukrainians, whose views are, of course, very different, and this film can also be interpreted in very different ways, which is what makes it so charming," said the director.

In addition, Tiina Locke does not consider Deaf Lovers to be a Russian film. She argued that Boris Gutz left Russia after the start of the full-scale invasion, opposed the Kremlin regime, and now lives in Serbia. The festival director also added that the film was made at the director's own expense, with a minimal budget and an international team.

Deaf Lovers tells the story of a romance between a man from Russia and a woman from Ukraine. They met in Istanbul and began to communicate closely, but in sign language because of her hearing impairment. At that time, the Russian terrorist war was going on in the girl's homeland, which fueled the conflict between the couple. Constant arguments end in an act of violence by the boyfriend, and the girl leaves him. According to the organizers of the festival, this twist in the plot can be considered a metaphor, where "Ukraine rejects Russia as an empire that uses violence."

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As a reminder, after the information about Deaf Lovers appearing at POFF was made public, the State Film Agency reacted to the inadmissible screening.

"We appeal to the organizers of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (POFF) to reconsider the decision to exclude the Russian film Deaf Lovers directed by Boris Guts from the main program of the festival. Given Russia's aggression against Ukraine and the numerous sufferings of the Ukrainian people, it is especially important to ensure that cultural platforms do not become tools for films that blur the boundaries of understanding the reality of Ukrainians," the State Film Agency said in a statement.

The institution returned attention to the fact that the screening of a Russian film carries the risk of spreading propaganda that justifies aggression and may be part of the enemy's information strategy.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Security has been heightened at Mumbai airport after an unidentified caller alerted the security personnel about a passenger carrying explosives. The airport personnel are verifying passenger details following the alert and efforts are on to identify the caller.

According to reports, the Central Industrial Security Force personnel at Mumbai airport received a bomb threat alert on Wednesday afternoon. The caller reportedly contacted the CISF control room at the domestic terminal in the airport and informed about a passenger allegedly travelling carrying explosive materials in the baggage. The caller allegedly claimed a man called Mohammad was travelling from Mumbai to Azerbaijan with explosives, News 18 reported.

Mumbai police were immediately alerted and additional forces were deployed at the airport. Security has been heightened at the airport and thorough checks are being conducted. As the caller did not mention any further travel details about the alleged passenger, security forces are maintaining a strict vigil at the airport.

The threat call comes after a lull in hoax threats that jeopardized airline operations in India. At least 100 flights of various airlines, both international and domestic, had to be rescheduled or cancelled following a spree of hoax threats a few weeks ago. The civil aviation ministry is mulling including persons who issue hoax threats on 'no-fly list'.
In the arena of global politics, accountability is often the hallmark of a functioning democracy. A striking example came from the United Kingdom in 2016 when prime minister David Cameron resigned after the Brexit referendum, taking full responsibility for the political crisis that ensued despite the decision being driven by a democratic vote. Similarly, in Japan, Naoto Kan stepped down as prime minister in 2011 following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, acknowledging the failure of his administration to manage the crisis effectively. These resignations highlight a standard of moral responsibility, where democratic leaders are expected to take ownership of the outcomes of their policies, good or bad.

Yet, when we turn our attention to Indian politics, a disturbing pattern of evasion has emerged over the decades. While the post-independence leaders of our nation set high standards for accountability, the present-day political class often shies away from taking responsibility, even in the face of glaring policy failures. This decline not only erodes public trust but also challenges the very foundation of democratic governance in India.

The erosion of moral responsibility in Indian politics

Moral responsibility and accountability have steadily been eroded in Indian politics. Where earlier leaders resigned for moral reasons even when they were not directly at fault, todays political class often avoids such actions, opting to deflect blame instead. This decline in accountability represents a broader shift from the ethical standards that once guided the leaders of the country.

A clear example of this is the 2023 Odisha train disaster involving the Coromandel Express and other trains, which resulted in the tragic loss of nearly 300 lives. Despite widespread outrage and evidence of multiple lapses, no high-ranking official took responsibility. Compare this to the late 1950s, when Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned as railway minister after a similar accident in 1956. His decision, driven by a deep sense of moral accountability, set a high standard for leadership that is seen increasingly rarely today. The difference between then and now raises a fundamental question: why has accountability disappeared from Indian politics?

The importance of accountability: Insights from political philosophy

Accountability is not just a political buzzword; it is a cornerstone of democratic governance. Political philosophers like John Stuart Mill and Jean-Jacques Rousseau have long argued that a leaders primary responsibility in a democracy is to serve the people, with power being a trust placed in the hands of those elected. If leaders evade accountability, this trust is broken, and democracy becomes hollow.

In the Indian context, Mahatma Gandhi was the embodiment of moral accountability. Gandhiji's approach to leadership was deeply intertwined with his belief in truth and responsibility. He held that any leader who has erred must own up to those mistakes, as this was the only way to maintain public trust and uphold the moral fabric of society.

His understanding influenced the makers of modern India, who valued not just political power but the ethical responsibility that came with it. Therefore, the founding fathers - Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and Dr B.R. Ambedkar envisioned a system where public office was a sacred trust. They drew from the principles of ancient Indian philosophy, where kings were seen as custodians of the welfare of the people and were bound by dharma. This belief in moral responsibility was not only a political necessity but a spiritual one, ensuring that governance remained accountable to the people.

From Shastri to the present: A decline in accountability

In the years following independence, Indian political leaders upheld these ideals with remarkable consistency. As discussed earlier, in 1956, Lal Bahadur Shastriji set a powerful example when he resigned as railway minister following the Ariyalur train disaster in Tamil Nadu, which claimed 144 lives. Despite the accident not being directly his fault, Shastriji took full moral responsibility, believing that the loss of public trust required his departure. His act of resignation was a symbol of integrity and a reminder that public officeholders must answer for policy failures.

Similarly, T.T. Krishnamachari, the finance minister of India, resigned in 1958 following the Haridas Mundhra scandal, though he was not personally involved in the corruption. His resignation set a precedent for taking responsibility for lapses that occur under one's watch.

Further, in 1962, V.K. Krishna Menon resigned as defence minister after the crushing defeat of India in the Sino-Indian War. The defeat was a national embarrassment, and Menon, criticised for his handling of the military, took responsibility for the failures in defence policy. Although he had strong political backing, Menons resignation was a reflection of the political ethos of that eraa willingness to put the nation before personal ambition.

However, the landscape began to change in the subsequent decades. Since the 2000s, the notion of moral responsibility has gradually diluted. Therefore, despite a tragedy like the Balasore train collision in 2023, no minister resigned, despite clear evidence of institutional failures. While the Commission of Railway Safety and even the CBI conducted investigations, no political leader took moral responsibility for the tragedy, in stark contrast to previous eras.

The need for a return to accountability

The erosion of accountability in Indian politics has far-reaching implications. When leaders avoid responsibility, public trust in the political system diminishes. A democracy thrives when its leaders are willing to stand accountable for their actions, policies, and decisions. Without accountability, the very foundation of democratic governance weakens, thereby making the citizens rely solely on the once-in-every-five-year elections to undo their mistakes.

In this regard, we must realise that accountability is not just a political tool but a moral obligation. As political philosopher Hannah Arendt observed, The responsibility of leaders is not only to answer for their actions but to ensure that power remains in the service of the people. Indian politics therefore must rekindle this spirit. Political leaders must remember that their power comes with the responsibility to govern ethically, to face consequences when things go wrong, and, when necessary, to step aside for the greater good. Public institutions, too, must play a more active role in ensuring that accountability remains a key aspect of governance.

Fauzia Khan is a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha.
The election of Senator John Thune of South Dakota as the new Senate Majority Leader could complicate President-elect Donald Trumps agenda as the GOP assumes control of Congress in January. In a competitive and highly watched internal race, Thune, 63, who is in his fourth term in the upper house, defeated Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida, with Scott representing the MAGA wing of the party. Thunes election on November 13 by secret ballot signals a preference for a more traditional, institutional approach to governance, potentially signalling friction between the Senate and Trump as the latter seeks to consolidate power.

The race to replace Mitch McConnell, who is retiring as the Republican leader after 18 years in the role, has been intense. McConnell's leadership style, characterised by his mastery of Senate procedures and his ability to maintain party discipline, has often put him at odds with Trump, especially after the January 6 Capitol riots. Thune, who has served as McConnells deputy, was seen as the logical heir to continue the legacy of pragmatic leadership. However, Thune's ascension was not universally supported. Trumps supporters, including high-profile figures like Florida Senator Rick Scott, believed that a more loyal figure to the president was needed to steer the party forward.

Thunes victory over Scott, who was championed by Trumps allies, is a rejection of the MAGA factions preferred candidate. Although Trump did not formally endorse any candidate, his influential alliessuch as media figures Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlsonpushed hard for Scott. Elon Musk, too, publicly called for Scotts election. However, these external efforts backfired, with Senate Republicans resenting the attempt by outsiders to influence their leadership decisions. Thunes victory is certainly a setback for MAGA and it marks the triumph of the Senates institutionalists, those who prioritise the stability of the chamber and the traditional Republican establishment over Trumps populist demands. It has also come as a repudiation of the more populist, hard-right faction within the GOP, which has been emboldened by Trumps presidency.

Thunes relationship with Trump has been complicated. He was one of the most vocal Republican critics of Trump following the January 6 riots. Thune called Trumps actions surrounding the event inexcusable and distanced himself from the president on several key issues, including Trumps attempt to challenge the 2020 election results. This criticism, particularly in the aftermath of the Capitol riots, earned Thune the ire of Trump, who labelled him a "RINO" (Republican In Name Only) and even tried to put up a primary challenger against him in 2022.

Thune has, however, worked to repair his relationship with Trump, and in 2024, he ultimately endorsed the former president after initially backing Senator Tim Scott in the GOP primary. Thune even visited Trumps Mar-a-Lago home in March 2024, a move seen as an attempt to reassure Trumps base. Still, his past criticisms of the former president, combined with his more measured, traditional approach to governance, set him apart from the firebrand rhetoric of Scott and other Trump loyalists.

Thunes election as Majority Leader reflects a preference for a more conventional, institutional approach to leadership, as opposed to the chaotic, personality-driven politics often associated with Trump. Thune, who is known for his careful deliberation and strategic thinking, is expected to bring a more consensus-driven style to the Senate, something that contrasts sharply with Trumps more combative and divisive approach. This difference could lead to tensions between the White House and the Senate, particularly as Thune seeks to manage a diverse coalition of Republicans, some of whom may be reluctant to embrace Trumps more extreme policy proposals.

One of the key areas of potential conflict between Thune and Trump is the future of Senate rules, particularly the filibuster. Trump has often called for the abolition of the 60-vote threshold required to pass most legislation in the Senate, arguing that it hampers the GOPs ability to enact its agenda. Thune, however, has repeatedly defended the filibuster, emphasising its role in preserving minority rights in the Senate. This fundamental difference could set the stage for a showdown between the White House and Senate Republicans, with Thune likely to resist any moves to eliminate or weaken the filibuster.

The election of Thune as Majority Leader could present challenges for Trump as he seeks to push his agenda through Congress. Although Republicans will hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, three Republican SenatorsLisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), and Bill Cassidy (Louisiana)have previously broken with Trump on key issues, including voting to convict him during his second impeachment trial. These moderate Republicans may continue to present obstacles for Trumps nominees and legislative priorities. For instance, it would be interesting to see how a Thune-led Senate responds to some of Trumps unconventional choices such as Pete Hegseth, a military veteran and Fox News host with no government leadership experience, as defence secretary, or Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida as attorney general.

Furthermore, Thunes preference for institutionalism, bipartisanship and his focus on consensus-building may slow down Trumps more ambitious legislative goals. Trumps supporters, including key figures in the media and in the House of Representatives, will likely push for swift action on issues like judicial appointments, cabinet confirmations and tax cuts. Thunes cautious approach could delay or even derail some of these initiatives, as he will need to navigate the diverse opinions within his party and balance the demands of more centrist Republicans with those of Trumps base.

By choosing Thune, Senate Republicans have chosen a figure who represents the partys establishment, rather than its populist, MAGA wing. It shows that the Republican Party, at least in the Senate, is not willing to cede total control to Trump, as Thune attempts to balance Trumps influence with a more traditional approach to governance.
American podcaster and Trump ally Joe Rogan has revealed that Vice-President Kamala Harris and her allies drew a red line on one particular topic when she planned an interview with him. It was "marijuana legalisation."

The famous podcaster, who has 18.1 million subscribers, revealed on Wednesday that Harris's campaign had discussed an interview for his podcast as they believed it would help her reach out to young men who were leaning towards Donald Trump. The interview did not happen though. Though Rogan did not mention the reason for calling off the plan, Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson Ian Sams told the New York Post that the scheduling never worked out.

However, unnamed aides claim Harris feared the interview would generate 'progressive backlash'.

According to Rogan, the Harris-Walz campaign had requirements on things that she didn't want to talk about. "She didnt want to talk about marijuana legalisation, which I thought was hilarious," the popular podcaster revealed on his Tuesday episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience."

Rogan also has a perspective on what that could be. "Because of her prosecuting record," he said, adding how Harris, who formerly served as California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney, "put a lot of people in jail for weed."

In a bid to court Black male voters, Harris had introduced a suite of policies before the elections, significant of which was the legalisation of marijuana. During her campaign, she defended her track record, stating that the allegations that she locked up a lot of Black men during her stint as a prosecutor for more than a decade were "not true." She also called herself "one of the most progressive prosecutors" on marijuana cases. She promised she would decriminalise marijuana if elected President because "she knew how the laws have hurt certain populations, especially Black men."

Rogan also added that Harris-Walz's campaign had other demands, which included limiting the discussion to about an hour and the inability to travel to his studio in Austin, Texas. Rogan said the last one was a deal-breaker.

"They had, I dont know how many conversations with my folks, but multiple conversations giving different dates, different times, different this, different that, and we knew that she was going to be in Texas, so I said, open invitation,'" Rogan said.
After an emphatic victory in the presidential elections, US president-elect Donald Trump will have a free hand in Washington when he takes over the White House in January. This is thanks to the Republicans retaking the Senate and retaining the control of the House of Representatives.

With GOP controlling the Congress, Trump can easily appoint officials in his Cabinet and other senior administration posts for the next two years.

Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner. Sometimes the votes can take two years, or more. This is  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2024

Trump had already sealed his victory in the popular votes and Electoral College. Now the Republicans have bagged the minimum 218 seats required to claim majority against 208 seats won by Democrats.

Though a razor-thin victory, the House control will allow Trump to pass major bills without the support of Democrats.

One of the top priorities for Trump and his MAGA allies will be border security. During his campaign, Trump had asserted that the southern border with Mexico will be "sealed" on Day 1 of his presidency. He recently appointed Tom Homan as the "border czar", repeating his call for the largest deportation in the US history.

Another important step would be extending tax cuts introduced during Trump's first administration and restricting government spending.

The Republicans elected Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise to lead for two more years on Wednesday. In the Senate, South Dakota Senator John Thune was elected in a secret ballot as the Senate majority leader, defeating MAGA-backed Florida Senator Rick Scott, who was endorsed by Elon Musk.

Republicans also voted to reelect House Majority Whip Tom Emmer besides picking Michigan Rep Lisa McClain as conference chair.
In a desperate attempt to get their hands on cash, a group of friends in California dressed up as bears and hatched a plot to trick their insurance companies.

One of the friends dressed up as a bear, damaged the others' luxury cars so they could allegedly cash in on hefty insurance money.

According to the Department of Insurance (DOI), 26-year-old Ruben Tamrazian, 39-year-old Ararat Chirkinian, 32-year-old Vahe Muradkhanyan and 39-year-old Alfiya Zuckerman have been charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy after their bear video came into light.

An investigation into a suspicious insurance claim filed by four Los Angeles-area residents revealed a scheme where someone wore a bear costume and scratched up the inside of three cars, officials said.



Get the details at https://t.co/lcXKmWJnJM pic.twitter.com/k74BJu4s8R  ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) November 14, 2024

A 2010 Roll Royce Ghost's interior was damaged in the so-called bear attack. The CCTV visuals of the alleged bear attack revealed the furred animal entering the vehicle and causing the damage.

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said the DOI began an investigation into the alleged bear attack after the insurance company suspected fraud.

A close observation of the video footage revealed that it was a person in a bear costume.

According to Lara, the investigation revealed that the detective found two additional insurance claims with two different insurance companies for the suspects with the same date of loss and at the same location.

A 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350 were the two vehicles involved in the claim.

During the investigation, DOI hired a biologist to confirm that no real bear was present during the incident. Later it was confirmed that it was "clearly a human in a bear suit."

After acquiring a search warrant, the detectives found the bear costume at the suspect's house.

"The insurance companies were defrauded of $141,839, because of the alleged fraud committed by the suspects. Department detectives were assisted by the Glendale Police Department and the California Highway Patrol. The San Bernardino County District Attorneys Office is prosecuting this case," said Lara.
The Commonwealth of Dominica announced that it will confer its highest national award to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his contributions to the country during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This comes after India had sent 70,000 doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to Dominica in February 2021.

PM Modi will be given the Dominica Award of Honour during his visit to Guyana's Georgetown from November 19 to 21 to attend the India-CariCom (Caribbean Community) Summit.

During the meeting, Dominican President Sylvanie Burton will confer the award to the PM.

The Dominican PMO stated that the award is in recognition of his contributions to Dominica during the pandemic and his dedication to strengthening the partnership between the two countries.

Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, who will also attend the meeting, said Modi is a "true partner" of the country when it faced a health crisis.

Skerrit said the award is a symbol of the country's gratitude for his support.
New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) The Heavy Industries Ministry on Thursday started consultations with stakeholders on the Rs 500 crore subsidy outlay under the PM E-drive scheme and frame guidelines to fast-track the adoption of electric trucks.

In the first meeting on Thursday, officials stressed the need for truck makers, buyers and banks to come together for a faster and smoother transition to e-trucks.

The meeting was attended by representatives of the Indian Ports Association, Ashok Leyland, Tata Motors, BillionE Mobility, Olectra, Amazon, Flipkart, Switch Labs, Murugappa group Volvo Eicher, Mahindra Trucks, apart from representatives from industry associations like SIAM and ICCT.

During the consultation on e-trucks, Secretary of the Heavy Industries Ministry Kamran Rizvi highlighted that the meeting marks the first-of-its-kind government initiative on e-trucks.

"The e-truck phase has just begun, and India is among the 5-6 countries globally manufacturing e-trucks," Rizvi said.

He also added that in line with India's vision for net zero by 2070, manufacturers, purchasers, and bankers must come together to ensure a fast and smooth transition.

Hanif Qureshi, Additional Secretary in the Heavy Industries Ministry emphasised the importance of incentives for e-trucks. He highlighted that 18 per cent of pollution is caused by the heavy transport sector, making e-trucks crucial for a cleaner transport network.

The meeting was aimed at engaging in consultations with OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and auto component manufacturers to strengthen the e-truck supply ecosystem and drive sustainable mobility forward, officials said.

There were deliberations to explore the demand for e-trucks through consultations with shippers, logistics providers, and industry leaders. The discussion were focusing on sustainable transport solutions for a cleaner future, they added.

The PM E-DRIVE scheme will promote the deployment of e-trucks in the country.
New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) SpiceJet on Thursday said it has settled a USD 90.8 million dispute with Export Development Canada for a total consideration of USD 22.5 million, leading to the airline taking ownership of 13 Q400 planes.

This resolution will result in savings of USD 68.3 million (Rs 574 crore), it said.

The crisis-hit airline, which recently raised Rs 3,000 crore, has also acquired the full ownership of 13 EDC-financed Q400 aircraft and the development will help in reducing operational costs.

In a release, the carrier said it has "fully settled a USD 90.8 million (Rs 763 crore) dispute with Export Development Canada (EDC) for a total of USD 22.5 million".

Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director of SpiceJet, said the resolution allows the airline to move forward with a strengthened balance sheet and focus on getting Q400 aircraft back into service as quickly as possible.

Details about the airline's operational fleet could not be immediately ascertained.
Hyderabad, India, [14 November, 2024]  ASBL (Ashoka Builders India Private Limited), a new age Real Estate leader has been named as one of the Top 100 Real Estate Companies By Construction Week magazine, establishing itself as a leading force in Hyderabads real estate market, and continues to set itself apart in a competitive market with its strong commitment to customer-centric design and research-driven innovation. At the heart of its success is its unique initiative, ASBL You/Design, a first-of-its-kind research program that directly involves customers in the home design process, ensuring that each project aligns with the evolving needs and preferences of modern homebuyers.



In a market where many builders focus solely on aesthetics or luxury, ASBL has distinguished itself by prioritizing a customer-centric approach. The company understands that todays homebuyers are looking for more than just visually appealing homes; they want spaces that are functional, intuitive, and tailored to their lifestyles. ASBLs focus on designing with the customer in mind has made it a preferred choice for buyers who seek a balance of practicality and comfort.



To truly capture the needs of its customers, ASBLs You/Design, is a ground-breaking research initiative aimed at reshaping the way homes are built. The initiative was born out of a recognition that traditional approaches to home design often overlook the preferences and daily habits of residents. By directly engaging with potential buyers through You/Design, ASBL has been able to gather in-depth insights and translate them into design elements that resonate with todays homebuyers. Focusing on customer-centricity and proactive engagement, ASBL turned its attention to understanding the perspectives of modern homebuyers. This commitment led to the creation of ASBL You/Design, a program that embodies the companys dedication to recognizing and meeting the evolving needs of its customers.



Building Homes that Reflect Customer Insights



The insights gained through the You/Design initiative have led to tangible design innovations across ASBLs projects. Some key features that have emerged from this research include:



 Flexible Living Spaces: Responding to the demand for versatile home layouts, ASBL has introduced flexible spaces that can easily adapt to different needs, such as home offices, study rooms that can convert to kids room or hobby rooms.



 Family-Friendly Amenities: ASBLs research highlighted a strong preference for amenities catering to families, leading to the integration of expansive childcare facilities, indoor and outdoor play areas, and educational guidance services within residential communities.



 Enhanced Wellness Features: Health and wellness emerged as a top priority for buyers, prompting ASBL to include state-of-the-art fitness centers, outdoor exercise zones, and dedicated spaces for yoga and meditation.



 Blending Nature with Design: Many respondents expressed a desire for natural elements within their living environment. ASBL responded by incorporating green spaces, pergola-style seating, and community hubs that blend seamlessly with nature.



ASBLs position as a top builder in Hyderabad is rooted in our dedication to understanding our customers. You/Design exemplifies this commitment by placing the customers voice at the center of our design process. This approach has allowed us to deliver homes that not only meet but exceed expectations, setting a new standard for the industry, said Ajitesh Korupolu, Founder & CEO of ASBL.



ASBLs focus on research and customer-centric design has been a key factor in its rise as one of Hyderabads top real estate developers. The companys proactive approach to understanding market trends and buyer preferences, combined with its commitment to quality and timely delivery, has earned it a reputation for excellence. In a city where the real estate market is constantly evolving, ASBL stands out for its dedication to delivering homes that reflect the values, habits, and aspirations of its customers.



About ASBL:



ASBL is a booming real estate company. Over the years, ASBL has carved a niche in the field of construction technology through robust backend systems in place. Their focus is delivering high-quality products in committed timelines. In a short span, ASBL has successfully planned the construction of more than 6 Million Sq. Ft. of Residential Area in Hyderabads top locations Kokapet, Financial District and Gachibowli. The brand is seizing every opportunity to bring about distinct, avant-garde offerings to their patrons. ASBLs major projects include ASBL Loft, ASBL Spectra, and ASBL Spire which is currently ready for handover. With their feet firmly planted in the present, their strategy and firm virtue of customer-centricity ensures a future-ready outlook for the company.



Please visit https://asbl.in/



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Archaeologists in Germany have discovered an impeccably preserved wooden burial chamber in the center of a huge mound from the early Celtic period. It is over 2600 years old.

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Scientists call this discovery a "blessing for archaeology." It was found near the city of Riedlingen, and is only the second well-preserved Celtic burial chamber in the country, Live Science writes.

Wood buried underground in dry or normal conditions usually decomposes over decades, at most. This makes such discoveries rare, prompting experts to call this Celtic burial site a find of outstanding scientific importance.

"The Riedlingen Tomb is a lucky break for archaeology," said Dirk Krauss, State Archaeologist of Baden-Wurttemberg, during a press conference.

The ancient Celts lived in continental Europe as far as modern Turkey and included various groups, including the Gauls in what is now France and the Celtic people in the Iberian Peninsula. Their original homelands are believed to have included parts of France, the Czech Republic, and southern Germany, where this tomb was found.

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The large chamber was approximately 3.4 meters wide and 4 meters high. Its floor, walls, and ceiling were constructed of massive oak wood, which was exceptionally well-preserved due to moist conditions from groundwater and aquifers. This would have protected the wood from exposure to oxygen, which leads to decay.

The chamber was discovered in the center of a huge mound 65 meters in diameter and almost 6 meters high. Archaeologists have identified the entire complex as one of the few princely mounds that the Celts in southwestern Germany built for elite individuals between 620 and 450 BC.

The preserved wood will allow archaeologists to use tree-ring dating to determine the exact year of the chamber. So far, they have dated the wood of what may be a tool left behind by Celtic builders to 585 B.C. This, among other observations, has led archaeologists to speculate that the burial chamber was also built that year.

Despite the strong structure of the mound, the ancient robbers were able to penetrate it. The excavations showed that the grave robbers built two tunnels there and made an entrance hole in the chamber ceiling, which may explain the lack of valuables in the tomb. The team also found several nails in one of the looters' tunnels. They may have come from a four-wheeled chariot buried with the deceased, a custom that has been seen in other princely Celtic tombs.

Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) Digital infrastructure firm Equinix Inc. and renewable energy company CleanMax have signed a pact to develop 33 MW RE power projects in the country, according to a joint statement.

Under the agreement, the parties will set up the captive power project in Maharashtra.

"Equinix partners with CleanMax to develop 33 MW captive renewable power projects to decarbonise its data centres in India," the joint statement said on Thursday.

The captive power projects comprise 26.4 MWp of solar capacity and 6.6 MW of wind capacity.

It will be made operational in phases in 2025.

The companies did not disclose any financial details of the projects.

With the addition of the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for the 33 MW project in India, Equinix has executed a total of 23 PPAs globally.

These agreements are expected to contribute over 3,100,000 megawatt hours (MWhs) of renewable energy annually to local grids across the US, Australia, France, Finland, India, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Singapore once operational.
 Grocery discounter, VIVA, to expand into Saudi Arabia in 2025 and childrenswear store, Babyshop, to enter India by end of 2024 as Landmark plans to grow retail footprint by 20%.



 Retail group to invest capital in its store portfolio, ecommerce, supply chain, and technology to build on its $7bn annual revenue.



BANGALORE, India, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Landmark Group, the leading value conglomerate in the retail and hospitality sectors, unveils plans to invest $1bn to expand its presence across the Gulf, India and South-East Asia. The Group will open 400 new stores in the next three years and will also invest in ecommerce, supply chain and technology as it looks to build on its current annual revenue of more than $7 billion (as of FY'23-24) across all markets.



The investment will result in a retail footprint growth of 20% by 2028. The Group's plans include the introduction of one of its newest brands, VIVA, in Saudi Arabia in 2025, and the launch of its first brand, Babyshop, in four cities across India over the next six months.



Currently celebrating its 50th anniversary, Renuka Jagtiani, Chairwoman, Landmark Group, attributed the Group's growth to its people and partners: "Landmark's entrepreneurial core, its purpose-driven approach, adaptability and strong leadership have enabled it to evolve in line with changing consumer habits and needs, and play a leading role in advancing the sector."



Commenting on the planned expansion, Renuka Jagtiani, said: "We are deeply committed to serving our customers through our own brand portfolio by offering relevant products and value. Physical stores remain a vital part of the retail experience, and we continue to upgrade store design whilst we invest in ecommerce and in the latest technology and innovation. We believe that this is key to staying relevant to ensure a seamless customer experience, both on and off-line."



Commenting on Landmark's ecommerce and logistical capabilities, Kabir Lumba, CEO of Landmark Retail, added: "We still see great momentum with our stores, and our online business is growing strongly at over 20% per annum. To maintain this trajectory, we are committing $1 billion in the next three year towards our physical expansion and upgrading our ecommerce, technology and supply chain capabilities."



Landmark Group currently has 12 million square feet of warehousing and distribution capacity with high automation capabilities, including its $350 million flagship Mega Distribution Centre, in Jebel Ali. Landmark created Logistiq in 2022, a third-party logistics company, that caters to clients outside Landmark Group's ecosystem.



"In just 18 months, we have rapidly scaled our last-mile delivery services to handle over 20,000 daily shipments across KSA and UAE for more than 50 clients, with a fleet of over 800 vehicles," Kabir Lumba continued. "Looking ahead, our vision is to build a leading logistics business by developing our end-end supply-chain offering, including freight, warehousing & cross-border delivery solutions; while expanding our coverage across the GCC."



Supported by a dedicated workforce of over 23,000 employees, Landmark has been in India for the past 25 years, operating close to 1,000 outlets across 265 cities in India. The Group plans to open a further 250 stores in the coming 3 years, including 8 Babyshop stores within the next six months, and is investing it its digital capabilities to achieve a 20% CAGR growth in its Indian ecommerce business over the next 5 years.



Landmark's multi-retail category portfolio of brands range from fashion, home, footwear, electronics, and grocery retail  supported by other offerings that serve customers' lifestyle needs, including fitness outlets, F&B and hospitality. Today, Landmark Group operates 22 brands across more than 2,200 stores, totalling 33 million square feet, and spanning 17 countries. The Group also operates 12 independent ecommerce stores, accounting for 20% of total sales. The Group employs 53,000 people throughout its various businesses and geographies.



About Landmark Group:



Founded in 1973 in Bahrain, Landmark Group has grown to become one of the largest and most successful omnichannel retail and hospitality conglomerates, with presence across 17 countries in the Middle East, Africa, India and Southeast Asia. Based in the UAE since 1990, the Group owns and operates 22 established homegrown brands across an extensive network of more than 2,200 outlets, encompassing a gross leasable area of 33 million square feet.



Landmark Group's success is driven by its diverse portfolio of established brands, across multiple retail categories, offering a comprehensive range of products across fashion, home, groceries and electronics. These include Centrepoint, Max Fashion, Home Centre, Babyshop, Splash, Shoemart, Lifestyle, Viva, Emax, Home Box, Styli, Shoexpress, Spar and Easybuy.



Beyond retail, Landmark Group has diversified into the leisure, fitness and hospitality sectors with brands like Fitness First, Citymax, Fun City, Fun Ville, Zafran and Carluccio's.



The Group boasts unparalleled logistics capabilities, owning the MENA region's largest privately-owned distribution hub - Omega Logistics and Logistiq, which offers state-of-the-art third-party logistics services.



Landmark Group places a strong emphasis on delivering exceptional value and achieving customer satisfaction throughout its comprehensive product range.



The company has a dedicated workforce of more than 53,000 employees and continues to be certified as a Great Place to Work (GPTW) since 2017.



For more information visit our website or follow us on our social media pages on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.



Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2557754/LandmarkGroup50YearsLogo.jpg



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New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) The Centre has informed the Kerala government that landslides and flash floods that happened in Wayanad in July this year cannot be declared as a "national disaster".

More than 200 people died and hundreds of homes were destroyed in the natural calamity and the state has been demanding that it be declared as a "national disaster" and also provide assistance for rehabilitation.

"Under the existing guidelines of SDRF/ NDRF, there is no provision to declare any calamity as 'National Disaster'," Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said in a letter dated November 10.

SDRF and NDRF refers to State Disaster Response Fund and National Disaster Response Fund, respectively.

In August, the state government wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting to declare the landslides and flash floods that happened in Wayanad as a national disaster.

Rai also said that an amount of Rs 388 crore has been allocated to the state government for financial year 2024-25 in SDRF. Out of the total amount, the Centre's share totalling Rs 291.20 crore was released in advance in two instalments, he added.

"In addition, the Accountant General, Kerala has reported a balance of Rs 394.99 crore in its SDRF account as on April 1, 2024. Thus, sufficient funds are available in the SDRF account of the state for the relief operations," Rai said.

In the letter written by Rai to K V Thomas, who is the Special Representative of Kerala in New Delhi, Rai also said the central government will continue to extend all possible support to the state in their endeavour.

On November 9, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan highlighted the lack of central assistance for the rehabilitation of those affected by the landslides that hit Wayanad in July, saying that nothing has come from the Union government despite several reminders.

Kerala has sought a Rs 2,000-crore relief package from the Centre for Wayanad.

On November 4, Kerala Finance Minister K N Balagopal expressed hope that the Centre will immediately provide a special package for the rehabilitation of Wayanad.
Kathmandu, Nov 14 (PTI) Nepal is set to export 40 megawatts of electricity to Bangladesh for a single day on Friday.

The electricity will be transmitted to Bangladesh through an Indian transmission line at approximately 1 pm, according to Chandan Ghosh, spokesperson for the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).

The power export will commence after a virtual inauguration ceremony jointly led by the energy ministers of Nepal, India, and Bangladesh, he said.

Although a trilateral agreement was reached in Kathmandu on October 3, the start of Nepals electricity export to Dhaka was delayed due to political unrest in Bangladesh.

Under the agreement, Nepal will export electricity to Bangladesh between November 15 and June 15 each year for the next five years.

"We will export 40 megawatts of electricity for one day tomorrow (Nov 15)," Ghosh told PTI, adding, "Then, Nepal will resume electricity exports to Bangladesh from June 2025."

The NEA will supply electricity generated by the 25-megawatt Trishuli and 22-megawatt Chilime hydropower plants to Bangladesh.

The electricity will reach Bangladesh via India's 400-kV Muzaffarpur-Baharampur-Bheramara transmission line.

The five-year power export agreement enables Nepal to provide electricity to Bangladesh without interruptions during the agreed period, Ghosh said.
Chennai, Nov 14 (PTI) Global leader in specialty chemicals, Lubrizol Corporation, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with diversified industrial conglomerate Polyhose India Pvt Ltd to establish a medical manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu.



The partnership aims to make the state a powerhouse in medical technology, according to the government.







Under the agreement, high-quality medical tubes will be produced at a facility near Chennai. These products will be used in critical applications such as neuro-vascular and cardiovascular treatments, including intravenous catheters, hemodialysis tubes, central venous catheters, and brain stimulation, said Minister for Industries, TRB Rajaa.







Top officials from Lubrizol and Polyhose met with the Minister and senior government representatives at the Secretariat to exchange documents during the signing ceremony.







"Happy to have participated in the signing of an MoU between Lubrizol and Polyhose for a crucial partnership in the MedTech sector. Such partnerships are key in our journey to make Tamil Nadu a MedTech manufacturing powerhouse, leveraging our strengths in electronics, engineering and healthcare," Rajaa said in a social media post.







The facility will span 8,000 sq ft near Chennai, with production focused on high-quality medical tubes for neurovascular and cardiovascular treatments.







"Under the leadership of Chief Minister M K Stalin, we are committed to fostering high-value collaborations that drive innovation and create quality jobs in Tamil Nadu," Rajaa added.







The groundbreaking ceremony for the proposed factory is expected in 2025, with operations scheduled to begin in 2026. The facility, located in Kelambakkam, Chennai, will create around 200 jobs, according to company officials.







Rebecca Liebert, President and CEO of Lubrizol Corporation, stated that India contributes about 10% of Lubrizols global revenue. She also noted that India would be the third country after the United States and Europe to produce high-quality medical tubing for Lubrizol.







"India serves as a hub for Lubrizol's innovation and growth, and our ongoing investment demonstrates our commitment to a local-for-local and local-for-global strategy," she said.







With this latest investment, Lubrizol, established in 1928, is poised to deliver world-class medical tubing and play a significant role in the growth of the Indian medical industry. The facility will increase Lubrizol's local medical tubing production by fivefold to meet domestic demand.







The partnership will utilise Lubrizol's strengths in India to cater to both local and global customers, enabling precise product design, reliable supply, quick turnaround, and swift technical support for domestic Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).







"This MoU marks a new chapter in our shared journey, and we are proud that Tamil Nadu, which has experienced substantial growth in recent years, continues to be an ideal location for fostering innovation and industrial expansion," said Shabbir YJ, Managing Director of Polyhose India Pvt Ltd, adding, "Together, we are poised to advance industry standards and unlock new growth opportunities."


Toronto, Nov 14 (AP) Karla Sofia Gascon's performance in Emilia Perez as a Mexican drug lord who undergoes gender affirmation surgery to become a woman has brought her global acclaim and set Gascon on a path that may make her the first openly transgender actor ever nominated for an Oscar. But on this morning, she's feeling contemplative.

I woke up with such a philosophical streak, Gascon says, smiling. In life, everything can be good or bad. We are a mix of so many things. There are things that make you happy and instead they make you sad, or the other way around.

The dichotomies of life are a fitting subject for Jacques Audiard's Emilia Perez, a film that puts just about every genre  musical, crime thriller, melodrama  into a grandiose mixer, and, by sheer nerve, manages to coalesce into one of the year's most memorable movie experiences.

Emilia Perez, which began streaming Wednesday on Netflix, is widely expected to be a best picture nominee.

At the centre of the Emilia Perez phenomenon  which began with a barn-storming premiere at the Cannes Film Festival  is Gascon who plays both the menacing cartel kingpin Manitas and the woman who emerges after Manitas fakes his own death, Emilia Perez.

Years later, Emilia contacts the lawyer who facilitated her transition (Zoe Saldana) to her reunite with her wife (Selena Gomez) and their children.

The wild swings of Emilia Perez  a movie that has earned comparisons to both Sicario and Mrs Doubtfire  wouldn't be possible without Gascon. In Cannes, she and her co-stars shared in the best actress prize, which Gascon accepted.

We've been insulted, denigrated, subjected to a lot of violence without even knowing why, Gascon said that evening. I think this is award is so much more than anyone could imagine.

Now, Gascon is widely forecast to be nominated for best actress at the Academy Awards. At a time when trans rights in the US are the subject of intense political debate, Gascon is on the cusp of making trans history. (Only cisgender actors have previously been Oscar nominated for playing trans roles.)

But, when Gascon sat down for an interview a few hours before the premiere of Emilia Perez at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, she was more inclined to gently muse about what might be in store for her.

I'm a little like Nostradamus. I like to think about what can happen. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, Gascon says. If it does happen, I would be so grateful. It would be a beautiful thing. But if it doesn't, whatever. I'd go back to my old life. I'll do my grocery shopping. I'll play with cats. I'll see my family. Maybe I'll do other jobs and people will like those jobs.

I like to go lightly in my life, she adds, smiling.

Gascon, 52, is Spanish and lives in Mexico. She spoke through an interpreter but understands English enough to sometimes giggle and shake her head at her own words while they're being translated. She was a regular in Mexican telenovels before transitioning in 2018.

All people that live in a body that they don't feel matches who they truly are do suffer one way or the other. But in my case, I feel like I handled it quite well, Gascon says. I always tried to be happy with the life I had, even before my transition. Maybe I chose to do this job as an actor because I wasn't quite happy with my life with the way I was before, so I wanted to experiment with other lives.

Playing Emilia Perez was in many ways a giant leap for Gascon.

She had to change her voice (she uses a Mexican accent in the film), work on singing and movement, and change her posture. But there were also things Gascon shared with her character.

Gascon has a 13-year-old daughter from a marriage pre-transition with whom she remains close.

We all find it hard to accept the loss of the people we love. You constantly try to get back your loved ones, Gascon says. That's what I tried to implement in the character. This is what does unite me with the character  doing everything possible to get back the people you love. It's been a constant in my life. And sometimes it's impossible.

Audiard, the protean French filmmaker, has long specialised in films of transformation and metamorphosis, including A Prophet, Dheepan and Rust and Bone.

He initially balked, though, at having Gascon play Manitas as well as Emilia. For Gascon, it would mean returning to a male persona, something Audiard hesitated to ask of her. But Gascon insisted. To her, the only kind of character she doesn't want to play is a boring one.

If I was asked to play Abraham Lincoln tomorrow, I'd love it. Bring it on! For me, the farther the character is from me in real life, the better, Gascon says.

I've met actresses who had a hard time stepping back and going through stuff that was part of their past. They would cry and take it badly. Never for me.

In conversation, Gascon seems still tickled by the whole experience. She's delighted that many people don't realize Manitas is played by her. She laughs at how a movie about a violent drug lord, someone who'd normally be a villain, should inspire so much empathy. And for someone with a very big spotlight on her, she seems remarkably at peace.

If I were asked to do my life over again, I'd probably do it exactly as it was, with all of it, Gascon says. It's wonderful that one gets to experience with these two poles, these two extremes. In a way, it'd be wonderful if all of us had access to this. Having done that allowed to me to better understand so many things that weren't so clear to me before. In the end, what I realized is that we're all the same. (AP) RB

RB
New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) From headlining "Fantastic Beasts" movies to playing an assassin in his new series "The Day of the Jackal", British star Eddie Redmayne says his best actor Oscar win for "The Theory of Everything" has given him the "luxurious notion of choice".

Redmayne, who won the trophy in 2015 for his portrayal of renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in the movie, said like any other upcoming actor, he started out by dreaming about making a living through his chosen profession.

"(But) The odds are against you because so many people want to work in this world and there are so few parts. For many years, I would just audition and try and get jobs," Redmayne told PTI in an interview.

"The massive change that the Oscar did is that rather than just auditioning for jobs and then taking them if you got them, it suddenly gave you the incredibly luxurious notion of choice," he added.

The actor began his journey on London's West End theatre and then starred in critically-acclaimed movies "My Week with Marilyn" and "Les Miserables".

The last decade has been nothing short of extraordinary for Redmayne, who followed up "The Theory of Everything" with another captivating performance in "The Danish Girl", Tom Hooper's film on 20th century transgender artist Lili Elbe.

He was also cast as Newt Scamander, the lead character of "Harry Potter" spin-off movie "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" and its two sequels.

In 2020, Redmayne played political activist Tom Hayden in Sorkin's legal drama "The Trial of the Chicago 7", alongside Sacha Baron Cohen, Jeremy Strong, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Frank Langella and Mark Rylance.

Redmayne is grateful for the opportunities that have come his way.

"Getting to work with diverse filmmakers of different styles, different genres, from the wizarding world of 'Fantastic Beasts' to working with Aaron Sorkin on 'Trial of Chicago 7' to now doing this (show), playing an assassin... I've loved the kind of variety that having some choice has allowed me," he said.

The actor's latest role is that of the Jackal in "The Day of the Jackal", the series adaptation of author Edward Forsyth's classic 1971 novel of the same name.

The book, which was adapted into a film in 1973 film with Edward Fox in the lead role, explored themes of espionage and high-stakes danger as the titular character prepares to assassinate the French President.

The actor said he has been a fan of the book and the original movie as he found Fox to be "enigmatic but quite opaque".

"You never really got a sense of what was going inside him. But what I loved about the character as well as being a casually ruthless assassin, he was also an actor. He would shape shift, change the way he looked or languages he spoke. I thought there was something so appealing about the idea of an actor playing an actor. That was one of the things that intrigued me," Redmayne said.

The new show, directed by Brian Kirk, sees the Jackal making his living carrying out hits for the highest fee.

"But following his latest kill, he meets his match in a tenacious British intelligence officer (played by Lashana Lynch) who starts to track down the Jackal in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, leaving destruction in its wake," read the official synopsis.

In the day and age of fast paced thrillers, Redmayne said there was something old school about the character of the Jackal.

"There was something what I describe as analog. Nowadays when we see these thrillers, everything is on computers. Whereas, what I liked is that for him, it was really about the craft. It's about creating these guns, quite intricate traps or plans that he delivers with the kind of precision of a Swiss watch."

What was also interesting was that there was a sort of moral ambiguity to Jackal, the actor said.

"You give me the task, you pay me enough money, and I will undertake it. So on the one hand, there's that quality to him, but there's also almost a sort of sociopathic element that he also, in this other life, is seemingly kind, caring, loving to his family.

"And yet he has never married these two worlds, or has the audacity to believe that he can live these two kind of bipolar existences at the same time. But throughout the series, you see him having to confront those two things and attempt to meld them, and that's where the trouble lies."

What was also unique about the character of the Jackal was his debonair quality, the actor said describing his character as chameleon-like.

"There's a kind of casual deadliness to him and also an opaque quality that people want to lean in and learn about him. And whether that was in the version set in the sixties or our version now, that there's an enigma that everyone wants to un-peel, that is quite intriguing," he added.

"The Day of the Jackal", a 10-episode series written and showrun by Ronan Bennett, also features Ursula Corbero, Charles Dance, Richard Dormer, Chukwudi Iwuji, Lia Williams and Khalid Abdalla.

The series, written by Ronan Bennett, is produced by Carnival Films, which is part of Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group, and was commissioned by Sky Studios and Peacock. It will premiere on JioCinema Premium on November 15.
Ome (Japan), Nov 14 (AP) Deep in a dark warehouse the sake sleeps, stored in rows of giant tanks, each holding more than 10,000 litres of the Japanese rice wine that is the product of brewing techniques dating back more than 1,000 years.

Junichiro Ozawa, the 18th-generation head of Ozawa Brewery, founded in 1702, hopes sake-brewing will win recognition as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, when the decision is made next month.

We always think about the people who're enjoying our sake when we make it. I'm now so excited, imagining the faces of all the people around the world, he told reporters Wednesday during a tour of his brewery on the pastoral outskirts of Tokyo.

Sake, the drink of choice for the nobility in The Tale of Genji  Japan's most celebrated work of literature  has been widening its appeal, boosted by the growing international popularity of Japanese cuisine.

Sake exports from Japan total more than 41 billion yen (USD 265 million) a year, with the biggest destinations being the US and China, according to the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association.

That's up from about 22 billion yen in 2018. But exports still make up a tiny fraction of overall sake production in Japan. Brazil, Mexico and Southeast Asia, as well as France and the rest of Europe, all places where Japanese restaurants are gaining popularity, are starting to take a liking to sake.

What's key to sake-making, which takes about two months, including fermentation and pressing, are the rice and the water.

For a product to be categorised Japanese sake, the rice must be Japanese. The relatively soft quality of freshwater in Japan, like the supplies provided by the two wells at Ozawa Brewery, is also critical.

Among Ozawa's sake is the full-bodied aromatic Junmai Daiginjo, one of the top offerings, with 15 per cent alcohol content and costing about 3,630 yen (USD 23) for a 720 millilitre bottle.

Karakuti Nigorizake is unrefined sake, murky and not clear like usual sake, with 17 per cent alcohol content and a rugged no-nonsense taste. It sells for 2,420 yen (USD 16) for a 1,800 millilitre bottle.

The religious connotations of sake are evident at the brewery. The big cedar-leaves ball hanging under the eaves is a symbol of a shrine for the god of sake-making. In Japan, sake is used to purify and to celebrate. Sips from a cup signify the sealing of a marriage.

Sake is not just an alcoholic beverage. It is Japanese culture itself, said Hitoshi Utsunomiya, director of the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association.

The UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage designation is given to not just historical monuments but also practices passed down generations, such as oral traditions, performing arts, rituals and festivals.

It's not meant to be used for commercial purposes. But sake officials make no secret of their hope that it will boost global sales, helping the tradition stay alive amid competition from beer, wine and other modern beverages.

Among previous Intangible Cultural Heritage inclusions are Kabuki theatre and Gagaku court music from Japan, as well as Sona, which are drawings on sand in Angola; the Chinese zither called guqin and Cremonese violin craftsmanship from Italy. Washoku, or Japanese cuisine, won the honors in 2013.

One reason for sake's growing popularity around the world is that its smooth flavour goes well with varieties of food, including sushi, spicy Asian and Western dishes, says Max Del Vita, a certified sake sommelier and co-founder of The Sake Company, an import and distribution retailer in Singapore.

These brewers are cultural stewards, passing down techniques through generations and blending ancient practices with quiet innovation, he told The Associated Press. Sake is more than a drink. It is a living embodiment of Japan's seasonal rhythms, community values and artistic heritage. (AP)

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Seoul, Nov 14 (AP) South Korea's Supreme Court on Thursday handed a suspended prison sentence to a former lawmaker who was found guilty of embezzling funds while leading a group supporting Korean survivors of Japan's wartime sexual slavery.

Yoon Meehyang, who was also convicted of fraudulently receiving government subsidies and unlawfully collecting donations, didn't attend the verdict. She didn't immediately issue a comment on the ruling, which confirmed a lower court's sentence of a year and six months in prison, suspended for three years.

Controversy surrounding Yoon and her group, the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, erupted in 2020 when one of the slavery victims, Lee Yong-soo, accused her of misusing donations and other funds and spending little on the victims.

Yoon, who had just begun her term as a lawmaker for the liberal opposition Democratic Party, denied allegations that she and the group used the funds for private gain and insisted that Lee's claim was based on a misunderstanding.

Historians say tens of thousands of women from around Asia, many of them Korean, were sent to front-line military brothels to provide sexual services for Japanese soldiers. Hundreds were registered with the South Korean government as victims but only eight of them are still alive.

Prosecutors indicted Yoon in September 2020 over embezzlement, fraud and other charges, months before the Democratic Party expelled her over separate suspicions of inappropriate real-estate investments. She finished her four-year term as a legislator last year as an independent.

The Supreme Court upheld a verdict by the Seoul High Court in September last year, which found Yoon guilty of fraudulently obtaining 65.2 million won (USD 46,300) in government subsidies from 2014 to 2020 by falsely reporting labour costs, and of embezzling 79 million won (USD 56,150) of the group's funds.

The court also ruled that Yoon violated laws by collecting donations through unregistered accounts as the group organised the funeral of Kim Bok-dong, a sexual slavery victim and activist who died in 2019.

The issues of sexual slavery, forced labor and other abuses during Japan's brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula before the end of World War II have long been a source of tensions between Seoul and Tokyo. (AP) GRS

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Wellington (New Zealand), Nov 14 (AP) A vote in New Zealand's parliament was suspended and two lawmakers ejected on Thursday when dramatic political theatre erupted over a controversial proposed law redefining the country's founding agreement between Indigenous Maori and the British Crown.

Under the principles laid out in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which guide the relationship between the government and Maori, tribes were promised broad rights to retain their lands and protect their interests in return for ceding governance to the British. The bill would specify that those rights should apply to all New Zealanders.

The bill has scant support and is unlikely to become law. Detractors say it threatens racial discord and constitutional upheaval, while thousands of New Zealanders are travelling the length of the country this week to protest it.

Despite its unpopularity, however, the proposed law passed its first vote on Thursday after dominating public discussion for months, due to a quirk of New Zealand's political system that allows tiny parties to negotiate outsized influence for their agendas.

It also reflects unease among some New Zealanders about more rapid progress in recent years toward upholding the promises made to Maori when the country was colonised.



A 184-year-old treaty provokes fresh debate

For decades after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, differences between the English and Maori texts and breaches by New Zealand governments intensified the disenfranchisement of Maori.

By the middle of the 20th century, Indigenous language and culture had dwindled, much tribal land was confiscated and Maori were disadvantaged on every metric. As the Indigenous protest movement surged in the 1970s, lawmakers and the courts slowly began to elucidate what it understood the treaty to promise Maori: partnership with the Crown, participation in decision-making and protection of their interests.

What all of these principles have in common is that they afford Maori different rights from other New Zealanders, David Seymour, leader of minor libertarian party ACT and the bill's author, said on Thursday.

To those who have championed the treaty, that is the point. Work has involved billion-dollar land settlements, embrace of the Maori language, guaranteed representation in central and local government and attempts through policy to reverse the stark inequities Indigenous people still face.

But Seymour  who is Maori -- said no law or court had actually settled for good a definition of the treaty's principles, and that had caused division. His bill filled a silence this parliament has left for five decades, he said.



Lawmakers vote for a bill they oppose

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon disagrees, but his party voted for the bill Thursday to fulfil the political deal with Seymour that handed Luxon power. Without enough seats to govern after last October's election, Luxon curried support from two minor parties  including Seymour's ACT, which won less than 9 per cent of the vote  in return for political concessions.

Luxon told Seymour his party would vote for the treaty bill once, while promising publicly that it would go no further.

The treaty's principles had been negotiated and debated for 184 years, Luxon told reporters Thursday, and it was simplistic for Seymour to suggest that they could be resolved through the stroke of a pen.

Government lawmakers made awkward speeches in parliament explaining that they opposed the bill before voting for it to jeers from opponents, who demanded they break ranks. Luxon was spared that; he left the country for the meeting of leaders from the Asia-Pacific APEC bloc hours before the vote.

His political horse-trading drew scorn from opposition lawmakers.



A fraught and outraged response

Shame! Shame! Shame on you, David Seymour, roared Willie Jackson, a veteran Maori lawmaker. Shame on you for what you're trying to do to this nation.

Jackson was thrown out of the debating chamber by Speaker Gerry Brownlee for calling Seymour a liar.

You are complicit in the harm and the division that this presents, said Rawiri Waititi, a lawmaker from Te Pati Maori, an Indigenous group, speaking to all who advanced the bill.

If you vote for this bill, this is who you are, Green party leader Chloe Swarbrick told Luxon's lawmakers.

No one deviated from their planned votes and the bill passed. But not before one final flashpoint.



A rare outburst of protest

When asked how her party's lawmakers would vote, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke of Te Pati Maori stood and began a ringing haka  a rhythmic Maori chant of challenge  which swelled to a roar as first opposition lawmakers, and then spectators in the public gallery, joined in.

An irate Brownlee was unable to quiet the fracas as opponents approached Seymour's seat. The live broadcast of Parliament's proceedings was cut and Brownlee ordered the public be removed before the vote resumed.

He suspended Maipi-Clarke, 22, from Parliament for a day.

The bill will proceed to a public submission process before another vote. Seymour hopes for an outpouring of support to change Luxon's mind about vetoing it.

The proposal will shortly roil Parliament again. Thousands of protesters are due to arrive in the capital, Wellington, on Tuesday for what is likely to be one of the largest race relations marches in New Zealand's history. (AP) PY

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Recently, the premiere of Gladiator II, a sequel to the legendary 2000 action movie Gladiator, took place. Film critics have already shared their impressions, and even King Charles III of England came to watch the new part.

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On Rotten Tomatoes, many moviegoers have already shared their impressions, and the rating of Gladiator II reaches 75% out of 100%. Ukrainians are also pleased with the movie. Thus, the social network X has already begun to comment on the film.

"I watched Gladiator II. A great, majestic, pretentious, but still carefully crafted movie. Ridley Scott can still do it," commented one of the viewers.

Ridley Scott is a director who worked on the first and second parts of Gladiator. He also has such masterpieces as: "Alien, Blade Runner, All the Money in the World, Napoleon, etc.

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Even King Charles III attended the film's premiere. He timed the event to coincide with the centenary of the Film and Television Charitable Organization. Before watching the movie, the king talked to the director and the actors who played the main roles: Paul Mescal, Connie Nielsen, and Pedro Pascal.

However, foreign film critics are not satisfied with the sequel to Gladiator and accuse the director of "relying too much on nostalgia for the original."

"This is not a worthy continuation of the series."

"Gladiator II is an unimpressive movie. Yes, it is epic and sometimes spectacular. But the script is unambitious and unoriginal, in my opinion. After a 24-year wait, with a rumored budget of a quarter of a billion dollars, we could have expected more."

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"Playing like a tribute concert to the most insane excesses of the Roman Empire, what Gladiator II lacks in gravitas it makes up for in set chewing and sharks."

"In an era of remakes and reboots, Gladiator II is a good old-fashioned sequel. That means it's a step back from the first movie, but it still has enough going on to make it fun to watch."

What "Gladiator II" is about

"Gladiator II: is a sequel to the 2000 film of the same name and tells the story of Lucius, the son of Lucilla. This film depicts an adult Lucius who returns to Rome. However, there he will be enslaved and become a gladiator. Lucius has to fight in the arena with other soldiers and animals in front of hundreds of people. In order to dilute the plot, the director added new battle scenes, including sea battles and fights with exotic animals.

Lucius's task will be to win glory in the Colosseum to return Rome to its former glory and defeat the emperors who conquered his home.

Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
London, Nov 14 (PTI) Celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor visited the London charity kitchen of Akshaya Patra, a 24-year-old Indian-origin organisation that claims to feed nearly 2.25 million children at schools and places of learning daily in India and the UK.

During a visit to the UK last week, the leading Indian television personality met the charity's team of chefs to share a variety of recipes and tips on making tasty food that is simple, nutritious, cost-effective and flavourful to appeal to the diverse tastes among children. He also prepared a colourful pasta dish with freshly made sauce and seasonal vegetables and tossed up a crunchy salad to showcase that "good food doesn't have to be expensive and nutritious food doesn't have to taste bad".

"It is an important day in my life to visit the first international kitchen of an Indian-origin charity that feeds millions of children for the purpose of education, said Kapoor.

Here in the UK, there is a lot of food poverty and the numbers are staggering. Kudos to the dedicated Akshaya Patra UK team for creating a difference in the United Kingdom. The UK's need is very different, and the team here has come up with a unique model to fill the gap in this part of the world," he said.

According to the Food Foundation charity, around 4 million children in UK households are affected by food insecurity and the Childhood Trust puts the number of children suffering from hunger in London alone at 426,500.

Akshaya Patra has a long history of delivering transformative school meals programme. It is a sad reality for a country such as the UK, that a charity like Akshaya Patra needs to get involved in supporting children's nutritional needs and help them make most of their education, said Daniel Adams, CEO of Akshaya Patra UK.

The charity provides meals in schools and at after-school clubs as part of its Hot Meals and Homework programme. Adams said Kapoors visit to the Akshaya Patra site in Watford, north of London, brought insightful wisdom for the team to cater to a diverse British palate.

Akshaya Patra UK is a registered charity dedicated to providing nutritious hot meals to hungry children in the country. Until 2020, the charity existed in the UK with the purpose of fundraising for its India feeding programme. However, in response to the growing food poverty in the UK, it expanded its efforts to a food service with the help of partners and supporters.
Karachi, Nov 14 (PTI) Twelve terrorists have been killed in two separate operations by security forces in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, the army said on Thursday.

Eight Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists were killed and six others injured in a clean-up operation in Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on the intervening night between Nov 12-13, the army's media wing ISPR said in a statement.

In another operation at Balgatar area in Balochistan's Kech district at around the same time, four terrorists, including a high value target, were killed in a gun battle with security forces, the military said in another statement.

The operation in Balochistan was launched following two recent suicide bomb attacks -- one near the Karachi airport, and another at the Quetta Railway station.

The ISPR said the high value militant commander identified as Sana alias Baru was a focal recruitment agent for suicide bombers for the Majeed Brigade of the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) which has claimed responsibility for the Karachi and Quetta attacks.

While two Chinese engineers were killed in the Karachi airport attack, 27 people, including members of security and law enforcement agencies, died and dozens injured in the Quetta railway station suicide blast.
Mexico City, Nov 14 (AP) US Ambassador Ken Salazar lashed out Wednesday at Mexico's failure to accept aid in the fight against drug cartels, claiming the country closed the doors on security cooperation.

In a press conference, Salazar launched his harshest criticism yet of rampant violence, police corruption and the Mexican government's mistaken attitude that there is no problem.

When they just say 'there is no problem, we have these statistics to show people there is no problem,' that is not based on reality," Salazar said. There is a very big problem.

Mexico's foreign relations ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the statements by Salazar.

Salazar cited violence in recent days in the northern state of Sinaloa as an example. Sinaloa state police chief Gerardo Merida said Wednesday authorities found a pile of between five and seven bodies on a roadside there, but were still counting body parts to see how many there were.

There is a pile of various bodies, with what we have found we have identified five bodies, but some are in pieces, they have been dismembered, there are mentions of seven, said Merida.

Sinaloa's embattled governor, Ruben Rocha, seemed to typify Mexico's attitude when he said Tuesday after a similar number of dead bodies were dumped on roadsides - that we're doing well, we'll get over this soon.

Salazar countered that in Sinaloa the dead can be seen everywhere.

Salazar had previously defended many of the Mexican government's actions, but he now says former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's hugs not bullets strategy of not confronting the cartels did not work.

Lopez Obrador left office on September 30, but his successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, has pledged to continue the policy, even though under her leadership troops appear more willing to open fire.

Fighting between two factions of the Sinaloa drug cartel broke out after two drug capos  one from each faction  flew to the United States and were arrested there on July 25.

Drug lords Ismael El Mayo Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez were apprehended in the United States after flying there in a small plane.

Zambada later claimed he was kidnapped and forced aboard the plane by Guzman Lopez, causing a violent battle between Zambada's faction and the Chapitos group led by the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.

Mexico later blamed the United States for detaining the capos, saying that had caused the outbreak of violence. Salazar said Mexico also shut down anti-drug cooperation after that.

It totally accelerated from there, the Mexican government closed its doors, Salazar said. The ambassador also criticised efforts by both Lopez Obrador and Sheinbaum to downplay the problem of crime and violence, claiming the problem was being exaggerated and crime statistics were dropping.

Salazar did not clarify why he thought the Mexican government's numbers were untrustworthy, but in recent days the government appears to have changed the way it reports homicide figures.

The reality for the Mexican people, and that is for businesspeople, members of the press like you who work on the streets, those who have ranches, like the cattleman killed in Sinaloa over the weekend because he was a leader, they don't live with security, Salazar said.

The continuing violence is a very serious problem in Mexico and saying there is no problem, blaming someone else, blaming the United States, obviously is not (the solution)", he continued.

He also blamed Lopez Obrador for having refused USD 32 million," an apparent reference to Lopez Obrador's decision to drop out of a US-funded program to donate money to train and equip Mexican police.

It was rejected for ideological problems, and other explanations, Salazar said. Lopez Obrador said at the time he didn't want US helicopters and guns, but by that point most of the US money was going for training, professionalization and legal reform.

After taking office in 2018, Lopez Obrador also cut funding for police forces and gave the army, navy and militarised National Guard the lead role in law enforcement.

Police become corrupt because they don't earn enough to live on, Salazar said. You cannot pay a police officer almost nothing and expect them to do their job.

Salazar had been previously known for defending Lopez Obrador despite his constant efforts to militarise law enforcement, concentrate power, eliminate regulatory and oversight bodies and shore up Mexico's government-run companies even at the expense of US firms.

It was unclear if Wednesday's critical turn in his rhetoric was in any way related to the victory of Donald Trump in last week's US presidential elections. Trump has long been fiercely critical of Mexico. (AP)

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Colombo, Nov 14 (PTI) Sri Lankans on Thursday began voting in the snap parliamentary election, the first major test of the ruling National People's Power party led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

The voting is taking place at over 13,314 polling stations across the country. The voting started at 7 am and will continue till 4 pm local time. The counting will start soon after the closing of polls.

Voters turned out in steady streams during the first hour of the polls, election officials said.

Over 17 million voters from the islands 21 million population are eligible to vote for the 225-member Parliament for a five-year term.

Nearly 90,000 security personnel from the police and the military are deployed to provide security at the election venues.

Thursday's vote would be the first major test of the popularity of the ruling party, National People's Power, led by President Dissanayake.

Having failed to secure 50 per cent of the vote at the September 21 presidential election, Dissanayake is pleading for a stronger parliament with well over a simple majority of 113 seats to implement his anti-corruption accountability reformist programme.

This will be the first parliamentary election since Sri Lanka plunged into an economic crisis when the island nation declared sovereign default in mid-April of 2022, its first since gaining independence from Britain in 1948. Almost civil-war-like conditions and months of public protests led to the fleeing of the then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Since assuming office, Dissanayake has stayed on course with his predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghes International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programme.

The country is still recovering from its worst economic crisis in history as the Dissanayake government faces the challenge of meeting the IMF targets on revenue in the third review of the USD 2.9 billion programme.

As many as 196 members are to be elected from the 22 districts based on the proportional representation system while 29 would be elected from the cumulative votes polled national list to provide a 225-member Parliament for a five-year term.

Political parties and independent groups file lists of candidates for each district. Seats are allocated proportionately according to the votes polled.

Individual MPs get elected based on the preferential votes cast in their favour. Each voter is entitled to mark three individual preferences.

Wickremesinghe, who lost to Dissanayake in last months presidential election, has not been contesting the parliamentary election for the first time since 1977.

The Rajapaksa brothers - Mahinda, Gotabaya, Chamal and Basil  too are not contesting this election after decades-long representation.

Scores of ministers and deputies from the past regime have opted out of the race.

Under the complex proportional representation system, Dissanayakes NPP will be hard-pressed to gain the absolute majority required for initiating major reforms such as overhauling the presidential system.

We should win big enough to make them cry," Dissanayake said, referring to the ruling classes against whom his party had run two bloody rebellions.

After Dissanayakes win in the presidential election held in September, the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and Wickremesinghe-backed New Democratic Front (NDF) seemed to have thrown a feeble challenge to gain control of Parliament, the analysts noted.
Washington, Nov 14 (AP) President-elect Donald Trump is famously unconventional, but he made conventional picks for his two top foreign policy positions. That could be reassuring to American allies, while China and Iran have reasons to be wary.

Trump on Wednesday announced his choice of Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state. Two days earlier, he picked Rep. Mike Waltz for national security adviser.

Both men share Trump's hard-line stance on China and Iran. They have shown themselves willing to adapt their foreign-policy positions to echo aspects of Trump's more isolationist America First approach  a requirement for anyone serving under a president who demands absolute loyalty.

But both are fairly mainstream conservatives with foreign policy experience who have previously differed with Trump on Russia, NATO and other issues.

They've also been open to working with Democrats  a point underscored when Sen. Mark Warner, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Rubio would be a strong voice for American interests abroad.

Rubio and Waltz stand in contrast to some other national security selections. Trump named Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host untested on the global stage, as defence secretary. He picked a congresswoman with little foreign policy experience, Rep. Elise Stefanik, as ambassador to the United Nations. His choice for ambassador to Israel, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, rejects the two-state solution to the conflict with Palestinians.

And US allies may be relieved that Rubio was selected over Richard Grenell for secretary of state. Grenell is an ardent and combative Trump advocate and former diplomat and intelligence official, with a reputation for favouring autocratic strongmen abroad.

Rubio, a 14-year veteran of the Senate, is a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Foreign Relations Committee. His roots as the son of Cuban immigrants who worked as a bartender and a hotel maid after coming to the United States helped shape his tough positions on the leftist governments of Cuba and Venezuela.

While Trump has alarmed US allies in Europe with his criticism of the NATO military alliance and praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose war on Ukraine has galvanized European fears of Russian expansionism, Rubio was instrumental in the Senate in securing the US position in NATO. He and Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine spearheaded legislation to bar any president from pulling the US out of NATO without Senate approval or an act of Congress.

But Rubio, like Waltz in the House, has altered his public statements and legislative votes to more closely align with Trump's criticism of the Biden administration's backing of Ukraine as it battles invading Russian forces.

After early votes and supportive statements for Ukraine after Russia's 2022 attack, Rubio and Waltz more recently voted against additional military aid to Ukraine. Rubio, like Trump, has increasingly stressed the need to end the war.

That's in contrast to Ukraine supporters in both parties who say the US must support Ukraine's fight so it gets the best possible terms in any eventual cease-fire.

I don't think he (Trump) puts people in positions that are going to disagree with him. He wants people to be loyal, and I don't think he's looking for people that are going to challenge his beliefs, said Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a Washington-based research institute. So I think this is actually quite revealing, probably, of what the direction of US policy will be, that it will be really hawkish on China in particular. And I think also on Iran.

In China, analysts consider Rubio and Waltz to be ultra-hawkish toward Beijing and have taken to calling them part of the Florida faction in foreign policy, since both are from the state. Trump piled tariffs on China in his first term and promises more tariffs in his next one.

Rubio has argued for a more confrontational approach toward China, and he has been a vocal supporter of Taiwan, which Beijing sees as Chinese territory.

Rubio is known in China as the anti-China vanguard for his ideologically driven, anti-communism stance. He landed on Beijing's blacklist in 2020 over his support for the minority Uyghurs in China's far western region of Xinjiang and for Hong Kong activists. He co-chaired the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which focuses on human rights, and introduced and supported numerous bills on China's rights issues.

The sanctions Beijing imposed on Rubio bar him from visiting the country. It's unclear if China's foreign minister will meet with him given the ban, or how the ban will otherwise affect his dealings with Chinese officials.

For his part, Waltz is a former Green Beret with combat tours in Afghanistan and the Middle East, a former defence policy director in the Pentagon, and a senior member of the House committees for armed services, intelligence and oversight.

He's supported Western backing for Ukraine, saying doing nothing would invite further Russian aggression in Europe and draw in US troops. But Waltz increasingly emphasises the importance of Ukraine's neighbours stepping up, saying Europeans should be spending as much on Ukraine's defence as the United States does.

In a November 2 article he co-wrote for The Economist, Waltz argued that China has benefited from the Biden administration's failures to deter conflicts in Europe and in the Middle East.

In 2021, Waltz introduced a resolution calling on the US Olympic Committee to withdraw from the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.

The world cannot legitimise the CCP's acts of genocide in Xinjiang, destruction of the democratic rights of Hong Kong, and dangerous suppression of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan that cost lives by sending delegations to Beijing, Waltz said then, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

At a daily briefing in Beijing, Lin Jian, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said China would not comment on Trump's appointments.

Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations expert, noted the gap between Trump and his nominees on China. Trump didn't say China was an enemy during his first term and the presidential elections, but the hawkish officials he has appointed may believe China is an enemy to some extent," Shen said.

Robert Manning, a China expert at the Stimson Center, said Trump is not as ideologically driven as Rubio but he raised concerns that Trump's foreign policy could be more disruptive than President Joe Biden's.

I think some in the Trump camp want to get rid of the Communist Party of China, which I think is a fool's errand, but nonetheless I think they're more focused on a different endgame than achieving a stable balance of power," he said. (AP)

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Washington, Nov 14 (AP) The fireplace was crackling in the Oval Office on Wednesday morning as President Joe Biden shook hands with Donald Trump and congratulated him on his election victory.

Welcome back, Biden told Trump, who said the transition would be as smooth as it can get.

It was a cordial exchange that was jarringly at odds with the strangeness of the political moment. Here was Biden, who once made it his mission to prevent his predecessor from becoming his successor, preparing to hand over power to Trump, who never conceded his defeat to Biden four years ago.

But official Washington, which still feels the aftershocks of Trump's chaotic first term, appeared resigned to the potential earthquake of his second. There were no protests on the streets and no surprises during the past-and-future president's nearly four-hour visit.

It was a far different scene than when Trump visited the city after his shocking victory over Hillary Clinton eight years ago. Back then, the country was still trying to figure out the real estate mogul and former reality television star, and Trump seemed somewhat nervous in his Oval Office meeting with out-going President Barack Obama.

Now, Trump is undeniably triumphant and confident in his return, solidifying his place in American politics by overcoming two impeachments, a criminal conviction and two assassination attempts to win a second term in the White House.

The victory lap began as soon as Trump touched down in his trademark red-white-and-dark-blue plane with his name emblazoned on the side.

It's nice to win, Trump told House Republicans during his first meeting of the day.

He also hinted that he may not want to leave when his term was over.

I suspect I won't be running again unless you say 'He's so good we got to figure something else out,' Trump said.

The lawmakers laughed. Was it really a joke? Or a suggestion that Trump views the constitutional prohibition on serving more than two terms as malleable?

There was no way to know for sure, an uncertainty that recalled the did-he-really-mean-that tone of Trump's original stint in Washington. Either way, it seemed unlikely that Trump would face much resistance from a Republican Party that has been remolded in his image and will likely control all branches of the federal government.

If Donald Trump says, 'Jump three feet high and scratch your head,' we all jump three feet high and scratch our head, said Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas. He wore a Make America Great Again tie and gold Trump sneakers.

As if to demonstrate his dominance, Trump announced a series of loyalists for top administration positions, including Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for national intelligence director. Concerns about their lack of qualifications could make it difficult for them to win Senate confirmation  but only if Senate Republicans decide to cross Trump by opposing them.

The meeting with House Republicans took place in a hotel conference room blocks from the US Capitol, which Trump had urged his supporters to march on January 6, 2021, as Congress was ceremonially certifying Biden's election victory. Fuelled by Trump's false claims of voter fraud, rioters smashed windows, fought with police officers and tried to prevent the transfer of power.

They failed, but in subsequent years, Trump convinced Americans to set aside concerns about his attempt to remain in power and trust him to address their economic malaise and concerns about migration.

He won a decisive victory over Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice president who replaced Biden at the top of the ticket after a disastrous debate performance crystallised concerns about his age over the summer.

When Trump finished on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, his motorcade whisked him to the White House for the meeting with Biden. A few dozen Trump supporters stood outside the gate before he arrived, one holding a sign saying, Welcome back.

Scores of journalists crowded onto the grounds in hopes of catching a glimpse of Trump  so many the Secret Service ran out of the temporary passes that are given to visiting reporters.

Harris kept her distance. A person familiar with her schedule said she was holding private meetings at her official residence.

Trump's campaign said his visit to Washington was a harbinger of the sweeping change to come in a few short weeks.

An X factor for Trump's second presidency is Elon Musk, the world's richest man who is frequently at the president-elect's side. He owns the social media company formerly known as Twitter, as well as an electric vehicle manufacturer and a space rocket business with billions of dollars in government contracts. Trump said this week that Musk would help lead an advisory commission on government efficiency.

Musk joined Trump for his meeting with House Republicans and added star power of his own.

He got three standing ovations, said Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina.

It's not just the federal government that is coming around to the reality of Trump's return. City leaders are too.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Tuesday that she's committed to providing a smooth and collaborative transition and she wants to work with the new administration on getting federal employees back to their offices to rejuvenate downtown areas.

She also appeared to be bracing for confrontations ahead.

We're not in a new place, Bowser said. We've been in this place before (AP)

GRS

GRS
Islamabad, Nov 14 (PTI) Pakistan on Thursday said it would continue to work with China for the safety and security of Chinese nationals and projects in the country.

Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, however, dismissed media reports that Beijing was pushing for joint security arrangements in the wake of repeated attacks on its citizens in Pakistan.

The remarks came days after China said it would continue to support Pakistan in its fight against terrorism to protect Chinese nationals working on various projects in the country notwithstanding the recurring attacks against them.

Two Chinese nationals were injured on November 5 when a local security guard opened fire at them following a quarrel, reportedly at a police station in the Industrial Trading Estate area of the port city of Karachi in Sindh province.

Baloch, during her weekly news briefing here, said Pakistan and China have a robust dialogue and cooperation on a range of issues including counter terrorism and security of Chinese nationals, adding that the dialogue is based on mutual respect, mutually beneficial cooperation and respect for each other's sovereignty.

As iron brothers and strategic partners, the two countries have the resolve and capability to foil any attempts aimed at harming this relationship. We will not allow any efforts to derail China-Pakistan strategic partnership, she said.

She dismissed media reports of Beijing pushing Islamabad to join security efforts in Pakistan, terming them as speculations motivated by an agenda to create confusion.

We do not respond to media speculations that are based on unreliable sources and motivated by an agenda to create confusion about the nature of this relationship, she said and advised the media to ascertain the motivation of individuals who feed them such stories.

She also urged the Afghan authorities to take action against the terror groups and not allow the use of their soil against Pakistan or any other neighboring country.

She said Afghanistan should take Pakistan's repeated requests seriously and not test the patience of Pakistani people.

Thousands of Chinese personnel are working in Pakistan on several projects under the aegis of the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The November 5 firing was the third incident involving attacks on Chinese or other foreign nationals in Karachi this year.

In October, two Chinese engineers working at the Port Qasim terminal were killed when a suicide bomber struck a vehicle carrying them near the Karachi airport.

In April, five Japanese nationals working in the Landhi industrial zone came under attack by a suicide bomber but luckily escaped unhurt.
Lahore, Nov 14 (PTI) Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has refuted recent media reports claiming that she has throat cancer, clarifying instead that her health issues are related to the parathyroid gland, for which treatment is only available in Switzerland and the US.

"For the last few days, it was being speculated on social media that I was suffering from throat cancer. By the grace of God, I have no cancer," Maryam told her party men in London on Wednesday.

Her party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), shared the video clip of her talk with the PML-N workers with the media on Thursday.

"I have a thyroid issue, last year I had surgery. I have a rare disease -- parathyroid -- which could only be treated in two countries, Switzerland and America. There is no treatment for it in England. I dont want to play a victim card to talk about my illness. People ask why cant I be treated at a hospital in Pakistan. I want to tell them that all my treatment has been carried out in Pakistan but for parathyroid I have to come to Switzerland," 51-year-old Maryam said.

However, prominent Pakistani doctor Dr Waqas Nawaz, who is currently based in the US, said Maryam's claims of parathyroid treatment not available in Pakistan is "misleading and inaccurate".

"It is misleading and inaccurate to claim by @MaryamNSharif that parathyroid diseases are only treated in the USA and Switzerland. Parathyroid conditions such as hyperparathyroidism and hypoparathyroidism have treatment options available in many countries around the world, including in Pakistan, the UK, France, Germany, Australia, India, the UAE, Qatar and many others," he posted on X.

Dr Nawaz said many tertiary and private hospitals in Pakistan, including Aga Khan University Hospital, Shifa International, Doctors Hospital, and Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre, perform parathyroidectomy.
London, Nov 14 (PTI) Britain's King Charles III marked his 76th birthday on Thursday by championing a food poverty project close to his heart, opening a new hub in south-east London to distribute surplus produce to people in need.

Choosing to spend his birthday as any other working day, the royal paid a visit to Deptford to showcase the first anniversary of the Coronation Food Project which aims to make better use of food that would otherwise be thrown away.

It was unveiled by the monarch last year to mark his coronation and the project has rescued around 940 tonnes of surplus food, estimated as enough to make 2.24 million meals.

"Food need is as real and urgent a problem as food waste  and if a way could be found to bridge the gap between them, then it would address two problems in one, said Charles of the project, which falls under the umbrella of his King Charles III Charitable Fun (KCCF).

Charities such as the Felix Project and FareShare can collect food from hubs like the new one in Deptford and take it to help individuals and community groups. A second hub in Merseyside, north-west England, was also inaugurated on the King's birthday in a virtual ceremony.

Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace released a new birthday photograph of the monarch showing Charles wearing a blue suit, white shirt and patterned tie, with one hand in his pocket as he rests the other on a chair.

"Wishing His Majesty The King a very Happy Birthday today," the palace said in its official social media message with the image.

He was also wished a happy birthday by his son and daughter-in-law, the Prince and Princess of Wales William and Kate, who posted a message on their social media with a photograph of the King on a recent tour of Australia and Samoa.

As is customary, gun salutes were fired in the UK capital  in Green Park and at the Tower of London  as part of the military's traditional celebrations and bells tolled at Westminster Abbey, where Charles was crowned King in May last year. His wife, Camilla, continues to cut back on her royal duties as she recovers fully from a chest infection and did not join Charles on some of his engagements this week.

The royal birthday comes towards the end of a tough year for the royals after news of the Kings and then Kates cancer diagnosis emerged in early 2024. Both have since returned to frontline royal duties after a break to undergo treatment.
Male, Nov 14 (PTI) Indian Naval Ship Talwar has escorted Maldives National Defence Force Coast Guard Ship Huravee to Mumbai for a scheduled refit at a cost of USD 4 million to be borne by India.

Coast Guard Ship (CGS) Huravee's refit in India was announced during the state visit of Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu to India from October 6-10 and reflects deep-rooted friendly ties and multi-faceted defence cooperation between our two countries, a statement from the Indian High Commission here said.

The refit, which is first since the ship was handed over to the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) in May 2023, will involve routine maintenance work as well as upgrades to extend the ship's operational life and enhance its capabilities, it said.

The refit of CGS Huravee would be undertaken at an approximate cost of over USD 4 million, which would be borne by the government of India, it added.

The CGS Huravee was escorted during her transit passage from Male to Mumbai India by Indian Naval Ship Talwar reached the Naval Dockyard, Mumbai on Wednesday.

RAdm Ankur Sharma, Admiral Superintendent ND(Mbi), received the ship and interacted with Lt Col Ahmed Siyam, Commanding Officer Huravee. The maiden refit of the #Maldivian ship at ND (Mbi) signifies strong diplomatic and military cooperation between the two countries, said a post on X by the Western Naval Command.

INS Talwar and CGS Huravee left the Male port on November 10.

Maldives is India's key maritime neighbour and an important partner under India's 'Neighbourhood First' policy and Vision SAGAR i.e. Security and Growth for All in the Region.

India is committed to capacity building and capability enhancement of Maldives, the High Commission statement said.

Though the Maldivian president attended Prime Minister Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony in New Delhi in June, the October 6-10 visit was his first bilateral visit to India and sought to reset ties.

Relations between India and the Maldives had come under severe strain since Muizzu, known for his pro-China leanings, took charge of the top office in November last year after winning the presidential election on the India out campaign.

Within hours of his swearing-in, Muizzu asked New Delhi to withdraw its military personnel posted in the archipelago nation and the personnel were withdrawn at a mutually agreeable time by May 2023.
After lengthy discussions about the health of 59-year-old NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, who is stuck on the ISS, it was reported that her colleague, 61-year-old Barry Wilmore, is now under close medical supervision. The astronaut allegedly lost weight during his 160-day stay on the International Space Station.

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As the New York Post has learned, NASA is currently monitoring Wilmore's health. Doctors are taking precautions to ensure that he does not reach a tipping point.

It is known that at the beginning of the mission, 1.8-meter Barry Wilmore weighed more than 95 kilograms. His weight after a long stay in space is unknown.

"Initially, he had a much higher mass. Any changes in the astronauts' bodies are recorded. And his weight seems to have decreased," the employee told the publication.

Experts emphasize that during long-term missions to the ISS, astronauts usually lose about five percent of their initial body weight, mainly due to the loss of muscle and bone density caused by microgravity.

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However, the day before, Sunita Williams said in her address from space that she had gained muscle mass aboard the ISS because astronauts do weightlifting in the orbital laboratory. As for the thin appearance in the latest photos, Suni explained it as a "fluid shift" during her stay in space.

NASA claimed that "all astronauts aboard the ISS undergo regular medical checkups, are monitored by flight surgeons, and are healthy."

According to insiders, NASA is warning employees that leaking confidential information about astronauts' health could be grounds for dismissal.

As a reminder, Sunita Williams and her fellow astronaut Barry Wilmore arrived at the ISS on June 6. Their mission was supposed to last 9 days. However, due to a malfunction, the Boeing Starliner spacecraft was unable to deliver them to Earth on time and the astronauts were stuck in space. Their return home is scheduled for February 2025.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Brussels, Nov 14 (AP) NATO and the European Union are ramping up efforts to persuade China to help get North Korea to stop sending troops and other support to Russia to back its war on Ukraine.

Up to 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia's Kursk border region to help beat back Ukrainian forces there, according to US, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence assessments. NATO says Russia is sending missile technology to North Korea in return.

With Russia exploiting its military advantage in Ukraine, the United States wants its allies to exert political pressure on China to rein in North Korea. Since Pyongyang and Beijing established diplomatic ties in 1949, their relationship has been described as being as close as lips and teeth.

One political lever is the threat of any increased Western activity in China's backyard, the Asia-Pacific region. Just last week, the EU sealed security pacts with regional powers Japan and South Korea.

In an opinion piece for Politico last week, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that "China bears particular responsibility here, to use its influence in Pyongyang and Moscow to ensure they cease these actions. Beijing cannot pretend to promote peace while turning a blind eye to increasing aggression.

On a visit to Latvia on Thursday, Rutte warned that the exchanges of missile technology in particular pose a direct threat, not only to Europe, but also to Japan, South Korea and the US mainland. Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand now regularly attend NATO meetings.

On Wednesday, after talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he also said that the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific really have to be seen as one theatre, and not as two separate ones, and that "our security, therefore, now more and more is global, and we have to look at this as a global issue.

While North Korea and Russia have moved significantly closer, many observers say China is reluctant to form a three-way, anti-West alliance with them as it prefers a stable security environment to tackle economic challenges and maintain relationships with Europe and its Asian neighbours.

In a blog published on Thursday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell detailed his recent trip to Japan and South Korea, where North Korea's troop deployment and other assistance to Russia was on the agenda.

This marks an escalation of the utmost seriousness, which was of course at the heart of our discussions with the Japanese and South Korean leaders, wrote Borrell, who also held talks with Blinken on Wednesday.

Borrell hailed the conclusion during his trip of new security and defense partnerships with Japan and South Korea, the first ones outside Europe.

The EU was certainly not born as a military alliance but, in the current geopolitical context, it can and must also become a global security provider and partner, he wrote.

Blinken said this week that the Biden administration is determined in its final months to help ensure that Ukraine can keep fighting off the full-scale invasion next year by sending as much aid as possible to hold Russian forces at bay or strengthen its hand in any peace negotiations. (AP) SCY

SCY
Lahore, Nov 14 (PTI) Over 2,550 Sikh pilgrims from India arrived here on Thursday to participate in festivities marking the 555th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev.

Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) Secretary Fareed Iqbal, Additional Secretary Shrines Saifullah Khokhar, and Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (PSGPC) president Ramesh Singh Arora -- also a minority minister in Maryam Nawaz's cabinet in Punjab -- welcomed the pilgrims at the Wagah border.

Khokhar said masks will be provided to all pilgrims to protect them from heavy smog. He said extraordinary security arrangements have been made to ensure the pilgrims' safety.

"As many as 2,559 Indian Sikhs arrived in Lahore today via special trains. They were transported to Nankana Sahib on special buses," ETPB spokesperson Ghulam Mohayuddin told PTI.

The main event celebrating Baba Guru Nanaks birth anniversary will be held on Friday at Gurdwara Janamasthan in Nankana Sahib, approximately 80 km from Lahore.

Sikhs from other countries will also attend, alongside local attendees, federal and provincial ministers, and officials from ETPB and PSGPC, Mohayuddin said.

During their stay, pilgrims will be provided with accommodation, food, transportation, and medical facilities, he said.

Pakistan has issued a total of 3,000 visas to Indian Sikhs for the event.

Speaking to the media at the Wagah Border, Delhi Gurdwara Management Committee leader Harjeet Singh Pappa expressed his gratitude to the Pakistani authorities for the warm reception.

"We feel immense joy being here," he said.

Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee leader Gurnam Singh Jassal said: "We are thankful for the love and respect we receive here."

PSGPC president Arora said the welcome extended to the pilgrims reflects Pakistan's respect and affection for its minorities.

"The Sikh pilgrims from India will carry cherished memories back to their homeland," he said.

During their 10-day stay, the Indian Sikhs will also visit several holy sites, including Gurdwara Sacha Sauda in Farooqabad, Gurdwara Panja Sahib in Hassan Abdal, Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Narowal, Gurdwara Rohri Sahib in Eminabad via Gujranwala, and Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore.

The pilgrims will return to India on November 23 via the Wagah Border.
Nanded, Nov 14 (PTI) Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has said the Maharashtra assembly election is a war between the incumbent Mahayuti government's agenda of development and good governance and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi's policy of destruction and corruption.

On top BJP leaders' campaign refrain of 'Batenge toh katenge' (divided we will be destroyed) and 'Ek hain toh safe hain' (united we are safe), he said these slogans are meant to unite the people of the country to achieve progress through patriotism.

Scindia gave an interview to PTI on Wednesday on the sidelines of a rally at Malegaon village in Nanded to campaign for Srijaya Chavan, BJP candidate from Bhokar assembly segment and former chief minister Ashok Chavan's daughter, and for Santukrao Hambarde, who is contesting the Nanded Lok Sabha bypoll as a BJP nominee.

Assembly elections in Maharashtra and the Nanded Lok Sabha bypoll will be held on November 20.

"This assembly election in Maharashtra is not just an election but a war between (the policy of) destruction and development, between corruption and good governance. The people of Maharashtra will take a positive decision and I believe that the Mahayuti will come to power in the state," Scindia said.

The BJP leader stressed the need to have a double engine government in Maharashtra.

When asked about the BJP leaders' 'Batenge toh katenge', 'Dharma yuddha of vote' and 'Ek hain to safe hain' slogans doing rounds in the Maharashtra assembly elections, he said, "Country's 140 crore people have come together under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi and we have risen to number 5 position from the 11th in terms of economy. In 2027, we will overtake Germany and Japan and reach number 3 position."

Our culture and tradition is popular across the world now. This era belongs to India under the leadership of PM Modi, he said.

On the 'Batenge toh katenge' call given by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Scindia said, "I tell you this slogan is for the country. The country should come together and gain progress through patriotism. Our 'Sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka prayas' slogan is also there."

Replying to a query whether the BJP will lead the government if the Mahayuti alliance gets majority, the minister said, "There is a saying that don't put the cart before the horse. It is our history that everyone comes together and faces war. The war will be fought on November 20. This question should be asked after November 23 (poll results). We are preparing for the war."

When asked whether the Maratha quota agitation led by activist Manoj Jarange will have an impact on the assembly polls outcome as was seen during this year's Lok Sabha elections, he said there is only an effect of development and progress in Maharashtra.

"We (Mahayuti) will form the next government in the state. Then schemes will be implemented for the next five years as per our manifesto," he said.

On NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar calling veteran leader Ashok Chavan, who quit the Congress and joined the BJP earlier this year, a selfish politician, Scindia said the opposition MVA only indulges in game of chairs.

"But we implemented schemes and provided benefits to farmers and women. We are giving funds to farmers through the central as well as state government schemes. Farmers are getting free electricity for pumps up to 7.5 horsepower, loan of Rs 107 crore taken by 1.32 lakh farmers in Nanded has been waived, 8.23 lakh sisters have been given Rs 1,500 each as financial assistance. Our government is pro-development and works for each citizen. We have our report card, while they only make promises," he said.

On the issue of farmers' suicide, he expressed concern and said such incidents are painful and heart-breaking.

"Even a single incident of farmer suicide gives tremendous pain. But we need to find a way out. The Mahayuti government is already working on this and we can see an irrigation project of Rs 500 crore coming up in Nanded," Scindia added.

The Centre and the Maharashtra government are also taking steps to help farmers through the minimum support price, he said.

"But they (MVA) did nothing for farmers in two years," he alleged.

When asked why the Mahayuti government did not act against those MVA leaders who allegedly indulged in scams during the coronavirus pandemic, Scindia said, "The Mahayuti government will look into the issue once it comes to power again."
Patna, Nov 14 (PTI) The Social Welfare Department of the Bihar government on Thursday suspended the officer-in-charge of the women's shelter home in Patna where three inmates had died and several others were taken ill after consuming contaminated food, a top official said.

Apart from the suspension of the officer-in-charge of the home, 12 other employees have been relieved from their duties due to negligence on their part and disciplinary action has been initiated.

Talking to PTI on Thursday, the Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) of the Social Welfare Department, Harjot Kaur Bamhrah, said, The action follows the report of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) which has flagged the food items not fit for human consumption."

"Spices like turmeric and coriander used for preparation of food items were found to be adulterated and containing impurities, Bamhrah said.

The FSSAI report on the food quality served to inmates at the shelter home arrived on Thursday evening.

Lead chromate was found in turmeric and an oily unnatural colour was also found. The turmeric was found to be unsafe under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, she said.

The process of blacklisting the firm that supplied materials to the shelter home called 'Ashra Grih', where the incident took place, has been initiated and other actions, including registration of an FIR against the firm, is under process, she said.

The ACS along with other senior officials of the department on Thursday visited the Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH) and inquired about the inmates who are still admitted there.

She met the ailing inmates also.

Senior doctors of the PMCH briefed the ACS about the condition of the women/girls admitted there. Doctors SAID that these inmates would soon be discharged, said another official of the department.

The ACS, who also visited Ashra Grih on Thursday, asked officials of the state health department to conduct a medical examination of all other inmates who are currently staying at the shelter home, the official said.

She has also written a letter to District Magistrates (DMs) across the state to conduct a comprehensive inspection of shelter homes operating in their respective districts and send reports to the department within a week, the official said.

Three inmates died and 12 others fell ill due to food poisoning at Ashra Grih, a state-run shelter home in Patna, for differently-abled women.

They fell ill after consuming breakfast on November 7.

A 24-year-old woman died on the same day at the Patna Medical College and Hospital, while a nine-year-old girl lost her life on November 10 and a 12-year-old girl died on Wednesday evening.
Patna, Nov 14 (PTI) Bihar MP Shambhavi Choudhary, who made her Lok Sabha debut a few months ago, on Thursday announced that she will dedicate her salary for the entire five-year term to promote girls' education in her Samastipur constituency.

In a statement, Choudhary, who was hailed as "the youngest NDA candidate" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the elections, said the money will be put to use for a drive called "Padhega Samastipur to badhega Samastipur (Samastipur shall grow if it gets education)".

"The money that I shall be receiving as salary during the five years shall be spent for the programme aimed at helping girls, who may have dropped out because of financial constraints, to complete their education," said the MP, who belongs to the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) headed by Union minister Chirag Paswan.

She added, "The launch of this programme comes on the day when Samastipur district was established. The move is in line with my promise to the people that by voting for me, they will not be getting just an MP, but a daughter."

Notably, Choudhary is the daughter of Ashok Choudhary, a minister in the Nitish Kumar cabinet in Bihar and a JD(U) national general secretary.

Her late grandfather Mahavir Choudhary was a freedom fighter who also became a minister while the Congress ruled the state.
New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) The National Investigation Agency has attached immovable property of a key terror accused involved in the killing of two non-locals in Kashmir this year, according to an official statement issued on Thursday.

The accused, Adil Manzoor Langoo, is linked with 'The Resistance Front (TRF)', an offshoot of Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), it said.

The attachment is part of a probe in the case relating to a conspiracy hatched by Langoo, along with two others, identified as Ahran Rasool Dar and Dawood.

"Led by their TRF/LeT handler based in Pakistan, the conspiracy was aimed at killing innocent people in India with the objective of spreading terror and inciting violence," said the statement.

Investigations led to the arrest of Langoo, Dar and Dawood following the killing of the two non-locals on February 7, while the Pakistan-based mastermind Jahangir is still at large, it said.

The weapon used in the commission of the crime was recovered, along with ammunition, "from the 10 marlas property" which had been transferred to Langoos father and some others by its original owner, the statement said.

The property, located in Zaldagar, Srinagar, was attached on Wednesday under Section 25 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, it added.

Langoo, who was arrested on February 12th, was charge-sheeted along with the other accused in August and is currently lodged in the Central Jail in Srinagar, the probe agency said.

"The property of Adil Manzoor Langoo has been attached in a case relating to the brutal killing of two non-locals at Shala Kadal, Srinagar, in February this year," it said.

As part of its efforts to dismantle the Kashmir terror network, the NIA on Wednesday attached the immovable property of a key terror accused linked with LeT's offshoot The Resistance Front (TRF), the statement said.

TRF, which surfaced in 2019 as a proxy outfit of the LeT, is also designated as a terrorist organisation.

It has been responsible for several attacks and killings of non-local civilians in Kashmir, including those belonging to religious minorities.

The outfit is also behind several attacks on Indian security forces including local policemen, the NIA said.
New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) A 26-year-old man was stabbed to death near his house in the Sudama Puri area of west Delhi, police said on Thursday.

The deceased has been identified as Raja Babu, they said.

Ganga Ram, the father of the deceased, said his son got married last year against the wishes of the family members of the woman. He suspected that the attack might have been orchestrated by his son's in-laws, police said.

"The family members of the woman reside nearby. Since the marriage, there has been tension between my son and his in-laws," Ganga Ram said in the police complaint.

Police received a PCR call on Wednesday and by the time a team reached the spot, Raja Babu had been taken to a hospital where doctors declared him dead on arrival, an officer said.

A murder case was registered and some family members of Raja Babu's wife have been detained, police said.
New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) The BJP on Thursday lashed out at Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai and demanded his resignation as the air quality in the city zoomed to hazardous levels.

Rai hit back at the BJP and accused the saffron party led governments in the neighbouring states of doing nothing to prevent air pollution.

Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva in a statement assailed Rai calling him an "unsuccessful" environment minister and said Delhiiites want him to step down.

"Due to Atishi government's inaction, the pollution situation in Delhi is now worse than in surrounding areas, with the AQI even in clean areas like Rajpath exceeding 450," he claimed.

Had the Delhi chief minister and her environment minister discussed the crop stubble problem with the AAP ruled Punjab and put a check on it, the pollution levels not only in Delhi but across the north India would be under control, said Sachdeva.

"If excessive smoke from stubble burning in Punjab were not there, Delhi would not suffocate now," he added.

Rai citing a report claimed that Delhi's own sources contributed 30 per cent to the air pollution in the city while nearly 35 per cent contribution came from different NCR districts in BJP ruled Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

He said the Central government must collaborate with the neighbouring states to create a joint action plan. This plan must be strictly enforced, with everyone working together to control their respective share of pollution, he added.

Rai said 45,172 incidents of stubble burning were reported in Punjab between October 14-November 13, 2022. After the Punjab government started addressing this problem, the number came down to 26,127 in the same period in 2023, he claimed.

In 2024, the number further came down to just 7,492, he said.

However, in Uttar Pradesh, which borders Delhi, there were 1,271 stubble burning incidents in 2022 which increased to 2,167 in 2024, Rai added.
Kanpur (UP) Nov 14 (PTI) An FIR was lodged against Samajwadi Party MLA Amitabh Bajpai and over a hundred of his supporters for holding a protest at Fazalganj police station here, officials said on Thursday.

The protest was held on November 9 when Bajpai and his supporters reached the police station to allegedly put pressure on police for the release of a man, they said.

The development comes days ahead of the bypoll in the Sishamau assembly seat of Kanpur. Sishamau is among nine assembly seats where bypolls will be held on November 20.

According to a police official, on a complaint by Sub-inspector Deepak Tiwari, the FIR has been filed under the BNS sections 191(2) (rioting), 221 (voluntarily obstructs public servant in discharge of public functions), 223 (disobedience to an order lawfully promulgated by a public servant), and 352 (intentional insult).

An investigation has been launched into the matter, said the official.

In his complaint, Tiwari stated that he had made preventive arrest of Ashok Gupta (56), a resident of Fazalganj, under sections 170 (arrest to prevent commission of cognizable offences), 126 and 135 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita on November 8.

After getting information about Gupta's arrest, Bajpai, SP MLA from Arya Nagar in Kanpur, along with Varun Jaiswal alias Golu and dozens of his supporters reached Fazalganj police station and mounted pressure on police to release Gupta, the SI said in the complaint.

Bajpai later called his more supporters and party workers who left their vehicles before the police station gate resulting in chaos, he claimed.

The MLA, along with others, sat on dharna inside the police station with intent to mount pressure that triggered panic among the visitors, the police official added.
Jammu, Nov 14 (PTI) Asserting that bulldozers were used specifically against one community, targeting their religious places and work places, National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah on Thursday commended the Supreme Court for its decision that a bulldozer cannot be used without prior notice explaining why this action is being taken.

Abdullah backed Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's demand for a review of the Indus Water Treaty, arguing that it restricts JK's access to its own resources, with the Chenab, Indus and Jhelum rivers benefiting Pakistan.

"I congratulate the Supreme Court for its rightful decision that a bulldozer cannot be used without prior notice explaining why this action is being taken," Abdullah told reporters during a visit to Ramban district on Thursday.

The former chief minister, who visited Sangaldan, Ramban and Batote areas of the district and interacted with people, said, "Bulldozers were specifically used against one community, targeting their religious places, madrassas and work places. I congratulate the Supreme Court for taking notice of this."

He also congratulated the apex court for recognising Aligarh Muslim University as a minority institution that needs protection.

Abdullah reiterated the call for a review of the Indus Water Treaty, asserting that it restricts Jammu and Kashmir's access to its own resources, with the Chenab, Indus and Jhelum rivers benefiting Pakistan.

"Omar Sahab recently raised this issue in a meeting of power ministers. He brought up the matter of the Indus Water Treaty, which Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, as Prime Minister of India, signed.

"Through this treaty, three rivers from Jammu and Kashmir  the Chenab, Indus and Jhelum  were handed over to Pakistan. In return, India retained the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej," he said.

Supporting a strong review, he added, "Today, we cannot even take a single drop or a glass of water from these rivers for ourselves. We want its review."

He further pointed out that Jammu has grown substantially and recalled that during his tenure as chief minister, the government prepared a Rs 200-crore plan to lift water from the Chenab for Jammu but it could not be completed due to the Indus Water Treaty.

"If we want to save people, we need a solution for water. Look at the current administration under the Lt Governor  we don't have electricity but our own power is being given to Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, while we remain deprived.

"What kind of situation is this?" he questioned.

Expressing concerns about the funds meant for providing safe drinking water to people, he questioned the fate of the Rs 3,000 crore reportedly allocated for safe drinking water but allegedly mismanaged.

He demanded an investigation into the role of officials involved, calling for accountability.

"We want to review what happened to the 3,000 crore rupees allocated for providing safe drinking water to the people. We will investigate this," he said.

Abdullah said it has to be investigated into.

"That officer is still alive. He is not in the government now, but we will call him to account for this issue.

"Where did those 3,000 crore rupees go? Why was no action taken by the Lt Governor and chief secretary of that time?" he said.

He called for a review of all such decisions.

"We want a review of the treaty provisions that the Lt Governor implemented, giving power to Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. We want everything reviewed," he said.

Abdullah reiterated the pressing need for restoration of statehood to JK and said, "Omar Sahab met with the prime minister and the home minister in the first week. He has now met with the vice president, and he is meeting with the president of India."

The NC chief further mentioned that the chief minister has also attended a conference of power ministers because of a severe power shortage in the region.

"He will also meet with the finance minister to address our financial situation. We are trying from every angle to improve the state's condition, but this will only happen when we all work together.

"This responsibility cannot just be left to the government. We, too, must monitor the work being done as the government cannot be everywhere. Everyone needs to keep an eye on things," he urged.

Abdullah also emphasised the importance of stopping the use of outside contractors.

"Are our people so incapable that they can't handle these contracts? All the contractors are from outside and the labourers are from outside.

"Can't our own labourers work here? What have they achieved in these 10 years that people can say we are progressing?" he asked.

Abdullah stressed the importance of restoring the Upper House of the state Assembly to give representation to the marginalised regions and communities.

"I am hopeful that when statehood is restored, the number of ministers will increase. When statehood returns, we will restart the Upper House as well because there are many regions and communities that currently have no representation but they should be represented," he said.

The former chief minister said during his time, the government provided representation to the regions where no one was advocating for their issues, either in the Assembly or in the government.

"We want this restoration to happen as soon as possible so that these people and groups receive representation, work can be done for them and their problems can be resolved," he said.

Abdullah voiced deep concerns over the deteriorating infrastructure and lack of basic services in JK. Speaking on the state's healthcare, schools and access to clean drinking water, he highlighted the challenges plaguing the region, particularly mentioning a village in Kulgam where residents lack safe drinking water.

"The government has so much to do that they should not be able to sleep or rest until they bring the state out of these difficulties," Abdullah urged, calling for immediate action.
In the Novosibirsk region, Russian soldiers staged a mutiny and escaped from a military unit. At least two of the escapees have been prosecuted in the past.

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It is worth noting that the military were trained before being sent to war against Ukraine. This was reported by the Telegram channel "Agency. News" Telegram channel.

The first to report the escape was the head of the village of Kochenyovo, where the military unit is located. The official complained that the escape was made by 10 soldiers who had previously left their units without permission.

On the day of the escape, four soldiers were detained outside the Kochenyovo district. Later it became known about three more detainees. In total, about 15 people could have participated in the escape.

According to the Russian media, one of the servicemen was involved in criminal cases of car arson, theft, and violence against a government official. Another was prosecuted for the production and sale of drugs. Yet another fugitive was tried for stealing a digital TV signal adapter and taking a hostage.

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One of the soldiers filmed a video showing how windows and honor boards in one of the buildings in the military unit were broken. The soldier's mother said that her son was wounded in the war in Ukraine and was hoping to receive the "D" category of fitness, which exempts him from further service in the military. At first, the military was kept in a unit in Abakan and then transferred to the Novosibirsk region. The woman complained that her son later sent her a video in which he said that they decided to send him and other soldiers back to Ukraine.

On the eve of the riot, a group of occupiers tried to resolve the issue with the military police. The propagandists published a video in which a dozen soldiers try to explain to a military police officer that they cannot return to the combat zone because of their injuries, and also complain that they were brought there by deception.

In addition, the Russian invaders complained that the command did not consider them to be human beings. The occupiers also claimed that they were not provided with medical care in the military unit.

As a reminder, Russia continues to recruit prisoners serving their sentences in Russian prisons and colonies for the war against Ukraine. Not only Russian citizens but also immigrants from Central Asia and other foreigners are being taken to the front.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Mathura (UP), Nov 14 (PTI) A joint committee of three institutions that come under the Ministry of Petroleum is investigating the recent fire and explosion at the Indian Oil Corporation refinery here and is expected to submit its report next week, officials said here on Thursday.

Eight workers were injured in the fire and explosion that took place on Tuesday in the atmospheric vacuum unit of the main plant that was being restarted after a month-and-a-half shutdown for maintenance work.

"The joint committee from the Oil Industry Safety Directorate (OISD), Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO), and the refinery headquarters is investigating the cause of the explosion and fire. The report is likely to be submitted to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas by next week," refinery spokesperson Renu Pathak said.

The OISD operates as a self-regulatory agency to enhance safety measures in India's oil and gas sector, while PESO is the nodal agency regulating the safety of hazardous substances such as explosives, compressed gas and petroleum products.

Pathak said the condition of the injured workers is improving steadily.

"Production Manager Sameer Srivastava was discharged from the Mathura Refinery Hospital on Wednesday and contract worker Moolchand was released on Thursday after their condition improved," she said.

She said the other injured who are receiving advanced treatment at Apollo Hospital in Delhi and Metro Hospital in Faridabad are also showing signs of recovery.
Bareilly (UP), Nov 14 (PTI) A surprise night-time crackdown on history-sheeters was conducted across all four districts of Bareilly region, in which 4,701 individuals were verified 271 people were arrested, Inspector General (IG) Rakesh Singh said Thursday.

"This is the first time such a large-scale history-sheeter checking campaign has been conducted in the Bareilly region," Singh said in the evening.

Bareilly police range includes districts of Budaun, Pilibhit and Shahjahanpur.

Singh said that during the operation in Bareilly district, 1,967 history-sheeters were checked, with 88 individuals detained, while 1,601 were found to be "living peacefully".

In Budaun, 1,088 history-sheeters were verified; 72 were detained, and 982 were reported as "living peacefully", he said.

In Pilibhit, 711 history-sheeters were checked, with 35 arrests, 605 confirmed as maintaining "peaceful conduct", one was issued an expulsion order, and 20 were reported deceased, the IG said.

Similarly, in Shahjahanpur, 935 history-sheeters were checked; 76 were jailed, 716 were reported as "living peacefully", nine received expulsion orders, and 22 were found deceased, the officer said.

He said that during the drive 110 history-sheeters across the districts in the Bareilly range were found to have passed away, and their records would be closed.

"This campaign is an essential step in tightening police control over criminal elements and ensuring peace and order in the region," Singh added.
Lucknow, Nov 14 (PTI) A National Investigation Agency (NIA) court here sentenced a man to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) on Thursday for his involvement in the smuggling of fake Indian currency notes, with the help of the West Bengal-based kingpin of a racket.

The court convicted Babloo, a native of Sitapur district in Uttar Pradesh, and pronounced three 10-year RI sentences, an official statement said, adding that the sentences will run concurrently.

He has also been fined Rs 20,000 each for the offences and will be liable to further six months of simple imprisonment in case of default. He is the fourth accused to be convicted in the case that relates to the seizure of high-quality fake Indian currency notes (FICNs) by the Uttar Pradesh Police on November 25, 2019 from three accused.

The trio were identified as Phulchand, Aminul Islam and a juvenile, the statement issued by the NIA said.

They were intercepted with 298 notes, having a total face value of Rs 1.79 lakh. A case was initially registered by the state police in Lucknow, before being taken over by the NIA in January 2020.

NIA investigations revealed that the accused had conspired to smuggle, procure and keep high-quality FICNs in their possession.

The notes were being supplied from West Bengal's Malda district and further circulated and supplied to various persons and consignees in Uttar Pradesh.

"Accused Aminul Islam was the main conspirator from Malda (WB) along with his associates. He used to bring the consignments of FICN from Malda, and the same were received by the other accused. Babloo was actively engaged in smuggling/trafficking of high-quality FICN, sourced from West Bengal, and he was also found to be in regular contact with accused Aminul Islam and Phulchand, as per the NIA investigations," the statement said.

The Juvenile Justice Board, Lucknow had, in January 2022, convicted and sentenced the juvenile accused. Upon pleading guilty, Phulchand and Aminul Islam were also sentenced to five years in jail in January this year, the NIA said.
New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Thursday deferred to the second week of February the hearing on a PIL seeking a CBI or SIT probe into award of contracts for public works to the firms owned by the family members of Chief Minister Pema Khandu.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar was urged by lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for two petitioner NGOs, Save Mon Region Federation and Voluntary Arunachal Senaa, that all the government contracts were being awarded to the close family members in the state.

At the outset, the CJI said he has not gone through the reply filed by respondents  the state government and the Centre.

We will list it for hearing in the week commencing February 2, 2025, the CJI said.

Please have it early. The state is being run like a private limited company, Bhushan said, adding that in an earlier case involving the father of the present chief minister, the court had sought a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General.

We will see when it is argued, the bench said. A bench headed by former CJI D Y Chandrachud, on January 29, had issued notices to the Centre, the state government, CBI, Khandu and others on the PIL and no substantial hearing took place since then on the last three dates.

Pema Khandu's father Dorjee Khandus second wife Rinchin Drema and his nephew Tsering Tashi have been made parties in the case. Dorjee Khandu had died in a helicopter crash in 2011 when he was the chief minister.

The plea claimed Rinchin Drema's firm, Brand Eagles, has been awarded a large number of government contracts despite there being a clear conflict of interest.

"The perusal of the list of contract works settled in favour of family firms, as annexed by the Petitioners herein, shows that it was all done in arbitrary manner by selectively managing the tender in favour of the family firms, as the names of other firms was just cover up for the family firms. The other firms just lent their name to the family firm and got their commission for the same," the plea filed through lawyer Bhushan said.

The PIL claimed when there is evidence of government contracts being awarded only to the firms of family members of the chief minister and his close associates, then it is reasonable to draw an inference that such favour for government contract works of vast magnitude could not have been possible without direct knowledge, consent and active support of the minister concerned.

The petition said the works for flood damage restoration are allotted by the Department of Relief and Rehabilitation, Government of Arunachal Pradesh.

"The minister of this department was Dorjee Khandu, also former CM, till 2011 and then the charge was taken up by his son Pema Khandu, now present Chief Minister.

"It is a serious cause of concern in view of so many work orders executed by a few selective firms belonging to the Minister himself and his family members. This goes against the principles of good governance and transparent administration....," the plea said.
Palakkad(Kerala), Nov 14(PTI) The Congress-led UDF on Thursday took a dig at P Sarin, LDF's Palakkad assembly bypoll candidate, by saying that excerpts about him in veteran CPI(M) leader E P Jayarajan's purported autobiography, were "a reality" that everyone knows.





Leader of Opposition in the state assembly V D Satheesan said Jayarajan's arrival here to campaign for Sarin, the former digital media convener of the Congress, will not change what was said about the left candidate in the purported autobiography which has triggered a political storm in the state.







He also contended that Jayarajan was probably directed by the CPI(M) to come to Palakkad for the campaign in the wake of certain excerpts from the purported book being broadcast in the media.







"Otherwise, why did he (Jayarajan) not campaign for Sarin till now?" Satheesan asked while speaking to a TV channel here.







He said that Jayarajan's arrival in Palakkad to campaign for Sarin would not change what the CPI(M) leader has said about the LDF candidate in his book.







The contents of the purported book broadcast by the local media, criticise the party's decision to remove Jayarajan as LDF convenor and its choice of former KPCC digital media convenor P Sarin as the LDF independent candidate in Palakkad.

Sarin was removed from the Congress following his public expression of discontent over the party's decision to select Youth Congress state president Rahul Mamkootathil as the UDF candidate in the Palakkad assembly bypoll.





Jayarajan has termed the book a "forgery" and lodged a police complaint against the "perpetrators".







He has also issued a legal notice to the publisher.







"He (Jayarajan) has termed Sarin as 'opportunist' in the book. It was not added there by the publisher. Everyone with common sense knows it was written by Jayarajan.







"It is unfortunate for him that he has to come here and campaign for such a person. But, that is politics," the opposition leader said.







He further contended that when someone who had gone in search of a BJP ticket to contest in the bypoll was made an independent candidate of the CPI(M), there was serious discontent within the Left party.







"This discontent was expressed by one of the senior-most leaders of the party," he said.







Satheesan also contended that it was clear that there was no need for a well known book publisher to make up an autobiography in Jayarajan's name and that the book was actually written by the CPI(M) leader.







He also alleged that pressure was exerted on the publisher from the Chief Minister's Office to delay release of the book till after November 20, when the Palakkad assembly seat bypoll is scheduled to be held.







Jayarajan had on Wednesday clarified that he had neither decided on the title of his autobiography nor finalised its cover page.







The CPI(M) veteran alleged that "some crooked minds have conspired together" and published the news reports, forging certain pages of his autobiography with content that he had neither intended nor written.







He was responding to news reports which had said that the book, titled "Kattan Chayayum Parippuvadayum: The Life of a Communist" was being published by a well-known publisher, who had released its cover page on its social media handle on Tuesday.







A central committee member of the party, Jayarajan, was removed as LDF convener recently. The action followed revelations about his meeting with BJP Kerala in-charge Prakash Javadekar.
Bengaluru, Nov 14 (PTI) Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Thursday backed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah over his claim that the BJP had offered Rs 50 crore each to 50 Congress MLAs in an attempt to "topple" the state government.







Addressing reporters here, Shivakumar, also the Congress state president, said, The BJP indeed lured 50 Congress MLAs with Rs 50 crore each.







He defended Siddaramaiahs statement and said the Congress MLAs were briefed about the BJPs alleged 'Operation Lotus', a term used to describe the BJP's attempts to destabilise ruling governments through horse-trading.







Some of our MLAs informed the Chief Minister about this matter, and he, in turn, shared it with the media, Shivakumar said.







At an event in Mysuru, Siddaramaiah reiterated the claim that "none of the Congress MLAs had accepted the offer".



He also accused the BJP of filing false cases against him in a bid to "remove him and overthrow his government".







The BJP has yet to respond to the allegations.
Bengaluru, Nov 14 (PTI) Former Mysuru Urban Development Authority chairman K Marigowda on Thursday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning in connection with the MUDA site allotment scam.





Marigowda arrived at the central agency's office in Shantinagar here and recorded his statement.



The ED sleuths had on Wednesday questioned Raichur Congress MP G Kumar Naik, a former IAS officer who had served as the Deputy Commissioner of Mysuru district, and Siddaramaiahs personal assistant C T Kumar for several hours.





Marigowda had resigned last month as the MUDA chairman citing personal reasons.





Already the Lokayukta police have registered a case against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his wife Parvathi B M, his brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy and others for the allotment of 14 MUDA sites in the Mysuru upmarket against the acquisition of 3 acres 16 guntas of Parvathis agriculture land in Kesare village.





Earlier, the ED had carried out raids at several locations in Mysuru while probing the money laundering aspect in the MUDA scam on a complaint by activist Snehamayi Krishna.
Bengaluru, Nov 14 (PTI) The 22nd edition of Asias largest green building expo, Green Building Congress 2024, was inaugurated on Thursday at the Bangalore international exhibition centre.

Organised by CII's Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) in collaboration with the Karnataka government, the event runs through November 16, focusing on net-zero emissions.

Karnataka Minister for Forest and Environment, Eshwar Khandre emphasised the states sustainability commitment in his inaugural address. With over 1,100 building projects adopting green practices, Karnataka is leading in environmentally responsible urban development. Hosting this event strengthens our drive for net-zero emissions and resilient, green infrastructure, he said.

Khandre said the states Renewable Energy (RE) Policy 2022-2027, aligns with India's goal of achieving 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030. Karnataka ranks among the top four states in renewable energy, with an installed capacity of 22.37 GW as of October 2024, he added.

Themed Advancing net zero in buildings and built environment, this years Congress, focuses on reducing the environmental impact of construction.

Jamshyd N Godrej, Chairman of CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre, stressed the need to address emissions from the building sector, responsible for 37 per cent of global carbon emissions.

Managing both operational and embodied emissions is crucial. Transparency in emissions data and robust partnerships are vital for achieving net-zero goals, Godrej said. He also announced the launch of the Green Cooling Council to explore emission reduction strategies for existing and future cooling systems.

B Thiagarajan, national chairman of IGBC, outlined the councils efforts to mitigate the impact of Indias rapidly expanding building sector. India is adding 8-10 billion square feet annually in commercial and residential spaces. IGBC is driving net-zero initiatives in energy, water, waste, and carbon, he said.

The event also featured the IGBC green design competition, themed Vibrant urban voids: Endless possibilities.

Sharan Kumar Modi (Karnataka State Pollution Control Board), Jeff Oatman (World Green Building Council), C Shekar Reddy (IGBC), and N Venu, Chairman of CII Karnataka State Council took part.

The event brought together policymakers, architects, industry experts, and sustainability advocates to discuss innovations and policies shaping Indias greener future.
Faridabad (Haryana), Nov 14 (PTI) Four persons were arrested in connection with an explosion following gas leakage from a pipeline in Haryana's Palwal district that left a shopkeeper dead, officials said on Thursday.

The arrested persons included Public Health Department's executive engineer Amit and Vishal, a supervisor at Adani Gas, according to the FIR.

The incident occurred on Old GT Road on Tuesday when a JCB engaged by the Public Health Department, while repairing a water pipeline, accidentally damaged a nearby PNG gas pipeline, causing it to leak.

A nearby teashop also caught fire, killing the shopkeeper, Harichand Singla (50) and injuring three others.

Singla's family members refused to take his body from the hospital and created a ruckus there, officials said.

Several local business organisations also gathered at the hospital, demanding a compensation of 1 crore for the deceased's family and a government job for his son.

The situation was later brought under control by Sub-Divisional Magistrate Jyoti and Deputy Superintendent of Police, Mahendra Singh, who assured that their demands would be met.

Gas supply has been disrupted to 5,000 households following the incident, while drinking water supply in Moti Colony has been halted for three days, according to police.

The administration also sealed off open pits at multiple locations on Wednesday, police added.

Goods worth crores of rupees stored in two shops in the area were destroyed in the fire, according to officials.
The first cinemas began to appear in Kyiv in the early 1900s. One of the first was the "Express" Cinema, located at 38 Khreshchatyk Street. It was the largest cinema in the capital.

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Founded by Austrian entrepreneur Anton Schanzer, it was a real luxury for its time: a spacious foyer, columns, a large chandelier, comfortable red armchairs, and sculptures of nymphs that adorned the screen.

History of the Kyiv Cinema

Over time, other cinemas began to appear, including the "Kyiv" Cinema (located at 19 Velyka Vasylkivska Street). It was founded in 1952. "Kyiv" became one of the most famous cultural institutions in the capital. Its modern architecture and exemplary technical solutions made it one of the main cinematic landmarks of Ukraine.

Social media showed what the cinema hall looked like when it opened:

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In the early 2000s, the "Kyiv" Cinema underwent a large-scale reconstruction, the first in half a century. The renovation started in 2000 and covered all the halls and premises of the institution. In March 2002, the 290-seat "Red Hall" reopened to the public, and in January 2003, the renovated "Blue Hall," with a capacity of 328 seats, was opened to the public. Since then, the cinema has been offering its visitors the best films of world cinema.

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During the reconstruction, special attention was paid to the technical equipment of the halls. Thanks to the Dolby Digital EX sound system, the audience could enjoy realistic sound effects, creating an "immersive experience" in each movie. A rear channel was added to the "Blue Hall," and a new English-made screen allows for high image contrast.

The seats in the halls have also been updated, with comfortable Italian seats with armrests and popcorn and drink holders, and the distance between the rows has been increased to 110 cm. In addition, the cinema premises and halls were equipped with a modern air conditioning system, which ensures comfortable conditions for the audience.

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Closing of the facility

In 2019, the lease of "Kyiv" Cinema with "Cultural Center Cinema Kyiv" LLC expired, and several companies expressed interest in leasing it. On April 15, 2019, Cinema City won the auction, offering a monthly rent of UAH 2,169,253. The term of the new lease is 10 years, and since then the cinema has been operated by the new tenants.

On June 7, 2019, "Kyiv" Cinema ceased operations after the building of the "Kyiv" Cinema was transferred to a new tenant. In 2021, the Kyiv Commercial Court returned the cinema premises to the previous tenant, which was "Kyiv Cinema Cultural Center" LLC.

In June 2022, the Kyiv Prosecutor's Office announced that officials of the Kyiv Department of Communal Property and the director of "Kyiv Cinema Film" would be tried for losses of more than UAH 22 million.

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The prosecutor's office said that in 2019, an official of the Kyiv Department of Communal Property and the director of Kyivkinofilm agreed with a private company to lease the premises of the Kyiv Cinema, which provided that the rent would be UAH 2.1 million (excluding VAT) per month. However, the tenant requested an inspection of the cinema building and subsequently, the commission drew up an illegal act "on suspension of the parties' obligations under the lease agreement in terms of accrual and payment of rent due to the tenant's inability to use the cinema premises."

Since 2019 and until now, the building of the Kyiv cinema has been empty, the cinema is an architectural monument of local importance, so its purpose cannot be changed  in accordance with the current legislation.

Subscribe to the OBOZ.UA channels on Telegram and Viber to keep up with the latest developments.
A conversation about recent real estate scams in our community left me deeply disturbednot only because of the pain and financial loss inflicted on the victims but because of the disturbing response from those around me. Instead of a united call for accountability, I witnessed people urging others to stay quiet, to protect the family of the perpetrator, to keep things hush-hush and not publicize the details. Im sorry, but there is no justification for this kind of protection. In fact, there is a strong precedent for the opposite response, and it is time we follow it.

When we whitewash these actions, offering sympathy and protection to those who harm others, were sending a clear message: commit any wrong you want, hurt as many as you want, and well look the other way. This approach fails us all. Rav Shimon Schwab ztl famously warned against the chillul Hashem that arises when a member of our community acts dishonestly. He spoke about a Jewish businessman who went to trial for embezzlement and publicly rebuked those who asked him to intervene. Rav Schwab saw the mans public actions as a disgrace to the Jewish people, a virtual rodefa pursuer who threatens the integrity and safety of the entire community. His message was clear: no whitewashing, no condoning, and no protecting the desecrators of Hashems name.

Rav Schwab even went so far as to demand that this man remove his yarmulke and shave his beard when appearing in court to avoid further shame to the Jewish people. He urged that we treat those who act with such disregard for honesty and ethics as having unwittingly defected from our ranks. Yet today, when faced with similarly shameful actions in our midst, some in our community still rush to shelter the perpetrators and preserve their public image. Why?

We must ask ourselves a hard question: Why do we allow individuals who tarnish the reputation of our community to slip back in, protected from shame and consequence? Why do we insist on preserving the image of someone who scammed, stole, or cheated, all in the name of protecting their family, while overlooking the innocent families whose lives were turned upside down?

Our communities have seen far too many of these scandals in recent years. And why wouldnt they? When theres little consequence for dishonest actionswhen we let perpetrators blend back in without repercussions or shamethey become emboldened. They know they can offer a hollow apology, make some empty promises, and continue on as if nothing happened. And so the cycle repeats, leaving victims traumatized and the communitys integrity eroded.

Its time to say enough. Instead of protecting the guilty, we should be standing with the victims, making it clear that deceit, theft, and fraud have no place among us. Public shaming may seem harsh, but it is a necessary step. If a scammer and their family faces the prospect of genuine public disgrace, perhaps they will think twice before causing such harm. If we take an uncompromising stance, if we refuse to protect those who desecrate our values, we may finally create a culture that holds each person accountable.

We have always prided ourselves on values of honesty, kindness, and justice. If we allow these values to be tarnished by those who act with impunity, we fail our own standards.

Rav Schwabs words resonate louder than ever: No whitewashing, no condoning, no apologizing on behalf of the desecrators. Lets show future scammers and fraudsters that there will be no shelter here for dishonesty and theft.

Anonymous

The views expressed in this letter do not necessarily represent those of YWN. Have an opinion you would like to share? Send it to us for review.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
Vice President Kamala Harriss campaign quietly funneled half a million dollars to Rev. Al Sharptons National Action Network (NAN) just weeks before her softball interview with the antisemite on MSNBC. Federal Election Commission records reveal that Harriss campaign made two payments of $250,000 to NAN on Sept. 5 and Oct. 1, just days before her Oct. 20 sit-down with Sharpton on PoliticsNation. During the interview, Sharpton lavished Harris with praise, at one point comparing her to trailblazing politician Shirley Chisholm.

Sharpton, a longtime Harris ally, has used hateful language against Jews and white people, referring to Jews as diamond merchants and deriding white interlopers.

The financial transactions are part of Harriss broader $5.4 million outreach strategy, directed almost exclusively toward Black and Latino activist groups in a scramble to shore up minority supporta demographic that had notably shifted away from her by Election Day. Despite the funding spree, Harriss support among Black men and Latino men fell drastically, with over one-fifth of Black men and 54% of Latino men voting for President-elect Donald Trump, according to exit polls by Edison Research.

The cash influx into Sharptons NAN is only part of Harriss lavish spending, which included an estimated $1 million to Oprah Winfreys Harpo Productions and a six-figure investment in a custom-built set for her appearance on a podcast. All told, Harris raised nearly $1 billion as of October 16, with a spending spree that ultimately left her campaign $20 million in debt.

Here is a reminder from YWN:

Lest you forget, the deadly Crown Heights antisemitic riots in 1991 are widely blamed on Sharptons race baiting, and he later protested in front of Jewish-owned stores in Harlem that were eventually burned to the ground.

YWN will remind our readers that Al Sharpton wasnt always an unrepentant MSNBC star, and first-in-line to agitate a racial situation anywhere in the country. Thirty years ago a tragic car accident in Crown Heights Brooklyn escalated into a pogrom against the Jewish people. The media usually gives it a politically correct description: violence between the areas Blacks and Jews. But the violence was not two-sided. The Crown Heights riot was an attack on the Jews by the neighborhoods Caribbean community, fueled in large part by Al Sharpton, the Reverend who does not believe in the commandment about bearing false witness.

Sharpton called Jews diamond merchants during the aftermath of the Crown Heights riots, which took place in Brooklyn in 1991. Sharpton, who led protests that led to the riots, said at the time If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.

On the third day following the tragic Crown Heights car accident, Sharpton joined Sonny Carson and led a march. The marchers proceeded through Crown Heights, carrying anti-semitic signs and an Israeli flag was burned. Rioters threw bricks and bottles at police; shots were fired at police and police cars were pelted and overturned, including the Police Commissioners car.

Riots escalated to the extent that a detachment of 200 police officers was overwhelmed and had to retreat for their safety. On August 22, over 1,800 police officers, including mounted and motorcycle units, had been dispatched to stop the attacks on people and property.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) are publicly lobbying for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to appoint Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of President-elect Donald Trump, to fill the Senate seat soon to be vacated by Marco Rubio. Rubio is anticipated to join Trumps administration as Secretary of State.

Following the announcement of Rubios cabinet appointment, speculation grew over who might fill his Florida Senate seat. In an interview with Axios, Britt voiced her support for Lara Trump, lauding her recent success as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, a role in which she helped secure Trumps victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. She understands the America First agenda, Britt said. For me, she would be a tremendous pick, a voice for hardworking families, and another mom of school-aged kids who understands the battles we face to protect the American dream.

Rep. Luna echoed Britts sentiments, taking to social media to endorse Trump as the best fit for the role. .@LaraLeaTrump needs to be the nominated replacement by @GovDeSantis for Rubio, Luna tweeted. She will keep the seat and avoid a messy primary for FLORIDA. Well-spoken. Kicked butt on election integrity.

Florida Politics publisher Peter Schorsch reports that Lara Trump is very much in the mix for the appointment. However, Marc Caputo from Bulwark suggested another contender, naming DeSantis chief of staff and former campaign manager James Uthmeier as the likeliest candidate. Caputo speculated that Uthmeiers appointment would allow DeSantis to potentially run for the Senate seat in 2026 once his gubernatorial term concludes.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
In the wake of a sweeping Democratic loss on Election Day, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is being touted as a potential future leader for the Democratic Party, with some insiders suggesting he could be a viable candidate for the White House in 2028.

Shapiro, who was reportedly on Vice President Kamala Harriss shortlist for a running mate, has built a reputation as a bipartisan leader popular in Pennsylvaniaa critical swing state that played a pivotal role in this years election outcome. His history of winning statewide races and his appeal to both Democrats and Republicans have positioned him as a figure to watch.

Shapiro, a former state attorney general, won Pennsylvanias governorship in 2022 by a decisive margin, defeating his opponent by nearly 15 points. While his opponent, Doug Mastriano, was considered a weak candidate, Shapiros approval ratings have remained high. Recent polls show his popularity around 49 to 54 percent in Pennsylvania.

The Harris campaign took notice of Shapiros popularity, with the governor making it to the final round of potential running mates. Although Harris ultimately chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Shapiro continued to campaign for Democrats in Pennsylvania and other key battleground states.

Shapiro also played a critical role in helping Pennsylvania Democrats maintain their narrow majority in the state House despite significant statewide losses. According to Democratic consultant Mike Mikus, Shapiro invested heavily both in terms of his time and support into our legislative races.

Beyond Pennsylvania, Shapiros bipartisan efforts have earned him a reputation as a pragmatic politician. He supported a Republican-led school voucher program, backing $100 million in school vouchers for private school tuition before ultimately withdrawing support amid progressive criticism. He has also faced pushback from the left on his stance toward Israel and his response to campus protests following the October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel.

For many Pennsylvania Democrats, Shapiros approach offers a blueprint for national Democrats to connect with moderate voters. Josh Shapiro is not distracted by the loud voices on both extremes, said T.J. Rooney, former Pennsylvania Democratic Party chair. He plays his politics with everybody in the middle.

While some Democrats are hesitant to speculate about the 2028 presidential race, focusing instead on the 2026 midterms, Shapiros name continues to be floated as the leader of the party.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
Republicans have elected South Dakota Sen. John Thune as the next Senate majority leader, completing a momentous shift in their leadership that elevates a top deputy of Mitch McConnell into a key position as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.

Thune, 63, is in his fourth Senate term and has promised to work closely with Trump, despite differences the two have had over the years, and will be a crucial part of the incoming presidents efforts to push through his policy agenda.

In a statement, Thune said he was extremely honored to have earned the support of my colleagues.

This Republican team is united behind President Trumps agenda, and our work starts today, he said.

Thune beat out two other competitors, Sens. John Cornyn and Rick Scott, by gaining majority support from GOP senators in a secret ballot vote in two rounds of voting. Scott was eliminated on the first round and the final vote between Thune and Cornyn was 29-24, according to several people who requested anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

Republicans are replacing McConnell, the longest serving Senate party leader, as they prepare to take majority control of the Senate with the 53 seats they won in last weeks elections.

Much of the campaign centered around the candidates relationship with Trump. Thune has worked to smooth his over after breaking publicly with Trump over the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he called inexcusable.

In recent months, Thune has realigned with Trump, visiting him in his Florida home, and the two have been consulting on how to implement the incoming presidents agenda. Thune told The Associated Press over the summer that he views their potential relationship as a professional one. If they both win their elections, Thune said, weve got a job to do.

As he made his case, Thune also made clear that he would listen to Trumps demands. When Trump posted on X Sunday that the new leader must agree to allow him to appoint Cabinet members and others when the Senate is on recess, avoiding confirmation votes, Thune responded that the Senate must quickly and decisively act to get nominees in place and that all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments.

Well liked and a respected communicator, Thune has been perceived as a front-runner for much of the year. Like McConnell, he hails from the Republican Partys more traditional wing.

He is a former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and has held the Republican whip position  no. 2 in party leadership  since 2019. He took over for McConnell for several weeks last year when he was on a medical leave, a move that was widely seen as an audition of sorts as speculation surrounded McConnells future.

Thunes win is all the more extraordinary because of his 2004 election to the Senate  defeating then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle after arguing during the campaign that Daschle had lost his South Dakota roots during his years in Democratic leadership. Twenty years later, Thune will become majority leader himself.

As he geared up to run for leader, Thune spent much of the year campaigning for his colleagues. According to his aides, he raised more than $31 million to elect Senate Republicans this cycle, including a $4 million transfer from his own campaign accounts to the Senates main campaign arm.

The election was difficult for many in the conference who saw Thune and Cornyn as similar choices. They are alike on policy, voting generally in step with the conference but working with Democrats at times. Cornyn is a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who took a leading role on bipartisan gun legislation two years ago.

But the two differed on whether the leader should be term limited  a key demand from some in the conservative wing. Cornyn pushed for limits, while Thune did not.

Scott, the former governor of Florida, was elected to the Senate in 2018 and quickly positioned himself as a foil to McConnell, running against him for leader in 2022 and aligning with Utah Sen. Mike Lee and others who have been highly critical of the current leadership.

As Thune and Cornyn wooed their colleagues one by one all year, Scott spent most of the year tied up in his own reelection race. He handily defeated Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell by more than 10 points.

After his re-election last week, Scott aggressively stepped up his campaign for GOP leader, campaigning publicly as the candidate closest to Trump and winning endorsements from people who are close to the former and future president, such as billionaire Elon Musk. But some questioned whether that strategy might backfire.

Rounds said that he prefers the way that Thune and Cornyn have handled it one-on-one with everybody, but that he had talked to Scott as well. Weve got three qualified individuals, he said ahead of the race.

(AP)
President Joe Biden raised the issue of American hostages held in Gaza during an Oval Office meeting with President-elect Donald Trump earlier today, according to U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

In a press briefing, Sullivan said that the Biden administration has sent a clear signal to the Trump transition team, expressing its willingness to collaborate on efforts to secure the release of the hostages. Sullivan noted that families of the American hostages, with whom he met yesterday, strongly advocated for such bipartisan cooperation. My answer to them was an emphatic yes, Sullivan said, stressing that the Biden administration is committed to using every day left in its term to bring the hostages home.

When asked if Israel has remained responsive to U.S. requests after Trumps election victory, Sullivan confirmed that productive discussions are ongoing. He highlighted a recent conversation with Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, where they discussed boosting humanitarian aid to alleviate the suffering of innocent civilians in Gaza. They also reviewed potential measures to establish ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon.

Sullivan revealed that the U.S. has received additional commitments from Israel in recent days to increase aid flow into Gaza. He added that the administration will closely monitor the implementation of these commitments.

Pressed on the most critical national security concern facing the U.S., Sullivan cited the threat from Iran and its proxies, ranking it alongside the U.S.s strategic competition with China.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
Mandatory broker fees, an unusual feature of New York City apartment hunting long reviled by renters, will be banned under legislation that passed Wednesday after overcoming fierce backlash from the citys real estate lobby.

Under a system that exists in New York and almost nowhere else in the country, tenants are often forced to pay the commission of a real estate agent before moving into an apartment, even if that agent was hired by the landlord.

The fees are steep, typically totaling as much as 15% of the annual rent, about $7,000 for the average-priced New York City apartment.

The legislation passed by the City Council aims to stop landlords from saddling tenants with those payments  at least as an up-front fee. Though tenants may hire their own representatives, they will no longer be forced to pay for brokers that solely represent the interests of their landlords.

In a city where two-thirds of households are renters, the bill is widely popular, a rare piece of municipal legislation championed by influencers on TikTok. It has also triggered opposition from brokers and their representatives, who warn it could send shockwaves through an industry that employs 25,000 agents.

They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby our politicians to try to kill this bill and try to force you to pay broker fees, Councilmember Chi Osse, a Democrat who sponsored the the FARE Act, said at a rally Wednesday. But you know what we did: We beat them.

New Yorks broker fee arrangement dates back nearly a century to a time when agents played an active role in publishing listings in newspapers and working directly with would-be tenants. The commission structure is also found in Boston, but few other parts of the country.

But with most listings now published online, and virtual or self-guided tours gaining popularity since the COVID-19 pandemic, many New Yorkers have grown increasingly frustrated by the fees.

At a City Council hearing this summer, multiple speakers recalled shelling out thousands of dollars to a broker who seemed to do little more than open a door or text them the code to a lockbox.

In most businesses, the person who hires the person pays the person, Agustina Velez, a house cleaner from Queens, said at that hearing. She recalled paying $6,000 to switch apartments. Enough with these injustices. Landlords have to pay for the services they use.

Brokers counter that they do much more than merely holding open doors: conducting background checks, juggling viewings and streamlining communication with landlords in a city where many tenants never meet the owners of their buildings.

This is the start of a top-down, government-controlled housing system, said Jordan Silver, a broker with the firm Brown Harris Stevens. The language is so incredibly vague, we actually have no idea what this would look like in the world.

Others opposed to the bill, including the Real Estate Board of New York, say landlords will bake the added costs into monthly rents.

But some New Yorkers say that would be preferable to the current system of high up-front costs that make it hard to move.

From the perspective of a tech investor and business owner in New York City, the more we can do to make it cheaper and easier for talented young people to come here and stay here, the better off well be, entrepreneur and bill supporter Bradley Tusk said in a statement. Anyone who has paid 15% of their annual rent in brokers fees for someone to let you in an apartment for 10 minutes knows the practice is nothing more than legalized theft.

Mayor Eric Adams, himself a former real estate broker, has raised concerns about the legislation and possible unintended consequences.

Sometimes our ideas are not fleshed out enough to know what are the full long-term ramifications, he said this week, adding that he would work to find some middle ground.

But he will have limited leverage in doing so: The legislation passed by a vote of 42 to 8, a veto-proof margin. It takes effect in six months.

(AP)
by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

As a person whose life was saved by Hatzollah, I can attest to the critiical role these volunteers play in ensuring the continued health of so many members of Klal Yisroel. They come at three in the morning and remain with you to ensure that your needs are met.

When it comes to Shabbos, there is a debate that separates the Poskim of one Hatzalah organization from the Poskim of another. Boro Park, Lakewood, Williamsburg and Los Angeles do it one way. In most other communities, it is done another way.

One sides Poskim claim that they are being more careful in their observance of Hilchos Shabbos. The other sides Poskim claim that they are adhering more stringently to Hilchos Pikuach Nefesh. Each side has its halachic decisor and precedent in earlier Poskim, as it should be.

The debate lies around the following issue:

Most everyone knows that what the sages tells us regarding the verse (VaYikra 18:5), vChai Bahem that it means and you shall live by these laws and not die or risk life by them. The Gemorah in Yuma 85a tells us that these words teach us that the obligation to save human life overrides the other obligations of Judaism. True, there are three exceptions enumerated in Sanhedrin 74a, but saving a life overrides the laws of observing the Shabbos.

No one is debating this point. Indeed, even if we are unsure if it is a life-threatening emergency, we must still violate Shabbos. No one is debating this, either.

The issue at stake here is when it is a case of Pikuach Nefesh, a life- threatening matter, but it is not exactly an emergency  in other words there is plenty of time to deal with the situation and no one is in a state of panic or chaos. Do we attempt to minimize[1] the Shabbos violation in such a case? Should we try to do it through a gentile, or to perform what needs to be done in a manner that only involves a Rabbinic violation?

The answer according to many Poskim is yes. When there is plenty of time, and there is no concern of danger of any sort if there is a delay, the Ramah rules (OC 328:12) that we do attempt to minimize the Shabbos violations.

While the other view (that of the Bais Yoseph and the Rambam 2:11[2]) is that no minimization is required, Ashkenazic Jewry has followed the custom that we do minimize Shabbos violation when no delay or confusion will be incurred on account of the minimization. This is the view of the Raavya cited in the Ohr Zaruah, the Shiltei Gibborim, and the Maggid Mishna (Hilchos Shabbos 2:11 citing the Ramban) and is cited by the Ramah as the authoritative halacha[3]. This also seems to be how the Mishna Brurah rules.

CONTEMPORARY POSKIM WHO ARE LENIENT

But wait.

Many Poskim qualify this Sabbath stringencyeven for Ashkenazic Jews. They reason that when dealing with numerous people (such as a number of EMTs), things can sometimes go very, very wrong. An EMT might erroneously think that a matter which is an emergency is really not an emergency. EMTs, despite the heroes that they truly are  are not generally trained to distinguish between time is of the essence emergencies and time is not of the essence emergencies. Precisely because of the possibility of EMT error, these Poskim reason that, generally speaking, when dealing with EMTs, all cases of Pikuach nefesh whether they are time-is-of- the-essence or not, should be treated as if they truly are time-is-of-the-essence.

When I drove Rav Dovid Feinstein zatzal up to a convention in upstate New York he told me that this was his personal view, but that each community should have their Rabbonim decide for themselves. He stated that this is what he held for the Lower East Side Hatzollah.

Practically, this means that these Poskim hold not to minimize Shabbos violation and not to obtain a gentileeven in cases where there is no pressing time issue involvedeven though the matter is life-threatening or potentially life-threatening.

This view is also attributed to Rav Moshe Feinstein ztl in numerous manuals of ambulance organizations, but I have not found it in Rav Moshes writings. I did speak to Rav Dovid Cohen Shlita who confirmed to me that this is his view. Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach ztl (Minchas Shlomo #7:3) seems to question the view of the Mishna Brurah on this issue but concludes that it requires further investigation.

FOUR METHODS OF MINIMIZING

To be clear, the Ramah seems to state quite the opposite, that the custom is to follow the view that says that we do minimize malacha when the underlying issues have no constraints of time. This means that the Ramahs view is that a gentile should be obtained or the Jew should perform the action with what is known as a shinui, a significant change as to how it is performed. Another alternative is to use a child to perform the action (but by having someone other than a parent ask). A fourth possibility is to have two Jews perform the activity holding onto it together which would render the activity a Rabbinic violation  not a biblical one.

ACHRONIM WHO DISAGREED WITH RAMAH

Aside from some of the contemporary Poskim were there others that qualified this Ramah? The first Lubavitcher Rebbe (the GRaZ, end of 328:13) write that one should not follow the Ramahs stringency because people that are present and see that it was done through a gentile may erroneously think that it is forbidden for it to be done through a Jew even in life-threatening circumstances. The GraZ suggests that if he wants to do it through a gentile, then the person who asks the gentile should inform everyone present that they are only doing so because the gentile is readily available[4]. The TaZ writes that it is not an old custom to follow the stringent view and that, hayisroel yaasenah bzrizus tfei  it will be done with more alacrity when following the first view. The Tasbatz, Chida, Nahar Shalom, and Eliyahu Rabba cite the first view.

RAV MOSHES VIEW

It is interesting to note that Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler ah cites his father-in-law Rav Moshe Feinstein ztl (See Torah Shbal peh p. 58, Mossad HaRav Kook, 1983) as distinguishing between the minimization of a shinui and minimization of using a gentile. He writes that a malacha performed with a shinui is not that same malacha at all, and therefore, why should one perform a biblically forbidden act when another more permitted act is available? Thus Rav Moshes view is cited in apparent agreement with the Ramah that a shinui form of minimization should be implemented. However, as mentioned earlier, it could very well be that Rav Moshe held that in regard to a large number of people where error is bound to happen, that Rav Moshe did agree that no minimization should be made, and would be in agreement with the ruling issued by Rav Dovid Cohen.

OTHERS

Rabbi Rephoel Yitzchok Halpern in Maaseh Chosev Vol. III #12 rules that one should minimize in regard to these situations. Indeed, he goes so far as to write that the ambulances and cars should be previously retrofitted so that the systems inside them become only Rabbinic violations.

REASON FOR THE INITIAL DEBATE

What is the reason for the debate between the Rambam (who requires no minimization) and the Ramban (who requires minimization? Some authorities (GraZ and others) wish to associate the debate with the final disposition of the Talmuds question as to how the interplay between Pikuach Nefesh (saving a life) and Shabbos actually works. Is Shabbos merely set aside (Hudchah) when faced with Pikuach Nefesh, or is Shabbos non-existent (Hutrah) when it comes to Pikuach Nefesh? However, other authorities (including the Mishna Brurah 328:35) dismiss this association and write that the Ramban would hold to his view of minimization even according to the view of Hutrah.

Others understand the debate in terms of whether or not we are concerned for two factors. 1] Will others derive incorrect halacha from here and in some future case not save a life? 2] In this very situation will the use of someone else cause a lack of alacrity in how the saving action is performed? The Rambam would be of the view that these factors or at least one of them is a concern. The Ramban would be of the view that these factors should not play a role in minimizing malacha.

CAVEATS

There are so many people that ignore the symptoms of heart attacks and dismiss it as indigestion. This has caused much loss of life, rl and one should never ignore it. It is critical to know that one should not take any risks.

CONCLUSIONS

But getting back to the main point, which position should an organization follow? Should a new ambulance organization choose to follow what is done in Lakewood or what is done in Flatbush? Whatever the conclusion is, it is essential that there be unity on the issue. It is counterproductive to have a situation where the actions of a life-saving organization are publicly questioned, as this can lead chas vshalom to loss of life.

There have been cases where public questioning of the Sabbath observance of a religious medical practitioner has led to a reticence on the part of people with possible medical emergencies in seeking assistance. They may, as a consequence of such public question, dismiss a possible heart attack with something innocuous such as heartburn and not seek out the necessary intervention. There are respected Poskim on both sides of the issue. Therefore, publicly questioning a delicate matter such as this can chalilah lead to greater loss of life when someone could chalilah end up not calling for the necessary medical intervention. This would be the greatest tragedy.

The author can be reached at [email protected]

[1] Minimizing, by the way, involves three areas: Minimizing the severity of the prohibition, minimizing the amount of people violating the prohibition, and minimizing the manner in which the prohibition is performed.

[2] The Rambam seems to differentiate between other cases and that of natural childbirth, where one should attempt to minimize if possible. The rationale then seemed to be that problems in childbirth were quite rare, with figures as low as 1 in 1000. This is the understanding of the Hagaos Maimonius in the Rambam. These numbers, however, do not seem to fit with the historical record of complications of birth back then. Indeed, there is another text of the Rambam (see Maharitz in Responsa Peulas Tzaddik Vol. III #119) that states that problems in birth are indeed an issue.

[3] [Authors note: The exact citation in the Shulchan Aruch is misleading, as the Ohr Zaruah #58 is clearly disagreeing with the Raavya].

[4] In Shmiras Shabbos khilchasa (Chapter 32 footnote 88) the author quotes Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach as requiring this announcement even when a shinui is performed so that no one err and think that Piuach nefesh actions are forbidden to be performed by Jews.
The mastermind behind a foiled bomb plot during anti-government protests in Hong Kong in 2019 has been jailed for nearly 24 years in the citys first case brought under an anti-terrorism law.

Ng Chi-hung, who had previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit the bombing of prescribed objects under the anti-terror law and possession of arms or ammunition with intent to endanger life, was sentenced to 23 years and 10 months by a Hong Kong court on Thursday.

He was among seven convicted defendants who appeared in court for their roles in the plot to plant two bombs and shoot officers along a rally route on Dec. 8, 2019, at a time when accusations of police brutality in handling protesters were widespread.

Judge Judianna Barnes said the plan was vicious and was a declaration of war on society.

The seven are not well-known activists in the semi-autonomous Chinese citys pro-democracy movement, but their case has drawn attention because the United Nations (Anti-Terrorism Measures) Ordinance was invoked.

Hong Kong enacted the law to implement a U.N. Security Council resolution passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

According to local media, prosecutors said most of the defendants in the case were members of two groups  one led by Ng and another called Dragon-Slaying Brigade. The prosecution said members of the brigade planned to lure police officers onto an area where bombs would be detonated and a sniper would target them.

Wong Chun-keung, leader of the brigade, was sentenced to more than 13 years. Five other defendants received prison terms ranging from nearly six years to 12 years.

In August, six other defendants, who had pleaded not guilty, were acquitted by a panel of jurors.

Steve Li, chief superintendent for the polices national security department, said he would study the judgment and consider whether to appeal some sentencing decisions. He also criticized those convicted as deranged.

The 2019 protests marked the most concerted challenge to the Hong Kong government since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Following the protests, more than 10,000 people have been arrested in connection with the often-violent social unrest sparked by a now-withdrawn extradition bill, which would have allowed suspects in Hong Kong to be sent to mainland China.

(AP)
President-elect Donald Trumps nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has hinted that annexation of the West Bank, which he refers to as Judea and Samaria, could be a possibility during Trumps upcoming term. In an interview with Army Radio, Huckabee underscored his support for Israels sovereignty over the territory, rejecting the term West Bank in favor of its Biblical name.

There is no such thing as the West Bank  its Judea and Samaria, Huckabee stated. I have been a frequent visitor to Judea and Samaria and believe it is part of sovereign Israel, he added, reiterating his long-standing belief that the area belongs to Israel.

When pressed on whether annexation could take place under Trumps leadership, Huckabee responded, Well, of course. He stressed, however, that he is not the one to set policy: I wont make the policy; I will carry out the policy of the president. Huckabee pointed to Trumps record from his first term as evidence of his strong commitment to Israel, highlighting the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem, recognition of the Golan Heights, and acknowledgment of Jerusalem as Israels capital. Theres never been an American president more supportive of Israels sovereignty, he remarked.

Huckabee has long rejected a Palestinian state in territory previously seized by Israel and has repeatedly signaled his staunch support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Huckabee, a former TV host and Baptist preacher, frequently visits Israel and once said he wanted to buy a holiday home there. He has maintained throughout the years that the West Bank belongs to Israel, and recently said the title deed was given by God to Abraham and to his heirs.

His argument for a so-called one-state solution contradicts longstanding official U.S. support for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

He has described the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas as horrific and  beyond anything Ive ever witnessed in my lifetime and argued that the U.S. needs to stand firmly behind Israel.

Here are some things Huckabee has said over the years about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He is decisively against a two-state solution

Huckabee has never supported a two-state compromise even when Netanyahu endorsed the idea in 2009.

Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. Palestinians want those territories for a future state and view them as parts of a single country now under military occupation.

The U.S., along with most of the international community, has supported the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines as the cornerstone of a peace agreement. Even Netanyahu once endorsed a two-state solution while rejecting a return to Israels pre-1967 lines. Netanyahu now rejects the creation of a Palestinian state.

Huckabee has never supported any solution that would require Israeli yishuvim to be uprooted.

In an interview with The Associated Press in 2015, Huckabee, then running for the GOP presidential nomination, said recognizing the West Bank as Israeli would be the formal position of his administration. He criticized Israels 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and described settlers evacuated by Israeli forces as having been marched at gunpoint.

I feel that we have a responsibility to respect that this is land that has historically belonged to the Jews, he said.

He once compared the Iran nuclear deal to the Holocaust

In 2015, Huckabee likened the Iran nuclear deal to marching Israelis to the door of the oven, a reference to the crematorium in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust.

Huckabee was criticizing then-President Barack Obama for his role in the agreement the U.S. and other world powers reached with Tehran. Republicans back then were united in their opposition to the deal, arguing it didnt address Irans support for terrorism. Trump during his first administration withdrew from the deal, in which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

The comment was denounced by Democrats, but Huckabee stood by it.

He doesnt accept Palestinians as a term and criticizes radical Muslims

In a recent interview with a podcaster, Huckabee said he did not believe in referring to the Arab descendants of people who lived in British-controlled Palestine as Palestinians.

There really isnt such a thing, he said earlier this year on Think Twice with Jonathan Tobin. Its a term that was co-opted by Yasser Arafat in 1962.

During the same podcast, Huckabee described himself as an unapologetic, unreformed Zionist.

In defending Israel, Huckabee said he wished people understood that this is an extraordinary oasis in a land of totalitarianism surrounded by tyranny.

The former governor also said many radical Muslims want to take us back to the seventh century.

I dont want to go back there, he said. I like modernity.

He expresses outrage over Oct. 7 attack by Hamas

Huckabee has described the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, as horrific and beyond anything Ive ever witnessed in my lifetime. He was outraged by how Hamas spread images of the killings on social media.

As horrible as the Nazis were, they werent posting their atrocities on social media and trying to trumpet what they were doing to the world, he said in an appearance with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Which is what makes this horrendous thing Hamas has done so much, to me, worse, because they want everyone to see what theyve done.

(YWN/AP)
Although flashes of the northern lights have been delighting Ukrainians with their beauty lately, the phenomenon can be observed only in limited manifestations in our latitudes. The true majesty of this natural wonder is revealed only above the Arctic Circle.

ADVERTISIMENT

The Express magazine has named 6 locations where those who want to see the Northern Aurora with their own eyes as it really should be should go. But don't forget to pack plenty of warm clothes in your suitcase.

Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland is a great place to watch the northern lights due to its unique geographical location. Located just south of the Arctic Circle, Iceland experiences long, dark nights during the winter months, which is ideal for watching the colorful flashes in the sky. The low level of light pollution in the country, especially in remote areas such as Thingvellir National Park or Westfirdir, allows you to enjoy the Aurora to the fullest.

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Shetland Islands, Scotland

The Shetland Islands, the northernmost part of the UK, are a great place to watch the northern lights, which the locals call the "Mirri Dancers". Located at a high latitude, closer to the Arctic Circle than the Scottish mainland, Shetland offers many opportunities to witness the northern lights, especially during the long, dark winter nights from October to March. The island's remote location and low light pollution allow you to admire the aurora borealis in all its vivid colors.

Tromso, Norway

Tromso, often referred to as the "Gateway to the Arctic," is one of the best places in the world to see the northern lights. The best time to do so is from September to April. The nights are very long and dark at this time. And the coastal climate maintains relatively mild temperatures compared to other Arctic destinations, making the city more comfortable for a variety of outdoor activities.

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Lapland, Finland

Lapland, located in the north of Finland, is an exceptional place to watch the northern lights due to its location in the Aurora Borealis zone. It is here that the chances of seeing this natural phenomenon are very high, especially between September and April. The unspoiled wilderness of Lapland with its snow-covered forests, frozen lakes and spectacular hills offers the perfect setting for watching the northern lights in a serene environment.

Ilulissat, Greenland

Ilulissat, a charming city in western Greenland, is located above the Arctic Circle, which means the aurora borealis is frequent and bright. Visitors can enjoy the magical spectacle from a variety of vantage points, whether from the tops of snow-capped hills, along the frozen coastline, or even from glacier tours. The combination of Ilulissat's breathtaking Arctic scenery and spectacular northern lights makes it the perfect destination for a truly memorable natural experience.

Faroe Islands, Denmark

The Faroe Islands, an isolated archipelago in the North Atlantic, is a fantastic place to see the northern lights due to its remote location and low light pollution. Nestled between Iceland and Norway, the scraps of land offer dark skies that are ideal for seeing the clear northern lights, especially from November to February. The small population of the islands and limited infrastructure make it easy to find quiet, secluded places to watch the aurora.

Subscribe to the OBOZ.UA channels in Telegram and Viber to keep up with the latest events.
Multiple Iranian sources said that Tehran is postponing its plans to attack Israel  in the wake of the victory of President-elect Donald Trump over Kamala Harris last week, Sky News Arabia reported on Wednesday.

After Israel attacked Iran on October 26, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei vowed that Iran would retaliate with a severe response. The Islamic Republic even named the attack Operation True Promise 3  as it would be its third direct attack on Israel  and this time, it was reportedly scheming to launch the attack from Iraq to strike the Jewish state with more powerful warheads from a closer range.

The sources claimed: The Iranian response against Israel is postponed until negotiations with President Trump begin. The report added that the decision was made following a warning message conveyed to Iran via Baghdad.

Apart from the Trump effect, the IDFs attack on Iran on October 26 reportedly destroyed most of its air defenses, leaving it extremely vulnerable to a counterattack.

(YWN Israel Desk  Jerusalem)
Israels National Security Council (NSC) has denied a report alleging that Israeli intelligence provided alerts of suspicious Hamas activity hours before the October 7 attack, which caught the country off guard.

According to a report in Yediot Achronot, at around 2 a.m. on October 7, the IDFs Military Intelligence Directorate reportedly informed the IDF Chief of Staff and an intelligence officer in the Prime Ministers Office about Hamas operatives activating Israeli phone SIM cardsa potential indicator of an impending attack. The report noted that this tactic had been observed during a Hamas exercise the previous year.

The report further claims that by 3 a.m., intelligence officers had notified the NSCs situation room of multiple concerning signs from Gaza, including what was described as a meaningful indication. By 3:55 a.m., the NSC was reportedly informed that Hamas appeared to be shifting to an emergency mode, heightening suspicions of a forthcoming assault.

At 4:00 a.m., IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi reportedly conducted a situational assessment on developments in Gaza, with findings relayed to the Prime Ministers Office.

In a statement, however, the NSC categorically denied these claims. Contrary to Ronen Bergmans false publication in Yedioth Ahronoth, the statement read, no warning was given to the NSC in the early morning of October 7.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
High-level Israeli sources told Yisrael Hayom that the Trump team is working on a strategic plan targeting the Iranian regime, indicating a dramatic shift in policy toward the Islamic Republic, the Israeli media outlet reported on Thursday.

The sources emphasized that the plan, which will involve close strategic cooperation with Israel, would specifically challenge Irans leadership structure.

The report added that Trumps approach toward Iran may have influenced Tehrans recalculation regarding its vow to retaliate against Israel for its October 26 attack on its soil, which decimated most of its air defenses. As YWN reported on Wednesday, multiple Iranian sources told Sky News Arabia that the Islamic Republic has postponed Operation True Promise 3, its plan to attack Israel directly for the third time, until it negotiates with Trump.

The sources noted that dismantling the current Iran leadership structure would effectively end funding to Iranian-backed groups targeting Israel and Jews, paralyzing their operational abilities.

The report emphasized that Trumps pick for national security adviser, Rep. Mike Waltz, supports a more assertive approach toward Iran, quoting his statement to the Jewish Insider in September regarding the war in Gaza: The United States needs to pressure Hamas and its allies in Iran. Unilateral pressure on Israel will not lead to a ceasefire.

Yisrael Hayom also quoted Trumps pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who stated to US media outlets regarding the Iranian threat to Israel: This is an existential threat to them, let them do what they need to do.

(YWN Israel Desk  Jerusalem)
Zebulon Simantov, known as Afghanistans last remaining Jew, arrived in Israel last week after spending three years in Istanbul following his dramatic rescue from Kabul in September 2021. Simantovs relocation to Israel was prompted by health concerns, according to U.K.s Jewish News. He will now settle in Ashdod, where he joins his ex-wife, daughters, and five siblings.

Simantov, who had lived for decades in Kabul maintaining the citys defunct shul, was evacuated in a complex rescue mission led by Israeli-American businessman Moti Kahana.

Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, the Chabad rabbi in Istanbul and chairman of the Alliance of Rabbis of Islamic States, played a key role in coordinating support for Simantov. Despite extensive negotiations, Simantovs evacuation was complicated by his demands for financial compensation to leave, reportedly seeking as much as $150,000 before finally agreeing to depart.

Simantovs departure became urgent after the Taliban regained control of Kabul in August 2021, and his neighbors, part of the persecuted Hazara minority, pleaded for his help in escaping. Though he initially planned to evacuate 18 people, Simantov sought to include over 100 individuals. After further negotiation, Kahanas team managed to transport 31 people, including Simantov.

As part of the rescue arrangement, Simantov was required to grant a get to his estranged wife in Israel, whom he had not seen in over 20 years.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
An IDF officer lost his life, and another was critically injured in clashes in southern Lebanon earlier today, according to the military.

The fallen soldier has been identified as Lt. Ivri Dickshtein, 21, a platoon commander with the Golani Brigades 51st Battalion.

The same incident also left another officer from the battalion seriously injured, the IDF reports.
It is unlikely the Labour government was thinking about cryptocurrencies when it increased capital gains tax in the Autumn Budget. But I imagine revenue collectors are now eagerly watching the latest leaps and bounds of bitcoin.

Donald Trump's thumping election victory in the US, and the anticipation of it, have sparked a remarkable surge in the price of the cryptocurrency.

A single bitcoin is worth $92,000 at the time of writing - up 47 per cent in a month.

It is largely born out of hope that the President-elect will relax restrictions on cryptocurrencies.

But this is a longer-term story. Over two years, bitcoin's value has grown by close to 430 per cent. It is a remarkable capital gain.

Lots of Britons are feeling the benefit. Crypto ownership increased from 3 per cent to 12 per cent over five years, according to a Yougov gauge last measured in July.

Rollercoaster to the moon: Bitcoin investors have reaped big rewards in a Trump melt-up but it's been a rocky ride for long-term holders

I expect many more people will have joined the throng since then. It is inevitable during a 'melt up' in prices.

In the poll, a further 6 per cent told Yougov they don't know. Perhaps some of the 'don't knows' have bought proxies for bitcoin, such as companies that invest in it, or perhaps have traded on apps that replicate the price.

With only indirect ownership they're unsure whether to call themselves crypto owners.

HMRC may know about your crypto

The point is that millions of people are invested in crypto and many of them will be sitting on huge profits. Meanwhile, the risk of owing capital gains tax and the rates on it are on the rise.

The capital gains tax rate increased in the Budget with immediate effect - from 10 per cent to 18 per cent for lower rate taxpayers, and from 20 per cent to 24 per cent for those in higher tax bands.

This comes after a sequence of falls in the tax-free allowance, down from 12,300 previously to 6,000 for 2023/24 and then down to 3,000 for 2024/25.

Even before the tax changes and the surge in crypto prices, HMRC had identified an opportunity.

It knows many, many people are using crypto exchanges and even banking apps to profit from crypto gains.

It would appear to have data sharing agreements with businesses that offer such services.

It has, for example, been sending 'nudge' letters to individuals that begin: 'We're writing to you as our records show you have disposed of cryptoassets.

'However, you haven't declared everything correctly. This means you may have tax to pay.'

It also launched a confessional crypto declaration web page last November, urging investors to come clean on profits from previous years.

They would still need to pay any penalties and interest due.

Tax officials can look back 20 years if they believe someone deliberately and wilfully avoided paying.

From 2026, HMRC will receive more data from exchanges through the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, an OECD-led initiative.

It is also worth noting that it considers some frequent trading to be liable to income tax. For most crypto fans though, CGT will be the challenge.

Under attack: Investors saw the amount of profits they can make free of capital gains slashed by former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt... then Rachel Reeves hiked the tax rates

Do crypto investors even know they should pay tax?

HMRC's concern is that, according to its own research from 2022, only 34 per cent of crypto owners said they had a good understanding of CGT; the rest did not understand or had not even heard of it.

Expect more noise from HMRC as we approach the 31 January deadline for submitting self-assessment forms, where tax liabilities are listed and paid.

There are, of course, two common ways to avoid paying tax on your investment gains more broadly - by buying them through a stocks and shares Isa or a Self-Invested Personal Pension, or Sipp.

In crypto, this is not easy.

That is, in part, because the regulatory regime this side of the Atlantic has so far not approved mutual funds for private savers.

In the US, in contrast, there are more than 25 exchange-traded funds, holding billions of dollars, from the likes of Fidelity Investments and BlackRock.

Some UK investors have circumvented this by investing in MicroStrategy, a US software and data company that has a declared strategy of buying bitcoin. It is a ratcheted play on the cryptocurrency - a riskier way to back a risky asset.

Others have chosen Coinbase of the US, a platform for buying and selling cryptocurrencies. Note that Coinbase shares have only just returned to their high of 2021.

Perhaps the lesson - and one that is hard to accept when non-crypto investors are feeling raw FOMO (fear of missing out) - is to understand the risk others are taking in chasing bitcoin higher.

The warning from John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great Crash 1929 is helpful. He noted speculators' enduring belief that they can become rich without doing any work.

If that is not enough, then consider the wrangling with the taxman that many crypto speculators will face.

I risk the ire of crypto fans in saying this, but as a steady retirement-focused investor who likes to sleep easy, I'll stick with the get-rich-slow approach of Isa and Sipp funds that can be safely sheltered from the taxman.
Burberry has revealed a strategy overhaul and a fresh 40million cost-cutting programme, as the struggling brand battles to turn its fortunes around.

The luxury retailer's shares rose on Thursday following the update, but the company revealed its sales continued to plummet in the second quarter.

Chief executive Joshua Schulman, who joined the group in July, said he wants the business to focus on 'productivity, simplification and financial discipline'.

Back to basics: Burberry has unveiled a fresh 40m cost-cutting programme

The fashion house swung to a 53million loss for the half-year ending 28 September, down from 223million profit for the same period last year.

Revenue slumped 20 per cent year-on-year to 1.09billion, as the London-listed firm also suspended its dividend payments to shareholders.

Schulman said the turnaround plan would involve improving the businesss website and in-store productivity, and shaking up pricing.

He added that the company, founded in England in 1856, needed to focus on well-known products like outerwear and cater more for its core customers.

Burberry said it had focused on modernising its brand 'at the expense of celebrating our heritage'.

It added that its 'pricing, particularly in leather goods, did not always align with our category authority. Consequently, Burberrys offer was skewed to a narrow base of luxury customers'.

Big plans: Burberry's chief executive Joshua Schulman, left, with Anna Wintour, centre

Burberry shares jumped 12.85 per cent or 94.00 to 825.40p. on Thursday, having fallen over 50 per cent in the last year.

Burberry has struggled from a stagnant market in the luxury sector, with its key Chinese market hit hard.

Sales in its mainland China stores fell 24 per cent in the first half, and the rate of decline accelerated in the second quarter.

Restructuring costs, including redundancies, for the period, came in at 12million.

Schulman said: 'Our recent underperformance has stemmed from several factors, including inconsistent brand execution and a lack of focus on our core outerwear category and our core customer segments.

'Today, we are acting with urgency to course-correct, stabilise the business and position Burberry for a return to sustainable, profitable growth.'

Burberry recently dropped out of the FTSE 100, with its shares falling to their lowest level since 2009 earlier this year.

Share prices received an unexpected boost in recent weeks amid reports that Moncler, which also owns Stone Island, was considering buying Burberry.

However, no mention of a potential takeover offer was made in Thursdays interim results, and further reports this week emerged suggesting a deal will not be done.

Kathleen Brooks, research director at investment firm XTB, said Burberry 'still has a mountain to climb', pointing to the continued slump in China.

Rihard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said: 'The groups recently chequered past looks set to continue for now, although the group has laid some ambitious foundations for a new Burberry Forward strategy.

'A small mercy perhaps, but at least much of the sting from these numbers was taken at the time of the groups shock announcement in July, when Burberry announced a change of Chief Executive, a suspension of the dividend and a likely operating loss for the half-year.'

He added: 'The share price decline has been severe and relatively concentrated, with a decline of 72 per cent from a peak of over 26 reached as recently as April 2023.

'Over the last year, the shares have fallen by 56 per cent, including relegation to the FTSE 250, which itself added 9.8 per cent over that period.

'A brief bounce over the last few weeks after unconfirmed reports of a bid approach from Moncler of Italy has been followed by a positive share price reaction to these numbers and the groups intent, although both are far from sufficient to stem the decline.

'In the meantime, and despite the groups renewed determination, the market consensus of the shares as a sell is unlikely to waver until such time as some measurable progress is made on the new strategy.'
Young's & Co chief executive Simon Dodd has warned tax hikes and wage increases will weigh heaviest on the smallest hospitality firms after the pub group revealed a 11million Budget hit.

Dodd told This is Money the hospitality sector urgently requires substantial business rates reform to help much of the industry 'balance the books'.

It echoes warnings from Hospitality UK and Fuller's chair Michael Turner who said Rachel Reeves' policy changes would send small operators 'to the wall'.

Battered by the Budget: Young's chief executive Simon Dodd revealed an 11m hit as a result of changes made by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the Autumn Budget

Dodd said: 'If you've got one pub and you're a sole operator, it's going to be extremely tough.

'We're fortunate in that we're over 80 per cent freehold, we've got a strong balance sheet, we've got scale and efficiencies, and we trade in affluent towns and cities.

'If you're a smaller business and an entrepreneur, it is a tough landscape for you. For the bigger boys, it's just how we mitigate the cost.'

It came as Young's revealed on Thursday that the Autumn Budget would cost the group an extra 11million as a result of higher employer national insurance contributions and an increase in the national living wage.

Expanding on plans to 'mitigate these headwinds without passing on all the cost to our loyal customers', Dodd said Young's price hikes will likely come in at 'around 2 to 3 per cent' in the next financial year.

Young's revenues rocketed 27.2 per cent to 250million in the 26 weeks to 30 September, driving operating profit from 7.1million to 38.1million.

It follows first half cost savings of around 6.1million from the integration of recent acquisition City Pub Group, while further savings are expected to be made over the next year.

Dodd said Young's food costs are also 'running flat on last year', while the group has fixed energy costs for the year ahead.

But while the cost headwinds that have battered the sector over the last three years have started to recede, Dodd believes business rates reform is needed.

He said: 'I understand we're about eight to 10 months away from understanding what the business rates reform will be.

'The key for us is it needs to affect the whole of hospitality, because if it just affects entrepreneurs and people that have one pub, you're not going to get the true benefit.

'It needs to be something that's all encompassing for leisure and hospitality and retail.

'We just want fairness. Bricks and mortar have carried the weight on business rates for many years, and I really believe reform will help many of us balance the books.'

Young's optimistic ahead of festive season

Dodd also told This is Money Young's is 'seeing real momentum in the business' heading into the busy festive season, with sales up 9.2 per cent over the last three weeks  thanks to a boost from the rugby union Autumn Internationals.

He added that the group was 'confident' ahead of Christmas, with bookings for the seven week trading period up 10 per cent year-on-year and consumers showing 'they are prepared to pay a bit more for premium products'.

Dodd said: 'There's still a lot of positivity in the sector and people still love the great British pub.

'As long as you give them a reason to visit and when they come out, you give them a great time, I think people always come.

'We're optimistic about the future and what's in our control is looking good.'
The winner of the US presidential election, Donald Trump, has a clear idea of what should be achieved in negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, and some things are not welcome in Ukraine, but they are not welcome in the Kremlin either.

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"And this is something that should give Ukrainians some confidence in what Trump is up to," said John Herbst, American diplomat, US Ambassador to Ukraine (2003-2005), Director of the Atlantic Councils Eurasia Center, during his speech at the Fifth Kyiv Jewish Forum.

Herbst reminded that Trump is talking about resolving the war on the principle that Moscow controls part of Ukraine and Kyiv controls the rest, and this would mean a certain type of ceasefire. At the same time, Trump also means that there should be a demilitarized zone that would put Ukraine in a position where it could defend itself well if Moscow resumes its aggression. "And I don't think the Kremlin and Putin like that very much," the diplomat said.

The American diplomat believes that Putin's goal is to try to incite Trump to allow Russia to do whatever it wants in Ukraine. If Trump comes to the conclusion that he cannot do this, then Putin is in trouble, and this is to Ukraine's benefit.

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In terms of security guarantees for Ukraine, he said that they could be the deployment of European NATO troops on the contact line, and that would make it very difficult for Putin to do what he did with the Minsk agreements.

"It's not impossible, but it's very difficult. If at the same time we arm Ukraine much more than we have armed it today, it will also make the Russians think twice about breaking any peace," Herbst thinks.

However, he is not convinced that European troops can actually be deployed in Ukraine: "I can't say yes, but I can't say no either. One can imagine a scenario in which they would do so, on the condition that the United States is ready to provide, for example, all the resources, including weapons. It could work. But I'm not saying it will."

At the same time, Herbst said that it is critical for American interests that Putin loses the war in Ukraine. According to him, the overwhelming majority of the Republican Party, including in Congress, understand the danger Putin's policies pose to the United States and would like to continue to strongly support Ukraine.

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"Almost all of the candidates for the top positions in the National Security, Department of Defense, and the U.S. Security Council understand the strategic danger Russia poses to the United States and, therefore, the need to support Ukraine. This is a reason for some optimism, as is the fact that Trump has put forward certain conditions that have the Kremlin confused. But this is largely a work in progress. So first we have to see who Trump appoints, and then we have to see what they actually do," he said.

Kyiv Jewish Forum is taking place for the fifth year in a row. This year, it is held online, and Washington, D.C. has become the central venue. Organizers of the Kyiv Jewish Forum are the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine and The Jerusalem Post.

Media partners of KJF-2024: NV, Oboz.ua, RBC-Ukraine, Telegraf.ua, Inter.

Lets recall that during the opening of the forum, JCU President and Vice President of the World Jewish Congress Boris Lozhkin emphasized that Ukrainians and Israelis have high hopes for the return of the U.S. administration that has previously demonstrated its determination to help both Ukraine and Israel.
Israel, which is also suffering from the Iranian attack drones, is studying Ukraine's experience in countering them. The country is interested in using the technologies developed by Ukraine.

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This was stated by the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Israel to Ukraine Michael Brodsky during the Fifth Kyiv Jewish Forum.

"The entire Israels history is very relevant from the point of view of Ukraine, and we can do a lot together to strengthen our states and take advantage of the experience that already exists not only in Israel but also in Ukraine. For example, the experience in countering the Iranian drones. Israel should study this experience, should use this experience (of Ukraine  ed.), and we are already doing this. As we are now also facing the same problem of Iranian drones," Brodsky said.

According to him, "certain technologies" appeared in Ukraine during the war, which Israel is already studying.

"Of course, I cannot disclose any details of this cooperation now. But such cooperation exists, and we will continue to cooperate because this will be useful for our countries," the ambassador added.

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This year's Kyiv Jewish Forum, organized by the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine and The Jerusalem Post, is dedicated to the confrontation with the axis of evil of Russia, Iran and North Korea and the issue of eliminating the threat of rising anti-Semitism around the world.

The media partners of KJF-2024 are NV, Oboz.ua, RBC-Ukraine, Telegraf.ua, Inter.

Lets recall that during the opening of the forum, JCU President and Vice President of the World Jewish Congress Boris Lozhkin emphasized that Ukrainians and Israelis have high hopes for the return of the U.S. administration that has previously demonstrated its determination to help both Ukraine and Israel.
In the temporarily occupied territory of Sevastopol, Russians are building new defenses to protect the bays and ships from Ukrainian unmanned kamikaze boats. This indicates the occupiers' desire to return their ships to the port.

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This was reported on the Telegram channel of the "Atesh" military movement of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars. The guerrillas also noted that they continue to observe the activity of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on the coast.

"The "Atesh" agents conduct constant reconnaissance in Sevastopol, recording the construction of new defenses against BECs (unmanned boats  Ed.), designed to protect the bays and preserve the vessels serving the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy. These measures indicate the occupiers' desire to return their ships to service," the statement said.

"Atesh also warned the occupiers that their ships would inevitably sink.

"We have already demonstrated the effectiveness of cooperation with the Ukrainian Defense Forces many times and are confident that soon all the remnants of the racist "troughs" afloat will sink," the guerrillas added.

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Earlier it was reported that the Russian occupation forces are tightening control over the railroad in Crimea. This is how they are trying to prevent sabotage in Yevpatoria. It is noted that the number of military personnel on duty at these facilities has increased significantly.

Earlier it was reported that the aggressor country, the Russian Federation, is building a parallel crossing near the illegal Crimean bridge, as well as defensive structures. The Russian occupiers are seeking to protect the "sacred" bridge of dictator Vladimir Putin from attacks by naval and other drones and missiles.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Taoiseach Simon Harris has said housing is a massive priority after being told he should be ashamed at the number of children who are homeless during a Dublin canvass.

Mr Harris spoke to the media ahead of canvassing in Capel Street with Dublin Central candidate Paschal Donohoe.

Kieran Allen, who is a former lecturer and a member of People Before Profit, said that Mr Harris should be ashamed at the homelessness figures, which have risen to almost 15,000 people.

You have got 4,000 children in this country who are homeless and its a direct result of your policies, and you should be ashamed of yourself, Mr Allen said.

Mr Harris said that when the eviction ban was in place, during the Covid-19 pandemic, homelessness did not fall.

Mr Allen said: Are you joking, are you? You were told in the Dail that if the eviction ban was removed, homelessness would increase.

And dont give me your I am very concerned bit, you actually voted to end an eviction ban.

Mr Harris said everyone in Ireland is concerned about homelessness, but his main concern was the type of policies that would resolve the issue.

Earlier in the canvass, a passing cyclist shouted gee-up, Sinn Fein to which Mr Harris said bring it on.

In his comments to the media, Mr Harris said the cost of living was the number one issue people were raising on the doorstep, but that housing was also raised by people.

There are real differences on the ballot in relation to housing, I will agree with my political opponents in relation to that, and there are different offerings in terms of the level of financial support that will be provided to first-time buyers.

Id say the number one issue coming up with me so far in this campaign is the cost-of-living challenges that people face. Housing remains a very serious issue.

Im having conversations with people that I feel are balanced, people can accept that there are more houses being built  but they also want to know about things like affordability. How can we scale that up?

They also want to know, how can we actually get to a level of supply that we need to fix this crisis once and for all?

And I really believe, and I think this is the difference between an election and Leaders Questions in the Dail. In an election, its not good enough for the opposition just to critique our policies. They also have to explain theirs.

He added: Politics and housing deserves an honest debate in this election.

Asked about comments made by former Fine Gael housing minister Eoghan Murphy that housing was not a priority during his tenure, Mr Harris said he was being a little hard on his own record.

Eoghan Murphy did, during his time, establish the Land Development Agency, we did see the social housing fund restored, and we did see housing supply begin to increase.

Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said that they had to ensure that plans added up when in government and said this has allowed them to invest in homes into the future now.

Fine Gael is pledging to oversee the construction of 303,000 homes between 2025 and 2030, with 75,000 of them social homes and 58,000 affordable or cost rental.
Sir Keir Starmer needs to indicate what circumstances are necessary for the calling of a referendum on Irish unification, the Sinn Fein leader has said.

Mary Lou McDonald, who is seeking to be taoiseach following the Irish general election on November 29, said a Sinn Fein-led government would take immediate steps to progress the partys long-held goal of unifying the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

She previously said the border poll could be held by 2030.

Ms McDonald said Sinn Fein would dedicate a junior ministry role to unification under the Department of An Taoiseach.

She also said her party would propose to produce a green paper on the matter within 100 days of entering government, followed by the convening of a citizens assembly to provide space for wider democratic discussion of unification.

Speaking to reporters on the election campaign trail in Dublin, Ms McDonald said: Beyond that, the conversation needs to be had with the British Government, with Keir Starmers administration around this decade.

The British Government needs to start now indicating for them what they believe is the tipping point at which they believe a referendum would be called.

Ive pursued this with them for a long time through many prime ministers, but I think its necessary that the person who is taoiseach would pursue that because, obviously, that brings it to a different level, and a different proposition.

Under the terms of Good Friday Agreement of 1998, the UK Government is obliged to call a referendum in Northern Ireland if there is evidence of a shift in public opinion in favour of unity. In that event, there would be a simultaneous vote in the Republic of Ireland.

Earlier this year, Sir Keir said he was committed to the principles of the Good Friday Agreement. However, while in opposition, he said a referendum on Irish unification was not even on the horizon.
Mariia-Khrystyna Dvoinik, a brave volunteer medic with the Hospitallers battalion, known by her call sign Alpaca, died at the front. It happened on Wednesday, November 13, during the evacuation of the wounded.

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This was reported by Yana Zinkevych, MP from the "European Solidarity" faction, a volunteer medic and founder of the Hospitallers paramedic battalion. "Yesterday, our sister Alpaca, Mariia-Khrystyna's double, tragically died while going to evacuate the wounded," the statement reads.

It is noted that Mariia-Khrystyna did not know fear and selflessly risked her life to save her brothers. Her dedication and willingness to help have always been an example for others. This loss was an irreparable blow to the battalion, as Alpaca was a pillar of strength for many. Everyone who knew her will remember her bright smile, open heart, and unbreakable spirit.

"Her heart was always open to anyone who needed help. This death is a terrible blow to our battalion. May our brave sister Alpaka's memory be eternal. She left behind warm memories that will live on in our hearts. Her feat will never be forgotten. We bow for every life saved in this war. Heroes die saving others. Honor," said Zinkevych.

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Details of the funeral will be announced later. Also, anyone who wants to support her family can join the fundraiser.

Details to help the family:

Link to the bank

Card number: 4441 1111 2963 9575

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We would like to remind you that a soldier from Bukovyna, Andrii Pustovalov, was killed in the battles for Ukraine. He was defending his native land in the Special Operations Forces. He fought his last battle in the Kursk region and would have turned 31 in December.

As OBOZ.UA reported earlier, Vitalii Viunnyk, a grenade launcher of the 10th separate mountain assault brigade "Edelweiss," was killed in the battles against the Russian invaders. The defender was only 25 years old. The soldier's life ended on November 11 in the Donetsk region.

On the left bank of the Kherson region, sailor Mykhailo Melnyk from the Lviv region was killed. He was a sniper scout, and his life was cut short a little over a week before his 35th birthday.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
After Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election, South Korea will have to reconsider its position in the context of providing assistance to Ukraine. Seoul is also considering how Trump's approach to the war will affect support for Ukraine among many countries.

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The current government of South Korea does not rule out changing the policy of refusing to send lethal aid to Kyiv. This was reported by Bloomberg.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that South Korea is unlikely to start supplying ammunition to Ukraine unless the DPRK takes further action to support Russia. Seoul also intends to monitor how Trump will act on Ukraine when he completes the transition from the election campaign to the White House.

According to Kim Jeong, a professor of political science at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, it would be quite embarrassing at this stage if South Korea, which is not a NATO member, changed its position when Trump comes to the White House and wants to withdraw from the conflict.

The South Korean government will consider possible scenarios of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea after Pyongyang deploys troops and takes countermeasures. Seoul said it would closely coordinate with allies and partners in this process.

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Seoul has long resisted calls from its Western allies to use its vast military reserves and directly send weapons or ammunition to Ukraine, preferring instead to help Kyiv with non-lethal aid. However, North Korea's deployment of up to 12,000 troops in Russia has changed this position.

Analysts say that South Korea's transfer of lethal weapons to Kyiv would mean strong support for Ukraine and a major impact on the course of the war. It could also benefit South Korean business if it takes part in Ukraine's post-war recovery. At the same time, Seoul fears that this step will anger Moscow, exacerbate the conflict, and provoke further provocations from Pyongyang.

As a reminder, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul called on United Nations officials to "strongly condemn" North Korea's actions. This refers to the DPRK's assistance to the Russians in the war against Ukraine.

Earlier it was reported that after North Korea's involvement in the Russian-Ukrainian war, South Korea may adjust its strategy of supporting Ukraine. In particular, Seoul does not rule out direct arms supplies to the Ukrainian army.

Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has responded to an article by The Times that states that Ukraine could make its own simple nuclear weapon within a few months if the United States stops providing assistance. The Ministry emphasized that Ukraine has no such plans.

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Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhiy Tykhyi commented on the media reports on social network X on Wednesday, October 13. He noted that our country adheres to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

In addition, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson added, Kyiv cooperates with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which makes it impossible to use nuclear weapons.

"We do not possess, develop or intend to develop nuclear weapons. Ukraine closely cooperates with the IAEA and is fully transparent for its monitoring, which makes it impossible to use nuclear materials for military purposes," Tykhyi wrote.

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It should be noted that the Times article refers to an analytical note prepared for the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. It states that Kyiv does not have the capacity to build and operate the facilities necessary for uranium enrichment. However, the country could use plutonium from spent fuel rods from 9 Ukrainian nuclear reactors. Its total volume could reach half a ton, enough to produce hundreds of tactical warheads.

As reported by OBOZ.UA:

- German publication Bild previously noted that due to Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine is considering the possibility of restoring its nuclear weapons stockpile. The country may need only a few weeks to create its first nuclear bomb.

- The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine called this information "insinuations of unnamed sources of the Bild publication."

- At the same time, President Volodymyr Zelensky also stated that Ukraine is not building nuclear weapons. He emphasized that our priority is to join NATO.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber . Do not fall for fakes!
Giorgia Meloni has a special friendship with Elon Musk. When the Italian prime minister publicly announced her separation in October 2023, Musk notably responded with a like on social media. Just a month earlier, Musk had presented Meloni with the Global Citizen 2024 award at an upscale gala in New York, praising her as a person even more beautiful inside than outside. A photo of them dining together, where they appeared to be enjoying each others company, further fueled speculation of a romance. Indeed, Musk was forced to deny the allegations on his social network, X: I was there with my Mom. There is no romantic relationship whatsoever with PM Meloni.

However, Musks recent and abrupt criticism of Italian judges for halting the Italian governments plan to deport migrants to Albania has placed Meloni in an awkward position. The prime minister has remained conspicuously silent, leaving it to President Sergio Mattarella to respond firmly to Musks remarks.

At midday on Wednesday, Mattarella issued a clear message: Italy is a great democratic country, and I must reiterate, using the same words from October 7, 2022, that it knows how to take care of itself. Everyone, particularly those who, as has been announced, are about to take on an important role in government in a friendly and allied country, must respect sovereignty and cannot take upon themselves the task of giving it instructions.

The reference to October 7, 2022, was deliberate. That was when Mattarella responded to French Minister for European Affairs, Laurence Boone, who said she would be monitoring how rights are respected in Italy following Melonis win at the election. It served as a pointed reminder to Meloni that Musks remarks were as intolerable as Boones, and to remind the prime minister that he had defended her once before.

At midday on Tuesday, Elon Musk made a disparaging comment on about Italian judges after the Rome court, for the second time, blocked the detention of migrants in an Albanian internment camp. These judges need to go, he posted on X. After the initial judicial setback to deportations last month, Musk had already dismissed the judges as fools.

In September, when prosecutors sought a six-year prison sentence for Italian Vice President Matteo Salvini for preventing migrants from disembarking from the Spanish ship Open Arms in 2019, Musk tweeted: That mad prosecutor should be the one who goes to prison for six years.

While his earlier remarks drew criticism, his recent direct attack on the judiciary, a pillar of state power, has escalated the situation.

Sources from the Italian presidency attempted to downplay Musks comments, arguing that he was a private citizen entitled to express his opinions. Yet, circumstances have shifted significantly: on Wednesday, Trump appointed Musk as head of the Department of Government Efficiency in his new administration. Despite this, Meloni maintained her silence.

Throughout Tuesday, the opposition and judiciary expressed outrage over what they perceived as an unacceptable interference into Italian sovereignty, and demanded a response from the government. Their calls were met with silence: whats more, members of the government also attacked the judiciary.

Elly Schlein, leader of Italys Democratic Party (PD), scorned the government: It is shameful that these domestic sovereignists are letting an American billionaire to dictate policy. They should defend the judges  this too is part of national sovereignty.

Giuseppe Santalucia, president of Italys National Association of the Judiciary, echoed this sentiment: An American magnate so influential in the new U.S. Administration speaks on the internal matters of the Italian sovereign state and interferes in the affairs of Italy [] without anyone in the government considering responding to him.

By midday on Wednesday, President Sergio Mattarella stepped in. He pointed to Musks new political role, countering Melonis teams portrayal of him as a mere private citizen, to underscore the seriousness of the situation. It then took Meloni more than three hours to issue a brief response: We always listen with great respect to the words of the President of the Republic.

However, by then, Musk had exacerbated the situation with another tweet questioning Italys rule of law and asking provocatively: Do the people of Italy live in a democracy or does an unelected autocracy make the decisions?

Trump and Salvini

The incident highlights Melonis ongoing challenges in clarifying her stance when faced with the outbursts of her less palatable allies, much like her struggles in Europe with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and other far-right leaders. This, however, is the first time she has had to navigate the dynamics with Trumps inner circle following his electoral win.

Notably, Trumps closest ally within the Italian government is not Meloni but her coalition partner, Matteo Salvini. The League leader, already donning a signature red tie reminiscent of Trumps, was one of the first to celebrate Trumps victory, as if he had won the lottery. On the other hand, Musk serves as Melonis conduit to Trumps circle, an essential connection she is keen to maintain, especially after building rapport with Joe Biden and avoiding directly supporting Trump during the campaign. It appears clear that Meloni is determined not to jeopardize this strategic connection.

Following the U.S. election, Meloni was quick to announce on social media that she had already spoken on the phone with my friend Elon Musk, expressing confidence that his commitment and vision can be an important asset for the United States and Italy, in a spirit of collaboration.

Musks close associate in Italy, Andrea Stroppa, reinforced this sentiment: Italy can and must build a leading role in the sectors of the future. Becoming the preferred European partner must be the goal. Italy, as Europes most prominent far-right government, openly aspires to be Trumps favored interlocutor within the EU.

Stroppas message is significant beyond politics. Discussions between Musk and Italy have centered around business ventures, including the deployment of the Starlink satellite network to provide internet service to poorly connected areas, as well as usage by ministries, the military, and diplomatic services. This deal, reportedly worth 1.5 billion ($1.6 billion), has garnered attention in the Italian media.

Talks have also extended to Teslas potential production of electric trucks and vans in Italy. However, progress was halted when a corruption probe led to the arrest of the CEO of Sogei, a company under the Ministry of Economy, due to suspicious contracts and activities. Among those under investigation is Andrea Stroppa himself. This development has fueled Musks unfavorable opinion of Italian judges.

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There is no safe place left in Lebanon. Rescue teams finished their efforts early Tuesday morning to find victims of an Israeli airstrike the day before in Ain Yaaqoub, in which at least 14 people were killed and dozens wounded. The village, 77 miles north of Beirut, is in Akkar, Lebanons northernmost region. It was, until now, the only one that had not been attacked and was considered relatively safe, being over 120 miles from the border with Israel, the main front line of the fighting. That safety has turned out to be a mirage.

Even before Israel launched its massive bombing campaign on September 23, the narrative of Israels leaders and military command was that their enemy was not Lebanon or the Lebanese, but Hezbollah, the Shia party-militia that has been shelling northern Israel in solidarity with Gaza since October 2023. Since then, Israeli strikes have killed 3,365 people and injured 14,344 in Lebanon, according to the latest death toll released Wednesday by the Ministry of Public Health. With the deaths in Ain Yaqoub, that toll now comes from all regions of the country.

When Israel launched its ground offensive in southern Lebanon on October 1, its army described the operation as limited, localized and targeted ground raids against militia targets. However, Israeli soldiers have not refrained from destroying around 40 villages near the southern border. Their attacks have also destroyed at least 40,000 homes.

This destruction has not always been due to bombing or artillery attacks, but because the infantry has blown up houses and infrastructure in these towns. This has been made clear by the videos they themselves have posted, such as those showing the destruction of most of Meiss Ej Jabal, a town located next to the Blue Line, the unofficial demarcation drawn by the United Nations between Israel and Lebanon. In some agricultural fields in the town, soldiers have planted Israeli flags.

A video released on November 8 by Israeli soldiers showed them, in the same town, setting fire to the red and white Lebanese national flag, rather than the yellow Hezbollah banner. Like the casualty figures and the extent of the destruction, these images compromise the official Israeli narrative that this war is directed only against the party-militia; hence Israel has been forced to disavow these soldiers. The armys Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, posted a tweet on Saturday saying that this act was not in line with the objectives of what he called military activities in Lebanon. The spokesman did not, however, announce any sanctions against the soldiers.

Israeli strikes had initially focused on the Shia-majority areas where Hezbollah has its social base: southern Lebanon, the Beirut suburb of Dahieh  which was again heavily bombed on Tuesday and Wednesday  and the eastern Beqaa Valley. By the end of October, the offensive had already spread to other areas of the country. The UN coordinator in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, warned at the time that the scope and intensity of the exchanges of fire were continuing to expand.

With the bombing of Ain Yaaqoub in Akkar, this circle has closed, reaching all regions of a country where 1.2 million people displaced by the war  one in five Lebanese, most of them Shia  have sought refuge outside their places of residence.

A math book with the name of the little girl Talea Safiedine, in the rubble of a bombed house in Almat. Trinidad Deiros

Books and shoes

Almat is another of those remote towns far from the border where 10,000 displaced people have arrived seeking safety, its mayor, Ali Awad, explained to this newspaper on Monday. The town, whose inhabitants are mainly Shia, is located on a hill 30 miles northeast of Beirut, in a region with a Christian majority.

On Sunday, one of its residents, Nur, saw two Israeli warplanes fly over. I knew they were going to attack my village, but I didnt know they were targeting the house next door, he explains. In that house, now reduced to rubble by a missile, many children, displaced from the Beqaa Valley, were sheltering. Of the 27 dead that rescue teams pulled out from under the rubble, seven were children. Five arrived dead at the emergency room of the nearby Notre Dame Maritime hospital. They were between five and 10 years old and completely disfigured, explains nurse Rosie Khoury by phone.

A math book with addition and subtraction lies in the ruins, with the name of its owner written in childlike handwriting: Talea Safiedine. Not far away, the rubble is mixed with a pile of shoes: all mismatched, most of them small. Some adorned with little flowers and glitter hearts. A packet of menstrual pads with the plastic torn off sits in the middle of this place of desolation.

Women and children lived here, and we are almost 125 miles from the border with Israel. Was it necessary to send an F-35 [warplane] to bomb the house? the mayor wonders aloud as he picks up a pair of childrens trousers with a stick. In the house, he exclaims, there were no Hezbollah weapons. The television channels came and recorded everything while we were removing the rubble with a bulldozer: Where are these weapons?

When Israel justifies its attacks, which is not always the case  as in the case of the bombing of Almat  it usually claims that the buildings targeted were sheltering militants, or that they were used to hide Hezbollah weapons.

Even if it were true that a fighter was hiding here, couldnt the Israelis have just killed him, without deleting three families from the civil register? the mayor asks. He then shows on his cell phone a photograph of a list of the names of the dead, members of the Al Karsifi, Al Hussein, and Zrik families.

Ali Awad, mayor of Almat, on Monday. Trinidad Deiros

Jews suffered the Holocaust in Europe, but what is happening here is another Holocaust, says Awad. He believes that Israel is attacking places like Almat to kill as many women and children as possible and to spread terror. He also believes that this is to prevent the Lebanese from accepting the displaced.

The fear of such rejection has a real basis. Bombings such as the one that killed 21 people in a house being rented by displaced people in the predominantly Christian town of Aitou, some 60 miles north of Beirut, in late October have fuelled this suspicion. Although incidents over the reception of displaced people between the different religious denominations  the majority being Christian, Sunni and Shia  have so far been occasional and never serious, some Lebanese do express fear that their Shia compatriots who have fled their homes could attract Israeli warplanes and missiles.

The population of Akkar, the northern region that was the last in the country to suffer a massacre for the first time, is predominantly Sunni and is also home to Orthodox Christians. Considered the breeding ground for the Lebanese army, the presence of soldiers and its distance from the border with Israel probably helped convince some Shia displaced that they would be protected there. Here, with so many soldiers, I feel safe, Fatima, a Shia who had to flee Dahieh and found refuge in the town of Akkar al-Atiqa, told this newspaper on Saturday.

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Inasmuch as "election fraud" was always a red herring and has now disappeared back into the shadows of sketchy online message boards . . . The so-called dawn of an "American Golden Age" stars with forgiveness.



And so, credit where it's due . . . This Kansas dude leads with way with a bold argument that could keep him out of the clink . . . Check-it . . .



In delivering both an electoral victory and popular vote majority, the American people gave President Trump a mandate to carry out the agenda he campaigned on, which includes ending the January 6 prosecutions and pardoning those who exercised First Amendment rights at the Capitol, THE DEFENDANT said in a motion filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.



In contrast, Vice President (Kamala) Harris campaigned on continuing the January 6 prosecutions, and her platform was rejected by the American people. This outcome and new mandate from the people justifies my trial being continued into the next administration.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

Convinced he'll be pardoned, Kansan wants Jan. 6 trial delayed until Trump inauguration William Pope, of Topeka, said it would be a waste of time and resources to follow through with his prosecution because Trump has pledged to pardon Jan. 6 defendants when he takes office.

Developing . . .


Update on local facilities and www.TonysKansasCity.com happy to note that brinkmanship proven somewhat successful for 12th & Oak . . .



City of Kansas City and Jackson County reach agreement on municipal jail site



KANSAS CITY, Mo.  Jackson County Executive Frank White, Jr. announced today that the City of Kansas City and Jackson County have reached an agreement for the sale of a portion of land within the countys new detention center site, currently under construction and set to open in 2026. The City will purchase this land for $2.3 million to build a dedicated municipal jail facility adjacent to the countys detention center, following recommendations from both city and county staff and consultants.



The joint recommendation to create two distinct facilities reflects the unique and specific needs of detainees from both jurisdictions. Kansas City Municipal Courts report on the need for separate facilities emphasized the distinct requirements of detainees awaiting trial on municipal charges. With shorter stays averaging 1.68 days for those not sentenced, and a higher need for stabilization and re-entry support, municipal detainees require a different set of resources compared to those in the countys facility, where the average stay for male inmates is over 200 days. This approach will allow each facility to operate with focused resources tailored to their detainees needs, ensuring efficient use of taxpayer funds and more effective rehabilitation services.



City Councilmember Crispin Rea played an instrumental role in leading the discussions that resulted in this innovative solution. His leadership, alongside the diligence and dedication of staff from both city and county offices, has been essential in reaching this mutually beneficial agreement.



Todays agreement is a significant step forward in addressing the needs of both Kansas City and Jackson County detainees, said County Executive Frank White, Jr. I commend City Councilmember Crispin Rea for his leadership and vision in making this agreement a reality. I also want to recognize the hard work and dedication of city and county staff, who have worked diligently to bring us to this point. This partnership underscores our shared commitment to public safety and responsible governance.



County Executive Frank White, Jr. has shown exceptional leadership and commitment to our community by working collaboratively to secure a fair and balanced deal for the new municipal detention center, said City Councilman Crispin Rea. His thoughtful approach in considering the needs of our neighborhoods and ensuring transparency throughout this process has set a high standard for how we move forward together on critical projects. We appreciate his dedication to creating safe, equitable solutions for all residents.



The City of Kansas City has passed an ordinance accepting the terms of the land sale and authorizing the execution of the contract. In the coming weeks, the Jackson County Legislature will consider the sale agreement for approval. This collaborative effort represents a forward-thinking approach to regional public safety and is expected to serve as a model for other communities addressing similar challenges.



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Developing . . .


Tragically, the local quotient of misery, bloodshed and lost opportunity continues to spike as we enter the holiday season.

Here is the first report . . .



Homicide 7500 block E 85th Ter

This evening around 6:30PM, officers were dispatched to the 7500 block of E 85th Ter. on a reported shooting.



Officers arrived on scene and were summoned to a grassy area within an apartment complex and were advised someone had been shot. A juvenile male, over 15 years of age, was located unresponsive and suffering from gunshot trauma. Medical aid was immediately rendered by responding officers until EMS arrived. The victim was transported to an area hospital where he had succumbed to his injuries and was subsequently pronounced deceased.



Preliminary information indicates there may had been a disturbance in the area involving an unknown number of people that escalated to shots being fired and the victim being struck.



We do not have a person of interest identified and no one is currently in custody.



Crime scene personnel and homicide detectives have responded to the scene and already begin gathering witness statements and collecting any evidence.



If anyone was in or around the area at this time and saw or heard anything they are asked to contact Homicide detectives directly at 816-234-5043 or the TIPS Hotline anonymously at 816-474-TIPS there is a reward of up to $25,000 for information submitted anonymously to the TIPS hotline.



We are committed to assisting victims of violent crimes through use of Missouris Protection Program for Victims/Witnesses of Violent Crime. Funding for temporary, or even permanent relocation, may be available but is subject to pre-approval by the States administering agency.



We are working with Partners for Peace in all our homicide investigations to monitor risks for retaliation and provide social services to affected residents.

#########



Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com links . . .

Shooting in south Kansas City under investigation for homicide A shooting in south Kansas City is under investigation for a homicide, police said Wednesday night.

Teen dies following South Kansas City homicide Wednesday evening KCPD says that around 6:30 p.m., officers were dispatched to the area on a shooting call when they located a juvenile male suffering from gunshot wounds. That victim was taken to a hospital where h...

Developing . . .
For late night & early morning news junkies, we wanted to use this space to share info regarding 2024 rising violence along with a collection of stories concerning police action, local threats WITH JUST A FEW INSPIRING THROWN IN to keep us from losing hope.



Check TKC news gathering . . .

Pedestrian killed after hit-and-run in Kansas City, police say One person died after a hit-and-run Wednesday in Kansas City, Missouri, police said. The incident happened near East 103rd Terrace and Blue Ridge Boulevard.

Kansas City's east side sees violent weekend with multiple homicides Four people were shot and killed in Kansas City over the weekend after several incidents of gun violence.

Man charged in Nov. 8 deadly shooting in Kansas City, Kansas A 25-year-old Kansas City, Kansas, man is in custody facing second-degree murder charges in connection to the Nov. 8 shooting death of Daniel Thurman.

Gunshots fired as Kansas City firetruck responds to call An investigation has opened after a Kansas City firetruck came under gunfire while headed to a call near the Blue Hills neighborhood.

Police investigating after seeing uptick of car thefts in Raytown RAYTOWN, Mo. - Police are investigating several vehicle thefts that were reported Monday morning in South Central Raytown. Raytown police said they're investigating four stolen vehicle ...

Overland Park police seek help identifying theft suspect Overland Park police are asking for the public's help to identify a suspect and vehicle involved in a theft.

Kansas City woman sentenced to prison for sending child pornography to incarcerated husband A Kansas City woman was sentenced to 45 years in prison after she sent child pornography to her husband while he was in jail.

Kansas City man to face sentencing for fraudulently inflating tips at Applebee's A former Applebee's employee has been found guilty of inflating tips to fraudulently increase his earnings.

Lee's Summit man charged in 40 shoplifting cases across the Kansas City metro area A Lee's Summit man is charged with 15 counts related to more than 40 shoplifting incidents in and around the Kansas City metro.

Olathe Police searching for missing 16-year-old girl Olathe PD claims that Jennifer Carranza-Urrutia was last seen on foot near the 14900 block of West 154th Street on November 2.

Native American jeweler uses designs to raise awareness of missing and murdered indigenous women A jeweler in Kansas City is using her designs to tell the stories of Indigenous people and their way of life. Elizabeth Heule started her business, Orenda, to bring awareness to MMIW.

'Grateful for where I am': Olathe East High School shooting survivor finds new path A former assistant principal at Olathe East High School reflects on the 2022 shooting and his journey since.

Byron Roberson will be the first Black sheriff in Johnson County history Byron Roberson is the first Democrat in 96 years, and the first African American, to hold the office of Johnson County Sheriff. Chosen by voters in last week's election, Roberson succeeds the controversial sheriff Calvin Hayden, who had embraced far-right election conspiracies.

Holiday fundraiser ruined by Grinch who stole money meant for special education school Police are looking for a Grinch who stole from a holiday scholarship fundraiser.

Developing . . .
In the battle against a sedentary lifestyle in recent years, there has been a proliferation of posts on websites and by influencers on social media praising the benefits and virtues of leaving the chair behind to work standing up. Experts in prevention and occupational health explain that there are even companies that have completely eliminated traditional desks from their offices and have opted for high or height-adjustable tables; and there are many teleworkers who have joined the trend in their homes, although not always with the appropriate means and knowledge.

Often the desk is chosen for its aesthetics, for its price, but not for the functionality that the worker needs. And what doesnt make sense is to turn regular workspaces into bad ones, because on top of that, anti-ergonomic postures are acquired: the shoulders are not at the height of the keyboard, the screen is not at eye level, explains Santiago Gonzalez, president of the Spanish Association of Specialists in Prevention and Occupational Health (AEPSAL).

Two recent studies have also concluded that standing up does not in any way benefit cardiovascular health or offset the harmful effects of a sedentary lifestyle. The first of these studies, published in the scientific journal Circulation, concluded that alternating between sitting and standing at work has no effect on lowering blood pressure. The second, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology using data from the UK Biobank of more than 80,000 adults, found that standing at work does not reduce the risk of diseases such as stroke and heart failure; and that, furthermore, standing at a work station for more than two hours a day can even increase the risk of developing problems such as varicose veins or deep vein thrombosis.

Previous studies have examined the health benefits of sitting or standing on cardiometabolic markers such as blood pressure, triglyceride levels and insulin sensitivity. Ours is the first study to attempt to link standing work with the risk of heart disease and orthostatic circulatory conditions (thrombi and varicose veins), Matthew N. Ahmadi, a researcher at the University of Sydneys Faculty of Medicine and Health, told EL PAIS. According to Ahmadi, the results show that standing is better than sitting: Spending a lot of time sitting was associated with an increased risk of heart disease, while standing was not associated with an increased risk, but neither was it associated with a lower risk.

We often recommend that people stand up, but what this study shows is that doing so is not related to cardiovascular mortality, either for better or worse. We could say that with regard to serious cardiovascular pathology, standing up has no impact, so it seems clear that it is not a useful strategy to prevent cardiovascular disease, reflects Luis Rodriguez Padial, head of the Cardiology Service at the Toledo University Hospital Complex and president of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC).

The importance of movement during the work day

According to Ahmadi, the results of his study suggest that to optimally improve health and reduce the risk of heart disease, it is not enough to simply change the position from sitting to standing: this must be combined with activities that force the person to move. To improve cardiovascular health, we have to involve the cardiovascular system and activities that make us move can do that, says the researcher.

This reflection coincides with what has been shown by other recent studies, which have indicated that short bursts of just one minute of intense exercise during daily routines could have a great impact on the health of the most sedentary people, reducing mortality from all causes and the risk of heart disease by 40%.

What is advisable is to intersperse short bursts of movement throughout our day, not just get up and stand without doing anything. You have to walk, climb stairs, take advantage of the opportunity to move about while you answer a call... We have data that demonstrate the benefits of this. On the one hand, because these short bursts of movement are a break from a sedentary lifestyle; and, on the other, because for those who do nothing, they are a way to move a little, reflects Rodriguez Padial.

This opinion is shared by AEPSAL, which argues that the key idea should be movement. If we are not moving, there is no point in standing, says Gonzalez. The expert explains that sitting for a long time and standing without moving leads to the accumulation of blood in the legs and an increase in blood pressure to compensate for the lack of circulation. It is the flexion of the calf muscles when walking or moving that generates the muscle contractions necessary to help push blood toward the heart and brain: The veins move with the movement of the muscles. If we are still for a long time, in the end we can have problems such as heaviness in the legs, varicose veins and, in more serious cases, a thrombosis. And even more so if we are standing, since it is even more difficult for blood to return to the brain from that position.

In this sense, if you work standing up, in addition to taking advantage of phone calls or the need to make photocopies to go for walks, Gonzalez recommends other movements in the same work position such as standing on tiptoe or alternating the weight of the body from one leg to the other. Anything that gives movement to work will be healthy. In the end, the body is dynamic, it is designed for movement, not for standing, and if we do not give it that movement, problems arise, he concludes.

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This tech note from Kansas City's top political honco demonstrates local clap back against Elon Musk, MAGA and conservative social media denizens.

Check Mayor Q offering a bit of digital progressive leadership . . .



Don't worry . . . He'll likely block unruly followers on this platform as well. To be fair, some of the trolls deserve it.



Nevertheless, there's a good chance that BlueSky might add up to nothing.

Even the Prez-elect couldn't make "Truth Social" work in any meaningful way.



For right now, here's more context . . .



"Blueskys user base has doubled in the past 90 days  on Tuesday the company said it had gained 1 million new sign-ups in the past week alone, bringing it to more than 15 million total users.



"The energy on X is markedly different: Musk spent months using the site to boost President-elect Donald Trump. In recent days, researchers have recorded surges in sexist language like your body, my choice on the site. And thats on top of previous changes by Musk, like cutting moderators, restoring banned accounts, allowing racist and Nazi accounts and changing the platforms verification system to boost anyone who was willing to pay, regardless of what they posted  all of which helped to tank the companys core ad business."



Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com links . . .

How to migrate from X to Bluesky without losing your followers This extension lets you easily migrate your follows and block list from X (formerly Twitter) to Bluesky, but you need to act fast because its functionality may be short-lived. Here's why.

Bluesky's user base has doubled in the past 90 days. Is it a mass exodus from X? | CNN Business X competitor Bluesky rocketed to the No. 1 spot on the Apple App Store's US chart this week, as many users of Elon Musk's platform said they were decamping in the wake of his significant role in the US presidential election.

Developing . . .
Kansas Conservatives Expose Prison Funding Trans Surgery For Convicted Murderer



This sordid story starts with an old school offender starts with political controversy that might seem harsh but reading through it . . . There's actually someconcern here for the safety of female inmates . . . Check-it:

The Sentinel asked officials at KDOC why an inmate who was convicted of murder in 1970 was given sex change surgery and the cost to taxpayers. We also asked when the procedure took place and whether any consideration was given to the mental health and safety of the female inmates  particularly given Lambs history of violence against women  with whom the inmate may be at some point housed.



The Sentinel also asked why someone with Lambs criminal historyand history of escapeis not being held at a higher security level and whether it is true that employees had their livelihoods threatened over misgendering.



As of publication, KDOC has not responded.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

Convicted murderer got sex change surgery courtesy of Kansas taxpayers - The Sentinel Department of Corrections records indicate 83-year old Thomas Lamb had sex change surgery paid by taxpayers.

Related . . .

KDOC threatens disciplinary action against employees for misgendering "residents" - The Sentinel The Kansas Department of Corrections says misgendering inmates by using the wrong pronouns for inmates is sexual harassment.

Developing . . .
We won't opine much . . . But when it comes to tees in school. All of the precedent seems to suggest that students don't have many rights and the courts always seem to side with teachers & administrators.

However . . . This note is worth checking . . .



AG Kobach files brief to protect students' free speech rights

TOPEKA - (Nov. 13, 2024)  Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach yesterday filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, along with 17 other states, to protect students First Amendment free speech rights.



A middle school student in Massachusetts wore a t-shirt to school that had the message, There are only two genders. School officials told the student he couldnt wear the shirt. The student then put tape over the word two, so the message read, There are only (censored) genders, but school officials banned that too.



"The right to free speech does not disappear inside a school building. The First Amendment protects this student's right to speak -- even when that speech is disfavored by woke school administrators," Kobach said.



The brief from the attorneys general asks the Supreme Court to hear the case after a lower court sided with the school.



In referring to the 1969 case, known as Tinker, the brief argues that the Supreme Court ruled in that case that, a student may express his mind if he does so without materially and substantially interfering with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school and without colliding with the rights of others.



South Carolina and West Virginia co-led the brief, joined by the attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.



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Developing . . .
Elon Musks rise to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the U.S. following Donald Trumps victory is no coincidence, nor is it solely the result of his estimated $200 million financial contribution to the Republican candidates campaign. Musk has provided populism with a powerful tool: the social network X.

A new study conducted in nine countries reveals that X has become a platform for polarization. The research highlights that this is exploited by both left-wing and right-wing users to marginalize opponents, dissenters, or moderates, treating them as enemies. As a result, many users have started to leave the platform, seeking alternatives like Threads and Bluesky.

The study, published in Nature Communications and led by the City St. Georges School of Science & Technology at the University of London in collaboration with the Alan Turing Institute, analyzed 375 million interactions on X over one day in September 2022. It focused on political communication in nine countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The conclusion is common across all the nations analyzed: We find that there is a common ally-enemy structure in how members classified as part of the political left and right interact with each other.

The mechanism driving this phenomenon goes beyond simply sharing or disliking messages; it is driven primarily by the toxicity of the content itself. Out-group interactions, defined by the network, are more toxic than in-group interactions, the study states, noting that political discussions are far more toxic than discussions on other topics.

In this way, the authors broaden the scope of harm caused by the platform, which many studies limit to filter bubbles or echo chambers, where users are exposed only to content that aligns with their existing biases. According to the researchers, the effects are more significant because X facilitates communication between groups with differing ideologies, but this communication is often toxic. Psychological models suggest that this could induce a reinforcing cycle which may worsen interactional polarization over time, the study acknowledges.

The problem driven by what is known as affective polarization, which the study defines as the tendency to dislike ones partisan opponents.

For Andrea Baronchelli, a mathematics professor at City St. Georges and the lead researcher on the study, the consistent finding across all nine countries is critical: Our research reveals a key attraction of large platforms like X [formerly Twitter]: the opportunity to engage in toxic exchanges with political opponents, as opposed to smaller platforms that simply allow conversations between like-minded users. This work confirms that the trend extends across all countries, suggesting a society in which the other is seen only as an opponent and listening is reserved for [like-minded] allies.

The situation, Baronchelli warns, may worsen  though it will be difficult to track due to the data access restrictions Musk imposed after acquiring the platform. We no longer have access to the high-quality data necessary to study these issues, he explains. This lack of transparency is a significant democratic concern and poses a challenge if we want to improve the quality of political communication online.

This restriction is one of the limitations acknowledged by the authors of the study. The research was limited to a single day and nine countries within a specific context, so it does not capture the trajectory of political discourse over time, nor is it applicable to countries outside this sample.

However, Baronchelli says that his team remains committed to continuing to study broader impacts due to the significant risks posed to democratic life by platforms like X.

The study challenges the view that social media simply reflects an existing societal divide, instead arguing that it actively exacerbates it, with potentially severe consequences: Severe polarization can stifle debate, drive animosity between groups, and may result in democratic backsliding or violence.

X exodus and rise of alternative networks

One reason for the growing exodus from X is the warning issued by the European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, Thierry Breton, who cautioned the platform against using it to spread disinformation and illegal content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Breton reminded Musk that X must comply with the European Digital Services Act, which mandates content moderation obligations. The Brazilian government echoed these concerns, even temporarily suspending the platform.

In addition to government action, several users, such as The Guardian, and La Vanguardia, are abandoning Elon Musks network or turning to alternative platforms like Threads and Bluesky for their social media interactions.

Prominent figures, including actress Jamie Lee Curtis, have also joined the growing list of X dropouts. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to know the difference, Curtis posted on Instagram, where she announced her departure from X.

The Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) has also announced that it will cease its use of X by the end of the year. The Berlinale has decided to say goodbye to X on Dec 31, 2024. Thank you for following us here all these years. Stay connected with all things Berlinale on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and our website. See you there! the organization posted.

In the meantime, alternatives to X are experiencing strong user growth. Bluesky, founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, claims to have surpassed 14 million users, with nearly 10% of them joining after Trumps victory, primarily from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Were seeing increased activity levels across all different forms of engagement, Emily Liu, a company spokeswoman, told The New York Times. in an email. New or newly active users on the platform include celebrities such as rapper Flavor Flav, author John Green, as well as political figures and media personalities. Hello less hateful world, Mark Cuban, the billionaire and Kamala Harris supporter, posted on Tuesday.

Threads, the platform created by Meta to compete with X, has reported reaching 275 million monthly active users this month.

No spokesperson or representative for X has responded to this newspapers request for comment on the study published in Nature Communications.

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The latest victim of subway surfing was a young New Yorker of around 18 years of age who lost an arm and a leg after falling onto the tracks last Wednesday. It was 6.10 p.m. and she was attempting to board a moving train at the West 135th Street-Lenox Avenue subway stop in the Harlem neighborhood. She is in critical condition, but many other subway surfers have not survived. According to police sources, this dangerous practice has claimed the lives of six young people between the ages of 11 and 15 so far this year (and caused the death of five teenagers in 2023).

Subway surfing is a phenomenon that occurs mainly in New York, where the subway system is extensive. It consists of climbing onto the roof of a moving subway car and walking on it while maintaining balance. Falls onto the tracks are not only potentially life-threatening but often fatal, yet teenagers who practice this trend do so seduced by the prospect of becoming famous on social media.

When you are in that moment of adrenaline, please think of the consequences. There are many other ways to have fun. Please do not get carried away by a challenge on social media, was the message given to young people by the father of Adolfo Sorzano, a 13-year-old boy who died on October 23 while surfing on a subway in Queens. Youre your own person. You can say no to your friends. However, just four days later, another young girl of the same age, Krystel Romero, died after falling from a moving train on Flushing Avenue, Queens, while doing the same thing.

Heartbroken to hear that subway surfing  and the pursuit of social media clout  has stolen another life, New York City Mayor Eric Adams posted on X on October 28. We are doing everything we can to raise awareness against this dangerous trend, but we need all New Yorkers  and our social media companies  to do their part, too. No post is worth your future. As early as September 2023, Adams launched an awareness campaign: Subway surfing kills. Ride inside, stay alive.

Eric Adams at the Bushwick Ave-Aberdeen St. station, where a teenager died after subway surfing in Brooklyn, New York, in June 2023. Shawn Inglima (Getty Images)

David C. Banks, head of the New York City Department of Education, has distributed awareness materials to 60 schools located around the 7, J, M and Z subway lines in New York, where the highest number of cases have occurred. Meanwhile, the NYPD has deployed 900 drones, which according to Mayor Adams have contributed to the arrests of 114 young people, including a nine-year-old boy. In addition, there is a free online mental health care program for teenagers sponsored by the city.

According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the number of subway surfers has quadrupled since 2021, from 206 to 984 young people. Arrests have also increased significantly: according to ABC, 240 people have been arrested this year, compared to 193 in 2023. Although it has been practiced since the 1980s, subway surfing has now become a viral trend thanks to social media, where it has generated more than 10,900 related posts, turning the challenge into an incentive for vulnerable teenagers thirsty for attention and popularity. Given the severity of the trend, the MTA has asked social media company executives to remove all related content.

In October, a group of 14 lawyers from around the U.S. sued TikTok over the dangerousness of its challenges, claiming that the company knows that compulsive use and other harmful effects of its platform are wreaking havoc on the mental health of millions of American children and teens. On Reddit, there are several groups where participants exchange advice. Theres always room from the platform to the back, and theres no risk. The only thing you have to worry about is the police at a station, but theyll probably just give you a verbal warning about all those who have died from riding in the front of the train, one commented. We should encourage more subway surfing. Its not only a talent, but a form of personal expression. New York is the city of diversity, equality, and inclusion, so lets not discriminate against subway surfers.

The hashtag #subwaysurfers has now been removed from TikTok with a warning that it could be associated with behavior or content that violates its rules: Promoting a safe and positive experience is TikToks top priority. However, information about the movement is still widely available, and videos of the video game of the same name, Subway Surfers, can still be viewed, in which users run along tracks and jump on top of trains to escape from the police.

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By Nicole Lyons, November 13, 2024

University of Central Missouri (UCM) faculty member Jay Steinkruger, Ph.D., has been appointed to the John Hess Endowed Chair in Chemistry for Student Mentorship.

Steinkruger, chair of the Department of Physical Sciences and professor of Chemistry, is the first person to fill the position, which is UCMs first endowed chair. UCM alumnus Dr. Stephen Lacey and his wife, Ann, established the endowment with the UCM Alumni Foundation in 2023 in honor of professor emeritus John Hess, Ph.D.

Hess retired from UCM in 2002 after more than 33 years of service. His work as an educator and mentor touched the lives of hundreds of students, including Lacey, through courses in ecology, genetics, ornithology, herpetology and scientific and technical photography, among many others.



Lacey graduated from UCM in 1976 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and completed an MD at Washington University in St. Louis in 1981. He served on the faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas for 26 years. He concurrently practiced gastroenterology in Southlake, Texas, for 25 years.



Through their gift, the Laceys seek to reward and foster the careers of faculty members in Chemistry and Biology who have a similar love of mentoring.



Jeff Robertson, Ph.D., dean of the College of Health, Science, and Technology, said Steinkrugers application and vision for the position and its resources most closely aligned with the donors vision.



Jay has a reputation for being a strong student mentor, Robertson said. The number and quality of the former mentored students that provided letters of support also spoke to their appreciation of his guidance inside and outside the classroom.



Since joining UCM in 2012, Steinkruger has held the positions of assistant professor, associate professor, professor, and associate dean of the College of Health, Science, and Technology. He also served two years as chair and one year as co-chair of the President's Commission on Access, Opportunity and Community.



During his senior year in high school and into college, Steinkruger said he had mentors who instilled a sense of learning and critical thinking and changed the trajectory of his path. As he started his career, he wanted to play a role in student development, just as mentors had done for him.



Steinkruger said hes made it a priority to offer holistic mentorship beyond the classroom or the lab, which he noted was described in the Hess Endowed Chair description.



Its investing in the person across from you and their general well-being, their family, their friends, all the things that drive them as a human in addition to them as a professional and just trying to be there for them one step at a time, he said. As I get to know them and understand the things they are passionate about, I use that trust and relationship to try to bring the best out of them as a developing professional.



As he embarks on the new endowed chair position, Steinkruger said he plans to continue the same level of personal support, but now he can brainstorm new ways to provide that support with additional resources.



He hopes to work with campus colleagues to develop a more robust advising model for students interested in professional schools. Steinkruger would also like to create a program that allows students to apply for funding to cover the costs associated with opportunities like preparatory courses and entrance exams.



He also wants to work with colleagues to provide additional resources for hands-on experiences for students, such as undergraduate research projects or attending professional development conferences.



Steinkruger said the Laceys have provided an incredible gift that honors Hess and empowers current faculty members to continue paying that forward to students.



I'm excited to just be able to use the resources with colleagues to empower students, to give them opportunities to do things that they wouldn't have had otherwise. And I think that ultimately is what this is all about, Steinkruger said. It's about investing in the next group of young people that are working their tails off to try to develop into the leaders of tomorrow.



Robertson said the Laceys provided a meaningful, gracious, transformative gift that will serve UCM students, especially those seeking careers in medical and allied health professions, for generations.



For more information about the UCM Alumni Foundation, visit ucmfoundation.org. For more information about the College of Health, Science, and Technology, visit ucmo.edu/chst.
The countdown is underway to January 20, the day Donald Trump will take office as president of the United States. Faced with the threat of mass deportation that the Republican president-elect has promised, migrant rights organizations are wasting no time uniting to protect immigrants on two main fronts: asking those who may be affected to contact defense groups and get information, and urging local and state authorities as well as the Biden administration to take advantage of the little more than two months left to approve measures to prevent expulsions.

You may be hearing noise as I speak. Its people working in my house, because I want to be sure that I can see when ICE and CBP agents come knocking on my door. This is not a drill, explained Greisa Martinez Rosas, executive director of United We Dream, during an online session on behalf of a coalition of 38 human rights organizations from 32 states scheduled to announce their actions in response to Trumps threats. Martinez is one of the beneficiaries of DACA, the program granting legal residence to half a million migrants who entered the country illegally when they were children (the so-called Dreamers). It is just one of the programs that are in the sights of the president-elect in his crusade against immigration, which he intends to begin on the first day of his term.

Immigrant advocates are warning anyone who will listen that the situation is very serious. The threat of deportation is not just a campaign promise. We have witnessed it in the last [Trump] administration. We saw raids in our communities, in our neighborhoods. We witnessed how our families came to CHIRLA and asked for resources because they were coming after their father, their mother, even grandmothers, said Areli Hernandez, another DACA beneficiary and director of Executive Affairs for CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights.

Alarm bells went off in the migrant community as soon as Trumps victory was announced, and the appointments of hard-line immigration advocates Tom Homan, Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem to his administration leave no doubt about the new presidents intentions.

To be prepared for what may come, the organizations are asking President Joe Biden to quickly adopt measures to protect them, because this is a moment that requires moral and political leadership, says Martinez Rosas. There are three priorities for which they are pressuring the current administration, which they blame for not having done what was necessary in four years to protect them: activate temporary protected status (TPS); speed up the processing of people in detention centers, and ensure that any new measures taken will be made to protect migrants.

According to these groups, one of the most effective tools they have is the dissemination of information. Immigrants have rights: human rights, civil rights, that is the most important thing to remember, says Hernandez. One of the recommendations she makes is to get a rights card on her website that reminds people that they have the right to remain silent. We dont have to disclose our [immigration] status when they ask us. That is still a right, she says.

Organizations have begun to mobilize all their resources to inform migrants of their rights through workshops, legal resources and educational services. They also claim to have increased resources to reinforce the psychological help that migrants will need due to the anxiety that the fear of deportation and family separation can trigger.

The battle against oppressive measures approved by the new administration will be fought in the courts, for which legal services are already preparing, as in the case of Arizona. At the election, the border state approved a proposal to authorize the police to detain undocumented migrants. We will fight against Trumps mass deportation agenda every step of the way. We will work with allies in the legislature and take legal action to defend immigrant families in Arizona, said Karime Rodriguez, director of services for Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA).

As they prepare for the legal challenges that may come, these groups are appealing to civil organizations, such as unions, businesses and universities, to join in protecting migrants. They are also calling on local and state authorities to quickly approve measures that would increase their protection.

Without the support of the authorities, they acknowledge, the room for maneuver is small. The window within which we can take action is short, and we must work together to reach Congress and the presidency and ensure that there are results. In the meantime, we call on our members to take action to protect themselves, said Mireya Reith, co-director of FIRM (Fair Immigration Reform Movement).

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Makkah, Madinah Most Preferred Real Estate Destinations for Rich Muslims

Makkah al Mukarramah and Madinah al Munawwarah - the two holiest cities globally, are the most preferred real estate destinations to buy properties for wealthy Muslims from around the world, a latest survey has found

Friday November 15, 2024 10:48 AM , ummid.com Business Desk

Makkah al Mukarramah and Madinah al Munawwarah - the two holiest cities globally, are the most preferred real estate destinations to buy properties for wealthy Muslims from around the world, a latest survey has found.

According to the survey conducted by London based Knight Frank, 84 per cent wealthy Muslims the real estate consultancy spoke to preferred buying home in Makkah or Madinah, while 82 per cent of them are likely to buy homes and properties in other cities of Saudi Arabia, Arabic daily Al-Eqtisadiah reported.

The global real estate consultancy and estate agency spoke to over 500 Muslims classified as High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) in as many as 09 countries.

Ground, Reason

The HNWIs are individuals with investable assets of at least $1 million. The survey also found religion as the basis of the preferred real estate choice.

The fact that 84 per cent of global HNWIs interested in purchasing property in Saudi Arabia look to one of the Holy Cities underscores the demand for home ownership from outside the country, said Faisal Durrani, one of the partners at Knight Frank.

Knight Frank also said the rich Muslims it surveyed together already own a total of over 2,250 homes with 29 per cent of them owning 3 to 4 properties in the holy city.

Saudi Real Estate Market Worth

The value of the real estate market in Saudi Arabia is expected to reach $2.1 trillion this year, according to Statista data, and the sectors contribution to the countrys GDP is expected to rise to 10 per cent in 2030, according to Standard & Poors.

The survey results revealed that 48 per cent of those looking to buy a property in Makkah intend to use it as their primary residence.

Overall, Saudi Arabia is seen as a sound investment for wealthy individuals, with 60% of respondents noting that the country is a good investment opportunity.

A majority of wealthy home-buyers said they were looking to purchase homes in Saudi Arabia within the next two years, the Knight Frank survey said.

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Syllabus Cut, Internal Marks  Major Changes in 2025 CBSE 10, 12 Exams

The Central Board of Education (CBSE) has announced major changes for the 2025 Class 10th and 12th board exams that included reduction in syllabus and internal marks among other things

Thursday November 14, 2024 12:09 PM , ummid.com News Network

CBSE Board Exam 2025: The Central Board of Education (CBSE) has announced major changes for the 2025 Class 10th and 12th board exams that included reduction in syllabus and internal marks among other things.

As per the announcement made by the CBSE in the boards meeting with school principals in Indore, a decision has been taken to reduce the class X and XII syllabus by up to 15%.

"The reduction in the syllabus aligns with CBSEs ongoing initiatives to decrease the academic burden and enable students to focus more on essential concepts", Vikas Kumar Agrawal, CBSE Regional Officer Bhopal, said while addressing Bridging the Gap principals' summit held at the Brilliant Convention Centre in Indore.

Agrawal said that the syllabus reduction is intended to enhance learning by concentrating on core contents, allowing students to understand subjects more thoroughly rather than relying on rote memorisation.

"This will help students gain a deeper grasp of their subjects," he said.

Internal assessment weightage increased

The board has also decided to take open book exam for selected subjects announcing at the same time that increased in the internal assessment to 40%.

The internal assessments will include projects, assignments, and periodic tests, ensuring a broader evaluation of students' progress and abilities.

The CBSE has also decided to experiment "open-book exam format" for select subjects to encourage critical thinking and application-based learning.

"This new format will be introduced in subjects like English Literature and Social Science, allowing students to consult their textbooks during exams", Agrawal said.

The CBSE had earlier released the schedule and time table of practical exams. The board is however yet to release the 10th and 12th date sheet .

The students registering for the 2025 board exams should note that the Class 10 and 12 exams this year will begin on February 15, 2025.

Releasing the exam dates, the CBSE said Practical Exams for Class 10 at all the schools affiliated to CBSE will begin on January 01, 2025 whereas that of Class 12 will start on February 15, 2025.

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After being elected president for a second term, Donald Trump has begun announcing the names of his team for the key positions within his administration. Most of them are conservative figures and loyal to Trumps Republican vision for the United States. He has also rewarded those who helped him during his successful campaign to return to the White House.

One of his choices was controversial Congressman Matt Gaetz, whom he nominated as attorney general. However, his troubled past, which includes an accusation of child sex trafficking and rape for transporting across state lines and paying a 17-year-old girl to have sex with him, caused the Republican to withdraw his name from running for the post. Gaetz was also investigated for illegal drug use, sharing inappropriate videos and images in the House of Representatives, using campaign funds for personal use and accepting impermissible gifts. The new nominee for attorney general is legal expert Pam Bondi.

Trump has promised to close the border on his first day in the Oval Office and initiate the largest deportation operation against illegal immigrants in the countrys history. He has said he will sign dozens of executive orders that day. For his second term, he has promised to impose tariffs on imported goods, reverse climate policies that seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, stop the war in Ukraine, end his legal cases, and pardon those who took part in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The former president will be sworn into office for a second term on January 20, the day the Constitution provides for the presidential inauguration. After taking his oath of office, Trump will move back into the White House.

J. D. Vance - Vice President At the age of 40, J.D. Vance will be the vice president of the United States as of January 20, 2025. The senator from Ohio is a lawyer by profession. He began his career as a paralegal in Kentucky and later changed his line of business to become a director of the company Mithril Capital, owned by Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal and one of the first investors in Facebook, who donated $10 million in 2022 to Vance's campaign.

Vance's book 'Hillbilly Elegy' brought him into the public eye. In it, the former Marine recounts his political rise from the bottom up and emphasizes his story of poverty and self-improvement. Marco Rubio - Secretary of State The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio defends the iron fist approach and has been a supporter of U.S. interventionism abroad, although an increasingly moderate one. The senator from Florida has served as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and the Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives. In his legislative activity, he has promoted the containment of China, the denunciation of alleged human rights abuses committed by Beijing, and the blockade of Chinese products. Scott Bessent - Secretary of the Treasury Hedge fund manager Scott Bessent (age 62) will be Donald Trump's nominee to take the position currently held by Janet Yellen. Bessent has been one of the biggest fundraisers and donors to the president-elect and served as his financial advisor on his 2024 presidential campaign. If confirmed, he would be the second openly gay man to serve the U.S. Cabinet. Pete Hegseth - Secretary of Defense Fox News host Pete Hegseth (44) is Trump's nominee to take over as Secretary of Defense. He is a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and, if confirmed by Congress, will be in charge of issues such as military assistance to Israel and support for Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion. During the first Trump administration he headed the Department of Veterans Affairs. In 2017, a staffer accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her in a hotel room. No charge were filed and Hegseth paid the accuser as part of a non-disclosure arrangement in 2020. Pam Bondi - Attorney General Legal expert Pam Bondi (59) will be the nominee for attorney general after Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from the nomination. Bondi served as Florida's attorney general from 2011 to 2019, the first woman to take the position. She has been a close ally of Trump, and was part of his defense team during his impeachment trial. In 2024 she headed the legal department of the America First Policy Institute. Doug Burgum - Interior Secretary The current governor of North Dakota, Douglas Burgum (68) is Trump's choice to lead the Department of the Interior. He is one of the wealthiest politicians in the United States with a net worth of over $1 billion. He is founder of the Kilbourne Group, a real estate development firm, and is co-founder of Arthur Ventures, a software venture capital group. Brooke Rollins - Secretary of Agriculture Attorney and policy advisor Brooke Rollins (age 52) has been announced as the choice to lead the Department of Agriculture. During Trump's previous presidency, she served as acting director of the U.S. Domestic Policy Council, and prior to that oversaw the White House Office of American Innovation. She was also president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank. Howard Lutnick - Secretary of Commerce Billionaire businessman Howard Lutnick (63) is Trump's choice for Secretary of Commerce. He is currently CEO and chairman of financial services firms Cantor Fitzerald and BGC Group. He is known for his philanthropic work, which he began doing since losing 658 employees and his brother in the September 11, 2001 attacks. Lutnick also survived the collapse of the twin towers. He helped raise funds for Trump's 2020 and 2024 campaigns and supports his idea of placing tariffs on foreign goods. Lori Chavez-DeRemer - Secretary of Labor The president-elect has chosen Latina Lori Chavez-DeRemer (age 56) to take over the Department of Labor. The politician served as mayor of Happy Valley, Oregon from 2011 to 2019, and was the first Republican woman to represent Oregon in the House. She is currently representing her state's 5th congressional district. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - Secretary of Health and Human Services Trump has officially selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (70) to take over the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy spent much of his life as part of non-profit organizations focused on environmental protection. Since 2005 he has gained prominence for promoting anti-vaccine disinformation, especially during the Covid pandemic, about which he promoted conspiracy theories. He was a presidential candidate in 2024, but resigned and came out in favor of Trump.

Sean Duffy - Secretary of Transportation Trump has nominated Sean Duffy (53) to serve as his Secretary of Transportation. He first gained prominence as a cast member on the reality show 'The Real World: Boston' before serving as district attorney in Ashland County, Wisconsin. He then served as a representative for Wisconsin's 7th Congressional District from 2011 to 2019. He is also a commentator and contributor on Fox News. Chris Wright - Secretary of Energy Oil executive and climate denier Chris Wright (age 59) is Trumo's choice to lead the Department of Energy. He is an engineer and entrepreneur who founded the oilfield services company Liberty Energy, where he is CEO. He also sits on the boards of Oklo Inc, a nuclear technology company, and EMX Royalty, a mineral royalty and mineral rights royalty payer. Linda McMahon - Secretary of Education Business executive Linda McMahon (76) is the nominee for secretary of Education for the second Trump administration. McMahon was a founder of the company now known as the World Wrestling Inc. along with her husband, wrestling promoter Vince McMahon. The executive also became known as a performer in the WWE. She served as head of the Small Business Administration (SBA) from 2017 to 2019, and was considered one of Trump's most valuable allies during his 2024 presidential campaign. Doug Collins - Secretary of Veterans Affairs Trump has chosen politician Doug Collins (58) to take over the Department of Veterans Affairs. Collins served as a representative of Georgia's 9th congressional district from 2013 to 2021. Since 2022 he retired from politics to serve as legal counsel to the now president-elect. Kristi Noem - Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security The president-elect has nominated Kristi Noem (52) as the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Noem has served since 2019 as governor of South Dakota, the first woman to do so. She previously served as representative for South Dakota's only congressional district (2011-2019) and was a member of the state House of Representatives (2007-2011). In the new administration, she will have a key role in Trump's immigration plans, as well as a focus on counterterrorism. Susie Wiles - Jefa de Gabinete Trump has named political advisor Susie Wiles (67) as his chief of staff. Wiles, a New Jersey native, worked on Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign and on Trump's presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2024. Lee Zeldin - Environmental Protection Agency Trump has nominated former New York congressman Lee Zeldin to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A native New Yorker, he was an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve before entering politics. He was a candidate for governor of New York, but lost to Democrat Kathy Hochul. He has become one of Trump's closest allies and defended him in his impeachment hearings when he was accused of motivating Ukraine to investigate his 2020 election challenger, Joe Biden. Tulsi Gabbard - Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has shuttled between Democrats and Republicans over the past few years, and has also been an independent candidate and an enthusiastic representative of the Trump campaign. From 2013 until 2021 she was a Democratic congresswoman. In 2020 she ran in the Democratic presidential primaries and did not abandon her candidacy until very late in the race, despite the fact that the results did not favor her. In 2022 she declared herself an independent and this year she threw her support behind the Republican candidate. Jamieson Greer - U.S. Trade Representative Attorney and veteran Jamieson Greer would serve as Trade Representative in the next Trump administration. During the Republican's first presidency he served as Chief of Staff to the U.S. Trade Representative. If confirmed, he would be the first Cabinet-level official to be Mormon since Mike Leavitt. Elise Stefanik - Ambassador to the United Nations Trump announced that he would nominate conservative Elise Stefanik (40) for the post of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She has been the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference since 2021 and gained notoriety after questioning college students at a congressional hearing on anti-Semitism.

Stephen Cheung - Director of Communications for the White House Political advisor Stephen Cheung (age 42) has been named as Communications Director for the next Trump administration, with whom he worked on his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. For the 2024 campaign, he served as campaign spokesman. He has also worked in communications for the Ultimate Fighting Championship sports organization, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Russ Vought - Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought (age 48) was Director of the Office of Management and Budget during Trump's first presidency from 2020 to 2021. Prior to that he was deputy director and acting director of the office. He is considered one of the chief architects of Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation-led plan that seeks to reshape the U.S. government. Kelly Loeffler - Administratior for the Small Business Administration Businesswoman Kelly Loeffler (age 54) has been nominated by Trump to take over the Small Business Administration. Loeffler served as Georgia's senator from 2020 to 2021. Prior to that, she was CEO of Bakkt, a subsidiary of financial services and commodities provider Intercontinental Exchange. She was also an owner of the WNBA team, Atlanta Dream. Marty Makary - Food and Drug Commissioner British-American Marty Makary is the nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Makary is a surgeon, author, lecturer and commentator currently practicing surgical oncology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. During the Covid pandemic, he supported facemask use, but opposed vaccination mandates. Dave Weldon - Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Politician and physician Dave Waldon is Trump's choice to head the CDC. He previously served as a representative for Florida's 15th congressional district, and ran for senator in 2012, but lost the race. He also served in the Army from 1981 to 1987 and was in the Military Reserve until 1992. Mehmet Oz - Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Known for being a medical television host, Dr. Oz (age 64) has been chosen to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Known for promoting pseudoscience, alternative medicines, faith healing and other paranormal beliefs, he has been criticized by his colleagues and various medical publications. In 2022 he ran for Senate but lost the election. Dan Scavino - Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino first met Trump when he became his golf caddy in 1992. During his first presidency, he served as White House Deputy Chief of Staff, a position he would return to in his second term. He also served as Director of Social Media. Prior to politics he was the general manager of the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester. Kash Patel - FBI Director Attorney and former Justice Department federal prosecutor Kash Patel (age 44) is Trump's choice to take over the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Patel served as Chief of Staff for the Secretary of Defense, and as counselor to the acting director of the Intelligence Department, during Trump's first presidency. The politician played a key role in helping Republicans when they investigated Trump for Russian interference in the 2016 election. Keith Kellogg - Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Retired veteran Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg (age 80) will be Trump's special envoy to try to seek peace between Ukraine and Russia. The military man served as National Security Advisor to Vice President Mike Pence during the first Trump administration. Matthew Whitaker - Ambassador to NATO Lawyer and politician Matthew Whitaker (age 55) served as Attorney General during the first Trump administration, which was shrouded in controversy, as his appointment was challenged in several lawsuits, in addition to being questioned by experts due to Trump asking Jeff Sessions -who held the position- to resign, so that Whitaker could take it.

John Ratcliffe - CIA Director The pick to head the Central Intelligence Agency is politician John Ratcliffe. He served as a representative of Texas' fourth district from 2015 to 2020 and was director of National Intelligence from 2020 to 2021, after Trump nominated him. During his tenure, he made public statements that contradicted the intelligence community's assessments. Very conservative in his views, he is a staunch ally of the current president-elect. Michael Waltz - National Security Advisor Michael Waltz (50) will succeed Jake Sullivan as national security advisor. Waltz served for more than 27 years in the military and was deployed as a Special Forces officer in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa. He began his career in 2018 when he ran for Representative of Florida's 6th Congressional District. Steven Witkoff - Special Envoy to the Middle East In one of his most controversial choices, Trump has appointed real estate investor Steven Witkoff (67) as his special envoy for the Middle East. The founder of Witkoff Group has never worked in politics but remained close to Trump during the final months of campaigning. He was also selected to co-lead the inaugural committee for Trump's second presidency along with former senator and businesswoman Kelly Loeffler. Mike Huckabee - U.S. Ambassador to Israel Trump selected former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee gained fame as a preacher and television host before becoming lieutenant governor of Arkansas (1993-1996) and later governor of the state (1996-2007). In 2016, he sought the Republican Party nomination for president. Tom Homan - "Border Czar" Trump has announced the appointment of Tom Homan (62) as his border czar, an unofficial position within the U.S. government and which therefore does not require Senate confirmation. Homan is a native New Yorker with a long career in immigration. He served as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from 2017 to 2018 and worked within the first Trump administration, being the main promoter of the idea of separating illegal immigrant families and deporting them. He has also been highly critical of so-called sanctuary cities. Vivek Ramaswamy - Department of Government Efficiency Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (39) will lead the new Department of Government Efficiency. Originally from Ohio, he graduated from Harvard and Yale before founding the biotech firm Roviant Sciences. He ran in the presidential primaries in 2024, but withdrew after the Iowa caucuses and endorsed Trump. He will work with fellow tech magnate Elon Musk. Elon Musk - Departament of Government Efficiency South African-born entrepreneur Elon Musk (53) will co-head the new department within the U.S. government after helping Trump during his campaign. He is CEO of the SpaceX space agency (which he founded), and also of the automotive company Tesla, Inc and owner and president of X Corp  the company that operates the social network X  as well as founding Neuralink and OpenAI. William McGinley - White House counsel Former White House Cabinet Secretary William McGinley has been named White House counsel. McGinley has served as deputy general counsel of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and legal advisor to the RNC Standing Committee on Rules. He has also served as general counsel to the National Republican Senatorial National Committee.

He has been a Trump ally since his first campaign in 2016, where he worked to attract delegates to the Republican National Convention. Todd Blanche - Deputy Attorney General Trump's personal defense attorney Todd Blanche (50) is his choice for deputy attorney general. Blanche represented the Republican in his New York criminal trial in which a jury found him guilty of 34 felonies linked to falsifying financial records. Although the attorney was registered as a Democrat, he switched to the Republican Party in 2024. Brendan Carr - Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr (45) has been selected to lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He is currently a member of the commission where he has served as an advisor. He has gained prominence for showing support for banning TikTok on the grounds that the app is dangerous to national security, and is a strong critic of large technology companies.

Stephen Miller - National Security Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller (age 39) is an American political consultant who worked as a senior policy advisor and speechwriter for President Donald Trump, known for his far-right, anti-immigration stance. He was one of the main architects of policies such as the travel ban and family separation, with a controversial record linked to white nationalist ideologies. David O. Sacks - Crypto Czar. South African-American entrepreneur, investor and author David O. Sacks (age 52) has been named by Trump as the expert on cryptocurrencies and Artificial Intelligence. He is co-founder of Craft Ventures, a venture capital firm, and is known for his work at PayPal, Yammer and Zenefits, and for his investments in major tech companies such as Facebook, Uber and Airbnb.

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Starting your journey as an international student in the US comes with hundreds of better opportunities and job prospects, but getting there is not as easy as the application itself.

With these 4 tips for accepted international students in the US, you can easily follow steps that will ensure you a smooth transition from VISA applications to finally attending the university orientation.

Remember, you worked hard to get this opportunity to study abroad and these processes will prepare you for an unforgettable higher education.

Apply for a Student Visa Early

One of the early tips for accepted international students in the US is to immediately apply for a visa. US News shared that your chosen university will send you a form I-20 so you can schedule an appointment at the US embassy or consulate as soon as possible. It's best to apply 5 months before classes begin and keep track of fees, such as the SEVIS, before attending your visa interview.

University Orientation Programs

The scariest part as an accepted international student in the US is departing your home country for another. But don't worry, most universities have pre-departure orientations you can attend while still at home so you're prepared when you arrive. There are also on-campus ones, but both will give you practical tips to help you survive the life of an international student emotionally, mentally, and socially.

Prepare Life Off Campus

According to US News, not a lot of campuses offer dormitories for international students. You're lucky if this is the case, but if not, you have time to prepare for what your college life would be like outside of your chosen university. Keystone Education Group noted that your school will definitely share information on housing, packing lists, and even health insurance, so you can live comfortably and safely away from home.

Book Travel Arrangements Early

Imagine you've gone to lengths to attend your dream university in the US only to find out that stressful last-minute changes await you on the campus. To avoid this, US News also shared that you can enter the US up to 30 days before classes begin if you're on an F-1 or M-1 visa. You can plan ahead to catch cheaper flights and it's also best to regularly check university guidelines on the best airports to arrive at as well as transportation methods and costs from the airport to the campus.

Checking all requirements off your list already takes a lot of time and effort, but these 4 tips for accepted international students in the US will help lessen the burden as you prepare for college.
November 14 2024

Disused dockland in the heart of Glasgow could become home to a waterside park and events space under new plans by New City Vision.

The developer is working with the Central Govan Action Plan (CGAP) to transfer brownfield land at Govan Graving Docks into community ownership, after transforming the land into publicly accessible green space.

Hosting pop-up markets and community events the flexible outdoor space would serve as a backdrop to a separate application for 304 homes as well as the reopened Dry Dock No1, where restoration has begun on the TS Queen Mary.

Harry ODonnell, chairman of New City Vision commented: The plans to create a new riverside destination, via a new publicly owned open space, have been designed to bring activity, vibrancy and vitality back to this derelict site.

The new open space will not only promote physical and mental wellbeing but, through the creation of flexible areas for pop-up markets and community events, will establish a dynamic hub that encourages creativity, fosters community spirit, and provides a space for cultural and social activities.

Detailed plans by RankinFraser focus on re-establishing Highland Lane as an important route to the river, opening up access to 9,000sq/m of parkland and levelling the ground by removing spoil heaps. Other interventions include an open space in front of the retained Pump House and a tree-lined market square. A coloured concrete path will also be laid around the site perimeter to open up broader river views.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal on Thursday chaired a meeting to review the progress and challenges of two major national projects: the Neelum Jhelum Hydropower Project (NJHPP) and the Diamer Bhasha Dam.

The meeting was attended by Additional Secretary Planning Kamran Rehman Khan, Secretary Ministry of Water Resources, Chairman WAPDA, Member Infrastructure Waqas Anwer and other key stakeholders to discuss updates and next steps, a news release said.

The 969 MW Neelum Jhelum Hydropower Project, located near Muzaffarabad, Azad Jammu & Kashmir, holds great importance for Pakistan's energy needs.

Since its start in 2018, it has produced over 20,030 million units of electricity.

However, recent structural problems in the projects Head Race Tunnel (HRT) have led to temporary power stoppages.

To resolve these issues, an international panel of experts, including a prominent Pakistani geologist, was appointed to identify the causes and suggest solutions.

The experts recommended steps to fix blockages and structural damages inside the tunnels.

Minister Ahsan Iqbal directed the concerned authorities to expedite repair work and develop a detailed plan based on scientific studies that could be able to justify the costs spent on the projects.

He stressed that the remedial work must provide a sustainable solution, ensuring long-term stability and value for the investment.

The meeting also focused on the Diamer Bhasha Dam, a key project on the Indus River.

This dam will store water for irrigation, help manage floods, and generate 4,500 MW of electricity.

Ahsan Iqbal directed the immediate resolution of land-related issues, emphasizing that approximately 18,000 acres of land belongs to the government, while the remaining land, for which payment has already been made, must be transferred to WAPDA to enable project commencement.

He instructed the Chief Secretary Gilgit-Baltistan to submit a report within a month regarding the official transfer of this land.

The minister highlighted that completing these projects will significantly enhance Pakistans water and energy resources.

He reaffirmed the government's commitment to overcoming any obstacles in these initiatives for the benefit of the nation.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal on Thursday expressed confidence that Pakistan could join the ranks of the world's leading economies by 2047 through the active participation of youth, especially women entrepreneurs.

The countrys progress and prosperity are closely linked with the development of youth and women entrepreneurs. Their active role and participation in national development can make it possible for Pakistan to join the worlds top economies by 2047, he said.

He made these remarks while addressing the fifth edition of the Women Entrepreneurship Conference titled Mumkin Hai(It is possible), organized by the National Incubation Centre at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML) here.

The conference featured panel discussions on aligning entrepreneurial goals with the digital economy in Pakistan.

Addressing the participants, the minister assured that the recommendations made by experts at the conference would be put into implementation because the incumbent government believed that the future of the nation was in the hands of youth and women.

It is our job to make everything possible for them, he added.

Ahsan Iqbal said the intellect and innovation of youth and women could help establish start-ups, introduce made-in-Pakistan products and effectively compete in international markets, contributing billions of Dollars in revenue to the national exchequer.

He said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government hoped that, in 23 years, when both Pakistan and India celebrate their 100th year of independence, Pakistans youth would celebrate it with pride, without any excuses for lagging behind in development.

The minister highlighted the importance of continuity in policies, peace, stability and a continuous reform process to achieve the national goals of development and prosperity, citing examples of countries that made progress by ensuring at least a decade-long stability and consistency in their policies.

Ahsan Iqbal stressed that Pakistan could no longer afford chaos and anarchy, emphasizing the need for greater unity and a peaceful environment to attain national progress.
Security Forces killed three terrorists in an operation at Harnai District while two security personnel including a Major embraced martyrdom

RAWALPINDI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) Security Forces killed three terrorists in an operation at Harnai District while two security personnel including a Major embraced martyrdom.

On reported presence of terrorists, planning to target innocent civilians in Harnai District, security forces under Major Muhammad Haseeb were immediately mobilized to sanitize the area, said an Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) news release.

Own troops effectively engaged the terrorists location and resultantly three terrorists were sent to hell. However, during the operation, an improvised explosive device exploded on the leading vehicle of security forces, resultantly, Major Muhammad Haseeb (age: 28 years, resident of District Multan), a brave officer, who was leading his troops from the front, along with Havildar Noor Ahmed (age: 38 years, resident of District Barkhan), having fought gallantly, made the ultimate sacrifice and embraced Shahadat, it further said.

Security forces of Pakistan, in step with the nation, remain determined to thwart attempts at sabotaging peace, stability and progress of Balochistan, and such sacrifices of our brave soldiers further strengthen our resolve.
The Agriculture Department, in collaboration with the Bank of Punjab, has initiated the process of providing Kisan Cards to another 250,000 farmers

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) The Agriculture Department, in collaboration with the Bank of Punjab, has initiated the process of providing Kisan Cards to another 250,000 farmers.

The cultivators of non-computerized mauzas would also be eligible for the new Kisan Cards. The Chief Minister Punjab had ordered increasing the number of Kisan Cards from five to 7.5 lakh.

Chief Secretary Punjab Zahid Akhtar Zaman presided over a meeting of the Kisan Card Steering Committee at Civil Secretariat, with the secretary agriculture, authorities of the Bank of Punjab and officers concerned in attendance. The meeting considered allowing cash withdrawal of up to 30 per cent, besides the purchase of agricultural inputs through the Kisan Card.

The chief secretary said that the process of issuance of the Kisan Cards be completed at the earliest and full support be provided to farmers for obtaining the fard malkiat required for registration. He said that the Kisan Card was getting a lot of praise among farmers, adding that the Punjab government was committed to resolving the problems of small farmers.

The Secretary Agriculture gave a detailed briefing at the meeting. He said that so far more than 485,000 farmers had been provided with Kisan Cards. He mentioned that in the last 20 days, farmers had purchased fertilizers and seeds worth Rs 18 billion through the Kisan Cards.
Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) Chairman, Allama Raghib Hussain Naeemi on Thursday called upon the public to offer the prayer for rain Salat al-Istisqa in light of the current severe weather conditions

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) Chairman, Allama Raghib Hussain Naeemi on Thursday called upon the public to offer the prayer for rain Salat al-Istisqa in light of the current severe weather conditions.

In a statement, Naeemi urged Muslims to gather after Friday prayers to collectively seek divine intervention for relief from the ongoing smog and extreme weather.

"Given the difficulties caused by the current climate conditions, I appeal to everyone to perform this special prayer and ask Allah to bless us with rain to clear the smog and alleviate these hardships," he maintained.
(@FahadShabbir)

HYDERABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) The Entry Test for admissions 2024-25 at Shaheed Allah Buksh Soomro (SABS) University of Art, Design and Heritages Jamshoro was conducted at the Campus. Candidates from Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Jammu Kashmir and other parts of the country appeared in the test.

There are a total of 200 seats available for the candidates on merit, self-finance, university support program and foreign with 50% quota reserved for Sindh and 50% for other parts of the country. The University offers admission in six departments such as; Fine Art, Architecture and Planning, Communication, Textile, Fashion and Interior Design. 217 female and 33 male candidates appeared in the test.

Vice-Chancellor SABS University, Prof. Dr. Arabella Bhutto along with the vigilance committee paid a visit during the Entry Test.

Addressing the welcome ceremony Vice-Chancellor SABS University Prof. Dr. Arabella Bhutto said that she is happy to welcome all the students in this prestigious institute of art, design and heritage and the first-ever art university of Pakistan. She said that SABS University is also planning to introduce short courses along with the existing fields as well as modern education like IT, Artificial Intelligence and other fields.

Dr Arabella Bhutto said that SABS University is providing opportunities to youth and creative minds of the society who want to establish their career in art and design and play crucial roles for the betterment of the motherland in the years to come.

She further added that SABS University is trying to establish linkages between academia and industry to encourage students towards innovation and entrepreneurship.

The test comprised two portions of Mcqs and Drawing, both carrying 40 and 60 marks respectively.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) The Azad Kashmir Department of Culture held a captivating music concert at Lok Virsas Open Air Theatre on Thursday, showcasing Kashmiri folk tunes that resonated through the evening.

The event, as a part of Lok Mela, featured performances by renowned folk artists from Azad Kashmir, including Badr Khan, Altaf Ahmed Mir, Ashiq Butt, Sohail Abbasi, Dilawar Abbas, Hina Abbasi, Shakeel Ahmed Mir, Nader Ali, Sajjad Shah, Babar Panjkoti, Bano Rahmat, Abdul Basit, Noman Saleem, and Raja Anwar.

Lok Mela 2024 has provided a platform for celebrating the diverse cultural heritage of Pakistan's provinces. While Kashmir's vibrant traditions displayed today drew significant attention.

Alongside musical performances, the festival highlighted Kashmirs handicrafts, rituals, and traditional skills.

Over 25 artisans and artists from Azad Jammu and Kashmir showcased their talents, representing the regions deep-rooted cultural heritage.

Among the standout artisans was Zulfiqar Ghazi, celebrated for his mastery in Kashmiri papier-mache and miniature art. His creations also span stained glass, fabric design, and traditional furniture painting, often featuring motifs inspired by nature, animals, and Mughal emperors. With his commitment to preserving the Mughal artistic legacy, Ghazi has represented his craft both nationally and internationally, earning recognition and awards.

Ghulam Nabi, a skilled woodcarver originally from Kashmir Valley, has brought his ancestral craft to Pakistan, where he now teaches wood carving to young students.

His work, along with that of Irfan Ghulam Nabi, whose intricate wood carvings on walnut, cedar, and shesham were a festival highlight, showcasing the exceptional skill and artistry of Kashmiri artisans.

Lok Mela will continue at Lok Virsa till November 17, offering visitors a chance to experience Kashmir's rich cultural heritage firsthand.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met with the Hungarian Minister of Interior Sandor Pinter in Budapest on Thursday for meaningful discussions on matters of mutual interest and cooperation in various fields.

The Interior Minister thanked his Hungarian Counterpart for the warm hospitality and excellent arrangements made by the Hungarian Government for the 7th Ministerial Conference of Budapest Process.

It was agreed to celebrate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Pakistan and Hungary in a grand manner next year.

On behalf of Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, invited the Hungarian Prime Minister to visit Pakistan in 2025 on the occasion of the completion of 60 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Interior Minister also invited his Hungarian counterpart to visit Pakistan, and the Hungarian Interior Minister accepted this invitation.

On the proposal of Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, a high-level Hungarian delegation will visit Pakistan to prevent illegal immigration and encourage legal immigration.

The Hungarian delegation will assist in the field of illegal immigration, human trafficking and NADRA CRMS.

The Hungarian delegation will prepare a report and the Hungarian Interior Minister will visit Pakistan to finalize cooperation in this regard.

It was also agreed to establish a hotline between the Interior Ministry of Pakistan and Hungary to resolve illegal immigration and other issues.

The Hungarian Foreign Minister will also visit Pakistan in December this year.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi welcomed the visit of the Hungarian Foreign Minister to Pakistan and said that Pakistan attaches great importance to its relations with Hungary, and the exchange of delegations is necessary for the promotion of bilateral relations.

Pakistan's Ambassador to Hungary Asif Hussain Memon and senior diplomatic officials were also present on the occasion.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) Pakistan observed World Food Day 2024 with a major event at the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) here Thursday, where leaders highlighted the country's dedication to ensuring access to safe and nutritious food.

The event was organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) along with the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the International Trade Centre (ITC), in partnership with Pakistans Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFSR).

Federal Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain attended as the chief guest, along with Mohamed Yahya, the UN Resident Coordinator in Pakistan, and Florence Rolle, FAO Representative in Pakistan.

The participants included high-ranking government officials, representatives from academia, research bodies, UN agencies and students from various schools and universities.

Federal Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain emphasized the governments priority to improve food security and collaborate with global organizations.

He assured that Pakistan is fully committed to supporting initiatives that address hunger, poverty, and climate issues through strong food policies. He said, Our goal is to ensure every citizen has access to safe, nutritious, and affordable food. The minister reiterated Pakistans dedication to working with both national and international organizations to advance food security for all.

UN Resident Coordinator Mohamed Yahya stressed the days theme of food as a fundamental human right, saying it is crucial for survival, health, and dignity.

He pointed out that 40 percent of Pakistans population currently faces food insecurity, calling for immediate actions to address the issue. Yahya also mentioned the potential of students, who make up over 60 percent of Pakistans population, to drive significant change in the countrys food security landscape.

Florence Rolle, FAOs Representative in Pakistan, emphasized the need for sustainable practices, joint policies, and active community involvement to build a stronger food system. She noted that 783 million people around the world are struggling with food insecurity, underscoring the value of events like World Food Day in promoting collaboration and awareness. We must work together to create a future where everyone has enough food, Rolle said.

The nationwide World Food Day campaign in Pakistan concluded with an event to promote food security and sustainable agricultural practices. Students, local farmers, and community members participated in activities such as awareness walks, interactive sessions, and food-related competitions, aiming to foster partnerships among government agencies, the private sector, and communities.

The event highlighted the importance of a multi-sector approach in tackling food security issues. It called for policies that protect food rights, promote fair resource distribution, and provide support for vulnerable communities.
Pakistan and Russia on Thursday called for enhanced coordination among the regional countries for a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) Pakistan and Russia on Thursday called for enhanced coordination among the regional countries for a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan.

Th Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on Afghanistan, Ambassador Zamir Kabulov paid a day long visit to Pakistan.

He called on Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch and later had detailed discussions with Additional Secretary (Afghanistan and West Asia), Ambassador Ahmad Naseem Warraich.

The two sides exchanged views on relations with Afghanistan and called for enhanced coordination among the regional countries for a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan. They also agreed to remain engaged towards this end.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Ministry of Climate Change & Environmental Coordination and Global Green Growth Initiative signed a four-year (2024-2028) Country Programme Framework agreement to advance Pakistans sustainable development goals through targeted climate action and green growth interventions

BAKU, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) Ministry of Climate Change & Environmental Coordination and Global Green Growth Initiative signed a four-year (2024-2028) Country Programme Framework agreement to advance Pakistans sustainable development goals through targeted climate action and green growth interventions.

The formal signing ceremony was organized at the Pakistan Pavilion at the UN-led Global Climate Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, during which the Secretary Climate Change & Environmental Coordination Ministry Aisha Humera Moriani and Deputy Director-General Global Green Growth Institute (GGCI) Helena McLeod signed the agreement.

Romina Khurhsid Alam thanked the GGGI for their interest for engagement with Pakistan for helping the country to mobilise green finance, support policy frameworks for climate action, and promote investment in sectors to achieve climate resilience and environmental sustainability goals.

Aligned with the GGGI Strategy 2030 and Pakistans national priorities, the CPF focuses on strengthening climate resilience, improving sustainable agriculture, and fostering economic growth through innovative and inclusive solutions.

Spelling out Key objectives of the country programme framework, the GGGIs deputy director-general said that her organization aims to facilitate Pakistans transition to a green economy by collaborating with national stakeholders to address critical challenges such as water scarcity, deforestation, and energy inefficiency, compounded by the impacts of climate change.

Earlier, a joint event Pakistans NDC Technology Roadmap for the Waste and Water Sector to leverage Climate Finance was organized by the climate change & environmental coordination ministry, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and GGGI at the Pakistan Pavilion.

The event was attended by climate finance and environmental sustainability experts from different international organisations.

The NDC technology road for waste and water sector primarily aims to meet Pakistans climate goals under the Paris Agreement, focusing on the waste and water sectors with support of the Global Green Growth Initiative (GGGI).

Addressing the high-level, PMs climate aide Romina Khurshid Alam said that the NDC technology roadmap would act as strategic planning tool that links Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) with large-scale investment opportunities, transforming climate targets into actionable outcomes.

She said further that the significance of technology in the implementation of absolutely any policy on climate change is inevitable. The "NDC Roadmap for the Waste and Water Sector to Leverage Climate Finance" initiative would be used for meeting the country s climate goals under the Paris Agreement, focusing on the waste and water sectors.

She also illustrated how the NDC technology roadmaps would act as strategic planning tools that link Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) with large-scale investment opportunities, transforming climate targets into actionable outcomes.

Romina Khurshid Alam also addressed crucial areas including technology needs assessment, innovation and research, regulatory frameworks, and funding mechanisms for meeting Pakistans waste and water-related targets under Paris Climate Agreement signed in 2015.

She also shared insights about advancing of Pakistans climate commitments, driving progress toward its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
(@FahadShabbir)

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has extended heartiest greetings to the Sikh community in Pakistan and across the globe on the auspicious occasion of Guru Nanak Dev Jis Jayanti, commemorating the birth of the world renowned religious leader.

In his message, he highlighted Guru Nanak Dev Jis enduring teachings of love, peace, and equality for all, emphasizing their continued relevance in promoting harmony and unity in todays world.

In a statement issued by the Media Cell Bilawal House, he praised Guru Nanaks teachings on universal brotherhood, compassion, and respect, noting that these values are a beacon not only for the Sikh community but for all who strive to build a just and peaceful society.

He acknowledged Pakistans rich Sikh heritage and reiterated the Pakistan Peoples Partys commitment to safeguarding the rights and freedoms of all minority communities in Pakistan.

Bilawal Bhutto also underscored the PPPs longstanding commitment to championing the rights of religious and cultural communities, ensuring that every citizen feels secure and valued, regardless of faith. He expressed pride in Pakistans tradition of hosting Sikh pilgrims at sacred sites, including the historic Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, which remains a symbol of peace and interfaith respect.

As he extended his warm wishes on this special occasion, he reaffirmed his dedication to a Pakistan that celebrates its rich cultural diversity and strives to promote harmony and mutual respect among all citizens.
BAKU, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) Coordinator to the Prime Minister on Climate Change, Romina Khursheed Alam lauded the Acumen Climate Action Fund for Pakistan as a significant milestone in enhancing the country's agricultural resilience.

She made these remarks at the event "Acumen's Climate Action Fund for Pakistan," held at the Pakistan Pavilion during the COP29 summit in Baku on Thursday.

She explained that the fund focuses on providing patient capital to agri-businesses, especially smallholder farmers who make up 90% of Pakistans agricultural workforce.

Given Pakistan's vulnerability to climate changeexpected to reduce agricultural productivity by 8-10% by 2040this initiative is critical to ensuring food security and promoting sustainable farming practices in the face of growing climate challenges, she stated.

Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Finance, Muhammad Aurangzeb emphasized the urgent need for innovative climate adaptation solutions to support communities most affected by climate change, who contribute the least to global emissions.

Highlighting Pakistan's achievements, the Finance Minister noted the creation of the country's first fund dedicated to agriculture, with a particular focus on climate resilience.

Aurangzeb said, "The Acumen Climate Action for Pakistan (ACAP) Fund will be the countrys first climate-focused private sector fund."

He highlighted that the fund will target businesses that enhance climate resilience in agriculture, particularly benefiting small farmers and impacting up to 13.1 million farmer lives. The Green Climate Fund is marking the largest private sector commitment for Pakistan to date.

The Finance Minister further noted that the ACAP Fund will create a transformative climate impact in Pakistan, leveraging private capital from top-tier investors and attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) to strengthen local businesses.

"ACAP is not only Pakistans first single-country fund but also one of the worlds first funds focused on climate adaptation. It has established strong ties with leading investors to bring powerful voices to the table," he concluded.

Representatives from Acumen, the Green Climate Fund, and USAID also spoke at the event.
, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday that at least 43,736 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.

The toll includes 24 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 103,370 people have also been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began.

Earlier on Thursday, Gaza's civil defence agency said at least 10 people were killed in "several air strikes" by the Israeli army on the Palestinian territory.

The agency's spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that "around 30 people, all civilians" were wounded in the strikes in Gaza City, the northern town of Jabalia and the southern city of Rafah.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has pledged Wednesday to continue activities until the agency can no longer operate amid the Israeli Knesset's decision to ban it from operating

UNITED NATIONS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has pledged Wednesday to continue activities until the agency can no longer operate amid the Israeli Knesset's decision to ban it from operating.

Speaking at a press conference at UN Headquarters in New York, UNRWA's Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini detailed the implications of the recent laws passed by the Israeli Knesset, which aim to dismantle UNRWA activities across the occupied Palestinian territory, including Gaza and the West Bank.

The intention is to undermine the agency, he said, emphasizing that these measures are politically motivated.

Emphasizing that the situation in the Gaza Strip has become more dire, UNRWA chief said that "we are experiencing the darkest moment for the agency in 75 years."

Lazzarini noted that UNRWA and its staff are under continued attacks by Israeli forces, adding that "as of today, 243 staff have been killed" on UNRWA premises.

Highlighting the "intense and aggressive" disinformation campaign against the agency, Lazzarini said the adoption of Israeli Knesset's recent bill aiming to ban the activities of UNRWA, starting in January, has further exacerbated the situation.

He stated that there is "deep anxiety" among UNRWA staff on the ground as the environment in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza is putting staff "even more at risk."

"I'm afraid that much worse is to come if we have this pervasive environment," Lazzarini added.

Asked about the possibility of the Knesset bill being implemented, Lazzarini affirmed that, (UNRWA) will be operating until the day we cannot operate anymore."

He pledged to provide and deliver services to those in need "until we are forced to stop."

The UNRWA chief noted that Israel, as the occupying power, has the responsibility to provide the needs and services for not only those in Gaza but also in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, if the agency can no longer operate.

"UNRWA is a softer target for anyone who views its presence or its activities as a threat," he said.

"The intention to undermine UNRWA is politically motivated."

"The (political) objective is to strip the Palestinians from the refugee stature, and also to unilaterally change the parameters for a political solution," he said, adding that the political motivation also aims to undermine Palestinians' aspiration for self-determination and a two-state solution.

Lazzarini described attacks on UNRWA as an attack on the UN, the General Assembly and the Security Council, and said the attacks are "further weakening the rule-based order that we have inherited after World War II."

He emphasized the importance of "political will" for the success of the agency as "there is a race against the clock."

Asked about Israeli envoy to UN Danny Danon's demand for Lazzarini to resign, the UNRWA chief said he would "envisage" the demand if it were to make a difference but "it is not my person, it is my function which is the primary target today."

"It is part of this broader campaign to delegitimize the agency," he added.

Responding to a question on the death toll in Gaza as well as his view about the situation if he were not a UN official, Lazzarini said: "It has been a war of all possible superlative."

He said journalists, health care workers and UN personnel have been killed at "unprecedented" levels, noting that the scale of destruction is "certainly" higher than the numbers reported.

Lazzarini pointed to deaths caused by "sub-human" living conditions, highlighting that children are living amid garbage and sewage.

Saying that nearly every word has been used to describe the situation in Gaza, Lazzarini said, "Sometimes I'm just wordless or speechless."

He noted that even using "massacre may not fully capture the severity, adding, "It's just unbelievable the suffering inflicted on these communities."

Adding that some people in Gaza hope for death, Lazzarini said, "We heard at the beginning of the war, the expression 'human animal.' That's how people start to feel. They have lost everything, and they feel that they have lost also the dignity."
By Takuya Karube, KYODO NEWS - Nov 14, 2024 - 09:26 | All, World

U.S. President Joe Biden will hold a farewell meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Lima on Saturday on the sidelines of an annual multilateral summit, senior administration officials said, as deep differences remain over a range of issues ahead of Donald Trump's return to the White House.

It will be their first in-person meeting in a year, with the U.S. officials saying Wednesday that Biden will take stock of efforts during his time in office to "responsibly manage" the intense competition between the two countries so as to prevent it from veering into confrontation or conflict.

During their previous talks near San Francisco, also held in conjunction with a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the presidents agreed to partly reopen military-to-military lines of communication and advance cooperation in areas of shared interest, including artificial intelligence and counternarcotics.

Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at a press briefing that the forthcoming meeting will be "an opportunity to ensure a smooth transition" of power before the U.S. president leaves office in January, as well as a chance to help ensure such channels of communication remain open.

As Trump, who decisively won the presidential election last week, is poised to take a much harder line against China, one of the officials suggested there will be no specific outcomes from Biden's sit-down with Xi, but rather it is intended to "reflect on the progress to date."

Without making any comments related to Trump, the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the incoming administration needs to think "carefully" about key issues with Beijing, including Taiwan and the South China Sea, given that the significant policy gaps between the two countries are unlikely to disappear.

As U.S. officials have done in recent years when meeting with their Chinese counterparts, Biden is expected to express concerns about China's increased military activities around Taiwan and aggressive actions in the South China Sea, as well as its "unfair" trade practices and often-criticized human rights situation.

Biden is also likely to urge Xi to stop China's support for Russia's defense industrial base, which is believed to have revitalized its military to continue fighting against Ukraine, according to the officials.

No provision of lethal assistance from China to Russia has been confirmed by the United States or its allies. But China's transfer of massive amounts of dual-use materials to Russia is believed to have fueled its war machine.

U.S. officials have said roughly 90 percent of the microelectronics that Russia imports come from China and Hong Kong.

In mid-October, the U.S. government imposed its first sanctions on Chinese companies for "directly" developing and producing weapons for Russia to be used in its war against Ukraine.

Additionally, the officials said, Biden is set to raise the issue of the more than 10,000 North Korean troops deployed to Russia near Ukraine's border, as Beijing has close ties with both Pyongyang and Moscow.

With Sullivan visiting Beijing in late August and Secretary of State Antony Blinken holding talks with China's top diplomat Wang Yi in New York about a month later, the two countries have worked to arrange the third face-to-face meeting since the U.S. president took office nearly four years ago.

But with senior positions in Trump's upcoming second administration already filling with known China hawks, as well as the president-elect's promise to impose higher tariffs on Chinese imports, the course of the bilateral relationship appears likely to grow bumpier.

When congratulating Trump on his victory in the Nov. 5 election over the phone, the Chinese president said that "stable, sound and sustainable China-U.S. relations serve the interests of both countries and meet the expectations of the international community."

Related coverage:

1st summit talks between Japan's Ishiba, China's Xi eyed for Nov. 15

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After 31 years, Formula 1 looks likely to head back to Africa with the Kyalami Circuit, located in Johannesburg, South Africa after being given the green light to be upgraded to an FIA Grade 1 Circuit following numerous upgrades made to the track.

Red Bulls recent visit

F1 made its long-awaited return to the continent in early October 2024 as David Coulthard raced around the historic circuit, providing African F1 fans some on track action with Red Bull unleashing the 2011 double-title winning car, the RB7.

The team were there to shoot a short film that captured all the incredible sights and sounds of the RB7 stampeding through the former season-opening circuit. The content provides a cinematic glimpse into what F1s future could look like were it to return to South Africa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ajKo22vtuc

Red Bull continued its commitment to bringing F1 closer to fans around the world which coincides with South Africa's new momentum for motorsport ambitions, as well as showcasing the passion and potential of South Africas motorsport scene on the global stage.

Coulthard stated that the experience was unforgettable, and that with the energy of the South African people and Kyalamis world-class track, its clear the country is ready to rejoin the F1 calendar.

Lewis Hamilton explaining the need for a race in Africa

Lewis Hamilton has previously expressed the need to stop ignoring Africa when adding tracks to the F1 calendar.

Following the Dutch Grand Prix in August, Hamilton stated: huge amount of work needs to be done to Kyalami. I think a lot of the world that haven't been there don't realise how beautiful the place is,

"So I think having a Grand Prix there will really be able to highlight just how great the place is and bring in tourism and all sorts of things."

The addition of the circuit to the 2027 calendar could see the likes of Hamilton visiting the African fans who have waited many a year for a comeback from the worlds most prestigious drivers.

March 1993, the last race to visit Africa 

The last race featured an intense battle for the win between Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, with Prost taking victory.

Following the race, in July, Kyalami was sold to the South African Automobile Association, who deemed that running a Formula One event proved too costly, resulting in the Grand Prix not returning.

The release of Drive to Survive has seen a fast-growing new generation of diehard African fans in F1 considering the sport's Eurocentric history.

The pinnacle of motorsport is experiencing an unprecedented boom on the continent and in North Africa television audiences have more than trebled via the BBC.

Formula 1 has helped the entire continent grow on TV and digital platforms, with a Grand Prix return in 2027 on the cards, it is another market that will see successful operations in.
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.


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KYODO NEWS - Nov 14, 2024 - 17:58 | Japan, World, All

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba embarked Thursday on his first trip to South America since taking office, where he will attend summits of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru and the Group of 20 economies in Brazil.

On the fringes of the gatherings, Ishiba, who became prime minister on Oct. 1, plans to hold talks with his counterparts from China, South Korea and the United States, among other countries.

The flurry of diplomatic events comes shortly after former U.S. President Donald Trump, known for his hard-line stance on China and protectionist views, succeeded in his bid to return to the White House in last week's presidential election.

Ishiba is seeking to meet with Trump in person before his return to Japan, though no date has been fixed. The Japanese leader spoke with Trump over the phone for about five minutes to congratulate the Republican on his election victory, describing him as a "friendly" person who he thinks he can talk frankly with.

Ishiba told reporters before leaving Tokyo's Haneda airport that he wants to discuss how Japan can contribute to fostering economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region at the APEC forum and lead the debate on how the G20 group of advanced and developing economies can share responsibilities and build cooperation.

During the APEC summit on Friday and Saturday, the leaders are expected to reaffirm the importance of free trade. The participants include U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who are scheduled to hold one-on-one talks on Saturday in Peru.

Ishiba will be meeting with Biden and Xi for the first time since becoming the Japanese leader.

"Former Prime Minister (Fumio) Kishida charted a clear path for trilateral cooperation with the United States and South Korea, so I will discuss further developing it" with Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Ishiba also said he hopes to discuss frankly with Xi "some outstanding challenges as well as common issues" that the two nations can work on, without elaborating.

He was endorsed by parliament on Monday to continue serving as prime minister following the Oct. 27 general election that saw his ruling coalition lose its majority in the House of Representatives.

The leaders of Japan and Peru, this year's APEC host, will hold a bilateral meeting to deepen cooperation in a range of areas, as the South American nation plays an important role in supply chains for critical minerals.

In Brazil, Ishiba will join other G20 leaders next Monday and Tuesday to discuss global challenges, amid Russia's war in Ukraine and heightened tensions in the Middle East.

This year's chair Brazil is placing priority on addressing poverty and hunger, pushing for better global governance and ensuring sustainable development.

Accounting for about half of global trade, the APEC members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.

The G20, meanwhile, includes non-APEC members like Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Brazil and India.

Related coverage:

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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday he is nominating Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a senior member of both the foreign relations and intelligence committees and former political rival, to be secretary of state.

"He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries," Trump said in a statement.

Rubio, 53, is known as a China hawk, an outspoken critic of Cuba's Communist government and a strong backer of Israel. In the past, he has advocated for a more assertive U.S. foreign policy with respect to America's geopolitical foes, although recently his views have aligned more closely with those of Trump's "America First" approach to foreign policy.

In April, Rubio was one of 15 Republican senators to vote against a big military aid package to help Ukraine resist Russia and support other U.S. partners, including Israel. Trump has been critical of Democratic President Joe Biden's continuing military assistance for Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion.

Rubio has said in recent interviews that Kyiv needs to seek a negotiated settlement with Russia rather than focus on regaining all of the territory that Moscow has taken in the last decade.

On the Gaza war, Rubio  like Trump  has been staunchly behind Israel, calling Hamas a terrorist organization that must be eliminated and saying America's role is to resupply Israel with the military materials needed to finish the job.

Rubio is a top Senate China hawk, and Beijing imposed sanctions on him in 2020 over his stance on Hong Kong's democracy protests. This could create difficulties for any attempts to maintain the Biden administration's effort to keep up diplomatic engagement with Beijing to avoid an unintended conflict.

Among other things, Rubio shepherded an act through Congress that gave Washington a new tool to bar Chinese imports over China's treatment of Uyghur Muslims and has also pushed a bill that would decertify Hong Kong's U.S. economic and trade offices.

Rubio had also become a strong Trump backer, after harshly criticizing him when he ran against the former real estate developer for president in 2016.

The three-term Republican senator should easily win confirmation in the Senate, where Trump's Republicans will hold at least a 52-48 majority starting in January.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner, chairman of the intelligence committee, quickly issued a statement praising the choice of Rubio, the panel's vice chairman.

"I have worked with Marco Rubio for more than a decade on the Intelligence Committee, particularly closely in the last couple of years in his role as Vice Chairman, and while we don't always agree, he is smart, talented, and will be a strong voice for American interests around the globe," Warner said in a statement.

Rubio, the son of immigrants from Cuba, will be the first Latino to serve as America's top diplomat.
Analysts interviewed by VOA expressed skepticism over Chinas recent decision to eliminate tariffs for goods from least developed countries with diplomatic relations with Bejing, including 33 in Africa, next month.

The move was announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing in early September.

The analysts see it as an effort to expand China's influence in Africa without bringing much benefit to the LDCs.

"This move has not generated the excitement it should, due to well-known structural difficulties in Africa," Emmanuel Owusu-Sekyere, director of research, policy and programs at the African Center for Economic Transformation in Accra, Ghana, told VOA.

"Cooperation between China and Africa has benefitted China much more than it has Africa," he said, adding, "Africa has given China unbridled access to its markets, which has crippled local production capacity in several aspects of the manufacturing sector e.g., textiles."

Xi described the zero-tariffs plan as making China the first major economy to take such a step to offer Africa a substantial opportunity to do business in the large Chinese market.

Analysts see it as Beijings attempt to compete with the United States. The U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act provides duty-free access to the U.S. market for more than 1,800 products from 32 sub-Saharan African countries. It will come up for renewal next year. They say China is also trying to take advantage of resentment of some African countries barred from AGOA on such grounds as human rights or lack of democracy and free markets.

"China's move to allow African LDCs to export tariff-free is clearly a move to project its power in an alternative world order," said Samir Bhattacharya, associate fellow at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.

"The rigid policies of the U.S. have made some African countries averse towards it. China sees this as an opportunity to undermine the U.S.-led world order and promote its own narrow interests," Bhattacharya said.

"China has reworked its trade basket to lure African leaders," he added.

"This scheme would offer additional support to dictators and military leaders in African countries who are not comfortable with the U.S.," he said. "It would not improve the economy of these countries."

Chinas viewpoint

Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson He Yongqian has said that the initiative would boost LDC exports. It will also promote solidarity and cooperation among the countries of the Global South and advance the goal of "inclusive and equitable economic globalization," she said.

She said China has signed framework agreements on economic partnership for common development with 22 African countries, including Ethiopia, Burundi, Gabon and Zimbabwe.

However, Owusu-Sekyere expressed a different view.

"African countries are not strategically located in Asian production value chains like Bangladesh and Vietnam. Lack of strategic positioning and planning as well as structural bottlenecks will make it difficult for African countries to take advantage of this plan," Owusu-Sekyere said.

Every time Chinas government enters into a trade or investment agreement with another country, Chinese entrepreneurs usually rush to grab the business opportunities created by the deal. This has been the experience of several countries in Africa and Asia that have received Chinese investments.

Owusu-Sekyere said several African countries have enacted laws reserving the retail sector exclusively for locals but it has been taken over in those countries by Chinese entrepreneurs using local partners as fronts.

The bigger challenge for African countries are nontariff barriers related to such things as quality, he said.

"African economies are not diversified enough to supply at the quality and scale required to meet the sophisticated and diverse demands of a huge market as China." according to Owusu-Sekyere.
In what will likely be his farewell appearance on the world stage, President Joe Biden faces a daunting question: what to tell world leaders wondering about potential changes in U.S. policies when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House with his America First agenda.

Biden arrived Thursday in Peru and will visit Brazil afterward for two major economic summits.

Biden is scheduled to spend Friday and Saturday in Lima with leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, made up of 21 member economies that promote free trade in the region.

He will be in Rio de Janeiro on Monday and Tuesday to meet with leaders of the world's 20 largest economies at the Group of 20 summit.

On the way to Rio from Lima, Biden will make a brief stop at Manaus for a climate-focused engagement in Brazil's state of Amazonas.

In his meetings, Biden must face allies and partners who four years ago may have been skeptical about his "America is back" message and the durability of U.S. global commitments. These leaders saw Trump, during his first term, act to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord and threaten to pull out of NATO.

Uncertainties about future U.S. policy will complicate efforts to reach an agenda on issues of global concern such as trade, poverty and debt alleviation, climate change, sustainable development, and green energy.

"There will be a lot of combination of lamenting, speculation, guessing about what we'll see coming first in terms of policies out of the campaign and how countries are best able to position themselves," said Victor Cha, president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

'America's allies are vital'

To these leaders, Biden's message is that "America's allies are vital to America's national security," said national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who previewed the trip to reporters on Wednesday.

"They make us stronger. They multiply our capability. They take a burden off of our shoulders. They contribute to our common causes," Sullivan said. He underscored that Biden would be attending the APEC summit when U.S. alliances in the region were at an "all-time high," with bolstered ties with Japan, Korea, Australia and the Philippines.

Biden will hold a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of APEC with President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan to "discuss the importance of institutionalizing" the progress made so that it carries forward through the transition to the new administration, Sullivan said.

Whatever the questions surrounding the next administration, Biden will emphasize his faith in the "ideals of American engagement around the world," said Josh Lipsky, senior director of the Atlantic Council's GeoEconomics Center.

"He believes it is in the best interest of both America and the world for it to continue," Lipsky said. "And not one election or one president can undercut that, from his perspective."

Biden's agenda

In Rio de Janeiro, Biden will "demonstrate the strong value proposition of the United States to developing countries and lead the G20 to work together to address shared global challenges," the White House said.

He is expected to hold bilateral meetings with summit hosts Peruvian President Dina Boluarte and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

In Lima, he is set to support Peru's initiative to expand APEC's economic inclusion efforts to empower workers in the informal economy, said Matt Murray, U.S. senior official for APEC.

In Rio, he will focus on workers' rights and clean economic growth and attend the launch of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, Lula's initiative aimed at accelerating global efforts to reduce hunger and poverty by 2030.

In Manaus, Biden will make history as the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Brazilian Amazon. There, he will deliver remarks on climate conservation and engage Indigenous leaders working to preserve the rainforest.

Symbolic and short-lived

Many of Biden's efforts will be mostly symbolic and short-lived, as the incoming U.S. administration could bring dramatically different priorities on global welfare programs and climate change.

Analysts say that while the world has watched U.S. leadership swing from Republican to Democratic and back again in recent years, Chinese President Xi Jinping will seek to project an image of stability as he exerts his vision of China's increased role on the global stage.

In Peru, Xi will inaugurate a $1.3 billion megaport, part of China's infrastructure investment program that has bought him influence in various parts of the world.

Beijing has increased diplomatic engagement in the region, with Xi visiting 11 Latin American countries since becoming president, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua. Summit hosts Peru and Brazil are set to honor him with state visits this month.

A meeting between Biden and Xi, likely their last during Biden's term, is scheduled in Lima for Saturday. The meeting comes as Trump appoints ardent China critics in key foreign policy positions, moves that could lead to a more confrontational U.S. posture toward Beijing.

Whatever the next administration decides, it's going to need to find ways to manage the "tough, complicated relationship" between the U.S. and China, a senior official said when asked what Biden might tell Xi to expect from the incoming administration.

Nike Ching contributed to this report.
A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday threw out a $1.68 billion judgment against Iran's central bank that had been won by family members of troops killed and injured in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said a lower court judge should have addressed questions of state law before ruling against Bank Markazi and Luxembourg intermediary Clearstream Banking, a unit of Deutsche Boerse.

In a 3-0 decision, the panel also rejected a claim that a 2019 federal law designed to make it easier to seize Iranian assets held outside the United States waived Bank Markazi's sovereign immunity.

That law "neither abrogates Bank Markazi's jurisdictional immunity nor provides an independent grant of subject matter jurisdiction," Circuit Judge Robert Sack wrote.



The court returned the case to U.S. District Loretta Preska, in Manhattan to address state law questions in the 11-year-old case, and whether the case can proceed in Bank Markazi's absence.

Bombing victims sought to hold Iran liable for providing material support for the October 23, 1983, suicide attack that killed 241 U.S. service members, by seizing bond proceeds held by Clearstream in a blocked account on Bank Markazi's behalf.

Bank Markazi claimed immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which generally shields foreign governments from liability in U.S. courts.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Bank Markazi's and Clearstream's lawyers did not immediately respond to similar requests.

Iran, other U.S.-designated sponsors of terrorism, and banks accused of providing services to terrorists face thousands of claims in U.S. courts by victims and their families. It is often difficult for these claimants to collect judgments.

In the Bank Markazi case, the plaintiffs sued in 2013 to partially satisfy a $2.65 billion default judgment they had won against Iran in 2007.

Another judge dismissed the case in 2015, but the 2nd Circuit Court revived it in 2017.

Then in 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a fresh review in light of the 2019 law, which then-President Donald Trump signed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

The plaintiffs have said they hold more than $4 billion of judgments against Iran and have been unable to collect for decades.

The case is Peterson et al v. Bank Markazi et al, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 15-690.
China showcased its second fifth-generation stealth fighter jet this week, the J-35A, at the countrys premier aviation exhibition in the southern province of Guangdong, an achievement state media said puts Beijing on par with the United States.

Military analysts say Chinas ability to field two different types of stealth fighter jets marks an important milestone in Beijings development of military technology, but it still has a way to go to catch up with the U.S.

With its J-20 and J-35A stealth fighter jets, China claims it is the first country to operate two types of stealth fighter jets after the U.S., which has its F-22 and F-35. Russia currently has one stealth fighter in operation, the Su-57, with another, the Su-75 Checkmate, still in development.

The J-35A made its debut on the opening day of the air show in Zhuhai, performing aerobatic displays. In addition to the J-35A and J-20, two of Russias Su-57s were on exhibit for the first time at the biennial air show, which lasts until Sunday.

Higher profile as supplier

Song Zhongping, a Beijing-based defense expert, said China's possession of both the J-35 series and the J-20 stealth fighters brings with it benefits for Beijing in combat scenarios and raises its profile as a supplier of advanced military hardware.

"China is now one of the few countries worldwide with the capability to field two types of stealth fighters simultaneously, Song told VOA. The advanced arms market should not be dominated solely by the U.S., Russia and Europe. China must also have a place, which will enhance China's defense industry strength on the global stage."

Song said that the J-35 has incorporated numerous new technologies that significantly improve its stealth capabilities compared with the United States F-35. In a post on Chinas X-like social media platform Weibo, Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the party-backed Global Times, called the display of the new fighter jet a strong and decisive response to Washingtons overreach to stifle Chinas military achievements.

"China now has its own versions of the most attractive American equipment, Hu said in the post. The U.S. has the F-22 and F-35; China now has the J-20 and J-35. The U.S. has THAAD [an anti-missile system], and China has the HQ-19 [surface-to-air missile system].

Analysts say Russias participation this year, showcasing its Su-57 alongside Chinas J-35 and J-20 at Zhuhai, not only highlights how Moscow and Beijing are working together in the global arms market but their closeness in the wake of Russia's war in Ukraine.

Yang Tai-yuan, a researcher at the Centre for Advanced Technology at Taiwans Tamkang University, said that while Chinas technology is improving, its pilots lack real combat experience.

The J-35 looks very similar to the American F-35. Was there copying involved? I think its inevitable. To surpass the U.S. may not be possible, Yang said. While the equipment may match the U.S. in many aspects, China's operational experience is not as robust.

Yang said other challenges remain, including getting more pilots trained and helping them transition from Beijings third-generation J-7 and J-8 fighter jets to the highly digital systems of fifth-generation jets.

He also noted that while it takes at least 1,000 flight hours for a pilot to become experienced, People's Liberation Army pilots have fewer training hours compared with U.S. and NATO pilots, which makes it harder to develop situational handling experience.

Yang said Chinas role for its dual stealth fighters remains unclear. While the J-20 primarily focuses on air superiority, the operational roles for the J-35 are not yet defined.

Significant impacts

Timothy R. Heath, a senior international defense researcher at the RAND Corporation, believes stealth fighters may enhance the survivability of Chinese naval aviation.

In a written response to VOA, Heath said Chinas "dual stealth fighters" approach will have significant geopolitical and military impacts, prompting some Asia-Pacific nations to consider military cooperation with China.

Operationally, the main impact will be perhaps most for countries in Southeast Asia and along the Indian Ocean, as this PLA Navys carrier is likely to operate primarily along that route, as well the aviation, he wrote.

Heath added that the J-35s political impact is significant but unlikely to drastically affect the situation in the Taiwan Strait, as China already has substantial air power over Taiwan.

Beijing considers self-ruled Taiwan a breakaway province that must one day reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary.

In a Taiwan war, Heath wrote, Chinas carrier probably would not last long if it attempted to operate away from the protection of Chinas counterintervention capabilities on the mainland.

However, he added, deploying the J-35 from land-based air force units could enhance its effectiveness in operations over Taiwan.

Samuel Hui contributed to this report.
China is ramping up efforts to smooth ties with the European Union in the wake of the U.S. elections, with a top Chinese official and state media maintaining that improved ties are in the interest of both Brussels and Beijing.

As countries worldwide try to anticipate what President-elect Donald Trump's victory might mean for U.S. foreign policy, analysts say the push by Beijing appears aimed at driving a wedge between the EU and the United States.

"Beijing is trying to exploit current uncertainty regarding the future of transatlantic relations to ensure that the EU distances itself from Washington's increasingly confrontational approach toward China, but it will be difficult [for Beijing] to accomplish [the task,]" said Alicja Bachulska, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

"Europe is becoming increasingly aware of the negative impact of China's foreign and industrial policy on the single market and the security of NATO's Eastern flank," she told VOA in a written response.

On November 9, the deputy head of European affairs at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Cao Lei, said that because Trump's victory could be "the turning point of our times," the EU and China should repair divisions and improve bilateral relations.

"No one wants to return to the law of the jungle, no one wants to go back to the era of confrontation and the Cold War, and no one wants to return to unilateral hegemony. This is the backdrop that China-EU relations are facing," he said at the launch of the China Think-Tank Network on Europe at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Tension rises

Some Chinese analysts say the two should restore trust because Europe is more important for China than the United States.

"With Trump returning to the White House, an enhanced China-Europe cooperation will be beneficial for both sides to address [challenges] at the onset of a new era of uncertainties in the world," Feng Zhongping, the head of European studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a Chinese government-affiliated think tank, said at the same event.

Meanwhile, Chinese state media outlets are urging the EU to adopt a "pragmatic approach" to cooperating with China after the bloc decided to increase tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China to as much as 45.3% in October.

"A hardline economic and trade policy stance toward China will only further restrict the EU's maneuvering space in economic cooperation, which will, in turn, exacerbate the EU's economic difficulties," China's state-run tabloid Global Times wrote in an opinion piece on Wednesday.

Those remarks come amid rising trade tension between China and the EU. In response to the bloc's tariffs against Chinese EVs, China announced Monday that it will start imposing temporary anti-dumping measures against imported European brandies on November 15.

While the EU and China both claim to have made some progress in the ongoing negotiation to address the EV tariffs last week, Bloomberg reported on Monday that the bloc sees little prospect of a quick deal.

Experts say while China hopes to stabilize trade relations with the EU as it prepares for potential tariffs that Trump has vowed to impose on Chinese products once he takes office, Brussels is unlikely to halt its efforts to rebalance trade relations with China.

"What Beijing could potentially expect is to see its divide-and-conquer approach slow down the EU's efforts to implement relevant economic defensive instruments," Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, an expert on EU-China relations at National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan, told VOA by phone.

Some European leaders also are becoming more critical of China's close partnership with Russia. Kaja Kallas, the incoming foreign policy chief for the EU, said Beijing should pay "a higher price" for supporting Russia in the war against Ukraine.

"Without China's support to Russia, Russia would not be able to continue its war with the same force. China needs to also feel a higher cost," Kallas said during a hearing at the European Parliament on Tuesday.

Bachulska said Kallas' comments reflect the growing realization across Europe that "China is a strategic enabler of Russia," but the sense of urgency is not evenly distributed across EU member states.

"Some actors are convinced that Beijing should not be further 'antagonized' and that China's geographic distance from Europe makes it less of a threat," she told VOA, adding that Beijing will try to exploit this narrative.

Other experts add that with the security threat posed by Russia, European countries will likely put more effort into maintaining their close alliance with the U.S. rather than trying to adjust the bloc's foreign policy approach toward China.

"The common denominator is that in the European Commission, security issues now seem to take the driving seat so it's hard to imagine Europe not putting a lot of effort into maintaining the transatlantic alliance, and it will be surprising if the EU takes a united front to prioritize relations with China," Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told VOA by phone.

Common ground possible, some say

While European analysts say the effect of China's attempt to weaken the trans-Atlantic relationship may be limited, some Chinese experts say if Trump imposes high tariffs against products from China and European countries, Beijing and Brussels may find more common ground.

"I think Trump would impose tariffs against both China and the EU, so this may provide both sides an opportunity to reconcile the bilateral relationship," Zhou Bo, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in China, told VOA by phone.
Before the U.S. presidential election, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump opposed a Japanese companys planned $14 billion purchase of U.S. Steel, a once-iconic pillar of Americas industrial age. With the election over, there are indications that the deal may go through. VOA Chief National Correspondent Steve Herman went to Braddock, Pennsylvania, to gauge local sentiment to the acquisition. Videographer: Adam Greenbaum
Amnesty International reported that French-manufactured military technology incorporated into armored personnel carriers (APCs) made by the United Arab Emirates is being used in Sudan's civil war, a likely violation of a United Nations arms embargo.

In a report posted online Thursday, the human rights organization said it first became aware of the armored vehicles' presence in Sudan in July, when another study revealed what the group described as "a constant flow of weapons into the country" from several nations, including China, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, the UAE and Yemen.

The APCs were part of the flow of weapons that in some cases were taken to Darfur, the scene of heavy fighting in western Sudan.

Amnesty International said additional research showed the APCs include sophisticated French-designed and manufactured reactive defense systems. The report said the vehicles are in use by the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group.

The conflict broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary fighters after relations broke down between military leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF chief General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

The two generals are former allies who together orchestrated an October 2021 coup that derailed a transition to civilian rule following the 2019 ouster of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir.

Amnesty International said the APCs are manufactured by the UAE company Edge Group and are equipped with the French Galix reactive defense system. Amnesty identified the systems in pictures posted on social media after APCs were captured or destroyed by the Sudanese army.

The Galix technology is a defense system for land vehicles that release counter measures  decoys, smoke and projectiles  when close-range threats are encountered.

In a statement, Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said any use of the French-made weapons technology in Darfur would be a clear breech of the U.N. arms embargo on Sudan. She called on France to ensure the makers of the defense systems immediately stop the supply to UAE manufacturers.

Callamard called on all nations to "immediately cease direct and indirect supplies of all arms and ammunition to the warring parties in Sudan. They must respect and enforce the U.N. Security Council's arms embargo regime on Darfur before even more civilians' lives are lost. "

The U.N. arms embargo is part of a series of sanctions that include asset freezes and travel bans imposed against Sudan for systematic human rights abuses by both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces against the people of Darfur.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.
Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity in its war against Hamas militants in Gaza, a conclusion Israel rejected.

The report said Israel, which has repeatedly displaced and relocated civilians, is committing the war crime of forcible transfer, and the actions appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing" in the areas where Palestinians will not be able to return.

"Human Rights Watch found that forced displacement has been widespread, and the evidence shows it has been systematic and part of a state policy. Such acts also constitute crimes against humanity," the report said.

In response, Israel accused the organization of using rhetoric that is "completely false and detached from reality."

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Israel's efforts are "directed solely at dismantling Hamas's terror capabilities and not at the people of Gaza, unlike Hamas, which uses civilians as human shields and embeds terror infrastructure within residential areas.

"Israel views all civilian harm as a tragedy, while Hamas views all civilian harm as a strategy. Israel will continue to operate in accordance with the law of armed conflict," spokesman Oren Marmorstein said in a statement.

Hamas denies that it uses civilians as human shields or hides fighters and weapons in facilities such as hospitals and schools.

The law of armed conflict forbids the forcible displacement of civilian populations from occupied territory, unless necessary for the security of civilians or imperative military reasons.

Israel invaded the Gaza Strip last year after Hamas led a terror attack on communities in southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and abducting more than 250 as hostages, about 100 of whom are still in Gaza, a third of them believed to be dead.

Since then, the Israeli counteroffensive has killed more than 43,500 people, according to Gaza health authorities, and destroyed much of the enclave's infrastructure, forcing most of the 2.3 million population to move several times.

Hamas and Hezbollah have been designated as terror groups by the United States, Britain and other Western countries.

For the past month, Israeli troops have moved tens of thousands of people from areas in the north of the territory along the Mediterranean Sea as they sought to destroy Hamas forces the military says have been regrouping around the towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun.

Human Rights Watch said the displacement of Palestinians "is likely planned to be permanent in the buffer zones and security corridors," an action it said would amount to "ethnic cleansing."

The Israeli military has denied seeking to create permanent buffer zones, and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday that Palestinians displaced from their homes in northern Gaza would be allowed to return at the end of the war.

Human Rights Watch researcher Nadia Hardman, in a news release accompanying the groups report, said, The Israeli government cannot claim to be keeping Palestinians safe when it kills them along escape routes, bombs so-called safe zones, and cuts off food, water, and sanitation. Israel has blatantly violated its obligation to ensure Palestinians can return home, razing virtually everything in large areas.

Hardman noted the report's findings are based on interviews with displaced Gazans, satellite imagery, and public reporting conducted until August 2024.

Airstrikes in Gaza, Lebanon

On the warfront, an Israeli strike on a home in northern Gaza killed three children, among at least six people killed in the territory, Palestinian medics said.

An airstrike hit the southern suburbs of Beirut on Thursday after an Israeli warning to evacuate parts of the Hezbollah bastion, Agence France-Presse reported.

Shortly before the strike, Israel had issued a warning to residents to evacuate their homes.

"You are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests against which the [Israeli military] will operate in the near future," army spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X that included a map identifying buildings in the areas.

In a post on the Telegram messaging app Thursday, Israel Defense Forces said the air force struck and dismantled more than 140 Hezbollah launchers in southern Lebanon and had killed two battalion commanders and a company commander.

Over the past week, the IDF eliminated over 200 Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon from the air and ground, the post stated.

On Wednesday, six Israeli soldiers were killed in combat near the border with Lebanon.

The soldiers "fell during combat in southern Lebanon," the army said in a statement. Their deaths mean 47 Israeli troops have been killed in combat with Hezbollah since September 30, when Israel sent ground forces into Lebanon.

The war spread to Lebanon in mid-September, after months of rocket fire from Hezbollah into Israel and drone and airstrikes by Israel's military in south Lebanon escalated. More than 3,200 Lebanese have been killed, most of them in the past six weeks.

Information from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse was used in this report.
Iran has made plans to sustain its oil production and exports and is ready for possible oil restrictions from a Trump administration in the U.S., Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said on Wednesday, according to the oil ministry's news website Shana.

In 2018, then-U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from a 2015 nuclear pact with Iran and re-imposed sanctions that hurt Iran's oil sector, with production dropping to 2.1 million barrels per day, or bpd, during his presidency.

"Required measures have been taken. I will not go into detail but our colleagues within the oil sector have taken measures to deal with the restrictions that will occur and there is no reason to be concerned," Paknejad said.

In recent years, Iranian oil production has rebounded to around 3.2 million barrels per day according to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, of which Iran is a member.

Iranian oil exports have climbed this year to near multi-year highs of 1.7 million bpd despite U.S. sanctions.

Chinese refiners buy most of its supply. Beijing says it doesn't recognize unilateral U.S. sanctions.
KYODO NEWS - Nov 14, 2024 - 20:39 | All, Japan, World

Japan and Britain are planning to launch ministerial talks on economic security, sources familiar with the matter said Thursday, apparently raising the guard against the return of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his protectionist mantra in international trade.

The new talks, involving their foreign and economic ministers, will be modeled on the existing "two-plus-two" framework focused on foreign and security affairs, the sources said.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and his British counterpart Keir Starmer are expected to discuss the idea of a new framework when they meet on the sidelines of the Group of 20 economies' two-day summit from Monday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, according to the sources.

During his election campaign, Trump pledged to impose blanket tariffs of 10 to 20 percent on nearly all imports as well as 60 percent tariffs on goods from China to bolster the domestic manufacturing sector.

Such steps could deal a heavy blow to Japan and Britain, as the value of their exports to the United States in 2023 accounted for 20.0 percent and 13.8 percent of the total, respectively, according to the Japan External Trade Organization.

The envisioned scheme between Tokyo and London will focus on promotion of free trade and economic security and their responses to Trump's policies, the sources said.

The two governments aim to hold the first meeting as soon as possible, with Japan to be represented by Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and industry minister Yoji Muto, the sources said.

Britain would be the second country with whom Japan would have an economic "two-plus-two" dialogue. It follows one with the United States, Japan's close security ally, launched in 2022.

Japan and Britain are also likely to agree to collaborate on technologies related to cutting-edge semiconductors and artificial intelligence, and reinforce supply chains of rare metals, the sources added.

The two countries have been ramping up their relationship on various fronts, including the economic field, in recent years.

After its departure from the European Union in 2020, Britain was approved last year as the 12th member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trade pact joined by Japan.

The United States withdrew from the partnership in 2017 during Trump's first four-year tenure.

Related coverage:

Britain remains on board next-gen fighter jet plan with Japan, Italy
On the first day of 2025, Ukraines contract with Russian state-owned Gazprom will expire, shutting down a major Russian natural gas pathway to Europe.

Although the Kremlin says it is ready to continue the transit deal, urging Europeans to persuade Ukraine to extend the contract, Kyiv has said it wont budge.

Russian natural gas supplies were a cornerstone of European energy security before Moscows February 2022 invasion, when it temporarily cut off 80 billion cubic meters of gas supplies to the continent in response to sanctions and a payment dispute.

The cut-off dealt a major blow to Europes economy that remains palpable in 2024, according to an International Monetary Fund analysis.

Since 2021, however, Europe has secured alternative suppliers for natural gas, with Russian imports via Ukraine dropping from 11% to 5%, according to Rystad Energy, an Oslo-based energy analysis firm.

Observers say some EU countries have taken the issue more seriously than others. Germany and the Czech Republic, for example, have invested heavily in liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals in record time, said Olga Khakova, deputy director for European energy security at the Washington-based Atlantic Council.

A lot of landlocked countries, like Czech Republic, have gone out of their way to look at alternative supplies and invested in alternative options, she told VOA.

Others, like Hungary, have doubled down on their reliance on Russia, while Slovakia and Austria have increased Russian imports.

Those countries, said Khakova, will have to live with this decision, explaining that theyll need to secure alternative routes. Turkey, for example, offers the only other operational pipeline for Europe-bound Russian energy.

Although some European nations would prefer to maintain Russian gas deliveries via Ukraine, it's a difficult sell for the EU, said Christoph Halser, Rystads gas and LNG analyst. He expressed confidence in Europes political will and supply chain logistics to forfeit dependence on Ukraines pipelines for Russian gas.

Other analysts argue that the EU should do more to send a clear signal to companies that cheap Russian gas will no longer be available. With enforceable goals from the EU for phasing out Russian pipeline gas, companies will invest in competing projects to supply reliable European customers, Khakova said.

LNG to compensate?

Although Russias pipeline exports to Europe have decreased, Moscow has compensated for some of the shortfall with LNG deliveries via sea, road and rail, seeing the overall share of European LNG imports increase from 15% to 19%.

Rystads Halser, however, calls further expansion unlikely, given Western sanctions against Russia.

To further increase, and to compensate for the set of pipelines, is not possible with current infrastructure, he told VOA. New unsanctioned projects on the Russian side would be necessary.

Growing LNG deliveries from the United States could replace Russian gas, which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she brought up with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump during a phone call late last week.

LNG is one of the topics that we touched upon  I would not say discussed, she told reporters in Budapest, according to Agence France-Presse. We still get a whole lot of LNG via Russia, from Russia. ... Why not replace it with American LNG, which is cheaper and brings down our energy prices.

Will Ukraines pipeline be empty?

Ending the transit of Russian gas to Europe poses some difficult questions for Ukraine. With the contracts termination imminent, Khakova and other analysts say Russia feels emboldened to attack Ukraines natural gas system, adding to Ukraines concerns this winter over how to protect the countrys energy infrastructure.

Some observers say Ukraine may not find another commercial use for its dormant infrastructure. Bloomberg reported late last month that European buyers were in talks with Azerbaijan on a deal that would, through a swap arrangement, effectively deliver Azeri-branded gas to Europe though the Russia-Ukraine pipeline network.

Subsequent reports, however, indicate that no deal has been reached, and Oleksiy Chernyshov, head of state-owned Naftogaz  Ukraines largest oil and gas company  told reporters last week that there is no alternative to halting the delivery of Russian gas via Ukrainian pipelines.

Any arrangement short of completely halting the transit of gas across Ukraine would send a negative signal to Europe, said Aura Sabadus of the London-based Independent Commodity Intelligence Services.

If Ukraine allows for this gas to flow from 2025 onwards, even if it's sold under a different label  let's say Azeri gas  other countries might come around and say, well, if Ukraine is doing it, why can't we do it? she told VOA.

Sabadus said industrial consumers in Germany, for example, could then increase pressure to resume gas flows via the Nord Stream network of offshore natural gas pipelines beneath the Baltic Sea, which stretch from Russia to Germany and were the target of apparently deliberate underwater explosions in September 2022.

But Rystads Halser finds it unlikely that a short-term transitional deal to keep the natural gas flowing across Ukraine would prompt demands to reopen Nord Stream.

There is no political consensus in Germany for taking Russian gas in the near future, he said, adding that an agreement with a third party to deliver gas across Ukraine might benefit all sides involved and bolster commercial interest in Ukraines pipeline system.
Israel carried out at least two airstrikes on a western neighborhood of Damascus and one of the capital's suburbs on Thursday, killing at least 15 people and wounding 16, Syria's state news agency said.

The airstrikes on the Mazzeh neighborhood in Damascus and the suburb of Qudsaya, northwest of the capital, struck two buildings, the SANA news agency said. An Associated Press journalist at the scene in Mazzeh said that a five-story building was damaged by a missile that hit the basement.

The Israeli military said it hit infrastructure sites and command centers of the Islamic Jihad militant group in Syria and "inflicted significant damage to the terrorist organization's command center and to its operatives."

The airstrikes in Damascus and the nearby suburb came shortly before Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, was scheduled to meet in the Syrian capital with representatives of Palestinian factions at the Iranian Embassy in Mazzeh.

The Israeli military said Islamic Jihad participated alongside Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip, in the October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people  mostly civilians  and saw 250 others abducted into Gaza.

The military "will continue to operate against the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization wherever necessary," it said.

Israel's retaliation to the October 7 attack and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war has spilled into the wider region, affecting Lebanon and Syria and leading to strikes between Israel and Iran. The war has left much of Gaza in ruins and has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

An official with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Group said that the strike in Mazzeh targeted one of their offices, and that several members of the group were killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.

Syria's state news agency, SANA, said that the country's air defenses were activated against a "hostile target" south of the central city of Homs. It gave no further details.

Tehran has been a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government since a 2011 uprising turned into a full-blown civil war and has played an instrumental role in turning the tide of the conflict in his favor.

Iran has sent scores of military advisers and thousands of Iran-backed fighters from around the Middle East to Syria to fight on Assad's side. Tehran has also been an economic lifeline for Assad, sending fuel and credit lines worth billions of dollars.

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria targeting members of neighboring Lebanon's Hezbollah and officials from Iranian-backed groups.

Hezbollah began firing into Israel on October 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Since then, more than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 14,200 wounded, the country's Health Ministry reported. In Israel, 76 people have been killed, including 31 soldiers.

In Lebanon

Lebanon's state media said an Israeli airstrike Thursday hit a building in Baalbek city in eastern Lebanon, killing at least nine people and wounding five others.

The strike on Baalbek came without warning. The Israeli military did not immediately comment and the target was not clear.

Israeli warplanes intensified airstrikes on Thursday, targeting various areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, including the outskirts of the southern port city of Tyre city and the Nabatieh province, the National News Agency said.

Throughout the day, sporadic airstrikes targeted Beirut's southern suburbs in a clear uptick in attacks on the area over the past two days, with the Israeli army issuing evacuation warnings for several locations and buildings in the suburbs.

The Israeli military said it carried out strikes on Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh area, including weapons storage facilities and command centers.

Lebanon's Health Ministry said the death toll in Lebanon since the war began on October 8, 2023, has reached 3,365 while those wounded are 14,344. Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced.

Before the war intensified on September 23, Hezbollah said that it had lost nearly 500 members, The group has stopped releasing statements about their killed fighters since.

UN peacekeeping forces

United Nations peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, speaking during a visit to Lebanon, said the U.N. remains committed to keeping its peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, in place in all its positions in southern Lebanon, despite intense ongoing battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants.

UNIFIL has continued to monitor the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah across the boundary, known as the Blue Line, despite Israeli calls for peacekeepers to pull back 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the border. UNIFIL has accused Israel of deliberately destroying observation equipment, and 13 peacekeepers have been injured in the fighting.

Lacroix visited some of the wounded peacekeepers during his trip.

UNIFIL forces "continue to be deployed in all the positions, and we think it is very important to preserve that presence everywhere," LaCroix said. "... Had we vacated some of the positions, then that would have certainly jeopardized the capacity for UNIFIL to continue today, but probably even more importantly, that would have significantly undermined the capacity for UNIFIL to play a role, tomorrow, when the cessation of hostilities takes place - hopefully sooner than later."

Lacroix said there is still a "large consensus that resolution 1701 remains the critical framework for settlement," referring to the U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the brutal monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 but which has never been fully implemented by either party.
A vote in New Zealands parliament was suspended and two lawmakers ejected on Thursday when dramatic political theater erupted over a controversial proposed law redefining the countrys founding agreement between Indigenous Maori and the British Crown.

Under the principles laid out in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which guide the relationship between the government and Maori, tribes were promised broad rights to retain their lands and protect their interests in return for ceding governance to the British. The bill would specify that those rights should apply to all New Zealanders.

The bill has scant support and is unlikely to become law. Detractors say it threatens racial discord and constitutional upheaval, while thousands of New Zealanders are traveling the length of the country this week to protest it.

Despite its unpopularity, however, the proposed law passed its first vote on Thursday after dominating public discussion for months, due to a quirk of New Zealands political system that allows tiny parties to negotiate outsized influence for their agendas. It also reflects unease among some New Zealanders about more rapid progress in recent years toward upholding the promises made to Maori when the country was colonized.

184-year-old treaty provokes fresh debate

For decades after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, differences between the English and Maori texts and breaches by New Zealand governments intensified the disenfranchisement of Maori.

By the middle of the 20th century, Indigenous language and culture had dwindled, much tribal land was confiscated and the Maori were disadvantaged on every metric. As the Indigenous protest movement surged in the 1970s, lawmakers and the courts slowly began to elucidate what it understood the treaty to promise Maori: partnership with the Crown, participation in decision-making and protection of their interests.

What all of these principles have in common is that they afford Maori different rights from other New Zealanders, David Seymour, leader of minor libertarian party ACT and the bills author, said Thursday.

To those who have championed the treaty, that is the point. Work has involved billion-dollar land settlements, embrace of the Maori language, guaranteed representation in central and local government and attempts through policy to reverse the stark inequities Indigenous people still face.

But Seymour  who is Maori  said no law or court had actually settled for good a definition of the treatys principles, and that had caused division. His bill filled a silence this parliament has left for five decades, he said.

Lawmakers vote for bill they oppose

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon disagrees, though his party voted for the bill Thursday to fulfil the political deal with Seymour that handed Luxon power. Without enough seats to govern after last October's election, Luxon curried support from two minor parties  including Seymour's ACT, which won less than 9% of the vote  in return for political concessions.

Luxon told Seymour his party would vote for the treaty bill once, while promising publicly that it would go no further.

The treatys principles had been negotiated and debated for 184 years, Luxon told reporters Thursday, and it was simplistic for Seymour to suggest that they could be resolved through the stroke of a pen.

Government lawmakers made awkward speeches in parliament explaining that they opposed the bill before voting for it to jeers from opponents, who demanded they break ranks. Luxon was spared that; he left the country for the meeting of leaders from the Asia-Pacific APEC bloc hours before the vote.

His political horse-trading drew scorn from opposition lawmakers.

Fraught, outraged response

Shame! Shame! Shame on you, David Seymour, roared Willie Jackson, a veteran Maori lawmaker. Shame on you for what youre trying to do to this nation.

Jackson was thrown out of the debating chamber by Speaker Gerry Brownlee for calling Seymour a liar.

You are complicit in the harm and the division that this presents, said Rawiri Waititi, a lawmaker from Te Pati Maori, an Indigenous group, speaking to all who advanced the bill.

If you vote for this bill, this is who you are, Green party leader Chloe Swarbrick told Luxon's lawmakers.

No one deviated from their planned votes and the bill passed. But not before one final flashpoint.

Rare outburst

When asked how her partys lawmakers would vote, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke of Te Pati Maori stood and began a ringing haka  a rhythmic Maori chant of challenge  which swelled to a roar as first opposition lawmakers, and then spectators in the public gallery, joined in.

An irate Brownlee was unable to quiet the fracas as opponents approached Seymours seat. The live broadcast of Parliaments proceedings was cut and Brownlee ordered the public be removed before the vote resumed.

He suspended Maipi-Clarke, 22, from Parliament for a day.

The bill will proceed to a public submission process before another vote. Seymour hopes for an outpouring of support to change Luxon's mind about vetoing it.

The proposal will shortly roil Parliament again. Thousands of protesters are due to arrive in the capital, Wellington, on Tuesday for what is likely to be one of the largest race relations marches in New Zealands history.
Southern African Development Community leaders are expected at a coming summit to address the scores of civilian fatalities and injuries that have occurred in Mozambique since the ruling Frelimo party declared Daniel Chapo president with more than 70% of the vote.

This week, Venancio Mondlane, leader of the opposition PODEMOS party, called for even more protests against the October 9 election result. Police have used brutal force to crack down on thousands of Mondlane's supporters who have taken to the streets since the announcement in favor of Chapo.

Analyst Willem Els of the Institute for Security Studies said Mondlane "had to flee Mozambique. Hes somewhere in a neighboring country and we suspect that hes in South Africa because his life is severely in danger.

Els described some of the damage done by pro-Mondlane demonstrators at a border post a week ago. It has since been closed intermittently.

They burned down the border post as well as immigration and everything on the Ressano-Garcia side at the Lebombo border post with South Africa," he said. "They then kept about a thousand trucks that were at Mile Four  where they had to clear customs  at ransom. And what happened then is that they looted some of those trucks and they also burned down at least one of the trucks.

South Africas commissioner of the border management authority, Michael Masiapato, said in a statement Thursday, We have resumed operations, especially the processing of cargo to the Mozambican side, after they have confirmed to us that the situation has stabilized. And therefore, the corridor is ready to receive the export cargo from the South African side into Maputo.

Masiapato confirmed that officials were also processing people at the border.

But the majority of the people that we are processing are Mozambicans that are returning back to their country, as well as South Africans that are returning back to South Africa," he said. "On that basis we would like to still discourage South Africans from going into Mozambique for holiday purposes primarily because the situation remains volatile.

Cross-border analyst Kage Barnette, whos an affiliate of the Southern Africa Association of Freight Forwarders, said the unrest was costing the region millions.

South Africa is one of the largest producers of chrome in the world, so theres a huge amount of ore that goes along that corridor," as well as mining equipment, food and fuel, he said.

He said the association had been told that the military had been placed along the route. But he said truck drivers were nervous.

The last thing you want is to potentially be facing a protesting crowd that could potentially not only cause damage to your vehicle but also yourself, Barnette said.

SADC leaders, who have been criticized for taking too long to respond to the crisis, are slated to meet in Harare for five days beginning Saturday, in an extraordinary session to discuss possible solutions. The regional bloc may decide to deploy its panel of elders, comprising former heads of state, to mediate between the government, opposition and all other stakeholders.
The Nigerian National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday inaugurated a forum targeting rights violations in the West African nation.

The Human Rights Defenders Forum was held on the sidelines of an NHRC meeting to review the state of human rights in Nigeria.

The initiative is a partnership between the NHRC and the European Union.

Officials say the forum, comprising various human rights groups, will be responsible for ensuring greater protection of civil liberties in Nigeria and serve as a unified platform for rights defenders to interact and address common challenges.

NHRC Executive Director Anthony Ojukwu said, "We're gathered here not only to discuss the current state of human rights in Nigeria, but also to start to chart a way forward  one that ensures safer protection for civil liberties, fosters democratic consolidation and safeguards the fundamental rights of all Nigerians, especially those who stand up for the rights of others."

The meeting comes amid a recent spate of human rights violations, including a crackdown on antigovernment demonstrations in August and the prolonged detention of minors who took part.

The delegates also discussed digital rights, privacy protection, gender-based violence and child abandonment by parents.

The NHRC said security forces were contributing to human rights violations in Nigeria.

Hilary Ogbonna, a senior adviser to the agency, said, "The majority of these violators are the Nigerian police, the military, bandits and parents of children. We also saw an upsurge of sexual and gender-based violence.

But that is not as worrisome as 4,300 [cases of] child abandonment," he said.

The Nigerian police and military have not responded to being named as violators of human rights, but last week, the NHRC found the military culpable for infanticide and extrajudicial killings during a 2016 operation in a remote village in northeastern Borno State.

The NHRC also raised concerns about the growing threat of insecurity in Nigeria and its impact on the rights of the people.

The commission said it recorded more than 1,700 cases of kidnappings and about 1,500 killings between January and September this year.

Damilola Decker, programs officer with the Nigeria-based group Global Rights, said economic vulnerability is one of the reasons that the rights situation is deteriorating.

"What we're observing under the [Nigerian President Bola] Tinubu administration is that civic space is under attack, attacks on journalists, attacks on the rights of people to protest, Decker said.

We're also seeing economic and sociocultural rights of Nigerians being impacted majorly because of the harsh economic conditions especially related to energy prices, he said. It's cascading  crime is on the rise; the state of insecurity is on the increase."
A study by the World Bank on Thursday said urgent action is needed to address rising sea levels in the Pacific atoll islands of Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu, which under current projections could be 50% to 80% submerged in the next 50 years.

The World Banks Pacific Atoll Countries Country Climate and Development Report says the low-lying nations and the roughly 200,000 people who live on them face some of the most severe existential threats from climate change of any region in the world.

The study cites projected sea level rises of up to a half meter in the last half of this century and suggests 50% to 80% of major urban areas in the countries could be underwater.

The region is already seeing annual losses from climate events  such as more frequent and powerful storms  equivalent to 7% of the total economic output in Tuvalu. About 3% to 4% of output in the Marshall Islands and Kiribati are projected to increase.

The bank said that without urgent global and local action, a 1-in-20-year climate event in Tuvalu could lead to damage and losses equivalent to 50% of current annual output by 2050.

The study makes near-, medium- and long-term recommendations for the island nations. The near- and medium-term suggestions include investments in sustainable construction to protect freshwater resources, fisheries and energy supplies, among other crucial infrastructure.

The studys long-term suggestions include investments in education, legal and regulatory frameworks, economic development and climate resilience.

The study also called on the international donor community to make contributions to the Pacific atoll countries, which still face a significant climate funding gap.

The World Bank produces diagnostic country climate and development reports, CCDRs, that integrate climate change and development considerations and suggest concrete actions that countries can take to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The bank has completed over 45 CCDRs around the world as of October 2024.
Disinformation is a key part of the hybrid warfare that Russia unleashed in Africa in a growing effort to expand its influence and gain control over the continents natural resources, the Africa Defense Forum (ADF) Magazine wrote in a November issue.

The Russian disinformation operations pop up repressive regimes and harm civilians, the ADF said. Russia connected to 40% of all disinformation campaigns across the African continent, AFD reported, describing these operations as cognitive warfare run by the Russian defense ministry.

Russia identifies and inflames local grievances to use them to its advantage, the ADF said. The Kremlin exploits Africas history of colonialism to whitewash Russias own account of civilian massacres, human rights violations and other atrocities committed in Africa.

In alignment with that narrative, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed his country has never done anything inhumane on the African continent.

Addressing the audience at the Kremlins public relations event, the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi on November 7, Putin said:

In the history of our relations with the African continent, there has never been any shadow  never; we have never exploited African peoples, nor been engaged in anything inhumane on the African continent.

That is false.

Russia has a dark history of human rights abuses in Africa dating back to the 18th century.

In the present day, multiple investigations by independent rights groups, journalists, think tanks, the United Nations commissions, the U.S. State Department and the European Union accuse Russian state-backed Wagner military group (now African Corps) of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Africa.

The United Nations investigation documented crimes including killing and summary execution of innocent civilians, rape of women and children, torture, force disappearances, pillaging and looting of homes.

In just one incident in Mali, the Russian Wagner forces backed by Malian troops killed upwards of 500 people in Moura village, the U.N. Human rights experts reported in May 2023.

Eyewitnesses recounted to the U.N. investigators how, on March 27, 2022, a military helicopter flew over the village, opening fire on people, while four other helicopters landed, and troops disembarked. The soldiers corralled people into the center of the village, shooting randomly at those trying to escape.

The Malian authorities claimed it was an anti-terrorist military operation against Katiba Macina, an al-Qaida-affiliated group. The surviving villagers described it as a mass murder and atrocity scene, which continued for five days. 58 women, including young girls, were raped or subjected to other forms of sexual violence by the Wagner forces and the Malian troops, the survivors told the U.N. experts.

The U.S. State Department report in February 2023 documented atrocities committed by Russia in Chad, Libya, Mali, Sudan and Central Africa Republic, CAR.

The Kremlin-backed Wagner Group forces have razed entire villages and murdered civilians in the Central African Republic [CAR] to advance their economic interests in the mining sector, participated in the unlawful execution of people in Mali, raided artisanal gold mines in Sudan, and undermined democratic institutions in every country where they have worked.

An investigative report by The Blood Gold Report, an initiative by the Washington-based Consumer Choice Center and its anti-corruption arm 21Democracy revealed the Wagner Group laundered more than $2.5 billion for the Kremlin from trade in African gold since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In February, the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute said Russia's military intelligence service was offering the African unstable governments a "regime survival package" that provides military and diplomatic support in exchange for access to natural resources.

The Kremlin also has recruited hundreds of 18 to 22-year-old African women from Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria to come to Russia on a false promise of a good job and high wages. Once in Russia, the women are forced to work long hours under constant surveillance for a much lower salary than promised assembling Iranian drones for Russias war in Ukraine, The Associated Press reported.

Many African men that have fallen for the Russian promise of a good job end up on the front lines, fighting against Ukraine.

Black foreigners, as well as Russians of African ancestry in Russia, face constant harassment living in an atmosphere of out of control violent racism, the British rights watchdog Amnesty International reported.

As for Putins reference to history: Russia is not without a spectacle of slavery or colonization.

As recently as the 20th century, an amusement park known as Somali village in Luna Park in St. Petersburg, Russia, featured enslaved Africans paraded in cages resembling human zoos.

Further back in history, Russia tried to colonize various parts of Africa but was defeated. In 1889, it claimed Sagallo village, modern-day Djibouti, but it lost its bid to France.

In 1885, Russia was among the countries scrambling for the Red Sea, though it was defeated by Britain in the battle for Sudan and Ethiopia.


The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders on Thursday announced that it is suing the social media company X, accusing it of spreading disinformation.

After Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, discovered that it was the target of a disinformation campaign this past summer, the Paris-based group filed 10 reports of policy violations with X, formerly known as Twitter.

Since none of the posts in question have been removed, RSF opted to sue the company in French courts for its complicity in disseminating false information, misrepresentation and identity theft, the group said in a statement.

Is Xs deliberate unwillingness to fight disinformation punishable by law? Does it make the company complicit in the pollution of public debate? the statement said. With the new case brought forth by RSF, the French courts now have the opportunity to address these pressing questions, establish Xs legal obligations and hold it to account.

The case concerns a late August video that RSF said it found, falsely labeled as from the BBC, claiming RSF produced a report on Nazi beliefs in Ukraines military.

The video used RSFs logo and photos of the groups advocacy director, and it reached nearly half a million views by mid-September, mainly on X and Telegram, RSF said. The press freedom group later determined that the Russian government was behind the fake video.

RSF filed several reports with X about the fake video, but the social media platform did not remove any of the posts in question, RSF said.

Xs refusal to remove content that it knows is false and deceitful  as it was duly informed by RSF  makes it complicit in the spread of the disinformation circulating on its platform, RSFs advocacy director Antoine Bernard said in a statement.

X provides those who spread falsehoods and manipulate public opinion with a powerful arsenal of tools and unparalleled visibility, while granting the perpetrators total impunity, Bernard added.

Emmanuel Daoud, an attorney representing RSF, said in a statement that the lawsuit seeks to remind X and its executives that they can be held criminally responsible if they knowingly provide a platform and tools for disseminating false information, identity theft, misrepresentation, and defamation  offenses punishable under the French Penal Code.

RSFs lawsuit comes after several French news outlets sued X earlier this week for allegedly running their content without payment.

That lawsuit was filed by top French outlets including Le Monde, Le Figaro, Les Echos, and several others. Theyre accusing X of violating so-called neighboring rights, which under French law are due when social media platforms republish news content.

X did not immediately reply to VOAs request for comment.

The social media platform is owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who campaigned for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

On Tuesday, Trump announced that Musk would co-chair, with fellow billionaire and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a new Department of Government Efficiency in the Trump administration.
Republicans are set to take full control of the U.S. government by the third week in January, with President-elect Donald Trump in the White House and the party holding majorities in the Senate and now the House of Representatives, where late vote counting put it over the top on Wednesday.

"Republicans in the House and Senate have a mandate," newly reelected House Speaker Mike Johnson said earlier this week. "The American people want us to implement and deliver that 'America First' agenda" espoused by Trump.

Trump will be sworn in as the countrys 47th president on January 20, two weeks after the new Congress has been seated.

Trump, 78, campaigned on a sweeping agenda that Democrats will be largely powerless to stop unless joined by a handful of Republican defectors in Congress on any specific issue that would undercut the partys slim majorities in both chambers.

Republicans will have a 53-47 edge in the Senate, and the tie-breaking vote of Vice President-elect JD Vance in the event of a 50-50 stalemate on any legislative proposal. Republicans have secured at least 218 seats in the 435-member House, pending the outcome of nine undecided elections for two-year terms. The party won a seat in the Southwestern state of Arizona on Wednesday to cement its majority.

During his bid to win a second nonconsecutive four-year term, Trump called for the massive deportation of millions of undocumented migrants living in the United States to their home countries, an extension and expansion of 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of 2025, further deregulation of businesses, a curb on climate controls, and prosecution of his political opponents  people he calls the enemy within.

Senator John Thune of South Dakota, newly elected by his fellow Republicans as the Senate majority leader, said, "This Republican team is united. We are on one team. We are excited to reclaim the majority and to get to work with our colleagues in the House to enact President Trump's agenda."

Trump nominates loyalists

Trump has swiftly named an array of political loyalists to key Cabinet positions. They remained as vocal supporters during his four years out of office, and most of them are likely to win quick Senate approval after confirmation hearings, as is the bipartisan tradition in Congress when a new president takes office. They will replace officials President Joe Biden selected after he defeated Trump in the 2020 election.

Trump has also called on Senate Republican leaders to allow him to make recess appointments, which could occur when the chamber is not in session and would erase the need for time-consuming and often contentious confirmation hearings.

Despite the likelihood that most of his nominees will be approved, Trump this week named three who immediately drew disparaging assessments from several Democrats and some Republicans for their perceived lack of credentials.

They are former Representative Matt Gaetz as attorney general; Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman turned Republican as director of national intelligence, and Pete Hegseth, a former junior military officer and Fox News host as defense secretary.

The blowback presages tough confirmation fights for the three in the Senate, which reviews the appointments of top-level officials and then votes to confirm them, or on occasion, rejects the nominations of incoming presidents and forces the White House to make another choice.

On Thursday, Trump nominated former presidential candidate and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services; former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton to be Manhattan's top federal prosecutor; and former Representative Doug Collins to be secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Trump also nominated one of his personal criminal defense attorneys, Todd Blanche, to be deputy attorney general, and another of his attorneys, D. John Sauer, to be solicitor general.

Controversy surrounds Gaetz

At an event Thursday night at Trumps Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, Trump said he intended to nominate North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum to lead the Interior Department.

The appointment of Gaetz, 42, could prove particularly problematic, with some senators openly questioning whether he can win a 51-vote majority to assume the governments top law enforcement position. A House ethics committee probe was in the final stages of investigating whether he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use when he announced his resignation from the chamber late Wednesday, ending the probe.

The Justice Department he hopes to lead had already decided not to pursue criminal charges. Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing.

On NBCs Meet the Press NOW, John Bolton, one of Trumps first-term national security advisers who since has become a vocal critic, said Gaetzs appointment must be the worst nomination for a Cabinet position in American history.

Bolton added that Gabbards nomination was hilarious and second worst.

I dont think its a serious nomination for the attorney general, said Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. This one was not on my bingo card.

Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she was shocked that Trump chose Gaetz, while another Republican senator, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, questioned whether Gaetz could be confirmed, adding, I need to think about that one.

An incoming freshman Democratic senator, Andrew Kim, said he did not need to consider more information at a confirmation hearing to know that he would vote against Gaetz.

Gaetz is also disliked by some Republican colleagues for his leading role last year in a successful effort to oust a fellow Republican, Kevin McCarthy, from his job as House speaker, the lead position in the chamber and second in line to the presidency after the vice president.

Trump heralded his nomination of Gaetz, newly elected to a fifth term in the House, saying he had distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice and would root out systemic corruption at the agency.

Experience questioned

Gabbard, 43, has been attacked for her lack of direct experience in intelligence and accused of disseminating pro-Russian disinformation. If confirmed, she will be tasked with overseeing 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. She won over Trump with her switch from being a one-time Democratic House member from Hawaii to changing parties and staunchly advocating for his election.

She prepped Trump for his only debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrat he defeated in the November 5 election.

Critics have assailed Hegseth, a 44-year-old decorated former military officer, as someone who lacks managerial experience in the military or business world. A weekend anchor on Fox News, he has voiced his opinions on military operations, including his opposition to women serving in combat roles, saying they lack as much physical strength as men. He has lobbied Trump to pardon military service members accused of war crimes.

Hegseth is certain to face near universal opposition from Senate Democrats voting on his confirmation, and some Republicans are expressing concern.

A descendant of the Kennedy family political dynasty, Kennedy, 70, has been one of the countrys most prominent anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists for years.

At a rally in October, Trump indicated that if he was reelected, he would let Kennedy oversee a public health portfolio. Last week, Kennedy said he would immediately begin studying vaccine safety. He also has pledged to formally recommend states and municipalities remove fluoride from public water.

An attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell, Clayton, 58, will be nominated to be the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York  perhaps better known as the sheriff of Wall Street.

Although the office is often responsible for policing financial fraud, Clayton himself does not have any prosecutorial experience. While at the SEC, Clayton, a political independent, developed a reputation for trying to create consensus with the agencys Democratic commissioners.

Doug Collins, 58, served in Congress from 2013 to 2021 and unsuccessfully ran for election to be a U.S. senator for Georgia in 2020. He is currently a chaplain in the United States Air Force Reserve Command.

Blanche, 50, represented Trump in several of the criminal cases against the former president. The attorney played a key role in Trump's defense teams in both the Manhattan hush money case, which led to a conviction earlier this year, and the federal classified documents prosecution, which a judge dismissed this past summer. Blanche also played a role in the federal case regarding the January 6, 2021, attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

And Sauer, 50, who previously served as the solicitor general of Missouri, successfully defended Trump before the Supreme Court in a case that gave Trump and all future U.S. presidents vast immunity from prosecution for what are deemed official acts.

Burgum, 67, grew up in a small town in North Dakota and earned a masters in business administration from Stanford University. He got into software and led Great Plains Software until Microsoft bought it in 2001, for $1.1 billion. He then tried his hand in politics, running for governor and winning on his first try.

The president-elects first choices for high-level positions in his nascent administration have won broad acceptance from fellow Republicans, including his co-campaign manager Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as secretary of state and Representative Mike Waltz of Florida as national security adviser.

Trump returned triumphantly to Washington on Wednesday, pledging a smooth transition of power in January as he met for two hours at the White House with Biden, his longtime political rival.
Russias military reported capturing a village in east Ukraine on Thursday, with forces closing in on the town of Kurakhove.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the army captured the village of Voznesenka in the Donetsk region.

The town had a population of about 20,000 before the war began in 2022, Agence France-Presse reported.

Russia also reported damaging Ukrainian airfields and energy facilities and shooting down 78 drones, according to state news agency RIA.

Ukraines military said it shot down 21 of 59 Russian drones launched in an overnight attack.

Later Thursday evening, Russian drones struck a residential building and energy installations in and close to Odesa, a Ukrainian port city on the Black Sea. The attack killed at least one person, injured eight and damaged a boiler plant used for heating, according to the regional governor.

"Houses, a church and cars have been damaged," Odesa Regional Governor Oleh Kiper said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Emergency crews were responding to the aftermath of what Kiper called a "mass attack."

Ukraine had reported a massive aerial attack on Kyiv and other locations early Wednesday involving ballistic and cruise missiles and dozens of drones.

Ukraine's air force said its units shot down four missiles and 37 drones launched by Russia over eight regions.

"It is important that our forces have the means to defend the country from Russian terror," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after attack.

In his Wednesday address, Zelenskyy praised the countrys "air defense warriors."

"Every night, every day, they shoot down Russian Shahed drones and missiles," he said. "This morning, they intercepted Russian ballistics. This is significant. Every such success means saving the lives of our people."

Late on Wednesday, a small Russian assault group briefly broke through to the outskirts of Ukraine's northeastern city of Kupiansk for the first time since the Kremlin's forces fled in September 2022, officials said on Thursday.

Moscow's forces, including soldiers disguised as Ukrainian troops, attacked in four waves on Wednesday but were driven off from the city, Ukraine's general staff said.

Ukraine has been appealing to allies to supply more air defense systems to protect against Russian attacks, and Zelenskyy said the country was grateful "to all our partners who help us with anti-missiles and air defense systems."

"The strategic goal is to reach a practical level of cooperation with our partners that will enable us to produce the air defense systems and anti-missiles we need here in Ukraine," he said.

He added Ukraine needs to "finally push Russia towards making a fair peace."

Russia's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva told reporters on Thursday that Russia is open to negotiations to end the war if they're initiated by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
KYODO NEWS - Nov 14, 2024 - 11:53 | World, All

Palau's reelected President Surangel Whipps said Tuesday he may ask the United States for a Patriot missile defense system, citing a recent Chinese missile test as a "direct threat" to the Pacific island nation.

Under the Compact of Free Association, an agreement allowing U.S. funding and military access to Palau, Whipps, 56, said the United States is responsible for defending his country of around 18,000 people.

"We have also the power to request additional (defense support) if we feel there's a threat," Whipps told Kyodo News, hours before winning an election that gave him another four years in office. In September, China test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that Whipps said intruded into Palau's airspace.

Whipps believes he and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump are "very much in agreement" regarding security. He noted the United States will install defense radars in Palau's Angaur and Ngaraard states, and expand a seaport in Koror.

Along with 11 other countries, Whipps said Palau should maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan, regarded by China as a renegade province, "because it's built on mutual respect, rule of law and really, democracy and freedom...which is something we should all promote."

He accused China of "weaponizing tourism" when it issued a travel warning for Palau in June that prevented Chinese travelers from visiting his country.

Related coverage:

U.S., Chinese military officers discuss operational safety

Japan, Pacific islands oppose status quo change amid China's rise

Prabowo inaugurated as Indonesia's 1st new president in 10 years
Israel suffered one of the deadliest days of its ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Wednesday when six of its soldiers were killed in combat near the border.

The soldiers "fell during combat in southern Lebanon," the army said in a statement. Their deaths brought to 47 the number of Israeli troops who have been killed in combat with Hezbollah since September 30, when Israel sent ground forces into Lebanon.

The army's announcement came after Israel Katz, Israel's new defense minister, said there would be no easing up in the war against Hezbollah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on X shared an image of the "Golani" Brigade symbol, the unit the soldiers who were killed belonged to, a green olive tree against a yellow background, with a broken heart emoji.

Since September 23, Israel has stepped up its bombing campaign in Lebanon, mainly targeting Hezbollah strongholds in south Beirut and in the east and south of the country. On September 30, it sent in ground troops.

The offensive came after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire, launched by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

Strike at Aramoun

Earlier on Wednesday, an Israeli strike hit Aramoun, a densely packed area south of Beirut that is outside Hezbollah's traditional strongholds. The health ministry said the strike killed six people.

Lebanese state media on the same day reported a third wave of Israeli raids on Hezbollah's south Beirut bastion in 24 hours.

The Israeli army, meanwhile, said it had intercepted some of the "five projectiles" that had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory.

Katz told senior military commanders on his first visit to the border region since his appointment last week that Israel would "make no cease-fires, we will not take our foot off the pedal, and we will not allow any arrangement that does not include the achievement of our war objectives."

Katz added: "We will continue to strike Hezbollah everywhere."

Israel's objectives include disarming Hezbollah and pushing the militants beyond the Litani River, which flows across southern Lebanon.

After Katz's address, another airstrike hit a Beirut suburb Wednesday evening after a warning by Israel's military for residents to evacuate.

Hezbollah said on Wednesday it had fired ballistic missiles at the Israeli army's headquarters in the commercial hub of Tel Aviv, which also houses the defense ministry.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army spokesperson's unit said it would "not to react to Hezbollah's allegations."

Lebanese authorities say more than 3,360 people have been killed since October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah and Israel began engaging in cross-border clashes.

Rocket fire from Lebanon on Tuesday killed two residents of the northern Israeli city of Nahariya. The deaths brought to 45 the number of civilians killed in northern Israel as a result of rocket fire from Lebanon.

Israeli hostage

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, an ally of Hamas, released a video earlier on Wednesday of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza, identifying himself as Sasha Trupanov.

Trupanov's mother, Lena, in a statement published by the Hostage and Missing Families Forum campaign group, urged the hostages' immediate release.

When Hamas militants staged their October 7, 2023, attack, they killed about 1,200 people and about 250 hostages into the Gaza Strip. Of those, about 100 remain held hostage, while about a third of them are confirmed dead. Their bodies remain in Gaza.

In the more than 13 months of war, Israels offensive has killed nearly 44,000 people, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Wednesday. The health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of those killed were women and children.
Millions of Sri Lankans voted Thursday to choose a new parliament in a key election that will decide if the countrys new leftist president gets the mandate to push ahead with his agenda of improving lives for millions of people struggling with an economic downturn and stamping out corruption.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake swept to power in September on his promise of systemic change in a country where public anger with mainstream political parties has been running high since the countrys crushing economic collapse two years ago.

Hoping to build on the widespread support he secured in the presidential election, he dissolved parliament and ordered snap polls about a year ahead of schedule. Dissanayakes party, a fringe group, held only three seats in the 225-member parliament.

His coalition, the National Peoples Power (NPP) is likely to win a majority, according to political analysts.

Normally in this country the presidential winner gets enough parliamentary backing to enable him to govern, Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director of the Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, told VOA. Getting to the half-way mark, that is 113 seats, is crucial because he needs a majority to implement his program.

About 17 million people were eligible to choose from about 8,800 candidates.

Many of the candidates contesting from the NPP are newcomers to politics. Some analysts say that is an advantage because they are not tainted by corruption in a country that has rejected traditional parties, blaming established politicians for a corrupt culture. Others point out that because they are mostly unknown faces, much will depend on whether President Dissanayake, a charismatic leader, was able to convince voters to back them.

Parliament needs more NPP members to establish a strong government which will eliminate bribery and corruption, the Sri Lankan leader said in his final public meeting before the polls.

Although Dissanayake was a member of parliament for 25 years, his party, the JVP or Peoples Liberation Front, was a fringe group on the margins of Sri Lankas politics. In the runup to the presidential polls, the 55-year-old leader put together a coalition that consists of members of his party, professionals, civil society organizations, women and youth groups.

Public expectations in the country ran high as people headed out to vote on Thursday. Melanie Gunathilaka, a Colombo resident, who voted soon after polls opened, said she is optimistic the elections will pave the way for the change that many Sri Lankans are yearning for.

There was a lot of resentment among people like us about the misuse of state funds and mismanagement by the established parties, she told VOA. We hope the new government will reflect a political culture that is rooted in transparency and accountability.

The main challenger to Dissanayakes coalition NPP, is the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, led by opposition leader Sajith Premadasa. The New Democratic Front (NDF), backed by former president Ranil Wickremesinghe, is also in the fray.

But the opposition campaign in the runup to the parliamentary polls was low-key. The opposition is in disarray, so the sense of a contest is not there. Only the NPP has held big rallies, according to Saravanamuttu.

Voters directly elect 196 members of parliament, while the remaining 29 seats are allocated according to the proportional vote obtained by each party. Tens of thousands of security personnel were deployed at the more than 13,000 polling stations set up across the island country, at schools, temples and other public places.

The outcome of Thursdays polls will be important in determining how smoothly Dissanayake is able to implement reforms he has promised, such as cutting taxes and supporting small businesses. His first task will be to appoint a full-fledged cabinet. At the moment he only has a prime minister and two ministers.

He backs policies that will ease hardship for working class people and has said that he will renegotiate the terms of a $2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund, while sticking with the program. While the IMF package helped stabilize the countrys economy, subsidies were slashed as part of austerity measures imposed by the IMF. Since the economic collapse, millions have fallen into poverty, food and fuel prices have skyrocketed and citizens say there are fewer job opportunities.
A hack of U.S. telecommunications systems linked to China that initially appeared to focus on the American presidential campaigns goes much deeper, according to investigators, and is likely part of a vast effort by Beijing to spy on the United States.

The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned on Wednesday that the breach first detected late last month has now revealed a broad and significant cyber espionage campaign.

The two agencies said in a statement that their investigation has confirmed Chinese-linked hackers compromised the networks of multiple U.S. telecommunication companies, gaining access to a potential treasure trove of information.

Specifically, they said the hackers would have been able to access customer call records and infiltrate the private communications of a select number of government officials and politicians.

Additionally, the hackers appear to have been able to copy information requested by U.S. law enforcement as a result of court orders.

We expect our understanding of these compromises to grow as the investigation continues, the FBI and CISA said.

We encourage any organization that believes it might be a victim to engage its local FBI field office or CISA, they added.

The two agencies first announced they were investigating a breach of U.S. telecommunications systems in late October, less than two weeks before U.S. voters cast their ballots in nationwide elections.

Word of the breach followed a report by The New York Times that Chinese hackers were thought to have broken into telecommunications networks to target the campaign of President-elect Donald Trump  including phones used by Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance.

The Trump campaign confirmed the breach in a statement to VOA. Separately, a person familiar with the investigation told VOA that people affiliated with the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris were also targeted.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington at the time dismissed the U.S. hacking allegations as disinformation, calling the U.S. "the origin and the biggest perpetrator of cyberattacks."

Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu on Thursday rejected the latest U.S. statements as disinformation.



China firmly opposes the U.S.'s smear attacks against China without any factual basis, he said in an email. We hope that relevant parties will adopt a professional and responsible attitude when characterizing cyber incidents, basing their conclusions on sufficient evidence rather than unfounded speculation and accusations.

U.S. intelligence agencies warned for months that foreign adversaries were using a combination of cyberattacks and influence operations to meddle with the November 5 U.S. presidential election.

In addition, reports issued by private cybersecurity firms indicated a significant uptick in activity by actors linked to Russia, China and Iran.

All three nations have repeatedly denied accusations of election meddling.

U.S. agencies, led by CISA and the FBI, have long warned that China-linked hackers have burrowed into U.S. computer systems and networks, in some cases hiding for years.

The China-linked group, known as Volt Typhoon, has been "positioning itself to launch destructive cyberattacks that would jeopardize the physical safety of Americans," according to an advisory issued in February.

"What we've found to date is likely the tip of the iceberg," CISA Director Jen Easterly said in a statement at the time.
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President Joe Biden welcomed Presidentelect Donald Trump to the White House Wednesday. Despite the unprecedented nature of the election, the Biden administration continued a long-standing tradition of the United States democratic process of a peaceful transfer of power. A conversation about that tradition with VOA Chief National Correspondent and former White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is turning to an old ally and to an outsider seen by some as a disruptor to oversee American intelligence agencies when he begins his second term in office in January.

Trump late Tuesday announced he planned to appoint his former director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, as director of the CIA, the countrys premier spy agency.

In a second announcement late Wednesday, Trump said he would nominate former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence and oversee all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. Both nominees must be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Of the two picks, Trumps choice of Gabbard as his top intelligence official caught some lawmakers and former intelligence officials by surprise.

Gabbard, a veteran with the U.S. Army National Guard, served in Iraq and Kuwait, and later became the first Hindu elected to the House of Representatives, representing the state of Hawaii as a Democrat.

During her more than 20 years in the National Guard, Gabbard was awarded a combat medical badge, but has not held any senior leadership positions.

Trump, who promised during his campaign to root out what he described as corruption in the intelligence agencies, praised Gabbards approach.

I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength, he said in a statement.

However, she has taken controversial positions in the past that have drawn criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.

In a social media video in March 2022, she alleged there were more than 25 U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine conducting research on dangerous pathogens, and called on the United States and its allies, as well as Russia and Ukraine, to implement a cease-fire to make sure the pathogens did not spread.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney responded by chastising Gabbard, accusing her in a post of his own of parroting false Russian propaganda.

Her treasonous lies may well cost lives, he added.

Days earlier, top U.S. intelligence officials told lawmakers they were fighting influence operations directed by Russia, aimed at convincing audiences that Kyiv was pursuing biological weapons.

Gabbard was also criticized in 2017 for traveling to Syria and meeting with President Bashar al-Assad, who stands accused of war crimes. She defended the trip, arguing it is necessary to meet with adversaries if "you are serious about pursuing peace."

Virginia Representative Abigail Spanberger, a former case officer with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and a Democrat, wrote on X late Wednesday that she was appalled by the nomination.

Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she trafficks in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar al-Assad and [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, Spanberger wrote. I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security.

Ratcliffe to CIA

While Trump went with an U.S. intelligence outsider to serve as his lead intelligence official, he turned to an old ally to head up the countrys premier spy agency.

Trump praised Ratcliffe as a warrior for Truth and Honesty, and commended him for exposing fake Russian collusion, in part, by rejecting concerns expressed by dozens of former U.S. intelligence officials about Russian meddling.

When 51 intelligence officials were lying about [President Joe Bidens son] Hunter Bidens laptop, there was one, John Ratcliffe, telling the truth to the American People, Trump said in a statement late Tuesday.

Messages and other information from the younger Bidens laptop were provided to a New York newspaper in 2020, some of which were purported to show his dealings with foreign business partners in Ukraine, China and elsewhere. No evidence of impropriety by President Biden was ever established.

Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman who served on the House Intelligence Committee, has long been an ardent Trump supporter. And like Gabbard, his nomination to lead the U.S. intelligence community in August 2019, during Trumps first term, sparked controversy.

Ratcliffe was quickly forced to withdraw his name from consideration after both Republican and Democratic lawmakers raised questions about his credentials, focusing on allegations Ratcliffe had overstated his counterterrorism achievements as a federal prosecutor.

At the time, some lawmakers also questioned his lack of experience dealing with U.S. intelligence agencies.

But Trump nominated Ratcliffe for director of national intelligence again in February 2020.

During his confirmation hearing, Ratcliffe promised lawmakers he would deliver both the president and policymakers the unvarnished truth, no matter what they wanted to hear, and he ultimately won confirmation three months later after a 49-44 vote in the Senate, relying solely on Republican support.

Shortly after being sworn in, he joined social media, becoming the first director of national intelligence to have a Twitter account (the platform now known as X).

Ratcliffe then moved to declassify and release some intelligence regarding interactions between former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and Russian officials.

He slammed leaks to the media that alleged that Russia had offered bounties to Taliban fighters for targeting and killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan  allegations that U.S. defense and intelligence officials later said could not be corroborated.

Ratcliffe also clashed with lawmakers, failing to appear before Congress for the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment hearings and ending in-person, all-member intelligence briefings on election security.

And he publicly argued with the then-chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, regarding Russias role in meddling in U.S. elections.

On China, Ratcliffe took a hard line, accusing Beijing of allowing the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic to spread.

In an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal before leaving office in January 2021, he described China as the most pressing threat to democracy and the West since World War II.

Since leaving office, Ratcliffe has served as a co-chair for the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute.

He co-authored a policy brief on the Russian invasion of Ukraine from October 2022, expressing support for a Ukrainian victory while backing an increased, U.S.-led push for negotiations and de-escalation.
President-elect Donald Trumps choice to serve as the next U.S. secretary of state is Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who has been in the Senate since 2011 and serves on the chambers foreign relations and intelligence committees.

Trump, in a statement Wednesday, called Rubio a highly respected leader and a very powerful voice for freedom who will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries.

Rubio, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a senior member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, is regarded as intelligent, ambitious and well-liked by Senate colleagues of both parties.

If Rubio, who is 53 and the son of Cuban immigrants, is confirmed by his Senate colleagues, he would become the first Latino secretary of state. In that role, he would be tasked with helping to implement Trumps America First foreign policy.

After Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Rubio was a vocal supporter of Kyiv. More recently, he has called for negotiations to end the conflict and voted in April against a $95 billion military aid package for the Ukrainians.

Rubio is a strong supporter of Israel, in line with Trumps stance. He has exhibited a tough stance toward authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as toward the communist leadership in Beijing.

In response, China has banned the senator from entering the country  something that likely will change if Rubio is confirmed as secretary of state.

Some leading Democrats in Congress, who will be the opposition party in January, are making positive comments about the Republican.

I've got a good relationship with Marco, and I think Marco is very capable, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, who has served on the intelligence committee with Rubio, told VOA after Rubios name was circulated in media reports.

On social media, Democratic Senator John Fetterman called Rubio a strong choice, adding that he looks forward to voting for his confirmation.

Compared to some of the other names that were floating around, people who really don't have any experience in foreign policy, I think this is a pretty good one, former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger said on CNN before Trumps official announcement.

In choosing members for his Cabinet and senior White House staff, Trump is generally emphasizing loyalty rather than experience. Rubio campaigned for Trump during this years presidential election.

The two had been rivals in the Republican presidential primary eight years ago. Trump had repeatedly belittled the senator, while Rubio questioned the New York real estate investors qualification for the presidency, calling Trump a con man, deemed him dangerous and someone who could not be trusted with the launch codes for nuclear weapons.

After Trump won the partys nomination and the presidency, the relationship warmed. But Rubio did not side with Trump when he refused to accept defeat at the hands of Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden four years ago. After Trumps supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Rubio condemned the violence, calling the attackers unpatriotic and un-American low-lives.

Earlier this year, Trump considered Rubio, a behind-the-scenes campaign foreign policy adviser, as his running mate before selecting Republican Senator JD Vance.

Should Rubio take the job, he would have to vacate his Senate seat. A successor would then be selected by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Among the candidates being promoted by influential Republicans for the Senate seat is Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Trumps daughter-in-law.

VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report.
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan has called for tangible evidence of progress toward democratic elections the country.

Briefing the United Nations Security Council this week, special representative of the secretary-general and head of UNMISS, Nicholas Haysom, told government leaders the clock on the extension is already ticking.

Since winning its independence in 2011, South Sudan is just beginning its fourth extension of the transitional period government, with elections now rescheduled for 2026.

Speaking for Haysom, U.N. South Sudan acting spokesperson Rabindra Giri said, The international community needs tangible evidence that this countrys leaders and political elite are genuinely committed to a democratic future.

As the country struggles with increasing internal conflict, the delay in democratic reform affects the hopes for peace, stability and development, even beyond South Sudan's borders, impacting the entire East African region.

UNMISS officials stressed that time is running out for political leaders to fulfill their obligations under the peace agreement.

We must collectively seize the opportunity to make this extension the last and deliver the peace and democracy that the people of South Sudan deserve, Giri said.

On the streets of Juba, South Sudanese citizens were eager to talk about how the delays in implementing the peace agreement raise doubts about whether their leaders genuinely care about the nations well-being and are impacting their hopes for peace, stability and development.

Nunu Diana, a womens rights advocate in South Sudan, is one of them.

I think because of the extension, personally, as a young person, I have lost morale in the governance system of the country, Diana said.

Data Gordon, an advocate for peace and gender equality, is another.

The time for political statements without tangible and time-bound action is over," Gorton said. "For elections to take place as scheduled, the government needs to walk the talk.

UNMISS said it is moving ahead with support to the National Elections Commission, while Haysom highlighted civic education, preparing for voter registration, a code of conduct between political parties, civil society, media and election security among the areas that the parties could immediately address.

Haysom said time is a nonrenewable resource. He said this is South Sudans last chance to deliver on its promise of democracy, and there is a need for sustained international support while holding South Sudan's leaders accountable to their own commitments.

This cannot be business as usual for the parties to the peace agreement, the political elite, the guarantors of the peace agreement or the international community," Giri said. "We must collectively seize the opportunity to make this extension the last and deliver the peace and democracy that the people of South Sudan deserve.
As China and Peru prepare to sign an updated free-trade agreement at this years Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to inaugurate a Chinese-financed mega port in Peru, known as Chancay, while attending the APEC meetings.

China promotes the Chancay port on Latin America's Pacific coast as a key hub to boost trade connectivity with South America. The plan includes using infrastructure projects to link Chancay, reducing shipping times for goods.

A senior U.S. official downplayed the ports implications for the United States, stating that it does not complicate U.S. relationships in the region and that it is natural for Latin American countries to have diverse trade and investment partnerships beyond the U.S.

Matt Murray, the U.S. senior official for APEC, spoke to VOA on Wednesday from Lima, Peru, outlining the U.S. agenda for this years APEC meetings.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: Could you unpack for us the agenda of APEC 2024?

Matt Murray, U.S. senior official for APEC: APEC, as you know, is a multilateral forum with 21 member economies that account for half of global trade and 60% of global GDP. Each year, APEC is hosted by a different member economy. The United States was delighted to host in 2023, and this year, the forum has moved to Peru for 2024.

APEC always focuses on three key areas: trade and investment, innovation and digitalization, and sustainable, strong, secure, inclusive and balanced growth.

Peru has continued these priorities by bringing APEC economies together to discuss these issues and make progress on specific initiatives, including a renewed focus on sustainability.

This year, during the energy ministerial meeting in August, Peru launched the Just Energy Transition Initiative within APEC. They have also supported new programming, focused on curbing food loss and waste in the region, which is crucial for the sustainability of our agricultural sectors.

VOA: Chinese President Xi Jinping will sign an updated free-trade agreement with Peru and inaugurate a new mega port north of Lima, called Chancay. Can you talk about the implications for the United States?

Murray: I think we expect countries, including APEC economies like Peru, to engage in trade and investment relationships with a variety of partners, including the Peoples Republic of China. As President Xi arrives in Lima, attention will be given to areas where China has invested in Peru, as well as the trade and investment ties between the two countries. However, from the U.S. perspective, our primary focus is on our own relationship with Peru and with Latin America, particularly in terms of trade, investment and broader engagement.

I dont necessarily see this as complicating our relationship in the region. We view it as a natural part of business that Latin American countries will have diverse trade and investment partners.

VOA: Given President-elect Donald Trump's stance on tariffs and the potential withdrawal from the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and with several IPEF members also part of APEC, how might the U.S. reassure global leaders about its commitment to deepening economic ties with other nations?

Murray: Since 1989, both Democratic and Republican U.S. administrations have engaged with APEC. We view it as an opportunity to engage a wide range of partners in a consensus-based, nonbinding way.

One of the key ways we reassure leaders is simply by showing up. This week, were showing up in a big way. The best way to demonstrate our commitment to deepening economic ties with the region is by having the president, secretary of state and U.S. trade representative all come to Lima to participate in APEC Economic Leaders Week. That, I think, demonstrates leadership and our willingness to continue engaging.

VOA: What does the future look like for APEP, or Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, an economic initiative for Latin America, and IPEF?

Murray: I don't think I can speculate on the future of these particular arrangements. As you know, this is part of our democracy. We have administrations in power that transition to new ones, which may make different or sometimes similar decisions. There are, in fact, areas where we've seen continuity from the Obama administration to the Trump administration and then to the Biden administration, and there may continue to be such continuity. So, I dont think it's possible to speculate on any one particular issue.
VOAs Persian Service has expressed shock and grief at the suicide of a former colleague, Kianoosh Sanjari, who jumped to his death from a building in Tehran on Wednesday in protest against Irans authoritarian rulers.

Sanjari, a 42-year-old Iranian, was a former journalist and rights activist who worked at VOA Persians Washington bureau from 2009 to 2013 before returning to Iran in 2016 to care for his parents.

Sanjari had been jailed in Iran for his activism before and after his work in the United States. He spoke publicly about how he suffered psychological harm from solitary confinement and other ill treatment by Iranian authorities.

VOA Persian Service Director Leili Soltani wrote on Instagram that she and her staff are heartbroken and deeply affected by the loss of their former colleague.

This devastating loss has been extremely difficult and shocking for everyone at VOA Persian, especially for those of us who worked closely with him, Soltani wrote. Kianoosh was only 17 when he was arrested, tortured and kept in solitary confinement. Though he is gone, his passion for freedom and human rights will live on.

VOA Director Michael Abramowitz said he also was deeply saddened to learn of Sanjaris death.

Kianoosh, a former VOA journalist & a man who loved his country, suffered imprisonment & faced severe repression from the Iranian regime that ultimately led to his passing. He will be deeply missed, Abramowitz wrote in a post on the X platform.

Responding to a VOA query, a State Department spokesperson said the Biden administration is saddened by Sanjaris death and expresses condolences to his family.

His and other recent youth suicides in Iran indicate growing despondence on the part of Iranian youth with a regime that suppresses their most basic human rights, the spokesperson said in an email.

We again call for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners detained in Iran without just cause. The Iranian regimes campaign to silence critics and human rights activists must stop, the U.S. official said.

Sanjari had posted a message on his X account early Wednesday saying he would end his life in protest of the dictatorship of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei if judicial authorities did not announce the release of four political prisoners by 7 p.m. that day. No such announcement came.

At 7:20 p.m. Wednesday, he made two more posts on his X account, one of them a photograph taken from the terrace of Tehrans Charsou shopping mall complex showing a bridge and the street beneath him. In the other, Sanjari wrote that he would end his life after the post, in which he also said, No one should be imprisoned for expressing their opinions. Protest is the right of every Iranian citizen.

Video posted to social media shortly after Sanjaris final social media posts showed the body of a man lying on a sidewalk beside the Charsou mall, as onlookers gathered and emergency service personnel arrived at the scene. Informed sources told VOA Persian that the body was that of Sanjari, who had jumped from the terrace to his death.

Iranian state news agency IRNA cited Judge Mohammad Shahriari, head of Tehran's Criminal Affairs Prosecutor's Office, as saying he has opened a suspicious death case related to Sanjari.

Before visiting the mall, sources told VOA Persian, Sanjari had been at his parents Tehran home, where several friends had visited him and believed they had dissuaded him from taking his life.

Sanjaris death as an act of antigovernment protest has drawn expressions of sadness from other rights activists and journalists around the world.

The Islamic Republic is undoubtedly responsible for this tragic death, wrote Roya Boroumand, executive director of Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, a U.S.-based group dedicated to the promotion of human rights and democracy in Iran. In a statement sent to VOA, Boroumand said Sanjari was politically active after his release from prison, campaigning for others languishing in prison and also against the death penalty.

He always held Iran dear in his heart and did not let the brutality of the Islamic Republic and strains of his personal life stop him from fighting against repression. By ending his life and the message he left behind, he reminded us of this bitter reality and condemned his oppressors and those who claim to be ruling on behalf of God, Boroumand wrote.

VOAs Persian Service contributed to this report.
KYODO NEWS - Nov 14, 2024 - 15:31 | All, Japan

The Japanese government on Thursday ruled out abolishing the death penalty, rejecting calls by domestic legal experts for a review amid international pressure to end executions.

"The government thinks it is not appropriate to abolish" the death penalty, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a press conference. "The death penalty is unavoidable for a person who has committed an extremely grave and atrocious crime."

On Wednesday, a 16-member panel, including a former top prosecutor, a former top police official and academics, proposed to the Cabinet and parliament the establishment of a conference body to discuss whether to maintain the death penalty.

Citing the case of Iwao Hakamata, an 88-year-old man who spent nearly half a century on death row before being acquitted in a recent retrial over a 1966 quadruple murder, the panel's report said, "Once a mistake occurs, it takes a very long time to correct it."

The panel, set up in February with the Japan Federation of Bar Associations serving as its secretariat, also said abolishing the death penalty system is an international trend.

Japan and the United States are the only Group of Seven industrialized nations still handing down capital sentences. The European Union, which bars countries with the death penalty from joining, has been vocal in calling on Japan to review its stance.

At the end of 2023, 144 countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice, according to the human rights organization Amnesty International, which has also urged Japan to end the system.

Related coverage:

Japanese man's acquittal of 1966 quadruple murders finalized

Abolishing Japan's death penalty "inappropriate": Justice Minister
Polls have closed across Somaliland after presidential elections, and it appears Wednesday's voting across the breakaway region has gone smoothly.

The Somaliland National Electoral Commission (NEC) said polls closed across the region at 6 p.m. local time. More than 1 million people were registered to vote across some 2,000 polling stations in Somalia's breakaway region.

In the evening, vote counting was underway, according to the electoral agency.

"It will start from polling centers level, then passes to district, and the regional before we announce the result," said NEC Chairman Muse Hassan Yusuf. "We have successfully solved minor technical issues reported in some polling stations," he said.

He said the NEC would announce the result of the election by November 21.

General Mohamed Adan Saqadhi, head of Somaliland Police Force, said throughout Somaliland the election was peaceful.

"Thanks to Allah, the election took place democratically and peacefully. No incident was reported," said Saqadhi.

Candidates promise to grow economy

Three candidates, including incumbent President Muse Bihi Abdi, were on the ballot in Wednesday's poll. In interviews with VOA Somali, each of the three candidates promised to strengthen democracy, boost economic growth, and gain the international recognition Somaliland has sought for 33 years.

Abdi, of the ruling Peace, Unity and Development Party, also known simply as Kulmiye, was seeking a second term. He ran against Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, known as "Irro," of the Waddani party and Faisal Ali Warabe of the Justice and Development Party, or UCID.

This is the fourth presidential election since the region on the northwestern tip of Somalia broke away from the rest of the country, following the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991.

The territory declared independence that year but has never achieved international recognition.

Despite that, Somaliland has a functioning government and institutions, a political system that has allowed democratic transfers of power between rival parties, its own currency, passport and armed forces.

Voters cast ballots amid tension

Wednesday's vote comes at a time when tensions remain high between Somalia and Ethiopia over a controversial memorandum of understanding that Ethiopia signed with Somaliland.

The deal would grant Ethiopia a 50-year lease of access to 20 kilometers of the Gulf of Aden coastline in exchange for the potential recognition of Somaliland's independence, which Somalia views as a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The deal, signed on January 1 in Addis Ababa by Abdi and Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, sparked anger in Mogadishu, which considers Somaliland part of its national territory.

In April, Somalia expelled Ethiopian Ambassador Muktar Mohamed Ware, alleging "internal interference" by Ethiopia. Somalia also ordered the closure of Ethiopia's consulates in Somaliland and Puntland, although both consulates remained open.

Last month, Somalia expelled Mogadishu-based Ethiopian diplomat Ali Mohamed Adan, who was a counselor at Ethiopia's embassy in Mogadishu.

In July and August, two rounds of talks between Ethiopia and Somalia, mediated by Turkey, failed to solve the dispute, with Somalia demanding Ethiopia withdraw from the deal and Ethiopia insisting that it does not infringe on Somalia's sovereignty.

On Saturday, Somali Defense Minister Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur repeated the Somali government position against Ethiopian troop involvement in a new African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia due to start in January.

"I can say that Ethiopia is the only government we know of so far that will not participate in the new AU mission because it has violated our sovereignty and national unity," Nur said Saturday in a government-run television interview.
The World Health Organization has labeled a forced repatriation of Afghan nationals from Pakistan as a major setback for polio eradication efforts, contributing to the regional resurgence of the paralytic disease.

Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two polio-endemic nations, reporting 49 and 23 cases respectively, so far this year, up from only six cases each in 2023.

The latest case in Pakistan was confirmed Thursday in the southwestern province of Balochistan, which sits on the Afghan border and accounts for half the cases reported in 2024.

Until you get rid of polio completely, it will resurge and come back, and this is what we are seeing now in Pakistan [where] nearly half of the districts are infected, and in Afghanistan, a third of the provinces are infected, Hamid Jafari, the WHO director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said Wednesday while discussing causes of polio resurgence in both countries.

I think the major setback was a forced repatriation of Afghan nationals that led to a massive and unpredictable movement of populations within Pakistan and across both borders and within Afghanistan, so the virus moved with these populations, Jafari told the virtual discussion hosted by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, or GPEI.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said that Pakistan's crackdown on undocumented foreign nationals has resulted in more than 730,000 Afghan migrants returning to Afghanistan since August 2023.

Jafari also mentioned other factors contributing to the rise of polio in Pakistan, including authorities' inability to consistently carry out vaccination campaigns in areas affected by militancy, where children cannot be effectively immunized against the crippling disease. He also highlighted the presence of significant vaccine hesitancy and community boycotts rooted in public frustration over the lack of essential services in impoverished districts.

Pakistani and WHO officials say vaccine boycotts in some regions also result from the false propaganda that anti-polio campaigns are a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children. Additionally, anti-government militants in violence-hit regions occasionally stage deadly attacks on polio teams, suspecting them of spying for authorities, routinely disrupting vaccination drives in districts near the Afghan border.

Afghan polio ban

While sharing the latest polio situation in Afghanistan, the senior WHO official stated they are collaborating with various humanitarian actors and partners to promote vaccination against polio and all other diseases.

We cannot implement house-to-house vaccination, Jafari stated, referencing the ban imposed by Taliban authorities on polio teams over security concerns.

The program is working closely with [Taliban] authorities to re-update micro plans and work closely with the communities and local officials to make sure children are mobilized to vaccination sites, he added.

In September, the Taliban abruptly halted house-to-house vaccine deliveries in parts of southern Afghanistan, including Kandahar, without publicly stating any reason.

An independent monitoring board of the GPEI recently said that the Talibans action had stemmed from their administrations concerns about covert surveillance activities. The report quoted de facto Afghan authorities as explaining that their leadership is living in Kandahar and has concerns about their security.

Jafari stated that Pakistan and Afghanistan are taking measures to address the challenges in their bid to rebuild community confidence and work closely with security agencies in both countries to be able to access all children.

He cautioned that the current resurgence of polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan does not guarantee a low point next year.

We are confident that we will come very close to elimination, but the key is to make sure that in these final safe havens for poliovirus in insecure areas, among migrant and mobile populations, and vaccine-hesitant communities, we can finally overcome these residual challenges to make sure that finally polio is eradicated, the regional WHO director said.

Polio once paralyzed an estimated 20,000 children in Pakistan each year until the country initiated national vaccination campaigns in the 1990s to control the infections, according to the WHO. In 2019, there were 176 reported cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 2021 and 2022, however, the countries reported only one and two infections, respectively.
Nargiz Mukhtarova knew something was wrong when she didnt hear from her husband.

Farid Mehralizada, a journalist and an economist, always texted her to let her know he had arrived at his office in Azerbaijans capital, Baku. But on May 30, the text never came.

The panic over his whereabouts lasted several hours. Eventually, he arrived at their home, handcuffed and accompanied by about eight police officers, Mukhtarova told VOA.

I tried to stay calm and not add to his worry. I kept thinking about how many days this would take from our lives and what would happen next, she said.

At the time of her husbands arrest, she was five months pregnant.

Now, nearly six months have passed, and he is still not home. He missed the birth of our baby. Our child is now one month old, and her father still hasnt seen her, Mukhtarova said.

Mehralizada works at the Azerbaijani Service of VOAs sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. His case underscores the state of press freedom in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan has long been one of the worlds worst violators of human rights in general and press freedom in particular, Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, told VOA.

Over the past year alone, Azerbaijani authorities have jailed at least 14 journalists in direct retaliation for their work, according to the New York-based CPJ. Many of the journalists are facing charges of currency smuggling, which media watchdogs have rejected as bogus.

Azerbaijani authorities have cynically embarked on an unprecedented jailing spree against its brightest and most probing reporters, silencing anyone who could hold the authorities to account, Said told VOA.

On June 1, a Baku court placed Mehralizada under pretrial detention for conspiring to smuggle foreign currency in connection to a case brought against the independent news outlet Abzas Media. Mehralizada and Abzas Media both say he never worked for the outlet.

Although Mehralizadas involvement with Abzas Media was limited to giving expert commentary, several journalists who work at the independent media outlet are among those who have been jailed en masse over the past year.

Abzas Media is considered one of the last remaining independent news organizations in Azerbaijan. It is known for its coverage of corruption, including allegations linked to the countrys ruling Aliyev family.

In August, a couple months after Mehralizadas arrest, authorities brought new charges, accusing him of illegal entrepreneurship, money laundering, tax evasion and document forgery. He faces up to 12 years behind bars if convicted of all the charges.

RFE/RL has called for Mehralizadas release.

We are deeply concerned by his continued imprisonment on false charges, RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said in an October statement.

Mehralizada is one of four RFE/RL journalists currently jailed for their work. The others are Ihar Losik and Andrey Kuznechyk in Belarus, and Vladyslav Yesypenko in Russia-occupied Crimea. RFE/RL rejects the charges against all of them as false.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees outlets including RFE/RL and VOA, has also rejected the charges against Mehralizada as bogus.

Journalism is not a crime, yet, as we see in Farids case, journalists around the world continue to be persecuted for reporting the truth, USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett told VOA in a statement. The cruelty is abhorrent. Its time for Farid to return home, and for the unjust persecution against journalists to end.

The Azerbaijani government has targeted RFE/RLs Azerbaijani Service for years, including shuttering its bureau, blocking its website and using Pegasus spyware to target its reporters.

Our people, like Farid, do their jobs at great personal risk, Ilkin Mammadov, director of RFE/RLs Azerbaijani Service, told VOA.

Earlier this week, Vugar Gurbanov, a counselor at Azerbaijans embassy in Washington, told VOA in an email that Azerbaijan has a vibrant journalism tradition.

Understandably, journalism has nothing to do with permissiveness to engage in illegal activities, Gurbanov added.

The embassy did not reply to specific questions about Mehralizadas case.

Almost six months have passed since Mehralizada was arrested, and Mukhtarova says her husband is doing OK. He spends his days reading books, doing crossword puzzles, and finding whatever ways he can to pass the time without his family, she said.

The couple is permitted to have one weekly meeting.

We look forward to it with excitement every Monday, Mukhtarova said. Hes my partner in every sense, sharing both the joys and challenges of life.

Still, she says, its heartbreaking for both of us that Mehralizada hasnt been able to meet their newborn daughter.

He was so excited about becoming a father, and missing these early moments is incredibly painful for him, she said.

Mehralizada is well-known for his coverage of economic, social and environmental issues in Azerbaijan, according to Mammadov. He is especially skilled at explaining the everyday impact of complicated economic policies to readers, he told VOA.

What makes him a uniquely talented journalist is his mastery of the art of storytelling, said Mammadov, who believes Mehralizada was targeted because of his work.

This is a textbook case of retaliation against a journalist, Mammadov said. It is clear the governments case against him is a direct attempt to silence his honest reporting.

Mukhtarova agrees.

Whenever he uncovered something overlooked, he would feel a surge of excitement, she said. Farid had a passion for revealing the truth to people.

Mehralizada is expected to be held in pretrial detention until at least mid-December. Like many journalists jailed in Azerbaijan, his future remains uncertain.
National Geographic scientists say theyve discovered the worlds largest coral near the remote Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean  an undersea mass that is so big, it can be seen from space.

The man who found it, Manu San Felix, director of cinematography for National Geographic Societys Pristine Seas, a program dedicated to marine conservation, says the giant organism measures 34 meters wide and 32 meters long and is close to the size of a cathedral.

I see this as a living library that has the information of the conditions of the oceans for centuries, he told reporters this week, underscoring it is a reminder of the need to better protect the ocean from global climate change.

Eric Brown, a Pristine Seas coral scientist, said the enormous coral species, Pavona clavus, is healthy and has high reproductive potential, making it essential to help other coral reef ecosystems recover from the damage of a warming ocean.

Corals are very vulnerable ecosystems. So, its important for us to do whatever we can to protect these environments that are both small and mighty, Brown said at a Tuesday press briefing to announce the find.

The announcement comes as world leaders gather for the United Nations climate conference, known as COP29, in Azerbaijan. Attendees are trying to agree on new mechanisms to finance a global energy transition to renewables and help nations like the Pacific Islands pay for the cost of adapting to rising oceans.

Pristine Seas is also encouraging nations to designate marine protected areas, or MPAs. The goal is to protect 30% of the worlds oceans by 2030.

Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. is attending the summit. Palau has walled off 80% of its waters to development, while the nearby Pacific Island nation of Niue has designated 40% of its waters for protection.

It cannot just be big countries. Small countries need to do their part, he told VOA in an interview. So, it's all of us working together ... protecting our oceans, because we know that healthy oceans are an important part of the ecosystem and important in regulating climate.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele agreed.

Our survival depends on healthy coral reefs, so this exciting discovery underlines the importance of protecting and sustaining them for future generations, he said in a press release.

But so far, the Solomon Islands has created a network of 79 designated ocean conservation areas  less than 1% of its exclusive economic zone. Whats more, its economy is largely dependent on forestry  the very industry that threatens the viability of coral through sedimentation.

All that sediment is going onto a reef, and its smothering the reef, thereby preventing the corals from being able to feed, to grow, to reproduce, Molly Timmers, Pristine Seas lead scientist on the Solomon Islands, said at the press briefing.

According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, an online platform that seeks to visualize the distribution of international trade, the Solomons exported $308 million in rough wood in 2022, with $260 million of it going to China.

VOA asked Chief Dennis Marita, director of culture at the Ministry of Culture & Tourism, how the government can find a balance.

Much of the logging activities are happening on the mainland away from the coral, Marita said in an interview, but there needs to be a serious awareness about the impacts of whats happening in the logging industry to the marine environment.

Marita sees this coral discovery as a way to attract researchers, biologists and tourists to bring in revenue to the small island nation of 740,000 people. Earlier this week, the Solomon Islands signed an agreement with China to provide visa-free travel between the two countries.

Suddenly, people will start coming to the island, but then we need to be prepared for them, and also, we need to ensure that the coral is safeguarded, Marita said.

Dr. Daniel Barshis of Old Dominion Universitys Ecological Sciences Department in Norfolk, Virginia, said that idea has merit.

I would imagine this discovery would draw tourists to the area, similar to how old-growth trees inspire folks to visit, he told VOA via email.

The fact that [corals] like this still exist is a reminder that coral reefs are still surviving and deserve us working as hard as we possibly can to save them from some of the worst-case scenarios if we don't reverse course on greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, said Barshis.

William Yang contributed to this report.
Zimbabwe has recorded new cases of cholera several months after declaring the end of an outbreak that killed more than 700 people over an 18-month period.

On Wednesday, Zimbabwe confirmed a new outbreak of cholera has been recorded in the district of Kariba  on the border with Zambia  where 21 cases have been confirmed and one person died.

Dr. Godfrey Muza, the Kariba district medical officer, said the government is working to contain the situation:

"We have set up cholera equipment camp and also some oral rehydration points within the affected villages," said Muza. "We are getting assistance from our local and regional partners like MSF [Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders] and UNICEF. And our teams are on the ground doing risk communication and community engagement activities on health promotion, hygiene promotion and assisting the community in terms of improving sanction."

In August, the Zimbabwe government declared that the 18-month long cholera outbreak was over. The outbreak affected up to 35,000 people and claimed more than 700 lives.

Zimbabwe has dealt with cholera outbreaks in the past. In 2008, an outbreak resulted in more than 98,000 cases and more than 4,000 reported deaths.

Independent health experts such as Dr. Norman Matara of Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights said the government needs to address the conditions that enable the waterborne disease to spread.

"In public health, we often say cholera is a disease of poverty which mainly affects people with inadequate access to safe water and basic sanitation," said Matara. "In Zimbabwe, we have witnessed perennial cholera outbreaks in recent years and these outbreaks are being caused by a lack of safe drinking water supply and a broken-down sanitation system which leaves residents in densely populated communities surrounded by flowing sewer. This sewer will then contaminate alternative sources of water such as shower wells, streams, rivers and even boreholes resulting in people drinking or eating food contaminated with the cholera bacteria."

He said that those conditions have been chronic over the years in Zimbabwe, contributing to the repeated outbreaks.

How does Zimbabwe get out of this cycle of recurring cholera outbreaks?

"We need to make sure that our hospitals are well-supposed with the real addressing solutions and medicines so that people can be assisted," said Matara. " ... Also, those high-risk communities, especially in towns and urban cities, we may give them the oral cholera vaccine so that they may be protected. In the long term, the government needs to invest more in proper sanitation facilities and infrastructure as well as making sure that people are provided with clean safe water for drinking and cooking."

Matara said he hopes the current outbreak is contained quickly and does not spread to other parts of Zimbabwe.

But with raw sewage flowing in some streets of Harare, it might be a question of time.
Photo: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images

Theres making peace with your mortality and then theres being amped to die because it means fewer years of President Trump. Dick Van Dyke has joined the latter camp. When asked about the upcoming second Trump administration by the Daily Mail, Dick Van Dyke said, Fortunately I wont be around to experience the four years. The Mary Poppins actor is set to celebrate his 99th birthday in December. Earlier this month, Van Dyke endorsed Kamala Harris on social media and likened this election to the political climate of 1964, when he gave a speech at an event for Martin Luther King Jr. Van Dyke recited the speech from 64  written by The Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling  saying, Hatred is not the norm. Prejudice is not the norm. Suspicion, dislike, jealousy, scapegoating  none of those are the transcendent facets of the human personality.

There will be moments of violence and expressions of hatred and an ugly echo of intolerance, Van Dykes speech continued, but these are the clinging vestiges of a decayed past, not the harbingers of the better, cleaner future. Despite now being grateful for the sweet release of death, Van Dyke remains somewhat optimistic about the future of America. When asked by the paparazzo who cornered him for the Mail if the future looks bright for America, Van Dyke replied, I hope youre right!
Photo: Shanna Besson/Pathe

This article was originally published on November 14, 2024. On January 23, 2025, Emilia Perez was nominated for 13 Oscars, including Best Picture. On January 30, the films star, Karla Sofia Gascon, deleted her X account following a backlash to past offensive tweets.

Spoilers for the end of Emilia Perez, which is streaming on Netflix now.

The final scene in Emilia Perez, the controversial musical about a trans Mexican cartel leader, includes the films most potentially significant transformation. The camera pans out to show the funeral procession for Emilia (Karla Sofia Gascon), after she dies in a fiery car crash alongside her estranged wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and her wifes lover Gustavo (Edgar Ramirez). Throughout the film, Emilia atones for her ostensibly violent past by helping families recover some of the media designated- desaparecidos,  casualties of drug trade violence. In death she is borne aloft by mourners as a life-sized plastic Catholic Virgin. Led by Emilias girlfriend, Epifania (Adriana Paz), relatives of victims pay loving homage to the tear-stained effigy: A quien hizo el milagro de cambiar el dolor en oro (to the one who miraculously turned pain into gold.)

Based on an opera libretto written by French director Jacques Audiard, Emilia won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered in May, and it has deservedly garnered acclaim for the performances, including Zoe Saldana as Emilias lawyer, Rita, and Spanish telenovela actor Gascon as the title character. (The films stars took home a combined Best Actress award at Cannes.) The film is supposed to be a portrait of women living amid Mexicos violence and femicide crisis.

But as the movie builds up to Emilias death as the emotional climax, it loses any subtlety. While the funeral works as a cathartic moment for the audience, it also shows howrather than encouraging reflection on the inequality that the characters sing aboutthe film uses Emilias journey to paper over them.

From the start Audiard sets us into these womens worlds ostensibly from their perspective. Rita, Emilias self-described prieta lawyer, who helps Emilia navigate her medical transition, sings a rock song about corruption and her difficulties climbing up the corporate ladder as a Black Latina woman. Post transition, Emilia falls for Epifania, the mestiza wife of a man murdered in the drug war. Jessi, a disgruntled gringa, wishes to run off with Gustavo and take her children with her, setting in motion the films fiery culmination. These characters promise a complex gaze into the Mexican society the film is set in.

To understand why the film fails, its important to acknowledge the determining weight of race and class in Latin America, and the ideology of mestizaje. That belief system is Latin Americas version of I dont see color. Instead it says: were all mixed, some combination of Black, Indigenous, and European. This helps symbolically unite the countries amid massive racial and class inequalities that benefit a white and white-adjacent bourgeoise. Arguably, mestizaje also helps gloss over societal anti-Indigenous and anti-Black racism. Those are precisely some of the marginalizations that render the disappeared  often working -class and non-white  an underclass, expendable by violent actors and the state.

From the start, though, the film seems to miss those cultural distinctions. The way race determines class means that Latin Americas cartel leaders arent usually blue eyed European descendants. Their distance from that kind of whiteness is part of what shuts them out of opportunities, and is why many of them from Griselda Blanco to El Chapo and Pablo Escobar  turned to violent, underground economies. The potentially nuanced reasons for how or why Emilia rose through the ranks arent ever explained or teased out.

Instead of showing us her life through her eyes, the film focuses on her transness, which it turns into a medicalized spectacle. One oddly literal musical number takes place in a hospital where the staff shout out various surgical procedures at Rita, as she determines which doctor would work best for Emilia. Rita is the films moral consciousness, but the story is never told from her perspective or about her. Emilias girlfriends Epifania is similarly flattened. We know nothing about her save her status as a survivor of domestic abuse. And aside from Epifania, the wives and mothers of the disappeared, or the disappeared women themselves, serve only as backdrops.

Tellingly, the most significant plot is about Emilias white motherhood. She has two children and sends them to Switzerland with their mother Jessi while she transitions. Then she brings them back to live with her in Mexico City, claiming she is their aunt. At first, Jessis portrait as the imported Mexican-American wife, dissatisfied with her expat existence, is a promising plot wrinkle. She longs to run off with the charismatic Gustavo and she wants to take the children with her.

The film becomes invested in the two mothers, Jessi and Emilia, battling over custody. Jessis personal desires and vendetta lead her to kidnap Emilia, to enable her escape with her lover Gustavo. The actions are as melodramatic as a telenovela, with Jessis character akin to Casinos Sharon Stone at a Mexican villa. The cliched, binary portrait of the dueling mothers seems intentionally stark to get the audience on Emilias side: Jessi is the selfish one taking the kids with her sociopathic lover, and Emilia is the good queer mother, in her reparative cross-class, interracial relationship with Epifania. It reads as a way to redeem her white motherhood before her final sanctification.

Ultimately, before Gustavos kidnapping of Emilia goes off the rails, Emilia and Jessi reconcile. Then they die as Jessi battles for control of the steering wheel in the getaway car Gustavo is driving, with Emilia gagged and bound in the trunk.

That final funeral procession and Emilias symbolic transformation into a virgin seems inspired by Mexicos rich history of serenades to and worship of the Virgen de Guadalupe. In turning Emilia into a Virgin the film celebrates her  and her redeemed motherhood.

Guadalupe is an icon of mestizaje: part white and part indigenous, she is a maternal symbol who brings everyone together. And the films fuller message becomes clearer as Emilias death unifies the women across class and race. Epifania sings her devotion to Emilia, alongside the other women overlooked by police and government. Rita steps in to take care of Jessi and Emilias children: trans-racial adoption as assuagement. The women of color, Epifania and Rita, are left to provide the emotional work of healing.

Perezs platforming on Netflix comes on the heels of the Will Ferrell documentary, Will & Harper, another instance of positive trans representation that could be seen as an attempt to launder the platforms anti-trans reputation. But if her death allows for her sanctification, the film doesnt quite know how to represent her life. In a bizarre anti-trans trope, Emilia never fully just exists as a mother. Her kids still smell their dad in this aunt; and when Jessi asks to take them, Emilias selfish, angry dad side comes out (including her old voice). Ultimately, for all the chatter about Emilia Perezs supposed genre-bending originality, the most compelling trans woman, it seems, is still a dead one.
Say Nothing Theater People / I Lay Waiting / The People in the Dirt Season 1 Episodes 7 - 9 Editors Rating 5 stars * * * * *  Previous Next  Previous Episode Next Episode  Photo: Rob Youngson/FX

Having survived over 200 days of a hunger strike and eight years of incarceration, a sentence the Prices finished serving at the Armagh womens prison in Northern Ireland, all Dolours can ask herself is, What was it all for? In their release hearing, Dolours affirms that she will dedicate her life to nonviolence; she is done with the armed struggle. Marian matches her sisters attitude in front of the board but makes her intentions clear when they get home: Like their father, Albert, and their late mother, Chrissie, Marian doesnt believe in retirement. She seems almost disappointed that they didnt commit the ultimate sacrifice, as Albert puts it: Only dead people make the pantheon.

Dolours seems eager to restart her life and leave the past behind. She falls in love with the actor Stephen Rea, who had starred in the theater production the sisters attended in London the night before the bombing. Dolours is happy to hang with the theater crowd until everyone starts asking intrusive questions about her guilt and her drinking. Its true that Dolours starts drinking almost immediately after arriving home from Armagh  at breakfast, she spikes her coffee with whiskey. Stephen is sweet and caring, but the transition to civilian life is bumpy, even with the help of alcohol. I did things, and I dont even know what I think about them, she cries. In their 30s, she muses, people become respectable, but its one thing to settle down with a partner after sleeping around in your 20s and another entirely to relearn the mores of ordinary life after having dedicated years to violent political liberation.

One thing Dolours knows for sure is that she is done being an active member of the IRA. Marian considers going back to smuggling explosives, but she wont do it without her sister  at least not at first  and neither of them wants to get involved with Gerry Adamss pivot to politics. When he begins campaigning for a parliament seat with the Irish Republican party Sinn Fein, Brendan Hughes is still in jail. Its there, watching his friend on the television, that Brendan discovers the tactic Gerry has devised to work around the optics, which, by his own admission, are a wee bit of a hurdle. When Kitsons men caught him all those years ago, he insisted they had the wrong guy  he was not Gerry Adams but Joe McGuigan. Now, he insists the people have the wrong idea  he has never been a member of the Irish Republican Army.

After another decade of armed struggle, in the spring of 1994, the Good Friday Agreement was signed through a peace process negotiated by Gerry Adams himself. The agreement effectively ended the war and restored peace to Northern Ireland. For Dolours and Brendan, the mid-1990s are marked by regret about the years spent in the fight with and resentment toward Gerry. Dolours has married, had kids, and become something of a celebrity, but she is still haunted by the past; Joe Lynskeys face often flashes in her mind. Not even in the confidential circles of church basements, where AA meetings are held, can she find some reprieve from the past. Silence used to be an imperative of the IRAs code of ethics; now its just kosher.

It appears to be a theme for the church to dismiss congregants trauma: A soloist at Helen McConvilles church is one of her mothers kidnappers, and when she tries to talk to the priest about it, he tells her she is being obsessive, which is not exactly surprising coming from the organization with historys worst track record. But Helen is determined to find out what happened to her mother or, at the very least, where her body is. Laura Donnelly is phenomenal as the older Helen, who is moved by a hardened, ancient wrath. No matter how much he might deny it, she knows that Gerry was the Belfast Brigades highest authority in 1972 and, therefore, connected to her mothers disappearance. The show itself suggests his responsibility in a subtle juxtaposition of moments: In episode four, after Jean is abducted, Pat calls Dolours with a job. We all know what that call means.

Gerry knows that for a lot of ex-paramilitaries, his willingness to negotiate is tantamount to treason. Perhaps hoping to avoid the disappointment and anger of the friends who until then believed Gerry wouldnt surrender, he sends a spokesman to Belfast to announce the formal end of the war. The mans hands tremble as he reads: The Good Friday Agreement determined that in exchange for the treatment of Sinn Fein as a legitimate political party and the decommissioning of IRA weapons, the British would cut back on military presence in Northern Ireland. The IRAs goal, since the beginning of the Troubles, had been to unite Ireland and get rid of the British altogether; Gerrys concession doesnt make sense for the people who spent half their lives sacrificing themselves and others for that cause. He sold us out, Brendan laments to Dolours, his head hung in defeat, while Gerry, an illustrious guest at the White House, entertains the prospect of a Nobel Peace Prize.

Gerrys new commitment to peace is more than Helen can bear, and she resolves to go public. At first, her brother Michael worries that speaking against the IRA might get them killed, but the families of other disappeared victims are emboldened by Helens courage, and soon she becomes something of an ambassador for the group. On television, she addresses Gerry directly and doesnt relent when he visits her home. She wants him to contend with the force of her trauma, the depth of her experience. But Gerry has become a bona fide politician. He meets Helens emotions with coolheaded generalizations: He talks about the fragility of the peace process, his efforts to find out what had happened, and how he understands what shes going through. When he tells his team they need to start an investigation on the disappeareds bodies as soon as possible, an aide retorts, A real one?

An associate of Gerrys named Frank comes by Dolourss home to ask what she knows, and she becomes incredulous at what she sees as the price of peace: her sanity. Her experiences are being remade in the public eye, and shes supposed to stay silent  as Frank reminds her by flashing her his gun. Does Gerry really mean to imply that he didnt give out orders? That he didnt help plan and execute the London job? I did things for you because I thought they would mean something, Dolours says to Gerry at one of his book signings. But for what you accomplished, I wouldnt trade a good breakfast. Here was the man who architected [her] trauma, pretending he had nothing to do with it. While Dolours publicizes her rage, Marian recommits to the idea that talking gets us nowhere. She goes back to the armed struggle  for the first time without her sister.

Gerrys public denial of his IRA past, in other words, makes Dolours feel crazy. She finds solace in Brendan, who feels the same anger. Not one death was worth it, he tells her when she goes to visit him at Divis Flats. He is angry at Gerry not because the war is over  its good that the war is over  but because of the way he has gone about ending it. Later, to Mackers, he will indelibly articulate his disappointment: Its like getting a hundred people to push out this big boat  And then its sailing off, leaving the people behind. While Gerry can absolve himself of his wartime actions, Brendan, Dolours, and others like them are left to shoulder the responsibility for all the casualties. All those deaths are on us, Brendan laments.

Speaking with Mackers, for Brendan, was a way to relieve some of that burden. Its like going to confession, he says to Dolours, except you can drink. It doesnt take much to convince Dolours to participate in the Belfast Project  she was already searching for opportunities to say the unsayable. Shed even gone so far as calling (and quickly hanging up on) Helen. The first body that the Independent Commission finds is Eamon Molloys; then, in the place where they were all hoping to find Jean, they discover a dogs remains. While frustrating at first, the digging provides an opportunity for the McConville siblings  who were never quite able to mend the separation that was imposed on them as children  to get together and reminisce. These are some of the most moving moments of the show. They put their arms around one another and remember their mother; they banter and wait, like they did when they were kids. Ironically, its a living dog who sniffs out Jeans remains, buried on the beach. They can tell its her because her signature blue nappy pin was still secured on her lapel.

When I was reading Say Nothing, I wondered about its reputation as a true-crime book; to me, it read as a riveting historical narrative that happened to involve crime. But as I reached the final pages, the reason why the story was regarded that way became clear: Patrick Radden Keefe suggests  with evidence and conviction but also with characteristic care  he knows who killed Jean McConville. It was always clear that the IRA had been behind her disappearance, but the question of who pulled the trigger was still at large.

Dolours never speaks about the McConville case on her Belfast Project tape: She asks Mackers to turn the recorder off when they get to that part of the story. The incentive to speak, for her, was to get at Gerry Adams, as she tells Marian when she goes to visit her in prison. After aiding an operation that killed two British soldiers and one pizza-delivery man, Marian had managed to land herself back in jail. It horrifies Marian to learn about the Belfast Project, even if Dolours is sure that going public is a better way to get back at Gerry than rejoining the armed struggle.

The tapes first begin having an impact after Brendan dies from a heart attack. At his funeral, Dolours is antsy for his testimony to come out, though Mackers explains its not an immediate process. But Dolours is impatient, and the sight of Gerry pushing his way into Brendans funeral procession only makes things worse. Drunk one night, she leaves a message for a reporter at the Irish News saying she wants to speak about Jean McConville. The next day, hung-over but still determined, she tells everything. To corroborate Dolourss story, all the reporter has to do is cross-reference it against Brendans Belfast Project tape.

Marian is ballistic once she learns what her sister has done. You need to get sober, she scolds. Gerry doesnt seem as worried about Dolourss interview as he is about the Belfast Project in general. To the Irish News, Dolours discloses that Jean was believed to be a British informant. The same Divis Flats neighbor who saw her put a pillow under a wounded British soldiers head spotted Jean at Hastings Street Barracks, identifying IRA members. At least she thinks she spotted her  Kitson was then using a method hed developed in Kenya, according to which he would place informants behind a white sheet with two holes cut out for the eyes as they identified paramilitaries. The red slippers the neighbor saw poking out of the sheet supposedly matched Jeans own, though, as the reporter points out, its impossible to know for sure  any number of women in Belfast might wear red slippers. Dolours dies not long after the interview, but before she does, she has a vision of Pat coming to her with one final job.

With both Brendans and Dolourss tapes unclassified, Gerry gets arrested. Two detectives interrogate him about his involvement in the McConville case, but by this point in history, there is no man or woman more formidable than Gerry Adams at the art of denial. The defense he mounts against the tapes is maddening but hard to argue with because the Belfast Project had to be conducted in secret with no scholarly credentials  and because there is no evidence of his part in anything, the tapes dont hold up as more than hearsay or, as he puts it, gossip. This, even though he was not really in internment when Jean was taken, as he told Helen, even though Brendan and Dolours told the same story on separate occasions without knowing what the other had said. Unable to keep his ego in check, Gerry additionally justifies that he could not have given the orders for Jeans murder because he has never been a member of the IRA. It makes you want to pull your hair out.

Although its about real people, some of whom are still alive, its important to emphasize that the show takes creative license to reconstruct events according to narrative logic. In this case, it suggests that part of the reason why Marian was so upset at Dolourss participation in the Belfast Project was that she was worried about being implicated in criminal activity. Although they had come to disagree on how to deal with the past  to ruminate on it or relive it by taking up the gun  the sisters could always count on each other. Nothing could shatter their bond. At Dolourss wake, Mackers reassures Marian that Dolours would never have implicated her sister on the record.

What Dolours leaves off the record  and what Keefe put together  is that, as we see in the finales opening sequence, Marian had been in the car with Dolours when they drove Jean McConville across the border. But then Dolours got a call: The men couldnt go through with the execution. Dolours went back with her sister and Pat, and they agreed to each shoot once so that the death wouldnt rest entirely on one persons conscience. Dolours missed on purpose; Marian shot the lethal bullet. The show ends on a plea: Four out of the 17 people disappeared during the Troubles have yet to be found, including Joe Lynskey, whose memory and friendship haunted Dolours. You can call me a difficult woman, Dolours said, but I couldnt live with the silence.

Wee Thoughts

 I enjoyed Say Nothings fast pace, but I found myself wishing wed gotten an episode on Gerry Adams and his political development. I wanted to get deeper into the motivations of his selfishness, the license he gave himself to turn on Brendan and the IRA. Similarly, I would have welcomed a deeper examination of Dolourss renouncement of the armed struggle after Armagh. She had been, after all, ready to die for the cause. Unlike Brendan, whose own departure had to do with the Good Friday Agreement and Gerrys political turn, Dolours had already started to reconsider the efficacy of violence as early as 1978, according to Keefe, the same year she resigned from the IRA.
KYODO NEWS - Nov 14, 2024 - 08:57 | All, World

A working group of the U.N. Human Rights Council on Wednesday urged North Korea to improve the human rights situation in the country in line with nearly 300 recommendations, addressing issues such as the decades-old matter of abductions of Japanese nationals.

The group's report featured a total of 294 recommendations also covering torture, the death penalty and the "songbun" system that categorizes the population based on origin. The review, which began last week, was the first for North Korea in five years.

Pyongyang promised to respond before the council holds a session in February, but hinted it will refrain from taking any immediate action over some of the issues.

During the review, Jo Chol Su, North Korea's ambassador to the U.N. Geneva Office, declared that all the recommendations will be studied with relevant national stakeholders "to translate them into reality."

Jo said the country's official response "will be presented in due course, not later than the 58th session of the Human Rights Council."

The envoy said, however, that the country will "note" 88 of the recommendations, including over the abduction issue.

In the previous review in 2019, North Korea similarly "noted" some issues mentioned in the report and ended up declining them.

The report calls for the immediate repatriation of Japanese people who were taken to North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as other concrete steps by North Korea toward resolving the issue at an early date.

All U.N. members are scrutinized in the Universal Periodic Review process by the council's working group, using information provided by the states and outside experts and bodies.

The process, which started in 2008 and is currently in its fourth cycle, previously examined North Korea in 2014 and 2019.

Related coverage:

PM vows abductees' return from N. Korea in 1st meeting with kin
Say Nothing The Cause / Land of Password, Wink and Nod / Ill Be Seeing You Season 1 Episodes 1 - 3 Editors Rating 5 stars * * * * * Previous Next   Previous Episode Next Episode  Photo: Rob Youngson/FX

In 2001, former Irish Republican Army member Anthony Mackers McIntyre sat down with several ex-paramilitaries in an effort to gather testimony about the Troubles in Northern Ireland into an oral history. The undertaking, which was HQd at Boston College, was called the Belfast Project. Perhaps the only thing the IRA was as serious about as a free, united Ireland was the imperative to never, ever disclose the operational details of the army. Touting, as they called it, or ratting, was a crime punishable by death. So in order to assure the safety of the participants, the Belfast Project tapes were top secret and confidential. The plan was to release them only after the person talking had died.

Mackerss interviews provide the narrative scaffolding for FX-Hulus new adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefes 2018 book, Say Nothing, which investigated the stories that emerged from those tapes and what they revealed about some of the most important events of the Troubles. During that period, which spanned the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, the IRA went to war with the British. The fighting took place mostly in Belfast, a city segregated by religious sectors. West Belfast was Catholic; East Belfast was Protestant. In the western part of the city was a housing complex called Divis Flats, where the widow Jean McConville lived with her ten children and where she was abducted from one December night in 1972, never to be seen again.

The story of McConvilles kidnapping opens Keefes book; its an illustration of how the violence that seized Belfast in the 1970s affected everyone, not just those involved in the armed struggle. The show begins there, too, but not before weve heard the voice of Dolours Price, the IRAs glamorous firecracker and the shows main character and narrator. Sitting down with Mackers, a smug smile on her face, Dolours agrees to tell the whole sordid story.

If some kids feel pressured by their parents to be doctors and lawyers, the pressure in the Price household is to join the IRA. Although Dolours briefly considers a career in university studying art, the order of her priorities soon shifts to political liberation. Albert Price, her father, was an active IRA member, and her mother, Chrissie, was a valued member of the Cumann na mBan, the armys Womens Council. Aunt Bridie, who lived with the family, was a living reminder of what the Prices were ready to give for the cause: She lost her eyes and her hands in a bombing.

When Dolours and her sister, Marian, show interest in Dr. Martin Luther Kings pacifism, Albert is disappointed. They argue about the best path to independence the way other families might argue about grades. But everything changes for the Price sisters when they attend a peaceful march that turns out to be an ambush. With the help of the local police, Catholic marchers are ensnared under the Burntollet Bridge by attacking opponents. The rocks come raining down from all sides. Dolours steps valiantly in front of her sister and gets clubbed repeatedly on the torso and on the head. Its the realization that her adversaries are moved by pure hate that radicalizes her  talking wont do. Theyll have to fight.

Although her ideals change, Dolours brings her no-nonsense wit to the armed struggle; from the jump, the Price sisters are uninterested in being one of the Cumann girls, breastfeeding the men all night. They want to be in it with the boys, who get to throw Molotov cocktails and take down telephone poles, even when they dont really know which lines lead to Catholic phones and which to the barracks. The new IRA leadership, still guided by the old guard, is led by the ambitious young Gerry Adams, whom theyve known since childhood. Gerry is taken to yelling instructions into a megaphone like a theater director while his right-hand man, Brendan the Dark Hughes, carries them out. Its Gerry whom the girls have to persuade in order to be let into the army, and hes partial to them. Under different circumstances, this foursome wouldve made for a lively friend group; as it is, their banter is relegated to dark rooms and secret meetings. At no point do Marian and Dolours feel intimidated into submission  they speak their minds.

In fact, the tone of their early work for the IRA is one of glee. They plan and execute an unauthorized bank robbery  a ballsy move for a couple of novices  and win back Gerrys and Brendans favor by coming up with more ideas for operations. As a team, they complement each other: Dolours is outspoken and charismatic, while Marian is reserved and fearless. The dynamic between Gerry and Brendan mirrors the sisters; what Gerry has in bookish sensibility, Brendan makes up for in street smarts. Its tempting to get lost in their charming banter, but while Say Nothing indulges in mythmaking, it never lets you forget the stakes of the fight.

To make up for the hubris of their bank robbery, the Price girls come up with a plan to bail out Jimmy Doyle  their friend and a valued member of Brendans highly active D Company  from British custody. Jimmy was beaten so badly that he had to get surgery for a burst appendix; the girls idea is to break him out of the hospital. Its a close call, but they make it  faced with the necessity to shoot the British soldiers on guard, Dolours hesitates. Its Marian who opens fire. Its always the quiet ones, the boys joke. It rattles Dolours to think that she is the kind of soldier who chokes, but a tender Brendan reassures her. I dont trust the ones who dont hesitate, he says before telling her about an occasion when he didnt have the heart to shoot a British soldier  looking into his face, he realized the man looked just like his brother.

In West Belfast, the civilian population had the IRAs back. It all came down to one thing, Brendan says in his Belfast Project tape: loyalty. Residents of Divis Flats help the lads in whatever way they can  after the hospital job, Brendan unloads the used weapons to a familiar face in the building, who in turn asks the just-arrived Jean McConville to store the bag; her own apartment is routinely searched. Not wanting to get involved, Jean refuses to cooperate, which explains where we know the womans face from: She was with the group of men who took Jean from her apartment in the pilots opening sequence.

This network of support made it much harder for the Brits to get a hold of the IRA and how it worked. Brendan and Gerry ran laps around the British Army  they didnt even know what the boys looked like. Meanwhile, the IRA had spies inside the Palace Barracks, the British Armys HQ. General Frank Kitson, an expert on what he insists on calling insurgencies  even his little daughter knows that to call it a war would dignify the terrorists  comes to Belfast to advise the Brits on the war. He puts perceptive officers in plain clothes to run recon at a wake, the rare occasion for which most members of a secretive, overly cautious paramilitary organization gather under one roof.

Catching Brendan proves a harder task than the efficient, clean abduction of his fellow soldier Seamus Wright, who is unceremoniously taken right outside the wake. Brendan is shrewd  he knows to suspect even the ice-cream van that drives by on a day he describes as fucking Baltic. Running from the Brits, Brendan can count on every door in the neighborhood to be open for him, granting him shortcuts through the city. The series cleverly illustrates his escape route by showing the chase in birds-eye view: West Belfast is Brendans playground. Eventually, he barrels through the window of a home where he can automatically locate the chest containing a rifle. The Brits scatter after a brief shoot-out; their objective wasnt to catch Brendan necessarily but to identify him, a nuance of which he is painfully aware. When Gerry comes to his aid with a doctor  he severed an artery on his arm when he jumped through the glass  they conclude that someone must have talked; how else could the Brits have so suddenly discovered his identity?

For the IRA, talking was unpardonable. In 1972, which in Dolourss estimation was the most violent year, a time when the goal was to kill as many soldiers and policemen as possible, the code of silence surrounding the armys activities was of paramount importance to keep operations functioning. While the Price sisters smuggle explosives across the border and develop a rapport with the gentle giant Joe Lynskey, Gerry and Brendan scheme to find the mole in their midst. Not long after Brendans scare, Gerry is found by the British in his marital bed. During interrogation, he begins to develop the strategy of denial that would define his political persona decades from then  his tactic is simply to deny that he is Gerry Adams at all. Instead, he maintains that he is a civilian named Joe McGuigan, essentially driving the Brits into hysterics. But Gerrys eventual release doesnt have anything to do with his approach. The IRAs leadership, an enraged Kitson discovers, has agreed to meet with the British Home secretary for peace negotiations on the condition Gerry comes along.

As they wait out the talks in London, the IRA calls a cease-fire, which is welcomed with open arms by a frightened and exhausted population. The McConville children even get to play outside. Although Gerry is the Big Lad leading the revolution on the ground, the old guard  including chief of staff Sean Mac Stiofain  is still the one calling the shots. At the meeting, the veterans foreclose any possibility of a peace deal by demanding nothing less than the removal of British troops from occupied Ireland immediately and a public apology from the British government in three days time. The Brits dont concede, and the shooting resumes.

Worried that one of the kids will get caught in the cross fire, Jean has her family sleep on mattresses on the floor. In the hallway, someone cries for help  hesitant at first, Jean is moved by the sight of a wounded British soldier and gives him a pillow to put under his head, though her eldest daughter, Helen, begs her not to. The same woman from before, who is starting to seem suspiciously like shes watching Jean, witnesses her kind act. The next morning, when Jean steps out of her apartment, she sees that someone has scrawled the words BRIT LOVER in red paint across her door.

In the middle of all this action, its almost easy to forget that the Price sisters  as well as Gerry and Brendan, who are only a couple of years older than them  are just kids, barely 18. They come of age in the army, and the common lessons of young adulthood are coupled with the hard lessons of war. The same Dolours who cheekily flirts with a British soldier in order to smuggle 200 pounds of explosives across the border (and prides herself in the tactic) later has to drive her friend Joe Lynskey to his own execution. In a wildly miscalculated bid for the attention of the woman he loved, Joe had a subordinate shoot her husband  a fellow soldier  on the doorstep of his own house. This type of maneuvering is also a lesson for Dolours: Violence, no matter how righteously wielded, quickly becomes a slippery slope.

The internal politics of the army already had Gerry and Brendan on alert, and news of Joes betrayal opens the path to a stricter policy. Gerry forms a new secret unit, called the Unknowns, and recruits both Price sisters to report to a man named Pat, who in turn reports to Gerry. Dolourss first assignment is to drive Joe across the border. It doesnt make anything easier that Joe knows exactly what is going to happen and takes his fate on the chin; when Dolours steps out of the car to call Marian, worried she cant go through with it, Joe waits for her to return rather than try to escape. The whole sequence is unbearably sad; Dolours cries openly, and Joe comforts her as best he can. The wounds left by this kind of responsibility will later harden into resentment for Dolours and lead her to tell Mackers point-blank that though shed been taught since she was a kid that to join the IRA was the noblest thing you could do, it turned out to be all lies.

Among other portrayals of the Troubles in recent audiovisual memory, the tone of Say Nothing is unique. While something like Derry Girls aimed to find the humor in civilian life amid the conflict and a film like Hunger took a more somber approach to its realities, Say Nothing falls somewhere in between: It blends character-driven drama with political thriller while still managing to be pretty funny  good craic, as Brendan or Dolours might put it. I worried at first that too much TV magic played up Dolourss cheeky feistiness into an easily legible character; fans of Keefes book will remember that her life was anything but simple. By the time we get to the Joe Lynskey sequence, though, it seemed clear to me that the show was interested in much more than the action-packed, salacious surface of her IRA involvement. The adaptation shares one of its objectives with Keefes book: to understand the characters not just as perpetrators or victims but as real people.
Say Nothing takes a decisive turn after its sixth episode, Do No Harm, which chronicles the Price sisters 208-day hunger strike at Brixton Prison in England. Caught fleeing London after planting four car bombs in the city, the Prices are detained at a mens prison. They refuse to take anything but water until they are transferred to a womens facility in Ireland, the same where generations of their family had served their own sentences. By electing this particular mode of protest, Patrick Radden Keefe wrote in his 2018 book, Say Nothing, the Price sisters were invoking a long-standing tradition of Irish resistance. Since the Middle Ages, the Irish had engaged in hunger-striking as a way to express dissent or rebuke. In 1920, a man named Terence MacSwiney died in British custody after refusing to eat for 74 days. From that same book of Keefes: His sacrifice articulated a philosophy  that would help define the emerging traditions of Irish Republican martyrdom. It is not those who inflict the most but those who suffer the most who will conquer, MacSwiney declared.

Do No Harm is a grueling hour of television, the shows piece de resistance. It is an unflinching depiction of the price of commitment on the bodies of two young girls; when they started the strike, Marian wasnt yet 20. But if the episode resonates, its also because of the questions that build in it: Who is the war being fought for? And at what and whose cost?

At least partly at the cost of the McConville children, no doubt. Episode four, Tout, opens with a familiar scene: Helen McConville is getting ready to go out when her mother asks her to pick up dinner for the family. When Helen returns, Jean is gone, and nobody can help or tell her whats going on. IRA sympathizers urge Helen and her brother Archie to drop it, and the social workers who come to whisk the children away show no tact or compassion as they separate the siblings into cars. The lack of sympathy for an innocent group of orphaned children is unconscionable, but then so was touting for the people who were controlling their fates. There is a sense of inevitability to the way everyone speaks about touts  as if their deaths were no more unavoidable than waking up with a hangover after drinking too much. That man has made his own bed, Jimmy Doyle tells Seamus Wrights wife, Kathleen, when she brings the news that he is a British informant.

Having taken Seamus outside the wake, the British flipped him by offering the prospect of a better life for him and his wife in London. Hoping that Brendan would find it in his heart to spare her husbands life, and knowing that the IRA was bound to discover his double identity sooner rather than later, Kathleen confesses to Brendan. By this point, the network of support that had sustained IRA operations in West Belfast was beginning to show signs of tear. I didnt trust Belfast, Brendan tells Mackers. When Kathleen came to him, he was already bullshit from a raid at one of his secret arms dumps. Along with Seamus, the Brits had also gotten a hold of Kevin Beaky McKee, a kid barely 17 who just loved guns.

The man behind the double-agenting is, of course, the villainous General Kitson. Kathleen was right to go to Brendan, who knew Seamus since they were kids and took a fraternal liking to the cheeky Kevin. Gerry is determined to punish their crimes with death, but Brendan sees an opportunity to keep them alive: They can employ the boys as triple agents, sussing out Kitsons intelligence from the inside. On his Belfast Project tape, Brendan reflects that despite the culture of self-sacrifice promoted by the IRA, when youre staring down the barrel of a 20-year prison sentence, its human to be selfish. Brendans instinct is to honor, rather than punish, that humanity, and ultimately his plan reaps good rewards: Through Kevins spying, they uncover a massive surveillance operation disguised as a mobile laundry service that had managed to identify almost every call house in West Belfast.

Brendans devotion to his men is inextricable from his purpose in the army, but the lofty Gerry sees it as a weakness. After ordering Kevins and Seamuss executions behind Brendans back, he advises his friend not to put his men before the cause. But for Brendan, the men are the fucking cause. This internal discord is music to Kitsons ears, whose goal is to have Irish Republicans murder one another. Like Joe Lynskey, Seamus knew what was happening as soon as they were put in the car with Dolours; unlike Joe, he considers making a run for it, though Dolours, a little hardened, stops him from trying. Poor young Kevin never saw reason to doubt Brendans word. The execution of the two boys, Keefe wrote, would trouble [Brendan] for the rest of his life.

Given the awful job of seeing her friends to their deaths, Dolours also questions Gerrys iron fist. I just didnt know my contribution to this war would be killing Catholics, she laments. The idea to bomb London is a result of this dissatisfaction: Why should the Irish people bear the brunt of the war when the enemy is just a ferry ride away? Dolours and Marian get the green light from leadership after presenting their plan convincingly, and though the Prices are in charge of the mission, the gaps between Brendans and Gerrys conduct continue to widen. While Brendan thinks its important for Dolours, the operations commander, to ride with the gear  meaning to drive one of the cars smuggling the explosives into London  and boost morale, Gerry urges her to take a plane and avoid the risk of getting caught. Brendan evokes the Irish Republican tradition of self-sacrifice, while Gerry embodies a new attitude geared toward self-preservation.

Dolours ultimately follows Gerrys advice, and its Marian who has to swoop in when one of their co-conspirators, a young girl named Roisin, freaks out on the ferry. For as long as it goes according to plan, their operation has the irreverent tone of Oceans Eleven: They flirt among themselves, the boys drink too much, and on their night off, they go see a play about the Troubles starring Stephen Rea. The blast, for them, is symbolic  in order to spare as much civilian life as possible, they put out a warning to the authorities an hour before the bombs are set to explode, giving them the locations of the cars along with their plate numbers. By the time the British  doubly warned by the IRA and by the Palace Barracks, which tipped off Scotland Yard after getting wind of the plan through an informant  get to the bombs, the crew is already at Heathrow.

Marian can tell right away that its a bad idea to leave London so soon. The fuse on the bombs was long enough to tell the authorities that the bombers had given themselves plenty of time to leave, so they lock all exits. The blast goes off while the Prices are detained at the airport. In interrogation, the sisters might have remembered their fathers tactic: Focus on a point on the wall and zone out. Although Dolours feels responsible for her sisters arrest, the two of them wont relent. They cant plead guilty, as a lawyer advises them, because they dont recognize the court. Marian urges her sister not to feel bad as she looks out at the hordes of reporters covering their arrest: Thats mission accomplished.

When you join the IRA, Dolours tells Mackers, theres always this question: How far are you willing to go? In the Price family, going to prison was seen as a badge of honor or a rite of passage. But the reality of it doesnt feel half as noble as the idea. The girls are locked up with male inmates who are only too happy to harass and intimidate them, and they can count on only each other to make it through the days. If getting arrested was a tradition in the Price household, so was the strength of sisterhood: Dolours remembers her mothers lifelong devotion to Aunt Bridie.

We dont see the Prices conceiving of the hunger-strike plan, but by the time they are locked up in their respective cells, theyre ready to start. Tell [the governor] we will bring fury down on his head, Dolours says to the nurse who brings her breakfast tray. Tell him we will embarrass him in front of his nation. Not that the governor seems predisposed to care. If it were truly up to me, Miss Price, he told Dolours earlier, Id bury you in a hole.

Compared to the fast-paced, action-packed rhythm of the previous episodes, the days of the hunger strike drag on, merging into one another  its day two and then its day 17, the girls looking sicker by the minute. Its like a staring contest, Dolours tells Marian. Well just have to make them blink. Their mother, Chrissie, comes to visit them at Brixton and tells them that Brendan and Gerry have also been arrested. Although Chrissie is visibly shaken by the condition of her daughters, she doesnt try to talk them out of the strike  in fact, shes proud of their determination. In a radio interview, she maintains that she respects [her] daughters wish to die for a cause. Besides, she reminds the interviewer that her daughters deaths are not a given: The British government can still spare them by sending them home to Ireland.

Its not long after Chrissies visit that the forced feeding begins. For all of the emotional strain of the episode, these scenes are the hardest to watch; I was caught unawares with my lunch in front of me when they began and had to put my food away. One morning, a group of guards and nurses drags and ties Dolours to a chair, secures a mouthpiece around her head, and shoves a tube down her throat, through which they funnel a mixture of eggs, flour, juice, and protein powder. The British government decided that it would simply force the girls to eat  if acceding to their demand would make them look bad, letting them die would make them look worse. The whole thing is so traumatizing that Dolours questions whether she can endure it again. Marian tells her that its okay to break the strike. Its a totally new situation now, and everyone will understand, she assures her sister. But Marian wants to keep going, and Dolours decides theyll either come off it together or not at all.

The next day, Dolours tries to barricade the door, but if she was already skinny and petite before, now she has no chance against the burly guards. By the 67th day of the strike, the sisters have figured out they can communicate through the sink drain in the bathroom. The first time Dolours is tied to the chair, we see the whole gruesome process, but as the days go by, the steps are jump-cutted together. We become used to the sounds of a blender whirring and the straps on the mouthpiece tightening. The feeding is banalized into autopilot, coming to seem as familiar as brushing your teeth. Even then, we have to face Dolourss eyes as the tube is slid down her throat. The reality of what the girls had to go through sinks in; this went on for more than a hundred days.

Dolours develops a rapport with the kind-eyed Doctor Mansuri, who oversees the process. She respects his commitment to human life and believes him when he says that unlike the British government, which is more worried about optics than anything else, he actually cares whether the Prices live or die. They engage in discussion of the situations tangled ethics: Is the forced feeding, the only thing keeping the girls alive, a kind of torture? Dolours is game to banter with the doctor, but when a weakened Marian chokes on the tube and faints, she becomes angry and twice as resolute. Youre prolonging our suffering, she tells Dr. Mansuri. If only he would let the girls arrive on the verge of death, the British might finally give in. She renounces the resigned attitude she had taken toward the feeding and puts up a fight: She kicks and bites and refuses to sit still, perhaps hoping to injure herself. Im giving you the privilege of killing me, Dolours says to Dr. Mansuri. You can tell the governor that this is how its going to be from this point forward.

Its more than the doctor can take. He resigns, citing ethical concerns, and the feeding stops. By this point, its day 202, more than six months in. The girls are so sick they are put in a wing the nurses call the terminal ward, where they are allowed to share a bed. Marian is convinced she will die at any minute and feels prepared to go. She barely has the energy to lift her torso, let alone stand up like Dolours wants her to. On day 205, they pray the Rosary together. On day 208, when Dolours wakes up, Marian looks cadaverous and Dolours begs her to wake, promising they can quit the strike. Just then, a team of nurses comes in with fluids. Marian wakes up. The British blinked: The girls are being sent back to Ireland.
MANILA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday said it has approved more than 285 million U.S. dollars in financing for two projects to make Nepal greener and help it address climate change risks and geophysical events.

"Nepal's path to sustainable development faces challenges from a combination of climate-induced and geophysical hazards, along with high exposure and vulnerability of communities, infrastructure, and systems," said ADB Country Director for Nepal Arnaud Cauchois.

The ADB said in its press release that it is providing 100 million dollars toward subprogram 1 of the Green, Resilient, and Inclusive Development (GRID) Program through a policy-based loan. The loan supports the government's GRID approach, a novel homegrown process to development planning and implementation that holistically addresses a set of overlapping and reinforcing crises.

The ADB will also provide a concessional loan of 170 million dollars and a grant of 15 million dollars from the Asian Development Fund, which provides grants to ADB's poorest and most vulnerable developing members.

In addition, the ADB is providing a technical assistance grant of 1.75 million dollars from the Technical Assistance Special Fund for the investment project to strengthen the capacity of the water supply operator and the asset owner by modernizing their information technology systems, standard operating procedures for water utility operations, institutionalizing equitable service delivery models and designing a targeted communication strategy. 
"I have produced the most comprehensive health plan ever produced by a political party," said Deputy David Cullinane, adding that Sinn Fein is "serious about transforming the health service from a deeply unfair, two-tiered system into a world-class public health service that people can be proud of."

Waterford TD and Sinn Fein Spokesperson on Health David Cullinane appeared on RTE's political talk show Prime Time alongside current Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly of Fine Gael, and Duncan Smith TD of the Labour Party.

Deputy Cullinane emphasized his commitment to adopting a "zero-tolerance approach to hospital trolleys".

"I don't accept one person on a trolley in any hospital is acceptable. We have hospital managers saying that a person is sick enough to be admitted to a hospital but the beds are not there.

"The zero tolerance approach means that as a Health Minister, you won't accept patients on trolleys - you won't get to zero in one day or one week but I would hope after five years of a Sinn Fein-led government we would get to that point," he said, emphasising the importance of community health and out-of-hospital care. Deputy Cullinane said he would not be "limited in my ambition by the failure of Stephen Donnelly".

Minister Donnelly characterised the Waterford TD's health plan as a continuation of the existing government's health agenda.

"One thing that I agree with is that the answer to trolleys does not lie in emergency departments; it belongs upstream in hospitals and in community services."

Minister Donnelly said it would be "dishonest to say to the Irish people that [zero trolleys] can be guaranteed".
Abba Forever, November 22, Theatre Royal

It is one of the year's most popular shows at Theatre Royal, having run at the venue for the past nine years.

Abba Forever was formed and is lead by Dennis Scally, a musician who has been at the top of the music game for many years.

For 13 years, while based in Los Angleles, he was the musical director for The Supremes and toured the world with them. He moved back to Europe 17 years ago and formed Abba Forever. A virtuoso keyboard player, he really shines at all the great Abba keyboard parts.

Lead guitar is Rae Daniel. Rae has played with various bands and shows down through the years, including the London Mamma Mia show. A feature of the Abba Forever show is Dennis and Rae swapping lightening fast, guitar and keyboard licks, live on stage.

On lead vocals are Lucinda OConnell and Marie OHara.

Tickets available at theatreroyal.ie

Christmas Craft Fair, November 22 to December 22, Garter Lane Arts Centre

Waterford Crafts are back in Garter Lane Arts Centre for their 39th annual Christmas Craft Fair, taking place in our main gallery space.

Here you will see a superb range of high-quality, handmade crafts at affordable prices, ranging from all types of jewellery, soaps, hand-knitting, ceramics, candles, wood-turning, silk scarves, resin art, to list just a few.

Every beautiful handmade item tells a story, with many hours of dedication, creativity and passion, so join us and support local craftsmanship while finding one-of-a-kind treasures for everybody on your festive shopping list.

A night of classic Christmas songs, December 14, Coastguard Cultural Centre Tramore

Taking place at the Coastguard Cultural Centre on December 14 will be a a night of classic Christmas songs - from old standards to modern classics, all performed by Derek Flynn and Lauren Cardiff.

Tickets available at Eventbrite.ie

Adam Nolan Live, January 24, Phil Grimes

Prolific Irish Free Jazz Saxophonist Adam Nolan has released 18 albums to date and recently released a new album titled 'Are U Free' with some of the finest American musicians on the NYC free jazz scene.

His philosophy is that each gig and recording session is a new experience and, along with this, has recently added spoken word and rap into the sets, mixing free jazz with hip hop and metal, giving an eclectic modern authentic style.

Tickets available at Eventbrite.ie
Thousands of precious cultural relics from the South Pacific at risk from climate disasters will be safeguarded under one of the last acts of departing United States ambassador Caroline Kennedy.

In Port Moresby, the National Museum and Art Gallery has been temporarily closed as its air-conditioning struggles with extreme humidity.

The roof of the Tukuaho Memorial Museum in Tonga last week collapsed under the weight of unprecedented rains and floods that have saturated the islands, putting its collection at risk.

US ambassador Caroline Kennedy views the Pasifika Collection with Australian Museum CEO Kim McKay. Credit: Wolter Peeters

Enter Kennedy, who convinced the US government to back the Australian Museums Pasifika Tauhi project to fund efforts to catalogue, digitise and help objects important to the South Pacifics cultural heritage.
Dune: Prophecy 

Binge

Accumulative when it probably needed to be audacious, this Dune prequel puts sturdy but familiar pillars underneath the otherworldly science-fiction strands that culminated in director Denis Villeneuves two celebrated Dune movies. Focused on how a fledgling matriarchal order, the Sisterhood, will take its first steps towards becoming the omnipotent Bene Gesserit sect, the story unfolds 10,000 years before the movie stars and their characters enter the intergalactic timeline. To be clear: zero chance of a Timothee Chalamet or Zendaya cameo.

Mark Strong and Jodhi May in Dune: Prophecy. Credit: Binge

Its a commendable break. That vast gulf gives Prophecy the room to forge an identity of its own while playing in the Dune universe. Plenty remains familiar, from the abstract aerodynamics of orbiting spaceships to the galaxys insatiable hunger for spice, the beautiful little flakes of orange dust harvested from the desert planet Arrakis. The Sisterhoods leaders, siblings Valya and Tula Harkonnen (Emily Watson and Olivia Williams), even have an infamous Dune surname, although the aristocratic house is very much down on its heels.

In The Penguin, another HBO spin-off from a Hollywood blockbuster, the show separated itself from The Batman by trading comic book superheroes for an organised crime saga. Prophecy doesnt grasp the same reinvention. Dunes lore hangs heavy, even if Arrakis and its giant sandworms are only seen on a battlefield recording. Some of the new template also feels familiar. When young royals visit a nightclubs sex basement, complete with background coupling and strategic nudity, the Game of Thrones vibe is clear.
Counterpart 

7plus, Wednesday Before he co-created Shogun, one of this years best new series, American writer and producer Justin Marks was responsible for this labyrinthine science-fiction thriller. Debuting in 2017 and running for a pair of knotty seasons, Counterpart was a John le Carre fever dream: a coolly calculated espionage tale, set in Berlin, where the adversarial sides are two parallel worlds linked by a single crossing. It is, youll come to realise, a cruel proposition, and the basis for what remains a hidden gem of a show. J. K. Simmons works at a highly secretive UN department in Counterpart. Credit: How does it work? The audience learns alongside Howard Silk (J.K. Simmons), a minor bureaucrat at a United Nations department  the Office of Interchange, so secretive that he has no idea what it really does. That changes when Howards superiors take him into a conference room and essentially detonate his sense of reality. In 1987, an experiment by East German scientists went amiss, creating a mirror copy of our world, fused together in their basement laboratory. The two worlds, the original Alpha and the additional Prime, have since evolved separately but in wary proximity. Their evidence is Howards doppelganger (Simmons again), who has taken a very different career path over the past 30 years. Alpha Howard has been filing reports, but Prime Howard has thrived as an intelligence operative. Sitting opposite his bewildered double, Prime Howard explains he has crossed over to help stop an assassination campaign put in place by a rogue Prime faction aiming to damage Prime. On the hit list, for reasons he doesnt disclose, is Alpha Howards wife, Emily (Olivia Williams).

Its harder to explain than to watch. On screen the symmetry of the camera compositions and the expert skills of the cast provide a natural delineation. Alpha Howard is a dutiful public servant, but Prime Howard is a ruthless spy, and their personalities make the division clear. Their interactions, as with the numerous other pairings that possibly haunt key characters in Alpha, are a psychological stress test. Can you really lie to yourself? And is that the worst kind of betrayal? This is a long way from Shoguns feudal Japan, but both shows make great use of newcomers to a world learning on the fly. In Counterpart, the buildings and the people look the same but once the whirring plot starts to show us Prime, which even in Berlin has a stillness that is otherworldly compared with Alphas urban bustle, three decades of divergence lead to intriguing possibilities. The narrative has espionage lingo and sharp bursts of action, but the underlying tone has a metaphysical hum. Loading Complications remain, which are definitely more intrusive in the second season, but the concept translates because its consistently applied in an intimate setting. The Howards dont just see each other, they see the alternates of people they love, or did love. The temptation to make amends, or start anew, is palpable. Sometimes the fascination is self-destructive: the cold-blooded assassin from Prime that has covertly entered Alpha, Baldwin (Sara Serraiocco), cant resist searching for herself. Counterpart does what good science-fiction should: it uses speculation to make us look anew at our own world. Our predilection as a society for othering comes into sharp focus on the show when those being vilified are literally versions of ourselves. The cast, which includes Harry Lloyd (Game of Thrones) and Ulrich Thomsen (Banshee), sells every twist and double-cross with exemplary self-possession. That dissenting voice in your head? Now its standing opposite you.
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Review Eating outBrisbane The 10 Queensland restaurants you need to eat at this year From Brisbane and the Gold Coast to Cairns and beyond, heres where you need to eat in the Sunshine State. Matt Shea and Callan Boys November 11, 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

Drilling down on the best Queensland restaurants is an almost impossible task, such is the quality of the dining across the state in 2024. From Brisbane and the Gold Coast all the way up to Cairns and beyond, there are cracking eateries just about everywhere you look. Agnes is Brisbanes must-do restaurant right now. Supplied But consider the restaurants on the following list, published in this years Sydney Good Food Guide  out tomorrow  as the essential go-tos when youre next exploring the Sunshine State. Agnes

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Theres no gas here, no electricity  just a blazing hearth over which chef Ben Williamson and his team tend to an endlessly innovative menu steeped in local produce. Atmosphere is always on the menu at Agnes. The striking digs, all low lights in a heritage-listed former dairy co-op, only add to its reputation as Brisbanes most essential restaurant right now. 22 Agnes Street, Fortitude Valley, anyday.com.au/agnes-venue-page Blume

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Occupying an old Boonah timber shopfront replete with pressed metal walls is this star of Scenic Rim dining. Exclusive Cucina Regina shows The Star is serious about its restaurants Owner-chef Jack Stuarts ever-changing set menu might feature clay-baked beetroot, Spanish mackerel with broccoli, curry leaves and a mussel broth, or lamb shoulder with local mushrooms. Theres just 20 seats, so book well ahead. 5 Church Street, Boonah, blumerestaurant.com.au Essa

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This moody 60-seater is a welcome contrast to its glitzy James Street neighbours. Essa, just off James Street in Brisbane. Supplied A popular flame-focused set menu might include a crab crumpet with lemon and mayo, and wood-fired market fish with nori butter, but you can also choose your own a la carte path. An organic and biodynamic wine list splits the difference between local and overseas producers. 181 Robertson Street, Fortitude Valley, essa.restaurant Essen

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At this friendly, independent BYO-only restaurant about three hours drive inland from Brisbane, owner-chef Clarissa Pabst writes her own rules. Cottage restaurant Essen serves up to 30 guests per night. Paul Harris A four-course set menu is built around the kind of comfort cooking you can imagine Stephanie Alexander serving for Sunday lunch, so you might encounter Tropea onion and parmesan tart, roast chook with white polenta, lemon-thyme panna cotta, and Golden Queen peach sorbet. Visit Stonefruit in nearby Tenterfield if youre keen to bring great wine. 2 McGregor Terrace, Stanthorpe, essenstanthorpe.com.au Exhibition

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Following Joy, the acclaimed (and still essential) tiny degustation restaurant he opened with Sarah Baldwin in 2019, Exhibition is Tim Scott letting his inspiration run wild. Exhibition in Brisbanes CBD. BEDA The menu is ever-changing, but expect a phalanx of snacks anchored in Japanese technique, followed by larger plates such as wagyu tartare with rayu oil and sweet potato, or slipper lobster with kohlrabi and macadamia. Unmissable. 109 Edward Street, Brisbane, exhibitionrestaurant.com Restaurant Labart

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It may have loosened its tie post-pandemic, but Labart hasnt changed the assured precision of the cooking. Restaurant Labart in Burleigh Heads. Supplied Expect black-mussel escabeche, market fish with bouillabaisse butter and celeriac rouille, or baked scallops with an anchovy and pink peppercorn butter  all served in a beautifully presented Euro-inflected bistro. 8 West Street, Burleigh Heads, restaurantlabart.com Nu Nu

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A celebration of everything Far North Queensland, from the stunning Palm Cove location looking across the Coral Sea, to the innovative ways with local produce. Nu Nu in Palm Cove. Supplied Go large on plates such as ginger caramel chicken wings and kimchi butter-poached reef fish, before finishing with something spice-spiked from the cocktail list. 1 Veivers Road, Palm Cove, nunu.com.au Pneuma

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The latest restaurant from Dan Arnold (whose namesake fine diner is a local star), Pneuma is co-owned by former GOMA Restaurant chef Matt Blackwell. Pneuma in Brisbanes CBD. Tammy Law In a heritage dining room, Blackwell deals in dishes such as white anchovies with a nduja and piquillo pepper emulsion, and roasted monkfish tail with a smoked onion and mussel beurre blanc. The bold food is matched with a thoughtful and globetrotting wine list. 336 George Street, Brisbane, pneumarestaurant.com Rick Shores

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This modern classic refuses to lean on its fabulous beachside location, with chef James Brady punching out a menu as fresh as the Burleigh Heads breakers gliding past the restaurants front-row seats. Rick Shores in Burleigh Heads boasts one of the best outlooks in the country. Supplied Eat Madras lamb rump with rice dressing, or Patagonian toothfish with cardamom leaf, yellow curry and fried garlic. The bug roll, meanwhile, is a must. 3/43 Goodwin Terrace, Burleigh Heads, rickshores.com.au Snack Man

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Its neighbouring Happy Boy that put Cameron and Jordan Votan on the map, but Snack Man is arguably more essential, a fabulous menu of regional Chinese snacks  think Guangdong-style crispy tofu skin rolls with prawns, or Beijing-inspired pan-fried pies with pork floss  matched to small-producer European wines and grower champagne. Jordan and Cameron Votan outside Snack Man, in Brisbanes Fortitude Valley. Morgan Roberts The brothers new, neighbouring French diner, Petite, is also worth a look. East Street, Fortitude Valley, snack-man.com.au
BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Qiang has signed a decree of the State Council, unveiling a set of revised regulations on the use of the national natural science fund.

The revised regulations specify that the fund is used to finance basic research, support talent cultivation and team building, and follows the principles of openness, fairness and impartiality.

The fund will mainly come from the central budget, while enterprises and other organizations are also encouraged to engage in joint funding.

In addition, the revised regulations propose improvement of the mechanism for sharing results of research projects supported by the fund.

A special fund will be set up to train young scientific and technological personnel, according to the revisions, which also pledge to optimize the application and evaluation procedures for major original and interdisciplinary innovation projects.

Regarding improvement of the integrity system, the regulations specify that individuals and organizations that commit serious acts of dishonesty in scientific research will be punished.

The revised regulations will take effect on Jan. 1, 2025. 
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Review Eating outSouth Perth This suburban pizzeria brings a plus-sized slice of Naples to Canning Highway Max Veenhuyzen November 15, 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

1 / 4 Naples-style pizza is a specialty. Duncan Wright 2 / 4 Deep-fried bucatini carbonara: naughty, but oh so nice. Duncan Wright 3 / 4 Da Napolis deep-fried calzone. Duncan Wright 4 / 4 Springy gnocchi seems simultaneously light and weighty and comes in imaginative combinations. Duncan Wright Previous Slide Next Slide 14 / 20 How we score Italian$$$$ Mount Vesuvius. Diego Maradona. Terrific disco: all are things that the world associates with Naples, the capital of Campania and Italys third-biggest city. Naples is, of course, also synonymous with good eating and considered by many to be the birthplace of modern-day pizza. Its also the birthplace of pizza chefs Andrea Orabona and Antonio Carrino.

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After meeting at Pizzeria Da Leo  Carrino had recently arrived from Sydney and was looking for work; Orabona was one of Da Leos partners  and bonding over their shared heritage, the duo hatched plans to open a shop where they could really put their hometowns good stuff front and centre. Andrea Orabona spins some dough at Da Napoli. Duncan Wright Those plans materialised last year as Pizzeria Da Napoli: a clean-cut shopfront in Como giving way to splashes of forest green and glimpses of an open kitchen replete with gleaming copper-plated pizza oven. Whereas some pizzerias rely on maximalism and well-worn Italo design tropes to sell you their tricolore credentials, Da Napoli simply feels Italian. Staff and customers dont miss a chance to speak rapid-fire in their native tongue. Italian pop songs feature on the playlist. Fashion choices among guests run from streetwear to sprezzatura, that elusive Italian concept of unforced elegance. Swag never takes a day off, nor do team Da Napoli who  God bless them  trade seven nights. As if on cue, two pals arrive in a scooter to grab a pick-up order that they carefully pack in a box at the back of their bike. Its a cutesy scene, certainly, but if Im being honest most of the folk dropping in to pick up pizzas are delivery drivers bringing Da Napoli to the people. While any pizza is, of course, good pizza, I hope that those people enjoying Da Napoli at home also get the chance to enjoy Da Napoli at Da Napoli, too.

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Naples-style pizza, as you know, is best eaten hot. All the better to enjoy the puff of its crust (the cornicione, in Italian) and the fine interplay between the pies chewy dough and the sweet-sour sugo and cheese while both are in that magic altered state between solid and liquid. Good Food hat 15 / 20 Review A hat! Is Wildflower as good as it has always been? For my lira, Da Napolis pizza rings true to what I ate in Naples when I visited in 2018. Their bases are soft and pliable  these arent the structural, gravity-defying miracles found at Maestro, yet nor are they mean to be  and punctuated with bumps, bubbles and blonde burnt bits produced by baking a slow-fermented dough in a hot oven. The pizzas themselves are topped with a light hand using cheese made by local milk whisperers La Delizia Latticini plus ingredients that feel classically Italian, even if used in not-typically-classical ways. (House creations, for example, include garlic tiger prawns and meatballs.) Still, Da Napoli is a fine addition to Perths Naples-style pizza options. Just know that its plus-sized pizzas (from $22) are much larger than others around town that are proportioned for one. One pizza between two  plus a few extra snacks  feels right, otherwise a kids-sized pizza could work ($15) for solo eaters, although your only choices are margherita or ham and cheese.

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But while the pizza feels traditionally Neapolitan, Orabona and Carrino take an untraditional approach to making it. Dough production is centralised at a dedicated doughmaking facility owned by Orabona, while pizzas are cooked in a gas-powered Marana pizza armed with a programmable turntable base made of volcanic stone. While the pizza might have been prepared unconventionally, its hard to argue with the quality of the finished product. And if two Neapolitan pizzamakers can embrace technology in the pursuit of consistency, the least eaters can do is consider their perspective. While the menu stars other pizza-adjacent items  a heaps naughty block of deep-fried bucatini carbonara (three for $19); Caprese salad ($20) let down by underripe tomatoes; mascarpone-heavy tiramisu ($14)  its highlights tend to feature some degree of flour power. Good Food hat 15 / 20 Review Imaginative dishes make South Freos Madalenas an essential address for lovers of seafood The springy gnocchi (from $26) feels simultaneously light and weighty and come in imaginative combinations (spicy nduja and lemon myrtle oil, anyone?). The house pizza dough also features in the desserts as pizza churros ($17), otherwise known as angioletti alla Nutella, a beloved Naples street food. They fry strips of dough. They dust them with icing sugar. They pipe Nutella over said strips of dough. The defence rests it case. On the back of the Da Napoli menu is the motto, apizze na cosa seria: Italian for pizza is a serious matter. For team Napoli, that seriousness involves considering untraditional approaches when trying to streamline the production of a traditional style of pizza.

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It seems to be working, not least because management is about to open shop number two in Leederville this December. There are also plans next year to convert the space next to the mothership into a wine bar and extend the cramped dining area. This would be welcome. Although Da Napoli pulses with energy, that energy feels more busy kitchen than busy restaurant. But for now, the focus will be celebrating Da Napolis first birthday this Sunday where the shop will be giving away 150 free margheritas to thank customers for their support. Even when youre being serious, its important to remember to have fun. The low-down Vibe: a new name to watch in Perths Naples-style pizza circles. Go-to dish: pizza churros (after the pizza, naturally). Drinks: soft drinks including Italian sodas. For something a little stronger, BYO. Cost: about $70 for two, excluding drinks.
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Were bringing our live blog to a close for today.

Making headlines today, we spoke to several amazing young people who are completing their ATAR early, showing us how talent and hard work can pay off ahead of time.

Perth man Andre Rebelo, accused of murdering his mother just days after taking out more than $1 million worth of life insurance in her name, claimed he kept his pursuit of the funds secret to shield his grieving siblings from the fact she may have taken her own life. See our court coverage of the case here.

And we spoke with the amazing Bridget Grocke, who is about to turn 110. Her sense of humour remains as a testament to all the hardened battlers of her generation.

Guess what her favourite drink is? Credit: Ross Swanborough

Scroll back to read more from the days news.

Thank you again for staying with us, come back tomorrow for more news you need to know.
Peter Dutton is not known to attend church. If the opposition leader has an outward faith, it is in his own judgment.

So it was on Wednesday when he went on Radio National and declared: I support a womans right to choose.

Tony Abbotts maiden speech was suffused with soaring religious rhetoric. Peter Duttons reflected the view of a workmanlike Queensland cop. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Anthony Albanese has faced moments like this when asked to touch the third rail of politics. He often vacillates. Take the census saga that ran from August to September. Gay people werent to be counted, then they were. Trans people werent to be counted, then they were.

Yet faced with perhaps the most contentious culture war issue, one that has split his party in South Australia and Queensland, Dutton acted as if the answer was obvious.
Travel quiz: Where is the only museum with a colossal squid on display?

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A certain high-level ski resort in France previously had the nickname Courchevelski? Back then  as recently as early 2022  wealthy Russians came in their droves, bringing with them a healthy thirst for Cristal champagne and wads of cash to be splashed on the likes of Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Dior.

Not any longer. The war in Ukraine has had a dramatic impact on the way Russians travel  and the destinations theyre able to access.

Abu Dhabi has become a popular destination for Russians. Credit: iStock

A combination of outright bans, tougher visa requirements and sanctions on Russian airlines has meant that travel to western Europe  including premier ski resorts in France and Austria, honeypot cities such as London and Paris, superyacht havens on the French Riviera, and old favourites such as the spa town of Baden-Baden  has plummeted.

According to the travel analytics specialist ForwardKeys, Russian visits to EU countries in the year to date have been down 97 per cent compared with 2019, and down 93 per cent in the United States. (Russian travellers have never been a particularly significant market for Australia, with just 18,000 visiting in 2019, according to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. By comparison, there were 860,000 visitors from China in the 12 months leading up to September this year. Nevertheless, Russian visitors to Australia are also down 41 per cent on pre-COVID levels.)
Singapore: If officials in Beijing were harbouring hope that a Trump 2.0 presidency  and its promise of an unpredictable dealmaker back in the Oval Office  could swing the turbulent fortunes of US-China relations in their favour, they have been shaken back to reality.

In amassing the team that he will take to the White House, President-elect Donald Trump has tapped two of Washingtons most trenchant China hawks for critical positions in his incoming administration.

Republican congressman Mike Waltz is set to become his national security adviser, while Senator Marco Rubio has been picked for secretary of state.

Donald Trump at a rally with Marco Rubio, who is expected to be appointed secretary of state, on November 4. Credit: AP

A cornucopia of foreign policy scenarios has already been canvassed in the lead-up to Trump taking office, some of them infused with contradiction, such is the dizzying unpredictability of the president-elect.
Milan: On show in a historic palazzo in the central Italian city of Pisa this week are about 450 works by some headline-grabbing names: Gustav Klimt, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol and others. Alongside them are paint tubes, paintbrushes and cans of spray paint, reflecting the versatility of their creators.

The catch: they are all fakes.

The works are among more than 2100 pieces seized by Italys specialised art theft squad over the past year in an effort to break up a Europe-wide network of forgers and dealers accused of selling counterfeit art to unsuspecting buyers.

A police photograph displays some of the forged works in Pisa. An art historian working with investigators said Banksy works were easier to falsify than those by other artists. Credit: Arma dei Carabinieri via The New York Times

The operation was among the biggest busts of counterfeit art in the past 15 years, Lorenzo Galizia, who heads the police art theft squad in Rome, said in a telephone interview. Angela Teresa Camelio, the Pisa prosecutor overseeing the case, valued the seized works at about 250 million ($407 million).
Washington: A far-right Republican, who was investigated for sex crimes and was also responsible for a leadership coup that paralysed the US Congress for weeks, has been nominated by Donald Trump to be Americas new attorney general.

In an announcement that sent shock waves across Washington, the president-elect has tapped Florida congressman Matt Gaetz to be his top lawmaker tasked with overhauling what Trump has long viewed as a weaponised federal Justice Department.

Republican representative Matt Gaetz speaks to the media outside the US Capitol in Washington. Credit: Bloomberg

Gaetz is a hardcore MAGA loyalist who was responsible for the coup that led to the ousting of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which resulted in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives being unable to govern for weeks.

He was also previously investigated by prosecutors  and was still being examined by an ethics committee in Congress  over allegations that he was part of a scheme that led to the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl. He resigned from Congress shortly after the nomination, with AP reporting this will now end the ethics probe.
Washington: Melania Trump, the former and future first lady, rejected an invitation from the current first lady, Jill Biden, to have tea at the White House and tour the executive mansion  a decision that breaks with a decades-old tradition.

In an unusual statement posted on social media platform X, Trumps office said she would not be accompanying President-elect Donald Trump to the White House for his meeting on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) with President Joe Biden, a long-time ritual between the current and future presidents that the wives normally attend as well.

Doing things her way: Former and incoming first lady Melania Trump. Credit: AP

In this instance, several unnamed sources in the media continue to provide false, misleading and inaccurate information, Trumps office said in a statement, an apparent explanation for her absence. It was unclear who in the media her office was referring to and what information it objected to.

Her office did, however, sound a note of congratulations to Donald Trump on behalf of his wife. Her husbands return to the Oval Office to commence the transition process is encouraging, and she wishes him great success.
BRUSSELS, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission on Thursday fined U.S. tech giant Meta 797.72 million euros (about 837.61 million U.S. dollars) for breaching EU antitrust rules and abusing its dominant positions in the markets.

"The Commission has fined Meta ... for breaching EU antitrust rules by tying its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and by imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers," the European Commission said in a press release.

Facebook Marketplace is an online platform for classified ads, allowing users to buy and sell goods.

The Commission argued that by linking Facebook Marketplace with its social network, all Facebook users are automatically exposed to Marketplace without a choice. This integration gives Facebook Marketplace a significant distribution advantage, making it difficult for competitors to compete fairly.

It also stated that Meta imposes unfair trading conditions on other online classified ad service providers who advertise on Meta's platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. The practice enables Meta to use ad-related data from other advertisers solely to benefit Facebook Marketplace.

Meta's antitrust case goes back to June 2021, when the Commission began investigating possible related conduct by Facebook. In December 2022, the Commission accused Meta of distorting competition in the online classified ads market, to which Meta responded in June 2023. 
Sao Paulo: Brazils Supreme Court was evacuated and Congress will remain closed after two nearby explosions that left one dead in a square near Congress and the presidential palace in Brasilia, police said, stirring security concerns shortly before the country hosts the G20 summit.

The rare blasts come five days before global leaders from the major economies, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, meet in Rio de Janeiro, followed by a state visit to the capital by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Authorities said a man who failed in an attempt to break into the court killed himself in explosions outside the building.

Police vehicles are parked outside the Supreme Court in Brasilia, Brazil, following an explosion. Credit: AP

The first explosion happened in a carpark near the court building in the evening (Thursday morning AEDT). The Supreme Court justices had just ended a plenary session and were quickly evacuated safely, the court said in a statement.
KIGALI, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Africa's education ministers and development partners have reiterated their commitment to ending "learning poverty" and doubling efforts in funding foundational learning as a three-day education forum concluded Wednesday in Kigali, the Rwandan capital.

"Learning poverty" refers to the inability of children to meet basic literacy and numeracy milestones.

The forum, which gathered about 500 delegates, including ministers of education, development partners, and experts from across sub-Saharan Africa, called for urgent action to address the challenges slowing foundational learning to improve the quality of education on the continent.

"We have shared invaluable insights, strategies, and visions to tackle foundational learning challenges across Africa. I call upon my fellow ministers to join me in ending learning poverty in the coming decade," Rwandan Minister of Education Joseph Nsengimana said in his closing remarks. "Let us make this our shared priority, working together and learning from one another to achieve this goal."

"Together, we are laying the foundation for a future in which every African child has access to quality education," he said.

Victoria Kwakwa, vice president for Eastern and Southern Africa of the World Bank, urged governments to invest in foundational learning, starting with universalizing early childhood education, focusing on proficiency in literacy and numeracy, and keeping vulnerable populations, in particular adolescent girls, in school.

Noting that Africa's working-age population is expected to double by 2050, Kwakwa said stronger foundational learning is indispensable for a more prosperous and inclusive future.

"The World Bank is committed to partnering with governments and stakeholders to drive swift and impactful change," she said.

According to the latest UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, learning poverty rates in sub-Saharan Africa stand at around 90 percent.

Data from the World Bank indicate that addressing the challenge could unlock an estimated 6.5 trillion U.S. dollars in economic opportunities.

Failure to act, however, could result in economic losses of up to 17 trillion dollars across the continent.

The World Bank estimates a 97 billion dollar funding gap in education for sub-Saharan Africa.

Officials have called for committed and collaborative action among African nations and development partners to improve the situation.

Etleva Kadilli, regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa of the United Nations Children's Fund or UNICEF, said ensuring prosperity across Africa requires greater political commitments and investment that are turned into concrete action.

"Governments must reach every child and keep them in school, assess learning outcomes regularly, support teachers to deliver the basics, and develop children's mental health and well-being," she said. "Only then will children attain the reading, math, and socio-emotional skills necessary for them to progress to higher forms of education and realize their further potential." 
LIMA, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Peru highly regards its relations with China, and Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the country is seen as an opportunity to further deepen cooperation across various fields and bring greater benefits to the two peoples, President of the Congress of Peru Eduardo Salhuana has said.

Salhuana made the remarks in an interview with Xinhua ahead of Xi's attendance at the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima and a state visit to Peru from Nov. 13 to 17.

This will be Xi's second visit to the country following his 2016 state visit, and the people of Peru eagerly await Xi's arrival as the visit will strengthen their traditional friendship and enhance multifaceted cooperation between the two countries, he said.

Salhuana praised China's remarkable development achievements, highlighting its steady pursuit of goals, rapid economic growth, and significant improvements in the quality of life brought about by advancements in infrastructure, such as highways, high-speed rail, and smart city management.

China's advances in intelligent and mobile technology have facilitated daily life and boosted national competitiveness, which Peru is also working to develop, said Salhuana.

Salhuana highlighted China's active role in APEC in fostering regional trade and investment, technology transfer, and infrastructure connectivity, calling China a critical engine for global economic development.

He pointed to the Chancay Port project as a real-world example of how China supports the development of other countries while advancing itself. Peru's central position along the western coast of South America makes it well-positioned as a regional hub, he said, noting that the Chinese-funded port will reduce shipping times to Asia, promoting trade between Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and other Latin American countries with Asian countries including China.

The project offered immense market opportunities for Latin America's agriculture, mining, and manufacturing sectors, and will boost economic vitality across the region, he said, adding that Peru is entering a promising new phase of development.

The Chancay Port project is a vivid example of the high-quality Belt and Road cooperation between China and Peru, Salhuana said, expressing optimism that the two nations will continue to enhance collaboration in infrastructure, industrial upgrades, and sectors like trade, technology, and education.

As this year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the China-CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Forum jointly announced by the leaders of the two sides, Salhuana noted that China plays a vital role in promoting development in Latin America, with many regional countries viewing China as a key strategic partner.

The partnership goes beyond commerce and economy, encompassing cultural exchanges, multilateral cooperation, technological exchange, and experience-sharing, said Salhuana. He described Peru-China relations as close and smooth, expressing hope for expanded cooperation across diverse fields.

Salhuana highlighted the long-standing friendship between Peru and China, which is deeply cherished by both peoples.

Noting that this year marks the 175th anniversary of the arrival of the first batch of Chinese people in Peru, Salhuana said that those Chinese immigrants and their descendants have played a vital role in Peru's social, economic, and cultural progress, enriching its cultural diversity.

The Chinese culture has deeply integrated into the daily lives of Peruvians, who have embraced Chinese customs and values such as hard work, integrity, humility, and diligence -- qualities that Peruvians hold in high regard, said Salhuana, adding that Peruvians affectionately refer to the Chinese as "paisano" (old pal).

He also expressed Peru's anticipation for continued cultural exchanges with China, hoping for greater mutual understanding and a path toward shared prosperity between the two nations. 
A FedEx cargo flight arrives at Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, Nov. 11, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Ziheng)

QINGDAO, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's thriving logistics sector is embracing innovation and promoting the global market with enhanced connectivity, creating new opportunities for transportation companies, said Kawal Preet, president of Asia Pacific, Federal Express Corporation (FedEx).

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of FedEx's operations in China, the global express giant has made significant investments since the beginning of this year, including the opening of a new Chinese headquarters office in Shanghai and the launch of a new flight cargo service between China and the United States. These developments demonstrate FedEx's continuous dedication to the Chinese market, Preet said during an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

"In response to the significant growth of the Chinese market, we have increased our investment and infrastructure upgrades in China," said Preet, adding that FedEx will continue to expand its investment in China, a market filled with opportunities.

In the 2023 International Logistics Performance Index (LPI) released by the World Bank, the Chinese mainland is ranked 19th in this regard among 139 countries and regions listed.

"China has been making progress in creating a world-class logistics framework, positioning the country as a global logistics hub," she said, adding that smart logistics solutions supported by technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT), improve efficiency, and empower logistics infrastructure with enhanced connectivity.

While benefiting from the significant development of China's logistics infrastructure, FedEx identifies some key trends that guide their endeavors. "China's dual circulation strategy, as well as the implementation of new quality productive forces, clearly shows that the logistics industry is embracing innovation," she said.

To meet the demands of an evolving market, FedEx is continuously exploring and investing in a variety of emerging technologies, and expanding its sustainability effort. These endeavors aim to provide reliable global delivery and smart digital solutions that contribute to the advancement of China's logistics infrastructure, Preet noted.

According to the latest data released by China's State Post Bureau, the cumulative volume of completed international/Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan express deliveries from January to September this year reached 2.67 billion pieces, representing a 24.9-percent year-on-year increase.

"Given China's strong performance in cross-border transportation, our objective is to make significant headway in this area." Currently, FedEx serves six international airports in China, operates over 300 international cargo flights per week, and is committed to the continued growth of cross-border cargo in the country through enhancements to its logistics network.

On the day of the interview, which was conducted Monday, FedEx announced the increased frequency of international cargo flight connecting the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao to the United States, alongside the inauguration of its Qingdao international gateway facility.

"By leveraging Qingdao's geographical significance in air logistics, the increased frequency will facilitate the cargo transportation within the Asia-Pacific region and between East China and North America," Preet stated.

This year marks the fifth consecutive year that FedEx has participated in the China International Import Expo (CIIE), which concluded over the weekend. "CIIE enables FedEx to analyze market trends, establish forward-looking and targeted development strategies as we expand our business and drive innovation," according to Preet.

Furthermore, the company experienced firsthand China's commitment to promoting a high level of opening up during the CIIE. "It not only helps an increasing number of businesses share the opportunities of the Chinese market, but also assists Chinese companies in entering global markets," she said.

"We have been an active participant in high-level forums and organizations, including the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) and the China Development Forum (CDF), that promote the global exchanges," Preet emphasized, adding that FedEx will be committed to advocating for constructive trade relations between the U.S. and China and empowering the development of areas that are significant to the peoples of both countries.

An airplane transporting giant pandas arrives at the Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 15, 2024. (Xinhua/Hu Yousong)

Since becoming a panda transportation provider in 2000, FedEx has had the privilege of transporting 21 pandas to and from China with 12 cross-border transports.

"The panda movements are close to my heart, as we believe they play an important role in fostering global friendship," said Preet. "As FedEx accompanies pandas to various destinations around the world or back to their home country, we witness the love and affection for pandas within the global community." 
Banner County

Good morning and here we are being thankful for the moisture that we received this past weekend!

Not a whole lot going on this week as Veterans Day was observed this past Monday and now we are in anticipation of Thanksgiving. However, until then we will carry on as usual.

Today, November 14th between 10 and 11 a.m. the Wildcat Hills Homeschool Program will be offered, and at 1 p.m. you can take that painting class I mentioned last week that is closer to home. Meet at the Banner County Museum to join a Holiday Barn Paint Class. The picture is preprinted and the session will end at 3 p.m.

That...
Report: Police Chief, Sheriff Have Talk That Kept Dispatch From Moving To Sidney

After a tension filled, heated discussion and debate at the Kimball City Council meeting on Thursday, Kimball Police Chief Jose Ruiz and Kimball County Sheriff Dave Hottell have met  and according to the sheriff all dispatching will remain in Kimball County.

This is the most recent information obtained by the Observer on Tuesday afternoon and confirmed by the sheriff in relation to the retention of the city's dispatch in this county and not Cheyenne County. Mayor John Morrison also confirmed that a meeting took place and dispatch will stay in Kimball.

"Communication was the key," Morrison sai...
A team from Mayo has created a first-of-its-kind Virtual Reality (VR) project for nursing home residents.

Global VAM is working on headsets that contain a wide range of pre-loaded content designed to create immersive experiences that foster emotional connections and also provide therapeutic benefits that traditional rehabilitation methods often lack.

The pre-loaded content includes immersive, life-like sand therapy programmes and other relaxation and stimulation experiences, content centred on an individual person allowing them to virtually visit family homes, towns and graves, live Irish music performances, exclusive virtual access to Knock Shrine and more.

Brian Lavelle, a native of Belmullet who is also known for creating the award-winning My360Town project, said the VR Activities for Cognitive Rehabilitation project came about almost by "a complete accident".

We were asked by Rita Gaughan at Sonas Nursing Home in Belmullet if we could bring some of our virtual tours to the residents for them to have a look around. My brother Martin suggested we do this on headsets instead of iPads and the residents went nuts for it, said Brian.

We did some market research and found that this did not exist anywhere else outside of Ireland.

Brian and his team were no experts on the care home sector however, and got Declan Howley, Chairman of the Foxford and District Alzheimer's Trust, on board as a brand ambassador to help guide the process.

Declan guided us on whats best to put on the headsets for residents with dementia and also different activities suitable for that age group, said Brian.

Declan is now taking up a Masters in the use of VR in the Care Home sector on the back of this and were supporting him in that.

There are many benefits to the type of content that is pre-loaded onto the devices.

The sand therapy is an interesting example, where we are putting the residents' feet into the sand, completely immersed in a real beach, explained Brian.

That gets the feet moving. A lot of the homes in the care sector focus on the upper body and this is a great way to get them moving.

Global VAM is continuing to grow and expand the product and just last week signed an agreement with Australian company Neuromersiv, which creates immersive upper body rehabilitation solutions for the care home sector. Brian said they are also on the lookout for Irish musicians willing to be recorded for inclusion in the headsets pre-loaded music offering.

He added that the response to the device has been phenomenal from the over 300 users in 50 nursing homes who have tried it out.

100% of activity coordinators love it and so do the residents who try it. It is such a powerful tool.

At the moment, we are working on a rental basis to nursing homes. It is low cost but we are also seeking further sponsorship and investment, there is really so much potential with this, said Brian.
The head of the Mayo Roads Design Office (RDO) has said it may take until 2033 for the Ballinrobe bypass to be opened.

Paul Hyland told a meeting of the Claremorris-Swinford Municipal District yesterday that based on the progress his office has made on the delivery of the ongoing Ballina bypass, it will take them three years to get to a stage where they are satisfied they can seek planning permission and permission for CPOs from An Bord Pleanala for the Ballinrobe bypass, which is currently at Phase 0 for Scope & Pre-Appraisal.

It will then take an additional year for that decision to be made. At this stage, it will take another two years for detailed design and preparation of contract documents for a contractor to be procured. The construction will then take another two years.

Youre looking at 2025 to 2033 by the time the Ballinrobe bypass will be open. That is the realistic timeframe we are looking at, he said.

He said that progress in 2025 is largely dependent on the funding available to Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) and the office resources available to the Mayo RDO. The allocation for the project in 2024, which was used primarily for Phase 0, was 25,000. A Project/Programme Outline Document (POD) has been submitted to the TII for approval.

Cllr Damien Ryan said that provision needs to be made at the next meeting of the Roads Strategic Policy Committee (SPC) for councillors in the Ballinrobe engineering area to attend the monthly meetings between TII and the Mayo RDO.

We need to attend to reinforce the urgency of this. We are a long way from getting lines on a map, he said.

Cllr Michael Burke said Ballinrobe cannot continue to wait for a bypass.

Someone will lose a life because of the traffic or because an emergency vehicle cannot get to them and that will wake TII up. We need funding for this so Paul Hylands office can make progress, he said.

Cllr Patsy OBrien said Ballinrobe was currently one of the worst towns in Ireland for congestion and said the sort of urgency that has been put on the Adare bypass in Limerick needs to be put on Ballinrobe.

Adare is getting full attention now because its hosting the Ryder Cup. Its a pity theres no Ryder Cup in Ballinrobe, he said.

More on this story in next weeks Western People
Four-fifths of people in Mayo are worried about climate change, according to the Climate Opinion Maps published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the Climate Change in the Irish Mind study.

Overall, 80% of people surveyed in Mayo are worried about climate change, just below the national figure of 82%. Some 54% said climate change is personally important to them and 61% said climate change is going to harm them personally while 94% said climate change will harm future generations and 78% said it would harm people in Ireland. A total of 73% believe climate change is already harming people in Ireland and will do so in the next 10 years.

The majority believe climate change is affecting the weather and that flooding and severe storms will harm the local area. Some 54% said they are not worried about water shortages affecting their local area but 80% are worried water pollution will harm the local area. Only 31% are worried that wildfires will harm the local area.

With regards to policy support, the majority said climate action would improve the economy and provide new jobs and it will improve Irelands quality of life. Some 87% said Ireland has a responsibility to act on climate change and 79% said it should be a priority of the Government. The vast majority said both citizens and businesses should do more about climate change.

The majority support using fossil fuel taxes to assist fossil fuel workers, to develop clean energy sources and to improve transport infrastructure. There was majority support for banning peat coal and oil for home heating, for government grants to make electric vehicles more affordable and for increased investment in public transport. Some 51% support higher taxes on petrol/diesel cars.

Of those surveyed, 78% know a lot about climate change and 95% believe climate change is happening while 55% said climate change is mostly caused by human activity but only 31% are aware Ireland's agriculture sector is the largest pollution source.
Consulting engineers have been appointed to undertake upgrade works on a long-awaited crash barrier and footpath under the bridge in Ballyhaunis, writes Paul O'Malley.

Fine Gael Cllr Alma Gallagher said the upgrade was essential to prioritise the health and safety of pupils at the nearby Scoil Iosa, as well as the vast number of pedestrians and vehicles navigating what she described as a 'blackspot' within the town.

There are over 315 pupils at Scoil Iosa and over 60% of our local population walk to work, many of them past this location, she told last weeks meeting of the Claremorris-Swinford Municipal District.

Cllr Gallagher welcomed the news that the consulting firm RPS Ltd had been appointed to the project by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII).

Area engineer Conrad Harley said RPS would develop a design for consultation between Claremorris-Swinford MD and Irish Rail. He added that the construction date will be between first and second quarter of next year.

Aontu Cllr Paul Lawless seconded the motion and said it was good to see a time-frame for the project in the engineers reply.

He suggested that a public lighting scheme should be considered for the Station Rise area of the town to further improve pedestrian safety in Ballyhaunis.
BEFORE

As an American living in Ireland, I am often asked about the upcoming US presidential election. I understand why this is a hot topic of conversation. From an external point of view, US politics looks like a circus.

People often ask me how I think it will all turn out. My honest answer is that I have no clue. While I am extremely hopeful that Vice President Harris will succeed in becoming the first female president in US history, I think the world underestimates the immense number of Trump supporters across the country.

I went to Kansas City over the summer. As someone who doesnt often stray from the East Coast, I was shocked by the vast amount of Trump supporters who jumped at any opportunity to yell about how much they hate liberals.

I grew up in New Jersey, a reliably blue state. While I would say that my hometown is overwhelmingly liberal, it is still riddled with Trump 2024 lawn signs and bumper stickers.

Unfortunately, I am not able to vote because, even though I lived in New Jersey for 12 years, I am not a US citizen. However, I dont pretend to be impartial. If I could vote, I would vote for Harris. Although Harris is far from perfect, she is clearly the superior candidate.

There are many reasons why I would never vote for Trump. To name a few: Trump is a convicted felon, he was impeached twice during his presidency, he incited an insurrection when he lost the 2020 election and he has been accused of sexual assault by dozens of women.

Not to mention, my political beliefs align more closely with those of the Democratic Party. I disagree with Trumps stance on abortion, immigration, gun control, climate change and more.

DURING

The massive influx of female voters casting their ballots early is extremely encouraging. I predict that many young women are passionate about this years election because of the recent reversal of Roe v Wade.

Reproductive rights are an exceptionally divisive and critical issue in the US. Many American women have been personally affected by the controversial decision to repeal Roe v Wade. They flock to the voting polls not because Harris will be able to reinstate the constitutional right, but to prevent Trump from criminalising abortion in all 50 states.

On the flip side, it is reported that Trump is up 18% with young male voters. The misogynistic rhetoric being propagated on the internet has no doubt contributed to this phenomenon. The 'manosphere' has convinced young men that they are the victims of the so-called feminist agenda. In reality, feminists seek to rectify the societal issues that the patriarchy has created for all genders.

On the other hand, many young men claim to be voting for Trump because he is better for the economy. First of all, Trump has dozens of failed business ventures under his belt. Details of his history as an unsuccessful businessman can be easily found on the internet. Regardless, American men have proven that they value the economy over the health and safety of their wives, daughters, mothers and sisters.

It is currently 1am in Ireland on November 6th. Trump has 90 electoral votes and Harris has 27. The polls have officially closed in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. All three battleground states are still up for grabs and I am humming with anxiety. I dont live in the US anymore, but this election will inevitably affect the entire world.

AFTER

Unfortunately, Ireland is five hours ahead of New Jersey. I had hoped to pull an all-nighter and watch the election unfold. However, it was not long before I dozed off in front of the television as each candidate continued to accrue more and more electoral votes.

When I woke up the following morning, I immediately rolled over, grabbed my phone and typed election results into the Safari search bar. I was beyond disappointed to see Trumps name flooding the screen.

Harris isnt perfect by any means, but she is far more qualified, intelligent and honourable than Donald Trump. I do believe that her gender and race contributed to her loss.

This outcome reassures me that I made the right decision when I moved across the Atlantic. The ideals currently dominating US politics are abhorrent. My friends from back home seem to agree because I received a lot of text messages that day telling me how lucky I am to live in Ireland.

Watching the election unfold from a different country has been surreal. Waking up to the news that Trump won transported me back to 2016. I was 12 years old and absolutely shocked that a man as deplorable as Donald Trump was allowed to run, let alone win.

I was too young to fully comprehend the implications of his victory. I could never have foreseen the series of events that would unfold as a consequence of the 2016 election.

The congressional election also took place on November 5th. Though it has not received as much coverage as the presidential election, it is extremely important. Members of Congress have the power to enable or obstruct the presidents policy agenda.

As I write this, Republicans have won control of the US Senate and are also on their way to taking control of the House of Representatives. For Trump, this is great news.

In conclusion, I am no expert. These are simply the opinions of a 20-year-old girl who grew up in New Jersey. I am curious to see how Trumps presidency plays out; I do not doubt that the repercussions of this election will be catastrophic.

Caitlin Maughan is a journalism student at the University of Galway and is currently on an internship at the Western People.
BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- China and Peru have continued to deepen bilateral trade cooperation in recent years, official data showed Thursday.

From 2016 to 2023, bilateral trade grew at an average annual rate of 14.6 percent, according to data released by China's General Administration of Customs.

In the first 10 months of this year, bilateral trade jumped 16.8 percent year on year to 254.69 billion yuan (about 35 billion U.S. dollars), the data showed.

Between January and October, China exported 40.43 billion yuan of mechanical and electrical products to Peru, which accounted for half of China's total exports to Peru.

China's exports of automobiles and parts, mobile phones, laptops and home appliances saw rapid growth during the period.

In the same period, China imported 148.95 billion yuan of metal ore and 14.47 billion yuan of agricultural products from Peru, marking an increase of 19.2 percent and 23.8 percent, respectively.

China and Peru established a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2013. China is currently Peru's largest trading partner, export market and source of imports. 
KIGALI, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- China-proposed initiatives are playing a critical role in improving the global governance system, a Rwandan expert has said.

"China is sharing its development experience with other countries through its development initiatives which have helped to promote common development," Straton Habyarimana, Rwandan economic analyst, told Xinhua.

"Since these initiatives are people-centered, they address key challenges such as food insecurity and poverty," he said.

Habyarimana said China's three global initiatives -- the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative -- have helped ease tensions among countries.

These initiatives not only uphold international justice but also promote common development, he said, adding that he believes China will continue to contribute to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

The Rwandan expert also said that China plays a positive role in promoting a fairer, more inclusive, and more sustainable global development.

Chinese initiatives have facilitated trade and economic cooperation which is critical to developing countries in Africa in their efforts to gain growth momentum and improve livelihoods, he said.

China's initiatives have created jobs for Africans through the building of large-scale infrastructure projects in different African nations. This has led to prosperity and improvement of people's wellbeing, he said. 
MOMBASA, Kenya, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's main seaport, the Port of Mombasa, said Thursday it handled 33.78 million tonnes of cargo in the first 10 months this year, up 13.9 percent from 29.66 million tonnes posted in the same period of 2023.

Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) attributed the increase to jumps in containerized cargo, which rose 21.1 percent to 3.12 million tonnes, and liquid bulk, which grew 9.0 percent to 697,648 tonnes.

"Current projections for the end of 2024 indicate that the Port of Mombasa will handle approximately 40.535 million tonnes in cargo throughput, 480,241 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in transshipment traffic, and 13.416 million tonnes in transit traffic," the KPA said in a statement issued in Mombasa.

According to the KPA, imports and exports recorded moderate growth of 31,915 TEUs, or 5.4 percent, and 30,923 TEUs, or 5.4 percent, respectively.

KPA Managing Director William Kipkemboi Ruto said expanding sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, and construction, which rely on Mombasa for efficient import and export processes, contributed to the increased throughput.

"This transformation attracted direct calls from larger vessels, reducing reliance on feeder networks and making Mombasa a key port for global shipping lines," Ruto said.

He added that several global trends have also favored Mombasa, such as the shift toward larger vessels, due to their economies of scale, driving ports worldwide to adapt.

"To meet the demands of East African trade, the KPA initiated major upgrades, notably deepening the harbor in 2013 to accommodate ships with up to 10,000 TEUs," Ruto said. 
A staff member sorts books at a warehouse of New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 12, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Dong Lu (R) and Zhang Quan prepare for the livestreaming at New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 13, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Staff members pack books at a factory of New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 12, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Dong Lu (L) and Zhang Quan take photos of children's books at New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 12, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Zhang Quan (R) takes videos for Dong Lu to promote books at New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 13, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Dong Lu (R) and Zhang Quan analyze livestreaming performance at New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 13, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Zhang Quan (L) shows the product information during a livestreaming at a reading space in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 11, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Dong Lu (L) and Zhang Quan sell books via livestreaming at a reading space in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 11, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Dong Lu searches books for livestreaming at a warehouse of New Buds Publishing House in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 12, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Dong Lu (L) and Zhang Quan sell books via livestreaming at a reading space in north China's Tianjin, Nov. 11, 2024.

Dong Lu, a book livestreamer at New Buds Publishing House of Tianjin Publishing and Media Group Co., Ltd., and Zhang Quan, a livestreaming director, together bring high quality books to audiences via livestreaming. During this "Double 11" shopping festival, their nearly three-hour livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers, generating impressive sales.

"The purpose of livestreaming is to guide parents in choosing the good books," Dong said. As a Gen-Z livestreamer, she believes that although the business mode has changed, the original intention of introducing inspiring books to customers remains.

As of December 2023, the total number of professional livestreamers has reached 15.08 million in China. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)
BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's education has become increasingly attractive to international students, a Chinese official said Thursday.

Chen Dali, an official at the Ministry of Education, said at a press conference that China has signed mutual recognition agreements for degrees and diplomas with 60 countries and regions, and students from 195 countries and regions have come to China to study.

China has established over 30 Luban Workshops in Asia, Europe and Africa, and provided vocational training to more than 31,000 people, the official said.

He said China is implementing the initiative to invite 50,000 young Americans to China for exchange and study programs in a five-year span.

The country is also carrying forward a plan to host more than 10,000 French students in three years and to double the number of European youth exchanges in China, Chen said. 
JAKARTA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Mount Ibu, located in Indonesia's North Maluku province, erupted on Thursday, sending a column of ash up to 3 km high and prompting the second-highest aviation alert, according to the Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center.

The eruption occurred at 14:22 p.m. local time, spewing gray ash to the west of the crater.

Residents have been prohibited from engaging in activities within a 5-km radius of the crater and were advised to wear face masks when conducting activities outside.

An aviation notice has been issued at the orange level, the second-highest warning, prohibiting flights around Mount Ibu.

Standing at 1,325 meters, Mount Ibu is one of Indonesia's 127 active volcanoes. 
KABUL, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Police have rounded up 25 criminals across Afghanistan over the past 24 hours, the Ministry for Interior Affairs said on Thursday.

The arrested individuals were involved in theft, armed robbery, murder, smuggling and illegal hunting of birds, among other criminal activities, the ministry said.

The caretaker government has vowed to ensure law and order in the war-ravaged country. 
BEIRUT, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Hezbollah members on Thursday confronted Israeli forces who managed to infiltrate several border towns and villages in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese security sources and Hezbollah.

Lebanese security sources, who spoke anonymously, told Xinhua that Israeli infantry forces, backed by several Merkava tanks, managed to infiltrate the villages of Tayr Harfa and Chamaa, the municipality of Jibbain, and the town of Seddiqine in southern Lebanon, as well as an area between the villages of Houla and Markaba in southeastern Lebanon.

Hezbollah members confronted the infiltrating Israeli forces in intense close-range clashes using a variety of weapons and fired rocket barrages toward the Israeli gatherings, said the sources.

"Hezbollah members managed to destroy a Merkava tank with an anti-armor missile in a valley adjacent to Tayr Harfa," they added.

For its part, Hezbollah confirmed that its fighters had targeted Israeli forces infiltrating the border villages.

Meanwhile, an anonymous source in the Lebanese Civil Defense told Xinhua that nine people were killed as a result of Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling on towns and villages in southern Lebanon earlier in the day.

The Israeli military has not commented on the incidents. 
TOKYO, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese government is considering offering one-time support payments of 30,000 yen (about 192 U.S. dollars) to each low-income household exempt from resident tax as part of a planned economic package, local media reported.

The government also plans to add 20,000 yen (about 128 dollars) per child to the benefits to such households with children, Kyodo News reported Wednesday, citing sources close to the matter.

The cash handouts are designed to support low-income households hit hard by rising costs of food and other daily necessities, the report said.

The stimulus package, to be compiled later this month, is also expected to reintroduce subsidies for electricity and gas bills in January next year, aiming to provide the support beyond the year-end deadline until March.

The amount of the support payments could be raised depending on discussions with the ruling parties, the report said. 
An exhibit is pictured in the Taosi Site Museum in Xiangfen County, north China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 12, 2024. A museum showing cultural relics dating back 3,900 to 4,300 years opened to the public Tuesday in north China's Shanxi Province, offering a look at early Chinese state formation and societal complexity. The Taosi Site Museum in Xiangfen County has been built on the northwestern edge of the Taosi relics site following 46 years of archaeological work. The Taosi site is believed to be most likely the ruins of the capital city during the period of Yao and Shun  two sage emperors dating back more than 4,100 years. A total of 230 pieces or sets of cultural relics showing the culture and life of ancient inhabitants are on display, including painted pottery, turquoise-inlaid bracelets, bronze bells and jade axes. [Xinhua/Yang Chenguang]

TAIYUAN, Nov. 12 (Xinhua)  A museum showing cultural relics dating back 3,900 to 4,300 years opened to the public Tuesday in north China's Shanxi Province, offering a look at early Chinese state formation and societal complexity.

The Taosi Site Museum in Xiangfen County has been built on the northwestern edge of the Taosi relics site following 46 years of archaeological work.

The Taosi site is believed to be most likely the ruins of the capital city during the period of Yao and Shun  two sage emperors dating back more than 4,100 years.

Visitors can interact with a sand table to view the map of the city covering over 2.8 million square meters.

Social hierarchies emerged from the artifacts. While the common folk resided in semi-underground single-room dwellings, the nobles occupied grand palatial structures adorned with intricate decorations and lime-plastered surfaces.

In the ancient city, findings show that Taosi people cultivated millet, raised livestock, and developed crafts such as pottery, jadeware, and lacquerware, forming a vibrant urban culture.

The ruins of the city include foundations of palace buildings spreading 6,500 square meters, the largest rammed-earth structure of prehistoric times ever found, said Gao Jiangtao, leader of the Taosi archaeological team under the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

In the museum's ritual and music section, restored scenes of ancient banquets, complete with drums, bells and stone chimes, transports visitors back to ancient feasts accompanied by live performances. Interactive media stations allow guests to hear sounds reconstructed from these ancient instruments, immersing them in a 4,000-year-old soundscape.

According to experts, drums and chimes were found in fixed combinations with numbers and positions, indicating that a ritual music system took place during the period.

A total of 230 pieces or sets of cultural relics showing the culture and life of ancient inhabitants are on display, including painted pottery, turquoise-inlaid bracelets, bronze bells and jade axes.

The museum also exhibits relics that some scholars speculate may be related to astronomical observation and timekeeping.

"These findings illustrate a new important phase in Chinese civilization's formation and development," said Yan Yalin, director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration archaeology department. Experts said that Taosi reflects the early characteristics of a state society, foreshadowing later dynastic structures.

Gao said that the fusion of cultures in different regions across China contributed to the formation of the city in the Taosi site, and the civilization of Taosi was inherited and developed by dynasties including Xia, Shang and Zhou.

An aerial drone photo shows the Taosi Site Museum in Xiangfen County, north China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 12, 2024. A museum showing cultural relics dating back 3,900 to 4,300 years opened to the public Tuesday in north China's Shanxi Province, offering a look at early Chinese state formation and societal complexity. [Xinhua/Yang Chenguang]

People visit the Taosi Site Museum in Xiangfen County, north China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 12, 2024. A museum showing cultural relics dating back 3,900 to 4,300 years opened to the public Tuesday in north China's Shanxi Province, offering a look at early Chinese state formation and societal complexity. [Xinhua/Yang Chenguang]

An exhibit is pictured in the Taosi Site Museum in Xiangfen County, north China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 12, 2024. A museum showing cultural relics dating back 3,900 to 4,300 years opened to the public Tuesday in north China's Shanxi Province, offering a look at early Chinese state formation and societal complexity. [Xinhua/Yang Chenguang]

An exhibit is pictured in the Taosi Site Museum in Xiangfen County, north China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 12, 2024. A museum showing cultural relics dating back 3,900 to 4,300 years opened to the public Tuesday in north China's Shanxi Province, offering a look at early Chinese state formation and societal complexity. [Xinhua/Yang Chenguang]

A visitor looks at an exhibit in the Taosi Site Museum in Xiangfen County, north China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 12, 2024. A museum showing cultural relics dating back 3,900 to 4,300 years opened to the public Tuesday in north China's Shanxi Province, offering a look at early Chinese state formation and societal complexity. [Xinhua/Yang Chenguang]

A performance is staged during the opening ceremony of the Taosi Site Museum in Xiangfen County, north China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 12, 2024. A museum showing cultural relics dating back 3,900 to 4,300 years opened to the public Tuesday in north China's Shanxi Province, offering a look at early Chinese state formation and societal complexity. [Xinhua/Yang Chenguang]

People visit the Taosi Site Museum in Xiangfen County, north China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 12, 2024. A museum showing cultural relics dating back 3,900 to 4,300 years opened to the public Tuesday in north China's Shanxi Province, offering a look at early Chinese state formation and societal complexity. [Xinhua/Yang Chenguang]

A performance is staged during the opening ceremony of the Taosi Site Museum in Xiangfen County, north China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 12, 2024. A museum showing cultural relics dating back 3,900 to 4,300 years opened to the public Tuesday in north China's Shanxi Province, offering a look at early Chinese state formation and societal complexity. [Xinhua/Yang Chenguang]

An aerial drone photo shows the Taosi Site Museum in Xiangfen County, north China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 12, 2024. A museum showing cultural relics dating back 3,900 to 4,300 years opened to the public Tuesday in north China's Shanxi Province, offering a look at early Chinese state formation and societal complexity. [Xinhua/Yang Chenguang]

(Source: Xinhua)

Editor: Wang Shasha
BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua)  Peru is a native place of potatoes, and China is a leading potato producing country in the world. The decades-long bilateral cooperation in potato research and breeding have yielded fruitful results.

A farmer harvests potatoes in Changning Village of Datong Hui and Tu Autonomous County, northwest China's Qinghai Province.

This photo shows potato fields near Huancayo, Peru.

A farmer shows a newly-harvested potato near Huancayo, Peru.

This photo shows harvested potatoes in Hualong Hui Autonomous County of Haidong City, northwest China's Qinghai Province.

Wang Jian, deputy director of the Qinghai Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, established his links with Peru when he visited the International Potato Center in 2004. Headquartered in the Peruvian capital Lima, the research institute boasts a large pool of potato seeds and genetic resources.

The center's agriculturist Victor Otazu was invited by Wang to visit China's Qinghai Province in the following year for collaborate in potato breeding and disease prevention.

Wang Jian (L) instructs a student at a potato seedling breeding lab of Qinghai University in Xining, northwest China's Qinghai Province.

Victor Otazu poses for a photo in Huancayo, Peru.

Wang Jian checks the growth of Qingshu-9 potatoes in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Victor Otazu gives a lecture at a potato planting training session in Huancayo, Peru.

Otazu found that the highlands there showed certain similarities with places where his experimental stations are located in Peru. The local climate and geological conditions were favorable for potato seed production, which means Qinghai could be an important potato producer.

The cooperation has allowed the province to make strides in potato breeding. The Qingshu-9 type of potato, which was bred in Qinghai, is now widely grown in China.

Qinghai also gives a helping hand to Peru, which has been challenged by climate change and pest harm in recent years. Many China-developed technologies regarding seed production and disease prevention have been applied in Peru, benefiting local farmers and improving their livelihood.

Farmers attend a lecture given by Victor Otazu at a potato planting training session in Huancayo, Peru.

Ana Panta, a potato specialist displays potato seedlings to be mailed to China at the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru.

Peruvian farmers visit a biological technology institute of Qinghai University in Xining, northwest China's Qinghai Province.

Farmers plant potato seeds at a field near Huancayo, Peru.

Thanks to his contribution to potato research and production in Qinghai, Otazu was honored with the Friendship Award by the Chinese government. The award is given to foreigners who have made important contributions to China's social and economic development, and in his case, to China's agricultural development.

Although Otazu has retired, his collaboration with China continues. He is proud of the decades-long agricultural collaboration with China, hoping that more benefits could be delivered through cooperation in increasing fields to people of the two countries.

This photo shows potato chips taken at a potato planting training session in Huancayo, Peru.

Wang Jian (5th L) and Victor Otazu (6th L) attend an academic exchange event in Qinghai University in Xining, northwest China's Qinghai Province.

(Source: Xinhua)

Editor: Wang Shasha
A dragon dance is staged at a reception celebrating the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Brazil in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 15, 2024. [Xinhua/Wang Tiancong]

Xi's visit is expected to boost China's efforts with Latin American nations to build a community with a shared future, bolster cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, and renew the world's commitment to improving global governance for an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.

BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua)  Chinese President Xi Jinping is embarking on a journey Wednesday to Latin America, where he will attend the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, capital of Peru, and the 19th G20 Summit in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro, and pay state visits to the two countries.

As he travels halfway around the globe, the world is witnessing a host of unprecedented and intertwined chaos and challenges: lackluster economic growth, rising trade protectionism and protracted regional conflicts. These pressing crises are demanding global unity, resolve and, most of all, effective actions.

Xi's visit is expected to boost China's efforts with Latin American nations to build a community with a shared future, bolster cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, and renew the world's commitment to improving global governance for an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.

New Milestones

Over the past three decades, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, has driven rapid development in the region, turning it into a powerhouse for world economic growth, an anchor of stability for global development, and a pacesetter for international cooperation.

As President Xi has put it, since the establishment of the economic leaders' regular meeting mechanism, APEC has always stood at the global forefront of openness and development. It has played a robust role in promoting Asia-Pacific trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, economic growth and technological progress, and the flow of goods and people. It has helped create the "Asia-Pacific miracle" that has staggered the world.

As the highest-level, broadest, and most influential economic cooperation mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region, APEC embodies the deep aspirations of partners to build a better future together.

The Asia-Pacific region has great economic potential thanks to its rich natural resources, booming tourism, dynamic markets with strong purchasing power, and fast-growing digital economy. In October, the International Monetary Fund predicted that the world economy will grow at 3.2 percent in 2024 and the emerging and developing Asia is expected to grow at 5.3 percent this year.

As Xi has pointed out, development in the Asia-Pacific region has been achieved not through provoking antagonism and confrontation, pursuing a beggar-thy-neighbor policy, or erecting high fences around a small yard, but by staying open and inclusive and drawing on each other's strengths.

Amid growing protectionism and calls for decoupling, APEC's role as a multilateral forum dedicated to economic cooperation is more crucial than ever in fostering dialogue, said Hans Hendrischke, a professor at the University of Sydney Business School.

An aerial drone photo taken on June 7, 2024 shows the Marangatu Solar Complex, invested by SPIC Brazil, a subsidiary of China's State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), in Piaui state, Brazil. [Xinhua/Wang Tiancong]

True Multilateralism

"'Sugarcane and lemongrass grow in dense clumps.'This Indonesian proverb well captures the value of solidarity. Division and confrontation serve no one's interest. Only solidarity and common development is the right choice to make," Xi made this metaphorical reference at the G20 Bali Summit in 2022 to urge G20 members to stay committed to its founding purpose of unity and cooperation, carry forward the spirit of solidarity, and uphold the principle of consensus.

In the face of a sluggish global economy, compounded crises in food and energy security, frequent geopolitical conflicts, and a severe deficit in global governance, the upcoming G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, with the theme of "Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet," not only responds to the call of the times but also reflects the aspirations of all nations.

During the upcoming G20 summit, his 11th attendance at the gathering, Xi will address key issues such as building an open world economy and improving global governance, and elaborate on China's positions and offer China's insights and solutions.

Within the G20 cooperative framework, China has, as always, been focusing on development issues. At the G20 Hangzhou Summit in 2016, development was, for the first time, brought to the fore within the global macro-policy framework.

"All G20 members should take the responsibility inherent in being major international and regional players, and should lead by example in promoting development of all nations, improving the well-being for the whole mankind, and advancing progress of the entire world," Xi said at the 2022 G20 Summit in Bali.

From being the first to explicitly support the African Union's accession to the G20, to striving to bridge the North-South "digital divide," China has always contributed to improving the global governance system and increasing the representation and voice of developing countries.

The global governance concept proposed by China meets the needs of the new economic and development environment, said Dora Isabel Gonzalez, a Mexican scholar.

Supercharge Development

The Chancay Port, 78 km north of Lima, is set to become a new shipping hub connecting Asia and Latin America, making the "Chancay to Shanghai" route a true path of prosperity, promoting the common development of China and Peru, Xi said.

Spanning across the vast Pacific Ocean, China and Peru have long-lasting sincere friendship. The two countries have witnessed increasingly close economic and trade cooperation as well as cultural exchanges in recent years.

An aerial drone photo taken on June 21, 2024 shows the Chancay Port in Peru. [Xinhua/Li Muzi]

Peru is one of the first Latin American countries to establish diplomatic relations and a comprehensive strategic partnership with China.

It is also the first Latin American country to sign a package of free trade agreements with China. Meanwhile, China has been Peru's largest trading partner and largest export market for 10 years in a row.

Brazil, the second destination of Xi's trip, is China's long-standing friend. The two countries have made substantial progress in their relationship.

As major developing countries and important emerging markets, China and Brazil are good friends sharing the same goals and good partners moving forward together, Xi said.

China has been Brazil's largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years, while Brazil is China's top trading partner and the largest investment destination in Latin America.

The two countries have closely coordinated and cooperated on multilateral platforms such as the United Nations, BRICS, and G20, safeguarding the common interests of both nations and that of developing countries.

Ten years ago, Xi first proposed in Brasilia the vision of building a China-Latin America community with a shared future, charting the course for the development of China-Latin America relations in the new era.

Over the years, Xi has focused on the shared future of China and Latin American and Caribbean countries, working for steady advancement in China-Latin America relations based on equality, mutual benefit, and common development.

Workers make alpaca toys at the workshop of Peruvian craftsman Oswaldo Mamani in Arequipa, Peru, June 20, 2024. [Xinhua/Li Muzi]

Cooperation between China and Latin American countries on the multilateral stage will further unite and empower countries in the Global South, playing a constructive role in addressing global issues and reforming the global governance system, said Patricio Giusto, director of the Sino-Argentine Observatory.

(Source: Xinhua)

Editor: Wang Shasha
A rescuer works at a residential building destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, on Nov. 14, 2024. Israeli forces on Thursday conducted airstrikes on residential buildings in Syria's capital Damascus and its vicinity, killing at least 15 people and injuring 16 others, according to the Syrian Defense Ministry and state TV. (Photo by Ammar Safarjalani/Xinhua)

DAMASCUS/JERUSALEM, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Israeli forces on Thursday conducted airstrikes on residential buildings in Syria's capital Damascus and its vicinity, killing at least 15 people and injuring 16 others, according to the Syrian Defense Ministry and state TV.

The ministry stated that around 3:20 p.m. local time (1220 GMT), the Israeli army launched an air attack from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights, targeting several residential buildings in the Mazzeh neighborhood west of Damascus and the Qudsaya suburb northwest of the capital.

The airstrikes "led to the martyrdom of 15 people and the injury of 16 others, including women and children," as shown by initial estimates, along with significant damage to private property and civilian buildings, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, state TV reported Israeli airstrikes on three buildings in Mazzeh and another strike on a building belonging to an educational complex, situated in a residential zone in Qudsaya.

Following the strikes, loud explosions echoed across the city, with thick plumes of smoke rising from targeted sites. Ambulances and emergency services rushed to the scene to tend to the victims.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also confirmed that residential buildings in Mazzeh and Qudsaya were pounded.

The Israeli military, in a statement, said its warplanes bombed command centers and infrastructure sites belonging to the Islamic Jihad militant group.

Israel asserted that Islamic Jihad participated in a Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed approximately 1,200 people and led to the kidnapping of around 250 others.

The Israeli military added that it would continue to act against Islamic Jihad "wherever necessary." 

People gather in front of a residential building destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, on Nov. 14, 2024. Israeli forces on Thursday conducted airstrikes on residential buildings in Syria's capital Damascus and its vicinity, killing at least 15 people and injuring 16 others, according to the Syrian Defense Ministry and state TV. (Photo by Ammar Safarjalani/Xinhua)

Rescuers work at a residential building destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, on Nov. 14, 2024. Israeli forces on Thursday conducted airstrikes on residential buildings in Syria's capital Damascus and its vicinity, killing at least 15 people and injuring 16 others, according to the Syrian Defense Ministry and state TV. (Photo by Ammar Safarjalani/Xinhua)

People gather in front of a residential building destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, on Nov. 14, 2024. Israeli forces on Thursday conducted airstrikes on residential buildings in Syria's capital Damascus and its vicinity, killing at least 15 people and injuring 16 others, according to the Syrian Defense Ministry and state TV. (Photo by Ammar Safarjalani/Xinhua)

Photo taken on Nov. 14, 2024 shows the rubble of a residential building destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus, Syria. Israeli forces on Thursday conducted airstrikes on residential buildings in Syria's capital Damascus and its vicinity, killing at least 15 people and injuring 16 others, according to the Syrian Defense Ministry and state TV. (Photo by Ammar Safarjalani/Xinhua)
BRASILIA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Two explosions about 20 seconds apart occurred near Brazil's Supreme Federal Court in Brasilia on Wednesday, killing one man, local authorities reported.

The first explosion happened when a car trunk caught fire and exploded in a parking lot near the Chamber of Deputies, followed by a second blast in front of the court building, according to the federal military fire department.

The Federal Senate and the Chamber of Deputies were in plenary sessions when the explosions occurred, prompting an immediate evacuation of the buildings.

Currently, the affected area has been cordoned off. Firefighters, along with military personnel, are searching the surrounding area for additional explosives.

Reports indicate that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had already left the presidential palace when the explosions took place. The cause of the incident remains under investigation. 
On Tuesday morning, federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon, invoking provisions of the pro-employer Canada Labour Code, instructed the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to end work stoppages at the Port of Montreal, the Port of Quebec City and at all ports on Canadas west coast.

The announcement amounts to rule by decree. Parliament did not sanction MacKinnons action. Rather it was based on an arbitrary reinterpretation of Section 107 of the Labour Code that the Trudeau Liberal government cooked up last summer to enable it to bypass parliament in criminalizing workers struggles.

Locked out Port of Montreal workers picket line [Photo: CUPE]

As demanded by the giant shipping companies that control Canadas principal ports, the contracts for the port workers in Montreal and Quebec City and the foremen at BC ports will now be determined through a pro-employer binding arbitration process.

In ordering an end to contract disputes that had been brewing for many months between longshore workers and the cargo handling companies at the countrys largest ports, MacKinnon claimed to be acting in the interest of businesses, workers, farmers, families and all Canadians.

What rubbish! Faced with mounting worker job action, the bosses at Canadas largest ports imposed lockouts last week. This was clearly a coordinated action, aimed at prodding the federal government into legally short-circuiting all job action and imposing binding arbitration.

MacKinnons action is part of an ever-escalating assault on workers rights, in which worker job action is being systematically criminalized, at least when workers are in a position of strength. This assault is aimed at enabling the ruling elite to intensify its class war agenda of austerity and increased worker exploitation at home and aggression and imperialist war abroad.

It was no accident that on the same day that the government took action against the dock workers, management at Canada Post responded to a 72-hour strike notice by 55,000 mail carriers and sorters by announcing plans for their own lockout starting Friday. They are clearly rubbing their hands at the prospect of yet another MacKinnon decree to help them impose sweeping concessions on postal workers, including more flexible working arrangements and substantial real-wage cuts.

On Monday November 4, the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) that bargains for multiple cargo handling companies locked out some 730 longshore foremen, when they moved to impose an overtime ban. The lockout immediately froze ongoing contract negotiations and halted all activity at Canadas largest port in Vancouver, third largest port in Prince Rupert and several smaller ports along the west coast. The foremen were demanding the port owners negotiate over the implementation of automation processes so as to safeguard job security.

On this matter, the BCMEA has refused all discussion.

Workers moves since last spring to launch strike action in support of their demands were repeatedly stalled by employer initiatives before the CIRB and foot-dragging by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).

In Montreal, the employers association imposed their own lockout last Sunday evening, after some 1,200 longshoremen had once again rejectedby a whopping 99 percenta miserable contract offer that arrogantly ignored the workers main demand for changes to brutal shift-scheduling practices. For weeks workers had conducted an overtime ban and then a partial strike, but the Maritime Employers Association adamantly refused to return to the bargaining table.

In Quebec City, about 80 workers have been locked out for 26 months while scabs attempted to perform their duties.

The Liberal government, corporate Canada, and their accomplices in the union bureaucracy are operating by an increasingly well-oiled procedure aimed at smothering working class opposition and imposing concession contracts. First, employers stonewall contract negotiations, then when a union receives a strong strike vote from the membership, corporate Canada backed by their spokesmen in parliament and the provincial legislatures launch campaigns warning of imminent economic Armageddon should a work stoppage occur. To move things along quickly, the affected employers prepare a lockout to wrest the initiative from any worker plans for job actions, while the restraining hand of the union bureaucrats keeps workers on the job even though they want to strike. Once the lockout has been implemented, the government steps in citing the need to restore labour peace by ending the dispute and imposing binding arbitration on the aggrieved workforce.

This strategy is not lost on anyone. Back-to-work orders and the enforcement of binding arbitration, as one labour expert succinctly wrote, further erodes employers incentives to reach agreements at the bargaining table, because it reinforces the idea that they can just drag things out and wait for government intervention to fix their problems for them. The aim of the lockout was not to pressure the workers; it was to pressure the government to intervene.

And whether the resolution of these disputes is accomplished by the mere threat of imminent government intervention or the actual criminalization of strike activity, the union leaders will, after sputtering their perfunctory denunciations, bow meekly to the demands of the ruling class. Both the ILWU in British Columbia and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) officials in Quebec have announced they will submit to MacKinnons diktats and instruct workers to resume their jobs just as soon as the CIRB translates them into official legal orders. Both unions are promising to contest the governments fiat in the courtsa process that will take years, and, even if it proves successful, will do nothing to overturn the massive concessions that the arbitrator is sure to impose.

In his move Tuesday to end the dock disputes, Labour Minister MacKinnon once again invoked Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, which the government claims gives it the power to order the unelected CIRB to suspend workers right to strike, even when they have jumped through all the legal hoops imposed by federal labour law, and impose binding arbitration. Employers almost always clamour for binding arbitration, because the supposedly neutral arbitrators all agree that workers jobs and wages must be conditional on healthy profits, and generally dismiss worker grievances regarding work practices and automation.

The Trudeau government has repeatedly used the CIRB to suppress worker struggles over the past 18 months, including those of 7,400 west coast longshore workers in the summer of 2023 and 9,300 rail workers at CN Rail and CPKC in August 2024. Even CIRB officials have expressed concern the government is arrogating itself arbitrary powers, and have wondered out loud whether the Labour Minister does indeed have the legal right to order, essentially at will, the CIRB to strip workers of what are supposed to be their constitutionally guaranteed rights to strike and bargain collectively. This, however, has not stopped the CIRB from continuing to impose the demands of the government and corporate Canada, on the grounds that legally they are bound to follow the ministers orders.

The resort to ever-more authoritarian methods to suppress the class struggle reflects the sharpening of class tensions in Canada, where according to a recent StatsCan report income inequality is at the highest level ever recorded. It comes in the context of the victory in the US presidential election of the fascist Donald Trump, with whom the Canadian ruling elite has pledged to cooperate on domestic, economic, and foreign policies. Just as Trumps victory expresses the violent realignment of the political system with American social life, which is dominated by a super-rich oligarchy that is hostile to any semblance of democratic restraint on its power, so corporate Canada is resorting to increasingly dictatorial methods to defend its class interests.

CPKC Chief Executive Keith Creel summed up the sentiments of the business elite, urging the Trudeau government in a Tuesday Globe and Mail column to legislate a strike ban for all essential services. The far-right demagogue Pierre Poilievre, who staked his claim for the leadership of the Official Opposition Conservatives by serving as the most strident advocate of the fascist-instigated Freedom Convoy that menacingly occupied downtown Ottawa in 2022, enjoys overwhelming support in ruling circles to be Canadas next Prime Minister at the head of a Tory government.

These developments underscore that workers confront a political strugglenot just against this or that especially rapacious employer, but against a capitalist ruling class determined to use its economic power and control of the government and state apparatus to eviscerate workers democratic and social rights.

If workers are to prevail, they must unite their struggles into a working class industrial and political counter-offensive against all job and wage cuts, the dismantling of public services, and imperialist war, and for social equality and the bringing to power of a workers government committed to socialist policies.

The frenzied demands of big business for the outlawing of strikes by workers in the transport and logistics sectors speak to the enormous social power wielded by the working class, the producer of all societys wealth.

The principal obstacle to the mobilization of that power is the pro-capitalist trade unions. Far from defending workers, the union bureaucrats function as junior partners of management and the state. They enforce state bans on job action just as they impose wage and job cuts, because they have interests hostile to the workers they purport to represent.

This is epitomized in the Liberal-union-NDP alliance. The unions and the union-sponsored NDP have propped up the Trudeau government, including by providing it with its parliamentary majority for the past five years, as it has moved ever further to the rightwaging war on Russia, supporting Israels genocide against the Palestinians, and diverting ever greater resources from meeting crying social needs, to funding rearmament, and tax cuts and subsidies for big business and the well-to-do.

The port workers, Canada Post workers and other workers now coming up directly against the nexus of corporate and state power face powerful enemies. But they have still more powerful allies among workers across Canada, in the US and internationally who face like issues. Workers on both sides of the border confront anti-strike laws, declining real wages, punishing work regimes, and the use of automation to slash jobs and increase worker-exploitation, and are often ruthlessly exploited by the same transnational companies.

To initiate a working class counter-offensive, workers must build new organs of class struggle, rank-and-file committees in all workplaces that are independent of the union apparatuses. These committees must systematically mobilize workers power in defence of workers democratic and social rights and in struggle against the profit system, which is at the root of war, social inequality and mounting economic insecurity.
Lee, director Ellen Kurass recently released first feature about American photographer and former model Lee Miller, was inspired by Antony Penroses extensive 1985 biography of his mother.

Millers extraordinary life and careeras a high-fashion model and then as a Surrealist photographer and confidante of numerous avant-garde artists in Europedeveloped in the tumultuous years after World War I, amid Hitlers ascension to power in Germany, the betrayal of revolutionary struggles in Spain and France, and the eruption of World War II.



Miller (19071977) reached her creative peak as a photographer for British Vogue magazine, documenting Nazi Germanys bombing blitz on Britain and then, following the D-Day Allied invasion, conditions across war-ravaged Europe.

Lee Miller at US Army war correspondent in 1943 [Photo by US Army Official Photograph/Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Millers photos from France, of the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau, and the devastation in Germany, Austria and Hungary are horrifying but deeply humane and, on occasions, possess an eerie poetic quality. Once seen, her images cannot be unseen.

Born in Poughkeepsie, about 100 km north of New York City, Miller studied art at an early age and was a frequent model for her amateur photographer father. She left home aged 19 and moved to New York where she was discovered by publisher Conde Nast, who made her a leading model for Vogue. By the late 1920s she was the most sought-after fashion model in the US.

Frustrated with the mind-numbing and exploitative character of this work, Miller resolved to become a photographer and moved to Paris in 1929. Attracted to the Surrealist movement, she persuaded photographer Man Ray, a prominent figure in that movement, to take her on as his apprentice. She became Rays lover and is credited alongside him in popularising solarisation, a darkroom technique where the film or photographic paper is briefly exposed to light during processing, resulting in a striking and unusual reversal of tones.

Miller ended her relationship with Ray in 1932 and moved back to New York, where she established a successful commercial studio. Her photographs were included in the Modern European Photography group show in New York that year, and in 1933 she held her first solo exhibition. Millers work was also included in various European shows.

In 1934, Miller married Aziz Eloui Bey, a wealthy Egyptian businessman-engineer, and moved to Cairo. Three years later she returned to France, where she renewed her connections with her friends in the Surrealist artistic milieu and met British painter Roland Penrose.

Lee is structured around a fictional interview in the 1970s conducted by a young journalist (Josh OConnor) with the elderly Miller, combined with dramatisations of key incidents in her life between 1937 and 1945. Some of Millers best-known war photographs are used, revealing both how they were taken and her fearless determination to expose the horror and barbarism of the war.

British actress Kate Winslet, a principal initiator of the movie, is compelling as Miller. She closely collaborated with Antony Penrose, Millers only son, on the production. Frustratingly, however, the film fails to examine Millers earlier career and artistic foundations.

Lee Miller (Kate Winslet) meets Roland Penrose ( Alexander Skarsgard) in southern France, 1937 [Photo: StudioCanal]

One of the movies opening scenes is a languid summer picnic in southern France with friends and artists in 1937. They are voicing their concerns about Hitler and the rising danger of war, when Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard) arrives. It is Millers first meeting with the British artist. Attendees include Man Ray (Sean Duggan), model and muse Ady Fidelin (Zita Hanrot), French Surrealist poet Paul Eluard (Vincent Colombe) and his wife Nusch (Noemie Merlant), French nobleman Jean dAyen (Patrick Mille) and his wife Solange (Marion Cotillard), the editor of French Vogue, and Spanish painter Pablo Picasso (Enrique Arce).

Eluard warns that Hitler is not a lunatic but calculated evil, while dAyen insists that the French will not accept Hitlers ideas and stand against them. Penrose wryly quips that if that fails then England will come to the rescue.

At a house party in France in late April 1939, just before the eruption of WWII, the group are drinking wine and watching a newsreel about Germanys militarist national holiday to celebrate Hitlers 50th birthday.

Penrose and Miller are alarmed, but Picasso flippantly declares, The only sane response to tyranny is to create, paint, drink, write and dance. Solange and her husband Jean attempt to push aside the issue and dance cheek to cheek in front of the newsreel, tragically unaware of the approaching military onslaught.

Miller and Penrose relocate to Britain just as the war begins. A pacifist and conscientious objector, Penrose is employed to develop camouflage for the army. Miller is hired by British Vogue editor Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough), who wants the magazine to feature female involvement in the war.

Miller, who would like to go beyond reporting on Britains war situation, meets LIFE photographer David Scherman (Andy Samberg) and they become lovers. She circumvents British rules blocking her from the frontline and uses her American citizenship to accredit herself with the US forces.

Scherman and Miller move into France with US troops following D-Day (June 6, 1944). She reports on the bloody battle for St. Malo where US forces first used napalm. She photographs wounded Allied soldiers being treated and reprisals against young French women who formed brief relations with German soldiers.

Miller and Scherman report on the liberation of Paris and she reunites with surviving friends Nusch and Eluard, and Solange dAyen, who has just been released from prison but has no idea about her husband Jeans whereabouts.

The two photographers follow American forces into Germany and visit Buchenwald and Dachau. They arrive at Dachau the day after surviving prisoners are liberated by US troops. Miller and Scherman are the first war photographers to report on the Nazis industrial murder of Jews and the general horror of the camps. I implore you to believe this is true, Miller tells Vogue back in London.

David Scherman (Andy Samberg) and Lee Miller (Kate Winslet) [Photo: StudioCanal]

In a letter not used in the film she writes, Dachau had everything youll ever hear or close your ears to about a concentration camp. The great dusty spaces that had been trampled by so many thousands of condemned feetfeet which ached and shuffled and stamped away the cold and shifted to relieve the pain and finally became useless except to walk them to the death chamber.

Shortly after, Miller and Scherman travel to Munich. After bribing their way into Hitlers luxury apartment, which has been taken over by the US military, Miller asks Scherman to take her picture in the Fuhrers bath.

After setting up and taking the now famed photograph, in one of the films more powerful moments, they break down in each others arms as the emotional impact of the unspeakable crimes they have witnessed hits home.

On returning to London, Miller is furious upon discovering that her photographs were not included in the magazines Victory edition. While the images were published in the magazines American edition, she is distraught, self-medicating with alcohol and other drugs, and cannot cope with the new situation.

Millers post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which afflicted tens of thousands of war victims, was not recognised by the medical profession at that time.

As Antony Penroses biography recounts, Miller often spent days in bed weeping uncontrollably. She appealed to a doctor friend for help at this time. He reportedly brushed her aside, declaring, There is nothing wrong with you and we cannot keep the world permanently at war just to provide you with excitement.

Lee does not explore either these issues or the explosive arguments between Miller and Penrose during this time.



Miller apparently wanted to go back to Europe to continue her photographic documentation of the massive human tragedy. Penrose insists she should stay in Britain. She walks out and returns to France, and then travels to Austria, where she witnesses children dying from lack of basic medicines, throwing her into even deeper depression.

In a cable to Vogue from Austria she writes, For an hour I watched a baby die. He was dark blue when I first saw him. He was the dark dusty blue of these waltz-filled Vienna nights, the same colour as the striped garb of the Dachau skeletons, the same imaginary blue as Strauss Danube This tiny baby fought for his only possession, life, as if it might be worth something, and as if there werent a thousand more right here on the doorstep of the hospital waiting for a bed as an arena for their losing battle.

While Lee is a noteworthy and sincere effort, it is weakened by its plot-driven approach and avoidance of political-historical complexity. Penrose is relegated to a subsidiary figure and not given any context, while Picasso, Man Ray, Eluard and Solange dAyen make little more than cameo appearances.

During the movie, the fictional interviewing journalist asks Miller, I still dont understand how you all didnt see it [the war] coming. She replies, It happened so slowly, yet kind of overnight. We woke up one morning and Hitler was the most powerful man in Europe. Even as it was happening it didnt feel real.

This is a complicated matter, but this comment solves the problem by glossing over all the contradictions and problems. Following Hitlers coming to power and in the explosive years leading up to the war, alarm bells were going off all over the world. The Spanish Revolution and the fight against fascism, the French general strike and the surge of working class struggle, were exercising the minds of artists, intellectuals and workers everywhere.

The great obstacle that stood in the path of social revolution was Stalinism and the Communist Parties, which continued to hold great sway, including in artistic circles. The Stalinists betrayed the Spanish and French revolutions, opening the way for Hitler to complete his military preparations and unleash the German armys blitzkrieg across Europe.

From left to right, Diego Rivera, Leon Trotsky and Andre Breton, Mexico, 1938 [Photo: Manuel Alvarez Bravo]

It is important to point out that leading Surrealist Andre Breton and others well-known to Penrose, Miller, Picasso, Man Ray and company, publicly aligned themselves with Leon Trotskys assessment of these events and his analysis of the counter-revolutionary role of the Soviet Stalinists and their local satellites.

In April 1938, Trotsky, Breton and Diego Rivera issued their Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art and called for an International Federation of Revolutionary and Independent Artists. Breton, in fact, fought to establish branches of the federation in Paris, London and New York, winning support from leading artists and writers.



Notwithstanding these significant weaknesses, Lee does make clear the bloody consequences of downplaying the rise of fascism and the eruption of imperialist barbarism, horrors being replicated in the Middle East and elsewhere across the globe today.

Critically viewed, Lee can be a starting point for a deeper investigation into Millers life and courageous work, and a detailed study of the political and historical lessons of this period.
As President-elect Donald Trump was assembling, with extreme rapidity, a cabinet of fascists and loyalists, President Joe Biden welcomed the aspiring dictator to the White House Wednesday and promised his full cooperation in the transition to the new government.

President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington. [AP Photo/Evan Vucci]

In a staggering statement, Biden offered to do everything we can to make sure youre accommodated, have what you need. Trump responded, I appreciate very much a transition thats so smooth, itll be as smooth as you can get. Biden called Trump Donald, and Trump called him Joe.

Only a month ago, Biden acknowledged that Trump was a fascist. In his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, Biden warned that Trump would be a dictator on day one. Now, he opened the White House to his successor, initiated a handshake for the press photographers to capture and congratulated Trump on his electoral success.

If further proof was needed of the cowardice, duplicity and political bankruptcy of the Democratic Party, this was it. Biden remains president for more than two months. There are innumerable actions he could take to undermine the actions of a Trump presidency, which is preparing a massive assault on millions of immigrants and the democratic rights of the population. Instead, the Democrats are pledging their cooperation.

The public photo-op was followed by a closed-door, two-hour meeting, at which Biden and Trump primarily discussed foreign policy, according to subsequent press accounts, including the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, the US-backed Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and wider war moves in the Middle East, focused on Iran.

After the meeting, Trump confirmed the discussions on Ukraine and the Middle East. It is likely that the two presidents also discussed the US war build-up against China, where Biden has focused on the strengthening of US military ties with Japan, South Korea, Australia and India, its principal allies in the region, while continuing to shift US military assets to the Pacific. Trumps initial nominations for national security positions have been a slew of anti-China hawks, including Senator Marco Rubio for secretary of state, Representative Michael Waltz for national security advisor, Representative Elise Stefanik for UN ambassador, and Fox News pundit Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense.

The Hegseth appointment is particularly remarkable, since the former Iraq and Afghanistan combat veteran was only a major in the Army Reserves and has spent the last decade as a host on the weekend Fox & Friends program.

The nomination came as the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump is considering a draft executive order to establish a warrior board of retired senior military commanders with the power to review three- and four-star officers and to recommend removals of any deemed unfit for leadership. In effect, this would be an instrument to purge the military of officers deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump who might repeat the objections of General Mark Milley and other top officers to Trumps demands in 2020 to deploy the Army on the streets against the American people.

Even as the Trump-Biden meeting at the White House was going on, the Trump transition office announced his most provocative nomination yet: the selection of Republican Representative Matt Gaetz to become US attorney general, the top law enforcement official in the federal government. The 42-year-old Florida congressman is a close associate of the fascist Steve Bannon and one of the most fervent supporters of Trump in the House Republican caucus.

On Tuesday, in advance of the Gaetz nomination, Bannon declared in relation to the Justice Department, the hunted are about to become the hunters.

Gaetz is one of the House Republicans most closely identified with the violent assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, when a mob summoned by Trump sought to block the congressional certification of his defeat by Biden in the 2020 election. Gaetz helped charter buses to Washington for the rally addressed by Trump. He has been vocal in defending the fascist thugs who attacked the Capitol and in advocating that Trump pardon them as soon as he takes office.

If he assumes control of the Department of Justice, Gaetz would become the point man in a campaign to prosecute a wide range of Trumps political targets. This would include not only prominent Democrats, like Biden, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris, but also students protesting the Gaza genocide, socialists, and all those who seek to oppose Trumps threatened onslaught against immigrants and the democratic rights of the working class.

The nomination of Gaetz coincided with other developments cementing the control of official Washington by Trump and his fascist cohorts. Most corporate media outlets announced Wednesday that the Republican Party would maintain its control of the House of Representatives, after two contested races in Arizona and California were declared for the Republican incumbents. This means that Trump and the Republicans will control the White House, the US Senate, the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court, where a six-three ultra-right majority ruled last summer that Trump has absolute immunity for any action he takes as president, no matter how illegal, unconstitutional or corrupt.

Trump is seeking a further expansion of his authority by demanding that the newly elected Senate majority leader, John Thune of South Dakota, agree to unlimited adjournments at the presidents request, during which time Trump would be able to fill cabinet posts with recess appointments that would not have to clear a vote in the Senate.

This would violate the constitutional requirement that the upper house give its advice and consent for nominations to high-level executive and judicial posts, effectively giving Trump the ability to rule by decree. Aides are also discussing ways to give Trump the ability to impose massive social cuts proposed by Elon Musk as part of the Department of Government Efficiency, without any congressional approval.

While Trumps drive to amass executive power in his hands is unprecedented, the posture of Biden and the Democrats is equally staggering. Whether it is senility in the case of the president or cowardice and duplicity for his congressional counterparts, the Democrats refuse to lift a finger to oppose the fascist takeover of the government.

As for the left wing of the Democratic Party, Senator Bernie Sanders has said nothing about Trumps initial appointments and the Trump-Biden lovefest at the White House. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has begun a listening tour to speak to Bronx constituents who voted for her and Trump on November 5.

The abject collaboration of the Democrats conforms to a historical pattern extending now for over a quarter-century. Step by step, as American democracy has crumbled and the Republican Party has come forward as the instrument of the most ruthless and anti-democratic sections of the ruling class, the Democratic Party has blocked any effort to fight back.

When the US Supreme Court intervened for the first time to sanction the theft of the 2000 presidential election, Democrat Al Gore bowed down to the decision to shut down vote counting in Florida. When Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006, it was newly elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who blocked any effort to impeach George W. Bush for his illegal war in Iraq or his establishment of secret CIA torture prisons. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, he blocked any prosecution of the torturers, continued Bushs illegal wars, and expanded the death-dealing powers of the presidency by authorizing drone-missile assassinations around the world, including of American citizens.

When Trump first won election to the presidency in 2016, Obama welcomed him to the White House and declared the election an intramural scrimmage between two sides on the same team. Trump, of course, took no such approach when he lost the 2020 election by 7 million votes, instead seeking to overturn the result through a violent coup.

Now Biden has repeated Obamas welcome to Trump, under conditions in which virtually every leading Democrat has acknowledged that Trumps intentions are to establish an authoritarian dictatorship.

This record of spineless capitulation and outright collaboration demonstrates, as the World Socialist Web Site has consistently warned, that there is no constituency for the defense of democracy within the American ruling elite. All the political representatives of the super-rich accept that they must engage in violent repression to suppress the mounting social conflicts within the United States and prevent any challenge from the working class to a social system entirely dominated by a capitalist oligarchy.
Public housing residents in Melbourne recently spoke with the World Socialist Web Site about their fight to halt the state Labor governments planned demolition of every high-rise public housing tower in the city.

Public housing towers slated for destruction in Melbourne

Three towers in the inner-city suburbs of Flemington and North Melbourne are slated to be the first destroyed. The Labor government signed a $100 million contract with property giant John Holland for the demolition, planned for late next year.

The lucrative land sites will be redeveloped with two-thirds privately owned apartmentscreating a bonanza for property developerswhile just a third will be reserved for so-called social housing. This is a far less secure, and more expensive, version of public housing, outsourced to non-government organisations. Thousands of residents will be displaced, many of them refugees and other vulnerable sections of the working class, who rely on various services and community organisations developed around the towers.

The Labor governments agenda represents an enormous assault not just on the residents themselves, but on the entire working class and the basic principle of public housing provision (see: Australian state Labor government plans to demolish 6,600 public housing units).

Hundreds of residents in the Flemington towers have brought a class action lawsuit against the government, on the basis of human rights violations. Government lawyers refused to disclose documents purportedly outlining why the apartments could not be refurbished. Independent architects have insisted that refurbishment is entirely viable. The court case reconvenes later this month.

Khalil

Khalil, a taxi driver originally from Eritrea, shared his insights on public housing: For new migrants, for refugees, for newcomers, till they settle down and get a job, this was very helpful, especially for refugees from Africa, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. I came to Australia in 1988 and lived in public housing in Ashburton for almost four years, then I bought a house in Endeavour Hills. I believe it is very helpful for many people, and as you know, the marketplace is very expensive and not many people can afford it, especially families.

Khalil discussed the uncertainty faced by residents. They are not very sure of what is happening, he said. There is a bit of uncertainty. There is some advantage to living here, they are established, their children go to school here. They are well connected to this area, and it will be very hard for them to move somewhere and re-establish themselves, especially with high rental prices.

In general, I think the government wants to get rid of the housing commission establishments foreverthis is capitalism at work. Australia has been a very good country for migrants, many people who have been in the housing commission have established themselves and their kids, and now are doing well for themselves. The concept of housing commission must continue because it helps people to settle down until they can stand on their own.

Sam works casual hours as a security officer and cannot work at full capacity due to a medical condition. Ive lived in public housing in Richmond for the past 12 years, she explained. Once I was living in a unit with my friend, then I had to wait for a unit for three years. During that time, I had to look at private rentals which were just unaffordable for me. Every time I looked for a place, they raised the price. With my medical condition, I couldnt climb stairs. It was difficult.

Public Housing [authorities] came to me this year with the information about demolition. Im very upset because many elders in the community dont want to move out, but they have no voice. Theyre told they will get better houses, but this is not true. Some who have been relocated have said their new homes are smaller, with one and a half bedrooms, and not suitable for them. As long as its all public housing, were all happy. We should be making more public housing, newer homes. Taking it away from us, especially when many of us dont work, is very unfair.

Sam spoke about the deliberate running down of public housing apartments: Ive got spine problems and heart issues that have worsened since I started worrying about whats going to happen to my home. The laundry door hasnt been fixed for years, washing machines are damaged, and water leaks through the floor. The government uses these issues to say the buildings are unsafe and must be demolished. But why dont they fix it instead? We need more public housing units, not fewer.

Kadir, an Ethiopian worker currently unemployed due to injury, has lived in the Flemington flats for seven years. He said: The government has not told me where to go. I dont want to go anywhere else. They shouldnt be demolishing public housing. The people living here support each other. Some of them, like me, cant work or have trouble moving around, they rely on others for support. Now that we have to move out, its going to be very difficult for them.

Deniz

Deniz, originally from Cyprus, has lived in Flemington public housing for 26 years. She shared her concerns about the governments plans: Its not right to put us in social housing. Thats not fair on humans. We are human, we should have human rights. There are many elderly residents here who have lived in their homes for 30 years. Theyre moving people from two-bedroom flats into one-bedroom units, and those are not housing commission. I dont understand the problem. Im speaking for myself: How much longer am I going to live? I cant let them take away my comfort.

Salma, a refugee and resident of Flemington for 10 years, expressed her frustrations about poor maintenance of the public housing units: Maintenance is very, very poor. If you call them today, they will come three months later. Its not the maintenance teams fault, its the public housing offices that never instruct them to do the jobs. Maintenance used to be better. Back in 2015 and 2016, they would come within seven days. Now, Ive been waiting for my fan to be fixed for three months.

She continued: Everyone should fight for our rights because we all belong here. I have the right to stay because I grew up here, and most people have been living here for over 20 years. But the government is not listening to us. We have the right to stay, and the workers should help us with that. We need more workers and more people to speak for the residents because many feel trapped and are scared to say anything to the government. They are very scared. We do need help, and we need more people to work and advocate for us.

Gabriel cares for his 83-year-old mother, who has lived in the flats for over 50 years. He expressed his concerns about her situation: Theyve offered her a place that was unsuitable. She has a letter that says she has to be out at the latest by this time next year. I come over and do shopping for her. I live in North Melbourne, so it needs to be close. She wants to stay near her medical care. My mum isnt too impressed. Shed like to stay. Theyve told us its a maintenance issue; they claim theres a problem with the oil heaters and that they cant put air conditioning in, which I somewhat understand. But the building itself is pretty good, its sturdy.

Kate is a long-term resident of one of the tower blocks that is slated to be demolished in 2025. She said: How do we explain how we are affected? We are devastated. We cant even sleep. Some of us have had to go to hospital. We dont know how were going to end up. They are abusing us. We are worried, crying, depressed. They separate us and dont care.

Kate explained the pressure being exerted on residents to accept relocation, often to outer suburban homes. My Homes Victoria worker, I told her I dont want to see her, she said. They are all so arrogant. If you say you dont accept what they offer you [regarding relocation], they say you are losing your choice. They say theyll take you to court. Ill be the last person there.

They say theyll build better houses for us. It is lies, they destroy us completely. They dont know what anxiety they have caused. They force you to go from two-bedroom down to one-bedroom. People have so many issues due to this dislocation. You cant sleep at night. Where are our grandchildren going to be tomorrow? My daughter works in the city. They offered her a house in Wyndham Vale (an outer western suburb 40 kilometres from Melbourne). We want to move close bymy children and grandchildren go to school nearby.

Weve been living here 25 years, this is our home. I am a good tenant. I should have rights to stay.
Israel carried out four major air strikes on the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut yesterday, as well as a series of strikes on bridges and other infrastructure on the Lebanon-Syria border. Coming as the Zionist regime continues to starve Gaza and the US military once again struck targets in Yemen, the attacks show that there is no let-up in the drive by Washingtons attack dog to redraw the map of the Middle East.

Smoke billows following Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024 [AP Photo/Hassan Ammar]

The four strikes targeted the suburbs of Haret Hreik and Burj al-Barajneh. The strikes flattened six residential buildings, but no official casualty figures were initially reported. After at least 78 people were killed in Israel Defence Forces (IDF) raids on Tuesday, the official death toll in Lebanon since October 8 stands at 3,365, with 14,344 wounded.

Defence Minister Israel Katz, who replaced Yoav Gallant after his firing by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, vowed to continue to escalate the conflict in Lebanon. In a visit to the IDFs Northern Command, Katz declared, We will not make any ceasefire, we will not take our foot off the gas, and we will not allow any arrangement that does not include the achievement of the wars goals.

These include the disarming of Hezbollah, the pushing of its forces north of the Litani River, and the return of residents to towns and villages on Israels northern border, he added. The Defence Minister asserted that Israel would retain the right to enforce any ceasefire deal, i.e., the right to launch attacks inside Lebanon at will after a ceasefire is concluded.

On the ground, the IDF reported six casualties following a gun battle with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The clash reportedly occurred as Israeli forces sought to advance to the second line of villages inside the border.

Syrian state news agency SANA reported that the air strikes near the border caused significant damage to infrastructure. According to the IDF, the attacks were aimed at smuggling routes used by Iran to transfer weaponry to Hezbollah. They come less than three weeks after Israels air strikes on Iran on October 26, which targeted military sites and were described by the World Socialist Web Site as a dress rehearsal for a region-wide war.

US Central Command also announced Wednesday that it struck numerous sites in Yemen on Saturday and Sunday, reportedly destroying weapons supplied to the Houthis by Iran.

American imperialism has backed Israels genocide against the Palestinians and subsequent war on Lebanon to the hilt, seeing them as components of its preparations for a region-wide war targeting Iran. Washington is pursuing the goal of consolidating its hegemony over the oil-rich region as part of a renewed redivision of the world, which encompasses the war on Russia in Ukraine and advanced preparations for war with China in the Asia-Pacific.

If Katzs pledge to intensify the war in Lebanon is fulfilled, the likelihood that the conflict will spread throughout the energy-rich region will become ever greater. President-elect Donald Trump, who drastically escalated tensions with Tehran during his first term in office by abrogating the nuclear accord with Iran, has nominated Marco Rubio, a vocal anti-Iran hawk, as his secretary of state. At a campaign rally last month, Trump urged Israel to strike Irans nuclear sites at a time when the bourgeois-clerical regime in Tehran was warning that such a decision would lead to all-out war. In the end, Netanyahu chose the more limited, but nonetheless provocative, attack on October 26 that struck military sites.

Mike Huckabee, a staunch defender of the Zionist states expansionist plans, is set to be Trumps ambassador to Israel. The second Trump administration is expected to give Netanyahu a free hand to expand settlements in the West Bank and intensify the genocide in Gaza. As Huckabee put it in 2017, There is no such thing as a West Bank. Its Judea and Samaria. Theres no such thing as a settlement. Theyre communities, theyre neighbourhoods, theyre cities. Theres no such thing as an occupation.

Israel continued its bombardment of Gaza Wednesday, where 26 people were reported killed in a series of strikes throughout the day. One targeted the al-Mawasi district in the southwest, an ostensible safe zone where many displaced people are sheltering. Another strike on the Maghazi refugee camp killed five.

The UNs World Food Programme noted on X that markets across the enclave are in decay, adding that basic staples barely exist. It stated, Fresh foods, eggs and meat barely exist and the prices of any food available have reached record highs. The UNs aid coordination office OCHA added that all attempts to gain Israeli approval for the delivery of supplies to northern Gaza since the beginning of November have been rebuffed.

In early October, Netanyahus far-right regime adopted what is known as the Generals Plan, which calls for the denial of all food aid to northern Gaza and the treating of all civilians who remain as enemy combatants.

On Tuesday, the Biden administration defended Israel against criticism from aid organisations pointing to the abysmally low level of deliveries entering the enclave. Even though the Zionist regime is allowing just one-tenth of the 350 aid trucks into Gaza per day called for by the Biden administration last month, the State Department asserted Tuesday that Israel was not violating international humanitarian law by withholding food aid, and refused to place any restrictions on Washingtons massive weapons deliveries.

The UN Security Council held a briefing the same day on the threat of famine in northern Gaza. It was requested by Guyana and Switzerland following a November 8 alert from the Integrated Food Phase Classification (IPC) stating that there is a strong likelihood that famine is imminent within areas of the northern Gaza Strip. An earlier October 17 snapshot from the agency revealed that the entirety of Gaza is at risk of famine between November and April 2025 under a worst-case scenario that has a reasonable chance of occurring.

We are witnessing acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes, Joyce Msuya, interim head of the UNs Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told Tuesdays Security Council meeting. She described Israels ongoing siege of northern Gaza as an intensified, extreme, and accelerated version of the horrors of the past year.

Head of the UNs Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Rein Paulsen told the Security Council that the number of people facing catastrophic food insecurity, the highest classification on the IPCs food insecurity scale, would treble from the current level of 133,000 in the coming months. Men, women, boys and girls are effectively starving as the conflict rages, with humanitarian organizations blocked from delivering assistance to those in need, Paulsen continued. By the time famine has been declared, people are already dying of hunger, with irreversible consequences that can last generations.

An FAO release on the briefing noted that local food production has collapsed: nearly 70 percent of croplandswhich contributed up to one-third of daily consumptionhave been destroyed; over 70 percent of olive trees and orchards have been burned to the ground; agricultural infrastructure has been decimated; and 95 percent of cattle and more than half of sheep and goat herds, have died.

None of these horrors move the imperialist barbarians represented in the Security Council. They are dead set on continuing with their support for Israels genocide and vicious attacks on anyone who protests it at home. The only social force capable of putting an end to this savagery is the international working class, mobilised on the basis of a socialist and internationalist programme for the abolition of capitalism, the root cause of genocide and imperialist war.
OTTAWA, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) Wednesday confirmed the first domestically acquired human case of H5N1 avian influenza in Canada.

A teenager in British Columbia was hospitalized and tested presumptive positive for H5 avian influenza on Nov. 9, and was later confirmed to have been infected with H5N1 virus on Wednesday, PHAC said in a statement.

The genomic sequencing result indicated that the virus is related to the avian influenza H5N1 virus from the ongoing outbreak in poultry in British Columbia, said PHAC, adding that no other human infections have been detected so far, and investigation is underway to determine how the individual got infected.

While there is an ongoing H5N1 outbreak in dairy cattle in the United States, no cases of avian influenza have been reported in dairy cattle in Canada and there has been no evidence of bird flu virus in milk samples. Furthermore, the clade of H5N1 virus detected in dairy cattle in the United States differed from that found in the human case reported in British Columbia, PHAC said.

Based on current evidence, the risk of avian influenza infection for the public remains low. The risk of bird flu infection is higher for those who have unprotected exposure to infected animals, PHAC said. 
Legal firm Levitt Robinson has filed a lawsuit under section 18C of Australias Racial Discrimination Act against two University of Sydney academics, directly equating their public opposition to Zionism and genocide with antisemitism.

Those targeted are politics professor John Keane and National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) branch president and linguistics lecturer Nick Riemer. The racial vilification complaint will be heard initially by the Australian Human Rights Commission, but it can then be prosecuted in the Federal Court.

The lawsuit is a major attack on basic democratic and legal rights, seeking to set a wider precedent to suppress any dissent against the escalating Israeli mass killings in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.

This is not the first use of section 18C to threaten opponents of the US-backed Israeli barbarism. It follows a complaint filed in July by the Zionist Federation of Australia against well-known journalist Mary Kostakidis for retweeting a speech by Hassan Nasrallah, the former Hezbollah secretary-general in Lebanon, who was later assassinated by the Israeli state.

Outlining the far-reaching aims of the lawsuit against Keane and Riemer, solicitor Stewart Levitt told the Australian that his legal team thought that a Federal Court judgment on the complaint would provide a litmus test for identifying antisemitism.

We think its important that the court rules that anti-Semitism cannot be camouflaged by using the term Zionist as a code-word for Jew, he said.

In other words, opposition to Zionisma racialist and exclusivist movement that is rejected by many Jewsis being conflated with antisemitism, as it is by governments and the corporate media globally.

According to the Australian, the high-powered legal team behind the lawsuit has the backing of former Federal Court judge Ron Merkel.

In June, the law firm Levitt Robinson solicited the complaint. It issued a call to all Jewish staff and students for submissions, asserting that the sustained and toxic nature of the attacks on Jews at Sydney University have had a grave effect on the psyche of students and academics alike.

It accused the university of a breach of duty of care owed to academics and students, breaches of contract between academics and students, and occupational health and safety breaches.

That was in response to anti-genocide encampments that erupted on university campuses around Australia, as they did internationally. Zionist organisations denounced university managements for not calling in police to violently shut down the protests, as had happened in the US.

Nick Riemer [Photo: X/NickRiemer1]

The complaint alleges that Keane and Riemer made comments, considered individually or cumulatively were reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate, or intimidate Jewish persons or Israeli persons in Australia and elsewhere.

What has been made public by the Australian shows the far-reaching and false character of the claims of antisemitism. The newspapers report cites, as examples, the following complaints:

* After the events of October 7, 2023, which constituted an uprising against decades of oppression, Riemer tweeted: No progressive should feel the need to publicly condemn any choices by the Palestinian resistance. Doing so just adds to the perception that their cause is unjust.

* Keane posted a picture of a green flag, which Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, the university where he held a fellowship, said could only be understood as support for Hamas and their actions. Keane resigned his fellowship with the university the following month.

The legal complaint is not aimed at opposing genuine antisemitism, but at silencing opposition to the US-Israeli assault, which the Albanese Labor government, like other imperialist governments, fully backs under the fraudulent banner of supporting the occupying states right to defend itself.

Despite the flimsy nature of the accusations, University of Sydney management has indicated it is willing to line up against the academics, telling the Australian, we condemn all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism. The safety of our community is always our top priority.

Keane and Riemer have publicly opposed the attacks on them. Keane told the Australian: The plaintiffs have no case. Misusing section 18C, they allege discrimination based on race. Truth is that the wider public controversy in which they are now embroiled is exposing their political silence about genocide.

Riemer told the newspaper: This complaint is a vexatious abuse of the AHRC [Australian Human Rights Commission]. It has no other aim than to discredit opposition to genocide, and takes the commission away from its real work of fighting actual discrimination.

Far from being a distraction, however, section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act has always contained broad provisions which could be used to attack democratic or left-wing opposition to the policies of the ruling elite.

Section 18C was introduced by the Keating Labor government in 1995. It makes illegal any public act that is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people based on their race, skin colour or national or ethnic origin.

In 2011, the Federal Court found that right-wing commentator Andrew Bolt had breached section 18C by offending Aboriginal people with an article in which he stated, without evidence, that 15 white or fair people chose to identify as Aboriginal to advance their careers.

Pseudo-left groups celebrated the Bolt ruling, effectively welcoming the censorship by the capitalist state apparatus. Socialist Alternatives Louise OShea wrote that Bolt broke the law. She hoped those who Bolt had vilified, disparaged and mocked are enjoying his public humiliation. May there be more of it.

In direct contrast, the World Socialist Web Site correctly warned 13 years ago: All manner of politically-motivated prosecutions may follow the Bolt judgement. To take one potential exampleAmerican author and critic of Zionism Norman Finkelstein wrote The Holocaust Industry, which examined the way the Holocaust had been exploited to advance various material interests. The Racial Discrimination Act would now appear able to be used to prosecute Finkelstein in Australia, on the basis that pro-Zionist Jewish groups found his work offensive.

Like its international partners, the Labor Party has spearheaded the false claim that anti-Zionist protesters are antisemitic. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated in May that peaceful anti-genocide student encampments demonstrated there was no question that antisemitism was being expressed more openly than at any other point in his lifetime.

This cleared the way politically for attacks on anti-genocide protesters. This has included last months violent arrest of three Western Sydney University students by New South Wales (NSW) police for participating in a peaceful sit-in on the campus. NSW has a Labor state government.

The World Socialist Web Site has well-documented and fundamental political differences with Riemer. But we unequivocally oppose this attack against him, as a foul political frame-up aimed at delegitimising opposition to some of the worst war crimes since the Holocaust. The defence of democratic rights is a principle that must be taken up by all workers and students.

As this lawsuit underscores, measures initially used against right-wing targets, like Bolt, are inevitably used against workers, including educators, as the social and political conditions worsen. Keane and Riemer must be defended against this attack.
We are publishing here the foreword to the German translation of David Norths new publication, Sounding the Alarm: Socialism Against War. The German edition, Ein Warnruf: Sozialismus gegen Krieg, will be published in December and can be pre-ordered here. The English edition can be ordered here.

Foreword

The publication of this volume of speeches by David North could hardly be more urgent. Even the bourgeois media and think tanks now discuss the development towards a third world war and the danger of nuclear annihilation. With the genocide in Gaza and the constant escalation of the NATO war in Ukraine against the nuclear-armed power Russia, the imperialist powers are crossing all red lines. In pursuit of their geostrategic and economic goals, they are willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives and even risk the destruction of the entire planet.

The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) foresaw this development. When the ICFI and the World Socialist Web Site called for their first International Online May Day rally in 2014one hundred years after the start of World War IDavid North, chairman of the International Editorial Board of the WSWS and national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States, warned:

Those who believe that war with China and Russia is an impossibilitythat the major imperialist powers would not risk war with nuclear powersare deluding themselves. The history of the twentieth century, with its two devastating world wars and its innumerable and very bloody localized conflicts, has provided sufficient evidence of the risks the imperialist ruling classes are prepared to take. Indeed, they are prepared to risk the fate of all of humanity and the planet itself. One hundred years after the outbreak of World War I and 75 years after the start of World War II, the struggle against the danger of a third imperialist cataclysm confronts the international working class.

Norths collected speeches on May Day are not analyses and warnings from a passive observer. They are the concentrated expression of the active struggle of the world Trotskyist movement against imperialism and war in the last decade. They are based on the approach that already distinguished the great socialist revolutionaries and opponents of war of the past centuryRosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and, above all, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Leon Trotsky. They all understood that the same fundamental contradictions of the capitalist system that lead to warthe contradiction between the world economy and the nation-state system and the contradiction between the social character of production and its subordination to private propertyalso create the objective basis for the social revolution.

This Marxist understanding stands out throughout Norths remarks in this volume: the struggle against militarism and war requires a struggle against its root, capitalism. The development of world war and the associated relapse into barbarism can only be stopped if the working class unites internationally and overthrows the capitalist profit system in a socialist revolution. For this, it needs a revolutionary leadership based on the lessons of history and fighting for socialist consciousness. Norths speeches are proof that this leadership exists. And they show the strength of the Marxist method, which analyses events in their broader historical and political context, examines the underlying driving forces and class interests, and on this basis develops a perspective for the struggles of the working class.

Contrary to the official narrative of Russian President Vladimir Putins alleged unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Norths speeches provide a clear assessment of the historical, economic, social, and political origins of the war. As early as 2014, when Washington and Berlin organized a far-right coup in Ukraine to install a pro-Western regime in Kiev, North declared:

The plotters in Washington and Berlin understood that this coup would lead to a confrontation with Russia. Indeed, far from seeking to avoid a confrontation, both Germany and the United States believe that a clash with Russia is required for the realization of their far-reaching geopolitical interests.

And specifically on the role of Germany, he said, [T]he confrontation with Russia is welcomed as a pretext for the repudiation of the constraints on militarism imposed in the wake of the unspeakable crimes committed during the years of Hitlers Third Reich, adding, Definite economic and geopolitical interests are at stake. As in the 20th century, Germany is once again gazing longingly upon the Black Sea region, the Caucasus, the Middle East, Central Asia and the vast land mass of Russia.

Israels genocide in Gaza is likewise not merely a reaction to the attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023. It is part of the imperialist war offensive, which aims not only to subjugate the entire Middle East, but to redivide the world. In his May Day 2024 speech, North said:

The genocidal violence unleashed by the Israeli state against the Palestinians has aroused the anger of workers and youth all over the world. But it must be recognized that the genocide in Gaza and the war against Russia are interconnected fronts in the global war unleashed by imperialism. The same interests that dictate the policies of Genocide Joe Biden in the Middle East determine the actions of his administration in Central Europe, as well as in Asia.

Another example of the power of Marxist analysis is the ICFIs response to the coronavirus pandemic. In his May Day 2020 speech, North described the pandemic as a trigger event that revealed and enormously accelerated the economic, social and political crisis of the capitalist system. He emphasized that the fight against the pandemic is not only a medical question, butjust like the fight against social inequality, war, fascism and dictatorshipa class and a revolutionary question. In 2024, North also stated:

The indifference to mass death and debilitation since the outbreak of the COVID pandemic in January 2020 is an unanswerable refutation of appeals to the conscience of the capitalist class. It subordinated all concerns for human life to the relentless drive for corporate profits and the accumulation of private wealth. It accepted 27 million excess deaths as a necessary consequence of the operation of the capitalist process of production.

Norths speeches show that the ruling class is reacting to the extreme concentration of wealth and the deep crisis of capitalism as in the 1930s with a turn to authoritarian forms of rule and fascism. The programme of mass infection, inequality and war is incompatible with democratic rights. Trumps coup attempt on January 6, 2021, his ongoing efforts to build a fascist movement in the US, and the cowardly role of the Democrats who accompany and facilitate this development are only the sharpest expressions of this. In Germany and Europe, too, the ruling class is courting the extreme right and adopting its programme.

The book is also a polemic against all pseudo-left forces who claim that pressure can be exerted on the imperialist warmongers, and against all those who argue that the capitalist regimes in Russia or China are potential midwives of a new multipolar world that will replace the US-dominated unipolar world order and create a more just and peaceful future. North says:

This new version of a peaceful ultra-imperialism is no more theoretically coherent and politically viable than it was a century ago, when it was first proposed by the German reformist Karl Kautsky and comprehensively refuted by Lenin.

The peaceful division of global resources among the capitalist and imperialist states is impossible, North continues, which is why the utopian striving for a peaceful multipolar world leads, in its own twisted logic, to World War III and the destruction of the planet. The only politically viable, let alone revolutionary, answer to the impending catastrophe is the revolutionary mobilization of the international working class on the basis of socialist policies.

If you want to stop the return of world war and fascism after the catastrophes of the 20th century, you must read this book. The principles and perspectives of the Trotskyist movement, which North so impressively defends and develops in his speeches, form the basis for building a new revolutionary leadership capable of defeating imperialism and overthrowing capitalism once and for all. Mehring Verlag and the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei will do everything in their power to distribute the German-language edition of this book as widely as possible.

Johannes Stern

Editor of the German-language edition of the World Socialist Web Site

Berlin, 24 October 2024
The World Socialist Web Site spoke on Monday with Guy Christensen, a prominent 18-year-old social media activist recognized for his unwavering stance against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Christensen has amassed a substantial following on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where he shares clear and concise information, educating a young audience about the US-backed Israeli regime and its crimes against the Palestinian people.

In this conversation with International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) member Andy Thompson, Christensen discusses his political evolution into an anti-war activist, the climate on college campuses, and the intimidation tactics being used to silence him. This includes harassment from Zionists who called the FBI to conduct an investigation into his anti-war activities.

Guy spoke out strongly against the Democratic Party, which he calls a party of war. He also drew connections between the war in Ukraine and the repression of protests in the United States. Importantly, he expressed his support to sign the petition calling for the freedom of Bogdan Syrotiuk, an Ukrainian anti-war socialist arrested by the Zelensky regime for opposing the US-NATO war against Russia.

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the interview.

Andy Thompson (AT): Today Im speaking with Guy Christensen, a pro-Palestinian activist whos gained millions of followers on TikTok and Instagram for his principled opposition to the genocide in Gaza and his clear and concise videos that have educated many young people about the US backed Israeli regime and the crimes theyve carried out against the Palestinian people.

Were now at a point where the genocide in Gaza has gone on for well over one year. The most recent reporting shows that of the over 43,000 killed by Israel since October 2023, the overwhelming majority are children under nine years old. The genocide has gone beyond Gaza, with Israel having invaded southern Lebanon, and the danger of an all-out war with Iran looms on the horizon.

In the US, these events have been met with hundreds of thousands if not millions protesting against the genocide and demanding that the United States stop funding Israel and providing weapons used in the slaughter. These have been particularly prominent among college students. In response, the government and university administrations have criminalized protests, arrested students, and suspended them from their schools.

So Guy, I want to begin by asking you how you became involved in this fight against the genocide. Can you tell us about how these events radicalized you? What made you feel that you had to speak out and expose the actions of the US and Israeli governments?

Guy Christensen (GC): Sure, so previous to October 7th I had a platform I had been posting on for like 3 or 4 years. I had a few million followers already, and when my feed became flooded with pro-Israel posts about Gaza and Hamas I knew absolutely nothing about Israel or Palestine, Ill admit that. But suddenly I was seeing all these videos, and I had no idea what they were talking about. I was looking at all of them, and the idea I got was that Hamas was terrible, that the Palestinians were terrible human beings, and it was a little weird to hear this because it was borderline hateful.

Then, I saw a pair of comments on my TikTok, and all they said was google Nakba and google open air prison, and I did. What I found took me down a path that changed my whole entire life.

Then I did research into the true nature of the Gaza Strip. It is an open air prison. The people there arent free. Theyre controlled by the state of Israel. Their supplies have been restricted for over a decade, limiting even their calories to keep the Palestinian people on the brink of collapse but just enough to stay alive. Israel has been brutalizing and oppressing the Palestinians.

What I was seeing on my content feed, what I was seeing in the western media, did not match up at all, and I was astonished why nobody was talking about these atrocities that have been occurring in the context of October. I didnt understand. When I looked at the situation, and because of being raised in the American school system, I drew parallels between the colonization of Palestine and the colonization of America, of the Native Americans. I made a single video talking about how there were all these parallels between these two colonial projects.

Shortly after, I received an email from a Zionist newspaper in Israel offering me $5,000 to pledge my support to Israel and for Zionism on live stream. I was disgusted.

My morals were not for sale. It really solidified my decision to speak out because in the media I was seeing every single news outlet painting Israel as 100 percent in the right, even after they came in and slaughtered thousands of Palestinians in the weeks following October 7th. I didnt understand, but I knew somebody needed to say something.

I asked myself, Why do I have this platform if I dont try to speak out, if I dont use it for what I think is good? So, I began talking about Palestine. Even though I knew basically nothing in the beginning, Ive poured thousands of hours into research into it, and with every new video Ive learned the further extent of Israeli brutality and oppression of the Palestinian people.

AT: I think a lot of people have gone through a similar kind of experience. They are seeing these events unfold, and they are really shocked that something like this could happen in the modern world. And they are taking up a fight to try to understand: What is the state of Israel? How did it come into existence?

So that brings me to another question. More broadly for people that you know, your peers, what is your generation thinking about these issues? I understand you were in high school when it began, and now youre in college. How do you and your peers see these developments? What has the political landscape on campuses become?

GC: I feel like a majority of people recognize that Israel is committing, maybe not exactly a genocide, but they definitely realize that Israel is in the wrong. Im tapped into the pro-Palestinian organizations on my campus, and we all feel like, especially before the election, that the duopoly is not for us. The duopoly is going to continue committing this genocide, and so we were not going to give our support to them. I mean would you try to reelect Hitler?

Two hundred thousand Palestinians have been killed by the Biden-Harris administrations partnership with Israel. They have given them essentially a blank check to kill as many Palestinians as they feel. Weve footed the cost of 70 percent of Israels military costs since October 7th. We [the United States] are massively responsible for this.

So, there was a consensus amongst the political groups Im a part of that we arent going to help the reelect the Democrats. They are committing genocide even now as we speak.

AT: I think the response among young people in particular has been very powerful. Since October of last year, Ive spoken with many people who, when asked about the role of Biden and the Democratic Party, the first thing they say is, I could never back them. I could never support them again.

I want to ask a little bit more about the Zionist groups that have targeted you. Including attempts basically to buy you off. But I also understand that now that it is clear that you cant be bought, that there have been attempts to threaten you. I believe there was an attempt to try to get you placed on the no-fly list.

Can you say a little bit more about what has happened here?

GC: Yes, so if they cant buy you, theyre going to try to threaten you, and thats what happened. So, Ill go over all the different instances I can think of that Zionists have tried to target me.

I was a senior in high school when October 7th happened, so I was only in high school for a few more months, but I had conversations with my administrators telling me how often and the pure volume of calls they had received over those few last months of my time in high school of Zionists reporting me. Zionists called the school trying to get me kicked out. Trying to stir up the administration against me. Luckily, they didnt act on anything, but that was one of the first instances I can remember.

Over the last year, Ive received an uncountable number of hateful DMs and messages and online threats from Zionists. DMs and emails and all of that. Then over the summer a Zionist called my uncle who lives across the country asking for information about me. I think my uncle quoted him [the Zionist] saying, We need to stop him.

In December, I was sent a photo on Instagram from an Israeli account showing that they had written my name on a bomb. I assume they dropped it on either the West Bank or Gaza.

Alongside other pro-Palestinian activists, theyve written countless smear articles about me. They push them up on Google search so when you look up your favorite guy or my name, by using SEO tricks they stay at the top of the search results.

There was a Zionist Hasbara site called Words of Iron, and what it was essentially was a feed. It gave people a feed for Zionists to go and report pro-Palestinian content. It was just an endless feed of existing content, and you were meant to go and report the videos and leave pro-Israel comments. My videos were about half of the videos on that feed.

I actually launched a campaign to reverse that Words of Iron site to have people go on there and actually go share and uplift those pro-Palestinian feeds. It actually worked, and I think they eventually took the site down because it was backfiring, but those are just some examples of how Ive been harassed by Zionists.

As for this most recent event that involves the FBI and the no fly list: Halfway through October I was invited by Doctor Butch Ware [the running mate of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein] to speak at a panel on social media and social justice at UCSB in California. It was a three day event called End of Empire and the Future of Freedom. This was a big opportunity for me, and I was really excited about it because Ive never flown by myself before, let alone across the country while Im in college.

I spent two weeks beforehand preparing. It was a Friday. I woke up and my phone had gone off. This was the day I was supposed to travel. It was a text from my dad saying, The FBI is at our house. There are three cop cars surrounding our house asking for you. Apparently, someone called the FBI and claimed you had planted bombs across synagogues in Pittsburgh.

So, this was what I woke up to. Im looking at this text right where Im sitting now actually, and Im like, What do I do?

I called my dad, and he basically told me the same thing. They [the FBI] didnt give him that much information, but he warned me that they were going to come and try to contact me. This is the day Im supposed to travel. I had to go to the airport in literally like two or three hours, and so thats what I did.

As soon as I walked into the airport, I got a phone call from a detective from the city Im in asking what I was up to. He was calling me on behalf of the FBIs office who were assigned the case because of the nature of the call that was made into the FBI.

I told him, FYI Im at the airport right now, and he asked, When will you be back? I told him I would be back next week, and he said that I couldnt leave the airport until he came and interrogated me.

So I waited at the airport, and he pulled up with another detective and a police officer. They interrogated me about the threat that was called in for about 15 minutes. They asked me questions like, Did you make this threat? Who might have called in this threat about you? All this stuff, and they let me go and told me that I would eventually probably be contacted by the FBI once I was back from my trip.

This made my whole life, Id say, incredibly stressful. Because now Im flying out to California knowing in my head that a Zionist had been trying to stop me from flying out.

It was not even hours before they made the call, I had made it public that I was going to be flying to California. The detectives couldnt tell me anything about who made the call. They said that they used a VPN. I was like The FBI cant figure out whos behind the VPN?

So, I dont even know if this is a Zionist, an American citizen, an Israeli citizen, someone else, someone from the Israeli government, someone from our own government. I have been left in the dark on this investigation. It is a lot of stress going to California knowing someones trying to stop me, and I have no idea who it is.

This is what they do to target people who try to help the Palestinians. Thats all Ive been doing over the past year. Educating people and calling on people to do whatever they can to help the Palestinian people. Theyre being starved out. Theyre being ethnically cleansed in northern Gaza. When Zionists see this, they do everything they can to put a stop to it.

I am telling this story publicly to show that Im not scared. They cannot silence me by trying to get me on a no-fly list and stopping me from going out to a panel in California where I meet up with a bunch of other activists and build a lot of projects and connections.

I wont hold back my words to tell the world that Zionists target anyone who helps the Palestinians. Even if theyre an 18-year-old freshman in college. No matter what, theyll do everything they can because theyre so deep in their hatred that they do not care who they destroy.

I mean this is a microcosm of whats happening in the Levant right now. Israel went from attacking Gaza to launching an operation in the West Bank and to Lebanon. Now in Syria, bombing Iran, and fighting the Houthis. It doesnt matter to them who they destroy.

AT: Its just somewhat stunning. To think of the drastic actions theyre willing to take to try to silence you. What it immediately calls into mind is: What are the opposing sides here? I mean, you have the Israeli government backed by the United States, which has provided billions upon billions of dollars. Not just in weapons and bombs, but certainly also in agents and intelligence support, to try and weed out individuals, to try to create smear campaigns online.

There was a discussion with a US general at some point last year at a meeting of billionaires and military generals and other world leaders (Davos). One of the things he said was that the information war is one of the most crucial components. That if they lose control of the narrative, you know, they wont be able to expand their wars.

GC: Israel manufactures consent using Western media. And I mean, saying that if they lose control of the narrative, then they cannot expand their war is exactly right. The media has served as a tool for consent to bomb hospitals and destroy the healthcare system. What you said about how American intelligence works with Israeli intelligence, and we saw how they shut down the college protests across America.

At one college, I think it was Ohio State, they had they had snipers posted on the roof above the pro-Palestinian demonstration. And, and UCLA, we had an all-out brawl between pro-Israel protesters attacking the encampments. Literally launching an attack on the campus of the pro-Palestinian students. And this is aided and abetted by our government.

I think a majority [of Congress] now have been elected by AIPAC who bragged last week about how they backed 318 candidates in our Congress. And so its like the question of, was this our government who tried to stop me?

Its very real because theyve been helping and participating in the suppression of voices like me, for decades, especially over the last year when they pushed to ban TikTok and they slotted in the bill alongside the massive aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

They gave them $96 billion in total, $26 billion went to Israel. They stuck in the bill to ban TikTok as part of that aid package and passed it into law. Joe Biden signed it, and then not even I dont think it was even two months later. There was a policy conference in which Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Senator Mitt Romney had a discussion about the push to ban TikTok, and they were discussing why there was a bipartisan push to ban TikTok.

The reason why they got the ban pushed so fast is because TikTok is the most pro-Palestinian platform in America, and our representatives knew that. He says that is the reason they banned it. Exactly that. And so, its like they manufactured consent. Americans were told that China is the reason to ban TikTok, that theres a security threat to Americans and to our government by having TikTok, you know, legalized in our country. And that completely was not the reason why they banned it.

There are other instances that were warning signs, but the American public did not really get exposure to these instances because they were held in a session of Congress, which many Americans dont even watch. But Ted Cruz is recorded in Congress talking about how they need to ban TikTok because it is anti-Israel.

And so its our representatives who are taking part in the suppression of pro-Palestinian voices and shutting down free speech by manufacturing consent amongst the American people. If our government is willing to lie to Americans to get the app I used to post banned, are they looking at voices like me? They have to be, right?

At least some of them know who I am. Would they take it to the point of targeting me is the question. So, yeah, I mean, its a very real concern to be honest.

AT: They have all these resources of the state that theyre willing to bring down against us. But I think what is important to keep in mind is that we have the truth.

I think what has been so powerful in this is that they can only proceed with lies, by lying to the population, trying to suppress information. But when someone like yourself brings forward the real history of the state of Israel, who really exposes what is really happening, it gains a mass hearing.

The genocide in Gaza is not popular by any means. Despite all their attempts, every poll and attempt to get the opinion of the population shows that its massively opposed.

The attacks you have faced are part of a wave of crackdowns at the beginning of this semester against the protests. Some of these have included an attack on a graduate student at Cornell. International student Momodou Taal who was threatened with being deported. Hes now been suspended from Cornell, although his immigration status for the time being is intact. The reasons are just explicitly that he participated in an anti-genocide protest.

There is the case of Maura Finkelstein, an anti-Zionist professor whos been fired, the first tenured professor to be fired for her views. So, what do you think about these cases, where students and educators have been attacked for their views? And what does this say about the state of democratic rights in the US?

GC: In all of these instances, all these attacks are absolutely disgusting, and I condemn them. Theyre following all the same pattern, obviously, that, people who speak out, theyre trying to make them scared because they want everyone else whos pro-Palestinian, whos standing up against genocide, especially to look at these cases and be like, I dont want that to happen to me.

But Ill tell you that it is our human duty to speak out about these things. And its also our duty to support the people who speak out. The state of democracy is a joke in the United States, our policy decisions are serving the interests of economic elites and special interest groups, not the people. Weve seen studies done about this, I think, from Brown University is a big one about how the reins of democracy have been taken out of the hands of the people, and theyre using our police forces and federal funding and college administrators and Western outlets to coordinate a campaign against Palestinian voices, anyone whos calling out the genocide and its spitting in the face of what democracy is supposed to be.

I already talked about the TikTok ban. They literally want to ban one of the most used apps in America, one of the most used apps by young people, especially by pro-Palestinian activists. Just to serve this coordinated campaign to silence these voices. And it is disgusting. And we need to stand together against this coordinated campaign.

AT: I couldnt agree more. I do want to bring up one point that really has been absent from a lot of the analysis and especially in the media.

So, our movement, as socialists, we understand that the genocide in Gaza is part of a rapidly expanding world war. This includes a plan for war against Iran. And also the war in Ukraine, where linked to most of the funds for to support Israel has also been hundreds of billions of dollars to support the US-NATO war against Russia.

This is a war where over half a million young Ukrainians and Russians have already been killed. While the Biden administration in this war has been claiming to wage it on behalf of democracy, nothing is further from the truth. Ukraine has been turned into a dictatorship. All opposition to the war has been criminalized.

This actually includes a member of our movement, Bogdan Syrotiuk, a 26-year-old Ukrainian socialist whos been arrested for his opposition to the war. The government has explicitly stated that the reason for his arrest is his political views and, in particular, that he is a supporter of the World Socialist Web Site. Theyve explicitly stated that the reason for his arrest is that he has articles published on the WSWS.

Essentially, this means being a socialist opponent of war is illegal in Ukraine. We have been really fighting for and organizing a campaign to demand Bogdans release. [The call for] his immediate release gained many thousands of signatures, including a call in support from Jill Stein, the candidate of the Green Party for president, for his release.

So I want to ask you about this. Are you aware of the imprisonment of Bogdan on the campaign for his freedom? Would you support the call for his freedom and sign the petition? And then also more broadly, what do you think about the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine? And how do you see this being connected to the genocide in Gaza and the repression of protests in the US?

GC: I support his release. Ill sign that petition. I think targeting journalists is inexcusable under any circumstances. We need to protect our journalists. And, I mean, to relate it to whats going on in Gaza, I believe over 200 or 300 journalists have been directly murdered and targeted by Israel since October 7, all across the region. And is this linked to capitalism? I think so, I think in this statement, Im about to say something we need to say more often, which is that the Democratic Party has become a party of war.

They are feeding two massive wars, Ukraine and Israel. That is sucking our funding from our government. Every year, half of our budget is spent on the military. The American people are literally fighting over half of their government. All the other half is being spent killing millions of people and has been for decades. While the military-industrial complex, the military industry, the war industry, actually in the United States, is seeing massive profits. We give them money, Ukraine and Israel and all these other countries, and they spend it on these defense companies and the United States, the American people see none of that money.

I massively oppose this system. And it all kind of goes back to Citizens United, where we introduce big money into politics, corporate lobbying. And, that is the point in which studies say that we began declining in the peoples representation in policy decisions. And so could you say that it is capitalism related? I definitely agree with that.

AT: Well, thanks again to Guy Christensen for joining us today. If youre not already, you can follow Guy on TikTok at your favorite guy. And on Instagram as Guy Christensen. And if you want to know more about our movement, the World Socialist Web Site and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, you can go to wsws.org/iysse. If you want to sign the petition to free our comrade Bogdan Syrotiuk, you can go to wsws.org/FreeBogdan. So, thanks again, Guy, for joining us.

GC: Thank you, Andy.
DAMASCUS, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Israeli forces on Thursday conducted airstrikes on two residential neighborhoods in the Syrian capital Damascus, killing four people and causing damage to civilian buildings, Syria's state TV and a war monitor reported.

The first strike hit an apartment of a three-story residential building in the Mazzeh neighborhood west of Damascus, while the other targeted a residential area in Qudsaya, a suburb northwest of the capital, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Initial reports from the observatory and state TV said that four individuals were killed in Mazzeh. In addition, the airstrikes caused extensive damage to residential buildings and triggered explosions and fires. 
People visit Chinese pavilions at the AfricaCom exhibition during the Africa Tech Festival 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa, on Nov. 14, 2024. Chinese telecom companies, showcasing innovative technologies and products at the Africa Tech Festival 2024 in South Africa, have set ambitious goals to expand their footprint in the rapidly growing African market. (Xinhua/Wang Lei)

CAPE TOWN, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese telecom companies, showcasing innovative technologies and products at the Africa Tech Festival 2024 in South Africa, have set ambitious goals to expand their footprint in the rapidly growing African market.

Held from Nov. 12 to 14 at Cape Town International Convention Center in the country's legislative capital, the festival -- Africa's largest and most influential telecom and technology event -- attracted 15,000 attendees, over 300 exhibitors, and 450 speakers from across the continent and beyond.

According to its organizers, the event offered a "360-degree view" of how technological innovation and strategic shifts are reshaping key sectors, while also serving as a platform to explore the transformative impact of technology across Africa's diverse industries.

South African Minister of Communications and Digital Technology Solly Malatsi called for united efforts to advance Africa's digital future at the festival's official opening ceremony on Tuesday. He noted the digital era has unlocked opportunities for growth and inclusion across Africa, paving new pathways for economic and social progress.

This year's Africa Tech Festival also highlighted the growing role of international players in Africa's tech ecosystem, including major Chinese telecom companies increasingly expanding their presence in the region.

China's Inspur Communication Information System Co., Ltd., exhibiting for the first time at AfricaCom, one of the festival's anchor events, expressed optimism about its growth potential in Africa. The company's sub-Saharan Africa Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sky Sun told Xinhua: "We aim to attract more customers not only locally but across sub-Saharan Africa."

"While regions like Asia and Europe may be more advanced, we have made significant strides in the African market and continue to experience growth," he said. "Additionally, we have been actively engaging with our telecom customers in the sector, and we are seeing positive progress."

China Unicom Global in the African Region CEO Yao Siyang underscored his company's commitment to expanding presence in the African market, marking its fourth exhibition at the event.

"We are happy to be part of this event and to bring our smart solutions to local customers in Africa, where we see significant growth potential in the telecommunications sector and beyond. There is a lot of opportunity here, and we see a lot of newcomers come to the continent to expand their businesses. We are also proud we can have the chance to connect and meet people at this event," Yao said.

International Sales Manager of China's Chengdu Qianhong Communication Co., Ltd. Jack Lu also expressed the company's desire to deepen partnerships with African telecom operators. "We hope to provide deeper cooperation for South African telecommunications operators. The world's future is Africa," he said.

Chinese smartphone maker Honor also made its debut at the AfricaCom exhibition. "Africa is a market with great potential, and we have very strong confidence in South Africa and the entire African market," Fred Zhou, CEO of Honor South Africa, told Xinhua.

According to him, Honor's sales in South Africa surged by more than 600 percent last year and grew by over 200 percent this year. "Honor already ranks second in the South African contract phone market, and we are confident that Honor will become the brand with the largest market share in South Africa's contract phone market in the next three to five years," Zhou said.

As a Chinese company creating over 300 jobs in South Africa annually, Honor aims to be a bridge for cooperation between China and South Africa, he said. "We want to help South African users accelerate the process of embracing the digital age." 

People visit Chinese pavilions at the AfricaCom exhibition during the Africa Tech Festival 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa, on Nov. 14, 2024. Chinese telecom companies, showcasing innovative technologies and products at the Africa Tech Festival 2024 in South Africa, have set ambitious goals to expand their footprint in the rapidly growing African market. (Xinhua/Wang Lei)

People visit Chinese pavilions at the AfricaCom exhibition during the Africa Tech Festival 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa, on Nov. 14, 2024. Chinese telecom companies, showcasing innovative technologies and products at the Africa Tech Festival 2024 in South Africa, have set ambitious goals to expand their footprint in the rapidly growing African market. (Xinhua/Wang Lei)

People visit Chinese pavilions at the AfricaCom exhibition during the Africa Tech Festival 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa, on Nov. 14, 2024. Chinese telecom companies, showcasing innovative technologies and products at the Africa Tech Festival 2024 in South Africa, have set ambitious goals to expand their footprint in the rapidly growing African market. (Xinhua/Wang Lei)

People visit Chinese pavilions at the AfricaCom exhibition during the Africa Tech Festival 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa, on Nov. 14, 2024. Chinese telecom companies, showcasing innovative technologies and products at the Africa Tech Festival 2024 in South Africa, have set ambitious goals to expand their footprint in the rapidly growing African market. (Xinhua/Wang Lei)
BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) has reported a significant year-on-year drop in gun and explosive-related crimes, with cases dropping by 25.8 percent so far this year compared to the same period in 2023.

The decline follows the launch of a coordinated, three-year nationwide crackdown on firearm and explosives offenses that began last year, according to an MPS press conference held on Thursday.

The initiative has seen collaboration from multiple government departments and local agencies to curb illegal arms manufacturing, trade and trafficking.

Since the beginning of this year, police nationwide have solved 19,000 cases involving firearms and explosives, dismantled 54 criminal groups, and destroyed 237 sites linked to such illegal activities, said Qi Xiguo, deputy head of the public security management bureau of the MPS.

Public security authorities in Jiangxi and Hubei provinces and beyond have uncovered major illegal manufacturing and trafficking rings, leading to 34 coordinated national operations and the arrest of 831 suspects.

The ministry noted that China's unwavering efforts have allowed the country to enjoy one of the lowest rates of gun and explosive-related incidents worldwide. 
The 73rd annual Miss Universe pageant will be held in Mexico on Saturday.

Former contestants have gone on to become famous after competing in the pageant.

Some became actors and TV personalities, like Olivia Culpo and Gal Godot.

On Saturday, women from around the world will gather in Mexico to compete for the most prestigious pageant title: Miss Universe.

Competing at Miss Universe is an honor in and of itself, and it's also been known to propel future stars to fame  whether they win the pageant or not.

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From reality TV to the big screen, here are some of the celebrities who have competed for the Miss Universe crown.

Kenya Moore represented the United States at the 1993 Miss Universe pageant.

Kenya Moore placed in the top six at the 1993 Miss Universe pageant. Ron Galella/Getty Images

Moore won Miss USA while representing Michigan, becoming the second Black woman to win the pageant in its history.

She went on to place in the top six at Miss Universe, while Dayanara Torres from Puerto Rico took home the top crown.

After her time as Miss USA ended, Moore appeared on television shows like "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and "Living Single," but today, she's best known for her extensive career in reality television.

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Moore has been a cast member on "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" since 2012, and she's appeared on other reality shows including "The Apprentice" and "Dancing With the Stars."

Ali Landry competed at Miss Universe in 1996.

Miss USA 1996 Ali Landry. MISS UNIVERSE/ho/AFP via Getty Images

Landry won the Miss Louisiana and Miss USA pageants in 1996, earning her a spot at that year's Miss Universe competition.

Like Moore, she placed in the top six at the pageant but did not win. Alicia Machado of Venezuela was crowned Miss Universe that year.

Landry also went on to pursue acting after her pageant career was over, gaining fame after appearing in a Doritos ad that aired during the 1999 Super Bowl and starring as Rita Lefleur on "EVE" from 2003 to 2006. She was also in the divisive film "Sound of Freedom" this year.

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Gal Godot represented Israel when she competed at Miss Universe.

Gal Gadot at Miss Universe 2004. MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP/Getty Images

Gadot was crowned Miss Israel in 2004. She went on to compete for her home country at Miss Universe the same year, but she didn't place among the top 10 during the pageant. The Miss Universe crown went to Jennifer Hawkins of Australia.

After her Miss Israel win, Gadot enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces from 2004 to 2006 to complete the mandated two years of service required for all Israeli citizens before she pursued a career in acting.

As her IMBd page notes, Gadot's role as Gisele in 2009's "Fast and Furious" propelled her to fame. She's gone on to appear in American and Israeli films, most notably starring as the titular character in 2017's "Wonder Woman" and other films in the DC universe.

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Gadot also stirred up controversy in Hollywood in 2020 when she spearheaded a now-notorious video of celebrities singing "Imagine" amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Former Miss USA president Crystle Stewart competed at Miss Universe in 2008.

Crystle Stewart after winning the Miss USA pageant in 2008. Denise Truscello/WireImage

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Stewart has been in the headlines over the last year, but she first gained fame when she won Miss USA in 2008 while representing Texas.

When she competed at Miss Universe, Stewart made it to the top 10, but she fell during the evening gown portion of the competition. Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela won the crown.

After her Miss USA win, Stewart went into acting, as her IMDb page notes. Her most notable role was Leslie Morris in the TBS and OWN series "For Better or Worse," which aired from 2011 to 2017.

Stewart returned to the pageant world in 2020, becoming president of Miss USA and Miss Teen USA. But she was suspended from her position in November 2022 after multiple contestants said the pageant was rigged in favor of R'Bonney Gabriel, who went on to win Miss Universe in January 2023.

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An investigation found no evidence that the Miss USA pageant was fixed, but Miss Universe announced that Stewart was parting ways with the organization permanently in August 2023.

Olivia Culpo won the 2012 Miss Universe pageant.

Olivia Culpo was crowned Miss Universe in 2012. David Becker/Getty Images

Culpo became the first Miss USA to win Miss Universe in 15 years when she took the crown in 2012. She competed in her very first pageant at Miss Rhode Island USA and then went on to win Miss USA and Miss Universe that same year.

She turned to Hollywood after her reign, appearing in films including "The Other Woman" with Cameron Diaz in 2014 and "I Feel Pretty" with Amy Schumer in 2018, according to her IMDb page.

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In 2022, Culpo starred in the TLC reality show "The Culpo Sisters" with her family.

Culpo is now a successful Instagram influencer with more than 5 million followers. She is also married to the San Francisco 49ers player Christian McCaffrey.

Catriona Gray represented the Philippines when she won Miss Universe in 2018.

Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray. Lillian Suwanrumpha/Getty Images

Gray was already a decorated pageant queen before she won Miss Universe in 2018. She competed at Miss World 2016 for the Philippines, placing in the top five, and is the first Filipino to represent the country at both Miss World and Miss Universe.

Gray went viral during the Miss Universe 2018 pageant thanks to her "lava walk," which won praise from supermodels Tyra Banks and Ashley Graham.

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After her reign, Gray went on to host and perform on the Philippines musical variety show "Sunday Noontime Live!"

She was also a backstage correspondent for the Miss Universe competition in 2022 and 2023.

Miss USA 2019 Cheslie Kryst ranked in the top 10 at Miss Universe.

Miss USA Cheslie Kryst at the 2019 Miss Universe pageant. Para Griffin/Getty Images

Kryst won Miss USA in 2019 while representing North Carolina and placed in the top 10 at Miss Universe. Zozibini Tunzi of South Africa took home the crown and became Kryst's roommate in New York City that year.

Kryst and Tunzi helped make history, as 2019 was the first time Miss USA, Miss Teen USA, Miss Universe, and Miss America had all been won by women of color.

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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kryst became the longest-reigning Miss USA titleholder in history at 557 days.

Kryst was a complex-litigation attorney before her Miss USA reign and once helped free a client who had been sentenced to life in prison. She became a correspondent for "Extra" and received two Daytime Emmy nominations.

Kryst died on January 30, 2022, at the age of 30.

Noelia Voigt was crowned Miss USA 2023 and placed in the top 20 at Miss Universe.

Miss Utah Noelia Voigt was crowned Miss USA in 2023. Miss USA

Voigt won Miss USA in September 2023, where she competed as Miss Utah. She placed in the top 20 at Miss Universe, while R'Bonney Gabriel crowned Sheynnis Palacios of Nicaragua queen.

Voigt was set to finish her tenure as Miss USA following the pageant, but in May, she announced she was resigning to focus on her mental health.

Miss Teen USA 2023 UmaSofia Srivastava resigned just two days later. Voigt's and Srivastava's mothers told Business Insider that their daughters were bullied by the Miss USA organization and its president and CEO, Laylah Rose.

Representatives for Rose and Miss USA did not respond to a previous request for comment on the mothers' statements. However, Miss USA told ABC News at the time that it was "committed to fostering a healthy, communicative, and supportive environment for all contestants, state titleholders, national titleholders, and staff."

Voigt's resignation and controversy surrounding the pageant were covered by news outlets worldwide, making her a household name. Voigt said Bella Hadid even told her she was "inspired" by her decision to step down when they met at the Cannes Film Festival.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Eloise Kings documentary The Shadow Scholars takes a deep dive into a multilayered, complex topic: a twilight academic industry that has often been covered only from a very specific perspective. Filmed across three continents, the Film4 movie, being sold by Dogwoof, includes British writer and director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, Blitz) among its executive producers.

When Oxford Professor Patricia Kingori travels to Kenya, she uncovers the murky, multi-billion global underworld of essay-writing, reads a synopsis. Kingori is not just anyone; she is the youngest female Black professor in the 925-year history of the University of Oxford. Thousands of young and highly educated Kenyans  overqualified and chronically underemployed  have found lucrative work writing essays for students around the globe who are able and willing to pay for them, the synopsis continues.

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Its a complex portrait of an issue that undermines the foundations of a pillar of humanity: education, said the London festival. The film also contrasts how smart young Kenyans work in an underground economy that supports others success abroad while depriving Africans.

The Shadow Scholars, from production firms Lammas Park and White Teeth Films, got its world premiere at the recent BFI London Film Festival where it earned a special mention in the documentary competition. It is now featured in the Frontlight section of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) where it will get its first screening on Sunday.

King recently talked to THRs Georg Szalai about her debut feature doc, how she decided to find out about the shadow scholars, using AI technology to protect key participants in the film, and taking. holistic approach to her work.

The Shadow Scholars taught me some surprising facts and data points, such as estimates that 40,000-plus Kenyans earn their living with essay writing. But it also felt that I learned about the people doing this hard academic work. How important was it for you to also tell this human side?

Absolutely crucial. Its central to my style of storytelling. Im really people first, issue second. Its often a really powerful way to tell any story. Because if you go for a microcosm, or the people who are at the heart, they are often a reflection of the society and the context that we live in.

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We were also just incredibly lucky. Patricia Kingori was never going to be in the film. We were making the film as a collaborative partnership for almost two years before she became part of the process, and were really glad she did. We shot during COVID, and the first year, we could travel to Kenya. And then in 2021, the travel bans came in, which meant that we couldnt go to Kenya at all. At that point, I was really worried, but Patricia happened to get the incredible accolade of being the youngest woman of color to be given a full professorship. That rise in her own professional life also gave rise to a confidence. And I said: I really think that you need to be part of the story. Youve come from Kenya. And she really embraced that.

Im always interested in having a holistic view. So we werent interested in just leaving the students out. Having their voices we felt was really important all, and all of the different academics whod been working in this area. I think that helped to really show just how many people are connected through this web. Hopefully, it then reflects to our audiences that actually we are, in some ways, either complicit or at least allows people to understand the way in which these complex systems implicate all of us and bring us all in.

Professor Patricia Kingori in The Shadow Scholars

I have long wanted to travel to Kenya, so seeing Nairobi and the people living there was really interesting to me, especially because it was different from what you sometimes see about Africa.

Having people talk about or sometimes just show us their lives is a really powerful way to understand whats happening. We see them in their homes, the way theyre working. I didnt have a different perspective of Kenya or Nairobi. That was the truth of what I was seeing. And so when I compare that to maybe some other depictions of Africa, it feels really different. But I didnt have to work to give a different representation of those people and their lives, because thats what was happening.

How did you come away feeling about these super-smart essay writers you met and interviewed on camera? And how did you decide not to try to point fingers a la these are the good people and those are the bad people in this underground industry?

Its this completely sophisticated but unregulated industry. And the more that I understood that, the more I understood that against the backdrop of all of the adversity and the challenges they face, they are the architects of their own financial, economic, and ideological liberation.

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In terms of no good guys versus bad guys. Patricia and I, from the beginning, had no interest in vilifying even people in the Global North, such as the students. I think what we were clear about was that theres a broken social contract for everyone who appears in the film.

How did you first meet the people in Kenya who are featured in the film?

We went on this trip to Kenya, and we essentially met, on the first day, Chege who ended up being in the film. And it was really clear really quickly that not only was he incredible, and the things he was saying were just blowing our minds, for example in terms of the scale of work that they were doing, but he was also the person who opened the door to the community for us. He was a really important conduit for us. Also, as we went through the process, he was the person who would organize these town halls that we would have frequently to elicit feedback.

When we had our first-ever meeting with a number of scholars, they researched us. So when we turned up, they were like: We know who she is, Professor Patricia Kingori. She is quite a hero in Kenya. People really respect the work that shes done. And for myself, they were like: Weve seen what youve done before, so maybe that will let you tell our story. And thats how it began.

I still find myself reading up and researching things mentioned in your film

Thank you so much for saying that. We put an incredible amount of time and work and research into it. And what we really wanted was this foundation of journalistic and research integrity to do credit to the writers and also Patricia who inhabit this world in a very real way. But I think it just was clear that it wasnt something that allowed you to have a single thought. Many students go to universities because weve been told, if you go to university, youll get a good job and life will be better. And in America, people are paying and getting into debt. And here, it is increasingly the same.

Eloise King

And I think, for the first time in history, there is a surplus of educated people who cant get the jobs that we thought that university was going to provide. And so the film hopefully brings people into that understanding that the students who are in Kenya arent a million miles away, in some instances, from students who are in the Global North.

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Patricia says it in the film: If Kenyans cant get jobs that are well enough paid and they end up doing work for other people, then what is the value of education? Were not saying that education is not worth doing. Were just trying to question some of the ideas about meritocracy. And we really hope that the film prompts people to question whos really in the shadow here.

Its that bigger message that we need a broader debate about education

One of the Kenyan writers, Mercy, talks about it in the film. She was at the top of her class. Especially in Kenya, some of these places are sponsored by churches or others in the community, so when they get to go to university, its a really big deal. And to come out of that and to feel that it isnt being honored I think is also a really big deal.

The protests in Kenya that have been the biggest in many, many years, which are the Gen Z protests, as theyre being called, are exactly about this. One of the things they are complaining about is tax hikes around access to digital media and digital products. So we felt really fortunate to be able to tell the story at this moment. We got contacted by a couple of people who said the film feels like a precursor to whats happening in Kenya right now. This doesnt feel like a story thats just talking about the past. Its talking about a really future-facing thing, which is: where do all of these educated people who have access to technology go? But also, how could the government do more to support their ambitions and income?

The beginning of the film mentions that it uses AI technology to make sure that essay writers we see and hear from in the film are not easily recognized. Tell me a bit about this decision to use AI for defensive purposes since we so often write about peoples hopes and worries about AI!

AI is obviously part of the story of essay writing insofar as people are trying to use things like ChatGPT instead of the writers. As the film shows, the writers are still having to humanize work. And so the human mind is capable of much more, at this point at least, than ChatGPT. As such, technology feels like this invisible character connecting everyone in the film.



But being able to use technology in order to protect the writers just felt so right. To have the opportunity to do that, and to be able to work so closely with people who are talented enough to make things come to life was really great.

The Shadow Scholars

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You saw that they were slightly blurred. I hope that having this digital footprint serves as a reminder that not only do these people need to be protected, but also that actually theres a barrier between us and them. And its frustrating that its stopping them from being able to really claim the recognition that they deserve.

I think using technology for good is really exciting. Because its really easy to be afraid of new and exciting developments, but in this case, it gave us really truthful testimony, and we kept a lot of the emotion, but fundamentally, they were protected. My thoughts about AI are that like maybe with all things, it depends on whos using it and if they are using it right. If the idea behind it and the intention behind it is to create something that has a positive benefit for society, then thats an amazing thing.

How important is it for you to bring such authentic stories from Africa to a broader audience?

Telling stories from Africa and across the Black diaspora is really central. The global majority deserves to have stories told that are nuanced and complex and that allow them to see themselves, perhaps, exactly as they see themselves.

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We worked so closely with so many production companies in Kenya, which were really supportive of us. For the bits that we did in Kenya, seeking consultation and working really closely with other production teams on the ground, that collaboration was really important. And to your point, that allows the storytelling to feel authentic. I couldnt tell a story as a Kenyan, because Im not, but there is the authenticity of allowing people to direct their own narratives within the film and constantly consulting with them about what they thought was important for us to know. What the writers wanted us to know, what Patricia felt was important, what the other academics and the bookshop owner we show thought was important. Hearing all of these different perspectives hopefully allows us to understand that Africa isnt a monolith. There isnt one voice. Its made up of multiple perspectives.

The Shadow Scholars

Any future film projects you can talk about yet?

I have started working on another documentary. Its probably a little bit too early to announce. But Im excited about it because its about archives, music. Again, its really about an untold story, but slightly different formally. So Im quite excited about it.

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NVIDIA (NVDA, Financials) and SoftBank Corp. (SFTBY, Financials) unveiled plans to bolster Japan's AI capabilities by creating the country's most powerful AI supercomputer, which will integrate AI and 5G networks for telecom providers, according to a Tuesday announcement.

Declared during the NVIDIA AI Summit Japan, the partnership highlights NVIDIA's Blackwell platform, meant to support Japan's AI and 5G projects and provide fresh telecom industry revenue sources.

Using the NVIDIA Blackwell platform first then switching to the Grace Blackwell platform, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said that SoftBank is creating its new supercomputer. SoftBank has tested the first AI and 5G integrated network using NVIDIA AI Aerial, hence enabling AI-driven telecom breakthroughs. For every $1 invested on capital expenditure, this AI-5G technology presents telecom businesses with a possible income of $5 in AI inference.

To assist the growth and implementation of AI solutions in Japan, the firms also detailed strategies to create an artificial intelligence marketplace run under NVIDIA AI Enterprise software. SoftBank wants to be an artificial intelligence hub for many different sectors, enabling AI-driven developments in robotics, healthcare, and telecommunications among other ones.

To build the DGX SuperPOD, which is expected to be Japan's top-performing supercomputer, SoftBank's future AI architecture calls for NVIDIA DGX B200 systems. Designed to serve local companies, colleges, and research labs, this infrastructure will also serve generative AI and massive language model initiatives.

Furthermore, SoftBank's network can perform AI and telecom workloads concurrently thanks to NVIDIA's AI-RAN technology, hence transforming telecom infrastructure. Dubbed AI-RAN, an AI-enabled network architecture was effectively tested in Kanagawa, Japan, with SoftBank conducting concurrent AI inference jobs while displaying carrier-grade 5G speed.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


Vanilla beans are one of the most widely desired spices worldwide, used in everything from your favorite vanilla ice cream and baked goods to cosmetics, perfume, and medicines, but the production process is labor-intensive, making the spice both expensive and rare. The flavoring and aromatic agent originated in Mexico and is derived from the dried fruit of the vanilla orchid. Its earliest known use was by the Maya, though it was first cultivated as a crop by the Totonac people. The early Maya and later Aztec people mixed it with cacao to make the chocolate drinks that eventually became today's hot chocolate (try adding a bit of vanilla to your own frothy hot cocoa for an out-of-this-world experience).

When the Spanish conquered the region in the 16th century, vanilla made its way to Europe and became a favorite flavor of the elite. Over time, its appeal spread globally, and by the 19th century, vanilla cultivation had expanded to Indonesia and Madagascar. Today, vanilla production is concentrated in a few tropical countries. Madagascar, in particular, has become the world's largest producer, helping make the spice accessible for a wide variety of uses worldwide.

Read more: The History Of Corn Flakes Is Even Worse Than You Knew

Madagascar: The Vanilla King

Woman hand pollinating vanilla orchids in Madagascar. - Pierre-Yves Babelon/Shutterstock

Madagascar (an island located off the coast of Africa) is responsible for producing an impressive 60-80% of the world's vanilla supply. This translates to about 3,000 tons of vanilla beans annually, much of which is exported for global use in vanilla extract and other products. The country's tropical climate is ideal for cultivating high-quality Bourbon vanilla  a variety prized for its rich, creamy, and sweet profile that sets it apart from other types, despite coming from the same plant species (it's also the type found in Penzey's double-strength vanilla used by many bakers). Bourbon vanilla beans are known for their high vanillin content, which lends them a strong, aromatic flavor, ideal for both culinary and fragrance applications.

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Due to the absence of the specific bees and hummingbirds that naturally pollinate vanilla in Mexico, Madagascar's vanilla orchids require labor-intensive hand-pollination. Farmers work within a brief window of a few hours each day to ensure successful pollination. Once the plants develop their signature green pods, they undergo several months of careful curing, including stages like scalding, sweating, and drying, which amplify their distinct aroma and taste.

Other Major Vanilla Producers

Vanilla pods being placed to dry on a dark surface. - MISTER DIN/Shutterstock

Besides Madagascar, other countries contribute significantly to the global vanilla market. Indonesia ranks second, with about 1,500-2,000 tons of vanilla produced annually. Mexico, the birthplace of vanilla, remains a celebrated producer despite its smaller output (it ranks third in annual production). Like Madagascar vanilla, Indonesian and Mexican vanilla both come from the Planifolia vanilla plant. The differences in climate, soil, and the curing process give each country's vanilla unique characteristics. While production is more limited, Mexican vanilla in particular is highly valued for its traditional curing techniques and resulting taste  a warm, woody flavor reminiscent of clove and nutmeg. This flavor adds a unique twist to desserts and savory dishes alike making Mexican vanilla a favorite among chefs and bakers worldwide.

Although it ranks fourth in production, Papua New Guinea offers a unique variety called Tahitian vanilla, known for its floral and fruity notes. This variety is distinct from (and more expensive than) the Bourbon vanilla grown in Madagascar, providing a different flavor profile that's especially popular in high-end culinary applications.

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BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese police have stepped up efforts to patrol public areas and deal with social conflicts and disputes, in a bid to prevent the occurrence of extreme cases.

The Ministry of Public Security held a meeting on Wednesday, urging efforts to prevent relevant cases at the source.

The call came after a serious car ramming incident killed dozens in the city of Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, on Monday.

The ministry required swift investigation of the case to find out the facts, comprehensive collection of evidence, and severe punishment for the criminal in accordance with law.

It also asked the police authorities to work with other relevant departments to ensure the proper treatment of the injured and appropriate handling of follow-up affairs.

The ministry called for efforts to further enhance patrols and monitoring of densely populated areas and other key locations to effectively deter potential crimes and deal with violations. 
Princess Madeleine, the youngest child of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, learned how to be a "fire soul" from her parents.

Throughout her life, she tells T&C, her parents instilled in her the role of giving back by demonstrating what it means to be "committed individuals'fire souls' or eldsjalar, as we say in Swedish," she writes over e-mail. These fire souls, she says, are "invaluable in driving change that leaves a lasting impact." Growing up in the Swedish royal family, she learned from her parents "that we must work collectively, leveraging all our platforms and resources to amplify voices that are often overlooked."

Princess Madeleine's philanthropic drive is in acute focus as she works as Vice Honorary Chair of the World Childhood Foundation, an organization founded by her mother 25 years ago. The foundation, which celebrates its 25th anniversary at a gala in New York City tonight, is dedicated to ending sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence against children.

Michael Campanella - Getty Images

The princess and her familyhusband Christopher O'Neill, and their three children, Princess Leonore, 10, Prince Nicolas, 9, and Princess Adrienne, 6recently moved back to Sweden from the U.S. She misses the States, however. "U.S. will always have a special place in my heart!" she says. "I met my husband [there], my first child was born in NYC, and I was fortunate to live both in NYC and Miami. So, naturally, I miss the friends we made in those places very much."

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Being back in New York City for the gala, then, is a homecoming of sorts. "Im looking forward to honoring champions for children, whose leadership and commitment create lasting change for those most at risk," Princess Madeleine says of tonight's festivities. "Coming together with friends of Childhood USA, the ones who make our work possible, is always inspiring; it renews our focus and commitment to build a world where every child grows up safe, are valued, and protected. This gathering both reaffirms and makes our mission possible, to ensure that all children have a childhood free from sexual abuse and exploitation."

Childhood Germany

The U.S. is just one branch of the global World Childhood Foundation; the organization is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, and also has offices in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Munich, Germany. "Princess Madeleine is a driving force for all that Childhood is working to accomplish both around the world and here in the United States," Mary L. Pulido, PhD., the Executive Director of World Childhood Foundation - USA, tells T&C.

She continues, "Her leadership, coupled with her passion and commitment to protecting children, has energized so many people to donate to our cause. We are thrilled to have reached our first million-dollar gala in our 25th Anniversary year! I look forward to taking Her Majesty Queen Silvias missionto inspire, promote, and develop solutions to end sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence against childreninto the future alongside Princess Madeleine."

Sara Friberg/The Royal Court of Sweden

Marking a quarter century of the World Childhood Foundation brings Princess Madeleine "immense pride," she says. "Through our work, weve positively impacted the lives of millions of children, offering them safety, support, and hope for a brighter future. Yet our mission continueswe remain committed to advancing pioneering solutions that protect children against sexual abuse and exploitation, carrying this legacy forward today and into the future."

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Her mother Queen Silvia's work is endlessly inspiring, the princess says. "Childhood has always been an integral part of our family, shaping our conversations and values from breakfast to dinner. I am continually moved by my mothers relentless dedication to fight child sexual abuse and exploitation. Her commitment inspires me and countless others worldwide. I hope that one day well fulfill my mothers vision of a world where all children are free from sexual abuse and exploitation. The journey is long, yet I remain hopeful."



For more information on the work of the World Childhood Foundation, visit childhood-usa.org.





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To help U.S. citizens make informed decisions when deciding to take a trip abroad, the U.S. Department of State issues four levels of travel advisory alerts based on safety and security conditions in each country.

Before booking a cruise or departing on one you booked well in advance, its a good idea to check the current travel advisories for the cruise ports you plan to visit. You can do so on the State Department website, which also offers an interactive, color-coded world map view.

Related: New Disney Cruise Line ship makes rescue on way to US debut

The State Department considers a number of factors to set the travel advisory level for each country, such as crime, civil unrest and likelihood of a natural disaster. Travel advisory levels range from Level 1, the lowest advisory level that advises travelers to exercise normal precautions, to Level 4, the highest advisory level that warns U.S. citizens not to travel to the country due to greater likelihood of life-threatening risks.

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Travel advisories are reviewed on a regular basis and this week, the State Department updated their warnings for multiple islands in the southern Caribbean that are recovering from recent hurricane damage.

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Travel warnings updated for Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines

On Nov. 12, the State Department updated its travel advisories for Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines to reflect Hurricane Beryls impact on the Grenadine Islands in the Lesser Antilles. Beryl hit the islands as a Category 4 hurricane in July, causing significant destruction.

Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines are set at level 1 travel advisories, but the State Department wants travelers to be aware that the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinque in Grenada, and Canouan, Mayreau, Palm Island, and Union Islandin St. Vincent and the Grenadines are in varying stages of recovery from Hurricane Beryl.

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For Carriacou and Petite Martinque, the State Department advisory includes the following update:



In July 2024, Hurricane Beryl damaged buildings on these islands. Restaurant and other food options were affected. Until repairs are complete, fewer hotels may be available. Internet service was severely impacted by the hurricane and may be unreliable or unavailable.

Related: U.S. government issues travel warning for 3 more cruise ports

For Canouan, Mayreau, Palm Island, and Union Island, the State Department advisory says:



In July 2024, Hurricane Beryl damaged many buildings on these islands. Until repairs are complete, fewer hotels and transportation options may be available.

The State Department recommends travelers contact their destination before traveling to any of these islands. Cruise lines with upcoming cruises to Carriacou include luxury lines Oceania Cruises and The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, which also stops in Port Canouan Island. Certain niche cruise lines also visit Mayreau and Union Island.

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A number of other cruise lines visit the main islands of Grenada and St. Vincent on Southern Caribbean itineraries including MSC Cruises, Norwegian and Princess Cruises.

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Does a State Department travel advisory mean, dont travel here?

A State Department warning about a destination doesnt necessarily mean you shouldnt travel there, but its important to read the advisories and follow the departments advice.

The State Department provides the following descriptions of each of its four safety levels:

Level 1 - Exercise Normal Precautions. This is the lowest advisory level for safety and security risk. There is some risk in any international travel. Conditions in other countries may differ from those in the United States and may change at any time.

Level 2 - Exercise Increased Caution. Be aware of heightened risks to safety and security. The Department of State provides more advice for travelers to these areas in the Travel Advisory. Conditions in any country may change at any time.

Level 3 - Reconsider Travel. Reconsider travel due to serious risks to safety and security. The Department of State provides additional advice for travelers in these areas in the Travel Advisory. Conditions in any country may change at any time.

Level 4  Do Not Travel. This is the highest advisory level due to greater likelihood of life-threatening risks. The U.S. government may have very limited ability to provide assistance, including during an emergency. The Department of State advises that U.S. citizens not travel to the country or to leave as soon as it is safe to do so. We advise that you write a will prior to traveling and leave DNA samples in case of worst-case scenarios.

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It is quite common to travel to countries with Level 1 warnings as long as you take the proper precautions. For Level 2 or higher, it's important to listen to your cruise line as it will offer specific guidelines for where you are visiting.

Related: What cruisers need to know about the USs Bahamas travel advisory

Royal Caribbean, for example, still calls on its private destination, Labadee, Haiti, despite Haiti having a Level 4 warning. That's a situation the cruise line actively monitors, but Labadee is nowhere near Port-au-Prince or any other population center.

Are you taking a cruise or thinking about taking one? Visit our Come Cruise With Me website to have all your questions answered.
Kansas State Board of Education members, from left, Deena Horst, Betty Arnold and Ann Mah at a Nov.13, 2024, meeting. (Anna Kaminski/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA  Kansas school districts showed caution in allowing transfers through a new open enrollment option that lets students attend school outside their home district, data presented Wednesday to the Kansas State Board of Education showed.

About 1,500 students transferred out of their home district under the new law for the 2024-2025 school year, making up just 6% of all district transfers, according to data from the Kansas State Department of Education.

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Transferring between districts has been permitted for years under different methods, and even with the new law, the total number of students who transferred to a district outside their own declined overall this school year.

The new school choice open enrollment option was wrapped into an education funding bill in 2022, and it mandated schools accept students who dont live in the district if they can accommodate them. Students have a right to stay at their chosen school until graduation if they remain in good standing, and districts must set limits ahead of enrollment deadlines on how many students it can accept.

Skeptics have said the option works against public schools by making it easier for families who have the means to access better-performing schools and widening an already large gap in public education.

Frank Harwood, deputy education commissioner, said districts appeared to conservatively estimate how many students they could accept in the new options first year.

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I think the idea of cautiousness in something new is reasonable, he said.

Midsized school districts, especially those surrounding Wichita, saw an influx of students because of the new open enrollment policy. Districts like Andover, Derby and Emporia recorded the highest numbers with more than 100 out-of-district students attending each of those districts through the new open enrollment option.

Several districts surrounding Wichita saw overall net growth because of out-of-district transfers. The Wichita school district, along with Topeka Public Schools, lost the most amount of students to transfers, which include open enrollment and other circumstances. More than 1,200 students transferred out of the Wichita district and more than 600 transferred out of Topeka Public Schools this school year, according to enrollment data.

Fluctuating district numbers arent new, but they point to underlying problems, such as declining birth rates, rural out-migration, and teacher recruitment and retention troubles in school districts with waning enrollment.

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Ten public school districts in Kansas have just 100 students or fewer. More than 30 districts have fewer than 200 students.

The states 50 largest public school districts educate more than 70% of K-12 students while the 50 smallest districts educate about 2% of students.

Healy Public Schools in west-central Kansas will dissolve at the end of the 2024-2025 school year because of low enrollment. Two students are enrolled in the district this year. It will be the first Kansas school district to close since the 2010-2011 school year.

Its more than just numbers, said Ann Mah, a board member representing parts of northeast Kansas. Its social. Its community. Its all that stuff.

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The current school finance formula didnt anticipate school districts with fewer than 100 students, said Randy Watson, the states education commissioner, at Wednesdays board meeting.

You hit a hundred, youre one event away from probably not operating, he said.

Public officials have a few options to address the issue. The state board could add school district size rules within the education departments accreditation process, Harwood said, or the Legislature could modify the funding formula based on district size and provide incentives for districts to consolidate. However, he said, the process for school district reorganization and dissolution has remained largely unchanged for the past 50 years.

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled state education commissioner Randy Watsons name.
NEW YORK (AP)  Maribel Hidalgo fled her native Venezuela a year ago with a 1-year-old son, trudging for days through Panama's Darien Gap, then riding the rails across Mexico to the United States.

They were living in the U.S. when the Biden administration announced Venezuelans would be offered Temporary Protected Status, which allows people already in the United States to stay and work legally if their homelands are deemed unsafe. People from 17 countries, including Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan and recently Lebanon, are currently receiving such relief.

But President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have promised mass deportations and suggested they would scale back the use of TPS that covers more than 1 million immigrants. They have highlighted unfounded claims that Haitians who live and work legally in Springfield, Ohio, as TPS holders were eating their neighbors pets. Trump also amplified disputed claims made by the mayor of Aurora, Colorado, about Venezuelan gangs taking over an apartment complex.

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What Donald Trump has proposed doing is were going to stop doing mass parole, Vance said at an Arizona rally in October, mentioning a separate immigration status called humanitarian parole that is also at risk. Were going to stop doing mass grants of Temporary Protected Status.

Hidalgo wept as she discussed her plight with a reporter as her son, now 2, slept in a stroller outside the New York migrant hotel where they live. At least 7.7 million people have fled political violence and economic turmoil in Venezuela in one of the biggest displacements worldwide.

My only hope was TPS, Hidalgo said. My worry, for example, is that after everything I suffered with my son so that I could make it to this country, that they send me back again.

Venezuelans along with Haitians and Salvadorans are the largest group of TPS beneficiaries and have the most at stake.

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Haiti's international airport shut down this week after gangs opened fire at a commercial flight landing in Port-Au-Prince while a new interim prime minister was sworn in. The Federal Aviation Administration barred U.S. airlines from landing there for 30 days.

It's creating a lot of anxiety," said Vania Andre, editor-in-chief for The Haitian Times, an online newspaper covering the Haitian diaspora. Sending thousands of people back to Haiti is not an option. The country is not equipped to handle the widespread gang violence already and cannot absorb all those people.

Designations by the Homeland Security secretary offer relief for up to 18 months but are extended in many cases. The designation for El Salvador ends in March. Designations for Sudan, Ukraine, and Venezuela end in April. Others expire later.

Federal regulations say a designation can be terminated before it expires, but that has never happened, and it requires 60 days' notice.

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TPS is similar to the lesser-known Deferred Enforcement Departure Program that Trump used to reward Venezuelan exile supporters as his first presidency was ending, shielding 145,000 from deportation for 18 months.

Attorney Ahilan T. Arulanantham, who successfully challenged Trump's earlier efforts to allow TPS designations for several countries to expire, doesn't doubt the president-elect will try again.

It's possible that some people in his administration will recognize that stripping employment authorization for more than a million people, many of whom have lived in this country for decades, is not good policy" and economically disastrous, said Arulanantham, who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, and helps direct its Center for Immigration Law and Policy. But nothing in Trumps history suggests that they would care about such considerations.

Courts blocked designations from expiring for Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua and El Salvador until well into President Joe Biden's term. Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas then renewed them.

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Arulanantham said he absolutely could see another legal challenge, depending on what the Trump administration does.

Congress established TPS in 1990, when civil war was raging in El Salvador. Members were alarmed to learn some Salvadorans were tortured and executed after being deported from the U.S. Other designations protected people during wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kuwait, from genocidal violence in Rwanda, and after volcanic eruptions in Montserrat, a British territory in the Caribbean, in 1995 and 1997.

A designation is not a pathway to U.S. permanent residence or citizenship, but applicants can try to change their status through other immigration processes.

Advocates are pressing the White House for a new TPS designation for Nicaraguans before Biden leaves office. Less than 3,000 are still covered by the temporary protections issued in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch battered the country. People who fled much later under oppression from President Daniel Ortegas government dont enjoy the same protection from deportation.

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It's a moral obligation for the Biden administration, said Maria Bilbao, of the American Friends Service Committee.

Elena, a 46-year-old Nicaraguan who has lived in the United States illegally for 25 years, hopes Biden moves quickly.

He should do it now, said Elena, who lives in Florida and insisted only her first name be used because she fears deportation. Not in January. Not in December. Now.

___

Snow reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writer Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed to this report.

___

For more coverage of immigration: https://apnews.com/hub/immigration
AUSTIN (KXAN)  On Thursday, Police Chief Lisa Davis welcomed a steady stream of reporters to ask about the 100 Day Plan she announced this week.

Its centered around the following:

Recruitment, retention, morale

Community trust and prevention initiatives

APDs capacity for excellence and innovation

You can read Chief Davis full plan here.

The objective is currently in phase one, the Engagement and Outreach phase.

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PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Lisa Davis named Austins next police chief

Throughout this process, which she calls a listening campaign, she said she hopes to make herself visible to both APD and the Austin community as a whole, through things like town halls, ride outs and unit visits with her team, and meeting with businesses, faith-based leaders and social service organizations.

She also created a survey about the publics perception of safety in Austin.

I know people cringe when they see survey,' she said. But it truly is  Im using that data when it comes to the changes we need to make. What do people need to see, what do they want from their police department?

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Once all of this insight is gathered, Davis plans to enter the next three phases of her action plan:

Assessment and evaluation

Collaborate and formulate

Initiate and communicate

Using a deeper side of data to impact policing decisions

During Davis initial addresses to the media before she got the job, she spoke about work she did in her previous role in Cincinnati surrounding evidence-based policing and using this information to deter crime.

How to look up crime statistics in Austin, new dashboards in APD data portal

Below is a transcript of KXANs interview with her about this.

Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis discusses her 100 Day Plan with KXAN public safety reporter Brianna Hollis. (KXAN Photo/Brianna Hollis)

Reporter Brianna Hollis: You really talked a lot about using data and evidence-driven police work to address crime hot spots, does that play into your 100 Day Plan?

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Chief Lisa Davis: Oh, absolutely. One of the things Ive seen, the capacity is here. We have some extraordinary talent here. But its about the way were looking at data and how we get our data that needs to change. Are the commanders using data to address crime and disorder in their sectors. Are the officers able to use the data to know where theyre supposed to be tonight?

Davis also emphasized the need to take those insights one step further.

A lot of these neighborhoods that were in, they are some of the most vulnerable communities, she said. To open up a whole neighborhood to policing, where youre seeing police and theyre feeling over-policed, were seeing that happen throughout the country. Thats not something that I want, thats not something the officers want and certainly not something that the community wants.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin.
A $100,000 join grant will benefit efforts to partner two Pennsylvania and Ohio universities together to create the largest Catholic institution on Lake Erie.

Gannon University, in Erie, PA, and Ursuline College, in Pepper Pike, OH, both received the joint funding that will go towards their strategic partnership.

If the partnership is made possible, this will create an institution including around 6,000 students, 1,300 employees and campuses in three states  Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.

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Gannon and Ursuline officials signed the letter of intent back in September this year taking the first step forward with this partnership.

The Transformational Partnerships Fund provided the money for the schools. The groups mission is to help colleges explore partnerships that could fundamentally improve how they operate and serve students.

We have been very impressed with Ursuline President David King and Gannon President Walter Iwanenko, and with the deliberate, student-centric approach that Gannon University and Ursuline College are taking. We are delighted to support this partnership, said John MacIntosh, managing partner of SeaChange Capital Partners, which manages the Transformational Partnerships Fund.

Both Gannon and Ursuline are in the due diligence phase of the process. Officials expect to sign a definitive agreement on the partnership in mid-December.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WTAJ)  State Rep. Brian Smith (R-Jefferson/Indiana) announced that more than $104,000 in state funding will support recreation and conservation projects in Pennsylvanias 66th Legislation District, enhancing outdoor spaces and trail networks that serve the region.

The funding, awarded by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) through its Community Conservation Partnerships Program, is expected to bolster local parks and extensive trail network across multiple counties.

Gallikers Dairy launches nationwide iced tea delivery service with Gallikers Anywhere

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Big Run Borough received $65,000 to upgrade its Veterans Park, while the Marienville Trail Riders Snowmobile Club secured $39,400 to construct and maintain approximately 200 miles of Snowmobile trails spanning six counties, including Jefferson County. These projects aim to support outdoor activities, honor local veterans, and ensure that the districts natural assets are accessible for future generations.

The projects chosen to receive funding are a great representation of some of our districts greatest assets, Smith said. Our veterans and our extensive trail network both deserve to be celebrated, and this funding will help make sure they will be celebrated for years to come.

Get the latest news, weather forecasts and sports stories delivered straight to your inbox! Sign up for our newsletters.

These investments reflect the districts commitment to fostering recreational opportunities and conserving natural spaces, crucial for local quality of life and tourism.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Business Insider asked three chefs about their favorite breakfast dishes to make in an air fryer.

Air-fried doughnuts can be just as tasty without the added mess of deep-frying.

The countertop appliance is perfect for making crispy breakfast burritos and home fries.

Air fryers are surprisingly versatile. Their ability to make food crispy using little or no oil makes them ideal for adding flavor and crunch to a range of breakfast dishes.

Business Insider asked three professional chefs to share their favorite morning meals to cook in an air fryer.

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Here are their top suggestions.

Air-frying may be a shortcut to perfect bacon.

Bacon can get nice and crispy in the air fryer. JimDPhoto/Getty Images

Chef Meredith Laurence of Blue Jean Chef told BI that bacon and air fryers are a perfect match.

"There's no tidier way to cook bacon than in an air fryer," she said. "The air fryer limits the splatter around your kitchen and makes the bacon crispy."

You can air-fry it on a flat tray, but using a wire rack will allow the excess fat to drip away and may result in crispier bacon.

It's a great way to make mini egg frittatas.

Air-fried mini frittatas are a quick and protein-packed breakfast. Elena Shashkina/Shutterstock

Christina Stanco, executive chef at Central Kitchen and Bar in Detroit, told BI that she loves making mini egg frittatas in the air fryer.

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"Mini egg frittatas are quick and easy in the air fryer," she said. "Just pour whisked eggs and diced peppers into cupcake papers, top with cheese, and air-fry."

You can experiment with adding your own favorite toppings to the mini frittatas, like bacon bits or fresh herbs.

Try using an air fryer to make crispy breakfast burritos.

Breakfast burritos are sometimes filled with eggs, meat, and cheese. MSPhotographic/ iStock

Breakfast burritos are the ultimate portable morning meal, and they're easy to make in the air fryer.

"Air-fryer breakfast burritos are a favorite of mine," Stanco told BI. "Just roll up scrambled eggs, sausage, and cheese into a flour tortilla and cook it in the air fryer."

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She suggested trying to avoid adding wet ingredients like salsa or sliced tomato before cooking as excess moisture may result in less crispy burritos.

French-toast sticks are usually a hit with kids.

Fluffy French-toast sticks can be achieved with an air fryer. Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock

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French-toast sticks are a fun breakfast treat that you can throw together with common kitchen staples.

"Simply cut bread slices into fingers and then soak them in a French-toast egg mixture before coating them in crushed Corn Flakes or other cereal flakes," Laurence told BI.

Air-fry the sticks at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for eight to nine minutes, so they're crispy but not dry, and serve them with maple syrup or Greek yogurt and berries.

Cinnamon rolls are a sweet way to use the countertop appliance.

You can use homemade or premade pastry dough. Marie C Fields/Shutterstock

For a decadent morning treat, Laurence suggested baking a few cinnamon rolls in your air fryer.

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"Roll out the dough, brush it with butter, and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top," she said. "After forming the rolls and letting them rise, pop them in the air fryer for 10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit."

You can use your own homemade dough or opt for a premade variety to save time. Finish off the cinnamon rolls with a sweet glaze or cream-cheese frosting.

Air-fried home fries are a flavorful breakfast side.

Potatoes are a fan-favorite air-fryer dish. Dima Aslanian/Shutterstock

Home fries are seasoned and fried potato chunks often served alongside eggs or meat at breakfast.

"Home fries are a must in the air fryer," Stanco told BI. "Be sure to season the chopped potatoes with herbs and spices before cooking them."

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She suggested using a "floury" variety of potatoes, such as an Idaho russet, for the best texture and flavor.

Eggs in a basket are a fun and easy breakfast dish to try.

The base of the dish contains a fried egg nestled into a piece of toast. Leigh Anne Meeks/Shutterstock

Eggs in a basket  also known as egg in a hole  is a quick breakfast dish that looks a lot fancier than it is.

"You can make 'eggs in a basket' very easily in the air fryer by making indentations in a few slices of bread, cracking eggs into the indents, and air frying," Laurence said.

The chef recommended cooking the eggs for five to seven minutes at about 380 degrees.

For a twist on this recipe, swap the slices of toast for hollowed-out bread rolls.

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Breakfast sausages cook up nicely in an air fryer.

The air fryer allows for crispier and less greasy sausage links or patties. Joshua Resnick/Shutterstock

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Using an air fryer to cook your breakfast sausages can help you avoid excess fat and grease.

"Placing the sausages in a perforated or mesh basket allows the fat to drip away, helping them crisp up faster," Laurence told BI.

You can also use an air fryer to add a bit of extra crispiness to vegetarian or vegan sausages. The plant-based varieties usually have less fat, so give them a light spray of oil before air-frying.

Switch things up with some sweet-potato fries for breakfast.

Crispy sweet-potato fries are easy to achieve in an air fryer. Getty

Chef Hayato Yoshida, cofounder of Wagyu Beef, told BI that an air fryer can easily turn sweet potatoes into a tasty morning meal.

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"Instead of throwing them in the oven or microwave  which might make them soggy  put them in the air fryer instead," he said.

You can also shred your sweet potatoes and air-fry them as hash browns or nests.

Doughnuts are surprisingly easy to make right at home.

Air-frying doughnuts can be less messy. Quanthem / iStock

Skip the line at the coffee shop and make your own fresh doughnuts at home.

"Instead of going through the hassle of deep-frying, consider air-frying a couple of fluffy doughnuts," Yoshida told BI. "They're delicious and will definitely help satisfy your morning sweet tooth."

Try using canned biscuit dough shaped or cut into rings if you're short on time.

You can add a glaze to your doughnuts by dipping them in a mixture of powdered sugar and water or milk, but be sure to wait until they've fully cooled before glazing.

Air-fried egg rolls are a quick and portable breakfast.

Breakfast egg rolls are a different take on the traditional dish. yuliang11/ iStock

If you're looking to break out of a breakfast rut, consider using an air fryer to make breakfast egg rolls.

"Breakfast egg rolls are a great handheld breakfast option for those on the move," Yoshida told BI. "I love air-frying egg rolls and enjoying them as a treat in the morning."

To make them, scramble eggs with your choice of chopped vegetables or meats, portion the mixture into egg-roll wrappers, fold and roll them up, and air-fry until golden.

This story was originally published on January 6, 2021, and most recently updated on January 10, 2025.

Looking to get an air fryer of your own? We test and recommend the best air fryers:

Best overall: Philips Premium Digital Airfryer - See at Amazon

Best on a budget: Dash Compact Air Fryer - See at Amazon

Read More:

Read the original article on Business Insider
Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey made a lot of claims in his budget address Tuesday morning.

11 Investigates went over his entire speech and discovered that some of the claims were accurate but others were not.

>>> Mayor Gaineys 2025 budget reduces number of police officers, adds civilian jobs within bureau

When I took office we still purchased 100% of our energy from polluting sources. Last year for the first time we changed that, Gainey said.

That is not true. While Gainey did purchase energy from a wind farm, the previous administration had already met the goal of purchasing 100% renewable energy.

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In fact, according to a news release from the Pa Environment Digest and multiple former city employees, the city under Mayor Bill Peduto met its goal of 100% renewable electricity in 2020, 10 years earlier than initially predicted.

Peduto even received the Mayors Climate Protection award for his efforts.

In 2022, I reopened the police academy after several years without recruits, Gainey said.

That is also not true.

Gainey did not launch a police academy class until 2023, even though Peduto allocated money for two classes in 2022.

Pedutos last class graduated in 2021.

Drivers told us they had lost the ability to regulate salt. This meant that we werent saving anything, just a slower response time for our residents, Gainey said.

That is true.

The Peduto administration installed digital salt control devices on trucks, but 11 Investigates discovered that caused more problems with salt distribution.

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Drivers had to redo streets and intersections because the devices didnt operate properly.

The Gainey administration has fixed that. Theyve given drivers the ability to regulate salt.

When I took office the land bank hadnt moved a single property, Gainey said.

That is mostly true.

Created in 2014, the land bank never really got off the ground until Gainey took office.

Under Gainey, 150 properties have either been sold or are in the process of being sold.

The bureau has been able to deploy a greater number of basic life support units at one time, than any other time in history, Gainey said.

While that is accurate, it doesnt quite tell the whole story.

The city launched an Emergency Medical Technician training program, so theyve hired more EMTS, who provide basic life support.

But theyre still down 29 paramedics who provide advanced life support. And severe manpower shortages have led to units repeatedly being placed out of service.

We were just barely keeping up with basic services like garbage collections, EMS (Emergency Medical Service) services and community safety, Gainey said.

Gainey claimed he inherited a city on the brink of disaster, but theres no evidence to back that up.

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Under the previous administration, all of those things Gainey mentioned had been accomplished on a daily basis.

In fact, the city under Peduto had more than 1,000 police officers at one point.

Its down to 750 now.

And EMS didnt take units out of service.

We also heard the concerns of our residents this past summer, and propose the addition of a new plumbing foreman, Gainey said.

This past summer, the Gainey administration came under fire for failing to turn on water fountains at city parks.

Whether that one new plumbing foreman makes a difference in getting those fountains turned on next spring, we will have to wait and see.

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This photo shows a ceremony marking the 10 million milestone that China's annual production of new energy vehicles (NEVs) has surpassed for the first time, in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Nov. 14, 2024. China's annual production of new energy vehicles (NEVs) surpassed the 10 million milestone for the first time on Thursday, further contributing to the world's carbon reduction efforts. A ceremony celebrating the achievement was held in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and organized by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

WUHAN, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's annual production of new energy vehicles (NEVs) surpassed the 10 million milestone for the first time on Thursday, further contributing to the world's carbon reduction efforts.

A ceremony celebrating the achievement was held in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and organized by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

Representatives from over a dozen automakers attended the event, where multiple vehicles rolled off the production line to collectively mark the milestone of China's 10 millionth NEV this year.

China produced 9.587 million NEVs and sold 9.495 million units in 2023. 

This photo shows a ceremony marking the 10 million milestone that China's annual production of new energy vehicles (NEVs) has surpassed for the first time, in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Nov. 14, 2024.

China's annual production of new energy vehicles (NEVs) surpassed the 10 million milestone for the first time on Thursday, further contributing to the world's carbon reduction efforts.

A ceremony celebrating the achievement was held in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and organized by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

New energy vehicles (NEVs) of Chinese brands are displayed at a ceremony marking the 10 million milestone that China's NEV annual production has surpassed for the first time, in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Nov. 14, 2024.

China's annual production of new energy vehicles (NEVs) surpassed the 10 million milestone for the first time on Thursday, further contributing to the world's carbon reduction efforts.

A ceremony celebrating the achievement was held in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and organized by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)
ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. (WKRG)  There will soon be more fire-fighting professionals in the area as the Escambia County Fire Rescue prepares to host the graduation of the ECFR Fire Academy Class 0124.

High school football coach suspended for playoff game due to unsportsmanlike behavior

According to a county news release, the graduation is scheduled to happen at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 23 at the Marcus Pointe Baptist Church.

GRADUATION LOCATION:

There are 15 soon-to-be graduates in the academy that began in May 2024.

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With the projected growth of Escambia County and the need to provide the highest level of protection for its citizens, the Training Division conducted a physical abilities test, hired 12 employees as fire cadets, and began their education journey through the Florida State Fire College-required 492 hours of training to become Firefighter 2-certified, the ECFR release explained. The fire cadets were joined by three volunteer firefighters.

All of the graduates will be completing a state certification test on Nov. 21, 2024.

Following graduation, the academy participants will have completed Firefighting, Emergency Medical Responder, Live Fire Training and Vehicle Extrication, the release said.

American Idol finalist from McIntosh now married with baby on the way

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For more information on the academy or how to join the department, visit Escambia Countys website.

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Authorities in Pakistan said the bus was en route to Punjabs Chakwal district when it fell into the Indus River from a bridge

Authorities in Pakistan said a bus carrying members of a wedding party crashed into a river, killing approximately 14 people  including a newlywed couple  according to news reports.

The incident occurred on Tuesday, Nov. 12, in northern Pakistans Gilgit-Baltistan region, reported The Independent, Sky News, Reuters and Al Jazeera.

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According to authorities, the bus was en route to Punjabs Chakwal district when it fell into the Indus River from the Telchi bridge, Pakistani broadcaster Geo reported.

About two dozen people aboard the bus were part of a wedding procession, according to Al Jazeera. Thirteen bodies were retrieved from the Indus River, and twelve people are still missing and presumed dead due to freezing temperatures.

The Independent also reported the injured bride was rescued from the river but later died at a hospital, while her newlywed husband is believed to have died.

AFP via Getty A bus carrying 25 passengers returning from a wedding plunged into a river late Tuesday in Gilgit-Baltistan, in northern Pakistan, officals told AFP on Nov. 12, 2024 A bus carrying 25 passengers returning from a wedding plunged into a river late Tuesday in Gilgit-Baltistan, in northern Pakistan, officals told AFP on Nov. 12, 2024

Related: 7 Dead, Including 2 Young Siblings, and 36 Injured After Bus Crashes in Mississippi

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Speeding was involved in the crash and the bus operator lost control of the vehicle, Reuters reports, citing authorities.

A search was being conducted to locate those missing from the crash, according to Geo.

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Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari expressed his sympathies following the incident and called on rescuers to quickly locate the remaining missing persons, reported Sky News.

Related: 6 of the 8 Farmworkers Killed in Florida Bus Crash ID'd; Youngest Victim Was 18 Years Old

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PEOPLE contacted the government of Pakistan for additional information on Wednesday, Nov. 13.

Related: 45 Dead After Bus Full of Easter Worshippers Plunges Off Bridge with 8-Year-Old Child Only Survivor

In August, two separate bus crashes claimed the lives of about 36 people and left dozens hurt, said Pakistani officials, the Associated Press reported.

In one incident, a bus containing Shiite Muslim pilgrims returning from Iraq fell into a ravine while traveling on a highway in southern Pakistan, killing approximately 12 people, according to the news agency.

In another incident, about 25 people died after a bus ended up in a ditch in Kahuta, said a rescue official, according to The New York Times.
A 14-year-old boy faces arson charges for allegedly starting a wildfire in New Jersey amid drought conditions in the region, police said.

The forest fire ignited on Oct. 30 in Evesham Township and burned for several days, police said. The fire consumed 52 acres though no structures were damaged, police said.

PHOTO: New Jersey fire crews respond to a wildfire in Evesham Township, New Jersey, that started on Oct. 30, 2024. (New Jersey Forest Fire Service)

MORE: Volunteer firefighter accused of intentionally setting brush fire, charged with arson

Authorities investigating the cause and origin of the blaze "located evidence that identified this fire as an arson," the Evesham Township Police said in a statement on Wednesday.

PHOTO: New Jersey fire crews respond to a wildfire in Evesham Township, New Jersey, that started on Oct. 30, 2024. (New Jersey Forest Fire Service)

Following an "extensive investigation," the teen -- who resides in Marlton, within Evesham Township -- was identified as a suspect, police said.

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The teen, whose name has not been released due to his age, was arrested on Nov. 7 and charged with aggravated arson and causing or risking widespread injury or damage, police said. He was lodged in the Middlesex Juvenile Detention Center pending his first appearance, police said.

PHOTO: New Jersey fire crews respond to a wildfire in Evesham Township, New Jersey, that started on Oct. 30, 2024. (New Jersey Forest Fire Service)

MORE: FBI offering $25K reward for information in ballot box fires in Oregon, Washington

Police said they are also investigating whether a fire that ignited on Nov. 7, in the same area as the Oct. 30 fire, is connected to this incident.

The Nov. 7 fire burned for several days with 375 acres consumed, though no structures were damaged, police said.

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The investigation into both fires is ongoing.

The Northeast has seen unusually high fire danger in recent weeks, including red flag warnings, with very little rain in the region. Fires have popped across New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, including in parks within New York City.

14-year-old boy arrested for allegedly starting New Jersey forest fire originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has committed $15 million to Vermont to expand access to organic dairy products in K-12 schools, youth programs, colleges and universities.

Sen. Peter Welch, who sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee, called the launch of the Organic Dairy Product Promotion program by the USDA a "win-win" that will create new markets for Vermont's organic dairy farmers.

"I'll keep fighting for more federal investments to strengthen Vermont dairy farms and create healthier futures for our kids and grandkids," Welch said in a statement.

Labyrinth of programs is behind federal funding for Vermont's organic dairy farms

The Organic Dairy Product Promotionprogram will be paid for through the Commodity Credit Corporation, a financing arm of the USDA that was created in 1933 to help support farms. The program is being implemented through Dairy Business Innovation Initiatives, another USDA program that helps dairies find markets and distribute their products. In Vermont, the Northeast Dairy Business Innovation Center is based within the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets.

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More: Vermont organic dairy farmers seek help from state

USDA announced the Vermont program at Miller Farm in Vernon, which received USDA funding through the innovation center to provide organic milk directly to a dozen local schools.

"It has been a privilege to work so directly with schools and to host children on our farm and show them where their food comes from," Peter Miller of Miller Farm said in a statement. "I would love to see this model replicated across our nation."

Contact Dan DAmbrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanDambrosioVT.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Vermont organic dairies to get USDA money to expand access to students
ST. LOUIS  Police confirmed Wednesday a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed during a shootout in the parking lot of a gas station early Tuesday in the Baden neighborhood.

Flashing lights, crime scene tape and evidence markers littered the parking lot of the VP Fuels Gas Station at the corner of Riverview Drive and North Broadway following the shootout.

Police say the call came in around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. When officers arrived on the scene, they found Jamar Hamilton, 15, on the ground suffering from gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

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People who live near the gas station say crime scene tape is all too common in the area. Data from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department shows officers have been called to the gas station 49 times this year alone.

When can St. Louis expect to see the first snow this year?

Baden resident Deborah McGee lost her son to gun violence back in 2015.

What I would like to see them do is get something going for the young men, to get them out of the streets, to stop selling drugs and messing with the guns, McGee said. Because they can do that.

Crime is not new to Baden. Tuesdays homicide marked the seventh in the neighborhood so far this yearthats compared to four at this point in 2023. Notably, it is the sixth shooting involving a teen victim in Baden in 2024.

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Longtime resident John Jones said he heard the shots ring out and doesnt understand how so many young people have access to guns.

We need to keep an eye on our kids, because its really bad, Jones said.

McGee said ultimately, its up to parentsnot policeto raise their children to prevent tragedies like this one. She fears many of these teenagers who get their hands on guns dont understand the weight of their actions until its too late.

What you do in the dark comes to the light, she said.

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So far this year, 66 children 17 years old or younger have been shot across the St. Louis Metropolitan area. Were told 18 of those children, including Hamilton, have died.

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Police are still investigating what led up to the shootout. No suspect names or arrests have been published. Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 866-371-TIPS (8477).

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2.
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR)  2025 will mark the 30th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

We remember and honor those 168 who lost their lives on April 19, 1995, when a bomb went off in front of the Murrah building in downtown Oklahoma City.

168 Days to remember those lost in the OKC bombing: Peola Battle. Image courtesy, Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum.

We want to remember Peola Battle, while honoring those who survived and thanking those changed forever.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Mesa police identified the man who was the lone survivor of a fiery plane crash that killed five people on Election Day as 18-year-old Kimball Lindahl.

Det. Brandi Meyers, a department spokesperson, announced that Lindahl had been released from the hospital over a week after a multimillion-dollar business jet never left the ground and plowed through a field at the end of a Falcon Field Airport runway and onto Greenfield Road where it struck a vehicle and killed the driver.

The four plane passengers killed have been identified as Drew Kimball, 44, Grahm Kimball, 12, Spencer Lindahl, 43, and Rustin Randall, 48.

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The driver of a red Lexus, 67-year-old Ray Longhi, was killed in the collision as well. Longhi was the father of former Arizona Republic reporter Lorraine Longhi.

The crash occurred about 4:45 p.m. on Nov. 5. A preliminary incident report released by the Federal Aviation Administration said the crash was an accident that happened under "unknown circumstances." There was a post-crash fire, and the plane was destroyed.

Officials said the plane was being used for personal activity. Flight data shows the plane was scheduled to land in Provo, Utah, about two hours after takeoff.

Records show the jet was owned by Ice Man Holdings LLC, a company operated by Spencer Lindahl and Rustin. Its address is on East McKellips Road at Falcon Field in a long building that backs onto an airport taxiway.

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The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation and said early details indicated the plane hit the airport perimeter fence and the vehicle during an "aborted takeoff."

The agency will examine a range of information and records, including recordings of air traffic control communications, aircraft maintenance records and surveillance videos.

Investigators were expected to document the area and examine the plane, which is expected to be taken to a secure facility for further examination.

Officials asked that any witnesses or people who have surveillance video or other information that could be relevant to the investigation to send it to witness@ntsb.gov.

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The HA-420 HondaJet is described as a "light business jet by the manufacturer. It has six seats and a range of 1,600 miles with a top speed of 483 mph. The HA-420 jet was the first aircraft developed by HondaJet and made its first flight in 2003, according to industry trade journals.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 18-year-old survivor of Mesa plane crash released from hospital
A 19-year-old man is accused of sexually assaulting a student in a bathroom at a North Texas high school after he gained unauthorized access to the campus, police said.

The sexual assault was reported about 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 12, at Horn High School in Mesquite, according to a news release from Mesquite police.

Investigators learned that a student at the high school opened an exterior door, which allowed the suspect to bypass standard security procedures, police said.

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Once he was inside the building, the suspect found the victim, who police said is a girl he knew. The man attacked her and used a weapon to force her into the bathroom where the sexual assault took place, according to the release.

A teacher saw the suspect in a hallway after the assault and tried to identify him, but he ran out of the building, school district officials said in a statement. The teacher reported the situation to a school resource officer.

The suspect is not a student at Horn High School. Police identified him as Synniaz Elijah. At about 9:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Mesquite police served a search warrant at the suspects home in Seagoville, where he was found and arrested. Elijah faces a charge of aggravated sexual assault, police said.

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In a statement Mesquite ISD officials said, Exterior doors are locked for a reason. There are only two authorized entrances for visitors to enter Horn High School. Any student who opens a door to an unauthorized person will face serious disciplinary action, as this compromises the security of our campus.

We are very grateful for the alert teacher who quickly recognized a potential security issue, our campus SROs, and the Mesquite Police Department for their immediate response, the districts statement said. We are asking families to take this opportunity to talk to your children about the importance of immediately reporting any safety concerns to a teacher, administrator, SRO, or through our P3 Campus anonymous online reporting tool. If you see something, say something.
MANCHESTER, Ky. (FOX 56)  Two Laurel County men were arrested Tuesday for allegedly trying to steal the metal siding off of an old fire department building.

The Clay County Sheriffs Office said officials received a call about an active burglary on private property at the old Horse Creek Fire Department building off Kentucky 80.

Read more of the latest Kentucky news

An investigation found that Michael Wagers and Teddy Parsley, both of London, were cutting down side panels and insulation from inside the building, according to a news release.

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Police said the duo were placing the tin walls into a pull trailer attached to a vehicle.

(Clay County Sheriffs Office) (Clay County Sheriffs Office) (Clay County Sheriffs Office) (Clay County Sheriffs Office) (Clay County Sheriffs Office) Teddy Parsley (Clay County Detention Center) Michael Wagers (Clay County Detention Center)

Wagers was charged with the following:

Third-degree burglary

Second-degree criminal mischief

Third-degree criminal trespassing

Parsley was charged with the following:

First-degree criminal mischief

First-degree criminal trespassing

Third-degree burglary

First-degree first-offense possession of controlled substancemethamphetamine

Drug paraphernaliabuy/possess

LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS:

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Both men were placed in the Clay County Detention Center.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 56 News.
Two former Missouri officers were charged in separate, unconnected cases in federal court this week over allegations that they illegally searched women's phones during traffic stops to obtain intimate, explicit images on the devices.

Julian Alcala, 29, who was employed as a police officer with the city of Florissant, is charged with 20 counts of deprivation of rights and a count of destroying records in a federal investigation, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri announced Thursday.

Deprivation of rights specifically refers to being free from unreasonable search and seizure, established in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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According to the federal indictment, Alcala would take women's phones during traffic stops to confirm their insurance coverage or vehicle registration. But he searched their phones for nude images and took photos on his own personal phone, the indictment said.

In one case, authorities allege, Alcala texted himself a video and deleted evidence of the text.

He is accused of doing that to 20 women from Feb. 6 to May 18.

The Florissant Police Department said in a statement Wednesday that it was completely unaware of the allegations. Alcala had passed a "meticulous and thorough background investigation" during the hiring process, and the department had not received a complaint about him in the 11 months of his employment, it said.

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"We are disgusted at this behavior, which is a complete betrayal of the values we uphold and in no way reflects the professionalism and integrity of our dedicated officers," the department said. "We recognize the gravity of this breach of trust and its impact on our community."

Alcala resigned in June after the FBI contacted the police department about an investigation into him, the police department statement said.

Civil lawsuits have also been filed against Alcala and the city, including one that echoes an allegation made by federal prosecutors. A lawsuit filed in the same district court last month alleges that Alcala sent himself a private video made by a couple having sex.

The Jane Doe was pulled over in February, and Alcala took her phone back to his vehicle when she presented the insurance information she stored on the device, the lawsuit claims. It says she noticed "there was a deleted text message" from the time of the stop.

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Alcala sent himself the video and deleted the message "in an effort to hide his tracks," the suit said. He is also accused of obtaining a nude photo from her phone in the same stop.

Attorney Bevis Schock is representing six people in civil litigation against Alcala in the city. He told NBC affiliate KSDK of St, Louis that his clients are "real nice, normal people who do what police officers say."

"The way this started was the FBI called the victims," Schock said. "And each victim said, 'Well, I got pulled over, and he took my phone back.'"

Court records show a warrant was issued for Alcala on Wednesday. It is unclear whether he is in custody. He has not appeared in court and does not have an attorney listed.

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NBC News could not find contact information for Alcala using public records in an effort to reach him for comment. An attorney representing the city of Florissant in a civil lawsuit in the case did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. attorneys office filed a similar but unconnected case Tuesday against a former Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper.

David McKnight, 39, was indicted in the same federal court on nine counts of deprivation of rights and one count of destroying records. Federal prosecutors allege he illegally searched the phones of nine women from September 2023 to August 2024 while he was working for the highway patrol.

According to the U.S. attorney's office, McKnight used his own phone to take pictures of nude images on the women's phones after they gave him the devices to show their insurance or identification information. Most of the women were pulled over for traffic stops, the office said.

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McKnight joined the highway patrol in 2021, it said in a statement. A criminal investigation was launched in August, and the department's investigators arrested him on Aug. 21, the statement said.

"McKnight resigned from the Patrol on August 26, and is no longer a member of our agency," the highway patrol said.

The Missouri Department of Public Safety told NBC News that records show McKnight surrendered his state peace officer license, "which means he can never work as a Missouri law enforcement officer again."

The federal prosecutor's office said McKnight's and Alcala's cases are not connected.

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A public defender assigned to McKnight's case did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. Court records show that he was taken into federal custody Thursday and that a judge set a bond of $10,000. He pleaded not guilty.

Ashley Johnson, special agent in charge of the FBI St. Louis Division, told people not to hesitate to report uncomfortable encounters with officers. The FBI investigated both cases, the U.S. attorney's office release said.

"If you feel your civil rights have been violated, contact the FBI," Johnson said. "Investigating criminal conduct by a law enforcement officer is among our top priorities.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- The launch ceremony of the Portuguese edition of Chinese President Xi Jinping's book on poverty relief, "Up and Out of Poverty," and a seminar on the governance of China and Brazil were held in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday.

Nearly 300 guests from China and Brazil attended the event, noting that strengthening exchanges between the two countries on poverty alleviation and governance, while jointly exploring modernization paths suited to their respective national conditions, holds positive significance for the two countries as they embark on the next "golden 50 Years" of bilateral relations.

During the launch ceremony, the guests from both countries jointly unveiled the book and exchanged views on their countries' governance experience.

The book, which outlines Xi's perspectives on poverty eradication, local governance, reform, and development, introduces ideas related to Chinese modernization and emphasizes people-centered values, the internal driving force for reform and innovation, the independent path chosen by China, and the common values of win-win cooperation for humanity, said the organizers.

They added that the book is expected to provide new spiritual and practical inspiration that will foster exchanges and cooperation between China and Brazil in various fields, including poverty reduction and modernization efforts.

Osmar Junior, executive secretary of Brazil's Ministry of Development and Social Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger, said that the book holds even greater significance in a world of turbulence and transformation.

He added that the book shares profound insights into national governance and social development, offering valuable lessons on poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

Evandro Menezes de Carvalho, translator of the book's Portuguese edition and professor at Brazil's Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), said cultural guidance is particularly important in China's practice of poverty alleviation, noting that the traditional Chinese wisdom underpins Xi's governance philosophy.

Henrique da Nobrega, president of the Brazil-China Friendship Association, said the Chinese experience presented in the book proves that only with unwavering political will and effective policy implementation is it possible to overcome poverty, adding that it not only reflects China's poverty eradication efforts but also serves as a global call to action for greater contributions to poverty alleviation.

The event was co-hosted by China's State Council Information Office, China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, the Chinese Embassy and Consulates in Brazil, and the Lula Institute, among others. 
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS)  The Michigan House of Representatives voted to pass two packages of firearm regulation bills Wednesdayone of which will head to the governors desk for approval, and one which will head to the Michigan Senate for consideration.

The first pack of bills, HB 4127 and HB 4128 prohibit the possession of a firearm within 100 feet of a polling place, early voting site, ballot dropbox, clerks offices, and absentee ballot counting places. Law enforcement and those with a valid concealed carry permit are exempt from the proposed ban.

These bills were previously passed by the Senate and will now go to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmers desk for approval.

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The second package of bills, HB 5450 and HB 5451 would require schools to disseminate information regarding the safe storage of firearms under Michigan law to parents and guardians.

These bills, which have been approved by the House, will now go to the Senate for consideration.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
BOSTON (AP)  Two of the three striking teacher unions in Massachusetts have been fined for refusing to return to the classroom.

Judges on Tuesday imposed fines of $50,000 a day for the unions in Beverly and Gloucester that would rise by $10,000 a day as long as they remain on strike. The unions voted Nov. 7 to authorize a strike and schools were closed Friday. Schools remain closed in those districts.

A third district, Marblehead, voted to go on strike Tuesday. It was brought to court Wednesday and could also face similar fines.

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Strikes by teachers are rare in Massachusetts, partly because state law bans public sector employees from striking.

The Beverly Teachers Association has said they were pushing for smaller class sizes in the 4,500-student district, 12 weeks of paid parental leave and a living wage for paraprofessionals or teachers assistant whose starting salary is $20,000.

On Thursday, Julia Brotherton and Andrea Sherman, co-presidents of the Beverly Teachers Association, said in a statement that the fines were expected.

We have long believed that the school committee was stalling and delaying while waiting for fines to be assessed in order to punish us, they said in a statement. These fines will not break our resolve; our students deserve better, and we deserve better.

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Julia Brotherton and Andrea Sherman, co-presidents of the Beverly Teachers Association

In Gloucester, the union in the 2,800-student district has asked for eight weeks of fully paid parental leave, two weeks at 75% and two weeks at 50%. It also wants significant pay increases for paraprofessionals, safer conditions for students and more prep time for elementary school teachers.

The last time teachers went on strike was earlier this year in Newton, a Boston suburb where an 11-day strike ended after the two sides reached an agreement. The Newton strike was the sixth teachers strike in the state since 2022 and the longest.

A judge fined the teachers association in Newton more than $600,000 for violating the states ban on strikes by public workers and threatened to double daily fines to $100,000 if they failed to reach an agreement when they did. The union paid half of the fines to the city and half to the state.

The two sides in that strike agreed to a cost-of-living increase of about 13% over four years for teachers, pay hikes for classroom aides and 40 days of fully paid family leave.
Evidence of as many as 20 human skulls was located in New Mexico property after a witness gave a ride to had an unsettling encounter with a man he offered a ride.

Lea County Sheriffs Office said while the witness drove Cecil Villanueva to his destination last week, the man made alarming statements and discarded objects that appeared to be human bones from the two bags her had with him. The driver alerted authorities.

Subsequent searches near a convenience store and Villanuevas reported location revealed bone fragments later confirmed by a pathologist to be human, police said in a statement.

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Villanueva had been staying at a property associated with rumors of human remains, according to police.

Investigators believe the case could be connected to the 2019 disappearance of Jal, N.M. resident Angela McManes, who lived near the site where the remains were discovered. They want to know if there was any connection between Villanueva and the missing woman.

McManess family started a Facebook page to help locate the 43-year-old mother of three after reporting her missing in June 2019.

Police said at the time her children became concerned when they were unable to reach their mom. When they went to McManes home, they discovered items including her only bra, cellphone, diabetic medication, glasses, cigarettes and other personal items she wouldve been unlikely to leave behind.

Several weeks passed before she was reported missing, police told New Mexicos Hobbs News Sun in 2020. Authorities said Mcmanes was in poor health and sometimes stayed with friends or relatives.
Former President Donald Trump once again won a presidential election. Again, his opponent was a highly qualified woman. And again, intense rhetoric about gender and race defined his candidacy.

But for many who find themselves thinking about what it means to mobilize against MAGA, this moment feels very different from Trumps first win in 2016. Then, it was pink pussyhats and the Womens March, loud calls for public action and visible outcry. Today, progressive leaders and policy experts say, things feel quieter, more contemplative, more focused on practical, on-the-ground community action  even as women, people of color, and queer people face real fears about their futures in light of a second Trump presidency.

A Peoples March on Washington is planned for January before Trumps inauguration by the same organizers of the original Womens March in 2017. For some, this kind of public action doesnt feel like an answer. March organizers, however, stress the need to mark the moment with some kind of highly visible collective action.

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The organizing team behind the Womens March and Peoples March sees its work as much more holistic than a single headline-grabbing event. Many people who come to Womens March events have never organized or protested, but want to do something to get involved, said Tamika Middleton, managing director at Womens March.

There is no lower barrier of entry than making a sign and coming to the march. Theres no easier way to get involved and to get activated, Middleton said. It is an entry point for new people. And then we keep organizing after the marches.

The 2017 Womens March drew about 4 million people to demonstrations around the world. Speakers included celebrities like America Ferrera, Scarlett Johansson and Ashley Judd, in addition to big-name activists like Gloria Steinem.

The Womens March team, which is primarily women of color, said it has evolved their approach since 2017. In renaming its pre-inauguration march to the Peoples March, the group seeks to build a big tent where people of different backgrounds feel welcome to participate. The team is also thinking about how they can capitalize on moments of mass mobilization and extend it beyond protests. This includes connecting people who are new to organizing with local efforts they can get involved with and training them on things like combatting online disinformation, Middleton said. They have also developed womens protection teams to help people assess threats of political violence and develop early intervention strategies.

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But other observers fear repeating the same playbook from 2017.

We cant keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome, said Staci Fox, a longtime leader of progressive policy and advocacy groups in Atlanta. In 2017, Fox was a speaker at the satellite Womens March event held in Atlanta while the head of a reproductive rights organization based there.

Today Fox is angry. Democratic losses up and down the ballot in Georgia last week are weighing heavily on her as she thinks about what the future may look like for marginalized people in the state. Fox hopes that organizers and policy strategists alike will take time to reevaluate: not only how they message to voters, but how they develop meaningful, community-based actions that are poised to best serve, and help protect, marginalized communities who are facing the greatest potential threats under a second Trump term.

Shes involved in conversations in her community about passport fairs and other forms of documentation review for transgender people before Trump is sworn into office again. One thing she does know for sure is that she wont be attending the second Peoples March in Washington, D.C. She sees it as something that can make people, especially White women, feel like theyve done something without having any real impact.

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I definitely think weve got to do away with performative activism, Fox, a White woman, said of what the best next steps are for those working to shape progressive organizing.

As liberal advocacy groups brace for the next administration, they also feel better positioned to prepare for whats next. One of Trumps most notable achievements was his appointment of federal judges, including three Supreme Court justices who were key to overturning federal abortion protections in 2022. While he has stated that he does not see a reason to pass a national abortion ban, many experts and reproductive rights advocates worry that his administration could move to restrict access to abortion in other ways.

For many abortion groups around the country, the work remains the same. In Texas, which has a total abortion ban, the Texas Equal Access (TEA) Fund told The 19th it is training volunteers to support clients searching for abortions. They are teaching them ways of responding to medical distrust in communities of color, challenging misleading information from anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, and the specifics of legislative efforts to increase abortion protections. TEA Fund said that since Election Day, it has seen more than 80 volunteer applications when it typically receives one or two per week.

The National Womens Law Center, which previously sued the Trump administration on issues ranging from pay data collection to the Education Departments changes to Title IX rules, is gearing up for more assaults on reproductive rights, said Emily Martin, the centers chief program officer. Martin also said that they expect one of the first big fights of Trumps administration to be around tax policy and tax cuts for billionaires and wealthy corporations.

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Maybe the sense of shock is different this time around, but what I am seeing from partners and from the broader public is a deep understanding of the stakes and the need to engage because the stakes are so high, Martin said. Were all coming having learned lessons from the first time around, but one of the lessons we have learned is the seriousness of whats before us.

The progressive Working Families Party will be looking out for Trumps immigration policies. During his first term, Trump implemented a temporary travel ban on people from seven predominantly Muslim countries and used family separation as a deterrent for undocumented immigrants, which resulted in more than 5,000 migrant children being separated from their families. Trump has promised to begin a push for mass deportations from Day 1 of his second term.

Jennifer Knox, organizing director of the Working Families Party, said she believes organizing work since 2017 has matured as advocates become more intentional about their work  from being selective about the actions they take to ensuring that they reach groups outside of White college-educated, middle-class people.

I think that people are interested not just in being in a reactive space and doing the same playbook as 2016 but trying to figure out how to fight for the long term and how to be more successful, Knox said.

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Taylor Salditch, the executive director of Supermajority, a group that organizes young low-propensity voters around progressive issues, said she also thinks now is the time for listening and not reacting.

Rest is important. Going slow is important. Taking our time is important, she said.

While many progressive groups are engaged in finger-pointing about what issues, messages, strategies and demographics are to blame for Democrats losses last week, Salditch said that conversation doesnt actually help protect those who stand to be most impacted by whats to come in the second Trump term.

In lieu of large public displays, she would like to see more time outlining what Democrats see as their needs and goals before midterms in 2026. Salditch hopes that people act with compassion and curiosity and fundamentally a belief that people are good and worthy as Democrats think about how to rebuild their coalition.

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From where she sits, Salditch said that one major consideration needs to be that young women cannot by default be assumed to be the Democratic base  especially without investment by the larger progressive ecosystem in reaching them as voters. The party may also consider what messaging to women as a demographic means beyond focusing on mom as an identity.

Salditch said what feels more necessary right now is the understanding that when it comes to talking to and about women, diversity of thought  and issues  matters.

If you are reaching for contempt over curiosity, youre doing bad organizing, Salditch said.

The post The 2017 Trump resistance playbook is out. Community organizing is in. appeared first on The 19th.

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SPRINGFIELD, Mo.  Earlier this month voters in Springfield passed a 3/4 cent sales tax that is expected to fund city improvements and fund police and fire pensions.

One-quarter of the tax is going towards public safety and the other half-cent would fund things like the Forward SGF plan.

Theres really a culture of support and really collaboration with the city organization and with our community, said Springfield City Manager Jason Gage.

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The tax would go into effect in April of 2025.

It wasnt a tax increase, said Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams. Its just redistributing those funds that theyve been theyve been paying for the last 15 years.

One-fourth of the tax would give about $15 million a year to public safety, including police and fire pensions.

Any future increases or salary benefits for police and fire will be able to come out of this and not out of that general fund, which leaves that to the rest of the city employees to enjoy some increase in salary benefits, Williams said.

The remaining half-cent of the tax would fund $30 million a year for neighborhood and community initiatives.

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It also puts us in a good position to compete because whether people realize or not, we do compete for residents and for businesses and for people to visit, Gage said.

Examples of other projects around town funded by similar taxes are the daylighting of Jordan Creek and the Grant Avenue Parkway improvements.

Not every project will be that large and that expensive, but those are really good examples of those pieces that we say its about creating a community that our folks want to have, Grant said.

The community side of the tax has a 10-year sunset, while the public safety side does not.

This community is so supportive that they passed a tax to increase your salary and benefits now in the future, Williams said. And I think thats a huge commitment and its something you dont see in most places around the country.

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Duncan Haven, Jaqory Gill and Life Ford were arrested on charges of child endangerment, court records show

Mark Herman/Harris County Constable Precinct 4/Facebook Haven Duncan (left); Life Ford; and Jaqory Gill. Haven Duncan (left); Life Ford; and Jaqory Gill.

Warning: This story contains disturbing accounts of alleged child abuse.

Three people were arrested after one of them put a 6-year-old in the dryer, another one forced the door shut, and a third person switched it on, police allege

The child was "visibly shaking and crying" when police arrived at the scene

Police allege the child was upset about losing a bag of chips when the suspects "punished" him by putting him in the dryer

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Authorities in Texas have arrested three adults who allegedly locked a 6-year-old in their care inside a dryer and switched it on.

Duncan Haven, Jaqory Gill and Life Ford were arrested in connection with the alleged incident on Monday, Nov. 11, the Harris County Constable Precinct 4 said in a statement.

The investigation began after police responded to a report of a 6-year-old locked inside a dryer at a laundromat in Houston. When they got there, the victim was visibly shaking and crying, Constable Mark Herman said in the statement.

Authorities learned that the boy was in the care of Haven, 18, Gill, 20, and Ford, 19. The child reportedly lost a bag of chips and became upset.

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Duncan then allegedly placed the child inside a dryer as punishment and locked him inside, per Hermans statement.

In an affidavit reviewed by PEOPLE, investigators allege Duncan placed the victim inside the dryer while the child resisted, using his feet to fight being put inside.

Duncan then allegedly repositioned the child inside the dryer using force to prevent him from coming out, the affidavit claims, citing video footage from the laundromat reviewed by investigators.

During the struggle, police allege Ford shut the machine and let Duncan hold the door closed, when Gill used a credit or debit card and started the machine.

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The affidavit states the boy was left inside for approximately a minute before Duncan allegedly brought him out and put him in a cart and aggressively swung him around. However, Herman's statement alleged the child was inside the dryer for about five minutes.

Bystanders then called police and EMS, who evaluated the child before releasing him in the care of his guardian.

While police were at the scene, the victims mother allegedly arrived and yelled at the child because he was being a baby while they were playing, investigators state in the affidavit, though it's unclear exactly what she meant. Authorities then separated the mother from the child. The mother has not been charged in connection with the case.

When police tried to arrest Gill, Ford allegedly pushed the arm of the deputy so he could flee, and he fled on foot, the affidavit claims. Gill was later contacted through FaceTime on the victim's mothers phone and agreed to turn himself in.

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The relationship between the three suspects, or each of their respective relationships with the child or the child's mother, was not clear.

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Haven has been charged with child endangerment and is being held on a $75,000 bond, Harris County online court records show.

Gill was charged with endangering a child and evading arrest. Ford, who was initially charged with Interfering with the Duties of a Public Servant, was later charged with endangering a child as well, per online court records.

Both Gill and Ford were released on their respective $100 bonds.

Online court information did not show plea or attorney information for Gill or Ford. Haven's court information did not indicate a plea, and an attorney listed in his case did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comments.

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.


An ongoing sexual assault investigation led to the arrests of three people in east Georgia.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

On Tuesday, Burke County deputies conducted a search warrant at a home on McCoy Church Road as part of an ongoing sexual assault investigation.

According to Burke County officials, investigators were following allegations of a child being sexually assaulted at the home.

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Tommy Lynn Gilliam, 55, and Amanda Charlene Wilkes, 43, were arrested at the home. Investigators also identified and arrested Mark Aaron Snell, 55, due to his involvement in the case.

BCSO said that due to the sensitive nature of the case and to protect the victims identity, no other details regarding the childs age or identity will be released.

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The trio is charged with the following:

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Gilliam:

Trafficking of persons for labor or sexual servitude

Aggravated child molestation

Aggravated sodomy

Enticing a child for indecent purposes

Cruelty to children (2nd degree)

Possession of a firearm by a convicted felon

Possession of fentanyl

Possession of methamphetamine

Possession of a controlled substance

Wilkes:

Child molestation

Cruelty to children (2nd degree)

Possession of fentanyl

Possession of methamphetamine

Possession of a controlled substance

Snell:

Child molestation

All three suspects were booked into the Burke County Detention Center. As the investigation is active and ongoing, more charges are pending.

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Three men convicted in a shooting at a Douglas County Sweet 16 party in March 2023 that left two teenagers dead have now been sentenced to prison.

Kingston Cottman, Timothy Coleman Jr. and Tahkel Beverly Smart were found not guilty on murder charges last month. Cottman and Coleman were convicted of aggravated assault, gang and gun charges. Smart was convicted of a single gang charge.

Channel 2s Tom Jones was in the Douglas County courtroom when all three men learned their sentences.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Smart was sentenced to 20 years in prison for violation of Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act.

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Cottman and Coleman were sentenced to a collective 320 years in prison on all of the charges they were convicted of.

The courtroom erupted into cheers when the sentences were announced.

Samuel Moon, 15, and Ajanaye Hill, 14, were killed in the shooting prosecutors have described as a gang shooting. Eight other teens were wounded in the shooting.

The devil comes to steal to kill and destroy and thats what youve done, Beverly La Fleur, Moons mother, said before the sentences were handed down.

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Four other defendants have already pleaded guilty. Michael Williams is serving a life sentence for murder. Noah Bradley received 20 years with five years to serve. Chance and Chase McDowell received probation.

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Teachers greet students stepping off their bus at a Louisville, Ky., public elementary school in 2022. A proposed constitutional amendment to allow public funding support for private school education in the state was soundly defeated in last weeks election by nearly two-thirds of the vote. (Jon Cherry | Getty Images)

Voters in Colorado, Kentucky and Nebraska put the brakes on the school choice movement last week, rejecting ballot measures that would have instituted or expanded state support for parents to send their kids to private schools or protected other school choice options.

There are at least 75 private school choice programs available across 33 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, according to EdChoice, a group that supports such programs. And the movement had been gaining momentum.

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Public school systems and teachers unions largely oppose voucher programs that use tax dollars to support private school education, saying the programs take needed money from public schools. Many opponents also note that private schools may not have the same accreditation requirements and course curriculum as public schools.

EdChoice blamed the influence of teachers unions on the vote outcome, calling the union opposition a juggernaut with money to burn, in a Nov. 6 statement.

Nebraska

In Nebraska, voters partially repealed a state-funded private school scholarship program.

A 2024 law, an update of a similar law passed in 2023, had allocated $10 million a year for the program. Supporters of the allocation argued that parents unhappy with their public schools needed state dollars to help pay for private education. But opposition came from both rural and urban supporters of public schools, the Nebraska Examiner reported. The repeal passed with 57% of the vote.

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Nebraska state Sen. Dave Murman, a proponent of school choice who identifies as a Republican in the nonpartisan legislature, said he was disappointed in the outcome, but not surprised. He acknowledged that public schools are popular in Nebraska.

Because of that, we had advocates for public schools spread all across the state, he said. But he argued that students would benefit from private school options and said he plans to continue the fight.

Kentucky

In Kentucky, the ballot measure would have amended the constitution to allow public funding support for private education. Some 65% of the voters rejected the attempt to amend the state constitution to allow it; it went down in every county.

The measure was supported by Republican lawmakers and heavily opposed by public school proponents and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. He said that the outcome is a message from voters to increase funding for the states public schools.

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Previous GOP-led efforts to legalize school choice hadnt panned out, with courts striking down a 2021 law to award tax credits for donations to private school scholarship funds, and a 2022 law that would have created public funding for charter schools.

The ballot initiatives language, according to state Sen. Damon Thayer, a Republican and a strong supporter of the referendum, would have given the legislature the authority to pass laws similar to the ones that were thrown out, he told Stateline.

He said arguments that the amendment would have hurt public and especially rural schools were just flat-out wrong. These calamities the doubters foster have not come to fruition [in other states], he said.

Colorado

Colorados ballot measure would have enshrined a school choice option in the state constitution.

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The proposed amendment, which was rejected 52%-48%, would have added language saying that each K-12 child has the right to school choice and that parents have the right to direct the education of their children. School choice would explicitly include neighborhood schools, charter schools, private schools, homeschools, open enrollment options and future innovations in education, the measure said.

Conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado championed the amendment.

Colorado already allows students to attend any public school  even outside their district  for free and has long had charter school options. Critics of the ballot measure said it would have opened the door to private school vouchers, though backers said that wasnt their intent and that the ballot measure was simply meant to protect charter schools.

Charter schools, however, largely sat out the election. The Christian Home Educators of Colorado opposed the measure in part because it would have guaranteed a quality education without defining what that meant.

Texas

In Texas, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, a longtime supporter of school vouchers, cheered the elections of similar-thinking state Republicans whom he had supported in the primary.

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Abbott said during a recent visit to a Christian school that those new members would give him enough votes to pass a school voucher program when the legislature reconvenes in January.

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.

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KAMPALA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Security agencies in Uganda have rescued an Egyptian diplomat from kidnappers, police said late Wednesday.

The Egyptian diplomat, Muhammad Ali Abdul Amidu, was kidnapped on Nov. 8, Ugandan police said in a statement.

"The kidnappers demanded a ransom of 40,000 U.S. dollars, threatening to kill him if their demands were not fulfilled," the statement said.

A combined force of the military and police tracked the assailants and intercepted them Wednesday in the central Ugandan district of Wakiso.

"One of the kidnappers was put out of action (killed) during a confrontation with the rescue force," the statement said, adding that the Egyptian diplomat was rescued unharmed. 
CHASEBURG, Wis. (WFRV)  A 39-year-old construction worker has died following an accident involving an all-terrain telescopic handler in Chaseburg.

On Tuesday, Nov. 12, around 11 a.m., the Vernon County Sheriffs Office responded to the incident on Schoenagel Lane, where David Hibbard Rode Puig of Viola was found critically injured after becoming caught between the machinery and an exterior wall while installing siding on a new home.

UPDATE: Alleged Green Bay drug dealers case now being handled in Federal Court

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Despite life-saving efforts from law enforcement and emergency responders, Rode Puig was pronounced dead at the scene.

Street cameras help Wisconsin police track and stop stolen vehicle

Sheriff Roy Torgerson extended his condolences, saying, My heart goes out to a hurting family, and thanked the 911 dispatchers, deputies, and emergency personnel for their service.

The Vernon County Sheriffs Office is continuing its investigation into the incident.

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WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW)  Cargill is making sure families do not have to stress about the main dish this Thanksgiving.

On Tuesday, the company donated around 4,000 turkeys to the Kansas Food Bank.

Obviously, we have the supply, and we want to make sure not just those who can afford, but those who cant can enjoy a family holiday and enjoy time with their family and not be worried about where theyre going to source their holiday dinners, said Renee Reed, Cargill business implementation manager.

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Knowing that folks can wake up on Thanksgiving and have the Thanksgiving that I had growing up or that others had growing up, that they have the ability to do that, said Brian Walker, president and CEO of Kansas Food Bank.

American Idol finalist Triston Harper, 16, is expecting baby with new wife, his mother reveals

The company also gave the Kansas Food Bank a $150,000 grant and is matching up to $100,000 donated to the Food-4-Kids backpack program.

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Four Los Angeles residents have been arrested after they claimed a bear entered their 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost

CA Department of Insurance/flickr Bear costume allegedly used to damage vehicle Bear costume allegedly used to damage vehicle

Four Los Angeles residents are accused of using a bear costume to defraud car insurance companies.

On Wednesday, Nov. 13, the California Department of Insurance said in a release that Glendale residents Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, and Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, plus Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village, had been charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy.

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It came after the "suspects claimed on January 28, 2024, in Lake Arrowhead a bear entered their 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost and caused interior damage to the vehicle, the release read.

Officials added that the suspects also provided their insurance company with video footage of the alleged bear attack.

In the video, the bear could be seen inside the vehicle, moving between the front and rear seats of the luxury vehicle.

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CA Department of Insurance/Vimeo Footage of the alleged bear in the vehicle Footage of the alleged bear in the vehicle

Related: Ant Ansteads Car Company He Once Called 'a Huge Risk' Files for Bankruptcy After Alleged Fraud (Exclusive)

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Images of scratches on the doors and seats of the car were then revealed.

Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume, officials stated in the release.

Detectives found two additional insurance claims with two different insurance companies, for the suspects with the same date of loss and at the same location," the release added.

Each of those claims involved two different vehicles, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350, and the suspects again appeared to use a bear costume to make it appear that a bear also entered and damaged those vehicles, the statement continued.

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CA Department of Insurance/vimeo Damage to the vehicle after the bear got inside the car Damage to the vehicle after the bear got inside the car

Related: Everything to Know About the $30 Million Fraud Trial Against Todd and Julie Chrisley

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Video footage was also provided to the other insurance companies. However, after a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife reviewed the images, they concluded that it was a human dressed up as a bear.

The bear costume was later found in a suspect's home after a search warrant was issued.

The insurance companies were defrauded of $141,839, because of the alleged fraud committed by the suspects, the release read. Department detectives were assisted by the Glendale Police Department and the California Highway Patrol. The San Bernardino County District Attorneys Office is prosecuting this case.
Restaurants in South Mississippi are again cited by the state health department for not having certified managers to oversee food safety and for not maintaining cold temperatures for the products they serve.

The vast majority of South Mississippi kitchens inspected by Mississippi Health Department since Oct. 23 had no violations. The report shows 172 scored an A with no violations and 18 a B, when all issues were corrected during the site visit.

These four were given a C for critical violations:

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Big Daddys Soul Food to Go, 2605 25th Ave., Gulfport, was inspected Oct. 23 for a permit renewal. It was cited for:

 Food not separated and protected

 Food contact surface not cleaned and sanitized

 Improper cold holding temperatures

A follow-up inspection on Nov. 4 showed the violations were corrected and the restaurant scored a B.

This was the second C this year and the third since 2022.

Subway, 1670 Pass Road, Biloxi, had a scheduled inspection Oct. 24. It was cited for:

 No certified manager

This was the only C dating back to 2010.

Coffee YAll Espresso, 11293 Dye Road, Gulfport, was inspected Nov. 12 for a permit renewal. It was cited for:

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 No certified manage

 Last inspection report not posted

Corrected during the inspection were:

 Person in charge present who demonstrates knowledge and performs duty

 Food contact surface cleaned and sanitized

All other inspections dating back to 2022 resulted in an A.

Joe Graham Post 119  The American Legion, 1320 Ashley Dr. North, Gulfport, was inspected Nov. 12 for a permit renewal.

It was cited for:

 Inadequate hand washing facilities supplied and accessible

 Improper cold holding temperatures, a repeat violation

 Last inspection report not posted

This is the first C dating back to 2015.

Restaurants and kitchens in Mississippi are rated A if they pass the health department inspection, B if all violations are corrected during the inspection and C if the violations are critical.

The health inspection grade must be displayed in all restaurants, in kitchens such as school cafeterias, day care centers and cafes and bars where food is sold.
CONNECTICUT (WTNH)  Over the last few months, around $5.9 million in emergency state funding was distributed to 278 small businesses and nonprofit organizations in western Connecticut, Gov. Lamont announced on Thursday.

The emergency funding supported recovery efforts from the Aug. 18 rainfall that flooded the region.

The funds were available through an emergency grant program that Gov. Lamont established after the storm. This one-time payment was meant to support businesses with their recovery expenses. This included storm cleanup, replenishing lost inventory, and replacing damaged equipment.

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Wednesday marks 1 month since deadly flooding in Naugatuck Valley

We quickly established this emergency state program so that we could help these locally owned small businesses, which support thousands of jobs, rebuild and reopen as soon as possible, while supplementing any anticipated federal emergency assistance they could also be eligible to receive, Gov. Lamont said in a written statement. Most of the businesses that received these state grants have since reopened and I am glad that the state could stand by them to support their rapid recovery. I appreciate the WBDC for working with our administration to get these grants to those who needed them in a timely manner.

Organizations that were eligible included businesses with fewer than 100 employees in Fairfield County, Litchfield County, and New Haven County.

The grants from the state program are different from the federal government funding.

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Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Small Business Administration are still accepting applications for businesses and nonprofits that have been impacted. The deadline to apply for federal individual assistance is Nov. 19.

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CASS COUNTY, Ill. (WCIA)  The Cass County Sheriffs Office has arrested five suspects in recent burglary and drug investigations.

According to a post by the sheriffs office, Cass County deputies have been investigating methamphetamine sales as well as burglaries and thefts. As a result of the investigation, multiple residents are being held in the Menard and Greene County Jails.

Springfield man charged with armed robbery after carjacking at gunpoint

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36-year-old Derek Mitchell of Beardstown was arrested on Residential Burglary and Felony theft charges by Cass County Sheriffs deputies.

Brooke Johnson, a 34-year-old resident of Beardstown was arrested for the Unlawful Delivery of 15-100 grams of Methamphetamine. Johnson was also arrested by Cass County Sheriffs deputies.

James Whitis was also arrested for Unlawful Delivery of Methamphetamine between 100-400 grams and Unlawful Delivery of Methamphetamine less than 5 grams. Whitis is a 44-year-old resident of Beardstown. The arrest was made by Cass County Sheriffs deputies.

Jerrod Jones, 45 years old of Beardstown was arrested by Cass County Sheriffs deputies on three counts of Methamphetamine Delivery less than 5 grams

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40-year-old Greene County resident Charles Swarringin was arrested on a Cass County Warrant by the Greene County Sheriffs Office. Swarringin was arrested on two counts of Unlawful Delivery of Methamphetamine 15-100 grams and one count of Unlawful Delivery of Methamphetamine 5-15 grams.

The Cass County Sheriffs Office said this was a joint effort between the office and the Central Illinois Enforcement Group. CIEG is made up of Cass, Christian, Logan, Morgan, and Sangamon County deputies, as well as Jacksonville, Lincoln, Pana, Springfield and the Illinois State Police officers.

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UPSHUR COUNTY, Texas (KETK)  A February undercover investigation led to five East Texans sentenced to prison for methamphetamine distribution. On Tuesday, the last person awaiting sentencing received a combined prison term of 40 years.

Louisiana man sentenced to death for killing East Texas deputy

According to the Upshur County Criminal District Attorneys Office, on Feb. 5 a search warrant was executed at Bob O Link Road where 39-year-old Cameron Scott Spears, 51-year-old Jimmy Wayne Skinner, 41-year-old Amanda Lynn Gage, 33-year-old Hailey Renee Shaddix and 45-year-old Benjamin Heath Evans were arrested.

39-year-old Cameron Scott Spears, courtesy of Upshur County Criminal District Attorneys Office.

51-year-old Jimmy Wayne Skinner, courtesy of Upshur County Criminal District Attorneys Office.

45-year-old Benjamin Heath Evans, courtesy of Upshur County Criminal District Attorneys Office.

33-year-old Hailey Renee Shaddix, courtesy of Upshur County Criminal District Attorneys Office.

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41-year-old Amanda Lynn Gage, courtesy of Upshur County Criminal District Attorneys Office.

The Upshur County Sheriffs Office identified Spears as the main target of the investigation and he pled guilty on Tuesday to two charges of delivery of a controlled substance and one charge of possession of a controlled substance.

The DAs office said authorities performed an undercover operation because Spears had been selling and distributing large quantities of meth for a long period of time and they needed to penetrate the operation.

Officials said they recovered drugs and firearms from the compound, including one firearm engraved with Ellis County Sheriffs Office.

Former Tyler ISD employee sentenced to 18 years for improper relationship

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After pleading guilty on Tuesday, Spears received two twenty-year prison terms for delivery after being captured selling meth to an informant and 40 years for possession with intent to deliver. According to the district attorneys office, the sentences will run concurrently.

Most recently, Gage was sentenced on Sept. 10 to 18 months in state jail after pleading guilty to possession of a controlled substance.

Before that, Skinner was sentenced to 99 years in prison on Aug. 14 on drug and firearm charges. In his case the DAs office said during the raid he was found in a room with methamphetamine, marijuana, cutting agents, loaded syringes and multiple firearms. Skinner was reportedly next to a loaded 20 gauge shotgun that had been sawed off.

Evans and Shaddix both pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance and received a 15 month sentence in state jail.

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Unlike going no-contact, low contact allows you to keep some form of connection with a parent.

Therapists say that you can go low contact by reducing how you communicate, and how often.

Going low contact can also mean disclosing less vulnerable information about yourself.

Pretty much everyone has disagreements with their parents. For some, frequent arguments and ongoing tension negatively impact their lives to the point that they become estranged from their parents.

You don't have to completely cut off contact to feel calmer and happier, even if you have a contentious relationship. Instead, you can try lowering how often you reach out  and how much you're willing to open up.

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"It's often a way to preserve connection while protecting your peace," Annie Wright, a therapist in California, told Business Insider. She said it works best for relationships that aren't physically abusive or emotionally volatile, yet are still strained.

To someone who's used to seeing their parents in person multiple times a week, low contact could be reducing visits to once a month. Others might feel better calling every other week or emailing a few times a year, according to Najamah Davis, a licensed clinical social worker in New Jersey.

Here are some of the signs that going low contact with a parent might benefit you.

You feel drained or stressed every time you talk

To know where you stand with your relationship, check how you feel when you talk to your parent.

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"If those interactions consistently leave you feeling drained, guilty, or anxious, but they're still love and shared history, low contact can be a middle pass," Wright said.

For example, people with emotionally immature parents might notice they feel stressed out, angry, or deflated every time they hang up the phone.

Conversations that feel inappropriate, such as a parent giving unsolicited advice on a romantic relationship or criticizing your career, can be a sign to change up how you interact with them, Davis said.

Assess what you can personally handle, Wright said. If you know your mom will critique the cleanliness of your house every time she visits, it might mean you invite her over less often or meet up elsewhere.

You often regret opening up to them

Low contact isn't just about how often you communicate. Often, it ties into how vulnerable you want to be in the relationship.

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If your mother makes you feel worse when you bring up a problem in your life, "you might choose to stay at a very surface level," Wright said. You can keep things neutral and logistical, talking about what their grandkid is up to or upcoming travel plans.

By guiding your conversations more, Davis said you can "maintain control over what is shared and discussed."

You've tried to communicate what you need

Low contact doesn't happen on a whim. "We're hardwired to seek out connection with this person," Wright said.

Usually, low contact seems like a better option after a person has already tried to state their needs in the relationship, she added. If you have an "eggshell parent" who is highly reactive and never apologizes, reducing how often you talk can be a more viable solution than keeping the status quo.

You still want a relationship

One of the biggest pluses of going low contact instead of no contact is that you can preserve the relationship, Wright said.

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You might struggle to maintain a healthy relationship with a parent but find that they show up as grandparents, she said. Her clients have also went low contact because of financial dependence or because it's less painful than going no-contact.

Another benefit of keeping some connection is the possibility of repair down the line. "You never know if your feelings towards that person might shift, if their behavioral patterns might shift," Wright said.

You get along better with more boundaries

Going low contact makes it easier to maintain healthy boundaries.

By cutting down on negative interactions, it allows people "to enjoy the more pleasant moments," Davis said.

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If you tend to get into long, one-sided phone conversations with a parent, setting a shorter timeframe for calls can help. By giving yourself an out after 30 minutes, you can avoid feeling as exhausted.

In some cases, pulling away can change the dynamics of the relationship in the long term. "It makes some parents yearn more for that connection with their child," Davis said.

Though Wright says this has been a "rare" occurrence in her practice, some of her clients reported that their relationships improved after they went low-contact. Some parents ended up going to therapy or making an effort to reconnect with their children.

"I have seen really beautiful relational shifts," Wright said. "Here's a parent willing to do the hard work and show up for the relationship." In those instances, low contact was only a temporary phase.

Read the original article on Business Insider
BALTIMORE  President-elect Donald Trump is sending a clear message with his lightning round of political appointments: He knows who his friends are.

From his recent appointment of Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy leading a new Department of Government Efficiency, Trump is rewarding those who had his back when it wasnt popular to do.

But after a resounding political comeback, and with Republicans poised to have a trifecta in Washington, D.C., theres no shortage of old friends reemerging in the nations capital.

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Here are some takeaways from Trumps recent moves.

First stability, then shockwaves

When Trump picked Susie Wiles to be his chief of staff, it signaled two big things: He appreciated loyalty, and he chose someone who has earned the respect of a lot of Republicans and even some Democrats. The successful architect of his 2024 campaign delivered his biggest political victory, and she has worked for other respected Republicans, such as Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp and Jon Huntsman Jr. She started working for Trump at one of the most strenuous times in his life, as he faced multiple lawsuits and a second presidential election against President Joe Biden, who had defeated him in 2020. While some Republicans distanced themselves or chose not to back him until the primary was finished, Wiles was a constant at his side.

But shortly after Trump named Wiles, the shock waves started when he made some unexpected Cabinet picks with more loyalists: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as Homeland Security secretary, Army veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary and Gaetz as attorney general. Of several recent appointments Trump has made, those have drawn the most surprise and strongest reactions  including from senators who will have to confirm those appointments.

He is really squeezing the new Senate majority, immediately testing whether they will just go along with whatever he wants, said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Elon Musk: From campaign surrogate to top adviser

As Trump campaigned across the country, trying to appeal to working-class voters, he often had a special guest with him: the richest man in the world. Musk, the billionaire businessman who is often called a genius, was with Trump on the campaign trail and at Trumps Florida estate Mar-a-Lago after the election. Recently, Trump tapped Musk and entrepreneur Ramaswamy to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency.

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But Musk, after showing Trump some loyalty, has seemed to earn his trust, and hes been showing up in some unexpected places. He reportedly joined Trump on a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and he accompanied Trump Wednesday on a meeting with House Republicans.

A nice world at the White House

Trump and Biden put years of mudslinging behind them on Wednesday when the incumbent president welcomed the president-elect to the White House. Its a tradition that shows the country and the world the U.S. will have a peaceful transfer of power in January, though it was skipped four years ago when Trump refused to concede his loss to Biden.

Politics is tough, Trump said. And in many cases, its not a nice world, but it is a nice world today.

Throughout the campaign, even after the incumbent president ended his bid and Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, Biden and Trump were political enemies. They called each other names, and questioned each others mental fitness and moral character. But on Wednesday, it was all smiles and handshakes.

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Congratulations and looking forward to having a, like we said, smooth transition, Biden said.

It will be as smooth as it can get, and I very much appreciate that, Joe, Trump said.

The former and future First Lady Melania Trump broke tradition Wednesday when she declined an invitation from First Lady Jill Biden.

Trump and Senate leadership race

For the first time in 18 years, Senate Republicans picked a new leader: South Dakota Sen. John Thune.

Some analysts called it Trumps first loss because Thune wasnt the pick of Trumps inner circle. From Trumps daughter-in-law Lara Trump to Musk and other supporters, Florida Sen. Rick Scott was viewed as the MAGA candidate in a race for the next Senate Republican leader.

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Trump didnt get involved in the contest, which was decided among Republicans by secret ballot.

Upon winning the role, which will be more important as the Senate changes to a Republican majority, Thune said he was extremely honored and that Senate Republicans are united behind President Trumps agenda.

GOP wins full control of Congress

Trump now has his best chance to fulfill a promise he made to Americans eight years ago.

With CNN projecting Republicans will win the House and fully capture both chambers of Congress, Trump has his best shot of passing his agenda to Make America Great Again, as his campaign slogan says.

Not everyone agrees with his plans on taxes, immigration and foreign policy, but a majority of the country did. Hes the first Republican to win the Electoral College and popular vote in decades.

The biggest question is: What will he do with all of this new power?

Well find out after his inauguration on Jan. 20.
Staff members work on an assembly line at Chongqing Shineray Motorcycle Co., Ltd. in Chongqing, southwest China, Nov. 13, 2024. Shineray is an export-oriented enterprise based in Chongqing, with its products mainly targeting Latin American market.

Since the beginning of this year, the company's sales volume in Brazil has increased by more than 140 percent year on year. Meanwhile, its sales volume in other Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Ecuador, has also increased significantly. (Xinhua/Huang Wei)

Staff members work on an assembly line at Chongqing Shineray Motorcycle Co., Ltd. in Chongqing, southwest China, Nov. 13, 2024. Shineray is an export-oriented enterprise based in Chongqing, with its products mainly targeting Latin American market.

Since the beginning of this year, the company's sales volume in Brazil has increased by more than 140 percent year on year. Meanwhile, its sales volume in other Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Ecuador, has also increased significantly. (Xinhua/Huang Wei)

A staff member transfers motorcycles to be exported to Latin America at Chongqing Shineray Motorcycle Co., Ltd. in Chongqing, southwest China, Nov. 13, 2024. Shineray is an export-oriented enterprise based in Chongqing, with its products mainly targeting Latin American market.

Since the beginning of this year, the company's sales volume in Brazil has increased by more than 140 percent year on year. Meanwhile, its sales volume in other Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Ecuador, has also increased significantly. (Xinhua/Huang Wei)

A staff member checks the information of motorcycles to be exported to Latin America at Chongqing Shineray Motorcycle Co., Ltd. in Chongqing, southwest China, Nov. 13, 2024. Shineray is an export-oriented enterprise based in Chongqing, with its products mainly targeting Latin American market.

Since the beginning of this year, the company's sales volume in Brazil has increased by more than 140 percent year on year. Meanwhile, its sales volume in other Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Ecuador, has also increased significantly. (Xinhua/Huang Wei)

Staff members work on an assembly line at Chongqing Shineray Motorcycle Co., Ltd. in Chongqing, southwest China, Nov. 13, 2024. Shineray is an export-oriented enterprise based in Chongqing, with its products mainly targeting Latin American market.

Since the beginning of this year, the company's sales volume in Brazil has increased by more than 140 percent year on year. Meanwhile, its sales volume in other Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Ecuador, has also increased significantly. (Xinhua/Huang Wei)

Staff members check motorcycles to be exported to Latin America at Chongqing Shineray Motorcycle Co., Ltd. in Chongqing, southwest China, Nov. 13, 2024. Shineray is an export-oriented enterprise based in Chongqing, with its products mainly targeting Latin American market.

Since the beginning of this year, the company's sales volume in Brazil has increased by more than 140 percent year on year. Meanwhile, its sales volume in other Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Ecuador, has also increased significantly. (Xinhua/Huang Wei)
NEW MEXICO (KRQE)  Seasonably cold air is this big story this morning, but with a high pressure system building in from the south, the sinking and compressing of the air with clear skies will allow for big temperatures jumps in the short term before the next weather pattern change.

Along with very clear skies with dry air and light winds for now, radiational cooling has taken place this morning, as temperatures are ranging from near the high single digits to the low 40s across New Mexico, a bit chilly compared to normal to start off the morning for this time of the year.

Forecast Continues Below

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Clear skies will ensue for most of the day and as temperatures will rise, southwesterly winds will pick up a little bit more, drying out the atmosphere even more for most will the elevated fire weather risk, especially in southwestern areas.

From the morning school commute on into the afternoon, temperatures will eventually reach into the high 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and low-to-mid 70s, close to if not slightly above normal for this time of the year for most, warmer than yesterday, allowing for even more snowmelt in the mountains, especially in the surrounding lower-elevation communities.

Out in front of our next storm system this weekend, the next couple of days will be warmer, drier, and windier, then some precipitation will ensue later Saturday into early Monday with temperatures dropping, setting the stage for a possible quick-hitting storm system by the middle of next week.

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Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Authorities in Massachusetts said a 71-year-old man has been arrested and charged with murdering two people nearly 46 years ago, bringing a close to the cold case.

"This pursuit of justice is never easy, and it sometimes takes a long and circuitous route," Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni told reporters Wednesday during a press conference. "Today, after almost 46 years, an arrest has been made in the homicides of 18-year-old Theresa Marcoux and 20-year-old Mark Harnish."

Timothy Scott Joley, 71, was arrested Oct. 30 at his Clearwater, Fla., residence and was being held without bond at the Pinellas County Jail.

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Gulluni said Joley waived his right to extradition and will be returned to Massachusetts to face a two-count murder complaint accusing him of killing Marcoux and Harnish nearly five decades ago.

According to authorities, Marcoux and Harnish were killed early Nov. 19 ,1978, after having attended a party hosted by friends.

Mark Harnish, 20, was killed Nov. 19, 1978. On Wednesday, it was announced that Timothy Scott Joley had been charged with his murder. Photo courtesy of Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni/Facebook

Their bodies were found that morning just off Route 5 in West Springfield. Authorities said they had been shot dead in the back of Harnish's green Dodge pickup truck, which was also found nearby with its driver's side window damaged and blood around the vehicle.

The bodies were then moved to the location where they were discovered by a West Springfield Police officer who was on patrol and noticed the pickup truck parked a in a roadway.

Theresa Marcoux, 18, was killed Nov. 19, 1978. On Wednesday, it was announced that Timothy Scott Joley had been charged with her murder. Photo courtesy of Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni/Facebook

An autopsy determined Marcoux and Harnish had been shot multiple times, and the investigation uncovered a witness who said they had heard multiple gunshots at about 4 a.m. that morning.

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A fingerprint in blood on the passenger-side vent of the pickup was retrieved from the scene, and the spent bullets were recovered from the victims' bodies.

Authorities said the fingerprint was added to the Massachusetts Automated Fingerprint Identification System and was manually compared over the years to approximately 70,000 known fingerprint cards. Despite the extensive investigation, the case went cold.

A break in the case occurred within the last month, Gulluni said, stating an individual provided investigators Joley's name and information of his alleged involvement in the murders of Marcoux and Harnish.

Investigators then learned that Joley had lived in Springfield in November 1978. They also obtained a fingerprint identification card for Joley from the Springfield Police Department, where it had been on file as he had applied for a taxi license in 2000.

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Two investigators with extensive experience in analysing fingerprints were brought onto the case, and each determined that the fingerprint found in Harnish's pickup belonged to Joley's left thumb, Gulluni said.

"Investigators have also learned that Joley was a licensed gun owner in November 1978 and that he purchased a Colt handgun approximately one month before the murders," he said.

Gulluni told reporters that there is no evidence to suggest a motive behind the killings.

He added that many individuals had been looked at for the crime, but Joley was never brought to their attention.

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To members of the families of Marcoux and Harnish who attended the press conference, Gulluni said he "admired and respected" them for their patience, resolve and the faith they have maintained over the years.

"Sadly, the parents of Theresa and Mark ar deceased, and never knew either answers or justice for the brutality that was inflicted upon their children," he said.

"Throughout the years, however, this office has maintained contact with the extended families of both victims. Their desire for justice and ours has never extinguished."
CHARLES COUNTY, Md. (DC News Now)  Police in Charles County said a 77-year-old man died after he crashed into a pole in Indian Head on Tuesday.

According to the Charles County Sheriffs Office (CCSO), just after 4:30 p.m., officers responded to the 5900 block of Bicknell Road for a single-car crash.

Valley Mall continues to thrive in Hagerstown even as online shopping rises

There, they found 77-year-old James Stewart, of La Plata, dead inside the car.

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A preliminary investigation revealed that Stewart was driving on Bicknell Road when his car left the roadway, striking a telephone pole, according to the sheriffs office.

Police encourage anyone with information to contact 301-609-3251.

The investigation is ongoing.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC.
WASHINGTON COUNTY, Va. (WJHL)  One person was killed and another seriously injured after a crash on Interstate 81 Wednesday night.

According to Virginia State Police (VSP), the crash occurred in Washington County when a box truck that was in the northbound lanes went through the median and hit a pickup truck traveling in the opposite direction.

Its a hazard: First responders have safety concerns at former Virginia Intermont College

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Both vehicles reportedly overturned, and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) reported that both southbound lanes were closed for an extended period of time afterward.

The driver of the box truck was identified as Saiid Gamure, 52, of Clarksville, Georgia. Gamure died at the scene.

The driver of the pickup truck was transported to the hospital with serious injuries, according to VSP.

As of Thursday morning, the crash 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 WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather.
While Thanksgiving has yet to pass us by, some folks are already hard at work to make sure the most wonderful time of the year goes smoothly.

Pennsylvania state police and the Marine Corps Reserve are teaming up once again with toys for tots to give back this holiday season.

Erie Blue Coats host free luncheon to speak on continued community success

The 9th annual Stuff the Cruiser event is scheduled to take place on Saturday, Nov. 16.

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This years Stuff the Cruiser will be held at the Summit Township Walmart, 1825 Downs Drive, from noon to 4 p.m.

Effort to repurpose Eries historic structures gains traction with new grant funding

Nearly one in five Erie area children are living in poverty, and this event helps ensure all children can feel hope and joy this Christmas.

Yes, Toys for Tots is a great cause, started with the United States Marine Corps back in 1947. As a Marine myself, Im endeared to the program. Ive worked with it and Ive seen the great joy it can bring to families who otherwise couldnt really enjoy the holiday season, said Captain Kirk Reese, commanding officer for PSP Troop E.

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Toys for donation must be new, unwrapped, and non-violent.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Ukraine's collapse would be a bigger humiliation for the U.S. than its withdrawal from Afghanistan, former U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said at The Telegraph's podcast on Nov. 13.

"(Donald) Trump highlighted (Joe) Biden's humiliation over Afghanistan but if he ends up with the collapse of Ukraine, thatll be a far bigger humiliation for the U.S. and the power of the U.S. in the world," the former foreign secretary said at the Daily T podcast.

U.S. President-elect Trumps support for Ukraine hangs in the air as analysts and politicians try to gauge his plans to bring peace to Ukraine, as he promised to end the war within "24 hours" after reelection without revealing details.

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The U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 under the Biden administration, ending 20 years of military presence. The Taliban movement quickly overran the country soon after.

"It is in Trumps best interest, his own best interest, to maintain the strength of the West of these things," said the foreign secretary in David Cameron's cabinet between 2010-2014.

"Its really worrying that President-elect Trump is coming in with what seems to be a pretty strong view that this can be settled quickly, but settled on terms that would overwhelmingly favor Russia," Hague said, adding that any such freezing of the war along the current front lines would only pave the way for another war, as "Putin would come back for the rest of Ukraine."

Kyiv's allies have been trying to "Trump-proof" their support for Ukraine, with Poland coordinating with the U.K. to maintain the support after Trump takes office in 2025. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk intends to hold talks with his British counterpart Keir Starmer in the coming days.

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The Biden administration also plans to increase U.S. military assistance to Ukraine in the final months of its term to give as much support as possible before Trump takes office in January 2025, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Brussels on Nov. 13.

"The lesson of that should not be lost on us now, which is that we should not go soft on (Russia) them now," Hague said, referring to the period of 2014-2015 when Western countries did little to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for his annexation of Crimea and starting a war in eastern Ukraine.

"We should have been more tough then and resolute now," he added.

Read also: Ukraine war latest: Trump to appoint Ukrainian peace envoy soon to lead talks on ending war with Russia

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC)  An Abilene couple accused of leaving children in a hot car for hours while they were at the hospital has been indicted.

Destinie Hebert and Adam Comeaux were both indicted on two counts of Abandoning a Child Thursday in connection to an incident that happened in August.

Court documents state a concerned citizen called police to report they believed children were unattended in a vehicle in the parking lot of Hendrick Medical Plaza for 2 hours because they heard the children crying.

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Officers arrived and found two children, ages 6 and 3, inside a vehicle that was off with one window partially rolled own, according to the documents.

The documents state this officer, noticed the children were sweaty, crying for their parents, and seemed as if they were in distress.

The oldest child stated their parents were inside the hospital.

Once contacted, the documents state Comeaux told officers he brought Hebert to the hospital because she was sick and that he didnt bring the children inside the hospital but did check on them two times.

Surveillance video did show Comeaux check on the children 30 minutes after arriving at the hospital and again 40 minutes after that.

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Investigators believe Hebert did not appear to be suffering from a medical emergency and also determined the temperatures ranged from 87-98 degrees while the children were left in the car.

Both Comeaux and Hebert were arrested in August. Hebert was released from jail after posting bonds totaling $30,000.

Comeaux remains held in jail on bonds totaling more than $200,000 for the abandoning charges as well as a charge related to a child sex crime.

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.
The people who created the U.S. Army did not want it to last forever. George Washington, the first commander of the Continental Army, wrote that "a large standing Army in time of Peace hath ever been considered dangerous to the liberties of a Country," though he supported a small frontier force. Other Founding Fathers struck similar notes.

"Standing armies are dangerous to liberty," wrote Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 29. "A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home," warned James Madison at the Constitutional Convention. "What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty," said Elbridge Gerry during the debates over the Bill of Rights.

No wonder, then, that they put an expiration date on any American army. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12 of the U.S. Constitution states that Congress has the power "To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years." The next clause, authorizing the U.S. Navy, imposes no limits on spending. The message was clear: America needs a peacetime defense force at sea, not on land.

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Before World War I, the U.S. Army didn't even have permanent divisionlevel units. But things have shaped up quite differently since then. The Army is now the largest branch of the military, with nearly half a million active duty troops, plus another 176,000 reservists.

The "militia" that was supposed to "prevent the establishment of a standing army" has now been absorbed into it. Since the early 20th century, all state-level National Guard units have been subordinate to the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force. Since 2001, more than a million guardsmen and guardswomen have been sent overseas, sometimes for multiple tours of duty, rather than defending their home states.

Fortunately, the Founding Fathers' worst fears about "tyranny at home" were not realized. There has been no military coup d'etat in American history. But the standing army has still come at a costand not just a financial one. It has made it easier for the president to launch invasions of foreign countries without any declaration of war or real democratic debate, and it has helped police departments enforce tyranny on a local scale. And a large, permanent land army may be sucking up resources that America needs to prepare for real threats.

The United States launched an average of one military intervention abroad per year from 1776 through 1945, according to Monica Duffy Toft and Sidita Kushi's book Dying by the Sword: The Militarization of US Foreign Policy. Since then, the number has grown to 4.6 interventions per year. "While in the past the United States often relied on diplomacy, economic tools, and threats or displays of force, its modern-day self has resorted to more direct militaristic tactics, rather than reserving force as the policy of last resort," write Toft and Kushi.

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Meanwhile, the standing army has been the handmaiden of a more heavy-handed, less accountable police force at home. In response to the unrest of the 1960s, the Army built training centers known as Riotsvilles, teaching law enforcement officers how to wage counterinsurgency on Americans. After 9/11, over $1.6 billion of surplus military equipment flooded into police departments through the 1033 program, according to a Brown University Costs of War Project study.

Given these drawbacks, what is the benefit of a standing army? Americans face fewer threats to their territory than they did when the Founding Fathers warned about standing armies. (Canada and Mexico, after all, are friendly now, and Native Americans are U.S. citizens.)

The U.S. has commitments to defend treaty allies in Europe and Asia, and an interest in making sure global trade routes are free for Americans to use. But responding to those challenges quickly requires naval and air power more than it requires a large ground army. The largest threat U.S. allies face today is China, and any future conflict with that country would likely be waged in the Pacific Ocean, with little role for ground forces. A 2020 paper by the Cato Institute, examining what a truly defensive posture for the U.S. military would look like, concluded that the Army is severely bloated, especially in comparison to the Navy and Air Force.

"Above all, the active-duty U.S. Army should be substantially smaller and postured mostly for hemispheric defense," the paper states. "A grand strategy of restraint would eliminate most permanent garrisons on foreign soil and rely more heavily on reservists and National Guard personnel for missions closer to the U.S. homeland."

That sounds a lot like the vision the Founding Fathers had: a navy and a militia, but no standing Army.

The post Abolish the Army appeared first on Reason.com.
Love or hate the Project 2025 blueprint for the next conservative president, it has done at least one good thing: revive discussion of ending the U.S. Department of Education. That department has no constitutional business existing. But eliminating the programs it administers, many of which predate the department, is just as important.

In the early 1970s, the National Education Association transformed from a professional association to a labor union and offered its endorsement to a presidential candidate who would support a stand-alone education department. Democrat Jimmy Carter made the promise and was elected in 1976.

The idea was controversial, including on the left. Joseph Califano, Carter's secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), objected to taking education programs from under the broader welfare roof and saw a standalone department as a threat to higher education's independence. Albert Shankerthe president of the other major teachers union, the American Federation of Teachersopposed a department as likely ineffectual and a threat to state and local K-12 control.

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In 1979, the department squeaked by: 2019 in the House Rules Committee and 210206 in the full House. In 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan ran for president pledging to kill it, but there was little congressional Republican desire to fight again.

The department became the K-12 controller that Shanker feared, peaking with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) from 2002 to 2015. Though the Constitution gives the federal government no authority to govern education, NCLB required states to have uniform math and reading standards and make "adequate yearly progress" to full proficiency by 2014. In 2010, the department brought the country to the brink of a national curriculum, coercing states to adopt the Common Core standards and associated tests. Only when teachers unions opposed tying test scores to teacher evaluations did left and right converge against federal overreach. NCLB was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which removed the adequate yearly progress mandate that was the linchpin of federal control, as well as several other prescriptive parts of NCLB.

With around 4,100 employees, the Education Department is the smallest Cabinet department. The federal government also furnishes a relatively tiny amount of K-12 funding, averaging only about 8.5 percent of public school revenues for the last five decades. But the feds need relatively little money to exert power. A state might spend $20 billion, but if headlines say it risks even a few million dollars by bucking federal rules, that looks big. So even though the ESSA is a release from NCLB, Washington retains the ability to take greater control.

The achievement impact of federal dollars is hard to isolate, but during the NCLB era, National Assessment of Educational Progress math and reading scores generally rose, though they mainly stagnated for the oldest children. NCLB's obsessive focus on those subjects might have helped spur some improvements.

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But education is about more than standardized tests, or reading and math, and NCLB crowded out many subjects and instructional approaches. It also likely kneecapped the standards-based reform movement that bore it. The movement originated in the states, and it might have been more sustainable had "laboratories of democracy" been able to adjust to their own needs and cultures.

Eliminating the Department of Education would only soften these problems.

The threat of micromanagement would diminish were education in a broader department, like a new HEW (similar to the 2018 Trump administration proposal to combine the Education and Labor Departments). That secretary would have more to do than pull K-12 strings, and the head of a mere office would command less public attention. But Washington would retain dangerous spending leverage, and the Constitution would still be violated.

So yes, end the Department of Education. But don't just merge it with other departments. End all its unconstitutional programs.

The post Abolish the Department of Education appeared first on Reason.com.
It takes 1015 years and hundreds of millions of dollars for a pharmaceutical company to navigate the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory process and bring a new drug to market. Many seriously ill people die waiting for the FDA to approve drugs that regulators in other advanced countries have already approved, a phenomenon called "drug lag." It is impossible to imagine how many drug remedies remain undiscovered and how many people needlessly suffer because pharmaceutical companies must divert excessive research and development dollars to the drug approval process, a phenomenon called "drug loss."

Congress passed the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) in 1938 to ensure drug safety. The new law exempted drugs people had been using for several years, such as aspirin or regular insulin, from the FDA approval process. But it also required drugmakers to henceforth provide convincing evidence to the agency that any new product is safe for patients to consume as directed. When Congress passed the Kefauver-Harris Amendment to the FDCA in 1962, it required drugmakers to convince the agency a new drug was effective as well as safe, adding millions of dollars and several years to the approval process, inflating the length of time it takes the agency to allow people to consume pharmaceuticals.

Strangely, when the FDA finally permits a pharmaceutical company to market a drug for a specific condition placed on the label, the agency allows clinicians to recommend the drug to their patients for any condition they think it might help. Anywhere from one-fifth to one-third of all medicines that clinicians prescribe and people consume are for these "off-label" uses.

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In other words, the FDA forces drugmakers to prove that a drug works for condition A but defers to clinical researchers in the private sector and academia to determine whether it works for conditions B through Z. Why doesn't the FDA defer to clinicians for condition A?

Sometimes off-label drug use yields benefits. For example, clinical researchers found that the anti-nausea medicine thalidomide, which caused birth defects when pregnant women used it for morning sickness, was effective in treating leprosy and multiple myeloma when clinicians prescribed it off-label. Similarly, doctors recommended aspirin off-label to prevent cardiovascular problems. On the other hand, clinicians can discover that off-label use of a drug can be harmful or inappropriate. For example, some of the deaths from elixir sulfanilamide in 1937 occurred when doctors prescribed it for off-label purposes, such as Bright's disease (an old name for kidney inflammation), mercury poisoning, and backache.

When it comes to off-label uses of drugs, endorsements of efficacy originate from entities distinct from the FDA. In addition to publications like Consumer Reports, these include peer-reviewed medical journals, the U.S. Pharmacopeia, and several other private compendia. Federal law requires the Medicare and Medicaid programs to rely on specific, privately compiled drug compendia to certify the efficacy of off-label uses. Similar to how the government grants physicians the freedom to prescribe prescription-only medications for off-label uses, it grants patients the freedom to use over-the-counter drugs for off-label purposes.

The FDA even relied on a private third-party reviewer, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, to test drugs' efficacy from 1938 to 1962. The American Medical Association's Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry conducted safety and efficacy evaluations long before Congress passed the FDCA until it shuttered operations in 1955, crowded out by the FDA. Even then, it initiated a registry for reporting drug reactions.

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One intermediate step toward pharmaceutical freedom and progress would be for Congress to enact "international drug reciprocity." This would allow American doctors and patients to access drugs and devices approved by regulatory agencies in similar, trusted countries. There is no logical reason why Americans should not have access to products approved in countries like Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel, many of which have engaged in reciprocity for years.

Many people can't imagine a world where the FDA doesn't have a monopoly on drug approval. Yet there will always be a market for drug safety and efficacy information. Ending the agency's monopoly will allow innovation and competition into that space, benefiting everyoneeven former FDA bureaucrats.

The post Abolish the FDA appeared first on Reason.com.
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- An enthusiastic and open approach to new technology has fueled China's rapid modernization as an industrial and technological power, participants said at a forum held here on Thursday.

This attitude, complemented by the progressive and diligent work ethic of the Chinese people along with its overwhelmingly successful results, represents a pathway for other nations seeking to improve themselves, asserted speakers at this year's edition of the International Forum On New Inclusive Asia with the theme "Chinese Modernization and Lessons for Developing Countries."

China's rapid adoption of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) has seen significant strides, with home-grown companies such as Baidu and Tencent at the forefront of AI research and development, creating applications that range from autonomous driving to advanced healthcare solutions, Eugene Pek Chuen Khee, head of Taylor's University School of Management and Marketing, said in his welcome remarks at the forum.

"China's journey from a largely agrarian society to a global economic powerhouse is nothing short of remarkable. Over the past few decades, China has transformed its economy, lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, and emerged as a leader in technology and innovation. This transformation offers several key lessons for developing countries aspiring to achieve similar progress," he said.

"China's modernization journey offers valuable lessons for developing countries, including Malaysia. By adopting visionary leadership, investing in infrastructure, emphasizing education and innovation, implementing economic reforms, promoting inclusive growth, and prioritizing environmental sustainability, Malaysia can pave its own path to prosperity," he said.

Minister of the Chinese Embassy in Malaysia Zheng Xuefang said the world has entered into a new phase of turbulence and uncertainty, tested by escalated competition between major powers, intensified geopolitical confrontation, re-occurrence of anti-globalization, and increased unilateralism. Against this backdrop, China has successfully pioneered its modernization path, prospering both its own nation and the whole world as an energetic powerhouse and consistent peace stabilizer.

"The world is a global community shared by all. Chinese modernization does not solely belong to China. It is a great asset to the whole world. China is willing to work with Malaysia and all other countries to advance the common modernization of humanity. Together, we will play the beautiful symphony of common development and embrace a brighter future for all," he said.

For his part, Koh King Kee, president of the Centre for New Inclusive Asia, a non-governmental Malaysian think tank said Malaysia has embarked on its own development program and stands to gain China's experience as both countries have a deep interest in eradicating poverty, uplifting living standards, and promoting sustainable development.

"Beyond modernization of a huge population, other features of China's modernization in the new era such as its focus on peaceful growth, poverty alleviation, common prosperity, cultural advancement, and respect for the environment holds relevance for many developing nations," he said.

The one-day forum was co-organized by Malaysia's Center for New Inclusive Asia, School of Management and Marketing of Taylor's University and China's Global Governance Institution. It brought together distinguished speakers from Malaysia, China, Singapore and Pakistan in three sessions to explore the lessons of China's modernization efforts and the lessons that developing countries can apply and adapt to their own developmental efforts. 
"The $750 emergency check is not a loan." "The Biden-Harris administration is not withholding support from counties that voted for Trump." "FEMA is not out of money." "FEMA didn't spend disaster funds housing illegal immigrants."

Before the waters of Hurricane Helene receded, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sprang into action to carry out a crisis P.R. campaignalongside some emergency response work.

Many of the overwrought claims the agency sought to debunk could be traced to the fact that the storm struck a month before a highly contested presidential election. Donald Trump's campaign sought to make federal mismanagementof the hurricane, of the budget, and of the borderpart of his case against Vice President Kamala Harris.

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While most of his specific charges against FEMA's handling of Helene were clumsy and easily refutable, they proved oddly sticky in the news cycle and on social media. Why? Because FEMA has given Americans every reason to believe it is highly politicized, a poor steward of federal resources, bad at establishing priorities, and often unable to communicate clearly to people in distress.

Since it was created in an act of bureaucratic centralization in 1979, FEMA has done little to earn Americans' trust and much to earn their suspicion and scorn. The agency's track record over the last 20 years is a case study in bureaucratic mismanagement, with repeated highly public failures.

The most infamous example remains its response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, where delays, miscommunication, and logistical chaos left thousands of people stranded without basic necessities for days. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, FEMA turned back official convoys with supplies due to paperwork snafus and refused to cooperate with outside organizations despite being overwhelmed and underprepared.

No wonder, then, that when rumors began to circulate that federal authorities were interfering with local and private rescue and aid efforts after Hurricane Helene, the general public found them believable. Citizens once again stepped up, with private aircraft and smaller airports delivering aid after roads to Asheville, North Carolina, washed out.

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"There was such a sense of urgency and purpose," said Morty Lloyd of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Lloyd, who led a flight of three aircraft carrying supplies, was describing the scene at the airport on the group's website. "No one was walking on the ramp. Everyone was running."

Elon Musk, who was helping to deploy Starlink to the area to restore internet access, relayed rumors that the feds were preventing helicopters and other vehicles from helping people in severely damaged areas. While Musk has an itchy trigger finger for unsubstantiated retweets, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg denied the allegations with enough weasel words (the Federal Aviation Administration "doesn't block legitimate rescue and recovery flights," he tweeted, leaving "legitimate" undefined) to make his reassurances useless in the face of historical patterns.

FEMA's inadequacies were exposed again in 2012 during Hurricane Sandy. While power companies worked to restore electricity across New York and New Jersey, FEMA's coordination efforts fell short. Residents in the hardest-hit areas faced weeks without power, and the agency's support in establishing shelters or providing backup generators was limited and poorly executed. In Staten Island and other communities, local volunteers and private organizations ended up filling the gaps, providing essential services that FEMA failed to deliver.

FEMA fared no better during Donald Trump's presidency. Though Trump later declared hisand FEMA'sperformance during Hurricane Maria in 2017 to be "tremendousan incredible, unsung success," Puerto Ricans went months without power, struggled with delayed aid, and ultimately suffered a death toll of over 3,000. A single, genuinely awful song by Lin-Manuel Miranda ("Almost Like Praying") managed to generate $3 million to help the island with impressive speed and responsiveness (alongside many other, less aesthetically offensive, charitable efforts totaling about $1 billion). Meanwhile FEMA struggled to distribute tarps, shipments got stuck in warehouses, and locals complained about the agency's siloed and duplicative efforts. Contracting for rebuilding was plagued by corruption, including an infamous $156 million electrical grid repair contract awarded to a small Montana company, Whitefish Energy. The company had only two full-time employees at the time of the award.

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And unlike Biden, Trump did divert some funds appropriated for disaster response to immigration-related spending. In 2019, he "reprogrammed" FEMA funds to go to Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.

After Joe Biden became president, Hurricane Ida saw FEMA-exacerbated fuel shortages across Louisiana. And when Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico again in 2022, the island was once again plunged into blackout and another two dozen deaths were added to the storms' toll.

For the most part, FEMA's failings are not the doing of any president or party. They are deep in the fundamental nature of the self-perpetuating, turf-defending, hyper-bureaucratic agency itself. FEMA has more than 22,000 employees; nearly all are people of goodwill with real knowledge about disaster response. But delivering expertise wrapped in red tape to people whose scissors washed away in a flood is hardly better than no help at all.

In this special issue of Reason, we offer up an idiosyncratic list of federal agencies and departments we think Americans would be better off without. Surprisingly, when we were initially planning the issue, no one picked FEMA. But as recent events have revealed, that was an oversighteven in such a target-rich environment.

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As we go to press, Hurricane Milton is about to make landfall in Florida. FEMA recently announced that only 9 percent of its personnel are available to be deployed for emergency response. We can't know what will happen with the weather. We don't know what will happen with the election. But we can be confident that FEMA simply doesn't have the wherewithal to meet the moment. It has lost the trust of the American people. It's time to abolish FEMA.

The post Abolish FEMA appeared first on Reason.com.
Federal agencies created in times of crisis are rarely well thought out, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is no exception. ICE's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, was created in 2002 in reaction to the previous year's September 11 attacks. The federal body tasked with handling all things national security was empowered, via ICE, to target and deport the country's largely peaceful population of undocumented immigrantsand ICE has operated as if those missions are two sides of the same coin.

ICE has several subagencies, but its Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) component is both the largest and what most people think of when they hear ICE. Its mission is to find, arrest, and remove undocumented immigrants. In practice, that results in agents invading the personal and professional lives of migrants who have called the country home for years, are parents to U.S. citizens, and have contributed economically and socially to their communities, tearing all that apart over a long-ago border crossing or visa overstay. It is a militaristic mission that effectively turns nonviolent immigrants into fugitives.

Presidents may set different guidelines for ICE's enforcement wing. Some presidents have prioritized the removal of violent offenders and people deemed national security threats, deprioritizing those without criminal records or with only minor charges. But President Donald Trump broadened ICE's enforcement mandate significantly, essentially making all undocumented immigrants targets for removal.

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Under those terms, ICE carried out controversial (and mind-boggling) enforcement activities against migrants who couldn't possibly pose a risk equal to the force used against them. There are countless such stories: An undocumented man driving without his license was bringing his pregnant wife to a scheduled cesarean section when ICE took him into custody; ICE fought to send Iraqi Christians back to a homeland where they feared persecution; it deported the caretaker of a 6-year-old paraplegic boy. Far from just targeting undocumented immigrants, ICE has swept up people of all immigration and residency statusesfrom arresting a longtime legal permanent resident who was tending his lawn to mistakenly deporting dozens of U.S. citizens. Those stories may ebb and flow from administration to administration, but the potential for abusive enforcement is always there.

ICE has routinely shown itself to be an overreaching and unaccountable agency. Georgetown University's Center on Privacy and Technology found that ICE has scanned the driver's license photos of one in three American adults and could access the driver's license data of three in four American adults. The agency boasts a "long history of impersonating police officers, abusing immigrants in ICE detention, [and] building a vast surveillance network of data purchased from brokers and other legally questionable means," reported Electronic Privacy Information Center Counsel Jake Wiener.

ICE's budget has steadily increased since the agency's creation in 2003, from $3.7 billion ($6.4 billion in current dollars) to $9.1 billion in FY 2024. The ERO's work force has nearly tripled in the same time period, reaching 7,711 in FY 2024. It's worth asking tough questions about the return on investment, but few politicians are willing to do so because they largely view ICE as an indispensable tool.

Many of the issues ICE purports to address would be better solved by overhauling the U.S. immigration system. The country's undocumented immigrants are overwhelmingly a benefit, not a liability. It makes far more sense to bring them out of the shadows by providing a pathway to citizenship than to use government force to upend their lives. Reducing the incentives that drive illegal immigration, such as expanding work visa pathways and streamlining visa and green card processing, would further reduce whatever issues ICE currently thinks it must solve.

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ICE is tasked with disrupting American communities and families at great cost and little benefit to taxpayers. Some important duties fall under its umbrellathere is a role for the government to play in detaining and deporting actually dangerous migrants, for onebut such things were handled before its creation, and they can be handled again by relevant law enforcement agencies. ICE's current powers and central deportation mission are neither appropriately sized nor easily reformed. It would be much better for the government to extend an olive branch to nonviolent undocumented immigrants, reassign ICE's useful functions elsewhere, and let the agency go once and for all.

The post Abolish ICE appeared first on Reason.com.
This article was originally published in Chalkbeat.

When Donald Trump told Elon Musk one of his first acts as president would be to close the Department of Education, move education back to the states, he was invoking a GOP promise that goes back to President Ronald Reagan and the departments founding.

Yet through multiple Republican administrations, including Trumps first term, the U.S. Department of Education has persisted.

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That hasnt stopped Democrats from sounding the alarm that Trumps views epitomize the GOPs bad intentions for public schools. The fact that the Republican Partys platform also calls for closing the department, as does the conservative Heritage Foundations Project 2025, has only intensified Democrats distress.

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We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools, Vice President Kamala Harris said to thunderous applause in her speech at the Democratic National Convention, where she placed the department alongside prized institutions and programs like Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act.

Related

What a Second Trump Presidency Could Mean for Education in the U.S.

The department has become a kind of trophy in a larger debate about the meaning of public education, said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

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In fact, he said, The Department of Education actually has very little to do with that debate. Abolishing it doesnt advance school choice and keeping it doesnt do much for traditional district schools. But its become a symbol of which side youre on in that debate.

So, what exactly does the U.S. Department of Education do? Why do so many conservatives want to see it go away? Why has it survived? And what would it take for that to actually happen?

The U.S. Department of Education: a brief history

The federal government spent money on education and developed education policies going back to the 19th century. But the U.S. Department of Education didnt become a stand-alone agency until 1980, when it split off from the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

President Jimmy Carter advocated for the creation of the department to fulfill a campaign promise to the National Education Association. Congress passed the Department of Education Organization Act in 1979. Some Democrats and the American Federation of Teachers opposed the idea, due to fears about excessive federal meddling in local education decisions and concerns that it would cater to the NEAs interests.

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Reagan, Carters successor, campaigned on abolishing the brand-new department. But Reagans first education secretary, Terrel Bell, commissioned the landmark report A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, warning that America was losing its competitive edge. It advocated for a strong federal role to ensure students received a high-quality education.

If the federal government is coming out with a report that shows all the things that need to be fixed and at the same time, were backing out of it, those are not compatible positions, said Michael Feuer, dean of George Washington Universitys Graduate School of Education and Human Development.

Related

If the Education Department Cant Be Closed, at Least Fix It by Breaking It Up

The U.S. Department of Education does a lot of things, like monitor school performance and promote evidence-based practices. Its biggest K-12 programs by dollar amount provide money to high-poverty schools and for students with disabilities. Some of its most high-profile and controversial work involves enforcing civil rights protections. The department also plays a major role in distributing financial aid for higher education.

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The department is not the primary funder of U.S. schools. Before the infusion of pandemic relief dollars, the federal government only covered about 8% of K-12 educational costs. In recent years, its been closer to 11%. But refusing that money to avoid federal rules isnt necessarily easy.

Why do conservatives want to end the Department of Education?

Some of the dislike is purely ideological.

For conservatives, less government is better. Education is not mentioned directly in the U.S. Constitution. And a new department overseeing functions that remain mostly the purview of local government is low-hanging fruit.

Under Democratic administrations, the department has also sided with more progressive approaches to education and to civil rights enforcement.

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The Obama administration, for example, told schools that if they suspended or expelled Black students at much higher rates than other groups, that could be a sign they were illegally discriminating in how they administered student discipline. Critics said the rules pushed schools to adopt laxer disciplinary policies that made schools less safe. Betsy DeVos, Trumps education secretary, rescinded those rules. (The Biden administration has not reinstated them.)

More recently, the Biden administration issued Title IX rules that provide greater and more explicit protections for LGBTQ students  rules that Republican-led states have sued to block.

Jonathan Butcher, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said states have been a source of innovation, like charter schools and educational savings accounts. The federal department not only distracts states from efforts to improve education but creates unnecessary bureaucracy.

All the while, achievement gaps based on race and poverty havent gone away, Butcher noted, though they have narrowed by some measures.

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We have ample evidence that it is not serving its purpose, Butcher said of the department. Abolishing it, he added, is consistent with both the interest in smaller government and the interest in doing whats right for kids.

What does Trump say about abolishing the Department of Education?

In his conversation with Musk that aired on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, Trump said the U.S. had a horrible education ranking at the bottom of developed countries while spending the most.

Its not totally clear what sources Trump was using. On recent international tests, the U.S. ranked sixth in reading, 10th in science, and 26th in math among 81 countries. Older test results show the U.S. ranked lower, especially in math. The U.S. does spend more per-pupil than most developed nations, including many that score better on key measures.

Trump said some states wont do well, but many would do a better job on their own while spending less money.

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Of the 50, I would bet that 35 would do great, and 15 of them or 20 of them would be as good as Norway, Trump told Musk. You know Norway is considered great.

He said the federal government could provide a little monitor. You want to make sure they are teaching English, as an example. Give us a little English, right?

Trumps campaign did not respond to a request to elaborate on the candidates plans.

How would abolishing the Department of Education work?

Abolishing a federal department would require an act of Congress, just as creating one does. It likely would also require broad bipartisan support, which the idea doesnt have.

U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, has regularly introduced legislation to abolish the department  but the bill has failed to gain traction.

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Despite that, Massie said his proposals were serious. Damn right I want to terminate the Department of Education, he said in a statement. Public education in America has gone downhill ever since this bureaucracy was created.

The Heritage Foundations Project 2025, widely seen as a blueprint for a future Trump administration  despite the candidates denials  lays out a much more detailed plan that considers necessary steps from Congress and the executive branch.

For example, the plan says civil rights enforcement should move to the Department of Justice, educational data collection to the U.S. Census Bureau, and support for Native American students to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Butcher acknowledged that BIA schools dont have a good track record. But he argued that the agency was better positioned to work on improving educational outcomes.

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Meanwhile, Project 2025 says Title I funding for high-poverty schools should be turned into vouchers and then phased out over time, while money from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act should be given directly to parents.

On a podcast earlier this year, Lindsey Burke, the Heritage Foundations director of the Center for Education Policy and author of Project 2025s education chapter, acknowledged the political difficulty of simply abolishing the department.

But she said the executive branch could take certain actions on its own, such as ending student loan forgiveness programs and not enforcing the new Title IX rules.

Ending the Education Department now part of the conversation

Hess, of the American Enterprise Institute, said he doesnt oppose eliminating the department, but the idea has become a kind of boogie man or quick fix thats become a substitute for substantive debate on the federal role in education.

So much of the culture war that reached a boil during the pandemic focused on schools and colleges, which made the department more contested terrain and made education more contested terrain, he said.

Hes skeptical that a future Trump administration would get any closer to eliminating the department than the first one did. And a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting the power of administrative agencies could make it even harder to make dramatic changes via executive order, Hess said.

Feuer, of George Washington University, thinks the department has made positive contributions, despite some flaws, and wants to see it stick around. An unfriendly administration could dramatically cut funding or eliminate programs without eliminating the department. Thats the wrong debate to have when students are still recovering from COVID disruptions, he said.

If we now take this really important moment and get everyone fighting about maintaining the department, instead of keeping our eyes on the kids and the teachers and doing some good work, that would be a really unfortunate distraction, he said.

Butcher acknowledged that its a big, ambitious idea, but said its also a serious one. Past efforts, he said, lacked willpower and an advocate who prioritized it.

He was encouraged when every candidate in Republican presidential primary debates last year (except Trump, who did not participate) said they supported ending the department.

We have made it a part of the conversation, Butcher said.

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This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.
File photo of an ultrasound. (Getty Images.)

State lawmakers in Ohio want to prohibit local governments from using public dollars in support of abortion. Theyre casting a wide net.

Legislation sponsored by state Rep. Josh Williams, R-Sylvania, bars public funds from being given directly or indirectly to an organization that provides abortions that arent necessary to protect the life of the mother.

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In addition, the bill prohibits funding going to any group providing services for people seeking such abortions like transportation, housing or wage reimbursement. Williams measure also takes an apparent swing at public employees by explicitly including paid time off as a prohibited expenditure.

The bill uses a claw back provision as its enforcement mechanism. If a municipality expends funds in violation of the act, the state would reduce its share of the local government fund appropriation. Dollars withheld under the law would then be directed to a new fund supporting crisis pregnancy centers.

Williams bill requires local governments to report relevant spending on a monthly basis. If they dont report  or dont report accurately  they risk losing their entire local government fund appropriation.

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Proponents

In the House Government Oversight committee, the usual representatives of the anti-abortion movement showed up to testify in favor of Williams bill.

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Will Kuehnle from the Catholic Conference of Ohio argued, In no circumstance should state dollars, even by subsidy, bring about the termination of a human life.

He highlighted programs like one in Columbus granting half a million dollars to support women seeking abortions by reimbursing travel and childcare costs rather than the procedure itself. The appropriation was made with federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan, and it was approved by Columbus City Council shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade triggering Ohios earlier 6-week abortion ban to snap into effect.

In his sponsor testimony, Williams cited initiatives in other cities as well  all backed by federal rather than state dollars, and none of which paid for medical procedures.

Kuehnle insisted if the city wants to offer assistance like paying for travel it should be spending that money supporting mothers rather than people seeking abortions. He argued in many circumstances, people seek an abortion because theyre not receiving some critical service from their community.

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What this bill seeks to do is to take every dollar that we can give to a woman in need and make sure thats where its going, he said.

Notably, while the measure punishes cities for supporting services connected to some abortions, it doesnt actually provide services to pregnant people or young parents. Although some crisis pregnancy centers provide things like diapers, their primary mission is to discourage abortion.

Emma Martinez from Ohio Right to Life criticized the same Columbus grant and cast her organizations support for Williams bill in moral terms.

This legislature has drafted numerous laws that not only protect taxpayers from paying for abortions, but also that protect taxpayers conscience rights, she argued.

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And Nilani Jawahar from the Center for Christian Virtue emphasized the legislations punitive approach to local governments.

This legislation is simple, she said. Counties and municipalities may spend their money as they please, but if they receive state funds for a specific purpose and they choose to spend it funding elective procedures, they are demonstrating to the state that they do not need that money, and therefore the state has a right to withhold it and direct it to where it may be put to better use.

Skeptical Democrats

The measures proponents were met with pushback from the committees Democratic members.

State Rep. Latyna Humphrey, D-Columbus, emphasized unintended consequences. Cutting off funds to entities that provide elective abortions risks cutting off access to other healthcare services those organizations provide, like screening for sexually transmitted infections.

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You all understand that health care is a necessity, specifically in communities where there are health care deserts. Humphrey pressed Kuehnle. So I understand you all dont believe in abortions, but entities like Planned Parenthood and others do provide health care services outside of that.

Meanwhile, Rep. Dani Isaacsohn, D-Cincinnati, asked Jawahar how lawmakers could square the bills approach with Ohio voters support for protecting reproductive rights in the vote for Issue 1.

What Im asking is, how would you summarize the will of the voters as expressed in Issue 1 last year? he said. What did the voters express with Issue 1s passage last year?

After a bit of back-and-forth Jawahar replied, Im not here to talk about the will of the voters, Im here to talk about this bill and why we support it.

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on Twitter.

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'Yes on 3' signs are displayed outside of the Missourians for Constitutional Freedom office on October 26, 2024. Credit - Arin Yoon for The Washington PostGetty Images

The majority of the state ballot measures meant to protect abortion access this year passed, and most of them were citizen-led initiatives, meaning organizers petitioned to get the measures on the ballot. Those types of measures give everyday Americans agency to fight for abortion rights now that the issue has been left to the states. But not all states allow citizens to put forward statewide ballot initiatives, including some with the strictest abortion laws in the country, leaving reproductive-rights advocates there with little recourse.

It essentially leaves us powerless when we're talking about adding initiatives that people actually care about on the ballot, says Chasity Wilson, the executive director of the Louisiana Abortion Fund.

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Since the U.S. Supreme Courts 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade, advocates have turned to the citizen-led initiative process to try and enshrine the right to abortion in state constitutions. Polling has found that the majority of Americans say that abortion should be legal in all or most situations, and when abortion has been on the ballot, its won most of the time.

Ballot measures can lead to tangible changethis year, Missouri made history as the first state since the Dobbs decision to pass a citizen-led ballot measure that is expected to overturn its near-total abortion ban. But only about half of all states allow citizens to propose statewide ballot measures; in other states, the legislatures would have to add measures to the ballot. And some of the states that dont allow for this process are also states that have banned abortion in nearly all situations, including Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas.

I think this is something that was frustrating throughout the campaign when the conversation of abortion would come up and [Donald] Trump in particular would talk about how were just sending it back to the states and giving the voters and the states the opportunity [to decide this], says Michelle Erenberg, the executive director of the reproductive-rights organization Lift Louisiana. It really ignored the fact that there are many states in which citizen-led ballot initiatives arent possible.

Read More: Why Abortion Rights Won in Three States That Voted for Trump

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Citizens elect their representatives, so in red states, the legislatures abortion restrictions are still a reflection of state-by-state policymaking in a post-Roe landscape. But reproductive-rights advocates in those states say that restrictions dont reflect how many voters feel about abortion. And seeing seven abortion-rights measures pass in the 2024 election was also a dismaying reminder to many advocates that they cant try to do the same.

In Louisiana, a Democratic representative proposed putting a reproductive-rights measure on the 2024 ballot, but the House Committee on Civil Law and Procedure shut that effort down in March. Were going to keep trying because we know that this is something that voters in Louisiana do support and do want, Erenberg says. The committee makeup is strongly opposed to abortion and so its going to take a lot of effort to either change the makeup of the committee or change the hearts and minds of the members of the committee.

In 2020, two years before the Dobbs decision, Louisiana voters passed a legislatively-referred constitutional amendment to affirm that nothing in the state constitution guarantees the right to abortion, with about 62% of voters backing the measure. But support for abortion may have shifted since then. Lift Louisiana, in collaboration with other organizations, commissioned a poll, which found that of 1,000 likely Louisiana voters surveyed in April 2023, more of them42%would strongly support a constitutional amendment that establishes a right to abortion than would strongly oppose it30%.

Read More: Emergency Doctor Worries Louisianas New Classification for Abortion Meds Could Be Life-Threatening

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Without a ballot measure, Wilson says the burden falls on advocates and local governments to help people access the care they need. The Louisiana Abortion Fund, for instance, provides direct aid to people in the Gulf South who are trying to obtain abortions in states where its legal, covering the costs of travel and connecting them to other resources they may need. The group also provides funding through pledges sent to clinics located in states where abortion is permitted. Lift Louisiana also provides informational resources, as well as pushes for reproductive-rights legislation and offers legal advocacy.

Jenice Fountainthe executive director of Yellowhammer Fund, a reproductive justice organization that serves Alabama, Mississippi, and the Deep Southsays that not having the ability to put a measure on the Alabama ballot restricts their ability to try to protect reproductive rights. Honestly, the best we can do as advocates in the state is often to reduce some of the harm, Fountain says. The Yellowhammer Fund and other reproductive rights advocates filed lawsuits against Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall in 2023, arguing that he indicated that groups that help people travel out of state to get an abortion could be charged with conspiracy. The Yellowhammer Fund used to offer funds to people seeking abortions, but stopped because of Marshalls remarks.

Now, the Yellowhammer Fund has been distributing emergency contraceptives and other reproductive health items, like condoms and pregnancy tests. Were just having to take such small steps, Fountain says. I think folks are wanting this big, sweeping motion that restores access I just dont think theres going to be any big sweeping motions; I think its just going to have to be very strategic.

Raven E. Freeborn, the executive director of the Texas-based reproductive-rights organization Avow, says they were encouraged to see other states passing ballot measures this year, adding that it could allow Texans traveling out of the state more opportunities to access care. But getting a measure on the ballot is not something that Avow is focusing on. It is a high hope, Freeborn says. However, in the reality of what Texans are facing at this time, the odds are stacked against us there, so were hopeful for different strategies, and thats what were working towards.

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Freeborn emphasizes that there are still a lot of other paths for advocates to protect reproductive rights in Texas. Freeborn points to Amarillo, Texas, where voters rejected a local ballot initiative that would have increased abortion restrictions by essentially making it illegal to use local roads to travel out of the state to get an abortion. Avow canvasses in the state to raise awareness about abortion, and also works with lawmakers to push for legislation to protect reproductive healthcare.

Renee Bracey Sherman, an abortion activist and co-author of Liberating Abortion, says that not allowing these states to put forward citizen-led initiatives prevents peoples voices from being heard. The organizers in those states are so amazing, and I hold so much love and hope for all of them, Bracey Sherman says. I do not hold that same love and hope for the politicians in those states because they follow political winds  they dont necessarily do right by the people.

Contact us at letters@time.com.
ALABAMA (WHNT)  Flu season is right around the corner, according to Dr. Wes Stubblefield, a district medical officer with the Alabama Department of Public Health.

He said its expected to peak right after the first of the year.

Meta donates $150K to support Madison County public school teachers

It takes about two weeks to develop immunity after a flu vaccine, and so if youre going to get the flu vaccine, now is the time, said Dr. Stubblefield.

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Although its rare, he reminds us that the flu can be deadly in some cases.

If you look across the population, the people at highest risk are people that usually at the extremes of age, he said. The very young, older individuals and then those with certain underlying chronic medical conditions.

Stubblefield said the shot exposes your body to a similar strand of the flu, so it can build antibodies and attack the virus in your system.

So, the flu vaccine can keep you from getting sick at all, or it can keep you from getting a more severe case of a flu, he said.

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For those 65 and older, he has a special recommendation.

There are certain flu vaccines that are recommended for that age group that are slightly different, and so I think its important for individuals to ask their vaccine provider if they do have those vaccines, he said.

Hashan Bhim is a pharmacist at Star Market Pharmacy, who shared that they carry this shot in addition to the regular ones. Bhim emphasized the importance of the vaccine before the holidays.

Well come into contact with a lot of folks that we wouldnt normally come into contact with through the year, so it offers you protection as well as protecting your family members from the flu virus this year, he said.

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Free APAC classes prepare families for adoption in North Alabama

Bhim said Star Market takes walk-ins for shots, and they can get you in and out in 5 minutes. It is one of many places in Huntsville offering free flu shots.

If you need a flu shot and do not have insurance, Dr. Stubblefield said you can reach out to the Alabama Department of Public Health to schedule an appointment.

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SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS)Shreveport residents are in for a treat. You may have seen two very large tents and multiple trailers set up at Mall St. Vincent; spoiler alert: its an adult paranormal circus.

On November 15  18, a supernatural and dangerous with shades of sexy has landed in Shreveport: Paranormal Cirque. Their website says if you get scared easily, you might want to run.

Their news release says the show will expose you to a unique combination of theatre, circus, and cabaret with a new European-style flare. There is an emphasis on mature audiences for a reason. The sneak peek reveals partial nudity, so I recommend against viewing the trailer at work or around children.

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The show is rated R for restricted, and if you choose to bring a person under 17, they must be accompanied by an adult over 21.

(Courtesy of Cirque Italia) (Courtesy of Cirque Italia) (Courtesy of Cirque Italia) (Courtesy of Cirque Italia) (Courtesy of Cirque Italia) (Courtesy of Cirque Italia) (Courtesy of Cirque Italia)

Cirque Italia warns, This show is NOT for the faint of heart. You may have to catch your breath or try to stop your heart from racing during this adrenaline-filled performance.

This innovative horror story features different shades of sexy and an incomparable storyline  the only thing you can be sure of during this unique experience is that you will not know what to expect! It might be hard to divide reality and illusion! details Cirque Italia.

The Paranormal Circus schedule for Shreveport:

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November 15  Friday: 7:30 p.m.

November 16  Saturday: 6:30 p.m. & 9:30 p.m.

November 17  Sunday: 5:30 p.m. & 8:30 p.m.

November 18  Monday: 7:30 p.m.

Residents cannot miss their tent; the top is black and white striped, and trailers parked in front of it say Paranormal in front of SEARS (1133 St Vincent Ave, Shreveport)

Golden Girls themed pub crawl coming to East Bank District

Tickets are $20  $65 each.

Paranormal Cirque offers a special promotion: $5.00 off any full-priced ticket purchased in levels 1, 2, or 3. The offer cannot be combined with any other offers, discounts, or deals. The promo link for Shreveport is FACE5OFF.

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Cirque Italia is touring three other cities following Shreveport. According to its website, the next show is in Longview, Texas, from November 22nd to 25th.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTALnews.com.
Miami beaches are known for pristine waters and white sands, but on Nov. 12, an unexpected surprise washed ashore that shocked local residents: a human head.

According to NBC South Florida, Miami-Dade Police are investigating after a person who was raking the beach on Key Biscayne, an island off the coast of Miami, this morning found a severed adult head at around 8:36 a.m. local time. The discovery happened on the sand just south of Crandon Park Beach. So far, police have been unable to determine if the head belonged to a man or a woman, as well as how old the person was when they died, per CBS Miami.

Detective Andre Martin of Miami-Dade Police told NBC News that authorities are investigating to possibly find out what happened to this person.

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"We have not been able to determine exactly how the head became separated from the body, but there are a couple working theories," he said. At the moment, there are several possibilities, including a murder of some kind, a boating accident, or a marine animal attack.

"At this point we're not discounting any possibility," he went on to tell People of the preliminary research. "This could be an accident or missing person. Its too early to tell the circumstances."

For now, the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office is looking at the human remains. Meanwhile, the Miami-Dade Police homicide investigations unit is also looking into what could've happened.
Advance Auto Parts announced the closure of over 700 stores with the release of the company's third-quarter report released Thursday.

The Advance Auto Parts' gross profit increased 11% in the third quarter of 2024 compared to the 36.9% increase in 2023's third quarter. Executives said the extreme dip in profits lead the company to announce the closures of 731 locations, which are expected to take place by mid-2025.

We are charting a clear path forward and introducing a new three-year financial plan, with a focus on executing core retail fundamentals to improve the productivity of all our assets and to create shareholder value," Shane OKelly, president and chief executive officer said in the report.

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Here's what to know about the closures.

Advance Auto Parts store closures

The company plans to close 23 corporate stores, 204 independent locations and four distribution centers. No locations have been announced yet for the closures. Despite the announcement to close over 700 stores, Advance Auto Parts does plan to accelerate the opening of new stores.

It will attempt to improve sourcing for parts, increase availability of parts, and adjust pricing and promotions to improve gross margin.

Advance Auto Parts also announced plans to consolidate its distribution centers to only 13 by 2026, open 60 market hub locations by mid-2027 and optimize transportation routes and freight to lower costs and improve productivity.

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According to the report:

Third quarter 2024 net sales from continuing operations totaled $2.1 billion

Third quarter 2023 sales totaled $2.2 billion.

Advance Auto Parts adjusted operating income in 2024's third quarter was 0.8% of net sales, compared with 3.3% of net sales in the third quarter of 2023.

The company recently sold Worldpac, an automotive parts wholesaler, for $1.5 billion in as part of the new business model's reduction plan.

These losses are the reason the company is implementing a plan to cut costs in three categories: store operations, merchandise excellence and supply chain.

How many Advance Auto Parts stores in Tennessee?

There is a total of 149 Advance Auto Parts stores in Tennessee.

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The store has the largest presence in these cities:

Knoxville: 12 locations

Nashville: 10 locations

Memphis: 8 locations

Clarksville: 5 locations

Murfreesboro: 5 locations

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Advance Auto Parts stores closing: 731 locations around US to shutter
TEHRAN, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Thursday that four "terrorists" were killed and six others arrested in a counterterrorism operation in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province.

In a statement published on its official news outlet, Sepah News, IRGC said two of its soldiers were also killed in the operation that was carried out in the province's Rask County earlier in the day.

It added during the operation, its Quds Base units and provincial intelligence department identified the hideout of a "terrorist" group in the county and besieged it for killing and arresting "terrorists."

The Sistan-Baluchestan province, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, has been a hotspot for armed groups and drug trafficking networks. On Oct. 26, militants reportedly attacked a border patrol in the region, killing 10 Iranian security personnel. Jaish al-Zulm, designated as a terrorist entity by Iran, has claimed responsibility for the attack. 
Advance Auto Parts announced on Thursday that it is closing at least 500 corporate stores by mid-2025, and exiting another 200 independent locations.

The move comes as the company said in a release that its gross profit increased 11% in the third quarter of 2024 to $907 million compared to the same period a year ago. The company also said that its adjusted expenses were $891.2 million, or 41.5% of net sales, compared with 40.2% in the third quarter of 2023, primarily due to lower sales.

We are charting a clear path forward and introducing a new three-year financial plan, with a focus on executing core retail fundamentals to improve the productivity of all our assets and to create shareholder value," Shane OKelly, president and chief executive officer said in the report.

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The company also said it incurred high labor-related expenses due to wage investments in frontline team members that were partially offset by a reduction in marketing expenses, the release said.

Advance Auto Parts serves both professional installers and do-it-yourself customers, its website says. As of Oct. 5, Advance operated 4,781 Advance Auto (4,492) and Carquest (289) branded stores, primarily within the United States, with additional locations in Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It's largest market is Florida, where it operates 522 stores.

In 2024, through Oct. 5, the company said it opened 23 stores and closed 29.

The company also served 1,125 independently owned Carquest branded stores across those locations, in addition to Mexico and various Caribbean islands.

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Here's what we know about the company's plans.

What Michigan stores will close?

It is unclear whether Michigan stores will be impacted by the auto parts company as it reorganizes. The release did not specify which locations will close.

The company operates 140 stores in Michigan, including four in Lansing and Warren; two in Battle Creek, Detroit, Livonia, Holland and Sturgis; and one each in Howell, Canton, Cheboygan, Novi, Port Huron, South Lyon, Troy and Westland.

In addition to the 523 corporate stores, they will also exit 204 independently owned locations and close four distributions centers by mid-2025.

Why are they closing locations?

According to the report, third quarter 2024 sales totaled $2.1 billion, compared with $2.2 billion in the third quarter of the prior year.

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Store operations, merchandise excellence and supply chain will all take hits as the company looks to make up what it lost.

The report says the closures should help improve sourcing for parts, increase availability of parts, and adjust pricing and promotions to improve gross margin.

The company said it plans to consolidate distribution centers to 13 large facilities by 2026, open 60 market hub locations by mid-2027, and optimize transportation routes and freight to lower costs and improve productivity.

In addition, the company plans to standardize its store operating model and improving labor productivity and accelerate the pace of new store openings, although it did not say where it would be opening new stores.

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Jalen Williams is a trending reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at jawilliams1@freepress.com

Commercial Appeal reporter Jordan Green contributed reporting.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Advance Auto Parts announces plans to close hundreds of stores
STATE CAPITOL, Mich.(WLNS)  A Michigan organization gathered at the state Capitol for two reasonsto make sure everyone can get a drivers license and make sure everyone can afford a place to live.

We The People Michigan Action rallied at the Capitol Wednesday afternoon in hopes that state lawmakers can pass the Drive SAFE bill. The bill would allow everyone to get a drivers licenseincluding undocumented immigrants.

Yvonne Navarrete, policy director for the organization, says the bill would help many undocumented immigrants and their daily lives.

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Many industries across the state rely on immigrant labor, and in order to do those jobs safely, we need drivers licenses for all, says Navarrete.

She says they also want the legislature to pass a renters rights house bill, like HB 4947 while the Democratic majority still has power within the House.

April Ailes, co-organizer of the organization, says in Kalamazoo theyre at 96% occupancy.

Our un-housed population is growing every day, said Ailes. Families are being priced out of their units consistently. Elderly folks are on fixed incomes. Their rent keeps going up and they cant afford to pay those increases.

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She says nothing is stopping the rent increase.

If we dont have the right to organize if thats not protected by law then we can all be evicted for even speaking out, said Ailes.

Rosanely Avelino, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, says the Drive SAFE bill would make her feel safer when interacting with the police.

When they take your license away, said Avelino. You feel like they take your rights.

Avelino has been living in the U.S. since 2000. She had her license until 2008 when the state legislature passed a law that took away the ability for undocumented immigrants to get drivers licenses.

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She says she feels like a target without it.

You feel more discriminated, said Avelino. Theres a lot of racist people everywhere. When you dont have a identification its hard for us to go wherever we want.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WLNS 6 News.
Nov. 13New York Attorney General Letitia James has issued a consumer alert, warning New Yorkers about common health insurance scams as open enrollment begins for insurance plans through New York's Affordable Care Act marketplace.

New Yorkers have until Dec. 15 to enroll through the New York State of Health marketplace for health coverage taking effect Jan. 1. Health insurance scams spike during open enrollment periods, according to a news release from James' office.

"New Yorkers must be able to secure health insurance free from predatory scammers trying to take advantage of them," James said. "As New Yorkers take advantage of this year's open enrollment period, I urge everyone to be cautious and contact my office if they think they are the target of a scam or fraud. Affordable and accessible health care is a fundamental right, and my office will do everything in its power to protect New Yorkers seeking to secure insurance for themselves and their families."

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Enrollment in New York's public health programs  Medicaid, Child Health Plus and the Essential plan  is open year-round. However, New York state requires enrollees to renew their eligibility for the health plans every year. Enrollees are sent renewal notices in advance of their coverage end dates with detailed instructions on how to stay covered and their deadline to renew. To enroll in commercial health insurance for 2025, New Yorkers must do so during the open enrollment period which lasts from Nov. 1 to Jan. 31. New Yorkers have until Dec. 15 to enroll for coverage that will start on Jan. 1. Otherwise, coverage will begin Feb. 1, according to the release.

New Yorkers should look out for the following tactics scammers used to target those who are trying to obtain or keep health insurance, the release stated:

Scammers often use fear by threatening New Yorkers that their Medicaid or other health coverage are at risk of cancellation, or that they have already lost their Medicaid or other health coverage unless they provide hundreds of dollars to reinstate or continue benefits.

Scammers will also use false offers of generosity to lure New Yorkers into providing personal information. This is typically done through phishing scams offering people gift cards or money to "update" their health accounts so as not to lose coverage.

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Scammers may ask for money to enroll people in marketplace or "Obamacare" insurance. The New York agencies that administer Medicaid, Child Health Plus and Essential Plan benefits will never use the term "Obamacare" or ask for money from consumers to enroll or re-enroll. They will also not offer New Yorkers rewards to renew their coverage.

James provided the following tips and reminders for New Yorkers to avoid common scams:

No one can ever charge a fee to renew health insurance in Medicaid, Child Health Plus or the Essential Plan.

If enrolled in health insurance through the NY State of Health, many people are available to help residents renew for free. These include the state's health-certified enrollment assistors (including navigators, agents, and brokers) and customer service representatives. For information or guidance, visit the NY State of Health website or call 1-855-355-5777. The phone line is available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.

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If enrolled in Medicaid through either a county Medicaid office or through New York City's Human Resources Administration, there are also many people available to help for free. Contact the office where you enrolled to ask questions and get help with renewing insurance.

Government agencies will never threaten, demand payment, or ask for credit information in a text message, email, or phone call.

Many websites will try to make residents think that they are the official New York state health insurance marketplace, the release stated. There is only one official NY State of Health website. Submitting contact information to some websites may lead to calls, texts or emails from scammers.

Any New Yorker who suspects that they are a victim of a scam is encouraged to report it to OAG by submitting a complaint online or calling 1-800-771-7755.
The News

The US Department of Homeland Security published new guidance Thursday on the safe and secure use of AI in critical sectors like transportation, defense, and energy.

The document stems from an executive order President Joe Biden signed last year  the longest such order in US history  which one lawyer described as the mother of all AI legislation. The document includes voluntary best practices for companies to implement AI safely, and prevent its misuse. It may be the last AI-related guidance released before incoming President-elect Donald Trump, who is widely expected to take a far more hands-off stance on AI, is inaugurated.

SIGNALS

Trump may take a deregulatory approach to AI

Sources: NBC News, The Verge, Semafor

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While President Joe Biden has generally approached AI with a focus on safety over speed, by contrast, President-elect Donald Trump is expected to undo Bidens executive order, NBC News wrote. The 2024 GOP platform described the order as dangerous, adding it hinders AI Innovation and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology. This also may be one area where Trumps unofficial adviser Elon Musk  who owns AI startup xAI  may have influence, and could try to shape policy in his favor, The Verge wrote. Musk could also potentially receive preferential treatment in obtaining coveted energy resources to power AI data centers to run his models, Semafors Reed Albergotti noted.

Strong AI exports, not tariffs, could give the US an edge over China

Source: Digital Spirits newsletter

To win the tech race with China, the Trump administration may need to embrace competition, rather than control, AI policy expert Matthew Mittelsteadt argued in his newsletter Digital Spirits: Strong AI exports would boost revenue, drive innovation, and give the US an economic edge, while also reducing Chinas influence, as other nations will preferentially buy and use American technology. By contrast, Trumps proposed hiked tariffs on Chinese products would raise prices for tech companies and squeeze their corporate budgets, a contraction that could absolutely make or break the United States ability to invest in, make use of, and compete with artificial intelligence.

OpenAI proposes bigger role for government in growing AI

Sources: Bloomberg, FedScoop, Semafor

OpenAI, whose CEO Sam Altman helped craft the new DHS guidance, this week released an Infrastructure Blueprint, detailing what it believes the US needs to stay ahead in the increasingly heated AI race with China. The approach imagines an aggressive role for the US government in promoting the technologys development, FedScoop reported, including creating AI economic zones to encourage data center construction and tapping US Navy expertise to build small modular nuclear power plants  an idea Semafors Reed Albergotti said was especially intriguing. While the construction of nuclear power plants in the US has stalled, the Navy has kept building small ones to power submarines, he wrote. Why not build reactors similar to those of power data centers?
Two wounded patients were killed after police officers and vigilantes attacked an ambulance in Haiti, humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders said on Wednesday.

The alleged executions in the capital Port-au-Prince are the latest reported act of heinous violence in the restive Caribbean nation, which has been plagued for years by rampant gang warfare and political turmoil.

Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), said law enforcement officers stopped one of its ambulances as it was transporting three young people with gunshot wounds to an MSF hospital in the Haitian capital on Monday.

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Police then diverted the vehicle to a public hospital, where officers and members of a vigilante group surrounded the ambulance, slashed the tires, and tear-gassed MSF staff inside the vehicle to force them out, the organization said in a statement.

The officers and vigilantes then took the three wounded patients outside the hospital grounds and at least two of them were killed, MSF said.

MSF Head of Mission Christophe Garnier told CNN that staff members heard gunshots after the patients were taken away, but they couldnt confirm who carried out the executions.

The third patient was not killed, Garnier said. Authorities suspected the patients of being gang members, but MSF had no information to support that claim, he added. Garnier also said the officers were wearing protective gear but its unclear what police unit or agency they belonged to.

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CNN has reached out to Haitian police for comment.

MSF condemned the attack, saying its staff were threatened with death and held against their will for more than four hours before being allowed to leave.

This act is a shocking display of violence, both for the patients and for MSF medical personnel, and it seriously calls into question MSFs ability to continue delivering essential care to the Haitian people, which is in dire need, Garnier said.

MSF is organizing a high-level meeting with Haitian police to address the matter, he added.

This is the latest deadly ambulance attack that MSF has reported in Haiti. In December last year, the organization said armed men stopped an MSF ambulance, dragged a patient out and killed him.

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The MSF report comes just two days after three US-based planes were struck by gunfire in Port-au-Prince, forcing the suspension of flights and closure of the citys international airport.

Garnier told CNN the flight suspensions will likely affect MSFs operations in Haiti, but said the organization still has enough supplies to last a few more weeks.

Haitis transitional presidential council blamed armed gangs for the gunfire that struck one of the flights, accusing them of aiming to isolate our country on the international stage. The plane shootings happened on the same day the council swore in a new prime minister, businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aime, who pledged to restore democracy and security in the country.

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT)  A billion-dollar prison that is being built in Elmore County partly using COVID-19 relief funds issued to the state will be named after Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey.

The prison, formerly the Elmore Specialized Mens Facility, will now be called the Governor Kay Ivey Correctional Complex. According to the Alabama Department of Corrections, the motion to name the prison after the governor was recently approved by the Alabama Corrections Institution Finance Authority.

The 54-building prison, which will house 4,000 inmates and cover 335 acres, is nearly halfway complete, ADOC reports.

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Gina Maiola, communications director for Iveys office, said it was ADOC Commissioner John Hamms idea to name the new prison after Ivey, of which she gave her blessing.

There is no governor in Alabamas history who has done more to improve the states corrections system than Governor Ivey, so it is fitting that one of the new facilities will bear her name, Maiola said in a written statement. And her work on this issue is certainly not done.

CBS 42 Special Report: Raymond Harbert on being inducted into the Alabama Business Hall of Fame and building on the Harbert legacy

State leaders first began discussing building new prisons in Elmore and Escambia counties, passing legislation to spend $1.25 billion to build the prisons. Through the process, it was decided that roughly $400 million that had been allocated to the state through the American Rescue Plan Act would be used toward the projects. ARPA was created in 2021 to help states recover both physically and financially at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Despite the U.S. Department of Treasury ruling that new prisons was not an eligible use of the money, the Alabama Department of Finance claimed that the prison plan was not impacted by the US Department of the Treasurys Final Rule, according to the Associated Press.

Throughout the last couple of years, the price tag for the Elmore prison ballooned from the projected $623 million to over $1 billion.

The Governor Kay Ivey Correctional Complex is set to be completed in May 2026.



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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT)  Alabama U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville expressed support Wednesday for the nomination of Pete Hegseth to serve as Secretary of Defense by President-elect Donald Trump.

Tuberville also took aim at the Pentagon and many top U.S. military commanders in remarks during a news conference Wednesday.

Trump transition official says RFK Jr. wants to force vaccines off the market

Hegseth served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, earning three bronze stars while serving in the Army National Guard. He does not have served in a senior military role but has headed a veterans group, Concerned Veterans for America. Hegseth has said women should not serve in combat roles for the U.S. military.

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Tuberville, who serves on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, has had a rocky relationship with the Pentagon over a Department of Defense policy allowing service members to travel for abortions and related medical care.

For nearly a year, Tuberville put a Senate hold on U.S. military promotions, drawing criticism from the Pentagon and military service branch chiefs who argued the hold was hurting military readiness.

Tuberville said Wednesday the Pentagon needed change and was suffering from the presence of too many woke generals.

Pete is the right person because hes not from the Pentagon, Tuberville said. We need to start cleaning the Pentagon out, because its nothing but a bunch of DEI woke generals that are doing nothing but absolutely ruining our military. Now we have a few good people over there but we have way too many who have been brought up in the rank that are teaching and pushing the woke-ism and DEI education to our military and that has to stop.

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The Secretary of Defense plays a large role in Alabamas economy and infrastructure. Redstone Arsenal employs more than 44,000 civilian and contract employees, by far Huntsvilles largest employer.

Statewide, Alabama has about 7,400 active duty personnel and in North Alabama, there are an estimated 77,000 U.S. military veterans.

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Members of the Alcohol Beverage Control Board speak among themselves after a meeting on Nov. 14, 2024. The Board passed updated rules regarding online training. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector)

The Alabama Alcohol Beverage Control Board Thursday approved rules for training alcohol servers, an approval that a state senator said would be critical to allow state contracts to move forward.

The rules, unanimously approved by the board, set requirements for how vendors may train their employees online on the rules related to serving alcohol.

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After the vote, Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, released holds he placed on contracts during last weeks Contract Review Committee meeting.

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That should accommodate what I was asking for, Elliott said in a conference call with the media following the meeting. I had worked with the restaurants, hospitality and grocers to talk about what their needs were when we were drafting the legislation. Those rule changes ought to be sufficient to allow them to find a commercially viable, commercially available product to work with.

Elliott last week accused the board of not complying with a state law that he had sponsored regulating training for 18 to 20-year-olds serving alcohol in certain places.

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The legislation expanded the locations where those servers, who cannot legally purchase alcohol, could serve it, such as hotels and restaurants. It also required restaurants and hotels covered under the law to be certified annually with the Responsible Vendor program.

To be certified, vendors needed to offer training to employees on the rules pertaining to serving alcohol. In the past, people had to be physically present at the location where they took the exam. Elliotts bill allows the exam to be done online.

Curtis Stewart, administrator of the ABC Board, said after the meeting that it was a voluntary program that could ease punishments if minors purchase alcohol from those establishments.

It gives them some mitigation of their fines if they show they trained their people, and if they show us they have trained their people and maintained records of their training, and if they do it for all the people who come in, he said.

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Among the suggestions made by the Association, and one the Board adopted, is that individuals taking the exam do not need to be shown the correct answer to a specific question, only the score and whether they received a passing score.

The rule changes will go through a period of public comment before being implemented.

Stewart said after Thursdays meeting that the agency had been offering the training online during the coronavirus pandemic, before Elliotts bill became law. The Alabama Restaurant and Hospitality Association wanted the state policy changed to allow for training online, and the ABC Board agreed, according to Stewart.

Among the suggestions made by the Association, and one the Board adopted, is that individuals taking the exam do not need to be shown the correct answer to a specific question, only the score and whether they received a passing score.

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The rule changes will go through a period of public comment before being implemented.

The change that they wanted was for us to go ahead with a rule that says how you do the online training, Stewart said. It previously said you could do it; it didnt put in any real barriers on how you did it. This rule basically puts more guidelines out there that says you have to do it this way or this way.

The contracts Elliott held included several legal services agreements the state had negotiated for different lawsuits, including several involving the Alabama Department of Corrections.

According to the Alabama Daily News, Elliott released a handful of contracts as of Friday, including one from the Attorney Generals Office, although it is unclear which of the contracts the agency presented was released.

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ISLAMABAD, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Twelve terrorists were killed in two separate intelligence-based operations in Pakistan, the military said late Wednesday.

Security forces conducted the operations in the southwest Balochistan province and northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan Army, said in a statement.

During the operation in Kech district of Balochistan, an intense fire exchange took place between security forces and terrorists. Four terrorists, including a high-value target, were killed.

Separately, eight terrorists were killed and six others injured after security forces effectively attacked their location in North Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Clearance operations were being carried out to eliminate any other terrorists in the areas. 
Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, has been picked by President-elect Donald Trump to oversee the U.S. intelligence community. While Trump had long been expected to pick an "outsider" for the role of national intelligence director, some elected officials were still caught off-guard by the selection of someone who has no formal intelligence experience.

Gabbard, who was a Democrat until 2022 but critical of her party long before that, endorsed Trump in the 2024 election. In a statement announcing her selection, Trump said that Gabbard would bring a a fearless spirit to the intelligence agencies and secure peace through strength.

Others are not so sure. Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve who served in Iraq, has long been critical of foreign policy establishment. Her deeply skeptical views of most U.S. foreign policy, including support for Ukraine, sympathy for dictators like Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad in Syria and embrace of various conspiracy theories has earned her many critics who say that she would not pass muster in a Senate confirmation process.

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Gabbard, like many other "America First" proponents, exempts Israel from her quasi-isolationist critiques, once describing pro-Palestine protesters as puppets of a "radical Islamist organization" and serving as a keynote speaker at a conference hosted by Christians United for Israel. But one senior former intelligence official told Politico that allies like Israel would still have "serious qualms" about Gabbard.

Gabbard, who served in the Hawaii National Guard and then joined an Army reserve unit that was deployed to Iraq, has said that her skepticism of intervention was rooted in her experience from serving in a war that she saw as unnecessary and costly. But critics on both sides of the aisle say that far from just advocating for restraint, she has embraced talking points from militaristic autocrats like Assad and Putin, and as overseer of 18 spy agencies would undermine national security and the international order. Under former President Barack Obama, she called for escalating the U.S. war on terror, accusing the president of failing to target extremist rebel factions in Syria.

"Her politics, which are otherwise incoherent, tend to be sympathetic to these two strongmen, painting America as the problem and the dictators as misunderstood," wrote anti-Trump conservative and former Naval War College professor Tom Nichols in an op-ed published by The Atlantic.

"This is a disaster for US security & alliances. Of all Trump's decisions so far, might be the worst. Tulsi Gabbard has consistently parroted pro-Putin propaganda. Director of National Intelligence is a critical position for which she has absolutely no experience and skill," Thomas Judeau, professor at the University of Ottawa, wrote in an X post.
A tense budget season for Mayor Brandon Johnson seems to be getting worse, with persistent staffing issues in the office tasked with lobbying the City Council emboldening many aldermen to try to seize control of the process from the self-styled collaborator-in-chief.

Johnsons second spending plan already has faced a series of hurdles that mark this as one of the most contentious fall budget negotiations in recent years. On Thursday, aldermen who have felt ignored throughout the process  among them some close council allies of the mayor  are striking back with an extraordinary special meeting where they aim to vote down his requested $300 million tax increase.

That step comes after a final vote on the budget has already been pushed back twice to mid-December at the earliest, raising the possibility, however remote, that the city might blow past the Dec. 31 deadline to reach a deal for 2025.

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Some City Council members who spoke with the Tribune about the budget cycle so far said those issues are in part symptomatic of a troubling vacuum at Johnsons intergovernmental affairs office, which is tasked with whipping up support in the council. Shepherding the annual budget is usually the IGAs biggest responsibility, but recent shakeups there have threatened aldermanic relations during a crucial time for Johnson and his progressive agenda.

The IGA office had six vacancies as of the end of October, compared with two in August 2023, requested public records show. There is also no permanent head of the office after Johnsons last two deputy mayors for intergovernmental affairs quit.

Southwest Side Ald. Matt OShea said intergovernmental affairs is now like a rudderless ship.

The whole entire process has been dysfunctional, he said Wednesday. I dont care what neighborhood youre in or what member of City Council youre talking to, everybody  I mean, everybody  is angry and frustrated with the situation were in.  And to hear yesterday that theres been great collaboration is insulting.

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OShea, 19th, was referring to Johnsons news conference Tuesday in which the mayor said he wasnt wedded to the now-imperiled $300 million property tax increase and insisted that reporters refer to him as the collaborator-in-chief.

As a public school teacher, sometimes we do things to get peoples attention. And so now that we have the attention of everyone, Ive said from the very beginning, this is a proposal, Johnson said. Im a collaborative mayor. For the first time in the history of Chicago youre actually seeing that type of collaborative approach.

In a phone interview, top Johnson aide Kennedy Bartley said Emily Melbye is the acting head of intergovernmental affairs, reporting to her. Bartley acknowledged that the lobbying operation has staffing shortages, but she added that its employees also have tenacity and diligence that aldermen value.

They have been deeply appreciative of the productivity and the communication that theyre seeing from IGA and the path forward, Bartley said of City Council members.

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Ald. Samantha Nugent, 39th, said she has noticed a lot more engagement from the mayors staff in recent days. It is not a secret that the mayors lobbying team is understaffed, but there seems to be more traction from the Johnson administration in responding to the City Councils requests, she said.

I think thats a welcome thing. I think we have a long way to go, though, she said.

Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st, said that while Johnsons lobbying team is a very limited resource right now, the conversations he has had with the shrunken team have been productive, along with recent aldermanic briefings with the mayors top budget officials.

Its kind of IGA and friends, La Spata said. Everybodys titles and responsibilities feel like they are in a state of flux.

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Several meetings with the Johnson administration and about two dozen aldermen that took place Saturday were characterized by attendees as a productive step forward, though some lamented that it should have happened earlier. The mayors budget team walked through some tax ideas before leaving aldermen to confer with Bartley and Johnsons senior adviser Jason Lee on how those proposals could whittle down the $300 million hole if aldermen kill the tax hike.

Some aldermen said they wished the mayors financial gurus had stayed to work on those possibilities, but Bartley said their attendance at the beginnings of the meetings highlighted Johnsons efforts to be transparent and collaborative. The mayors budget leaders are incredibly busy people, she said.

We were able to have even more productive conversations because our budget and finance teams provided the parameters and details so that we were able to operate from kind of a level field, she said.

La Spata, present for one meeting, said the presence of budget leaders helped him and other aldermen get a better understanding of how different revenue-raising options could play out.

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Thats the only meeting of that sort Ive been a part of in the just over six years Ive been in office, he said.

But while other aldermen frustrated with the budget process and overall relations with the mayors office said they didnt blame the remaining IGA staffers, they felt the lobbying arm wasnt empowered to shore up votes. The effectiveness of an IGA arm hinges on building long-term trust between the administration and aldermen, and its difficult to manufacture that on a tight schedule.

OShea was one of 10 budgeteers tapped by the mayors IGA team this summer to make suggestions to the administration on priorities for the 2025 budget. The group of aldermen from across the city met four times from July to October with senior Johnson officials, but OShea said their discussions didnt seem to move the needle on the mayors ultimate spending plan he presented Oct. 30.T

The mayor has also publicly encouraged aldermen to come up with revenue ideas to fill the fiscal gap, but some of those ideas could require buy-in from lawmakers in Springfield. And Johnsons deputy IGA director who handles state government, Mike Ciaccio, is quitting at the end of this month, three sources confirmed to the Tribune, making it even tougher for the mayor to make inroads with the General Assembly.

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Before Johnson took office in May 2023, his transition team fired predecessor Lori Lightfoots IGA appointee Beth Beatty, only to swiftly rehire her.

Then Sydney Holman was tapped in November, but abruptly resigned this September after hearing about the mayors plan to install Bartley in a high-ranking position that would oversee Holmans role.

Two staffers brought on during Holmans tenure also left at the same time. A month later, Holmans interim replacement Erik Martinez quit too.

Holmans tenure marked the only non-chaotic point in the mayors lobbying efforts, said Ald. Bill Conway, 34th.

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But since then, the significant amount of turnover in IGA is partially responsible for the chaos of this budget season, Conway added.

Conway said Johnsons trouble working with the City Council extends to scheduling, a typically behind-the-scenes process that sparked debate among aldermen Tuesday when they learned that meetings for the rest of the week and even later that same afternoon would be canceled.

Aldermen on Tuesday balked as they learned that the already-behind budget process would face further delays.

Budget Committee Chair Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, shared a plan to cancel hearings scheduled for Wednesday and next Monday to allow aldermen to attend the funerals of former Ald. Bill Beavers and slain police Officer Enrique Martinez. Ervin also shifted the schedule to allow longer hearings for the citys most expensive departments, a move he said will allow aldermen to better vet their budgets and make thoughtful cuts.

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Were talking about the changes we need to make on the tax side, we really have discussions on the expense side, he told the committee.

The previously scheduled early-December first vote on the budget was already set to be the citys latest since 2009 after Johnson delayed his budget proposal introduction by two weeks in October.

Editors note: A previous version of this story incorrectly detailed the governmental process needed for video gambling to be allowed in Chicago. The city must lift its local law banning the devices.
Thursday night a major construction project is set to begin, likely impacting thousands of drivers in Greene County.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Overnight lane closures are planned for Nov. 14-21 on U.S. 35 near Trebein Road in Greene County.

Its going to make U.S. 35 a continuous, non signalized intersection at Valley/Trebein, Mandi Dillon with the Ohio Department of Transportation told News Center 7s Nick Foley. There was a four way signal at that location. This makes it more of a standard interchange with on and off ramps to and from [U.S. 35] and Valley/Trebein.

TRENDING STORIES:

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The single-lane closure will be in effect from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. on U.S. 35 East and West between Orchard Lane and the intersection of Valley and Trebein roads.

The upcoming changes in the U.S. 35 project come just two weeks after a deadly crash in the construction zone.

A U-Haul traveling through the construction zone crashed into the back of a semi on Nov. 2, killing two people from Wisconsin.

Dillon says road crews are emphasizing caution for drivers and workers.

Even if youve driven that route for years, it could be a situation where theres a work zone and the traffic pattern has changed, Dillon said. So we just want people to be alert, so that when they see those changes, you know, they can react appropriately.

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For commuters who find themselves driving the area frequently, Dillon recommends finding an alternate route until construction is complete.

For more information on construction projects across the state, visit ohgo.com.

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Alina Habba, a lawyer for an top aide to President-elect Trump, says she is out of the running to become his White House press secretary.

While I am flattered by the support and speculation, the role of Press Secretary is not a role I am considering. Although I love screaming from a podium I will be better served in other capacities, Habba wrote on the social platform X early Thursday morning. This adminstration is going to be epic! So proud of the Trump team, the latest appointments and 47!

Habba earlier this week was asked during an appearance on Sean Hannitys program about a report that suggested she was the front-runner for the position.

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Its time to turn the page. Its time to have advocacy for America First, Habba said. Its a decision for all of them to make, not me.

Habba added she was very loyal to Trump and would consider the position very seriously.

A lawyer who first gained national notoriety defending Trump during his civil fraud trial in New York, Habba was on a list of top aides and allies to the former president vying to run his White House press shop.

Other potential picks include Karoline Leavitt, Steven Cheung, Scott Jennings and Jason Miller.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  A person was arrested Wednesday afternoon for driving under the influence after crashing into a Vancouver home, the Clark County Sheriffs Office announced.

Luis Vasquez, 32, also faces charges of reckless driving and driving with a suspended license.

Authorities responded to the single-car crash crash in the 6300 block of NE 4th Ave. just after 1 p.m.

St. Helens High School educators accused of student sex abuse begin court proceedings

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Deputies found a full-size pickup that left NE 63rd St and struck the corner of a residence. An adult and an infant occupied the home at the time of the collision, CCSO said.

No one was injured in the crash.

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Allegiant Air is set to launch its first nonstop flight from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to the Melbourne Orlando International Airport in Florida.

The flight will take off Friday at 3:55 p.m. with a celebration at the gate for first-flight passengers, CVG officials said in a news release Thursday.

"The flight operates twice weekly (Friday and Monday) and is a convenient way for travelers to get to the beaches along Floridas east coast like Melbourne Beach, Indian River Shores, Sebastian, and Cocoa Beach," The release states.

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The new Allegiant flight offered at CVG comes as the Las Vegas-based airline faces pressure from negotiations with its pilots union, which overwhelmingly voted to authorize union leaders to strike.

The vote last week was supported by more than 97% of Allegiant pilots represented by Teamsters Local 2118. It means the pilots union will go on strike if the carrier and the union cannot reach an agreement.

The vote to authorize a strike is not affecting Allegiant flights now, meaning anyone leaving CVG on an Allegiant flight shouldn't expect any wrinkles in their travel plans.

When asked about how a potential strike would affect Allegiant passengers at CVG, the airline said in a statement it's in the midst of negotiations with the union and is working to finalize an agreement for its pilots.

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"This is not a work stoppage, nor is one imminent," the statement reads. "The conditions for a strike, as dictated by the Railway Labor Act, the federal law governing labor relations in the aviation industry, have not been met."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Allegiant Air offers new nonstop flight to Florida from CVG
CASCADE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD)  Allegiant Air announced Thursday it will be adding a new destination from the Gerald R. Ford International Airport.

The airline will offer nonstop service to Palm Beach International Airport in Florida starting Thursday.

Allegiant Air is offering one-way fares on the new route as low as $49.

The new route will take off three times weekly. More flight information can be found online.

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MEMPHIS, Tenn.  A man was arrested on his birthday after police say he was driving recklessly while fleeing from a traffic stop and was later caught with drugs and a stolen gun.

Tremaun Williams, 26, is charged with a convicted felon in possession of a handgun, possession of a firearm/dangerous felony, theft of firearm less than $2,500, drag racing, intentionally evading arrest in auto, reckless driving, possession of marijuana, and manufacture/deliver/sell a controlled substance.

According to police, a man filed a report stating that his gun was stolen on July 8.

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On November 13, detectives say they were following up on an investigation where a blue Chevy Camaro had sped away from the scene of a traffic stop.

 See more breaking news, local news and weather from WREG.com for Memphis and the Mid-South.

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When detectives arrived at the 2600 block of Hawkins Mill Road, which was the address registered to the blue Camaro, they said they could see the car in the backyard through the cracks in the fence.

After further investigation, detectives were able to confirm that it was the blue Camaro that fled the scene of a traffic stop.

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That is when detectives knocked on the side door of the home and a woman answered but stated she didnt know who the car belonged to and that she was only there staying with a friend.

A gate was open where the Camaro was parked, so detectives say they went into the backyard and knocked on a shed door.

Williams opened the door and was immediately detained. Detectives say they could smell a strong odor of marijuana coming from inside the shed. When they asked if he knew why they were there, Williams said Yeah, are you towing my car and am I going to jail?

Senator calls out judge on release of FedEx shooting suspect

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Before detectives walked him to the squad car, they asked the woman inside the home to grab him some shoes, and she said she didnt know where any shoes for him were located.

At that time, detectives went back to the shed to grab Williams some shoes and saw marijuana and a handgun in plain sight.

Williams told detectives that there were about 3 bows in the shed, which pounds of weed is commonly called.

After a search warrant was issued, detectives tagged the narcotics, drug paraphernalia, a handgun, and ammunition. The handgun was shown to be stolen from a theft from a motor vehicle out of Appling Farms.

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Several juveniles arrested for shoplifting in Germantown

The marijuana, mushrooms, and spight all came back positive. There was a total of $4,317 that was also found and seized.

Tremaun Williams was taken to 201 Poplar for booking. His court date is scheduled for Friday morning.

On June 12, Williams was found guilty of criminal conspiracy drugs and weapons in Arkansas.

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The News

The French medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, said at least two of its patients were killed in Haiti after gangs attacked the ambulance in which they were being transported.

The shootings came shortly after three US commercial planes were hit by gunfire while flying over Port-au-Prince airport, prompting several carriers to cancel flights to the country.

Although a UN-backed security mission of Kenyan police officers made some progress against the islands powerful gangs, the groups have clawed back control, notably in the capital.

Now Nairobi is racing to transition the deployment to a UN peacekeeping operation over fears that the US  which has supplied most of its funding  might cut off support as the Trump administration takes power.
ISTANBUL, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police seized thousands of historical artifacts during a major operation spanning 14 provinces on Thursday.

According to the NTV broadcaster, the operation was part of an investigation launched by the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office in Bayburt, a province in Turkiye's Black Sea region, to crack down on the illegal trade of artifacts and unauthorized excavations.

During the operation, authorities confiscated 3,072 coins from the Ottoman Empire, 178 coins from the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) period, and various other historical objects. In addition, the police seized a painting believed to be by world-renowned artist Pablo Picasso.

The coins and artifacts were illegally excavated from ancient sites in Turkiye's eastern and southeastern Anatolia regions, NTV noted. Some of these items were also being prepared for export abroad.

The broadcaster added that 21 suspects were also detained, of whom 19 were released after providing their statements, while the court granted probation to two other suspects. 
WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  American University said on Wednesday that its School of Education is not closing despite discussion of its closure circulating online.

Talk of the schools closure began circulating Wednesday morning after the D.C. community page, Washingtonian Problems, posted photos on X of an alleged email from American Universitys Dean for the School of Education, Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy.

The reported email cited a university-wide deficit of over $60 million as the cause of the cuts. It also said the School of Education (SOE) would undergo massive restricting upon Holcomb-McCoys departure and that the news parallels the new administrations threat to close down the U.S. Department of Education.

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Discussions have occurred about whether the SOE may be relocated to the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) again. This goes back to a model in which the autonomy of the school is decreased. Again, Im saddened by this reality and even more disturbed that its connected to my departure, the alleged email read, in part.

Tomorrow is going to be tough: UVA community remembers deadly mass shooting 2 years later

When asked about the potential closure on Wednesday morning, the university sent the following statement to DC News Now:

There is no discussion about closing the School of Education (SOE). Discussions about restructuring SOEs administrative framework are ongoing. But there is no discussion or change to its academic programs, offerings, or mission. Our commitment to the growth and success of the School of Education remains steadfast and strong. SOEs programs, faculty, students, and staff are central to the universitys mission, and we are dedicated to providing the resources and support needed for this essential work to continue. American University

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Tareqs view

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are emerging as the UAEs next big push in alternative energy. SMRs provide companies with the ability to power energy intensive functions like industrial facilities and artificial intelligence data centers while reducing their carbon footprint.

The UAE is on an accelerated energy transition path. It is the first country in the region to go nuclear, with four active reactors meeting a quarter of domestic power demand. It has also made significant investments in renewables, becoming an exporter of solar and wind technology. The UAEs environmental commitment and its industrial ambitions  from electrifying oil, gas liquefaction, and chemical production, to manufacturing and tech infrastructure  will require a stable and sustainable source of clean energy.

SMRs are smaller nuclear power plants capable of generating up to 300 megawatts of electric power that can be deployed where conventional reactors are unfeasible. They are factory-assembled and transportable, making them scalable and modular. SMRs also feature enhanced safety measures, such as passive cooling systems that reduce the risk of overheating. Their relatively compact size makes them more suitable for integration with renewable energy systems, providing stable, low-carbon baseload power to support grid stability and decarbonization efforts.

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SMRs are still in development, with only five currently under construction or operating among the 56 designs tracked by the Nuclear Energy Agency. According to the US Department of Energy, the main obstacles to bringing these designs to market are technology challenges, financing, and licensing hurdles. US regulators expect that government support will be necessary for SMRs to be deployed by the early 2030s.

The UAE is showing interest. In 2023, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) launched the ADVANCE program to evaluate SMRs and micro-reactors for domestic and international development and investment. This was a signal that Abu Dhabi was ready for commercial and technical engagement. It then signed agreements with GE Hitachi and General Atomics to explore the technology.

Infographic showing the difference between conventional, small, and micro nuclear reactors.

Three sectors in the UAE are primed to drive SMR adoption: artificial intelligence, fossil fuels, and manufacturing. These sectors are growth drivers in the country and receive substantial government interest. SMRs will enable these sectors to continue growing while working towards the UAEs commitment to achieving net zero by 2050.

Artificial Intelligence: The Emirates launched a national AI strategy in 2018, aiming to use the technology to enhance the energy, manufacturing, and hospitality industries. Beyond that, the UAE has grown as an incubator and accelerator for AI firms. As a result, its requirements for data centers are increasing, and the appetite for carbon-neutral data facilities is high.

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Computing needs immense energy. For example, Amazons data centers in Virginia require more power than the city of Seattle, and the company is working with Dominion Energy and has invested in X-energy to explore SMRs. The UAE is also interested in the same. ENEC signed an agreement with X-energy to collaborate in developing the technology.

Fossil Fuels: The UAE is boosting its liquefied natural gas (LNG) capacity, and has already secured long-term supply deals with Germany, France, and India. SMRs can help reduce the carbon intensity  and costs  of extracting and liquifying gas, making ADNOCs LNG more competitive.

The country is also exploiting its shale resources. A 2019 find of 60 trillion standard cubic feet of recoverable unconventional gas resources is being evaluated. SMRs can provide remote power to tap this resource efficiently.

Manufacturing: As the Emirates pivots towards onshoring and developing advanced manufacturing such as robotics and defense, these facilities will be a strain on the existing power supply, and could be powered more effectively and efficiently using SMRs.

While the UAE hasnt deployed any SMRs yet, its nuclear operator is exploring several avenues for commercial agreements and developing its internal capabilities. As the technology becomes commercially viable, larger players like ADNOC and G42 will undoubtedly consider adopting SMRs to support the UAEs climate objectives while also serving their bottom lines.
By Matt Spetalnick, Michael Martina and Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President-elect Donald Trumps choice of Tulsi Gabbard as U.S. intelligence chief has sent shockwaves through the national security establishment, adding to concerns that the sprawling intelligence community will become increasingly politicized.

Trump's nomination of Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who lacks deep intelligence experience and is seen as soft on Russia and Syria, is among several high-level picks that suggest he may be prioritizing personal allegiance over competence as he assembles his second-term team.

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Among the risks, say current and former intelligence officials and independent experts, are that top advisers could feed the incoming Republican president a distorted view of global threats based on what they believe will please him and that foreign allies may be reluctant to share vital information.

Randal Phillips, a former CIA operations directorate official who worked as the agency's top representative in China, said that with Trump loyalists in top government posts, "this could become the avenue of choice for some really questionable actions" by the leadership of the intelligence community.

A Western security source said there could be an initial slowdown in intelligence sharing when Trump takes office in January that could potentially impact the Five Eyes, an intelligence alliance comprising the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The worry from U.S. allies is that Trumps appointments all lean in the "wrong direction", the source said.

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Trump's presidential transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Inside and outside the U.S. intelligence network, much of the anxiety focuses on Trump's choice of Gabbard, 43, as director of national intelligence, especially given her views seen as sympathetic to Russia in its war against Ukraine.

While Trump has made some conventional personnel decisions such as that of Senator Marco Rubio for secretary of state, Wednesdays announcement of Gabbard, an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, surprised even some Republican insiders. She is likely to face tough questioning in her Senate confirmation hearings.

Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022, has stirred controversy over her criticism of President Joe Bidens support for Ukraine, which has prompted some critics to accuse her of parroting Kremlin propaganda.

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She also spoke out against U.S. military intervention in the civil war in Syria under former President Barack Obama and met in 2017 with Moscow-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with whom Washington severed all diplomatic ties in 2012.

The selection of Gabbard has raised alarm in the ranks of intelligence officers unsure of how tightly she holds some of her geopolitical views, whether she is misinformed or simply echoing Trumps Make America Great Again followers, one intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.

Of course there's going to be resistance to change from the swamp in Washington, Gabbard said in a Fox News interview on Wednesday night. She said voters had given Trump an incredible mandate to move away from Bidens agenda but offered no policy specifics.

ALLIES ATTENTIVE

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A senior European intelligence official said agencies in European Union countries "will be pragmatic and ready to adapt to the changes." No panic in the air for now, the official added.

A European defense official described Gabbard as "firmly" in the Russia camp.

"But we have to deal with what we have. We will be attentive, the official said.

A British government official said they would be watching to see whether Gabbard's nomination was confirmed.

Philip Ingram, a former intelligence officer in the British military, said her past comments about Russia "will set alarm bells ringing around the world" and her appointment could impact how intelligence is shared between allies.

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Intelligence officials could be "more selective in the level of detail they are willing to pass on", including in how they protect sources and phrase information, he said.

Some analysts said concerns about Gabbard could be tempered by Trumps choice to head the CIA: John Ratcliffe, a former congressman who served as director of national intelligence at the end of Trumps first term.

Though close to Trump and expected to offer little pushback against his policies, Ratcliffe is not seen as an incendiary figure and could act as a counterbalance to Gabbard in his post atop the No. 1 spy agency among the 18 that she would oversee.

But some analysts said that by attempting to install Gabbard with other controversial loyalists, including congressman Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Fox commentator and military veteran Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, Trump is showing he wants no guardrails to his efforts to remake federal institutions.

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Democratic critics were quick to pounce not only on Gabbards views but what they see as her lack of qualifications and the potential the new administration could deploy intelligence for political ends.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks to fix what was seen as a lack of coordination between those organizations.

She isnt being put in this job to do the job or to be good at it. Shes being put there to serve Donald Trumps interests, U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told CNN on Thursday.

SUPPORT FOR ISOLATIONIST POLICIES

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After leaving the Democratic Party, Gabbard became increasingly critical of Biden and grew popular among conservatives, often appearing on far-right TV and radio shows, where she became known for supporting isolationist policies and showing disdain for "wokeness."

Shortly after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Gabbard wrote in a social media post: This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia's legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine's becoming a member of NATO."

Rubio, a former Trump rival turned supporter, defended Gabbards nomination, describing her as a revolutionary pick that has a chance to really make a positive change.

But some other Republicans were more non-committal.

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Asked about Gabbard's qualifications, Senator John Cornyn, a member of the Intelligence Committee, said: "We're going to do our job, vet the nominees and make a decision. That's a constitutional responsibility of the Senate.

To become director of national intelligence, Gabbard must first be confirmed by a majority of the 100-member U.S. Senate, where she could face headwinds.

Trump's fellow Republicans will have at least a 52-48 seat majority in the chamber starting in January, and have in the past been eager to back the party leader, increasing the likelihood that she will secure the post.

Our friends are watching as closely as our foes, and they are asking what this all means for the pre-eminent player in global intelligence collection and analysis, said one former U.S. intelligence officer who worked in some of the worlds hotspots.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Michael Martina and Humeyra Pamuk; Additional reporting by Sarah Lynch, David Brunnstrom and Patricia Zengerle in Washington, Jonathan Saul and Andrew MacAskill in London, John Irish and Lili Bayer in Paris; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Don Durfee, Alistair Bell and Daniel Wallis)
Trump Force One was cruising toward Washington DC when the plan to appoint Matt Gaetz as attorney general was hatched.

Mr Gaetz, a controversial conservative star, was on the plane with him as it hurtled towards the capital for key transition talks.

But it was one of Donald Trumps closest legal advisors who lobbied hard for the appointment, all the while the president-elects chief of staff, thought to be a moderating force, was in an adjacent room.

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When the nomination was announced it was met by dismay in the media and anger even among some Republicans in Congress.

Making Mr Gaetz lead the Department of Justice, which hounded him over underage sex allegations for two years, was described as reckless or even god-tier trolling of Mr Trumps political opponents.

Some on Capitol Hill speculated whether it was a trap. Was Mr Trump offering up a shaky candidate to make his other picks in his Cabinet appear more reasonable?

Matt Gaetz signs posters and hats as he attends a 2024 campaign rally for former US President Donald Trump in Waco, Texas - SHELBY TAUBER/AFP via Getty Images

Scepticism about whether or not Mr Gaetz would even get through the Congressional hearings was rife, with 10 Republican senators said to be willing to vote against.

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However, game playing aside, the appointment of Mr Gaetz also follows Mr Trumps loose at times campaign pledge to go after the DoJ for investigating his own alleged crimes.

And with Mr Gaetz he also appears to have a loyal acolyte who would push for a full dismantling of federal institutions, or the deep state, so he can remould them to his will.

Complete control over the Department of Justice and the removal of its normal practice of keeping politics and law enforcement separate would enable Mr Trump to go after his enemies with criminal prosecutions.

He has suggested Jack Smith, the special counsel who pursued two federal prosecutions of Mr Trump, could be a target.

Jack Smith. Could he have a target on his back? - SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Mr Gaetz has also spoken of closing the FBI, the agency behind raids at Mr Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort to retrieve classified documents.

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Mr Trumps first Cabinet appointments early this week were hardliners and foreign policy hawks, some of whom even Democrats said they were comfortable with.

But late on Tuesday and by Wednesday Mr Trumps Cabinet picks took a more radical turn.

They included Pete Hegseth, the axe-throwing ultra-conservative military veteran and Fox News personality as his defence secretary, and Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat congresswoman-turned-Trump-fanatic who is accused of being soft on Vladimir Putin as director of national intelligence.

Donald Trump dances a jig next to Tulsi Gabbard - AFP/Kamil Krzaczynski

All three nominations fit the bill for a selection strategy, as reported by The Telegraph earlier this week, that involved vetting candidates for signs of disloyalty in the wake of the Jan 6 insurrection.

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As a Congressman, Mr Gaetz introduced legislation that would limit the sentences of anyone who participated in the attacks on the US Capitol.

And if confirmed, he will be in charge of the Department of Justice, the very department responsible for a now-closed federal sex trafficking investigation he was embroiled in.

Mr Hegseth, a man who does not believe women should occupy front-line roles in the military, will be responsible for Americas 1.3 million serving soldiers.

Despite some misgivings about Mr Trumps foreign policy plans ahead of his 2016 election victory, Mr Hegseth soon fell in line as one of the president-elects most fervent television cheerleaders.

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And Ms Gabbard, who was credited with preparing Mr Trump for his election debate with Kamala Harris, will oversee 18 different spy agencies.

She had long been a popular American figure with Russian state media, and was accused of parroting Kremlin propaganda by claiming there were 25 plus US-funded biolabs in Ukraine shortly after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of the country.

Tulsi Gubbard, posing in her army gear - Tulsi Gabbard/Instagram

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In 2017, Ms Gabbard also visited Syria on a fact-finding mission, where she met Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, whose regime was propped up by Americas enemies Iran and Russia.

The then-Democrat said she was sceptical that Assads troops were behind a deadly chemical weapons attack, which even Mr Trump attributed to the despots regime.

How the appointments are approved

The US Constitution stipulates that the Senate must approve a series of presidential appointments, including ambassadors and Supreme Court judges.

The process starts with nominees being subjected to hearings by committees which have jurisdiction over the government department.

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After a series of background checks, the committee then votes on whether to accept or reject the candidate. This is followed by a Senate-wide vote, requiring a simple majority of senators to approve the nominee.

Only a small number of picks have ever been spurned by the Senate, normally because candidates withdraw ahead of the final vote if the defeat seems inevitable.

Mr Trump saw his initial first-term selections for defence secretary, Patrick Shanahan, and labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, both withdraw.

The current race is incredibly tight, with Mr Gaetz, Mr Hegseth and Ms Gabbard needing at least 50 senators to be confirmed, meaning they can only afford to lose the backing of three Republicans.

Pete Hegseth, another Trump pick - Pete Hegseth

The Senate is currently controlled by 53 Republicans, compared to 47 Democrats.

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Gaetz has a better shot at having dinner with Queen Elizabeth II than being confirmed by the senate, Max Miller, a Trump ally and Republican, said.

He added: I think he has a zero per cent shot of getting through the Senate... reckless pick.

Michael Guest, the Republican head of the ethics committee, said he was surprised by the decision to nominate Mr Gaetz.

His committee is investigating the candidate for sex trafficking, allegations of illegal drug use, misuse of campaign funds and accepting bribes. It would be closed if Mr Gaetz resigns to become attorney general.

Other Republicans have described Mr Gaetzs appointment as a distraction so that Mr Trump can choose another controversial, but more acceptable, candidate at a later date.

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In the past, Ms Gabbard has also been on the receiving end of sharp Republican criticism for her social media posts containing pro-Kremlin narratives. She has been branded traitorous and accused of parroting fake Russian propaganda.

Trumps secret strategy

But Mr Trump may have a strategy up his sleeve to ram through his nominations without any scrutiny.

The president-elect has demanded that the next Senate majority leader allow for recess appointments, which would allow him to unilaterally install members of his top team.

The powers to make recess appointments dates back to the era of horse-and-cart travel, when the Senate was often out of action for months at a time because of the time it took to move around the country.

To avoid key appointments being held up, the founding fathers wrote an exception into the Constitution, permitting presidents to fill vacancies during a period of recess.

George W Bush made 171 recess appointments, Bill Clinton made 139 and Barack Obama made at least 32, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The controversial tactic, which usually attracts allegations of a power grab, was not used by either Mr Trump or Mr Biden.

In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled against a number of Mr Obamas appointments, branding them unconstitutional.

By squeezing his three controversial picks into office, Mr Trump would move a step closer to carrying out his deep state revenge.

The president-elect has long demonised the intelligence community, especially after it accused Russia of being behind a campaign to help him beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Mr Trump later sided with Putin when asked if he believed his own intelligence agencies or the Russian president at a joint press conference two years later in Helsinki.

A supportive attorney general could also agree to publish the names of the Department of Justice and FBI officials behind the probe into Mr Trumps alleged removal of confidential documents from the White House, which ended with him being charged with felonies.

It has unnerved many serving DoJ officials, who have spoken of their fears over Mr Gaetz becoming their boss in less than two months.

Dave Laufman, a former top official, said the Republican would turn the department into a petting zoo for Trump.

While an anonymous official, still serving in the department, told ABC News that there would be mass resignations if he gets sworn in.

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Nov. 13ANDERSON  An Anderson man has been charged with four felony counts including sexual misconduct with a minor and intimidation.

Benjamin J. Bales, 25, 2200 block of East Third Street, was arrested Tuesday on two counts of sexual misconduct involving intercourse, sexual misconduct and intimidation.

If convicted, Bales would face a possible prison sentence of six to 30 years.

A probable cause affidavit filed by Anderson Police Department Detective Matthew Kopp states that Bales had sexual relations with a 15-year-old girl starting in July of this year.

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During a Kids Talk forensic interview, the girl initially denied having sexual relations with Bales, but in a second interview admitted the two had sex at a local hotel and in Bales' car.

The girl said Bales threatened to shoot her father and burn down her mother's house.

Bales said during an interview that prior to meeting the girl he prayed for God to send him a person and he believed that the girl was that person.

He told Kopp that the two are now engaged and he proposed to her during a phone call on her birthday.

Witnesses said Bales knew the girl's age and he reportedly said, "age was just a number."

Follow Ken de la Bastide on Twitter @KendelaBastide, or call 765-640-4863.
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY)  The first day of a three-day event aimed at improving the quality of education for military-connected students took place Wednesday in Norfolk.

Hundreds of educators from across the country traveled to the Sheraton Norfolk Waterside Hotel in the Mermaid City for the 2024 Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) Grant Program Community of Practice meeting.

Its really about enhancing your practice, said Doug Dowell, STEM coordinator and grant supervisor for Central Kitsap School District. How can you better implement the STEM grants, or whatever type of grant you get, to help impact the students and the teachers in your local community?

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Dowell traveled from a school system in Washington state. His school division, along with the others who attended, are recipients of the DoDEA grant program.

He explained the grant is given to school divisions that have a 10% or higher military connected student population.

The program now is open to almost any content area in school, so it could be math, English, social studies, STEM, music, arts, Dowell said, and its really to get additional supports and resources which districts across the whole country need right now to implement programs, to train teachers, to get resources for students.

Recipients at this years event will also get a chance to visit and learn about how the grant program has impacted school divisions in Hampton Roads.

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One of the visits during the last day of the event will be in York County.

According to Dr. Vika Sykes, York County School Division grant coordinator and writer, the division there has received about half-dozen grants from DoDEA over the years, which she said is worth about $12.5 million.

Our programs for grants with DoDEA range from transformative learning to literacy to STEM special education and most recently, world language advancement, Sykes said.

Courtney Gonzalez-Vega, who also works at the York County School Division as a STEM specialist, added theyre excited to have this years meeting right in their back yard.

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What were looking forward to the most is just being able to network with our peers and learn from each other of ways to help impact military-connected families and students, Gonzalez-Vega said, and just kind of learn from each other and have that community that supports this kind of work.

Dowell also encouraged other school divisions who qualify for the grant program to look into applying for it.

Theres a lot of districts that dont take advantage of this, Dowell said. Theyre not aware of it. So, the best way to do would be just to get on the web and look up DoDEA grant program.

You can find more information about the grant program here.

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COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL)  In October, residents of Spring Cove Apartments were surprised by the appearance of a water shut off notice at the entrance of the complex. Now, the Links of Maple Ridge apartment complex faces the same issue.

The notice posted at the entrance of the gated apartment complex located at South Stadium Drive behind Shaw High School reads, On Dec. 3rd, 2024 all water services will be disconnected at C.R.G. LLC apartments 4600 S. Stadium Dr. Please contact property management if you have any questions or concerns.

The notice posted at the entrance of the gated apartment complex located at South Stadium drive behind Shaw High School reads, On Dec. 3rd, 2024 all water services will be disconnected at C.R.G. LLC apartments 4600 S. Stadium Dr. Please contact property management if you have any questions or concerns. (Photo by Nick Bentley)

Columbus Realty Group, LLC. are also the owners of Spring Cove Apartments, whose residents faced issues concerning a loss of water in October.

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Spring Cove Apartment residents look toward an uncertain future after water controversy

Photo of the notice to residents sign posted in front of Spring Cove Apartments taken Oct. 7 (Photo by Nick Bentley WRBL)



Notices for disconnection are posted if the account holder has gone 60 days without payment on an account. In the case of Spring Cove Apartments, water services were disconnected the morning of Oct. 21, but the company settled the account and made a payment later in the afternoon to have services turned back on for the residence.

WRBL spoke with the Senior Vice President of Columbus Water Works Vic Burchfield regarding the notice at Maple Ridge. He says payment has not been received for the Links of Maple Ridges account.

WRBL reached out to the Links of Maple Ridge apartment complex regarding the failure of payment. A representative said they were unable to speak to the press about the issue.

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SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI)  Another oarfish has made its way from the deep sea to the coast of San Diego County.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers stumbled upon the rare fish, considered one of the largest vertebrates in the worlds oceans, at Grandview Beach in Encinitas last week.

It marks the second time this year an oarfish has been discovered  dead  within San Diego County: The first was back in August near the La Jolla Shores. The one recovered in Encinitas was a little smaller than the first, measuring about nine to 10 feet long.

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As they did with the earlier specimen, Scripps Oceanography researchers helped transport the newly found oarfish to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Southwest Fisheries Science Center for preservation and study.

Like with the previous oarfish, this specimen and the samples taken from it will be able to tell us much about the biology, anatomy, genomics and life history of oarfishes, Ben Frable, manager of the Scripps Oceanography Marine Vertebrate Collection, said.

Nicknamed the doomsday fish for its connection in Japanese folklore to natural disasters, oarfish are known for their string-like dorsal fin and long, narrow bodies that can grow up to 30 feet. While rare, they can most frequently be found deep in temperate or tropical ocean waters.

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Its reputation as a harbinger of doom is the species biggest claim to fame, with some recent anecdotal evidence fueling this theory  like the finding of more than 20 oarfish on the shores of Japan months before the 2011 magnitude 9.1 earthquake.

This being said, studies have largely disproven the connection, with one 2019 publication calling it a typical illusory correlation.

Oarfish found at Encinitass Grandview Beach. (Alison Laferriere/Scripps Institution of Oceanography) Oarfish found at Encinitass Grandview Beach. (Alison Laferriere/Scripps Institution of Oceanography)

Still, finding one of these fish has been exceedingly rare  especially in California. Up until last weeks finding, only 20 had been located along the Golden States coast since the early 1900s.

Why two have washed up within the last few months is an open question. Frable suggested changes in the conditions of the ocean could have played a role, but he also said it could be linked to the shift from El Nino to La Nina.

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This wash-up coincided with the recent red tide and Santa Ana winds last week but many variables could lead to these strandings, he explained, noting that evidence to support any of these theories is minimal.

Should beachgoers stumble upon another oarfish  or any unique sea creature stranded on the beach  Scripps Oceanography experts urge people to alert lifeguards first. For those in San Diego, they then encourage contacting the institute at scrippsnews@ucsd.edu or 858-534-3624.

Experts also note beachgoers are largely prohibited from taking home organisms themselves, as much of the California coastline is designated as Marine Protected Areas.

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Editor's note: The attribution in this story was updated to reflect that Stroh is the legal surname of Jordan Stroh Ouellette.

The Hancock County Prosecutor's Office said Wednesday it fired a deputy prosecutor who posted Facebook messages expressing her disgust of social media friends who voted for President-Elect Donald Trump and asked that they unfriend her.

Attorney Jordan Stroh (Ouellette) also shared a post from the Relegalize Indiana PAC Facebook page that contained a quote attributed to novelist and essayist A.R. Moxon, author of the book Very Fine People. That quote said historians still call Germans Nazis if they joined the Nazi Party, not for a dislike of Jewish people, but for economic anxiety, patriotism, political opportunity, or to preserve their religious values.

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Hancock County Prosecutor Brent Eaton, a Republican in his third term, shared a note addressed to staff and the letter of termination with IndyStar. In the note, Eaton said he has worked to improve the public's perception of the office from one that "engaged in political prosecutions to harm its enemies and used broad discretion to avoid prosecuting its 'friends.'"

Stroh's posts, he said, violated the office's mission and values, and undermined efforts to be seen as fair and impartial.

"I hope we can agree that the communication in question would clearly not be appropriate if it referred to people of any ethnicity, religion, or gender or sexual identity in the manner in which it referred to 'Trump Voters,'" Eaton said in the note. "Political discrimination and or bias does not have a place in our decision making."

The ordeal in Hancock County highlights the political divisions and strong emotions in the aftermath of Trump's election to a second term. Trump is a polarizing right-wing political figure who campaigned on populism and an "America First agenda" to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris in last week's national election. The dawning of his second term has invoked jubilation from those who welcome Trump back to the Oval Office and fear from those alarmed by his insulting rhetoric about political opponents, the media, migrants and others.

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Stroh was out of the office  to get married and honeymoon until Nov. 18  when her firing occurred on Nov. 12. Eaton sent her a two-page dismissal letter explaining he had received multiple complaints about her social media activity and that her repost of the Moxon quote was intended to clearly communicate that Trump supporters are similar to Nazis.

"As a Prosecutor, you are charged with being a minister of justice. Unfortunately, the decisions you made to post content to your social media page call into question your ability to be a fair and impartial minister of justice equitably, to all that you serve in this community," he wrote in the letter to Stroh. "They have irreparably tarnished the credibility and trust people have in HCPO."

When reached by phone, Stroh responded with a text messaging saying the two posts reflected her opinions on who she wished to interact with in her personal life and had no bearing on her ability to be fair and impartial as a prosecutor. She also said she's disheartened by being fired due to her passion for the rights of all individuals.

"Prior to this current election, my opinions remained the same," she said in the text message sent from outside the U.S. "At no point did my personal opinions prevent me from being fair and impartial in the execution of my duties. This especially rings true whenever my opinions were posted to my private Facebook page with no public ties to the Prosecutor's Office."

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She added the posts were deleted prior to her firing and she had received no direction from the office on how to realign her social media comments prior to Eaton's decision to fire her. "At the end of the day, my job was to advocate for the safety of the people of Hancock County and all of my actions did so," she said.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Eaton said Stroh's social media activity was brought to his attention last week after the election. He said he began to hear chatter that members of Hancock County law enforcement community were upset. He said equating Trump supporters to Nazis is offensive to him personally and others. "How many times can you refer to large swaths of people as Nazis?" he said. "I think the answer zero. The answer should be zero."

Eaton said victims of crime who voted for Trump or display his campaign paraphernalia should be confident that they will be adequately represented by Hancock County prosecutors without having their political beliefs held against them. He also disagreed that the posts were private, saying that Facebook is a public platform that's meant to be seen and shared.

"This was not a private email between two people. This was not a private message between, you know, parties speaking privately," he said. "This was in a space which specifically is designed for you to put communication and thoughts into this public sphere."

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Eaton said his opinion on the subject would remain the same if staff referred to supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris in the same manner. When asked if he would hold prosecutors who publicly and enthusiastically support Trump, whose second term invokes fear and uncertainty in some Americans, to the same standard as Stroh, Eaton said he doesn't see an equivalency.

"You are saying people that have different political beliefs than you are disgusting and don't see human life and have value and are directly the same as some of the 20th Century's death cults and greatest mass murders and the other one is saying, 'I support the now newly-elected president elect' and so no, there's not a moral equivalency," he said.

Contact IndyStar investigative reporter Alexandria Burris at aburris@gannett.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @allyburris.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Hancock County prosecutor fires deputy for anti-Trump online posts
NEW DELHI (AP)  Thick smog shrouded New Delhi and other cities around South and Southeast Asia as air pollution levels soared Thursday.

Air pollution in the region worsens particularly in winter when the burning of crop residue in agricultural areas coincides with cooler temperatures that trap the smoke. The smoke is blown into cities, where there are more people and where auto emissions further add to the pollution. Emissions from industries without pollution controls and the use of coal to produce electricity are also linked to poor air quality in urban areas.

Several studies have estimated more than a million Indians die each year from air pollution-related diseases.

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New Delhis air quality fell into the severe category, according to SAFAR, Indias main environmental monitoring agency. It measures particulate matter in the air that can enter the lungs.

In many areas of the city, the levels were more than 50 times higher than the World Health Organizations recommended safe limit. Forecasters warned air quality will worsen before the arrival of cold winds next week that could blow away the smog.

Lahore, Pakistan, which is on the border with India, had an air quality index level considered hazardous, according to the Swiss group IQAir, which tracks global air quality.

The levels in Hanoi, Vietnam, were unhealthy, according to IQAir.

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Transport, industry and construction were the main causes of bad air in Hanoi, Nguyen Hoang Anh, deputy head of the environmental quality management division at the ministrys Pollution Control Department told state media on Monday.

Hanoi has around 1 million cars and nearly 7 million motorbikes. Many are old and dont meet emission standards. Construction projects also dont stop dust from escaping, and factories use fossil fuel for power, contributing to the citys smog.

Bangkoks air quality was unhealthy for sensitive groups on IQAir. The Meteorological Department said air ventilation rates have been poor recently and an atmospheric inversion layer caused airborne particles to accumulate.
by Xinhua writers Hu Tao, Hong Zehua, Gu Tiancheng

ZHUHAI, Guangdong, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Once mysterious skies are becoming more and more accessible to Chinese as the country facilitates the progress of its burgeoning low-altitude economy.

Fancy and trending flying vehicles such as electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and future-oriented new-configuration aircraft are highlights of the ongoing 15th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, also known as Airshow China, in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province.

The Chinese leadership recently reiterated its determination to improve the institutions and mechanisms for modernizing infrastructure, a policy made evident by a resolution adopted at the third plenum of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee.

The resolution noted that China will develop both general aviation and its low-altitude economy.

BLOOMING FREELY

"We should cherish this era of innovative low-altitude aircraft blooming freely," Guo Liang, Aerofugia CEO and chief scientist, told Xinhua during an exclusive interview.

Aerofugia, a subsidiary of China's EV giant Geely Auto, launched the batch production version of its AE200 manned tilt rotor eVTOL aircraft at the airshow in Zhuhai.

The launch confirmed that this type of Chinese-developed low-altitude aircraft has moved from scientific research to the mass production stage. It is scheduled to start manned verification flights in 2025. "It will not be long for citizens to experience flying cars," Guo said.

Chengdu-based Aerofugia has already received its first purchase order for 100 eVTOLs from Sino Jet, a Chinese business aviation management firm. In February 2024, U.S. Aviation Week listed Aerofugia among the top 10 eVTOL developers in the world.

"Thank you to our aviation predecessors, as it is your efforts that enable us to stand on the shoulders of giants and look at the world from a position of equality, while making breakthroughs in the fierce competition of aeronautical technologies," said Guo, while receiving the award of "Person of the Year" at the 16th China Aerospace Laureates Awards at the airshow.

Also at the airshow, a type of Chinese independently-developed AS700 civil manned airship secured a purchase order for 10 airships, while obtaining additional intent purchase orders for 164 such aircraft.

Jingmen Urban Construction Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd., signed an intent purchase order for 60 AS700 airships at the airshow.

"This move is aimed at securing new market opportunities in the low-altitude economy," said the company's chairman Cheng Xiong in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

"The airship will initially be deployed in fashionable low-altitude tourism applications. In the future, we plan to expand its use to aerial photography, city inspections and other application scenarios under continuous exploration," Cheng added.

According to Cheng, the company is already planning to establish a subsidiary focusing on airship operations. With an eye on "full lifecycle management" of airships and other low-altitude aircraft, the company is partnering with airship developers concerning maintenance, operations, and other related services.

The ten-seater AS700 airship was developed by the Special Vehicle Research Institute under the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), the country's leading aircraft manufacturer.

ECHOING NEW TRENDS

Notably, the AVIC has launched a series of its newly-developed UAVs and eVTOL products at the airshow, with a focus on unmanned, electric and intelligent trends prevalent in the low-altitude economy.

The company has comprehensively built a high-end low-altitude equipment system featuring high safety, high reliability, high performance and low cost, the AVIC revealed at a low-altitude economy-focused press conference at the airshow.

Targeting to meet the demands of diversified application scenarios, the AVIC is planning to create a variety of eVTOL series products with fully independent intellectual property rights -- doing so by giving full play to its tech advantages and tech-integration capabilities.

These products are set to offer maximum take-off weights ranging from 400 kg to 3 tonnes, and will include tilting rotors, multi-rotors and other configurations, as well as manned and unmanned modes.

Industry experts believe that propulsion is the key to developing the low-altitude economy.

"On the new track of the low-altitude economy, the propulsion system of aircraft must come first. We need to highlight the need for innovation-driven development, green development and cross-border integration of technologies, doing so in an open manner to the world," said Yin Zeyong, aero-engine expert and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. 
Democrat Dave Min won election to a U.S. House seat representing California on Wednesday, holding a competitive district for House Democrats. Democratic Rep. Katie Porter left this Orange County seat open to run for U.S. Senate, backing Min to take her place. Min, a state senator, defeated Republican Scott Baugh, who came up short in the 2022 midterms against Porter. Min's ads called Baugh an extremist who would endanger abortion rights. Republican ads, meanwhile, targeted Min for his support for criminal justice changes in California's State Assembly. The Associated Press declared Min the winner at 8:19 p.m. EST.
AUSTIN (KXAN)  A suspect identified on Thursday by the Austin Police Department is facing a first-degree murder charge after a stabbing Wednesday night at a south Austin gas station, APD said.

The suspect was identified as Luis Marroquin, 32. He was arrested by police Wednesday and was booked into the Travis County Jail, where he remained Thursday, according to Travis County online court records.

Luis Marroquin, 32 (Courtesy Austin Police Department)

An attorney was not listed for Marroquin. We will update this article if that information becomes available or if we receive a statement.

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Around 4:17 p.m., APD officers responded to C-Mart, 7811 S. First St, for a report of a stabbing, APD said the release. When officers arrived on the scene, they found a Hispanic man on the ground bleeding from a puncture wound to his chest. The victim, who was not identified by Thursday, was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead at 5:08 p.m., according to APD.

When investigators arrived on the scene, they found a suspect in the area, who was identified by police Thursday as Luis Marroquin, 32. The investigation revealed Marroquin knew the victim, as they both worked as day laborers in the area, the release said.

Police said Marroquin saw the victim earlier in the day Wednesday at Home Depot as they both waited for work. When Marroquin was sitting next to the victim in the parking lot of the store, police said he turned and stabbed the victim.

MAP: Where have Austins homicides occurred in 2024?

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This is now being investigated as Austins 60th homicide, APD Cpl. Matthew Nonweiler said during a media briefing Wednesday evening. Anyone with any information is requested to contact the tip line at 512-974-8477, he said.

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DENVER (KDVR)  Arapahoe County will hold hearings this month as the county considers allowing natural medicine businesses in unincorporated areas, including those administering psilocybin.

Colorado will begin issuing licenses for natural medicine in January 2025 after voters approved Proposition 122 in 2022. The measure decriminalizes psychedelic natural medicine like psilocybin mushrooms, DMT, ibogaine and mescaline, for people 21 years and older. It also allows supervised administration of natural medicine at state-licensed facilities.

Colorado finalizes rules for magic mushrooms

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This month, Arapahoe County will hold hearings where the public can comment on the natural medicine regulations in a proposed amendment to the countys Land Development Code.

The proposed County regulations identify zone districts where businesses would provide services through a state-licensed facilitator to participants 21 years of age or older. The centers would be allowed in areas zoned for office uses and other types of natural medicine businesses, the county said in a press release.

Businesses would be allowed in most commercial and industrial zones and would be required to stay at least 1,000 feet away from schools and daycare facilities.

Additionally, the proposed regulations would limit in-home mushroom cultivation to the states maximum plot size of 12 feet by 12 feet.

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The County may regulate the time, manner and place of natural medicine businesses, as long as the regulations are not unreasonable and do not conflict with the state statute, the press release stated.

The public is invited to comment at upcoming hearings:

Nov. 19 at 6:30 p.m. Arapahoe Board Room at Arapahoe County Lima Plaza, 6954 S. Lima St., Centennial

Nov. 26 at 9:30 a.m. East Hearing Room at the Administration Building, 5334 S. Prince St., Littleton



The public can comment in person or by calling 1-855-436-3656 and pressing *3 to join the queue.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver.
Ysabel Jurado had every reason to gloat when I caught up with her earlier this week at the Highland Park home she shares with her father and teenage daughter.

By beating incumbent Kevin de Leon for a City Council seat that stretches from downtown through Boyle Heights and up to Eagle Rock, the 34-year-old sustained the political earthquake she first unleashed in March, when she finished ahead of him and two Latino Assembly members in the primary.

Outspent in the general election and subjected to an onslaught of negative ads and mailers and headlines in the weeks leading up to election day, she nevertheless trounced De Leon, a Latino political giant now reduced to a cautionary tale after his fall from grace for his role in a secretly recorded conversation that upended L.A. politics. A tenant rights attorney and political novice, Jurado also overcame a self-inflicted wound after being caught on a recording saying "F the police."

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When she gets sworn in next month, she will become the first L.A. council member of Filipino heritage and District 14s first female and first LGBTQ+ representative.

Her win is the biggest political upset on the Eastside since Chicano activist Raul Ruiz siphoned off enough votes from Richard Alatorre in a 1971 Assembly race to allow a Republican to win. She continues the march of politicians backed by the Democratic Socialists of America who have stormed City Hall over the past four years.

So, yeah, a lot to gloat about. But what Jurado kept returning to as we chatted for an hour on Monday was a request she heard from many voters:

Dont be corrupt.

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Read more: Column: Political novice Ysabel Jurado celebrates on her road to Eastside history

I remember this older lady in Boyle Heights, Jurado said. She's like, Why should I even bother voting? Why should I vote for you? You know, I only see you [council candidates] every four years. You do nice things for us when it's election time and you all come  and you go.'

Jurado swirled around a Rooibos tea bag with a tag read, "Your Actions Prove Your Greatness." She was wearing slippers, comfy pants, a Dodgers hat and a T-shirt that said Hecho en Highland Park CA  Made in Highland Park.

As Jurado recalled, the woman then said, "'Look at this street. It's dirty. The streetlight? They told me to call. I kept calling. Nothing happened. I'm doing all the right things here. I left the country I came from to escape from this kind of government. And this is what I get.

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Jurado's pitch to the senora: Born and raised in the district. Child of undocumented immigrants. Single mom. Was once on food stamps. Lives with her father because she cant afford her own spot. Above all, committed to breaking what her campaign called the Curse of CD 14: over 50 years of council members who got caught up in corruption, used the seat as a stepping stone to higher office or just neglected neighborhoods altogether.

And she's like, Well, you got to be careful that [winning] doesn't change you.

Ysabel Jurado canvasses in Boyle Heights on election day. (Sarahi Apaez / For Los Angeles Times en Espanol)

The encounter was part of what Jurado described as her listening tour, which she credits for her victory and which she plans to continue after her swearing-in.

People are a wealth of information, she said. They're invested in their community. They're creating solutions for themselves. If only they had a corresponding partner. And so for me, it's like, that's the strength of leveraging the collective. I'm not the expert on everything.

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Over the span of a year, Ive seen Jurado's remarkable journey from political long shot to surprise winner to history maker. Ive seen her campaign transform from basically her and her communications director Naomi Villagomez Roochnik to everyone now wanting an audience with the Eastside's newest power broker.

In her election night speech, she described her friendship with Roochnik as "two broke girls."

As a candidate, people are offering things to you and even more so as a council member in a very lucrative district, she said. Jurado waved at a mound of mementos around her dining room table gifted by volunteers and voters  scrapbooks, posters, artwork, photo collages  mixed in among thank-you cards that need to be mailed out. She plans to give away almost everything.

Those small things, if you add them up in the cumulative effect ... that would add up to like a whole attitudinal change for me. People are going to give you more or offer many, many things to you. And I think when you become accustomed to all of that, that's where greed follows.

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The first-time elected official  she prefers that title over politician" because it impresses on people that this is not something you're given  plans to focus on "bread and butter issues" the moment she enters office. Repair sidewalks. Refurbish parks. Fix streetlights. Push to have Los Angeles declare itself a sanctuary city. Shes also ready to win over residents who didnt vote for her.

I went into this with my values and my ideals," she said. "But part of what a leader should be doing, especially in this relationship of being a person governing and the people being governed, is, you know, listening.

Read more: Column: Ysabel Jurado made history in the primary. Can she do it against Kevin de Leon?

She brought up policing. In October, a Cal State L.A. student who turned out to be a De Leon staffer asked at a meet-and-greet how she felt about police abolitionism, a plank of the DSA. Her response: Whats the rap verse? F the police, thats how I see em, which she told me was a garbling of lyrics by N.W.A, Kanye West and Rage Against the Machine.

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The quote led to a rare public rebuke of a political candidate by a police chief and calls for Jurado to quit the race or apologize. Jurado did neither. So will she talk to her critics?

She nodded. When I asked if she would meet with the new police chief, Jim McDonnell, or the Los Angeles Police Protective League  which spent over a quarter-million dollars in independent expenditures after the audio of Jurados remarks was made public  she nodded yes again.

I recognize that some of my constituents feel safer with more police around," she said. "But in the same breath, they do say that they don't want to be overpoliced. They are hesitant to call the police for help because they don't show up on time.

Jurado sipped on her tea.

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So there's a balance between safety and accountability that I think we can have. We all can have that conversation and hold those two thoughts at the same time.

Then-council candidate Ysabel Jurado laughs alongside Boyle Heights field organizer Albert Orozco, 22, as they draw names out of a basket for gifts during a celebration of her primary campaign celebration at Tokyo Villa in downtown in March. (Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)

The other big challenge I brought up involves something she cant change: Shes not Latina.

District 14, which is 61% Latino, includes Boyle Heights, the cradle of Latino politics in Los Angeles. Until Jurado won, a Latino had represented the district for 39 years.

With Jurado's victory, Latinos will hold just four of the 15 council seats in a city that's nearly half Latino.

How will she reconcile with Latinos sore that they aren't represented by one of their own?

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When we talked to voters, we asked, What has your leadership gotten you thus far? she responded. And that's why they voted for something different.  For me, its equity. In the neighborhoods that are primarily Latino, why are they the most underserved with city services  a.k.a. Boyle Heights? The lights are all out on First Street. Theres no street cleaning. No parking.

Jurado said she wants to help Latino residents fight the gentrification that radically transformed her native Highland Park and has crept into Boyle Heights over the past decade.

How do we actually have a neighborhood that's well-resourced and thrives? she said. Thats not about being Latino or Asian. It's about not just symbolic representation but material representation. So that Boyle Heights doesn't just become a historically Latino community  that it stays one.

As our hour wrapped up, I told Jurado I wanted to show her something. Oh my God! she gasped as I handed her a vial of holy dirt with an image of the Santo Nino de Atocha.

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The depiction of the infant Jesus is part of the Southern California landscape and especially venerated by both Mexican Americans and Filipinos.

The Santo Nino entered Eastside infamy in 2020, when Jose Huizar, who then represented District 14, posted an image of the Catholic icon on social media hours before FBI agents raided the politico's home. Huizar eventually pleaded guilty to multiple corruption charges and is serving a 13-year prison sentence.

So before the Santo Nino, I asked, what could Jurado promise her new constituents?

He definitely doesn't have as much curly hair as the Filipino one, she joked while trying to gather her thoughts. Its one thing to spout platitudes to a reporter, quite another to do the same in front of Baby Jesus.

I definitely vow to do the hard work, Jurado finally said, looking down at the Santo Nino in her palm. And to have those conversations, as difficult as they may be ... And that's what it's about. Always. Not about the pomp and circumstance and prestige, but it's about the work.

She looked at me again.

What is it the Jesuits say? Service is love in action. I know it's corny. But I'm going to love this community by being of service to it. So that's my commitment.

Let's see how the Santo Nino, and voters, feel in four years.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
As ballot results continued to trickle in after Election Day, concerns over vote count delays and ballot signature issues led voter rights groups to file an emergency petition to the Arizona Supreme Court.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Campaign Legal Center on Saturday requested a four-day extension for voters to "cure" their ballot beyond the original 5 p.m. Sunday deadline, arguing that tens of thousands of Arizonans stand to be disenfranchised without any notice, let alone an opportunity to take action to ensure their ballots are counted.

In the petition, ACLU and CLC claimed that thousands of mail-in ballots in Arizona wouldnt be processed until after the deadline, meaning some voters wouldnt know if their ballot had an issue until it was too late to cure it.

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Because these ballots have not even been processed, Respondents have not identified which ballots are defective and have not notified voters of the need to cure those defects, the petition stated.

What is ballot curing?

When election officials are unable to match voters' signatures on a ballot affidavit with known signature samples, they attempt to contact voters to confirm their ballot in a process called "curing."

According to Arizona law, voters whose mail-in ballot has an inconsistent signature have five business days after Election Day to confirm or correct the signature. In Maricopa County, election officials aimed to have 99% of all valid ballots counted and reported by the end of the cure period.

Voters were able to address their signature mismatch by Sunday evening. If the issue was not rectified by the deadline, their ballot was rejected.

Election workers process ballots at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center on Nov. 6, 2024, in Phoenix.

'Counties have notified all voters'

On Sunday, the petition was denied by the state's high court, citing that voters have been given "reasonable time" to correct any deficiencies in their ballots by the statutory deadline, according to the court's order.

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The court collected information from eight counties, including Maricopa County, the news release noted. The court affirmed that no county that responded requested an extension beyond the Sunday deadline, with each asserting that reasonable efforts were made to properly notify all voters of inconsistent signatures.

Thus, the Court is not presented with evidence that any voters will be prevented from curing a defective ballot by todays 5:00 p.m. deadline," the court's order read. "In short, there is no evidence of disenfranchisement before the Court."

According to Maricopa Count and the secretary of state, tabulation progress for Maricopa County was almost 99% complete as of Wednesday evening, with an estimated 7,100 ballots left to process.

Coleby Phillips is a reporter at The Arizona Republic focusing on election misinformation. The work is made possible through a grant from the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin. Reach him at cphillips@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Supreme Court rejects request to extend ballot curing deadline
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin on Nov. 14, 2024, announces $1 million for a pilot grant program that will assist people struggling with opioid addiction in the state's specialty courts system. Griffin stands with Judge Candice Settle; Marty Sullivan, director of the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts; and Kristin Clark, legal services division director for AOC. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate)

The state attorney generals office is providing new funding to Arkansas Specialty Court judges who want to provide services for people struggling with opioid addiction.

Currently capped at $1 million, a pilot program that Attorney General Tim Griffin announced Thursday targets supportive services for people in the states specialty courts system, which includes drug, mental health, juvenile and veteran courts.

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The goal is to get these people treatment because it is seen that their challenges  mental health challenges, addiction  is the core of their problem, Griffin said. If we can deal with that, we are more likely to get them back on track and thriving in society.

Funding requests can be made immediately with the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts, so long as they fit within the following categories for people who have experienced opioid addiction:

Transitional/recovery housing

Mental health/substance treatment and recovery

Community mentors/peer recovery support services

Transportation assistance

Arkansas is set to receive at least $216 million in opioid settlement funds over 18 years as part of a national $26 billion settlement. The states total was divided among the cities, counties and the state. While the cities and counties pooled their funding to form the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership to fund programs, Griffins office is responsible for distributing the states funding.

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The settlement dollars are restricted, which means they can only be spent on opioid-specific causes. In planning the pilot program, Griffin said he asked for needs within the specialty courts system and received a lot of interest.

The thirst for these funds could not be met by the funds that I have  these opioid funds, Griffin said. A lot of the needs cant be met because theyre not specific to opioids, but even so, setting those aside, still could not meet the demand.

Griffin said the exact demand isnt yet known, and the programs facilitators will track which courts request what type of services. The resource categories and funding amount may also change as the program proceeds.

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The data collected can help influence potential policy, Griffin said.

This can be iterative and evolving so that were meeting the needs of the courts, and ultimately, the needs of those who are struggling with this addiction, he said. This is not a cure-all, but what it does do is it puts money where it matters immediately.

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Griffin also said that while the money will be distributed to the specialty courts, it will have a direct effect on facilities that offer treatment but are struggling to fill their beds because of a variety of barriers.

Judge Candice Settle, who said she works in a mental health court in Crawford County, joined Griffin for Thursdays announcement and noted an immediate need for funding in her day-to-day work.

Judge Candice Settle highlights the importance of a new funding source available to the Arkansas Specialty Courts on Nov. 14, 2024, alongside Attorney General Tim Griffin. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate)

What were trying to do is stabilize folks in these initial phases of our court system so that they can go on to become productive citizens in our communities, and not drain our communities and our resources, Settle said.

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Of the people she sees in her court, Settle said, 88% of them have dealt with opioid addiction.

Funding opportunities for transitional housing will help people on their road to recovery as they have a break from the place that might encourage them to use again, Settle said.

Transitional housing is often one of the most effective tools that we have in the long term, in getting people back on their feet, she said. Coming directly out of rehab with their criminal background and having the funds to immediately start paying for that  even a week can help someone go out and get a job so that they can be making those payments.

Griffin and Settle both highlighted the importance of funding opportunities for transportation to treatment facilities.

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One of the things that stood out is that a lot of times, individuals who need treatment have to travel, and they dont have the ability to pay for gas every day to drive an hour each way, Griffin said. Or maybe they dont drive themselves, but there is a service there that can drive them, but they dont have the funds for that.

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark.  Arkansas Secretary of Education Jacob Oliva spoke on the possibility of the U.S. Department of Education being shut down by the forthcoming presidential administration.

Sen. Gary Stubblefield (R-Branch) asked Oliva about the impact a DOE shutdown would have on individual states during a meeting of the legislatures joint budget committee following news reports of President-elect Donald Trumps possible plans to eliminate the agency.

Arkansas Department of Education adds 11 schools to EAST initiative

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Oliva explained that there could be benefits from that scenario, given the lack of independence he feels states have because of DOE funding.

I think the hope and the desire is that we would still continue to receive that allocation without the bureaucracy red-taping the strings that the feds like to put on those dollars, Oliva said.

Oliva said hed like to see Congress still provide money to Arkansas to fill in the gaps of what would be missing from his department, adding that the state currently receives money from the DOE, especially for students in special education.

April Reisma, President of Arkansas Education Association, offered a contrasting view on Wednesday.

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One of the keywords that was used in the comments was the word hope, Reisma said. Our students, especially our most vulnerable ones, cannot rely on hope to make sure that they get the help that they need to be able to grow and thrive in our public schools. Eliminating the department would cause chaos for the programs that are funded by it.

Arkansas Department of Education Secretary Jacob Oliva terminates contract with LEARNS voucher processor, cites lack of performance

Reisma added that DOE provides funding for high-poverty K-12 school districts, Head Start programs providing child care services for low-income and rural communities, Pell Grants, which help low-income students attend college and the department also provides resources to support students with disabilities through age 21.

We cannot hope that the money would get to Arkansas, she said.

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Former Little Rock School District superintendent and longtime public school advocate Baker Kurrus also opposed Olivas position.

Mr. Oliva is clear when he adopts the party line to abolish the U.S. Department of Education, Kurrus said. He is also quick to add that he wants to continue to receive millions of dollars in federal money, most of which is now directed toward students of greatest need.

Arkansas Department of Education gets $3.6 million grant to improve educator skills

Kurrus also tied federal funding to the Arkansas LEARNS Act and its voucher program.

Arkansas is going to need a lot of new money to fund its voucher program, which so far is primarily subsiding the tuition paid by families who were already enrolled in private or church schools, he said.

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LAKE CONWAY, Ark.  A helicopter is dropping almost a million pounds of gravel and pipe gathered by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission for future fish to flourish.

Nicholas Feltz supervises the Mayflower district fisheries. When they dried up as part of the planned Lake Conway renovation, his sub-surface duties shifted to rehabilitation.

Were using this gravel to build brim spawning beds, and so these locations are going to serve multiple sport fish species in the lake when it comes time for them to reproduce, Feltz explained.

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Helicopters drop gravel for Lake Conway habitat project, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission

If AFGC wanted to cart the 270 bags of gravel weighing about 3,500 pounds each by land, Feltz said there two options: drive through the lake or cut down dozens of trees on public hunting grounds. Because of the softness of the lakebed, the timing of hunting season and the impact on the environment, a helicopter was the best and most cost-effective option.

Thomas Mann with Aircrane Incorporated out of Georgia is contracted for three days of moving pipe and gravel to select locations. Work started Tuesday and will finish Thursday.

Ive been flying since I was 14 years old, been doing it now for over 25 years, 12,000 flight hoursFirst time doing lake rehabilitation work, Mann said.

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Lake Conway treasure hunt underway as lake is drained for the first time in 75 years

Each drop spot is picked to ensure fish can lay eggs where they wont have to worry about being suffocated by silt. The plant life grown by drying out the lake will also help fish hide until they are great fishing size which AFGC said will be worth the wait.

Were just trying to keep the needle moving forward on this project, doing the type of activities were allowed to do while were waiting for our other permits to come throughThe comforting thing I can tell people. We all know how this story endsan explosion of fish populations Feltz said.

This is the first of many habitat advancement efforts at Lake Conway. Feltz stated some may require a helicopter again or something else.

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These guys have been great, Mann said. Everyone is out here to help the communityI cant wait to see the finished product.

Recent conditions, planned renovations causing dead fish to appear in Lake Conway

When asked how the totality of renovation work on Lake Conway is progressing, Feltz said there is still some work in the process of getting permitted by the Army Corps of Engineers.

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark.  Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin announced that up to $1 million from the state opioid settlement funds will go toward the states specialty courts program.

Specialty courts help provide treatment and training for offenders who have struggled with substance abuse to help them back to restoration and health.

This grant will provide Specialty Court Judges a source of funding to pay for approved services for drug court participants on an ongoing basis, Griffin said. This approach ensures that the money follows those who need help the most and will be used to provide critical services such as transitional housing for participants, mental health treatment and substance abuse recovery, community mentors and peer recovery support services, and transportation assistance.

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Special court judges are operating more than 100 treatment courts around the state.

After the Meth Storm: Van Buren County court program breaks addiction cycle

Judge Candice Settle and the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts director Marty Sullivan both thanked the attorney general for the allocation of the funds. Sullivan added that the grant will help provide second chances for those dealing with life difficulties.

The awarding of this grant is not simply a financial gesture; it is a testament to the shared belief that restorative justice can transform lives, heal families, and uplift entire communities. These courts provide a second chance to individuals who have found themselves on a difficult path, Sullivan said.

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Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin and 29 state coalition make opioid settlement with Kroger

The grant will come from the $13.5 million Arkansas will receive after reaching a settlement with Kroger for its part in the opioid crisis.

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LONDON (AP)  Four men were arrested Thursday during a pro-Palestinian protest outside a speech being given by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Queens University in Belfast.

Clinton, who holds the largely ceremonial role of chancellor at the school in the capital of Northern Ireland, was speaking on the final day of the Global Innovation Summit 2024. The gathering included political, business and academic leaders discussing economic inclusion and global sustainability, the university said.

Protesters with Palestine flags carried a cut-out of Clinton depicted with blood on her hands and chanted shame. Video footage showed protesters engage in angry exchanges and scuffles with police outside the hall where Clinton was speaking.

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Police said four men were arrested for public order offenses.

Queens University said in a statement that it respected peaceful protest but condemned the behavior of a small number of demonstrators.

Queens University has led the way in response to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East through calling for a ceasefire, providing scholarships for Palestinian students and divestment policies and has responded positively to the concerns of our university population where appropriate, the university said in a statement.

Clinton said Belfast was reinventing itself after decades of conflict and referred to the celebration last year of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 that largely brought peace to Northern Ireland.
With some exciting new travel upgrades, there has never been a better time to visit Xiangxi, central China's Hunan Province! Now, visitors can enjoy stunning landscapes and unique charm, along with more payment options and bilingual signage.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS)  Two Missouri tax attorneys and an insurance agent out of Ashe County were sentenced Wednesday to a combined 16 years in prison for helping clients file false tax returns, the U.S. Attorneys Office announced.

By operating a fraudulent tax shelter, documents show the defendants caused a tax loss to the IRS of more than $22 million. They were found guilty on their charges by a federal jury in April.

According to the Western District of North Carolina, the following sentences were handed down:

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Michael Elliott Kohn, an attorney, was sentenced to seven years in prison.

David Shane Simmons, an insurance agent and broker, was sentenced to five years in prison.

Catherine Elizabeth Chollet, an attorney, was sentenced to four years in prison.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, from 2011 to November 2022, Kohn and Chollet, both of St. Louis, and Simmons, who is based out of Jefferson, North Carolina, promoted, marketed and sold to clients the Gain Elimination Plan, a fraudulent tax scheme.

Banned NC repairman strikes again in South Carolina

The defendants were determined to have designed the plan to conceal clients income from the IRS by inflating business expenses through fictitious royalties and management fees.



Court documents show these fictitious fees were paid, on paper, to a limited partnership largely owned by a charity. In reality, Kohn and Chollet fabricated the fees.

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Simmons earned more than $2.3 million in commissions for selling the insurance policies, splitting the commissions with Kohn and Chollet. Kohn and Chollet received more than $1 million from Simmons. Simmons also filed false personal tax returns that underreported his business income and inflated his business expenses, resulting in a tax loss of more than $480,000.

Also part of the sentencing, each defendant is required to serve three years of supervised release and to pay $22,515,615 in restitution to the United States

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The new South Omaha site for Heartland Workforce Solutions will hold a grand opening Monday, Nov. 18, at 4425 S. 24th St. The $3.2 million renovation project transformed a fire-damaged, condemned funeral parlor into the workforce development, one-stop shop that also will contain a coffee shop. The nonprofit Canopy South is landlord and developer, tapping mostly philanthropic funds for the renovation. HWS used American Rescue Plan Act grant funds to cover its costs to open in the facility. (Cindy Gonzalez/Nebraska Examiner)

OMAHA  Four years after a fire ended its run as a funeral home, a South Omaha building has been resurrected as a one-stop service hub for area residents ready to improve their careers and find jobs.

The structure will come alive Monday as the anchor tenant, Heartland Workforce Solutions, celebrates with a ribbon cutting and open house.

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Heartland used a $600,000 American Rescue Plan Act grant funneled through the City of Omaha to develop programming aimed at connecting people with jobs and growing the regions workforce.

Heartland Workforce Solutions

Open house, South Omaha site, 4425 S. 24th St.

Monday, Nov. 18, 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

RSVPs recommended: https://form.jotform.com/242969143412054

All services are free. Bilingual navigators will be on site to guide participants through the self-service resource center that offers workshops, computers, community meeting and interview rooms and more, said Jennifer Rodriguez, who has led Heartlands progress at the site.

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Our goal with this new location is to provide easier access to services, ensuring that more people in our community can find employment, enhance their skills and pursue new career paths, said Rodriguez.

$3.2M renovation

The facilitys landlord and developer, nonprofit Canopy South, had Heartland in mind when it renovated the fire-damaged Good Shepherd Funeral Home at a cost of $3.2 million, said Canopys executive director, Cesar Garcia.

The vacant structure that at one time was headed for demolition was donated to Canopy South in 2020. Renovation was funded largely with philanthropic and private funds, Garcia said.

Partnering with Heartland at the new center will be other organizations with similar missions, providing a gamut of educational and workforce development services, entrepreneurial support and recruiting events.

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Also available will be conference and training rooms that community groups can reserve free of charge for education-related meetings, Rodriguez said. Laptop computers are available upon request.

Before: The burned-out mortuary at 4425 S. 24th St. in August 2022, prior to its transformation into a home for the South Omaha hub of Heartland Workforce Solutions. (Cindy Gonzalez/Nebraska Examiner)

An area is carved out for lease to a coffee shop, as well. Garcia said total development costs doubled from an earlier estimate, as 1,100 square feet of space was added to the facility, a parking area was purchased and renovations, such as an elevator, were done to make the facility fully accessible.

Unusual venture

In addition to the workforce component, the property offers an unusual and new venture for the region, Garcia said.

The actual real estate is to become part of a local initiative to build equity and wealth among low-income communities.

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Canopy South plans to invite residents from the surrounding 68107 ZIP code to invest in the modernized commercial building for as little as $10 to $100 a month. As investors, they will build equity and reap dividends of about 6% to 8% through rents paid by agencies and businesses occupying the facility.

Certain conditions come with the ownership opportunity, such as participation in financial and investment classes.

In explaining the Community Investment Trust part of the project, Canopy South says in a document that it hopes to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty with a coordinated and holistic revitalization of the neighborhood.

The hope is that the property, just yards from Omaha South High School, will enhance community pride and area property values.

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For Heartland Workforce Solutions, which is an American Job Center that serves Douglas, Sarpy and Washington Counties, the South Omaha location is an extension of its main center in North Omaha. That center serves nearly 3,000 visitors monthly. The nonprofit promotes training, employment support and community engagement.

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Nearly seven weeks after Hurricane Helene ravaged areas of Western North Carolina, the city of Asheville is opening its doors.

Most restaurants and stores are back in business, and tourists are slowly returning.

But the citys River Arts District will take much longer to recover.

About 80% of the district was destroyed or heavily damaged by the storm when the French Broad River swelled and raged over its banks.

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A number of buildings collapsed.

But Channel 2s Bryan Mims found that the community is making art again.

The home fires are burning once more here on Roberts Street. The furnaces blaze and the artistry shines through.

The glass blowers at the North Carolina Glass Center are practicing their craft again.

When the storm came and the river rose, the fires died.

It was really hard. We have a pretty large staff, and weve had to cut it down quite a bit and have our staff hopefully come back really soon. But you know, were kind of taking everything day-by-day, gallery manager Amelia Rosenberg said.

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Rosenberg and her fellow artists live by. After the storm, rubble stacked up and workshops sat idle.

Theres rubble everywhere. And its like organized rubble. And it hurts the heart to see it. But were hopeful, Rosenberg said.

There is reason to hope. So much of this vibrant, picturesque city is glowing with commerce again.

In downtown Asheville, most restaurants and shops have reopened, even though the citys tap water is not yet safe to drink.

Restaurants like Manicomio Pizza, owned by Jon Leibowitz, have brought in tanks of drinkable water.

The town is slowly getting a little bit back, Id say. Its not back, but were gradually getting back there, Leibowitz said.

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Francee Healy, a local, told Mims that she could feel the Asheville vibe again.

Its still quiet, but I think once the tourists realize things are open again, theyll be back, Healy said.

At the glass center, the attitude is glass-half-full. Much has been lost but the city is too embracing -- too beautiful -- for artists to leave.

Were strong. Were here. And were gonna come back better than ever, Rosenberg said.

This past weekend, the River Arts District hosted RAD fest, inviting artists to show their works -- and a big crowd turned out.

As for the citys water, officials say it will likely be mid-December before its safe to drink from the faucet again.
If he were alive today, John Ashley might be just another street thug.

Instead, the tall man with the glass eye became South Florida's most romanticized gangster.

Long before Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow became America's great anti-heroes, Ashley and his ragtag gang enthralled and infuriated Boom-era Florida with their robbing, hijacking, rum running and even murder.

Ashley even had a "Bonnie" of his own  Laura Upthegrove, known as"Queen of the Everglades," who lived in Canal Point on the northeastern shore of Lake Okeechobee.

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And like Bonnie and Clyde, Ashley and three of his cronies ended up dead in an explosion of gunfire.

POST TIME: The movie that butchered the Ashley Gang

Laura Upthegrove and John Ashley were known as 'king and queen of the Everglades.'

The gang would rob 40 banks of at least $1 million, pirate shipments of liquor in Florida and the Bahamas and nonchalantly gun down officers of the law. By the time John died, they'd killed three.

Their deaths on a wooden bridge over the St. Sebastian River on Nov. 1, 1924  100 years ago  put an end to the Ashley gang's infamous career of crime. Four men, including John, were captured by law officers but then turned up dead.

An Indian River State College professor learned in the 1950s what really happened from a deputy who was there. She never told the tale until they all were dead.

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More: County marks anniversary of 1924 deputys slaying

2 sheriffs from Palm Beach County went after the gang

Palm Beach County Sheriff Bob Baker who took down the Ashley gang.

The gang's leader was John, a compelling figure with a glass eye. He and Palm Beach County Sheriff Bob Baker would form a personal grudge against each other.

John Ashley was born near Fort Myers in 1888. After his birth, the family moved to Gomez, a settlement near Hobe Sound.

The rest of the gang consisted of John's father, Joe; his brothers, Bob, Ed and Frank; nephew, Hanford Mobley; Clarence Middleton; and a bank robber from Chicago, Kid Lowe. Joe himself was a former law officer who moved into bootlegging.

John Ashley in 1917.

The first sheriff of Palm Beach County, George Baker, took office when the county was formed in 1909. He was the first law officer to order John Ashley jailed.

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Baker's son, Bob, who took over when George died, would help take down the gang.

POST TIME: Treasure Coast scholar Ada Coats Williams

A Seminole chieftain's son is killed

John Ashley began his life of crime at the tender age of 19. He was accused in 1912 of fatally shooting DeSoto Tiger, son of a Seminole chieftain. Tiger's body was found during dredging of the New River Canal in Fort Lauderdale. He'd been shot in the back.

Palm Beach County's first sheriff, George Baker

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John Ashley was the last person Tiger was seen with, in the back of a canoe with otter pelts. The person who bought the pelts had a receipt signed "J. Ashley."

George Baker would order John's arrest, but John escaped to New Orleans. Finally, he surrendered in 1914. Deputy Bob Baker escorted him to the Palm Beach County Jail where Joe Ashley had a plate of food for his son. The deputy asked John to hold the plate while he unlocked the jail. John threw down the plate to escape again and disappeared into the Everglades.

The gang robbed banks and rail offices, which carried a lot of cash at the time. One robbery, of the Bank of Stuart in February 1915, was successful yet scarred John. They pulled in more than $4,200 but on the way out, Kid Lowe's gunshot ricocheted off the back window frame of their car and hit John in the jaw. It also traveled through his eye. That's how he got his glass eye.

By 1923, Ashley had a "to the death" feud with Sheriff Bob Baker. Ashley during a robbery sent Baker a bullet "with your name on it,' and Baker sent word back that one day he'd wear Ashley's glass eye as a watch fob.

How the gang killed 3 law officers

Clockwise starting at top; John Ashley, Hanford Mobley, Clarence Middleton, Roy "Young" Matthews, Ray Lynn. Center: John Ashley and his sweetheart Laura Upthegrove, King and Queen of the Everglades.St

Bob Ashley attempted to free his brother John from jail in February 1915. He shot and killed Deputy Sheriff Wilber W. Hendrickson at his front door next to the jail so Bob could get the keys.

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During his getaway, Bob confronted Miami Police Officer John Rhinehart Bob Riblet and a gun battle ensued. Both died. Riblet was the first Miami police officer to die and the city was devastated.

John surrendered through his lawyers, stood trial and was sentenced to 17 years in prison. He then escaped while working on a road crew in 1918.

In early January 1924, Sheriff Bob Baker led a posse that attacked the Ashley Gangs camp site near Gomez. During the firefight, Joe Ashley was shot in the head while tying his shoes. John Ashley saw his father die and in turn, fatally shot Deputy Fred Baker, Bob Bakers cousin.

At a bank robbery in September 1924, John Ashley gave a bullet to a teller and said, You give that to Sheriff Bob and tell him I got another one just like it waitin for him if hes man enough to come and get it.

The bloody end on a bridge over the Indian River

Stuart Police Chief Oren Padgett in 1922. Padgett spotted an Ashley family member on the day of the ambush.

Stuart Police Chief Oren Padgett spotted Ashley's brother-in-law on Nov. 1, 1924 at a Stuart grocery store. He learned from a source that the gang was headed to Jacksonville that night.

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Though Palm Beach County Sheriff Bob Baker was John Ashley's nemesis, he wasn't present when officers caught Ashley and three others on the St. Sebastian Bridge. But he sent his own deputies to help. Together with St. Lucie Sheriff J.R. Merritt and his deputies, they caught the outlaws.

Captured were John Ashley, Hanford Mobley, Ray "Shorty" Lynn and John Middleton. The four wouldn't be seen alive again.

Clarence Middelton, part of the Ashley gang, which was begun and led by John Ashley and his nephew Hanford Mobley, robbed central Florida banks, bootlegged, and usually escaped any jail. Four members of the gang were caught and shot on the Sebastian River Bridge on Nov. 1, 1924.

The bodies are taken to Fort Pierce and displayed on the grass in front of a mortuary.

But in the 1950s, when all but one of the deputies who had been on the bridge had died, that last one confided to Ada Williams his story:

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Convinced that no jail could hold the gang, the deputies had determined to finish them off.

They cuffed John Ashley and made him raise his hands. As they cuffed the others, Ashley began to drop his hands. A deputy shot him dead. The others fired wildly and the rest of the gang was killed.

The deputy said he scooped out Ashley's glass eye for Sheriff Baker.

When he found out later that the eye had been returned to Ashley's family, the deputy said he had one regret: He should have crushed it with his heel.

Eliot Kleinberg is a former Palm Beach Post reporter. Holly Baltz is the Investigations Editor at The Post. You can reach her at hbaltz@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Ashley gang terrorized people in the 1920s in Florida
The long and troubled history of Russia's prized Su-57 fighter jet appeared to take another turn for the worse in recent days when what should have been an opportunity for the Kremlin to flex some military muscle turned into global ridicule and embarrassment.

The aircraft made an impressive aerobatic display during a demonstration flight at the Airshow China 2024 aerospace exhibition in Zhuhai.

Russia's official X account lauded the performance as "jaw-dropping," adding its "fifth-gen Sukhoi Su-57 fighter jet can do just about anything in capable hands."

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But the triumph was short-lived. A flurry of close-ups of the parked fighter jet taken by members of the public suggested its build quality and stealth capabilities were suspect, to say the least.

Some far from hi-tech bolts and what appeared to be filler between panels prompted mockery on social media. Apart from aesthetics and safety, this would render the plane's fuselage detectable to radars, negating its stealth ability.

What is the Su-57?

The Su-57 was meant to rival the fifth-generation fighter jets of other countries, particularly the U.S. But despite a decades-long development and testing program, it has yet to prove itself.

Russia claims the aircraft has fifth-generation capabilities, which means it should have ultra-high maneuverability, supersonic speed without using afterburners, and, most importantly, stealth technology.

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The plane has been presented as Russia's most modern fighter jet. Only a few units are in service within the Russian Air Force.

Sergei Shoigu, now head of Russian President Vladimir Putin's security council, said in 2022, while serving as defense minister, that the Su-57 has "shown itself brilliantly" in attacks against Ukraine. Yet, it has not played a particularly large role in Russia's full-scale invasion launched early that year.

An assessment from the British Defense Ministry in January 2023 said Russia's risk-averse approach to using the Su-57 was "symptomatic" of the military's wider approach to the war.

"Russia is highly likely prioritizing avoiding the reputational damage, reduced export prospects, and the compromise of sensitive technology which would come from any loss of (a Su-57) over Ukraine," it said.

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Read also: Russias Su-57  hype vs. reality

We asked aviation experts what they made of the Su-57s performance in China.

Greg Bagwell, former U.K. Royal Air Force senior commander

The close up view was interesting in that it showed a poor level of engineering workmanship that you would expect on a stealth aircraft.

Every overlap, every gap increases your radar cross section and there were plenty on view. It's indicative of a poor manufacturing and quality control process.

And we know that the real advances are inside a modern combat aircraft. If they can't get the simple external bits right then it's unlikely the internal systems will fare much better.

Dr Matthew Powell, air power historian and teaching fellow at RAFC Cranwell

What can I say that's publishable? It's not very good. This was meant to be the big unveiling of the Russian fifth-generation equivalent of the (U.S.-made) F-35, and it hasn't gone down as well as I think the Russians would have been hoping.

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I think one of the big mistakes Russia made was that they allowed people at the air show to essentially get really up close to this aircraft. They want to take pictures. Those pictures have now appeared on social media. And they show the version that's been taken to the air show, perhaps it's not quite as fifth-generation as has been claimed by the Russians.

So it has done some sort of flight demonstrations and has shown its capabilities as a conventional fighter aircraft, and in that I think it's done a relatively good job.

It's shown its capabilities, it's shown what it can do. I don't think it's exceeded expectations but I certainly don't think it's diminished, or gone below the expectations of what was expected.

Russia's Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighter jet flies during the 15th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, or Airshow China 2024, on November 12, 2024 (Fu Tian/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)

The way it's been assembled looks very slapdash, and there aren't smooth lines on the aircraft which is what you'd expect from a stealth aircraft to reduce that radar signal.

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If you're looking at aircraft performance in terms of maneuverability, it can do the job that you would expect it to do.

But of course the problem comes when you're trying to maneuver in a hostile airspace where your opponent has got the ability to track you by radar. Okay, you can maneuver, you can do all of that. But you're going to put yourself in more harm and create more challenges to yourself by the fact that you're more easily seen by those radar systems.

So yeah, it's a capable aircraft. It'll do a very good job, I think, of what the Russians would want it to do in terms of perhaps air-to-air combat. But when it comes to the crunch, you're going to have to do this in an engaged, hostile airspace where things like radar are going to be widely used. And is that maneuverability enough for you to survive both as the pilot and to maintain the airframe?

Read also: We are exhausted  how Ukrainians cope with nightly Russian drone attacks

Martin J. Dougherty, weapons expert and author of Aircraft, Tanks and Artillery of the Ukraine War

As with other weapon systems such as the T-14 Armata Main Battle Tank (MBT), Russia seems unwilling to use the Su-57 in its purported high-capability role. It has 'countered' the Patriot (air defense) system by using standoff missiles from outside Patriot's range, suggesting the operators are aware of the aircraft's weaknesses. Whether these will be successfully eliminated remains to be seen.

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This situation is most likely an artifact of internal politics. Facing demands to present an operational aircraft, those responsible for the development of the Su-57 have cut corners in order to, apparently, give their superiors what they want.

Build quality issues can be addressed later, or the blame deflected once the pressure is off.

Russia's Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighter jet conducts adaptive training for the upcoming 15th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, or Airshow China 2024, on November 10, 2024 in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province of China (Chen Jimin/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)

Peter Layton, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute

My understanding is that the aircraft at the airshow was a tester, and so it wasn't of the build standard you'd expect. It was just a prototype used to try out and test things.

Also, it probably wasn't full of the guidance systems and electronics that you'd expect in an in-service airplane. It was a sort of lightweight, pilot-fun version.

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Its aerodynamic performance was certainly sparkling, but probably doesn't represent what the actual in-service aircraft could do because it would be more heavily loaded down. And it wasn't made to the same build standards as the production models, presumably.

Having said that, the Russians' aerodynamics have always been superior to the West's since about the late 1960s. Western aviation companies had superior computers, so they could make anything fly.

The Russians didn't have all those computers, so they had to specialize in the mathematics of making the aircraft actually fly well purely as a structural issue and not be reliant on computers as much.

So, the fact that it performs well is probably no surprise at all.

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Of course, this always brings up the argument that maneuverability is all well and good if you're doing close fights in a telephone booth kind of warfare. But these days, they standoff at 50-60 nautical miles (90-110 kilometers) and use their radars to shoot off long-range missiles at you.

So the maneuverability might be good for avoiding missiles in their terminal phase, but it's more of a trick for air shows rather than any practical combat value.

There's an argument that this was a test plane and it was built shoddily. The other argument is, of course, maybe they didn't want to send their latest and best possible build on the off-chance the Chinese perhaps learn something from it.

So they may have needed to ensure the industrial espionage side of things had been taken care of because air shows are places where all sorts of people get to crawl all over aircraft. So, from a security point of view, if you do have something sensitive, it's probably not the best idea to send it to one.

Read also: What do Trumps first team picks mean for Ukraine?

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The Taliban detained American citizen George Glezmann almost two years ago.

His wife, Aleksandra Glezmann, told Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Mark Winne that George was a Delta Air Lines mechanic at the time he was wrongfully detained in Afghanistan where he was traveling as a tourist.

Aleksandra Glezmann desperately hopes her husband will be back in Atlanta as soon as possible.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

George Glezmann has made a plea to President Joe Biden aimed at making that happen before his presidency is over.

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He made his comments to Biden during a phone call on October 31 before President-elect Donald Trump won the election.

I received a brief phone call from George where he sounded very desperate and had a lot of fear and pain. And he wanted me to record this message for President Biden, Aleksandra said.

Just get us out, please, before you go out. Im afraid they, um, the elections are going to happen. And then the, the, the inauguration and a new government is going to come in and everything is going to start all over again, George Glezmann said in the recorded message to Biden.

Aleksandra Glezmann said in the call, her husband also alluded to Ryan Corbett, held in the same facility in Kabul.

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Corbett is another innocent American unjustly held by the Taliban in Afghanistan for the last two years.

Please, President Biden, release me, release us. Were two Americans here, George Glezmann said on the recording. I cannot do another year. I cannot do another three months, six months, or whatever.

TRENDING STORIES:

Hes in a really dark place, mentally and emotionally, Aleksandra Glezmann said. I remind him of all the beautiful moments that we had together and I ask him to pray. And I ask him to think of the time when we will be reunited and we will move on.

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I would like to also thank my lawyer, Delta Air Lines, my boss, the CEO Ed Bastian, and George Taylor for the job theyre doing, George Glezmann said.

Winne contacted the Biden administration for a reaction to Glezmanns pleas.

In the past, he was told: The Biden-Harris administration is working around the clock to ensure Georges safe return.

Delta indicates it continues to support the US governments efforts to return George safely home and that although his employment was terminated in 2023 after an extended absence from work, the airline has a formal process to engage with him relative to his employment upon his safe return home.

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The Atlanta Police Department say they have arrested a man accused of stabbing a 78-year-old man to death earlier this month.

Police say on Nov. 3 just before 8 a.m., Atlanta Police Zone 2 Officers responded to reports of a person stabbed at 2129 Fairhaven Circle NE.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

When they arrived, they found the victim with multiple stab wounds. On Tuesday, APD learned the victim died from his injuries.

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On Wednesday, homicide investigators secured arrest warrants for Claude Jayy and charged him with murder, aggravated battery, and possession of a knife during the commission of a felony.

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Jayy is currently housed inside of the Fulton County Jail.

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South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley speaks during a rally featuring former President Donald Trump on Sept. 8, 2023, at The Monument in Rapid City. (Seth Tupper/South Dakota Searchlight)

A state commission that considers complaints about alleged violations of open-meetings laws will soon have its first hearing in nearly four years.

This commissions role is to bring transparency to government proceedings, and its work always has been invaluable, Attorney General Marty Jackley said Thursday in a statement. It is my goal to make the commission active again.

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The Open Meetings Commission was established by the South Dakota Legislature in 2004. The commission has not met since December 2020, leaving some complaints in limbo.

The state attorney general appoints the commissions five member attorneys. The commission went dormant during the administration of Jason Ravnsborg, who served as attorney general from 2019 until he was impeached and removed from office in 2022 because of his conduct after his involvement in a fatal traffic accident.

Jackley has said he doesnt know why the commission was inactive under Ravsnborg. Since Jackley became attorney general in January 2023, he said, challenges in maintaining a full roster of members contributed to the commissions continued dormancy. Jackley said earlier this year that a commission member lost a states attorney election, and he hired another two members to work in his own office, leaving three vacancies on the commission.

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Jackley convinced lawmakers to pass a bill last winter that expanded commission eligibility to include deputy states attorneys. Previously only states attorneys were eligible.

It has taken time to reestablish this commission, appoint members, and review open meeting complaints, Jackley said. The goal of the commission remains the same  to ensure government agencies at all levels are transparent and accountable to citizens of South Dakota.

The commission will meet at 9 a.m. Central time Monday on the Microsoft Teams digital platform. The agenda includes introductory remarks, election of officers, procedural discussions, and reviews of pending complaints.

Cases scheduled for review involve accusations against the Bennett County Board of Commissioners, Martin City Council, Piedmont Board of Trustees, Lincoln County Commission and North Sioux City Council, with allegations ranging from improper closed-door sessions to a commission meeting with a quorum without posting a public notice.

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The current five-member panel consists of States Attorneys Austin Hoffman of McPherson County, Katelynn Hoffman of Turner County, Lance Russell of Fall River/Oglala Lakota County, Michael Smith of Clay County, and Emily Sovell of Sully County.

Another meeting is scheduled for Nov. 25 to hear more complaints against the Carlyle Township in Beadle County, Pennington County Board of Commissioners, Sturgis City Council, City of Lead Commission, Green Valley Sanitary District in Pennington County, Charles Mix County Commission and Tripp City Council.

After reviewing a complaint, the commission may issue findings of fact and conclusions of law with a reprimand. The renewed activity of the Open Meetings Commission comes amid Jackleys efforts to emphasize government transparency. In collaboration with the South Dakota NewsMedia Association, his office recently released an updated open meetings guide for the public, the first revision since 2017.

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Deputy Solicitor General Zach Viglianco, left, gives an opening statement on the first day of the civil trial to determine the validity of the medical marijuana ballot measures at the Lancaster County Courthouse on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024, in Lincoln. (Kenneth Ferriera-Pool/Lincoln Journal Star)

LINCOLN  Attorneys summarized their arguments this week for why a district court judge should void the election results last week for Nebraskas successful medical cannabis ballot measures.

On Nov. 5, Nebraskans overwhelmingly voted to legalize and regulate medical cannabis, though a legal challenge continues in Lancaster County District Court. The lawsuit, filed by John Kuehn, a former state senator and former member of the State Board of Health, seeks to invalidate those measures, citing allegations of systemic fraud and malfeasance that permeated the process.

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Kuehn sued the three ballot sponsors of Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, as well as Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen, who certified the measures for the ballot.

Court cannot turn a blind eye

Since then, Evnen, through the Nebraska Attorney Generals Office, has joined Kuehn in arguing that tens of thousands of petition signatures were tainted by circulator fraud or notarial malfeasance.

John Kuehn of Heartwell, left, joins with three attorneys for the start of official court proceedings in a case against two 2024 ballot measures related to medical cannabis. The attorneys, from left, are Steven Guenzel, Andrew La Grone and Anne Marie Mackin. Sept. 20, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)(Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

The campaign needed at least 86,499 valid signatures on each petition for ballot access, which Evnen said the campaign reached Sept. 13, although he cautioned that a civil investigation continued into the petition effort.

The main arguments from Kuehn and Evnen allege that cheating is a choice and that instances of fraud or malfeasance should eliminate the presumption that other signatures a circulator or notary touched were validly collected.

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This Court cannot turn a blind eye to the sponsors and [Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana] campaign members willful disregard of the Nebraska Constitution and the statutory scheme that regulates the initiative process, the AGs Office wrote in a Tuesday brief on behalf of Evnen.

Kuehns attorneys have endorsed and similarly advanced Evnens arguments that notaries regularly and willfully did not notarize circulators petition pages while in the presence of one another, self-notarized petitions they circulated or notarized without a circulators oath present.

Notarizations add worth to a signature on a piece of paper, Evnens attorneys add, alleging that the pervasiveness of fraud makes it practically impossible to distinguish genuine signatures.

Intentional wrongful conduct permeated the campaign from top to bottom, the AGs Office brief states. Their abuse of the public trust, their willful disregard for the law, their willingness to let the ends justify the means have brought us here.

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If District Judge Susan Strong accepts those arguments, she could allow the ballot sponsors to try to rehabilitate signatures and prove their validity. Evnens attorneys argue that would be futile.

Strong could also rule against or for the sponsors outright and end the trial.

No matter the outcome, Strong and attorneys involved in the case have signaled the ruling would likely be appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court.

What have other courts said?

The core of legal arguments advanced by Evnens attorneys hinges on a 1919 Nebraska Supreme Court case dealing with an anti-womens suffrage referendum that allowed all signatures tied to a circulator who had committed fraud to be tossed from the ballot, defeating the anti-suffrage effort.

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A 1992 Nebraska Attorney Generals Office opinion, which doesnt carry the same weight as a judicial ruling, suggested the same standard could be applied to notaries.

Deputy Solicitor General Zach Viglianco, left, confers with Assistant Attorney General Justin Hall on the first day of the civil trial to determine the validity of the medical marijuana ballot measures at the Lancaster County Courthouse on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024, in Lincoln. (Kenneth Ferriera-Pool/Lincoln Journal Star)

Evnens attorneys point to both the 1919 ruling and the 1992 opinion and nod to other states that have tossed election measures or results because of wrongdoing or fraud.

Kuehns original lawsuit was broader, including alleged irregularities in voters printed names, birthdates, addresses or other information, which Evnen denied. Strong allowed that claim to move forward, as well as a cross-claim from Evnen, but dismissed Kuehns other allegations.

When the trial began, Kuehns attorneys instead focused on notaries and joined Evnens argument They said in filings Tuesday that the ballot sponsors had no interest in the rules and that when someones credibility is questioned, that can be extended to other actions.

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It is the individuals credibility that is impeached, and all acts by that person can be determined to have lost credibility, Kuehns attorneys wrote.

The ballot sponsors attorneys accused Evnen and Kuehn during the trial of focusing on notaries specifically because they couldnt find a path to invalidation, so they ignored past precedents.

The sponsors attorneys have said no court in the nation, to their knowledge, has ruled that notarial malfeasance can be extended to all documents. Theyve said that could affect any unrelated documents, such as wills, purchase agreements or other legal documents that a notary has witnessed.

Even worse, Nebraskas highest election official advances a burden-shifting framework that threatens to undermine and eliminate the initiative right altogether, the sponsors brief states.

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The ballot sponsors were given until Friday to file their post-trial brief. The opposing attorneys can offer a response, if needed, by Monday.

The AGs Office said if the signatures are allowed to stand, that could undermine the peoples faith in the precious power of initiative or send a message that cheating is allowed, so long as enough can be concealed or covered up behind a guise of potentially valid signatures.

Key witness testimony

Throughout a four-day trial, the states attorneys narrowed in on Crista Eggers, a ballot sponsor and the campaign manager for the measures. They showed texts where she told campaign volunteers to push the limits or ignore the rules, which the AGs Office said included the law.

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There is no more nice campaign, Eggers said in one text to a top campaign volunteer. We dont follow the rules anymore. And we just pay the consequences and hope its OK.

The attorneys for the ballot sponsors have alleged that Eggers texts are being taken out of context and didnt show what the AGs Office alleged.

Lancaster County District Judge Susan Strong listens to opening statements from attorneys on the first day of the civil trial to determine the validity of the medical marijuana ballot measures at the Lancaster County Courthouse on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024, in Lincoln. (Kenneth Ferriera-Pool/Lincoln Journal Star)

Among the witnesses for Evnen were two paid circulators, Michael Egbert of York and Jennifer Henning of Omaha, who said they violated the law.

Egbert pleaded guilty last week to a Class I misdemeanor of attempting to commit a Class IV felony of falsely swearing a circulators oath. He admitted to using a phone book to forge voter signatures. Eggers was a notary for six petition pages for Egbert.

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Ms. Eggers has no memory of notarizing Egberts petitions and states these documents were notarized by mistake, likely because they were inadvertently mixed with a stack of petitions from circulators that properly showed Ms. Eggers their ID and signed in front of her, the ballot attorneys wrote on Eggers behalf in a legal filing.

Henning has not been charged with a crime She alleged that Eggers told her to pick up petition pages from Seward County, sign the oath of a petition she didnt circulate and drop them off at Eggers house to notarize later.

The ballot sponsors attorneys moved to impeach Hennings testimony, citing that she is on probation for two counts of felony insurance fraud and has submitted fraudulent documents to Nebraska courts in the past decade. Henning offered texts to corroborate her testimony and said she is on medications to help her mental health, which she said led to that past behavior.

Other evidence presented at the trial included expert testimony from Mark Songer, a forensic document examiner from Colorado, who reviewed about 150 circulators signatures from five people at the request of the AGs Office.

Supporters of medical cannabis joined together in support of two related ballot measures for the 2024 general election at a public hearing for Initiative Measures 437 and 438 at the University of Nebraska at Omaha on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

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Songer said his review suggested possible forgeries on signatures for three of the five circulators, though he later confirmed he didnt review each circulators signatures and was doing so in a condensed timeline.

The AGs Office briefs stated that the office was unsuccessful in locating all three circulators with alleged forgeries to confirm whether they signed and circulated the suspected petitions.

Impact to election results

Initiative Measure 437, the legalization petition, passed with 71% voter support. Initiative Measure 438, the regulatory petition, passed slightly behind with 67% of voter support.

Citing a Nebraska Supreme Court case from 1905, the AGs Office said an election is allowed to be rightfully quashed if the process is so infused with fraud, corruption or gross irregularity that lawful votes cant be determined.

The appropriate remedy is declaring the result of the elections void, the AGs Office said.

Nebraskas state constitutional officers will meet Dec. 2 to certify the election. Legal arguments can continue after that date.

That board consists of Evnen, Attorney General Mike Hilgers, State Auditor Mike Foley, State Treasurer Tom Briese and Gov. Jim Pillen. Foley and Pillen have criticized the medical marijuana petition campaign. Briese and Hilgers voted against the most recent legislation while serving in the Legislature.

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Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, Nov. 13, 2024. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

BAKU, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang on Wednesday met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan.

Ding, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, first conveyed cordial greetings and best wishes from Chinese President Xi Jinping to Aliyev.

Ding noted that since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Azerbaijan 32 years ago, mutual political trust has been continuously strengthened, and the bilateral relationship has become increasingly mature.

During their meeting in Astana in July, Xi and Aliyev jointly announced the elevation of China-Azerbaijan relations to the level of strategic partnership, Ding said, noting both sides should implement the important consensuses reached by the two heads of state and push for continuous development of China-Azerbaijan relations at a new starting point and at a high level.

China is willing to work with Azerbaijan in the spirit of sincere mutual trust and mutual benefit to strengthen political guidance, deepen comprehensive cooperation, so as to achieve their respective development and revitalization goals, he added.

Ding also extended China's congratulations on Azerbaijan's successful hosting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Baku and expressed China's readiness to work with Azerbaijan to make joint contributions to the international efforts to build a beautiful planet and realize the sustainable development of the world.

China values Azerbaijan's significant role in international and regional affairs and is prepared to work with Azerbaijan to implement the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative, so as to promote building a community with a shared future for mankind, Ding said.

For his part, Aliyev asked Ding to convey his sincere greetings to Xi. He emphasized that Azerbaijan and China are true strategic partners engaged in frequent high-level exchanges with bilateral cooperation steadily progressing.

Azerbaijan places great importance on its relationship with China, supports the major initiatives proposed by Xi, and is willing to actively collaborate with China on the Belt and Road Initiative, he said.

Azerbaijan is interested in expanding cooperation with China in areas such as trans-Caspian international transport, trade, investment, industry, and renewable energy, so as to elevate the bilateral relations to a new level, Aliyev said.

Azerbaijan is willing to strengthen international cooperation with China, support multilateralism, promote inter-civilizational dialogue, and advance fairness and justice in the international community, he added. 

Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, Nov. 13, 2024. Ding met with Aliyev and held talks with Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev during his visit to Azerbaijan from Nov. 12 to 13. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)
The city of Aurora broke ground on Fire Station 13, which will be located near the Chicago Premium Outlets mall and the future Hollywood Casino location, at a ceremony on Wednesday.

Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin said the groundbreaking marks a significant milestone in our commitment to safety, security and well-being for our community.

This new fire station represents not just the expansion of our emergency services but a step towards building a safer, stronger future for all of us, Irvin said.

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Currently, Aurora has no fire stations north of Interstate 88, so the new station will greatly reduce response times to residents and new construction taking place in the area, such as at the Hollywood Casino resort, Aurora Fire Chief Dave McCabe told The Beacon-News after the ceremony. Fire officials have previously said that the new station will cut response time in the area in half.

The station will also help the Aurora Fire Department more quickly respond to accidents on I-88, McCabe said after the ceremony.

During the ceremony, McCabe said that a fire station north of I-88 has been talked about since he started at the department in 1997. Now, it is finally becoming a reality, but it has been a huge undertaking and a total team effort involving countless meetings, he said.

Once built, the new Fire Station 13 will be the citys 10th operational fire station.

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In addition to cutting fire department response times in the area, the station is notable because of its new features to make operations safer and more efficient, which Aurora Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Nickel outlined during the ceremony.

For example, the building will have a dirty side and a clean side to limit firefighters exposure to harmful toxins they are exposed to as a part of their job, Nickel said.

After responding to a fire, firefighters coming back to Station 13 will be able to shower and change into a clean uniform as quickly as possible before they reenter the part of the building that they live and work in, McCabe clarified after the ceremony.

The station will also feature specialized ventilation systems for both firefighters gear and vehicle exhaust, according to Nickel. McCabe said after the ceremony that the station will also have gear washers and dryers to minimize carcinogens that get on the gear during a fire.

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Nickel said during the ceremony that the station will also allow fire trucks to pull through the building to park. Backing up is one of the greatest causes of accidents and one of the most dangerous things in the fire service, according to McCabe.

The station was designed with nearby residents in mind, Nickel said. Fire Station 13 is being constructed on a 2.5-acre site at the intersection of Bilter Road and Nan Street, which is across from residential homes.

Some of those residents previously expressed their concerns about living near a fire station, but city officials said it was an ideal location, according to past reporting.

Fire trucks leaving for an emergency would exit onto Bilter Road, and would only use Nan Street when returning to the station, officials previously said.

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The station would also be 80 feet from Nan, with a lot of landscaping and a 6-foot-high solid wood fence, according to past reporting.

Since firefighters will live at the new fire station, spending about a third of their lives there, Fire Station 13 was also designed with this in mind, according to Nickel.

McCabe said after the ceremony that the station is being laid out in a way to minimize response times regardless of where a firefighter is in the building, be that the kitchen, the workout room or their bed.

Training elements are also expected to be built into the structure itself, Nickel said during the ceremony.

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The station is expected to serve the community for the next 50 to 75 years, he said.

Land that will hold the future Fire Station 13 has been owned by the city since 2015.

The construction of the 20,000-square-foot Fire Station 13 is expected to cost around $12.8 million, with a 5% contingency. That amount was approved by the Aurora City Council on Tuesday.

The new fire station is set to be fully constructed by the end of 2025 or very early 2026, McCabe said.

Construction management is being handled by Leopardo Construction, of Hoffman Estates, according to past reporting.

The same company is also managing a second construction project, the moving of Fire Station 9 from its current site at 2339 Diehl Road to a new location on Eola Road, which city officials said is set to also break ground in a couple of weeks.

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Fire Station 9 would be on about a 2.5-acre site at 7S300 Eola Road, just south of Liberty Street, officials have said.

Aurora fire officials previously said that the goal in moving and constructing new stations is to get response times below six minutes for regular fire responses and four minutes for emergency medical responses.

The city is also looking to move the Aurora Fire Departments headquarters from its aging location downtown to the campus of the current Aurora Police Department headquarters, creating a joint public safety campus.

rsmith@chicagotribune.com
AUSTIN (KXAN)  More than a week after Election Day, all Travis County ballots have been unofficially tallied, after a new round of results was posted Wednesday. Its still not enough for KXAN to call the Austin mayoral race  which means it will come down to Williamson County voters.

Williamson County said its convening Thursday night around 5 to count their remaining ballots and anticipates it could finish the count the same night.

There are 102 ballots that are outstanding in the City of Austin race that will be counted tonight, the Williamson County Clerks Office said.

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Travis County posted 905 new ballots Wednesday evening, those are the last of the unofficial results to be reported, according to the Travis County Clerks Office. Of those, 355 people voted in the Austin mayoral race. With those new ballots, Watson is still sitting at 50.01% of the vote putting him at 175,071 total votes  21 votes above the runoff threshold, based on the current vote total.

Watson needs more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff with second-place candidate Carmen Llanes Pulido. Should there be a runoff election, you would need to go back to the polls in December to vote for mayor again. Election Day for that election would be December 14.

Hays County also reported its official results. Only one new vote was added in the Austin mayoral race, for Jeffery Bowen.

Travis and Williamson County still need to do a canvass. Those may adjust final results slightly. Those final result must be posted no later than the 19th.

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A canvass is a post-election process that aggregates and confirms that all valid ballots cast in the election are accurately counted and included in the final election results. Through the canvass, election officials determine whether to count provisional ballots, resolve ballot marking errors, adjudicate voter intent, and reconcile the number of ballots cast with the number of people who voted, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

KXAN couldnt make a call on election night, or the days following, because the race was simply too close to call. Incumbent Mayor Kirk Watson went into the early morning Wednesday with 50.01% of the vote. A candidate must receive more than 50% to avoid a runoff.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin.
Nov. 14CUMBERLAND  A Barton man was arrested Monday after he forced his way into his ex-girlfriend's residence and placed improvised explosive devices inside the property in the 20300 block of Lower Georges Creek Road, according to the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office.

No injuries were reported when Maryland State Police troopers found the devices just after 1 a.m. and requested the response of the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Bomb Squad.

Andrew Ervin Romack, 62, who was taken into custody at the scene, was charged with felonies and misdemeanors that included manufacturing and possessing a destructive device, trespassing on private property, fourth-degree burglary, reckless endangerment and possession of an explosive device.

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Bomb squad technicians performed "render-safe" procedures on the device without further incident, according to a news release from the fire marshal's office.

Romack remained jailed Thursday without bond at the Allegany County Detention Center following bail review Wednesday by District Court Judge H. Jack Price Jr., who set a preliminary hearing for Dec. 6.

"The quick recognition of the potential hazard with this device by the responding troopers and their decision to immediately contact us was appropriate in this incident," said Acting State Fire Marshal Jason M. Mowbray. "This serves as a positive reminder to all members of the public of the National message, 'See Something, Say Something.'"

No other devices were found in a further search of the residence and of Romack's vehicle after bomb squad technicians disabled the explosive device.
DENVER (KDVR)  Backcountry explorers now have more information than ever to inform their adventures in Colorados avalanche-prone mountains.

The Colorado Avalanche Information Center launched an expanded avalanche accident data platform on Wednesday that includes detailed reports on avalanche incidents. The organization is attempting to improve the publics understanding of avalanche risks and safe decision-making in the backcountry.

These Colorado hot springs are nationally recognized and hold world records

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Before this updated platform was launched, the CAIC accident page listed reports for only the most serious incidents, such as a fatal accident. Less serious incidents were listed as field reports in the CAIC websites observation section. The updated platform provides a one-stop-shop for every reported event where someone got caught up in moving avalanche debris, according to CAIC.

CAIC provides information to the public to help people stay out of avalanches. One of the ways we do this is by collecting and sharing data on avalanche accidents to help people learn from these situations and avoid similar ones, CAIC Director Ethan Greene said in the announcement. Our new platform lets people look at all of the accidents reported to us in a way thats easier for people to learn about everything from small brushes with avalanches to fatal accidents.

The site shows that one avalanche incident has already been reported this winter season. The organizations report shows that five skiers were near the Senator Beck Basin on Nov. 9 and traveling west toward Trico Peak. At about 12,500 feet, two skiers were caught in a wind slab avalanche. The skiers were able to regroup on the ridge and descend back to Red Mountain Pass, according to the CAIC report.

The report goes further, noting there was about a foot of snow at pass level, and testing of the slopes showed minimal signs of instability besides the slope that already avalanched, the CAIC reported.

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For specific avalanche accidents and reports, the Colorado Avalanche Accidents page is the best location for searchers. The Colorado Avalanche Accidents Summary page has summaries of the accidents so trends can be reviewed at a glance.

Denver Christkindlmarket named among Food Drink Lifes best Bavarian-style Christmas markets in US

Historically, CAIC completed full accident reports for non-fatal events based on staff capacity, when there were critical things to be learned, and the amount of available information, the organization explained in its announcement. Over time, CAIC has gained increased access to information about events and can thus expand the information available to the public.

According to the website, 104 avalanche incidents were reported during the 2023-2024 snow season. Of those, two ended in deaths.

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Sharing information about an accident can be difficult because it involves acknowledging mistakes and facing possible criticism, but this information is crucial for collective learning, said Greene in the CAIC release. Thats why people can choose to have their experiences shared anonymously or just with CAIC to inform our forecasts.

The CAIC also provides avalanche forecasts and other important backcountry information for explorers, which can be found here.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver.
DEWITT, N.Y. (WSYR-TV)  Packages are starting to pile up at doorsteps across Central New York, and with Christmas next month, thieves are looking to get their hands on your deliveries before you do.

We do have a number of instances in the town where packages have gotten stolen, said Lieutenant Jerry Pace, DeWitt Police Department.

DeWitt Police say only about five stolen packages have been reported in the last six months. But with Black Friday at the end of the month and Christmas next month, they expect that number to grow.

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We anticipate in the coming month or so before the holiday season that it will ramp up a little bit before the holidays approach us, said Pace.

Its an open invitation for thieves looking to steal. The department now urging holiday shoppers to be on high alert before hitting that delivery button.

Follow the tracking. If you know youre going to be out of town, ask a neighbor to get your package off the porch for you or have your package delivered to your work if thats a possibility for you, said Pace.

Ring video doorbells can also come in handy.

Cameras are everywhere and its a big part of our investigative tools is CCTV footage. So if people can give us that opportunity to have camera footage of the theft, its going to give us a better opportunity to solve the crime, Pace said.

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DeWitt Police also say having more exterior lighting could keep these grinches from stealing Christmas.

If you think your package may have been stolen, DeWitt Police say to call the company you ordered from to confirm it was delivered, and then call the police.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSYR.
The death of a baby Red Panda is believed to have been caused by fireworks set off for a holiday. Zookeepers at the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland say that it was pyrotechnics that caused their 3-month-old panda Roxie to choke on her own vomit after being stressed by the commotion going on November 5.

The fireworks were believed to come from people celebrating Guy Fawkes Day. A holiday meant to mark the failed attempt to blow up the British Parliament.

Sadly the noise had disastrous effects on Roxie and she died on November 5, ABC News reports.

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Roxie had access to her den, but the frightening noises seem to have been too much for her," Ben Supple, deputy chief executive of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, which owns Edinburgh Zoo told the news outlet. Very sadly, she choked on her vomit on Bonfire Night and our vets believe this was probably a reaction to fireworks."

Related: Red Panda's Gentle Way of Enjoying a Snack Is Such a Timeline Cleanse

Tragically, Roxie's mother died only five days before she did, making this period of time very precarious for the baby Red Panda. At such a young age, many small mammals can be vulnerable. Most don't even reach the end of their first year. Employees at the zoo now believe that fireworks set off between Halloween and Guy Fawkes Day might've contributed to Roxie's mother's death too.

Roxie had been doing well on her own before the fireworks. She'd been eating on her own and was responding well to her caretakers. But sadly, the explosions were too much for the panda and it led to her death. It's particularly tragic given the rarity of baby Red Pandas in the world. The Red Panda is native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. Some countries have protected the species, but there remains less than 10,000 pandas in the wild.

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The death has been so upsetting it's prompted officials to call for reform. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is now calling for tighter restrictions on fireworks. The zoo is joining that call and has asked for a ban on fireworks sales and for lighter pyrotechnic displays.

According to BBC News, a spokesperson for the UK government's department for business and trade, which controls the sales of fireworks recently spoke out about the death.

"We are sorry to hear of the death of Roxie the panda and our thoughts are with the team who cared for her at Edinburgh Zoo," he said. "We endeavor to keep pets and the public safe and that's why we launched a new fireworks safety campaign this season to help people use them safely and appropriately."

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A baby red panda was frightened to death by fireworks on Bonfire Night, a zoo has claimed.

Vets blame the death of the three-month-old cub  named Roxie  on fireworks near Edinburgh Zoo after it choked on its own vomit in shock, the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) said.

The wildlife conservation charity, which owns Edinburgh Zoo, has now called for tighter restrictions on fireworks, including a ban on their sale to the general public.

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Ben Supple, RZSS deputy chief executive, said: Roxie had recently lost her mum Ginger but was responding well to specialist care from our expert team and was feeding independently.

Very sadly, she choked on her vomit on Bonfire Night and our vets believe this was probably a reaction to fireworks.

Roxie had access to her den but the frightening noises seem to have been too much for her. We are also concerned that fireworks cause stress to other animals in the zoo.

He continued: Fireworks can cause fear and distress for pets, livestock and animals in zoos, so it is essential that the UK and Scottish governments tighten restrictions on their sale and use.

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We support calls from animal welfare charities to ban the sale of fireworks to the public, with only light displays being permitted at organised events.

This would help avoid devastating consequences for animals like Roxie while ensuring that people can still enjoy traditional celebrations.

He added: Firework exclusion zones are a positive step but we are concerned they will not adequately protect animals in zoos.

The noise from fireworks can travel over large distances, meaning any exclusion zone around Edinburgh Zoo would need to cover most of the city.

Many of the animals in the zoo will also be disturbed by noises at lower frequencies even if the decibel level is reduced.

Red pandas are native to the eastern Himalayas and south western China - RZSS/PA

The charity is urging people to contact their local MP and MSP to support a petition with more than one million signatures calling for tighter firework restrictions which was delivered to Downing Street earlier this month.

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Siobhian Brown, the Scottish community safety minister, said: Fireworks are very distressing for animals and this is sad news.

I understand why there are calls for a ban on fireworks, however this is a reserved issue to Westminster and not currently within the Scottish Governments powers.

I have written to the UK Government asking for a meeting to discuss what more can be done on fireworks regulations and will also continue to engage with partners to discuss what further action may be considered.

We have provided local authorities with powers to designate firework control zones, which ban the use of fireworks in local areas, and these were used for the first time this year in areas across Edinburgh over the Bonfire Night period.

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Community organisations are also able to apply to the council for their local area to be made a firework control zone.

A UK Department for Business and Trade spokesman said: We are sorry to hear of the death of Roxie the panda and our thoughts are with the team who cared for her at Edinburgh Zoo.

We endeavour to keep pets and the public safe and thats why we launched a new fireworks safety campaign this season to help people use them safely and appropriately.

Alex Cole-Hamilton, the MSP for Edinburgh Western, said: This is extremely sad news. These are rare and beautiful creatures.

The scenes across Edinburgh over the last few weeks have been anarchic and troubling. The current set of rules on licensing, sales and usage dont seem to have had the desired effect.

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Its time to look at whether a ban on noisy and disruptive fireworks is necessary.

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CRAIG T. KOJIMA / NOV. 6 The judge instructed jurors Wednesday that they were allowed to find babysitter Dixie Denise Villa guilty of the lesser crimes of second-degree assault or second-degree reckless endangering. Villa, who is charged with manslaughter, sat in the courtroom earlier in the trial.

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / NOV. 6 The judge instructed jurors Wednesday that they were allowed to find babysitter Dixie Denise Villa guilty of the lesser crimes of second-degree assault or second-degree reckless endangering. Villa, who is charged with manslaughter, sat in the courtroom earlier in the trial.

Jurors began deliberations in the manslaughter trial of babysitter Dixie Denise Villa after hearing closing arguments late Wednesday afternoon in the February 2019 Benadryl  toxicity death of 7-month-old Abigail Lobisch.

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Deputy Prosecutor Tiffany Kaeo told jurors, Abigail Lobisch would be 6 years old today if she were alive  Abi never got the chance to grow up.

She showed a photo of the smiling infant taken Feb. 22, 2019, then one when she was found dead Feb. 24, 2019, in Villas Aliamanu Military Housing home, saying, Abi is dead because of a series of choices the defendant made.

Those choices include throwing out of her home on Feb. 23, 2019, two daughters and friend, who were visiting from Arizona and New York and were helping watch four children under the age of 5Abigail, her 2-year-old brother, Villas daughter, who has Down syndrome, and her son.

She made a choice to give the three small children iPads. She made a choice to give Abi diphenhydramine. She made a choice to sleep with the baby cradled in her arms.

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Villa, then 40, told police she found Abi face down the morning of Feb. 24, 2019, in Villas bed, where she slept with all four children in her master bedroom.

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Anna Lobisch dropped her baby and son off with Villa at the Aulani Disney Resort &Spa at 10 :45 a.m.

Feb. 23, 2019. After spending a day at the pool with the three older girls and the four younger ones, Villa allowed the older girls to spend 20 minutes at the slides while she watched the young ones. An argument broke out because Villa was upset, and said the three older ones must pack and leave.

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They returned to Villas house and Abi was crying, according to Villas daughters friend Briana Calderons testimony, but Abi stopped crying by the time they finished packing and left by 7 p.m. or 8 p.m.

She couldnt handle four kids by herself,  Kaeo said. Thats why she confirmed the older girls would be helping to watch them prior to agreeing to babysit, she said.

Villa was Abigails regular babysitter, but Anna Lobisch had asked her to watch the children Feb. 23 Villa was indicted five months later on second-degree manslaughter after police received autopsy results, including toxicology test results.

Jury instructions allow jurors to find Villa guilty of the lesser crimes of second-degree assault or second-degree reckless endangering.

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Kaeo said, Its easier to say maybe theres reasonable doubt,  but it doesnt make it the right decision,  and implored them to use reason and common sense.

Kaeo said crimes that happen in a home between two people are very rarely seen by others  You can solve a puzzle without knowing every single letter and every single number.

You have evidence from first responders,  witnesses Briana Calderon and Anna Lobisch (Abigails mother ), the states doctors, text messages and photographs, Kaeo said.

But the defense is blaming Abis mom for taking a drug she might have been allergic to, blaming the medical examiner  for determining the cause of death as diphenhydramine (the antihistamine in Benadryl ) toxicity, Kaeo said.

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Megan Kau, Villas court-appointed attorney, said : Denise is not guilty because after all these witnesses, no one has told us how Abigail Lobisch died.

She repeatedly said there were no witnesses and no one can say what specific brand of diphenhydramine she died of or whether it was pills, liquid or topical.

There is the same amount of evidence against Denise as these five individuals,  Kau said, naming Anna Lobisch, Villas older daughters, Ariana Rivera and Amaya Gordon, and Calderon, as well as James Lobisch, Abigails father, who could have given her the drug.

However, James Lobisch had guard duty that weekend, and Villa kicked out the three older girls, as Calderon had testified and left by 8 p.m., Kaeo said.

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Kau accused Anna Lobisch of lying when giving reasons she needed a babysitter that weekend. She testified she was going to school and needed to study, but did say under cross-examination her husband physically abused her and she wanted to spend time with a male friend.

Kau questioned Lobisch about text messages with a friend who had concerns about her taking Tylenol PM, since it contained diphenhydramine.

A defense expert said because Anna Lobisch was allergic to Benadryl, she may lack the enzyme to break down the drug, which could have been passed on to her baby.

He couldnt say whether the enzyme could break down acetaminophine and not Benadryl.

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She called the issue of Tylenol PM a red herring and misleading.

Dr. Jon Gates, who performed the autopsy, testified there was no acetaminophine in Abigails system.

Kaeo said in rebuttal, We do know how she died. She died of diphenhydramine toxicity. Thats the cause of her death.

In the 12 hours prior to Abigails death, no one else was present who could have given her the antihistamine, she said.

You do not need to decide whether it is pill or topical or oral,  Kaeo said. What you do need to agree on  is that it was the defendant who gave her the diphenhydramine, and it was the defendant who caused her death.

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Breast milk cannot excrete enough to cause a fatal dose of diphenhydramine and Abi does not have a metabolic disorder,  Kaeo said. The only metabolic disorder that was identified does not affect the bodys ability to break down the enzymes in question for diphenhydramine.

Kaeo discounted Kaus attempt to disprove a pediatric emergency physicians estimate that it would take 30 doses of diphenhydra mine. She made him pour 30 20 ml cups amounting to 60 ml and comparing it to 4 ounces of formula, when a 5 ml cup child-size dose should have been used.

Villa did not take the stand because the state could have asked her about how she told Calderon to lie to military police Feb. 21, 2019, to investigate complaints she ran an unlicensed day care on military housing.
LIMA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a signed article published Thursday in Peruvian media outlet El Peruano that during his visit, he and President Dina Boluarte will attend the inauguration ceremony of Chancay Port via video.

The article, titled China-Peru Friendship: Setting Sail Toward an Even Brighter Future, was released as Xi is traveling to Peru for the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima and a state visit to the Latin American country.

The completion of Chancay Port will enable Peru to put in place a multi-dimensional, diverse and efficient network of connectivity spanning from coast to inland, from Peru to Latin America and further on to the Caribbean, Xi said.

"It will also help build an Inca Trail of the New Era with Chancay Port as its starting point, thus boosting the overall development and integration of the region," he added.

In the article, Xi called for joint efforts of both countries to ensure the success of Chancay Port from construction through operation, so that the route from Chancay to Shanghai will lead China, Peru and Latin America to common development and prosperity.

China is ready to work with Peru to champion true multilateralism, promote an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, Xi said.

Xi noted that the world is undergoing faster transformation unseen in a century, and humanity has again come to a crossroads in history.

China is willing to work with Peru to jointly implement the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, and build together a community with a shared future for mankind, he added.

China firmly supports Peru's APEC presidency and will work closely with Peru to ensure a successful and productive meeting, enhance Asia-Pacific cooperation with a "Lima Imprint," and make new contributions to building an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future, Xi said. 
No joke, this time.

Satirical publication The Onion has purchased Infowars and all of its assets at auction, dealing a final blow to internet rabble-rouser Alex Jones conspiracy empire.

The acquisition, announced Thursday, came with the support of families of children who were killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting, who had previously won a $1.4 billion defamation verdict against Jones, whose radio show promoted conspiracies claiming the massacre was a hoax involving paid crisis actors.

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Twenty children and six adults were killed by a shooter during the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. The families of eight of the victims supported the sale to The Onion and "agreed to forgo a portion of their recovery to increase the overall value of The Onions bid, enabling its success," according to a statement from the law firm representing the families.

"The world needs to see that having a platform does not mean you are above accountability  the dissolution of Alex Jones assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for, Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the shooting, said in the statement.

The Onion said it will immediately shut down Infowars  which peddled a litany of conspiracy theories while also hawking supplements  and work with the gun safety organization Everytown for Gun Safety to transition it into a humor site, which it said would launch in January.

The Onion is proud to acquire Infowars, and we look forward to continuing its tradition of scaring the sites users with lies until they fork over their cold, hard cash, said CEO Ben Collins. He added: We hope the Sandy Hook families will be able to marvel at the cosmic joke we will soon make InfoWars.com.

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The sale price was not disclosed.

Jones, an ardent supporter of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, confirmed the acquisition Thursday, calling the sale tyranny of the new world order in a video posted to X and promising legal challenges.

Im gonna be in here until they come in here and turn the lights off, he said.
(Bloomberg) --

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Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey warned Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves not to raise tariffs in retaliation to an expected wave of US-led protectionism, amid fears that President-elect Donald Trump will kick off a global trade war once he is sworn in next year.

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I will own up to being an old-fashioned free trader at heart, Bailey said on Thursday in a speech to the finance industry at Londons Mansion House, where Reeves also spoke. Amidst the important need to be alert to threats to economic security, lets please remember the importance of openness.

Bailey also pushed back against the UKs own retreat from free trade after Brexit, saying the government should welcome opportunities to rebuild relations with the EU.

Trump is threatening a new era of protectionism with blanket 20% tariffs on all US goods imports and tougher measures against China, while the European Union has also proposed tariffs of up to 45% on Chinese electric vehicles.

But in a speech focused on tackling the UKs anemic growth rate, Bailey urged ministers not to respond to protectionist headwinds in kind. Openness to trade in goods and services affects productivity by facilitating competition, innovation and specialization, he said.

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Reeves made a similar point in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Wednesday. Asked about the impact of potential US trade tariffs, the chancellor said: We will continue to make representations for free and open trade.

Its the latest example of the central bank governor and the chancellor striking a similar tone on the economy. In his speech, Bailey again endorsed Reeves budget plan to dramatically ramp up borrowing to pay for public investment, and the governor also backed up her complaint about the economic inheritance left by the former Conservative government.

Chancellor, I welcome the plans you have set out, Bailey said. We dont have a good recent inheritance, so this is a big issue that needs our attention. Investment and capital formation  and how to increase it  matter.

To illustrate his point, Bailey said Britains potential annual growth rate, its economic speed limit, fell to 0.7% between 2020 and 2023 from 1.3% on average between 2009 and 2019 and 2.6% between 1990 and 2008.

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Brexit has also damaged potential growth, which underlines why we must be alert to and welcome opportunities to rebuild relations while respecting the decision of the British people, Bailey said. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates leaving the European Union cost the UK 4% in lost GDP, and the Labour government has pledged to improve relations with the bloc.

On a more upbeat note, Bailey said the UK economy may be as much as 60 billion ($76.1 billion) bigger than thought because statisticians are failing to measure gross domestic product correctly. Intangible assets, such as data, are not captured in the official figures but are valuable, he said.

The economy is probably bigger than we think it is, he said. The Office for National Statistics is going to include the value of data as an asset in the overall size of GDP in the next few years. That makes sense. Its probably worth a percent or two on GDP.

Still, Bailey also criticized the ONS for failing to produce reliable data on the UK labor force for over a year, calling it a a substantial problem  and not just for monetary policy  when we dont know how many people are participating in the economy.

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--With assistance from Tom Rees.

(Adds comment on Brexit)

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Baltimore City will spend at least $44 million to bring aging sidewalks, curb ramps and other pedestrian infrastructure into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The investment, announced Thursday by Mayor Brandon M. Scott, is part of a settlement agreement with a group of city residents who sued in 2021, alleging widespread and ongoing violations of the federal accessibility requirements.

The deal puts the city under a partial consent decree for the next four years, during which time leaders have pledged to invest in infrastructure improvements to the tune of $8 million to $15 million per year.

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According to an outline of the agreement shared with the Board of Estimates, Baltimore will spend between $8 million and $10 million on pedestrian upgrades in fiscal 2025, $12 million to $12.5 million in fiscal 2026 and 2027, and $12 million to $15 million in fiscal 2028. The consent decree will be up for renegotiation in 2028.

Under the settlement, the city will also name an ADA coordinator dedicated to maintaining pedestrian rights of way; implement a pedestrian inspection program to monitor accessibility on a 10-year basis; and launch a maintenance program to make sure trash and vegetation are cleared from pedestrian areas annually.

Gabriel Rubinstein, an attorney with Disability Rights Maryland who is representing the three residents and one organization, Independent Marylanders Achieving Growth Inc., who sued, said Thursday morning his clients are excited about the settlement.

This agreement puts in place the programs to ensure that Baltimore finally lives up to the promises of the Americans with Disabilities Act, so that people with mobility disabilities can navigate around the City of Baltimore just as safely and to the same extent as everyone else, to participate fully in community life, he wrote in an email.

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In a statement, Scott said the settlement is the largest move in this citys history to make our sidewalks accessible to everyone and offers a path for addressing a deeply entrenched problem.

As is the case in many historic East Coast cities, the challenge posed by our citys sidewalks and curbs long predates the Americans with Disabilities Act and adequately changing our infrastructure poses a monumental task, Scott said. However, under my administration, we are committed to taking every action necessary to set the city on track to come into compliance with the ADA, and ensure Baltimore is more accessible to our disabled community than ever before.

Before it takes effect, the settlement will need approval from the Board of Estimates, which will consider the agreement at its next meeting, scheduled for Nov. 20.

This story might be updated.

Have a news tip? Contact reporter Amanda Yeager at ayeager@baltsun.com, 443-790-1738 or @amandacyeager on X.
Customers of the Deerfield Beach Cafe may need to say goodbye to the beachfront restaurant thats right next to the citys pier.

The eatery, which is in a prominent area frequented by tourists and beachgoers, could soon close and move out of the city-owned spot it has long occupied, at 202 NE 21st Ave., according to the restaurants owner and attorney. The news comes after the restaurant sparred with the city in a long-running legal battle.

An eviction notice could soon be the consequence of the owner not being able to post the $700,000 in back rent, and that notice is expected any day, said Fred Schwartz, an attorney representing Panagiota Toula Lazarou-Amanna, the restaurant owner.

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The citys attorney and manager could not be reached for comment Thursday. Deerfield Beach Mayor Bill Ganz said he was looking forward to having this resolved. He declined further comment, citing the pending litigation.

A recent legal decision came just a few weeks ago: A Broward Circuit Court judge adopted a magistrates recommendation that Class Act Restaurant Group LLC, the company behind Deerfield Beach Cafe, owes the city $726,000 in back rent from last November 2023 through this past August, and nearly $70,000 a month from Sept. 1 going forward, records show.

Legal proceedings

In September, Deerfield Beach city officials told the South Florida Sun Sentinel they were getting closer to an eviction although it was taking longer than expected. The city has been successful with the hearings weve had thus far, weve won every single one, City Attorney Anthony Soroka said at the time.

Former City Manager Dave Santucci said in September, The legal process unfortunately takes longer than we anticipated.

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In an interview with the Sun Sentinel on Thursday, Amanna said that $70,000 a month was more than the $67,000 she has made recently in monthly sales. She argued that has been happening ever since the city restricted access to the building by putting fencing in the parking lot and barricades in the patio.

No doubt that the city let me down, she said. Honestly, I did not expect it, she said of the citys treatment. My passion for that place was incredible.

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Serving customers

The Deerfield Beach Cafe in 2012 became the first tenant of the city-owned building, which is right next to the citys International Fishing Pier.

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The restaurants original 10-year lease agreement was up in April 2023, but the restaurant has still remained there.

If the Deerfield Beach Cafe closes, Amanna said she hopes to relocate her employees there to one of her restaurants in other cities so they dont miss a paycheck.

She owns Chicks and Brews in Davie, which is under construction and expected to open in December, and the Sweet Alchemy Confectionery in Davie, she said.

Amanna also owns two diners each named the Flashback Diner, in Hallandale Beach and Davie, she said.

A third Flashback Diner location, in Boca Raton, is closed and might go up for sale to help her raise revenue, she said.

Discussions over rent

Amannas lawyer said the restaurant argues that the rent shouldnt have been increased as high as it was.

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Once that eviction order is filed in the courts, he said he will appeal and well ask the Broward court to allow her to stay until we litigate the propriety of raising the rent from $13,000 a month to $70,000 a month.

Federal proceedings also remain underway.

Theres a separate federal lawsuit that alleges the city violated the restaurants rights in the citys process for picking a new, different restaurateur for the city-owned location.

That lawsuit is pending, and if Amanna were to vacate, the case would continue in an effort to seek damages from Deerfield Beach City Hall, according to her lawyer.

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The city has made a motion to have that case dismissed, and a ruling is pending, records show.

Amannas lawyers filed a motion to withdraw a second federal court case, a bankruptcy protection filing, which sought to delay the decision on whether the restaurant should be evicted. Her lawyers are awaiting a hearing on that motion.

Amanna said she is highly encouraged shell still get justice in the courts.

A new restaurant?

The city of Deerfield Beach has chosen a different vendor to occupy the restaurant space, restaurateur Danielle Rosse, city officials said.

The lease was supposed to start Nov. 1, 2023, with the new tenant, city officials said. But that didnt happen amid the legal challenge.

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Rosse proposed The Palm House, envisioning it as a modern beachside eatery that balances simplistic friendly neighborhood charm with a relaxed feel and sophisticated beach vibes, according to records submitted to the city.

Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on X, formerly Twitter, @LisaHuriash
The footage is shocking. A brown bear  and there hasn't been one of those in Southern California for more than a century  breaks into a 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost, seemingly using the door handle. Then it lumbers around inside the car, raking the leather seats with its mighty claws.

Except it wasn't a terrifying beast  it was a person in a bear costume using a kitchen tool designed to shred meat, authorities said.

And the video was no lucky capture, but a staged performance submitted as part of a four-person insurance fraud scheme, according to the California Department of Insurance.

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On Wednesday, Ruben Tamrazian, 26, of Glendale, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, of Glendale, Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, of Glendale, and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village were arrested and charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy, according to the California Department of Insurance.

The suspects are also accused of staging fake-bear videos with two Mercedes-Benz vehicles  a 2015 G63 AMG and a 2022 E350  and submitting these videos as part of fraudulent insurance claims, the department says.

A bear costume with meat claws was discovered in the suspects' home on Wednesday, according to the insurance department.

The Department of Insurance's Fraud Division began its investigation  dubbed Operation Bear Claw  after an insurance company examined the recording of the Jan. 28 Rolls Royce incident and became suspicious that there was something fishy going on.

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Upon closer scrutiny, the ferocious animal appeared to be a person in a costume, detectives said.

Detectives then discovered the two additional insurance claims filed for the two Mercedes vehicles. All three insurance claims were filed with different companies and had the same date of loss and the same location, detectives said.

They decided to tap an expert  just to be sure, mind you.

Detectives enlisted the help of a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to review the three videos who agreed that it was clearly a human in a bear suit.

The suspects are accused of defrauding insurance companies of almost $142,000.

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On Wednesday, detectives executed a search and arrest warrant and discovered the costume and claws. The Glendale Police Department and the California Highway Patrol assisted in the investigation.

The case is being prosecuted by the San Bernardino County district attorneys office.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Ben & Jerrys is suing its parent company Unilever in a row over support for Palestinian refugees.

The ice cream maker has accused Unilever of attempting to block Ben & Jerrys from making public statements about the plight of refugees from the conflict in Gaza.

Ben & Jerrys alleges that Unilever has breached the terms of a confidential settlement made in 2022. The lawsuit claims Unilever was required to respect and acknowledge the Ben & Jerrys independent boards primary responsibility over Ben & Jerrys social mission.

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It added: Ben & Jerrys has on four occasions attempted to publicly speak out in support of peace and human rights.

Unilever has silenced each of these efforts.

Ben & Jerrys said in the lawsuit it has tried to call for a ceasefire, support the safe passage of Palestinian refugees to Britain, back students protesting at US colleges against civilian deaths in Gaza, and advocate for a halt in US military aid to Israel. The court filing was first reported by Reuters.

The legal case, which was filed in New York, is the latest disagreement between the brand and its parent company. The two sides have repeatedly clashed over Ben & Jerrys statements on social issues and human rights.

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Tensions first broke into the open in 2021 when the ice cream maker said it would stop selling its products in the occupied West Bank in protest against Israels actions there, prompting some Unilever investors to offload their shares.

Unilever subsequently sold Ben & Jerrys Israel division to a local operation to effectively end the boycott. However, the US ice cream brand then took legal action against Unilever. That lawsuit was later resolved.

Founded by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield in 1978 in Vermont, in the United States, Ben & Jerrys was bought by Marmite-owner Unilever in 2000, but is run autonomously by an independent board of directors, allowing it to campaign on social issues.

Ben & Jerrys is known for speaking out on various social, climate and human rights issues. Mr Cohen was arrested in Washington last year during a protest against the prosecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Ben & Jerrys co-founder Ben Cohen was arrested in Washington last year on a protest in support of Julian Assange - Win McNamee/Getty Images

Unilever is currently seeking to sell off its ice cream division, which also includes Walls and Magnum, as part of a turnaround plan.

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Despite question marks over whether Ben & Jerrys social activism would deter potential buyers, bosses at Unilever insisted in April that its campaigning was a strength and not a weakness.

The board of Ben & Jerrys has insisted it would not stop lobbying on social and environmental issues, regardless of who controls it.

Ben & Jerrys was contacted for comment.

A Unilever spokesman said: Our heart goes out to all victims of the tragic events in the Middle East.

We reject the claims made by B&Js social mission board, and we will defend our case very strongly. We would not comment further on this legal matter.

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Ben & Jerry's is suing parent company Unilever, accusing the consumer goods conglomerate of violating an agreement with the ice cream brand's independent board by muzzling its advocacy of Palestinian rights.

Unilever has prevented Ben & Jerry's from calling for a ceasefire in Gaza four times, breaking a pact that lets its subsidiary determine its own social mission, Ben & Jerry's stated in legal documents filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The lawsuit states that Unilever has contributed to Israeli groups and has not stayed neutral on other issues, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

"Our heart goes out to all victims of the tragic events in the Middle East. We reject the claims made by B&J's social mission board, and we will defend our case very strongly. We would not comment further on this legal matter," Unilever said in an emailed statement.

The suit continues an ongoing public feud between Ben & Jerry's and Unilever. Ben & Jerry's board in 2022 sued Unilever for breaching its 2000 merger agreement allowing it to determine its social mission.

Unilever in March said it planned to spin off or sell its ice cream unit, which includes the Burlington, Vermont-based maker of creamy treats with a decades-long motto of "peace, love & ice cream."

The spinoff would end an unusual corporate partnership that began in 2000 when Unilever bought Ben & Jerry's for $326 million. At the time of the purchase, Ben & Jerry's stipulated that it would have an independent board, allowing it to continue taking openly progressive stances on social and political issues.

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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN)  A bench trial for a man accused of three counts of rape in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court is now finished.

Read next: Human Trafficking agents, deputies search Youngstown home

Leonard Sykes, 51, went on trial Tuesday before Judge Anthony Donofrio on three first-degree felony counts of rape.

The trial took a break Wednesday and finished Thursday.

Judge Donofrio has yet to render a verdict. A court spokeswoman said a date will be selected shortly for the verdict to be announced.

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Sykes was indicted in November 2022 by a grand jury following a September arrest.

The crimes he is charged with happened in August 2022, according to court records.

Sykes has been in the county jail since he was initially arrested.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD)  A 13-year-old transgender boy from Berkeley County who claims he was punished for using the boys bathroom at school is now suing over a state budget rule that prohibits transgender students from using accommodations that correspond with their gender identity.

The lawsuit, first reported by NBC News, was filed Tuesday in federal court on behalf of John Doe, a pseudonym for an eighth-grade student. It names the Berkeley County School District, the state of South Carolina, and the South Carolina Department of Education, as defendants.

The complaint alleges that school administrators told Doe in August that he could not use the boys restroom and would instead have to use the girls restroom or a single-occupancy restroom in the nurses office.

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John explained that it would be very upsetting for him to use the girls restroom, which is inconsistent with his male gender identity, and that other students would likely feel uncomfortable as well, since he is and looks like a boy, the complaint states. Further, he explained that using the nurses restroom would single him out and put a target on his back for harassment.

Doe continued to use the boys restroom at school, according to the complaint, which led to a one-day suspension. The principal then warned that punishment could escalate to expulsion if Doe continued to use the boys restrooms, citing a new state budget provision passed in June.

The provision requires South Carolina school districts to restrict students from using accommodations  including multi-occupancy bathrooms, changing facilities, overnight sleeping quarters, shared bathrooms, locker rooms, and shower rooms  that do not correspond with their biological sex. Those that fail to do so would lose 25% of their state funding, a July memo indicated.

The lawsuit argues the budget rule directly conflicts with federal Title IX regulations, which bar sex discrimination in federally-funded education programs.

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Policies like Proviso 1.120 pose grave threats to trans students educations, health, and safety, said Alexandra Brodsky, an attorney with Public Justice, a nonprofit legal advocacy group representing Doe.

They are also blatantly illegal: the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Fourth Circuit held years ago that trans students have the right, under the Constitution and Title IX, to use restrooms that correspond with their gender identities, and that ruling is binding on South Carolina, Brodsky continued.

The South Carolina Department of Education said it does not comment on pending litigation. The Berkeley County School District said it has not seen the lawsuit and declined to comment.

The Biden administration announced sweeping changes to Title IX in April, among them a move to extend the laws definition to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

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A week later, state superintendent Ellen Weaver advised schools to disregard the changes, calling them deeply troubling.

Federal courts have since granted injunctions to block implementation of the rule in dozens of Republican-led states that sued to stop it, including South Carolina.

The lawsuit filed this week in South Carolina further argues that the state budget rule is a violation of the U.S. Constitutions equal protection clause and asks the court to declare it as such.

The complaint asserts that state lawmakers knew the provision infringed upon federal law and expected a legal challenge, citing a SC Daily Gazette article in which Sen. Wes Climer (R-York) said he hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would take the case up.

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South Carolina legislators knew they were violating federal law when they passed Proviso 1.120, and now trans students are suffering, Brodsky said.

Court overturns sentence and conviction for ex-banker and Alex Murdaugh accomplice Russell Laffitte

The plaintiff, Doe, was assigned female at birth but presented as a boy from an early age and self-identifies as a male, according to the complaint.

The complaint states that no other students complained or objected to his using the boys bathroom, which attorneys said the schools assistant principal acknowledged during a meeting with Does father.

According to the suit, Doe began to face harassment from his peers regarding his gender identity due to the school districts monitoring of Johns restroom usage. His parents chose to withdraw him from school in September to avoid further harassment. He now participates in an online education program.

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This budget proviso not only targets transgender students but also fosters a hostile and harmful environment in our schools, said Chase Glenn, the executive director of the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), an LGBTQ+ advocacy group also named as a plaintiff.

Every young person deserves a safe, inclusive space to learn and thrive, free from fear of discrimination or exclusion, he added. Lawmakers should take note if you choose to continue to target trans youth with blatantly unconstitutional legislation, you will be taken to court.

Another federal lawsuit was filed against South Carolina in August on behalf of transgender individuals and their families seeking to overturn a newly enacted law that bans gender-affirming healthcare.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
PORT SUDAN, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, said Thursday that humanitarian aid to the Sudanese people still faces underfunding.

The 2.7-billion-U.S. dollar "Sudan humanitarian appeal for 2024 is currently 57 percent funded, impacting humanitarians' ability to scale up response," Nkweta-Salami said in a statement, stressing the need for additional funds to maintain humanitarian operations in the country.

According to the coordinator, between January and September, aid agencies reached about 12.6 million people across Sudan with some form of humanitarian assistance.

Statistics released by Sudan's Humanitarian Aid Commission on Wednesday showed that 28.9 million people in the country need humanitarian assistance due to an ongoing civil conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since mid-April 2023.

The commission has estimated that approximately 840,000 metric tons of life-saving humanitarian aid will be needed over the next two months. 
Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle has voiced support for the festivals 2024 Best Documentary winner No Other Land and dismissed suggestions that comments made by co-directors Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra at the awards ceremony were antisemitic.

The festival posted the message from Tuttle on its Instagram account as the film begins its theatrical release in Germany, which has reignited local debate around the filmmakers and their work.

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The co-directors  whose film documents the destruction of Palestinian villages in the West Bank by Israel  were publicly accused of antisemitism by Berlins mayor last February after Abraham criticized a situation of apartheid in Israel and called for a ceasefire in Gaza in his acceptance speech.

No Other Land won the Berlinale Documentary Award, and also the Panorama Audience Award in February 2024. Israeli/Palestinian directing collective Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor have crafted a frank, incisive, powerful film which is deservedly gaining acclaim and picking up many awards and nominations around the world, Tuttle was quoted as saying in the statement.



In the last days there has been renewed discussion around No Other Land and the Berlinale, and I want to be clear that I dont consider the film, or statements made by co-directors, Palestinian Basel Adra and Israeli Yuval Abraham at the Awards Ceremony of the Berlinale to be anti-Semitic. I also believe that discourse which suggests this film or its filmmakers are anti-Semitic creates danger for all of them, inside and outside of Germany, and it is important that we stand together and support them. We wish the filmmakers and their distributor a strong opening weekend for this film.

In the wake of the media furore last February, Abraham reported that he had received death threats and that a right-wing mob had turned up at his home in Israel, after the comments by German officials were then picked up by Israeli media.

Since then, the film has successfully toured a raft of festivals and picked up close to 30 awards, with little discussion of what happened in Germany, with most interviews and articles focusing instead on the films depiction of Israeli violence against Palestinian villages in the West Bank area of Masafer Yatta.

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The debate around the film has reignited in Germany this week, however, after the city of Berlins official online portal posted a description of the film saying it had anti-Semitic tendencies, ahead of the release.

Abraham flagged the description in a social media post: It pains me to see how, after murdering most of my family in the holocaust, you empty the word antisemitism of meaning to silence critics of Israels occupation in the West Bank (the topic of our film) and legitimize violence against Palestinians. I feel unsafe and unwelcome in Berlin of 2024 as a left-wing Israeli and will take legal action.

The post was taken down a few hours later but not before the debate around the film and the co-directorss comments at the awards ceremony had reignited.

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(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Donald Trump ruled out giving a post to JPMorgan Chase & Co.s Jamie Dimon in his second-term administration in a jab at the prominent Wall Street chief executive officer.

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I respect Jamie Dimon, of JPMorgan Chase, greatly, but he will not be invited to be a part of the Trump Administration. I thank Jamie for his outstanding service to our Country!, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network on Thursday.

Dimon immediately responded to Trump at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit, moments after the president-elects statement.

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First of all, I wish the president well, and thank you, its a very nice note. But I just want to tell the president also, I havent had a boss in 25 years and Im not about ready to start, Dimon said Thursday.

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The exchange occurred on a day in which Trump made more high-profile selections for his new administration, including that of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and Jay Clayton, the former chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission, as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

And at a gala at his Mara-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday night, he said he would nominate North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as Interior secretary.

Trump had previously said he would consider Dimon for Treasury secretary in a June interview with Bloomberg Businessweek but later disavowed that statement.

He is somebody that I would consider, sure, Trump said in the interview. In July, though, he said he had never discussed, or thought of Dimon for a role in his cabinet, adding that he did not know where that idea came from, perhaps the Radical Left.

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Earlier: Trump Floated Jamie Dimon for Treasury Secretary, Then Denies It

Trumps team is narrowing its options for Treasury secretary with Key Square Group LP founder Scott Bessent, Cantor Fitzgerald LP CEO Howard Lutnick and former US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer among the contenders.

He is expected to make a decision as soon as this week.

Dimon said that government officials are going to be responsible for the most complicated geopolitical, military and geoeconomics situation the world has faced since World War II.

The New York Times in October reported that Dimon had privately supported Trumps general election rival, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, and told people that he would consider a role in her administration.

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Dimon, though, has pledged to work with whoever was elected. His wife, Judy Dimon, supported Harris presidential bid, with donations and by canvassing voters in swing-state Michigan.

Heres how Trumps transition is shaping up on Thursday:

Veterans Chief

Trump named former Georgia Congressman Doug Collins to run the Department of Veterans Affairs.

We must take care of our brave men and women in uniform, and Doug will be a great advocate for our Active Duty Servicemembers, Veterans, and Military Families to ensure they have the support they need, Trump said in a statement Thursday about Collins who left Congress in 2021.

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The Department of Veterans Affairs is the second largest department in the federal government, with more than 400,000 employees. Its the primary health care provider for more than 9.1 million military veterans and their families, operating 1,380 hospitals and clinics around the country.

That makes it one of the biggest consumers of medical equipment in the world. Its long been the largest purchaser of hearing aids, but is increasingly involved in tele-health. Some of its fastest-growing budget items are in womens health and childcare, addressing the growing number of female service members entering the system.

A 2014 scandal involving secret wait lists at VA hospitals  and the veterans who died waiting for care  shattered confidence in the system just as many Vietnam-era vets reached retirement age and new Iraq and Afghanistan veterans entered the system.

Golden Age

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Bessent, one of the top contenders for Treasury secretary under Trump, praised the president-elects economic agenda as one that would grow diverse sectors of the economy.

Everyone asks me, What do you tell President Trump he should do? I dont have to tell Donald Trump he should do anything. Hes done it. We had a great economy under Trump 1.0, Bessent said in an interview on Fox News Fox and Friends on Thursday.

Under Donald Trump, we could have a golden age for the next four years. We can bring back the manufacturing. We can have energy dominance, he added. Were going to have peace and were going to have this technology boom.

The contest to be Trumps second-term Treasury secretary has spilled into public view in recent days, with public and private jockeying among the potential picks.

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Bessent, who was a prominent advocate for Trump during the campaign, has the support of a wide range of leaders across Trumps coalition, including longtime allies Steve Bannon and Ralph Reed.

Lutnick, for his part, is making a play for the job himself, according to people familiar with the matter. Lutnick, who Trump tapped as transition co-chair, is among those pushing back against Bessent, saying the hedge fund manager is soft on key protectionist pledges, including tariffs, according to the people familiar.

Fox News morning show is a friendly venue for the incoming president and his conservative allies  and a way to garner the attention of Trump, an avid cable news viewer.

Bessent on Thursday hailed Trumps electoral coalition that drew on support from prominent Wall Street executives and business leaders, including Elon Musk  the worlds richest person  as well as from working class Americans frustrated by high costs for groceries and housing and worried about the impact of President Joe Bidens policies on jobs and wages.

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Think about the coalition that Donald Trump assembled. This was the greatest political comeback in history, greatest political comeback in history, and it was a combination of working-class Americans and Elon Musk, the richest person the world. Who else could do that, but Donald Trump, he said.

Personnel Chief

Trump is selecting Sergio Gor, the co-founder of a conservative publishing company that produces the president-elects books, to head the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, according to reports from Semafor and the New York Times.

Donald Trump Jr., the president-elects son who helped start the publishing company with Gor, praised the selection in a post on X, writing: Awesome news. Sergio will be great!

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As head of the office, Gor will help vet potential incoming employees and will be responsible for helping fill thousands of jobs across the federal agencies.

Crucial to staffing Trumps White House in a second term will be tapping officials deemed loyal to the president-elect, who has bristled at criticism from former aides, and ensuring that employees align with the values and goals of the incoming administration.

Multiple officials led the office during Trumps first term, including his longtime aide John McEntee. McEntee would go on to found a dating app backed by billionaire Peter Thiel.

Screaming From a Podium

Alina Habba, one of Trumps top lawyers and his legal spokesperson, ruled out serving as the president-elects press secretary following reports that she was under consideration for one of the most visible roles in his incoming administration.

While I am flattered by the support and speculation, the role of Press Secretary is not a role I am considering. Although I love screaming from a podium I will be better served in other capacities, Habba wrote Thursday on X.

The press secretary is the face of the presidents daily messaging. Its a role that holds particular importance to Trump who watched his press secretaries performance closely during his first term.

Trumps press secretaries regularly clashed with reporters as they defended him during his first term  at times promoting unfounded claims and going for stretches without regular public briefings.

Gaetz Selection

Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma on Thursday said Republicans in the chamber would handle Trumps nomination of Matt Gaetz for attorney general as they would any other selection.

Were going to do the Matt Gaetz confirmation like all the rest of them, Lankford said on Fox and Friends Thursday.

Asked about potential pressure from Trump to see the nomination through, Lankford said he expected Trump to stay engaged in the process, calling the president-elect a hands-on leader.

President Trump has put a bunch of nominations out there. Weve got to get on with those very, very quickly, when the new Congress is sworn in, Lankford said.

As Trumps team take shape, one of his most startling picks so far has been tapping Gaetz for attorney general. Trump is enlisting a Florida Republican who was the subject of a House inquiry into sexual misconduct allegations to head the nations top law enforcement agency  one that will shape the administrations agenda on immigration, crime and other hot-button issues.

Gaetz, 42, is a staunch Trump ally but a polarizing figure within his own caucus. Gaetz resigned his seat in the House on Wednesday night after Trump made his selection public.

The appointment threatens to test Trumps sway over Senate Republicans who will regain control of the chamber in January and are tasked with helping confirm the president-elects nominees.

The GOP is expected to hold a 53-47 seat majority, so it would take just four Republican senators to sink his nomination.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who Gaetz helped topple from his post, predicted that Gaetz would not get confirmed.

--With assistance from Saleha Mohsin, Nancy Cook, Justin Sink and Lisa Abramowicz.

(Updates with Burgum, in sixth paragraph.)

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A substitute teacher at Beverly Hills High School says she was fired due to posts she shared on Facebook criticizing Donald Trump and condemning the behavior of students at a MAGA rally on campus, where Black students reported being harassed.

Joanie Garratt retired last year after teaching at the Beverly Hills Unified School District for almost 30 years. She started a monthlong substitute-teaching assignment on Nov. 4 and said she was outraged to receive a call from an assistant superintendent on Wednesday dismissing her. She said her online political posts were cited as the reason for her firing.

"I was shocked; I thought I'd get a warning," she told The Times. "I didn't say anything [about Trump] in class. I know not to say anything in class. But I am disgusted with MAGA, and Beverly Hills High School has become MAGA."

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A spokesperson for the district did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Garratt's dismissal.

Last week, a group of mostly male students held a raucous pro-Trump rally at Beverly Hills High School. Students wore Make America Great Again T-shirts and hats, toted at least two Trump cardboard cutouts and cheered loudly as a school security guard brandished a Trump banner.

At a recent Board of Trustees meeting, around a dozen Black students expressed their concerns about the rally, saying they were subjected to harassment, intimidation and racial slurs. Last week, BHHS Principal Drew Stewart sent a message to families saying the school would protect students free speech rights but would limit their ability to congregate in large groups so that all students felt safe on campus.

Read more: No jumping. No shouting. Beverly Hills High issues new rules after students celebrate Trump win

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On Nov. 7, Garratt wrote on Facebook that pro-Trump students "harassed & intimidated many other non-maga students and specifically targeted the class where the Black Student Union was meeting, yelling all kinds of racial slurs."

"Some students arrived at school truly upset & even crying only to be bullied later by their classmates," she added. She wrote that Trump, and not the administration, was to blame for this behavior.

In other recent posts and comments, she said she was "ashamed to be an American" and that Trump supporters "worship a fascist." Garratt, who is Jewish, also said some Jews had "aligned with the devil" in supporting Trump.

The educator had a history of anti-Trump posts on Facebook prior to being asked to take on the substitute-teaching post.

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On Wednesday evening, she posted that she was dismissed from her position, writing, "I WEAR THIS AS BADGE OF HONOR and stand with all the teachers, past & present, who will be persecuted for expressing their views in public forum. SHAME ON BHUSD."

Other teachers in Southern California have also been scrutinized due to their reaction to the election.

In Moreno Valley, a high school teacher was placed on leave following a racially charged anti-Trump outburst in the classroom where he said that many Latino men who support Trump want to be white.

Read more: Moreno Valley Unified teacher's fate uncertain following anti-Trump rant in classroom

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And at Cerritos High School, a teacher allegedly left her classroom because one of her students was wearing MAGA attire, according to reporting from ABC7.

Unlike these two incidents, however, Garratt said she did not share her political views in the classroom.

During Tuesday's Board of Trustees meeting, several Black students at the high school said there was already a racism problem at the school and that the issue got worse during the election.

Ive had to deal with a lot of racism my entire life, but coming to Beverly [Hills High School], Ive unfortunately had to experience a lot more, said Jurnee Burrell-Williams, president of the Black Student Union. I kind of taught myself to get used to it and ignore it, but the week of the election it became utterly impossible to just ignore it."

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Teacher Bella Ivory said she felt scared when rallying students shouted hateful curse words outside the classroom where she was helping facilitate a Black Student Union meeting last week.

Several board members expressed dismay at the reports of student behavior during the rally, and Supt. Michael Bregy said he would be reaching out to those who spoke at the meeting as well as concerned parents.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
The striking teachers in Beverly have filed a lawsuit against the citys school committee, arguing that their counterparts across the bargaining table have negotiated in bad faith.

The Beverly Teacher Association said Wednesday night they filed a complaint with the Department of Labor Relations because the school committee has made insufficient proposals. The BTA argues that the school committee seems intent on fines levied by an Essex Superior Court judge breaking the strike.

School canceled in Gloucester and Marblehead on Thursday as teacher strike continues

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The BTA authorized a strike on Thursday evening after negotiating for a new contract since February. Beverly is one of three North Shore communities, alongside Gloucester and Marblehead, that have had to close schools this week as teachers strike.

The BTA, alongside the Gloucester Teacher Association, are both slated to be fined $50,000 because their strikes were not over by an imposed deadline of 6:00 p.m. Wednesday night. The fines will increase incrementally by $10,000 each additional school day that the strike continues.

On Monday afternoon, we were incredibly hopeful we were going to be able to settle the contract and reopen schools, said Andrea Sherman, Co-President of the Beverly Teachers Association in a statement. However, all of that hope evaporated when management sent us a proposal a few hours later that withdrew several items on which we had previously agreed. Almost every night since the strike commenced, the state-appointed mediator dismissed us because of the lack of movement from the School Committee. Its clear to us now that they have no intent to work with us and reopen schools. Are they waiting until the court punishes educators?

The BTA is pushing for better pay and other benefits, but their school committees argue these strikes are illegal in Massachusetts.

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The BTA also says they filed a prohibited practice charge with the Department of Labor Relations because cameras in the unions bargaining room were allegedly being monitored. The state ordered the two parties to move from the McKeown School to the Hannah Elementary School to continue negotiating.

Boston 25 News has reached out to the Beverly School Committee for a response to the lawsuit.

Gloucester and Marblehead have both canceled classes on Thursday. The Beverly School Committee has not yet officially made the call to close schools again on Thursday.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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The Biden administration has thrown its support behind a controversial land swap that would allow a road to be built through a national wildlife refuge in Alaska.

In a draft environmental review document released this week, the administration stated that it supported pursuing the roads construction.

The road would connect the small King Cove community to an airport that supporters say is important for emergency medical evacuation. Opponents, however, have said the road puts the refuges lands, waters and animals at risk  including some wildlife that is important to tribes.

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Estelle Thomson, president of the Native Village of Paimiut, told The Hill last week that the area in question is important for species of birds like the emperor goose that are important to her village.

My people depend on them  for food. If we have declines in those numbers, it could be devastating to us.

Previously, the road had been rejected by the Obama administration but later approved by the Trump administration. Around the same time it was facing blowback from progressives over the approval of a massive oil project in Alaska, the Biden administration announced that it would withdraw the roads Trump-era approval due to several procedural flaws.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement issued late Wednesday that it had fixed Trump-era errors, though its ultimately facing the same conclusion.

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Unlike the last administrations exchange, the new [draft environmental review] makes it clear that promoting economic development does not provide legal support for the exchange  any land exchange must advance the conservation purposes of the wildlife refuge system in Alaska, while protecting subsistence uses and habitat, the release states.

The draft demonstrates how conservation and subsistence are enhanced through this exchange: the refuge system will increase by 30,000 acres and over 1,700 of those acres will come into Wilderness status, the agency wrote.

Even if the Biden administration had wanted to block the road, its likely that the incoming Trump administration still would have ultimately approved 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 The Hill.
Brant fly by Mount Dutton in Izembek National Wildlife Refuge on Sept. 11, 2009. The refuge supports nearly the world's entire population of Pacific brant. The debate over the land trade and the road it would enable have pitted concerns about public safety against those about habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife. (Photo by Kristine Sowl/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The Department of the Interior has set the stage for a controversial land trade that would allow a road to be built through Alaskas Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

In a draft environmental impact statement released on Thursday, the departments U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended a multi-part swap of land between the federal government and a for-profit Native corporation to free up a corridor for an 18.9-mile road cutting through what is currently designated wilderness in the refuge that lies at the tip of the Alaska Peninsula.

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The road would connect King Cove, a mostly Aleut community of nearly 900 people, with the airport at Cold Bay, a community about 18 miles by air to the northwest. While Cold Bay is smaller  with only 57 residents, according to the Alaska Division of Community and Regional Affairs  its airport has a long, jet-accommodating runway. Built by the U.S. Army during World War II, the airport is now owned by the state and can operate year-round.

If carried out, the trade would serve multiple needs, the draft EIS said.

The purposes of the proposed action are to provide a safe, reliable, year-round transportation system for health and safety purposes, with particular emphasis on emergency medical evacuations, between King Cove and Cold Bay, Alaska, and increase the overall conservation values of lands preserved in the National Wildlife Refuge System and also maintain or increase the opportunity for subsistence uses by rural Alaskans, the document said.

The idea of an Izembek road made possible through a land trade has a decades-long history. Past plans have made it through various stages of the approval process, but then were either dropped by administrative policy changes or, as was the case in 2019, struck down by a federal court as illegal and, after that, mired in the appeals process.

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King Cove residents and their supporters, who include Alaska political leaders, have long argued that a road is needed to allow for emergency medical evacuations, among other purposes. There is currently no safe way to conduct medical evacuations from King Cove year-round, the project supporters argue.

Arrayed against the project are environmentalists and some Native residents and organizations in Western Alaska. They argue that the land trade sets a dangerous precedent and that the road development will damage wildlife habitat, including wetlands vital to migratory bird populations on which the regions Yupik people depend for food and culture.

The biological heart of the Izembek refuge is Izembek Lagoon, site of one of the worlds largest eelgrass beds, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Nearly the worlds entire population of Pacific brant uses the lagoon eelgrass during migration, according to the service.

Channels in eelgrass beds are seek on May 24, 2006, in Izembek Lagoon, the heart of Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The lagoons eelegrass beds are among the worlds largest. (Photo by Kristine Sowl/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland became immersed in the controversy during her term in office. She visited King Cove in 2022 and has been lobbied by both supporters and opponents of the project.

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Last year, she withdrew the Trump-era land-trade plan, which had been struck down by U.S. District Court judge Sharon Gleason. But she promised to keep investigating the issue.

The preferred alternative in the draft environmental impact statement, which is technically a supplemental document building on past studies, would give 490 acres of refuge land to the Native-owned King Cove Corp. in exchange for 31,198 acres. Most of the King Cove Corp. land given to the federal government would be added to the Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge east of Izembek. The Aleut Corp., the regional for-profit Native corporation, would retain subsurface rights in the 29,459 acres added to the Alaska Peninsula refuge, under the alternative. The road, if built, would cost about $21 million, according to the document. It is envisioned as a single-lane gravel route.

Thursdays announcement from the Department of the Interior pleased road supporters, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who has been one of the most high-profile advocates.

I thank everyone at Interior for their work on a strong, defensible analysis that adds to the overwhelming case for a life-saving road. I spoke with Secretary Haaland this morning and thanked her for visiting King Cove with me, for listening to the people who actually live there about the environmental injustices they face every day, and for directing her team to make an honest recommendation to her about the path forward. That path forward is clearly a life-saving road, and we must now finish the job by finalizing the process so that a road can be built as soon as possible, Murkowski said in a statement.

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Opponents said they will continue to fight the project.

Among the opponents making statements Thursday was Edgar Tall, chief of the Native Village of Hooper Bay, the tribal government for that Yupik community.

This is deeply distressing news and flies in the face of the Biden administrations stated commitment to listen to tribes  we have not been heard. We understand the needs of King Cove and Cold Bay, but reliable solutions exist to improve access between the communities that would not jeopardize our tribe and others throughout Alaska, Tall said in a statement.

As Secretary Haaland has noted, respecting tribal sovereignty requires really listening to tribal communities. We hope to meet soon with the Secretary so she can hear from us about the importance of these birds and this critical habitat in the Izembek Refuge that so many of us in Alaska depend on for our continuing ways of life and our survival, he said in the statement.

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The Fish and Wildlife Service said it will accept public comments on the draft through Dec. 30. A final environmental impact statement and, potentially, a decision on action are expected after then.

Final action may fall to the incoming Trump administration, which takes office in January.
Joe Biden reportedly asked Donald Trump to work with him to secure a hostage deal in the Middle East when they met at the White House.

The two men spoke on Wednesday when Mr Trump returned to the White House for the first time in four years, as Mr Biden prepares to hand over the reins of power to the Republican.

Later that day, the US president revealed he had asked Mr Trump to work with him to secure the return of US citizens held captive by Hamas in Gaza before he leaves office on Jan 20, in a meeting with families of American hostages, Axios reported.

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The two men agreed the issue was urgent when they spoke for almost two hours in private, according to the website.

Mr Biden has just over two months to secure the release of the four Americans who are still believed to be alive, in what would be a significant legacy achievement for a politician who has long prided himself on his foreign policy credentials.

Axios reported the president told the families they have every right to be angry at him for not yet bringing their loved ones home, sources said.

The relatives are then said to have asked for meetings with recently-announced members of Mr Trumps incoming administration.

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It comes after Mr Biden appeared to lose patience with an Israeli journalist earlier in the week, who asked him if he could ensure the return of hostages by the end of his term.

Do you think you can keep from getting hit in the head by a camera behind you? he told the reporter, during a meeting in the Oval Office with Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president.

X/@NeriaKraus

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said on Tuesday the White House had said he had sent a signal to Mr Trumps team that it is prepared to work with them on the return of the hostages.

Were prepared to work with the incoming team in common cause on a bipartisan basis to do everything in our collective American power to secure the release of the hostages, both living and deceased, he said.

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Mr Trump said he had discussed the Middle East when he spoke about his closed-door meeting with the president to the New York Post.

I wanted  I asked for his views and he gave them to me, the president-elect said.

Also, we talked very much about the Middle East, likewise. I wanted to know his views on where we are and what he thinks. And he gave them to me, he was very gracious.

Some had cast doubt on Mr Trumps chances of securing a hostage deal in the Middle East after naming a series of foreign policy hawks to his cabinet.

In a video from December last year, circulated as Marco Rubios nomination as secretary of state was announced, the Florida senator said he opposed a ceasefire in Gaza and wanted Israel to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on.

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Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor appointed ambassador to Israel, asserted there was no such thing as a Palestinian during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Mr Trump also told the Post that his presidential transition team and the Biden White House enjoyed a very, very good relationship.

The meeting between the two men on Wednesday was their first direct interaction since their presidential debate in June, in which Mr Trump suggested his opponent was mentally deficient.

At the same event, Mr Biden said the Republican had the morals of an alley cat and had sex with a porn star, referring to his alleged affair with the adult film star Stormy Daniels.

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By Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden heads to South America on Thursday for a curtain call with global leaders after over 50 years in U.S. politics, but the man he tried and failed to keep from returning to power is likely to be the focus of many meetings: incoming President Donald Trump.

Biden will hold private meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the heads of Japan, South Korea and Brazil during the summits of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, in Peru and the Group of 20 leading economies, or G20, in Brazil. The meetings over six days are not expected to yield any major new agreements, senior Biden administration officials said, even as they are likely to touch on trade, security and global alliances.

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"The APEC and G20 will be about one thing ... and that is Donald Trump  and what to expect from the next Trump administration on trade, alliances, and other issues," said Victor Cha, president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, in the Nov. 5 presidential election after promising Americans he would impose steep tariffs on all imports, with higher ones aimed at Chinese goods, and signaled much softer support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Harris' loss came after Biden was forced to step aside in the race because of concerns that at 81 he was too old for another term.

Trump's Republican party also won control of both houses of the U.S. Congress, giving him additional power to push through measures on trade and other issues.

Biden came into office in 2020 seeking to rebuild alliances strained during Trump's first term and tried to show that the U.S. remained engaged beyond its borders. He strengthened and expanded NATO and worked to counter China in the Indo-Pacific by building up multilateral alliances in Asia.

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Trump has a fundamentally different world view than Biden, preferring bilateral meetings where he can practice transactional diplomacy over multilateral partnerships like NATO.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday that Biden will use the trip to send the message that America cherishes and invests in its alliances and thank those who have helped deal with an array of global problems.

"It's a message of principle. It's a message of practicality, and it's been one of the causes of President Biden's life," he said.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Peru on Thursday, Sullivan said the leaders of the U.S., Japan and South Korea were working to institutionalize trilateral ties as an "enduring feature of U.S. policy," and said the three countries would set up a secretariat for the grouping.

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Sullivan also said Biden would raise concerns with other leaders over the introduction of North Korean soldiers into Russia, calling it a significant development. He said he expected a "coordinated set of policy decisions" in response to the issue.

SWAN SONG OR LAME DUCK

Biden will meet with President Xi on Saturday during the APEC summit in Lima, White House officials said. The one-on-one meeting will be Biden's final opportunity to challenge the Chinese leader directly on its threats against Taiwan, alleged human rights violations and support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It will be the first time the two leaders have met in person since a summit between the pair in California a year ago. That marked a turning point for U.S.-China relations after Biden's decision in early 2023 to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon that drifted over the United States increased tensions.

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U.S. economic and military competition with China will define what the world looks like over the next 30 years, Sullivan said, adding that Republicans and Democrats have long demonstrated bipartisanship in the area of foreign policy.

Trump's incoming cabinet is stacked with politicians who have pushed a tough-on-China message.

Biden would not pass any messages to Xi from Trump, Sullivan said, but will likely speak about the necessity of avoiding a military conflict.

"He will also really reinforce the point that in order for us to manage this competition responsibly going forward, we have to sustain over the long term the channels of communication at every level, particularly the military to military level," Sullivan said.

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Biden and Trump met for two hours at the White House on Wednesday.

Biden is also expected to hold a trilateral meeting with Japan Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, and meet with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Erin Murphy, deputy director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it will not be a swan song for Biden, but a different kind of bird.

"Not only is he a lame duck, but a super lame duck because his successor is going to have very different policies than he is," Murphy said.

(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw, Andrea Shalal, Katharine Jackson; Editing by Heather Timmons, Rosalba O'Brien and Daniel Wallis)
NEW DELHI, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- A dense smog engulfed the Indian capital territory and outskirts Thursday morning, disrupting flight operations and train schedules.

Low visibility procedures were in progress at Delhi airport, and passengers were requested to contact the airline concerned for updated flight information, the airport operator said.

A private airline, IndiGo, said in a statement Thursday morning that winter fog may impact flights to and from Amritsar, Varanasi and Delhi. The airline urged passengers to monitor their flight status before heading to the airport.

According to Flightradar 24, over 300 flights have been delayed at Delhi airport.

Meanwhile, the city's air quality Thursday saw a further dip and continued to be in the severe category for the second straight day.

Industrial activities and vehicular traffic are significant contributors to air pollution in the city, along with rampant construction. 
US President Joe Biden plans to discuss Russia's war against Ukraine and the potential involvement of North Korean soldiers in it during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Peru.

Source: European Pravda with reference to Voice of America

Details: According to a White House official, Biden and Xi are also expected to talk about US-China cooperation, the restoration of military contacts, the global fentanyl crisis and the risks associated with development of artificial intelligence.

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Additionally, Biden is expected to express his "deep concern" over China's support for Russias war against Ukraine and the involvement of North Korean military personnel in aiding Russia.

He also plans to raise concerns about Chinas role in cyberattacks on US critical civilian infrastructure and Beijings increased military activity around Taiwan and in the South China Sea.

It was noted that this meeting is likely to be the last one between Biden and Xi before Donald Trump assumes office in the US.

A White House representative emphasised that the next administration will need to find a way to manage the "tough, complicated relationship" between the US and China.

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"Russia, cross-strait issues, the South China Sea and cyber [security] are areas the next administration is going to need to think about carefully, because those are areas of deep policy difference with China, and I don't expect that will disappear," the official said in a conversation with journalists.

Background:

Last week, the United States confirmed that North Korean troops had recently participated in hostilities in Kursk Oblast for the first time.

In addition, according to The New York Times, 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops are preparing to launch a large-scale counteroffensive in Kursk Oblast.

NATO countries condemned Russia and North Korea's decision to engage North Korean troops in combat operations against Ukraine.

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President Joe Biden is taking maybe his final lap on the world stage this week with a trip to South America.

He's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, making a historic visit to the Amazon rainforest and attending two major summits.

His travel comes just about a week after the U.S. election threw into question what America's role in the world will be during the next four years under President-elect Donald Trump.

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Biden will kick off his trip to South America by traveling to Lima, Peru, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. While there, he will meet with Peru's President Dina Boluarte and other world leaders.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden steps off Air Force One as he arrives at Tallahassee International Airport in Tallahassee, Fla., Oct. 3, 2024. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

MORE: Trump and Biden both call for smooth transition in historic Oval Office meeting

Biden's time at APEC will likely come under heightened scrutiny because Trump has vowed to enact major tariffs that could vastly affect global trade.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said that Biden would "reinforce America's leading role in the Indo-Pacific," and touted his success in enhancing America's "strategic position" in the region during a briefing with reporters on Wednesday. Sullivan touted Biden's relationship with Indo-Pacific partners as at "a literal all-time high," and said that is "what he's going to hand off to President Trump."

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On Saturday, Biden's planned sit-down with China's President Xi will be the first with his Chinese counterpart since the two men met in Woodside, California, last November. It is also expected to be their last meeting as presidents.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping walk together after a meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' week in Woodside, Calif., Nov. 15, 2023. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

MORE: Would Trump's tariffs trigger a global trade war? Experts weigh in.

"This meeting between President Biden and President Xi will be an opportunity to ensure a smooth transition and also to continue to keep those channels of communication open, including those especially critical military to military channels of communication," Sullivan said.

Given that, the a senior administration official said that Biden will use the meeting as a point of reflection about how the U.S.-China relationship has evolved. The official declined to talk about what Biden's message to Xi would be about policies to expect from a Trump administration.

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Biden speaks with Chinese President Xi Jinping

"I think the way I come at this question is this is a tough, complicated relationship between the U.S. and China. And so whatever the next administration decides, they're going to need to find ways to manage that tough, complicated relationship," the official said on a call with reporters.

President Biden will then head to Manaus, Brazil  in the Amazon region  to engage with "local, indigenous, and other leaders working to preserve and protect this critical ecosystem," according to the White House.

This will be a historic visit, the first time a sitting president has visited the Amazon rainforest, according to the White House. Sullivan said that the trip will "underscore his personal commitment" to combating climate change in the U.S. and around the world.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden poses for a group photograph after a session at the G20 Leaders' Summit in New Delhi, Sept. 9, 2023. (Evan Vucci/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

What to know about the Paris climate accord, the international agreement Trump is withdrawing the US from

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Biden's historic visit comes as the next administration will likely enact major changes when it comes to climate policy. Trump has called climate change a hoax and has promised to pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

After that, Biden will travel to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to participate in the G20 summit. Sullivan said Biden's aims in Rio will be to reassure allies despite pending differences in foreign policy as Trump prepares to take office.

[Biden's] going to have the same message that he's had for four years as president, which is that he believes that America's allies are vital to America's national security, Sullivan said. They contribute to our common causes, including the cause of standing up for freedom and territorial integrity in Ukraine.

Sullivan also said that there will be a major focus on structuring debt for low-and middle-income countries and helping finance for physical, digital and energy infrastructure. He added that geopolitical issues, including "Ukraine to the Middle East," will also be crucial.

Biden's trip to Peru will include last meeting with China's president originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
President Joe Biden welcomed President-elect Donald Trump back to the White House on Wednesday and held a meeting with the incoming commander-in-chief that ran for nearly two hours.

Welcome back, Biden declared as the two men sat in front of a roaring fire.

Politics is tough, (but) it is a nice world today, Trump replied after they shook hands. I appreciate it very much. A transition that is so smooth, it will be as smooth as it can get.

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The lame-duck president wants the American people to see that the peaceful transfer of power is back as an enduring American norm, even though the once and future president didnt give Biden the same courtesy four years ago.

The two leaders held a cordial gracious and substantive meeting in the Oval Office, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said. They were joined only by White House chief of staff Jeff Zients and Susie Wiles, whom Trump has named as his incoming chief of staff.

There was a very good back-and-forth, Jean-Pierre said. The length of the meeting tells you they had an in-depth conversation.

Biden made the case to Trump to stand by Ukraine as it fights to repel the Russian invasion, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who did not give any details about Trumps response.

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The president also briefed Trump on some legislative business like the need to pass a stopgap spending bill to fund the government and top up disaster funding after the recent hurricanes, Jean-Pierre said.

Trump, who also had a list of questions for Biden, left without appearing before, or speaking with, reporters.

Biden has ordered aides to carry out an effective and efficient transition to the incoming Trump administration.

Its the right thing to do (and) the American people deserve it, Jean-Pierre said.

Trump refused to concede he lost the 2020 election to Biden and did not cooperate with any transition activities. In 2016, former President Barack Obama held a longer than expected 90-minute meeting with Trump after the Republican won his first term in office.

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Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost decisively to Trump in last weeks election, did not play any role in the meeting between the two men.

Former First Lady Melania Trump turned down First Lady Jill Bidens invitation for a White House sitdown Wednesday, citing a scheduling conflict.

Jill Biden penned a personal, handwritten note to Melania Trump that was given to Donald Trump to deliver to his wife.

White House protocol calls for the outgoing vice president to invite the incoming veep to a separate meeting. So far there has been no date set for Harris to meet with Vice President-elect JD Vance.

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Biden says he will continue to push to achieve some legislative and diplomatic goals during his remaining 70 days in office, particularly winning Senate confirmation of federal judges.

Hes expected to journey to South America this week for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and a G-20 summit after that.

Hes going to continue to talk about the progress weve made, strengthening our alliances, Jean-Pierre said. Thats what the president is going to focus on.

____
U.S. President Joe Biden will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Lima, Peru on Nov. 16, the White House announced Nov. 13.

The summit likely marks the two leaders' final presidential meeting, as Biden will be replaced by President-elect Donald Trump on Jan. 20, 2025.

Ukraine is on the agenda for Biden's talks with Xi, according to the White House.

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Biden is expected to voice his "deep concern" regarding China's "support for Russia's war against Ukraine." This extends to North Korea's escalating military involvement, including the deployment of 10,000 troops who "have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces."

The Pentagon confirmed on Nov. 13 that North Korean soldiers had begun engaging in combat alongside Russian troops in Kursk Oblast. The announcement followed reports that Russia is mustering a force of 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean troops, to launch a counteroffensive against Ukraine in the Kursk region.

"We are increasingly concerned about the consequences for longer-term stability in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific of this deployment," a senior White House official said, regarding Biden's upcoming talks with Xi.

While the U.S. has criticized China's support for Russia, including sanctioning Chinese companies for producing drones used in Russia's war, Biden's status as a lame-duck president weakens his position ahead of the meeting with Xi.

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged on Nov. 13 that the outgoing administration would "continue to shore up everything we're doing for Ukraine" and that NATO would issue "a firm response" to North Korea's deployment, but he did not say what the response would entail.

Biden and Xi last met in person on the sidelines of the 2023 APEC Summit in San Francisco, California. Russia's war against Ukraine was one of the key topics during those talks.

Read also: Trump calls Putin, Xi smart, tough leaders at campaign rally

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(NewsNation)  President Joe Biden is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at an economic summit in Peru on Saturday. Following Trumps election win, former Minnesota congressman Mark Kennedy says Biden wants to send the message that he is still in the White House until Trump takes office.

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A group of teens flung whipped cream at an Asian couple during a hate-fueled, caught-on-video incident in downtown Brooklyn last month, police said Thursday.

The couple, both 29, were outside the City Point shopping mall at Albee Square near Fulton St. just before 10 p.m. on Oct. 19 when the four teens approached them.

The youths pulled back the corners of their eyes with their fingers  mocking the couples Asian features  and taunted the pair by screaming ni hao! which is hello in Chinese.

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One of them, a girl, was toting a can of whipped cream, according to a video taken by the couple and given to police.

The video shows the girl spritzing the whipped cream into the hand of another teenage girl, who then flings it on the victims, before the foursome run off, the video shows.

No injuries were reported.

The NYPDs Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident.

Members of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which fights racial hatred of all stripes, on Thursday decried the cruel display of bigotry.

We condemn this alleged attempt at racist harassment and urge law enforcement authorities to redouble their efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice, said CAIR-NY Executive Director Afaf Nasher. Members of all minority communities must be able to go about their daily lives without fear of being targeted by bigots.

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Investigators recovered surveillance footage of the teens as they entered a nearby subway station.

Police on Thursday released surveillance images of the youths in hopes someone recognizes them.

Anyone with information regarding the suspects whereabouts is urged to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
JACKSON COUNTY, Miss. (WKRG)  A Biloxi man was found guilty Wednesday on two counts of filming persons in violation of privacy and three counts of indecent exposure, according to a news release from the District Attorney for Jackson, George and Greene Counties.

Mystery substance ruins paintjob for Robertsdale drivers

The news release from District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said 36-year-old Christopher Carmel Burdine was found guilty after a one-hour deliberation among the Jackson County jury.

Christopher Carmel Burdine. (Jackson County Jail Lookup)

According to the release, the case stems from Jan. 4, 2023, when Burdine was reportedly driving around in Jackson County and masturbating in front of high school age girls.

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Burdine would lure the girls to his car by asking them for directions to a local high school, and they saw him masturbating when they approached the vehicle.

Upon Burdines arrest, deputies searched his phone and found several videos of women using public restrooms. Law enforcement determined two of the videos to have been taken in a gas station on Tucker Road.

New details revealed in murder of Daphne restaurant manager as trial gets underway

Burdine will be sentenced on Dec. 4 and will remain in custody until then.

The release said Burdines violent criminal history led to him being prosecuted as a life habitual offender, which could lead to a life sentence in the Mississippi Department of Corrections custody with no hope of early release or parole.

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Jackson County and our surrounding communities are safer now that a Jackson County jury held Christopher Burdine accountable for his predatory crimes, 19th Circuit Court District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said. Christopher Burdine is a sexual predator who rode around our community masturbating and preying on young girls as they walked in their neighborhoods after school, some of which had just got off the school bus. He also recorded his vile acts of masturbating in front of these girls with his phone.

The investigation into these crimes led to the discovery of videos the Defendant had made of women, at their most vulnerable, using the restroom at a local gas station, McIlrath continued. His behavior was escalating, and I am convinced that todays verdict not only delivered justice to the victims in this case but protected the women and children in our community from becoming his victims in the future. This is our worst fear, but thankfully our Jackson County Sheriffs Office stopped him, and the jury held him accountable. He is facing a life sentence as a habitual offender and that sentencing hearing is set for Dec. 4.

Austal USA picks 14 Mobile, Baldwin charities ahead of 2025 Charity Golf Invitational

McIlrath prosecuted the case alongside Assistant District Attorney Bill Barrett.

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Thanks goes to the Jackson County Sheriffs Office for apprehending the Defendant after the young girls reported what he did, Barrett said. We could not hold the Defendant accountable in court without the deputies finding and arresting the Defendant, as well as collecting evidence of the crimes he committed in St. Martin. We appreciate their proactive efforts to combat crime in our community, especially crimes against children.

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BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH)  A previous felon is facing jail time after admitting to possessing a ghost gun.

Broome County District Attorney Paul Battisti announced that Namique McBride, 18, of Binghamton appeared in court on November 4 and pleaded guilty to Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree as a Second Felony Offender.

On May 4, members of the Binghamton Police Department and the Broome County Special Investigations Unit Task Force stopped a vehicle that had been reported stolen. McBride was a passenger in the stolen car. As officers approached the vehicle, McBride fled on foot, leading to a pursuit. McBride was caught shortly after near State Street in Binghamton. During the arrest, he was found in possession of a loaded ghost gun that was tucked into his waistband.

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McBride is scheduled to appear in court on January 24, 2025. He is expected to be sentenced to 7 years in New York State prison, followed by 5 years of post-release supervision.

McBrides actions were not only dangerous but also a direct threat to public safety. This

kind of behavior will not be tolerated in our community. A 7-year New York State Prison

sentence reflects the seriousness of his actions. Our office remains dedicated to protecting

residents and ensuring that those who engage in criminal behavior face the full extent of the

law, said Battisti.

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT)  Birminghams Spring Valley School will host the Birmingham Employs Neurodiversity career and internship expo on Tuesday, Nov. 19 at Regions Field.

This free event aims to promote inclusive work environments and provide neurodiverse learners between the ages of 16 to 22 with connections to career opportunities.

Shooting near Woodlawn High School leaves teen injured

During the event, students will hear a presentation on the topic of Finding Success Through Advocacy. This will be followed by an expo allowing students to explore various career paths. Participants will also have the chance to apply for spring/ summer semester internships. The event will last from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

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More information can be found on the events website.

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SACRAMENTO, the United States, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- A rare huge dust storm on Monday swept through California's Central Valley, causing a highway pileup and leaving thousands without power.

The weather phenomenon, known as a haboob, caused near-zero visibility near Chowchilla, 400 km north of Los Angeles. About 20 vehicles, including a semi-truck, collided on Highway 152 around 1 p.m. local time (2100 GMT) with several people hospitalized with minor injuries, the California Highway Patrol reported.

In Fresno County, the dust storm knocked down power lines, leaving more than 12,000 residents without electricity. One incident saw a tree split in half and crash onto a carport at an apartment complex, narrowly missing children playing nearby.

"It was loud, it was loud and scary. The kids got so scared," resident Karla Sanchez told ABC30. "My kids came in running, screaming, and when I looked outside, I just saw the tree fall and crush this whole thing behind me, all the cars," Sanchez said.

"Essentially, it was a wall of dust," said Antoinette Serrato, a forecaster with the U.S. National Weather Service Hanford office. "We would say it's a little unusual because this rarely happens." 
The Palm Springs City Council has unanimously approved a $5.9-million settlement with the Black and Latino families whose homes were razed and burned in a brutal urban renewal project in the 1950s and 1960s.

A standing-room crowd in the City Hall chambers Thursday night exploded into clapping and cheering, leaped to their feet and embraced.

I feel like I can breathe finally, said Pearl Devers moments after the vote. The Section 14 survivor called the settlement a beacon of hope for people across the world.

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What happened here should happen around the world, she said. This is just the beginning.

The settlement package includes compensation based on the current value of personal property lost by verified former Section 14 residents and their families. Council members also agreed to create a day of remembrance to commemorate Section 14 residents contributions to the city  a repeated ask during more than an hour of public comment.

Speaking passionately from the dais, City Council members thanked former Section 14 residents and their descendants for sharing their stories and expressed pride in being able to support the settlement.

It is the responsibility of the city of Palm Springs to compensate individuals for the destruction of personal property, said Councilmember Lisa Middleton. We broke something that was yours, and now we need to pay for it.

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In addition to the settlement, the council approved funding broader programs intended to address long-standing economic disparities in the desert city, including $20 million for housing initiatives and $1 million for local business initiatives for marginalized communities. The programs are intended for the entire Palm Springs community, but the city said it would target outreach to Section 14 families.

Read more: A reckoning in Palm Springs decades after a 'city-engineered holocaust'

The city apologized in 2021 for its actions surrounding the displacement of the neighborhood, and discussions regarding reparations have continued for years.

The truth is that we cant right the wrongs of the past, said Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein on Thursday night. He noted that no amount of money could heal the deep wounds inflicted upon the Section 14 residents and their families. What we can do is we can heal and move forward, and we can look at restorative justice.

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Section 14, a one-square-mile tract, is in the center of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Reservation. The Agua Caliente were unable to develop their land until the late 1950s because of federal laws, according to the city, so tribal landowners leased plots to Black and Latino workers who were excluded from much of the rest of the city by racist real estate covenants and lending practices.

The area had limited water and electrical service and no gas lines, sewers, garbage pickup or paved roads, according to a historical study prepared by the Architectural Resources Group last month for the City Council. As early as the 1930s, county, state and federal officials were raising concerns about substandard living conditions in Section 14, the study found.

But amid an affordable-housing crisis in the city, Section 14 was centrally located and affordable on a working-class paycheck, and so it became home to the chefs, chauffeurs and maids who contributed to the development of Palm Springs vibrant hospitality industry. It eventually grew into a thriving community with homes, mobile homes, restaurants and churches, according to the nonprofit Section 14 Survivors .

The California Housing Authority and the Riverside County Department of Health instructed the city of Palm Springs to remove the makeshift, substandard homes in Section 14 in 1951, and eviction notices began going out to residents, according to the city. The city said it worked with other agencies to relocate Section 14 residents and ensure they would have housing after their impending evictions, but not all efforts were successful, "as indicated by the 145 total homes that were abated despite not being abandoned," one city document notes.

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Read more: Newsom vetoes bill to study reparations for families displaced at Chavez Ravine

When federal legislators eased tribal land restrictions in 1959, allowing for 99-year leases, the city and tribal land owners had an opportunity to address health concerns in the area  and cash in on the land .

Multiple government agencies displaced and evicted Section 14 residents over at least five major abatement campaigns between 1936 and 1965, with the citys direct involvement beginning in 1948, according to the historical study . The city estimates 197 homes were destroyed during the abatement campaigns.

A state probe in 1968 determined that the city acted without giving residents in Section 14 the required notice that they were being evicted before the homes were destroyed. State officials at the time referred to Palm Springs actions as a "city-engineered holocaust," but did not find the city criminally liable.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom in September signed a formal apology for Californias role in slavery and its legacy of racism against Black people, but overall the states work to deliver reparations has moved incrementally .

At Thursday night's council meeting, the mood was overwhelmingly one of celebration and support. During more than an hour of public comment, over 30 people expressed support for the settlement. Many told their families personal stories of loss and hardship, and said the settlement would be a positive step toward addressing the pain and trauma endured by Section 14 residents displaced by the city decades ago.

At least one speaker questioned whether it was fair for Palm Springs taxpayers to be on the hook for the citys past misdeeds.

The $5.91-million settlement amount is based on the estimated current value of the 197 houses  about $30,000 per home  according to City Atty. Jeffrey Ballinger. As of now, there are an estimated 1,000 to 1,200 claimants  including up to 350 survivors, according to Areva Martin, a lawyer for the Section 14 Survivors group.

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The council also agreed to a Section 14 monument that will list the names of former residents; the location will be selected in consultation with community members, Ballinger said. The city also agreed to work with claimants to name a city park, once one becomes available.

At a news conference Friday morning, Martin called the settlement a "landmark agreement" that honors the men and women "that helped to build this oasis in the desert."

"I want to remind folks that this was never about money," Martin said. "This was always about recognizing the humanity and the dignity of the Section 14 survivors and their descendants."

This article is part of The Times equity reporting initiative , funded by the James Irvine Foundation , exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address Californias economic divide.

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.
Rep. Blake Moore was reelected as the vice chair of the House Republican Conference on Wednesday.

My team and I have worked hard over the last year to support each and every member and their staff to promote an optimistic, productive, and unified message that meets Americans where they are and shares our conservative agenda for a better future, said Moore in a statement.

I look forward to serving with the House Republican leadership team as we build on our success and demonstrate to the American people that we are a strong, dynamic conference that will deliver policies that make our nation more free, safe, prosperous, and strong.

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Among his array of duties as vice chair, the Ogden native is responsible for organizing daily one-minute speeches from conference members and assisting the conference chair with party messaging.

Behind Blake Moores decision to not run for Republican Conference chair

After Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., the House conference chair, accepted a position as President-elect Donald Trumps ambassador to the United Nations, Moore reportedly explored a bid for the fourth-ranking leadership position in the House. He decided against it, saying he was focused on getting reelected as vice chair.

Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain, who earned Moores backing, will replace Stefanik. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., were also reelected to their positions.

In an appearance on KSL Radios Inside Sources, Moore said although it was a tough decision not to run to replace Stefanik, he believes it was the right one.

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During his two terms in Congress, Moore has quickly moved up the ranks in the House. Not only is he a part of leadership, Moore also sits on the powerful Ways and Means, and Budget Committees. Since Election Day, his position has only improved.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Associated Press election tracker showed House Republicans were one seat short of capturing a majority. With 10 races waiting to be called, the GOP is inches away from regaining control of the lower chamber. Several other news organizations, including CNN and ABC, have called enough races to say Republicans will maintain control of the House.

Republicans also flipped Senate seats this election, and will take control of the upper chamber.

What to expect from the Republican-controlled Congress?

Moore says he is motivated to use his position to address the Trump-era tax cuts set to expire next year.

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The Utah representative noted that Trump had success with tax policy, and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which reformed the tax code. In conversation with KSL Radio hosts Taylor Morgan and Rusty Cannon, Moore painted a picture of what to expect from Congress next year.

He said that while Republicans have the trifecta, they will push to extend and make permanent TCJA provisions, and substantially slash mandatory spending.

Youve got to look at our big, huge (federal) programs that exist, Moore said, before noting that during his first administration Trump was a little reluctant to make some of those big spending cuts.

He wanted to do economic growth, which is great, but he was worried about his first reelection with budgets across the board, Moore said. This earned Trump pushback from conservatives like former Rep. Paul Ryan, who advocated for bigger cuts.

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Given that it would be President Trumps second term, hes less concerned about having to go through a whole reelection fight, Moore added.

Despite the cards in the GOPs favor, Trumps agenda can be stymied by the members of his own party, the Utah representative said.

Some of the folks that are professing to be something like his biggest supporters over the last few years were perhaps his biggest thorn, Moore said.

President Trump had a far more reasonable approach to actual immigration reform, not even just border security, but some, you know, hardliners, they wouldnt even budge and forced him to do more executive orders, which is not the best way to go about doing it, Moore said. Laws passed through Congress are more permanent, and comprehensive, and include the necessary checks and balances, he said.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT)  UAB is hosting its Blazers Against Hunger in November to provide healthy food to patients, students, and employees.

Blazer Kitchen helps provide food, resources, and referrals to patients, employees and students in need. Blazer Kitchen is an on-campus food bank that has served more than 872,000 meals since opening in 2017. Donations are accepted and they are able to access food for around 18 cents per pound through the Community Food Bank of Central Alabama.

You can donate to Blazers Against Hunger by clicking here. For more information, call 205-996-2040.

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WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  U.S. officials are again calling for an end to the war in Gaza.

This should be a time to end the war, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

During his visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Blinken said Israels efforts have created an opportunity to end the fighting and get aid to the Palestinians.

We need to see real and extended pauses in large areas of Gaza, pauses in any fighting, in any combat, Blinken said.

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Blinken says so far, Israel has enacted most of the steps the U.S requested it fulfill to provide some relief for Palestinians or risk its funding. The U.S still wants to see Israel ensure people evacuate from an area and guarantee more humanitarian goods get in.

Even with all of these steps, the situation is so difficult and so dramatic that to fully redress it, to fully answer the needs of people, the best way to do that is to end the war, Blinken said.

Blinken believes the release of the hostages is a key part of ending the violence.

We have to make sure that the hostages come home, including the seven Americans, Blinken said.

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With President Joe Bidens term as president coming to a close, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan reaffirmed the administrations commitment to work with President-elect Donald Trumps team to secure the hostages.

We are very much willing to do so, and weve sent a signal to the incoming team that were prepared to work with them on this issue, as with every other issue, because President Bidens cardinal direction to us is ensure a smooth and orderly transition, Sullivan said.

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A Boise police officer shot a suspect who fled from a traffic stop into a North Boise neighborhood on Wednesday.

At about 3 p.m., a Boise police officer stopped a vehicle near South Division Avenue and West Howe Street, according to the department.

A passenger inside the vehicle provided false information to police before pulling out a knife and fleeing on foot into a nearby neighborhood, the Boise Police Department said in a news release.

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BPD quickly set up a perimeter, deployed drones, and began searching for the suspect, police said.

Police said an officer found him on South Colorado Avenue and tried to approach him, but the suspect refused to follow commands to get on the ground.

The suspect charged at the officer with the knife, the release said. One Boise police officer fired his duty weapon, striking the suspect.

Ada County Paramedics transported the injured suspect to a local hospital for treatment, according to police. Boise Police spokesperson Haley Williams confirmed that he was still in the hospital as of Thursday afternoon.

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No one else was injured during the incident. Police said the other people in the vehicle remained at the traffic stop.

The Garden City Police Department will lead the the Ada County Critical Incident Task Forces investigation into the shooting.

The Boise Police Department was been involved in five shootings this year, three of which were fatal, according to a database maintained by the Idaho Statesman. Most recently, Boise police fatally shot 47-year-old Guadalupe Reyes on Nov. 10 after they responded to a report of suspicious circumstances, a news release said.

Last year, there were 11 police shootings in the Treasure Valley, according to the Statesman database. Boise police were involved in six of those shootings.

Reporter Alex Brizee contributed.
About 2.3 million people born in Portugal, or 23% of its population, currently live abroad, according to Portugal's Emigration Observatory. That includes 850,000 Portuguese nationals aged 15-39, or about 30% of young Portuguese and 12.6% of its working-age population.

Donald Trump's victory in U.S. elections this month raises the stakes, with the risk of across-the-board trade tariffs on European exports of at least 10% - a move that economists say could turn Europe's anaemic growth into outright recession.

By exacerbating regional labour shortages and depriving poorer countries of tax revenues, it is yet another hurdle for the EU as it tries to improve its ebbing economic growth while addressing population decline and lagging labour productivity.

Talent flight to wealthier countries of the north is a problem Portugal shares with several others in southern and central Europe, as workers take advantage of freedom of movement rules within the trade bloc. Countries including Italy have tried other schemes to counter the flight, with mixed results.

Portugal is the latest country in Europe to seek to tackle a brain drain holding back its economy. Tax breaks for young workers in the budget currently going through parliament will take effect next year and could benefit as many as 400,000 young people at an annual cost of 525 million euros.

"Some of my friends are now working abroad and earn substantially more money... and have better career development opportunities," he said. "I'm a little bit sceptical concerning my job opportunities here in Portugal."

He is doubtful the government's new measures will be enough.

Monteiro cites in particular the cost of buying or renting a home amid a housing crisis aggravated by the arrival of wealthy foreigners lured by easy residency rights and tax breaks.

"Previous governments left young people behind," said Monteiro, 23, who is studying engineering and industrial management at the Higher Technical Institute in the Portuguese capital. "The country needs us and we want to stay but we need to see signs from the government that they are implementing policies that will help."

But tax breaks proposed by Portugal's government for young workers - up to a temporary 100% income tax exemption in some cases - plus help with housing are making him think twice.

LISBON (Reuters) - Until recently aerospace engineer Pedro Monteiro figured he'd join many of his peers moving from Portugal to its richer European neighbours in the quest for a better-paid job once he completes his master's degree in Lisbon.

(This Nov. 14 story has been refiled to fix the currency conversion in paragraph 17)

Story Continues

More concerning still is that about 40% of 50,000 people who graduate from universities or technical colleges emigrate each year, according to a study by Business Roundtable Portugal and Deloitte based on official statistics, costing Portugal billions of euros in lost income tax revenue and social security contributions.

DEMOGRAPHIC HELL

"This is not a country for young people," said Pedro Ginjeira do Nascimento, executive director of Business Roundtable Portugal, which represents 43 of the largest companies in the nation of 10 million people. "Portugal is experiencing a true demographic hell because the country is unable to create conditions to retain and attract young talent."

Internal migration within the EU is partly driven by the disparity in wages between its member states. Some economic migrants also say they are looking for better benefits such as pensions and healthcare and less rigid, hierarchichal structures that give more responsibility to those in junior roles.

Concerns are mounting over the long-term viability of Europe's economic model with its rapidly ageing population and failure to win substantial shares of high-growth markets of the future, from tech to renewable energy.

Presenting a raft of reform proposals aimed at boosting local innovation and investment, former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said in September the region faced a "slow agony" of decline if it did not compete more effectively.

Eszter Czovek, 45, and her husband are moving from Hungary to Austria, where workers earn an average 40.9 euros ($43.22) per hour compared to 12.8 euros per hour in Hungary, the largest wage gap between neighbouring countries in the EU.

The number of Hungarians living in Austria increased to 107,264 by the beginning of 2024 from just 14,151 when Hungary joined the EU.

Czovek's husband, who works in construction, was offered a job in Austria, while she has worked in media and accounting at various multinationals. She cited better pay, pensions, work conditions and healthcare as motives for moving. She also mentioned her concern over the political situation in Hungary, which she fears might join Britain in leaving the EU.

"There was a change of regime here in 1989 and 30 years later we are still waiting for the miracle that will see us catch up with Austria," Czovek said of the revolution over three decades ago that ended communist rule in Hungary.

Since Brexit, the Netherlands has replaced Britain as a preferred destination for Portuguese talent while Germany and Scandinavian countries are also popular.

Many Europeans still head to the United States in search of better jobs - about 4.7 million were living there in 2022, according to the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, which notes nonetheless a long-term decline since the 1960s.

In 2023, 4,892 Portuguese emigrated to the Netherlands, surpassing Britain for the first time, which in 2019 received 24,500 Portuguese.

At home, they face the eighth-highest tax burden in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) even as house prices rose 186% and rents by 94% since 2015, according to property specialists Confidencial Imobiliario.

A single person in Portugal without children earned an average of 16,943 euros after tax in 2023 compared to 45,429 euros in the Netherlands, according to Eurostat.

Portugal will offer under 35s earning up to 28,000 euros a year a 100% tax exemption during their first year of work, gradually reducing the benefit to a 25% deduction between the eighth and tenth years.

Young people would also be exempted from transaction taxes and stamp duty when buying their first home as well as access to loans guaranteed by the state and rent subsidies.

"We are designing a solid package that tries to solve the main reasons why the young leave," Cabinet Minister Antonio Leitao Amaro said in an interview with Reuters.

'THINGS WON'T CHANGE'

Leitao Amaro said he did not know for sure if the tax breaks would work but that his government, which came into office in April, had to try something new.

"If we don't act ambitiously, things won't change and Portugal will continue down this path," he said.

The Italian government has already found that tax breaks used as incentives are costly and open to fraud.

In January, Italy abruptly curtailed its own scheme that was costing 1.3 billion euros in lost tax revenue, even as it lured tech workers such as Alessandra Mariani back home.

Before 2024, returners were offered a 70% tax break for five years, extendable for another five years in certain circumstances. Now, it plans to offer a slimmed-down scheme targeting specific skills after it attracted only 1,200 teachers or researchers - areas where Italy has a particular shortage.

Mariani said the incentives were key to persuading her to return to Milan in 2021 by allowing her to maintain the same standard of living she enjoyed in London.

"Had the opportunity been the same without the scheme, I would not have done it at all," said Mariani, now working at the Italian arm of the same large tech company.

With her tax breaks poised to be phased out by 2026 unless she buys a house or has a child, Mariani faces a drop in salary and she said she's once again eyeing the exit door.

($1 = 0.9463 euros)

(Reporting by Sergio Goncalvez, Alex Fraser, Giselda Vagnoni, Gergely Szakacs, Krisztina Fenyo; Writing by Charlie Devereux; Editing by Daniel Flynn)
(Bloomberg) -- Botswanas new president, Duma Boko, picked Bogolo Kenewendo to be mines minister as his administration moves to cement a deal with De Beers that aims to ensure the nation will derive greater benefit from its diamond riches.

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The appointment of Kenewendo, an economist who served as trade and industry minister from April 2018 to November 2019, was announced in the capital, Gaborone on Thursday. Boko assigned six cabinet posts earlier this week, including that of finance minister to Ndaba Gaolathe, who is also the deputy president.

Botswana is the worlds largest producer of rough diamonds by value and the gems account for the bulk of state revenue. Global diamond sales have been impacted by oversupply, poor demand from the crucial Chinese market and pressure from lab-grown gems.

Almost all of Botswanas gems are mined by Debswana, which is jointly owned by the government and De Beers, a unit of Anglo American Plc. Under a 10-year accord announced by Botswanas previous administration in July last year, the state-owned diamond trader will get 30% of Debswanas output, while the government will secure 10 billion pula ($729 million) in development funding.

Boko, who succeeded Mokgweetsi Masisi as president after his coalition won Oct. 30 elections, has previously criticized the way the deal was negotiated and warned that it had adversely affected the countrys relationship with De Beers, which was now considering walking away from it.

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Earlier Thursday, the president held a private meeting with Anglo American Chief Executive Officer Duncan Wanblad and his De Beers counterpart, Al Cook, in Gaborone.

We see the negotiations concluding in days and weeks, not months and years, Cook said after the talks. We are getting to the point of the technicalities in the agreements, dotting the Is and crossing Ts. I believe its very important that the diamond markets around the world see the nation of Botswana and the company of De Beers standing shoulder to shoulder in order to promote natural diamonds. That will build confidence in the industry at a time when it is confronting its most challenging period since the 1980s, he said.

Boko said Botswana remains committed to its relationship with De Beers.

This is the first real contact with the new administration and we believe that there are issues that we need to discuss, he told reporters prior to the meeting. We have a long-standing partnership, which has benefited this country and carried us for those many years, and we are confident that it will endure to the future. Where there are any niggling issues, as I understand that there have been and still are, we will work together as partners to resolve them.

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Wanblad also expressed confidence that an agreement could be reached.

As partners, we sometimes have divergent views, but we must have convergent interests, he said. We stand committed to faithfully working with government and resolving these potentially outstanding niggling issues, he said.

--With assistance from Paul Richardson.

(Updates with comment from De Beers CEO in seventh paragraph.)

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A 14-year-old boy was arrested last week for allegedly igniting a New Jersey forest fire that destroyed 52 acres in an intentional act of arson, police said.

The teen, of Marlton, NJ, is accused of setting the Oct. 30 blaze that tore through an area near Sycamore Drive and the Berlin Township border over several days, and cops are now investigating if he may have played a role in starting an even larger fire, Evesham police announced Wednesday.

Evesham cops, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service and Evesham firefighters battled the inferno for multiple days and were able to contain it before any structures were damaged, police said in a press release.

The Oct. 30 fire consumed 52 acres in Evesham, NJ, and was intentionally set, police said. AP

The departments launched an investigation into the fire and soon found evidence suggesting the flames were intentionally set.

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The teenager, whose name was withheld by cops due to his age, was then identified as a suspect.

He was arrested without incident on Nov. 7 and charged with aggravated arson and causing or risking widespread injury or damage. He was booked in Middlesex Juvenile Detention Center, pending his first hearing.

Police are investigating if a 375-acre fire in the same area near Sycamore Drive that started on the same day of his arrest is connected to the Oct. 30 fire. The blaze was extinguished after firefighters battled it for multiple days.

Police are investigating if a second, large fire in the area is linked to the Oct. 30 one. AP

The 14-year-old boy was charged with aggravated arson and causing or risking widespread injury or damage. AP

Forest fires have burned through several areas in New York and New Jersey over the past few weeks as record-breaking dry weather coupled with powerful winds have battered the region.

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An 18-year-old New York parks worker was killed Saturday battling a since-extinguished wildfire that crossed both states.

Five states  New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts  are under fire weather warnings.

New York City is under a Red Flag Warning issued by the National Weather Service over the increased risk of brushfires.

Elsewhere in New York and New Jersey, firefighters are struggling to contain a massive forest fire consuming more than 7,000 acres across both states near Greenwood Lakes eastern edge. The inferno, dubbed the Jennings Creek fire, was only 30% contained as of Wednesday afternoon.

A bushfire in Manhattans Inwood Hill Park was the latest to ignite on Wednesday afternoon  sending thick smoke high above the city skyline.
Republican Mike Braun pitches his candidacy during the Oct. 24, 2024 governor's debate. (Darron Cummings/Associated Press pool photo)

Gov.-elect Mike Braun on Wednesday announced the formation of 12 transition councils to guide state agency reviews and policy development across Indianas government.

The councils are in addition to a transition team announced last week.

The leaders and members bring expertise from diverse sectors, including business, public service, education, healthcare, natural resources, and constituent services. Each council will play a central role in creating streamlined, effective solutions that elevate state governments impact on the lives of Hoosiers.

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Many of the appointees have previously served in state government or are leaders in the private sector.

To build an effective government that serves all Hoosier residents, we need the best minds and most experienced leaders at the table, Braun said in a news release. These distinguished individuals bring decades of public and private sector expertise to ensure a smooth and impactful transition.

The councils and leaders are listed below with individual members are included in the attached PDF:

Business Affairs Transition Council is focused on strengthening Indianas reputation as a business-friendly environment by streamlining bureaucracy, cutting red tape, and enhancing customer service interactions between business owners and state regulators. The council aims to support Indianas businesses by reducing obstacles and improving the efficiency and responsiveness of state services.

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Chair: Mike Speedy, a real estate developer, former state representative, former Indianapolis City-County councilor, and member of the HOPE Commission for Higher Education

The Commerce Transition Council is focused on driving economic growth across Indiana by fostering entrepreneurship and identifying opportunities to support geographically diverse communities. The council aims to expand economic opportunity in every corner of the state by cultivating a thriving environment for Hoosier entrepreneurs and encouraging community-level development.

Chair: Mitch Frazier, CEO of AgriNovus Indiana and former leader with the Indiana Economic Development Corporation under former Governor Mitch Daniels

The Constituent Services Transition Council is focused on improving interactions between Hoosiers and their state government by conducting a comprehensive review of constituent services across state agencies. The council will work to establish clear customer service standards for each agency, identify areas for improvement, and enhance the overall experience for Hoosiers engaging with state government.

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Chair: Lawren Mills, partner at Ice Miller, chair of the firms Government Affairs and Regulatory Law Group, former chief lobbyist and senior policy director to then-Governor Mitch Daniels, and member of the HOPE Health and Family Services review team

The Education Transition Council is dedicated to ensuring a high-quality education for all Hoosiers by raising standards in K-12 and higher education, expanding school choice, keeping curriculum focused on core education rather than political indoctrination, and enhancing college and career readiness for high school graduates.

Chair: Dr. Katie Jenner, Indianas first Secretary of Education, head of the Indiana Department of Education, and chair of the State Board of Education

The Efficiency and Modernization Transition Council is dedicated to conducting a comprehensive review of Indianas state government to ensure Hoosiers tax dollars are used efficiently and effectively. The council will work to streamline bureaucracy, reduce regulatory burdens, embrace emerging technology, and foster a business-friendly environment that drives economic growth and makes Indiana an even better place to do business.

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Chair: Gus Olympidis, President and CEO of Family Express Corp and charter member of the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority under former Governor Daniels

The Energy and Natural Resources Transition Council is committed to developing Indianas abundant energy and recreational resources to lower utility costs and enhance Hoosiers quality of life. The council will focus on leveraging Indianas natural assets to promote sustainable resource management and cost-effective energy solutions.

Chair: Jackie Bowman Ponder, Chief Legal Officer at Bowman Family Holdings, Inc., former General Counsel to Solar Sources Mining, LLC, and former member of the Executive Committee of the Energy & Mineral Law Foundation

The Health and Family Services Transition Council is dedicated to ensuring affordable, transparent, and high-quality healthcare for all Hoosiers, developing pro-family policies, faithfully implementing SEA 1 (P.L. 179-2022, Special Session), and improving program delivery at the Family and Social Services Agency, Department of Child Services, and Department of Veterans Affairs.

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Chair: Gloria Sachdev, PharmD, President and CEO of the Employers Forum of Indiana

The Lieutenant Governor-Elect Transition Council is focused on growing Indianas agriculture industry by supporting producers, expanding markets, and helping farmers pass their way of life to the next generation. The council is also committed to strengthening rural communities by reducing regulatory burdens and streamlining the grant application process through the Office of Community and Rural Development.

Chair: Sherry Ellis, Chief of Staff designee for Lieutenant Governor-elect Micah Beckwith and campaign manager for the Micah for Lieutenant Governor campaign

The Local and Municipal Affairs Transition Council is focused on building a strong partnership between state and local governments in Indiana. By giving local leaders a seat at the table in the incoming Braun administration, the council aims to address key issues, including local tax and financing, and improve communities across the state.

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Chair: Brian Burdick, managing partner of the Indianapolis office of Barnes & Thornburg, LLP, and member of the HOPE policy committee review team for the Office of Management and Budget

The Management and Budget Transition Council is dedicated to securing Indianas financial future by developing a balanced budget, enhancing efficiency through shared services, and implementing best-value procurement practices. The council will focus on ensuring the State is on sound financial footing, driving whole-of-government efficiencies through shared services, and establishing best practices for effective fiscal management.

Chair: Tera Klutz, Chief Financial Officer at Gaylor Electric, Inc., and former State Auditor-Comptroller, Allen County Auditor, and Chief Deputy Auditor

The Public Safety Transition Council is focused on protecting every Hoosier, with priorities including school safety, support for law enforcement, crime prevention, and federal partnerships on immigration enforcement to protect Indiana communities.

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Chair: Danny Price, founder of The Price Consulting Group, LLC, and a 34-year veteran of the Indiana State Police

The Transportation and Infrastructure Transition Council is focused on strengthening Indiana as the Crossroads of America by identifying sustainable funding to maintain, improve, and expand the states infrastructure without raising taxes. The councils work includes investing in broadband solutions for all regions of Indiana and enhancing customer service at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

Chair: Matt Ubelhor, former Indiana House Representative for District 62, former senior manager at Peabody Energy, and member of the HOPE energy and agriculture team

Braun Transition Council Announcement FINAL.docx
SAO PAULO (AP)  A Brazilian Supreme Court justice said Thursday that he believes the explosion outside the court in capital Brasilia was the consequence of frequent far-right attacks and hate speech targeting the countrys institutions.

It grew under the guise of a criminal use of freedom of speech. To offend, threaten, coerce," Justice Alexandre de Moraes said at an event in Brasilia.

Federal Police are investigating the explosions on Wednesday as terrorism and a violent attack on the democratic rule of law, its director, Andrei Passos Rodrigues, said at a news conference later.

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He said that the man had attempted to enter the Supreme Court and that it appeared that he acted alone, though the police official indicated he also was viewing the attack in the broader context of extremism.

Even if the visible action is individual, behind that action there is never just one person. It's always a group, or ideas of a group, or extremism, radicalism, that lead to committing those crimes, Passos Rodrigues said. The action, in fact, was an individual action, but the investigation will tell if there are other connections, if there are other networks, what's behind it, what drove it.

The police director also said the Supreme Court has received fresh threats via email, without specifying when.

Security camera footage provided by the Supreme Court shows the suspect approaching a statue outside the building. As a guard nears, the man throws an explosive and retreats a few steps, then throws a second device and an explosion follows. Finally, the suspect ignites a third device near to himself, causing his death.

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Passos Rodrigues said that the man was a native of southern Santa Catarina state where he previously ran for city council, and had been in Brasilia several months. Police went to his Brasilia residence Thursday and used a robot to open a drawer that triggered a very serious explosion, he said.

Celina Leao, the lieutenant governor of Brazils federal district, said Wednesday night that the man first detonated explosives in a car in a Congress parking lot, which didn't cause injuries. Then he went to Three Powers Plaza, where the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential palace are located.

Local media identified the man as being a member of Brazils Liberal Party, the same as former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro has railed against the Supreme Court in the past and specifically focused his ire on de Moraes.

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Bolsonaro supporters consider de Moraes their chief enemy. He has led a five-year investigation into fake news and threats against Supreme Court justices, which has led to the ban of some far-right allies and supporters from social media and even some imprisonments. He also presided over the nations top electoral court when it ruled Bolsonaro ineligible for office until 2030, finding that he had abused his power and cast unfounded doubts on the validity of the 2022 election result.

Bolsonaro condemned the attack on social media.

It is high time for Brazil to once again cultivate an environment suitable for different ideas to confront each other peacefully, and for the strength of arguments to be worth more than the argument of force, he wrote.

Some accuse de Moraes of overstepping in the name of protecting Brazilian democracy from political violence and disinformation. Others view his brash tactics as justified by extraordinary circumstances.

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Months after Bolsonaro lost his 2022 election bid, his supporters stormed the main government buildings in Brasilia, seeking to oust his leftist successor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, from power. It was widely seen as an echo of the insurrection in the U.S. Capitol two years earlier.

The Supreme Court has since convicted hundreds of those involved in the uprising for crimes such as criminal association and attempted coup.

De Moraes said Thursday that the explosions outside the Supreme Court appeared to be the most serious attack on the institution since then.

The countrys pacification is only possible with the accountability of all criminals. There is no possibility of pacification with amnesty for criminals, de Moraes said.

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Earlier this year, de Moraes ordered a nationwide ban of X after clashing with its billionaire owner, Elon Musk, over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. Musk had disparaged de Moraes, calling him an authoritarian and a censor, even though his rulings, including Xs suspension, were repeatedly upheld by his peers. The platform was reinstated in October.

Brazil will host the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week. Passos Rodrigues said that the bombing shouldnt raise any concerns, given that authorities are already implementing the highest level security possible, including with support of the armed forces.

I am going this afternoon, shortly, to Rio de Janeiro, where I will personally accompany all actions so we can have the absolute guarantee of security, he added.
JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- A national disaster has been declared in South Africa following severe floods and storms that left more than 10 people dead and affected seven of the country's nine provinces.

Elias Sithole, the head of South Africa's National Disaster Management Center, declared a national disaster in an official notice dated Tuesday, citing the impact of the "severe weather."

Disruptive rains, floods, strong winds and hail from Oct. 22 to 29 caused a significant impact in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Limpopo, North West, Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces, Sithole said.

The severe weather resulted in the loss of life, damage to property, infrastructure and the environment as well as the disruption of basic services, he said.

The storms and floods killed at least 10 people and displaced hundreds more in the Eastern Cape alone, according to local media reports.

"After assessing the magnitude and the severity... I classify the impact caused by this severe weather system in the areas listed as a national disaster," Sithole stated.

The declaration of a national disaster will allow the national government to release funds to the affected provinces, enabling them to address the damage caused by the floods. 
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)  Brazil launched what it called a social summit Thursday ahead of next week's Group of 20 meeting of top economies, the first such event focused on drawing civil society input ahead of the main annual summit.

Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said 40,000 people from G20 countries were expected to attend meetings and panels through Saturday in revamped warehouses of downtown Rio de Janeiro's port area and nearby Museum of Tomorrow. The main summit takes place in Rio on Monday and Tuesday.

Vieira told the opening ceremony, also attended by other government ministers and First Lady Rosangela da Silva, that the gathering is part of Brazils G20 agenda to promote sustainable development and green energy, fight poverty and reduce inequality.

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There couldnt be a discussion or effective measures on this issue without welcoming societys contributions, Vieira said.

Proposals developed at the social summit will be summarized in a final document to be presented at the leaders summit.

First lady da Silva, known as Janja, said that kicking off the G20 with a social-focused event sets Brazils presidency apart from prior summits.

I think we can make it so that, starting from this one, voices are heard and their recommendations are effectively accepted, Janja said.

Brazil's low-income neighborhoods give input

Separately, representatives from Brazils low-income communities have also been gathering in Rio as part of an initiative called F20, and last week presented a joint statement outlining their priorities. These include combating inequality, promoting climate justice, improving access to sanitation and advancing digital and financial inclusion.

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These neighborhoods, popularly known as favelas, are home to 16.4 million Brazilians, or 8% of the countrys population, according to the government.

And the challenges of favelas are evident in places like the mountainside Rio neighborhood of Rocinha, which recently reclaimed the title of most populous favela from another one outside the capital Brasilia. Residents in Rocinha cope with open sewage and a lack of economic opportunities.

Antonio Florencio, 58, a 40-year resident of Rocinha, expressed frustration over long-stalled infrastructure projects that fail to meet his communitys needs. The forthcoming G20 meeting seemed even farther away from his reality than the 20 kilometers (12 miles) between Rocinha and Rios Museum of Modern Art where the summit will be held.

To be honest, the G20 itself is just going to discuss an agenda thats supposed to be better for the whole country, for the world. But whether it will improve anything in this community, I dont think it will, he told The Associated Press.

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In addition to the social G20, the Brazilian government organized a free music festival in the citys port area from Thursday to Saturday. Popular artists such as Seu Jorge, Daniela Mercury and Zeca Pagodinho are performing.

___

Gabriela Sa Pessoa reported from Sao Paulo.
By Bernardo Caram and Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes said on Thursday that the suicide bomber who tried to get into the top court on Wednesday had intended to blow up the building, casting it as part of a growing wave of attacks on democracy.

The explosions outside the court and in a nearby parking lot, which federal police called attacks, raised security concerns days ahead of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro and Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the capital Brasilia.

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Police identified the man who killed himself in a blast outside the Supreme Court as a former city council candidate from ex-President Jair Bolsonaro's right-wing party with a history of heated political rhetoric online.

A police report seen by Reuters, confirmed as authentic by people familiar with the matter, said Francisco Wanderley Luiz, 59, threw an object at the court building that caused no damage, then laid on the ground and exploded a homemade bomb that killed him.

Brazil's electoral records show Luiz lost a 2020 race for city council in Rio do Sul, in the southern state of Santa Catarina, as a member of Bolsonaro's right-wing Liberal Party.

Moraes, who is among Supreme Court justices targeted with threats for overseeing investigations into Bolsonaro and his supporters, said Luiz may have acted alone but the attack was the result of rhetoric dating back to the Bolsonaro government.

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He called the explosions the worst attack on the Supreme Court since supporters of Bolsonaro ransacked the building in a riot last year.

Bolsonaro distanced himself from Wednesday night's violence, saying on social media that it was an isolated incident caused by a person with mental health issues.

Police found more explosives at a house that Luiz rented in Brasilia, which were detonated with a bomb disposal robot. His cell phone was later found in a parked trailer.

Investigators inspected his body on Thursday morning, clothed in a green jacket and pants with symbols similar to a deck of cards, as it lay in the Plaza of the Three Powers, an iconic square connecting Brazil's three branches of government.

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It was the scene of chaos on Jan. 8 last year when Bolsonaro supporters vandalized government buildings to protest his electoral defeat to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

In the weeks before those riots in the capital, police foiled a bomb plot near the Brasilia airport inspired by Bolsonaro's baseless allegations of a stolen election.

Before and after losing the 2022 race to Lula, Bolsonaro sowed doubts about the legitimacy of an electoral system run by the courts and attacked Supreme Court decisions as illegitimate.

Brazil's top electoral court barred Bolsonaro from public office through 2030 due to that rhetoric, and federal police are investigating his role in an alleged coup plot after the vote.

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He has denied any wrongdoing and his party insists he will be its presidential candidate in 2026.

Wednesday's blasts in the heart of the capital could bring fresh attention to that police probe into Bolsonaro, which was expected to wrap up this month.

The first explosion went off in a parking lot some 300 meters from the Supreme Court building and blew open the trunk of a car owned by Luiz. Other blasts seconds apart went off in front of the court in the square where police found his body.

The Supreme Court justices had just ended a plenary session when the blasts were heard and they evacuated safely, the court said in a statement.

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Lula had left the executive palace, across the square from the court, less than an hour before the explosions.

(Reporting by Bernardo Caram and Anthony Boadle in BrasiliaAdditional reporting by Luana Maria Benedito and Eduardo Simoes in Sao Paulo; Editing by Brad Haynes, Chizu Nomiyama and Alistair Bell)
By Victor Borges, Anthony Boadle and Andre Romani

BRASILIA (Reuters) -A man killed himself with a bomb outside Brazil's Supreme Court after trying to enter the building on Wednesday, officials said, stirring security concerns before the country hosts global leaders from the Group of 20 major economies.

The blasts come five days before the G20 heads of state meet in Rio de Janeiro, followed by a state visit to the capital Brasilia by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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The first of two explosions went off on Wednesday evening in a parking lot near the court building and a second blast came seconds later in front of the court, where the man's body was found.

Federal District Vice Governor Celina Leao said preliminary information suggested the man had killed himself with explosives after trying to enter the Supreme Court. She said he owned a nearby car in which another explosion blew open the trunk.

Leao said she hoped it was the crime of a "lone wolf," but she could not be sure. Police said they had not made a final identification of the dead man as they were confronting the risk of additional explosives on the body.

The explosions took place around the Plaza of the Three Powers, an iconic square in Brasilia connecting the principal buildings of Brazil's three branches of federal government.

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It was the scene of riots on Jan. 8 last year when supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro ransacked the buildings to protest his electoral defeat.

Police deployed a bomb squad with an explosive disposal robot to the square in the heart of Brazilian capital to investigate the blasts.

The Supreme Court justices had just ended a plenary session when the blasts happened and were quickly evacuated safely, the court said in a statement.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had left the executive palace on Wednesday night shortly before the explosions.

(Reporting by Victor Borges and Anthony Boadle in Brasilia and Andre Romani in Sao Paulo; Editing by Brad Haynes, Sandra Maler and Lincoln Feast.)
BOSTON (WWLP)  The Association of Developmental Disabilities Providers held a Breakfast of Champions on Wednesday to honor outgoing legislators who have made significant contributions to the disability community.

This organization works to support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as those with traumatic brain injuries.

Their ceremony focused on lawmakers who introduced and sponsored ground-breaking disability legislation. One honoree was Representative Smitty Pignatelli of the Berkshires.

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While he could not attend in person, his contributions were recognized alongside representatives and senators from across the Commonwealth. He knew his community. I can tell you he knew about the disability community, for starters. He and his family have a long history of serving and supporting individuals with disabilities, said the president of the Berkshire ARC, Maryann Hyatt.

The president of the hosting organization said that while they are grateful for the contributions of these lawmakers, she is looking ahead to what they can accomplish in the next sessionincluding continuing to ensure human services workers are fairly compensated. Were really hoping that we can continue the 480 million dollar investment that the legislature made this year for those rates, to be able to start people at 20 dollars an hour, said the Association of Developmental Disabilities Providers CEO and president, Ellen Attaliades.

She also noted that her organization is looking to foster the next generation of legislative champions.

The new session begins in January, and lawmakers will introduce new bills and priorities for the next two years.

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.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Nov. 13GOSHEN  Three of the individuals accused in the election fraud case during the November 2022 General Election appeared in Superior Court 3 on Thursday with unexpected results.

While current school board member Mario Garber was sentenced in accordance with his plea agreement, his charge was amended down to a misdemeanor by Superior Court 3 Judge Teresa Cataldo.

Garber was sentenced to a year suspended and on probation.

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Meanwhile, Andrea Johnson's trial date was rescheduled from Dec. 2 to May 12 with a pretrial conference scheduled for April 30. Johnson's attorney Phillip Miller said the case could go into a second day of trial due to the number of witnesses, which is not a ton, but noted it's an unusual situation for a level 6 felony. Johnson was the only individual involved who had not previously held a public office.

But the most highly-anticipated individual in the case, former Goshen mayor and school board member Allan Kauffman was originally scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday and wasn't. With a packed courtroom, his attorney Peter Britton, after reading Kauffman's statement and discussing letters in support and "Kauffman's utter lack of prior criminal history, asked Cataldo to reduce the sentence to misdemeanor treatment, like she had done for the other candidates.

The state almost immediately refused and withdrew the plea agreement. More information will be available on goshennews.com and in Thursday's edition of The Goshen News.
WAVERLY TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD)  A $3.9 million project to replace a bridge north of Paw Paw is moving forward.

The Michigan Department of Transportations Local Bridge Advisory Board has approved funding to replace the bridge that carries 40th Street over the Paw Paw River, the Van Buren County Road Commission announced Thursday. The project in Waverly Township is one of just three large bridge replacements across the state to be selected this year, according to the commission.

This award is significant as the VBCRC first began submitting this structure in its annual requests for Local Bridge Funding in 2008, said Managing Director Bret Witkowski in a statement.

Local Bridge funds will cover 90% of the $3.9 million project, the Van Buren County Road Commission says, and Waverly Township and the county road commission are set to split the remaining 10%. The two entities will also split engineering costs, which are not covered by the Local Bridge funds.

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The replacement is expected to take place in 2027.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com.
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (WTNH)  Henry Lee, a forensic scientist known for his role in the OJ Simpson murder trial, stopped by a Bridgeport school to teach students about careers in the field.

Hes like a movie star in this particular field, so I think that having him here today is going to generate a lot of interest in our students, Bullard-Havens Technical High School Principal Susan Foss said.

Yale University launches class on political, cultural impact of Beyonce

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Students did work ahead of time to prepare.

The students all did a research process on this prior, so they had a little bit of his background, said Christopher Derosa, who leads the schools criminal justice and protective service department. But, it has encouraged a lot of students to look into the forensics field.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
(This story was updated to add new information.)

MARTIN COUNTY  A $45 million deal was struck for a Brightline train station in downtown Stuart, just months after city commissioners there rescinded a similar deal.

The new station will be the closest station north of Brightline's West Palm Beach station. Other stations are in Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Aventura, Miami and Orlando. A station also is planned for Cocoa.

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Martin County commissioners approved the station unanimously at a packed County Commission meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 12, with about an equal number of supporters and detractors in the audience.

More: Union wants federal investigation into Brightline, claims company opposes unionization

More: Brightline's focus on trips to Orlando over South Florida commuters: Is it working?

"We should be looking decades into the future," when dealing with transportation and perhaps other issues facing the county, said Commissioner Ed Ciampi.

The Martin Metropolitan Planning Organization, which coordinates transportation improvements in the county, is looking 26 years into the future at the need for roads, Ciampi added.

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Passenger rail will be around for some time to come, he said.

Brightline representatives Brian Kronberg (left), senior vice president of construction and development, and Ben Porritt, senior vice president corporate affairs, listen as residents give public comment on the Brightline station deal during a Martin County Commission meeting Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024, at Commission Chambers in Stuart. Commissioners voted unanimously for a plan to bring a Brightline station to downtown Stuart.

Financial considerations

The station will be on the same spot as originally planned  at 500 Southeast Flagler Ave. on county land in downtown Stuart. Martin County's commitment is capped at $15 million for the estimated $45 million station.

The county will seek grants to make up the difference, but either Brightline or the county can get out of the deal if grants fail to come through by June 30, 2027. Both sides could renegotiate that, said George Stokus, assistant county administrator.

The county may borrow $11.8 million and make payments of $1.05 million a year for 15 years, unless it pays off the loan early.

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The deal would increase neither the county budget nor property taxes, Stokus said.

What will the new commissioners do?

It remains a question whether the deal could be rescinded like it was in Stuart as two new commissioners are sworn in next week. In Stuart, where the Brightline project had full City Commission support, Laura Giobbi and Sean Reed unseated incumbents in the August election and joined Commissioner Christopher Collins in voting to rescind the city's deal with Brightline.

"That's not something we're considering today," said Ben Porritt, Brightline senior vice president of corporate affairs, when asked if Brightline is concerned the deal here could be rescinded.

"The commission spoke unanimously," he said.

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A reversal of Tuesday's decision would require one of the current commissioners, who voted in favor, to change their mind.

New commissioners Eileen Vargas and Blake Capps could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Getting the grants

The county plans to pay for most of the station with grant money from one or more programs.

It already plans to apply through the Federal State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Grant Program but may look at other grants through the Federal Railroad Administration and the Florida Department of Transportation.

A grant through the Federal State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Grant Program could generate $60 million. Application deadline is Dec. 16 and an announcement may be made in April, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.

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More grant money could keep the county's commitment below the $15 million cap, Stokus told commissioners.

What happens next?

If the county gets the grant money, Brightline and the county would start designing and building the station. The county already has $3.2 million for design and permitting, Stokus said.

Brightline will be responsible for building 6.6 miles of safety fence along the tracks.

The station could be operational in 2028, Porritt said.

Brightline would make at least four northbound and four southbound stops during the first three months the station is in service. Following that, the number of stops would depend on demand, officials said.

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"We've always wanted to have a station here in Martin County," Porritt said. "This is the next step in getting that done."

Residents' reaction

"Disappointed," was Palm City resident Jim Fithian's feeling about the approval. "I really didn't hear any compelling arguments for it."

His family has no interest in taking the train, he said. He can drive to Orlando in two hours and Miami in 2. But it makes sense if someone is traveling from Miami to Orlando, he added.

But to Steven Vitale, owner of the Old Colorado Inn in downtown Stuart, the green light for the station is a great thing.

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"It's a big win for my business and all businesses in downtown Stuart and all residents of Martin County, Vitale said.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Brightline's bid for a Martin County station is approved
BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- China has highlighted its commitment to encouraging the long-term operation and development of foreign-funded pharmaceutical companies in the country.

This includes bolstering their research and development capabilities and localized production of high-end products, according to a statement released after a meeting hosted by the National Health Commission earlier this week.

The event, aimed to enhance government-industry communication and refine policies to support the pharmaceutical sector, brought together representatives from a diverse array of pharmaceutical companies, including state-owned and private enterprises, foreign-invested firms, and traditional Chinese medicine producers.

The meeting also underscored the importance of helping domestic pharmaceutical companies expand their global footprint, encouraging international exchange and cooperation for mutual benefit. 
Britain will ban new coal mines in a landmark decision that forms part of Ed Milibands drive to hit net zero.

The Government said it was bringing forward a decision to restrict new licences, ending an era of coal-fired power generation that at its peak supported more than 1m jobs.

It follows the closure of the last UK coal power station in September, ending 142 years of coal-fired generation in the UK.

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Ratcliffe-on-Soar closed on Sep 30 following five decades of service that powered more than 2m homes and produced enough electricity to make more than 1bn cups of tea per day.

The Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, Britains last coal-fired power station, shut in September - Rui Vieira/AP

The Energy Secretary is pushing forward with plans to achieve clean power by 2030, with Britain the first major economy to stop burning coal for power.

Mr Milibands decision to shun coal is in stark contrast to the previous government, which gave the green light to the first new deep coal mine in 30 years.

Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, gave permission for the mine near Whitehaven, Cumbria, in December 2022.

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The mines operator, West Cumbria Mining, said it would extract coking coal for steelmaking in the UK and Europe.

However, Labour effectively sounded the death knell for coal mining in the UK after it said it would not contest a High Court ruling that blocked the mine from being built after a series of legal challenges brought by climate groups.

The UKs first new coal mine in 30 years was planned for Whitehaven in Cumbria until legal challenges derailed the proposals - Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Supporters of the mine warned that coking coal remained vital for a domestic steel industry that would otherwise rely on countries such as China and Russia for imports.

Tata and British Steel have said they plan to eventually move to lower carbon production methods.

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Britain was solely reliant on electricity generated by coal plants at the start of the 20th century, with the fuel continuing to generate 40pc of the UKs power until a decade ago in 2012.

Growth in renewable energy sources has cut this figure to zero.

Michael Shanks, the energy minister, said the decision will help the UK to transition to a more clean, secure energy system.

He said: Coal mining powered this country for over 140 years and we owe a huge debt to workers who kept the lights on for homes and businesses across the country.

Now the UK is in prime position to lead the way in phasing out coal power around the world, which remains the single largest contributor to global emissions.

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By consigning coal power to the past, we can pave the way for a clean, secure energy system that will protect bill payers and create a new generation of skilled workers.

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A group of men ran what is thought to be Britains biggest ever Ponzi scheme, the High Court has ruled, in a case that saw one insider compared to the notorious US fraudster Bernie Madoff.

Mr Justice Miles said in a ruling on Thursday that London Capital & Finance (LCF), which collapsed in 2019 after raising 237m from investors, amounted to a Ponzi scheme.

Former executives at LCF fraudulently collected hundreds of millions of pounds from retail investors through widespread, fundamental and systematic misrepresentations.

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Executives were found to have spent the cash raised from investors on lavish purchases for themselves, including helicopters, diamond earrings, horses, shotguns and membership to Annabels nightclub.

It is believed to be the biggest Ponzi scheme in British history, with creditors now owed 379m.

That is more than double the size of the UKs previous largest Ponzi scam, which saw corrupt businessman Kautilya Pruthi dupe investors out of 115m with some losing homes, pensions and life savings. Pruthi was jailed for 14 years and six months in 2012.

Mr Justice Miles ruled that Michael Andrew Thomas, former chief executive of LCF, and Spencer Golding, former shadow director, were liable for the losses arising from the collapse of LCF after they were found to have breached their duties as directors.

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The pair were dishonestly assisted by Paul Careless, John Russell-Murphy and Robert Sedgwick, meaning they are also liable to compensate LCF for its losses.

The defendants all denied the allegations against them.

The lawsuit was brought by joint administrators of LCF and London Oil & Gas, the main company that LCF lent cash to before its collapse. They claimed more than 177.5m from the defendants.

At issue was whether LCF was a fraud that those involved should be liable for or whether it was a viable business that collapsed because of misfortune.

The court heard that Mr Golding was compared to Bernie Madoff, the Wall Street financier who operated a notorious $65bn Ponzi scheme.

Mr Golding has been compared to Bernie Madoff, the Wall Street financier who operated a notorious $65bn Ponzi scheme - David Karp/AP Photo

Mr Careless, who made the comparison in a text message, claimed in evidence that the remark was a joke made over a drink.

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However, the judge found that, although partly a joke, the comparison would have only been funny if there had been some truth in it.

The court ruled that Mr Golding was the ultimate architect of LCFs fund-raising scheme and had actual or blind-eye knowledge of the fraudulent scheme, making his conduct objectively dishonest throughout.

Ponzi schemes, named after fraudster Charles Ponzi, are scams where investors are promised attractive payouts that are only met by raising new money from other investors. Such schemes amount to a house of cards that ultimately collapses.

Mr Justice Miles said: LCF depended on the use of new bondholder money to meet redemption and interest payments to existing bondholders.

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LCF raised 237m from nearly 12,000 investors, many of them elderly savers, before it collapsed into administration in 2019. The company sold unregulated mini-bonds to investors, promising returns of up to 11pc.

The Financial Conduct Authority has since banned the mass marketing of risky speculative illiquid securities  including mini-bonds  to retail investors.

The court found that LCF presented itself as a commercial lender to borrowers in the small and medium-sized business sector, which saw borrowers pay interest on short-term loans.

In reality, LCF had no independent source of income and relied almost entirely on bringing in new investors.

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It also found that Mr Thomson lied many times, historically and during evidence submitted to the court, and fabricated documents including those shared with auditors at PwC.

The judge added: Thomson deliberately and cynically procured LCF to present itself so as to maximise sales, knowing that bondholders were given a false and misleading story.

The collapsed firm now owes more than 379m to its creditors. The High Court will hold further hearings to decide how much each director will be liable for.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme is expected to recoup the lions share of any funds recovered, having already paid out 172m to bondholders through a government compensation scheme.

Andrew Bailey (third from right) met with LCF protesters over the scandal when he was Financial Conduct Authority chief in 2019 - Julian Andrews

Finbarr OConnell, a restructuring partner at Evelyn Partners, the joint administrator, said that LCFs debtors could now recover very substantial sums from the defendants.

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Andrea Hall, a spokesman for the LCF Bondholders Action Group, said that justice has almost definitely been served.

Ms Hall, who lost 10,000 to LCFs sham investments, added: Our six year-plus campaign to demonstrate misrepresentation and fraud through a Ponzi scheme has finally achieved its aim, despite much stress to many bondholders, many of whom are retired.

Weve been resolute in not giving up until justice is seen to be done.

Amanda Cunningham, a victim who lost more than 10,000 in savings to LCF that was put aside for her sons future, said she hopes the ruling finally concludes the saga.

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Lawyers for Mr Thomson said that he was surprised and disappointed by the terms of the judgment and declined to comment further.

The latest ruling comes months after PwC, EY and Oliver Clive & Co were all fined by the accounting watchdog over failures committed while auditing LCFs company accounts.

The FCA subsequently fined PwC for ignoring red flags after failing to report its suspicions about the defunct companys involvement in fraudulent activity.

The Serious Fraud Offices (SFO) criminal investigation into individuals associated with LCF is ongoing.

Last year the SFO secured a 10-month suspended sentence against Mr Thomson after he breached a restraining order and spent nearly 100,000 of frozen funds on a hot tub, horse saddle, hotel and spa stay in Torquay and holiday in Italy.

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The SFO declined to comment on Thursdays court ruling.

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Britain experienced the biggest surge in immigration of any rich country last year, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

A total of 746,900 new permanent-type migrants moved to the UK last year, the OECD said, up from 488,400 in 2022.

The 52.9pc year-on-year rise in new arrivals outpaced all other OECD members. Of the wealthy nations that make up the OECD club, only South Korea had an increase anywhere near the UKs level. Immigration there rose by 50.9pc to 87,100 last year.

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Britain also reported the second-highest number of immigrants by raw numbers of arrivals. Only the US welcomed more people than Britain last year, with 1.2m people moving to America.

The analysis will pile more pressure on Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, to make good on his promise to get a grip on immigration. Labour said in its manifesto: The overall level must be properly controlled and managed.

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, said the exploding population was putting more strain on the country than anything else.

He said: In six of the last eight quarters, where levels of legal migration were [at] record [levels] in the history of these islands, GDP per capita went down. Mass immigration is making us poorer.

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If you are a large employer, a big multinational, that is great. For everybody else, that is not working at any level.

The flow of immigrants to Britain has more than doubled compared to pre-Covid levels, the OECD analysis shows, rising by 110pc between 2019 and 2023.

Only New Zealand  where the number of arrivals more than tripled over the same period to 119,300  Lithuania and Poland had sharper jumps from pre-Covid levels.

The OECDs definition of permanent-type immigration typically includes workers and their relatives, but not students or refugees from Ukraine, who are considered temporary residents.

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In the UKs case, the OECD said family migration soared, with 373,000 new family migrants in 2023, a 60pc increase compared to 2022. Seventy per cent of family migrants in the United Kingdom were accompanying family members of labour migrants. The health and care visa for accompanying family members accounted for the bulk of the increase.

New care workers using this visa can no longer bring relatives, as of March this year.

The change to family rule was introduced as part of a package designed to reduce immigration numbers. Other changes included increasing the salary threshold to qualify for a skilled worker visa from 26,200 to 38,700 per year.

However, the threshold can be as low as 23,200 for those employed in jobs where the UK has a shortage of candidates, including care workers.

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Indians were the most common nationality among foreign-born people moving permanently to the UK in 2022, the OECD said. They were followed by Nigerians and Chinese.

Separate figures published earlier this week showed that 7m foreign-born workers were now employed in the UK, a record high. Conversely, the number of British-born people in work is still more than 800,000 below its pre-Covid level.

The sharp rise in the number of people coming to the UK comes as immigration across the rich world reaches record highs, the OECD said, with sweeping political ramifications. The think tank said 6.5m people moved permanently to the OECDs 38 nations last year, a figure that does not include asylum seekers and temporary migrants.

Not only have 6.5m permanent migrants arrived in the last year, but the number of temporary migrants and asylum seekers has skyrocketed, the think tank said.

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These high flows have fuelled widespread concern about migrants impact on receiving countries economies and societies, putting migration management and border control at the top of political agendas and the centre of voters interests in 2024 elections.

Mr Farage called on the Government to bring net migration to zero, meaning inflows would match outflows.

He said: You have to aim for net zero  net zero migration over the course of the next few years. Basically we have to stop population growth through immigration.

The MP for Clacton added: I thought Blair was bad but the Conservatives were even worse.

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Britain also issued more student visas than any other OECD nation, approving almost 450,000 applications last year. That was up by almost one fifth from 2019s figure, though down by 6pc from 2022s level.

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An Italian court has ruled that seven men detained in a migration hub in Albania will have to be transferred back to Italy. The Italian-Albanian migration deal was the latest attempt by a European government to deter illegal immigration through offshoring. Under its terms, illegal immigrants rescued by the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean could be removed to Albania for their asylum claims to be processed.

Despite extensive hedging  only adult male asylum seekers who came from safe countries like Bangladesh could be sent to Albania  only 24 migrants have been sent to the country, and courts have ruled that all must be returned to Italy. Prime minister Meloni has attacked the politicised magistrates who want to abolish Italys borders but the real fault lies with our asylum laws, which were drawn up before the age of easy travel and make it impossible to control our borders.

In 2023 there were over a million first-time asylum applications in the EU. Polls show that millions more would like to come, if they could afford to. Under existing laws, many would be eligible for asylum just because they come from dangerous countries.

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The European Court of Justice recently ruled that all Afghan women were eligible for asylum on the basis of their sex and nationality alone. Others are able to game the system, like the recent discovery in Germany that hundreds of asylum seekers had returned to their home countries in order to holiday.

Many politicians know that there is little they can do within the current framework of human rights law, so that even foreign drug dealers can escape deportation on spurious grounds. That means that increasingly the only way to stop asylum seekers being able to stay is to stop them from reaching our countries in the first place or to remove them immediately. That was the idea behind Britains Rwanda plan and also Melonis deal with Albania. But human rights law has been able to frustrate all attempts to make such offshoring work so far.

This is causing European politics to destabilise, as voters demand borders and politicians fail to deliver on their promises to do so. The rise of populist right parties over the last decade is almost entirely down to the failure to control borders. Some are now going into government, as in the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders party is a core part of the coalition government, where it is shaping migration policy. These plans include abolishing permanent residence for asylum seekers, temporary border controls, and declaring parts of Syria safe so Syrians can be returned there.

Although critics have called these measures and attempts at offshoring extreme, to demand that countries accept large numbers of asylum seekers every year, even when they arrived illegally or commit crimes, is extreme.

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By constantly expanding human rights law in favour of illegal immigrants and refusing to compromise, supporters of human rights law are pushing politicians towards needing to withdraw from these international agreements in order to protect their countries and respect the wishes of voters.

With President-elect Trumps victory, where opposition to immigration played a major role in his campaign, some Europeans might find an example to imitate. Hes promised the largest deportations in American history, aimed at the 11 million illegal immigrants living in the USA.

This could also include offshore processing for migrants, possibly in Guatemala, completing his border wall, using the military or National Guard to remove illegal immigrants under the Insurrection Act or even using the Alien Enemies Act to detain illegal immigrants without a hearing.

In his last presidency, he was able to deport significant numbers but was also frustrated by the law. This time, Trumps team has warned those who try to hinder them to get the hell out of the way. If he is successful, some European leaders will look to America.

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A Trumpian mix of high growth and strong borders will be increasingly attractive as Europe, and Britain, face the economic ruin promised by net zero policies and the high costs of paying for an ever-increasing number of asylum seekers.

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With Trump sweeping to victory in America and Europe lurching to the Right, Britains Government is starting to look like the last Japanese holdouts after the Second World War.

The rest of the world has realised that many of the asylum seekers arriving in the West look a lot more like economic migrants than genuine attempts to flee war and peril; Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, is still mouthing worn-out lines about smashing the gangs.

Sir Keirs big speech on the importance of dealing with the issue was backed with about 75m in added funding for his Border Security Command; about 1.6pc of what we spend on supporting asylum seekers in the UK, or a little under four hours of NHS spending.

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This isnt a serious commitment, because smashing the gangs isnt a serious policy; its a slogan.

Small wonder people in the Home Office are sceptical about it: does the PM really think well disrupt networks operating in uncooperative countries across a continent with a budget of 150m over two years, and a hundred people in an office off Whitehall?

Will his pursuit really be so ruthlessly effective that gangs charging thousands for a place in a boat will dissolve without replacement? Or is the idea instead that a few announcements simply take the spotlight off the Government for a few days?

The gangs are not the cause of the problem, theyre enablers of it. The fundamental issue is the UKs failure to address the factors that make the country so attractive to irregular migration.

The economics of this arent hard to parse. People flow from areas where life is difficult to places where life is easier. The UK puts asylum seekers up in hotels, has a large and flexible labour market, a thriving shadow economy and exerts minimal effort to remove those with no right to stay here.

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The result is a stream of people traipsing through safe, prosperous countries in Europe for a chance at claiming asylum in Britain.

And why wouldnt they? If youre sitting in France eyeing a journey across the Channel, youre likely to be well aware of two things.

The first is that if you dump your papers in the water and claim to be persecuted, you have an excellent chance of being granted asylum and the right to stay and work. In 2023, France accepted 31pc of the claims it received before appeals. Britain accepted 67pc, making 63,010 grants of asylum  21,000 more than France, with 38,000 fewer applications.

No country in the EU with more than 20,000 total applications had a higher acceptance rate than Britain. Better still, with the Labour Party eager to clear the backlog, the direction of travel appears to be towards rubber-stamping claims in order to empty the asylum hotels.

The second thing youll be aware of is that if your claim doesnt succeed, you can probably stay anyway.

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The UK is believed to have the largest population of illegal migrants in Europe with up to 745,000 people living here without permission. If anything this number is likely to be a significant underestimate: its seven years out of date and may have been low at the time; the Pew Research Center provided an estimate of up to 1.2m in the same year. Moreover, just 41pc of those turned down for asylum between 2010 and 2020 had been removed from the UK by 2022.

Better still, your chances of being caught working illegally are miniscule; we conduct roughly 11 illegal working enforcement visits a day across the entire country, against an old estimate of somewhere between 190,000 and 240,000 businesses employing illegal migrants.

Even if we had a list of which doors to knock on it would take us over 57 years to visit them all at our current rate. For every pound we spend on immigration enforcement, we spend 9 supporting and accommodating asylum seekers.

If Starmer and co actually want to smash the gangs, they should smash their revenue model. The best way of doing that is to take a leaf out of Trumps book and commit to a policy of mass deportation.

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If you live here illegally or cross the Channel on a small boat, you end up on a flight home or to whichever third country will take you.

The long-term benefits could be significant. The Office for Budget Responsibility has calculated that low-skilled migrants arriving for work present a net cost to the taxpayer of 150,000 by the age of 65, 500,000 by 80 and over 1m by the age of 100.

Asylum seekers have no recourse to public funds, although are still accommodated by the taxpayer, given full access to state-funded healthcare, offered financial support for living expenses and enjoy full entitlement to education services. Once a claim is accepted, however, then entitlement to public funds flows with it, and the full set of expenses.

Meanwhile, people who originally came to Britain for asylum are far less likely to be employed than their UK peers  with an employment rate of 51pc compared to 73pc  and earn 55pc less per week, while reporting significantly higher rates of long-term health conditions.

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In other words, we have a cohort of people uniquely positioned at the intersection of low fiscal benefit and high fiscal cost, coming across the Channel in significant numbers. The University of Amsterdam, for instance, has estimated that asylum seekers in Holland end up costing the state 300,000 over their lifetimes. Some will be genuine refugees and deserving of our support.

But even if it costs 100,000 to get one Channel migrant on the flight home before they retire, it would be more than worth it to deport those gaming the system.

Doing so may not be easy. The entire edifice of human rights law is essentially structured to strip control from politicians and ensure that the stream of people can continue to flow  see for instance Giorgia Melonis recent judicial setback over her migration hub in Albania.

But the status quo is clearly intolerable. The will to reform a broken system designed to deal with the world as it was half a century ago is growing.

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Donald Trumps choice of Tulsi Gabbard as his intelligence chief is an alarming move given her history of support for Russia, British defence figures have said.

On Wednesday, the president-elect nominated Ms Gabbard to be his director of national intelligence, a role overseeing Americas 18 intelligence agencies.

Ms Gabbard, 43, has repeated Russian propaganda over Ukrainian biolabs, backed Moscows case for war, and met twice with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad after dismissing reports about his use of chemical weapons.

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Her appointment has sparked concern over potential reductions in intelligence-sharing across the Five Eyes alliance.

Ms Gabbard, who ran for president as a Democrat before leaving the party in 2022, endorsed Mr Trump in August and appeared regularly with him on the campaign trail

Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of Mi6, said: This is a maverick appointment. She has no experience of intelligence and security. We have to see how this plays out once shes in the job.

Philip Ingram, a former senior intelligence and security officer in the British Army, said: I think appointing anyone with zero intelligence experience to be director of national intelligence should be an alarm call.

Ms Gabbards appointment has sparked concern over potential reductions in intelligence-sharing

One Western intelligence source told Politico that Ms Gabbards appointment could impact intelligence-sharing.

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What some allies share may now be shaped by political goals rather than professional intelligence-sharing, they said.

Hamish de Bretton Gordon, a former commander of Natos chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear battalion, warned the US-UK alliance could be impacted.

The greatest strength perhaps of the special relationship is the sharing of intelligence, he told The Daily Telegraph.

But the appointment of Ms Gabbard, who seems closer to Moscow than London, has the potential to destabilise this unique and critical alliance.

Ms Gabbard, who ran for president as a Democrat before leaving the party in 2022, endorsed Mr Trump in August and appeared regularly with him on the campaign trail.

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US media reported on Thursday night that British firebrand Trump loyalist Sebastaian Gorka was in the running to be Ms Gabbards deputy.

One Western intelligence source says that Ms Gabbards appointment could impact intelligence-sharing - Scott Olson/Getty Images North America

Mr Trumps cabinet choices cross the spectrum on their approach to US involvement in foreign wars, from neo-conservative hawk Marco Rubio, the new secretary of state, to isolationists in the form of JD Vance and Ms Gabbard.

Even within Mr Trumps national security team, there are profound differences of approach: Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host chosen as defence secretary, has repeatedly supported arming Ukraine all the way to victory against Vladimir Putin.

On Friday, some Republicans expressed doubts that Mr Trumps unorthodox cabinet selections would all be confirmed by the senate.

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The decision to appoint the role of attorney general to Matt Gaetz, who has been under investigation over allegations he had sex with a 17-year-old girl, has drawn particular scrutiny.

Max Miller, a Republican congressman and former aide to Mr Trump, said Mr Gaetz had a better shot at having dinner with Queen Elizabeth II than being confirmed by the senate.

Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat representative for Virginia and former CIA officer, said she was appalled at Trumps choice of Ms Gabbard.

Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she traffics in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar-al Assad and Vladimir Putin.

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As a Member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security.

British Government sources stressed that Ms Gabbard was only a nomination at this stage. A process has to happen. Its very early days.

They added that if she were to take up the position America would remain the UKs closest ally and there would be no issues with the relationship between the two nations.

Ms Gabbard will oversee Americas 18 intelligence agencies

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Mr De Bretton-Gordon said Ms Gabbards appointment could embolden Putin.

In these really challenging times where margins are fine, any hint that the USs senior security minister is anything other than completely USA or pro-Nato could give Putin the chink of light that he needs to be bolder in his actions against Ukraine in the knowledge that the new administration might not be so proactive in preventing his warcrimes.

Justin Crump, a geopolitical risk expert, said: Five Eyes countries have to trust each other, which will be jeopardised by unpredictable and adversarial leadership in the largest player. Most will just dig in and get on with the urgent job, but I suspect there may be a period of a lot more uncertainty over quite how much should be shared.

Mr Ingram, the former intelligence officer, said Ms Gabbards appointment would not impact intelligence-sharing at a professional intelligence level.

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But I suspect agencies will be adapting how they brief their principals and what level of detail is in the briefings.

Mr Trump may have chosen to select Mr Hegseth and Ms Gabbard to further his aims of cutting back the government.

I would suggest this is possibly to enable Elon Musk in his efficiency drive to go through two of the most expensive US government departments without someone with the political nouse or experience to protect them, he said.

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Production of UK-made Typhoon jets has essentially stopped amid fears the Royal Air Force will buy US-made aircraft instead.

A BAE Systems plant near Preston was until recently assembling the jets for Qatar following a 6bn order placed by the country seven years ago.

But union chiefs have warned that with that work now winding up, and no similar orders outstanding, essentially production has stopped for British-built Typhoon aircraft.

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The factory, which is part of the Eurofighter consortium, still makes front fuselages for jets ordered by Germany, Spain and other countries, but these are sent abroad for final assembly of the aircraft in Europe.

At the same time, workers have been left rattled by reports that UK officials are currently leaning towards buying more F-35 stealth jets from US giant Lockheed Martin instead of ordering more Typhoons.

In a letter to MPs on the defence select committee, Steve McGuinness, a Unite executive council member, said: As it stands, there are currently no Typhoons being final-assembled at Warton site and no orders for any future aircraft.

Essentially production has stopped for British-built Typhoon aircraft.

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We are becoming increasingly concerned with reports that the Typhoons being retired from active RAF service are to be replaced with American-built F-35A aircraft.

This would be a hammer blow to the British aircraft industry and potentially could end the design, manufacture and assembly of fast jets in this country, seriously damaging our sovereign capability.

UK officials are reportedly leaning towards buying more F-35 stealth jets from US giant Lockheed Martin - Neil Hall/Shutterstock

The warning comes after defence trade publication Janes reported that UK officials were inclined to increase combat aviation forces through a follow-on buy of the Lockheed Martin F-35B rather than acquiring more Eurofighter Typhoons.

It quoted an official who said: We have a foot in both [the F-35 and Eurofighter] camps, and for the RAF I very much see that the F-35 is where we are looking to add combat mass.

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Publicly, ministers have remained tight-lipped about their future procurement plans while a strategic defence review rumbles on. That is not expected to conclude until the spring.

But Mr McGuiness said the Government should instead urgently commit to ordering a squadron of 24 Typhoon jets, adding that the UK was currently the only member of the Eurofighter consortium with no new aircraft on order.

Germany said it was ordering an additional 20 Eurofighter jets in June, adding to 38 it already has in the pipeline, following Russias invasion of Ukraine. Those will be assembled by Airbus on the Continent.

Britain should follow suit to bolster its own air force and retain skills needed to develop the next-generation Tempest fighter, also known as the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), Mr McGuinness argued.

He added: A domestic order will not only fulfil a military requirement for the RAF in these unstable times but will also ensure that vital skills required to build the next-generation aircraft, are retained at Warton.

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Without a domestic order for Typhoon there will be no GCAP due to the loss of the skills necessary to build and fly aircraft.

Furthermore we feel a domestic order will give other nations considering buying Typhoon off the UK the confidence to invest in the platform providing export revenue to the country and ensuring the longevity of our sites.

Typhoon jets have been produced at Warton in three tranches for more than 25 years, with a total of 160 ordered by the Royal Air Force in that time.

However, Britains last order  in the third tranche  was placed in 2009 and no new aircraft have been ordered since. The last jet produced at Warton for the RAF was delivered in 2019.

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On Wednesday, BAE Systems stressed that production was set to continue at Warton until at least the late 2020s.

However, it is understood the factory could also benefit from future orders by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Poland, among other potential buyers.

Turkey is thought to be lining up to place an order of 40 jets and on Wednesday a Turkish minister claimed the path to a deal had been cleared by the lifting of previous German objections.

If confirmed, that would almost certainly result in more jets being assembled at Warton.

A BAE spokesman said: Typhoon manufacturing is currently underpinned by the orders from Qatar, Germany and Spain which will ensure continuity of production of major units beyond the late-2020s.

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BOSTON, Mass. (SHNS)Two outpatient clinics in Foxborough that were expected to close last week have gained a new owner and remain open, marking the latest reshuffling of health care operations in Massachusetts amid the Steward bankruptcy saga.

Norwood Hospital Cancer Care Center at Foxboro and Foxboro, two of four satellite facilities that were linked to the Norwood Hospital license that expired Nov. 5, are continuing to serve patients, Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein announced Wednesday.

Baystate Health eliminates 134 leadership positions

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Steward Health Care revealed plans last month to abandon Norwood Hospital, which was being rebuilt after catastrophic flooding in 2020, and four affiliated outpatient clinics. Construction stalled on the hospital earlier this year.

But Goldstein said Morton Hospital in Taunton, a former Steward facility now operated by Brown University Health, has taken over the licenses of two clinics in Foxborough. The facilities have been renamed Brown University Health Cancer Institute in Foxborough and Brown University Healthcare Center in Foxborough, Goldstein said.

Goldstein, speaking during a Public Health Council meeting, did not discuss the status of the other two satellite clinics in Norwood, which are Norwood Performance Therapy and Guild Imaging Center of Norwood Hospital. As for the future of Norwood Hospital, Goldstein said a potential future operator would need to seek regulatory approval through the Department of Public Health.

In another post-Steward licensure change, Goldstein said Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, which is now owned by Boston Medical Center, was given a license to open and operate a geriatric psychiatric unit.

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The opening of these beds is important to help address the demand for this kind of care and to replace the beds that were lost when Carney Hospital and Nashoba Valley Medical Center closed, Goldstein said, referencing two Steward hospitals in Dorchester and Ayer that closed their doors this summer.

Working groups assessing the impact of the closures are continuing to meet as they aim to develop a report with recommendations about community health needs, Goldstein said.

So far these groups have been gathering data, engaging with communities and learning about specific gaps in health care services, the commissioner said. Both groups expect to provide their reports to the governor early next year.

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MONSON, Mass. (WWLP)  Despite the cooler weather, elevated wildfire risk continues for all of Massachusetts.

Dry weather raises concerns for Christmas tree farms

22News spoke to the Monson Fire Department which is still working to put out a fire that started in late October.

The two largest factors keeping this fire going are high wind speeds and low precipitation. Humidity levels during the evening have risen enough to keep embers from reigniting. Monson Fire Captain Lisa Hamill spoke about why these fires are still happening despite the Red Flag Warnings.

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People think if I dont put anything hot outside, Im fine, Im not having a campfire so Im fine, Im not burning brush so Im fine, but its anything that can create a spark, says Captain Hamill.

The current drought stage is severe in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties. With little rain expected shortly, this trend is expected to continue.

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.

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Nov. 14Construction on Ohio's first Buc-ee's travel center in Huber Heights is "now delayed" and construction on the site has stopped due to an ongoing lawsuit between the city and Clark County, according to representatives for the Texas-based company.

Clark County commissioners and the city of Huber Heights have been engaged in litigation for more than a year related to the provision of water and sewer services in the area of CenterPoint 70 Boulevard and the I-70/Ohio 235 interchange in Huber Heights, specifically as it relates to the Buc-ee's site.

An attorney for Buc-ee's filed a brief recently in Clark County Common Pleas Court seeking a timely resolution to the matter.

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"Crews have been ready and willing to work to meet an anticipated construction deadline of late 2025. However, construction is now delayed due to the ongoing dispute," the filing reads. "... (I)f the court delays a decision granting one of the cross-motions, or otherwise denies both requests for summary judgement, Buc-ee's and the Huber Heights community will face delays with opening this location."

Preliminary ground work on the site has been ongoing for weeks, and piping, trucks and building materials remain on the site.

The Clark County commissioners first filed a court complaint against the city in July 2023, claiming Huber Heights' 20-year wastewater treatment services contract with the city of Fairborn, which the city entered into in 2022 as part of its east sewer main extension project, may violate a similar set of contracts between Clark County and Huber Heights.

The county is requesting the court rule it has sole right and authority to operate water and sewer in the service areas outlined in the agreement, which includes the Buc-ee's project site.

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The city has asserted it is not contractually obligated to connect to Clark County services and requests a court ruling affirming the same.

In its brief, an attorney for Buc-ee's posits the company has no stake in the issue other than its requirement to be serviced by one of the municipalities.

"Buc-ee's favors neither Huber Heights nor Clark County in the above-mentioned dispute. Instead, Buc-ee's primary interest is to ensure the timely resolution of the dispute so that it can regain access to water and sewer services," the filing reads. "Without these services, Buc-ee's cannot complete construction or open business at the Huber Heights location."

Huber Heights Mayor Jeff Gore stressed that the ongoing litigation between the city and Clark County will not be a detriment to the store's opening.

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"As we've stated all along, the sewer and water will be there when they need it regardless of who is providing it," Gore said via email Thursday.

In an email to this newspaper Wednesday, a Buc-ee's representative reiterated the brief's assertion that the project is delayed and added that "all work has stopped."

"The Huber Heights project has been delayed as a result of the dispute between the city and the county," the email affirmed. "Buc-ee's is not a participant in the litigation and remains hopeful for a timely resolution."

Back in August, during a groundbreaking ceremony kicking off construction of the 74,000-square-foot store, Buc-ee's owner Arch "Beaver" Aplin III said he expected to return to Huber Heights for a grand opening by Christmas 2025.

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The company representative did not specify in his Wednesday statement to what extent, if any, the pause in construction may have on the store's estimated completion date at this point.

Assistant City Manager Aaron Sorrell, who also serves as the city planner for Huber Heights, said via email this week that the ongoing lawsuit is not solely to blame for the pause in construction.

Things have slowed, he said, as work related to the provision of power for the future store is completed on and near the site.

"... AES (is) scheduling a relocation of overhead power lines that bisect the building pad," Sorrell said. "Those lines need to be moved, and once that's done we can energize the lift station we constructed."

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Sorrell also noted the city has provided Buc-ee's with water for use during the construction process up to this point.

"I think the main point of (the Buc-ee's) filing is to express a sense of urgency to resolve this matter," Sorrell wrote.
KABUL, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan caretaker government's Ministry of Education has built 125 school buildings over the past six months across the country, spokesman for the ministry reported.

Built at a cost of nearly 18 million U.S. dollars, the school buildings have been constructed with the financial support of aid organizations and wealthy persons, local media Tolonews quoted Mansoor Ahmad Hamza, spokesman for the ministry, as saying on Thursday.

Hamza added that about 11 million children are currently attending state-owned and private schools in the war-ravaged Asian country.

Based on restrictions by the Afghan caretaker government, girls cannot attend classes above grade six, and females are banned from universities until further notice. 
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has warned that Labours Budget will mean eye-watering cuts to the services his officers can offer the public.

Sir Mark Rowley said he was deeply troubled by the situation we appear to be heading towards in an interview with BBC Radio 4s Political Thinking podcast.

Britains most senior police officer said the accumulated impact of previous spending cuts, coupled with the most recent spending targets for the public sector, would require difficult choices of his force.

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The Chancellor has been very clear  its a difficult public sector context, Sir Mark said.

Dramatic change in budgets

You add all those things together. And you get a dramatic change in budgets and of a scale thats never going to be absorbed by efficiencies. And its going to require some pretty eye-watering cuts to the services we provide to London.

Sir Mark told Nick Robinson that there was little, if any, scope left for efficiency savings and front-line services could well suffer as a result.

This is not just about this years decisions, but its a cumulative effect of decisions over the last decade or so which have put us in a more and more precarious position, he said.

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Some of the things that successive commissioners and mayors have used to balance the books  like selling police stations and using reserves  all of those things have run out. So those are propped up in the budget. Those props have gone.

Without fear or favour

The Commissioner also defended his force against charges of woke two-tier policing and claims his force treated Left-wing protests and causes leniently.

Sir Mark said: On the same day, on the same protest or the same event, officers are called fascist and woke. I mean, thats slightly ridiculous.

On the same day, officers will have allegations that all officers are sort of racist and bigoted, and then someone else saying its two-tier policing and officers are somehow cosying up to minorities and not being neutral. I mean, this is the consequence of being a service that operates in the middle without fear or favour under the law.

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He added: Were always going to be ones in the crossfire. And we have to robustly and determinedly hold that line of independence under the law.

In the interview, Sir Mark contrasts the experience of todays front-line officers with his own as a young policeman in Birmingham three decades ago, suggesting that they operate under far more scrutiny than previously.

It does risk narrowing the recruitment pool, and beyond that, it makes officers at work more cautious about their decisions, he said.

Brutal operating environment

They sometimes stand off things. They dont want to get trained to do pursuits. They dont get trained to use tasers there.

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Theyre nervous about the spectre of scrutiny. They hand in their public order tickets because they dont want the cameras in their faces. Weve had officers policing marches and demonstrations whove been set up by stickers being put on them in incidents and then got death threats online. Its just a brutal operating environment.

Sir Marks comments come after the prosecution of an armed Metropolitan Police officer who was accused of murdering Chris Kaba.

Sgt Martyn Blake was cleared by an Old Bailey jury last month after shooting the 24-year-old gangster during a police vehicle stop in Streatham in Sept 2022.

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ODESSA, Texas (KMID/KPEJ)  This week is Anti-Bullying Week and a counselor at Gale Pond Alamo Elementary is sharing the signs parents should look out for in their children.

I think everyone can have a bad day, so theres a difference between someone just coming to school and having a bad day and being mean and there is something that is continuous and it is harmful and that is bullying, in it being repeated, said Celeste Galindo, a counselor at Gale Pond Elementary.

There are a variety of signs parents should look out for, Galindo said.

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Low energy, and also if you see them not really wanting to come school, she said. Just really asking them how their day is going, and if theyre telling you I dont really want to go to, ask them, why. Really inquire about whats going on.

Health Aware: Local doctor gives inside look at how AI in healthcare improves patient services

The Texas Anti-Bullying Coalition shared that more then one in every five kids experience bullying, but school intervention programs can lower that number by 25%.

We always tell our kids that we are always here to keep you safe, Galindo said. It is our job to keep you safe.

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Galindo also shares that her school teaches students the differences between being mean, being rude and bullying and encourages her students to report any signs of bullying to a trusted adult.

If you or someone you know is experiencing bullying, you can visit https://www.stopbullying.gov/ for resources or call or text 988.

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BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB)  The Children Left Behind Christmas Gifting program is now underway on behalf of Bundle of Hope Adoption and Family Services.

This program helps give underprivileged children gifts at Christmas time. These children come from single-parent homes, have a parent incarcerated, or have a parent who is terminally ill.

Hope Christmas trees are now set up at several businesses across Bay County, containing tags with a childs name, age, and wish list.

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The tag will also include the childs shoe size.

Event organizers are calling upon the community to grab a tag off the tree fulfill three of the childs wishes and purchase a pair of shoes.

You can find these trees with those childrens wish lists at the following locations:

The Grand Marlin Restaurant

J. Michaels Restaurant

Finns Barista

Hairology

Rx Express Pharmacy

Liv Aesthetician

Outback Steakhouse

Think Real Estate

State Attorneys Office

Cove Condominium

Beverly McManus, Therapist

Kelsey Adams, Benchmark

Project inSPIRE brings aviation center to Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport

Last year, the program was able to help provide Christmas to 300 children.

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This year, there are 500 tags spread across the county on the Hope trees.

On Dec. 15, event organizers will host a party where theyll gift the toys to the children.

Richardson Carr says they are still looking for some volunteers to help distribute those toys that day.

Were looking for a few more elves to help us give out these packages to the kids, Carr added.

That party will be held at Captains Table in Panama City from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Dec. 15.

Glenda Richardson Carr is an advocate for children

To learn more about Bundle of Hope or the Children Left Behind Christmas Gifting program, click here.

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ELMIRA, N.Y.(WETM)  A statewide burn ban is in affect for New York until November 30th.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul spoke on November 12 about the burn ban and the reason behind it. There are wildfires happening in southeastern New York and in northern New Jersey.

Blood drives coming to the Southern Tier in November

There are no Hochul wants to make sure that there is enough resources to help fight this.

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Were announcing today a statewide burn ban. Because the threats are too great. And we cannot have our resources directed to smaller fires. We need all hands on deck on the major scale fires we have here. So, Im asking everyone to comply with this until further notice.

Arctic League kicks off 2024 Christmas season

New York state hasnt seen much rain lately. So, the ground is very dry. This is why fires are starting so easily. New York City and Long Island are in red flag warnings, but the Twin Tiers doesnt have any alerts from the National Weather Service at this time.

The ban states that brush fires are highly discouraged. You can cook on a grill, but be extra careful and dont let charcoal fall outside the grill. It is encouraged to not start any fires while in this burn ban.

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New York continues to be dry. To take a look at the drought monitor, you can click here.

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WASHINGTON (AP)  Burt Bacharach, one of the most celebrated and popular composers and songwriters of the 20th century, will have his papers donated to the Library of Congress.

Bacharach's widow Jane Bacharach, who made the donation, and the Library of Congress, announced the acquisition in a statement Thursday.

The collection includes thousands of music scores and parts, including his arrangement of The Look of Love, and musical sketches for songs including Alfie and Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.

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Bacharach delighted millions in the 1960s and '70s with those and other quirky and unforgettable melodies including Walk on By, Do You Know the Way to San Jose, Close to You and dozens of other hits.

The Grammy, Oscar and Tony winner died last year at age 94.

Jane Bacharach said in a statement that she chose the institution because Burt Bacharach and songwriting partner Hal David received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2012, and Bacharach valued it above all his other awards. It's the first time the library has acquired a collection from one of its Gershwin recipients.

Burt poured his heart and soul into his music, and we are so proud that the Library will give others the opportunity to visit and enjoy his legacy, her statement said.

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The collection will become available for researchers in the summer of 2025.

The Library is proud to be entrusted with ensuring Bacharachs music and legacy will remain accessible for future generations, in hopes of inspiring them with his creativity and distinctly American musical genius, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said in statement.

Bacharach's papers will join the collected manuscripts and papers of Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Billy Strayhorn, Leonard Bernstein and Henry Mancini at the library.
Three suspects in Kent have been stealing from businesses by tricking employees into issuing refunds after manually entering their card numbers.

Imagine you are an employee at a busy store and a customer comes to the register with a few things to purchase. The customer then tells you that they need to manually enter their credit card information because their tap to pay option isnt working. They ask you to hand them the payment device because they dont trust anyone with their card information. The suspects then quickly authorized a refund to their card for items they had not bought.

This is the trick many businesses in Kent told police happened to them.

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One of the businesses told police they lost $500, while another store reported losing $1,500.

Police describe the suspects as three young black men who were last seen driving a 2006 gray BMW with Washington plates.

The suspects will act aggressively to keep cashier employees distracted.

Kent police advise employees to never hand over payment devices. Instead, they should offer to manually enter the information for customers or call the police if they feel threatened.

Anyone with information about the suspects can leave a tip at KPTTipLine@kentwa.gov or call the Kent PD Tip Line @ 253-856-5808.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP)  Several business owners at the struggling corner where George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020 are suing the city to demand it take over their properties and compensate them.

The owners of the Cup Foods convenience store and other businesses operating near 38th Street and Chicago Avenue argue that the city's failure to address deterioration and crime in the neighborhood has ruined their businesses and constitutes an unlawful taking of their property without just compensation, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported Thursday. They're seeking $30 million in damages.

The area, now known as George Floyd Square, has become a place of pilgrimage for social justice supporters from across the country, and the store has renamed itself Unity Foods. But business owners say they haven't benefitted, while activists and officials remain divided over how to transform the intersection while keeping it as a permanent memorial.

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Floyd died after a white officer pinned his neck to the pavement outside Cup Foods for 9 1/2 minutes despite the Black mans pleas of I cant breathe. The ensuing protests, which turned violent at times, tested the leadership of Gov. Tim Walz at one of the states most consequential moments, and sparking a nationwide reckoning over racism and police misconduct. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted of murder.

The legal action, filed last week in Hennepin County District Court, argues that the businesses have lost revenue, real estate value, reputation, and tenant and rental income. It argues that the city's decisions led to higher crime and created a no go zone for police in the area. It replaces an earlier lawsuit by the businesses that was dismissed two months ago.

Michael Healey, the lawyer representing the businesses, told the Star Tribune there are two possible outcomes. The businesses "could conceivably keep the property if a settlement is reached with the city on the diminished value, he said. The other possibility is that the city could begin the process of taking the properties and compensating the owners.

A city spokesperson said in a statement that while it cant comment on pending litigation, the city understands the challenges that residents and businesses have confronted in the wake of George Floyds murder.
Sixty-three-year-old David Frahm is a father and grandfather. He and his wife met in college and have been married for 39 years.

The Trenton resident worked at a Lebanon-based equipment manufacturing company for more than two decades. He had no criminal record.

But for unknown reasons, Frahm told a federal judge Thursday, he "fell into this trap."

According to Frahm, in his early 60s, he began viewing images and videos of children being sexually abused. Then he sexually exploited two children, creating photos of them touching his genitals. One child was approximately 5 years old. The other was 10 months old, according to prosecutors.

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The images were created in three separate months in 2022, court documents say. Frahm, who used an unidentified smartphone app to chat about sexually abusing children and share images of that abuse, distributed the photos to an individual in South Carolina.

In one chat, Frahm said, "5-12-year-old(s)  are fave."

Prosecutor: Frahm intended to escalate behavior

At a sentencing Thursday in federal court in Cincinnati, prosecutors said Frahm was a danger to the community.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle Healey focused on one particular statement by Frahm in a March 28, 2023 chat. Another user asked Frahm, whose user name was "DJMILKXXX," if he had experience with minors.

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Frahm responded: "Only had a couple of them feel my (expletive)  haven't had the opportunity to get further."

Healey said that statement showed Frahm intended to escalate his behavior.

Likely life sentence

U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett sentenced Frahm to 25 years in prison. Frahm pleaded guilty in May to two counts of sexual exploitation of children.

Frahm's federal public defender, Karen Savir, had argued that even a 15-year sentence  the mandatory minimum under federal law he faced  would likely be a life sentence.

Frahm has serious heart problems and a history of heart attacks, Savir said. A doctor estimated that he will live for 16 more years.

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Frahm read from a handwritten statement, saying that the remorse he feels for those he hurt "overwhelms me."

That remorse "for my deplorable actions will remain with me forever," he said.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Man sentenced for sexually exploiting children, including 10-month-old
SACRAMENTO, California  Four Californians allegedly used a bear costume to damage their luxury vehicles and claim insurance payouts, California officials announced Wednesday.

State Insurance Department officials said they had investigated claims that a bear clawed its way into a 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350 on Jan. 28 in the forested resort town of Lake Arrowhead, causing interior damage. The suspects' insurance company, which officials did not name, sought an investigation after reviewing the attached grainy black-and-white video footage.

Insurance Department detectives reviewed the footage, which showed a large, furry creature entering the vehicles and causing scratches and other interior damages, and concluded "it was actually a person in a bear costume." The detectives nicknamed their investigation Operation Bear Claw.

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To further ensure it was not actually a bear in the video, the Department had a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife review the three alleged bear videos and they also opined it was clearly a human in a bear suit, the Insurance Department said in a release.

Detectives found a bear costume and meat claws, which are used by chefs to shred meat, in the suspects home after executing a search warrant.

Police arrested the four suspects on insurance fraud and conspiracy charges.

The San Bernardino County District Attorney's office, which is prosecuting the suspects, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The allegedly fraudulent payout was $141,839, the Insurance Department said.
COLOMBO, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lankan navy on Thursday arrested six suspects from a local multi-day fishing trawler for smuggling narcotics, the navy said in a statement.

A special operation mounted by the navy on the high seas west of Sri Lanka led to the interception of a local multi-day fishing trawler. It was suspected that the trawler was carrying about 60 kg of narcotics.

The navy said the boat and suspects were being escorted back to shore for further investigation and legal action.

Each year, the Sri Lankan navy intercepts large amounts of drugs and contraband off the country's coasts.

Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 8 this year, the navy had seized drugs valued at over 15 billion rupees (51.3 million U.S. dollars), the navy said in an earlier statement. 
SACRAMENTO, California  A California state lawmaker dropped a bombshell allegation in a counter complaint against a former chief of staff who accused her this fall of forcing him to perform sex acts  tying him to the 2001 disappearance of Washington intern Chandra Levy.

State Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, a Central Valley Republican, says her former chief of staff, Chad Condit, threatened her by saying he knows how to make people disappear, in court papers filed Tuesday in Sacramento Superior Court. She also alleges that Condit, who was later fired, stole $50,000 from her campaign.

The state lawmaker said Condit said told her he was personally responsible for the unsolved disappearance and murder of Chandra Levy," referring to an intern who had an affair with Condit's father, former Rep. Gary Condit, in the early 2000s.

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Cross-Complainant began to fear for her life and for her familys safety, Alvarado-Gils filing states.

The younger Condits attorneys did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment on Thursday.

The Condits are a well-known political dynasty in the Central Valley. Gary Condit faced scrutiny related to the death of Levy when he was in Congress. He was never a suspect, but the case became a national media sensation. Another person was later convicted of Levys death, but that man was granted a new trial and prosecutors dropped their case in 2016, citing new evidence. The case remains unsolved.

Alvarado-Gils allegations are the latest twist in a salacious legal saga that has captivated state Capitol insiders and could derail Alvarado-Gils 2026 reelection campaign. The senator made headlines this summer when she left the Democratic Party.

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In his earlier complaint, Condit accused Alvarado-Gil of making overt sexual passes at him and eventually pressuring him into performing oral sex on her. Condit said he suffered serious injuries, including a collapsed hip and three herniated discs in his spine, after one such incident which occurred in the confines of a car.

This growing control and exercise of power by ALVARADO-GIL further conditioned [Condit] into an unequal and subservient position, his September suit reads.

In the Nov. 12 filing Alvarado-Gils attorney called the allegations outlandish and unsubstantiated. The counter complaint alleges Condit injured his back during a vacation to Disneyland and regularly abused alcohol and prescription medications.

Alvarado-Gils cross-complaint portrays the younger Condit as a poorly-performing employee who was regularly intoxicated. She alleges that during a 2023 holiday party in her district, he was found in the bathroom with his pants around his ankles, yelling for help.
DAVIS COUNTY, Utah (ABC4)  A California man is in custody and faces charges of enticing a minor and dealing in materials harmful to minors.

Osvaldo Samuel Garcia Godoy, 36, is facing one count of enticing a minor  first-degree felony sexual activity, a second-degree felony, and 13 counts of dealing in materials harmful to minors, a third-degree felony.

LDS Church launches annual Light the World initiative to help those in need worldwide

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According to the affidavit of probable cause, authorities with Layton Police initiated an online chat operation with the assistance of the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children.

Authorities used a site where ads of a sexual nature were placed. A person, later to be identified as Garcia Godoy, responded to the ad.

One individual began speaking with me and did not care that I was younger than 18 years old. The suspect communicated with me using his email address. the affidavit of probable cause said.

Police say that the suspects communication only intensified and he would describe in explicit detail what he wanted to do. Garcia Godoy told police that he frequently travels to Utah for business, and would send unsolicited explicit photographs of him.

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Police found that he worked for a California-based air conditioning company and went by the name Ozzie. Police continued to comb the internet to find more information on the suspect.

California was able to provide authorities in Layton with a drivers license for Osvaldo Samuel Garcia Godoy.

The probable cause statement goes on to say that Garica Godoy would be back in Utah on Nov. 12 and that he wanted to pick up the person he reportedly thought he was talking to. Police said that they made a plan to meet Garica Godoy at a church building in Layton.

The suspect checked into his hotel and drove to Layton where police made contact with him and arrested him on the aforementioned charges.

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Charges are allegations only. All arrested persons are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA)  A California teen has pleaded guilty to making hundreds of swatting calls, including in the state of Florida, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

The DOJ said Alan Filion, 18, of Lancaster, California, faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison for each of four counts of making interstate threats to injure the person of another.

This prosecution and todays guilty plea reaffirm the Justice Departments commitment to using all tools to hold accountable every individual who endangers our communities through swatting and hoax threats, said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. For well over a year, Alan Filion targeted religious institutions, schools, government officials, and other innocent victims with hundreds of false threats of imminent mass shootings, bombings and other violent crimes. He caused profound fear and chaos and will now face the consequences of his actions.

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Alan Filion not only intended to cause as much harm as possible, but he also attempted to profit from these criminal activities by offering swatting-for-a-fee services, said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. Swatting poses severe danger to first responders and victims, wastes significant time and resources, and creates fear in communities. The FBI will continue to work with partners to aggressively investigate and hold accountable anyone who engages in these activities.

The plea agreement states that from August 2022 to January 2024, Filion made more than 375 swatting calls, including ones where he claimed to have planted a bomb at locations and threatened to detonate them or threatened mass shootings.

Filion, who was 16 at the time, reportedly targeted religious institutions, high schools, colleges and universities, government officials, and numerous individuals across the United States.

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The DOJ said Filion provided law enforcement and emergency service agencies with false information to cause large-scale deployment of police and emergency-services units, leading to some officers entering the homes of and detaining targeted individuals.

Filion reportedly posted on Jan. 20, 2023, saying he usually gets law enforcement to drag the victim and their families out of the house, cuff them and search the house for dead bodies, during his swatting calls.

He claimed his first swatting call was 2 to 3 years ago and that 6-9 months ago [he] decided to turn it into a business. . .

Filion offered to perform swatting calls for a fee.

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On Jan. 18, 2024, Filion was arrested at the age of 17 after he made a threat on May 2023 toward a religious institution in Sanford, Florida. The threat included a threat to commit a mass shooting and kill everyone using an illegally modified AR-15, a Glock 17 pistol, pipe bombs, and Molotov cocktails.

Filion pleaded guilty to making those threats in federal court on Wednesday, as well as three other threatening calls made to institutions in Washington, Texas, and Florida.

The FBI and U.S. Secret Service are investigating the case.

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By Rich McKay

(Reuters) - A California teenager has admitted to making hundreds of swatting calls - hoax emergency calls - over a two-year period, creating "fear and chaos" when police responded to his false reports of bomb threats and mass shootings at schools, homes and houses of worship, federal prosecutors said.

Alan Filion, 18, of Lancaster, California, pleaded guilty to four counts of interstate transmission of threats in a plea deal approved by the U.S District Court in Orlando, Florida. He is in a Florida jail awaiting sentencing.

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Filion's attorney, Dan Eckhart of Orlando, declined comment on the plea deal.

Filion was accused of making more than 375 hoax calls from August 2022-January 2024, some in a "swatting-for-a-fee service" he advertised online using false internet handles, the Department of Justice said in a statement on Wednesday.

For a fee of about $75, Filion promised to place calls that would cause police to drag victims into the streets in handcuffs "as they searched the house for dead bodies," the statement said.

Among the charges, Filion pleaded guilty to making a call in May 2023 to police in Sanford, Florida, targeting a mosque, court records and media accounts show. During the call, he said he planned to conduct a mass shooting in the name of Satan, and had an AR-15 assault-style rifle and pipe bombs. During the call, audio recordings of gunfire played in the background.

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The DOJ and FBI tracked Filion down, arrested him at his California home earlier this year and extradited him to Florida.

Even though he made his first swatting call when he was 16, Filion was charged as an adult.

He could spend the next 20 years behind bars and faces a $1 million fine after admitting to making the calls, prosecutors said. Each count carries a five-year sentence and a fine of $250,000.

He is scheduled to be sentenced in February.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Frances Kerry)
Calls are mounting for the U.S. House Ethics Committee to make public a report that could shed more light on sexual misconduct allegations involving Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz and his ties to disgraced former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg.

Gaetzs Wednesday resignation from Congress halted the House investigation, which is said to be highly critical of the North Florida Republican. The Ethics Committee was set to vote on the report Friday, Punchbowl News first reported, but with Gaetzs departure, it no longer has jurisdiction to investigate or sanction him.

But two U.S. senators and a lawyer representing a woman involved in the case said Thursday the report shouldnt be hidden. Gaetzs appointment is subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate, which could prove to be an uphill climb.

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Mr. Gaetzs likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events, attorney John Clune said in a message on X, formerly known as Twitter. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.

Clune is one of the Colorado attorneys representing the woman who was an underage escort at the time of sexual misconduct with Greenberg and allegations involving Gaetz. The Ethics Committee is believed to have investigated those allegations among others and to have heard from several women said to have knowledge of illicit activities.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn said they want to see the report.

Gaetz, 42, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. For two years, the U.S. Department of Justice investigated allegations that he had sex with the 17-year-old girl and possibly violated federal sex-trafficking laws, but charges werent brought. The Justice Department has never explained that decision publicly.

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Selected by President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday to be the next U.S. Attorney General, Gaetz has a checkered history in Central Florida, even though he is from Floridas Panhandle.

Gaetz became close friends with Greenberg, the former Seminole tax collector, soon after Greenberg took office in January 2017.

The pair were often seen dining, attending parties and traveling together. Its not clear how they met.

Over time, Greenbergs corrupt behavior in office and illicit sexual activities drew increasing notice, and he eventually resigned in disgrace in June 2020. He was charged with 33 federal crimes.

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He admitted guilt on six counts, including sex trafficking of a child, as part of a plea agreement in which he agreed to help federal prosecutors on other investigations. Greenberg is serving an 11-year sentence at a federal prison in Miami.

As the probe continued, Gaetzs name emerged. Investigators delved into whether Gaetz also had sex with an underage girl and used illicit drugs.

Details of those allegations have emerged in separate court filings, describing Gaetz attending a party filled with drugs and paid escorts at the Heathrow home of former state Rep. Chris Dorworth, according to witnesses.

One of the escorts attending the event was the 17-year-old girl, known in legal documents as A.B., who has been at the center of the Greenberg sex-trafficking scandal.

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The witnesses said that call girls roamed the home, heading into the bedrooms to engage in sexual activities, as well as alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy.

These court documents, originally sealed, were part of a federal lawsuit filed by Dorworth in April 2023 against Greenberg, his family, Greenbergs ex-wife and A.B., claiming they ruined his reputation. Dorworth dropped the suit in September and the Gaetz accusations subsequently became public.

But the filings made public so far  much of the testimony remains under seal  do not include allegations or any evidence that Gaetz used illegal drugs or had sex with any of the women, including the underage girl.

Jacob Bliss, a spokesman for Gaetzs office, said in a September email to the Sentinel that Gaetz never participated in the alleged events.

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If people said otherwise, they are either confused or lying, Bliss said.

Dorworth has said he was at a friends birthday celebration at the time and did not attend the party at his home.

After the girl turned 18, she reportedly accompanied Gaetz, then-state Rep. Halsey Beshears and Orlando doctor Jason Pirozzolo for a weekend trip to The Bahamas in 2018 to discuss the states regulation of medical marijuana.

That island getaway aboard a private plane also was part of the federal investigation into Gaetz, according to CNN.

In another incident that raised eyebrows, Greenberg and Gaetz were recorded walking into the tax collectors Lake Mary office on Primera Drive together while it was closed on a weekend night in 2018, according to Sentinel interviews with several people who worked at the office and saw the videotape.

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The people alleged that the footage showed Greenberg going through baskets where old drivers licenses, turned in by residents for disposal, were kept. He later went into a back room without Gaetz.

Authorities have said Greenberg had several stolen IDs in his work vehicle and fake licenses in his wallet when he was first arrested in June 2020 at his Heathrow home.

Gaetz and his staff did not respond to requests to comment on the allegations at the time.

In February 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice decided against pursuing sex-trafficking charges against Gaetz, according to his lawyers, following the departments two-year investigation.

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The House Ethics Committee then launched its investigation into Gaetz, which is believed to have covered much of the same ground. The committees burden of proof differs from that of the Justice Department because it considers ethical and reputational missteps, not just criminal conduct.

The ethics panel could have recommended Gaetz be expelled or censured, said David Jolly, a former Florida congressman. But Jolly insisted it would break with precedent to release an ethics report after a member has resigned.

Still, its possible the document could find its way into the public spotlight given the political enemies Gaetz has made, he said.

The truth is Gaetz has no friends in Washington, Jolly said.

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Gaetz led efforts last year to oust Former GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, sparking a bitter feud with the California politician and his allies.

Several top Florida Republicans were unfazed on Thursday by Gaetzs baggage. Evan Power, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, said in a statement that Gaetz will be an exceptional attorney general for President Trump, ensuring that our principles of liberty and justice continue to thrive.

State Sen. Joe Gruters, a close Trump ally, called Gaetz a longtime friend who will do an amazing job.

President Trump has a mandate to shake things up, and this selection will do exactly that, the Sarasota Republican said.

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Pressed by reporters on Capitol Hill, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott said he had a good working relationship with Gaetz when he was governor and called him a hard worker.

Gaetzs detractors, though, say his record makes him unfit to be attorney general. State Rep. Anna Eskamani said she once received an unusual voicemail from Gaetz and Greenberg in which the former tax collector said they had been discussing her lovely qualities.

His reputation in Tallahassee was of someone who played games scoring women, the Orlando Democrat said of Gaetz, who got his political start in the Florida House of Representatives.

Nominating Matt Gaetz as attorney general is a dangerous move for democracy, she said. His personal track record doesnt inspire integrity.
When Eliza arrived on her West Coast college campus in the fall of 2020, building community was difficult due to the raging COVID-19 pandemic. Yet over time she forged a network of friends, anchored by her sorority.

Three years later, those relationships were severely tested by events over 7,000 miles away: the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Due to her support for Israel, she was ostracized by people she once considered close friends, including her sorority sisters. Walking around campus, she removed her Star of David necklace. To be clear, Eliza was not concerned about her physical safety. But she sensed a social penalty for being Jewish and wanted to avoid dirty looks and political confrontations.

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As the civilian death toll in Gaza mounted, progressive campus activists, including some Jews, fervently adopted the Palestinian cause as an extension of their battles for racial and social justice. Opposition to the war has become a generational cause for earnest Zoomers, akin to the Vietnam War for baby boomers and opposition to South African apartheid for Gen Xers.

Critics contend that protesters are unfairly holding Jewish classmates accountable for the actions of the Israeli government  especially since Jewish Americans are not unified in their attitudes about the war and very few hold dual citizenship in Israel. Where protesters see manifestations of anti-Zionism  opposition to the existence of a Jewish nation state in present-day Israel  many Jewish students, staff and parents see antisemitism, pure and simple.

People attend a menorah lighting ceremony on the seventh night of Hanukkah in December 2023 in Harvard Yard. Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

Eliza  a pseudonym, like all the student names in this article  was one of 36 undergraduates across the country whom I spoke with as part of a study of Jewish students responses to the conflict and its consequences. Their views on Israel and the war ran the gamut  but regardless, most felt unsettled by the death, abductions and destruction abroad, as well as the protests outside their dorms.

Many of them were surprised to find themselves wrestling with what it means to be Jewish in the U.S. and questioning their place in American society. But for more than 100 years, college campuses have been a testing ground for Jewish identity  and Americans acceptance of their Jewish compatriots.

Changing fortunes

The parents of todays students, in particular, find themselves in a state of whiplash. Most attended college in the 1980s and 90s, at the height of a golden age of Jewish life on American campuses. They view their childrens experiences not merely as a reversal but a betrayal.

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I went to college in the 1990s, and cannot recall a single moment when I felt uncomfortable as a Jew, Sarah Hurwitz, a former speechwriter for the Obamas, recalled soon after the Oct. 7 attack.

Hurwitzs alma mater, Harvard University, is embroiled in a lawsuit over allegations of antisemitism. Similar lawsuits were filed against Columbia University, UCLA and other schools. Meanwhile, federal investigations proceed over both antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents at dozens of colleges and universities.

Her recollections reflect many competitive colleges conscious efforts to welcome Jewish students in the 1980s and 90s, such as by building new campus centers, offering an array of new Jewish studies courses and providing kosher dining options. In the 1990s, about 25% of undergraduates at Harvard and Yale claimed Jewish heritage. The numbers were even higher at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania.

The trend was not confined to the Ivy League. Similar demographic stories played out at schools such as Boston University, Washington University in St. Louis and Northwestern University in Chicago.

Jews not wanted

It was not always so.

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A century ago, first- and second-generation Jewish Americans flocked to higher education, seeing a degree as a ticket into the middle class. In response, elite colleges and universities notoriously restricted Jewish enrollment.

While other schools deliberated about their Jewish problem in secret, Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell publicly announced his universitys intention to admit fewer Jews, which made the front page of The New York Times.

Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell, right, walks with former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in 1910. Library of Congress

Explaining the quota, Lowell essentially blamed the victims. Attributing a rise in antisemitic attitudes to Jews supposed clannishness, he argued that admitting too many Jews would impede Jewish assimilation and further heighten anti-Jewish sentiment.

Odious as his plan was, Lowells views were common. The tribal twenties was a time of widespread nativism and racism. As Harvard and other schools were instituting Jewish quotas, the U.S. Congress passed a restrictive immigration law that reduced Jewish immigration to a trickle.

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Antisemitism was fueled by multiple and often conflicting conspiracy theories that appealed as much to cultured elites as to the unschooled.

Genteel antisemitism

On campus, antisemitism often manifested as social snobbery. For example, Greek organizations routinely discriminated on the basis of race and religion.

Meanwhile, New Yorks upper crust responded to an influx of Jewish students at Columbia by sending their sons to out-of-town institutions. Indeed, Lowells fear that Harvard would suffer Columbias fate and scare away the Boston Brahmins motivated his efforts to reduce his universitys Jewish presence.

Harvard students feelings about Jewish classmates were revealed in 1922 when a professor invited his class to share opinions about Lowells race limitations plan on their final exams. The Jews tend to overrun the college, to spoil it for the native-born Anglo-Saxon young persons for whom it was built and whom it really wants, one student wrote. Jews are an unassimilable race, concluded another, as dangerous to a college as indigestible food to a man.

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Harvard ultimately adopted a more indirect but equally effective plan to curb Jewish enrollment that capped the number of undergraduates and emphasized geographic diversity. Specifically, it admitted fewer students from Northeastern cities with large Jewish populations, while expanding its program of legacy admissions. From 1921 to 1928, Jewish enrollment dropped from over 21% to Lowells original target of 10%.

Other schools followed suit. As late as the 1950s, universities were designing their own restrictive admissions policies.

Fitting in  or not

Jewish college students realized that the genteel antisemitism they experienced on the quad was a taste of the discrimination they would face on the job market. Many compensated for the prejudice around them by avidly Americanizing, even by legally changing their names. By midcentury, many Jewish teens and young women were whitening themselves by getting nose jobs and straightening their hair.

As much as they tried to blend in, many continued to feel disaffected. As historian Daniel Greene noted, they inhabited an in-between space: a conflicted middle ground between their American and Jewish identities, never fully at home in either world.

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Others immersed themselves in Jewish life. Some were attracted to Zionism, then a relatively new movement that supported a Jewish national home in the region of Palestine, the biblical land of Israel. Many joined Jewish fraternities and sororities or campus groups. The first chapter of Hillel, presently the largest Jewish campus organization, was founded at the University of Illinois in 1923.

Jewish members of the armed forces from Columbia University prepare for a Passover Seder service at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1944. Bettmann via Getty Images

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The climate for Jewish students improved in the late 1950s and 60s, as elite schools, beginning with Harvard, adopted admissions policies that prized academic merit, reflected primarily in SAT scores. In the words of journalist Sarah Leonard, universities shed a portion of academically mediocre bluebloods in favor of scrappier kids with impressive test scores.

Now versus then

It is tempting to compare the contemporary experiences of Jewish students with those of a century ago. And there are similarities, to be sure. Inevitably, some students are galvanized to action, while others prefer to melt into shadows. Some turn inward and find comfort in community, while others challenge themselves to adapt to the disequilibrium.

But there are also significant differences, including that Jewish Americans wield far more political power as a group than they did in the 1920s.

The spectacle of university presidents being hauled before a U.S. congressional committee in 2023 over accusations of antisemitism on their campuses may have been a political ploy by Republicans. In part, it underscored the GOPs alliance with evangelical Christian supporters of Israel and its desire to attack institutions of higher education as woke. Yet it also signaled that Jews enjoy a level of influence in the halls of government that would have baffled their great-grandparents.

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Many parents and students are dissatisfied with campus leaders responses to the anti-Israel protests. But their concerns have been afforded a level of consideration that was almost entirely absent in earlier times. Consider the swiftness with which Columbia dismissed three mid-level administrators in July 2024, after images of snarky text messages trafficking in antisemitic tropes were leaked to the media.

In recent months, some students like Eliza may be downplaying their Jewishness to diffuse tense situations. But that does not mean they are rejecting their identities.

Jewish students and allies hold a Shabbat event and prayer in solidarity with the pro-Palestinian encampment at George Washington University on April 26, 2024. Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images

Even Jewish students who support the campus protests often frame their concern for Palestinian life in terms of their Jewish values. Ava, a student I interviewed at an East Coast university, no longer feels comfortable attending Sabbath services, due to the campus rabbis pro-Israel politics. Yet she finds Jewish connection through a Jewish anti-Zionist organization led by students.

Ezra, a student leader at the Hillel chapter on a particularly volatile campus, bemoaned some protesters excesses. He had little patience for white progressive activists spouting slogans like Globalize the Intifada! without understanding their meaning. But he evinced greater sympathy for Arab and Muslim demonstrators, especially those who had been personally touched by the death and devastation in Gaza.

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Ezra viewed their activism as a form of punching up.

We have a Hillel house  probably one of the nicest in the country  and the ear of the administration through donors and alumni, he explained. Were fighting to maintain our privilege while theyre fighting for representation.

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: Jonathan Krasner, Brandeis University

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Jonathan Krasner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Canon-McMillan Middle School students read essays honoring veterans to former servicemembers who live at The Waters of McMurray senior living community.

The essays were about the importance of veterans.

All eighth-grade students wrote an essay and teachers picked the top six to share with veterans at The Waters of McMurray, who then ranked them.

The top three essay writers, Emily Trentini, Bella Chen and Aurora Shannon, received gift cards.

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Emilys essay finished in first place. Her grandfather, William Schrag, a three-time Purple Heart recipient, attended the event to hear Emilys essay.

After the reading, students handed out gifts to the veterans that they made in art class.

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President-elect Donald Trump will not allow Russia to destroy Ukraine because he "does not like to lose" and because of U.S. resources already invested in the country's defense, Polish President Andrzej Duda told a press conference on Nov. 13.

"President Donald Trump  I cannot imagine that he would allow Russia to destroy Ukraine, in which the United States, in which the American taxpayer, for whose money President Donald Trump will soon be held accountable when he takes office, has invested such huge amounts, Duda said.

Trumps support for Ukraine hangs in the air as analysts and politicians try to gauge his plans to bring peace to Ukraine, as he promised to end the war within "24 hours" after reelection without revealing details.

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The president-elect is a "born fighter, he likes to fight and, above all, he does not like to lose," Duda noted.

The Biden administration plans to increase U.S. military assistance to Ukraine in the final months of its term to give as much support as possible before Trump takes office in January 2025, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Brussels on Nov. 13.

To "Trump-proof" their support for Ukraine, Poland began building an alliance with the U.K. to continue helping Ukraine after Donald Trump takes office in 2025. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk intends to hold talks with his British counterpart Keir Starmer in the coming days.

Tusk will also meet President Emmanuel Macron of France and Mark Rutte, secretary-general of NATO, earlier reporting suggested.

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Outgoing President Biden has seen the handling of Russias war against Ukraine as a defining element of his presidency. He gradually gave more military aid to Ukraine as Kyiv emerged victorious from the early battle of Kyiv in April 2022.

Read also: Trumps administration picks  what do they mean for Russias war in Ukraine?

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
JUBA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), an international medical charity, stressed on Thursday the need to improve sanitation and hygiene for people living in overcrowded conditions to prevent further spread of cholera in South Sudan's refugee-hosting state.

The MSF said it has established a 20-bed cholera treatment facility at Renk Civil Hospital in Upper Nile State, where it treated 45 cholera cases, two of whom died from the infection.

South Sudanese authorities declared a cholera outbreak on Oct. 28 in the northern town of Renk, the main entry point for thousands of refugees and returnees fleeing conflict in neighboring Sudan.

Emanuele Montobbio, MSF's field coordinator for the Renk emergency program, said the team has been receiving patients from the local population of Renk. "Given the inadequate, overcrowded living conditions and the continued influx of refugees and returnees from Sudan into Renk and Malakal, there is an imminent urgent need for a response to improve the water, sanitation and hygiene situation to prevent further spread of the disease," Montobbio said in a statement issued in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.

He said that in recent weeks, up to 800 people per day have been entering Renk from Sudan, even as humanitarian groups report a substantial rise in cholera cases at camps for people displaced by the conflict in Sudan.

The MSF also announced the establishment of a cholera treatment center in Assosa, less than 10 km from Malakal Town Hospital, with a capacity of up to 100 beds, where its teams are treating cholera patients from Malakal's protection of civilians site, which hosts thousands of people in close proximity.

The charity urged partners to establish treatment facilities within the protection of civilian sites to prevent loss of life, as the number of cholera cases continues to increase. 
MADISON COUNTY, Miss. (WJTV)  A Canton man has been convicted in connection to the death of his wife.

Madison and Rankin Counties District Attorney Bubba Bramlett said Myles Flint Johnson, 53, was found guilty of second-degree murder after a three day jury trial in Madison County Circuit Court. Johnson was sentenced to 40 years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) without the possibility of parole.

Bond set for three accused of assaulting woman in Vicksburg

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On January 30, 2024, Canton police responded to E. Fulton Street after Johnson called 911 stating that his wife had been shot. Investigators said the victim, Kristi Johnson, was found deceased on the couples bed.

According to Bramlett, Johnson told officers that his wife had shot herself, but their investigation determined that she had been shot in the back.

Investigators said Johnson shot and killed his wife two days before he called 911. Officers said there had been a long history of domestic violence going back more than a decade.

During his trial, Johnson testified that he accidentally shot his wife after they had a fight. The jury deliberated for three hours before they came back with a guilty verdict.

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ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. (WKRG)  A Cantonment man was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in state prison followed by lifetime sex offender probation, according to a State Attorney First Judicial Circuit of Florida news release.

American Idol finalist from McIntosh now married with baby on the way

According to the release from State Attorney Ginger Bowden Maddens office, Circuit Court Judge John Simon designated Nathan Dale Toms as a sexual predator.

Nathan Dale Toms. (Escambia County Jail View)

The release said Toms was sentenced after he entered a plea straight up to the court on four counts of sexual battery by a person in familial authority.

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Toms was investigated after he was reported to have inappropriately touched minor children in his custody. The abuse reportedly occurred between 2016 and 2023, the release said.

Theodore man arrested, charged with possession of child pornography after search warrant: MCSO

Nathan Toms manipulated the victims and their families to gain trust and access to the victims, prosecuting attorney Carrie Gilmer said. Hopefully, this sentence will bring some much-needed closure to the victims.

The Escambia County Sheriffs Office conducted the investigation.

Gilmer prosecuted the case on behalf of Madden.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRG News 5.
LIBERTY TWP., Ohio (WKBN)  Police in Liberty are investigating after a car was reported stolen in the township.

Read next: Human Trafficking agents, deputies search Youngstown home

It happened in the 3000 block of Green Acres Dr. overnight Monday into Tuesday.

A man reported that his Kia had been stolen from a driveway sometime overnight.

He said he had recently serviced his car to prevent theft.

Police entered the car into the stolen vehicle database and are investigating.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS)  The principal of a school in Webster Parish recently met with students at an LSU Shreveport job fair about using their bachelors degrees in any subject to become teachers in Louisiana.

An LSUS student interacts with the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections on Wednesday at the LSUS Career and Internship Fair in the LSUS Ballroom.

Cortney McCall is the principal of Brown Upper Elementary School, and she says you dont need a degree in education to start your journey as a teacher.

We have teacher prep programs that can accept graduates with any major, said McCall.

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McCall spoke to students at LSU Shreveports Career and Internship Fair on Nov. 13.

Students also had the opportunity to explore other options for soon-to-be LSU Shreveport graduates.

Nearly 50 informational tables and booths were at the career and internship fair, where students also met with potential employers from hospitals, mental health care centers and hospices, casinos, professional educators, manufacturers, law enforcement representatives from Louisiana and Texas, and officials with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

The fair attracted around 200 students and was held at the LSUS Ballroom.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump greets South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem during a rally at the Dayton International Airport on March 16, 2024, in Vandalia, Ohio. The rally was hosted by the Buckeye Values PAC. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

In Trump World, where loyalty is valued over expertise, Kristi Noems fealty to The Donald has paid off  big time. South Dakotas governor is Donald Trumps choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

A longtime supporter of Trump, Noem was last seen with the president-elect moderating his campaign town hall in Oakes, Pennsylvania. Noem managed to keep a straight face while Trump decided to forgo taking questions and turn the event into a dance party. Now thats loyalty.

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Running Homeland Security is no small task. The department is responsible for customs, border and immigration enforcement, the response to natural and man-made disasters, anti-terrorism and cybersecurity as well as overseeing the Secret Service. Created in 2002 by President George W. Bush as a response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the department has 230,000 employees and a $60 billion budget. Thats quite a change for Noem who, in her second term as governor, oversees a state budget of $7.3 billion with 7,373 executive branch employees.

Noem is not without some southern border experience. She signed off on several federal National Guard deployments as well as deciding to send three deployments to the border on her own volition. History will decide if she was a wartime governor or just the worlds worst travel agent. No matter the final verdict, South Dakota taxpayers were left to pick up the tab when Texas decided it was not too proud to ask for help, but it was too poor to pay back the states that sent troops.

From her time as a U.S. representative, Noem is familiar with national security briefings. Unfortunately, those briefings gave her the false memory of having stared down North Koreas Kim Jong Un.

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As the secretary of Homeland Security, Noem will be right in the thick of Trumps top election issue as he plans for mass deportations and beefed-up security at the southern border. Given her past rhetoric on the subject, this is a challenge that Noem will readily accept. Accepting this big a job in the next Trump administration comes with some potential pitfalls.

While Noem will be running a large staff, the president-elect has made it clear he means to clear out the federal governments bureaucrats and civil servants in favor of Trump loyalists. Heres hoping Noem can avoid that kind of purge in her department where employees should be judged by their expertise in security matters and not the size of their MAGA hat collection.

If Trump II is anything like Trump I, Noem wont be able to count on any sort of job security. In his first term, Trump was known for going through Cabinet secretaries the way other men change their shirts. His new hires are touted as the best people, but it turns out that the guy famous for the Art of the Deal isnt the best at the art of hiring. These best people get the insult treatment on the way out the door: Former chief of staff John Kelly was way over his head, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was a dumb southerner, and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was dumb as a rock.

Trump has been pushing the new Republican majority in the U.S. Senate to stay out of session so he can make recess appointments and bypass all the time-consuming nonsense of holding Senate hearings and voting on his Cabinet picks. Noem may hope hes able to pull that off.

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Chances are, even the most conservative of senators was a pet lover before going full MAGA. There are bound to be tough questions for Noem about why she chose to take target practice on an errant hunting dog and a smelly goat. Of course these senators are all politicians and their bigger, likely unspoken question will be why, in a book designed to serve as a resume for selection as Trumps running mate, she chose to include that story at all.

Now, Noem is close to the end of a sometimes painfully public attempt to insert herself into the next Trump administration. As she starts her new job, shes likely to get plenty of advice. Heres some more that, while unsolicited, is worth heeding: Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

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A property owner in Carnation says a poorly built sidewalk has led to flooding at his building every time it rains.

Water everywhere, right next to the building, said property owner Vladimir Gurevich.

Vladimir and his wife Luda have owned the building on Tolt Avenue for 20 years with no issues, until the new sidewalk was installed.

He claims the sidewalk is sloped in a way that pushes water toward his business, instead of into the street.

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It comes actually straight through the front door and then it pools all down, said Bethany Lafferty, Vladimirs tenant, who owns Heart and Soul Wellness.

Lafferty told KIRO 7 that while theyve worked to seal the door within the shop, it has only helped so much.

Being a small business owner is not easy, she said. Its a lot of work, and the last thing you want is water pooling inside your business.

Vladimir and Luda contacted the city in 2023, and have pressed for answers numerous times. They say theyve gotten the runaround.

This is your sidewalk. You built it the wrong way, he said. Theyre refusing even to communicate with us.

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In a statement to KIRO 7, a city spokesperson wrote, The City processed the claim in accordance with all policies and procedures, and the insurance company determined that the City does not bear responsibility for any damage if damage occurred.

The representative provided a copy of a letter from the citys insurance company to the contractors insurance company.

Our member, the City of Carnation did not work on this project, wrote the citys insurance claim coordinator. As such, we are tendering this tort claim to Travelers (Insurance) to address.

The letter appears to have been sent in November 2023. Vladimir and Luda say theyve received no information from the construction company, or its insurance provider, to imply that repairs would be made anytime soon.

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Vladimir and Luda believe the city should step in and help.

Theyre supposed to work for people and resolve the problems when we have them, Luda said. Theyre completely not even resolving. Theyre just ignoring us. And its not fair.

KIRO 7 has contacted the construction company that built the sidewalk and is awaiting a response.
Nov. 13CARTHAGE, Mo.  One week after Carthage Ward 5 voters recalled City Council member Tiffany Cossey from office, the Carthage City Council was forced to cancel its regular meeting because of a lack of a quorum.

The council has four empty seats as of Tuesday:

A Ward 2 seat has been vacant since the April municipal election.

Ward 3 council member Dustin Edge resigned in September.

Mayor Alan Snow was sworn in Oct. 31 after former Mayor Dan Rife's disputed impeachment Oct. 29, meaning Snow is no longer a voting council member and his Ward 4 seat is vacant.

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Cossey was recalled by a 730-454 vote in the Nov. 5 election, leaving her Ward 5 seat vacant.

The council must have six members to make a quorum and allow the council to conduct business, which means no city business can be conducted if just one council member is absent.

Snow said he spoke with council member Lori Leece and learned she tested positive for COVID-19 in the past couple of days and was too sick to come to the meeting, which forced the cancellation of Tuesday's meeting.

Snow said he has three names he was going to submit to the council to fill three of the vacant seats, but they can't be considered with fewer than six members available.

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"The three people I'm appointing have not been outspoken over the last 18 months, and I didn't even ask them what side they were on," Snow said, referring to disagreements between council members and former city officials. "I'm trying to appoint people so we can get city business done. I also have a couple of committee chairs to appoint because our committees are down people now and we don't have chairmen on our committees. I'm trying to move forward and get things going in the right direction."

New members also must be appointed to some of the five standing committees the council uses to review bills and proposals before they come to the council.

Cossey's recall leaves the council's Insurance Audit and Claims Committee without a chairman, and Snow moving to mayor leaves the Budget Ways and Means Committee without a leader.

All of these appointments will need "yes" votes from all the current members of the council to be approved.

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Vacancies

The vacancies on the council stem from a dispute that's gone on for about 18 months that has generated lawsuits and requests for the Missouri state auditor and the Missouri attorney general to review council actions. Neither resulted in formal action by either state agency.

The fighting led to the election in April 2024 of five new council members, one of whom was Edge, and the first action of the new council was to attempt to fire City Administrator Greg Dagnan and declare a vote of "no confidence" in then-Mayor Dan Rife.

Dagnan was ultimately dismissed May 30, but he is suing the council, alleging improper dismissal.

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No one has been named to replace Dagnan.

It also led to Rife's impeachment Oct. 29, but Rife has filed for a writ of prohibition and asked that a judge rule on whether the council properly impeached him with 6-2 votes on four of the five articles of impeachment.

The council needed a two-thirds majority to approve the impeachment, and the council has 10 seats. Snow, who acted as the trial officer in the impeachment, ruled that the council only needed two-thirds of the current members of the council, or six out of eight. Rife is arguing that the council needed two-thirds of the full 10 seats on the council, or seven votes to impeach him, which would mean the impeachment was nullified.
CARTHAGE, N.Y. (WWTI)  A 20-year-old Carthage man is facing charges after allegedly threatening to shoot multiple people.

According to the Carthage Police Department, Storm Elliott is charged with second-degree menacing, third-degree felony criminal possession of a weapon, endangering the welfare of a child and second-degree obstructing governmental administration.

Watertown PD: Homeless man charged with allegedly throwing brick through car window

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The charges stem from when Elliott allegedly displayed a shotgun during a domestic dispute and threatened to shoot multiple people. This also included a one-year-old child.

Elliott is awaiting arraignment according to a press release from the Carthage Police Department.

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The man accused of fatally stabbing Cash App founder Bob Lee claims a bad joke led to a violent argument just before the tech boss died.

At his trial, Nima Momeni testified that he and Lee had been hanging out at the apartment of Momenis sisterKhazar Elyassniaon the night in question.

Lee and Elyassnia are rumored to have been partying and sleeping together, though shes married to a prominent San Francisco plastic surgeon. Prosecutors claim the relationship was the source of conflict between Momeni and Lee.

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Momeni said that, after leaving her home early in the morning on April 4, 2023, the two men decided to go find a strip club. According to the Associated Press, Momeni remarked to Leewho was quite drunk, in Momenis tellingthat if it were him, hed be spending his final night in town with his family, rather than going out.

That, according to Momeni, sent Lee into a rage. He just went from zero to 100, he told the court. You could see the anger.

Momeni said Lee pulled a knife on him, obligating Momeni to defend himself. Still, he claimed he watched Lee walk away from the altercation, ostensibly uninjured. Momeni added that he disposed of the knife by throwing it over a fence, CBS News reports.

Im not sure why he pulled it out, Momeni said of the weapon, according to the AP. I was in fear for my life. The defense has argued that Lee was on a four-day drug binge, during which hed cumulatively spent six hours sleeping.

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Prosecutors, meanwhile, claim Momeni picked up Lee from Elyassnias apartment and drove him to a secluded area near the Bay Bridge, where he stabbed Lee with a knife from his sisters kitchen. Lee died in the hospital, after he was found severely wounded in downtown San Francisco, where hed left a trail of blood in the street.

Momeni, who faces 26 years in prison if convicted, has pleaded not guilty in the case.
ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. (WFLA)  St. John Vianney Catholic School in St. Pete Beach will permanently close at the end of the school year due to damage from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the school announced Wednesday.

The school has been closed to students since Hurricane Helene brought flooding on Sept. 27, causing critical damage to its electrical, HVAC, roofing, and structural systems. Students have attended classes at three locations since October, including Cathedral School of St. Jude, the Pastoral Center, and St. Petersburg Catholic High School.

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Leadership said they explored multiple options, including building a new school, but the ideas were deemed not practical and the decision was instead made to close the school permanently.

Until the end of the 2024 academic year, St. John and St. Jude will continue to operate as two schools on one campus. Next year, St. John Vianney Catholic School students and faculty will be folded into the Cathedral School of St. Jude as permanent students under a single school.

In a letter to families, Bishop Gregory Parkes wrote:

Though I am saddened by the impact of these storms on our community, I find great hope in the future of a united school community that will continue to provide an exceptional, faith-filled Catholic education for our young people.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.
An international meeting was held Tuesday in China's Chengdu to promote cooperation among major cities in various parts of the world.
AUSTIN (KXAN)  High school marching band competition season in Texas just wrapped up, and several area school districts sent their student musicians to the state contest this week and last week, some making history in the process.

Getting to the state level in the University Interscholastic League, or UIL, marching band competitions is a rigorous process. Only a few dozen schools wind up placing in the final rounds of competition.

Each year, marching bands from across the state compete in regional contests hoping to advance to area contests. If they do, they must score high enough in the area contest preliminaries to advance to area finals, and then rank high enough in finals to advance to state, according to the UILs website.

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Several Central Texas high schools made state this year, some for the first time in their history.

State marching competition for high schools in UIL classes 1A, 3A and 5A was held Nov. 4-6, and class 2A, 4A and 6A high schools competed Nov. 11-13.

Ten area high schools ultimately ended up placing as top scorers in the finals rounds at the state competition. But just making it to the contest was historic for some local marching bands.

For Leander Independent School District, all six high school marching bands advanced to UIL state finals  for the first time in the districts history. The schools were Cedar Park High School, Glenn High School, Leander High School, and Rouse High School, which are class 5A, plus Vandegrift High School and Vista Ridge High School, which are both class 6A.

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La Grange High School, a class 4A school, qualified for state for the first time ever. Last year was the bands first time just making it to the finals at the area competition, according to the La Grange Band Booster Club. The La Grange Mighty Leopard Band was also accepted to participate in the New York Invitational Music Festival at Carnegie Hall in the spring and is working to raise funds for the trip.

Marble Falls High School, in the 4A division, not only made it to area finals for the first time in school history this year, but they also went a step further and placed high enough to advance to the state contest for the first time ever.

The Marble Falls Mustang Bands director, Tony Leflet, said in a release that the bands goal was simply to reach the area marching band finals. Our students not only achieved this goal  they surpassed it. We approached this journey with a mindset of continuous improvement, taking steps to get better each day, always being happy with our progress but never satisfied with the results.

Local bands State Contest results

6A Results

For the 6A round of competition, the bands with the 14 best scores were recognized in the top rankings. Four of those bands were from Central Texas high schools. They are listed below with their rankings.

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2  Vandegrift High School, Leander ISD

4  Vista Ridge High School, Leander ISD

10  Cedar Ridge High School, Round Rock ISD

13  Round Rock High School, Round Rock ISD

Other local 6A high schools that competed at state included: Westlake High School (Eanes ISD), which placed 18th in the preliminary round; Dripping Springs High School (Dripping Springs ISD), which placed 19th; and Lake Travis High School (Lake Travis ISD), which placed 20th.

The Vista Ridge High School marching band (left) and Vandegrift High School marching band (right) at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Vista Ridge High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Vista Ridge High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Vista Ridge High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Vista Ridge High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Vandegrift High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Vandegrift High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Vandegrift High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Audience members cheer on the Vandegrift High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) UIL State Marching Band Competition (Viewer-submitted photo) Dripping Springs High School Tiger Band takes the field in the 6A division of the 2024 UIL State Marching Band Contest (Viewer-submitted photo) Dripping Springs High School Tiger Band readies to take the field in the 6A division of the 2024 UIL State Marching Band Contest (Viewer-submitted photo) The drumline for the Dripping Springs High School Tiger Band readies to take the field in the 6A division of the 2024 UIL State Marching Band Contest (Viewer-submitted photo) Lake Travis High School marching band competes at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Viewer-submitted photo) Lake Travis High School band members prepare to compete at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Viewer-submitted photo) Lake Travis High School band members prepare to compete at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Viewer-submitted photo) Lake Travis High School band members prepare to compete at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Viewer-submitted photo)

5A Finals Results

In the 5A division of state competition, the bands with the best 12 scores were recognized in the top rankings this year. Of those 12 schools, four were local to the Austin area; three of them within Leander ISD. Those rankings are listed below.

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1  Cedar Park High School, Leander ISD

2  Rouse High School, Leander ISD

3  Leander High School, Leander ISD

8  Hendrickson High School, Pflugerville ISD

Other local bands that made it to preliminaries to compete at the state level were Glenn High School (Leander ISD) placing 16th in prelims, Hays High School (Hays ISD) placing 18th, and Liberty Hill High School (Liberty Hill ISD) in 22nd.

Cedar Park High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Cedar Park High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Rouse High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Rouse High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Rouse High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Leander High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Cedar Park High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Cedar Park High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Cedar Park High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Rouse High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Audience members cheer on the Rouse High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Rouse High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Rouse High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Audience members cheer on the Rouse High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Leander High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Leander High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Audience members cheer on the Leander High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Leander High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Leander High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Audience members cheer on the Leander High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Leander High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Glenn High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Glenn High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD) Glenn High School marching band at the UIL State Marching Band 2024 competition. (Photo courtesy: Leander ISD)

4A Results

In the 4A rounds, the 10 bands with the best scores were recognized as finalists. Out of the five local schools that competed in the 4A preliminaries, only Davenport High School (Comal ISD) advanced to finals. The band placed 3rd overall for their class.

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Other Central Texas bands that made it to state were from: Fredericksburg High School (Fredericksburg ISD), which placed 11th in prelims; Burnet High School (Burnet ISD), which placed 15th; Marble Falls High School (Marble Falls ISD), which placed 21st; and La Grange High School (La Grange ISD), which place 26th.

Montserrat Fregoso, Jimena Meza, Landon Farris, Henry Vanicek and Claire Waters of the Marble Falls High School Mustang Band (Photo courtesy: Marble Falls ISD) Marble Falls High School Mustang Band (Photo courtesy: Marble Falls ISD) Marble Falls High School Mustang Band (Photo courtesy: Marble Falls ISD) La Grange High School marching band performs at the 2024 UIL State Marching Competition. The band qualified for state for the first time ever. (Viewer-submitted photo) La Grange High School marching band performs at the 2024 UIL State Marching Competition. The band qualified for state for the first time ever. (Viewer-submitted photo) La Grange High School marching band performs at the 2024 UIL State Marching Competition. The band qualified for state for the first time ever. (Viewer-submitted photo) La Grange High School marching band performs at the 2024 UIL State Marching Competition. The band qualified for state for the first time ever. (Viewer-submitted photo) La Grange High School marching band get ready to perform at the 2024 UIL State Marching Competition. The band qualified for state for the first time ever. (Viewer-submitted photo)

Only 27 4A high schools in the state qualified for the competition, and making that list is something the La Grange High School band holds as an honor.

We placed 26th out of 27th, but more significantly, we placed in the top 12% of all 4A bands in the state! There are about 218. Only 27 qualified for the state competition, Rachel Castillo, with the La Grange Band Booster Club, told KXAN.

3A Results

In the 3A rounds, the 10 schools with the best scores ranked in finals.

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C.H. Yoe High School in Cameron and Troy High School in Troy were the only local 3A schools to compete in the state contest.

C.H. Yoe placed 7th overall in finals.

Troy did not place in finals but ended up in the 15th spot in the preliminary round.

2A Results

Only one local school in the 2A division competed at state.

Thorndale High School placed 14th in the preliminary round. The seven schools with the top scores advanced to finals.

Thorndale was the smallest band to compete at the contest, with 27 members, according to Assistant Director Kendall Freeman.

There were no Central Texas schools in the 1A round of the competition.

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Final rankings for all schools that competed can be viewed online.

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CHICAGO (WGN)  There were heavy hearts Wednesday at the Chicago Fire Department as loved ones and fellow firefighters remembered Drew Price on the one-year anniversary of his death.

Andrew Drew Price died at the age of 39 doing what he loved this time last year  fighting fires and protecting others.

Gratitude, humility, appreciation. Those were the values that anchored him, said Lara Price, Drew Prices widow.

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We tried our best to make sure Drews memory will never be forgotten, CFD Capt. Pat Gallagher said.

On Nov. 13, 2023, Price fell through a light shaft of a four-story building while fighting a 2-11 box alarm fire.

The funeral that followed and the outpouring of emotion showed a tangible sign of how many people admired and respected the fallen firefighter.

I also pray that today is a source of comfort and support for the Price family and all those who loved Drew, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said.

A solemn ceremony was held at the Chicago Fire Academy, where Prices badge was placed on Chicagos Wall of Fallen Heroes.

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Report: Chicago Bears reconsider old Michael Reese Hospital site as new stadium location

The day of remembrance ended at Halsted and Diversey Parkway, with an honorary bronze statue unveiled at the Lincoln Park firehouse where Price served. The statue depicted a jacket draped over a surfboard, reflecting Prices passion for surfing.

For Drew, surfing wasnt just about catching a wave, Lara Price said. It was about living in the here and now, finding beauty in lifes rhythm, its ups and downs, riding whatever waves that life brought.

On a surfing trip to Hawaii, Price discovered the meaning behind mahalo  the Hawaiian word for gratitude  and made it his own personal catchphrase.

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A year after his death serving the City of Chicago, Prices family, friends and co-workers greeted each other, honored his memory and bid him farewell through that one word.

Mahalo, Drew.

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A southwest Minnesota man is accused of strangling his girlfriend to death while house-sitting for a friend earlier this month.

Joseph Benson, 35, of Edgerton, is with second-degree murder for the death of Samantha Koehne, 38, of Sioux Falls, on Nov. 2.

According to the criminal complaint, Benson and Koehne were house-sitting in Edgerton for a friend who'd gone to Florida when the murder took place.

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Charges that the homeowner alerted the Pipestone County Sheriff's Office on Nov. 2 after receiving a Snapchat message from Benson saying he'd killed Koehne, known as Panda.

Pipestone County jail roster

Law enforcement arrived at the home and detained Benson, who allegedly told deputies on inside the squad car that there was "a dead body upstairs."

According to the complaint, responders found Koehne's body on the bathroom floor with an extension cord wrapped around her legs and lying across her body.

The Ramsey County Medical Examiner's Office ruled asphyxiation was likely her cause of death based on her injuries.

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Later on Nov. 2, the homeowner contacted law enforcement again to ask about Koehne's condition and learned she was dead.

The woman told investigators she'd asked Benson to house-sit and take care of her dogs and bird and communicated with him daily via Snapchat.

She said that she received a message from Benson on Snapchat that day, saying that Koehne was freaking out and wanted to leave, to which she responded to let her and wrote: "I don't care what you need to do, you get this taken care of, and no more of this crap at my house."

The three got on Snapchat via video conference at around 10:45 a.m. for around seven minutes. It was the last time she saw Koehne alive.

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About 20 minutes later, she received a Snapchat call from Benson. When she asked if Koehne was gone, he responded, "Yeah, Panda is gone." Charges state that he told his friend, " Yeah, she wouldn't stop screaming, and I can't go back to prison."

Benson has been convicted of multiple prior misdemeanors and a felony burglary conviction in 2009, in which he received 15 days in jail and five years on probation.

He is currently in custody at Pipestone County Jail. His unconditional bail has been set at $250,000, while conditional bail is $100,000. His next court date is Dec. 10 at 10:15 a.m.

Koehne's obituary states she had three children and enjoyed baking and cooking.

If you know anyone who is affected by domestic violence, you can find more information on services available here, via the Minnesota DPS. You can also call the Day One Crisis Hotline at 1-866-223-1111.
CHICAGO  Chicago rapper Lil Durk pleaded not guilty to murder-for-hire charges at his Los Angeles arraignment Thursday, three weeks after his dramatic arrest in Miami as he allegedly tried to flee the country.

Lil Durk, 32, whose real name is Durk Davontay Banks, was accused of paying five associates of his South Side rap consortium Only the Family to kill a rival artist. The men he allegedly hired traveled to Los Angeles in August 2022 and opened fire on the rivals vehicle, fatally striking the mans cousin, according to the federal charges.

Banks has been held without bond at the federal lockup in Florida since Oct. 24, when he was arrested by law enforcement as he headed to a Miami-area airport. The charges allege Banks had booked three separate international flights and was planning to board a private jet to Italy when he was taken into custody.

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Banks was scheduled for a detention hearing in December in the case. Banks was taken by the marshals to California Wednesday and is currently being held in the federal lockup there.

Prosecutors asked that Banks remain behind bars pending trial, saying he is a flight risk and a danger to the community.

The charges are the latest to come from an ongoing violent feud between rival groups of rappers that spans from Chicagos South Side to both coasts.

Banks and five associates were originally charged last month in separate cases that alleged a cross-country conspiracy to avenge the 2020 slaying of King Von, born Dayvon Bennett, another Chicago rapper and close friend of Banks who was gunned down in Atlanta in 2020.

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Banks is accused of offering money and lucrative music opportunities to anyone who would kill Quando Rondo, a Georgia-based rapper whose real name is Tyquian Terrel Bowman.

Bowman, his sister and his cousin, Saviaya Robinson, 24, were riding in Bowmans black Cadillac Escalade near a gas station in West Hollywood in August 2022 when gunmen opened fire, according to the charges. Bowman and his sister were not injured, but Robinson was struck multiple times and killed.

A superseding indictment made public last week also alleged Lil Durk sought to commercialize Robinsons death.

After the shooting, Banks released a song that included news footage that featured Bowmans reaction to his cousins death. The song, the indictment stated, explicitly references audio from a news clip taken shortly after (Robinsons) murder where (Bowman) screamed no, no! after seeing (Robinsons) dead body.

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Banks was charged in the indictment with conspiracy and one count of use of interstate facilities to commit murder-for-hire resulting in death. The indictment also charged him with one count of using, carrying and discharging firearms and a machine gun, as well as possession of such firearms in furtherance of a crime of violence resulting in death.

The five associates named in the indictment were: Kavon London Grant; Deandre Dontrell Wilson; Keith Jones; David Brian Lindsey; and Asa Houston. They were arrested in the Chicago area hours before Banks was picked up, and are all being held without bond.

The most serious charges carry mandatory life in prison if convicted, according to the U.S. attorneys office.

OTF was founded by Lil Durk more than a decade ago as Chicagos drill rap scene was gaining international attention. Federal prosecutors say the group primarily produced and sold hip hop music from artists from Chicago.

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FBG Duck, the Chicago drill rapper, was killed in a hail of gunfire on Oak Street in 2020, and his slaying led to the convictions of six men in a federal conspiracy trial in January. Last month, FBG Ducks mother filed a lawsuit alleging Lil Durk, OTF and King Von were involved in the shooting, as well. The lawsuit alleges that OTF operates as a criminal enterprise.

According to the initial indictment, after tracking Bowman to the Los Angeles area, Grant rented a hotel room for the co-conspirators on Aug. 18, 2022, and later met them there. He brought several firearms, including one that had been modified to operate as a fully automatic machine gun.

Grant also provided two rented vehicles to use to find, track and kill Bowman, the indictment stated, a white BMW sedan and a white Infiniti. The group followed and tracked Bowmans black Escalade from his hotel to a marijuana dispensary and then a clothing store in downtown Los Angeles, the indictment stated.

A surveillance image included in the indictment allegedly shows the BMW and Infiniti following the Escalade as it traveled between stores.

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When Bowman stopped at a gas station, Houston drove around to the alley and let Jones and Lindsey and another unidentified co-conspirator out to carry out the shooting, according to the indictment.

____
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN)  State officials are trying to strengthen North Carolinas gun storage laws to prevent children from having easy access. The Child Fatality Task Force met Wednesday to make their recommendations to lawmakers.

The task force is asking lawmakers to both change the language of the law and approve more funding to educate people on safe storage. Officials said it only takes a few seconds to safely store your gun and keep it out of a childs hands.

RELATED: Digging deeper into NC law for storage of firearms to protect minors

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The time it takes you to lock up is the same to put a seatbelt on or put your child in a child safety seat, said William Lassiter, the deputy secretary for the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for the Department of Public Safety. Those few seconds can save you from a lifetime of tragedy.

Right now, a gun owner can face charges if they live with a minor, do not store their gun properly and the child brings it to school, carelessly shows it, injures or kills someone or commits a crime. However, the current law only applies to someone living in the same place as a child. The task force wants to remove that language so the law will cover situations, like guns stored inside cars.

We see that 60% of the firearms that were stolen last year were stolen from vehicles, Lassiter said. We want to change that language to make sure people werent getting off on a loophole.

The task force is also recommending over $2 million in recurring funding for NC S.A.F.E., a campaign aimed at educating people about safe gun storage.

State officials are trying to strengthen North Carolina's gun storage laws to prevent children from having easy access.

Weve given out, 60,000 gun locks, Lassiter said. People are really wanting these resources so they can actually do the right thing in their homes.

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More changes could be coming. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, gun owners in some states can face punishment for not properly storing their gun, even if a child never gets their hands on it. North Carolina has not taken that step yet.

Thats not included in this proposal, Lassiter said. But I think that is something that is going to be looked at in the future to even enhance the safe storage law more than what we recommended today.

The task force also discussed vaping in young people and funding for more school nurses, social workers, and counselors at Wednesdays meeting. According to statistics presented by the task force, 1 in 10 middle school students say they have used vape products. That number goes up to 1 in 5 for high school students. The task force approved a recommendation to raise the age for sale of tobacco products in North Carolina from 18 to 21 to match the federal minimum wage.

These recommendations now go to the General Assembly, where members of the task force will work with lawmakers to get these recommendations into legislation.

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CHANCAY, Peru (AP)  On the edge of Perus coastal desert, a remote fishing town where a third of all residents have no running water is being transformed into a huge deep-water port to cash in on the inexorable rise of Chinese interest in resource-rich South America.

The megaport of Chancay, a $1.3 billion project majority-owned by the Chinese shipping giant Cosco, is turning this outpost of bobbing fishing boats into an important node of the global economy.

From the presidential palace in Lima, 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of the port inauguration ceremony, Chinas President Xi Jinping watched a livestream of the ribbon-cutting alongside his Peruvian counterpart, Dina Boluarte, late Thursday.

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The leaders' faces appeared on a giant screen in Chancay, where engineers in bright orange safety vests declared the port operational to the swell of string instruments. Chinese dancers with red dragon-costume heads seemingly burst out of nowhere to prance around the docking station as a crane lowered the first aluminum containers onto a berthed cargo ship.

Considerable income and enormous job opportunities will be generated for Peru, Xi said from Lima, where world leaders were preparing to gather for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. This will generate tangible results for the people of the region.

But the development  expected to encompass 15 quays and a large industrial park drawing more than $3.5 billion in investment over a decade  has met a skeptical response from impoverished villagers, who say it is depriving them of fishing waters and bringing no economic benefit to locals.

Our fishing spots no longer exist here. They destroyed them, said 78-year-old fisherman Julius Caesar  like the emperor of Rome  gesturing toward the dockside cranes. I don't blame the Chinese for trying to mine this place for all it's worth. I blame our government for not protecting us.

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The Peruvian government hopes the port will become a strategic transshipment hub for the region, opening a new line connecting South America to Asia and speeding trade across the Pacific for Peru's blueberries, Brazil's soybeans and Chile's copper, among other exports.

Officials cite the port's potential to generate millions of dollars in revenues and turn coastal cities into so-called special economic zones with tax breaks to lure investment.

We Peruvians are focused primarily on the well-being of Peruvians, Foreign Minister Elmer Schialer told The Associated Press.

But many of Chancay's 60,000 residents are unconvinced. Fishermen returning to port with smaller catches complain that they have already lost out.

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The dredging of the port  which sucked sediment from the seabed to create a shipping channel 17 meters (56 feet) deep  has ruined fish breeding grounds, locals said.

Ive been out in the water all day and Im always needing to venture farther, said Rafael Avila, a 28-year-old fisherman with sand in his hair, returning to shore empty-handed and exhausted.

This used to be enough, he said, pointing at his painted dinghy. Now I need a larger, more expensive boat to reach the fish."

To make extra cash, Avila started offering occasional joyrides to selfie-taking visitors wanting to get a glimpse at the hulking Chinese ships.

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With some of the world's largest container ships to berth at Chancay Port in January 2025, residents also fear the arrival of pollution and oil spills. In 2022, a botched tanker delivery at La Pampilla refinery nearby sent thousands of barrels of crude oil spilling into Peru's famously biodiverse waters, killing countless fish and putting legions of fishermen out of work.

Today a glance at the moribund town center, featuring mostly empty seafood restaurants, tells the story of diminished fishing stocks and decimated tourism even without the port being operational.

The port's breakwater changed the currents and destroyed good surfing conditions, locals said, affecting everyone from ice vendors to truckers to restaurant owners. No to the megaport is spray-painted on a wall overlooking the waterfront.

This port is a monster that's come here to screw us, said 40-year-old Rosa Collantes, cleaning and gutting slimy drum fish on the shore. People come to the port and they say Wow, tremendous!' but they don't see the reality.

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Port authorities say they're aware of the stark contrast between the sleek modern port and the surrounding village of Chancay, where many live on unpaved roads lined with ragged shacks and littered with trash.

You cannot build a state-of-the-art port and have a city next to it that has no drinking water, no sewage, a collapsing hospital and no educational centers, said Mario de las Casas, a manager for Cosco in Chancay, adding that the company had already launched studies to determine how the port could help reduce inequality and spur local growth.

The port should not be a blemish, De las Casas said.
By Eduardo Baptista, Marco Aquino, Lucinda Elliott

LIMA (Reuters) -Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a $1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent.

With China's demand for agricultural goods and metals from Latin America growing, Xi will participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima then head to the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, where he will also make a state visit to Brazil.

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Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening of the Chancay port, about 80 kilometres (48 miles) north of Lima on the Pacific Ocean, and signed a deal to widen an existing free trade agreement.

Xi said that Chancay, a 15-berth, deep-water port, was the successful start of a "21st century maritime Silk Road" and part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, its modern revival of the ancient Silk Road trading route.

"China is willing to work with the Peruvian side to take the Chancay project as a starting point to forge a new maritime-land corridor between China and Latin America and connect the Great Inca Trail," Xi said, referring to a 15th century mountain network that joined the Inca empire.

In an opinion article in the El Peruano state newspaper, Xi said the Chancay project would generate $4.5 billion in annual revenues, create more than 8,000 direct jobs and reduce the logistics costs of the Peru-China route by 20%.

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The China-controlled megaport was built by Cosco Shipping Ports and received $1.3 billion in Chinese investment for its first phase. China is expected to spend billions more as Beijing and Lima work to position it as a major shipping hub between Asia and South America.

The first ship was due to set sail from Chancay next week, transporting Peruvian fruit to China, Mario Ocharan, Peruvian director of the Chancay Chamber of Commerce, said.

China's main motivation for developing the megaport, according to Ocharan, was access to neighboring Brazil, where a new railway line is planned to carry Brazilian exports such as soybeans and iron ore to the port.

The rail project is estimated to cost $3.5 billion, according to Mario de las Casas, corporate affairs manager at Cosco Shipping Chancay Peru.

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Building that link is "crucial" to improve transportation of soybeans as Brazil is the top seller of the commodity to China, he said.

GEOPOLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HEADWINDS

The inauguration of the port comes as Beijing is looking to further tap into resource-rich Latin America, amid trade tensions with Europe and concerns about future U.S. tariffs on Chinese exports from the incoming Trump administration.

Hundreds of Chinese business executives have accompanied Xi on this trip including heads of companies heavily invested in Peru such as Chinalco, which owns the Toromocho copper mine.

Robert Evan Ellis, Latin America research professor at the U.S. Army War College, said that Chancay will make shipping between Latin America and China more efficient.

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Because the port can handle the biggest ships, it will reduce the need for shippers to consolidate cargo containers at intermediary points, reducing costs and handling times.

"Chancay illustrates how China seeks secure access to resources and markets and its ever more successful fight to corner global value added, Ellis said.

China's major investment in Chancay has raised alarm bells in Washington. General Laura Richardson, former U.S. Southern Command chief, warned earlier this month that Chancay could be used by the Chinese navy and for intelligence-gathering.

U.S. anxieties about Chancay reflect a broader, decades-long shift in a region Washington long saw as its backyard. China has overtaken the United States to become the largest trading partner of countries like Peru.

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China's state-backed Global Times wrote in an editorial on Monday that the port was "by no means a tool for geopolitical competition", calling U.S. accusations of the port's potential military use "smears".

(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista, Marco Aquino, and Lucinda Elliot in Lima, additional reporting by Zhang Yukun in Beijing; Editing by Alistair Bell, Diane Craft and Cynthia Osterman)
Students attend a job fair in Tsinghua University in Beijing, March 15, 2024. (Xinhua/Ju Huanzong)

BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- China is projected to see a surge in the number of college graduates in 2025. With an estimated rise of 430,000 graduates from the previous year, the total number of college graduates is expected to reach 12.22 million, according to official data released on Thursday.

The Chinese government has introduced a series of measures to help college graduates as they navigate a competitive job market and explore new opportunities in a rapidly evolving economy.

One of the main focuses is to align talent development with the evolving demands of the economy and society, according to a circular released by the Ministry of Education.

Talent demand reports and lists identifying sectors facing significant shortages of skilled workers will be released to strengthen the analysis of job market needs, the circular said.

The ministry has also urged universities to adjust and optimize their academic programs. A "red-yellow card" alert system will be introduced for programs that produce graduates with low employment prospects. These programs will be closely monitored, and necessary adjustments will be made to meet current job market demands.

Meanwhile, China encourages graduates to explore flexible employment opportunities and entrepreneurship.

Efforts will be made to tap into the potential of new industries, emerging business models, and innovative sectors as avenues for employment. Graduates are being guided to leverage their expertise in fields such as the digital economy, green economy, silver economy, and low-altitude economy.

To support entrepreneurs, local governments and universities have been urged to implement supportive policies, including tax reductions and financial assistance. Targeted services will also be provided to help graduates commercialize their innovations.

China has organized over 55,000 job fairs across the country since September, offering a remarkable 10.93 million job opportunities, according to the ministry. 
BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) - A 22-year-old Chinese woman's account of how she was lured into the country's illegal surrogacy industry before suffering a miscarriage went viral on Chinese social media this week and raised heated debates over women's rights and social inequality.

Surrogacy is banned in China, and authorities have vowed to severely crack down on illegal practices, including the buying and selling of sperm, egg and surrogacy services.

The incident comes as Chinese authorities grapple with how to increase the country's birth rate as more young couples put off having children or opt to have none.

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China's population fell for a second consecutive year in 2023 and Beijing in October rallied local governments to direct resources towards fixing China's population crisis to create a "birth-friendly" society.

Zhang Jing, 22, told state-backed Phoenix TV magazine that she donated her eggs out of financial desperation and then agreed to "rent out her uterus" to be impregnated for a total of 30,000 yuan ($4,152).

If she "successfully" delivered the baby, she would be paid a total of 240,000 yuan. At five months pregnant, she experienced severe complications and had to have an abortion.

Zhang's story amassed more than 86 million views and 10,000 comments on Chinese social media platform Weibo, with the hashtag "#2000s-born Surrogate Miscarriage Girl Speaks Out#."

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The majority of comments strongly opposed surrogacy. Some warned that legalising surrogacy in China could lead to increased competition that would lower compensation and further devalue women.

"No woman could escape this if surrogacy were legalised," one user wrote, while another said, "Legalising surrogacy would drive down prices and commodify women."

Zhang's story ignited calls for a more thorough crackdown on illegal surrogacy by authorities, with some commenters warning that allowing the black market to continue to operate could even normalise human organ trafficking.

"Life should not be traded as a commodity," one user wrote. "If this extends to the sale of organs, it will only get darker and darker, and women will have no future."

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The incident comes a few weeks after a 28-year-old pregnant woman who acted as a surrogate in China's southwestern city of Chengdu was allegedly abandoned by her surrogacy agency.

($1 = 7.2245 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Ella Cao in Beijing and Farah Master in Hong Kong; Editing by Jamie Freed)
This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 13 episode of "All In with Chris Hayes."

On Wednesday, Donald Trump returned to the White House for the first time since he slunk away four years ago, skipping Joe Bidens inauguration. This time around, Biden invited the president-elect to meet in the Oval Office, a tradition meant to symbolize the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next.

The two presidents sat side by side in front of a roaring fire and put on a friendly face for the cameras. Biden congratulated Trump on his victory and said he was looking forward to having a smooth transition.

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Now, I absolutely get why Biden is following the normal rituals, welcoming his successor and shaking his hand. Its all to send a signal about the stability of our system. But that doesnt negate the fact that for a lot of us, that scene was tough to watch.

Four years ago, from that very office, Trump tried to overthrow the republic and overturn the will of the people. This time around, he threatened to do the exact same thing if he lost  except he won. So democracy carries on peacefully as usual because thats what Democrats do when they lose.

And were all supposed to just swallow that asymmetry? Honestly, it can feel pretty enraging.

Our democracy had a narrow escape only because Trump won. So instead of dangerous lies, conspiracy theories, maybe more mob violence and who knows what else, we get a happy fireside chat.

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On Jan. 6, 2025, there will be no gallows erected on the U.S. Capitol grounds. Instead, Vice President Kamala Harris will preside over the peaceful, constitutional certification of the electoral votes.

But Trumps electoral victory does not solve the central problem here: He and many in his movement still remain a dangerous threat to the continuity of our constitutional republic. They still dont respect democratic norms. They dont respect facts. They dont believe that the rules apply to them.

We shouldnt come to the conclusion that, because he won, all of that doesnt matter.

Yes, the majority of Americans decided that Jan. 6, 2021, and all of Trumps other alleged crimes were not enough to sway their vote against him, but I dont think that means that they dont care about our democracy. (Trump has pleaded not guilty in all four of his criminal cases.)

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I know that I, and a lot of my fellow citizens, still care deeply about our Constitution, our tradition of a peaceful transfer of power and upholding our liberal democratic order. And I dont know what the solution is as we prepare for another four years of Trump in power.

However, I refuse to accept that this is just the way things work now. I dont accept the idea that there is one set of rules for him and another for everyone else.

We cannot accept a status quo in our elections, where if one side wins, they have to scratch and claw to withstand lies  illegal challenges and violent mobs  and if the other side is successful, theyre invited to measure the drapes and gather around the fireplace.

Yes, the nature of preserving democracy, institutions and norms is that you uphold them even for people like Trump who have tried to tear them down. But this is not a sustainable equilibrium: One side upholds liberal democratic norms, the other subverts and destroys them.

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It's going to break, one way or the other. I dont know how it ends up or who wins, but that central struggle didnt dissolve because Trump won more votes this time.

Allison Detzel contributed.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Wednesday warned that President-elect Donald Trump nominating former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to be his attorney general will be a red alert moment for American democracy.

Matt Gaetz is being nominated for one reason and one reason only, Murphy told CNNs Jake Tapper.

He will implement Donald Trumps transition of the Department of Justice from an agency that stands up for all of us to an agency that is simply an arm of the White House designed to persecute and prosecute Trumps political enemies.

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Trump, who made over 100 threats to his political foes on the campaign trail, declared on Wednesday that Gaetz will restore Americans badly shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department while describing him as a Champion for the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

Gaetz resigned from Congress following the announcement on Wednesday.

The president-elects nomination of Gaetz, once the target of a sex trafficking investigation by the Justice Department, left several GOP lawmakers stunned.

You could literally hear the jaws dropping to the floor of Republican senators who are now going to be in a position to stand up to Donald Trump in a way that they have been unwilling to, said Murphy, who described walking off the Senate floor to the news of the nomination.

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He called Gaetz dangerously unqualified, but thats not the worst of it.

Gaetz, he noted, has been a chief defender of Trumps assault on democracy and pointed to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Gaetz has floated conspiracy theories about antifa being behind the Capitol riot, pushed for rioters to face lighter sentences and was one of three dozen House Republicans to vote against awarding officers for defending the Capitol during the attack.

Murphy added that Gaetz has called to abolish law enforcement agencies if they dont get in line with right-wing priorities.

Murphy told Tapper that Trumps announcement is stunning in some ways while also not surprising in others.

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Trump told us during the campaign that he was going to use the White House to go after people who politically opposed him, he said, and it seems this pick for the head of the Department of Justice is very much in line with the promises he made during the campaign.

H/T: Mediaite

Related...
A village Christmas fair has been cancelled for the first time in 25 years after organisers were told to block off roads to prevent a potential terrorist attack.

The Rotary Club of Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire said an insurmountable level of onerous health and safety paperwork and accompanying measures meant it was no longer feasible to host the Dec 6 event this year.

The club, which runs the fair on behalf of the parish council, said it had been told it would have to block off two roads at both ends to prevent drive-through terrorism and find funds to employ a traffic management company to man the road closures.

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Organisers claimed they would also need to draft and issue written guidance to marshalls and stewards on procedures in the event of a terrorist attack.

The fair in Woodhall Spa usually attracts around 4,000 people to its 110 stalls each year and lasts for only four hours from 5.30pm to 9.30pm on a single evening.

The club runs the fair on behalf of the parish council - Bav Media/Eclipse Photographic

In a statement on its website, the club said: Over the years the health and safety requirements surrounding the Fayre have steadily increased and additional measures have been imposed with the aim of mitigating potential harms to customers and stallholders.

These measures have now become so onerous that our organising committee has concluded that they now represent an insurmountable barrier to holding the event.

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It added: Unfortunately, it seems that even these measures and the completion of a 67-page health and safety compliance document (for the 2023 event) are not enough and 2024 would see this documentation almost double in volume.

The village has now planned a series of scaled-down Christmas events which dont involve road closures and unrealistic compliance requirements including a late night shopping event on Dec 6.

Graham Marsh, the deputy leader of the Conservative-led East Lindsey district council, said he understood that some of the policies were a little bit over the top and it would be tragic if events were cancelled.

The club was asked to produce documentation and guidance for staff in the event of a terrorist attack - Bav Media/Eclipse Photographic

However, he said the authority has to open peoples eyes to litigation because we live in such litigious times now.

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The council said it was also recruiting two new members of staff to help groups navigate the paperwork and requirements.

Last year, the UKs oldest Christmas market was cancelled over health and safety fears.

Lincoln Christmas Market, which was first held in 1982 and attracts more than 300,000 people over four days, was shut down in 2023 because of concerns about overcrowding.

A motion to reverse the decision was rejected by Labour City of Lincoln councillors who argued that having so many people in a small area can be uncomfortable.

Revellers enjoying themselves at last years Christmas market in Woodhall Spa - Eclipse Photographic/Bav Media

Karl McCartney, the then Conservative MP for Lincoln, criticised the decision at the time, saying it was wrong on every level.

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A council spokesman said: The council is looking at how it can support local events by providing officer support and advice, including assistance with obtaining SAG [Safety Advisory Group] advice for events.

The council recognises the importance of locally organised events, as demonstrated by the recent Vintage by the Sea event at Sutton on Sea, where officers helped facilitate this very successful event.

Event organisers, whether volunteers, charities, companies, or commercial organisations, are responsible for the health, safety, and welfare of attendees and those affected by their events. Our guidance and support aim to ensure this, while also safeguarding organisers and mitigating the impact of any potential consequences.

Over the past two years, several events around Lincolnshire have become victim to rising costs and concerns over public safety, including Lincoln Christmas Market, the Woodhall Spa 1940s Festival and the Lincolnshire Steam Rally.

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This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 14 episode of "Morning Joe."

On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump announced his plans to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz to be U.S. attorney general. Since that announcement, theres been a lot of discussion about how Gaetz lacks the qualifications for the post.

Now, in a sense, everybody is unqualified for that office. The work of the Justice Department is so deep, broad and complex that no one can come in truly prepared for all of it. Nobody comes in knowing everything about tax or antitrust or civil rights or criminal or civil or environmental work. They do not know the intricacies of the work of its many divisions, from the Federal Bureau of Prisons to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. So concern over Trump's pick for AG is not just that Gaetz is unqualified (though he is).

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In any attorney general, you look for certain qualities. Whether they are Republican, Democrat, male, female, Black, white  all of that is meaningless as long as they have three qualities: integrity, judgment and independence. With those qualities, you can handle the job.

I first came into the Justice Department when Dick Thornburgh was the U.S. attorney general. Thornburgh, who served in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, was a Republican and former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. He later became the states governor. He was a man of tremendous integrity, honor, judgment and intellect. He was passionate about the work of the department and he understood the norms.

I also served under Janet Reno, the U.S. attorney general during Bill Clintons administration. Reno reportedly drove Clinton crazy because of her independence  but thats exactly what the Justice Department needs.

Even Trumps first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, disappointed the then-president when he recused himself from stewardship of the investigation into Russian election interference. And President Joe Biden might not have been too happy with Attorney General Merrick Garland when his son, Hunter Biden, was indicted and when Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the presidents mishandling of classified information. Both of these attorneys general also demonstrated their independence.

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That is what good attorneys general have in common. However, with Gaetz, you might end up with somebody who is wholly unqualified for the job coupled with somebody who lacks integrity, judgment and independence.

If you are wondering what it looks like if Gaetz becomes the attorney general of the United States, to put it bluntly, it will be a train wreck.

Allison Detzel contributed.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
LAKE COUNTY, Ind. (WGN)  An Oregon man was recently extradited to Northwest Indiana in the 1981 killing of another man, and a cigarette discarded by his brother helped police find him.

The investigation into Gregory Thurson, 64, of Eugene, Oregon, began in 2018.

Griffith Detective John Mowery Jr., with the help of his father, a retired detective, began to look into the killing of John Blaylock.

According to court documents, Blaylock was found murdered on Nov. 3, 1981, at an apartment in Griffith.

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His co-workers at Inland Steel told police he had not shown up for work the previous two days and that they were concerned.

Police found a grisly scene inside Blaylocks apartment. Blood was found in several rooms, and once officers entered the bedroom, Blaylock was found dead, naked from the waist down with blood all over the room.

Police noted that smashed pottery containing his hair and tissue were found near his body.

According to documents, the only lead police had around the time of the murder was that Blaylock liked to visit a bar called Johns Place.

A woman told police Blaylock was spotted at the bar with a man she had never seen before two days before his death. The man was described as being 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 10 inches, between the ages of 20 and 23 with straggly, dirty blonde hair.

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No one was ever arrested.

Coroners office concludes Rhyker Earls death was natural

Mowery Jr. in 2018 requested that blood evidence collected from the bathroom be tested by the Indiana State Police Laboratory. A DNA profile from an unknown male was obtained and entered into a system.

In 2022, the DNA was sent to Parabons DNA processing laboratory and advanced DNA analysis was performed. In October of that year, the detective was given three names to whom the DNA likely could belong, and they all were related.

One potential suspect was located in a nursing home in South Holland and could not speak at that time. He died around six weeks later, but authorities were able to obtain a piece of his hair.

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The hair excluded the man as a suspect and provided police with the names of two brothers.

One of the brothers was pulled over for traffic infractions in Burnham. Investigators there were informed by Griffith police about the case and that the man was a person of interest.

During the traffic stop, the man discarded a cigarette, which was collected by police as evidence.

Mowery Jr. then used the cigarette butt for DNA analysis and the man was excluded as a potential suspect, but his brother was not.

Thurson was determined to be the suspected killer of Blaylock from all of the DNA analysis and testing. He was found living in Eugene, Oregon, and was taken into custody on a murder warrant on Oct. 29.

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He was recently extradited to Lake County. Thursons next court date is scheduled for Nov. 20.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News.
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH)  A local grassroots organization is taking action as it stands up for its beliefs.

Citizen Action of New York is hosting No Time to Despair, a rally for justice and human rights.

In light of the recent election, Citizen Action says the rally serves as an invitation to those who stand for equality and justice. The organization says it plans to unite those who support the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, Black lives, immigrants, and those fighting for reproductive freedom and body autonomy.

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The rally is set to take place on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Broome County Courthouse.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WIVT - News 34.
Citizens Property Insurance, a major downtown employer is still exploring all options to leave its current location at the EverBank Center, as safety concerns Action News Jax first reported have become public.

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<

Action News Jax Ben Becker has obtained an internal incident report from Citizens Insurance that says both a worker and a security guard were attacked by a homeless man in October.

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According to the report a Citizens worker says the man was making shooting sounds and was pointing his hand in the shape of a gun and grabbed his shirt which was startling/scary, and got into a physical fight with a security guard.

[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]

Action News Jax first reported in August that Citizens was considering leaving downtown. Sources at the time said it was because of safety concerns regarding the homeless, including workers who have been threatened and harassed.

Citizens have been at the Everbank Center on Bay Street since 2015, but it wants to shift more than 1,000 employees to the Southside

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Becker also obtained an internal email that was sent out to employees on Wednesday about its plans to move out of downtown.

The company said it rejected all bids submitted under its invitation to negotiate to procure office space for its Jacksonville location. Only three bids were submitted, and one bidder subsequently dropped out, limiting competition and choice. Citizens also faced some public criticism in the form of claims that the ITN unfairly limited competition by excluding the downtown area, the email read.

Both the Jax Chamber and Jacksonville Civic Council wrote a letter to the state encouraging Citizens to not move, describing it as a devastating blow for downtown Jacksonville.

The email went on to say As Floridas insurer of last resort, and a not-for-profit governmental entity, Citizens must go above and beyond to maintain public trust and confidence in our business decisions. Because only two bids were ultimately under consideration, Citizens will reissue the ITN and broaden its scope to include downtown and other areas. Although a new ITN will be drafted to capture a broader area and promote more competition, properties located within the geographic area of the previous ITN remain eligible for consideration. Because the current office lease does not expire until June of 2026, reissuing the ITN will not delay the process of entering a new lease in whatever location is selected. In all events, when it comes to where Citizens offices are located, the safety and security of our employees will remain an important consideration throughout this process.

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EL PASO, Texas (KTSM)  The City of El Pasos Department of Public Health is partnering up with the El Paso Fire Department to host a free drive-thru flu vaccination clinic this Saturday, Nov. 16, at Abundant East, the City said in a press release.

The drive-thru event will be from 8 a.m. through 12 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 16, at Abundant East located at 1000 Valley Crest Drive.

The City says the drive-thru clinic will be offering flu shots for individuals six months and older. No appointment or insurance is necessary at the event. The first 150 people who attend will receive a free Be Powerful t-shirt and other giveaways.

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Each fall and winter, we see a rise in respiratory illnesses, with influenza posing a significant risk due to its potential for severe complications, including hospitalization and even death, said Dr. Hector Ocaranza, City-County Health Authority. The flu vaccine is a powerful tool in our fight against these dangers, offering protection that can prevent serious illness and save lives. We strongly encourage everyone to get vaccinated before flu season peaks.

For more information about flu vaccinations and additional health resources, click here: BePOWERflu.com

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Update, Nov. 14, 10:55 a.m.  The City stated in an update issued at 10:13 a.m. that four individuals have been apprehended in relation to the bailout. One individual remains at large.

SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage)  The City of Sonora has reported that law enforcement is searching for a bailout suspect near the town, marking the second bailout incident to be reported near Sonora in November 2024.

According to a Nixle alert issued by the City, the bailout occurred just east of the city limits on U.S. Loop 467, approximately 200 yards away from the Holiday Host Motel & RV Park.

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The suspect has been identified as a Hispanic man wearing a black jacket with a high visibility vest on and blue jeans. The individual was stated to have run southeast from the traffic stop.

The City has asked residents to call the Sonora Police Department at (325)-387-3888 or the Sutton County Sheriffs Office at (325)-387-2288 if they witness any suspicious activity or individuals.

The bailout is the second to have been reported by the City during November. The first, which was reported on Nov. 5, occurred after a man, identified as 59-year-old Otis Layne Babb, crashed his vehicle and fled on foot following a high-speed chase with law enforcement.

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 As a child stood near a canal in Cape Coral, Florida, a Dodge Challenger left the road nearby at a high rate of speed and plunged into the canal nose first, NBC2-TV reported -- fortunately just missing the child.

"I can only imagine how he's feeling," said Lorraine Holder, who lives on the canal and had a home security camera trained on the water that captured the incident.

The car's airbags deployed, which made it difficult to get the driver out, but a Good Samaritan helped him escape before it sank completely.

No injuries were reported. [NBC2, 10/17/2023]
Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, holds talks with Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, Nov. 13, 2024. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

BAKU, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang on Wednesday held talks with Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev in Baku.

Ding, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that under the strategic guidance of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, China-Azerbaijan relations have been developing in a sound and stable manner.

In July this year, the two heads of state announced the elevation of China-Azerbaijan relations to the level of strategic partnership, laying out a new blueprint for bilateral relations, Ding noted, adding that both sides should implement the key consensuses reached by the two leaders, firmly support each other on issues concerning their core interests, and promote the steady and long-term development of China-Azerbaijan relations, to achieve shared development and prosperity, and bring more benefits to the two peoples.

Ding expressed China's willingness to align the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with Azerbaijan's economic and social development strategies and enrich the strategic partnership with more practical cooperation outcomes.

China seeks to strengthen trade and investment cooperation and enable more high-quality Azerbaijani products to enter the Chinese market, welcomes Azerbaijani businesses to invest and grow in China, and encourages and supports Chinese companies to invest and develop in Azerbaijan, Ding said.

He noted that China actively adapts itself to the trend of green and low-carbon transition and continues to deepen energy cooperation.

China strengthens connectivity to ensure the safe, stable, and smooth operation of China-Europe freight trains, and works with Azerbaijan and other countries along the route to build the trans-Caspian international transportation corridor, Ding said.

Ding called for enhancing cooperation in culture, education, science, tourism and other areas, facilitating personnel exchanges between the two countries, and promoting mutual understanding between the peoples.

The two countries should strengthen mutual support and coordination in international and regional affairs to safeguard the shared interests of both countries and other developing nations, he added.

Mustafayev said that Azerbaijan highly values the BRI proposed by Xi and was one of the first countries to formally support it.

Noting that the relationship between Azerbaijan and China is strong and resilient, he said that Azerbaijan firmly adheres to the one-China principle and is willing to push for greater development of bilateral relations by further aligning development strategies with China, and deepening bilateral practical cooperation in trade, investment, energy, finance, people-to-people exchanges and other areas. 
SIOUX FALLS S.D. (KELO)  Here are this mornings top stories with KELOLAND On the Go.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem says she immediately accepted President-elect Donald Trumps appointment to become secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in his upcoming administration. Not only did she quickly accept, Noem says she sought and requested this role specifically.

Noem: This is the position that I asked him for

A project several years in the making has finally broken ground in Sioux Falls with a promise of creating some 600 jobs. The 142-acre site will soon be home to a 700 thousand-square-foot food production facility tasked with making egg rolls and steamed dumplings.

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CJ Schwans breaks ground in Sioux Falls

With the holiday seasons around the corner, the Sioux Falls Area Humane Society and Best Care Pet Hospital will host a special microchip clinic Thursday. The Sioux Falls Area Humane Society is teaming up with Best Care Pet Hospital to microchip 50 pets for free, just ahead of the holidays.

Get your pet microchipped for free

For the latest top stories and breaking news, download our news app.

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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO)  A project several years in the making has finally broken ground in Sioux Falls with a promise of creating some 600 jobs.

The construction site of the new Asian-style food production plant from CJ Schwans is located in Foundation Park near the Amazon Fulfillment Center. The 142-acre site will soon be home to a 700 thousand-square-foot food production facility tasked with making egg rolls and steamed dumplings.

Im ready to call us the egg roll capitol of the world, can we say that yet, Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken said.

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This project was announced in 2021. Since then, the state government has given a record amount of money to the company to build this facility  two loans totaling $25 million.

The sheer magnitude of this investment  really excited. This will be the largest, I believe its going to be the largest frozen Asian facility, Minsok Pak, CEO of CJ Foods, said. So what this is going to allow us to do is, if you think about it, in the near future were going to have products rolling off here that will serve consumers from Sacramento all the way to Syracuse, right, with products made in Sioux Falls. That is truly, truly a blessing.

A look back at Tom Daschles time as Majority Leader

Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken says projects like this are what the city dreamed of when creating Foundation Park.

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We are here because of the vision of a bunch of community leaders who said, we need a big development park and were going to call it Foundation Park. Were going to build it and hope they come,' TenHaken said. And this was a barren place for quite a few years and now were almost out of land and were talking about Foundation Park 2.

Were thrilled to be able to call Sioux Falls part of our home now and look forward to contributing to the continued economic success, economic development of this state, Pak said.

The project is expected to be done and open in 2027. In the meantime, the company has said its opening an office in downtown Sioux Falls for 50 additional jobs during the construction phase.

The familiar Schwans Home Delivery service, also known as Yelloh, is not a part of the Schwans and CJ Foods company leading this project.

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DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN)  A now-suspended Clark County CTC student is incarcerated at the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center following a series of threatening messages.

On Nov. 13, at 9:42 a.m., the Clark County Sheriffs Office School Resource Deputy for CTC was given information about a potential threat of violence. The deputy had previously been investigating a related incident on Nov. 12 involving a student who reportedly wrote a fictional story involving violence, containing the name of a classmate.

4-year-old injured after discharge of firearm in Clark County

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That student was suspended from CTC for violating the code of conduct. During the overnight hours of Nov. 12 and 13, students at CTC received electronic messages and correspondence involving similar stories from the suspended student. This triggered a further investigation from the Clark County Sheriffs Office.

The sheriffs office was also alerted to a coded message on social media written by the suspended student. That message was sent in for cryptographic analysis. The results of the analysis showed the coded message contained more direct threats of harm.

The student was then located and detained. The Clark County Prosecutor approved charges for the student including inducing panic, a fourth-degree felony and making terroristic threats, a third-degree felony. They are currently incarcerated at the juvenile detention center awaiting arraignment.

The Clark County Sheriffs Office continues its investigation of the incident.

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CLEVELAND (WJW)  Cleveland police said three juveniles linked to a series of vehicle break-ins are now in custody.

Police said Ohio City, Battery Park, and the West 25th Street/Shoreway areas have all been recently targeted.

Video shows shootout in Tremont

On Wednesday night, police responded to more reports of vehicle break-ins at a parking lot in the 1900 block of West 25th Street.

Police said officers spotted a stolen Kia near the scene. Officers attempted to pull the car over, but police said the driver kept going.

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A short time later, officers spotted the car at a gas station at East 105th Street and St. Clair Avenue.

Police said the driver, who was 14, ran inside the gas station. Police said they found a firearm inside as they arrested the teen.

Meanwhile, two teens who were in the car used the opportunity to try and make their getaway, according to police.

Could NE Ohio dish out snow for Thanksgiving?

One of them tried to move into the passenger seat of the stolen vehicle, but put the car in reverse and hit a detectives vehicle.

The two remaining suspects, a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old, got out and ran, but were arrested shortly after, according to police.

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Police said a search of the stolen vehicle uncovered suspected stolen property, including credit cards, a firearm and two loaded magazines.

All three juveniles, who are not being named due to their ages, face charges of felony assault, fleeing, failure to comply, criminal damaging, motor vehicle trespass and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.

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CLEVELAND (WJW)  The Cleveland Division of Police is asking for the publics helping finding a teenage boy who went missing on Wednesday.

According to Cleveland police, 13-year-old Jayden Williams was last seen near the 1400 block of East 174th Street around noon. He is considered endangered.

Courtesy of Cleveland police

Investigators believe Williams took an Uber ride, but its unclear where he was heading.

Lucky to be alive: Local pizza delivery driver helps customer having a seizure

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He is 53 and 110 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a Nike hoodie, gray sweatpants and a red and black hat, investigators say.

Anyone with information on Williams whereabouts is asked to call the Fifth District at (216) 623-5500 or the non-emergency line at (216) 621-1234.

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Climate leaders from around the world gathered at TIMEs COP29 Impact Dinner in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Nov. 13 for a celebration of the TIME100 Climate leadership list. Nations are currently attending the annual U.N. COP29 climate summit in order to continue pushing the world to meet its goal of limiting warming to 1.5C, including working to unlock the necessary tools and financing to achieve progress.

No one of us is going to solve this challenge alone, and we need leadership in all of its forms if we're going to have a chance at accelerating climate action and climate progress, said Shyla Raghav, TIMEs Chief Climate Officer, who began the evening by speaking about the importance of celebrating and elevating different forms of leadership when it comes to climate action.

The TIME100 Climate list celebrates decision makers, executives, researchers, and innovators shaping business and climate action. TIMEs Senior Correspondent, Justin Worland highlighted the accomplishments of some of the lists honorees, from Vanessa Chan, chief commercialization officer for the U.S. Department of Energy, to Susana Muhamad, Colombias Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development. And several of the listees were present at the dinner.

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This includes Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for Sustainable Energy for All, and co-chair of U.N. Energy who discussed inequality in clean energy, highlighting the fact that only 1.6% of clean energy investments went to Africa last year. You can't do [the] energy transition in the Global North and leave the Global South behind, she said.

Majid Al Suwaidi, CEO of Alterra and another individual on the TIME100 Climate list this year, meanwhile argued that, while the climate crisis might seem insurmountable, there has never been a more critical moment for climate optimism. 2024 has been a year of big political changes and geopolitical tension, and there's been a growing mood of apprehension across the climate world. But if I'm being frank, this is not the time to be pessimistic or to throw up our hands and say we're all doomed, he said. In fact, I believe this is the moment we rise up and lean into hope, because despair is the enemy of climate action, because hope is a powerful motivator for action, and because we really do have reasons to be optimistic.

Later in the evening, Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO of Acumen, spoke about the importance of celebrating heroes that are too often unsung, explaining the impact an entrepreneurs solar technology had on village women.

Tzeporah Berman, founder of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative and included on this years TIME100 Climate list, spoke about the necessity of placing oil, gas, and coalwhich make up 86% of global emissionsat the center of conversations on climate change. We need to build hope through our actions, through these difficult and honest conversations that lead to bold new ideas that can chart a new course. Some say to me that an idea of a fossil fuel treaty that could be a companion to the Paris Agreement, a whole new treaty, it's too big. It's too new. It's too bold. But we know here in this room we can't afford more of the same.

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Muhamad ended the nights speeches by urging for more global investment in the fight to stop deforestation. The critical question is, where are the finances to sustain results that bring climate action? Muhamad said. Saving the Amazon is not a problem only of the governments that are there. It is one of the pillars of climate stability, and we have proven that we can be successful in the work. But in order to sustain that work, we need to shift economic rules, and we need to shift the access to finance from the Global South.

TIME100 Impact Dinner: Leaders Creating Climate Action was presented by Fortescue and MOL.

Write to Simmone Shah at simmone.shah@time.com.
By Kate Abnett, Olesya Astakhova and Virginia Furness

BAKU (Reuters) -Countries at the COP29 summit tried to make progress on how to raise up to $1 trillion in climate finance for the world's most vulnerable, as political tensions overshadowed the talks and Argentina on Thursday pulled its delegation from Baku.

The success of this year's U.N. climate summit hinges on whether countries can agree on a new finance target for richer countries, development lenders and the private sector to deliver each year. Developing countries need at least $1 trillion annually by the end of the decade to cope with climate change, economists told the U.N. talks.

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Many countries have said that money is essential to their setting ambitious climate goals ahead of next year's COP30 in Brazil.

But reaching a deal could be tough at this year's summit, where the mood has been soured by public disagreements and pessimism about shifts in global politics.

Donald Trump's presidential election win has cast the United States' future role in climate talks into doubt, and tension between developed and developing nations has bubbled to the surface on the main stages and in negotiating rooms.

"Parties must remember that the clock is ticking," COP29 Lead Negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev told a news conference.

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The previous annual finance goal of $100 billion expires this year. But wealthy countries only met the pledge in full starting in 2022.

Early Thursday, a report from the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance said the target annual figure would need to rise to at least $1.3 trillion a year by 2035 if countries fail to act now.

Behind the scenes, negotiators are working on draft texts, but early stage documents published by the U.N. climate body show views around the table still diverge widely.

Many Western governments arrived in Baku reluctant to pledge big sums.

The likely withdrawal of the United States from any future funding deal will raise pressure on delegates to find other ways to secure the needed funds.

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Among them are the world's multilateral development banks such as the World Bank, funded by the richer countries and in the process of being reformed so they can lend more.

Ten of the largest have said they would plan to increase their climate finance by roughly 60% to $120 billion a year by 2030, with at least an extra $65 billion from the private sector.

On Thursday Zakir Nuriyev, head of the Association of Banks of Azerbaijan, said the country's 22 banks would commit nearly $1.2 billion to finance projects that help Azerbaijan transition to a low-carbon economy.

MORE DIVISION THAN UNITY

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So far the conference - which many global leaders decided to skip altogether - has been marked more by division than unity.

Argentina's abrupt departure on Thursday followed an order from Buenos Aires.

The country's presidential spokesperson said the move would allow Gerardo Werthein, the new foreign affairs minister, to "revaluate the situation, reflect on the position".

The minister is "withdrawing the delegation in virtue of a whole reform the minister is going to do. There's not much else to say," the spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, told a news conference in Buenos Aires.

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Argentina's President Javier Milei, who previously has called global warming a hoax, was due this week to meet Trump, also a climate change denier.

When asked whether Argentina would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, Ana Lamas, undersecretary for environment for Argentina, who led the country's delegation at COP29, told Reuters: "We are only withdrawing from COP29."

Observers criticised the withdrawal by Argentina's right-wing government, and said it could hurt the country's hopes of raising future climate cash.

"It will make Argentina, which has been an important voice on environment, look less credible and less reliable in international markets and the international community," said Oscar Soria, head of civil society group Top Social.

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Azerbaijan's COP29 Presidency described it as a matter between Argentina and the United Nations.

A negotiator from a developed country said they had seen no signs so far that any other countries would follow Argentina's lead and walk out.

A day earlier, French climate minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher cancelled her trip to COP29 after Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev accused France of "crimes" in its overseas territories in the Caribbean.

France and Azerbaijan have long had tense relations because of Paris' support of Azerbaijan's rival Armenia. This year, Paris accused Baku of meddling and abetting violent unrest in New Caledonia.

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"Regardless of any bilateral disagreements, the COP should be a place where all parties feel at liberty to come and negotiate on climate action," European Union climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said in response, in a post on X.

That followed Aliyev's opening speech at the conference that accused the United States and EU of hypocrisy for lecturing countries on climate change while remaining major consumers and producers of fossil fuels.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett, Olesya Astakhova, Virginia Furness, Valerie Volcovici and Nailia Bagirova; Additional reporting by Lucila Sigal in Buenos Aires; Writing by Simon Jessop, William James, Katy Daigle; Editing by Toby Chopra and Barbara Lewis)
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (WTAJ)  A series of upcoming days will help residents in Centre County apply for heating assistance.

According to State Representative Paul Takac, the days, that you can sign up for, are aimed at helping those who need assistance apply for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).

These seminars will provide information and support to ensure eligible individuals and families receive the heating assistance they need during the winter months. A full list of eligibility and income requirements can be found here.

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Over $90k awarded to Centre County tourism bureau

The series of LIHEAP clinics will be held at the following times, dates and locations:

10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15  Milesburg United Methodist Church, 301 Turnpike St., Milesburg, PA, 16853.

10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 21  Howard United Methodist Church, 144 Main St., Howard, PA, 16841.

10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 26  Snow Shoe Township Building, 268 Oldside Road, Clarence, PA, 16829.

10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, Dec. 2  Takacs District Office, 216 W. Hamilton Ave., State College, PA, 16810.

With temperatures dropping, LIHEAP is essential for ensuring that our most vulnerable residents have access to the heating assistance they need during the cold winter months, Takac said.

Get the latest news, weather forecasts and sports stories delivered straight to your inbox! Sign up for our newsletters.

The program is funded by the federal government and administered at the state level.

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CLYDE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC)  The Clyde City Council voted unanimously on an ordinance that would increase the regulation of gaming machines.

Under the new ordinance, the City of Clyde will now require owners to pay a fee and register the machines.

Cash payouts are also explicitly banned in the ordinance. If a business owner is accused of making cash payouts from their gaming machines, the police department and code enforcement will be involved, and if the allegations are proven true, the City is prepared to shut down the operation.

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City council members recently learned that in the State of Texas, business owners with gaming machines also have to pay state and local government fees. By January 1 each year, business owners must pay $150 to the state of Texas and $100 to the City of Clyde per machine.

This is something weve tried to prevent in the past; youve adopted the ordinances to prohibit the gaming devices, Paul McGuire said. He also pointed out that city would try to have Clyde Police Department as the brief council on this issue.

In the meeting, Mayor Rodger Brown said code enforcement will monitor gambling machines across the City in conjunction with the Clyde Police Department.

The Clyde City Council stated they are increasing regulations after Texas state courts overruled cities who were trying to prohibit the machines altogether.

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McGuire said, To make the best out of a bad situation, this is the best we could come up with the city attorney how to do this and enforce it correctly.

As the city plans to increase the permits from $15 to $100, the state government has told them they can no longer prevent machines in their city if the owner legally pays for them.

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CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS)  Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools leaders are hoping to attract and maintain its teachers through a new housing program.

In June, district leaders said theyd allocate $1 million toward At Home in CMS.

The outside-of-the-box program makes apartment homes available at below-rate rents for CMS educators and staff. The first phase of the program prioritizes educators for high-need schools.

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At Home in CMS is a direct response to the needs expressed by our educators, Board of Education Chair Stephanie Sneed explained at an event showcasing the program Thursday. Thats why were using every available resource to ensure our teachers have a place to call home in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area.

CMS approves funding for new middle school, student devices refresh

A district survey revealed that 93% of educators said housing costs were their most important consideration to working there, while 61% said housing may impact whether they continue to work with CMS.

Educators also will have the opportunity for home ownership at a deep discount, thanks to local developers whove agreed to sell newly constructed townhomes to teachers at cost. There are also grants from partners to provide down payment assistance.

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Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teachers engage and inspire our students every day, and we want them to continue to do so by making Charlotte their home, said Superintendent Dr. Crystal Hill. Our At Home in CMS initiative helps bridge the gap that exists between educators and affordable housing in Charlotte and will strengthen our community and enhance our workforce.

Earlier this year, the school board increased the salary for beginning teachers from $46,302 to $48,636, with a $7,636 local supplement.

CMS says theyre continuing to explore creating an educator community that would offer rental housing, as well as common spaces for teachers. The district would break ground on the teacher village in 2025.

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This photo taken on Nov. 13, 2024 shows a China Pavilion side event on China's energy transformation and new energy development in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan. The Executive Summary of China Energy Transformation Outlook 2024 (CETO 2024), released Wednesday at the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Baku, Azerbaijan, focuses on China's energy transformation and new energy development. (Xinhua/Meng Jing)

BAKU, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- A recent report suggests that successful energy transformation can significantly contribute to China's goal of achieving carbon neutrality across its economic and social systems before 2060.

The Executive Summary of China Energy Transformation Outlook 2024 (CETO 2024), released Wednesday at the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Baku, Azerbaijan, focuses on China's energy transformation and new energy development.

Liu Zhenmin, China's special envoy for climate change, said at a China Pavilion side event that proactively adapting to climate change, promoting energy transformation, and fostering green and low-carbon development have become critical global tasks for the present and foreseeable future.

Four years ago, China announced its "dual carbon" goals of peaking carbon emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060. Liu said that since then, China has steadily advanced energy transformation and achieved remarkable strides, contributing significantly to global climate response and green transformation.

He expected the CETO 2024 would provide forward-looking and innovative solutions for a low-carbon energy transformation.

International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol noted that China is a frontrunner in the global clean energy sector. Rapid growth in its clean energy capacity benefits not only China but also the world.

He hoped that China would further accelerate technological innovation and its application, thus supporting the international community to benefit from China's green development while advancing its energy transformation.

The summary presents recent global energy transformation trends. It analyzes the prospects for China's energy production and consumption transformation and explores pathways and technological solutions for achieving net-zero carbon emissions in China's energy system under different international cooperation scenarios, said Bai Quan, director of the Energy Efficiency Center at the Energy Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research.

Denmark's Under-Secretary for Development Policy from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ole Thonke said that China and Denmark launched a Green Joint Work Programme last year, making climate change response and energy transformation a core part of bilateral cooperation.

Thonke said the CETO 2024 is the result of close collaboration between China and Denmark. It aims to study pathways and optimal development plans for the low-carbon transformation of China's energy system.

He hoped the research findings would guide the energy transformation of both countries and the international community. 

International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol delivers a speech at a China Pavilion side event on China's energy transformation and new energy development in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, Nov. 13, 2024. The Executive Summary of China Energy Transformation Outlook 2024 (CETO 2024), released Wednesday at the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Baku, Azerbaijan, focuses on China's energy transformation and new energy development. (Xinhua/Meng Jing)

This photo taken on Nov. 13, 2024 shows the Executive Summary of China Energy Transformation Outlook 2024 (CETO 2024) in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan. The CETO 2024, released Wednesday at the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Baku, Azerbaijan, focuses on China's energy transformation and new energy development. (Xinhua/Meng Jing)

Denmark's Under-Secretary for Development Policy from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ole Thonke delivers a speech at a China Pavilion side event on China's energy transformation and new energy development in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, Nov. 13, 2024. The Executive Summary of China Energy Transformation Outlook 2024 (CETO 2024), released Wednesday at the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Baku, Azerbaijan, focuses on China's energy transformation and new energy development. (Xinhua/Meng Jing)
CNN anchor Jake Tapper was among those to express his shock at some of the picks for Donald Trumps coming administration, describing the top item as words he had never contemplated using before.

Tappers disbelief shone through as he kicked off Wednesdays episode of The Lead With Jake Tapper, highlighting one of the more controversial selections by the President-elect.

Welcome to The Lead, Im Jake Tapper, he said. Let me begin the show by uttering some words that I never contemplated using together before. And those words are: U.S. Attorney General Matt Gaetz.

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The nomination of the former Florida congressman was announced by the Trump campaign on Wednesday, prompting consternation in the media and both sides of the political aisle. Many have voiced concern over the selection of candidates on the apparent basis of their loyalty to the president-elect, rather than their suitability or qualifications.

Gaetz is an attorney, but was previously at the center of a federal sex-trafficking case involving a 17-year-old girl, though charges were never brought and he insisted he had done nothing wrong. A House Ethics probe into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use made against him effectively ended on Wednesday after he resigned from his seat in Congress.

Trump has also chosen former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio to join his administration, as well Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth who will be Secretary of Defense.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper reacts to news that Matt Gaetz has been selected to serve as US Attorney General (CNN)

If you were wondering what Trump without the guardrails looks like, well, were getting an idea beyond the theoretical, Tapper said on Wednesday. We are starting with breaking news on so many fronts related to president-elect Donald Trumps transition.

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Tapper was not alone in his incredulity. According to Axios, there were audible gasps by House Republicans at a conference meeting on Wednesday when the news broke.I dont think its a serious nomination for the attorney general, Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said.

Senator Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, told The Independent the announcement sounded like a headline in a satire publication. That was in The Onion, he said.
CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig explained why Donald Trumps intention to nominate Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general is not only crazy, but dangerous.

I wish there was a gentler way to say it, but theres no use mincing words, Honig said Wednesday on The Situation Room, before detailing how Gaetz fails to meet the bar when it comes to his qualifications and his independencethe two fundamental qualities that you need in an attorney general.

Matt Gaetz has never worked a day in his life as a prosecutor, Honig said.

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He has no idea what it means to stand in a court and say, Representing the United States. He has no idea what it means to indict someone and to potentially take their individual liberty away. Hes only practiced law for a few years at the very local level. Weve had [attorneys general] before who have never been prosecutors, but theyve all had serious positions in the Justice Department in non-prosecutorial roles. Matt Gaetz is completely unknown to this profession.

Gaetz, who earned a law degree in 2007 from William & Mary Law School, would later enter private practice at the Florida-based firm Keefe, Anchors & Gordon. Gaetz was first elected to Congress in a special election in April 2010.

As for Gaetzs independence, Honig mentioned how he proudly describes himself as a tireless defender of President Trump and his vision for the United States.

He says he wears that as a badge of honor. He is there to weaponize, Honig said. I am not into these doomsday scenarios...but as somebody who spent a career at the Justice Department, this is of grave concern to me.

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Honig later contrasted a potential Gaetz tenure with that of two of Trumps former attorneys general, Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr.

What Bill Barr wouldnt do was use the Department of Justice as an offensive weapon to go after people, he said, noting that Barr mainly served to defend Trump. Every indication...is thats the strategy here.

Gaetz was also the subject of a federal sex trafficking probea point that CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid said made him feel victimized by the Justice Department and the FBI. Trump, of course, does as well, she noted.

Gaetz denied the accusations and the federal probe resulted in no charges. A House Ethics Committee investigation has shuttered due to Gaetzs resignation Wednesday.
Police arrested a Cobb County student who was spotted on camera carrying a gun in the halls of his high school.

It happened on Nov. 1 at Osborne High School in Marietta. An arrest warrant obtained by Channel 2 Action News identified the student as 17-year-old Keylan Johnson.

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The warrant states that Johnson was seen on surveillance cameras pulling a Glock out of the front pocket of his hoodie and stuff it in the front of his pants.

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No one caught him then. Days later, police said a parent showed up at the high school to report the student posted a social media video of himself with the gun in the gym locker room.

A Cobb County Schools district spokesperson told Channel 2s Courtney Francisco that school police immediately took the student and weapon into custody.

The district said it cannot release specific details about the case due to privacy laws, but it is confident the law will be applied here.

Cobb County jail records show that Johnson faces a felony charge of possession of weapon in or near a school. He posted bond on Nov. 9.

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A new coffee shop could be moving in near the University of Dayton.

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As reported on News Center 7 at 6:00, a warehouse building at 1141 Brown Street has been demolished and the owner is looking to reestablish the space.

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Brown at Stewart Investments owns the lot and applied for zoning review after demolishing the previous building.

According to a City of Dayton zoning application, the owners proposed opening a Dutch Bros Coffee shop on the lot.

The application indicates that the shop would be 1,600 square feet, featuring a drive-thru, indoor dining, and outdoor seating.

This coffee company is headquartered in Oregon and was founded in 1992.

According to its website, there are approximately 950 shops across 18 states.

The potential location on Brown Street would be the first Dutch Bros Coffee in Ohio.

University of Dayton students told News Center 7 that they are happy to hear a new business may be coming to Brown Street.

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I hope the coffee shop does what its supposed to. Like I hope it gets people, people go in there and get business. I hope Starbucks doesnt take all the business. Other than that, nothing, Freshman Deliquane Bush said.

This proposed project is still in the beginning stages and no timeline has been set.

There has just been a preliminary zoning review, and no approvals or permits have been issued.

News Center 7 will continue to follow this story.

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U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Harris, the U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron Thunderbirds advance crew chief, assists U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Justin Elliot, Thunderbirds commander and leader, after landing at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, May 23, 2022. U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks, has said he believes President-elect Donald Trump will move Space Command from Colorado to Huntsville. (U.S. Space Force photo by Paul Honnick/Public domain)

This story originally appeared on Colorado Newsline.

Colorado elected officials reinforced their position that U.S. Space Command should remain in Colorado after a U.S. representative from Alabama said he expects President-elect Donald Trump will move it to Huntsville, Alabama.

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Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, said in a radio interview Monday that he expects Trump will reverse the Biden administrations decision to headquarter Space Command in Colorado. Colorado officials previously expressed concern that Trumps decision during his first presidential term to move Space Command to Alabama was politically motivated, as he waited until after the 2020 election to announce the move. Alabama went for Trump in that election and Colorado went for President Joe Biden.

Space Command has been at full operational capacity at the Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs since December 2023, after Biden announced in July that year it would stay in Colorado. Colorado officials from both parties have advocated Space Command staying in Colorado. Peterson Air Force Base housed a previous version of Space Command from 1985 to 2002. The Air Force subsequently oversaw military space operations from the site.

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Jeff Crank, Republican representative-elect for Colorados 5th Congressional District, said while campaigning that keeping Space Command in Colorado Springs would be a top priority if he were elected.

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Americans want a strong military and national security, and thats why they overwhelmingly elected Donald Trump as our next President, Crank said in a statement Wednesday. To maintain operational readiness, U.S. Space Command headquarters should remain at Peterson Space Force Base. When I am sworn into office in January, Ill work with our Colorado congressional delegation to protect our military assets.

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado said in a statement that Colorado Springs has already proved to be the best location for Space Command because its already at work here.

Alabama couldnt win this fight on the merits so theyre trying to get Trump to overrule our national security and cost taxpayers an enormous amount for the sake of a hometown win, Hickenlooper said in a statement. We need leaders who fight for our national defense first, not just Huntsvilles economy.

Eric Maruyama, a spokesperson for Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said every member of Colorados federal delegation, as well as military members, supports keeping Space Command in Colorado. In March 2023, a bipartisan group of Colorado officials wrote to Biden urging him to keep Space Command in Colorado.

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Colorado is the rightful home of Space Command and any effort to move this critical command center would waste billions of taxpayer dollars while negatively impacting our mission readiness, Maruyama said in a statement. Governor Polis expects President-Elect Trump to put members of our armed services and our national security over politics. If he moves it when he takes office, Trump is only hurting Americas national defense and our troops.

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks, casts his vote as the House of Representatives holds its second round of voting for a new Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol on October 18, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Britt: No doubt

Rogers said in a statement to Newsline that he is excited to work with Trump to ensure Space Command is based in its rightful home in Huntsville and that hes increasingly optimistic the move will happen.

President Trump initially chose Huntsville to be the home of Space Command because it was the best location, Rogers said in a statement. When President Biden tried to reverse that decision, he was putting his far left politics above national security as he did in so many other circumstances. Now, the American people have resoundingly chosen President Trump and his policies. As Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, I am excited to work with a real Commander in Chief.

U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican, said there is no doubt that the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville should be the permanent home of Space Command headquarters.

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Huntsville finished first in the Air Forces Evaluation Phase and Selection Phase and had the most advantages in the decision matrix, Britt said in a statement. President Trump will cast aside President Bidens partisan political considerations and restore the Air Forces merit-based decision to select Redstone Arsenal as the permanent basing location for Space Command HQ. I expect Space Command to come home to Alabama where it belongs.

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, an Aurora Democrat and Army veteran, said keeping Space Command in Colorado is the best choice for national security. A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said Colorado is the rightful home for Space Command.

Our states space and military assets are critical to Americas national security, and Colorado is the best place for our service members and their families to train, live, work, and retire, Bennet spokesperson Patrick Barham Quesada said in a statement. No matter who is in the White House, Senator Bennet will keep fighting for the nearly 58,000 members of Colorados military community and the 340,000 veterans who call our state home.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and X.

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U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Harris, the U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron Thunderbirds advance crew chief, assists U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Justin Elliot, Thunderbirds commander and leader, after landing at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, May 23, 2022. (U.S. Space Force photo by Paul Honnick/Public domain)

Colorado elected officials reinforced their position that U.S. Space Command should remain in Colorado after a U.S. representative from Alabama said he expects President-elect Donald Trump will move it to Huntsville, Alabama.

Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, said in a radio interview Monday that he expects Trump will reverse the Biden administrations decision to headquarter Space Command in Colorado. Colorado officials previously expressed concern that Trumps decision during his first presidential term to move Space Command to Alabama was politically motivated, as he waited until after the 2020 election to announce the move. Alabama went for Trump in that election and Colorado went for President Joe Biden.

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Space Command has been at full operational capacity at the Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs since December 2023, after Biden announced in July that year it would stay in Colorado. Colorado officials from both parties have advocated Space Command staying in Colorado. Peterson Air Force Base housed a previous version of Space Command from 1985 to 2002. The Air Force subsequently oversaw military space operations from the site.

Jeff Crank, Republican representative-elect for Colorados 5th Congressional District, said while campaigning that keeping Space Command in Colorado Springs would be a top priority if he were elected.

Americans want a strong military and national security, and thats why they overwhelmingly elected Donald Trump as our next President, Crank said in a statement Wednesday. To maintain operational readiness, U.S. Space Command headquarters should remain at Peterson Space Force Base. When I am sworn into office in January, Ill work with our Colorado congressional delegation to protect our military assets.

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado said in a statement that Colorado Springs has already proved to be the best location for Space Command because its already at work here.

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Alabama couldnt win this fight on the merits so theyre trying to get Trump to overrule our national security and cost taxpayers an enormous amount for the sake of a hometown win, Hickenlooper said in a statement. We need leaders who fight for our national defense first, not just Huntsvilles economy.

Eric Maruyama, a spokesperson for Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said every member of Colorados federal delegation, as well as military members, supports keeping Space Command in Colorado. In March 2023, a bipartisan group of Colorado officials wrote to Biden urging him to keep Space Command in Colorado.

Colorado is the rightful home of Space Command and any effort to move this critical command center would waste billions of taxpayer dollars while negatively impacting our mission readiness, Maruyama said in a statement. Governor Polis expects President-Elect Trump to put members of our armed services and our national security over politics. If he moves it when he takes office, Trump is only hurting Americas national defense and our troops.

Britt: No doubt

Rogers said in a statement to Newsline that he is excited to work with Trump to ensure Space Command is based in its rightful home in Huntsville and that hes increasingly optimistic the move will happen.

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President Trump initially chose Huntsville to be the home of Space Command because it was the best location, Rogers said in a statement. When President Biden tried to reverse that decision, he was putting his far left politics above national security as he did in so many other circumstances. Now, the American people have resoundingly chosen President Trump and his policies. As Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, I am excited to work with a real Commander in Chief.

U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican, said there is no doubt that the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville should be the permanent home of Space Command headquarters.

Huntsville finished first in the Air Forces Evaluation Phase and Selection Phase and had the most advantages in the decision matrix, Britt said in a statement. President Trump will cast aside President Bidens partisan political considerations and restore the Air Forces merit-based decision to select Redstone Arsenal as the permanent basing location for Space Command HQ. I expect Space Command to come home to Alabama where it belongs.

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, an Aurora Democrat and Army veteran, said keeping Space Command in Colorado is the best choice for national security. A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said Colorado is the rightful home for Space Command.

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Our states space and military assets are critical to Americas national security, and Colorado is the best place for our service members and their families to train, live, work, and retire, Bennet spokesperson Patrick Barham Quesada said in a statement. No matter who is in the White House, Senator Bennet will keep fighting for the nearly 58,000 members of Colorados military community and the 340,000 veterans who call our state home.

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CHERASKY, Ukraine (KDVR)  Russia attacked Kyiv, Ukraine, with a sophisticated combination of missiles and drones Wednesday, for the first time in 73 days.

Air raid warnings lasted for hours throughout the country. But a pair of medical volunteers from Colorado were undeterred by the threat.

As Russian attacks escalate, Colorado medical volunteer hard at work helping in Ukraine

Doug Amis and Leanna Stoufer are volunteers with Global Care Force, a Kansas City-based non-profit that sends doctors and other medical professionals into the war zone to help Ukrainians left without basic healthcare since the war started.

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Theyve experienced air raid warnings throughout the week, including in nearby Mykolaiv, where Russian glide bombs, drones and a ballistic missile killed six people and injured 30 earlier this week.

This is Amis third time in Ukraine helping people with physical ailments exacerbated by the mental toll of prolonged war has taken.

You know, stress-related issues, a lot of reflux, heartburn, insomnia, he said, describing the condition of one of the patients. He said the stress of the war is underlying in most of the ailments he treats.

The team set up a clinic in a town thats become a haven for refugees displaced by Russian troops. Some 30,000 refugees now call Cherasky home, and most dont have a doctor.

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For Amis and the other volunteers, given the daily threat Ukrainians face from drones, missiles and bombs, being awakened by an air raid warning during their volunteer trip is little more than an inconvenience.

Denver trauma victim advocate in Ukraine helping victims of war

I couldnt be happier. I can only do as much as Im able to do, and I wish I could do more, Amis said.

FOX31s Jeremy Hubbard is traveling with the non-profit in Ukraine this week and awoke to air raid warnings sounding at his Kyiv hotel. It wasnt a false alarm.

It was a cruise ballistic missile that was launched over to the city center and it was hit by air raid protect systems on the left bank, said Lev Prestifuk, medical director for Global Care Force.

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Global Care Force is looking for doctors, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants and other medical professionals to staff a volunteer clinic in Ukraine next month. To learn more about the program and how to get involved, visit their website.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver.
Im a proud, first-generation, college-educated and gay Mexican American with undocumented family in the United States, including a mother who was previously deported to Mexico, and I experienced homelessness as a child. I am everything Democrats claim to support, right?

Wrong.

Democrats have accepted a progressive platform, ignoring decades worth of change and focusing on erroneous issues. They have built campaigns on a foundation of misleading airs and fake vibes.

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Voting for Donald Trump does not make me racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic or any other ist and ic Ive been called. I, along with more than half of the voting public in America, am sick of the self-righteous and label-obsessed left alienating us over differing opinions.

In her concession speech, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed to have built strong coalitions. What she did was the opposite. She did not motivate enough Black voters, Latino voters, Asian voters, Jewish voters, union voters and female voters to cast their ballots for her. Fewer women voted for Harris than they did Joe Biden, even with abortion being a top issue. To the very end, Harris ignored the data; she ignored what voters needed.

The party spent the last four years demonizing men and blaming us for all of societys ills. Then they spent several months drinking beer, releasing camo hats and attempting to love guns to desperately win our votes. Former President Barack Obama noticed Black men were not falling in line, so he resorted to shaming his brothers, essentially saying they were sexist, even though Black men supported Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Which leads us to Latinos. Democrats, we are not Latinx or Latine; we are Latinos and Latinas. Stop trying to change our language and our culture. The Biden-Harris administrations disastrous handling of the southern border was one of the major issues for most Americans. Americans in Chicago and around the U.S. watched how veterans and other homeless and needy citizens suffered as local governments spent billions for newly arrived migrants. Americans saw Trump secure the border without any congressional approval.

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Seeing my undocumented family members, who have been in the U.S. for more than 20 years, work, pay taxes and buy their own homes with zero benefits, then watching millions of new migrants skip the line with government-funded help, only inflamed me and other Latinos like me. When my mother came to America as a single mother of two, she did not get any benefits. This election became personal. It was about my family!

My concerns go beyond just immigration. I am a U.S.-born Mexican American. We are the youngest demographic in the U.S. What matters to me and many Latinos like me are obtaining jobs, paying for the costs of living, buying a home, growing and helping our families, and making sure the American Dream is attainable and still alive. Over the last four years, all of that has become harder. If you think it hasnt or havent felt it, consider yourself blessed. This situation clearly upset many other Latinos who broke from generational loyalty to Democrats.

It was also rich to have Democratic leaders such as Michele Obama, whose personal worth is reportedly tens of millions, say that rich people take more than their fair share. She was sandwiched between billionaires Gov. JB Pritzker and Oprah Winfrey at the DNC in Chicago. Pritzker even taunted Trump on not being a real billionaire, which was extremely unrelatable. Billionaire Mark Cuban also hit the campaign trail for Harris. Billionaire and megastar Taylor Swift, who endorsed Harris, at least gracefully encouraged everyone to do their own research, which I highly respect. Compare that to the Republican National Convention, where Trump had everyday people speak about experiences most of us worry about  the cost of groceries, safety, jobs and the border crisis.

Democrats, please look into your hearts again. Your progressive policies are crumbling your own base. Even in Chicago, Trump gained ground in Latino wards, and he lost in Illinois by only 9 percentage points. Chicago and Illinois are supposed to be a deeply blue city and state, respectively. This was a message to Democrats; they need to listen.

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In a recent news conference in response to the election, Pritzker told Trump, You come for my people, you come through me. Governor, switch that energy to the criminals who are holding up Illinoisans at gunpoint, committing smash-and-grab robberies, stealing cars in record numbers, and committing homicides, home invasions, theft and more. Where has this protection been over the last four years?

If Pritzker doesnt change his messaging, he will not fare well in any other political aspirations he may have.

I am very proud to be a Christian, gay Mexican American who voted for Trump. No, I dont hate myself. With Republicans about to sweep the White House, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House after obtaining a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, Democrats desperately need to answer the 2 a.m. wakeup call Clinton never answered. The political pendulum will swing toward Democrats again. Its inevitable. Single-party rule is never ideal for America. We love compromise, and we need compromise.

This election, voters canceled the wokeism of the extreme left. As of now, the person who is taking care of us, listening to us  the regular folks  where we can see and feel it, is the soon-to-be 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump.

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____

J. Marcos Peterson is a Chicagoland native, a Latino of Mexican descent and an LGBTQ+ leader. His career, from public to private sectors, is defined by his commitment to impactful change across industries through strategic and positive influence.

___
NAIROBI, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Experts on Thursday met in Kenya's capital of Nairobi to promote the use of digital innovations to boost Africa's agricultural sector.

The AgroWeb3 conference, a one-day event, brought together more than 200 participants composed of United Nations agency officials, industry experts and farmers from across Africa to accelerate the adoption of technologies to enhance farmers' production.

Sara Mbago-Bhunu, regional director of the East and Southern Africa Division at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations, said that digital tools such as e-commerce platforms can help farmers access new markets.

"Digital payment systems such as mobile money platforms can help to reduce the cost and time of trading in agricultural commodities," she said, adding that financial technology (fintech) platforms can also make it easier for farmers to access credit to finance purchases of agricultural inputs.

Gladys Morales, global head of innovation at IFAD, said that digital innovations that utilize satellite data for weather-based insurance products can protect African farmers against climate change-induced adverse weather conditions.

Andrea Gardeazabal Monsalue, information and communications technologies for agriculture coordinator at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, said that blockchain technologies can also assist smallholder farmers gain organic, fair trade, or phytosanitary certifications required to access foreign markets. 
In 1987, celebrating the 750th anniversary of its founding, the two sides of Berlin  the capitalist West and the socialist East  spent the year competing to see who could showcase the best cultural, historical and political events.

On a hot summer day in June, I was among the U.S. Army and Air Force officers at Tempelhof Air Field who watched President Ronald Reagan on TV give a long-awaited speech in front of the iconic Brandenburg Gate and the infamous Berlin Wall, built in 1961 to prevent East Germans from moving West.

When Reagan said, As long as the gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind, there was scattered clapping in the hall. Then, when the president exclaimed in his polished Hollywood voice, If you seek peace  come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! The group broke into cheers and prolonged applause.

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After the speech, Reagan traveled to Tempelhof, where he joined a group of American officers and diplomats for a luncheon and made additional private remarks. To my surprise, Reagan revealed he had been holding secret but productive meetings over strategic arms reductions with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for months and had already asked him to make a major gesture of peace such as opening the Berlin Wall. Gorbachev responded that the wall was a German problem, and if East Germany decided to open the wall, the Soviets would not intervene. The diplomats, suspecting trickery, expressed their concerns to the president, who assured us he would trust but verify.

As an infantry company commander in the Army Berlin Brigade, I told the other company commanders I planned to put in a request to extend my tour immediately in order to be in Berlin when the wall came down. You heard the Gipper, I reminded them, he just told Gorby to tear down the wall. So now its just a matter of time. Everyone laughed as a fellow commander told me, If you want to be here for that, youd better plan on extending for a hundred years!

My tour was extended, and the pressure for glasnost continued to build on the inflexible, aging regime in East Berlin. In 1989, Gorbachev publicly stated that the Soviets would not intervene in the reforms of other Warsaw Pact nations and in Hungary opened a section of its fortified border with Austria. Soon, East Germans started pouring through the Hungarian gap and holding weekly large-scale street protests in Leipzig and other cities demanding reform. Finally, on Nov. 9, 1989, tens of thousands of East Germans thronged to West Berlin with the opening of the Berlin Wall, and the party was on.

On the following cold Sunday night, they were heading home to the East, preparing to go to work on Monday morning with transformed lives. Three Americans, including me, had been standing for hours on the Berlin side of the Glienicke Bridge, famous for its Cold War exchange of spies, shaking hands and waving to the endless stream of people crossing the bridge back into Potsdam. German chants of we are one people filled the air. Many were holding West German beer cans in one hand and West German flags in the other, while others were staggering under the load of their purchases, carrying every electronic and food item unimaginable in the East and taken for granted in the West.

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They greeted us with glee, offering chocolates and oranges along with their life stories. Everyone was happy. Three days ago, they were the enemy. In 11 months, they would be NATO allies. Thats how fast things can change.

On another hot day in June 1991, four years after Reagans speech, the wall was being removed, and Germany had unified as one nation, under the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany. I had been extended again and was now serving as a U.S. military liaison officer to the newly established headquarters in Berlin for the German armed forces. In that capacity, I attended a ceremony to reopen the Heiland church, on the Havel River, which had been closed for years because it was located in the death strip area close to the wall.

The pastor gave a brief sermon to dignitaries, including military officers and diplomats from Germany, the U.S., the U.K., France, and the Soviet Union. Afterward, musicians from the German military played a wind quintet by Johann Sebastian Bach. The ceremony embodied a rare moment in history: the allies and enemies of World War II and the Cold War sitting in church together in a tribute to peace.

Army Capt. Franz Burnier, second from left, at a ceremony with military liaison officers from France, the Soviet Union, Germany and the United Kingdom outside the Heiland church near Berlin in 1991. (Franz Burnier) Over the previous 18 months, what was once inconceivable had just happened, due to the peaceful protests and unified voice of the people, and a few enlightened leaders with the vision and courage to take appropriate actions embracing change.

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Let us hope that process can now repeat itself in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Will we learn the lesson of World War II  never again  or will we let recurring fights over territory, ideology, ethnicity, political ambition and retaliatory escalation drag us into World War III?

To honor Veterans Day and the memory of my grandfather, an infantry company commander who lost his leg in combat against the German army in late 1944, I hope our current leadership  American and European  will have the courage to say that never again means never again.

_____

Franz Burnier is emeritus professor of English at the College of DuPage and a retired Army officer who commanded units in the 82nd Airborne Division, the Berlin Brigade and the 5th Special Forces Group.

_____
NEW YORK (PIX11)  Welcome to PIX11 Community CloseUp! Were covering the important issues that matter to you, and were so glad youre joining us.

In this inaugural episode, we are riding with the Paramus Police Department in Bergen County, New Jersey, for a close look at the effort to reduce auto thefts. In the worst cases, thieves are first breaking into homes to look for key fobs so that they can steal your ride!

More Stories: Our Community, Your Voice

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And attention to all parents! The rise of the recreational marijuana industry is causing some real headaches when it comes to raising kids. Were profiling an innovative after-school program in the Bronx, where cannabis education is now part of the curriculum.

Finally, we are also kicking off an exciting new PIX11 News series called Our Community, Your Voice, which will focus on giving a voice to the communities we serve. This is a teamwide effort, driven by powerful reporting from the PIX11 News team, led by PIX11 Special Projects Producer John Tummino, and co-produced by PIX11s Tatiana Charlot and Jay Dow.

This segment will first air on PIX11 Community CloseUp and re-run during the stations regularly scheduled newscasts.

Our first installment of Our Community, Your Voice, reported by PIX11s Anthony DiLorenzo, profiles a fascinating mentorship for military soldiers returning from the battlefield that prepares them for a career in finance!

Watch the video player for this months installment of PIX11 Community Closeup with Jay Dow.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Did you know that the oldest art association in Georgia is right here in the Hostess City?

In fact, for more than 100 years, the Savannah Art Association has continued to promote community awareness and appreciation of the visual arts in our community.

Now, the organization is helping KBs Cafe a local coffee shop celebrate their one-year anniversary with a special showcase fundraiser.

Click the video box above to watch News 3s Kim Gusbys interview with SAA board member and secretary, Dana Steadman.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
URBANA, Ill. (WCIA)  According to the CDC, one in six Americans contract foodborne illnesses each year.

Just last month a deadly E-coli outbreak forced McDonalds to take the quarter pounder off of the menu.

U of I professor creates non-surgical animal sterilization tech

WCIA checked in with a University of Illinois expert to see what companies might be doing to prevent this.

Doctor Matthew Stasiewicz teaches applied food safety. He said outbreaks like this can come from diseases being introduced in planting, harvesting or processing. Stasiewicz is confident food companies are taking steps to keep their products safe, but there is no quick fix to the issue.

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Broadly, reasons why, is I think the way that we eat is continuing to cause stress on the food system, Stasiewicz said. We want food available all year round, you know, lack of season. To have a fresh tomato or fresh lettuce at all times of the year. And those just create more challenges. So, as we work to adapt to those challenges, it becomes harder and harder to drive the absolute numbers of illness down.

He also said there is no evidence more people are dying from foodborne disease now than they were 10 years ago.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com.
POOLER, Ga. (WSAV)  The corporation that owns Firehouse Subs is responding after a local veteran took to social media about her familys interaction with the franchise owner.

Brianna Lancaster and her mother Aimee Eisensmith, who is also a veteran, visited the restaurant on Veterans Day to take advantage of its specials for vets, according to the Facebook post.

While at the Pooler location, Lancaster said the owner lamented how much money the restaurant was losing and that the veterans were entitled.

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Lancaster and Eisensmith said what followed was name-calling and an order to leave the restaurant.

3 more monkeys recovered in Yemassee

Weve noticed over and over again, its not just us, said Eisensmith. This went on all day. Its gone on previously. This has just been his attitude toward Veterans Day in general, thats why we spoke up.

My thing is theres a lot of homeless vets. They couldve gone in there and been met with that attitude. Theres people who are veterans that this time of year is hard for them. They couldve gone in there and been met with that attitude.

In a statement to WSAV Thursday, the corporate ownership of Firehouse apologized for what it says was the unacceptable experience the family had.

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The statement continued:

This experience is not representative of the proud work of our brand, our franchisees and thousands of team members nationwide who collectively served nearly 150,000 meals this Veterans Day as a token of gratitude to our local heroes. As an apology and to show our support to the Pooler veteran community, the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation has pledged to donate $25,000 to a local veteran organization that Ms. Lancaster has recommended.

News 3 spoke to multiple employees at the Pooler restaurant, and several said this isnt the first time the owner has had customer complaints. Some added that theyll be looking for new jobs.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, Utah (ABC4)  Lake Mountain Middle School in Saratoga Springs was evacuated Thursday morning after a fire alarm was triggered and school officials noticed a concerning odor.

According to a representative of the Alpine School District, the fire alarm sounded just before 11 a.m. leading to an evacuation. School officials ushered students outside where they remained on school property while fire authorities swept the building.

More than 800 Utah homes lose power after woman climbs transformer

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Medical first responders treated several students who reported symptoms connected with the odor. The school district representative said, No students experienced injury and all were treated at the scene.

Fire crews identified the cause of the odor to be from a ceiling fan that malfunctioned. Students and staff returned to class about an hour after the fire alarms sounded.

Lake Mountain Middle School in Saratoga Springs was evacuated Thursday, Nov. 14, after a fire alarm was triggered and school officials noticed a concerning odor. (Credit: KTVX/ABC4) Lake Mountain Middle School in Saratoga Springs was evacuated Thursday, Nov. 14, after a fire alarm was triggered and school officials noticed a concerning odor. (Credit: KTVX/ABC4) Lake Mountain Middle School in Saratoga Springs was evacuated Thursday, Nov. 14, after a fire alarm was triggered and school officials noticed a concerning odor. (Credit: KTVX/ABC4)

The district said classes are operating on a modified schedule due to the delay and parents have been informed of the situation.

We appreciate the swift response of Saratoga Spring Fire and Rescue, Lehi Fire Department, and Eagle Mountain Unified Fire Authority, the district said in a statement. We are also proud of our staff for their mindful action and care to ensure the safety of our students, and for our Lake Mountain Middle School students who were cooperative and orderly during a stressful time.

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WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  We are not alone in the cosmos, former Defense Department Official Luis Elizondo told a House Committee Wednesday.

But whats out there is what lawmakers are trying to figure out.

Is it ours? Is it someone elses? Or is it otherworldly? Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) asked.

Congress held its second House hearing focused on unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAPs. Former NASA, Navy and Defense Officials told lawmakers what they believe the U.S. government is keeping from Congress and the public.

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This UAP issue may be the greatest issue of our time, and its being hidden from you, Retired Navy Admiral Tim Gallaudet said.

Gallaudet says hes seen firsthand evidence of UAPs, starting in 2015 during a naval exercise that captured video.

He said it shows an object exhibiting flight and structural characteristics unlike anything in our arsenal.

Gallaudet says emails about the incident soon disappeared.

Another witness who testified, journalist Michael Shellenberger, says theres evidence of objects emerging from the ocean.

A different source entirely described this pretty extraordinary footage that exists of an orb coming out of the ocean and being met by another orb, Shellenberger said.

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A former Defense Department Official Luis Elizondo says he cant legally talk about a UFO crash retrieval program.

You know you cant talk about fight club if theres no fight club, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said.

Correct, Elizondo said.

Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) says shes concerned about the government overclassifying information that could be impeding national security or science on the dime of the American people.

Taxpayers deserve to know how much has been spent. They shouldnt be kept in the dark to spare the Pentagon a little bit of embarrassment, Mace said.

Former NASA administrator Michael Gold, who also testified, said the vast majority of the unidentified objects are likely drones or experimental aircraft, but he says some of them are anomalies and thats what needs to be studied.

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Nov. 13The Spokane County Republican Party will reject "cronyism" and consider applications from anyone eligible for appointment as the county treasurer after Congressman-elect Michael Baumgartner vacates that seat in January, said Rob Linebarger, a member of party leadership.

Baumgartner, who has served as treasurer since 2019 and won election on Nov. 5 to represent Eastern Washington in Congress, will be sworn in on Jan. 3. He does not plan to resign his current position before January, he said Wednesday.

Once the treasurer position is vacated, the state constitution requires that the county Republicans nominate three Republican candidates for appointment  if the vacancy has been created by a Democrat, the county Democratic Party would make the nominations.

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Linebarger doesn't expect that the party's central committee could meet to make that decision before mid-January, giving potential candidates time to contact the party through its website.

"I want full open transparency," Linebarger said Wednesday. "Anyone in the county that lives within county boundaries can apply for that job."

The Spokane County Commission must then vote for one of those three nominees within 60 days of when the vacancy was created, or else Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson would make the appointment. The seat would come back up for election next year.

On Tuesday, Baumgartner endorsed Matt Hanson, the owner of Dye Seed, a seed processor headquartered in Pomeroy, to succeed him as county treasurer. Hanson served as co-chair of Baumgartner's congressional campaign's finance committee, and Baumgartner said he believes Hanson is the right person to continue his initiatives in the treasurer's office.

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"We made nearly $2 million in investment income in the last few years, and I think Matt will do well with the investment fund," Baumgartner said. "I'm proud of the transparency in the tax statements; I think Matt will continue that, and I think he will also continue frequent and open town halls, which I think is important."

Mostly new to politics, Hanson served on the Garfield County Hospital District in an appointed position from 2014 to 2017 but has never run for office. He has donated more than $1,500 to area Republicans over the last six years, including two county commissioners, and he and his wife, Jessica Hanson, were also among the first to donate the legal maximum to Baumgartner in his race for Congress, giving $6,600 each on March 31.

"I've had a really good time working with Mike, I've learned a lot from him, and I want to continue working in local government," Hanson said in a Wednesday interview, adding that it was an honor to be endorsed by Baumgartner "because I know he cares deeply about the treasurer and wants to make sure it continues in good hands."

Linebarger stressed Wednesday, however, that the nomination process would not be prematurely swayed by Baumgartner's endorsement.

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"In the past, this has been cronyism," Linebarger said. "Baumgartner has a preferred person to replace him, but I don't want it to be seen that you get a promotion by running for election  and he did a great job  but you don't necessarily get to pick who's going to replace you."

Linebarger added that more details about the application process would be released in coming days.

Josh Kerns, vice chair of the Spokane County Board of Commissioners, said Hanson is the first person he's heard of interested in the position, and indicated that it's still too early in the process to lend support to any one candidate.

"It'll be a long process," Kerns said. "It's all kind of contingent on what date Michael Baumgartner officially resigns the treasurer seat."

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Current Commission Chair Mary Kuney's first stint on the board came through the same process, after Kerns and County Commissioner Al French appointed her to replace former commissioner Shelly O'Quinn in 2017.

Kerns said he's long had a relationship with Hanson and his wife, who chairs the board of trustees for the Spokane County Library District. The Spokesman-Review's request for comment was the first the commissioner heard of the endorsement, but he did not see anything out of the ordinary in Baumgartner issuing it, or the timing of it.

"Matt's a good guy, I've known him for several years," Kerns said. "I didn't know he was interested in this."

Some county staff expressed surprise Tuesday that Deputy Treasurer Mike Volz, who has worked over 20 years in the office, was not endorsed for the position. However, Volz, who simultaneously serves as a state legislator and just won re-election on Nov. 5, said that "the timing is suboptimal" for him to consider pivoting to the treasurer's seat, at least long-term, and that he had discussed this with Baumgartner prior to the congressman-elect's endorsement of Hanson.

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"If my timing was different, my decision would be different, but I just won an election and I made a commitment to folks about bills I would participate in," he said.

While Volz may still consider putting his name forward for appointment, he would do so without the intention of running for re-election in 2025, acting as a placeholder before the next election, he said.

"I've worked in the office for 21 of the last 25 years, so I'm committed to having someone good in the office," he said.

Reporter Nick Gibson contributed to this story.
Nov. 14CONNEAUT  City council entered into an agreement with the Ohio Department of Transportation at a meeting Tuesday evening.

The agreement focused on the design and reconstruction of Old Main Bridge, which it estimated to cost $2,812,130.31.

The agreement states ODOT will fund 95% of the construction, which will cost $1,766,677.

Conneaut City Manager Nick Sanford said the city needed a third-party consultant for the project.

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"I had proposed to ODOT that we engage the Ashtabula County Engineers Office, as a cost saving measure, which they have ultimately agreed to," he said.

Sanford said hiring the city's main engineering company would be a conflict of interest.

Sanford addressed the fire last Friday, saying the fire marshal's investigation is ongoing.

"The firefighters that were injured are doing well, thankfully," he said.

Sanford said he was grateful for the work of Conneaut's fire and police departments that night.

"Talking with the platoon that [was] on shift that evening, they were awesome, hands down, just amazing," he said.

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Council reappointed Martha Sorohan and Jim Kulko to the Cable Advisory Board.

Cindy Prather will conclude her term on the board, and not return next year.

Council appointed Kathy Warnes to the fill Prather's spot.

All three terms begin Jan. 1, 2025 and end Dec. 31, 2029.

Councilperson-at-large Marianna Branch said the Conneaut Convention and Visitors Bureau board has an opening.

Branch said applicants can send a letter of intent to the CCVB's email, ccvb44030@gmail.com.

The city will auction off four pieces of old equipment from its public works department.

The items include the city's old street sweeper, a trailer, case loader and skid steer.

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The four sales will bring in a total of at least $27,500, which will go back to the public works department.

The items can be found through govdeals.com.

Sanford said he's met with Canadian National about Conneaut resident's concerns about trucks dropping dredge materials when driving through the city.

"We are continuing to work toward resolution to minimize any impact," he said.

Sanford said the city's website will have a place for residents to report concerns.

City residents have been concerned about cars not stopping at the crosswalk on State and Harbor streets.

Sanford said he's heard cars are not stopping at the crosswalk when people pass through.

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"We are going to continue patrolling this area for any motorist who is violating the law with respect to ignoring pedestrians using these marked crosswalks," he said.

Sanford said city hall's elevator has been fixed.

Sanford said the public works is continuing leaf pickup.

Conneaut residents can call public works at 440-593-7430 to learn when and where pickup will be.
NORTH HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH)  We first met little Ari Williams during the pandemic in 2020 when the baby was finally released from Yale New Haven Hospital after 298 days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

She was born prematurely at 26 weeks, weighing just over one pound, and in need of surgery for a lacerated liver.

It was terrifying, it was traumatic, Aris mom, Taryn Bonner Williams, said while thinking back on that time.

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North Haven baby goes home after spending 10 months in the hospital fighting for her life

While Aris future was uncertain, she kept fighting, day to day, week to week, month to month.

Fast forward four years, Ari is a precocious kindergartener who loves school and vacationing with her family.

I wear purple because my daughter was born too soon, Bonner Williams said reading a quote from her shirt.

While Ari had brain bleeds, kidney issues and meningitis, shes doing well and always inspires her parents.

Shes come such a long way. Anything that my husband and I thought shed struggle to do, she proved us wrong time and time again, Bonner Williams said.

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She is still a little delayed right now, but mom and I work with her every day on writing, writing her name, going over colors, going over numbers, Aris dad, Andre Williams, said.

They look back at Aris tiny footprints and the little shoes she was wearing when she left the hospital with the hope that sharing their brave girls story will provide comfort to other parents with babies in the NICU.

I would say, find a village, someone to be your sounding board, to hear your cries, to hear your complaints, your frustrations, Bonner Williams said.

The Williams are so grateful to the nurses in the NICU who helped their incredible baby become the amazing little girl she is today.

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I love them all. I still stay in contact with them, and I love them all, every last one of them, Andre Williams said. They are family, they are.

Sunday, Nov.17, is Prematurity Awareness Day, a day that is now recognized around the world.

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BEIRUT, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese Defense Minister Maurice Slim on Thursday reiterated Lebanon's adherence to the presence of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the country, the National News Agency reported.

During a meeting with Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the UN under-secretary-general for peace operations, Slim highlighted that "Lebanon is keen on the presence of international forces in the south to cooperate with the Lebanese army in implementing UN Resolution 1701."

Slim expressed his appreciation for UNIFIL's resilience in holding on to its positions despite the recent repeated attacks on its sites amid challenging circumstances.

The defense minister also spoke about the importance of maximum support from friendly countries to enhance the capabilities of the Lebanese army.

Lacroix, for his part, stressed that "commitment to Resolution 1701 is the solid foundation for any solution," calling for "solidarity with Lebanon and its people" and a joint effort of the international community to achieve a ceasefire in the country.

He also discussed the army's significant role in maintaining southern Lebanon's security and stability, in close cooperation with UNIFIL in a manner that preserves national sovereignty.

Lacroix arrived in Lebanon on Tuesday for a three-day visit. The UN official on Wednesday headed to the UNIFIL area of operations, where he met peacekeepers injured in recent confrontations between Hezbollah and Israel, according to a UNIFIL statement.

During his tour of UNIFIL headquarters in southern Lebanon's Naqoura city, Lacroix also met with senior mission leaders and civilian peacekeepers who continue to support the mission's work in Naqoura, expressing his gratitude to them for their dedication, the statement said.

Since Sept. 23, the Israeli army has been waging intensive airstrikes on Lebanon in a dangerous escalation with Hezbollah. In early October, Israel further initiated a ground operation across its northern border into Lebanon.

In recent weeks, Israeli forces have repeatedly targeted UNIFIL positions in southern Lebanon, resulting in injuries to peacekeepers and drawing international criticism. 
WETHERSFIELD, Conn. (WTNH)  A Christmas movie fan experience unlike any other starts this holiday season in Connecticut.

The nations first ever Christmas Movie Trail takes you to familiar scenes from holiday movies filmed in the Nutmeg State. Click here to view the map and learn about things to do along the trail.

Lamont announces contest to attend launch of Connecticut Christmas Movie Trail

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According to the state, 22 Christmas movies have been filmed in Connecticut. The trail takes you all over the state, from Woodstock to Greenwich.

We step into the shoes of our favorite actors and go visit the sets and locations and things they did in the movies, Ellen Woolf, the brand director for the Connecticut Office of Statewide Marketing & Tourism, said. Its so exciting because its a whole new way of seeing Connecticut.

The state made the announcement at the Silas W. Robbins House in Wethersfield. The house was the set for the 2018 Hallmark movie Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane.

There are things to do on the trail as well. In Wethersfield, you can visit the Heirloom Market for an eggnog cupcake, featured in that same movie. And then head down the street for a holiday cocktail at The Charles.

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The trail is a trip Christmas movie fans are excited for.

Its so fun to watch and see all the locations I know but its so cool to see the ones I had no idea were filmed here and see where those spots are, Whitney Longworth of New Canaan said.

Longworth is one of the 12 Connecticut residents that won a contest to attend the unveiling Wednesday. The 12 had the chance to meet Christmas movie actors Wes Brown, Erin Cahill and Michael Rady. Longworth was chosen to be an extra in an upcoming Hallmark movie that is set to be filmed in Connecticut.

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A conservative group this week launched a national campaign attacking Cincinnati Childrens for the care it provides to minors at its transgender clinic.

The campaign, called Stop the Docs, includes social media criticism challenging transgender medical care and a large billboard attached to a truck that was spotted Wednesday near the hospital. The billboard claimed Cincinnati Childrens is harming children and is #1 in OH for sex changes."

The group behind the campaign, the American Parents Coalition, was founded in March by a Virginia mom, Alleigh Marre, who has said one of her goals is to save children from malicious political agendas.

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Hospital officials and representatives of the American Parents Coalition did not immediately respond to interview requests.

The groups website described Cincinnati Childrens as one of the worst offending hospitals in the United States for providing medication and surgery to minors who identify as transgender. The group claimed its review of insurance data, including procedure codes and drug codes indicating a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, showed the hospital had treated 396 sex change patients, including 27 who had undergone a surgical procedure.

Ohio law bars medication, surgery for transgender kids

Cincinnati Children's officials did not respond to questions about surgical procedures, but the hospital is prohibited by an Ohio law passed this year from providing surgery or gender-affirming medication, such as puberty blockers, to minors.

A description of the transgender clinic on the hospitals website states that available services are limited to a medical interview, a physical examination and development of a plan, which could include referrals to a psychologist. All treatment is provided in consultation with parents and requires parental approval.

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Last year, in testimony before the Ohio House regarding the anti-transgender care bill, Cincinnati Childrens CEO Steve Davis said the number of children nationwide who receive medication or surgery following a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is small.

He said medical and psychological treatment is essential because transgender youth are six times more likely than their peers to be depressed and are eight times more likely to attempt suicide.

Transgender youth face significantly higher risks, Davis said. These children are among the most vulnerable.

In a statement about the American Parents Coalitions campaign, Marre said hospitals that treat transgender youth are motivated by profits. Sex-change surgeries, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones are not treatments  they are interventions that create lifelong patients and customers, Marre said.

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Davis pushed back on that claim in his testimony last year, arguing that treating transgender youth is costly and insurance reimbursement is low. "There is no financial incentive to provide comprehensive, gender-affirming medical care," he said.

The campaign targeting Cincinnati Childrens and other childrens hospitals comes a week after a divisive presidential election in which transgender issues were front and center. According to the Associated Press, Republican ads attacking support for transgender and LGBTQ rights aired more than 290,000 times on network TV.

One such ad, aired 15,000 times by President-elect Donald Trump, proclaimed that Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.

Few transgender youth prescribed drugs, fewer have surgery

Despite the political focus on transgender issues, particularly on transgender youth, recent studies support Daviss contention that relatively few children nationwide receive medical treatment related to gender dysphoria.

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A Reuters investigation two years ago found that while the number of minors between the ages of 13 and 17 who received such a diagnosis had climbed to about 42,000 in 2021, most were not treated with drugs or surgery. About 5,500 received hormone therapy or puberty blockers, Reuters found, and 282 underwent a surgical procedure.

A Harvard study this year, based on 2019 insurance data, found no surgeries were performed on minors under the age of 12.

The study concluded that U.S. surgeons are appropriately following international guidelines around assessment and care.

The American Parents Coalitions campaign is based on data gathered by Do No Harm, a conservative group based in Virginia that says it represents physicians, nurses and other medical professionals who want to protect healthcare from a radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology. According to 2023 tax documents, Do No Harm raised about $3 million last year to support its lobbying and advocacy efforts.

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In an email statement regarding Do No Harm's data, the group's executive director, Kristina Rasmussen, said the methodology used to gather and analyze the data was conservative and likely undercounted the number of patients who'd received medical treatment related to gender dysphoria at Cincinnati Children's.

"They have in fact performed experimental sex change procedures on minors," Rasmussen said.

This story has been updated to add video.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Transgender clinic at Cincinnati Children's hospital target of campaign
Preparations for the construction of two power units based on U.S. company Westinghouse's AR1000 technology are underway at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, according to the plant's Nov. 13 statement.

The South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, the second largest of the country's five nuclear power stations, is located near the city of Pivdennoukrainsk in Mykolaiv Oblast.

Ukraine relies on nuclear power for more than half of its energy production, which is increasingly in demand amid Russia's attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

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The nuclear power plant currently has three operating power units with a total capacity of 3,000 megawatts (MW).

Geological studies were conducted to construct the new power units, and a construction site was selected, the statement read.

Ukraine is also preparing to resume the construction of the previously abandoned Chyhyryn plant in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine's state nuclear energy operator said on Aug. 27. According to Energoatom, the plant will also be equipped with AP1000 reactors built by the U.S. company Westinghouse.

The members of the Chyhyryn City Council voted to permit Energoatom to resume the plant's construction. "The first steps have been taken," said Energoatom.

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Meanwhile, Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe's largest nuclear power station, has been under Russian occupation since March 2022. Its position near the front line has led to heightened nuclear safety risks throughout Russia's full-scale war.

Ukraine's National Resistance Center reported on Sept. 15 that Russian forces continued to use the territory of the occupied power plant to deploy military personnel and store ammunition and explosives.

Read also: Ukraine braces for winter freeze amid potential Russian strikes targeting nuclear power

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
A worker died after an accident in a construction zone at a high school in Orange County on Thursday morning, authorities confirmed.

According to the Orange County Fire Authority and Orange Unified School District, the incident took place at Villa Park High School at about 10:21 a.m.

Authorities said the accident took place in a construction zone, but the exact location on campus wasnt revealed.

Two workers were injured in the accident, both adults. One was transported to a local trauma center in unknown condition.

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The other was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities confirmed. That persons identity was yet to be released as of Thursday afternoon.

No students or staff were present at the time of the accident, and no students were ever in any danger, authorities said.

No additional details, including the nature of the accident, were immediately made available.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH)  A bill to ban Ohios students from using school restrooms that dont align with their sex assigned at birth is heading to Republican Gov. Mike DeWine after advancing at the Statehouse on Wednesday.

The Ohio Senate voted 24-7 in favor of the ban, sending the measure to DeWines desk for signature before it can become law. The ban had previously stood on its own as House Bill 183 and was folded into Senate Bill 104, which amends Ohios College Credit Plus program, when the House passed the legislation in June.

Ohio school district continues religious release policy debate

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It protects our children and grandchildren in private spaces where they are most vulnerable, said Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) shortly before the bill passed. It is us using our legislative authority to ensure schools are, in fact, safe environments.

S.B. 104 requires academic institutions to set separate bathrooms, locker rooms and overnight accommodations based on students biological sex, meaning the sex listed on a students birth certificate. The bill, which also prohibits the construction of any all-gendered restrooms in schools, would go into effect 90 days after DeWine signs it.

Im for people, kids, to be able to go to the bathroom with the gender assignment so that they have that protection, but Ill have to look at the specific language, DeWine told reporters this past summer when asked about the legislation.

Opponents of the measure, like Equality Ohio public policy manager Morgan Zickes, argue that the bill is another attack against trans youth, referring to other legislation like House Bill 68, which went into effect in August banning gender-affirming care for minors. Zickes called the provision unconstitutional at the Statehouse on Wednesday and said the organization will fight this using every avenue possible.

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The majority in the legislature is choosing to spend valuable time scapegoating LGBTQ+ Ohioans through a series of politically motivated attacks instead of addressing the needs of Ohioans, said Zickes. Trans students want a fair chance to succeed in school, and these bills make that harder.

Which Ohio public school districts are now associated with Bible-based LifeWise program?

Rep. Adam Bird (R-New Richmond), one of the bills primary sponsors, previously told Nexstars WCMH he proposed the legislation because he had been contacted by constituents who requested it. Bird said he doesnt view this as controversial and thinks parents of all political backgrounds want their children to be safe in the restroom.

Bird said he collaborated with lawmakers to refine the bills language, including adding an exemption for custodians or an individual responding to an emergency to enter a restroom that does not align with their sex. Exemptions have also been built in for children under the age of 10 being assisted by a parent or guardian, or a person with a disability who is being assisted.

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Leo Duru, a trans Ohio college student, said at the Statehouse on Wednesday that the bill encapsulates the worst fears of trans and gender non-conforming students. Duru recalled when his gender presentation changed from feminine to more masculine, and he was faced with the decision of which bathroom to use.

In the girls bathroom, I risked verbal bullying and shame, and in the boys bathroom, I faced physical bullying, said Duru. I still overthink every move I make and try to leave during classes so that fewer people will be in the restrooms. I still time my exit so that no one will see me leave the stall.

The legislation drew more than 110 opponents submitting testimony against it last fall, including Minna Zelch, who said her trans daughter has been using the womens restroom for years without incident. Zelch said statistics show that in cases where harassment or assault does take place, the trans person is more likely to be the victim, not the perpetrator.

Putting aside for the moment the fact that God also made intersex people, who happen to represent a much greater percentage of the population than transgender people and are conveniently ignored in all of these arguments, a human beings very existence is not something that should ever be up for debate, said Zelch.

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Who is Vivek Ramaswamy, the central Ohio billionaire alongside Elon Musk in Trumps cabinet?

Brendan Shea, an Ohio Board of Education member who was one of 33 proponents to submit testimony in support of the bill last fall, agreed the bill is an issue of safety and pointed to a precedent set by the board when it approved a resolution in December 2022 that rejected proposed federal protections for LGBTQ+ students.

Its an issue that distracts from academics, Shea said. I too often hear from concerned parents, constituents and administrators. Its a distraction for them. Enacting [this bill] will help take that difficult situation off their plate.

Beryl Brown Piccolantonio, a former Gahanna-Jefferson School Board president who was appointed to the Houses fourth district seat earlier this year, testified last October that the Gahanna board was concerned the legislation would hurt some of our most marginalized and vulnerable students and impact our staff who are already under significant pressure and stress.

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Rep. Beth Lear (R-Galena), the bills other primary sponsor, said during the bills first hearing that modern education teaches that childrens feelings should be constantly affirmed, including feelings of identity regardless of whether they are rooted in reality.

Boys cannot become girls, and girls cannot become boys, Lear said. The modern issue of gender is not a social construct, but the idea you can change your gender is.

Senate Democratic Leader Nickie Antonio, meanwhile, said she couldnt believe Republican leaders prioritized the bill on their first day back following the November election.

There should be no exception to liberty and justice for all, yet here we are telling our children that there are people who are less-than, she said. This bill is not about bathrooms. Its about demonizing those who are different, and our children are watching and listening to the fearmongering.

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At least 11 states have adopted laws barring transgender girls and women from girls and womens bathrooms at public schools and in some cases other government facilities.

The laws are in effect in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah. A judges order putting enforcement on hold is in place in Idaho.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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DOTHAN, Ala (WDHN)  A Dothan man found guilty in the murder of a 51-year-old Geneva man who was shot to death at a nightclub has been ordered to spend nearly a century behind bars.

On Thursday, Judge Kevin Moulton sentenced Dekeivon OKeith Lawton to 99 years in an Alabama prison.

Lawton was found guilty of murder in the shooting death of Roger Shane Felder.

READ MORE: Dothan man found guilty of murder in deadly night club shooting

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Dothan Police said Felder was shot multiple times in the parking lot of the Pearl Lounge and Grill in late March 2023 after he attempted to act as a good samaritan and de-escalate a fight inside the nightclub.

Felder was transported to a Dothan hospital after the shooting, where he later died from his injuries.

Lawton was the third suspect arrested in Felders murder, though prosecutors said it was Lawton who fired the killing shot. The other two suspects, Raheem Powe and Nakia Kentae Thompson, testified against Lawton during his four-day trial in late October.

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Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) on Wednesday said President-elect Trumps choice of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for attorney general poses a deadly serious challenge to the Senates constitutional role of advice and consent for presidential nominees.

In an interview on CNNs The Lead with Jake Tapper, Coons said he would engage in the confirmation process but that he thinks its important that the nominees qualifications and background are taken into account.

This is a deadly serious challenge to the Senates constitutional advice and consent role, and as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ill engage in the confirmation process, where we consider the qualifications, the ethics and character and the policy views of nominees, Coons told Tapper, saying he was speechless when he first heard the news.

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Coons said he agrees with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), whom Trump tapped for secretary of State, that Trump is entitled to his picks.

Generally thats correct, Coons said about Rubios remarks. But the Senate has a critical guardrail function to play, where we should look at whether someone is appropriate to serve in a role. The attorney general is the top law enforcement officer of the United States.

Coons said he expects Gaetzs confirmation process to be among the most thorough, noting Gaetz was the subject of a Justice Department investigation and a House Ethics Committee probe.

Given an ongoing ethics investigation in the House, given some of the allegations that have been made against Congressman Gaetz, and given some of his conduct, I think this will be a robust and thorough confirmation process, he said.

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My hope is that my colleagues in the Republican caucus will urge the president to reconsider, Coons continued.

Trump announced Gaetz as his pick for attorney general on Wednesday, tapping a loyal congressional ally to fill the countrys top law enforcement role. The Florida congressman is the latest in a string of nominations of those who aligned with Trump amid his first impeachment investigation.

The announcement came as a shock to Senate Republicans, who were caught completely flat-footed by the announcement on Wednesday.

Two key centrist members  Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)  expressed shock and surprise, with the Alaska Republican panning the choice for its lack of seriousness.

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I dont think its a serious nomination for attorney general. We need to have a serious attorney general, Murkowski told reporters. Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious.

This one was not on my bingo card, she added.

Murkowski told Punchbowl News that she was shocked at the nomination.

This is why the Senates advise and consent process is so important. Im sure that there will be many, many questions raised at Mr. Gaetzs hearing.

Asked whether he thinks five Republicans will vote against Gaetz  the threshold to block his confirmation  Coons told Tapper, I dont know.

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But, as I said, that will be the key test of whether or not the Senate plays its important constitutional role as a guardrail, as an organization, an institution, that says to an executive whos just won a broad, national mandate, We will confirm your nominees, but not all of them, not anyone, not without regard to their character and qualifications.

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(Bloomberg) -- Javid Gara is a 32-year-old, self-employed electrician who moved from Baku to Englands Manchester three years ago. He also runs Azerbaijans only independent climate group, campaigning to clean up the environment and cut emissions.Activism of any kind is a rarity in Azerbaijan, which is this week hosting thousands of climate campaigners, scientists, diplomats, executives and world leaders for the COP29 climate summit. Draconian laws restrict local civil society groups and how theyre funded, leading to dozens of arrests in the past decade.

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Azerbaijan scores near the bottom of democracy rankings issued by Freedom House, a US nonprofit. The number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan has more than tripled since early 2023, reaching 319 just two months before the start of the United Nations summit in Baku, according to the Institute for Peace and Democracy.

The government cracked down even further on political dissent in the runup to COP29, limiting free speech and the activities of opposition parties, according to Florian Irminger, president of Progress & Change Action Lab, an advisory group. That atmosphere of fear led dozens of lawyers and human rights defenders to flee Azerbaijan in the weeks before the conference, Irminger says.

We just feel its unpredictable and there hasnt been any ease in the repression in the last few weeks, he said. There could well be more arrests.

Gara says his organization, Ecofront, isnt officially registered and receives no funding so it cant be accused of smuggling foreign money  a common charge leveled against activists when theyre arrested. Thats why he and his colleagues have other jobs to pay the bills. The group uses drones to gather evidence of ecological destruction, then uses social media and direct action to push for change. The approach has successfully halted the chopping down of some forests to make way for farming, Gara says.

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In February, Gara was among five activists who signed a two-page document calling on President Ilham Aliyevs administration to take eight steps to make COP29 a success. The coalition, which calls itself the Azerbaijani Climate Justice Initiative, asked the government to release political prisoners, allow more freedom for non-governmental organizations, set ambitious emissions targets and come up with plan to clean up oil-contaminated areas.

Two months later, Anar Mammadli, who spearheaded that initiative, was arrested and charged with smuggling money. The 46-year-old activist is still imprisoned, with his health deteriorating due to chronic bronchitis and arthritis. The Climate Justice Initiative has since disbanded as other members worried they might be next.

Aliyevs top aide, Hikmet Hajiyev, has dismissed allegations of unjustly arresting of journalists and other activists. Speaking to reporters at COP29, he said the arrests were related specifically to charges of money smuggling and reiterated that all freedoms are protected in Azerbiajan. After multiple media outlets questioned if the countrys dependence on gas exports created a conflict of interest with its role as COP president, Aliyev on Tuesday accused the western fake media and so-called independent NGOs of spreading false information.

The treatment of activists in Azerbaijan runs contrary to the stated aim of democratic countries and the United Nations climate change secretariat to help civil society push their governments to take more aggressive steps to cut carbon emissions and achieve the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperatures in check. The last two COP host countries, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, also have drawn criticism over human rights. Freedom House classifies both countries as not free, with weighted average democracy score of 18 out of 100 on its index.

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The host country agreement between the UNFCCC, which oversees the COP summits, and Azerbaijan says conference attendees shall enjoy immunity for legal process for what they say and do. But it also asks delegates to respect local laws and not interfere in Azerbaijans internal affairs, according to a leaked copy of the deal obtained by Human Rights Watch.

Azerbaijan ended up hosting COP29 after the war in Ukraine caused a stalemate between the Eastern European bloc of countries that was tasked with choosing this years host. Russia said it would block any bid by a European Union country that supported Ukraine, leaving just a handful of nations to choose from, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Serbia and Montenegro.

In July, Simon Stiell, the UNs climate change chief, declined a request by Mammadlis supporters to visit him in prison during a pre-COP trip to Azerbaijan. The UNFCCC said it wasnt their responsibility to advocate for Mammadli, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg Green.

The UNFCCC and COP29 presidency declined to comment.

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Gubad Ibadoghlu, a 53-year-old economist and visiting professor with the London School of Economics, was arrested in July while on a trip to Azerbaijan for family reasons. He published research last year questioning whether Azerbaijan can deliver on a deal to supply the European Union with gas as an alternative to Russia. Ibadoghlu concluded that, in order to meet its obligations by 2027, Azerbaijan would have to purchase additional gas from Russia and Turkmenistan and sell it to Europe.

He was traveling back from grocery shopping with my mother when they were ambushed by four other cars, two of which collided with their vehicle to force it to stop, said Ibad Bayramov, Ibadoghlus 24-year-old son. More than 15 men, dressed as civilians, got out of the cars and forcibly detained them, he says.Its impossible to believe there could be environmental progress when the government is suppressing civil society members who are able to keep the government accountable, Bayramov said.Despite the risks, Gara is continuing to push for stronger climate action and is attending COP29. He obtained his pass through a wider network of NGOs. The objectives of COP29 are much bigger than Azerbaijans objectives, he said. We cant wait another year just because the Azerbaijan government is authoritarian and corrupt.

Listen on Zero: The World Needs Climate Leadership. Can Anyone Step Up?

--With assistance from Zulfugar Agayev.

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Bulldozers prepare the site for Hudbay Minerals mining operations in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson. Photo by David Abbott | Arizona Mirror

An environmental advocacy group and the states largest pecan farming company filed an appeal Tuesday challenging a state land boards approval of a controversial right-of-way needed for a proposed $1.3 billion copper mining project southeast of Tucson.

Save the Scenic Santa Ritas and Farmers Investment Co. argue the Arizona State Land Department violated state law and the Arizona Constitution by granting Copper World Inc. permission to build infrastructure across protected research land.

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The appeal follows a September court victory in which Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney ruled the state land board violated Arizonas Open Meetings Law by failing to disclose the right-of-way would be used for pipelines to transport millions of tons of mine waste, known as tailings.

The Santa Rita Experimental Range is required by state law to be operated for ecological and rangeland research, Rob Peters, executive director of Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, said in a written statement announcing the new litigation. The Arizona State Land Department violated state law, the state Constitution, and department regulations when it granted the right-of-way to Copper World for industrial uses.

The right-of-way would allow Copper World, a subsidiary of Canadian mining company Hudbay Minerals Inc., to construct power lines, communications lines, and pipelines for water and mine waste across the Santa Rita Experimental Range, a 52,000-acre research facility established in 1902.

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The most recent Copper World proposal would span 44 years in two phases, beginning on the west side of the mountain range near the town of Green Valley. The first phase would include a 17-year mine life on property that Hudbay already owns.

That initial phase would allow the multinational corporation ample time to obtain permits required to mine on the public lands to the east of the initial site. Once fully completed, operations would obliterate a 1.5-mile stretch of ridgeline and leave millions of tons of mine waste behind.

Pima County has publicly opposed the project since at least 2011.

At issue is whether the land department circumvented legal protections for the range. In 1988, the Arizona Legislature mandated it be used only for research and a 1991 Land Department order closed it to development, including rights-of-way.

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The Legislature did not authorize the land department to create a bureaucratic scheme to grant a foreign mining company industrial rights-of-way across the ecologically sensitive range, Nan Walden, chief counsel for Farmers Investment Co., which operates pecan farms near the proposed mine site, said in a statement.

The appeal challenges an Oct. 8 land board decision that attempted to rectify open meetings violations from December 2022. The earlier approval was invalidated after Blaney found the board failed to inform the public that the right-of-way would include six pipelines for mine tailings rather than the two water pipelines originally disclosed.

According to Save the Scenic Santa Ritas and Farmers Investment Co., the re-approval of the right-of-way for the project once again failed to provide a detailed description of the project and the mine tailings pipelines.

Copper World plans multiple open pit mines on both sides of the Santa Rita Mountains, about 35 miles southeast of Tucson. The project includes the controversial Rosemont pit and would place hundreds of millions of tons of mine waste on private land next to the research range, according to court documents.

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We will continue to pursue all legal options to stop this horrific mining project that will destroy the northern half of the Santa Rita Mountains, deplete billions of gallons of groundwater from the Santa Cruz River valley, pollute the air, dump hundreds of millions of tons of toxic mine tailings near existing neighborhoods and schools all to mine copper that will be exported overseas, Peters said.

The Santa Rita Experimental Range, originally operated by the U.S. Forest Service until its transfer to Arizona in 1988, is the longest continuously active rangeland research facility and among the five oldest biological field stations in the United States, according to range officials.

The Arizona State Land Department said it would not comment on pending litigation, and a spokesperson for Hudbay said the mining company was reviewing the filing.

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This photo shows the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in Duris, Lebanon, on Nov. 15, 2024. At least 12 paramedics from civil defense teams were killed on Thursday night in an Israeli airstrike on their center in Duris, a village in Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, Lebanese news website Elnashra reported. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua)

BEIRUT, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- At least 12 paramedics from civil defense teams were killed on Thursday night in an Israeli airstrike on their center in Duris, a village in Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, Lebanese news website Elnashra reported.

According to Elnashra, Baalbek Governor Bachir Khodor said that the bodies of 12 civil defense members were recovered from under the rubble, and the debris removal process is still ongoing. He added that around 20 paramedics were at the center during the airstrike.

"Contact is lost with the head of the regional civil defense center in Baalbek, Bilal Raad," he was quoted as saying.

Since Sept. 23, the Israeli military has intensified airstrikes on Lebanon in an escalation of conflict with Hezbollah. Israel also launched a ground operation across its northern border into Lebanon in early October.

As of Thursday, the death toll from Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon since the beginning of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Oct. 8, 2023, has reached 3,386, while injuries went up to 14,417. 

This photo shows the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in Duris, Lebanon, on Nov. 15, 2024. At least 12 paramedics from civil defense teams were killed on Thursday night in an Israeli airstrike on their center in Duris, a village in Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, Lebanese news website Elnashra reported. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua)
MEMPHIS, Tenn.  City Council rejected a special-use permit for the proposed East Region high school in Cordova in a vote Tuesday, meaning its back to the drawing board for the Memphis-Shelby County school district.

Plans called for the school to be built on Fischer Steel Road near Germantown Parkway.

First look at new high school planned in Cordova

But city council members Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to reject the site, after parents and business owners voiced concerns about the schools impact on traffic in the area.

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There were also concerns about the sites former use as an industrial facility.

The new Memphis-Shelby County school would have served more than 2,000 students currently zoned to Germantown High School.

Plans for a new school in Cordova have been in the works for at least two years, since a deal was reached to transfer the so-called 3G schools from MSCS control to Germantown, and build a new county school in Cordova.

MSCS has not responded to a request for a comment on Tuesdays vote.

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The teen suspect in the stabbing death of a 14-year-old Gerber boy was sentenced in Tehama County Superior Court on Tuesday, Nov. 12.

Sentenced to 15 years and eight months in state prison was Steele Stewart, 18, of Corning who was charged on suspicion of first-degree murder with use of a weapon in the fatal stabbing of Efrain Vargas Jr., and attempted murder with use of a weapon in the stabbing of a 15-year-old boy. The incident occurred around 10:24 p.m. on April 16, 2023, during a Quinceanera party on the 25700 block of Ohio Avenue near the Sacramento River. The 15-year-old victim was reportedly stabbed twice in the back.

According to Tehama County District Attorney Matt Rogers, the sentence was the product of a plea agreement between the D.A.s office, Stewart and his counsel.

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Stewart was arrested at a West Street residence in Corning around 4:37 p.m., Sunday, April 17, 2023, and booked into the Tehama County Juvenile Justice Center on the suspicion of murder and attempted murder charges.

When Tehama County sheriff's deputies, Corning police and California Highway Patrol officers arrived at the party of more than 200 guests, deputies reported most of the guests had left after violence broke out.

The 15-year-old victim was transported by medical helicopter to Enloe Medical Center where he was treated and released. Rogers confirmed the boy has been able to return as a student at Corning High School.

Vargas, who was stabbed in the upper torso, was transported to the hospital and pronounced deceased by staff around 5:58 a.m. April 17, reported the sheriff's office.

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Stewart's arrest came about after witnesses allegedly identified him as the suspect and video surveillance corroborated witness statements, according to the sheriff's office.

Rogers said his Bureau of Investigations, the sheriffs office and the Corning Police Department did a very successful job working on the case investigation.

Stewart was tried as an adult after the Tehama County Superior Court granted Rogers request to do so.
A Corning city employee who filed a lawsuit against the city and its former police chief, Jeremiah Fears, has reportedly accepted a settlement amount.

The lawsuit was filed on April 4 by Attorney Angela Hooper on behalf of Paris Fountain, a dispatcher for the Corning Police Department.

Hooper previously filed a discrimination claim with the states Civil Rights Department in August 2023 for Fountain. It was against the City of Corning and Fears.

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The most recent filing is a complaint for damages, in which Fountain claims sexual harassment/hostile work environment, sexual harassment-quid pro quo, gender discrimination, failure to prevent discrimination/harassment/retaliation and retaliation/whistleblower.

Fountain was previously not able to work allegedly for medical reasons, but has since returned to her duties as a police dispatcher. She was hired to that position with the city in March 2018.

The claim filed with the state and the resulting investigation by the City, was in part, the alleged reason former Corning Police Chief Jeremiah Fears was dismissed as a city employee in November 2023.

According to the lawsuits Statement of Facts, Fountain claims she had a short romantic relationship with Fears in 2016. The lawsuit also states when she started working for the city as a police dispatcher she was faced with inappropriate conduct from Chief Fears in the workplace.

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The lawsuit goes on to state, during that time Fountain was in a one-year probationary period, so she did not want to risk losing her job by upsetting Chief Fears or by making any complaints, so she endured the pervasive work environment the best she could.

According to the lawsuit, Fountain claims (she) has returned to work, but the working environment remains hostile and retaliatory, while Fears was still chief of the department.

Through the lawsuit, Fountain was asking for compensatory damages in an amount according to proof; attorneys fees and costs; costs of suit incurred; prejudgment and post judgment interest on all amounts claimed; and for other and further relief as the court may deem proper.

By law, the citys administration, attorney or current Police Chief Craig Bassett were unable to comment on the lawsuit.

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Over the past few months the Fountain lawsuit was on the agenda for discussion during the City Councils closed session meetings.

City Manager Brant Mesker said during City Councils Oct. 22 meeting, following closed session he announced that on a 5-0 vote the council approved a settlement in the amount of $250,000 with Fountain in exchange for dismissal of the lawsuit.
Sandra Sanchez described the headaches as strong. They come on when she starts thinking where she, her husband and two sons will live.

In order to build a larger apartment complex, her landlord plans to demolish the six-unit bungalow court in South Los Angeles that the family has called home for decades. With her husband earning only $38,000 a year at a nearby factory, and rent in nearby apartments costing hundreds of dollars more than they now pay, the stress can be overwhelming.

"They are sending us to live on the streets," said Sanchez, 55.

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Some tenant advocates worry such demolition and displacement could become more common in Los Angeles.

Currently, the owner of Sanchez's apartment complex is using one of the city's building incentive programs that allows developers to build more than they usually can if they include at least some income-restricted affordable units in the new project.

Now, in an effort to build more housing to alleviate the affordability crisis, the city is proposing to supercharge those incentive programs in a way that could result in such projects making even more financial sense to undertake.

Officials are proposing to do so on land already zoned for multifamily housing, where people tend to be renters, not in neighborhoods zoned for single-family houses, where people tend to own.

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That fact has raised concerns among a coalition of tenant and housing advocates who want the city to shift course to reduce displacement.

Of particular concern? The loss of older units like Sanchez's that make up the majority of apartments in L.A. and fall under the city's rent stabilization ordinance, which limits annual rent increases and provides a measure of stability.

"[This] housing stock is the reason working-class Angelenos are able to stay in Los Angeles," said Laura Raymond, director of the ACT-LA coalition. "It doesn't make sense to have this huge cornerstone of our housing policy solution be at risk."

Los Angeles is proposing changes because state housing rules mandate the city find land where developers can add 255,000 new homes  just over half of which would be affordable to low-income families.

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L.A.'s answer is the proposed Citywide Housing Incentive Program ordinance, which is expected to come before the City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee on Tuesday. The proposal would enable developers to build more than currently allowed and receive breaks on height and parking if they include a certain percentage of affordable units  and the property is near transit or along a major street near jobs and good schools.

Projects that are 100% affordable would be eligible for incentives across a wider swath of the city.

The incentives vary by location and project type, but here's one example: Lots near both a Metro rail station and a rapid bus line could see developers build 120% more units than the underlying zoning allows, with the percentage of required low-income affordable units ranging from 11% to 27% of the new project.

If such a lot is in a so-called high-opportunity area near jobs and good schools, developers wouldn't face a total unit cap and would be restricted only by what they could fit on the site given other limitations on height and density.

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Under its proposal, the planning department says 56% of expected growth is targeted in high-opportunity communities, many of which have long fought development. That percentage could have been higher, but the department left single-family zones  which account for most land in such well-to-do areas  largely untouched.

Read more: Los Angeles has to rezone the entire city. Why are officials protecting single-family-home neighborhoods?

Incentives would apply in single-family zones only if a property is owned by a public agency or a faith-based organization, which accounts for 1% of the city's single-family lots.

Instead, the majority of parcels that fall under the proposed incentives are located in residential neighborhoods currently zoned for multifamily. Most remaining lots are in commercial zones. There, most parcels are likely to be occupied by a strip mall or office building, but some apartments exist in commercial zones as well.

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While it works to allow more housing  the lack of which economists say is the underlying cause of the affordability crisis  the city is taking steps to increase protections for departing tenants.

Under a separate proposal, also set to be heard by the PLUM Committee on Tuesday, low-income residents displaced by demolition would have the right to move into the new development at either their prior rent or at rent deemed affordable to their income, whichever is lower.

Those residents would also typically receive expanded relocation assistance to help them afford rent in a market rate unit for 42 months, the average time it takes to build a new apartment building, according to the city, which estimates payments could surpass $100,000 for such households.

Current relocation payments top out at $25,700, which can run out quickly when long-term tenants protected by rent stabilization are suddenly forced to pay rent at today's prices.

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Some of the tenant protections in the city's proposal already are mandated by state law but set to expire in coming years. The city's proposal would make them permanent and go further to mandate every rent-stabilized unit demolished is replaced by an income-restricted affordable unit.

The planning department said it didn't have an estimate of how many apartments might be knocked down because of its proposals, but said the added tenant protections would add costs for developers and limit the number of existing rentals demolished. The department said it also took steps to lessen displacement of low-income Angelenos by offering greater incentives in high-opportunity communities, especially along major streets more likely to have commercial tenants.

Overall, those factors are reasons the planning department expects most new units to be built in commercial zones even if most parcels subject to incentives would be in residential multifamily neighborhoods.

A coalition of advocates for low-income households is asking that the city go further.

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They want officials to mandate that developers replace each rent-stabilized unit they demolish with not one but two income-restricted affordable units. They also want building incentives to apply to high-opportunity single-family zones such as those in Westwood and Studio City.

Doing so, they say, would provide a few benefits. It would make less financial sense for developers to replace existing rent-stabilized housing, and some builders would instead choose to build in single-family areas where they'd demolish houses an occupant has chosen to sell.

By adding low-income units to these areas, it would lessen a pattern of racial and income segregation that a city-funded report determined single-family zoning plays a key part in maintaining.

"We want to make sure that we are able to break the curse around the decades-long segregation of Black and brown communities in Los Angeles," said Estuardo Mazariegos, a co-director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a group that advocates for low-income communities.

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Because the city is proposing to allow developers to build more where existing apartments are, but also imposing additional costs through new tenant protections and replacement requirements, the planning department said it's unclear whether more rent-controlled units would be demolished in the future than are today. But Greg Bonett, an attorney with pro bono law firm Public Counsel, said the city's current proposals create a risk that could happen.

He said displacement is also disruptive and departing tenants could "fall through the cracks" and not receive their money, find temporary housing and return to a new home.

The planning department warns two-for-one replacement could backfire.

In a staff report, it said it would probably prove too costly for many developers and could significantly reduce the construction of housing, including units that are mandated to have rent affordable for low-income households, not merely rent-stabilized.

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While the city's rent stabilization ordinance limits annual rent increases for a tenant  usually to 3% or 4%  it does not mandate rent be affordable. Landlords can also set the rent wherever they want each time a tenant moves out.

"The policy challenge is how to appropriately balance critically important goals around housing production with equally important preservation and tenant protection goals," the department wrote in a recent report.

Last fall, the city dropped plans to include some single-family zones in its incentive programs after objections from homeowner groups. The planning department, however, has presented the council with several options to include these areas if they want to.

In letters to the City Council, many residents of single-family zones told their representatives to hold firm. They said allowing apartment buildings in their neighborhoods would reduce opportunities for home ownership and decrease their quality of life by adding more traffic. They noted that the city found it could meet state housing mandates by planning for redevelopment in commercial and multifamily neighborhoods while leaving single-family zones alone.

"Those of us who sacrificed many years of their lives to live here now must be just fine with another group that is probably younger now being placed by the government into our community?" one San Fernando Valley resident wrote.

Maria Briones has another perspective.

The 69-year-old street vendor said she lives in a motel near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, arriving there after a stint of homelessness that occurred when code enforcement forced her to move from an illegal garage she rented for around $500 a month. Now a member of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, she is advocating for low-income housing in single-family neighborhoods near good jobs and schools.

"Why do only rich people have the right to have a beautiful house, beautiful surroundings?" Briones asked. "Why can't low-income families have the same thing?"

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR)  It has already happened once, and political experts say its entirely possible one or more Oklahomans could be picked to fill seats in President-Elect Donald Trumps cabinet for his second term.

Theres no denying: Oklahoma is a red state.

Yet again this year, every county in Oklahoma voted Republican. The only other state to do that was West Virginia.

OK Sen. Markwayne Mullin slams Matt Gaetz: Living off your daddys money

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So, it makes sense that Oklahoma would have plenty of Republican options for the incoming Republican president to pick from when putting together his cabinet.

This week, reports surfaced out of Washington indicating President-Elect Donald Trump may be eyeing Oklahoma U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin to serve as Secretary of the Interior or Secretary of Veterans Affairs in his new administration.

I think Mullin has kind of put out the feelers that hes available and he certainly kind of fits the bill in a lot of ways, said University of Central Oklahoma Political Science Professor, Brett Sharp.

Sharp thinks Mullin would check a lot of boxes for someone like Trump.

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He fits that Trump mold, Sharp said. You know, hes just so aggressively masculine.

Mullin is also a Cherokee Citizen.

Sharp says, if appointed secretary of the interior, Mullin could help ease concerns some tribal leaders in Oklahoma have over what a second Trump presidency would mean for them.

Heated exchange between Sen. Mullin, Teamsters President during hearing

Mullin would be a voiceI thinkthat would, you know, talk about the other side and maybe any kind of knee jerk reaction that would go against the tribesthey would rethink it, Sharp said. That would be something I think that would be reassuring.

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A spokesperson for Mullins office told News 4 on Wednesday, so far President Donald Trump and Senator Mullin have not spoken about any cabinet positions.

However, the spokesperson added they will let News 4 know if that changes.

If, hypothetically, Sen. Mullin were to leave his senate seat for a cabinet position, it would be up to Governor Stitt to appoint a temporary replacement to take Mullins place in the U.S. Senate until his current term ends in 2026.

After that, things get complicated, because Oklahoma has a state law that effectively would ban the temporarily appointed senator in this scenario from running to keep the seat when their term expires.

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They have to take an oath that theyre not going to actually run for the office, when it comes up for real, theyre just getting interim appointment, Sharp said.

CNN anchor, GOPs Mullin tussle over election comparisons

Sharp says its likely someone could challenge that law as being unconstitutional.

News 4 reached out to Stitts office Wednesday to get his thoughts on all these possibilities. Nobody responded.

Mullin is not the only Oklahoma name being tossed around by experts for a possible cabinet role.

This week, a wall street journal report mentioned Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters as possibly being on the shortlist for Trumps Secretary of Education.

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Political suicide Ryan Walters calls for his own impeachment: How did it come to this?

From the very beginning hes very Trumpist, you know, Trump-like in a lot of ways, Sharp said.

With Trump at the helm, Sharp wont rule out any possibility. But, he thinks the likelihood of Walters landing in Trumps cabinet, is not extremely high.

I think a lot of what he does is for show, and just to be kind of in your face with the liberals on a variety of issues, Sharp said. My understanding is that Ryan Walters, as Trump-like as he at least aspires to be, is not really well liked in in Trump circles.

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News 4 reached out to Walters office to see if he has any thoughts on his name being mentioned in these discussions. Nobody responded.

Bixby Public Schools Superintendent files defamation suit against Ryan Walters

An Oklahoman heading up a federal agency isnt unheard of.

It happened during Trumps first presidency, when he tapped then-Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt to head up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Pruitt lasted in that role a little more than a year, before resigning amid numerous federal investigations.

Hopefully if we have a Markwayne Mullin or somebody, it will work out better for everybody, Sharp said.

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Nov. 13St. Joseph's REC Center will see the construction of a new restroom in light of concerns from residents about the lack of an indoor facility for use outside of normal business hours.

Tuesday's City Council meeting saw council members authorize a $58,979 change order using American Rescue Plan Act funds to add a unisex restroom to serve the fitness room at the REC Center when the facility is in 24-hour operational mode.

The REC Center has provided all-hours access to its fitness center for years. However, there is no indoor bathroom access for those utilizing the gym after business hours, leading one resident to raise concerns with city management. The only option available at those times has been an outdoor portable toilet.

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St. Joseph Parks, Recreation and Civic Facilities Director Chuck Kempf said the plan now is to meet with the contractor to determine a schedule for upcoming work on the restroom.

"We'll have to make arrangements. Construction of that restroom will create a little bit of a disruption, especially in the child care room. So we're going to have to work that out, make sure our patrons know that might not be available for a few days or even maybe even longer," Kempf said.

Councilmembers also signed off on a significant financial commitment for the Downtown Felix Street parking garage, authorizing $1 million in previously agreed ARPA funds to evaluate and rehabilitate the garage at Fourth and Felix streets. Of the five bids received, John Roher Contracting Company Inc. was awarded the bid for the design-build contract.

Funds for the project are part of a previously agreed upon the city and Mosaic Life Care to use $1.5 million in ARPA funds to rehabilitate and improve the two square-block area adjacent to the InspireU Children's Discovery Center at 521 Felix St. Funds already have been allocated for a variety of facade and structural improvement projects to date.

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The project involves a comprehensive assessment of the garage's structural integrity. The findings, including test data and identified structural concerns, will be compiled into a report. Once those options are presented, city officials will make a selection of the options and those selections will be designed and engineered.

City to move forward with new Civic Center Park stairwell, balustrade removal

A key component in a series of improvement projects planned for Civic Center Park and City Hall was approved Tuesday as councilmembers gave the green light on the Civic Center Park West Entry Improvement Project.

The $494,000 ARPA-funded project with Auxier Construction Company will involve replacing the west entry stairs and removing the balustrade due to significant deterioration. During the work session in August, it was determined that the balustrade would be entirely removed rather than repaired or replaced, primarily due to costs being nearly double to repair it versus removing it.

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"They're finishing up the design of that now, the way that will look, and then likely for the work itself, that will be bid out probably sometime this winter," Kempf said. "I suspect the physical work will begin sometime next spring."

The new stairs will feature concrete steps, complemented by natural stone veneer posts, caps, and wall panels. Additionally, the removal of the balustrade will necessitate grading and landscaping adjustments, as well as the replacement of sidewalks and curbs.

ARPA funds pave way for new fire truck, police academy tuition

The St. Joseph Fire Department will add a new rescue truck and a variety of new fire apparatus equipment as they look to upgrade their current fleet of rescue trucks.

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Councilmembers authorized an ordinance to provide $280,000 in ARPA funds to purchase one rescue truck from Rosenbauer South Dakota, LLC, for $243,181, with remaining funds directed for additional fire equipment purchases.

The rescue truck currently in reserve use has over 100,000 miles, a rebuilt motor and is unreliable.

The following fire apparatus equipment will also be purchased:

* A Combo Tool Extrication Kit from Conrad Fire Equipment in the amount of $14,786.33.

* A Thermal Imager from Heiman in the amount of $7,350.00.

* Two radios from Motorola Solutions in the amount of $7,408.72 and $4,000.00 for installation.

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* Hose from Heiman Fire Equipment in the amount of $3,273.95 that will be purchased following the City's normal procurement policy.

ARPA funds approved on Monday will also benefit the St. Joseph Police Department and it's Law Enforcement Academy at Missouri Western. Councilmembers approved a funding agreement with Missouri Western to provide $150,000 in financial assistance to modernize its Law Enforcement Academy and pay tuition and fees for cadets.

Other agenda items approved:

A purchase order in an amount not to exceed $291,195.51 with J.D. Bishop Construction, LLC for restoration work to four intersections receiving traffic signal upgrades utilizing ARPA funds.

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* The four major intersections are located at 22nd and Frederick, Noyes and Frederick, St. Joseph Avenue & Grand Avenue and St. Joseph Avenue and Middleton. These intersections will be replaced with modern mast arm infrastructure. After the mast arm upgrades are complete, restoration of any damaged area or areas requiring updating will begin, including repair/replacement of the curbs and gutter, sidewalk, ADA corners, parkway areas and any damage done to the street during construction.

A contract in the amount of $117,516.78 and change order No. 1 in the amount of $251,003.80 with Brooner Construction & Crane for the City Hall 4th Floor and 1st Floor Conference Rooms Project.

* The original scope of work was to enlarge and remodel the 4th floor conference room 14 feet to the east including new A/V equipment and furniture. The ceiling will be replaced with acoustical ceiling tiles and the floor will be replaced with new carpet. Blackout shades will also be installed to remove glare during presentations. Due to bids coming in under budget, the 1st floor conference room was added with a similar scope excluding new furniture.
Nov. 13During a special meeting earlier this year to solicit input on how to spend millions of dollars of cash reserves, a slew of residents turned out to urge the council to do more to address traffic noise and speeding.

Those residents may get their wish if councilors choose to throw their support behind a resolution introduced Wednesday that would increase the first-time penalties for violating the city's noise ordinance.

"If we don't start taking action, nothing is going to change," Councilor Pilar Faulkner, who is co-sponsoring the measure with Councilor Signe Lindell, said in an interview prior to the meeting.

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The ordinance would eliminate the distinction between first, second and additional offenses for violating the noise ordinance. Currently, a first violation comes with a $100 fine, a second with a $250 fine and additional offenses with a $500 fine. The ordinance would increase all penalties to $500 and also adds text to the city's traffic code recognizing community service as a potential penalty for all traffic violations, not just noise-related ones.

Loud muffler noise has been a persistent source of frustration for many city residents, including those in the downtown area, who have pointed to it as a potential tourism deterrent.

The council overhauled its noise ordinance violations in January 2023 after lengthy debate, increasing the first-time penalty to $100 from $25. The change appears to have done little to assuage the problem based on resident complaints, which have been brought up repeatedly during public comment at City Council meetings. Until now, the council has not taken further action on the issue.

"This change is offering us an opportunity to do something to meet the needs of our constituents and do the things we've been asked to do," Lindell said at Wednesday's meeting.

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Faulkner said noise from loud mufflers is one of the most common complaints she receives from constituents in her district on the city's south side.

At Wednesday's meeting she highlighted the community service option built into the legislation, saying she does not want it to be too punitive for people who are not able to afford a $500 fine. She said she believes community service is a good consequence because it requires people to interact with their neighbors.

"You might learn something about how your actions are impacting the people who are your fellow citizens," Faulkner said.

In a text message prior to the meeting, Lindell wrote muffler noise has been an issue for years.

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"It has not improved and we are letting out constituents down to not try something," she wrote.

The ordinance is something the city can do quickly at no additional cost, Lindell said.

"We have talked and talked about it  we can try this immediately instead of a study about noise cameras," she said. "Perhaps we can ultimately move in that direction but the cost will be high."

At least one resident greeted the news with excitement.

"I think this is great and it's a long time in coming," said Joe Schepps, owner of the Inn on the Alameda and a frequent critic of the city's noise enforcement policies.

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Schepps said that downtown noise is "worse than it's ever been" and he does not feel like there is much, if any, enforcement.

He said increasing the fines is "a great step" but that noise cameras "are what the answer is, and everybody knows it."

Representatives of the Santa Fe Police Department did not respond to requests for comment on current enforcement of the noise ordinance. A fiscal impact report in Wednesday's council agenda stated the department issued 206 citations between April 2023 and September 2024.

Out of those, the Santa Fe Municipal Court found 114 defendants guilty and imposed a fine in 38 cases. Only one case garnered a fine of $500.

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Faulkner said ultimately she would like the city to put up noise cameras that could be moved from spot to spot, which she said would not necessarily need to be staffed by police.

"I would say that what we really need in this city is a code enforcement officer or department that can take care of these nuisance enforcement things, so that the police can do their job, which is protecting the public," she said.

Several councilors have previously spoken about a desire to have a more robust code enforcement office, including District 1 Councilor Alma Castro. Faulkner said having a larger code enforcement office to respond to some nuisance complaints could help assuage frustrations from residents about long response times from police to nonemergency calls, which have come up at numerous town halls and community meetings over the past year.

"The way they're prioritized by dispatch is, if you're on a nuisance call and something more dangerous happens they pull you off the nuisance call, obviously," Faulkner said.

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She and fellow District 3 Councilor Lee Garcia are also working on a piece of legislation regarding aggressive driving that has yet to be introduced, she said.

Faulkner noted the recent death of longtime city employee Monique Maes, who was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Santa Fe County which also injured her two children. Mario Mendez is facing felony homicide charges in connection with the crash.

"We lost one of our people at the city to aggressive driving," Faulkner said. "Us not doing anything is dangerous."

The noise ordinance resolution is currently scheduled to go back to the City Council for public comment Dec. 11 and for a final vote Jan. 29, 2025.
Nov. 13ANDERSON  To a round of applause from gathered dispatchers, members of the Madison County Council approved a 30% pay increase for them.

The county council Tuesday voted unanimously to raise the hourly pay rate from $19.24 to $25.01, effective immediately.

Jenny Chambers, director of the dispatch center, said the center provides services to 15 police agencies, 12 fire departments and the Madison County Emergency Management Agency.

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She said last year, the dispatch center handled 201,471 calls, with 12 to 14 employees working on a daily basis.

"We're at a critical level with staffing," Chambers said. "We currently have 16 openings for dispatchers."

She said that Madison County has been paying a lower hourly rate than surrounding counties and that dispatchers are leaving to take higher-paying jobs in other counties.

The council approved Chambers' request to reduce the number of Central Dispatch employees from 37 to 30 to pay for the salary increases.

Chambers said it will cost the county an additional $202,000 in 2025.

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"Our employees are always there to answer the phones," she said.

Council President Ben Gale said Central Dispatch is in a crisis situation.

He said the council appropriated an additional $400,000 for Central Dispatch in addition to the $1.2 million budgeted for operations.

"Other counties are paying more and targeting our trained dispatchers," Gale said. "The money is already in the budget, and the pay increase will reduce overtime and stress on the employees."

Councilwoman Diana Likens asked if other local government units are paying a share of the cost to operate the dispatch center.

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Chambers said the cities of Elwood, Alexandria, and Van Buren and Stony Creek townships are not paying and are a combined $630,000 in arrears.

"Dispatch should have been taken care of a long time ago," Councilman Mikeal Vaughn said. "You employees are appreciated, and the council is doing this now."

Auditor Rick Gardner said some local units of government will not pay for Central Dispatch.

"The council stepped up this year and appropriated an additional $400,000," he said.

Gale said the hope is that every governmental unit in the county will start paying a share of the cost.

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The city of Anderson is paying $1.2 million for the combined dispatch services.

The original contract to fund the combined dispatch center has expired and a new contract has not been renegotiated.

Follow Ken de la Bastide on Twitter @KendelaBastide, or call 765-640-4863.
A court in Argentina on Wednesday upheld a six-year prison sentence and lifelong ban from public office against former president Cristina Kirchner, according to a press report.

She was initially convicted in 2022 for the embezzlement of public funds and subsequently filed an appeal but the federal criminal court upheld the original verdict, the newspaper La Nacion reported.

Kirchner plans to appeal this new ruling to the Supreme Court. Until a final judgement is made, she will remain free, the story said.

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During their time in office, the former head of state (2007-2015) and her now-deceased husband, ex-president Nestor Kirchner, who was in office from 2003 to 2007, are said to have awarded public contracts to a friendly construction contractor without any bidding process.

According to the prosecution's findings, a portion of the inflated construction costs was later given to the couple. The now 71-year-old is alleged to have defrauded the state of around $1 billion in this manner. She has denied the accusations and accused the judiciary of investigating her for political reasons.

Kirchner is as popular in Argentina as she is controversial. She was vice president under former president Alberto Fernandez, but was considered the true power broker in Buenos Aires. She is also being investigated in other cases of money laundering and corruption.

Javier Milei, Argentina's current president, strongly criticized Kirchner's camp during his election campaign.

"Today we can confirm without any doubt that Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is guilty of corruption," Milei shared on the platform X following the verdict.
PORT SUDAN, Sudan, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The World Food Programme (WFP), an international organization within the UN that provides food assistance worldwide, on Thursday urged safe passage for food aid to Sudan's North Darfur and South Kordofan states.

"For the first time in months there are multiple WFP convoys of food aid heading to Zamzam in North Darfur, where famine was confirmed, and Kadugli in South Kordofan," the WFP said on social media platform X.

"We have the food, we have the trucks, and we have the staff on board to ensure this aid gets there," it said, adding, "Now, we need all warring parties and armed groups to allow this vital food and nutrition to arrive safely."

On Wednesday, the Sudanese government decided to extend the opening of the Adre border crossing with Chad for three months to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the war-affected population in the country.

The government said later on Wednesday that 28.9 million people in Sudan need humanitarian assistance due to the ongoing civil war, among whom 16.9 million are in need of life-saving humanitarian assistance, requiring about 840,000 metric tons of assistance in the next two months.

The government closed the Adre land border crossing in February, accusing the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of using it to transport weapons.

Sudan's Transitional Sovereign Council on Aug. 15 announced the decision to reopen the Adre crossing for three months.

Sudan has been gripped by a devastating conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF since mid-April 2023.

According to UN estimates, about 25.6 million people -- more than half of Sudan's population -- face acute hunger amid the ongoing conflict, including over 755,000 on the brink of famine. 
CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD)  A court of appeals has overturned the sentence and conviction of Russell Laffitte, the former banker and Alex Murdaugh accomplice who was sent to prison for a slew of financial-related crimes, according to new court filings.

A judge vacated the sentence this week and sent the case to U.S. District Court for further proceedings.

Documents show the decision was based on what the ruling described as juror errors during the original trial that violated Laffittes Fifth Amendment rights.

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Laffitte was sentenced to 84 months, or seven years, in federal prison and ordered to pay over $3 million in restitution after being found guilty in November 2022 of helping convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh steal from clients.

At the time, Laffitte was serving as the CEO of Palmetto State Bank and was accused of using his position at the bank to carry out the crimes.

He was charged with six federal indictments connected to bank fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, and three counts of misapplication of bank funds.

During the trial, several notes were provided to the court from members of the jury  one of which said a juror needed medicine and that they were feeling pressured to change their vote.

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Another note told the judge a jurors previous court experience was influencing their ability to discuss the trial and that the juror was being hostile to hearing any debate.

The final note came from a juror who asked to be replaced because they were experiencing anxiety.

It was ultimately found that the juror who needed medicine was also the juror who was not willing to discuss the trial. The court dismissed them, and the juror feeling anxiety was taken into a private room to speak with the judge  they were dismissed as well.

When announced, Laffittes team objected to the decision to let the second juror go. In his appeal to the guilty verdict, Lafittes lawyers argued his constitutional rights were violated by the dismissal of both jurors.

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Several circuit judges ultimately agreed with part of Laffittes appeal and said the decision to release the juror who was having anxiety violated Lafittes Fifth Amendment right to be present at certain critical stages of the proceedings against him, and that his Sixth Amendment right for an impartial jury was violated as well.

In turn, the decision vacates Laffittes conviction and sentence and grants his previous request for a new trial.

Laffittes representatives sent a statement that reads: We were pleased to see the Fourth Circuits decision to vacate Russell Laffittes convictions, which validated the concerns raised by our trial team and protected the fundamental right every accused has to a fair and impartial jury. We are extremely proud of the work of our trial team, led by Bart Daniel and Matt Austin, and congratulate Mr. Laffitte and his appellate counsel on this win.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCBD News 2.
COVENTRY, R.I. (WPRI)  Coventry police are searching for a vehicle that was reported stolen out of Connecticut and is believed to be connected to a series of car breaks in town.

Captain Ryan DeSisto told 12 News that officers were called to Haywood Road early Thursday morning after a resident reported seeing three masked suspects rifling through vehicles in his neighborhood.

The resident attempted to confront the trio, according to DeSisto. He said the suspects then pulled out a gun and pointed it at the resident, prompting him to retreat back into his home.

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He definitely did the right thing by just backing out of the dangerous situation and calling police, DeSisto said.

The suspects then took off in the stolen vehicle, which the resident described as being silver in color. He also provided officers with a partial plate, which is how they determined the car had been reported stolen.

DeSisto said officers responded to several similar car breaks throughout the neighborhood after the initial call. He reminded residents to always lock their car doors, hide valuables and avoid keeping keys inside vehicles to minimize the risk of a break-in.

Lock your doors, shut off your lights, all of that stuff, he said. Then youll have a safe night.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
In the latest development in a monthslong battle between the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union, the school board held a special meeting Thursday to address the impending closures of several charter schools.

The meeting, which was still underway Thursday evening, allowed audience members to closely watch another issue: the hiring of outside legal counsel to represent the board. Mayor Brandon Johnsons allies deem the help necessary as an accountability mechanism to help the school board have independence from the general counsel that reports to both the board and Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez.

Last month, Acero charter network leadership announced the closure of seven of its 15 schools, citing financial constraints, declining enrollment and inadequate space to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Afterward, Martinez said he hadnt been made aware prior to the charter leaderships announcement that the schools were moving forward with closures.

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But the district said the Acero closures have garnered more involvement from outside politicians than other charter school closings.

Partners, including City Hall and our labor partners, have not been involved with the districts response to other charters that have voluntarily closed doors, said a CPS spokesperson in a statement.

Since 2013, 25 charter schools in CPS have closed. Of those, 12 were self-directed closures (similar to Aceros decision), while the remainder were school board-directed closures, according to the CPS spokesperson.

The board will change in a few weeks as a result of votes cast by Chicagoans in this Novembers election and new selections appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. Until then, the six members Johnson appointed in a rush in early October  after the previous board resigned en masse under pressure to fire CEO Martinez for refusing to take out a $300 million loan  would have the final word on the resolutions at Thursdays meeting.

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The seven schools Acero aims to close at the end of the school year serve about 2,000 students and employ around 270 staffers. Most of the students who will be affected by the closures  about 85%  are Latino.

Charter schools are managed by nonprofit organizations and governing bodies, separate from the district. Aceros charter operator does not report to the district but its own board of directors, which voted to approve the closures.

While charter schools are in contractual agreements with the district, CPS cannot unilaterally require Acero to keep the seven campuses open. Still, Martinez has recently come under fire for the seven charter school closures, despite the CEO of CPS not having any authority to prevent a charter from closing its doors at the end of this school year, according to a statement from the district Tuesday.

When the Acero Charter School Network was renewed for three years in 2023, the network had met financial performance standards, the district said. The decision to close seven schools was made by Acero executives who based closures on the networks projected deficits.

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But a resolution proposed by the six members appointed by Johnson last month attempts to keep responsibility with the district, as it may require CPS to resume operations at each of the schools, according to meeting materials posted Tuesday.

If the measure is approved, Acero representatives will be summoned to the board to explain the charter operators decision and explore alternatives.

The proposal states that if the charter operator proceeds with its plans, the board will take the substantial disruption and harm of the closures into account.

Prior boards have not offered financial support to charter operators closing schools for financial reasons, said the CPS spokesperson in a statement.

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The prior framework or stance for that decision was that if charter operators were aware that CPS would offer bailouts to operators with financial issues, there would be no incentive for charter operators to responsibly use taxpayer funding, and the district would lose significant leverage, the spokesperson said.

The surprise vote comes after the district has taken different approaches to charter and contract school closures in recent years  and follows a contentious closed-door meeting Monday between CPS and city officials.

The mayor and his CTU allies have been at odds with Martinez since the schools chief declined City Halls demand that the district take on a high-interest loan to solve its budgetary problems  including funding a new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union.

The disagreement over how to solve the districts financial woes has led to a soapy, monthslong standoff with Martinezs fate as CPS chief hanging in the balance.

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When the previous seven-member board resigned en masse in October, just days later the mayor quickly filled the seats with allies he said were loyal to his vision, which, at least financially, did not align with Martinezs.

Earlier this month, an unprecedented election to create a new hybrid school board ushered in 10 new elected board members  four backed by CTU  who will be seated in January alongside 11 members appointed by the mayor. With six new members joining the board, CTU may now be on the defensive.

Since then, CPS stakeholders have been waiting  and lobbying  for and against Martinez in anticipation of whether the new board will exercise its sole right to fire him.

While a vote on Martinezs termination wasnt expected Thursday, the boards votes at the special meeting would also include a resolution to retain an outside law firm, according to the meetings agenda published online Tuesday afternoon. Some legal experts say the outside counsel could be a step forward in potentially firing the schools chief who rejected Johnsons request to resign in September.

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The resolution authorizes the board to spend $40,000 to retain the legal services of Cozen OConnor, a Loop-based law firm, according to the agenda.

Martinezs contract says termination without cause requires about six months notice and 20 weeks of his base salary, which is over $130,000. The CEO makes $340,000 per year.

In January, Martinez is subject to a performance review. The school board has to cite failure to perform duties, fraud, misconduct or any other wrongdoing to fire Martinez for cause.

Aceros current agreement with CPS, authorizing the charter network to operate its remaining schools, expires at the end of next school year.

Chicago Tribunes Alice Yin contributed.
DENVER (KDVR)  Mere days after announcing potential counties that Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials are considering for the second year of the voter-mandated gray wolf reintroduction efforts, the agency has narrowed the list even more.

CPW said on Nov. 9 that it met with county representatives from Rio Blanco, Garfield, Eagle and Pitkin counties to discuss the upcoming wolf winter release. On Wednesday, the agency said it is now only considering Garfield, Eagle and Pitkin Counties.

Wolf died after fighting another wolf in Grand County: US Fish and Wildlife Service

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They said, you know, this is what were thinking. Somewhere in this region would be appropriate for them to release wolves, said the current chair of Pitkin County Commissioners, Greg Poschman, to FOX31s Rachel Saurer. They informed us on their decision-making process which is sound as near as I can see.

The Colorado wolf reintroduction plan has narrow criteria for locations where wolves can be released by the state. The release sites must be a minimum of 60 miles from the states border with Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, and a similar buffer is in place for sovereign tribal lands in southwestern Colorado.

Additionally, CPW is considering release areas access, safety for staff and the reintroduced animals, potential weather impacts and natural prey sources during winter. In August, CPW said it would release wolves in the northern release zone. The gray wolves must be released on state-owned lands with the necessary landscape to support wolves.

On Wednesday, CPW said that Rio Blanco County was removed from consideration as a potential reintroduction location because of the limited number of state-owned sites that were within the reintroduction plan criteria.

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We look forward to continuing our longstanding and productive relationship with Rio Blanco County Commissioners and landowners as we continue to elevate the importance of these communities and their contributions to Colorados natural resource outcomes and overall health to our state, said CPW Director Jeff Davis in the agencys update.

Colorado announces plan to release up to 15 more wolves during the 2024 winter

The agency also noted there was too much proximity to livestock, which elevates the risk of conflict. CPW noted potential impacts to elk and deer herds recovering from the severe 2022-23 winter, and the adjacency to existing wolves in Colorados landscape.

CPW will not decide on final release sites until the capture and release operation is underway. The agency named variables such as weather, animal welfare, staff safety, and day-of-operation logistics as items the agency is considering when making its final release decisions.

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CPW said that several wolves made significant movements in the months following the December 2023 releases. Because of these observations, CPW staff are looking at social considerations, human and livestock, in the areas surrounding the release sites, where potential movement could occur. That means staff is analyzing human presence, recreational activities and communities near release sites, as well as looking for areas of potential conflict with livestock.

Ranchers, Coloradans voice concerns on wolf reintroduction at CPW Commission meeting

To further the discussion on the reintroduction effort, CPW will be hosting a commission meeting on Thursday and Friday, with a wolf update as part of their discussion beginning at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday. Tim Ritschard, president of the Middle Park Stock Growers Association said he will also be speaking, to voice some of his concerns.

Weve submitted a petition asking for a delay. Theres a lot of things in the sense of range rider, carcass management, Ritschard told Saurer. Lets find the funding, put the funding together, put the ranger rider program together, figure out carcass management and figure out, you know how to make that actually work so were not sitting here in April again or May going, Oh, man, were, were round two.

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Wolf advocates are trying to avoid slowing down the process of wolf reintroduction.

Weve already spent several million dollars to get the first trench of wolves on the ground and, you know, they dont live forever. Weve already lost some. Weve got some temporarily back in captivity that we hope will be released again, Rob Edward, president of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, told Saurer.

The CPW Commission meeting will be held at The LaMar on 219 South Main Street in Lamar, Colorado. Those who cant attend in person can attend virtually here.

CPW has also encouraged ranchers and livestock producers to enact non-lethal mitigation methods and has been hosting conflict reduction training in the northwest corner of the state.

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The goal is to prevent further conflict-filled winters like in 2023-24 after the first group of 10 wolves was released into the state. While CPW did not confirm any wolf depredations until March, livestock producers were on edge as the winter rolled into spring. In April and May, eight depredation events were reported by CPW.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Crack teams of school experts will be deployed from January to drive up standards in the countrys most struggling schools, The Telegraph understands.

The groups are made up of former school leaders, teachers and civil servants, and will aim to increase attendance and improve classroom behaviour, among other goals.

There will be nine so-called Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (Rise) teams, one in every part of the country. Each will have two or three members.

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The initiative is being championed by Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, who has spoken about putting standards at the heart of her vision for schools.

But she has been criticised by some on the Right for dropping single-word judgments for Ofsted, the education standards watchdog, for state schools, leading to fears oversight is being watered down.

Ms Phillipson says the Government will no longer tolerate letting children continue to be failed - Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Europe

The new push will only affect schools in England since education policy is devolved from Westminster to Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish leaders.

A Government source close to the policy said: The Tories simply didnt intervene in schools that were failing  they blew hot air on standards but let thousands of children in under-performing schools fester.

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Were not going to tolerate a situation where children, particularly those from deprived communities, continue to be failed. So were prepared to get our hands dirty and be unpopular to fix these schools.

But its not just failing schools. Good will not be good enough when it comes to school performance. The Education Secretary believes that there is always room for schools to improve.

Mr Hinds argues scrapping headline inspection outcomes is not in the best interest of pupils or parents - ZUMA Press Inc./Alamy Stock Photo

Ms Phillipsons early record in the department on standards has been challenged by the Conservatives, who opposed the decision to end each school being given a single-word summary of performance by Ofsted.

The move was unveiled in September and came after the death of Ruth Perry, the headteacher who took her own life in January last year after an Ofsted inspection downgraded her school in Reading from outstanding to inadequate.

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Damian Hinds, the shadow Tory education secretary, said of the reform: The headline inspection outcome is a vital indicator for parents.

While we do believe the system could be further improved, scrapping the headline inspection outcome is not in the best interest of pupils or parents.

Ruth Perry take her own life after an Ofsted inspection downgraded her school from outstanding to inadequate

The Rise teams are expected to start in some parts of the country from January 2025.

The idea, according to Department of Education insiders, is for the teams to both learn from best practices across the country and help persistently struggling schools to improve standards.

Part of their focus is expected to be on school attendance, an issue that has remained in the spotlight after a rise in absences during the Covid-19 pandemic and successive lockdowns.

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Currently, one in five pupils miss half a day of school a week on average, a continued high level of absence that cabinet ministers have called shocking.

Another is sure to be classroom behaviour. Schools are being encouraged to start taking more responsibility in demanding better discipline, according to a Government source.

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The Rise teams will attempt to work with school heads and teachers directly to work out how to crack the nut after years of failure. Recruitment for some of the positions is ongoing.

Ms Phillipson talked about the drive before the general election, and said last year: Only by making sure there are high and rising standards in our schools will we break down the barriers to opportunity for children, including those from the poorest families, getting on.

Labour has also promised to bring in a new report card issued by Ofsted for each school which will widen the criteria against which they are judged.

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.
COLUMBIANA, Ohio (WKBN)  Crestview senior standout Abbey Emch officially signed to continue her volleyball career at the University of Pittsburgh.

A signing ceremony was held at Crestview High School on Wednesday afternoon.

Pitt is currently the No. 1 ranked Division I college volleyball program in the country.

Emch, who was recently named All-Ohio in Division V, led the Rebels with 508 kills and 37 blocks this season.

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She also owns Crestviews program records for blocks and also kills in a career, season and match.

Emch helped lead Crestview to an undefeated 25-0 regular season and a sixth consecutive district title.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Felonies

The following people were booked into the Lee County-Tupelo Adult Jail in connection with felony charges ending Wednesday at 11 a.m.

Jonathan Eubanks, 29, of Tupelo, was arrested by the Tupelo Police Department, violation of probation, capias for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, driving under the influence, possession of a controlled substance, no license, no insurance, switched tag.

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Steven R. Parker, 59, of Tupelo, was arrested by the Mississippi Highway Patrol, possession of a Schedule II drug.

Lee County Sheriffs Office

The following reports were filed Wednesday by the Lee County Sheriffs Office.

A County Road 2320 Saltillo woman said she found a mama dog and two puppies at the end of her road Sunday. She took them home and fed them. She called wanting someone to take the dogs and care for them. The deputy explained that since she took the animals in, they are no longer considered abandoned. He suggested calling an animal rescue group. She said she was taking them to the animal shelter.

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A County Road 855 Saltillo man said someone entered his unlocked shop and stole three chain saws and a maple-colored heater. He said he did not have any suspects at this time.

Anyone with information on any of these crimes is urged to call the Lee County Sheriff's Office at 841-9041, the Tupelo Police Department at 841-6491 or Crime Stoppers of Northeast Mississippi at (800) 773-TIPS or download the P3 Tip App and leave an anonymous tip that way.
Todays mass-produced tomatoes often grow to palm-sized proportions, but their naturally occurring ancestors were far smaller fruits. They were also sweeter and more flavorful due to their lower water content compared to the red fruits found in grocery storesbut recent genetic discoveries have unlocked the path to attaining the best of both worlds. Using CRISPR editing techniques, researchers created new mutant tomatoes that are as large as modern varieties while retaining a sweeter, more enjoyable taste. And all it took was deactivating two genes.

A team led by geneticists at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing utilized the CRISPR-Cas9 technique to identify the pair of genes controlling sugar amounts in the tomato species, Solanum lycopersicumthe calcium-dependent protein, kinase 27 (SlCDPK27 or SlCPK27) and its paralogue, SlCDPK26. These, according to researchers, act as a tomatos sugar brakes by degrading the enzymes responsible for sucrose production. By simply deactivating the two genes, the new varietal grew fruit with 30 percent more glucose and fructose than common mass-production tomatoes. Whats more, doing so resulted in no measurable change in fruit size or total quantity.

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Although there are fewer, lighter seeds in the mutants, they exhibit normal germination, the team wrote in their study published on November 13th in Nature. Together, these findings provide insight into the regulatory mechanisms controlling fruit sugar accumulation in [tomatoes] and offer opportunities to increase sugar content in large-fruited cultivars without sacrificing size and yield.

According to study co-author Jinzhe Zhang, the new mutant tomatoes are a marked improvement on those found in supermarkets.

[They] taste like water. Theyre flavorless, Zhang complained of todays options in an accompanying profile.

But its not just the flavor improvement thats important. Nature notes that an estimated 205 million tons of tomatoes are produced globally each year, most of which are as much as 100 times bigger than their wild ancestors. All that extra water requires removal for products like tomato paste, however, resulting in extra energy, financial, and time costs. Sweeter tomatoes may one day offer more efficient produce options for manufacturers. And because the two isolated genes are found in many other plant species, similar genetic editing may help improve other agricultural staples in the future.
Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) explained how Donald Trump is no question the leader of the Republican Party with a wild example of lawmakers unwavering loyalty to the president-elect on Wednesday.

So now hes got a mission statement. His mission, his goals and objectives, whatever that is  we need to embrace it. All of it, every single word, Nehls told Capitol Hill reporters in a clip that aired on MSNBC.

If Donald Trump says, Jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads. Thats it, he added.

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Nehls, who once tried to distance himself from Trump while running for Congress, has stressed his loyalty to the president-elect since he scolded Capitol rioters amid the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

Hes compared Trumps crowd sizes to those gathered for the pope, has pushed efforts to rename a D.C.-area airport in honor of Trump, and hasrockedclothingbearing the president-elects face and likeness.

Social media users, including several critics who likened the example to a CULT, mocked Nehls.

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"EVERY. SINGLE. WORD.... If he says jump 3ft high and scratch your head, we all jump 3ft high and scratch our heads."CULT.  Elli (@ellibtru.bsky.social)2024-11-13T18:21:00.315Z

Roll over and fetch are next...  Milenka~ (@MilenaAmit) November 13, 2024

I haven't seen totalitarian politics articulated quite so clearly before. I don't care if a majority wants totalitarianism. The majority is wrong. https://t.co/I8MrAnMD7k  The Editorial Board (@johnastoehr) November 13, 2024

There will be no checks and balances from Republicans in congress. https://t.co/o7RjXaT5PU  Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) November 14, 2024

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This is un-American. It's cowardly. And considering that the man he's speaking of is Donald Trump, it's insane. https://t.co/ZA7Pmr1wnC  Jennifer Erin Valent (@JenniferEValent) November 13, 2024

Thank god we have a smooth transition to this. https://t.co/cZoesInAyt  Jim Stewartson, Antifascist  (@jimstewartson) November 13, 2024

They used to make you pay for this kind of action https://t.co/8vWWcSC9qQ  Hi Im Solomon (@solomonmissouri) November 13, 2024

Related...
UNICOI COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL)  Two contractors working for CSX were injured and evacuated by a medical helicopter on Wednesday in Unicoi County.

The workers were injured during an excavation incident in the area of Unaka Springs Road, Unicoi County EMS Director Anthony Buckner told News Channel 11 on Wednesday.

Unicoi Co. EMS: Two workers injured in excavation incident

On Thursday, CSX provided new details regarding the incident.

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According to CSX, the two contractors were working on the restoration efforts in the Blue Ridge Subdivision when they were injured around 1:36 p.m.

Photo courtesy of CSX

CSX said in a statement to News Channel 11 that the contractors were cutting rail north of the Chestoa Pike crossing in Erwin.

Both workers sustained non-life-threatening injuries, according to CSX. They were medically evacuated as a precaution, CSX stated.

CSX appreciates the quick response of the local first responders, the statement reads. The cause of the incident is currently under investigation.

The Blue Ridge Subdivision refers to a portion of the CSX railway stretching from Unicoi County into North Carolina. The subdivision sustained heavy damage from the floodwaters of Hurricane Helene.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
The photo shows the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Nov. 14, 2024. Eleven people were killed and nine others injured in Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported. (Str/Xinhua)

BEIRUT, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Eleven people were killed and nine others injured in Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported.

Israeli warplanes carried out a series of airstrikes on the eastern city of Baalbek, with one strike targeting a two-story building in the al-Shaab neighborhood, killing nine people and injuring five others, according to the NNA.

Rescue teams from the Islamic Health Authority and Civil Defense are continuing efforts to remove rubble and search for survivors.

Earlier, Israeli warplanes launched 16 airstrikes on the southern city of Nabatieh and surrounding areas, in addition to 11 raids on towns near Tyre and Bint Jbeil, according to Lebanese military sources.

A source from the Lebanese Red Cross told Xinhua that the airstrikes on Nabatieh killed two people and wounded four others.

Since Sept. 23, Israel has intensified air attacks on Lebanon in a marked escalation of tensions with Hezbollah. The Israeli military also launched a ground operation across its northern border into Lebanon in early October. 

The photo shows the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Nov. 14, 2024. Eleven people were killed and nine others injured in Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported. (Str/Xinhua)

The photo shows the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Nov. 14, 2024. Eleven people were killed and nine others injured in Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported. (Str/Xinhua)

The photo shows the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Nov. 14, 2024. Eleven people were killed and nine others injured in Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported. (Str/Xinhua)

This photo shows the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in Nabatieh, Lebanon, on Nov. 14, 2024. Eleven people were killed and nine others injured in Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported. A source from the Lebanese Red Cross told Xinhua that the airstrikes on Nabatieh killed two people and wounded four others. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua)

This photo shows the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in Nabatieh, Lebanon, on Nov. 14, 2024. Eleven people were killed and nine others injured in Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported. A source from the Lebanese Red Cross told Xinhua that the airstrikes on Nabatieh killed two people and wounded four others. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua)

This photo shows the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in Nabatieh, Lebanon, on Nov. 14, 2024. Eleven people were killed and nine others injured in Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported. A source from the Lebanese Red Cross told Xinhua that the airstrikes on Nabatieh killed two people and wounded four others. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua)

This photo shows the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in Nabatieh, Lebanon, on Nov. 14, 2024. Eleven people were killed and nine others injured in Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported. A source from the Lebanese Red Cross told Xinhua that the airstrikes on Nabatieh killed two people and wounded four others. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua)

This photo shows the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in Nabatieh, Lebanon, on Nov. 14, 2024. Eleven people were killed and nine others injured in Israeli airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported. A source from the Lebanese Red Cross told Xinhua that the airstrikes on Nabatieh killed two people and wounded four others. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua)
A convicted felon who allegedly had possession of multiple firearms while in the presence of a child was arrested after fleeing police in Essex on Wednesday with the minor in his vehicle.

The incident began unfolding around 9:40 a.m. when officers from the Essex Police Department and the Resident Troopers Office were asked to assist with a property retrieval at a local hotel and discovered that the individual involved was a felon who was believed to have firearms on him while with a child, according to Connecticut State Police.

State police said the individual was identified as 35-year-old Robert Tinley of Essex who was questioned by officers when he arrived at the hotel about whether he had any firearms on him. Tinley allegedly admitted that he was in possession of firearms before becoming evasive, according to state police.

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Despite being told not to get back in his vehicle, state police allege that Tinley took off from the hotel parking lot very quickly onto Route 153 heading toward Westbrook. According to state police, he had a child with him who he dropped off just prior to the Exit 65 ramp to Interstate 95 South. He allegedly instructed the minor to walk to a relatives house.

State police said Tinley then entered I-95 South and got off at Exit 63 where he headed north on Route 81 in Clinton. Troopers as well as an officer with the Westbrook Police Department conducted a high-risk felony traffic stop before Tinley was arrested, according to state police.

Once he was apprehended Tinley allegedly admitted to having two handguns in a safe that he ditched from the vehicle when he fled on Route 153, according to state police.

Troopers later found the safe, which had broken after being thrown. Two loaded guns were found lying in the open along Route 153 and were seized, state police said.

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The child was also safely located and turned over to a family member.

State police said they later found that Tinley was allegedly in possession of more firearms. After obtaining a search and seizure warrant for a storage facility in Old Saybrook, state police said they seized two shotguns, a pellet rifle and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition. The search was carried out with assistance of the Old Saybrook Police Department.

Tinley faces five counts of criminal possession of a firearm, ammunition or a defense weapon, two counts each of of criminal possession of a pistol or a revolver and carrying pistol without a permit and a single count of reckless driving, possession of a controlled substance, illegal possession of a large capacity magazine, risk of injury to a minor, interfering with an officer/resisting and second-degree reckless endangerment.

He was held on a $60,000 bond and was scheduled to appear in Middletown Superior Court on Thursday.
A teenager has been charged in connection with a crash that killed a Massachusetts man in Willington last November after state police found that he allegedly crossed over the yellow center lines and caused a head-on collision.

Dominic Ledbetter, 19, of Stafford turned himself in on Monday on charges of negligent homicide with a motor vehicle, failure to maintain the proper lane and traveling unreasonably fast, according to the Connecticut State Police.

The charges stem from a crash reported on Nov. 28, 2023, on Route 32 around 4:30 a.m. Ledbetter was driving a 2018 Chevrolet Equinox north when state police allege that he crossed the yellow center lines and struck a 2008 Cadillac CTS being driven south by 55-year-old Clifton Graves of Monson, Massachusetts.

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According to the warrant affidavit supporting Ledbetters arrest, a witness in the area reported hearing the collision while driving home from work before finding the two vehicles that collided. The man said he checked on both drivers and each person said they were OK.

The man told police he was concerned about the driver who was later identified as Graves, as he was covered in engine oil and was breathing heavily, the warrant affidavit said.

When troopers arrived at the scene they found that Graves was trapped in his vehicle, though he was conscious and alert, according to the warrant affidavit. He was taken in an ambulance to Hartford Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:50 a.m., state police said.

An autopsy conducted by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner later found that Graves died of blunt impact injury of his head, neck, torso and extremities, according to the warrant affidavit. The death was ruled an accident.

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At the scene, state troopers found Ledbetter standing near a guardrail outside of his vehicle. Multiple troopers spoke to Ledbetter and found no indication that he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, the warrant affidavit said. He was later taken to Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford.

In January, state police received a signed statement from Ledbetter that was notarized and taken by a law office. In the statement, he said he got off of work early around 4 a.m. and warmed his vehicle up before leaving to head home, the warrant affidavit said. As he was waiting, Ledbetter said he replied to some text messages and did not receive any responses, according to the warrant affidavit.

Once he left work, Ledbetter alleged that he had a vague memory of what happened but remembered that he was listening to music and saw bright lights prior to the collision, the warrant affidavit said. He claimed that he does not remember the crash at all but can recall calling his mother and being put into an ambulance with a neck brace on.

Ledbetter said he was intubated at the hospital while he underwent surgery to have fluid removed from his stomach, the warrant affidavit said. He said he worked with an occupational therapist to be able to move again and needed assistance from a walker.

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In his statement, Ledbetter denied using his cell phone while he was driving or taking drugs or alcohol. In addition to being underage, he said he does not use any intoxicants because of his religious beliefs, the warrant affidavit said.

Ledbetter also said he knows the danger of using a cell phone behind the wheel and offered to share access to his phone with investigators so they could verify he was not using it at the time of the collision, according to the warrant affidavit.

After obtaining a search and seizure warrant for the phone, state police found that the device was not being used at the time of the collision.

According to the warrant affidavit, state police charged Ledbetter after an investigation by the Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Squad (C.A.R.S.) found that he crossed the yellow center lines across a milled-in rumble strip and encroached about 2 to 5 feet into the southbound lane. This led to an offset head-on collision with the Cadillac Graves was driving, state police wrote.

Following his arrest, Ledbetter was released on a $50,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in Rockville Superior Court on Nov. 25.
CARLISLE, Pa. (WHTM)  The Cumberland County Commissioners have advanced a budget proposal that includes a tax increase.

According to the county, the proposed 2025 budget includes a 4% increase to the county real estate property tax.

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This Week in Pennsylvania

If approved, the county says the tax would increase revenues by $2.75 million at an average cost to taxpayers of $22.42 a year, or $1.87 per month, based on the average county home value of $222,000.

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The current tax rate of 2.524 mills would increase to 2.625 mills.

To mediate costs, the Board of Commissioners and Finance have met with every county department to thoroughly review budgets and have implemented, and will continue implementing, strategic cost-saving measures to address the budget deficit, said Finance Director Ron Snow. Costs continue to increase, our county vendors are facing rising costs, and unfortunately, those increases are being passed on to the county.

Expanded Sunday hunting days added: PA Game Commission

The proposed 2025 budget will be available to view on weekdays from 8 a.m.  4 p.m., starting on Thursday, Nov. 14 in the Cumberland County Commissioners Office, Room 200, One Courthouse Square, Carlisle. The full budget can also be viewed online starting today.

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The budget will be on public view for 20 days before being considered for approval at the Wednesday, Dec. 11 Finance Meeting at 1:30 p.m.

If it is not approved at this time, then it will be considered for approval at the Thursday, Dec. 19 Board of Commissioners Meeting at 9:30 a.m.

abc27 news will keep you updated as we learn more.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV)  A federal judge ruled against the wild horses located on Cumberland Island in a lawsuit on Tuesday.

Between 125 to 175 wild horses roam Cumberland Island, drawing visitors from around the world to witness their beauty up close. Equine advocacy groups have been calling for the horses to be either removed from the island or provided with food and veterinary care, arguing it would ensure a longer, healthier life for them.

While this case must be dismissed, the court hopes that the important issues plaintiffs have raised here might spur the (National Park Service) or other agencies to act, the judge wrote in an order, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

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Those familiar with the island and its ecosystem said they believe that the horses should remain undisturbed, comparing them to other wild species such as deer.

I think the best thing to do is leave them alone. Let them take care of themselves over there, one resident said.

Unlike domesticated horses kept as pets, the horses on the are wild and adapted to the environment. These animals have been part of the island since 1742, when Spanish soldiers released them during a battle with the English, forming a now-feral population.

Ogeechee Riverkeeper files appeal on Hyundai well permits

Nature photographer and former island resident Brenda Barber said that human intervention would make the animals dependent and disrupt their natural way of life.

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They are a part of nature over there, said Barber. Now theyre a part of the island and the land.

Equine advocacy groups involved in the lawsuit said that the horses face shorter lifespans, food shortages and illness on the national seashore. Others pointed out that animals often live longer in captivity, and relocating the horses would do more harm than good.

It would be traumatizing for the horses to pull them off, Barber added. Thats the way theyve grown upgeneration after generation has lived over there, and its their natural way of 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 WSAV-TV.
Faculty and students from the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system decried austerity measures that reduce student services and demanded more funding for the state schools at a rally Thursday at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain

During a series of speeches, speakers railed against the states fiscal guardrails, blaming the legislatures spending caps for inadequate higher education budgets and program cuts as the state holds a surplus in its reserves.

We are here to call out Chancellor (Terrence) Cheng and Gov. (Ned) Lamont for their failure to lead and invest in our CSCU system, Seth Freeman, the president of the Congress of Connecticut Community Colleges, said. The solution is to change the fiscal roadblocks that are manufacturing austerity budgets from the governor.  This upcoming legislative session, were gonna force Gov. Lamont and legislators to prioritize our students, our workers, our economy, our future.

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In a statement to the Courant Thursday, David Bednarz, a spokesman for the governor, rejected the unions claim that Lamont has pushed austerity budgets.

Gov. Lamont is a strong supporter of CSCU, and every single budget he has ever signed into law has increased state funding for this system by millions of dollars. In fact, the amount of state funding appropriated to CSCU has never been cut in any budget approved while Gov. Lamont has been in office, Bednarz said.

The governor particularly appreciates the role CSCU plays in helping Connecticuts students become career ready and trained for in-demand jobs, Bednarz added. The administration is still working on a budget proposal for the upcoming year and anticipates that this proposal will include support to ensure that this system can continue to thrive.

However, union representatives expressed concern that CSCU leaders are not asking the state for the funds needed to fully serve students.

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According to a statement from the unions, CSCU is projected to lose $156 million in temporary funding in Fiscal Year 2026. In contrast, the unions said CSCUs leadership has requested just over $50 million for the biennial budget.

Instead of fighting for what our students need, the system is instead planning to mitigate $95 million in just FY26, the unions said in a release Thursday. We need at least $100 million more than what the system is asking for just to stay where we are  after years of cuts and reductions in services.

In a statement to the Courant Thursday, CSCU Chancellor Terrence Cheng said CSCU leaders will make the case for more state funding this legislative session.

The best investment Connecticut can make is in its public colleges and universities. Our students are from Connecticut, stay in Connecticut after they graduate, and serve as the states workforce engine, Cheng said. State leaders have made it clear that CSCU must prepare for the expiration of one-time federal funding. At the same time, we are working with stakeholders to present an investment case that addresses the needs of our students and state, for consideration by the Governor and General Assembly.

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Still, faculty and students Thursday questioned the financial priorities of CSCUs leadership.

System administrators are enjoying six-figure salaries, fancy dinners, and travel expenses. While they continue to prioritize their own comfort, our classrooms are overcrowded, our student services are gutted, and faculty continue to be equipped to do more with less, Audra King, the chair of Centrals philosophy department, said in a nod to recent reports about Chengs alleged controversial spending.

Last month, Lamont called on State Comptroller Sean Scanlon to conduct an independent audit after a report from Hearst CT found evidence that Cheng used his CSCU procurement card to charge expensive meals and chauffeured rides.

While the allegations against Cheng undoubtedly hung over the press conference, Freeman described the issue as a secondary problem.

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Its extremely painful to see our system managers mishandling the underfunding that we get, but thats not the prime problem, Freeman said. We do not want that one instance of wasteful spending to detract from the bigger issue, which is the ongoing and continued failure of the governor and our legislature to fund our system.

Free tuition

In addition to calling for more funding, union leaders also called for an expansion of the states Pledge to Advance Connecticut initiative. By extending the free-tuition program from community colleges to the rest of the university system, advocates argued that increased affordability would boost enrollment, graduation rates and post-graduation outcomes for students.

Talia Lopez, a sophomore at CT State Tunxis majoring in paralegal studies, said free-tuition through the PACT program has allowed her to reduce her work hours and focus on school.

During my first year at Tunxis, I was a full-time student while also working full-time. For much of that year, I was the only person working full-time in my household. I felt responsibility to my family, often exhausting myself to balance everything, Lopez said. I plan to transfer to a four-year university, a goal I did not see possible for myself without community college and the support of PACT, but unfortunately, not all of my peers have the same opportunity to receive free tuition.

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While students  many of whom work, are first-generation students, or parents themselves  feel the burden of rising tuition costs, Lopez said they are also feeling the strain of reduced hours for critical resources like libraries, tutoring centers and academic labs.

These cuts disproportionately harm students who are already stretched thin or who are just trying to adjust to rigorous college-level courses, Lopez said. These students arent just numbers, theyre future teachers, nurses, paralegals and business owners. Theyll become the backbone of Connecticuts workforce. By cutting resources and raising tuition, we risk their future and mine, and in turn, we risk the future of the state.

Michael Hinton, an assistant professor of English and theater at CT State Tunxis, said he knows state investment would have incredible returns because he has lived it. After growing up surrounded by poverty and addiction and entering foster care, Hinton said he attended Three Rivers Community College and earned his bachelors degree from Eastern Connecticut State University before completing his masters at Southern Connecticut State University.

This public higher education system offered me a way out of the circumstances into which I was born, but most of the services that made a difference for me no longer exist for my students, Hinton said.

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Every day I see students struggling to access essential services they need to get in education. Class sizes are expanding while class options and formats are being cut back. Disability services (are) overwhelmed. Cafeterias are shutting down. Recruiter positions remain unfilled.  Faculty and staff are frequently doing the work of two, sometimes three full-time positions, Hinton said. When it comes to services for students, weve already cut down to the bone.

Freeman said the unions are fighting for the restoration of these programs.

Each one of these services is a gap that our students fall through, Freeman said. Its unacceptable.

After the election, Louise Williams, the president of the Connecticut State University American Association of University Professors, stressed that now is the time to invest in the working people of Connecticut by making education more affordable.

(Its) time to make our schools excellent, so Connecticut becomes an education destination that can attract families from states where public colleges and universities are under attack. This is why its essential to expand the PACT program, which provides tuition assistance to our deserving students, Williams said. We can do this. We are one of the wealthiest states in the nation with a huge surplus and rainy day fund  Lawmakers must find a way to help all our residents and make Connecticut a beacon of light in what may prove to be very dark times ahead.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD)  Thursday on the Daily 8, were looking at an election recount lawsuit in Battle Creek, a new grant to research dementia triggers, the last supermoon of 2024 and more.

You can watch the full Daily 8 for Nov. 14, 2024, in the video player above or check out any of the stories mentioned below:

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Each weekday, the Daily 8 brings you the top eight stories we are keeping an eye on in and around West Michigan.

Join us again Friday for the Daily 8.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com.
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4)  The leader of a multi-million dollar dark web drug ring will now serve 30 years in a federal prison after he was found guilty of selling oxycodone to customers in Utah.

Oluwole Adegboruwa, 54, of Las Vegas, Nev. was also ordered to a supervised release for life after his imprisonment and the forfeiture of over $20 million.

More than 800 Utah homes lose power after woman climbs transformer

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The U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Utah said Adegboruwas financial forfeiture is among the largest in the states history.

Following a two-week trial earlier this year, Adegboruwa and his co-defendant Enrique Isong, 49, of Los Angeles, Calif., were found guilty of multiple federal crimes including conspiracies to distribute oxycodone and commit money laundering. Between October 2016 and May 2019, Adegboruwa used the dark web to sell more than 300,000 oxycodone pills to customers throughout the United States, including customers in Utah.

Two Utah men federally charged after getting $40 million through fraud scheme

Adegboruwa was also found guilty of directing others in Las Vegas and Los Angeles to package and ship the pills around the United States. Overall, the criminal enterprise earned about $9 million in drug proceeds.

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Adegboruwas criminal drug enterprise was complex, sophisticated, and generated millions of dollars in profits concealed in cryptocurrency transactions, said Jonathan Pullen, DEA Rocky Mountain Field Division Special Agent in Charge. This sentencing is a stark reminder that the DEA is relentless in the pursuit of justice and that drug traffickers cannot hide their illicit activities even in the secretive expanses of the dark web.

Isong was sentenced in October to 10 years of imprisonment and three years of supervised release.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah.
(NewsNation)  NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ has called the race for the U.S. Senate seat for Pennsylvania in favor of Republican Dave McCormick.

See all Pennsylvania race results here.

He won over Democrat incumbent Sen. Bob Casey Jr. However, the Associated Press writes that the race is headed for a statewide recount, as counties continued Wednesday to sort through outstanding ballots and the campaigns jousted over which ones should count.

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Casey still hasnt conceded. During a brief exchange with reporters this week Casey said votes are still being counted and will be for days.

His campaign manager said in a statement Wednesday that McCormick and his allies are trying to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters.

A lawyer representing Caseys campaign said Republicans were challenging the provisional ballots of registered Democrats, delaying the vote counting process.

What we are seeing this year is more organized, more disciplined, more directed and more comprehensive than what we saw in 2020, attorney Adam Bonin said.

However, McCormicks campaign consultant said it was Democratic-controlled counties that were dragging out the process by not adding the results of processed ballots to vote totals.

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Casey sought a fourth term as the senior senator from Pennsylvania, making him the longest-serving Democratic U.S. senator in state history. Casey is the son of former Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey Sr. and won his most recent election in 2018 by 13 points. He announced he would seek another term after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2023 and underwent successful surgery.

Before he was elected to the Senate, Casey, who is an attorney, served as Pennsylvanias state treasurer and auditor general. Throughout his political career, Casey has focused on issues of public health care, childrens welfare and public infrastructure. He centered his 2024 reelection campaign around protecting LGBTQ and workers rights, preventing the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, fighting fentanyl and securing the border, among other issues.

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Meanwhile, McCormick made an unsuccessful bid for Pennsylvanias other Senate seat in 2022, losing in the Republican primary by 950 votes to Dr. Mehmet Oz. In the general election, Oz was defeated by now-Sen. John Fetterman. McCormick is a former hedge fund executive and CEO of Bridgewater Associates who worked previously for the U.S. Treasury Department under President George W. Bush. He was endorsed in 2024 by Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump.

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McCormick is a West Point graduate and former U.S. Army captain who returned to his alma mater, where he taught economics. He also holds a doctorate from Princeton University. During his campaign, McCormick pushed to align Casey with Vice President Kamala Harris political stances on issues such as immigration, energy and the economy.

The Republican candidate built his 2024 Senate bid on issues that largely mirror the GOPs platform  advocating for tighter border security measures, ending drug and human trafficking, restoring Americas military might, growing Pennsylvanias energy sector with an all of the above energy strategy, among other issues.

Pennsylvania has remained a battleground state where Democratic presidential candidates won the state in seven straight elections before Trump won the state in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. Trump won the state by 0.7 percentage points in 2016 before the state returned to the Democrats in 2020 when Biden won over Trump by 1.2 points.

Less than a month before the election, The Hill/ Decision Desk HQ Election Center forecast that Casey had a 72% chance of winning his reelection bid in November. Casey also far outraised and outspent McCormick, raising $31.2 million and spending $23.3 million to the Republicans $17.7 million raised and $9.4 million spent, according to Open Secrets.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN)  Several stakeholders in the Dayton area met at a local movie theater Thursday to hear about developments in the Special Improvement District.

Property owners, business leaders and community partners gathered at The Neon on Thursday to hear updates highlighting recent progress from Downtown Dayton Partnership staff and other guest speakers.

Oakwood City Schools proposes 4.75 mill bond levy for upgraded facilities

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Katie Meyer, president of DDP, said that 2024 was an exceptional year for Downtown Dayton:

Downtown is outpacing other metro areas across the country as it has returned to 84% of its pre-pandemic foot traffic levels. Were celebrating $400 million in projects finished in 2024, which is the most downtown Dayton has seen since 2010. Overall were standing at $2.55 billion in projects completed since 2010 and we are on track to reach $3.5 billion by 2030. With those new projects comes a growing and enthusiastic community; this year, downtown Dayton gained nearly 30 new businesses, more than 350 new housing units, with construction of hundreds of new hotel rooms underway. Downtown Dayton is on a roll and were looking forward to continued growth in the years to come.

During the presentation, SID shared several impactful figures:

221 new hotel rooms completed, 326 more rooms under construction, and 413 additional rooms in the pipeline

353 newly added/anticipated housing units, bringing the total to 2,386 housing units downtown

28 new businesses opened their doors in 2024

55 businesses are participating in the Downtown Dayton DORA, the largest DORA in Ohio

More than 50,000 DORA cups have been sold so far in 2024

In addition to the unveiling of the 8/4 Memorial in the Oregon District, three new murals were added downtown as part of the WHOA Mural Project

Downtown Dollars have a 70% redemption rate. More than $62,000 in Downtown Dollars have been redeemed at downtown businesses this year. Since the programs start in 2024, nearly $340,000 have been redeemed at downtown businesses

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To learn more about the SID, click here.

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THE HAGUE, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Netherlands is exploring a potential bid to host the European Union's (EU's) forthcoming customs agency, the Dutch Ministry of Finance announced on Thursday.

As discussions continue about the European customs agency, set to be established in 2026 and fully operational by 2028, the Dutch Ministry of Finance said it is assessing interest in hosting the new institution from regional and municipal authorities.

Once such interest has been confirmed, the Dutch government, in partnership with the selected municipalities, will submit a formal bid. The Dutch Cabinet will then decide on the country's candidacy.

"The customs agency would be a great fit for the Netherlands," said State Secretary for Finance Nora Achahbar. "Our main ports, like the Port of Rotterdam and Schiphol Airport, reinforce our status as a global trading hub."

"One-third of all goods entering the EU pass through the Netherlands, with our Customs Authority overseeing these flows," she noted. "This pivotal role in securing and collecting import duties for the EU makes it logical for us to consider hosting the new agency."

The agency will assist EU countries in assessing high-risk shipments, especially regarding drug trafficking and tax fraud, according to the European Commission.

The European Customs Union has been a cornerstone of the EU since 1968. It facilitates the free movement and trade of goods across member countries, thereby forming the world's largest single market. However, for the first time since its inception, EU customs regulations are undergoing a major reform, in order to handle the increasing demands on customs services.

The Netherlands alone processed over a billion customs declarations last year, more than four times the volume five years ago. This highlights the growing strain on customs operations.

EU member states are currently negotiating the updated customs rules, after which they will enter into discussions with the European Commission and European Parliament.

Meanwhile, the selection process to determine the host country for the new customs agency has begun. 
WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  Chronic absenteeism is improving in D.C. but is still above pre-pandemic levels, officials in the District discussed Wednesday.

According to the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), 39% of D.C. students were chronically absent last school year. That means they were absent 10% of school days or more. The number is down from 43% the year prior.

District officials, educators and more met on Nov. 13 for a public hearing to discuss the numbers and strategies to address the issue.

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43% of DC students considered chronically absent last year

Students who miss a significant amount of time tend to perform worse on standardized tests and are more likely to disengage from their school entirely, said Lewis Ferebee, Chancellor of DC Public Schools (DCPS).

Ferebee said the District has a goal of cutting the number of chronically absent students in half over the next five years. But, he said DCPS cannot do it alone.

He said there are many factors to consider in addressing truancy and absenteeism.

School environment impacts attendance, said Ferebee.

Other speakers noted student safety is important to address  both in the classroom and on the way to school  and that creating a sense of belonging is key.

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When we make school a place they want to be, theyre more likely to attend, learn and thrive, said Lucas Cooke, Principal at MacFarland Middle School.

DC agency lays out transportation plans for 2024-2025 school year; Some still skeptical

Cooke said his school has seen recent improvements.

Our in-seat attendance rate increased to 88% and chronic absenteeism declined to 40%, he said.

One student who spoke at the hearing said his school, Ron Brown College Prep High School, does a great job of making people feel like they belong.

I feel like Ron Brown makes me feel whole and accepted, he said. We call ourselves young kings and not students. We call ourselves young kings because we are expected to be great. We have community circles which help young kings feel welcomed as well as loved.

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Ferebee said one area of improvement is focusing on transitional years, like the jump from middle school to high school. He said that is when its easy for students to become disconnected.

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BOSTON, Mass. (WWLP)The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) has created a new partnership dedicated to working with Indigenous communities in Massachusetts.

The partnership is an effort to help DCR build relationships with Indigenous communities and Tribal Nations and create connections between DCR land management, traditional ecological knowledge and Indigenous culture, and give Native voice in decisions concerning the land and waters of Massachusetts.

Dry weather raises concerns for Christmas tree farms

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DCRs has named Leah Hopkins as Indigenous Peoples Partnership Coordinator. Hopkins is an enrolled member of the Narragansett Indian Tribe and will serve as liaison between the state and the Massachusetts Indigenous communities and Tribal Nations.

As part of the position, Hopkins will launch the First People, First Stewards Partnership, a new effort by DCR to better acknowledge and understand the role of the lands the agency stewards in the cultural continuity, well-being, and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples.

Its more important than ever that we create pathways for Indigenous communities to directly influence the stewardship of public lands and strategies to combat climate change, said Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper. Leah Hopkinss dedication and passion will expand our understanding of traditional ecological knowledge, improve our relationships with diverse Native cultures, and advance our environmental justice priorities.

Centering the voices of Tribal and Indigenous communities is at the core of environmental justice said Undersecretary of Environemtal Justice and Equity, Maria Belen Power. Through the creation of DCRs new Indigenous Peoples Partnership Coordinator and their new programs, we will ensure Tribes and Indigenous communities are leading the way and shaping the solutions to the climate crisis.

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As the steward of more than 450,000 acres of public lands across Massachusetts that are filled with a rich cultural history, DCR has an obligation to work hand in hand with our Indigenous and Native communities  the first stewards and caretakers of our states lands and waters  to preserve these treasured spaces for the well-being of all, said DCR Commissioner Brian Arrigo. Leahs lived experience as a Native person, strong connections to Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities across our state, and her passion for our public lands will be critical to DCR as we work to foster new partnerships and incorporate the Native voice into the stewardship of our natural resources.

I am looking forward to the opportunity to work with Tribal Nations across the Commonwealth to center Indigenous voices and concerns with respect to the land, said Leah Hopkins. I hope to, in consultation, develop and implement initiatives that will provide Tribal Nations and their citizens with not only access to, but also the opportunity to reestablish relationality with the lands that DCR stewards. I will welcome and nurture relationships between Tribal Nations and the agency, and it will be my responsibility to guide the state to a better understanding of tribal needs and enact actionable steps into the future that are mutually beneficial.

It is important to have Native Representation with the Department of Conservation and Recreation in order to bridge the gap between non-native and native peoples and bring a wider understanding of Indigenous peoples connection to the land and the importance of preserving and conserving this land for all to enjoy, said Troy Phillips, a member of the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Tribe. No one is more qualified than Leah to serve in this role. She will do an outstanding job of protecting, promoting and enhancing the states natural, cultural, and recreational resources with her passion and clear communication skills, and will usher in a new era for DCR.

Hopkins has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Anthropology with a concentration on Indigenous Studies from the University of Rhode Island. Hopkinss husband, Jonathan James-Perry, is a Tribal Councilman for the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).

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She will be participating in a meet and greet at Great Falls Discovery Center in Turners Falls on November 20 from 10 a.m.  12 p.m. where residents can speak with her about the partnership.

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A shooting between the Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a suspect happened Wednesday afternoon in Phoenix just north of Interstate 10.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety was investigating an officer shooting in the area of 43rd Avenue and McDowell Road related to the DEA, the statewide agency told The Arizona Republic on Wednesday.

DEA spokesperson Jodie Underwood said in a statement that it "was conducting a law enforcement action in Phoenix that resulted in a shooting incident with a suspect. The Arizona Department of Public Safety will lead the investigation into this matter. DEA will not comment further as this situation is being investigated."

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It was unclear what was the status of the person shot. Details about the DEA's suspect and investigation were not disclosed.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: DEA shoots suspect near I-10 in Phoenix
The Defense Ministry plans to finalize a bill defining the procedure and conditions for discharging military personnel from service by Dec. 18 this year, secretary of the parliamentary defense committee Roman Kostenko told Ukrainska Pravda on Nov. 14.

Due to the lack of a regulatory framework, Ukrainian military personnel cannot be demobilized at will, even after long service. The reasons for demobilization may include injury or the need to care for a family member with a disability.

Many Ukrainian soldiers have been serving non-stop since the first day of the full-scale invasion in late February 2022.

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"The committee addressed the Defense Ministry with an official request to develop a draft law on the procedure and conditions for the dismissal of certain categories of military personnel during martial law," Kostenko said.

"Recently, we received a response saying that, according to the ministry's plan, the draft will be ready by Dec. 18, 2024, within the timeframe set by the parliament."

It is not yet clear what conditions the Defense Ministry will propose for discharging military personnel from service, Kostenko added.

Ukraine's parliament adopted an updated mobilization law in mid-April to ramp up mobilization amid Russia's ongoing war. The new law simplifies the process for identifying eligible conscripts and includes additional penalties for those dodging the draft.

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The parliament voted to remove provisions on demobilization, which previously foresaw soldiers having the right to leave the military after 36 months of service, from the bill so that they could be considered separately.

The parliament obliged the Defense Ministry to develop a relevant draft law within eight months.

Read also: Ukraine needs 500,000 more troops amid slowing mobilization, senior lawmaker says

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Thick smog blanketed India's capital Thursday as the annual ritual of choking on incredibly polluted winter air took hold of New Delhi yet again. Authorities ordered many students to stay home as the smog delayed more than 300 flights and prompted health warnings and a halt to all construction activity in the city.

The air quality rating in the densely packed city of roughly 33 million people first spiked on Wednesday to the highest "severe" category, under the World Health Organization's Air Quality Index ratings. With an AQI reading Thursday afternoon above 450, Delhi was contending with the worst air pollution in any city in the world.

Any reading over 150 on the AQI index  which measures the levels of five key pollutants harmful to human health in the air at any given time  is considered unhealthy. When the AQI rises to 301 or above, it's considered an emergency, and harmful to all people.

A man feeds seagulls on the Yamuna river, engulfed in smog amid severe air pollution in New Delhi, India, Nov. 14, 2024. / Credit: ARUN SANKAR/AFP/Getty

Higher AQI levels pose serious health risks, particularly for children, the elderly and those with respiratory issues, who can all be affected at even lower levels.

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Indian authorities have advised Delhi residents to limit their outdoor activities and, Thursday night, the Delhi government announced enhanced anti-pollution measures, banning all non-essential construction and demolition work and restricting the entry of buses and trucks to the city. Elementary school students were told to switch to remote learning for Friday.

The use of diesel generators was also to be restricted from Friday.

Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport issued an advisory to air travelers Thursday, saying "low visibility procedures" had been enacted at the busy airport. Earlier, the IndiGo airline asked passengers to keep tabs on their flight status and leave for the airport early due to the low visibility on roads around the airport.

In addition to the hundreds of flights delayed Wednesday, at least 10 flights were diverted from Delhi altogether.

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Delhi's air quality started worsening at the beginning of November, when fireworks lit up the skies for the Diwali Hindu religious festival.

The city sees a major spike in air pollution every winter due to several factors, including the burning of farm waste in the adjoining states of Haryana and Punjab.

Last year, the air quality readings went off the charts, prompting authorities to shut down schools for weeks.

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State Rep. Janelle Bynum, D-Clackamas, declares victory in the 5th Congressional District on Nov. 8, 2024. (Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

Democrat Janelle Bynum has defeated incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer and will give Oregon a 5-1 Democratic majority in Congress, the third time she has beaten her Republican rival in an election in less than a decade.

The Associated Press called the 5th Congressional District, Oregons most closely divided district that stretches from Bend to Portland, in Bynums favor Thursday morning after counties reported additional ballot results Wednesday. With nearly all mailed ballots processed and tallied, Bynum is on track to beat Chavez-DeRemer by about 9,600 votes and 2.5 percentage points.

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Bynum declared victory nearly a week ago, after the Oregonian/OregonLive called the race based on its analysis of remaining votes to be tallied. Shell serve in the minority in Congress  although a handful of races, most in California, remain too close to call, the AP projected Wednesday night that Republicans have the 218 seats they need for the majority.

The work is far from over, Bynum told reporters at her campaign headquarters Friday. Its time that Oregon 5 is represented by a true member of their community, someone who shows up when theyre needed and stands up for them even when the problems are hard. I want every single person in this state to know that their children will be able to build a life here, to afford a house, to get a job that pays well, to build a retirement and to watch their children build their own lives in this state, to know that they are able to give their kids more opportunities than they had themselves.

Chavez-DeRemer acknowledged the result in a press release on Thursday, saying she was deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve as a voice for Oregonians in Congress during the past two years.

Although this isnt the outcome we had hoped for, Im proud of what we accomplished together, Chavez-DeRemer said. I hope Ms. Bynum will follow the example I have set over the past two years and serve as a pragmatic, thoughtful, and bipartisan leader who will work with the Trump administration to address housing affordability, improve public safety, and secure the border.

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The race for Oregons 5th District was one of the most expensive and most intense in the state  Bynum and Chavez-DeRemer raised more than $12 million combined, and outside groups spent more than $20 million to fill airwaves, internet browsers and mailboxes with ads.

Bynum, recruited by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, was Democrats pick to take on Chavez-DeRemer after 2022 Democratic nominee Jamie McLeod-Skinner picked off incumbent Democrat Kurt Schrader in a primary and went on to lose to Chavez-DeRemer. Jeffries visited Clackamas to rally for Bynum, while House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, made at least two trips to Oregon to boost support for Chavez-DeRemer.

The candidates were familiar with each other  Bynum defeated Chavez-DeRemer in state House races in 2016 and 2018  and their mutual distaste was on display during their few public interactions. Chavez-DeRemer depicted Bynum, who played a key role in crafting Oregons suite of police reform laws passed in 2021, as a radical who opposed the police and quickly seized on an unsubstantiated allegation from a McLeod-Skinner campaign aide that Bynum didnt report sexual misconduct from someone assigned to her previous campaign. Bynum sought to tie Chavez-DeRemer to Republican president-elect Donald Trump, frequently accusing her of standing by her man.

The Oregon Legislatures BIPOC caucus, of which Bynum is a founding member, congratulated Bynum on her win and noted its historic significance. Bynum has been the only Black woman in the state House and will be the states first Black member of Congress.

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When Representative Janelle Bynum first entered the Oregon House of Representatives in 2017, she joined a short list of Black women elected to our states legislative assembly, the caucus said. As a founding member of the BIPOC Caucus, she never stopped pushing those in power to work towards a future that acknowledges the lived realities of BIPOC communities.

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Democrats in the House and Senate are calling on President Biden to sanction two controversial Israeli ministers, saying the two men have promoted violence against Palestinians and are pushing for annexation of territory that undermines U.S. efforts to support a two-state solution.

In a letter sent late last month but released publicly on Thursday, 88 lawmakers called on Biden to issue sanctions against Israeis Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus governing coalition.

With radical officials in the Netanyahu government continuing to enable settler violence and enact annexationist policies, it is clear that further sanctions are urgently needed, the lawmakers wrote.

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The key individuals and entities that are destabilizing the West Bank  thereby also threatening the security of Israel and the broader region, and U.S. national security as well  should be directly held accountable. The message that such actions are unacceptable from leaders, including within the Israeli government, must be heard.

The sanctions would fall under an executive order Biden issued in February to address increasing violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank against Palestinians and has been used to target individuals and groups.

The Biden administration has reportedly considered using the sanctions authority against the two Israeli ministers, but has held back a move considered unprecedented in punishing a major U.S. ally.

The letter, initially sent to Biden privately, signals the frustration among Democrats over the presidents holding back consequences on Israel over the suffering of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with Israels war against Hamas now in its second year following the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.

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The incoming Trump administration would likely revoke the sanctions and cancel Bidens executive order.

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), one of the lead signatories on the letter, said lawmakers went public because the White House did not yet provide a response and raised the urgency of a limited window of opportunity before the transition to a Trump administration.

Were well aware of the political environment we find ourselves in and the incoming Trump administration, but this is something that the president can do right now to send a signal that whats happening on the West Bank with settler violence and the expansion of settlements is against our national security interests, Van Hollen said.

Its against the interests of long-term peace in the region, because it makes it harder and harder every day to even leave open the option of a two-state solution that allows, as weve all said, for the security of and dignity and self-determination for Israelis and, and Palestinians alike.

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The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

But such an action is not isolated. Other countries have raised the possibility of sanctions on these ministers. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said last month his government was looking into sanctioning the two Israeli ministers reportedly following comments by Ben-Gvir defending settlers perpetrating violence against Palestinians in the West Bank; Smotrich also suggested that starving civilians in Gaza might be justified.

Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, said that the U.S. taking action  even short lived  is an important signal to other countries in giving them the green light to also take punitive measures against the Israeli government.

Even if the next administration were to roll back those sanctions it would be a green light for countries in Europe to take that long overdue step, he said.

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Colleagues in Europe have raised this repeatedly. In general, they constantly look to the U.S. for signals  green or yellow lights  on how to move when the US administration is not ready or doesnt have the courage to do.

Updated at 2:29 p.m.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 90 Democratic lawmakers urged U.S. President Joe Biden to sanction members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government over anti-Palestinian violence in the West Bank, according to a letter released on Thursday.

Urging Biden to send a message to U.S. partners before he leaves office, the members of Congress said Israeli cabinet members Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had incited violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied territory.

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"We write to express our deep concern about the rise in settler violence, settlement expansion, and measures adopted to weaken the Palestinian Authority and otherwise destabilize the West Bank," they said in the letter.

The letter, signed by 17 senators and 71 House members, said Israeli settlers have carried out over 1,270 recorded attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, averaging more than three violent attacks per day.

The letter was dated Oct. 29 but made public on Thursday because the lawmakers had not had a response from the White House, three of the members of Congress said.

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen and Democratic House of Representatives members Rosa DeLauro and Sean Casten, who are leading the letter effort, told reporters that Biden has the authority to impose sanctions under an existing executive order.

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Doing so would send a message not just to Israel and the Palestinians, but also to U.S. allies elsewhere in the world, that the United States will push back on humanitarian issues, they said.

"We think it's more important than ever that President Biden right now states that the United States is not going to be a rubber stamp to the Netanyahu government's extreme actions," Van Hollen said.

Spokespeople for the White House and Israeli embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The United States has for decades backed a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians and urged Israel not to expand settlements.

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The West Bank is among territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and where Palestinians, with international support, seek statehood. Most world powers deem Israeli settlements in the area illegal. Israel disputes that, citing historical claims to the West Bank and describing it as a security bulwark.

Netanyahu and his allies celebrated the re-election this month of Donald Trump, a staunch but sometimes unpredictable ally of Israel. In his first term the Republican president-elect delivered major wins for the Israeli leader.

Additionally, Smotrich, who also wields a defence ministry supervisory role for settlers as part of his coalition deal with Netanyahu, said this week he hoped Israel would extend sovereignty into the occupied West Bank in 2025 and that he would push the government to engage the incoming Trump administration to gain Washington's support.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic attend a joint press conference in Budapest, Hungary, on Nov. 14, 2024. Hungary and Serbia pledged Thursday to deepen their strategic cooperation in energy, infrastructure, and economic development amid regional security concerns and rising energy costs. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua)

BUDAPEST, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Hungary and Serbia pledged Thursday to deepen their strategic cooperation in energy, infrastructure, and economic development amid regional security concerns and rising energy costs.

Following the second meeting of the Hungarian-Serbian Strategic Cooperation Council in Budapest, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban highlighted new joint projects to enhance the two countries' energy security, including investments in oil, gas pipelines, and power transmission.

"An agreement was reached to modernize the Roszke-Horgos border crossing in south border of Hungary with Serbia," Orban added.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic echoed Orban's sentiments, stressing the strength of the alliance. "Serbia will always be Hungary's ally, just as Hungary will always stand by Serbia."

He noted that the two nations have signed seven new agreements, raising the total number of bilateral accords to 180. "Our political, economic, and people-to-people relations have never been stronger," he stated.

Commenting on the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict, Vucic stressed the need for peace. "If there is no peace, then there is no economy, no development, no progress in any social sphere... Both Hungary and Serbia have successfully stayed out of the conflict," he said.

Zoltan Kovacs, Hungarian Secretary of State for Internal Communication, also said a major border project at Roszke, developed in cooperation with Serbia and China, aims to reduce long wait times and ease cross-border trade, which has grown 4.5 times in value over the past decade, now reaching 5 billion euros (5.6 billion U.S. dollars). 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) shakes hands with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic at a joint press conference in Budapest, Hungary, on Nov. 14, 2024. Hungary and Serbia pledged Thursday to deepen their strategic cooperation in energy, infrastructure, and economic development amid regional security concerns and rising energy costs. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic pose for a photo after signing an agreement at a joint press conference in Budapest, Hungary, on Nov. 14, 2024. Hungary and Serbia pledged Thursday to deepen their strategic cooperation in energy, infrastructure, and economic development amid regional security concerns and rising energy costs. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic sign an agreement at a joint press conference in Budapest, Hungary, on Nov. 14, 2024. Hungary and Serbia pledged Thursday to deepen their strategic cooperation in energy, infrastructure, and economic development amid regional security concerns and rising energy costs. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic attend a joint press conference in Budapest, Hungary, on Nov. 14, 2024. Hungary and Serbia pledged Thursday to deepen their strategic cooperation in energy, infrastructure, and economic development amid regional security concerns and rising energy costs. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua)
Donald Trumps next presidency could usher in a dark time for labor unions, but theres one way Democrats might limit his damage to the labor movement this time around.

Senate Democrats have an opportunity to reconfirm Lauren McFerran, the chair of the National Labor Relations Board, to another term at the agency, ensuring a Democratic majority into the second half of 2026. They only have about five weeks to do it since Republicans will take control of the Senate and its confirmation agenda on Jan. 3.

Theres a lot at stake. The independent NLRB investigates unfair labor practices and enforces workers rights; its board in Washington, which typically has five members, rules on whether employers have broken the law and what the remedies should be. The agencys worker-friendly tilt since President Joe Biden took office has helped sustain a wave of union organizing.

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In just the latest example, the board issued a ruling this week barring employers from holding anti-union captive audience meetings at work, finding their mandatory nature to be coercive and therefore illegal. Its just the sort of precedent-setting decision that could benefit unions  and that a Trump board could happily reverse.

The question is whether Democrats would move quickly enough to delay a Republican majority by a year or more.

Its incredibly important, Sharon Block, a former NLRB member whos now a labor law professor at Harvard Law School, said of reconfirming McFerran. Theres got to be the voice of somebody to stand up for the board and for the [law]. To have somebody like Lauren there, it just seems more critical than ever.

The board currently has a 3-1 Democratic majority, with one seat vacant. McFerrans term ends in mid-December; the board members terms are staggered so that they end in different years. If Democrats dont reconfirm her by their holiday break, Trump could flip control to Republicans with new nominees after hes inaugurated. The new board could then set about overturning pro-worker rulings of the last several years.

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McFerrans nomination is part of a bipartisan, two-nominee package that includes a Republican, Joshua Ditelberg, to fill the seat thats empty. Both nominations have been approved by the Senate committee overseeing labor nominees; they still need to get floor time and a chamber-wide vote.

Jeff Hauser, director of the Revolving Door Project, a progressive group that tracks corporate influence on executive branch nominations, has urged Senate Democrats to confirm whatever officials they can before time runs out. Biden nominees await at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and other independent agencies.

Hauser said confirming Democratic judges to the bench will probably take priority, especially given the way Trump and Senate Republicans managed to reshape the judiciary during his first term. He also fears Democrats will take their foot off the gas heading into Christmas.

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The NLRB is critical, and a majority would be awesome, Hauser said. I dont think Democrats should resign [from confirming nominees] when they dont have to.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is perhaps the most vocal proponent of Senate Democrats working around the clock to install judges and federal officials during the lame-duck session. A supporter of McFerrans, Warren told HuffPost that Democrats should use every minute they have to limit Trumps picks.

While still in charge of the Senate and the White House, Democrats must act with urgency to strengthen unions and protect workers rights, Warren said in a statement to HuffPost. We have to use every minute left in the end-of-year legislative session to confirm federal judges and key regulators like Lauren McFerran.

A labor board spokesperson declined to comment on the pending nominations, which come at an uncertain time for the agency.

President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on Nov. 13, 2024. Trumps next presidency could usher in a dark time for labor unions. Alex Wong via Getty Images

The NLRB is facing existential legal challenges from SpaceX and other employers who have adopted right-wing arguments that the agencys structure is unconstitutional. The cases are working their way through federal court in Texas and could end up before the Supreme Court, where the agencys future would be in the hands of a conservative supermajority hostile to the administrative state.

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Those attacks provide one argument for Democrats to exercise caution in confirming McFerran to another term.

Locking in a Democratic majority could prompt the Trump administration to try to fire McFerran and other board members before their terms end in order to get a Republican majority, potentially upending how the board operates and transitions from one presidential administration to the next.

Doing so would test whether the president actually has the legal power to dismiss members of the bipartisan board without neglect of duty or malfeasance at play. This question is part of the case SpaceX has mounted against the NLRB, arguing that restrictions on the presidents removal powers over board members violate the Constitution.

Its obvious where at least one of Trumps top advisers would stand on this issue. Billionaire SpaceX owner Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, created a super PAC that poured an estimated $200 million into Trumps election effort and is now helping him shape his next administration and policy agenda.

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Hauser said he can envision a scenario where the Trump administration takes McFerrans confirmation as an invitation to a much larger and potentially dangerous legal fight.

That would be the best argument for not emphasizing this, he said.

The dilemma is part of the new political reality for Democrats after losing the White House, the Senate and the House, leaving them with very limited political capital and an unpredictable, retributive president to work with.

But Hauser argued that a clash over board nominations would still be worthwhile and could underscore the judicial extremism of Trump-appointed federal judges and the Supreme Court if they let Trump win.

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In the long run, making a fight over the NLRB and forcing Trump to fire people is the type of fight Democrats should be picking, he said.

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Democrats in both chambers of Congress have expressed concern over President-elect Trumps decision to tap Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to serve as the next attorney general.

Trump announced on Wednesday that Gaetz, a loyal congressional ally, will be nominated to become the nations top law enforcement official, praising the Floridian as a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney. Hours later, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced that Gaetz would resign from Congress effective immediately, in what Johnson said was a way to accelerate the process of filling his seat to minimize the impact of losing a member with holding a razor-thin majority next year.

The president-elects decision immediately bewildered Senate Republicans with some questioning if there would be enough votes to confirm Gaetz into the Cabinet position.

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Itll just be interesting to see what his organic base is, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said on Wednesday. At the end of the day, Congressman Gaetz, hell have a hearing but Im all about counting votes and I would think that hes probably got some work cut out for him to get a good strong vote.

Were not going to get a single Democrat vote, he added.

Gaetzs selection stunned and surprised many Democrats in both chambers, with some arguing that the Florida Republican is not qualified to serve in the post. Others called on Senators on both sides to reject his ascension and prevent him from taking over the position.

I was originally going to hold off on commenting on nominations at this stage but I cannot stay quiet here, Senator-elect Andy Kim (D-N.J.) said in a Wednesday post on X. I dont need a confirmation hearing to know that Matt Gaetz is not qualified for Attorney General. I will not support his confirmation.

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Holy s. Trump will nominate Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. The man who was at the center of a sex trafficking probe. God help us, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said on X.

Senator-elect Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said that Gaetzs potential confirmation would mean affirming the worst potential abuses of DOJ and that the Trump ally must be rejected by the Senate.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), an ally of President Biden, said he expects Gaetzs confirmation process to be the most thorough, one that will represent a deadly serious challenge to the Senates constitutional advice and consent role.

Given an ongoing ethics investigation in the House, given some of the allegations that have been made against Congressman Gaetz, and given some of his conduct, I think this will be a robust and thorough confirmation process, Coons said.

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My hope is that my colleagues in the Republican caucus will urge the president to reconsider, he added.

One of the concerns for members in the upper chamber is around the Justice Departments (DOJ) probe into the allegations that Gaetz had sexual intercourse with an underage girl. The investigation was closed in 2023 and the lawmaker did not face criminal charges. He has strongly denied wrongdoing. The investigation by the House Ethics Committee probe is still active.

With Gaetzs resignation, the probe by the House Ethics Committee, which was in the last phase, will be torpedoed. The committee would not have jurisdiction to probe Gaetz due to him not being a member of the lower chamber.

Once a member is no longer a member of Congress, then Ethics has no jurisdiction, House Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) said to reporters on Wednesday. So if Matt Gaetz were to be appointed as the attorney general, the Ethics investigation that is currently ongoing would cease at that point.

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Gaetz has many attributes that Trump is looking for in the next attorney general. During his tenure as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Gaetz has forcefully defended Trump and accused the FBI and the DOJ of conducting biased probes into the 45th president and other conservatives.

The Attorney General of the United States must have strong judgement, moral character, and a deep respect for the law. As almost all members of Congress know, Matt Gaetz has none of those things, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

What he does have is unconditional loyalty to Donald Trump and a willingness to weaponize the government against his political allies  an affinity that he and the president-elect share, he added.

Other Republican lawmakers in Congress applauded Trumps choice for attorney general.

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Congratulations to @mattgaetz on his nomination for Attorney General! Wishing him success, and I look forward to seeing the impact of his leadership on the DOJ, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said in a post on X.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said that the president-elect could not have made a better choice.

Theres no one better to lead the charge to dismantle the weaponized DOJ than my friend @MattGaetz, Biggs said on X.

The Hill has reached out to Trumps spokesperson for comment.

Updated at 10:58 p.m. EDT

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WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  The congressional session may be coming to an end, but Senate Democrats say their work to reduce gun violence isnt finished.

We have the tools to address the gun violence crisis in America, Sen. Dick Durbin, (D-Ill.) said.

Senator Durbin is pushing for a federal ban on bump stocks. Its a device that allows semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns.

We cannot allow this to continue, Durbin said.

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Durbin is calling on gun manufacturers to do more to help keep people safe.

Gun manufacturers can and should do more to ensure their products cannot be converted into illegal machine guns, Durbin said.

During a Senate hearing on the dangers of bump stocks, Hawaii Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono was surprised to learn that there are more guns than people in the U.S.

We have over 400 million guns and 330 million Americans, Hirono said.

The hearing on bump stocks comes after the Supreme Court overturned a ban on the devices earlier this year.

President-elect Donald Trump put the ban in place during his first administration.

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The Supreme Court in various decisions. Heller was pretty much an astounding decision to me, Hirono said.

Zack Smith, with the conservative Heritage Foundation, says lawmakers are focused on the wrong issue.

And unfortunately, too many elected leaders are refusing to take the simple, yet necessary steps needed to combat this crime epidemic, Smith said.

It is unlikely a bump stocks bill will pass this congressional session.

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DENMARK, S.C. (WJBF)  Denmark, South Carolina is getting big money to fix water quality issues. Bamberg County has been awarded $600,000 in federal funding for improvements to the Airport Water Tower, a project supported by the Biden Administrations Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill.

Its a big win for the county, which has dealt with water issues for years. Denmark recently just missed out on a major industry because of water issues, Bamberg County Council Chairman Everet Comer Jr. recalled. We want to get that taken care of. I think once its refurbished and put back online, it will help the citizens on this side of the county and also be available for the other side if needed.

Crews are refurbishing the tank and improving water pressure and quality. The town struggled with discolored water and low pressure. Even the emergency room had to shut down and many, many citizens didnt have running water or either the water was very inadequate because of the pressure, he said.

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The upgrades will help with industrial development and improve fire protection. This will lower insurance costs for homes and businesses. If Denmark got an industry that would provide four or 500 jobs, it would be for the whole county. It will also help the five municipalities in the county to work together. Once, there was a waterline from Bamberg to Denmark, which meant Bamberg could supply water to Denmark, and, if necessary, Denmark could supply water to Bamberg.

Along with upgrading the water tank, theyre replacing fire hydrants and water lines to improve service. While its unclear if a filtration system will be added, Comer stressed that every effort is being made to ensure safe, clean water for the community. We are looking forward to this being history of having water problems, and we can look forward to attracting new industry where this wont be an issue that could possibly block it coming our way, Comer said.

The project should be completed in 60 days.

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Prager, 76, was admitted to a Los Angeles hospital, his media company announced Wednesday

Araya Doheny/Getty Prager in May 2024. Prager in May 2024.

Dennis Prager, founder of the far-right media company PragerU, has been hospitalized after suffering a serious back injury.

On Wednesday, Nov. 13, the company announced in a statement shared to X (formerly Twitter) that Prager, 76, fell and was recovering in a Los Angeles hospital.

"On Tuesday morning, PragerU founder and our dear friend, Dennis Prager, suffered a serious back injury following a fall. He's resting in a local Los Angeles hospital as doctors assess treatment options. We will keep you informed of his condition. In the meantime, Dennis welcomes the healing power of your prayers," the statement reads.

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Social Media Freedom Foundation founder Jason Fyk also wrote in a post on X that he had spoken with Prager's wife, Susan Reed, and wrote that the media executive's "condition is far worse than I thought."

"My thoughts and prayers go out to the Prager family, friends and loved ones," Fyk wrote.

Prager, who also hosts the conservative radio talk show The Dennis Prager Show in Los Angeles, co-founded PragerU in 2009. The nonprofit has made millions since then, with NPR reporting that 2022 tax records showed that it pulled in more than $65 million in donations that year.

The Dennis Prager Show website touts PragerU as "the most viewed conservative video site in the world, with one billion views a year, more than half by people under the age of 35."

John Sciulli/Getty Prager in July 2017. Prager in July 2017.

PragerU  which produces videos, both animated and live-action aimed at children to young adults  has been at the center of controversies over the past few years as conservative states have used its content in educational settings, according to NPR.

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Prager and the nonprofit's teachings and political views are staunchly right-wing. Some of its content videos aimed at younger children made headlines last year when video lessons portraying Christopher Columbus and Frederick Douglass defending slavery went viral on social media.

That video and more PragerU Kids collection content  including one that compares protesters in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement "to Mexican cartel members"  have been used in public school classrooms in Florida, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, Montana and more, according to NBC News.

Related: Christopher Columbus Says Slavery Was Better than Getting Killed in New Videos Approved for Florida Students

According to NPR, Prager along with producer and his co-founder Allen Estrin came up with the idea for a "university" while holding a cruise for his radio show listeners. Because the project was deemed expensive and would only reach a small amount of people, the pair opted to start creating video content.



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Prager has always been candid about his conservative views, coming out against lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, first endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2016 and has called concerns over climate change "idiotic."

He also garnered criticism in 2021 when he said during a Newsmax appearance that people who have not received the COVID vaccine are considered "pariahs" more than gay men during the AIDS crisis, according to The Independent.

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In 2023, during a conference in Philadelphia, Prager addressed critics who called PragerU "indoctrination."



I really wanted to hear what evidence do you have that I am despicable?" he recalled telling protesters. "And all I heard was, Well, because you indoctrinate kids. Which is true. We bring doctrines to children. That is a very fair statement. I said, But what is the bad of our indoctrination? "
DENVER (KDVR)  A Denver couple was sentenced to several years in federal prison after being convicted for their roles in a wire fraud scheme that defrauded a Department of Defense contractor out of over $5 million, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Colorado.

Kimberly Ann Tew, 43, was sentenced to 48 months in prison on Aug. 8, while Michael Tew, 45, was sentenced to 42 months on Nov. 12. Both were ordered to share a forfeiture judgment of over $5 million and restitution of $5 million.

Kimberly was also ordered to pay a $35,000 fine while Michael was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine.

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According to the U.S. Attorneys Office, starting in 2018, the couple conspired to defraud National Air Cargo by submitting dozens of false invoices for services and items never provided to them.

The two defrauded the business out of $5 million over the course of 2 years with the help of a co-conspirator, according to the attorneys office.

The couple gambled away much of the money and also spent $2.4 million buying cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency ATMs in the Denver area, according to the attorneys office.

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Michael also did not file any federal income tax returns from 2016 to 2019.

Michael and Kimberly Tews greed and desire for a lavish lifestyle led to the judgment handed down today, Tom Demeo, Acting Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation Denver Field Office said. These two sentences are an example of the impressive work of our special agents and law enforcement partners and reinforces the fact that financial crimes carry with them significant penalties.

IRS Criminal Investigations Denver Field Office and the FBI Denver Field Office conducted the investigation.

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DENVER (KDVR)  Denver police are investigating a crash involving a pedestrian on Interstate 70 Thursday morning.

Just before 4:30 a.m., officers responded to a crash on westbound I-70, just west of North Washington Street.

According to police, the crash involved a driver and a pedestrian and resulted in serious injuries. Police did not specify who was injured, but FOX31 has reached out for clarification.

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See the latest traffic conditions in Denver on FOX31

It is unclear why the pedestrian was on the interstate, but police are investigating any factors that may have led to the crash.

Denver police said to expect delays in the area and find an alternate route if possible.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.

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DENVER (KDVR)  A Denver Police Department sergeant was arrested at her Douglas County residence on Nov. 11 for charges related to a domestic violence assault, the Denver agency shared Tuesday.

Stephanie Neblock, 41, was arrested for investigation of third-degree assault, child abuse  knowing/reckless with no injury, and domestic violence.

Denver couple sentenced for defrauding defense contractor out of over $5 million

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According to an arrest affidavit, Douglas County Sheriffs Office deputies were dispatched to the 8000 block of Chico Creek Place in Douglas County for a verbal domestic incident on Nov. 11 at about 9:35 a.m.

Officers said they contacted Neblocks husband first. He told officers he left the house that morning and returned at about 8 a.m., when the couple got into an argument. He alleged that later in the argument, the Denver sergeant threw a water bottle that almost hit someone, but the details were redacted from the arrest affidavit.

Later still in the argument, she allegedly threw a hard plastic cup and hit her husbands knuckle. He showed a photo of the injury to police that was timestamped to 7:42 a.m., and officers observed that his knuckle was no longer red. Officers also heard an audio recording of the argument provided by the husband.

During the audio, (the husband) can be heard asking why Stephanie would throw something multiple times, the arrest affidavit states.

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Douglas County School District considers consolidating elementary schools

The arrest affidavit states that the Denver police sergeant denied ever throwing things at her husband, and said it was just a verbal argument.

According to the Denver Police Department, Neblock joined the agency in 2006 and was most recently assigned to the Division of Administration. She was placed in a different off-line assignment and will remain in that role while the case makes its way through the judicial process, the agency said.

The criminal investigation is being conducted by the Douglas County Sheriffs Office. An administrative review will begin after the case is adjudicated and that process will include the Denver Department of Safety and Office of the Independent Monitor.

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CABARRUS COUNTY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS)  The Cabarrus County Sheriffs Office is asking for help in putting a name with a face by releasing new photos of some unique clothing and jewelry a woman was wearing when she was found dead near the Highway 601 bridge over the Rocky River a week and a half ago.

The search for answers to the mystery begins near the woods on the banks of a river.

It was still daytime, but the sun was just beginning to set when a 19-year-old fisherman made the chilling discovery.

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On Monday, November, 4 off Highway 601, just before 5 p.m., Ethan Treadway was under the bridge just about to cast his line into the Rocky River, but something stopped him.

Queen City News is tracking CRIME in your area  >> Latest stories here

Im calling because I found a dead body down by the river, said Treadway in a call to 911.

Right by the bridge, he saw a womans body.

This is 601 right over the Rocky River, Treadway continued on the call with 911 dispatchers.

Deputies dont believe the woman was killed by the river, but they believe someone dumped her body there.

Looks like a female she has a trash bag over her head, Treadway told the 911 operator.

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Now theyre trying to figure out who she was.

Deputies say the victim was a Black woman, 5 feet, 4 inches, 150 pounds, and theyre hoping distinctive photos will help identify her.

Photos: Victims clothing and necklace via Cabarrus County Sheriffs Office

She was wearing a unique necklace with white or grey sweatpants with a racing screenprint on them.

The case is being treated as a homicide.

Now the state medical examiner is looking into how the woman was killed.

The Cabarrus County Sheriffs Office is asking anyone who has information to call CrimeStoppers at 704-93CRIME or cabarruscrimestoppers.com.

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TEHRAN, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on Thursday that the country is ready for nuclear negotiations, depending on how serious the other parties are in this regard.

He made the remarks following a meeting with visiting Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi earlier in the day in the Iranian capital, Tehran, according to a statement released by Iran's Foreign Ministry.

Araghchi described his talks with Grossi as "good and constructive," stressing that the two sides would "chart a new path for reducing tensions regarding the nuclear issue between Iran, the agency, and other parties."

"Since we are sure about the peaceful nature of our nuclear program, we have no problem cooperating with the agency and can continue these collaborations. However, to that end, the other parties should also fulfill their obligations and responsibilities," said the foreign minister.

Also on Thursday, following a meeting with Grossi, Iran's nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami warned that Tehran would respond promptly to any resolutions issued by the IAEA Board of Governors against the country.

At a joint press conference, Eslami said Iran would not be impacted by "pressures and will advance its nuclear program within the framework of its national interests."

The Iranian nuclear chief also expressed his willingness to maintain interactions with the IAEA. "If they choose the path of interaction, Iran would also interact in response," he said.

For his part, Grossi emphasized that Iran's nuclear facilities should not be attacked.

He made the remarks in response to a question about Israel's threats to attack Iran's nuclear sites, saying, "I have always stressed that nuclear installations should not be subject to any attack."

According to Grossi, the agency and Iran have been cooperating for a long time, and "now is an important time to achieve palpable results and convey the message to the world that we choose a path other than confrontation."

Heading a delegation, Grossi arrived in Tehran Wednesday night for talks with Iranian officials.

His visit comes as several outstanding issues remain unresolved between Tehran and the IAEA, including the agency's claims of having found "traces of uranium" at a number of "undeclared" Iranian sites, which Iran has repeatedly rejected.

Iran signed the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with world powers in July 2015, accepting restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions by the West. However, the United States withdrew from the agreement in May 2018, reinstating sanctions and prompting Iran to scale back some of its nuclear commitments. 
DERBY, Conn (WTNH)  A school in Derby honored a civil rights icon Thursday. At the same time, it encouraged kids to get to school safely, for them and the environment.

Nov. 14 is Ruby Bridges Day. Its a day when the walk to school takes on extra meaning for the kids in Derby.

Exclusive: Cheshire teacher behind politically charged viral video resigns

In 1960, Bridges was a first grader in New Orleans. The federal government ordered the citys schools to de-segregate so on Nov. 14, Bridges walked into a formerly all-white school.

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Federal marshals protected her from an angry white mob.

Now, in schools, we are all together as one, and they understand the reason behind her vision as a young student, said Torine Creppy, the president & CEO of Safe Kids Worldwide.

At Derbys Irving School, lots of kids walk to school. Staff members head out in the neighborhood every day making sure students come to school, and get there safely, in what they call the walking school bus.

Our staff members make sure that they get to school on-time, safely, and with a trusted adult at all times, Principal Marc Russo explained.

On Thursday, the AAA, Griffin Hospital, the state Department Of Transportation, and Safe Kids Worldwide will came together in Derby to encourage safety. Walking is good for kids and the environment, and it honors what Ruby Bridges had to go through 64 years ago to further the civil rights movement.

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Inside the school, students got to hear Bridges struggle in her own words with a reading from her childrens book, I am Ruby Bridges. Its reminder of the impact one little girl had.

Every day, she walked past people who really didnt want her there, and she walked to school every day, and she changed the world doing that, second-grade teacher and walking school bus member Candace Lebel said. Because of her, we can all be together.

That makes for a good lesson for her students any day of the year.

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HERSHEY, Pa. (WHTM)  The Derry Township Police Department is warning residents of an ongoing jury duty scam that has been targeting the community.

According to police, the scammer pretends to be a police officer from their department and demands payments for warrants that were issued because they allegedly missed jury duty or failed to appear in court.

Derry Township police say the scammer then instructs the victims to go to a Coinme Bitcoin ATM and deposit cash to pay the warrant.

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The department says its important to remember they will never call you to inform you of a missed jury duty or demand payment over the phone.

Altogether, residents should be cautious of any calls that ask for payment via credit card, money card, or cryptocurrency. You should also be cautious of any calls asking you to verify personal information such as your date of birth, social security number, and any account passwords.

According to Derry Township Police, if you have fallen victim by releasing your personal information or sending funds to the scammer, you should reach out and file a report.

abc27 news will keep you updated as more information becomes available.

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UPDATE: DES MOINES, Iowa  Investigators with the Des Moines Police Department were still searching for a missing teenager roughly five days after she was last seen at school.

According to a post on Twitter Friday afternoon, the agency said 14-year-old Kiley Sporer walked away from school and does not have access to medication she is prescribed. An alert provided by police described her as missing and endangered. She reportedly left her school in the Union Park neighborhood before the school day ended without her cell phone.

Sporer is described as 55 in height and weighs around 112 pounds. According to photos made available to the public, she has fair skin and long, dark brown hair.

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Anyone with any information regarding her whereabouts should call 911.

DES MOINES, Iowa  A Des Moines 14-year-old was reported missing and the Des Moines Police Department is requesting the publics help in finding her.

According to DMPD, on Monday Kiley Sporer left her school in the Union Park neighborhood before the school day ended. DMPD said attempts to find her have not been successful.

Off the Cuff w/ Ed and Murph: Fireplaces in every room and appliance failures

Sporer does not have her cell phone and doesnt have access to the medication that she needs, DMPD said.

Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to call 911.

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ALBANY, New York  In the final hours before polls closed last week, Binghamton University alum Hakeem Jeffries made his last plea to voters.

I just heard that the line to vote at Binghamton University is incredible and unbelievable, said the House Minority Leader, who was adorned in Bearcats green and black and urged voters to support congressional candidate Josh Riley.

On a night when not a lot went well for Democrats, upstate New York was an exception. One of the partys biggest successes in the country came there  Rep. Pat Ryan won his battleground district in a landslide, John Mannion flipped a seat by a comfortable margin, and Riley won by about 5,000 votes. Each of these districts is densely packed with college towns, with a combined three dozen campuses and 193,000 enrollees split between the seats  well over twice the number of students per capita as in the rest of the state.

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One of the prevailing post-Election Day narratives is that nationally young voters moved toward the GOP. But in upstate New York, college-age students provided a critical boost for Democrats in the three battlegrounds  enough to provide the margin of victory in Rileys district and run up the numbers in the other two. Those results offer a stark contrast compared to the outcome of the last midterm election in New York, which saw Republicans gain control of three seats in the House while Democrats fared far better in other parts of the country.

The gains this year are due at least in part to a conscious effort by New York Democrats to improve their outreach to students on college campuses. The coordinated campaign led by Jeffries, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand hired six full-time youth organizing staffers and 200 campus fellows.



While a lot of information about turnout at the microlevel is still hazy, preliminary evidence shows those efforts worked. The results broke with the national trend of young voters shifting rightward  successes that might offer lessons to Democrats trying to make up lost ground among the youngest voters.

State Sen. Lea Webb, a Democrat who represents six colleges, including the Binghamton and Cornell university campuses, said its important for candidates to talk with students about the issues they care most about.

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Our students are concerned the same way our working families are about their future. Theyre concerned about financial struggles theyre having themselves, theyre concerned about the environment [and] of course making sure they can still have access to a quality education by making education more affordable and accessible, she said.

According to voter tracking data gathered by the state Democratic Committee, turnout doubled among young people who live on or near the Vassar College and SUNY New Paltz campuses in the Ryan district. It tripled at Binghamton and Cornell universities in Rileys. And it went up sixfold at Syracuse University in Mannions.

There were students waiting in line at both Binghamton University and Cornell  more than 300 students between those two campuses who were waiting in line for at least a few hours to vote, Webb said. We hadnt seen that in the election two years ago.

Some of that shift is likely due to the fact that turnout was lower than usual in recent years. The pandemic meant fewer students were living on campus in the fall of 2020, and in a year when remote voting boomed, many students who remained in class were easily able to vote by mail at their parents addresses. Given that, increasing turnout on college campuses a little this year wasnt too difficult since there were more potential votes to mine.

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But Covid also meant groups like campus Democratic chapters had gap years, resulting in a loss of experienced leadership. There was a breakdown in relationship-building in between student cohort classes during the pandemic, said Sophie Ascheim, a campus organizer for the Democrats coordinated campaign in the Riley district.

The Democratic program that Ascheim was a part of started early, with some organizers on campuses as far back as February working to build out infrastructure before classes resumed.

Unofficial records indicate these efforts ultimately boosted Democrats.

One polling site on New Paltzs campus voted for Ryan by a margin of 725-48. Thats up from 455-29 in 2022 and 376-21 for the Democratic candidate in 2020.

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Riley won a site on Binghamtons campus 785-155 this year, up from 298-49 for Democrats in 2022 and 228-47 in 2020. Mannions 489-92 showing at a site on Syracuses campus was up from 296-56 in 2022 and 430-106 two years prior. Even at West Point  which features a unique political climate where there isnt much campaigning  Ryan improved from 189-160 in 2022 to 357-193 in 2024.

Ithacas Tompkins County was one of the few places in the state where support for Democrats didnt drop too much. Trump improved upon his performance by only half a percentage there relative to 2020, the smallest gain in New York outside of the 10,000-voter Yates County. Tompkins leapfrogged the Bronx and Brooklyn to become the states second-bluest county, lagging behind only Manhattan.

Candidates also took college campaigning seriously. In addition to his stop in Binghamton, Jeffries joined Riley in Ithaca a week before Election Day, while Ryans highest-profile events included a visit to New Paltz with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The success for Democrats might also simply be due to the fact that they had a more focused campus outreach program than theyve ever had in New York before.

Many of the volunteers came out of the woodwork, walked into our offices and hired themselves, Ascheim said. A lot of people had a lot of enthusiasm and just needed ways to channel their energy.
MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG)  The Mobile Police Department has released information about a pursuit that occurred before Mondays officer-involved crash on Government Boulevard.

American Idol finalist from McIntosh now married with baby on the way

According to previous reporting, a supervisor at the scene told News 5 that the officer involved in the crash was trying to assist with a pursuit. A department spokesperson further clarified that the officer was running code to assist with the apprehension of the suspect in the following case:

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The police department said in a release that the pursuit that happened on Monday, Nov. 11, was connected to an incident that happened on Friday, Nov. 8, in the 200 block of 2nd Court.

During the Friday incident, officers said 27-year-old Deuntroy Adams shot a female victim, who was taken to a local hospital by private vehicle for her non-life-threatening injuries.

Police said the incident on Nov. 11 started after officers attempted to initiate a traffic stop near Tillmans Park Apartments. According to the release, the driver refused to stop for police and then exited the vehicle with a male passenger in a foot chase.

Officers eventually caught up with the subject, later identified as Deuntroy Adams, the release said. He was arrested and transported to Metro Jail.

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High school football coach suspended for playoff game due to unsportsmanlike behavior

MPD said in the incident report that the officer in the crash was running code to assist in the apprehension of the subject in the above incident and was not involved in the actual pursuit and was not driving there to join the pursuit.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRG News 5.
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN)  The fight against the opioid epidemic continues and now state funding is being funneled here locally to combat the crisis.

This week, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is taking direct aim at the opioid epidemic with another round of funding to reduce overdose deaths.

This funding is huge because it will help us with prevention dollars and it will also help pay for recovery housing, said Duane Piccirilli with the Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board.

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The federal grant money will support programs that help prevent addiction and cover treatments and recovery services. More than $3 million will go to various organizations across the valley.

It will allow us to provide some programming in Mahoning County and Trumbull County, said Darryl Alexander.

Alexander is the Youngstown Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Program (YUMADOP) Executive Director.

Governor DeWine recently announced a significant decline in Ohios overdose deaths  a 9 percent drop in 2023.

I think thats evidence that all of this prevention and all of this support is paying off, Piccirilli said.

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Just two years ago, Mahoning County was ranked eighth in the state of Ohio for the number of lives lost to drug overdoses. So far through October, there have been 92 accidental overdose deaths in Mahoning County  down from 127 through the same time frame in 2023.

I think its important that we just keep trying to fight the battle and a big key, one of the tools in the toolbox, is prevention  with young people especially, said Piccirilli.

Piccirilli says recovery housing has been a key element in reducing those statistics and the state has taken a more proactive approach towards prevention but theres still more room for improvement.

Were winning the battle but we cant stop. We have to keep fighting, keep being persistent, said Piccirilli.

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CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS)  Following Donald Trumps election win last week, Democrats have started to play the blame game. Some members of the party argue they were far too left on the issue of transgender rights and that it hurt them at the polls.

Last week, a Democrat from Massachusetts told the New York Times he didnt want biological males in womens sports, that Democrats are afraid to say that, and it should be allowed to be debated.

Meredith Thompson with Charlotte Pride called the take misguided, that Democrats would be making a mistake if they wavered on transgender rights: I dont think we could ever separate one community or identity in the human rights discussion; it has to be all of us united together.

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Thompson argued transgender rights should not be tied to politics and that the messaging seen during the campaign was not based on truth.

Biden and Trump meet for the first time since the election

If you just know trans folks, if you just have them in your lives and you form those relationships and you hear their stories, its obvious [the ads] and that rhetoric has nothing to do with real people, she said.

As for Democrats in Charlotte, they are still working to figure out what went wrong with the effort to get Kamala Harris elected.

Honestly, I think this is a conversation not about winning elections but about who we want to be as a group of people, said Julia Buckner, a senior advisor with Mecklenburg County Democrats.

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Buckner said she is confident the loss was not because of LGBTQ issues, that their position was about including more people, and that it should not matter if that message is politically viable or not, The Democratic party is the party that believes, were the party that builds a bigger table and says everyone is welcome.

Democrats expect to have final numbers on who and how people voted in the coming weeks, which will give the party a better understanding of where they did well and came up short.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News.
Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery said it was excited about doing deals during Trump's second term.

Disney's Bob Iger is taking a different tack: He says the company has bought everything it needs.

Regardless of what Iger actually wants to do, he's probably better off not talking about it right now.

Some media executives are excited to buy and sell big assets during the next Trump administration.

Disney's Bob Iger is not one of them. He says the company has already made the moves it needs to make.

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"In a way, we've already consolidated," he said on the company's earnings call Thursday morning, in response to a question about M&A possibilities during Trump 2.0. Iger said Disney's 2017 decision to buy many of Rupert Murdoch's Fox assets, including its stake in Hulu, means his company doesn't need to go shopping again.

"While we always look opportunistically at opportunities  as we've proven in the past, we certainly don't shy away from those  we, in many respects, have already consolidated," he said. "We don't really need more assets right now, either from a distribution or a content perspective, to thrive in a disrupted media world."

Iger's comments are a pointed contrast to those made by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav last week during his company's earnings call. Zaslav said the next Trump administration could "offer a pace of change, and an opportunity for consolidation that may be quite different, that would provide a real positive and accelerated impact on this industry that's needed."

Zaslav, and his board member/investor John Malone, have been calling for media consolidation for years. And Malone pushed for it again on Tuesday at an industry conference, suggesting that Comcast and Charter  the country's two biggest pay-TV and broadband providers  should merge.

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As we mentioned last week, while executives in many industries think Trump's incoming administration will give a green light to all kinds of dealmaking, it's not a foregone conclusion.

Some members of Trump's circle, including Vice President-elect JD Vance and Matt Gaetz, Trump's attorney-general nominee, have been skeptical about the power of Big Tech, in particular.

And in Trump's first term, he was inconsistent about his stance on media deals. His Department of Justice sued, unsuccessfully, to stop AT&T from buying Time Warner, but he was an enthusiastic supporter of Murdoch's Disney deal.

One other thing worth noting: Even if Iger was thinking about M&A during Trump 2.0, it wouldn't help him much to talk about it at the moment.

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Disney, like other media companies that have news organizations, has already drawn Trump's ire during the 2024 campaign. Trump, angry about the way Disney's ABC News talent moderated his September debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, has already said the network should lose its broadcast license. He's gone further in attacking other media companies  last month, he sued Paramount's CBS over what he said was unfair treatment from its "60 Minutes" show.

And Iger has to manage more than just Trump. His customers and employees can be highly sensitive to the company's interactions with politics, as we saw play out in Disney's two-year battle with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. During that fight, conservatives harped on the company, calling it too "woke," while liberals  including some Disney employees  felt the company wasn't forceful enough in standing up for diversity.

It's no surprise, then, that Iger didn't say the word "Trump" once during his call. No upside in poking the bear.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Opposition members of Georgia's Central Election Commission (CEC) met with President Salome Zourabichvili at the Orbeliani Palace to discuss alleged systemic electoral issues. Giorgi Sioridze, a representative from Strong Georgia, briefed the media afterward, emphasizing the need for Zourabichvili to be fully informed about what he described as a coordinated effort to compromise the electoral process.According to Sioridze, opposition representatives who observed the election's administration shared their insights with the President, arguing that recent claims of minimal violations misrepresent the scale of the issue. He criticized the Georgian Dream for framing the matter as isolated incidents rather than a pattern of manipulation. "We are not dealing with individual violations but with a systematic capture of the Georgian voters' will," Sioridze stated, adding that there is now a legal basis to invalidate the October 26 elections.Ana Kobakhidze, representing the United National Movement, highlighted that the President was interested in the details surrounding the pre-election period, election day, and subsequent events. Kobakhidze explained that opposition CEC members did not participate in administrative tasks related to the election's organization, which, according to her, gave them a unique perspective on potential procedural risks.Kobakhidze affirmed plans for continued collaboration with the President, noting that the opposition has scheduled additional meetings to further explore election concerns.Georgia's external merchandise trade rose by 5.5% in the first ten months of 2024, according to data released by the National Statistics Service of Georgia (Geostat) on November 11. The total trade turnover, excluding undeclared trade, reached USD 19.02 billion, reflecting steady growth amid global economic uncertainties.The report highlights a 7.4% increase in exports, which reached USD 5.47 billion, while imports rose by 4.8%, totaling USD 13.55 billion. Despite these gains, the trade deficit stands at USD 8.09 billion, representing 42.5% of Georgia's total trade turnover.
GABORONE, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The first-ever exhibition of kuru art by female artists of Botswana opened to the public starting Thursday, to promote both cultural preservation and women's empowerment.

The exhibition, held at the Botswana National Museum in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, featured 70 artworks by 10 women artists from San people, believed to be one of Southern Africa's oldest indigenous groups, and will last until Dec. 27.

The exhibition, titled "Women of Kuru: The Gathering," shows the artists' deep connection to nature as well as the ancestral wisdom that binds them to their history. It provides an intimate view into the lives and families of the Gantsi people -- a conglomeration of ethnic groups, including the San -- in the Kalahari Desert in western Botswana, demonstrating how their art is more than simply a source of income but also a powerful expression of cultural identity.

The Kuru Art Project, founded in 1990, has supported the marginalized San people to improve their lives and promote, preserve, and strengthen their cultural values through art. 
HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH)  Residents of the Concord Hills apartments in Hartford are still looking for permanent homes after the building caught on fire back in August.

To be clear, the Gray Hill Group has been lying to us from the very onset, Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam said.

Displaced tenants of a Hartford apartment complex reach agreement with city for better living conditions

The Gray Hill Group owns the apartments, according to Arulampalam, and has been dragging its feet on repairs.

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The city has been putting the displaced tenants up in hotels, but as of Dec. 10, they will have to move out and find permanent housing.

The reason were back here today is because the clock is ticking and people have a deadline that they are getting from City Hall, Luke Melonakos-Harrison, vice president of the Connecticut Tenants Union, said.

The mayor said that he has met with the tenants union and theyve had a housing fair to connect tenants to resources and find a new place to live.

News 8 reached out to the Concord Hills apartment complex but has not heard back.

Watch the full video in the player above.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTNH.com.
DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN)  Testimony in the trial of the man accused of fatally shooting a co-worker at the DMAX facility in Moraine in 2023 continued in a Montgomery County courtroom Wednesday.

The day was dominated by the testimony of the ex-girlfriend of Frederick Cox, the man accused of killing Jeffrey Allen III on May 18, 2023.

Testimony begins in DMAX shooting trial; witnesses take the stand

The woman had dated Cox, living with him at two different residences. Two weeks before the shooting, she had had two friends from DMAX help her move out from the apartment she shared with Cox and into a residence with Allen.

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Cox was allegedly unaware of the new relationship.

Prosecution presented text messages between Cox and the woman from May 16, two days before the shooting.

During her testimony, the ex-girlfriend, who worked with Cox and Allen at DMAX, testified she blocked Cox on her phones messaging system after those messages, expressing concern about losing her job due to attention she was receiving at work about the relationship.

She testified that on the day of the incident, Cox approached her at work and told her to unblock him or he would kill her, Allen and himself.

She said that after the threat, she went to the restroom to collect herself. This was the last time she saw Allen alive. Two minutes later, she testified, she heard gunshots and people screaming.

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DMAX employees testified that they saw Cox moments before they allegedly saw him shoot Allen. A shift lead testified that he had a meeting with the woman and Cox a week before the shooting in which he told both to stay away from each other.

Another DMAX employee said he saw Allen and Cox engaged in a heated, face-to-face argument, exchanging profanity and threats. The employee said Cox then left and returned with a bookbag on his chest and looked even more upset.

Allen was then seen leaving from his work station, holding two raised fists as he walked towards Cox, who witnesses say then pulled out a gun and shot Allen first in the head.

Frederick was heading towards Jeffreys way, said the witness. Jeffrey stepped off the platform. Thats when Frederick unzipped his backpack and looking in the eye for you. I am the one. At that point, Jeffrey did not go any further. He stopped right there. And then what happened next? Frederick pulled a gun.

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Surveillance video from DMAX facility presented Wednesday showed the commotion after gunshots rang out inside the facility. It also captured the moment that Cox allegedly turned the gun on himself in the parking lot after shooting Allen.

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DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN)  The alleged gunman in the fatal May 2023 shooting at the Moraine DMAX took to the stand Thursday, claiming self-defense.

Frederick Cox testified that at the time of the shooting, he didnt know he and his girlfriend had separated or that she had moved in with Jeffrey Allen, the DMAX co-worker who was killed.

The prosecution countered Coxs testimony, accusing him of being an angry ex-boyfriend.

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Prosecutors presented evidence of a search history entry on a phone they said belonged to Cox for how to call blocked number. Experts testified that Cox was looking for ways to contact his ex-girlfriend, who testified Wednesday that she had blocked him.

Cox said he only found out through the ex-girlfriends testimony Wednesday that she had moved in with Allen after leaving him. He testified that on the day of the shooting, he had been planning on quitting.

I didnt want to hurt nobody, he testified.

Cox also denied threatening his ex-girlfriend before the shooting, testifying that he only told her to unblock him.

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Closing arguments happened around 6 p.m. On Friday, the jury begins deliberations.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDTN.com.
HONOLULU (KHON2)  Nearly three years after a massive fuel leak from the Navys Red Hill tanks tainted the water system serving tens of thousands on Oahu, three federal reports point to extensive mismanagement and possible malfeasance.

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Investigations by the Department of Defense Inspector General resulted in findings of significant human and technological errors and dozens of recommendations. Victims of the tainted water, and other local officials say it didnt go far enough and are calling for more details and more action.

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Three Inspector General reports related to Red Hill, which has since been defueled and is slated for permanent closure, cover:

Safety of Defense Fuel Support Point Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam

Actions taken after Red Hill spills contaminated the military water system

Mishandling involving a foam fire-fighting suppressant known as a forever chemical

The reports found:

Mismanagement of facilities and procedures

Bad record keeping

Inoperable systems, components and safety gear

Failures to take more precautions

Even failures to report some past incidents.

Nearly 40 recommendations are made. Inspectors say they fall into three recurring themes:

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First, its very important that theres clear roles and responsibilities for whos in charge of carrying out the actions that need to occur at Red Hill, explains Michael Roark, Deputy Inspector General for Evaluations. In addition to that, there needs to be improvements and policies across the DOD and the Navy. We also recommended that there be improvements in procedures such as response plans and maintenance and safety procedures.

Victims of the toxic water tell me they want much more than that. Maj. Mandy Feindts family was sickened while stationed on Oahu, including her then-baby and toddler, and years later theyre all still recovering, now in Virginia.

Navy ramps up Red Hill cleanup amid water safety fears

Im looking forward to the day that we can go a week without having multiple appointments as a family, Maj. Feindt said. While Im grateful for this report, I think its come a little bit late, but that does not mean that folks who have advanced in their career or have retired with their careers intact it does not mean that they cannot retroactively be held accountable.

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Always Investigating asked the Inspector General whether their involvement helped lead to military-role, legal and criminal consequences for those connected to mismanagement and mistakes that report after report, agency after agency, continue to identify?

Ill leave that to the department and to the Navy to determine the accountability side, said Roark. Thats thats their responsibility.

Navy begins sludge removal at Red Hill Fuel Facility

We asked the Navy what theyll do to carry out real consequences for the people tied to mismanagement, malfeasance or negligence. KHON2 is waiting for that response, but in the IG report, the Navy and Defense Department agree with many findings and point to actions already underway and concur they will review military construction projects to see if any federal law was violated or funds wasted.

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The Navy did say the three reports findings align with previous evaluations and support corrective actions that have been implemented and are continuing.

Hawaiis congressional delegation had asked the IG to do the investigation and said in a joint statement that the reports make clear that for decades the Navy and DOD have failed to manage fuel and water operations to a standard that protects the health and safety of the people of Hawaii. Its outrageous and unacceptable.

Hawaii prisoners incarcerated in Arizona voice concerns for unsafe drinking water

Honolulus Board of Water Supply sounded the alarm a decade ago about Red Hill and are still waiting for adjudication of a $1.2 billion tort claim against the Navy over allegations of tainting Honolulus water supply and wells.

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We want to stay at the table there, and whats very clear is the people of this island, our community, our rate payers, are for the Board of Water Supply. We did not create this problem, said Ernie Lau, Chief Engineer of the Board of Water Supply. This is a problem that is created by a federal facility.

Lau says hell call on the Inspector General to go back the full 80 years of the facilitys existence, better document the full history of spills and environmental impact and reveal whats behind extensive redactions in the report.

That will be our request to the Inspector General, to be more transparent on whats happened here at Red Hill and what were dealing with, said Lau.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2.
President-elect Donald Trumps incoming administration could try to remove fluoride from drinking water, according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Kennedy, who campaigned with Trump after dropping his own presidential bid in August, called fluoride "an industrial waste" and linked it to cancer and other diseases and disorders.

"On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water. Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease," Kennedy wrote Nov. 2 on X, formerly Twitter. Kennedy linked to a video from an attorney who recently successfully sued the Environmental Protection Agency to take additional measures to regulate fluoride in drinking water.

Kennedy, who has long advocated ending water fluoridation, persisted with his pledge after Trumps election win. Trump, meanwhile, has said that Kennedy, who previously worked as an environmental lawyer, would have a role in the Trump administration. When asked whether his administration would remove fluoride from drinking water, Trump said, "Well, I havent talked to him about it yet, but it sounds OK to me. You know its possible."Kennedy is an influential vaccine skeptic whose campaign of conspiracy theories earned PolitiFacts 2023 Lie of the Year.Longtime research has found that adding fluoride to U.S. drinking water is a safe way to boost childrens oral health. Since 2015, the recommended level in the U.S. has been 0.7 milligrams per liter. Public health organizations, including the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, support the practice.Recent studies, however, have shown possible links between fluoride, bone problems and childrens IQ, particularly when fluoride is above the U.S. recommended levels.

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"There is evidence that fluoride exposure has been associated with the diseases (and) disorders that RFK listed, but with caveats," said Dr. Ashley Malin, an assistant professor in the University of Floridas Epidemiology Department who has studied fluorides effects in pregnant women.Malin referred to studies showing that higher fluoride exposure, particularly during pregnancy, is associated with reduced child IQ, and that prenatal exposure also is linked to decreased intellectual functioning and executive function. For high exposure in pregnancy, the studies showed symptoms associated with other neurobehavioral issues, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

However, many of these studies took place in countries other than the United States and looked at fluoride in drinking water at sometimes twice the U.S. recommended level. Also, some of the other ailments that Kennedy listed, such as an association with bone cancer, have less robust evidence and need more study."Aside from fluorides impacts on neurodevelopment, I think that there is more that we dont know about health effects of low-level fluoride exposure than what we do know, particularly for adult health outcomes," Malin said.David Bellinger, a Harvard Medical School neurology professor and professor in Harvard School of Public Healths Environmental Health Department, said the risk-benefit calculation of added fluoride differs depending on whether typical fluoride exposure levels cause health problems, or if problems occur only when recommended levels are exceeded. "In toxicology, the dose makes the poison is a long-standing principle," he said. "So a general statement that fluoride is associated with diseases X, Y, and Z is not very helpful unless the dose that might be responsible is specified."PolitiFact contacted Kennedy through his Childrens Health Defense organization but received no reply. The organization sued PolitiFact and Meta related to a 2020 fact-check. That lawsuit was dismissed by a federal court. The dismissal was upheld on appeal, and the case is pending a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

What is fluoride and what are its benefits?

Fluoride is a mineral naturally occurring in soil, water and some foods that helps prevent tooth decay and cavities. It strengthens tooth enamel that acid from bacteria, plaque and sugar can wear away.

Water fluoridation has been happening in the U.S. since 1945.

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The federal Public Health Service first recommended fluoridation of tap water in 1962, but the decision still lies with states and municipalities. Around 73% of the U.S. population, or about 209 million people, have access to fluoridated water, the CDC reported. Fluoride also has been added to oral care products such as toothpaste and mouth rinse.In 2015, U.S. health officials lowered the recommended amount of fluoride in drinking water to 0.7 milligrams per liter, saying a higher level was less necessary given other sources of fluoride, and that the lowered amount would still help protect teeth without staining them.

Pediatric dentists note that applying fluoride with toothpastes and rinses is beneficial, but small amounts circulating in the body via water consumption helps younger children who still have their baby teeth, because it can benefit the developing permanent teeth.The American Dental Association says studies have shown that fluoride in community water systems prevents at least 25% of tooth decay in children and adults and that "for more than 75 years, the best scientific evidence has consistently shown that fluoridation is safe and effective."

The association says on its website, "Its similar to fortifying other foods and beverages  for example, fortifying salt with iodine, milk with vitamin D, orange juice with calcium and bread with folic acid."

According to the CDC, health experts and scientists from the U.S. and other countries have so far "not found convincing scientific evidence linking community water fluoridation with any potential adverse health effect or systemic disorder such as an increased risk for cancer, Down syndrome, heart disease, osteoporosis and bone fracture, immune disorders, low intelligence, renal disorders, Alzheimer disease, or allergic reactions."

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The agency says risks of water fluoridation are limited to dental fluorosis, which can alter dental enamel and cause white flecks, spots, lines or brown stains on the teeth when too much fluoride is consumed.

Do studies show fluoride posing any other risks?

Some studies have said that excess fluoride exposure, often at higher levels than the recommended U.S. limit, can harm infants and young childrens developing brains and that higher levels of fluoride exposure during pregnancy were associated with declines in childrens IQs.A study published in May that Malin led with University of Southern California researchers suggested that fluoride exposure during pregnancy was linked to an increased risk of childhood neurobehavioral problems and said more studies were "urgently needed to understand and mitigate the impacts in the entire U.S. population."

Experts noted prenatal fluoride exposure is most strongly linked to childrens IQ loss, and said timing of fluoride consumption might need to be considered when making recommendations.A federal review of dozens of studies published in August by the Department of Health and Human Services National Toxicology Program concluded that higher levels of fluoride exposure were linked to lower childrens IQs. But the report was based primarily on studies in countries such as Canada, China, India, Iran, Mexico and Pakistan and involved fluoride levels at or above 1.5 milligrams per liter, twice the recommended U.S. limit. The authors said more research is needed to understand whether lower exposure has any adverse effects.

In the report, researchers said they found no evidence that fluoride exposure adversely affected adult cognition.

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Bellinger, from Harvard, pointed to the review as an example of how the amount of fluoride matters. He noted how researchers concluded that a very small percentage of people in the U.S. are exposed at levels that correlate with IQ loss."Second, the fact that there are now multiple pathways of exposure to fluoride besides fluoridated water (toothpaste and other dental products, etc.) makes it really difficult to attribute a particular adverse effect to the fluoride added to the water," he wrote via email. "It is the cumulative exposure from all sources that contribute to any adverse health effects."In September, a federal judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water because of the potential risk that higher levels could affect childrens intellectual development.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen wrote that the courts finding didnt "conclude with certainty that fluoridated water is injurious to public health," saying its unclear whether the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing childrens IQs to drop. But he wrote that there was enough risk to warrant investigation and that the EPA must act to further regulate it. The ruling did not specify what actions the agency should take, and the EPA is reviewing the decision.

After the ruling, the American Association of Pediatrics issued a statement that fluoride in drinking water is safe for children and said the policy is based on a robust foundation of evidence.

Besides dental fluorosis, experts say that fluoride exposure over many years above the U.S. recommended amount can cause skeletal fluorosis, a rare condition that causes weaker bones, stiffness and joint pain. Although the Public Health Service recommends a fluoride concentration of 0.7 milligrams per liter for community water systems, the EPA, under the Safe Drinking Water Act, sets enforceable standards for drinking water quality. Currently, to prevent skeletal fluorosis, the EPA requires that water systems not exceed 4 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water.Malin said she and her research team are investigating a potential link between fluoride and bone fractures. She said although several studies have found high fluoride exposure associated with increased risk of bone fractures, and some have linked fluoride with thyroid disease, there havent been rigorous, U.S.-based studies.The CDC concluded that recent research found no link between cancer and high levels of fluoride in drinking water.

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The American Cancer Society reviewed a possible link between water fluoridation and cancer. An organization spokesperson pointed PolitiFact to its review and said it has no data showing a definitive answer.

Our sources

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: PolitiFact: RFK Jr. claim on fluoride causing cancer is false
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  As President-elect Donald Trump continues to name his choices for top positions in his administrations Cabinet, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are gearing up for the confirmation process.

So far, Trump has named more than a dozen people to serve in his administration, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.

However, before those named by Trump can take on the job, they must be confirmed by the Senate through a process outlined in the Constitution.

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Once the Senate receives an official nomination, it is then sent to the appropriate committee. For example, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary would be responsible for holding a hearing for the position of attorney general.

During a committee hearing, lawmakers are allowed to question a nominee on a number of topics including their background and policy positions.

The committee reviews the nomination and then sends it to the full Senate with a recommendation to approve, not approve or with no recommendation. Once the nomination is brought to the Senate floor, lawmakers agree on a date to debate the nomination. Once debate is complete, they hold a vote.

In order to be confirmed, a nominee needs a simple majority support of senators who are present and voting.

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The Senate is responsible for confirming other top leadership positions in the federal government, including ambassadors and Supreme Court justices.

What is a recess appointment?

President-elect Trump has been pressuring lawmakers in the Senate to allow him to appoint some nominees without a Senate vote, while the chamber is on recess.

This is known as a recess appointment, which the Senate has not allowed presidents to make since a 2014 Supreme Court ruling made it more challenging.

To get around recess appointments, the chamber has held pro-forma sessions when it is out of town for more than 10 days so that a president cannot take advantage of the absence and start filling posts that have not been confirmed.

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On Wednesday, Republicans elected South Dakota Sen. John Thune as the next Senate majority leader.

Thune has previously indicated that he is willing to work with Trump to fill positions quickly saying in a statement on Sunday that all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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How dog helped solve owners grisly murder

(Photo Credit: McLennan County District Attorneys Office) Titan with prosecutors Ryan Calvert and Alyssa Killin and investigator Keith Kunz.

WACO, Texas (WJW)  The murder of a Texas woman, whose dead body was found burned beyond recognition, was solved, in part, thanks to her dog.

Derek Daigneault, 29, of Kansas, the man who shot and killed the woman, Mandy Rose Reynolds, 26, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month.

According to a release from the McLennan County District Attorneys Office, Reynolds body was found burning in a field on April 5, 2023. A white dog was found nearby barking frantically at officers. The dog refused to leave the area or to allow police to capture it.

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At least 10 skulls found, 1 linked to missing person in New Mexico

The next morning, after the body had been removed, a citizen found the dog sitting at the same spot where the body was found. Animal control officials found that the dog, whose name is Titan, was microchipped and belonged to Reynolds.

Police then suspected the body was that of Reynolds, who was Daigneaults cousin. Authorities searched her home and found it completely empty. Her car was also missing.

The car was located, using a license plate reader database, in Wichita, Kansas. Three days after Reynolds body was found, authorities in Wichita spotted the car being driven by Daigneault. He led them on a high-speed chase before crashing into another vehicle.

(Credit: McLennan County District Attorneys Office)

He then fled on foot and ran into a grocery store, hiding behind a shelf of canned goods.

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Authorities found a gun in the car. They determined, using physical evidence from the area where Reynolds was found, that her body was burned inside a large plastic storage container. Police also found a shell casing from the gun they recovered.

Police found surveillance video from an area Walmart that showed Daigneault buying the container along with a shovel and a gas can on April 4. Daigneault was in Reynolds car. Titan was seen with his head sticking out the car window.

New photos of semi wanted in deadly hit and run

All of Reynolds missing belongings were found in an abandoned truck several miles from her home.

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The keys to this case were a heroic and loyal dog named Titan and extraordinary cooperation between law enforcement agencies in multiple jurisdictions and states, the assistant district attorneys in the case said in a statement. That combination has delivered justice for Mandy and safety from a violent and dangerous criminal.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Fox 8 Cleveland WJW.
From the Techne on The Dispatch

Welcome back to Techne! Scientists and historians are converging on an answer to one of the most perplexing origin stories: Copper miners moving ore deep within the ancient mines in the Carpathian Mountains likely created the very first wheels.

Taking a Swing at the Size and Cost of Government

When people talk about Illinois politics, they often reference Chicago. But when Chicagoans talk about politics, they talk about Springfield, the state capital where I was born and raised. Quite literally, I grew up in the shadow of politics. As a kid, Id often bike to the statehouse just to relax beneath the statue of Lincoln.

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Given this background, it is not surprising that my professional career has been shaped by concerns over poorly designed public policy. So, I felt hopeful when President-elect Donald Trump announced that entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would lead what Trump calls the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with the aim of tackling government waste.

While the department is not a government agency and details are lacking, Trump has said that DOGE will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government. And all of this is to be done no later than July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Musk has been more explicit in his goals, however unrealistic. He wants to cut $2 trillion from the budget, do away with what he calls the Kafkaesque rules of government, and make it easier to fire bad employees. Musks long history of clashes with the Federal Aviation Administration as head of SpaceX underscores the potential conflicts of interest that this effort could generate. While I appreciate the optimism from Musk, he and Trump will face pushback and obstacles that could derail DOGEs aspirations.

For one, Trump already attempted a dramatic reduction of government back in 2017 but couldnt make headway with Congress, which ultimately decides if agencies are created or cut. On top of this, the United States already ranks near the bottom of rich countries when it comes to government spending per total size of economy. Reducing this spending even more will prove difficult, if not impossible. More importantly, Trump has taken reform of Social Security and Medicare off the table, which means that two huge entitlement programs that could drive significant savings wont be touched.

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Given these constraints, DOGE could be effective by focusing on more mundane problems in government rather than radical changes. It should work to clear the backlog of already proposed reforms, make processes more rational, and solicit reforms from people working in government. They wouldnt be flashy changes, but they could actually make things better.

Its been tried before.

The U.S. government is massive. Over the last fiscal year, which ran from October 2023 to September 2024, the federal government spent $6.75 trillion. The largest chunk of this went to Social Security ($1.46 trillion); then health ($912 billion), which includes Medicaid; interest payments on debt ($882 billion); Medicare ($874 billion); national defense ($874 billion); and veterans benefits ($325 billion).

Reducing these outlays will be difficult, given the promises Trump has made. What DOGE should tackle is fraud, which is a known problem. According to the Government Accountability Offices first ever study of the problem, released late last year, the federal government likely loses between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud. During the pandemic alone, the Small Business Administrations Office of Inspector General estimated the agency disbursed $200 billion in potentially fraudulent payments, between 11 and 15 percent of its total spending.

In early 2023, for example, Edward Whitaker and Schunda Coleman pleaded guilty to operating a nationwide scheme that helped people forge documents for COVID relief loans and commit millions of dollars in fraud. Similarly, in Medicare and Social Security, fraud schemes often involve billing for unnecessary medical procedures, stealing personal information to collect benefits, or creating fake identities to siphon funds from these essential programs.

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But hiring auditors and doing the necessary technical upgrades to combat fraud requires spending thats often a tough sell politically. Reducing headcount might trim budgets, but it is likely to make fraud worse.

There is also a similar sort of tension in undoing the regulatory state. While Musk seems more focused on cutting the size of government, Ramaswamy has been talking about curbing bureaucratic regulations, which he characterizes as a legal mandate from the Supreme Court. In part, hes got a point. A number of recent court cases have limited agency authority to push regulations. But undoing all of those mandates will require more lawyers. Undoing the regulatory state is likely to mean more government workers in the near term, rather than fewer.

And as much as I am a fan of slimming budgets, the United States already ranks at the bottom of public sector spending. Public sector employment in the United States only constitutes about 14 percent of all employment, far lower than Canada at 19 percent and lower than the United Kingdom at 16 percent. A vast majority of this employment comes from local, not federal, government.

As Francis Fukuyama recently wrote in an open letter to Musk,

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There are basically the same number of full-time federal employees today as there were back in 1969, about 2.3 million. This is despite the fact that the government now disburses more than five times as many dollars as it did back then. In fact, you can argue that the government is understaffed, due to relentless pressure over the decades to keep headcounts down. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, for example, oversees the spending of $1.4 trillion, or one fifth of the entire federal budget, with a staff of only 6,400 full-time employees.

Instead of trying to thin the ranks of federal employees, some have also suggested that entire agencies should be axed. The Department of Education has especially drawn ire. But the president doesnt have unilateral power to shutter an agency. Congress would need to initiate that process and it has been resistant to reforms. When Trump tried in 2017 to cut $2.5 trillion in spending, Congress passed a budget that was broadly in line with years previous and he signed it into law.

Timing also complicates structural reform. If DOGE indeed finishes its recommendations by July 2026, the earliest the president could try to implement reforms would be in a budget for the 2028 fiscal year, by which time the House could be controlled by Democrats.

The short timeline will inherently limit what DOGE can do. The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process is often cited as an example of a successful reorganization and downsizing by the government. Unlike DOGE, this was a congressionally authorized process that allowed the Department of Defense (DOD) to reorganize its facilities, resulting in 350 base closures and a combined savings of $12 billion annually. But BRAC happened over the course of five rounds, beginning in 1988 and ending in 2005. Part of what made the effort successful was that it was slow and deliberate, giving the DOD time to adjust and unravel all of its interests. Quick changes and deep cuts will face steep opposition.

Cleaning up regulations and processes.

The new administration already has a lot of options to make the government better. In fact, it has roughly 5,372 options. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has published thousands of recommendations over the years to improve efficiency, accountability, and transparency across federal agencies. As it currently stands, more than 5,000 recommendations are currently open and 499 are priority recommendations. By the GAOs own estimates, implementing these recommendations could save between $106 billion and $208 billion. Additionally, the inspectors general have put forward 14,000 more suggestions to boost government efficiency. DOGE should think of ways to clear this backlog of recommendations.

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One of the ways that DOGE could be useful is in soliciting advice from administrators on hangups that slow deployment. Jennifer Pahlka, former deputy chief technology officer under Obama and author of Recoding America, recently explained the problem of cascades, as she calls it, that desperately needs to be resolved:

The story that Ive probably told the most is about a friend of mine who worked on a project at the Air Force. Back in 2014, we were trying to get new software on the satellites that manage GPS, and the project was extremely delayed and way over budget. They had inserted a huge enterprise service bus (ESB) in the middle of a really simple protocol; it was so complex and Rube Goldberg-y that it caused timeouts between the ground stations and the satellite.

He asked why this ESB was in there, and someone said that its a requirement in the contract. As he pulled the thread, he found out that everybody believed this was required by Congress. So he went back and looked at the Clinger Cohen Act, which requires all agencies to have a plan for how theyre going to handle technology. At some point, somebody wrote some guidance around that, which suggested interoperability using ESBs  for software developers who are asking, Why is she talking about ESBs?, this was in the 90s. As it descended from the federal enterprise architecture to the Department of Defense enterprise architecture to the US Air Force enterprise architecture to an actual contract, it went from being a suggestion to a requirement.

Pahlkas book details a number of programs that are burdened by these cascades. Finding these suggestions that seemingly became requirements could go a long way to making the government operate better.

Big government versus small government.

DOGE fits into a long line of efforts by presidents to reduce the size of government. Barack Obama signed the Delivering an Efficient, Effective, and Accountable Government executive order and Bill Clinton advanced the National Partnership for Reinventing Government. Both initiatives had some success, but neither was able to fully deliver on their promises. Perhaps I am too cynical, but I expect DOGE to suffer the same fate, especially since Trump has promised to not touch entitlements.

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Ultimately, DOGE could help everyone by recommending incremental, pragmatic changes that enhance accountability and transparency without derailing essential services. By focusing on cutting waste, streamlining processes, and addressing the cascade of outdated standards, DOGE has the potential to become a meaningful force in government reform. To me, that would still be a big win.

Until next week,

 Will

Notes and Quotes

AI Roundup

Read more at The Dispatch

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Donald Trumps decision to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general has Justice Department veterans petrified and warning of a crisis in the department marked by chaos and revenge.

The polarizing Republican lawmaker is already generating resistance on Capitol Hill, suggesting he may not get the votes to win the job. But even if the nomination is doomed, it sends an unmistakable signal about Trumps expectations for the Justice Department in his second term: He wants a MAGA zealot in the post, one who has shown unbreakable loyalty to the president-elect and wrath for his adversaries, real and perceived.

Gaetz fits that profile to a T. He has never worked as a prosecutor, and his primary interaction with the Justice Department has been as a suspect under investigation for sex crimes. But he has been a bellicose provocateur on Trumps behalf, even showing up to the former presidents Manhattan hush money trial this spring and posting an allusion to a far-right militant group.

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Now, he has been tapped to implement Trumps oft-stated campaign promise to use the Justice Department to exact retribution against people who opposed him.



There's no conceivable justification for nominating somebody this smarmy and this offensive for a position of such significance in this democracy other than to have a puppet and somebody who, as Gaetz has demonstrated, will do anything Trump asks, said Ty Cobb, a former Trump White House lawyer.

Many rank-and-file Justice Department staffers  who were already dreading what Trump might do at DOJ  were flabbergasted by the Gaetz announcement. This is completely wild. Its so out of bounds, its just shocking, said one career DOJ lawyer, who was granted anonymity out of concerns about retaliation. Hes there for one purpose: to enact retribution. Im pretty sure he doesnt have a grand vision about the future of the department. I cant imagine how this isnt going to scare people even more.

Shortly after Trumps announcement, Gaetz abruptly resigned from his House seat. In his four terms there, Gaetz left a trail of bad blood and scandals. Hes viewed on Capitol Hill as a pro-Trump brawler who has infuriated his own GOP colleagues as much as hes angered the left. He helped derail former Rep. Kevin McCarthys speakership, he has nearly gotten into physical confrontations with colleagues, and he strategized with Trump in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, about ways to overturn the 2020 election results. He was investigated for sex trafficking of a minor, though he was never charged and he fiercely denied the allegations.

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Generally, nominating reputed sex traffickers for the highest law-enforcement job in the land is not a good idea, said Marc Short, the longtime chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence.

Gaetz is also an unorthodox choice on policy. He has advocated for decriminalizing marijuana, called on Trump and President Joe Biden to pardon former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and pushed for restrictions on a federal domestic wiretapping authority that the FBI says prevents terrorist attacks and foreign espionage.

In his announcement, Trump hailed Gaetz as a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney.

Matt will root out the systemic corruption at DOJ, and return the Department to its true mission of fighting Crime, and upholding our Democracy and Constitution, Trump said.



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But there were early doubts about Gaetzs confirmation prospects even in the soon-to-be-GOP-controlled Senate. And the pick came as a surprise even to many Trump allies.

In the weeks leading up to the election and days since, Gaetz had not been seen as a contender for attorney general. The choice suggests that Trump may have passed over some of the conventional-wisdom candidates, like Utah Sen. Mike Lee (a former federal prosecutor and a Supreme Court clerk) and business-friendly former regulator Jay Clayton.

I thought the worst we could get was Paxton, the career DOJ lawyer said, referring to another reputed contender for the top job, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

In rejecting prominent conservatives with more typical pedigrees for the job, Trump eradicated any hope that the Justice Department in his second term might resemble the Justice Department of his first term, which was mostly helmed by Republicans with extensive and traditional law enforcement backgrounds, like Jeff Sessions, William Barr and Rod Rosenstein.

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If there were any people left who were sort of holding on to the idea that it'll basically be like Trump's first term, where the people who are really in charge of the department are more or less these sort of old guard Republican stalwarts  they've now been disabused of that notion, former federal prosecutor Jonathan Kravis said. Because even if it's not Matt Gaetz, even if he doesn't get confirmed, it's going to be someone else like him.

One former Trump DOJ official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called the Gaetz nomination fucking appalling.

The attorney general should not be a provocateur, the former official added. The problem with a person like that is he derives too much enjoyment from chaos and burning the place down, and those just would be the last traits youd want in someone in charge of federal law enforcement.


EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI)  Boston Globe Rhode Island reporter Steph Machado joined Kim Kalunian on 12 News at 4 Wednesday to share the outcome of a case involving the civil rights of multilingual learners in Providence.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Newcomer Academy, a Providence high school that serves new immigrants over the age of 17, was failing to provide students with the education they are entitled to under federal law.

Watch the full interview in the player above.

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Read the details of the settlement in The Boston Globe Rhode Island: DOJ settles with Providence over civil rights violations at Newcomer Academy 

12 News, the trusted source for local news in Southern New England, is proud to announce a new partnership with The Boston Globe Rhode Island. This collaboration brings together two powerhouse news organizations to provide Rhode Islanders with unparalleled, in-depth reporting on the issues that matter most to them.

As part of this unique partnership, Steph Machado and other members of The Boston Globe Rhode Island team will regularly join 12 News live on air to discuss some of the biggest news events in the state.

MORE: Globe RI & 12 News Stories



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MOGADISHU, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- An estimated 5.98 million people in Somalia will require humanitarian and protection assistance in 2025, marking a 13 percent decrease from 2024, the UN relief agency reported Thursday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), citing the 2025 Humanitarian Program Cycle (HPC) projections, said that of the 5.98 million people in need, relief partners will target 4.6 million, a reduction of 11 percent from the 5.2 million targeted for assistance in 2024.

"This reduction reflects a stricter scope-setting approach, identifying people affected by shocks that drive humanitarian needs," OCHA said in its humanitarian update released in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital.

The humanitarian crisis in Somalia is among the world's most complex, characterized by recurring cycles of internal conflict and climate shocks that drive displacement and hinder development efforts, OCHA said.

Climate change exacerbates vulnerabilities, as altered rainfall patterns contribute to both droughts and floods.

According to OCHA, 9.1 million people, or 47 percent of Somalia's population, are affected by multiple shocks, including floods, drought, disease outbreaks, and displacement.

OCHA said humanitarians plan to expand the integrated response framework and area-based coordination mechanisms to decentralize operations and bring support closer to affected populations.

The HPC projections come amid a grim outlook for the rest of 2024, with a 70 percent likelihood of La Nina conditions from the last quarter of 2024 to early 2025. Anticipated below-average rains in late 2024 are expected to worsen food insecurity, OCHA warned.

The situation is particularly concerning as Somalia has received only 40 percent of the 1.59 billion U.S. dollars needed for the 2024 response, OCHA said. The agency warned that the situation will further exacerbate drinking water scarcity for about 300,000 people in 10 districts across central and southern states.

OCHA noted that acute food insecurity remains high, with at least 4.4 million people facing severe levels. Furthermore, an estimated 1.6 million children are at risk of acute malnutrition in the next 12 months, including 402,000 likely to suffer from severe acute malnutrition. 
Domestic abusers could be freed from jail on electronic tags as little as a quarter of the way through their sentence under new legislation laid before Parliament.

Offenders convicted of crimes such as harassment, stalking, coercive control and non-fatal strangulation will normally be presumed unsuitable to be released early with a tag and an at-home curfew.

The new legislation, however, states that the governor at the domestic abusers prison can release them early if there are exceptional circumstances justifying this.

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It comes as part of the expansion of the Governments Home Detention Curfew (HDC) scheme to allow offenders to be freed on electronic tags up to a year before their scheduled release date.

Previously, criminals had only been eligible for early release six months before the scheduled date but the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is increasing it to a year, from June 2025, as part of efforts to avoid running out of prison spaces and combat overcrowding.

Under HDC, freed prisoners have an electronic tag on their ankle, a sensor in their home and are under curfews that generally last 12 hours a day, from 7pm to 7am.

Under Home Detention Curfew, freed prisoners have an electronic tag on their ankle, a sensor in their home - Getty Images/Andrew Aitchison

Claire Waxman, Londons victims commissioner, said domestic abusers should be barred from any right to have HDC.

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There will be understandable concern from victims seeing that their offender may come out early under HDC, she said.

It is frustrating that decisions like these are having to be made  the result of more than a decade of mismanagement and underfunding of our justice system.

Ms Waxman said the abusers pose significant risk to victims and so I believe these offenders should never be eligible for HDC. I hope that we will not see exceptional circumstances being used as justification for allowing their release to ease the prison population crisis.

The expansion of the scheme to one year is expected to see an extra 1,300 released prisoners held under the HDC. At present, there are nearly 4,400 offenders on HDC, double the number of a year ago.

Claire Waxman, Londons victims commissioner, says domestic abusers should not be eligible for the Home Detention Curfew scheme - Eddie Mulholland for The Telegraph

It follows the introduction of an early release scheme freeing prisoners 40 per cent of the way through their sentence rather than halfway. Convicted domestic abusers are, however, still only eligible for release halfway through their sentences.

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If domestic abusers were allowed in exceptional circumstances to be freed, it could mean an offender serving a four-year sentence, could be freed on HDC one year into their jail term. This would mean one year on a tag under house arrest after one year in prison.

An MoJ official said it would only be for exceptional reasons, and under stringent conditions. If they meet this test [of exceptional circumstances], which will be rarely, they will still be subject to the rigorous risk assessment process, said the official.

As part of this risk assessment, the address an offender is released to is subject to mandatory checks by the police, probation and childrens services. Those who live at the release address must be consulted as part of these checks.

An MoJ spokesman said: These exclusions have not changed. Individuals with offences linked to domestic abuse, such as stalking and harassment, are always presumed unsuitable.

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HDC is entirely discretionary and anyone released under the scheme is subject to a rigorous risk assessment to ensure there is a plan in place to manage them outside of prison. Offenders must be tagged and face the strictest licence conditions, which could see them recalled to prison.

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Gaetz wont get confirmed, everybody knows that, Kevin McCarthy said Thursday. Thats what many in Washington are telling themselves after President-elect Donald Trumps shocking announcement that he would nominate Matt Gaetz to be attorney general. One House Republican, after hearing about the pick, was laughing so hard that he had to wipe away tears.

But Gaetzs latest moment in the spotlight is in many ways emblematic of his entire career. He is often dismissed as a clown or a self-promoter or a bomb thrower who couldnt possibly continue his ascent.

Then he keeps winning. Thats why McCarthy is the former, not current, House speaker. And thats why its far too soon to say Gaetz wont ultimately become the top law enforcement officer of the United States.

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Gaetz has often been underestimated. He had a relatively cushy upbringing and his path to politics was smoothed by his father. Don Gaetz, known among Florida politics-watchers as Papa Gaetz, is the former president of Floridas state Senate and made a small fortune in the health care industry. The Gaetz family owns the house in Florida where The Truman Show was shot and went on vacation there when Matt was young; perhaps thats where he learned all about what it means to be perceived on television by a lot of people who dont know you.

Gaetz was elected to the Florida House of Representatives at the age of 27 and the U.S. House when he was 34. He could have lived happily as a political scion and a backbencher in Congress, getting comfy in a safe Republican seat for the rest of his life.

Instead, he staked his fortunes on Trump and quickly captured a restless energy at the center of the MAGA base. His fiery approach and no-holds-barred ambition have largely paid off in Trump world, even as it infuriated his colleagues on Capitol Hill.

No one can stand him at this point. Hes a smart guy with no morals, one Republican told Foxs Jacqui Heinrich in the days leading up to his ouster of McCarthy.

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The anonymous lawmaker clearly meant the quote as a jab against their Florida colleague, but it also serves as a simple assessment of Gaetzs political strengths.

He doesnt mind ire sent his direction and in fact courts it when he thinks it can be helpful to him. He has few scruples about shivving other members of his party to get ahead. And hes a capable operator.



All of that was on display when he became Trumps pick for attorney general after initially not even being on the shortlist, according to POLITICO Playbook. En route to Washington on Trumps plane with Gaetz on board, Trump ally Boris Epshteyn lobbied Trump to choose Gaetz while Trumps chief of staff Susie Wiles sat blissfully unaware of the development in an adjacent room.

In his statement nominating Gaetz, Trump called him a tenacious attorney (he briefly practiced at a northwest Florida law firm and also briefly had his license suspended for unpaid fees) who will root out the systemic corruption at DOJ, and return the Department to its true mission of fighting Crime, and upholding our Democracy and Constitution.

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Trump, looking for a pit bull to attack his enemies, saw one in Gaetz, who fashioned himself into one of Trumps chief defenders during his almost eight years in Congress.

We should never, ever dismiss the fact that hes bright and eloquent, said Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican who also questioned Gaetzs ability to be confirmed by the Senate. He can litigate, and hes proven it many, many times. And hes loyal to Donald Trump, which is not unimportant.

At the same time, hes been the subject of multiple ethics inquiries and a federal investigation into potential sex trafficking. He appears to have abruptly resigned from Congress to quash the release of a damaging report from the House Ethics Committee related to allegations that he illegally used drugs, accepted improper gifts and engaged in sexual misconduct.

Some Senate Republicans seem uneasy with the nomination, and not just the likes of Susan Collins. GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Thursday he absolutely wants to see the Ethics report.

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Plenty of Gaetzs colleagues find it impossible to believe hell be confirmed. But they also found it impossible to believe hed get this far in the first place.

Gaetz and Trump may be banking on the notion that Senate Republicans need to show loyalty to Trump will override any lingering concerns with Gaetz fitness for the job. It may be the right bet.

Last year, Sen. Markwayne Mullin called Gaetz a liar who would brag about how he would crush ED [erectile dysfunction] medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night and who was living off daddys money.

But when POLITICO Magazine spoke to the Oklahoma Republican in the corridors of the Capitol on Thursday, Mullin sounded quite a bit more conciliatory.

I can personally object to someone, but I can still work with them if I think theyre qualified to do the job, he said, adding that he had to Google to see if Gaetz was even an attorney. The biggest qualification is, does the president think he can do the job? And the president believes he can do the job.
The Haitian community in Central Florida is dealing with the uncertainty of the civil arrest in their home country.

The political instability there has come to a head as its population continues to struggle with the humanitarian crisis.

Its really impactful in my life to know that I am here just me, and Im not able to spend time with my family, said Occilia Fleuridor, who moved to the U.S. from Haiti decades ago.

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READ: Police seek publics help in investigating death of military veteran

Most of Fleuridors family is still back there, while others, like her niece Joceline, fled to nearby countries. Theres nothing  no medicine, no water, not even a home anymore, Joceline said in Spanish via video chat.

Many Central Florida residents watch from a distance as the country continues to fall into civil unrest.

On Monday, a Spirit Airlines plane flying from Fort Lauderdale was diverted after it was struck by gunfire while landing in the country.

READ: Things to know about Sen. Marco Rubio, Trumps pick for secretary of state

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I heard clack, clack, clack, you know, three times, said David Desrouleaux, a passenger who was on the plane. A couple of us in the plane, we recognize the noise as being gunshots.

JetBlue and American Airlines planes were also targeted.

Now, FAA has banned U.S. flights from landing in Haiti for 30 days.

READ: West Melborne race for fifth council seat still undecided

Haitians living in Central Florida are now concerned for their families back home.

This is sad because you have family members that are there that need food. They cant go nowhere, said an Orlando resident who was at the Haitian Consulate on Wednesday.

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She did not want to say her name but still wanted to share her story. They dont have food, water, or a place to sleep. Its just so painful.

READ: Potential Cyclone 19 forms as it moves toward Central America

According to the U.N., more than 1,700 people have been killed in Haiti due to gang violence between the months of July and September of 2024  the Orlando residents sister was one of them.

She went home after church, with her son, 11 years old, and she received a bullet in the head, she said. She just fell down in front of her son. The worst part was seeing my mom, who just buried her baby girl.

Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.




TULARE, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  At 17, Sophia Park of Californias Tulare County is the youngest to pass the states Bar Exam, having taken the title from her own older brother.

The California General Bar Exam is no easy task. In fact, it has a pass rate of only 51%. But it was no problem for the Parks. Sophia Parks brother, Peter, passed it last year at 17 years and 11 months old. And now Sophia, at 17 years and 8 months, is the current record-holder in the state.

I dont think it was extremely difficult, but I do think there was difficulty in how much you had to put into your brain in a limited period of time, Sophia Park told Nexstars KSEE.

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At 13, Sophia Park simultaneously started law school while attending junior high. But halfway through her freshman year of high school, she decided she wanted to pursue law school only because high school is taking up a lot of my time.

She then took the California High School Proficiency Exam so she could study law full-time.

Sophia Park is seen in a photo provided by the Tulare County District Attorney. (Tulare County District Attorney)

Like her brother, Sophia Park has since become a Law Clerk at the Tulare County District Attorneys Office at the beginning of 2024.

Were so excited for her, for her brother, and really the family, its quite remarkable, said Tulare County DA Tim Ward.

Now, Sophia is waiting until shes 18 so she can be sworn in as a Tulare County Deputy District Attorney.

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People do say like, Wow, youre so young, but sometimes I forget about my age too, she said. In my perspective, Im just a law clerk who passed the bar exam and will become an attorney. Im really looking forward to working as an attorney.

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WASHINGTON  The mood in Congress among Republicans following Donald Trumps announcement of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as his pick for attorney general was best summed up by Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho): Are you shittin me?

Several Republicans on Wednesday said they were shocked and skeptical that the Senate would approve Gaetz next year  but there are rumblings on Capitol Hill and among conservatives that Trump is not shittin them and would exercise unprecedented powers to go around the Senate and install his controversial pick anyway.

The Constitution gives the president limited authority to make appointments when Congress is not in session, and it also gives him the power to adjourn the House and Senate, though no president has ever done so in order to staff his administration.

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Trump threatened to adjourn Congress to make appointments toward the end of his first term, and some fear he will actually follow through on the scheme in his second term. And he has already called for the Senate to let him make recess appointments so Democrats cant slow down the confirmation process.

This is what they did four years ago, and we cannot let it happen again, Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social. We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY!

Theres some indication the Senate wont cooperate with Trumps demands that Congress get out of his way. Asked about recess appointments on Wednesday, incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who had just beaten out Trumps choice of Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) for the position, didnt outright say whether he would support or oppose Trump sidestepping the Senate, but suggested hed prefer the chamber to maintain its role in confirming appointments.

What were going to do is make sure that we are processing his nominees in a way that gets them into those positions so they can implement his agenda. How that happens remains to be seen, Thune said. Obviously, we want to make sure our committees have confirmation hearings like they typically do.

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So Trumps recess appointment plot would need to be deployed against Senate Republicans if he thinks they would be unwilling to approve his nominees. How would it work? First of all, its possible the mere threat will cause Senate Republicans to buckle and back Gaetz. Plenty of them already do.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said Trump deserved to get his chosen team for his administration.

Its not [for] us to determine that, he said on Fox News. This is the last chance were going to have at saving this country. If you want to get in the way, fine, but were going to try to get you out of the Senate, too, if you do that.

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Other Republicans suggested a recess appointment scenario would only come about as a result of Democratic obstruction.

I think you get into a recess scenario where they grind the Senate to a halt and are refusing to allow regular order move forward and confirm folks, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the judiciary committee, told HuffPost. If you really want to shut down the Senate, its not that hard to do. And I would just advise against that to my colleagues.

Hawley and other Republicans said they werent intimately familiar with the presidents never-used-before power to adjourn Congress himself.

Ive heard that theory just now, and Ive not researched that. Ive not heard of it before, so Ill have to go back and look at that, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told reporters.

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Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution states that in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, [the president] may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper. The president could, therefore, exercise this power to adjourn both chambers of Congress if one chamber votes to recess while the other does not.

While no president has done it before, there is Supreme Court precedent stating that this power does, in fact, exist. In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in NLRB v. Canning that presidents do have the power to make recess appointments, but that they cannot do so during short Senate breaks or when the Senate holds pro forma sessions. The majority opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer and joined by the liberal justices and Justice Anthony Kennedy included one line addressing this very scenario: The Constitution also gives the President (if he has enough allies in Congress) a way to force a recess. The line included a citation to the constitutional provision above.

Lets say the Senate does not want to give up its advice and consent powers to confirm executive branch nominees, as seems likely. House Republicans could, theoretically, vote to adjourn the chamber on a set date and for a set time. When Senate Republicans decline to do this, Trump could, again, theoretically, resolve the conflict by adjourning both the House and the Senate.

Temporarily dissolving Congress in order to bypass Senate opposition to his nominees and make recess appointments would theoretically give Trump unchecked power to staff the entire executive branch. It would be a step toward fulfilling his desire to be a dictator on Day 1.

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This sounds nuts because it is nuts. No president has ever exercised this power before. It also would not be easy, or maybe even smart, to pull off.

First, it would require a majority of House Republicans to vote for a resolution to adjourn the chamber. With a likely majority of 221 Republicans to 214 Democrats, they would need to hold all but four members of their conference. If this maneuver is being deployed to slip Gaetz past the Senate, will the seemingly large number of House Republicans who hate his guts go along with this?

Simpsons outburst shows that there are some early signs the answer to that is no.

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), right, watches as Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), left, pulls Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), back as Rogers yells at Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), and others during the 14th round of voting for speaker as the House meets for the fourth day to try and elect a speaker and convene the 118th Congress on Jan. 6, 2023. The Washington Post via Getty Images

Second, going around Senate Republicans would likely anger them. Does Trump want to begin his presidency by humiliating Senate Republicans? Knowing his history of enjoying humiliating supplicants and the fact that he sent a mob to attack Congress, maybe he does.

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Third, the scheme would immediately wind up in the courts. As has happened throughout Trumps political reign, the courts would need to address a constitutional provision that has been effectively silent for over 200 years. The only word on this is from Breyers opinion in NLRB v. Canning. But the Supreme Courts newer conservative members may not agree with that opinion.

In that case, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a concurrence joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas that agreed with the conclusion of the majority, but argued that the presidents recess appointment power is far more limited than the courts current interpretation. The conservative justices could use such a case to limit the recess appointment to power to only apply when a vacancy opens up during a recess. Now, this may not hamstring Trumps potential adjournment plans, as it would depend on the timing of the adjournment and the vacancies, but it shows that the court majority may not be willing to simply accept this plot. (Of course, Roberts decision in Trump v. U.S. about presidential immunity shows the court is willing to bend to Trumps will.)

There are a lot of legal issues that are simply unknown for this plot. What is a disagreement over adjournment? If the Senate simply ignores the Houses resolution to adjourn, does that count as a disagreement? How long must the Senate fail to respond to the Houses adjournment resolution for there to be a disagreement? These questions have never been litigated and it could take a while to sort out.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former constitutional law professor, said it was an open constitutional question whether recess appointments made possible by convening and adjourning Congress just for that purpose would be legitimate.

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That does look like a defeat of the constitutional design, he said. But ultimately, if it were challenged by, say, the Democrats in the Senate, that would go to [Supreme Court Chief Justice John] Roberts court and theyve obviously been in a pro-Trump mood recently.

In the interim, Trumps recess picks would enjoy the same powers as Cabinet officers who were confirmed by the Senate. According to a 2015 Congressional Research Service report, A confirmed appointee and a recess appointee have the same legal authority and receive the same rate of pay.

Democrats, meanwhile, are already highlighting the GOPs cravenness if they choose to bend the knee.

The Crawl Test: Autocrats like to make minions crawl, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said in a social media post on Wednesday. Gaetz and [Tulsi] Gabbard [for director of national intelligence] nominations will test Republican senators willingness to crawl for Trump. Should be interesting.
Naughty List

While Elon Musk and president-elect Donald Trump have appeared to become closer than ever since the tail end of the election, the famously mercurial Trump may now be growing weary of Musk's clinginess.

"Elon wont go home. I cant get rid of him," Trump teased at a Capitol Hill meeting on Wednesday, as reported by The Hill. "Until I dont like him."

Though Trump framed his remark as a joke  a common rhetorical trick in his repertoire  it had an unmistakable undercurrent of truth. Both Musk and Trump have a long history of tempestuous professional relationships; neither likes being inconvenienced with criticism.

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Earlier this year, Musk fired Tesla's head of EV charging Rebecca Tinucci and her entire team after one disagreement. In 2023, he culled X-formerly-Twitter's staff after some workers disparaged him on Slack. Trump, meanwhile, publicly burned through an astonishing number of government officials and White House staff  including his former right-hand man Steve Bannon in 2017, who held an influential position not unlike Musk during the 2016 race.

Given that Trump's catchphrase is the nasally declaration that "you're fired," it seems likely that it's only a matter of time before his volatile bromance with Musk blows up.

Trump Card

On Wednesday night, Musk ominously posted on X-formerly-Twitter that "the Hammer of Justice is coming," and he's been repeatedly declaring his goals for the incoming Trump administration.

"The obstacles are overcoming the Kafkaesque nature of the rules governing this vast bureaucracy and ensuring that maniacally dedicated small-government revolutionaries join this administration!" Musk posted on November 10.

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But president of the conservative think tank American Action Forum Douglas Holtz-Eakin told The Hill that Trump has given Musk a lot less power than he thinks he has.

Musk's new Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to axe government spending, won't "have any authority to do anything other than say, 'We think this will be good,'" Holtz-Eakin said. "Evidently, Mr. Musk has a lot of free time, and if he wants to waste it, thats fine."

More on Elon Musk: Trump Team Reportedly Getting Fed Up With Elon Musk's Weird Behavior
President-elect Donald Trump announced on his social media website Truth Social on Wednesday he is tapping Rep. Matt Gaetz as U.S. Attorney General, sending shockwaves through Washington D.C.

"It is my Great Honor to announce that Congressman Matt Gaetz, of Florida, is hereby nominated to be The Attorney General of the United States," Trump said.

Gaetz reposted Trump's announcement on his own X account.

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"It will be an honor to serve as President Trump's Attorney General," Gaetz said.

Within hours, Gaetz resigned from Congress.

"He issued his resignation letter effective immediately from Congress," House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a press conference Wednesday night. "That caught us by surprise a little bit."

Trump named Gaetz after selecting Sen. Marco Rubio to head to the State Department.

"Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department," Trump said.

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Before the announcement on Wednesday, Gaetz said on his office's X account that Congress should mount a "full court press against this weaponized government."

"And if that means abolishing every one of the three-letter agencies, from the FBI to the ATF, I'm ready to get going," Gaetz said.

Gaetz now may find himself leading the department that oversees most of those three-letter agencies.

Trump AG nominee Gaetz was probed in sex trafficking investigation

Before Gaetz can take the office, he'll have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Gaetz will likely face tough questions on allegations he faced in 2022 of sex trafficking. In February 2023, the DOJ ended the investigation without charging Gaetz.

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Gaetz has vehemently denied the allegations but is still facing a probe by the House Ethics Committee as a part of an ongoing investigation that includes allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

According to multiple media outlets, the probe centers around allegations that he had sexual relations with a minor and paid for her travel after he was allegedly introduced to her by Joel Greenberg, a one-time friend who is serving an 11-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sex trafficking in 2022.

In a letter to the House Ethics Committee in September, Gaetz refuted the allegations and said that the Department of Justice was responsible for the initial leak of the allegations against him to the New York Times.

In the letter, Gaetz also said that the "Biden Justice Department loathes me."

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"I believe the Biden Justice Department leaked to the New York Times in 2021 to impact the behavior and testimony of witnesses," Gaetz wrote. "My basis for this belief is a recording of Joel Greenberg from prison wherein he claims the DOJ told him that the New York Times piece put him in 'golden position.'"

By resigning his Congressional seat, it likely ends any further inquiry from a House Ethics probe into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. Gaetz has vehemently denied the accusation and has publicly blamed the Department of Justice for leaking the allegations to the press, a department he will lead if his appointment is confirmed by the Senate.

Rep. Michael Guest, R-Mississippi, chairman of the House Ethics Committee, told reporters before Gaetz's resignation that any congressional ethics inquiries into Gaetz would end if the Senate confirms him and he resigns from Congress, the New York Times reported.

The committee could still release a report on its probe.

Democrats - and some Republicans - reject Gaetz as Attorney General choice

Democrats have already come out against Gaetz's nomination.

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Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said the pick was "beyond catastrophic" for the country.

"This is what it looks like to Make America Florida  and its a living nightmare," Fried said.

At Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said he was speechless over Trump's decision to nominate Gaetz.

"I look forward to the confirmation hearings, to hearing their views and reviewing their qualifications and considering," Coons said.

Gaetz may have tough time with Senate Republicans as well.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said that senators will have a responsibility to seriously consider Matt Gaetz and any other nominees from President-elect Trump.

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I assume well have some questions for him, Cornyn told reporters Wednesday.

Asked about the House Ethics Committee's investigation into Gaetz for sexual misconduct, Cornyn said, Well, that might come up,

I dont know whether theres any basis to it or not, Cornyn said. So Im sure well be asking a lot of questions.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told reporters the choice lacked seriousness, according to media reports.

I dont think its a serious nomination for attorney general. We need to have a serious attorney general, Murkowski said. Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious.

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Meanwhile, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, said on Fox Business cable channel that any Republican who doesn't back Gaetz would face a primary challenge.

"Vote with President Trump. This is the last chance we have at saving this country," Tuberville said. "If you want to get in the way, fine, but we're going to try to get you out of the Senate, too, if you try to do that."

What happens to Gaetz's seat in Congress?

Johnson said Gaetz's abrupt resignation allowed for a faster special election in Northwest Florida to replace him and shore up the thin Republican majority in the House.

"If you start the clock now, if you do the math, we may be able to fill that seat as early as Jan. 3 when we take the new oath of office for the new Congress," Johnson said.

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Florida's 1st Congressional District is considered to be a safe Republican seat. Gaetz has easily been able to win re-election from the seat in two elections despite becoming a nationally controversial figure. But with an open seat, it'll likely be hotly contested among Northwest Florida Republicans. The last time the seat was open in 2016, Gaetz emerged as the winner out of a field of six other candidates in the Republican primary.

State Rep. Michelle Salzman, R-Pensacola, already made a public statement saying she was considering running after receiving phone calls and texts from people she respects encouraging her to run.

"I am going to weigh my options and seriously consider it," Salzman said. "I love representing Northwest Florida and getting things done. It is an honor serve as a State Representative, so I am already doing what I love to do."

The USA TODAY network contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Matt Gaetz tapped to be U.S. Attorney General by Donald Trump
Warning: Some of the details in this story are graphic. Reader discretion is advised.

DOTHAN, Ala (WDHN)  A Dothan man who police investigators claimed sodomized and killed his ex-girlfriends teen daughter is maintaining his innocence, saying he has a mental defect in a new plea.

During his arraignment Thursday, Minh Thanh Nguyen pled not guilty to capital murder-rape by reason of mental disease or defect.

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This plea means Nguyen must undergo a mental evaluation to determine if he is fit to stand trial.

Nguyen was arrested just days before Christmas in December 2023 and charged with the murder of 17-year-old Duong Thi Thuy Troung.

Troung was found by her mother and sister on December 9, lying face up on her bed in her Hartford Highway home, severely injured. She died after being rushed to a Dothan hospital.

According to an autopsy report released during a court hearing in May, Truong had been strangled and sodomized by a two-foot-long yoga pole.

READ MORE: Dothan teen sexually assaulted before murder, suspect seen walking towards home on camera footage, investigators say

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The report also says she had bruising to her throat, arms, and face.

Dothan Police investigators said Nguyen and Truongs mother had previously been in a relationship and lived in Mississippi before moving to Dothan. The couple later broke up, allegedly because Truong and her two sisters disliked Nguyen.

Dothan Police claim on the day of the murder, Nguyen was seen on camera leaving M3 Nails in Dothan, his place of work, and was seen walking towards Truongs home in the 100 block of Sedona Lane. The house is less than 600 feet from the salon.

Nguyens tentative trial date has been set for early January 2025. While his charges carry the possibility of the death penalty, it is currently unknown if Houston County District Attorney Russ Goodman will seek such a punishment.

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NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)  The Orleans Publish School Board announced Thursday, Nov. 14 that Dr. Avis Williams will step down from her position of Dr. Avis Williams.

Williams joined the NOLA Public School system in July 2022 bringing new energy and enthusiasm to NOLA-PS and schools improving performance, according to OPSB President Katie Baudouin.

Sweet, savory, and stuffed beignets at Beignet Fest in City Park

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She was chosen after a nationwide superintendent search.

Williams is the first woman chosen to be a permanent Superintendent of School in Orleasn Parish. At the beginning of her tenure. Williams told WGNO that her commitment was to build a stronger future for our scholars and our parish.

Photo courtesy: New Orleans Public Schools (NOLA-PS)

NOLA-PS officials said under her leadership, the district improved academic outcomes evident through increased school performance scores of over three points.

Additionally, she is noted for developing robust partnerships with Childrens Hospital New Orleans through a $10 million investment from the City of New Orleans to bring mental health resources into the schools.

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Williams also headed the opening of the Leah Chase School, the first permanent district-run school in two decades.

Hilarious, spooktacular musical BEETLEJUICE now playing at the Saenger Theatre

It has been an honor to serve the schools, students, and educators of New Orleans for the past two and a half years. I am incredibly proud of what we have accomplished together. As I transition from this role, I am confident that NOLA Public Schools will continue to build on this legacy of dedication and innovation. NOLA-PS Superintendent Dr. Avis Williams

Stay up to date with the latest news, weather and sports by downloading the WGNO app on the Apple or Google Play stores and by subscribing to the WGNO newsletter.

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DES MOINES, Iowa  Pharmacists across Iowa continue to voice concern over more pharmacy closures in the state and country, but pharmacy students say they have other job options within the industry.

Dr. Michael Andreski is a professor of pharmacy at Drake University who plays a significant role in the research into pharmacy closures in Iowa. According to him, since 2008, the net number of pharmacies in rural areas is down close to 24% and the net number of pharmacies in urban areas is down 11%.

Were seeing it all across the state. Its having an effect in all areas, said Andreski.

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The Iowa Pharmacy Association previously told WHO 13 News that the leading cause for pharmacy closure is corruption within Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), or the so-called middlemen between pharmacies and insurance companies. PBMs determine the total drug costs for insurers, shape patients access to medications, and determine how much pharmacies are paid. Pharmacies across Iowa also told WHO 13 that theyre not making profits for many of the prescription drugs they distribute to patients, as a result of PBM practices.

West side neighborhood battles developer over large complex in small space

Therefore, many independent and chain pharmacies have closed across the country, and many pharmacists have lost their jobs. Just last month, Walgreens announced they were closing 1,200 stores over the next three years. This mass pharmacy closure is creating pharmacy deserts, or areas without access to pharmacies.

According to Andreski, there is a standard for how far pharmacies should be from patients to ensure adequate access to healthcare. In rural areas, they should be located within 10 miles of a patient. In suburban areas, like Waukee and West Des Moines, they should be located within three miles of a patient. In urban areas, like Des Moines, they should be located within a mile of a patient.

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Despite these closures, pharmacy students at Drake University are not concerned as they get ready to enter the workforce because there are different types of pharmacies.

The most common type is community pharmacy, where the pharmacists work in stores and provide prescription medication to community members inside local independent or chain pharmacies. While the demand for this specific job is decreasing because of pharmacy closures, other areas of pharmacy are seeing a greater demand for pharmacists.

Ana Braun is a fourth-year pharmacy student at Drake who plans to enter clinical pharmacy after graduation. She hopes to complete two years of residency and later help create treatment plans for cancer patients in the future.

The side of community pharmacy, it is getting smaller. Pharmacies are closing, but, theres more and more demand for pharmacists in the more clinical setting. Were becoming part of every specialty area within health clinics, in oncology, in Amcare, in cardiology. Pharmacists are taking a lot bigger role in those clinical practice areas. So, Im really excited about a career where were able to actually expand our knowledge and keep being part of the whole healthcare team, she said.

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Increased pharmacy closures arent entirely impacting the job market within the industry as there is still demand for pharmacists outside of community pharmacy. As a result, the main people who continue to be impacted by pharmacy closures are patients who are losing access to their local independent and chain pharmacies.

Andreski encourages people to reach out to their local legislators to voice concern over pharmacy closures in their communities in hopes of legislation being introduced during this upcoming session that can mitigate more closures.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) shakes hands with visiting Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Ankara, Turkiye, on Nov. 14, 2024. Turkiye and Qatar signed on Thursday eight agreements to deepen bilateral cooperation. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua)

ANKARA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkiye and Qatar signed on Thursday eight agreements to deepen bilateral cooperation.

The signing ceremony was held in the Turkish capital and attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and visiting Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who arrived earlier here on Thursday for high-level meetings.

The agreements cover cooperation in areas including trade, defense, humanitarian aid, document and archive management, media and communication, youth and sports, and road transport.

The two leaders also co-chaired a meeting of the Turkiye-Qatar High Strategic Committee.

Turkiye and Qatar have strengthened their military and economic cooperation, particularly since 2017, when regional countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain severed diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) welcomes visiting Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Ankara, Turkiye, on Nov. 14, 2024. Turkiye and Qatar signed on Thursday eight agreements to deepen bilateral cooperation. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R, Front) and visiting Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani (L, Front) attend a signing ceremony in Ankara, Turkiye, on Nov. 14, 2024. Turkiye and Qatar signed on Thursday eight agreements to deepen bilateral cooperation. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua)
WESTERN N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS)  A roundup of tests on areas affected by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina shows lingering bacterial contamination.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said over 1,400 tests across 13 counties found that around a third showed some form of coliform bacteria contamination, with some of the bacteria being E. coli, which can cause severe stomach issues.

The French Broad Riverkeeper program also conducted its own testing on the watershed. Nearly half the tests conducted by that program showed some form of bacterial contamination.

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The Riverkeeper program, which is run through Asheville-based nonprofit MountainTrue, noted the after-effects of Helene have made a considerable impact on water quality which will take some time to clear.

FEMA offering rental assistance for NC renters, homeowners impacted by Helene

Meanwhile, state health officials are noting that contaminated water wells will also likely be an issue for the foreseeable future, considering the remoteness of some of the individual water wells.

I think theres people who are in very different situations, noted North Carolina state epidemiologist Dr. Zack Moore. And some of them have not been able to get back in their homes or maybe just starting to get around to (it) some cases, literally digging out or figuratively digging out, and starting to get to a point where theyre ready to try to make their wells operational again.

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Dr. Moore noted the concerns over contaminated water, other than E. coli, can include Legionnaires Disease, among other health issues.

The contaminated water may also include gas that leaked out from underground storage tanks, along with other raw sewage, among many various other chemicals, bacteria and other items.

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A massive brush fire exacerbated by the citys ongoing drought destroyed about 4 acres of Manhattans Inwood Hill Park, FDNY officials said Thursday.

The raging blaze, which began at about 3 p.m. Wednesday, tore its way through about 4 acres of parkland near W. 218th St. as upper Manhattan was covered in thick gray smoke for most of the day.

Responding firefighters fought the blaze through the night, lugging hose lines from the nearby Harlem River.

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We had many challenges due to the terrain and elevation and water issues, FDNY Chief of Operations Kevin Woods said at a press conference Wednesday evening.

There arent any fire hydrants in the forest, so we had to draft water from the Harlem River and stretch hose lines 150 feet or more up a hill to put out the blaze.

Multiple trees collapsed around firefighters as they fought the brush fire, Woods said.

It was very treacherous conditions for our firefighters, added FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker, who is calling on residents to be mindful of of sparking brush fires as the drought continues. There was very significant forestry and very significant grade hill.

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The FDNY flew drones above the treetops to map out how far the fire had spread and to identify hot spots, Tucker said.

The blaze was finally snuffed out around 12:30 a.m. but re-ignited in the park around 2 a.m. closer to the Henry Hudson Parkway.

Firefighters again scrambled to put out the blaze as it threatened an MTA Bridges and Tunnel facility near the Henry Hudson Bridge, FDNY officials said.

The blaze was put out by Thursday morning, but the FDNY still had a fire line in operation where units look for flareups and hot spots.

More than 140 firefighters and EMS personnel responded to the blaze, with no injuries reported.

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NYC Parks & Recreation Manhattan Borough Commissioner Tricia Shimamura called Inwood Hill Park one of our most sacred forests where descendants of the Lenape Indigenous tribe visit each year to plant beach plums.

This is a very sacred place, a very treasured park, she said.

The FDNY battled a smaller brush fire in Queens Wednesday night officials said.

Over the past two weeks, the ongoing dry weather has sparked a record 215 brush fires, FDNY officials said.

The number of brush fires this year was significantly higher than in previous years, FDNY officials said, noting that, over the past three years, firefighters usually battle about 200 brush fires during the entire month of October. This year the city has seen more brush fires in half the time, in the period from Oct. 29 to this past Tuesday.
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (DC News Now)  The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) implemented a statewide burn ban on Nov. 1 after dry conditions led to more wildfires than usual.

Chris Robertson is the state fire supervisor for the Maryland Forest Service. He said its been a long time since the state experienced a significant drought like this.

We havent seen these conditions in probably 20 years as far as low fuel moistures and drought indices right now, Robertson said.

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As a result, Robertson said theres been a drastic increase in wildfires.

Since October 1st, were looking at three times the amount of fires that we normally have. As of yesterday, I think our running total is 51 fires for just a little over 100 acres, he said.

WMATA: October ranked busiest month on Metrobus in 10 years

Some in Montgomery County are concerned about the conditions and possible danger.

As you can see its very dry out here, and if people are outside, hanging out, spark a cigarette, have a lighter, anything, it can lead to a fire, said Talia Soorenko.

Robertson said he and others keep an eye on indicators each day that help them predict where the greatest risk for fires will be.

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Any time fires get started right now, theyre more resistant to control. Theyre harder for our folks to get those under control, and theyre taking longer periods of time to get them contained and get them in what we call the mop up phase,' he said.

In the event of a fire, the Maryland Forest Service coordinates with local fire departments to get it out as soon as possible.

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Weeks on end without any rain, higher-than-normal temperatures and loads of dry fuels littering the ground have set the stage for red-flag fire risk warnings.

Its not a familiar fall forecast in the Northeast U.S., but drought conditions and human-caused ignitions have sparked unusual fire activity.

Wildfires in New York, New Jersey and nearby states, along with wind-fed burns in California concerns scientists and wildland managers across the nation.

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Were used to long dry stretches out here in the Southwest due to our seasonality and precipitation, said Michael Crimmins, a climatologist at the University of Arizona.

But when it doesnt rain in the eastern part of the country thats used to getting rain every couple of days, you can quickly slip into drought conditions."

A string of wildfires has ignited across the Northeast, from a small burn in Prospect Park in Brooklyn to the 5,000-acre Jennings Creek fire along the New York-New Jersey border, a fire that killed an 18-year-old park ranger.

On the other side of the country, the Mountain Fire in Ventura County, California, destroyed almost 250 structures and scorched over 20,000 acres this week.

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After a record-breaking fall with extreme heat and drought conditions, fire risk persists beyond the traditional peaks in wildfire season.

Heres whats fueling fall fires, what the current fire risk is in Arizona and how climate change factors into a longer fire season:

What is fueling fall fires?

Summer heat and dry spells continued well into the fall for much of the U.S. this year, setting the stage for late-season fire activity on both coasts.

October was one of the driest Octobers for the continental U.S. on record, and on top of that was the heat, Crimmins said. The heat gripped much of the country through that period.

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With dry conditions and above-average temperatures, Crimmins said evapotranspiration  when water transfers from plants and the soil into the atmosphere  increases and dries out the land.

Officials have issued red-flag fire warnings from New Jersey through Massachusetts, following weeks with minimal rain in the Northeast.

Connecticut has reported over 80 brush fires and is under a Stage 2 drought advisory. Massachusetts saw a 1,200% increase in fire activity in October, reporting over 200 wildland fires compared to the 15-fire average.

The Jennings Creek Fire in New York and New Jersey has not been contained, and officials worry strong winds could expand the blaze.

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While fall can bring cooler temperatures, it can also summon more fuels: leaves.

The leaves had all fallen off the trees, and they dropped a bunch of fuel on the ground, Crimmins said. I saw some pictures of firefighters using leaf blowers as part of their firefighting tools, blowing leaves to clear firebreaks because thats whats carrying stuff on the ground.

Wildfires arent unheard of in the Northeast, but this fall has seen a sharp increase in fires alongside rapid growth.

Fires in California are more common, but activity at this time of the year is always a cause for concern due to the Santa Ana winds, a seasonal wind pattern that occurs most in the fall, bringing extremely strong and dry downslope winds and lower relative humidity through Southern California. The winds pick up from the desert and travel toward the coast.

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Any human ignition that happens in front of that wind, its going to carry into those large destructive fires that happen in Southern California, Crimmins said. Like us, Southern California had a really wet winter, and it grows all sorts of stuff thats ready to burn.

Southern Californias wildfire season continues later into the year than other parts of the country largely due to the winds that can turn sparks into an inferno.

Whats the fire risk in Arizona?

Fire activity in the Southwest typically peaks in April, May and June, but for fire activity to decline, the region relies on moisture from monsoon precipitation. This year's monsoon was sporadic and the seventh-driest on record.

Everything is moisture, said Andrew Mandell, a fire staff officer for the Tonto National Forest, citing dry conditions on the forest. We did get a little bit and we have some possible moisture in the near forecast.

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As snow begins to blanket Arizonas high country, theres still fire risk at the lower elevations.

Mandell said this was an extremely busy fire season for the forest, with 195 fires burning 130,000 acres. While the fire risk has declined, they are still possible on the Tonto. The Tonto forest covers lower elevation wildlands, where snow is rare.

We continue to get fires, we had an 80-acre fire (Tuesday) on the Mesa Ranger District, he said. Theyre not getting out of control, but we are still seeing fires getting a little bit of size into November, which is becoming more common with a longer fire season that we see on the Tonto.

Extreme-risk fire restrictions did not come off all of the Tonto National Forest until early September, and fire crews had a late start to prescribed burn operations due to inadequate conditions.

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They began prescribed burn operations this week in the Globe Ranger District.

But as risk declines, that doesnt mean fires wont spark.

Whether were in fire restrictions or not, we certainly want everybody to enjoy public lands responsibly, Mandell said. Just be mindful and responsible with fire in recreational activities, because we certainly dont want unwanted fire out on the landscape.

How does climate change factor in?

While wildfires are a natural phenomenon that can benefit ecosystems in moderation, scientists are concerned about lengthening fire seasons and large-scale fires. They believe climate change plays a role in worsening fires.

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Climate change is part of everything but its not the primary cause of any one thing, Crimmins said. Its kind of like the background condition.

Its still unclear how a warming atmosphere affects individual weather events like the Santa Ana winds or fall precipitation, but scientists know higher temperatures dry out vegetation more quickly, creating dangerous fuels.

This year is shaping up to be the hottest on record, and with much of the country experiencing drought conditions, the fire season continues to lengthen.

We have seen fire seasons extend over time, from the beginning of my career  and I think Im 30 years into this now  theyre definitely longer than they used to be, Mandell said.

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Fire activity in the Northeast is something scientists and fire crews should pay attention to, according to Crimmins.

Its a weird convergence of stuff, and while its not unprecedented, its just so unusual to have long dry stretches on top of the temperatures increasing. It just raises the fire risk, Crimmins said. Its weird, and we have to pay attention to this stuff.

Hayleigh Evans writes about extreme weather and related topics for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Email her with story tips at hayleigh.evans@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Dry fall fuels wildfires coast to coast, raising concerns in Arizona
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) criticized President-elect Trumps nomination of Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary, after he called for women to not serve in combat roles.

Where do you think I lost my legs? Duckworth told CNNs Kaitlan Collins in an interview Wednesday.

Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran and Purple Heart recipient, was among some of the first women to fly combat missions as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot. Her helicopter was hit by a grenade in 2004, and she lost both legs and some mobility in her right arm.

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Hegseth, who Trump tapped Tuesday to lead his Department of Defense, is also an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he now serves as co-host of Fox Newss Fox & Friends Weekend.

He has called for the firing of other generals involved in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and said women should not serve in combat roles.

Look, hes not qualified to serve as Secretary of Defense, and obviously, hes made these comments about how he doesnt think women should be in combat and that he wants to be able to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Duckworth said in Wednesdays interview, highlighted by Mediaite. I ask him, how does that strengthen our nations military?

We cant go to war today without our women military members, she said, noting there are more than 225,000 active-duty women serving in the military right now.

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Trump is forging ahead with his dramatic shake-up of the military, even as concerns grow over what Hegseth will bring to the administration. His proposals for the Pentagon include promises to slash spending, thin top ranks and roll back efforts to make the military more inclusive to transgender and women soldiers.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, urged the House Ethics Committee to preserve and share its report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz after President-elect Trump tapped the Florida Republican to serve as attorney general.

After Trump announced the surprising nomination Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced Gaetz had resigned effective immediately, essentially killing the probe, which was investigating whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other allegations.

Durbin called on the Ethics Committee to share the report with his Senate Judiciary Committee in a statement Thursday.

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The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetzs resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report. We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people, the statement read.

Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetzs confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States and our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent, he continued.

In a thread of posts on the social platform X, Durbin emphasized his statement.

Until Trumps announcement and Gaetzs subsequent resignation disrupted the plans, the Ethics Committee was set to meet Friday to vote on whether to release the report, a source told The Hill. Punchbowl News first reported the meeting.

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The source said the committee was supposed to meet during the last week of July to vote on releasing Gaetzs report. If the vote cleared, the panel would have published the report after the congressmans August primary and before his November general election  abiding by the panels election blackout rules. But the House left for recess early in July, interrupting the vote, the source said.

Although the investigation ended because of Gaetzs departure from Congress, the panel could still vote to release the report, in what would be a rare move.

Trumps pick of Gaetz as attorney general sent shockwaves throughout Washington; a source in the room where House Republicans were waiting to start leadership elections at the time said there were audible gasps when Trump made the announcement.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN)  Attorney General Josh Stein obtained a preliminary injunction against a Durham business owner accused of price gouging Hurricane Helene victims.

A lawsuit filed against Lorenzo Lorin Huggins, Sr. claimed his businesses including Huggins & Sons Yard Service and Lorenzo & Son Landscaping, price gouged North Carolinians for tree removal services in the aftermath of Helene.

Taking advantage of western North Carolinians in the aftermath of tragedy is wrong, said Attorney General Josh Stein. Thats why I took action to put a stop to this company, which I alleged engaged in deception. I am pleased the court ordered the company to stop its practices while this lawsuit continues.

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Stein alleges that a Hendersonville couple found Huggins on HomeAdvisor.com after two trees fell on their roof during Hurricane Helene. They spoke to Huggins, who agreed to travel to Hendersonville and remove the trees. Upon his arrival, Huggins told the couple they had to pay $25,500 upfront.

The couple was worried the trees would cause their roof to cave in, so they paid with a credit card for the tree removal. Steins lawsuit claims Huggins charged that exorbitant price even though he only brought three men, three chainsaws, and a leaf blower to do the work. Instead of removing the trees and the tree debris from the home and yard, the lawsuit claims the defendants workers dropped tree limbs and debris through the hole in the roof and into the house and caused a tree to drop on and damage a retaining wall.

Stein said Huggins businesses didnt complete the tree removal and cleanup work, which meant the couple had to hire and pay additional contractors to remove a tree trunk and other debris.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Nov. 13The state department that oversees child care and well-being in New Mexico wants to have more discretion to deny background clearances to people with certain misdemeanor convictions.

On Wednesday, a lawyer for the Early Childhood Education and Care Department unveiled a draft bill for the coming legislative session to exempt the agency from the Criminal Offender Employment Act, which in 2021 was amended to loosen restrictions on candidates with criminal records seeking jobs with the state.

"Our concern is now that misdemeanors such as enticement of a child, stalking, battery of a household member and others cannot be used to deny background clearances for child care providers and certain caregivers," department general counsel Shelley Strong told the Legislature's Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee. "So what we're asking is for background clearances for those who are caring for these important populations to not be subject to those limitations."

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Strong asked for the committee's endorsement. Although some lawmakers voiced support for the idea during the brief presentation in the Roundhouse's Senate chamber, not enough members were present at the meeting for a vote.

The 2021 amendment loosened restrictions on public employment, eliminating a clause that would have disqualified job candidates who had not been rehabilitated after being convicted of felony or misdemeanor charges unrelated to their field but involving "moral turpitude." The act still disqualifies anyone who has prior convictions of charges including homicide, kidnapping, human trafficking, criminal and child abuse from working at or getting a license to operate a child care facility.

Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, D-Albuquerque, said she would support the bill, adding it's an idea she would like to see expanded to other agencies such as the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department.

"This was definitely an unintended consequence, because misdemeanor aggravated battery against a household member should be something that should be considered when you are hiring somebody who's going to work with clients who are victims of domestic violence or sexual assault," she said, apparently referring to CYFD. "It's a very important concern, and I'm really happy you brought it up, but it's also a broader concern."

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If its proposal is approved, the early childhood department would join law enforcement agencies in being exempt from the Criminal Offender Employment Act, specifically for "applicants for licensure, registration or employment at a child care facility." The draft bill would also exempt an agency considering applicants for caregiver and hospital caregiver jobs.

Strong noted CYFD has expressed interest in joining in on the proposal later or proposing its own exemption.

CYFD also recently approved a rule change loosening requirements for people with prior misdemeanor convictions, allowing them to be considered for jobs with organizations that care for children through department contracts. Agency spokesperson Jessica Preston said in an email the rule will take effect Nov. 20.

Rep. Gail Chasey, D-Albuquerque, seemed to have some pause over the proposal, wondering if the agency would allow a person to be considered for a job if they made sincere efforts toward rehabilitation.

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Storm told her there are still "rehabilitation petition" and appeal processes in place for candidates.

"We definitely look at specific circumstances and rehabilitation, and want to make sure that those people who should be approved are," she said.

Esteban Candelaria is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. He covers child welfare and the state Children, Youth and Families Department. Learn more about Report for America at reportforamerica.org.
Nov. 13POLK COUNTY, Minn.  An East Grand Forks man waived his Tuesday, Nov. 12, omnibus hearing,

pleading not guilty to two felony counts

of second-degree sale of a controlled substance in a prohibited zone.

Richard Franklin Jackson, 54, faces up to 25 years, though Minnesota sentencing guidelines recommend between four and nine years, depending on the defendant's criminal history.

Court documents allege that Jackson possessed 14 10mg oxycodone pills and a pipe with methamphetamine residue on it at his East Grand Forks residence which, because it's located within one block of two local schools,

makes the alleged crimes eligible for enhanced penalties.

Jackson's next hearing, a pre-trial, is scheduled for 9 a.m. Jan. 14.
BRATISLAVA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico met with his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk Thursday in Tatranska Javorina on the Slovak-Polish border and the two leaders exchanged views on the most pressing issues in bilateral relations, with a particular focus on the development of transport infrastructure, according to a statement of the Slovak Government Office.

During their three-hour meeting, the two leaders also discussed the upcoming Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union, said the satement, quoted by News Agency of the Slovak Republic.

Their talks also touched upon the latest developments in Ukraine, particularly in light of the recent U.S. presidential election results. 
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders greets people at an Amazon Labor Union rally on April 24, 2022, in New York City. Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, traveled to Staten Island to meet with workers who successfully organized the first union at an Amazon facility in the United States. (David Dee Delgado | Getty Images)

In previous election cycles, I was fortunate to sit down for long conversations with candidates for a range of offices, from local New Hampshire school boards to president of the United States. There were true public servants among them, who I know genuinely believed in their ability to change things for the better. They would offer these bold ideas that were much more likely to have been sketched out at a kitchen table than at the feet of party leaders  passion rendered as action. Sometimes those visions lacked refinement, but they were rarely wanting for humanity.

But there were plenty of other candidates, especially in up-ballot races, who possessed a troubling trait: They seemed to care about the idea of people more than people themselves.

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Im not sure whether that was part of the problem for some Democrats nationally this time around  Ill leave that for the analysts who make a living dissecting all manner of political victories and defeats. But a campaign based on service to the idea of people cannot ever be anything other than inauthentic.

And theres an electoral and policy price to be paid.

For example, there are things  disconnections  I find endlessly frustrating about politics in New Hampshire. I think it stinks that we cant have a broader conversation about revenue during election season when so many folks are crushed under the weight of property taxes. But candidates on the right have established a winning strategy: They plug their ears and mindlessly repeat the phrase New Hampshire Advantage or, of late, Dont Mass Up New Hampshire. They talk about the trickling down of immense corporate and individual wealth like Linus spreading word about The Great Pumpkin, and in the end were all Sally, bereft and disillusioned in the patch. Meanwhile, our broken school funding system  the other side of the property-tax coin  should be a perennial top campaign issue for both parties, but somehow it always gets pushed down toward the bottom of to-do lists for too many officeholders and office-seekers.

Above all, its troubling that elections seem to be won and lost not so much by the boldness and efficacy of new ideas but how effectively the opposing party is prosecuted.

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There are true people politicians who break through occasionally  Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez come to mind. They are more than artful messengers of a brand of progressivism that is perpetually disregarded; their policy prescriptions reliably reflect real need  real people troubles  and are issued with an urgency rooted in humanity. They are authentic populists, whereas the Donald Trump crowd are variably skilled opportunists playing at populism but delivering only  and only nominally  for a disgruntled, fearful base.

Although the people politicians are routinely dismissed by the center and right, their voices are critical  and maybe now more than ever  to the national conversation. Policy must be moved away from the idea of people and toward the people themselves  the prioritization of economic fairness, investment in public education, equitable access to health care, and committed environmental stewardship.

And it is happening in pockets. For all of my political frustrations, there are efforts here that I find truly inspiring. The community and legislative movement to address PFAS in New Hampshire  the dangerous forever chemicals  is one of them. So is the organizing around the proposed landfill in Dalton  and the growing conversation taking place about waste in general in New Hampshire. For every New Hampshire lawmaker dawdling over social media-driven conspiracy theories, there are others working to creatively address our child care problem, our mental health care problem, our housing problem.

We need more of them. Exploiting peoples troubles and fears is, unfortunately, a great way to get elected to public office, but its a useless skill for actual public service.

In the months to come, I urge you to take note of the one-trick ponies who are not interested in actually fixing anything, and they are easy enough to spot. Theyre the ones who will still be loudly campaigning against their political foes when they should be quietly and diligently working to help the people  all of them.
Eric Hovde has every right to consider asking for a recount in his hard fought U.S. Senate campaign against incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin. What the Republican businessman doesn't have a right to do is make false claims about "irregularities" in the election process.

With 99% of Wisconsin's votes counted, some 28,958 votes separate the two with Baldwin leading Hovde 49.4% to 48.5%. When the final votes are counted and the results are certified, if Hovde loses by 1 percentage point or less, he can request a recount. No questions asked, and rightfully so.

Anyone who followed the campaign can appreciate the pain and disappointment he feels. The Associated Press, Fox News and NBC News called the race in favor of Baldwin the day after the Nov. 5 election. The Democrat delivered a victory speech on Nov. 7.

Hovde makes false claims of 2024 election irregularities

Hovde hasn't conceded the race, and that's his right until the last vote is counted and certified by the state. However, his comments in a video posted Tuesday on the social media platform X are disingenuous and dangerous. Here's why:

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He opened the video by saying he has been quiet since the election because he believes its better to not comment until he has the facts, but then he proceeded to present false information. For instance, he claimed 90% of Milwaukee's absentee ballot votes went to Baldwin. In fact, the number is 82% and consistent with other margins between the two in the race in the city. If Hovde has evidence of irregularities, he should present that, not easily refutable claims.

Many people have reached out to me with concerns about the voting inconsistencies we experienced on Election Day. Here are my thoughts: pic.twitter.com/zDvaeHaizw  Eric Hovde (@EricHovde) November 12, 2024

Similarly, his statements about voting "inconsistencies" in "certain Milwaukee voting precincts" reflect thinly veiled prejudices about who should be allowed to exercise their Constitutional right to vote. Again he presented no evidence that any same day voter registrations he cites as unusually large were improper. Many people in Wisconsin stood in line on a rainy day to exercise their civic duty. Why are voters in its largest and most diverse city being singled out?

Hovde actually answers that question later in the video when he criticizes Milwaukee for delivering final results early Wednesday morning, instead of late Tuesday night. Election officials repeatedly warned that the counting of absentee ballots would slow the reporting of results due to a state law that mandates that election workers cannot start counting until 7 a.m. on Election Day. Their decision to reprocess 30,000 absentee ballots further delayed results.

This was a secret to no one. Wisconsin's senior U.S. Senator and its GOP Party chairman held a news conference outside Milwaukee's central count facility after officials announced the absentee ballots would be reprocessed and likely delay the reporting of final results for one to three hours.

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Moreover, a bipartisan law to allow clerks to start counting absentee ballots the day before the election died in the Wisconsin state Senate last session. Why did Republicans in the Senate kill that bill? Apparently so that candidates like Hovde could continue to make bogus claims about Milwaukee vote drops when they fall short. Donald Trump made the same false claim when he lost in 2020. A recount confirmed that fact, but that did not stop the falsehoods from spreading. (Trump has been silent in 2024, perhaps because he won the election.)

As a result of those repeated lies, a significant portion of the public is concerned about the integrity of elections. This is not because of widespread fraud or failures in the system, but because of a pattern of false claims like the ones Hovde made in his video. The comments on his social media post illustrate how quickly and widely such corrosive lies spread.

Republicans who won Wisconsin races haven't made similar claims

In the 5-minute video, Hovde identified the most likely reason for his loss: third-party candidates, one with support from Democrats, who siphoned away votes that would have reasonably gone to his campaign. And across the country, notably Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada, there were similar splits at the top with voters selecting Trump and Democrats for the U.S. Senate.

Editorial: You can be confident in Wisconsin election results. We have the proof.

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Election Day in Wisconsin was largely orderly and efficient. There were some hiccups but no enterprise of that scale can be entirely error free. Republicans who prevailed Nov. 5 haven't made similar claims about the validity of their own elections.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board will continue to seek out facts and information about voting integrity in Wisconsin and speak out against bogus claims. If the certified tally in the U.S. Senate race is within 1 percent, Eric Hovde can seek a recount. It's his right to do so, but he's wrong to spread falsehoods that undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.

Editorials are a product of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board, which operates independently from the news department. Email: jsedit@jrn.com. Why we write editorials. Meet the editorial board.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Editorial: Hovde has right to recount WI Senate race, not spread lies
The implacable logic of retribution will prove as appalling as the crime itself, observes the loyal-to-a-fault Macduff in William Shakespeares Macbeth, consisting of the souls slow agonizing descent.

Thats why philosophers and preachers have argued against seeking retribution since time immemorial. Judeo-Christian thinkers have tended to advocate instead for mercy and fairness.

Which brings us to Donald Trumps appalling choice of Matt Gaetz to lead the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Trump just won an election in which he did not hide his plans. He is entitled to choose his own team for his nascent administration and weve no intention of joining the Democratic handwringing over every appointment before they have had a chance to do anything whatsoever.

Elections do indeed have consequences. Its fair to say that while hiring Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to run a new Department of Government Efficiency might seem like a joke to writers at publications like Vox, and may even turn out to be so, theres no doubt that draining the so-called swamp will please most Trump voters and, therefore, a majority of voting Americans.

But Gaetz as attorney general of the United States? Running what is, inarguably, the most dangerous and powerful part of the executive branch? As nominated a few days ahead of the expected release of a report by the House Ethics Committee into his own conduct involving money, drugs and sex? That cannot hold, and he must not be confirmed.

Gaetz, of course, has claimed that the bipartisan panel had gone after him as a retributive act for his daring to question the Republican leadership in the House. But the truth is that Trumps choice of this (now former) Florida congressman is the mother of all retributive picks  payback for the Department of Justice under the current administration pursuing Trumps own crimes and misdemeanors in a way that the president-elect found enraging.

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Trump said that his choice was meant to clean up corruption at the DOJ. But the evidence suggests that Gaetz, once confirmed, is far more likely to pursue vengeful acts of his own. After all, the DOJ has been investigating him as well as going after his boss. Thats a two-headed hydra of conflict of interest.

Even if you think, like Trump and Gaetz, that these investigations have been politically motivated, the worst thing a president-elect can do in response is strike back using someone with an axe to grind and no record of moral compunction when it comes to throwing it, once sharpened, at the head of his enemies.

The idea of the DOJ being held in the clutches of revenge served cold is too painful to consider, given how much ordinary Americans need that department to stand for fairness, equality under the law, the rule of law and, yes, where merited, for mercy.

Senate Republicans must nix Gaetz. Otherwise, that slow, agonizing descent is all but assured.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
Los Angeles County got a gift from voters: They passed Measure A, a half-cent-per-dollar sales tax that will provide a billion dollars a year for services and housing for homeless people.

Providing the help that homeless people need is a difficult, long and expensive task, and residents clearly still believe in that mission. But they will probably expect measurable progress in the near future, especially given that this is the second tax measure county voters have passed for the purpose. The first was 2017's Measure H, a quarter-cent sales tax now repealed and replaced by Measure A, which will generate twice the funds.

Its imperative that L.A. city and county officials and civic leaders use that money efficiently and transparently to get people the help and housing they need. Voters tend to measure the results of homelessness programs by what they see on the sidewalk.

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Read more: Endorsement: Yes on Measure A. The county sales tax hike is essential to ease homelessness

The latest homeless count did show some long-awaited progress: The number of unsheltered homeless people  those who live outside instead of in a shelter or other temporary housing  dropped 5% in the county and 10% in the city. But there are still 75,000 unhoused people in Los Angeles County, about 45,000 of them in the city of L.A.

Now the county has its best chance yet to house them in significant numbers and dramatically reduce the prevalence of encampments.

One of Measure A's goals is to prevent homelessness, and it allocates more funding to that cause than Measure H did. Its crucial that the flow of people into homelessness stop. Otherwise the county's efforts to get people off the street won't make a noticeable difference to much of the public or come close to solving the problem.

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Read more: Opinion: I've covered California's homeless since before the word was used. This is what I learned

The county made 27,000 permanent housing placements in 2023 (a figure that represents multiple placements for some people), but the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority estimates that an astonishing 50,000 people fell into homelessness in each of the last two fiscal years. The county's total homeless population as of January, including sheltered and unsheltered people, was essentially unchanged from the year before, about 75,000.

Part of the challenge of preventing homelessness is just finding people who are at risk of becoming homeless. They dont all show up at a social services agency asking for help. Janey Rountree, the executive director of UCLA's California Policy Lab and an advisor on the measure, has tried to address that problem by developing a data-driven strategy to identify people at risk of becoming homeless.

Measure A also funds eviction defense, which can help more people win or settle cases and stay housed. It may also help more people avoid having an eviction on their record, which can make it difficult to secure new housing.

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Another goal of Measure A is to reduce the number of people on the street suffering from severe mental illness, which according to the latest census afflicts more than 15,000 of the county's homeless people. These people need immediate help in a county that is notoriously short on all levels of psychiatric treatment, from short-term to long-term. And even housing with supportive services won't be sufficient for them until they get treatment.

Providing this kind of care is complicated by the shortage of behavioral treatment professionals. On top of that, the county and state fight over paying for it.

Measure A cant solve all those problems, but it is expected to generate $1 billion a year, for goodness' sake. Some of it should be spent to provide a lot of these desperately needed beds.

Of course, supportive housing  and just more housing writ large  is the ultimate solution to homelessness. The problem has always been building it fast enough and at the necessary scale.

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Officials can do more on that score with Measure A money. They should look to more long-term master leasing of apartment buildings and hotels for supportive housing. And they should finance more than the typical 30% to 50% of affordable and supportive projects, which tends to leave developers spending years cobbling together the rest of the financing from other sources.

All this work is certainly challenging. But Los Angeles now has a substantial infusion of continuing, dedicated funding to make a dent in homelessness. Doing so is a pragmatic as well as a moral necessity lest the voters' patience and generosity run out.

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.
The bitter 1800 presidential election tested the democratic structure of the United States just a few years after the revolution that had created the young nation.

The sitting vice president, Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr ran on the Democratic- Republican Party ticket against the Federalist Partys incumbent President John Adams and running mate Charles Pinckney.

As every new law and court ruling set a precedent about the direction the fledgling nation was taking, and as disagreements over that direction grew, each side suspected that its opponents were betraying the legacy of the American Revolution. (We are in the wilderness without a single footstep to guide us, James Madison had written to Jefferson a few years earlier.)

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Adams, whose Federalists favored closer ties with Great Britain, was accused of backing a return to monarchy. Jefferson was accused of plotting to destroy the Constitution.

Democratic-Republican journalists were jailed under the Federalist-passed Sedition Act of 1798 that criminalized false or malicious statements about the federal government.

There was talk of civil war.

Back then, each Electoral College member cast two votes  with no distinction between votes for president and vice president. The candidate that got the most electoral votes was the president, and the one with the second-most was elected vice president.

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That caused a problem when Jefferson and Burr both defeated Adams, but wound up tied for first place, with 73 electoral votes each.

The election thus was thrown to a deadlocked House of Representatives, where the Federalists worked to keep Jefferson out of the presidency by supporting Burr  who himself was accused of campaigning for the job despite his running mates spot at the top of the ticket. Days passed without a decision, but Alexander Hamilton eventually swayed a few of his fellow Federalists to support Jefferson over the dangerous Burr on the 36th ballot. (Burr killed Hamilton in a duel a few years later.)

Jefferson thus became president. Recognizing that he faced a tall task in healing a bitterly divided nation, he used his inaugural address in March 1801 to begin that work, arguing that the peaceful transfer of power from one party to another was critical and that divisions between Americans should not be allowed to threaten the nations fundamental unity.

The entire speech is worth reading, both as an example of elegant rhetoric and for Jeffersons succinct summary of the essential principles on which the U.S. was founded.

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But the following excerpt, while obviously colored by its context, remains particularly relevant more than two centuries later. It is a statement of the mindset that must prevail in any stable and functioning democracy.

During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, Jefferson said, the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.

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And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.

During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong, that this government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the worlds best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not.

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I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.

Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself.

Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
Five newly elected members of the Chicago Board of Education delivered a blunt message Tuesday to Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Yes, their letter was addressed to current members of the school board and Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, not the mayor. But it might as well have been hand-delivered to Johnson himself. The current school board members, appointed last month by Johnson after he accepted the previous boards resignation en masse, are there to take orders from the mayor.

The message to the mayor and his board (and were paraphrasing): Leave the question of whether Martinez will continue as schools CEO until we take our positions. And dont make any major financial changes for CPS, either, during this brief period before the new board takes charge in January.

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Four of the six winners who werent endorsed by CTU  Carlos Rivas (3rd), Ellen Rosenfeld (4th), Jessica Biggs (6th), and Angel Gutierrez (8th)  were signatories. Even one of the CTU-endorsed candidates, Jennifer Custer (1st), also signed the letter. The three other CTU-endorsed candidates who won didnt sign.

At this time, we hereby request that the current appointed board members do not take actions now that would alter the finances, staff, curriculum, short or long term strategic plan, external contracts or any other pertinent operation of CPS, the letter read.

Voters chose 10 new school board members Nov. 5. Johnson will get to appoint 11 next month, including the board president. Under state law, this hybrid arrangement will be in place until 2026, when voters will select all 21 board members.

While Johnson has the ability to maintain control over the direction of CPS for the next two years through his appointments, he would do well to listen to these newly elected folks. In the aggregate, Chicagoans just voted decidedly against the CTU/Johnson agenda for public schools.

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Nearly six in 10 of Chicagoans who voted in the school board elections chose a candidate not endorsed by CTU. In one of the 10 districts, the CTU-endorsed candidate was uncontested, so if you discount those votes the tally was even more lopsided  62% for non-CTU to 38% for CTU (and by proxy, Mayor Johnson).

With an approval rating that at last tally was 14%, Johnson already is one of the most unpopular mayors this city ever has seen.

Now, with the school board votes, we have yet more evidence that many voters have an acute case of buyers remorse with this mayor. This was an explicit referendum on Johnson and CTUs agenda for our public schools.

The verdict: Voters dont like it.

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They dont like that Johnson and the CTU, his former employer, are attached at the hip and that Johnson is doing everything in his power to grease the unions contract demands. They dont like that their property taxes keep rising to finance a bloated school system in which one of every three schools is half-empty or worse. They dont like that a union purportedly representing teachers has morphed into a municipal political machine.

And, if Johnsons current six-member board moves to fire Martinez and finance a new union contract with high-cost debt before the newly elected board members can have a say, were quite confident voters really wont like that. The current school board called a special meeting for Thursday, and while Martinezs fate isnt likely to be decided at that particular session, you never know. There is one other scheduled board meeting before the year ends, on Dec. 12. Martinezs fate is more likely to be determined then.

Either way, what is clear right now is that the mayor is barreling ahead on his desire to fire Martinez before the end of the year.

Johnson and fellow progressives talk a lot about how they think Donald Trump is a threat to the future of democratic rule. But its hard to take Johnson seriously when he ignores the will of the voters in his own city.

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What could be more anti-democratic than making massive, irreversible decisions regarding the future of Chicago Public Schools before the first-ever Chicago Board of Education elected (at least in part) directly by voters takes their seats?

Asked Tuesday about holding off on the CTU contract and Martinezs fate until the new board is seated, Johnson had this to say: If you have the power to do something today (and dont), I would find that reckless and irresponsible and reprehensible.

No, Mayor Johnson. What you seem bent on doing is reckless and irresponsible. If your current board held off on anything but routine business, wed be talking about a mere few months delay before the school board Chicagoans just voted for takes up your agenda items  and, even then, there will still be a majority of members favorably disposed to your way of thinking. What the public would get in that case is an honest, transparent debate about the wisdom, or lack thereof, of your fealty to CTU and what that portends for taxpayers and CPS families.

What its getting now makes a mockery of democracy in the city of Chicago.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
A sign in English and Spanish directs voters at Fields Road Elementary School in Gaithersburg on primary election day in 2022. A growing number of municipalities in Maryland are allowing noncitizens vote in local elections. Photo by Margie Hyslop.

The Prince Georges County town of Edmonston became the latest municipality to give noncitizens the right to vote in local elections Wednesday, joining a growing number of towns in the state that grant the right.

A divided town council also voted to restore voting rights in municipal elections for returning citizens, or those who were previously incarcerated. That charter change passed 3-2, with Mayor Tracy Gant casting the deciding vote, while the noncitizen ordinance passed 2-1 with one abstention.

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For Town Councilmember Kony Serrano-Portillo, winning local voting rights for noncitizens is personal.

A naturalized citizen who was born in El Salvador, Serrano-Portillo in 2023 became the first Latina elected to the Edmonston Town Council. Serrano-Portillo, who works as a political coordinator for the labor union, UNITE HERE, says she ran for office to expand rights among the towns 2,000 residents, 62% of whom are Latino, and 40% are foreign born, according to the 2020 Census.

Serrano-Portillo said she knocked on a lot of doors ahead of a July hearing on the issue and met many immigrant neighbors who had lived in Edmonston for years, owned homes, raised children and paid taxes, but never had a chance to vote for their elected town officials.

A lot of residents were excited about the opportunity, and would vote if given the chance, she said. While some residents at the July hearing expressed concern for public safety and foreign intervention, Serrano-Portillo said the vast majority that came out were for [the measure].

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Both of the measures passed Wednesday require residents to have lived in Edmonston for at least one year to vote.

People should have a say in [electing their] representatives, Serrano-Portillo said. Its about engaging people in the process of local government and ensuring that they feel heard, they feel seen, and they feel like they are part of the process.

Immigrants step up, testify for inclusion

Guatemalan Astrid Hernandez welcomed the news. She has lived with her husband and their two young children in Edmonston for over a year, on a four-year, nonimmigrant U visa, which can be granted to victims of certain crimes, allowing them to work. While she is uncertain about her future, she stepped up to testify in the July hearing, and says the new ordinance gives her hope.

Edmonston Town Council Members Sarah Tuberville, left, and Kony Serrano-Portillo. Photo courtesy Town of Edmonston.

It is a relief, maybe not completely, but we are starting somewhere and we are on the right track, she said. I believe regardless of whether we are immigrants or not, I think that all have the right to be taken into account.

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Edmonston joins the nearby Prince Georges County jurisdictions of Brentwood, Mount Rainier and Colmar Manor, which have implemented noncitizen voting in recent years.

Monica Casanas, born in Colombia, is Colmar Manors first Latina mayor. She said that since the policy has been in effect, shes seen greater voter turnout.

People who had never voted came out and voted, and that to me made me so happy because were able to enable and empower people in their community, people who had lived here for a very long time, she said. And, thats what elected officials want. We want to create community, and this is a very powerful tool in doing that.

Voting is not an American thing. Its a human rights thing Casanas said. Everyone should have the ability to have a say.

Some states block local voting by noncitizens

While municipalities in Maryland can allow noncitizen voting in local elections, the practice is banned in 15 states, including eight that approved measures at the polls this month to prohibit noncitizen voting in their state constitutions, according to Ballotpedia.

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Ironically, says Viviana Westbrook, state and local advocacy attorney at CLINIC  the Catholic Legal Immigration Network  the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which made it illegal to vote as a noncitizen in federal elections, Actually, it gives the right to determine whether you can vote at the state or local level, she said. This [act] authorizes voting, in language of the law, under a state constitution, statute, or local ordinance.

Sixteen jurisdictions in Maryland allow noncitizen voting, more than any other state.

Maryland is among 12 states, whose constitutions specifically allow its municipalities to grant the right to noncitizens. In the Washington metro region, the practice is not uncommon and growing. Takoma Park granted noncitizens local voting rights in 1985, and extended that right to 16-and 17-year-olds in 2013. In May, the Washington, D.C., Council approved a noncitizen voting policy for city elections.

Westbrook said she is encouraged by the news from Edmonston, which follows approval earlier this fall in Greenbelt and in Frederick, the largest municipality in the state to let noncitizens vote in local elections.

Now more than ever, we need to continue educating our communities and empowering those who are directly impacted to be able to tell their stories, she said. This is what truly helps build bridges and moves us toward a real inclusion of our immigrant neighbors.
Rapid City, S.D. (KELO)  President-Elect Donald Trump recently appointed South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security.

This is raising concern from the South Dakota Education Equity Coalition and other organizations.

Since the movement of the Indian Office of Education there has been a virtually nonexistent collaborative and consultative relationship happening between our nine tribal education directors and departments as well as with key leaders that represent Indigenous education in our largest urban centers, South Dakota Education Equity Coalition Executive Director Sarah White said.

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Changes that have happened in South Dakota during her time as governor, have some people wondering whether Governor Kristi Noem is the right person to oversee a federal cabinet.

Lennox council approves prison wastewater connection

Its really not about experience, its not about you know, a track record of national security, its about a narrative. Its a narrative appointment and that narrative is, you know, pushing Trumps narrative or racism and authoritarianism, NDN Collective Director of Community Engagement Murray Lee said.

These concerns stem from Governor Noems relationships with the Indigenous Nations here in South Dakota and all nine of the sovereign nations have banned her from their land this past year.

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Following President Bidens recent national apology, the people fighting for their history want action.

Theres a lot of things that have happened that cant be wiped away with a simple apology and there has to be action, there must be action for it to be taken seriously, Lee said.

Those active attempts at erasing our history, culture, language, thought and philosophy from our classroom spaces only further increases the divide of community that exists within our classrooms across South Dakota, White said.

The South Dakota Education Equity Coalition says it is committed to fostering diverse, equitable, and inclusive educational environments that honor the identities and needs of Indigenous youth.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com.
An prominent Egyptian rights group has said an asset freeze imposed eight years ago on its director has been lifted, the latest twist in a 13-year-old case seen as a symbol of Egypt's crackdown on civil society.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) said in a post on Wednesday evening that a judicial order had been issued lifting the asset freeze which was imposed on its executive director Hossam Bahgat.

In March, the court dropped the case against EIPR and other four Egyptian NGOs and ordered the lifting of a travel ban on several of their workers, due to lack of evidence.

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The asset freeze was imposed in 2016 as a "precautionary measure" in a case that began in 2011 against 85 local and foreign NGOs for accepting foreign funds without government authorization.

Three other EIPR workers remain subject to a travel ban and asset freeze in another case, EIPR said.

Critics and rights groups have repeatedly criticized President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi's regime for suppressing dissent and harassing critics.

Civil rights in Egypt have been restricted since 2013, when al-Sissi, then army chief, deposed Islamist president Mohammed Morsi following massive protests against the latter's rule.

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According to human rights activists, tens of thousands have been imprisoned for political reasons.

The government has promised improvements as part of a human rights strategy. In recent months, dozens of detained dissidents have been released. But foreign parliaments have accused the government of not being prepared to carry out genuine reforms.
EL PASO, Texas (KTSM)  El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser is set to leave office within the next two months, making way for a new mayor and city council.

As the transition approaches, questions surrounding border security and migration policies are at the forefront, particularly following President-elect Donald Trumps campaign promise to implement stricter border control measures.

In an interview with KTSM, Mayor Leeser shared his thoughts on the challenges the incoming leadership may face and offered advice on handling potential changes in immigration policy.

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Leeser, who has served as mayor for the past eight years, navigated numerous migrant surges during his tenure, under both the Trump and Biden administrations.

Leeser said it is important to maintain strong relationships at various levels of government.

We really have to work with the federal government and the state for support, because we dont implement federal laws  thats not for our local government to handle, Leeser said.

Its important that we maintain strong partnerships with Border Patrol and Customs. Theyve been great partners, and we need to continue building on that relationship, he added.

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Leeser noted that his priority during periods of increased migration was to keep migrants off the streets by providing shelter and meals.

This effort was made possible through collaboration with local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Border Patrol, and federal funding, Leeser said.

Regarding the citys strategy for addressing future surges, Leeser reflected on his hands-on approach during his time in office.

I met with Border Patrol agents so we could assess what was coming and coordinate with our NGOs and local leaders. I did that for months. Every night, I went to the airport, whether it was 11 at night or 4 in the morning, to see what needed to be done and what was ahead of us, said Leeser.

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He advised the incoming city council and mayor to maintain close collaboration with local, state and federal entities as border policies may shift.

Leeser also acknowledged the support El Paso has received from Governor Greg Abbott, who provided nearly $40 million in assistance to help the city manage migrant surges. He credited the Office of Emergency Management for its role in coordinating the citys response efforts.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News.
DAMASCUS, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Israel intensified its attacks on Syria on Thursday, hitting two residential neighborhoods in Damascus and areas on the Syrian-Lebanese border in the central province of Homs.

At least 15 people were killed and 16 others wounded when Israeli forces hit three residential buildings in the al-Mazzeh neighborhood west of Damascus on Thursday afternoon, according to the Syrian Defense Ministry and state television.

Another Israeli airstrike on Thursday hit a building that was part of an educational complex in a residential zone in the Qudsaya suburb northwest of Damascus, causing damage.

In the evening, Eyad Mohammed, commander of the Homs Fire Brigade, told Al-Watan Online that an Israeli strike targeted the al-Mouh Bridge in the city of al-Qusayr in the southern countryside of Homs, destroying the bridge and suspending its service.

The strike on al-Qusayr, a known stronghold of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, occurred a day after Israeli attacks on bridges and roads in the area injured 11 people.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Thursday condemned the recent Israeli attacks, stating they resulted in dozens of civilian deaths and injuries, including women and children, and led to the destruction of residential buildings. The ministry also reported significant damage to critical infrastructure, including bridges and international roads, resulting in their closure.

"Continued Israeli aggression today comes just two days after widespread condemnation by the joint Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh of its blatant and escalating aggression on Syrian territories," the ministry said.

The Israeli airstrikes on Thursday coincided with a visit to Damascus by Ali Larijani, senior advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and member of Iran's Expediency Discernment Council, who met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

During their meeting, Assad and Larijani discussed "the developments in the region, particularly the Israeli escalation and continuous aggression on Palestine and Lebanon and the necessity to stop it," according to Syria's state-run SANA news agency.

According to the report, Assad emphasized the importance of upholding the historical rights of Palestinians and expressed support for Palestinians and Lebanese "by all means to stop the massacres and put an end to the crimes of genocide."

Larijani reaffirmed Iran's support for Syria and its readiness to provide various forms of assistance, highlighting Syria's pivotal role in the region.

Israel has carried out numerous airstrikes in Syria over the years, primarily targeting Iranian-backed militia positions and alleged weapon shipments bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Syrian government has repeatedly condemned these strikes as violations of its sovereignty.

The latest Israeli attacks come amid heightened tensions in the region, as conflicts in neighboring countries spill over into Syrian territory. The Syrian government has repeatedly urged the international community to take a firm stance against Israel's actions, warning of the potential for broader regional destabilization. 
(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Sometimes, you just have to shake your head in wonder at the crazy paranoia of North Carolina election conspiracy theorists. Their latest kooky idea: that the recent state election was somehow rigged to prevent victories by Republican candidates for offices like governor and attorney general even as Donald Trump claimed the states presidential contest.

Thats right  the same people who repeatedly tell us that state government is dysfunctional and incapable of performing core public functions, are claiming that somehow, someone inside it pulled off one of the most diabolical criminal conspiracies in modern American history.

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Please. Give us a break.

If such a scheme were possible  and its not  why would the mysterious forces rig just some elections? Why let Trump win?

The bottom line: as political scientists have repeatedly demonstrated, North Carolina voters have been splitting their tickets in the precise way they did last week for decades.

The conspiracy kooks should spend more time studying civics and history and less time wallowing in dark and disturbed corners of social media.

For NC Newsline, Im Rob Schofield.
ELECTION UPDATE: Roanoke City Electoral Board certified results for Mayor

ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR)  On Thursday, November 14, the Director of Elections and General Registrar said the results for the Roanoke City Mayor race have been certified and released the following statement.

The Roanoke City Electoral Board has completed its canvass of votes for the November 5, 2024, General and Special Elections. Every eligible and legal vote cast in the City of Roanoke during the absentee voting period and on Election Day has been counted and certified in accordance with the timelines set forth by the state.

The certified vote totals for the mayors race fall within the one-half of one percent margin permissible by Virginia Code for a locality-funded recount. Any candidate wishing to initiate a recount must file in the Roanoke City Circuit Court within 10 days. The Registrars Office is prepared to support this process if a recount is requested and granted.

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RELATED STORY: Joe Cobb wins the race for Roanoke City Mayor

90 days into this role, I have been inspired by our election officials dedication to administering an honest, fair, and secure election despite increased scrutiny and heightened pressure.

Next week, Roanoke City will join other localities across the Commonwealth in participating in the state-mandated United States Senate Risk-Limiting Audit on Wednesday, November 20.

Final preparations are being made today, November 14, to transmit Roanokes certified results to the Department of Elections in advance of tomorrows deadline. The State Board of Elections will further certify the results of the election on Monday, December 2.

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To request a recount, the margin must be within 1%. If the margin falls within 0.5%, then the recount is automatically triggered and paid for by the state.

Now that the results are certified, David Bowers has 10 days from November 15 to petition the local circuit court for a recount.

Check back with WFXR News for more updates in the future.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFXRtv.
TOPEKA (KSNT)  Kansas wildlife officials are due to meet for the last time this year in Wichita to discuss several items related to deer and elk hunting seasons.

Laura Clawson with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) announced in a press release on Nov. 14 that wildlife commissioners will meet at noon on Thursday, Nov. 21 at the Great Plains Nature Center in Wichita. They are due to vote on several hunting regulation changes for deer and elk including:

K.A.R. 115-25-8 elk 25-series regulations. Establishes a firearm season from Jan. 1 to Jan. 31 next year on Fort Riley.

K.A.R. 115-25-9a military deer seasons. Establishes the deer season for the military subunits in the 2024-2025 season. Fort Riley whitetail antlerless-only firearm  Nov. 29 to Dec. 1, 2024. Fort Riley firearm  Dec. 14 to Dec. Dec. 22, 2024. Fort Leavenworth firearm  Nov. 16 to Nov. 17, Nov. 23 to Nov. 24, Nov. 28 to Dec. 1, Dec. 7 to Dec. 8 and Dec. 14 to Dec. 15, 2024. Fort Leavenworth extended firearm, whitetail anterless-only  Jan. 1 to Jan. 19, 2025. Fort Leavenworth extended archery whitetail antlerless-only  Jan. 20 to Jan. 31, 2025. Smoky Hill Air National Guard firearm  Dec. 4 to Dec. 15, 2024.



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Kansas wildlife officials halt sale of lifetime hunting and fishing passes for older adults

Commissioners will receive comments on non-agenda items, get updates on the KDWPs fiscal status and hear a Legislative briefing. A general discussion will also take place covering furbearer regulations. Some workshop items that may be voted on in the future will also be discussed:

K.A.R. 115-25-7 antelope; open season, bag limit and permits.

K.A.R. 115-25-8 elk; open season, bag limit and permits.

Deer 25-series big game regulations.

Big game 4-series permanent regulations.

Five-year review of threatened, endangered and species in need of conservation lists.

People can attend this meeting in-person or online by tuning in through phone, Zoom and live streaming options. Instructions on how to take advantage of these options can be found here.

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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

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News.
In anticipation of his second term, President-elect Donald Trump has already revived the good ol flood the zone with shit strategy, dropping daily announcements about the bonkers Cabinet picks (e.g., Tulsi Gabbard, Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth) he wants on his team. It may be tough to single out any particular ones as the worst of the bunch, but allow me to suggest two contenders: tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who have been tapped as co-chairs of a proposed new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE for short. (Yes, as in Elon Musks favorite meme cryptocurrency, and its valuation has been taking the recent news quite well. Pump up the volume!)

To be clear, though, its not exactly a full-fledged department, or a government agency at all. Per Trumps press release, it amounts to a basic report of recommended job cuts. Specifically, DOGE will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget  making changes to the Federal Bureaucracy with an eye to efficiency. This makes sense for Musk, who wanted to retain control of his myriad companies while simultaneously providing input on all the regulators that contract with and ensure legal compliance from SpaceX, Tesla, and Neuralink. And if Trump is to be believed, Musk and Ramaswamy will merely pave the way for Trumps administration to implement the recommendations and dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies. Their deadline for this modern-day Manhattan Project (their words) will be July 4, 2026, to mark the United States 250th Independence Day.

There are a lot of issues here. Theres the matter of why two more random people must be appended to a government agency (specifically the Office of Management and Budget), in order to  increase efficiency. Theres the question of why exactly Trumps advisers think he should ask Congress for up to $50 million in taxpayer revenues to fund this thing. Plus, theres little clarity on just what this federal partnership will formally resemble, how the DOGE entity itself will operate (nonprofit? Obnoxious account on X? Private corporation? Federal advisory committee? Dogecoin-branded merch table? Mirror of an already extant OMB office? Blockchain ledger?), and how the powers Musk and Ramaswamy think theyll have square with what theyll actually have.

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From the sound of that press release, it sure seems like theyll just be turning in a glorified recommendations report, written by a combination of A.I. chatbots and underpaid interns, to present to Trump on the occasion of Americas semiquincentennial, represented alongside the Dogecoin Shiba Inu. (RIP to a sweet Japanese pup who deserved so much better than this.) On Thursday, the X account for DOGE put out a call for super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting and invited interested applicants to message the account (even though its DMs are not open).

The way Musk and Ramaswamy have been talking, they clearly have the idea that theyll be cleaning house from Day 1 onwardjust like Musk did when he bought Twitter in late 2022, brought his friends and cronies on as consultants for cost cuts, ousted the companys executives, and went on to lay off thousands more staffers. In September, speaking on The Lex Fridman Podcast, Ramaswamy posited what he called a glib thought experiment:

Anybody in the federal bureaucracy who is not elected  if your Social Security number ends in an odd number, youre out. It ends in an even number, youre in. Theres a 50 percent cut right there. Of those who remain, if your Social Security number starts with an even number, youre in, and if it starts with an odd number, youre out. Boom. Thats a 75 percent reduction.  Not a thing will have changed for the ordinary American other than this size of their government being a lot smaller and more restrained, spending a lot less money to operate it. 

So now imagine you could do that same thought experiment, but not just doing it at random, doing it at a large scale while having some metric of screening for those who actually had both the greatest competence as well as the greatest commitment and knowledge of the Constitution.

Vivek Ramaswamy's thought experiment for reducing the size of government on @lexfridman:



"Day 1, anybody in the federal bureaucracy who's not elected, whose Social Security number ends in an odd number, you're out. [Day 2], of those who remain, if your Social Security starts in pic.twitter.com/mHpbvModRv  Pirate Wires (@PirateWires) November 13, 2024

Folks, welcome to running the government like a business in the age of mass tech-industry layoffs and tyrannical bossism, as proposed by someone who himself was not elected to govern. Set aside the preposterous contentions that government agencies are no different from corporations, or that mass-eliminating people by SSN would not cripple necessary everyday government functions like air traffic control and emergency relief and weather monitoring, even after screening them for constitutional knowledge or something.

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You cant blame the guy for getting excited, though. All this deep slicing-and-dicing was a core feature of Ramaswamys campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, in which he promised to abolish the Department of Education and the FBI, gut the Food and Drug Administration, and narrow the Federal Reserves mandate. But a lot of that stuff is just GOP orthodoxy now, with Project 2025 calling to scrap the DOE, sap the Feds powers, and return this country to the gold standard.

So Ramaswamy may feel the need to go even more extreme with it in order to keep up with his extremely hardcore partner and give DOGE a reason to exist at all, much less command tens of millions of public dollars. Thats where you get tech-bro-manual proposals like making federal staffers work inside their physical offices all day and all week. (As Donald Moynihan, professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University Michigan, told me: Only about 15 percent of federal employees live in the D.C. region. The vast majority of federal employees, about 85 percent, live across the United States.)

Ramaswamy has still gone further, asking to retract appropriations to programs whose congressional authority has lapsedwhich include resources like veterans health careand basically do a sort of Twitter Filesstyle expose of budgetary allowances. The latter doesnt sound bad at all, until you remember that Marc Andreessen is one of Trumps tech-world advisers, and that one of his big things these days is threatening to prosecute government/university/business officials who apparently coordinated to censor Elon Musks X by pulling advertising. (In reality, private entities didnt like all the Nazis on X, but now that Musk is so close to the president-elect, they may relent out of fear of retaliation.)

Ramaswamy and Musks bid for maximum transparency will also likely include straight-up lying about what various government offices do. For example, take Musks unfounded conspiracy theories about the Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agencys responses to Hurricane Helene.

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So dont expect this duo to magically be able to get an actual Pentagon audit through. Do expect them to pressure agencies that contract with Musks companies, and to intimidate those offices that are either investigating or suing said companies. (Vice Presidentelect J.D. Vance has even suggested withdrawing support for NATO if the European Unions digital-platform regulations force X/Twitter to change its business in any way.)

Lets also be real here: Elon will probably hold much of the authority, as he is just too much of an egomaniac to cede any public control. Hes already sticking close to Trumps side at Mar-a-Lago, advocating for more presidential control over the Fed, asking that the government hire some SpaceX executives, and butting in on an official phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Musk isnt influencing everything so farhis preferred Senate majority leader, Rick Scott, lost that bid to South Dakotas John Thunebut its clear wholl be wearing the pants at DOGE.

The most baffling part of DOGE, though, is that Trump already has plans in motion for firing lots of generals, and his Project 2025 masterminds already have a good clue as to how theyll unilaterally trim things down, as Moynihan told mefirst and foremost, by reauthorizing Schedule F, an executive order from Trumps first term that granted him authority to reclassify the employee status of federal staffers (namely, as political employees) and fire them accordingly. Within six months, I would expect that executive order to be back in place, Moynihan said. The more conservative estimates about how many people that will incorporate are in the neighborhood of 50,000. Thats an enormous amount compared to the current number of actual political appointees, which is 4,000.

Thats hardly the number that Ramaswamy must have been thinking of with his Social Security exercise, but its still quite a hefty one. There are, still, 2 million civil service employees, a number that seems ginormous until you remember, as Moynihan told me, that that number hasnt grown appropriately in relation to the population, economy, and other factors since 1960. The majority of those employees who wouldnt be hit work with agencies whose DOGE-style reorganizations would require congressional approvalwhich isnt inevitable, since Republicans command only small majorities in the legislative chambers.

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Still, there are ways Trump could weed out other government workers, including by making the job and surrounding environment more unpleasant, like by freezing hiring and requesting cuts to employee training and travel funds in the annual budget. Zoe Schiffer, a tech journalist and the author of Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musks Twitter, told me that such acts would be especially appealing to Musk. He was willing to endure a certain amount of pain if it meant that he wasnt going to have to pay a premium in terms of peoples salaries and equity, Schiffer said of his approach to Twitter.

The desired effect? Pushing people out or only attracting supplicants. Providing a long-term guarantee of work encourages employees to think about building up expertise in their very nuanced areas, which could be things like environmental regulation, disaster response, or workplace safety, said Moynihan. If you hire too many political hacks, you might get a lot of responsiveness, but if you cut organizations to the bone, its going to be harder for you to achieve your core goals.

Cutting to the bone does seem to be a shared goal between Trump and Musk. As the New York Times reported, Mr. Trump has told Mr. Musk that he wants him to bring the same scalpel to the federal government that he brought to Twitter. What would cutting to the bone really mean, in practice? Well, to look back at that infamous Twitter takeover is to recall that it involved roping in Musks most trusted yes-menDavid Sacks, Steve Davis, Joe Lonsdalewho are also advising Trump at this very moment on how he should regulate the industries they work in.

The circle of people who will tell Musk the truth and be honest is a lot smaller than it was when he was building Tesla, said Schiffer. If its like Twitter and Musks other companies, theyll want lean staff heavily weighted toward technical hires, carry an expectation that people be in the office all the time, not offer a lot of expectations of benefits, and expect longer work hours.

In other words: shrink the government, and make it work more for the presidents men and less for the American people. What could go wrong?
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency says it's looking for the "top 1%" of people.

DOGE says it'll expect its staff to work 80-plus-hour weeks  a common request of Musk's employees.

Musk has had aggressive work expectations for staff at his companies like Tesla and X.

Elon Musk wants you to help root out government waste  but only if you're really smart and willing to work 80 hours a week.

Musk, who's standing up the Department of Government Efficiency  or DOGE, named after a cryptocurrency he's linked to  is looking for the top 1% of people interested in joining.

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A post on the department's newly created X account on Thursday said: "We don't need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.

"If that's you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants," it continued, referring to the businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who is set to lead the department alongside Musk. (You need an X account to be able to send a direct message; it's not clear whether there will be a traditional application on a website or elsewhere.)

We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE. We dont need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting. If thats  Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) November 14, 2024

Trump tapped Musk and Ramaswamy this week to lead the new  and unofficial  government department, which the president-elect has said will work to slash regulations and cut government spending.

Musk poured more than $100 million of his own money into getting Trump elected. Now that his efforts have paid off, Musk has made a home for himself in Trump's inner orbit. Musk reportedly joined the president-elect's calls with both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week.

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The Tesla CEO is known for working long hours  even sleeping on the floors of Tesla's factory and at Twitter's headquarters.

Since his early days at Tesla, Musk has pushed the company's staff to work "super hardcore"  a management style he mirrored at Twitter, now X, after taking over the platform in 2022.

Musk's aggressive work expectations appeared to have contributed to the mass exodus at Twitter following his takeover.

In a late-night email sent to company employees at the time, Musk said they should work "long hours at high intensity," adding that "only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade."

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Musk has said that in his new DOGE endeavor, he'll create a leaderboard displaying the "most insanely dumb" examples of government spending in an attempt to promote "maximum transparency" and allow the public to share feedback.

Several marketing and communications experts previously told Business Insider that such a leaderboard would be likely to get attention, while one game designer argued that it was implicitly biased because of who's defining "waste."

A spokesman for the Trump-Vance transition team, Brian Hughes, said in a statement to BI: "As President Trump has said, Elon Musk is a genius, an innovator, and has literally made history by building creative, modern, and efficient systems."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Billionaire Elon Musk has been hit with several proposed class-action lawsuits over allegations that his political action committee engaged in fraud by falsely telling voters they had a chance to randomly win $1 million when winners had actually been predetermined.

Musk set up the committee, America PAC, in October to support President-elect Donald Trumps winning presidential run. As part of the PAC, Musk enticed Trump supporters in battleground states by promising them a chance at the cash prize if they gave away their personal identifying information and signed an online petition in support of free speech and the right to bear arms.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, left, and then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump attend a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show last month in Butler, Pennsylvania. via Associated Press

Starting on Oct. 19 until the election on Nov. 5, Musk handed out at least $16 million to more than a dozen winners.

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I have a surprise for you, Musk said at a rally for Trump last month. We are going to be awarding $1 million to people who have signed the petition every day, from now until the election.

As voters flocked at the chance to win money, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner went to court to accuse Musk of running an illegal lottery scheme.

A Pennsylvania judge allowed the payouts to continue after attorneys for Musks PAC successfully argued that it wasnt actually a lottery because winners were selected based on their suitability to serve as spokespeople for the PAC and earned the $1 million as payment.

In short: There were no random winners of the $1 million payouts.

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Now, Musk has been hit with three lawsuits accusing him of fraud and breach of contract for lying to voters about their chances to win.

On Nov. 5  the day of the election  Jacqueline McAferty of Arizona filed a lawsuit against Musk alleging she was duped into providing personal information to America PAC for the false promise of being eligible to win $1 million.

Defendants knew their representations were false at the time they were made, the complaint says. Defendants have continued to promote the petition as a chance to win $1,000,000 randomly while simultaneously choosing winners based on selective, pre-determined criteria.

That same day, a Michigan lawyer filed a separate proposed class-action lawsuit against Musk.

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And earlier this week, Texas lawyer Mark Bankston filed a lawsuit on behalf of Joy Harvick of Arizona.

Had Plaintiff been aware that the lottery was not random, or that she did not have a fair chance to win the prize, or that her selection hinged on her perceived favorability to Defendants as a marketing prop, she would not have signed or supported the America PAC petition and would not have provided her PII [Personal Identifying Information] to Defendants, the complaint obtained by HuffPost says.

Attorney Josh Sanford, who is representing McAferty, told HuffPost in a call that the lawsuit isnt about politics, its about holding Musk accountable for his lies.

The people who have sued Musk and his PAC agree with him on very fundamental political issues, but these lawsuits are not about those issues, Sanford said. These lawsuits are about how we are accountable to people for the promises that we make, and it doesnt matter what your politics are. As Americans, we are above lying to people to get them to do what we want them to do.

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Attorney Bankston, who has previously represented Sandy Hook families who successfully sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for defamation, offered this statement.

This is America, so Im used to people lying and cheating, but doing it in connection with an election is something I wont abide, Bankston said. We wouldnt tolerate this behavior in a two-bit casino, and we wont tolerate it from this man either.

Bankston deposed Musk earlier this year in relation to a lawsuit in which Musk is accused of falsely suggesting a 22-year-old Jewish man was part of a neo-Nazi brawl.

Musks America PAC has also been hit with a separate class-action lawsuit by canvassers for the PAC who allege they werent paid agreed-upon wages.

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Musk attorney Alex Spiro did not respond to a request for comment.

Bankston said he plans to bring more plaintiffs into the lawsuit.

Anyone who signed Musks petition believing they actually had a random chance to win could bring a similar claim, and Id encourage them to do so, he said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk, who is an adviser to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, met with Irans ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

Citing two Iranian officials, the newspaper reported that the meeting was a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward)
In a galaxy far, far away, galactic burlesque performers headed to Minneapolis.

The hit Star Wars-inspired burlesque parody, The Empire Strips Back, is putting the ship into hyperspeed and heading to the Twin Cities. The Jedis, Stormtroopers, and Tusken Raiders will alight at Minneapolis' Granada Theatre in January for a nearly month-long stopover.

The Los Angeles Cast of The Empire Strips Back: A Burlesque Parody Photo by Craig Ridgwell

Originated in Australia, the show has been touring regularly since it opened in 2011, garnering a following and rave reviews across the U.S. One Broadway World review hailed it for "skillfully melding elements of traditional striptease with a knowledge and deep affection of the Star Wars franchise."

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The show is a two-hour burlesque trek through a side of the Star Wars universe you've surely never seen before. However, the performers promise there's plenty to enjoy even if you're not a Star Wars fan with dancers, skits, and a wide range of music, including Nicki Minaj and Guns N' Roses

The Los Angeles Cast of The Empire Strips Back: A Burlesque Parody Photo by Craig Ridgwell

The Empire Strips Back opens on Jan. 8 at the Granada Theatre and tickets go on sale Thursday, Nov. 14 with prices starting at $39. Shows take place Wednesday through Sunday, with two shows each Saturday night, through Feb. 2.

Related: Movies to see in the Twin Cities this week: Sound Unseen Fest, 'The Fifth Element,' 'Black Sunday'
Emporia State University president Ken Hush awarded secret, unexplained bonuses to 68 faculty members in October 2022, six weeks after firing tenured professors to save costs. (Margaret Mellott/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA  The Kansas Attorney Generals Office determined Emporia State University violated state law last year by failing to promptly respond to an open records request from Kansas Reflector.

However, the Attorney Generals Office dismissed other parts of a complaint filed by Kansas Reflector regarding the $700 fee ESU charged to produce a list of employees who received a unique bonus on a single day. And the attorney who handled the request, Amber Smith, didnt answer questions about why it took the office 18 months to review the complaint.

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Public officials in this state who value keeping the public in the dark are likely to cheer the AGs determination that a $700 charge to produce digital records is reasonable, said Max Kautsch, a First Amendment lawyer with experience in open records litigation. First, they are likely pleased because this result indicates that whatever accountability is meted out, it will not be swift.

The complaint followed reporting by Kansas Reflector on secret performance bonuses ESU president Ken Hush awarded to 68 faculty members six weeks after he fired 33 faculty members, including tenured professors, to save costs. A subsequent Faculty Senate meeting revealed that professors who received the bonuses, which were unique from other kinds of performance-based compensation, were clueless about why they were being rewarded.

Kansas Reflector on March 1, 2023, asked ESU for the names and titles of faculty members who received performance bonuses during that academic year. The university acknowledged the request on March 8 but didnt respond until March 10, even though state law requires government agencies to produce records within three business days or provide an explanation for when the records will be available.

The university insisted the records would require 20 hours of staff time at $35 per hour to produce. After a reader-supported fundraising drive, Kansas Reflector on March 20 paid the university $700 to acquire the records. Two weeks later, the university produced the records along with a refund of $87.50 because the request only required 17.5 hours of staff time.

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Kansas Reflector on April 13, 2023, filed a complaint with the Kansas Attorney Generals Office that alleged ESU violated the Kansas Open Records Act by failing to respond within three business days and by inflating the hours it would take to comply with the request. Additionally, the complaint challenged ESUs unlawful policy of charging $35 per hour regardless of the actual wages of individuals who work on a records request.

The records produced by ESU show the bonuses align with a specific administrative code. Kansas Reflectors complaint questioned why the university couldnt quickly produce the records, based on past experience with similar records requests at other state agencies and software documentation about the ease of navigating payroll records.

The AGs office said in December 2023 that it was still working on the request. Smith, the attorney who handled the complaint, notified Kansas Reflector of her ruling in a letter dated Oct. 22, 2024  more than 18 months after the complaint was filed. Smiths letter said ESU provided information in response to the complaint on July 11, 2024.

First Amendment lawyer Max Kautsch questioned how it could take more than 17 hours of staff time to produce digital records. (Jessica Tufts for Kansas Reflector)

The university admitted it violated the Kansas Open Records Act, or KORA, when it didnt respond within three business days.

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Although the university violated the KORA, it appears this may be the result of shortcomings in internal office procedures or human error, and not intentional efforts to subvert the KORA, Smith wrote. In mitigation, the university stated it has added resources and improved the universitys process of responding to, and tracking, all KORA requests. Nevertheless, we will work with the university to ensure this oversight does not reoccur. We will also report this violation in our annual report.

The university didnt respond to a request to comment for this story.

Smiths letter said ESU explained that numerous high-ranking staff worked to produce the basic payroll records. They included the universitys chief of human resources, vice president of administration and finance, director of budget, assistant director of budget, a financial systems administrator, two human resources professionals, and four IT system analysts. The university claimed they had to navigate an interlocking web of software programs that interact with the State of Kansas Human Resources Information and Payroll System, or SHARP, in order to find payroll records. The staff then manually reviewed those records to find the individuals who received bonuses, and then redact their personal information.

The university provided Smith with a breakdown of wages and hours worked to show its actual costs exceeded $700. Based on that information, Smith concluded the university charged a reasonable rate.

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Smith didnt respond to an email asking why it took 18 months to make a finding in the complaint, and whether she talked to anyone outside of ESU about how the state payroll system works.

Kautsch, the First Amendment lawyer, said transparency opponents would welcome the news that hundreds of dollars may be assessed to produce digital records.

How could it be possible that 17-plus hours would be needed to respond to a request for digital records in 2024, when software companies are trying to stay competitive by offering programs that can be searched efficiently? Kautsch said.

And officials in Kansas who enjoy keeping secrets are likely particularly keen on the AGs finding that charging an erroneous, higher amount to produce records is not a violation so long as the agency can assert that its personnel spent more time responding to the request than documented in the response to the request, Kautsch added.

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This finding is particularly puzzling given that the university reimbursed the $87.50 overage long ago, a fact that does not appear in the AGs letter, Kautsch said. Why did the university feel compelled to reimburse Reflector if the entire $700 were, in the AGs opinion, actual costs?

The Kansas Department of Administration oversees and provides support for SHARP, the payroll system used by state agencies, including universities. The department declined a request to interview someone familiar with the system.

We cant answer your questions as it is not our agencys purview to conduct payroll for universities, so we wouldnt know how long it would take them to execute specific processes, said Samir Arif, spokesman for KDOR.
JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- South Africa has condemned and expressed dismay over a statement attributed to Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, in which he reportedly ordered preparations for the annexation of the occupied West Bank.

The South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) said in a statement released late Wednesday that the development was "compounded" by a decision adopted by the Israeli Cabinet on June 18, which gave Smotrich approval to plan construction in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).

According to media reports, Smotrich, who oversees the settlements, said on Monday that he had directed his department to prepare the necessary infrastructure for applying Israeli sovereignty.

"It should be recalled that soon after his appointment to his current position, Mr. Smotrich moved quickly to approve thousands of new settlement homes and legalized previously unauthorized settlements, which practically made it more difficult for Palestinians to build homes and move around," DIRCO said in the statement.

The department said it believes the Israeli government has long sought to find ways to permanently seize or annex the occupied West Bank.

"South Africa calls on the international community to unequivocally oppose the Israeli government's continued violation of its obligations under International Law and Resolutions relating to its belligerent occupation," DIRCO said.

"The Israeli government's provocative policies and actions are extreme and warrant decisive response by the international community. South Africa is opposed to the Israeli illegal annexation and settlement expansion on Palestinian lands," it noted.

DIRCO further stated that the annexation plans reflect Israel's reluctance to pursue a two-state solution. "These developments go further than just a de facto annexation of the OPT and entrenching the illegal Israel's presence in the OPT, particularly in the West Bank," it explained.

"South Africa further calls for concrete actions aimed at reviving a political process, leading to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, in compliance with all relevant UN Resolutions, international law, and internationally agreed parameters," it added.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war and has expanded settlements there ever since. The international community widely regards these Israeli settlements, located in the area where Palestinians hope to establish a future state, as a major obstacle to peace between Israel and Palestine. 
University of South Carolina Beaufort students protect loggerhead sea turtle nests on Pritchards Island. (Provided by USC Beaufort)

BEAUFORT  The University of South Carolina was at risk of losing control of Pritchards Island research site, located off the southern end of the Palmetto States coastline.

Now, a year after securing funding in the state budget, the Beaufort campus of South Carolinas largest college system is back to conducting research on the pristine barrier island, studying wildlife that ranges from loggerhead sea turtles, dolphins and red drum fish to diamondback rattlesnakes, shore birds and several threatened species of bats.

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As a result, enrollment in USC Beauforts marine biology program has surged from six students in 2020 to 116 today, biology professor Kim Ritchie told the SC Daily Gazette, ahead of visit by Gov. Henry McMaster to the Lowcountry university Wednesday.

Atlanta businessman Philip Rhodes donated the undeveloped island, accessible only by boat, to the university in 1982 to use for marine education and research. Then, in 2009, the same year Rhodes died, federal, state and private funding dried up and erosion washed the sand out from under the islands since-demolished research center as it sat dark for more than a decade.

It was a pretty successful research program up until funding fell off, Ritchie said, with professors monitoring turtles, as well as oysters, fiddler crabs, shrimp and other species living in the islands salt marsh.

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The Rhodes family grew frustrated that the university was no longer using the island for its intended purpose and nearly enforced a clause in the deed that would have transferred control to the University of Georgia.

McMaster intervened and last year legislators added $500,000 to the schools budget to restart the program, including a sea turtle monitoring program that has been volunteer-operated in the colleges absence.

The money has gone to hire a couple more researchers, fund scholarships and purchase kayaks and boats to get to and from the island.

In the last year, researchers and their teams of students have set up cameras on the island to monitor snake and lizard populations. The school also has sensors in the water that pick up sounds from fish and alligators.

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Theyve even discovered a never-before studied dolphin population, Ritchie said.

Graduate students from the Netherlands came as part of a study of sand dune vegetation up and down the East Coast and how those plants can help slow erosion, Ritchie added.

And just last week, the college put out acoustic recorders for bats. In that time, the students have already found several species of bats that are at risk of becoming endangered.

University of South Carolina Beaufort students take part in renewed research projects on Pritchards Island. (Provided by USC Beaufort)

The island, untouched by the erosion controls, heavy boat traffic or people building homes that come with much of the states fast-growing coastal communities, provides a baseline to compare against more developed places.

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Its a way to study a natural system that hasnt been disturbed, Ritchie said. The possibilities are limitless.

In addition to broadening scientists understanding, access to Pritchards also is beneficial to students pursuing a career in marine biology.

Ordinarily, when you start a sea turtle monitoring program, new volunteers dont get to go anywhere near a sea turtle for a couple years. They have to just watch, Ritchie said. We got out there and the students were binding nests and helping babies right away.

The state dollars have provided students with paid research internships, working with the state Department of Natural Resources before they ever graduate. This can give students an advantage in a fiercely-competitive career field and when they go on to pursue more advanced degrees.

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Bringing more faculty with a broader expertise to the school also has expanded student opportunities  from tagging a great white shark as part of Ritchies research on microbes beneficial to the marine predator to deep sea exploration using submersibles.

Everybody wants to be a marine biologist, but you have to have the right connections and the right background, Ritchie said. Its very competitive and this helps them give a leg up.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD)  The National Park Service has announced it has suspended plans to extend part of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail after discussions with local tribal leaders.

According to 9&10 News, NPS has been working on extending segment nine of the trail for more than a decade and has spent millions of dollars on the project. However, the agency is backing off from the project over environmental impact concerns presented by the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.

Trail closed after invasive insect found at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

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GTB Tribal Chairwoman Sandra Witherspoon detailed the concerns in an August letter to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Superintendent Scott Tucker.

Our opposition is grounded in serious concerns regarding the potential impacts on wetlands, tree removal and the treaty gathering rights of our tribal members, Witherspoon wrote.

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Tucker told 9&10 News that more than a dozen meetings had been held with NPS and local tribal officials before the decision to press pause was made.

The core piece of this Sleeping Bear decision focuses on the inherent responsibility I have as a superintendent of these public lands and these ancestral lands of the Grand Traverse Band, and the responsibility that Sleeping Bear Dunes has to honor the treaty rights, and the ancestral knowledge of the Grand Traverse Band on their ancestral homelands, Tucker said.

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In a statement, Tucker said that the design work wont be wasted and that the park will move forward with other projects.

Michigan man convicted of tampering, vandalizing Sleeping Bear Dunes

The existing design work will serve as a foundation for future planning efforts, with continued collaboration alongside the Grand Traverse Band and project partners, the statement reads. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore remains committed to enhancing non-motorized connectivity throughout the Lakeshore and looks forward to continued, strong collaboration in the future.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is one of Michigans most popular national parks. The park was established in 1977, encompassing 111 square miles of land, including 35 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and about 7 miles of sand dunes.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW)  An environmental group is speaking out after a $50 million federal grant secured the largest conservation project in South Carolinas history.

The 62,000-acre swath across Georgetown, Marion and Williamsburg counties will soon be permanently protected, and organizations like Winyah Rivers Alliance say itll help promote smart timbering and eco-tourism.

Its a win/win. Its a way to use these natural resources instead of destroying our natural resources, executive director Debra Buffkin said.

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For months, organizations including the Open Space Institute, state Department of Natural Resources and the South Carolina Forestry Commission worked on the grant that also includes key waterways like the Black, Pee Dee and Santee rivers.

More than 7,500 acres will be opened to public access, and 115 plant and animal species will have their habitats preserved.

Buffkin, who grew up in Marion County, knows all too well the impacts flooding brings to the area.

It is an economically challenged area. And I believe it can really bring some growth and some tourism in, she said of the project.

Forestry contributes $23 billion annually to the states economy, and managing how its materials get processed and produced is key to smart growth, Buffkin said.

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As long as the timbering responsibly, wed much rather have that than development. Because once you develop, you cause fragmentation of wildlife, you destroy these areas, you increase the chances of flooding, she said.

Another benefit comes in offering more chances for people to get out and explore the outdoors, Buffkin added. Officials say the transaction should be finalized by the end of 2025.

* * *

Adrianna Lawrence is a multimedia journalist at News13. Adrianna is originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and joined the News13 team in June 2023 after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in May 2023. Keep up with Adrianna on Instagram, Facebook, and X, formerly Twitter. You can also read more of her work, here.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Iowa's 2024 list of impaired waters was only partially approved by the EPA who said the state needs to add seven additional water segments to the list. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, after rejecting a portion of Iowas 2024 list of impaired water segments, is now seeking public comment on its decision to add seven water segments to the list.

Under the Clean Water Act, states are required to assess surface-water quality and submit a report to the EPA every two years with a list of its impaired water bodies.

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The Iowa Department of Natural Resources submitted the 2024 Water Quality Assessment to the EPA in the spring and classified more than 700 water segments as impaired.

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EPA said in its recent letter to the state that the list only partially meets the requirements under section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act, which authorizes the EPA to help states list and develop water improvement plans for impaired waters.

Impaired waters have an identified pollutant that exceeds water quality standards and require a water improvement plan, known as a Total Maximum Daily Load or TMDL.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency partially approved Iowas 2024 list of impaired waters and added seven additional water segments to the list of impaired waters shown on this map. (Map courtesy of Iowa DNR)

The TMDL is prepared by the state, and approved by EPA, for each impaired water segment and then all contributing polluters are allocated a share of the allowable load. This determines the pollutant reduction needed to meet water quality standards.

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The EPA identified one segment on the Cedar River, two segments on the Des Moines River, two segments on the Iowa River, one segment on the Raccoon River and one segment on the South Skunk River as exceeding the nitrate and nitrate plus nitrite water quality standards associated with the drinking water use.

The letter from the EPA said these segments need to be on the impaired water list because of their levels of nitrate and nitrite, which have a known toxicity.

The EPA said it asked Iowa, in a previous public comment, to revise its assessment of nitrogen, nitrate, nitrite and nitrate plus nitrite, but the comments were, not adequately addressed by the state.

Iowa DNR has not revised its assessment of these parameters to adequately address them as pollutants with toxic effects or given reasonable consideration of the endpoints and adverse effects being considered, the letter said.

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The DNR responded to the public comment in May 2024, and said it would not change its methodology because, the EPA has provided no new scientific evidence nor any new federal regulation in support of such a significant policy change.

A spokesperson for Iowa DNR said the department is reviewing the latest information provided in the EPA announcement, and did not offer further comment.

With the EPAs additions, the 2024 list has 712 impaired water segments.

Iowa also delisted 84 impaired water segments that now meet water quality standards, or have an EPA approved TMDL. The EPA approved these 84 delistings and rationals.

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The EPA has opened a public comment window from Nov. 13 through Dec. 13, for written comments about the seven proposed water segments. Information for submitting comments can be found on the agencys website.

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Ovintiv, an oil and gas giant, just found out that dodging clean air laws can burn a hole in their pockets.

What's happening?

As reported by OK Energy Today, Ovintiv has been penalized for failing to control its release of harmful pollutants at 139 oil and gas facilities across Utah, including on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice, the company did not comply with federal and state standards for capturing and monitoring pollution. This led to the illegal release of volatile organic compounds and harmful gases like methane.

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Volatile organic compounds are chemicals that can become vapors or gases, and they significantly contribute to air pollution. These compounds can be released during cooking, as well as from other sources like vehicle pollution and industrial processes.

The settlement includes a $5.5 million civil penalty fine and requires the company take actions expected to exceed $10 million that are projected to reduce over 2,000 tons of VOC pollution and 50,000 tons of harmful pollution each year. That's about as much as taking nearly 13,000 gas-powered cars off the road.

Why is Ovintiv's settlement important?

Ovintiv's settlement is important because it reinforces that pollution from oil and gas operations will not be tolerated. Not only is it illegal, but it also can harm humans and the environment.

VOCs contribute to respiratory illnesses, including asthma, especially in vulnerable communities. Methane, which was released in large quantities, is a potent gas that accelerates the overheating of the Earth by trapping heat in the atmosphere.

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Ovintiv's actions have impacted public health and contributed to the growing concern of rising global temperatures. This case illustrates how dirty energy companies continue to harm the environment and nearby communities through irresponsible practices that prioritize profits over compliance and accountability.

What's being done about Ovintiv's pollution?

As part of the settlement, Ovintiv is required to implement significant compliance measures. These include facility redesigns to better capture harmful gases. The company will have periodic infrared camera inspections to monitor leaks, enhanced maintenance protocols, and the installation of pressure monitors on storage tanks.

The compliance measures will ensure that Ovintiv accurately measures its gas pollution and reports it correctly.

Beyond these corporate requirements, the EPA's National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative is working to reduce methane across the oil and gas sector, especially in communities disproportionately affected by pollution.

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Meanwhile, individuals can support policies that hold dirty energy companies accountable, advocate for stricter pollution standards, and reduce personal reliance on oil and gas by choosing cleaner options wherever possible, such as by taking public transportation rather than driving or making your next car an electric vehicle.

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.
Nov. 13Representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 7 will hold an open house Thursday to provide updates on the Newton County mine tailings Superfund site.

They also will provide information about the agency's new residential soil lead guidance, which was released in January and lowered the screening level at residential properties from 400 parts per million to 200 ppm. According to the EPA, screening levels are not cleanup standards, but the change will help EPA crews make site-specific cleanup decisions to protect nearby communities.

Community members also will have the opportunity to learn about the cleanup progress throughout the Superfund site, learn more about community involvement and the Superfund process, and sign up for residential yard and private well water lead testing.

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The open house will be held from 6-8 p.m. Thursday at the Lampo Community Center, 500 E. Spring St. in Neosho.

The Superfund site includes more than 600 square miles of Newton County and a portion of Lawrence County that are part of the Tri-State Mining District of Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma. Mining, milling and smelting of lead and zinc ores took place throughout the mining district beginning in the mid-1800s and continued in some areas until the 1970s.

"Over the past few decades, much of the total volume of surface mine waste has been removed and reused," the EPA said. "However, there are still hundreds of acres of mining and milling wastes that remain. Much of the wastes are contaminated with residual heavy metals and have the potential to contaminate surface soils, groundwater, surface water and stream sediments."

Approximately 2.4 million cubic yards of mine waste and contaminated soil have been excavated from site, and more than 150 acres of mined land have been restored to beneficial use, the EPA reported.

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Representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 7 have already held similar meetings this fall in Joplin, Carthage and Baxter Springs, Kansas, about the ongoing cleanup there.

The EPA has been working with state and local agencies and tribes for several decades and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars for ongoing cleanup of mining sites and mine waste throughout the former Tri-State Mining District.
A version of this story appeared in CNNs What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

For all the drama generated every four years by Cabinet appointments, defeat of a nominee by a vote in the Senate is extremely rare.

The only time a nominee by a new president was rejected by a Senate vote occurred in 1989, when George H.W. Bush nominated John Tower, a former senator from Texas, to be his secretary of defense.

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Tower was undone by stories of his excessive drinking and what press reports at the time referred to as womanizing, and which Pentagon files back then documented as placing special attention on the secretaries as an arms negotiator in Geneva.

Tower was the subject of an FBI investigation into drinking and sexual harassment, part of a security clearance check. Compare that situation with Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trumps nominee to be attorney general. Gaetz was once the subject of a federal investigation for sex trafficking by the Department of Justice  the same agency Trump wants him to lead. Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and says hes innocent. But the FBI files, which have never been released, seem likely to come up at his confirmation hearing.

Perhaps Trumps nomination of Gaetz will test the yearslong streak of no Cabinet nominee being rejected by the Senate. Former House colleagues have said Gaetz bragged about sex with an underage girl. Plus, he has earned the enmity of some of his Republican colleagues, although Trumps influence could overcome all of that.

Or maybe it will be Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine skeptic Trump is tapping to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has a history of drug use, although its rarely mentioned these days.

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Rather than face the humiliation of a rejection vote in the Senate, Cabinet nominees are more frequently withdrawn when it becomes clear they cannot be confirmed. Every recent president since Bill Clinton has withdrawn at least one of their initial nominees. Clintons initial nominee to be attorney general, Zoe Baird, withdrew her nomination after admitting she employed undocumented immigrants to watch her child.

Heres a look at the Cabinet confirmation process, why it exists, where its gone wrong and how Trump wants to find a way around it.

What is the Cabinet?

Presidents lead the federal government with the help of a group of close advisers and the heads of federal agencies like the Department of Justice and the Pentagon. Some members of the Cabinet, like vice president and White House chief of staff, do not need Senate approval. But most of them do.

Some roles, like US ambassador to the United Nations or CIA director, have been at the Cabinet level in some administrations but not all. The current Cabinet, under President Joe Biden, has 26 members.

Why does the Senate get a say in who works for the president?

Article II is the section of the Constitution that deals with the executive branch. In Section II, it makes clear that while the president is the executive, he hires certain positions spelled out in the Constitution and others established by law with the advice and consent of senators. If the Senate is in recess, the president can make temporary appointments.

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Heres what it says in the Constitution:

How many people does the president nominate in total?

A lot! The Partnership for Public Service tracks about 1,200 positions, most well below the Cabinet level, that require Senate approval  although the president probably does not have a personal role in most of those. They are handled by his staff or the newly confirmed heads of agencies.

Some positions can go an entire presidency without a nominee. The process has also gotten much slower in recent years.

How does the nomination and confirmation process work?

In modern times, a president-elect nominates his picks for top officials ASAP after winning the election. Planning should ideally begin before Election Day.

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Oversight committees in the Senate can conduct confirmation hearings before Inauguration Day on January 20. They can refer nominees to the full Senate or quick votes when the new president takes the oath of office. But things frequently take a lot longer.

How long does a nomination take?

Longer than it used to. Even after Democratic senators pushed through changes to the rules in 2013 to remove the filibuster from confirmation of administration officials, the two parties have gotten more adversarial about the process.

When the elder Bush assumed office in January 1989, senators had already confirmed seven of his 15 nominees, according to the Partnership for Public Service. When Trump started his first term, he had two confirmations for 26 nominees. When Biden took office in 2021, he had one confirmation for 36 nominees. The slowness continues.

The three presidents before Trumps first term all had more than 200 nominees confirmed by 200 days in office. Trump had 119 and Biden had 118 confirmed nominees at that point, although Trump had nominated far fewer people than other presidents.

Is there a way around the nomination process?

Sort of. There is that mention in the Constitution of recess appointments  something Trump has said he wants to use.

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While his fellow Republicans who will control the Senate in January have not rejected the idea, leaders like Sen. John Thune also clearly dont want to give away their power over oversight. Plus, recess appointments only last until the end of the next Senate session, usually around the calendar year.

Trump, frustrated with the process during his first term, appointed multiple people to be acting heads of agencies, but they can only serve in that capacity for a matter of months, according to law. There are also limits on who can be made an acting secretary.

Why doesnt every president use recess appointments?

Presidents like Ronald Reagan, Clinton and both Bushes did use recess appointments, although usually for positions below the Cabinet level. Only three Cabinet secretaries have been appointed during a recess since 1900, according to the Senate Historical Office. The most recent was Mickey Kantor, who served briefly as Clintons secretary of commerce.

When Barack Obama used recess appointments to make the National Labor Relations Board function, he was sued. The US Supreme Court ruled it takes at least a 10-day recess to justify a recess appointment.

So that was the end of recess appointments?

So far, yes. Senators have simply stopped taking long recesses. The last 10-day recess they adjourned for was in 2016, according to records kept by the Senate Historical Office. Instead, they will take short breaks, and a single senator can enter the chamber every few days for a pro forma session during which no business is typically conducted.

Could Senate Republicans just take a recess and let Trump appoint a Cabinet?

Technically, yes.

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While Democrats can no longer filibuster Cabinet nominees, they can slow the process down. Its possible Republicans could decide to adjourn for a long recess, but it would be an incredible abdication of power by GOP leaders. It would certainly be the subject of a lawsuit, and theres some evidence a conservative Supreme Court would be skeptical of an effort to fill Trumps Cabinet in a manufactured recess.

Is there a loophole?

There is another clause in the Constitution that some Trump allies are looking at. The House and Senate are each given the power to adjourn, but for anything longer than three days, they need each chambers approval. If the House and Senate cant agree, the Constitution says this about the president:

So if Senate Republicans dont want to give up their power, it is technically possible that House Speaker Mike Johnson could get the House to pass an adjournment resolution the Senate would not agree to. Trump could then adjourn the Senate for 10 days to ram through a Cabinet.

Lets explore that. Johnson is set to have a very slim majority. Hed need every House Republican to go along with him in a quest to declare parliamentary war on a Republican-controlled Senate. Seems extremely unlikely to happen. But who knows.

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The president has never in US history tried to adjourn the House and Senate using this authority. The Senate Historical Office said it was not aware of serious discussion about this particular clause in the Constitution since the 1930s.

The conservative legal expert Edward Whelan writes about this idea in The Washington Post and encourages Johnson to shoot it down.

Who was the first Cabinet nominee to be rejected?

The first Cabinet officer to be rejected was Roger B. Taney, who then-President Andrew Jackson wanted as Treasury secretary in 1834 to gut the Second Bank of the United States, the precursor to the Federal Reserve. (Trump, coincidentally, would like to exert more power over the Federal Reserve today.)

Senators rejected Taney even after he served in the post temporarily, according to an account by the Senate Historical Office.

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Then, the Senate rejected Taney when Jackson put him forward for a Supreme Court nomination. Jackson then put Taney forward again, but this time for chief justice of the Supreme Court. Taney was ultimately confirmed and, as chief justice, swore in Jacksons hand-picked successor, Martin Van Buren, who, coincidently, the Senate had rejected as Jacksons ambassador to England.

Taney, appointed for life to the Supreme Court, was ultimately an epic historical villain. He wrote the Dred Scott decision, which ruled that Black Americans could never be citizens.

This headline and story have been updated.

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EL PASO, Texas (KTSM)  The El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) has been holding its last round of community meetings this week for Phase lll of its Destination District Redesign (DDR) project, which will entail the potential closure of 10 elementary schools.

EPISD considers closing 10 schools as part of district redesign

The meetings have been hosted at campuses across the district that will either close down or receive students as a result.

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On Wednesday, Nov. 13, there were meetings held at Murphree PK-8 and Cooley Elementary, which are both campuses that are set to potentially receive students from schools that are shut down.

Our KTSM crews attended the meeting at Murphree Elementary where there were only about a dozen parents present.

There were two projection screens set up and about three dozen seats that were mostly empty. School officials seemingly had a quiet discussion with the group of parents present for about 20 minutes before the meeting concluded.

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There were no presentations made.

Communities across the district have expressed their dissatisfaction with the first three phases of DDR.

People have complained about EPISDs lack of transparency and have said that the district does not do enough to spread the word about the poorly attended community meetings.

EPISD moving ahead with district redesign, while some parents are dissatisfied

Parents and advocates from communities where schools will potentially close have been vocal in expressing their opposition to the closures, but parents from the communities who are set to take in students displaced from other campuses, are seemingly just as opposed to the idea.

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What I am hearing from numerous people that are in these neighborhoods, those sister schools who would get these new kids for next year. (They) are having meetings to figure out ways (to not have) those kids there. Thats not being equitable, Norma De La Rosa, the president of the El Paso Teachers Association said.

I think that the school is large as it is and adding more students is just going to add to the chaos of the number of students here. The principal does a really good job here, shes new here this year. Before that, we had Mr. G., and he was amazing. So, I always felt safe with my kids here. But its a large school. There are a lot of students here. And the student-to-teacher ratio is high as it is, Audria Rausch who has a child attendings child attends Murphree Elementary said.

I think thats just a very bad decision at the time because classes are already at full capacity. Right now, there are 30-40 kids per class, which makes no sense. No teaching going on. Chaos is already bad enough as it is. And then to add more kids to that, I think its just going to add more problems to the teachers, to the staff, and especially the safety of the kids, a parent with children at Murphree Elementary who did not want to be identified said.

The way EPISD currently has plans laid out, Murphree Elementary is the recommended destination for students who currently attend Putnam Elementary to relocate if it were closed.

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Murphree Elementary has also been presented as an alternative for students who would have to be relocated if Rivera Elementary were shut down.

EPISD is an open enrollment district and as such, parents would still have the option of enrolling their children at any campus of their choosing.

Parents, students and community advocates from the schools that are on the chopping block have expressed that they want EPISD to hold off on making any decision if the districts equity audit report is not taken into account.

Group calls on EPISD to reconsider school closure proposal

Community advocates have reported that EPISD is set to have a board meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 19, where they believe a vote may be had on whether or not to close the 10 schools down.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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  One of New York City Mayor Eric Adams longtime personal friends, who has weathered criticism for his handling of a lucrative lease agreement, received a significant pay raise in his city job during the previous fiscal year.

Public records show Jesse Hamilton scored a more than 18 percent bump at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, where he oversees lease deals between city agencies and private commercial landlords  agreements that have attracted scrutiny from news outlets, elected officials and criminal prosecutors.

Hamiltons pay rose from $213,783 in fiscal year 2023 to $253,239 in fiscal year 2024, which ended over the summer. And while a 6 percent increase was attributable to a standard pay hike given out to all managerial employees, a DCAS spokesperson said Hamilton received a more than 12 percent discretionary bump  a special consideration that eluded other top city officials.

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That fattened paycheck incensed Council Member Lincoln Restler, who has been scrutinizing a questionable contract overseen by Hamilton. As first reported by POLITICO last month, Hamilton steered a multimillion lease deal toward a mayoral donor after overruling an internal bidding process.

Jesse Hamilton remains unqualified for the job of deputy commissioner for real estate services, said Restler, who recently held a hearing on the type of lease deals Hamilton oversees at DCAS. We need significant oversight and accountability of the work that he has done to date  the notion of him getting a substantial raise is ridiculous.

The DCAS spokesperson, Anessa Hodgson, said the agency goosed Hamiltons salary to be in line with other senior agency officials. Hamiltons pay, however, was increased beyond what his predecessor would have earned in the same role, public records show.

A City Hall representative praised DCAS Commissioner Louis Molinas bona fides  though the pay raise predated his tenure  and declined to address Hamiltons salary.

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Commissioner Molina and the Department of Citywide Administrative Services are experts in their field, and they continue to work to secure the best value for taxpayers while they acquire, sell and lease city property, spokesperson Amaris Cockfield said in a statement.

Hamiltons good fortune came as his prowess at the agency has actually decreased  his authority over lease deals was diluted earlier this year as more power was shifted to his superior in the real estate services division, Molina revealed at last months hearing.

And because of questions raised about his oversight of the 22 million square feet of office space the city leases from private landlords, Hamiltons actions have triggered a review by First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, who on Tuesday paused a pending lease deal at the downtown office building owned by the billionaire mayoral donor, Alexander Rovt.

Hamiltons special salary bump is just the latest largesse extended to the mayors political protege.

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Hamilton  who succeeded Adams in the state Senate in 2015 before he was ousted four years later  was hired as a DCAS attorney in August 2022 at a salary of $190,000. Just four months later, City Hall took the unusual step of promoting him to his current deputy commissioner slot. All told, Hamilton has seen his pay increase by roughly a third during his time in city government  despite having no obvious experience that would have qualified him for the job.

Since netting his pay raise, Hamilton has also become ensnared in a law enforcement probe. That investigation is one of several focused on members of the Adams administration and the mayor himself.

In early October, officials from the Manhattan district attorneys office stopped Hamilton at John F. Kennedy Airport upon his return from a trip to Japan. The former state lawmaker had been traveling with one of the mayors closest aides, Chief Advisor Ingrid Lewis-Martin, and a private broker who works with Hamilton on city lease deals worth millions of dollars. Officials took the phones of all three as the DA's office reportedly looks at real estate transactions overseen by Hamilton.

Weeks later, POLITICO reported Hamilton overruled the results of an internal bidding process for one such lease.

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Instead of inking a deal for a new Department for the Aging office with the winning bidder, Hamilton steered the lucrative contract to Rovts landmarked commercial building at 14 Wall St.

At the recent City Council hearing examining that deal, Molina revealed Hamilton disregarded an internal ranking system that had crowned another building owner the winner as part of the request for proposal process. Molina defended the decision by saying it saved the city $31 million and that 14 Wall St. was preferred by the commissioner of the Department for the Aging.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the timing of Jesse Hamiltons raise, which occurred prior to DCAS Commissioner Louis Molinas tenure.
Wednesday is the first day in Erie Countys history that they have taken drastic steps to end homelessness.

Thats according to the county executive as they opened a single-site operation for Our Neighbors Place.

The county is calling this the Streets to Sustainability initiative and their goal is to simplify access for those in need.

Imagine picking up the entire shelter and moving to another church basement. We dont have to do that anymore, said Kurt Crays, CEO of the Erie United Methodist Alliance (EUMA).

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Erie County awarded over $1.1 million for community projects

Our Neighbors Place will be starting its 13th year of providing overflow shelter for those who are experiencing a homeless crisis.

Previously the program would rotate locations every couple of weeks between about 15 churches.

Services will only offered at the Community Resilience Center located at 450 East 16th Street starting Wednesday night.

Weve done this for decades so now this is the new approach to really get to the root of the cause, said Erie County Executive Brenton Davis.

Scary good cause  Harborcreek Haunts raises nearly $2K for Fairfield Hose Company

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Davis referred to this transformation as turning a place of hopelessness into hope.

The property was formally the Erie County Prisons work release site and $1 million of American Rescue Plan money was used for renovation.

A total of 50 individuals can take advantage of a warm meal, shower facilities and safe sleeping accommodations.

This building has been vacant for four years and now not only will it serve as a shelter but it will provide resources to help those in need find consistent housing.

Access to mental health, helping to get access to medication, have them get access to transportation workforce development social workers things of all kinds, said Davis.

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Our Neighbors Place is a low-demand, high-expectation overflow shelter that Crays said is welcome to all despite other challenges they may be facing.

The county administration plans to solidify arrangements with the Erie Metropolitan Transit Authority to provide transportation to the overflow shelter.

Honestly its a godsend. We were at a place where churches were struggling to meet the space demands that Our Neighbors Place required and this opened up at the right time, said Crays.

In the county executives 2025 budget proposal, $1 million is allotted. He said they are looking to make these services available year-round.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET/WFXP/YourErie.com.
BRUSSELS, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- A majority of European Union (EU) legislators have backed the postponement of a new law banning imports of products linked to deforestation into the European Union in light of concerns from trade partners and member states.

During a vote in the European Parliament on Thursday, 371 members supported a one-year delay in the implementation of the law, while 240 voted against, and 30 abstained. The majority of votes in favor came from far-right and center-right political groups.

The regulation, which was due to take effect on Dec. 30 this year, aims to ensure that cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and wood products sold in Europe do not contribute to deforestation in areas from the Amazon to Southeast Asia.

However, in response to concerns raised by EU and non-EU countries and industry players that they would not be able to fully comply with the rules if applied at the end of 2024, the European Commission proposed delaying implementation until Dec. 2025 for large traders, and mid-2026 for micro- and small enterprises.

The law is part of the EU's "Green Deal" environmental package to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, but it has received strong opposition from trade partners including the United States, Brazil, Malaysia, and Indonesia, whose exports of commodities could be seriously affected by the legislation.

However, environmental groups said Thursday's vote gave a terrible signal on the climate agenda of the new European Parliament to world leaders meeting in Azerbaijan this week for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29).

The World Wide Fund for Nature said the vote could "enable further forest destruction both within and outside of Europe."

During Thursday's vote, the European Parliament also approved some regulation amendments. One such amendment introduces a "no-risk" category for certain countries, in addition to the existing three categories of "low", "standard" and "high" risk. Countries classified as "no risk" are those defined as having stable or increasing forest area development, and would face significantly less stringent requirements.

Interinstitutional negotiations will now be held on the changes to the regulation, and the agreed text will have to be endorsed by both Council and Parliament and published in the EU Official Journal. 
IRVINE, Ky. (FOX 56)  The Estill County Fire Department is searching for answers after multiple structure fires along a single road.

On Tuesday, the department took to Facebook to ask residents to check their security cameras after a string of fires broke out over several days on Winston Road in Irvine.

We along with the Estill Co Sheriffs Office are asking for anyone with any information concerning these fires, the Estill County Fire Department wrote. Check your security cameras and no information is too small.

LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS:

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If you have any information, contact the Estill County Sheriffs Office at (606) 723-2323 or the fire department at (606) 723-2661.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
President-elect Donald Trump's announcement Tuesday that tech billionaire Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a newly formed advisory Department of Government Efficiency has alarmed some government ethics experts, who say the pair's deep financial interests could lead to potential conflicts of interest.

Some ethics experts are particularly alarmed that Musk and Ramaswamy's roles have been described as "outside of government" -- an arrangement that could potentially mean they would not be subject to normal financial disclosure rules, despite the major impact their work could have on the federal government.

"Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies," Trump said of Musk and Ramaswamy, both of whom were vocal supporters of Trump's reelection campaign.

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MORE: Trump says Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead 'Department of Government Efficiency'

As outside governmental advisers, Musk -- who owns Tesla, X and SpaceX -- and Ramaswamy -- who founded the biotech firm Roivant Sciences -- might not be subject to federal requirements mandating that officials disclose their financial interests to the Office of Government Ethics.

Certain categories of advisers from outside the government can be required to disclose their interests under the Federal Advisory Committee Act -- including if they are classified as a "Special Government Employee" -- but ethics experts say that not enough is known about the proposed department to know if they would be covered under that act.

Musk has promised transparency, posting on X shortly after the announcement, "All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency."

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"The transition team will ensure the Department of Government Efficiency and those involved with it are compliant with all legal guidelines related to conflicts of interest," Trump transition spokesperson Brian Hughes told ABC News.

PHOTO: In a split image, Elon Musk speaks during a campaign rally for former President Trump on Oct. 27, 2024 in New York, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the 4th Republican presidential primary debate in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Dec. 6, 2023. (Jim Watson and Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images, FILE)

Kedric Payne, senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, told ABC News that the possibility that Musk and Ramaswamy would not have financial disclosure obligations is alarming because their work cutting government regulations or spending could directly impact their business interests without the public knowing.

"It could be simply an attempt to stop the regulations on their business interest at the expense of government workers and the public," said Payne, who added that they could also be in a position to get more government contracts for their businesses.

"If you eliminate the government from doing certain tasks, then those tasks can go to government contracts for consultants," Payne said.

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Payne also stressed the highly unusual nature of Musk and Ramaswamy's proposed roles as outside advisers with significant influence.

"It's extremely rare to do it like this," he said. "It is common to have outside experts give advice to the government ... where it might just be a meeting, or something that's over a period of time. But to have a situation where we have outside entrepreneurs with business interests, possibly changing how they are regulated, and having this much power, that's not common."

Payne also said called for transparency regarding who else would be working with Musk and Ramaswamy in the new department, saying their interests would need to be made public as well.

MORE: Trump 'challenging' Republican senators with controversial Cabinet picks: ANALYSIS

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Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, echoed some of Payne's concerns about potential conflicts of interest given Musk and Ramaswamy's business interests, while emphasizing that more details are necessary to determine whether there would be any violation of federal ethics laws.

"We don't yet know enough about how these positions will operate to know whether there will, in fact, be conflicts of interest and what those conflicts will be," Bookbinder said. "If Musk and Ramaswamy are in a position where they can influence governmental decisions and if some of those decisions could impact their businesses, then there could be a danger of illegal conflicts of interest. Other laws and rules could also be at issue today depending on what they do and how this 'Department' works."

Bookbinder also floated the possibility that others in government could feel pressed to look favorably on Musk's interests given his significant influence over Trump, which sources tell ABC News has recently seen Musk offering input on Trump's staffing decisions and playing a significant role in shaping the future Trump administration.

Some ethics experts raise concerns over Musk and Ramaswamy's Department of Government Efficiency roles originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
The European Union has approved funding for joint defence procurement by its member states for the first time in its history. This initiative envisages plans to purchase missiles and ammunition, with part of the supply intended for Ukraine.

Source: European Pravda, citing the European Commission

Details: EU funding will be allocated to five projects under the European Defence Industry Reinforcement through common Procurement Act (EDIRPA). Each project will receive 60 million in EU support.

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Two of the projects involve the joint procurement of Mistral and IRIS-T SLM air defence systems, another two focus on 155 mm ammunition, and a fifth on armoured personnel carriers. According to the European Commission, the total value of these projects exceeds 11 billion.

The selected EDIRPA projects bring together 20 EU member states.

"Most selected projects also include procurement of defence products intended for Ukraine, including air and missile defence systems and ammunition, bolstering the countrys defence capabilities in the context of the ongoing Russian aggression," the European Commission notes.

For reference: The EDIRPA programme was adopted by the European Union after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a short-term (until 2025 inclusive) tool to support joint defence procurement by member states and Norway.

Background: In March, the European Commission presented a proposal for a European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP) to replace EDIRPA after 2025.

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The European Parliament passed a resolution on 14 November, urging the EU to impose targeted sanctions on Russia's so-called shadow fleet, which enables the country to sell oil while circumventing Western price caps.

Source: European Parliament statement, as reported by European Pravda

Details: The resolution calls for restrictions on all vessels in Russia's shadow fleet as well as their owners, operators, managers and associated accounts, banks and insurance providers.

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It also demands systematic sanctions against vessels operating in EU waters without insurance and suggests deploying drones and satellites to track such ships.

Among other measures in the resolution are provisions to confiscate illicit cargo from shadow fleet vessels and to cease all imports of Russian fossil fuels into the EU.

At the end of 2022, the EU, together with the Group of Seven, banned all seaborne imports of Russian oil and, along with its G7 allies, capped the international trade price of Russian oil at US$60 per barrel.

However, according to research by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, around 80% of Russian seaborne oil is now transported by a shadow fleet of vessels that cannot be tracked by the West.

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There are additional concerns that the outdated tankers in Russias shadow fleet are prone to leaks and pose a potential environmental hazard near the EU.

Background: Media sources indicate that the next EU sanctions package against Russia will focus specifically on the shadow fleet.

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European leaders are appealing to outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden in a last-minute effort to secure support for Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, Bloomberg reported on Nov. 14, citing people familiar with the plans.

Trump, who has opposed ongoing U.S. aid to Ukraine and pushed for a speedy deal with Moscow to end the war, will take office on Jan. 20, 2025.

Some EU officials are urging the U.S. to provide more weapons and artillery to Ukraine, as well as permissions to carry out long-range strikes on Russia, sources told Bloomberg.

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There have also been requests for additional sanctions against Moscow. Many of the requests have been informal, sources said.

The Biden administration has assured Ukraine that it will receive the full $6 billion in remaining congressionally-allotted aid before Trump returns to the White House in January.

In an emergency visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels after the U.S. election, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the administration is also looking for additional assistance for Ukraine ahead of the presidential transition.

Biden will "continue to shore up everything we're doing for Ukraine" to ensure it can either fight effectively next year or negotiate peace with Russia from a position of strength, Blinken said.

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Despite these assurances, the U.S. has not changed its position on Ukraine's use of long-range American weapons against military targets deep within Russia. Such permission was a key part of the five-point victory plan President Volodymyr Zelensky presented to Western leaders.

"When we engage with our American friends and partners, I really hope we'll continue our support to Ukrainians, including on deep strikes, to use legitimate defense when targets are used to strike Ukraine's defense and infrastructure," France's European Affairs Minister Benjamin Haddad told Bloomberg in an interview.

With Washington's continued military support for Kyiv now uncertain, Europe has become Ukraine's main defense partner in the war against Russia.

Read also: Opinion: How EU nations can prevent the worst-case outcome for Ukraine

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(Bloomberg) -- The European Union is working on a new package of sanctions aimed at targeting the shadow fleet of tankers Russia is using to get its oil to market, according to people familiar with the matter.

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The package, which the bloc aims to approve before the end of year, is also expected to include penalties against individuals involved in the trade. Member states are still negotiating the details of the sanctions, which need to be approved unanimously by the 27 member states.

It has gotten progressively difficult for the EU to win approval of packages in recent months, with Hungary often wielding its veto power during the negotiations.

Multiple rounds of US, UK and EU sanctions have already targeted dozens of tankers, as well as ships and services used to move Russian crude.

They have done so by prohibiting firms in the Group of Seven countries and the EU from buying oil sold above a $60 price cap. Ukraines allies have also imposed sanctions on several companies in third countries that are helping Russia move its crude as they seek to cut Moscows revenues from its most lucrative income stream.

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Western companies are allowed to provide transportation, insurance and other services if the oil is sold below the threshold.

In response to the sanctions regime, Moscow has assembled a covert fleet of tankers to get around the cap and restrictions as it continues to profit from the trade.

The profits are fueling Vladimir Putins war machine and the US, the UK and the EU have made cutting them a priority.

The EU is also working on a bigger sanctions package that it hopes to adopt early next year when the blocs presidency passes from Hungary to Poland. It could include further trade restrictions, as well as more tariffs on Russian agricultural goods.

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This package could be presented as soon as January, with the goal of adopting it before the symbolic date of Feb. 24, which would mark Russias full-scale invasions third anniversary.

Some countries want to see Russias LNG trade targeted.

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The European Union's drugs regulator reversed its decision to block the Alzheimer's drug lecanemab, a treatment aimed at slowing cognitive decline in patients.

In July, the Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency (EMA) denied recommending approval of the drug made by Eisai and Biogen because it considered the risks - especially bleeding and swelling in the brain - to be greater than the potential benefits in a broad population.

The makers requested a second review, the results of which were issued on Thursday.

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The EMA said that after re-examining its initial opinion, it has concluded that some people in the early stages of the disease could be helped by the drug. The regulator is requiring patients undergo MRI scans at various stages of their treatment to check for abnormalities.

Lecanemab, sold under the brand name Leqembi, would be the first drug on the market in the EU to target the underlying disease processes of Alzheimer's rather than just treat the symptoms.

The European Commission, which is responsible for marketing authorization, usually follows the opinion of the agency.

The drug is already authorized in the United States and Britain, but not in Australia.
EUCLID, Ohio (WJW)  Euclid police are investigating after a suspect fired several shots on a residential street, injuring a teen and damaging a home and a car.

According to police reports, the shooting happened in the 600 block of E. 232nd St. around 10 p.m. Sunday.

We believe the suspects were in a dark-colored small SUV and fired several shots, said Euclid Police Chief Scott Meyer. We had bullets flying all over the neighborhood to include one bullet that struck a teenager, one that struck a parked car with a 12 and 13-year-old passenger in the car and we also had a home struck with bullets too.



The teen who was shot ran to a friends home. The victim told police he was walking home when someone started shooting.

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So far, no arrests have been made, but detectives are continuing to investigate.

The chief said when officers found the teen, he was seriously injured, so they started first aid. He added that officers also had to deal with other teens and an adult in the home that were not cooperating with police.

You dont have to like the police, Meyer said. But at least respect the fact they are trying to help the victim. So standing around, getting in their way, being difficult, doesnt help the victim.

Several license plates swapped in Lakewood, police investigating

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The teen is expected to recover.

Anyone who has any information on the shooting or the suspects is asked to call Euclid police detectives as soon as possible at 216-289-8505.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
(Bloomberg) -- Europe is making a last-ditch appeal to the outgoing Biden administration to boost American support for Ukraine in order to solidify Kyivs position as much as possible before the presidential term ends in January.

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Donald Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, has said hed seek a quick deal between Kyiv and Moscow, raising concerns in Europe that such an accord would be disadvantageous to Ukraine and possibly entrench gains made my Russia since it invaded in 2022.

European leaders and officials have asked the US to provide Ukraine with more weapons and artillery, impose additional sanctions on key Russian revenue streams and target Moscows ability to acquire banned technologies used in weapons, according to people familiar with the matter. Many of the European requests have been informal in nature, the people said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a hastily arranged trip to Brussels on Wednesday to reassure NATO and European Union allies that the US will intensify its efforts to send resources to Ukraine ahead of the inauguration of Trump, who has strongly criticized the scale of the US effort to defend Kyiv.

The resources he mentioned  money, ammunition, weapons  mainly come from a $61 billion package passed by the US Congress earlier this year. He added that every dollar at our disposal will be rushed through.

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Even though time is running short for Biden to act on the requests, the US is already working on adopting new sanctions against Russias oil fleet and North Korea  which has sent troops to aid Moscows war effort  by the end of November, said the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Spokespeople from the State and Treasury departments declined to comment.

Europe has accelerated efforts to protect its interests, particularly when it comes to Ukraines war efforts, before Trump becomes president. Trump has taken an antagonistic stance toward Europe and in September, he sidestepped a question about whether he wanted Ukraine to succeed in its effort to expel the invading Russians.

The next few weeks will be critical to put Ukraine in a strong position, Mark Leonard, co-founder and director of European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, told Bloomberg. He said a deal negotiated by Trump may try to freeze the conflict on the lines where Russia now occupies 20% of Ukrainian territory.

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The US has committed to ensuring that all the money for Ukraine that it has at its disposal will be used before Trump takes office. However, the delivery of some weapons could take many months and stretch beyond Bidens time in office.

We are going to do as much as we can to support Ukraine before the new team takes over, US Armys Acquisition Chief Douglas Bush said in an interview. But at that point thatll be their judgment to make.

Several EU leaders have also been pushing the US to allow Ukraine use Western weapons to strike military targets inside Russia, a move that Kyiv and those allies believe would significantly improve the war-torn countrys ability to defend itself from Moscows attacks on critical infrastructure.

Biden has so far resisted the request while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has openly opposed it. People familiar with the US position said the view is that it would have limited impact on the battlefield and is not worth the escalation risk.

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When we engage with our American friends and partners, I really hope well continue our support to Ukrainians, including on deep strikes, to use legitimate defense when targets are used to strike Ukraines defense and infrastructure, Frances Minister for European Affairs Benjamin Haddad said in an interview.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the US and its NATO allies against allowing Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia using weapons that theyve supplied. Ukraine also wants to use British Storm Shadow cruise missiles and French SCALPs to carry out the strikes.

For its part, the EU is bracing for a disruptive Trump presidency amid concerns that the bloc will need to boost aid to Kyiv due to reduced American support. Its seeking to accelerate talks with the UK on a new defense and security pact, Bloomberg reported earlier.

Even though the EU is the biggest provider of aid to Ukraine, Kyiv relies on the US for crucial military resources such as F-16s and ATACM long-range missiles. The EU allocated 118 billion ($126 billion) since the start of the conflict, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

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--With assistance from Alberto Nardelli, Andrea Palasciano, Viktoria Dendrinou and Daniel Flatley.

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The European Commission has agreed to allocate 4.1 billion to Ukraine under the Ukraine Facility.

Source: Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal

Quote: "The European Commission gave a positive assessment of the reforms and noted that the government has fulfilled the necessary indicators to receive this tranche."

Details: Shmyhal said the government expects the Council of the EU to approve the decision as soon as possible. This will bring the total amount of support under the Ukraine Facility for 2024 to 16.1 billion.

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Background:

The Ukraine Facility is a 50 billion programme of EU support for Ukraine that will run from 2024 to 2027.

In May, the Council of the European Union approved Ukraine's plan to implement the 50 billion Ukraine Facility.

According to Ukraines Ministry of Finance, total financial assistance from the EU in 2024 will reach 16 billion, of which 3 billion will be in the form of grants.

The plan for the Ukraine Facility includes 69 reforms, which are covered by more than 150 quarterly performance indicators and 16 investment indicators. In the third quarter, Ukraine met eight of the nine indicators.

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ISTANBUL, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Two Turkish public prosecutor offices have initiated investigations into Istanbul and Ankara municipalities over their expenditures at some public events, local media reported Thursday.

The Ankara chief prosecutor's office said late on Wednesday that it had launched an investigation over the spending on two concerts organized by Ankara during celebrations marking the founding of the Republic of Turkiye on Oct. 29, local media reported.

Two inspectors from the Turkish interior ministry will be involved in the investigation, it reported.

There has been a heated public debate for nearly two weeks over claims that Ankara allocated 61 million Turkish Liras (around 1.8 million U.S. dollars) for those concerts, it reported.

Hours after the probe into Ankara, the Istanbul chief prosecutor's office said it would investigate "irregular spending" at some public events organized by the Istanbul municipality, without elaborating, local media reported.

The two municipalities, both run by the main opposition Republican People's Party, denied the allegations, it reported. 
The European Commission agreed to allocate 4.1 billion euros ($4.3 billion) to Ukraine under the Ukraine Facility program, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen confirmed on Nov. 14.

The decision must be approved by the EU Council before the transfer.

"As we're approaching the 1000th day of Russia's atrocious war, we will help keep the Ukrainian state running while the country fights for survival. We are in it for the long haul," Von der Leyen said.

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The EU greenlighted the Ukraine Facility in February, and the EU Council approved the framework agreement in mid-May, setting out the Ukrainian government's tasks for recovery, reconstruction, and modernization.

The European Commission also praised Ukraine's recent reforms, which allowed it to receive the latest financial tranche, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

"We expect the EU Council to approve the decision as soon as possible. After that, the total amount of support under the Ukraine Facility for this year will amount to 16.1 billion euros ($17 billion)," Shmyhal added.

In mid-August, Ukraine received 4.2 billion euros ($4.6 billion) as part of the EU's four-year financial support program. Kyiv also received several pre-financing "bridge" tranches under the assistance plan earlier this year.

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Ukraine was provided with $42.5 billion in external financing from various donors last year, allowing it to function amid the ongoing war. The International Monetary Fund said Ukraine will need roughly the same sum to support its budget this year.

According to Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko, the current pledges are still not sufficient to cover the country's needs, adding that Ukraine will likely need an additional $12-15 billion in foreign financial support next year.

Read also: What do Trumps first team picks mean for Ukraine?

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Kyiv's European partners are increasingly preparing for a deal that could include Ukraine giving up on some of its territories in return for security guarantees, the Washington Post reported on Nov. 13, citing interviews with 10 current and former Western officials.

The news comes amid Ukraine's mounting setbacks on the battlefield and uncertainties about U.S. support under incoming President Donald Trump. The U.S. president-elect has pledged to end the war "within 24" hours, sparking concerns he might push Ukraine toward painful concessions.

While publicly declaring full support for Ukraine, the idea of ceding territory is quietly gaining more traction among Western officials, even though the details of such an agreement remain unclear, the Washington Post wrote.

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"I think everybody has more or less reached this conclusion. It's hard to say it publicly because it would be a way of saying we are going to reward aggression," Gerard Araud, a former French ambassador to the U.S., told the news outlet.

The proposal is being allegedly reframed from "land-for-peace" to "security-for-peace" to stress the necessity for security guarantees that would prevent further Russian aggression.

Russia currently occupies roughly one-fifth of Ukraine's territory in the south and the east.

Kyiv has repeatedly said that entry to NATO is the most secure way to avert future wars, but the proposal has met cold responses from a number of allies. Quick accession seems even more unlikely now as one proposal from Trump's team reportedly includes delaying Ukraine's entry by at least 20 years and instead supplying it with sufficient arms to repel Russia on its own.

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Ukraine and Russia held unsuccessful negotiations in early 2022. The initial version of Russia's peace proposal issued shortly after the start of the full-scale invasion and leaked to the media this year was described as an effective surrender of Ukraine.

The terms became more moderate later on and included reducing Ukraine's military size, prohibiting NATO entry but allowing EU accession, and postponing the matter of occupied territories to a later date. The treaty would be backed by international guarantors like the U.K., the U.S., China, and France.

The negotiations eventually failed, and no direct talks have been held between Ukraine and Russia since then. Kyiv has insisted that a peace settlement should be based on President Volodymyr Zelensky's 10-point peace formula, which includes the restoration of full territorial integrity.

Some Ukrainian officials acknowledged, however, that some territory would have to be liberated by diplomatic means as the country's manpower and resources dwindle in the face of unrelenting Russian attacks.

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There seems to be little readiness for compromise in Moscow as its forces continue steadily advancing in Donetsk Oblast. Russia's economy has largely weathered Western sanctions and managed to offset its heavy battlefield casualties better than Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in October that his country is not planning any concessions and said that a peace deal must favor Moscow.

Read also: Ukraine reacts warily to Trump appointments as Russias war rages on

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The European Parliament on Thursday voted in favour for a delay on the implementation of an anti-deforestation regulation by a year after months of criticism.

EU legislators, the majority of them from the far-right and centre-right political groups, backed the delay with 371 votes in favour, 30 abstentions, and 240 against, according to a statement.

Business associations, different political parties and some trading partners of the European Union had called for more time to prepare for the application of the new law.

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Now that the EU legislative chamber has voted in favour, and if EU member states agree with the extension, large companies are to comply from December 30, 2025 and small companies from June 30, 2026.

The new EU law aims to protect forests globally and reduce deforestation of the rainforest, for example in the Amazon region in South America.

Once implemented, products such as coffee, wood, soya, cocoa and palm oil may only be sold in the EU if no forests have been cleared for their production after 2020.

Companies are to submit due diligence declarations stating that no forest has been cleared or damaged for their product.

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Non-compliant businesses might face high penalties of at least 4% of their annual turnover in the EU.

Another amendment adopted by the parliament introduces a "no-risk" category for certain countries which environmentalist groups view as allowing deforestation to continue through major loopholes.

A statement from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said the move undermines a landmark EU environmental laws to effectively enable further "forest destruction both within and outside of Europe."
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT)  An Evansville woman was honored on Wednesday for her dedication to area babies and children.

Dr. Maria Del Rio Hoover was given the YWCAs Tribute to Achievement during a holiday luncheon at the Evansville Country Club.

Born in Cuba, Dr. Del Rio Hoover came to the U.S. as a young girl and was inspired by her pediatrician father.

Dr. Del Rio Hoover has been with Ascension St. Vincent Evansville for 35 years. She is also the co-chair of Indianas Perinatal Substance Use Task Force, advocating for new laws and services for abused and neglected children.

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Dr. Del Rio Hoover was also named the 2024 IU School of Medicine Physician Mentor of the Year.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW).
Donald Trumps nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general is not just drawing backlash from Senate Republicanseven Fox News hosts arent fans.

On Fox & Friends Thursday morning, Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade didnt hold back their misgivings about Gaetz potentially ascending to the post, pointing out the House Ethics Committee investigation against him over sexual misconduct, drug use, and public corruption.

The report has been written, apparently, and Washington, D.C., leaks like a sieve. And you can bet, dollar to donuts, if he is  undergoes the confirmation hearing process as is standard, somebody is going to read verbatim from whatever it says, Doocy said.

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Kilmeade pointed out that Gaetz was solely responsible for blowing up the House last year, referring to his leading role in ousting former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and said he had no plan to fix the situation before House Republicans coalesced around Representative Mike Johnson. Later, Kilmeade called out Gaetz for being part of the clown car.

I always thought when Susie Wiles took the job [of chief of staff], you heard, she says, The one thing I would say is I dont want to see any of the clown car, Kilmeade said. I always thought Matt Gaetz was in the clown car, so Im surprised hed be part of the starting lineup.

Gaetz abruptly resigned from Congress Wednesday after being named by Trump to the attorney general post, only two days before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on releasing its report about the investigation into Gaetz. While the move ends the investigation, it has raised more questions about what Gaetz is trying to hide. On Thursday, a close friend of Gaetz is petitioning a court to destroy records detailing a drug-fueled sex party that a trafficked 17-year-old and Gaetz allegedly attended in 2017.

With Gaetz taking heat from Republicans and conservative media alike, its unclear if hed be able to make it through the Cabinet confirmation process. The investigation into his alleged misdeeds must contain damning information for Gaetz to take a drastic step such as resigning, especially since the contents of the House committees report will likely come out before or during his confirmation hearings. In any case, its an inauspicious start for any Cabinet nominee, let alone one who is vying to be the nations top law enforcement officer.
(Bloomberg) -- Even San Francisco, a liberal bastion and conservative punching bag, has found itself caught up in the nations rightward shift.

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More than 15% of the citys voters cast their ballot for Donald Trump in last weeks election, compared with 9.3% when he first ran in 2016, according to data from the California Secretary of State. It was the highest share for a Republican presidential candidate in San Francisco in 20 years.

While the results reflect a national trend, they take on a particular resonance in San Francisco, where only 7% of voters are registered Republicans and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, once served as district attorney. Now, local GOP boosters hope they can seize the momentum and reengage a wealthy donor class that had otherwise given up on the city.

Currently theres a self-fulfilling prophecy that Republicans cant succeed in the city, so why bother supporting them? said Jay Donde, co-founder of the San Francisco Briones Society, a Republican group pushing for a more moderate city. This shows theres an opportunity for Republican candidates who can have success.

San Francisco remains a strong liberal foothold and has no chance of turning red anytime soon. But as the city struggles with an intractable homelessness crisis, street crime and record office vacancies, the election results reflected a sentiment echoed across the country: unhappiness with the status quo. Despite having no political experience, Levi Strauss heir and nonprofit executive Daniel Lurie unseated incumbent Mayor London Breed after running as a moderate Democrat. He has said his plan on day one is to declare a state of emergency over the citys fentanyl epidemic.

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San Francisco isnt alone. Across deep-blue California, voters signaled a shift in sentiment. A state ballot measure that increased penalties for repeated theft and certain drug crimes passed with nearly 70% of the vote. Los Angeles progressive district attorney, George Gascon, lost his reelection bid. In Oakland, voters recalled Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County district attorney Pamela Price after property and violent crime rates spiked in the last year.

Nearly 40% of Californians voted for Trump, as Harris recorded the lowest percentage for a Democrat in two decades. The states swing could have implications for the governors race in 2026, where already some high-profile Republicans are considering making a run as Democrat Gavin Newsom terms out.

Liberals getting mugged is making them more conservative. This is a human phenomenon, said Harmeet Dhillon, a leading Republican lawyer in San Francisco who worked closely with the Trump campaign. I think people are fed up. The taxpayers are fed up, and you have seen a more moderate movement here.

Shifting Tenor

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The tenor toward Republicans has changed since 2016, when protesters were locking themselves to the doors of tech companies in San Francisco for working with the Trump administration. Instead, this election season Trump made several pit stops in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, where he was greeted with flag-waving supporters.

Several San Francisco tech leaders and residents, like Craft Ventures David Sacks, backed Trumps reelection openly and loudly. In June, he held a fundraiser for the candidate at his Pacific Heights home, which raised over $12 million for the campaign. Sacks, who has close ties to Trump backer Elon Musk, didnt respond to a request for comment.

Whether Trumps loudest supporters in tech will turn their support to local politics remains to be seen, but Donde said he believes theres an opening for this to be the floor, not the ceiling to local Republican support. Already more moderate tech Democrats have been spending hundreds of millions to shape the city and push its politics toward the center.

It helps nudge the thinking of the donor class, of the activist class, of folks that generally do care about seeing San Francisco return to better days, Donde said.

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In line with national trends, San Francisco saw a swing in the Latino vote toward Trump, who gathered more than 30% of the votes in neighborhoods such as Outer Mission and Visitacion Valley that have a large Hispanic population, according to an analysis by Election Map SF. In the citys heavily Asian western neighborhoods, Trump brought in 25% of the vote. He failed to make headway in LGBTQ neighborhoods like the Castro, which recorded low single-digit support for the Republican nominee.

Outside of the presidential race, other down-ballot races in San Francisco saw Republican candidates drawing roughly 20% in the vote, including the Republican challenger Bruce Lou, who took 18.7% of the votes against former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Its a sign to Donde that its a matter of placing the right candidate in the right race in the right neighborhood. A conservative would find it hard to win supervisor of the Castro, for instance, but a western neighborhood could find competition, he said.

Some experts are more skeptical that a Republican will win in San Francisco anytime soon. If anything, Trumps victory on a national level could make it harder since anyone running will be seen as an extension of his controversial political views, said Jason McDaniel, a political science professor at San Francisco State University.

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Anybody who runs as a Republican here, as an actual Republican, they will see them as an avatar of the MAGA Republicans, and thats deeply unpopular in San Francisco, McDaniel said.

If Trump had lost and there was a reset to a more old-school Republican, there could be more of a movement to the right of center, but its more likely moderate Democrats would have adopted some of the same positions, McDaniel said. He attributes the shift in the city to a mix of Trump growing his base, backlash to Israels war on Gaza, and San Franciscos anti-establishment culture.

Even though people think of SF as liberal and blue, theres a lot of anti-system sentiment, he said. The mainstream Democratic party is not as popular.

(Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, donated $1.45 million in support of Breeds reelection campaign.)

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--With assistance from Eliyahu Kamisher.

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ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC)  With the fall season rearing towards its closing weeks  hunters across the state prepare to welcome this years gun season for whitetail deer.

New York States most popular big game hunting season begins on November 16 and ending on December 8 in most areas of the state. DEC says an estimated 470,000 licensed hunters will be participating in this years season, taking care of nearly 60% of the states deer harvest.

To find out when the gun and muzzleloadar season starts and ends on your area, you can check this map provided by the DEC.

Upcoming CWD concerns

With the recent discovery of Chronic Wasting Disease found in New York, the DEC is responding in a captive deer facility in southern Herkimer County. While the DEC says there is no evidence that CWD is present in wild deer at this time, they are enhancing surveillance in the area and are asking hunters in the area to submit the deers head to the DEC for CWD testing.

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When CWD can spread rapidly and is nearly impossible to eliminate, and can threaten future deer hunting opportunities. Although impossible to eliminate, hunters can help prevent the introduction of CWD by following precautions.

Precautions to know when hunting outside of New York:

If you harvest any type of deer, elk, moose or caribou, debone the venison before bringing it back to New York. DEC will confiscate and destroy illegally imported deer carcasses and parts.

If you harvest a deer outside of the state known to have CWD, submit samples to the states Department of Natural Resources for DWD testing before consuming the venison. If the venison tests positive, contact the DEC for proper disposal.

Precautions to know when hunting in New York:

Avoid using deer urine-based lures or attractant scents, as those could contain CWD. DEC asks that you use synthetic products instead.

Dispose of deer carcass waste in a landfill not on the landscape.

Hunt only wild deer and support fair chase hunting principles.

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The DEC is asking any hunters in the towns of Columbia, German Flatts, Litchfield, Warren, or Winfield in Herkimer County and the town of Richfield in Otsego County to submit their deers head for testing at one of seven drop off locations.

When dropping off a deers head:

Cut the deer head off with some neck remaining

Keep the head chilled or frozen until submission to DEC

Remove the skull place and antlers on bucks before submission

Place the head in a plastic garbage bag

Label the bad with your name, address, and phone number and complete the DEC tag at the drop-off location

Deposit the bagged head in the white metal container at one of the drop-off locations below

The following are the seven drop off locations:

Town of Warren

131 Hyde-Bell Lane, Jordanville NY 13361 (highway department)

Town of Columbia

936 Jordanville Road, Ilion NY 13367 (sand building)

147 County Route 259, Ilion NY 13357 (town hall)

Town of Litchfield

804 Cedarville Road, Ilion NY 13357 (highway department)

Town of Winfield

306 Stone Road, West Winfield NY 13491 (highway department)

Town of Herkimer

225 North Main Street, Herkimer NY 13350 (Herkimer NYSDEC Office)

Town of Richfield

Boss Farm, 1545 County Route 25, Richfield Springs 13439

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The DEC has not noted instructions for head drop off when considering taxidermy or mounting options for deer.

Safety precautions: Strap Up Before You Go Up

The DEC is also encouraging hunters to continue to take the steps to remain safe while out hunting. Most hunting related injuries occur when hunters are climbing in and out of a tree stand.

Daily hunting hours for deer includes the full daylight period, beginning 30-minutes before sunrise and continuing 30 minutes after sunset. These hours ensure that there is enough light for hunters to identify their target and what is beyond.

All hunters are required to wear fluorescent orange or pink clothing on wither a hate, vest, or jacket which are visible in all directions.

Let young bucks go and watch them grow

The DEC also is encouraging hunters to let young bucks go and watch them grow.

New York continues to document a steady increase in the percentage of yearling bucks (1.5 years old) in buck harvest, with the percentage of older bucks (at least 2.5 years old) in the harvest continuing to increase.

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This educational campaign encourages hunters to voluntarily pass up opportunities at young bucks to allow more bucks to reach older age classes, while protecting the freedom of hunters to harvest any buck they desire.

By harvesting does instead of young bucks, hunters help keep deer populations in balance with available habitat which allows deer to meet their nutritional requirements for body and antler growth and fawn production. Hunters can help manage New Yorks deer herd by continuing to let young bucks go and harvesting at least one doe this hunting season.

Youth hunting opportunities

This year, hunters ages 12 and 13 can hunt with a firearm during the regular season when they hunt with a licensed, experienced adult mentor.

The program was established in 2021 and extended through 2025 for upstate counties that chose to participate. The program does not apply to Suffolk and Westchester Counties, and Erie and Rockland counties have not opted in to the program.

New tag printing regulations

As of August 1, the DEC changed the material for hunting and trapping tags as well as fishing licenses from synthetic paper to plain paper. This gives NYS hunters and trappers the ability to print hunting tags right from the comfort of their home.

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The change was made in effort to lower the states carbon footprint and lower costs. New paper means hunters in New York State no longer are required to wear back tags when hunting.

All tags ordered online can be printed at the end of your transaction and will also be delivered to you through email as well as available in you online DECALS account under your Active Licenses, Permits and Privileges. Tags ordered online will no longer be mailed to your home.

Licenses ordered over the phone will also be delivered by email. You can request to have your licenses and tags mailed when ordering over the phone, but you will need to allow up to 14 business days to receive them.

As of November 13, the DEC announced printing fee that will be associated with printing and mailing licenses. The fee, starting at $1, covers License Issuing Agents printing costs and covers their materials. The DEC notes that some vendors may ask for up to $2 for this fee.

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This is the result of a regulation that enables License Issuing Agents to recover costs associated with printing and mailing paper sporting licenses and other items sold through the DECs Automated Licensing System.

To avoid the fee, hunters and trappers can purchase licenses online, by phone or on the DECs HuntFishNY mobile app, or by opting to receive the tags through email for free printing at home.

Children ages 15 and under must have a legal parent or guardian assist with tag or license purchases.

Despite the recent changes, people can still buy licenses and tags in person or by the phone at select local stores or at a local Town Clerks Office. For proof of licensure, you can use the HuntFishNY application.

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Reporting your harvest within seven days is required by law and provides critical data to inform DECs management of deer, bear, and turkey populations.

For more information on the changes made to purchasing tags or how to create a DECALS online account, you can visit the DEC website.

If you are still looking to purchase your annual or lifetime hunting or fishing license and need more information license requirements, rules, regulations and prices, you can visit this website.

Hunters can also donate venison to help those less fortunate while contributing to deer management, and for the first time this season, big game hunters can use rifles in Niagara County!

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For specific descriptions of regulations and open hunting areas, hunters should refer to the 2024-2025 Hunting and Trapping Regulations Guide. Hunters are urged to review all regulations and safety tips contained in the guide before going afield

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
INDIANAPOLIS  A former Marine who killed a Fishers kindergarten teacher and her husband after slamming into the couples vehicle at 78 mph has been ordered to spend five years behind bars.

Thursday, Marion Superior Judge Angela Davis sentenced Jaime Heredia Jr. for his two counts of reckless homicide in the deaths of Grant Lansdell, 56, and his wife, Ashley Lansdell, a 51-year-old teacher at Fall Creek Elementary School.

It is with a heavy heart that I share of Ashleys passing this morning. Please keep her family in your thoughts, especially her high school daughter that lost 2 parents within weeks. We also have appreciated the extra love for our school community! #FCEfish @FCEhse @HSESchools https://t.co/DftORBPq25  Dr. Therisa Seymour (@TherisaSeymour) July 27, 2022

Davis sentenced Heredia to 10 years, five of which will be served in the Indiana Department of Correction and five years suspended. He also was ordered to serve three years on probation and undergo alcohol monitoring.

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The hearing capped an emotional day of testimony from family members of the deceased, and a brief statement from Heredia.

Family remembers Grant Lansdell and Ashley Lansdell

My mother was my best friend, wrote Mia Ross, Ashley Lansdells daughter in a letter read in court. She did not have a graceful end.

Several family members on the stand recalled Ashley Lansdells passion for reading, teaching and Grant Lansdells love for music.

You couldnt talk to him without him bringing up music, said Julie Lansdell, the couples daughter, noting he didn't always "have a way with words," but music was his form of communicating.

Family also described the couple's shared love for the Dave Matthews Band and many yearly traditions  all of which ended the day of the crash.

The crash that killed the Lansdells

Ashley Lansdell died roughly two weeks after the July 11, 2022 collision. According to police, Heredia drove into the couples Ford Fusion about 1 p.m. in the 8300 block of East 56th Street, near Glenn Road, in Lawrence.

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The husband and wife were unconscious and entrapped after the impact. Police said the crash made the Ford Fusion unrecognizable. Grant Lansdell, who was driving, died at the scene.

Data pulled from Heredias vehicle showed he was driving 78 mph one second before the crash, nearly 40 mph over the speed limit, police said. He was driving a 2017 government-issued Ford Focus that hed been given permission to use by a corporal with the Marine Corps, according to his arrest affidavit.

Investigators said Heredia called a corporal with the Marine Corps after the crash and asked them to remove a trash bag from the car and take it to a local recruiting office. The corporal later found the trash bag contained empty alcohol drink boxes and a flask with an unknown liquid inside. The corporal notified his supervisor.

Heredia was a sergeant with the Marine Corps at the time of the crash. A spokesperson with the 9th Marine Corps District previously told IndyStar that Heredia was administratively separated military in August after the fatal collision.

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In a tearful message to the court, Heredia, a husband and father to two young children, expressed remorse and asked the Lansdell family for forgiveness.

After the accident, I asked God why I didnt die, he said. I hated myself.

Judge Davis acknowledged Heredias military service and lack of criminal history before she made her decision, but said the aggravating factors in the crash outweighed the others.

You didnt even attempt to swerve, Davis said. And the fact that you called someone to hide the evidence, thats appalling to the court.

Heredias four intoxicated driving-related charges were dismissed as part of his plea, though Davis said Thursday she believes alcohol played a factor in the crash.

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The sentence was ultimately lower than what Marion County prosecutors request for eight years in prison and two years probation.

After leaving the courtroom, Pat Ross, Ashley Lansdells father, said its not the fullest sentence they wanted.

If thats the best we got, we got it, he said. Thats the best we can do.

Jake Allen contributed to this report.

Contact IndyStar reporter Sarah Nelson at sarah.nelson@indystar.com

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Ex-Marine sentenced in crash that killed Fishers teacher, husband
PHOENIX (AP)  A former Phoenix Suns employee is suing the team, alleging racial discrimination and unlawful retaliation that led to her termination, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona.

Andrea Trischan, the team's former manager of diversity, equity and inclusion, said in the lawsuit filed Wednesday that potential financial misconduct and sexual misconduct also took place by team employees. Trischan worked for the Suns for about 10 months from September 2022 until July 2023.

Andreas case is built on substantial evidence that establishes a clear and undeniable pattern of discrimination within the Suns organization, Trischan's lawyer Sheree Wright wrote in a statement.

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ESPN and The Arizona Republic first reported on the lawsuit.

Trischan was hired in 2022 after former owner Robert Sarver was suspended and fined $10 million for workplace misconduct and organizational deficiencies. Sarver eventually sold the team to Mat Ishbia, who paid roughly $4 billion for the Suns and the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury.

After being fired in 2023, Trischan filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Arizona Attorney Generals Offices civil rights division. That was dismissed on Nov. 5, according to ESPN and the Arizona Republic.

Ms. Trischans case was dismissed by the Arizona Attorney Generals office earlier this week, Suns and Mercury Senior Vice President of Communications Stacey Mitch wrote in a statement. Her claims have been without merit from day one, and now this lawsuit, in which she is seeking $60M, is based on the same claims that were just dismissed. We are fully confident the courts will agree her story is completely fabricated.

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Wright wrote that Trischan wants to prove her case in court rather than relying on a government entity constrained by limited resources and an overwhelming caseload.

Andrea remains unwavering in her pursuit of justice and is prepared to share her story and evidence with a jury, Wright added.

___

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA
GABORONE, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Botswana said Thursday that it has withdrawn from hosting the third United Nations conference on landlocked developing countries.

The Ministry of International Relations said Botswana will no longer host the conference that was scheduled for Dec. 10-13 in Gaborone, the capital.

Botswana had agreed to host the UN conference after the initial host, Rwanda, withdrew earlier this year, citing logistical challenges.

President Duma Boko, who was elected in October, said Botswana will cut excessive spending to build up the country's financial reserves.

The UN has yet to comment on the latest development regarding the conference, themed "Driving progress through partnerships." 
No jail time for the former Miami Township police officer who was off-duty and drunk when pointed a gun at a crowd at his neighbors 4th of July party after they would not stop shooting off fireworks.

Jason Etter used to work at the Miami Township Police Department.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

He was fired by the police department after the incident.

In court, Etter declined to comment after the judge told him he could address the court before sentencing.

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In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors dismissed half of the 16 aggravated menacing charges against him.

The one count of possession of a firearm while intoxicated remained, all the charges are misdemeanors.

The judge suspended a six-month jail sentence and put him on probation for two years.

Etter was also given court-ordered alcohol, drug, mental health, and anger management programs.

His lawyer said in court that Etter is already doing most of that and is extremely remorseful for what happened over the 4th of July holiday weekend.

News Center 7 previously reported that body camera video showed officers showing up to Etters block in Perry Township.

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Investigators said he pointed a gun at a crowd that included children and threatened to kill people if they would not stop shooting off fireworks.

Perhaps in the future, in the first six months of your probation, that some sort of soulful letter to the people that you scared be composed, Judge Margaret Quinn told Etter in court.

The judge also said Etter has to forfeit the rifle police took from him this summer.

The court said as long as hes on probation in this case he cant have any guns.

News Center 7 asked Miami Township if Etter filed a grievance through his police union to get his job back after they fired him.

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A spokesperson for the department said its pending and they cant comment.

Etter told News Center 7 about his grievance and he said he did not know the current status.

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Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Former U.S. solicitor general and conservative lawyer Theodore Olson, who was admired by Democrats as well as Republicans, died Wednesday at the age of 84.

Olson, who sat at the center of the 2000 U.S. presidential election recount on behalf of then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, was described as a "towering figure on the national stage" and a "once-in-a-generation lawyer." He was a "trailblazing advocate who cared about all people," his law firm Gibson Dunn announced in a news release Wednesday.

Olson was the nation's solicitor general from 2001 to 2004. He was the fourth highest-ranking official within the U.S. Justice Department after his appointment by Bush. He was confirmed in May 2001 in a 51-47 Senate vote and was characterized as one of America's premier appellate and U.S. Supreme Court advocates.

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"Ted was a titan of the legal profession and one of the most extraordinary and eloquent advocates of our time," Barbara Becker, Gibson Dunn's chair and managing partner, said.

Olson also served as assistant U.S. attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department from 1981-1984 under former President Ronald Reagan.

Despite his conservative credentials, Olson is fondly remembered by Democrats for joining trial lawyer David Boies -- his opponent in the Bush v. Gore case -- to help overturn Proposition 8 in California, which banned same-sex marriage. File photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI

Olson obtained his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1965 and was a Gibson Dunn lawyer in either Los Angeles, Calif. or Washington, D.C., with the exception of two intervals.

Notably, Olson argued 65 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court including the two Bush v. Gore cases that stemmed from the controversial 2000 presidential election which ultimately saw Bush the victor after a series of legal battles between Democrat Gore that spiraled all the way to the nation's highest court.

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In 2010, Olson was selected by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Despite his conservative credentials having worked in the administrations of Republican presidents, Olson is fondly remembered by Democrats and those on the left for joining trial lawyer David Boies -- his opponent in Bush v. Gore case -- to help overturn Proposition 8 in California, which banned same-sex marriage.

Olson did similar work with Boies in Virginia on behalf of same-sex couples in 2014.

He was later appointed by then-President Barack Obama to the 10-member Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States and the Commission on White House Fellowships.

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Olson also successfully challenged the first Trump administration's rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, otherwise known as DACA.

"We mourn his loss profoundly and send our condolences to his wife Lady, a cherished member of our firm family, and to all of Ted's loved ones," said Becker.
Donald Trumps first White Housepress secretary has warned America to buckle up because the president-elect will take Washington by storm.

Sean Spicer, who resigned in 2017 after he disagreed with the appointment of Anthony Scaramucci to the role of White House communications director, reflected on Trumps pick of Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary.

I said this morning, if you are shocked or surprised by the appointment of Pete Hegseth last night as Secretary of Defense, buckle up baby, because its going, we got a lot more coming your way, Spicer told NewsNations The Hill on Wednesday.

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And I think the policies, the people, and the process are going to take Washington by storm, he added.

When asked whether he believed Trump would have a Senate confirmation process to name controversial former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz as his attorney general, Spicer said, Maybe not.

Trump has already applied pressure on the next Senate Majority leader to allow him to make recess appointments so he can fast-track positions without Senate approval.

Sean Spicer warned America to buckle up (Getty)

They could recess appointment him right away, Spicer added.

Spicer also shared some advice for Trumps next press secretary, who he has not named yet. In an op-ed for The Hill, Spicer said it was important to check in with Trump frequently.

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First, always have the most up-to-date information on what the president thinks on policy and personnel matters. Check in with him frequently, and double-check if you have to. He is his own best spokesman, he wrote.

Despite what staff may say, the decision is always his, and the exact words communicating a decision or announcement are critical.

Trump is in the process of filling key posts in his second administration, putting an emphasis so far on aides and allies who were his strongest backers during the 2024 campaign.

Trump has tapped Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general (REUTERS)

Naming Gaetz as nominee for attorney general was one of the more shocking announcements, potentially handing him the top law enforcement position in the country that Trump has promised to utilize to seek revenge on his opponents and enemies.

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Gaetz, a Trump loyalist and controversial figure in Congress, was subject to a Justice Department investigation into allegations of sex trafficking. He was ultimately never charged with a crime, and always denied any wrongdoing, but was under a House ethics investigation until he resigned from the House on Wednesday.

There are calls for the ethics report to be released.

Meanwhile, Tulsi Gabbard, a veteran and former Democratic congresswoman who promoted conspiracy theories about the U.S.s involvement in Ukraine, has been selected to head the U.S. intelligence community, while Marco Rubio was officially chosen to serve as Trumps Secretary of State on November 13 after much speculation.
The future of an NYPD cop who fatally shot a man during a traffic stop in the Bronx is coming down to two very different versions of events painted during an internal disciplinary hearing that wrapped up Wednesday.

Lt. Jonathan Rivera testified that he shot Allan Feliz because he thought a fellow officer had fallen to the ground and was about to be run over or dragged by Felizs SUV, which was lurching back and forth. Feliz was fatally shot at point blank range by Rivera during a struggle following a car stop at E. 211th St. and Bainbridge Ave. on Oct. 17, 2019.

I had to act to stop him from driving off and dragging [Edward] Barrett, Rivera testified Tuesday. So I made the decision to end the threat.

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Riveras attorney, James Moschella, said Felizs reckless acts clearly caused his death.

But CCRB prosecutor Deanna Everett Johnson said Rivera flouted all his training and the NYPD penal law by acting so recklessly while trying to subdue Feliz.

He didnt use any less lethal tactics like his baton or pepper spray, which he had on him, Johnson said, asking NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado to fire Rivera.

He had tactical training. He should have used it.

Felizs family made clear how they want to see the case end.

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Fire him! they yelled as they left an NYPD trial room at police headquarters Wednesday, calling the disciplinary proceeding for Rivera a sham tribunal filled with victim blaming. Fire Rivera for Allan today!

The Civilian Complaint Review Boards prosecution of Rivera was delayed by five years because the police dragged their feet in getting videos and other reports to the police watchdog agency needed to conduct an investigation, relatives and advocates have repeatedly claimed.

As a result, the 18-month statute of limitations on discipline for Rivera, which starts on the day of the incident, expired and, much like in the departmental trial of the cops who fatally shot Kawaski Trawick in 2019, the CCRB has a higher evidence threshold and must prove Rivera violated state penal law for assault and menacing.

Theres no justice in this. Theres no fairness, said Loyda Colon, the executive director of the Justice Committee, an advocacy group, said about Maldonados double standard. This is the NYPD shielding its officer. This is a perfect example of the blue wall. And thats dangerous for all of us.

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Sources with knowledge of the case said the CCRB received a complaint about Felizs death on Nov. 20, 2020, more than a year after his death. The CCRB immediately asked for the body worn camera footage, but the NYPD Force Investigation Division didnt release any information to them until Dec. 8, 2021, six days after the statute of limitations ran out.

Rivera and Detectives Edward Barrett and Michelle Almanzar had pulled Feliz over believing that he was driving without a seat belt. When they finally stopped him, they realized he did have his seat belt on, but ran the name he gave them, Samy Feliz  Allans brother  through their computer.

When cops found several open warrants in Samy Felizs name, they tried to take Feliz into custody.

Feliz jumped back behind the wheel of his vehicle and tried to speed away, sparking the deadly confrontation.

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In body camera footage, the officers taze and beat Feliz, trying to get him back out of the car. During the madness, Rivera jumps through the drivers side window with a gun in one hand and a tazer in the other, demanding Felizs surrender.

Yo! If I have to end up fg shooting you, Bro! Lt. Rivera is heard screaming as Feliz wails in pain from repeated Taser shocks. Yo, Bro! Im going to fg shoot you.

Maldonado will determine if Rivera violated the law in the next few weeks. Her decision and recommendation for Riveras future will then be sent to the police commissioner, who will make a final determination in this case.

After the proceeding, Felizs mother, Mery Verdeja, said Moschella was constantly painting my son like a criminal.

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Riveras lawyers said they brought up Felizs record because they wanted to help establish the dead mans state of mind when he tried to escape Rivera,

Its just embarrassing, Felizs sister Ashley Verdeja said, translating for her mother. She has no hope at this point.

This is not going to bring us justice, she said about the disciplinary trial. This is another case that will get swept under the rug.
By Jessica DiNapoli

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Ice cream brand Ben & Jerry's said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that parent company Unilever has silenced its attempts to express support for Palestinian refugees and threatened to dismantle its board and sue its members over the issue.

The lawsuit is the latest sign of the long-simmering tensions between Ben & Jerry's and consumer products maker Unilever, which is planning to spin out its ice cream business next year.

The spin-out would include the top-selling Vermont-based maker of Chubby Hubby, although experts on corporate governance said the brand's board, a centerpiece of the new lawsuit, could present challenges to the deal.

A rift first erupted between Ben & Jerry's and Unilever in 2021 after the ice cream maker said it would stop selling its products in the Israeli-occupied West Bank because it was inconsistent with its values, a move that led some investors to divest Unilever shares.

The ice cream maker then sued Unilever for selling its business in Israel to its licensee there, which allowed marketing in the West Bank and Israel to continue. That lawsuit was settled in 2022.

In its new lawsuit, Ben & Jerry's says that Unilever has breached the terms of the 2022 settlement, which has remained confidential. As part of the agreement, however, Unilever is required to "respect and acknowledge the Ben & Jerry's independent board's primary responsibility over Ben & Jerry's social mission," according to the lawsuit.

But, according to the lawsuit, "Ben & Jerry's has on four occasions attempted to publicly speak out in support of peace and human rights. Unilever has silenced each of these efforts."

In response to Reuters' story, Unilever said in an emailed statement: "Our heart goes out to all victims of the tragic events in the Middle East. We reject the claims made by B&Js social mission board, and we will defend our case very strongly."

"We would not comment further on this legal matter," it added.

Ben & Jerry's said in an email: "We are confident that these issues will ultimately be resolved. Due to the ongoing nature of the litigation, we are unable to comment on the specifics."

The lawsuit was filed in New York federal court.

Minor Myers, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, said the tension between Ben & Jerry's and Unilever would be top of mind in a deal, particularly if Unilever's ice cream brands are acquired by a private equity firm or competitor company.
Marharyta Koldanova was standing at a bus stop in a residential area in Kyiv when a sudden loud noise went off, prompting her to take out a tourniquet from her bag and prepare to quickly apply it in case she got injured by an aerial attack.

"I was overwhelmed with adrenaline and stress," Koldanova told the Kyiv Independent.

The air raid alarm that usually alerts Ukrainians of a threat of a Russian drone or missile strike wasnt on. The sound she heard wasnt a weapon exploding but the noise coming from a local thermal power plant  a regular buzz for a big city like Kyiv.

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Yet for Koldanova, whose daily life has been disrupted by Russian aerial attacks for 2.5 years, even a regular loud noise comes with an immediate sense of danger.

Like thousands of other Ukrainians struggling with mental health issues due to the war, Koldanova has developed a hypersensitivity to sounds, anxiety, and insomnia. Since Russian strikes happen most often at night, they have been robbing millions of Ukrainians of proper sleep.

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To target cities far from the front line, Russia has been employing a combination of missiles and drones, often launched in large-scale coordinated attacks. However, in the past couple of months, Moscows forces have changed tactics, launching barrages of drones nearly every night, and largely avoiding missiles.

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In October alone, over 2,000 drones attacked Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian military. These drone barrages aim to exhaust and locate the country's air defenses ahead of a larger campaign of strikes targeting Ukraines energy infrastructure this winter, experts say.

Though not as destructive as missiles and bombs, drone attacks often stretch on for many hours and can be launched far more frequently since drones are cheap and easy to produce.

For long-range drone strikes, Russias weapon of choice is the Iranian-designed Shahed, which can travel up to 2,500 kilometers, reaching any settlement in Ukraine.

Since Moscow first employed Shaheds in October 2022, these killer drones have contributed to the deteriorating mental health of Ukrainians, and the destruction of critical infrastructure and homes, putting an additional burden on the Ukrainian military tasked with the defense of the Ukrainian skies.

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Read also: One night with Ukrainian drone hunters near Russia

Sleepless nights

"If I fall asleep before the air alarm, I often wake up to explosions, panicking and confused," Koldanova, a 32-year-old copywriter, told the Kyiv Independent, describing how her nights have been lately. "If the alarm starts when I'm awake, I can't go to sleep until the threat is over. I just sit and wait for the all-clear."

Sometimes, this wait stretches until early morning.

Living close to a Kyiv air defense site, Koldanova hears explosions close-by and sees flashes of the defense system firing at drones and missiles from her window. She's too afraid to spend 10 minutes to run to a nearby shelter, fearing debris could fall nearby and injure her, so she hides in her corridor with her dog, watching red flashes and listening attentively to every sound.

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"Every time I hear an explosion, I think how close it was to me and whether (the next one) could hit my house."

Running on just 3-4 hours of sleep, Koldanova finds it hard to concentrate at work the next day. Many Ukrainians struggle with low productivity, as experts say sleep deprivation hampers decision-making, memory, and performance.

"Sleep deprivation makes even minor dangers feel extreme, creating the feeling that danger is literally at every step and not letting you relax for a moment," explains Nika Bielska, a sleep consultant and geneticist. "This makes it difficult to study, work, and just live your everyday life, strains family relationships, and heightens the risk of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)."

Ukrainian firefighters work to put out a fire in a high-rise residential building after being reportedly hit by a drone in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 25, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Oleksii Filippov / AFP via Getty Images)

Residents stay outside an apartment block in the Solomianskyi district of Kyiv hit by a Russian drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine on Oct. 25, 2024. (Serhii Chuzavkov / Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Already in fall 2022, over 70% of Ukrainian business leaders cited the deterioration of employee mental health as the main challenge for their companies. Fatigue and tension are now the dominant feelings for Ukrainians, according to a June 2024 survey by Gradus Research.

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Chronic sleep loss can lead to anxiety and depression and increase risks for physical health, including cancer and diabetes, says Volodymyr Voloshyn, a Ukrainian crisis psychologist and the head of the Institute of Health Psychology. He suggests Russia may be using sleep deprivation to make Ukrainians more vulnerable to manipulation and disinformation, important tools of modern warfare.

Bielska adds that the longer sleep deprivation persists, the harder it becomes to relax, creating a "vicious cycle" of lack of sleep.

Even when Kyiv gets a rare quiet night, free from Russian attacks, any loud noise can deprive local residents of sleep due to the developed hypersensitivity to sounds.

"When there's a thunderstorm and rain, I can't sleep," says Koldanova. "I wake up panicking and check the news to make sure it was not an explosion."

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Read also: The Counteroffensive: Sleep deprivation is Russias silent torture weapon

Shattered homes

Overnight on Oct. 8, during yet another Russian drone attack against Ukraine, debris hit Kira Rodkinas residential building in Chornomorsk, a small southern city on the Black Sea coast.

A fire engulfed one of the apartments where a family with children lived. Luckily, all of them survived the attack. Rodkina's apartment got off with broken windows and a burned ceiling. She had previously moved to Odesa when her husband joined the Ukrainian army in 2023, so she learned that her building had been hit by local news.

"(When I saw the photos), I felt rage, and I already said goodbye to it (the apartment) in my mind. I thought it was completely burned, and I would come and see the ashes," Rodkina, a 30-year-old volunteer who has been raising money for Ukraines Armed Forces since the start of the full-scale invasion, told the Kyiv Independent.

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Since Russian troops started using Shahed drones against Ukraine in the autumn of 2022, Ukrainian forces have become skilled at shooting down the loitering munitions before they reach densely populated areas. Therefore, some Ukrainians have developed a perception of Shaheds as less dangerous weapons, often neglecting to go to the shelter amid drone attacks.

However, kamikaze drones like Shaheds, while flying much slower than missiles, are still capable of causing serious damage to buildings and endangering civilians as they are estimated to weigh about 200 kilograms and carry around 45 kg of explosives, with upgraded Shaheds reportedly having twice as heavy warheads.

A Russian drone strike against Kharkiv on Feb. 10, 2024, caused a fire that engulfed 15 homes and killed seven people, including a family with three children, as well as led to a fuel leak contaminating over 10,000 square meters of land.

An exterior view of a business center building damaged by a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov.7, 2024. (Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

A man with dogs looks at a damaged multi-story apartment building after a Russian drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine on Oct. 29, 2024. (Tanya Dzafarowa/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC "UA:PBC"/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

Since the beginning of Russias full-scale invasion, over 50% of the housing stock in a significant number of Ukrainian cities and towns has been damaged or destroyed, the Kyiv School of Economics estimated in July. Drone attacks account for a fraction of the damage, but its hard to calculate how many exactly.

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Rodkina was "lucky"  nobody was at her home during the attack on Chornomorsk, and her apartment can be repaired  but it's still painful for her to comprehend that her home came under attack.

"So many parties were held on that balcony, so many memories and warmth! So much life and emotions!" Rodkina wrote on Instagram under the photo of her apartment building the day after the drone strike.

"But I can't say there was despair (following the attack). My husband had gone to war, his mother has cancer, and my father had been hospitalized after a heart attack," Rodkina says. "These were very difficult times for the family. The apartment incident felt like, 'it cant get any worse.'"

Rodkina's family is waiting for a special state commission to evaluate the damage done to their apartment so they can receive financial support from the state. She and her husband still plan to move back to their apartment in Chornomorsk after the war is over.

Ukraine's drone hunters

While civilians take shelter, hoping their loved ones stay unharmed and their homes remain intact, Ukrainian service members work tirelessly to destroy Russian drones before they can cause any trouble. One of them is Dmytro from Ukraines 117th Territorial Defense Brigade, who is identified in this article only by his first name due to security reasons.

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He commands three mobile air defense squads, who are based in the northeastern Sumy Oblast that borders Russia. Sumy Oblast faces swarms of drones nearly every night launched from across the Russian border. The Ukrainian military created these special units to quickly shoot down Russian drones using small arms and avoid depleting expensive interceptor missiles provided by Western allies.

Dmytro says his 12-member team has downed 19 drones in the past three months, compared to only seven throughout 2023. Due to a dramatic increase in workload and shortage of personnel, Dmytros team is currently on constant duty, with no rotations.

They take turns resting so that at least one person from a group is watching the sky at any given moment to avoid missing a potential threat. Besides drones, Sumy Oblast is regularly targeted by bombs and missiles.

"We are exhausted, but we hold on If we leave, something will surely hit (the city), leaving people without heat, electricity, or water, and we cannot allow that," Dmytro says in a phone call with the Kyiv Independent.

Ukrainian military members of an air defense rapid response group track down Russian drones while on night duty in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine on March 1, 2024. (Zinchenko/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

In September, for the first time since the full-scale invasion, Russia launched drone attacks on cities and towns across Ukraine every day for an entire month. Russian troops used 1,334 drones that month, compared to 75 in March 2023, according to a recent report by Kyiv-based investment bank Dragon Capital. Meanwhile, the number of missiles launched by Russia was almost twice as low as in August, the report shows.

In October, drone attacks intensified even more. Russia launched 2,023 Shaheds and other kinds of attack drones at civilian and military facilities in Ukraine, out of which 1,185 were intercepted, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces wrote on Nov. 1. Russia is now using 10 times more Shahed drones than last autumn, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Nov. 4.

Ukrainian officials anticipated that Russia would begin a renewed campaign of large-scale missile strikes on the country's energy infrastructure with the onset of the heating season, which started mid-autumn. After a pause of more than two months, on the morning of Nov. 11, Ukrainians across the country received warnings of a mass missile attack, but it later turned out to be a Russian aviation training exercise.

Russia's recent strategy of daily mass drone barrages may be aimed at depleting Ukraine's air defense systems ahead of an intensified missile campaign, according to experts interviewed by the Kyiv Independent last month. Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), suggested that this tactic could also force Ukraine to expose its air defense network when intercepting drones.

As Ukrainians across the country are bracing for mass missile attacks in the near future, Dmytros team keeps spending their nights in the field hunting for Russian drones. Their primary motivation is protecting native Sumy, where their families live. However, the soldiers urgently need more trained and highly motivated personnel and additional weapons to keep up with the escalating workload.

"It hasn't become easier, it's only getting harder. Russians won't go anywhere," Dmytro concludes. "We can't just hope this will end on its own. We need to destroy them (the Russian troops), and only then will it end."





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BEAUFORT, S.C. (WSAV)  Tigers, bears and great apes, oh my! Even though South Carolina is one of the laxer states when considering exotic pets, there are some rules and regulations.

Here are the animals you cant have as pets in South Carolina:

Large wild cats: all lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, cougars, cheetahs, snow leopards and clouded leopards

All non-native bears. The only bear native to South Carolina is the American Black Bear.

All great apes, including all species of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans

On top of that, it is illegal to sell flesh-eating mammals other than dogs, cats and ferrets in South Carolina. This includes wild/domestic hybrids and any wild species.

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You can still keep flesh-eating mammals as pets, but the South Carolina Department of Public Health (DPH) does not advise it.

You mightve noticed that the prohibited pets list is pretty short. That means you can own most other exotic animals if your local city or county government allows it.

Here are the exotic pet ordinances of Lowcountry counties:

Beaufort County:

You cannot import any exotic animal into Beaufort County, including animals like monkeys, raccoons, squirrels, ocelots, bobcats, lions, tigers, bears, wolves, hybrid wolves and other such animals that could cause zoonotic diseases. Zoonotic diseases are infections passed from animals to people such as rabies, salmonellosis and avian flu.



Colleton County:

You must obtain and keep a permit to have any wild animal as a pet or for display or exhibition purposes.

If your wild animal is able to be returned to their natural environment, you cant get a permit.

Jasper County:

Follows state laws and regulations.

Hampton County:

Follows state laws and regulations.

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It should be noted that there are no approved rabies vaccines for exotic pets. The DPHs website said that no one knows how long these animals can carry the rabies virus within them before exhibiting symptoms.

Additionally, they do not have the option of quarantining so that the animal can be observed for six months, and instead, they must test the animals brain for rabies, the DPH 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 WSAV-TV.
Oklahomas current guidelines for HIV education were last updated in 1987, but previous efforts to modernize them have fallen short amid misinformation and difficulties dispelling outdated stigmas surrounding the virus. A human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, blood test is pictured being held. (Getty Images) (This image cannot be republished without a Getty subscription)

OKLAHOMA CITY  Experts said they hope to finally get legislation across the finish line to improve how students are taught about HIV and to decriminalize exposure.

Oklahomas current guidelines for HIV education were passed in 1987 and have not been updated since, but previous efforts to modernize them have fallen short amid misinformation and difficulties dispelling outdated stigmas surrounding the virus.

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A lot has happened since 1987 in the field of HIV that our education mandate just doesnt include, said Sara Raines, a sexual health educator with the Oklahoma City-County Health Department. So not only was it written in a way thats outdated, but it just leaves a lot out.  I think, especially when you look at Oklahomas current HIV epidemic, public school education is a great way that we can start making progress in other areas.

Raines said Oklahoma is one of seven states the federal government has identified as having disproportionately high HIV diagnoses in rural areas. She also said most new HIV diagnoses in Oklahoma in 2022 were for people under the age of 34, which is on par with national trends.

We tend to think of HIV being something that happens in other places, but its here as well, she said. Something that is unique about Oklahomas epidemic is that we have a pretty disproportionate rural burden of HIV.

Oklahoma is also one of 34 states that have laws criminalizing HIV exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Nicole McAfee, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, said these laws are not rooted in science. Freedom Oklahoma is a group advocating for LGBTQ+ Oklahomans.

With modern advancements in medicine, people living with HIV who are receiving treatment can have an undetectable viral load which means they cannot transmit HIV sexually. Oklahomas state statute does not reflect these advancements.

McAfee, who uses they/them pronouns, said efforts to decriminalize the virus usually come with two parts: repealing criminalization in statute and offering a pathway for those who have been incarcerated through the law, potentially through resentencing.

I think as we think about how we address the harms of criminalization, they said. Its been really important for us, rooted in work were doing with the community, that in addition to repealing and thinking about how the state goes forward, we also think about steps to begin to repair harm done to communities whove been disproportionately targeted by criminalization.

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State law requires prevention education on HIV and AIDS, but the language of the statute is outdated, Raines said.

The state Legislature has seen few efforts to update the curriculum standards, but most have been unsuccessful. In 2019, the Legislature sent a bill to the governors desk that would have modernized HIV education but Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed it.

Since then, McAfee said, the state has seen efforts to lower standards for sexual education in general, or to remove it completely. When it comes to HIV education, McAfee said some lawmakers and law enforcement have demonstrated hesitation for change because of misinformation.

I hope that as we continue to create spaces like this and folks continue to see the harm that we will see more legislators join in introducing bills specifically to address HIV modernization, they said.

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Freedom Oklahoma will be hosting an informational session at the Oklahoma Capitol Wednesday. McAfee said its intended to share information and continue trying to educate folks, both in the Legislature and in the general public, about why HIV modernization is a priority.

Sens. Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, and Carri Hicks, D-Oklahoma City, are set to attend the session.

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President-elect Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk have formed a close bond as Trump campaigned for the presidency in 2024.

Musk showed continued support to Trump leading up to Election Day and, as a reward, Trump announced that Musk would lead the newly created "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE, also the name of a cryptocurrency backed by Musk.

The two powerful leaders who have redefined the spheres of politics and technology are closer than ever before. Which leaves the question: Will their bromance last?

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"I don't think so," Adam Clark Estes, senior technology correspondent at Vox, said. "I don't think those two personalities can stay friends for too long. Even if he'll last the next two months, I think that he'll leave a tremendous impression on the Trump administration."

For now, Musk is becoming one of the president-elect's most trusted advisers, even appearing by his side on Capitol Hill.

This summer, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX endorsed the future president after an assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

PHOTO: Tesla CEO Elon Musk joins former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at site of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., Oct. 5, 2024. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

Musk, who owns X and has more than 200 million followers on the social media platform, quickly became one of the most prominent and outspoken figures in the Trump campaign. He organized town halls and fielded questions from voters, not shying away from making controversial statements.

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"President Trump is the only one who can save democracy," Musk told an Allegheny County audience on Oct. 20, 2024.

Musk's unconventional entrance into Trump's inner circle included a place in the family photo on election night. One of his first ventures was co-founding PayPal during the dot-com boom in the late 1990s, which quickly propelled him to stardom in Silicon Valley.

"He used to be this true genius and visionary, this technological wunderkind who could think of something that would lead us to a brighter future and take us there," Estes said.

In 2002, he founded a private space exploration company, SpaceX. Two years later, his next project was Tesla, a little-known startup that grew into the most valuable car company in the world over two decades.

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Tesla and Musk's other companies, such as internet provider Starlink and SpaceX, were transformed into innovative powerhouses thanks to contracts and subsidies from the federal government.

Musk defined himself as apolitical throughout the 2000s. That started to change as Musk became increasingly critical of the government and federal regulation.

"It's become clear, especially in the past two or three years, that he's taken a sharp turn to the right," Estes said. "And now he's widely viewed as Trump's biggest supporter and a main character in the MAGA sphere."

Since then, Musk has promoted conspiracy theories, reposted antisemitic messages, and spread misinformation, such as attempting to downplay the violence that occurred on Jan. 6 at the Capitol.

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He invested at least $175 million into his Super PAC, called "America PAC," for the Trump campaign. The billionaire's influence on the Trump agenda is already becoming evident.

Musk was present for at least two phone calls that Trump had with foreign leaders, including a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Starlink has been a critical provider of internet services in Ukraine.

Musk's financial connections to Trump's campaign and presidency and his businesses' ties to the federal government redefine the relationship between money and politics.

But his businesses are also facing federal investigations - like a probe of Teslas self-driving features by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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"He is simultaneously being targeted by the federal government and being paid billions of dollars by the federal government," New York Times investigative reporter Eric Lipton said. "He's a guy who just becomes obsessed with getting things done. He wants to basically change the oversight of his company, and who best to ask to help do that than the president of the United States?"

Exploring Trump-Musk bromance: Can the two powerful personalities stay connected? originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
(Bloomberg) -- One person died after a blast Wednesday night in front of Brazils Supreme Court in the capital Brasilia, forcing officials and staff to evacuate the building.

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Francisco Wanderley Luiz tried to enter the Supreme Court building with explosives strapped to his body, preliminary investigations show. The spokesman for the Federal District military police, Major Raphael van der Broocke, told journalists on Wednesday that the man exterminated himself.

We still cannot say that he was a lone wolf, investigations are still ongoing, said Celina Leao, the acting governor of Brazils Federal District, who labeled the event a suicide, highlighting that investigations are still preliminary.

Andrei Rodrigues, the director general of Brazils Federal Police, said at a Thursday morning press conference that authorities have not established a motive but do not consider it an isolated incident.

According to authorities, the mans death followed a car explosion at 7:30 pm local time.

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Justices were safely removed from the court building, the top court said in a statement.

Praca dos Tres Poderes, the main access square to the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential palace, was closed by local authorities. Security at the public buildings was reinforced, said Leao.

Congressional sessions were canceled, according to the lower house. The head of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, said the voting session was closed earlier on Wednesday for security reasons.

After the explosions, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with Rodrigues and Supreme Court justices Alexandre de Moraes and Cristiano Zanin to discuss the incident.

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Wanderley Luiz was affiliated with former President Jair Bolsonaros Liberal Party and had run for councilor in 2020, without success, authorities said.

On Thursday, Bolsonaro called the episode sad and repudiated any and all acts of violence.

It is past time for Brazil to once again cultivate an adequate space so that different ideas can confront each other peacefully, he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Early last year, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters ransacked Congress and rampaged through the presidential palace and Supreme Court in the wake of the former presidents narrow election defeat.

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Wednesdays incident was not isolated, Moraes said at an event in Brasilia on Thursday morning. The episode, he said, took place amid a movement that began when the so-called hate office  the name given to a group of advisers close to Bolsonaro during his administration  began harshly criticizing Brazilian institutions.

Moraes will oversee the investigation into this weeks incident, according to a person familiar with the situation who requested anonymity to discuss the matter.

The court is considering including Wednesdays explosions in the scope of its investigation into the Jan. 8, 2023 attacks in Brasilia. Rodrigues, the Federal Police director, said that authorities will probe whether Wanderley Luiz participated in the riots.

--With assistance from Giovanna Serafim.

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(Updates with more details on the investigation throughout)

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Passengers prepare for departure at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali, Indonesia, Nov. 14, 2024. Flight operations at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali and Lombok International Airport, Indonesia, have returned to normal after authorities found no volcanic ash dispersion from Mount Lewotobi. The ongoing eruption of Mount Lewotobi in East Nusa Tenggara has forced more than 13,000 people to evacuate, with ash columns reaching as high as 9 km. Due to concerns over the spread of volcanic ash, dozens of international and domestic flights at both Bali and Lombok airports were canceled on Wednesday. (Photo by Dicky Bisinglasi/Xinhua)

JAKARTA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Flight operations at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali and Lombok International Airport, Indonesia, have returned to normal after authorities found no volcanic ash dispersion from Mount Lewotobi.

From Bali airport, a flight departed for Hong Kong on Thursday at 8:15 a.m. local time, followed by a flight arriving from Perth, Australia, at 8:40 a.m. local time.

"Paper tests concluded that there was no volcanic ash, in line with satellite imagery readings," said Pande Putu Hadi Wiguna, coordinator of data and information at Ngurah Rai Class I Meteorological Station, on Thursday.

The ongoing eruption of Mount Lewotobi in East Nusa Tenggara has forced more than 13,000 people to evacuate, with ash columns reaching as high as 9 km.

Due to concerns over the spread of volcanic ash, dozens of international and domestic flights at both Bali and Lombok airports were canceled on Wednesday.

The government and relevant authorities are continuing to monitor the situation and ensure assistance for evacuees and those affected. 

Passengers check an electronic board at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali, Indonesia, Nov. 14, 2024. Flight operations at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali and Lombok International Airport, Indonesia, have returned to normal after authorities found no volcanic ash dispersion from Mount Lewotobi.

The ongoing eruption of Mount Lewotobi in East Nusa Tenggara has forced more than 13,000 people to evacuate, with ash columns reaching as high as 9 km.

Due to concerns over the spread of volcanic ash, dozens of international and domestic flights at both Bali and Lombok airports were canceled on Wednesday. (Photo by Dicky Bisinglasi/Xinhua)

Passengers are pictured at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali, Indonesia, Nov. 14, 2024. Flight operations at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali and Lombok International Airport, Indonesia, have returned to normal after authorities found no volcanic ash dispersion from Mount Lewotobi.

The ongoing eruption of Mount Lewotobi in East Nusa Tenggara has forced more than 13,000 people to evacuate, with ash columns reaching as high as 9 km.

Due to concerns over the spread of volcanic ash, dozens of international and domestic flights at both Bali and Lombok airports were canceled on Wednesday. (Photo by Dicky Bisinglasi/Xinhua)
A contractor was seriously injured after being electrocuted during a reported explosion at an AES Ohio substation in Sidney.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Sidney police and fire were called to the AES Ohio facility in the 2300 block of Campbell Road on reports of an explosion shortly after 1:38 p.m., according to a Sidney Fire Department dispatcher.

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A man, identified as a contractor, was hit with around 12,000 volts of electricity after coming in contact with a transformer, according to Lt. Ryan Heitmen, with the Sidney Fire Department.

As reported on News Center 7 at 5:00, he sustained second and third-degree burns on almost 50 percent of his body.

He was flown to Miami Valley Hospital with serious injuries.

AES Ohio aware of an incident involving a contractor working at the Sidney Substation today. This situation is a reminder of the many inherent risks in this type of work. The safety of our employees, contractors and community are always our top priority, an AES spokesperson told News Center 7.

The incident remains under investigation.

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A dedication like the one at Puyallup City Hall on Tuesday night is extremely rare, Mayor Jim Kastama told the crowd gathered there.

They were there to rename the lobby outside the City Council chambers for Lt. Victor Leonard Kandle  a World War II soldier from Puyallup who was honored posthumously with the Medal of Honor.

Its not often that the city names a public facility for someone, the mayor explained.

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Kastama told the crowd that every time they walk through the lobby theyll think of the sacrifice that someone in this community made for Puyallup and for the United States.

Leonard Kandle left a country that were all very proud of, he said.

Terry Kandle unveils a restored plaque and photo of his father, World War II soldier Lt. Victor Kandle, during a dedication ceremony to rename the lobby in honor of his father at Puyallup City Hall, on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024 in Puyallup. Brian Hayes/bhayes@thenewstribune.com

It was retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col Jack Taylor who made the proposal in February, and Lt. Kandles family, Puyallup Valley VFW 2224 and The American Legion supported it, the city said in a news release.

Kandle was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in France on Oct. 9, 1944.

His intrepidity and bold leadership resulted in the capture or killing of three enemy officers and 54 enlisted men, the destruction of three enemy strongpoints, and the seizure of enemy positions which had halted a battalion attack, part of his entry on the Medal of Honor website says.

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Kandle was also awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and French Croix de Guerre, the citys news release said.

He was killed in action on Dec. 31, 1944.

Photos and memorabilia of World War II soldier Lt. Victor Kandle is displayed in the halls during a dedication ceremony to rename the lobby in honor of him at Puyallup City Hall, on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024 in Puyallup. Brian Hayes/bhayes@thenewstribune.com

Taylor told The News Tribune his first thought was for the city to rename the pavilion at Pioneer Park for Kandle about 10 years ago, but that the city wasnt interested.

That didnt deter him.

He approached the Puyallup School Board and got approval to install a monument to Kandle outside Puyallup High School, where Kandle graduated in 1939. Fundraisers and donations covered the cost, he said, and the monument went up in 2019.

A few years ago, the government closed an Army Reserve facility named for Kandle on Portland Avenue in Tacoma, about a mile south of Interstate 5.

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Kandles son, Terry Kandle, asked Taylor to help find a home for the bronze plaque and framed photo of Lt. Kandle from the building.

The plaque, which weighs more than 60 pounds, said Kandle Hall. If they renamed the City Council chambers lobby, Taylor thought, they could hang it there.

Terry Kandle, son of World War II soldier Lt. Victor Kandle talks with guests during a dedication ceremony to rename the lobby in honor of his father at Puyallup City Hall, on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024 in Puyallup. Brian Hayes/bhayes@thenewstribune.com

Taylor also tried to find somewhere to get the weathered plaque refinished.

I called around all over the place, he said.

Finally, a company in Mukilteo, Queen City Plating, said it could refinish the plaque, and that it wanted to do it for free. Now the green patina is gone.

It looks a lot different than when I gave it to you, Kandle said when it was unveiled Tuesday night in the lobby.

A restored plaque and photo of World War II soldier Lt. Victor Kandle hangs in the halls during a dedication ceremony to rename the lobby in honor of him at Puyallup City Hall, on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024 in Puyallup. Brian Hayes/bhayes@thenewstribune.com

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A couple dozen visitors attended the dedication, including state and local leaders, veterans and Kandles family.

Youve done a great job.

Terry Kandle thanked the mayor and the City Council and those behind the renaming campaign.

This isnt their first effort in recognizing my father in this community, he said. Youve done a great job.

He was about 2 years old when his father died.

He brought the roughly 500 letters that his father wrote his mother during the war, which he found after his mother passed away.

The family displayed them at the ceremony Tuesday, along with Lt. Kandles medals, photos of him, and a black and white video of the Medal of Honor ceremony in 1945.

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Terry Kandle pointed out how humble his fathers account of what happened was in one of the letters to his mother, compared to the official record.

One of Terry Kandles sons, David Kandle, read the letter at the ceremony.

It briefly describes what happened and ends with Lt. Kandle telling his wife that hed saved up about $500. Hed only spent $2 or $3 the past few months, he told her, and was sending her the rest.

David Kandle told the crowd that he just got back from a trip to visit his grandfathers grave site at the Epinal American Cemetery in France.

It was one of the best days of his life, he said. He was struck by how people of different nationalities, including French and German citizens, thanked him for his familys service.

What someone did to defend our country

Asked about his motivation behind the time and effort he put into honoring Kandle, Taylor, 85, told The News Tribune hes a retired Air Force officer and that he used to teach American government and world history at Spanaway Lake High School.

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Ive always had an interest in the military and military history, in particular, he said.

The South Hill resident said he doesnt take much credit for his efforts and that he was surprised and grateful for the support he received for his idea to rename the lobby.

I just felt that there was some need to give some recognition to him, so that our kids and our community can learn more about what someone did to defend our country when called upon, he said.

The South Hill resident flew in Vietnam as a forward air controller and has over 5,000 hours of flying time, he said.

Its an awesome thing to come face to face with someone who has been awarded the Medal of Honor, he said. It touches me inside somehow.

News Tribune archives contributed to this report.
LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY)  Students trying to earn money are losing money because of employment scams.

Chris Babin, CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Acadiana, said scammers are targeting students who are looking for short-term jobs for over winter break.

These scammers are contacting students and pretending to be associated with the school, Babin said.

The job opportunity email appears to be a professor offering the student an easy job, such as a personal assistant or an intern.

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A lot of times there is no interview process.

Anybody thats interested gets the job, Babin said. Of course, they tell you its a select opportunity that only youre eligible for.

The scam is that the job isnt real. However, it isnt the only scam in the situation. Scammers ask students for their bank information during the hiring process or during the job to steal money from those trying to earn money.

They either need a bunch of personal identifiable information or theyre going to send you a fake check and want you to send money elsewhere, Babin said.

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Lafayette Parish School System gets final recommendations for school closures

In some instances, they say, We want to send you money to help get the supplies you need for the role. We need your bank account so that we can wire the information,' he continued.

Here are ways college students can avoid employment scams:

Beware of red flags. Scammers often hire people without an interview and sometimes pay you before youve done any work.

Examine the email address. Make sure those offering the job match the domain used by the actual company. Google business email addresses arent always legitimate.

Never send money to strangers. Never send funds in cash, checks, gift cards or wire transfers. No legitimate business will ask you to pay them to get a job.

Be very wary of some positions. Some jobs are more likely to be scams, such as personal shopper positions or work-from-home jobs.

Latest News

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Republicans across the country woke up feeling good last week as former President Donald Trump recaptured the White House, defeating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. (And for the third presidential contest in a row, Wisconsin played a crucial role.)

As analysts unpack these results in the coming days and weeks, expect to see them mull over why President Joe Biden was able to beat Trump in 2020, but Harris couldnt match his numbers.

In Wisconsin, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester  who easily won reelection himself  suggested during a Nov. 6, 2024 news conference that its because Democrats nationally have taken key voting blocs for granted, and many of those voters this time chose Trump.

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Exit polls and numbers show he may be right on that, but then he went too far, claiming, based on what hed seen on television, that every single county in America, every single county, Kamala Harris did worse than Joe Biden did.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos seen prior to the Assembly Republican presser Wednesday, May 17, 2023, at 2 E. State Capitol in Madison, Wis.

That might have been accurate at some point as results trickled in on election night, but it sure didnt stay that way.

Lets break it down.

Harris outperformed Biden in six Wisconsin counties

Voss office didnt respond to a request for the evidence he used to make his claim.

It might have been a little tedious to identify where Harris outperformed or matched Biden across all of Americas 3,000-plus counties. For times sake, well look just at Wisconsin.

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There were six counties across the Badger State where Harriss share of the vote this year was greater than Bidens share of the vote in 2020, and two more where their share of the vote was the same. Those include:

There were some counties where Harris received more raw votes than Biden did in 2020, but a lower share of the vote total. That may have happened because of votes for third party candidates, or because the county population grew in the last four years  such as in Dane County, where Harris received almost 14,000 more votes than Biden, but captured 75.1% of the vote to Bidens 75.7%.

As such, well keep this analysis to counties where Harriss vote share outperformed or matched Bidens.

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And while she only did so in eight out of Wisconsins 72 counties, that proves wrong Voss assertion that she did worse than Biden in every single county in America.

There are also other examples across the country  according to a Nov. 6, 2024 New York Times analysis, nationally, about 10% of counties had shifted more Democratic since 2020. (Some western states were still counting votes at that point, too.)

Our ruling

Vos claimed that every single county in America, every single county, Kamala Harris did worse than Joe Biden did.

False

An analysis of the 2020 and 2024 election results in Wisconsin alone shows hes wrong  Harris received a greater share of the vote than Biden did in six of 72 counties, and matched his share of the vote in two others.

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We rate this claim False.

Sources

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Donald Trump wins Wisconsin, propelling his return to the White House, Nov. 6, 2024

New York Times, Biden wins presidency, ending four tumultuous years under Trump, Nov. 7, 2020

TMJ4, Robin Vos defeats Alan Kupsik in race for Wisconsin's 33rd Assembly district, Nov. 6, 2024

Brown County Nov. 5, 2024 election results

Brown County Nov. 3, 2020 election results

Door County Nov. 5, 2024 election results

Door County Nov. 3, 2020 election results

Eau Claire County Nov. 5, 2024 election results

Eau Claire County Nov. 3, 2020 election results

Manitowoc County Nov. 5, 2024 election results

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Manitowoc County Nov. 3, 2020 election results

Ozaukee County Nov. 5, 2024 election results

Ozaukee County Nov. 3, 2020 election results

Taylor County Nov. 5, 2024 election results

New York Times, 2020 Wisconsin election results by county, accessed Nov. 11, 2024

Washington County Nov. 5, 2024 election results

Washington County Nov. 3, 2020 election results

Waukesha County Nov. 5, 2024 election results

Waukesha County Nov. 3, 2020 election results

New York Times, Early results show a red shift across the U.S., Nov. 6, 2024

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Claim that Biden outperformed Harris in every county in America false
Claim:

The results of a Nov. 2024 YouGov poll showed that nearly a quarter of Americans think Hitler was a good person.

Rating:

Rating: False

Context:

The YouGov poll conducted from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1, 2024, among U.S. citizens aged 18 and over revealed that only a small portion of respondents held any positive or mixed views about Hitler. Just 1% viewed him as "a completely good person," 4% saw him as "a good person who did some bad things" and 7% considered him "equally good and bad." Additionally, 12% of respondents were "not sure" about their view of Hitler.

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In early November 2024, a rumor spread on social media that nearly a quarter of Americans believe Hitler was a good person.

(X user @IImpartialTruth)

Some posts making the claim included a screenshot of an article by English-language Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post titled "Nearly a quarter of Americans believe 'Hitler was a good person' - poll."

One X user, whose post had amassed nearly 150,000 views as of this writing, captioned the screenshot (archived): "Are we back?"

(X user @lifepeptides)

"It's happening," another X post stated, reaching 1.7 million views, 39,000 likes and 4,300 shares as of this writing. The screenshot also appeared on Reddit.

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However, the actual poll results from YouGov, which surveyed 1,077 Americans, did not show that nearly a quarter of respondents viewed Hitler as a good person. Therefore, we have rated this claim as false.

Source of the Screenshot

The screenshot attached to social media posts originated from an article published by The Jerusalem Post on Nov. 9, 2024. The article's title did indeed read: "Nearly a quarter of Americans believe 'Hitler was a good person' - poll."

The subhead read: "Most Americans think Hitler was a bad person at 65%, with majorities across the party lines, with Democrats at 75%, Republicans at 60%, and Independents at 59%." The article continued:

Nearly a quarter (23%) of Americans think Adolf Hitler was a good person, with Democrats at 18%, Independents at 20%, and Republicans at 33%, according to a recent poll published by YouGov on November 4.

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However, the article's title was misleading and did not represent the actual results. The poll revealed that only a small portion of respondents held any positive or mixed views about Hitler. Just 1% viewed him as "a completely good person," 4% saw him as "a good person who did some bad things," and 7% considered him "equally good and bad." Additionally, 12% of respondents were "not sure" about their view of Hitler.

We have reached out to The Jerusalem Post for a comment and will update this report if we receive a response.

About the Poll

The poll was conducted by polling and market research company YouGov from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1, 2024, among U.S. citizens aged 18 and over.

According to the results of the poll, participants were chosen from YouGov's opt-in panel to be representative of the U.S. adult population, with responses weighted by gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, party affiliation, and voter registration. Political identification reflected an estimated distribution of 33% Democratic and 31% Republican. Conducted via web-based interviews, the survey included 1,077 respondents, with a margin of error of 3.9%.

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In early November 2024, its results were reported by news outlets such as The Washington Post and Newsweek. "For nearly half of Trump voters, overt appreciation of Hitler is acceptable," The Washington Post titled their article, while Newsweek had the headline: "One in Five Americans Do Not Think Hitler Was All Bad: Poll."

According to the official YouGov document, the actual breakdown of responses provided a much clearer picture:

1% saw Hitler as "a completely good person;"

4% saw him as "a good person who did some bad things;"

7% saw him as "equally good and bad person;"

12% were "not sure."

This leaves 65% who viewed Hitler as "a completely bad person," with the remaining respondents saying he was a bad person who did some good things.

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You can see the complete survey results here.

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(YouGov)

We have reached out to YouGov for a comment and will update this report if we receive a response.

For further reading, we have investigated other Hitler-related rumors, including:

Sources:

About YouGov | YouGov. https://yougov.co.uk/about. Accessed 13 Nov. 2024.

Emery, David. "Did Donald Trump Say 'Mein Kampf' Had a 'Profound Effect' on Him?" Snopes, 17 Apr. 2019, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-hitler-mein-kampf/.

"Nearly a Quarter of Americans Believe 'Hitler Was a Good Person' - Poll." The Jerusalem Post | JPost.Com, 9 Nov. 2024, https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-828218.

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PerryCook, Taija. "Did Trump Once Say 'I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had'?" Snopes, 25 Oct. 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-hitler-generals/.

Reporter, Theo Burman Live News. "One in Five Americans Do Not Think Hitler Was All Bad: Poll." Newsweek, 5 Nov. 2024, https://www.newsweek.com/hitler-had-some-good-ideas-american-poll-1980293.

Two-Thirds of Americans Say Hitler Was Completely Bad; 20% Think Trump Would Say the Same | YouGov. https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/50864-two-thirds-of-americans-say-hitler-was-completely-bad. Accessed 13 Nov. 2024.

Wrona, Aleksandra. "JD Vance Once Called Trump 'America's Hitler'?" Snopes, 18 July 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/vance-trump-hitler-quote/.
Claim:

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's name is listed 312 times in Project 2025's policy document.

Rating:

Rating: Mixture

What's True:

The word "Trump" appears 312 times in Project 2025's policy document "Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise." However

What's False:

in two instances, "trump" does not refer to the former president: Once it was used as a verb ("to trump") and in another instance as an adjective ("trumped-up"). Additionally, 158 mentions refer to the Trump administration rather than to Trump himself.

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A rumor is circulating on social media that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's name is listed 312 times in a document outlining the goals of Project 2025  a conservative group's plan to reshape the government under a Republican presidential administration.

The claim first spread (archived) in July 2024. One X post with more than 693,000 views as of this writing read: "Trump's name appears in the Project 2025 Manifesto 312 times, but he knows nothing about it." The rumor gained popularity again, months later, shortly after the former president was announced as the winner of the 2024 presidential election.

Project 2025 has four pillars: a policy agenda outlined in a document titled "Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise," a personnel database of "conservatives from all walks of life to serve in the next conservative Administration," a training system for potential political appointees, and a playbook of actions to be taken in the first 180 days of a new administration.

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We searched and found the word "Trump" does appear 312 times in the "Mandate for Leadership 2025"  the document outlining Project 2025 supporters' proposals.

(Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise)

However, in two instances, "trump" does not refer to the former U.S. president. On one occasion it was used as a verb ("to trump") and in another instance it was used as an adjective ("trumped-up"). Additionally, 158 mentions refer to the Trump administration rather than to Trump himself. Thus, we have rated this claim as being a mixture of true and false information.

Trump and Project 2025

Project 2025 is a policy initiative proposed by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation with the participation of many of Trump's allies. However, Trump has publicly stated he disagrees with some of Project 2025's recommendations and distanced himself from the initiative.

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"I know nothing about Project 2025," Trump wrote in a July 5, 2024, post on Truth Social. "I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them."

Authors of 'Mandate for Leadership 2025'

The first 23 mentions of "Trump" in the "'Mandate for Leadership 2025" appear in the "Authors" section of the document, which details the authors' backgrounds and experience. Selected examples are below (emphasis ours):

[Jonathan Berry] previously served as Chief Counsel for the Trump transition and earlier clerked for Associate Justice Samuel Alito and Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

[Adam Candeub] served as acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Deputy Associate Attorney General at the Justice Department during the Trump Administration.

Ken Cuccinelli served as Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2019 and then, from November 2019 through the end of the Trump Administration, as Acting Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Rick Dearborn served as Deputy Chief of Staff for President Donald Trump  . He also served as Executive Director of the 2016 President-elect Donald Trump transition team.

Christopher Miller served in several positions during the Trump Administration, including as Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Peter Navarro holds a PhD in economics from Harvard and was one of only three senior White House officials to serve with Donald Trump from the 2016 campaign to the end of the President's first term.

[Brooks D. Tucker] helped to craft the policy framework for President-elect Trump's transition team and served as the Senior Policy Adviser for National Security and Veterans Affairs to Senator Richard Burr from 2010 to 2015.

Trump Administration

Out of the 312 mentions of the word "Trump," 158 refer to the Trump administration rather than Trump as an individual. Many of these passages call for the restoration or continuation of regulations implemented by the previous Trump administration. Selected examples are provided below (emphasis ours):

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On its first day in office, the next Administration should signal its intent to enter the rulemaking process to restore the Trump Administration 's Title IX regulation, with the additional insistence that "sex" is properly understood as a fixed biological fact. ]

A good first step would be to reinstate an iteration of the Trump Administration 's Executive Order.

Elsewhere, DOJ should target violent and career criminals, not parents; work to dismantle criminal organizations, partly by rigorously prosecuting interstate drug activity; and restart the Trump Administration 's "China Initiative" (to address Chinese espionage and theft of trade secrets).

This means, inter alia, reinstituting and expanding Trump Administration sanctions.

Second, the next Administration should build on the Trump Administration 's diplomatic successes by encouraging other Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, to enter the Abraham Accords.

It should deradicalize USAID's programs and structures and build on the conservative reforms instituted by the Trump Administration.

The next Administration should continue the policy of the Trump Administration in this area and direct the department to conduct a comprehensive review of all Title VI cases to ascertain to what extent these cases include allegations of disparate impact.

Restoration of both domestic security and the integrity of the U.S. immigration system should start with rapid reactivation of several key initiatives in effect at the conclusion of the Trump Administration.

Some mentions of the Trump administration provide context about the state of affairs during the administration, while others praise its actions and policies:

The Office of Global Public Affairs was formed during the Trump Administration by consolidation of the State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs and Bureau of Global Public Affairs.

The Trump Administration proposed to close the loophole with a rule to "increase program integrity and reduce fraud, waste, and abuse. The regulation was not finalized before the end of the Trump Administration.

The Trump Administration proposed some possible consolidations, but these were not received favorably in Congress, whose approval is necessary for most such proposals.

Under the Trump Administration , USAID focused on ending the need for foreign aid by placing countries onto a Journey to Self-Reliance.

The Trump Administration's major space policiesincluding the U.S. Space Force, the Artemis program to land the next Americans on the moon, and support for a strong commercial space sectorhave endured under the Biden Administration.

During the Trump Administration, PEPFAR increased the share of funding to local entities from about 20 percent to nearly 70 percent.

Moreover, the term "Trump-era" appears five times in the document, and the phrase "Trump years" is mentioned once (emphasis ours):

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Neither the letter nor the spirit of the law was enforced under President Obama, and a Trump-era regulation sought to correct this problem.

Issue and finalize the Trump-era draft disability rights regulations concerning crisis standards of care and use of Quality of Life Adjusted Years.

Despite several attempts in the House of Representatives during the Trump years to enact legislation that would modestly increase the weight given to performance over time-of-service, the fierce opposition by federal managers associations and unions representing long-serving but not necessarily well-performing constituents explains why the bills failed to advance.

'President Trump'

There were dozens of instances in the document that directly referred to Trump. "President Trump" was mentioned 41 times, and "President Donald Trump" appeared 14 times throughout the document. Selected examples are provided below:

Under President Trump , OLMS required unions to disclose involvement in trusts that they either own a majority stake in or control.

Expand defensive cyber-effects operations authorized by President Trump 's classified National Security Presidential Memorandum 13, "United States Cyber Operations Policy."

The next President should also reinstate the many executive orders signed by President Trump that were designed to make the regulatory process more just, efficient, and transparent.

After the 2016 election, President Trump faced special hostility from the opposition party and the media in getting his appointees confirmed or even considered by the Senate.

In 2018, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13855 to, among other things, promote active management of forests and reduce wildfire risks.

Prior to the arrival of President Donald Trump 's appointees in June 2020, budgeting, financial responsibility, and spending totaled over $800 million per year, with virtually no oversight or supervision.

Reinstate President Trump's plan for opening most of the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska to leasing and development.

Some common phrases in the document involving Trump's name include "Trump-appointed leadership," "Trump-Biden tariffs," "Trump's Schedule F," "Trump rules" and "Trump-Russia collusion":

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Numerous career staff whistleblowers came forward to sound the alarm about OTF to Trump-appointed leadership.

Job number one for the next Administration is to return to sensible trade policies and eliminate the destructive Trump-Biden tariffs .

In particular, the IC must restore confidence in its political neutrality to rectify the damage done by the actions of former IC leaders and personnel regarding the claims of Trump-Russia collusion following the 2016 election and the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop investigation and media revelations of its existence during the 2020 election.

Reissue Trump's Schedule F executive order to permit discharge of nonperforming employees.

Rescind the Biden rules and reinstate the Trump rules regarding  .

Additionally, Trump was quoted once, in the context of trade policy:

Tonight, I am also asking you to pass the United States Reciprocal Trade Act, so that if another country places an unfair tariff on an American product, we can charge them the exact same tariff on the exact same product that they sell to us. President Donald J. Trump, 2019 State of the Union Address

'Trump' in Footnotes

Out of the 312 mentions of Trump, 23 are in footnotes citing Trump's executive orders (see example below, emphasis added):

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President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13891, "Promoting the Rule of Law Through Improved Agency Guidance Documents," October 9, 2019, in Federal Register, Vol. 84, No. 199 (October 15, 2019), pp. 55235 55238, https://home.treasury.gov/sites/default/files/2018-04/0411%20Signed%20Treasury%20OIRA%20MOA.pdf (accessed January 31, 2023).

Additionally, there are 20 other footnotes referencing various documents and sources that include the word "Trump," as illustrated in the examples below.

"U.S. Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific," declassified in part by Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Robert C. O'Brien, January 5, 2021, https:// trump whitehouse.archives.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2021/01/IPS-Final-Declass.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023), and Robert C. O'Brien, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, "A Free and Open Indo-Pacific," January 5, 2021, https:// trump whitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/OBrien-Expanded-Statement.pdf (accessed March 18, 2023).

Donald J. Trump, "Presidential Memorandum on Promoting the Reliable Supply and Delivery of Water in the West," October 19, 2018, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/presidentialmemorandum-promoting-reliable-supply-delivery-water-west/ (accessed March 17, 2023).

'Trump' Used as a Verb and Adjective

Among the 312 instances of "Trump" in the document, we discovered that the word was not used as a surname in two cases. Once the word "trump" was used as a verb:

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"ERISA should not be allowed to trump states' ability to protect innocent human life in the womb.

In another case, it was used in an adjective ("trumped-up"):

In 2015, for example, Investor's Business Daily accused the CFPB of "diverting potentially millions of dollars in settlement payments for alleged victims of lending bias to a slush fund for poverty groups tied to the Democratic Party" and planning "to create a so-called Civil Penalty Fund from its own shakedown operations targeting financial institutions" that would use "ramped-up (and trumped-up) anti-discrimination lawsuits and investigations" to "bankroll some 60 liberal nonprofits, many of whom are radical Acorn-style pressure groups."

'Biden' Appears 375 Times in the Same Document

"To be fair, Biden's name appears 303 times according to search results of the same document," one X user commented under a post spreading the claim about Trump's name appearing 312 times in the Project 2025 document.

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Our analysis found that the word "Biden" actually appears 375 times in the document, with 226 mentions in the context of the Biden administration, 26 instances referring to "President Biden" and six to "President Joe Biden."

(Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise)

Below are some examples of mentions of "Biden" in the document, typically referring to reversing, reevaluating or criticizing Biden-era policies (emphasis ours):

The next President should critically analyze and, if required, refuse to accept any USGCRP assessment prepared under the Biden Administration .

Similarly, the Biden Administration 's climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding.

Unfortunately, the order was overturned by the Biden Administration , so it will

need to be reintroduced in 2025.

All were revoked by the Biden Administration and should be reinstated by the next Administration, to include the immediate appointment of the FLRA General Counsel and reactivation of the Impasses Panel.

President Biden 's 2022 NPR described the problem but proposed no recommendations to restore or maintain nuclear deterrence.

Additionally, regulatory documents should be drafted to review or reverse all regulations promulgated during the Biden Administration.

You can read the full "Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise" document below:

https://media.snopes.com/2024/06/2025_mandate_for_leadership_compressed.pdf

For several months, we received a flood of reader inquiries asking whether Project 2025 was a real effort to "reshape America." In addition to that question, we've fact-checked these Project 2025-related rumors recently:

Sources:

Kasprak, Alex. "Video Shows Trump Shaking Hands with Head of Group Behind Project 2025?" Snopes, 9 July 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-project-2025-roberts/.

Liles, Jordan. "Used Tampons Were Mailed to Project 2025's Offices After Gen Z TikTokers Started Protest Trend?" Snopes, 9 July 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/project-2025-tampons-tiktok/.

Wrona, Aleksandra. "'Trump's Project 2025' Calls for Eliminating National Weather Service?" Snopes, 9 July 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/project-2025-noaa-national-weather-service/.

Wrona, Nur Ibrahim, Aleksandra. "What's Project 2025? Unpacking the Pro-Trump Plan to Overhaul US Government." Snopes, 3 July 2024, https://www.snopes.com//news/2024/07/03/project-2025-trump-us-government/.
Claim:

An image authentically shows an arrest mug shot of Matt Gaetz.

Rating:

Rating: True

Following U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Nov. 13, 2024, announcement that he would nominate Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to his cabinet as attorney general, years-old claims related to this potential top law officer's alleged criminal record reemerged on social media platforms. Many social media posts, including the X post below, incorporated what appeared to be a mug shot of Matt Gaetz.

As Snopes has previously written, this is an authentic police photo of Matt Gaetz taken after an arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence (DUI) in October 2008. In a 2019 article, Snopes determined that image was real, as has been acknowledged by the congressman himself. It was reported on in depth by the Tampa Bay Times in 2014:

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It was the night before Halloween in 2008 when Gaetz, then 26, drove back from the Swamp, a nightclub on Okaloosa Island. He drove a 2001 BMW SUV registered to his state senator dad. \Near midnight, Okaloosa County Deputy Chris Anglin clocked Gaetz going 48 in a 35 mph zone. Anglin later reported that Gaetz fumbled for his license and registration, his eyes were watery and bloodshot, and he swayed and staggered when he got out of the car. Smelling alcohol, Anglin asked Gaetz if he had been drinking. Gaetz replied no. Minutes later, he admitted he had consumed two beers. Twice, Anglin conducted an eye test. Twice, Gaetz's eyes didn't follow the prompt. Gaetz, who had recently begun practicing law, declined any field sobriety tests. He was arrested and refused the breath test.

A controversy ensued when charges against Gaetz, whose father was a member of the Florida State Senate at the time, were dropped and his license was reinstated. This occurred despite a Florida law requiring a year-long suspension for refusing to take a breathalyzer test.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, "A field officer for the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles declared there was no evidence that Gaetz refused a breath test. Yet the refusal was clearly documented in [the arresting officer's] affidavit and arrest report."

The arresting officer, Okaloosa County Deputy Chris Anglin, resigned a month after the Gaetz arrest under pressure from his superiors, who cited disciplinary issues. The question of whether Gaetz's father's political connections played an improper role in these outcomes, Snopes wrote in 2019, has dogged Gaetz for years. Gaetz, for his part, has dismissed such allegations as "tabloid journalism."

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Several false claims, including that there exist up to seven DUI arrests on Gaetz's record and that his roommate allegedly died under suspicious circumstances, have long been associated with this photo. While those claims are false, the authenticity of the mug shot is not in question. For that reason, this claim is true.

Sources:

"Florida Lawmaker Files Bill That Would Ban Release of Arrest Mug Shots." The Bradenton Herald, https://www.bradenton.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article34599507.html.

Grayer, Hannah Rabinowitz, Holmes Lybrand, Annie. "Trump Picks Rep. Matt Gaetz to Serve as Attorney General | CNN Politics." CNN, 13 Nov. 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/13/politics/matt-gaetz-attorney-general/index.html.

Kasprak, Alex. "Yes, Rep. Matt Gaetz Was Arrested for One DUI. Memes Added Extra Spin." Snopes, 12 July 2019, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/matt-gaetz-mug-shot/.

"Matt Gaetz's Talk of Mug Shot Raises Questions about DUI Arrest." Tampa Bay Times, https://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/lawmakers-talk-of-mug-shot-raises-questions-about-dui-arrest/2166023/. Accessed 13 Nov. 2024.
By Arathy Somasekhar

HOUSTON (Reuters) - With U.S. President-elect Donald Trump two months away from taking office and able to act on his campaign promises, energy executives are lining up to offer new proposals to the mix.

Trump has vowed to scrap offshore wind projects, roll back climate regulations, open more federal lands and waters to oil and gas drilling. Advisors have prepared executive orders to quit the Paris climate agreement that ties the U.S. to emissions reductions.

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The energy industry has prepared its own wish list for the second-term chief to consider putting into effect. Here are some of the top ideas put forth by industry groups and executives:

Repeal or replace motor vehicle emissions regulations

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration proposed cutting tailpipe emissions by 50% from 2026 levels by 2032. A separate set of fuel economy rules enacted this year would encourage more electric and hybrid vehicles.

"We think that this is a time in which Americans should have more choices, not fewer, when it comes to the energy that they use," said Dustin Meyer, policy chief for trade group American Petroleum Institute.

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Trump has vowed to reverse the Biden administration's electric vehicle rules.

Drop a Department of Energy climate review that paused export permits for new LNG export facilities

A pause on pending and future export permits for new liquefied natural gas projects is tops on LNG and natural gas executives' priorities.

"Using LNG exports as a political weapon - I hope the (Trump) administration doesn't consider this - especially against our allies," said Bryan Sheffield, a former shale CEO now running energy private equity firm Formentera Partners.

One of the projects affected by the pause, Energy Transfer's $13-billion LNG-export facility in Louisiana, is happy to have the review end. Trump's election victory assures a financial go-ahead for its Lake Charles LNG project, said co-CEO Marshall McCrea.

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Expand access to federal lands and waters

"Regulations, particularly on federal lands, are incredibly burdensome - operators are dealing with a very inefficient process that has a cost and slows down development," said Michael Oestmann, CEO of gas producer Tall City Exploration.

The Biden administration has limited oil and gas drilling in Alaska, and last year, adopted a congressionally mandated five-year plan for offshore oil drilling that included just three sales - the lowest number in any five-year plan since the government began publishing them in 1980.

"Demand is growing around the world. The question is, where is the supply going to come from? We think it should come from the United States, and we need a policy landscape that reflects that," said API's Meyer.

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Accelerate pipeline and energy infrastructure permitting

The fossil fuel industry has objected to delays in permitting everything from pipelines to wind farms that have slowed infrastructure development or raised costs.

"There is a massive opportunity to build infrastructure - natural gas processing facilities, export infrastructure and possibly new pipelines," said Trisha Curtis, CEO of oil and gas consulting and advisory shop PetroNerds.

Permitting limbo means projects take years before being canceled, industry body API wrote, adding the new administration must work with Congress to pass comprehensive permitting reform.

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The organization also has called for reforming the National Environmental Policy Act. It says changes are needed to provide greater certainty regarding timelines and scope of environmental reviews, judicial reforms to clarify when, where and who can file legal challenges. The API also wants changes to the Clean Water Act, which gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to implement pollution control programs.

(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
LITTLETON, Colo. (KDVR)  A private funeral service for Golden Police officer Evan Dunn was held Wednesday afternoon at Mission Hills Church in Littleton.

Dunn, 33, was killed while responding to a suspected DUI crash in Golden last week. He was a new officer and was actively serving as a captain.

Before the service began, hundreds of first responders and police officers participated in a procession described as a Blue Tunnel.

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Golden honors officer killed in suspected DUI crash on Highway 58

A long procession of patrol cars from agencies across Colorado and other states made their way through law enforcement vehicles lined up on the street that led to the church.

Firefighters used ladder trucks to hang a giant American flag under which the procession passed. An Army National Guard Black Hawk helicopter escorted Dunns body from the air.

Many people stood along the sidewalks of the street leading up to the Mission Hills Church.

Andrea Lynch of Evergreen has a son who is an officer. She stood along the funeral route with a message for Dunns family.

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Know that Im thinking of you and all of your family and also to his wife, Lynch told FOX31.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife trainees were along the funeral route too saying Dunns death hit home.

It hits especially hard, thinking, being so fresh in our careers. Most of us here are very new. So it hurts, CPW Park Ranger trainee Kaeti Lehnus said.

Golden police officer killed, another hospitalized in crash that closed Highway 58

Kenzie Kimmel of Johnstown brought her children. She told FOX31 her brother was an officer killed in the line of duty.

I just know how much it means to the family to have their loved one honored and so we just wanted to make sure to come down and do that for another family, Kimmel said.

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Madison fought back tears saying she had to be here.

Because it hits home. You know I get to kiss my officer goodbye every single night. But we dont know if they are going to come home and a terrible thing happen. So, I feel really bad for the family having to go through this, Madison said.

A spokesperson for the Colorado Fallen Heroes Foundation said Wednesday that while the funeral services were private, the City of Golden may release video of portions of the service to the public in the coming days.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver.
Jon Cherry/Getty Images

This post originally appeared on The 19th.

The nine multifaith families who sued over a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in all public school classrooms are celebrating a federal district court ruling on Tuesday that found H.B. 71 to be unconstitutional.

Enacted in June, the legislation mandates that schools permanently display a Protestant version of the Judeo-Christian code of conduct, but a preliminary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana on Tuesday will stop its implementation. The injunction takes effect immediately, even though the defendants are appealing the decision.

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Civil liberties advocates say that ignoring church-state separation in schools not only violates the Constitution by imposing religion on students but also risks exposing young people to harmful stereotypes about gender, race and the LGBTQ+ community. The Bible could be used to teach girls that wives must obey their husbands or to limit girls ambitions for their lives, they say. President-elect Donald Trump, however, plans to incorporate prayer into public education, according to his Agenda 47. Its unclear if the courts will allow schools to implement his policy proposal.

The plaintiffs in Rev. Roake v. Brumley include the Rev. Darcy Roake and her husband, Adrian Van Young. The families represented are of Unitarian Universalist, Christian, Jewish and nonreligious backgrounds. The defendants include Cade Brumley, Louisianas state superintendent of education, and several state and local school officials.

H.B. 71 is a direct infringement of our religious-freedom rights, and were pleased and relieved that the court ruled in our favor, Roake said in a statement. As an interfaith family, we expect our children to receive their secular education in public school and their religious education at home and within our faith communities, not from government officials.

Judge John W. DeGravelles found that the law violated the First Amendment along with years of Supreme Court precedent. In 1980, the high court ruled in Stone v. Graham that a Kentucky statute ordering the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms was unconstitutional. The First Amendments Establishment Clause bars the government from establishing a religion.

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First, Stone remains good law and is directly on point, and this Court is bound to follow it, DeGravelles wrote in his opinion. Second, even putting Stone aside . . . Plaintiffs have adequately alleged that H.B. 71 fails to comply with the Establishment Clause.

WASHINGTON - DECEMBER 8: The U.S. House of Representatives chamber is seen December 8, 2008 in Washington, DC. Members of the media were allowed access to film and photograph the room for the first time in six years. (Photo by Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)

Republicans Have Officially Won Control of the House, Senate and White House

Heres what that means.

DeGravelles said that requiring the commandments to be posted in all classrooms year-round, regardless of course content or grade level, would make schoolchildren a captive audience and coerce them to participate in a religious exercise.

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Liz Murrill, the states Republican attorney general, said in a statement: We strongly disagree with the courts decision and will immediately appeal.

The plaintiffs in Roake v. Brumley, who have children in public schools, are represented by the national ACLU, ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is involved as pro bono counsel.

Religious freedom  the right to choose ones faith without pressure  is essential to American democracy, said Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, in a statement. Todays ruling ensures that the schools our plaintiffs children attend will stay focused on learning, without promoting a state-preferred version of Christianity.

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a statement that the ruling will ensure that families, and not politicians, choose how their children engage with religion.

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It should send a strong message to Christian nationalists across the country that they cannot impose their beliefs on our nations public school children, Laser said. Not on our watch.

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The News in Brief Friday, November 15, 2024

The election observation coalition My Vote reported widespread issues at Georgian polling stations abroad, which they say restricted thousands of emigrants' voting rights. Observing 48 polling stations through 158 monitors, the coalition found significant obstacles for voters throughout the election process.My Vote detailed issues with overcrowding, insufficient infrastructure, and poor organization at polling stations. At some locations, such as New York, Madrid, and London, the coalition observed only one voting booth for 1,500 voters and one registrar for 1,000 voters-well below Georgian standards, which require one registrar for every 300 voters. Long wait times and inadequate space made it difficult for voters to participate.The coalition reported high risks to vote secrecy, as poor-quality voting booths often broke or failed to ensure privacy. Observers described chaotic and unsafe conditions for voters, observers, and commission members alike, especially in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Paris.Polling stations in Milan, Berlin, Rome, and Vienna saw particular issues with electoral lists, where many registered voters found their names missing. Some Milan voters on consular lists were inexplicably absent from precinct lists, barring them from voting. In Berlin and Stuttgart, similar issues prevented numerous eligible voters from casting ballots.Additionally, unauthorized individuals, including local consuls, were seen at polling stations without official observer status in cities like Tallinn, Frankfurt, and Barcelona. At Frankfurt, Deputy Commission Chair Zurab Kalandadze reportedly verbally abused observers and voters. The coalition argued that the mishandling of the election process by Georgian election authorities and the lack of proper training for precinct staff compromised voters' rights and electoral integrity abroad.The Social Justice Center (SJC) criticized the Georgian Dream (GD) government's "policy of silence and inaction" toward Abkhazia, arguing it lacks a peace strategy for the conflict regions and allows Russia's annexation efforts to go unchecked. The watchdog claims this approach ignores a historic chance to build trust and resolve the conflict, warning that GD's inaction "condones and normalizes" Russian expansion in the region.Recent opposition arrests and protests against a legislative package in Abkhazia, set for ratification on November 15, would permit Russian "investments" and land ownership in the occupied region, but the Georgian government has remained silent. The SJC stressed that GD's lack of response betrays Georgia's sovereign interests and human rights obligations.The watchdog urged GD to prioritize Black Sea security by rallying international support and pursuing regional stability. It also condemned GD's anti-European stance, stating that such policies hinder peace efforts and undermine European integration, which could foster trust and dialogue with Abkhazia.SJC concluded by calling for active discussion among civil society, political parties, and the media to form a new democratic and European-oriented peace policy reflecting the current geopolitical landscape.
Contestants race their boats during the Water Festival in the Tonle Sap River in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Nov. 14, 2024. Cambodia began on Thursday to celebrate the annual Water Festival with thrilling dragon boat races, attracting tens of thousands of spectators from across the country. The festival is one of the most joyful festivals in the Southeast Asian country, and boat races are the centerpiece of the three-day festival, which will last till Saturday. (Photo by Phearum/Xinhua)

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia began on Thursday to celebrate the annual Water Festival with thrilling dragon boat races, attracting tens of thousands of spectators from across the country.

The festival is one of the most joyful festivals in the Southeast Asian country, and boat races are the centerpiece of the three-day festival, which will last till Saturday.

Bou Chumserey, vice chairman of the boat-racing technical control committee, said the regatta was being held along a 1.7-km stretch of the Tonle Sap River in front of the royal palace in the capital Phnom Penh.

"This year's festival is the biggest-ever, with 348 boats and 22,052 oarsmen from different provinces taking part in the regatta," he told Xinhua.

In last year's festival, 337 boats with 20,417 crew members participated in the races. Chumserey said the rise came after the kingdom's peace, better socio-economic development, and better people's livelihoods.

The regatta was to honor the strength of the powerful Khmer marine forces during the ancient Khmer Empire in the late 11th century, he said, adding that it is also to mark the end of the annual rainy season and the unique reversal flow of the Tonle Sap River that connects the Tonle Sap Lake with the Mekong River. 

Contestants rally their boats during the Water Festival in the Tonle Sap River in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Nov. 14, 2024. Cambodia began on Thursday to celebrate the annual Water Festival with thrilling dragon boat races, attracting tens of thousands of spectators from across the country.

The festival is one of the most joyful festivals in the Southeast Asian country, and boat races are the centerpiece of the three-day festival, which will last till Saturday. (Photo by Sovannara/Xinhua)

Contestants race their boats during the Water Festival in the Tonle Sap River in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Nov. 14, 2024. Cambodia began on Thursday to celebrate the annual Water Festival with thrilling dragon boat races, attracting tens of thousands of spectators from across the country.

The festival is one of the most joyful festivals in the Southeast Asian country, and boat races are the centerpiece of the three-day festival, which will last till Saturday. (Photo by Phearum/Xinhua)

Contestants race their boats during the Water Festival in the Tonle Sap River in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Nov. 14, 2024. Cambodia began on Thursday to celebrate the annual Water Festival with thrilling dragon boat races, attracting tens of thousands of spectators from across the country.

The festival is one of the most joyful festivals in the Southeast Asian country, and boat races are the centerpiece of the three-day festival, which will last till Saturday. (Photo by Sovannara/Xinhua)
EL PASO, Texas (KTSM)  Attorneys and the family of the 14-month-old boy who was killed in a high-speed crash involving a Luna County Sheriffs deputy last year near Deming will hold a news conference this week to address the next steps regarding the civil suit that was brought following the baby boys death, Tawney, Acosta & Chaparro P.C. announced in a news release.

Baby boy killed in crash allegedly caused by Luna County Sheriffs deputy

The news conference will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14 at 7016 Orizaba Ave.

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On Sunday morning, Nov. 11, 2023, Isabella Hernandez and her 14-month-old son Wyatt Franzoy were headed home in a Nissan Altima when they were T-boned by Paul Garcia, a deputy with the Luna County Sheriffs Office, according to the law firm.

The law firm said Garcia was driving a marked, department-issued 2021 Dodge Durango and going 99 miles per hour at the time of the impact.

Hernandez and her son were less than a mile away from their home., according to the law firm.

According to Sheriffs Office reports, both vehicles were headed south on Columbus Road when Garcia attempted to pass Hernandez via the northbound lane in a no pass zone while she was turning east onto Voorhies Road into a residential area.

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The impact was so violent it launched the Nissan across the highway and sent the sedan spinning nearly 200 feet into a nearby residents fence, according to the law firm.

The crash caused the wrongful death of 14-month-old Wyatt Franzoy who was pronounced dead at Mimbres Memorial Hospital, the news release said. Officer Garcias negligence has forever altered the lives of the Hernandez and Franzoy families, whove fought for over a year for accountability from Luna County officials and justice for baby Wyatt.

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BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, Brooklyn (PIX11)  Today marks one year since a Brooklyn woman tragically passed away shortly after giving birth at NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull last November.

Loved ones of Christine Fields held a somber vigil outside the hospital Wednesday. Friends and family stood side by side holding flowers and candles, and embracing one another as they honored a life gone too soon. Fields mother, Denene Witherspoon, has been grappling with the profound loss of her daughter.

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Sad, depressing  everything, said Witherspoon. I got a hole in my heart thatll never be filled. My life will never be the same again. I miss my daughter so much.

As loved ones mourn the void left in their lives, they release balloons in Fields remembrance. The family alleges the death of 30-year-old Fields was due to hospital staff not properly performing an emergency c-section and monitoring her condition after the surgery. A doctor at the hospital has since been fired following an investigation into maternal and infant deaths at the city-run hospital.

Following the investigation, a spokesperson for Woodhull says the hospital has revamped and enhanced their protocols across its obstetrics and anesthesiology departments.

Fieldsfiance, Jose Perez, is still haunted by the loss.

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A lot of grief, Perez said. A lot of anguish. Its been a rough time.

Perez has been relentless in his pursuit of justice, turning his grief into a mission to help others experiencing the same pain. He currently has an ongoing lawsuit against the hospital system and has been advocating for Governor Kathy Hochul to pass the Grieving Families Act.

NY families call on Gov. Hochul to sign Grieving Families Act

The bill would amend the current law to allow families to sue for emotional suffering, rather than just financial loss. Perez expressed the financial burden that has come in the wake of Fields passing.

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Why should I rely on the community to help me with funds to continue to survive while Im grieving, questioned Perez.

Senator Brad Hoyalman-Sigal sponsored the bill and said in a statement:

New York is out of step with almost every other state in the nation when it comes to our wrongful death statute and every day we do not act to update the extremely outdated 1847 law is an injustice to all New Yorkers, particularly families of color who are facing a maternal mortality epidemic.

The Grieving Families Act has already been vetoed twice by Governor Kathy Hochul, who has previously expressed concerns that the legislations language is too broad. When asked if she has plans to revisit the Act, a spokesperson for Governor Hochul said she is currently reviewing the legislation.

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CHICAGO  Family is hoping for the publics help with finding a missing father whose car was found at Calumet Park Beach.

Family told WGN News Pajo Rajcevic, 59, of East Chicago, was last seen Saturday morning at his home.

His daughter said he left that morning in a red Mazda 3 and police later determined he was driving through Calumet City at around 7:47 a.m.

Family was able to pinpoint his location and found the car Sunday at Calumet Park Beach in Chicago.

Chicago police searched the beach and Lake Michigan with help of a helicopter for two days and he has not been located, according to family.

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They are hoping to gain access to a surveillance camera at the beach that reportedly belongs to the port authority.

The car was unlocked with Rajcevics phone and wallet inside.

He was last seen wearing black joggers and a black zipped-up jacket. Rajcevic, 511, 260 lbs., has green eyes and gray hair.

If located, call 911 or family at 219-487-3531.

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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT)  The uncle of the man police say was killed in Twin Peaks is pleading with law enforcement for answers.

Tony Baker remembered his nephew RayShun Bates, who was shot to death on Saturday night. Huntsville Police Chief Kirk Giles told News 19 that a fight broke out between two groups of people, and Bates was killed and two others were injured.

RELATED: Preliminary hearing set for man charged with murder in shooting at Twin Peaks

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We really loved ole Ray, said Baker. Russian was his nickname. It will always be the people that you think will never die. Its always like that.

Jeremiah Matkins is charged with murder for Batess death, but Baker says his nephew was not familiar with Matkins and his group of friends.

All we want to know is why did it happen, said Baker. We need answers, and this is a vow to let you know were not just going to lay down and let our nephew die like this.

Baker says his nephew had an extended family in his Decatur neighborhood. A family that he says is hurting and is confused over his sudden death.

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He was a part of the whole family, like the different families that love each other like family. Thats what he was, Baker said.

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Bates also had an aspiring music career and was father to a 3-year-old girl.

A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family with funeral expenses.

Matkins is set for a preliminary hearing on December 4.

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The family of a man who died while in custody at Stateville Correctional Center during an early summer heat wave sued the Illinois Department of Corrections, a prison health care provider and several prison workers on Thursday, alleging that poor handling of Michael Broadways medical emergency led to his death.

Michael helped countless people in the 51 years of his life, but when he needed help from the people who were entrusted to help him, whose job it was to help him, he was failed at every turn, Terah Tollner, an attorney representing Broadways wife, Chunece Jones-Broadway, said at a news conference outside Stateville.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges that the defendants violated Broadways Eighth Amendment rights  those covering cruel and unusual punishment  and asks for damages for wrongful death and the estates pain and suffering.

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The state has acknowledged deplorable conditions at Stateville and plans are in motion to tear down that prison and Logan Correctional Center, a womens prison in downstate Lincoln, then rebuild both facilities on the Stateville campus near Joliet. The state Capital Development Board recently said it will soon seek proposals for two new mixed-security facilities of 1,500 single cells each, one for men and one for women.

Hundreds of inmates were transferred out of Stateville late this summer as part of a separate lawsuit alleging squalid and dangerous conditions throughout the prison.

In addition to IDOC, the defendants in the lawsuit over Broadways death include health contractor Wexford Health Sources, prison warden Charles Truitt, chief engineer Jermiagh Daly and about a dozen other correctional and medical staff members.

IDOC spokesperson Naomi Puzzello said the department takes seriously the well-being of staff and people in custody and declined to comment further. A spokesperson for Wexford, Wendelyn Pekich, declined to comment.

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The Will County coroners office earlier this year found that asthma and heat stress caused Broadways death, supporting the suspicions of Broadways friends and advocates that Statevilles poor conditions were at least partially to blame. Outdoor temperatures on the June day he died reached about 100 degrees, and people incarcerated near Broadway estimated indoor temperatures as high as 115 to 120 degrees on his floor, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit outlines new allegations about the circumstances surrounding Broadways death, arguing it was entirely preventable if not for the slow and inadequate responses of workers.

For instance, it says correctional officers responding to calls that Broadway couldnt breathe stood by and simply watched Michaels condition worsen as other incarcerated men yelled and pleaded for several minutes that someone come help him.

A nurse responding to Broadway took several minutes to walk up five flights of stairs, and one inmate heard her say This is stupid as she ascended, the lawsuit alleges.

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That same nurse, identified in the suit as Jen Doe, administered two doses of the overdose reversal drug naloxone, which did not help because Broadway had not ingested opioids, the suit said. Workers also brought up ice and attempted chest compressions, it said.

It was nearly an hour after Broadway first flagged that he needed help to when he was taken to St. Joseph Hospital, the lawsuit said, where he was soon declared dead.

The filing also repeats allegations prison advocates have made before, including that the windows to Broadways cell were nailed shut and a nearby fan was padlocked.

Broadway and a neighboring inmate, Anthony Ehlers, had at some point before Broadways death told the prison warden about these issues and the high temperatures, and Truitt assured them that the issues would get fixed, the lawsuit alleges. But Truitt never took any meaningful action to make the windows or fan usable, it said.

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As Broadways condition worsened over several minutes after the unsuccessful use of naloxone, someone brought a stretcher that had no straps, further delaying treatment, the lawsuit said. Robert Cloutier, a friend of Broadways in a cell nearby, was released from his cell to carry Broadway with correctional officers down flights of stairs, using bedsheets, the suit said.

Cloutier recalls that they passed the industrial fan  still padlocked and nonfunctional  while bringing Michaels unconscious and unresponsive body down the stairs, the lawsuit said.

Broadway was serving a 75-year prison sentence for a 2005 murder that court documents describe as a gang-related shooting. Jones-Broadway said her husband transferred to Stateville, a maximum security facility, for the programming opportunities. At the time of the death, he had graduated with a bachelors degree last year from Northwestern Universitys Prison Education Program.

But he always said he feared dying in the prison, she said.

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Terrell Vaughn, who said he grew up with Broadway, after the news conference Thursday said he felt like what happened to Broadway was torture.

Its like they just burned him, Vaughn said, wiping his eyes.

Brian Broadway, Michael Broadways younger brother, said his brother and other inmates deserve to be treated with respect.

No matter what the situation is and circumstances that people go through, they are still human beings and should be treated with some dignity, he said.

Along with accountability for Broadways family, Tollner said she hopes IDOC and other defendants will make policy changes.
Farmers have hit out at civil servants in the environment department after they claimed reducing their working week to four days for the same pay would save taxpayers millions of pounds.

Union members at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have said a four-day week will improve the support we provide to our farmers and save taxpayers 21.4m a year as it would mean fewer sick days and staff resignations.

However, the claims sparked a backlash from farmers who have said they face financial ruin over Rachel Reevess inheritance tax raid.

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Farmers will have to pay inheritance tax on estates worth more than 1m from April 2026 under changes introduced by the Chancellor in the Budget last month.

Steve Ridsdale, chairman of the British Farming Union, said he was frustrated that civil servants were asking for a four-day week when asking us to work our socks off to pay a tax bill.

He said: It does seem as though theyre asking us to work the next goodness knows how many years to pay the inheritance tax bill without wanting to do much themselves.

He added that it looks like theyre asking us to work 15 days a week and them four.

Jonathan Roberts, of the Country and Land Business Association, said: This is a dreadful look. We know many Defra staff are very diligent and passionate about the countryside.

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But when farmers and small businesses are breaking their backs to survive in the face of increasingly hostile policies, the knowledge that some civil servants in charge of rural policy are campaigning to reduce their hours is a kick in the teeth.

A survey of 1,200 staff carried out by Defra economists and published by PCS, the civil services biggest union, said a shorter work week would reduce annual staff turnover by 57pc while cutting annual sick days by 65pc.

That would save taxpayers 21.4m a year which is roughly equivalent to the departments flood defence budget for Northumbria, the research concluded.

Union chiefs are meeting with ministers on Thursday to discuss the findings and push for a four-day week pilot.

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However, while 80pc of the staff interviewed said a shorter week would boost their wellbeing, only 31pc expected it to bring productivity benefits.

There are already concerns that allowing government departments and charities to adopt a four-day week would decrease productivity, reduce the quality of services and increase costs.

The PCS is expected to conduct further research into how a four-day week at Defra would work in practice. A Defra spokesman said: There are no plans for a four-day working week.

Fran Heathcote, its general secretary, said: Weve long argued the social, practical and professional benefits of a four-day week. Now this research shows the financial benefits too.

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It also suggests that any opposition to employees working a four-day week is purely ideological. Why else would an employer stand in the way of progress?

Our members are resolute in their belief that a four-day week is critical to attaining a good quality of life, improving their health and well-being and helping them to meet caring responsibilities, while all the time increasing their productivity.

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ISLAMABAD, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Three troops and three terrorists were killed in a clash between security forces and the militants in Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province on Thursday, the military said in a statement.

The incident happened in Harnai district where the troops launched an operation on receiving an intelligence tip-off regarding the presence of the terrorists, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistani Army, said in the statement.

The troops effectively engaged the militant's location and killed three terrorists, the ISPR added, saying that the slain terrorists were planning to target civilians in the province.

During the operation, an improvised explosive device exploded on the leading vehicle of security forces, killing an officer and two soldiers, the statement said. 
Two Minnesotan family members were killed on Tuesday after their SUV struck a semi-trailer on the Kansas Turnpike.

The crash occurred in Sedgewick County, on northbound Interstate 35 near Wichita at around 4:10 a.m., according to the Kansas Highway Patrol.

The report states that a semi was partially in the roadway from a previous crash when the 78-year-old Thomas Reller, of Zumbrota, crashed the SUV he was driving into the big rig, causing the SUV to veer the right and rear-end another semi that had been involved in the previous crash.

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Thomas and his passenger, 27-year-old Octavia Reller, were killed in the collision.

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The two semi drivers left with minor injuries, and were both taken to a nearby hospital for care.

Note: The details provided in this story are based on law enforcements latest version of events, and may be subject to change.
The family members of American hostages held by Hamas met with President Biden yesterday. Ruby Chen, the father of one of those hostages, joins Jose Diaz-Balart to share his plea for a cease-fire and hostage deal as soon as possible.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA)  Veterans Day serves as a reminder not only to thank those who defend our freedoms but also of the chilling realities some active and former service members face.

A 2023 study titled Veteran and Military Mental Health Issues said post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicide, traumatic brain injury, substance use disorder and interpersonal violence are all possible mental health issues in veterans. While some veterans suffer in silence behind closed doors, places like the Fayetteville VA Medical Center offer mental health resources for former military members.

We make sure that they get the physical help that they need with therapies and medicine and that they see specialty care that they earned and deserve, April Eilers, the public affairs officer at the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks, said. We also look at their mental health needs, and we have a wide range of services that are really gold standard for veterans.

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Veterans Day events and discounts in Northwest Arkansas

Samuel Eugene Hunt is a United States Air Force veteran. He said hes seen military members suffering from PTSD firsthand.

He said the survival instincts that military members had to exhibit 24 hours a day affected their bodies.

A lot of (pilots) were shell-shocked from Vietnam and they would have flashbacks, and they would start having that spasm and wed have to pull them out of the cockpit, Hunt said. It affected a lot of the veterans over there for life.

There are social workers, mental health professionals and peer-to-peer counseling groups available at the Fayetteville VA Medical Center, Eilers said. For the peer-to-peer counsel, veterans who have gone through mental health rehabilitation offer their time to help other veterans who are currently experiencing mental health struggles.

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Eilers said the peer-to-peer program is important because the veterans offer a shared perspective on what the other person is dealing with.

Hunt said hes appreciative of the help the VA has provided, helping him work through his onset dementia after his TBI to now play the guitar in his free time.

I have a better sense of accomplishment in life, Hunt said. Im thankful for it. The VA has helped my life.

More information on the closest VA location to you can be found on its website.

If you are having suicidal thoughts, you can call 988, which is the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. If you are not feeling well and need physical care, you can visit the VAs E.R.

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ATLANTA, Ga. (WJBF)  The FBI in Atlanta is warning you of a new wave of cybercrime targeting your personal information.

According to the FBI, cyber hackers are getting access to your email accounts by stealing cookies from your computer.

A cookie is a small piece of data that a website sends to your computer to remember login and password information.

You may recognize a remember me cookie from when you shop online or when you log on to a website and it asks you to save your username and password like your email address for future use.

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If a cybercriminal obtains the remember me cookie from your recent login, they will have access to your data without needing a password and can log in to your email.

Investigators say the best way to stay safe online is to avoid public WIFI because you can easily get hacked and to avoid clicking on any suspicious links or websites as that may download malware to your computer.

There is a wide swath of people that can be attacked through phishing or malware and you have to be concerned. That malware can pull that cookie and other website browser data off and then it is safe for the criminals to use, said FBI Supervisor Special Agent Joe Zadik.

The FBI says you can protect yourself by clearing your cookies from your internet browser and reduce clicking the remember me check box when you log onto a website.

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The FBI has raided the home of a crypto betting prodigy whose start-up correctly called the US presidential election for Donald Trump.

Shayne Coplan, the 26-year-old founder of Polymarket, had his phone seized by US police officers at his home in Manhattan, the New York Post reported.

Bloomberg News reported that the raid was part of an investigation by the Department of Justice into allegations that Polymarket had allowed US-based users to gamble on its site.

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Polymarket has been barred from offering its services in the US since 2022, when it was forced to pay a $1.4m (1.1m) fine for failing to properly register its app.

However, in a post on X Mr Coplan accused the Democrats of a last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem associated with political opponents.

The Polymarket founder, who launched the business aged just 22, also posted: New phone, who dis? Mr Coplan was not arrested.

Users can wager cryptocurrency on the outcome of events on Polymarket. Punters overwhelmingly bet in favour of Mr Trump winning the US election, even as polling experts suggested the vote was on a knife-edge.

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Polymarkets besting of established experts brought the company to mainstream attention, as did the fact that an anonymous French trader known as the Trump whale won more than $85m correctly betting on the US election outcome.

More than $3bn was gambled by users betting on the outcome of the presidential election.

The company has insisted it is apolitical, although the voting odds displayed by its app were widely shared by Mr Trumps allies, including Elon Musk. Mr Musk said the investigation into Polymarket was messed up in a post on X.

Mr Coplan said: We are deeply committed to being non-partisan and today is no different, but the incumbents should do some self-reflecting and recognise that taking a more pro-business, pro-startup approach may be what would have changed their fate this election.

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A Polymarket spokesman said: This is obvious political retribution by the outgoing administration against Polymarket for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election.

Polymarket is a fully transparent prediction market that helps everyday people better understand the events that matter most to them, including elections.

The app has also attracted scrutiny in Europe. Officials in France have been investigating the app in relation to the Trump Whale.

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The FBI descended on the New York City home of Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan early Wednesday, rousing him from bed at 6 a.m. and demanding his electronic devices, according to reports.

The betting website had out-polled the polls to predict Donald Trump would win the presidential election, prompting Coplan, 26, and other crypto bros to decry the raid as politically motivated.

But the site, a so-called prediction market website that fields crypto-funded bets on the outcome of world events such as presidential elections, had been under scrutiny for months, according to reports. The raid was part of a Justice Department investigation into whether Polymarket had been allowing U.S. residents to use it, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday evening.

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Doing so would violate a 2022 settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in which the site agreed to stop offering its services to users based in the U.S. and paid a $1.4 million fine for operating without registration, The New York Times reported.

Polymarket nonetheless called the FBIs motives into question.

This is obvious political retribution by the outgoing administration against Polymarket for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election, the company told several media outlets. Polymarket is a fully transparent prediction market that helps everyday people better understand the events that matter most to them, including elections.

In the weeks leading up to the election, Polymarket reported that users had bet $2.7 billion on the outcome and given Trump a 67% chance of winning, Fortune reported on Oct. 30. At the same time, researchers alleged the site was plagued by wash trading, a type of illegal market manipulation.

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Coplan called the raid the Biden administrations last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents, he wrote on X Wednesday. We are deeply committed to being non-partisan, and today is no different, but the incumbents should do some self-reflecting and recognize that taking a more pro-business, pro-startup approach may be what would have changed their fate this election.

Federal officials declined to comment on the raid.

Biden has promised and is delivering a peaceful transfer of power, in stark contrast to what transpired after Trump lost the 2020 election. Trump has sworn retribution against those he perceives as his political enemies, and seems bent on filling cabinet and other high-level federal positions with loyalists poised to carry out those plans.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that federal agencies and courts have been misinterpreting a major environmental law for the last half-century, casting doubt on whether a key White House agency can actually write binding regulations on environmental policy.

In an unsigned 21 decision, a three-judge panel concluded that the Council on Environmental Quality, or CEQ, had been issuing binding regulations in error since the late 1970s. It held that the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, also known as NEPA, did not grant rulemaking authority to the agencywhich it had nonetheless wielded since the Carter administration.

The panel sounded almost surprised that it had to reach this conclusion in the first place. The separation of powers and statutory interpretation issue that CEQs regulations present is thus unremarkable, it noted in its ruling. What is quite remarkable is that this issue has remained largely undetected and undecided for so many years in so many cases.

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Tuesdays ruling in Marin Audobon Society v. Federal Aviation Administration is a complicated one, and it will likely come under intense scrutiny on appeal. Even the panel majority acknowledged that it is somewhat at odds with the Supreme Courts own rulings on the matter. (More on that later.) Nonetheless, its conclusions could have far-reaching implications for how the federal government writes new regulationsand how it considers environmental issues when doing so.

Congress enacted NEPA in 1969 after the environmentalist movement emerged as a major force in American politics. In its most basic form, NEPA created environmental guardrails for other federal agencies to follow when carrying out their duties. When those agencies wrote or rewrote federal regulations, for example, the law generally required them to assess the environmental impact of their changes along the way.

NEPA also established the Council on Environmental Quality, a White House council that coordinates with the rest of the executive branch on crafting environmental impact assessments and weighing their impact on policymaking. CEQ is led by a three-member commission whose members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, giving it an unusually strong imprimatur among White House organs.

Since the Jimmy Carter administration, CEQ has also been issuing regulations of its own that bind other federal agencies. These are not merely advisory opinions that it renders on behalf of the White House. To the contrary, they are submitted through the notice-and-comment process like other federal regulations and are published in the Federal Register. Courts have often used them to resolve legal disputes over an agencys actions and answer questions about whether and when they comply with NEPA.

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That framework was supposed to decide this case as well. A coalition of local environmental groups in the San Francisco Bay Area sued the FAA over its plans to allow tour flights over four national parks in the area. The FAA had argued that it did not need to conduct an environmental impact assessment under NEPA when authorizing a formal plan for the flights.

In theory, the dispute turned on whether the FAA was correct to argue that it had a categorical exemption from NEPA, or if the environmental groups were correct to argue that the plan did not fall into the exemption based on CEQs regulations. Neither the groups nor the agency itself had argued that the NEPA regulations at issue were invalid or that CEQ lacked the authority it had claimed for itself under the law.

The problem, according to the panel, is that NEPA does not grant CEQ the power to issue those regulations in the first place. The misconception apparently stemmed from an executive order issued by Jimmy Carter in 1977. After the Justice Department had previously told the Supreme Court that CEQs guidelines were nonbinding, Carters order stated that federal agencies had to comply with regulations issued by CEQ to the extent allowed by law, citing NEPA and other environmental laws.

After Carters order, CEQ issued a wave of mandatory regulations for other agencies to follow, sweeping aside their existing practices and procedures for complying with NEPA. Succeeding generations of lawyers and judges assumed that CEQ had the power to issue those regulations, apparently without looking much further into Carters executive order or the text of NEPA itself to locate the actual legal authority.

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Complicating matters is that the Supreme Court itself has upheld these regulations from time to time, operating under the presumption that CEQ had the lawful authority to issue them. In one case, for example, the justices said outright that CEQ had been established by NEPA with authority to issue regulations interpreting it. Judges in the lower federal courts are bound by Supreme Court precedent at all times.

This time, however, the panel majority concluded it was not bound by this description or other stray remarks in the high courts rulings over the years. The statement appeared without any accompanying legal analysis, the panel noted, quoting from past rulings. We must obey carefully considered language of the Supreme Court, even if technically dictum. But we are not bound by every stray remark on an issue the parties [in those cases] neither raised nor discussed in any meaningful way. In other words, because the Supreme Court had never directly considered CEQs authority, the panel was not bound by its assumption that it existed.

Judge Sri Srinivasan, who dissented in part from the courts ruling, criticized his colleagues for ruling on CEQs authority even though no party had asked for it. He pointed to a doctrine known as the party-presentation principle, which generally holds that judges are only supposed to decide legal questions that are raised by litigants and briefed and argued by them. Time and again, we have refrained from questioning the CEQs authority to adopt binding NEPA regulations because the parties did not raise the challenge, he noted, pointing to past D.C. Circuit cases where they had assumed CEQs authority was valid.

Srinivasan also criticized the majority for adopting a remedy that the environmental groups had not sought. Because the FAA had relied on CEQ regulations when adopting its current plan for air tours over the parks, the panel vacated the current plan and ordered it to start anew. Srinivasan noted that the D.C. Circuits usual practice is to avoid remedies that would paradoxically lead to lesser environmental protections than if the environmental groups hadnt challenged it at all. When confronted with similar circumstances, our court has repeatedly remanded to an agency without vacating a flawed but environmentally protective agency action, he noted.

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Where this ruling goes from here is unclear. The FAA could, in theory, appeal the ruling to be reviewed by the entire D.C. Circuit, where Democratic appointees hold a majority. (The two judges who ruled against CEQs authority were appointed by Republican presidents.) The environmental groups could also ask the entire D.C. Circuit to review the remedy itself. If the D.C. Circuit reverses the panels ruling, neither party may be interested in taking it any further to the Supreme Court.

But the justices may already be aware of the issue with CEQs rulemaking authority. Next month, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, a NEPA case about when and how federal agencies must consider environmental impacts. None of the parties in that case questioned CEQs rulemaking authority. A group of conservative law professors filed a friend of the court brief in September that argued it might be invalid.

As a component of the White House, there is no doubt that CEQ has authority to promulgate rules of administration to guide agencies in their implementation of NEPAs procedural requirements, the law professors told the justices. But there is no basis for those rules being judicially enforceable, and the D.C. Circuits enforcement of them was another source of reversible error. It would be stunning if the justices took the same blunt approach in that case as the D.C. Circuit did this week. But it would not be a surprise if at least one or more justices publicly called for a future case to be heard on the matter.

It is worth emphasizing here that overturning CEQs regulatory power would not eliminate NEPA or its environmental impact requirements for federal agencies. Instead, each federal agency would likely adopt its own practices and procedures for following the law, just as they did before Carters executive order in 1977. That could lead to greater regulatory confusion if different agencies take different approaches to the laws requirements, especially in the short term. For a Supreme Court that has already taken major swings at the administrative state, throwing NEPA into chaos would be one of its most far-reaching moves yet.
NIAGARA FALLS  It was billed as one more step forward in efforts to bring economic, workforce and social development to north Main Street in the City of Niagara Falls.

More than two years later, Niagara Universitys proposed Academic Innovation Hub has not opened and has not advanced beyond the design stages.

NU officials remain confident the hub  a central piece of a larger plan to renovate and restore Cleveland Avenues historic First Congregational Church building  will move forward eventually.

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For now, they say, progress relies heavily on the federal governments decision to formally release funds dedicated to the project last February.

Were ready to go on our end as soon as this money comes through, said NU Associate Vice President Karen Kwandrans.

Plans for the hub were first announced in June 2022 during a press conference inside First Congregational Church, a Cleveland Avenue building that traces its roots back to 1855. In establishing the hub, the university plans to restore the building, including replacing mechanical work and the roof and updating the structure so it is up to code and complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The academic hub itself, to be located in the churchs basement, would include space for computer labs, faculty offices and off-campus learning activities, including research, meetings and internship programs. NU also plans to use the site as the future home of the universitys Levesque Institute for Civic Engagement, which coordinates programs designed to foster systemic change in the Falls under four main pillars  early childhood, community outreach, health and wellness and revitalization.

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From a community standpoint, the hub has been described as a resource center that would provide outreach to help residents with early childhood development, economic development and community collaborations, with a focus on their health and wellness.

NU representatives say the hub is not designed to duplicate support services currently offered just blocks away at Heart, Love & Soul food pantry on Ontario Avenue. While it would provide opportunities for job training, career exploration and advancement, it will not focus on basic human service needs like food, shelter or life skills training.

If someone came to us that needed help, our partner is Heart, Love and Soul and we support them wholeheartedly, said Tom Burns, a spokesperson for the university.

NU committed $2.5 million to the development of the academic hub, including $1.1 million in state grant money secured through New Yorks Downtown Revitalization Initiative.

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On Feb. 10, 2023, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced the commitment of another $1.4 million in federal funds.

Construction bids also came in higher than expected, which NU officials attributed, at least in part, to the increase in demand and cost for labor and materials amid the ongoing construction of the new Buffalo Bills stadium in Orchard Park and the Amazon distribution facility in the Town of Niagara.

Kwandrans said the university is exploring all of its options to make the project a reality while staying within its original budget.

Were not spending more than we have, she said.

The biggest sticking point remains the lack of release of federal dollars, which Kwandrans described as key in advancing the hub beyond design and into construction.

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Evan Lukaske, a spokesperson for Gillibrands office, said the federal dollars for the hub have been earmarked through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He described HUD projects as complex and said they require various environmental reviews before grant agreements can be completed and funds can be disbursed. He said it is up to the university and HUD to negotiate the final agreement to move the project forward.

Kwandrans said university officials remain in contact with the representatives from HUD, which she described as being flooded with a backlog of earmarks that, like NUs hub, remain unfulfilled.

Were awaiting the grant award, Kwandrans said. They have everything they need from us.

Everybodys still very excited about the project, she added. We didnt realize how much time it takes and the length of the process.
Zoe Bettison, minister for Tourism and Multicultural Affairs of the Australian state of South Australia, speaks during a farewell reception for giant pandas Wang Wang and Fu Ni in Adelaide, Australia, Nov. 14, 2024. The only pair of giant pandas in the Southern Hemisphere, Wang Wang and Fu Ni, will leave Adelaide Zoo on Friday morning and return to China. (Xinhua/Ma Ping)

ADELAIDE, Australia, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The only pair of giant pandas in the Southern Hemisphere, Wang Wang and Fu Ni, will leave Adelaide Zoo on Friday morning and return to China.

Chinese Ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian said here on Thursday at a farewell reception for the pandas that over the past 15 years, China and Australia had achieved significant progress in panda conservation, disease prevention, and healthcare.

Wang Wang and Fu Ni had been exceptionally well-cared for, thanks to the dedication and hard work of zoo staff, who had provided them with a safe and warm home for healthy growth, he added.

China and Australia launched a joint program for the conservation and research of giant pandas in 2009, when Wang Wang and Fu Ni arrived at Adelaide Zoo, becoming the only pair of giant pandas in the Southern Hemisphere.

Xiao said that the key to sound relations between countries lies in the amity between their peoples based on mutual understanding. Giant pandas, as ambassadors of friendship, carry the warmth and goodwill of the Chinese people, sowing seeds of peace and friendship that transcend borders.

"For 15 years, they have brought joy to many Australian children, captured moments of happiness for Australian families, and become a part of countless warm memories for Australians. Today, they stand as a symbol of the deep friendship between our two peoples," the ambassador said.

Zoe Bettison, minister for Tourism and Multicultural Affairs of the Australian state of South Australia, said that Australian people are connected to the beautiful giant pandas, "it is with deep sadness, the gratefulness that we wave goodbye to Wang Wang and Fu Ni today."

She added that people in South Australia were absolutely delighted when it was announced that two young giant pandas would come to Adelaide Zoo later. "This continues conservation. This continues our friendship. We wait for them to join us," the minister said. 

People watch a video about Wang Wang and Fu Ni during a farewell reception for the giant pandas in Adelaide, Australia, Nov. 14, 2024. The only pair of giant pandas in the Southern Hemisphere, Wang Wang and Fu Ni, will leave Adelaide Zoo on Friday morning and return to China. (Xinhua/Ma Ping)

Children attend a farewell reception for giant pandas Wang Wang and Fu Ni in Adelaide, Australia, Nov. 14, 2024. The only pair of giant pandas in the Southern Hemisphere, Wang Wang and Fu Ni, will leave Adelaide Zoo on Friday morning and return to China. (Xinhua/Ma Ping)
Nov. 14Maine child protection officials failed to complete all requirements in 94% of abuse or neglect investigations between October 2021 and September 2022, according to a federal inspector general audit released this week.

The most common failures were not completing safety assessments within 72 hours, not completing investigations within 35 days, and not notifying parents or caregivers of a finding within 10 days.

Although the audit adds to what has been a series of critical reports about the Office of Child and Family Services, it has been two full years since the end of the audit period, so many of the problems cited have been remedied or are in the process of being addressed.

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Bobbi Johnson, the office's director, acknowledged the challenge of keeping morale high in an agency that has been scrutinized perhaps more than any other in state government.

"Just this morning, I met with staff in Rockland, and we talked about this," she said in an interview Wednesday. "Our responsibility is to learn from these audits and reviews, to learn from all feedback we get from different stakeholders about how we can improve our systems in ways that result in really successful outcomes for children."

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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General launched the audit to help determine states' compliance with the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), which provides funding.

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Maine was chosen as the first state to be audited in part because of a report by Maine's Child Welfare Ombudsman that identified a deviation from best practices. But Tammy Levesque, assistant regional inspector, said the federal agency also found that Maine ranked high in risk assessment categories, including poverty, percentage of reoccurrence of maltreatment and rate of child fatalities.

"We wanted to take a look at the process when someone calls to report child abuse or neglect to make sure it's working as intended," she said. "The bottom line here: We've conducted this work because this population is very vulnerable."

Anytime a report of child abuse or neglect is made, it's assigned to a staff member at the Office of Child and Family Services to determine whether the claim should be substantiated. If it is, a full investigation begins.

The audit reviewed more than 10,000 reports between October 2021 and September 2022 and then selected a random sample of 100 reports to review more closely.

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Although Maine is required by law to operate a program that includes procedures for immediate screening, risk and safety assessment, and investigation of reports, the office only complied with all requirements in six of those 100 cases.

"Failure to comply with requirements places the children's health and safety at risk," the audit states.

The most common failure  in 92 of 100 cases  was not sending a written notification letter to a parent or caregiver within 10 days of an investigation.

Perhaps the most consequential finding of the audit was that in 59 of 100 reports, supervisors did not complete a safety assessment within 72 hours of initial context with a caseworker. These assessments are used to determine whether a child can safely remain in a home.

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"Having proper documentation is just as important as having made sure the steps of the process were completed," Levesque said. "That helps supervisors make timely and informed decisions about keeping children safe."

Johnson said some of those deficiencies were attributable to staff learning a new data input system.

Another area of concern was that 44 of 100 cases had investigations that were not completed within the 35 days outlined in law.

Johnson said that also was something that emerged during an internal department review and led the agency to extend the timeline from 35 to 45 days to reflect the complexities of child welfare investigations.

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Levesque said Maine's Office of Child and Family Services cooperated throughout the audit.

"They were very forthcoming and concurred with all recommendations," she said.

The audit suggests that Maine follows up with a progress report in six months.

"We hope Maine continues to improve by taking actions in response to our report and by implementing our recommendations. And we hope that other states take notice and take proactive steps," Levesque said.

Recommendations include providing additional training for caseworkers and supervisors on the reporting requirements and developing written policies that require supervisors to review and approve documentation and more closely monitor caseworker reports.

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Johnson said she's confident that all those recommendations will be followed.

PROBLEMS ARE NOT NEW

Maine's child protection system has long been an area of concern for policymakers, but the current challenges can be traced to late 2017 and early 2018.

The deaths of 4-year-old Kendall Chick in Wiscasset and 10-year-old Marissa Kennedy in Stockton Springs prompted lawmakers and then-Gov. Paul LePage to institute reforms aimed at improving child safety.

Chick had been removed from her mother's care and placed with her paternal grandfather and his partner, Shawna Gatto. But caseworkers failed to monitor the girl's care, and she later died from abuse by Gatto, who is now serving 50 years in prison.

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In Kennedy's case, child protection officials had been to her home six times in the four months before her death to investigate claims of abuse. Two days before she died, a caseworker said she noticed bruises but believed the girl's parents when they said they were self-inflicted.

Those two cases highlighted conflicting challenges for the Office of Child and Family Services: They didn't have enough staff to deal with the volume of neglect and abuse reports, but they also struggled with inconsistent expectations on when children should be removed.

The office was provided with more resources beginning in 2018  new caseworker positions and an increase in pay for those already in place. Just as the agency was starting to implement more reforms, including better training, another spate of child deaths in 2021  four in the span of a month  led to further internal and external investigations, some of which lasted into this year.

Additionally, the number of Maine children in state custody to protect them from suspected abuse or neglect has risen to its highest level in two decades, adding to the strain on caseworkers tasked with keeping children safe and on caregivers who take in the at-risk children.

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But Johnson believes her agency is making improvements amid tough conditions, many of them outside her workers' control.

"One of my responsibilities is to share positive work and we work with many more families where we have a positive impact on than negative outcomes," she said.

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Headed and gutted halibut are displayed on ice and for sale on Oct. 3, 2023, at New Sagaya Midtown Market in Anchorage. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to overturn new halibut bycatch limits on deep-sea trawlers that fish in federal waters off Alaska.

The lawsuit was filed by Groundfish Forum Inc., a Seattle-based trawl trade group, after the North Pacific Fishery Management Council passed a rule that reduces halibut bycatch limits for many trawlers when there are fewer halibut in Alaska waters.

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The National Marine Fisheries Service, in charge of implementing the rule, moved to dismiss the lawsuit, and U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled in favor of the agency on Nov. 8. Undercurrent News, a trade publication, first reported on the ruling.

The lawsuit has been a major issue in fishing communities across the Gulf of Alaska. Some of those communities joined the federal government in defense, as did various fishing and conservation organizations.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of the defense, saying that they believe the federal government appropriately implemented fisheries law.

The (North Pacific) Council has followed the processes and done the work that Congress intended, they wrote.

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The state of Alaska also filed a brief in support of the defense, calling the rule a well-considered decision rooted in the principles of sustainability, equity and fairness among competing users and long-term conservation.

At the core of the lawsuit was an argument about whether bycatch  fish caught while pursuing a different target species  amount to an allocation of fishing privileges, akin to the way some fishers are subject to an annual catch quota while pursuing a specific species.

The plaintiffs argued that bycatch restrictions should be considered an allocation issue. That position was opposed by attorneys representing the federal government.

Under current rules, setting allocations is a longer and more intricate process than setting bycatch rules.

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Ruling in the forums favor would make it more difficult for NMFS to be able to issue rules that would prevent overfishing, and it would make it more difficult for NMFS to issue rules that would minimize bycatch, especially rules that would be able to do so in an expeditious way, attorney Erika Furlong, representing NMFS, told Gleason in an October court hearing.

Gleason declined to rule on the core question but said that the rulemaking process was fair and equitable and reasonably calculated to promote conservation, whether or not it was an allocation of fishing privileges.

Gleason also ruled against the plaintiffs claims that the rule violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act.

Correction: This article has been updated to properly credit the agency that first published Gleasons decision.
Italy is grappling with unprecedented levels of mass tourism, leading to an affordable housing shortage, crowded cities, and overwhelmed attractions in once-peaceful villages.

In Rome, Venice, Florence, and countless other destinations, streets are jammed, and attractions are overcrowded.

For those seeking an authentic experience of Italy, the options are to rise before dawn or revisit the past through old photo albums.

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Official figures show that Italy welcomed a record-breaking amount of tourists in 2023, with around 134 million arrivals and over 451 million overnight stays in hotels and other accommodations.

It's not just long-time residents feeling the strain; tourists are affected as well. To preserve the authenticity of city centres and attractions, several Italian destinations are implementing access restrictions, fees, and bans.

Rome considering Trevi Fountain entrance fee

The Trevi Fountain, a landmark in Rome's historic centre, is a popular spot for selfies and coin tosses. However, its constant overcrowding has led the city council, along with residents and business owners, to reconsider the visitor experience.

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They are exploring options such as limiting access or introducing an entry fee to reduce chaos. In the meantime, visitors can already get a glimpse of changes under way.

The fountain is being restored in 2025, and access has been restricted with a walkway around the basin, allowing only a limited number of visitors at a time to better manage the crowds.

Archaeological Park of Pompeii limits visitors

This summer, some 4 million people visited the sunken city of Pompeii, overwhelming the archaeological park.

To manage the crowds, a daily visitor limit of 20,000 will be enforced, along with personalized tickets.

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The goal is to ease the strain on the site, preserving both visitor safety and the centuries-old heritage of the World Heritage-listed city, which was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Venice plans to raise entrance fees

Venice is considered a prime example of mass tourism, attracting millions of visitors each year while creating significant challenges.

With fewer than 50,000 residents in the city centre, yet over 50,000 guest beds, the influx of more than 15 million tourists annually has sparked criticism from locals, who feel displaced by what they call the "Venice Theme Park."

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To curb the impact, Venice introduced the worlds first entrance fee for short-term visitors, starting at 5, though this has proven ineffective. By 2025, the fee is set to rise to 10 for access to the city centre, with residents exempt.

Florence mulling ban on short-term rentals

Short-term holiday rentals are abundant in Florence, with some estimates suggesting that 30% of city centre apartments are listed on Airbnb.

As a result, rents have surged by 42% since 2016, making it increasingly difficult for locals to afford housing and prompting many to move away.

While tourists pay significantly higher rates for short stays, the new social-democratic mayor plans to tackle the issue by banning the registration of new Airbnb rentals to preserve affordable housing for residents.

'LoveTrail' in Cinque Terre limited to 400 visitors

The "Via dell'Amore" (Love Path) in Cinque Terre, once a hotspot for quick selfies, saw 3.5 million visitors annually before a 2012 landslide.

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After over a decade of restoration, the trail reopened in August with new restrictions. Now, only 400 people per hour can access the path, with 100 visitors allowed every 15 minutes.

A ticket is required before 7 pm, with a seasonal surcharge, all aimed at alleviating the overcrowding in this small area, which is home to just 3,500 residents.

The entrance fee for day tourists in Venice is 5 on certain days. By 2025, the fee is set to rise to 10 for access to the city centre. Andrea Warnecke/dpa

The "Via dell'Amore" (Love Path) in Cinque Terre, once a hotspot for quick selfies, saw 3.5 million visitors annually before a 2012 landslide. Arnd Petry/dpa
Earlier this month, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced it would increase the federal governments share of assistance to Vermonters effected by the July 2023 flooding from 75% to 90%.

The cost of this disaster has risen to a point where an additional amount of cost share is approved by Congress, said FEMA FCO William Roy.

The cost-sharing adjustment reduces the amount of flood assistance that must be covered by state and local governments to 10%. State officials say local communities can expect to only cover about two percent of that.

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Governor Phil Scott thanked FEMA officials at a press conference on Wednesday.

In total this change will bring tens of millions more in public assistance over the course of this recovery, he said.

The news comes after Vermont exceeded its per capita impact threshold of close to $111.3 million for the July 2023 storm.

Officials say all projects going forward will be at that 90% federal cost share except for those that the agency previously approved at 100%.

For applicants that have already applied, FEMA says it will provide the 15% difference to the state of Vermont for distribution.

According to FEMA, of the $83 million in 2023 public assistance funding awarded to Vermont, about half  $40.3 million  will go toward debris removal, overtime for first responders, distribution of food and water and temporary repairs to access roads. Another $43.3 million will fund repair and replacement of damages roads and bridges, water treatment plants, public buildings and parks, utilities, recreational facilities and administrative costs.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC22 & FOX44.
CHESTER COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM)  An 18-year-old woman stabbed another woman on Wednesday in Chester County after having an ongoing dispute about an ex-boyfriend, State Police say.

Sadie Sapp, of Maryland, was lodged in Chester County Prison Thursday with bail denied after State Police say they were alerted to a stabbing on the 2800 block of Forge Road in East Nottingham Township.

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According to Troopers, Sapp stabbed a 19-year-old victim in the head with a 6-inch bladed knife during a fight after she drove to the womans house. The victim had told her that if she wanted to fight to come to her house.

The two women were feuding with each other over an ex, State Police say.

The victim was taken to Lancaster Hospital for treatment and is currently in stable condition, Troopers report.

Sapp got the knife from her vehicle and stabbed the victim who exited her home to confront Sapp. Troopers say family members at the home saw the fight and went outside to help the victim.

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One of them was able to get the knife away from Sapp. State Police were able to recover the knife that had blood on it.

Eventually, Sapp walked into the State Police Avondale Barracks and allegedly admitted to stabbing the victim, Troopers say.

Other than attempted homicide, Sapp faces charges of aggravated assault, robbery, theft, recklessly endangering another person and possession of an instrument of crime with intent.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Nov. 19.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.
Headlines from the satirical website the Onion on Thursday: New Dating Site Suggests People You Already Know But Thought You Were Too Good For. Trump Boys Have Slap Fight Over Who Gets to Run Foreign Policy Meetings. Here's Why I Decided to Buy Infowars.

Only one has the ring of truth. Sort of.

The bylined author of the Infowars article, Bryce P. Tetraeder, doesn't actually exist. And the Onion doesn't plan to invest in business school scholarships for promising cult leaders.

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But the Onion's purchase of Alex Jones' conspiracy-theory-saturated media empire at a bankruptcy auction tied to lawsuits by the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims is very real  an effort to fight falsehoods with funny and a who'd-have-thunk-it development in an already somewhat unbelievable year. An element of doubt was added late Thursday when the judge in Jones' bankruptcy case ordered a hearing for next week on how the auction was conducted.

On Thursday, The Onion immediately shut down Infowars and said it plans to relaunch it in January as a parody of conspiracy theorists.

Our goal in a couple of years is for people to think of Infowars as the funniest and dumbest website that exists, said Ben Collins, the Onion's CEO. It was previously the dumbest website that exists.

It's the end  at least for now  of a long chapter

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The purchase, for an undisclosed sum, was backed by Sandy Hook families, who were awarded nearly $1.5 billion in lawsuits against Jones for his false claims that the 2012 shootings at a Connecticut elementary school werex a hoax.

The new Infowars will be a satire of theories Jones advanced, which themselves were so absurd that they could have seemed satirical if they hadn't caused real-life harm. The development ends one tentacle of a loose network of podcasters, TikTok influencers and others whose content keeps people perpetually provoked and enraged, Collins said. He called Jones one small character in a universe of fear-based media.

They've had a free pass to this point and we don't think that's fair, he said.

At the very least, he said, the Onion hopes to return some fun to the Internet to offset years of doomscrolling.

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In Collins, who once covered misinformation for NBC News, the new venture has a leader uniquely suited to what is being attempted, said Dale Beran, who made this year's Netflix documentary, The Anti-Social Network, about the topic.

The Onion, founded as a newspaper in 1988, has gone through several ownership changes and was purchased earlier this year by a group that includes Jeff Lawson, co-founder of the software company Twilio. Since then, Beran said, it feels like there is new life breathed into it."

Done well, a satirical site on conspiracy theories and those who traffic in them could meet a historical moment much like comedian Stephen Colbert did when his Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report, mocked pompous conservative television talk show hosts a decade and more ago.

And what will happen when some of Jones' casual fans who didn't follow the news of the bankruptcy auction log on to Infowars in a few months only to find the Onion's new creation? Probably not much, said Beran, who suggested it's unlikely there's much overlap between people attracted by conspiracy theories and those who want to mock them.

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Conspiracy theories abound about the fate of conspiracy theories

Indeed, conspiracy theories about the Onion's purchase of Infowars began popping up online only hours after it was announced.

There's no chance this outlet which hasn't been relevant in years was able to afford this purchase on their own. Who was really behind this? the website Zeee Media, which bills itself as one of the most trusted, uncensored sources of information in Australia, posted on X.

Jones himself hurriedly posted a video aimed at his fans on Thursday. This is a total attack on free speech, he said. The deep state is completely out of control.

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There is an impact any time a prominent website that traffics in misinformation is shut down. Still, the business model of reaching people who want to be enraged is still viable, Beran said. Another expert in misinformation suggested Jones will quickly move on, and his fans will move with him.

As long as there are people willing to tune in, he will find new outlets, said Yotam Ophir, head of the Media Effects, Misinformation and Extremism Lab at the University of Buffalo. If anything, the Onion trolling and the court cases against him will just make some of his most dedicated fans even more sure of his righteousness, seeing him as a martyr for free speech.

At the very least, the Onion purchase offered a moment of zen for liberals who have had a pretty rough week or so following Donald Trump's election victory and the GOP sweep in Congress.

This is bad karma turned good, wrote Timothy W. Larson, who describes himself on X as a unabashed progressive." I love it.

___

Associated Press Dave Collins in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
CSRA (WJBF)  The tenth and final defendant charged in an Augusta-area drug trafficking conspiracy has been found guilty at trial, representing the final defendant in the case with all others currently serving prison terms.

Donnie Skillman, 47, of Augusta, faces up to life in federal prison after his conviction on methamphetamine-trafficking and firearms possession charges, said Jill E. Steinberg, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia.

All 10 defendants in this drug-trafficking network are now being held accountable for distributing dangerous, addictive drugs in our community. We applaud the outstanding work of our law enforcement partners in identifying and eliminating this threat to the safety of our neighborhoods.

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After a two-day trial in U.S. District Court, the jury found Skillman guilty of Possession with Intent to Distribute Methamphetamine, Possession of a Firearm in Furtherance of a Drug Trafficking Crime, and Possession of a Firearm with an Obliterated Serial Number.

Skillman was one of 10 defendants charged in USA v. Walters et al., an indictment unsealed in December 2023 identifying a major methamphetamine trafficking operation distributing drugs throughout the Augusta area. The other nine defendants are serving federal prison sentences after pleading guilty to drug trafficking conspiracy charges, including:

Edward Jake Walters , a/k/a State Farm, a/k/a Jake from State Farm, 30, of Grovetown, Ga., sentenced to 87 months in prison and fined $1,500;

Phillip Smith , 50, of Augusta, sentenced to 156 months in prison and fined $1,500;

Dustin Bayles , 36, of Thomson, Ga., sentenced to 135 months in prison and fined $1,500;

Glen Taylor , 43, of Beech Island, S.C., sentenced to 37 months in prison and fined $1,500;

Linda Campbell , 54, of Augusta, sentenced to 68 months in prison and fined $1,000;

Joshua Wasden , 36, of Thomson, Ga., sentenced to 120 months in prison and fined $2,000;

Brian Hilliard , 41, of Augusta, sentenced to 108 months in prison and fined $2,500;

Gary Holcomb , 61, of Martinez, Ga., sentenced to 188 months in prison and fined $2,000;

Destiny Poole, 24, of Grovetown, Ga., sentenced to 87 months in prison and fined $1,500.

Smith, Hilliard and Holcomb also pled guilty to Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJBF.
Malaysias first national car company, Proton Holdings, celebrated the completion of a new vehicle assembly plant in Egypt this week, where its local partner is ready to begin assembling the Proton Saga from kits imported from Malaysia.

The plant, located in the Al Oula Industrial Park in Giza, is owned by Ezz Elarab Elsewedy Automotive Factories (ESAF), a joint venture between Ezz Elarab and Elsewedy Capital Holding. The US$35m facility has an annual production capacity of 20,000 vehicles per year on a single shift, employing approximately 400 people.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by Malaysian Prime Minister Dato Seri Anwar Bin Ibrahim, Egypts Deputy Prime Minister H E Lieutenant General Kamel Al-Wazir and a large contingent of government ministers and company officials including ESAF chairman Hisham Ezz Elarab and Proton chairman Tan Sri Syed Faisal Albar.

The first shipment of left-hand-drive Proton Saga CKD kits left Malaysia in early September. By the end of the year a total of 1,400 locally-assembled Sagas are expected to roll off the production line, rising to 5,000 units in 2025.

Proton expects to ship a total of 16,000 kits to Egypt by the end of 2026, worth some MYR570m (US$127m) with an additional MYR20m (US$4.5m) worth of spare parts. The locally-assembled Sagas will also be exported from Egypt to other markets in the Northern and Sub-Saharan regions of Africa. Proton has also said it is looking expand its presence in the Middle-East.

Speaking at the event in Cairo, Proton chairman Tan Sri Syed Faisal Albar said: Proton has been Malaysias leading vehicle exporter for decades with our current export volume accounting for approximately 3% of our total sales volume. While these efforts have borne fruit, our own history shows there is a lot of untapped potential for the company in markets outside Malaysia. Egypt is central to our plans for the region and going forward, we will be keen to engage in more collaborations with partners such as ESAF to unlock the sales potential for our cars in countries where car ownership numbers are still increasing.

"Proton inaugurates assembly plant in Egypt" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand.




A fingerprint on a decades-old taxi application led to the arrest of a man accused of fatally shooting two people and leaving their bodies along a Massachusetts roadway in 1978, officials said.

Timothy Scott Joley, 71, was arrested last month at his home in Clearwater, Florida, in connection with the murders of Theresa Marcoux, 18, and Mark Harnish, 20, Hampden County District Attorney Anthony Gulluni announced Wednesday on Facebook.

The victims were identified as Mark L. Harnish and Theresa A. Marcoux. Both were last seen alive at about 12:30 a.m. Nov. 19, 1978, leaving a party hosted by friends.

Their bodies were found on Nov. 19, 1978, off a roadway in West Springfield.

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Joley was taken into custody on a two-count murder complaint and arrest warrant and faces extradition to Massachusetts. It's not clear whether if he has an attorney.

It was only in the last month that Joley was linked to the decadeslong cold case. Gulluni said an unidentified person provided investigators with Joley's name and information about his alleged involvement in the deaths.

Investigators learned that Joley was living in Springfield around the time of the murders and had a fingerprint identification card on file with Springfield police, Gulluni said at a news conference. His fingerprints were on file as part of a taxi license application he submitted in 2000.

Timothy Joley was arrested Oct. 30 at his home in Clearwater, Fla., and was held without bond at the Pinellas County Jail.

Joley's fingerprint identification card was compared to a print found on Harnish's green Dodge pickup truck, which was parked in a roadway rest area near where the bodies were discovered. Investigators determined that the print on the car was from Joley's left thumb, the district attorney said.

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Investigators also learned that he was a licensed gun owner in November 1978 and that he bought a Colt handgun about a month before the murders.

Gulluni said Joley's criminal history showed "nothing of real significance." He said the person who came forward to provide investigators with Joley's name was crucial.

The bodies of Theresa Marcoux, 18, and Mark Harnish, 20, were discovered on Nov. 19, 1978, after police came across Harnish's pickup truck at a rest area in West Springfield, Mass.

"We were able to take that name and turn it into something very significant," he said at the news conference. "It is really so critical. One piece of information or one name that someone provides can really change the course of a case."

Gulluni said the case now has "renewed hope."

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"There's a good possibility for justice," he told reporters.

Marcoux, who was working as a clerk at a hardware store at the time of her death, and Harnish, who worked at a car repair shop, were last seen alive on the morning of the murders. Gulluni said they had left a party thrown by friends.

An officer on patrol who saw Harnish's truck parked on Route 5 and Riverdale Street discovered their bodies. The driver's side window of the truck was damaged, and there was blood "in and around the vehicle," Gulluni said on Facebook. Investigators believe that the victims were shot while they were in the passenger compartment of the truck and that their bodies were moved to the area where their remains were discovered later.

An autopsy determined they each suffered multiple gunshot wounds, he said. A motive remains unclear.

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Relatives of Marcoux and Harnish were at the news conference but did not speak. Marcoux was described as "someone who loved to laugh and always had a smile on her face." Harnish was "known as a quiet, polite young man," Gulluni said.

"Tragically, their young lives were cut far too short by a horrendous act of violence," he said.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
HONOLULU (KHON2)  The National Weather Service has issued both a Fire Weather Watch and a Wind Advisory for several areas of Hawaii, with strong winds and low humidity expected to create hazardous conditions on Friday, Nov. 15.

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The Fire Weather Watch is in effect from Friday morning through the afternoon for leeward areas across all Hawaiian Islands. Forecasters warn that the combination of dry fuels, low humidity, and strong winds could lead to critical fire conditions. Winds are expected to range from 20 to 30 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph, while humidity levels could drop to between 40 to 50 percent.

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This combination of conditions could contribute to extreme fire behavior, particularly in areas with dry vegetation. The National Weather Service is urging the public to avoid outdoor burning, and a Red Flag Warning may be issued if conditions worsen.

HECO monitoring wildfire risk as strong winds forecasted for Friday

Wind Advisory for Maui and Haleakala

In addition to the fire risk, a Wind Advisory is in effect for the Maui Central Valley and the north and south slopes of Haleakala until 6 p.m. Thursday. These areas are expected to experience sustained east winds of 20 to 30 mph, with gusts reaching up to 50 mph. The strong winds may cause tree branches to fall, blow away tents and awnings, and make it difficult to steer, especially for high-profile vehicles.

Precautionary Actions

For both the Fire Weather Watch and Wind Advisory, residents are urged to take precautions:

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Be aware of the potential for falling tree branches when walking or driving in affected areas

Secure tents and awnings, or take them down to prevent damage from the winds

Prepare for power outages and check emergency equipment like flashlights and battery-powered radios

Avoid outdoor burning and heed any additional warnings or advisories from the National Weather Service

If a Red Flag Warning is issued, do not engage in outdoor burning activities

Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news

The National Weather Service will continue to monitor conditions and provide updates as the situation develops. Residents should stay informed through local news and official weather 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 KHON2.
VILNIUS, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The 14th Seimas of Lithuania convened for its first sitting on Thursday, with a series of elections on the agenda, the Baltic News Service (BNS) reported.

Following the Statute of the Seimas, the first sitting was opened by the oldest MP, 73-year-old Social Democrat Birute Vesaite. The 2024-2028 parliamentary term began with a swearing-in ceremony for the newly elected members.

The ruling coalition, consisting of Lithuania's Social Democratic Party (LSDP), Dawn of Nemunas (PPNA), and the Democratic Union "For Lithuania" (DSVL), plans to nominate former Prime Minister and the Democrats' leader Saulius Skvernelis for the speaker's post.

The Seimas is also expected to elect its deputy speakers and finalize the composition of its Board and Conference of Chairs.

Addressing the session, President Gitanas Nauseda reaffirmed Lithuania's unity with the North Arctic Treaty Organization and the European Union and vowed to support Ukraine uncompromisingly.

In the afternoon, Prime Minister Simonyte from the center-right party, the ruling Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD), will formally return the government's mandate to the president. Her cabinet will continue as a caretaker administration until a new government program is approved and ministers are sworn in.

Following parliamentary elections on Oct. 13 and 27, the LSDP emerged as the leading party, securing 52 of the 141 parliamentary seats, with PPNA and DSVL obtaining 20 and 14 seats, respectively.

On Monday, the LSDP, PPNA, and DSVL formalized an agreement to build a coalition to govern in the new Seimas. 
The Action News Jax First Alert Weather Team is tracking Tropical Storm Sara, which formed in the western Caribbean on Thursday afternoon.

WATCH THE FORECAST | DOWNLOAD THE APPS

Heres what you can expect in the tropics and in our local forecast:

TROPICS:

Sara is set to bring heavy rain and flooding to Central America, for parts of Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.

Over the Gulf of Mexico next week, its looking much weaker, primarily due to the anticipated time over land and increasing shear.

Still likely to have at least some rain in Florida by the middle of next week, especially on Wednesday.

For the latest updates, always read the latest entry in Talking the Tropics With Mike.

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LOCAL WEATHER:

Mild Thursday evening with a few sprinkles and light showers. Cooler air will move in after midnight dropping temperatures to the 50s by sunrise.

Friday will begin with clouds but become mostly sunny, breezy, cool & nice. Highs in the low 70s.

Down into the 40s Friday night and Saturday night for the first time since April as we get to enjoy a beautiful fall weekend. Highs will be in the low to mid-70s with lots of sun.

A warming trend again early next week ahead of a strong cold front that arrives Wednesday/Wednesday night.

Follow Action News Jax Meteorologists on Twitter for updates:

Mike Buresh | Garrett Bedenbaugh | Corey Simma | Trevor Gibbs

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INTERACTIVE RADAR: Keep track of the rain as it moves through your neighborhood

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Pauly Denetclaw

ICT

WASHINGTON  Chief Lynn Malerba was wearing her traditional regalia  a red-ribbon dress adorned with a floral beaded yoke, belt and crown, all matching  as she was sworn in two years ago as the first Indigenous person to be the U.S. Treasurer.

It was a historic moment underpinned by Malerbas outward display of her Mohegan Tribe. Her appointment, coupled with the appointment of Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary, paved the way for U.S. currency to feature the signatures of only women, a first for the country.

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Malerba formally announced Thursday that she will be leaving her post on Friday, Nov. 15. Her exit was preplanned before the results of the election, according to the department.

Saying yes to being the treasurer was a little intimidating, in some regard, but I also think it was such an opportunity, Malerba said, during a virtual press conference on Wednesday. It was a space that Indigenous people have not been represented in, and that's very special to me, to be the person that would bring our voice forward in a bigger way.

On Oct. 30, Yellen presented Malerba with the Alexander Hamilton Award, the Treasury Departments highest honor, an annual award presented by the Treasury secretary to an outstanding individual who has improved the department.

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Under her leadership, the Office of Tribal and Native Affairs, a first of its kind at the Treasurers Office, was created. The office is permanent but does not have guaranteed funding.

It began as a team in the Department of the Treasury in response to the $20 billion given to tribal nations through President Joe Bidens COVID-19 relief bill.

Malerbas first action as treasurer was to formalize the team under her office.

This office has been essential in engaging Treasury in policy programs, and engaging with offices within Treasury that impacts tribes, Malerba said. It's resulted in improved outcomes and guidance, regulation and policy, with customization provided for tribes in recognition of the obligation to uphold the trust and treaty obligations that the United States and all of its federal agencies are responsible for.

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Under Malerbas leadership, the Treasury has conducted 800 engagement sessions with tribal leaders and communities. In 2022, Yellen made her first official tribal nations visit to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota to mark the historic appointment of Malerba.

Mohegan Chief Lynn Malerba, the newly appointed U.S. Treasurer, addresses a gathering on the Rosebud Reservation on June 21, 2022. Malerba was joined by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in meeting with tribal leaders in what is the first time a U.S. treasury secretary had visited a tribal community. Malerba was the first Native person to hold the treasurer's position and the first whose signature would appear on U.S. currency. (Photo by Vi Waln for ICT)

The office has also supported a historic 50 tribal consultations on everything from tax issues to renewable energy credits, and accessing capital.

Two months ago, it was announced that tribal enterprises, businesses, and entities that are wholly owned by a federally recognized tribe would not be subject to federal income tax and would hold the same tax status as their nations.

The proposed rule recognizes that tribal economies are unique, and rely on tribal businesses to generate governmental revenue, she said.

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Looking forward, however, Malerba said, more work needs to be done, not only to understand treaty and trust responsibilities but to be educated on how tribal nations economies are different from states or local municipalities.

As for the Office of Tribal and Native Affairs, she hopes officials will continue to think about how tax policy can impact tribal nations, and how barriers can be reduced at the Treasury Department to support economic development.

The announcement comes as former President Donald Trump prepares to take office again in January. When a new administration comes into power, political appointees often change, bringing new leadership into departments.

When asked if the office was worried about turnover, a Treasury official said, Our staff are career staff, and it's our role to support tribal inclusion, faithfully implement these programs. These $30 billion in recovery, set aside, have crossed multiple administrations, and it's important that we focus on that, because we're going to be going into close-out for programs. Tribes will need compliance support, (in addition to) all of these proposed tax regulations.

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Work will continue this year even after Malerbas departure.

We have upcoming consultations  three next week, three in December, the Treasury official said. I think that we will, to the best of our ability, continue this public service for Indian Country, because it's bipartisan.

As a lifelong chief for the Mohegan Tribe, Malerba said she is excited to be back on her homelands and in community. Her future plans include taking a Mohegan language immersion class, and learning more about her culture.

My community is anxious to have me back home, she said.

Malerba was part of the wave of Indigenous women taking leadership roles in state and federal governments, including Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo; Kansas U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, Ho-Chunk; Alaska U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, Yup'ik; and Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, White Earth Nation.

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What I tell my Native women back home is, when an opportunity presents itself to you, say yes, because I think it's really important for us to not pigeon hole ourselves into thinking we can only have one career, or we can only have one path forward, Malerba said.

ICT is owned by IndiJ Public Media, a nonprofit news organization. Will you support our work? All of our content is free. There are no subscriptions or costs. Support ICT for as little as $10. Sign up for ICTs free newsletter.
NEW LONDON, Conn. (WTNH)  Connecticut loves its seafood, and one of the all-time favorites is lobster.

For decades, the crustaceans were caught off the coast of Connecticut. But, in the late 90s, things changed drastically.

When the lobster die-off happened 25 years ago, it sunk many who made their living on the sea.

But, there are still some local lobsterman who have found a way to keep their businesses afloat.

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We went from doing 500-600 pounds of lobster a tide, some guys were doing a thousand a tide, to a hundred, said Walter Roderick, who keeps his lobster boat the Stacey Geal at Stonington Dock, the home of the last commercial fishing fleet in Connecticut.

Long Island Sound report card shows improvements

Colleen Bouffard, the supervising fisheries biologist for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said there wasnt one factor completely responsible for the die-off.

She said what lead to lobster traps full of dead and dying lobsters was what some called a perfect storm of unfortunate conditions.

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In August of 98, I believe, we had Hurricane Dennis pass to the south, Bouffard said. We experienced strong winds from a northern cold front and it caused complete mixing of the water column.

Bouffard said that within matter of hours that raised the temperature at the bottom of Long Island Sound to levels that the lobsters could not tolerate.

It was just a calamity of factors that lead to the deaths that we saw, Bouffard said. They had loads of parasitic amoeba.

Whether it be parasites, pesticides or the warming of the waters, the cause may be disputed but one thing is clear. Some 25 years later, there is no sign the lobster population will recover, and predators may be the biggest threat.

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Stripers, sea bass, fluke, blue fish all feed on juveniles, said Geal Roderick, Walter Rodericks son.

Bouffard said that stocks of fin fish are doing well in the Sound, among other predators.

These days, some of the traps come up with just a few lobsters, and some of those lobsters have to be thrown back into the sea. But, it still takes just as much work to pull the lines.

Lobstermen said they cannot make a living on lobster alone.

We charter our boats out, we pick up work, I work for the Navy Department of the Navy as a consultant, Walter Roderick said.

He also rents out his boats to the L-Trap Project, which has retrieved more than 2,000 of what it believes are tens of thousands of abandoned lobster traps from the bottom of Long Island Sound.

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These lobster traps are very bad for the environment, Rebha Raviraj, of the Maritime Aquarium of Norwalk, told News 8 in October 2023.

The Maritime Aquarium is working with fishermen and environmental groups to recover the traps, which it said are navigational hazards and pollute the environment.

The group has found and released more than 10,000 live animals stuck in the traps, and have discovered invasive species living on them, including a nudibranch, or sea slug.

It invaded the Gulf of Maine, and sort of the northern Atlantic from Europe, and its been absolutely decimating sponge populations there, said Sarah Crosby, the director of conservation and policy for the Maritime Aquarium of Norwalk.

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They are learning a lot from the L-Trap project and what has been found on the lobster traps. Some have been sitting on the bottom of Long Island Sound for decades.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
FLORENCE, Italy (WJTV)  My wife and I visited a special cemetery near Florence, Italy.

We spent a couple of days in Florence before traveling to Rome. On the way, we made a stop at the Florence American Cemetery where more than 4,500 American WWII soldiers are buried.

The cemetery is nestled in a valley with hillsides. Our group fell into a respectful hush as we walked among the headstones. Many had the names of the person buried beneath them many more reading Known only but to God.

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The War Memorial Building in Jackson

How well kept the cemetery is struck me. Its thoughtfully laid out with rows of graves all curved to fit the contour of the hillside, yet smartly dressed from all angles at the same time.

To me, this became not just another military cemetery. Well first of all, its in a foreign land, not in America. There are soldiers there who served in the same part of the world where my daddy was, only he came home and picked up his life.

These soldiers never made it back to own a hardware store and become a deacon or elder in their church or mayor of their town. But what they sacrificed allowed the rest of us to do so.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell meets with Floridas emergency management staff in Tallahassee on Oct. 10, 2024. (Photo courtesy of FEMA)

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody wants a jury trial against FEMAs head and a former supervisor who advised relief workers in Florida to avoid houses displaying yard signs favoring president-elect Donald Trump.

The suit filed in federal court on Wednesday comes after the Federal Emergency Management Agency fired Marni Washington, supervisor of post-Hurricane Helena and Milton relief efforts in Lake Placid, over her guidance to avoid houses advertising Trump.

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In the complaint, Moody accuses Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Washington of conspiring to interfere with the civil rights of Florida Trump supporters.

Aside from requesting the jury trial in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Moody is seeking nominal and punitive damages from Criswell and Washington.

Hurricane season is not over, and the federal agency in charge of emergency response is embroiled in scandal  caught withholding aid from storm victims in Florida who support President Trump, Moody wrote in a press release Thursday morning.

I am taking swift legal action to find out how far this political discrimination reaches and to make sure all Americans who fall victim to devastating storms are served, regardless of their political affiliation.

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Criswell announced on Nov. 9 that the agency had fired Washington and called her behavior a clear violation of FEMAs core values and principles. Moodys complaints cite multiple interviews in which Washington said the message she sent to the relief workers, which the Daily Wire published, lacked context and that her supervisors knew about and encouraged her decision to avoid the homes.

Its unacceptable for the federal government to discriminate against Floridians who voted for Trump, and especially egregious in the aftermath of a hurricane, Gov. Ron DeSantis said in the press release. Im supportive of this legal action by the Attorney Generals Office, and I have instructed state agencies to likewise take any action necessary to investigate and ensure those who engaged in this behavior are held accountable.

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability called Criswell to testify on Nov. 19 about the agencys efforts to deliver assistance. The committees chair, James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, wrote in a press release Wednesday that the committee is deeply concerned the events in Florida are not an isolated incident.

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Tropical Storm Sara is crawling along near Central America and will have the potential to emerge in the Gulf of Mexico this week, where it could re-strengthen and threaten Florida with flooding rain, storm surge and damaging winds, AccuWeather meteorologists say.

Early Thursday afternoon, Tropical Depression 19 strengthened into Tropical Storm Sara, becoming the 18th named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. AccuWeather began calling it a tropical rainstorm earlier in the week to raise public awareness and planning for those in the path of the storm. It has maximum winds of 45 mph and is crawling westward at 4 mph just north of the Honduras coastline.

Because the center of Sara developed very close to Central America, this prevented rapid intensification to a major hurricane. Sara may spend most of its time into this weekend within 50 miles of the coast or over land in Central America and Mexico.

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With spending considerable time over Central America and southeastern Mexico, the main questions become: Will it survive over land? What will be left as it emerges in the Gulf of Mexico, and how quickly will it ramp up once in the Gulf?

The slow-moving nature of Sara while over the land will unleash tremendous rainfall, flash flooding and mudslides, which could result in catastrophic loss of lives and property.

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Sara will lose wind intensity and could lose its circulation. If it unwinds totally, there may be little left to regenerate while over the Gulf this week. If it maintains a center of circulation, the chance of strengthening increases. Even then, it will face some obstacles.

The water in the Gulf of Mexico is not as warm as that of the Caribbean and is only marginally warm enough to support a tropical storm or hurricane.

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Ahead of an approaching cold front, disruptive breezes, known as wind shear, will also increase.

At the very least, some of Sara's tropical moisture will be lifted northeastward over the Gulf.

That extra moisture can be enough to lead to flooding downpours and perhaps severe thunderstorms in Florida toward the middle of this week. Some inland communities along the rivers were still experiencing flooding from Milton at the start of this week.

The exact track when over the Gulf will depend on Sara's organization and ability to regain strength at midweek.

A storm with lower sustained winds is more likely to be pulled into the front and to the north--perhaps over the central Gulf coast.

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A more organized tropical depression or storm is more likely to track more to the east and into the Florida Peninsula.

Since Sara still has the potential to regain some wind intensity upon leaving Mexico, interests along the central and eastern Gulf coast, especially those along the Florida Gulf coast, should closely monitor its progress.

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.
Congressman Matt Gaetz speaking at an "An Address to Young Americans" event, featuring President Donald Trump, hosted by Students for Trump and Turning Point Action at Dream City Church in Phoenix, Ariz., June 2020. (Photo by Gage Skidmore/ Wikimedia Commons)

President-elect Donald Trumps nomination of Northwest Florida U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz to become attorney general is generating intense opposition, but its not just from Democrats in Washington.

Shortly after news broke Wednesday afternoon that Trump had nominated him, Gaetz stepped down from his seat representing Floridas 1st Congressional District. His resignation came just days before before the House Ethics Committee was poised to vote on releasing a highly damaging report outlining its investigation of Gaetz, according to a report from Punchbowl News.

Attorney Mat Staver speaking to reporters outside the Florida Supreme Court on Feb. 7, 2024. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix)

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the Christian legal ministry Liberty Counsel in Orlando, fired off a blistering takedown the congressman on Thursday in a statement titled, Matt Gaetz is not qualified to be U.S. Attorney General.

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President-elect Donald Trump has quickly named many good choices to serve in his cabinet. But Matt Gaetz is not one of them, Staver wrote.

The nomination of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General is shocking and disappointing to those who have followed this man and the lurid scandals and serious allegations of sex parties and drugs during his tenure in the U.S. Congress. The resignation of Gaetz immediately after his name surfaced for Attorney General is inexplicable except for the fact this resignation now ends the U.S. House Ethics probe.

Obviously, Gaetz does not want America to know the result of the Ethics investigation. Matt Gaetz has neither the experience nor the moral character to serve as the highest law enforcement officer of the United States of America. Gaetz should do President Trump and all of America a favor and withdraw his name from consideration. This will save him considerable embarrassment. America deserves better.

Staver, an attorney who argued against placing the abortion-rights Amendment 4 on the ballot in front of the state Supreme Court last year, noted that Gaetz had fewer than three years of legal experience at a law firm in Fort Walton Beach before he began his political career in the Florida House of Representatives in 2010.

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In a statement accompanying his written remarks, Staver references the multiple allegations of Gaetz indulging in sex and drugs (the House Ethics investigation involved allegations that he had sex with a minor).

Sex and drugs

Numerous news articles have catalogued the serious allegations involving Gaetz, including using Venmo to pay women for sex, text messages, attending sex parties, and paying a minor for sex, reads the statement.

Witnesses have testified that they have seen Gaetz at these sex parties taking drugs. And his close association with former Seminole Country Tax Collector, Joel Greenburg, adds to these serious allegations. Greenburg is now serving time in prison for using his position for illegal gain and arranging sex parties for his friends, including Gaetz.

Meanwhile, John Clune, the attorney for the young woman with whom Gaetz is alleged to have had sex with when she was a minor, is now calling on the House Ethics Committee to release its report.

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Mr. Gaetzs likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events, Clune said on X. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.

Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who sits on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, has also called for release of the ethic report. I dont want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate could consider, he said.
Education Secretary Jacob Oliva speaks to superintendents about the LEARNS Act during a meeting at the Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative on Mar. 10, 2023. (Antoinette Grajeda/Arkansas Advocate)

The Arkansas Department of Education has again selected a Florida-based company to administer the states school voucher program after firing the previous vendor for delays and failure to implement required components.

A state legislative committee on Thursday reviewed an $8 million contract with Kleo Inc (also known as Class Wallet) thats worth up to $14 million over the course of four years. Class Wallet administered the first year of the states Education Freedom Account program, but Student First Technologies took over the second year when the state awarded a contract worth $15 million over seven years.

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Created through the LEARNS Act, an expansive education law, the school voucher program provides around $6,800 per student for allowable student expenses such as private school tuition.

Darrell Smith, assistant commissioner of the Office of School Choice and Parent Empowerment, told the Arkansas Legislative Councils Review subcommittee Thursday that hes confident the program will be handled in a much more seamless manner because ADE is more familiar with Class Wallet, which has an easier to manage system.

Theres not as many problems in the front end. The previous vendor had a number of problems that we were having to solve on the go, and so it was hard to approve things when the system was broken, Smith said. And so it wasnt the approval process that was broken, it was the process of getting us the information so that we could approve it.

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Education Secretary Jacob Oliva sent a letter to Student First Technologies CEO on Sept. 16 voicing concerns about missing deadlines. Oliva sent another letter Oct. 8 notifying the Indiana-based vendor that ADE was terminating its contract because the company failed to deliver a fully functioning system by the deadlines established under contract.

Additionally, the letter noted components that were delivered had significant problems and delays that included unreasonably slow payment processing and repeated failure of the system to operate as required.

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ADE posted an online bid last month for another vendor to run the states EFA and literacy tutoring grant programs. Kleo/Class Wallet was one of five companies that applied for the contract.

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Rep. Fran Cavenaugh, R-Walnut Ridge, questioned the decision to return to Class Wallet during Thursdays legislative meeting, noting that parents lost a little faith in the EFA program because of all the errors theyve encountered.

If we had such a good experience with Class Wallet, how come we ended up going with this other vendor, that to be honest we didnt have a good experience with? Cavenuagh asked.

Smith said ADE followed state law by going through the Request for Proposals (RFP) process and Student First Technologies won the contract. During a legislative meeting in May, legislators questioned whether Student First Technologies had the experience and capacity to manage thousands of applicants in the program, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

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The EFA program is being phased in over three years with expanding eligibility requirements until its open to all students during the 2025-2026 academic year. ADE announced the program reached its second-year cap in September, with 14,297 students funded for the 2024-25 school year.

Smith said Thursday that ADE shared lawmakers concerns, so state educational officials spoke with Student First Technologies, which provided assurances it could manage any issues.

They did not, Smith said. We also promised you if they did not fulfill their part of the contract that we would leave, which we are.

The companys problems left thousands of home-school parents confused and angry, according to an October article by education news outlet The 74.

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ADE is fining Student First $563,000 in damages and penalties. The money is due in full by Dec. 31, 2024, the date when the contract expires. The company is expected to fulfill its contractual obligations until the contract is terminated at the end of the year, according to the contract termination letter.

The full Arkansas Legislative Council will review the new vendors contract at its Friday meeting.

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Trump begins to fill top posts with loyal defenders, moralised the New York Times earlier this week. Announced with lightning speed on Trumps Truth Social platform and in email messages to his close supporters, and often preceded by enticing media reports, the eminent Trumpians who will shape his second administration are largely outsiders who have pledged to support the returning presidents policies.

This is by design. Trump detests and distrusts the Washington establishment, especially its Republican adherents, whom he and his supporters often deride as Republicans in Name Only (RINOs). In his first administration, opponents in the Washington Swamp frustrated much of his agenda. Some joined with Democrats in his impeachment proceedings. Many others worked to prevent his return.

In the 2024 Republican primaries, most RINOs supported other candidates, especially Trumps former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who lasted the longest and scored one of her two primary victories in Washington, DC. Last week, she was consigned to the political wilderness in an announcement that neither she nor former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, also reportedly judged to be too close to Washington, would be invited to serve in the new administration.

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It is significant that much of the new team now taking shape hails from Florida, where Trump has had a presence as owner of Palm Beachs Mar-a-Lago estate since 1985, and where he became an official resident in 2019. That is more than enough to count as a Florida Man, which is a state of mind as much as it is a geographic marker in American politics today.

Now Mar-a-Lago  and Palm Beach generally  is practically a shadow White House, serving as the site where Trumps presidential transition will be headquartered over the next 10 weeks before he is re-inaugurated in Washington.

Susan Wiles, who co-managed Trumps presidential campaign this year, is an old hand in the state, having managed Trumps state-level campaign in 2016, as well as Florida governor Ron DeSantiss successful gubernatorial campaign in 2018, before returning to Trump after a fallout with DeSantis. Trumps first major appointment was to install Wiles as White House chief of staff, a cabinet-level position that presides over the flow of personnel and information to the president and advises on issues of national importance.

Within a matter of days, Trump chose another Florida loyalist, Representative Mike Waltz, to join the Cabinet as national security advisor, the presidents senior official for international affairs. Waltz, who succeeded DeSantis in his congressional seat when the latter ran for governor in 2018, is a decorated career army officer who served as a Green Beret and remains in active service as a National Guard colonel. In 2024, he was among a number of Florida congressmen who endorsed Trump over DeSantis.

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He is a firm supporter of the returning presidents tough line against China, having said we are in a cold war with the Chinese Communist Party. Waltz has also migrated toward Trumps position on Ukraine, which is to encourage a negotiated peace settlement, and has voted against multiple bills to provide additional aid to Kyiv.

Importantly, both Wiles and Waltz will hold posts that are occupied at the pleasure of the president and not subject to Senate confirmation. The major cabinet office for foreign affairs, secretary of state, is subject to Senate confirmation, and it, too, will go to another Florida man, Senator Marco Rubio.

Rubio, who gained valuable experience in international affairs as a member of the Senates foreign relations and intelligence committees, has a contentious history with Trump, who derided him as Little Marco when Rubio ran against him for the 2016 presidential nomination. But eight years is an eternity in American politics and Rubio has embraced Trumpism. Also having endorsed the returning president this year, he has gravitated toward the national conservative camp and spoke at its 2022 conference in Miami.

The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio holds a hard line against Leftist regimes in Latin America, shares the new administrations antipathy to China, and has abandoned his early support for Ukraine in favour of Trumps preference for a negotiated peace.

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On Wednesday, Trump nominated yet another Florida loyalist, Congressman Matt Gaetz, to head the Justice Department as attorney general, specifically tasking him with combatting the weaponisation of federal law enforcement and supporting the administrations larger project of closing the southern border.

Floridas advance to the forefront of national politics is not unchecked, however. In a secret ballot on Wednesday, the Republican Senate Conference voted down a bid from Floridas other senator, Rick Scott, to serve as leader of the partys incoming majority. Scott, who is also strongly pro-Trump with solid national conservative credentials, was reportedly the favoured candidate at Mar-a-Lago and was endorsed on X by Elon Musk.

Nevertheless, the time appears to have come for Floridian solutions to American problems.

Paul du Quenoy is a historian and president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.

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VALLETTA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- International Airport (MIA) handled over 838,000 passenger movements in October, setting a new monthly record, the company reported on Thursday.

In a statement, MIA highlighted that October passenger traffic surged by 8.7 percent year-on-year. The airport also reported a net profit of 39.5 million euros (41.9 million U.S. dollars) for the first nine months of 2024, with total revenue reaching 107.8 million euros.

In light of the positive results, MIA revised its forecast for 2024, projecting 8.96 million passenger movements and an estimated revenue of 141 million euros by year-end.

Data from Malta's National Statistics Office on Tuesday showed that inbound tourism also rose significantly. Malta welcomed 361,015 tourists in September, a 20.7 percent increase over the same month last year. From January to September, tourist arrivals reached 2.77 million, up 21.1 percent from the same period in the previous year. 
In a stark departure from when previous vacancies occurred, Gov. Ron DeSantis wants special elections scheduled immediately to fill two congressional vacancies needed to protect Republicans majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

DeSantis, on a trade mission to Italy, gave instructions to Secretary of State Cord Byrd to quickly schedule the elections, now that President-elect Donald Trump has plucked two Florida GOP congressmen for his administration.

Republicans won enough seats to maintain control of the House as of Wednesday.

Congratulations to the Floridians being appointed to key positions in the Trump Administration: Senator Marco Rubio, Congressman Matt Gaetz, and Congressman Mike Waltz.



I've instructed Secretary of State Cord Byrd to formulate and announce a schedule for the upcoming special  Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) November 14, 2024

The news came in the wake of announcements that U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz from Daytona Beach and now-former congressman Matt Gaetz from Fort Walton Beach will join the new Trump administration. Gaetz has already submitted his letter of resignation from the chamber; it was read on the House floor Thursday.

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Gaetz and Waltz represent Republican strongholds: Both were reelected this month with 66% of the vote and the possibility of either district flipping to the Democrats are unlikely.

Without them, the GOP has an eight-vote majority with nine districts, mostly in California and Alaska, still counting.

Call for special elections came sooner than for Florida Democrat

DeSantis did not move as quickly to schedule elections to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Democratic U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings in 2021.

Hastings passed away that May. DeSantis scheduled a November primary and a January general election to fill the seat.

When three Democratic Florida Legislature members resigned to run for Hastings seat, the special elections for their seats were scheduled for March and ensured the Democratic seats would be vacant for most of the legislative session.

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Florida law provides that the governor shall order a special election to fill a vacancy in the congressional delegation  but is silent on when the governor must act.

It says after the governor consults with the Secretary of State, dates are to be set for a qualifying period, primary and general elections. An order for the election with those dates is then sent to county supervisors of elections. They are then required to publish the dates twice in a general circulation newspaper at least 10 days before qualifying begins.

Holding on to the Gaetz and Waltz seats are important to the Trump agenda. The majority gives the president-elect significant authority to enact his agenda and Democrats less leverage to challenge policies.

Steps to a special election

 The Governor issues an order declaring a fixed date the election shall be held.

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 The Department of State prepares a notice that sets the dates for a four-day candidate qualifying period, and primary and general elections.

 County supervisors of elections shall publish the dates twice in a general circulation newspaper and their website at least 10 days before the start of the qualifying period.

 There must be a minimum of 14 days between the end of the qualifying period and the primary election.

 There is a minimum of 14 days between the primary and general elections.

The upshot: The quickest path to a special general election, once the governor sets the wheels in motion, is six weeks.

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Source: Florida Division of Elections, state law

(This story was updated to add new information.)

James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com and is on X as @CallTallahassee.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Trump takes Gaetz, Waltz; now DeSantis wants vacancies filled quickly
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP)  A Florida businessman already charged with kidnapping his estranged wife in Spain is facing new U.S. charges that he killed her.

A federal grand jury in South Florida on Wednesday charged David Knezevich in a superseding indictment with kidnapping resulting in death, foreign domestic violence resulting in death and foreign murder of a U.S. national. If convicted, he faces the possibility of the death penalty.

Last June, he pleaded not guilty to kidnapping his 40-year-old wife, Ana Hedao Knezevich, who went missing in a case that has drawn international media attention. Knezevich, 36, was jailed without bond.

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His lead attorney, Jayne Weintraub, said Thursday that he planned to plead not guilty at an arraignment hearing next week.

It is a desperate attempt by the government to charge everything possible and see what sticks! Weintraub said in an email. There is no evidence that David Knezevich kidnapped or murdered his wife.

Ana Knezevich disappeared from her Madrid apartment on Feb. 2, five weeks after she had moved there. Her body still hasn't been found.

A man in a motorcycle helmet was seen sneaking into her Madrid apartment building and disabling a security camera by spray painting its lens. The man was later seen wheeling out a suitcase. Ana Knezevich is about 4 feet, 11 inches tall (1.5 meters) and 100 pounds (45 kilograms), according to her drivers license.

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Prosecutors say they have strong evidence Knezevich was the man in the helmet. They say he flew to Turkey from Miami six days before Anas disappearance, then immediately traveled to his native Serbia where he rented a Peugeot automobile.

On Feb. 2, security video showed him 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) from Serbia in a Madrid hardware store using cash to buy duct tape and the same brand of spray paint the man in the motorcycle helmet used on the security camera, according to prosecutors.

When Knezevich returned the Peugeot to the rental agency five weeks later, it had been driven 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers), its windows had been tinted, two identifying stickers had been removed and there was evidence its license plate had been removed and then put back, prosecutors said.

The couple was in the middle of a contentious divorce while fighting over millions of dollars in properties, according to prosecutors. They have been married for 13 years.

At a hearing earlier this year, Weintraub questioned the government's evidence. The defense attorney disputed the government's contention that Knezevich had sold off some of the properties so that he would have money to flee the United States. Weintraub also said the split was amicable and the financial arrangements were being worked out.
(iStock Getty Images Plus)

Florida Medicaid managed care plans  the coverage offered to millions of the states low-income residents  scored in the middle on industry report cards assessing the quality of care people receive.

The National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA) released in September its 2024 report cards that rank commercial, Medicare, Medicaid, and plans offered on the federal health insurance exchange.

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In Florida, no Medicaid managed care plan that contracts with the state earned more than 3.5 stars out of a possible 5, the website shows.

Four of the 10 Florida Medicaid HMOs listed in the report scored 3.5 on a scale of five: Aetna Better Health of Florida, AmeriHealth Caritas, Molina Healthcare Florida, and UnitedHealthcare of Florida, which operates as UnitedHealthcare Community Plan.

Another four plans scored 3s: Humana Medical Plan Inc., Simply Healthcare Plans, the South Florida Community Care Network (which operates as Community Care Plan), and Sunshine State Health Plan.

Molina Healthcare of Florida (SMI), a specialty plan for Medicaid beneficiaries with serious mental illnesses, scored a 2.5.

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Florida Community Care Plan (as distinct from the South Florida care network) is accredited by the American Association for Ambulatory Health Care. It did not report data to the NCQA and does not have a report card score.

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NCQAs annual report cards score plans from 0-5 in 0.5 increments.

The 2024 plan ratings are based on the weighted average of the results of three data sources. Two of those, the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) data reported to NCQA and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Health Outcomes Survey (HOS), assess clinical quality. The third data source, the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS), analyzes patient satisfaction. NCQA awarded bonus points based on accreditation.

Audrey Brown via FAHP

Florida Association of Health Plans President and CEO Audrey Brown said improving health care quality and access remains a top priority for Floridas contracted Medicaid managed care plans.

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Day in and day out, Floridas health plans work to ensure they are providing Floridians with the right service, at the right time and place and in the most appropriate setting. This results in better care for members, as well as delivering value to the state, Brown said in a written statement. To this end, health plans are continually implementing programs aimed at driving improvement in Floridas HEDIS scores.

Brown said that while measuring quality is critically important it also can be difficult.

Methodologies change over time, and the subsets of populations included in the assessments change rapidly. For example, in Medicaid, members dont always stay members for long periods of time. Quality scores fundamentally reflect a certain perspective at a certain point in time. As such, HEDIS scores alone are not a complete assessment of the quality and delivery of care, she said.

Inside look at the numbers

UnitedHealthcare did a better job than its Florida competitors in immunizing adults against the flu, tetanus, diphtheria, shingles, and pneumonia, earning scores of 2, 3, 3, and 2, respectively.

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Four of the plans  Aetna, Simply, Community Care, and Sunshine scored the lowest, earning 1s across the board for adult immunizations against those diseases and viruses.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Molina Healthcare of Florida bested other plans in immunizing children. It earned 4s for adhering to vaccination recommendations for children under two and adolescents.

None of the plans scored higher than 2.5 in the behavioral health coordination category, which tracks follow up care provided to people admitted to an emergency room or inpatient setting for either mental illness or substance abuse.

Likewise, none of the plans scored higher than 2.5 in the womens reproductive category, which includes information on prenatal care, postnatal care, and prenatal immunizations. Four of the plans  Molina, Molina SMI, Simply, and Sunshine  scored 1.5

New Medicaid managed care contracts

Florida requires most of its Medicaid enrollees to use managed care plans. To help ensure the state is getting the best value and care for its beneficiaries, state law requires competitive bids. Managed care plans compete against each other in hopes of securing six-year contracts worth billions of dollars annually and tens of billions over the life of the contract.

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The NCQA released the report cards after the state completed its most recent negotiations with the health plans. The state agreed to contract with all the aforementioned health plans except for AmeriHealth Caritas, which earned a 3.5 on the 2024 report card.

The Agency for Health Care Administration, which houses Floridas Medicaid program, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the health plans performances.

Although no Florida contracted Medicaid managed care plan earned more than 3.5 stars, thats not true elsewhere.

Nationally, 45 Medicaid managed care plans earned 4 stars, and Wisconsin had the most Medicaid plans (seven) that earned 4 stars followed by Pennsylvania (6), and California (5).

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FAHPs Brown cautioned against comparing plans from different states.

Comparing Florida to other states is apples to oranges. Different states have different quality assessment schemes, different demographics, geographies, and more, Brown said.

She added: Health plans take the HEDIS scores seriously and will continue to work with our state partners to adopt innovative solutions to boost care accessibility and engage Floridians in order to continue to support healthier communities.

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A tropical depression in the Caribbean Sea has been upgraded to Potential Tropical Cyclone 19 Wednesday afternoon, and forecasters say it will affect Central America as a tropical storm.

The potential tropical cyclone is expected to become a tropical storm within the next day or so, the National Hurricane Center said. Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala and western Nicaragua are forecast to feel tropical storm and hurricane conditions in the next two days.

A hurricane watch is in effect for Punta Castilla to the Honduras/Nicaragua border. A tropical storm watch is in effect for the Honduras/Nicaragua border to Puerto Cabezas.

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The system is projected to bring 10 to 20 inches of rain, with some areas seeing around 30 inches, over northern Honduras.

This rainfall will lead to widespread areas of life-threatening and potentially catastrophic flash flooding and mudslides, especially along and near the Sierra La Esperanza, forecasters wrote in the 4 p.m. advisory.

Elsewhere across the rest of Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala and western Nicaragua, the system is expected to produce 5 to 10 inches of rain, with some places seeing 15 inches through early next week.







If Tropical Storm Sara forms, where could it go?

Forecasters are unsure of the direction in which the system will move, but the best estimates are that it will move west toward Honduras over the next few days and then meander just offshore Central America later in the week and over the weekend.

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Its still unclear if it will make landfall and, if so, for how long.

After interacting with Central America, the hurricane center said it is too soon to determine what impacts the system could bring to the eastern Gulf of Mexico, including Florida and Cuba, next week.

European, Canadian, and other hurricane models and tracks show Florida potentially in its path, NBC 6 meteorologist John Morales posted on X. However, it is too early to tell, and current weather conditions make any future outcomes highly uncertain.

Advisories were initiated on Potential Tropical Cyclone Nineteen (#Sara) 190 miles south of Jamaica, moving W 6 mph. Today's global ensembles for the Euro, GFS, and Canadian are shown left to right. An immediate exit northeast is no longer in the cards. C.A., MX, Cuba, FL in play pic.twitter.com/pf2HYJotos  John Morales (@JohnMoralesTV) November 13, 2024

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season officially ends Nov. 30.
Foreign ministers from the UK, Italy, Germany, Poland, France and Ukraine are set to meet in Warsaw on 19 November.

Source: The Independent with reference to two sources, as reported by European Pravda

Details: During the meeting, ministers are expected to discuss a range of topics, including the re-election of Donald Trump as US president. Other agenda items reportedly include the war in Ukraine and European policy, as The Independents sources report.

Background:

Last week, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk mentioned recent talks with the French president, UK prime minister, NATO secretary-general and leaders of Nordic and Baltic countries to discuss transatlantic cooperation and the war in Ukraine.

European countries are preparing for Trumps new administration, which may reduce the US military presence in Europe and reassess the US approach to NATO.

The president-elect has also promised a swift resolution to the war in Ukraine, although he has yet to reveal specific plans.

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Ukraine's Foreign Ministry on Nov. 13 denied media reports suggesting that Kyiv was planning to develop weapons of mass destruction.

"Ukraine is committed to the NPT (the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons); we do not possess, develop, or intend to acquire nuclear weapons," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said via X.

"Ukraine works closely with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and is fully transparent to its monitoring, which rules out the use of nuclear materials for military purposes."

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The Times reported on Nov. 13 that Ukraine could develop a rudimentary nuclear bomb "within months" if U.S. military assistance under President-elect Donald Trump were to cease, according to a briefing paper prepared for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry seen by the outlet.

The report suggests that Ukraine could swiftly build a basic device using plutonium and technology similar to that of the atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

"Creating a simple atomic bomb, as the United States did during the Manhattan Project, would not be a difficult task 80 years later," the document reads.

The Foreign Ministry has previously denied media reports that Ukraine plans to develop its own weapons of mass destruction. Speculation about Ukraine's nuclear options increased after President Volodymyr Zelensky on Oct. 17 said that he told Trump in September that Ukraine must either join NATO or pursue nuclear capabilities for the country's protection.

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Zelensky later walked back the comments, saying that Kyiv is not pursuing nuclear weapons and the remarks were made to emphasize the failures of the Budapest Memorandum.

Under the 1994 agreement, Ukraine willingly surrendered its nuclear arsenal in exchange for receiving security guarantees from the U.S., the U.K., and Russia.

Read also: Will Ukraine develop its own nuclear weapons?

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
HONOLULU (KHON2)  Forensic expert Stephen Kramer, who played a key role in identifying the true perpetrator of the Dana Ireland murder, said DNA evidence will always provide the truth, regardless of how much time has passed.

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Speaking at the University of Hawaiis William S. Richardson School of Law on Tuesday, Kramer shared insights on the use of genetic genealogy in solving cold cases.

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It was this method that led to the identification of Albert Lauro Jr.s DNA at the scene of Irelands 1991 murder on the Big Island.

Lauros DNA was linked to the crime after a judge vacated the guilty convictions of Albert Ian and Shawn Schweitzer in January 2023.

Health inspector impostor questions Whole Foods employee

Following the overturning of the convictions, the Hawaii Innocence Project enlisted Kramer to help identify Irelands true attacker.

Ive worked on a lot of big cases, and obviously the Dana Ireland case is one of the most significant, Kramer said. What makes this case even more important is that there were people imprisoned for this homicide who didnt leave DNA at the crime scene. To be able to find the person who did is an amazing feeling.

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Kramer is also well-known for his role in the 2018 identification of the Golden State Killer, a case in which DNA evidence was crucial to solving the decades-old mystery.

Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news

Irelands 1991 murder case remained unsolved for years until the use of genetic genealogy, a technique that compares DNA from crime scenes with publicly available genealogical databases, led to Lauros identification.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Photo: Getty Images

Former commissioner of labor Josh Dobson raised eyebrows last week when he left his post nearly two months before the end of his term.

On Tuesday, the reason for that decision became clear. Dobson has been named president and CEO of the North Carolina Healthcare Association (NCHA), an advocacy group for the states hospitals.

Josh Dobson (Photo: NC Healthcare Association)

In his role as president and CEO, Dobson will lead the association in representing its membership of hospitals, health systems, physician groups and other health care organizations across the state.

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I am deeply passionate about health care issues and health policy, Dobson said in a statement. NCHAs vision to bring equitable, accessible health care to all North Carolinians aligns perfectly with the work I started as McDowell County Commissioner and as a member of the local Public Health Board.

Dobson said hospitals are essential to the well-being and vibrancy of our communities and serve as economic anchors.

It is crucial that we have policies in place to ensure their financial sustainability, while continuing to deliver high-quality, high-value care, he said.

NCHA Board Chair Chris Peek, president and chief executive officer of CaroMont Health, said Dobson has developed strong relationships while holding three elected offices.

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He is a proven collaborator who can bring people together to build the best solutions for ensuring North Carolina remains a top state for employers and residents to access high-quality health care close to where they live and work, Peek said.

Dobson resigned as commissioner of labor on Nov. 6, a day after fellow Republican Luke Farley was elected to replace him.

Gov. Roy Cooper has appointed Kevin OBarr to replace Dobson until Farley takes office in January. OBarr is the bureau chief of consultative services at the state Labor Department. He has worked at the department in various positions for 24 years.

Dobson was elected commissioner of labor in 2020 following the retirement of long-serving commissioner Cherie Berry, a Republican who served in the office for 20 years and was known as the elevator lady because her picture was plastered on certificates hanging in every elevator in the state.

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A NCHA press release noted that Dobson served eight years in the state House of Representatives where he represented the 85th district, covering Avery, McDowell and Mitchell counties in western North Carolina. During his final term, Dobson served as chair of the House Appropriations Committee and the House Health Committee, contributing to legislative efforts to expand Medicaid coverage to hundreds of thousands of additional residents. Prior to his service in the state house, Dobson served two years as a McDowell County Commissioner.

In his new role, Dobson will also oversee NCHA Strategic Partners, a wholly owned subsidiary that offers health care providers access to products and services that provide cost-effective solutions to respond to the evolving health care landscape. Additionally, he will oversee the North Carolina Healthcare Foundation, the associations charitable, 501(c)(3) non-profit innovative and programmatic arm.

Dobson currently serves on the Foundations board.
CHARLESTON, WV (WVNS)  WASHINGTON  A former corrections officer from the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver, West Virginia, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Charleston on Wednesday, November 13, 2024, for his role in an assault that resulted in the death of 37-year-old Quantez Burks of Beckley, who died at the jail on March 1, 2022, after being incarcerated for less than 24 hours as a pre-trial detainee.

Mark Holdren pleaded guilty to conspiring with other officers to violate Burks civil rights, which resulted in Burks death.

U.S. Attorney William S. Thompson for the Southern District of West Virginia is prosecuting the case, along with Deputy Chief Christine M. Siscaretti and Trial Attorney Tenette Smith of the U.S. Justice Departments Civil Rights Division.

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Thompson on Wednesday declined to say whether or not additional arrests are expected in Burks case.

59News asked Thompson about the conditions which allowed Burks to be beaten to death by corrections officers inside of a state jail.

Former Southern Regional Jail corrections officer agrees to plead guilty in connection to the death of Quantez Burks

In the past, Ive called it the bad culture of the jail, said Thompson. There certainly was a culture problem at the jail that led to horrible instances that happened in this case.

Thompson said he has communicated with Burks mother, Kimberly Burks, and fiancee, Latasha Williams, and other family members, regarding the court cases.

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Theyve been very patient with us, said Thompson. Ive been very honest, very upfront with them, and its good to see justice done with them.

The Burks family had questioned state officials about Burks death but said they received no answers, prior to the federal investigation which led to charges against the eight guards.

Thompson said FBI and West Virginia State Police completed the investigation that led to the arrests.

Steven Robinsons death

A number of families in southern West Virginia have reported that their loved ones passed away at Southern Regional Jail and that they were given little information about their deaths.

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Thompson declined to comment on whether other deaths at the jail would be investigated.

According to court documents filed in connection with the Wednesday guilty plea, Holdren responded to a call for officer assistance after Burks allegedly tried to push past another correctional officer and leave his assigned pod. When Holdren arrived, officers were engaged in using force to restrain Burks.

Cameron Dunbracks death

Holdren also began using force which included multiple knee-strikes to Burks, which he acknowledged were unreasonable uses of force according to his training and experience.

The plea agreement shows Holdren and other officers then conspired to violate Burks civil rights by unlawfully punishing Burks to retaliate against him for his alleged attempt to push past officers and leave the pod.

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An attorney for the Burks family, Stephen New, has said Burks was seeking medical help for extremely high blood pressure and that he attempted to exit the pod after making multiple calls for help.

As a part of that conspiracy, according to court documents, officers brought Burks to an interview room, where they continued to use unreasonable force against him.

Specifically, officers struck Burks in the head multiple times, kicked, knee-struck, pulled and twisted Burks finger and sprayed Burks with pepper spray, all while Burks was restrained and handcuffed.

Attorneys say state official pressed for investigation into Wristons death

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According to court documents, Holdren further admitted knowing that the interview room to which officers brought Burks was a blind spot at the jail  meaning, there were no surveillance cameras to record what happened inside the room.

Court documents said, prior to Burks assault by officers at SRJ, Holdren was aware that officers brought inmates and pretrial detainees who had engaged in misconduct to blind spots in the jail, where the officers could use unreasonable force without being captured on video.

Holdren admitted that he knew that it was improper for officers to use unreasonable force to punish inmates and pretrial detainees.

Quantez Burks mother offers response to sons autopsy listing homicide as manner of death

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Holdren is one of six former correctional officers indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2023. Two defendants previously pleaded guilty in connection with the use of unreasonable force against Q.B. On August 8, Ashley Toney and Jacob Boothe each pleaded guilty to violating Q.B.s civil rights by failing to intervene when other officers used unreasonable force. Sentencing hearings for Boothe and Toney are scheduled for January 9, 2025.

Trial for the remaining three defendants is scheduled for December 10.



Prior to the indictment, on November 2, 2023, former Southern Regional Jail officers Steven Nicholas Wimmer and Andrew Fleshman each separately pleaded guilty to conspiring with other officers to use unreasonable force against Q.B. in connection with this incident. Sentencing hearings for Wimmer and Fleshman are scheduled for February 7, 2025.



According to his plea agreement, Holdren faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

According to his plea agreement, Holdren faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division, U.S. Attorney William S. Thompson for the Southern District of West Virginia and Special Agent in Charge Kevin P. Rojek of the FBI Pittsburgh Field Office made the announcement.

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The FBI Pittsburgh Field Office, Charleston Resident Agency, is investigating the case.

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FLORISSANT, Mo.  A former Florissant police officer accused of stealing nude photos from womens phones without them knowing during traffic stops was indicted on Wednesday in federal court.

The indictment accuses former officer Julian Alcala, 29, of unlawfully searching the cell phones of 20 women to find nude pictures between Feb. 6, 2024, and May 18, 2024, while he was serving with the Florissant Police Department.

Alcala is accused of pulling multiple women over, telling them he needed to take their phones to his squad car to view their insurance information, searching through the phones for nude photos and then taking pictures of those photos with his own phone.

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The indictment also alleges that Alcala found a video on one victims phone and texted that video to his phone before attempting to delete evidence of the text.

The indictment follows a lawsuit filed last month that accuses Alcala of sharing the nude photos he allegedly obtained with others.

Alcala was indicted Wednesday on one count of destroying records in a federal investigation and 20 counts of deprivation of rights under color of law, namely the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

The Florissant Police Department shared this statement, in part, with FOX 2 after Alcalas indictment:

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We want to assure our residents that we had no knowledge of any illegal activity or improper behavior by Alcala during his time with our department. Importantly, no other members of the Florissant Police Department were involved in this matter.

We are disgusted at this behavior, which is a complete betrayal of the values we uphold and in no way reflects the professionalism and integrity of our dedicated officers. We recognize the gravity of this breach of trust and its impact on our community. Rebuilding that trust is our top priority, and we are committed to transparency, accountability, and regaining the confidence of those we serve.

Every member of our department is held to the highest standards of integrity, and we remain steadfast in ensuring that our interactions with the community reflect respect, dignity, and professionalism.

The Florissant Police Department also told FOX 2 that was hired as a full-time officer after a meticulous and thorough background investigation and was employed for 11 months before he resigned from the position. The department says his resignation came after the FBI St. Louis Division informed the department of an investigation involving Alcala.

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Alcala is the second former Missouri law enforcement officer to be indicted on similar charges this week.

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On Tuesday, a federal grand jury also indicted a former Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper David McKnight, 39, for allegedly searching womens cell phones during traffic stops to find naked pictures.

The FBI encourages anyone with concerns about law enforcement interactions to report them to federal investigators at 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or online via tips.fbi.gov.

If you feel uncomfortable about your encounter with law enforcement, please dont hesitate to go to that department after the fact to report what happened, said Special Agent in Charge Ashley T. Johnson of the FBI St. Louis Division. If you feel your civil rights have been violated, contact the FBI. Investigating criminal conduct by a law enforcement officer is among our top priorities.

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JACKSON COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB)  A former Jackson County Sheriffs Deputy who was convicted and sentenced to 14 years for planting drugs on innocent people, will be going back to court for resentencing.

Three judges from the First District Court of Appeal issued their opinion Wednesday morning. They upheld Zachary Westers conviction on 18 charges but voted 2-to-1 to overturn his conviction on 1 count of racketeering.

They say Wester acted alone and interpreted racketeering to mean more than one person would have to be involved. Wester became a deputy at the Jackson County Sheriffs Office in 2016.

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Zachary Wester found guilty on 19 counts

In 2018, sheriffs officials began investigating him for turning off his body cam during traffic stops. He was arrested in 2019 after some of the body camera videos showed him planting drugs in the vehicles of innocent drivers.

Wester went on trial in May 2021 on 67 counts against 12 victims. Jurors found him guilty of 19 counts against 3 of the victims.

He was sentenced to 12 and a half years, which hes been serving in a prison in Hawaii.

Since the appellate court reversed the racketeering conviction, Wester will go back to court for resentencing. No word on when that will happen.

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Nov. 13A former Keene woman was sentenced to 30 months in jail Tuesday in federal court for stealing almost $500,000 from her employer between 2015 and 2021, spending the money on flights, a hot tub, and Patriots tickets, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

Stephanie Pratt, 39, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Landya B. McCafferty to 30 months in prison and 3 years of supervised release. On August 6, 2024, Pratt pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.

"The defendant used her position of trust as an employee to steal nearly a half-million dollars from a small New Hampshire business," said U.S. Attorney Jane E. Young. "Among other items, she used the stolen money to purchase a hot tub and she spent over $5,600 on lavish tickets to watch Tom Brady's return to Gillette Stadium. The defendant's criminal conduct was bold, as she began her fraud only six months after serving a sentence for stealing from a previous employer."

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According to the charging documents, Pratt was the office administrator for Washburn Vault in Hinsdale, a provider of precast concrete and concrete redimix services. As such, she had full access to the company's finances, including its bank accounts and credit cards with TD Bank, Brattleboro Savings and Loan, and Chase.

Prosecutors allege Pratt stole $492,325.34 from the company between June 2015 and December 2021.

She allegedly accessed the company's bank account, checkbook and credit cards to either transfer money to accounts she controlled or make personal purchases from a variety of retailers and companies such as Amazon, Geico and the Pampered Chef, according to the charging documents.

Prosecutors claim Pratt cashed unauthorized checks to herself and entered them as payments to legitimate vendors in the company's accounting system. She also allegedly used the company's credit cards to make unauthorized personal purchases, including for items like plane tickets, a smart TV, a hot tub, Patriots tickets, and various herbs and spices.

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Charging documents list the following dates and dollar amounts for purchases allegedly made by Pratt:

April 23, 2019: $896 Southwest Airlines plane tickets

Sept. 23, 2020: $560.86 Geico Insurance Premium

Nov. 13, 2020: $259.05 Pampered Chef miscellaneous spices and food products

July 14, 2021: $497.99 Amazon Smart TV

July 26, 2021: $759.75 Amazon hot tub

Sept. 20, 2021: $5,425.95 ViaGoGo Patriots tickets.
A former Lake Worth police officer accused of hitting a man in the head with a radio in an on-duty use-of-force incident has been indicted by a Tarrant County grand jury.

Landon Rollins, 44, turned himself in on Tuesday, Nov. 12, and was released on $55,000 bond, according to jail records.

Rollins was charged on Nov. 8 with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and tampering with a government record.

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On May 14, Tyler McKinney suffered serious injuries after Rollins hit him with a police radio and falsely reported that McKinney hit his head on a concrete retaining wall, the felony indictment states.

Lake Worth Police Chief J.T. Manoushagian said he intended to terminate Rollins on July 8, which was his last day of employment.

The Texas Rangers were asked to investigate the use of force and present their findings to the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorneys Office for review, the Police Department said in a news release.

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An internal investigation done by the Police Department also revealed that Rollins had violated multiple policies.

Rollins previously worked for the Fort Worth Police Department, and during his time there he was sued in connection with a shooting.

Rollins was suspended for 15 days for violating several Fort Worth police policies in the July 2020 incident in which he shot a man in the back five times, the Star-Telegram previously reported.

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The man who was shot, Tracy Langiano, filed a lawsuit in 2021 alleging that Rollins violated his rights by using unnecessary, unjustified and excessive force.

An internal investigation by the Fort Worth Police Department determined that Langiano had pointed a gun before Rollins shot him in a motel room while responding to a mental health call. But Langiano said that he was asleep.

According to a Fort Worth police disciplinary report, Rollins policy violations included not announcing himself as an officer, not wearing a body camera and breaking into the motel room without a warrant.

In 2022, U.S. District Judge Reed OConnor granted motions for summary judgment, dismissing the lawsuit, according to federal court records. Langiano is appealing the case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

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After leaving the Fort Worth department, Rollins was hired as the field operations commander for Lake Worth police. At that time, Chief Manoushagian said in response to questions about the shooting and lawsuit, Commander Rollins underwent a thorough background check where the details of this incident were carefully reviewed by our investigators. A Tarrant County Grand Jury also reviewed the case and found no evidence of wrongdoing. Following his honorable discharge from the Fort Worth Police Department, Commander Rollins was hired by LWPD.

When announcing Rollins indictment on Wednesday, the chief said, The Lake Worth Police Department respects the Tarrant County Grand Jurys decision and remains wholly committed to the pursuit of justice for all.

The department is filled with talented men and women who serve with incredible integrity, professionalism and accountability, the statement said. The department has and will continue to hold members accountable who fail to uphold the high standards expected of a Lake Worth police officer.
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP)  Slovakias presidential office said Thursday it has stopped sending pension payments to former President Andrej Kiska because of his tax fraud conviction, and Kiska said he would challenge the move.

The presidential office said the halt in payments was triggered by an appeals courts verdict on Oct. 31 that upheld a lower court ruling that found Kiska guilty of tax fraud and gave him a one-year suspended sentence.

The verdict is final but Kiska, who pleaded not guilty, said he will use an extraordinary challenge at the countrys Supreme Court to try to clear his name.

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Slovakia's presidents receive a pension of about $50,000 a year when they leave office.

Kiska said Thursday he doesnt need the money but that he still will challenge the office's decision in court because its a matter of principle for him.

Kiska beat populist then-Prime Minister Robert Fico in the 2014 race to become the countrys president for a five-year term in the largely ceremonial post. Kiskas term in office was marked by clashes with Fico, whose leftist Smer, or Direction, party was tarnished by corruption scandals.

Kiska supported huge street protests that led to the fall of Ficos coalition government in 2018 amid a political crisis triggered by the slaying last year of an investigative reporter looking into possible widespread government corruption.

Pro-West Kiska did not run for a second five-year term in 2019.

Fico started his third term in office as prime minister in 2023.
By Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard

TAIPEI (Reuters) -Former Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen is planning to visit Canada next week, two diplomatic sources told Reuters, in a highly watched visit for a senior Taiwan politician who has become a symbol of the island's defiance against China's military threat.

Canada, like most countries, has no official diplomatic ties with Chinese-claimed Taiwan, but the economic and political exchanges between the two sides have increased as Beijing ratchets up military threats against the democratic island.

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Tsai, who stepped down in May, is planning to visit Nova Scotia and deliver a speech at a Halifax International Security Forum conference that begins on Nov. 22, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.

Tsai's office said in response to questions that if details of travel plans for her are confirmed, they will announce it at an appropriate time. It did not elaborate.

The Halifax Forum referred questions to Tsai's office. Canada's Global Affairs department did not respond to requests for comment.

China firmly opposes the visit and urges Canada to abide by the one-China principle and take "concrete actions" to safeguard bilateral relations, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a news briefing.

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Canada has a difficult relationship with China, including accusations from Canada about Chinese hacking attacks that Beijing denies, and disputes over human rights and trade.

Tsai's travel plan to Canada and the forum was first reported by Taiwan media.

Tsai last month visited the Czech Republic, France and Belgium in a sensitive trip due to concerns about Chinese espionage and harassment. Current Taiwan President Lai Ching-te fully supported her European visit, calling her the "best spokesperson" for the island on the international stage.

Under Tsai's watch, Taiwan's government greatly boosted military investment and deepened unofficial relations with major countries including the United States and Japan, to China's ire.

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Tsai remains a senior and influential member of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party as a senior spokesperson, and her overseas visits are closely watched by diplomats in the region.

China staged two rounds of war games around Taiwan during Tsai's second term in office - in 2022 after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei, and in 2023 after Tsai returned from a visit to the United States where she met Pelosi's successor Kevin McCarthy.

(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Colleen Howe in Beijing; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Edwina Gibbs and Jamie Freed)
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP)  A former senior official in Chile's government was arrested Thursday on suspicion of rape, authorities said, in a case that has shocked the South American country and dented domestic support for leftist President Gabriel Boric.

Manuel Monsalve, 59, who until last month served as Chiles deputy interior minister and played a key role in strategizing the country's fight against a rise in organized crime, faces accusations of raping a 32-year-old female staffer in a hotel room after meeting her for dinner in September.

Monsalve has denied committing any crime. He stepped down on Oct. 17 when prosecutors announced they had launched an investigation into the female officials complaint, touching off public outrage and putting further pressure on Boric, a 38-year-old millennial ex-student protest leader who took office in 2022 promising to create a feminist government.

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For over two and a half years, Monsalve, a doctor and former socialist activist, was at the forefront of the government's campaign against a recent gang-driven crime wave that has rattled Chile, long considered one of Latin America's safest and most stable nations.

Police on Thursday arrested Monsalve at his house in the seaside resort of Vina del Mar and transferred him by car to custody in Chile's capital of Santiago, 128 km (80 miles) away. He was led in handcuffs by detectives into the station to give a statement.

President Boric, who testified as a witness in the case last week, responded to the arrest of his former top official with a brief post on social media platform X that did not name Monsalve.

In Chile, no one is above the law, he wrote.

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The rape scandal marks a blow for Boric, whose popularity has declined in the polls and at the ballot box  where right-wing parties gained against the president's left-wing coalition in last month's regional elections, regarded as an important bellwether for the 2025 presidential vote.

Boric's government has come under fire for its handling of the case, with the president waiting two days after the allegations surfaced to dismiss Monsalve from his post and giving a widely criticized news conference in which he revealed that Monsalve had requested to view hotel security footage before the plaintiff had even lodged the complaint.

The prosecutor's office also said Monsalve, while still in charge of public security, sought to use police to investigate the case secretly and reach out to the inner circle of the victim, who had worked under Monsalve in the Interior Ministry. Monsalve's lawyers have denied those allegations.

Chiles politically ambitious interior minister, Carolina Toha, whose reputation has also suffered from the charges against her second-in-command, promised the ongoing investigation would "bring justice to bear.

Only in this way can we provide answers to the victims, restore social trust and reaffirm the rule of law, she said.
TYLER, Texas (KETK)  A former Tyler ISD employee was sentenced on Tuesday to 18 years in prison after pleading guilty to having improper relationships with students.

According to an affidavit, on April 15, three Tyler ISD students were discussing about JBraylon Dewayne Fears, a paraprofessional at the campus, how he was always surrounding himself around a bunch of little girls while on duty.

Mabank shooting leaves 1 injured, 1 arrested

Mugshot of Braylon Dewayne Fears, courtesy of the Smith County Jail

They were discussing how inappropriate it looked because of how close the girls were to him and how comfortable he looked while they were so close. The teachers were also discussing how students were skipping classes in [a teachers] classroom with Fears inside, the affidavit said.

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While the teachers were talking, a student approached them and told them of Fears, who she claimed was seeing a student at another Tyler ISD campus, was flirting with students at the middle school and asking inappropriate questions.

The student was advised to go to the principal and report the issue on a student incident form:

Something I saw in the hall was he will be waiting outside a class or walking around and eight grade girls will go up to him and start touching him al up on him and he just would let them do it, the student said in the form.

Winnsboro man sentenced to 15 years in prison for 2020 garage killing

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That same day, officials were made aware of the outcries and opened an investigation against Fears. They conducted forensic interviews with multiple girls from different campus. A student reportedly admitted that Fears had told her to delete messages and Snapchat messages so that he would not get into trouble after the student had sent explicit photos.

When confronted by officials on April 25, Fears allegedly admitted to the text messages where he asked for explicit photos. According to records, texts shared between students and Fears revealed that he had made explicit requests to the students. Fears was arrested on May 5 on two counts of improper relationship between an educator and student, online soliciting of a minor and sexual performance by a child.

On Tuesday, Fears was sentenced to 18 years in prison after pleading guilty to the two charges of improper relationship between educator and student.

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Former Ukrainian MP Andrii Derkach, who fled the country and is wanted, has joined the Security and Defence Committee of the Russian Federation Council.

Source: Chesno Movement

Details: Earlier, it was reported that Derkach was one of the candidates for the Russian Federation Council from Astrakhan Oblast.

Andrii Derkach has joined the Security and Defence Committee of the Russian Federation Council

Photo: the Russian Federation Council

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Previously: In 2023, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutors Office sent to court a case against Derkach for high treason and illicit enrichment. In particular, he was supposed to discredit Ukraine in the international arena, deteriorate diplomatic relations with the United States and impede Ukraine's integration into the European Union and NATO.

The investigators established that he received at least US$567,000 from Russian law enforcement and intelligence agencies for subversive activities against Ukraine.

According to the investigation, Derkach, MP Oleksandr Dubinskyi and former prosecutor Kostiantyn Kulyk, on the instructions of Russian secret services, organised events to discredit Ukraine's image in the international arena in order to worsen diplomatic relations with the United States and complicate Ukraine's accession to the European Union and NATO.

Background:

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In August 2021, the National Security and Defence Council imposed personal economic restrictive sanctions against MP Andrii Derkach.

Earlier, the United States imposed sanctions on Derkach for his attempts to influence the 2020 US presidential election. According to the US, Derkach has been an active Russian agent for more than a decade.

On 24 June 2022, the State Security Service announced that it had exposed an agent network of the Russian General Staff that was supposed to help the Russians capture Ukraine, which involved Derkach. According to the investigation, the MP oversaw the creation of a number of private security companies in different oblasts to use these structures for the rapid seizure of Ukraine.

The State Security Service neutralised the network at the beginning of the war by detaining the MP's former aide, Ihor Kolesnikov.

In January 2023, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stripped Andrii Derkach of his Ukrainian citizenship.

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  A former journalist with the Voice of America's Farsi service jumped to his death from a building in Iran's capital in protest of the country's supreme leader and an ongoing crackdown on dissent in the Islamic Republic, authorities said Thursday.

An official in Iran's presidency acknowledged the death Wednesday night of Kianoosh Sanjari, 42, who had earlier demanded the release of four prisoners held in the country and threatened to kill himself if they weren't released.

Ali Raniei, a social adviser to Iran's reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, said that Sanjari's death should be the subject of a government review. He called an increase in the number of suicides in the country by young people alarming," according to remarks published by Iran's state-run IRNA news agency.

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Sanjari worked for the VOA from 2008 to 2013. He also was known as a dissident political activist in Iran. He spent two years in prison over security charges in the country after returning to Iran from living abroad in 2016.

Michael Abramowitz, the director of the VOA, offered condolences in an email to staff Thursday.

Despite the unimaginable repression, brave Iranians continue to risk their lives to make their voices heard," Abramowitz wrote. "I have great respect for those who use their voices to convey the truth to the people of Iran. That includes many of you, and certainly Kianoosh.

Reza Valizadeh, another former VOA Farsi service journalist, is believed to have been detained by Iran for months now on a separate case.

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Iran has faced years of unrest amid wider tensions with the West, most recently with the nationwide protests that followed the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini. Jobs also remain scarce and the countrys rial currency continues its yearslong collapse against the U.S. dollar, further straining the lives of Iranians.

___

EDITORS NOTE  This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
NEW YORK, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Countries have made scant progress in curbing their greenhouse gas emissions over the past year, keeping the planet on track for dangerous levels of warming this century, according to a new report published on Thursday.

The report by the Climate Action Tracker, a research group, estimated that the climate and energy policies currently pursued by governments around the world would cause global temperatures to rise roughly 2.7 degrees Celsius, or 4.9 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels by 2100.

"We are clearly failing to bend the curve," The New York Times quoted Sofia Gonzales-Zuniga, a climate policy specialist at Climate Analytics, a science and policy organization, and a lead author of the report, as saying. "As the world edges closer to these dangerous climate thresholds, the need for immediate, stronger action to reverse this trend becomes ever more urgent."

The study was issued during the United Nations climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, where diplomats and world leaders have gathered to discuss how to raise trillions of dollars to cope with rising global temperatures.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, world leaders had pledged to hold total global warming to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably closer to 1.5 degrees Celsius, to limit the risks from climate catastrophes.

"Scientists have said that every fraction of a degree of warming brings greater risks from deadly heat waves, wildfires, drought, storms and species extinction," reported The New York Times about the finding. 
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP)  A former correctional officer in southern West Virginia pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal civil rights violation in the death of a man who died less than a day after being booked into a jail.

Mark Holdren entered a plea agreement in U.S. District Court in which he admitted conspiring with other officers to beat Quantez Burks as retaliation at the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver.

Holdren was among five ex-correctional officers and a former lieutenant at the jail who were indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2023, the same month that two other former jail officers entered guilty pleas in the beating.

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Burks, 37, was booked into the jail on a wanton endangerment charge in March 2022. According to court documents, Burks tried to push past an officer to leave his housing unit. Burks then was escorted to an interview room where correctional officers were accused of striking him while he was restrained and handcuffed.

Holdren admitted to his role in the assault, knew that the interview room had no surveillance cameras and was aware that inmates and pretrial detainees who had engaged in misconduct had previously been brought to the room to enable officers to use unreasonable force without being caught on video, according to court documents. Holdren also admitted he knew it was improper for officers to use such force to punish inmates and pretrial detainees.

Holdren faces up to 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. No sentencing date was immediately announced.

Two other former officers, Ashley Toney and Jacob Boothe, face sentencing in January for their guilty pleas to violating Burks' civil rights by failing to intervene in the assault. Ex-officers Steven Wimmer and Andrew Fleshman are set for sentencing in February after pleading guilty last year to a felony conspiracy charge. Trial for the remaining three defendants is scheduled for Dec. 10.

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The case has drawn scrutiny to conditions and deaths at the Southern Regional Jail. Last year, West Virginia agreed to pay $4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by inmates who described conditions at the jail as inhumane. The 2022 lawsuit filed on behalf of current and former inmates cited such complaints as a lack of access to water and food at the facility, as well as overcrowding and fights that were allowed to continue until someone was injured.

Gov. Jim Justices administration fired former Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation Executive Officer Brad Douglas and Homeland Security Chief Counsel Phil Sword after a federal magistrate judge cited the intentional destruction of records in recommending a default judgment in the lawsuit. That followed a hearing in October 2023 in which former and current corrections officials, including some defendants in the lawsuit, said no steps had been taken to preserve evidence at the jail, including emails and documents.

The state medical examiners office attributed Burks primary cause of death to natural causes, prompting the family to have a private autopsy conducted. The familys attorney revealed at a news conference in 2022 that the second autopsy found Burks had multiple areas of blunt force trauma on his body.
This pump jack sits next to a home on the Navajo Reservation. The Navajos are among the governments being courted to join the Western States and Tribal Nations coalition, which seeks to increase production of natural gas, or methane, for export to Asia. (Photo courtesy of University of Utah Environmental Justice Clinic)

In the Navajo Nation, and for many tribes, sage is a sacred plant burned in ceremonies to promote healing, spiritual protection and connection to the land. But Meredith Benally, who is Dine and the co-director of the environmental group C 4 Ever Green, has noticed the plant is becoming scarce due to climate change, pollution and other stressors.

This story was originally published by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. It is republished here with permission.

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For more than 60 years, the tribe has hosted oil and gas fields that have contaminated the surrounding land, water and air in the Four Corners region of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado. Residents believe the oil and gas wells are contributing to health issues like asthma, and leaks of hydrogen sulfide gas have caused vomiting in children.

The wells are also contaminating the sage, said Benally, who lives on the reservation, south of Bluff, Utah. All the burn off from the oil that theyre extracting, it gets all over the plant. When we use it, were ingesting all of that.

Benally believes fossil fuels harm their culture. It not just affects us physically and spiritually, but it also affects us mentally, because we have such a strong relationship with the land.

The climate crisis is threatening Indigenous communities in the western United States with drought and extreme heat  while many tribal homes lack clean water and electricity for cooling. The crisis is made worse by oil and gas wells that guzzle scarce groundwater and emit harmful pollution.

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At a time when the United States must move away from fossil fuels to save the planet, three western tribes, three states  New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming  and the Mexican state of Baja California, have signed agreements with an industry group promoting long-term contracts to export gas to Asian markets. The effort could bring revenue to tribes but also exacerbate climate change, which is having devastating impacts on communities in the West.

The group, Western States and Tribal Nations Natural Gas Initiative (WSTN), describes itself as a unique collaboration between tribes and state governments. Its goal of increasing drilling of natural gas in the West for export to Asia is endorsed by the Biden Administration led by Rahm Emanuel, a former top aide to President Barack Obama and now ambassador to Japan. It will likely be supported by incoming President Donald Trumps administration.

The gas, which is primarily composed of planet-warming methane, would be super-cooled and compressed for export as liquefied natural gas (LNG) from facilities on Mexicos west coast.

The gas primarily comes from a hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, boom in the United States, including on tribal lands in the West. Fracking involves injecting huge amounts of water, chemicals and sand into the ground to unlock previously inaccessible gas.

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The group claims that it is reducing global emissions by helping countries to replace coal with methane. But new peer-reviewed research found that greenhouse gas emissions from American LNG exports can be 33% worse than coal.

WSTN is part of a larger push for LNG expansion in North America. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the continents LNG export capacity  already the largest in the world  is on track to more than double by 2028. That includes LNG export terminals in Mexico that WSTN is backing.

The group plans to build new pipelines to the west coast of Mexico. Permitting for new build construction could take two to three years, it said in a 2022 presentation. Tribal Nations input (is) crucial and tactical in cutting lead time to construction.

This map from Western States and Tribal Nations shows the coalitions plans for taking U.S.-produced natural gas and transporting it across the Southwest to an export terminal on Mexicos Pacific coast. There it would be super-cooled and condensed into liquefied natural gas for export to Asia.

WSTN has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Ute Tribe in Utah, Jicarilla Apache Nation in New Mexico and Southern Ute Indian Tribe in Colorado. A 2023 document obtained by the Energy and Policy Institute said the group was currently courting the largest tribe in the United States, the Navajo Nation.

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Navajo Nation leadership appeared on a panel as part of a pro-LNG event organized by WSTN. The group also suggested in documents that it could use bonds to underwrite infrastructure  including through the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority.

The group met with Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren in late 2023, and there has been no further dialogue, according to the tribes public relations director George Hardeen. WSTN had an introductory meeting with President Nygren and nothing more, said WSTN Vice President Bryson Hull.

Benally believes fossil fuels should remain in the ground. They should stay in (their) natural state.

The Aneth Oil Field is one of the largest producing fields in the Western United States. It is located in the southeast corner of Utah within the Navajo Reservation. The Navajo Nation, like many Native American tribal governments, relies on revenue from fossil fuels extracted from their lands. (Photo courtesy of University of Utah Environmental Justice Clinic)

Who is behind Western States and Tribal Nations?

The group began as an effort by the Colorado and Utah state energy offices to develop their gas markets. Later, tribes were invited to join by signing an MOU. The state of Colorado is not a member, but several counties in the state have joined.

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In 2019, the fossil fuel advocacy group Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) wrote a report that laid out a path for exporting gas from western states to Asian markets via the U.S. West Coast.

The report zeroed in on the proposed Jordan Cove LNG facility in Oregon as the most promising option, although it faced broad opposition from the public and tribes in the area.

One of WSTNs funders at the time was Pembina Pipeline Corp., the company behind Jordan Cove. WSTN began advocating for Jordan Cove, taking out an ad in the local paper that claimed the LNG facility would create jobs, support tribal economies and help the environment.

The ad caught the attention of local Oregonians, who wrote a research paper that found WSTN was closely linked to CEA and consulting firm HBW Resources. They wrote that CEA and HBW have a history of promoting the fossil fuel industry by creating regional campaigns that are made to appear to have sprung from the grass roots.

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Hull said WSTN is not an industry front group but is an organization led by a board of directors appointed by democratically elected state and tribal governments. The researchers in question were on the opposite side of WSTN regarding Jordan Cove and were therefore biased, he wrote in an email.

When Jordan Cove died in 2021, the group quickly pivoted to another opportunity to export western gas  Sempra Energys LNG facilities on Mexicos west coast. The company owns infrastructure and utilities across Southern California and Texas, and secured export licenses from the U.S. Department of Energy for its Mexico facilities.

Hull said the majority of the groups funding comes from tribal, state and county governments. However, companies can join the group by paying an annual membership fee, as Sempra did in 2020 by paying a fee of $20,000, according to a record obtained by the Energy and Policy Institute.

In August 2022, a WSTN delegation visited Sempras Energia Costa Azul facility in Mexico  an excellent opportunity to see its potential for western gas and LNG exports, wrote founder and CEO of WSTN Andrew Browning in an email obtained by the Energy and Policy Institute. He wrote that the trip would set the stage for a summit planned for later that year.

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In December 2022, WSTN held a two-day event in Colorado. The event was sponsored by Sempra LNG and featured a presentation by the company about its Mexico facility.

The event included potential overseas customers. Ambassador Emanuel and Takeshi Soda, the director of Japans Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry oil and gas division, both spoke at the event. According to a WSTN email sent after the event, Soda told the audience that LNG procurement was in a state of war.

Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, was the keynote speaker, appearing by video, at a 2022 meeting of the Western States and Tribal Nations coalition. Emanuel expressed support for increasing the production of liquefied natural gas, or methane, in western U.S. states and tribal lands for export to Japan.

Japan became a major buyer of U.S. LNG after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 forced it to diversify.

Japanese utilities have (become) very deeply entrenched into the LNG market, to the point where theyre not just buying LNG for use in their own plants, but they are trading LNG into the wider market, explained Lorne Stockman, research co-director at Oil Change International, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting the fossil fuel industry. Theyve contracted a lot more LNG than they need  and (are now) trading that surplus on markets and profiting from that.

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The summit included a panel called Tribal Perspectives on Resource Development featuring members of tribes that signed MOUs with the group, along with Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer. According to a WSTN email, the panelists said tribes have energy development interests but are hampered by a paternal approach by federal government bureaucracy and urged immediate reform to layers of red tape.

Energia Costa Azul is the export terminal in Baja California, Mexico, that the Western States and Tribal Nations coalition hopes will serve as the route for increased exports of liquefied natural gas, or methane, to Asia. (Photo courtesy of Sempra Infrastructure)

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Does WSTN represent tribal communities?

Fossil fuels have created both wealth and environmental degradation for some western tribes.

Forrest Cuch, a Ute elder and author of A History of Utahs American Indians, was born in the 1950s, before fossil fuel extraction spread across Ute lands. After college, he returned to the reservation. When I came back, the oil wells were all over the place, and that continues today, Cuch said.

Settlers displaced the Ute people to lands that were thought to be less bountiful but in fact contained fossil fuels under the soil. Oil and gas revenues have helped the tribe fund services, pay attorneys to defend their sovereignty and allowed people to pay off their homes and cars.

An environmentalist, Cuch feels torn by the tribes relationship to fossil fuels. He has received royalties and benefited from oil and gas-funded tribal services. At the same time, he knows extraction has polluted the air, water and soil. Tribal members have found ulcers in wildlife as a result of water contamination. And the gas flaring contributes to climate change, exacerbating drought and wildfires near Ute lands.

A black natural gas line runs next to a blue water line on the Navajo Reservation. The Western States and Tribal Nations coalition hopes the Navajo Nation will join its push to increase natural gas extraction for export to Asia. (Photo courtesy of University of Utah Environmental Justice Clinic)

So its not a clear black-and-white situation out here. Theres always benefits, but also a lot of disadvantages, said Cuch, adding that he does not speak for the tribal government.

All three tribes that signed an MOU with WSTN were already deeply invested in fossil fuels that fund tribal operations.

The first to join was the Ute Tribe, which primarily funds its government through massive oil and gas production on its lands. It was followed by the Southern Ute Tribe and the Jicarilla Apache Nation, tribes that are largely dependent on oil and gas revenue. Floodlight reached out to all three tribes but did not receive a response.

Historical factors push tribal governments to partner with the fossil fuel industry, said Brenna Two Bears, lead coordinator for the Keep It In the Ground campaign, part of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

Historical factors have pushed tribal governments to partner with the fossil fuel industry, says Brenna Two Bears, lead coordinator for the Keep It In the Ground campaign, part of the Indigenous Environmental Network. (Photo courtesy of Brenna Two Bears)

Land dispossession and other discriminatory government policies created impoverished conditions on many reservations, said Two Bears, who has roots in the Ho-Chunk, Navajo and Standing Rock tribes. When resources are found on tribal land, there is a history of companies offering benefits in exchange for extraction.

That creates that environment for oil and gas companies, or other natural resource extractive companies, to come in and say, We can provide you with the things that you dont have,  she said.

Tribal governments signing agreements does not equate to community support, Two Bears said.

Its really difficult for a lot of communities to be able to have a say in what is happening within their tribe, she said. You see something similar in the United States federal government  a lot of what happens isnt coming directly from the people themselves.

Two Bears said many tribes want to exit the cycle of extraction. Because of the lands that weve been removed to, and our lack of economic support, it all compounds and creates this awful cycle where were trying to get out of it, and the only lifeline we get is from these companies, and then we take it, and then it just makes it worse. It keeps going and going, she said.

In an email, Hull said WSTN represents neither the people of the sovereign tribal nations nor citizens of the states which have signed the memorandum of understanding that governs WSTN.

Those governments are duly and democratically elected, and as such, have the sole right to appoint their representatives to the Board of Directors, which leads WSTN, he said.

In a 2023 presentation, WSTN said it is led by sovereign tribal nations, states and counties and it is advancing tribal self-determination.

But Two Bears questioned how the group presents the idea of sovereignty. In her view, sovereignty means the community has the right to reject resource extraction, even if the tribal government supports it.

At the (Indigenous Environmental Network), we view sovereignty as the right to say no, she said. But of course, that disconnect between the communities and the tribal governments can be very wide and very hard to close.

A sign warns of the presence of hydrogen sulfide at this hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, well on the Navajo Reservation in southern Utah. This gas can cause sickness or even death. (Photo courtesy of University of Utah Environmental Justice Clinic)

Dubious emissions claims

WSTNs central environmental claim is that U.S. liquefied natural gas can be climate-friendly by replacing coal burned overseas.

A study that the group commissioned claims that LNG produced in Rockies basins and exported from the North American West Coast to China, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan would produce net life cycle emissions reductions of between 42% to 55% if used to replace coal-fired energy generation.

But a leading scientist said this claim is not accurate. (Fracked) gas going to LNG is probably the worst fossil fuel to be doing in terms of its climate impact, said Robert Howarth, a Cornell University professor of ecology and environmental biology.

Howarth authored a peer-reviewed study that found LNG exports have a greenhouse gas footprint thats 33% greater than for coal. He said indirect emissions  those from drilling, fracking, processing, storing and transportation  are enormous for LNG compared to coal. The emissions intensity primarily comes from methane, a potent greenhouse gas that traps 28 times more heat than CO2.

The Navajo Nation has relied on revenue from oil and gas extraction for more than 100 years. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that burned, vented and leaked methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from such facilities on Navajo tribal land is equivalent to the emissions from 400,000 vehicles a year. (Photo courtesy of University of Utah Environmental Justice Clinic)

Howarth told Floodlight: Theres no way they accurately captured that and reached the conclusion they did. Theyre just plain wrong.

Stockman, of Oil Change International, agreed with Howarth. He said the claim that LNG could lower emissions by up to 55% is completely inaccurate.

Stockman added that the global transition to renewables is well underway, and its incorrect to assume that gas will displace coal. LNG is more likely to displace renewables, electrification and efficiency going forward than it is (to replace) coal, he said.

Hull called Howarths study highly politicized and politically motivated. Hull defended his groups study, saying WSTN commissioned duly credentialed academics to carry out the study, which speaks for itself.

He also pointed to a 2019 report for the National Energy Technology Laboratory that concluded the use of U.S. LNG exports for power production in Europe and Asian markets will not increase greenhouse gas emissions from a life cycle perspective compared to coal extracted and burned regionally.

One way that the U.S. gas industry seeks to rebrand as green is by using certification programs. WSTN sought to create its own clean gas certification program through San Juan College in New Mexico.

According to records obtained by Energy and Policy Institute, Sempra LNG supported the effort with a letter that claimed natural gas from New Mexico will be a critical part of accelerating efforts by buyers in Asian markets to shift their economies away from higher emitting fuels. Hull wrote in an email to Floodlight that gas produced with stringent processes can lower emissions.

But Stockman said Americas LNG industry continues to emit huge amounts of methane.

Despite this idea of certified gas lofty claims by industry representatives that the U.S. gas industry is cleaning up, and that U.S. LNG will be the cleanest in the world in some distant time in the future  thats just not happening. And the evidence is clear: the U.S. methane emissions from the oil and gas sector are the largest in the world, he said.

Stockman warned that the earth is close to overshooting the internationally-agreed upon goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Any expansion of fossil fuels is undermining our progress towards avoiding complete climate catastrophe, he said.

Back in the Navajo Nation, its unclear how much the community knows about the groups 2023 meeting with the tribes president.

WSTN set its sights on engaging with the Navajo Nation in 2019. Hull said the groups board of directors, appointed by states and tribal governments, encourages conversations with other states and sovereign tribal nations. In response to environmental concerns from community members, Hull wrote, WSTN respects all opinions.

If the Navajo Nation wanted to sign an MOU with an industry group, Benally said it would need permission from chapters within the community whose land would be affected. So its not just tribal leadership making decisions. It has to be the people themselves.
Four men are under arrest in Southern California after one of them donned a bear costume to feign damage to high-end cars in an insurance scam, the state Department of Insurance said.

Late Wednesday police detained Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, and Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, all of Glendale, and 39-year-old Alfiya Zuckerman, who hails from Valley Village, and charged all four with insurance fraud and conspiracy, the California Department of Insurance said in a media release. They allegedly bilked three insurance companies out of nearly $142,000, the department said.

The would-be caper started earlier this year, when an insurance company notified the agency that it suspected fraud in a claim the four men filed Jan. 28 alleging that a bear had climbed into their 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost and slashed the interior.

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The claimants provided video footage of said attack, but the insurers found it barely credible, alerted authorities, and Operation Bear Claw was born.

A biologist brought in from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to scrutinize the murky video revealed the grisly truth: It was clearly a human in a bear suit, the insurance department said.

Investigators followed the trail to the suspects home, where they found the actual bear costume. And that wasnt all.

Detectives found two additional insurance claims with two different insurance companies, for the suspects with the same date of loss and at the same location, the insurance department said. Each of those claims involved two different vehicles, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350, and the suspects again appeared to use a bear costume to make it appear that a bear also entered and damaged those vehicles. They provided the video footage to the other insurance companies as well to substantiate their claims.

Using this method, the four filed $141,839 in fraudulent insurance claims, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara told WPMI-TV.

With News Wire Services
Fox News host Jesse Watters appeared to say the quiet part out loud as he admitted that he will be asking the Trump administration for special favors.

On Jesse Watters Primetime on Wednesday night, the conservative media pundit and staunch Donald Trump supporter celebrated the president-elects latest picks for jobs in his second term including the controversial choices of Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence and Matt Gaetz for attorney general.

Watters boasted of his ties to some of those headed for the most powerful jobs in government, with his former Fox News colleague Pete Hegseth tapped to become Trumps future defense secretary.

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He then went on to suggest that he might seek to use those ties to his advantage.

Trumps picking stars he can trust to catch his back and enact his agenda. And theyre rolling them out fast and fun, Watters said.

The country senses its on the precipice of massive change and were excited.

And Im not just saying that because I know the entire cabinet and that Ill be asking for special favors.

Jesse Watters admitted that he might ask for special favors (Fox News)

With a brief pause, he added: Probably inappropriate, but it doesnt hurt to ask.

What special favors Watters was alluding to remains unclear.

A new golden age isnt just a slogan, its a promise. Trumps victory and these cabinet picks are raising our expectations because we deserve to have our expectations raised, Watters added.

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Just days earlier, Watters complained on his show that his Democrat-voting mom hadnt invited him to Thanksgiving following Vice President Kamala Harriss election loss to Trump.

Since they [the Democrats] cant stop us, were not invited to Thanksgiving, he said on Mondays episode of Jesse Watters Primetime.

People are taking some space in the Watters household. Ill have you know that I wasnt invited to my mothers house for Thanksgiving. Apparently, there wasnt enough room.

He added: She said it was a scheduling situation. And then at the last second invited me to come over on Black Friday. I told her, No thanks, Ill be at Best Buy.

Watterss mother has been known to send her son critical text messages since 2017 in which she urged him to avoid conspiracy rabbit holes.
A FRENCH MILITARY BASE, France (AP)  A French military task force with a festive name  Champagne  is wrapping up a mission that's no party: training a whole new brigade of several thousand Ukrainian troops who will be joining the fight against Russia's invasion armed with France-supplied tanks, artillery canons and other heavy weaponry.

The approaching return to Ukraine of the Anne of Kyiv brigade, after more than two months of intense military training in eastern and southern France, comes at another critical juncture in the almost three-year war.

Russian forces are driving westward in an effort to capture all of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. They've been bolstered by up to 12,000 North Korean troops that have been deployed to Russias Kursk border region to help beat back Ukrainian forces there, according to U.S., South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence assessments.

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The reelection of Donald Trump is also keeping Ukraine and its allies guessing about the impact he'll have as U.S. president on the war's future trajectory, following his campaign pledges to swiftly end the fighting and suggestions that Kyiv should cede territory to Moscow in return for peace.

When deployed, the French-trained and -equipped brigade named after a Kyiv princess who became a queen of France could prove to be a formidable force on the battlefields. It will eventually be made up of 4,500 troops, formed of infantry battalions, plus engineers, artillery teams and other specialists, French authorities have previously said.

The more than 2,000 soldiers who have been training in France are being put through final paces before their return to Ukraine.

The majority of them were recently mobilized and previously had just a few weeks of basic training before their arrival in France in September, the French military says. The Ukrainian military is also training other troops for the brigade back in Ukraine, according to French authorities.

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The French military dedicated around 1,500 of its own soldiers to the Champagne task force that has been teaching the Ukrainians how to fight effectively together and how to use and maintain their France-supplied weaponry.

The French military says the brigade's arsenal will include 18 AMX 10 light tanks, 18 truck-mounted Caesar artillery pieces, 128 armored troop carriers, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missile systems, plus other weaponry and equipment.

With observation drones buzzing overhead and amid clouds of smoke and bursts of gunfire and explosions, the Ukrainian soldiers conducted exercises this week at a French military training camp, showing how they have learned to defend and storm a complex of trenches like those on the battlefronts in Ukraine.

The French military wouldn't allow visiting journalists to interview the Ukrainians. French officers involved in the training said the troops are now better prepared for combat that they'll likely experience in months ahead.

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They have improved a lot," said Col. Paul. The French military withheld his last name, citing security reasons.

Now they are able to fight, they are able to maneuver," he said. "They are able to use the different specialists and to use the different equipment they will have on the battlefield.

___

Follow APs coverage of Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/ukraine and coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Nov. 13The pilot year of a program distributing free, locally-grown produce to older adults in need was successful, and planning is underway to continue and potentially expand the initiative in 2025.

The farm-to-family effort was made possible through a partnership between O'Connor Hospital, the Delaware County Office for the Aging and NY Connects, Schoharie Valley Farms, and Delaware Opportunities Inc., with funding from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education New York, according to a news release from Bassett Healthcare Network.

In total, 2,338 boxes, each containing a half-bushel of food, were distributed across Delaware County, according to coordinator Susan Hammerslag, an employee of the Delaware County Office for the Aging. Fourteen weekly distributions started in July and ran through October, benefiting 167 recipients, the release stated. The boxes of produce were delivered in Delhi, Grand Gorge, Hancock, Margaretville, Sidney and Walton.

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"The program was originally expected to conclude earlier, but it was extended by four additional weeks this October," Hammerslag said. "We are thankful to the trustees at O'Connor Hospital and Bassett Healthcare Network for their help in making both the extension and the program possible."

"All of us at O'Connor Hospital appreciate the hard work that went into this initiative promoting the health of our community through access to nutritious foods," said Don Harris, a board member at O'Connor Hospital, "The conversations I had with Susan, as well as with Ethan and Mary Ball of Schoharie Valley Farms were informative and uplifting. So much hard work, skill, and desire to help local neighbors went into making this program such a triumph."

In total, O'Connor Hospital provided more than $28,000 in funding to support the program. The hospital's leadership and clinicians, together with Bassett Healthcare Network's Population Health Department, also offered community needs assessment data and outreach support, according to the release.

Deliveries are expected to begin again in the summer of 2025. The exact start date is currently being planned.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD)  A nonprofit assisting dementia patients and their families gave out free memory screenings in southeast Grand Rapids Thursday.

The Dementia Institute hosted a free memory screening and health fair at the Woodlawn Ministry Center on Burton Street Southeast. Those who came could also be screened for blood pressure, blood sugar and vision.

Rosemary Apol-Hoezee is a specialist with the Dementia Institute. She helps guide patients with dementia and their family through living a full and happy life.

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MSU researchers receive $4M grant to study possible dementia triggers

Knowledge is power, she said. People are afraid. Sometimes people are like, I dont really wanna know. The more information that you can have at your disposal, the more skills you can have. Youre much better poised to travel that journey.

November is National Alzheimers Awareness Month. Every year, there are over 10 million new cases of dementia worldwide.

On Thursday, some patients went through a memory screening called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. Its a combination of recalling words said at the start of the test, drawing objects from memory and even doing math.

Free memory screenings from the Dementia Institute. (Nov. 14, 2024)

In one part of the exam, patients were told to draw the face of a clock and put the numbers on it. They were then asked to draw the hands to a specific time. Patients were also asked to count backwards from 100 by sevens. Other sections included identifying animals and tapping the table anytime they heard a particular letter.

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Blood test has a 90% accuracy rate in determining whether memory loss is due to Alzheimers: study

The results of the memory test are not a diagnosis of dementia. But if you score low, its something you can take to your doctor who can start that discussion. Apol-Hoezee said some other signs can include troubles with navigation, like driving a car. It can also include repeated problems communicating or finding words.

If youre unsure about you or a loved one, she encourages you to find answers.

We know that dementia is quite prevalent in our society, she said. We know it can be a devastating diagnosis. People are afraid of it. We feel the more light we can shed on the disease process, the better people are poised to handle that disease, to navigate it.

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More resources are available on the Dementia Institutes website.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com.
The Menendez Brothers may have had an unlikely ally in Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, but his successor doesnt necessarily seem as likely to be as motivated by public opinion.

L.A. D.A.-elect Nathan Hochman will take over the role on Dec. 2, and he further explained that if Lyle and Erik Menendezs case lands on his desk, it will require a lot more work than just watching a television show.

Youve really got to get beyond the Netflix documentary, Hochman told Good Morning America on Thursday. If you decide this case based on just viewing a Netflix documentary, you are doing a disservice to the Menendez brothers, to the victims family members, to the public.

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Gascon had previously recommended resentencing and even clemency for the Menendez Bros. following the success of Netflixs Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story and other similar docuseries. However, he was voted out in last weeks election, potentially postponing the chance of the pair being freed by Christmas.

Part of the problem with the Gascon timing of his decision is theres a cloud over that credibility. Is it a just decision, or was it a political ploy? Hochman questioned. There will be no cloud over whatever decision I do.

Im not going to ask for a delay just for delays sake, well ask for the minimal amount of time necessary to do this work, because we owe it to the Menendez brothers, we owe it to the public to get this decision right, he concluded.

Last week, Hochman told the TheWrap that he intends to get thoroughly familiar with the relevant facts, the evidence and the law before making a decision. Related hearings have been set for both later this month as well as in December.

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Lyle and Erik, now 56 and 53 years old, respectively, have been imprisoned since being found guilty of the 1989 double murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. Both were initially given life sentences without the possibility of parole in 1996.

Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story and The Menendez Brothers doc are both available to stream on Netflix.

The post Freeing the Menendez Brothers Requires More Than Just Watching Netflix, New LA District Attorney Says | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
Rear Adm. Jacques Mallard has led the French carrier strike group  FRSTRIKEFOR  since August 2023, focusing his efforts on enhancing how the naval formation shares information and trains in realistic battle conditions.

Frances nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its strike group are set to deploy over the next few weeks to the Indo-Pacific as part of mission Clemenceau 25, during which it will also take part in three major exercises with allies.

In an interview during the Euronaval Talks, organized in the context of the Euronaval show in Paris earlier this month, Mallard commented on the new types of environments and competitors the strike group is up against, the complexities of applying lessons learned after missions, and feedback from a recent exercise with the Italian Navy.

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This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Rear Adm. Jacques Mallard has led the French carrier strike group since August 2023. (French MOD via X)

Data has been at the center of all discussions this week given the unprecedented level of information military forces are now faced with and the importance of having capable systems to verify, simplify and transmit this data faster than humans can in many cases. How does FRSTRIKEFOR ensure this?

The French Navy has developed data hubs that it has already tested on a ship [Fremm Provence] and we will be deploying several of those inside the FRSTRIKEFOR for the next mission sailing off at the end of the year to the Indo-Pacific.

We have had one issue inside the French Navy, where we dont always have the competence to use data [as much as we should]. Data is what I call a work of art, you must know how to make sense of it in order to improve decision-making. That is why data scientists from industry on military reservists contracts will also be onboard our next mission to assist us with their competence in data analysis and interpretation. We expect that through this experimentation our ability to use it and develop some new applications can be applied across the entire French Navy. Once those applications are fit for operations, they could be used as a standard.

FRSTRIKEFOR often participates in international exercises with other allies, as was the case recently in Mare Aperto 2024, with the Italian Navy. What feedback did you take away from this and how do such events reinforce the battle group?

The Mare Aperto/Polaris [exercise] is basically changing the way we see training and the way we see war at sea, where you are opposed to another force that will not act as scheduled on the program. It gets two symmetric forces, one on each side, and assigns dedicated missions to either slow or hinder your opponent. It is essentially a confrontation of will, like real wars, and closer to what we can expect in the next couple of years concerning war at sea.

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We have agreed with the Italian Navy to test this concept  Mare Aperto was an interesting challenge. We had 50 combat units in the West Mediterranean sharing the same tactical situations and positions.

One point that differed a little bit with the other editions of Mare Aperto was that when you were hit, you could not be revived. When you had fired all of your weapons, you had to reload, meaning you had to go into port  which required time to do. We trained in more realistic conditions.

The Italian Navy is a very very efficient one  with good ships, radars, submarines, and sensors, and being opposed to them with our carrier strike group was a very challenging experience. We had seven days of high-intensity training, both groups going up against each other. The general lessons learned were very positive. The commander of the Italian group told me that the training gained through Mare Aperto was a very, very interesting way of raising the stakes and allowed them to be more ready to be deployed in other regions.

How do you balance being transparent about operations and information with your allies while also keeping a certain level of confidentiality for opponents to not be able to predict your next move?

That is definitely a real challenge. Because on the one hand, you want to share  sharing means opening bridges, ways of exchanging information and sharing makes you very powerful. But on the other hand you want to protect yourself  you dont want to have the opponent understand what your intentions are because that will give him the opportunity to have an advantage on you.

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Until now, most of the communications infrastructure was segregated so we had a specific, secret network level where we would exchange data or tactical situations through data link. In my opinion, this was the early 21st century way of protecting things. Today, with getting new data management tools and raw material, we must think of a different way of sharing information and most importantly of protecting the data itself.

This is where a data-centric security approach comes into play  being able to send a pack of data to several different allies but [building and tailoring it] so that only specific allies have access to it and are reachable for the one that concerns them. For example, lets say you have ten data sets to work and send to five different nations, one nation will have [access to] the whole ten but the other ones will only get eight.

What will the upcoming deployment of the FRSTRIKEFOR to the Indo-Pacific entail?

France has deployed ships to the Indo-Pacific previously, but it has been quite a few years since we deployed a high-end asset to the area. The general intention is to continue this momentum to show the interest of France in this particular part of the world, where at least 40% of the worlds GDP will transit through in the next decade. We have developed a fairly robust level of interoperability with fellow members of NATO, and the hope is to achieve a similar level of cooperation with Indo-Pacific navies.

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The purpose of our deployment will be to raise up the expectations in order to make sure were not just talking to each other on a radio, [but] that we can actually conduct operations together. A key element to increasing interoperability is sharing data with fellow partners, and making sense of all the information the carrier strike group is gathering is a major focus of this upcoming mission. When you have at least seven to ten ships and aircraft gathering data simultaneously across many domains, theres a fairly huge amount to collect.

There are many nations to collaborate with in the Indo-Pacific, and its a very important challenge to raise the stakes and catch up with the way theyre doing things. That is basically what I am working on and it will be a fairly long process. Then, after that, we will go through the lessons learned and maybe change some of our processes and standards or weapon systems and sensors in order to always follow up with what will be the next threat.

To absorb lessons learned, are we talking about a matter of months or years to change or adapt strategies? How does that work?

I wish it could be a matter of days or weeks  but its mostly months and years. The thing is that we have very, very complex weapon systems, when you think about the Rafale, the French carrier strike group has a number of them, so to make them evolve, is not as easy as an Iphone. You know sometimes we would like to be as agile and as able as Google is, but we are not able to do that.

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Another thing to consider is that the biggest challenge and strengths of our units is the men and women that are working together in order to use their weapons. It takes a long time to form an officer of the watch, a commanding officer but also an operator of a radar. So you cannot change every two weeks with a new version of the things you need to work on.

On the one hand, you need to be as close as you can be to the best tech availability, on the other hand we need to have people that know how to use it  thats the biggest challenge of all the navies, to form the new operator of a new sensor that will completely change the way of doing war at sea.

But not everybody is a PhD in tech, and so we are building up the way we are teaching those competences and thats something that takes time. You cannot make a mistake on that. If you are forming somebody that is not adapted to the new sensors that will be developed.

In my discussion with the French chief of staff of the Navy we touched on how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence may shape the future of naval operations. When it comes to the future of the Carrier Strike Group and the missions you will embark on, how might some of this emerging tech shape or change the way you operate?

Information is now a domain where you can fight each other through different ways of seeing things and that can also have an effect on public opinion. But showing or hiding information is also an issue. At sea, the only questions you ask every moment as a task force commander are: Who is where, and what are their intentions? Because we are on a moving vehicle and we are in a moving domain, and there is civilian transport going around as well as competitors.

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The new data that you are talking about will enhance this priority of information  in thinking of quantum technology, in a couple of years, no code and no crypto will be resistant to this kind of power of computing. We have to think about how we will protect our information against this. Talking about AI  it will definitely enhance the awareness of sensors.

There is however one thing that will never change  that is that when you are at sea and preparing for combat, you have to be ready to concentrate your firepower and defend all your platforms. There is no AI that will give you this protection against the fire of an enemy. However, what AI can give you would be basically the challenge of what could be happening with a competitor, to get you more ready for different scenarios and not be taken by surprise.

How would you say international cooperation has evolved over the years and the amount of data you now have access to changed the operations the FRSTRIKEFOR carries out?

Weve been through the sort of sleeping cycles of the late 1990s and early 2000s where no competitors were identified and we were mostly fighting against asymmetric threats. Over the last 3-5 years, everybody has realized that the threat we have to face and be prepared for is a symmetrical one, with missiles and with capabilities very close to us.

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We are now cooperating at a sort of equal level with the threat  being a lot more humble and thinking more efficiently than what we were used to and [going away] from the sort of confidence that we were the best. Now, we are challenged.

In what way would you say you are the most challenged today compared to earlier years?

It is in basically every way. For now, the common spaces either cyber, maritime but also space, are basically an arena where the challenge is permanent. Everyday, you see in these domains, across the world, some powerful competitors trying to gain and appropriate themselves a piece of this common airspace.

As seamen, we are very attached to the freedom of navigation and the fact that high seas belong to everybody and that between seamen we have to be a sort of solidarity because living at sea is not living in the natural domain where men are used to. That is how the culture of our navy works. We do also see more and more fishing vessels as well as actors saying, It is my place to interdict the freedom of the traffic in the Red Sea for instance or South China Sea. And that is a big challenge for us.

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We are not anymore free of our movements  we have to cope with the intentions of most people that want to change the rules of order that have governed the sea over for a long period of time. So, either we get in agreement or our toes will be stepped on.

What are your main ambitions for the FRSTRIKEFOR in the next year?

The [Indo-Pacific] mission we are about to embark on will last long and we will go very far, so that is my main concern at present. For instance, we will be so far from our bases that logistics will be a game-changer and could potentially even be a show-stopper. So building up the logistics maneuvers of the deployment will be a challenge in itself.

Second, our experimentation with data  I think we are going to definitely be changing the way we are using our combat systems. We need to have a more versatile way of using information and filtering it.
Shanta Thake, chief artistic officer with Lincoln Center, speaks at a tourism promotion event for east China's Zhejiang province in New York City, the United States, on Nov. 13, 2024. The energy of Zhejiang lit up Manhattan on Wednesday as the renowned southeastern Chinese province brought its lush landscapes, timeless artistry, and vibrant modern culture to New York City. (Xinhua/Liu Yanan)

by Xinhua writers Yang Shilong, Liu Yanan

NEW YORK, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The energy of Zhejiang lit up Manhattan on Wednesday as the renowned southeastern Chinese province brought its lush landscapes, timeless artistry, and vibrant modern culture to New York City.

In his remarks at a promotion event, China's Consul General in New York Chen Li highlighted the significance of tourism as a bridge between the United States and China.

The enthusiasm and collaboration was duly manifested at the 14th U.S.-China Tourism Dialogue held in May, when 20 new cooperation agreements were signed between Chinese and American institutions, said Chen.

Xu Xiao, deputy director of Zhejiang's Department of Culture and Tourism, celebrated the province's distinctive charm, from its serene waterways to its lively cities, and underscored the province's strong U.S. ties, including 68 sister-city partnerships covering education, technology, and business.

Lincoln Center's Chief Artistic Officer Shanta Thake praised the longstanding cultural partnership between Zhejiang and the center, citing past Lunar New Year performances by artists from Zhejiang.

"Our curiosity about the world is what makes New York special. We have so much to learn from culture that's been preserved over 5,000 years. It's amazing," she said. "By learning about your history, we learn about our collective history, and that's so important to us in the cultural sector."

Jonathan Elkoubi, founder of Navew.com, a tourism consultancy, plans to have a leisure trip to China in the coming months by taking advantage of China's 144-hour visa-free transit policy.

"Transnational tourism between the United States and China is transforming in the post-COVID-world... I think things seem very beneficial to an increase in both-direction travel," he said.

Alejandro Garrido, director of Aviajar Tours & Travel USA, echoed the enthusiasm, calling Zhejiang an ideal destination for Americans seeking unique landscapes and culinary adventures.

A frequent traveler to China, Garrido plans to lead a group tour to Zhejiang next year. He praised the event's promotional materials and recommended broader distribution to share Zhejiang's accessibility and unique charm with more potential visitors. 

Artists perform Chinese traditional water sleeve dance at a tourism promotion event for east China's Zhejiang province in New York City, the United States, on Nov. 13, 2024. The energy of Zhejiang lit up Manhattan on Wednesday as the renowned southeastern Chinese province brought its lush landscapes, timeless artistry, and vibrant modern culture to New York City. (Xinhua/Liu Yanan)

China's Consul General in New York Chen Li speaks at a tourism promotion event for east China's Zhejiang province in New York City, the United States, on Nov. 13, 2024. The energy of Zhejiang lit up Manhattan on Wednesday as the renowned southeastern Chinese province brought its lush landscapes, timeless artistry, and vibrant modern culture to New York City. (Xinhua/Liu Yanan)

Xu Xiao, deputy director of Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism, speaks at a tourism promotion event for east China's Zhejiang province in New York City, the United States, on Nov. 13, 2024. The energy of Zhejiang lit up Manhattan on Wednesday as the renowned southeastern Chinese province brought its lush landscapes, timeless artistry, and vibrant modern culture to New York City. (Xinhua/Liu Yanan)

Jonathan Elkoubi, founder of Navew.com, a tourism consultancy, speaks at a tourism promotion event for east China's Zhejiang province in New York City, the United States, on Nov. 13, 2024. The energy of Zhejiang lit up Manhattan on Wednesday as the renowned southeastern Chinese province brought its lush landscapes, timeless artistry, and vibrant modern culture to New York City. (Xinhua/Liu Yanan)

Models showcase Chinese traditional costumes at a tourism promotion event for east China's Zhejiang province in New York City, the United States, on Nov. 13, 2024. The energy of Zhejiang lit up Manhattan on Wednesday as the renowned southeastern Chinese province brought its lush landscapes, timeless artistry, and vibrant modern culture to New York City. (Xinhua/Liu Yanan)
SAN FRANCISCO  This week, 49 states are experiencing moderate drought or worse, according to the U.S. government. That means more than 149 million Americans now live in a place affected by drought and that, thanks to a record-setting dry October, not enough rain has fallen on more than 318 million acres of farmland nationwide.

For those of us who live in the West, where weve become accustomed to water rationing and raging wildfires, the fast-accelerating drought is an all-too-familiar scenario.

With a historic number of wildfires burning in New Jersey and reservoir levels plummeting, Gov. Phil Murphy declared a drought warning for the state on Wednesday despite the fact that some much-needed rain did fall recently.

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Now I know we were relieved to see a few drops of rain on the weekend. The truth is that rainfall was nowhere near enough. And unfortunately, these unseasonably dry conditions will not be ending anytime soon, Murphy told reporters about the declaration, which allows water suppliers to divert the precious resource to the hardest impacted parts of the state.

With other states grappling with similar conditions, does the worsening drought mean that your tap will soon run dry? No, but the longer it persists, the bigger the impact on daily life will be. Heres what you should know.

What is a drought?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration defines drought as a deficiency in precipitation over an extended period, usually a season or more, resulting in a water shortage causing adverse impacts on vegetation, animals, and/or people. It is a normal, recurrent feature of climate that occurs in virtually all climate zones, from very wet to very dry.

In California, we have two real seasons: dry and wet. It doesnt rain much, if at all, from May through September. But from October through April, residents can usually count on several precipitation events that turn hillsides green and refill reservoirs. But in some periods, such as what was experienced between 2020-2022 or from 2011-2017, lower wet season rainfall totals result in drought conditions in the state and across much of the West.

Why is so much of the U.S. now experiencing drought conditions?

October was the driest month on record for nearly 80 climate stations across much of the eastern half of the country, according to NOAA. Those places typically see ample amounts of rain in that month.

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A number of locations saw over 30 days without any measurable rainfall, which is fairly rare in the East, NOAA says on its website. Measurable means at least 0.01 inches of rain. Philadelphia has had a record 39 consecutive days of no rain through November 6, 2024, and the count continues to grow while the city awaits measurable rain. Columbia, South Carolina, went 38 days without measurable rain, a streak that just ended on November 4, 2024, marking their third-longest streak on record. Atlanta, Georgia, only received a trace of rain, which is a far cry from their October average of 3.28 inches.

What role does climate change play?

Droughts, as NOAA notes, are a normal part of life on Earth. That said, rising global temperatures are also playing an increasingly big role in their frequency and severity.

Under what is known as the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, for every degree Celsius of temperature rise the atmosphere holds 7% more moisture. That dramatically increases the chances for extreme precipitation events, but it also means that, due to increased evaporation rates, the risk of droughts also rises.

That helps explain why parts of North Carolina that were decimated by heavy rainfall from Hurricane Helene in late September are now experiencing abnormally dry conditions or moderate drought little more than a month later.

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When it rains, its increasingly likely to pour, just because of basic thermodynamics, and when its not raining, when its sunny and hot  and, of course, increasingly hot due to climate change  its going to be easier to evaporate that water back into the atmosphere, leading to more arid conditions during that period, more rapidly intensifying droughts, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain told Yahoo News last year.

Could cloud seeding break the drought?

Some states across the arid West use a process called cloud seeding to try to increase precipitation, especially in mountainous regions.

Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique that improves a clouds ability to produce rain or snow by introducing tiny ice nuclei into certain types of subfreezing clouds, the Desert Research Institute in Nevada states on its website. These nuclei provide a base for snowflakes to form. After cloud seeding takes place, the newly formed snowflakes quickly grow and fall from the clouds back to the surface of the Earth, increasing snowpack and streamflow.

Those efforts can increase precipitation by 5%-10% in some locations, but they rely on specific topography and weather conditions.

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During dry winters when storm systems are absent for long periods, cloud seeding cannot occur, because cloud seeding requires the presence of moisture-filled clouds, DRI says on its website.

In other words, the government hasnt yet figured out how to control the weather and cloud seeding isnt a solution for drought conditions spanning several states.

Get used to 'whiplash weather'

Living in the drought-plagued West has taught residents to expect the unexpected. Drought has threatened sources of water like the Colorado River for several years running only to give way to winters filled with extreme rainfall. Depending on how much rain falls in the rainy season, water restrictions in California are enacted and rescinded, and wildfire risk rises and falls.

In 2023, when a series of atmospheric river storms battered California following three years of extreme drought, Gov. Gavin Newsom summed up the dizzying change of fortunes in a message posted to social media.

Megadroughts. Wildfires. Historic floods and atmospheric rivers. This whiplash weather is not an anomaly. California is proof that the climate crisis is real and we have to take it seriously, Newsom wrote.
A Philadelphia man sustained third-degree burns and has been left with disfiguring scars on his penis, testicles and thighs following a hot tea spill while flying home aboard Frontier Airlines, according to a federal lawsuit obtained by The Independent.

Sean Millers injuries include highly unsightly and embarrassing discoloration on his penis, scrotum/testicles, along with significantly decreased sensation in his penis, post-traumatic stress disorder, and lack of self-esteem, plus at least one herniated disc he suffered while writhing in distress, the lawsuit states.

Miller, 56, was rushed to the hospital immediately upon landing, after which he was transferred to an area burn center for specialized treatment due to the severity of his wounds.

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Due to the tightly-situated plane seat configuration, Mr. Miller was unable to get up from his seat after the spill and, instead, was trapped in agonizing pain while his body was being burnt, his attorney, Adam S. Barrist, told The Independent.

Miller, a warehouse worker, has been left with permanent scarring on and around his genitalia, and has been encountering sexual dysfunction since this incident, Barrist said.

Sean Miller was heading home from Myrtle Beach when he claims he was burned by hot tea while on a Frontier flight (Getty Images)

As a matter of standard practice, we dont comment on pending litigation, a Frontier spokesperson said in an email on Thursday.

Third-degree burns are the most grievous of all, according to the Stanford University healthcare system. They not only eat through the top two layers of skin, but also destroy nerve endings in the area and can damage the underlying bones, muscles, and tendons. Rehabilitation following third-degree burns can last months or even years.

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Millers suit includes a long list of additional issues stemming from the spill, including pinched and damaged nerves, neck pain, embarrassment, emotional harm, and strains, sprains, disc bulges and disc herniations throughout his body, the extent of which is presently unknown.

The alleged mishap occurred September 20, on Frontier flight 4948 from Myrtle Beach to Philly, Millers lawsuit states. During the beverage service, Miller requested a cup of hot tea, which, according to the suit, was presented to [him] filled to the brim, at an unsafely and unreasonably high temperature and without any form of a lid.

Miller was rushed to the hospital immediately upon landing in Philadelphia (Getty Images)

The scalding hot water spilled between his legs, through his clothing and directly onto Mr. Millers genitalia, leaving him crammed into his narrow seat while experiencing unimaginable torment, the suit goes on.

The flight was met on the ground by an ambulance, which took Miller to Jefferson Methodist Hospital, according to the suit. He was then brought to the Jefferson University Hospital Burn Center, it says.

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Millers lawsuit says he has experienced great physical and mental pain and anguish, which will likely continue well into the future, if not for the balance of his natural life. Miller, who was unable to return to work for a period of time following the spill, has also incurred substantial medical expenses, the suit states.

Frontier, it contends, had a duty to Mr. Miller to provide his requested hot beverage to him in a safe manner that would not subject him to potential injury and disfigurement.

Attorney Adam Barrist says Frontier had a duty to Mr. Miller to provide his requested hot beverage to him in a safe manner that would not subject him to potential injury and disfigurement. (Provided)

Despite multiple letters sent to Frontier Airlines via FedEx overnight courier, I have received no communication, of any kind, back from Frontier Airlines, concerning, among other issues, the payment of my clients past medical bills and payment for his ongoing treatment, Barrist told The Independent. It was, therefore, necessary to institute suit right away.

In 2015, a 33-year-old man flying Ryanair from London to Dublin settled out of court with the airline over an incident in which he said his genitals and groin were horribly burned when a flight attendant accidentally poured boiling tea onto him. Ronald Furlong, who was forced to disrobe in the aisle of the plane and sit in a temporary seat for the remainder of the flight, was awarded an undisclosed amount for his troubles.

Miller is seeking a minimum of $150,000 for his injuries, plus additional damages to be determined by a jury.
KANSAS CITY, Mo.  When Kansas Citys Mayors Commission on Reparations first met in May of 2023 they said they planned to complete their work and submit recommendations within 18 months. 18 months later, the Chair says they are still likely at least 18 months away from that goal.

May 23, 2023 the first reparations commission meeting Hallelujah, Janay Reliford, KC Reparations Coalition member, cheered as she detailed the past three years of working leading up to that first meeting.

Teen dies following South Kansas City homicide Wednesday evening

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The Mayors Commission on Reparation and their 13 members say they were strong out of the gate with ideas of how they could address past wrongs, ongoing patterns of discrimination, and create tools for an equal opportunity for Kansas Citians.

Our task is really to come up with what are the reparations, what is the repair required to address those disparities that may have been caused at the citys hands. Health Subcommittee Chair Bridgette Jones reiterated the commissions goals Wednesday.

An ordinance approved in January of 2023 gave the commission one year from the time of its first meeting to submit preliminary findings and another six months after that to issue a final report with recommendations to the city on justice for past harm and discriminatory practices against Kansas Citys Black community.

Chair Terri Barnes says theyve faced challenges from the public since they started meeting with Pew research saying only 29% of Americans support reparations.

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There are still so many questions about why are we doing reparations, reparations are not necessary, who is going to pay for it? Thats probably going to be the biggest question people have, Barnes said.

But their biggest challenge proved to be the funding needed for their own investigations. They expected it quickly, but it took more than a year to get a $360,000 allocation of the $510,000 the commission requested.

Im excited to say that today we just posted our RFP (request for proposal) for an investigator to begin the work, Barnes said.

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They hope to get that investigator hired in the next 30 to 45 days. Barnes said while they are well behind their goal, the past 18 months were valuable as they studied efforts across the country.

She spoke with FOX4 before a health subcommittee listening session where filmmaker Kevin Wilmott screened his documentary about Truman Medical Centers historic separate black and white hospitals.

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As a dramatist if I wrote that someone would say come on man, theres a tunnel underground that connects the two hospitals, he told the crowd.

A second session will be held on Saturday, November 16 at 1:00 p.m. at the Paseo Academy auditorium, 4747 Flora Ave. They will discuss education reparations and the misinterpretations surrounding African-centered schools.

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A notable new name has joined the chorus of calls for someone inside the House Ethics Committee to release a highly damaging report about its probe into Matt Gaetz, who is now Donald Trumps attorney-general-in-waiting.

John Clune, a lawyer for the woman who has accused Gaetz of having an inappropriate relationship with her as a high schooler, called on lawmakers to immediately release their findings about Gaetz.

Mr. Gaetzs likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events, Clune said in a statement. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.

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Complicating matters for the committee is that Gaetz, 42, has already resigned from Congress after Trump appointed him to be his attorney general. That means Gaetz is no longer a congressman, nullifying any jurisdiction they had held over him.

That hasnt stopped Democrats from calling for the reports release, however, and insiders have suggested they may soon get their wish.

The Miami Heralds star journalist Julie K. Brown, who revealed the scale of the Jeffrey Epstein sex abuse scandal in 2018, leading to his arrest a year later, reported Thursday that sources confirmed Gaetz report is highly damaging and could be leaked today.

The details of the report remains unknown. Gaetz, however, has been marred by scandal since a sex trafficking investigation into him was opened by the Department of Justice in 2021. The feds ultimately decided to not charge Gaetz, but his buddy, Joel Greenberg, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 11 years behind bars.

Gaetz has been an intensely loyal Trump follower, attending the former president's Manhattan trial earlier this year.

The Daily Beast reported in 2021 on a confession letter that was penned by Greenberg in which he claimed that Gaetz had paid him to arrange sex with several women and a 17-year-old girl. The Beast also revealed private Venmo logs which showed that Gaetz sent money to Greenberg and used a nickname for the adolescent.

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More recently, court docs emerged in September that alleged Gaetz was at a party in 2017 with a naked high school junior who was there to engage in sexual activities while drugs like cocaine and ecstasy were present.

Gaetz has remained steadfast in his denials of any wrongdoing and has claimed that the feds probe into him was part of an extortion plot.
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  Capitol Hill is abuzz after President-elect Donald Trump created a political earthquake in Washington, D.C., by nominating Florida Republican Matt Gaetz as Attorney General.

Democrats have been sounding the alarm, warning Gaetz would use his position to go after anyone President-elect Trump wants. While Republicans may not go that far, some are very concerned about his nomination.

Matt was a surprise, said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.).

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The prospect of an Attorney General Matt Gaetz is not sitting well with fellow Republicans, including North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer.

Hes certainly not a consensus pick, which means a lot of political capital would have to be spent to get him across the finish line, said Cramer.

President-elect Donald Trump wants Gaetz to lead the Justice Department, the same agency that was criminally investigating Gaetz for child sex trafficking.

The DOJ ultimately did not bring charges against him and Gaetz has denied the allegations.

The Ethics Committee in Congress was about to vote on releasing its own investigation into Gaetz Friday, but he resigned from his House seat Wednesday as soon as President-elect Trump announced his appointment.

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Let me tell you why I think he will have enough support. Because the American people support change, said Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.).

Senators would have to confirm the attorney general position and Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty says he supports Gaetz.

No one has been better at channeling the frustration of the American public against the DOJ than Matt Gaetz, said Hagerty.

Lawmakers say regardless, this will be an early test for incoming Senate Republican Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).

I will work every day here in the Senate to serve my colleagues and to advance President Trumps agenda, said Thune.

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Republicans already have a very slim majority in the House so filling Gaetzs seat and several others Trump appointed will complicate that.

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WASHINGTON (AP)  Donald Trump has had few defenders in Congress as reliable as Matt Gaetz, who has thundered at one prosecutor after another for perceived bias against the president-elect and emphatically amplified the Republican's rallying cry that the criminal investigations into him are witch hunts.

That kinship was rewarded Wednesday when Trump named Gaetz as his pick for attorney general, turning to a conservative loyalist in place of more established lawyers who'd been seen as contenders.

In announcing his selection of Gaetz as attorney general and John Ratcliffe a day earlier as CIA director, Trump underscored the premium he places on loyalty, citing both men's support for him during the Russia investigation as central to their qualifications and signaling his expectation that leaders in his administration should function not only as a president's protector but also as an instrument of retribution.

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The dynamic matters at a time when Trump, who will enter office in the wake of two federal indictments expected to soon evaporate and a Supreme Court opinion blessing a president's exclusive authority over the Justice Department, has threatened to pursue retaliation against perceived adversaries.

Matt will root out the systemic corruption at DOJ, and return the department to its true mission of fighting Crime, and upholding our Democracy and Constitution. We must have Honesty, Integrity, and Transparency at DOJ, Trump wrote in a social media post about Gaetz, a Florida Republican.

The rhetoric from Trump reflects an about-face in approach from President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly taken a hands-off approach from the Justice Department even while facing a special counsel investigation into his handling of classified information and as his son, Hunter, was indicted on tax and gun charges.

Democrats immediately sounded the alarm, with Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying Gaetz would be a disaster in part because of Trump's threat to use the Justice Department to seek revenge on his political enemies. The president of Common Cause, a good government group, called the selection shocking" and a serious threat to the fair and equal enforcement of the law in our nation. Even several Senate Republicans expressed concern about the Gaetz pick.

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That Trump would openly value Gaetz's role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and exposing alarming and systemic Government Corruption and Weaponization is not altogether surprising. In his first term, Trump fired an FBI director who refused to pledge loyalty to him at a private White House dinner and an attorney general who recused himself from the Justice Department's investigation into potential ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign.

I think this selection indicates that President-elect Trump was looking for an attorney general whose views were closely aligned with him with respect to the appropriate role of the Department of Justice, said former federal prosecutor Robert Mintz.

Ratcliffe, who served as Trump's director of national intelligence in the final months of his first term, rose to prominence on Capitol Hill as a staunch defender of Trump. He was a member of Trump's advisory team during his first impeachment in 2019 and pointedly grilled multiple witnesses about the Russia investigation  including an FBI agent who led the inquiry and also traded anti-Trump text messages with a colleague.

That work was credited by Trump in his selection announcement as he praised Ratcliffe for exposing fake Russian collusion and having been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public.

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Gaetz would be the first attorney general in 20 years without prior Justice Department experience, and in recent years became embroiled himself in a federal sex trafficking investigation that ended without criminal charges.

Hours before the announcement, Gaetz said in a social media post that there needs to be a full court press against this WEAPONIZED government that has been turned against our people. He added: And if that means ABOLISHING every one of the three letter agencies, from the FBI to the ATF, Im ready to get going! If confirmed as attorney general, he would oversee both the FBI and the ATF.

Advancing the theme of vengeance, billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk weighed in on the Gaetz appointment with a post that said: The Hammer of Justice is coming.

Gaetz has used the seat in Congress he first won in 2016 to rail against the Justice Department, repeatedly decrying what he  and Trump  contends is a criminal justice system biased against conservatives. He has blasted law enforcement officials he has perceived as being either overtly anti-Trump or ineffective in protecting Trump's interests.

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When Robert Mueller visited Capitol Hill to discuss the findings of the Russia investigation, Gaetz condemned the prosecutor for leading a team that the congressman said was so biased. The Trump Justice Department appointed a special prosecutor, John Durham, to examine errors in the Russia investigation, but Gaetz scolded Durham too for failing to uncover enough damaging information about the FBI's inquiry into Trump.

For the people like the (committee) chairman who put trust in you, I think you let them down. I think you let the country down. You are one of the barriers to the true accountability that we need, Gaetz told Durham.

He's directed outright fury at FBI Director Christopher Wray, snapping at him last year that FBI applicants in Florida deserve better than you and at the current attorney general, Merrick Garland, who appointed special counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump's hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Both investigations ended in indictments expected to wind down before Trump takes office. Smith, too, is also likely to be gone by the time Gaetz arrives, and a new FBI director is also expected to be appointed given Trump's lingering discontent with Wray, his own appointee.
Rep. Matt Gaetz is resigning from Congress, effective immediately, just hours after President-elect Donald Trump named the Republican firebrand as his selection for attorney general.

House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed the news to reporters Wednesday night, saying that he hopes to have a replacement for his seat by Jan. 3.

He issued his resignation letter effective immediately, Johnson said. That caught us by surprise a little bit.

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The surprise resignation almost assuredly means the end of a long-running ethics probe into Gaetzs alleged misconduct.

House Ethics Chair Michael Guest said earlier on Wednesday that if Gaetz is successfully approved as attorney general and leaves Congress for good, the committee will close its case.

This is because the ethics committee only has jurisdiction over sitting members of Congress, Guest told CNN Wednesday.

Sources later told Punchbowl News that Gaetz resigned only two days before the committee was scheduled to vote on releasing a highly damaging report based on their probe. CNN and Fox News later confirmed the votes timing.

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The committee was restricted from releasing their findings too close to Floridas primary election in August and the general election in November, CNN reported. It remains unclear whether the information will be made public after Gaetzs resignation.

The Florida congressman has been under investigation for alleged sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, accepting improper favors and obstructing investigations into his misconduct.

Gaetz has previously denied all of these allegations.

Mike Johnson says Matt Gaetz has already resigned from Congress pic.twitter.com/gkXOFTQ44S  Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 14, 2024

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will now have to call for a special election to replace Gaetz, which could happen in as little as eight weeks.

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Ive already placed a call to Governor DeSantis in Florida and said, Lets start the clock, Johnson told reporters on Wednesday.

Johnson said Gaetz had expressed concern over leaving his seat vacant for the incoming Congress. The House Speaker said Florida law will give them about eight weeks to fill Gaetzs seat.

If we start the clock now, if you do the math, we may be able to fill that seat as early as Jan. 3 when we take the new oath of office for the new Congress, Johnson said.

Many members of Congress, including Guest, were taken aback to learn President-elect Donald Trump had picked Gaetz for the post Wednesday.

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You know, like most members, I was surprised. His name was not someone that I had heard come up previously, the Mississippi Republican said. But you know, like with any other Cabinet-level selection, therell be a confirmation process, and so if any of the senators have questions about his or any other Cabinet members ability to serve, those questions will be figured out during that confirmation process.

Gaetz has spent years fighting with his colleagues in the House, leading the charge to oust Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Many of his colleagues expressed shock at his nomination on Wednesday, while others doubted he would make it through a confirmation hearing in the Senate.
Donald Trump's nomination of fellow Florida Republican Matt Gaetz for attorney general has caused shock among several of Gaetz's fellow lawmakers.

The president-elect announced his pick to head up the Department of Justice in a Truth Social post on Wednesday, and the bipartisan pushback against the widely disliked representative from Chipley was swift.

On CNN, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Ct., called the nomination a red alert moment for American Democracy and conveyed the shock he saw in the upper chamber.

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You could literally hear the jaws dropping to the floor of Republican senators who are now going to be in a position to stand up to Donald Trump in a way that they have been unwilling to," Murphy told Jake Tapper.

"[Gaetz] will implement Donald Trumps transition of the Department of Justice from an agency that stands up for all of us to an agency that is simply an arm of the White House designed to persecute and prosecute Trumps political enemies."

Reporters for Punchbowl News and the Washington Post said the reactions from Republican and Democratic lawmakers ranged from surprise to amusement.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told reporter Max Cohen she was "shocked at the nomination. Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va, said that no one could believe" the news. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, reportedly fell completely silent when confronted with questions about the nom. Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., offered some local color, calling the Gaetz pick an "uff da."

"I don't know what to make of it," he said.

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Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, offered the most blunt reaction. According to Huffington Post reporter Jonathan Nicholson, he responded to the news with an incredulous "Are you sh**tin' me?"

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said that Gaetz faces an uphill battle, telling reporter Burgess Everett that they're "not going to get a single Democrat" to vote for his confirmation.

Despite the seeming resistance to his nomination, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson shared that Gaetz has already tendered his resignation from the House.
Description

First Annual Turkey Drive at Station Yards

 Thursday, November 14th | 7:30 AM  6:00 PM

 Station Yards, Ronkonkoma

Join us for our First Annual Turkey Drive to support Long Island Cares and help provide meals to those in need this holiday season.

Well be collecting turkey and nonperishable food donations all day from 7:30 AM  6:00 PM, and from 3:00 PM  6:00 PM, enjoy live music while student volunteers from Sachem Schools sort food donations for service hours.



Local businesses from the MacArthur Business Alliance and Ronkonkoma Chamber of Commerce will be contributing to this important cause. With over 221,000 food-insecure Long Islanders, including 65,000 children, your support will make a meaningful impact.

Lets come together and

make a difference this holiday season!
Fire investigators evaluated the scene on Oct. 9, 2024, of a fire that occurred Oct. 5, 2024, near New Town. (Provided by Office of the State Fire Marshal)

Heat from natural gas flares combined with high winds and dry vegetation caused two of the October wildfires in western North Dakota, according to the state fire marshal.

Investigations into an Oct. 5 fire near Keene and a fire the same day near New Town found that both originated with flares at oil and gas wells next to agricultural land with stubble or dry grass, according to investigative reports.

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The McKenzie County fires occurred in the hours before state regulators asked operators to voluntarily shut down oil and gas wells in areas with high fire danger, according to the investigative reports and an interview with Department of Mineral Resources Director Nathan Anderson.

The North Dakota State Fire Marshal is finalizing investigative reports on wildfires in Williams County, including one that claimed two lives and injured six. The U.S. Forest Service is investigating the Elkhorn Fire in McKenzie County and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is investigating the Bear Den Fire on the Fort Berthold Reservation.

A total of 190 fires occurred in North Dakota in October, burning 126,273 acres, according to the state Department of Emergency Services. Damage estimates are still being compiled, but so far rural electric cooperatives report an estimated $7.7 million in damages, said Department of Emergency Services spokeswoman Alison Vetter. That would not include losses to farmers and ranchers.

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McKenzie County fire crews received a report shortly after 3 p.m. Oct. 5 of a rapidly spreading fire near Keene. It ultimately burned 7,000 acres. About 5:30 p.m. that day, New Town fire crews were dispatched to another wildfire that resulted in damage to more than 2,000 acres. Both occurred near oil sites and the fires are referred to in investigative reports as the Midnight Run fire and the Dinwoodie fire  named after the oil wells.

Homes near both fires were evacuated as a precaution. No structures were lost and no injuries were reported.

To evaluate the cause of the fires, investigators examined the scene, interviewed witnesses and reviewed data including weather information. Wind gusts in the region were as high as 60-70 mph at times.

The North Dakota State Fire Marshal classified both fires as accidental. The reports rule out other causes and conclude that the high winds influenced the ignition and the spread of the fire. The reports note the conclusions could change if additional information is provided.

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The New Town fire originated next to a Hess Corp. site with five oil and gas wells and a flare stack that a witness said was about 300 feet from the burned area, according to the report.

Operators are required to keep flares lit at oil and gas wells to prevent venting of natural gas. If a well is shut in, there is no need for a flare.

The report on the New Town fire said the normal temperature from the flare pilot ranges from 1,200-1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, according to information provided to investigators. A Hess Corp. representative told investigators the pilot temperature was slightly higher that day, the report says.

Its possible for pressure spikes to occur with a flare stack that cause hot oil or carbon particles to be dislodged.

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When investigators were on site on Oct. 9, the Hess flare stack had a sudden burp, causing the flare to get larger and black smoke to extend from the stack, investigators noted.

A Hess representative told investigators that one pressure spike was recorded the day of the wildfire but said it should not have caused hot oil to dislodge, the report says.

A Hess spokesperson said Wednesday the company was still reviewing the fire marshals report and had no immediate comment.

Fire investigators evaluated the scene on Oct. 9, 2024, of a fire that occurred Oct. 5, 2024, near Keene. (Provided by Office of the State Fire Marshal)

In the fire near Keene, a flare on a ConocoPhillips well site was about 53 feet from the origin of the fire, the report said.

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The report notes three unsuccessful attempts investigators made to reach ConocoPhillips for an interview.

A ConocoPhillips spokesperson told the North Dakota Monitor on Wednesday the company is reviewing the fire investigation report and working directly with landowners and tenants. The company is committed to providing necessary information but was unaware of the interview request, the company said in a statement.

Anderson, who became North Dakotas top oil regulator in September, said in an interview Wednesday the oil companies were operating in compliance with regulations.

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Gov. Doug Burgum declared a statewide fire emergency the afternoon of Oct. 3, citing above-average temperatures, high wind gusts, low humidity and dry vegetation.

Anderson said he was notified late afternoon on Oct. 5 about the extreme fire danger conditions. Department of Mineral Resources staff worked quickly to contact oil operators and request they voluntarily shut down production in areas of high fire danger. He estimates those requests were relayed to operators by 6:30-7 p.m. that day and said companies complied with the request.

It appears that message came too late to have an impact on the two McKenzie County fires.

Anderson said the department formed a work group to evaluate what went right during the emergency response and what can be improved. The group has met three times and identified areas of improvement in communication, education and some administrative enhancements.

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Anytime you can make improvements, I think you should look at it, and were certainly taking this as an opportunity to do that, Anderson said.

Keene Fire Chief Wade Signalness credited ConocoPhillips workers with actively helping crews fight the fire, including bringing tankers of water. But he hopes the industry as a whole evaluates what can be done to minimize fire risk during extreme weather.

I think all oil companies can work together and figure out a solution when it comes to fires during high winds and dry conditions, Signalness said. Weve got to do something. We owe it to the community.

New Town Fire Chief John DeGroot said the fire season is projected to go into December and urged people to continue to be cautious.

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Were still in the middle of fire danger, DeGroot said.

The state has received an extension for filing for a presidential disaster declaration with a deadline of Dec. 5, according to the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services.

Jeff Beach contributed to this report.

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GASTON COUNTY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS)  A paramedic with Gaston County has been charged with Felony Cruelty to Animals, according to jail records.

On Wednesday afternoon, 28-year-old McKenna Dawn Mattson was arrested. She has since been released on bond.

According to Gaston County officials, Mattson has worked as a paramedic for the county since December 2017. The county says they are aware of the arrest and that she remains employed.

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The full statement is listed below:

Gaston County is aware of the charges filed today against one of our employees, McKenna Mattson. There is little we can say on the issue while this legal matter proceeds, other than being able to confirm she is still employed with the county as a Paramedic III, and has been an employee since December 30, 2017. We will provide an update if her status with the county changes.

Authorities have not said what led up to Mattsons arrest.

READ NEXT | Gaston County eliminates Community Support Services Division, cutting 11 jobs

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 judge who will decide the fate of an undocumented migrant accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley is a no-nonsense, silvery-white-haired jurist whose father was killed in an armed robbery.

Starting Friday, state Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard will preside over the trial of 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan migrant who authorities said crossed the border illegally before Rileys killing in the college town of Athens thrusted him into the raging national debate over immigration.

Haggard, appointed to the Superior Court bench in 2011 by Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, is no stranger to high-profile cases. A year after his appointment to the judicial circuit that covers Athens, Haggard was assigned the death-penalty trial of an admitted cop killer, Jamie Hood, who represented himself.

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During a pretrial court appearance, Hood asked Haggard  who is White  if the man who fatally shot the judges father in 1992 was Black, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. When Haggard said he was, the Black defendant suggested the fatal shooting could affect his handling of the case.

I killed a White man, Hood said, according to the Banner-Herald. Professional folks say it dont have no bearing on whats going on, but in this neck of the woods it do.

Newell Hamilton Jr., who was part of Hoods defense team at the trial, recalled that day in 2012.

Man, you should have seen Judge Haggards face. Holy sh*t, he turned red, Hamilton told CNN this week. You should have seen how angry. Youre talking about, you know, the red face.  He got pissed.

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Still, Hamilton said, Haggard was careful in how he responded, avoiding the appearance of bias.

Judge, I got a question, Hamilton recalled the defendant saying. He says, I want you to tell me  man to man  the fact that a Black man killed your father, youre not going to hold that against me. The judge turned red. Then he says, I will tell you, as a judge, I have no bias.

The Banner-Herald quoted Haggards response: Mr. Hood, I come here to do my job.

And that is how Haggard is expected to handle what will be a closely watched murder case that has become a flashpoint in the bitter debate over the border crisis, according to both Hamilton and the man who prosecuted the cop shooter a dozen years ago.

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I dont recall a time that he ever lost his cool during that trial, Kenneth Mauldin, the former prosecutor who now teaches at the University of Georgia School of Law, told CNN. Judge Haggard maintained his poise and judicial demeanor, as you should, and maintained that temperament throughout the process.  He was remarkably fair.

CNN has sought comment from Haggard.

Prosecutors to seek life in prison without parole

Laken Riley. - Obtained by CNN

Riley, a 22-year-old student at the Augusta University College of Nursing campus in Athens, was killed February 22 while out for a run on the University of Georgias Athens campus.

Ibarra on Tuesday waived his right to a trial by jury and agreed to a bench trial, leaving Haggard to decide his guilt or innocence. The prosecution agreed, and Haggard approved the waiver. Through his translator, Ibarra told the court he understood that he cant reverse his decision, which came a day before jury selection was set to begin.

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For the bench trial, evidence and witness or expert testimony will be presented to the judge rather than a jury. Defense attorneys requested a bench trial after the judge denied a motion requesting some evidence in the case be suppressed ahead of trial, according to court records.

In a bench trial, the judge alone decides the facts of the case and application of the law. Defendants opt for bench trials in some cases because a judge is perceived to be able to dismiss negative publicity and press coverage and handle the facts of violent crimes with less emotion than a jury, according to CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson.

CNN has sought comment from Ibarras attorneys as well as the office of Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez. During Tuesdays hearing, Haggard forbade attorneys and the defendant from speaking with the media.

Ibarra was indicted in May on 10 counts, including charges related to Rileys death and another incident in which Ibarra allegedly went to a University of Georgia apartment building the same day as the killing, looked through a window and spied on a student, his indictment states.

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Prosecutors intend to seek a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if Ibarra is convicted of the most serious charges, Gonzalez said, according to court records.

Would I ever put anything in the hands of a judge like that? The answer is, Im just not wired that way, Hamilton said of the decision to have a bench trial in Ibarras case. Im always going to trust a jury over a judge.  But I will say this: I dont remember Judge Haggard being unfair.

Mauldin said Ibarras attorneys would not have asked for a bench trial if they felt Haggard could not be fair to their client.

Haggard is now serving his third term in Superior Court. He was the chief judge from 2017 to 2020. He previously was a municipal court judge for the city of Winterville from 1992 to 2011, according to his judicial web page. He practiced both criminal and civil law in the Athens area and was a certified mediator.

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In 2013, Haggard started the Western Circuit Veterans Treatment Court, which provides therapy, substance abuse treatment and other services to veterans with criminal cases, according to the page. The judge is a member of Athens First United Methodist Church.

Judge Haggard will treat this man fairly, Hamilton said, referring to Ibarra. I think he will give him a fair trial. He is going to be hard. I think he will give no slack.  That is my experience with Judge Haggard. He was a gentleman at all times, but he didnt give us any slack.

A firestorm over crime and illegal immigration

Ibarras case reignited the raging national debate over immigration.

Republican President-elect Donald Trump alleged the Biden administrations immigration policies contributed to Rileys death. Ahead of his election, Trump vowed to conduct a large-scale deportation of undocumented migrants. Rileys parents attended a Trump rally in March and met with Trump backstage, according to co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita.

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Democrats also invoked Rileys name. While campaigning for presidential candidate Kamala Harris in October, former President Bill Clinton supported President Joe Bidens attempt to secure the border and criticized Trump for scuttling a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.

During her presidential campaign, Harris vowed to revive the bill and sign if elected. Clinton said the bill would have led to total vetting before people got in at the US-Mexico border. Now, Trump killed the bill, Clinton said, before referring to Rileys death.

Ibarra was arrested in September 2022 on suspicion of entering the US illegally, and was paroled and released for further processing, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In September 2023 he was arrested by police in New York City and charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation, ICE said in a news release. But police released Ibarra before a detainer could be issued, according to ICE. Asked about Ibarras arrest and release in New York City, NYPDs public information office told CNN via email: There are no arrests on file based on the information provided in your inquiry.

Jose Antonio Ibarra appears in court for a hearing Tuesday in Athens, Georgia. - Court TV/Pool

By February 2024, Ibarra was living in Athens, home to the University of Georgia, where Riley was killed.

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She went for a morning run February 22 on the UGA campus, where she had studied until May 2023 before switching to Augusta University. The search for Riley began after authorities received a call around noon from a friend who said she had not returned from her jog, UGA Police Chief Jeff Clark said. Her body was later found near a lake.

Ibarra was connected to Rileys killing based on campus security camera footage, physical evidence and information from the community, Clark said.

With the accusations against Ibarra fueling a political firestorm over crime and illegal immigration, Haggard will face close scrutiny over how he handles one of his biggest cases since he oversaw Hoods murder trial nearly a decade ago.

Ibarra struck Riley in the head with a rock multiple times and asphyxiated her, according to his indictment. He was arrested the day after Rileys death. Authorities have said there is no evidence Ibarra and Riley knew each other, and have described the killing as a crime of opportunity.

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Hood was convicted of 36 counts, including murder, aggravated assault, kidnapping, carjacking, according to his appeal, which was rejected by the Georgia Supreme Court in 2021. The charges against Hood stemmed from the 2010 shooting death of a man named Kenneth Wray and the fatal shooting of Athens-Clarke County police Officer Elmer Christian during a series of crimes the following year. Hood was sentenced to life without parole in July 2015.

During the 2012 court appearance with his new defense attorneys, Hood asked Haggard about the fatal shooting of the judges father.

Haggards father, Harold Phillip Haggard, was a 59-year-old salesman who was fatally shot in the chest in 1992 as he exchanged gunfire with two men trying to rob him outside a Georgia apartment complex, according to local press reports at the time and court documents.

After Haggard insisted that he was there to do his job, Hood told the judge, according to the Banner-Herald: Im going to give you the benefit of the doubt, sir, but Im going to tell you this here: Im willing to face the death sentence before I come in here and let someone railroad me.

I think he was a gentleman most of the time, Hamilton told CNN, referring to Haggard at the trial. I think Jamie tried him in ways judges dont ever expect to be tried.  But I have to say during trial, there was nothing personal. There was nothing where I went back and said, That no-good m*therf**ker.

The former prosecutor on the case agreed.

I think sometimes you can read judges. Sometimes you can see theyre probably steaming, you know, and have a right to get upset and everything else. They may be upset and you could probably tell they might be, but they dont show it whatsoever. I think hes like that, Mauldin said of Haggard.

Before being sworn in as a Superior Court judge in 2011, Haggard told the Banner-Herald that his fathers murder had not changed his perception of defendants in his courtroom.

It happened, it was a tragedy, but it went through the court process and there was justice, Haggard told the paper.

At the time, it was Haggards highest-profile case as a judge.

I dont have feelings one way or another about that being a big case, the judge told the Banner-Herald. It may be big in other peoples minds, but I will take it as it is presented and deal with it.

Hamilton, who at the time was working for the Georgia Capital Defender, believes Haggard will handle the Ibarra trial the same way.

Do I think Haggard will be fair? Yes, but let me tell you, he aint going to cut that guy any breaks and he is going to sentence him. Hes a hard dude. But I have no reason to think that he would treat that man differently because of the color of his skin or the fact that he was Hispanic, he said.

CNNs Holly Yan, Rebekah Riess, Shawn Nottingham, Eric Levenson, Priscilla Alvarez, Rafael Romo, Kaanita Iyer, Jason Morris, David J. Lopez and Elizabeth Wolfe contributed to this report.

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ATLANTA (AP)  A Georgia state Senate Democrat wants to make it a crime for people to give children access to guns and require a 10-day waiting period for assault rifle purchases unless someone is licensed to carry weapons, two proposals highly unlikely to gain Republican support.

But some of the policies Sen. Emanuel Jones of Decatur proposed Wednesday, including tax credits for safe gun storage devices, could advance when the state legislature reconvenes in January. Jones hopes that by straying away from other stricter proposals favored by Democrats and focusing on measures that have already gained traction, he'll be able to turn most of his recommendations into policies.

My message today is we all need to join forces and we all need to stop working on the fringes and move something forward, Jones said.

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The suggestions are part of a draft report Jones released at the final meeting of the Senate Study Committee on Safe Firearm Storage, which he launched to help prevent youth gun deaths following a deadly school shooting northeast of Atlanta in September. Republicans on the committee will have to approve the final report.

Investigators say Colt Gray, the teenager charged with the shooting at Apalachee High School, showed signs of mental health concerns before the shooting. This is why Jones wants a statewide alert system that notifies schools when a student looking to transfer has a history of troubling behavior. Georgia's state school superintendent Richard Woods and Republican House speaker Jon Burns have signaled their support for similar information sharing between law enforcement and schools.

Jones also proposed tax incentives and reductions on homeowners' insurance policies for people who buy safe storage devices such as gun safes and locks. Similar legislation almost became law last year. The state Senate passed a bill that would exempt firearm safety devices from the state sales tax, while the House passed a bill that would offer gun owners a $300 tax credit to purchase safety devices such as gun safes and locks and cover firearm safety courses. Neither bill made it through the other chamber.

Most Republicans, most Democrats, most gun owners agree that there are steps that you can take that have nothing to do with taking away peoples guns. Its about creating a culture of safe gun ownership, said Heather Hallett, an organizer with Georgia Majority for Gun Safety, outside of the meeting.

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Colt Grays father, Colin Gray, is facing murder charges like his son after authorities said he gave the youth access to the assault weapon used in the Apalachee shooting.

Jones' proposal to make it a crime for people to allow children access to guns is in part a response to that.

Firearms were the leading cause of death among children in 2020 and 2021. Everytown for Gun Safety, a national advocacy group that seeks to reduce gun violence, says Georgia has one of the highest rates of unintentional child shootings in the country.

Sen. David Lucas of Macon, a Democrat on the committee, thinks Republicans may support the measure to mandate a 10-day waiting period for assault rifle purchases because it contains an exemption for people who have a license to carry guns. Lucas, who said over the phone that he owns about 40 guns, said a waiting period is important because assault rifles are used in many mass shootings, including the recent one in Georgia.

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Sen. Frank Ginn, a Republican from Danielsville who is on the committee, said he opposes the idea when asked over the phone.

Inspired by a state agency in Texas, Jones also wants to create a new director position for a Statewide Research & Development Office that would educate people about gun violence.

___

Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on X: @charlottekramon
Georgia State University announced Wednesday that it had received the largest gift in its more than a century of operations and would use it to start its largest campus transformation project.

GSU officials said they received an $80 million gift from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, also the largest from the Foundation to any institution in the University System of Georgia.

The $80 million was added to a $107 million Atlanta campus upgrade plan, focused on nine projects the university says will reinvigorate and reimagine the GSU campus experience.

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The Woodruff Foundation, one of Georgias greatest philanthropic institutions and one of downtowns most important partners, is entrusting us and our University System of Georgia colleagues to act boldly over the next two years to realize a new vision for our downtown campus, Georgia State President M. Brian Blake said, thanking the foundation for their support and partnership.

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The university launched a project site detailing their plans and describing them as an effort at creating a true college town in downtown Atlanta.

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After the donation, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, a GSU alumnus, expressed his excitement for the project and what it means for the city.

This project will breathe new life into our downtown area and into the City of Atlanta, Dickens said. We all want to make sure that downtown is brighter and more inviting. And as an alumnus of Georgia State, I want to see this campus flourish. This is a great way to connect these parks and to make sure that people have an enjoyable experience downtown.

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The projects the funding will help push forward include:

A campus greenway and removal of Sparks Hall

A new facade for the Arts & Humanities building

An addition and renovation at 100 Edgewood Terrace

A Gilmer Street pedestrian streetscape for Panther Quad

Greenway Expansion connecting to Hurt Park

Upgrades to Woodruff Park

Updates to Edgewood to connect to Panther Quad

New facade for 58 Edgewood Building

Close Auburn and Edgewood avenues to vehicle traffic

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The Justice Department has found that egregious conditions at Georgias Fulton County Jail  including pest infestation, malnourishment, a lack of adequate medical care and rampant violence that contributed to multiple deaths  violate the constitutional rights of people in custody.

The Justice Department on Thursday announced its findings from a civil rights investigation it opened into conditions at the jail in July 2023.

It found that Georgia officials violated the rights of those incarcerated by failing to protect them from violence, failing to provide humane living conditions, neglecting adequate medical and mental health care, having a pattern of excessive force and confining detainees in dangerous restrictive housing conditions without due process.

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The investigation was opened after the death of Lashawn Thompson, 35, in September 2022, which sparked public outrage. His body was found malnourished in a bedbug-infested cell in the psychiatric wing, and a private autopsy found he was neglected to death.

The 105-page report details the serious conditions at the jail described as long-standing, filthy and dangerous  as well as remedial measures Fulton County officials should implement.

Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriffs Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Fulton County Jail: Home to stabbings, assaults, pests and a lack of care

The lengthy report presented a staggering portrait of violence and death at the jail.

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From 2022 to the present, six incarcerated people have died in violent attacks, the report said. Over 300 stabbings involving contraband and makeshift weapons were also reported last year. Four deaths by suicide have also been reported in the past four years, one of them as recently as April, according to the report.

The report found that the jail failed to protect detainees from the risk of harm from violence and sexual violence. Assaults are carried out in the jail using makeshift weapons, and the jail has inadequate practices for reporting and responding to sexual violence, it said.

The report said killings, stabbing and assaults are common. In less than 24 hours in August 2023, at least seven people were stabbed and one was killed in an outburst of violence that spanned five units and three floors, it noted.

Furthermore, jail deputies and detention officers use force against incarcerated people without adequate justification, including deploying Tasers without reasonable cause, the document said.

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The facilities were found to be in a state of serious disrepair, and living conditions are hazardous and unsanitary.

Housing units are flooded with water from broken toilets and sinks; there are cockroaches, rodents and other pests; and the jail took insufficient steps to control infestations, the report said. Cells were described as filthy and unhygienic with dangerous exposed wires.

The jail also failed to provide enough food, food preparation and service are not sanitary, and detainees have suffered from malnourishment and pest infestation, the report said.

The report found that medical and mental health care also did not meet constitutional standards: There were gaps in medication administration, there is a lack of security staffing, and the jail fails to provide appropriate care in medical emergencies.

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And it fails to adequately treat serious mental health needs and prevent a risk of suicide. It is a dire situation, the report found, as people with mental health needs are overrepresented in the jail population, yet the jail environment exacerbates symptoms of mental illness.

The report found that the jail placed people in isolation without adequate monitoring, saying placement in restrictive housing discriminates against people with mental health disabilities.

Furthermore, there are 17-year-old boys and girls are in the jail, as the state juvenile justice systems jurisdiction ends at 16. The teens are subjected to violence and excessive force, experience sexual abuse and are uniquely harmed in restrictive housing like isolation, the report said.

The jail also fails to provide special education services to those 17-year-olds who are entitled to them  in violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, it said.

Lashawn Thompson

Thompson, who had a history of mental illness and was unhoused, died in the jail three months after his arrest.

Lashawn Thompson.

The report said that Thompson was accused of spitting at a Georgia Tech police officer and that he was arrested on a simple battery charge; he was held on an old warrant.

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The jail failed detainees like Thompson with mental health needs, the report found.

It said four Black men who all had serious mental health needs, including Thompson, died in the mental health unit in under a year. Within weeks of the investigations opening, six more Black men died at the jail.

Thompsons death drew public attention after attorneys for his family released photos of his face and body covered in insects.

In August 2023, Thompsons family reached a settlement with Fulton County for an undisclosed amount.

In announcing Thursday's report, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a news release: Lashawn Thompsons horrific death was symptomatic of a pattern of dangerous and dehumanizing conditions in the Fulton County Jail.

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The unconstitutional and unlawful conditions at the Fulton County Jail have persisted for far too long, and we are committed to working with Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriffs Office to remedy them, he added.

Jail grapples with overpopulation and mental health needs

Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta, is the largest county in the state. The jail has a main facility and three annex facilities, and the population is nearly all people with pending criminal charges.

The jail has struggled to "address a ballooning population and overcrowding," the report said.

Black people are overrepresented in the jail compared with the countys population. People with mental health needs are also overrepresented.

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The report said that deaths and serious injuries remain prevalent at the jail. Thus far in 2024, three men at the Main Jail have died: one of a suspected drug overdose, one by stabbing and one by suicide.

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division, said in the release: Detention in the Fulton County Jail has amounted to a death sentence for dozens of people who have been murdered or who died as a result of the atrocious conditions inside the facility. Its not just adults but also children who are subjected to conditions and treatment that violate the constitution and defy federal law.

She noted that many held have not been convicted or are serving short sentences for misdemeanors.

The Justice Department said the attorney general can file a federal lawsuit seeking court-ordered remedies. The department provided Fulton County and the local sheriffs office with a written notice outlining the minimum remedial measures to address the alleged violations.

The County will work with the Justice Department toward a cooperative resolution, the release said.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Geraldo Rivera has backed Donald Trumps choice of his former Fox News colleague Major Pete Hegseth as defense secretary.

Rivera famously backed Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, branding Trump a sore loser.

But he believes the president-elect has made a wise choice by choosing Hegseth, 44, a Fox News host, author, and military veteran to take over at the Pentagon.

Rivera told CNN anchor Anderson Cooper: Ive spoken to retired, very high-ranking officers with deep Pentagon and warfighting experience and they voiced misgivings about him running this 3 million-strong department, so I get that.

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But he continued: I know Pete Hegseth, Major Pete Hegseth, a two-time awardee of the Bronze Star. This is a combat veteran who loves other veterans, and who has a wonderful rapport with military families. I think it will be a very steep learning curve for Major Pete Hegseth but I think that if anyone can do it he can do it. Hes courageous, hes patriotic, hes smart, hes well-educated, he cares deeply about it.

The two men worked together on Fox News and Rivera said he enjoyed the experience.

I look at him and I see a kid, he told Cooper. But hes in his mid-forties, hes done a lot. It was great being opposite him on the couch. We never agreed on very much. But I think that he can do it.

Rivera also went on social media to support Hegseth, posting on X: Bravo Major Pete Hegseth an inspired choice for Defense Secretary. Awarded the Bronze Star, he is a combat veteran with service in Iraq and Afghanistan and strongest in his support of our veterans. RESPECT.

Bravo Major Pete Hegseth an inspired choice for Defense Secretary. Awarded the Bronze Star, he is a combat veteran with service in Iraq and Afghanistan and strongest in his support of our veterans.

RESPECT.  Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) November 13, 2024

In another message, he added: Ive heard from high-ranking Pentagon veterans re: Major Pete Hegseths lack of experience running an organization-especially one with 3 million employees. Fair enough, but this guy has a great heart, strong character, patriotism and courage. He will grow into this tough job.

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Announcing the nomination on Tuesday, Trump described Hegseth as tough, smart and a true believer in America First.

The Daily Beast Podcast episodes are released every Thursday. Like and download on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. And click here for email updates as each new episode drops.
Deutsche Energy Terminal has been told to reject Russian LNG, according to The Financial Times.

It comes as the EU considers buying more liquefied natural gas from the US.

Germany hasn't imported LNG directly from Russia since the invasion.

Germany is believed to have told its ports to reject Russian cargoes of liquefied natural gas in a bid to further isolate Vladimir Putin's energy industry.

The country's economic ministry told the state-owned Deutsche Energy Terminal not to accept deliveries of Russian LNG, according to a letter dated November 6 obtained by the Financial Times.

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The letter was sent after the company was due to receive a Russian cargo shipment on Sunday at its import facility in Brunsbuttel, the FT said.

It went on to say that the decision would protect Germany's "overriding public interests."

The letter added that accepting the deliveries would defy the reason the German terminal was initially opened  to allow Germany and the EU to become "independent of Russian gas."

It comes as the EU weighs up buying more LNG from the US when President-elect Donald Trump takes office in a bid to convince him not to impose high import tariffs on EU companies.

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Trump pledged on the campaign trail to impose a fresh era of trade tariffs. He has vowed to impose a 60% tariff on goods imported from China and a 10% blanket tariff on all other goods entering the US.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said last week that she would consider replacing Russian LNG with more US imports as part of trade talks.

"We still get a lot of LNG from Russia, and why not replace it with American LNG, which is cheaper for us and brings down our energy prices," von der Leyen told reporters on Friday.

"It's something where we can get into a discussion," she said, referring to the US's trade deficit with the eurozone, which reached $131.3 billion in 2022.

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"It would be in the interest of the US that Europe continues to shun Russian fossil fuels, given the US oil and gas industry has been one of the key beneficiaries of this move," wrote Warren Patterson, the head of commodities strategy at ING, last week.

The EU  which previously relied on Russian energy  banned seaborne Russian crude imports and refined petroleum products following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

As BI previously reported, it has also cut most of its piped natural gas imports from Russia, replacing much of it with LNG from the US. The US is now a top exporter of gas to Europe, accounting for 46% of the bloc's supply in 2023.

Germany hasn't imported LNG directly from Russia since the invasion.

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A Kpler report obtained by FT said the country's state energy group, Sefe, has a long-term contract to import Russian LNG via France.

In a statement to Business Insider, a spokesperson for Sefe said the company "has never delivered or attempted to deliver Russian LNG into Germany."

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Germany's economic ministry said it wouldn't comment on "possible leaked documents."

"It is correct that Germany does not import Russian gas and it is also clear to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action that this must not happen via German LNG terminals," the spokesperson added.

Deutsche Energy Terminal declined to comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider
The German government is denying reports from sources linked to the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah which accuse German forces deployed in the country as UN peacekeepers of working with Israel.

"Media in Lebanon close to Hezbollah are spreading the narrative that Germany and the German-led United Nations Maritime Task Force intervened in the fighting in Lebanon in favour of Israel," the Defence Ministry said on Thursday. "The German government firmly rejects these accusations."

Germany is currently providing about 100 soldiers for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which is caught up in the fighting between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Iran-allied Hezbollah.

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Around 60 men and women are on the corvette Ludwigshafen am Rhein, which is leading the maritime element of the UN force.

At the beginning of November, Israeli special forces captured a man in the Lebanese beach town of Batrun, reportedly using speedboats. According to Lebanese security sources, the man was involved in Hezbollah arms smuggling between Lebanon and Syria.

UNIFIL subsequently stated that it had not been involved in any abduction or "other violations of Lebanese sovereignty." Disinformation and false rumours in this context are irresponsible and endanger the peacekeeping forces, UNIFIL said.

When German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited Beirut in October, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar attacked her Middle East policy and wrote that Baerbock was repeating "the Israeli-Western narrative" and "speaking for the enemy."

The German Defence Ministry said on Thursday that there is "no direct contact between the Maritime Task Force and the Israeli military. Situation information is not passed on."
The German Economy Ministry instructed its state-operated gas import terminal to reject a delivery of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), the Financial Times (FT) reported on Nov. 14.

The order comes as European countries increasingly look to replace Russian energy imports and impose sanctions on Russian gas, including LNG.

The ministry told the Deutsche Energy Terminal "not to accept any deliveries of Russian LNG" after receiving notice that the facility was expecting a shipment in the coming days. The port was instructed "to reject LNG deliveries from Russia until further notice," according to a letter from the ministry viewed by FT.

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The German government built its own LNG import terminals to receive gas shipments by sea after Russian President Vladimir Putin cut pipeline gas supplies to EU countries following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Germany, once Europe's largest importer of Russian gas, hastened to find alternatives.

The ministry's letter said the goal of the import terminal was to help make the country "independent of Russian gas," and that it therefore could not accept the delivery.

The German Economy Ministry told FT that "in principle, it is correct that Germany does not import Russian gas and it is also clear to the (Economy Ministry) that this must not happen via German LNG terminals."

While Germany no longer imports Russian LNG directly, the German state energy company SEFE has a long-term contract with Russia's Yamal facility. The supplies from Yamal are routed to France before being fed into the European pipeline system.

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The European Union imposed its first major restrictions on Russian gas, including LNG, in its 14th sanctions package in June.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen brought up the matter of Russian LNG in a phone conversation with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump shortly after his Nov. 5 victory.

Von der Leyen said she floated the idea of replacing Russian LNG with more imports from the U.S.

"We still get a whole lot of LNG via Russia, from Russia," she said. "And why not replace it with American LNG, which is cheaper, and brings down our energy prices?"

Read also: Sanctioned LNG ships gather off Russian coast as buyers withdraw, Bloomberg reports

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By Toby Sterling and Nathan Vifflin

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Computer chip equipment maker ASML, facing the threat of more U.S.-led curbs on trade with China, is upbeat on sales growth over the next five years as a boom in AI fuels strong demand for the company's most advanced tools.

CEO Christophe Fouquet, speaking on Thursday at the company's investor day at Veldhoven in the Netherlands, said the company's sales growth would average 8% to 14% over the coming five years.

"When it comes to 2030, we are still very, very bullish," Fouquet told assembled investors and analysts.

He said the global chip market will grow 9% annually through 2025, passing the $1 trillion mark around 2030, with AI chips growing rapidly to make up 40% of the total.

That helps ASML because it means strong growth of cutting-edge logic and memory chips, which in turn means more demand for ASML's most advanced EUV product lines.

Chipmakers such as ASML's biggest customer TSMC of Taiwan, which manufactures AI chips for Nvidia, use ASML's EUV tools to create circuitry.

But ASML is banned from selling its EUV and most of its DUV lithography equipment in China following successive curbs by the U.S. and Dutch governments that began in Trump's first term.

In October, ASML said it expected China sales to fall to 20% of total sales after a contribution of more than 40% over the past six quarters.

ASML is still able to sell relatively older "dry" DUV product lines in China without restrictions.

Analysts said they were reassured by the company's guidance at the start of the investor day, when the group will also face questions on prospects for sales to China after Donald Trump was elected as U.S. president.

The company also forecast revenue of 44-60 billion euros ($46-$63 billion) by 2030, and gross margins of between 56% and 60%, unchanged from previous long-term guidance issued in 2022.

Analysts said that was also reassuring after third quarter earnings in October missed expectations by the most in years.

Customers such as Intel and Samsung delayed orders for equipment amid weakness in markets for consumer electronics, automotive and industrial chips.

"The first glance looks positive," said Kevin Wang of Mizuho Securities, adding that some investors had expected a cut in guidance. "Management remains bullish on ASMLs sales and profitability growth."

JPMorgan analysts said the lack of any surprise in the forecast was "a positive."

"Barring new government intervention on China shipments, the market can look forward to a better 2026. Good returns for patient investors," they wrote.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Thursday rejected top EU diplomat Josep Borrell's proposal to suspend regular political dialogue with Israel in response to the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

"We are always in favour of keeping channels of dialogue open. Of course, this also applies to Israel," the German Foreign Office said in response to Borrell's plans.

The Foreign Office said that the political dialogues under the EU-Israel Association Council give a regular opportunity to discuss compliance with international humanitarian law and the provision of humanitarian aid to the people in the Gaza Strip.

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Breaking off the dialogue, on the other hand, would not help anyone on either the Palestinian or the Israeli side, the statement said.

Borrell proposed that EU member states suspend political dialogue with Israel over its war in the Gaza Strip, an EU diplomatic source told dpa on Wednesday.

"Based on available reports of independent international agencies there are reasons to consider that Israel is violating human rights and international humanitarian law," the source told dpa.

The initiative, which was put forward in a meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday, is now to be discussed at a meeting of foreign ministers on Monday in Brussels.
Germany's Federal Court of Justice is to decide whether the controversial pro-Palestinian slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" should be considered a symbol of a terrorist organization.

A Berlin court last week found a woman guilty of using a symbol of a terrorist organization after she had posted the phrase on her publicly accessibly Instagram profile, and imposed a fine of 1,300 ($1,370).

The 42-year-old Iranian citizen has now lodged an appeal with the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, according to a spokeswoman for the court on Thursday.

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The presiding judge in the Berlin case, Susann Wettley, said the slogan is a symbol of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas group, which the European Union classifies as a terrorist organization.

The slogan calls for a free Palestine stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, an area where the state of Israel is located.

Many activists say the phrase is a rallying cry for peace and equality for Palestinians. Others argue it is anti-Semitic and a call for Israel's destruction.

Germany courts have so far assessed the slogan differently.

The Berlin ruling was the first time the slogan has been assessed as a symbol of a terrorist organization, prosecutor Tim Kaufmann said.

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Wettley said that especially after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 last year, the German public came to associate the slogan with the group.

She said the defendant had spread the phrase knowing that Hamas was classified as a terrorist organization, adding that the group had embraced the ruling.

German law enforcement have sought to crack down on the use of the phrase.

In August, a court in Berlin fined a protester 600 ($630) for chanting the slogan at a pro-Palestinian rally there.
A concept for an unprecedentedly large, diesel-electric drone submarine, as big as some crewed types in service today, has emerged from Chinas top state-run shipbuilding conglomerate. The design is said to be reconfigurable to conduct different missions, including attacks on enemy vessels, mine-laying, special operations support, and act as a mothership for smaller uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUV). There is a very strong possibility this is related to an extremely similar-looking mystery submarine that emerged in China six years ago.

The China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) has a model of what it is calling a small special operations unmanned submarine on display at this years Zhuhai Airshow. The event, which formally opened on Tuesday, is a military-centric showcase of Chinese aviation, as well as ground-based and maritime developments.

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The model shows a relatively traditional submarine design hull-wise, but with a very low-profile dorsal hump in place of a traditional sail. The model is a cut-away, and a load of torpedoes  as well as a torpedo tube  are visible. A large central battery array, propulsion system driving a single unshrouded propeller at the stern, and other mission systems in the bow are also present. There is also a large collapsible mast at the rear, which is a typical feature on larger UUVs, including the Orca that Boeing is developing for the U.S. Navy.

Pictures said to show a CSSC product card available at Zhuhai, seen in the social media post below, indicate the model reflects a Type A configuration capable of carrying between eight and 12 torpedos and/or torpedo tube-launched missiles. A Type B variant that could accommodate six to eight special operations divers and their gear and a Type C version able to carry eight to 12 mines or small UUVs (or four large UUVs) are also mentioned.

Depending on the version and loadout, the product card says the drone submarines overall length is between around 124 and 141 feet (38 and 43 meters) and its surfaced displacement is between 380 and 450 tons. The design will be able to dive down to depths of 984 to 1,476 feet (300 to 450 meters), as well as sail at a maximum speed of 20 knots and cruise at eight knots while on the surface, according to CSSC. Its underwater cruising speed is pegged at six knots. Stated maximum continuous underwater and surfaced ranges of 3,000 nautical miles and 10,000 nautical miles, respectively, both while traveling at a steady speed of six knots, are given on the card, as well.

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For comparison, the German-made Type 206 crewed diesel-electric attack submarine (SSK) is 159 feet (48.6 meters) long and has a surfaced displacement of 450 tons. The German Navy retired the very last of its Type 206s in 2011, but examples continue to serve with the Colombian Navy. CSSCs small drone submarine is also larger than some crewed midget submarines in global service, such as North Koreas 111 feet (34 meter) long, 370-ton surfaced displacement Sang-O-class.

A pair of decommissioned German Type 206 submarines. Tvabutzku1234 via Wikimedia

A North Korean Sang-O-class submarine that South Korea captured in 1996 now on display in the latter country. Idobi via Wikimedia

As another point of comparison, the initial prototype of Boeings aforementioned Orca, which is typically categorized as an extra-large UUV (XLUUV), is around 85 feet long and has a displacement of around 85 tons while on the surface. The Orca is a modular design and initial operational versions are already set to be longer and have greater displacements due to their school bus-sized payload sections.

The initial Orca XLUUV prototype, at right, and one with the additional payload section, at left. Boeing

What degree of autonomy CSSC might be envisioning for its new drone submarine design is unclear, but the product card describes the ability for human controllers to interface with the submarine via beyond-line-of-sight satellite communications and/or underwater acoustic links. The mast seen on the model would be key to sending and receiving data. More robust autonomy would be required for some of the proposed mission sets.

No explicit mention is made on the product card of any particular features to reduce the designs acoustic or other signatures. As already noted, the model shows the designs single propeller to be unshrouded.

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A large and long-endurance drone submarine of this kind could be highly useful for many missions, depending on its ability to operate autonomously, both in littoral areas around Chinese-controlled territory and further out to sea. The drone submarines could be used to form an underwater picket line in a particular area for extended periods of time. This, in turn, would also allow Chinese forces to increase the submarine threat in that zone and otherwise bolster operational capacity, including in cooperation with crewed fleets, and do so at lower cost.

Submarines, in general, also offer valuable platforms for conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, and doing so discreetly. Just knowing that some number of these very large UUVs are out there, even if they are not overly difficult to detect by submarine standards, could be a complication for opponents, who would still have to devote resources to find them and at least track their movements.

A US Navy P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol plane drops sonobouys. Elbit Systems of America

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The CSSC product card also explicitly mentions the potential for the drone submarines to support blockade operations, something authorities in Beijing routinely threaten to do to the island of Taiwan and that the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) actively trains for. The Type B configuration is also clearly intended to support special operations raids.

Its interesting to note here that Taiwan state-owned National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) and the islands Lungteh Shipbuilding have also been working on a new larger UUV design equipped with a pair of torpedo tubes. You can read more about the Huilong, or Smart Dragon, which is still notably smaller than CSSCs new drone submarine concept, here.

Military enthusiasts have captured photos of Taiwans domestically developed "Huilong" unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) with torpedo tubes, revealing potential combat capabilities. pic.twitter.com/uBZ3AAGbCN  TaiwanPlus News (@taiwanplusnews) October 24, 2024

All that being said, it is unclear how advanced any work on this ambitious drone submarine concept may be and how much progress, if any, there has been toward making it an operational reality. There are signs, however, that CSSC may have already made substantial headway on this design or a closely related one. In 2018, JN shipyard, a CSSC subsidiary, launched a previously unseen submarine design. A screen capture from a video that emerged the following year confirmed that it had a very low-profile dorsal hump in lieu of a typical sail. Independent naval analyst H. I. Sutton has estimated the design to be around 150 feet (45 meters), long based on available pictures, videos, and satellite imagery, which would be in line with the design CSSC has now displayed in model form.

A picture of the still mysterious submarine JN Shipyard launched in 2018. Chinese Internet

A top-down look at the submarine from JN Shipyard with its very low profile sail. Chinese Internet

It has been pointed out that there are certain differences between the drone submarine model at Zhuhai and the real low-profile-sail-equipped submarine, including in the shape and position of the diving planes. At the same time, its not uncommon for models to differ significantly from their real-world counterparts, as was just recently seen with the JARI-USV-A uncrewed surface vessel that also made its public debut at Zhuhai this year and that you can read more about here. Like the JARI-USV-A, the mysterious submarine from JN shipyard could also still be more of a testbed intended to help lay the groundwork for future operational designs.

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An interesting UUV: armed, sailless. Title on the display is "small special warfare UUV" but seems rather large, based on the maintenance ladders and its payloads.



Reminds me a bit of the sailless submarine a couple years back, though differences exist (diving planes etc) pic.twitter.com/DvPFXk7B6A  Rick Joe (@RickJoe_PLA) November 10, 2024

However advanced work on the design might be, CSSCs small special operations unmanned submarine concept is yet more evidence of the Chinese militarys broader uncrewed ambitions at sea, as well as in the air and on land. The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) continues to make significant strides in actually fielding drone capabilities across all domains.

The PLA Navy is also continuing to expand the size and scope of its crewed surface and underwater fleets with increasingly more advanced and capable designs. This is backed by massive domestic shipbuilding capacity that has increasingly prompted concerns among Western navies, including the U.S. Navy.

Time will ultimately tell whether or not CSSCs drone submarine model at Zhuhai evolved into an operational capability, but there are signs that active work on the design may be underway already.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com
GLENVIEW, Ill.  Police in Glenview arrested a resident Monday after the department said he committed a hate crime against his former doctor due to their perceived religion.

Randy A. Silver, 68, of Glenview, faces Cook County States Attorneys Office-approved charges for hate crime, harassment through electronic communication and resisting arrest following an investigation that dates back to Wednesday, Oct. 30.

Randy A. Silver (Photo: Glenview Police Department)

According to police, Silver sent harassing text messages to his former doctor due to their perceived religion. Police add that Silver also left a threatening voicemail on the doctors voicemail.

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Police offered no further details.

Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines

Glenview police said the incident appeared to be isolated and no known threat to the public exists.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Seven weeks after Hurricane Helene damaged parts of the southeast, students in one western North Carolina county are still out of school.

That will change soon as schools in Yancey County will reopen for classes on Monday.

Its great, its good for the soul, its good for morale, Brent Laws, principal of Burnsville Elementary School said to Channel 2s Bryan Mims.

Yancey County is one of the last school systems in western North Carolina to get its schools back open. Students in the rural district northeast of Asheville have not been to class since Sept. 25.

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Teachers and staff at Burnsville Elementary spent Thursday getting their classrooms ready and hosting an open house for families.

Ashley Deyton has four children enrolled in Yancey County schools.

It kind of worries you because theres been a huge gap in what they should have been learning, and theyre going back and theyre not getting all that time back, she said. So all these kids are gonna be behind, Im afraid.

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Catastrophic flooding from Helene wiped away so many small mountain roads across the county. They had to be repaired adequately enough for buses and students to travel safely. Two schools did not have power or water until last week, Laws said.

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Remote learning was not feasible because communications systems were down and power was out.

Learning is so important, but sometimes you have to prioritize things, and wellness and well-being came first, Laws said. So we were trying to meet all the students needs: physical, emotional and social needs.

The school served as a distribution site for necessities, and other schools opened as shelters. Laws said his staff spent weeks checking on students and their families, some of them lost their homes. He said its impossible to make up for all the lost time and instruction.

Were just gonna have to make up instruction in the classroom when students are ready for it, he said. Were not adding any time to the day or going to school on weekends.

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One school, Micaville Elementary, will remain closed. The school, built in the 1930s, sustained flood damage thats beyond repair. Its 198 students will merge with two other schools, including Burnsville Elementary.

It feels like the unexpected death of a family member, said Micaville principal Melanie Bennett. The building is very special to the community, to the county, and its sad that we cant return to our building.

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On Monday, many of her students will show up at Burnsville Elementary for homework and hugs. All the desks in all the classrooms are covered with new bookbags and school supplies, even blankets. The library will accommodate two classes to absorb the extra students from Micaville.

We have a lot more students, a lot more teachers, and I think a lot more excitement, said the schools media specialist, Julie McKinney.

McKinney said she longs for the chatter laughter and energy of the students.

I think just seeing the kids, she said. I have worried so much about them.

Laws said while students have lost valuable instruction time, teachers will do their best to ensure they dont fall behind.

Learning is gonna happen. Its gonna happen on its own time, Laws said.

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South Dakota Sen. John Thune was elected Senate Republican leader on Wednesday, replacing Mitch McConnell in the role after his record-setting run of 18 years. Thune, whos served as McConnells No. 2 since 2019, beat out Texas Sen. John Cornyn on a second ballot, 29 to 24. A third candidate, Florida Sen. Rick Scott, came in last place on the first ballot and was eliminated from contention.

Thunes elevation signals a slight but meaningful check on the incoming MAGAfication of the federal government. While some of President-elect Trumps most vocal supporters both inside and outside the Senate had pushed Scotts candidacy hard in the past week, the Senate stayed its course, selecting as McConnells successor the one who would stray the least from McConnells old-guard GOP. If theres still a redoubt in the GOP where outside pressure from right-wing media cant get the job done, its secret-ballot popularity contests in the Senate.

A lot of people focus on policy, a lot of people focus on process, Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Thune supporter, told reporters after the vote. But when youre a peer-to-peer vote, its also based on relationships. And Thune has done a really good job building relationships, and so has Cornyn. And thats what it really comes down to: relationships.

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Thune came to the Senate 20 years ago with a bang. He defeated Sen. Tom Daschle, then the Senate Democratic leader. He worked his way up to the No. 3 position by 2012, and succeeded a term-limited Cornyn as the Republican whip in 2019. In that respect, Cornyn was as much a victim of peaking at the wrong time as anything else. As a long list of once-potential Nancy Pelosi successors will understand well, McConnell just hung on to his position for a little longer than was ideal. No wonder that one of the brightest lines of separation among the top two candidates was Cornyns support of party leader term limits, an idea that repulses McConnell.

Thune, an amiable 63-year-old more comfortable talking about the Senate calendar than he is castigating his opposition as demonically possessed, gave his best shot at an opening partisan broadside in a press conference after the Senate GOP conclave.

The American people have loudly rejected the failed policies of the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda, Thune said. We have a mandate from the American people, a mandate not only to clean up the mess left by the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda, but also to deliver on President Trumps priorities. Thune, who in the past has stayed around to take questions from reporters for 10 or 15 minutes after GOP leadership press conferences, this time took three on-camera questions from reporters and went on his way. He has begun to enter his McConnellesque bunker.

While Thune doesnt have the acrimonious history with Trump that McConnell had, they dont fit hand-in-glove. Thune, while patient, seemed agonized during the first Trump administration whenever he was asked about whatever stupid tweet Trump had put out at 7 in the morning. Thune is more a Chamber-of-Commerce crusader for low taxes than he is a culture warrior calling out woke capitalism; on Trumps plans for broad tariffs, especially, the two seem most mismatched. Trump and Thune most clashed in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Thune argued that Electoral College objections would go down like a shot dog in the Senate. Trump then called Thune Mitchs boy and said that he will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!! The whole thing was so exhausting to Thune that he seemed genuinely torn about running for reelection in 2022. His potential, even likely, promotion to party leader two years later won him over.

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The Trump allies on the right like Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk who were pushing for Scotts candidacy, then, werent wrong to have trust issues with Thune. When Trump put out an early loyalty test for the three candidatesinsisting that they allow recess appointments for Trump nominees, allowing them to withstand Senate scrutinyScott, after all, was the only candidate who concurred in full, while the others left it open as a possibility.

But Trump allies in right-wing media dont vote for the leader. Senators do, and Thune may have lost votes had he acceded to Trumps plan to strip the Senate of its advise-and-consent role. Trump himself, at least, was well-advised to stay neutral in the Senate leadership contest, knowing that this was one internal battle where his input would have limited effect, and where his instincts could have brought him to a place of embarrassment.

Now, however, the secret votes are over. Both Trump and his allies will have ample opportunities going forward to impose their will on the Senate. Its hard to believe, for example, that MAGAs defeat in the Senate leadership race didnt have some effect on Trumps actions in the next few hours, when he nominated Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence and Rep. Matt Gaetz to be attorney general. These nominations will present dramatic loyalty tests for the Republican Senateboth on their confirmations and, should those go down, the Senates willingness to adjourn to allow for their recess appointments. It was a good morning for the old guard. Wednesday afternoon was their reminder that things have changed.
Republicans have achieved the government trifecta  keeping control of the House as well as winning the Senate and the presidency.

It will be the first time Republicans have had full control of Congress and the White House since 2018. House Republicans have been quietly preparing their legislative agenda on tax cuts and other priorities for months, though an expected narrow majority will likely complicate those efforts, as well as Speaker Mike Johnsons bid to hold onto the gavel in a January floor vote.

The GOP held onto a slew of at-risk incumbents as results trickled in over the past week, and Republicans also picked up a few seats in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Colorado.

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But they still lost a handful of seats in New York and California.

House control has been considered a toss-up for months. Though GOP leaders were publicly confident in their ability to retain the chamber, there were also deep fears as Republicans struggled to keep up with Democratic fundraising. Unlike in 2022, GOP leaders kept their election night estimates fairly modest. They also spent months hammering on a campaign message focused on the border and the economy, betting that the two issues could be used as a wedge to squeeze vulnerable Democrats.

Partisan redistricting has meant that there are fewer competitive seats to flip, limiting the true battleground districts to just a dozen or so races on both sides. Party leaders have acknowledged that the days of 30-plus-seat majorities are over for the foreseeable future. Republicans got some help this cycle by Democrats decision to pursue a less aggressive redistricting map in New York, which was at the heart of the fight for House control. Similarly, a GOP-drawn map in North Carolina also helped offset Democratic gains elsewhere.

There's only about 45 seats in the country that are truly competitive.  And so each one of them is very competitive and very expensive and our candidates are great, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told POLITICO ahead of Election Day.

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Beyond flipping Democratic seats, Republicans also managed to hold off Democrats reach targets that appeared to be in play in the final weeks of the campaign, including keeping endangered incumbents in Iowa and Wisconsin. The House was called for Republicans on Wednesday night after the Associated Press projected Juan Ciscomani to win reelection to Arizona's 6th Congressional District.

Another major difference in the campaigns this year: Republicans were far more intentional with their candidate recruitment and which challengers they backed in the primaries than they were in 2022. House Republicans campaign arm worked closely with Trump, coordinating to boost candidates the party saw as the most likely to win the general election  a level of intervention that ultimately paid off.

Vulnerable incumbent Republicans, namely Reps. Don Bacon (Neb.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), fended off primary opponents who would likely have been weak general election candidates. In Alaska, the party managed to coalesce behind one Republican this year to avoid problems they had in 2022 with the states ranked-choice voting system. (That race has not yet been called, though Republican Nick Begich leads Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola.)

On the other side of candidate recruitment, Democrats relied on a handful of repeat candidates who narrowly lost in 2022. The party had thought they would benefit from existing campaign infrastructure and name ID among voters. But that didnt work out for many candidates, and some were likely dragged down by a lack of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.




CCTV: According to the International Trade Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean 2024 recently issued by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), China is an important trade partner and the fastest-growing export market for Latin America and the Caribbean. In the 2000-2022 period, goods trade between the region and China expanded 35 times, while the regions total trade with the world only increased fourfold. So how do you comment on the trade and economic cooperation between China and Latin America and the Caribbean?



Lin Jian: Mutual benefit and win-win results are the overarching principle for the growth of the relations between China and Latin America and the Caribbean. Just as the report of ECLAC indicates, the trade volume between China and LAC countries has kept increasing in recent years, which reached US$489 billion last year. In the first three quarters this year, trade in goods between both sides hit US$427.4 billion, up by 7.7 percent year on year, and the total amount for the whole year is expected to exceed US$500 billion.

Since the beginning of the new century, the regions trade in goods with China has grown at a much faster rate than that with the world, underlying the highly complementary nature of the economies of both sides. Due to the advantage of providing off-season supply, Chile, which is farthest from China in this region, has become Chinas second largest source of fresh fruit imports and Chilean cherries are now star products here in China. Also, Chinas new energy industrial chain offers a more affordable resolution for the regions green transformation. So far, China has five free trade partners in the region and has signed an early harvest arrangement of free trade agreement with Honduras and concluded substantial negotiations to upgrade the free trade agreement with Peru.

The surge of trade in goods between China and Latin America and the Caribbean is supported by the huge market and bright prospect of the two sides. China is the worlds second largest economy and largest consumer market, with a middle-income group totaling over 400 million people, and that number is expected to hit 800 million. Latin America and the Caribbean has a population of 660 million with younger demographic composition and boasts enormous potential for economic development. As China and Latin America and the Caribbean see each other as opportunities for development, we believe that with the concerted effort of both sides, our trade in goods will continue to grow at a high speed and achieve win-win results at a higher level.

Bloomberg: US officials said in a statement on Wednesday that Chinese state-sponsored hackers carried out a campaign that breached multiple telecommunications companies. The New York Times has reported that the hackers are believed to have targeted the phones of President-elect Donald Trump, running mate J.D. Vance and Trumps family members, as well as members of Vice President Kamala Harriss campaign staff. Does the Foreign Ministry have any comments on these allegations?



Lin Jian: Chinas position on cybersecurity is consistent. We have no interest in using the internet to interfere in other countries internal affairs and oppose spreading China-related disinformation out of political agenda.

Reuters: Sources say that former Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen is planning a visit to Canada next week. Do you have any comment?



Lin Jian: Chinas position on the Taiwan question is consistent and clear. We firmly oppose any Taiwan independence separatist visiting countries with diplomatic ties with China under any pretext. We urge relevant country to abide by the one-China principle and uphold the political foundation of bilateral relations with concrete action.

Shenzhen TV: Its reported that the Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson said that the Philippine military is considering purchasing the Typhon Mid-Range Capability missile system. Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. also said, We do indeed plan to acquire capabilities of such sort, and the system increases deterrence. He added, We will not compromise with our right to acquire any such kind of capabilities in the future within our territory. Whats your comment?



Lin Jian: On the US deployment of Mid-Range Capability missile system in the Philippines, China has made clear our opposition more than once. Let me stress again that the Philippines, by bringing in this offensive strategic weapon, is enabling a country outside the region to fuel tensions and antagonism in this region, and incite geopolitical confrontation and arms race. Such a move is provocative and dangerous, and it is an extremely irresponsible choice to its own people and people of all Southeast Asian countries, to history, and to regional security. What the region needs is peace and prosperity, not the missile system or confrontation. We once again urge the Philippines to heed the call from regional countries and their peoples, correct its wrongdoings as soon as possible, quickly pull out the Typhon missile system as publicly pledged, and stop going further down the wrong path.

Bloomberg: Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar, that Ukraine allies will look to pressure China over North Koreas growing support for Russias war during the G20 summit in Brazil. What is Chinas stance on North Koreas involvement in the war in Ukraine? And how will China respond to this type of pressure?



Lin Jian: This is a hypothetical question. I do not have a comment on that. What I can tell you is that Chinas position on the Ukraine issue is consistent and clear, and the constructive role China has played is widely recognized by the international community.

NHK: It is learned that Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is expected to meet with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Peru. This will be his first meeting with President Xi Jinping as the Japanese Prime Minister. Can you provide more details and share Chinas expectation for the meeting?



Lin Jian: I have no information to share at the moment on the meeting you mentioned.
(Bloomberg) -- ASML Holding NV, the Dutch maker of advanced chip-making machines that are critical to global supply chains, reaffirmed its long-term revenue outlook as it bets on an artificial intelligence-driven boom in semiconductor demand.

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The Dutch firm projected that sales in 2030 will range from 44 billion ($46 billion) to 60 billion, in line with its previous forecast, according to a statement issued as part of the companys investor day on Thursday.

The outlook is meant to reassure investors after the companys order intake significantly missed analysts estimates in the third quarter, sparking a selloff in its shares and those of other chip-related businesses. Chipmakers such as Nvidia Corp. have enjoyed a boom in demand for their AI chips. But sales to other key buyers, including automakers and mobile phone and PC manufacturers, have remained mired in a prolonged slump.

ASML shares rose as much as 7.1% in Amsterdam on Thursday, the biggest intraday gain since July 31.

A few weeks ago, we had a bit of a conservative view for 2025, Chief Executive Officer Christophe Fouquet said at the investor day. In many ways, this is related to the change of the market. But when it comes to 2030, we are still very, very bullish.

ASML expects growing AI demand will help boost global chip sales to over $1 trillion by 2030, which it said represents an annual growth rate in the semiconductor market of about 9%.

ASML is the only company in the world that makes the kind of lithography machines that help semiconductor companies in turn produce the advanced chips powering everything from Apple Inc.s smartphones to Nvidias AI accelerators. As such, it is often viewed as a bellwether for the broader industry and an early indicator of global semiconductor demand.

Manufacturing more cutting-edge AI chips will mean more of ASMLs advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography machines will be needed by semiconductor makers. The company foresees double-digit growth in EUV spending annually through 2030 for both advanced logic and DRAM.

The company forecast a gross margin of between approximately 56% and 60% in 2030.

While ASML in October cut its sales outlook for next year, it said on Thursday it will maintain its spending priorities. ASML currently has an ongoing 12 billion buyback through 2025 of which only 14% has been repurchased.
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS)  Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is joining community members in pardoning a turkey for this Thanksgiving holiday.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer pardons turkey named Aiden Cluckinson. (WLNS) Gov. Gretchen Whitmer pardons turkey named Aiden Cluckinson. (WLNS) Gov. Gretchen Whitmer pardons turkey named Aiden Cluckinson. (WLNS)

The celebration begins this afternoon and the turkey will receive Gov. Whitmers pardon and travel to the Saginaw Childrens Zoo.

Gov. Whitmer announced the pardon of the turkey who is now named Aiden Cluckinson, in honor of Detroit Lion Aiden Hutchinson.

Whitmer announced a turkey naming contest earlier this week. Last year, a turkey named Dolly Pardon was chosen, and in 2022, Mitch E. Gander was the top pick.

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Name this years pardoned turkey in Michigan

Whitmer says this year she looks forward to seeing names inspired by the Detroit Lions.

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President-elect Donald Trump has given two wealthy entrepreneurs a mission that has eluded many other occupants of the White House: Make the U.S. government smaller and more efficient.

No one knows much about how Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy plan to accomplish that task, only that they and the president they will serve want big reforms not beholden to precedent.

In naming the space and electric car tycoon and the healthcare entrepreneur to head a new Department of Government Efficiency, Trump said he expected them to drive radical change, something like the Manhattan Project, the government initiative that created the atomic bomb during World War II.

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This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people! Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, said in a statement. Ramaswamy said during his run for the Republican presidential nomination that he planned to advance a radical dream that would cut three-quarters of a U.S government workforce that numbers about 2.2 million.

Read more: Trump says he will nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to be attorney general

In his announcement Tuesday, Trump said he expected the major cuts and new efficiencies in bloated agencies to be put in place by July 4, 2026  a deadline coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The incoming president, who takes office Jan. 20, said the two businessmen  among his most vocal surrogates during the presidential campaign  will operate outside the federal bureaucracy.

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But much about how Musk and Ramaswamy will proceed remains a mystery. They will be heading a department (whose DOGE acronym matches Musks favored cryptocurrency) with no employees and no budget. It's unclear if their effort will be privately funded or paid for by taxpayers. Also left unsaid: how many people will assist the two magnates and how that staff will be paid.

Experts in the federal bureaucracy emphasized that the most successful past reorganizations  particularly one driven by President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore  have relied on those inside the bureaucracy to figure out how to maintain services while cutting staffing and saving money.

Musk, the worlds richest person, will face a particular onus to show that his decisions are not designed to benefit his own interests. SpaceX has secured billions of dollars of contracts with the U.S. government, and the company, along with the billionaires other businesses, has been the subject of investigations by federal agencies.

Read more: Republican John Thune of South Dakota is elected the next Senate majority leader

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Working in government "begins with this idea that you're a steward of the public's good, said Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan organization that advises the government. One critical way to undermine that is by having conflicts of interest. We need to be on the alert for people who are advising the government who may have their own personal interests. Plainly, with a figure like Elon Musk, who has such broad holdings, that's particularly important.

Musks disdain for the government, long apparent, has become a frequent subject of his social media posts since Trumps election last week.

The world is suffering slow strangulation by overregulation, he wrote on his social media site, X, on Wednesday. Every year, the noose tightens a little more. We finally have a mandate to delete the mountain of choking regulations that do not serve the greater good.

In another post, he added, "Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!"

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Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, offered a far different interpretation. We all depend on these regulations to protect our air, water, workers, children's safety, and so much more, the group said in a statement. Cutting red tape is shorthand for getting rid of the safeguards that protect us in order to benefit corporate interests.

The organization worried that Musk would use his position to benefit himself. If anyone had any doubts whether the Trump government aims to serve regular people or the billionaires, the statement said, they should now be resolved.

At a late October rally for Trump in New York, Musk pledged he would find at least $2 trillion in cuts from the federal government.

Washington budget watchers deemed that goal fantastical. U.S. government spending stands at about $6.75 trillion annually, with the vast majority of the money going in direct support to Americans. More than $5 trillion goes each year to Social Security, Medicare, federal employee retirement, unemployment compensation and the like.

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A $2-trillion cut probably would mean forced reductions in direct-benefit programs, a move that most politicians in both parties have resisted.

If they had some sense of where all that money goes, directly to beneficiaries, they never would have thrown around that $2-trillion figure, said Elaine C. Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and head of efficiency initiatives under Clinton.

Trump already has signaled some of the cuts he hopes to make. In a video on social media, he promised very early in the administration to close the federal Department of Education and leave educational matters to the states. Musk followed that proposal with an X message: Good idea.

It remains unknown what would become of certain popular Department of Education programs, such as Pell Grants to college students, if Trump goes ahead with the plan to disband the department.

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Trump has also signaled that he wants to eliminate the bureaucrats who set accreditation standards for colleges and universities. He called those workers Marxist, diversity, equity and inclusion bureaucrats.

Kamarck agreed that the time has come for a thorough review of the federal government. She said the trick is to make agencies more efficient, without harming the programs that help people.

You can't just get rid of all the stuff in the federal government without people screaming their heads off, Kamarck said. The sooner they realize that, the smarter theyll be about how to move forward.

Read more: Emboldened Trump returns to Washington to meet with Biden, announce controversial Cabinet picks

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Also targeted by Ramaswamy for elimination when he was a presidential candidate: the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the Department of Agricultures Food and Nutrition Service.

If such cuts came to pass, its unclear what would happen to the programs those agencies oversee, including hunger reduction and nutrition programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Musk hinted at another possible target in an X posting this week, asking whether tax dollars should go to National Public Radio. Republican politicians have regularly targeted NPR, accusing the radio network of a liberal bias.

But any savings there would be relatively small. NPR says that only about 10% of its annual budget of about $291 million comes from direct and indirect support from federal, state and local governments.

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Ronald Reagan was the first president who promised to drain the swamp in Washington, reducing federal bureaucracy. In 1982, the Republican president appointed chemical manufacturing CEO J. Peter Grace to head a panel to study how the government could be made more efficient.

The Grace Commission made proposals it said would save almost $300 billion over three years, though the Congressional Budget Office and General Accounting Office estimated only about one-third of that amount would be saved. Some, but not all, commission recommendations were implemented.

A decade later, Clinton proposed a review to reinvent government, later creating the National Partnership for Reinventing Government. Between 1993 and 2000, the initiative cut the federal workforce by 426,200, yielding $136 billion in savings to taxpayers. The effort benefited in large part from the rise of computers and automation, allowing machines to complete tasks once performed by human clerks.

Kamarck said its crucial to get insiders to help with any changes. It is career bureaucrats who know, better than anyone else, what works and what doesnt, she said.

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A 2002 Gallup Poll found that 60% of the public said they trusted the government to do what is right about always or most of the time. That was a vast improvement from the 23% who held that view a decade earlier. But by 2010, the trust figure had dropped down to 19%.

Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, praised Trump for renewing efforts to dismantle the deep state.

Musk has shown no hesitation, in the private sector, to eliminate jobs he considers superfluous. After buying Twitter in 2022 (and renaming it X), he cut staffing from nearly 8,000 to about 1,500. He contended last year that the site was regaining advertisers and roughly breaking even.

A former Tesla executive, Rohan Patel, used X to praise Musks phenomenal track record in business. But as to his new role as government reduction specialist, Patel added: It is truly weird to think anyone can do these things as a government volunteer."

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.  The State of Missouri continues to experience a child care crisis, but the governor-elect said he will make finding a solution a priority.

According to Missouris business community, the state is losing out on more than a billion dollars due to a lack of child care. Of Missouris 114 counties, 94 of them are in a child care desert, causing employees to leave voluntarily to take care of their kids.

Over the summer, Gov. Mike Parson said its a problem the next governor will have to deal with.

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I wont be here next year, but these legislators will, and it has to be a priority of the state of Missouri to be able to take care of our kids, Parson said in July.

Over the course of two years, the state has lost 1,100 child care providers, leaving some counties without a facility.

We know as a state we lose out on over $1.35 billion annually because of child care shortages, Missouri Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Kara Corches said. If a parent cannot go to work, whether its just for the day that their child care provider doesnt have enough teachers to be able to keep the rooms open, they cant go to work; they dont earn wages. You pay taxes on wages, so that is a direct loss to the state.

For the second year in a row, the General Assembly failed to pass tax credits to help businesses, families, and child care providers. Many blame it on the infighting in the Senate, but Governor-Elect Mike Kehoe said its important to him to expand access to affordable child care.

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When can St. Louis expect to see the first snow this year?

I tell people its a personal issue to me, Kehoe said. My mother is a single mother and I can tell you first hand what it means when a mom has to decide whether to stay home and not make enough money to buy groceries or go to the store and leave her child at home.

Corches said child care tax credits will be the organizations top priority in the upcoming legislative session which starts in January.

Other states are trying to tackle this and its important, if we want to keep families in Missouri, we want to keep businesses in Missouri, we have to comprehensively address our child care crisis, Corches said.

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The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) said its also putting the issue top of mind.

Weve got to find affordable, high-quality opportunities for that population of kids, DESE Commissioner Karla Eslinger said. Not only for the benefit of the kids, because we know what happens in a high quality program, but for families, for the communities.

Back in August, voters rejected a constitutional amendment, known as Amendment 1, to exempt child care facilities from paying property taxes.

As for providers, within the budget this year, there is money to $54.8 million for child care subsidy rates and $26 million for private child care providers to offer prekindergarten programs to students qualifying for free and reduced lunch.

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Greater Cincinnati agencies and advocates that help immigrants are unsure who will be affected, or when, by "mass deportations" that President-elect Donald Trump has vowed.

For the moment, they have this general advice to the region's immigrants: brace yourself.

Workplace raids, family separation and policy changes along the U.S.-Mexican border are just a few things Trump's incoming "border czar" Tom Homan, former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, has laid out in the past few days.

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Trump spent his campaign stoking fears about immigrants and, after he was elected, he said the mass deportations would begin on his first day in office. Polls showed worries over high illegal immigration were a concern for voters, and both Ohio and Kentucky overwhelmingly backed Trump.

Exactly who will be targeted remains unclear because the incoming administration has not clarified all the points of its immigration initiatives, like whether immigrants will be able to maintain their current legal status as workers or asylum seekers.

A list of resources for immigrants is provided at the end of this article.

Uncertainty leads to 'hysteria' among some

The uncertainty has created "mass hysteria" among immigrants whether their status in the country is legal or illegal, Theresa Cruz, president and CEO of FIESTA NKY, told The Enquirer.

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She said the small nonprofit, which connects the Hispanic community and immigrants with local resources, has already been talking with families in the area about what it can do to prepare for more strict immigration laws.

"My heart hurts and I tell them, 'I don't know what you're going through. I am so sorry. I don't. But I really want to hear and I want to listen, and I want to be there for you. How can I help you?'" she said.

Cincinnati Compass, an agency that promotes the economic social inclusion of migrants in the Cincinnati area, has already heard from some other partners that there's been an uptick in asylum applications, as well as requests to expedite applications that have already been submitted, according to Executive Director Bryan Wright.

Wright said Cincinnati Compass already dealt with similar pressures during Trump's first term and is gearing up once again to protect vulnerable communities.

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Still, Trump's immigration rhetoric on the campaign trail has spread fear among undocumented immigrants, mixed-status families and even some naturalized U.S. citizens.

"We have our hand in a lot of different areas and across the board, there's fear, uncertainty, confusion," Wright said.

The Enquirer asked organizations in the Greater Cincinnati are how they are preparing  and what the region's immigrants can do to prepare  for changes to immigration laws and policies. Here's what they said:

Families pick up produce at Santa Maria Community Services in East Price Hill, Nov. 13, 2024. The food comes from Free Store Food Bank. Santa Maria offers a variety of services from education, language, parenting, food and immigration help. No one knows what will happen in 2025 under President-elect Trump, but they are encouraging their immigrant population to get their paperwork in order and get passports for their children.

Create a plan  now

During the last Trump administration, families were separated suddenly when parents were detained by ICE. And people didn't have legal documents or information readily available to present the best cases for themselves.

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To prepare for the worst-case scenario of a sudden deportation, Cruz said immigrants need to do two main things:

Have legal documents prepared to give someone custody over children while immigration proceedings are happening.

Have documents ready and in an easily available place. That includes any documents related to one's legal status in the country (permanent residency cards, naturalization papers, refugee travel documents, certificate of citizenship), employment authorization card, education records, or marriage license, for instance.

Connect with immigration resource providers and talk to a lawyer.

Immigration attorneys opinions differ on likelihood of mass deportations

Lexington-based Maxwell Street Legal Clinic could be one option for financially strapped immigrants living in Kentucky. It has provided low-cost services to immigrants for more than 20 years.

Abigail Rundell, deputy program director and staff attorney at the clinic, said she's been preparing for Trump-era immigration law changes and talking with other immigrant resource providers.

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"The tone is, brace yourself," she said.

Not only did Trump dramatically change immigration practices during his last presidential term, but there were some plans he didn't get to and could focus on in the next four years.

Immigration rights activists take part in a rally in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC on November 12, 2019. - The US Supreme Court hears arguments on November 12, 2019 on the fate of the "Dreamers," an estimated 700,000 people brought to the country illegally as children but allowed to stay and work under a program created by former president Barack Obama.Known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, the program came under attack from President Donald Trump who wants it terminated, and expired last year after the Congress failed to come up with a replacement. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

For instance, people who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children before 2008 have been protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, commonly called DACA, which allows them to live and work in the United States.

"We have started to call all of them  come in and get a renewal now, even if you're not close to expiring, just because you can have approval for as long as possible," Rundell said.

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She said it would be unlikely that DACA would be rescinded, though it's possible people won't be able to get their status renewed if the program is ended.

Christopher Pogue, an immigration attorney from the Cincinnati area, said he is skeptical whether mass deportation will come to fruition but added that even the threat of it could be used to negotiate new immigration laws entirely.

"Will there be mass deportations? Probably not," Pogue said. "Much more likely you're just going to see more money and infrastructure pointed at the (immigration) system."

He said there's not enough funding or human resources available currently to implement the kind of mass deportation policies Trump has referenced.

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But still, Pogue advised immigrants concerned about their future to seek legal advice.

Cincinnati Compass, Immigrant and Refugee Law Center prepare amid the unknowns

Cincinnati Compass is already connecting immigrants to community partners, such as local attorneys, the Immigrant and Refugee Law Center and Catholic Charities, so they can take advantage of their resources and seek legal advice.

With help from these community partners, Wright said Cincinnati Compass plans to focus on ensuring immigrants are provided with accurate information so they know exactly what to do should they be affected by the administration's new policies.

Cincinnati Compass is also already having conversations with local school districts and employers to prepare for potential ICE raids that could occur in the near future.

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At this point, however, there is still a lot of unknown when it comes to what's going to happen on "Day 1" of Trump's second term, said Mayra Jackson, the executive director of the Immigrant and Refugee Law Center. She said she's already noticed a wave of panic in the community, adding that the number of phone calls the nonprofit has received has "increased dramatically" in recent days.

Much like Cruz and Wright, Jackson said the primary focus now is to prepare the immigrants for worst-case scenarios.

"We are just trying to talk to the community, get them prepared, get their documentation ready," she said. "We don't know what's going to happen on 'Day 1,' but we always want for these families to know their rights."

The Immigrant and Refugee Law Center, as well as other other organizations, are planning to host in-person presentations for immigrants to educate them about their rights, Jackson said. Details for those presentations have yet to be ironed out.

What happened last time?

President Trump implemented 472 executive actions about immigration during his four-year presidency, a report from the Migration Policy Institute said.

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That included the controversial closing of the U.S. border to some nationalities during the pandemic; a more than 50% spike in the number of charging documents issued to immigrants; and more migrant apprehensions along the southern border of the country in 2019 than in the previous decade.

Under his leadership, the report said, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security also limited asylum at the border, disqualifying migrants who failed to apply for asylum in advance and forcing other migrants to wait in Mexico until they could be seen in an immigration court.

As for the border wall he championed, only 52 miles of new primary border barriers were built where none had been built before. The 52 miles, other secondary fencing, and repairs to already existing border barriers cost the U.S. government billions.

The U.S.-Mexico border is almost 2,000 miles long.

Resources for area immigrants

This story has been updated to add video.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Trump threatens 'mass deportation.' Here are local immigrant resources
SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU)  The Greater Sioux City Press Club is offering a $1,000 scholarship to a prospective future journalist.

The $1,000 Karen A. Luken Memorial Scholarship is given by the Press Club each year to a student who has declared a major in Mass Communication, Multimedia Communication, Digital Media, Journalism, or a related field.

The deadline for this years scholarship is Dec. 1.

Applicants hoping to receive the scholarship must be a full-time sophomore, junior, or senior in college with a GPA of at least 3.0. Students attending Briar Cliff University, Buena Vista University, Dordt University, Morningside University, Northeast Community College, University of South Dakota, Wayne State College, or Western Iowa Tech will be considered.

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Leadership Siouxland celebrates 40th anniversary

Recipients will be selected based on the following parameters:

A completed online application.

A 250-word essay on why you chose to study your field.

A letter of recommendation from a department professor of your major.

An official transcript of your grades.

One to three samples of work you have done related to your field of study.

You can apply for the scholarship here.

The scholarship was named after long-time Press Club member and Sioux City Journal staffer Karen Luken. Luken had begun to fund the scholarship many years ago, and the Press Club voted to name the scholarship after her when she passed away in 2015.

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Greece is to restructure its armed forces in order to deploy more troops on its borders, the Greek Defence Minister Nikos Dendias told parliament on Thursday.

He announced a series of measures including closing 137 barracks across the country by 2025 in a bid to save money and to allow units stationed in the country's border regions to be strengthened.

He told parliament that the lessons learned from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have shown the importance of new technology. "We must switch to cyber warfare in both the offensive and defensive areas," Dendias said.

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Greece began modernizing its armed forces after its severe financial crisis ended in 2018. It has already purchased three French FDI-type frigates and 24 French Rafale fighter bombers. In the coming years, it plans to buy 20 F-35 stealth multi-role fighter jets from the United States.

Greek media has reported that Athens is also planning to install a mobile, ground-based weapons system along its eastern borders to defend against missiles and other threats from the air, in close cooperation with Israel.
By Lefteris Papadimas

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece is in talks with Israel to develop a 2 billion euro ($2.11 billion) anti-aircraft and missile defence dome, part of a wider push to modernise its armed forces as it recovers from a protracted debt crisis, Greek officials said on Thursday.

The defences would likely mimic Israel's Iron Dome and other systems that intercept short- and long-range missiles launched during strikes from its neighbours amid the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.

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Greece is keen to invest in its defences to keep up with its NATO ally and historic rival Turkey, which is also developing its own air defences, despite some improvement in relations.

"The plan is to create a multi-layer anti-aircraft and anti-drone system," one source with knowledge of the issue told Reuters after a closed door briefing with Greek Defence Minister Nikos Dendias.

"We are in discussions with Israel," the source said.

A second official confirmed the scale of the potential deal, adding that Greece needs to spend 12.8 billion euros by 2035 to modernise its armed forces.

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The air defences are part of Athens' 10-year military purchasing plan that includes acquiring up to 40 new F-35 fighter jets and drones from the U.S., and four Belharra frigates and Rafale jets from France.

"Our effort is for a quick transition of our armed forces to the 21st century," Defence Minister Dendias said before the Thursday briefing.

Greece currently uses U.S. Patriot and old Russian S-300 systems to protect its airspace.

Despite some thaw in Greece's long-troubled relations with Turkey, its much larger eastern neighbour, the two countries remain at odds on a range of issues including sea boundaries, energy resources and airspace in the eastern Mediterranean.

($1 = 0.9481 euros)

(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas; Editing by Edward McAllister and Gareth Jones)
A former Keene woman was sentenced to prison yesterday, November 12, after she was caught embezzling nearly $500,000 from her former employer.

Stephanie Pratt, 39, was sentenced to spend 30 months in prison, following 3 years of supervised release. Pratt pleaded guilty to wire fraud back on August 6.

Pratt, an office administrator for a New Hampshire-based company, had full access to the companys finances, bank accounts, and credit cards. For 6 years, Pratt stole a total of $492,325.34.

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U.S. Attorney Jane E. Young stated that Pratt used some of the money to purchase lavish tickets to see Tom Bradys return to Foxborough. Young also called her bold as Pratt began stealing from the company just 6 months removed from a prior prison sentence for embezzling $10,000 from her previous job.

Stephanie Pratt is a greedy, serial fraudster who is being sent to prison for defrauding her employer and siphoning almost half a million dollars to live well beyond her means, said Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division. Todays sentence holds Ms. Pratt responsible for her clear disdain for the law and shows how the FBI will not hesitate to go after those who victimize others for their own financial gain.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI)  Green Line Apothecary is moving on from retail pharmacy, the owners announced Tuesday.

Christine and Ken Procaccianti, who first opened Green Line Apothecary back in 2016, explained that their Providence pharmacys final day open will be Dec. 3, while their South Kingstown pharmacys will be Dec. 4.

Green Line Apothecary has entered into an agreement for its retail prescription files to be acquired, the Procacciantis explained.

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The Procacciantis said patients prescription files will be seamlessly transitioned to CVS the day after each pharmacy closes.

If you are affected, you will be able to fill your prescriptions at any CVS location convenient to you, the Procacciantis said. CVS will have all of your prescription information and they will be prepared to assist you with your future medication needs.

The Procacciantis plan on shifting away from retail pharmacy in favor of focusing on their family and other business ventures, including their ice creams, Green Line Supply, Town Made and Lineage.

Green Line Apothecarys Soda Fountain will remain open through Dec. 20 or while supplies last. The Procacciantis said Green Line products will still be available for purchase online, and their ice creams will continue to be sold by the pint at retailers and grocers across the state.

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Chevron (NYSE: CVX) stock has rallied 5.5% since the company reported third-quarter 2024 earnings on Nov. 1. The integrated oil and gas major continues to deliver solid results and return capital to shareholders through a combination of buybacks and dividends.

Chevron is projected to pay around $11.8 billion in dividends in 2024, which is even more than well-known passive income powerhouse Coca-Cola, which should end up paying around $8 billion in dividends this year.

Start Your Mornings Smarter! Wake up with Breakfast news in your inbox every market day. Sign Up For Free 

Here's why Chevron is an excellent dividend stock to consider buying now.

Image source: Getty Images.

Managing through the cycle

International energy giants can't control oil and gas prices, but they can improve their production portfolios to ensure they can achieve good profit margins even at lower prices. Chevron has been doing just that.

On its third-quarter earnings call, Chevron said that around 75% of its locations can break even below $50 per barrel. For context, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices, the U.S. benchmark, averaged $77.58 per barrel in 2023. And even during the collapse in 2020, WTI still averaged $39.16. So, building a portfolio around $50 oil provides a nice margin for error to do well even in a lower oil price environment.

In its earnings release, Chevron said that asset sales in Canada, Congo, and Alaska are part of its plan to divest $10 billion to $15 billion by 2026, with further structural changes expected to reduce costs by $2 billion to $3 billion from 2024 to the end of 2026. So Chevron's breakeven could fall even more in the coming years.

For the recent quarter, Chevron grew worldwide net oil equivalent production by 7% thanks to higher U.S. and Permian Basin production. The higher production helped offset lower oil and gas prices. All told, Chevron's upstream earnings only fell 20% compared to third-quarter 2023. But overall earnings came in at just $2.48 per share compared to $3.48 per share in the same quarter last year -- mainly due to a substantial slowdown in Chevron's downstream business.

Still, Chevron's free cash flow (FCF) for the first three quarters of 2024 was $10.7 billion compared to $11.7 billion for the same period last year. The company's ability to generate substantial earnings and FCF even in a mid-cycle price environment showcases why Chevron has an elite upstream portfolio.

Returning capital to shareholders

Like most oil and gas companies, Chevron's profits evaporated during the COVID-19-induced downturn. In fact, it reported a net loss of $5.54 billion in 2020. Despite the loss, Chevron not only kept paying a dividend, but also raised the payout as it has done for 37 consecutive years.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.  Federal prosecutors said long-term Social Security fraud ended with a Greenbrier man receiving a federal prison sentence.

Officials said 56-year-old Roy David Lykins of Greenbrier had fraudulently collected more than $249,000 in Social Security benefits beginning in 2001. A federal judge sentenced him to 19 months in prison, then two years of supervised release.

Little Rock methamphetamine ring leader sentenced to over 16 years in federal prison

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Prosecutors said Lykins had applied for disability insurance and then worked as a farm hand using falsified records to hide his additional income.

Investigators said Lykins applied for disability insurance in October 2001, stating he could only walk 35 to 50 feet, not take care of his personal hygiene and not follow or understand instructions. Officials said he received insurance payments from Social Security from 2002 to 2005, which included instructions that he report any additional income.

A federal investigation revealed Lynkins worked for pay as a farmhand in Red Oak, Arkansas, from 2005 to 2018. He concealed the earnings by convincing his employer to issue paychecks in his wifes name using her Social Security number.

Lynkins reported no earnings through 2022, officials said.

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Arkansas rapper Bankroll Freddie sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison for drug, firearm charges

Officials said if Lynkins had reported his earnings, his Social Security insurance payments would have ended. Because he did not report, the Social Security Administration calculated it suffered a $249,166.10 loss. Since his benefits included Medicare, which also would have been terminated if he had reported, the Department of Health and Human Services calculated it lost $56,227.40.

United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas Jonathan D. Ross said the sentencing should serve as a warning to others.

This defendant knowingly concealed his earnings and was untruthful about the status of his disability, resulting in the receipt of a significant amount of undeserved money and benefits, Ross said. Please let this be a warning to those who seek to engage in similar conduct: our office will hold you accountable and seek significant penalties.

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A federal grand jury indicted Lykins on Aug. 3, 2023, and charged him with one count of theft of government property and one count of making a false statement. On Jan. 24, Lykins pleaded guilty to theft of government property in exchange for dismissal of the remaining charge.

Owner of Arkansas tree trimming service given federal prison time for tax fraud; did not report more than $3 million in revenue

The Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General investigated the case.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK.
GREENFIELD, Mass. (WWLP)  A man accused in the killing of 35-year-old Christopher Hairston has pleaded not guilty to murder and several other charges in connection with a series of criminal acts earlier this year.

Greenfield bank supports childrens advocacy center expansion

Taaniel Herberger-Brown, 42, entered the plea Wednesday in Franklin Superior Court where he faces charges of murder, two counts of malicious destruction of property, three counts of assault and battery, two counts of kidnapping, and one charge of unlawful possession of a firearm as an armed career criminal.

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According to the Northwestern District Attorneys Office, the murder charge stems from the discovery of Hairstons decomposed body in April at Herberger-Browns apartment on Chapman Street in Greenfield. Hairston, formerly of Pittsfield and Greenfield, was found dead on April 22 during a welfare check by Greenfield Police.

Investigators tracked Herberger-Brown to Albany, New York, where he was arrested and later returned to Massachusetts to face charges. Due to the condition of Hairstons body, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner could not determine the exact cause of death.

The other charges against Herberger-Brown relate to separate incidents earlier in 2024. The assault and battery and kidnapping charges involved another victim and allegedly occurred in February at the same apartment. The malicious destruction charges are connected to property damage inside his apartment and a laundry room in March and April.

Herberger-Brown was held without bail. A bail hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 7, 2025.

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.

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GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT)  The Greenville Fire and Rescue Department worked on technical water rescue training Wednesday at Wildwood Park.

They do this quarterly to make sure all the units are up to date. This training is unique as some of the crews were able to pass on experience from helping out Western N.C. after Hurricane Helene.

This morning, our team is taking the opportunity to do some rope rigging, crossing some water, and a lot of this is lessons learned from when we were deployed into the Western part of the state recently so we are able to bring back some of the lessons learned that we have to the rest of the team members, Program Manager and Task Force 10 Leader Captain Brad Johnston said.

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Multiple groups came together to receive the training.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WNCT.
HARTSVILLE, S.C. (WBTW)  A Hartsville school is the No. 1 ranked public high school in South Carolina, according to Niche, an organization that touts itself as the market leader in connecting colleges and schools with students and families.

Niche also ranked the South Carolina Governors School for Science & Mathematics in Hartsville as the No. 1 college prep public high school in the state and the No. 8 public high school in the U.S. The school also has the highest-rated teachers in the state.

These accolades reflect GSSMs commitment to providing students across the state with top-tier education, fostering academic excellence, and preparing them for success in higher education and beyond, the school said in a news release.

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Niche ranks nearly 100,000 schools and districts based on statistics from public data sources including the U.S. Education Department and the U.S. Census, combined with millions of reviews and ratings from students, parents, and alumni.

As our amazing faculty and staff continue to seek out and serve the most talented and motivated students in South Carolina, it is humbling to be recognized for our efforts, said Danny Dorsel, the schools president and a 1990 graduate. However, the true recognition goes to the students and the hard work they put forth on a daily basis. Recognition should also go to the families and previous schools of our students who helped form them into the outstanding learners that they are today.

The school, founded in 1988, officers more than 50 STEM classes and opportunities to study everything from robotics to biochemistry, while allowing committed students to devote themselves to their interests and prepare for bright futures, according to its website.

Our mission to bring world-class STEM education to students across South Carolina challenges us to search communities large and small for those exceptional students who will one day lead the states knowledge economy, a mission statement on the schools website says.

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Niche uses a variety of factors in its rankings, including:

Academic performance: Graduation rates, college enrollment, standardized test scores, and AP exam pass rates

Teacher quality: Student-teacher ratios, teacher salary, and teacher diversity

College readiness: SAT/ACT scores, college acceptance rates, and the percentage of students enrolling in college after graduation

Student and parent reviews: Insights into school culture, satisfaction, and the overall learning environment

* * *

Dennis Bright is the Digital Executive Producer at News13. He joined the team in May 2021. Dennis is a West Virginia native and a graduate of Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. Follow Dennis on, Facebook, X, formerly Twitter, and read more of his work here.

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PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Residents of Solino and Nazon, central neighborhoods in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, fled their homes on Thursday as gangs spread to one of the few remaining areas of town not already under their control.

A coalition of gangs known as Viv Ansanm has been cementing their hold over the country while the political leadership has been wracked by infighting and a long-delayed foreign security mission has made scarce progress.

Reuters on Thursday witnessed crowds of residents running down the streets, many carrying suitcases, backpacks and small children as cars packed to the brim sped past.

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It was unclear immediately how many people had fled, though the neighborhoods appeared to quickly empty out. Local media reported that the security situation had worsened after a police officer in the area was killed.

More than 700,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Haiti due to the extended conflict, according to the International Organization for Migration. Thousands of people have been killed amid reports of widespread sexual violation, ransom kidnappings and extortion, while some 6,000 people have been plunged into famine-level hunger.

Prime Minister Garry Conille was removed from his post by the country's transitional presidential council this week after just a few months in office, with infighting between council members slowing progress on tackling security.

The United States banned U.S. airlines from flying to Haiti for a month after commercial airplanes were struck by gunfire.

(Reporting by Harold Isaac, Marckinson Pierre and Sarah Morland; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4)  As President-elect Donald Trump is naming picks for his administration, many are wondering if he will pick anyone from Utah.

To get a better idea of what it may look like  and what it would mean if a Utahn were asked to be part of the Cabinet  ABC4.com stopped by the Hinckley Institute of Politics.

Jason Perry, the director of the Hinckley Institute, said that a Utahn being tapped for Trumps administration is entirely possible.

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Matt Gaetz is Trumps pick for attorney general

We have some very high-profile names  people we know well in the state of Utah  that are on the list theyre talking about in D.C., Perry said.

Perry said Utahns dont often serve on a presidential Cabinet  but it isnt unheard of. One example he gave was former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who left Utah to run the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health and Human Services.

It happens because people do like Utahns, and once theyre in these positions, it just enhances our reputation, Perry said.

So, what would happen if a high-profile name  like Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)  were chosen for a role in the Trump administration?

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It just doesnt mean well get a new senator  sometimes it means we lose a lot of seniority out there as well, which, you know, Washington, D.C. is one of those places that runs on seniority, Perry said. If you lose a senator, we lose a prime position sometimes.

An appointment for someone who is not a Utahn could still impact the Beehive State. For example, Trump is expected to appoint Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) as United Nations ambassador.

One choice to replace Stefanik in a leadership position is Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT), but in a tweet, he said he is not planning on it.

Even so, Perry said there is a pretty good chance that Utah will be impacted by the changes in the federal government. Perry said Utahns should keep their eye on changes in agencies like the Bureau of Land Management.

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There are very few states that have as much interest in public lands than the state of Utah, he said.

However, he noted that the positions closest to the president will have the most impact on the state if someone from Utah is chosen.

Sometimes, theyre in a position where they can help the state of Utah through appropriations or grants, or just in terms of policy, Perry said. Its good to have people who we know looking out for the state in positions nationally.

Whats next?

Following the 2024 election, President-elect Trump has a transition period of roughly 75 days to prepare for his upcoming term. There are roughly 4,000 positions to fill with appointees, according to the Associated Press.

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No Utahns have been selected for roles in the Trump administration as of yet.

According to the White House website, the President of the United States appoints leaders of 15 executive departments, as well as the heads of more than 50 federal commissions and other federal offices.

Once a president appoints the leaders of the executive departments, the Senate confirms the chosen individuals. The Cabinet itself is made up of the heads of the following 15 executive departments, according to the White House:

Department of Agriculture

Department of Commerce

Department of Defense

Department of Education

Department of Energy

Department of Health and Human Services

Department of Homeland Security

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Department of the Interior

Department of Justice

Department of Labor

Department of State

Department of Transportation

Department of the Treasury

Department of Veterans Affairs

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So far, President-elect Trump has appointed Matt Gaetz as attorney general, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, and John Ratcliffe as CIA director, among other positions.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been selected to lead an advisory group that is set to focus on cutting federal spending and reducing the size of the government.

The Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022 requires that a transition process must begin five days after an election, even if the winner of the election is in dispute, the AP said. Trump is expected to build out his team by Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2025.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Seven people died after the British-flagged vessel sank when it encountered severe weather while anchored near Sicily on Aug. 19

Vf/ROPI/ZUMA Press Bayesian, the superyacht, before it sank off the coast of Italy in August 2024. Bayesian, the superyacht, before it sank off the coast of Italy in August 2024.

New details are emerging about what happened the night the Bayesian, the supposedly unsinkable superyacht, capsized off the coast of Italy.

Seven people died after the British-flagged vessel sank after encountering severe weather while anchored near Sicily on Aug. 19.

It took about 16 minutes for the 184-foot superyacht to sink 100 feet below the surface, leaving six people trapped inside, according to Impact X Nightlines Gone In 16 Minutes: Sinking of The Superyacht, which premiered Thursday, Nov. 14, exclusively on Hulu.

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Investigators believe the yacht tipped backward into the water before tilting to the right and eventually going underwater.

Related: Below Deck Captain Doesn't Believe Conspiracies About How Bayesian Sank, Offers His Insight into Tragedy

ABC The port in Sicily where Bayesian was anchored when the severe weather blew through on Aug. 19, 2024. The port in Sicily where Bayesian was anchored when the severe weather blew through on Aug. 19, 2024.

The six victims  British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, Hannah Lynch; New York City lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his wife, Neda; and Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy  did not survive.

Yacht chef Recaldo Thomas died after the boat capsized, as well.

The Bayesian was made by yachtmaker Perini Navi, which was purchased at the end of 2021 by The Italian Sea Group. CEO Giovanni Costantino has suggested that the vessel was designed to be unsinkable.

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Initially, it was reported that a tornado may have impacted the boat. But investigators now believe a downburst with winds upwards of 60 mph triggered the sinking.

Downbursts are strong localized downdrafts that fan out on the Earths surface as straight-line winds, according to the National Weather Service.

Related: Captain Who Saw Sicily Yacht Sink Says Mike Lynchs Wife Didnt Want to Leave Scene Without Husband and Daughter

Elizabeth Smith of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said strong downbursts can cause significant damage and are high-impact phenomena when they are strong.

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 bodies of the six people who were found on the boat were found in cabins on the left side of the ship, according to Impact X Nightline. This side of the yacht was the closest to the surface and where air bubbles would have been concentrated.

ABC Elizabeth Smith, PhD Research Meteorologist for NOAA , discusses downbursts on 'IMPACT x Nightline: Gone in 16 Minutes: Sinking of the Superyacht.' Elizabeth Smith, PhD Research Meteorologist for NOAA , discusses downbursts on 'IMPACT x Nightline: Gone in 16 Minutes: Sinking of the Superyacht.'

There are still many unknowns as the investigation into the Bayesians sinking continues, including if the boats keel was in the proper position, which would have given it more wiggle room to tilt significantly during a high-wind event.

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Additionally, investigators have not revealed if there were open doors and hatches on the boat, which likely would have allowed the boat to take on more water than expected, or if there was a black box onboard the vessel.

Related: Yacht Sank in Sicily Due to Endless Chain of Errors,' Ship Maker's Owner Speculates: Everything Was Predictable

The Bayesian accident was a chain of unfortunate things that strung together, Dan Leonard, co-founder and chief of design, Nuvolari Lenard said on Impact X Nightline. He compared it to an airline accident, adding, Its never because one screw fell off.

Three crew members  the captain, machine engineer and a sailor who was on watch the night of the fatal incident  are still under investigation for manslaughter and culpable shipwreck, according to the program.
(Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Olaf Scholzs decision to fire Finance Minister Christian Lindner and trigger an early election has thrown a wrench into the governments fiscal planning.

Most Read from Bloomberg

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Neither a supplementary budget for this year, including an additional 11.8 billion ($12.5 billion) in net new borrowing, nor the 2025 finance blueprint are likely to get parliamentary approval as Scholzs government no longer has a majority in the Bundestag.

Heres what that means for Germany  and Ukraine  in the coming weeks and months:

Immediate Repercussions

Joerg Kukies, Scholzs new finance minister, has sought to calm fears about a spending freeze. Germany has a transparent process of temporary budget planning that has been used multiple times, including earlier this year after a court ruling upended the governments finances.

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Government initiatives that have already been launched will move forward and all legally binding expenditures will be executed. Among other things, this includes unemployment and child benefits, as well as student grants.

No one needs to worry, Kukies said Wednesday in his first statement to the lower house of parliament since taking office. The federal government is paying its bills, and we are fully operational as far as the implementation of the 2024 budget is concerned.

Budget Adjustment

Whether Scholzs minority government can still get its budget adjustment for 2024 approved by lawmakers depends on talks between the two ruling parties, their former coalition partners  Lindners Free Democrats  and the opposition CDU/CSU alliance.

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The extra new debt of 11.8 billion in the supplementary finance plan would take the total for this year to more than 50 billion, still in line with a constitutional borrowing limit.

If the supplementary budget is rejected, we will work hard to cope with that, Kukies told lawmakers. In that case, he would tap a reserve of about 8 billion to close the financing gap, he said.

Kukies can also redirect a 4 billion slice of an unused subsidy worth around 10 billion for a planned Intel Corp. facility in eastern Germany. The US chipmaker announced in September it was postponing the new factory.

Support for Ukraine

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There is cross-party agreement to secure financing for aid earmarked for Ukraine to defend itself against Russias full-scale invasion.

Helge Braun, a CDU lawmaker who chairs the Bundestag budget committee, signaled Wednesday that Germanys backing for the government in Kyiv is not at risk.

Everything that is absolutely necessary can still be done, Braun said in an interview with public broadcaster ZDF when asked about Ukraine aid.

Next Years Finances

In terms of the 2025 budget, hopes of passing it this year have effectively been dashed by the demise of Scholzs three-party ruling alliance.

In an op-ed for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper published Wednesday, Braun suggested that, because of the timing of the election, the mechanism of provisional budget management may need to remain in place until the fall of next year.

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He said the situation in Germany is in no way comparable to a government shutdown in the US, because all statutory services will be provided, legally binding financing commitments fulfilled and projects that have been started continued. That includes just over 80% of expenditure in the federal budget, Braun said.

--With assistance from Michael Nienaber.

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Harford County Councilman Dion Guthrie on Thursday pleaded no contest to stealing funds from the union local he led for more than 50 years..

Guthrie, an 86-year-old Democrat who represented District A, accepted responsibility for a single felony theft charge by entering a nolo contendere plea in Baltimore County Circuit Court, acknowledging prosecutors had sufficient evidence to convict him without admitting guilt.

The plea meant the loss of his council seat.

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Citing the state constitution, which requires the removal of elected officials who are convicted of felonies or who plead nolo contendere, the Harford County Council said in a statement Thursday afternoon that Guthrie was removed from office. His seat is now considered vacant, the statement said.

Under the county charter, a majority of remaining council members must appoint someone to fill the vacancy from a list of at least three names from the Democratic Central Committee, the councils statement said. They has 60 days, beginning Friday, to make an appointment.

The former president and business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1501 denied the states allegations and said he would not resign from the county council. Guthries attorney, Domenic Iamele, said after the hearing Thursday morning that his client planned to serve the two remaining years of his term.

Talk about a high and a low all in the same day, Guthrie said in a phone call Thursday evening. He blamed politics and in particular Harford County Council President Patrick Vincenti, a Republican.

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Vincenti declined to say whether Guthrie would be removed from office early Thursday afternoon, saying he still needed to speak to the councilman.

Baltimore County Judge Dennis M. Robinson Jr. accepted Guthries plea. Then Robinson struck the guilty finding and granted him probation before judgment, citing Guthries age and lack of a criminal record. He will serve one year of unsupervised probation.

Prosecutors in Baltimore County charged Guthrie with stealing between $5,000 and $25,000 from the IBEW Local 1501 between Oct. 1, 2017, and Sept. 30, 2021.

Guthrie has already paid more than $23,000 in restitution to the Cockeysville-based local union after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation found that he had taken about $15,112 from the union by using its American Express card for personal use, according to the departments report. Some purchases included payments to an Ocean City beach rental in 2018 and to his Florida timeshare homeowners association.

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According to the labor departments report, he also misappropriated $45,457 from the locals health and welfare fund to pay benefits to people who didnt qualify for them, along with other expenses like personal credit cards and bibles.

Im taking responsibility. Im the president of the union, Guthrie said in court, although he denied that he had improperly spent any of the unions money. Thats why I agreed to pay this money, even though a lot of it is union money.

Guthrie also said that the union owes him close to $39,000, which he said he would donate to the local.

Guthries attorney said after the hearing that the probation before judgment means there is no finding of guilt, allowing him to continue to hold his county position.

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Spiro T. Agnew, President Nixons first vice president, also entered a no-contest plea to a tax evasion charge, Iamele said. He resigned his position the same day.

Thursday afternoon, saying he needed to speak to Guthrie first. The councils attorney Meaghan Alegi did not return a phone call Thursday.]

After Guthries remarks, Baltimore County Assistant States Attorney Adam Lippe said the state accepts the defendants apology.

If he was a younger man, the state wouldnt have offered him this type of plea, Lippe said.

Before Robinson approved the states recommendation of probation before judgment, Iamele listed Guthries medical conditions, including heart conditions and colon cancer, along with recent losses in his family.

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Iamele also argued that Guthrie had enriched the union by arranging for its purchase of a Cockeysville office and ensuring another IBEW local received a contract for work in Harford County, boosting jobs.

He not only denies taking any funds, hes happy about enriching IBEW Local 1501 and the IBEW more generally, he said.

Robinson interjected to say, Its getting to the point where it might be one day in jail for each additional word.

Terence Hanley, who according to his LinkedIn is Harford Countys Deputy Director of Parks & Recreation, also spoke in Guthries favor during the sentencing portion of the hearing, noting that Guthrie showed up at a council meeting two days after having part of his intestine removed.

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After the court hearing ended, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler called on Guthrie to resign from the county council.

In the weeks since these charges came to light, Mr. Guthrie has egregiously claimed that these charges were nothing more than politics and that since this purported theft occurred in Baltimore County, it has no bearing on his service here in Harford County. Both claims are complete nonsense, Gahler said in a statement. He added that the county manages a budget of more than $1 billion.

IBEW Local 1501 represents Peraton contractors that work at NASA, including workers on the James Hubble telescope in Virginia and the Goddard Space and Flight Center in Greenbelt, as well as AmTote employees who work on tote machines at horse racetracks. The Cockeysville-based local has about 260 active members, according to the U.S. Department of Labor report.

IBEW Local 1501s income came from membership dues, which declined due to changes in the industry and the COVID-19 pandemic, Iamele said in court. According to the Labor Departments report, the locals expenses were voluminous in comparison to the unions income, as the local spent as if still had 1,000 members.

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The report said that Guthrie was forced to retire on Jan. 1, 2022, and the local was placed under trusteeship with the national IBEW in 2021 as a result of the mismanagement of union funds.

Contact Cassidy Jensen at cjensen@baltsun.com, 443-515-2165 and x.com/@cassidymjensen.
HONG KONG/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's Geely said on Thursday its premium electric vehicle maker Zeekr plans to take control of Lynk & Co, a sister brand - the first big restructuring move in a planned overhaul for the sprawling automotive group.

Geely Holding, which owns the two marques as well as 10 other automotive brands, has pivoted away from its history of aggressive acquisitions to streamlining its operations and cutting costs.

Group Chairman Eric Li told staff in September that deep integration was needed to improve efficiency and reduce costs. All brands in the group should clarify how their models are positioned to avoid overlap, he added.

Geely said it wants Zeekr and Lynk to form a new energy vehicle manufacturing group with combined annual sales of more than a million units. That compares with about 339,000 vehicles for the two brands in 2023.

"If we don't integrate (Zeekr and Lynk), we must face issues such as internal competition ... and redundant investments in many aspects such as R&D, sales, which is stupid," Gui Shengyue, chief executive of Geely Automobile Holdings told a conference call with analysts after the announcement.

"If we don't do it, the overall competitiveness of Geely definitely would not be improved."

The deal provides for Zeekr to purchase a stake of 30% from another group firm, Volvo Cars, and a stake of 20% from Geely Holding, the group said in a statement.

Shares in Volvo Cars were up 3.5% in early trade, among the biggest gainers on the pan-European STOXX 600 index.

U.S.-listed shares of Zeekr dropped over 7% in premarket trading on Thursday after the announcement.

Zeekr will then nudge its stake up to 51% with a capital injection while Geely Auto, the group's main listed arm, will continue to own the rest.

The deal values Lynk, a Chinese-Swedish brand, at about 18 billion yuan ($2.5 billion). It should be completed by June next year, a person with direct knowledge of the plans said.

Details of the transaction were first reported by Reuters.

Within the group, Zeekr is expected to lead innovation for electric and connected vehicles, sharing that research with other brands including Lynk and Polestar, said the person and a another source with direct knowledge of the plans.

Lynk's product team started to report to Zeekr CEO Andy An last week and there have been discussions about leveraging more technologies and components shared by the two automakers, one of the sources said.

Geely declined to comment on the information from sources.

Resource sharing would reduce R&D costs by 10% to 20% for Zeekr and Lynk combined, lowering the bill for materials by 5% to 8% and improve capacity utilisation, An told analysts on Thursday.
SHINNSTON, W.Va. (WBOY)  Harrison County Animal Control is currently over-capacity, and officials say that the facility may have to begin euthanizing some of the dogs housed there if they arent adopted soon.

According to Director Kassy Slack, Harrison County Animal Control is an open-intake facility because its run by the county, meaning that they cant turn anybody away.

That accumulates a lot of animals in our building quite frequently, said Slack. We might have a few animals one week and then, we might have a hoarding case or somebody moving and they have to surrender all their pets and that fills up our kennels very, very quickly.

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Slack said that the building is able to hold about 16 dogs comfortably and that right now they have about 22 dogs.

Thats the dilemma here is that although we are open-intake, if we dont have space to put them, then our only option is to euthanize them or cram them where we really cant, she added.

According to Slack, Harrison County Animal Control doesnt plan on going forward with euthanizing some of the dogs until this coming Friday. However, she said it will ultimately depend on day-to-day interactions with people and what theyre able to assist the public with to help them with their animals, but euthanasia is always a possibility.

Law enforcement searching for missing Barbour County teen

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However, we didnt have to euthanize any animals at this point, Slack stated. We have four dogs that have applications on them that are approved. Hopefully, they can get scheduled and the [Harrison County] Humane Society can get their adopters in here and they can leave.

Although the facility has some dogs heading out the door soon, Slack said that it really needs people who are willing to take in some of their larger dogs. She stated that the little dogs tend to get adopted more quickly, as opposed to dogs that weigh upwards of 50 pounds or so.

The shelter currently has an officer who works for the city of Clarksburg and brings in stray animals, which also contributes to them being over-capacity. Luckily, there are still some ways that people in the community can pitch in to help out:

Donate to the pet pantry

This past summer, Harrison County Animal Control started a pet pantry to help people feed animals if theyre on a tight budget. We know the economy is kind ofits a little hard right now for people, which is totally understandable and when you get pets, they cost money, said Slack.

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To counter these economic struggles, the shelter will use the pantry to distribute food donated by the community to local pet owners who need assistance.

Its a temporary fix thatemotionally that helps a lot of people and their pets. Just to feed their pet and get them through that week that theyre in a bind between paychecks, Slack added. So people can always support the pet pantry to help out.

Share the facilitys Facebook posts

According to Slack, sharing the animal controls Facebook posts helps a lot. Specifically, the posts that include more information about pets that are up for adoption. Honestly, if people just share the post, we have adopters come from all over, she added.

Slack said the facility has ad adopters come from Pittsburgh, Maryland and other surrounding areas and that one of the currently approved applications at the shelter belongs to an owner coming from Ohio.

Financial donations to the shelter

People may not be able to take a dog into their own home, but they might have the funding that can ensure that another dog from the facility gets a home and its not such a financial burden on somebody, Slack told 12 News.

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Community members who are interested in donating can do so by reaching out to Harrison County Animal Control or the Harrison County Humane Society. The centers will use these donations to cover adoption fees, to help get some of the animals out sooner.

Jim Justice: Babydog cannot be on the floor of the US Senate

Calling for advice/resources instead of dropping off

As a county-run facility, the Harrison County Animal Control is required to keep kennel space open for instances where a dog gets away and an owner is looking for them, which can also make space at the shelter tight. But when were full of owner surrenders that tampers with that a bit, Slack stated.

As a result, the facility is asking for owners to call them to ask for advice, help or resources as opposed to bringing their dogs to the facility where they could be euthanized. She added that euthanasia is a last resort, but its always a possibility if the facility gets overcrowded.

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One of the resources that the animal control center currently has in place is spay and neuter vouchers that can assist some people with getting their pets fixed. This might help them keep their animals as well at home, instead of turning them over to us, said Slack.

So, they can always call and see if that resource is still available at the time that theyre in need, she added.

Out of the 22 dogs currently housed at Harrison County Animal Control, Slack told 12 News that shed like to see at least 12 of them get out and adopted before they can comfortably take more in. That just alleviates some of our stress, the dogs stress being in this environment and our main priority as an animal control facility is to help the stray dogs, she added.

She said that although they dont mind taking in dogs from the public when something happens, their ultimate purpose is to work with the animals that got lost from their homes.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBOY.com.
By Aditya Soni and Jaspreet Singh

(Reuters) -Social media platform Bluesky is adding millions of users as people flee X after Donald Trump was elected U.S. President and as an upcoming change to the terms of service threatens to complicate legal challenges for the Elon Musk-owned platform.

Bluesky has gained about 2.5 million new users in the past week, raising its total users to more than 16 million, it said on Thursday. It is among a slew of apps looking to replace the platform formerly known as Twitter after Musk's takeover.

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"We're seeing record-high activity levels across all different forms of engagement: likes, follows, new accounts, etc, and we're on track to add 1 million new users in one day alone," Bluesky said in a statement.

Several well-known organizations and personalities, including the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate, British news publisher the Guardian and former CNN anchor Don Lemon have said they were leaving X due to concerns about the platform's content and the looming terms change.

X was called out by misinformation experts during the election for playing a central role in enabling the spread of false information about the critical battleground states.

On Nov. 6, as news broke that Musk ally Trump won the presidency, X attracted 46.5 million visits in the U.S. - more than any day in the past year and 38% higher than an average day in recent months, according to analytics firm SimilarWeb.

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But more than 115,000 U.S. web visitors deactivated their X accounts  the most since Musk bought the platform, SimilarWeb data showed.

Bluesky's website, meanwhile, attracted around 1.2 million visitors on Nov.6, more than Meta Platforms-owned Threads, which had around 950,000 visitors. But Threads app had more visitors than that of Bluesky.

"Outsized growth, particularly for Bluesky, may have been driven by a rise of controversial content or technical issues on competitor X," said Abraham Yousef, senior insights analyst at market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.

"The departure of popular accounts, media personalities, or organizations, may have led consumers to conclude that X is no longer their preferred platform, which could also be fueling growth on other platforms, particularly Bluesky and Threads."

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TERMS CHANGE

The Bluesky surge comes ahead of a change in X's terms on Friday that requires all legal disputes related to the platform to be brought exclusively in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas or state courts in Tarrant County, Texas.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate said on Thursday the change could hinder legal challenges against the platform by steering future lawsuits toward judges Musk believes "will be on his side".

"Now, the billionaire will be able to bring lawsuits to friendly courts against whoever disagrees with him on his platform," said the nonprofit that has faulted Musk for letting hate speech spread on X.

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X and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.

Still, Bluesky's user count is much smaller than rivals. Threads has about 252 million monthly active users on its mobile app, while X has about 317 million, according to Sensor Tower.

"X seems to be in a better position than it has in a while given the ability to represent the views of president-elect Trump," said D.A. Davidson & Co analyst Gil Luria.

"While there are other competing platforms, those may have a hard time catching up with X, since microblogging has significant network effects."

(Reporting by Aditya Soni and Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Rishi Kant in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH)  Students at the East Rock Community Magnet School honored one of their former teachers Thursday by unveiling a cluster of trees planted in her honor.

Students started the event by singing Thats Amore by Dean Martin, paying homage to teacher Norine Polios Italian heritage. Its a song she used to sing often to the kids.

Connecticut schools looking to boost teacher diversity

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Kay Hill- who knew Polio for 40 years as a friend and former colleague- said her life centered around her students. She considered them to be her family.

She would put on a whole Thanksgiving for her students in her home, Hill said, adding Polio was one of the most dedicated teachers you could ever find.

Lool Abdullah is one of Polios former students. She said the beloved teacher was really kind, shes helpful and she was like a mother to everybody.

Despite getting exceptional care from Yale New Haven Hospital, Polios husband of over 30 years said she lost her battle with multiple myeloma, a type of cancer, in September.

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Exclusive: Cheshire teacher behind politically charged viral video resigns

She was just somebody who didnt do it for the recognition or the money. She was just a natural teacher and a good soul, he said.

Before she was a teacher, Nuhn said his wife worked for the Boston Opera Company. Outside of the classroom, she loved arts, cats and pop-up books.

How lucky was I to have met her? How lucky was I to have 30 years? Of course there are times I miss my partner in crime, but mostly its this (tribute) so how can you not have a full heart, Nuhn said.

What Nuhn is referring to is Polios Place, which is a cluster of trees the Urban Resources Initiative planted at the school.

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Derby school celebrates Ruby Bridges Day

Anna Pickett is a parent with kids at the school. She is also with URI.

These trees will hopefully live her for decades to come and her legacy will grow on here, through this place, Pickett said.

Polios husband also hopes his wifes impact will be forever rooted in the community.

I just hope the seeds of what she started continue down the road, Nuhn 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 WTNH.com.
It was 27 years ago that people in Hawaii were asking, where is Peter Boy?

Three years ago, Peter Boys surviving siblings and estate won a partial judgement in their wrongful death lawsuit, alleging the state failed to act on clear signs of abuse. A failure they believe led to his death.

Today, judges in Hawaiis Intermediate Court of Appeals heard oral arguments from the state, who contend the statute of limitations expired long ago and the plaintiffs do not have standing to sue.

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The plaintiffs only allege they were dependent upon Peter boy for love and affection and emotional support, argued Skyler Cruz, Deputy Attorney General, representing Defendant-Appellant state of Hawaii Department of Human Services.

All we have is whats written and it does say any of the persons and in reference to loss of love and affection. That seems incredibly broad to me, said Judge James Ashford, Hawaii Court of Appeals.

Interpreting the statute so broadly would give anyone the right to sue for wrongful death of anyone else that they had love and affection and emotional support with. This could include aunts and uncles, grandparents and even close friends, said Cruz.



The plaintiffs attorney argue the opposite. That the statute of limitations does not apply to this case because there was no definitive date of Peter Boys death and the states alleged negligence warrants accountability.

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They were wards of the state, they went from foster home to foster home for years. They had no ability to file anything. The state had no interest in helping them, argued Randall Rosenberg, attorney for the plaintiffs.

Peter Boys father and mother, were convicted of manslaughter. Peter Kema, Sr. is serving a 20-year sentence. Jaylin Kema died in 2019 of kidney failure.

The outcome of this appeal may set a precedent for future cases involving the states duty to act on reports of child abuse.

I think theyre gonna have to settle the case and its going to take a lot of money for them to settle, said Rosenberg on if the court rules for the plaintiffs. Thats going to, I hope, encourage social workers who work for the state to do a much better job, pay more attention.

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The court can take anywhere from two weeks to two months to decide on the case.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2.
The Hawaii Police Department unveiled the first redesign of its website in 13 years Tuesday with a crime mapping feature and an online record of arrests updated every morning at 6 :30 a.m.

The public may view the new website at. It took a year to update the website for the first time since 2011, and users will be able to view it on smartphones, tablets or laptops.

We are extremely excited to launch this new website and provide an easy-use-use and helpful resource to community members,  said Police Chief Benjamin Moszkowicz, in a statement.

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The redesigned website features a Crime Map by the contractor City Protect. The public can use the map to see what crimes have occurred in their neighborhood during a time frame of their choosing,  according to a news release from the department.

Users will find out how to obtain a police report or background check, request an active shooter presentation or station tour, and request a special duty officer.

Anyone seeking a career in law enforcement will find detailed information on civilian and sworn positions and current openings.

Don 't miss out on what 's happening !

Stay in touch with top news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It 's FREE !

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The new website also provides safety tips for children, business owners, and kupuna. Teens and families can find information and resources on how to combat cyberbullying and sextortion, as well as scam prevention tips for the elderly, according to a news release.

The new website features sections on :An events page of police outreach efforts.FAQ page featuring frequently asked questions.History of Hawaii Police Department.K9s of Hawaii Police Department.HPDs Police Memorial Wall and bios of our fallen officers.

The departments old website domain, hawaiipolice.com, will go down for maintenance once the new website goes live and will come back online a few days later as an archived media release site featuring the departments media releases dating back to when the website first launched in March 1999.

We apologize for the inconvenience ; our commenting system is currently undergoing some technical issues. Our team is working to resolve the problem, and hope for it to be back up soon. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
A warning for anyone who drives on Interstate 5 late at night or early in the morning: a portion of the southbound HOV lane is closing Thursday night.

The closure will impact people traveling through the SeaTac, Des Moines, and Kent areas.

HOV southbound will close between South 200th Street/Military Road South (Exit 151) and State Route 516 (Exit 149).

The closure begins at 11:30 p.m. and lanes reopen around 6 a.m. Friday.

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The Washington State Department of Transportation says contractor crews will perform drainage work.

The closure is a part of the State Route 509 Completion Project, which will create 3 miles of new tolled highway between I-5 and South 188th Street near the south end of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The new highway will be completed in stages. The portion currently under construction between I-5 and 24th Avenue is slated to open sometime next year. The final stage will build the remaining 2 miles of the expressway between 24th Avenue South and South 188th Street.

The entire project is planned for completion in 2028. Read more on the project here.

WSDOT created an interactive map displaying rendered views of each part of the project. View the map here.
BOSTON, Mass. (SHNS)Acknowledging the uncertainties posed by President-elect Donald Trump, Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein vowed Wednesday that state officials will continue to champion health equity and access to care.

Goldstein, reflecting on the election, said speculation over what a Trump presidency means for public health has focused on vaccinations, reproductive health care, gender-affirming care, water fluoridation, climate change and federal health agencies, Goldstein said.

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The truth is, we dont know what the next few years may hold. What we do know is that the Department of Public Health remains committed to its mission to promote the health and well-being of all our residents and communities, Goldstein told the Public Health Council Wednesday morning.

Public health is and must always be rooted firmly in truth, science, public service and humanity. Public health transcends party ideology, the commissioner continued. All of us want individuals, families and communities across our state to have access to the care, services and resources they need to be healthy and safe. No matter what party is in office, DPH will continue to advocate for the policies and practices that promote health equity and access to care.

Gov. Maura Healey, asked about the prospect of a federal abortion ban last week, said Massachusetts residents and providers already have strong protections for reproductive health care.

The Legislature passed a shield law in 2022 designed to insulate providers and patients, including those traveling from out of state to Massachusetts, from legal action after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. Healey also has issued executive orders affirming residents access to emergency abortion care, and the commonwealth has a massive stockpile of medication abortion.

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Trump has said he opposes a national abortion ban.

Senate President Karen Spilka on Wednesday could not pinpoint preventive legislation lawmakers may be pursue ahead of Trump returning to the White House.

I think we will take whatever action necessary to protect our residents, the health and welfare of our residents, Spilka told reporters after a leadership meeting. Its kind of hard to know what he might do.

Spilka agreed Massachusetts has been aggressive and proactive in safeguarding abortion protections in Massachusetts.

Well continue to be looking at the areas and assess what might be necessary, but its hard to know exactly what path. He does sometimes say a lot and dont know what path he may take, she continued. So we will work closely with the federal government, even once he becomes president. We will continue to work closely with his administration and take whatever action is necessary to protect the health and welfare and civil rights of our residents.

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At the Public Health Council meeting, Goldstein touted Massachusettss public health history and accomplishments.

Weve achieved remarkable milestones, including preventing millions of deaths through vaccines, supporting strong tobacco control policies, preserving clean water, protecting our food supply and limiting environmental toxins, Goldstein said. These are more than just good ideas. They are fundamental rights for the people in the state, and we are dedicated to upholding them.

Council member Dr. Edward Bernstein of the Boston University School of Medicine said public health has been on the chopping block of the incoming administration. Still, Bernstein and fellow council member Steward Landers, who represents the Massachusetts Public Health Association, highlighted some good news for public health in Massachusetts.

In Massachusetts, public health infrastructure is poised to see significant improvements under the compromise economic development bill that lawmakers are expected to approve this week. The compromise bill contains a policy dubbed SAPHE 2.0, which requires DPH to establish a set of baseline public health standards and provide adequate resources for boards of health at the local and regional levels.

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Were very excited that it was included in this package, Landers said. We hope it will continue to support equity across the state in local public health departments.

Goldstein said health officials have already begun preparations to implement SAPHE 2.0, as he cited collaborations with MPHA and the Massachusetts Municipal Association.

More to come, the commissioner said. Weve been prepared for this moment, and were looking forward to implementation.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
WESTERVILLE, Ohio (WCMH)  A natural grocery store that has called central Ohio home for more than four decades is closing.

Raisin Rack Natural Food Market at 2545 W. Schrock Rd. in Westerville will welcome customers for the last time on Friday, the health store announced on social media. Shuttering after 41 years in business, the location opened in 1983 and had marked an expansion for the market whose original Canton store launched in 1978 and remains open.

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We are sorry we need to close, but the nature of brick-and-mortar retail has changed so much we were unable to extend our lease for another six years, the post read on social media. The Columbus customers and staff will be difficult to leave behind.

The Westerville store is offering a clearance sale Thursday and Friday and emphasized that customers can still order their favorite items online. Central Ohio customers are encouraged to use their reward points before the Westerville market closes, as those points will only be redeemable for online orders or at the Canton store.

To make this process easier, Raisin Rack is allowing points to be cashed in no matter a shoppers balance. Westerville customers can no longer accumulate points due to a technical issue, the store noted. Gift cards can still be used in-store or for online orders.

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The store is open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursday and Friday.

Our family and staff deeply appreciate your loyalty to our store and hope we have changed lives as you have changed ours, the market said. You will be missed.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NBC4 WCMH-TV.
HONOLULU (KHON2)  The Whole Foods store in Kahala was the victim of a health inspector impostor on Nov. 7.

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DOH said the dark haired woman identified herself as an inspector and questioned an employee about the stores food products.

The woman left the store after staff requested further credentials.

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The DOH said food service industry staff should know that:

Hurricane Paris brings home the crown, title

DOH badges contain the inspectors name, job title, expiration date and photograph of the inspector.

Food establishments may refuse entry if the person cannot produce a valid DOH ID badge.

Inspectors also carry equipment to conduct their inspections.

A manager or person-in-charge can ask to examine the badge or may call the Food Safety Branch at 808-586-8000 to verify the persons identity.

The department said staff should not hesitate to ask for proper identification if its not displayed.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
A breakthrough in the fight against Alzheimers disease may have been made in Seattle. Researchers at the Allen Institute have discovered an early sign of the disease before the first symptom appears. In this weeks Healthier Together, KIRO 7s Ranji Sinha spoke to the scientists with professional  and personal  stakes in this work.

Kyle Travaglini is a scientist at the Allen Institute and the work hes doing on Alzheimers has deep personal roots.

When I was entering college, my grandmother was starting to get a little forgetful she would lose track of where and when  she was, Travaglini told KIRO 7.

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Travaglini says he would often visit his grandmother and as she grew older, her Alzheimers grew worse. He decided in Grad school he wanted to find out why she developed and lived with Alzheimers until her death.

For nearly a century, researchers have focused on plaques and tangles that build up in our brains that are connected to Alzheimers. Its led to therapies but no cure.

Travaglini and fellow researcher Mariano Gabitto analyzed cellular data in brains that had Alzheimers and realized they had made a fairly significant discovery.

Theres a particular kind of neuron, inhibitory neuron, a neuron that tells cells to be quiet and silences them that is lost, Travaglini said.

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The neuron or nerve cell he described often regulates the workings of other brain cells and thus regulates brain activity. The two scientists said the loss of these cells was happening early in the cycle of the disease, well before symptoms started appearing.

Gabitto says the discovery is in its early stages and more work needs to be done, but the team is optimistic.

The more data we get, were going to be able to better pinpoint the effects, he told KIRO 7.

Gabitto also says looking at brain activity and sections of the brain and looking at cellular levels also helped them understand Alzheimers in another way.

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The data shows us a trajectory of the disease, he said.

Millions are impacted by Alzheimers worldwide, so the National Institutes of Health has been funding research to find a cure. The Allen Institutes brain mapping is helping that effort.

Gabitto and Travaglini only looked at 84 brains, but now that they know what to look for. The researchers are going to see if cells are dying off in more brains with Alzheimers using ones donated to the University of Washingtons Alzheimers Research Center. The discovery is too late for Kyles grandmother, but he hopes his work could help others.

It makes me really proud to be able to work on something like that. To honor her memory, I like to think shed be very proud of that work, he said.
(Reuters) - Frontier Communications shareholders have approved a $9.6 billion sale to Verizon, the company said on Wednesday, even as a number of large investors sought to get a higher price. Shareholders had until Wednesday to cast their votes on a deal that Verizon's CEO Hans Vestberg called a "strategic fit" that would allow the company to be more competitive in additional markets.

The deal will take 18 months to close.

Verizon will pay $38.50 a share for Frontier and absorb about $10 billion of the company's debt. When the deal was announced in September, it represented a 44% premium to Frontier's 90-day volume-weighted average share price.

A number of large shareholders last month, however, expressed concern about the price, arguing that Verizon should pay more and signaling they would vote against the deal.

Proxy advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis urged Frontier investors to abstain, which would essentially be a vote against the deal, in order to have more time to consider options.

Verizon announced the deal almost a year after activist investment firm Jana Partners said it had built a position in Frontier and was calling on the third-largest U.S. fiber broadband provider to sell itself.

For Verizon the acquisition would help it compete better against rivals AT&T and T-Mobile as they double down on unlimited plans and bundling options.

(This story has been refiled to remove an incorrect picture)

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru and Svea Herbst-Bayliss in New York; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Sharon Singleton)
RICHMOND COUNTY, Ga. (WJBF)  On Thursday November 14th between the hours of 9am and 2pm, the Richmond County Bomb Unit will be assisting with the disposal of old and recovered explosive material.

This will take place at the sheriffs office training center on Greenland Rd. in Blythe.

During this time explosions may be heard and felt within the area.

Please notify those whom you feel may be affected during this time.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJBF.
Nov. 13Seeing salmon return to the Columbia River Basin has made Ktunaxa Nation member Troy Hunter's "heart happy."

The focus on returning the traditional food source to the water system is just one way the new Columbia River Treaty aims to respect Indigenous people in a way the United States and Canada have not done before, tribal representatives said at a symposium on the river Wednesday.

Hosted by Gonzaga University in Spokane, the symposium brought together negotiators who crafted the deal struck earlier this year. The United States and Canada announced in July they reached an agreement in principle to modernize the Columbia River Treaty, a 60-year-old pact that governs how the two nations use the Columbia Basin's water resources.

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In addition to those two nations, the negotiation process also included members of tribes and nations who have called the Columbia River Basin home.

When the Columbia River Treaty first was ratified in 1964, little attention was paid to how the agreement would impact the natural ecology of the river basin or the tribes that traditionally lived there.

Sixty years later, the new treaty included Indigenous voices in the negotiation and made ecological recovery a priority.

"We used to have a treaty that was focused almost exclusively on flood control and power generation," said Jay Johnson, representative of the Syilx and Okanagan Nation during treaty negotiations. "That treaty reflected the era of the day in the '60s  building something to conquer nature and trying to make a better world that way. But that left out the ecosystems, left out the communities along the river, left out Indigenous voices."

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The United States and Canada began reviews of the Columbia River Treaty in 2013 and negotiation of a new treaty in 2018. The culmination of these efforts came in July this year when a new treaty was agreed to in principle.

When these negotiations began, the two countries shifted their approach to include more Indigenous voices.

"We started listening and having conversations with our First Nations," Global Affairs Canada negotiator Stephen Gluck said. "I have to admit that was a change to how we traditionally do things."

In the new treaty, the Joint Ecosystem and Indigenous and Tribal Cultural Values Body, known as the JEB, will include equal representation of Indigenous nations and tribes of the Columbia River, as well as the United States and Canadian governments. Recommendations of the JEB will be made by consensus of the tribes and the Indigenous nations.

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If these directives are not followed in whole or in part, United States and Canadian governments are required to explain in writing why they will not implement the recommendations.

Ktunaxa Nation council member Maureen DeHaan said the JEB "finally" gives Indigenous communities a voice in the Columbia River Basin.

"Recommendations are expected to be implemented to the best of the agencies and parties' abilities. And if they cannot implement them, they must provide rationale for why they are not able," she said.

Salmon reintroduction

A focus of the treaty will be the reintroduction of salmon to the Columbia River and its tributaries. Upon completion of reintroduction studies, JEB is expected to provide recommendations on long-term reintroduction programs. At least every five years, it will review the results of reintroduction activities completed and make recommendations on reintroduction.

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Troy Hunter said the possibility of salmon crossing all throughout the river basin "made his heart happy"  translating a traditional saying from his peoples' language.

"Where our people gathered, salmon was always there. It was ubiquitous. It was something that we could rely on. It was our food, our staple," he said. "That salmon was included in this negotiation is a major milestone for all of us. We are trying to fix something here."

Flood control

Under the new agreement, the United States will continue to have access to Canadian dams' storage space in the case of flooding, though the amount of storage will decrease. This will make the amount of water coming into the United States more predictable and facilitate easier shipping, agriculture and salmon reintroduction, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers treaty negotiator Pete Dickerson said.

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Under the previous treaty, the United States had access to 8.95 million acre-feet of Canadian reservoir storage. Under the new agreement, that will decrease to 3.6 million acre-feet, for which the United States will pay Canada $37.6 million each year.

Dickerson called this a "slight reduction" from the storage the United States enjoys today.

State Department lead negotiator Jill Smail said the Canadian-based storage is used because it is "the most efficient and effective storage to reduce flood damage and flood risk in the United States." If major flooding events do exceed the 3.6 million acre-feet, the United States can still call upon Canada for additional assistance, she added.

Hydropower

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The Columbia River and its tributaries provide the United States with over 40% of its hydropower energy. That energy production is shared between the Bonneville Power Administration and Canadian government-owned utilities. In the new agreement, the United States will provide Canada with 37% less in hydropower than in the previous treaty  with an ultimate decrease of 50% by 2033.

BPA lawyer Hub Adams said this decrease "approximates the true value" of the power being provided to Canada. Having these rates built into the agreement will "avoid a lot of disruption and potentially protracted disagreements" over what the amounts could be.

"We had been looking at a lot of years of disagreements on plans for power operations and entitlement. That would have brought a lot of uncertainty, instability and disruption."

The agreement will bring stability to both governments and reduce costs for ratepayers in the region and across the continent, he added.

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Kathy Eichenberger, lead negotiator for British Columbia, said the new agreement would allow the Canadian province "more flexibility" on how it operates its reservoirs and obtains energy. While the initial funds Canada receives are lower, the new agreement allows for "certainty over the longer term."

BPA and Canadian utilities are also considering expanding transmission on the east side of Columbia River Basin, Adams said.

A planned study will consider developing a new transmission line between BPA's Bell substation near Spokane and the Canadian border.
A Covington man is on trial in the killing of a 23-year-old during a planned fight involving his mom and siblings on a residential street in Northern Kentucky.

Xxavion Turner, 22, is facing charges in Kenton County Circuit Court including murder, riot, unlawful transaction with a minor and tampering with evidence, court records show. His trial before Judge Kathy Lape began Wednesday.

It was an argument that started on social media involving Turners ex-girlfriend that led to a real-life confrontation outside a house on Archer Court and culminated in Seth Burns being gunned down, prosecutors said.

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Seth Burns lost his life over something (expletive) ignorant and I hate it, Assistant Kenton County Commonwealths Attorney Casey Burns said while summarizing Turners statements after the August 2023 shooting.

Xxavion Turner appears for the first day of his murder trial in Kenton County Circuit Court on Wednesday. Prosecutors say Turner is complicit in his young brother's fatal shooting of 23-year-old Seth Burns outside an Independence home.

Burns said that while he agrees with the sentiment of Turners statement, his actions leading up to the shooting paint a different picture.

Turner was charged in connection with Burns' killing alongside his younger brother, then-17-year-old Jackie Turner, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison after admitting to the killing, and his mom, 40-year-old Amanda Turner.

Prosecutors said that after exchanges via text and social media, the Turners decided to go to the house in Independence to fight.

Jackie Turner, 18, pleaded guilty to murder in Kenton County Circuit Court in July for the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Seth Burns.

After a brief exchange of words before the fight could begin, Jackie Turner fired once into the air and then once at Burns, striking him in the torso, and the Turner family fled, prosecutors said.

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Doorbell camera video showed Amanda Turner leading her children and Xxavion Turners then-girlfriend down the street while screaming toward the house on Archer Court, a criminal complaint states.

Prosecutors said Turners mom, who pleaded guilty in September to charges including criminal facilitation of murder, was also involved in text messages encouraging the fight.

While Turner didnt fire the fatal shots, prosecutors say he initially lied to police about why he was at the residence, about having a gun and about taking his younger brothers gun after the shooting.

Prosecutors added that Turner was skipping down the street on his way to the fight and afterward told one of his sisters to delete her text message history.

Amanda Turner pleaded guilty in September to charges related to the shooting death of 23-year-old Seth Burns at the hands of her juvenile son.

In court filings, prosecutors also pointed to video of Turner firing handguns with his juvenile brother in the months preceding the shooting, which they described as being a crime or wrong.

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What youre going to see is that this man was at the heart of it all, Burns said.

However, Turners attorneys said he wasnt complicit in Burns killing and that the Turners were only going to a girl fight, not a shooting.

He did not pull his gun, said Mary Rafizadeh, one of Turners attorneys. He did not point it at anything.

Rafizadeh said Burns had never been to the Archer Court home and was brought there by a woman involved in the dispute. Jackie Turner told police that he didnt know Burns.

It is so sad that Seth got caught up in what he didnt realize was probably going on and he got killed, Rafizadeh said. How crazy.

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Xxavion Turner is the last person charged in the incident yet to be convicted and the only one who chose to go to trial.

Turners sisters, Lakera Hughes and Keavier Turner, and his then-girlfriend, Emma Ryan, were each charged with rioting and unlawful transaction with a minor but have since pleaded guilty as charged.

The trial is expected to continue Thursday with testimony.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Trial starts for shooter's brother in killing at planned fight in NKY
HONOLULU (KHON2)  Hawaiian Electric is closely monitoring weather conditions across the state ahead of strong winds expected Friday, which could increase the risk of wildfires.

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The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a fire weather watch today for leeward areas on all Hawaiian Islands from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15, due to forecasted low humidity and gusty winds.

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As a precaution, Hawaiian Electric said it may implement its Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) program to reduce wildfire risk.

HECO does not anticipate needing to shut off power before Friday, it will continue to assess the situation and provide updates if conditions worsen.

We are taking all necessary steps to monitor the situation and ensure the safety of our communities, said Hawaiian Electric in a statement.

The company has activated its emergency response plan, which includes coordinating with local emergency officials and urging residents to prepare for potential power outages.

Hawaii Schools Superintendent could receive pay raise, contract extension

How to Prepare for Possible Outages

Hawaiian Electric advises customers to take the following steps to prepare for possible outages:

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Check emergency equipment such as flashlights, generators, and battery-powered radios, ensuring they are operational and stocked with extra batteries

If you or someone in your household depends on electrically powered medical equipment, make sure backup power options are available and plan for alternative locations if evacuation is needed

Use portable generators safely by placing them outdoors in well-ventilated areas and following the manufacturers instructions

Set your refrigerator and freezer to their coldest settings to preserve food in case of an outage

Unplug unnecessary devices, especially sensitive electronics, to avoid damage from power surges

HECO also reminds residents to stay safe during power outages by avoiding downed power lines and flooded areas. If you see a downed line, stay at least 30 feet away and call 911 for emergencies.

Stay Informed

Hawaiian Electric will provide ongoing updates through the news media, its website, and social media channels.

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Customers can also sign up for emergency outage alerts or visit Hawaiian Electrics PSPS page for more information.

Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news

For immediate assistance, customers can contact Hawaiian Electrics Trouble Line:

Oahu: 1-855-304-1212

Hawaii: (808) 969-6666

Maui: (808) 871-7777

Molokai: 1-877-871-8461

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Pentagon officials are "shocked" and "alarmed" by President-elect Donald Trump's decision to nominate Fox News anchor and veteran Pete Hegseth as U.S. defense secretary, Politico reported on Nov. 13.

Trump named Hegseth the incoming U.S. defense secretary on Nov. 12. If approved by Congress, Hegseth will replace current Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin following Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20.

Hegseth would lead 1.3 million troops and over 750,000 civilians, hold meetings with U.S. allies, and develop options for strikes against the Islamic State and Iranian proxies, according to Politico.

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The Pentagon is concerned that while Hegseth has military experience, he has never run a large organization, Politico reported, citing six undisclosed current and former Pentagon officials.

"Would you trust him to run Walmart?" said a former Defense Department official. "Because that's how many employees we have."

"Folks are shocked," said a current Defense Department official. "He's just a Fox News personality thats never worked in the government."

The sources, who spoke to Politico on condition of anonymity, doubt that Hegseth will be able to manage "a complex bureaucratic system" like the Pentagon.

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"It's a deadly serious job, and this strikes me as a mainly performative person who is best known for talking about wokeness and not doing anything meaningful on national security post serving in the military," said another Defense Department official.

"It is a massive bureaucracy, you have to understand how that works to support national security around the globe," the official added. "It is tedious and challenging, and it is not at all related to getting on Fox News and pontificating."

According to current and former officials, the appointment of Hegseth could "scare off" candidates for over 80 other positions in the department that the Senate approves.

Several foreign diplomats told the media they rushed to order Hegseth's latest book online after his nomination, as allies tried to get to know a man "they had never heard of and had no idea what his priorities might be."

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Hegseth, 44, previously served as an infantry captain in the Army National Guard, doing multiple tours of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Hegseth is the former head of the conservative organization Concerned Veterans for America and, in June 2024, released a book titled "The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free."

Hegseth also unsuccessfully ran as a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota in 2012.

Up until Nov. 12, Hegseth co-hosted Fox & Friends Weekend, a morning news and talk show that Trump would call into regularly. Hegseth has also appeared as a regular contributor to the Fox News Channel, a U.S. network with a strong conservative bent.

Read also: What do Trumps first team picks mean for Ukraine?

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BLACKSBURG, Va. (WAVY)  Virginia is for lovers of things made in Virginia, but farmers in six southwestern counties will feel long-term effects from Helene, which roared through the region with a fury.

The storm has crippled a way of life for farmers who produce apples and blueberries, raise cattle for consumption and grow hardwood trees  including Christmas trees.

Virginia Tech researchers are counting the economic damage.

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So the biggest losses in terms of agricultural products is actually timber, said Dr. John Bovay, an assistant professor in food and agricultural policy at Virginia Tech. So the Virginia Department of Forestry helped us to estimate the damages to timber in southwest Virginia, and they put the total at just over $38 million in timber losses.

Theyre experiencing really devastating losses in terms of their expectations about how theyre going to be able to make money in future years. Theres very little hope that the timber will be recoverable or salvaged because there just arent enough contractors available to help take the logs out of the woods and do all the work thats necessary. And then in terms of crops, I believe pumpkins [and] beef cattle are some of the industries that were affected the most in terms of thinking about more more traditional agricultural crops besides timber.



Bovay said some farmers cannot right the wrongs caused by the costly storm.

Its in the millions of dollars, and thats just looking at this years impacts, Bovay said. When we think about the implications for future years, it reaches tens of millions of dollars, probably because of agricultural land that will no longer be usable because of flooding, and either erosion or other weather conditions that are going to make it very hard for farmers to return the land to production, such as dumping of sand from the river onto its fields.

The September storm wiped out $300,000 worth of 2024 Christmas trees. The beautiful trees in your home represent eight years of growth.

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We really have to think about that being a damage that these farmers are going to suffer for the next seven years because those trees were lost and theyre not going to be replanted, Bovay said.

It is estimated Helenes hit will cost southwest Virginia up to $630 billion. Bovay said Virginia farmers may need a financial lifeline from state and congressional 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 WAVY.com.
SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU)  With Thanksgiving in a little over two weeks the Salvation Army is offering families in Scranton and Dickson City a way to stretch their grocery budgets.

Every third Thursday of the month the Salvation Army hosts a choice food distribution, and this month the event will fall on the week before Thanksgiving, giving families the opportunity to get what they need for the holidays

The Choice Food Distribution isnt just about giving out food. Its about giving families a chance to pick out what works best for them

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One of the reasons why we do a choice food pantry is we dont want to just throw stuff in a box and say here just take this and go. Were giving them the opportunity to shop for what theyre looking for, what they need, everybody has different traditions at the holidays, said Captain Neil Childs from The Salvation Army.

Free Thanksgiving meals given out in Tamaqua

While the pantry will of course have the staple foods, with Thanksgiving around the corner, families can expect to see some of the traditional fixings up for grabs.

Definitely going to have some typical things we already collected stuffing and weve collected a lot of the green beans, corn, stuff like that, were anticipating having turkeys, says Captain Childs.

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Serving families across Scranton and Dickson City this month, the Salvation Army is focusing on meeting people where they are at a time when everyday expenses are pinching budgets tighter.

Especially with the way the economy has been as of late with the prices of groceries for crying out loud, it is harder and harder and we know the struggle a lot of families are having at this time of year so we try and do this so we can at least alleviate one bill off of their plate, explained Captain Childs.

The event is first come first serve but registration is required

Were expecting a huge turnout, we are registering 250 we have already just over 100 signed up, registration opened up yesterday, and were looking to keep it open until we have the 250 mark, so if you want to register, register quick, continued Captain Childs.

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You must live in the Scranton or Dickson City area to register for the Choice Food Distribution, for information on how to register give them a call at 570-969-6399 or stop by their 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 PAhomepage.com.
"A slithering stowaway, a herpetological hitchhiker, a boa in my undercarriage...oh my!" could have been Aaron Rick's remix of Dorothy's Wizard of Oz refrain when he discovered a surprise passenger under his truck Tuesday.

Ricks, a sales account manager, had spent the morning driving from Mesa to Scottsdale, stopping by his office before he headed out to a local Scottsdale restaurant on his lunch hour.

He parked in the restaurant lot and walked a couple of yards away before something caught his eye. Something moving under his truck. "Huh? A paper bag? Trash?" he thought as he bent down to get a closer look. He was about to reach under to pull it out...until it moved.

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He realized it was a snake. 'A big snake!'

"I pretty much froze, like a deer in headlights," Ricks said.

The snake uncoiled and hung down between the engine and the tire, looking at him with yellow beady eyes. In what may have felt like an eternity, Ricks managed to snap a couple of photos and video from a safe distance before the snake recoiled and slithered upwards into the engine again.

"I don't know a lot about snakes, but I realized it wasn't a rattlesnake, it was a python, "Ricks said, "I just thought it was super strange."

He called the Scottsdale Police Department to report the incident and the dispatcher attempted to hold in her giggles before passing the call along to the Scottsdale Fire Department.

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When the firefighters arrived, they were skeptical about the presence of a python, according to Ricks. That is until he showed them the photos and video he'd managed to take before the snake had slithered back under the truck.

"That has to be top ten, right?" he said, about the uniqueness of the call.

"Top five easy," the firefighters joked, according to Ricks.

The firefighters were able to safely retrieve the snake after removing the truck's skid plate and identified that the snake was, in fact, a boa constrictor. It is likely someone's pet based on the size and health of it, fire officials said.

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Firefighters placed the boa in a box and turned it over to the Arizona Herpetological Society for safe handling and care.

It is unclear where Ricks picked up his stow-away passenger since he had traveled between Mesa and Scottsdale during his workday.

"And now I have a new fear unlocked. Now I got to check under the car for snakes," Ricks said, "I'm just laughing about it now. Hopefully, that was the first and last time."

Hopefully, just like lightning, hitchhiking boas in the undercarriage only strike once.

Contact the Arizona Herpetological Society at 480-513-4377 for information if you think you may be the owner.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Snake hitched a ride from Mesa to Scottsdale under man's truck
By Maya Gebeily and Timour Azhari

MAARAB, Lebanon (Reuters) - The head of Lebanon's largest Christian party said Iran-backed Hezbollah should relinquish its weapons as quickly as possible to end its year-long war with Israel and spare Lebanon further death and destruction.

Samir Geagea, Hezbollah's fiercest political opponent in Lebanon, spoke to Reuters on Thursday at his mountain home and party headquarters in Maarab, north of Beirut, as Israel carried out waves of strikes on areas Hezbollah holds sway.

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"With the destruction of all of Hezbollah's infrastructure and its warehouses, a big part of Lebanon is also being destroyed. That's the price," he said.

Hezbollah's critics in Lebanon, such as Geagea, say it unilaterally pulled Lebanon into a new war after it began firing at Israel in solidarity with Palestinian group Hamas following the Oct. 7 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah says it is defending Lebanon from Israeli aggression and has vowed to keep fighting, saying it will not lay down its arms or allow Israel to achieve political gains on the back of the war.

The intense pressure of Israel's military campaign, which has escalated and expanded since late September to include ground incursions into southern Lebanon, presented an opportunity to get the country back on track, Geagea said.

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"If the challenges and the prices paid are so big, then we can take advantage of them to get the situation back to normal," he said, calling on Hezbollah and the Lebanese state to swiftly implement local accords and international resolutions disbanding armed factions outside the control of the state.

"That is the shortest way to end the war. It's the least costly way for Lebanon and for the Lebanese people," he said.

Faltering diplomatic efforts on a ceasefire have centred on United Nations Resolution 1701, which brought an end to Hezbollah's last deadly conflict with Israel in 2006.

Israel has insisted that this time around, it wants to keep carrying out strikes against Hezbollah threats even if a truce is agreed.

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Geagea said he was opposed to granting Israel that option but said Lebanon had little power to stop it, especially if an excuse remained in the form of Hezbollah's armed presence.

'ARMS RACE'

Lebanon's population is a mosaic of more than a dozen religious sects, with political representation divided along sectarian lines. Religious divisions fuelled the 1975-1990 civil war, which left some 150,000 people dead and drew in neighbouring states.

Geagea's party, the Lebanese Forces, was one of the main warring factions during the civil war and aligned itself with Israel, including when Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon reached Beirut, and its leader, Bashir Gemayel, was elected president.

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Gemayel was assassinated before he could assume office, and Geagea said he saw no parallels with that period today.

The Lebanese Forces relinquished its weapons in line with the Taef Accord, which ended the civil war and called on all militias to disband.

Hezbollah did not, saying it needed them to fight Israel's continued occupation of southern Lebanon. But the group refused to disarm when Israeli troops withdrew in 2000, citing ongoing threats.

Despite his decades-old opposition to Hezbollah, Geagea, 72, said he opposed the Lebanese army forcefully disarming the group.

He said he does "not see the possibility of any civil war" breaking out and said that his party "categorically" did not want one to start.

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Still, he noted that the mass displacement of mostly Shi'ite Muslim Lebanese into Sunni and Christian-majority areas could spark "problems here or there" in a country that was already suffering an economic crisis before the war.

They include thousands who have fled into areas that are strongholds of Geagea's party. In Beirut, Lebanese Forces flags were put up overnight in neighbourhoods where the group has strong support, but no clashes have been reported.

More than 1.2 million people have fled heavy Israeli strikes on Lebanon's south, eastern Bekaa valley and Beirut's southern suburbs.

In recent weeks, Israeli troops carrying out incursions into southern Lebanon have laced entire villages with explosives and detonated them, leaving border towns in ruins.

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Hezbollah says it has managed to keep Israeli troops at bay by preventing them from holding any ground in south Lebanon.

But Geagea disputed that reading, saying Israel's "new military doctrine" was to enter areas, carry out operations, and leave, and that the war's next phase could see villages deeper into Lebanon being hit.

He said Israel's military and economic strength would always give it an advantage over Hezbollah, even if the group re-armed.

"Do you have the ability to enter this arms race?" he said.

(Reporting by Maya Gebeily and Timour Azhari in Maarab; Editing by Alex Richardson)
Being rushed to a hospital nearly two hours away, in the middle of a dangerous spring storm  with fear in her heart and amniotic fluid leaking down her leg  was not how Ashley ONeil expected her first pregnancy to go.

At 21 weeks pregnant, ONeil was having some unusual vaginal bleeding. With growing worry, she and her husband, Jorge, visited the nearby community hospital in rural Maryland where she had been receiving care during her pregnancy.

Once they arrived at the local hospital, ONeil asked to be evaluated by an ob/gyn.

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They took me right up to triage, she said. I was there for hours before a doctor actually came in to see me. And the whole time, my husband is yelling, Wheres an ultrasound? She needs an ultrasound! Whats going on? 

A physician finally entered the room where ONeil was waiting and started to perform a vaginal exam. Thats when she saw the doctors jaw drop.

ONeils amniotic sac, the fluid-filled structure that surrounds a growing fetus, was exposed. When someone goes into labor, the sac typically ruptures, also known as their water breaking. But with ONeils sac exposed, she was at increased risk of complications, including premature rupture, possibly leading to preterm labor.

The small community hospital didnt have the resources to support the preterm birth.

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And so the frantic two-hour drive began. ONeil was taken to a larger hospital via ground transport, as the weather was too stormy for her to be flown out, she said.

ONeils experience is just one example of the challenges many mothers and babies face when living in US counties that are considered to be maternity care deserts, in which there is limited or no access to robust maternity care.

When ONeil arrived at the larger hospital, her son Vinson was born preterm, at 21 weeks.

He was born with a beating heart, 15 ounces. I like to say that he died in my arms, but I dont think he quite made it there, ONeil said.

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She and her husband had Vinson baptized at the hospital after he died.

Then, less than six hours after giving birth, ONeil was wheeled through the labor and delivery unit to go home.

On the way to the exit, she could hear the cries of all the other babies in the unit.

A leading cause of babies dying

Preterm birth is a leading cause of infant deaths in the United States.

For every 1,000 babies born in 2023, about six died, according to provisional data released Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data showed that the infant death rate last year  5.6 deaths per 1,000 live births  was unchanged from the rate in 2022.

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The rate of preterm births  in which babies are born before 37 weeks gestation  also remained at a high rate of 10.4% last year, unchanged from 2022, according to the infant and maternal health nonprofit March of Dimes.

That means that over 370,000 babies  thats 1 in 10 babies  are born too early, said Dr. Amanda Williams, interim chief medical officer for March of Dimes. Racial disparities persist, she added; for Black people, the preterm birth rate is 1.5 times higher than the rate among all other babies.

In its annual report card on US maternal and infant health, released Thursday, March of Dimes gave the United States a D+ grade for its high preterm birth rate, marking the third year in a row in which the nation has earned that grade.

Among the 100 US cities with the highest numbers of live births, one-third were given an F grade in the report for their high rates of preterm birth last year.

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Detroit had the highest rate, with 15.6% of births coming too early, followed by Cleveland at 14.8% and Mobile, Alabama, at 14.6%, according to the report.

Many of the regions with high preterm birth rates are maternity care deserts, Williams said.

If people are unable to access care, they are not going to have adequate prenatal care, she said. Things like inadequate prenatal care is a major driver of preterm birth.

To improve access to care, she added, March of Dimes supports the expansion of Medicaid, a major part of the Affordable Care Act that has been associated with lower rates of maternal deaths.

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We know that prenatal care is often coming through Medicaid, and if there is not good Medicaid policy in certain areas, then that is going to be a driver of preterm birth rates, she said.

The US cities with high preterm birth rates also are areas where there are many chronic conditions and patients living with a greater number of things like hypertension, diabetes, obesity  those are all drivers of preterm birth as well, Williams said.

The cities in the report with the lowest preterm birth rates were Ramapo, New York, at 5.2% and Irvine, California, at 7%  both were given A grades  followed by Gilbert, Arizona, at 7.8%, which earned an A- grade.

Were not making any headway on this

The high rates of preterm birth that persist in the United States are a travesty, said Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive officer for the National Association of County and City Health Officials, who was not involved in the March of Dimes report.

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Its a travesty that as a developed nation, we have these extraordinarily poor outcomes around maternal morbidity and mortality, infant prematurity and deaths, and that the disparities continue and are wide with regard to White people and Black and Brown people. Were not making any headway on this, and we need some really targeted prevention tactics and other services to address this, Freeman said.

It is a complicated issue, because this involves both ensuring that a new mom is cared for, not only during her pregnancy, but that she comes into the pregnancy healthy, she said. Often in rural and other economically disadvantaged areas, they dont have the providers in place. Its hard to get access to health care. Its hard for working mothers to get to prenatal care. So theres a lot of contributing factors here, and its going to take the whole of the health system  including public health and health care  to actually turn the corner and reverse some of these outcomes.

To improve the state of maternal and infant health and to lower rates of preterm birth, March of Dimes has recommended that more states provide 12 weeks of paid family leave, require Medicaid to reimburse for doula care, develop committees to review and study maternal and infant deaths and expand access to midwives, among other actions.

We know that when a low-risk pregnancy is supported by a midwife, that it is associated with lower risks of preterm birth, Williams said.

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Some research suggests that midwifery care could reduce about two-thirds of maternal and infant deaths and significantly decrease risks of severe complications associated with pregnancy or childbirth, said Amanda Shafton, the national midwifery director of Ob Hospitalist Group.

In the United States, there are only 4 midwives for every 1,000 live births, while other high-income countries see between 30-70 midwives per 1000 births. The countries with the lowest maternal mortality rates are those who prioritize midwifery-based care, with the vast majority of babies being delivered by midwives, Shafton, who was not involved in the March of Dimes report, wrote in an email.

To actively involve nurse-midwives in the fabric of obstetrical care in the United States, changes are needed across the board, she said. Its essential to advocate for hospital bylaw changes, increased opportunities for collaboration between midwives and OB-GYNs, and updated regulations on state and federal levels to allow nurse-midwives to practice to the fullest extent of their education and licensure.

Shafton added that its important to increase the midwifery workforce and achieve equitable payment models for midwives, from public and private insurance as well as individual salaries.

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March of Dimes also recommends that pregnant people discuss the benefits of low-dose aspirin with their providers to reduce the risk of preterm birth, especially if theyre at higher risk of a dangerous condition called preeclampsia.

It is absolutely probably my favorite and most impactful intervention, because its so simple. You can go to your local pharmacy and purchase over-the-counter 81-milligram low dose aspirin and take it with prenatal vitamins every day from about 12 weeks to the end of pregnancy to decrease preeclampsia and preterm birth in patients who are at risk for preeclampsia, Williams said.

What we encourage is that all patients get educated about it. All prenatal care providers screen for it. And if the patient is at risk, and many patients are, then they take it on a daily basis, from approximately weeks 12 through the end of pregnancy, she said. There are many different risk factors that should be discussed with ones prenatal care provider.

Those risk factors include being older than 35, using in vitro fertilization, being of Black race due to exposure to the stress of systemic racism, having a low income, experiencing your first pregnancy, having twins or triplets or already having a chronic health condition like high blood pressure.

Telehealth also could be a way to help expectant mothers, ONeil said.

Every pregnant woman who lives in a maternal health care desert should be provided with access to a health care app that is monitored by remote providers. In this app, she can track how she is feeling and if she is having any symptoms like edema or headaches. She can ask questions, she said.

I also think that they should go home with a blood pressure machine, she said, especially those with an increased risk of preeclampsia. So they can input their vitals daily, and the system can alert providers when the readings are outside the normal parameters. In addition, utilizing mobile health vans to conduct prenatal visits is crucial in increasing access.

Ill fight for as long as you want

ONeil said she sees it as her calling to raise awareness around preterm birth and the solutions needed to reduce the risks.

Shortly after giving birth to Vinson preterm in May 2016, ONeil became pregnant with her second son, Kolin. In April 2019, Kolin was born at the same small community hospital where ONeil was seen during her previous pregnancy.

Kolin, pictured here at age 2, has been thriving with support from regular physical, occupational and speech therapy. - Courtesy Ashley ONeil

With her second pregnancy, the hospital again wanted to transfer her to the larger hospital  but it was too late. The labor came too quick, ONeil said.

She had an emergency C-section.

When I woke up from surgery, I was scared to look around or ask, Wheres my baby? ONeil said.

Kolin was delivered preterm, but the medical team was unable to intubate him. They gave him manual breaths for an hour, until the flight came to transfer him, ONeil said.

Kolin was transferred to NICU at the larger hospital, two hours away.

We didnt know that he was going to make it, ONeil said.

While visiting Kolin in the NICU, she whispered to him,  Look, if you want to go, you can go, but if you want to fight, Ill fight for as long as you want to fight. 

Kolin survived and came home six months later.

He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, along with other conditions, and he has a feeding tube. But ONeil said his diagnoses dont keep him from enjoying life. With specialized care, physical therapy and speech therapy, her son has been thriving.

But shortly after ONeils family celebrated Kolin coming home, they faced another tragedy: the death of ONeils husband, Jorge.

In a four-year span, my son died, my second son was born four months early, spent six months in the NICU, and then my husband died four years from the same month as my first son died, ONeil said.

In her grief, ONeil focused on uplifting other NICU families by launching a podcast called Ask a NICU Mama and writing a book titled Its a NICU World.

ONeils mission has been to show that if she can survive and not go completely crazy, others can find hope too, she said. I know life can get dark and heavy and feel like youre suffocating at times, but I just want to show that if I can make it, so can someone else.

After she had two premature births three years apart  with one resulting in her elder sons death and the other leaving her younger son with lifelong disabilities  the nations ongoing high preterm birth rate breaks her heart, ONeil said.

When a child is born prematurely, it does not just affect that child or that family, but it affects our society as a whole. Do you know how many resources are used in order for my child to thrive? Raising him takes so much of me, in ways that mothers of neurotypical children could never understand, ONeil said.

I had to leave my job as a family nurse practitioner working in a busy, understaffed medical clinic because my son needed me at home. All of his medications, therapies, surgeries, et cetera, come at a high financial cost, she said. We supposedly live in the greatest country in the world, and yet every day as a country, we fail pregnant women and their babies.

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By Aditya Kalra

(Reuters) -India's top product certification agency will investigate e-scooter maker Ola Electric's deficiency in service standards and product issues, India's consumer affairs secretary told Reuters on Thursday.

Last month, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) sent Ola Electric a notice seeking an explanation from the SoftBank-backed company after the consumer rights agency received an unusually high 10,000 complaints.

Ola, India's top e-scooter maker, responded that it had resolved 99.1% of the complaints.

After reviewing that response, the CCPA has now asked the Bureau of Indian Standards to conduct a detailed investigation into the matter, consumer affairs secretary Nidhi Khare said on Thursday.

Ola Electric did not immediately respond to a Reuters email seeking comment.

The complaints were mostly for "minor" issues, Ola's founder Bhavish Aggarwal said on an earnings call last week.

"Two-thirds of it actually are just minor issues like loose parts or customers unfamiliar with the software used," Aggarwal said.

The rising complaints and ensuing regulatory scrutiny have cast a shadow on the e-scooter maker, following its stellar market debut in August.

Ola Electric's shares are down about 7.6% from their listing price of 76 rupees. On the day, its shares were down about 1%, while auto stocks had risen 0.5%.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra in New Delhi and Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW)  A Wichita man says he is enjoying a happy retirement thanks to his rewarding army career and his loving wife.

These days, retired 1st Sgt. Keith Ray is making sure his classic ride is ready for the car show. But before he got to this point, Ray spent more than a quarter century serving his country in the U.S. Army, and he says it was one of the best decisions he ever made.

Looking at all the structure, looking at the way that they talk, and teach you, and train you, it was really, really nice. So, for me, I had a ball, he said.

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Sgt. Ray served from 1989 to 2015, touring Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iraq. While hes no stranger to combat, thats not the first thing that comes to mind when he reflects on his time overseas.

Courtesy: Keith Ray Courtesy: Keith Ray Courtesy: Keith Ray Courtesy: Keith Ray Courtesy: Keith Ray Courtesy: Keith Ray

Our unit got involved with a lot of teaching and putting them in places where they need to be at, doing stories of school, he said.

When danger was present, Sgt. Ray was there for his brothers in arms, earning a Purple Heart among his 34 total awards and decorations.

Wichita veteran served in the Marine Corps and the Kansas Air Guard

Its a privilege to get something like that. People dont want to talk about that privilege, but youre trying to possibly save someones life, he said.

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Following an honorable discharge from the army, Ray spent a half-decade with the Sedgwick County Sheriffs Office, but now hes enjoying retirement. But that doesnt mean hes just lounging around.

Courtesy: Keith Ray

Love it. My wife, she loves it. Shes retired. So were both retired, but its a good thing. I have a lot of honey to-do lists,' he laughed.

These days, Ray also serves as a mentor for local youth who are considering military and law enforcement careers. He also spends time with his loving wife, Robbie.

If you want to nominate a veteran for our Veteran Salute, send an email to connect3news@ksn.com or fill out our online contact form!

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV.
(Photo credit: Florida Democratic Party)

Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee Chair Ione Townsend announced on Thursday that she will not run for reelection to her post next month, ending her nine-year run as party leader.

Meanwhile, Florida Democratic Party (FDP) Chair Nikki Fried took to the op-ed pages of the Miami Herald Thursday to speak out for the first time since the state party suffered its latest electoral setback, writing that the final result wasnt enough, but its a start.

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Also, Miami filmmaker Billy Corben, who briefly competed earlier this year to serve as chair for the Miami-Dade County Democratic Executive Committee before dropping his candidacy, announced that he was quitting both the Miami-Dade County Party as well as Florida Democratic Party and reregistering as an NPA (no party affiliation).

It is my sincere hope, if you have a modicum of pride or shame after last weeks electoral bloodbath, you will resign from your positions as well, he wrote in a letter addressed to Fried and Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee Chair Shevrin Jones.

As for Hillsborough, during the second part of the 2010s the county emerged as one of the strongest performer for Democrats in the state with Townsend at the helm but, like every other county in the state, its performed poorly in the past two election cycles.

This county is turning red, Townsend told the Phoenix in a phone conversation shortly after she released an email to party members announcing that she will not run next month for another term, after initially saying that she would.

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The demographics in this county have significantly changed. When you look at the migration, its significantly people over the age of 55, mostly white, 70% of them are registering as Republicans, she added. The demographics in the state of Florida and in Hillsborough are changing pretty dramatically, and they dont favor Democrats.

As the Phoenix noted going into last weeks election, Hillsborough had seen a voter registration advantage of more than 70,000 during the 2020 election reduced to fewer than 5,000 before Election Day 2024.

Thats a factor in why former state attorney Andrew Warren lost to Republican Suzy Lopez by 6 points last week. In 2020, the Democrat won re-election to his seat by more than 6 percentage points. But that change in voter registration, as well as an onslaught of television and direct mail ads attacking his tenure in office, doomed the man dubbed just three years ago as a rising star in the Florida Democratic Party.

Flow and ebb

In her statement to party members, Townsend reflected that monthly party meetings in early 2016 could often barely fill 30 seats. Voter engagement turned around rather dramatically later that year after Donald Trump took the White House that November (Trump lost by more than 7 points to Hillary Clinton in Hillsborough that year and by 7 points to Joe Biden in the county in 2020. Trump won Hillsborough by more than 3 points last week).

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She remarked that the partys bank balance was $4,000 in 2016 and now is over $100,000. And she is proud that despite key losses last week in county commission and clerk of the court races, Democratic voter turnout rose to nearly 80% last week, the best we ever had.

Townsend insists her decision not to run for re-election was not because of calls on social media by local Democrats to step aside, saying she never looks at Facebook.

So, Im totally unaware of it, she said of the criticism being a factor. Absolutely not.

In play

Although no longer a swing state, Fried and other party leaders frequently maintained in news conferences throughout the year that Florida was in play, but the results from last weeks election proved that is definitively not the case.

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Not only did Donald Trump and Rick Scott breeze through their races, winning by 13 percentage points each, the party failed to achieve its goal of breaking the Republican Party of Floridas supermajority in the state House, and in fact lost a seat in that chamber.

The party didnt lose seats in the Senate, but didnt add any either as their hopes of ousting Republican Corey Simon in District 3 fell woefully short. That means the GOP maintains supermajority status in that chamber as well, with a 28-12 advantage.

In the middle of a nationwide Democratic collapse, Florida moved six points to the left from the 2022 election, Fried writes, noting that Kamala Harris losing margin was better than Charlie Crists 19-point loss to Ron DeSantis in the 2022 gubernatorial election. It wasnt enough, but its a start.

Despite the party being badly outspent in legislative races, the FDP netted one loss in the Legislature and didnt lose any of the eight congressional districts that Democrats hold, she added.

On you

Not every Florida Democrat agrees, obviously. Take Corben.

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To be fair, you inherited a dumpster  but all youve done is light a match, he wrote in his letter to Fried and Jones.

This mess is entirely on you now. Youve achieved the unthinkable: dragging the state and local party from rock bottom to the abyss. Sucking the last breath (and penny) from a moribund brand, putting the final nail in its coffin, burying it and writing its obituary. Youve never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Frieds op-ed on Thursday wasnt exactly welcomed by some observers.

This is the most insane cope I have ever seen, said Benjamin Freeman on X. (Freeman has a YouTube channel where he makes election predictions). Yes, Florida shifted 10+ points right from the last Presidential election, but were still counting this as a win????

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When reached later on Thursday, Sen. Jones told the Phoenix that hes aware that Democrats in Miami, in Florida and across the nation remain frustrated with last weeks election results.

You have a couple of things that are happening, he said. You have those individuals who are pointing fingers and there are those who are saying collectively what does it look like to reset and restart who we are? And I think theres a place for both of them. I think Billy [Corben] has been very vocal about the DEC, even prior to me coming on. Ive only been the chair fulfilling the past chairs role after he was ousted over the past five months, and so we were able to raise half a million dollars for a full program, hire a field organizer, hire an executive director and really put a structure in place, so that whomever the chairman who comes in after that, they can continue to do infrastructure, create a deeper bench and engage with people within Miami-Dade County. We werent going to see that change under my leadership while this election cycle was happening. If we had not done the programming that we had done, the numbers probably could have been far worse in Miami-Dade County but thats because we did put up a fighting chance with the resources that we had.

Jones added that the next chair of the Miami-Dade Democrats also needed to be focused on voter registration and voter engagement.

This story was updated to include Sen. Shevrin Jones comments.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)  Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin will kick off a fundraising campaign on Thursday for a monument to women's suffrage being planned in Ohio.

An Evening With Doris Kearns Goodwin will take place in the Ohio Statehouse atrium. Megan Wood, CEO and executive director of the Ohio History Connection, the state's history office, will lead a discussion with the historian followed by a question-and-answer session.

Goodwin plans to discuss her eighth book, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, which was published in April. The book is a reflection on her final years with her longtime husband, Richard Goodwin, a former White House speechwriter who died in 2018, and on the singular era they lived through. The two were married for 42 years.

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Richard Goodwin was an aide and speechwriter to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, who helped coin the phrase The Great Society. Doris Kearns was a White House Fellow who later helped Johnson work on his memoir, The Vantage Point.

In an interview, Goodwin said she hopes to emphasize at the event that history can provide valuable perspective in tumultuous times. The talk of American democracy being in peril that permeated the recent election cycle is nothing new. It occurred before the Civil War, during the Great Depression, in the early days of World War II and in the 1960s, which she's written about most recently.

Each of those times ended with the right answer, she said, but they didn't know it.

They lived like we did, not knowing how the chapter would end," she said. "But I'd like to believe that that's why history gives us a certain kind of hope and faith that we've been through these really hard times before and come through  not only come through and endured, but we've come through with greater strength.

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Goodwin said culling through the 300 boxes from the 1960s that her husband had assembled to write the book left her buoyed, despite the reminders of the assassinations and the sadness with which the decade ended.

I think that the fundamental theme of the 1960s was that people believed that they could make a difference, she said. And that's really important in a democracy that citizens mobilize for what they believe in.

Thursday's event marks the official start of a $2 million capital campaign organized by the Capitol Square Foundation and the Women's Suffrage Monument Commission to support construction of the monument by 2026. Nationally, fewer than 8% of public statues depict real women.

State lawmakers created the commission in 2019, ahead of the 100th anniversary of ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote in 1920. However, Statehouse rules drafted amid political tensions in 2020 imposed a new waiting period of five years on erecting any new monuments on Statehouse grounds.

A committee agreed last week to waive the final few months of the waiting period for the suffrage monument. That may allow the commission to, for the first time, share some details about the sculpture, such as the artist who's been chosen to create it, at Thursday's event.
House Minority Leader Zac Ista, left, and Senate Minority Leader Kathy Hogan. (Photos provided by North Dakota Legislative Assembly)

Democrats Sen. Kathy Hogan of Fargo and Rep. Zac Ista of Grand Forks will be minority leaders for the upcoming session, the party announced late Wednesday.

Hogan also was minority leader in the 2023 session. Ista became minority leader April 30, 2023, succeeding Rep. Josh Boschee of Fargo, who held the role during the regular legislative session.

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Boschee, who was elected to the state Senate, will serve as assistant Senate minority leader and Sen. Ryan Braunberger of Fargo was elected minority caucus leader.

Rep. Gretchen Dobervich of Fargo will serve as assistant House minority leader and Rep. Jayme Davis D-Rolette was reelected minority caucus leader.

We look forward to getting to work on the most pressing issues facing North Dakota, including housing, property taxes, workforce development, child care, and assuring available and affordable mental health care across the state, Hogan said in a statement.

Ista said Tuesday the Democrats planned to hold elections in December. Members, who are meeting in Bismarck for Legislative Management meetings, decided to hold elections Wednesday, Ista said.

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Republicans, who elected leaders Tuesday night, hold a supermajority in the Legislature.

Lawmakers will return to Bismarck Dec. 2-4 for the organizational session. The 2025 legislative session starts Jan. 7.
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL)  Every holiday season, local nonprofit groups like Second Harvest Food Bank and The Salvation Army ask for donations to help those in need. Officials from both groups are seeing first-hand how initiatives like the Angel Tree and Project Thanksgiving are being impacted by the additional needs of Hurricane Helene victims.

The number of families to whom Second Harvest and partner WCQR hope to provide a Thanksgiving meal through Project Thanksgiving increased from 6,200 to 7,000. Director Rhonda Chafin says that as of Wednesday, theyre still a little short of their financial goal.

We havent raised all the money, were at about 85%. We need about $25,000 to finish out the campaign, and we hope that that will trickle in, Chafin said.

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Historic Elizabethton homes future uncertain after Helene

For the Salvation Armys Angel Tree, its 1,000 applications were filled in less than three days. Those Angels are now awaiting adoption from giving donors.

In the first weeks after the flooding, donations poured in. The giving sprit of East Tennessee really showed. But now, some worry about donor fatigue and wonder if the area has given all it can. Major R.C. Duskin with the Salvation Army says he doesnt think so.

There are some concerns that we have with it, but we also know the generosity that folks have and when theres need, sometimes we need to tighten our belts and be able to provide for other folks, Duskin told News Channel 11.

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Both organizations say its not only money that they need. Volunteer opportunities are available at both charities.

Whether its as a bell ringer, we have a number of Angel tree opportunities, whether its getting angel tags out to different organizations and groups or even helping us in packaging all of those gifts to distribute to the families that will be coming, Duskin said.

Duskin said its not just during the holidays help is needed.

But we also have opportunities at our shelter right now as well as we look to provide a safe and nutritious space because we do provide three meals a day for our shelter residents, Duskin said.

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For volunteer opportunities with the Salvation Army visit its website. To donate to Project Thanksgiving, you can do so 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 WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather.
FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio (WJW)  A street that has become an attraction due to its extravagant holiday displays wont look quite the same this year.

Last year, so many people visited Seabury Avenue in Fairview Park that police felt like they had to step in following numerous complaints about trespassing and disturbances.

On top of that, with the number visitors parking on the street and tour busses and stretch limos showing up, traffic became a major issue.

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Starting in January, the city held public meetings regarding the issue. In those meetings, some residents against the light displays pointed out there are some city ordinances that have been around for 50 years they will start enforcing.

Cleveland chef preparing meals for MMA fighter ahead of big match

Vehicles that exceed 10,000 pounds will no longer be permitted on Seabury Avenue.

Additionally, no decorations can be placed in the public right of way, meaning the sidewalks and tree lawns.

Do I want to be the Grinch? No. But unfortunately, I took an oath of office to uphold the ordinances of Fairview Park and I cant turn a blind eye to a violation that we absolutely know is going on, chief of police Paul Shepard said.

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Not having decorations on the sidewalks and tree lawns is a point of contention for some residents. One of the attractions on Seabury Avenue is houses that have lighted arches visitors can walk through going over their sidewalks.

The people who are for it will be concerned about losing that magic, Bill McVicker said.

McVicker is the founder of Fairview Park Holiday Lights, a nonprofit they created when they started making serious money from holding events and hosting an elf tent on Seabury Avenue.

He told FOX 8 he understands police and city officials are beholden to the law, but he wishes there couldve been more creative discussions and perhaps some seasonal flexibility with the law.

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I feel like we didnt have enough good effort to try and find solutions, he said.

Through the money theyve made over the years, theyve donated more than $23,000 to Fairview Park charities over the years, McVicker said.

Ohio-based fast food chain to close 140 underperforming locations this year

Hes not sure if theyll see continued success with these changes.

Shepard doesnt think there will be a huge dropoff.

If youve ever been down Seabury, you know there are some incredible displays in the front yards of these folks, Shepard said. We want them to decorate their houses. We want them to decorate their yards. They just cant decorate on the public right of way.

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According to Shepard, the code states that anyone violating the right of way code would face a 4th degree misdemeanor and be subject to arrest. However, he said thats the last thing they want to do and will do everything they can to get any individual breaking the law in compliance before they take action.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Fox 8 Cleveland WJW.
HOLYOKE, Mass. (WWLP)  The Saint Patricks Committee of Holyoke brought the community together for an evening of holiday cheer and shopping, to support local businesses and a beloved tradition.

Dozens came out for The committees first Holiday Sip & Shop at the Holyoke Elks Lodge Wednesday night.

Shoppers had the opportunity to support their favorite local businesses and find unique gifts for their loved ones. All proceeds from raffles and table fees from vendors..go to support the Saint Patricks parade.

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Chair of the event Craig Haslam told 22News, We know we have it every year, its community-driven and we wanted to plan this event because these are all local vendors and crafters.

Were seeing a lot of friends, a lot of people in the community and were just thankful to see everyone here to support us, adds committee member Carolyn Edwards.

The countdown begins for the 72nd Holyoke St. Patricks Parade on Sunday, March 23rd, which will be aired live in its entirety on 22News and right here on WWLP.com.

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.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Homebuilding execs say President-elect Donald Trump's deportation plans could worsen a worker shortage.

The industry heavily relies on immigrant labor and companies are wary of their workforce shrinking.

Homebuilders and economists have said a deeper labor shortage could cause housing costs to spike.

Homebuilding-industry leaders and economists say President-elect Donald Trump's plans to implement the "largest deportation effort in American history" could kickstart a chain reaction that ultimately sends home prices higher.

The issue is the construction labor force, whose 500,000-worker shortage is already making conditions more challenging. Even fewer workers would mean fewer completed homes. That inventory shortage is then seen driving higher prices.

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Since immigrants make up a large part of that group, housing economists and homebuilders worry that deportations and crackdowns could make the ongoing shortage worse, ultimately leading to more price increases.

Foreign-born workers make up about a quarter of the construction workforce. An estimated 15 to 23% of that overall workforce are undocumented immigrants. Foreign-born workers are particularly over-represented in the homebuilding trades, including plastering, constructing drywall, and painting.

Eric Finnigan, vice president of demographics research at John Burns, told Business Insider that if mass deportations happen, a lot of homebuilding, remodeling, and repairing "comes to a standstill and or prices go up by a lot."

Even before concrete action is taken, the mere prospect of a crackdown could scare away workers and hurt the construction industry, economists and homebuilders say.

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"The threat of it will be felt immediately and very viscerally among people who are working in the construction sector," Ben Metcalf, a housing policy expert at the University of California, Berkeley, told Business Insider.

"Just even the talk of mass deportations could send a chill through the entire immigrant employment sector," added Jim Tobin, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders.

Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have repeatedly pushed back on these notions. From the perspective of housing prices, they have said that deporting immigrants would bring down housing costs by reducing demand for homes.

In a September address, Trump said that Americans shouldn't "ignore the impact" millions of illegal aliens have had on driving up housing costs.

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Vance also recently refuted the idea that deportations and tougher immigration would deplete the construction workforce, arguing that there are ample displaced American workers ready to take those jobs.

"One of the really deranged things that I think illegal immigration does to our society is it gets us in a mind-set of saying we can only build houses with illegal immigrants, when we have seven million  just men, not even women, just men  who have completely dropped out of the labor force," he said in the interview.

An uncertain future for immigration

Deportations are logistically difficult and costly, and it's unclear what the full scope of crackdowns will be. During his first term, Trump oversaw an initial uptick in removals, but his administration deported significantly fewer people  about 1.5 million  than former President Barack Obama did. The Obama administration deported 2.9 million people in its first term and 1.9 million in its second, while President Joe Biden is on track to remove about the same number of people Trump did.

Trump also stepped up workplace raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during his first term, and his incoming "border czar" Tom Homan recently promised to ramp up raids again. "If you are in this country illegally in six months, pack your bags, because you're going home," Vance said in September.

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Beyond mass removals, many employers in the construction industry are also concerned about more restrictive legal immigration policies. Many immigrants working in the industry are protected under certain special legal programs, like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protected Status, which were bolstered under Biden but may be ended by Trump.

"Those programs are particularly susceptible to being terminated very quickly, which would leave construction companies in the lurch," Chad Blocker, a Los Angeles-based immigration attorney, told Business Insider.

A shortage of workers

Some economists disagree with the Trump campaign's argument that deporting immigrants will alleviate housing affordability issues by lowering demand. They argue that the surge in home costs is largely a result of the nationwide housing shortage, and immigrants are a key part of building housing.

Homebuilders pushed back on Vance's comments about a readily available American labor force sitting on the sidelines, waiting for construction job openings.

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During the pandemic, many older, experienced workers retired, and the pipeline of younger US-born workers isn't sufficient, homebuilders say. They note that with the rise of remote work and the tech sector, the building trades aren't particularly attractive to younger people.

"You don't have a whole lot of people that want to go up on a roof when it's 120 degrees out there," Dennis Webb, a homebuilder in Phoenix, told Business Insider. "They want to work in an air-conditioned office, and they want to be behind a computer, and they don't really want to do manual labor."

Are you a home builder or immigrant construction worker concerned about shifting immigration policy or enforcement? Share your story with this reporter at erelman@businessinsider.com .

Read the original article on Business Insider
Live in a home governed by a condominium, co-op or homeowner's association? Have questions about what they can and cannot do? Ryan Poliakoff, an attorney and author based in Boca Raton, has answers.

Question: When my husband and I retired and moved into our condo several years ago, we noted that one of the rules stated that dogs must be walked away from the residences. Most of our townhouse-type units have front, back and/or side yards. In addition, the units in our very small community are arranged in cul-de-sacs around islands with plants and grass, and there are plants and a lawn around the pool entrance and a small, wooded area in one corner of the property.

So, it appeared to us that dog owners had plenty of convenient places to walk their dogs, in addition to their own lawn areas, such that not allowing dogs on lawns around neighbors' homes seemed to be a considerate and reasonable arrangement. Having had many bad experiences with dog owners through the years, we were pleased that our new home would allow us to keep our distance.

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Then, earlier this year a new owner moved in. He has a dog and is a lawyer. He says that our condo's governing documents give him the right to walk his dog on any and all common areas  which include the front, back and side yards of all the units, as well as all the driveways and entry walkways. He claims that the community may not have or enforce any rule limiting where owners, guests and their dogs may walk, as that would be contrary to our governing documents.

Yikes! Imagine opening your front door to find your neighbor walking his dog right there at your home's entrance. Or having supper on your back deck and seeing your neighbor bring his dog to the yard behind your unit and then the dog needs to poop while you're eating, and you get to watch. Yuk!

I asked this new neighbor/lawyer to please tell me where in our documents this unlimited dog-walking access provision was, and he just said that it was "in plain language" in the documents.

That sounded like a suspicious non-answer to me. Our community documents and rules have been in place for decades, and I assume that everything was cleared by attorneys when the HOA was created. Have Florida condo laws changed? Is this new neighbor/lawyer correct? Signed, G.G.

This dog is enjoying West Palm Beach's GreenMarket. Reader asks whether a homeowner association can dictate where residents walk their dogs?

Palm Beach County HOA's dog walking rules explained

Dear G.G.,

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Well, hes a lawyer, so he must be right  because lawyers know everything.

Of course, Im being facetious. But I cant tell you how many conflicts I have that involve lawyers who are sure they are right about everything and anything, regardless of whether it is within their area of expertise.

Its true that, generally speaking, unit owners in a condominium have easement rights to use and travel though the common elements. But, of course those rights are subject to restrictions contained in the governing documents, as well as the boards rulemaking authority.

The vast majority of condominium declarations or bylaws expressly state that the board has the authority to make rules concerning the use of the condominium property. There are countless examples of such rules which would be invalidated if your attorney-friends theory was correct. Could you pass a rule preventing the pool from being used at night? Could you prevent owners from entering dangerous areas, like electrical rooms or the roof? Could you keep an owner from sleeping in the lobby? Or from bringing his dog into the pool, for that matter?

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This owners rights are likely not as broad as he alleges; and unless the declaration were to expressly grant a specific right (in which event the board-made rules could not apply further limits), or unless your board has far more limited rulemaking authority than would by typical, the board would have the conceptual ability to promulgate reasonable rules governing the common elements and other association property (including, by the way, the units themselves).

Reasonable is going to be the key word. Provisions in the declaration are given a broad presumption of validity and are only invalidated in rare circumstances; but rules are judged on a reasonableness standard. Is the association addressing a legitimate, real problem, and is the rule designed to address that specific problem?

Having dog poop strewn around is a real problem that the association likely experiences. Is restricting an owners ability to walk their dog in specific areas a rule that is reasonably tailored to solve that problem? My gut says yes, but of course the counter argument would be that simply requiring owners to pick up after their dogs might accomplish the same goal. Of course, that does not solve your legitimate concern regarding enjoying your patio while watching a dog nearby doing its business on the lawn.

Only a judge would be able to say for sure, but I like the associations odds of surviving a challenge.

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Where I see a much closer case are in the associations that mandate all animals be walked entirely off the property there, I doubt a court would find such restrictions reasonable, although Im not aware of a specific case that has considered the issue.

Ryan Poliakoff, a partner at Poliakoff Backer, LLP, is a Board Certified specialist in condominium and planned development law. This column is dedicated to the memory of Gary Poliakoff. Ryan Poliakoff and Gary Poliakoff are co-authors of "New Neighborhoods  The Consumers Guide to Condominium, Co-Op and HOA Living." Email your questions to condocolumn@gmail.com. Please be sure to include your location.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County HOA dog walking rules on property, neighborhood
WILL COUNTY, Ill.  Felony charges have been filed against the parents of a 2-year-old girl who died under suspicious circumstances inside their Will County home last week.

According to officials from the Will County Sheriffs Office, 49-year-old Edward Weiher and 27-year-old Alexa Balen have both been charged with one felony count of endangering the life or health of a child, two felony counts of unlawful possession of a controlled substance, and one misdemeanor count of endangering the life or health of a child.

Authorities said the charges were handed down after the couples 2-year-old daughter, Trinity Balen-Weiher, was found unresponsive inside their home and later died at the hospital.

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Deputies said they were first called to the couples home, located in the 2200 block of West Thorn Apple Drive in the Village of Homer Glen, just after 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 6, following a report of an unresponsive child and a possible carbon monoxide leak inside the home.

When deputies arrived on the scene, they found Weiher, who owns the home, performing chest compressions on the child on an ottoman in the living room. Balen and her six-year-old daughter were also inside the home.

Deputies who responded to the scene said they allegedly found multiple doses of administered Narcan near the ottoman where the child was found when they arrived.

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The child was taken to the hospital by ambulance but was pronounced dead the next day at around 12:24 a.m.

49-year-old Edward Weiher has been charged with one felony count of endangering the life or health of a child, two felony counts of unlawful possession of a controlled substance, and one misdemeanor count of endangering the life or health of a child.

Deputies said while inside the couples home, they spotted garbage, rotten food, soiled diapers and clothing, medical waste, and evidence of drug use.

Around 9 grams of heroin was allegedly discovered inside the home, and deputies believe the drugs were within reaching distance of both children. 21 pills of Alprazolam (Xanax) were also allegedly found on the floor of a bedroom.

LATEST CASES: Missing people in Chicagoland

Following the incident, both parents were taken in for questioning.

Weiher is currently being held at the Will County Adult Detention Facility and will appear in court for a pretrial detention hearing on Thursday.

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Deputies said because of a medical condition, Balen was taken to the hospital but will be taken to jail upon her release.

Balens 6-year-old daughter was held in protective custody until she was picked up by a member of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).

An autopsy of the child was conducted at the Will County Coroners Office but the cause and manner of her death are pending. Deputies said they believed additional charges will be filed once the cause and manner of death are determined.

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By James Pomfret and Jessie Pang

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong's high court on Thursday sentenced a man to 23 years and 10 months in prison for being the mastermind of an alleged plot to attack police with explosives during the city's pro-democracy and anti-China protests in 2019.

The man, Ng Chi-hung, 28, had been charged for "prohibitions against bombing of prescribed objects" under the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Ordinance and a conspiracy to use explosives and firearms to endanger life.

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Another defendant Wong Chun-keung, the leader of a group known as the 'Dragon Slayers' which was active during the 2019 protests, was sentenced to 13 years and six months imprisonment.

Justice Judianna Barnes also sentenced five others to between 5 years and 10 months and 12 years for various offences including possessing firearms and abetting the manufacture of explosives.

The long jail terms come amid a protracted national security clampdown by China in the global financial hub, and is the first time the UN anti-terrorism ordinance has been used in Hong Kong since 2002.

The judge told the court that the plan was premeditated, vicious and intended to target police officers in what she described as a "declaration of war on society".

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Steve Li, a chief superintendent for national security in the Hong Kong police, told reporters the sentence was the heaviest for any offence linked to the 2019 protests so far, that he believed would have "a substantial deterrent effect".

He noted that items had been seized including explosives and bullets, with the defendants accused of planning to plant two bombs during a protest march on Dec. 8, 2019, but some arrests were made and the plan didn't go ahead.

One of the defendants, Lai Chun-pong, who had pleaded not guilty to the charges but was found guilty by a jury in August, was jailed for 10 years and 10 months. He was convicted of an alternative charge of conspiring to cause explosions that were likely to endanger life or cause significant property damage.

The other defendants had pleaded guilty.

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The ruling came less than a week before 45 of Hong Kong's leading democrats face sentence in a separate national security case for an alleged subversive plot from 2020.

(Editing by Himani Sarkar and Ros Russell)
The honor flight network is dedicated to celebrating Americas senior veterans by taking them for a day at the nations memorials.

There are 128 hubs across the country, including one in Chicago. That group was established in 2008 and has celebrated over 11,400 veterans.

Two Eagle Scout candidates choose projects to honor veterans of years past

At a recent Welcome Home reception at Midway airport, over 100 local heroes were showered at baggage claim with the love many of them never received when they first returned from war.

More information at https://www.honorflightchicago.org/

The 116 veterans from Chicago and surrounding areas flew back after a day touring national memorials in Washington D.C. The seven Korean War vets and 109 Vietnam Vets represented the Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy.

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Special Section: Veterans Voices

They were part of honor flight Chicagos 117th flight since the organization partnered with the Chicago Department of Aviation and Southwest Airlines in 2007. The all-expense paid day trip to the nations capital is meant to show the veterans how appreciated they are and to recognize them for their bravery, determination and patriotism.

The experience is free to those who served.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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VIBORG, S.D. (KELO)  To some, Viborg might seem like any other small town, but if you look closer, youll find that Viborg has a remarkable past that helped form a unique identity.

Step inside the Daneville Heritage Museum and the building is packed to the brim with artifacts from Viborgs past.

Youll find everything from a display featuring Viborg native Alvin Hansen, who helped create the Social Security Act under Franklin D. Roosevelt, to a memorial for Viborg veterans, and even a room dedicated to Christmas.

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Wild Bill: A new book about Bill Janklow

Everything in that room was donated by my aunt. Every year, she would set up that display in her home, and Id get them out of the attic, and bring them down and bring them back up, Daneville Heritage Museum treasurer Brenda Jensen said.

The museum also honors Viborgs rich Danish heritage.

What we do is we want to strive to honor the pioneers, the Danish pioneers that settled here. So, youre going to find all kinds of not only things from our pioneers, but we also preserved their stories, office manager Cheri ODell said.

The first documented Danish settlers in the area originally immigrated to Racine, Wisconsin. During the 1860s and 1870s, they moved west to a small village called Daneville, which is just south of present day Viborg.

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Then, they wrote back and told their friends what great opportunities there were. Then, their friends from Racine came to Viborg as well. Well, then the news spread over to Denmark too about how in the Homestead Act, there was free land, and that was appealing to many. Then, that just kind of snowballed, and the Danes just kept coming and kept coming, ODell said.

There are also tools from Danevilles blacksmith shop. The name of the township is also where the museum gets its name.

However, about 20 years after the village was first settled, the railroad proved to be the beginning of Danevilles demise.

They petitioned to get the railroad to come through, but that didnt work. It actually came through about a half a mile north of where Daneville was, so when the railroad came in, they pretty much just picked up the businesses and moved them to Viborg, ODell said.

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When those settlers made the move north, they brought along their Danish roots.

When Viborg was incorporated, or platted out, there was four different individuals that gave way, and one of them was Ole Sorensen. I dont know of the four why he got the privilege, but he was originally from Viborg, Denmark, and he named Viborg after his home city back in Denmark. Back in Denmark, its pronounced vee-bor, ODell said.

Beyond the museum, you can still find plenty of evidence of the towns Danish heritage. Residents even do traditional Danish folk dances during Danish Days every July.

It just kind of shows the people in town of the respect for being a Dane and trying to keep everything, all the Danish activities going, Jensen said.

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I think that our Danish heritage has kept us unique in the fact that not very many towns hold on to their traditions and to their heritage the way we have. Even if youre not a Dane, you just kind of grab on to it, and youre proud of it, ODell said.

And the museum will make sure the towns Danish history lives on.

I think we need to keep the Danish heritage alive because thats what makes Viborg unique, ODell said.

The museum will be hosting a free concert featuring a Danish musician on November 20th. For more information on that, 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 KELOLAND.com.
ROME (AP)  A delegation of former hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and their relatives met Thursday with Pope Francis and expressed hope that the incoming and outgoing U.S. administrations would work together to bring the remaining hostages home.

The freed hostages included Yelena Troufanov, who was released last November but whose son Sasha remains in Gaza and appeared in a video released Wednesday by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.

You see in the picture how my child has changed over the course of this year, Yelena Troufanov told a news conference in Rome after the papal audience. I am very worried about his condition, I see that he is not in a good mental state and not in a good physical state.

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She and the other former hostages and relatives renewed their calls for a deal to bring the remaining hostages home, especially with winter approaching. They said they hoped the incoming Trump administration would work with the outgoing Biden administration to push the process forward.

The war started when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250, with dozens still in Gaza. Israels subsequent campaign has killed more than 43,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, whose count doesn't distinguish between civilians and fighters, though they say more than half of the dead are women and children.

The war has ignited a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, driven Israel into increasing international isolation, with two world courts examining charges of war crimes, and had sparked a wave of protests on American campuses that have fueled debate over the U.S. role as Israels key military and diplomatic supporter.

We hope that with the election of Trump, together with Biden  this is not about left and right  we hope that Biden and Trump work together now to get the hostages back before the winter, said Sharone Lifshitz, who accompanied her mother, Yocheved Lifshitz, to the audience.

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Her mother, a longtime peace activist, was released Oct. 23, 2023, but her father Oded remains in Gaza. Sharone Lifshitz, who wasn't kidnapped, thanked Francis for meeting with the delegation and said that he promised to pray for each of the hostages still being held.

Israel says that Hamas is holding about 65 hostages and the remains of about 35 others either killed on Oct. 7, 2023, or who died in captivity.

The pope is a few years older than my father. Both of them are men who spent a lifetime making this world a place that cares for the weak, that cares for each other, that reaches across religions and creeds to make it a place where humans, real humans, can live in dignity, she said.

Louis Har, an Argentine-Israeli who was freed during an Israeli army raid in Rafah last February, said that he never imagined that he would meet the Argentine pope. He wept at one point recounting his ordeal to reporters gathered at the Rome headquarters of Italy's Jewish communities. He said that he had given the pope a necklace with a charm signifying hope.

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I felt his sincerity, his care, and that we didnt come in vain, he said. There is someone listening to us. I hope that his prayers and his message will reach the whole world, because he has an impact on the whole world.

Francis has tried to strike a balance in his comments on the Hamas attack in 2023 and the Israeli response, and conflicts in Gaza and southern Lebanon that have ensued. He has called for an immediate cease-fire, for the release of hostages and for humanitarian aid to get to Gaza.

He has also suggested that Israels actions in Gaza and southern Lebanon are disproportionate and immoral, and says that he calls a Catholic parish in Gaza every day to check in on the people it is sheltering.

He has met twice before with relatives of the hostages, and once with Palestinians whose families were affected by Israel's operations in Gaza.

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___

Natalie Melzer reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

___

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.
The House Ethics Committee was set to release a report detailing the findings of an investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz's alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use on Friday, but President-elect Donald Trump's selection of the Florida Republican to be attorney general abruptly deprived the panel of its jurisdiction.

Gaetz, a Trump loyalist, resigned from his House seat on Wednesday, effectively ending the ethics investigation that has harried him for years, a Republican official familiar with the matter told The New York Times. According to that official, Gaetz repeatedly offered combative replies to the committee's questions, delaying the investigation for months. The publication of the findings was further delayed by a House rule that blocks the release of negative reports so close to an election.

The Justice Department opened its own respective Gaetz investigations in 2021, looking into allegations that Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, attended drug-fueled sex trafficking parties, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds for personal use and accepted gifts prohibited by House rules, among other transgressions. The Justice Department closed its investigation last year without filing charges against Gaetz; the Ethics Committee then opened its own inquiry.

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Gaetz, who led the successful effort to depose former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023, claimed that the investigations were punishment for his defiance. I am the most investigated man in the United States Congress, Gaetz said as the House investigation began.

Now that Gaetz has left Congress in anticipation of joining Trump's administration as the highest law enforcement officer in the country, the House GOP's thin majority will be short another seat, which will be filled via special election. Still, many of Gaetz's colleagues were glad to see him go.

"Most people in there are giddy about it. Get him out of here, Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, told the Times. He added that Trump probably appointed Gaetz to reward him for his loyalty. Before Gaetz's resignation was announced, he said, the House was prepared to expel him just as they did former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., last year.

Gaetz now faces the prospect of Senate hearings as part of his confirmation process. Many GOP senators told the Times that they were stunned by the choice.
WASHINGTON  Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, was briefly detained after an interaction with police at Dulles International Airport near Washington, a spokesperson told NBC News.

The spokesperson said that McCaul was not arrested and was not threatening to anyone and that police approached him because he appeared to be drunk and needed help. McCaul was then able to phone a family member to pick him up from the airport to bring him back to Washington.

A spokesperson for Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority police said McCaul was charged with being drunk in public around 9 p.m. Nov. 4 and released to a driver who picked him up.

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The spokesperson said McCaul, who is a nervous flyer, took the drug Ambien to help him sleep on a flight back home to Texas and inadvertently missed his flight.

While he was working to rebook his flight, the Ambien, which he had mixed with several alcoholic drinks, made him disoriented, and he locked himself out of his phone, the spokesperson said.

That led to his encounter with police, who initially thought he was just drunk and detained him, the spokesperson said. After McCaul explained the situation, police helped him to use one of their phones to call a family member who picked him up at the airport.

The spokesperson said McCaul was respectful of police throughout the encounter.

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Two weekends ago, I made a mistake  one for which I take full responsibility. I missed a flight to Texas and found myself disoriented in the airport. This was the result of a poor decision I made to mix an Ambienwhich I took in order to sleep on the upcoming flightwith some alcohol," McCaul said in a statement.

He added: Law enforcement officers briefly detained me while I waited for a family member to pick me up. I have nothing but respect and gratitude for the officers who intercepted me that evening. This incident does not reflect who I am and who I strive to be. As a human, I am not perfect. But I am determined to learn from this mistake and, God-willing, make myself a better person.

McCaul oversees one of the most powerful committees in the House and often travels around the world on behalf of the House speaker to meet with foreign leaders and dignitaries.

Republicans have a term limit policy for chairs and ranking members of committees, and McCaul is set to hit the limit at the end of his current term. To continue as chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, he must seek and get a waiver from the House Steering Committee, which McCaul has said he plans to request.

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McCaul, who was easily re-elected to his 11th term in the House, previously was chair of the Homeland Security Committee.

Members returned to Washington this week after Republicans took back the White House and the Senate while retaining control of the House.

The House and the Senate are starting their lame-duck session, a term used to describe the time between the election and the beginning of a new administration when retiring members and those who did not win their re-election bids are still serving in Congress.

On Wednesday, House Republicans met at the Hyatt Regency in Washington to hold their leadership candidates forum and elections, even though the results of some battleground House races are still unknown.

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President-elect Donald Trump stopped by the Hyatt to meet with the House Republican Caucus ahead of a meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House.

At the meeting with House Republicans, he endorsed Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in his bid for another term in the role.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
The House on Thursday moved to overhaul audits of the chambers business after voters overwhelmingly said the state auditor has the power to audit the Legislature.

Representatives voted 135-10 on a House rule change that provides Auditor Diana DiZoglios office with the sole authority to select an independent auditing firm to conduct a financial audit of the House of Representatives, a change she argued strips away the new authority her team gained at the ballot box.

Ten Republicans voted against the change: Reps. Donald Berthiaume, Nicolas Boldyga, David DeCoste, John Marsi, Joseph McKenna, Kelly Pease, Michael Soter, Alyson Sullivan-Almeida, Marcus Vaughn and Steven Xiarhos.

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House Minority Leader Brad Jones supported the measure.

The financial audit will be automatically posted to the Legislatures website, and will be conducted annually, Mariano said in a statement just after 12:30 p.m. While Question 1 has not yet gone into effect, this proposed rule change is the first step in the Houses effort to respect the will of the voters without violating the separation of powers clause that is foundational to the Massachusetts Constitution. We look forward to a broader rules discussion early next year.

Mariano announced the Houses plans while House Democrats met behind closed doors to discuss upcoming votes. A spokesperson said the Rules Committee unanimously endorsed the with Republicans in support.

Representatives did not hold any public deliberations about the new plan to respond to the powers DiZoglios office gained at the ballot box, and only a single lawmaker, Rep. Danielle Gregoire, spoke about it on the chamber floor before the vote.

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The House already receives a financial audit each year from an independent firm selected by legislative leaders.

The House is meeting in a rare lame-duck formal session Thursday, where representatives also expect to approve long-stalled economic development and clean energy bills.

Senate Democrats do not plan to take similar action related to their rules and the chambers audit, according to a spokesperson for Senate President Karen Spilka.

DiZoglio, herself a former representative and senator, has been aggressively pushing to audit the Legislature over objections from top Democrats, who argue that doing so would represent a constitutional overreach.

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She was quick to criticize the announcement, posting on social media that such a move amounted to slapping voters in the face.

To the House members currently caucusing. If you strip away the ability for our office to conduct the audit, you give yourselves the ability to control the scope of the audit, by an outside firm, since youll still control how much you pay for the audit, what you will allow their scope to be, and what you will allow them to examine or not examine  youll be giving yourself control over every aspect of the process which will be overseen by you, and not our office, exempting yourself from oversight  yet again  slapping voters in the face, she posted while House Democrats met privately.

Mariano announced that the House will act to change Rule 85A in its chamber rules, which declares that the House Business Manager with approval from House legal counsel must ensure that outside, independent audits of House financial accounts be conducted for each fiscal year. Those audits must be filed with the House clerk and made publicly available upon request under the rule.

DiZoglios taxpayer-funded office released results from its first attempt to audit the Legislature with a report published 15 days before Election Day, which said House and Senate Democrats refused to participate and criticized missing information.

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The Methuen Democrat wrote to Mariano and Spilka last week renewing her push for information and outlining plans to conduct a performance audit, which could be broader than the financial audit envisioned by the House rules change.

With more than 70 percent support, voters this month approved a ballot question that explicitly empowered the auditors office to audit the Legislature.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell has cautioned that constitutional limitations might affect the voter-approved law. On Thursday, Campbell declined to shed more light on what those factors could be and said she first wants to get a better understanding of what the auditor is looking to actually audit.

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William Lawrence, state coordinator for the Rent is too Damn High Coalition welcomes housing advocates from across the state to a gathering at Lansing's Central United Methodist Church on Nov. 13, 2024. | Kyle Davidson

After more than 100 organizations submitted a letter to Michigans elected leaders calling for the passage of the Fair Chance Housing Act, housing advocates from across the state gathered in Lansing to continue their push to reform the state laws around landlords and tenants.

Advocates met downtown at the Central United Methodist church Wednesday, to discuss various bills supporting tenants and ensuring access to housing before taking steps to pressure lawmakers for their passage and calling for their passage at the state Capitol.

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If you dont understand what homelessness has to do with any of these bills, you really dont understand the issue. Because if you do not have a roof over your head, you lose your ability to a livelihood. You cannot work, you cannot pay your bills, you cannot feed your body, you cant do anything if you do not have a roof over your head, so it has a direct impact on homelessness and housing insecurity, said Rosey White, a housing advocate from Detroit.

Alongside the Fair Chance Access to Housing Act, House Bill 4878, which would generally prohibit a landlord from taking an individuals criminal record into account when evaluating a prospective tenants application, advocates discussed efforts to eliminate Housing Discrimination based on source of income, allow for eviction record expungement, guarantee tenants the right to organize, guaranteeing tenants right to legal counsel, the right to repair your apartment and deduct the costs from rent, banning junk fees and multiple other policies.

The Rent is Too Damn High Coalitions housing homestretch bills

House Bills 40624063 and Senate Bills 205207: These bills would bar landlords and people engaging in real estate transactions from discriminating against a person due to their source of income and allow individuals facing this kind of discrimination to seek damages.

Senate Bill 801: This bill allows for an individual to have their eviction record expunged.

Senate Bills 900903: These bills ensure tenants have the right to organize and form a tenants union, alongside the right to make repairs to their apartment and deduct the cost from rent.

House Bill 4878: Generally prohibits a landlord from taking an individuals criminal record into account when evaluating a prospective tenants application.

House Bills 51575163 and Senate Bills 486492: These bills make a number of changes to the states laws on mobile home parks, including establishing licensing requirements, limiting rent increases, and tightening water and safety regulations.

Senate Bill 661: Creates limitations on the fees charged to tenants.

House Bills 52375238: Ensures income-eligible tenants have a right to a court-appointed attorney in tenant-landlord cases.

House Bill 5605:Allows for the reuse of certain screening reports when applying for a rental and creating additional requirements for landlords in reviewing rental applications.

House Bill 5756: Prohibits steep rent increase and denying lease renewal to tenants with good standing.

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We havent seen action on these bills from Democratic leadership. Bills that would impact three million renters in the state of Michigan are stuck in committee. Theyre just sitting there. And now the Democrats have lost the House of Representatives in the recent election, which means that time is running out, said William Lawrence, state coordinator for the Rent is Too Damn High Coalition.

Democrats control both chambers of the Legislature. Republicans won a majority in the House for the next term starting in January.

House Floor Leader Abraham Aiyash (D-Hamtramck), who sponsored the Fair Chance Housing Act, encouraged individuals struggling with housing to keep sharing their stories as the clock runs out on Democrats control of the House.

If theyre not going to take the time to listen to their districts, were going to bring the districts to Lansing, and youre going to share these stories with these politicians in Lansing, because if they are too busy to have coffee hours or too busy to take your phone calls or to busy to answer email, youre going to make sure they have time to see and tell you to your face, Aiyash said.

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Aiyash did not run for reelection this year.

In addition to breaking down the bills many speakers shared their experiences struggling with Housing.

Jessica Henry, the senior programs manager of Nation Outside, a group advocating for the formerly incarcerated individuals, shared her continued difficulty in finding housing after being incarcerated for nine of her 42 years of life.

Despite completing her masters degree in December, Henry said she still lives in student housing.

It was a rough go trying to get on campus there, but they accepted me because they knew who I was. They knew the changes that I was making to my life. I had already been a student there for a year. But guess what? When Im not a student, I dont have anywhere to live. I have to go back through the process of filling out applications and paying $50 each time, going ahead and coming and knowing Im going to get denied, even though I have a great credit score, Henry said.

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Theres so many people out here who are trying to change their lives, but keep continuing to get held back by our system, Henry said.

Housing advocates and organizations from across the state gathered in Lansing on Nov. 13, 2024. | Kyle Davidson

Rosey White of Detroit addresses fellow housing advocates at Central United Methodist Church in Lansing on Nov. 13, 2024. | Kyle Davidson

Housing advocates demonstrated inside the Michigan state Capitol on Nov. 13, 2024 calling for lawmakers to pass a swath of renting reforms. | Kyle Davidson

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Housing advocates demonstrate inside the Michigan State Capitol on Nov. 13, 2024. | Kyle Davidson

Housing advocates demonstrate inside the Michigan state Capitol on Nov. 13, 2024, calling on lawmakers to pass a swath of pro-renter policies. | Kyle Davidson

Housing advocates demonstrating in the Michigan state Capitol lower a banner between floors in the rotunda while calling on lawmakers to pass a number of renting reforms. | Kyle Davidson

Jessica Henry, senior programs manager for Nation Outside, shares her difficulties finding housing as someone who is formerly incarcerated during a gathering at Lansing's Central United Methodist Church on Nov. 13, 2024. | Kyle Davidson

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Rep. Abraham Aiyash (D-Hamtramck) encourages individuals pushing for renting reform to keep sharing their stories during a gathering at Lansing's Central United Methodist Church on Nov. 13, 2024. | Kyle Davidson

William Lawrence, state coordinator for the Rent is too Damn High Coalition discusses legislation to support renters during a gathering at Lansing's Central United Methodist Church on Nov. 13, 2024. | Kyle Davidson

Holly Hook of Manufactured Housing Action said in recent years, out-of-state private equity firms have been buying up communities of manufactured homes, like hers. While the previous mom and pop owners of her community were helpful and kept the rent of their lots affordable, the new owners are raising the rent higher and higher, tacking on fees as issues with water quality emerge.

Ive seen very scary water coming out of peoples taps. Ive seen the rainbow from brown to yellow to gray. Its terrifying.  Worst of all, this is happening to veterans. Its happening to senior citizens who are on fixed incomes. Its happening to hard-working families, Hook said.

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I know people who are going to be homeless in the next rent increase. I know a guy who turns on his tap, the water comes out brown, and hes paying more and more rent to a corporate manager, Hook said.

Following speeches from advocates and a working lunch, attendees marched to the Capitol, gathering on multiple floors of the rotunda. They chanted, The rent is too damn high, and No excuses, no excuses, show the people youre not useless, among other statements, while occasionally breaking for additional speeches.

SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Nov. 14More than 20 months since County Executive Calvin Ball announced plans to build a new $144 million, 100,000 square-foot central public library on the Columbia Lakefront, plans remain in flux. This week, the County Council discussed ways to move forward with a plan that has become complicated since the March 2023 announcement.

Carl DeLorenzo, director of policy and programs for the county executive, said during Tuesday's County Council meeting that Ball's administration recommends a market study as a next step in the process to identify potential sources of revenue to pay for the project.

According to DeLorenzo, the county is in discussions with the Maryland Economic Development Corporation to conduct the market study, which would be paid for with a state grant for the library project.

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Council Chair Deb Jung said she supports combining a new central library project with a proposed new cultural arts center that "could provide this exceptional experience" and help save the county some money.

"I think that spending all this money on these two separate buildings is probably not the way to go," Jung said.

DeLorenzo pointed out that neither the county nor the library system owns the lakefront land, and striking a deal could come with more complications. He advised sorting out differences to find a path for the county to move forward with obtaining the site as early as possible so resources aren't wasted on design.

The county needs to decide how much it's willing to spend to achieve its vision, and what site it wants for the library, DeLorenzo said.

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Original plans had the Howard Hughes Corp., the master developer of Columbia and planner of the lakefront library proposal, donating land for the project on Lake Kittamaqundi. Council member Liz Walsh, who represents District 1, said it wouldn't make sense to continue with a plan for the lakefront location if Howard Hughes Corp. would be unwilling to give up its land for that use.

"I mean to me, that's the big one," Walsh said. "I feel like everything else is probably doable, but I can't control who owns it."

Still, while there are issues around parking, development control and who the designer will be, there seems to be unity around the need for a new central library. Tonya Aikens, library system president and CEO, said the current central branch is "constrained, underscore a gazillion times," and the branch can't meet the demands of the growing community with only one community room, no co-working space and no quiet study space.

Council member Christiana Rigby, who represents District 3, said a new library will be "transformative" for Downtown Columbia and the whole county but many council members are "rowing in the same direction," despite some outstanding questions about the project.

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"I think the longer they stay outstanding, the harder it's going to be to get this project across the finish line," Rigby said. "And it's kind of great to have a council united around the vision and goal of this project."

Have a news tip? Contact Kiersten Hacker at khacker@baltsun.com or @KierstenHacker on X.

Originally Published:November 14, 2024 at 7:00 AM EST
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Nvidia is set to launch its next-gen Blackwell GPU chip, boosting the prospect for more stock gains.

Melius Research said selling Nvidia stock now would be akin to selling Apple stock after the release of its first iPhone.

Nvidia stock is still attractive from a valuation perspective when compared to its peers, according to Melius.

Nvidia has rocketed to all-time highs, but investors should hold on a while longer as the company's next-generation Blackwell GPU will be a watershed moment, a note from Melius Research this week said.

Ben Reitzes, a managing director at Melius, bumped his Nvidia price target to $185, representing potential upside of 26% from current levels.

Reitzes believes Nvidia is approaching its Apple iPhone moment, and that selling now would be akin to selling Apple stock after it released the first generation iPhone.

"It's similar to the feeling around product cycles with Apple's iPhone some 15 years ago, just on a different scale. So, while it sounds strange, giving up on Nvidia here after its hit  Hopper  is like giving up on Apple at iPhone 1 or 2," Reitzes said, referring to the current generation Hopper chip.

Nvidia stock has been a tear ever since OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022. Since then, Nvidia has soared nearly 800% to become the largest company in the world, with a market capitalization of over $3.5 trillion.

Nvidia's Hopper and upcoming Blackwell GPU chips represent the foundation of artificial intelligence advancements, which are powering everything from AI chatbots like ChatGPT to text-to-video and self-driving cars.

"Big clouds, sovereigns and large enterprises are still more likely to invest more in this 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Reitzes said.

And Nvidia's enviable position means big profits are in store for its investors, according to the note.

"We are not only excited about Blackwell driving upside to the street in 2025  and Rubin in 2026  but we are also increasingly optimistic that gross margins can snap back firmly into the mid-70s by mid-FY26," Reitzes said.

Nvidia could earn more than $5 per share in profits by 2027, which "looks conservative now," according to the note. Reitzes increased his revenue and profit estimates for 2025 through 2027 for Nvidia, citing higher gross margins and continued investments from cloud hyperscalers.

And at those profit levels, Nvidia stock looks attractive from a valuation standpoint.

"Even with a decelerating growth rate on huge numbers, Nvidia's CY2025 PEG ratio stands at about 0.8x on our estimates. This ratio is 33% less than Broadcom's and the lowest in the Mag 7 by a wide margin," Reitzes said.
The News

A massive Chinese-built and -operated port opened in Peru Thursday, reflecting Beijings growing influence  and Washingtons waning power  in Latin America.

The port has the potential to transform trade by turning Peru into a shipping hub thanks to Chinese investment, the Financial Times wrote. China has surpassed the US as a trading partner for much of the region, The Wall Street Journal reported, largely because of Washingtons lack of engagement and perceived disinterest.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has especially made inroads in Brazil, where he will attend next weeks G20 summit and a state dinner. Brasilia and Beijings deepening ties risk irking the US, and its in Brazils economic interest not to choose sides in this feud, a Bloomberg economist said.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Israel of war crimes in a sprawling new report that argues the Israeli military has forcibly displaced the Palestinian people in Gaza during the 13-month war against Hamas.

The 154-page report, released Thursday, examined the displacement of 90 percent of the Palestinian population in Gaza, or more than 1.9 million people. It faulted Israel for multiple acts of forced displacement that it said were systematic and widespread and carried out with intent.

HRW noted that the forcible displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime.

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Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at the organization, said Israel cannot claim to be keeping Palestinians safe when it kills them along escape routes, bombs so-called safe zones, and cuts off food, water, and sanitation.

Israel has blatantly violated its obligation to ensure Palestinians can return home, razing virtually everything in large areas, Hardman said in a statement.

The displacement of populations in war is only allowed under limited circumstances under international law, for imperative military reasons or to protect the population.

But HRW said it spoke with 39 Palestinians who were displaced, many of them multiple times, examined evacuation orders and analyzed satellite and imagery, videos and photographs to refute Israels justifications for displacing the Palestinian people: for their safety and in order to fight against militants.

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Human Rights Watch has amassed evidence that Israeli officials are instead committing the war crime of forcible transfer, a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and a crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the group wrote.

The Hill has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.

Israel has fought against Hamas in a devastating war that has killed more than 43,000 people in Gaza. The war is in response to the initial attack an Oct. 7, 2023, by Hamas on southern Israel, which killed some 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages. HRW acknowledged in its report that Hamas committed war crimes on Oct. 7.

About 100 hostages are still in Gaza, and a cease-fire and hostage release deal has remained elusive, despite pressure from the Biden administration and most of the international community to bring an end to the war.

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The Israeli military has seriously degraded Hamas, taking out its leaders and officials responsible for the Oct. 7 attack, but is still facing resistance from the Palestinian militant group and continues to carry out devastating air strikes and attacks in Gaza.

The United Nations, which has been critical of both Hamas and the Israeli militarys attacks, said this month that close to 70 percent of the fatalities in Gaza are women and children.

Israel has also been accused of failing to get aid into Gaza. The Biden administration had set a deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where Palestinians are struggling to access basic necessities like food and water. That deadline passed this week with the U.S. saying it has not violated its policies, even though the U.N. and humanitarian aid groups said Israel has fallen short.

In the report, HRW said Israel has failed to address the humanitarian aid situation in Gaza and has also cut off access for agriculture and public energy and water infrastructure in the coastal strip.

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But the human rights group focused on the displacement of Palestinians, analyzing Israels evacuation system, which it concluded has failed to keep people safe. It faulted the Israeli military for being inconsistent, inaccurate, and frequently not communicated to civilians with enough time to allow evacuations or at all.

The report also accuses Israel of demolitions and destruction of property in Gaza, including schools and religious sites, which HRW said is a deliberate attempt by the Israeli authorities to create conditions that will make returning not just difficult, but impossible for many Palestinians.

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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN)  Investigators will be analyzing potential evidence after searching a house on Youngstowns South Side on Thursday morning.

Read next: Trumbull County Sheriffs detective to appear on A&E show

Agents with the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force and deputies from the Sheriffs Office raided a duplex in the 1700 block of South Heights Ave.

WKBN was told that they were looking for evidence of child sex abuse material.

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At this point, no one has been arrested.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
When I started my research on the Samuel George Morton Cranial Collection, a librarian leaned over my laptop one day to share some lore. Legend has it, she said, John James Audubon really collected the skulls Morton claimed as his own. Her voice was lowered so as not to disturb the other scholars in the hushed archive.

As my work progressed, I uncovered no evidence to substantiate her whispered claim. Audubon had collected human skulls, several of which he then passed on to Morton. But birds and ornithology remained Audubons passion.

Nevertheless, the librarians offhanded comment has proven useful  a touchstone of sorts that continues to remind me of the controversy and confusion long surrounding the Morton Collection.

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Morton was a physician and naturalist who lived in Philadelphia from 1799 until the end of his life in 1851. A lecture he delivered to aspiring doctors at the Philadelphia Association for Medical Instruction outlined the reasons for his cranial compulsion:

I commenced the study of Ethnology in 1830; in which year, having occasion to deliver an introductory lecture on Anatomy, it occurred to me to illustrate the difference in the form of the skull as seen in the five great races of men  When I sought the materials for my proposed lecture, I found to my surprise that they could be neither bought nor borrowed.

He would go on to acquire almost 1,000 human skulls.

Morton used these skulls to advance an understanding of racial differences as natural, easily categorizable and able to be ranked. Big-brained Caucasians, he argued in the 1839 publication Crania Americana, were far superior to small-skulled American Indians and even smaller-skulled Black Africans. Many subsequent scholars have since thoroughly debunked his ideas.

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Certainly, condemnation of Morton as a scientific racist is warranted. But I find this take represents the man as a caricature, his conclusions as foregone. It provides little insight into his life and the complicated, interesting times in which he lived, as I detail in my book Becoming Object: The Sociopolitics of the Samuel George Morton Cranial Collection.

My research demonstrates that studies of skulls and diseases undertaken by Morton and his medical and scientific colleagues contributed to an understanding of U.S. citizenship that valued whiteness, Christianity and heroic masculinity defined by violence. It is an exclusionary idea of what it means to be American that persists today.

Yet, at the same time, the collection is an unintended testament to the diversity of the U.S. population during a tumultuous moment in the nations history.

Men of science and medicine

As a bioarchaeologist who has studied the Morton Collection for many years, I have sought to better understand the social, political and ideological circumstances that led to its creation. From my work  analyzing archival sources including letters, laws, maps and medical treatises, as well as the skulls themselves  Ive learned that, over a lifetime, Morton fostered a professional network that had far-reaching tentacles.

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He had plenty of help amassing the collection of skulls that bears his name.

The physician connected with medical colleagues  many of whom, like him, received degrees from the University of Pennsylvania  gentleman planters, enslavers, naturalists, amateur paleontologists, foreign diplomats and military officers. Occupational differences aside, they were mostly white, Christian men of some financial means.

Their interactions took place during a pivotal moment in American history, the interlude between the nations revolutionary consolidation and its violent civil unraveling.

Throughout this stretch of time, Morton and his colleagues catalyzed biomedical interventions and scientific standards to more effectively treat patients. They set in motion public health initiatives during epidemics. They established hospitals and medical schools. And they did so in the service of the nation.

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Not all lives were seen as worthy of these mens care, however. Men of science and medicine may have fostered life for many, but they also let others die. In Becoming Object, I track how they represented certain populations as biologically inferior; diseases were tied to nonwhite people, female anatomy was pathologized, and poverty was presumed inherited.

From person to specimen

Such representations made it easier for Morton and his colleagues to regulate these groups bodies, rationalize their deaths and collect their skulls with casual cruelty from almshouse dissecting tables, looted cemeteries and body-strewn battlefields. That is, a sizable portion of the skulls in Mortons collections were not culled from ancient graves but belonged to those of the recently alive.

It is no coincidence that Morton began his scientific research in earnest the same year Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Men of science and medicine benefited from the expansionist policies, violent martial conflicts and Native displacement that underpinned Manifest Destiny.

CC BY A drawing from Mortons book of the skull of a Seminole man killed by American troops. A bullet hole is visible on the left side of the mans head. 'Crania Americana' by Samuel George Morton

The collection reveals these acts of nation-building as necropolitical strategies  techniques used by sovereign powers to destroy or erase certain, often already vulnerable, populations from the national consciousness. These skulls attest to precarious existences, untimely deaths and trauma experienced from cradle to beyond the grave.

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In the specific case of Native Americans, skeletal analysis testifies to the violent effects of U.S. military campaigns and forced removal. Native skulls that Morton labeled warriors have evidence of unhealed fractures and gunshot wounds. Childrens skulls bear the marks of compromised health; such pathology and their young ages at death are evidence of long-standing malnutrition, poverty and deprivation or stress.

To effectively transform subjects into objects  human beings into specimens  collected crania were ensconced in the institutional spaces of medical school lecture halls and museum storage cabinets.

There, Morton first numbered them sequentially. These numbers along with information about race, sex, age, idiocy or criminality, cranial capacity and provenance were inked on skulls and written in catalogs. Very rarely was the persons name recorded. If used as teaching tools, Morton drilled holes to hang the skulls for display and notated them with the names of skeletal elements and features.

As dehumanizing as this process was, the Morton Collection does contain evidence of resilience and heterogeneous lives. There are traces of people with mixed-race backgrounds such as Black Indians. Several people may have also bent gender to navigate dire conditions or in keeping with social norms, such as native Beloved Women, who were active in warfare and political life.

In contrast to those whose skulls ended up in his collection, Samuel Mortons own grave was memorialized with a monument. Pamela L. Geller

What these bones mean today

As anthropologists now recognize, it is through the repatriation of the remains of the people in the Morton Collection to their descendants, among other types of reparations, that current practitioners may begin to atone for the sins of intellectual forebears. Indeed, all institutions housing legacy collections must contend with this issue.

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There are other, valuable lessons  about diversity and suffering  that the Morton Collection has to impart in todays interesting times.

The collection demonstrates that the American body politic has always been a diverse one, despite efforts of erasure by men like Morton and his colleagues. Piecing together the stories of past, disenfranchised lives  and acknowledging the silences that have made it difficult to flesh them out  counters past white nationalism and xenophobia and their current resurgence.

The collection, I believe, also urges the repudiation of violence, casual cruelty and opportunism as admirable attributes of masculinity. Valorizing men who embody these qualities has never served America well. Particularly in the mid-1800s, when Morton amassed skulls, it led to a nation divided and hardened to suffering, an unfathomable death count and the increasing fragility of democracy.

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: Pamela L. Geller, University of Miami

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Geller received her BA and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania where the Morton Collection is currently housed.
A body was brought out of an abandoned South African gold mine as police tried to evict hundreds of illegal miners hiding out in the workings.

Authorities have spent weeks trying to smoke them out to bring an end to the underground standoff in the town of Stilfontein, south-west of Johannesburg, by stopping deliveries of food and water to the mine.

More than 1,100 people have resurfaced since the start of the operation named Close the Hole, including two who emerged on Thursday.

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But residents claim as many as 4,000, who are said to be sick and increasingly weak, could still be below ground.

Police, who say it is too dangerous to enter the mine to make arrests, have said this number is far-fetched and put the total closer to 300.

The government on Wednesday said it would not send any help to the illegal miners.

We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out. Criminals are not to be helped. We didnt send them there, Cabinet Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters.

Police on Thursday continued to enforce a wide cordon around the closed mine as they hunted for miners as they emerged.

Police officers wait in the hope that the miners will come out due to a lack of food and water - Xinhua/Shutterstock

Athlenda Mathe, the national police spokesman, said: We do have a decomposed body that was brought up this afternoon. Circumstances surrounding how this illegal miner died are under investigation.

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The body is the first to be retrieved from the mine, she said.

The government has taken a hard line on the miners, who are known locally as Zama Zamas, which translates roughly as those who take a chance, or those who try.

Many are migrants from neighbouring countries who, without the ability to find legal work, enter disused mines to try to eke out whatever minerals are left.

Any gold they find is smuggled out of the country in a practice said to result in huge revenue losses for the government and the mining sector.

Their encampments are often blamed for local crime, including murders, robberies and rapes.

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There have also been turf wars between rival outfits, who are often backed by powerful organised crime networks.

Ms Mathe said authorities wanted the miners to leave and would not enter the shaft because of hazardous gases and information that the miners had weapons.

Volunteer rescue workers leave the mine. Miners relatives say some people have been underground for a year - Jerome Delay/AP

We are told by intelligence that they are refusing to resurface. No one is trapped. It was unclear how long the miners had been underground, she said.

Promises to tackle Zama Zamas have become a mainstay of campaigning by anti-immigration politicians in South Africa.

Around the police cordon, many of those watching said they too had relatives below ground.

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One woman who gave her name as Betty Thulo said more than 10 of her relatives remained underground, including her in-laws, uncles and nephews.

She told TimesLIVE: Some have been underground for more than a year, others have been there for five to seven months.

She said she had been able to communicate with them until police launched their operation. It all went quiet once the police started with their nonsense operation. We stopped hearing from them and have no idea what happened.

Ms Thulo continued: We were told that things are bad down there, people have died and others are on the brink of death. They cant move around because their torches no longer have batteries.

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Were not denying the police the right to do their job, but the way they are doing it, theyve killed our loved ones and have blood on their hands. Theyve also taken away our financial security and safety.

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WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW)  The Kansas Wildlife and Parks Commission is holding its last public meeting of the year in Wichita next week. It will be at the Great Plains Nature Center beginning at noon on Thursday, Nov. 21.

Several important issues are on the agenda. Some will be voted on, and some will be discussed and then voted on at future meetings.

The meeting will start with a public hearing. During the hearing, commissioners will vote on these regulations:

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K.A.R. 115-25-8 Elk 25-Series Regulations This regulation change establishes a firearm season from Jan. 1-31, 2025, in Fort Riley.

K.A.R. 115-25-9a Military Deer Seasons This regulation change establishes the deer season for the military subunits for the 2024-2025 season. Fort Riley Whitetail Antlerless-only Firearm: Nov. 29-Dec. 1, 2024 Fort Riley Firearm: Dec. 14-22, 2024 Fort Leavenworth Firearm: Nov. 16-17, Nov. 23-24, Nov. 28-Dec. 1, Dec. 7-8, and Dec. 14-15, 2024 Fort Leavenworth Extended Firearm Whitetail Antlerless-only: Jan. 1-19, 2025 Fort Leavenworth Extended Archery Whitetail Antlerless-only: Jan. 20-31, 2025 Smoky Hill Air National Guard Firearm: Dec. 4-15, 2024



The next portions of the meeting include comments on non-agenda items and a general discussion covering furbearer regulations.

The commissioners will then discuss these items that may be voted on in the future:

K.A.R. 115-25-7 Antelope; open season, bag limit and permits

K.A.R. 115-25-8 Elk; open season, bag limit and permits

Deer 25-series Big Game Regulations

Big Game 4-series Permanent Regulations

Five-year Review of Threatened, Endangered, and Species in Need of Conservation Lists

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The meeting will end with another chance for the public to comment on non-agenda items. The meeting lasts until all agenda items are addressed.

If you cannot attend the meeting in person, you can participate virtually via Zoom, phone, or live streaming. Click here for instructions. People who are hard of hearing can request an interpreter by calling the Kansas Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing at 800-432-0698. People with disabilities can request other accommodations by contacting the commission secretary at 620-672-0702.

Click here to find and download the complete agenda and briefing book, which includes proposed regulation changes.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV.
Ana Knezevich Henao has been missing since Feb. 2

National Center for the Missing in Spain Ana Knezevich Ana Knezevich

The husband of Ana Knezevich Henao, who went missing on a trip to Spain, has been charged with murder in connection with her disappearance.

David Knezevich, 36, was indicted Wednesday, Nov. 13, on charges of foreign domestic violence resulting in death and foreign murder of a United States national.

Knezevich has been in federal custody since May after he was was charged with kidnapping resulting in death.

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Ana's body has never been found.

"This is a step in the direction to start to mourn while we continue to search for answers and honor Ana's memory by advocating for her story to be told, and for accountability to prevail," Ana's brother Diego Henao said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE.

Anas disappearance from her apartment in Madrid, Spain, on Feb. 2 made international headlines.

Knezevich, an IT specialist, quickly became the prime suspect.

According to friends, Ana had traveled from Florida to Madrid on December 27, 2023, after the couple separated.

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Anas brother Felipe told police that Ana and Knezevich, her husband of 13 years, were going through a nasty divorce and there is a substantial amount of money on the line to be split up between the two and [Knezevich] is not happy about it, according to a Feb. 7 police report obtained by PEOPLE.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

David Knezevich

Anas best friend Sanna Rameau previously told PEOPLE that Ana wanted to start a non-profit in Spain helping women that have been abused or been in a bad situation.

She wanted the divorce to go through, and she said that's what she wanted to do after splitting up everything, Rameau said.

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Related: Inside the Case of Ana Knezevich Henao, Who Wanted to Start Non-Profit for Abuse Victims and Then Vanished in Spain

AP Photo/Manu Fernandez A banner of a Colombian-born American missing woman Ana Maria Knezevich Henao A banner of a Colombian-born American missing woman Ana Maria Knezevich Henao

Ana was last seen by security cameras entering her apartment around 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 2. That same day, around 9:27 p.m., surveillance cameras caught a man wearing a helmet enter the building as people were leaving. Once inside, the man used a can of spray paint to spray over the apartments surveillance camera lens. The man was then seen "fastening a piece of duct tape to the lock of the building entrance to prevent the lock from engaging to allow subsequent entry," per a federal complaint.

About an hour later, around 10:30 p.m., the same man was seen walking off the elevator with what looked like a suitcase.

Spanish police later searched her apartment and found no traces of her cell phone, laptop computer or chargers.

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During the investigation, authorities tracked down the retailer that sold the brand of paint used to spray over the security camera and discovered surveillance footage of an individual who appeared to be [David] Knezevich purchasing the spray paint along with two rolls of duct tape on Feb. 2.

National Center for the Missing in Spain Ana Knezevich Henao Ana Knezevich Henao

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Related: His Wife Vanished in Spain. How His Texts to a Woman He Met Online Made Him the Suspect

Investigators also spoke to a Colombian woman who met Knezevich online in Oct. 2023. The woman told authorities that Knezevich reached out to her on WhatsApp on Feb. 3 asking for her help translating a message into perfect Colombian.

Knezevich allegedly told her that the translation was for a friend in Serbia who is writing a script about a Colombian character.

The woman later contacted authorities after her mother Googled Knezevich and learned that his wife had been reported missing in Madrid, the complaint states.

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Authorities said Knezevich flew to Istanbul from Miami on Jan. 27 and then rented a Peugeot 308 in Serbia on Jan. 29.

From there, authorities claim he drove to Spain to kidnap his estranged wife. The rental car agency owner told authorities that Knezevich returned the car with tinted windows and different license plate frames.

Knezevich's attorneys could not be reached for comment.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.


A return to nuclear power for Germany would be "logical," the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, told dpa in an interview.

"I think it's a logical. It's a rational position," Grossi said, noting that Germany is the only country in the world to have completely phased out nuclear energy.

Policymakers in Berlin might ponder why others haven't, he said during an interview on Wednesday at the UN Climate Conference in Baku.

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"You might wonder: Why does the rest of the world see things differently?" Grossi said. He added: "I respect German politics, and you are going through a very complex phase, so we will see."

The IAEA chief noted that all other countries that had announced similar intentions are since "peddling back. Some visibly, some less visibly."

He said he was "not surprised" that now German parties are calling for a return to nuclear energy.

Grossi pointed out that nuclear power plants emit virtually no climate-damaging greenhouse gases. For the planet, he said, it would therefore be "a very bad idea" to abolish nuclear energy.

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"This is why countries that have nuclear want more nuclear," he said. "Many countries that did not have nuclear want nuclear."

Just last week the conservative CDU-CSU opposition in the parliament of Bundestag described the shutting down of the last nuclear power plants in April 2023 during the energy crisis as an ideologically motivated misstep by the centre-left coalition. Now, a reassessment is needed to determine whether restarting operations is still possible "under acceptable technical and financial conditions," it said.
Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations Director Ryan Langrill has worked as an evaluator for the agency for over a decade, leading 14 projects. (Kyle Pfannenstiel/Idaho Capital Sun)

A Boise native who worked for more than a decade as an Idaho state government watchdog analyst is now leading the agency.

Ryan Langrill, the new director of the Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations, told the Idaho Capital Sun that theres nothing quite like the work he gets to do.

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What other job do you get to do a new deep dive every year, if not more often? Langrill told the Idaho Capital Sun in an interview. He said it seems like were sort of in between this, like, investigative journalist and management consultant role.

Langrill served as the agencys interim director since July, after the agencys previous director of 21-years, Rakesh Mohan, retired.

On Nov. 7, the Idaho Legislative Council officially named Langrill as director of the Office of Performance Evaluations.

At the meeting, Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise, said the committee received applications from across the U.S. in its national search.

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But the committee, when it came right down to it, felt like we have the best qualified person to do that already in house, Winder said.

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How he got started in government watchdog work

Langrill started his career on a route toward academia, earning a PhD and masters degree in economics from George Mason University, as well as a bachelors degree in history in economics from Gonzaga University, based in Spokane.

But soon, he realized that he didnt have as much passion for teaching.

He started searching for jobs back home in Boise, where his wife returned to while he worked in Atlanta.

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When he found a job posting at the Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations, he saw it as an opportunity to do what he loves: applied research.

This seems like that, and it seems very practical. Like, Oh  it is research that is directly being used to improve the governance of the state of Idaho, Langrill recalled.

And hes stayed ever since. He worked as an evaluator for the agency for over a decade, leading 14 projects.

Report on mental illness facility found issues. Then conditions transformed.

Langrill told the Sun that the most memorable report that hes worked on at the agency was a 2019 report on a mental illness facility in Nampa called the Southwest Idaho Treatment Center, which found a culture of constant crisis.

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But in 2023, when Langrill briefed lawmakers on the agencys follow-up report, he reported that conditions had improved.

Its been a big transformation. And the report was not the whole reason for that, but I think it was part of that, Langrill told the Sun. He said thats been the most concrete observed outcome Ive seen from our work.

As part of the initial report on the Southwest Idaho Treatment Center, he told the Sun he embedded himself at the center for much of one year, was trained on its direct care process and restraint program, and became certified with its nonviolent crisis intervention team.

Being there helped him understand the culture, and to diagnose what wasnt working, he said.

Idaho State Capitol building on March 23, 2021. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun)

His plans as Idaho watchdog agency director

Langrill said his principles are fundamentally the same as the agencys previous director: Rigor, credibility and independence.

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We need to do a really good job of understanding  if were evaluating a program, not just understanding what the role of the state employees are in it, but what is the experience of the people receiving services and the people on the other side of things? Langrill said.

And he knows that the Office of Performance Evaluations fills a critical role in state government, as one of the tools for the Idaho Legislature see how government is actually working, including how the executive branch, laws passed, and money doled out actually function.

Its hard for 105 part-time legislators to do that on their own, Langrill said. But, he said, if they need a deep dive to understand whats happening, we are  I think  a great tool for that.

Thats how I see the role of the office. And so we provide understanding, and then we provide accountability, if we find that the implementation of programs is not in line with good practices or legislative intent, he said.

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During the legislative session, Langrill said he hopes to spend more time in the Idaho State Capitol.

Part of that time could be spent synthesizing more of the offices in-depth work on complex issues, like he did with the Idaho Medicaid Managed Care Task Force in 2023. The Office of Performance Evaluations already presents its reports to the Idaho Legislatures Joint Legislative Oversight Committee, which requests reports from the agency. And the agency presents to relevant committees.

But are there opportunities for us to take what weve learned from a whole stable of reports and say, Hey, we have, we have some findings that may inform this conversation, Langrill said.

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The investing world is full of shooting stars that blaze a profit trail across the sky and then flame out just as spectacularly. Tech company Super Micro Computer, aka Supermicro, desperately tries to avoid that fate. Benzinga looks at the factors that led to this stock's spectacular rise and the questions that may ultimately lead to its downfall.

Don't Miss:

Supermicro makes servers geared toward AI applications and the explosive growth in the field has made them a hot commodity for investors and AI-oriented businesses. The company's modular, build-to-suit-style servers and components can fit various AI needs. This allowed Supermicro to zero in on its clients' needs instead of forcing them to adapt their operations to Supermicro's specifications.

Supermicro's position as a company that makes products AI depends on to function led to its share price surging for much of 2023. The high demand for Supermicro products led to a nearly 1,000% jump in revenue and a 1,030% increase in net income. The company announced a 10-1 stock split, resulting in a share price increase of 1,780%. Supermicro was even set to become an S&P 500 member.

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Supermicro's fiscal year 2024 report, released in June, represented a company at its peak. It showed the company earned $14.9 billion in revenue, more than double 2023's $7.12 billion. Its reported Net income for the year was an impressive $1.21 billion ($20.09 per diluted share). That's also almost double the 2023 total of $640 million ($11.43 per diluted share).

During the earnings call, CEO David Charles Liang indicated that he thinks his company is responsible for "70-80% of the world's direct liquid cool servers (DLCs) in the last several months." The signs and indicators were trending upward for Supermicro, but then strange things began to happen.

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In August, Supermicro began making news for the wrong reasons when the forensic accounting and research firm Hindenburg Group released a report accusing Supermicro of numerous accounting irregularities. Almost immediately afterward, Supermicro filed notice that it would be late with its 10-K, a regulatory report that must be submitted to the SEC.
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT)  Megan Valentine, accused of killing husband Michael Valentine, makes her first court appearance on the same day of his visitation.

Megan Valentine was formally charged with the murder of the Edwards County Judge during her court appearance Wednesday.

Illinois State Police say the judge was found dead outside his home in Albion on Election Day. A motive has not been released.

Megan Valentine is expected to make her next court appearance next week.

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Visitation for Judge Valentine is taking place Wednesday evening at the House of Prayer in Albion. His funeral services will be held at a later date.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW).
A coalition of 138 immigrant, civil and human rights groups is calling on President Biden to take executive action to protect certain vulnerable immigrants from President-elect Trumps pledge of mass deportations.

Its within Bidens reach, the groups say, to take relatively small measures that would help immigrants stay out of harms way before the incoming Trump administration supercharges immigration enforcement.

Our immigrant communities are at a crossroads as President-elect Trump threatens to make his campaign promises to return to a cruel and chaotic immigration system a reality, the groups wrote in a letter to Biden.

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The lives of American families  our neighbors, small business owners, farmworkers  hang in the balance so we urge the Biden-Harris administration to meet the urgency of the moment with immediate actions to protect vulnerable immigrant families, TPS holders, Dreamers and others who are at risk of mass deportation and family separation, they said.

In his first term, Trump tried to scale down programs like Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

If Trump can successfully end or significantly diminish temporary or humanitarian protections, hundreds of thousands to millions of beneficiaries could essentially be rendered undocumented overnight.

The groups  including the Service Employees International Union, Latino Victory Fund, Voto Latino, Indivisible, and CASA  are asking Biden to make sure people who are eligible for those temporary programs are not tied up in the immigration detention system, where they would be an easy target for deportation.

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Theyre also calling on the Biden administration to speed up TPS and Deferred Enforced Departure sign-ups. Those programs are available to nationals of certain designated countries that are either undergoing man-made or natural disasters, or that the United States deems too dangerous to justify repatriations.

There are 863,880 outstanding grants of TPS, according to the Migration Policy Institute, meaning the government has approved that number of petitions, but the number of active beneficiaries is likely lower due to attrition.

But there are also likely some remaining eligible immigrants, particularly from countries like Haiti and Venezuela, who are eligible to sign up but havent yet.

The groups  which also include Faith In Action, Amnesty International, MomsRising, Make the Road and Human Rights First  are calling for similar protections for DACA beneficiaries.

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They want the Biden administration to quickly process any outstanding renewal applications and advance parole requests, which allow DACA beneficiaries to return to U.S. territory after international travel.

Though DACA has often been at the forefront of the immigration debate, its pool of active beneficiaries has dwindled to about 535,000 from more than 800,000, with the Department of Homeland Security blocked from processing new applications through a court order.

The groups are also calling for protections for farmworkers and seasonal workers, as well as work permit renewals and protections for asylees and refugees.

Immigrant advocacy groups are by and large bracing for an unprecedented crackdown by the new Trump administration, relying on collective and individual experiences from Trumps first Oval Office stint to identify any available legal fortifications for vulnerable immigrants.

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Theres no doubt Donald Trump will impose far-reaching changes on our immigration system, dismantle legal pathways and reshape immigration enforcement as we know it. Theres no time to waste, they wrote.

Updated at 4:53 p.m.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Florida Capitol (Photo by Michael Moline/Florida Phoenix)

House Speaker-designate Daniel Perez is tweaking additional House policies and this time hes changing how House members communicate with the public.

Perez sent out a memo on Thursday afternoon announcing that from now on House members will no longer need to secure pre-approval from various offices before they send out newsletters or notices of delegation meetings.

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I do not believe it is appropriate for staff to evaluate the content of member communications, Perez wrote. I also do not believe it is appropriate or necessary for the House to prescreen the content of those communications. Members should have the freedom to communicate with the understanding that you are responsible and accountable for the choices you make.

Perez said, however, that he does have two rules: Members may not reference any campaign or election and that no communication can contain statements that would be out of order if said on the House floor.

Other changes announced by the Miami Republican include a new House website, a new email address, and the option for members to post personalized web pages. MyFloridaHouse.gov will become FLHouse.gov.

In addition, the House intends to allow members to file statements of up to 200 words explaining what drove you to file the bill and why the bill is important to you. The statement will appear on the bill information page on the House site.

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Effective communication is an essential component to being an effective representative, Perez said in his memo. We hope that you will take full advantage of these new policies and tools, and that you will find them helpful as you tell your story to the people of Florida.

The new communication policy was announced one day after Perez outlined new rules regarding member conduct and lobbying.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  After Janelle Bynum declared her victory and the Associated Press officially called the race for Oregons 5th Congressional District Thursday morning, incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer released a statement formally conceding to Bynum.

This particular race received national attention as Democrats saw the seat as a win that could have tipped the balance of power in the House of Representatives, as Republicans have flipped control in the Senate and President-elect Donald Trump will begin his second term in January.

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According to voter data, Bynum received a major boost from Multnomah County voters, where she had nearly 78% of the vote, followed by support from Clackamas and Deschutes counties. Meanwhile, Chavez-DeRemer found more support from Marion, Linn and Jefferson counties.

Bynum focused her campaign on voting rights, abortion rights, and health care reform while Chavez-DeRemer has focused her campaign on addressing the fentanyl crisis and enhancing security at the U.S. southern border.

Chavez-DeRemer released the following statement, noting that, although this isnt the outcome we had hoped for, she is proud of what we accomplished together.

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Im deeply grateful for the opportunity I had to serve as Oregonians voice in Congress. Ive always been passionate about helping improve my community through public service, and its been a sincere honor to do so over the last 24 years  from Happy Valleys Parks Committee, City Council, Mayor, and all the way to the halls of the U.S. House of Representatives. Id like to extend a heartfelt thank you to my family, my supporters, and my team, who have been by my side through it all. Although this isnt the outcome we had hoped for, Im proud of what we accomplished together. I hope Ms. Bynum will follow the example I have set over the past two years and serve as a pragmatic, thoughtful, and bipartisan leader who will work with the Trump administration to address housing affordability, improve public safety, and secure the border.

Bynum is expected to be sworn in to the House on Jan. 3, 2025.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com.
New Delhi  India's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that authorities demolishing illegally-constructed homes and other properties belonging to suspected criminals is unconstitutional and must cease. The practice is allegedly used widely by several state governments to punish suspects outside the court justice process, and is commonly known as "bulldozer justice."

"The executive can't become a judge and decide that a person accused is guilty and, therefore, punish him by demolishing his properties. Such an act would be transgressing [the] executive's limits," the court said in a 95-page judgement.

The court issued its ruling in response to several petitions over a spate of home demolitions targeting suspected criminals in states governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in recent years. Critics have accused the BJP state administrations of using bulldozer justice primarily to target Muslims  an accusation the party has repeatedly denied.

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BJP state officials have argued that due process of law has been followed in carrying out the demolitions, but the court said authorities had adopted a "pick and choose" attitude toward illegally constructed homes, singling out those belonging to Muslims suspected of other crimes while sparing similar, but non-Muslim-owned illegal dwellings in the same area.

In this file photo taken on June 12, 2022, a bulldozer demolishes the house of Javed Mohammad, a local leader who was allegedly involved in violent protests against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) former spokeswoman Nupur Sharma's incendiary remarks about the Prophet Mohammed, in Allahabad, India. / Credit: SANJAY KANOJIA/AFP/Getty

"In such cases, where the authorities indulge in arbitrary pick and choose of structures and it is established that soon before the initiation of such an action an occupant of the structure was found to be involved in a criminal case, a presumption could be drawn that the real motive for such demolition proceedings was not the illegal structure, but an action of penalizing the accused without even trying him before the court of law," the court said.

One of the petitions to the Supreme Court was filed over the April 2022 demolition of dozens of homes belonging largely to Muslims following sectarian clashes in Delhi's Jahangirpuri neighborhood, which drew allegations of religious discrimination and extrajudicial punishment.

"The chilling sight of a bulldozer demolishing a building reminds one of a lawless state of affairs," Justices B.R. Gavai and K.V. Viswanathan said in the court's Wednesday judgment. "Our constitutional ethos and values would not permit any such abuse of power and such misadventures cannot be tolerated by the court of law."

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The court warned state authorities it would take action against officials found guilty of "such highhanded and arbitrary" actions and issued detailed guidelines for the demolition of homes constructed without the required permits.

The new guidelines make it mandatory for authorities to give at least 15 days' advance notice to an occupant before an illegal home is demolished and to explain the reason for the building being razed.

The new guidelines state that occupiers of such properties must be given sufficient time to either remove the construction or challenge the demolition order in a court.

Authorities in five of India's 28 states bulldozed 128 structures over the course of just three months in 2022, human rights group Amnesty International said in a report in February.

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Indias Supreme Court banned the use of so-called bulldozer justice, the government demolition of homes by state officials to punish those accused of crimes that activists said was a tactic predominantly used by Hindu nationalist authorities against the minority Muslim community.

The ruling required governments to give sufficient time to residents or business owners to legally challenge such moves or to vacate their property, with justices arguing that such highhanded and arbitrary actions have no place in a constitutional democracy.

SIGNALS

The ruling risks being ignored

Sources: Amnesty International, The Indian Express

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Amnesty Internationals research into the use of so-called bulldozer justice found that such demolitions were enacted without following the due process safeguards mandated by domestic and international human rights law. Although rights groups welcomed the courts decision, it is up against a political logic that is becoming increasingly widespread, The Indian Express argued in an editorial, noting other instances such as hate speech or vigilante justice in which Hindu nationalists have largely ignored court rulings.

Hopes of respite for Muslims post-election, but attacks continue

Sources: The Diplomat, Al Jazeera

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to secure an outright majority in the recent election, which fueled some hope that the countrys Muslims would see respite from years of being targeted for their religious beliefs, The Diplomat wrote, and restored faith in their power to shape Indian politics. But post-election, Muslims say attacks against them have continued under the BJP-led coalition: Merely having fewer seats in Parliament will not bring a change[The BJP has] completely taken over the culture, society, and bureaucracy, which will take time to weaken, one activist told Al Jazeera.
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO)  Members of the South Dakota Indian Education Council are making three recommendations in the panels annual report.

The decisions came during a meeting Wednesday evening, ahead of this years Indian Education Summit on Thursday and Friday at the Pierre River Centre. State law requires that the annual report be delivered to the office of the governor and to the Legislatures State-Tribal Relations Committee.

Statewide assessments year after year have found that American Indian students in South Dakota dont perform as well academically as students overall do.

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One of Governor Kristi Noems first moves when she took office in 2019, as part of her executive reorganization order, was to shift the South Dakota Office of Indian Education from the state Department of Education, where it had been since its re-establishment during the Rounds administration, to the state Department of Tribal Relations, where it remains today.

The council members on Wednesday agreed they want data from the South Dakota Department of Educations new Science of Reading program that is broken down to reflect Native American students. They further recommended that the department share reports with the council during the five-year duration of the $54 million Science of Reading federal grant.

The department is making reading training available statewide for teachers already in the classroom and the state Board of Regents is coordinating reading training for future teachers while theyre attending universities. The Legislature appropriated $6 million earlier this year to support the departments reading efforts.

The councils second recommendation was that the state Department of Education continue to gather absentee and attendance data. That was also one of the recommendations made in the councils 2023 report.

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The department has distributed federally provided grant money to a handful of school districts the past two years so they could work on improving attendance and reducing the chronic absenteeism that substantially worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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State Education Secretary Joe Graves, who is a member of the council, said the federal funding being used for the attendance grants will expire after the 2025-26 school year. He and Lower Brule Sioux Tribe education director Brian Wagner spoke beforehand about what might come after that.

If we have good enough data, Wagner said about their conversation, we can get the state Legislature to talk about supporting schools financially and if not, then he had some ways he can do it with existing resources. If we can collect good data, then maybe we can get additional support.

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The councils third recommendation was that the Office of Indian Education and the Region 8 Comprehensive Center repeat the wellness survey that was initially conducted last spring.

The survey was sent to all of the tribal, federal Bureau of Indian Education and public schools in South Dakota, according to Fred Osborn, who heads the states Office of Indian Education. He said that 30 schools returned the questionnaires.

The council also recommended that the comprehensive center share updates on the wellness program with the council.

I feel like thirty is too low a number to make decisions about anything, Rosebud Sioux Tribal education director Rosemary Clairmont said. We have to get another try at this.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com.
Indiana Republican attorney general Todd Rokita has begun a post-election investigation targeting Logansport, Evansville and Seymour.

A press release issued on Nov. 8 from Rokitas office said it had sent civil investigative demands (CID) to various agencies in the three cities including the Cass County Health Department and the Logansport Community School Corporation.

As residents and elected officeholders continue reporting concerns about the largescale influx of illegal aliens and legal migrants into their cities and towns, Attorney General Todd Rokita is launching investigations into this growing issue in Evansville, Logansport and Seymour, the press release read.

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A CID is a type of subpoena seeking documents or information and does not necessarily mean those who receive it are under investigation. CIDs can be used to obtain information from third parties about the actual source of an investigation.

The press release said that Rokita is investigating coordinated efforts among international and local nonprofit refugee resettlement organizations and employers to bring large numbers of migrants to Indiana communities.

Rokita claimed that illegal immigration had created serious sex and labor trafficking risks in all communities.

Im creatively trying to use every tool in the law to stop the Lefts intentional destruction of Indiana, he said.

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Rokita has faced multiple disciplinary investigations during his first term of attorney general and was reprimanded by the Indiana Supreme Court. Despite that, Hoosiers decidedly reelected him during last weeks election over Democratic candidate Destiny Wells.

The press release said the attorney generals office was conducting the investigations based on its authority under the Deceptive Consumer Sales Act and indecent nuisance statute.

Other departments and businesses received CIDS in Indiana towns, including the Berry Global Group Inc. (Evansville), God is Good (Evansville), Jackson County Industrial Development Corp (Seymour) and an organization called Tent Partnership for Refugees, which works to connect work authorized refugees with employment opportunities.

The influx of these illegal aliens, which are coming from over 150 different countries, have strained our schools and the children of taxpayers are suffering as a result, Rokita said in the press release. It has caused unneeded stress on law enforcement, local hospitals and healthcare facilities and our housing and labor markets.

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It also raises serious questions about how these individuals arrival in Indiana is being facilitated, the press release said.

The Pharos-Tribune reached out to Superintendent Michele Starkey at LCSC and Serenity Alter at the Cass County Health Department but did not receive a reply by publication deadline.
Indiana U.S. Rep. Erin Houchin represents the Hoosier State's 9th Congressional District in Southeast Indiana.

There will be a Hoosier among House Republican leadership when the next Congress convenes in January in Washington, D.C.

House Republicans on Wednesday tapped Indiana U.S. Rep. Erin Houchin as secretary of the House Republican Conference, which is the organization of House GOP members. Houchin, of Salem, defeated U.S. Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri for the secretary role, which will involve helping the House Republican Conference Chair oversee communications and direct meetings of membership.

"Honored to be elected as the new @HouseGOP Conference Secretary," Houchin wrote in a post on X Wednesday evening. "Republicans have a winning teamstarting with President Trump, @SpeakerJohnson, and the rest of House leadership. We are united and ready to work on behalf of the American people!"

Honored to be elected as the new @HouseGOP

Conference Secretary. Republicans have a winning teamstarting with President Trump, @SpeakerJohnson, and the rest of House leadership.



We are united and ready to work on behalf of the American people!  Congresswoman Erin Houchin (@RepHouchin) November 13, 2024

Congressional leadership elections took place in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday following the 2024 general elections last week and before the new Congress begins in January. Attention focused on Republicans, who won the White House, a majority in the U.S. Senate and maintained a majority in the House.

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Houchin on Monday initially announced her intention to run for House Republican Conference Chair, the fourth ranking position in party leadership, but withdrew on Tuesday and announced her plan to seek the secretary role. House GOP members selected U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan to fill the conference chair spot, which was open following former President Donald Trump's selection of Republican New York U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik to serve as ambassador to the United Nations. McClain previously served as the House GOP secretary.

Houchin's victory gives Indiana's congressional delegation an important voice in House leadership ahead of the impending loss of experienced Hoosier lawmakers in the upcoming session. Three new Republicans were elected after longtime U.S. Reps. Larry Bucshon and Greg Pence announced their retirements and U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, who previously led the Republican Study Committee, won his election to the U.S. Senate last week.

Election 2024 results: Jefferson Shreve, 2 other Indiana Republicans win open U.S. House seats

Houchin was reelected last week to her second term representing the 9th Congressional District in southeast Indiana, containing Bloomington. She first won election to the House in 2022. In the last two years, she has served on the House Financial Services Committee, the House Rules Committee and the House Education and Workforce Committee, according to her congressional offices website.

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Prior to her time in Washington, D.C., Houchin served in the Indiana state Senate for eight years.

Fellow Hoosiers in Indiana's congressional delegation posted congratulatory messages for Houchin on X.

"Congrats to @RepHouchin on being selected Secretary of the House Republican Conference," Indiana U.S. Sen. Todd Young wrote in a post. "Glad that Hoosiers will have a seat at the leadership table."

"Congrats @RepHouchin," wrote U.S. Senator-elect Jim Banks in a post. "Great to have a Hoosier in House leadership."

Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Brittany Carloni at brittany.carloni@indystar.com or 317-779-4468. Follow her on Twitter/X @CarloniBrittany.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana U.S. Rep. Erin Houchin elected House GOP conference secretary
By Gerry Doyle and Sophie Yu

SINGAPORE/ZHUHAI, China (Reuters) - The trade portion of China's largest air show in Zhuhai wrapped up on a rainy Thursday, with the secretary of Russia's Security Council visiting days after the Russian-made Su-57 stealth jet flew in its first appearance away from home.

Military gear was on display in the exhibition hall where it was viewed by Sergei Shoigu, reported state media outlet the Global Times. The former defence minister is in the country for annual strategic security consultations.

China demonstrated its pull on the world stage by welcoming a delegation from Saudi Arabia with its first pavilion at the event, as well as its close ties with Russia even as that country is isolated from Western nations and their allies due to its invasion of Ukraine.

The air show's commercial aviation side was much smaller than in previous years, putting military technology in the spotlight. Hardware as varied as air-defence systems, radars, missiles and aircraft packed the grounds indoors and out.

The show included the public debut of China's J-35A stealth fighter while a two-seat mockup of its J-20 stealth fighter, advanced helicopters, stealthy drones and missile defence systems also caught the spotlight.

"Clearly these developments suggest a continued broad modernisation of PLA capabilities to defeat U.S. and allied intervention capability as part of a counter-intervention strategy," said senior analyst Malcolm Davis at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, referring to the People's Liberation Army. "They all come together to make Chinese A2AD more lethal and extend its reach."

A2AD is shorthand for Anti-Access/Area Denial, a military strategy to avoid a head-on fight by making it difficult for the enemy to even enter the battlefield.

China is the world's fourth-largest global arms exporter, showed data released in March by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, but its sales have been decreasing over the last decade amid changing geopolitical dynamics.

COMMERCIAL AVIATION

On the civilian side of the show, state planemaker COMAC announced Air China as the first customer for its C929 widebody jet. It also re-branded its regional jet, previously the ARJ21, as the C909 for better branding uniformity.

COMAC did not disclose the number of C929s that flag carrier Air China would purchase or planned delivery dates. It did say Hainan Airlines had placed a firm order for 60 C919 narrowbody jets and 40 C909s.

Colorful Guizhou Airlines has also signed a purchase agreement for 30 C909 planes, 20 of which were firm and the remainder provisional, it said.
The beginning of the 2025 legislative session is months away, but the Indianapolis Public Schools district is already laying out a list of top priorities they will be advocating for at the statehouse.

The district made a list of six issues that they believe need to be addressed through legislation to benefit not just IPS students but students statewide.

How can we put together a list of priorities that meets the needs of our students and families within IPS, but also looks a little broader and looks at the needs of the state, said Rachel Santos, the district's director of external affairs.

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Santos created the list after talking to leaders across the district and asking about barriers to success and what they need to help students succeed.

The 2025 legislative session will begin in January and this year lawmakers will be approving the education budget for the next two years.

1. Early Childhood Education: Expanding Pre-K access

One of the topmost priorities for district leaders, and one that they feel like they can make the most ground on during the session, is increasing access to the states On My Way pre-K grants.

The On My Way program gives vouchers to families with four-year-olds from low-income families who qualify to access pre-K programs before they start kindergarten.

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Latest IPS news: IPS board member resigns, replaces disgraced Center Township constable

Leaders of Indiana's largest school district want the state to increase the income threshold for families that can qualify, and to also raise the annual award amounts given to the program.

Currently, the income threshold is set at 127% of the federal poverty level, which for a family of four comes out to around $33,000 earned annually.

Its just not meeting the needs of the state, and when we talk about adjusting for cost of living, theres a very clear rational argument to make on why we need to make sure that more families have access to pre-K, Santos said.

2. Improve state funding for English Language Learners and Special Education students

Another top issue involves asking state budget writers to revise the complexity index or how it weighs how many state dollars are given to school districts based on the number of complex students they have like low-income or English language learning students.

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The current formula doesn't align with what districts spend to meet the needs of these growing student populations, the district says.

Santos said they would like legislators to reconsider what exactly is counted toward the complexity index funding formula, and reevaluate what data is being used to determine how much funds are being sent.

3. Mandating school entry health exams

The district would also like to see physical exams be required at key educational milestones in a students life  such as kindergarten, sixth grade and ninth grade  to enhance student health and academic success while improving vaccination and preventive care rates.

4. Providing in-state tuition for undocumented students graduating an Indiana high school

Indiana is among a select few states that do not allow undocumented students to be eligible for in-state tuition at any of its public universities.

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The district would like legislators to examine this law and allow undocumented students who have graduated from an Indiana high school to be eligible to reduce financial barriers to higher education.

Top IN education headlines: IPS board member resigns, replaces disgraced Center Township constable

When thinking about where we stand as a state, we can't deny that we have students who are going through our school systems who need these supports and so just thinking about, how do we just make sure that education continues, rather than not knowing the path of that student going forward, Santos said.

5. Workforce readiness: Expanding support for Indianas workforce

District leaders believe training programs should be included in the states Workforce Ready Grants, which supply grants to qualifying individuals who are seeking a specific certification in various industries like advanced manufacturing, building & construction or health and life sciences.

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Colleges and universities in Indiana, the district says, should adopt guidelines to use the new Credit for Prior Learning program, which allows individuals to earn college credits for skills or knowledge learned outside of the traditional classroom setting.

The Credit for Prior Learning program was launched by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education in March.

6. Allow more flexibility for districts with implementing new early literacy standards

Now that school districts are fully underway in implementing the new requirements that certain third graders be held back if they dont pass the IREAD exam, district leaders would like more flexibility on how to handle early literacy work.

Keep up with school news: Sign up for Study Hall, IndyStar's free weekly education newsletter.

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The IREAD exam, for example, should be offered twice during the summertime for struggling readers. It wants the flexibility to determine if English Language learners should be promoted based on their WIDA scores, the standardized test that districts use to test English proficiency for ELL students.

The district also wants to see the state sustain funding for its high-dosage tutoring programs, such as Indiana Learns.

Contact IndyStar K-12 education 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: Here's what IPS thinks state legislators should focus on
At Milwaukees Forest Home Cemetery, the citys oldest operating cemetery, history can be seen in every direction  etched on the gravestones, mausoleums and monuments of founders, pioneers, industrialists and beer barons.

But new evidence has unearthed another layer of the citys past, one that stretches back thousands of years.

Researchers from Marquette University, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Ho-Chunk Nation have confirmed that two ancient Indigenous mounds were hidden within the cemetery, camouflaged as its characteristic rolling hills.

The shape of an ancient Indigenous mound can still be seen in a burial lot located at the Forest Home Cemetery and Arboretum on Saturday October 26, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wis.

As it turns out, Increase Lapham, the prominent civil engineer who helped transform Milwaukee from a small village into a booming city in the mid-1800s, knew the mounds were there when he designed Forest Home. But, according to Laphams extensive notes, he made sure they were protected.

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Wisconsin is a hub for ancient effigy mounds. Hundreds of mounds once dotted what is now known as Milwaukee, before being leveled to make way for development, something Lapham was likely to have witnessed firsthand.

Until the rediscovery, local experts believed that Lake Park was home to the only surviving Indigenous mound in Milwaukee.

Now, the two mounds rediscovered at Forest Home bring that number to three, revealing another important  and sometimes forgotten  piece of the areas early history.

Everywhere you step is Native history

The cemetery's oldest section, known to non-Native settlers as "Indian Field," marks the area where Indigenous inhabitants were displaced as settlers moved into the area. During the cholera outbreak in the mid-1800s, settlers turned to Indian Field to create a cemetery.

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The first burial took place in 1850, just four years after Milwaukee became a city.

The natural hills in the 72-acre section led some staff members to believe it may be home to ancient burial mounds, said Sara Tomlin, executive director of the Forest Home Historic Preservation Association. But the staff wasnt sure where they might be located, Tomlin said.

Sally Merrell, a docent at Forest Home, often pointed out during visitor tours that some of the hills could be ancient Indigenous mounds.

Merrell and Tomlin contacted William Quackenbush, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation, who visited the cemetery in February, 2022. Quackenbush and his tribe are experts in ancient Indigenous mounds in Wisconsin, and use state-of-the-art equipment to find them, so they can be protected.

The shape of an ancient Indigenous mound can still be seen in a burial lot located at the Forest Home Cemetery and Arboretum on Saturday October 26, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wis.

Tomlin said it took Quackenbush little time to identify two mounds. In late 2023, state historians confirmed the mounds were indeed ancient.

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Merrell reached out to Bryan Rindfleisch, a history professor at Marquette University, who along with his research students pored through Laphams notes, preserved by the Wisconsin Historical Society, to determine if he had documented the mounds. They discovered that Lapham had recorded about 50 circular mounds in the area, as well as a few lizard-shaped ones. Two of the mounds were located within the planned cemetery grounds, and Lapham had written that he intended to preserve them.

Lapham realized that everywhere you step is Native history and Native remains, Rindfleisch said. Theres a sacredness to that.

More: Plaque on Milwaukee's last ancient Indigenous burial mound is gone. Here's why.

Wisconsin once home to tens of thousands of burial mounds

Some of the earliest burial mounds built by ancient Native Americans, which were conical shaped, date back to roughly 500 BC. And effigy mounds depicting people, animals or spirits were built from between 700 to 1100 AD.

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Thats what Wisconsins known for, said Kurt Sampson, an archeologist who leads mound preservation, clean-up and caring events that includes removing invasive plants from mounds around the state.

Estimates suggest that about 20,000 mounds once blanketed the landscape, but roughly 4,000 remain today because of development during the last two centuries. Experts believe many were destroyed by Wisconsin residents and amateur archeologists.

All of these sites are, first and foremost, burial grounds, Sampson said. We know from 150 years of excavations that they do all, in fact, contain burials.

In the 1800s, early non-Native settlers in Wisconsin theorized that the mounds were built by a lost race or even the Vikings because they couldnt accept that Native Americans, whom they were removing from their lands at the time, would be capable of creating such massive and impressive earthworks.

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Researchers have since determined that many of the mound systems, in fact, resemble the clan systems and spirit animals used by Indigenous tribes today, like the Thunderbird and Water Panther, mythological animal-like supernatural beings.

More: Group works to preserve ancient Indigenous burial mounds across Wisconsin

More: New book explores Wisconsin's ancient Indigenous mounds

Dozens of graves now sit on top of the mounds

During the last 150 years, dozens of people had been buried within the two mounds, including many members of one family who had purchased the plot. These burials are along the edges of the mounds, leaving much of the center of the mounds untouched.

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The last person buried on top of one of the mounds was laid to rest in the 1960s.

Rindfleisch said its likely the original cemetery owners knew that Lapham designed that section of the cemetery the way he did in order to preserve the mounds.

That didnt stop them from putting graves on the mounds, he said. Theres the hypocrisy that goes along with that.

And now that historians, archeologists and cemetery officials know the two mounds are there, the next step is to figure out what to do next.

According to Tomlin, cemetery officials are in the process of contacting families that still own plots where the mounds are located, but its unclear what the next steps of the families will be.

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Tomlin is working with an anthropologist who is a tribal expert at UW-Milwaukee and Milwaukee Intertribal Circle to develop a plan of how to care and preserve the mounds, as well as educate visitors about them.

Our whole purpose is to protect burial sites, Tomlin said.

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 story was updated to add a video.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ancient Indigenous mounds found at Milwaukee's Forest Home Cemetery
Its been a whirlwind week for Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto. On Nov. 9, he was breaking bread with Chinese leader Xi Jinping; three days later he was sitting down with President Joe Biden in the White House. In between, Subianto found time to reach out to Donald Trump to congratulate the incoming U.S. president on his election victory.

The visits to the U.S. and China form part of a two-week overseas tour for Subianto that will also take him to Peru, Brazil and the U.K., as well as several Middle East countries.

The itinerary hints at the diplomatic priorities of the newly seated president of Southeast Asias biggest economy: balancing Indonesias relations with key members of both the West and the Global South, while seeking a more assertive leadership role in Southeast Asia.

Indonesias balancing act

Subiantos back-to-back meetings with Xi and Biden highlight the role Indonesia tries to play in ensuring regional stability and security in the Indo-Pacific.

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The meetings coincided with an ongoing U.S.-Indonesian marine exercise off the Indonesian island of Batam. The third annual military exercise of its kind, such maneuvers between U.S. and Southeast Asian partners have tended in the past to be framed as a countermeasure to Chinas assertiveness in the contested waters of the South China Sea. But while U.S. and Indonesian marines were engaged in drills, Subianto and Xi were making nice  pledging greater maritime cooperation between the two countries.

The big question now is how a Trump White House will affect Indonesias balancing act on security in the Indo-Pacific region.

Trumps Indo-Pacific strategy

Trumps first presidency offers some clues into what his second term may look like regarding its Indo-Pacific policy. The 2019 Indo-Pacific Strategy Report issued by the Trump administration marked China as a revisionist power  that is, one that is dissatisfied with the current status quo  and an aspiring regional hegemon.

To counter this, Trump adopted an offshore balancing strategy  in effect utilizing regional allies to keep China in check. This approach involved security pacts with traditional allies and joint military training exercises with countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia. It also included providing military equipment to partners in the region and occasional U.S. Navy freedom of navigation operations.

Chinas nine-dash line takes in territory claimed by other nations.. AP Photo/Andy Wong

But there was another side to Trumps Indo-Pacific strategy. Aware of the U.S.s lack of direct security interests in the region  no U.S. territories are threatened  but concerned that any escalation could lead to military conflict, Trump was willing to back down on potential flash points with China in the South China Sea in exchange for Beijings cooperation in confronting one of the regions key threats to stability: North Korea.

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These two policy tweaks under Trumps first administration  easing pressure on Beijing in the South China Sea while outsourcing regional stability to Washingtons Indo-Pacific allies  handed to Indonesia a challenge and opportunity.

As Southeast Asias largest and most populous nation, Indonesia was required to show leadership in the negotiation of the code of conduct in the South China Sea as part of its key diplomatic mission to maintain regional stability.

Subianto tilts toward China

Indonesia has long been willing to shoulder the burden of managing regional security. Successive leaders have taken the role seriously, especially given the countrys constitutional mandate to pursue an independent and active foreign policy. Historically, this has meant Indonesian leaders avoiding being too close to either the U.S. or China in order to boost their credibility as an independent actor.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto. Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via Getty Images

But since Subianto was inaugurated as the president of Indonesia in October 2024, Indonesias foreign policy has shown a nascent shift away from the West. Days after his inauguration, Subianto sent his new foreign minister to Kazan, Russia, to attend the meeting of BRICS nations and express Indonesias desire to join the expanding bloc of non-Western economies.

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BRICSs largest member is China, and the group seeks to position itself as an alternative to Western security and financial architecture.

This formal expression of intent to join BRICS marks a change from policy under Subiantos predecessor, Joko Widodo.

Furthermore, a joint statement issued during Subiantos visit to Beijing suggests that Indonesia is starting to entertain Beijing historical maritime claims in the South China Sea.

For decades, Indonesia refused to acknowledge Beijings claims on rocks and atolls within Indonesias exclusive economic zone in the waters around Natuna  an Indonesian island that intersects with Chinas nine-dash line denoting the area Beijing sees as Chinese.

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But the joint statement issued during Subiantos visit to Beijing stated that the two countries had reached an important common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims that was consistent with respective prevailing laws and regulations.

Talk of overlapping claims is a departure for Indonesia and suggests that Subianto is willing to move closer to accepting the boundaries set by Beijing in the South China Sea.

OECD or BRICS? Or both?

This isnt to say that Indonesia is cutting off its options for greater cooperation with the West, too. During the White House leg of Subiantos visit, Biden signaled the U.S.s strong support for Indonesias push to join the Western-dominated Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

OECD membership would serves as a benchmarking platform for Indonesia, with the organization setting international standards and support for Indonesia to help attract better quality foreign investment.

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BRICS membership, meanwhile, would represent more of a political and economic move that would place Indonesia alongside other countries seeking an alternative to the U.S.-dominated international institutions.

The impetus for Indonesia to join could only deepen should Trumps plan to slap heavy tariffs on overseas goods come to fruition.

Providing cover for Subianto

Certainly, it appears that Indonesia under Subianto could develop a more pro-Beijing stance in the face of a Trump White House.

Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are likely to take up much of Trumps immediate attention, pushing issues such as security in Southeast Asia  and more generally in the Indo-Pacific region  further down the list.

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Meanwhile, the Chinese government shows no signs of deviating from a policy that includes incremental moves to control the South China Sea and exert its economic influence on nations in Southeast Asia.

Already, some observers are questioning whether Indonesias shift in how disputed territory in the South China Sea is discussed is tied to economic cooperation with China that includes the US$10 billion worth of deals signed during Subiantos Beijing visit.

And a more insular, anti-interventionalist White House under Trump could give Subianto cover to forge Indonesias path as a regional leader, encouraging it to do so while also developing closer economic and strategic ties to China and the Global South.

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: Angguntari Ceria Sari, Universitas Katolik Parahyangan and Idil Syawfi, Universitas Katolik Parahyangan

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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.
Liberals and conservatives alike expressed shock and alarm upon hearing President-elect Donald Trumps announcement that he intends to nominate former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to be his attorney general.

One influential right-winger, however, went a bit further in his assessment.

Matt Gaetz is a sex trafficking drug addicted piece of shit, wrote Ben Domenech in a Substack post titled, Matt Gaetz is a Vile Sex Pest and Any Senator Who Votes For Him Owns That.

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Domenech, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, has gone from wunderkind blogger to a regular Fox News guest, as a co-founder of The Federalist and editor-at-large of The Spectator World. He has no shortage of conservative credentials, making his comments on Trumps pick to run the Department of Justice particularly noteworthy.

He is abhorrent, Domenech said of Gaetz. His eyes are permanently rimmed with the red rings of chemical boosters. In person, he smells like overexposed Axe Body Spray and stale Astroglide.

He went on, repeating a story about the Florida congressman that Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) shared publicly last year: The fact that he boasted on the floor to multiple colleagues in the House of Representatives of his methods of crushing Viagra and high test Red Bull to maintain his erection through his orgiastic evenings is perhaps the least offensive of his many crimes against womanhood and Christian faith.

If confirmed, Gaetz would oversee the very same department that recently investigated him over sex trafficking allegations. While the Department of Justice ultimately declined to charge Gaetz last year, the House Ethics Committees members have been looking into the claims for years  or at least until Gaetzs abrupt resignation this week, at which time the panels power to do so evaporated.

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Lawmakers from both parties have called for the committees reportedly damaging report to be released anyway. The panel had originally expected to vote Friday on whether or not to make its findings public.

Every Republican in Washington has an opinion about Matt Gaetz, and 99 percent of those opinions are Keep Matt Gaetz away from my wife/daughter/friend and anyone I care about, Domenech wrote.

Gaetzs problems ramped up when a former close friend, Joel Greenberg, took a plea deal admitting that he invited underage girls to various places where he would pay them for sex and use illicit drugs. Gaetz allegedly participated in some of the parties, though he has denied those accusations.

Greenberg had also been cooperating with the House Ethics Committee, which said in June that it had consulted more than a dozen witnesses, issued 25 subpoenas and reviewed thousands of pages of documents for the probe.

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Domenech said Gaetz represented a sort of test for Republicans in Congress.

[I] they have a degree of independence, any kind of free thought, mindful of the fact that a presidency is four years but your career is forever, they will reject this choice so emphatically that it sends a very simple, straightforward message: you can be an absolute dirtbag wannabe pimp pounding dick pills and caffeine while you film your girlfriend twerking on the gram, or you can be a Republican, he said.

Read the whole thing on Domenechs Substack newsletter, The Transom.

Related...
The Scoop

The president and co-founder of Donald Trump Jr.s publishing company, Sergio Gor, has been offered the low-profile, influential job leading the Presidential Personnel Office in Donald Trumps incoming administration, a person familiar with the conversations told Semafor.

The news comes amid intense focus on Trumps splashiest job offers for his incoming administration  and amid intense jockeying for the personnel role and another key post, the staff secretary position. Both are essential to the functioning of any White House. The PPO director is tasked with helping vet new appointees, while the staff secretary will be responsible in part for managing paper flow to Trump in the Oval Office.

During part of Trumps first term, the personnel job fell to then-29-year-old John McEntee, a longtime Trump loyalist. McEntee was fired by then-chief of staff John Kelly for failing a background check, only to be rehired by Trump himself. Gor, who also led a pro-Trump Super PAC backed by billionaire Mar-a-Lago member Ike Perlmutter that raised nearly $80 million, was seen as a slight frontrunner for the spot.

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Gor declined to comment.

He appears to have beaten out a high-profile rival for the role: Blake Masters  the venture capitalist, former political candidate, and protege of Peter Thiel  was viewed as the top choice in pro-Trump tech circles, according to two people familiar with the situation. Gor previously worked for Sen. Rand Paul as deputy chief of staff for communications.

Meanwhile in the mix to be staff secretary, sometimes called the nerve center of the White House, are several familiar names representing different factions of Trumps network. Some allies of the president-elect are lobbying for Mike Davis, whose name also came up as a potential Trump attorney general.

Davis is seen as the MAGA-favorite pick, someone who would make sure the wool isnt pulled over Trumps eyes during his second term (although he has said he is not going back into government). Its a trait Trump may want in a staff secretary: During his first term, journalist Bob Woodward reported that then-staff secretary Rob Porter was involved in stealing and hiding certain documents from the president, as well as trying to distract him from proposed orders that aides were nervous would imperil national security.

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Theo Wold, who has spoken in favor of Trumps mass deportation plan, is also getting looked at as a possible staff secretary, according to the same three people familiar with the situation who confirmed Gors candidacy to Semafor. Wold served in the first Trump administration and worked closely with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is informally involved in the transition process. Hes also the former Solicitor General of Idaho, and a close ally of Sen. Mike Lee.

The staff secretary list also includes Trump lawyer Will Scharf, who has deep ties to former Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo. Scharf, in addition to defending Trump in the courtroom, has been seen over the last year across networks backing up the president-elect amid his legal trials.

Shelbys view

These two jobs are often overlooked amid the focus on Trumps higher-profile picks, but both are hugely important positions that bring both close access to the president and the ability to influence decision-making across the government.

Trump has said the biggest mistake from his last administration was that he picked disloyal people  that sentiment is certainly in mind as his team ponders who will be tapped for these jobs. And each of the people under consideration can credibly stake a claim to the role of loyal Trump defender.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI)  More questions are being raised about the wear and tear of the eastbound side of the Washington Bridge after the state was forced to increase the amount of traffic on the span to deal with the closure of the westbound span, emails reveal.

On Sept. 13, R.I. Department of Transportation (RIDOT) project manager Anthony Pompei emailed Aetna Bridge Co. officials to notify them that some expansion joints on the eastbound bridge needed repair work after gaps had been discovered.

Pompeis email expressed a sense of urgency, pointing out the material was temperature sensitive, and that the work needed to be done at night to avoid traffic disruptions.

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This will likely need to be scheduled within the next few weeks, Pompei wrote.

The request triggered a round of emails, including at least one from a subcontractor that expressed concern regarding the states proposed fix for the problem. The emails carry the subject line Washington Bridge  Eastbound Expansion Joint Extra Work and were first reported by The Boston Globe.

The recommendation from our Bridge Engineer is to fill in these voids with Emcrete, Pompei wrote in an Oct. 21 email.

Lori Manni, president of Aetna subcontractor Capital City Construction & Management Services Inc., responded a short time later to raise a red flag about using Emcrete, which is described as an elastomeric concrete often used as a patching material.

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Please be advised that, in accordance with the manufacturers recommended use, Emcrete is not recommended for use in structural repairs, Manni wrote.

Photos obtained by Target 12 show the expansion joints in question. In one a worker uses a measuring tape to mark an eight-inch gap in the joint from apparent erosion. Emails show there were some questions as to whether the gaps would need more attention before using Emcrete.

We attempted the repair on the west joint, Steven Aguiar, a project manager for Aetna, wrote in an early morning email. But, he continued, The condition of the substrate concrete was in bad shape in some areas and would need a full-depth concrete repair.

The crew opted to temporarily fill the gap with asphalt until everyone could come to a consensus.

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We need direction from RIDOT on how to proceed moving forward, Aguiar wrote.

The westbound side of the Washington Bridge, which connects East Providence to Providence via I-195, has been closed for nearly a year after a junior engineer uncovered the critical failure of the steel anchor rods that hold its major beams in place.

RIDOT opened a third lane of westbound traffic on the eastbound Washington Bridge in late April as a way to ease congestion.

RIDOT spokesperson Charles St. Martin said the expansion joint at issue was not on the bridge itself but rather located off the bridge on a concrete approach slab-on-grade (on the ground) adjacent to the bridge and as such is not a bridge structure issue.

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St. Martin said the issue was detected as part of regular preventative maintenance checks, which include tasks like checking for potholes, sweeping, bridge washing, clearing drains, and more.

RIDOT has repeatedly said engineers have examined the eastbound Washington Bridge and determined can handle extra weight from two-way traffic and temporary concrete barriers.

A week and a half after the initial round of emails about the problematic expansion joint, Manni sent a follow-up email to memorialize a conversation she had with an Emcrete representative who came to the site and saw the condition of the concrete. She said the company official endorsed the use of Emcrete after that visit.

I stand corrected in my original opinion, Manni wrote. It appeared from the pictures I was given that there would most likely be a full depth repair of the concrete.

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St. Martin said RIDOT inspects the entire eastbound bridge every six months rather than on the typical two-year inspection cycle.

RIDOT and its contractors are closely and proactively monitoring the condition of the bridge to ensure the eastbound span continues to be safe for use, St. Martin said.

St. Martin told Target 12 that the latest inspection of the bridge is still underway. He said the work on the joints near the end of the bridge began in mid-October and would take about one month to complete during late evening and overnight hours on weeknights, when traffic volumes are lowest.

The current repair, according to St. Martin, includes a total of eight joints, two on the far ends of the bridge and six associated with the nearby Valley Street Bridge, a separate structure. He said the cost to repair all eight joints was $509,000.

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St. Martin said the work is considered to be bridge maintenance and not new construction, so the joint repairs are paid for with state highway maintenance funds, not federal construction funding.

The Washington Bridge has four other joints that are not part of this repair, according to St. Martin.

They are in good condition but showing signs of wear and will be maintained during future repair work that has not been scheduled yet, he said.

Olivia DaRocha, a spokesperson for Gov. Dan McKee said they rely on RIDOT experts to evaluate and provide guidance on the eastbound bridges condition.

They have assured us that the bridge is capable of handling the increase traffic, and had the bridge analyzed by two engineering firms prior to implementing the three-lane traffic configuration last spring, DaRocha said.

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Records obtained by Target 12 show less than a week after additional lanes of westbound traffic were added to the eastbound bridge, RIDOT sought to hire a Swiss technology company to use a monitoring system technology that can weigh trucks in real time at any speed on the eastbound bridge.

RELATED: RIDOT engineer expressed concerns about extra weight on eastbound Washington Bridge

The eastbound Washington Bridge has become considerably more sensitive since the closing of the westbound bridge, the documents stated.

An inspection of the eastbound bridge was performed in late March and early April this year. Target 12 obtained photos from the report as a result of a public records request.

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Engineers found that the bridge, which was reconstructed in 2008, was in fair condition. The report said the bridges deck and superstructure were rated in good condition, and that an evaluation of its structure was above the minimum tolerable level.

However, the report also noted that drain pipes through the concrete deck in one of the bays had rust, an electrical conduit flexible coupling at the joint was torn and detached, and in different spans of the bridge, there were two junction boxes that had missing bolts.

In early September, RIDOT said it was installing the new weigh-in monitoring system on the eastbound Washington Bridge as a precautionary measure. Construction had already gotten underway on Aug. 19.

At the time, St. Martin stated that the purchase and installation of the system was proactive and there are no indications of any issues with the bridge.

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St. Martin told Target 12 on Wednesday that the system is still in a period of testing and calibration.

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.

Tim White (twhite@wpri.com) is Target 12 managing editor and chief investigative reporter and host of Newsmakers for 12 News. Connect with him on Twitter and Facebook.

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Nearly nine months after the death of nonbinary Choctaw high schooler Nex Benedict in Oklahoma, the U.S. Department of Education announced this week that Owasso Public Schools had repeatedly violated Title IX for years by ignoring reports of sexual harassment and abuse, creating an unsafe learning environment for students.

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In a press release on Wednesday from the Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights (OCR), officials reported that sexual harassment and related bullying had run rampant at Owasso Public Schools for years, up to and including the February 2024 bathroom fight that preceded Benedicts death. Investigators found that the district responded informally and inadequately to a string of Title IX complaints, which included multiple reports of sex-based slurs, harassment, and physical assault; an incident involving sexual harassment of an elementary schooler; and one case of alleged grooming on social media by a teacher, in addition to the attack that hospitalized Benedict. (An autopsy by the state medical examiner later found that Benedict died by suicide, rather than from physical trauma, although some advocates and Benedicts family called for an independent investigation.)

In all those cases, OCR investigators said, Owasso administrators failed to respond or comply with basic Title IX requirements. The district had only conducted two formal Title IX investigations in the last three school years, they found, and failed to establish an adequate grievance process or keep sufficient records of complaints. Administrators pattern of inconsistent responses to sexual harassment, investigators wrote, reached the point of being deliberately indifferent to students and parents concerns.

The findings came as little surprise to some locals like Gary Thompson, who told KOTV this week that his grandchildren had witnessed the steady increase in bullying at school. I've heard from my granddaughters that go to middle and high school that there's issues with a lot of bullying, Thompson said. No one has been addressing it [...] It's very disappointing. I hate for any kids to have to go through anything like this. And they shouldn't have to.

As a result of the investigation, Owasso Public Schools entered into a voluntary resolution agreement with OCR, which lays out a plan for the district to address those complaints and comply with Title IX requirements. (As part of the agreement, the district did not admit to wrongdoing or liability.) The district agreed to review all past complaints since the 2021-2022 school year and to meet with students who made past complaints and their families to discuss supportive measures; will revise its grievance procedures and issue a statement of nondiscrimination; and must conduct a climate survey regarding sexual harassment in its schools. It must also submit detailed documentation to OCR regarding its compliance with all parts of the agreement, beginning next year and lasting at least into 2026.

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Owasso students and their families did not receive the fair and equitable review process from their school district guaranteed to them under Title IX; at worst, some students experienced discrimination Congress has long guaranteed they shall not endure at school, said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon in the OCR press release. The district has signed a robust agreement to assure that students who attend school in the district will be afforded their rights under Title IX, including the right to file a complaint, learn about and receive supportive services individualized to their needs, and benefit from federal nondiscrimination protection when they experience harassment.

The federal investigation into Owasso Public Schools began in March, in response to an official complaint by the Human Rights Campaign regarding Benedicts death. Days before the investigation began, more than 40 Owasso High School students staged a walkout to protest the unchecked culture of bullying and harassment. Hundreds of advocacy groups and nonprofits also called for Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters to resign, in part due to his ties to violent anti-transgender rhetoric.

After Suicide Ruling in Nex Benedict Case, LGBTQ\+ Groups Demand More Answers

Nothing in this report changes the responsibility to keep our young people safe.

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HRC president Kelley Robinson applauded the OCR announcement in a statement this week, saying it affirmed that trans and nonbinary youth deserve the same access to a quality and safe education as their cis peers. Rep. Mark Pocan, chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, agreed, writing that district officials had failed to follow the law and protect their students.

Nothing can undo the damage thats already happened in Owasso, including the tragic death of Nex Benedict, but this agreement is an important step towards preventing future Title IX violations and working to protect the right of every student  including trans and nonbinary students  to receive an education free from harassment, discrimination, and violence, Pocan wrote.

Get the best of whats queer. Sign up for Thems weekly newsletter here.

Originally Appeared on them.

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Warren Buffett doesn't like stocks as much as he used to. That's evident from the fact that he's been a net seller of stocks for eight consecutive quarters.

But Buffett hasn't lost his enamor with all stocks. The "Oracle of Omaha" has even invested $2.9 billion in one stock this year. What is it  and is it a no-brainer buy now?

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Buffett's biggest bet of the year

If you think that $2.9 billion is chump change for Buffett, think again. Most of the positions in Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B) portfolio are valued at less than that amount. Of the 15 holdings worth more, Buffett reduced Berkshire's stake in three this year and didn't buy any shares of nine others.

Buffett has steadily added shares this year to Berkshire's position in oil and gas producer Occidental Petroleum. He bought more shares of property and casualty insurer Chubb Limited. The legendary investor also loaded up on Sirius XM Holdings. (We'll get an update on this and more when Berkshire releases its quarterly portfolio update after today's market close.)

However, none of these purchases totaled $2.9 billion this year. There's only one stock Buffett has invested that much money in so far in 2024: Berkshire Hathaway itself, via stock buybacks.

Why Buffett has invested so heavily in Berkshire

Berkshire Hathaway delivered an overall gain of 4,384,748% between 1964 (when Buffett took control of the company) and 2023, more than 140 times greater than the gain for the S&P 500 during the same period. The stock is outperforming the S&P so far in 2024 as well. Is this track record of beating the market the reason why Buffett has invested so heavily in Berkshire? Nope.

The real reason behind the continued stock buybacks is revealed in Berkshire Hathaway's quarterly and annual filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In its latest quarterly filing, the conglomerate repeated the consistent message, "Berkshire's common stock repurchase program permits Berkshire to repurchase its shares any time that Warren Buffett, Berkshire's Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, believes that the repurchase price is below Berkshire's intrinsic value, conservatively determined."

Buffett has invested so heavily in Berkshire this year because he thought the price was right. No one on the planet is more qualified to determine if Berkshire's share price is below its intrinsic value than Buffett. He knows the company inside and out. If there's any business for which Buffett can reasonably predict future earnings (a necessary prerequisite to valuing the business), it's Berkshire Hathaway.
A federal investigation found an Oklahoma school district that came under national scrutiny this year after the fatal overdose of an LGBTQ+ teen repeatedly failed to protect its students from discrimination and harassment, according to an official announcement.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights said it settled a complaint with Owasso Public Schools Wednesday and will require the district to review and potentially revise its antidiscrimination policies to become compliant with the law. The district has signed a "robust agreement" to ensure students will be better protected under the law in the future, Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary for civil rights at the department, said in a statement Wednesday.

In February, Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old student at Owasso High School who identified as gender expansive, died after an overdose that the medical examiner later ruled a suicide. (Gender expansive is an umbrella term that describes people whose gender identity expands beyond traditional gender norms, according to the National Institutes of Health.)

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Benedict's family said the teen's death came after they endured anti-LGBTQ+ bullying at school. Benedict, a descendant of the Choctaw Nation, used the pronouns he, him, they and them.

The case captured national attention and enraged LGBTQ+ rights advocates.

Owasso students and their families did not receive the fair and equitable review process from their school district guaranteed to them under Title IX; at worst, some students experienced discrimination Congress has long guaranteed they shall not endure at school, Lhamon said.

In an email to USA TODAY, Owasso Public Schools spokesperson Jordan Korphage said the district cooperated fully with the federal government's probe and is committed to making the recommended changes.

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"We are confident that these steps will enhance the safety and inclusivity of our school community," Korphage said.

Death of Nex Benedict Spurs calls for action, help for LGBTQ teens and their peers

What does the Department of Education's resolution say?

The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights identified repeated instances, over a three-year period, when Owasso Public Schools staff members were told of possible sexual harassment against children but did not respond adequately or at all.

The lack of action "rose to the level that the districts response to some families sexual harassment reports was deliberately indifferent to students civil rights," the department said on Wednesday.

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Along with the incident involving Benedict, the Education Department uncovered these violations of Title IX's protections against harassment:

A teacher groomed female students on social media, sending messages describing their physical appearance and requesting photographs.

A "very young elementary school student" was subjected to repeated harassing remarks described as sexual in nature.

A male student repeatedly hit and made unwelcome sexual comments to a sixth-grade female student at school and on a school bus.

Multiple students reported sex-based slurs, harassment and physical assault.

Sexual harassment prohibited under the departments Title IX regulation includes unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex "determined by a reasonable person to be so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to the recipients education program or activity." The department's Office of Civil Rights determined that Owasso schools have a practice of handling reports of sexual harassment of students informally and inadequately.

As part of the resolution agreement between the Education Department and Owasso Public Schools, schools will meet individually with affected students and parents to discuss how to file a formal Title IX complaint. The school district must also issue a public anti-harassment statement by February 15, 2025.

Human rights group: 'The Owasso School District failed Nex Benedict'

Kelley Robinson, president of the national LGBTQ+ civil rights organization Human Rights Campaign, wrote in a statement Wednesday that the resolution agreement "leaves no doubt: the Owasso School District failed Nex Benedict and many other vulnerable students under their care."

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"The evidence shows that officials were well aware of the hostile climate in their schools, yet repeatedly chose indifference and inaction when confronted," Robinson wrote. "While no accountability measure can fully heal the grief and anger that Nexs family and this community feels, today, a message has been sent: Trans and non-binary students have worth."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nex Benedict's school failed students, investigation finds
ANKENY, Iowa  An Iowa man has been accused of placing a GPS tracking device on a womans vehicle without her knowledge.

On November 7 Gary Dean Dishinger, 52, allegedly placed a GPS tracking device on the victims vehicle. According to court documents, Dishinger admitted to police that he placed the device on the vehicle.

Man charged for allegedly firing gun near Johnston High School

A criminal complaint states that Dishinger also told police that he had placed a similar tracking device on the victims car in November 2023. According to the complaint, Dishinger told police that the victim found the app for the first tracking device on his phone shortly after he placed it and became upset. Dishinger also told police he knew that the victim would not approve of him placing the second GPS device, the complaint states.

Gary Dishinger

Dishinger was arrested on Tuesday and charged with one count of unauthorized placement of a global positioning device, a serious misdemeanor. He was booked into the Polk County Jail but has since been released on pretrial release. Dishinger waived the preliminary hearing and is scheduled to be arraigned on December 30, according to court records.

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ALLERTON, Iowa  In January of 2023 there was excitement buzzing around the Wayne County community of Allerton. New owners were taking over the plant, just as there was a national shortage of infant formula. Thats something workers here know about, as that is what they produced under the plants prior ownership.

Since then the plant has expanded the workforce by 50% to 112 people. The plant was also re-certified by federal regulators to be producing the baby formula. On Wednesday the ByHeart plant was visited by Governor Reynolds, the Economic Development Authority, and the Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

We all know last year was one of the largest food security crises with the infant formula shortage, said Mia Funt, ByHeart Company Co-Founder. We realize the importance of owning manufacturing not only to be able to innovate, but to be a reliable partner to parents.

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Last year parents had to drive across state lines in some cases to find infant formula. Even though that is no longer in the news the pipeline for baby formula can be interrupted.

Iowa State Fair opts to not extend Steer N Stein ownership group after outstanding bills

Even this year when there was a couple day port strike, we saw again shortages on the shelf, said Funt. It only highlights the importance of having a three-site supply chain with back ups in the system to ensure that we could be reliable partners to parents.

Funt says her company has the three plants in Allerton, Oregon, and Pennsylvania as a way to keep a dependable supply of formula. Her company markets through Walmart, Target and Amazon.

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Its only five companies that provide this and so they have seen great capacity and great growth in just the year that theyve been in the market, said Governor Kim Reynolds, after a briefing and tour of the plant. We want to be able to work with them and hopefully continue to build that capacity right here in Allerton.

Already this company is the second largest employer in Wayne County.

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(This story was edited to correct information,)

One of the most profitable beer and food concessions at the Iowa State Fair is up for grabs in 2025 after the fair board decided Wednesday to discontinue a contract with its operators, a prominent Des Moines couple who failed to pay employees, vendors and a portion of concession fees after this year's fair.

Fair CEO Jeremy Parsons said fair staff will be preparing a request for proposals for those interested in operating Steer N Stein, which occupies a large stand across from the administration building on the fairgrounds. It recorded more than $1.28 million in sales at this years fair, which ran from Aug. 8-18.

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Parsons said the decision to end the annual contract with former Adventureland Resort CEO Michael Krantz and his wife Kimberly came after fair staff decided the pair failed to meet contractual obligations and operations standards as concessionaires, including maintaining good business practices.

The Steer N' Stein concessions stand is one of the most profitable at the Iowa State Fair.

The fair sent a letter Nov. 7 to Michael Krantz, forbidding the removal of any personal items from the fair-owned Steer N Stein building until the fair receives $102,000 in concession fees still due from the 2024 fair.

More: An Iowa State Fair food vendor that didn't pay employees owes the fair more than $100,000

Parsons said in an interview after Wednesday's fair board meeting that fair staff also would be re-examining bylaws and policies in the coming year to try to avoid similar problems with future concessionaires. Changes, he said, are likely as the fair grows in popularity, and as food and beverage sales become more important, and money is involved.

Steer N' Stein operators face accusations of nonpayment

To date, the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals has received at least 14 wage claims from Steer N' Stein employees who said they didnt get paid, didn't receive correct tips, or had paychecks bounce.

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Steer N' Stein reported to fair officials that it experienced an almost 5% decrease in sales this year, though the fair had record attendance. The 2024 fair drew almost 1.183 million people, 4% more than the 1.134 million it drew in 2023.

The Krantzes also are accused in a Polk County civil lawsuit of owing another $218,582 to a local business that provided them services leading up to the fair. Parsons said at least one other Steer N' Stein contractor also has complained of not getting paid.

Michael Krantz did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. He has given several reasons for the couples failure to pay debts since Watchdog in an Oct. 23 column reported the wage theft allegations.

He initially said in a statement the payment failures were "beyond our control, caused by technical flaws in his company's payment processing system. Later, he said it had temporary cash flow problems resulting from a change in how the fair collects funds from vendors.

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Spokeswoman Mindy Williamson said the fair this year gave vendors the option of paying their concession fees online using automated clearing house money transfers. The limit for automated transfers was $100,000 per day, but other forms of payment were acceptable.

In a statement last week through a law firm representing him, Krantz said he was working diligently and quickly to assure that anyone owed money from this years State Fair is paid," adding that "all outstanding obligations will be resolved very soon."

Krantzes are former owners of Adventureland; face lawsuit in child's death there

The Krantz family is the former owner of Adventureland, the Altoona amusement park started 50 years ago by Michael Krantz's father, Jack. It was sold in December 2021 following fatal injury the previous July of an 11-year-old boy in an accident on the park's Raging River Ride. The Krantzes have faced large legal bills  and potential liability  tied to a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit stemming Michael Jaramillo's death and severe injuries to his older brother, David.

The Krantzes had been big donors to the Iowa State Fair Blue Ribbon Foundation, contributing more than $182,700 as patrons or bidders in silent auctions since June 2022. But according to the fair, they also have not paid an invoice for a $5,000 sponsorship table at this year's Corndog Kickoff, a fundraiser for fairgrounds renovations.

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Steer N' Stein, which serves beer, breakfast and burgers, has been a mainstay at the fair for 53 years. It was rebuilt after burning down in 1999, when it was under the management of longtime operator George Kranovich.

Lee Rood is an investigative reporter and editor who created the Reader's Watchdog column in 2012 to find answers and accountability for readers on a range of topics.

This article was edited to correct the dates of the 2024 Iowa State Fair.

Lee Rood's Reader's Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Reach her at lrood@registermedia.com, at 515-284-8549, on Twitter at @leerood or on Facebook at Facebook.com/readerswatchdog.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Steer N' Stein operators ousted by Iowa State Fair board
DES MOINES, Iowa  After the Michael Krantz ownership group of Steer N Stein had questions raised about its ability to pay their employees and the fair, the Iowa State Fair announced on Wednesday that the group would not be welcomed back in 2025.

The Iowa State Fair Board met on Wednesday to discuss opening up a proposal process for who would operate the building at next summers fair; as the fair is still owed more than $100,000 from the ownership group.

Today the Iowa State Fair Board approved an open RFP process to find a new operator for the Steer N Stein location. The current operators were not invited back to participate in the 2025 fair, just based on, really, several contractual as well as standards of operations violations, said Jeremy Parsons, the Iowa State Fair CEO.

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Payments to the Iowa State Fair, failure to pay staff in a timely manner, along with failure to pay other outside contractors who worked for Steer N Stein this last summer was the scope of the fairs investigation.

WHO 13 News spoke with several employees a month ago that did get paid for their work during the fair and had checks bounce.

Iowa man accused of placing GPS device on victims vehicle

The Iowa State Fair has one year contracts with vendors, so the move was simply not extending the ownership group into 2025. Having to do so was not something the fair took pleasure in doing.

When you have a partner that isnt maybe living up to the full, to their side of the deal, its disappointing, said Parsons. Obviously, the Iowa State Fair is a happy place. Its a place where people come to have a good time. And obviously things like this are always a little disheartening.

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The Krantz Ownership had been involved with Steer N Stein since 2023, and now the fair will look for new owners and operators.

So, basically whats going to happen is the fair staff will be developing a document that outlines what we are looking for as an operator in Steer N Stein, said Parsons. And then youre going to respond to that proposal, you are going to respond to that information with here is what I would do to meet those requirements. And then obviously those will all be scored, you know, according to a scoring chart that we use and then ultimately one of those providers will be selected.

The Krantz ownership group had their legal team send a statement about the alleged money owed, which you can view here.

The name Steer N Stein should stick around, barring any proposals to change that in the bids that will begin in a couple months.

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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA)  The Illinois Plan for Radiological Accidents (IPRA) has created an emergency plan for the Clinton Power Station.

IPRA provides a framework for the response of state and local governments in the event of an Illinois nuclear power station radiological accident. Maintenance of the IPRA is an ongoing effort between state agencies, local governments and private organizations.

This plan is designed to make sure that any radiological incident is quickly and accurately assessed, leading to an effective response and recovery. The main purpose of the IPRA is protect Illinois residents in the event of a radiological incident from a nuclear power station.

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The plan is designed to:

Protect those residing, working or visiting near nuclear power stations in Illinois

Ensure the response and recovery are well organized, coordinated and expedient

Make sure that resources and personnel are always used efficiently

Capitol Connection: Labor group pushes for big reforms to Tier 2 pension system

The IPRA is comprised of a Core Plan and six site-specific editions. The Core Plan provides a general overview of the IPRA, and it describes the concept of operations, chain of command, communications network and general program administrative functions.

According to the guide, the Clinton Nuclear Generating Station is a Boiling Water Reactor. These reactors heat the water surrounding the nuclear fuel assembles directly into steam within the reactor vessel. Pipes then carry the steam to the turbine which drives the electrical generator to produce electricity.

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The site-specific editions of the IPRA address the concept of operations for the local governments within the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zones (EPZ). They provide detailed procedures for the response activities of local governments.

These procedures define the implementation of the following activities: initial notification, emergency facility activation, sheltering, evacuation, traffic and access control, public notification, public information, radiological exposure control and routine public service.

Capitol Connection: Labor group pushes for big reforms to Tier 2 pension system

Nuclear utilities are responsible for notifying offsite authorities in the event of an incident. The four emergency classifications used by the utilities are:

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Unusual Event : Notification of Illinois Emergency Management Agency and Office of Homeland Security (IEMA-OHS) and local governments.

Alert : Notification of IEMA-OHS and local governments. Emergency operation centers (EOCs) may be activated. Key State and local officials are notified per procedure.

Site Area Emergency : Same response as for an Alert, with expanded notifications to additional local and state agencies. EOCs will be activated as well. Public notification may be implemented and protection actions for the public may be recommended.

General Emergency: Full notification and activation of personnel, resources and EOCS, as outlined in the IPRA. Public notification will be implemented and protective actions for the public will be recommended.

Each one of these response levels may be altered based on the changing conditions of the situation.

The plan is based on federal regulations and Radiological Emergency Preparedness (REP) program planning standards as developed and evaluated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

To read the full emergency preparedness guide, visit Clinton Nuclear Power Station Emergency Preparedness.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com.
The News

Irans foreign minister said Tehran is ready to negotiate over its nuclear program shortly after meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Thursday.

Iran has never left the negotiation table on its peaceful nuclear program, Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said in a statement posted on X, warning that Tehran would not respond to pressure and intimidation.

IAEA head Rafael Grossi said the space for negotiation and diplomacy is getting smaller, in regards to Irans nuclear development, which is on the cusp of being able to produce nuclear weapons.

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The IAEA has long sought to conduct closer inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities, and European countries are pushing for the UN nuclear watchdog to put further pressure on Iran for its lack of cooperation, Reuters reported.

SIGNALS

Iranian officials debate whether to develop the bomb

Sources: Center for Strategic and International Studies, Iranian Students News Agency, Congressional Research Service

Iranian officials have started talking openly about the possibility of developing nuclear weapons, a dramatic shift for a topic that has long been taboo because of a fatwa from Irans supreme leader banning nuclear weapons. A former foreign minister said Iran had prepared everything it needed to make a bomb, and nearly 40 lawmakers sent a letter to Irans Supreme National Security Council requesting permission to produce nuclear arms. There is no evidence that Iran has moved to build a nuclear weapon, and US officials have said they are confident they would quickly detect such a step. While Iran could produce enough high-grade uranium to make a nuclear payload within a week, developing a usable weapon would likely take months.

Some Iranian officials hope for a Trump nuclear deal

Sources: The New York Times, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal

Moderates in Tehrans government have started to hope that Trumps re-election might allow them to negotiate a lasting nuclear deal, The New York Times reported. They anticipate that the president-elects penchant for cutting deals and his influence over Republicans could make a future agreement more lasting than the Obama-era 2015 nuclear pact, which Trump pulled out of. Speaking on a podcast in October, Trump said, I would like to see Iran be very successful. The only thing is, they cant have a nuclear weapon. But Trumps early picks for key national security roles, like Elise Stefanik and Marco Rubio are noted Iran hawks, and people briefed on Trumps plans expect a maximum pressure campaign to weaken Tehran, The Wall Street Journal reported.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel will attack any attempt to bring weapons to Hezbollah from Syria, Israel's military spokesperson said on Thursday.

"We are identifying rockets and other weapons that Hezbollah is launching at Israeli territory that were manufactured in Syria," Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters. "We will attack every attempt to bring weapons from Syria to Hezbollah. And we will attack all infrastructure we identify in Syria whose purpose is to produce weapons for Hezbollah."

He added that the military has been carrying out air strikes from Beirut suburb and Hezbollah stronghold Dahiyeh to Damascus.

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He was speaking shortly after Syria's state news agency reported what it said was an Israeli air strike that hit a bridge in Syria near the border with northern Lebanon.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch)
At the COP29 climate summit held in Baku, the Climate Platform for business, investment, and philanthropy was launched.

The event was organized by the COP29 Presidency, the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the COP29 high-level champion on climate change.

The purpose of the platform is to bring together leaders from business, finance, and philanthropy to drive joint action to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Organized across several segments, the event will focus on climate finance measures to 2030, accelerating public-private sector collaboration for scaled-up foreign direct investment for climate action, promoting decarbonisation solutions, financing solutions for climate adaptation and resilience, as well as climate leaders' dialogue will be held.
What's Going On With Palantir Stock After Renewing Collaboration With Rio Tinto?

Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below.

Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE:PLTR) shares are trading relatively flat in the premarket session on Wednesday.

The company announced today that it renewed its multi-year enterprise agreement with the mining giant Rio Tinto Plc (NYSE:RIO), extending the partnership for an additional four years.

This agreement ensures Rio Tintos continued access to Palantirs Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), further enhancing the companys operational efficiency and AI capabilities.

Don't Miss:

As an early adopter of Palantir Foundry, Rio Tinto has already built a robust digital twin, or Ontology, which serves as a unified data model for critical operations.

The Ontology enables Rio Tinto to leverage AIP to rapidly develop, test, and deploy AI-driven solutions, addressing challenges in areas like plant operations, geotechnical risk management, and the coordination of unmanned trains.

The Foundry Ontology has made our structured data accessible, and AIP is doing the same for our unstructured data while enabling us to attack with pace problems previously deemed too complex, said Bold Bataar, Rio Tintos Chief Commercial Officer.

Trending: During market downturns, investors are learning that unlike equities, these high-yield real estate notes that pay 7.5%  9% are protected by resilient assets, buffering against losses.

According to Benzinga Pro, RIO stock has lost over 6% in the past year. Investors can gain exposure to the stock via VanEck Steel ETF (NYSE:SLX) and Gabelli ETFs Trust Gabelli Financial Services Opportunities ETF (NYSE:GABF) and VanEck Natural Resources ETF (NYSE:HAP).

For instance, in Western Australias Pilbara region, Foundry integrates real-time data from hundreds of systems, allowing operators to optimize the routing of 53 driverless trains transporting iron ore. This has led to improved safety and throughput on the rail network.

Meanwhile, in Mongolias Oyu Tolgoi mine, the Ontology provides dynamic risk management for one of the worlds most challenging mining environments.

See Also: 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.

Palantirs AIP will enhance Rio Tintos ability to manage complex workflows and accelerate innovation across its operations. Both companies expect the AI platform to drive continued improvements in performance, safety, and decision-making in Rio Tintos high-stakes environments.
Over the course of 2024, and especially since July, Israel has demonstrated its clear military advantage over its regional rivals. Israels devastating campaign in Gaza has reduced Hamas from the organized militia it was on Oct. 7, 2023, into a loose and ineffective guerrilla force, while killing tens of thousands, displacing millions and turning Gaza itself to rubble. In Lebanon, the leaders of Hezbollah, who believed they had established a stable status quo of deterrence with Israel, have mostly been killed and the organizations military ability has been severely degraded, with wide swathes of southern Lebanon and neighborhoods in Beirut and elsewhere having also been leveled.

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.

Israels brutal response to Hamas Oct. 7 attack has demonstrated that for the foreseeable future, it cannot be defeatedlet alone destroyedby military force. But Israel has not won this war.

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Just as Israels military advantage did not prevent the huge blow of Oct. 7, it is also insufficient to decide the ongoing war of attrition between Israel and the axis of resistance in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Iran. Daily barrages of rockets and missiles continue to cause damage, kill Israeli soldiers and citizens, and severely disrupt the Israeli economy. And even if cease-fires in Gaza and southern Lebanon are reached soon, they are unlikely to restore the relative stability Israel enjoyed between 2006 and 2023.

To get more in-depth news and expert analysis on global affairs from WPR, sign up for our free Daily Review newsletter.

Since 2009, mostly under Netanyahus rule, Israel has rejected meaningful negotiations toward Palestinian statehood and instead pursued the management of the conflict vis-a-vis the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. And for a long time, that approach seemed to be working. Military escalations that killed thousands of Palestinians in 2014 and 2021 did not severely affect Israeli citizens. Israels economy was booming throughout much of this period, during which normalized relations were established with key Arab states. It appeared that Israel could maintain the Palestinians indefinitely under occupation and siege, while Israeli citizens enjoyed security and prosperity.

That illusion ended on Oct. 7. Since Hamas attack, Israel has been locked in a war without a clear end in sight, facing growing international isolation and unprecedented economic strain.

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And yet Israels real existential challenge lies within. The deep fissures within Israeli society had already been apparent before Oct. 7. Indeed, over the course of the preceding years, longstanding tensions were inflamed and transformed into real crisis. In 2021, a comic sketch from a popular Israeli TV satire show calling for a civil war to finally sort things out went viral, capturing the growing sense that a violent confrontation within Jewish Israeli society was no longer unthinkable. Like elsewhere in the world these days, those fault lines were defined around a controversial populist leader: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In 2022, after the countrys fifth election in less than four years, Netanyahu finally secured a solid majority and formed the most right-wing government in Israels history. He soon launched a wide-ranging judicial overhaulbranded as judicial reformthat would have effectively disarmed Israels judiciary as an independent branch of power. This judicial coup met with unprecedented resistance that surprised even its organizers. Hundreds of thousands of protesters poured into the streets every weekend for months on end. Thousands of officers in elite military unitsincluding air force pilotsthreatened to withdraw from military reserve duty, which Israeli officers who served in the military are expected to undertake until the age of 45.

The protests were led by the educated, largely secular, Jewish Israeli middle classes, who typically identify as political centrists. They stood against the key building blocs of Netanyahus government coalition: Likud and its hard-right nationalist allies, religious settlers and ultra-Orthodox Jews, known as Haredim, all of which harbor deep resentment against Israels liberal elites.

Among some Israeli centrists, there is a growing realization that it is impossible to separate the governments increasing authoritarianism from the right wings anti-Palestinian agenda.

The protesters feared that Netanyahus government was steering Israel toward an authoritarian model, eroding individual freedoms and imposing a fundamentalist version of Judaism on the public sphere. At the same time, protest leaders were reluctant to engage in any discussion over Palestinian rights, with some even hostile to the idea. As a result, they shied away from defending equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel and tried hard to avoid questions regarding Israels 56-year military rule over the occupied territories and the ongoing construction of settlements in the West Bank. The protests were about defending Israeli democracy, primarily for its Jewish citizens.

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Despite the protests initial success in blocking the constitutional changes needed to push through the judicial overhaul, the Netanyahu government did not abandon its agenda. Nor did the devastating military failure on Oct. 7 lead to the governments collapse, as many assumed it would. To the contrary, after an initial shock, Netanyahus coalition came back more forcefully in 2024. And it has maintained a surprising level of cohesion, with its different elementsthe ultra-nationalists, the religious settlers and the Haredimhaving coalesced around a political program of authoritarianism, Jewish supremacy and settlements expansion. Minister for National Security Itamar Ben Gvirwho emerged from the ultra-rightwing Jewish supremacist Kahanist movementhas consolidated his grip on the police and transformed it into a political tool to shut down dissent. And the government has now launched an anti-democratic legislative blitz, with new laws that threaten to fire, disenfranchise and deport terrorism sympathizers, a term aimed primarily against Palestinian citizens of Israel, although it could be expanded to Jewish Israeli leftists.

Initially, the war in Gaza itself enjoyed near universal support among the Jewish Israeli public. There has been hardly any dissent in response to the devastation of Gaza and its civilian population. At the same time, however, the Netanyahu government has remained widely unpopular. Opinion polls have consistently shown that most Israelisat least 60 percent last monthdo not trust Netanyahu, whom they hold responsible for the Oct. 7 attack and for failing to secure the release of the hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. If early elections were called, the coalition parties would fall far short of a majority.

And yet, the opposition has been unable to translate this public anger and anguish into an effective campaign that would force the government out.

Among some centrists, there is a growing realization that it is impossible to separate the governments increasing authoritarianism from the right wings anti-Palestinian agenda, which includes settler violence and annexation in the West Bank, and plans to replace the displaced Palestinian population in Gaza with Jewish Israeli settlements.

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Perhaps the closest the country has come to a civil war was in July 2024, when an armed mob stormed two Israeli military bases in an attempt to release soldiers suspected of having sexually assaulted Palestinian prisoners being held there. The police were conspicuously absent at the time of the incident, underscoring the deep mistrust between Shin Betthe countrys internal security service that remains in the hands of the national security establishmentand the police under Ben Gvirs control.

Perhaps the most explosive issue for Netanyahus government coalition is the exemption of Haredim from military conscription. For the Haredim, the draft exemption is a key component of the social and political architecture that provides them with a state-funded autonomous enclave. Ending it, they fear, would lead to the collapse of this ecosystem. The large number of Haredim men exempted from military service has long been a cause for resentment among other groups of Jewish Israelis. After Oct. 7, however, it became a pressing concern, as the Israeli military is struggling to find the human resources it now requires for operations in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.

According to Haaretz, a third of reservists have served more than 150 days of active duty since Oct. 7. Their absence for long months puts enormous strain on their families as well as on their businesses and those of their employers. Even when the war ends, Israel will continue to require a much larger standing army than it had on Oct. 6, 2023. In such an environment, the continuation of Haredi exemption, and the state subsidies they receive, elicits growing angereven among the governments hardcore supporters: the religious nationalists who themselves serve in large numbers in the military.

Netanyahus attempts to placate the Haredim and reach a compromise that leaves things as they are have so far been foiled by the Supreme Court and the attorney general, as well as by internal dissent within the coalition. This remains the key issue that could lead to the implosion of the government.

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All other things being equal, however, the coalitions various blocs have no interest in early electionsor in ending the war. While the fighting is raging and rockets are falling, the government has found it relatively easy to stave off public anger. That is widely expected to change when a cease-fire is reached. However, even with Gaza in ruins and Hamas severely weakened, Netanyahu has resisted pressure from the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to end the war. President-elect Donald Trump has stated numerous times his desire to see the war end, but it is unclear if this would translate into greater pressure on Israel when he takes office in January 2025.

Even if new elections are announced, however, it is unclear if Israels slide toward authoritarianism will be reversed soon. The radical right remains the most organized and strategic driving force of Israeli politics. Israels centrists are increasingly alarmed over the countrys future, but have failed to coalesce around a positive agenda, beyond driving Netanyahu out. As a result, even as Israel demonstrates its military dominance against its armed enemies across the region, it continues to cultivate an even greater existential threat within.

Yair Wallach is a reader (associate professor) in Israeli studies at SOAS, the University of London. He is a social and cultural historian of modern Palestine/Israel. His book A City in Fragments: Urban Text in Modern Jerusalem (Stanford University Press, 2020) won the Jonathan Schnitzer Jewish Studies Book Award in 2022.

The post Israels Greatest Threat Right Now Is Its War Within appeared first on World Politics Review.
The Israeli military attacked the southern suburbs of Beirut, seen as a stronghold of Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, with at least four airstrikes on Thursday, according to a dpa reporter who witnessed them.

Clouds of black smoke rose into the sky after the explosions, according to the reporter.

State news agency NNA said there were at least six strikes.

After an evacuation order was issued by the Israeli military ahead of the strikes, some residents fired shots into the air to warn others of the impending attacks, leading many to flee.

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"You are in the vicinity of Hezbollah facilities and interests," an Israeli military spokesman said in its warning to locals.

Residents were told to move at least 500 metres away from buildings marked in red on an Israeli map issued by the military.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it attacked weapons depots and Hezbollah command centres from the air in the Dahiya neighbourhood.

More than 3,300 people have been killed and 14,300 injured in Israel's war on Hezbollah, according to Lebanese officials.

Meanwhile in Israel, more than 70 people have been killed in the north of the country by fire from Lebanon since the conflict began, most of them civilians, according to officials.
(Bloomberg) -- Israel is hoping Donald Trumps return to the White House will lead to more cooperation in the Middle East, both on diplomacy and climate issues, an Israeli official said.

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A landmark deal that normalized Israeli relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and others was signed toward the end of Trumps last presidency. His return to office raises hopes of similar agreements with other states in the region, said Gideon Behar, Israels Special Envoy for Climate Change & Sustainability.

We hope that itll continue also during his second term in office, Behar said in a Bloomberg TV interview Thursday at the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan. Definitely we would like to enlarge our cooperation in the region and create more resilience.

Still, anger toward Israel has soared since the war in Gaza began in October last year. Many Arab states insist Israel needs to end the conflict and start negotiations about an independent Palestinian state  something which the Israeli public has little appetite for  before they deepen ties with the Israeli government.

Israel and Saudi Arabia were working toward establishing closer ties before Hamas deadly attacks on Israel halted progress. More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israels subsequent military campaign, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, which doesnt distinguish between combatants and civilian casualties. Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the US.

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Over 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon.

Behar also said Israel is looking for deeper alliance with the Trump administration on energy and climate.

Were going to cooperate with the United States in every aspect, on climate, on water, on agriculture, on renewable energy, he said.

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Israeli special forces have killed two wanted Palestinians in a raid in the West Bank, the military said on Thursday.

The soldiers were planning to arrest several suspects near the city of Tulkarem on Wednesday evening. Two men, one of them armed, escaped, prompting the Israeli forces to open fire, according to Israel. A third Palestinian was injured in the process.

According to the army, the Palestinians were wanted for "terrorist activities."

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The Palestinian news agency WAFA cited the Red Crescent as saying that a toddler had also been injured in the head by shrapnel from a bullet.

According to the report, the boy is the son of one of those killed.

The already tense situation in the West Bank has intensified significantly since the Hamas killings in Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent Gaza war.

Since then, more than 740 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military operations, armed confrontations and extremist attacks, according to the Health Ministry in Ramallah.
The Israeli military said it had attacked more than 100 targets in Gaza and Lebanon in the last 24 hours as it continues fighting on multiple fronts in its war against Islamist groups.

The military targeted weapons depots, rocket launchers and command centres, the military said.

"The troops found a large quantity of weapons and eliminated dozens of terrorists from the air and from the ground," the military said in a statement about the army's operations in Beit Lahia and Jabalia, the refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip, on Wednesday.

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The military is continuing its operations against Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, with new airstrikes in the south of the capital Beirut, eyewitnesses said on Thursday morning. Beforehand, Israel called on local residents to leave their homes.

Since September, Israel's military has massively expanded its attacks in Lebanon, where it says it is fighting the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, seeking to push back fighters from its northern border to enable residents to return. Fighter planes have bombed targets across the country and frequently in the suburbs south of Beirut.

Health ministries and authorities in Gaza and Lebanon meanwhile point to the high civilian death toll in the Israeli attacks, which, coupled with the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and extensive destruction, is garnering increasing criticism worldwide.
Several people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian media reported on Thursday.

The Palestinian news agency WAFA said that Israeli fire near Gaza City killed four Palestinians in the morning, with the Israeli military stating it was investigating the report.

Previously, the military reported that dozens of people had been killed on Wednesday in the areas of Beit Lahia and Jabalia, describing them as terrorists. Both locations, like Gaza City, are situated in the northern part of the embattled coastal region.

Meanwhile, the Hamas-controlled health authority said that 24 Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours due to the fighting. The reports do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel's Attorney General on Thursday told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reevaluate the tenure of his far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, citing his alleged interference in police matters.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara sent a letter to Netanyahu in which she described instances when Ben-Gvir, who is tasked with setting general policy, apparently gave operational instructions that threaten the police's apolitical status.

"The combination of the alleged improper interventions in police activities and police officers' dependence on the minister for their promotion undermines the possibility of ensuring that the police will act out of loyalty to the public and not to the political echelon," Baharav-Miara said in a statement.

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There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu's office.

Ben-Gvir, who heads a small ultra-nationalist party in Netanyahu's coalition, wrote on social media: "The attempted coup by (the Attorney General) has begun. The only dismissal that needs to happen is that of the Attorney General."

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editimg by Daniel Wallis)
Barbara Skinner, a professor of history at Indiana State University, has been selected to join the Ukrainian History Global Initiative.

The initiative is an interdisciplinary project designed to present Ukraines history within a global framework, according to a news release from the university. It was launched in 2023 under the leadership of Yale historian Timothy Snyder.

Skinner, an expert on Ukrainian religious and imperial history, will contribute a detailed study of the role of empire and religion in Ukraine from 1700 to 1900, drawing on her research on the regions religious policies.

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In September 2024, Skinner was one of 55 scholars who gathered in Kyiv for an intensive meeting of project participants. The diverse team of scholars in attendance faced air raids while planning their research, emphasizing the importance of their work in sharing the story of this Eastern European country from a non-Russian perspective.

This project is intended to offer a balanced view of Ukraines rich and complex history, countering a longstanding focus on Russo-centric narratives, Skinner said. It is a unique opportunity for involving not only historians but archaeologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and art historians to study Ukraines history within the broader trends of world history, from ancient empires to the present.

The projects three-year timeline reflects its dedication to presenting a well-rounded, international narrative. The scholars involved hope to provide a lasting resource for understanding Ukraines global significance, countering historical biases, and ensuring Ukraines story receives the international attention it deserves.

Further information can be found online via uhgi.org.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV)  Wednesday night, nursing students at Ivy Tech in Terre Haute got the chance to talk with local health care providers at the schools Nursing Network Banquet.

The event is aimed to connect graduating Ivy Tech nursing students with local employers.

It provides an opportunity for students to practice their professional networking skills and build relationships in a realistic environment.

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The night also included a dinner and guest speaker Margie Clouse, who is a Forensic Program Manager for IU Health.

The Dean of Ivy Techs School of Nursing, Kim Cooper, says these events are a part of a school-wide push to help their graduates transition into the workforce.

I believe this evening is one of the efforts that Ivy Tech Community College is doing in our goal to fit graduates into the workforce. We all know from the media, we know from what we are reading, that there is a nursing shortage. It feels really good to know that in December, just about 30 days from now, we are going to have about 30 qualified applicants for positions in healthcare, throughout the Wabash Valley.

If you would like to learn more about Ivy Techs Nursing Program, visit their website.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to MyWabashValley.com.
In the latest sign that Donald Trumps federal criminal cases could disappear before he even takes office, special counsel Jack Smith asked to pause the governments appeal in the classified documents case. Smiths request follows a similar one he made to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in the federal election interference case last week, which Chutkan granted.

Like in the federal election interference case, Smith asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday for a pause until Dec. 2, to afford the Government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy. The special counsel noted in his brief motion to halt the appeal that: As a result of the election held on November 5, 2024, one of the defendants in this case, Donald J. Trump, is expected to be certified as President-elect on January 6, 2025, and inaugurated on January 20, 2025.

According to the existing schedule, Smiths reply brief  the final filing before the court would rule or hold oral argument and then rule  is due Friday. He asked the appeals court to pause that deadline and said that, if the court agrees to pause the appeal, the Government will inform the Court of the result of its deliberations  and, if appropriate, file its reply brief  no later than December 2, 2024. (Unsurprisingly, Smith noted that the defendants dont object to the governments request.)

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So if the appeals court grants the request, then the next step in both federal cases is to hear from the government by Dec. 2 about its plans. The special counsel and his team are reportedly planning to resign before Trump takes office, which would be consistent with the apparent moves toward winding down the cases.

But Smiths latest filing reminds us that there are important differences between the election interference case and the classified documents case. In the former, Trump is the only defendant charged and its in the trial court after the Supreme Court sent it back to Chutkan following its immunity ruling. In the latter, Trump is one of three defendants charged and its in the appeals court, where Smith is challenging U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannons dismissal of the case on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed.

So in the documents case, the government has additional factors to consider. It has to figure out whether it will abandon an appeal of Cannons unprecedented ruling that implicates broader Justice Department prerogatives of attorneys generals ability to appoint special counsels. (To be sure, Cannons trial-level ruling is not binding precedent in any future special counsel challenges that arise.) It also has to address the issue of Trumps two co-defendants standing to escape from potential reinstatement of the case against them due to the fact that their co-defendant will be president again.

Like in the election interference case, Smith holding firm would be delaying the inevitable, because Trump would use his newly reacquired power of the DOJ, his pardon power  or both  to get rid of the federal cases by whatever means necessary.

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But in the meantime, these additional factors could yield a more nuanced position from the government in the documents case. Well see what the appeals court says (presumably granting the unopposed request), what Smith says by Dec. 2, and  in whats perhaps the main lingering question at this point  whether and when we see a report from the special counsels investigation before he resigns or, if he doesnt, before Trump fires him within two seconds, as the president-elect said he would.

Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in Donald Trumps legal cases.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
KANSAS CITY, Mo.  Jackson County legislators overwhelmingly passed a gun ordinance with age restrictions.

The new restriction bans anyone under 21 from having a gun, with some exceptions.

Missouri news: Headlines from St. Louis, Jefferson City and across the Show-Me State

It was the Super Bowl shooting at Union Station that led to the death of Lisa Lopez-Galvan, which inspired Manny Ambarca to introduce the bill, which passed on Nov. 4.

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Legislator Manny Abarca held meetings with teenagers since the shooting to find out how gun violence was impacting their lives and their communities. According to Barca, the ordinance represents the voices of our youth and addresses a request from law enforcement for tangible action on this issue.

The ordinance prohibits anyone under 21 from having a handgun or ammunition. Also, no one between the ages of 18 and 21 can have a semiautomatic assault rifle unless theyre attending safety training or at a shooting range.

View the latest headlines from Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas at fox4kc.com

The ordinance also requires permission from a parent to loan, sell or give a firearm to anyone, 18 or under.

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Not everyone is in favor of the ordinance. In fact, there are some gun rights experts who believe that the ordinance is illegal.

Now, the ordinance heads to the desk of Jackson County executive Frank White for his signature before it goes into law.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  Democratic Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen plans to focus on the economy and kitchen-table issues after voters re-elected her to a second term in Congress, she told 8 News Now.

Were not going to change the way weve been working and listening, Rosen said about moving forward after her election win. Rosen won re-election by more than 23,000 votes  or about 1.5%  to her republican opponent Sam Brown.

Voters first elected Rosen in 2018. When the new Senate convenes with President-elect Donald Trump in the White House, both houses of Congress will be under Republican control.

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Rosen said that presents an opportunity, not a challenge, to work with Republicans on issues important to her, such as support for tourism and small businesses. Earlier this year, Georgetown University named her one of the Senates most bipartisan senators for a third year in a row. Rosen chairs the Senates Subcommittee on Tourism, Trade, and Export Promotion.

Those will be things that are very much bipartisan for everyone, Rosen said. I have built those relationships over the past six years and will continue to work on that.

Rosen was back to work this week as Democrats buttoned up their agenda in the Senate before relinquishing the majority. The work will continue in January, Rosen said, with the president-elects proposals.

She supports some, like the presidents campaign promise to end taxes on tips.

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We want to make sure there are the right guardrails so that people who get tax relief are the ones that deserve it and not a CEO who decides his entire paycheck is a tip, Rosen said.

Sen. Jacky Rosen prepares for Nevada U.S. Senate debate. (Jennifer Rochford/KLAS)

Rosen is against other proposals, like mass deportations of non-criminals and separating families.

I am going to fight back against that in every single way, Rosen said about possible mass deportations. Earlier this week, Trump nominated former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Tom Homan to run the deportation operation.

I will run the biggest deportation operation this countrys ever seen, Homan said earlier this year during the National Conservatism Conference, according to CBS News.

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As of 2022, Nevada was home to nearly 200,000 undocumented immigrants, many who live in mixed immigration-status households, according to the Pew Research Center.

Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., speaks during a Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship hearing to examine the implementation of Title I of the CARES Act, Wednesday, June 10, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Kevin Dietsch/Pool via AP)

I am going to push back against any effort to separate any families, that pull apart our citizens, that round people up first and ask questions later  thats not our democracy, Rosen said.

Rosen also hopes more senators join her in pushing back against the high cost of living.

The price of eggs, the price of chicken, the price of beef, the price of rent, at the gas pump; We have corporations that are taking advantage and frankly they are ripping us off  this is who we should be working together to go after, Rosen said while denouncing possible attempts by Trump to go after political enemies.

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As for Trumps cabinet nominations, Rosen said she was awaiting more information, but said she supported her colleague, Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for Secretary of State.

Congress begins its next session on Jan. 3.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
The people have spoken; Donald Trump will be our next president. But the people also spoke last May when Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the 2016 election. That wasnt quite so many people as last week12 jurors, against roughly 76 million voters. But no less than elections, juries are a vital part of American democracy. The jury, observed Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, is pre-eminently a political institution; it must be regarded as one form of the sovereignty of the people.



To honor that sovereignty, New York State Judge Juan Merchanwhos delayed sentencing Trump three times, and on November 12 put off for one week deciding how to proceedshould sentence Trump to a week at Rikers Island, to be served before Trump is inaugurated president on January 20.

Ive been known to dabble in satire, but Im deadly serious here, just as I was last June when I recommended that Trump serve six months at Rikers (which is where New York State sends felons tried in New York City and sentenced to less than one year). Now, of course, the United States government can no longer spare Trump for six months. But it can still spare him for one week. Rikers was good enough for Trumps former chief financial adviser Alan Weisselberg, age 77, who last spring booked himself three months there after perjuring himself on Trumps behalf (in an unrelated civil fraud case, now under appeal, in which Trump was fined $355 million). Rikers should be good enough for Trump too.

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The Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel concluded in 1973, and reaffirmed in 2000, that the Constitution does not permit the prosecution of a sitting president. That would pose a problem if Trump were a sitting president, but he isnt. For the next 66 days Trump remains a private citizen. Subtract seven days at Rikers, and Trump will still have 59 to plan his second term (inasmuch as Trump plans anything). Indeed, amid all the hurly-burly at Mar-a-Lago the president-elect might appreciate getting a little time to himself. He can bring his Secret Service detail so he doesnt get shanked in the shower.

Judge Merchan granted this weeks stay at the request of both Trumps defense lawyers and the prosecution, who said they needed a little time to process that a convicted felon is now president-elect. I know just how they feel! Already Merchan was grappling with the Supreme Courts July decision extending an unprecedented and ahistorical degree of prosecutorial immunity to presidents even after they leave office. That ruling prompted Trumps defense lawyers to argue that some criminal evidence used in the trial (spelled out here) was protected by said immunity, including a conversation Trump had as president with his communications director Hope Hicks about paying off Stormy Daniels (It would have been bad to have that story come out before the election).

Do a presidents official duties include cutting a $130,000 check to silence a porn actress he shagged? That doesnt pass the laugh test. But in a July 25 memorandum of law, the prosecution said that even if Merchan excluded from consideration all the evidence Trump wants removed (including some tweets!), there would still need be no basis for disturbing the verdict, because the evidence that he claims is affected by the Supreme Courts ruling constitutes only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof that the jury considered in finding him guilty.

Before November 5, no plausible legal doctrine posed an obstacle to sentencing Trump to jail. Merchan pushed sentencing past that date solely to avoid influencing the election. With November 5 come and gone, the only altered fact is that Trump is president-elect. Theres a MAGA mantra that the only verdict that matters is the one at the ballot box, but that just isnt true. Trumps May 30 verdict matters too. New York State compelled 12 peopleit didnt askto interrupt their lives for two and a half months to weigh criminal evidence against Trump. They concluded Trump was guilty, convicted himand for their troubles got threatened with doxxing and worse by Trump supporters. We need to identify each juror, read one social media post. Then make them miserable. Maybe even suicidal. On another platform, a Proud Boys chapter posted one word: War. Would you like to tell these jurors that their deliberations will be tossed out because the defendant is too popular?

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Back in July, I cited a survey by Norman Eisen, House Judiciary Committee counsel for Trumps first impeachment, about whether other New York State defendants went to jail after being convicted of the same crime (falsification of business records). The answer, going back to 2015, was that about 10 percent did. That turns out to be a lowball. In October The New York Times reported the odds were more like 30 or 40 percent. Among those who were convicted in Manhattan (like Trump) and then sent to jailtypically for six monthsnearly all were (like Trump) first-time offenders. And nearly all of those who avoided jail copped a plea, which Trump will never do.

Add to these considerations Trumps extreme bad behavior during the trialthe man violated gag orders 10 timesplus Trumps deranged threat in October to sic the National Guard on the enemy withinand it becomes very hard to see how Merchan can justify not jailing Trump. Trumps talk of retribution is not idle. During the trial, New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg received 56 actionable threats. All these latter-day Brownshirts were egged on by Trump, who has repeatedly said that Bragg himself should be prosecuted.

If Merchan sentenced Trump to jail, might not that ruling be overturned? Sure, that could happen, either at the New York Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. But the court would have to explain why. Where in the Constitution, or in case law, does one find special protection for a person who is not yet president? It wouldnt be seemly does not constitute a legal argument.

Merchans self-imposed deadline to sort out constitutional questions is November 19. Trump is due to be sentenced November 26, but that deadline may slide too. Trumps strategy has been delay, delay, delay until January 20, when he can extract from the Bible on which he places his left hand his get-out-of-jail-free card. Merchan mustnt let that happen. The sovereignty of the people will be violated if Trump evades a jail sentence. And with the weeks flying by, Merchan may have no choice but to park Trump at Rikers during the week between Christmas and New Years. That would be a real shame.
TOKYO (AP)  Japan's fleet of hybrid-helicopter military aircraft have been cleared to resume operations after being grounded following an incident last month.

A V-22 Osprey tilted and hit the ground as it was taking off during a joint exercise with the U.S. military on Oct. 27. An investigation has found human error was the cause.

The aircraft was carrying 16 people when it became unstable on takeoff from a Japanese military base on Yonaguni, a remote island southwest of Okinawa. The flight was aborted and nobody was injured, Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, or JGSDF, said at the time.

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In a statement on Thursday, the JGSDF said that the pilots had failed to turn on a switch designed to temporarily increase engine output during takeoff, causing the aircraft to descend and sway uncontrollably.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said that an internal investigation determined that the incident was caused by a human error, not by physical or external factors.

He said that the fleet of more than a dozen V-22s would resume flight operations from Thursday after a review of safety and training measures.

It was the first major incident involving Japan's V-22s since November 2023, when a U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command Osprey crashed off Japans southern coast, killing eight people.

The fleet only resumed flight operations earlier this year, but the use of the V-22 remains controversial, particularly in Okinawa where residents have questioned its safety record. The small southern island is home to half of about 50,000 U.S. troops based in Japan.
[Source]

Naoki Hyakuta, the leader of Japans Conservative Party, stirred controversy on Friday by suggesting that women should be barred from marriage after age 25 and that they should undergo hysterectomy by 30.

In his now-deleted YouTube livestream, Hyakuta also proposed that women should not be permitted to attend university from age 18 so they can purportedly focus more on having children. The Japanese official made his proposals in response to Japans declining birth rate, which fell for the eighth consecutive year in 2023, down by 5.6% from the previous year.

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Aichi Governor Hideaki Omura condemned Hyakutas comments, calling them unspeakably hideous. Sumie Kawakami, a lecturer at Yamanashi Gakuin University, also expressed shock, telling the South China Morning Post, I cannot believe that a Japanese politician has said such a thing.

The Conservative Party leader apologized on Sunday, noting his comment was only a hypothetical science-fiction aimed at highlighting birthrate issues. I will retract them and apologize as there were people who found them unpleasant, Hyakuta said, adding that his ideas are something that should not happen.

Trending on NextShark: Japanese politician apologizes for proposing marriage ban for women older than 25

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The Summary

New Jerseys governor issued a drought warning Wednesday.

State officials said the state is experiencing some of the driest conditions in nearly 120 years, prompting an increase in wildfires.

The extreme dry spell is part of a broader drought plaguing the Northeast.

New Jerseys governor issued a drought warning Wednesday and said the state could implement mandatory water restrictions if conditions worsen.

A record dry spell has led to the driest conditions New Jersey has had in nearly 120 years, prompting a staggering increase in the number of wildfires, state officials said at a news conference.

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The New Jersey Forest Fire Service has responded to 537 blazes since early October, which have burned thousands of acres, Gov. Phil Murphy said. Thats 500 more fires than during the same period last year, he said.

Murphy urged residents to take the drought warning seriously and reduce water use voluntarily.

Every one of us needs to do everything we can to conserve water, he said.

Tim Eustace, executive director of the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission, said he thinks the state did not go far enough and should have declared a drought emergency, which generally comes with restrictions on nonessential outdoor water use.

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Ive always been opposed to using drinking water to water your lawns. Its a crazy waste of resources, Eustace said.

His commission provides water to about one-third of New Jersey, and its main reservoir, the Wanaque Reservoir, was at 45% capacity Wednesday.

The Wanaque Reservoir in Ringwood, N.J., on Monday.

The Manasquan Reservoir, another major one in the state, was at 51% of capacity, and the Passaic River  which supplies drinking water  was at about 14% of normal levels, though thats still enough to meet demand, officials said.

New Jersey American Water, which serves about 2.9 million people in the state, issued a conservation notice to its customers Wednesday. The company described the notice as mandatory to convey urgency, but it does not have enforcement power over violators, said Mark McDonough, president of New Jersey American Water.

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Wed like you to restrict yourselves if you can, but I dont have authority to issue tickets or go door to door asking people if theyre watering their lawn, McDonough said. We can have a tremendous impact if we get our customers focused on conserving water.

Murphy said the winter forecast predicts more dry weather, though the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations seasonal outlook predicted above-average temperatures with equal chances of precipitation above or below average levels.

The dry conditions plaguing New Jersey are part of a broader drought across the Northeast. In October, cities such as Newark, New Jersey; Wilmington, Delaware; and Norfolk, Virginia, recorded no rain at all, according to the Southeast Regional Climate Center, which collects precipitation data across the country. Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., set records for the number of consecutive days without measurable rainfall.

In the U.S. overall, October was one of the driest months on record, according to NOAA. U.S. Drought Monitor data indicates that more than half of the continental U.S. is experiencing some level of drought, including 56% of the Northeast.

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In New Jersey, rain is usually distributed evenly over the months, state climatologist Dave Robinson said. But some areas have not received measurable rainfall in 40 days, the first time that has happened since records began about 150 years ago.

Weve had longer droughts before, but in terms of just how exceptional the dry weather has been, weve not seen something like this, Robinson said.

He said New Jersey often gets a dose of heavy rain in October from the remnants of hurricanes or tropical storms or from Noreasters  low pressure systems that develop in the mid-Atlantic.

This fall, we were shut out for both, Robinson said. Instead, a ridge of high pressure has been parked over New Jersey and other parts of the Northeast for weeks.

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Theres not a major storm to punch this ridge in the chest and knock it out. Its been more of a slow, exasperating process, Robinson said. There are some signs the center part of the country, which had been quite dry, is getting wetter.  It seems to be shifting slowly eastward.

So far, November is New Jerseys 12th consecutive month with above-average temperatures. A warmer atmosphere can both worsen drought and increase the likelihood of extreme rainfall.

With a more energized, warmer climate system, you can hold more moisture in the atmosphere.  If you cant tap that moisture source, youve got warmer conditions that can exacerbate drying and can lead to more drought, Robinson said. The system has become more variable.

Given the persistent dry weather in New Jersey since mid-August, ending the drought conditions would require several months of at least average rainfall, if not substantially more, said Shawn LaTourette, the states commissioner of environmental protection.

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About a quarter-inch of rain fell in some areas Sunday, but Murphy said that was nowhere near enough.

Firefighters respond to a forest fire in Evesham, N.J., on Nov. 6.

New Jersey last declared a drought emergency in March 2002 and lifted it in January 2003. The states last drought warning was in 2016, and it lasted more than half a year, LaTourette said.

Greg McLaughlin, administrator of the New Jersey Forest Fire Services office of forest and natural lands, said that on a scale that measures dryness of materials on the forest floor, conditions have reached 748 out of 800.

These numbers have never been seen by the Forest Fire Service in our 118-year history, McLaughlin said. The impact of this dryness on wildfires cannot be overstated.

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The Jennings Creek Wildfire, along the New York-New Jersey border, continued to burn Wednesday and was about 30% contained. It has burned at least 5,000 acres across the two states. On Saturday, an 18-year-old New York Parks employee was killed by a falling tree while he was battling the fire in New Yorks Orange County.

We are incredibly grateful for his service and for his willingness to protect the people of both New York and New Jersey from these deadly fires, Murphy said.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
John Bolton contested President-elect Donald Trumps decision to choose the highly controversial Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as attorney general for his administration.

Well, it must be the worst nomination for a Cabinet position in American history, the former national security adviser to Trump told NBCs Kristen Welker on Meet the Press Now Wednesday.

Gaetz is not only totally incompetent for this job, he doesnt have the character, Bolton added. He is a person of moral turpitude, and notwithstanding how difficult it may be politically, this is a nomination the Republican Party should oppose.

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Bolton said that hes not confident that the party will argue the pick since people may be intimidated by Trump.

I think it may never come to a vote on the floor if the new leadership in the Senate goes to the president and says, You cannot endanger Republican senators by forcing them to vote in favor of this nomination. And if you dont want to have a real internal party battle, this nomination needs to be withdrawn, he said.

Notably, the Justice Department that Gaetz may lead in the near future previously launched a sex trafficking investigation into him in 2020 before dropping the case years later. Gaetz was accused of being in a relationship with a 17-year-old girl and traveling with her to various states.

Gaetzs peers in the House moved earlier this year to begin investigating him.

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The House Ethics Committee accused him of having 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.

However, the committees probe will come to a close now that Gaetz has resigned from Congress after being nominated for attorney general.

On Truth Social, Trumps social media platform, he called Gaetz a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney.

Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department, Trump added. He is a Champion for the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

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Gaetz called the decision an honor on X, formerly called Twitter.

Gaetz is just one of Trumps many recent selections for his upcoming administration, which hes been rolling out the past couple of days.

Prior to his appearance on NBC, Bolton discussed Trumps Cabinet picks on CNN Tuesday and warned that the president-elect is looking purely for fealty, really a feudal sense of subservience in his choices.

Related...
It sounds like Yoko Ono will soon get back a reminder of her late husband John Lennon.

A Swiss court has ruled that the Beatles long-lost Patek Philippe 2499 rightfully belongs to Ono, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. An Italian collector has been in possession of the timepiece for years, but his most recent appeal to retain the watch was rejected.

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Ono gifted the engraved perpetual-calendar chronograph to Lennon just a couple of months before he was assassinated in 1980. The watch was believed to have been stolen by Onos former chauffeur before it was revealed to be in the Italian collectors hands late last year.

There was no evidence to show that Yoko Ono intended to donate to the driver something as special as the watch, engraved with an inscription, that she had given to John Lennon two months before his death, the Swiss Federal Court wrote in its decision, viewed by Bloomberg. Because the Patek is considered stolen, the collector cannot lay claim to having legitimately bought it from a defunct German auction house in 2014.

When the unnamed collector took possession of the watch, he sought to detail its provenance, as we reported back in September 2023. That led to contact with Ono and the ensuing legal battle. While a Geneva court ruled in June 2023 that Ono was the rightful owner, the collector appealed, leading to this most recent ruling.

The stolen Patek is considered to be one of the most valuable watches in the world, Bloomberg noted. Lawyers for Ono have estimated its price at $4.5 million, according to court filings viewed by the outlet, but some believe that the timepiece could be worth much more. Last year, after the Phillips executive Arthur Touchot revealed that the Patek had been found, one collector said that it could hammer down at auction for up to $11.2 million.

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This is undoubtedly one of the most-sought-after watches which the watch world has been hoping to see, Marc Montagne, the author of a book on watch collecting, told Bloomberg at the time.

Now, with the watch legally belonging to Ono, its unclear what exactly will happen next. Ono could of course choose to hang on to the Patek as a memento. Or perhaps shell take it to the auction blockmuch to collectors delight.

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An early-stage initiative to explore ways of making Johnstowns Stonycreek, Little Conemaugh and Conemaugh rivers more accessible has received some financial backing from the state.

The Johnstown Redevelopment Authority learned Tuesday that it will get $300,000 from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Community Conservation Partnerships Program for the project.

The goal is to evaluate flood protection systems that prioritize recreation opportunities, ecosystem outputs and environmental considerations.

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This feasibility study will determine the best location to implement a pilot project to possibly remove a section of the concrete wall, JRA Executive Director Melissa Komar said. Under no circumstances can we implement any project that would worsen the potential for future flooding.

The project was one of three Cambria County initiatives that received funding, according to an announcement by Gov. Josh Shapiros office.

The others were:

 Stonycreek Township ($100,000) for rehabilitation and development of the Michigan Avenue playground.

 The Nature Conservancy ($253,900) for payment toward the acquisition of approximately 288 acres in Adams Township for an addition to Gallitzin State Forest.

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In total, $79.4 million in grants was announced for 307 projects in the commonwealth.

Every day, my administration is focused on getting stuff done for the good people of Pennsylvania  and were proud to support hundreds of projects across the commonwealth that not only enhance the quality of life for Pennsylvanians, but also serve as a catalyst for economic growth, Shapiro said in a statement.

Investing in these projects  from improving our parks and trails to planting trees in our neighborhoods to increasing access to our rivers  attracts visitors to Pennsylvania, boosts local businesses, and strengthens our communities.
MSNBC host Joy Reid deleted her X account on Thursday morning, becoming the latest media pundit to ditch the app following last weeks election.

Reid, in a video explaining her decision, said X was not really worth it anymore because she had to wade through a lot of drek and a lot of abuse and negativity.

She said she had only been using X as a news aggregating tool over the past few years, ever since Elon Musk bought the app, then known as Twitter, in 2022. Reid said she didnt want to contribute content once it was purchased by its present owner.

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Still, shed been holding onto her account  which had about 1.9 million followers at the time she deleted it on Thursday  because she was worried someone else would claim her account handle and use it for nefarious purposes.

You can watch her explanation via The Post Milennials X post below:

Joy Reid deleted her account on X



pic.twitter.com/OgWdSEXJqD  The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 14, 2024

Reid became the latest high-profile media member to leave X after the election. Former CNN host Don Lemon bid farewell to X on Wednesday, saying the app wasnt a place for honest debate under Musks stewardship.

But the bigger problem for Lemon, though, was Xs terms of service. X recently changed its rules, requiring users to file lawsuits against the company in Texas  either in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, or in state courts in Tarrant County. The changes go into effect on November 15.

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Lemon, while quoting from a recent Washington Post report on the matter, said in his own exit video that the change to Xs terms of service was bad news because the state courts are too conservative friendly.

This quote ensures that such lawsuits will be heard in courthouses that are a hub for conservatives, which experts say could make it easier for X to shield itself from litigation and punish critics. I think that speaks for itself, Lemon said.

Other media members, including MSNBCs Nicolle Wallace, have left X since the election because of Musks relationship with president-elect Donald Trump.

As a human, I deleted Twitter today as an act of self-preservation and because I could no longer find the things Im interested in, Wallace said.

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Musk had been Trumps most vocal supporter in the lead-up to Election Day, helping him win over voters in Pennsylvania and spending more than $100 million via his America PAC to help the Republican get back in the White House.

Threads, Metas rival to X, has seen a 6.8% jump in daily users since the election; it now has 11 million daily active users, according to data shared with TheWrap by Sensor Tower. Bluesky, another social posting rival to X, has also enjoyed a post-election jump in users. And even with big name media pundits leaving the app, X has still seen its daily user base increase 5% after the election, according to Sensor Towers data.

The post Joy Reid Deletes X Account, Says Abuse and Negativity Not Worth It appeared first on TheWrap.
A federal judge granted a requested delay in January 6 defendant William Popes criminal trial on Thursday, citing the real possibility that a pardon from Donald Trump would render the proceedings moot.

According to CNN, US District Judge Rudolph Contreras claimed in a hearing that the possibility of widespread pardons for accused and convicted U.S. Capitol rioters made him consider conserving the court's limited "resources."

Trump has promised to pardon January 6 rioters, claiming in October that the bunch peacefully and patriotically marched on the Capitol in a day of love.

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Trump-appointed Judge Carl Nichols asked federal prosecutors on Thursday whether the incoming Department of Justice would continue prosecuting cases under Trump, pushing a trial date past Trump's inauguration date when they couldnt answer, per Politico.

But not every judge presiding over a January 6 case believes the court should preemptively take pardons into account. One D.C. judge moved forward with sentencing two riot participants on Thursday.

Whatever the President-elect may or may not do with respect to some of those convicted for their conduct at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is irrelevant to the courts independent obligations and legal responsibilities under Article III of the Constitution, US District Judge Paul Friedman said in a Thursday order.
A judge denied bond for a man Thursday charged with killing a woman the day before in the middle of a north Charlotte apartment complex.

PAST COVERAGE: Woman killed in north Charlotte shooting, police say

Dasean Maddox, 32, confessed to a family member to killing 33-year-old Jameisha Wilkes, according to a police report.

Wilkes sister, who didnt want to release her name, said the family is having difficulty processing her death.

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The deadly shooting happened at about 3:30 p.m. at the Ascent at Mallard Creek Apartments.

Deadly shooting on Nov. 13, 2024, at Ascent at Mallard Creek Apartments.

One of Maddoxs family members told police Wednesday he texted earlier in the day and admitted to being unfaithful to Wilkes, according to the police report.

He got Wilkes pregnant then killed her and ran over her phone, according to the report.

Bea Cote is a domestic violence survivors advocate with Impact Abuse Prevention Services.

She said it was good that Maddoxs family member came forward.

The family and friends are often going to protect the abuser, Cote said. They dont want to believe that hes done this, for one. The other thing is it can destroy a family if things come out, and nobody wants that.

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Cote said getting pregnant in a relationship where someone is being unfaithful could be dangerous.

If somebody finds out youre pregnant, and they dont want the child, the child becomes collateral damage, Cote said.

Maddox was charged with murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon.

A judge denied him bond Thursday and appointed him an attorney.

Hes due in court next month.

The phone number for the Safe Alliance Greater Charlotte Hope Line is 980-771-HOPE.

Its available 24-7 in English and Spanish.

VIDEO: Woman killed in north Charlotte shooting, police say
WARNING: Information in this article from the court hearing is graphic. Reader discretion is advised.

DOTHAN, Ala (WDHN)  A Dale County Judge is deciding whether or not to grant bond to a man who investigators claim tied up and killed a Midland City woman in her bedroom over the weekend.

James Johnson, 29, is charged with one count of murder in the death of 57-year-old Sherry Clark.

According to Sheriff Mason Bynum, Clark was found naked, bound, gagged, and dead inside her bedroom at her home on Dale County Road 79 in Midland City early Sunday morning after her father called for a welfare check. Clark had not shown up for work at Avis Car Rental in the Dothan Regional Airport.

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During an Aniahs Law hearing Wednesday afternoon, investigators with the Dale County Sheriffs Office revealed a preliminary autopsy determined Clark died from blunt force trauma to the head and had cuts on her breast, vaginal area, and anal area.

READ MORE: Midland City murder suspect was released from Florida prison system a week before murder, sheriff says

Investigators on the stand said Clarks brain sustained significant damage, and a hit to the front of her head caused the brain to hit the back of the skull and bleed. The autopsy also revealed Clark died between 11:00 p.m. Saturday and 3:00 a.m. Sunday.

During a press conference held Tuesday morning, Sheriff Bynum said Johnson had been released from the Florida Department of Corrections one week before the murder occurred, and he was staying with a relative next door to Clark.

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Investigators said Johnson was in a Florida prison for around four years, and during a search into his criminal history, investigators discovered a lengthy record with burglary, theft, and drug arrests and convictions.

Authorities also claimed that during an interview with Johnson, he told deputies that he and Clark had known each other and met several times between 2019 and 2020, even having sex on some occasions.

Dale-Geneva County District Attorney Kirke Adams argued Johnson should be denied bond due to the nature of the crime and his criminal history.

One of the brutal scenes I have been to. Every box you can check for Aniahs Law has been checked. I dont know what else to say, Adams said during the hearing. This is why Aniahs Law was created honestly.

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Johnsons attorney, David Harrison, argued against this, saying the state had no evidence against Johnson and all the information was circumstantial due to DNA and other evidence test results not coming back.

Harrison said Johnson had no evidence of a violent past and no instances where he failed to appear for past court cases.

If Johnson is given a bond and released, he will be required to wear an ankle monitor.

An Aniahs Law hearing is used for Alabama judges to hear evidence and gives judges the discretion to deny bond for people accused of violent crimes.

The judge is expected to rule on the case in the next two days.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
ATLANTIC BEACH, S.C. (WBTW)  The town of Atlantic Beach will hold a special election to elect a new mayor and resolve a yearlong dispute over whether John David or Josephine Isom will be the towns next leader.

An Horry County judge issued a ruling on Tuesday affirming the Municipal Election Commissions decision in April to invalidate the results of the November 2023 election.

In sum, the Court having determined that sufficient factual evidence exists justifying the

MECs Decision to invalidate the mayoral election and finding no error of law that would justify

disturbance of the MECs ruling, the Decision of the Atlantic Beach Municipal Election

Commission is AFFIRMED, Judge William H. Seals Jr. wrote in his ruling.

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Recently appointed interim Town Manager William Booker told News13 on Wednesday that no date has been set for a new election. He said town leaders are talking with the South Carolina Election Commission to work out the details.

Initial results from the Nov. 2023 election showed that Isom defeated David 62-49, but a ballot hearing two days after the election took into account a number of provisional ballots that swung the vote in favor of David, 65-64.

Isom then appealed the results, saying some of the votes were cast by nonresidents. At the hearing in April, the election commission found that some ballots were cast by people not qualified to vote in the election and declined to include those votes in the final count in the mayor election.

However, Tuesdays court order said that because the ballots cast  were inextricably commingled with the other remaining and validly cast ballots in the Election and because the challenged [and later rejected] provision ballots did not entirely overlap with the voters challenged by Isom, the MEC concluded that the prior stated results of the Election are, in the least, significantly doubtful, and likely to be completely inaccurate.

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As a result, Tuesdays order says the election commission, relying on state code, correctly ruled the election invalid and ordered a special election.

* * *

Dennis Bright is the Digital Executive Producer at News13. He joined the team in May 2021. Dennis is a West Virginia native and a graduate of Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. Follow Dennis on, Facebook, X, formerly Twitter, and read more of his work here.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW.
Judges have no place deciding who can have an assisted death, the former head of the High Courts family division has said.

Sir James Munby warned that it was not the proper function of a judge to rule whether someone would be eligible for such a death, and described the proposals, by Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP, as defective.

In a major intervention in the controversial debate, he suggested it was not what judges do and not what judges are for.

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Ms Leadbeater published her Private Members Bill, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, on Monday night. The draft legislation gives High Court judges the final decision on whether an assisted death can go ahead.

However, Sir James, one of Britains most eminent retired judges, accused the MP of promoting a profoundly unsatisfactory scheme that would be open to abuse.

All in all, in relation to the involvement of the judges in the process, the Leadbeater Bill falls lamentably short of providing adequate safeguards, he said.

Kim Leadbeater published her Private Members Bill on Monday night - Michael Leckie/PA

Sir James argued that the architects of the Bill had chosen to promote a profoundly unsatisfactory scheme for judicial involvement: a scheme which does not provide for an open and transparent process but, on the contrary, permits a secret process which can give us no confidence that it will enable the court to identify and prevent possible abuses.

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The retired judge added: Where else in our judicial system does one find a judge, sitting judicially as a judge, whose function is not to decide some disputed issue or  to resolve some controversy but only to certify, as it were, that some decision taken by a private individual complies with the law? That, it might be said, is not what judges do and not what judges are for.

He said the Bills measures also lacked the necessary transparency and would fail to ensure evidence would be thoroughly tested in all cases.

Sir James said there was particular concern that the Bill would appear to allow judges to decide cases where patients seemed to meet the criteria for assisted death without hearing from the patient and with no input of any sort from the patients partner or relatives.

He added: In short, an application could be dealt with: In accordance with a wholly inadequate procedure, and without the public knowing anything about it  not even the name of the judge. The fact is that judges are kept up to the mark by two things  having to comply with proper procedure and being exposed to the public gaze.

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Sir James said his concerns were exacerbated by Ms Leadbeaters plan to not allow appeals in cases where assisted deaths were approved, which he described as an extraordinary omission.

He argued this could leave a patients partner and family powerless to challenge a decision to allow their assisted death once it was made, adding: Even High Court judges are fallible and sometimes make mistakes. Why, after all, do we have a Court of Appeal and why are there successful appeals against High Court judges?

What if the judge has adopted a procedure which would not pass muster with the Court of Appeal or, indeed, and even more alarmingly, has arrived at a decision which the Court of Appeal, if given the opportunity, would reverse? There can be no appeal  and the patient dies.

A free vote on the Bill is scheduled to take place on Nov 29.

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Ms Leadbeater has been 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.
CHICAGO  State Rep. Jaime Andrade said earlier this year in a Chicago Tribune interview he didnt know whether former House Speaker Michael Madigan had helped get his wife a job with the secretary of state in 2018.

On Thursday, however, the jury in Madigans corruption trial heard a wiretapped call in which Andrade, a Chicago Democrat, was told by Madigans longtime confidant in no uncertain terms who had pulled the strings.

The speaker jumped all over it, so thats good, Michael McClain told Andrade in the August 2018 call, which was played for the first time in court.

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Although there was nothing illegal about Madigans favor, the episode is being held up by prosecutors as more evidence of the power and influence wielded by Madigan and, by proxy, McClain, during the time frame of the alleged racketeering conspiracy.

Madigans lawyers had objected to the calls being presented to the jury, saying they could be prejudicial, but U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey ruled before the trial began that they were relevant.

Andrade could not immediately be reached for comment.

The recordings related to Andrade were an aberration in a week of testimony that was otherwise focused on one of the central accusations of the trial: an alleged scheme by ComEd to extend a stream of benefits to Madigan and his allies, mostly through requests relayed by McClain, in order to get the speakers support for legislation in Springfield.

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Earlier Thursday, former ComEd executive Fidel Marquez, one of two key undercover cooperators in the Madigan investigation, wrapped up a marathon six days on the witness stand, taking the jury through dozens of secret FBI audio and video recordings the formed the backbone of the ComEd allegations.

Marquez endured a grueling, two-day cross-examination by lawyers for Madigan and McClain, who attacked his credibility on various fronts, including efforts to hide assets from his wife during their contentious divorce and misrepresentations about his felony conviction when attempting last year to buy a gun to shoot rattlesnakes.

The defense also questioned Marquezs motives for cooperating, insinuating that he only agreed to plead guilty to bribery conspiracy to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. In fact, in exchange for his truthful testimony, prosecutors have said theyll recommend no time behind bars at all.

That led to a memorable redirect questioning Thursday morning, when jurors heard for the first time that the alleged bribery scheme spread far beyond Madigan and McClain.

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Marquez confirmed from the stand that several figures who have already prominently featured in the trial  ex-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, lobbyist John Hooker, consultant Jay Doherty and ComEd itself  had been criminally charged based, in part, on Marquezs extensive cooperation.

That information had been banned from trial, and during jury selection last month attorneys diligently weeded out many potential jurors who had knowledge of the previous ComEd Four case.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu argued Thursday he should be allowed to show that Marquezs cooperation was widespread, and his deal did not hinge entirely on the Madigan case.

The judge decided Marquez could testify that those entities were charged, but not mentioned that they were convicted.

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Once the jury returned, Bhachu got right to it, asking Marquez about covert calls and in-person meetings he secretly recorded with McClain, Doherty, Pramaggiore and Hooker.

You wore a wire on them, fair to say? Bahchu said. And they were all charged as a result?

Bhachu also pointed out Marquez has been cooperating for more than 51/2 years so far with more still possibly to come.

Under the terms of your agreement, will you have to testify in any future proceedings if the government asks you to? he asked. Marquez answered, Yes.

Madigan, 82, of Chicago, who served for decades as speaker of the Illinois House and the head of the state Democratic Party, faces racketeering charges alleging he ran his state and political operations like a criminal enterprise.

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Among the allegations: Several Madigan allies got no-work subcontracts from ComEd; the utility reserved internships each year for young people referred from Madigans 13th Ward; and a law firm headed by Madigan fundraiser Victor Reyes was awarded a lucrative contract with ComEd, allegedly at Madigans request.

Madigan and McClain, 77, a former ComEd contract lobbyist from downstate Quincy, have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

The trial, which began Oct. 8, had been expected to last about 11 weeks, but on Thursday the judge confirmed to the parties that this estimate was wildly off. He said he now has calculated the trial to go until at least mid-January, with a weeklong break over the Christmas holiday. He asked attorneys for both sides to decide what to tell the jury.

Theres nothing wrong with the length of trial, we just have to let the jury know, Blakey said.

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Marquez testified for a total of almost 27 hours beginning last Tuesday. Once he was off the stand, prosecutors turned to a series of wiretapped calls, including the conversations involving Andrade.

On July 2, 2018, Madigan, the then-House speaker and head of the state Democratic Party, told McClain that Andrade came to me and same story, he needs money, and he had the thought that maybe I could help his wife on something.

Madigan explained that Andrades wife was a Spanish speaker and native of Peru, and that hed thought of placing her with Doherty, though not necessarily with ComEd.

I had the thought that I could actually put Jay Doherty on a retainer, Madigan said on the recording. And then hed have her and shed do whatever she would do. Wed tell Andrade to prepare some monthly reports on what shes doing. So hes got it on file.

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They wound up finding a position for Andrades wife doing research for the general counsel for then-Secretary of State Jesse White. The jury then heard another call in which Andrade thanked McClain for the effort.

I hope she really likes the job, McClain told Andrade on the Aug. 29, 2018, call. She can learn a lot in that role, and she can just keep it at least for three or four years, learn all the mumbo jumbo, all the magic words.  She has an opportunity to go elsewhere and make even more money.

Andrade told McClain he was happy with the outcome and thanked McClain profusely.

Ive got two kids in Catholic school, he said. Therell be enough to pay the tuition and aftercare and before-care while Im in session.

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I thought Id call you cause (Madigan) and I were talkin about cha so  I hope she really likes the job, McClain said.

Thank you again, Mr. McClain, Andrade said.

The Tribune first revealed earlier this year that Andrade, who represents parts of Chicagos Northwest Side, was the elected official mentioned in court papers as Public Official E.

At the time, Andrade told the newspaper Madigan was one of many people he reached out to regarding his wifes potential employment. I asked about 50 people, including Madigan, Andrade, who is not accused of wrongdoing, said in his remarks to a Chicago Tribune reporter.

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Andrade said at the time that a bout with COVID-19 had caused lapses in his memory, and he didnt know whether Madigan had anything to do with his wifes hiring. While Andrade remembered talking to McClain, he wasnt sure why he would have thanked him specifically.

Andrades wife currently makes about $62,000 a year in a law-related position with the secretary of state, records show. Neither she nor Andrade is expected to be called as a witness.

Prosecutors Thursday also played a series of wiretapped conversations between ComEd insiders that were sparked after Marquez, under the supervision of the FBI, asked what he should say to the utilitys new CEO, Joseph Dominguez, about the subcontracting deals with Madigans do-nothing allies.

In one call from February 2019, McClain relayed to Hooker what hed said to Marquez during lunch at Saputos restaurant in Springfield, a meeting that Marquez had surreptitiously video-recorded.

I just told (Marquez) to be transparent, McClain told Hooker. We had to hire these guys because Mike Madigan came to us. Thats how simple it is. So if you want to make it a federal court suit, OK, but thats how simple it is.

This was the best way to do it, Hooker said. This avenue is one of the best avenues.  Its clean for all of us.

McClain and Hooker congratulated each other for the elegant solution they came up with: Since the no-work subcontractors were under Jay Dohertys contract, if anyone asked whether they were legit, it was up to Doherty to prove they were actually working.

Thats why we set it up like this, John, McClain said.

Hooker responded by using the frequent nickname for Madigan: We came up with this plan and between him, our friend, and Tim (Mapes, Madigans then-chief of staff), and the alderman, they thought it was great, he said.

Well, you and I came up with it, McClain said. They didnt come up with it.

No, we came up with it, but they thought it was great once they heard it, Hooker said.

Dominguez was also top of mind later that month, when McClain discussed him in a wiretapped call with Hooker and Pramaggiore.

McClain said he was skeptical Dominguez would snap to and get something done quickly when Madigan requested it.

I dont think he really respects Madigan, he said. I wouldnt trust Joe. I would trust Joe to think that this is a quid pro quo and hes wired.

Later in the call, McClain said he would not be shy about giving Dominguez the real lay of the land.

My instinct is that I come up to Chicago and I sit down with Dominguez and say, Now, look it, (expletive), if you want to pass this bill, this is what it requires, McClain said.

Either you want to look like youre the leader, and be the leader, but that means youve got to authorize your people to do things. Or if you want to keep playing your silly games  thats fine, he continued. I dont mind having a daddy talk with this guy.

____
Nov. 13dbeard @dominionpost.com MORGANTOWN  Soon-to-be Sen. Jim Justice won't do it for Babydog.

That is, he won't be bringing West Virginia's First Canine to the U.S. Senate floor.

Justice  currently state governor  issued a statement late Tuesday evening in response to an Axio article on reported discussions about Babydog's possible appearances on the floor.

"Today, a Senator-Elect was asking about the rules regarding children on the floor of the U.S. Senate, " he said. "Senator-Elect Bernie Moreno jokingly asked about dogs and mentioned Babydog in jest. I told them they do not have to worry about Babydog on the Senate floor.

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"I knew and was aware, " Justice said, "in fact I said it during the campaign, that Babydog cannot be on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Babydog will be with me frequently in Washington, and we welcome everyone to come by my office and say hello and meet Babydog when she is there. Just like she has loved and made so many people smile in West Virginia, she will do that in Washington too."

Justice was at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday for Senate orientation. The Axios report used unnamed sources who said Justice was told he could not bring Babydog onto the Senate floor.

Axios said, "Justice was told by Senate floor staff that only service dogs are allowed onto the floor of the Senate, and that even in that case there would need to be an analysis on potential allergies."

Axios noted that other senators bring their dogs to Capitol Hill and sometimes walk the halls with them.

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Justice's announcement makes moot the question of whether Babydog would have to appear on the floor in business attire, following the Senate's September 2023 adoption of a bipartisan resolution from Sens. Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney to codify the Senate dress code.

The resolution came in response to freshman Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who prefers to walk the Capitol halls in shorts and a hoodie and was casting votes at the Senate doorway in order to avoid changing clothes.

The resolution says, "An individual on the floor of the Senate shall abide by the Senate floor dress code." That is defined as "a requirement that business attire be worn on the floor of the Senate, which for men shall include a coat, tie, and slacks or other long pants."

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito was tied up Wednesday in leadership election meetings and was unable to provide comment. Sen. Joe Manchin did not respond.
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO)  South Dakotans now know the steps they must take in the state courts to appeal an alleged violation of privacy rights under Marsys Law.

In a decision publicly released on Thursday, the South Dakota Supreme Court unanimously found that a circuit judge erred when he ruled against an alleged victim.

The case involved two defendants accused of raping a minor under the age 16. The three were residents of a Hutterite colony in Brule County.

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Sanford to join 2 Black Hills health facilities

The defendants, Michael Waldner Jr. and Mark Waldner, subpoenaed all of the journals that E.H. had written afterward.

They claimed that she had waived her right to privacy because of a statement contained in one journal that had been turned over to law enforcement. Prosecutors provided the journal to the Waldners as part of pre-trial discovery.

E.H. however wanted the judge to quash the subpoena. She cited the Marsys Law privacy rights that South Dakota voters in 2016 added to the state Constitution.

Circuit Judge Bruce Anderson ruled in the Waldners favor and ordered E.H. to turn over all of the subpoenaed materials. However, the South Dakota Supreme Court justices said the Waldners subpoena didnt meet the three factors set down by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1974 Nixon decision.

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The nations highest court ordered then-U.S. President Richard Nixon to turn over tape recordings that had been subpoenaed during the Watergate investigation. Nixon claimed he had executive privilege. He later became the first and so far only president to resign.

South Dakota Supreme Court Justice Patricia DeVaney wrote the Waldner decision. She said it was the first time that the states high court considered the proper procedure for an alleged victims appeal involving Marsys Law.

Justice DeVaney stated that specific steps in South Dakotas Rules of Civil Appellate Procedure should be followed.

Going forward, she wrote, individuals exercising the right to appeal under Marsys Law should follow the requirements set forth in SDCL 15-26A-4 through 15-26A-6 for appeals

permitted by SDCL 15-26A-3.

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The Waldners had relied on the South Dakota Supreme Courts 1990 Karlen decision to assert that E.H. had waived her right to privacy, but Justice DeVaney said that was misplaced.

Judge Anderson based his decision on Karlen as well, but Justice DeVaney said the judge failed to first determine if there is an unwaived right or privilege at stake and whether it can be overcome, before ordering the disclosure of the documents to anyone, including the court.

The Waldners had based their waiver claim on a statement by E.H. that the justices determined was about something different than the Waldners had portrayed.

While E.H. agreed to give law enforcement the journal in which she described the acts forming the basis for the current charges against the Waldners, Justice DeVaney wrote, there is nothing in the record showing that prior to doing so, E.H. knew she had a constitutional right to privacy or that she knew she was waiving that right by relinquishing one of her journals.

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Yet, she continued, the Waldners assert E.H. waived her right to privacy in all of her other diaries and journals when she wrote in the one disclosed journal, Really, I dont care anymore who reads it. I dont care what they think. However, the preceding statements in this journal entry reveal that the it she was referring to was a purple notebook containing her poems which she described as very depressing and disturbing.

Also, the above-quoted statement about E.H. not caring who read her poems related to a suggestion by Levi (the husband of the couple where she went to live after the alleged incidents) that she should give this notebook to his mom to read, she wrote. Regardless of any implications that can be drawn from this particular statement, there is no evidence that E.H. knowingly and intelligently waived her right to refuse disclosure of any other remaining diaries or journals.

The state Office of Attorney General joined in the appeal. Attorney General Marty Jackley praised the Supreme Courts decision.

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed that victims have rights in South Dakota including their privacy, said Attorney General Jackley. Thank you to the Court for upholding the rights of victims.

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HONOLULU (KHON2)  In the ahupuaa of Waikiki, which lies in the moku of Kona here on Oahu, stands the busy roadway into and through Waikiki.

Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You

We are speaking of Kalakaua Ave.

David Kalakaua was Hawaiis last male monarch who served as King to the Hawaiian Kingdom for nearly 17 years.

Prior to the 20th century, Waikiki Road was the name of the roadway that branched off King Street and passed through taro patches into Waikiki.

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In 1889, mule-drawn cars began carrying passengers from Honolulu into Waikiki via Waikiki Road for only ten cents.

By 1903, they were replaced with electric cars and in 1905, the road was renamed Kalakaua Avenue in honor of the King.

As time progressed and the popularity of Waikiki grew, so did the construction to protect and evolve the thoroughfare.

Like many other Hawaiian rulers throughout history, King Kalakaua owned land in Waikiki and had his own estate.

Maui and Kaimuki Bands exchange prior to Bandfest

Unlike his sister, Queen Liliuokalani, who inherited her land, Kalakaua purchased his parcel for $400 from Princess Ruth Keelikolani.

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Named Uluniu meaning coconut grove, that property was once located near where the Hyatt Regency is today.

Built as a two-story wooden structure within old coconut trees with verandas with a slightly sloped roof, the home named Pualeilani was not where the King Kalakaua lived but where he hosted many parties and gatherings.

Within Uluniu, the King also built a small heiau named Kamauakapu which was dedicated to husbandry.

At times, he would open up this area for the public to play makahiki games and to display Hawaiian artforms, such as hula.

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It was reasons such as these which led King Kalakaua to resurrect ancient arts and gain the nickname, the Merrie Monarch.

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Did you know? Now you do!

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TOPEKA (KSNT)  Kansas election workers have completed two close-race audits Thursday impacting two seats in the Kansas Legislature.

Whitney Tempel with the Kansas Secretary of States (SOS) office announced in a press release on Nov. 14 that audits for Kansas Senate District 5 for Wyandotte and Leavenworth Counties and Kansas House District 49 for Johnson County have been completed. These audits were triggered following the Nov. 5 General Election.

Tempel said close-race audits were automatically issued due to the races being extremely close. Election workers counted by hand each ballot tied to these races and compared them to a machine-tabulated vote count. Unofficial vote results, last updated on Nov. 8, for these races can be found below:

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Kansas House of Representatives 49. Nikki L. McDonald (D)  6,183/51%. Kurtis Ruf (R)  6,058/49%.

Kansas Senate 5 Jeff Pittman (D)  15,479/50%. Jeff Klemp (R)  15,520/50%.



Who are the Kansas Jan. 6 rioters that could be pardoned by Donald Trump?

The close-race audits have concluded, Schwab said. I appreciate these county poll workers for going the extra mile to ensure additional auditing took place for these tightly contested races.

The SOS has yet to post the full official results of the recent General Election. You can look through the list of unofficial voting results by clicking here.

For more Kansas election 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.

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Follow Matthew Self on X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MatthewLeoSelf

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News.
Wichita Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, a Democrat on the House and Senate foster care committee, said she was disappointed the state hadn't addressed overrepresentation of Black children in the foster system. She asserted children were taken from homes because they were culturally different from white social workers. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA  The court-appointed monitor for Kansas settlement of a foster care lawsuit challenged the states reliance on sleep-only housing because the practice didnt contribute to satisfactory outcomes for children and distorted statistics on the number of youths in stable residential settings.

Monitor Judith Meltzer, senior fellow with the nonprofit Center for the Study of Social Policy, said Kansas was supposed to have remedied years ago problems with temporarily holding foster children in offices, motels and other unsuitable locations. The issue came to light in 2017 during the administration of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, but continued under Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.

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Meltzer told the Kansas Legislatures foster care oversight committee that placement of children in sleep-only settings was an attempt to artificially deflate the number reported as not having been moved to a stable foster home.

They have a bed for the night, but they need to be out of the foster parents house during the day, Meltzer said. Were very concerned about this practice and that these children appear in the data to have stable placements because they returned to the same foster home every night. We think it masks the extent of the problem of their instability.

She said it was widely accepted that emergency or short-term placements contributed to the instability of children and exacerbated the trauma of family separation.

Judith Meltzer, senior fellow with the nonprofit Center for the Study of Social Policy, said for the third consecutive year Kansas had failed to meet goals of a legal settlement designed to improve services to foster care children. (Kansas Reflector screen capture from Legislatures YouTube channel)

Brenna Visocsky, director of Kansas Appleseeds Just Campaign, said some Kansas children in sleep-only arrangements had to be out of foster homes each day by 6 a.m. In some instances, the Kansas Department for Children and Families and their private contractors allowed these children to spend portions of the day at school or in unlicensed day centers before returning to a foster home in the late evening.

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We want to make sure these kids are in legitimate stable placements, Visocsky said. It is crucial that DCF and their case management partners take accountability for the continued negative realities our foster youth face in their care.

Kansas Appleseed was among several groups that filed a class-action lawsuit, known as McIntyre v. Howard, against Kansas in 2018 to challenge the states poor treatment of foster children. The lawsuit led to a negotiated settlement in 2020 and an agreement on methods of measuring progress and deadlines for gradually making improvements.

Laura Howard, secretary of the state Department for Children and Families, said the agency was striving to improve its ability to place foster children in stable environments. She said it was important to acknowledge how chaotic the states foster system was when she became secretary nearly six years ago.

We had reports, not just of youths sleeping in offices, but youths being driven around in cars all night, Howard said.

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The timeline set by DCF, Kansas Appleseed and the U.S. District Court for attaining agreed-upon goals in serving 5,800 foster children expires in December 2025.

Its unclear if Kansas could meet that deadline for overhauling the large and complex privatized foster care system. Plaintiffs in the case have requested the federal court appoint a mediator to develop a corrective action plan that could add urgency to the states reform of foster care. If that mediation process were to fail, the plaintiffs have the option of returning to court and arguing the state was in breach of the settlement agreement.

Inside the numbers

On Wednesday at the Capitol, Meltzer said Kansas failed for the third year to comply with targeted improvements ordered by the court under the settlement.

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Overall, progress was disappointing, she said. Its important to recognize this state has remained committed to meeting requirements of the settlement. However, despite focused effort, it is far from meeting the majority of the anticipated final targets.

Kansas was to end the practice of housing youths overnight in offices, hotels and other questionable spaces by 2021, but during 2023 there were 57 children who experienced 68 instances of sleeping in settings not licensed as child welfare placements. That was an improvement over 2022, but preliminary data on 2024 indicated that number was substantially increasing.

Meanwhile, foster children 0 to 18 last year averaged 7.9 placement moves per 1,000 days, which was 60% higher than the benchmark goal of five or fewer moves over 1,000 days. In 2023, 822 youths experienced 2,057 one-night placements, which was a 36% increase over the previous year.

Laura Howard, secretary of the Kansas Department for Children and Families, said the third annual court-ordered assessment of foster care reform in Kansas illustrated shortcomings with child placement, delivery of mental and behavioral health services and caseload size. (Kansas Reflector screen capture from Legislatures YouTube channel)

Documents analyzed by the courts monitor showed the state experienced a decline in delivery of behavioral and mental health services. The goal established in the settlement was for Kansas to gradually improve its rating from 80% served in 2021 to 85% in 2022 and 90% in 2023. Instead, the state reported complying with health needs of children in foster care 65% of the time in 2021, 70% of the time in 2022 and 52% of the time last year.

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The monitors report noted Kansas lacked an effective statewide data collection system, which meant it relied on a hodgepodge of antiquated data sources to figure out what was happening to foster children. Kansas must have quality data measuring performance and outcomes to hold contractors accountable, the report said.

In Kansas, 3,000 children in foster care were assigned to a caseworker grappling with 30 or more cases. Under the settlement, caseworkers were to have no more than 25 to 30 cases because larger caseloads hindered the ability of caseworkers to connect with children in their care. In July, DCF directed the systems contractors cap caseloads at 15.

Howard, the DCF secretary, acknowledged shortcomings identified in the annual report but said the state had made meaningful progress in preventing children from entering foster care. In her time at DCF, the roster of foster children in Kansas fell from 7,600 in June 2019 to 5,800 in June 2024.

She said the state increased the number of children placed with relatives  with 54% of placements this year made with relatives. She said 87% of Kansas foster children were in a stable placement and 83% percent had no more than one residential move in the past 12 months. She said mental health crisis support was more readily available.

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Despite these bright spots, Howard said, we continue to fall short on a number of settlement performance goals, and from my perspective this level of performance is not acceptable. We have more work to do, especially for a cohort of youth who experience extreme placement instability.

Poverty, cultural factors

Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, a Wichita Democrat on the Legislatures foster care oversight committee, said it was frustrating Black children were overrepresented in the states system. Black children made up approximately 6% of the states population, but about three times that percentage were in foster care.

A lot of times social workers remove children just because theyre poor, Faust-Goudeau said. They remove children just because their culture is different. The way that we do things might be different from the white social worker who is visiting the home, so they remove children.

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Republican Sen. Molly Baumgardner of Louisburg echoed Faust-Goudeaus conclusions and called it grievous a disproportionate number of children of color were entering foster care in Kansas. She said minority children stayed longer in foster care and were not as quickly adopted. She said it was harmful when children from southcentral Kansas were relocated to foster homes across the state, because it made family visits nearly impossible.

Rep. Susan Humphries, a Wichita Republican on the foster care panel, said it was a disappointment DCF hadnt proceeded quickly on upgrading IT systems to better administer foster care cases.

I would suggest if this was a private business that we would be able to do it more quickly, she said. I know government has bureaucracy. Im just going to say that. This has gone on way too long.

Republican Sen. Renee Erickson of Wichita said she was anxious Kansas was missing deadlines outlined in the binding agreement.

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She said dedicated people were working on behalf of foster care children, but there should be more urgency in state government to comply with the deal.

Its felt to me, being on this committee, a little bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, Erickson said. When I look at the data and all of the efforts and we continue to lose ground and sink a little more every year at the expense of these children, its unacceptable.
Fifty years ago, the death of a 28-year-old plutonium plant worker and whistleblower in Oklahoma -- a death many found mysterious and sparked decades of speculation -- shocked the nation.

The official story was that Karen Silkwood died in a one-car crash on Nov. 13, 1974. She was on her way to meet a New York Times journalist, reportedly to hand over documents she'd secretly been collecting at her job at a nuclear facility. The Oklahoma State Highway Patrol concluded that Silkwood fell asleep at the wheel -- possibly under the influence of prescribed drugs --- drove off the highway, crashed into a ditch, and died.

"Weve never believed it," Mike Boettcher said of the official narrative. Boettcher and his reporting partner Bob Sands, both veteran Oklahoma journalists, say many in Oklahoma speculate that Karen Silkwood may have died for what she knew.

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Silkwood's story has become widely known, inspiring several books, articles, and a major motion picture.

PHOTO: Undated photograph of Karen Silkwood and her children. (Mark Peterson/Corbis via Getty Images)

ABC Audio's new podcast, "Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery," hosted by Boettcher and Sands, explores the secrets Silkwood was uncovering and what some say is the mystery surrounding her death.

Silkwood worked at a nuclear fuel production plant that manufactured plutonium fuel rods to power a new type of nuclear reactor, which was part of a multi-million dollar experiment to enhance nuclear energy. When she noticed what she felt were unsafe working conditions -- such as leaks, spills and co-workers frequently getting contaminated with radioactive material -- she spoke up and tried to make improvements.

"Karen became nuclear energy's first whistleblower, though the term whistleblower was just starting to be used," Boettcher said. "This was at a time when the idea of someone inside of a big corporation exposing alleged misdeeds was shocking."

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Silkwood's allegations, contamination, and untimely death sparked an investigation by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, an FBI inquiry, a civil lawsuit, several appeals, a congressional hearing and two appearances before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Several news outlets investigated the matter, and Silkwood's story gained significant attention in 1983 with the release of "Silkwood," a movie based on her life. In a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination, Meryl Streep portrayed Silkwood in the film.

For fifty years, this story has been one Boettcher and Sands say they cant get out of their minds. Suspicion of foul play has swirled around it for decades: What had Silkwood uncovered? Who had she upset? Why did her car crash into a concrete wall? Was a second vehicle involved?

"There are fewer and fewer people alive to share what they know from the night Karen died," Sands said. "Many of the people who worked with Karen in the plant are dead."

Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery ()

However, Sands and Boettcher have new leads -- never-before-heard investigative tapes, a fresh look at a critical piece of physical evidence. Plus, they tracked down people who can illuminate who Karen was and what she was uncovering about her workplace.

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The duo first spoke with Michael Meadows, Silkwood's son. He was only 5 years old when his mother died. "There's never been a definitive answer," Meadows said. "Both sides  told a very different story that night of what happened, and as her son, I would like to have a definitive answer of what really took place."

Instead of cherished memories of his mother, Meadows was left with black-and-white photos, newspaper clippings and police reports. When he tries to picture what his mom was like, the image that comes to mind is Streep's portrayal.

"The fact that  there's still so many people afraid to tell what they know or what they've heard," Meadows said. "It's amazing to me that 50 years later, a company that barely even exists, if it does exist at all ...still has that kind of control or that kind of intimidation."

That company was Kerr-McGee, named after its influential leaders Robert Kerr and Dean McGee. It doesnt exist anymore. But, in the early '70s, Kerr-McGee was a giant in Oklahoma and in Americas oil and gas industry.

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So, for Silkwood, going against her employer would be a steep hill to climb. The company maintained that allegations of malfeasance were overblown and some claims even made up by overzealous union workers.

Steve Wodka met Karen Silkwood in the early '70s as a young staff member for the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW), which represented Silkwood and other plant workers.

Wodka recently retired from his career as an attorney advocating for people with work-related cancer. Living in a small New Jersey beach town, he spends his time trying to figure out what happened to Silkwood 50 years ago.

Silkwood had alerted him to possible problems at the plant and the union was concerned about worker safety.

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"The belief is that intense radiation that goes on essentially for the rest of the person's life causes lung cancer," Wodka said. "So the handling of plutonium is supposed to be very strict There's always supposed to be a barrier between the worker and plutonium. And what was going on in this plant was that barrier was being breached on a daily basis.

Silkwood raised some even bigger concerns about possible wrongdoing at the plant -- that important quality control reports were reportedly being falsified. Concerns that, if true, meant the health and safety of a lot more people was at risk, well beyond people who worked at the plant.

The company denied contamination allegations and maintained that Silkwood was involved in a scheme to embarrass the company and improve the bargaining position of the union.

Silkwood never made it to that meeting, but after her death, interest in her story put a spotlight on the claims she was trying to make.

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Boettcher, Sands, and others connected with Silkwoods story, continue to probe for answers in a case that feels unfinished.

Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery" is a production by ABC Audio in collaboration with Standing Bear Entertainment and the ABC News Investigative Unit. Listen to the four-part podcast series for complete coverage.

Karen Silkwood's sudden death unpacked in ABC documentary originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Republican Kari Lake seemed to acknowledge her U.S. Senate loss in a video message on social media Wednesday night that thanked her supporters but didnt mention the outcome of the race or congratulate U.S. Sen.-elect Ruben Gallego.

The 2:30-minute message featured Lake in her familiar home studio and welcomes the coming Trump administration. It mentions the obstacles Lakes campaign faced and is an appreciation to those who backed her.

As for me, well, I can say for certain that truth will never stop mattering to me, she said. You will never stop mattering to me. These memories that weve made together will never go away. They will grow sweeter over time, and I will never stop fighting for the state I love.

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Gallegos campaign confirmed Lake had not reached out to concede the race as of Wednesday night.

Here's my message to Arizona:  pic.twitter.com/0RB3Ha17Ct  Kari Lake (@KariLake) November 14, 2024

Still, the message offered a coda of sorts that never came after her 2022 gubernatorial loss to Gov. Katie Hobbs and was in line with Lakes statement to reporters on Election Day that she would accept the results of the contest.

As of Wednesday night, Lake was trailing Gallego by nearly 73,000 votes with about 120,000 still to be counted.

Lake, a former Fox 10 newscaster, opened her video by noting her decades appearing on Phoenix TVs and then promptly assailed the media.

I walked away from a seven-figure contract in the fake news because I couldnt lie to you, she said. What good is money if it comes at the cost of your soul? I was sickened spreading the governments COVID narrative.

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Lake said the Bible provided her the courage to walk away from her career, and public demand led her to try politics.

She said the journey that weve taken together has been challenging and rewarding.

They threw everything at us: fake news, hundreds of millions of dollars, and the most vile attacks. Through it all, you never wavered, and I cant thank you enough for that.

As of mid-October, Lakes campaign owed $2.4 million in debt.

She spent two years battling in court to overturn her 2022 loss and has another court matter to resolve.

The Maricopa County recorder, Stephen Richer, a Republican, sued her for defamation over her baseless claims of a botched election. She didnt challenge his allegations and will return to court to determine how much, if anything, she owes for damages in the case.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake thanks supporters, doesn't mention Ruben Gallego, her future
Editors note: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Yuriy Ostapyaks name. We regret the error.

Could Ukraine lose a critical ally with Donald Trump in the White House? The president-elect has promised to end the conflict, but at what cost?

Reporter Nicole Lee spoke to two area businesses with ties to Ukraine and heard their reactions.

The business leaders told her that peace is the top priority and they believe its in the U.S.s best interest to continue supporting Ukraine.

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But they also acknowledge its impossible to predict what sort of deal Trump could help barter.

Biden is sending aid to help Ukraine keep fighting next year, Blinken says

One thing I think we can all agree is that the new administration is a bit unpredictable, said Yuriy Ostapyak, COO of Logistics Plus.

With Donald Trump taking the helm, the future aid funneling from the U.S. to Ukraine is in question. The uncertainty is top of mind for two Erie-based companies that have been staunch supporters of their home country.

I think Ukraine is worn out. I think people are worn out and tired of the war. Ukraine does not have the unlimited resources and human capital like Russia does, Ostapyak added.

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Logistics Plus has helped with humanitarian aid and the movement of goods and donations in Ukraine. Vorex USA has been a top supplier of gas production equipment.

Effort to repurpose Eries historic structures gains traction with new grant funding

Fedor Zakusilo, the founder and president of Vorex, said he remains cautiously optimistic that the U.S. will continue to support Ukraine with Trump as commander-in-chief.

I think were going to support Ukraine and give them whatevers necessary in their fight against their aggressor, said Zakusilo. (You dont think this change of presidency will impact that?) I dont think so. I think at the end of the day, were going to do everything possible to make sure Ukraine is an independent and free country.

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But peace is not expected without concessions.

Its also important to acknowledge our shortcomings and make changes and keep moving forward, Zakusilo added.

There is optimism that it could be a deal that Ukraine can stomach, Ostapyak said.

Both Logistics Plus and Vorex USA show it is possible to do business with Ukraine and their leaders hope other U.S. Companies do their part to help keep the Ukrainian economy going.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC)  The annual keg tree at Genesee Brew House is making a return, celebrating 10 years for the tradition!

This year the keg tree is constructed from 650 empty beer kegs and wrapped in 25,000 twinkling lights.

The December 6 starting at 5:00 p.m. with the actual lighting taking place around 6:30 p.m. Officials say this ears celebrations are expecting to be bigger and better than years past.

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All ages are welcome to attend!

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to RochesterFirst.
CHICAGO (WGN)  Its been almost two years since a Kenwood high-rise fire forced several people out of their homes, and many say they have yet to return to their units.

The massive fire affected more than 140 apartments, with the vast majority still vacant.

The fire happened on Jan. 25, my birthday. I got up in the morning, had pancakes (and then) the fire broke out. I havent slept in my apartment since that night, said resident Ken Harris, who has lived at the Harper Square Co-Operative with his wife, Rita, for decades.

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I just want to go home, she said.

The pair are amongst dozens of residents displaced after a January 2023 fire claimed the life of one woman and left several other people injured.

As of November 2024, several residents remain displaced.

As of November 2024, several residents remain displaced.

As of November 2024, several residents remain displaced.

Denise Loggins spoke with WGN News last December, expressing her desire to return to the place she once called home. Loggins reiterated as much on Wednesday.

We are approaching the second Thanksgiving not in our homes, she said. Well probably be celebrating a second Christmas not being in our homes.

Many residents are senior citizens.

When you have a body of people, primarily, who are seniors on a set income, the idea of even doubling their assessments or their monthly caring costs is unbearable, resident Malinda Jordan said.

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Some residents, like Joy Anderson-Woodfolk, told WGN News that the shifting deadlines and misdirection had left them helpless.

Im starting to believe, Are you trying to wait us out and make us just walk away?' Johnson said.

Building department records show that a permit for major repairs on the building wasnt applied for until more than five months after the fire.

But there may be some light at the end of the tunnel.

Responding to WGNs request for comment, the city said, in part, that An application for a certificate of occupancy for floors 2-10 was submitted on July 8 and added that all inspections by the Department of Buildings and the Department of Fire have been approved and the certificate of occupancy was issued.

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WGN News has learned that residents from the second through the 10th floors may return to their units as soon as the approval and certificate issuance is complete.

As of November 2024, several residents remain displaced.

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As of November 2024, several residents remain displaced.

According to sources, the certificate of occupancy for the middle floors of the building was only submitted Wednesday morning, however. Additionally, building officials have not yet applied for a certificate of occupancy for the upper floors, which sustained most of the fire damage.

Harper Square Co-Operative president Arthur Slater told WGN News in a phone interview that he hopes to hand out keys to residents on Monday, Nov. 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 WGN-TV.
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI)  King tides are expected to return to San Diegos coastline this weekend, thanks to the gravitational forces of the moon and sun.

What causes this cosmic phenomenon?

Put simply, king tides are a result of how far away the sun, moon and Earth are positioned from each other.

As explained by officials with Sea Grant California, the moons pull is about twice as strong as the that of the sun, which is why Fridays full moon comes into play. Also known as the Beaver Moon, its the fourth and final supermoon of year. It will look bigger and brighter than usual as it comes within about 225,000 miles of Earth.

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Another rare doomsday fish discovered in San Diego County

A full moon occurs when the Earth, moon and sun are near alignment, with the Earth being located between the moon and sun. This alignment causes an increase in the gravitational pull called spring tides.

Larger tidal events  king tides  occur when these spring tides occur at the same time as a perigee, or when the moon is in its closest position to Earth. This only happens about three or four times a year.

How long will king tides last?

Officials with Sea Grant California expect this round of king tides to occur on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings. During this timeframe, the king tides could sweep the Southern California seaboard with heights up to 7 feet  possibly more.

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As it stands Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAA) tide predictions show levels right under 7 feet for all three days, with Saturday predicted to have the greatest height. A graph of NOAA predictions can be viewed below:

Editors note: These predictions are for La Jolla; exact timing and height of the tide extremes will differ slightly as you move up and down the coast.

After this event passes, the next king tides, also the last occurrence of the year, are expected to return Dec. 13 through 15.

Loud booms may be heard across San Diego County: This is why

Where to check out king tides in San Diego

King tides provide an opportunity to get a glimpse of what our coast may look like as sea-level rises, explained Sea Grant California officials. The water level reached by an extreme high tide in current time could be the same water level of more frequent moderate tides in the future.

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Some areas the may be the best for viewing king tides in the morning hours, based on prior occurrences, includes Ocean Beach, Mission Beach, Del Mar, Cardiff State Beach, Oceanside, among other coastal locations.

King tides crash along the Oceanside Strand Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024, (Credit: Light and Magic Art)

Also keep in mind that the tides will later recede to extremely low levels, making the beaches more walkable and creating ample conditions for tide pooling. This is expected in the afternoon hours for each day.

The best spots to get a glimpse at uncovered ecosystems during low tide include Swamis State Beach, the Birch Aquarium area at Scripps, Dike Rock (found north of the Scripps Pier and La Jolla Shores Beach), as well as Sunset Cliffs Natural Reserve.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News.
HOUSTON COUNTY, Ala (WDHN)  A Kinsey man is behind bars facing a hefty bond after police claim he scammed his grandmother out of thousands.

Jail records show Jordan Glass was arrested on November 6 and charged with elderly abuse and neglect, financial exploitation of the elderly, and 56 counts of fraudulent use of a credit card.

According to Kinsey Police Chief Jim Mock, over several months, Glass stole over $8,000 from his grandmother after lying about having power of attorney over her.

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Chief Mock said that in October, the bedridden grandmother realized she had no money to pay her bills, so she contacted the Kinsey Police Department and began speaking with Sergeant Josh Waybright, who took the lead on the case.

The Chief said the woman went over every transaction and account with Sgt. Waybright during the investigation.

Her mind is pretty sharp, Chief Mock said.

Chief Mock told WDHN that after the grandmothers lights were turned off, several community members and churches stepped up to help pay her bills.

Police say investigators are working with the Houston County District Attorneys Office to have Glass pay restitution if he is found guilty.

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Glass is currently being held in the Houston County Jail on a $600,000 bond.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDHN - wdhn.com.
In the aftermath of the 2024 election, there has been much discussion about the potential public policy changes that may occur in President-elect Donald Trumps second administration.

Immigration, reproductive health access and economic plans are unsurprisingly big concerns at the moment, but Trump ally Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom Trump may turn to for health policy, has also brought a less-expected topic to the national spotlight: fluoride.

We dont need fluoride in our water, Kennedy said on NPRs Morning Edition the day after the election. Its a very bad way to deliver it into our systems.

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I think fluoride is on the way out, he told NBC News that same day.

But what exactly is fluoride? What does it do? And why are people like Kennedy calling for its removal from public water systems? We asked experts to break down the debate.

What is fluoride? Why is it in drinking water?

Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral that belongs to a group of chemical compounds containing the element fluorine, said Dr. Jarrett L. Manning, a dentist and founder of JLM Dental Studio. It exists in various forms: sodium fluoride, stannous fluoride and sodium monofluorophosphate.

Small amounts of fluoride are naturally present in soil, plants, water and certain foods, but its also added to drinking water and dental products due to its ability to strengthen tooth enamel and prevent cavities.

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Many communities add fluoride to public water supplies, a process known as water fluoridation, to improve oral health and help prevent tooth decay on a population level, Manning explained.

Basically, acid-producing bacteria grows in the mouth, which dissolves minerals on the surface of teeth and can lead to tooth decay, or cavities. Fluoride prevents and stops that bacterial growth and can even reverse early tooth decay, thus reducing the need for treatments, which can be painful and expensive.

Research over many years has shown that water fluoridation can significantly reduce the incidence of cavities in both children and adults, regardless of access to dental care, said Dr. Cheryline Pezzullo, a clinical associate professor and director of community-based programs at New York Universitys College of Dentistry. By adding small, safe amounts of fluoride to the water supply, communities can reduce tooth decay across the board, particularly benefiting those who may not have regular access to dental care.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first city to fluoridate its public water supply, in 1945, and a decade later, the rate of cavities in local children had fallen 60% to 65%. Researchers reported similar findings among both kids and adults as more communities adopted fluoridation in the subsequent decades.

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Today, more than 60% of the U.S. population receives fluoridated water.

The American Dental Association has long been a proponent of water fluoridation since its introduction and study, said cosmetic dentist Dr. Amanda Lewis.

Other public health groups, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), similarly support this practice due to its benefits to oral and overall health. Preventing tooth decay lowers the need for treatments such as tooth extractions and fillings, and if left untreated, cavities can lead to serious abscesses, infections and even sepsis.

The Public Health Service recommends a concentration of 0.7 milligram of fluoride per liter of water in community systems, which the CDC equates to about three drops of water in a 55-gallon barrel. Communities that already have naturally higher levels of fluoride do not need fluoridation.

Whats the controversy?

The controversy around fluoride in water often centers on questions about health risks, personal choice and concerns about overexposure, Pezzullo said. Although I do not agree, some argue that fluoride  even in small amounts  could have potential health risks and question the ethics of adding it to public water supplies.

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In recent years, communities across the U.S. have voted to stop fluoridating their water systems. Many experts believe that the anti-fluoridation movement gained more traction amid the growing mistrust of public health authorities and government overall during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some people feel that adding fluoride to public water supplies violates their right to choose what goes into their bodies, Manning noted.

In September, a federal judge in California ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency must strengthen regulations around water fluoridation to address concerns about potential health risks, particularly with regard to childrens cognitive development.

Theres skepticism from certain groups about the long-term effects, despite decades of research showing its safety and effectiveness when used correctly, Pezzullo said. Additionally, misinformation and conflicting studies have created more confusion and lead to more public debate.

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Many skeptics point to a review from the National Toxicology Program, which concluded with moderate confidence that there is an association between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in children.

But that analysis is primarily based on studies conducted in other countries and involving fluoride concentrations of 1.5 milligrams per liter of water and above  which is more than double the recommended limit for drinking water in the U.S.

More studies are needed to fully understand the potential for lower fluoride exposure to affect childrens IQ, the organization stated in its report.

The AAP has also expressed concerns about the limitations of the NTPs review, including the high fluoride levels but also the geographic heterogeneity of the study populations, which hinders the ability to account for other factors that might affect IQ and assess whether the data is accurate, comparable, or generalizable. The organization noted that similar reviews from other groups have reached different conclusions and that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine rejected two earlier drafts of the report.

Nico De Pasquale Photography via Getty Images

Tewodros R. Godebo, an assistant professor at the Tulane University Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine who studies fluoride, told HuffPost theres still a shortage of research on public water fluoridation in the U.S.

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Before we make a policy decision to remove fluoride from U.S. public water supply systems, we need to get some questions answered, he said. We need more studies in the U.S. if we are going to make policy here, and the science is not yet consistent enough to make a decision.

He pointed to the lack of data on fluoridations effect on adults and the inconsistent conclusions about any potential association between fluoride in developed countries community water systems and childrens cognitive development.

If we find there is some association between IQ points and low fluoride exposure, then the next critical step would be to do a risk-benefit analysis because there is a benefit to water fluoridation in terms of dental health, Godebo said.

What would be the cost in terms of treating dental decay and associated diseases because its linked to our overall health and things like heart disease. What would the total IQ loss be in a child  would it be one point? Then is our first step to reduce water fluoridation? Do we cut that 0.7 in half? This decision has to be based on strong science.

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These decisions might also have to vary on the local level in accordance with area-based data, which will likely differ across the U.S. Many fluoride studies are also limited by the challenge of accounting for other sources of fluoride exposure beyond water supply systems.

Critics have argued that adding fluoride to drinking water may no longer be as effective as it was when the practice first began due to the increased use of fluoride toothpaste over time. Some point to the large number of countries that do not fluoridate their public water but have still seen reductions in tooth decay. Future data from the American communities that have removed fluoride from their systems will presumably provide more clarity.

Meanwhile, misleading claims about fluorides potential harms have gained momentum. On Nov. 2, Kennedy asserted in a social media post that the mineral is associated with thyroid disease, arthritis and bone-related issues such as bone cancer and bone fractures.

Medical experts have responded by emphasizing the lack of rigorous U.S.-based research linking fluoride to thyroid disease and arthritis. As for bone health, repeated fluoride exposure above the recommended level can lead to skeletal fluorosis, which causes weakened bones, joint pain and stiffness, but that condition is extremely rare in the U.S.

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Excessive fluoride exposure in children whose permanent teeth are still developing (usually up to the age of 8) can result in a cosmetic condition called dental fluorosis, which gives the teeth white spots, flecks or lines but does not cause pain or impair tooth function.

To address concerns about dental fluorosis, the U.S. government amended its recommendations on public water fluoridation in 2015. Though the previous guidance recommended 0.7 milligram per liter in warmer climates and 1.2 milligrams in cooler places, the standard became 0.7 everywhere.

Similarly, the ADA recommends very small amounts of fluoride toothpaste for young children to limit excess ingestion and prevent dental fluorosis.

Heres what you should know if youre concerned about fluoride in water.

Headlines can be alarming, so if youre feeling overwhelmed by the fluoride debate taking place online and in the news, talk to your doctor, your dentist or your childs pediatrician.

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For those who are new to the topic, its helpful to know that fluoride has been safely added to water supplies across many parts of the world since the 1940s, with a significant decrease in cavities as a result, Pezzullo said.

She emphasized that fluoride levels in public drinking water are carefully regulated and monitored.

While its good to be cautious, substantial amounts of scientific research have shown that fluoride at these regulated levels is safe and does not cause harm, Pezzullo explained. I give fluoridated water to my own toddler and brush his teeth with fluoridated toothpaste! I can always tell when a child is not exposed to fluoride when they sit in my chair as they always have more cavities than they should.

Water fluoridation is a simple but powerful health measure that has been particularly beneficial for children and communities with limited access to dental care, she added. As a dentist, I see the difference fluoride makes every day, especially in vulnerable populations.

Assessing the relative benefits and risks of water fluoridation is crucial for making policy decisions at the government level and personal choices on an individual level.

Although the data has not been conclusive, preliminary research suggests that fluoride exposure during pregnancy could potentially lead to neurobehavioral issues in children. Experts who have studied this possible link are notably not calling for an end to water fluoridation, but they have suggested that pregnant women might want to opt for filtered water.

Those who prefer to avoid fluoride can choose to use fluoride-free dental products or install home water filters that remove fluoride, Manning said. There are alternatives to fluoride and complementary approaches for maintaining strong teeth and good oral health. Some of those alternatives are xylitol, hydroxyapatite and recaldent, just to name a few.

Lewis similarly advised reading the labels on your dental products if you want to cut down on your fluoride intake while opting for toothpastes and mouth rinses with other decay-preventing ingredients. She noted that the time and manner in which we eat, sleep and breath can also affect our oral health and thus overall health and wellness.

If you live in a city with fluoride, exposure will be inevitable, Lewis said, listing sources like washed produce, showers and restaurant coffee, tea and water. You can filter your water at home or purchase filtered water from a number of locations, but it is unlikely that you can completely eliminate your exposure.

Its worth reiterating, however, that there has not been sufficient data to determine if the 0.7 milligram fluoride standard in the U.S. is linked to the health concerns critics have raised.

And although Kennedy believes that the Trump administration will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water on the day the president-elect assumes office, the federal government ultimately cannot decide whether a community fluoridates its water supply. That decision remains at the state and local level.

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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO)  The streets were soggy in Sioux Falls Wednesday, but its time to prepare for when they turn snowy.

When winter weather hits, Sioux Falls city crews will be out with sander trucks and plows.

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Depending on the conditions, the city may call a snow alert, which is curb-to-curb plowing on all public streets.

Its typically that average of around 3-4 inches of snow well really start to think about calling a snow alert, but potentially we could have back-to-back events where we have 2 inches, 2 inches, and that third event we might have another inch or so, we might actually call on there, Sioux Falls Street Operations Manager Dustin Hansen said.

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If a snow alert is called, make sure youre not parked on the street when crews are working in your neighborhood.

We immediately ticket and tow on emergency snow routes. Theres no leeway on that. On the secondary routes we initially ticket and that gives them a little bit of an opportunity to get off the roadway, but then eventually we do circle back around and begin towing, Sioux Falls Police Lt. Andrew Siebenborn said.

Its also important to keep the sidewalks clear of snow and ice.

And dont forget about the curb ramps.

Property owners have 48 hours after the snow stops to get to work.

Many people in our community utilize public sidewalks for their main source of transportation. Its pretty easy to jump in your car, but think about the people who walk to and from work every day, maybe walk the dog after work to get some exercise, Sioux Falls Property Maintenance Inspections Manager Justin Christensen said.

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Be sure to clear the snow around fire hydrants and create a path to your mailbox too.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com.
(NewsNation)  South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noems nomination to lead the Department of Homeland Security is drawing attention to her border security experience despite her states distance from the southern border.

Noem has been a consistent ally to GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbotts border initiatives since July 2021, deploying South Dakota resources, including engineering units, to assist with border wall construction.

Weve been down here helping Texas build border [barriers]. Its working. Its keeping illegals out where were able to get it up, Noem said during a visit to the Del Rio Sector in May. We think that our country is in danger because we have seen these cartels move.

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Donald Trumps new administration: Who has he chosen so far?

Abbott endorsed Noems appointment on social media, calling her a border hawk who has worked alongside him to secure the Texas border.

Local law enforcement officials along the southern border have praised Noems engagement, noting her understanding of how the border crisis affects landowners and communities. The appointment comes as the Texas Department of Public Safety conducts mass migration response exercises at key border locations.

Noem was previously floated as a possible running mate for Trump, but her consideration fizzled after the release of her autobiography, in which she described having killed a dog that was untrainable.

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Instead, the Republican governor is tapped to lead the sprawling agency tasked with protecting the U.S. from terror threats, securing the borders and enforcing U.S. immigration law. Trump has also tasked DHS with carrying out the largest deportation operation in American history.

The pick of Noem is the latest sign of Trumps intention to take a hard line on immigration policy, with an agenda he has said will represent the largest deportation in U.S. history.

What is Elon Musks plan for DOGE?

If confirmed, Noem would work closely with Stephen Miller, whom Trump tapped to serve as his deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller was instrumental in shaping many of Trumps toughest immigration policies in his first term.

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With former ICE Director Tom Homan named as border czar, Border Patrol agents expect him to handle day-to-day border operations while Noem oversees broader DHS responsibilities, including the Secret Service and FEMA.

Hes picking someone thats on the team thats intelligent and could get the job done, said Art Del Cueto, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council. Im not upset but it was surprising because I hadnt heard her name.

Noem also supported Trumps Muslim travel ban while serving as a member of Congress and also supported pausing some refugee screening.

How often does the US see a unified government?

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I share the Presidents concerns about our ability to screen refugeesespecially those from terrorist hotbed areas, Noem said in 2017. I support putting a temporary pause on accepting refugees from terrorist-held areasat least until the administration can certify that asylum-seekers do not present a safety threat to the U.S.

The nomination comes as the House Homeland Security Committee prepares for a hearing next week featuring current DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, focusing on global threats and potential impeachment. Mayorkas was previously impeached by the House but not convicted by the Senate.

NewsNation partner The Hill contributed to this report.

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA)  Ozarks ri-Majel, a new multimedia series by KUAF Public Radios Listening Lab and the Marshallese Educational Initiative (MEI), highlights 30 years of Marshallese migration and community building in the Arkansas Ozarks.

The Ozarks ri-Majel logo, co-created by KUAFs Listening Lab, features an ancient Marshallese stick chart within Arkansass borders, symbolizing the Marshallese communitys journey and connection to their Pacific heritage.

The series explores the histories and experiences of the Marshallese community in Northwest Arkansas, directed and produced with support from KUAF reporters in collaboration with the Springdale-based nonprofit MEI, according to a news release.

The series producer, Jacqueline Froelich, has covered the Marshallese diaspora for over two decades on KUAF and NPR.

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According to Froelich, Ozarks ri-Majel aims to shed light on the reasons behind the migration of thousands of Marshallese to Northwest Arkansas.

Arkansas governor appoints new prosecutor for Washington, Madison counties

Many Arkansans have no idea why thousands of people from the Republic of the Marshall Islands are leaving their beautiful island nation to settle here, Froelich told KNWA. Their indigenous ancestors lived sustainably for millenniabut that all changed after colonization and U.S. military occupation, which included a decade of devastating Cold War nuclear testing. Today, Marshall Islanders continue to reckon with those consequences, alongside the challenges of rising seas due to climate change.

Episode 1: First Arrival

The series opens with First Arrival, featuring Carmen Samual Chong Gum, Arkansass first Consul General for the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Chong Gum reflects on the early waves of Marshallese migration to the region. Episode 2: Nuclear Bombs and Rising Seas

In this episode, Benetick Kabua Maddison, director of MEI, discusses the enduring impacts of Cold War nuclear testing and climate change. Known globally for his advocacy on behalf of the Marshallese, Maddison shares insights into the challenges that continue to affect the community. Episode 3: Tending to Ozarks ri-Majel Health

Marshallese physician Sheldon Riklon speaks on healthcare challenges linked to historical colonization and radiation exposure. Now at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest and Springdales Community Clinic, Riklon has been involved in Marshallese healthcare since 2016. Episode 4: Cultural Performances and Music

The fourth episode features a studio performance by the band MARK Harmony. With reggae-inspired music, the band promotes Marshallese culture and raises awareness of its heritage and contemporary issues. Episode 5: Indigenous Heritage

The final episode delves into the cultural heritage of the Marshallese, highlighting traditions that predate colonization and showcasing the resilience of their culture.

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To view all episodes, click here.

The series is co-hosted by Marcina Langrine of MEI and Dr. April Brown, MEI cofounder and operations chief, as well as a history professor at Northwest Arkansas Community College.

Springdale teacher recognized by Arvest Bank

New episodes of Ozarks ri-Majel will be available every Friday through December on KUAFs Listening Lab portal, with select segments airing on Ozarks at Large, KUAFs news magazine.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KNWA FOX24.
As calls grow for the Menendez brothers to be released from prison, the incoming Los Angeles County district attorney says he has a lot of evidence to review before showing his support.

Nathan Hochman won last week's election for DA, beating incumbent George Gascon in a landslide, will take office in December. The election came weeks after Gascon announced his recommendation that the Menendez brothers be resentenced and eligible for parole immediately.

Hochman questioned the motivation behind Gascon's decision to support resentencing so close to the election.

PHOTO: Nathan Hochman speaks at the KNX News 97.1 FM and The Los Angeles Times District Attorney debate between incumbent George Gascon and challenger Nathan Hochman, Oct. 8, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

MORE: What's next for the Menendez brothers? A look at their life in prison, 3 paths to freedom

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"Part of the problem with the Gascon timing of his decision is there's a cloud over that credibility. Is it a just decision, or was it just a political ploy?" Hochman said.

"There will be no cloud over whatever decision I do," he added.

Gascon denied his decision was politically motivated, telling ABC News, "I believe that they should be released and they should be released cleanly within the law."

PHOTO: In these booking photos taken Oct. 10, 2024, Erik and Lyle Menendez are shown. (CRDC)

"I base my decision in the review of 30 years of ... information about their behavior, as well as a very thorough understanding of what they were convicted of and the elements of the crime," Gascon said. "So my decision was appropriately based."

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The infamous case dates back to 1989, when Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, shot and killed their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in the family's Beverly Hills home. The defense claimed the brothers acted in self-defense after enduring years of sexual abuse by their father, but prosecutors alleged they killed for money.

The first trial, which had separate juries for each brother, ended in mistrials. In 1996, after the second trial -- during which the judge barred much of the sex abuse evidence -- the brothers were convicted and both sentenced to two consecutive terms of life without parole.

PHOTO: Erik Menendez with his attorney Leslie Abramson and his brother Lyle Menendez in Los Angeles, March 9, 1994. (Ted Soqui/Sygma via Getty Images)

As Gascon's appeal for the brothers' resentencing makes its way through the courts, Hochman -- who is set to take office on Dec. 2 -- said he plans to read through the new alleged evidence, trial transcripts, confidential prison files and interviews with family, lawyers and law enforcement.

"What these files say is too important an issue to delegate to somebody else. I need to actually do the work myself," he told ABC News.

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MORE: Menendez brothers latest: LA DA to petition Gov. Newsom for clemency

The next hearing in the resentencing case is Dec. 11. Hochman, a former federal prosecutor, said he'll "work as expeditiously as possible," adding, "If we need some additional time to formulate our position, I'll ask the court for it."

"I'm not going to ask for delay, just for delay's sake," he added. "We'll ask for the minimal amount of time necessary to do this work, because we owe it to the Menendez brothers, we owe it to the victim family members, we owe it to the public to get this decision right."

PHOTO: Erik Menendez, left, and is brother Lyle, in front of their Beverly Hills home, Nov. 30, 1989 . (Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

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The brothers' case was propelled back into the spotlight this fall with Netflix's release of a scripted series and a documentary -- and now a new generation is calling for their release.

"If you decide this case based on just reviewing a Netflix documentary, you're doing a disservice to the Menendez brothers, to the victims' family members, to the public," Hochman said.

MORE: Menendez brothers latest: LA district attorney recommends resentencing

The Menendez brothers have three possible paths to freedom.

One path is through resentencing. Gascon announced last month that he was recommending the brothers' sentence of life without the possibility of parole be removed, and they should instead be sentenced for murder, which would be a sentence of 50 years to life. Because both brothers were under 26 at the time of the crimes, with the new sentence, they would be eligible for parole immediately, Gascon said.

PHOTO: Erik Menendez and his brother Lyle (R) listen during a pre-trial hearing, Dec. 29, 1992, in Los Angeles after the two pleaded innocent in the August 1989 shotgun deaths of their parents, Jose and Mary Louise Menendez. (Vince Bucci/AFP via Getty Images)

The DA's office said its resentencing recommendations take into account factors including the defendants' ages, psychological trauma or physical abuse that contributed to carrying out the crime and their rehabilitation in prison. Gascon praised the work Lyle and Erik Menendez did behind bars to rehabilitate themselves and help other inmates.

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The second path is the brothers' request for clemency, which they submitted to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

On Nov. 18, the governor in a statement explained that he would not be honoring that request directly, because he "respects the role of the District Attorney in ensuring justice is served."

Additionally, he wrote that he "recognizes that voters have entrusted District Attorney-elect Hochman to carry out this responsibility" and therefore would "defer to the DA-elects review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions.

The third path is their habeas corpus petition, which was filed last year for a review of new evidence not presented at trial.

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One piece of evidence is allegations from a former boy band member who revealed last year that he was raped by Jose Menendez.

The second piece of evidence is a letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin eight months before the murders detailing his alleged abuse. The cousin testified about the alleged abuse at trial, but the letter -- which would have corroborated the cousin's testimony -- wasn't found until several years ago, according to the brothers' attorney.

The next hearing on the habeas corpus petition is set for Nov. 25.

ABC News' Alex Stone, Jenna Harrison and Ashley Riegle contributed to this report.

New LA DA Nathan Hochman speaks out on Menendez brothers' fight for freedom originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
STAFFORD, CT  Johnson Memorial Hospital will be allowed to keep its labor and delivery center closed but must now fund a study by an independent group to explore a stand-alone outpatient service option.

That study will determine if the out-patient facility is feasible or that it can't be done. The latter would force the hospital to go back to in-patient offerings.

The decision angered at least one lawmaker  State Sen. Jeff Gordon  who said he was "not happy at all with the process and outcome."

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The Connecticut Office of Health Strategy Thursday said that it has reached an agreement with JMH and parent Trinity Health designed to "prioritize maternal and infant health and study the need for a new birthing center in the hospital's service area." The OHS issued a "proposed" final decision in January denying the hospitals certificate of need application requesting to terminate labor and delivery services. Johnson Memorial Hospital opposed that proposed decision and OHS heard oral arguments on the matter in March.

OHS officials said they have "worked collaboratively with" officials from Johnson Memorial Hospital and Trinity Health of New England since March to reach an agreement regarding labor and delivery services.

Here's the summary offered by OHS Commissioner Deidre Gifford:

"We are committed to prioritizing appropriate community access to high quality, affordable maternal and infant health services. This agreement permits termination of labor and delivery services at the hospital but holds Johnson Memorial Hospital accountable to the community they serve and to the state of Connecticut for maintaining access to all levels of maternal and infant health care. If an independent analysis indicates that a free-standing birthing center in the area is viable, then Johnson Memorial will need to ensure that one is built.

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The agreed settlement requires the hospital to take several additional measures to "ensure access to labor and delivery services and maintain prenatal and post-partum care in the community." The agreement requires JMH to:

Engage an independent third party to assess the need for and feasibility of establishing a birthing center in the hospitals service area

Support the establishment of a birthing center and coordination of care with that center, should those services be identified as needed and feasible

Maintain all prenatal, postpartum and wraparound services and staffing levels currently provided by the hospital including lactation consulting and patient and infant wellness, as well as provide support with access to supplemental resources including SNAP/WIC and the Diaper Bank

Advise all pregnant patients in the hospitals service area of the birthing options available to them

Provide emergent and non-emergent transportation to "any birthing person and their support person" to any hospital of their choosing with a 50-mile radius for labor and delivery services at no cost to the patient or support person

Provide emergency deliveries in the Johnson Memorial Hospital Emergency Department when necessary

Support continued recruitment and professional development of certified nurse midwives in outpatient venues and commit to establishing a doula training and certification program should the Department of Public Health establish criteria for the certification of doulas in the next five years

Support the establishment of a birthing center and coordination of care with that center should those services be identified as needed and feasible

The agreement also requires Johnson Memorial Hospital to report aggregate data on outpatient prenatal services and pregnant patients presenting at the hospital in active labor annually and maintain a community member representing the interests of women on a Community Advisory Council.

Said Gordon, "I was made aware today on short notice of OHS's negotiated settlement agreement with Johnson Memorial Hospital about not re-opening inpatient labor and delivery. I am reading through the detailed agreement that was just made public. I have spoken with Dr. Gifford of OHS. I am reaching out to town officials, fellow legislators, and the hospital leadership.

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"As a doctor and state senator, I've fought to preserve Johnson Memorial Hospitals labor and delivery services in our region. These services are vital to expectant mothers and families who cannot otherwise access this care or easily be transported elsewhere in emergencies. These were key points of concern that I previously raised. I am disappointed by the negotiated settlement and that the public, town officials, and legislators were not included in the decision-making process.

"I will continue to do what I can to ensure that appropriate and timely services are provided, including what must be done to bring about a standalone birthing center in the region per the settlement agreement, or if the hospital must re-open labor and delivery if a birthing center cannot be created."



The JMH closing is just the latest blow to those expecting in the region. Windham Hospital stopped servicing births in 2020 and, a decade earlier, a state-of-the-art and practically new birthing center was closed at Rockville General Hospital.

Said state Rep. Tammy Niccio:

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"The closure of Johnson Memorial Hospital's labor and delivery unit is a massive loss to families

in our community, especially in rural areas where access to essential healthcare is already

limited. This decision prioritizes cost-cutting over the well-being of expectant mothers

and newborns who will now have to drive farther to receive critical care at the most important

time. And I would really like to know, why was an agreement that will create a void in patient

services finalized without input from lawmakers, outside health experts, or the public, who will

be impacted by this decision? We have to continue to fight to preserve access to these critical

services, ensuring families in our towns can receive the quality care they need close to home and

I have multiple questions about how this agreement was reached."

The full agreement with Trinity and JMH has been posted to the Office of Health Strategy Certificate of Need Portal under docket number 22-32612-CON.



According to the OHS, Johnson Memorial Hospital separately faces a civil penalty (under docket 21-32486-CON). The OHS issued the Notice of Civil Penalty on June 29, 2022 citing the hospital's failure to resume labor and delivery services, despite the expiration of a temporary waiver granted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The OHS issued a proposed final decision for a civil penalty of $153,000 on Feb. 14, 2024, and heard oral argument from Johnson Memorial Hospital on May 29, 2024. The Civil Penalty docket is still pending, and the agreed settlement does not alter the status of that docket, according to the OHS.

Labor And Delivery Center At Johnson Memorial Hospital To Stay Closed originally appeared on the Stafford-Willington Patch
On a sunny November day like this, crisp, clear and gently autumnal, John Steele lives in what you might call a pastoral idyll. He walks us up the hills above his farm on Scout Moor, right on the border between Lancashire and the rural northern tip of Greater Manchester. Birds swoop across the glinting reservoir below. A pheasant proudly stands on top of a dry stone wall, seeming to contemplate the spectacular view extending right across the Pennines and the distant Peak District. And, all the while, the constant soundtrack is the steady swoosh and hum of the wind turbines that pockmark this remarkable landscape.

Scout Moor is already home to the second largest onshore wind farm in England, its 26 wind turbines exporting electricity to the National Grid since 2008. And now, after the Labour government lifted the de facto ban on new onshore wind farms, the prospect of Scout Moor II is back on this unique horizon. It would make this beautiful moorland site the largest onshore wind farm in the country.

How many more 180m turbines will be needed to make this development power the 100,000 homes its developers Cubico are promising remains to be seen. They say up to 21. One thing is for sure, Steele doesnt know what it will mean for the place he loves.

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I can understand that therell be opposition to the plans, he begins with a sigh. People dont like change.

Scout Moor farmer John Steele: It smacks of one rule for one, and one rule for everyone else - Lorne Campbell

There certainly was opposition last time; a 2015 proposal to expand the number of turbines to 42 was supported by Rossendale and Rochdale Councils but caused uproar in local communities and was refused by the then secretary of state following a public inquiry. Since those decisions, it was effectively impossible to get an onshore wind project through planning  one public objection could scupper a proposal. There have been no large-scale onshore wind farm proposals since, even after Michael Gove attempted to lift some of the restrictions last year after backbench Conservatives raised concerns.

Steele isnt completely opposed to wind turbines himself. Indeed, he wanted to install a single, nine-metre turbine on his land to generate his own electricity.

But it was thrown out at the planning stage on the grounds that it was too high!

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You can forgive Steele, then, for being cynical about these plans.



At the end of the day, the company will do what they want, and we wont have any choice. We hear this company is talking about 21 wind turbines  it smacks of one rule for one, and one rule for everyone else.

And that sense of Scout Moor II being imposed on this community rather than complementing it is very apparent back down the hill in Edenfield. The tops of the existing Scout Moor wind turbines are dotted along its skyline here; walk down the market street in this small Lancashire village, past the bakers, butchers and excellent community cafe The Drop Off, and you cant miss them.

Under the current plans, residents may not really notice any more turbines  the visual impact should largely be over the hill, on the slopes on the other side of Scout Moor in Whitworth, where the Conservative leader of Rossendales Councils opposition Scott Smith resides. In fact, in Edenfield, the traffic to the quarry access road needed to get the turbines up to one of the windiest parts of England is likely to be the bigger problem.

Under new proposals, Scout Moor will become the largest wind farm in the UK - Alamy

Still, at Edenfields local community centre, where the first Scout Moor II consultation is taking place, parishioners are out in force  and passions are running high. Geoff Rigby from nearby Turn Village is chairman of its Residents Association, representing around 100 households. He led opposition to the Scout Moor extension in 2015 and says the experience is still raw.

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Weve been shafted once with 26 turbines, which I live very close to, and I was never consulted about them. So here theres going to be a lot of cynicism amongst people who are going to have to be persuaded, says Rigby.

Back then, we were extremely lucky that we had a Tory Government and could force an enquiry and reach the Inspector.

Frankly I think its a stitch-up. Weve now got a Labour Government and a Labour Council, and our council will simply do anything for money.

The Scout Moor II proposals certainly try hard to make their case. They promise to keep turbines at least a kilometre from any residential building, providing homegrown energy that lowers bills, enhances energy security, and advances the UKs transition to a clean energy economy. The website also talks of a long-term moorland restoration scheme to enhance biodiversity, and a 20m Community Wealth Fund managed locally to ensure the community benefits.

Geoff Rigby: Weve been shafted once with 26 turbines - Lorne Campbell

I like the words, theyre all good and theyve tried to counter every single one of the Inspectors criticisms, says Rigby. Do I believe it though? Not at this point because weve been treated extremely poorly historically.

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Unfortunately, this area has a very poor reputation for people coming and doing the opposite of what they say theyre going to do.

Ive definitely got more questions than answers.

Rob Tate, head of development for Cubico UK, seems to understand, at least, that there will be different views in these close-knit communities.



Its still very early days in terms of what our proposals are and were very keen to get the local communitys view about how these proposals can evolve over the coming months, he says.

All the ideas generated by the community will be listened to and taken back and where we can, and where its feasible to do so, well try and feed them into the design process.

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And its the where its feasible to do so that is the sticking point. When some parts of the local community clearly dont believe in the design and planning process, what say do they really have?

Rob Tate (left and Peter Rowe (right) both work for Cubico and are attempting to persuade residents on Scout Moor II - Lorne Campbell

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Labour councillor Nick Harris, executive member for economic development at Rossendale Borough says that as an administration, were taking the position of a cautious welcome to the proposals, but admits they havent actually seen the actual turbine locations or the environmental impact assessment.

Meanwhile, Smith says: We all understand the need for clean energy and associated infrastructure but there needs to be full and meaningful consultation on a project of this scale.

Its also of the utmost importance that everything possible is done to minimise the impact of any project on our communities, both as work takes place and in the following years.

As this process begins, we encourage residents across the valley to engage with the consultation, and to contact their councillors to have their say.

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So itll be fascinating to see what the planning application actually consists of when it is made in spring 2025  and who will stand up for the communities it affects. Its likely to be the test case for a whole host of other onshore windfarm projects in England  reports have suggested that at least six major energy companies are prospecting for windfarms and readying proposals of their own.

Peter Rowe, development manager for Cubico UK, tries to reassure everyone at Edenfield Community Centre that they will be listened to.

Were still doing a lot of surveys up on the moor, he says. Alongside all the feedback from the consultation and the ongoing technical works, we can then start to refine down what the final scheme looks like.

The mixture of resentment towards the local government and powerless amongst the residents have fueled antagonism towards the wind farm - Getty

But who will it actually benefit? The 100,000 homes powered in Greater Manchester, or the people who live here? Doubling onshore wind capacity to 30GW by 2030 as the Labour government wants to do, is going to require 22,000 wind turbines across England  or 11,000 more in just six years.

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Rowe seems to appreciate the bigger picture.

Well, on a macro level. youve got the contribution itll make in terms of clean energy, he says.

On a local level, were talking about a Community Wealth Fund of around 500,000 per annum for the lifetime of the project, and were liaising with residents about how and where this could be deployed for the best possible benefit.

Were also proposing a moorland restoration scheme. A lot of the moorland up there isnt at the level of quality youd expect it to be, so the wind farm can deliver that restoration project to ensure that all the peat can store more carbon, reduce flood risk, and promote biodiversity.

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The problem is, the experience of nearly 20 years of wind turbine consultations in this area means many people simply dont believe him. Its this cocktail of apathy about local government and powerlessness which is driving the criticism  not necessarily the visual impact of the turbines themselves.

Local resident Mark Greenwood is walking across Scout Moor. He stops and points at the turbine that he passes by on every one of his regular moorland walks. Look, Id prefer it not to be here, he sighs. But I suppose its a necessary part of progression.

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A Lacey couple is accused of trying to kidnap their daughter and kill her for refusing an arranged marriage, according to court documents filed in Thurston County.

On Oct. 18, multiple people called 911 to report seeing a man choking a girl outside Timberline High School. Prosecutors say he was later identified as Ihsan Ali, her father.

According to the court documents, the teens boyfriend tried to intervene but was also assaulted.

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Several witnesses told law enforcement that the teens mother, Zahraa Subhi Mohsin Ali, came up and grabbed her from behind.

While she was in a headlock, the documents state the teen was knocked out and that she wasnt sure how long she lost consciousness.

The school was placed in a precautionary lockdown.

Court documents state that the teen reported abuse by her parents before and that they disciplined her for transgressions like not making tea for them.

According to prosecutors, the girl told investigators shed run away because her parents had planned to send her to Iraq to marry an older man and had threatened to kill her.

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Prosecutors said she went to the school, where she used to be a student, to find a safe place to stay and her parents followed her.

Prosecutors charged Ihsan Ali, the girls father, with attempted murder, attempted kidnapping, and assault.

Her mother, Zahraa Ali has been charged with attempted murder, attempted kidnapping, assault, burglary, and violating a protection order.

A trial is tentatively set for Dec. 30.
WICHITA, KanThe Missouri State Lady Bears are hitting the road for the next six games.

It started Wednesday night, and yes Dorothy they are in Kansas.

Beth Cunninghams Lady Bears squaring off with Wichita State.

In our Bear Nation report, its the 90th meeting between these two former conference rivals.

And there was no love loss between the Shockers and Lady Bears over the years.

Wednesday night, MoState was back in the Sunflower State for the first time in six years.

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The Lady Bears built a big lead by outscoring the Shockers 24-9 in the second quarter.

But Wichita battled back in the third quarter, and it was a two point MoState lead going into the fourth.

In that final frame, Kiley Bess and Kaemyn Bekemeier kept the Lady Bears in front.

And Missouri State wins 82-77.

MoState had six players in double figures led by Kyrah Daniels 16.

Bess, a transfer from Indiana State, had 11 and Bekemeier 13.

The Lady Bears go to Tennessee Martin next Tuesday.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOLR - OzarksFirst.com.
LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY)  Lafayette firefighters rescued several people who were trapped in their homes and vehicles because of flash floods Wednesday morning.

Lafayette is no stranger when it comes to high waters. This is why first responders want to remind people to use caution whenever they see flood waters.

Alton Trahan, with the Lafayette Fire Department, said the department received more than 20 calls Wednesday about citizens trapped in their vehicles and homes as well as others who were concerned about the quickly rising water.

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Wednesday morning floods in Lafayette prevent motorists from getting to work

Trahan said always call 911 if you are trapped in flood waters. He said first responders are trained in high-water rescues.

First responders, be it the fire department or law enforcement, have certain training to go into, you know, flooding conditions. Plus, we have all the tools, you know, thats needed so then we can go into the high water area. And if its too high, then we have those small little boats where we can transport someone out of the high water into higher ground, he said.

Lafayette Parish School System gets final recommendations for school closures

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He said low-lying areas are prone to flooding like in Scott, Carancro, and even on Ambassador Caffery Parkway.

If you are driving and are unsure how deep the water may be, it is better to be safe than sorry and not drive through it.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLFY.com.
LAKELAND, Fla. (WFLA)  Every floor in the house is gone. That water came in so hard it blew my floors out, said James Lennon, who lives in Bonny Shores mobile home park. I just put the plywood so I wouldnt fall through.

Lennon has lakefront property but for the weeks after Hurricane Milton, it was in-the-lake property.

The water receded from residential areas around Lake Bonny in Lakeland this week, which allowed Lennon to get back inside.

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Several rooms and outdoor areas have water damage.

This is a bedroom and the floors are totally gone and it went up on the walls and stuff, he said.

Lennon, like many people who have spoken to News Channel 8, does not have flood insurance because their neighborhood is not considered a flood zone.

FEMAs been a nightmare. Took me three times to fill it out, he said.

Across the street, parts of Lisa Houstons home, including her husbands man cave, filled with water.

Houston is in the same predicament as Lennon.

Its just a matter of waiting on FEMA and seeing if we can get some help because we dont have flood insurance, she said.

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Residents said they voiced concerns about Lake Bonnys high levels since the summer.

City officials said they began pumping water out of Lake Bonny on Aug. 5th.

Its been operating continuously since August 5th with minimal downtime and the downtime only for maintenance and storm debris clearance, said Lakeland city manager Shawn Sherrouse during a recent meeting.

Residents doubt the pump worked properly.

In late October, after Hurricane Milton dropped 12 inches on Lakeland and low-lying areas around Lake Bonny flooded, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began pumping 19,500 gallons per minute out of the lake.

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The water has dropped 1.7 feet since Hurricane Milton hit.

A total removal of over 80 million gallons is needed to lower the lake by one foot, said Sherrouse.

Anyone who requires assistance from FEMA and would benefit from speaking with someone face-to-face can visit a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center.

It is located at W.H. Stuart Center at 1702 South Holland Parkway in Bartow and is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Sunday.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.
The Lake County Board of Elections and Registration Board reviewed more than 450 provisional ballots from the 2024 general election to determine whether the ballots should be accepted or rejected during its meeting Thursday.

There were 227 provisional ballots from early in-person and Election Day ballots, of which the board voted to accept 49 ballots and reject the rest. Some of the accepted ballots include voters who didnt bring their ID with them, contingent on the voters bringing their IDs to the election office by 12 p.m. Friday.

Other provisional ballots from early in-person and Election Day ballots that were accepted include instances of a voter in the work release program registering under the work release program, where he lived; poll worker or voting machine error; and a military mail-in ballot that was postmarked Oct. 28, which was ahead of the election.

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Half of the provisional ballots from early in-person and Election Day ballots that were denied  115 provisional ballots  were rejected because the voters had registration or address discrepancies.

The board also reviewed 34 provisional absentee mail-in ballots that were missing a signature, and eight of those were rejected and the remaining ballots accepted. Many of these ballots were people with special needs who have explained signature discrepancies because of their health conditions.

The board reviewed 192 provisional ballots that had signature discrepancies, of which 11 were rejected and the remaining ballots were accepted. While reviewing the ballots with signature discrepancies, the board approved the ballots the election office staff agreed, after review, that the signatures matched, and the remaining ballots were reviewed by the board members for final determination.

While reviewing the provisional ballots with signature discrepancies, Republican board member Michael Mellon voiced concern that in some cases the signatures the board members were comparing matched, but both signatures didnt match the voters registration signature.

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He made a motion that any of the ballots with signature discrepancies that were rejected do not get uploaded into the countys voter registration system as the new signature. Democratic board member Bob Tribble made another motion for staff to reach out to voters whose ballots were rejected because of signature discrepancies to update their signatures.

To explain to them that your signatures dont match. If your signature has changed, come in with an ID because we need to get your new signature into the system, Mellon said.

The board approved both motions.

akukulka@post-trib.com
Crime is trending down in Los Angeles, with homicides alone on track to fall 15% compared to last year, but newly sworn-in LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell is concerned that statistics aren't telling the full story.

Speaking ahead of the ceremony Thursday to mark his arrival as the city's 59th chief of police, McDonnell voiced concern about the perception of disorder  and the reality that crimes are going unreported because some believe nothing will be done to investigate.

McDonnell said he would rather see the city's crime numbers rise because it would give him a real picture of the problem and a better idea of what he must do to handle it.

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"Our officers and professional staff are working very hard to continue to drive those numbers down," he said. "But the perception of the public is based on a number of different things, and one of those things, I think, is that they would say reported crime is down because people don't have confidence that anything is going to be done."

That frankness is one factor that led Mayor Karen Bass to turn to McDonnell, 65, as the new chief.

Read more: Jim McDonnell sworn in as LAPD chief amid concerns over immigration enforcement

The son of Irish immigrants who still sounds like he never left Boston despite spending more than 40 years in Southern California, McDonnell previously served as L.A. County sheriff and chief of police in Long Beach. He began his career as an LAPD beat cop, climbing the ranks during the 1980s and 90s  an era when crime was off the charts compared to today.

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McDonnell said some citizens have begun hesitating to call the police in recent years because they haven't felt that anything "meaningful would be done."

He placed partial blame on prosecutors for not pressing charges in many low-level crimes  a policy that is expected to change next month when Nathan Hochman takes over as L.A. County district attorney, replacing the progressive incumbent George Gascon. State voters also passed Proposition 36, which will enact harsher penalties for certain types of thefts and drug crimes.

McDonnell said "encouraging people who are victims of crime to come forward and report that crime gives us a better ability to deploy resources and form strategies to deal with those issues."

He added: "It may drive up our crime numbers, but it gives us a more realistic picture of what we're dealing with."

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At Thursday's ceremony, Bass said the new chief has "already hit the ground running" with community meetings and efforts to evaluate the Los Angeles Police Department's needs.

I am very clear that my No. 1 job as mayor is to keep people safe, and that the only way to improve safety in Los Angeles is to make change," Bass said, adding that McDonnell is focused on "ensuring that our city is prepared for what is to come.

In his public remarks Thursday, McDonnell said his first 90 days on the job will be spent listening, evaluating and planning how to move forward.

Priority One is addressing crime, particularly violent and property crimes," he said.

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McDonnell listed his other priorities as transparency and accountability, addressing homelessness, improved emergency readiness, and "responsible adoption and use of technology with a steadfast commitment to privacy."

The chief also seemingly sought to quell concerns that the LAPD under his watch would be overly aggressive.

Let me be absolutely clear: Reducing crime and building trust are not separate goals," he said. "They are deeply intertwined. We must be true partners in the pursuit of justice, united by a shared commitment to safety and mutual respect.

Read more: Incoming LAPD chief's proposed salary cut after rare drama at Police Commission

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In comments prior to the speech, McDonnell expressed dismay at retailers closing stores in low-income areas, exacerbating food deserts. Underlying the issue, he said, is a "fear that crime is more prevalent," a perception fueled by viral videos of stores being robbed by large groups of teens.

"If you walk into retail establishments, everything you want is behind locked plastic cases, " McDonnell said. "Those are signs of dysfunction."

The first test of McDonnell's approach as chief is likely to be MacArthur Park, where crime, gang activity, homelessness and drug use have festered.

In 2003, during his previous stint with the LAPD, McDonnell helped clean up the park, but he concedes it's in "pretty desperate straits" today, calling it "a magnet for activity that has been detrimental to the neighborhood."

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"All of the players who have a stake in that area need to weigh in and be able to provide something on the way toward a solution," the chief said. If everybody jumps in, I think it could look markedly different in three to six months.

McDonnell said he is considering expanding programs where officers work with clinicians in mental health teams. He also supports efforts to have someone other than officers respond to incidents in which people are in crisis, although he noted funding for such initiatives remains limited.

Another challenge McDonnell faces is having enough officers to carry out his vision. In the 15 years he has been away from the LAPD, the department's ranks have dropped from nearly 10,000 to 8,800.

A recent class at the academy numbered just 23  less than half the enrollment during the years when McDonnell was last at the LAPD.

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"We have the ability to put 60 through each class, and we're not seeing close to that," he said, adding he hoped the department would soon streamline the hiring process.

McDonnell has years of organizational charts in his office, and the number of people on the commanders' chart has grown with more specialized responsibilities. He said he believed some restructuring is needed and there are too many "silos" operating separately. He floated the possibility of reassigning those in administrative roles to patrol, given the department's slimmed-down size.

Read more: LAPD 'SWAT mafia' trial set to begin; elite unit's leaders said to 'glamorize' killings

"We also can't get away from the fact that we need more good people to be interested in this job and to come on the job, McDonnell said.

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The chief said he views policing as "helping somebody on the worst day of their life manage what they're dealing with or to be able to bring justice to a family."

He echoed that sentiment in his speech at Thursday's ceremony, during which he spoke about the importance of remembering the human being behind crime data.

"These numbers aren't abstract markers," he said. "They're real people with real stories, survivors who bear the weight of crime long after the headlines disappeared.  For every statistic, there are lived experiences, people whose lives have been upended, whose sense of safety has been shattered.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Missing Gossip Girl actor Chanel Banks has been found in Texas two weeks after she went missing in Los Angeles. A LAPD spokesperson confirmed that an outside agency located Banks safe and sound on November 11. The spokesperson announced that Banks is fine and in no danger. They have also closed the missing person investigation. The 36-year-old actor later issued a long statement via her Instagram Stories, where she corroborated meeting with the police to notify them of her welfare.

News of Banks disappearance surfaced after her cousin set up a GoFundMe page, stating that family members last contacted her on October 30. Moreover, authorities conducted multiple welfare checks in the following days and officially ruled her a missing person in Los Angeles after failing to find her in her apartment.

LAPD spokesperson on Chanel Banks: She is OK

PEOPLE reported that an LAPD spokesperson, Charles Miller, announced an outside agency found Chanel Banks in Texas and she is safe. Miller stated, [Banks] is fine. No danger. She is OK. She has been taken out of the missing person system for us, after which they closed their investigation. He also noted that the agency found Banks on Monday. However, they only announced news of her well-being two days later due to a delay caused by law enforcement agencies working on the case.

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Chanel Banks, who played a recurring character on Gossip Girl, was found days after police began investigating the missing case. Banks family started a GoFundMe fundraiser, detailing the event leading up to her disappearance. Her cousin, Danielle-Tori Singh, created the fundraiser stating they last contacted her on October 30. Following this, the police conducted four welfare checks, two on November 7 and two more checks a day later. They then officially ruled the 36-year-old a missing person in California.

After the LAPD broke the news of her welfare, Banks took to Instagram to announce, I AM NOT MISSING. In addition, she revealed that she is finally free from her mother and accused her family of abuse and manipulation, among other things. In addition, the actor urged well-wishers to not donate to any go fund me that says Im missing.

Besides her role in Gossip Girl, Chanel Banks appeared in Blue Bloods and the 2010 thriller film Twelve.

The post LAPD Reveals Where Gossip Girl Actor Chanel Banks Was Found appeared first on Mandatory.
Police arrested a man Thursday who allegedly attacked multiple women in Los Angeles in the last week during attempted carjackings.

Surveillance video shows the suspect assaulting women in parking lots in downtown L.A. and in Lincoln Heights. In all of the cases, the women fought him off and escaped.

At 10:40 a.m. on Saturday, the suspect, identified as 49-year-old Maurice Latorre, approached a woman at a gas station on the 3200 block of North Broadway, Los Angeles police said.

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He pushed his way into her car, demanding her keys, police said. The woman was able to push the suspect out of the car. Police say the suspect then fled.

About 1:50 p.m., the suspect encountered a group of women in a parking lot. Again, he demanded the keys to the vehicle, struggled with the driver and ran away after failing, police say.

At 4:55 p.m., the suspect accosted a woman at another gas station. Security video shows a struggle as the suspect pulls the victim out of her car and she fights him off with the help of a bystander before getting back into the vehicle. He fled on a silver bicycle.

A manhunt was underway following the attempted carjackings, and police described the suspect as violent and dangerous.

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No details were provided on Latorre's arrest.

Public records show him residing in Little Bangladesh until 2004, when his housing record stops.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Lara Trump is ready for Congress. She claims.

Amid chatter that she should be the one to fill Florida Sen. Marco Rubios seat as he joins Donald Trumps Cabinet, Trumps daughter-in-law confirmed to Fox News that she would love to serve the people of Florida if shes able.

This is my home state now and has been for three years, she added in an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday.

Lara, whose credentials include television producer and nepotism, is married to Trumps second son, Eric. She spent most of the year stumping for her father-in-law, co-chairing the Republican National Committee at his behest.

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She previously declined to run for Congress in 2022, when Sen. Richard Burr vacated his seat in her actual home state of North Carolina. At the time, she decided to sit it out, reportedly because her one-year-old and three-year-old children needed her attention.

Two years later, however, she appears to feel differently.

No one knows better than I do the America first agenda or the goals of Donald Trump for the coming four years, she said. So if I am asked, I would love to consider it, but I have yet to have a conversation with Governor DeSantis.

In Florida, Senate vacancies are temporarily filled by the governors appointment until the next general election, so this would be a matter for Ron DeSantis to decide.

DeSantis challenged Trump in the presidential primaryprompting Trump to label him DeSanctimoniousand some have suggested that approving his daughter-in-laws Senate seat would be one way to help rebuild bridges.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  A sparkly Las Vegas aesthetic is coming to a jet bridge near you as Harry Reid International Airport gears up for a list of improvement projects planned in 2025.

Some projects  like upgrades to the baggage handling system  are already underway. Others including work on modernizing all 113 jet bridges in the airport will begin in mid-2025. And two projects are planned as soon as the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix wraps up this year.

Work on the jet bridges includes a plan to coat the exteriors of each one at the D and E Gates with a thermal-reflective layer that will help keep them cooler during the summer months. On the inside, officials plan to elevate the overall guest experience with updated LED lighting and modern floors that shine with a sparkly Las Vegas aesthetic, according to a Clark County Department of Aviation news release on Wednesday. The project is set to begin in mid-2025 and will be phased to ensure minimal impact to operations.

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Construction is planned on two projects at Harry Reid International Airport after the 2024 F1 race, likely in early December:

High-T Bypass Lane Installation: An additional traffic lane will be constructed on southbound Paradise Road, south of Tropicana Avenue, allowing for continuous flow of traffic for airport-bound guests. The new lane will bypass the Russell Road traffic signal, which officials expect to address traffic congestion.

A and C Gate Additions: The A and C gates will provide more food and beverage choices, as well as shopping options. The A gates addition  7,380 square feet  will be along the east side of the corridor past gate A5 and across from the B Lounge. The addition at the C gates  14,754 square feet  will be between gates C16 and C19. Construction is scheduled to start in December.

All of the projects are in addition to the improvement plan that was presented to the Clark County Commission in early October. That presentation showed how the work will tie into larger improvements. Officials intend to reconfigure Terminal 1 and add flyover ramps along Paradise Road.

Upgrades to the baggage handling system began in the summer. Officials said most of the work is happening behind the scenes. The project is expected to take three years to complete.

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Baggage system upgrades are designed to reduce wait times for checked luggage, improve circulation, and reduce congestion. Conveyors will be upgraded and power is being relocated. Oversized curbside conveyors will be replaced and new column covers. Upgrades to the infrastructure and technology  including new column wraps and LED screens  are expected to be complete by the end of 2026.

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LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  A Las Vegas man identified as the mastermind in a multi-million dollar drug operation on the dark web was sentenced to 30 years in prison and must forfeit $20 million, according to a news release from the IRS-CI, the criminal investigative arm of the IRS.

In May, a federal jury in Utah found Oluwole Adegboruwa and a co-defendant Enrique Isong of Los Angeles guilty of numerous crimes including conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and money laundering.

Evidence at the sentencing hearing showed Adegboruwa sold more than 300,000 oxycodone pills on the dark web over three years from 2016 to 2019 exceeding $9 million in sales.

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Along with the 30-year prison sentence, Adegboruwa was ordered to have lifetime supervision upon his release.

Isong was sentenced in October to 10 years in prison for his role in the operation.

Protecting the community from illicit drugs and dismantling drug trafficking operations is a

priority for my office and our law enforcement partners, said U.S. Attorney Trina A. Higgins of

the District of Utah.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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ANADARKO  A caretaker accused of willfully torturing 4-year-old Athena Brownfield to death has backed out of a deal that would have spared her from possible execution.

Under the deal, Alysia Adina Adams, 33, was to have plead guilty Wednesday to first-degree murder and let a judge decide her punishment. She chose at the last minute to go ahead with a jury trial instead.

She fought back tears in court as she confirmed to Caddo County District Judge Kory Kirkland that she was not going to make a plea.

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Athena died at home in Cyril on Christmas Day 2022 of malnutrition and illness. Prosecutors alleged Alysia Adams tortured her to death by putting her in a closet and depriving her of proper nutrition and water.

District Attorney Jason Hicks announced in court that he would have dropped his request for the death penalty if she had plead guilty. With the deal off, he plans to still seek that punishment at trial.

Hicks was clearly frustrated that the deal fell through. He spoke to reporters only briefly afterward and would not go on camera. He did acknowledge she had backed out of the deal "minutes ago."

The sentencing would have taken place at a later date. Prosecutors had planned to ask for life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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Defense attorney Al Hoch declined comment Wednesday about her decision. He did say the trial likely won't be until June or September next year.

The twist Wednesday was the latest in the highly publicized case.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol conduct a water search for Athena Brownfield in 2023.

How a search for Athena Brownfield ended

A massive search for Athena began on Jan. 10, 2023, after a postal carrier found her older sister, Adina, wandering around outside the home in Cyril. The carrier notified police.

The sister, then 5, said she had been at the house alone and was tired of it. The town is about 70 miles southwest of Oklahoma City.

The search ended when agents with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation recovered Athena's remains on Jan. 17, 2023, in the Rush Springs area.

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Her body was found inside a zipped black backpack buried in a shallow grave in a field, according to an autopsy report. The body weighed only 23 pounds.

Prosecutors initially thought the girl had been beaten to death based on statements Alysia Adams made about her husband.

The husband, Ivon Neil Adams III, was charged with first-degree murder because of those statements. Alysia Adams was at first charged only with child neglect.

Prosecutors changed the charges last December after the autopsy found no evidence of assault.

Ivon Adams, 38, is now charged with second-degree murder in Athena's death. The punishment for that crime is 10 years to life in prison.

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He faces two other felony counts. He is accused in a count of child neglect of leaving Athena's sister without any supervision. He is accused in a count of unlawful removal of a dead body of burying Athena's body.

He is being held in the Caddo County jail.

Alysia Adams also faces a felony count of child neglect over Athena's sister. She faces a misdemeanor count of obstruction of a public officer over her statements about her husband. She is being held in the Grady County jail in Chickasha.

The sisters had been left by their mother with Ivon and Alysia Adams in April 2021, the OSBI said. The mother and Alysia Adams are related.

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The mother, Jasmin Adina Kay Brownfield, 28, of Stillwater, faces two felony counts of child neglect by abandonment. She is free on a $50,000 bond.

How rare is the death penalty for women in Oklahoma?

Oklahoma has executed only three women, according to historical records. All three were put to death by lethal injection in 2001.

Awaiting execution in Oklahoma is Brenda Andrew, 60. She was convicted of first-degree murder over the fatal shooting in 2001 of her estranged husband at their Oklahoma City home. The U.S. Supreme Court is now considering whether to take up her complaints about her 2004 trial. A decision could come as early as Monday.

(This story was updated to add new information.)

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Murder defendant backs out of plea deal in Athena Brownfield case
President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Trumps pick of conservative loyalist Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general has Democrats sounding the alarm with Sen. Dick Durbin saying Gaetz would be a disaster in part because of Trumps threat to use the Justice Department to seek revenge on his political enemies.

Republicans have won enough seats to control the U.S. House, completing the partys sweep into power and securing their hold on U.S. government alongside President-elect Donald Trump.

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Follow the APs Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Heres the latest:

Trump says he will nominate North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to lead Department of the Interior

Trump says hes nominating North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum to lead the Department of the Interior.

The president-elect made the announcement informally, during a gala on Thursday at Mar-a-Lago.

He told the crowd of Burgum, Actually hes going to head the Department of the Interior.

That came shortly after Burgum refused to talk about his future in the incoming administration. He told reporters before Trump took the stage, There have been a lot of discussions about a lot of different things before adding, Nothings true until you read it on Truth Social, referring to Trumps social media site.

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Argentine president praises Trump and Elon Musk

Argentine President Javier Milei has met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, becoming the first foreign leader to meet with the president-elect since his election victory last week.

After meeting with Trump, Milei -- a self-described anarcho-capitalist and frequent recipient of Trump praise  addressed the America First Policy Institute gala being held at the club.

Milei slammed left-wing ideologies and saluted Elon Musk, the owner of X, saying his social media site is helping to save humanity.

Stallone compares Trump's win to Rocky

Sylvester Stallone says of Trump, Nobody in the world could have pulled off what he pulled off. So Im in aw.

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The actor addressed a gala at Trumps Mar-a-Lago club and evoked filming Rocky. He added of that iconic character, This man was going to go through a metamorphosis and change lives, just like President Trump.

Stallone also called Trump the second George Washington.

Trump to address Republican-led group that backed his 2024 White House bid

Trump is set to address the America First Policy Institute gala at his Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The event featured a live band, white tablecloths, gold chairs and wedge salad. Guests got copies of Trumps Save America book on their chairs.

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In attendance is actor Sylvester Stallone, as well as the president-elects newly announced choice for secretary of Health and Human Services secretary in his upcoming administration, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Other guests include former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, who have been named co-heads of a department of government efficiency that Trump has promised to create upon taking office.

Trump's border czar says the southern border is a national security vulnerability

Trumps incoming border czar says cracking down on the U.S.-Mexico border is President Trumps No. 1 issue because it is the countrys biggest national security vulnerability since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

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Tom Homan, who was also a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Trumps first administration, said stricter enforcement would begin immediately.

Day 1, were going to be out on the street, Homan said in an interview with Newsmax+. Were already putting the plan together. Were not waiting for the president to take office to put the plan together. Were working on the plan right now.

Homan said hed be heading soon to Trumps Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to continue working out the details.

Tom Homan says mass deportation is top priority in Trump administration

Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Trumps first administration who has been named as border czar, in his second, is suggesting that the first priorities for deportation will be people with criminal records.

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Trump promised throughout his successful reelection campaign to undertake mass deportations of people in the country illegally.

In an interview with NewsNations Cuomo, Homan was asked about Trumps top border priorities and said, Theres going to be a prioritization of criminals, national security threats first.

All the hate coming right now to the president and myself, all we want to do is enforce a law, Homan said. And were in a place now in this nation where if you want to enforce law, youre a bad guy.

Burgum mum on role in next Trump administration

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum wont say if he might be in consideration for a role in the new administration as Interior Secretary, energy czar or possibly something else. Theres been a lot of discussions about a lot of different things, Burgum told reporters at Trumps Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Nothings true until you read it on Truth Social.

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Thats a reference to the president-elects social media site.

Burgum also praised Kennedy as Trumps choice for Health and Human Services Secretary, pointing to Kennedys advocacy around addiction and overdose deaths. Burgums wife has been active around similar issues.

Asked about Trumps pick of former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general, Burgum said Trump is making very smart picks across the board. Hes got his reasons for doing all of these things.

The Onion wins bid for Alex Jones' InfoWars

The satirical news publication The Onion was named the winning bidder for Alex Jones Infowars at a bankruptcy auction Thursday, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.

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The purchase would turn over Jones company, which for decades has peddled in conspiracy and misinformation, to a humor website that plans to relaunch the Infowars platform in January as a parody. But the judge in Jones bankruptcy case said Thursday that he had concerns about how the auction was conducted and ordered a hearing for next week after complaints by lawyers for Jones and a company affiliated with Jones that put in a $3.5 million bid.

Within hours of the announcement about The Onions winning bid, Infowars website was down and Jones was broadcasting from what he said was a new studio location. Up for sale were Infowars website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; video archive; and other assets.

Thune says Trump nominees' records will face plenty of scrutiny

Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday that there will be plenty of scrutiny of the records of President-elect Donald Trumps nominees once it is time to confirm them, but the Senate needs a chance to do its job.

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Leaving the Capitol a day after he was elected as Senate Republicans next leader, Thune would not comment on Trumps announcement that he intends to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Health and Human Services Department or any other potential nominee. Im not going to make any judgements about any of these folks at this point, he said.

Honestly, the entire nomination process is just getting started, Thune said. So lets give it a chance to see what happens. These names, none of them have been formally submitted yet. So theres going to be a vetting process, and I think we will do our job under advice and consent and make sure that the process is fair.

Current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also did not comment on Kennedys nomination. There will be a time for that, he told reporters.

But Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the No. 3 Democrat, said that Kennedys confirmation would be nothing short of a disaster for the health of millions of families.

What to know about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trumps pick for health secretary

Trump would have Kennedy lead a massive Cabinet agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid. He said before the election he would give Kennedy free rein over health policy.

Heres a look at Kennedy and the agency hell be tasked with leading:

Read more about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

What are RFK Jr.'s positions on health?

Kennedy stuck a deal with Trump to give the now president-elect his endorsement in exchange for a role in health policy in the administration. Here are some of his positions on the subject:

Trump expected to choose vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary, AP sources say

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr to serve as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to two people familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity.

HHS is a massive Cabinet agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.

Kennedy, a former Democrat who ran as an independent in this years presidential race, abandoned his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role in health policy in the administration.

He and Trump have since become good friends, with Kennedy frequently receiving loud applause at Trumps rallies.

 Jill Colvin

Trump says JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon won't be joining his administration

Though its not clear if Dimon was interested in a role. The announcement came as Trump has not yet named a Treasury Secretary for his incoming administration or others to fill economic and banking related roles.

Dimon had no plans to join Trumps administration, according to news reports in recent weeks.

Trump, in a post on his social media network Truth Social on Thursday, said he respects Dimon greatly but he will not be invited to be a part of the Trump Administration.

I thank Jamie for his outstanding service to our Country! Trump added.

In a July interview with Bloomberg, Trump said Dimon was someone he was considering for Treasury Secretary. A few weeks later, he reversed himself, saying in a post on Truth Social that he didnt know who said it, or where it came from, perhaps the Radical Left, but I never discussed, or thought of, Jamie Dimon for Treasury Secretary.

Pennsylvania courts get lawsuits over ballot-counting in Senate contest headed toward a recount

Republicans went to court in Pennsylvania on Thursday amid vote counting in the U.S. Senate election between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick, as the campaigns prepare for a recount and press counties for favorable ballot-counting decisions.

The lawsuits ask courts not to allow counties to count mail-in ballots where the voter didnt write a date on the return envelope or wrote an incorrect date. The two GOP suits could be among many before the last vote in the Senate race is counted, especially with the contest headed toward a state-mandated recount.

The Associated Press called the race for McCormick last week, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead.

Trump hammered Democrats on transgender issues. Now the party is at odds on a response

After losing the White House and both houses of Congress, Democrats are grappling with how to handle transgender politics and policy following a campaign that featured withering and often misleading GOP attacks on the issue.

There's plenty of second-guessing after President-elect Donald Trump anchored his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris with sweeping promises on the economy and immigration. But Democrats also won't soon forget the punchline in anti-transgender Trump ads that became ubiquitous by Election Day: Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you.

Week by week when that ad hit and stuck and we didnt respond, I think that was the beginning of the end, former Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said of the 30-second spot that was part of $215 million in anti-transgender advertising by Trump and Republicans, according to tracking firm AdImpact.

Rand Paul wants to bring back Trumps Remain in Mexico policy as a Senate chair

Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that he'll lead the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where he intends to immediately take up President-elect Donald Trumps plan to reinstate a policy requiring asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.

Paul said he'll be the committees new chair after Republicans won control of the Senate in this months elections. The new role will put Paul  a limited-government advocate and longtime skeptic of surveillance programs  in charge of a committee with broad jurisdiction over government operations, including the Department of Homeland Security. Paul has been the committees ranking Republican during Democratic control of the Senate.

Democrat Janelle Bynum wins election to US House in Oregon, beating incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer

Democrat Janelle Bynum won election to a U.S. House seat representing Oregon on Thursday, defeating Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

The district, which includes the Portland suburbs and stretches through Bend, was a top target for Democrats. Democrats lost this seat in 2022, when Jamie McLeod-Skinner defeated seven-term Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader in the primary but lost the general election. The district took in parts of more conservative central Oregon after 2022 redistricting.

Bynum represents Happy Valley and North Clackamas in the state Legislature. The Associated Press declared Bynum the winner at 12:47 p.m. EST.

Republican and Democratic senators call for ethics committee information on Gaetz

Republican and Democratic senators alike on the Judiciary Committee that would review Matt Gaetzs attorney general nomination are calling for a House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz to be made available to them.

I think its going to be material in the proceedings, said Sen. Thomas Tillis, a North Carolina Republican.

Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said, I think there should not be any limitation on the Senate Judiciary Committees investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democrat who currently chairs the Judiciary Committee, earlier Thursday said in a statement, We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people.

Incoming Senate GOP Leader John Thune says Senates priority will be confirming Trumps nominees

Thune did not mention Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard or other Trump picks that have raised deep concerns among several senators.

But he said senators should expect an aggressive schedule until his nominees are confirmed.

Sen. Dick Durban says ethics committee should preserve information gathered on Matt Gaetz

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is calling on the House Ethics Committee to preserve information it's gathered on former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trumps intended nominee for attorney general, and also share it with the Senate.

Trump announced Gaetz as his pick for the post Wednesday and Gaetz immediately resigned from Congress, ending the investigation against him. The ethics panel said several months ago that its review included whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct. Gaetz has categorically denied all the allegations before the committee.

The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetzs resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report, Durbin said Thursday. We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people.

Bohannan requests a recount in Iowas close congressional race as GOP wins control of House

The Democrat looking to unseat an incumbent Republican in a close Iowa congressional race, one of a handful yet to be called after Republicans won control of the U.S. House, has asked for a recount.

Democrat Christina Bohannans campaign on Thursday requested the recount in her bid against Republican incumbent Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks to represent Iowas 1st District. The initial tally puts Bohannan fewer than 1,000 votes  less than a percentage point  behind Miller-Meeks.

The contest is a much tighter rematch of 2022, when Miller-Meeks won by 7 percentage points. Miller-Meeks earned a first term in Congress representing Iowas 2nd District when she defeated Democrat Rita Hart by just six votes in 2020.
Extreme rainfall has hit regions of Spain this week, leading to flooding and evacuations in Malaga, the Costa del Sol and Valencia. The national weather office has placed both Malaga and Catalonia on the highest alert, with strong rain expected to last until at least Friday November 14.

The tourist resorts of Marbella, Velez and Estepona are expected to bear the brunt of the extreme weather phenomenon known as a Dana. On Wednesday, homes in the town of Benamargosa were decimated after a river burst its banks, while in the city of Malaga, services at the main hospital were severely reduced as a result of flooding.

Last week, Catalonian authorities warned visitors and locals not to travel to the region, and Barcelona, unless strictly necessary.

Credit: claudiasarten/X, taleofyone/X, tatispiers/X

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It comes after Valencia suffered one of the deadliest floods in Europe this century, with 217 confirmed deaths. Shocking footage showed piles of cars being dragged away by the flood-water.

Rescue workers continue to search through the rubble amid fears that the death toll could rise, while protesters have called for the regional president, Carlos Mazon, to step down.

Here is everything you need to know about travelling to Spain if you already have plans to visit the country.

Where are the floods in Spain?

Catalonia, in north-eastern Spain, and the Malaga region in the south, are both currently under high alert for very strong to torrential rainfall and flooding. Overnight, more than a months worth of rain fell in parts of Valencia, incuding 110mm in Alcudia de Veo, 99mm in Suera and 88mm in Chiva.

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Parts of the Andalusia region and the Balearic Islands are on orange alert, which signals a significant meteorological event with a degree of danger for normal activities.

The Valencia region has been the worst affected by the rainfall. On October 29, at a weather station in Chiva, the equivalent of a years worth of rainfall was recorded in just eight hours.

The province of Huelva, on the south-western tip of Spain, was also hit by torrential rain earlier this month. Jerez Airport reported 114.8mm of rain in 24 hours  a record.

Efforts to stem the impact of flooding continues across Catalonia - Anadolu

Other parts of Europe have been badly hit by flooding this year, particularly in mid-September, when a weather system brought record rainfall in Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Romania and Hungary.

How have the floods affected Valencia?

The flooding in Valencia has been devastating. At least 217 people are confirmed dead and tens of thousands of soldiers have been deployed to the area to search through the rubble. The region is still recovering from the weather event.

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The tragedy is one of Europes worst flooding disasters on record. In 1967, at least 500 people died in Portugal. The local government has been criticised for failing to issue a sufficient warning ahead of the disaster.

How have the floods affected Barcelona?

Barcelona suffered considerable rainfall earlier this month, and footage shared on social media showed the terminals and car parks at El Prat Airport experiencing severe flooding.

Credit: SERCatalunya/X

As a result, more than 70 flights were disrupted and the local authorities warned people in the region to avoid travel unless strictly necessary. The clean-up has begun, but more rainfall is expected this week.

What is the weather forecast for the next week?

The Met Office shows warm, dry conditions for Malaga and Barcelona over the next week, although this may change. Those hoping to travel to the regions affected should be aware that the clean-up process will take some time.

My flight has been cancelled  what are my rights?

If your flight has been cancelled, regardless of the notice period, you will be eligible for alternative transport. The airline must get you to your destination as soon as possible, if that is what you desire. If there is an alternative flight on your day of travel, your airline is obliged to book you on to it  regardless of whether it is on a different carrier.

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It is, however, unlikely that you will be eligible for compensation, as the extreme weather is a meteorological event outside of the airlines control.

Are Spains airports open?

Dozens of flights have been cancelled due to the rainfall. Spanish airport authorities have asked that those flying out of Malagas airport and El Prat Airport in Barcelona to check with their airline before they travel. It would be wise to brace for delays.

Are transport systems running?

Bus services to and from Malaga were suspended on November 13. Most trains to Malaga have also been cancelled, while trains between Malaga and Barcelona are severely delayed. Two metro lines in Malaga have been suspended or partially closed.

Is it safe to visit Spain right now?

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has updated its travel advice to read: Severe weather and flooding is affecting many areas along the Mediterranean coastline of Spain. In particular, many parts of the Valencia region and Castilla La Mancha continue to be severely affected by recent flooding. Journeys may be affected. Check the latest weather warnings from Spains meteorological office before you travel and follow instructions from local authorities.

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However, there are no formal government warnings against travelling to Spain. This means that if you have a holiday booked to Spain, it is likely to be going ahead unless you have heard otherwise from your airline or tour operator.

Will I be insured if I visit Spain?

Simon McCulloch, the chief commercial officer of the travel insurance company Staysure, said: The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has updated its travel guidance, advising travellers to stay informed of local conditions and to follow the advice of local authorities. However, at this stage, there is no advice against travel to Spain, so if you decide to cancel your trip, its unlikely youll receive a refund from your holiday provider or from your insurer. We therefore recommend contacting your holiday provider to explore the available options.

This article was first published on November 5 and has been revised and updated.

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Colorado's second-highest court on Thursday agreed a former executive of Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems may proceed with his defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump's presidential campaign and several prominent supporters who publicly accused him of rigging the 2020 election based on the unproven claims of a conservative podcaster.
Mariano Jacobo Pinon, a resident at the Fairgrounds United mobile home park in Lake County, Ohio, said that for months he warned park managers about the lack of maintenance at the grounds, especially regarding a tree near his house, but that they did not listen to him.

One night a hurricane warning came and I was with my wife and granddaughters at home and we felt a huge blow. It was the tree that fell on the roof and broke the house. Now we cant live there. We dont know what to do because the managers and no one has helped us, said Pinon, an immigrant from Mexico.

At nearby Perry Mobile Home Park, resident Vicente Hernandez, 53, a trailer mechanic, said the worst time is the winter, because they dont remove the snow and the children have to walk in the mornings to catch the bus to school, and often they slip and fall. There are also problems with the sewage drains. The fumes come back up and make us sick."

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Pinon and Hernandez are among the Ohio residents who filed a lawsuit in 2022 against the companies that own the two mobile home parks and the company that does the water metering. The lawsuit alleges that the companies violated state law by refusing to provide written lease agreements, unlawfully increasing the costs of living at the parks, failing to maintain the common areas and engaging in harassing and discriminatory conduct.

Hernandez and Fairgrounds United resident Ricardo Rodriguez, 40, said that since their mobile home parks changed owners, services that were once included as part of the rent, such as water, are now billed separately at much higher prices.

The rents have gone up in these properties, the bills have gone up, and the maintenance is very bad. The sewage is exposed to the air and causes a lot of nausea and headaches, said Veronica Isabel Dahlberg, executive director of HOLA Ohio, a nonprofit group assisting Latino state residents, which has advised mobile home park residents who sued. The managers are very aggressive with the residents. People are afraid to talk to the park managers because they are afraid they are going to lose their home. So that is no way to live.

Damage to the roof of Mariano Jacobo Pinon's home at Fairgrounds United in Lake County, Ohio.

The residents said they sued even though many of them are undocumented.

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They always tell us that if we dont like it, we can leave. But we are going to keep fighting, because many people think that because we dont have documents, we dont have rights, but we are human beings, Rodriguez said.

Noticias Telemundo asked Jones Estates Fairgrounds LLC and Jones Estates Perry LLC, the companies that own the two parks, for comment on the lawsuit.

Melissa Solomon, Jones Estates director of corporate governance and transactions, said by email that the company will not make any comments on the pending litigation. 5 Star Metering, the water service provider, which that is also being sued, did not respond to a request for comment.

In August, Lake County Common Pleas Judge Patrick J. Condon ruled that Jones Estates did send a one-year lease to the tenants, so that claim will not be pursued at trial.

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Regarding the charges for water and sewage services, the court considers that there are factual issues regarding the actual charges and that they are excessive, he wrote, so that allegation will go to trial.

The complaints about the lack of attention to requests from Latino residents and accusations of discrimination will also go to the trial, the judge said.

Hearings related to the lawsuit are expected to begin in the first weeks of December.

Mobile home parks  but not mobile

Of the 7.22 million residents of mobile homes (also known as manufactured homes) in the U.S., 1.32 million, or 18%, identify as Hispanic, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Developments 2023 American Housing Survey.

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Residents can buy their homes, but they often must rent the land on which the homes are located, often in lots known as mobile home parks  a term that experts say does not reflect the nature of the homes, since most cannot be easily moved for relocation.

They are not mobile because the house is attached to a concrete slab, and in many cases they are old. If you try to move it, there is always the chance that the house will break and be damaged, and it costs between $8,000 and $12,000. It is very expensive, said Yvonne Maldonado, a co-director of Manufactured Housing Action, a nonprofit group that focuses on such communities. Also, the most important thing is that there is nowhere to move it, because many states do not allow you to move a house or a plot of land or to another park."

Debris in Mariano Jacobo Pinon's home at Fairgrounds United.

Since 2016, Maldonado has lived in a mobile home park in New York state. She said she has also experienced the constant rent increases firsthand, going from paying $695 when she arrived to $1,100 today.

But in 2019, a law was passed in New York state that puts a limit on the annual rent increase for manufactured homes  but that does not happen in all states, she said.

Complaints in Colorado

In Foxridge Farm, a mobile home park in Arapahoe County, Colorado, Ana Eugenia Baez, 55, and other residents say the park has enforced arbitrary parking policies, creating parking spaces far from their homes for which they have to pay an extra fee, towing cars parked on the streets without notice and charging extra fees when residents receive visitors with cars, among other things.

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Although park rules allow two to four spaces per dwelling depending on the type of home, residents say that is not enough, saying the mobile home park is far from any public transportation and residents need cars to get to work. They also say the new parking lots are unsafe.

Even though we live in prefabricated houses, we have the right to live with dignity," Baez said.

Andrea Chiriboga-Flor, executive director of Justice for the People Center, a nonprofit legal organization that advises Foxridge Farm residents, said: These residents are struggling because the landlord over the last two years is not only raising the rent but is also putting in place unfair rules that we believe are not legal. From one day to the next, they decided that no one can park on the street, and now you have to pay for your parking. That has caused a crisis in the park, and there are families who have had to move against their will.

Remains of a fallen tree over Mariano Jacobo Pinon's home at Fairgrounds United.

Complaints by Baez and her neighbors prompted an inspection by the Colorado Mobile Home Oversight Program this year. It found that Ascentia, the company that owns the park, had violated several state laws. Ascentia appealed the decision, and the neighbors and the company are in the middle of a legal process in administrative court.

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Asked for comment, Ascentia, which has 39 such communities in seven states, according to information on its website, said in a statement that the parking rules are not new and that they date back decades but had not been implemented and are norms for the improvement of the community.

The company said that over two years, it invested $350,000 to build the parking lots and that they are lit and have security cameras. Most of the violations detected by the Colorado Mobile Home Monitoring Program have been resolved," Ascentia President Marko Vukovich said in a statement.

"The two pending issues for hearing concern the states demand that we not be allowed to charge residents for the use of new parking lots, and its demand that the decades-old ban on street parking be declared unreasonable. We consider these demands to constitute an unconstitutional abuse of state power, Vukovich said.

A home  but not classified as real estate

More than a fifth of manufactured-home owners earned less than $20,000 a year in 2021, and more than half earned less than $50,000 a year, according to the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP), a nonprofit organization that monitors the manufactured home market.

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Because they are cheaper homes, they are attractive to lower-income workers, including migrants who have recently arrived in the country or who are undocumented. "However, these houses are not classified as real estate but as personal property, and that means they have fewer protections, said Esther Sullivan, an associate sociology professor at the University of Colorado in Denver and author of the book Manufactured Insecurity: Mobile Home Parks and Americans Tenuous Right to Place.

The situation means that, in many states, residents of the parks are excluded from basic legal protections that cover tenants of rented houses or apartments, such as mandatory notice periods for rent increases and evictions, among other things.

Roofing workers on a partially destroyed mobile home in Sarasota, Fla., on Oct. 10.

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Of the 1.32 million Hispanic-led households living in manufactured homes, 869,000 report owning their units, according to census data. Of those, half are in manufactured home communities where they pay rent for their lots; the other half do not.

While decoupling housing from the underlying land lowers the upfront expense of homeownership, it comes with significant challenges for the tenant-owners, a report by the nonprofit group Prosperity Now found in 2021.

Over the past decade, as income inequality has increased, corporate investors have turned to mobile home parks as a growth market.

We have recently seen private equity enter the manufactured housing market," PESP housing research coordinator Madeline Bankson said. "And what we typically see is that they often raise rents significantly  we also see a lot of issues that residents report due to maintenance problems.

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In their acquisitions of manufactured housing parks, many private equity firms have enlisted the help of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored lending enterprises that guarantee most mortgages.

PESP notes that Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac funded nearly half (49%) of the privately owned parks it monitored, which has caught the attention of national lawmakers.

In June 2023, Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; and John Fetterman, D-Pa., sponsored a bill to establish minimum standards for tenants in such parks that receive federal funding through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Federal Housing Administration.

As the housing crisis continues to impact American families, predatory landlords are raising rents and taking advantage of mobile home tenants who lack adequate legal protections, Shaheen told Noticias Telemundo in a statement.

Cheaper, but with risks

With an average price of $127,250 in 2022, manufactured homes are a vital source of affordable housing for rural and low-income families, according to PESP researchers.

Though mobile homes are cheaper, they come with financial and safety risks.

Banks may not be as open to financing that type of housing. Depending on the location and the house, the quality may be poorer, said Juan Pablo Garnham, head of communications and policies at Princeton Universitys Eviction Lab.

In addition, most states do not have laws like New York's that cap rent increases in mobile home parks, so even if you own your [mobile] home, the cost of renting the land can go up a lot," Chiriboga-Flor said.

During weather emergencies, the homes have structural limitations. During hurricanes, the National Weather Service has said, 72% of deaths occur in homes, and of those, 54% occur in mobile homes.

Garnham said residents should try to avoid homes that are more than 30 or 40 years old because they deteriorate more easily. There can also be issues with moisture and mold, and in some cases the homes are not well-connected to water or electricity or gas.

Chiriboga-Flor recommended that people review any mobile home contract before they sign it. She also urged mobile home park residents to organize their communities and if there are complaints, to do it as a group, which is more effective.

An earlier version of this report was first published in Noticias Telemundo.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Ukraine's Ambassador to Israel, Yevhen Korniichuk, has announced that Israel fully supplied everything needed to create an early warning system for aerial threats as part of its assistance for Kyiv. Ukraine is now in the final stages of deploying this technology.

Source: Korniichuk in a speech at the fifth Kyiv Jewish Forum, as reported by Interfax-Ukraine news agency

Details: He noted that part of the early warning system, specifically three-dimensional radars manufactured in Israel, had been launched in Ukraine.

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Quote from Korniichuk: "That's not a secret. The Ukrainian military is already using them [radars] today. And they're quite suitable and possible to purchase in large volumes if necessary."

More details: Korniichuk added that Ukraine and Israel are fighting a common enemy, noting that the wars in both nations seem to be "coordinated from one centre". He also highlighted that the two countries share common allies.

The ambassador believes Israel would also be interested in Ukrainian mediation, for example, in connection with Ukraine's friendly relations with Saudi Arabia.

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Developers with the Laura Street Trio are responding to the City of Jacksonvilles decision to end negotiations to redevelop the historic buildings.

Action News Jax told you on Tuesday that the city also refiled a lawsuit against the developer.

In a statement, SouthEast Development Group said that it is now working directly with the Jacksonville City Council to establish an agreement and enact legislation by the end of the year.

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It also said, in part, Our team has invested everything in this project, from financial commitments to creative solutions, and all we ask is for the city to stand with us to see it through.

Read SouthEast Development Groups full release below:

Laura Street Trio Press Release Rev 11.13.24 by ActionNewsJax on Scribd

The city has been trying to get the Laura Street Trio re-developed since 2017.

The buildings are among the oldest in Jacksonville. They are some of the first built after the Great Fire of 1901.

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City Council Vice President Kevin Carrico said he will hold a special meeting on Nov. 25 to seek a resolution.

Carricos office issued the following release about the breakdown in negotiations:

CVP Carrico on Laura Street Trio by ActionNewsJax on Scribd

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Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegans office issued the following statement in response to Carricos release:

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Its simply inaccurate to imply a lack of engagement. As Vice President Carrico well knows, city negotiators met multiple times with the Trio developer and his lobbying team over the past few months. As outlined in our detailed summary, we considered many different deals during that time. However, every time the developer and his lobbyist moved the goal posts the citys financial contribution and risk exposure kept increasing. Furthermore, the developer broke the terms of agreement that were in place for the city to remove its lawsuit.

We have worked long and hard to come up with an agreement that is financially viable for the city. Despite our best efforts and countless hours spent by staff, that has not materialized. Therefore, we are permanently terminating negotiations with the developer and refiling the original lawsuit.

The attached summary provides the history of deals and more details on the citys reasoning. The 10 points memo shows the conditions agreed to in principle by the city and Trio development team to restart negotiations in September.

Read the Trio summary memo below:

Trio Summary Memo by ActionNewsJax on Scribd

Read the Ten Points memo below:

Ten Points Memo by ActionNewsJax on Scribd

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Los Angeles Unified has revised its leading effort to boost academic outcomes for Black students after conservative Virginia-based activists filed a civil rights complaint, charging the program uses race as a criteria for admission.

The districts $120 million Black Student Achievement Plan had a clear goal: lifting the academic performance of Black students, who trail behind other groups in assessments of reading and math, providing students extra tutors, and added training for their teachers.

The program is now in doubt after Arlington-based Parents Defending Education filed a civil rights complaint arguing it violates federal law by using race solely as a criteria for admission, prompting the district to change its policy.

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At bottom, the Black Student Achievement Plan and its benefits are open to some students but not others  and that exclusion is solely based on an individuals race, the groups complaint said.

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In response, LAUSD said its no longer using race as a factor in choosing which schools participate. But the programs future remains murky even with the changes because it could still be open to future legal challenges.

Still, its a dramatic turn of events for LAUSDs signature Black initiative, and shows the powerful influence out-of-town interests can have on local policy.

LASUD officials said the district will still give BSAP the same resources as previous years and its programs are staying the same; and all students  not just Black students  are eligible for the help.

The five-year-old BSAP had seemed to be headed for success by targeting Black kids.

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With broad support from LA Unifieds board, teachers and families, the program deployed counselors and social workers at roughly 50 schools, which together enrolled more about a third of the districts Black students.

And this year, the districts Black students made gains on math and reading tests that outpaced those of other student groups. The districts Black students also this year outscored Black students around the state on the annual exams.

Since PDE filed its complaint, superintendent Alberto Carvalho said LA Unified was able to reformat the program without sacrificing impact.

Our solution is one that preserves the funding, the concentration of attention and resources on the same students and same schools, he said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

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Representatives for PDE, which has lodged more civil rights complaints against at least ten other school districts around the nation, didnt respond to requests for comment.

A website for the non-profit says it is a national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists promoting harmful agendas, including critical race theory and restorative justice.

PDEs board includes Edward Blum, the conservative litigant who previously founded an organization that won a 2023 Supreme Court decision against Harvard University to strike down affirmative action in college admissions.

In its complaint with the federal Office for Civil Rights, PDE argued the BSAP violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by using race to decide which students get extra educational services.

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After LA Unified dropped race as an official factor in those decisions, OCR dismissed the groups complaint, heading off a potential legal battle. But PDE could revive its complaint.

The districts strategy has drawn fire from its teachers union, activists and students who protested an Oct. 22 board meeting. An online letter-writing campaign urges LA Unified to reinstate Black student population as a criterion for BSAP school allocation.

Without race to guide which schools participate in the BSAP, University of Southern California education professor Julie Slayton said LAUSD will have to use other factors in deciding how to distribute extra resources to students.

Theyll take away the language of Black,  Slayton said. But it doesnt have to change, profoundly, the way that theyre thinking about the distribution of these resources and the schools that will receive them.
Sen. Jean Hunhoff, R-Yankton, was given flowers by her fellow lawmakers on Nov. 14, 2024, to honor her for being the longest-serving female lawmaker in South Dakota history. (Submitted photo)

Lawmakers on the states budget-setting committee gave 24 roses Thursday to the longest-serving female member of the South Dakota Legislature.

Sen. Jean Hunhoff, R-Yankton, was first elected to the state House of Representatives in 2000. Shes bounced back and forth between the House and Senate over the years, and has been a member of the Joint Appropriations Committee for more than a decade. The committees gift was one flower for each year of her service.

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Hunhoff lost her primary race for reelection by 96 votes in June to challenger Lauren Nelson, who went on to victory in the general election.

Thursday mornings meeting of the Joint Appropriations Committee in Pierre, which she co-chairs, comes near the end of her time as a lawmaker. Several other members of the committee thanked Hunhoff for her commitment to budgetary oversight and praised her for helping newer lawmakers navigate the workings of legislating during her historic run of service.

Tony Venhuizen, a Sioux Falls Republican representative who blogs about the history of state government, noted that no other female lawmaker has served 20 years, let alone 24.

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I dont need to get into too many details, but I will say that during her first year in the Legislature, I was a Senate page, Venhuizen said.

Hunhoffs voice cracked with emotion as she thanked her fellow lawmakers for the flowers, which she said she liked even though they make me think of a funeral.

I tried to listen, and Ive tried to do my best, Hunhoff said.

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP)  A vote in New Zealands parliament was suspended and two lawmakers ejected on Thursday when dramatic political theater erupted over a controversial proposed law redefining the countrys founding agreement between Indigenous Maori and the British Crown.

Under the principles laid out in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which guide the relationship between the government and Maori, tribes were promised broad rights to retain their lands and protect their interests in return for ceding governance to the British. The bill would specify that those rights should apply to all New Zealanders.

The bill has scant support and is unlikely to become law. Detractors say it threatens racial discord and constitutional upheaval, while thousands of New Zealanders are traveling the length of the country this week to protest it.

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Despite its unpopularity, however, the proposed law passed its first vote on Thursday after dominating public discussion for months, due to a quirk of New Zealands political system that allows tiny parties to negotiate outsized influence for their agendas. It also reflects unease among some New Zealanders about more rapid progress in recent years toward upholding the promises made to Maori when the country was colonized.

A 184-year-old treaty provokes fresh debate

For decades after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, differences between the English and Maori texts and breaches by New Zealand governments intensified the disenfranchisement of Maori.

By the middle of the 20th century, Indigenous language and culture had dwindled, much tribal land was confiscated and Maori were disadvantaged on every metric. As the Indigenous protest movement surged in the 1970s, lawmakers and the courts slowly began to elucidate what it understood the treaty to promise Maori: partnership with the Crown, participation in decision-making and protection of their interests.

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What all of these principles have in common is that they afford Maori different rights from other New Zealanders, David Seymour, leader of minor libertarian party ACT and the bills author, said Thursday.

To those who have championed the treaty, that is the point. Work has involved billion-dollar land settlements, embrace of the Maori language, guaranteed representation in central and local government and attempts through policy to reverse the stark inequities Indigenous people still face.

But Seymour  who is Maori -- said no law or court had actually settled for good a definition of the treatys principles, and that had caused division. His bill filled a silence this parliament has left for five decades, he said.

Lawmakers vote for a bill they oppose

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Prime Minister Christopher Luxon disagrees, but his party voted for the bill Thursday to fulfil the political deal with Seymour that handed Luxon power. Without enough seats to govern after last October's election, Luxon curried support from two minor parties  including Seymour's ACT, which won less than 9% of the vote  in return for political concessions.

Luxon told Seymour his party would vote for the treaty bill once, while promising publicly that it would go no further.

The treatys principles had been negotiated and debated for 184 years, Luxon told reporters Thursday, and it was simplistic for Seymour to suggest that they could be resolved through the stroke of a pen.

Government lawmakers made awkward speeches in parliament explaining that they opposed the bill before voting for it to jeers from opponents, who demanded they break ranks. Luxon was spared that; he left the country for the meeting of leaders from the Asia-Pacific APEC bloc hours before the vote.

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His political horse-trading drew scorn from opposition lawmakers.

A fraught and outraged response

Shame! Shame! Shame on you, David Seymour, roared Willie Jackson, a veteran Maori lawmaker. Shame on you for what youre trying to do to this nation.

Jackson was thrown out of the debating chamber by Speaker Gerry Brownlee for calling Seymour a liar.

You are complicit in the harm and the division that this presents, said Rawiri Waititi, a lawmaker from Te Pati Maori, an Indigenous group, speaking to all who advanced the bill.

If you vote for this bill, this is who you are, Green party leader Chloe Swarbrick told Luxon's lawmakers.

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No one deviated from their planned votes and the bill passed. But not before one final flashpoint.

A rare outburst of protest

When asked how her partys lawmakers would vote, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke of Te Pati Maori stood and began a ringing haka  a rhythmic Maori chant of challenge  which swelled to a roar as first opposition lawmakers, and then spectators in the public gallery, joined in.

An irate Brownlee was unable to quiet the fracas as opponents approached Seymours seat. The live broadcast of Parliaments proceedings was cut and Brownlee ordered the public be removed before the vote resumed.

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He suspended Maipi-Clarke, 22, from Parliament for a day.

The bill will proceed to a public submission process before another vote. Seymour hopes for an outpouring of support to change Luxon's mind about vetoing it.

The proposal will shortly roil Parliament again. Thousands of protesters are due to arrive in the capital, Wellington, on Tuesday for what is likely to be one of the largest race relations marches in New Zealands history.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI)  R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha has filed a lawsuit against a real estate broker accused of orchestrating a so-called foreclosure rescue scheme.

Kyle Seyboth, owner of Seyboth Team Real Estate, allegedly tricked a Providence family into selling their home for significantly less than market value, according to a complaint obtained by 12 News.

The elderly homeowners, who Neronha said have lived at the same address for nearly 30 years, are Haitian immigrants with extremely limited English proficiency.

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Neronha claimed Seyboth and his associates preyed upon the family after the homeowners defaulted on their mortgage in May 2023. The remaining payoff for their home, which has a market-value of $450,000, totaled more than $62,000, the complaint said.

He said one of Seyboths associates approached one of the homeowners nearly a month after they were notified of their impending foreclosure, asking how much she would be willing to sell it for.

[The homeowner] responded that she would sell it for $400,000, if she were to sell it, and then asked [the associate] if she did reverse mortgages, the complaint reads. [The associate] answered yes and gave [the homeowner] her business card, saying that someone would follow up.

The homeowner then gave the business card to her daughter, according to the complaint, and admitted that she did not fully understand what she and the associate had discussed.

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Neronha said another associate texted the homeowners daughter a few days later, proposing a plan in which he and Preferred Property Solutions, one of Seyboths real estate firms, would add their names to the title, pay off the existing balance, develop a new mortgage repayment plan and then transfer sole ownership back to them.

The associate then explained that Seyboth was willing to offer $100,000 to make the proposal a reality, according the complaint.

Neronha said no interpretation services were provided to the family throughout the completion of the deal, despite the daughters insistence that her parents did not understand English. The homeowners, thinking they were refinancing their home, wound up signing documents without realizing that they were transferring the deed to Preferred Property Solutions.

The homeowners did not intend to sell their $450,000 house for $100,000, and there is no reason why they would or should have, Neronha wrote in the complaint.

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Believing they had refinanced their mortgage, the homeowners continued making payments to Red Balloon Capital, another one of Seyboths real estate firms, for the next year, according to the complaint. Meanwhile, Neronha said Seyboth listed their home for sale online for $450,000.

Neronha said Seyboth and his associates deceived and took advantage of a Rhode Island family in danger of losing their home, preying on their financial desperation and limited knowledge of the English language.

The alleged behavior exposes the depths to which some people will sink in order to turn a buck, robbing the [homeowners] of the place they called home for decades, Neronha said. More broadly, its news to no one that we have a severe housing crisis on our hands, and this alleged behavior only exacerbates our housing problems, forcing families already in financial distress onto the streets.

Neronha believes Seyboth and his associates have violated the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and is now seeking civil penalties and injunctive relief on the homeowners behalf, including voiding the sale altogether.

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As tragic as this case is, I am hopeful that [the homeowners] will see their home returned to them, and grateful that we have the Deceptive Trade Practices Act as a tool to hold accountable these types of bad actors, he said. I hope this story reaches other Rhode Islanders who have experienced unlawful real estate transactions, as we stand ready and willing to investigate and prosecute those who make a living off of swindling others out of their homes.

Seyboth took the listing down and promised not to kick the family out of their home as a result of Neronhas complaint.

We deny the allegations in the complaint and remain confident that the facts of the matter will show that the Seyboth Team Real Estate has acted lawfully, a spokesperson told 12 News. We will put forth a vigorous defense and will not comment further on pending litigation.

Anyone who believes they may have fallen victim to a foreclosure rescue scheme or other unlawful real estate transactions is urged to contact Neronhas office by calling (401) 274-4400 or filing an online complaint.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com.
JAL, New Mexico (KMID/KPEJ)  The Lea County Sheriffs Office has released some clarification involving the investigation regarding the human remains that were found in Jal, New Mexico last week. This comes as the story has drawn significant public interest.

LCSO said in a release on Thursday that Cecil Villanueva is currently in custody at the Lea County Detention Center for misdemeanor criminal trespass, a charge which is unrelated to this investigation.

RELATED: LCSO discovers human remains amid ongoing missing person investigation

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The Office of the Medical Investigator collected several skull fragments from the property and forensic experts are working to confirm the total number and determine whether the remains represent full skulls or partial fragments.

LCSO investigators are examining the possibility of some, if not all, human remains having been purchased online. This inquiry remains ongoing, and LCSO said relevant findings will be shared as they are confirmed.

Is it legal to buy human bones online?

As of Thursday, November 14, LCSO said there does not appear to be a link between the remains and that of Angela McManes, who went missing from Jal in 2019. The only association between McManes and this case was the proximity of her home and the location of where the skull fragments were located.

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This remains an active investigation. If you have any information, you are encouraged to contact the Lea County Sheriffs Office at 575-396-3611 or Lea County Crime Stoppers at 575-393-8005.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
STARKS, La. (KLFY)  A man was cited by Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries enforcement agents for allegedly dumping several dead animals off a bridge in Calcasieu Parish Nov. 6, authorities said.

Agents cited Ronald Owens, 62, of Dequincy, for failing to tag deer, failing to validate deer harvest, failing to comply with harvest card requirements and gross littering.

LDWF received a complaint about someone dumping deer off a bridge on Old River Road in Starks. Agents responded to the scene and found multiple deer carcasses under the bridge.

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Investigators said agents were able to identify Owens as the person that dumped the carcasses off the bridge. Agents made contact with Owens and he admitted to dumping three deer carcasses and a feral hog carcass off the bridge, and that he did not tag two of the three deer that he dumped, officials said.

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Failing to tag deer, failing to validate deer harvest and failing to comply with harvest card requirements bring up to a $350 fine for each offense. Gross littering carries up to a $900 fine, 16 hours of community service in a litter abatement program and 30 days in jail.

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Owens may also face civil restitution totaling $3,249 for the replacement value of the deer.

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Ent Credit Union is accepting nominations for an annual award celebrating Coloradans who go above and beyond to make an impact in their communities.

The Community Advocate Award, created in 2022, recognizes individuals who demonstrate extraordinary dedication to helping others and create lasting change in Colorado communities, according to a Tuesday news release.

Ent Credit Union officials conceived the $50,000 award in the aftermath of the Club Q tragedy in Colorado Springs. On Nov. 19, 2022, a gunman walked into Club Q, an LGBTQ+ nightclub, and opened fire with a rifle, killing five people and injuring 17 others. The death toll would almost certainly have been higher if not for the actions of Richard Fierro and Thomas James, who subdued and disarmed the assailant.

One of our Ent team members and her husband were both shot that night, said Annie Snead, Ents director of community advocacy. (Fierro and James) saved not only our team members life, but countless others.

For their courage and selflessness, James and Fierro each received a cash award from the credit union.

It just seemed like a natural thing to keep it going, Snead said. How can we bring some light and love out of this awful thing, and continue to honor everyday heroes?

Last year, after receiving dozens of nominations, the credit union selected four Coloradans, each of whom continue to make an impact in significant ways.

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.

- Don Klinge, a resource officer at Jordahl Elementary School in Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8, coordinates an annual Christmas gift drive that benefits hundreds of local kids and their families.

- Zelna Joseph, executive director for Mission Medical Center in Colorado Springs, used her salary to help the provide free medical and dental care for the uninsured.

- Heather Greenwood, co-founder and co-owner of Gracefull Cafe in Littleton, established a restaurant that operates on a 'pay as you can' model, giving away 60% of their meals.

- Rebecca McDonald, a teacher at Oak Creek Elementary School in Colorado Springs, developed a behavior program and used her personal funds to provide food and snacks for her special-needs students.

Those are the kinds of people we want to honor, and we know theyre out there, Snead said. We need Coloradans to be our eyes and ears for folks who are doing amazing things.

The $50,000 award will either be granted to one winner or, in the event of multiple winners, shared among all selected nominees, the release stated.

Nominations will be accepted from Nov. 12-Dec. 31, officials said. Winners will be announced by the end of February.

To learn more about the Community Advocate Award, visit ent.com/community-advocate-award.
JAL, N.M. (WJW)  At least 10 human skulls were found at a New Mexico home this month, with one possibly linked to a woman who has been missing since 2019.

According to a press release posted to the Lea County Sheriffs Office Facebook page, a report on November 5 alerted the sheriffs officer of a Jal resident who had an unsettling encounter with Cecil Villanueva while offering him a ride.

VIDEO: Troopers look for semi involved in fatal hit-and-run

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Troopers were told that Villanueva was carrying two bags and made alarming statements while discarding objects from the vehicle. According to the report, some of those objects appeared to be human bones, the release said.

According to the release, bone fragments were found near a convenience store and Villanuevas reported location. A pathologist later confirmed that the bones were human.

According to the release, Villanueva was staying at a home on South 4th Street, which is associated with rumors of human remains.

Investigators searched the area on Nov. 6, when additional bone fragments were found, including portions of a skull and jawbone.

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Couple left kids to live with decomposing brother

A comprehensive search was later done by a forensic anthropologist and a team of investigators on Nov. 9, in which 10-20 human skulls were discovered, the release said.

According to the release, remains found during the search are being closely tied to the 2019 disappearance of Angela McManes. Her last known home was near the property that is currently under investigation.

Authorities are working diligently to determine the connection between the remains and McManes, as well as other possible victims, the release said.

The human remains were taken to the Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque for analysis and identification.

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Strongsville doctor enters plea in tax fraud case

This investigation is ongoing.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to call the Lea County Sheriffs Office at 575-396-3611.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Angela McManes was last seen in 2019 and lived near the Jal residence, where the remains were found

Lea County Sheriff's Office Angela McManes Angela McManes

At least 10 human skulls have been found at a residence in Jal, N.M., with one possibly being linked to a woman who has been missing since 2019.

Lea County Sheriff's Office was first alerted on Nov. 5 after an investigator with the department received information that a Jal resident had an unsettling encounter with a person they gave a ride to.

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Related: Human Remains Found Inside Freezer of Michigan Home After 'Blood on the Floor' Is Spotted

The passenger, who has since been identified as 28-year-old Cecil Villanueva, was reportedly carrying two bags and then made alarming statements and discarded objects from the vehicle, some of which appeared to be human bones, per a press release shared on the departments Facebook account on Tuesday, Nov. 12.

Getty Police cruiser on the street  stock image

Officers searched the area where the driver reported the incident and found bone fragments near a convenience store. A pathologist determined that the remains were human.

Investigators say Villanuevas residence on South 4th Street had been associated with rumors of human remains and went back to the property with a search warrant on Nov. 6, where additional bone fragments, including portions of a skull and jawbone were found.

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The discovery led to a team returning to conduct a more comprehensive search on Nov. 9.

Related: Human Remains Found in Suitcases Won at Auction Were Those of 2 Young Children, New Zealand Police Say

At that time, crews discovered evidence of 1020 human skulls. The remains were transported to the Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque for further analysis and potential identification.

Villanueva reportedly told investigators he purchased the remains online and has not yet faced any charges.

According to Lea County Sheriff's Office, the case is now tied to the 2019 disappearance of Angela McManes, who lived near the South 4th Street property at the time she went missing.

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.

McManes sister, Kris Kelton, spoke with KOB 4 in an article last updated on Wednesday, Nov. 13, about the new details regarding her sisters disappearance.

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However, Kelton said the family does not have much new information and currently knows about as much as the public does.

No, simply because its still pending. Yes, do I think its possible when you think it through? But you know, we dont want to come to any conclusion until we know the final outcome, Kelton told the news station. All we know is pretty much whats been released through social media.

Getty Crime Scene Tape  stock image Crime Scene Tape  stock image

She added that McManes had not been seen or heard from in five years and left without her glasses, diabetes medication and money.

Kelton said her sister was a mom to three children and would have never willingly left her kids behind.

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If it come to her kids, she was going to defend them right or wrong and then deal with the wrong or right. She was a great mom. She loved her kids more than I can even tell you. I know everybody loves their kids, but that was one of our clues that something was wrong because she would not have walked out on her children, Kelton told the outlet.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Lea County Sheriffs Office at 575-396-3611 or Lea County Crimestoppers at 575-393-8005.


More than 40 people were killed on Thursday in Israeli airstrikes in eastern and southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities.

Twelves bodies were retrieved from rubble after an Israeli strike targeted a civil defence centre in the eastern town of Baalbek, Governor of Baalbek-Hermel Bachir Khodr said in an X post.

He added that there were more than 20 personnel inside the centre.

The Ministry of Health meanwhile said an Israeli strike on the al-Shaab neighbourhood in Baalbek left eight people, including five women, dead. Twenty-seven others were injured.

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In further attacks on various locations in the east of the country, four people were killed, according to the ministry.

An Israeli strike on the southern town of Arbsalim killed six people, including four paramedics, the ministry added.

At least 11 other people were killed in other attacks in the south of the country.

Destroyed buildings from Israeli air strikes are seen in Beirut southern suburb. Marwan Naamani/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
(Photo by Marisa Demarco/States Newsroom)

Nevada Democratic U.S. Rep. Susie Lee along with 51 other House Democrats joined Republicans in an unsuccessful attempt to give the incoming Trump Administration unchecked power to strip nonprofits of their tax exempt status.

The Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act failed to get the two-thirds vote needed to pass the House under suspension of the rules procedure Tuesday, which limits debate to 40 minutes and doesnt allow for amendments to be added.

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If passed, the bill would have allowed the U.S. Treasury secretary the sole power to strip tax exempt status from any nonprofit organization the administration deemed terrorist supporting.

The ACLU on Tuesday warned the organizations at risk could include universities, civil society groups, and nonprofit news outlets.

On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump threatened to get revenge on political rivals and perceived enemies.

The bill also postponed tax deadlines for American who were detained or held hostage abroad.

This bipartisan bill would protect American hostages and their families from unnecessary financial harm and ensure we are holding our nations adversaries accountable to keep Americans safe, Lee said in an email of her vote in support.

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Lee declined to answer questions about whether the bill would have given the Trump Administration the ability to attack nonprofits it deemed terrorist support organizations.

Republicans will control the Senate 53 to 47 and are also projected to retain the House by a slim margin, giving Trump the ability to pass his agenda.

But as seen earlier this week when Trump pressured Republican senators to allow him to appoint cabinet members without going through the Senate confirmation process, Trump is demonstrating he is keen to be empowered to circumvent Congress if and when he sees fit.

The narrowly rejected bill, which received 256 votes in support, would authorize the Treasury Department to deprive organizations of their nonprofit status at its own discretion with no input from Congress.

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The ACLU, along with 130 nonprofits organizing for reproductive freedom, immigrant protections, environmental justice, and LGBTQ rights signed onto a letter in September warning that passing such legislation would put them at risk.

The executive branch could use this authority to target its political opponents and use the fear of crippling legal fees, the stigma of the designation, and donors fleeing controversy to stifle dissent and chill speech and advocacy, the letter said.

Other notable Democrats who voted to support the bill included U.S. Reps. Adam Schiff of California and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, both who recently won elections to U.S. Senate seats.

U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, a co-sponsor of the bill, voted no on Tuesday.

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The bill contains provisions I support that provide essential tax relief to Americans wrongfully detained and held hostage, Titus said in an email. I voted against it in light of recent concerns that the provisions added by Republicans related to non-profit tax-exempt status could be abused by a future administration.

Titus instead directed her support to a separate measure, the Stop Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, which she said would also bring wrongfully detained Americans the tax relief they need without empowering the Treasury Department to make potentially politically driven determinations to take away tax exempt status.

Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, said in a statement Tuesday that the freedom to dissent with retaliation was key to a well-functioning democracy.

Hamadanchy warned that now is not the time to grant the executive branch new powers to investigate and functionally shut down and silence its critics.

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Enough members of the House voted to block giving the executive branch new broad and easily abused powers, Hamadanchy said in a statement. This is only the first such battle we expect to see in the coming years, and we will continue to remain vigilant in working to ensure that the authority of the executive branch is appropriately limited.

U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, Nevadas sole Republican in the House, voted Tuesday in support of the bill. Democratic U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford voted against the bill.

Correction: The original version of this story mischaracterized a provision of the legislation.
Donald Trump was expected to pick an outsider to lead the U.S. intelligence community. He exceeded expectations by choosing Tulsi Gabbard.

The former Democratic member of Congress from Hawaii has many critics and no formal intelligence experience. Shes known chiefly for her opposition to American wars abroad  and sympathetic views on autocrats like Russias Vladimir Putin and Syrias Bashar al-Assad.

The president-elects announcement of her nomination as Director of National Intelligence stunned members of Congress, along with current and former members of the intelligence community.

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One senior former intelligence official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the pick, described the choice as "left turn and off the bridge.

The surprise choice nonetheless came as something of a relief to those who feared Trump might nominate the combative former diplomat Ric Grenell, who briefly served as acting DNI in his first administration.

It will also almost certainly face headwinds when it comes time for her Senate confirmation hearings.

"I have a lot of questions," Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters after the pick was announced.

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Gabbard, 43, left the Democratic Party in 2022 and became a favorite of conservative media. She endorsed Trump this August and later appeared on the campaign trail with him.

Her foreign policy views have frequently put her firmly outside the mainstream of U.S. national security experts in both parties.

Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she posted a video on X calling on Moscow, Washington, and Kyiv to put geopolitics aside.

She later said the war could have been avoided if the West had guaranteed that Ukraine would never become part of NATO.



While in Congress, in 2017, she took a secret trip to meet the Syrian dictator, subsequently declaring that al-Assad is not the enemy of the United States.

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Gabbard served 17 years in the Hawaii National Guard and subsequently joined an Army reserve unit. She has deployed to the Horn of Africa, Kuwait and Iraq, and she has said those experiences nurtured a deep skepticism of U.S. interventionism.

Despite her background, she never served on the House Intelligence Committee during her eight years in Congress.

The possibility of Gabbard as DNI also drew alarm from those outside the U.S.

One Western intelligence official said it could lead Americas allies to curb how much information they share with Washington. I imagine even Israel will have serious qualms  Americas main intelligence partner on terrorist threats, said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.

Worse still, what some allies share may now be shaped by political goals rather than professional intelligence sharing, said the official.

Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.
Republicans asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday to again ensure mail ballots with a missing or improper date are not counted in this years election, accusing multiple counties of ignoring the courts commands.

In the lead-up to Election Day, the states top court issued multiple orders declaring the handwritten date requirement must be enforced, but it has not addressed claims from voting rights groups that the requirement violates the Pennsylvania Constitutions free and equal elections clause.

Several county boards this week moved forward with counting ballots with date problems, leading to a new round of postelection litigation over the hotly contested issue.

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At stake are at least hundreds of ballots, which could play a sizable role as the close contest between incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and challenger David McCormick heads to an automatic recount. McCormick leads by roughly 25,000 votes.

McCormick declared victory and has been in Washington this week for freshmen orientation. Decision Desk HQ, The Hills partner, projected McCormick as the winner Thursday afternoon.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) and its state arm on Thursday asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to use its King Bench power to immediately take up the date requirement issue and reaffirm no county can count the challenged ballots  specifically taking aim at Philadelphia, Bucks County and Centre County.

[V]arious county boards are seeking to alter the rules of the election at the thirteenth hour, Republicans wrote in its application. By counting undated and misdated mail ballots for the 2024 General Election, they are disobeying this Courts commands many times over. At best, they are confused; at worst, they are openly defying the authority of this Court.

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McCormick was not part of the request, but he has joined the party in its lawsuit filed in a trial court challenging Bucks Countys decision to count ballots with improper or missing dates.

Caseys campaign noted that McCormick supported counting ballots with date issues during his first Senate run when his primary headed to a recount in 2022.

David McCormicks hypocritical reversal on undated mail ballots is further proof of his determination to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters while counties continue to count votes in this razor-thin election. Senator Caseys priority continues to be making sure Pennsylvanians voices are heard as our democratic process unfolds, said Tiernan Donohue, Caseys campaign manager, in a statement.

Matt Gruda, McCormicks campaign manager, has meanwhile accused Casey of trying to illegally count UNREGISTERED voters as his campaign challenges rejections of certain provisional ballots.

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Republicans lawsuits come after several counties this week met to adjudicate ballot issues.

Bucks County, a critical area for both campaigns that is located north of Philadelphia, on Tuesday voted 2-1 along party lines to count just over 400 timely ballots with date issues.

Bob Harvie, a Democrat who serves as the county commissioner boards vice-chair, said it was a pretty stupid thing not to count them, since the mail ballots are timestamped when received.

Were going to get sued either way; Id rather be on the side of counting ballots than not counting them, Harvie said at Tuesdays meeting.

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Democrat Diane Ellis-Marseglia, the boards chair, said, I Cant vote to reject them. I just cant.

Republican commissioner Gene DiGirolamo, who serves as secretary, voted against counting the ballots.

A similar fallout took place on Wednesday at a meeting of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, which also voted 2-1 along party lines to count hundreds of ballots with date issues.

The new cases are the latest in what has been a heavily litigated election in Pennsylvania.

McCormick last week filed two emergency motions related to provisional ballot challenges, but a judge denied one and the candidate later withdrew the other.

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Updated 2:58 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.
LUBBOCK, Texas (KLBK)  Recent news out of New Mexico involving the discovery of human skulls and other bone fragments brings to light a unique question: Can you legally buy human bones online?

On Tuesday, the Lea County Sheriffs Office said it was investigating human remains found in Jal, New Mexico that were believed to linked to a missing persons case from 2019. The narrative shifted Wednesday when authorities stated the skulls were possibly purchased online over the course of several years.

Local authorities confirmed it is possible to buy real human bones online. And according to a couple of sources, it is perfectly legal.

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Human skulls found in Lea County may have been purchased online

As reported by National Geographic, theres no federal law prohibiting trade and ownership of human remains (other than those from Native Americans).

The Bone Room, a natural history store that follows California State Law, U.S. Federal Law and International Treaties regarding the possession and sale of bones, noted that Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee and Minnesota have independent state laws prohibiting the import or export of human remains across their state lines.

Only one company in the U.S., Skulls Unlimited, is legally cleaning human heads that come straight from donors, according to National Geographic. The company sells these donor skulls only to bona fide doctors, nurses, dentists, anthropologists and people with valid scientific or medical reasons to have them.

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But they do sell antique skulls to prospective buyers.

American Idol finalist Triston Harper, 16, is expecting baby with new wife, his mother reveals

Previously, users of eBay were allowed to buy and sell human bones and other types of human remains, however, the auction website changed its policy around 2016 and currently, according to the eBay human body parts policy, which now indicates that only items containing human scalp hair (such as lockets or wigs) are allowed to be sold.

The website also states that it doesnt even allow used funeral items, like urns, which may have come into contact with human remains.

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In short, although there are no laws against possessing human bones at the federal level, this does not mean such laws do not exist in other countries or at a local level.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
While he may have irreparably embarrassed himself with his ill-fated run for president, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) might soon get a little consolation prize for clearing the way for Trumps inevitable presidential nomination: the honor of choosing a new senator for the state of Florida should Trump actually follow through with formally picking Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to be secretary of state. (Trump affirmed that Rubio would be his pick today, though some of his MAGA friends are trying to convince him to reconsider.)

That is, of course, if Trumps political allies in Congress dont elbow their way into making the decision for DeSantis.

Its been speculated that DeSantis was weighing nominating one of his longtime close advisers and aides: either his chief of staff James Uthmeier or the states attorney general, Ashley Moody. But now it seems he may have to choose between rewarding a close ally and a name thats been floated that Trump is sure to embrace: Trumps daughter-in-law.

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Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL)  a first-term senator who only became a household name after her creepy rebuttal to President Bidens State of the Union address this year, and who, apparently, taught Trump what IVF is this summer  publicly suggested that DeSantis should nominate Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee who is married to Trumps son Eric Trump.

She just got off a historic win, Britt told Axios this week, suggesting Lara Trumps efforts as co-chair of the RNC for the last eight months have earned her the street cred to become a United States senator.

She understands the America First agenda, Britt reportedly continued. For me, I think she would be a tremendous pick, a voice for hard working families and another mom of school aged kids that understands what were up against, and thats to fight to protect the American dream.

DeSantis has not yet spoken publicly on the issue. But, when hes in Trumps presence, the governors spine never can withstand much pressure  a characteristic that may become more pronounced as he faces down his states term limits, and the potential of his own diminishing political relevance.

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A Colorado State Patrol trooper was struck and injured Wednesday afternoon while responding to a crash on Colorado Highway 115 south of Colorado Springs.

According to the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Colorado State Patrol, the state trooper, identified as Trooper Tyler Atkins, was working on a previous accident near the intersection of Highway 115 and Little Turkey Creek Road around 3:44 p.m. when his patrol vehicle was struck by a driver. The trooper was inside the vehicle when it was hit.

A photo shared by the state patrol from the crash scene show a patrol vehicle with significant rear end damage.

State Patrol said Trooper Atkins was airlifted to a nearby hospital for treatment but has since been released. The trooper is currently at home recovering, according to officials.

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The other driver, who State Patrol said is suspected of driving under the influence, was taken to a hospital by ambulance. No other injuries were reported.

Highway 115 was closed in both directions while the crash was investigated by the Vehicular Crimes Unit. The Department of Transportation marked the highway reopened as of 6:11 p.m.

The name of the other driver have not been released. State Patrol said Wednesday night no charges had been filed pending the crash investigation.

The crash was the same day as the memorial parade for a Golden Police Officer who was struck and killed while on duty Nov. 6. Colorado State Patrol said this was the second time one of their patrol vehicles has been hit by a driver this month.
KANSAS CITY, Mo.  A letter sent to some Kansas City, Missouri home and business owners with private alarm systems has raised questions and some confusion.

The letter lists the website of a company called Cry Wolf Services, where people can apply for and pay for private alarm permits.

It also lists the companys mailing address in Los Angeles.

Some homeowners and business owners were concerned about the companys name and location, but it is not a scam.

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Too Good To Go app launches in Kansas, Missouri

A KCPD spokesperson said when the private alarms section was being transferred over we understood there may be some questions and confusion. We have proactively messaged this on several occasions on the KCPD website to make sure we informed the public before hand about the change. The Private alarms section is not a function of KCPD and is operated by Cry Wolf Services.

Scott Reaves, the owner of Stonemont Security, says customers have been contacting him with questions about the change.

Several of our commercial customers especially have been giving us calls asking about this cry wolf program that is requiring people to re register their alarm systems. These customers have had alarm systems for years, Reaves explained. After a little investigation myself, I was able to tell them, yes, it is a real thing, but we havent had any communication about it from the PD either. So it was kind of a surprise to us as well.

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Kansas Citys alarm ordinance has been in place for years. It aims to reduce the number of false alarms police respond to.

Permits are required for commercial and residential alarm systems. If you dont have a permit and your alarm goes off, police wont respond.

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One thing that were doing to be proactive is live video monitoring with our alarms now, where we can give our monitoring center access to our cameras, and they can verify a crime is in progress now, Reaves said. If it is verified as in progress, they have to respond whether they have a permit or not theyre going to have to respond so thats one way we are trying to help out the customer.

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According to information on KCPDs website, youll need to apply for and pay the $52 fee for new permits. All permits previously issued and in good standing were transferred to Cry Wolf.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
To the editor: Latino men are now front and center in the debate about who lost the 2024 election for the Democrats. Columnist Gustavo Arellano says the values often held by Latinos align more closely with those of Republicans than Democrats.

It is true that Latinos are more conservative on social issues, religion and family. They are hardworking, self-sufficient, patriotic, optimistic and entrepreneurial.

Years ago, Ronald Reagan said, "Latinos are Republican; they just don't know it yet." Only time will tell if they have found their true political calling.

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Reagan loved Latinos, and in 1986, the immigration law he championed gave amnesty to more than 3 million immigrants. But historically, Republicans have supported policies that help the rich, while Democrats have helped the working poor and middle class.

This election was more about ideology than policy issues. Vice President Kamala Harris lost ground in almost every demographic, and Latinos were just part of that equation.

Anastacio Vigil, Santa Monica

..

To the editor: Arellano's column is a cogent analysis of the election. But he has a misstep at the end.

He writes: "Hating on Latino men is easier. It's been a favorite sport of Americans for centuries. We've been buffoons to them, criminals, rapists."

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Sadly, that may be true. And President-elect Donald Trump sustained it.

But this election isn't as much about Latino men being treated as criminals and rapists as it is about Latino men voting for a criminal and an adjudicated sexual abuser. And shamefully, they weren't alone.

William Carey, Sherman Oaks

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
To the editor: I will confess, I didn't finish reading Doyle McManus' Nov. 11 column, "What can a new President Trump really do on Day One? A guide for the worried."

I stopped after he quoted former Immigration and Customs Enforcement leader Tom Homan saying there won't be mass deportation sweeps or concentration camps under Trump, with no justification for that claim.

I can't read the future, but why would anyone assume there's a bottom to the incoming administration's cruelty? Where have President-elect Donald Trump or his allies promised they won't build camps? And if they haven't made that promise, what legal mechanism in the Republican-controlled government would prevent them from doing so?

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McManus is correct that deporting 11 million people would be a logistical nightmare, but that's been true of every such atrocity in human history. It was true 80 years ago when the federal government imprisoned more than 100,000 Japanese Americans  in concentration camps!  for no reason other than their ethnicity.

I have yet to see a compelling reason why nothing like that could happen today.

Katelyn Best, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: Considering Trump's vicious plan to deport millions of people from this country, I couldn't help but think of my grandparents.

In 1911, my mother's mother, age 16, left her family and boarded a ship from Russia without knowing a single person on board and made her way to Baltimore. She couldn't speak the language but with complete determination she worked hard, married, raised a family and owned several businesses. She was a proud American citizen.

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There have been millions like her since.

The vitriol spewed by Trump adviser Stephen Miller when he said before the election, "America is for Americans and Americans only," harked back to a dark time in history when, before World War II, we isolated ourselves and left oppressed people elsewhere in peril.

To have strict immigration laws is imperative, but to play God with human beings who are here and striving for a better life is wrong. It is easy and tempting to close our eyes and look away from all that is being planned, but it is more important than ever to pay close attention.

Frances Terrell Lippman, Sherman Oaks

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..

To the editor: Thanks to McManus for penning a realistic and sane examination of Trump's victory. I found his viewpoint strangely uplifting.

Like most Democrats, I am heartbroken by Vice President Kamala Harris' loss. But McManus' reminder of the impact of public opinion somehow lessens the blow.

A majority of Americans voted for him, and most of them are a lot like me  just more conservative. I pray that those who voted for him would join the rest of us to rein him in if he tries to go too far.

Jerrold Coleman, Santa Clarita

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Editor's note: Letters to the editor reflect the views of individual readers. Scroll to the bottom to see how you can add your voice, whether you agree or disagree. We welcome diverse viewpoints.

Re: "Letters: Americans should admit that we rejected Kamala Harris because she's a woman," by Jerry Preston, Nov. 13.

I dont totally agree with Jerry Preston on why Vice President Kamala Harris didnt win the election.

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Part of the reason is, she doesnt speak for all women rights.

She was so stuck on the abortion issue and LGBT issues, but not fixing the immigration problem.

Biden and Kamala ruined our economy, they kept us in wars and they kept us divided.

Deborah Short Taylor, Elizabethon 37643

Agree or disagree? Or have a view on another topic entirely? Send a letter of 250 words or fewer to letters@tennessean.com. Include your full name, city/town, ZIP and contact information for verification. Thanks for adding to the public conversation.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Letters: Kamala Harris lost because of her policies, not her gender
Editor's note: Letters to the editor reflect the views of individual readers. Scroll to the bottom to see how you can add your voice, whether you agree or disagree. We welcome diverse viewpoints.

President-Elect Donald Trump nominated Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense and top Democrats are already spreading misinformation about Mr. Hegseth.

Former Republican presidential candidate Joe Walsh stated on the social media platform X that Mr. Hegseths nomination is a middle finger to everyone who currently serves in the U.S. Armed Services and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts posts to the same platform that Mr. Hegseth is not qualified to be Secretary of Defense.

An utterly unserious pick. A middle finger to everyone who currently serves in the U.S. Armed Services. https://t.co/Qila35g3mL  Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) November 13, 2024

I find it insulting and unpatriotic to seemingly purposefully spread this false narrative that Mr. Hegseth is nothing more than a Fox News Host. As a veteran myself, Joe Walshs statement is a slap in the face.

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The irresponsible posts by these politicians suggesting that Pete Hegseth has no military experience is ignorant, misleading, and spreads even more division in our country.

Mr. Hegseth is a decorated major who served in the National Guard who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is more than qualified for the position to run the Department of Defense.

Is Senator Warren forgetting she voted to confirm the late Ash Carter to become Defense Secretary, who had not served in the military?

We have an experienced, decorated military veteran, and true American patriot nominated by President-Elect Trump to serve as Defense Secretary and the opposition just wants to continue its disdain against Trump simply because he is Trump. When will they stop this continuous assault on the stability of our nation?

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Kirk Wayne, Dickson 37055

Agree or disagree? Or have a view on another topic entirely? Send a letter of 250 words or fewer to letters@tennessean.com. Include your full name, city/town, ZIP and contact information for verification. Thanks for adding to the public conversation.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Letters: Pete Hegseth is qualified to be Trump's Secretary of Defense
WASHINGTON (AP)  Demand Justice, a progressive organization focused on the judiciary, is set to bombard Capitol Hill with a message for the closing weeks of the 118th Congress: Do whatever it takes to confirm President Joe Bidens nominees as a second Donald Trump presidency looms.

The Republican president-elect's victory and the GOP takeover of the Senate leaves just seven weeks of Democratic control of the chamber.

Democrats have confirmed 213 of Bidens judicial nominees during his presidency. Another few dozen are still pending. To add to those confirmations, Senate Democrats would need to stay in Washington far longer than they had planned and also navigate a razor-thin margin that hamstrung them at times on other Biden priorities.

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Trump focused heavily on filling court vacancies in his first term, getting 234 judges confirmed, including three to the Supreme Court. Democrats are seeking to deny him more opportunities to name conservative judges as the party determines its path forward after a sweeping defeat that will leave it out of power come January.

Senate Democrats cannot give up and go home just because they lost the chamber, said Skye Perryman, a senior adviser to Demand Justice, whose push will include widespread lobbying, Capitol Hill events and targeted ads. It is even more critical now that good, qualified, fair-minded judges are confirmed so they can serve as a backstop and uphold the rights of ordinary people and protect our Constitution.

According to the United States Courts website, 17 pending judicial nominees have advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, eight are waiting for votes from the committee and six are waiting for committee hearings. The White House announced new judicial nominees in October and November.

The Senate returned this week from their break around the election. The Senate calendar has the legislative body being out of town around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. But the calendar is subject to change, and it is common for senators to leave Washington for extended weekend breaks.

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The push will confront an already full schedule in the Senate, too. In addition to confirmations, the legislative body will be tasked with providing more disaster aid after a string of deadly storms, passing the annual defense policy bill, and keeping the government funded and open.

Some Democratic-caucusing senators like West Virginias Joe Manchin and Arizonas Kyrsten Sinema, both independents, are leaving the chamber at the end of this session. And if Republicans are unified to oppose Biden's picks, Manchin has said he will not support judicial appointments that are not bipartisan, shrinking the Democratic margin.

One nominee, April Perry, was confirmed on Monday evening for the northern district of Illinois.

Asked about the effort to pressure Senate Democrats to do all they can to confirm these nominees, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, We are going to get as many done as we can.

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Trump on Sunday urged Republicans to oppose Schumers efforts. No Judges should be approved during this period of time because the Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership, he wrote.

Delaying the confirmation of strongly qualified, experienced judges takes a real-life toll on constituents and leads to backlogs of criminal cases  meaning there is every urgent reason for Republicans and Democrats to continue working together in good faith to staff the federal bench, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in response to Trump. There is no excuse for choosing partisanship over enforcing the rule of law.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he hoped Republicans would not seek to delay confirmation votes for judges, noting that Democrats agreed to a package of 12 judicial confirmations at the end of the first Trump presidency.

I hope they follow the precedent, Durbin said.

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He added that he hopes to get about two dozen judicial nominees confirmed during the lame-duck session.

Thats just about all we can do, he added.

Perryman from Demand Justice echoed that sentiment. There is no excuse not to put these qualified individuals on the floor for a vote. Americans all across the country are working overtime to make ends meet, and the Senate should work overtime too: Americans deserve better from their elected officials than excuses or delays," Perryman added.

According to operatives working with Demand Justice, the groups plan includes a widespread lobbying effort aimed at key senators, press events urging action and a new website that gives constituents a chance to see where the effort stands.

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With only weeks left before the new Congress, its more urgent than ever that Democratic senators do whatever it takes  staying late, working weekends  during the lame duck session, said Maggie Jo Buchanan, a top operative at the progressive organization.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, in a series of post-election posts reflecting on Trumps win, urged Schumer to use every minute of the end-of-year legislative session to confirm federal judges and key regulators  none of whom can be removed by the next President.

And groups like The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights have echoed this focus.

As the Senate returns to Washington and with limited time remaining, it is critically important that our senators immediately vote on all of President Bidens judicial nominees, said Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program and an advisor at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

___

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
(WHTM)  Devices that flip license plates on vehicles are one step closer to being outright banned in Pennsylvania.

Headed to Governor Josh Shapiros desk is HB 2426, after it passed the Pennsylvania Senate Wednesday.

The proposed bill would explicitly ban license plate-flipping devices.

Josh Shapiro responds to noise regarding potential 2028 presidential bid

License plates on vehicles are able to be flipped manually or electronically by these devices. They are used to conceal a license plate, change how it looks, or even switch it with another one.

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Drivers can use these devices to hide from law enforcement, to avoid being tolled, or caught for crimes.

There are currently many ambiguities in our state law that allow individuals to use these devices as loopholes to get out of making payments they owe, Gallagher said. The city of Philadelphia recently took action on this issue by prohibiting these devices in the city, and now its time for the entire state of Pennsylvania to follow suit.

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The bill was introduced by state Reps. Pat Gallagher, D-Phila., and Greg Scott, D-Montgomery.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Indiana Lt. Gov.-elect Micah Beckwith called the Indiana Daily Students 2024 election edition woke propaganda and appeared to threaten both the IDS and Indiana University in an X post (formerly known as Twitter) on Nov. 12.

Here's what you need to know.

What did Micah Beckwith say about the IDS?

Beckwiths tweet shows the front page of the Nov. 7 print edition of the IDS, which features quotes from Donald Trumps former allies and cabinet members calling him a threat to democracy, a danger for the United States, a moron, and a fascist.

This is from the Indiana Daily Student, the student newspaper at Indiana University after Trump won. Your tax dollars at work. They called him a moron, a fascist, and a threat to democracy (even though we arent a democracy, but I dont expect students at IU to know that.) pic.twitter.com/4Ot8ZKVx5G  TheMicahBeckwith (@MicahBeckwith) November 12, 2024

This is WOKE propaganda at its finest and why most of America looks at higher education indoctrination centers like IU as a complete joke and waste of money, Beckwith said in his tweet. This type of elitist leftist propaganda needs to stop or we will be happy to stop it for them.

Why did Micah Beckwith criticize an IDS front page?

Beckwiths tweet calling the IDS and IU leftist propaganda and indoctrination centers came in response to the papers election issue. The issue contains news and opinion stories about statewide and national election results, but the front cover features several unflattering and negative quotes from Trumps former allies.

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Beckwith's tweet incorrectly stated the IDS had called Trump, a moron, a fascist, and a threat to democracy. The quotes came from, and were attributed on the cover to, Trumps former allies. Trumps former secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, reportedly called Trump a moron, while former Defense Secretary Mark Esper called him a threat to democracy.

John Kelly, Trumps former chief of staff, said Trump falls into the general definition of fascist in October  a claim that the Kamala Harris campaign latched onto and repeated in the weeks leading up to the election.

How has the IDS responded to Beckwith's tweet?

Marissa Meador, the IDS co-editor-in-chief for the fall semester, said in a written statement she and the IDS newsroom were concerned by Beckwiths tweet, both because it misinterpreted the source of the quotes and because it appeared to threaten the IDS.

We wanted a cover that would illustrate the historic nature of this win, including its sort-of underdog narrative, said Meador. Our intent was to create a front page that could be read as inspiring to his supporters as well as mirroring the shock felt by his opponents.

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The most concerning aspect is that Beckwith indicated he would use his office to control what the IDS prints, which would be a flagrant violation of the First Amendment, Meador said.

Could Micah Beckwith withdraw funding for the IDS?

Not directly. In Indiana (and throughout the U.S.), the state budget  including funding to state schools and programs  is set each year by the state House of Representatives and Senate.

Indiana Lieutenant Governor-elect Micah Beckwith, left, and Governor-elect Mike Braun, right, at the 2024 Indiana GOP State Convention in Indianapolis on June 15, 2024.

However, Beckwith could potentially influence the state budget in two ways. First, as governor-elect Mike Brauns running mate and close advisor, Beckwith could encourage Braun to veto a state budget proposal if either of them take issue with items in it  including funding allocations to IU.

Second, as the tie-breaking vote in the state Senate, Beckwith could tip a vote on budget adoption one way or the other, although that's unlikely given Indiana's current 40-to-10 Republican majority in the Senate.

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As of Nov. 12, Braun and Beckwiths teams had not commented further on the tweet, despite requests from the IDS.

Does the state budget fund the Indiana Daily Student?

Not really. The IDS is largely sustained through independent ad revenue, and as of earlier this year, IU is working to make the IDS (and student media as a whole) revenue neutral and more financially independent.

However, IUs Media School pays the salaries of about five professional IDS staff members and is continuing to help pay down the newspapers budget deficit.

In 2023, Indiana Rep. Lorissa Sweet (R) led a successful effort to bar state dollars from funding the Kinsey Institute at IU  a move that nearly led to the institute being severed from IU entirely.

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Decision: Kinsey Institute to remain at Indiana University after Board of Trustees vote

Changes for IDS already in the works

Beckwiths comments come just over a month after the Media School announced, without input from students or staff, that the IDS would eliminate its weekly print edition starting in spring 2025, a change aimed at promoting financial solvency for the paper.

'A lot of fear': Indiana University cuts student newspaper's weekly print product

At the time, IDS co-editor-in-chief Jacob Spudich called the mandate from the university to reduce print production a form of censorship.

Meador said while the IDS stands by its election issue, she worries the cover is being misinterpreted in a way that puts the paper and its staff members in danger.

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We absolutely stand by the decision because we think this is a historic presidency that deserves a historic and visually meaningful cover, Meador said in an email. We do, however, wish the point of our cover was universally understood and dont like our paper being in controversy, particularly because of the potential risk it puts our staff members in.

Reach Brian Rosenzweig at brian@heraldt.com. Follow him on Twitter/X at @brianwritesnews.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Lieutenant Governor elect Beckwith calls out Indiana Daily Student
Abigail Ticse, right, and Joyce McDonald, prosecutors with the Office of the State Prosecutor, leave Anne Arundel County Circuit Court following the sentencing of former Prince George's Councilmember Jamel "Mel" Franklin. Photo by Bryan P. Sears.

Jamel Mel Franklin, a former Prince Georges County Council member described as a once-rising political star who was a sought-after candidate for county executive, could spend the next year in jail after pleading guilty Wednesday to stealing from his own campaign account.

Franklins defense team offered dozens of letters from family and friends and politicians attesting to their clients character and good works in the hope of avoiding jail. In the end, Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Mark W. Crooks sided with prosecutors who sought a short term of incarceration for Franklin.

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The sort of dipping in the cookie jar, so to speak, happened over a really attenuated, lengthy period of time, Crooks said, speaking directly to Franklin. Thats whats so concerning, you had off-ramps along the way where you could have sought help.

The three-term councilmember was charged in June with two dozen counts, including theft, embezzlement and more than a dozen counts of perjury. Franklin resigned his seat on the council and reached a plea agreement with the Office of the State Prosecutor prior to the charges being made public.

Franklin faced a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and/or a $25,000 fine for the theft scheme charge. The perjury charge carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Bruce Marcus, Franklins attorney, called Wednesdays sentencing hearing a day of reckoning for his client, who he said had been brought low by his public fall from grace, which also includes the loss of Franklins license to practice law.

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There is nothing I can tell you that would suggest to you that theres more that could happen to him than has already happened, said Marcus, in pleading for leniency for his client.

Mel Franklin. Photo courtesy of Prince Georges County.

The defense attorney said his clients life spiraled following the death of his mother, a failing marriage, a stroke suffered by his sister and a battle with esophagitis that requires medication and caused dramatic weight loss, as well as struggles with alcohol abuse.

Marcus added that his client had recently started a consulting business. A jail sentence would potentially end that effort and Franklins ability to rebuild his reputation and repay the money stolen from the campaign account.

Marcus submitted more than two dozen letters from elected officials, family members, friends and community leaders. Included in the filings were letters from Sen. Joanne Benson (D-Prince Georges), Prince Georges County Councilmember Edward Burroughs III and Melanie Miller, the daughter of former Maryland State Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr.

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Franklin, in his own two-page letter to Crooks, apologized for his actions.

I do not believe the violations of the public trust that I committed are the end of my story, Franklin wrote. I will be a better, more faithful person and a better Christian. I will work to eliminate the problems I have had with alcohol abuse. And I will work every day to rebuild the trust that I destroyed for so many people who believed in me.

I particularly regret the poor example I have set for my two children, Jamel and Alexis. I love them more than anything in this world and will do everything in my power to be a far better father to them than I have been before, he wrote

Franklin also spoke briefly in court repeating the regrets expressed in his letter.

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Crooks sentenced Franklin, 50, to five years in jail for the theft charge with all but one year suspended. Franklin also received a five-year sentence for perjury with all five years suspended. The former councilman will also serve three years of supervised probation.

During that time, he will be required to repay his campaign account more than $133,000. The money will ultimately be distributed to a charitable organization  the Excellence in Education Foundation for PGCPS Inc., a nonprofit that awarded $200,000 in scholarships in the last school year.

Once released from jail, Franklin will be required to make annual restitution payments of $44,389 during each of the three years of his probation.

Crooks also ordered Franklin, who acknowledged a problem with alcohol, to abstain from drinking, obtain counseling and mental health treatment. Franklin was charged twice within four days in September with driving under the influence of alcohol, according to a memorandum filed in court by Marcus.

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Franklin will begin serving his sentence  which Crooks called an involuntary period of quietude  on Nov. 30.

You need to use this experience, in my opinion, as a period of self-reflection, to sort of chart out the course of the second half of your life, Crooks said to Franklin. Commit to yourself that it will be productive, and the lessons of this experience will be applied to that second half.

I was glad to hear that you started that business. The danger, I think, in a moment in time like this, is that you just remain an engine in fifth gear, Crooks said. My advice, which you could take or leave, is to take a moment to throttle back to second or even first gear, because jail truly is a moment of involuntary quietude where you actually sort of commit yourself to what the arc of the second half of your life looks like.

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Franklin can seek a sentence modification. His defense attorney filed that motion during the sentencing hearing. Crooks said he would take up that matter at a later date.

Prosecutors left the courthouse without comment to reporters. Franklin left by a side door, accompanied by his father, a brother and sister.

The sentencing in Anne Arundel County caps a case that began six months ago.

Franklin signed a plea agreement with state prosecutors on May 30. The deal was finalized two weeks before he abruptly resigned from the county council.

A week later, prosecutors publicly announced the charges against Franklin.

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Franklin admitted to stealing more than $124,000 in campaign funds between 2020 and October 2023, according to state prosecutors.

Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Abigail Ticse told Crooks that Franklin led a life of many actions. None, she argued, offset his breach of public trust.

He wasnt just stealing his donors money, Ticse said in court. It was also the theft of transparency in Prince Georges County elections. He was trusted by the public, the people who trusted him to be their voice in the county, who were making donations to his campaigns, and it was that trusted position that gave Mr. Franklin access to everything he needed to commit these crimes, these long-term crimes.

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He used the money to repay personal loans and credit card debt. He also used campaign funds to pay the rent on his apartment and for international travel and personal subscriptions. He further admitted to spending $11,500 on cosmetic procedures for himself and an unidentified close friend, according to prosecutors.

Franklin also admitted to using an additional $8,718 in campaign funds between 2021 and December 2023 for noncampaign expenses. Franklin then committed perjury when he signed doctored campaign finance reports that hid the expenditures.

This is a lot of money. It wasnt a one-off, Ticse said. This took work. It took years of work. It took planning, which ultimately let him steal over $130,000. He had to evade the detection of the public in these reports, in the filing with the state board of elections. He also had to avoid their auditors, not just by falsifying the reports, but by doing so in a way that they look legit.

Crooks agreed, telling Franklin it was difficult for him to overlook the effect his actions had on the public at a time when distrust of government and elected officials is prevalent. Crooks said he was worried about donors who made contributions for the first time ever  because they saw something in you that inspired them, different from the negative stereotypes that abound in politicians, especially these days.

Maybe thats the last time theyll donate, Crooks said. And those are the things that really concern the court, because that is the public confidence.
The train click-clacks along at a steady rhythm, passing through various shades of green. Lush rice fields morph into dense forests, while rivers glisten in the morning sun.

The verdant, tropical landscape is briefly interrupted by colorful sparks of life in the form of towns and villages, where people are going about their morning routine  street vendors serving breakfast to commuters, women carrying fresh produce back from the market and kids gathering in their red and white school uniforms.

This is the view from the Argo Wilis Panoramic, a bright and airy carriage on the Argo Wilis train. Running between the cities of Surabaya in East Java and Bandung in West Java, its one of the most scenic and underrated train journeys in all of Southeast Asia.

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For some context, Indonesia is the worlds largest archipelago, home to over 17,000 islands. While boats and planes are typically the main way to travel between each island, on Java, trains are by far the best choice.

Stretching 1,064 kilometers from east to west and home to well over half of Indonesias population  thats a whopping 275 million people  it makes sense that the rail network is so extensive and well-used.

The Argo Wilis Panoramic carriage sits idle in Surabaya Gubeng Station. - Josh Edwards

Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) is the countrys national rail company. While there are limited train networks on the islands of Sumatra and Sulawesi, the large majority of them are based in Java, linking all the major cities including Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Solo and Surabaya.

Most of this network was constructed during the Dutch colonial era, which lasted some 350 years.

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Each train has its own name with its own meaning.

For example, the Argo Wilis is named after a non-active volcano in East Java, explains a railway guard. There are other trains named after volcanoes too, as well as historic places and Javanese myths and legends.

Whats unique about Indonesian trains is that rather than having a single carriage dedicated to a certain class, each entire train is one of three classes  economy, executive or business.

Whichever class youre in, theyre impeccably clean and comfortable, with reclinable seats, footrests and air-conditioning  a must in Indonesias tropical heat. The trains are also incredibly punctual and affordable.

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The journey on the Argo Wilis Panoramic between Surabaya and Bandung takes just under 10 hours and costs Rp 1,200,000 ($77) per person for a one-way ticket in the panoramic carriage, and just Rp 680,000 ($43) on the rest of the executive train.

As well as the Argo Wilis Panoramic, there is also the Argo Parahyangan Panoramic and the Pangandaran Panoramic running back and forth between Jakarta and Bandung.

Looking out the window of the Argo Wilis, traveling from Surabaya to Yogyakarta - Josh Edwards

The panoramic car costs a little more than the rest of the trains carriages, but the ticket comes with plenty of perks. Even before boarding, passengers can start their journey in style at the stations executive lounges, which include complimentary food and drink. On the train, hot drinks, a snack box and a main meal are provided. Theres also free Wi-Fi, although, with such incredible views, there shouldnt be much time for scrolling.

Purchasing tickets is easy. Much like the rest of Indonesia, the railways have been quick to embrace technology, particularly in the form of mobile apps. The best way to book is either Traveloka or Tiket.com, two of Indonesias largest online travel companies. Its also possible to book tickets on the KAI official website, but the site is only in Indonesian and only accepts Indonesian credit cards. Tickets dont need to be printed  simply scan them from your phone at the station.

Route highlights

For those traveling on the Argo Wilis Panoramic who want to break up the journey, there are several cities along the way well worth spending a few days exploring. (If you want to make stops, youll need to book your tickets to each of these destinations individually.)

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Among the highlights is Yogyakarta, one of Indonesias most interesting cities, and the only one that still has a monarchy. Its the center of the countrys arts and cultural heritage, with creative industries such as silversmithing, shadow puppetry, traditional dance and batik textiles, an ancient art form that dates back over 2,000 years and is thought to have originated in Java.

Theres plenty to keep visitors busy, from walking around the Kraton (the royal palace) to shopping for locally-made arts and crafts along the famous Malioboro Street.

Of course, no visit to Yogyakarta can be complete without visiting the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Borobudur and Prambanan.

Located on the outskirts of the city, Borobudur is the worlds largest Buddhist temple, dating back to the 8th century.

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Surrounded by forests and mountains, its one of the most incredible attractions in Asia.

On the opposite side of the city, youll find Prambanan, Indonesias largest Hindu temple. Its a huge site, and its worth visiting the smaller, quieter temples within the area, which are just as fascinating.

Stone stupas in a row at Borobudur, the world's largest Buddhist temple. - Siripong Kaewla-iad/Moment RF/Getty Images

For more arts and culture, Solo is an interesting city just an hour and a half by train from Yogyakarta. Historically the center of power in Central Java, its home to historic buildings, temples, markets and artisan workshops. Keraton Surakarta Hadiningrat, the former royal palace, is worth a visit, as well as the museum, which has a large collection of antiques and artifacts.

Solo is also one of the major centers for batik production. As well as workshops at Laweyan Batik Village, you can also browse for batik goods at Pasar Klewer, a traditional market, while Pasar Triwindu is an antique hunters dream.

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If you happen to have room in the itinerary for a little day trip (always advisable when traveling in Java), the countryside around Solo is beautiful. An hours drive from the city are the 15th-century temples of Sukuh and Cetho, located on the slopes of Mt Lawu. Be sure to visit the nearby Jumog Waterfall for a refreshing swim to cool off from the intense heat and humidity.

If youre traveling west on the Argo Wilis Panoramic, its worth exploring Bandung, where the train terminates. Set in the highlands at about 768 meters above sea level, the city enjoys a much cooler climate, making it a nice respite from other cities on the island.

Nature is everywhere you look, from the tree-lined boulevards to the forests and tea plantations that surround the city  theres even a smoking volcano, Tangkuban Parahu, just an hours drive from the station in the city center.

An aerial view of Gedung Sate, a historic building in Bandung. - Ismail Rajo/iStockphoto/Getty Images

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Sometimes referred to as the Paris of Java, Bandung has a distinctly European feel thanks to the numerous Dutch colonial and art deco buildings, many of which have been transformed into trendy coffee shops and hip boutiques.

The city is a foodies dream. From street vendors and food markets to high-end dining, visitors are spoilt for choice.

Whether youre making stops or traveling the whole way through, the Argo Wilis Panoramic is the best way to take in Javas varied, often stunning scenery.

Trains are probably one of the best things about Java, says one fellow passenger, a British woman in her 60s who is taking the slow route across the island with her husband.

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Its criminal to take a flight and miss out on all of this, she says, waving her hand towards the large window as the train curves around another bend, revealing yet more terraced rice paddies enclosed by breezy palm trees.

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By Nazrin Abdul

Today, COP29s Azerbaijan Pavilion hosted a packed agenda focused on Finance, Investment, and Trade, spotlighting the pivotal role that financial and trade systems play in supporting global climate action.

This thematic day attracted international leaders, financial experts, and policy innovators committed to advancing green governance, sustainable finance, and climate accountability.

Key sessions included:

1. Ministerial Forum on Green Good Governance (3G)

Led by the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations, this high-level forum (9:0011:00) launched discussions on the principles of green governance, encouraging governments and institutions to integrate sustainability into public service and administrative frameworks.

2. Where Are Governments with Their Climate Action?

The Chamber of Accounts of Azerbaijan introduced ClimateScanner, an innovative assessment tool providing an accountability framework to track national climate efforts and assess progress (11:3013:00).

3. Advancing Sustainable Finance

The Central Bank of Azerbaijan presented a roadmap for global comparability in sustainable finance taxonomies (14:0015:30), aiming to align international investment standards for green projects.

4. Climate Justice and Human Rights

Azerbaijans Ombudsman facilitated an impactful session on the intersection of human rights and climate justice (14:0015:00), emphasizing the protection of vulnerable communities.

5. Climate Finance Initiatives

PASHA Holding led a session on climate finance (16:0017:00), outlining strategies to mobilize private capital to meet climate goals.

6. Regional Call to Action on Glacial Melting

The Ministry of Ecology, in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank, addressed the urgency of glacial preservation in Central and West Asia, underscoring the climate risks to water resources and regional stability (17:0018:00).

7. Green Guarantee Group Initiative

In a joint presentation by COP29 co-host Germany, the Green Guarantee Group was introduced to provide financial assurance and boost private sector confidence in climate investments (18:3019:30).

Todays events underscored the indispensable role of financial institutions, governance frameworks, and human rights in shaping a resilient global response to climate change. Each session contributed to a larger vision of sustainable development where economic policies, environmental imperatives, and social justice align to achieve a more sustainable world.

About COP29 Azerbaijan Pavilion

The Azerbaijan Pavilion at COP29 provides a platform for global, regional, and local stakeholders to engage in dialogues and partnerships on climate issues, showcasing Azerbaijans role as a leader in climate resilience, sustainable finance, and environmental innovation.
As the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays approach, there are plenty of opportunities to give back to the community.

Whether you want to volunteer this Thanksgiving, donate to a nonprofit or just need a free meal, there are several chances to help in and around Oklahoma City this month.

Know of a volunteer opportunity this month we left out? Email details to ddenwalt@oklahoman.com.

Homeless Alliance - Clayton's Turkey Tango

Devona Whitfield has been volunteering at the Homeless Alliance for years during both regular lunch services and the annual Turkey Tango. Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024.

Named in honor of longtime volunteer Clayton Bahr, the Homeless Alliance will feed hundreds of people at its day shelter on Wednesday, Nov. 27.

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Along with the usual daily volunteer opportunities at the shelter, the Homeless Alliance needs people to help carve turkeys and then transport them. Volunteers must sign up beforehand.

Turkey carving will take place on Monday, Nov. 25 at the Francis Tuttle Technology Center's Rockwell Campus.

Volunteers are then needed again on Wednesday to transport the turkeys to the shelter.

Sign up by visiting homelessalliance.volunteerhub.com

YMCA Thanksgiving Meal Drive

The YMCA is accepting unopened, shelf-stable and unexpired food that will benefit residents of the Oklahoma City Housing Authority. They will also accept gift cards and cash donations to purchase turkeys.

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Donations can be dropped off at the following YMCA locations now through Nov. 20:

Edward L. Gaylord Downtown YMCA

Midwest City YMCA

North Side YMCA

Rockwell Plaza YMCA

YMCA Healthy Living Center  INTEGRIS

Edmond Community Thanksgiving Meal

Volunteers serve meals at the Edmond Community Thanksgiving meal at The University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, Okla., on Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023.

This year, Edmond's Community Thanksgiving Meal will be held in UCO's Broncho Room on Thursday, Nov. 28. Dinner will be served from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m.

Volunteers for Edmond's community Thanksgiving meal should sign up by Nov. 20.

You can download the volunteer form and read more about the annual tradition on the Edmond Community Thanksgiving Dinner Association's website at edmondthanksgivingdinner.org.

City Center Thanksgiving Celebration

Volunteers are needed to help with City Center's Thanksgiving Celebration.

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The event takes place on Saturday, Nov. 23, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Along with food being served, City Center will also have family-friendly games, inflatables and free clothing. Volunteers must sign up online at okcitycenter.org/events.

Scatter Kindness Thanksgiving meal

The Scatter Kindness Foundation supports Oklahoma City's homeless population.

This year on Saturday, Nov. 16, volunteers will set up at Sheridan Circle to serve a traditional Thanksgiving hot meal.

To learn more about volunteering with the group or donating food, including for its annual Thanksgiving meal, visit the Scatter Kindness Foundation website.

Cookie and Scotty's Thanksgiving

Cookie and Scottys Thanksgiving is an annual event from Other Options Inc., which feeds over 1,000 in-need individuals each year.

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Every $8 donated helps the organization provide a Thanksgiving meal for a family in OKC impacted by HIV/ AIDS. Clients will be able to pick up the food boxes on Nov. 23 and 25.

To learn more about Other Options, which also runs a food pantry for Oklahoma residents with HIV, visit their website.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Free Thanksgiving dinners, volunteering opportunities around OKC 2024
"'Feminist is considered a derogatory term by most men and even [some] women, says one Vietnamese American who lived in Korea for several years. - Credit: JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images

Mere hours after Donald Trump was announced as the 47th President of the United States, Google searches for 4B movement began skyrocketing. A feminist movement originating from South Korea, the r/4bmovement subreddit doubled its users since the election, and TikToks urging more American women to take part have gone viral. Many have already accused the movement of being anti-men and exclusive towards allies. And amidst its popularization, many questions about the movement have sprung up.

Can I participate in the 4b movement but still love my boyfriend, one person asked in the comment section of a post-election TikTok. Hes all for it and supports my decisions fully.

More from Rolling Stone

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The 4B movement, which began in the mid-2010s on the South Korean feminist website Womad, is predicated on the four pillars of women refusing marriage (bihon), childbirth (bichulsan), dating (biyeonae) and sex (bisekseu) with men. Bi, meaning no, indicates the four nos that were their answer to systemic misogyny in South Korea. Some Western women have posted videos of them shaving their heads online in support of the slightly more intensive 6B4T movement, a sect of 4B which also encourages rejecting beauty standards and boycotting sexist products.

Theres confusion around how popular it really is, the actual rules of it, who can participate. Some wonder if it would be possible in a heterogenous racial society, where white women have proven themselves to continuously align with white supremacy over critical race feminism. Others question if it violated womens right to choose. While theres increased interest in the term, theres still a lot of contradicting discourse about what this resistance actually looks like. But women in South Korea say that the discourse of how to participate is less important than why its happening at all  and that its more important that women in the Western world pay attention to their reasons for needing a campaign like 4B, rather than debating the movements specific guidelines.

Je-Young Nam, 17, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect her privacy, is preparing for college entrance exams in South Korea. She enjoys reading books and watching the news, and chats with her mother almost every morning about current events. While Nam had been interested in feminist theory ever since the #MeToo movement touched down in Korea in 2018, she hadnt heard about 4B before this year.

This summer, numerous Telegram chats were discovered in Korea that carried out sexual deepfakes of acquaintances, and a close friend of mine was victimized by a boy from the school next door, she tells Rolling Stone. While I was looking up information about deepfakes and feminism, I came across the 4B movement.

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Nam joined soon after, and has since been keenly watching it spread internationally. She says that shes far from the only one to experience sexism so early on. In Korea, particularly, there arent many policies or spaces for women to find their own communities or resources, and the few they do have are already shrinking. Abortion remains in a legal gray area; abortion pills are currently illegal, with the government blocking access to overseas pharmacists, but abortion itself was decriminalized in 2021. The current government has eliminated words like women from policies addressing womens rights, meaning there arent any legislative oversights specifically addressing womens needs. On Nov. 10, students at Dongduk University, one of South Koreas seven womens universities, erupted in protests as the school administration suddenly announced that they were moving to coeducation. Amid the student protests, a clip posted to social media captured one of the on-site police officers telling the women, you will have to grow up and get pregnant later.

Watching the movement spread to places like the U.S. where womens rights are also under attack has been a point of interest for Nam. Shes excited to see how it adapts to new cultural contexts.

Ive talked to a few fellow 4B women who have been on it for longer than I have, and they say that it almost feels like a dream to see an idea they formulated a decade ago being discussed in English by so many women, Nam says. I also share the sentiment and am very glad that so many women are deciding to embark on a journey that will lead them to a freedom that they could not have imagined.

Another 4B participant, who asked to be identified by the pseudonym Park Ji-Young for fear of retaliation, told me that she joined after learning about the expectation for women to stop working after marriage. I did think I might consider marriage if I met a man I really liked, she says. But after learning about the 4B movement, I realized that not dating men or getting married was more beneficial to me, so Ive continued with the 4B lifestyle.

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Shes not entirely sure how its being perceived in other countries, but hopes that people can understand why its happening at all. I hope its seen not merely as a boycott of men but as a journey for women to step away from relationships with men and take time to understand who they are, what they like, and how to live for themselves, Park says.

Non-4B participants in Korea are aware of the attacks women face on a daily basis. Feminism is a very taboo topic in Korea, to the point a feminist is considered a derogatory term by most men and even [some] women, says Vivian Nguyen, a 29-year-old Vietnamese American who lived in Gonju, South Korea for two years as an English teacher. South Korea has always been a very conservative country. In my opinion, the countrys social progressivism couldnt keep up with the rate of its economic development, and so thats why there seems to be a dissonance.

Even on a day-to-day basis, there is a sense of intrusion and lack of autonomy. There is a huge spycam issue in South Korea, Nguyen says. Spycams are prevalent in restrooms, hotels, AirBnbs, et cetera. They were even found in elementary school restrooms. If you go to a female restroom in Korea, you will see tissue paper stuffed into any hole and crevice in every stall. Thats the kind of quiet distrust you feel around you as a woman living there.

At a systemic level, women are regularly asked about their plans for pregnancy and marriage in job interviews. Divorce is seen as taboo, with the blame falling on the mother and prejudice against the children. Raises are harder to come by for women, which often means they must become dependent on their husbands for income. Theres also the glaring societal pressures to chase vanity, status, and rigid beauty standards: South Korean passport photos are often freely retouched, while injectable procedures can run as low as $19. In 2017, the government attempted to outlaw the hiring practice of asking applicants to include headshots on resumes, as appearance and attractiveness was often a factor in the hiring process. Escape the Corset, another fringe feminist movement that arose in the 2010s, specifically addressed the pressure on Korean women to constantly adhere to beauty standards.

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Hajin Cho, 31, was born in South Korea but moved to the U.S. when she was five. She would regularly visit for extended periods of time, staying for six months the last time she went in 2021. Shes not actively part of 4B, but is sympathetic to the movement. While I was living there, I wasnt necessarily engaged with the feminist movement, she says. I was open to dating and seeing what differences I would experience culturally by dating the men from my motherland.

She ended up in a friends with benefits situation during the entirety of those six months. Boy, oh boy, was it difficult, she says. Often, he would criticize her style or mannerisms when he felt they werent feminine enough. I felt some weird pressure to conform to those standards whenever we met. Sometimes, hed do the same thing for himself, playing up what he thought were masculine traits as a way of flirtation.

In those instances I would feel pressure to appease him in that situation so as to not embarrass him and not put myself in a sticky situation, she said.

Nguyen and Nam also recognize the omnipresent performance of gender. So these led me to think, married or not, involving men in a womans life will almost disadvantage her in all aspects, Nam said. For me to fight these disadvantages, the most effective way is to make men irrelevant from my life.

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But it doesnt mean that the movement is widely accepted  4B is controversial even among women in the country. South Korea has held the lowest marriage and birth rates worldwide for the past 20 years, with the government and corporations offering hefty cash incentives for couples to have children, but its difficult to pinpoint just how much 4B is a factor in the steep drop. Critics have called 4B a fringe movement, saying very few women actually participate. The movement itself has also been criticized by other feminists for being transphobic and homophobic, peddling a TERF brand of feminism.

Its also not exactly renowned. The movement claimed to have just 4,000 members in 2019, while the subreddit still only sits at 13,000 followers. Still, Nguyen says it being a minority movement shouldnt deter people from listening to what women in South Korea are actually saying about living in a society where womens rights and spaces are constantly under attack. Many Korean women might not know about 4B itself, but sexism and the apathy towards bending to traditional gender roles is a widespread topic that goes by many names.

Even if 4B isnt as big as it seems in South Korea, the way men treat women there has always been a topic of discussion among my female friends there  Korean and foreign, Nguyen says. I think people are more focused on how many people are a part of the movement rather than why the movement has even come to fruition in the first place. You dont need large numbers to validate the words all women have been saying for years; some women have just decided to push their thoughts to extremity as a last attempt to make their voices heard.

Nam also believes that the American version of 4B will require modifications from the original movement. American feminism is different from Korean feminism because they have unique American culture and issues tied into them, she said. For example, from what I observed, intersectionality is a big part of American feminism whereas it wasnt as huge in Korean feminism [] Because of these differences, I wouldnt be surprised if the 4B movement for American women evolves into a slightly different version from the original Korean 4B.

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Regardless, Nam is happy to be part of 4B. Shes found a community of other women she can connect with, and feels its given her a freedom to her life that she could not imagine. Its been freeing, Nam says, to focus on more important matters like higher education. She doesnt spend time, money, or energy thinking about boys. There wont be a one-size-fits-all method that works for every woman, she says. This may be a chance to see how feminists can learn from each other and grow all together, a new era of growth and learning for all feminists.

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You have probably been irked by turkeys. Specifically, the wild ones that stroll around Cape Cod like they own the place. You'll be happily driving along a back road, only to be stopped short by a pecking poultry posse that doesn't give a dang about danger. They might even make you nervous about walking to the mailbox!

Heck, the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife reports that "Turkeys may attempt to dominate or attack people that they view as subordinates." Who needs that?

One might assume that this sense of wattled entitlement can only come from centuries of roaming the Cape like feathered conquistadors. But the current golden age of gobblers has only been going on for a few decades. So we're going to carve up the intriguing history of wild turkeys on Cape Cod, with a side dish of tips on how to deal with birds that might get up in your grill. Here we go!

Perhaps these wild turkeys in front of the West Hyannisport post office were checking their mail.

Were wild turkeys on Cape Cod hundreds of years ago?

In his history of Plimoth Plantation, early European settler and longtime governor of Plymouth Colony, William Bradford (1590-1657), writes of a "great store of wild Turkies" when discussing harvest time in the area. But in subsequent years, the population of wild turkeys in the state would dwindle.

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According to the state fish and wildlife agency, "Before European colonization of the Americas, the wild turkey was widespread in Massachusetts. Due to habitat loss, turkeys were extirpated from the state, and the last known native bird was killed in 1851."

How did wild turkeys return to Cape Cod?

The quick answer is wild turkeys washed ashore, like many folks on Cape Cod. But they had a little help from state biologists, who trapped turkeys in New York and released them in Massachusetts.

According to a Cape Cod National Seashore draft environmental impact statement, 18 birds were released at Camp Edwards in 1989, and 28 birds were released in 1995-1996 in the vicinity of the Seashore in Wellfleet.

Those pioneer turkeys got busy doing what wild turkeys do: nibbling nuts, berries and insects. Roosting, roaming and establishing their status in turkey society (yup, a "pecking order"). And, most important, pumping out those surprisingly cute baby turkeys, to keep the whole turkey circus going.

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During the early days of turkey reintroduction, it was pretty rare to run into one on the Cape. Mark Faherty, science coordinator at Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, did bird surveys in the Seashore from 2001 to 2003. "Wild turkeys were uncommon," he told the Cape Cod Times in 2021. "Every once in a while, I would hear a gobble in the distance."

These days, wild turkey sightings are common on the Cape. While it may be tricky to figure out how many wild turkeys currently live on Cape Cod, state wildlife officials estimate the state population at somewhere between 30,000 and 35,000 birds.

A flock of turkeys gather for an evening stroll in Harwich.

What should I do if wild turkeys become aggressive?

First off, never feed wild turkeys, according to the state agency. This can lead to aggressive behavior. Keep the areas around your bird feeders clean. According to the state, "Wild turkeys that become accustomed to humans and human-associated foods, like bird seed, are likely to lose their fear of people and can cause damage or attempt to dominate people."

If turkey deterrence becomes necessary, here's what the state recommends: "Dont hesitate to scare or threaten a bold, aggressive turkey with loud noises, swatting with a broom or water sprayed from a hose. A dog on a leash is also an effective deterrent."

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Eric Williams writes about a variety of ways to enjoy the Cape, the weather, wildlife and other subjects. Contact him at ewilliams@capecodonline.com. Follow him on X: @capecast.

The Cape Cod Times is providing this coverage for free as a public service. Please take a moment to support local journalism by subscribing.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod wild turkeys: Where they all came from and deterrence tips
Nov. 13VAN WERT  A Lima man charged with having forced sexual contact with a girl under the age of 13 pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of gross sexual imposition, a third-degree felony, in Van Wert County Common Pleas Court.

Nathan Stephens, 20, was indicted on two counts of first-degree felony kidnapping, one count of second-degree felony kidnapping and two counts of gross sexual imposition, felonies of the third degree. The rest of the charges were dismissed with his guilty plea to one count.

The charge could carry a potential of five years in prison. Stephens must also register as a tier two sex offender and will be required to update his information with law enforcement every 180 days for 25 years.

Sentencing was set for Jan. 8 after a pre-sentence investigation is completed.

Reach Charlotte Caldwell at 567-242-0451.

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WASHINGTON COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL)  A Limestone man has been charged with aggravated assault after allegedly attacking a man in the driveway of a home.

The Washington County Tennessee Sheriffs Office (WCSO) reports the incident occurred around 2 a.m. Monday in the 200 block of Fortions Drive.

WCSO: Woman wakes to stranger in home

Deputies responded and found Dustin Royle, 41, and a woman standing in the road at a home.

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A victim told the WCSO that he had been in bed when he woke up due to someone banging on his door. He reportedly went to the door armed with a shotgun and saw two people.

The victim claims he told them to leave, but the woman charged him and he dropped his shotgun, the sheriffs office stated in a news release.

Royle then allegedly assaulted the victim, slamming him into the ground and kicking him in the face.

Security cameras captured the assault and supported the victims statement, the WCSO stated in the release.

Royle was arrested and transported to the Washington County Detention Center, where he made his $10,000 bond. He is set to appear in court on Nov. 25.

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The victim was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment of his injuries.

The woman present at the incident was not charged with anything, according to the WCSO.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pleaded with fellow Republicans to back Donald Trumps choice as attorney general, Matt Gaetz, after initially sounding skeptical about the bombshell pick.

Appearing on Fox News Hannity on Wednesday, Graham said: To every Republican, give Matt a chance.

His remark came amid a growing rebellion from GOP ranks over the surprise decision. Several Republican senators openly showed their disdain, saying it wasnt a serious appointment.

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Graham told Sean Hannity: Im telling my Democratic friends, elections have consequences whether you like it or not. You are accusing Matt of doing the very thing that you did. Matt Gaetz didnt lie under oath, Matt Gaetz did not sign FISA warrants that were based on Russian disinformation, so were going to give the president a chance to put his people forward.

Earlier Wednesday, Graham was less certain about the choice.

He was asked by CNNs Manu Raju what he thought about Gaetz being nominated as Trump pieced together his Cabinet following his 2024 presidential election victory. Graham replied: I dont know yet, Ill have to think about that one.

Do you have any concerns about him? he was asked.

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Well see, Graham replied.

Moderate Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski made no secret of their reservations about the Florida congressman.

I dont think it is a serious nomination for the attorney general, said Murkowski. We need to have a serious attorney general, and Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.

I was shocked that he has been nominated, said Collins, who has made it clear she will oppose the nomination. If the nomination proceeds, Im sure there will be an extensive background check by the FBI, and public hearings, and a lot of questions asked.

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Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin told CNN: I completely trust President Trumps decision-making on this one, but at the same time, hes got to come to Congress and sell himself. Theres a lot of questions that are going to be out there, hes got to answer those questions, and hopefully hes able to answer the questions right.

Gaetz resigned from the House after Trumps announcement. He was being investigated by the House Ethics Committee over accusations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, obstruction of an investigation, and other allegations. That probe is now likely to be abandoned as it only applies to sitting members.

The Daily Beast Podcast episodes are released every Thursday. Like and download on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. And click here for email updates as each new episode drops.
LISBON, Ohio (WKBN)  A Lisbon man is facing charges after an investigation of child sexual assault material.

On Wednesday, agents with the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force and the Columbiana County Sheriffs Office, along with Columbiana County SRT, searched the home of Matthew Spack, 37.

The investigation centered around uploads of child sexual abuse material, according to a news release from East Palestine Detective Daniel Haueter.

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During the search, Spack was found to have images on his cell phone of children as young as 7 engaging in sex acts, the release stated.

Spack is charged with pandering obscenity involving a minor and illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.

He is being held in the Columbiana County Jail on $75,000 bond and is expected to appear in court later this month for a preliminary hearing.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters Thursday afternoon en route to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru.

The gaggle comes as President Biden is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week on the sidelines of the summit. The event in Lima will mark the third, and final, time the two meet as the Biden administration has made strides to steady the relationship between the U.S. and China and ease tensions over economic competition.

The briefing is scheduled to begin aboard Air Force One at 2:30 p.m. EST.

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Listen above.

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How detrimental will President-elect Donald Trumps second term be to the rule of law? We got the answer with Wednesdays announcement of his intent to nominate Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general: worse even than the worst-case scenario we had imagined.

This isnt just hyperbole from a harsh Trump critic. Its a sober assessment, albeit a distressed one. In both his character and capacity to carry out justice, Gaetz is the opposite of an appropriate candidate to lead the Department of Justice. He is the anti-attorney general.

The announcement shocked even members of Congress whose lockstep loyalty to the president-elect is otherwise unquestioned. The New York Times reported that Senate Republicans immediate reaction was  alarm and dismay  and that many avoided expressing support. The most independent senators were incredulous: Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said, I dont think hes a serious candidate.

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Read more: Litman: Will Trump launch a reign of terror against his list of enemies? There's little to stop him

As a Justice alumnus, Im confident that department veterans of both parties see Gaetzs selection as perfectly awful. How so? Let me count the ways.

First, he has little apparent legal ability. He has no prosecutorial experience, and his only legal experience was a brief stint in private practice. More than 400 of his classmates at William & Mary Law School signed a petition declaring him  unfit to write or determine the law . He would be the least legally qualified attorney general in more than a century, if not U.S. history.

Second, he is a flagrant partisan who has demonstrated beyond dispute that he would put Trumps interests over any fair application of the law. A strident, even hysterical defender of Trump throughout his scandals, Gaetz asserted that the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection  the basis for the largest prosecution in the history of the Justice Department  was the work of far-left agitators masquerading as Trump supporters. He staunchly opposed both Trump impeachments while co-sponsoring impeachment resolutions against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and President Biden.

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Read more: Calmes: Coming soon to Washington  America's dark ages

He would perfectly fulfill Trumps oft-expressed desire for an attorney general who acts as his personal lawyer, fighting off any challenges to his power or misconduct in the style of Roy Cohn, who served as Joseph McCarthys chief counsel and became a mentor to Trump.

Trumps first attorney general, the conservative former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, outraged him with his fidelity to the rule of law at key junctures. Like John Ashcroft, who was attorney general under George W. Bush, Sessions was a former partisan who took his institutional role and oath of office seriously once he became attorney general. Gaetzs selection leaves no doubt about Trumps resolve to avoid any such measure of integrity, much less an attorney general in the distinguished nonpartisan tradition of Edward Levi, Robert Jackson or Merrick Garland.

Third, Gaetz holds the neutral application of law and other proud traditions of the Justice Department in contempt. He has dismissed federal investigations of Trump as witch hunts, savaged the work of FBI Director Chris Wray (whom he would supervise) and characterized federal agents as cockroaches. And he is preoccupied with partisan matters that have little to do with the overwhelming bulk of the department's vast nationwide law enforcement portfolio.

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Fourth, it stands to reason that Gaetz bears the Justice Department personal rancor given his record. He was a subject of a federal investigation of allegations of sex trafficking of minors and illegal drug use. He even sought a pardon at the end of Trumps first term. While his longtime associate Joel Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison, Gaetz ultimately dodged an indictment because of doubts about the credibility of witnesses at the center of the allegations.

The same charges became the subject of an inquiry by the House Ethics Committee, which was reportedly set to release a scathing report on Gaetz Friday. Gaetz refused to cooperate with the investigation and abruptly resigned from Congress after the announcement of his nomination, ending the committees jurisdiction over him  though not the possibility that the report could still become public.

While Gaetz escaped formal charges or sanction, his conduct is widely reported and not in serious doubt. And it falls far short of the probity expected of the nations highest law enforcement officer.

Fifth, Gaetz's personal conduct renders him unfit for the position. He is widely considered among the least popular members of Congress. He has left a long trail of repugnant statements about women and minorities. These include calling pro-choice protesters fat and ugly, defending the racist and antisemitic Great Replacement conspiracy theory, and associating with Holocaust deniers.

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For all these reasons, Gaetz's confirmation is in doubt even with a Republican-controlled Senate. Hence Trumps cynical strategy to slip him into position through a recess appointment, which would insulate him from a full background investigation and an excoriating examination by Democrats. Many Senate Republicans might actually prefer it to having Gaetzs disqualifying features and overall ugliness aired in public.

If Gaetz becomes the 87th attorney general by any means, the consequences will be immediate and severe, starting with a mass exodus of horrified career employees. Far worse will be the long-lasting erosion of the integrity of the department, whose fidelity to the principle of justice without fear or favor is a cornerstone of American democracy. Gaetz himself may be a joke, but his impact would not be.

Harry Litman is the host of the Talking Feds podcast and the Talking San Diego speaker series. @harrylitman

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
AUTHORS NOTE: This story contains graphic details from proceedings in the trial of Anthony Patterson that involve alleged sex crimes against child victims. Discretion is advised before reading. If you know or suspect that any child under the age of 18 is being abused sexually, please call the Texas Child Abuse Hotline at 1 (800) 252-5400.

TARRANT COUNTY (KFDX/KJTL)  Anthony Pattersons high-profile defense team is expected to call more experts to take the stand in Pattersons defense on the ninth day of testimony in his trial.

TIMELINE: The trafficking, child sex crimes case against Anthony Patterson

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Former president of the Patterson Auto Group, Patterson, 48, of Wichita Falls, stands accused of multiple counts of human trafficking and child sex crimes.

Testimony began on Monday afternoon, November 4, 2024, in Auxiliary Trial Room A in the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth. A recap of prior proceedings can be found below:

Anthony Patterson in Auxiliary Trial Room A in the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center (Photo credit: Josh Hoggard, KFDX/KJTL)

Proceedings resumed on Thursday morning, November 14, 2024, with an expert in digital forensics for Pattersons defense, Brian Ingram, returning to the stand for more cross-examination from lead prosecutor Brooke Grona-Robb, Special Victims Chief for the Wichita County District Attorneys Office.

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READ MORE: The latest in the case against Anthony Patterson

Below is a running live blog of opening arguments and testimony in Anthony Pattersons trial from Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. Refresh this story often for updates.

Judge Kennedy released the jury for the day. She told the jury to return at 9 a.m. on Friday, November 15, for the defense to bring one final witness to the stand. Testimony is set to resume on Friday morning.

John Gillespie closed the case on behalf of the prosecution.

Gillespie passed the witness back to Shook for further cross-examination. After one question, the witness was passed back to Gillespie, who had no further questions. Roberts was released from the witness stand.

2:56 p.m.  Gillespie asked Roberts if she was aware that the Anthony whom the two alleged victims in this case made an outcry of sexual abuse regarding in 2018 was the same Anthony who showed up at the check presentation in April 2020. Roberts testified that she was not aware.

Shook passed the witness back to Gillespie for re-direct examination.

2:54 p.m.  Roberts testified that shes not aware of what other organizations the Patterson Auto Group donated to in the community, but she does know they gave to several organizations in the community.

Gillespie passed the witness to Toby Shook for cross-examination.

2:51 p.m.  Roberts testified that the Patterson Auto Group was known in the Wichita Falls community for charitable giving. She testified that in April 2020, during Child Abuse Awareness Month, she was contacted by a representative from the Patterson Auto Group, notifying them that they were chosen to receive a donation of $4,000 for Child Abuse Awareness Month. She testified that Patterson showed up at the check presentation, wearing blue, the color for Child Abuse Awareness Month.

John Gillespie, on behalf of the prosecution, called Denise Roberts, Executive Director of Patsys House Child Advocacy Center, as a rebuttal witness. Roberts was the first witness to testify in Pattersons trial, on November 4, 2024.

Toby Shook, on behalf of Patterson, rested the defenses case. Your Honor, members of the jury, the defense rests, Shook said.

Judge Kennedy called the jury back in the courtroom at 2:47 p.m.

Grona-Robb passed the witness back to Laseter, who had no further questions. Judge Kennedy released the witness from the stand. She then released the jury for an afternoon break. The Court will be in recess for about 15 minutes.

2:26 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that an adult present when another adult told two children to get naked in their presence, they would be aware of what was going to happen next. He testified that true sex offenders sometimes use other individuals to groom them.

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2:23 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that a figure near $60,000 would be close to what his bill would be for his consultations with the defense. He testified he did not speak to Grona-Robb before he testified because the defense asked him not to.

Laseter passed the witness back to Grona-Robb for further cross-examination.

2:21 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that hindsight bias is dangerous in a child sexual abuse case. He testified he did not see or hear any evidence during the trial that Patterson asked for the children to be brought to his house.

2:20 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that on one occasion, the alleged child victims mother told the girls to lie to CPS. He also testified that prior testimony alleged that Jandreani Bell told the alleged victims to take off their clothes, not Patterson.

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2:19 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that just because hes never testified about scatologia before doesnt mean it doesnt exist, and that hes not making up in front of the jury.

2:18 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that he was hired as a consultant by Shook for this case. He testified that most of his colleagues dont provide consulting for free.

2:16 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that Phyllis Dantzler, the phone sex worker who reported Patterson to the police, was certainly shocked by the statements made by Patterson, which would have achieved the goal of shocking a person.

Grona-Robb passed the witness back to Laseter for re-direct examination.

2:14 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that just because someone with scatologia makes shocking statements doesnt necessarily mean the content of that statement is also a paraphilia.

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2:12 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that a man asking a prostitute to bring children to his house and engage in sexual acts would not be scatologia unless he wanted the shocking statements said during the act. He testified that any number of paraphilia, including scatologia and pedophilia, could be found in the same person. He testified theyre separate, but not exclusive.

2:08 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that hes not aware of any other time hes testified regarding scatologia. He also testified that hes not aware of anyone currently studying online scatologia.

2:06 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that based on a study he testified from, Black women are less likely to make an outcry of sexual assault, and that given all the other factors at play, this could apply to the alleged victims in this case.

2:05 p.m.  Grona-Robb asked Dr. Pierce about one of the studies he mentioned in his testimony, regarding a false allegation of sexual assault. Dr. Pierce testified that in that study, one child alleged her imaginary friend was being sexually abused and the other alleged the devil was assaulting her. He testified these were different examples than bringing allegations against a person.

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2:02 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that some families may know sexual abuse is going on, especially involving a stepfather, but not report it. He testified that it could be a family secret.

2:00 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that children in chaotic homes may not feel safe enough to make an outcry of abuse. He testified that a chaotic home is not an indicator of a false allegation. He testified that CPS had investigated the alleged victims family more than 15 times before the oldest child turned 10 years old.

1:58 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that his bill is $375 per hour for consulting and $3,500 per day in court. He testified that he was in court throughout the trial, but didnt give the research documents he planned to testify about to the prosecution until 8:15 a.m. on Thursday before he took the stand.

1:55 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that someone who is in denial could minimize their sexual fantasies.

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1:53 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that a person with a sexual proclivity for children who called it a kink would be minimizing. As Grona-Robb continued questioning Dr. Pierce, Kim Laseter objected and asked to approach the bench.

1:52 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that he was aware that Backpage was used for prostitution, and that it was also used for child prostitution. He testified that he was in the courtroom during the testimony of Phyllis Dantzler, a phone sex worker who reported Patterson to the police in 2012.

1:50 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that an adult teaching a child to kiss could potentially be an indication of a child predator. Grona-Robb continued questioning Dr. Pierce regarding the details given during the testimony of the two alleged victims in this case.

1:48 p.m.  During cross-examination, Patterson was observed in the courtroom with an expression of anger on his face, which became flushed at times. A member of Pattersons family left the courtroom during cross-examination.

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1:47 p.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that if youre looking for corroboration, youd have to look at the totality of the situation and get as many of the puzzle pieces as you can.

1:45 p.m.  Grona-Robb asked Dr. Pierce if he would expect a prostitute to bring children to a clients home. Dr. Pierce testified that he supposed most people want to have sex without children around. Dr. Pierce testified that if you had a true sex offender, it wouldnt be unusual for a prostitute to tell children to take off their clothes.

1:42 p.m.  Grona-Robb asked Dr. Pierce about sensory details and peripheral details mentioned by the two alleged child victims in Pattersons case, including the colors of the sheets and the inside of Pattersons home. Dr. Pierce testified that all of the things that the alleged victims testified to made sense with Patterson admitting the children had been in the home.

Judge Kennedy called the jury back into the courtroom and testimony resumed. After a brief line of questioning from Kim Laseter, Dr. Pierce was passed to the prosecution for cross-examination from Brooke Grona-Robb.

Judge Kennedy dismissed the jury for lunch. The Court will be in recess until about 1:30 p.m. when testimony is set to resume with Dr. Pierce returning to the stand for direct examination from Kim Laseter.

11:52 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that scatologia is one of hundreds of paraphilia that a person could suffer from. Also called telephone scatologia, Dr. Pierce testified that it is arousal from the use of obscene language or shocking statements. He testified that this absolutely is a real thing, and that based on his review of Pattersons testimony to Texas Ranger Jake Weaver, he thought Patterson displayed some signs of it.

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11:50 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that outcrying is a process for victims of sexual abuse. He also testified that a child victim may add things to their outcry that arent true, either because they feel they arent being believed or they arent receiving positive feedback any more.

11:48 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that research exists that would suggest that an alleged child victim could make an outcry of abuse against someone outside the home when someone inside the home was actually abusing the child.

11:46 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that based on his review of the case, the alleged child victims were around a lot of chaos in their home at the time the allegations were made against Patterson.

11:45 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that not all allegations of sexual abuse are true and that false allegations of child sex crimes do occur. He testified that certain contexts may have a higher likelihood of leading to false allegations, such as an unstable home environment. He testified that a change of living situation could be a motive for a child to make a false allegation.

11:43 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that victims with a previous history of sexual abuse might be able to talk about some of the sensory details involved in sexual assault from their own knowledge, including what certain acts felt like. He testified regarding confirmation bias, stating that if allegations werent present, people would never think negatively about certain acts or behaviors.

11:41 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that sensory or peripheral details by themselves dont tell much regarding the truthfulness of an allegation, but corroboration of those details can be useful.

11:38 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that research exists that suggests that the presence or absence of sensory details in an alleged victims outcry statements has no correlation to the truthfulness of allegations.

11:36 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that research showed that people arent good at determining what is a truth and what is a lie, based on their reliance on typical markers of deception, such as fidgeting, eye movement, and other factors.

11:34 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that people are generally not good at distinguishing when someone is telling the truth or telling a lie. He testified that people are 50-60 percent accurate at determining what is true or what is a lie. He testified that law enforcement officers are about as accurate as a layperson. He also testified that law enforcement officers get more confident in their ability to tell when someone is lying as their career goes on, but they actually get worse at it.

11:31 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that the opinions he will testify to on Thursday are based on several studies, his own experience, and his presence in the courtroom during testimony in this case. He testified that hes also reviewed CPS files for the alleged child victims, the co-defendant Jandreani Bell, and many others, as well as other interviews and police records.

11:29 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that hes provided expert testimony in many areas, including child abuse dynamics and disclosure in child sexual abuse cases.

11:24 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that he teaches about false allegations of sexual assault. He testified that hes been certified as an expert in court as many as 200 times. He testified hes also been retained by defense attorneys without testifying.

11:20 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that hes provided training for law enforcement, criminal defense attorneys, and child advocacy centers regarding both sex offenders and victims of child sex offenses. He testified that he holds a teaching position at Walden University.

11:15 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that hes treated hundreds of victims of child sexual abuse. He testified this is helpful in forming a treatment plan for sex offenders, using what he referred to as victim empathy.

11:08 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that hes a licensed professional counselor, or LPC, meaning he can diagnose and treat patients, and hes also licensed to treat sex offenders.

11:00 a.m.  Dr. Pierce testified that hes a forensic psychologist who has a clinical practice offering treatment for sex offenders. He testified he also teaches at Walden University regarding sex offenders, false confessions, and other topics.

Kim Laseter, on behalf of Pattersons defense, called Dr. Aaron Pierce, a forensic mental health expert, to the witness stand.

Shook offered the Vernon ISD school calendar for the months of November and December in 2017 as evidence. They were admitted with no objection.

Gillespie passed the witness back to Shook for re-direct examination. After a brief re-direct, Buckingham was released from the witness stand.

10:51 a.m.  Gillespie asked Buckingham whether or not people replace old hot tubs. Buckingham testified that this happens all the time. He testified that he wasnt sure if a hot tub was there before the installation of the hot tub from Outback in February 2006. He testified he was aware of the success of the Patterson Auto Group, and that Harry Patterson was named Wichitan of the Year in 2004.

Shook passed the witness to John Gillespie, Wichita County District Attorney, for cross-examination.

10:48 a.m.  Buckingham testified that in February 2006, a hot tub was purchased by Anthony Patterson, then delivered and installed at an address in the 1600 block of Ardath Drive, a residence that was owned by Patterson.

10:45 a.m.  Buckingham testified that when someone purchases a pool and spa from Outback, they handle the installation to ensure its done properly. A record of a purchase and installation was admitted into evidence.

Shook passed the witness back to Grona-Robb, who had no further questions. The witness was released from the witness stand. Shook called Paul Buckingham, owner of Outback Pools & Spas in Wichita Falls.

10:42 a.m.  Ingram testified that if he were falsely accused of a crime, he would spend whatever resources he had at his disposal to defend himself. When Shook asked about false allegations and exonerations in Texas, Grona-Robb objected, claiming it was improper. The objection was sustained by Judge Kennedy.

10:40 a.m.  Ingram testified that he has well over 50 email accounts. He testified that he did not find any evidence of the letter found at Jandreani Bells apartment on any of Pattersons devices.

10:38 a.m.  Ingram testified that Citrix Cleanups sole purpose is to clear the cache. He testified that it could not be used to wipe a computer remotely.

Grona-Robb passed the witness back to Toby Shook, Pattersons lead defense attorney, for re-direct examination.

10:26 a.m.  Grona-Robb offered a document with data from the 316-gigabyte drive Ingram gave the State yesterday as evidence.

10:22 a.m.  Grona-Robb showed a slide, showing 31 texts between Pattersons secondary phone and Jandreani Bell on May 31, 2019. She also showed previously admitted items from Pattersons phone on that date, including a motion for a hearing regarding Bell, as well as a band withdrawal slip for $3,000 on that date. Ingram testified that he did not find the two images from the phone that were admitted as evidence during DPS testimony.

10:19 a.m.  Grona-Robb showed the examples of multiple letters offered by the defense on Wednesday. She asked Ingram if it were possible that these examples were intentional and not caused by sticky keys as suggested previously by the defense. Ingram testified this could happen, but he was unaware of the motivation.

10:15 a.m.  Ingram testified that most of Pattersons devices were connected to some kind of cloud account. He testified that he was aware that most cloud servers flag child pornography. He testified that he did not access Pattersons cloud-based accounts.

10:13 a.m.  Ingram testified that a lot of adult content was found on Pattersons laptop.

10:10 a.m.  Ingram testified that hundreds of thousands of images could be stored on a 128 GB thumb drive. He testified that hes seen tiny thumb drives that can easily be hidden. He testified hed seen a picture of a thumb drive taped to the bottom of a toilet lid.

10:05 a.m.  Ingram testified that this was the first human trafficking trial hes ever testified at. He testified that hes never testified in a trial for white-collar crime. He testified someone with resources could hide child pornography. Maam, Im not an expert in child sexual abuse material, Ingram testified. Im an expert in computer forensics.

Judge Kennedy ruled that Dr. Pierces testimony would be allowed, with certain limitations. At 10:02 a.m., the jury was brought back into the courtroom. Testimony resumed on Thursday morning, with digital forensics expert Brian Ingram returning to the stand, and Grona-Robb continuing to cross-examine him.

A hearing was held outside the presence of the jury, called a Rule 702 Hearing, to determine whether or not a witness set to take the stand was qualified to testify as an expert. Brooke Grona-Robb, on behalf of the prosecution, and Kim Laseter, one of Pattersons defense attorneys, questioned Dr. Aaron Pierce, a forensic mental health expert, regarding his testimony.

This is a developing story. Stick with Texomas Homepage for updates as more information becomes available. All individuals charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) Thanksgiving is two weeks away and one local business is helping to make sure many of the areas residents have a turkey for their holiday dinner.

The 90 Meat Outlet in the North End of Springfield is donating around 1,500 turkeys to neighbors in the North End Community and the surrounding areas.

Massachusetts Rockefeller tree donor suffers stroke, hopes for Christmas miracle

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Jim Vallides, the President of 90 Meat Outlet said the company is part of Springfields North End community and throughout the year the community members help them out, so now they want to return the favor ahead of Thanksgiving.

First responders will help to hand out the turkeys, go door to door, go to community centers, or drop off and pick up locations, further strengthening their bond with community members.

The new North Citizens Council who bring us into this, it lets the community see we are part of the community, we want to be part of the community, said Springfield Police Superintendent Lawrence Akers. At times where prices are a little bit higher than they usually are and people are struggling, it is an honor to be able to reach people and bring turkeys and things like this to them to show that the police are here to help also.

Superintendent Akers said the more people see the first responders and police out in the community helping out and spreading positivity, the better it is going to be.

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Massachusetts State Senator Adam Gomez said these turkeys will be going to residents in Springfield, Chicopee, and Holyoke.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI)  Local and state leaders continue to clash over the funding woes of the Providence Public School Department (PPSD).

On Wednesday, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee agreed with a superior court judges decision last week that ordered the city to put more money toward its schools.

Ive let the mayor know that the local community needs to put up their fair share of dollars, McKee said.

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BACKGROUND: Smiley says tax increases, layoffs on the table amid school funding fight

Providence schools have been under the states control since 2019 after an outside review found that the district was struggling to support students academically, socially and emotionally.

In the years since, questions have been raised about how much the city is required to fund the state-run district.

While the court ruled that the city should be paying more, it is still unclear how much more.

Mayor Brett Smiley said it could be anywhere between $10.9 million to $85 million, which would necessitate tax increases, cuts to public services, or both.

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If it hits the high end of the range, that is truly worst case scenario, Smiley said.

He added that if the city is forced to pay, it should regain control of its schools from the state.

If the Department of Education is going to force us to raise taxes and cut critical funding and send yet another blank check to the Providence Public Schools, then it is time for us to get our schools back, Smiley said. Enough is enough.

McKee believes that the state has already contributed more than its fair share.

MORE: Providence City Council leaders propose $2.5M offer to public schools

When we actually [give control of] the schools back  if the city doesnt keep up with what it should be putting in, [the school district] is going to be underfunded, and its going to create serious problems, McKee said.

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The state is also facing its own financial problems. A recent report estimates that state leaders will need to close a deficit of potentially $400 million to balance next years budget.

The court will reveal how much the city will have to pay the PPSD at a court hearing next week.

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Every year, millions of Americans rely on storage units to keep their stuff safe. But thieves can be relentless. Thats what one military family found out following their recent move to Washington.

Initially, Trojan Storage in Marysville made Steven and Andrea Turk feel safe. There are security cameras on each floor and a key code is necessary to enter the building or elevators.

The Turks had a third-floor unit, in the middle of a row. A unit that last week, the Turks say thieves found a way to break into.

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The thieves took off with guns, a guitar, clothing, and a safe. They also stole several personal items.

They took his Texas A&M diploma, his books from all of his classes, says Andrea. She says family heirlooms, fossils, and birth certificates were also taken. She estimates the loss to be more than $100,000.

The Turks say they filed a police report, stunned by what thieves managed to take. They tell KIRO 7 that only after the theft, did they realize the gaps in security cameras on their floor and the lack of financial compensation from the facility that vowed to keep their belongings safe.

Every single regret that you can list in the book, I have about leaving my things here, says Andrea.

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Andrea tells KIRO 7 that their insurance with Trojan storage does cover theft but only up to $2,000.

KIRO 7 reached out to Trojan Storage to ask about their security measures and insurance policy but did not receive a response. Managers at the Marysville facility deferred to the companys customer service email for questions.

Currently, the Turks are living in their van. They planned to rent the unit until they found a home to settle down. Now, theyre left searching for accountability - and their stuff.

The things that run through your head, says Steven. Did I do something wrong to deserve this?
Its a topic that has made headlines for decades.

Lead exposure is one of the most common reasons for induced developmental delay. So, in other words, if a child is exposed to lead, they can have development delay in the future, said Dr. Joseph Aracri with Allegheny Health Network.

Now as the Environmental Protection Agency makes a push to improve the quality of drinking water, some said the federal effort to replace all lead service lines doesnt go far enough to protect students.

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Butler Area School District is no stranger to problems with lead.

Unfortunately, there was well water in one of the elementary schools that eventually was determined to have high levels of lead, said Superintendent Brian White.

That crisis led to big changes at the school district including annual testing and remediation as White wants transparency to be at the forefront of this problem.

Anything involving children, parents want to know whats going on and particularly when it comes to health and safety matters they want to be able to make decisions on whats happened, White said.

But thats not the case across the board. In a report card by PennEnvironment, Pennsylvania received an F for the policies in place when it comes to lead in schools.

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While Pennsylvania has a few laws on the books that are weak. So weak that they sometimes become misleading when it comes to sharing results, there is nothing about solutions that are required to protect kids, said David Masur, the Executive Director of PennEnvironment.

Although few schools have taken it upon themselves to find that solution, Pittsburgh Public Schools has spent the last eight years taking a Filter First approach.

Given the wide use of plumbing products such as lead-containing solders in building construction and renovation industries, until recently, we determined that the most effective, feasible and best available technology to provide clean water that is free of lead and other contaminants to provide filtered drinking water fountains, said Sanjeeb Manandhar, the Environmental Sustainability Manager at Pittsburgh Public Schools.

The eight-year $5.5 million project was just completed with 948 filtered water fountains, 411 bottle filling stations and 188 filtered drinking outlets at select sinks like Early Childhood and the nurses offices.

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This is our lead filter that is in all of our water fountains, said Manandhar.

Its a standard that has now become a state mandate in all Michigan schools following the Flint water crisis.

If its scientifically better, who am I to oppose it? My question would be, whos paying for all the filters? There has got to be a cost with that, and most districts dont even have the money to switch to fixtures with filters. We are fortunate to have done it in many cases but not all. We are still progressing, White said.

Thats the holdup in Pennsylvania. Bipartisan bills for both the Senate and House are sitting in the Education Committee that would require schools to replace old drinking fountains with lead filtering stations in the next three years.

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The hope is to get grant funding to help get the schools to the goal.

Cost is always a barrier. Anytime you pass these laws, we dont want to put unfunded mandates on school districts. So, we have to come up with what we estimate to be about $30 million in the budget. We have to find that money, said Allegheny County Senator Devlin Robinson.

Now if it will happen is ultimately up to the lawmakers in the state capital.

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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN)  Police departments routinely hold training sessions for their officers, but its surprisingly rare to see multiple departments working together.

Over the last month, officers from 19 agencies across the region have been coming to what used to be the old Mahoning County Government Annex Building to train together with instructors from the Ohio Tactical Officers Association

Its so unique. Were the first in the state to do this training with this large a number of departments, said Capt. Rod Foley, with the Youngstown Police Department. When the officers show up, if theres other agencies with them, theyre all going to go in there with the same plan and understand how they want to operate.

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Even during recent incidents such as the shooting at the Lowellville schools two-and-a-half years ago, officers from all around the Valley rushed to the scene with no clear plan on how to proceed.

Were trying to teach them to make decisions in order to save lives right? So, were giving them what we call Regain the Initiative procedures, said Tony Castillo, with the Ohio Tactical Officers Association.

That means training patrol officers how to respond on their own or in small teams without having to wait until reinforcements arrive.

We gotta think out of the box and realize that our officers could be responding to any particular day of the week, Foley said.

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Banner Supply now owns the training building and uses it for storage, but the company has also been allowing local police agencies to continue training on the upper floors. Organizers of the program hope to hold even more sessions there in the future.

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LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  Gov. Joe Lombardo wants Nevadas stories to be heard as the nations 250th birthday approaches, announcing America250 Nevada at a news conference at the Governors Mansion in Carson City on Wednesday.

We envision participation from every corner of our beautiful state, and I trust Nevadans will rise to the occasion, Lombardo said. Their dedication and passion have continued to drive growth in Nevada. I hope we embrace this moment to honor our past, strengthen our present, and inspire hope for our future.

The Traveling Treasures initiative will be a history program on wheels used to engage the public starting in January 2026. The Division of Museums and History will bring Nevada History to key parts of the state with an immersive experience to examine and discuss key parts of the story of Nevada and encourage visitors to envision the states future in 50, 100, and 250 years. Traveling Treasures will operate beyond 2026.

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Lombardo highlighted the importance of 2025 as a year of planning and collaboration leading up to the semiquincentennial celebration. The America250 Nevada planning committee is preparing initiatives that will activate diverse voices in the states past and present, and elevate those that will carry us into the future, including:

Nevada Story Collective: Online and in-person story-gathering events to showcase and keep Nevadas rich stories. This storytelling event series will gather personal stories from Nevadans across the state on topics like American and Nevadan identity and life in Nevada.

Nevada Voices Exchange Speakers Bureau: A roster of speakers, storytellers, and educators will be available to engage with schools, businesses, and communities across the state. The Speakers Bureau will focus on themes of history, art, culture, and the future of Nevada.

Silver State Changemakers: In partnership with Nevadas Department of Education, this program will identify specific funding needs in our schools that will make a difference in student engagement and success, and will continue beyond 2026.

Nevada Gives Volunteer Projects: The campaign will support 36 volunteer projects  one for each state in the Union at the time of our statehood  ranging from clean-ups to art installations. Each project aims to engage surrounding communities, promote civic engagement, and foster a sense of unity among Nevadans.

Community Calendar: There will be an online community calendar to help promote all the events happening throughout the state.

America250 Nevada invites every Nevadan to reflect on our past, celebrate our achievements, and commit to a promising future. There is much work ahead, and I ask you to join us, Lombardo said.

This milestone is an opportunity to celebrate what unites us as a nation. Through Nevadas rich culture and history, we can continue to build stronger communities together. This is The Nevada Way, Lombardo said.

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The anniversary will mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

For more information on America250 Nevada, visit www.america250nevada.org. For more information on America250, visit www.america250.org.

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LONDONDERRY  The Fire Department will have a temporary fire chief while the town looks look for a new one.

Assistant Fire Chief Fred Heinrich will serve as the acting fire chief, according to town officials.

Heinrich celebrated 36 years with the Londonderry Fire Department in October. He assumed the interim position at midnight on Nov. 2.

This appointment is because of the resignation of former Fire Chief Bo Butler, who served his last day as chief on Nov. 1.

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Butler issued a statement on Monday, saying he supported the towns decision in naming Heinrich.

Assistant Chief Heinrich shall assume full operational and command authority as Acting Chief of the Londonderry Fire Department, including the execution of all duties, responsibilities, and the sacred obligation to civil protection and public safety, Butler wrote in a statement.

Londonderry Human Resource Director Tara Koza said in her announcement that the town is positive Heinrich is the right person to take over during this time of transition.

With over 30 years of service to the Londonderry Fire Department, the Town Manager and Town Council have the utmost confidence in assistant chief Heinrichs ability to assume full command of the department, Koza said in her statement.

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Butlers resignation was because of budget constraints regarding overtime payments for his department.

Butler submitted his resignation on Oct. 7 instead of deciding to either cut four on-duty firefighter battalions to 11 firefighters, or exceed the spending on the departments overtime budget by $200,000.

At the March town elections, voters autorized Butler to hire four additional firefighters and designated $495,000 for their salaries.
A Long Island man was charged with terrorism after authorities said he tried to blow up a Nassau County government building in a terroristic revenge plot.

James Luca, 46, North Merrick, tried to bomb the Nassau County Department of Social Services building in September, according to police. The upgraded terrorism charge was added at his arraignment on Wednesday.

This is the first time that my office has pursued the gravely serious charge of terrorism against a defendant, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said in a press release.

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James Lucas alleged actions, his plotting and his attempts to ignite an explosion at a government building where dozens of public servants work to serve our county every day, justifies this significant upgrade in charges, she added.

Luca was going through a divorce with his wife and had lost visitation rights with his children, investigators said. To get back at the social services department, he allegedly fashioned an improvised explosive device with a 20-pound propane tank, a 1-pound propane tank and a torch on top of them.

On Sept. 17, around 1:30 a.m., Luca and an accomplice, 25-year-old Jayson Reyes, placed the device outside the social services building in Uniondale, according to investigators. He then began throwing road flares at the device, trying to ignite it, but failed and drove away from the scene.

A few hours later, county employees arriving for work spotted the device and called 911.

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We are lucky that James Luca is a lousy bomb maker, Donnelly said Wednesday, according to Newsday.

Luca and Reyes  the latter of whom was not charged with terrorism  were first arrested in early October. At the time, the men were both charged with attempted arson and several weapons crimes. They both pleaded not guilty.
HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW)  No injuries were reported after a Longs-area house was heavily damaged in a fire Thursday, Horry County Fire Rescue said.

It happened in the 200 block of Bear Grass Road, HCFR said. Crews responded at 11:36 a.m. and have the incident under control.

Two displaced residents will be assisted by the American Red Cross. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Horry County police are assisting.

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* * *

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.

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GREGG COUNTY, Texas (KETK)  A Longview woman, known for running Walmart of Drugs out of her Longview residence, pleaded guilty to distributing fentanyl resulting in death.

5 sentenced to prison for Upshur County drug operation

According to the U.S. Attorneys Office Eastern District of Texas, Rebecca Diane Merkel, 43, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute fentanyl and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

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Evidence presented in court indicated that Merkel was known to drug users for the Walmart of Drugs out of her residence on Williams Street in Longview. Merkel and her codefendants allegedly sold items including meth, pills laced with fentanyl, stolen goods and firearms.

The attorneys office said Merkels customers were street-level dealers in Gregg, Rusk and Panola counties. Merkel was arrested on March 29 after she reportedly sold prescription pills to a victim who later died.

On March 30, 2023, law enforcement located the victims body inside a vehicle in a remote area in Rusk County, where other co-defendants staged the body to avoid detection by authorities. An autopsy determined that the victim died of a fentanyl overdose, the U.S. Attorneys office said.

Merkel was arrested again on May 10, 2023 following a traffic stop where officials said they recovered a firearm, methamphetamine, heroin, crack cocaine and pills laced with fentanyl. Merkel allegedly admitted to selling controlled substances from her residence including at the time when the victim purchased the fatal pills.

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Louisiana man sentenced to death for killing East Texas deputy

Six other codefendants have also been sentenced for their criminal conduct related to the conspiracy:

Timothy Wayne Yow, 58 of Longview, received a nearly 16-year sentence;

Jonathan Schurr, 26 of Longview, received a nearly 4-year sentence;

Stephanie Nichoal Kravis, 38 of Kilgore, received a nearly 12-year sentence

Wesley Ryan Parker, 33 of Carthage, received a 10-year sentence;

Daulton Wayne Anthony, 31 of Carthage, received a nearly 6-year sentence

Kylie Breaane Durand, 28 of Carthage, received a 3-year sentence

This case illustrates the very real and tragic danger associated with fentanyl distribution in the Eastern District of Texas and elsewhere. We mourn the senseless loss of life and pray for the victims family in a time of such immeasurable grief, U.S. Attorney Damien M. Diggs said. We will aggressively continue to work together with our state and local partners to bring to justice those who aim to profit from these tragedies.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE)  Its not a pleasant topictesting stool samples when rumors of an outbreak hits the public consciousness, like the recent McDonalds E. coli outbreak. However, the New Mexico Department of Health Scientific Laboratories (NMDOHSL) were at the helm in early October when it came to figuring out if a national E. coli outbreak was festering in the state.

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KRQE News 13 got a tour of the laboratories where scientists discovered the outbreak locally. The Scientific Laboratories were able to confirm an outbreak of E. coli was happening last month, and that it matched the strain causing the national outbreak.

It was just like a random Tuesday, I got ten plus samples in and then I started seeing positives off those. So, it kind of indicated to me that something might be going on, said Andrea Manzanares, microbiologist at the laboratories.

NMDOHSL is the only public health lab for the statetasked with all sorts of analysis, from DWI testing to infectious diseases. Last month, they saw a surge of E. coli samples coming in from local hospitals.

It sort of set off red flags with the staff who are working and characterizing those, so that was the first tip-off. It was before anything was known nationally, said Michael Edwards, director of NMDOHSL.

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In cases like these, hospitals identify the cases and send samples to these labs to further investigate. First, to microbiologists like Manzanares: I start doing our initial workup, Ill plate it to various medias. So, each of these has different additives or sugars or inhibitors in here that will help us kind of weed out various bacteria.

Manzanares said in this case, the strain of E. coli they were worried about would turn purple in the Petri dish. So once I started doing my plating and my workups I saw that there was a whole bunch of purple, I kind of started to get a little suspicious, Manzanares said.

From there, the samples were sent to the Molecular Biology laboratory to look even more closely at the DNA. The sequencing is identifying all the alphabet soup of the genome, said Pascale Leonard, manager of the molecular biology section. Then, comparing those to sequences nationally and locally: What we found is we did find a match for that 0157s that matched to the outbreak.

With that information, the lab was able to determine this E. coli matched the pathogen that caused the national outbreak from the onions on the McDonalds Quarter Pounders.

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Another lab, the Environmental Microbiology lab, actually tested a Quarter Pounder from one subject who got sick. It did end up being negative, and most probably because the patient had been ill when they ate the sandwich, said Nicole Espinoza, manager for the Environmental Microbiology lab. Espinoza says it takes four to eight days after youve eaten tainted food to actually get sick. This was one of the hamburger samples, and there werent any pink colonies on them, Espinoza said, showing a Petri dish.

The lab said they see 50 outbreaks of various diseases a year; ten of which are national. The NMDOH said there have been ten confirmed cases of the E. coli outbreak in the state linked to the McDonalds Quarter Pounder.

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Donald Trump ruffled more than a few feathers on Capitol Hill when he announced Wednesday hed called on Matt Gaetz to be his next attorney general.

Gaetz, 42, is among the most controversial lawmakers in Congress, having been accused of a number of controversies; including showing photos of naked women on the House floor and an investigation into potential sex trafficking.

Before the Floridian can join Trumps Cabinet as the nations top law enforcement official, hell have to endure a Senate confirmation hearing thats sure to see him questioned on his laundry list of scandals.

Lone no vote on anti-human trafficking bill

Back in 2017, the freshman congressman Gaetz wasnt a national name yet. Still, he turned heads across the country after he was the lone no vote on an anti-human trafficking bill that easily passed both the House and Senate.

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Gaetz explainedfrom a Facebook Live in his living roomthat he voted no because he felt the bill, the Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act, would represent mission creep at the federal level. In laymans terms, he felt the bill would lead to more government bureaucracy than was needed, though he agreed with the bills goal. Gaetz was still slammed for being the lone opposing vote, however, and his no vote resurfaced years later during the fallout of his alleged sex trafficking probe.

Bringing right-wing troll to SOTU

Gaetz was again the subject of eye-rolls across the nation in 2018 when he brought the far-right internet troll Chuck Johnson to the State of the Union address. Making the guest choice all the more baffling was that some of Gaetzs colleagues from Florida had opted to bring survivors of a devastating hurricane and the family of a hostage in Iran.

Gaetz, meanwhile, found it appropriate to bring Johnson; a man whod been banned from Twitter, accused of white nationalism and Holocaust denial, and who was perhaps best known for proliferating fake news stories. Gaetz told the Daily Beast at the time that he gave Johnson a ticket simply because he showed up at his office on the day of the speech. Johnson, meanwhile, said he was a fan of Gaetz because he he has that f--k you mindset.

Witness intimidation of Michael Cohen

Gaetz had turned himself into a national firebrand by 2019, acting as a staunch defender of Donald Trump who frequently appeared on Fox News. It was this year that Gaetzone day before Michael Cohen was slated to speak before the House Oversight Committeeaccused Trumps former fixer-turned-foe of being unfaithful to his wife, in what came off as a veiled threat.

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Gaetz, tagging Cohens account on Twitter, wrote: Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if shell remain faithful when youre in prison. Shes about to learn a lot

The post was deleted after Gaetz was admonished for ever making the post. Gaetz insisted it wasnt witness intimidation but was instead just witness testing. The Florida Bar opened a probe into Gaetz but ultimately cleared him.

Nestor, the hidden Cuban son, emerges

In the summer of 2020, Gaetz got into a fiery altercation with the former Rep. Cedric Richmond during a congressional hearing on police reform. During a heated back-and-forth, Gaetz exploded at Richmond for suggesting he didnt know what it was like to fear for a Black son.

Gaetz was unmarried andas far as the public knewchildless at the time, so many were left scratching their heads after his exchange with Richmond. That same day, however, the Florida congressman took to Twitter to post a photo of someone he described as my son Nestor, a 19-year-old from Cuba whod apparently lived with him for six years. We share no blood but he is my life, Gaetz said. He also emphasized in his post that Nestor came to Florida legally.

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Gaetz and Nestors relationship has since been scrutinized, however. Nestor is the son of Gaetzs ex-girlfriend and spent time living with both Gaetz and his blood family in Florida. Gaetz was also discovered to have described Nestor in social media posts as a local student in 2016 and as my helper in 2017.

Sex trafficking probe

The New York Times published a bombshell report in 2021 that claimed Gaetz was being investigated by the Department of Justice for sex trafficking. Among the allegations against Gaetz was that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel across state lines. It is verifiably false that I have traveled with a 17-year-old woman, he told the publication at the time.

In the end, the DOJ announced last year that no charges would be filed against Gaetz and that its probe was complete. However, his pal, the Florida tax collector Joel Greenberg, pleaded guilty to a slew of sex crimes and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. In 2021, the Daily Beast reported on a confession letter that was penned by Greenberg in which he claimed that Gaetz had paid him to arrange sex with several women and a girl who was 17. The Beast also revealed private Venmo logs that showed Gaetz sent money to Greenberg, even using a nickname for the adolescent.

While Gaetz has been absolved legally, the scandal hurt his reputation on the hill and has seemingly led to unsavory stories about the lawmaker. Recently, that included court docs emerging in September that alleged Gaetz was at a party in 2017 with a naked high school junior who was there to engage in sexual activities while drugs like cocaine and ecstasy were present.

Naked pics on the House floor

A CNN report alleged in 2021 that Gaetz had proudly showed images and clips of naked women hed been sleeping with to aides and lawmakers while in the U.S. Capitol and on the House floor. Among the alleged videos shown on Gaetz phone was a nude woman with a hula hoop. A source told CNN the seedy clips were a point of pride for the congressman.

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CNNs report suggested that the allegedly sordid conduct from Gaetz was part of a trend from the congressman. The network reported that staff who worked for former House Speaker Paul Ryan once had to meet with Gaetz during his first term to lecture him about behaving professionally on the House floor.

Gaetz denied CNNs report in the strongest possible terms. Just before the story broke, Gaetz claimed that he and his family had been victims of an organized criminal extortion involving a former DOJ official seeking $25 million while threatening to smear my name.

Can you spare a pardon?

While perhaps his least controversial scandal, Gaetz was thoroughly grilled in 2022 when testimony from a Trump attorneyemerging as part of a Jan. 6 Committee hearingrevealed that the lawmaker had allegedly asked for a sweeping pardon from Trump during his final days in office.

That attorney, Eri Herschmann, said in a deposition that Gaetz had requested a presidential pardon from the beginning of time up until today, for any and all things. Cassidy Hutchinson, an ex-White House adviser, also testified that Gaetz had been seeking a pardon since early December in 2020, but she said she was unsure why.

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After the deposition clip emerged, Gaetz dismissed the committee as a political sideshow while other lawmakers, like the former Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger, remarked that the request was proof Gaetz was up to no good. The only reason you ask for a pardon is if you think youve committed a crime, Kinzinger said.

House Ethics Committee probe emerges

Likely the most pressing scandal to Gaetz today is a House Ethics Committee probe that was opened last year. The probe, which was initially opened in 2021 but put on ice, is investigating Gaetz for sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, misuse of state identification records, and bribery.

Gaetz denied wrongdoing when the probe was announced in 2023 and said it was not something Im worried about. He also suggested he was being targeted over his politics, saying, Its also funny that the one guy who doesnt take the corrupt lobbyist and PAC money seems to be under the most Ethics investigations.

The probe remained open as of Wednesday however by Wednesday evening, House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Gaetz will resign from Congress effective immediately following his nomination to serve as attorney general by President-elect Trump, effectively killing it.

When news broke of Gaetzs appointment, ABC News reported that there was an audible gasp in a room of House Republicans who were meeting behind closed doors.
ELYRIA, Ohio (WJW)  Local police officers who shot and killed a Tennessee murder suspect after he opened fire on them during a brief standoff on May 8 in North Ridgeville were justified in their use of force, Lorain County Prosecutor J.D. Tomlinson has ruled.

Jason Norris, 41, was accused of killing his girlfriend in White County, Tennessee, then stealing her SUV. Officers, with help from a license plate reader, tracked the vehicle to a home along James Road, where lived Norris relatives, who were unaware of the mans murder warrant, authorities said.

`At least 10 skulls found, 1 linked to missing person in New Mexico

As officers were surrounding the home the evening of May 8, Norris and another man came outside. Officers ordered the men to stop, but Norris ignored those commands and retrieved a handgun from the SUV.

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He turned to one of the officers and fired a single shot, then turned and aimed at another officer, according to the prosecutors office. The two officers, armed with service rifles, each fired a single shot. One of the bullets struck Norris and he fell to the ground.

He later died at a hospital.

An autopsy showed the fatal bullet hit Norris in the right lower chest, traveled from his front to back, then from right to left, then upward. It was determined to have come from one of the two officers rifles.

New photos of semi wanted in deadly hit and run

Tomlinson in his evaluation released Thursday, said the officers use of force was reasonable.

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In this case, the suspect, Jason Norris, was wanted for murder with a firearm. He was a felon in possession of a weapon. He had committed a robbery and he had attempted to murder two police officers, reads Tomlinsons statement. At the time [the two officers] fired upon Norris, the offenses Norris had committed could not have been more serious.

Given the facts established above  Norris was attempting to kill these officers and he was clearly a danger to all of the North Ridgeville police officers stationed at the scene, it continues.

  Indeed, he was attempting to shoot his way out, and this brief standoff ended with Norris life, Tomlinson wrote.

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Editors note: The headline has been corrected to reflect that Graves is among a list of potential nominees but not listed as the nominee.

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD)  Could Louisiana Congressman Garret Graves find a seat on President-elect Donald Trumps cabinet?

According to multiple published reports, and a source close to the matter, Graves is listed on Trumps potential list of candidates for the position of Secretary of the United States Department of Transportation.

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Graves has been a member of Congress since 2015, representing the sixth district in Louisiana. He decided not to run for re-election for the Congressional seat as the Supreme Court ordered the state to use a congressional map with a second majority-Black district during the 2024 fall election.

The map would reportedly change Graves district. He said the Supreme Courts decision forces voters to a fall election using an unconstitutional, confusing map.

When U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy were asked if they would support Graves if he were chosen, both agreed.

I would absolutely support Garret [Graves] becoming the Secretary of Transportation, said Cassidy. Its something he thought a lot about, hes worked on the committee on the House of Representatives. I think hes imminently qualified and absolutely, I would support that.

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Ive known Garret a long time. Hes very smart, enjoys policy, likes to work, and has deep experience, at both the state and federal level, in everything from infrastructure planning and construction to coastal restoration. He also knows how to manage, he knows how to do battle, and he knows how to cut red tape to get things done. Hed be a terrific DOT Secretary, in my judgment, and having him at the DOT helm wouldnt be too shabby for Louisiana either. U.S. Sen. John Kennedy

Other potential candidates include Missouri Congressman Sam Graves, Texas Congressman Troy E. Nehls, and former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, according to the Washington Post.

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SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS)  The Louisiana House of Representatives has voted to eliminate the states film and TV tax credit. The incentives cultivated film and television productions across the state; for years, Shreveport has been a hub for the film industry, but the potential for a state tax credit going away is raising concerns.

The governors office has proposed that with the phasing out of this film tax credit, it would look different moving forward. And it would be almost like a grant program to where you would apply through Louisiana Economic Development. Representative District 4 Joy Walters said.

The tax incentives have allowed Louisiana to compete with major cities like Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York for large-scale productions.

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If we stop this initiative. If we stop these tax incentives, it will stop that cold, and we will lose all our best and brightest who have been working a long time to be able to stay in Louisiana. said award-winning filmmaker and producer William Joyce.

Movies, TV shows you may not know were made in Louisiana

Its a billion dollars a year since we started doing this. Ten thousand jobs paying over $65,000 a year annually. So were not talking about just hobbies. Were talking about careers for people. Said Shreveport film producer Rick Simpson.

The film tax credit has helped attract big-budget companies like G Unit studios to Louisiana. Its owner, Curtis 50 Cent Jackson, has said the studio would create jobs and bring a significant economic boost to Shreveport.

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I will say that I have been assured by the governors office that they have been in contact with Curtis 50 Jackson. He and his team, and that they are working through different things. Walters said.

Simpson hopes lawmakers in the Senate reconsider dropping the incentive to keep the Louisiana film industry open for business.

Look, this has affected, this doesnt just, this doesnt just affect Shreveport, Baton Rouge or New Orleans. It affects so many different parishes. I do have faith in the Senate that they are going to do something to amend this, said Simpson.

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State Rep. Ken Brass, D-Vacherie, listens to debate in the Louisiana House of Representatives on May 23, 2023. (Wes Muller/Louisiana Illuminator)

The Louisiana House of Representatives approved legislation Wednesday that would expand sales taxes to digital streaming services, establish a flat tax on corporate income and repeal a whole host of special interest tax breaks.

The legislation is part of Gov. Jeff Landrys tax overhaul to swap lower income taxes for an expansion of sales taxes on goods and services.

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House Bill 8, sponsored by Rep. Ken Brass, D-Vacherie, cleared the lower chamber in an 80-19 vote and will next head to the Senate for consideration.

The proposal would expand the state sales tax to a broad array of digital goods and services, including streaming video and audio services, smartphone and tablet apps, video games and any other downloadable or streamed content.

It would not apply to intangible items such as online stock purchases, patents or copyrights. Telecommunications and internet access would also be excluded from the sales tax as they already fall under a stand-alone tax for such services.

The bill would further exempt certain digital products used exclusively for commercial purposes. Users of telemedicine services and online banking, for example, would not be taxed. Brass measure would also repeal current sales tax exclusions for custom software and newspapers.

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If enacted, Brass proposal is estimated to generate more than $178 million in state revenue over the next five years assuming an existing voluntary compliance rate of roughly 35% and an expiring 0.45% sales tax set to sunset next year, according to an analysis from the Legislative Fiscal Office.

The revenue from Brass bill would be used to help offset other parts of Landrys tax package. They include House Bill 2, sponsored by Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, which cleared the House in a 79-19 vote Wednesday. It will also head to the Senate for consideration.

Emersons bill would replace the current corporate income tax structure that maxes out at 7.5% with a single flat rate of 3.5%. Before it reaches 3.5%, the rate would be reduced to 5.5% for the fiscal year that starts July 1, 2025, to ease the tax overhauls impact on state revenue.

To offset some of the revenue loss, Emersons legislation proposes to do away with a whole host of special interest tax breaks over the next few years. Its estimated the state would lose revenue annually until the 2028-2029 fiscal year, at which point all the relative tax breaks would be gone and revenue could start flowing again, according to the bills fiscal analysis.

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The ax would fall on popular incentives for film production, small business innovation, historic structure rehabilitation and recording studios, among others.

This portion of the legislation drew bipartisan opposition from some lawmakers but not enough to kill the bill.

Rep. Mike Bayham Jr., R-Chalmette, spoke admiringly of how the motion picture tax credit brought jobs to St. Bernard Parish and spurred film companies to revitalize old abandoned department stores. He pointed out that U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, created the tax credit years ago as a state lawmaker.

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Bayham said his colleagues have assured him they would continue to work on legislation to protect some kind of incentive for the film industry. He voted in favor of Emersons bill but threatened to oppose it later if it comes back in a posture that doesnt work.

Rep. Michael Echols, R-Monroe, praised the economic benefits of a tax credit for real estate developers who renovate dilapidated historic properties. He said the governor personally promised to support an alternative program in the future.

Businesses and individuals are poised to benefit from lower income tax rates if the governors overhaul is enacted. Emerson and other proponents have said it is needed to stem Louisianas continuous loss of population and attract new businesses to the state.

Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans, said she doesnt think people are leaving because of the states tax structure. The Legislature has passed a variety of tax bills over the years that proponents said would attract businesses to the state, she said.

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Others pointed out that the tax package is unique in the extent at which it would overhaul so many parts of the tax structure at once.

For 50 to 70 years, weve done the same old thing, and its not working, Echols said.  Its time for change.

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SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS)- Governor Jeff Landry plans to cut income taxes; however, that money would have to be made up by adding sales taxes on other items. One proposed tax is House Bill 8, known on social media as the Netflix Bill, which would tax online services.

The bill would cover services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Peacock, and more. It has already passed the Louisiana House and moved to the Senate, and most Louisiana lawmakers seem to be in favor of it.

These services could come at additional cost when La. Legislature special tax session is complete

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However, local Shreveport residents we spoke to did not favor taxing their streaming services. Raven Robinson said, I didnt know that you knew they were taxing or putting extra taxes on streaming services. Its no point why; its just taking money out of our pockets.

Some say they will continue using services without paying if prices go up. Corey Peterson told us, If thats the case, then Ill just stick to YouTube.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTALnews.com.
Louisiana voters will decide whether state lawmakers should have the power to set up new state-level specialty courts, like a business court. (Getty Images)

Louisiana lawmakers are considering two bills to partially restore privileges for legislators who are attorneys after a previous, similar law was declared unconstitutional last month.



The Senate Judiciary A committee moved Senate Bill 7 and Senate Bill 9 Thursday to grant attorneys who are legislators special privileges to ask for extensions on legal deadlines and court appearances when it conflicts with their statehouse work.

The fact is we need lawyers in the Legislature, said Sen. Jay Luneau, D-Alexandria, an attorney who sponsored one of the bills. Lawyers  who are plaintiffs lawyers arent going to be able to be legislators, if a new law isnt passed.

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The proposals resemble an old legislative continuance law, which automatically allowed attorney-legislators to delay court proceedings if they interfered with their elected job. The Louisiana Supreme Court struck down that law in late October and criticized it for giving the attorney-lawmakers unchecked authority.



Instead, the Supreme Court issued substitute guidance earlier this month laying out when attorney-lawmakers could ask for court extensions on a more limited basis.

If the legislators approve either of the two bills outlining a new set of the attorney-lawmaker privileges, they would replace the guidance issued by the Supreme Court. But lawmakers must be careful not to overplay their hand with any new statute. The justices made it clear in their opinions and remarks that the original statute granted the attorney-lawmakers too much power.



Luneau and Sen. Greg Miller, R-Norco, an attorney who authored the second continuance bill, included provisions in their respective pieces of legislation that allow opposing counsel to challenge an attorney-legislators request for an extension. No such exception existed in the original law.



Under the bills, a judge could deny the request if its determined the attorney-legislator was seeking it for an improper purpose or if the objecting party would suffer substantial and immediate harm if the delay is granted.

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Millers bill also declares attorney-legislators cannot seek legislative extensions in certain types of court proceedings such as those concerning domestic violence, protective orders or child custody. Legislative delays under those circumstances arent appropriate because of the time sensitivity involved, he said.

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The Supreme Court threw out the original continuance law in response to the behavior of law firm partners Sen. Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport, and Rep. Michael Melerine, R-Shreveport, during a personal injury case. Seabaugh and Melerines opposing counsel argued that their case had been held up for years over the two legislators request for delays over statehouse proceedings.



Seabaugh sits on the Judiciary A committee that vetted the Miller and Luneau bills Thursday morning, but he didnt attend the committee hearing on the legislation. Outside of legislative efforts to pass new continuance laws, Attorney General Liz Murrill asked the Supreme Court last week to reconsider their ruling striking down the original law.

It is, of course the function of the courts to say what the law is, but it is the function of the legislature to pass laws that govern the conduct of state government institutions including the Judiciary, Murrill wrote in a brief to the court.

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Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, is one of several legislators upset with the Louisiana Board of Ethics. (Photo by Allison Allsop/Louisiana Illuminator)

Louisiana legislators threatened to subpoena and remove members of the state ethics board Wednesday in an intensification of the fight over enforcement of the state ethics code.



Members of the Louisiana House and Governmental Affairs Committee lashed out at the ethics board for not heeding legislative requests to hold off on hiring a new administrator until January. At that point, Gov. Jeff Landry gains more control of the board through a new set of appointees.

I think this is a situation where we should have some action to remove board members, Rep. Candace Newell, D-New Orleans, said during a public hearing Wednesday at the State Capitol. There should be some kind of punishments for them.

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Two state senators are suing the ethics board over the same issue and got a judge to issue a restraining order to temporarily block members from filling its administration position. Yet House committee members want to go farther.



With regards to removing board members, do you think that is a legislative item? A gubernatorial deal? Who would be in charge of removing board members if theyre found to be doing something unlawful? committee chairman Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, asked current ethics administrator Kathleen Allen at Wednesdays hearing.



The ethics board is responsible for enforcing campaign finance laws and preventing conflicts of interest for elected officials, public employees and lobbyists. It can levy fines against politicians for several types of violations, including not submitting campaign finance information and personal disclosure forms on time.



Landry had a fraught relationship with the ethics board long before becoming governor. Under different sets of appointees, its members have reprimanded him multiple times.

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In the most high-profile incident, the board charged Landry last year for not disclosing a flight he took on a political donors plane to Hawaii as attorney general. The matter is not resolved, with Landry still negotiating with the board about what his punishment should be.



Over the past few months, legislators in both political parties have attacked the board for what they describe as aggressive and abusive investigations. Lawmakers have balked at the boards interpretation of campaign finance rules that restrict spending from their political action committees.

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Unless the board fines or charges a public official for wrongdoing, its inquiries remain private. That confidentiality makes it hard to determine whether legislators who are upset about the ethics boards actions have ever been investigated by the group.

Its also difficult to determine to what extent Landrys activities might have been questioned by the board.



No one in the public has any idea what youre doing and why youre doing it, Rep. Dixon McMakin, R-Baton Rouge, told Allen, who represented ethics board members at Wednesdays hearing.



I hope that is something that you all are sued for. I hope you lose cause youre the Board of Ethics, and that is unacceptable, he said.

Rep. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge, suggested the House committee use its subpoena power to force the ethics board chairwoman, La Koshia Roberts of Lake Charles, to appear at a future meeting. The board has levied thousands of dollars of fines against Marcelle for filing her campaign finance reports late.



Beaullieu told Marcelle the committee would look into that option.



Legislators allege the ethics board violated government transparency laws when its members discussed the hiring of an administrator to replace Allen behind closed doors. They said the matter should have been discussed openly at a public meeting.

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In their lawsuit, Sens. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, and Stewart Cathey, R-Monroe, also allege the ethics board broke the law by not taking the required vote to go into a private session to discuss the administrator position.



Allen pushed back on these accusations Wednesday, telling lawmakers she believes the board has complied with state open meetings law requirements.



She attributed the confusion to all the ethics board meeting minutes not having been posted publicly yet. A review of those missing records would show board members acted correctly, she said.

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Anything we did during [the private] executive session I feel like is appropriate, she told lawmakers.



Outside of picking a new ethics administrator, Rep. Ed Larvadain, D-Alexandria, lobbed a personal accusation at Allen.

You have a history of not including African Americans [on the ethics boards staff], Larvadain told Allen.



I take offense that I have excluded African Americans. I have never directed an employee to exclude anyone based on race or gender, Allen responded.



Approximately 20% of the ethics board staff is African American, Allen said, but over 30% of Louisianas population is Black.

Black employees are underrepresented in white-collar state government jobs, such as those seen at the ethics boards, and Black legislators often question agencies about the makeup of their workforce.

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In the new year, when Landry gains more control over the ethics board, it will lose some of its current independence.



Landry and the legislators approved a new law that allows them to pick the members of the ethics board directly starting in 2025.

Previous governors and legislative leaders were required to select board appointees from lists of candidates that leaders of Louisianas private colleges and universities recommend. The old system was an attempt to insulate the board from the outside political pressure.
LONGVIEW, Texas (KETK)  On Wednesday, a Louisiana man was sentenced to death after being found guilty of murdering an East Texas deputy in 2019.

Former Tyler ISD employee sentenced to 18 years for improper relationship

Gregory Newson, was found guilty of shooting and killing William Chris Dickerson, a Panola County deputy during a traffic stop on New Years Eve in 2019. Newson was accused of fleeing the scene that led to a high-speed chase ending in a crash.

Mugshot of Gregory Newson

Prosecutors in the case were seeking the death penalty, asking the jury to look at the evidence when making their decision.

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Your verdict is not going to bring Chris Dickerson back, Wes May, a state lawyer said. Its not going to fill the hole left in the shield that these men and women who testified in this case and who Chris himself represented, but it will be one step toward taking justice.

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LOUISIANA (KTAL/KMSS)  The Louisiana Notary exam is moving to a computer-based format in 2025.

According to a media release from the Secretary of State, Nancy Landry, the Louisiana Notary Public Examination will transition to a computer-based format in the spring of 2025. Officials say once implemented, the computer-based test will be offered exclusively at Louisiana State Universitys Baton Rouge campus multiple times each month.

The new format will allow the test to be offered more frequently and provide more time per question than the paper format currently allows.

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Career fair gives LSUS students options for future

We are very excited by this development. The new format will provide more opportunities to pass the examination, significantly shorten the wait-time for re-taking it, and allow for scores to be released faster. It is our hope that eventually we can make the examination available at other testing sites around the state, Secretary Landry said.

Registration is now open for the final paper-based exam, which will be administered on Jan. 11, 2025. After the January examination, all 2025 notary exams will use the 2025 edition of the study guide, which will be available for purchase in January on the Secretary of States website.

To learn more, please visit the website or call the Secretary of States Notary Division at 225-922-0507.

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Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, is proposing a constitutional amendment that could lead to more minors being sentenced to adult prisons. (Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator)

The Louisiana Senate approved a measure Thursday that could result in younger teenagers being sentenced to adult prisons more often.



The senators voted 28-9 in favor of Senate Bill 2 to lift limitations on the types of crimes for which people under age 17 can be sentenced as if they are adults. The proposal will next be considered by the Louisiana House and also needs voter approval statewide before it can become law. It will appear on the March 29 or Nov. 15 ballot next year.

The constitutional amendment would allow legislators to craft new laws that expand the courts ability to send minors  including 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds  to adult prisons.

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Childrens advocates oppose the proposal and believe it will further erode protections for youth in the criminal justice system.

In Louisiana, 15-,16- and, in more restricted circumstances, 14-year-olds, can already face adult prison sentences for a limited list of mostly violent crimes. They include murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping, aggravated battery, a second or subsequent burglary of an inhabited dwelling and a second or subsequent violation of some drug crimes.

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, would replace that list of crimes with language allowing a minor to be charged as an adult for any crime as long as lawmakers pass new laws to do so.

Its not clear who asked for the amendment. The Louisiana District Attorneys Association came out Thursday in support of the proposal but also said prosecutors didnt request it. The Louisiana Sheriffs Association has been silent about the measure.

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Cloud has also refused to provide specifics on what she has planned if the amendment passes, even when asked by fellow senators.

Is this an attempt to charge younger children as adults for less serious offenses? Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, asked Cloud on the Senate floor Thursday.



Those conversations would happen after the fact [if the constitutional amendment is approved and] if the people give us the authority, Cloud responded.

When pressed for answers, Cloud mentioned a few crimes that she would add to the existing list in the constitution. Advocates have said the offenses Cloud mentioned are already addressed under current law.

For example, Cloud said the amendment would help address situations such as the murder of 73-year-old Linda Frickey during a botched New Orleans carjacking in 2022. But the four teenagers involved in that killing were charged as adults and sent to adult prisons earlier this year under existing law.

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Cloud also insisted her amendment wouldnt change the law because lawmakers would have to pass more legislation to ultimately alter the way teenagers are sent to adult prisons.

Some of her colleagues disagreed with that assessment. They said her proposed amendment would remove authority from the public to decide precisely when younger teenagers should be charged as adults and give it exclusively to legislators.

Sen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews, D-Monroe, said the amendment would take something out of the constitution that protects the least of us.

We are divesting the people of their right to protect children, Jackson-Andrews said.

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Clouds proposal also comes on the heels of a new law approved earlier this year that treats all 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system. It took away discretion from district attorneys to put those teens through the juvenile justice system instead of adult courts.

The law was pitched as a way to grapple with violent acts committed by out-of-control youth, but ProPublica and Verite News report that data show nearly 70% of 17-year-olds arrested under the new law in East Baton Rouge, Jefferson and Orleans parishes were accused of nonviolent crimes.

Louisiana sheriffs are also struggling to accommodate 17-year-olds moved from juvenile courts into the adult system earlier this year.

While Louisiana state law may consider a 17-year-old an adult for criminal justice purposes, the federal government does not. In order to comply with federal law, sheriffs have to keep anyone under 18 separate from adult detainees and provide them with educational services.

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Sheriffs have complained they dont have the space in their jails or resources to meet these federal requirements. A few are spending money to house the 17-year-olds at a special facility in Jackson Parish in order to not run afoul of federal or state mandates.

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MACHESNEY PARK, Ill. (WTVO)  Judge Amy Peterman denied a state petition to deny Tyler Holmes, 18, pre-trial release. The suspect was granted pre-trial release on Thursday.

Winnebago County Sheriffs Deputies arrested Holmes for his alleged involvement in a skull fracture, broken arms and numerous bruises of a 7-month-old child.

On Nov. 13, police went to a residence in the 11000 block of DeBussey Drive in Machensey Park for a child abuse report they received from the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS).

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DCFS said they were contacted by a local hospital when a 7-month-old child was taken to the hospital with a skull fracture, two broken arms and numerous bruises. The child is currently in stable condition.

During the investigation, detectives identified Holmes, the childs father, as the suspect.

Holmes is charged with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm to a child, three counts of aggravated battery to a child, three counts of aggravated domestic battery causing great bodily harm and three counts of domestic battery.

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Adams County residents wait in line to vote at the Anythink Huron Street library in Thornton, Nov. 5, 2024. (Andrew Fraieli for Colorado Newsline)

Colorado Democrats may have defied national political trends in the 2024 election, largely maintaining their strong performance at the ballot box even as many other states across the country swung toward Republicans. But unofficial results show that Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats fared much better in some parts of the state than others and were hurt by depressed turnout in traditional party strongholds.

In slightly more than half of Colorados 64 counties, Republican President-elect Donald Trump received a higher vote share in 2024 than he did four years ago, with the most pronounced pro-Trump shifts occurring in southern Colorado. Those swings in more rural parts of the state, combined with lower turnout in more populous Front Range counties, shrank Democrats overall winning margin in Colorado from over 13 percentage points in 2020 to roughly 11 points this year.

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Four rural Colorado counties concentrated in the San Luis Valley  Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla and Saguache  stood out from the others, shifting toward Trump by 9.9 percentage points or more. Alamosa, the regions largest population center, went for the Republican by over 10 points, just four years after distinguishing itself as the most evenly divided county in the state, with Trump edging out President Joe Biden by just 54 votes.

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Nearby Pueblo County is a onetime Democratic stronghold that has become a bellwether in recent presidential elections; voters there narrowly backed Trump in 2016, then went for Biden by a similarly close margin in 2020. This year, however, Trump posted his best performance in Pueblo to date, winning the county by almost 5 percentage points.

The rightward shift in southern Colorado lines up with national trends. Multiple exit polls have found surging support for Trump among Latino voters compared to 2020, though the exact size of the shift is disputed. Pueblo and the San Luis Valley are home to Colorados highest percentages of Latino voters, with over 40% of residents of Hispanic or Latino origin, according to census data. Trump similarly increased his vote share in heavily Latino counties in Texas Rio Grande Valley and throughout the Southwest.

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Two-thirds of Latino voters in Colorado supported Harris in the presidential election, a slightly higher share than Latinos nationally, according to an exit poll released last week by the Colorado Latino Policy Agenda.

In Colorado, the biggest swing toward Republicans outside of the San Luis Valley came in Pitkin County, home to the affluent resort community of Aspen, where Trump held a high-dollar fundraiser in August. Pitkin shifted by 7.6 percentage points toward Trump compared to 2020  though Harris still won it overwhelmingly, with about 71% of the vote.

Representatives from the nonprofit Colorado Polling Institute said last week their exit polling showed that despite Democrats relatively strong performance, the Centennial State wasnt immune from the national trend of Democrats declining support among Latinos and other non-white voters.

Some of that national shift among voters of color that occurred toward Trump did trickle down in Colorado, said Kevin Ingham, a principal at Democratic polling firm Aspect Strategic. But given that voters of color make a relatively small share of our electorate, this seemed to wash out with Harris gains among white voters here.

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In 30 of Colorados 64 counties, Democrats improved on their 2020 presidential vote share  a major departure from the trend nationwide, where only about 1 in 10 counties recorded a similar leftward shift.

Some of Colorado Democrats biggest strides came on the Western Slope, including Mesa County, where Harris improved on Bidens performance by over four percentage points despite losing handily in the heavily Republican county centered on Grand Junction. Montrose County, another rural conservative stronghold just to the south, also shifted to the left by a similar margin.

Democrats also maintained or slightly improved their vote share in several of the suburban Front Range counties that have proven crucial to the partys electoral dominance in Colorado elections over the last decade. Jefferson County  one of the states most important political battlegrounds a generation ago  backed Harris by over 20 points, an uptick from 2020. Voters in more conservative strongholds like Douglas and El Paso counties, which have also slowly shifted toward Democrats in recent years, bucked the national trend and again inched to the left.

Turnout drops

With ballot counting nearly complete, state elections officials said Wednesday that a total of 3,276,257 ballots have been returned statewide. With a little over 4 million active voter registrations, that puts Colorado on track for a turnout rate of about 81% of active voters  the lowest figure for a presidential election year since 2000.

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The decline roughly mirrors national trends. While the data is preliminary, the University of Floridas Election Lab estimates that nationwide turnout dipped from 66.4% in 2020 to 63.6% in 2024.

Turnout rates declined in all Colorado counties by at least 3 percentage points compared to 2020, according to unofficial results compiled by the Colorado secretary of states office. They declined most sharply in a handful of southwestern counties, including Montrose County; in the San Luis Valley region; and in Adams County and the City and County of Denver.

The depressed turnout in heavily Democratic areas accounted for almost all of the 2-point dip in the partys margin of victory this year. In four Front Range counties  Denver, Adams, Arapahoe and Boulder  Harris received a combined 83,465 fewer votes than Biden did in 2020, while Trumps vote total was virtually unchanged. If Harris had retained that support, her vote share would have been almost identical to Bidens.

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BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD)  The Louisiana State Police is investigating a murder-suicide that happened on Thursday, Nov. 13 in Convent. The shooting took the life of a 23-year-old man and a 1-year-old child.

LSP said, The preliminary investigation revealed that the Gonzales Police Department and Ascension Parish Sheriffs Office were involved in a vehicle pursuit that ended in St. James Parish.

At the end of the pursuit, the man was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital where he later died.

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They also found that the child was shot and died at the scene.

The St. James Parish Sheriffs Office requested that LSP investigate this shooting and they will provide assistance in this case.

1 hurt after shooting in Baton Rouge Wednesday, officials say

The investigation remains ongoing and more information will be shared once it becomes available.

If you have any information that could help LSP, go to this website and click the Report Suspicious or Criminal Activity link or call the LSP Fusion Center Hotline at 1-800-434-8007.

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FAIRLAWN, Ohio (WJW)  A local pizza delivery driver is being hailed as a hero after jumping into action to help a customer who was having a seizure.

Kendra Santiago, a pizza delivery driver for Dominos Pizza in Fairlawn, was working her usual shift Saturday night.

I was getting ready for my delivery and there was a phone call, so I took it. It was Bob. He was like, I wanted to pay for the food, and at the end, hes no longer on the line, said Kendra.

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This Akron mother of two decided to deliver the pizza to the Shiawassee Avenue home anyway.

Kendra said the mans wife answered the door.

She said, Im going to get your tip. She goes to the backroom and comes back, shes like, hes not breathing,' said Kendra.

Kendra immediately ran into the couples home.

Hes like halfway off the bed seizing and Im trying to calm her down. I go over there, elevate him, count his heart beat and call 911. And Im trying to stay calm, said Kendra.

I dont know what happened, but I guess I had an artery that had an aneurysm and it had started bleeding. I lost sight in my eye and was having floaters. Next thing I know, I was having seizures or something, said Bob Lopeman, of Fairlawn.

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Paramedics rushed the 74-year-old to Akron General where his family said he had emergency surgery to stop the brain bleed.

See it: New $9.2M fire station opens in Akron

Bob said Kendras fast actions stopped him from having a stroke or worse.

Doctors said I would have died if they didnt get to it in time, so Im lucky to be alive, said Bob.

Kendra has since gone to visit Bob in the hospital and introduce him to her daughtert.

It was really hard, but I went into mommy mode where you just got to do it. I missed out on making some deliveries, but Id rather save someones life, said Kendra.

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Those nostalgically stackable Lunchables are tumbling off the lunch menu  at least in U.S. schools utilizing the National School Lunch Program .

Kraft Heinz  the manufacturers of Lunchables  decided this week to pull the packaged lunch meals from NSLP-participating schools, calling it a business decision.

But nutritionists and consumer advocacy groups insist thats a call Kraft Heinz should have made from the beginning, citing the products reportedly questionable nutritional content.

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While many school administrators were excited to have these options, the demand did not meet our targets, Kraft Heinz told Reuters in a statement. This happens occasionally across our broad portfolio, especially as we explore new sales channels.

Lunchables products are not available in schools this year and we hope to revisit at a future date.

Kraft Heinz introduced two specially designed packaged meals for the National School Lunch Program  one featuring pizza and the other a turkey/cheddar cheese/cracker plate  at the beginning of the 2023-2024 academic year.

At the time, Kraft Heinz said the offerings were protein-enriched and contained reduced levels of saturated fat and sodium to meet the requirements of the national free and reduced-price school lunch program, The Associated Press reported.

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But consumer advocacy groups were uneasy seeing Lunchables  a popular, convenient snack choice for many kids and their millennial parents  ever included in a government-sponsored nutrition program.

Earlier this year, Consumer Reports tests found that various Lunchables kits available at supermarkets contained potentially concerning levels of lead, phthalates (chemicals found in plastic), and very high sodium levels.

While Consumer Reports didnt test the school lunch versions of the Lunchables kits, an analysis of their nutritional information showed they had even more sodium than the versions sold in stores, according to a Consumer Reports report. The nonprofit consumer organization petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture, asking the agency to set stricter standards so that highly processed, sodium-heavy kits such as Lunchables would not be offered as part of the NSLP programs.

When you consider the high sodium content and our testing that showed the presence of heavy metals such as lead, its clear that products like these dont belong in the school meal program, Brian Ronholm, director of food policy at Consumer Reports, told the AP.

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In fact, they should not have been eligible in the first place. Our countrys food policies should maintain stricter standards for the school lunch program to ensure millions of kids have access to the healthier options they deserve.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, meanwhile, said having Lunchables in school cafeterias might confuse families into thinking the versions sold at supermarkets were a healthy option.

Its uncertain if any of the NSLP-designed Lunchables were provided in any Utah schools, but representatives from two of the states largest school districts  Canyons and Jordan  told the Deseret News that their respective organizations had never offered Lunchables as part of their program.

Kraft Heinzs decision to pull Lunchables from the federally funded school lunch program was not influenced by the Consumer Reports tests, the company told Reuters.

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But in an earnings call last month, Kraft Heinz CEO Carlos Abrams-Rivera did note, when asked about decreasing Lunchables sales, that the negative publicity that we receive from that misleading interest group appears to be lingering longer, according to Consumer Reports.

The company added the business impact was negligible, saying sales of the school-designed meals were far less than 1% of overall Lunchables sales during the last academic year.

Established in 1946 under the National School Lunch Act, the school lunch program operates in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions and is charged with providing nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day.

The national program is utilized in Utah. Sponsors enter into agreements with the Utah State Board Education Child Nutrition Programs to participate. The state office also distributes funds collected from liquor taxes to public schools for lunches.
CHICAGO  The corruption charges against former House Speaker Michael Madigan are in many ways tethered to his longtime confidant, Michael McClain, a self-described agent of the speaker who was captured on FBI wiretaps pushing contract and job requests that he said came directly from Madigan himself.

On Wednesday, however, Madigans attorneys made their most aggressive attempts yet to distance the former Democratic leader from his co-defendant, strongly implying in a lengthy cross-examination of a key government witness that McClain used his relationship with the speaker to push his own, sometimes strange agenda.

In questioning former ComEd executive and government cooperator Fidel Marquez, Madigan attorney Tom Breen sought to portray McClains repeated name-dropping of the powerful speaker in emails and recorded conversations  often using flimsy code names such as Himself or our Friend  as a scare tactic to get things done.

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Breen also attempted to ridicule the notion that Madigan, then the states most powerful politician, would have been concerned with nitpicky requests for ComEd, like giving more billable hours to a clout-heavy law firm or fulfilling recommendations for low-level jobs and summer internships.

The person bringing you the message, hes saying this is the message from the speaker? Breen asked.

Thats correct, Marquez said.

Your perception was that Michael Madigan was actually hands-on in the internships that ComEd provided kids? Do you really think that? Breen asked Marquez, who wore a wire against McClain and others for federal investigators.

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Marquez acknowledged that McClain was annoying to deal with and that because he mentioned the speakers name, he paid more attention to McClains requests and tended to them quicker. But he was steadfast in saying he genuinely did believe McClains endless slew of requests all came from Madigan.

To make his point, Breen asked Marquez specifically about an email McClain sent to him alleging that the speaker had remarked at dinner that there were two Fidels, one who was responsive and another who seemed to ignore their requests.

Breen asked Marquez if he really believed Madigan was doing a psychological evaluation of you.

Yes I did, Marquez said.

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You believed every word?

I did believe McClain, Marquez said.

Madigan, 82, of Chicago, who served for decades as speaker of the Illinois House and the head of the state Democratic Party, faces racketeering charges alleging he ran his state and political operations like a criminal enterprise.

Among the allegations: several Madigan allies got no-work subcontracts from ComEd; the utility reserved internships each year for young people referred from Madigans 13th Ward, and a law firm headed by Madigan fundraiser Victor Reyes was awarded a lucrative contract with ComEd, allegedly at Madigans request.

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Both Madigan and McClain, 77, a former ComEd contract lobbyist from downstate Quincy, have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

Marquez, the former vice president of external affairs at ComEd, began working with the FBI in early 2019 after agents confronted him at his mothers home and played incriminating calls captured on a secret wiretap.

He went on to make multiple undercover recordings of his own, both audio and video, that have been played for the jury laying out the stream of benefits the utility allegedly extended to Madigan and his allies, mostly through requests relayed by McClain.

During Marquezs four days of direct testimony, Marquez testified over and over that he and other ComEd insiders complied with the requests so that Madigan would look favorably upon ComEd-friendly legislation in Springfield.

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In exchange for Marquezs truthful testimony, prosecutors have said they will recommend a sentence of probation instead of prison time.

Marquez is expected to be back on the witness stand for a sixth day Thursday.

On Wednesday, the defense attacked Marquezs credibility, questioning his motives for cooperating with the FBI and grilling him over episodes in his background that might paint him as untruthful.

Near the end of his cross-examination Wednesday morning, McClain attorney Patrick Cotter focused on Marquezs attempts in 2014 to hide $400,000 in assets from his wife during their contentious divorce, a fact that he did not voluntarily disclose to federal investigators when he began cooperating.

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Marquezs divorce came up in Breens cross-examination as well, when Marquez acknowledged he had been found in civil contempt of court in 2022 for not turning over certain stocks to his ex-wife. He gave them over only after being threatened with jail time, he confirmed.

Cotter also questioned Marquez about some of the secret recordings he made for the government, including a videotaped meeting with McClain in February 2019 at Saputos restaurant in Springfield, where they talked about ComEds do-nothing subcontracts with several Madigan allies.

On the tape, McClain referred to the contracts as a favor, and compared them to another deal ComEd gave to lobbyist Liz Brown-Reeves, on the recommendation of labor leader Michael Carrigan. Cotter insinuated it was all business as usual in Springfield, where currying favor is a legal part of the lobbying game.

Cotter also pointed out the discussion took place in a crowded public restaurant in a political town where McClain is recognized by just about everyone.

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Despite that, at no point in this conversation  does Mr. McClain say, You know, Fidel, why dont we have this conversation somewhere private? Cotter asked

No, he doesnt say that, Marquez replied.

Breen, meanwhile, pressed Marquez on what agents told him the morning they confronted him at his mothers home in Hammond on Jan. 16, 2019, attempting to contradict his hazy memory of the event with Marquezs seemingly clear recollection of dozens of other conversations that prosecutors asked him about.

Did the FBI tell him they believed hed committed a crime? Breen asked Marquez.

When the FBI comes knocking at the door at six in the morning, its obviously for something, Marquez said. I dont know if they said I was in trouble, but they played the tapes for me (and) I was sure it was not for something good.

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After the agents played him several recordings, they drove to a nearby strip mall parking lot to talk more in private, Marquez said. It was during that 45-minute session in the agents car that Marquez agreed to wear a wire and secretly record his colleagues.

Marquez acknowledged he was scared. When Breen asked when the FBI had brought up the prospect of prison, Marquez said he could not recall, but noted, You know, it was a pretty sobering moment.

I can imagine it would be, and I can imagine you might have a perfect recollection of what was said, Breen responded. So Ill ask you again.

Marquez again said he did not remember precisely when the idea of prison time was first brought up.

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Breen also pointed out that Marquez was close with the people hed agreed to cooperate against, including McClain  whom he considered a good friend  and then-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, lobbyist John Hooker, and Jay Doherty, a consultant and head of the City Club of Chicago.

You were in the ComEd family, werent you? Breen said. You celebrated birthdays together, drank together.  Youd tell them about your problems, theyd share some of their personal problems  and you agreed, without any consideration, thats your testimony, to wear wires on your ComEd family, correct?

Yes, Marquez said.

In Cotters cross-examination earlier Wednesday, he asked Marquez about his attempt to purchase a firearm last year at a pawn shop to shoot rattlesnakes outside his Tucson home. In filling out an online form at the store, Marquez checked no to questions that asked if he was currently under indictment or information or had been convicted of any felony.

At the time, hed already pleaded guilty to a felony count of bribery conspiracy and knew he faced up to five years in prison.

Marquez often wavered in his answers about why he filled out the form the way he did, saying at one point, the word information, as I read this form, it just didnt resonate that I was under information.

Cotter jumped all over that, asking: Did the word felony resonate with you? That part of the court proceeding.  Did you remember the five years?

Breens two-hour cross examination, while often entertaining, came across as unfocused, veering from questions about ComEd contracts and jobs for Madigan allies to a discussion about Marquezs dog going through snake avoidance training in Arizona.

Did your dog graduate? Breen asked.

Marquez responded, Yes, and at the judges urging Breen then moved on.

______
(Bloomberg) -- A Malaysian cabinet official said Sunday that the country had received a request from Bangladesh to arrest two businessmen as part of a probe of alleged trafficking of migrant workers, confirming a Bloomberg News report.

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Police in Bangladesh are seeking Aminul Islam, the founder of Bestinet Sdn. Bhd., and Ruhul Amin as part of the investigation, which also covers alleged money laundering and extortion, Bloomberg News reported Nov. 5, citing a copy of a letter that Bangladeshs branch of Interpol sent to its counterpart in Malaysia.

For now, I can confirm that Dhaka has sent the official notice to Malaysian police, Home Affairs Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail told reporters. Saifuddin said he had asked other officials to clarify whether Bangladesh is seeking the men for a criminal investigation or for prosecution, which will determine the next steps.

A lawyer for Aminul called the allegations nonsensical and said his client is prepared to cooperate to provide all information required that will clearly exonerate him and Bestinet from any wrongdoing. Aminul will only do so via written correspondence or a virtual interview, he added.

A representative for Ruhul has denied all allegations of wrongdoing.

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MEMPHIS, Tenn.  A man was taken into custody on Wednesday for allegedly breaking into two businesses and stealing around $59,000 in merchandise.

According to reports, on October 29, around 7 a.m., Memphis Police responded to a burglary at Stereo Sounds at 1331 Getwell Road.

They say the suspects entered the business by ripping the security bars off the windows. The suspects then stole around $59,000 worth of radio equipment, car alarms, and audio equipment from the store.

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Several juveniles arrested for shoplifting in Germantown

On November 6, just before 8 a.m., officers responded to a burglary at 3268 Democrat Road at AOSOM.

MPD says the suspects took several items from the business and fled the area in the same vehicle used in the burglary at Stereo Sounds. One of the suspects returned to AOSOM an hour later to steal additional items.

Reports say officers found the suspect vehicle on Wednesday at a home in the 1300 block of South Orleans Street. MPD says they tried to speak with someone at the home, but they were unable to find anyone, so the car was towed.

While they were towing the car, suspect Dante Parker claimed to be the vehicles owner. He also was found to have felony warrants and was taken into custody.

Donte Parker (Courtesy of the Memphis Police Department)

Officers executed a search warrant at the home, where a woman was found and detained. Investigators also reportedly found four firearms, property from the burglaries, and marijuana inside the home.

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Police say one of the guns was determined to be stolen and was equipped with a Glock switch.

Court records show Parker is a convicted felon.

Donte Parker is charged with two counts of Burglary to a Business, Theft of Property $1,000-$2,500, Theft of Property $10,000-$60,000, Theft of Property $2,500 or less to wit: Stolen Firearm, Prohibited Weapon, four counts of Convicted Felon in Possession of a Handgun, Possession of a Controlled Substance to wit: Marijuana, and Possession of Burglary Tools to wit: Bolt Cutters.

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KILLEEN, Texas (FOX 44)  A Temple man is accused of using a toy gun to frighten people driving past him.

The Killeen Police Department tells FOX 44 News that this incident stems from receving a call on Monday regarding an armed subject. The suspect, identified as 35-year-old Peter Nathaniel Colemanroush, of Temple, was reportedly pointing a gun at passing vehicles at the corner of Fort Hood Street and the Central Texas Expressway.

Police say Colemanroush was found and threatened violence on the responding officers. He was ultimately subdued and taken into custody. It was later discovered that Colemanroush was found to be in possession of a toy gun.

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Shots fired into pickup that backed into mans yard

Colemanroush is currently in the Bell County Jail with charges of Fail to Identify Giving False/Fictitious Information, Resist Arrest Search or Transport, and Obstruction or Retalitation. His total bond has been set at $40,000.

No additional information has been made available.

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CHICAGO  A Chicago man accused of carjacking another man at gunpoint on the citys West Side in late September is now facing a felony charge.

According to Chicago police, 20-year-old Amarion Pope, a Garfield Park resident, has been charged with one felony count of aggravated vehicular hijacking with a firearm.

Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines

Officers said the charge stemmed from Popes role in an alleged armed carjacking that unfolded in the 4400 block of West Maypole Avenue in West Garfield Park on Monday, Sept. 30.

According to Chicago police, 20-year-old Amarion Pope, a Garfield Park resident, has been charged with one felony count of aggravated vehicular hijacking with a firearm.

Officers said Pope was eventually identified as one of the offenders who allegedly stole a 24-year-old mans car at gunpoint, but did not say how many other individuals were involved or if any other charges had been filed.

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Authorities eventually caught up with Pope on Tuesday and said he was taken into custody in the 2600 block of South California Avenue.

Pope appeared in court on Wednesday for a detention hearing.

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[Watch in the player above: Ohio State Highway Patrol releases five-year report on road fatalities]

AKRON, Ohio (WJW)  A 25-year-old Wayne County man is now charged with vehicular manslaughter in a Friday, Nov. 8, crash that killed a 72-year-old motorcyclist.

It happened just after 6 p.m. at the intersection of South High and Selle streets, according to Akron police.

At least 10 skulls found, 1 linked to missing person in New Mexico

Brandon Wellert, 25, of West Salem, was driving a Ford F-150 pickup truck east on Selle Street when he ran a stop sign, striking the 72-year-old man, who was riding a motorcycle south on South High Street, according to police. The motorcyclist died at a hospital.

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Investigators believe alcohol and speed were not factors in the crash.

Mom catches man sexting 13-year-old daughter, meeting at Popeyes led to officer-involved shooting

With an attorney at his side, Wellert surrendered to authorities on Thursday morning, according to a news release.

He now faces a first-degree misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter, according to Akron Municipal Court records. He was scheduled for arraignment on Thursday.

Authorities are withholding the victims identity pending further investigation.

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Timothy Joley, 71, is facing charges over the deaths of Theresa Marcoux, 18, and Mark Harnish, 20, nearly 46 years ago

Hampden District Attorney/Facebook Timothy Joley Timothy Joley

Timothy Joley, 71, has been arrested in connection with the deaths of 18-year-old Theresa Marcoux and 20-year-old Mark Harnish on Nov. 19, 1978

Investigators managed to match a fingerprint found on the victims' pickup truck to a taxi license application he made in 2000

"Tragically, their young lives were cut far too short by a horrendous act of violence," Hampden District Attorney, Anthony Gullini, said of the victims in a Facebook post while revealing the update

A 71-year-old Florida man is facing charges nearly 50 years after two people were found dead in Massachusetts.

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On Oct. 30, Timothy Joley was arrested at his residence in Clearwater in connection with the homicides of 18-year-old Theresa Marcoux and 20-year-old Mark Harnish on Nov. 19, 1978, Hampden District Attorney (DA), Anthony Gullini, confirmed in a Facebook post.

The bodies of Marcoux and Harnish, who had both attended East Longmeadow High School, were found just off Route 5 in West Springfield almost 46 years ago, the post stated.

"Before her death, Theresa was working at a local hardware store as a clerk in their pet department," the DA said about Marcoux.

Harnish, meanwhile, "was known as a quiet, polite young man who had been working at a car repair shop in town," he added.

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"Tragically, their young lives were cut far too short by a horrendous act of violence," Gullini continued.

Hampden District Attorney/Facebook Mark Harnish and Theresa Marcoux Mark Harnish and Theresa Marcoux

The remains of Marcoux and Harnish were discovered after an officer from the West Springfield Police Department located a 1967 green Dodge pickup truck owned by Harnish, parked in a roadway rest area on Route 5/Riverdale Street.

Their bodies were lying "just over a nearby guardrail," the Facebook post added.

"The officer saw that the driver's side window of the truck was damaged and noticed blood in and around the vehicle," the police post added, stating the victims  who had last been seen alive at approximately 12:30 a.m. that morning when leaving a friends' party  "appeared to have sustained gunshot wounds."

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No firearm was found at the scene, but "investigators concluded that Theresa and Mark had been shot while in the passenger compartment of the pickup truck and their bodies were moved to the area where their remains were later discovered," the DA stated.

Hampden District Attorney/Facebook Timothy Joley Timothy Joley

The medical examiner "opined that their time of death was during the early morning hours of Nov. 19," per the post. Someone who lived in the area also "reported hearing multiple gunshots at approximately 4:00 a.m."

Spent projectiles were recovered from the victims remains at the time, as well as the passenger area of the pickup truck, and a "latent print in what appeared to be blood on the passenger-side vent window" was located, the police added.

"Over the years as the investigation continued, this latent print was entered into the Massachusetts Automated Fingerprint Identification System (or AFIS), and was also manually compared to approximately 70,000 known fingerprint cards," the post stated, adding that two law enforcement investigators were eventually provided with Joley's fingerprint identification card and a match from his left thumb was made.

Hampden District Attorney/Facebook Theresa Marcoux and Mark Harnish were found dead near their pickup truck Theresa Marcoux and Mark Harnish were found dead near their pickup truck

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Gullini said in a press conference on Wednesday, Nov. 13, that Joley, who was living in Springfield at the time of the killings, had been fingerprinted while applying for a taxi cab license back in 2000, so his details had been on file with the Springfield Police Department.

"Investigators have also learned that Joley was a licensed gun owner in November 1978 and that he purchased a Colt handgun approximately one month before the murders," the Facebook post said.

The DA confirmed a "two-count murder complaint and arrest warrant for Joley" had been issued by the Springfield District Court on Oct. 29, before his arrest the next day. He was held without bond at the Pinellas County Jail, and waived extradition as he appeared before a Circuit Judge in the county on Nov. 5.

The suspect will be "returned to Massachusetts in the coming weeks to face these charges," per the DA. It's not apparent if Joley has an attorney. The Hampden District Attorney's Office didn't immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE.
TAYLORSVILLE, Utah (ABC4)  A West Valley City man is facing charges of child kidnapping after police in Taylorsville say that he attempted to lure a juvenile into his vehicle inside of a gated community.

Trong Viet Pham, 54, faces one count of child kidnapping after he allegedly tried to get a girl into his car to drive her home. The juvenile refused any offer to get into the vehicle and called her father. The father then called the police to report what had happened.

More than 800 Utah homes lose power after woman climbs transformer

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The juvenile was fearful of the male and caused her alarm, the affidavit of probable cause stated. Police responded to the area but were unable to locate any vehicle matching the description that the juvenile gave.

The probable cause statement also stated that police used video surveillance to see when the suspect vehicle entered the neighborhood. Police ran a records check on the vehicle that entered the neighborhood matching the juveniles description and found that the owner of the vehicle lived in West Valley City.

Police went to the address that was on record for the man in the car, and a juvenile at the address answered and told authorities that the Pham was a tenant who lived in the basement of the property.

Police asked if they could enter the residence and speak to the tenants in the basement unit, and when an adult female answered the door, police asked if they could speak to Pham who was seated on the far side of the room. Police brought Pham outside to question him, and he stated that he was out with his wife shopping until later in the evening.

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He was read his Miranda rights and Pham changed his statement, according to police, and said that he and his wife were back and forth all day. He also said he remembered the little girl and waved at her and offered her candy.

When asked about detaining her and offering her a ride, he said he was Mormon and reads the bible and doesnt do stuff like that. He was arrested and booked into Salt Lake County Jail on the aforementioned charge.

Charges are allegations only. All arrested persons are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

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SUMMIT COUNTY, Ohio (WJW)  A man charged with leading Tallmadge police on a chase that ended with shots fired was scheduled for sentencing Thursday morning.

In June of 2023, officers went to arrest Larry Beall Jr., 42, on an arson charge after he was accused of setting fire to his home a week earlier.

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Beall drove away and led police on a chase into Stark County.

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He eventually stopped in Lawrence Township, then police said Beall pointed a gun at officers who fired their weapons. According to police, Beall got back into his vehicle resulting in a standoff that lasted a few hours.

Wife of golfer killed at NE Ohio course files lawsuit

After a struggle with officers, the Canton Regional SWAT team responded to the scene and took Beall into custody.

Credit: Tallmadge Police Department

Larry Beall Jr. was sentenced to prison Wednesday, but he asked for a change of plea on some of his charges in a last-minute move.

Beall had previously entered a no-contest plea on charges of aggravated arson, felony assault with a gun specification, failure to comply with police and aggravated possession of drugs.

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However, in court Wednesday, Beall Jr. said he wanted to withdraw that plea.

The judge ruled the court will reconvene at a later date on the issue, as the defense attorneys had not submitted any paperwork for a change of plea.

Wife of golfer killed at NE Ohio course files lawsuit

Due to the upcoming holidays, the judge will set a hearing on those charges likely in 2025.

Beall Jr. was, however, sentenced on several other charges.

The state argued that he should be imprisoned because of his lengthy criminal history and potential threat to the community.

The judge sentenced Beall to 2 years in prison on a charge of failure to comply, 6 months on a forgery charge and 6 months on a nonsupport charge. The charges will run consecutively, meaning Beall will serve time for one conviction after another.

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As for the most serious charges in the case, a new date has not been set.

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ALLEGANY COUNTY, Md. (DC News Now)  State officials in Maryland said they arrested a man who broke into his estranged girlfriends home and left a suspected improvised explosive device.

The Maryland Office of State Fire Marshal (OSFM) said they responded to the 20300 block of Lower Georges Creek Road just after 1 a.m. on Nov. 11 after 62-year-old Andrew Ervin Romack forced his way into his ex-girlfriends home.

Maryland State Police troopers arrested Romack and found possible improvised explosive devices during their search of the property, according to a news release from the OSFM.

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PHOTOS: Stafford County deputies bust illegal cockfighting ring, rescues 80 chickens

The Bomb Squad was requested to respond.

Bomb Technicians performed diagnostics on the devices and determined they had to perform render-safe procedures at the scene. No other explosive materials were found when they later searched the property and Romacks car.

Romack was arrested at the scene and taken to the Allegany County Detention Center. He was charged with manufacturing and possessing a destructive device, trespassing on private property, fourth-degree burglary, reckless endangerment and possession of an explosive device with intent.

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He is being held without bond.

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A man was found guilty Tuesday in Kern County Superior Court of 15 felony counts related to two criminal schemes, the county District Attorney's Office announced Wednesday.

On four occasions in December 2016, Jacob McNabb hit victims with his vehicle, filed insurance claims, avoided repairing his car and pocketed the repair money while falsely claiming the preexisting damage resulted from the collisions, according to the DA's Office. It said he was found guilty of filing false insurance claims and submitting multiple claims for the same collision.

Separately, it said, McNabb committed fraud upon the court from September 2015 to November 2019 by filing false documents in nine small-claims court lawsuits. He purposely failed to notify people he was suing then claimed they had been properly served, the DA's Office reported, thereby defrauding 15 victims. For this scheme he was found guilty of perjury, identity theft and filing false documents with the court.

His sentencing is set for Dec. 9, when he will face up to 17 years in prison.
A man who plotted to help kill three people after they disapproved of his relationship with a minor is facing the possibility of life in prison without parole, according to prosecutors.

Thirty-three year-old Frank Sato Felix was convicted on Tuesday on three felony counts of first-degree murder and three felony enhancements of multiple murders, according to the Orange County District Attorneys Office.

The Sun Valley residents conviction is connected to the incident that led to his codefendant, Joshua Charles Acosta, receiving a life sentence in prison after being convicted on three counts of murder.

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Prosecutors say that Felix, then-25, met a 17-year-old girl after she was introduced to the furry subculture. That subculture involved people dressing up in costumes resembling animals with human-like characteristics.

Felix illegally entered what prosecutors described as a romantic relationship with the minor, but her mother, 39-year-old Jennifer Goodwill-Yost, and step-father, 35-year-old Christopher Yost, didnt approve of the relationship.

He owed an O.C. couple $80K, so he allegedly executed them and burned their bodies in the desert

Thats when Felix and Acosta, an Army mechanic stationed at Ft. Irwin in Barstow, decided to act. Felix supplied ammunition and a shotgun for Acosta, and the duo traveled to the Yost household in Fullerton on Sept. 24, 2016.

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Their plan, prosecutors say, was to help the minor escape the home until her 18th birthday.

The girl left the house to be with Felix in his truck after everyone else in the house went to bed. Thats when Acosta entered the home, armed with the shotgun.

After entering, Acosta encountered a family-friend of the Yosts, 28-year-old Arthur Billy Boucher, who was asleep on the living-room couch. He shot Boucher while he slept, killing him.

Acosta then entered the master bedroom, where Jennifer and Christopher slept. He shot Jennifer in the face, killing her, and then shot Christopher as he tried to escape through an outdoor patio area.

Josh Acosta, left, and Frank Felix are shown in booking photos released Sept. 25, 2016, by the Fullerton Police Department.

After killing all three adults inside the household, Acosta escaped with Felix and the 17-year-old girl back to Sun Valley, where they burned their clothes and attempted to destroy their cell phones.

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In the house still where two young daughters of the Yosts, aged 6 and 9. They woke up to find their parents and family friend dead, and called police.

Two little girls, 6 and 9, went to sleep not knowing the last time they would see their parents would be when they woke up to find them shot to death, said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. The trauma inflicted on those little girls compounded by the loss both of their parents in such a violent way is beyond heartbreaking. Violence is never the answer and a sick and twisted plan turned into life behind bars for two young men.

Felix and Acosta were both arrested a short time later.

Though Felix didnt pull the trigger, he was still convicted of triple murder on Tuesday. Hell face a sentencing hearing on Jan. 17, where he could receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

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BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET)  A man accused of causing damage at a convenience store and fighting with employees was found guilty of misdemeanor assault charges instead of the felony assault counts hed faced, according to the Public Defenders Office. He was also convicted of felony vandalism.

Steven Yanez, 31, faces a maximum of six years in prison at his sentencing next month. Hed faced more than 17 years if convicted as charged.

The jury reached its verdict Tuesday, acquitting Yanez of assault with a deadly weapon other than a gun and resisting arrest, and finding him guilty of the reduced assault counts and the vandalism charge.

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Were very grateful the jury carefully considered the evidence and recognized that Mr. Yanezs actions didnt justify the serious felony charges brought against him, Deputy Public Defender Julius Cruz said in a release.

Around noon on April 7, 2021, police were called to Fontana Liquor & Market on Niles Street to a report of an angry, drunken man who had damaged a plastic barrier around a cash register  the incident took place when COVID protocols were in effect  then started fighting store employees.

Police said the man, identified as Yanez, resisted arrest and tried to kick officers.

At trial, Cruz argued the employees started the altercation by hitting Yanez with a stick, according to the release. He presented video evidence and witness testimony indicating Yanez waited for police to arrive so he could explain his side.

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The footage corroborated that Yanez raised his hands and complied with officers initial instructions, according to the release. However, Yanez struggled due to the painful positioning during the arrest, resulting in visible injuries, including cuts to his wrist, knee and forearm.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17.
QUEENS, N.Y. (PIX11)  A man died days after he was struck over the head with a glass bottle during an assault in New York City, police said Wednesday.

Victor Luis Caceres, 29, of Budd Lake, New Jersey, died on Saturday after he was assaulted in Queens on Nov. 1, according to the NYPD.

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A person struck Caceres over the head with a glass bottle while a group of people assaulted him in front of 32-40 57th St. in Woodside around 3 a.m., police said.

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Caceres was hospitalized with cuts to his head and ear and died just over a week later, according to police.

No arrests have been made.

Submit tips to police by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), visiting crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, downloading the NYPD Crime Stoppers mobile app, or texting 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. Spanish-speaking callers are asked to dial 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).

Finn Hoogensen is a digital journalist who has covered local news for more than five years. He has been with PIX11 News since 2022. See more of his work here.

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Credit: CA Dept of Insurance

A suspected fraudster dressed up in a bear costume before damaging cars in an insurance scam in the US.

Four people in Southern California were arrested for insurance fraud after making claims worth 112,272 for bear damage on their cars, which included a Rolls-Royce.

After viewing videos of the so-called bear trashing several cars, California insurance department officials decided the guilty animal was a human being and not an ursine invader.

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The Insurance Department said: Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume.

Investigators also showed the videos to a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife who opined it was clearly a human in a bear suit.

Credit: CA Dept of Insurance

The bear costume was retrieved from a suspects home in a raid. It had brown fur, a bear-shaped head, paws and metal hand tools.

Video footage of the inside of the car showed grooves in the seats and interior that suggested claw marks.

Insurance companies had paid out the claim after being told the bear entered and damaged a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost on Jan 8 before the investigation began.

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The car was parked at Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains about 60 miles north-east of Los Angeles.

The suspected fraudsters also submitted claims for damage to a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350, with videos of the so-called rampaging bear.

All three claims gave a matching location and the same date of loss. The accompanying footage suggests the allegedly staged bear attacks occurred outside the same property, on the same night, but at different times.

Grooves on the seats and interior of the car appeared to resemble claw marks - CA Department of Insurance

All three claims gave the same location and date of loss for the allegedly staged bear attacks - CA Department of Insurance

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There are wild black bears, which  contrary to their name  can be brown in the San Bernardino Mountains, but grizzlies were hunted to extinction in the state of California in the 1920s.

Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, and Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, all of Glendale, and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village, were arrested on charges of insurance fraud and conspiracy, NBC News reported.

A San Bernardino County District Attorneys Office spokesperson said on Wednesday that charges were submitted against the four people and were under review.

Insurance Department detectives were assisted by the Glendale Police Department and the California Highway Patrol.

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BEAUFORT, S.C. (WSAV)  A man known for his tirades at local council meetings was sent to jail by a Lowcountry judge Wednesday.

Judge Erin Vaux sentenced Skip Hoagland to five days in jail for a series of criminal decorum violations and interrupting public meetings.

Clearly, a fine does not deter you in fact, you ignore them. You refuse to pay them, Vaus said in her address to the court.

Hoagland has been cited 22 times since June of 2023 for offenses, including refusing to leave the podium at meetings in Hilton Head, Bluffton and Beaufort County council meetings. Some of the situations went so far that he had to be removed from the meeting by police.

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2 more monkeys recovered, eating PB&Js, officials say

Each of those convictions comes with a $1,087.50 fine. Vaux said that Hoagland had paid some of the previous fines when jail time was threatened.

During Wednesdays hearing in Magistrate Court, Vaux said Hoaglands conduct had gotten more aggressive and more egregious over time. Because of that, she said she felt like jail time was the only choice.

Hoagland was defiant throughout the hearing, interrupting the judge on multiple occasions.

After the sentence, he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs by deputies, saying he would never stop doing what he is doing.

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Back in 2022, a jury determined Hoagland had to pay then-Bluffton Mayor Lisa Sulka $40 million in actual damages and $10 million in punitive damages for defamatory statements he made in email messages, such as accusations that she committed a crime and was unfit for office.

Hoagland was booked into Beaufort County Jail Wednesday afternoon. Vaux said if he was not able to bond himself out immediately she would make an order releasing him by Thursday.

She added that if he continued to commit these offenses, his next sentence would be longer.

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Disclaimer: All persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)  A woman has been arrested, accused of stabbing a man in the Irish Channel area.

According to the New Orleans Police Department, the incident happened around 2:45 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 14.

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NOPD officers said the suspect, 46-year-old Heidi Badeaux, told them that the victim was being unpleasant with her. She then became agitated allegedly picking up a knife and stabbing him in the chest.

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Badeaux was arrested and the victim was taken to a hospital by EMS. He was listed in critical condition.

NOPD classified the crime as an attempted homicide.

No further details are available.

Stay up to date with the latest news, weather and sports by downloading the WGNO app on the Apple or Google Play stores and by subscribing to the WGNO newsletter.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH)  For the second time in three weeks, a man has been indicted by a grand jury, this time over an alleged deadly drug deal.

According to Franklin County Court of Common Pleas documents, Dewarin Powell was indicted on two counts of murder and one count each of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and having weapons under disability.

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Powell, 22, along with 29-year-old Shavez Hargrave, 20-year-old Monique Vance, and 30-year-old April Brumfield, is accused in the death of 27-year-old Remarcus Smith-Heagler, who crashed his car after he was shot on the East Side this summer.

Columbus police said Smith-Heagler was in the drivers seat of a vehicle in the 5000 block of Cedar Drive, in the Pine Hills neighborhood, when Powell and Hargrave attempted to rob him during an alleged drug deal.

Police said Powell and Hargrave shot Smith-Heagler while he was trying to escape. Smith-Heagler crashed his car about a block away before he was taken to a hospital in critical condition. He was died two days later.

Powell was arrested on Oct. 10 and pleaded not guilty, and Hargrave remained at large for an additional five days. Hargrave pleaded not guilty to the same set of charges. His trial date is set for Dec. 2.

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Also arrested in connection to the homicide were Brumfield and Vance. Vance pleaded not guilty to aggravated robbery and murder and is also expected to begin trial on Dec. 2.

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Brumfield pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated robbery and tampering with evidence, which holds a maximum prison term of 15 years if sentenced consecutively. But a joint recommendation was accepted and Vance will serve 3-4 1/2 years, with 18 months of probation to follow.

Before Powell was arrested in October, he pleaded not guilty in September to three counts of drug possession, and one count each of receiving stolen property, tampering with evidence and obstruction of official police business. Those charges stem from a Sept. 10 incident, but his next court date for that case isnt until Jan. 25.

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A Sun Valley man was convicted Tuesday for his role in the killings of the mother and stepfather of a 17-year-old girl whom he met through the "furry" subculture, officials said.

Frank Sato Felix was 25 years old when he and then-21-year-old Joshua Charles Acosta, an Army mechanic, met the girl. The subculture includes "furries," or people who dress up in elaborate animal costumes.

Felix and the teen began a romantic relationship, prosecutors said, but her parents, 39-year-old Jennifer Goodwill-Yost and 35-year-old Christopher Yost, disapproved of it.

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On Sept. 24, 2016, Felix and Acosta drove to the Yosts' Fullerton home, where they planned to take the 17-year-old and keep her away from her family until she turned 18.

The teenager left her home and went to Felix, who was waiting in a truck outside while her family slept. That's when Acosta, armed with a shotgun, walked into the home.

Acosta shot 28-year-old Arthur "Billy" Boucher, a family friend who was asleep on a sofa in the living room. Acosta then walked into the master bedroom and shot Goodwill-Yost.

Yost tried to escape to the house patio, but was shot in the head.

Felix provided the shotgun and ammunition.

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The couple's 6- and 9-year-old daughters were left alive in the house. They discovered their parents' bodies in the morning and called 911.

A woman identifying herself as a family friend sits outside the Fullerton home where three people were fatally shot in 2016. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

During Acosta's trial, the 17-year-old testified that her stepfather had repeatedly molested her between the ages of 7 and 15, according to the Orange County Register. She also testified that Felix had "blackmailed" her to have sex with him, or he would tell her mother about the abuse.

She'd planned to tell her mother and run away from home the day of the killings, she said in court.

Acosta's attorney noted during that trial that the teenage girl had lied to police and prosecutors, including alleging that her mother had abused her and had previously denied telling anyone about the alleged abuse.

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On Tuesday, Felix was convicted of three counts of special circumstances murder.

In 2018, Acosta was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the killings.

"Two little girls, 6 and 9, went to sleep not knowing the last time they would see their parents would be when they woke up to find them shot to death," said Todd Spitzer, Orange County district attorney. "Violence is never the answer, and a sick and twisted plan turned into life behind bars for two young men."

Felix, now 33, is set to be sentenced Jan. 17 at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET)  A man on Thursday was ordered to stand trial on a charge of first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death last year of a man who was an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, according to court records.

A judge determined there was enough evidence for the case against 28-year-old Fredi Rivera to proceed. Rivera is also charged with violating a 10-year firearm prohibition.

Held on $1 million bail, Rivera is due back in court on Nov. 21 for a trial date to be set.

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On the night of Sept. 18, 2023, Daniel Landeros and a male friend were walking through Yokuts Park when a man approached and called Landeros a gay slur, according to the friends statement to police.

Landeros and the man argued while the friend waited near a park bench. He heard a single gunshot then saw Landeros stumble toward him; a dark-colored SUV sped away moments later.

Landeros was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police identified the suspect vehicle as a black 2006-07 Hummer H3, according to court filings. They linked the vehicle to Rivera and learned he was on probation for grand theft. He was arrested Oct. 4, 2023.

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DENVER (KDVR)  A man pleaded guilty on Nov. 6 to breaking into and stealing body parts from a private mausoleum at Crown Hill Cemetery in Jefferson County, according to court records.

John Belknap, 47, was arrested in October 2023, weeks after Jefferson County Sheriffs Office deputies were dispatched to the cemetery for reported damage to the mausoleum. Deputies found the crypt front was severely damaged, as was the crypt and casket inside.

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The agency originally reported that it appeared someone entered the cemetery overnight, forced entry into the crypt and accessed the casket. Once inside, parts of the body were removed.

A mausoleum was broken into and body parts stolen at Crown Hill Cemetery in unincorporated Jefferson County Oct. 11, 2023 (Credit: Jefferson County Sheriffs Office) Crown Hill Cemetery (KDVR)

Belknap was identified as the suspect through DNA evidence found at the scene, according to the Jeffco agency. The sheriffs office previously reported that there wasnt an apparent relationship between Belknap and the decedents entombed in the crypt.

Belknap pleaded guilty last week to carrying a concealed weapon, criminal mischief of $1,000 to $2,000 and abuse of a corpse. Under the plea agreement, charges of burglary, theft and criminal mischief were dismissed.

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Belknap remains in police custody under a $10,000 cash or surety bond. He is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 9 for sentencing.

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A Stamford man has been sentenced to more than a decade in prison for sexually assaulting a heavily sedated woman in a hospital in Norwalk in 2020.

Rodney Daniels, 48, faced sentencing on Tuesday in Stamford Superior Court where he was handed down a 12-year prison term followed by eight years of special parole, according to the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice.

The sentencing came after he pleaded guilty during a previous hearing to two counts of second-degree sexual assault. These charges were upgraded from Class C felonies to B felonies after prosecutors charged Daniels as a persistent serious felony offender, according to judicial officials.

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Both counts of sexual assault stem from an incident reported on Aug. 29, 2020, when Daniels was taken in an ambulance to Norwalk Hospital after saying he had used hallucinogenic drugs, authorities said. In the emergency room of the hospital in the early morning hours, officials said Daniels surreptitiously entered an exam room of a female patient and sexually assaulted her while she was under heavy sedation.

A nurse who checked on the patient found Daniels lying next to the victim with his face in her chest and his hand touching her inappropriately, criminal justice officials said. Authorities also said they were able to extract Daniels DNA from the victim.
WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  The U.S. Attorneys Office for D.C. said a California man was sentenced to 13 years and 8 months in prison for taking part in a widespread drug trafficking conspiracy across the United States, including in the DMV.

Paul Alejandro Felix, 25, of Glendale, California, was sentenced on Nov.12 for a conspiracy that involved distributing thousands of fentanyl-laced counterfeit oxycodone pills bought in California to different locations across the U.S., including D.C., Virginia and Maryland.

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Felix pleaded guilty on July 1 to one count of conspiracy to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl. He was also ordered to serve five years of supervised release.

Felix sold pills by the thousands, often at prices below a dollar per pill. Communications evidence, as well as physical seizures, indicate that Felix participated in the transfer of tens of thousands of fentanyl-laced counterfeit oxycodone pills to downstream traffickers.

Officers arrested Felix at his home in California on Nov. 16, 2023.

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CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS)  A Charlotte man is facing 18 months in prison after he attempted to bring two firearms and ammunition through security at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, announced by Dena J. King, Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.

In addition to the prison term, 61-year-old Ahmad Mohmad Elzein was also ordered to serve two years under court supervision after he was released from prison.

Based on court documents and proceedings, on July 30, 2023, officials with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) were conducting a screening on Elzeins carry-on luggage in connection with his international travel from Charlotte to Beirut, Lebanon.

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During the inspection, TSA officials located $17,500 U.S. dollars in his carry-on. In his checked baggage, they found a black 9mm pistol concealed in a boot along with a revolver that was duct-taped and concealed inside the liner of his suitcase. In addition to the firearms, 9mm ammunition wrapped in a plastic bag was also seized from his checked luggage.

During the initial interview, Elzein told law enforcement that he was bringing the firearms and ammo with him while visiting family in Lebanon, but later, law enforcement determined that the pistol was reported stolen.

He was charged with unlawful transportation and shipment of firearms and ammunition. He is currently in federal custody and will be transferred to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation to a federal facility.

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A Cincinnati man was sentenced Wednesday after he killed a woman in a Warren County crash on Interstate 71 last year.

Samuel Sperry, 27, was sentenced to nine to 12 years in prison by a Warren County judge for the death of 76-year-old Shirley Coletta, according to a news release from Prosecutor David Fornshell.

Sperry was found guilty in September of aggravated vehicular homicide, aggravated vehicular assault and operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol and/or a drug of abuse.

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On April 2, 2023, Sperry was driving a sedan on northbound I-71 at a speed of 124 mph, the release said. He then struck the rear end of an SUV, occupied by Coletta and her daughter Patricia Jump.

Coletta died at the scene and Jump sustained serious physical harm.

Blood testing proved that Sperry was under the influence of multiple drugs and alcohol at the time, including being over six times the legal limit for marijuana, the news release said.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Samuel Sperry sentenced after killing woman in Warren County crash
A man was taken to the hospital after Jacksonville police said he was shot in the hand early Thursday in the 6000 block of Roosevelt Boulevard. Police said the victim, whos in his 20s, was walking at a nearby apartment complex at about 2:15 a.m. when he was approached by two men. Police said the two men robbed the victim and shot him in the hand. The victim went to a nearby gas station for help. Police believe there was some kind of relationship between the victim and the assailants.

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CAMPBELL, Wis. (WFRV)  A 21-year-old man was taken into custody after officers tied him to three separate shots fired calls over a three-week span in western Wisconsin.

According to the Campbell Police Department, around 11:10 p.m. on October 26 and 7:30 p.m. on November 2, officers were called to the 1700 block of La Crescent Street after residents reported hearing four to five gunshots.

Appleton parents, community members outraged after second child hit at intersection in seven months

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Then on the evening of November 11, around 7:40 p.m., another shots fired call was reported in the 1600 block of La Crescent Street. This time, the caller reportedly heard seven to eight gunshots and was able to describe the suspect.

The suspect, later identified as 21-year-old Logan Smizek, was allegedly found intoxicated with a handgun by officers within five minutes after getting to La Crescent Street.

After an investigation that reportedly included video surveillance of Smizek firing the gun, officers found shell casings on the street. They discovered that multiple bullets hit a commercial building in the area.

Wisconsin authorities warning residents about holiday shopping theft, scams

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Officers believe that Smizek was also allegedly responsible for the other two incidents.

Smizek was taken to the La Crosse County Jail and charged with Reckless Use of a Firearm, 2nd Degree Reckless Endangerdering Safety, and Carrying a Concealed Weapon. He was released the next day on a signature bond.

No other details were provided.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH)  The iconic voice behind the Metro-North Railroads automated announcements has died.

The railroad made the announcement Wednesday that Van Ritshie died earlier this month. He was 80 years old.

Our condolences go out to his family and loved ones, the railroad posted on X.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also publicly offered her condolences to the man behind the cherished voice.

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For decades, his announcements brought a familiar presence and comfort for commuters across New York, she posted. Our thoughts are with Vans family and loved ones.

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MANCHESTER, Conn. (WTNH)  On Thanksgiving Day morning, certain roads will be blocked off to vehicles due to the high amount of traffic expected for the 88th annual road race.

More than 11,000 runners and as many as 30,000 spectators are expected this year. As of Thursday morning, 9,589 runners had signed up for the race, according to race officials.

Little Manchester Road Race happening Saturday before Thanksgiving day run

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We want to alert everyone, especially the residents who live within the interior of the racecourse, about the street closures so they can make their plans for the holiday, President of the Manchester Road Race Committee Dr. Tris Carta said.

If you live in that area and need to travel on Thanksgiving morning, please be sure to leave before the roads close to traffic at 9 a.m., she Carta continued.

Private vehicle traffic will not be able to enter or exit the interior of the racecourse during the event, but race officials said the town has plans in place to provide fire, police, and emergency medical services to residents in the affected area.

Manchester Road Race shrinks?

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All traffic on downtown Main Street between Bissell Street and Maple Street will close at 5 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning to allow crews to put up fencing and ropes.

The Main Street closures will be extended from East Center Street to Charter Oak Street starting at 5:30 a.m.

All other local roads intersecting the road racecourse will be closed at 9 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

Normal traffic should resume around 11:30 a.m.

Registration for Manchester Road Race starts Sept. 1

The exit ramps on I-384 that abut the MRR racecourse will be closed from 8:45 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Those include:

Westbound Exit 4 (Charter Oak St.)

Westbound Exit 5 (Highland Street)

Eastbound Exit 4 (Main Street)

Eastbound Exit 5 (Wyllys St)

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No parking is permitted along the shoulders of I-384.

Street parking will also be prohibited on East Center Street from Lenox Street to Center Street and on Main Street from Center Street to Hartford Road during the overnight period from 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, November 27, 2024, through 1 p.m. on Thursday, November 28, 2024. Vehicles may be towed if necessary.

For participants, a free shuttle will be available to bus people from the Connecticut College at Manchester (formerly Manchester Community College) parking lot before the race and return there after the event is over.

The Manchester Road Race is one of Americans largest and most popular turkey trots. The 4.737-mile loop course travels through central Manchester, finishing in front of St. James Church. It starts at 10 a.m.

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New York Citys congestion pricing plan is back and set to kick in on Jan. 5, Gov. Hochul announced Thursday.

But the daily toll  which Hochul put on indefinite hiatus this past June, three weeks before it was supposed to go into effect  will be $9 rather than the original planned toll of $15 for at least three years, at which point it will be reassessed.

Were still getting the $15 billion to fund the MTA, Hochul told reporters, and drivers will be paying $6 less.

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The initial toll, reached after years of deliberation among state lawmakers, transit officials and federal regulators, had planned to charge motorists a base toll of $15 a day for entering Midtown and lower Manhattan by car. Larger vehicles would have been tolled at a greater rate, and late-night drivers or those who had already paid a toll at one of the tunnels would receive discounts.

The revenue from the congestion toll  a projected $900 million annually  would then have gone to pay off the debt on $15 billion in new MTA bonds meant to fund a long list of projects on the agencys 2020-2024 capital plan.

As previously reported by the Daily News, Hochuls modified plan, formally announced Thursday, keeps the same mechanisms but slashes each of those figures by 40%.

That brings the $15 base toll for passenger cars down to $9 per day, and the $3.75 late-night rate down to $2.25. The plan also reduces the tolling credits  discounts given to drivers who already paid a toll to enter the city by tunnel  by 40%.

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That will mean less revenue to go toward MTA debt service, even as its assumed there will be more cars driving into the city than under a $15 toll. Estimated tolling revenues will come in closer to $600 million a year, according to sources.

State officials said Thursday that, despite lower revenues, the tolling would raise $15 billion in borrowed money over a longer period of time  likely with the MTA selling tranches of bonds more slowly.

Under any bonding scheme, its a multi-year proposal, said Blake Washington, the states budget director. The approach that we have today fully funds the capital plan over several years.

That means that while all of the projects reliant on congestion pricing  a list that includes phase 2 of the Second Ave. subway, elevators at 23 subway stations, and modern computerized signaling on a slew of subway lines  are expected to be funded, some of that money could take longer to secure and some projects may have to wait in line.

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Sources in both Hochuls office and the MTA suggested to The News that big-ticket items like the Second Ave. subway and the legally mandated accessibility upgrades would be at the top of the list. The $15 billion had also been slated to pay for $3 billion in modern subway signals, $3 billion in repair work, and $1.5 billion in new subway cars, among other priorities.

Despite that, MTA leadership  which stopped awarding new capital contracts amid the congestion pricing confusion this summer  said Thursdays announcement would allow work to begin again quickly.

Now we know we have a source [of funding], so we can actually start to move projects forward, MTA chairman Janno Lieber said.

We will be putting out the [request for proposals] for the tunnel boring on the Second Ave. subway promptly, as a result of the actions taken by the governor today.

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The modified toll still has several procedural hurdles to clear before the MTA can begin charging motorists.

The transit agencys board, which voted to green-light the original $15 toll in March, must sign off on the $9 initial toll before it can get sent to federal regulators for their approval. The MTA board is expected to do that on Monday.

State law then requires three more weeks of public notification, during which the city, state and federal departments of transportation are expected to sign off on the plan a final time.

Meanwhile, congestion pricing still faces legal challenges from the state of New Jersey and others  challenges that were paused along with the tolling plan this summer, and may now come roaring back.

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Am I confident there wont be lawsuits? No, Im in the middle of nine right now, Hochul said when asked about that possibility. Weve been sued every day of the week it seems  this whole issue has been a growth industry for lawyers.

Im not afraid of any threats of litigation, she said. Were not worried about it.
MANITOWOC, Wis. (WFRV)  Northeastern Wisconsin Area Health Education Center (NEWAHEC) hosted a session to educate the community about overdoses and how to reverse them using Narcan.

The initiative aims to further inform the community on how to recognize an overdose and respond properly.

Luxury Green Bay apartment complex construction begins, local businesses remain open

Overdoses are increasing rapidly each day, with fentanyl being a major factor. Jennifer Gleichner, a nurse with the Manitowoc Health Department and organizer of the event, emphasized breaking the stigma surrounding overdoses.

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I think the most important thing for us is to reduce that stigmathat overdoses arent always intentional; in fact, most times they are notand that it can happen to anyone from any walk of life for a variety of reasons, Gleichner said.

Business leaders received hands-on training with a test dummy to practice administering Narcan. They also received overdose prevention bags filled with Narcan and testing strips to take back to their establishments.

Just like you would have an AED at your business in case somebody was having a heart attack, having Narcan at your business is another piece of mind, knowing that if its ever needed, its there and ready to go, said Joey DeBone, QPS sales executive. Its easy to train people on how to use it. Its definitely a peace-of-mind thing.

NEWAHEC will soon have a new vending machine outside its offices. The 24/7 accessible vending machine will contain Narcan along with fentanyl testing strips.

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Holiday Lights on the Fox returns for 2024 at Brown County Fairgrounds

We will be the first public health vending machine, said Kari Mueller, executive director of NEWAHEC. Narcan is accessible through the health department at any time, but this will be the first point of accessibility 24/7.

In 2023, Manitowoc County reported 34 nonfatal overdoses and 13 fatal overdoses. Nearly 80,000 overdoses occur across the United States each day, including 1,500 in Wisconsin, with nearly four deaths per day.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton.
Its unclear what Vice President Kamala Harris will do after losing the presidential election, but should she run for California governor, support among state residents is seemingly strong, new polling suggests.

In a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by The Los Angeles Times, nearly half of the states voters would be very or somewhat likely to support a Harris bid for governor.

While Harris was not included among the potential candidates in the polls preference measures, when asked separately whether they would consider supporting her as a gubernatorial candidate, one in three voters (33%) say they would be very likely to do so, and another 13% would be somewhat likely, director Mark DiCamillo said in a statement Wednesday.

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The 2026 governor race is already crowded, with several well-known candidates already setting their eyes on the states top office. Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, former state Controller Betty Yee, former Los Angeles Mayor and Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond have all entered the 2026 race.

The race will be Californias first open gubernatorial race in eight years.

The current state governor, Gavin Newsom, was elected in 2018 and is currently completing his second term. Due to term limits, hes unable to run again.

Harris hasnt announced any plans to join the governor race.

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The vice president won California in her bid for president on Nov. 5, and with 84% of votes estimated to be counted, the Associated Press Wednesday estimates she won with 58.8% of the ballots cast. Final numbers will be certified on Dec. 13, and totals are subject to change as votes continue to be tallied.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Nov. 13 officially confirmed Republican Senator Marco Rubio as his nominee for the secretary of state, the U.S.'s top diplomacy job.

Rubio thanked Trump for the nomination in a statement on social media.

"Leading the U.S. Department of State is a tremendous responsibility, and I am honored by the trust President Trump has placed in me," Rubio wrote on X. His imminent nomination was reported in the media earlier this week.

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Rubio publicly praised the bravery of Ukrainian defenders but was among the 15 Republican lawmakers in the Senate who voted against the $61 billion aid package for Ukraine, which was eventually passed in April 2024.

The 53-year-old Florida Senator will replace Antony Blinken in the position, and as the top U.S. diplomat, he would be at the forefront of any peace negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow.

Shortly after Trumps election victory, Rubio said on air that Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine has reached a "stalemate" and "needs to be brought to a conclusion."

On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly said he could end Russia's war within 24 hours if elected president, without elaborating on how he plans to achieve it.

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Rubio described Ukrainians as "incredibly brave and strong" but said that there is still "the reality of the war."

"That doesn't mean we celebrate what Vladimir Putin did or are excited about it, but I think there has to be some common sense here," he said.

"We are funding a stalemate that's costing lives... and Ukraine is going to take 100 years to rebuild with everything they're facing."

Judging by his recent comments, Rubio is expected to take a more nuanced position that is tweaked to Trumps stance, as suggested by earlier reports by the Kyiv Independent.

Read also: Marco Rubios stance on Russias war in Ukraine  what we know

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Trump has officially announced Sen. Marco Rubio as his pick for secretary of state.

Rubio is a China hawk, has been sanctioned twice by Beijing, and may even be barred from the country.

Rubio has also introduced and supported legislation for US military support for Taiwan.

US President-elect Donald Trump has officially announced Sen. Marco Rubio as his secretary of state pick after days of speculation.

Nominating Rubio is especially notable for the Florida senator's thorny relationship with China and steadfast support of Taiwan, raising questions about what US-Chinese relations will look like if he's confirmed.

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Earlier this week, sources close to Trump told The New York Times they were confident Rubio would be the president-elect's nomination. On Wednesday, Trump confirmed the pick, calling Rubio "a highly respected leader" who "will be a strong advocate for our nation, a true friend to our allies, and a fearless warrior who will never back down to our adversaries."

In a statement, Rubio said he was "honored" to receive the nomination. "Under the leadership of President Trump, we will deliver peace through strength and always put the interests of Americans and America above all else," the senator said.

When reached out to for comment, Rubio's Senate office directed Business Insider to his statement on the nomination. The Trump transition team and the Chinese embassy in Washington didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on Wednesday.

Rubio and Trump, once rivals, appear aligned on issues related to China and Taiwan. AP Photo/John Raoux

Since winning his senate seat in 2010, Rubio has been an outspoken critic of China. He's repeatedly spoken out about China's ambitious military and political goals, economic power, and the US' response to its growing influence.

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And Beijing has taken note. In 2020, Rubio and other US Senators were sanctioned by Beijing. Rubio was sanctioned, or blacklisted, twice  first in retaliation for US measures against senior Chinese officials over the mass detainment and abuse of the Uyghur ethnic group, and the second after Rubio supported US sanctions against Chinese officials for their response to protests in Hong Kong. Rubio has accused China of a "grotesque campaign of genocide" against the Uyghurs.

The question now is whether China will lift the sanctions on Rubio, which may prohibit him from traveling to the country, and how Washington's relations with Beijing could be impacted if Rubio's confirmed. But China's actions haven't stopped Rubio from continuing to speak out.

At a 2022 talk with The Heritage Foundation, Rubio said members of the Chinese Communist Party had, for decades, "hid their true ambition to remake the global order and become the world's most powerful nation. But they don't hide it anymore."

Some experts and top China watchers have indicated that China's goals, along with those of Russia, Iran, and North Korea, are to upend the US-led liberal world order.

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At the same talk, Rubio noted, "The gravest threat facing America today, the challenge that will define this century and every generation represented here, is not climate change, the pandemic, or the left's version of social justice. The threat that will define this century is China."

Rubio's nomination raises questions about US relations with China, Taiwan, and the broader Indo-Pacific region. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

He has expressed similar rhetoric in the past and since then, criticizing what he has said is growing and ongoing Chinese economic and political influence in the US. "They have leverage over our economy. They have influence over our society. They have an army of unpaid lobbyists here in Washington," Rubio said during a 2023 Senate speech. He also wrote an op-ed in September of this year in The Washington Post that Beijing's plans were meant to harm the US' economy.

Some of that aligns with Trump's tough talk on trade with China. During the campaign trail, Trump said he planned to slap major tariffs on China in an effort to boost American business.

Another looming question is what Rubio's nomination may mean for Taiwan. The Florida senator has long supported Taiwanese independence  a stance beyond the US government's long-standing One China approach  and introduced legislation to strengthen US-Taiwanese relations and increase military aid and support to Taipei in an effort to deter a potential Chinese invasion or blockade.

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If Rubio is confirmed, his time as secretary of state will come at a tense time for the Indo-Pacific region, with US officials bracing for China to be ready to seize Taiwan by 2027.

Read the original article on Business Insider
"I voted" stickers are seen on display in the headquarters offices of the Alaska Division of Elections in Juneau on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)

Alaska elections officials added more than 8,500 ballots to the statewide count Wednesday afternoon, but the new ballots didnt change the leaders of any races.

More significantly, the Alaska Division of Elections reported almost 5,000 more completed absentee ballots than it did on Tuesday morning. The divisions director did not immediately respond to an email seeking additional information.

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If current trends continue, those new ballots may be significant for Ballot Measure 2, the proposed repeal of the states open primary election and ranked choice general election.

On Friday, yes on repeal led by 4,137 votes. By Tuesday evening, with more votes counted, that lead was down to 2,841 votes. The latest count shows yes leading by just 2,412 votes.

As of Wednesday, the Division of Elections reported having 159,345 early, absentee and questioned ballots.

Subtract ballots that the division said it included in its Election Day count and showed in its counts Tuesday and Wednesday, and the result is an estimated 30,033 uncounted ballots.

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That figure isnt likely to significantly rise, as it did on Wednesday. Almost all of the states absentee ballots have been returned, state figures show. Of 72,275 absentee ballots requested, 71,980 have been completed and returned.

Before Wednesdays results update, the division said online that its unofficial estimate of ballots left to be counted/received is approximately 35,000.

If postmarked on or before Election Day, absentee ballots will still be counted if they reach elections officials by Nov. 15 (if mailed from within the United States) or Nov. 20 (if mailed internationally).

After Wednesdays count, Republican U.S. House candidate Nick Begich saw his lead over Democratic incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola drop slightly.

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After leading by 10,133 votes on Friday and 9,550 at the end of the day Tuesday, hes now ahead by 9,435.

Given the mild trend and the number of ballots remaining, Peltola is unlikely to take the lead over Begich. But because Begich has less than 50% of the overall vote, ranked choice tabulation will be used on Nov. 20 to redistribute the votes of Alaskans who picked Alaskan Independence Party candidate John Wayne Howe or imprisoned, out-of-state Democratic candidate Eric Hafner.

Howe has 3.9% of the first-choice votes, and Hafner has less than 1%.

While the Division of Elections wont perform an official tabulation until Nov. 20, it has been regularly releasing the states cast vote record, which shows how Alaskans ranked their candidates.

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Unofficial tallies show Peltola failing to gain enough second-choice votes to pass Begich in the tabulation.

Wednesdays votes did not change downballot results. In the closest state House race, Rep. Cliff Groh, D-Anchorage, continues to lead Republican challenger David Nelson by 19 votes.
MARIANNA, Fla. (WMBB)  Marianna High School softball star, Addison Giles signed with Division I Alabama State University on Wednesday afternoon.

Giles has been a varsity starter at Marianna since her freshman year, never missing a game. She has 89 RBI and counting heading into her senior season and nearly two dozen home runs.

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BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH)  A popular Mexican restaurant in Binghamton could soon be replaced by a pot shop.

The New York State Office of Cannabis Management has awarded a marijuana dispensary license to Tranquil Arc, LLC to open at 1167 to 1171 Vestal Avenue which is currently occupied by Hacienda Mexican Restaurant.

The building is owned by Vince Altadonna who owns Grande Pizza on Upper Front Street and used to operate another Grande location at the Vestal Ave site.

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The license was awarded last month, however the manager and staff of Hacienda tell News 34 that this is the first theyve heard of it.

Mayor Jared Kraham says that while he supports locating a marijuana retail store on the Southside, he objects to the location because it would displace a successful, existing business.

Kraham says hed prefer if Tranquil Arc would develop a vacant storefront instead.

The Mayors Office wrote a letter outlining its concerns, but OCM responded that in its consideration to issue a license, it cannot weigh in on a landlords business decision on whom to lease to.

News 34 reached out to Altadonna for comment but was unable to reach him.

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ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR)  Northwest Roanoke has been considered a food desert for the last 40 years- and the new Market on Melrose is looking to provide fresh food at affordable prices closer to home for the community.

Leaders from across the valley gathered on Wednesday to cut the ribbon on the 15,000-square-foot market. Not only is the market going to give community members access to more nutritious and affordable food options, but its also meant to bring the community together with educational opportunities, financial empowerment, and jobs, already hiring more than 40 employees, with plans to hire more.

New grocery store coming to Northwest Roanoke bringing healthier food options

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This has been about more than just building a market, its about investing in an area that has long been under-served. Creating a welcoming place for residents to access fresh, healthy foods, essential health care services, and educational resources, said the Mayor of the City of Roanoke Sherman Lea.

It calls this a first of its kind market with a wide variety of brands for those to choose from.

Still to come to the plaza is a bank, a wellness center, an adult high school, and a history wall to represent African American culture in Roanoke.

The first 100 shoppers to the market received a free gift on opening day as they walked through the doors, but the fun doesnt stop there, you can enjoy a family fun day at the market on Saturday, November 16th from 10 am to 2 pm.

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SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV)  Marys Place Sexual Assault Center of the Coastal Empire, formally known as the Rape Crisis Center, has officially opened up its forensic unit.

Executive director, Doris Williams, told News 3 this has been a long-awaited upgrade.

With the help of supporters and grants, the center was able to fund and furnish additional examination rooms, restrooms and counseling suites.

Its amazing how the community really rallies around you when you are in need and you call out to the need, Williams said, and they came and supported us.

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The unit was originally located in local hospitals, but in 2020 hospitals needed the additional space to house COVID-19 patients.

We had 48 hours to remove our items and create an onsite SANE exam room, which is sexual assault nurse examiners, Williams said. We have contract services with nurses in our area that provide that resource for our clients

Marys Place serves seven counties in the region: Bryan, Chatham, Effingham, Evans, Liberty, Long, and Tattnall. Williams said that being able to finally offer the proper resources on their site is a win-win for everyone.

We meet people at a very dark time in their life, and sometimes theyre alone and its just our SANE nurses, law enforcement and our advocates that they have here to support them, she said. And anything that can cause them less stress in a moment like that and make them feel more safe and secure is our goal. And unless they have extenuating injuries or things that require a doctor exam as well, then were able to offer their services here.

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A new training program offered by the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Maryland, Baltimore is expanding the pool of health care providers with reproductive health care skills. (Getty Images)

This story originally appeared on KFF Health News.

In the two counties around nurse practitioner Samantha Marsees clinic in rural northeastern Maryland, theres not a single clinic that provides abortions. And until recently, Marsee herself wasnt trained to treat patients who wanted to end a pregnancy.

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I didnt really have a lot of knowledge about abortion care, she said.

After Roe v. Wade was overturned, she watched state after state ban abortion, and Marsee decided to take part in the first class of a new training program offered by the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Marsee learned how to administer medication abortion pills, procedural abortions and highly effective birth control methods, including hormonal implants and intrauterine devices.

She cares for patients with all sorts of everyday ailments and health conditions, including pregnancy. I do have patients who come in for confirmation of pregnancies and then disclose they dont want to continue with the pregnancy for whatever reason, Marsee said.

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Now, with her new training, she can help.

I want people to know Im here, but I dont want to cause too much outrage and attention, says Samantha Marsee, a nurse practitioner in rural northeastern Maryland who recently received medical training to provide abortion care. (Samantha Marsee)

Expanding the pool of health care providers with reproductive health care skills outside of the states urban centers is vital, said Mary Jo Bondy, associate dean of the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She helped create the new training program.

In 2022, Maryland lawmakers passed the Abortion Care Access Act, expanding the type of medical care nurse practitioners, physician assistants and certified nurse-midwives could offer, including abortion, and the training program prioritized that group, Bondy said.

Those types of professionals have long provided abortions to rural patients in other states, Bondy said, and we have proof that receiving this care from an advanced practice clinician is safe.

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As many as 120 health care providers will be trained over the next two years. Some participants have said they are returning to communities that are hostile to abortion rights.

On Nov. 5, voters approved a ballot measure to protect reproductive rights in the Maryland Constitution, by an overwhelming margin, preliminary results show. The state is widely considered a safe haven for patients who live in states with abortion bans. The number of abortions in Maryland increased 29% from 2019 to 2023, driven largely by out-of-state residents. But one training participant, a family physician from the Eastern Shore, said providing abortions makes her concerned for her physical safety and asked not to be identified.

The rural catchment and politics really drive it either out or at least into the quiet, she said of abortion availability where she lives. She worries that her employer will question the prescriptions she writes for medication abortion pills and said pharmacists often refuse to give the medication to her patients.

Even in Maryland, pharmacists are allowed to refuse to dispense medication abortion pills.

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As more health care providers are trained in abortion care, they need help from the states medical schools and health officials to overcome these barriers, the family physician said. She wants help with access to medication and pushing in some ways the hand of our employers, or normalizing. This is just health care.

For Marsee, the next step is to figure out how to let her patients know she can provide abortions. She plans to tell her current patients and hopes theyll tell others.

Im working on a way to let people know that Im here and can provide it, Marsee said. This is a conservative area, so its walking that line. I want people to know Im here, but I dont want to cause too much outrage and attention.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF  an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
BLOOMINGTON, Indiana (AP)  When composer Mason Bates approached Michael Chabon about turning his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay into an opera, he said the writer told him frankly that opera was not his thing.

He was very supportive of the endeavor and he gave it his blessing, but he said he couldnt be involved, Bates recalled. He was really more giving it a thumbs-up on a rights level.

So Bates and librettist Gene Scheer proceeded on their own to wrangle into operatic form Chabons sprawling, Pulitzer Prize-winning tale about two young Jewish cousins set over more than a decade before and after World War II.

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Now, six years after Bates first read the novel and became inspired by it, the opera is bound for the Metropolitan Opera, due to open the companys next season in September 2025.

But first its having its world premiere on Friday in what might seem an unlikely spot, at the Jacobs School of Music on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington. The premiere was originally planned for the Los Angeles Opera, but the company begged off, citing the costs involved.

Bloomington turns out to be not such a surprising choice given that the school has nearly 300 voice students and the Musical Arts Center, built in 1972, was modeled after the Met stage.

The space and technology and those kinds of production elements were very attractive to the Met in terms of how the opera would play here, said Catherine Compton, managing director of the schools opera and ballet theater program.

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Its been heartening to see how our students have reacted and been elevated by the Mets creative team thats been in residence here, she said. And also how the creative team has been able to adapt their process to our students.

In fact, Met staff will be back in Bloomington in January to workshop another forthcoming commission, an opera by Carlos Simon called In the Rush with a libretto by playwright Lynn Nottage and her daughter, Ruby Aiyo Gerber.

Kavalier & Clay was commissioned by the Met after Peter Gelb, the companys general manager, attended a performance of Bates first opera, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, in 2017 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Paul Cremo, the Mets dramaturg, connected Bates with Scheer, a veteran librettist widely praised for his work in turning Herman Melvilles unwieldy masterpiece Moby Dick into the text for an opera composed by Jake Heggie. The Met will perform that opera next March.

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I give Moby Dick to new librettists for a model of how to get to the essence, Cremo said. Kavalier & Clay goes down a lot of side roads into history and nooks and crannies. I figured we needed somebody who gets how to adapt and condense a book into an opera.

With many of the nooks and crannies  like a 40-page detour to Antarctica  stripped away, Scheer was able to focus on the two main characters.

Theres Joe Kavalier, who escapes to America from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Holocaust, dreams of bringing his younger brother to safety in America, and falls in love with Rosa, a Bohemian artist. His cousin is the Brooklyn-born Sammy Clay, who dreams of striking it rich and, ambivalent about his sexuality, has a thwarted love affair with a handsome actor.

Together, using Sammys talent for story-telling and Joes artistic genius, the cousins invent a wildly popular comic strip character called The Escapist.

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Scheer and Bates identified three distinct worlds depicted in the novel, each of which lent itself to a different compositional style.

Theres the world of World War II, where we see the Kavalier family picked off one by one, Bates said. Its a very dark musical space with a lot of drums and mandolins. Then the big band music of 1940s New York, a lot of swing, a lot of jazz. Then when they start to draw and they create art, we go into this electro-acoustic, techno-symphonic space.

Bates said he deliberately keeps these sound worlds separate at first, but what becomes really exciting in the opera is that as Joe goes through kinds of a psychedelic spiral, these worlds start to collide and smash together.

Keeping these worlds visually separate and then merging them posed both a challenge and an opportunity for director Bart Sher, who worked on the set design with 59 Productions, a company known for its innovative use of projections and animation.

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The unique challenge to Kavalier & Clay is the simultaneity of space and time, Sher said. You might see them working in the office of Empire Toys and at the same time see their family struggling in Prague, and at the same time see them try to capture what the experience is like through The Escapist.

And if you can get all three of those elements to work at the same time and have music and song  then you really have something in this piece that I think is very special.

___

This story has been updated to correct the name of Indiana University.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)  Masses of residents fled a running battle Thursday between gang members and police in one of the few neighborhoods of Haitis capital that hadn't already been fully taken over by gangs, as violence flared amid political turmoil.

Families frantically packed mattresses and furniture into cars and carried their belongings on their heads as they left the Solino neighborhood, one of a handful of areas in Port-au-Prince where a coalition of gangs, called Viv Ansanm, and police were locked in a violent firefight over the past several days.

We barely made it out, said 52-year-old Jean-Jean Pierre, who carrying his son in his arms as he fled the neighborhood with throngs of people. I've lived here 40 years of my life and I've never seen it this bad.

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Violence has exploded in the capital since Sunday when Haiti's transitional council created to restore democratic order fired the interim prime minister amid political infighting. The Caribbean nation hasn't held an election since 2016, largely because of the gang violence.

The U.N. International Office for Migration reports that since Sunday more than 4,300 people have fled their homes in Port-au-Prince and neighboring towns, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters at the U.N. in New York on Thursday,

Gangs like the Viv Ansanm coalition often seize on moments of political chaos to make power grabs like the one seen in Solino in recent days.

Gangs also largely shut down the country's main airport by shooting a number of planes, wounding one flight attendant on Monday. The United Nations said that it documented 20 armed clashes in Port-au-Prince in just one day. The U.N. estimates that gangs control 85% of the city.

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A U.N.-backed mission led by Kenyan police sent to subdue the gangs has been unable to quell the violence.

Pierre, the fleeing father, said he hasn't seen any presence of the U.N.-backed mission in his neighborhood, and that he and his family don't know where they'll go. Other residents said gang members had forced them from their homes and burned their belongings.

These gangs are more powerful than the police, Pierre said.

The United Nations has mobilized help, spokesman Dujarric said.

In the past two days, he said the U.N. children's agency UNICEF provided cash to nearly 1,500 people in displacement sites in the capital and the U.N. population and migration agencies deployed mobile health clinics and are providing clean water. Starting Thursday, he said, the U.N. World Food Program delivered food to more than 50,000 displaced people in Port-au-Prince.

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Across Haiti, WFP has also provided cash to nearly 100,000 people and is delivering daily meals to 430,000 children in 2,000 schools across the country," Dujarric said.

The country's new interim prime minister, Alix Didier Fils-Aime, has been largely silent about the violence since he was sworn in on Monday, but on Wednesday released a statement condemning the plane shootings. His office said that he ordered police to regain control of the airport and nearby areas.

Meanwhile, videos on social media have shown smoke rising up from the Solino area, as gunfire has echoed from the neighborhood's streets in recent days.

While it wasnt immediately clear how many people were fleeing the violence in Solino, it appeared that much of the neighborhood was emptying out.

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Residents said that gang members had killed a police officer who was known as a community leader fighting back against the gangs. That killing also was reported by local media, though The Associated Press wasn't able to confirm the death with authorities.

In October, the same gang coalition made a similar violent push into the Solino neighborhood, setting fire to homes and leaving many fleeing with all they could carry or calling radio stations to plead for help.

____

Megan Janetsky contributed to this report from Mexico City.

____

Follow APs coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH)  Police made a major drug and weapon bust in the City of Binghamton, confiscating illegal handguns and hundreds of grams of illegal narcotics.

On Monday, the Broome County Special Investigations Unit Task Force searched 10 Felters Road in Binghamton.

Police discovered and collected six illegal handguns, one of which was a ghost gun, and another was reported stolen.

The search also uncovered approximately ten and a half ounces of fentanyl, 38 grams of cocaine, 42 grams of methamphetamine, prescription pills, and over $59,000 from suspected drug sales.

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Binghamtons Mayor, Jared Kraham says, this year alone, the task force has seized over 90 illegal firearms.

Everyone knows that were facing a fentanyl epidemic in the City of Binghamton, our county, and across Upstate New York. We are attacking the source of the problem. Large scale dealers that it takes, often tomes, long term undercover investigations to root out this criminal activity, said Kraham.

As a result of the investigation, Rashidy Oliver from Binghamton was arrested and processed on criminal possession of a controlled substance, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of stolen property, and criminal use of drug paraphernalia.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WIVT - News 34.
A high-ranking Massachusetts National Guardsman station on Cape Cod was indicted by a federal grand jury on child porn charges Thursday.

43-year-old Nicholas Wells, a Master Sergeant of the 102 Security Forces of the Massachusetts National Guard stationed in Sandwich, was indicted for possession and distribution of child porn, according to the U.S. District Attorneys Office.

Charging documents say Wells possessed more than 300 images and 100 videos depicting child pornography on his phone and distributed more than 70 videos. Some of the material recovered allegedly involved infants.

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According to investigators, Wells engaged in chats on a messaging app, discussing his interest in minors along with distributing obscene images and videos of children.

At his initial appearance in federal court in Boston, on October 24, Wells agreed to be voluntarily detained pending trial without prejudice.

The National Guard told Boston 25 Wells enlisted with the National Guard in April 2021 before he was removed from his full-time position and barred from Otis Air National Guard Base.

The charge of possessing child pornography provides for a sentence up to 20 years in prison, at least five years and up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine up to $250,000. The charge of distributing child pornography provides for a sentence of not less than five years and not more than 20 years, five years to life of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.

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HONG KONG (AP)  The mastermind behind a foiled bomb plot during anti-government protests in Hong Kong in 2019 has been jailed for nearly 24 years in the city's first case brought under an anti-terrorism law.

Ng Chi-hung, who had previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit the bombing of prescribed objects under the anti-terror law and possession of arms or ammunition with intent to endanger life, was sentenced to 23 years and 10 months by a Hong Kong court on Thursday.

He was among seven convicted defendants who appeared in court for their roles in the plot to plant two bombs and shoot officers along a rally route on Dec. 8, 2019, at a time when accusations of police brutality in handling protesters were widespread.

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Judge Judianna Barnes said the plan was vicious and was a declaration of war on society.

The seven are not well-known activists in the semi-autonomous Chinese citys pro-democracy movement, but their case has drawn attention because the United Nations (Anti-Terrorism Measures) Ordinance was invoked.

Hong Kong enacted the law to implement a U.N. Security Council resolution passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

According to local media, prosecutors said most of the defendants in the case were members of two groups  one led by Ng and another called Dragon-Slaying Brigade." The prosecution said members of the brigade planned to lure police officers onto an area where bombs would be detonated and a sniper would target them.

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Wong Chun-keung, leader of the brigade, was sentenced to more than 13 years. Five other defendants received prison terms ranging from nearly six years to 12 years.

In August, six other defendants, who had pleaded not guilty, were acquitted by a panel of jurors.

Steve Li, chief superintendent for the police's national security department, said he would study the judgment and consider whether to appeal some sentencing decisions. He also criticized those convicted as deranged.

The 2019 protests marked the most concerted challenge to the Hong Kong government since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Following the protests, more than 10,000 people have been arrested in connection with the often-violent social unrest sparked by a now-withdrawn extradition bill, which would have allowed suspects in Hong Kong to be sent to mainland China.
Hours after Donald Trump announced he was nominating him to be his attorney general, Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress so that his House seat can be quickly filled, House Speaker Mike Johnson revealed Wednesday.

That caught us by surprise a little bit, Johnson said of the resignation at a press conference. I asked him what the reasoning was, and he said, Well, you cant have too many absences, so under Florida state law theres about an 8-week period to select and fill a vacant seat.

Gaetzs strategic resignation comes as the chambers leadership raises concerns about how many House Republicans Trump is plucking for cabinet nominations, temporarily slimming down whats expected to be a slim GOP majority in the chamber.

Rep. Matt Gaetz prepares to speak at the Republican National Convention in July. Tom Williams via Getty Images

Hes already pulled a few really talented people out of the House. Hopefully, no more for a little while until special elections can come, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said at a Capitol Hill press conference.

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While every state holds a special election when House seats need to be filled, the timing varies from state to state. Florida law allows Gov. Ron DeSantis to quickly call a special election, potentially allowing Gaetzs replacement to be seated before the start of the next Congress on Jan. 3.

But the replacement process could drag on in other states, weakening the GOPs power in the House. In New York, it could take up to 90 days for Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trumps nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, to be replaced with a special election.

Gaetzs resignation also ends the House Ethics Committee investigation into his alleged misconduct, including accusations of sex trafficking.

Punchbowl News, citing sources familiar with the investigation, reported that Gaetzs resignation comes just two days before that committee was going to vote on releasing a highly damaging report outlining its probe into him.

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Several Capitol Hill Republicans have raised serious doubts about Gaetz mustering up enough support for a Senate confirmation. Most asked by HuffPost avoided saying whether they would support his nomination.

Others were more blunt. Trump ally Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) told Politico that Gaetz was a reckless pick with a zero percent shot of getting through the Senate.

Related...
President-elect Donald Trump has tapped former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz to be his next attorney general.

The right-wing political bomb-thrower resigned from Congress on Wednesday, shortly before an Ethics Committee investigation was set to be released into his alleged drug use and sex with a minor, allegations Gaetz has rejected.

Trump was looking for someone who filled all of his requirements for what is likely to become the most important role, behind his own, in the next administration. Gaetz is a loyal supporter and attack dog for the president-elect and like him, has been under federal investigation. The former congressman came out unscathed after a federal sex crime investigation, which he referred to as a product of the deep state.

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The former president was attracted to Gaetz as the next AG for these reasons and to the notion that Gaetz would take the lead in targeting the investigators, according to The Bulwark.

The hunters have become the hunted, a person close to Gaetz told the outlet.

Gaetzs aggressive style and vociferous support for Trump has made him somewhat of a pariah in Congress, including with some Republicans. One Trump advisor told the outlet that Gaetzs willingness to go to the mat for Trump and to pick fights within his own party were vital attributes in Trumps selection of him as his nominee for attorney general.

Matt Gaetz speaks at a Donald Trump rally. He has long been a supporter of the former president, which likely helped land him the attorney general nomination (Reuters)

None of the attorneys had what Trump wants, and they didnt talk like Gaetz, the advisor told The Bulwark. Everyone else looked at AG as if they were applying for a judicial appointment. They talked about their vaunted legal theories and constitutional bulls***. Gaetz was the only one who said, Yeah, Ill go over there and start cuttin f***ing heads.

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Florida State Representative Alex Andrade took Gaetzs seat when he was elected to the US Congress in the 2016 election.

Trump likes raw talent and Matt has that in spades. And hes loyal and Trump has been burned, so this is a perfect fit for Trump, he told The Bulwark. After the Deep State failures Trump suffered through, Im surprised he didnt think of this earlier.

Gaetz is a tough son of a b****. Hes my son of a b****, Trump recently told an ally, according to the outlet.

In his statement announcing Gaetz as his pick for attorney general, Trump said the 42-year-old would end Weaponized Government and root out the systemic corruption at DOJ.

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On the House Judiciary Committee, which performs oversight of DOJ, Matt played a key role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and exposing alarming and systemic Government Corruption and Weaponization, Trump said.

As far as Trump is concerned, because of the investigations into him after he left office and because of his disappointment in his attorneys general during his first term, the post is seen as the most important cabinet role.

While there has been speculation that Gaetz may have been put up for slaughter, giving Republican senators a nominee to block to give them cover to approve other controversial nominees, Trump is reportedly set on having Gaetz as his attorney general. The former president is said to believe in Gaetzs strategic abilities and both of them have suggested that they may attempt to work around the Senate if confirmation becomes an issue.

To bypass the Senate vote needed for confirmation, Gaetz may go through a recess appointment, allowing Trump to make administration appointments while the upper chamber is not in session.

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Bill Clinton made 139 recess appointments during his time in the White House, compared to Barack Obamas 32 and George W Bushs 171, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Advisors close to Trump said that the former president believes Gaetz will do well at his Senate confirmation hearings (Pool/AFP/Getty)

Advisors close to Trump told The Bulwark that the former president believes Gaetz will do well at his Senate confirmation hearings because of the two-year investigation into whether he paid for sex with a 17-year-old in 2017. Gaetz rejected all the charges and the investigation ended due to a lack of evidence. A House Ethics Committee investigation followed. Gaetz called it Soviet.

Allies of Gaetz say that he resigned from Congress on Wednesday because of his commitment to prepare for his confirmation process. However, his move came as the Ethics Committee was due to vote on releasing its report into Gaetzs actions, which his departure from Congress put an end to. It remains unclear if the panel could still vote to share the report.

The investigation will likely come up if Gaetz appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearings.

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Senator Susan Collins of Maine told reporters that she was shocked by the announcement.

This shows why the advice and consent process is so important, she added. And Im sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing. Obviously, the president has the right to nominate whoever he wishes, but Im certain that there will be a lot of questions.

Gaetz appeared confident of his chances, writing on X: It will be an honor to serve as President Trumps Attorney General!

Meanwhile, a DoJ lawyer told The Bulwark regarding the nomination: Holy f****** s***. And, what the f***!
On Wednesday, Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Republican Congressman Matthew Gaetz to lead the Department of Justicethe same agency that once investigated Gaetz for the sex trafficking of an underage girl. Trumps desire to nominate Gaetz for attorney general marks an effort to simultaneously degrade and weaponize the DOJ, subverting its mission of principled, nonpartisan law enforcement while punishing those who pursued charges against Trump (and, perhaps, against Gaetz himself). It is a shocking choice, surely by design, that reflects an obvious desire to corrupt the agency from the top down. If Gaetz is confirmed, its no exaggeration to say that the Justice Department will be permanently damaged, as civil servants flee (or face termination), partisan loyalists take their place, and the entire agency reorients around settling old scores against Trumps perceived enemies. If Senate Republicans do not draw the line here, then a line does not exist.

What makes Gaetzs nomination for attorney general so deeply Trumpian is the fact that Gaetz himself is under investigation for serious misconduct right now. He is just about the last person that a rational citizen would want to put in charge of the nations law enforcement apparatus. (He also has no qualifications for the role, which is somehow not even in the top five reasons to oppose him.) But he does have experience with the DOJ: In 2021, a Justice Department investigation probed whether Gaetz had engaged in sexual acts with a 17-year-old girl and then paid her to travel with him. The allegations were clearly credible: Three women reportedly testified that they witnessed Gaetz attending a drug-fueled sex party with the 17-year-old. His friend, Joel Greenberg, accused Gaetz of paying for sex with a minor, and provided damning information about him to prosecutors; Greenberg was eventually sentenced to 11 years in prison on felony charges, including sex trafficking of a minor. Multiple women also told CNN that they saw Greenberg and Gaetz attend sex parties featuring very young women. (Gaetz denies all these allegations.)

But Gaetz was not chargedprosecutors eventually dropped the case after concluding that they did not have strong enough evidence to secure a conviction. The House of Representatives, though, is likely continuing the probe into Gaetzs behavior: As of Wednesday, the House Ethics Committee was still reviewing allegations of sexual misconduct against the congressman. Last year, Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin alleged that Gaetz would show videos of girls that he had slept with to colleagues on the House floor, and brag about how he would crush ED medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night. And just over a month ago, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told a reporter that he had not recently spoken with Gaetz because I dont hang around with pedophiles.

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As targets of criminal investigations, Gaetz and Trump share an impassioned hatred for the Department of Justice. Their bond goes deeper: Gaetz, who represents the Florida panhandle, won his first race for the House in 2016 as a Trump-style firebrand who loathed the establishment. He spent his first four years defending Trump and condemning special counsel Robert Muellers probe into the president. In 2020, Gaetz refused to accept President Joe Bidens victory and cast his vote in the House to overturn the results of the election. He has relentlessly condemned Merrick Garland, Bidens attorney general, as well as special counsel Jack Smith, who charged Trump with election subversion and theft of classified documents. Gaetz regularly appears on TV accusing Garland and Smith of engaging in a witch hunt against Trump and attempting to interfere with his reelection. With Wednesdays announcement, it seems the congressmans aggressive defense of the former president has paid off.

In his Truth Social post revealing the news, Trump promised that Gaetz would end the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Ever the projector, Trump more likely intends for Gaetz to simply weaponize the justice system against his perceived enemiesas the former president promised throughout his campaign. The congressman has already been trying to identify all members of the DOJ involved with Smiths prosecution so they can be interrogated and punished. He would, as attorney general, almost certainly try to fire many of the agencys 115,000 employeescareer civil servants who pride themselves on integrity and independenceso he can replace them with staunch partisans. Trumps allies have already begun promoting the idea of mass termination of career staff at the DOJ. Gaetz would gladly carry out such a purge.

To what end? Theres no question that Gaetz shares Trumps desire for revenge against everyone who helped prosecute the former president under Biden. Trump has also proposed charging New York prosecutors who brought charges against him under state law, along with judges, police officers, members of Congress, election workers, journalistsin short, everyone who stymied his 2020 power grab or sought accountability afterward. We should absolutely expect a spree of political prosecutions under an Attorney General Gaetz. With the vast machinery of the Justice Department at his disposal, Gaetz could create a living hell for everyone against whom Trump holds a grudge, subjecting them to arrest and pretrial detention, even if the bogus charges later fizzle out in the court.

But Gaetz offers a whole lot to the less revenge-driven Republican base, as well. He is extraordinarily conservative on virtually the entire range of issues that motivates the GOP, with the exception of marijuana and psychedelics, which he supports legalizing (and allegedly uses himself). Gaetz would throw the Justice Departments might behind Trumps mass deportation plan, assisting in the identification and removal of millions of unauthorized immigrants. His congressional record suggests that he would decline to bring charges against corporations that engage in financial malfeasance, pollution, and corruption. And he would undoubtedly carry out the Trump administrations coming crackdown on abortion: As congressman, Gaetz has consistently supported draconian anti-abortion laws, including severe restrictions on medication abortion. Americans should not be surprised if he launches prosecutions against abortion providers under the Comstock Act, including those located in blue states, if confirmed.

Will he be confirmed? Republican senators are already questioning the nomination, with some already preparing to oppose it. The GOPs apparent 53-seat majority in the chamber will not allow even four defections, and even staunch conservatives are balking at the pick. The New York Times Ezra Klein may be correct that Gaetz is a sacrificial nomineemeant for Senate Republicans to shoot down so they have more political leeway to confirm other nominees who are extreme but not so off-the-wall. Maybe. But it could also be that Trump has fewer guardrails than ever before. Why wouldnt he shoot for the moon with an attorney general who gleefully defies everything the Justice Department once stood for? One thing is certain: Gaetz will serve as a trial balloon, even if his nomination is deadly serious. If Senate Republicans cant say no to Gaetz, the Department of Justice as we know it will be gone, quite possibly forever.
Trump's nomination of Matt Gaetz for US Attorney General is a controversial choice.

Gaetz's appointment will need Senate confirmation, and that could be tough to secure.

GOP lawmakers who are otherwise loyal to the president-elect are already dunking on Gaetz.

Amid a series of attention-grabbing cabinet picks, perhaps no choice has drawn more attention than President-elect Donald Trump's decision to nominate GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida as the next US Attorney General.

Gaetz is a polarizing figure, even within the Republican Party.

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His appointment will require Senate confirmation, and while Republicans will hold a majority in the Senate, several GOP lawmakers have already signaled that they are less than pleased with this controversial pick.

While other nominees  such as former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence and Fox News host Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary  have raised eyebrows, Gaetz stands out as the one pick Republicans seem eager to criticize.

Gaetz was previously subject to sex trafficking allegations, which arose after the Department of Justice opened an investigation into him in April 2021.

Although the agency ultimately declined to press charges, Gaetz was until recently being probed by the House Ethics Committee. However, his abrupt resignation from the House following his nomination on Wednesday means the committee no longer has jurisdiction to investigate him, per The New York Times.

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Further complicating his support among Republicans, Gaetz also led the charge to oust Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker last year, a move that led to significant friction within the party.

Even some Trump loyalists have expressed surprise at the Gaetz nomination.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma

Mullin is a staunch Trump supporter who backed his baseless claims of a stolen 2020 election and was even rumored as a potential cabinet pick.

But that didn't stop him from offering less than full-throated support for the Gaetz nomination.

Appearing on CNN, he said: "Matt Gaetz and I, there's no question that we've had our differences."

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While expressing trust in "Trump's decision-making on this one," Mullin said that Gaetz would have to make his case in the Senate.

"There's a lot of questions that are going to be out there," he told CNN. "He's got to answer those questions, and hopefully, he's able to answer those questions right, and if he can, we'll go through the confirmation process."

Those differences refer to comments Mullin made to CNN last year, around the time Gaetz brought a motion to oust McCarthy.

Mullin said, "There's a reason why no one in the Congress came and defended" Gaetz in the aftermath of sex trafficking allegations.

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He went on to allege that Gaetz would brag about his sexual escapades on the House floor.

Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota

Cramer, a loyal supporter of Trump since endorsing him early in his 2016 campaign, expressed surprise at Gaetz's nomination.

According to Ramsey Touchberry of the Washington Examiner, Cramer was taken aback by the Gaetz pick.

"That's an uff da," Cramer said, per Touchberry's X post. "Huh, I don't know what to make of it."

The Minnesota Monthly describes "uff da" as implying "exhaustion, frustration, confusion, surprise, and mild repulsion."

Responding to questions from CBS News reporter Cristina Corujo, Cramer said that Gaetz's nomination was a "surprise" and an "interesting pick."

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He also said he doesn't know Gaetz very well and thinks he has the academic credentials, but said he is concerned with how he "handled the squabble with Speaker McCarthy. I thought it was unnecessary, I thought it was divisive."

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas

Cornyn, another reliable Trump ally, also seemed shocked by the Gaetz pick.

According to Punchbowl News reporter Samantha Handler, he gave an "audible snort" when asked about it.

Alex Bolton, a staff writer for The Hill, said in an X post that a "surprised or shocked look" flashed across Cornyn's face "like he tasted something strange," when asked about Gaetz.

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Cornyn told HuffPost reporter Arthur Delaney: "I don't know the man other than his public persona."

According to Max Cohen, another Punchbowl News reporter, Cornyn was asked about Gaetz's status as the subject of a House Ethics investigation.

"Well, that might come up," Cornyn told reporters.

Rep. Max Miller of Ohio

Though he won't get to vote on Gaetz, Miller had some choice words on his fellow Republican lawmaker.

The GOP congressman, who has previously praised Trump as "the greatest POTUS this country has ever had," told CNN's Haley Talbot that Gaetz is "a guy who is literally worse than the gum on the bottom of my shoe."

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Per Talbot, Miller also accused Gaetz of wrecking the country and said he "ran around here last term like a six-year-old with a loaded revolver and a happy trigger finger."

Read the original article on Business Insider
A close friend of Matt Gaetz, Donald Trumps nominee for U.S. attorney general, has asked a court to destroy records that could shed light on the details of a sex party with an underage girl that Gaetz allegedly attended.

The records include witness statements about a 2017 party that featured drugs, a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim, and, allegedly, Gaetz himself. Christopher Dorworth, who describes himself in a lawsuit as a close friend of Gaetz, has filed two motions requesting the records be withheld from release and stricken from the judicial record, court filings reviewed by Rolling Stone and American Doom show.

Its now up to a federal court to decide whether to release the records. As attorney general, Gaetz would have significant influence over the federal judiciary. Trump nominated Gaetz for attorney general on Wednesday.

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The public interest is not served in any way by releasing confidential information upon which the court has never relied to make any decision in this case, attorneys for Dorworth wrote in an Oct. 16 filing. Furthermore, Dorworth intends to request the exhibits be stricken from the judicial record entirely, his attorneys wrote.

The existence of records that could provide more detail into the alleged 2017 sex party comes as Gaetz gets ready to ascend to the highest profile and most powerful role of his political career  U.S. attorney general. Some Republicans expressed concern at Gaetzs nomination to oversee a Justice Department that was investigating the congressman over sex trafficking allegations until last winter. The DOJ declined to charge Gaetz, prompting the House Ethics Committee to investigate the matter.

In nominating Gaetz, Trump said in a statement that the Florida congressman would address weaponization of the justice system, and would root out the systemic corruption at DOJ, and return the Department to its true mission of fighting Crime, and upholding our Democracy and Constitution.

For his part, Gaetz immediately resigned from his congressional seat on Wednesday evening, just ahead of an expected vote on whether to release a report by the House Ethics Committee into allegations against him, according to Punchbowl News. As such, the committee no longer has jurisdiction to investigate him.

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Its unclear whether Gaetz will have any trouble being confirmed as attorney general in the Republican-led Senate. That might not matter either way: Trump has demanded that Republicans allow him to make recess appointments, without Senate approval. Newly elected Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) posted on Sunday: We must act quickly and decisively to get the presidents nominees in place as soon as possible, [and] all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments.

Gaetzs office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawmaker has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

The unreleased records in the Florida case stem, in part, from a defamation lawsuit against Joel Greenberg, a friend of Gaetzs who is now serving an 11-year sentence for his role in sex trafficking the victim, among other crimes. The Miami Herald has pushed for the records to be released.

One of the judges in the case, Daniel Irick, has chastised Dorworth for fighting their release.

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This is a case of public importance, Irick said in August, according to NOTUS. It is one that there may be media interest in, and its one that involves important issues  Im not seeing any confidentialities that would really overwhelm the First Amendment right for the public to see this case, especially when a plaintiff brings claims in relation to their marriage and spouses and the kind of intimate issues in this case which are laid out in extreme detail in the  complaint. I am unlikely to seal anything because it all seems relevant.

Its up to Irick and another judge, Carlos Mendoza, appointed by Obama, to determine whether to release the records.

Dorworth sued Greenberg for implicating him in the events of the party and ties to the victim, referred to in court documents as A.B., but has since dropped that lawsuit. Dorworths attorneys argue that 27 exhibits  which include depositions and affidavits from witnesses at the party  should be kept under seal now that the lawsuit has been dismissed by Dorworth.

These 27 filings, irrelevant to this case, have been covered by the press due to their salacious allegations, despite the nonexistence of any pertinent judicial purpose, Dorworths attorneys wrote in an Oct. 3 filing supporting Greenbergs motion to seal the records in question.

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Neither judge had weighed in on the matter as of Oct. 22, according to court records.

The 17-year-old victim in the case has placed Gaetz at the 2017 party. Greenberg admitted to having sex with A.B. when she was 17. Greenberg eventually penned a confession saying that Gaetz had paid him to arrange for sex with women, including at least one 17-year-old girl. Documents previously released as part of Dorworths lawsuit have placed Gaetz at the party thanks to testimony from his ex-girlfriend, NOTUS reported.

In his lawsuit, Dorworth, a former Ballard Partners lobbyist, claimed that Greenberg blackmailed him along with his close friend, Gaetz, in a failed attempt to extract a presidential pardon from then-President Trump. When Dorworth and Gaetz told Greenberg they were unable to help with his plight, Dorworth alleges Greenberg began to accuse the pair of wrongdoing.

According to the lawsuit, Gaetz instructed Dorworth to relay to Greenberg: Youve done some very bad things and have some very bad times ahead, but there is nothing I can do to help you.

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While Greenberg was sentenced to prison for having sex with the victim and other crimes, Gaetzs political star has continued to rise, despite the allegations that have been made against him.

Discussion of Gaetzs sexual escapades hasnt just come from Greenberg. In October 2023, then-Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Ok.) accused Gaetz of bragging about sleeping with young women on the floor of the House of Representatives.

We had all seen videos  of the girls that he had slept with, Mullin told CNN last year. Hed crush ED [erectile dysfunction] medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night. (On Wednesday, now-Sen. Mullin said he completely trusts Trumps decision to nominate Gaetz.)

Then, in April, former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy accused Gaetz leading the successful push to oust him from his speaker role because he wouldnt stop the Ethics Committee investigation.

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Gaetz wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old, McCarthy said at an event at Georgetown University.

Now, did he do it or not? I dont know. But ethics was looking at it, McCarthy continued. Theres other people in jail because of it. And he wanted me to influence it.

Gaetz responded by calling McCarthy a liar.

This story is being published in partnership with American Doom, a newsletter that focuses on right-wing extremism and other threats to democracy.

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President-elect Donald Trump announced Rep. Matt Gaetz as his pick for attorney general.

Gaetz has criticized Big Tech for censoring conservatives and supports antitrust enforcement.

Both the Justice Department and the FTC enforce antitrust laws that impact large tech companies.

President-elect Donald Trump named Rep. Matt Gaetz as his pick for attorney general, an appointment which, if approved by the Senate, would give the Florida Republican sweeping legal power and the opportunity to act on his longstanding complaints against Big Tech.

Gaetz has frequently railed against Big Tech, accusing Silicon Valley firms of censoring conservatives. In recent years, he has emerged as a fierce advocate for antitrust enforcement, particularly against companies like Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet.

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"The internet's hall monitors out in Silicon Valley, they think they can suppress us, discourage us. Maybe if you're just a little less patriotic. Maybe if you just conform to their way of thinking a little more, then you'll be allowed to participate in the digital world," Gaetz said during a 2021 appearance shortly after Trump had been banned from social-media platforms following the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

"Well, you know what? Silicon Valley can't cancel this movement, or this rally, or this congressman," he told the audience. "We have a Second Amendment in this country, and I think we have an obligation to use it."

A representative for the congressman did not immediately respond to Business a request for comment from Business Insider.

Both the Justice Department and the FTC are responsible for enforcing antitrust laws in the US. The current Federal Trade Commission chair, Lina Khan, whom Trump may end up replacing, has aggressively gone after Big Tech companies. Khan has worked to quash billions of dollars in deals over anticompetitive concerns, and the FTC has brought lawsuits against Nvidia, Meta, and Microsoft, among others.

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That aligns her with Gaetz and Vice President-elect JD Vance, who have praised her work. Gaetz told The Wall Street Journal in March that he hopes "whoever is the next FTC chair would continue many of the cases that Chair Khan has brought against predatory businesses."

So although Khan could be departing, it's possible the federal government's antitrust policy toward major tech companies would not drastically change, said Mark A. Kasten, an attorney at Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney, who focuses on white-collar criminal defense, compliance, and investigations.

It could also depend on who Trump picks to chair the FTC. Though he's expected to fire Khan, it's unclear whom he would tap to lead the agency instead.

"Ultimately, we still expect to see a meaningful uptick in M&A activity," Isaac Boltansky, BTIG's director of policy research, told Barron's after Gaetz was nominated, referring to mergers and acquisitions.

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"But the hurdles for Big Tech could remain elevated," he added.

Kasten, who has defended clients under investigation by the Justice Department, also said that Gaetz voted against the TikTok ban passed in April. The bill, aimed at beefing up national security against China, requires the app's Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell its US assets by January or be banned from app stores.

"While that law passed, and requires the platform to be sold to a non-Chinese company in January, it is easy to see a world in which an Attorney General Gaetz doesn't enforce it," Kasten told BI in an email.

Following the vote, Gaetz said he believed banning TikTok was "the right idea" but that he took issue with the "overly broad" and "rushed" legislation.

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"This is no way to run a railroad (or the internet)," Gaetz posted on X.

Several of the biggest tech companies, including Apple, Google, Meta, and Amazon, are already contending with antitrust cases filed over the past several years.

George Hay, an antitrust expert and law professor at Cornell University, previously told BI that incoming presidents generally don't interfere with cases in progress.

"It's very rare that at the presidential level, there's any attempt to influence the course of cases which have already been filed. Those have a life of their own," Hay said. "They depend on the judge, the courts, the lawyers who carry on a case. It's extraordinarily unusual for the administration to become at all active."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Donald Trumps nomination of Matt Gaetz for attorney general has stunned many in the Republican party.

If Trump gets his way, the former Florida representative will become the top law enforcement officer in the United States  a position that the president-elect could utilize to seek revenge on his opponents and enemies.

Gaetz, a Trump loyalist and controversial figure in Congress, was subject to a Justice Department investigation into allegations of sex trafficking. He was ultimately never charged with a crime but remained under a House ethics investigation.

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Following his resignation with immediate effect on Wednesday, that House probe has effectively also come to an end as Gaetz is no longer within the chambers jurisdiction.

In addition to the 15 officials Trump will choose to join his cabinet, there are hundreds of positions, including ambassadors and lower-level roles, that typically require Senate approval.

Even though Republicans have clinched a majority in the Senate, given the strong reaction to Gaetzs potential appointment, it is not guaranteed he will be confirmed as attorney general.

Matt Gaetzs nomination as Trumps attorney general is not guaranteed (AP)

Heres two options for what could happen next...

Gaetz needs to be confirmed by the Senate

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Typically, cabinet positions require Senate approval which, given the reaction to his nomination, could leave Gaetz on shaky ground.

Following last weeks elections, Republicans will now hold a majority in the upper chamber with 53 seats when Trump takes office in 2025. This means that Gaetz can only lose three GOP votes to be confirmed by the Senate, assuming Democrats and the two Independents are unanimous in voting against his appointment.

A number of Republicans have spoken out of their shock at his nomination. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she doesnt think Gaetz is a serious nomination for the attorney general, while Senator Susan Collins of Maine told reporters she was shocked by the choice.

Ohio Representative Max Miller went as far as to say that Gaetz has a zero percent shot of getting through the Senate, Politico reported. Another Republican representative, who remained anonymous, told the outlet that the choice is an obvious throwaway nomination that has no chance in the Senate.

Tommy Tuberville has warned Republicans to vote with what Trump wants (AP)

And North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis said Gaetz has probably got some work cut out for him.

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However, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville has threatened to boot party members from the upper chamber if they oppose Gaetzs nomination.

Ive already seen where a couple says, Im not voting for him, the staunch Trump supporter told Fox Business on Wednesday.

This is the last chance were gonna have of saving this country. And if you wanna get in the way, fine. He then warned: But were gonna try to get you out of the Senate, too if you try to do that.

Gaetz faces a grilling during the Senate confirmation process as it typically requires nominees to submit financial disclosures and testify before a committee.

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Members from both political parties get a chance to interrogate nominees about their plans for the post and their backgrounds  meaning that the DOJs sex trafficking investigation and House ethics probe will likely crop up.

The Senate committee votes on the nominee following the hearing and if it passes, it then goes to the full Senate for a vote.

2. Gaetz is confirmed by Trump through recess appointment

The Senate approval process ensures there is a check and balance on presidential power, as per the US Constitution.

But there is a mechanism in which Trump could bypass tradition to appoint Gaetz as attorney general without a Senate vote.

Trump has already applied pressure on the next Senate Majority leader to allow him to make recess appointments so he can fast-track positions without Senate approval.

Trump said he wants to push through his nominations via recess appointment (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner, Trump wrote in a social media post on X on Sunday before John Thune was confirmed as the next majority leader Wednesday, replacing the outgoing Mitch McConnell.

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Recess appointments would allow Trump to make administration appointments without a vote in the Senate while the upper chamber is in recess. The process is not unconstitutional, and it has been done before by other administrations.

Bill Clinton made 139 recess appointments while in the White House, and Barack Obama made 32. George W. Bush made 171, ABC noted, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Thune, who has been vocal in his criticism of Trump previously, said that the Senate will do everything we can to confirm Trumps desired nominees quickly so they can implement his agenda.

We expect a level of cooperation from the Democrats to work with us to get these folks installed, Thune said on Wednesday. Were [going to] explore all options to make sure they get moved and that they get moved quickly.

Which of Trumps picks need Senate confirmation?

Trump hasnt announced all of his Cabinet nominees yet but all 15 typically require Senate confirmation. Cabinet positions are usually approved quickly in the Senate.

Pete Hegseth - Secretary of Defense

Pete Hegseth (AP)

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The Fox and Friends host could oversee a budget of roughly $850bn and roughly 3 million service members and personnel.

Hegseth has been slammed as undoubtedly the least qualified nominee for [defense secretary] in American history. And the most overtly political, Paul Rieckhoff, an Army veteran of the Iraq War and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America said.

He is a former Bear Stearns banker who later served tours with the Army National Guard in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as led veterans-focused advocacy organizations.

Tulsi Gabbard - Director of National Intelligence

Tulsi Gabbard with Trump on the campaign trail (AFP via Getty Images)

The former Democratic congresswoman turned MAGA loyalist who has promoted conspiracy theories about US involvement in Ukraine will be the next head of the US intelligence community.

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Trump said Gabbard, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army National Guard, has fought for our Country and the Freedoms of all Americans for over two decades.

Kristi Noem - Homeland Security

Kristi Noem (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The South Dakota governor has been chosen to head up one of the biggest government agencies that will be integral to Trumps vow to secure the border and carry out a massive deportation operation.

She was vilified this year for a story she told in her book about killing her 14-month-old wirehaired pointer named Cricket.

Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio (AP)

Rubio has been a prominent Republican member of Congress and made an unsuccessful bid for White House in 2016 against Trump.

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Despite losing, he still maintained a strong presence and was reportedly a contendor to be Trumps running mate this year.

John Ratcliffe - CIA director

John Ratcliffe (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

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Trumps former director of national intelligence will be head of the CIA if approved.

Prior to serving in the Trump administration, Ratcliffe was a Republican congressman for Texas, serving on the House intelligence, judiciary, and homeland security committees.

Elise Stefanik - US ambassador to the United Nations

Elise Stefanik (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The representative from New York is one of Trumps staunchest defenders going back to his first impeachment.

Stefaniks questioning of university presidents over antisemitism on their campuses helped lead to two of those presidents resigning, further raising her national profile.

If confirmed, she would represent American interests at the UN as Trump vows to end the war waged by Russia against Ukraine.

Lee Zeldin - Environmental Protection Agency

Lee Zeldin ((AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File))

Zeldin does not appear to have any experience in environmental issues, but is a longtime supporter of the former president.

During his time in Congress he frequently voted against environmental-friendly bills.

And who doesnt need Senate confirmation

There are certain roles that do not require approval from the Senate.

Susie Wiles - White House Chief of Staff

Susie Wiles (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Trumps Ice Maiden turned chief of staff was the first person he confirmed to join him in his second term.

Wiles, who also helped Trump win in 2016, was the 2024 Trump campaigns de facto manager and steered him to victory for a second time.

Stephen Miller - Deputy chief of staff for policy

Stephen Miller (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Miller is an immigration hardliner and was a vocal spokesperson during the presidential campaign for Trumps priority of mass deportations.

He was a senior adviser during Trumps first administration. He has been a central figure in some of Trumps policy decisions, notably his move to separate thousands of immigrant families and he helped craft the Trump administrations travel ban from majority-Muslim countries.

Tom Homan - Border Czar

Tom Homan (Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Homan, 62, has been tasked with Trumps top priority of carrying out the largest deportation operation in the nations history.

Homan, who served under Trump in his first administration leading US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was widely expected to be offered a position related to the border, an issue Trump made central to his campaign.

Mike Waltz - National Security adviser

Mike Waltz (Getty Images for Concordia Summi)

Waltz will counsel Trump on various threats to the US. A former Green Beret and policy adviser to Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, he is known for advocating a tougher position towards Iran and China, a country which he argues is locked in a new Cold War with the US.

In 2023, Waltz introduced a bill calling for more US cooperation with Indo-Pacific nations to counter Chinese and other malign influences in the Asia-Pacific region.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy - Department of Government Efficiency

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy (AFP via Getty Images)

Department heads have to be confirmed by the Senate, but with the creation of a new DOGE department  which will operate outside of government  the process is currently unknown.

Trump vowed that Musk and Ramaswamy will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.
This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIMEs politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox.

Comb through just about any political nerds text chains in the last 48 hours and there is one profane piece of shorthand that likely appears repeatedly regardless of their political affiliation: WTF?

Thats been the general reaction throughout the first full week since Donald Trump started to form a government-in-waiting poised to deliver on his promised grievance-settling agenda. At first, the picks were novel, if garish. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as Secretary of State is an unexpected choice for an incoming President who has long scorned Rubios neocon worldview as folly. Neither South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as head of Homeland Security nor former Rep. Lee Zeldin in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency exactly comes off as an expert in the departments they are now set to lead.

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Then came the announcements of Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard. The next President seriously wants a Fox News host as Secretary of Defense and a longstanding Russian sympathizer as Director of National Intelligence?

What the actual F?, indeed

But none of that prepared the public for the biggest bombshell thus far, one that prompted audible gasps from House members in a behind-closed-door meeting as they learned Wednesday that Trump planned to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz as the next Attorney General.

In quick order, the WTF? texts were upgraded to AYFKM?

There are almost too many reasons for why the prospect of Gaetz as the nations top law enforcement official has stunned a Washington that was already bracing for Trump to make some outside-the-box Cabinet picks. Beyond the MAGA faithful who adore his epic trolling, Gaetz may be best known as the member of Congress who has spent years staring-down a secretive ethics panel probe into his own conduct vis a vis teens, cash, and sex. His colleagues dismiss him as an adolescent with a voting card, a walking embodiment of Trumpist impulses. The Justice Department even investigated whether Gaetzs conduct violated any number of federal laws. Gaetz is now in line to take over that same Justice Department.

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To make the whole story even seedier, Gaetz resigned from the House on Wednesday, reportedly days ahead of the House Ethics Committee planning to release a report that has long been a shouted whisper in Washington. While Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and claimed he is being singled out as retribution for daring to question GOP Leadership, the bipartisan panel has quietly been building a report that could be released as soon as Friday. Typically, the Ethics Committee ends its probe if a member leaves their job because it no longer can punish a colleague for their deeds, but it also may be able to send its findings to the Justice Department or even the Senate, where Gaetz will face a tricky confirmation hearing.

But set aside all that innuendo and intrigue and consider solely Gaetzs reputation as a member of Congress. Almost exactly a year ago, Gaetz had just ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy from leadership, a move that stemmed from a personal grudge that to this day goes both ways. Gaetz quickly revealed he had no plans to get any other House Republican enough support to replace McCarthy as Speaker, leaving Congress immobilized for weeks as this self-inflicted drama played out. My editor flagged this paragraph from a D.C. Brief column from the time:

But set aside all that innuendo and intrigue and consider solely Gaetzs reputation as a member of Congress. Almost exactly a year ago, Gaetz had just ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy from leadership, a move that stemmed from a personal grudge that to this day goes both ways. Gaetz quickly revealed he had no plans to get any other House Republican enough support to replace McCarthy as Speaker, leaving Congress immobilized for weeks as this self-inflicted drama played out. My editor flagged this paragraph from a D.C. Brief column from the time:

What many in Washington are now worried about is that Gaetz didnt win Trumps approval in spite of the reputation laid out in the above paragraph, but because of it. Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed revenge against those he considered enemiesDemocrats, NeverTrumpers, journalists, academics, regulators, prosecutorsand left the threat of violence hanging in the mix. When former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney returned to the campaign trail in support of Trumps rival, the former President suggested she should see if she still supported Kamala Harris when guns are trained on her face.

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All through Washington Wednesday night, many were realizing that Gaetz may be the perfect person to implement Trumps revenge agenda. The hunted are becoming the hunters, Trump ally and podcast provocateur Steve Bannon said, predicting Gaetz would send those who sought accountability for Trump and his allies to prison. Lawmakerseven those inclined to give Trump a passcould not contain their contempt for the vote Trump was setting in motion.

Career prosecutors are horrified and contemplating their next steps. Plenty are reviewing the DOJs severance and separation policies. Mainstream normies wondered if there were ways to curtail any AGs power, through congressional add-on, budget provisions, or just denying him the basics of parking spots. Even some Trump apologists sensed that Gaetz was a step too far and rationalized the announcement as a symbolic show of force intended to soften opposition to his real pick when it comes. Political insiders, too, mused that this could be a false flag operation to make the next choice more palatable.

So, yes. You are to be excused if this whole exercise seems rather irrational, hasty, reckless. Whereas the pick of loyalists can be understood, the selection to install Gaetz as the nations top cop is more than just running afoul of norms. Its a signal to take Trumps most offensive, anti-democratic claims over the last year deadly seriously. And, given a second chance, he seems ready to make the most of the largely unchecked power.

Senate Democrats are not going to entertain the faintest of realities that Gaetz can be confirmed, and plenty of Republicans were eager to call it a non-starter, even in a Trump-dominated Washington where Republicans have a relatively free hand to do as they wish. But Trump is setting up an early test of GOP pliability by suggesting he could skirt the Senates role in confirming his appointments altogether and allow Trump to stack his Cabinet while lawmakers stand in recess. Such recess appointments, while not uncommon, are often considered a short-term patch for specific nominees, not a wholesale strategy based on Senators abdicating their constitutional powers in stunning acts of complicity.

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Yet, here we are. This is the incoming administrationat least as Trump sees it in his imagination and Republicans fear it in their nightmares. At least for now, all of Washington has to treat it as a serious play with dire consequences if it proves fruitful.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter.

Write to Philip Elliott at philip.elliott@time.com.
Former Representative Matt Gaetz resigned from the House on Wednesday after president-elect Donald Trump tapped him for attorney general  and, according to new reports, two days before a highly damaging ethics report on his conduct was set to be released.

Trump announced on Wednesday that the Florida lawmaker, a staunch ally, will be his nominee for Attorney General when he takes office in January.

Gaetz and his associates were at the center of a sex trafficking investigation carried out by current Attorney General Merrick Garland. The former Florida lawmaker was ultimately never charged with a crime but remained the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation regarding allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use.

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The 42-year-old has denied all wrongdoing, and his resignation effectively ends their probe as he is no longer under their jurisdiction.

But, Gaetzs resignation comes two days before the House Ethics committee was set to release a highly damaging report regarding their investigation, Punchbowl News reports.

Gaetz was at the center of a House Ethics Committee investigation regarding allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use. However, his resignation has effectively ended that probe (AP)

Fox News also reported the committee was set to meet Friday, which typically indicates theyre set to release investigative reports. Johnson told the outlet he doesnt know if the committee will release the report despite Gaetzs resignation.

The Speaker of the House is not involved in that, cant be involved in that, he said. So, Im not really the person to answer that question.

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Back in June, the Ethics committee said it was investigating allegations that Gaetz 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.

Meanwhile, the president-elect praised Gaetz in a statement on Wednesday.

On the House Judiciary Committee, which performs oversight of DOJ, Matt played a key role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and exposing alarming and systemic Government Corruption and Weaponization, Trump said.

The former lawmaker was first elected in 2016. He attended William & Mary Law School and is married to Ginger Gaetz, sister of technology entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, founder of the companies Oculus and Anduril, who has funded Republican political causes.

Tom Rust, Chief Counsel and Staff Director for the House Ethics Committee, declined to comment. The Independent has contacted Gaetz for comment.
Matt Gaetzs sex trafficking allegations arent going awaybut Republicans and those close to the embattled Florida man are doing everything they can to bury them.

Rolling Stone reports that a close friend of the Florida representative asked a court to destroy records that detail the drug-fueled sex party that a trafficked 17-year-old and Gaetz allegedly attended in 2017. Christopher Dorworth, a friend of Gaetz caught up in the probe, filed two motions to have these details stricken from the judicial record, and Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

The 17-year-old victim in the case has said that Gaetz attended the 2017 party. Another friend of Gaetzs, former Florida tax collector Joel Greenberg, has already admitted to having sex with the victim when she was 17, even writing a confession stating that Gaetz paid him to bring women in for sex and that (at least) one of them was under 18. Other court documents have also placed Gaetz at the party based on testimony from his ex-girlfriend, NOTUS reported. Greenberg pleaded guilty to six federal charges: sex trafficking of a child, production of a false identification document, aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, stalking, and conspiracy, in 2021. He is currently in prison.

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Dorworths request comes after Gaetz was tapped by Trump to lead the Department of Justice in his new administration. The potential attorney general has been a hard-core Trump loyalist who has drawn the ire of his fellow Republicans, who referred to him as a childish, disgraceful, and vile person after his ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy just over a year ago. Then-Representative Markwayne Mullin, now a senator, candidly told CNN last year that Gaetz bragged about having sex with young women to other members on the floor of the House of Representatives.

We had all seen videos  of the girls that he had slept with, Mullin said. Hed crush [erectile dysfunction] medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night. Mullin, now a Senator, has done a total 180 on this, saying on Wednesday that he completely trusts Trumps decision to nominate Gaetz.

It remains to be seen if these allegations will derail Gaetzs confirmation process. But one of the judges on the case, Daniel Irick, thinks it should.

This is a case of public importance, Irick said in August, according to NOTUS. It is one that there may be media interest in, and its one that involves important issues. Im not seeing any confidentialities that would really overwhelm the First Amendment right for the public to see this case, especially when a plaintiff brings claims in relation to their marriage and spouses and the kind of intimate issues in this case which are laid out in extreme detail in the  complaint. I am unlikely to seal anything because it all seems relevant.

As attorney general, Gaetz will be fully empowered to carry out Trumpsand his ownincindiary mandate, litigating culture wars and carrying out personal vendettas. Republican Senator Thom Tillis put it aptly: Im sure itll make for a popcorn-eating confirmation.
By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijani House in Prague has hosted a poetry evening, which took place against the backdrop of paintings by national artists living in this city.

At the beginning of her speech, Shahrun Suleymanova expressed her gratitude to the State Committee for Work with Diaspora of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani Embassy in the Czech Republic and Natavan Society.

The poetry evening consisted of three parts. In the first part, the poet recited poems dedicated to Victory Day, martyrs and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, President Ilham Aliyev. Then, video clips were shown to the guests.

"The initiative of the Natavan Society - the clip "Urayim Shusha" with music by Anar Ibrahimov (Germany) and lyrics by Leyla Begim (Czech Republic), beautifully realized by the Baku Media Center, was released on November 7 and became a harbinger of victory for the Azerbaijani people, and I am proud that I was the author of the translation of this song into Azerbaijani, beautifully performed by Sevda Alakbarzadeh," the poetess said.

Then, the members of the Azerbaijani diaspora were delighted with the song "My Garabagh" performed by Sevinj Javadova, lyrics by Shahrun Suleymanova and music by Givi Usenashvili.

In the second part of the evening, poetess, a member of the Azerbaijan Writers' Union Shahrun Suleymanova recited translated poems of both classics and modern poets, including Konstantin Simonov, Robert Rozhdestvensky, A.S. Pushkin, Leyla Aliyeva, Leyla Begim, Murad Hasanov (Germany), Naila Nadir and Narmina Mammadzadeh.

Shahrun Suleymanova especially noted Leyla Begim's participation in the translation of the play "Immolatio":

This play draws very interesting parallels between the ideas and destinies of two peers, sons of the Azerbaijani and Czech peoples, Imadeddin Nasimi and Jan Hus.

The evening's participants also watched an excerpt from this production, staged by People's Artist of Azerbaijan Vagif Asadov, at the Maqsud Ibrahimbayov Creativity Center in Baku.

The third part of the evening was dedicated to Shahrun Suleymanova's personal works, including the poem "To My City," which she wrote during the pandemic.

The poetess noted that she was very happy to see thousands of guests in Baku, participants of the leaders' summit of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29).
Matt Gaetz, who Donald Trump just picked to be his Attorney General, has already resigned from Congress, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said late Wednesday.

I think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter immediately to accommodate us a little bit, he told members of the press. That caught us by surprise a little bit. But I asked him what the reasoning was and he said, Well, you cant have too many absences,' referring to Florida state law that dictates that a vacant political office must be filled within eight weeks.

The Speaker continued, If we start the clock now, if you do the math, we may be able to fill that seat as early as Jan. 3, when we take the new oath of office for the new Congress. So Matt would have done us a great service by making that decision, as he did on the fly, and so were grateful for that.

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Johnson further shared that both he and Gaetz are good friends after serving together for seven years on the Judiciary Committee.

Everyone who served with him will tell you hes one of the most intelligent members of Congress, he continued, noting that Gaetz is very concerned with what has been occurring in the Department of Justice and the Biden administration, and the fact that the American people have lost their faith in our institutions of justice.

Mike Johnson says Matt Gaetz has already resigned from Congress pic.twitter.com/gkXOFTQ44S  Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 14, 2024

Johnson described the now-former Florida congressman as a reformer in his mind and heart who will bring a lot to the table.

He went on to quip, President Trump is poaching all of our talent, yes, but we have an embarrassment of riches here. The Republican Conference is full of talented people who are extraordinary leaders and have great expertise. And everyone in this Congress, in this conference, could serve in a leadership position in the administration.

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So far, Trumps picks for his second-term Cabinet include Stephen Miller as Deputy Chief of Staff, Kristi Noem as Head of Homeland Security, Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence and Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, to name a few.

Additionally, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been named as co-leads of the still-to-come Department of Government Efficiency.

The post Matt Gaetz Resigns From Congress Effective Immediately, Catching Speaker Mike Johnson By Surprise | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trumps pick to run the Justice Department, has previously been investigated over allegations of sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl  a federal probe that ultimately did not yield criminal charges.

Gaetz  a House member from Florida who has been one of Trumps most loyal foot soldiers on Capitol Hill  has long denied the allegations and was told Feb. 15, 2023, that the Justice Department was ending its investigation without charging him.

We have just spoken with the DOJ and have been informed that they have concluded their investigation into Congressman Gaetz and allegations related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice and they have determined not to bring any charges against him, Gaetzs attorneys said then.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 16.

Before he resigned from Congress after he became Trumps choice for attorney general Wednesday, Gaetz remained under investigation by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, which is looking into whether he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

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NBC News reported in 2021 that federal investigators were looking into Gaetzs travel to the Bahamas with women and specifically whether those women were paid to travel for sex, which could violate federal law, a law enforcement official and another person familiar with the matter said.

At the time of the reporting, a Gaetz spokesperson said: Rep. Gaetz has never paid for sex, nor has he had sex with an underage girl. What began with blaring headlines about sex trafficking has now turned into a general fishing exercise about vacations and consensual relationships with adults.

Law enforcement sources have said the investigation originated from an inquiry into Joel Micah Greenberg, a onetime friend of Gaetzs and former tax commissioner in Seminole County, Florida. Greenberg pleaded guilty in May 2021 to several crimes, including the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl.

Federal prosecutors in the summer of 2021 were also investigating whether Gaetz might have obstructed justice during a phone call with a witness in a potential sex crimes probe, a law enforcement source said.

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The obstruction probe, which stemmed from an inquiry about whether Gaetz had an improper relationship with a minor, was first reported by Politico, which cited two sources familiar with the case.

A spokesperson for Gaetz, who has not been charged with any crime in that investigation and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, scoffed at the time of the news of the obstruction inquiry.

Congressman Gaetz pursues justice, he doesnt obstruct it, the spokesperson said in a written statement.

After two months, there is still not a single on-record accusation of misconduct, and now the story is changing yet again.

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Also in the summer of 2021, the FBI investigated and the Justice Department secured the guilty plea of a man involved in a plot to shake down Gaetzs father, Don Gaetz, for $25 million.

Stephen Alford, 62, of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, said he could help the Matt Gaetz secure a presidential pardon, authorities said.

Alford said he could help free former FBI agent Robert Levinson from Iran for $25 million from Don Gaetz and in exchange secure Matt Gaetzs pardon from the Biden administration, claiming he had access to President Joe Biden.

Matt Gaetz has said the allegations stemmed from the extortion plot.

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Gaetz told the House Ethics Committee in September that he is finished cooperating with the panel, which he said asked him for a list of adult sexual partners over the last seven years.

In a letter to the committee and later to reporters, Gaetz blasted the investigation as not the business of Congress.

Theyre just nosy is what they are, and its none of their business, Gaetz told NBC News at the end of September.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Matt Gaetz has withdrawn himself from consideration for the role of Donald Trumps attorney general.

The former Florida congressman announced he was ending his bid to head up the Justice Department on Thursday, saying he had become a distraction to the future Trump-Vance administration.

His withdrawal comes following a week of intense scrutiny over resurfaced allegations of wrongdoing, including a federal sex trafficking probe  that ended without charges  and a House ethics inquiry. He vehemently denies the allegations.

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I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback - and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition, Gaetz posted on X about his decision to drop out.

There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus Ill be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trumps DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1.

He added: I remain fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful President in history. I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and Im certain he will Save America.

Matt Gaetz has withdrawn as Trumps attorney general pick (AFP via Getty Images)

Trump said in a statement on Truth Social that he greatly appreciate[d] Gaetzs efforts in seeking approval for attorney general. He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect, Trump said.

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When he was nominated on November 13, it sent shockwaves through Congress, where the Senate would have voted on Gaetzs confirmation. Senator Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, told The Independent the announcement sounded like a headline in The Onion, while Republican Senator Thom Tillis told reporters: Im sure itll make for a popcorn-eating confirmation.

In a statement at the time, the president-elect had praised Gaetz, 42, who has frequently defended Trump and criticized the various criminal and congressional probes against the Republican.

On the House Judiciary Committee, which performs oversight of DOJ, Matt played a key role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and exposing alarming and systemic Government Corruption and Weaponization, Trump wrote, calling Gaetz a Champion for the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

Heres what you need to know about Gaetz, who was once dubbed the Trumpiest Congressman in Washington:

Who is Matt Gaetz?

Gaetz, an attorney by trade, was elected to Congress in 2016 to represent Floridas first district, after previously serving in the Florida House. Gaetz is the son of prominent Florida politician Don Gaetz.

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Gaetz resigned from Congress on November 13 as soon as Trump made his attorney general announcement.

Matt Gaetz attended William & Mary Law School and is married to Ginger Gaetz, sister of technology entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, founder of the companies Oculus and Anduril, who has funded Republican political causes.

Also within the family is Nestor Galban, Gaetzs ex-girlfriends brother, whom he has raised as a son.

Why was Matt Gaetz investigated?

Gaetz became part of a DOJ federal sex trafficking investigation which was opened in the final months of Trumps administration, targeting a former associate, Joel Greenberg. The pair were part of a group of Florida Republicans described in news reports as attending parties where participants used drugs and paid women for sex.

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Among the allegations against Gaetz was that he had paid for sex with a 17-year-old girl  an allegation he has vehemently denied.

In 2021, Greenberg pleaded guilty to federal crimes including sex trafficking of a minor, identity theft, stalking, wire fraud, and conspiracy to bribe a public official, and received an 11-year sentence.

In 2023, the Department of Justice declined to seek charges against the former congressman.

Gaetz was also the subject of a House ethics inquiry, which featured interviews with witnesses from the federal probe, who alleged they attended the parties where Gaetz was with women who were paid by Greenberg.

The federal government did not bring charges against Gaetz in a sex trafficking investigation in Florida (Getty Images)

The House Ethics Committee was set to release the findings of its years-long probe last week, two days after Gaetzs attorney general nod. His resignation killed the investigation as he no longer fell under the committees jurisdiction.

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The committee has been facing calls for the last week, including from several Republicans, to still make its report public. In a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, the committee members voted along party lines  leaving them deadlocked as to what to do with the report. It has still not been publicly shared.

Despite no criminal charges and the ethics committee findings remaining under lock-and-key, in the days following Gaetzs nomination, new details about the allegations against him came to light.

Joel Leppard, a lawyer representing two women who testified in the summer in front of the House Ethics Committee, shared new details about the damning evidence his clients gave.

The attorney said their testimony included claims that one of the women saw Gaetz have sex with the 17-year-old girl, which he vehemently denies.

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My client testified to the House Ethics Committee that she witnessed Matt Gaetz having sex with a minor, Leppard told ABC, urging the committee to release the report.

Leppard also told the network that the women testified that Gaetz paid them to cross state lines in January 2018 and have sex with him on at least two occasions.

Matt Gaetz has withdrawn in the running to be Trumps attorney general (AFP via Getty Images)

A bombshell document from the Justice Department investigation was also leaked, alleging there was a web of payments between the former congressman and friends and associates said to have been with him at drug-fueled sex parties.

The meticulously detailed diagram, obtained by the New York Times, was assembled by federal investigators during the sex-trafficking investigation into Gaetz.

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It charts how Gaetz and associates, including convicted sex trafficker Greenberg, allegedly sent thousands of dollars via Venmo to dozens of people who were reportedly involved in the sex parties between 2017 and 2020, according to testimony to federal and congressional investigators, the Times reported.

Prior to his withdrawal, Trumps communications director, Steven Cheung, said: This purposeful leaking of classified investigative materials is the sort of politicized D.O.J. weaponization that Matt Gaetz will end.

The Justice Department investigated Gaetz for years, failed to find a crime and are now leaking material with false information to smear the next attorney general.

Separately, former Trump administration aide Cassidy Hutchinson claimed in a memoir Gaetz groped her on two occasions and tried to make a pass at her at Camp David.

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Gaetz has also denied those allegations but claimed the pair had once dated, which Hutchinson denies.

Following a week of intense scrutiny, and new details from the previous investigations into his conduct, Gaetz announced he was withdrawing from consideration for attorny general.

What did Matt Gaetz do in Congress?

During his time as Florida congressman, Gaetz was one of the most bombastic voices in Congress, tearing into Biden administration officials and fellow Republicans with equal ferocity.

In 2019, Gaetz helped lead a group of Republicans in the highly unusual move of storming a closed-door hearing during one of Trumps impeachments.

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During committee hearings, Gaetz often slammed witnesses, including an April 2022 hearing in which he berated Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin over allegations the military has gone too woke.

Matt Gaetz helped push out Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker (Getty Images)

Hes also turned his fire on his own party and was one of the key voices that secured the eventual 2023 ouster of Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

In the House, Gaetz was a frequent critic of the probes into the Trump campaigns ties with Russia, which the Florida rep refers to as the Russia Hoax.

What would Matt Gaetz have done as attorney general?

Despite Trumps claims that Gaetz would have ushered in a new apolitical era at the DOJ, the MAGA loyalist has frequently criticized prosecutors investigating Trump and suggested they face further scrutiny.

Hes called for Fani Wallis, a Georgia official prosecuting Donald Trump for his attempts to overturn the states 2020 election results, to resign and be investigated, after the revelation she had a relationship with a member of her legal team.

In Congress, Gaetz launched a bill to defund the investigation of Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecution of Donald Trump on charges he conspired to overthrow the election results. Trump has said hell fire Smith within two seconds of taking office.

Gaetz also suggesteded he could have gone after Joe Bidens son Hunter, who is currently awaiting sentencing on federal gun and tax charges.

The MAGA Republican has been a vocal critic of prosecutions against Trump, including by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (AP)

We could send criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, we go take the White House back, and you never know...it may be an Attorney General Matt Gaetz down the road or someone of my liking who will be there to actually enforce the law and provide the accountability, Gaetz said in a 2023 interview.

What did Matt Gaetz say about January 6 and the 2020 election results?

Gaetz has supported multiple baseless claims about the 2020 election and the January 6 Capitol riot.

The Florida Republican was among those who voted to challenge the certification of the election results, and has said he remains proud of the legitimate arguments about election integrity he and his colleagues made in early 2021, as Trump attempted to remain in power in spite of losing the presidential race.

Gaetz maintained even two years later that Trump won the 2020 election, despite such claims repeatedly being shot down in court.

Gaetz has also leaned into unfounded conspiracy theories about January 6 itself, including claims that there was no insurrection and that federal agents provoked the chaos that occurred at the Capitol.

The MAGA ally reportedly sought pre-emptive pardons from Donald Trump both for his post-2020 election actions and regarding the Florida sex trafficking case.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPMs Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Its Going To Get Worse Before It Gets Better

In seismic move Wednesday afternoon, Donald Trump announced the stunning decision to make the supremely unqualified, deeply compromised, and unfit Matt Gaetz his attorney general, placing in charge of the Justice Department a man who until last year was under criminal investigation for sex trafficking by the department he would lead.

I thought I had steeled myself for a series of horrific nominations that could not shock or surprise me. I was wrong.

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The unfortunately named Matt Gertz, a media watchdog who is frequently confused online with Matt Gaetz, captured the whirlwind of the previous 24 hours:Matt Gaetz pick is so crazy people have forgotten the Tulsi Gabbard pick which was so crazy people had forgotten about the Pete Hegseth pick. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

The selection of Gaetz, who is nearly universally loathed, including among Republicans, caused even the toadyish WSJ editorial board to blanch: Hes a performer and provocateur, and his view is that the more explosions he can cause, the more attention he can get.  Hes a nominee for those who want the law used for political revenge, and it wont end well.

Trumps pick of Gaetz presents the Senate GOP with a stark choice: either defy Trump or be humiliated into confirming the most atrocious pick for attorney general in the nations history.

Will Senate Republicans Roll Over?

The reaction to the Gaetz news among Senate Republicans was rich, but its not at all clear that they can muster the resolve to block the nomination of someone even as outrageously flawed as Gaetz. A sampling:

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Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a 50-year veteran of Congress, stood speechless for 30 seconds when reporters grilled him on whether the widely disliked Gaetz deserved to be confirmed.Punchbowl

I dont think hes a serious candidate, Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who also has broken with Mr. Trump frequently, said of Mr. Gaetz.NYT

On whether Gaetz can be confirmed: Thats what I am wondering, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.) told the WSJ: I need to think about that one.

Other GOP senators were much more circumspect about Gaetz. In the declaration by Sen. Susan Collins that she was shocked lay the seeds of so many previous capitulations.

One of Gaetzs detractors in the House was practically gleeful about the prospect of Gaetz going through a Senate confirmation vetting. Im surprised that Matt would do this to himself, Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) told the NYT. I want to go get a big bag of popcorn and pull up a front-row seat to that show.

The Reaction To Gaetz At DOJ

You wont be surprised by the internal dismay over the Gaetz pick at the Justice Department, which was already braced to be broken, undermined, and eroded by a Trump II presidency.

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NBC News has an excellent rundown of some of the reaction:

OMG

truly stunning

insane

What the f is happening?! asked a senior Justice Department official.

How many other prospective attorneys general had previous experience as the subject of a criminal investigation?

absolutely unbelievable

A quick civics reminder: The attorney general doesnt just oversee Main Justice and the 94 U.S. attorneys but also the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshalls, Bureau of Prisons, and host of other units and programs. Gaetz would be helming the bulk of federal law enforcement.

Gaetz Abruptly Resigns From Congress

Adding to the tumult of the afternoon, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) immediately resigned his seat, apparently to try to short circuit a House Ethics Committee report on his alleged misconduct that was expected to be released within days. The committee, which is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, doesnt have jurisdiction over non-members, but the consensus appears to be that it could still vote to release its completed report on Gaetz. That would take at least one Republican joining with committee Democrats.

Tulsi Gabbard As DNI?!?!

The U.S. intel community was separately reeling over Trumps pick of former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the Democrat-turned-Republican with a soft spot for conspiracy theories and Russia.

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A senior former intelligence official told Politico the choice was a left turn and off the bridge.

Among Gabbards many strange comments and moves over the years was that trip to Syria she took in 2017.

The brain worms are real with this one.

Dont Forget Pete Hegseth!

Before Wednesday afternoon, Pete Hegseth as defense secretary looked like the Trump pick most likely to run into Senate Republican headwinds. The Pentagon was stunned by the pick, too.

TPMs Hunter Walker took a dive into Hegseths writings while an undergraduate at Princeton, where he crusaded against the glorification of diversity and the homosexual lifestyle.

House Officially Remains In GOP Control

Enough House races were called to determine that the House majority will be narrow but remain in Republican hands.

Thune Elected New Senate Majority Leader

Senate Republicans elevated the current No. 2, Sen. John Thune (R-SD), to the lead spot.

Jack Smith Seeks To Pause MAL Appeal

Special Counsel Jack Smith has asked the 11th Circuit to pause his appeal of the dismissal of the Mar-a-Lago criminal case until Dec. 2 while the Justice Department figures out next steps in light of Trumps election. This follows Smiths similar move in the Jan. 6 case in DC and comes as Smith is expected to wind down the cases and step down as special counsel before Trumps inauguration.

House Chair Detained For Public Intoxication

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul was detained by police at Dulles International Airport earlier this month in an incident that he described as the result of a poor decision to mix Ambien and alcohol.Semafor

The Toll Of Floridas Book Ban In Public Schools

WaPo:

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Florida school districts axed about 700 books from school libraries in the 2023-2024 school year, according to a Florida Department of Education list.  Some of the removed titles that are works of classic literature, including A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, according to PEN Americas online tracker.

ICYMI

From over the weekend: A group of people carrying Nazi flags demonstrated outside a community theater performance of The Diary of Anne Frank in Livingston County, Michigan, in a display of antisemitism.CNN

Keeping An Eye On This 

The FBI raided the home and the seized the phone Wednesday of the founder and CEO of Polymarket, the election-betting site where a French national put down tens of millions of dollars on a Trump win. Its not clear what the FBI is investigating.

Happy Anniversary To TPM!

Josh Marshall started TPM on Nov. 13, 2000, during the Florida recount.

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
"I think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately," said House Speaker Mike Johnson of Gaetz

Leon Neal/Getty Matt Gaetz in Milwaukee on July 17, 2024 Matt Gaetz in Milwaukee on July 17, 2024

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz has resigned from Congress following his nomination for attorney general by President-elect Donald Trump, according to news sources.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced Gaetzs resignation on Wednesday, Nov. 13, according to The Hill, Fox News and Axios.

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"I think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately," Johnson said at a press conference, Fox News reports. "That caught us by surprise a little bit. But I asked him what the reasoning was, and he said, Well, you can't have too many absences. "

Johnson also added, per Fox News and Axios, that there's "about an eight-week period" to fill Gaetzs vacancy, according to state law, and he was in touch with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on the matter. "I've already placed a call to Gov. DeSantis in Florida and said, 'Let's start the clock' ... and we may be able to fill that seat as early as Jan. 3," he said, according to Axios.

The news comes amid a House Ethics Committees investigation into Gaetz, 42, relating to sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other allegations, which he has denied.

SMG/Shutterstock Donald Trump and Matt Gaetz in Sunrise, Florida, on Nov. 26, 2019 Donald Trump and Matt Gaetz in Sunrise, Florida, on Nov. 26, 2019

Related: Matt Gaetz, the House GOPs Token Troublemaker, Caught in Escalating Ethics Probe That Could Lead to Expulsion

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Sources told Axios that the committee was set to hold a meeting later this week on the probe, which is one of the final steps before its final report would have been released.

Another source told The New York Times that the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on whether to release the report at that meeting and that, if approved, the report would have been published on Friday, Nov. 15.

However, due to the Florida congressmans resignation, the House Ethics Committee no longer has jurisdiction to continue its investigation, and it's unclear whether the report will eventually be released, Axios and The New York Times reported.

Gaetz was also recently investigated by the Department of Justice  which Trump, 78, tapped him to lead  in a sex-trafficking probe, though investigators declined to bring charges last year.

ERIK S LESSER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Matt Gaetz in Atlanta on Nov. 4, 2024 Matt Gaetz in Atlanta on Nov. 4, 2024

Related: Justice Department Will Not Charge Rep. Matt Gaetz in Sex Trafficking Probe: Report

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Gaetz, who has been at the center of House GOP infighting, is one of Trump's most vocal allies in Congress.

He has repeatedly claimed that the DOJ and FBI are corrupt under President Joe Biden while simultaneously endorsing Trump's rhetoric to seek retribution against his enemies using the same government bodies.

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.

Though Trump has nominated Gaetz, his nomination would still need to be voted on by the Senate, which currently is controlled by Republicans in a 53-47 split. While Republicans have the majority, it is not guaranteed that Trump's nomination will be approved.

If his nomination is approved by the Senate, Gaetz would be one of the least qualified attorney generals in history. He earned his Juris Doctor from William & Mary Law School in 2007 and briefly worked at a law firm before transitioning to politics in 2010.
President-elect Donald Trump has picked Matt Gaetz to be his next attorney general.

News of Gaetz's nomination shocked Washington.

Gaetz has a long history of making controversial comments and has long been a magnet for controversy.

President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of the controversial former Rep. Matt Gaetz to be the next attorney general shocked Washington.

In just under seven years in Washington, Gaetz has led the historic ouster of a House speaker and has been the subject of a Justice Department investigation into whether he sex-trafficked a 17-year-old girl. He has also been the subject of multiple House Ethics Committee inquiries.

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It remains an open question whether Gaetz will get confirmed as attorney general. If he does, the Floridian's past calls to abolish the Justice Department  which includes the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives  will be put to the test.

Here are some of the most controversial moments of Gaetz's career so far:

He invited a Holocaust denier to the State of the Union

One of Gaetz's first major moments was the fracas over his 2018 invitation to the renowned internet troll Charles C. Johnson to attend Trump's first State of the Union address. Gaetz told The Daily Beast he invited Johnson simply because he "showed up at my office." Gaetz later defended Johnson, who has said he never "believed" 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, telling Fox Business that his guest was "not a Holocaust denier; he's not a white supremacist."

A warning to Michael Cohen sets off a frenzy

Michael Cohen, then-President Trump's former fixer, was just a day away from testifying before the powerful House Oversight Committee when Gaetz launched a broadside at him.

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"Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat," Gaetz wrote on Twitter in February 2019. "I wonder if she'll remain faithful when you're in prison. She's about to learn a lot."

House Democrats were outraged. Gaetz deleted his tweet and later offered a rare apology.

"While it is important 2 create context around the testimony of liars like Michael Cohen, it was NOT my intent to threaten, as some believe I did," Gaetz wrote on Twitter, quoting then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's implicit rebuke of him. "I'm deleting the tweet & I should have chosen words that better showed my intent. I'm sorry."

Democrats urged the House Ethics Committee to investigate the matter. The panel later cleared Gaetz of wrongdoing but admonished him for not reflecting "creditably upon the House of Representatives." The Florida Bar, which conducted its own investigation of the matter, also cleared Gaetz, though it also criticized his action.

Gaetz's 'wingman' was charged with sex crimes. He nearly brought down the congressman, too.

During the final months of the Trump administration, the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old and whether he had paid for her travel in violation of laws against sex trafficking.

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Gaetz's conduct came to light during a separate investigation of Joel Greenberg, a local Florida official whom the congressman once described as his "wingman." Greenberg was eventually sentenced to 11 years in prison.

The news unleashed a frenzy. Reporters dove into Gaetz's Venmo payments to Greenberg. Business Insider and other publications reported on Gaetz's conduct in the Florida House, including an allegation of a "Harry Potter"-themed sex competition. Gaetz's own colleagues told reporters that the congressman boasted about the women he slept with and would show off their nude photos to them.

Gaetz repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. In February 2023, Gaetz's attorneys said in a statement that the Justice Department would not charge him. The Washington Post had previously reported that prosecutors were uncertain they would get a conviction to stick based on credibility issues with key witnesses.

He nearly got into a brawl on the House floor

Then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was widely presumed to be the next House speaker when Republicans retook the chamber in the 2022 midterm elections. Gaetz and a handful of other lawmakers had other plans. Things reached a boiling point in January 2023 after the 14th failed vote. Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the chair of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, had to be restrained after he lunged at Gaetz, whose opposition to McCarthy continued to prevent him from obtaining the speaker's gavel.

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McCarthy won on the next ballot. Rogers later apologized for his actions.

Gaetz's beef with McCarthy continues

McCarthy became speaker, but Gaetz and other conservatives held a procedural sword over his head. One single member could start the process of ousting the speaker of the House. In October 2023, Gaetz filed a motion to vacate. With the help of seven other House Republicans and House Democrats, McCarthy was booted from power.

Gaetz said he led the charge to oust McCarthy over policy differences. McCarthy has never wavered from his conviction that his historic removal was rooted in revenge.

"I'll give you the truth why I'm not speaker," McCarthy said in April. "Because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old, an ethics complaint that started before I ever became speaker. And that's illegal, and I'm not going to get in the middle of it."

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McCarthy has also said Gaetz belongs in jail.

McCarthy and Gaetz remain at loggerheads. During the 2024 Republican National Convention, Gaetz had to be shooed away after he disrupted McCarthy while the former speaker conducted a TV interview.

"What night are you speaking?" Gaetz said. "Are you speaking tonight?"

After Gaetz's attorney-general nomination was announced, McCarthy predicted his foe would not get confirmed.

House Ethics Committee probes Gaetz

The House Ethics Committee opened its investigation into Gaetz in 2021. The secretive panel paused its investigation while the Justice Department charges lingered, but in May 2023, it dived back in.

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The committee, which rarely makes public statements, went so far as to say it was investigating whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct, illegal drug use, accepted improper gifts, or obstructed investigations. Gaetz has denied all the allegations.

The New York Times said lawmakers were prepared to vote on Friday to release their damning findings into Gaetz's conduct. Before they could do so, the Florida Republican abruptly resigned. Trump had just tapped him to be the next attorney general.

Read the original article on Business Insider
CHICAGO  The citys 50 alders on Thursday sent Mayor Brandon Johnson a strong message, unanimously rejecting a $300 million property tax hike he unveiled in his $17.3 billion city budget proposal last month.

The vote during a special meeting of the City Council was taken without any debate and came two days after Johnson publicly backed away from the plan amid strong initial pushback, calling it just the start of a collaborative endeavor.

This is a healthy process. This is something that my administration can handle. Im not intimidated by voices from individuals who are city leaders in their own respect, Johnson said at a press event after the vote. This is a good thing for Chicago. Its a new process. People will learn to adjust to it as we continue to move forward.

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Johnson had said the hike in the tax levy was necessary to avoid laying off city workers like police officers and firefighters as Chicago faces a nearly $1 billion budget gap.

The proposal received significant resistance from City Council members who feel there are other ways to generate revenue for the city aside from a property tax increase. Johnson needs 26 City Council votes to get a majority to pass his budget, but just last week, 29 alders  more than half the 50-member Council  signed a letter calling for the special meeting.

Prior to heading to City Hall for Thursdays special meeting, Johnson was in West Garfield Park on the citys West Side to break ground and celebrate the expansion of the Malcolm X College West Campus, one of Chicagos seven city colleges.

Johnson was asked by WGN about the resistance to his budget proposal. He answered by sharing the reasons for why he brought forth the proposal in the first place, among those to fund his administrations initiatives and to prevent the city from having to do any layoffs.

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Whats in this budget is increasing opportunities for youth employment and workforce development, the mayor said Thursday. Whats in this budget are investments for mental health and behavioral health care services. Whats also in this budget are critical investments for community safety. Whats also in this budget are critical investments for housing, as well as building more affordable homes.

With the tax hike killed, Johnson will have to begin the process of figuring out other ways to fund his budget. The mayor has said without the property tax hike, layoffs and furloughs would be unavoidable, but he says hes willing to come to the table to make something work.

As a public school teacher, sometimes we do things to get peoples attention, Johnson said previously. And so now that we have the attention of everyone, Ive said from the very beginning, this is a proposal.

Johnson says other options to generate revenue for the city include raising the garbage collecting fee and the amusement tax, and increasing taxes on cigarettes, parking and liquor. Also on the table is using federal COVID-19 relief funds.

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The City Council has until the end of the year to approve a budget for 2025.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Nov. 13Mayor John Josendale will host the city's annual Mayors' Thanksgiving Dinner Wednesday night.

The event was at Civic Arena, where hundreds attended.

The dinner will benefit the Second Harvest Community Food Bank and comes just before the food bank's annual Turkey Day registration on Thursday, Nov 14.

"Second Harvest, as everybody knows, raises money and gives food and makes sure people have things to eat, so no one goes hungry," said Josendale. "This is a way to say, 'Thank you' to a lot of the people who make it all happen."

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Josendale said the dinner has been a tradition for many mayor's in St. Joseph.

"I'm like the fourth or fifth mayor that I know that has done this," said Josendale. "I know it goes back at least as far as Glenda Kelly, so there have been a number of mayors that have done this."

Numerous members of the community attended to celebrate Second Harvest and all of the work they provide for the community.
(Bloomberg) -- Unofficial results for the US Senate seat in Pennsylvania have triggered a legally required statewide recount of the race, which the Associated Press last week called for Republican David McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO.

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Commonwealth Secretary Al Schmidt announced the recount late Wednesday as incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Casey declined to concede, arguing that tens of thousands of ballots havent been counted, including many from Philadelphia. McCormicks campaign contended that Casey cant win.

Pennsylvania law requires a recount if the margin is 0.5% or less. McCormick has won 48.9% of the vote, while Casey has 48.5%. Just over 80,000 provisional and mail-in ballots havent yet been counted. The outcome of the recount would affect the size of the GOPs majority in the next Senate.

McCormicks lead strategist Mark Harris told reporters on a conference call Thursday that the former head of hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates is ahead by more than 26,000 votes. The team said there were not enough valid ballots remaining to change the outcome.

Its very clear there is no path for Senator Casey, Harris said.

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But Caseys team dismissed his rivals projections.

While McCormick and his allies are working to disenfranchise voters in Pennsylvania and spread misinformation, we are working to ensure that Pennsylvanians voices are heard, Caseys campaign manager Tiernan Donohue said in a statement.

The states 67 counties must begin the recount by Nov. 20 and submit results by Nov. 27.

McCormick was in Washington on Wednesday for the freshmen senators orientation. His spokeswoman Elizabeth Gregory said a recount will be a waste of time and taxpayer money.

--With assistance from Mike Dorning.

(Updates with fresh comments from McCormick and Casey campaigns from fourth paragraph)

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BRANDON, Miss. (WJTV)  Officials with the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) announced safety enhancements will be made at an intersection in Brandon.

This comes after Greyson Huff, 18, was killed during a crash on September 13 at the intersection of Highway 18 at Sunset Drive.

MDOT crews are implementing new safety improvements, including the installation of rumble strips, a flashing stop sign, and flashing intersection warning signs.

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Mississippi Transportation Commission Chairman Willie Simmons recently joined Brandon Mayor Butch Lee to meet with community members to listen to concerns about the intersection. Following a review of traffic data and accident history at the intersection, state traffic engineers determined the improvements.

Brandon residents want traffic light installed after fatal crash at intersection

Our engineers and safety personnel have conducted another study and carefully analyzed the data. Based on current data coupled with federal and state regulations, a traffic signal is not warranted at this intersection, said Simmons. However, we have concluded that there are some safety measures that we are installing to enhance safety at this intersection.

According to MDOTs Highway Safety Division, traffic signals are not always the safest countermeasure. Traffic signals are necessary to assign right of way at high volume intersections from an efficiency standpoint. From 2019-2023, officials said 149 of the top 150 intersection crash locations occurred at signalized intersections. They also said 1% of all intersections statewide are signalized, and from 2019 to 2023, 31% of all fatal and suspected serious injury intersection-related crashes occurred at signals.

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In looking at traffic data, traffic signals can make an intersection more dangerous, which is the last thing we want to do, said MDOT Executive Director Brad White. We are in the business of improving safety. These enhancements are designed to improve visibility, reduce traffic speeds, and create a safer intersection.

According to MDOT, rumble strips are being installed on the approaches to the intersection to alert drivers of the upcoming stop sign. A new flashing LED stop sign is replacing the existing standard stop sign. Crews are also installing a flashing intersection warning sign on Highway 18 to alert drivers approaching the intersection to use caution.

Drivers can expect to see these enhancements completed next week.

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Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden apologized on Thursday after a recording of him using racially charged language surfaced this month.

McFadden sent a video with his apology on Thursday. Channel 9 reported when a MCSO chief deputy resigned and accused McFadden of using racial slurs.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Mecklenburg County sheriff accused of using racial slurs

The sheriff has come under fire since recordings were made public in which he appears to be heard using racially charged language putting down his staff. Channel 9 got a copy of the recording.

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I know I cant trust that captain, McFadden appeared to have said in the audio recording. That white (racial slur) captain is better than the seven other captains upstairs.

On Thursday, McFadden acknowledged the recording, and said it didnt matter who recorded it or when it was recorded.

Today, I want to apologize for that language, McFadden said. Held to a higher standard, thats the office of the sheriff, but you must understand I am a human, and I am not perfect, and I will make mistakes.

After Channel 9s first report, more employees came forward to share their experiences.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Another former employee comes forward with accusations about Sheriff McFadden

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McFadden said others can speak freely and openly, but he is bound by law and not allowed to speak openly and freely about the language.

McFadden said in his apology video, I want you to be patient with me because I still have to run one of the largest sheriffs offices/detention centers in North Carolina. So be patient but understand this, I am committed to the work of the office of the sheriff.

The North Carolina Sheriffs Association blasted McFadden last week, and McFadden appeared in Raleigh for a meeting with the Executive Committee on Thursday. Channel 9s Glenn Counts was there and asked McFadden about the staff turnover and any concerns that its affecting his departments reputation.

Are you concerned that may be giving the impression that your department is in chaos? Counts asked.

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No its not, it dont give that impression. I think if someone sits down and not soundbite it, sit down and have a conversation with us about all the things, I think they will find out a lot about the agency, but please dont have that impression, McFadden said.

The association doesnt have any kind of supervisory role over McFaddens office, so they cant fire him. Ultimately, that would be up to voters.

The NC Sheriffs Association issued the following statement after meeting with McFadden: The Executive Committee of the North Carolina Sheriffs Association met on November 14th with Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden to discuss racially charged comments recently reported in the media that were attributed to Sheriff McFadden. In that meeting the Executive Committee expressed their displeasure with those comments and made it clear that those comments do not represent the views of the sheriffs of North Carolina nor of the North Carolina Sheriffs Association. Sheriff McFadden, both in the meeting and publicly, has apologized for those comments and the Executive Committee on behalf of the Association acknowledges his apology.

(Video shows motorcycle rider shouting racial slurs at driver in Gastonia)
Megyn Kelly isnt bothered by Donald Trumps seemingly haphazard cabinet picks. Its fun to watch Trump name these names to the cabinet, she told hedge fund manager Bill Ackman Wednesday. I think its just so innovative to go completely Trumpian, just keep people on their heels.

Theres also absolutely nothing wrong with Trump choosing those who have been loyal to him  even if that term keeps getting bandied about as though its a bad thing.

Ackman agreed. Actually, I think its I call it the Dream Team. Im really super impressed. We have Elon Musk. We have a good friend of mine, Vivek Ramaswamy, whos incredibly talented. Id love all these. Ive actually been super impressed with all the picks so far.

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Kelly also called out the New York Times for expressing concern about Elons elevation to the right hand man of the sitting President-elect. She continued, They dont seem happy. I feel like you should look at somebody like Elon whos willing to serve in any capacity for our government, and just say thank you. But they are concerned.

Again, Ackman agreed with Kellys assessment of Musk and built upon it. I think hes a great American. I think hes a great global citizen. You know, if you have to think of a guy whos made more consequential impact on society, he said of Musk. Hes, I would say, the most important figure of our time in the non-political sphere, and now we have the benefit of all of his talents working alongside the president.

The pair also discussed Musk and Ramaswamys newly proposed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Ackman likened the creation of the department to a company opting to bring in great new management and have them fix the business. He pointed to Musks history with X, formerly Twitter, as an example of how he will approach reshaping the efficiency of the United States.

X was a quasi governmental agency in the way it operated in San Francisco, and he stepped in, he took out 80, 90% of the employees, and its become a much more effective platform software development, Ackman said. The various features functionality have been able to happen much more quickly under new leadership, and I think thats what we have here.

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Musk has been widely criticized for his takeover of X. In a time when 54% of adults get at least some of their news from social media, Musk has been accused of providing an environment in which misinformation, racism, and misogyny run rampant, with little or no recourse for perpetrators.

After he assumed the helm of Twitter in October 2022 Musk swiftly fired over half of the companys employees, of which the majority were from the trust and safety and policy staff  the very people who were tasked with enforcing Twitters rules against the very problems that now plague X. The firings appeared to have a ripple effect; a month later Meta included several trust and safety employees when it fired 11,000 people, and Google fired 12,000 people in early 2023.

Musk also took up the banner of free speech on X and allowed hate speech and similar disturbing content to proliferate on the platform. In August he sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate for publishing research that was unfavorable toward the social media platform; a judge tossed out the lawsuit in March of this year.

You can watch the interview between Megyn Kelly and Bill Ackman in the video above.

The post Megyn Kelly Sees Nothing Wrong With Trump Filling 2nd Term With Anti-Establishment Loyalists: Its Innovative | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
First lady Jill Biden called her predecessor-turned-soon-to-be successor Melania Trump after the attempt on President-elect Donald Trumps life this summer.

In an interview with Paris Match magazine, Melania Trump said Biden took the initiative to contact me directly but added: I do question, however, whether Jills concern was genuine as a few days prior she referred to my husband as evil and a liar.

Melania Trump blamed negative comments about her husband from Democratic leaders and the media for the assassination attempt. She also asked if the concept of respect has become antiquated and slammed Democrats harsh words, conveniently forgetting the divisive rhetoric her husband has spewed for years.

The interview took place in October and was published before Donald Trumps election victory over Democratic rival Kamala Harris. Melania Trumps comments garnered attention in the United States this week.

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While Donald Trump met with President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday, Melania Trump did not meet with Jill Biden. Reports on the reason for the snub range from lingering bitterness about the FBIs raid of Mar-a-Lago to a scheduling conflict. Jill Biden reportedly passed a handwritten note for Melania Trump to the president-elect.

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SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage)  On Monday, November 11th, at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, family members, military organizations and Vietnam veterans gathered to commemorate Veterans Day, honoring those who have served and continue to serve the country.

We need to remember those who fought in battle, and we also need to remember those who are serving and who have served before. Just because you served and didnt get killed doesnt mean you should be forgotten. We need to remember all of our veterans, those with sickness, PTSD and those with missing limbs. We need to support them, said David Schoff, a Vietnam War veteran.

Schoff emphasized the importance of recognizing the sacrifices of all veterans. The memorial stands as a tribute not only to Vietnam veterans but to all who have served.

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This was all done by Vietnam veterans, and we opened it all to veterans. We have pavers out here recognizing veterans from every war, from the Revolutionary War to today, Schoff added.

Among those honored at the memorial is WO3 Luis G. Holguin, a U.S. Army helicopter pilot who went missing in action on January 3, 1971, after his aircraft disappeared in South Vietnam. Holguins name, along with many others, serves as a reminder of the cost of war and the soldiers who remain unaccounted for. Holguin, who was declared missing in action during the Vietnam War, is remembered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. More details on his case can be found on the POW Network at https://www.pownetwork.org/bios/h/h131.htm.

Schoff also highlighted the importance of supporting veterans through initiatives such as the Permian Basin Honor Flight, which offers veterans the chance to visit memorials dedicated to their service.

Im on the board for the Permian Basin Honor Flight, where we take veterans who served between 1941 and 1975 on a free trip to Washington, D.C., to see all the memorials, Schoff said.

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With local support, Schoff is hopeful that the Honor Flight program can carry 100 veterans on each of its two planned trips this year.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ConchoValleyHomepage.com.
MEMPHIS, Tenn.  Two weeks before Thanksgiving, and yet another family and yet another case of SNAP benefits being stolen.

It recently happened to a Memphis mother of two who has a disabled child. Now, state lawmakers are considering to crackdown on criminals stealing and cloning EBT cards.

A Memphis mother who doesnt want to be on camera and only wants to identified as Amanda says her EBT card was recently stolen and cloned.

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When I called the 1-800 number theyre saying that 260 dollars was purchased in Chicago, Illinois and I was like how, when I stay here in Memphis and havent been to the store? And thats when they say theres a dark web where people are stealing and cloning EBT cards, Amanda said.

Woman robbed in front of grandkids at Hickory Hill Community Center

Amanda says her EBT card was wiped clean leaving her in tears and taking food off her table.

I actually cried. Im actually like sad, because we dont have any food and I was going to buy a little something to buy for Thanksgiving, she said.

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WREG has been tracking more and more people claiming their SNAP benefits were stolen.

Earlier this year, the Memphis Police Department told WREG investigators that during the first two months of 2024, its Economic Crimes Bureau handled 240 EBT-related cases.

Security experts say criminals install skimmers onto card machines or use phishing scams or bots to steal personal identification numbers.

Cash Saver investigating possible EBT card theft at stores

Sen. Brent Taylor of Memphis says we must outsmart criminals.

Were gonna have to use technology to stay ahead of the crooks, Taylor said. And so Im hoping that were able to do that because the last thing I want is some single mom raising several kids that we have given benefits to that cant access those benefits because of a damn crook.

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SNAP is a federally funded program administered by the Tennessee Department of Human Services.

State Rep. Jesse Chism of Memphis says some reforms should be considered by the state as long as they dont hurt those who need help.

We want to make sure that were not punishing the whole state based on what a few people may be doing, Chism said. We want to make sure that the majority of those people who are fighting tooth and nail to feed their families. We want to make sure that we continue to support those families.

If youre seeking help to replace SNAP benefits, you should contact the Tennessee Department of Human Services.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
EAU CLAIRE  Two men charged with sexually abusing children pleaded not guilty this week in Eau Claire county court.

Daniel Rodriguez, 40, Eau Claire and Christopher Rodriguez, 41, Phoenix, Ariz., were charged in June after a woman told police the two had abused her when she was brought to a home day care between the ages of 3-6. According to the criminal complaint she said Christopher Rodriguez abused her too many times to count, primarily by fondling her genitals.

That investigation led police to interview several other people as witnesses, and one said he was also a victim. He accused Daniel Rodriguez of sexually abusing him, and later doing so along with Christopher Rodriguez, a total of 13 or 14 times.

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Christopher faces three counts of repeated sexual assault of the same child, with the last charge including a party to a crime modifier.

Daniel is charged with repeated sexual assault of the same child as party to a crime.

Defense attorneys for the men asked for an extension of the deadline for filing motions as both parties are still waiting on discovery. The court agreed, setting a status conference for February 2025. Christopher Rodriguez may attend that hearing remotely.

The charges could result in lengthy sentences. As Class B felonies they are among the most serious in Wisconsin law. People convicted of a Class B felony can face up to 60 years in prison for each count.
BIXBY  For the past three months of school, Carter Storts found herself reaching for her cellphone only to come up empty.

Like all students in ninth grade and below at Bixby Public Schools, Carter isnt allowed to access her cellphone for the entire school day. Carter, a ninth grader, said it was hard at first to adjust, but now shes grateful for the rule.

It helps my ability to focus and be able to focus on one task, she said. Also outside of school, like when I go home and spend time with my parents, Im not on my phone as much because I dont feel the need. I can focus on just being present.

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Her peers at the Bixby Ninth Grade Center gave similar feedback during a school visit Wednesday from Gov. Kevin Stitt and his education secretary, Nellie Tayloe Sanders.

Stitt and Sanders visited students in Bixby and Jenks Public Schools to discuss their cellphone policies. Both districts recently tightened restrictions on mobile devices, as have other schools across the state.

Students say banning cellphones has been a 'good mind detox'

Stitt has encouraged more Oklahoma schools to find cost-neutral ways to limit student cellphone use.

I dont believe in the top-down approach from the government, and so I just put out an executive order to challenge our schools to say, Hey, should we be cellphone free? Is it going to help with mental health? Is it going to help with distractions? Do we give teachers a better classroom environment? Stitt said during a roundtable discussion with Bixby teachers.

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Sanders similarly expressed concern over whether cellphones generate more cyberbullying, addictive behaviors and mental health struggles for students. She and Stitt spent the school tours asking questions about the impact of a phone-free environment, especially whether students found it more liberating.

Bixby ninth grader Allison Freimuth said removing cellphones from her school has been a good mind detox. She said it cut down on drama, stress and distractions.

Teachers in the district said they enjoy the change, too. Students are more engaged in class and interact with each other during passing periods and lunch, they said.

More: Oklahoma lawmaker says momentum for limiting cellphones in schools is growing

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Last year, Bixby students were allowed access to their phones in between class periods, and it was hard to refocus them once they were at their desks, Bixby Middle School teacher Simon MacFarlane said. A full-day ban on cellphones has made all the difference, he said.

Theyre not even checking their phones, MacFarlane said during the roundtable discussion. They dont even think about it. Its night and day for us.

At Jenks High School, students are allowed to check their phone messages in between classes. Students said theyd like to keep it that way.

They said their cellphones help them stay in touch with their families, keep track of their schedules and coordinate carpools to extracurricular activities.

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Jenks senior Addison Dodder said her cellphone was especially crucial during her sophomore year when her mother had been admitted to an intensive care unit. Her father kept her updated on her mothers condition during the school day.

I feel like for that kind of stuff its important to be able to have access to our phones at certain points, not necessarily so we can check Instagram or see who snapped us (on Snapchat), but just to have that important contact with our parents, she said.

Jenks has long had rules on the books against classroom cellphone use, but enforcement had become lax in recent years, Superintendent Stacey Butterfield said. The district buckled down on its policies this year, hoping to eliminate distractions during class.

Interest in a statewide cellphone ban for schools growing

While other states have implemented blanket limitations on cellphones in schools, Butterfield said she appreciates the flexibility to tailor a policy unique to her district. But legislation on the issue would be welcome, she said.

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A statewide school cellphone restriction is gaining interest in the Oklahoma Legislature. Lawmakers hosted two interim studies in recent months to discuss methods to limit students exposure to digital media, particularly during school hours.

I think having some legislation could be helpful in just reinforcing what were trying to do for kids, building healthier kids, supporting healthier kids (and) fostering healthy growth in our kids, Butterfield said. I think at the same time, though, weve got to be careful that a one size does not fit all.

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 onFacebook andTwitter.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Cellphone bans in some Oklahoma school districts work, students say
MERCER COUNTY, WV (WVNS)  A Mercer County man was sentenced for a federal drug crime involving fentanyl and methamphetamine.

According to a press release, 29-year-old Matthew Alexander Wilson, of Bluefield, was sentenced on Tuesday, November 12, 2024 to 14 years in prison, followed by three years of parole, for possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Inmate sentenced for possessing weapon at FCI McDowell

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The press release stated that according to statements made in court, Wilson and Denise R. Allen were both arrested at a gun store in the Princeton area of Mercer County on August 16, 2023. Once in police custody, members of law enforcement searched the truck that Wilson and Allen used, which was rented with a stolen identity.

When law enforcement officers searched the truck, they discovered almost a pound of methamphetamine, 45 grams of fentanyl, and two handguns. Wilson and Allen acknowledged that the methamphetamine and fentanyl was in their possession and that they planned to distribute the drugs.

The press release stated that Allen used a stolen identity to buy guns for Wilson due to him being a convicted felon.

Bluefield West Virginia Police Department releases bench warrant list

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30-year-old Denise Allen, of Bluefield, was sentenced to five years in prison, followed by five years of parole, on June 10, 2024 after she pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and methamphetamine.

The announcement was made by United States Attorney Will Thompson, who thanked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crime Task Force for their work on the investigation.

The Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crime Task Force is made up of members of the West Virginia State Police, the Bluefield Police Department, the Princeton Police Department, the Mercer County Sheriffs Office, the McDowell County Sheriffs Office, and the Wyoming County 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 WVNS.
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR)  Metro area nonprofit Wings held a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of a new program center for adults with developmental disabilities in Oklahoma City.

Mayor David Holt at ribbon cutting for the Gregory and Sandra Olson Program Center. Photo courtesy Wings.

Gregory and Sandra Olson Program Center. Photo courtesy Wings.

Wings says the new Gregory and Sandra Olson Program Center is the result of a $20 million capital campaign that began in 2021. The center is expected to expand the nonprofits capacity from 78 to 200 adults in their day program.

Buzzworthy: New bee species found in Oklahoma, Texas

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The center will offer enhanced programming in education, vocational training, and personal development to members of the program.

Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt was also in attendance to celebrate the opening of the 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 KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  Las Vegas police have released the identity of the officer involved in a deadly shooting in a neighborhood near Sunset Park.

The officer is identified as Alexander Bookman, 26, who has been employed with Metro since 2021. He is on routine administrative leave pending the outcome of a review of the shooting, Metro said.

The Clark County Coroners Office identified the man shot and killed as Brandon Durham, 43, of Las Vegas.

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Police officer shoots, kills man in southeast Las Vegas

The shooting happened Tuesday, Nov. 12 on Wine River Drive in a neighborhood near Eastern Avenue and Sunset 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 KLAS.
Voters fill out their ballots at the Dona Ana Community College East Mesa Campus in Las Cruces on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024. (Photo by Leah Romero / Source NM)

With Donald Trump winning the presidency, many of the false claims of election fraud that disrupted vote certification in New Mexico and beyond have disappeared, and its been business as usual for county boards.

Otero County commissioners voted 3-0 on Thursday to certify last weeks election results, and none of them questioned whether they should fulfill their legal obligation to do so. Farther north in Torrance County just the day before, commissioners there did their duty, too.

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But not long ago, this routinely mundane process didnt go so smoothly.

In 2022, several Republican-led county boards  including in Otero and Torrance counties  voted against certification of the midterm results. The New Mexico Supreme Court had to order them to do it.

Since Election Day, counties have been counting and canvassing, the process of verifying every valid vote is counted. Sometimes that includes asking voters to fix small mistakes on their ballots, such as forgetting to sign a mail ballot or transposing a numeral in an ID number.

In New Mexico, counties with populations smaller than 150,000 people are required to approve the results within 10 days of an election, according to state law. Counties with larger populations have until 13 days after an election to send the results to the New Mexico Secretary of States office.

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Both Dona Ana and Sandoval counties will meet in the afternoon of Friday Nov. 15, while the Bernalillo County Commission is scheduled to meet Monday.

Once all 33 counties submit the results, the State Canvassing Board  made up of the governor, secretary of state and the chief justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court  meet on the third Tuesday after the election and declare the official results.

Upcoming County Certification meetings:

Dona Ana County Commissioners will convene at the countys government center on Friday, Nov. 15 at 1 p.m.

Sandoval County Commissioners will meet at 3 p.m. on Friday Nov. 15 in the commissions chambers.

Bernalillo County Commissioners are scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 18.

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Nov. 13New Mexico lawmakers on Wednesday discussed the prospect of giving "police power" to the state Cannabis Control Division, which issues permits for the state-legal industry, to ramp up enforcement against the still-thriving illicit market.

The proposal comes amid concern from many retailers and growers who have sounded the alarm about black market products and a high volume of state-licensed dispensaries.

"It's a big problem. The underground market is very prevalent in New Mexico," said Sen. Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, during a meeting of the interim Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee.

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Maestas said lawmakers are planning to introduce a bill in the upcoming legislative session that would create a "law enforcement arm" within the cannabis oversight agency of the state Regulation and Licensing Department. Under such legislation, the agency would have certified law enforcement officers of its own with the ability to seize illegal weed and make arrests.

"We need a special law enforcement arm in New Mexico to eliminate the underground market," Maestas said.

Currently, the Cannabis Control Division does not have any authority to conduct criminal investigations or bring criminal charges but does have administrative enforcement powers over licenses.

Law enforcement agencies are responsible for bringing criminal charges.

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"Everyone is doing the best they can, so I don't necessarily want to get into it. But for whatever reason, local law enforcement is not devoting the time and resources necessary to deal with the underground market as it relates to these illegal growers and illegal sellers," Maestas said.

"When the division identifies situations where it appears criminal activity has taken place, or is ongoing, it notifies the Department of Public Safety and local law enforcement agencies in the jurisdiction where the activity has occurred," Andrea Brown, a spokesperson for the state Regulation and Licensing Department, wrote in an email.

"If the Cannabis Control Division is authorized to employ certified law enforcement officers to enforce criminal statutes, those officers could conduct criminal investigations, obtain search warrants, seize evidence of criminal acts, make arrests, and work with the district attorneys to see that criminal offenders violating New Mexico cannabis laws are prosecuted and brought to justice," Brown wrote.

But some members of the committee expressed concerns Wednesday about government efficiency, indicating the Legislature could better equip state and local police to address New Mexico's marijuana black market.

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"Why wouldn't we just provide more funding to law enforcement or create a statute on something law enforcement could do?" said Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, D-Albuquerque, who said she wanted more clarification on the problem and how such a proposal would help solve it.

"What is the specific need for police power to be given to this agency that couldn't be solved with what we have now?" she asked.

The proposal was expected to be presented by Sen. Katy Duhigg, D-Albuquerque, but Maestas stepped in because Duhigg was unable to attend the committee meeting.

Duke Rodriguez, president and CEO of New Mexico Top Organics-Ultra Health  the state's largest cannabis company  tuned into the Wednesday meeting and said he didn't think it seemed the committee overall was necessarily receptive to the idea.

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"I don't think we would benefit from this proposal in the short term, and any benefit that might be derived probably won't be seen till 2026, and the problem exists today," Rodriguez said. "I don't think we have the luxury of waiting two and a half, three years."

He added, "To reduce the illicit market simply requires a will to do that by not just the Legislature, by not just the executive branch, but by all parties telling law enforcement: 'It is a task you are expected to complete.' ...

"Give [law enforcement] the tools to get it done" he said. "You don't have to create another police function within a state agency."

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed legislation legalizing recreational marijuana use in 2021, and sales began the following year. According to the state's Cannabis Reporting Online Portal, combined recreational and medical marijuana sales through the legal market have totaled around $1.3 billion, with $92 million of those sales recorded in Santa Fe.

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In March, Lujan Grisham signed a bill that makes several major changes to the Cannabis Regulation Act, including giving the Cannabis Control Division more enforcement power.

Maestas argued police powers for the agency would create a more efficient system of addressing illegal production and sales. While the division now has to call law enforcement if it is aware of an illegal operation, he said, under the proposed plan, the agency "would actually be the police officers" and could "seize the plants or tag the plants," while knowing "the cannabis laws inside and out."

"There wouldn't be this delay," Maestas said, noting local and state law enforcement are often preoccupied with other matters.

Rep. Alan Martinez, R-Rio Rancho, asked whether the bill would create a separate law enforcement agency.

"It would be a bureau of law enforcement officers. I don't know if I would call it an agency," Maestas, said, adding the officers would have to go through the law enforcement academy and would have arrest powers.
Nov. 13New Mexico lawmakers Wednesday discussed the prospect of giving "police power" to the state Cannabis Control Division, which issues permits for the state-legal industry, to ramp up enforcement against the still-thriving illicit market.

The proposal comes amid concern from many retailers and growers who have sounded the alarm about black market products and a high volume of state-licensed dispensaries.

"It's a big problem. The underground market is very prevalent in New Mexico," said Sen. Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, during a meeting of the interim Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee.

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Maestas said lawmakers are planning to introduce a bill in the upcoming legislative session that would create a "law enforcement arm" within the cannabis oversight agency of the state Regulation and Licensing Department. Under such legislation, the agency would have certified law enforcement officers of its own with the ability to seize illegal weed and make arrests.

"We need a special law enforcement arm in New Mexico to eliminate the underground market," Maestas said.

Currently, the Cannabis Control Division does not have any authority to conduct criminal investigations or bring criminal charges but does have administrative enforcement powers over licenses.

Law enforcement agencies are responsible for bringing criminal charges.

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"Everyone is doing the best they can, so I don't necessarily want to get into it. But for whatever reason, local law enforcement is not devoting the time and resources necessary to deal with the underground market as it relates to these illegal growers and illegal sellers," Maestas said.

"When the division identifies situations where it appears criminal activity has taken place, or is ongoing, it notifies the Department of Public Safety and local law enforcement agencies in the jurisdiction where the activity has occurred," Andrea Brown, a spokesperson for the state Regulation and Licensing Department, wrote in an email.

"If the Cannabis Control Division is authorized to employ certified law enforcement officers to enforce criminal statutes, those officers could conduct criminal investigations, obtain search warrants, seize evidence of criminal acts, make arrests, and work with the district attorneys to see that criminal offenders violating New Mexico cannabis laws are prosecuted and brought to justice," Brown wrote.

But some members of the committee expressed concerns Wednesday about government efficiency, indicating the Legislature could better equip state and local police to address New Mexico's marijuana black market.

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"Why wouldn't we just provide more funding to law enforcement or create a statute on something law enforcement could do?" said Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, D-Albuquerque, who said she wanted more clarification on the problem and how such a proposal would help solve it.

"What is the specific need for police power to be given to this agency that couldn't be solved with what we have now?" she asked.

The proposal was expected to be presented by Sen. Katy Duhigg, D-Albuquerque, but Maestas stepped in because Duhigg was unable to attend the committee meeting.

Duke Rodriguez, president and CEO of New Mexico Top Organics-Ultra Health  the state's largest cannabis company  tuned into the Wednesday meeting and said he didn't think it seemed the committee overall was necessarily receptive to the idea.

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"I don't think we would benefit from this proposal in the short term, and any benefit that might be derived probably won't be seen till 2026, and the problem exists today," Rodriguez said. "I don't think we have the luxury of waiting two and a half, three years."

He added, "To reduce the illicit market simply requires a will to do that by not just the Legislature, by not just the executive branch, but by all parties telling law enforcement: 'It is a task you are expected to complete.'

"... Give [law enforcement] the tools to get it done" he said. "You don't have to create another police function within a state agency."

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed legislation legalizing recreational marijuana use in 2021, and sales began the following year. According to the state's Cannabis Reporting Online Portal, combined recreational and medical marijuana sales through the legal market have totaled around $1.3 billion, with $92 million of those sales recorded in Santa Fe.

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In March, Lujan Grisham signed a bill that makes several major changes to the Cannabis Regulation Act, including giving the Cannabis Control Division more enforcement power.

Maestas argued police powers for the agency would create a more efficient system of addressing illegal production and sales. While the division now has to call law enforcement if it is aware of an illegal operation, he said, under the proposed plan, the agency "would actually be the police officers" and could "seize the plants or tag the plants," while knowing "the cannabis laws inside and out."

"There wouldn't be this delay," Maestas said, noting local and state law enforcement are often preoccupied with other matters.

Rep. Alan Martinez, R-Rio Rancho, asked whether the bill would create a separate law enforcement agency.

"It would be a bureau of law enforcement officers. I don't know if I would call it an agency," Maestas, said, adding the officers would have to go through the law enforcement academy and would have arrest powers.
About 70 people in line, mostly students, waiting to register to vote at Corbett Center Student Union on the New Mexico State University campus. People toward the front of the line said they had been waiting for about three hours so far. (Photo by Leah Romero / Source New Mexico)

New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said a week after Election Day that same-day voter registration was significantly delayed at polling places across the state, acknowledging the problem was worse and more widespread than her office previously had.

Toulouse Oliver described the issues Tuesday during a hearing with lawmakers, where they asked her about the election. Their constituents plus nonpartisan voter advocacy groups had reported hours-long waits on the final day of voting in the high-turnout election. Some advocates said frustrated voters leaving without casting ballots.

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State Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez (D-Albuquerque) questioned Toulouse Oliver about the long lines.

I went and made a big point in my district to say same day registration is available, she said. So I was just wondering what plans you have to fix that.

Local clerks and the secretary of states office were inundated with voters and same-day registration requests. Toulouse Oliver responded to say that, by the time the state had added computer server space to speed up the process, county clerks were already behind in the queue

We could have never envisioned something (like this) happening. Now we know it can happen, so its a good thing, she said. So many people came out and participated, but it did slow the process down.

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She said her office and county clerks now know what their homework is for the next election, which is to prevent something like this from happening again, though she didnt offer specifics on how to do that.

Presidential races on ballots typically draw the biggest crowds during U.S. elections. In the 2022 midterm elections, about 714,000 voters cast ballots. This year, a little more than 925,000 people voted.

Its not clear exactly how many voters encountered delays when trying to register on Election Day. Many of those voters may have filed provisional ballots instead, which is what clerks and the state encouraged them to do while their applications were pending.

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How many of those provisional ballots were filed wont be known until county officials process them during vote canvassing  the process of making sure every valid vote counts  beginning next week.

If the states most populous county is any indication, the number of people forced to vote provisionally is significant: About 9,000 people attempted to register and then vote on Election Day. About 1,000 of them had to file provisional ballots, according to Nathan Jaramillo, the administrator for Bernalillo Countys Bureau of Elections.

Observers noted delays

At least two nonpartisan election observer groups documented delays with New Mexicos same-day registration process in at least 15 counties, with some voters still in line an hour after polls closed.

Observers with Common Cause said an outage occurred early in the morning, during which no same-day registration applications were processed. Then, for the rest of the day, poll workers struggled to keep up with a backlog of applications amid slow processing times, said Mason Graham, spokesperson for Common Cause, which sent about 100 observers to sites across the state.

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Secretary of State spokesperson Alex Curtas attributed the challenge on Election Day to an influx of same-day registrations, acknowledging a slow-down, and said more servers were added to help the process.

The Secretary of States office did not characterize it as an outage until after the election.

Jaramillo, the election administrator for Bernalillo County, said he will ask for additional grant funds and an increased budget to hire more workers to register people for future elections, and ask the Secretary of State redevelop the website to make the registration process smoother.

I think we could use this as a learning mechanism in the future to ensure were aligned in the event of an issue, preemptively, to avoid that confusion, Jaramillo said.

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More than 26,000 voters registered to vote in New Mexico on Election Day, according to data from the Secretary of States Office. Thats about as many people who registered during all of the early voting period which began about a month before Election Day.

Observe New Mexico Elections is a polling observer group funded by the nonprofit Carter Center, which former President Jimmy Carter founded, sent about 170 observers to about 150 voting locations on Election Day.

The group reported voters in at least 14 counties waited between 10 minutes and more than two hours. Some voters left without voting, according to a news release from the group. Some voters were told to come back later to finish registering or to go to the county clerks office to finish the task.

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Chaparral, a colonia of more than 16,000 people, in both Dona Ana and Otero counties, also saw long lines for same-day registration.

When polls closed, there were 30 to 40 people waiting in line outside as temperatures dipped into the mid 50s, said Maty Gonzalez, a community organizer intern for NM Comunidades en Accion y de Fe, a progressive interfaith group, who lives in the community.

People left the line because they couldnt stand the cold, she said.

Otero County Clerk Robyn Holmes said, cited record turnout in the county and a lack of preparation for the crowds. We are not used to that many people registering to vote on Election Day, so we didnt have enough ports to bring in more laptops, she said. It wasnt just Chaparral, it was all over our county.

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Graham, with Common Cause, said his group is considering reforms to propose during the 2025 state legislative session to prevent the issues on Tuesday from occurring again.

I think theres probably some technological advancements that might need to happen, and of course, thats going to cost money, he said.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -The prosecutor's office of Mexico's Sinaloa state is investigating the killing of some 14 people, whose bodies were found around the city of Culiacan, it said in a statement on Thursday.

Mexico has suffered a recent wave of violence with hundreds killed in intra-cartel warfare in Sinaloa, as well as massacres in other states such as Queretaro where 10 people were killed in a bar over the weekend.

The prosecutor's office said seven bodies had been found on a highway linking Culiacan, the state capital, with the popular Pacific coast resort city of Mazatlan, while three people were found in and around cemeteries and another person near a bridge.

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It said 15 complaints had been registered to offices responsible for the theft of vehicles and the specialized missing persons office.

In late October, Sinaloa state authorities reported another 14 people killed in a single day of violence after a major drug trafficker and co-founder of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel was arrested in the United States.

The latest killings come despite efforts to shore up security with thousands of soldiers deploying into the state. Authorities have reported close to 400 killings since early September, many of these believed to be linked to the arrest of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who co-founded the Sinaloa Cartel alongside Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

Earlier in the week, U.S. ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar criticized the former administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for being too soft on crime.

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Current President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government had sent a "diplomatic note" to the U.S. embassy and that her administration would continue to hold close coordination regarding security with the United States.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Anthony Esposito)
David Knezevich, the South Florida businessman accused in the February disappearance of his estranged wife in Spain, is now charged with her murder.

A federal grand jury in Miami indicted Knezevich, 36, Wednesday on charges of kidnapping resulting in death, foreign domestic violence resulting in death, and foreign murder of a US national.

Ana Maria Henao disappeared in February while living in Madrid. Since then, authorities in Spain and across Europe have searched for Henaos body, but have still not recovered it.

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According to the new indictment, Knezevich traveled to Spain from Miami with the intent to kill, injure, harass, and intimidate his spouse and intimate partner and committed a crime of violence against her, resulting in her death.

Knezevich did willfully and unlawfully seize, confine, kidnap, abduct, and carry away Henao and did willfully, deliberately, maliciously, and with premeditation and malice aforethought, unlawfully kill Henao, according to the indictment.

Knezevich was arrested in May at Miami International Airport for his involvement in his wifes kidnapping.

Henaos family said the new charge confirms their worst fears.

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This is a step in the direction to start to mourn while we continue to search for answers and honor Anas memory by advocating for her story to be told and for accountability to prevail, said Diego Henao, Anas brother.

We will continue to rely on the strength and love of our friends, family, and community as we try to process this latest information, said Anas mother, Aura Henao, of her familys well-being.

If convicted of the newest charges, Knezevich could face the death penalty.

Jayne Weintraub, Knezevichs attorney, called the superseding indictment a desperate attempt by the government to charge everything possible and see what sticks. There is no evidence that David Knezevich kidnapped or murdered his wife, she wrote in a statement to CNN Thursday. He will plead Not Guilty to these charges at the arraignment next week.

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The FBI has presented overwhelming evidence that he is responsible for her disappearance, and I am happy the case against him is getting stronger, said Henaos friend Sanna Rameau, one of the last people to speak to her. Justice will be served.

The couple was in the middle of a contentious divorce.

Prosecutors said Knezevich traveled from Miami to Turkey and later to his native home of Serbia, where he rented a car and drove to Spain in late January.

They said he kidnapped Henao from her apartment and spray-painted cameras at her building in Madrid. He was also seen leaving the apartment building with a suitcase, court records said.

According to court records, surveillance cameras captured Knezevich buying spray paint and duct tape at a hardware store in Madrid the same day Henao was last seen.

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The owner of the rental car agency in Serbia told investigators that when the car was returned in mid-March, someone had tinted its windows and added a new license plate frame, and it had traveled nearly 4,800 miles, the criminal complaint said.

Tollbooth cameras captured images of the same model Peugeot, with tinted windows, near Madrid in the late night and early morning of February 2 and 3. The complaint said the vehicles license plates were stolen from another vehicle on the street in Madrid where Henao was living.

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Ohio lawmakers have put a bill on the governors desk that would ban transgender students from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

As reported on News Center 7 at 11:00, the Ohio Senate voted 24-7 in favor of the bill.

TRENDING STORIES:

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Governor Mike DeWine has 10 days to decide if Senate Bill 104 will become law.

If DeWine signs off on the bill, students at public schools and universities will be required to use the restroom that aligns with their sex at birth.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Ohio believes the bill will harm the rights and privacy of LGBTQ+ students and condemns its passage.

We are incredibly disheartened by the Ohio General Assemblys continuous attacks against transgender and gender non-conforming individuals across Ohio. Senate Bill 104 is a cruel invasion of students rights to privacy, which will result in unwarranted governmental disclosures of private, personal information. If allowed to go into effect, SB 104 will create unsafe environments for trans and gender non-confirming individuals of all ages. This bill ignores the material reality that transgender people endure higher rates of sexual violence and assaults, particularly while using public restrooms, than people who are not transgender. All Ohioans deserve to access the facilities they need, in alignment with their gender identity, without fear of harassment or bullying. The ACLU of Ohio remains steadfast in our commitment to standing with trans Ohioans and is closely considering next steps. ACLU Ohio Policy director Jocelyn Rosnick said in a statement

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Sen. Niraj Antani (R-Miamisburg) released a statement on why he voted for the bill.

Today, I voted to protect our school children across Ohio by ensuring biological males do not use the same restroom with girls. This is common sense policy that will ensure the safety and security of our school children. No young girl should be forced to go into the same restroom with a biological male. I was proud to support this legislation. Antani said in a statement

If the legislation passes, it will not apply to school employees, emergencies, or people helping young children or those with disabilities.

Schools will still be able to provide single-use and family bathrooms.

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News Center 7 talked to people in the Miami Valley about the bill on Wednesday.

I would feel a little something about it, but I mean, if he wanted to be a girl then hes a girl. If its real, then its real. If he makes a move then well go that route, but gotta let everyone live, Riverside resident Joshua said.

As long as theyre not harming anyone, mind your own business. Theyre not doing anything to people. I dont know, people dont mind their own business. At this point, do what youre gonna do, just dont harm anyone, Kettering resident Dulaney Sargent said.

If the bill passes, it will go into effect 90 days later.

News Center 7 will continue to follow this story.

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Colorado Parks and Wildlife, which faces sharp criticism over its plans to release more wolves on the Western Slope in the coming months, met with county commissioners last week from the counties where the next reintroductions are slated to take place.

Those counties are Pitkin (Aspen), Rio Blanco, Eagle and Garfield, according to the agency.

The idea of more wolves on the Western Slope didn't sit well with county commissioners  except for Pitkin County. And Pitkin County doesn't have state lands, so dropping wolves into that county would require a private landowner to grant Colorado Parks and Wildlife permission to do so.

Three of the four counties voted against the 2020 ballot measure to reintroduce wolves; Pitkin County was the only one of the four where voters supported it.

The wildlife agency had hoped to get private landowners to grant them that permission with the first reintroduction last December, but got no takers.

The agency had failed to notify county officials and ranchers last December about the releases, which led to deteriorating relationships between rancher and landowners, and the agency.

The reintroduced wolves, which came from Oregon and from packs with a history of killing livestock, have since killed dozens of livestock and working dogs this year.

On Thursday, a coalition led by the Middle Park Stockgrowers and which includes Colorado Counties, Inc., will seek a rules change with the wildlife commission that would delay the reintroduction of the next batch of wolves. The new wolves are supposed to come from British Columbia, since no entity in the western United States will give Colorado any more gray wolves.

The Colorado Outdoors Coalition, in a statement Tuesday, said the "rushed timeframe" to bring wolves to Colorado has led to the deaths of dozens of livestock and no education or available resources for those who must live with the apex predators.

Since the reintroduction, three of the 10 Oregon wolves have died; a mating pair from that groups plus four pups were rounded up in August and September. The male of the pair died shortly after, and is believed to be responsible for numerous livestock killings.

In a statement, CPW Director Jeff Davis vowed to conduct conversations.

"As we move forward with the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan, which is mandated by law, we are committed to having conversations with local elected officials and communities near possible release areas, he said.

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The agency's statement did not include any feedback or reaction from the county commissioners who attended that Nov. 8 meeting, other than to say the commissioners had an opportunity to ask questions and share feedback from their local communities and producers.

As with the release last December, CPW's statement said it would not make any "final release site decisions" until the operation is underway.

"We recognize that this is a challenging situation and all involved are listening to their constituents. We wanted to create an opportunity for officials to have their questions answered and to understand how we can assist our local partners in informing their communities," Davis said in the statement.

The meetings, which involved multiple county commissioners, were not publicly disclosed.

The CPW statement said the Nov. 8 meeting "marks the beginning of the collaboration efforts as we enter the next phase of gray wolf introductions and continues the discussions that have been taking place since January 2024."

"Colorado Parks and Wildlife remains committed to engaging further with county officials, local producers, and other stakeholders in areas where wolves currently reside and in locations where wolves may be released in the future," the agency added.

Garfield County commissioners on Tuesday discussed the meeting between the county commissioners and the wildlife agency.

Commissioner Tom Jankowsky noted that Eagle County has more state lands than Garfield or Rio Blanco. Garfield County's largest state lands are just north of New Castle and near Rifle. Commissioners from Eagle and Rio Blanco, as well as Garfield, were vehemently opposed to wolves in their counties because of concerns from ranchers, Jankowsky said.

This week, a CPW-produced calendar saluting the agency's "landowner recognition program" was distributed to ranchers in Grand and Jackson counties, including to ranchers whose livestock have been killed by wolves.

The January calendar features a photo of wolves.

CPW landowner recognition program calendar
STAMFORD, Conn. (WTNH)  Michelle Troconis is expected to go to trial in March 2025 for a contempt of court charge.

Troconis, who was found guilty in connection to the disappearance and death of Jennifer Farber Dulos, is accused of displaying a court-sealed document on her computer for the gallery and camera live streaming the proceedings to see.

Her attorney, Bob Frost, asked for greater details and clarification during Wednesdays appearance at Stamford Superior Court.

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Usually, theres an interest in trying to find out who gave the person the report and they werent supposed to, Frost said. Here, were pursuing Ms. Troconis for that, in addition to what the videographer should not have captured on her computer.

Jennifer Farber Dulos: The Untold Story | News 8 Special Presentation

According to the warrant, the court-sealed document detailed the custody battle between Farber Dulo and her estranged husband, Fotis Dulos. Troconis allegedly had a page from the report on her screen where it referenced a psychological evaluation and Farber Dulos name.

Troconis has pleaded not guilty to the contempt of court charge.

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I did my best to clarify that the state would be proceeding under both theories  possessing and publicizing the sealed document, Stamford Assistant States Attorney Elizabeth Moran said. It was reiterated several times and discussed several times in the defendants presence during the trial and during pre-trial conferences.

Now, theyre moving forward with a trial. The judge granted Frosts request to subpoena the videographer from the trial to testify. At this point, its undecided if it will be a bench or jury trial.

I think we cant make a decision on this today, Frost said.

In March, Troconis was convicted of conspiring with Dulos, her then-boyfriend, to kill Farber Dulos and help him cover up the crimes. Troconis and her family have maintained her innocence from the start. Shes currently serving a 14-and-half-year prison sentence.

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What you think you know about my sister Michelle is a fabrication, Troconis sister, Daniela Troconis, said. The case remains unsolved, and the truth of what happened is still a mystery.

Her defense team is committed to overturning this injustice and restoring her freedom, another sister, Marisela Troconis, said.

The parties are due back in court in February for a check-in date.

THE DULOS CASE

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTNH.com.
Midvale Mayor Marcus Stevenson has resigned from office less than a week after he was accused of having an affair with a city employee, according to the city.

The city announced Stevensons departure Thursday and confirmed to KSL that Stevenson was accused of having an extramarital affair with an employee last Friday. It said City Councilman Paul Glover will step in to fill mayoral duties until the council appoints a replacement  which it is obligated to do within 30 days.

After much consideration, and with a heavy heart, Im submitting my resignation as mayor of Midvale city, effective immediately, Stevenson wrote in his resignation letter. In recent weeks, my personal life has drastically changed, and Ive determined that it would be best for me to step away at this time. I ask for understanding and privacy. Serving as mayor has been the most rewarding and challenging experience of my life. I truly cannot thank our community enough for giving me the opportunity to serve in this capacity.

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Stevenson was first elected in 2021, and at 27, was the youngest mayor in city history, according to his official biography. His profile says he hails from a family devoted to public service, and his proudest accomplishment is his family, his wife and their three boys.

Stevensons social media accounts appear to have been deleted, and the former mayor could not be reached for comment through the contact info listed on Midvales website.

The council issued a statement saying it has accepted Stevensons resignation.

Though we are deeply disappointed by the circumstances surrounding his departure, we remain committed to moving forward with integrity and accountability, the council said. It did not provide more information about the circumstances of his resignation.

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Our priority now is to ensure a smooth transition of leadership, the council continued. The City Council has taken swift and deliberate action to maintain the stability of city operations and continue serving our residents with the high standards they deserve. We are focused on maintaining the trust of our community and will work to ensure that our leadership reflects the values of accountability and public service.

Utah law tasks the council with appointing a replacement to fill the remainder of Stevensons term. The council said interested applicants can apply at midvale.utah.gov by Nov. 20 for consideration.

Prior to taking office, Stevenson worked for Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warrens 2020 presidential campaign and served as campaign manager to David Garbett when Garbett ran for mayor of Salt Lake City in 2019. And before that, he worked for Rep. Ben McAdams congressional campaign.

Contributing: Garna Mejia, Mary Culbertson

This story may be updated.
SIOUX FALLS (KELO)  The weather today looks dry compared to the rain we saw yesterday in eastern KELOLAND. You can see some of the rain totals on the map below, which includes .54 for Sioux Falls. More precipitation is in the forecast next week.

Futurecast below shows dry conditions today as patchy fog in northeastern KELOLAND dissipates through the morning. Highs will be in the 50s and 60s through much of the region. Expect areas of fog to be more widespread tomorrow morning, followed by a stronger south or southeasterly wind by Friday afternoon. Highs will still average above normal in the 50s.

The weather forecast next week is looking more interesting. As you watch the video below, youll notice a system digging into the desert southwest again through early next week. This storm will take a track to the northeast again, but the exact path is far from certain. Adding to the uncertainty is a blocking high pressure center over southeast Canada. This will likely result in a stalled storm somewhere in the central plains next week. The longer it sits and spins, the better the chances for some snow on the backside of the system. On top of that, another storm may follow behind the first one, so we have several big challenges to tackle over the coming days.

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So while the details are lacking, the chances of picking up some snow next week are already close to 50% in much of KELOLAND. Details will be coming your way in the coming days.

Here are the details of the forecast.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com.
Military suicides increased again in 2023, continuing a steady and concerning rise in self-inflicted deaths among servicemembers over more than a decade, according to statistics released by the Defense Department on Thursday.

Pentagon officials downplayed the significance of the 6% rise in suicides from 2022 to 2023 (the latest data available), calling the rise not statistically significant. But they acknowledged an increasing long-term trend in suicide rates for active-duty troops despite years of focus on prevention efforts.

Going forward, its our commitment to really invest in tracking these efforts and finding those things that are the most effective, said Dr. Timothy Hoyt, deputy director of the Office of Force Resiliency.

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Suicide prevention campaign urges vets to be the one who reaches out

Were making an unprecedented investment in doing things that work, and our intent is to make sure that were able to show that those programs have received sufficient support to really be implemented at scale.

Military researchers recorded 523 suicides in 2023, the highest total since 2020. The number of active-duty troops was 363, up from 331 a year earlier.

The Marine Corps had the highest rate of suicide, with about 35 cases per 100,000 people in 2023. The Army was just under 33 cases per 100,000.

The Air Force (about 21 per 100,000) and Navy (about 19 per 100,000) saw lower rates. But all four services have seen a steady increase since 2011, when the Department began formally tracking the issue.

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The Space Force reported two deaths by suicide in 2023, a figure too small for statistical analysis of force trends.

Officials said the rates generally track with comparable civilian trends, when taking into account how the military skews younger and more male than the general population.

And while Hoyt said the most recent increase does not indicate the problem of suicide in the ranks is rapidly worsening, officials also could not point to evidence that past suicide prevention efforts have helped improve the situation.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin two years ago established a new Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee to generate new ideas on mental health and quality of life improvements to address the problem of military suicide. Early last year, that group issued its report, which included gun safety measures for all servicemembers.

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Since then, Pentagon leaders have launched a new campaign to address suicides which includes recommendations  but not mandates  for safe storage of firearms and gun safety. Officials also plan to hire more than 2,000 new mental health professionals focused on suicide prevention in the next four years.

The results of those programs wont be reflected in suicide figures for several more years, researchers warned.

In a statement accompanying Thursdays report, Austin said the latest findings demonstrate the need for the department to redouble its work in the complex fields of suicide prevention and postvention.

Our efforts aim to meet the military community where they are in their personal and professional lives  whether through bolstering financial readiness and support, building healthy relationships, improving mental health, or supporting them through life transitions.

Servicemembers, veterans or family members in need of emergency counseling can reach the Veterans Crisis Line by dialing 988 and selecting option 1 after connecting to reach a VA staffer. In addition, individuals can also text 838255 for help, or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net for assistance.
Cory Maria Dack, a member of Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, calls on the Biden administration to approve Temporary Protected Status for Ecuador at a rally on Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024. Photo by Madison McVan/Minnesota Reformer.

At a busy Lake Street intersection on Sunday afternoon, Ecuadorian immigrants and their allies chanted and displayed signs advocating for Temporary Protected Status for Ecuador  part of a last-ditch effort to convince President Joe Biden to protect Ecuadorians from deportation as one of his final acts in office.

Do we think that Trump will be supportive of this legislation? Erika Zurawski, a member of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, asked the crowd.

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No! the few dozen attendees shouted back.

If the campaign cant convince Biden to designate Ecuador for TPS  which would allow all Ecuadorians currently in the U.S. to legally live and work for up to two years  its almost certainly not going to happen under a Trump administration.

Ecuadorians and other Latinos in Minnesota are preparing for a sweeping net of immigration enforcement that may entangle citizens and legal residents alongside the millions of undocumented immigrants President-elect Donald Trump has promised to deport during his second term.

A Trump presidency will likely bring an end to any hopes of Temporary Protected Status for Ecuador. It could also mean that hundreds of thousands of people protected from deportation by TPS and similar programs could see their protections expire in 2025 if Trump and his incoming Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem opt not to continue the programs.*

As President I will immediately end the migrant invasion of America. We will stop all migrant flights, end all illegal entries, terminate the Kamala phone app for smuggling illegals (CBP One App), revoke deportation immunity, suspend refugee resettlement, and return Kamalas  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 15, 2024



And some Minnesota Latinos fear Trumps claims that immigrants are criminals and mentally ill will foster increased racism and harassment from neighbors.

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Minnesota Latinos are a diverse demographic group; around two-thirds are of Mexican heritage, and there are large populations of Puerto Ricans, Ecuadorians, Salvadorans and other nationalities living in pockets across the state. The 2020 Census identified more than 345,000 Hispanic people in Minnesota  more than double the number in 2000. Nearly 80% are U.S. citizens, and Latinos are much younger, on average, than the state median.

At a rally in St. Cloud in July, Trump said other countries are closing their jails and asylums and sending the released people to the U.S. (Theres no evidence to suggest this is happening.)

In Minnesota, you will have lots of people that you dont have now  although many of them are here now, Trump said. Youll have people from their jails and from their mental institutions in Minnesota.

Some Latinos living in the St. Cloud area bristled at the comments; weeks earlier, the Diocese of St. Cloud abruptly ended the areas only weekly Spanish Mass  a move that many churchgoers felt was discriminatory. Multiple St. Cloud Latinos say theyve been harassed for speaking Spanish at church or in restaurants.

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Ma Elena Gutierrez, executive director of Fe y Justicia, a faith-based workers organization in Waite Park, fears a Trump presidency will heighten the racism towards Latinos in central Minnesota. Latinos may feel less comfortable spending time in public, she said.

I feel like people will take precautions people are scared about it, because when he was in the presidency, we got a lot of stress, Gutierrez said.

Trumps promises of mass deportations remind some of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on a Worthington meatpacking plant in 2006. ICE officials arrived at the Swift plant  now owned by JBS  with ten buses, bringing work to a standstill while workers were detained and asked to provide identification. More than 250 people were arrested, including many parents, leaving families scrambling to find child care.

Francisco Segovia is the executive director of COPAL, a nonprofit group that organizes Latinos around a variety of political issues. He remembers bringing toys to children while their parents were detained during the raid.

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Some of us have that experience in our memories  the huge social impact for everyone, not only for the people who are victims or targeted by the raids, but for kids, for non-immigrants as well, Segovia said.

COPAL Executive Director Francisco Segovia speaks at a press conference in support of Temporary Protected Status for Ecuador on May 29, 2024. COPAL led a campaign urging Minnesota Latinos to vote in the general election in November. Photo by Madison McVan/Minnesota Reformer.

Despite Trumps rhetoric towards immigrants, more Latinos voted for him in 2024 than in previous elections, according to exit polls and results in heavily Latino districts. (Overall, Vice President Kamala Harris still won most of the Latino vote.)

Latino voters have offered up a variety of reasons for voting for Trump over Harris; one Venezuelan immigrant in Northfield who came to the U.S. legally wants Trump to crack down on illegal immigration, he told MPR News.

Another Latino voter in Arizona told the New York Times that he felt left out of the Democratic party.

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Some Latino groups with ties to countries that have suffered under the rule of socialist autocrats  like Cubans and Venezuelans  have leaned towards Republicans for years.

Segovia speculated that abortion, and Trumps position on economic issues, could be other topics attracting some Latinos.

Kristian Ramos, a Democratic strategist who did surveys and focus groups in the Southwest, told the New Yorker this summer that the party was too focused on immigration and other issues at the expense of bread-and-butter economics, which were consistently the most important issue to Latinos  as with other demographic groups.

And in any case, Biden has not delivered on the immigration reforms he promised  in part due to congressional Republicans, at the urging of Trump, blocking a bipartisan border bill that would have raised the standard for asylum claims and expedited proceedings for those who qualified.

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Gutierrez said for the nearly 30 years shes lived in the U.S., shes watched presidents kick the can down the road on immigration reform.

At the rally for TPS for Ecuador, speakers highlighted that Biden has so far refused to grant protections to Ecuadorians, though it is in his power to do so.

We leave our country out of necessity  weve had to make the most difficult decisions of our lives, said one Ecuadorian immigrant, who asked not to be named, in Spanish. If you cant keep your family safe, if you cant feed your children, you have to do something.

*Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the means by which Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, could be ended.
BRADENTON, Fla. (WFLA)  A Minnesota man was arrested and charged with grand theft after a five-month-long investigation by the Bradenton Police Department Elder Fraud Unit.

Benjamin Yakah, 26, is accused of stealing more than $100,000 from a Bradenton widower in an internet romance scam, according to BPD.

The Bradenton widower, a 77-year-old, met a woman named Julia on Facebook in late 2023, according to BPD.

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For eight months, the victim messaged Julia using Facebook Messenger, and was convinced that Julia was a woman who lived in the United Kingdom and was moving to the United States to begin a relationship with him.

According to BPD, Julia told the victim she owed money to a man in Minnesota and would relocate to Florida after the debts were paid. To help speed the process of Julia moving, the victim sent cash, money orders, and cashier checks to a home and bank in Minneapolis.

In June of 2024, the victims family became aware of the alleged relationship and contacted the Elder Fraud Unit.

Detectives learned the photos of Julia were taken from a Facebook of a West Virginia woman without her knowledge, according to BPD.

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Through the investigation, detectives also learned the bank account that received all of the victims money was owned by Benjamin Yakah.

Detective Jim Curulla with the Elder Fraud Unit traveled to Minnesota and arrested Yakah with the assistance of the Bloomington Minnesota Police Department.

Bradenton Police Department said a search was done of Yakahs home and it indicated there were additional victims in other states.

Yakah will be extradited to Manatee County. This investigation is still ongoing.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.
An amateur gold panner was rescued after going missing in a California forest for two days.

The search started on Thursday when the man and his friend started hiking through Plumas National Forest in northern California. One of the hikers became tired and the other went to look for water before the two became separated, according to the Butte County Sheriffs Office.

The man that had been left waited for his friend in the same spot, choosing to spend the night outside. On Saturday, he decided to hike back to their truck, hoping the missing man would be there. Once he got back to the truck and did not see his friend and he called 911 to raise the alarm.

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A rescue helicopter was deployed and managed to locate the missing mans campfire on a steep cliff. A joint rescue team from the Butte County Search and Rescue and CalFire were then deployed to save the man.

Following a hike through very thick vegetation, the crew found the missing man and determined he was in good health and without major injury. He was then rescued from the canyon.

The sheriffs office is now using the incident to warn hikers against splitting up from each other.

You should always stay together, surviving as a team is always easier than surviving alone, the office said in a statement. Officials are encouraging hikers to find emergency shelter and stay put if they get lost, in addition to carrying fire-starting materials.
After a woman embarked on a solo evening hike, she remained in the Santa Cruz Mountains for around 12 hours until rescuers found her at 3:30 a.m. the next morning

Rescuers searching for missing hiker on Nov. 10, 2024 in the Santa Cruz Mountains

A hiker rescued after she went missing on Saturday, Nov. 9, for 12 hours in "frigid temperatures" in the Santa Cruz Mountains in San Mateo County, Calif., the San Mateo County Sheriffs Office (SMCSO) announced in a Facebook press release on Tuesday, Nov. 12.

The woman, who has not been publicly identified, and a group of hikers were at Loma Mar, located about 50 miles south of San Francisco, on Nov. 9. Around 4 p.m., she went on a solo hike on Old Haul Rd. in Loma Mar, but by sunset, she had not returned to the group. This prompted the group to look for her, but after no real success, they called the SMCSO.

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Twenty-five volunteers, SMCSO deputies and a California Highway Patrol helicopter began the search. Then, the SMCSO Emergency Services Bureaus search and rescue volunteers were sent out.

Rescuers searching for missing hiker on Nov. 10, 2024 in the Santa Cruz Mountains

Related: Missing Hiker, 48, Found Alive After 2 Weeks in Kentuckys Red River Gorge: It Is Truly a Miracle

On Sunday, Nov. 10, around 3:30 a.m., the crews heard the hiker responding to the volunteers' shouts. She was discovered 500 yards down a very steep hill alongside Pescadero Creek. Once she was found, she was administered basic first aid and deemed uninjured but suffering from exhaustion and being very cold, according to SMCSO.

Removing her from the hill took an additional hour. American Medical Response paramedics then transported her and conducted an evaluation. She was cleared and returned to her group.

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.

Rescuers on Nov. 10, 2024 in the Santa Cruz Mountains

Related: Pair of Hikers Found Alive 2 Days After Going Missing in Yosemite National Park

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I applaud our dedicated volunteers for finding the missing hiker under extremely challenges conditions. Their efforts saved this womans life, SMCSO Sheriff Christina Corpus said in the press release.

This is one of several missing hikers who have been rescued by our Sheriffs deputies and volunteers over the last few months, Corpus added. It is so important to remember the dangers of hiking, especially at night and in unfamiliar areas.
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Beau and Jackie Shroyer felt they had found answers in their Christian faith. After becoming active church members as young adults, they said they were pulled in their early 40s to make a big move from rural Minnesota, where they lived with their five children.

They sold their 8-acre property in 2021 and traveled to Angola to spread the word of Jesus as missionaries. For the next three years, the couple would share the familys adventures in Africa on social media, with recent posts about working on an agricultural plot and supporting vocational training.

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It abruptly came to a halt on Oct. 25, when Beau Shroyer was fatally stabbed inside a car, according to the state-owned Angola Press Agency, citing Angolan police. His belongings were still inside when police arrived, and authorities noted his wife appeared distraught, the outlet reported.

But two weeks later, investigators would point their finger at Jackie Shroyer as the mastermind of her husbands killing in a press conference reported by local news outlets. Manuel Halaiwa, a spokesperson for Angolas Criminal Investigation Service (SIC), reportedly said detectives suspected that Jackie Shroyer, 44, and the familys bodyguard, 24-year-old Bernardino Isaac Elias, were romantically involved.

The two have now been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to kill Beau Shroyer. One man who was allegedly hired to carry out the killing has also been arrested, while another reportedly remains on the run.

The developments shocked people who had known the couple, including leaders of their former church and SIM USA, the mission organization theyd worked under.

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SIM remains committed to supporting the ongoing pursuit of justice for Beau and has taken steps to ensure that Jackie has appropriate legal representation, the organization said in a statement.

Its unclear if Jackie Shroyer has a lawyer yet, and SIM didnt immediately respond to a HuffPost request for comment.

But the couple detailed in their own words how they took their family from Minnesota to Angola  and local police described how they believed it went wrong.

From left: Jackie and Beau Shroyer LakesTV3

The couple met in college, when they both were part of a party crowd, they said in a 2021 video posted by Lakes Area Television. They eventually got married, but each felt as if something was missing from their relationship.

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I mean, we werent even really living as a married couple, Jackie Shroyer said. We loved each other, certainly, but we were individuals. We were still just having fun doing whatever we wanted.

She said she began going to church again around the time of her first pregnancy. She didnt yet have a deep relationship with God, but the couple hoped to surround their growing family with people they believed were good.

In the early years of their marriage, Beau Shroyer was a police officer, but he hung up his badge and became a real estate agent.

All those years working on the night shift as a police officer had me miss out on WAY too many moments like this, he said in a 2018 Facebook post with a picture of him reading to his two daughters.

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The couple became more involved with church through Sunday school and youth groups. In the Lakes Area Television video titled Why I Believe in Jesus, Jackie Shroyer said she had previously felt an emptiness until faith became the foundation of their marriage. It led them to Angola.

We just want to make him known so much that actually we now are in the process of leaving the Detroit Lakes area, leaving, actually, the USA. Were heading to Angola, Africa, because we heard kids there dont even get to know Jesus, and theres nobody there to tell them about Jesus, she said in the 2021 video.

These kids are living and dying without ever knowing that he exists, and theres no one there to tell him. So we were like, Well do it, God. We dont care what it costs. We need to make you known, she continued.

The Shroyers sold their home in Callaway, Minnesota, for about $300,000 in October 2021, according to a real estate listing.

Beau Shroyer, left, had been working on an agricultural plot in the days before his death. Facebook

For the next three years, the couple shared their missionary work and family life on social media, posting photos of the groceries in their kitchen or the teenage shoeshiners theyd led in a Bible study class. But in the days leading up to the killing, police said they fought about whether to leave Angola, according to the Angola Press Agency.

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Authorities said that Jackie Shroyer lured her husband to a secluded area in Humpata under the pretext of a manual transmission driving lesson, Ver Angola reported. But she had allegedly instructed Elias to hire two men he knew, Isalino Kayoo, 23, and Gelson Ramos, 22, to kill her husband, promising them $50,000, the Angola Press Agency reported.

The men rented a car and drove to the scene, where they pretended to break down, according to the outlet. Police reportedly said Kayoo and Ramos proceeded to kill Beau Shroyer while his wife went into the woods to urinate.

A knife from the United States was seized during the investigation and is believed to be the murder weapon, according to the outlet. Police reportedly said the knife had previously belonged to Beau Shroyer, but he had given it to Elias.

Beau Shroyers violent death was met with shock and disbelief in the U.S. SIM USA, the North Carolina-based Christian organization sponsoring the Shroyers mission, said they were shocked and devastated to learn of Jackie Shroyers arrest. The group added it would not comment further out of respect for those grieving and the ongoing investigation.

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SIM is grateful to Angolan law enforcement for their diligence in investigating this matter and encourages patience and respect for all involved as the legal process unfolds, their statement said.

Troy M. Easton, the lead pastor at Lakes Area Vineyard, where the Shroyers worshiped, said he was heartbroken and in shock about the news surrounding Beau Shroyers death.

Today, our grief and sadness has deepened immeasurably as weve learned that his wife, Jackie Shroyer, has been arrested in connection with his death, Easton said. Im so sorry and simply do not have words to express my disbelief and sorrow about this news.

Easton continued by saying the couples children would be well cared for and that he could not comment further.

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Meanwhile, a GoFundMe page has started raising money to return Beau Shroyers body to the U.S. as well as cover any legal costs his family might face.

Beaus passing has left an unimaginable void in the hearts of his family and friends where he was a source of inspiration and support, the page said. The circumstances surrounding his passing remain unclear, and his family is working tirelessly to seek answers and justice.

Related...
The Woodland Park School District RE-2 school board received an update on its student enrollment Wednesday night during its regular meeting.

An October count of 1,884 students saw enrollment drop from the previous years total of 2,015 reported by the Colorado Department of Education. These totals reflect full-time and part-time students in the district.

The figures come months into the districts first year since the consolidation of its middle school students to its high school building and the closure of Gateway Elementary School to address declining enrollment and improve the use of existing space.

Students who previously attended Gateway were relocated to Columbine and Summit elementary schools in the district. Columbines student population grew slightly from 273 to 288, while Summit experienced a drop from 310 to 271.

The districts chief operating officer, Aaron Salt, reported to the board later that evening that the now-vacant Gateway building has been repurposed this year to host testing for students at Woodland Park High School.

The latest loss continues a trend the district has experienced over the past several years.

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Superintendent Ken Witt pointed to recent school closures in Denver and Jefferson County Public Schools as evidence that declining student enrollment is a statewide trend rather than a local one. The state Department of Education said that statewide pre-kindergarten-12 student enrollment decreased from 883,264 in 2022-23 to 881,464 during the 2023-24 school year.

Pointing to the slight growth in student population in the areas private schools and the districts charter Merit Academy, Witt added that alternative choices available to parents might also be factoring into the recent losses in public schools.

Weve decided to focus on academics in this district and get back to the practice of educating children and eliminating a lot of the distractions, he said. In all honesty, some people like the distractions, so some of them will leave, too.

Whatever the cause or causes might be, board members agreed that a sort of exit interview be developed and distributed to outgoing families to gather a greater sense as to why they are doing so.

The district plans to explore these options and continue to study local and statewide trends going forward.

People are taking advantage of other opportunities, home-schooling is up, and it would be a good idea to know why that is taking place, school board President Mick Bates said.

Unfortunately, were in a trend thats gone on awhile now, and Im afraid its going to continue to take place.
Mississippi's deer population may be at an all-time high and the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks is asking hunters to help get the population under control by harvesting more deer.

"In looking at the numbers, I think we are probably looking at a record level of deer in the state," said Russ Walsh, Wildlife chief of staff. "We've had good habitat conditions.

"We had a reduction in harvest. People are being more selective. All those things coupled together and you really see the population get on the increase."

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Deer numbers in the state are generated from data including Deer Management Assistance Program harvest records from public and private land. Figures are fed into a model which produces a population estimate.

"It is showing the population is increasing," Walsh said. "We're also looking at deer harvest over time. We're not harvesting as many deer as we used to."

Mississippi's deer population is likely at an all-time high and hunters are asked to harvest more deer.

'He was just a monster.' Mississippi teen deer hunter harvests giant 167-inch buck

Mississippi rises in number of collisions involving deer

Annual reports from State Farm Insurance seem to support that. Each year, the company ranks states according to the number of auto claims related to animals. In 2016-2017 Mississippi ranked No. 12 in the nation for the most claims. That translated to one in 95 drivers filing a claim related to animals.

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In 2020-2021 Mississippi's ranking rose to No. 7 with one in 57 drivers filing a claim. In the 2023-2024 report Mississippi was No. 6 in the nation and one in 65 drivers filed a claim and according to State Farm, deer are the No. 1 animal involved in those claims.

For perspective on Mississippi's latest ranking, the national average for hitting an animal is one in 128.

'This deer was ginormous.' Mississippi teen bags 150-class trophy buck

Are deer numbers high everywhere in Mississippi?

The current population estimate of deer in Mississippi is 1.6 million. That's up from the 2012 estimate of 1.5 million and 1.4 million in 2018.

However, the population estimate is statewide, so some areas will be higher than others. Walsh said if hunters aren't sure about their deer numbers or if the population has exceeded the property's capacity to maintain a healthy population, MDWFP can help.

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"We'll be glad to visit with them and discuss it and look at the land," Walsh said. "That's why we're here. We're glad to look at those situations."

'I was terrified.' Mississippi hunter shoots charging mountain lion. See what happened next

How you can help reduce the deer population

Harvest one deer more than you normally do, but don't exceed the bag limit

Take a kid hunting

Target does

Spend more time hunting

Report deer harvests

Have deer tested for CWD

What are the benefits of reducing Mississippi's deer population?

It would seem that more deer would mean better hunting, but that is not exactly the case. Chronic wasting disease is present in Mississippi and it is always fatal for deer. It is spread by direct and indirect contact between deer. By reducing the density of deer, the spread of the disease can be slowed.

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Lower deer density can also produce healthier deer in general and bigger bucks because there is more food available to them. An extreme example of that is the 2019 South Delta flood that killed thousands of deer and other wildlife. However, those deer that survived had more food resources than before the flood and deer weights went up in following years.

"I don't think I saw a buck harvested under 200 pounds in some of those areas," Walsh said. "They had lots of resources. Why? There were fewer deer on the landscape."

Do you have more deer meat than you can use? Donate some

Many hunters tend only to harvest as many deer as they can eat. So, if you harvest more than that this year, consider donating some to Hunter's Harvest. It's a program that distributes venison to families in need in Mississippi through churches and other organizations. Here are the processors where meat can be donated.

Thrasher's Taxidermy and Deer Processing  Corinth, Alcorn County

Rutn & Cutn Deer Processing  Crystal Springs, Copiah County

Old River Road Deer Processing  Petal, Forrest County

Strick's Deer Processing  Hattiesburg, Forrest County

DWaynes Deer Processing  Holcolm, Grenada County

Stacie's Deer Processing  Utica, Hinds County

The Meat Hook  Laurel, Hinds County

Jack's Seafood - Lamar County

Sherman Deer Processing  Lena, Leake County

Boyd Deer Processing  Ruth, Lincoln County

Diamond J Meat Market & Deer Processing  Brookhaven, Lincoln County

Knights Deer Processing and Meat Market LLC  Brookhaven, Lincoln County

Buck Shop II  Canton, Madison County

The Buck Shop  Flora, Madison County

Sansing Meat Service  Maben, Oktibbeha County

Buck Shot Custom Processing  Pontotoc, Pontotoc County

Bristers Taxidermy & Deer Processing  McComb, Pike County

MaxMan Deer Processing  Senatobia, Tate County

Oaks Deer Processing  Coldwater, Tate County

Backwoods Wild Game Processing  Tylertown, Walthall County

Daves Custom Meats  Vicksburg, Warren County

Moore's Deer Processing  Vicksburg, Warren County

Milners Deer Processing  Yazoo City, Yazoo County

Rack Shack Outdoors  Benton, Yazoo County

Red Antler Processing  Yazoo City, Yazoo County

Vans Deer Processing  Brandon, Rankin County

The Skinnin Shed  Meadville, Forrest County

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Do you have a story idea? Contact Brian Broom at 601-961-7225 or bbrom@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi hunters asked to shoot more deer due to high population
Irish mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor denied in a Dublin court on Wednesday that he had sexually assaulted a woman in 2018, saying a civil case brought against him and another man was full of lies.

The plaintiff Nikita Hand alleges that McGregor sexually assaulted her on Dec. 9, 2018, and that another man, James Lawrence, did the same, the court heard last week.

McGregor, 36, told the court that he had fully consensual sex with Hand and that he did not force anyone to do anything against their will. He was taking the stand for the first time on the sixth day of the trial.

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Your client is full of lies. Everything is a lie, the former UFC champion said after being asked by Hands lawyer about her testimony that he put her in an arm lock.

He also denied causing bruising to the plaintiff.

Hands lawyer accused McGregor of pressing down so hard on her watch that there was still a mark on her skin days later.

Hands lawyer said last week that when she was referred to a sexual assault treatment unit the day after the alleged assault, a doctor was so concerned that he directed that photographs be taken of her injuries.

Hand said that she and a friend made contact with McGregor, who she knew, after a work Christmas party.

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She said they were driven by McGregor to a party in a penthouse room of a south Dublin hotel where drugs and alcohol were consumed.

She said McGregor took her a bedroom in the penthouse and sexually assaulted her. Hands lawyer, John Gordon, said Hand was on antidepressants, and full of drugs at the time of the alleged assault.

The judge told the jury of eight women and four men that the trial is expected to last two weeks.

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A man convicted of fatally shooting a robber during a drug deal outside an Eagan hotel four years ago will get a new chance to prove his actions were in self-defense.

In an opinion filed Wednesday, the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed a Minnesota Court of Appeals decision and remanded the case against Robert Lee Baker III back to Dakota County District Court, concluding that jurors should have heard instructions on self-defense and defense of others.

A Dakota County jury in April 2022 found Baker, then 30 of Eagan, guilty of second-degree murder in the killing of Maurice Antonio Anderson, 29, of Minneapolis at the Sonesta Suites hotel on Nov. 9, 2020. Baker fired 16 shots, 11 of which hit Anderson.

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Judge Michael Mayer handed down a 36-year sentence in June 2022.

Baker did not testify at his trial, so the justices considered testimony that was established from three statements he made to police following his arrest, according to Wednesdays opinion.

Baker said two men with guns got into his girlfriends car  he was in the front passenger seat  and made her drive to the hotel. Once parked, the men robbed them of cash, his wallet and his girlfriends purse. The men got out and ran.

Baker said he jumped out of the car with his gun, chased after the men and demanded they give back what they stole. He said he started shooting after the men pointed their guns at him, and that he stopped firing when one fell to the ground.

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At trial, before closing arguments, Bakers attorney moved for a jury instruction on self-defense and defense of others, which the prosecution opposed. Although Judge Mayer had allowed the defense to introduce those defenses during opening arguments, he ruled, at the close of evidence, that he would not be instructing the jury on self-defense and defense of others.

Robbery ongoing?

Mayer found that the robbery was over and that Baker re-engaged by exiting the car with a gun. Mayer said the defense failed to establish that Baker was not the initial aggressor because he re-engaged in contact with the victim. The defense also failed to establish that Baker did not have a reasonable means to retreat, according to Mayer.

The court of appeals affirmed, but it determined the elements of self-defense relied on by the district court  aggression and retreat  were complex and somewhat muddled under the facts of this case. Ultimately, the court of appeals did not decide the issues of aggression or retreat but instead affirmed because it concluded that Baker did not, as a matter of law, use a reasonable amount of force.

The Supreme Court found that, when viewed in a light most favorable to Baker, it is reasonable to infer that the robbery was ongoing when Baker exited the car and demanded his belongings back.

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Based on the specific evidence presented in this case, we conclude that Baker satisfied his burden by presenting sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that he was not the initial aggressor, Chief Justice Natalie Hudson wrote in the opinion.

The justices also concluded that Baker presented sufficient evidence from which a jury could reasonably conclude that Baker, with guns pointed at him, did not have a reasonable opportunity to retreat.

It was a close call on whether Baker used a reasonable degree of force, Hudson wrote. She noted evidence was presented at trial that the shots fired could have occurred in approximately five seconds, and also that Baker said he stopped shooting as soon as Anderson fell to the ground.

We acknowledge that a reasonable jury could conclude that the degree of force used was not reasonable, Hudson wrote. But we cannot go so far as to say that no reasonable juror could conclude that his use of force to defend himself was reasonable.  The reasonableness of the degree of force used in a particular situation is a quintessential question for a jury.

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Dakota County Attorney Kathy Keena said Wednesday in an emailed statement she was aware of the the Supreme Courts decision, adding: Unless the case resolves, its my intent to try the case again.

State public defender Steven Russett, who represented Baker in the appeal, did not return a message Wednesday for comment on the decision.

Second robber charged in 2022

The second assailant was later identified as Jwan Orlando Johnson, who was Andersons 45-year-old uncle.

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An April 2022 complaint against Johnson says Bakers girlfriend told Eagan police that she and Baker went to the hotel to sell Percocet pills to a woman. Anderson and Johnson got into the car and made off with approximately $3,000 in cash during the robbery, she told police. Texts recovered by police showed Johnson set up the robbery.

Johnson, of St. Paul, admitted to a charge of receiving stolen property after reaching a plea deal with the prosecution in July 2022; a first-degree aggravated robbery charge against him was dismissed.

Dakota County District Judge Shawn Moynihan in October 2022 stayed a nearly two-year prison sentence in favor of five years of probation. In departing from state sentencing guidelines, Moynihan cited Johnsons amenability to probation and chemical dependency treatment, and his remorse over the killing.

Court records show Johnson violated terms of probation in June and he was sentenced a month later to 20 days in the county jail.
Nov. 13MORGANTOWN  The Monongalia County Commission declared in no uncertain terms on Wednesday that it will not negotiate with the United Mine Workers of America.

The statement is a confirmation of the position first articulated by the body back in May and the commission's first comment on the issue since a Sept. 26 vote in support of UMWA representation by employees of the Monongalia County Assessor's Office.

In a letter to UMWA General Counsel Kevin Fagan and UMWA International District 31 Vice President Michael Payton, the commission reiterated its belief that third-party representation "is not in the best interest of the county, our employees or our citizens."

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In case any ambiguity remained, the letter concluded, "The commission does not and will not recognize the UMWA as the collective bargaining representative for the employees of the assessor's office."

The county once again pointed to West Virginia Code 18-5-45a, which reads, in part, "Public employees in West Virginia have no right, statutory or otherwise, to engage in collective bargaining, mediation or arbitration, and any work stoppage or strike by public employees is hereby declared to be unlawful."

Commission President Sean Sikora read the letter aloud. Payton was among the UMWA representatives in attendance.

Sikora noted the code section cited is based on the West Virginia Supreme Court ruling in Jefferson County Board of Education v. Jefferson County Education Association (1990).

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The commission's letter further stated, "While public employees may decide to support an organization, that does not give that organization the right to represent public employees for the purposes of collective bargaining. The commission is not willing to voluntarily give representational rights to third-party organizations when those rights are not expressly provided by the statute of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals."

Following the meeting, Payton recalled his Oct. 30 comments claiming the commission was waiting until after the Nov. 5 election to declare its position.

The union endorsed Republican MaryAnn Folz in her run against Democrat incumbent Tom Bloom. Bloom defeated Folz 21, 595 to 18, 213 to claim a third six-year term.

"It's exactly what I told you and what we predicted. We've been open and honest and up front from the beginning that eventually they would just have to say they're anti-union and anti-worker, " he said.

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Payton says the laws being cited pertain to public education and that the commission could choose to honor the wishes of the employees in the assessor's office.

"You know they're hiding behind the law, and they were hiding until after the election to help their good old boy stay in office, " he said. "I truly don't know what to say from here, but I can tell you that we will not stop until their voices are heard. We're not going away. This is not the end of it."

In other county news, Internet service providers Comcast, Frontier and Prodigi have responded to a request for proposals for a broadband project aimed at filling in the holes left after a $17.8 million broadband expansion effort currently underway between the commission and Comcast.

The commission is putting its remaining $1.25 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars into this smaller, secondary project.

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It put $5.98 million in ARPA funds into the larger broadband plan, which is expected to connect 2, 175 unserved and underserved homes and businesses in all parts of the county over the next two years. Design of that project is expected by the end of 2024.

ARPA funds must be obligated by Dec. 31.

Lastly, the commission adjusted its holiday schedule, canceling its Nov. 27 meeting and moving its Dec. 25 and Jan. 1 meetings forward to Dec. 23 and Dec. 30.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell meets with Florida's emergency management staff in Tallahassee on Oct. 10, 2024. (Photo courtesy of FEMA)

Attorney General Ashley Moody wants a jury trial against FEMAs head and a former supervisor who advised relief workers in Florida to avoid houses displaying yard signs favoring president-elect Donald Trump.

The suit filed in federal court on Wednesday comes after the Federal Emergency Management Agency fired Marni Washington, supervisor of post-Hurricane Helene and Milton relief efforts in Lake Placid, over her guidance to avoid houses advertising Trump.

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In the complaint, Moody accuses Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Washington of conspiring to interfere with the civil rights of Florida Trump supporters.

Aside from requesting the jury trial in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Moody is seeking nominal and punitive damages from Criswell and Washington.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. (Office of Attorney General)

Hurricane season is not over, and the federal agency in charge of emergency response is embroiled in scandal  caught withholding aid from storm victims in Florida who support President Trump, Moody wrote in a press release Thursday morning.

I am taking swift legal action to find out how far this political discrimination reaches and to make sure all Americans who fall victim to devastating storms are served, regardless of their political affiliation.

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Criswell announced on Nov. 9 that the agency had fired Washington and called her behavior a clear violation of FEMAs core values and principles. Moodys complaints cite multiple interviews in which Washington said the message she sent to the relief workers, which the Daily Wire published, lacked context and that her supervisors knew about and encouraged her decision to avoid the homes.

Its unacceptable for the federal government to discriminate against Floridians who voted for Trump, and especially egregious in the aftermath of a hurricane, Gov. Ron DeSantis said in the press release. Im supportive of this legal action by the Attorney Generals Office, and I have instructed state agencies to likewise take any action necessary to investigate and ensure those who engaged in this behavior are held accountable.

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability called Criswell to testify on Nov. 19 about the agencys efforts to deliver assistance. The committees chair, James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, wrote in a press release Wednesday that the committee is deeply concerned the events in Florida are not an isolated incident.

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Over two decades ago, researchers spotted a mysterious sea slug swimming more than 8,000 feet deep in the Monterey Bay.

In February 2000, scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute were using a remotely operated vehicle to observe sea animals offshore when they discovered a bioluminescent mollusk with a large gelatinous hood and paddle-like tail.

The sea creature, which they nicknamed the "mystery mollusk" because of its snail-like features, captivated them. But it would be years until the general public learned of this deep-sea discovery.

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Over the past 20 years, the team has used the institute's underwater technology to gather more information on the sea slug. They named the creature Bathydevius caudactylus. Scientists have seen the animal 150 more times and just published their findings in the December 2024 edition of the journal Deep-Sea Research Part I.

Read more: An 'Alien'-like marine creature washed ashore near Laguna Niguel over the weekend

"Thanks to [the research institute's] advanced underwater technology, we were able to prepare the most comprehensive description of a deep-sea animal ever made," Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute senior scientist Bruce Robison said in a news release. "Weve invested more than 20 years in understanding the natural history of this fascinating species of nudibranch. Our discovery is a new piece of the puzzle that can help better understand the largest habitat on Earth."

Robison was one of the leaders in the effort to describe the animal, which researchers initially had difficulty putting in a group. Eventually, they were able to more closely examine the animal in the lab and confirmed it was a nudribranch, also known as a sea slug, according to the release.

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Nudibranches tend to live on the seafloor and in coastal environments, such as coral reefs, kelp forests and tide pools. The mystery mollusk is the first known nudibranch to live in a deep-water column, specifically in the ocean's midnight zone  open water about 1,000 to 4,000 meters below the surface.

The creature lives offshore along the Pacific coast of North America and has been spotted as far north as Oregon and as far south as Southern California, according to the release. It uses a cavernous hood to trap crustaceans to eat  a feeding strategy also used by anemones and some jellies. To avoid being eaten, the mollusk hides with its transparent body and makes a quick escape by quickly closing its oral hood, similar to the movements of a jellyfish.

Read more: A huge deposit of marine fossils found under San Pedro High School

The mollusk lights up using bioluminescence when threatened to distract predators, researchers said. Scientists have observed the creature using a "finger-like projection" from its tail as a decoy.

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"When we first filmed it glowing ... everyone in the control room let out a loud Oooooh! at the same time. We were all enchanted by the sight," senior scientist Steven Haddock said in the release.

Haddock said the discovery highlights the importance of deep-sea exploration and the significance of using new technology to catalog previously unknown creatures.

"The more we learn about deep-sea communities, the better we will be at ocean decision-making and stewardship, he said

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4)  A 47-year-old man was taken into custody on Wednesday night, accused of intentionally but randomly shattering windows and damaging cars in Salt Lake City.

Damien McNear was booked into the Salt Lake County Metro Jail on three charges of felony property damage.

More than 800 Utah homes lose power after woman climbs transformer

Police say around 10 p.m. on Nov. 13, McNear, while intoxicated, was using a rock to smash windows at the Salt Lake District Attorneys Office located at 35 East and 500 South. He is also accused of scratching 10 new cars at a nearby Mercedez-Benz car dealership and chipping a window at the Salt Lake County Health Department.

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The damage done to the district attorneys office is reportedly estimated to be well over $5,000. Meanwhile, the damage to the cars and the window at the health department is still being assessed.

While the Salt Lake City Police Department said there is no reason to believe the incidents were targeted, they have not released a possible motive behind the property damage.

Charges are allegations only. All arrested persons are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

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SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4)  A woman is now receiving treatment after she damaged power equipment and climbed a substation transformer in Salt Lake City Wednesday morning during what police say was a mental health episode.

The incident, which took place near Gladiola Street and Decade Drive, led to authorities cutting power to more than 800 homes to prevent the woman from being electrocuted. According to the Salt Lake City Police Department, the alleged trespasser was taken into custody and transported to the hospital.

Ryan Kent, a witness to the incident, said he was driving in Salt Lake City when he noticed a couple of police cars at a power substation and pulled over to see what was happening.

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He said he saw a woman standing on top of the substation transformer screaming obscenities at the police as they tried to coax her to come down. He also noticed what looked like a smashed circuit box and a pipe nearby. Thats when four or five more police cars pulled up to the scene.

A woman allegedly climbed a substation transformer in Salt Lake City Wednesday morning, Nov. 13, during what police say was a mental health episode. (Credit: Ryan Kent)

Utahs most deadly geologic hazard could be in your home  Heres how to find out

Kent said he heard the woman yelling about how the world was no longer safe for her or future children and negotiators attempting to convince her to come down from the power structure. As the situation unfurled over the next 20 to 30 minutes, Kent said a large crowd of people gathered near the substation.

We were kind of concerned for her, Kent said. Were waiting around hoping that shes safe and shes okay, and she comes down.

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Authorities then began surrounding her with cherry pickers, but Kent said the woman started kicking the cherry pickers and grabbed onto a wire, climbing it like a vine.

Kent said when she stepped onto the rim of a cherry picker an officer shot a less lethal weapon, such as a stun gun or rubber gun, which was followed by a yelp.

The police officer then said to get inside the cherry picker or he would shoot again. The officer allegedly shot her again with the less lethal weapon.

She literally collapsed  from pain into the cherry picker and they went down slowly, Kent said. She seemed okay. She was verbal, and she was in pain, she was crying, and then [an] ambulance came put her on a stretcher, and took her away.

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Wild palomino stallion shot in central Utah, advocate says its not an isolated incident

Dave Eskelsen, a representative of Rocky Mountain Power, confirmed with ABC4.com that a person went into a substation and began damaging a control panel shortly before 11 a.m. Eskelsen said system dispatchers quickly cut the power and police were able to take the person out of the substation.

Eskelsen said approximately 800 customers were without service from around 11 a.m. to shortly before 1 p.m. when it was restored.

He is reminding the public that substations are hazardous and its extremely risky to enter one without training. Eskelsen said Rocky Mountain Power employees have to prepare before entering and take tremendous caution to stay safe.

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Salt Lake City police told ABC4 they are working to get the person involved the resources they need. They did not provide any identifying characteristics about the alleged trespasser.

Sorina Trauntvein and Mj Jewkes contributed to reporting.

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the gazette Gov. Jared Polis delivers the 2024 State of the State address to a joint session of the Legislature at the Colorado Capitol in January.
PHILADELPHIA (AP)  Additional human remains from a 1985 police bombing on the headquarters of a Black liberation group in Philadelphia have been found at the University of Pennsylvania.

The remains are believed to be those of 12-year-old Delisha Africa, one of five children and six adults killed when police bombed the MOVE organizations headquarters, causing a fire that spread to dozens of row homes. The violent confrontation, a rare bombing of American citizens by U.S. civilian authorities, led to lawsuits but no criminal charges against police or city officials.

The remains were discovered during a comprehensive inventory that the Penn Museum conducted to prepare thousands of artifacts, some dating back more than a century, to be moved into upgraded storage facilities.

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MOVE members, led by founder John Africa, practiced a lifestyle that shunned modern conveniences, preached equal rights for animals and rejected government authority. The group clashed with police and many of their practices drew complaints from neighbors.

Police seeking to oust members from their headquarters used a helicopter to drop a bomb on the house on May 13, 1985. More than 60 homes in the neighborhood burned to the ground as emergency personnel were told to stand down.

A 1986 commission report called the decision to bomb an occupied row house unconscionable. MOVE survivors were awarded a $1.5 million judgment in a 1996 lawsuit.

City officials claimed at the time of the bombing that neighbors had filed complaints, saying there were issues with sanitation, vermin and noise at odd hours.

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However, documents gathered by the commission and in the research into the bombing showed city officials, including the mayor, had designated the group as a terrorist organization. Group members maintained they had been targeted since a 1978 eviction attempt where a police officer was killed and called the complaints explanation a lie.

In 2021, university officials acknowledged that the school had retained bones from at least one bombing victim after helping with the forensic identification process in the wake of the bombing. A short time later, the city notified family members that there was a box of remains at the medical examiners office that had been kept after the autopsies were completed.

The museum said it's not known how the remains found this week were separated from the rest, and it immediately notified the child's family upon the discovery.

We are committed to full transparency with respect to any new evidence that may emerge, Penn Museum said in a statement on its website. "Confronting our institutional history requires ever-evolving examination of how we can uphold museum practices to the highest ethical standards. Centering human dignity and the wishes of descendant communities govern the current treatment of human remains in the Penn Museums care.

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Two lawyers who represent a man whose sister was killed in the bombing and who has sued the city over the mishandling of the remains said Thursday that Delisha Africa's remains turned up despite repeated assurances that all the remains from the bombing had been returned to the families.

For nearly 40 years, the City of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Museum have refused to treat the MOVE Bombing victims or their families with the even most basic level of respect and decency and this latest revelation is just the most recent in a long line of atrocities Black folks in America have had to live with, Bakari Sellers and Daniel Hartstein said in a statement. We are disgusted and disappointed but, unfortunately, we are not surprised.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH)  Statehouse legislators say its more important now than ever to repeal Ohios dormant same-sex marriage ban, concerned it could be reenacted if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns marriage equality.

Reps. Anita Somani (D-Dublin) and Jodi Whitted (D-Madeira) told NBC4 they are continuing to fight for House Bill 636, the Marriage Equality Act which was reintroduced in the Ohio House in June to remove revised code language adopted in 2004 that states a marriage may only be entered into by one man and one woman.

Anti-trans bathroom bill passes Ohio Senate, heads to DeWines desk

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It is incredible important for us to support this legislation at the Statehouse, Somani said. All Ohioans, no matter who they are, deserve the basic right to marry who they love. Now more than ever, it is imperative that we protect marriage equality in Ohio.

LGBTQ+ advocates argue the pairs act is needed given the Supreme Court has signaled it would like to reconsider Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case legalizing same-sex marriage. In a concurring opinion to the June 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote justices should reconsider all of this courts substantive due process precedents, including  Obergefell.

Although H.B. 636 is unlikely to make it through the Statehouse before the end of the year, Whitted and Somani are urging the House Civil Justice Committee to host the bills first hearing. Whitted, who is serving in the House until the end of the year after she was appointed to late Rep. Brigid Kellys seat, said she is holding discussions for who will join Somani in advocating for the measure after her term ends.

I firmly believe that the visibility of positive legislation impacting the LGBTQ+ community in Ohio is more important now than ever, said Whitted. I believe in this bill. I still believe that action needs to be taken on H.B. 636 this [general assembly]. With everything happening in the world, I believe it is important to champion positive, inclusive legislation.

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The act, which would also protect interracial marriage by adding language that says the state shall not prohibit marriage between individuals of different races, would be the first of two major steps in aligning Ohio law with the protections for couples set by Obergefell.

Kaleidoscope to expand with Findlay services, raises $93K for 30th anniversary

While a federal law signed in 2022, the Respect for Marriage Act, requires a state to recognize same-sex marriages from elsewhere, it does not offer all the same protections in place by Obergefell, especially in Ohio. Should the Supreme Court deem same-sex marriage unconstitutional, the act allows states to determine whether to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Along with the 2004 language in the states revised code, Ohio is one of 25 states home to a constitutional amendment that prohibits same-sex marriage and would be reenacted if Obergefell were overturned. Ohio passed the amendment to the states constitution also in 2004 that reads, Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions.

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If the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell, the Respect for Marriage Act only requires Ohio to recognize same-sex marriages from states where it is legal. So, if by then the lawmakers Marriage Equality Act is signed into law, Ohioans would still need to propose and pass another constitutional amendment to override the 2004 amendment.

H.B. 636s previous version did not advance in the Statehouse. Rather than pass protections for same-sex couples, the Ohio legislature has prioritized an influx of bills that advocates deem anti-LGBTQ+, like the anti-transgender Senate Bill 104 which passed on Wednesday to ban Ohios students from using school restrooms that dont align with their sex assigned at birth.

Should such a constitutional amendment be successful, Ohio would follow voters in California, Colorado and Hawaii who approved ballot measures on Nov. 5 to enshrine protections for same-sex marriage into their state constitutions.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NBC4 WCMH-TV.
NEW YORK  Kevin Roberts, the president of the right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation, took a victory lap at a lavish party on Tuesday night, selling his book and vision for a transformed country on the march against China to a crowd of conservative elites.

The book launch for Roberts Dawns Early Light was originally scheduled for release on Sept. 24 of this year. The book was delayed, however, after Project 2025, the foundation's vision for recreating the United States in its image, became a central talking point in the presidential campaign. The fact that Vice President-elect JD Vance wrote the foreward for Roberts book only doubly raised its profile, so the group punted the books release until after the election.

At the penthouse bar at the luxurious Kimberly Hotel on East 50th Street in Manhattan, some reporters were told to Go to hell and others from conservative outlets were welcomed. Roberts sat down with Fox News Host Brian Kilmeade in front of a packed room of conservative donors and activists.

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Americans want to wake up in a normal country again, Roberts began, likely euphemistically referring to Project 2025s plan to all but erase federal protections and anti-discrimination measures based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

Roberts went on to say that his desire to transform America was rooted in childhood trauma. His brother committed suicide at just 15 years old in 1983, his parents divorced and his hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana was going through the oil bust. In Roberts telling, this trauma was enabled by big government and its proponents.

What JD Vance saw a little bit later, is what tens of millions of Americans are facing now, because of the opioid crisis, and frankly, not because of ill intention by people who want big government, I'm going to ascribe good motives there, but government has displaced the very factors that allowed me to flourish: family, friends, communities, churches, civic organizations, Roberts said.

These individual issues also appear in Project 2025. The plan's answer to the oil bust is to tear down barriers protecting public land, allowing oil and gas companies to expand their operations there. Many of the Project 2025 partner organizations have called for either restricting or eliminating no-fault divorce.

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Roberts proceeded to name the uni-party as the real enemy, in a move that would have felt at home at one of Robert Kennedy Jr.s campaign events, saying: The institution in DC that stands in the way is not the Democrat Party or the Republican Party or just K Street. It is this antagonist known as the uni-party.

In Roberts analysis, Trump represents a break from the establishment, despite some of his recent cabinet appointments, like reported Secretary of State pick Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and that Trump has been a Republican power broker since 2012, when Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, traveled to New York during his presidential campaign to seek Trumps endorsement.

As part of Roberts plan to rebel against the uni-party, he called on the incoming administration to fully embrace and enlarge the military-industrial complex. While gesturing to free markets, he called on Vance to implement an industrial policy rooted in the defense industry, which would, in some ways, continue President Joe Bidens project of military Keynesianism.

According to Roberts, the United States needs to build up the most lethal force in the world, a force Roberts claims he would like to be the most sparingly used. However, Roberts said that the purpose of this even larger military would be confronting with China.

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And one of the things that I talk about extensively, as you know Brian, in the book, is confronting the Chinese Communist Party. You and I are both sons of the Reagan Revolution, Roberts said. We understood the Soviet Union was an existential threat, certainly with its nuclear capabilities, it was, and Russia is, but China is even more sinister. It's more insidious in what they have done under this communist regime.

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Roberts cited vague notions of self-government as the driving force in his desire for the United States to confront China. Self-government, which he says would give way to a golden era of conservative policy reform.

While the Heritage Foundation did not write the GOP's platform, the think tank is undoubtedly influential in Republican policymaking. By their own calculation, Trump enacted some 64% of their recommendations in his budget in 2018, for example.

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As attendees mingled after Roberts interview with Kilmeade, they exchanged expectations for the incoming Trump administration. Some hoped he would follow through on his dovish campaign rhetoric, others thought he might escalate conflict in the Middle East.

In conversations with Salon, many expressed hope that Trump might take up their own pet issue, like dismantling the administrative state, ending diversity initiatives or directing public funds to religious schools. When asked what their priority would be for a second Trump term, no one cited tariffs or tax cuts.

While there was a sense of victory in the air, the cracks in Trumps coalition also shined through. Disagreements between the self-fashioned libertarians, neoconservatives and nationalists previewed the factions vying for power within the Republican Party, factions which stand to come to the forefront in his next term.
FLOWOOD, Miss. (WJTV)  Officials with the Mothers Milk Bank of Mississippi (MMBM) said the organization is at risk of closing its doors unless they can raise $150,000.

The breast milk donated to MMBM helps premature babies across the state.

Childrens of Mississippi receives $1.5 million for surgical unit

Were not just feeding babies; were giving them a fighting chance to grow stronger each day, said Janell Belton, executive director of MMBM. But without immediate support, we wont be able to keep our doors open, and that means some babies in Mississippi could go without the critical nourishment they need.

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Officials said previous grant funding has run out. Theyre seeking donors and sponsors to help in their time of need.

Sponsorship Levels:

Milk Wish: $500-$3,000

Milk Manager: $3,500-$7,000

Milk Miracle: $8,000-$15,000

Liquid Gold: $16,000-$20,000

For more information, visit msmilkbank.org.

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WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said two men were arrested in connection to a shooting that took place in Southeast D.C.

On Nov. 8 at about 4 p.m., police responded to the report of a shooting in the 700 block of Chesapeake St.

When officers arrived at the scene, they found a man who had been shot.

Maryland Attorney General announces charges against Temple Hills apartment complex

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Responders took him to the hospital *in stable condition for the treatment of critical injuries.

After an investigation, MPD said officers arrested 32-year-old Vance McIlwain, of Northwest, D.C. and 31-year-old Kenneth Johnson, of Southeast, D.C. Authorities charged both men with Assault with Intent to Kill.

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MEMPHIS, Tenn.  Three women were arrested Tuesday after police say they were caught shoplifting in a stolen car with a fake drive-out tag.

Australia Butler, 28, Sarah Benson, 31, and Jayla Rhoten, 21, were taken into custody outside the Family Dollar on Quince in East Memphis.

(Lef to Right)Australia Butler, Jayla Rhoten and Sarah Benson (SCSO)

Butler and Benson were charged with theft of property, vandalism, altering or forging an auto tag, and possessing a vehicle with an altered serial number. All three were charged with possessing tools to interfere with an anti-theft security device.

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Police said on Oct. 19, a white 2017 Nissan Maxima was stolen from the Sams Club in the 7400 block of Winchester. Surveillance video showed a dark-colored Maxima driven by a woman pull next to the white Nissan and man dive into the vehicle and drive it off the lot.

Tuesday, members of the Memphis Police Departments Auto Theft Task Force, along with the Appling Farms Task Force and Bartlett Police Crime Suppression Unit, spotted the stolen white Maxima at Quince and Perkins and followed the car to the Family Dollar Store.

Police said Benson was driving the car, and Butler and Rhoten were passengers. The women were detained inside the store.

They said Benson had several items from the Family Dollar concealed inside her purse, and Butler had a generic keyfob programmed to operate the stolen Maxima in her pocket.

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Officers said they also recovered a large amount of presumably stolen merchandise inside the vehicle. Police said some of the items still had security devices, and they found a large magnet to remove retail security devices on top of the center console.

Police said they also located a fraudulent City of Memphis odometer disclosure statement in the glove box. According to MPD, the paperwork is used to obtain vehicle titles and registration fraudulenty.

The Maxima had several bullet holes on the roof and was missing a piece of trim on the front passenger side. Police said the vehicle had been reprogrammed and would cost around $1,200 to reprogram it.

Benson, Butler, and Rhoten are scheduled to appear in court on Thursday.

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An MS-13 gangbanger has been busted on federal charges in a Queens pot dealers murder from more than a decade ago, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Roger Morales, 31, was arrested Thursday morning after his indictment in the murder-in-aid-of-racketeering of Norman Mizzell, who was shot dead in his Ozone Park bedroom on June 5, 2011.

Morales, who goes by the nicknames Crazy and Cyclone, first met the 30-year-old victim when he and other MS-13 members bought pot from the victim at his 128th St. home, the feds allege.

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They came back to buy more pot several days later, and when they realized he wasnt home, they broke in and ransacked the place, the feds allege.

Mizzell confronted the gangbangers about the burglary, which they saw as a slight, so they decided to kill him, the feds allege.

They shot him through his bedroom window during a feigned late-night marijuana purchase, the feds allege in a sentencing memo.

As alleged, the defendant and his co-conspirators killed the victim for the twisted purpose of maintaining and increasing their positions in the MS-13 gang, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said. This prosecution reflects the resolve by my office and our law enforcement partners to bring gang members to justice for their violent crimes and that we will not be deterred by the passage of time.

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Morales was a juvenile at the time of the murder, meaning his case is not death penalty-eligible, and though he faces the possibility of life behind bars, he wont face a mandatory life sentence if convicted.

On Thursday, Morales lawyer Michael Marinaccio said his client denies involvement and has been working for the past several years as a truck driver for a local cement company.

We anxiously await the receipt of discovery materials. My clients an American citizen. Hes working hard. He helps support his siblings. This comes as a big surprise to him, Marinaccio said.

These allegations go back to 2011, he said, adding the court documents are thin on evidence.

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Morales is part of the Queens-based Centrales Locos Salvatruchas clique of MS-13, the feds allege. Last year, a federal jury convicted the cliques leader, Melvi Amador-Rios, of racketeering murder after a trial featuring testimony from his own brother.

Morales was arraigned in Brooklyn Federal Court Thursday and ordered held without bail.
MEMPHIS, Tenn.  The Lafayette County Sheriffs Office has arrested two men they say were caught on camera spending money stolen from someone elses bank account.

Deputies with the departments criminal investigation unit said $6,595 was taken from the victim back in October and used on a Green Dot card.

Investigators said they were able to get a transaction history for the Green Dot card and video surveillance showing two men using the card.

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Mom with disabled child says EBT card stolen

Tyler Pardue & Jacob Tomason (Lafayette County Sheriffs Office)

Jacob Wayne Tomason, 36, and Tyler Chase Pardue, 25, both of Thaxton, Mississippi, were arrested Tuesday and charged with false pretenses.

Tomason and Pardue appeared before a judge on Wednesday and are being held in the Lafayette County Detention Center. They each received a $10,000 bond.

Tomason is currently on parole and is also being held by MDOC.

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SPRINGFIELD, Mo.  The Board of Governors at Missouri State University (MSU) has said it was unaware of any incident by President Richard Biff Williams when he was offered his position at the university.

MSUs Board of Governors had this to say about the pending lawsuit involving Williams:

The Board of Governors was not aware of the situation when they offered the position to President Williams. In mid-June, he informed the board chair that there was an issue. The board only recently became aware of the extent of the circumstances. Missouri State Universitys Board of Governors

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The federal lawsuit against Utah Tech University names Williams as one of many accused of misconduct by three other staff members.

The plaintiffs claim that Utah Tech leadership (including Williams) was hostile toward Title IX and Title VII protections, and when they tried to make the university comply with its discrimination policies, they were met with strong pushback, intimidation, discrimination, harassment, abuse, and retaliation from Utah Techs highest leaders.

Defamation lawsuit against MSU president alleges pattern of harassment at Utah Tech

Williams is specifically accused of leaving an obscene display of two eggplants and a zucchini resembling male genitalia on the front porch of Vice President Jordon Sharps home during his recovery from a vasectomy. The lawsuit says Williams falsely attributed the gesture and accompanying note to the three plaintiffs.

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Once the incident was reported to human resources by the plaintiffs, the lawsuit alleges Utah Tech knew of Williams misconduct and condoned it by providing him a highly favorable separation agreement in lieu of discipline. The employees who eventually sued were told their complaints were being dismissed with Williams stepping down from the university.

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Editors Note: This article has been updated to reflect that families of National Guardsmen and reservists also received turkeys.

(COLORADO SPRINGS)  Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center handed out turkeys to more than 1,200 local active-duty military members on Friday, Nov. 15.

Mt. Carmel has provided turkeys for troops for four years. The Colorado Springs Rotary Club volunteered to help distribute the turkeys to representatives from Fort Carson, Peterson Space Force Base, Schriever Space Force Base, the Air Force Academy, and the Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station.

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Those representatives then distributed the turkeys to family members of soldiers, National Guardsmen, and reservists at each installation.

Courtesy: FOX21 News photojournalist Lilia Onstott Courtesy: FOX21 News photojournalist Lilia Onstott Courtesy: FOX21 News photojournalist Lilia Onstott Courtesy: FOX21 News photojournalist Lilia Onstott Courtesy: FOX21 News photojournalist Lilia Onstott

It helps purchase more for Thanksgiving and save more money for Christmas, which is coming up, said James Herrington, Community Outreach and Military Liaison Intern with Mt. Carmel. Its a small token, but its always appreciated by, you know, everyone Ive interacted with.

Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center is a nonprofit serving Southern Colorado that provides transition and employment assistance, behavioral health and wellness, connection to community resources, and safe event spaces for veterans, military members, and their families.

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President-elect Donald Trump once again ran on promises to limit United States military intervention overseas, declaring in his victory speech, Im not going to start a war. Im going to stop wars.

Vice President-elect JD Vance dubbed him the candidate of peace; the Arab American leaders who backed Trump, in part due to outgoing President Joe Bidens unquestioning support for Israels wars in Gaza and Lebanon, expressed confidence in the same.

But Trumps selections for top national security and diplomatic posts in his administration significantly undercut those claims.

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For the positions of secretary of state, national security adviser, United Nations ambassador, U.S. ambassador to Israel, and secretary of defense, Trump has picked a group of classic foreign policy hawks with ideological views that would be right at home in the same trigger-happy George W. Bush presidency that Trump criticized so heavily in 2016.

Stephen Miles, president of Win Without War, was not expecting any better of Trump, saying he governed as a war hawk last time in spite of his campaign rhetoric.

Despite what he says, Donald Trumps not now, nor has he ever been, an antiwar candidate, Miles said. So its not a surprising cast of characters to me.

Other anti-interventionists are taking a wait-and-see approach to Trumps policy and taking heart in his nomination of former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a deep critic of U.S. military adventurism and intelligence agency operations, as director of national intelligence.

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So far, its been a mixed bag, said Arta Moeini, head of U.S. operations for the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, a think tank that advocates military restraint. Tulsi Gabbard as DNI is a historic pick against the deep state, but [Florida Sen.] Marco Rubio as secretary of state signals business as usual.

Trump has picked Fox News TV host Pete Hegseth, an Iraq War apologist, as secretary of defense; New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a former George W. Bush administration official and staunch Israel defender, as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; and Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and evangelical Christian supporter of West Bank settlements, as U.S. ambassador to Israel.

But no appointments have raised anti-interventionist eyebrows quite like the selection of Florida Rep. Mike Waltz as national security adviser and Rubio as secretary of state.

Referring to Waltz and Rubio, conservative anti-interventionist commentator Saagar Enjeti told HuffPost, The only restraint case you make is that Trump will try to moderate them or not take their advice.

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), right, now a Trump loyalist, opposed the former president's negotiations to withdraw from Afghanistan. Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Waltz, a former Army Green Beret who served in the Afghanistan War, vehemently opposed even Trumps efforts to negotiate troop withdrawals with the Taliban. In 2017 remarks at a conservative conference, Waltz said the countrys leaders needed to tell the public were 15 years into a multi-generational war in Afghanistan. And in September 2019, Waltz cited the approaching anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to blast Trump for a planned peace conference with Taliban leaders at Camp David.

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Elsewhere in the Middle East, Waltz has encouraged Israel to bomb Irans nuclear facilities and prevent it from exporting oil.

Walz is also a staunch China hawk, claiming the United States is already in a cold war with the Chinese Communist Party and suggesting the U.S. needed to be prepared to defend Taiwan militarily. Waltz has likewise opposed bipartisan efforts to sunset the post-9/11 authorization for the use of military force but wants to introduce a new AUMF for the U.S. to conduct military operations against Mexican drug cartels.

At the same time, Waltz shares Trumps skepticism of continued military aid to Ukraine, which he has voted against multiple times.

Perhaps most ironically, Waltz advised then-Vice President Dick Cheney about counterterrorism while working in the White House following his combat tours.

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In the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump got great mileage out of Dick Cheneys and his daughter Liz Cheneys endorsements of Vice President Kamala Harris. Hes the King of Endless, Nonsensical Wars, wasting Lives and Trillions of Dollars, just like Comrade Kamala Harris, Trump posted on Truth Social in September in response to the elder Cheneys endorsement announcement.

For his part, Rubio has a similar record and ideology with a few differences in emphasis. While competing against Trump for the GOP presidential nomination in March 2016, Rubio attacked Trump for suggesting he might adopt a neutral stance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, accusing him of being anti-Israeli. And in May 2016, by which time Rubio had withdrawn from the Republican presidential primary and ruled out a role as Trumps running mate, he slammed Trumps isolationist rhetoric. If we are not engaged in the world, the price we pay will be much higher in the long run than the price we pay to be engaged, he said.

Once Trump was in office, Rubio backed Trump when he was hawkish, and critiqued him when he was not. For example, he criticized Trump for withdrawing troops from Syria in the war against ISIS in 2019, when he said it was too early. He supported Trumps withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement, encouraged the U.S. military to prepare to defend Taiwan from China, and sees the Israeli governments military operations in Gaza and Lebanon as vital for U.S. interests. He is a staunch Latin America hawk as well, cheerleading Trumps pursuit of regime change in Venezuela.

But while Rubio has long advocated an aggressive approach to confronting Russia, he too has come around to the idea that the Ukraine war must end through a negotiated settlement and has defended Trumps calls for diplomacy to commence.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), right, is a traditional Republican foreign policy hawk. He once derided Trump as "anti-Israeli." RYAN M. KELLY/Getty Images

One area Trump likely is going to make a major priority for himself, and as a result, make it a bit more difficult for some of these other players to take charge of the policy is probably on Ukraine, said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an anti-interventionist think tank.

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I dont think, in his heart of hearts, Marco Rubio is on board with that, but I think this is such a crucial issue for Trump and also for [Vice President-elect] JD Vance that thats probably one of the areas in which the policy will probably not be very impacted by some of these personnel choices.

News of Rubios tentative selection, which became official Wednesday, nonetheless prompted swift condemnation from anti-interventionists on the right who see him as an unrepentant neoconservative  that is, a proponent of reshaping foreign governments for reasons other than immediate military necessity.

Marco Rubio is a disaster. Might as well give Liz Cheney the State Department. Awful sign, Dave Smith, a Trump-supporting libertarian commentator, wrote on X on Tuesday.

Michael Tracey, a dovish foreign policy journalist critical of both Democrats and Trump, wrote in his newsletter that if the Senate confirms Rubio, Trump will be entering his second Administration with arguably the most zealously interventionist administration in decades.

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Glenn Greenwald, who, like Tracey, frequently fulminates against the excesses of Trumps liberal critics, was only slightly less pessimistic, warning on a Monday episode of System Update against being premature about a Trump administration that has yet to begin.

But, he added, If youre looking for signals in these early appointments and these early gestures, I dont think you can find anything here to say that it looks like Donald Trump is going to wage war against American neoconservatives or warmongers in Washington.

Following Trumps selection of Gabbard on Wednesday, Greenwald posted approvingly about her selection.

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Parsi held out hope that mid-level foreign policy officials would be more dovish than the Cabinet-level picks for which Trump appears to be going more on loyalty and the wishes of big donors, rather than on ideology.

Parsi, who was born in Iran and advocates for a more conciliatory approach with the historic U.S. adversary, believes hawkish advisers played a key role in pushing Trump to ratchet up tensions with Iran.

Who is in the room makes a huge difference, Parsi said. The adviser you choose is very much the policy you choose.

Moeini had a similar assessment, noting the tendency of some Trump administration officials to quietly undercut Trumps foreign policy instincts during his first term when they conflicted with their own.

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I am very worried that people like Rubio and Waltz are not necessarily interested in ending the wars, Moeini said. They only think about the language of force, and they will use the idea of America as the victor, as the dignified presence, to project any changes in policy as defeats.

Related...
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WSPA)  The Asheville Police Department announced Thursday morning that a suspect wanted for murder has been arrested.

Officers said that the Jacksonville Police Department located and arrested 34-year-old Darren Lamont Clayton Wednesday afternoon.

A search for Clayton was initiated on Nov. 9 after police found the body of 26-year-old Makayla Lashea Harrison with a gunshot wound in a home on South French Broad Avenue.

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Detectives identified Clayton as the suspected shooter.

Clayton was apprehended a few days after the murder by North Carolina officials.

Officers did not share how Clayton and Harrison were acquainted with one another.

Harrisons death remains under investigation by the Asheville PD.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH)  Students living in Lawrence Tower at Ohio State University have concerns about mold and mushrooms growing in their dorm rooms. Meantime, the university said a water leak is to blame and dozens of students are now being relocated.

A statement from the university said 40 students will be temporarily relocated from 19 affected rooms.

Paige Scheidemantel has until Friday to pack up and move out of Lawrence Tower. The freshman was told her room was one of the rooms impacted by the water leak. She said her main concern is the mold she found in her room.

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Me and my roommates have been literally sick since the first day we got in here, Scheidemantel said. Weve all had coughs.

Scheidemantel said a mold test she recently conducted revealed there was black mold in her room.

We found like a fuzzy chunk of mold in our AC, she said. There was mold on our bathroom ceiling.

Scheidemantels friend Lauren Lerch lives in the dorm room next door. The two said theyre nervous about the health impacts.

Weve all been sick, Lerch said. My roommate has gone to the doctor two or three times, has been on antibiotics the whole time, she cant sleep. Shes been coughing up mucus, blood, throwing up. Its been bad.

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This doesnt appear to be an isolated incident. Sam Ash, who also lives in Lawrence Tower, said he didnt realize the problem until the towel holder next to his shower fell off the wall.

So then we looked behind the wallpaper because there was a little crease right there and the more it peeled back, the closer it got to the shower, instead of being white like the rest of the drywall, it was a little black, Ash said.

Meantime, Kyra Avarello has already moved into a new residence hall after a shocking discovery a couple weeks ago.

I came back from a party and my roommate told me that there was something growing out of the wall, Avarello said.

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She said that the next morning when she woke up, it had sprouted into a mushroom.

We were pretty freaked out, Avarello said. We didnt know what kind of stuff we were breathing in and if these mushrooms were harmful.

Students are now scrambling in between class and work to pack up all their belongings.

We have midterms on Thursday, Lerch said. Its impacting everything. We have to find a way to pack, go to classes, while also dealing with everything going on.

Drew Lutz, a freshman in Lawrence Tower, said he received an email around 5 p.m. Tuesday from OSU Housing. The email notified him he has been assigned to move to Morrill Tower by 1 p.m. Friday.

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I wish that they would be a little more flexible and open with the students, because the email we got was pretty vague just saying you have to move all of your stuff out, Lutz said.

Mykenna Roy, an undergraduate student government university senator, said a resolution was brought to the student government criticizing the use of Lawrence Tower as a dorm because of the current health risks associated with it. In a unanimous vote, the resolution was passed through the committee. The final vote will take place Wednesday night.

According to the university, if any student notices water-related or other issues within their specific room, the university said they should submit a facilities service request by clicking here. The university said students should not remove wall coverings, pull up caulk or take other actions that would impact the structure of their living space.

The schools full statement is below:

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A water leak occurred in a utility chase, the vertical space that allows pipes and wires to run from one floor to another, on the 11th floor of Lawrence Tower. This leak caused water damage to the drywall and is limited to the rooms that are adjacent to that utility chase.

The leak was reported via Service2Facilities on October 28, and the same morning Facilities team members were on site assessing the damage. They moved quickly to repair the leak and work to identify the extent of the water damage and begin making repairs to those spaces.

We have been working with an external consultant to develop and implement a remediation plan to repair the damage caused by the leak and replace the saturated drywall. While no immediate health or safety concerns to residents have been identified as a result of the water damage, the best option for the most rapid fix will require us to temporarily move all residents in the rooms adjacent to the utility chase to another location within the university housing system. This will allow crews to do the work more quickly and efficiently and is the sole reason for the temporary relocation.

Only students living in rooms impacted by the leak will be moved. Approximately 40 students will be temporarily moved from 19 impacted rooms. We are working with those students to facilitate and assist them with the relocation. While it is too early to have a timetable for repairs, we anticipate that these will be temporary moves and that students will be able to return to their rooms after the work is completed.

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Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are set to take the reins of the brand new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under President-elect Trump  a panel with bold ambitions of slashing government costs and restructuring federal agencies.

However, it is likely to face numerous roadblocks in its efforts to effect change in the next administration given its seemingly advisory role, experts said.

Theres the executive branch that might be in their way. The Congress might be in their way. The Constitution is a bit of an obstacle, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of American Action Forum.

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Other than that, clear sailing, he told The Hill.

Trump announced Tuesday evening that the pair of tech entrepreneurs would jointly lead the panel, which will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government.

It will partner with the White House and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to drive large scale structural reform, with its work set to conclude by July 4, 2026, Trump said in a statement.

It will become, potentially, The Manhattan Project of our time. Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of DOGE for a very long time, the president-elect said.

The panel created an official government account Wednesday on the social platform X  which is owned by Musk  writing, Working overtime to ensure your tax dollars will be spent wisely!

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Musk and Trump previously discussed the prospect of a cost-cutting panel during the campaign, as the tech titan threw his support behind the Republican candidate with multimillion-dollar contributions to his own pro-Trump super PAC and amplifications of Trumps message on X.

While DOGE is now set to become a reality, experts are skeptical about what it will actually be able to accomplish.

It sounds to me like an outside commission that will give OMB recommendations on what they think should be done to improve government efficiency, and as such its powers are entirely advisory, Holtz-Eakin said.

They dont have any authority to do anything other than say, We think this will be good, he said. Evidently, Mr. Musk has a lot of free time, and if he wants to waste it, thats fine.

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Government commissions such as DOGE typically have a large staff and budget and produce a formal report with recommendations for Congress, explained Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution.

But since this was not created by Congress, we dont know what its authority is and what status it has, West said. I mean, any American can make suggestions on ways to cut the government budget, but the question  is anybody going to pay serious attention to this?

Any major budget cuts would have to be approved by Congress, he noted. While Republicans have secured control of both chambers, they are likely to have a narrow majority in the House and lack a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Its not clear that any draconian measure is going to see the light of day, West said.

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However, Musks close relationship with Trump is notable. The billionaire spent election night with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago, watching the results roll in, and Trump thanked the Tesla and SpaceX CEO in his victory speech, calling him a star.

In the days since the election, Musk has reportedly remained at Mar-a-Lago with the president-elect, sitting in on meetings and phone calls, including with world leaders, according to The New York Times.

Musk also joined Trump at a Wednesday meeting with House Republicans on Capitol Hill, where the president-elect joked, Elon wont go home. I cant get rid of him. Until I dont like him.

Trump met with Biden later that day, marking his first visit to the Oval Office since leaving the presidency in 2021.

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Musk has the ear of the president, so people have to take it seriously just for that reason, West told The Hill.

Republicans will also have two shots at passing major legislation through budget reconciliation, which could give Trump and the GOP several chances to enact sweeping changes without having to clear a Senate filibuster.

Musk had said much of DOGEs focus will be on what the panel considers egregious misuses of federal spending.

Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know! Musk posted Tuesday night.

We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining, Musk continued.

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Shortly after the idea was floated earlier this year, ethics experts and former government officials raised concerns that Musk holding dual roles in his tech companies and the Trump administration could be a conflict of interest.

Tesla and SpaceX have contracts worth billions of dollars with the same federal agencies he is likely to work with in his advisory role. This could risk the panels objectivity and fairness, some experts argued.

Even the panels name, DOGE, is a nod to a cryptocurrency often touted by Musk: Dogecoin, which riffs off a mid-2010s meme featuring a Shiba Inu. Dogecoins value was up more than 90 percent over the past week as of Wednesday afternoon.

Handing the keys of government to those looking to profit from our government is extremely dangerous and a massive conflict of interest, Zach Moller, economic program director at Third Way, a center-left think tank, said in a statement. The idea of a Musk-run government efficiency commission is a farce and will lead to more waste, fraud, and rampant abuse of political power.

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Americans would be right to suspect that Musk would use his newfound government powers to throw a lifeline to his teetering companies, he added.

Experts further pointed to Musks controversies and legal challenges at his other companies and how this could be a hint of his leadership style.

Musk not only knows nothing about government efficiency and regulation, his own businesses have regularly run afoul of the very rules he will be in position to attack in his new czar position, Lisa Gilbert, the co-president of progressive consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen, wrote Wednesday.

Musk has faced a number of legal challenges over his companies conduct, including their hiring and termination practices, pay structure and product performance.

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While calling Musk a brilliant entrepreneur and a tech visionary, Moller said the billionaires companies are deeply troubled and mismanaged.

Musk has not fully laid out whether his roles in his other companies will change with the new position, though he reposted one user who said Tesla investors should be reassured by the groups position outside of government and that it is limited to 21 months.

Typically, with a government-created commission, members have to respect conflict of interest rules, and its not clear how Musk is going to comply with that, or what the requirements would be, since this seems to be an ad hoc operation, West noted.

It allows him to avoid ethics rules, but it doesnt put him in a strong position to change public policy, he added.

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Police of Newport, Virginia announce the arrest of a man facing a multitude of charges such as motor vehicle theft and grand larceny after crossing state lines into New Hampshire on Thursday.

Harold Nadeau Jr., 48, of Charleston, Virginia is facing charges of:

Aggravated Operation of a Motor Vehicle Without Consent of the Owner

Grand Larceny

Operation of a Vehicle After Suspension or Revocation of License

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Newport police received word last Thursday, November 7, after a person reported their a Gray Ford-250 truck had been stolen. Police werent able to find the truck through initial investigations, but were able to obtain a description of the truck and suspected theft. The truck reportedly had $5000 of tools inside it.

On Wednesday, November 13, at 8:36 p.m. Newport police received word that the truck had been spotted in Bethlehem, New Hampshire, and revealed that Nadeau had stolen it. Police also found out that shortly before stealing the truck, Nadeau had been released from a correctional facility and was driving under an indefinite criminal suspended license.

An arrest warrant was issued for Nadeau, and he was later arrested that night in Littleton, N.H. He is currently being held in N.H. on $25,000 cash bail pending his arraignment.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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Farid Malik Shabazz cannot run for the Naperville City Council in April because his nominating petitions did not reflect his recent name change, a city electoral board ruled Wednesday.

Shabazz, a first-time candidate, says he does not plan to appeal.

Im a little down, he said after the ruling. But its a teachable moment. This is a teachable moment.

The ruling comes in response to a challenge filed by Dianne McGuire, Nancy Turner and Mark Urda, who cited problems with Shabazzs nominating petitions because they did not comply with state rules governing candidates who have legally changed their name.

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The Municipal Officers Electoral Board, made up of Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli, City Clerk Dawn Portner and City Councilman Patrick Kelly, reviewed the evidence, listened to arguments and ultimately voted 2-1 that Shabazzs errors made him ineligible to run. Wehrli cast the one vote in favor of keeping him on the ballot.

The objection was one of two challenges the board heard Wednesday. The other was filed against council candidate Nag Jaiswal and will be decided next month after more information is provided in the case.

The Jaiswal complaint was also filed by McGuire, Turner and Urda. All three were In attendance Wednesday, and said they were pleased with the boards ruling on the Shabazz candidacy.

I think were grateful, McGuire said.

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The Shabazz objection centered on the candidates recent name change. His nominating petitions should be nullified, the challenge said, because he held himself out under different varieties of names and a/k/a identifiers to hundreds of voters and the city of Naperville.

Last year, a DuPage County judge granted a request to change Shabazzs name from David Lee Hughes to Farid Malik Shabazz, according to online court records. According to the challenge, he failed to adequately disclose that change when asking voters to sign his candidacy petitions.

Illinois law states that a candidate who has changed their name through a statutory or common law procedure must disclose that on their petition sheets if it occurred within three years of filing to run for office. It also requires that the candidate include an affidavit stating their previous names and when they were changed as part of their nominating petitions.

Shabazz did not provide an affidavit or disclose his name change on 18 petition sheets he submitted.

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All that matters is the plain language of the statute, Kelly said. In this case, to me it is clear that the candidate did not substantially comply with those requirements.

I know the importance of the voting process, Portner said. I know how important it is to make sure that our residents have the right to vote for their elected officials. To me, its one of the cornerstones of our democracy. But before this can happen, candidates must navigate the election code requirements.

Attorney Mario Palermo, representing McGuire,Turner and Urda in their challenge, told the board that its fundamental (that voters) know for whom theyre choosing. They need to know who they are voting for.

Palermo also raised concerns that while vetting Shabazzs former name, a criminal history was discovered. Court documents show that Shabazz disclosed two convictions from more than 20 years ago on his name change petition.

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Shabazz on Wednesday said he has no felonies  (and) no hard criminal record in the state of Illinois or anywhere else he has lived.

He changed his name for religious reasons and has been going by Farid Malik Shabazz in his day-to-day life for years, long before he formally made the change in court, he said. He didnt think the requirement for disclosing the change on petition sheets applied to him because hes been using the name for well over 25 years, he said.

In the wake of the boards ruling, Shabazz said he understood why the board ruled his petitions invalid. He does not regret trying to run for the council and plans to do so again in two years.

Im very happy I went through this process, he said. Ive got the bug, as they call it. So, no, Im not going anywhere.

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The petition challengers said Wednesdays hearing was a testament to the importance of not cutting corners in the electoral process.

They are our lawmakers, Turner said. They are our policy makers that sit on this bench, and you need to show evidence you can complete your petitions and follow the law. And if even that basic requirement is not met, thats a problem.

The same thing goes for Jaiswal, whose candidacy is being questioned over whether he obtained enough valid signatures on his petitions. Verification requires that both the DuPage and Will county clerk offices confirm the signatures he obtained through a records check.

Results from that check will be presented at a hearing scheduled for Dec. 5 in the Naperville Municipal Center council chambers.

tkenny@chicagotribune.com
A Naperville man who provided the ketamine that killed an Aurora man in an overdose death has been sentenced to six years in prison by a Kane County judge.

Samuel M. Nesnidal, 27, of the 2300 block of Putman Drive, pleaded guilty in May to a charge of drug-induced homicide, a class X felony, stemming from the October 2020 death of 23-year-old Austin Bank at his home, a Kane County States Attorneys Office news release said.

Bank died from fentanyl and ketamine intoxication, according to an autopsy and toxicology analysis.

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Nesnidal must serve at least 75% of the sentence per state law and was ordered to pay $20,034 in restitution to the victims family as part of Judge John Barsantis sentence, the release said. He will receive credit for two days served in the Kane County jail.

This case underscores the critical role that drug-induced homicide charges play in combating the devastating impact of illicit drug sales, Assistant States Attorney Kelly Orland said in a statement. It ensures that those who knowingly distribute dangerous substances are held accountable for their actions, instead of continuing to prey on vulnerable individuals struggling with addiction.
Punching Bag

NASA is undergoing another round of layoffs. And once again, it's the space agency's famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California that's taking the hit.

On Tuesday, JPL announced that it will be saying goodbye to 325 employees, or about five percent of its workforce, marking the second time this year that the research lab has downsized its personnel.

"This is a message I had hoped not to have to write," JPL director Laurie Leshin wrote in a memo to employees. "With lower budgets and based on the forecasted work ahead, we had to tighten our belts across the board, and you will see that reflected in the layoff impacts."

Cost Cutting

JPL previously laid off 530 employees in February, which accounted for eight percent of its staff at the time, in response to agency wide budget cuts.

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One issue is that the funds that the lab would receive for its role in the ambitious, multi-billion dollar Mars Sample Return mission were sharply reduced from over $900 million to around just $300 million this year. The mission's future remains uncertain, pending a further review that could decide its fate.

These latest cuts don't necessarily pertain to the Mars mission specifically, according to the memo, and were taken to fall within available funds for the 2025 federal fiscal year, which commenced in October.

"This reduction is spread across essentially all areas of the Lab including our technical, project, business, and support areas," Leshin wrote. "We have taken seriously the need to re-size our workforce, whether direct-funded (project) or funded on overhead (burden)."

Nonetheless, the workforce reduction is actually lower than what was projected a few months ago, Leshin said.

Budget Won't Budge

NASA has struggled with its budget in recent years. The space agency fought for an increased budget for 2024, but was handed a two percent decrease, falling over $2 billion short of what it was seeking.

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Along with mass layoffs, this has forced NASA to abandon sending its VIPER rover to the Moon, despite already spending $450 million on the project.

It's all the more striking because the agency recently announced that it generated over $75.6 billion in US economic output last year, or about three times its budget. Even setting its scientific value aside, there's a strong argument to be made that, in the face of the sheer economic power it's generating, NASA isn't getting the money it deserves.

How president-elect Donald Trump's administration could affect NASA's financial future is also a question worth asking. But Leshin says the layoffs were happening regardless of who's president, and are unrelated to the outcome of the election.

More on NASA: NASA Still Trying to Figure Out Why Astronaut Was Hospitalized After Return to Earth
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN)  The Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) is seeking the publics help to identify three October burglary suspects.

CRIME TRACKER | Read the latest crime-related reports from across Middle Tennessee

The three men reportedly entered an electronics store at 1:50 a.m. in the 2100 block of Murfreesboro Pike on Oct. 31 wielding crow bars and hammers. The men proceeded to break display cases and take $25,000 worth of goods, including phones, according to the MNPD.

October 31, 2024 burglary suspect (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department)

October 31, 2024 suspects (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department)

October 31, 2024 suspects (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department)

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

Police said that the men fled in a black Hyundai Elantra. Anyone with information about the suspects has been asked to call Crime Stoppers at (615) 742-7463. You can remain anonymous and may qualify for a cash reward.

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Chandra Colvin

MPR News

Veterans Day falls on Nov. 11 each year. Though Native Americans were universally granted U.S. citizenship in 1924, they have served in every major conflict since the Revolutionary War. Over the years, citizens of tribal nations have had a high record of military service, according to the state of Minnesota.

Back in 1967 I got a letter from the president of the United States saying, Hey, you are hereby ordered to report in the to the MEP Station (Military Entrance Processing Station) for induction in the United States military, 76-year-old Jerome Whiteman said about his enlistment in the Vietnam War.

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Jerome is a part of the 1.3 percent of veterans in Minnesota who identify as Native American. He says his family are now in their fifth generation of service. His grandfather and father both served in the military, followed by himself and his own children and now, grandchild.

The Whiteman family is from the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa in northeastern Minnesota.

Jeromes daughter, Adrienne Whiteman was 19 years old when she joined the Navy as a diesel mechanic. She says she was stationed abroad for most of her service, one location being Bodmin, England until 1992.

I missed home a lot, but, knowing that I played an important part within that base, I was okay, and it made time go by pretty fast, Adrienne said.

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She says the pride that the family has for their predecessors is what continued to inspire the next generations to enlist. Adrienne's daughter is now currently serving in the Navy, following in those footsteps.

I'm pretty proud that she took that opportunity, because she was one of the ones that was timid and a wait-and-see kind of kid, Adrienne said. I just had to gently nudge her.

While Jerome says he may not have voluntarily enlisted, he says his experiences serving taught him valuable life lessons that he has carried with him since.

As I see it today, I'm very grateful for what little I have, Jerome said. I don't need too much material things to get along because I have the ability to think and help grow with somebody.

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For some veterans, military service was a significant part of their lives before enlisting. Fellow Bois Forte Band member and veteran Frederick McDougall Sr. says it was a tradition in his family. He enlisted right after graduating from Hibbing High School in 1960 after a conversation with his uncle.

It goes beyond patriotism. It goes beyond citizenship. It goes beyond even the maltreatment that we suffered under many different situations, McDougall Sr. said.

According to the Smithsonian, 44,000 Native Americans, including women, served during World War II in some capacity.

We are keepers of this land. We're the caretakers. And if there's an act [of] aggression against it, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're defending United States, McDougall Sr. said. It's deeper than that. It's further. It's what we feel about our land.

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A more well-known example of Native American service members in World War II includes the code talkers, like the Navajo Code Talkers, who played a unique role in translating English into their Native language. Code talkers, who came from at least fifteen tribal nations, would transmit information that could not be translated by foreign powers.

Benjamin Rosaasen is from the Upper Sioux Community in southern Minnesota and is an Air Force veteran. Like the Whitemans and McDougall Sr., he says he also enlisted due to familial ties.

My great-uncle and his brother were both code talkers, Rosaasen said. You already feel like you're a part of something, but then having a relative that served that gets a little bit more emotional than anything.

According to Rosaasen, his relatives Daniel and Rufus Ross, are featured at the Fagen Fighters WWII Museum in Granite Falls. The Ross brothers were Lakota Code Talkers from the Yankton Sioux Tribe in South Dakota.

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Rosaasen was stationed in Germany for a part of his service 27 years ago. He says the camaraderie between soldiers and the acts of selflessness of those soldiers is what makes the military special to him.

There are many reasons that one could enlist into the military. However, Adrienne Whiteman says that no matter the reason, being a veteran brings valuable experiences to ones life.

Being a veteran to me, [it] brought me discipline, brought me structure, brought me organization. It brought a purpose and to be able to apply that to anything I do in my life afterwards, Adrienne said.

This year marks the 70th year since the official naming of Veterans Day in 1954 by Congress to honor American veterans from all wars and acts of service.

This story was first published in MPR News
BRUSSELS (AP)  NATO and the European Union are ramping up efforts to persuade China to help get North Korea to stop sending troops and other support to Russia to back its war on Ukraine.

Up to 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russias Kursk border region to help beat back Ukrainian forces there, according to U.S., South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence assessments. NATO says Russia is sending missile technology to North Korea in return.

With Russia exploiting its military advantage in Ukraine, the United States wants its allies to exert political pressure on China to rein in North Korea. Since Pyongyang and Beijing established diplomatic ties in 1949, their relationship has been described as being as close as lips and teeth.

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One political lever is the threat of any increased Western activity in Chinas backyard, the Asia-Pacific region. Just last week, the EU sealed security pacts with regional powers Japan and South Korea.

In an opinion piece for Politico last week, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that "China bears particular responsibility here, to use its influence in Pyongyang and Moscow to ensure they cease these actions. Beijing cannot pretend to promote peace while turning a blind eye to increasing aggression.

On a visit to Latvia on Thursday, Rutte warned that the exchanges of missile technology in particular pose a direct threat, not only to Europe, but also to Japan, South Korea and the U.S. mainland. Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand now regularly attend NATO meetings.

On Wednesday, after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he also said that the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific really have to be seen as one theater, and not as two separate ones, and that "our security, therefore, now more and more is global, and we have to look at this as a global issue.

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While North Korea and Russia have moved significantly closer, many observers say China is reluctant to form a three-way, anti-West alliance with them as it prefers a stable security environment to tackle economic challenges and maintain relationships with Europe and its Asian neighbors.

In a blog published on Thursday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell detailed his recent trip to Japan and South Korea, where North Koreas troop deployment and other assistance to Russia was on the agenda.

This marks an escalation of the utmost seriousness, which was of course at the heart of our discussions with the Japanese and South Korean leaders, wrote Borrell, who also held talks with Blinken on Wednesday.

Borrell hailed the conclusion during his trip of new security and defense partnerships with Japan and South Korea, the first ones outside Europe.

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The EU was certainly not born as a military alliance but, in the current geopolitical context, it can and must also become a global security provider and partner, he wrote.

Blinken said this week that the Biden administration is determined in its final months to help ensure that Ukraine can keep fighting off the full-scale invasion next year by sending as much aid as possible to hold Russian forces at bay or strengthen its hand in any peace negotiations.
Italy and Norway quickly mobilized jets after Russian aircraft were spotted over the Baltic Sea and along the Norwegian coast on Tuesday.

The Italian Air Force intercepted a Russian Coot-A jet over the Baltic Sea, NATO Allied Air Command said in a post on social media.

Norwegian Air Force F-35s identified multiple Russian aircraft flying in international airspace off the country's coast, NATO said.

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Both the Norwegian and Italian air forces were scrambled under NATO authority, the command said. NATO did not provide any information about what the Russian aircraft may have been doing, but said they were "not adhering to international norms" when the jets were mobilized.

A Norwegian Air Force jet. / Credit: Norwegian Air Force/NATO Allied Air Command

Russian warplanes have been spotted intercepted multiple times in recent months. In July, the United States intercepted Russian and Chinese aircraft in international airspace off the coast of Alaska. In February 2024, the U.S. detected four Russian warplanes flying in the same area. More Russian aircraft were spotted in May and February 2023.

Part of Norway is in the Arctic Circle, where Russia has ramped up its military operations, including tests of advanced hypersonic missiles, in recent months. The Baltic Sea is also near the Arctic Circle.

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NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has expressed confidence that US President-elect Donald Trump understands the importance of US membership in NATO.

Source: European Pravda; Rutte during a press conference with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics

Quote from Rutte: "NATO is there not only to defend Europe and the US, but also to work together to make sure that the Indo Pacific and the transatlantic stay safe."

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Details: Rutte has reassured European Allies who have expressed concerns about Donald Trump's previous statements about Article 5 and the Alliance's responsibilities.

In comments to reporters, Rutte highlighted that during his time as Dutch prime minister, he had an excellent working relationship with Trump and expressed confidence that the US president-elect will act in defence of the United States while continuing to support NATO's role in global security.

Rutte stressed that Trump understands the importance of US membership in NATO and that the Alliance is an integral part of the security not only for Europe but also for a stable global order.

The Secretary General drew attention to the current global threats posed by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. He emphasised that these nations are actively cooperating, which presents a direct threat not only to Europe but also to countries such as Japan, South Korea, and the United States.

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Rutte stressed that North Korea is helping Russia in its military actions against Ukraine, while China and Iran are supplying Russia with technologies that strengthen its military potential.

"So we are connected in this. The Indo Pacific and the Euro Atlantic, we are connected," Rutte said, emphasising the importance of international cooperation to ensure global security.

He also expressed hope for further cooperation with Trump, particularly during his return to the US presidency.

"I had a good phone call with him last week. We have worked as friends when I was Prime Minister. We will do so again when he becomes the new president of the US," Rutte concluded.

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Background:

In July, former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that he had no doubt the United States would remain in the Alliance if Donald Trump were elected as the new US president.

While congratulating Trump on his election victory, Rutte said that "his [Trump's] leadership will again be key to keeping our Alliance strong".

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An estimated 30% of households on the Navajo Reservation lack piped water in their homes, forcing them to drive long distances to haul water, putting them at risk of sanitation-related diseases, raising costs for low-income households and burdening elderly family members.

But a study by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Indigenous Health suggests that even Navajo households with piped water dont trust or like it enough to drink it, leaving them to buy bottled water from the store.

According to data from JHUs Dine Household Water Study released in September, 72% of households surveyed in one region of the Navajo Nation used bottled water for drinking. The number is almost identical for households with (72.2%) and without (72.8%) piped water. Those percentages are more than twice the national rate (31%) found in a separate 2021 study.

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Piped water within the survey area is safe to drink, according to JHU study data. Researchers conducted 200 water quality tests at surveyed households, finding that piped supplies met EPA drinking water standards. (Researchers did discover low chlorine levels in drinking water, likely from long distances between treatment plants and homes).

But researchers say federal water quality standards only protect health and safety. While tap water in surveyed homes was safe to drink, it wasnt always enjoyable to drink.

Study leaders say respondents told them they didnt trust their tap water because of historic pollution events  the results of local coal and uranium mining, for example  perceptions of tap water passed down from older generations, or because their water simply looks or tastes bad.

There's a lot of aesthetically, kind of awful things happening with water across (the reservation), said Reese Cuddy, a JHU researcher who is leading the study, which will continue to focus on other areas. It comes out a certain color  weve heard yellow, brown, kind of greenish tint  and it doesn't taste good.

Bottled water adds to household costs, burdens

For families who dont trust or like their piped water, relying on bottled drinking water can create a financial drag. Purchasing bottled drinking water can cost thousands of times more than relying on tap water, according to researchers.

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Water access nonprofit DigDeep estimated in a 2022 study that American households pay around $1,350 per year on bottled water when using it as a primary drinking source  an estimate DigDeep personnel called conservative. Families often pay that amount on top of their existing utility bills. Researchers said this cost is particularly meaningful on the Navajo Nation, where an average household makes $34,000 per year.

To Cuddy, buying bottled water is almost certainly an exacerbating factor in Navajo residents existing financial challenges. Nine out of 10 respondents in the JHU study have told researchers they experienced financial difficulty in the last year.

I do think it adds an outrageous amount of burden, Cuddy said.

Much of the Navajo Nation relies on limited and sometimes poor-quality groundwater for its piped supply, meaning connected households often see brown streams coming out of their taps and showers.

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Rex Kontz, deputy general manager for the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, said metals in the reservations groundwater supplies create the discoloration and odors residents report. Some of the groundwater has high levels of iron and manganese, Kontz said, which are safe to consume but create unappealing orange and black colors when they mix with the chlorine used in water treatment.

Treatment facilities can remove those metals, but Kontz said the Indian Health Service, the federal agency that constructed most of the water treatment infrastructure on the Navajo Nation, only builds infrastructure to address waters safety  not odor, color or taste.

Though these characteristics aren't strictly necessary for human health and safety, George McGraw, founder and CEO of DigDeep, holds that tap waters aesthetic appeal is fundamental in decreasing reliance on bottled water. McGraw, whose organization operates in communities with low water access across the United States (including the Navajo Nation), said families often use clarity and taste to select drinking water supplies.

In Appalachia and on the Navajo Nation, McGraw said he has worked with families who use unsafe drinking water sources like wells, springs or mineshafts because the water looks and tastes clean. DigDeep has confirmed that some of these sources were causing illness among the people using them. On the flip side, McGraw said he often meets people who avoid their safe water sources because they look or taste suspect.

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The reality is that the water can be accessible, affordable, and safe, but if it isn't acceptable, people won't use it, McGraw said.

How a water settlement will help residents

A recently signed water rights settlement could improve the quality of water flowing into Navajo homes, according to tribal officials. In May, the tribe approved a settlement agreement that legally establishes its rights to the Colorado River, Little Colorado River and other water sources. The agreement caps decades of negotiation and litigation.

The nation has been fighting for (the settlement) for 20 years, and I think it's finally coming together, Kontz said.

The agreement is working its way through Congress, where lawmakers must ratify it before it goes into effect. Arizona supports the deal.

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Nearly 120 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Indian reservations were entitled to the water rights necessary to sustain themselves, the Arizona settlement marks one of the Navajo Nation's last steps in quantifying and establishing those rights, a process that required separate settlements in each of the three states within the reservation's boundaries.

The Navajo Nation reached a settlement in New Mexico in 2009 and another in Utah in 2022.

The surface water involved in the Arizona settlement, Kontz said, does not have the same metallic contents as local groundwater, meaning it will likely look and taste better.

You're converting almost all of your groundwater to surface water, and then your groundwater wells will just stay online as backup, Kontz said.

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The settlement will also include federal funding meant to help the tribe build water infrastructure. Already, the tribe has used other federal funding to start improving and extending its water pipelines, according to Bidtah Becker, chief legal counsel to the office of Navajo President Buu Nygren.

The projects could improve water access for people on the reservation who don't have piped water at all. The NTUA has estimated that 30% of Navajo households dont have piped water in their homes. Data from the Johns Hopkins September study found a similar result (27%) in the Fort Defiance area near Window Rock, the capital.

Trying to change perceptions

Underfunded federal agencies, struggles over water rights, and the reservation's widely dispersed population have all contributed to the lack of piped water access.

Becker said the settlement arrives amid historic federal investment in water infrastructure on Indian reservations. Congress pushed $3.5 billion to the chronically underfunded Indian Health Service in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021, allowing the agency to complete many of its delayed water infrastructure projects.

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If you had asked me, What would Congress do? I would have said absolutely nothing, Becker said. And look what they did  So this is an interesting case of Congress actually acting.

Now, Becker said, the key challenge for the Navajo Nation is implementing those funds. And even if governments complete effective infrastructure projects, researchers say communication and outreach projects will still be necessary to break through culturally ingrained and and historically informed distrust around tap water.

JHU researcher Ashley Thacker, who grew up on the Navajo Nation, said she remembered switching from drinking tap water to bottled water when she moved from the New Mexico portion of the reservation to the Arizona portion in the late 1990s. Thacker said inherited distrust of the piped water supply may also be driving families toward bottled water.

Sometimes its a matter of how its perceived by older generations and how that gets passed on, Thacker said. "That's something that we're trying to get at with this with this current study."

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Having completed their survey in the Fort Defiance administrative area of the reservation, the JHU team has now moved on to the Chinle area. Ultimately, the team hopes to survey of the entire reservation.

Austin Corona covers environmental issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to austin.corona@arizonarepublic.com.

Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.

Sign up for AZ Climate, our weekly environment newsletter, and follow The Republic environmental reporting team at environment.azcentral.com and @azcenvironment on Facebook and Instagram.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Navajo families choose bottled water over tap
A week after Apache County faced polling site technical glitches on Election Day, the cause of the ballot chaos on the Navajo Nation remains unclear, though a poll book update the day before may have been a factor.

On Tuesday, the Navajo Nation Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Apache County  its second since Election Day  after learning about delays in processing early ballots.

"This is not the first time weve seen these kinds of issues in Apache County, and sadly, its been an ongoing pattern of disenfranchisement in previous elections," said Speaker Crystalyne Curley. "The Navajo Nation will continue to fight for our voters, holding Apache County accountable until every Navajo voice is heard and every vote is counted."

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The polling site issues caused voters to wait in line for well over two hours, and some left altogether without voting, prompting Navajo leaders such as President Buu Nygren to implore voters to stay in line and vote.

In trying to rectify the problem, the Navajo Nation requested and secured a court-approved extension. Although tribal leaders sought an extension for all poll sites on the Navajo Nation within Apache County, the court decided to keep only nine of the most affected polling sites open for an additional two hours.

Council Delegate Carl Slater was a poll observer in the community of Lukachukai when chaos erupted with ballot issues, leading to widespread disruptions throughout the day.

Lukachukai is one of five communities Slater represents in rural Apache County. According to officials, Apache County was the only county in Arizona reporting severe issues on Election Day, and many of those were on the Navajo Nation part of the county.

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I cant remember at what time I figured this out, but we were told that there was a poll book update that took place before the election, Slater recalled. That poll book potentially corrupted the ability for the ballots to be printed correctly.

The update refreshes the voter list to provide more accurate and up-to-date information, he said, which is a good idea if it functions properly. However, there didnt seem to be any protocols in place to verify that the ballots would print correctly after the update, which was implemented a day before the polls were supposed to open.

At the Lukachukai polling site, he noted there were two voting machines connected to a poll book. However, he had little information about how things went in other parts of the county outside the Navajo Nation.

When the machines started having issues, an ExpressVote machine, typically used for out-of-precinct votes, was brought in. Slater said the machine offers audio options in English, Navajo and Spanish. But as more voters were directed to use it, problems quickly arose with this device as well.

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What we learned from Apache County on the Navajo Nation is that precinct polling stations attempted to do that and the machines started failing, Slater said. They would freeze or just wouldnt work. I think the issue was the number of propositions and amount of information that the proposition  it was a lot for the machine to load each time.

When voters tried to use the machine, he said, it took about half an hour per person, leading to long lines forming outside. For elders, it would take longer, up to at least 45 minutes. He also noted that most polling sites had about 100 provisional ballots, which quickly ran out, and no additional ballots were being supplied.

That left locations without a machine for people to vote and without provisional ballots for people to vote, Slater said.

Apache County officials didnt respond to a request for comment on the problems.

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Longer hours: Judge extends voting hours in 9 Navajo Nation communities after glitches

The U.S. Department of Justice designated Apache County as one of four counties in Arizona to monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws, but issues continued to plague the county. The Justice Department, which enforces the laws to ensure eligible citizens can vote, coordinates the effort through its Civil Rights Division. According to a news release issued on Nov. 1, the DOJ deploys staff nationwide to monitor compliance and communicate with state and local election officials on Election Day.

The Department declines comment, the U.S. DOJ said in an email to The Arizona Republic when asked about the issue and what was being done.

Misinformation spread about polling sites

As the issues persisted, Slater, Speaker Crystalyne Curley, and Katherine Belzowski, a Navajo Department of Justice assistant attorney general, contacted Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Lisa Marra, the state elections director. He said during this meeting Marra was receiving incorrect information from Apache County Elections Director Rita Vaughn about how grave the situation really was.

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(Marra) was receiving information that was false, saying that we identified the fix at 9 a.m., the lines arent bad, everyone will have the right to vote, this isn't a big issue, Slater recalled. Whether it was a matter of their ignorance, or purposeful misinformation to the Secretary of States Office, it definitely had the effect of downplaying the scope of the issue and disenfranchising our people from voting.

In a previous interview, Curley said they werent able to get through to the county and werent receiving any updates or information on the matter from them. Slater said this was definitely the case, which is why they worked on getting a meeting with Fontes.

We scrambled to get a meeting with the secretary of state because we were not able to establish direct communication with the elections director at the county, Slater said. Everything was going through their attorney. They were immediately lawyered up.

Slater said the incorrect information Marra and Fontes had received from Apache County was an insult to those involved, especially the poll workers who were left with no direction and feeling abandoned by the county.

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It was incredibly insulting to the observer and our people, and everyone involved in the election, and particularly the poll workers who were there struggling to make sure people have the right to vote, Slater said. I feel so bad for those poll workers who were left with no communication.

During the 11 a.m. meeting, the Navajo Nation requested assistance for more preprinted provisional ballots. Listening from his truck outside the Lukachukai polling site, Slater heard officials claim the glitches were fixed, including at Lukachukai. But when Slater went inside to check, he was told the printers had only printed two ballots before breaking down again.

I immediately went back into the meeting and said this information is incorrect, Slater said. Its not up to date, and thats why we need your assistance in getting preprinted provisional ballots for people to vote, and we need those deployed as quickly as possible across the district to reduce the lines.

He said there was a "generic assurance" that more provisional ballots would be delivered, but that, across all five of his chapters, he was not aware of any provisional ballots sent after the meeting as promised.

Apache County fought to refuse extension

As the day went on, Navajo leaders filed a complaint to extend voting hours. According to a complaint filed by the Navajo Nation seeking the time extension, voters across the Apache County portion of the Navajo Reservation faced numerous obstacles. These included machine malfunctions, a lack of printed and provisional ballots, long lines, inadequate acceptance of valid IDs, and polling sites that were either not operational or not open during posted hours.

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In response, the Navajo Nation filed a lawsuit against the Apache County Board of Supervisors, Apache County Recorder Larry Noble, and Apache County Elections Director Rita Vaughan. The complaint accused them of interfering with "lawfully registered voters in the free exercise of their right to vote," and sought to extend voting hours by an additional two hours after the county refused to do so.

Without the extension, the complaint alleged, "voters in Apache County will be denied their state constitutional right to uniform access to vote in the electoral process.

An hour before polls were set to close that day, the Navajo Nation and Apache County held a hearing to decide whether the county would extend polls or not.

Election troubles: Navajo Nation reports long lines, major voting issues in Apache County

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Emily Craiger, an attorney with The Burgess Law Group representing Apache County, had come out of an executive session with the Apache County Board of Supervisors just as the hearing on the possible extension began an hour before all polls were set to close. The supervisors include former Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, former Navajo Council Delegate Alton Joe Shirley and Nelson Davis.

Explaining the county's decision against extending voting hours, Craiger said there were initial issues with the ballot-on-demand printers. The county insisted the problem was identified and resolved quickly, with the fix implemented by 9 a.m. and effective across Apache County. She added that backup paper ballots were available at all locations, and additional paper ballots were distributed as needed. Accessible voting devices were also provided to ensure everyone could cast their vote.

Extending the hours would be nearly impossible to do for the county, Craiger said at the hearing. First is the nature of the rural community; getting in touch with each of the 44 voting locations to ensure the location stays open and operates in the same way would be exceptionally challenging, especially given cell service and other related issues.

Craiger referenced federal law, which requires that if a court orders a polling station to remain open past the state's designated closing time, all voters must cast their ballots provisionally, and those ballots must be kept separate.

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Providing additional provisional ballot envelopes to all 44 locations across the rural community would be impossible for Apache County to do under these circumstances with these time constraints, Craiger said. Many of these locations are hours away from where these envelopes are located.

While the Apache County Board of Supervisors, along with election officials, flatly rejected the extension, calling it "impossible, Judge Michael Latham, who has visited the Navajo Nation multiple times and is familiar with challenges such as the lack of public transportation and difficult roads, suggested and ultimately decided that the nine most affected chapters would stay open until 9 p.m.

Latham said it was these specific polling sites that were noted in the petition that also had declarations of people's experiences, which were gathered by Slater and others quickly in an effort to secure an extension.

That was used to support our motion to extend the polling location time across Navajo by an additional two hours, Slater said of the declarations they were able to quickly gather. We started hearing that the supervisors were going to oppose that request, and that they were standing behind their election director that all the issues were taken care of by 9 a.m. and that is absolutely unforgivable.

Long lines, cold weather

Fifty miles from Slater, Council Delegate Andy Nez was in Fort Defiance, the same community where, just weeks earlier, actors Mark Ruffalo, Wilmer Valderrama and Cara Jade Myers joined Allie Young, founder of the nonprofit Protect the Sacred, in a walk to an Apache County office to raise awareness about early voting by dropping off early ballots at the offices ballot box.

Nez said the issues began not long after the polls opened and continued throughout the day, and as he was getting updates he was told voters were waiting for up to two hours.

One of the voters mentioned that they felt their vote wouldnt count, Nez said.

Although earlier in the day the weather was mild and sunny, as the day went on, the wind brought clouds and it turned colder. Nez said weather was a factor in why people started to leave without voting.

In my mind, I was thinking how we can help maintain voters to stay in line because we certainly didn't want them to leave because of the issues they were having, Nez said. We decided to help to try to keep them warm. We called out for blankets and we took some coffee there. At the same time, I hoped Apache County was resolving the issue.

Nez said he was letting voters know that the time had extended for the Fort Defiance polling site and if they knew anyone who had left before casting a vote, to inform them of the extension so that they could return and vote.

Slater said not all voters live within their communities. Some live in cities for work or school and a few drove hours from cities like Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Flagstaff and Albuquerque to vote in federal, county, and tribal elections.

A Northern Arizona University student emailed Slater and said while they were in their community of Round Rock to vote, they noticed at least 50 voters leave without voting after waiting in line for two hours.

Torey Dolan, a volunteer with Arizona Native Vote Election Protection Project, wrote in a declaration that they were trained to oversee the hotline. Dolan wrote that they arrived to answer calls at 5:30 a.m. and by 6 a.m. they began receiving calls about Apache County polling site issues.

Dolan reported that in Chinle, volunteers found the gates were locked at 6 a.m., and by 6:20 a.m., ballots were still not printed at the Rock Point polling site. From 6 a.m. to 7:10 a.m., voters in Lukachukai were unable to cast their ballots due to printer malfunctions. Despite Apache County's claims that the issues were resolved promptly early in the day, problems persisted throughout the entire voting process.

At 1:17 p.m. a Navajo voter called our hotline to report that he was at the Wheatfields polling location and that a lot of voters were leaving without voting because the ballot printers were down, Dolan wrote.

Dolan wrote that at 2:15 p.m., volunteer Drew Cooper was at the Teec Nos Pos polling location and said that polls were down. By 2:44 p.m., Cooper called back to say Teec Nos Pos was out of printed provisional ballots.

Our volunteer reported that 120 people voted provisionally and 30 provisional ballots remained with no working printer, Dolan wrote. Voters were waiting in line for over 25 minutes in 40-degree weather.

Rock Point voter Johnny Descheny reported that although he intended to vote at 9:40 a.m., he had to wait in line and was not able to cast his ballot until 12:40 p.m. He noted that he used an electronic vote machine because the polling site had run out of paper ballots. Additionally, Descheny claimed that when a new batch of ballots arrived, it only included the propositions section, omitting the candidates' page.

The Navajo Nation Department of Justice will hold a public meeting in Chinle on Monday for those who experienced Apache Countys Election Day failures.

I am proud of the work they were able to help support the extension at those locations, Slater said. I am dissatisfied that all locations werent extended for two hours. I don't understand how in a county where there are two Navajos, they have the majority on the board of supervisors, they live on the reservation and they know what our people confront and they talk about supporting democratic values and government and meaningful democratic participation, that they would try to diminish our people's ability to cast a ballot; it makes no sense to me. This is not a decision made by administrators, bureaucrats; this is a decision made by the elected leaders of the county.

More Navajo Nation news: Navajo families don't trust their tap water, study says, and overpay for outside supplies

(This story has been updated to add new information.)

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Navajo leaders demand answers about Apache County election chaos
A missing persons case has turned into an investigation after a 25-year-old Navy sailor was found dead Monday afternoon.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

According to APD, the last time 25-year-old Devin Jeter, of Scottdale, GA was ever seen was the night of Nov.7. Police said Jeter was dropped off at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and rented a 2024 silver Jeep Compass with a Florida license plate EWAG47.

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Officials said Jeter was headed to Jacksonville, Fla., where he was stationed in the U.S. Navy. When the 25-year-old didnt show up for work the next day, his co-workers alerted his family, leading them to file a missing person report.

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The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said, on Monday just before 1 p.m., a fisherman discovered a body at a boat landing along the Ocmulgee River. Telfair County Sheriff Sim Davidson asked the GBI to help with the investigation.

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Authorities identified the victim as Jeter, who had been reported missing three days earlier.

Telfair County is about three hours or 171 miles from the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

While the GBI says its Coastal Crime Lab found no apparent injuries during an autopsy, investigators are awaiting more forensic tests to provide more insights.

The GBI said the Jeep Compass that Jeter rented has not yet been found.

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The GBI is urging anyone who may have seen Jeter or the Jeep Compass between Atlanta and Lumber City to come forward.

Call the GBI regional investigative office in Eastman at 478-374-6988, or share tips anonymously via the GBIs tip line at 1-800-597-8477, online, or through the See Something, Send Something mobile app.
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN)  A video going viral on TikTok is raising questions about a North Carolina lawmakers alleged response to a constituent.

The video claims to show an email from North Carolina state Sen. Danny Britt responding to a woman raising concerns about abortion policy by suggesting she leave the country.

In the video, TikTok user Lindsay Talley says she has a friend who reached out to Britts office about North Carolinas abortion law.

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A friend of mine has a genetic disorder that creates life-threatening anomalies, she says, adding that her friend wrote to Britts office saying that she was not able to expand her family due to Republican policies. Britt is a Republican who represents Hoke, Robeson, and Scotland counties.

Talley says in the video that her friend received a response from Britts office that read, Thank you so much for the email. I am not quite certain how we are preventing you from expanding your family. I suggest you move to China immediately and see how that works out for you. If for some reason that fails Russia is nice in the winter and Venezuela in the summer.

The email is signed Senator Danny Britt and appears to come from an email address belonging to his legislative assistant, Camille McDougald.

CBS 17s Maggie Newland went to the senators legislative office Wednesday to ask if anyone could confirm that Britt sent that email. A woman in the office, who another woman referred to as Camille, replied, No comment. Back out of here. You cant be in here, and closed the door in the CBS 17 crews faces.

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Emails to Britts office, as well as a voicemail and text to his cell phone went unreturned, as of Wednesday evening.

Talley said she contacted McDougald about the response her friend received and received an email in response that reads, I responded how Senator Britt wanted me to. No further comment.

The woman who initially contacted Senator Britts office about North Carolinas abortions law asked for privacy, but sent CBS 17 the following statement:

We appreciate the support and understand the outrage from Senator Britts response. We want to expand our family, but do not feel the laws in North Carolina are inclusive for those who experience rare and uncommon genetic disorders that cause life-altering and life-threatening abnormalities. These abnormalities that are not compatible with life without extensive medical intervention.

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Many people will think of the common genetic disorders that are tested for early in pregnancy such as T18, Down Syndrome, etc. However, the rare disorders that are uncommon cannot be tested for until 16-weeks and beyond. The doctors are unclear if these types of genetic disorders are considered life-threatening.

We are not the only family who is experiencing this type of scenario and want to bring awareness and changes for other families across North Carolina. We respect that some may not agree or fully understand this situation, however we want to emphasize the importance of relying on your doctors, your personal values, and your faith to determine what is best for your family and to do so without government interference.

We hope that with the collaboration of our governor and local and state representatives, that we can adjust the verbiage of these laws to include genetic abnormalities so families like us can expand their family without fear of retaliation or prevention of medical care. Our intent is to bring awareness and change to better the families of North Carolina.

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The Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln. (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)

LINCOLN  John Albin remembers back in 1990, when Nebraskans still filled out paper unemployment claims, and his new colleagues at the State Department of Labor entered the data into a mainframe computer.

John Albin, Nebraska labor commissioner (Courtesy of Labor Department)

Today those services are all online. The department that Albin rose within has modernized in myriad other ways and, more recently, pushed through a pandemic that stressed labor departments nationwide.

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Now, at age 70, the states top labor official, who served the agency in a variety of roles over 35 years, is retiring.

Gov. Jim Pillen made the announcement Wednesday.

Its been an absolute thrill to work for three governors, Albin, a native of Humboldt, told the Nebraska Examiner. That doesnt happen very often in my profession.

A graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Law, Albin joined the department as an administrative law judge, rose to general counsel and was appointed acting labor commissioner in 2014 by Gov. Dave Heineman. Albin was named commissioner the following year by Gov. Pete Ricketts and in 2022 was reappointed by Pillen.

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His last day on the job will be Dec. 20, after which Albin said he will spend more time traveling with his wife, Lupe, whom he married in the spring, and his grandkids (come February there will be two more, for a total of four).

Theres a lot of places in the world I want to see and I want to get to a few of those while Im still in good health, Albin said.

He and his wife built a winter retreat in New Mexico, and theyd like to spend more time there.

Among his proudest accomplishments, Albin said, is directing a team that served the state well throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said a lot of their counterparts in other states melted down during those tough times of unemployment, benefit demands and claims.

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My team didnt, he said, noting long days and determination to get benefits paid. We were proud of how well we came through that.

He pointed also to his role in growing JAG Nebraska, the states Jobs for Americas Graduates program, which has gone from three participating schools in 2019 to nearly 85 schools with more than 4,000 students.

The program provides professional and technical education to empower students to overcome challenges and achieve in school, work and life.

Pillen, in a statement, said Albins length of service to the Labor Department speaks volumes about his commitment to public service.

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Nebraska has been the benefit of his dedication, vision and leadership. I wish Commissioner Albin the best as he embraces his retirement and future activities.

Pillen said he will announce later any decision about interim leadership or an appointment.

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EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WEHT)  Just over 24 hours removed from the Heritage Petroleum/WOC explosion, business along 7th Avenue and Franklin Street appeared back to normal, despite the damage still being evident. One employee who works next door is sharing what he felt and heard the day of the explosion.

The explosion occurred inside the Hercules building. The Evansville Fire Department says the explosion and fire took place in a portion of the building used as a maintenance shop. Investigators say an employee was using an igniting torch in an area with fuel on the ground causing a petroleum tank to explode.

EFD releases more information on 7th Avenue fire

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Ryan Gates works next door at Ace and Sons Fence Company and says he and his co-workers initially thought their building was hit by a vehicle. Yesterday, there was a handful of people that actually left because we werent sure what was going on, explains Gates. We told everybody, If you want to leave, or if youre more comfortable leaving, just go somewhere and well get back to you once things clear up. And they had Franklin and 7th blocked off for probably, Id say, an hour or two while they were cleaning everything up. So a lot of people went home for the day, but today everything is back to normal.

Local crews worked with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to mitigate chemicals that had spilled out from water used to battle the fire. That spill was still evident in nearby Pigeon Creek the day after the explosion as rain washed petroleum products away. Evansville Police say the man who was injured in the explosion was treated and released from the hospital.

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Nearly 90 congressional Democrats are calling on President Joe Biden to impose sanctions on two far-right Israeli government officials for their roles in inciting settler violence in the West Bank.

Violent settlers, fueled by the inflammatory rhetoric and incitement to violence by members of the Israeli cabinet, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and empowered by extremist organizations like Regavim and Amana, have carried out over 1,270 recorded attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, averaging more than three violent attacks per day, the lawmakers wrote in their letter to the US President.

Given their critical roles in driving policies that promote settler violence, weaken the Palestinian Authority, facilitate de facto and de jure annexation, and destabilize the West Bank, we urge you to sanction Finance Minister (Bezalel) Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, they wrote.

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The letter was signed by a significant number of Democrats  17 senators and 71 members of the House of Representatives  and was sent at the end of October, before the US election which Donald Trump won. It was made public on Thursday in order to pressure Biden to take action during his final months in office as frustration grows from within Bidens own party about his administrations seeming unwillingness to hold the Israeli government to account.

Weve not yet gotten a response from the White House, and we think the clock is ticking in the aftermath of the election, said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, one of the lead lawmakers who signed the letter. We do think that theres a pretty short window, obviously, for the Biden administration to take this action.

We see President-elect Trumps nominations, and we think its more important than ever that President Biden right now state that the United States is not going to be a rubber stamp to the Netanyahu governments extreme actions on the West Bank, he said.

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

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In February, Biden issued an executive order allowing sanctions on those undermining peace, security, and stability in the West Bank. The lawmakers urged the president to sanction Smotrich and Ben Gvir using this authority.

Although officials within the Biden administration have denounced Smotrich and Ben Gvir for their extremist rhetoric and actions in the West Bank, they have yet to impose sanctions on them. Just this week, Smotrich, on the heels of Trumps reelection, ordered preparations for the annexation of settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In June, he announced plans to legally recognize five unauthorized Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Ben Gvir has previously been convicted for supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism.

The lawmakers also urged Biden to sanction two organizations  Amana, which they said has long played a key role in establishing the majority of West Bank settlements and provides loans and building infrastructure for new outposts that are illegal under Israeli law and Regavim, which was co-founded by Smotrich and whose mission is to obstruct Palestinian construction in the West Bank.

With radical officials in the Netanyahu government continuing to enable settler violence and enact annexationist policies, it is clear that further sanctions are urgently needed, the lawmakers wrote. The key individuals and entities that are destabilizing the West Bank  thereby also threatening the security of Israel and the broader region, and US

national security as well  should be directly held accountable.

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The message that such actions are unacceptable from leaders, including within the Israeli government, must be heard, they wrote in the letter, which was also led by Sen. Dick Durbin, Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Rep. Sean Casten.

Last week, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his country is considering sanctions on the two far-right ministers.

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Nov. 14Motorists will begin to see construction at Highway 99 and Liberty Road in the coming months as another convenience store and gas station comes to the area.

The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 3-0 to approve rezoning a 2.95-acre piece of vacant land on the southeast corner of Highway 99 and Liberty Road from rural residential to freeway commercial.

The applicant, Dhanda Development Group, plans to build a 17,152-square-foot fueling station with 20 pumps for automobiles, four pumps for diesel trucks, a convenience store, two fast food restaurants, and a drive-through coffee shop.

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But neighbors who spoke during Tuesday's meeting argued there was no need for another fueling station in the area, citing similar facilities along Highway 99 at Collier, Pringle and Twin Cities roads, along with Simmerhorn Boulevard and C Street.

Sean McPherson lives on Liberty Road, and said he and his neighbors were concerned the facility would contaminate the groundwater in the immediate area.

"All of us are on wells," he said. "My well was inspected in 2020 at the height of the drought. The water level was at 77 feet, and since then, we've had a number of wet years and the level has risen. What's going to happen when we drop holding tanks of gasoline into the ground on top of our water table? My family, neighbors, and the community is dependent on that water source."

David Aarseth said he lives near the proposed site, and that the area was not designed for gas stations or mini-marts.

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He said traffic along Liberty Road is already heavy due to commuters from the foothills and Sacramento, as well as gravel trucks traveling from the nearby quarry.

"There's probably 50 gravel trucks that come up and down that road," he said. "You've got these trucks cutting corners to make turns and go into oncoming traffic. And traffic is backed up in front of my house 8-10 (vehicles) deep, day and night."

Mike Hakeem, the attorney representing the applicant, said the county's traffic study recommended his client pay $2,542 toward intersection improvements at the Liberty Road and the Highway 99 southbound ramps, as well as at the Liberty Road and Highway 99 Frontage Road intersection adjacent to the the project site.

The intersections are currently one-way, stop-sign controlled, but will need to be converted to four-way, stop-sign controlled intersections when traffic increases in the future.

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Hakeem said Caltrans, which has authority over the interchange, singed off on the traffic study.

"With all due respect, this is not a truck stop," he said. "It's a convenience store. It's on a teardrop (piece of property) near the freeway. It's appropriate, from a property rights standpoint, to be developed, and we believe we'll be good neighbors."

Supervisor Tom Patti told neighbors that the traffic study's recommendation to add stop signs on Liberty Road would enhance safety in the area.

"This is land where you are going to do something with it," he said. "If (the applicant) came forward and wanted to do truck parking, (the neighbors) would have objected to that. Somebody is going to do something with their land that is adjacent to a freeway. Due diligence has been done."

Supervisors Steve Ding and Robert Rickman recused themselves from the discussion, although the former said he did so by mistake. Rickman said he may have accepted a campaign contribution from the applicants in the past.
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Its awkward inside the luxury Miami apartment of the Israeli Prime Ministers son, Yair Netanyahu these days.

Yair took to to X last week to slam Shin Bet, the Israeli equivalent of the Secret Service, which has members guarding him round the clock at an expense of $60,000 a month to the taxpayers.

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According to the Jerusalem Post, Yair took to X after there were a series of probes into his fathers office relating to leaks of classified intelligence documents, accusations that minutes of cabinet war meetings were doctored and allegations of blackmailing a senior military officer.

Dave Coulier of Full House reveals cancer diagnosis

Yair, not one to let things lie, slammed Shin Bet on X saying: Is this the same Shin Bet that is arresting and torturing IDF officers over complete nonsense, the same Shin Bet that a few months ago released the Gazan Dr. Mengele  the director of the Shifa hospital  together with dozens of terrorists, with the excuse there was no room in the prisons?

Yair Netanyahu unleashes on social media

In another post, Yair wrote regarding his fathers corruption trial: We have had a coup against the democratic choice of the people by the prosecutors, the media and the courtsBut we have not yet had a coup against the democratic choice of the people by all of the above and the Shin Bet and the military[Its] a banana republic like South America in the 60s.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL  JANUARY 22: (ISRAEL OUT) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu watches his son Yair Netanyahu cast his ballot with by wife Sara Netanyahu at a polling station on election day on January 22, 2013 in Jerusalem, Israel. Israels general election voting has begun today as polls show Netanyahu is expected to return to office with a narrow majority. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images) The Israeli Prime Ministers 19-year-old son, Yair Netanyahu, enters the house of his grandfather, Benzion Netanyahu, on April 30, 2012 in Jerusalem. Benzion Netanyahu, father of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a prominent right-wing historian, died at the age of 102, at his home in Jerusalem early on April 30, the premiers bureau said. AFP PHOTO/GALI TIBBON (Photo by GALI TIBBON / AFP) (Photo by GALI TIBBON/AFP via Getty Images) JERUSALEM, ISRAEL  JANUARY 22: (ISRAEL OUT) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife Sara Netanyahu and sons Yair Netanyahu and Avner Netanyahu pose for a photograph after castsing their ballot at a polling station on election day on January 22, 2013 in Jerusalem, Israel. Israels general election voting has begun today as polls show Netanyahu is expected to return to office with a narrow majority. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images) TOPSHOT  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and his son Yair visit, on March 18, 2015, the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem following his party Likuds victory in Israels general election. Netanyahu swept to a stunning election victory, securing a third straight term for an Israeli leader who has deepened tensions with the Palestinians and infuriated key ally Washington. AFP PHOTO / THOMAS COEX (Photo by THOMAS COEX / AFP) (Photo by THOMAS COEX/AFP via Getty Images) JERUSALEM, ISRAEL  JANUARY 22: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prays with his sons Yair and Avner at the Western Wall, Judaism holiest site on January 22, 2013 in Jerusalem, Israel. Israels general election voting has begun today as polls show Netanyahu is expected to return to office with a narrow majority. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

Netanyahu requested more security for his son

Ironically, this comes after a request from PM Netanyahu for more Shin Bet protection for his son  in August he asked for additional guards to be placed around Yair in Miami.

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At the time, one wealthy Israeli  who, despite being over 50, left America for Israel to fight against Hamas  fumed to me: And (Netanyahu) wants more money for his son who isnt even fighting in the war  and has been hiding in Miami the whole time? This is outrageous!

The latest posts from Yair have infuriated Israelis even more, with one Israeli involved in the military telling me, Imagine, you are putting your life on the line for a person who is literally one of Israels most hated, and he slams you and your brothers like this? Its insanity.

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LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  Two Nevada State Highway Patrol troopers killed in the line of duty nearly one year ago were honored along Kyle Canyon Road.

Sergeant Michael Abbate and Trooper Alberto Felix were struck and killed in the early morning hours of Nov. 30, 2023, by Jemarcus Williams vehicle on northbound I-15 at the D Street off-ramp while responding to a car with a driver who might have been asleep. The crash happened a minute later as the two men were outside of their cruisers to the left side of the parked vehicle, according to police documents 8 News Now Investigators previously obtained and reported.

Video shows driver accused of killing 2 Nevada troopers at Las Vegas casino drinking before crash, prosecutor says

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A long-standing campaign called Miles of Memories supported by STOP DUI and Nevada State Police honors victims of deadly DUI crashes each year by putting up signs along Kyle Canyon Road or State Route 157.

This year two of the signs honored NSP Trooper Felix and Sergeant Abbate. Their families were also in attendance for the special tribute on Wednesday afternoon.

It is the 14th year of the Miles of Memories campaign across the valley which helps serve as a driver safety reminder to the thousands of people traveling the area during the holiday season.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  A recently re-elected out-of-state county commissioner arrested in Las Vegas could get probation as part of a plea deal on a sexual assault charge, records said.

In June, John Jessup, 49, a Republican, was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on a felony sex assault charge. Jessup, a county commissioner in Shirley County, Indiana  outside of Indianapolis  allegedly assaulted a woman he knew after a night out at a gentlemans club.

Jessup told police there was nothing criminal about what he had done and reiterated that it was just a f***ed up, drunk night, documents said.

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Records show Jessup agreed to plead guilty Thursday to a lesser charge of attempted sexual assault, a felony. As part of the deal, a judge could sentence him to at least two years in prison or a term of probation.

According to 8 News Nows sister station, FOX59/CBS4, Jessups term was scheduled to end on Dec. 31. However, voters elected Jessup to a county council position earlier this month. Jessup was elected as one of three Republican candidates, receiving more than 15,000 votes.

According to Indiana state law, felons are not eligible to hold office.

Mr. Jessup decided to keep his name on the ballot after charges were filed, Hancock County Republican Chair Janice Silvey said in a statement. He later verbally and via text committed to resigning if elected. Until the legal process concludes or he resigns, the party has no further role. Pursuant to Indiana Code 5-8-1-38, should Mr. Jessup be convicted of a felony offense, he is ineligible to hold an office in Indiana. If Mr. Jessup resigns or a felony conviction occurs, the party would then need to call a caucus to fill his position.

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Jessups sentencing was scheduled for April 24.

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OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR)  A warm winter coat is now with its rightful owner, after being handed over to a shivering volunteer at a polling place on Election Day.

You have to return a kindness somehow, said Larry Smith.

News 4 first talked to Smith last Friday. He was searching for the kind stranger who gave him a big and warm winter coat while volunteering at Crown Heights Christian Church, a polling place, on election day.

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ORIGINAL STORY: Poll volunteer looking for owner of coat given to him on cold Election Day morning

On that cold Tuesday morning, the marine veteran was only wearing short sleeves.

After about two hours there, I started shivering, and my shoulder muscles were tightening up, Smith said.

A kind stranger gave him the coat after Smith refused several times. But, Smith lost the contact information and called News 4 for help.

A few days later, News 4 received an email and a picture of proof.

Nate Tipple in coat given to Larry Smith, Courtesy of Nate Tipple

News 4 sent the picture to Smith.

There was no doubt about it, said Smith. I could have sworn those were the same clothes he was wearing when he came to vote.

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The man with the coat of kindness was Nate Tipple.

On Wednesday, they met back up at the church.

Smith: Are you chilly?

Tipple: I could use a coat! How are you doing?

Tipple, a 23-year-old student at OU, didnt forget how cold Smith looked that morning.

Its just like this cute man. That was like, helping direct everyone to the right spot, said Tipple. It was the easiest person to help because he was already helping, himself.

By the time I got home, I was more than well aware that I hadnt had this coat. Health wise, I would have been in trouble, Smith said to Tipple.

LOCAL NEWS: Paycom raises more than $137K during Burpees for Vets week

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This situation proves kindness is a give and take, even with a small gesture like giving someone a coat.

It seems like the older I get, the fewer kind people I encounter, said Smith. Especially these days. Everybodys like the grumpy cat, and it takes a lot to get them to smile.

Nate told News 4 the big gesture is just how far Smith was willing to go to return the coat.

It was like totally Oklahoma Coded that I feel like, its a small town in a big city, said Tipple.

Tipple told News 4 the two exchanged numbers. Tipples looking forward to this new friendship because the marine is a treasure trove of stories.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH)  A Bristol woman is pursuing a multi-million dollar claim against the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) after police say her guardian impregnated her at just 12 years old.

Crystal B., 29, sat down for an exclusive interview with News 8. She said she suffered more than a decade of sexual abuse, and DCF did nothing to intervene despite its own employee reporting concerns.

In 2005, Crystal says her former foster mother just left her at a Bristol home that continues to haunt her.

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The unspeakable things that happened in that household, no one should ever have to face or know about, Crystal said.

Her story first made headlines last January when she reported years of alleged sexual abuse to the Bristol Police Department.

It was the biggest weight lifted off my shoulders the second I told my story.

Soon after, the couple Crystal called mom and dad, Roger and Darlene Barriault, were arrested.

Lawsuit alleges Bristol man fathered 12-year-olds child

Roger was charged with first-degree sexual assault. The 64-year-old was accused of repeatedly raping Crystal approximately 3,800 to 4,000 times, according to the police report, starting when she was 9.

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Crystal became pregnant at 12 and said Roger threatened her.

If I told anyone, I would be punished, she said. My daughter would be taken away. I would be punished. I would be put in jail.

Last winter, Bristol police executed a warrant and obtained a cheek swab sample. The DNA lab test confirmed that Roger is the father of Crystals daughter.

Rogers 48-year-old wife, Darlene, was also charged in the case with risk of injury to a minor.

She [Darlene] knew everything, and she did absolutely nothing, Crystal said.

While the criminal case is pending, Crystal is pursuing a $30 million claim against DCF. Nate Baber, her attorney, has taken on several sexual abuse cases over his legal career.

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How does a 12-year-old girl become pregnant, and no one does anything about it? How is it that DCF is involved in a myriad of ways with this family for more than a decade, and shes never removed from the house? Baber said.

Their claim says in part: Despite the reports, tips, referrals, complaints, concerns, suspicions, reasonable belief and her pregnancy, DCF failed to take any meaningful action for more than a decade.

Its the worst case of sexual abuse in the sense of how many people could have done something to stop it, Baber said.

In 2008, DCF endorsed and approved Roger and Darlenes guardianship application of Crystal when Baber said Crystal was 6 months pregnant with Rogers baby.

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Some of the records reflect they [DCF] simply just asked him [Roger] and asked her [Crystal] who is the father and relied on that denial as sufficient evidence to close the investigation, Baber said.

DCF declined News 8s requests for an interview. DCF Commissioner Jodi Hill-Lilly released a statement saying:

First and foremost, our hearts go out to the victim, and we applaud her bravery for coming forward. As always, we are grateful for the collaboration of law enforcement and for their work to help hold this individual accountable and bring forth justice. Understandably, the Department has received many inquiries about the events in question that occurred over 15 years ago. However, we are limited in what we can share due to our confidentiality statutes and the pending criminal and civil litigation. However, statutes do allow us to correct misinformation made public about the Departments role in how the victim arrived in the home of the person who harmed her. To that end, it has been reported that DCF lost track of the victim and a prior legal guardian in 2005. To clarify, the Department had no involvement with the child or any of the involved families between 2003-2006. Also, Mr. Barriault and his wife were never licensed foster parents for the Department and the now adult victim was not placed into the home of Roger Barriault by the Department. The family received guardianship of the victim via the Probate Court as a child. Jody Hill-Lilly

But DCF records obtained by News 8 show a report was received by the agency in 2006 alleging a child in the home was being sexually abused by Roger Barriault.

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In another record, a caller reporting similar concerns was identified as a DCF worker.

Group releases report on how to help Connecticuts disconnected youth

As Crystal continues her legal fight, she says her daughter gives her strength.

I dont know if Id be here without her, she said.

She said she hopes to create change and help fix whats broken by sharing her story.

I just want to go on and live a life that I can be proud of and know that I am nothing like the people who raised me, Crystal said.

Roger and Darlene Barriault both pleaded not guilty to the charges against them. They are due back in court in December.

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The claim is making its way through the Office of the States Claims Commissioner, and a hearing is expected before the end of the year.

News 8 will continue to follow this story.

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Critics of President-elect Donald Trump have long contended that he aspires to use the U.S. military  a nonpartisan force, by rule and tradition  as an instrument of the MAGA agenda that propelled his latest election victory.

Now, in the eyes of some, those concerns are being supercharged.

The relationship of the executive branch and the military has always been a balancing act. The American president is, after all, the commander in chief of the worlds most formidable fighting machine, and the figure ultimately responsible for the nations safety and security.

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But every senior military officer also takes an oath to defend the Constitution, and pledges to refuse illegal, unconstitutional or criminal directives. During his campaign, Trump flirted with those boundaries, repeatedly musing about using the military to go after domestic political opponents, or to aid in mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

Despite a pledge to be a president who presides over peace rather than war, Trump takes office against a backdrop of global upheaval: wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the increasing closeness of Russia and North Korea, an ascendant China.

Trump rattled wide swaths of the U.S. defense establishment this week with a draft executive order, whose existence was reported Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal, to create a special panel  dubbed a warrior board  that would have the power to force out high-ranking generals and admirals.

I think people should be concerned, in the military and out of it, about the politicization of the military, and the attempt to use it to do the presidents personal will, said Benjamin Friedman, policy director of the Washington-based think tank Defense Priorities, which advocates for restraint in U.S. foreign policy.

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He called the proposed commission a bad idea.

Read more: Trump picks Fox News host Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary

The creation of such a panel, if it came to fruition, would facilitate the purging of military leaders who were unwilling to carry out presidential orders  or those relayed by a loyal subordinate. For some, that brand of fealty is in line with Trumps choice for his secretary of Defense: conservative Fox News personality and military combat veteran Pete Hegseth.

The pick, unveiled Tuesday, drew immediate criticism from some influential veterans groups and current and former lawmakers, who suggested that Hegseths ideological leanings, rather than any demonstrated expertise, lay behind him being tapped to run the vast U.S. defense complex. Hegseth, in books and on TV and podcasts, has railed against what he calls the "woke" military.

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"Pete Hegseth is wholly unqualified to head the Department of Defense and hold the lives of our troops in his hands  period, Paul Eaton, a former Army officer and chairman of VoteVets, a nonprofit group that supports veterans and progressive causes, said in a statement.

Read more: Who is Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host Trump nominated for Defense secretary?

"I don't think Hegseth is a serious person or a serious pick," Rep. Pat Ryan, a New York Democrat and an Army veteran, told MSNBC.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who has committed to enacting Trump's agenda, called Hegseth "a tireless advocate for Americas soldiers and veterans," saying the weekend "Fox & Friends" co-host would bring "a fresh perspective" to the Pentagon.

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"Pete is dedicated to ensuring that our military is focused on lethality and readiness, not woke ideology," Johnson said in a statement. "He served our country faithfully in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq and is a believer in peace through strength and the America First agenda."

Hegseths loyalty is significant, because Trump has previously demonstrated willingness to extend his decision-making reach into matters traditionally left to Pentagon leaders. In his first White House tenure, he went through five Defense secretaries in four years.

Read more: Wartime Ukraine waits to see what's in the 'surprise box' of Trump presidency

At least two of those relationships with civilian Pentagon chiefs  retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis and Army combat veteran Mark Esper  resulted in open acrimony, despite a long-standing reluctance on the part of current and retired military officers to publicly criticize the commander in chief.

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Such reticence might be exacerbated by the existence of the so-called warrior board. According to the Journal, the panel would consist of ranking retired officers who were empowered to recommend removal of former peers deemed to be lacking in requisite leadership qualities.

What exactly those leadership qualities might entail was left vague. But the report quickly raised fears in the context of harsh criticism by Trump and those in his inner circle of woke generals  a catchall phrase for those who are derided for allegedly promoting diversity and inclusion at the expense of military readiness.

The warrior board proposal takes on broader significance in light of growing fears that Trump will move swiftly to reshape institutions such as the armed forces.

One reason the subject is so sensitive is that accounts of some of Trumps unorthodox first-term dealings with serving and retired military officials are fresh in the minds of many, aired in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.

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The former presidents longest-serving chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, made waves with a series of interviews in which he disclosed that Trump spoke wistfully of the loyalty of Adolf Hitlers Nazi generals, and said he believed that Trump's views aligned with the general definition of fascist.

Elements of that assessment were echoed by the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now-retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, who told Washington Post journalist and author Bob Woodward that he considered Trump fascist to the core.

In a retirement speech in September 2023, Milley  who worries about being recalled to active duty and court-martialed under a new Trump administration, according to Woodwards latest book, War  offered an indirect commentary widely presumed to refer to the former president: We dont take an oath to a king or a queen, to a tyrant or dictator, or wannabe dictator.

Trump has fired back at such comments, calling Kelly a "total degenerate" in a post last month on his Truth Social platform.

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John Kelly is a LOWLIFE, and a bad General, whose advice in the White House I no longer sought, and told him to MOVE ON!

During Trumps first run for the White House, some of his commentary on military-related matters would have stopped other political careers in their tracks: his derisive reference to war hero John McCain (I like people who didnt get captured) and his public spat with a Gold Star family.

In the just-ended campaign, Trump also hammered the outgoing administration  first President Biden, and then Vice President Kamala Harris when she took up the fight after Biden dropped out  over the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2022 after the Taliban takeover, insisting that those who oversaw the pullout should have been fired.

It was Trump, however, who had set the U.S. departure from Afghanistan in motion, setting a timetable that left his successor in office with a narrow range of options.

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To scholars of authoritarianism, asserting a high degree of personal control over the military is typical of strongmen in the mold of Syria's Bashar Assad or Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prominent experts such as historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat say that under classic authoritarianism, the military is viewed as a tool for pursuing the leader's own aims, rather than upholding the states interests and safeguarding its people.

In a 2021 essay, she cited Trump's intensive efforts to chip away at the apolitical nature of the American military as a means of using the armed forces to help him try to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.

But Trumps transition moves on defense are seen by many observers as likely to be constrained by factors including the ethics adhered to by the militarys officer class, combined with the sheer weight of Pentagon bureaucracy.

The kind of outcome where you have a military that is used as the tool of a despot  I dont think were particularly close to that, said Friedman, of Defense Priorities. The military will remain professional and apolitical.

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Nonetheless, Trump made clear his determination to leave his mark on the U.S. armed forces, consisting of about 1.3 million active-duty troops and an additional 1.4 million serving in the National Guard.

In announcing his choice of the "courageous and patriotic" Hegseth for the top Defense job, Trump again touted his self-described policy of "peace through strength"  deterrence underpinned by a willingness to use military force when necessary.

Americas enemies are on notice, he declared.



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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
DIXIE, La. (KTAL/KMSS)  If youve never been to Dixie, Louisiana, you probably havent heard the story of one mans astonishing rise from enslavement to emancipation to riches and respect in the swamplands that were once found along the Red River in Northwest Louisiana.

And when it comes to learning Newton Smiths story, there is no better source than words written by his wife, Rosa Anna Teamer Smith.

Newton was born in slavery and I was born in the troubled times following the Civil War, Rosa wrote in her will and testament. Newton and I faced many obstacles, yet, through Christian faith, honest and hard work, he and I have achieved fortune, respect, and the friendship of the people among whom we live, regardless of race or creed.

This article was published by The Shreveport Journal on Wed., Feb. 26, 1958, after Rosa Anna Teamer Smiths death. And though there is a slant to the story, the article does give us clues about the lives of Rosa Anna and her husband Newton Smith.

Here is a part of their story of triumph in the face of adversity in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Newton Smiths childhood

Newton Newt Smith was born into slavery on the McCain plantation between Greenwood and Longwood, Louisiana in 1859. Four years later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and little Newt, as he was nicknamed, was freed from enslavement. He was just shy of five years old.

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After the war, Newt was raised in East Texasthough not much is known about this time period of his life.

Newt and Rosa become wealthy

Newt returned to Caddo Parish as a young adult and worked on the Haiti Plantation. He saved his money and bought two young bulls that he used to farm, and the next year he and his wife Rosa bought a pair of mules. The couple continued farming and bought their first 40 acres from the old Youree estate.

Wanted ad for a strayed or stolen horse from the Newton Smith Plantation. (Source: The Shreveport Journal, July 29, 1919)

Newt acquired 100 mules, which he used to build levees and clear the way for highways. He also worked as a cattle rancher and leased his mineral rights. One source states that Newt was also an oilfield worker.

In 1917, Newt collected contributions for a Y.M.C.A. fund. This particular campaign shows that Newt was viewed as a strong leader in the Dixie community. He collected hundreds of dollars for the Y.M.C.A.

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In 1921, Newt donated an acre of land to the school board for the formation of Bethalee (black) School, which was later consolidated. In her will and testament, Rosa wrote, I have always been interested in the little school on our property, and it is my hope that this little school can be preserved and improved, or another built there.

Newton Smith helped carve roadways through the swamps of Northwest Louisiana. In this article by The (Shreveport) Times on Sept. 11, 1898, we see that Newt was overseer on the road project that passed by his home.

According to a Shreveport Journal written at Newts death, his story of success in the river bottom lands has not been matched by a man of color since Marie Therese Metoyer was freed as a slave near Natchitoches and built Melrose Plantation, still a show place.

When Newt and Rosa began to make large amounts of money, Rosa went to school to learn how to run the business.

Newt remained illiterate all of his life.

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Newt lived with his wife near Dixie in North Caddo Parish, where they made a fortune in pecan orchards, cattle, and farmed some of the best cotton land in the world. But despite their wealth, Newt and Rosa chose to live in a modest, frame house.

Newt Smiths wealth was estimated at $340,000, not including cattle or money from mineral rights. Those figures are significant, too, because the herd of cattle owned by Newt and Rosa was so large that ownership was disputed in courts after Newts death.

Cattle were not the only material possessions disputed after Newts death, either. Even Texaco went after the Newton and Rosa T. Smith Charitable Trust.

Newton Smith leases acreage to oil company, 1908. (Source: The (Shreveport) Times, Dec. 27, 1908.)

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The Smith legacy

In his will and testament, Newt Smith said that a member of his race could rise above his surroundings by use of honesty and hard work.

When Rosa died, the Shreveport Journal wrote the following about her:

Love for the South and for its people, both black and white, is reflected in the last will and testament of an outstanding (black) woman citizen of Caddo Parish who died last Friday. The woman was Rosa Anna Teamer Smith, 87, a native of the parish and the widow of the late Newt Smith, a one-time slave who began as a sharecropper and prospered until he and his wife owned approximately 1,700 acres of valuable land in the Dixie area before he died more than a year ago.

Newt helps raise money for YMCA. (Source: The (Shreveport) Times, Nov. 27, 1917)

The article stated that Rosa left 160 acres of land to the Caddo Parish School Board, asking that it be used as a site for a school for young (black) children and as an agricultural and trade school for (black students.) The donor specified that if the school board is unable to use the land for the purposes she has suggested, the property will be given to the Caddo-Bossier Association for (special needs) children. In such an event, the land will become the site of a training farm and workshop for (special needs, black)children.

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A portion of Rosas estate was to be used to establish a trust fund for Christian, charitable, and educational work to benefit young black children.

In the (Shreveport) Times, Fri., Mar. 6, 1959, we learn that plans were underway for the establishment of the Caddo-Bossier Assn. for (special needs) Children agricultural school for (black children). The 160 acres in North Caddo Parish were accepted with gratitude to our good friends Newt and Rosa Anna Teamer Smith.

The Sunshine Baptist Church building was to serve as the schools headquarters.

The Caddo Parish School Board declined the donation of the land because Herndon High School for (black students) was under construction.

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An announcement in the Shreveport Journal showed the Newt Smith Elementary School for (black students) at the Cooper Road and Juvenile Road would open its fall term on Sept. 6, 1960.

In 1965, seven black students from Caddo Parish were awarded $200 scholarships from the estate of the late Newt Smith. The majority of the kids were headed to Grambling and Southern Universities.

Newt and Rosa Smith left an amazing legacy in Caddo Parish.

The couple deserves a place in our history and in our hearts.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Trial began this week in another major abortion case, Adkins v. Idaho, that highlights the immense challenges new bans have created for patients and doctors. It may be that Adkins is a long shot: The case will likely end at the Idaho Supreme Court, which already seemed to reject constitutional arguments against its state law. But win or lose, cases like Adkins make a difference by dramatizing some of the harshest effects of state abortion laws. These are the stories that may give Republicans pause about a potential backlash if they consider aggressive new federal limits on abortion.

Idaho has one of the most stringent abortion bans in the nation. It allows abortion only if the life of the patient is threatened, and even then, doctors have to prove that they were justified in proceeding rather than prosecutors having to do so. That medical exception is even stricter than usual for state laws in applying only to threats to life.

Thats why the Biden administration challenged it under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (a lawsuit that is likely to come to an end when the Trump administration reverses course on the issue of emergency access). Now a trial judge is hearing the stories of four women and three physicians affected by Idahos Defense of Life Act. Jennifer Adkins and three other women were pregnant when they received almost certainly fatal fetal diagnoses. All four were told that if their pregnancies continued, they could face severe health threats. They and the physician plaintiffs seek to establish that Idahos law allows an abortion whenever a patient has a physical medical condition or complication that makes it unsafe to continue a pregnancy, has a condition exacerbated by pregnancy that cant otherwise be easily treated, or is told about a fetal condition that is likely to be fatal after birth.

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Adkins builds on a line of cases involving women like Kate Cox, a Texas woman who traveled out of state to seek an abortion after receiving a diagnosis of trisomy 18, a fetal condition that is usually fatal; and Amanda Zurawski, also from Texas, who suffered the preterm rupture of membranes, a condition that led to a severe infection that almost killed her. Coxs and Zurawskis cases failed in the Texas Supreme Court, and there is reason to think Adkins and the other plaintiffs will meet a similar fate. But the impact of these cases remains.

The Idaho Supreme Court is one of the most conservative in the nation. And more revealingly, in 2023, the court issued a stinging rejection of a previous constitutional challenge to the states abortion ban. In conservative states, abortion-rights supporters havent expected judges to establish sweeping constitutional protections, even as they prepare to push for the eventual recognition of rights broader or more enduring than the ones recognized in Roe. Theyve sometimes relied on a more modest backup option: asking judges to acknowledge rights to access abortion in cases of threats to life or health. That tactic has paid off in a number of surprising places, including the supreme courts of Oklahoma and North Dakota.

But the Idaho Supreme Court isnt likely to bite. In 2023 a Planned Parenthood affiliate and a physician challenged the states ban under the state constitution. The Idaho Supreme Court made absolutely clear that it would follow the U.S. Supreme Courts method to answer the question: asking whether such a right was deeply rooted in the states history and tradition. And the court understood history and tradition narrowlyespecially when compared with other conservative state judges in places like North Dakota and Utah.

There are additional foreboding signs for Adkins and the other plaintiffs. They argue that the states exceptions require clarification and should be interpreted more broadly. The Idaho Supreme Courts earlier decision didnt exactly foreclose that argument, but it came close. The court asserted that future plaintiffs should show specific examples when the state exceptions were too vague to understand, but as a general matter, the Idaho majority seemed to think the states law was perfectly clear. The states bans had a medical-emergency exception, as is the case with every other state prohibition (and no coincidence, given that many of them were written by the same advocacy groups). The court suggested that Idaho had provided physicians more than fair notice.

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The Idaho Supreme Court also seemed convinced that patients had no right to access abortion under state law, even if their lives or health was threatened. None of the parties stressed that argument, but Justice Colleen Zahn acknowledged the majoritys emphasis on it in her dissent. She reasoned that for as long as Idaho had criminalized abortion, the state had also allowed access in cases of threats to lifea category that sometimes applied to certain other health crises. Most of her colleagues were not sold. The Legislature, the majority reasoned, had the power to make any policy decision it liked and had simply chosen, in its generosity, to allow women to ask for help if they would die otherwise. The legislatures decision to redefine an exception, the court explained, does not necessarily mean that the framers of our Constitution intended to enshrine the excepted conduct as a fundamental right. These arent the words of judges convinced that there is a right in cases of threats to life or health.

So why does Adkins matter? In part, the answer is that we cant ever be certain how state judges will react. Abortion-rights litigators might not have expected to have success in courts in Utah or Oklahoma or North Dakota, but they did.

But in part, cases like Adkins matter even if the plaintiffs lose. Hearing stories like the ones in Adkins paints a stark picture of the effects of Dobbs. Jennifer Adkins was pregnant with her second child when she was told that the child had multiple, likely fatal conditionsand that if that pregnancy continued, she was at high risk of suffering mirror syndrome, which could lead to life-threatening edema and eclampsia. Kayla Smith, another plaintiff, learned at a 19-week scan that her child had an inoperable and likely fatal heart condition. Smith was at high risk for developing preeclampsia, as she had during her first pregnancy. To afford an out-of-state abortion, she and her partner had to take out a loan and borrow from their loved ones.

Without the stories of real people like Jennifer Adkins and Kayla Smith, abortion bans may strike most voters as abstractions. In principle, for example, does a 15- or 12- or six-week ban sound fair? In the abstract, does a ban sound better with an exception for sexual assault? Plaintiffs like Adkins break down these abstractions. Their stories show that bans have profoundly painful consequences, even for people who may not see themselves as abortion seekers.

And despite Republicans control of Congress and the White House, these stories can make a difference. Donald Trump may not be able to run for office again, but Republicans in the House and Senate will have to. Public support for abortion rights wasnt enough for Kamala Harris, but theres no reason to think bans like Idahos are any more popular than they were before. (That seven out of 10 abortion-related ballot measures passed, even in states like Arizona and Missouri, bolsters this point.) Women like Adkins remind voters why they dont want to live in the world that the Supreme Court created in overturning Roe. So, whatever happens to Adkins case, patients like her are on the front lines in the next four years of conflicts around reproduction. The courts arent likely to constrain Republicans, but fear of voters might.
From left to right: Michele Morrow, Mark Robinson, and Dan Bishop. (Morrow photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline. Robinson and Bishop photos: Getty Images)

Some of North Carolinas most prominent Republicans lost their races last week. But with a second Trump administration in the offing and party jockeying in progress in Washington, some of them appear primed to stay in the mix.

Michele Morrow, who ran for superintendent of public instruction and lost to Democrat Mo Green, is the object of an anonymous nomination to serve in the Department of Education. In social media posts this week, she linked supporters to an online form  part of an open-source effort by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his allies to staff executive branch positions.

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Lets help get Michele to Washington where she can fight to save our children in North Carolina and beyond! a post from her account said Monday.

Prior to her run for superintendent, the conservative activist had called for the televised execution of former President Barack Obama, as well as a number of other prominent Democrats.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Morrow who has never before held public office or any paid employment in education, had received over 400 votes online. Its not clear what role she would hold if appointed.

The account nominating Morrow online blamed Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson for her defeat.

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She narrowly lost the election, but that was due to the very poor performance of the GOP candidate for Governor (Mark Robinson), as that adversely affected several down-ballot candidates, like Michele, the nomination form says.

Mark Robinson delivers defiant sermon while targeting 2026 Senate election

Robinson was defeated handily at the hands of Attorney General Josh Stein. But the lieutenant governor, who rose to prominence through headline-making speeches and declarations, delivered a new one after the election: a wide-ranging, 40-minute sermon addressing abortion, transgender people and his own political career. He repeatedly blasted elected officials in Raleigh and Washington, decrying them as selfish and cowardly.

You need people who are there for the right reasons, Robinson said. Thats whats wrong with Washington D.C. right now. It is full of people who are there for the wrong reasons. People who sit there and declare, this is my seat. I dont want to lose my seat. Im fighting to keep my seat. Who told you it was your seat?

And he made it clear he was uninterested in being welcomed into elite circles. Top Republicans abandoned Robinsons gubernatorial bid following reporting by CNN.

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You gonna open that wound? Guess what Im gonna do. Im gonna dump salt right in it, and Im gonna rub it in, Robinson said. You can get mad at me, you cannot like me, you can keep me out of your little club if you want to. I dont care! I dont want to be in your little club! I dont need your approval. I dont need for you to like me. When I come in the room  as a matter of fact, in some rooms, when I come in, I want you to cringe.

The remarks will only fuel speculation of a potential primary challenge to U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, whose seat is up for election in 2026.

In the meantime, Robinson has made his opinions known on the politics of a new Republican U.S. Senate majority. He urged followers on social media to call Tillis and U.S. Sen. Ted Budd (R-North Carolina) to support U.S. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) as the new Senate Majority Leader, after U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) said he would step down.

The people of North Carolina have spoken in tremendous fashion, Robinson wrote. We The People are ready for fresh leadership in the U.S. Senate.

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Of the three to run for the position, Scott was viewed most favorably by allies of President-elect Donald Trump. But in a caucus vote Wednesday, Scott was knocked off the ballot in the first round of voting; U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-South Dakota) was elected majority leader.

Could Dan Bishop join White House?

U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop also lost his bid for a statewide office, defeated by U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson in the race for attorney general. But his time in the nations capital may not be done.

An attorney and the author of HB 2, the controversial North Carolina bathroom bill, Bishop could find a landing spot in the Department of Justice.

On Wednesday, Trump announced plans to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) to be the next U.S. attorney general, bringing desperately needed reform to the Justice Department. Earlier this month, it was Gaetz who urged North Carolina voters to support Bishop in his bid to become North Carolinas attorney general.

I so hate that I wont be there for this. Oh wait. https://t.co/ijtbhxqCZU  Rep. Dan Bishop (@RepDanBishop) November 8, 2024

Days after the election, responding to a video of Trump outlining his plans to shrink the federal bureaucracy, Bishop suggested he could be involved in some way with the administration.

I so hate that I wont be there for this, Bishop wrote. Oh wait.

Bishops office did not respond to a request for comment.
Nov. 14The members of the board of the Niagara Falls Urban Renewal Agency (NFURA) have granted authorization to Mayor Robert Restaino to "execute documents and authorize the transfer of funds" necessary to allow the agency to acquire the Rapids Theatre and 38 other properties formerly owned by Blue Cardinal Capital on and around north Main Street that are currently in the process of foreclosure by two local financial institutions.

The combined transactions, which will total roughly $1.7 million, will allow the city, the state, Niagara County and the Niagara Orleans Land Bank to control future development in the blighted Main Street corridor by blocking a single developer from acquiring all or a majority of the properties.

The agency board voted unanimously to allow the mayor to carry out the property acquisitions. The board members also authorized the creation of a committee, made up of officials from Empire State Development, Niagara County, the local land bank, and two members of the NFURA, the mayor and Council Chair James Perry, to "vet" proposed projects to revitalize and restore the Rapids and develop the large vacant Blue Cardinal properties.

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The committee will be tasked with reviewing project proposals and giving them approvals while reporting back on its work to the full NFURA board on a monthly basis. The mayor asked for the creation of a special committee to allow for a more "nimble" approach with potential developers.

Restaino said the committee will be able to react more quickly to development proposals than the full agency board which only meets once every three months.

The agency agreed to pay $800,000 to Niagara's Choice Federal Credit Union to acquire the Rapids Theatre. It will pay $900,000 to Bank on Buffalo for the 38 properties  22 on north Main Street and 16 on neighboring side streets  that formed the Blue Cardinal Capital property portfolio.

Restaino noted that both financial institutions sold their properties for "less than their original lien (investment)."

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"They took a bit of a haircut (a financial term for losing money) on the deal," the mayor said.

Restaino said the foreclosure on the Blue Cardinal properties is still working its way through court and that the purchase is not expected to take place before sometime in January. The Rapids Theatre purchase is expected to be completed in December.

In July, the Falls City Council authorized the transfer of $1.5 million in tribal revenue funds to the NFURA to buy the north Main Street properties numbering a pair of empty lots, dozens of mostly vacant commercial buildings, including the old Jenss department store in the 1700 block of Main Street, and the Rapids.

In the last two weeks, the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency authorized the transfer of the balance of the available cash in its Cataract Tourism Fund  roughly $204,000  to NFURA to assist in the property acquisitions. The Falls Water Board also agreed to an NFURA request to waive the collection of almost $100,000 in unpaid water and sewer bills to help with the property purchases.
(Reuters) - Nicaragua has expelled Bishop Carlos Herrera, the head of the country's episcopal conference, a lawyer tied to the Catholic Church told Reuters on Thursday, amid an extended state crackdown targeting the Church.

Local media earlier reported that Herrera, 75, had been expelled to Guatemala where he was received by members of his Franciscan order. Guatemala's presidency confirmed to Reuters that Herrera had entered the country.

"Bishop Herrera has been banished," Martha Molina, a lawyer with close ties to Nicaragua's Catholic leadership, told Reuters. "This has shocked us very much."

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Molina said Herrera had suffered "persecution by the dictatorship," from several leading security and administrative officials.

She said he had been expelled because he complained about disruptions to his mass made by people tied to the mayor's office of north-central Jinotega.

Herrera's mass had been interrupted by people setting up loudspeakers outside, added Costa Rican Bishop Manuel Eugenio Salazar in a post on social media.

"May the Immaculate Conception crush the old serpent's head!" Salazar said.

Nicaragua's government did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters about Herrera or about Molina's comments.

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During the country's 2018 anti-government protests Herrera had advocated for several young people who had been arrested in Jinotega, and arranged for them to be released.

President Daniel Ortega's crackdown on the Catholic Church, as well as civil society, has intensified since the 2018 protests, during which many bishops acted as mediators between the state and its critics.

The government of Ortega, who accuses the Church of supporting the opposition, has since expelled several clergymen, shuttered Catholic media and seized a prominent Jesuit-run university in the capital, Managua.

(Reporting by Gabriela Selser; Additional reporting by Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City and Alvaro Murillo in San Jose; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Azerbaijan is hosting the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), Azernews reports.

As part of this globally significant event, the Culture Ministry is organizing concerts, exhibitions, and presentations to effectively engage guests.

On November 13, a concert program titled "Awakening" was presented at the Heydar Aliyev Center.

The concert featured soloists from the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater and was attended by heads of state and government from dozens of countries, officials, and climate experts who came to Baku for COP29.

It is noted that "Awakening" is a special ritual that restores the unity of humans with nature and encourages individuals to pay close attention to the essential elements necessary for life. At this modern stage, vital elements such as air, water, earth, and fire have become themes that inspire new thoughts. Therefore, this spectacular performance was conceived as an awakening that connects water to life, air to the power of reason, earth to conscious existence, and fire to the light of civilization. Lost on the winding paths of progress, humanity draws wisdom from the teachings of priests that have survived to our time, illustrating that each element contains a work of art related to nature. The sacred male and female dialectic formed in the dynamics of cosmic relationships further creates the fabric of humanity through collective efforts for the common good.

The carpet, as an intertwining of countless knots, embodies collective labor towards a common goal. Such is the concept of the authors of the composition's plot.

A pure, immaculate maiden in the image of Maiden Tower, who has become a prisoner of human limitations, while inspiring with her beauty, purity, and fragility, reminds us of the mission to "be human." Indeed, to be human is to acknowledge the fragility we possess, yet this does not mean we should not be on the stage of life. Let us not forget that life itself is akin to beauty. If it is not cared for, if it is not given due attention, it ceases to exist. Truly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, awakening is a mystery bestowed upon humanity to give everything new breath, a harbinger of a new day, of new life!

The conductor of the show composition featuring local and international artists was the chief conductor and musical director of the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, Honored Artist Ayyub Guliyev, with choir master Sevil Hajiyeva, a distinguished art worker, and director and screenwriter Francesco Bondi.

It is important to note that COP29 is also significant in promoting Azerbaijan's ancient and rich historical and cultural heritage. Throughout the session, which will last until November 22, a series of cultural events and presentations organized by the Azerbaijan Culture Ministry will take place.

Moreover, on November 15, the second meeting of culture ministers dedicated to climate activities will be held.

This meeting, organized by the ministries of culture of the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, and Azerbaijan, is expected to be attended by officials, experts, and representatives from non-governmental organizationsaround 120 delegates in total. Efforts will be made during the event to achieve international consensus on high-level cultural dialogue, including the incorporation of art and cultural heritage into the agenda for climate change action.

On November 16, within the framework of COP29, there will be a session dedicated to the country's initiative "Culture for Climate" (C4C), organized by Group of Friends for Culture-based Climate Action under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Azerbaijan Culture Ministry.

On the same day, the Azerbaijan initiative "Culture for Climate" (C4C) will be presented.
A Helena man was given a five-year deferred sentence and $500 fine for felony indecent exposure after Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Mike Menahan agreed with the defense.

Thomas Daniel Stanger was sentenced for his crime committed in 2022, when he was found inappropriately touching himself to pornography in the 1900 block of North Last Chance Gulch, according to court documents filed July 14, 2022.

During the sentencing hearing, defense attorney Steven Scott presented five witnesses -- Stanger's wife, sister, brother and two friends -- who offered testimony for the court record.

Each person talked about the defendant's character and who he was outside of that day.

"He feels deep remorse for the pain he has brought to the victim, his children, family, friends, myself and community," his wife said.

Stanger grew up in Helena, went to Capital High School and graduated from Carroll College with a master's degree.

"Dan is more than this troubling and unfortunate event. Dan is kind, funny, strong and smart," Stanger's sister said during her statement. "... As the only child living in Montana, he served my parents tirelessly through my dad's terminal illness, while he continued to work full time and as a single father to three children."

State prosecutor Jessica Best recommended a five-year suspended sentence and said the state was appreciative the defendant has taken proactive steps toward redemption.

"But, he has not done that prior. In the 2020 case, he pleaded to two counts of misdemeanor indecent exposure by way of Alford," Best said.

An Alford plea or "best-interests plea" is when a defendant pleads guilty to charges in criminal court, while claiming innocence.

"This is not an isolated incident, this one count of felony indecent exposure. We're here because these are stacking charges," Best said.

Stanger was involved in a case in 2022 and 2020 involving indecent exposure.

Court documents state an officer was dispatched to 520 Logan St. in 2020 for a report of a male inappropriately touching himself in his vehicle. The victim told police when she made eye contact with Stanger he gave her a "sinister" smile.

The following day, documents state another officer reviewed video from the location and identified the suspect's vehicle as the victim described.

Law enforcement was notified the vehicle in the video was located at 524 N. Last Chance Gulch and an officer conducted a traffic stop.

The driver was identified as Stanger, who had his pants unzipped and several buttons toward the bottom of his shirt unbuttoned, authorities said.

In March 2021, Stanger entered into a deferred prosecution agreement where he received one year and six months, all suspended, in the Lewis and Clark County Detention Center.

As a part of the agreement he received two years deferred for counts three and four.

On June 27, 2022, an officer responded to the 3000 block of North Sanders Street for a report of suspicious activity.

The officer was informed that a male was following a female. The vehicle was owned by Stanger.

The victim told law enforcement that as she was walking to the gym from her residence, she walked noticed a male in a "red Honda CR-V" touching himself to pornography on his phone.

She told the officer she continued walking and saw the same vehicle facing toward her at Helena Motors, court reports state. He continued following her.

"I want to apologize to the victims in these cases, my family, friends and the community for my actions that led to us being here today," Stanger told the court Wednesday. "I thought my actions wouldn't hurt anyone, But I couldn't have been more wrong. I did damage to the victims in ways I did not understand at the time."

He said he wished he could undo the pain he caused.

"I believe that I am only responsible for my actions," he said.

Stanger has been attending cognitive therapy and has had his phone monitored by his family to prevent him from accessing inappropriate websites and hold him accountable.

Before Menahan imposed the sentence, he made it clear to those in the gallery the difference between imposing a deferred and suspended sentence.

"With a deferred sentence the court is deferring or putting off sentencing for a period of time," Menahan said. "With a suspended sentence the court suspends a sentence in this case to the Montana State Prison or the Department of Corrections and the time begins to run today."

He said if Stanger abides by the conditions of the sentence, at the end of the five-year period the state cannot file a petition to revoke the sentence because it is expired.

"A deferred sentence, it's truly kind of a double-edged sword, it's a huge advantage to a defendant and maybe not that huge, but there is a difference."

If a court defers a sentence, the advantage for the defendant is that they can withdraw their guilty plea at the end of the sentence and the charges will be considered to be dismissed and become confidential criminal justice information, Menahan said.

"From what I can tell he has taken responsibility. He's enrolled in treatment, by pleading guilty he's taken responsibility," Menahan said.
Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said on her radio show that she has no desire to be a part of President-elect Donald Trumps Cabinet for his upcoming administration.

In the segment on her Wednesday episode of SiriusXMs Nikki Haley Live, she said a friend of Trumps requested a truce between her and the candidate, asking if there was anything she wanted. Haley told the friend that Trump had her support already and told him she didnt want anything in return.

I did not ask anything for me, and I have made it clear to everyone that I was not interested in the administration, Haley added.

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Haley also said that she suggested to Trumps transition head Howard Lutnick that Trump should surround himself with people that are going to tell him the truth.

Haleys remarks come after Trumps victory against Vice President Kamala Harris last week. In the days since the election, Trump has been naming his administration picks, many of whom have been controversial.

However, Trump said Saturday that he would not tap Haley or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a position.

I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation, Trump said in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform. I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

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While running against Trump, Haley was a vocal critic of him and his politics. Trump also took multiple personal jabs at her  something Haley recently said on her radio show that she has not forgotten.

Despite that, Haley voiced support for Trump in September, even claiming at the time that she would be open to campaigning for him.

I think he is the Republican nominee, and I think, put him against Kamala Harris, whos the Democrat nominee. For me, its not a question, Haley told CBS News Margaret Brennan. Now, do I agree with his style? Do I agree with his approach? Do I agree with his communications? No.

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New Jersey declared a statewide drought warning Wednesday, as water levels dropped throughout the state and several wildfires continued burning.

According to weather officials, the state saw just 0.02 inches of rain in October and about a half-inch the first few days of November, while roughly four inches per month is normal.

New Jersey is experiencing unprecedented weather conditions  as a result of climate change  that require us to take these precautionary measures now, Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement.

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The drought warning empowers New Jerseys Department of Environmental Protection to closely manage statewide water systems, control releases from reservoirs and change the flow of rivers and streams. The departments goal will be to balance ecological protection with supporting water suppliers.

New Jersey last declared a drought warning in October 2016. That warning lasted until August 2017 in some parts of the state.

While several fires have been reported throughout the state in the past week, the largest remains the Jennings Creek Fire in Passaic County. That blaze, also crossing the state border into Orange County, N.Y., has burned a total of more than 4,000 acres, according to fire officials. It was about 30% contained as of Wednesday morning.

It would likely take 10 inches of rain statewide for water levels to return to normal, according to officials. However, no such deluge is in the forecast.

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Climate change is driving our record low precipitation and above-average temperature recorded statewide in September and October, DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette said. This combination of events has resulted in decreased streamflow and groundwater levels, which harms our available water supplies.

State leaders have asked people to conserve water, because if the situation gets worse, homes and businesses could face mandatory water restrictions. They advised limiting showers to five minutes, letting lawns go dormant, and only running clothes and dishwashers when full, among other suggestions.
A 14-year-old from New Jersey has been arrested and charged with arson for allegedly setting a fire that burned 52 acres of land and threatened homes in Evesham, police announced Wednesday.

Fire officials are also investigating a possible link between that fire, which occurred on Oct. 30 and took days to extinguish, and another much larger fire in the same area that began on Nov. 7, the day the teen was arrested, Evesham Township Police said.

The teen, from Marlton, N.J., was charged with second-degree aggravated arson as well as causing or risking widespread injury or damage.

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The youths name was not released due to his age. He was being held at Middlesex Juvenile Detention Center pending his first court appearance.

At its height, the earlier wildfire threatened 15 homes in Evesham Township, firefighters told the Marlton-Evesham Daily Voice. No evacuations were necessary.

Police investigated, determined the cause was arson, and tracked down the juvenile as the subject who intentionally started this fire, their statement said.

The second blaze, dubbed the Bethany Run Wildfire, ultimately consumed 375 acres across Evesham and Voorhees townships, and threatened more than 100 structures, according to fire officials. Evacuation orders were issued the morning of Nov. 7 but lifted by 6:30 p.m. that day.

New Jersey, beset by numerous wildfires burning across the state, declared a drought warning Wednesday amid dropping water levels. Over the weekend, smoke from the fires drifted across the Hudson River to make for hazy conditions in New York City, prompting city officials to issue an air quality health advisory through Sunday.
NILES, Ohio (WKBN)  A no bill has been returned in a Niles case from last month.

A Trumbull County grand jury declined to indict Jayson Freeman on an attempted rape charge.

According to court records, his two counts of assault  which are still pending  will be remanded back to Niles Municipal Court to be heard there.

The charges were filed after a woman reported that Freeman came over to her house and was intoxicated. She said he attempted to remove her shorts and said he wrestled with her on the floor when she tried to push him away until he passed out.

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According to a police report, a family member of the woman then confronted Freeman, and the two wrestled.

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WARREN, Ohio (WKBN)- A Trumbull County grand jury declined to return an indictment in a Warren stabbing case.

A no bill was returned in the case against Jana Hines.

Hines was charged in an incident where she was accused of stabbing a man on Commerce Avenue NW in September.

Hines previously pleaded not guilty to the felonious assault charge.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com.
WARREN, Ohio (WKBN)  A woman is no longer facing charges after a no bill was returned in a shots fired case.

A Trumbull County grand jury chose not to indict Marliyah Harris, who was initially charged with assault and obstructing official business after an incident that happened outside of the bar on Mahoning Avenue NW on October 4.

Police were there to investigate a report that shots had been fired by a man in the parking lot and said Harris was combative when they arrived.

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A charge is still pending against Valentino Thomas, who police say threw a gun underneath one of the cars in the parking lot.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com.
Robots are expected to aid human workers across various industries in the future.

Interestingly, the future may hold a reality where robots become the caretakers of the agricultural fields.

Researchers in China have introduced a futuristic concept.

They have developed a robot that can identify plant species with high accuracy. By simply touching leaves, this innovative device can determine its type, its stage of growth, and even potential health issues.

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The robot demonstrated an average accuracy of 97.7% in identifying ten plant species. On the other hand, it achieved a perfect accuracy of 100% in classifying bauhinia leaves across different growth stages.

It could revolutionize crop management and ecosystem studies and enable early disease detection, which is crucial for plant health and food security, said Zhongqian Song, an associate professor at the Shandong First Medical University & Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences and study author.

Various plant parameters

The robot can measure properties like surface texture and water content, which are undetectable by visual methods.

The robots touching mechanism is inspired by human skin. The robot's interconnected structures enable it to acquire information through tactile means.

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The robot learns about a plant by touching its leaves with an electrode. As it makes contact with a leaf, it gathers a wealth of data including its charge storage capacity, electrical conductivity, and contact force.

This data is then processed using sophisticated machine-learning algorithms.

This model learns to recognize patterns in the data that correspond to different plant species and their growth stages.

This development is beneficial as existing devices rely on visual methods. This method significantly restricts the amount of data collected. Furthermore, these existing devices are vulnerable to external factors such as lighting conditions, weather changes, and background interference.

It may help boost crop yield

This robot has the potential to aid in crop management by assisting both large-scale farmers and agricultural experts in monitoring plant health and growth.

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The team envisions farmers using this robot to monitor their crops in real time, optimizing water and fertilizer usage, and detecting diseases early on.

This could lead to higher yields, reduced waste, and a more sustainable food system.

However, the researchers note that the robot currently possesses several limitations that require further development.

The robot currently struggles to identify plants with complex leaf structures like burrs and needles. To overcome this, the researchers plan to redesign the robot's electrode.

It may take a relatively long period of time to reach large-scale production and deployment depending on technological and market developments, added Song in the press release.

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After this initial development, the researchers aim to improve the robot's capabilities by expanding its plant database. They also aim to integrate a sensor for real-time display, even without external power.

Upon full development, this innovative technology could contribute to advancements in fields such as precision agriculture, ecological studies, and plant disease detection

The findings were published in the journal Device.
Restraints are shown on the lethal injection table in the execution chamber at the Utah State Correctional Facility after the Taberon Honie execution Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)

COLUMBIA  South Carolina will not carry out any more executions until at least January, the state Supreme Court ruled in a Thursday order.

The order grants a temporary reprieve for four inmates who have exhausted their appeals and could be sentenced for execution after the state ended its unintended 13-year hiatus in September. The state has carried out two executions since then.

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Under the courts new schedule, the next date it could issue a death warrant would be Jan. 3. That means Jan. 31 would be the next potential date for an execution, since state law requires four weeks between the date the warrant is issued and the date of the execution. After that, the court would likely resume its previously set schedule of waiting at least five weeks between warrants.

Marion Bowman, a 44-year-old sentenced to death for fatally shooting an Orangeburg woman and lighting her body on fire, will likely be the one to receive that January warrant. Convicted in 2002, he is next in line after the high court announced it would schedule executions beginning with the oldest sentences.

Initially, the schedule the state Supreme Court laid out would have set one execution each in November and January, though a hurricane-related delay adjusted that by a week.

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The courts order, which was signed by all five justices, was three sentences long and did not give a reason for the decision.

Attorneys for the four inmates who have run out of appeals cited the winter holidays in asking for a pause. The four weeks between executions are often spent in a flurry of last-minute legal filings and pleas for clemency as inmates attorneys make final attempts to get their clients off death row.

Six consecutive executions with virtually no respite will take a substantial toll on all involved, particularly during a time of year that is so important to families, the attorneys wrote in the court filing.

The states attorneys responded in their own filing that corrections staff are prepared to carry out executions at any time and the death chamber had operated during winter months before. Notably, the state executed six inmates, two the same day, between Dec. 4, 1998, and Jan. 22, 1999.

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The state Supreme Court allowed executions to resume this year when it decided in July that electrocution and firing squad were constitutional methods of capital punishment.

Legislators added the firing squad and made the electric chair the default method in 2021  a change which spurred a lawsuit and subsequent court decision over whether it constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Corrections officials had struggled for years to get the drugs used to kill death row inmates. After also passing a secrecy law protecting all information about where officials obtained lethal injection drugs, the corrections department was able to buy the fatal sedative pentobarbital, making that an option once again.

Both inmates executed this year chose to die by lethal injection. Freddie Owens was sentenced for shooting and killing a gas station clerk during an armed robbery. Richard Moore was sentenced for killing a gas station clerk despite entering the store unarmed.
(Bloomberg) -- No single politician can stop the rush of investments in technologies to help address climate change, according to former US Secretary of State and green envoy John Kerry.

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Theres an incredible new world of opportunity, in sectors including AI, nuclear and geothermal, he told Bloomberg TV in an interview. Big new grids have to be built to provide energy. We have data centers that need to be built. Kerry stepped down earlier this year as President Joe Bidens top climate envoy.

Two-thirds of the record $3 trillion forecast to be invested this year in energy sources will be devoted to sectors such as renewables, electric vehicles, nuclear and grids, the International Energy Agency said in June. The remaining $1 trillion will go to coal, gas and oil.

For the first time in history, the marketplace writ large has said this is where were going, said Kerry, hired recently as co-executive chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, which was co-founded by billionaire Tom Steyer and Katie Hall.

Kerry also warned President-elect Donald Trump over the risks of again withdrawing the US from the landmark Paris climate pact.

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To do so would cede leadership to China, the very thing that he says we dont want to do, Kerry said Thursday. He would diminish the ability of the world to be able to respond to this existential crisis.

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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD)  Small Business Saturday, backed by American Express, is bringing several events to Charleston this November, including a performance from an award-winning artist.

For this years Small Business Saturday, American Express announced a corporate giving pledge to support small businesses most affected by Hurricanes Milton and Helene.

One of the events scheduled for Nov. 30 in Charleston includes a special performance by Noah Kahan at the historic Riveria Theater on the peninsula at 7 p.m. Tickets go on sale Thursday, but those who want to attend can request them now.

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Before the concert and to kick off the holiday season, Amex will sponsor a Shop and Stroll event on Market Street from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Local small businesses, food trucks, and interactive stations will be displayed during the holiday pop-up.

One participant in the pop-up will be Lillies of Charleston. Lillies sells Gullah-inspired seasonings, snacks, sauces, and gift boxes.

Its that special moment when people intentionally seek out unique, meaningful gifts and experiences, said Lillies owners, Tracey and Jamel Richardson. We find that shoppers on this day are really looking for something memorable and individual, and were here to offer just that.

For each American Express Card Member purchased at a small business across the country, the company will donate $1 to support businesses impacted by the recent hurricanes.

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Since its inception 15 years ago, shoppers have spent nearly $201 billion on Small Business Saturday.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCBD News 2.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noems ascension to Homeland Security secretary-in-waiting came as a surprise in some quarters. After all, the former member of Congress hasnt worked in the department and doesnt have a law enforcement background.

But she benefited from the support of two of Donald Trumps key advisers: his 2016 campaign chief Corey Lewandowski, and his incoming Border Czar Tom Homan. Both advocated for her nomination and helped seal the deal, according to two people familiar with Noem's selection granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Outside allies viewed Noems elevation as further indication that the administrations immigration policy will be run out of the White House by Homan and Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser. Noem, with her limited experience in the policy area, could then focus her attention on the numerous other agencies within DHS, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Administration and Secret Service.

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The only thing I could think of is that the immigration part of DHS is basically going to be handled out of the White House, and shell be secretary of FEMA, TSA, Secret Service, cybersecurity  kind of an unofficial division of labor, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that pushes for less legal immigration and stricter enforcement of immigration laws.

Homan will work closely with Noems team at DHS. He formerly helmed the DHS agency responsible for arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants, and was one of Trumps most visible immigration surrogates on the campaign trail. Before Election Day, he was rumored to be a contender for DHS secretary but instead took a White House role working on border security and deportations  a position that does not require Senate confirmation and could have more flexible responsibilities.



DHS is complex, and only the Defense Department has more employees. It also includes the federal agency tasked with cybersecurity and election security, and an in-house intelligence office.

Lewandowski, who hasnt been named to an administration role, has known Noem for years. She distanced herself from him in 2021 after the wife of a Republican donor accused him of unwanted sexual advances. Lewandowski has denied the allegations, and that schism appears to have been mended.

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The apparent division of duties leads to a number of questions about the unofficial leadership structure, including whether Noem will effectively be reporting to Miller and Homan on immigration. Its also unclear who will fill out the other immigration leadership roles under DHS, from head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Its a dynamic that could set the stage for some tension between the White House officials and DHS leadership.

But outside allies also view the centralization of the work in the White House as an effective way to coordinate border and immigration policy across the federal government, and they believe Noem, instead of picking fights, will defer to the White House.

Noem, as an effective governor coming in, shes going to have all these different areas of expertise, said Dan Stein, president of the restrictionist Federation for American Immigration Reform. In our view, shes going to put her trust in Miller and Homan to guide her on proper border security initiatives  probably take that load off her. Hopefully there wont be conflict, but obviously theres the potential for turf wars.



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Some close to Trump harbored concerns about Noems limited experience with natural disasters and presidential protection, and what this could mean for her overseeing the sprawling department. The Secret Service, for instance, has come under intense scrutiny after two assassination attempts targeting Trump and multiple investigations have suggested it reboot its focus.

During her time as governor, South Dakota has faced a series of natural disasters that required FEMA assistance, including major floods this summer.

But one policy area she has emphasized as governor is cybersecurity, calling it her states next big industry and touting Dakota State University for focusing on the subject. Noem was one of the earliest governors to ban the Beijing-based app TikTok from state devices in 2022.

The Chinese Communist Party uses information that it gathers on TikTok to manipulate the American people, and they gather data off the devices that access the platform, she said when issuing the ban.

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Noem has also staked out Trump-friendly positions on immigration. Since becoming governor, she has deployed her states National Guard troops to the southwest border at least five times. And after American troops pulled out of Afghanistan in August 2021, she expressed hesitance about accepting Afghan refugees in South Dakota.

I dont have the confidence (in the Biden Administration) today because they havent said they are going to vet them, she said.
The Norfolk International Airport in on pace for another record-breaking year of passenger traffic after rebounding from the pandemic slowdown, according to data provided by Mark Perryman, executive director and CEO of the Norfolk Airport Authority.

Passenger traffic dropped 55% from 2019 to 2020, but since that low point increased by 260% as of 2023, first overtaking the 2019 total in 2022, according to airport authority data. The airport is nearing two years of continuous growth month over month, Perryman said.

Speaking to the Virginia Beach City Council on Tuesday, Perryman said the airport is expected to be very, very close to reaching five million passengers in 2024, though the total was hampered by the CrowdStrike outage in July.

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The current record for annual traffic is 4,552,582 passengers, set last year. As of September, the Norfolk airport had seen 3,678,902 passengers, already closing in on the 2019 total of 3,876,666, according to the airport authority.

Perryman said they began attracting more low-cost airlines around 2016 which allowed them to increase the amount of nonstop flights from a 14-year low of 18 in 2015 to 45 as of 2024.

Were really punching above our weight, Perryman said.

Virginia Beach accounts for a significant majority of out-of-town visitors compared to other cities in Hampton Roads. Out of all Hampton Roads destinations including Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Hampton, Newport News, Williamsburg, other areas on the Peninsula, North Carolina and other, 59% of out-of-town passengers visited Virginia Beach at some point during their stay, followed by Norfolk at 33% and Chesapeake at 15%.

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Portsmouth and Suffolk were tied for the lowest out-of-town visits at 2%, while North Carolina destinations made up 6% of visitors flying into the airport. For passengers travelling for pleasure, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake were tied at the top spot with 31%, followed by Norfolk at 13%. Perryman noted that Chesapeake is generally where visitors stay as a backup option when they cant find a place to stay in Virginia Beach.

For business travel, its Norfolk thats neck and neck with Virginia Beach at 31% and 32%, respectively, of the total business passengers for the region.

Military-related travel makes up 26% of the overall traffic through the airport, according to the airport authority, which includes traffic related to the shipyards and other industry that supports the military.

(High military travel) is a very good number for us in terms of how we market to the airlines, Perryman said. They always ask us this question because they see that as a very stable base of travel.

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The Norfolk airport has seen significant growth as a means of getting to the Outer Banks as opposed to driving. Perryman said that in years past, the number of passengers flying into Norfolk on the way to OBX was near zero and its now 11%.

We are now the aviation gateway to the Outer Banks, its no longer a drive-to destination, and certainly as those travelers pass through Virginia Beach and Norfolk and the region, theyre also spending in our region as well, he said.

Gavin Stone, 757-712-4806, gavin.stone@virginiamedia.com
It was revealed last month that 12,000 North Korean troops had been sent to Ukraine to fight on behalf of Russia. Now, they are reported to have been deployed to Kursk as part of the Russian counter-offensive, while Pyongyang this week ratified a landmark new defence pact with Moscow.

The reaction to these developments has been mixed. There were already indications that North Korea had provided significant materiel to the Russian war effort, including 8 million rounds of 122 millimetre and 152 millimetre ammunition and a number of ballistic missiles, according to figures from CSIS.

But the deployment of soldiers  apparently to assist the 50,000 Russian troops currently poised to retake Kursk from exhausted Ukrainian military units  is a serious escalation. While opinions are mixed as to the efficacy of North Koreas fighting men, with some reports of friendly fire against their Russian allies, the addition of fresh men will provide a morale boost to front-line units.

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The implications could go further than that, however  including for the security of the Indo-Pacific, and particularly South Korea. Units that fight alongside Russian troops may get the opportunity to learn modern warfare techniques and tactics. Andrii Kovalenko, the head of Ukraines Centre for Countering Disinformation, said in a statement to Business Insider that Russia is training North Korean soldiers to operate strike UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] and reconnaissance drones.

Such training in the use of drones, counter-drone techniques, GPS jamming and other electronic warfare technologies in such a front-line environment  combined with Russian technology transfers  may end up serving as a catalyst for the modernisation of North Koreas large but famously outdated army. It could certainly weaken deterrence on the South Korean border, where South Koreas smaller but better-trained and better-equipped military has long held the line.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russia has already helped North Korea with the launch of an indigenous military satellite system, on top of providing advanced drone technology to Pyongyang. The ISW also noted that Kim Jong-Uns visit to Knevichi Airfield in Vladivostok in September 2023 included the North Korean leader viewing several pieces of aviation and missile technology, including Tu-22MS, Tu-95MS, and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers; Su-25SM3, Su-30SM, and Su-34 fighter-bombers; a MiG-31I combat aircraft equipped with Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles; the Marshal Shaposhnikov Udaloy-class frigate; a Uranus anti-ship missile system; and Kalibr cruise missiles. A critical question is whether such tech transfers will include ballistic missile and nuclear technologies.

Not all of the impact will be negative. North Koreas involvement may well cause a shift in South Koreas view of the war in Ukraine. Up until now, the country has been cautiously supportive of Kyiv, providing weapons and 155mm munitions, but sending them to Poland, the Czech Republic, or the United States rather than directly to Ukraine. In response to the revelation that North Korean troops were deploying to Ukraine, South Korean President Yoon asserted: We have had a principle of not directly supplying lethal weapons, but we can be more flexible and review the policy depending on North Koreas military activities.

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So while Pyongyangs deepening alliance with Russia heralds the formation of a definable new bloc arrayed against Nato, one that also includes China, any expansion of South Koreas role in providing munitions to Ukraine and directly intervening in Europe could confirm the continued development of an opposing group of Free World nations disposed to defend the rules-based order.

Such a bloc has long been in development. The Indo-Pacific Four (IP4)  which comprises South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia  have had close ties to the Nato alliance for years. These links have been deepening. The IP4 were included in the last three Nato summits, and former secretary general Jan Stoltenberg recently listed security in the Indo-Pacific as important to Nato.

In 2019, I wrote in The Telegraph that the world had begun to move towards a new Cold War. Few could disagree that this is where we are heading now. And as North Koreas closer ties with Russia demonstrate, the coming competition is likely to be truly global in nature.

Dr John Hemmings is a James Cook associate fellow in Indo-Pacific Geopolitics at the Council on Geostrategy

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A photo has emerged showing examples of a North Korean-made, self-propelled artillery system under transport in Russia, the clearest suggestion so far that Pyongyang is also now providing Moscow with these kinds of heavyweight, far-reaching artillery weapons for its war in Ukraine. That would hardly be a surprise at this point, with North Korea having supplied Russia with huge amounts of weaponry already, including millions of artillery rounds, as well as having committed to the deployment of thousands of troops for the conflict.

 I was able to geolocate and thus confirm that the photo of North Korean M-1978/1989 Koksan 170mm SPGs was taken in Russia.



 56.069386, 92.920244

Krasnoyarsk, central Russiahttps://t.co/BOaR44uLeShttps://t.co/mC8solXVOvpic.twitter.com/LUHO2cllKZ  Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (BlueSky too) (@Archer83Able) November 14, 2024

The photo in question appeared on social media today, apparently first being posted to the Russian Telegram messaging app. It shows at least two examples of 170mm M1989 Koksan self-propelled artillery units being transported on a flatbed railcar. Open-source intelligence analysts later geolocated this precisely to Krasnoyarsk, in central Russia. Notable is the fact the vehicles have white-painted roadwheels, a feature often seen on North Korean equipment during high-profile parades.

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North Koreas Koksan self-propelled artillery system was first fielded sometime in the late 1970s, as the M1978. The full Western designation indicates that it was first noted by intelligence agencies in 1978 in the city of Koksan.

An example of the original M1978 Koksan, in Iranian service. Siamak Ebrahimi/Tasnim News

The original M1978 is based on an adapted Type 59 tank, fitted with a 170mm caliber artillery cannon, mounted in an open superstructure rather than a protected turret. The M1989 version, as seen in the photo from Krasnoyarsk, uses the same gun but mounted on a more modern chassis, similar in appearance to that used on Russias 2S7 Pion, a 203mm self-propelled artillery piece. The M1989 version also has onboard storage for 12 rounds of ammunition.

The main advantage of the M1978/M1989 is its long range, with the big 170mm gun assessed as capable of firing a standard shell to a range of around 25 miles, or a rocket-assisted shell to a range of 37 miles. For a long time, the weapon was judged to be the longest-range conventional artillery piece in North Korean service.

An M1989 Koksan on parade during North Korea Victory Day celebrations in July 2013. Stefan Krasowski/Wikimedia Commons Picasa

Downsides include no ability to carry the gun crew, who have to be transported separately, and the lack of any armored protection for the crew once the gun is set up and in operation. Also, the rate of fire is incredibly slow by modern standards, just two rounds every five minutes. The German-made PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzer, also used by Ukraine, can fire 10 rounds per minute or a three-round burst in 10 seconds.

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For Russia, there is also the issue that the M1989 uses 170mm ammunition, something that it doesnt have in its own stocks, and which is, on a global scale, a relatively rare caliber. On the other hand, North Korea has plenty of ammunition that it could potentially supply.

Its worth noting, too, that the M1978/M1989 is very much a known quantity to Western analysts. The weapon was exported to Iran and employed extensively in the Iran-Iraq War, some examples being captured and used by Iraq. The 2003 invasion of Iraq provided the U.S. military a chance to look at some of these weapons at close quarters.

A former Iranian M1978 Koksan captured by U.S. Marines in Ramadi, Iraq, in November 2008. Photo by Lance Cpl. Albert F. Hunt/Released LCpl Albert F. Hunt

We dont know for sure at this point why the M1989 Koksan guns were in Russia, but there are several possible explanations.

They could be in Russia for test purposes, or even some kind of maneuvers involving North Korean troops.

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Perhaps most likely, the guns could be headed to Ukraine, where Russia will use them to bolster its own self-propelled artillery units.

Finally, bearing in mind the increasing involvement of North Korean troops fighting for Russia, these weapons could also be headed to Ukraine, or the Kursk region of Russia, for use by Pyongyangs own forces.

North Korea has huge quantities of Koksan and other large-caliber artillery, and Russia has been burning through its own stocks of such weapons, with questions about its war industrys ability to replace them with the required urgency. You can read more about the major types of artillery that Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine here.

A destroyed Russian 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer is seen in Siversk, Ukraine, close to the front line, in March 2023. Photo by Marek M. Berezowski/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Anadolu

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There are also more than enough precedents for Russia wanting to acquire heavy weapons from North Korea, with long-range ones being of particular value. According to data from the Oryx open-source tracking group, at least 851 pieces of Russian self-propelled artillery have been destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured. The actual number is likely far higher as Oryx only tabulates losses that are visually confirmed using open-source materials.

Already, Pyongyangs support for Moscows war in Ukraine has seen the supply of a diverse range of weapons, including millions of badly needed artillery rounds and various kinds of other ammunition.

A recent assessment from the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), based on intelligence provided by the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR), listed North Korean weapons collected from the battlefield, including claimed 122mm and 152mm shells, Bulsae-4 anti-tank missiles, short-range ballistic missiles such as the KN-23, and RPG anti-tank rockets.

A fragment from a North Korean-made KN-23 missile during a briefing after a Russian attack on Kharkiv, on March 14, 2024. Photo by Denys Glushko /Gwara Media/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images Head of the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutors Office Oleksandr Filchakov holds the wreckage of a North Korean missile during a briefing dedicated to the Russian shelling of Kharkiv by North Korean missiles in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on March 14, 2024. Photo by Denys Glushko /Gwara Media/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images

Considering the size of containers loaded on cargo ships traveling between North Korea and Russia, it appears that a total of more than eight million 122mm and 152mm shells have been provided to Russia so far, NIS concluded.

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Most recently, TWZ looked at claims that Russia may also have received North Korean Type 73 machine guns, although these could also be used by the thousands of troops that Pyongyang has now deployed to Ukraine.

Photos circulating on telegram this afternoon, of North Korean Type 73s said to be in Russia (the EMR trousers leg supports that). Various posts claiming A. Brought along with the DPRK troops sent to Russia. B. Provided to Russia by DPRK. Also possibly taken during past exercise. pic.twitter.com/9npC5N8WX7  Matthew Moss | Historical Firearms (@historicfirearm) November 7, 2024

As a result of the deepening military relationship between the two countries, there has also been speculation that North Korea could be set to benefit from Russian weapons and expertise. As well as suggestions that Pyongyang might receive new Russian combat aircraft to overhaul its badly aging air force, and there have also been concerns that Moscow might provide it with technologies to help accelerate its nuclear and long-range ballistic missile programs.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the KnAAPO aircraft factory in the Russian Far East, accompanied by Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade, Denis Manturov (third from right), on September 15, 2023. Photo by Gov of Khabarovsk Reg/M. Degtyaryov/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

We may not have to wait long to see who ends up using the M1989 Koksan self-propelled artillery units in Ukraine  if indeed thats where theyre headed. If they do end up at the front, whether used by Russian or North Korean forces, it would be bad news for Ukraine, which is already at a large artillery deficit compared to Russia.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
South Korean and US intelligence services have confirmed the participation of North Korean soldiers in hostilities in Russia, particularly in Kursk Oblast.

Source: ISW

Details: South Korea's National Intelligence Service reported on 13 November that North Korean troops were participating in hostilities in Russia, after being trained and gradually deployed to the battlefield over the past two weeks. This fact was also confirmed by US intelligence.

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Quote: "US State Department Spokesperson Vedant Patel stated during a briefing on November 12 that over 10,000 North Korean troops deployed to eastern Russia, most of whom have now moved to western Kursk Oblast where they have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces."

: ISW

Map: ISW

To quote the ISWs Key Takeaways on 13 November:

The Kremlin is attempting to dictate the terms of any potential "peace" negotiations with Ukraine in advance of US President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. The manner in which the Kremlin is trying to set its terms for negotiations strongly signals that Russia's objectives remain unchanged and still amount to full Ukrainian capitulation. The Kremlin does not appear any more willing to make concessions to the incoming Trump administration than it was to the current administration.

Lavrov's pre-emptive rejection of the potential suggestion to freeze the current frontline further indicates that Russia is not interested in softening its approach or demands in negotiations and maintains its objective of total Ukrainian capitulation, which Russian leader Vladimir Putin explicitly outlined in June 2024.

Ukrainian security services reportedly assassinated a Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) official in occupied Crimea on 13 November.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Russian oil executives reportedly rejected a proposal to merge Russia's three largest oil companies. Contradictory reporting on the proposed Russian oil merger highlights a possible factional struggle between close affiliates of Putin and Russian energy executives.

South Korean and US intelligence separately confirmed that North Korean troops have deployed into combat alongside Russian forces in Kursk Oblast.

Russian forces recently advanced near Toretsk, Kurakhove, and Vuhledar and in the border areas of Donetsk Zaporizhzhia oblasts; Ukrainian forces recently regained positions near Chasiv Yar.

Russian forces continue to heavily rely on refurbished tanks and armoured vehicles pulled from storage to replace vehicle losses during ongoing combat operations, but likely will not be able to sustain these losses in the long term.

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NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. (KLAS)  North Las Vegas City Councilwoman Ruth Garcia-Anderson won re-election by 9 votes  a difference of 0.04%, according to unofficial election results updated Wednesday.

Garcia-Anderson won the Ward 2 race against Robert Twixx Taylor, who led the incumbent by 35 votes heading into Tuesday. Both candidates advanced to the November election after the June primary because neither achieved a majority in a three-way race. Taylor beat Garcia-Anderson by 38 votes.

Ward 2 encompasses the southern portion of the city west of Interstate 15.

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Clark County finished processing provisional ballots on Wednesday, leading to Garcia-Andersons 9-vote advantage. In terms of percentages, Garcia-Anderson won 50.02% of the vote compared to Taylors 49.98%. Nearly 21,000 people voted in the race.

North Las Vegas City Councilwoman Ruth Garcia-Anderson won re-election by 9 votes  a difference of 0.04%, according to unofficial election results updated Wednesday. (KLAS)

The North Las Vegas City Council appointed Garcia-Anderson to her seat in December 2022. Current Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown held the seat before she was elected mayor.

Nevada state law requires all mail-in ballots to be mailed and postmarked by Election Day. There is then a four-day period after Election Day when county clerks can accept the postmarked ballots and process them.

Tuesday was the last day mail-in voters whose ballots had a signature issue could verify their identities for their votes to count.

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Clark County was scheduled to canvass the election results on Friday.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Norway's security service said on Thursday it had lowered the national threat assessment a notch to moderate from high.

Norway on Oct. 8 raised its terrorism threat assessment to the second-highest level on a scale from 1 to 5 due to an increased risk of attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets.

"Iran-linked actors with a focus on Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe represented a new and unclear element in the Norwegian terrorist threat picture," the PST security service said in a statement on Thursday.

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However, the security service said enough clarifications had since been made concerning the uncertainties that had led to the elevated threat level.

"PST particularly considers that Iran-linked actors represent to a lesser extent a threat to Jewish and Israeli targets in Norway," it said on Thursday.

(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen, editing by Terje Solsvik)
A Norwegian fisherman caught a US submarine in his nets this week.

The USS Virginia's propellers got tangled in the nets, reports say, dragging them out to sea.

The US Navy has sent several vessels into nearby waters in recent months amid tensions with Russia.

A Norwegian fisherman made a surprising catch on Monday in the form of a US submarine.

Harald Engen was delivering a catch of halibut to his home near the Malangen fjord in Norway when he got an unusual message, the Norwegian broadcaster NRK News reported.

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He was told that the propellers of a submarine had become tangled in his nets and had dragged them 2 nautical miles  about 2.3 miles  out to sea, NRK reported.

The 377-foot, nuclear-powered USS Virginia had been on its way from the port of Troms. The Norwegian coast guard confirmed to NRK that one of its vessels, which was escorting the submarine, had to help cut it loose from the nets.

"I know about other vessels that have sailed over fishing nets, but no one out here have ever heard about a submarine doing so," Engen said, per the Barents Observer.

He told NRK that he wasn't angry and that the coast guard had been in touch about possible replacements.

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Lt. Pierson Hawkins, a spokesperson for the US 6th Fleet, confirmed basic details of the incident to Business Insider but declined to confirm the name of the vessel.

Nobody was hurt in the incident, he said, adding: "The investigation into the cause of the incident is still ongoing."

Speaking about compensation, Hawkins said that "in general, when the US is responsible for damage to civilian equipment, there is a claims process to reimburse the expense."

Norway's armed forces didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hawkins didn't outline what the submarine was doing off the coast of Norway beyond the fact that it was leaving Troms.

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"The US is an Arctic nation and has enduring security interest in the region," he said, adding that the 6th Fleet appreciated Norway's support to US submarine deployments "to deter and defend the increasingly complex security environment of the High North."

There have been multiple US naval deployments in the waters in recent months amid increased cooperation between Norway and the US.

In June, the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Tennessee and the cruiser USS Normandy were deployed to the Norwegian Sea in response to Russian maneuvers, the defense news site Army Recognition reported.

More recently, in October, Norway's armed forces announced joint naval exercises running through to November with the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group.

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The British aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales was also set to join, the announcement said.

Two guided-missile destroyers from the group, the USS Jason Dunham and the USS Stout, were sent on "routine maritime operations" to international waters in the Barents Sea, US Naval Forces Europe and Africa announced.

The Barents Sea, which is bordered by northern Norway and Russia, is considered a sensitive zone for Russia.

In September, US lawmakers expressed concerns about delays and soaring costs in building new vessels, including Virginia-class submarines, particularly in light of China's recent naval expansions.

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Rep. Ken Calvert, chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, said the US Navy's Virginia-class submarine program was projected to run $17 billion over budget through 2030.

Correction: November 15, 2024  An earlier version of this story misstated where Harald Engen was reported to be delivering his catch. NRK News said he was going to his home near the Malangen fjord, not a village named Malangen. The story also misattributed some of Engen's comments, which he made to NRK, not The Barents Observer.

Read the original article on Business Insider
(Bloomberg) -- For three hours on Thursday morning, Donald Trump was the elephant in the room at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation as speakers danced around any direct discussion of how he would shake up the global economic, political and business landscape.

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Then Andres Velasco  the dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics  took the stage at the event, which is bringing some of the biggest names in politics and business together in Lima, Peru. His words warned of a bleak future as the American president-elect prepares to return to the White House.

I think we are moving into a more protectionist world led by the United States. No question about it, Velasco said. And for the countries in this room, countries of the Pacific Rim, countries in East Asia, countries in Latin America, that is not very good news.

Its a view that had been echoed in hallways, conference rooms and hotel bars ahead of the APEC event, with officials privately voicing concerns over the incoming US administration.

Speculation is swirling around how the incoming US administrations policies will affect the very issues that APEC attendees are talking about. Trump has vowed to boost American oil and gas production, which critics say will undermine efforts to address climate change. His threat to impose widespread tariffs risks roiling the global supply chain and upending economies across Latin America. And his stance on trade and tariffs will undoubtedly impact nations like Brazil, Peru and Mexico, which have deep economic ties with China.

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But apart from Velasco, attendees on stage studiously avoided saying Trumps name while warning about the fallout from his policies.

Vietnam President Luong Cuong is one example, warning in a keynote address that isolationists, protectionism and trade wars lead only to recessions, conflict and poverty.

Attendees reluctance to discuss Trump could very well change as the day progresses. JPMorgan Chase & Co.s Jamie Dimon will be speaking later Thursday. US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, are also attending the APEC summit and are set to meet on Saturday.

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The Notre-Dame Cathedral will soon rise from the ashes.

More than five years after a fire nearly destroyed the famous Parisian monument, Notre-Dame will finally open its doors to the public next month, The New York Times reported. The Gothic-style landmark was set ablaze in April 2019 with flames burning through the wooden roof and spire. To commemorate the grand rebirth on December 7, a ceremony will be broadcast worldwide with a public mass slated for the next day.

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We are going to recover the focal point of our life as a church, Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris said during a news conference. The 12-century monument is estimated to attract 14 million to 15 million yearly visitors upon its reopening. Ahead of the ceremony, President Emmanuel Macron of France will give a brief speech in front of the historic structure accompanied by a concert. The day after, Macron will attend a special Mass service along with approximately 170 bishops. Though, it should be noted that Pope Francis will not be in attendance.

Since the fire, more than 300,000 donors have stepped in to help with the restoration efforts, gifting almost $900 million. In the aftermath, thanks to about 2,000 workers and local artisans, repairs have been made to the 860-year-old cathedrals stained-glass windows and roof. While the majority of the process is complete, theres about three years and $150 million worth of work still to be done, mainly to the exterior and its many flying buttresses. During President Macrons time in office, he pledged to rebuild the cathedral by 2025.

The challenge of rebuilding in five years has been successfully met, added Olivier Ribadeau-Dumas, Notre-Dames rector. It shows that in this period of doubt and of questioning, if we remain united around a common goal, we can achieve the impossible.

Just last week, the sound of Notre-Dames eight bells rang throughout the City of Light for the first time since 2019 signaling the forthcoming reopening. Three new bells have also been installed, including one that tolled at the Paris Olympic Games this summer. If you plan on visiting, the cathedral will be operating on an afternoon to 10 p.m. schedule for the time being and plans on implementing a free online reservation system and a smartphone app with a guide. While individual visitors are welcome, group tours wont be permitted until spring 2025.

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A Long Island detective was charged with a hate crime on Wednesday after he called a phone service worker the n-word and spewed We dont want you or your kind in the neighborhood in a racist tirade, according to officials.

Rockville Centre detective John Murphy, 40, allegedly erupted into a hateful rage after spotting a black cellular service subcontractor inside an SUV on Nov. 3 around 7 p.m. near Sylvan Court and Weeks Avenue in his Manorville neighborhood.

Murphy allegedly stormed over to the 48-year-old worker and seethed: Get out of here. We dont want you or your kind in the neighborhood, n-r, according to a criminal complaint.

Rockville Centre detective John Murphy was charged with a hate crime on Wednesday. Newsday

The hate-filled detective then kicked the victims SUV and ripped off a light affixed to the top of the vehicle before breaking it into pieces and chucking it at the victim, hitting the left side of his face, the court documents alleged.

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Moments before the violent altercation, Murphy  who was off-duty at the time  allegedly asked the victim what he was doing in the neighborhood while identifying himself as law enforcement.

When the worker tried to hand over his ID, Murphy refused to look at it, police said.

Murphy, of Manorville, was slapped with criminal mischief as a hate crime and aggravated harassment.

He ignored reporters questions after his court appearance Wednesday.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney slammed Murphys alleged bigoted attack.

The victim here was just trying to do his job, when the defendant allegedly harassed him and damaged his vehicle, Tierney said in a statement.

Detective John Murphy allegedly called the worker a racial slur before attacking him. Dennis A. Clark

To make matters worse, the defendant is a sworn law enforcement officer, responsible for protecting the rights of citizens, rather than violating them, as is alleged here.

Murphy is due back in court on Dec. 3 and was ordered to stay away from the victim.

The Rockville Centre Police Department suspended Murphy Wednesday morning, according to Newsday.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. (WWLP)  A man from New York pled guilty Tuesday to 15 indictments related to his role in an organized theft ring targeting Berkshire Bank locations.

Pittsfield man found guilty of rape, witness intimidation

57-year-old Angel Nunez faced charges stemming from attempts to fraudulently withdraw funds during three visits to Berkshire Bank branches on June 23, June 26, and July 10, 2023.

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The Berkshire District Attorneys Office recommended a two-year sentence in the House of Corrections. However, Nunezs defense requested house arrest, citing his ongoing medical issues. Judge Agostini ultimately sentenced Nunez to two years of probation, with the condition that he refrain from committing further crimes.

According to the Berkshire County DAs Office, Nunez experienced a severe medical event while awaiting trial. His condition necessitates medical care beyond what the House of Corrections can provide, leading the court to opt for probation over incarceration.

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OFALLON, Mo.  Patrons filled the restaurant Mi Mexico Lindo Mexican Grill all day to lend a helping hand to the Calkin family, who tragically lost their daughter days ago. A school bus struck and killed the 9-year-old girl.

The fundraising event was organized by Ryan Coffman, the GoFundMe organizer, and the restaurant owner, who felt compelled to help. The restaurant donated 15 percent of the days proceeds to the family.

The GoFundMe has now surpassed its $25,000 goal and shared the familys initial reaction to the communitys overwhelming response.

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They were flooredspeechless. I mean, they were very grateful, and coming from an entrepreneurial lifestyle myself and knowing that they are entrepreneurs also, I can only imagine how it feels to have people backing them while trying to focus on their grieving, Coffman said.

52,000 Illinois residents to get medical debt forgiveness letters

Even the restaurant owner commented on the incredible turnout, noting that Wednesday was busier than usual. Coffman stopped by the restaurant, picked up a meal, and delivered it to the Calkins family before joining the community in honoring the young girls memory.

The family has had everything turned over to them as well. They are very appreciative of all the support from the community. Everybody that has come through, pulled through on donations and their thoughts, Coffman added.

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As donations continue to pour inwith over 500 supporters contributingCoffman will keep the GoFund Me open as the Calkin family begins the long road of healing.

I believe that supporting this fundraiser is going to put money in this familys pocket to ease up on the pain. I know its not going to bring their daughter back, but by having financial means, its going to help ease up any need that they may have, customer and donor Mike Ruffino said.

Meanwhile, at the scene of the accident, a growing memorial of flowers and mementos marks the communitys shared grief.

Coffman stated the funds have been turned over to the familys possession and the GoFundMe will remain up to continue to support the family. If you would like to donate, you can click here to donate.

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Former Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) at the unveiling of his official portrait last year in Government House. Photo courtesy the Governor's Office.

As Democrats scramble to set a new course after their wipe-out in the presidential election last week, former Gov. Martin OMalley (D) is kicking the tires on a possible run to become the next chair of the Democratic National Committee.

OMalley is one of several Democrats who have been mentioned as potential contenders to replace Jaime Harrison as the DNC chair in early 2025.

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Colm OComartun, a former top OMalley aide who was executive director of the Democratic Governors Association when OMalley chaired that political committee, said several party leaders and activists have reached out to the former Maryland governor since Election Day and are urging him to consider a bid.

He really believes in building the party and building the organization and helping people who want to run for office, OComartun said of his ex-boss.

OMalley currently heads the Social Security Administration, but his term runs out in late January, days after former President Donald Trump is set to be sworn in as the 47th president. The chances of OMalley being reappointed to the post  and his desire to serve under Trump  are zero.

Even so, OMalley is prevented by the federal Hatch Act from conducting political activities while he remains in the SSA job, so former aides are informally guiding him and helping him reach out to fellow Democrats, OComartun and three other former OMalley advisers said this week.

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Harrison, a former chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, has spent the past four years atop the DNC, but has signaled he plans to step down when his term ends.

The DNCs 440 voting members must elect a new chair and other officers between Jan. 1 and March 1, and Politico reported Tuesday that the DNC is tentatively planning to schedule the vote for Feb. 13. The DNCs Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet next month in Washington, D.C., to set a process for electing a new chair.

Unlike recent post-election periods, there do not appear to be any powerful Democratic figures, like newly elected or soon-to-be-departing presidents, ready to influence the vote, meaning the election to replace Harrison could turn into a dogfight.

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National political parties seek different things from their leaders depending on the partys electoral standing and the prevailing political environment. The job requires a combination of political strategy, organizing skills, fundraising chops and the ability to craft and amplify an effective message.

Race, gender, geography, ideology and generational factors, along with prevailing and emerging political alliances, could also impact the DNC members votes. Its often an insiders game that defies normal campaign story arcs.

According to published reports and conversations with high-ranking Democrats, potential candidates besides OMalley include:

Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia legislator and two-time gubernatorial nominee;

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear;

Michael Blake, a former member of the New York State Assembly who was a DNC vice chair;

Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. Transportation secretary and former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who ran for president in 2020 and is contemplating a run for governor of Michigan in 2026;

outgoing U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler of California, who has been serving on an interim basis for 13 months;

Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan who has also served in Congress, as mayor of Chicago and as a top White House aide under two presidents;

former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who is a White House policy adviser;

Minnesota Democratic Chair Ken Martin;

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive;

former Texas congressman Beto ORourke;

Stephanie Schriock, a former president of EMILYs List and seasoned strategist;

and Wisconsin Democratic Chair Ben Wikler.

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Other candidates could emerge, and several will no doubt have their high-profile and influential advocates. Key Democratic-aligned interest groups are sure to start weighing in.

Through history, only four women have served as DNC chair  and two only held the job for a matter of months, on an interim basis.

Political commentator David Axelrod, who worked in the Obama White House with Emanuel, endorsed his former colleague for the job on his podcast Hacks on Tap this week, citing Emanuels organizational achievements, including his stint as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2006 election cycle, when the Democrats seized control of Congress. Axelrod called Emanuel the most skilled in-fighter in the Democratic Party.

Cheryl Landis, a member of the DNC from Maryland, said Wednesday she has yet to be contacted by potential contenders but expects she will be soon. While she said she is not ready to commit to any of the candidates, she said she knows OMalley well and described him as perfect for the position.

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He did an excellent job when he was governor, said Landis, a former state delegate from Prince Georges County. He served us well. I believe that where the Democratic Party is at this juncture, the DNC really needs a chair who listens to the people, who thinks seriously and can lead us strategically.

OComartun, a partner in two D.C.-based public affairs firms who worked for OMalley when he was mayor and governor, said the Marylander has political and policy skills and a wealth of contacts across the nation, from his time at the Democratic Governors Association  he was chair from 2010 to 2012, vice chair from 2008 to 2010, and finance chair in 2007 and 2008  and his short-lived presidential campaign in 2016.

One question for DNC members is whether theyll want to turn to a former governor who last held political office in early 2015 and last won an election in 2010. OComartun touted OMalleys work ethic and said his year-long tenure at the Social Security Administration, where he traveled the country to meet with employees and stakeholders, will also be an asset, since he has made the agency more customer-friendly and rebuilt morale in the workforce.

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There are a lot of smart people in the Democratic Party who are too happy to tell people what they ought to do, OComartun said. Gov. OMalley will spend his time talking with and listening to the people. I think hes the right guy to bring order, to bring structure.

This marks the second time OMalley has contemplated running for the national committee post. He also publicly pondered the race after the 2016 election, when Trump won his first term. He eventually decided against a bid, opting instead to endorse Buttigieg  who wound up one of the runners-up to the ultimate victor, Marylander Tom Perez. Perez, who had served in OMalleys administration, later went into the Obama administration, and former President Barack Obama urged him into the DNC race, which he won narrowly over then-U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota.

OComartun and other former OMalley advisers said they expect the campaign for DNC chair to begin in earnest after Thanksgiving, and that they expect OMalley to be closer to making a decision sometime next month.

Now is the time to talk about it, OComartun said. Now is not the time to launch a campaign.
(KRON)  A district court in California has ruled that the Oakland International Airport must stop using its new name, the San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport.

The Port of Oakland opted to change the name in April to include the words San Francisco Bay to increase the visibility of the airport, claiming that travelers did not know Oakland was located in the Bay Area. But the City of San Francisco took issue with the new name, and sued the Port of Oakland and City of Oakland.

The court ruled in favor of San Francisco this week, approving a preliminary injunction on Tuesday.

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The Court has determined that San Francisco is likely to prevail on its claim that the new name of the Oakland airport uses San Franciscos [trademark] in a way that falsely implies affiliation, connection and association. 

Airport-Court-Documents-1Download

Officials with the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) had submitted evidence that 15 travelers went to SFO when they meant to go to the Oakland International Airport (OAK), according to court documents. Some Instagram users tagged the Oakland airport in pictures of SFO as well.

The City of San Francisco alleged three kinds of confusion based on the new airport name. The court agreed that the Oakland airports new name made travelers think the two airports were associated with one another, but did not agree on the two other confusions alleged to occur during a travelers initial interest or at the point of sale.

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US prohibits airlines from flying to Haiti and UN suspends flights after planes were shot

The Port of Oakland, in response, disputed the courts findings in an official statement.

The court order temporarily blocks OAKs new name on the basis of the third type of alleged confusion: that travelers may think OAK is affiliated with SFO, reads the Port of Oaklands statement, in part. OAK is not associated with SFO, of course, but is rather a convenient and centrally located option for travelers throughout the Bay Area.

We are continuing to review the recent ruling and considering all available options.

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San Francisco had filed its lawsuit against Oakland and the port Commissioners in April, right after the Port of Oakland decided to move forward with the name change. San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, speaking after Tuesdays ruling, said San Francisco officials had tried reasoning with Oakland officials for months to avoid litigation.

Unfortunately, those efforts were not productive, and we had no choice but to ask the court to step in and protect our trademark, Chiu said. San Francisco has invested millions in making San Francisco International Airport the world class airport it is today. We have built an incredible brand, and we are happy the Court agreed that brand should be legally protected from trademark infringement.

The courts ruling on Tuesday mandates that the Oakland airport stop using the name everywhere, including advertisements, marketing, and promotion.

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The pulse oximeter , a device that measures the degree to which red blood cells are saturated with oxygen, is one of healthcares most fundamental tools.

So when Dr. Noha Aboelata learned that research stretching back decades showed that the devices routinely failed patients with darker skin tones, she took action.

Aboelata, the founder and chief executive of East Oaklands Roots Community Health Center, urged the Food and Drug Administration to require makers of pulse oximeters to test their devices on people of color, and to warn consumers about the risk of false readings.

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Attorneys for Roots wrote to companies that made or sold pulse oximeters in California, asking them to improve their products and disclose their limitations. When none responded, the clinic filed a lawsuit to force a change in practices.

A year later, Roots and Aboelata are celebrating their first wins.

Minneapolis-based Medtronic, a leading provider of the devices to hospitals, reached a settlement with Roots last month.

Medtronic agreed to provide brochures and advisory labels on pulse oximeters sold to California hospitals, informing users that the devices can artificially inflate blood oxygen estimates on patients with darker skin. In exchange, Roots dropped its claims against the company.

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In a statement, Medtronic said it "looks forward to working with Roots, the FDA and other key stakeholders to ensure health equity can be achieved through technology, educational efforts, and partnerships."

Three other companies that sell directly to consumers also agreed to place informational labels on their products.

The suit is proceeding against CVS, Walgreens, GE HealthCare and five other defendants that have not settled, Roots attorney Jonathan Weissglass said.

CVS and GE said they wouldn't comment on pending legislation. Walgreens didn't immediately respond for comment, but said earlier this year that it also would not comment on pending litigation.

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The settlements are a step toward resolution for a pervasive yet frequently overlooked problem that has haunted medicine for decades.

This pulse ox issue should never have been allowed to happen, and once it was known, it should not have been allowed to continue, Aboelata said. Im still talking to people every week who don't know about it.

A pulse oximeter shines a light that passes through the patients skin, blood and tissues, and then measures how much light comes out the other side. Theyre typically clipped on a fingertip.

Before pulse oximeters were widely adopted in the 1980s, the only way to gauge a patients blood oxygen saturation was to draw blood from their arterial vein, a painful procedure that had to be followed by immediate laboratory analysis.

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Oxygen-rich blood absorbs more infrared light. So does melanin, the pigment that helps determine skin, hair and eye color. As a result, patients with darker skin tones are more likely to get pulse oximeter readings that show their blood oxygen saturation to be higher than it actually is.

As early as 1990, researchers noted that Black patients were more likely to get deceptively high pulse ox readings when hypoxic, or suffering from low oxygen.

In 2005 , UC San Franciscos Hypoxia Research Laboratory found the devices were more likely to overestimate oxygen saturation in patients with dark skin than in those with light skin, results the lab confirmed in a follow-up study two years later.

Yet many providers  including those like Aboelata, who focused on addressing racial inequities in healthcare  were unaware of this data. This became a matter of life and death during the COVID-19 pandemic, when pulse oximeter readings became the primary metric hospitals used to determine who should get care.

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CDC guidelines instructed providers to start anyone with pulse ox readings below 90% on oxygen therapy.

A 2020 study of thousands of patients at the University of Michigan found that Black patients, compared with white patients, had nearly three times the rate of occult hypoxia  low blood oxygen that goes undetected because pulse oximeter readings are in the normal range.

After reading the study, a pharmacist and cardiologist from the University of Michigan looked at 204 patient records from their hospital.

In a study published in February, they found that Black patients blood oxygen readings on pulse oximeters were on average 6% higher than the actual blood oxygen levels measured in their arterial blood samples. In contrast, pulse oximeters overestimated white patients blood oxygen by just 1% on average.

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Artificially high blood oxygen readings could lead physicians to underestimate how much blood is pumping from a patients heart or overestimate the degree of resistance in the patients vascular system, the researchers said.

Those sorts of measurements can impact how we care for patients with heart failure, and can impact their candidacy for more intense treatment options like heart transplants and heart pumps, cardiologist Dr. Scott Ketcham said.

Currently, the FDA recommends  but doesnt require  that pulse oximeter makers ensure that in their clinical trials, either two participants or 15% of total participants are darkly pigmented people, a definition open to interpretation.

In February 2021, the FDA issued a safety notice cautioning users that pulse oximeters can be thrown off by a number of variables, including skin pigment.

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In February, an agency advisory panel recommended that the FDA require that new devices be tested on at least 24 people whose skin tones collectively span the Monk Skin Tone scale , a 10-color palette often used to train artificial intelligences to recognize people of different colors.

The proposal would divide the scale into three parts, with each part represented by at least 25% of study participants.

Though the FDA indicated that it would issue new guidelines for pulse oximeter manufacturers by Sept. 30, it has not done so yet. The agency is working to release the updated guidance as expeditiously as possible, a spokesperson said.

The FDA also funded a study at UCSFs Hypoxia Research Laboratory to better understand the relationship between skin pigment and pulse ox accuracy. The research team is preparing its results for publication now, said Dr. Phil Bickler , director of the UCSF lab and an investigator on the study.

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Until then, making sure their devices work equally well for users of all skin tones is optional for manufacturers.

When Manhattan Beach-based BodiMetrics, a maker of wearable health monitors, sought FDA clearance for its most recent smart ring fitness tracker, the company opted to broaden the range of skin tones represented in its study population. One-third of its study population had darker skin pigment, compared with the FDA-recommended minimum of 15%.

Its a lot more money to do the clinical studies [to] prove that we didn't have a pigmentation problem, BodiMetrics founder and chief operating officer Neil Friedman said. But that was our goal ... to make sure that people had a device that properly measured their blood oximetry and prevented them from being misdiagnosed or potentially dying.



This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
An Oakland County woman is facing criminal charges after authorities removed just over three dozen animals from her Pontiac home in September during an investigation for animal cruelty and an unregistered shelter operation.

Karmen Schooly was charged with failure to provide adequate care to 25 or more animals, a felony, and operating an unregistered animal shelter, a misdemeanor, Oakland County officials announced in a release Wednesday.

Schooly also is facing charges in Macomb County, where six dogs were in legal limbo and in the care of Macomb County Animal Control for nearly a year. The puppies initially came from Schooly's TriCounty Dog Rescue in Pontiac and eventually were adopted this year.

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.

In the recent Oakland County case, 29 dogs and eight cats were removed from her Argyle Street residence Sept. 27. One cat was euthanized. The remaining animals were under the care of the Oakland County Animal Shelter and Pet Adoption Center, but are not available for adoption because of the pending court matter.

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Oakland County animal control officers found the animals living in "abusive and neglectful conditions," according to the release.

"Housing dozens of animals that you can't take care of is not a 'rescue,' and neglecting or abusing animals is a crime," Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald stated, adding the conditions the animals were living in were "deplorable."

In an email Wednesday to the Free Press, Schooly stated all the dogs were in good condition, adding: "I go out of my way to care for them."

"They seized my registered service dog and emotional support animals. They are holding the rescue dogs and not putting them up for adoption when release papers were signed on majority of them. How is that fair for the dogs?" she stated in the email. "I have no control over them not getting adopted. Just like Oakland (C)ounty (A)nimal (C)ontrol has dogs that have been there 1-2 years. If their adoption rate is low they should understand that mine would be low too."

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Schooly told the Free Press in September that the removal was "totally unexpected," adding that she recorded it and would be getting an attorney involved.

Oakland County Shelter Manager Bob Gatt stated in the release that the conditions the animals were found in "are unacceptable, and we are doing everything we can to support their recovery and secure a safe future for them."

Schooly was to be arraigned in 50th District Court in Pontiac. No court case or hearing date was listed Wednesday in online district court records.

If convicted of the felony, per the release, Schooly could face up to seven years in prison, $10,000 in fines, a minimum of five years of probation, and up to 500 hours of community service, as well as additional penalties such as a psychiatric evaluation, reimbursement of costs associated with animal care and a prohibition on future animal ownership, according to the release. It states the misdemeanor carries a possible penalty of up to 90 days in jail and/or a $500 fine.

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Schooly previously came under fire in Macomb County, where six pups spent a year with animal control. The dogs  Danica, Dash, Dodge, Daytona, Diesel and Dale  celebrated their first birthdays in January in the animal shelter in Clinton Township.

They were put for adoption in March. The dogs, Australian cattle dog mixes, came to animal control in March 2023, when they were 10 weeks old and Macomb County Chief Animal Control Officer Jeff Randazzo said they were sick with parvo, a highly contagious disease. He said the puppies were surrendered by a foster person in Macomb County after they became sick and the rescue wouldn't take them back.

A civil forfeiture action was filed against Schooly of the rescue, which Randazzo said brought the puppies to Michigan. He previously said the foster person received the puppies directly from a truck that brought the puppies in from out of state.

Do dogs deserve legal personhood rights? New film featuring Detroit asks the question.

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A district court judge in New Baltimore determined in January the puppies were abandoned, and Schooly had until noon Jan. 31 to pay $70,255 or the dogs would be forfeited. She did not pay, per the court and Randazzo. Randazzo said animal control had spent more than $60,000 to care for the six dogs. Schooly appealed in Macomb County Circuit Court, but it was dismissed.

Schooly also has a criminal case in Macomb County, where she is charged with health profession-unauthorized practice and abandoning/cruelty to four to 10 animals, both felonies, and unregistered animal shelters/pounds, a misdemeanor. A circuit judge denied her motion to quash and dismiss in October, and a pretrial conference is scheduled for Nov. 21, according to her attorney in that case and online court records.

Schooly previously told the Free Press the six pups were healthy when the foster brought them to animal control, but "weren't getting adopted quick enough." She called the charges in Macomb County "ridiculous."

Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @challreporter.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pontiac rescue owner charged in animal cruelty investigation
OAKWOOD, Ohio (WDTN)  The Oakwood City Schools District is proposing a 4.75 mill bond levy that would bring about several improvements to facilities.

The bond levy represents phase 2 of the districts Master Facilities Plan. The goal of the bond is to preserve facilities for years to come.

Our goal is to provide Oakwood students with a safe, secure and welcoming environment that will serve our community for generations to come, says Superintendent Dr. Neil Gupta.

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Annual breakfast gives Oakwood students a chance to say thanks to veterans

The proposed bond reflects our dedication to meeting the communitys expectations for preserving our facilities while being mindful of the economic impact on our residents, says Business Manager Frank Eaton.

If approved, it would generate $40 million in revenue with a cost of about $166 per $100,000 home annual, based on financial scenarios from Nov. 7. It would also bring mechanical, plumbing and electric upgrades to Smith and Harman elementary schools as well as enhancements to academic spaces in the district and safety improvements to all facilities.

The Board of Education is expected to vote on two resolutions at the Dec. 9 meeting that would clear the way for the levy to be on the ballot for residents in May 2025.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDTN.com.
GULFPORT, Miss. (WJTV)  An Ocean Springs man pled guilty to production of child pornography.

According to court documents, Eric Jason Fiorentino, 30, caused a minor in another state to produce visual depictions of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct in January 2023. Using an internet chat platform for texts and live videos, prosecutors said Fiorentino produced and screen captured the images on his cell phone in Jackson County, Mississippi.

Former Mississippi community college honor society advisor pleads guilty to embezzlement

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Fiorentino is scheduled to be sentenced on March 12, 2025, at 10:30 a.m., and faces a minimum of 15 years and a maximum of 30 years in prison.

The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations with the assistance of the Jackson County and Stone County Sheriffs Offices and the Hesston, Kansas Police Department.

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GULFPORT, Miss. (WKRG)  An Ocean Springs man pled guilty to producing child pornography, according to a news release from the United States Department of Justice.

American Idol finalist from McIntosh now married with baby on the way

30-year-old Eric Jason Fiorentino caused a minor in another state to produce visual depictions of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct, the release said.

Fiorentino used an internet chat platform for texts and live videos to produce and screen capture the images on his cellphone in Jackson County, Mississippi, according to court documents.

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The release said Fiorentino will be sentenced on March 12, 2025, at 10:30 a.m. He faces a minimum of 15 years and a maximum of 30 years in prison.

Homeland Security Investigations, the Jackson County Sheriffs Office, the Stone County Sheriffs Office, and the Hesston Police Department in Kansas investigated the case.

Mobile police report details crash involving officer Monday

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Jones prosecuted the case.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRG News 5.
OCONEE COUNTY, S.C. (WSPA)  The Oconee County community welcomed home a 911 dispatcher, who had suffered a medical emergency abroad.

Members of community and Oconee County Sheriffs Office lined up in Walhalla to greet Katie Johns as she was driven to her house.

Its an exciting day for us because one of our own is coming home, Corporal Jimmy Watt said.

I cant describe the feeling, Johns said. It was amazing. I cant believe they came out for me.

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Johns suffered an emergency while on vacation in Ireland in August. She spent about two months in a hospital in Ireland before being transferred to a medical facility in the U.S.

Johns plans to continue her rehabilitation in the Upstate.

Im not able to walk without a walker, Johns said. The only thing thats frustrating to me is not being able to do the things I used to be able to do, but Ill get there.

While she works toward her recovery, Johns said she is thankful to be back home surrounded by her family, friends and colleagues who supported her from thousands of miles away.

I just know that prayer and God are really powerful, Johns said. I wouldnt be here today if it wasnt for that.

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Johns worked as a 911 dispatcher for 25 years. She hopes to return to her job at the dispatch center if she can improve the mobility in her hand.

If Katie decided to come back and was able to, we would love to have her back and welcome her with open arms, Watt said.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSPA 7NEWS.
ODESSA, Texas (KMID/KPEJ)- Odessa City leaders voted Tuesday night to approve a proposed amendment to a City ordinance that surrounds restroom use.

On Tuesday, November 12, community members gathered in City Hall for the Odessa City Council meeting. During the meeting, council members debated and voted for the second time on the approval of an ordinance that would allow police officers to charge anyone who knowingly enters any public or private bathroom, or locker room, of the opposite biological sex, (defined in the ordinance as the sex, or gender, listed on a persons birth certificate.)

Previous Coverage: Likely unconstitutional and illegal: Texas attorneys discuss legal issues in Odessa bathroom ordinance

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A total of 18 members of the community spoke out during the City Council meeting about the ordinance, some urging the council to reject the proposed amendment because it would do more harm than good, and others telling city leaders to pass it, expressing their support.

Residents in support of the ordinance expressed the need for safety, while residents against the ordinance said it was unnecessary and harmful.

I dont want the government in the bathroom, and I dont want it at which time, to harm people who arent even trans. Feminine men? Masculine women? Sometimes you cant really tell from the side or whatever one community member said, adding, Im so happy that this election was a landslide, and that the city can focus on real issues like infrastructure and the well-being of Odessans.

Previous coverage: City approves divisive restroom ordinance

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Other residents in support of the ordinance, expressed the need for safety.

Safety in my town is a big thingsafety for my kids is a big thing, one man said when addressing City Council members.

Also: Judge signs TRO to block payment to former City Manager John Beckmeyer

Before the final decision and vote by the City Council, a letter from Kevin Sparks, a Republican Businessman and State Senator for the 31st District, was read aloud by Dan Jones, the City Attorney. The letter from Senator Sparks approved the ordinance and thanked city leaders.

I commend the mayor and City Councils responsiveness to community concerns, and the effort to preserve the well-being of Odessas residents, one part of the letter read.

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Related: UPDATE: Bernal declines City Manager position amid Beckmeyer resignation

After a short deliberation between City leaders, Ordinance 8-1-6 was approved.

Steve Thompson, the only city council member re-elected on November 5th, was the only one who voted no to the ordinance. Councilman Gilbert Vasquez of District 3 did not attend Tuesdays city council meeting.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Yourbasin.
ECTOR COUNTY, Texas (KMID/KPEJ)- An Odessa man has been sentenced by an Ector County jury to 12 years in prison on drug charges stemming from 2023.

According to District Attorney Dusty Gallivan, on December 13, 2023, Ray Acosta was caught with nearly five grams of fentanyl.

Additionally, because Acosta was also on federal supervised release for a previous drug offense involving a conspiracy to distribute 28 grams of crack cocaine at the time of his arrest in 2023, he also received an additional nine months in a federal prison.

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This case highlights our continued commitment to keeping our community safe from the dangers of illegal drugs, Gallivan said in a media release.

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THE BRONX (PIX11)  An off-duty New York City employee was arrested Thursday morning, according to the NYPD.

Robin Artis was taken into custody around 11 a.m.

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The 27-year-old is an NYPD Traffic Agent, police say. Artis was charged with leaving the scene of an accident with an injury.

PIX11 News reached out to the NYPD but no additional information was immediately available.

Submit tips to police by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), visiting crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, downloading the NYPD Crime Stoppers mobile app, or texting 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. Spanish-speaking callers are asked to dial 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).

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Ben Mitchell is a digital content producer from Vermont who has covered both local and international news since 2021. He joined PIX11 in 2024. See more of his work here.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11.
Nov. 13A Plymouth innkeeper who died in what authorities called an "officer-involved shooting" died by suicide, the Attorney General's Office announced Wednesday.

Kevin Steinfeldt, 58, was the proprietor of the Federal House Inn in Plymouth, the site of the Nov. 7 incident.

The AG's office said an autopsy determined that Steinfeldt died from a single self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, and his death was ruled a suicide. The autopsy found Steinfeldt also sustained additional gunshot wounds, according to a news release.

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On the afternoon of Nov. 7, Plymouth police responded to a report of a disturbance at 27 Route 25, the location of the Federal House Inn. When the officers arrived, they heard sounds "consistent with gunshots" coming from inside the inn, and a man had barricaded himself inside, according to the AG's office.

The State Police crisis negotiation team and SWAT unit responded to the scene, and attempted to communicate with the man inside, who was armed with a rifle, authorities said.

Shortly before 1 a.m., members of the SWAT team reported that they had fired on the armed man, whose body was found near a first-floor doorway with apparent gunshot wounds.

The man, later identified as Steinfeldt, was pronounced dead at the scene. No police officers were hurt and authorities said there was no threat to the public.

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Six members of the State Police SWAT unit fired their weapons, according to the AG's office. Their names are being withheld until formal interviews are concluded, the AG's office said.

A memorial site, "Remembering Kevin Steinfeldt," has been set up on social media, where Steinfeldt was identified as a member of the New Canaan Fire Department and EMS.

"We hope people who love Kevin will find comfort in visiting his profile to remember and celebrate his life," the site reads.

The Federal House Inn's website describes Steinfeldt as a native New Englander who traveled the world with his daughter, including to Egypt, Indonesia, Nepal, Peru and Sri Lanka. "Kevin was a stay at home father who greatly enjoyed raising his daughter here in New Hampshire," it said.

According to the website, Steinfeldt's interests included "sustainable living, fitness, and taking care of you!"
(WKBN)  Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday claiming the Washington State-based company ZoomInfo Technologies deliberately misled investors.

Read next: Advance Auto Parts to close over 500 stores

The lawsuit claims it led to $75.9 million in losses to two of Ohios pension funds.

The losses were to the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System. Yost claims ZoomInfo made aggressive efforts to prevent subscribers from canceling and bolstered its subscriber count by extending credit to small businesses  many of whom defaulted.

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The lawsuit seeks damages for the financial losses.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com.
State lawmakers argued about a bill that would affect transgender students that is now sitting on the governors desk.

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As reported Wednesday on News Center 7 Daybreak, both sides of this issue voiced their opinions in the Ohio Senate.

TRENDING STORIES:

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As reported Wednesday on News Center 7 at 11:00, the Ohio Senate voted 24-7 that would ban transgender students from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

The bill is sitting on Governor Mike DeWines desk.

Those in support say the bill protects children.

This bill is offered with no animus towards students who are experiencing gender issues. It makes as many accommodations as possible, said Sen. Jenny Cirino (R-Kirtland).

Is this perfect? No, its not. Is it possible that this is gonna end up in some litigation? Probably, but a lot of good legislation does sometimes end up in litigation, said Sen. Andrew Brenner (R-Delaware).

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Those against it say it unfairly targets trans people.

Shame on us for continuing to try to separate and exploit individuals whove already been exploited enough, said Sen. Catherine Ingram (D-Cincinnati).

Its a bad day for transgender Ohioans here as they continue to take it on the chin in regards to what their elected officials think about them, said Gary Daniels, Chief Lobbyist of the ACLU of Ohio.

We will update this story.

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A bill that would ban transgender students from using school bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity is going to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWines desk.

The Ohio Senate voted to concur on Senate Bill 104 in a 24-7 party-line vote Wednesday afternoon. The Ohio House wove House Bill 183 (the bathroom ban bill) into S.B. 104 and passed the bill before going on break at the end of June.

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Once DeWine receives S.B. 104, he will have 10 days to sign the bill into law or veto it.

We have no new comments today, DeWines press secretary Dan Tierney said in an email Wednesday afternoon. As far as receipt, sometimes that can take a week or more.

The bill would require students at Ohio K-12 schools and colleges use the bathroom or locker room that aligns with their gender assigned at birth. It would not prevent a school from having single-occupancy facilities. The bill would not apply to someone helping a person with a disability or a child younger than 10 years old being assisted by a parent, guardian or family member.

About 3% of high school students identify as transgender, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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The American Medical Association officially opposes policies preventing transgender individuals from accessing basic human services and public facilities consistent with gender identity.

State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, introduced S.B. 104, which revises the College Credit Plus Program, and he spoke about the House adding the bathroom bill to his bill.

It revolves around safety, security and, I think, common sense, he said. It protects our children and grandchildren in private spaces where they are most vulnerable. It is us using our legislative authority to ensure schools are, in fact, safe environments. After all, bathrooms, showers, changing rooms should all be safe places for our students.

Senate Democrats spoke in opposition to weaving the bathroom ban into S.B. 104.

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We could not wait one week, not one single week before we start attacking children once again in this legislative body, said state sen. Bill DeMora, D-Columbus.

State Sen. Kent Smith, D-Euclid, said S.B. 104 started off as a good piece of legislation that got turned into something thats certainly not what was intended when this chamber last heard it.

Lame duck often takes good legislation and makes it terrible, he said.

If the bill becomes law, Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, said it is destined for litigation.

I am in disbelief that this is a top priority on our first session back from recess, Antonio said. This bill is not about bathrooms. Its about demonizing those who are different, and our children are watching and listening to the fearmongering.

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State Reps. Beth Lear, R-Galena, and Adam Bird, R-New Richmond, introduced H.B. 183 last year and it has received lots of pushback from the LGBTQ+ community. More than 100 people testified against the bill in committee.

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Nearly a third of LGBTQ+ students said they were prevented from using the bathroom that aligned with their gender, and 26% were stopped from using the locker room that aligned with their gender, according to Ohios 2021 state snapshot by GLSEN, which examines the school experiences of LGBTQ middle and high school students.

When looking specifically at transgender and nonbinary students, 42% were prevented from using the bathroom that aligned with their gender and 36% couldnt use the locker room that aligned with their gender, according to the Ohio GLSEN report.

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A 2019 study published in the journal Pediatrics reported transgender youth are at greater risk of sexual violence when they are unable to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender.

About a quarter of the 3,673 trans and nonbinary middle and high school students surveyed in the United States reported being sexually assaulted in the last 12 months, according to the 2019 study. The number went up to 35% among students who attended schools that limited their bathroom and locker room access.

Other states with bathroom bans

Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Florida, and Utah all have laws on the books that ban transgender people from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity in schools.

These laws, however, have been challenged in Florida, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Tennessee. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit blocked Idahos law last year.

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North Carolina was the first state to limit bathroom access to transgender people in 2016, but the law was repealed in 2017 and ultimately settled in federal court in 2019. The law cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

Everybody deserves to pee

LGBTQ+ advocates held a press conference in opposition to the bathroom bill before the Senate session.

Everybody deserves to be able to pee, and everyone deserves to pee, said Dara Adkison, executive director of TransOhio.

This bill would directly affect transgender college student Leo Duru.

What if I was forced to use the bathroom of my assigned sex at birth, a womens restroom? Duru said. As a 21-year-old trans man, I cant believe adult students would be subjected to restroom policies decided by politicians forcing teachers, professors and administrators to invade trans students personal privacy.

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Mallory Golski with Kaleidoscope Youth Center shared concerns she hears from students who are already worried about using the bathroom in school.

I realized that its not uncommon for them to feel fatigued or even dizzy at times during (swim) practice, because theyre often dehydrated, she said. It is not because theyre not thirsty or because they dont know the reason that they should be drinking water. Its because they dont feel comfortable or safe using the gendered restrooms at school.

Organizations are calling on DeWine to veto S.B. 104.

Everyone should be able to use the bathroom without being the target of bullying  from their peers, and especially from state legislators, Kaleidoscope Executive Director Erin Upchurch said in a statement.

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This bill has nothing to do with student safety and everything to do with political opportunism, Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper said in a statement. There is no epidemic of student assaults in bathrooms and locker rooms.

This is the second bill related to transgender issues that has gone to DeWines desk so far this General Assembly. Last December, DeWine vetoed House Bill 68, the ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth, but the House and Senate quickly voted to override his veto.

Antonio is not optimistic DeWine will veto S.B. 104.

I dont expect that, Antonio said. I think this bill was framed in a way that was very, very different.

DeWine previously indicated he would sign the bill.

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DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN)  A man has been sentenced to prison after using over $200,000 in fire department funds for personal expenses.

Johnny Baker, 38, of Jackson County, had served with the Coalton Volunteer Fire Department since 2009. Baker held roles with the department as secretary/treasurer, assistant chief. Most recently, he acted as fire chief in January 2023.

Baker was sentenced on Wednesday to serve 12 months in prison for mail fraud.

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Bear that attacked luxury car was actually man in costume, insurance investigator says

According to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of Ohio, Baker served as the manager of the departments finances and collected funds from pull tab sales, which was originally a community fundraiser. Although Baker purchased supplies for the department, the DOJ said he then purchased items for his self.

Initially, Baker used proceeds to buy needed supplies for the department, but eventually supplemented his own income and spent money on cruises, resorts, sporting events, an ATV, firearms and more, said the release.

In April, Baker pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud for embezzlement.

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As a part of his restitution, he will pay around $226,000.

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Oklahoma education officials announced they have purchased over 500 Bibles to place in school classrooms. (Getty Images) (This image cannot be republished unless you have a Getty subscription.)

OKLAHOMA CITY  The Oklahoma State Department of Education has purchased more than 500 Bibles to place in Advanced Placement government classrooms, the agency announced Thursday.

Agency spokesperson Dan Isett said the cost was $25,000.

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The purchase is separate from a larger solicitation for bids to buy more Bibles, as well as copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution, according to the announcement.

State Superintendent Ryan Walters said the Bibles are intended to serve as an academic and literary resource. He said he aims to place a Bible in every classroom in the state.

I will take every step possible to ensure Oklahoma students have the resources they need to fully understand American history, Walters said in a statement. By acting now, Oklahoma is leading the country on a path toward greater focus on academic excellence by providing critical historical, cultural, and literary context for our students.

The Education Department previously issued a request for proposals with the goal of buying 55,000 Bibles, along with Americas founding documents. The agency canceled the solicitation but intends to issue a new request for proposals, Oklahoma Watch reported.

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Editors note: This story has been updated to include information the Education Department provided after publication about the $25,000 cost of the Bibles.

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Gov. Kevin Stitt listens as Jenks High School senior Addison Dodder speaks during a roundtable discussion about the district's cellphone policy on Wednesday in the Jenks Public Schools Math and Science Center. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)

BIXBY  For the past three months of school, Carter Storts found herself reaching for her cellphone only to come up empty.

Like all students in ninth grade and below at Bixby Public Schools, Carter isnt allowed to access her cellphone for the entire school day. Carter, a ninth grader, said it was hard at first to adjust, but now shes grateful for the rule.

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It helps my ability to focus and be able to focus on one task, she said. Also outside of school, like when I go home and spend time with my parents, Im not on my phone as much because I dont feel the need. I can focus on just being present.

Bixby Public Schools ninth grader Carter Storts, second from right, speaks during a roundtable discussion with Gov. Kevin Stitt at the Bixby Ninth Grade Center on Wednesday. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)

Her peers at the Bixby Ninth Grade Center gave similar feedback during a school visit Wednesday from Gov. Kevin Stitt and his education secretary, Nellie Tayloe Sanders.

Stitt and Sanders visited students in Bixby and Jenks Public Schools to discuss their cellphone policies. Both districts recently tightened restrictions on mobile devices, as have other schools across the state.

Stitt has encouraged more Oklahoma schools to find cost-neutral ways to limit student cellphone use.

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I dont believe in the top-down approach from the government, and so I just put out an executive order to challenge our schools to say, Hey, should we be cellphone free? Is it going to help with mental health? Is it going to help with distractions? Do we give teachers a better classroom environment? Stitt said during a roundtable discussion with Bixby teachers.

Sanders similarly expressed concern over whether cellphones generate more cyberbullying, addictive behaviors and mental health struggles for students. She and Stitt spent the school tours asking questions about the impact of a phone-free environment, especially whether students found it more liberating.

Bixby Public Schools ninth grader Allison Freimuth, right, said her schools cellphone ban has been a good mind detox. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)

Bixby ninth grader Allison Freimuth said removing cellphones from her school has been a good mind detox. She said it cut down on drama, stress and distractions.

Teachers in the district said they enjoy the change, too. Students are more engaged in class and interact with each other during passing periods and lunch, they said.

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Last year, Bixby students were allowed access to their phones in between class periods, and it was hard to refocus them once they were at their desks, Bixby Middle School teacher Simon MacFarlane said. A full-day ban on cellphones has made all the difference, he said.

Theyre not even checking their phones, MacFarlane said during the roundtable discussion. They dont even think about it. Its night and day for us.

At Jenks High School, students are allowed to check their phone messages in between classes. Students said theyd like to keep it that way.

They said their cellphones help them stay in touch with their families, keep track of their schedules and coordinate carpools to extracurricular activities.

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Jenks senior Addison Dodder said her cellphone was especially crucial during her sophomore year when her mother had been admitted to an intensive care unit. Her father kept her updated on her mothers condition during the school day.

I feel like for that kind of stuff its important to be able to have access to our phones at certain points, not necessarily so we can check Instagram or see who snapped us (on Snapchat), but just to have that important contact with our parents, she said.

Jenks Public Schools Superintendent Stacey Butterfield stands with Oklahoma education secretary Nellie Tayloe Sanders, who holds a Bell to bell, no cell poster, at the Jenks Math and Science Center on Wednesday. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)

Jenks has long had rules on the books against classroom cellphone use, but enforcement had become lax in recent years, Superintendent Stacey Butterfield said. The district buckled down on its policies this year, hoping to eliminate distractions during class.

While other states have implemented blanket limitations on cellphones in schools, Butterfield said she appreciates the flexibility to tailor a policy unique to her district. But legislation on the issue would be welcome, she said.

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A statewide school cellphone restriction is gaining interest in the Oklahoma Legislature. Lawmakers hosted two interim studies in recent months to discuss methods to limit students exposure to digital media, particularly during school hours.

I think having some legislation could be helpful in just reinforcing what were trying to do for kids, building healthier kids, supporting healthier kids (and) fostering healthy growth in our kids, Butterfield said. I think at the same time, though, weve got to be careful that a one size does not fit all.

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(Getty Images) (This image cannot be republished unless you have a Getty subscription.)

Oklahoma Voice took home four awards in the annual Oklahoma Society of Professional Journalists Pro Chapters 2024 awards, including best print website.

The Voice, which has covered Oklahoma politics and government since August 2023, also took home awards for its education coverage and commentary.

The Voice won top prize for overall outstanding print website.

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Reporter Nuria Martinez-Keel won first place in the print category for outstanding spot news for her coverage of a Western Heights School Board meeting in Oklahoma City that drew a large crowd divided over a decision to hire a principal who performed as a drag queen.

Martinez-Keel also won third place in the print category for outstanding general news for her reporting that revealed eight textbook publishers and curriculum providers had withdrawn from consideration amid an increasingly politicized fight over whats taught in Oklahoma schools. Officials said the number of withdrawals was remarkably high.

Oklahoma Voice Editor Janelle Stecklein took home second place for outstanding print editorial for a column she wrote in 2023 about why Oklahoma might be losing out on bids for businesses.

The Voice is part of States Newsroom, the nations largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. Its daily content is available to republish free of charge with attribution, and it is never behind a paywall.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo.  The Olathe Police Department announced today, November 13, that theyre searching for a missing 16-year-old girl.

Olathe PD claims that Jennifer Carranza-Urrutia was last seen on foot near the 14900 block of West 154th Street on November 2. PD also says that Jennifer is considered in danger due to a medical condition.

Lansing inmate awaiting sentencing after damaging property during riot

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Jennifer has sandy brown hair with brown eyes. Shes 56 and around 125 pounds, according to police.

Anyone with information regarding this investigation is asked to call the Olathe Police Department at (913) 971-6363 or the TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-8477.

This is an ongoing investigation, FOX4 will provide updates as theyre made available.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
The Omaha City Council in the Omaha City Council chambers. (Aaron Sanderford/Nebraska Examiner)

OMAHA  Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert has jumped into the fray over the citys updated electrical code  vetoing a City Council measure that opponents, including area homebuilders, said threatened affordable housing efforts.

The city ordinance in question, which passed narrowly last week by a 4-3 City Council vote, was intended to align Omahas electrical code with updated national and state codes.

Mayor Jean Stothert addresses a city board earlier this year in the legislative chambers of the City-County Building. (Cindy Gonzalez/Nebraska Examiner)

The citys version, however, included a handful of new national requirements that the Nebraska Legislature earlier this year decided should be carved out of an updated state code.

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Stotherts veto letter, sent to the council Thursday, said she favored adopting a local code that mirrored the state one, a position that also was endorsed by Gov. Jim Pillen.

The state worked to find a common sense solution that provides a reasonable balance of safety and affordability for electrical work in a single-family home, said Stotherts veto letter. The amendments adopted by the state maintain the current safety standards enforced for single-family homes in the City of Omaha; they do not make the homes less safe.

Stothert went on to say that safe and affordable housing is one of her top priorities.

Mandating unnecessary regulations would be counterproductive to this goal because it would add unjustified costs. We want an environment that encourages builders and developers to choose Omaha, she wrote.

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Omaha City Attorney Matt Kuhse has noted that Nebraska cities, in adopting an updated code to meet local needs, can be more restrictive than the state code but not less restrictive. The updated code applies to standards of electrical wiring and installation in newly constructed houses as well as additions, remodels or renovations.

The four City Council members who voted for the more restrictive code, saying they fell on the side of increased life-safety measures, were Democrats. The three Republicans on the council voted in opposition. Stothert is a Republican.

Five votes are needed to override a veto.

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Council President Pete Festersen, who pushed for a more restrictive Omaha code, said he considers himself one of the biggest proponents of providing more affordable housing.

He said his vote was swayed by the testimony of those who actually do the electrical work.

Festersen said he is confident that the council will find a solution.

He said he would support a veto override during the Nov.19 council meeting. If an override fails, a compromise version could return to the council in 60 days, he said.

We all want an update, said Festersen.

Meanwhile, Anna Bespoyasny, Omahas superintendent of permits and inspections, said that if the City Council does not override the mayors veto, city inspectors would continue to enforce the 2017 national electric code as the minimum standard, as that in the past was adopted by the City Council.

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Nick Dolphens, a spokesman for the Metro Omaha Builders Association, said his group appreciates Stotherts support. He said the rising cost of new home construction is driven by many factors, but two major contributors are regulations and code enforcement.

MOBA fully supports requirements to ensure health and safety, but will always advocate for affordable housing when the requirements seem to offer little return, Dolphens said.

On a broader note, Festersen said he hopes city officials will start to more aggressively pursue the dozens of recommendations in the citys housing affordability action plan. Creation of such a plan was required under state statute, and Festersen said little has been done to implement recommendations since the local action plan was adopted in December 2022.

Im frustrated we havent made more progress, he said.

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Festersen said some of the recommendations can be implemented administratively by the Stothert administration, without City Council approval.

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Authorities in North Dakota are investigating an officer-involved shooting Wednesday that left one person dead in Fargo.

The Fargo Police Department said officers were responding to a suicidal individual at a south Fargo home when the encounter took place.

"After a period of time, the individual exited the house with a handgun. Officers subsequently discharged their firearms," the agency wrote. "The individual was pronounced deceased on the scene."

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The North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation is investigating the incident, and the officers involved have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard.

Fargo Police Department via Instagram.

We understand that incidents like these are deeply concerning to our community," stated Fargo Police Chief Dave Zibolski. "We are committed to a full and transparent investigation to determine the facts."

According to police, the shooting took place at approximately 10:50 a.m. in the 6100 block of 61st Avenue South.

Note: The details provided in this story are based on law enforcements latest version of events, and may be subject to change.
STANTON, Neb. (KCAU)  Officials said a man is dead after an apparent shooting Wednesday in northeast Nebraska.

The Stanton County Sheriffs Office said in a release that authorities responded to a shooting at a residence on 840th Road, about five miles northeast of Stanton, Wednesday around 2:15 p.m.

Palo Alto County man pleads guilty to intimidation with weapon

When authorities arrived, they found a man outside the house dead from an apparent gunshot wound. They didnt find a firearm near the body, but did find a handgun in the residence.

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Several people were interviewed. The Stanton County Sheriffs Office said it collected evidence from the scene and is investigating the manner of death. A post-mortem is being scheduled in Omaha.

Authorities added that they dont believe there is currently a threat to public safety.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports.
New York supporters of Kamala Harris look on as candidate Donald Trump surpassed the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the 2024 election. (Selcuk Acar | Anadolu via Getty Images)

According to The New York Times,  a newly triumphant Republican president is once again in the headlines.

What will it take to break the present national divide, between the narrow but solid Republican majority and a Democratic party seemingly trapped in second place, asks the Times. That pattern may be hardening into one that will persist for years to come. Perhaps breaking the divide will require an act of God, the Times writes.

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The article quotes a number of eminent historians and political scientists who predict a new era of enduring Republican electoral dominance. In the words of one: The Republicans are basically unchecked  There is no check in the federal government and no check in the world. They have an unfettered playing field.

This isnt a recent take on the 2024 election. The quote comes from 2004, when George W. Bush won reelection by 2.4 percentage points, a slightly larger margin than Donald Trump had on Nov. 12, 2024, over Kamala Harris in the election results.

Of course, none of these predictions came to pass. The supposed enduring Republican majority evaporated as Hurricane Katrina, the ongoing war in Iraq, and the financial crisis caused President Bushs popularity to plummet. As a result, Democrats retook the House and the Senate in 2006, and Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008.

Despite the lessons of this history, a new round of doomsayers are ready to write the Democrats obituary in 2024. According to one journalist, Democrats are a lost party. Come January, theyll have scant power in the federal government, and shriveling clout in the courts and states.

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The Washington Post reports, More broadly, many Democrats view their defeat  with Trump making inroads with Latinos, first-time voters, and lower- and middle-income households, according to preliminary exit polls  not just as a series of tactical campaign blunders, but as evidence of a shattered party with a brand in shambles.

I believe  as the author of a book about how political parties respond to election defeats, and as the example of 2004 shows  its easy to overstate the enduring impact of an election. Unforeseen events arise that alter the political landscape in unpredictable ways. The party in power often makes mistakes. New candidates emerge to energize and inspire the defeated party.

Zigging and zagging

The parties themselves are often incapable of figuring out the best way forward.

Following Mitt Romneys loss in the 2012 presidential election, the Republican National Committee commissioned what it called an autopsy to determine how the party should move forward. The report urged Republicans to become more inclusive to women, young people, Asians, Latinos, and gay Americans by softening their tone on immigration and social issues. The report was a thoughtful and thorough examination of the problems confronting the GOP.

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Nonetheless, in 2016 Donald Trump took the party in exactly the opposite direction and ended up winning anyway.

Id be the last person to try to predict the 2028 election, but there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of doom and gloom scenarios for the Democratic Party.

First, the 2024 election was extremely close. Once all the votes are counted, it will probably end up being the closest popular vote contest since 2000. In addition, its possible that Donald Trump will fall below 50 percent of the popular vote. Any loss is difficult, but this is hardly the 49-state drubbing that Democrats endured against Ronald Reagan in 1984.

In addition, the 2024 results fall pretty close to the outcome predicted by election models that were based on economic fundamentals. This suggests that voters were registering dissatisfaction with poor economic conditions rather than offering a wholesale rejection of the Democratic ideology.

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And even if the public has become less enamored of liberal governance over the past four years, this is both natural and temporary. Political scientists have long observed the thermostatic nature of American politics. Thats a fancy way of saying that when a Republican occupies the White House, the public becomes more liberal. Conversely, under Democratic presidents, the American people become more conservative. Given this pattern, it seems very likely that in four years the public will be in a more liberal mood.

President Ronald Reagan and wife, Nancy, celebrate his reelection in a 49-state drubbing of the Democrats in 1984. (Bettman | Getty Images)

Democrats should also remember that Donald Trump has been a uniquely polarizing and unpopular figure in American politics.

Despite a generally strong economy during his first term in office, he was never able to rise above a 50 percent approval rating. Trump did himself no favors in this regard. As political scientists John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch, and Lynn Vavreck point out in their book on the 2020 election, on issue after issue during his first term, Trump rejected policies that the majority of Americans supported and instead chose those that aligned only with his Republican base. There seems to be little reason to think that Trump will govern any differently in his next term.

Since Trump cant run again in 2028, that also means that Democrats will likely face a better political environment in 2028. Since 1900, the out-party (the party that doesnt control the White House) has won eight of the 11 elections without an incumbent president on the ballot. In fact, the last time the out-party failed to defeat a nonincumbent was nearly 40 years ago when Republican George H.W. Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988.

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None of this guarantees a Democratic victory in 2028. Most importantly, a strong economy might be enough to lift the GOP to victory in 2028.

Nor should the Democrats just assume that everything will be fine. Self-reflection is good for political parties as well as individuals.

Still, the lesson of history is that its a good idea for Democrats to resist the temptation to catastrophize their loss. Instead, they might consider using the Serenity Prayer as a guide for the next four years: Give us the serenity to accept the things that cant be changed, the courage to change the things that can be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) A person is injured after a two-car head-on crash in East Lansing.

Police told 6 News the incident happened around 1 a.m. Thursday morning at the intersection of Saginaw Street and Abbot Road.

Police respond to head-collision in East Lansing./WLNS

Police say the crash is still 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 WLNS 6 News.
Satirical news site The Onion has won the bidding to acquire the assets of Alex Jones Infowars, with the support of Sandy Hook families.

The site acquired Infowars after their auction bid was selected by the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee overseeing the Free Speech Systems bankruptcy proceedings. Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention organization in the country, will be the exclusive launch advertiser for the site in the new venture.

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The Onions goal in acquiring the site was to end Infowars relentless barrage of disinformation for the sake of selling supplements and replace it with The Onions relentless barrage of humor for good, the company said in a press release. Financial details of the bid were not disclosed.

The publication plans to launch the new platform in January 2025.

The Onion has a long history of helping the American public navigate some of the most difficult moments in American life, from our historic issue after 9/11 to our groundbreaking reportage after every American mass shooting. In that tradition, we hope the Sandy Hook families will be able to marvel at the cosmic joke we will soon make of InfoWars.com, said The Onions CEO Ben Collins.

The bankruptcy proceedings were the result of the defamation lawsuit filed by the families of the Sandy Hook victims against Jones. The latter had claimed that the 2012 school shooting was a hoax and was staged by actors. Several families successfully sued Jones for defamation and emotional damages, and in 2022 won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems. Jones declared bankruptcy in 2022, leading to the selling off of his assets to pay his creditors.

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Its fitting that a platform once used to profit off of tragedy will be a tool of education, hence our multi-year advertising commitment to this new venture, said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. Were proud to be a part of what comes next, not only in terms of staunching the flow of hurtful misinformation, but also for the potential this new venture has to help Everytown reach new audiences ready to hold the gun industry accountable for contributing to our nations gun violence epidemic.

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The satirical newspaper The Onion has successfully acquired Infowars and its associated intellectual property, finally divesting conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of the right-wing disinformation outfit.

According to Oliver Darcys Status newsletter, the deal grants The Onion ownership of Infowars website, product inventory, customers lists, social media accounts, and intellectual property.

In a series of lawsuits adjudicated in 2022, Jones was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to the families of Sandy Hook victims over his repeated false claims that the 2012 massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was a hoax. In September, a Texas judge ruled that Jones assets  including the Infowars properties  could be auctioned off in order to pay the penalties owed by Jones.

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It is not yet clear how much The Onion paid to acquire one of the most toxic properties in American media, but the publication stated on Thursday that its goal with the acquisition is to end Infowars relentless barrage of disinformation for the sake of selling supplements and replace it with The Onions relentless barrage of humor for good.

Jones did not seem happy about the news in a video posted after the acquisition was announced, referring to The Onion, which is based in Chicago, as Connecticut Democrats, while complaining about the bidding process.

The Onion also announced that it had partnered with the gun-control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety to facilitate the acquisition, which would serve as an exclusive advertising partner for the Infowars relaunch under its new parent company. Its fitting that a platform once used to profit off of tragedy will be a tool of education, hence our multiyear advertising commitment to this new venture, John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, added in Tuesdays statement. Were proud to be a part of what comes next, not only in terms of staunching the flow of hurtful misinformation, but also for the potential this new venture has to help Everytown reach new audiences ready to hold the gun industry accountable for contributing to our nations gun violence epidemic.

Chris Mattei, an attorney representing several Sandy Hook families, added that from day one, these families have fought against all odds to bring true accountability to Alex Jones and his corrupt business. Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones ability to spread lies, pain, and fear at scale. After surviving unimaginable loss with courage and integrity, they rejected Jones hollow offers for allegedly more money if they would only let him stay on the air because doing so would have put other families in harms way.

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They are heroes, and it has been an honor and privilege to be their advocate throughout this fight. By divesting Jones of Infowars assets, the families and the team at The Onion have done a public service and will meaningfully hinder Jones ability to do more harm, Mattei said.

In a frantic emergency broadcast following the news, Jones fell back on a tactic hes been implementing for years  hysterically telling his viewers that his operation will be imminently shut down.

Theyre in the control room, Jones told viewers on his backup streaming platform Banned Video. Imperial troops are through the glass. Longtime Trump adviser and right-wing operative Steve Bannon, who joined Jones on the emergency broadcast, repeatedly asked Jones to provide an update on what these imperial troops were doing, and suggested filming them live.

Walk in the control room, put a frickin camera in their face, and lets get a name, rank, and serial number, Bannon suggested, claiming the Gestapo was coming after Jones.

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Jones deflected, and he continued the broadcast without interruption. He later claimed that the troops had simply given up. They heard what you just said, and they left the building, Jones told Bannon.

During the broadcast, Infowars primary website was shut down as Jones continued plugging his backup outlets and accounts to viewers.

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The post The Onion Purchases Alex Jones InfoWars in Bankruptcy Auction appeared first on Consequence.

The Onion has purchased InfoWars, the website previously owned and operated by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, in a bankruptcy auction.

Jones was forced to file for bankruptcy after he lost a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit filed against him by victims families of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting.

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Jones was apparently unaware that The Onion had purchased InfoWars until he was alerted by his lawyers on Thursday morning. I just got word 15 minutes ago that my lawyers and folks met with the U.S. trustee over our bankruptcy this morning and they said they are shutting us down even without a court order this morning, Jones said on social media. The Connecticut democrats with The Onion newspaper bought us.

According to the New York Times, The Onions bid was done so with the blessing of the Sandy Hook victims families, and funds generated from the sale will go towards satisfying Jones defamation verdict.

The Onion intends to relaunch InfoWars in January 2025 as a parody of its former self, mocking weird internet personalities like Jones who traffic in misinformation and health supplements, Ben Collins, The Onions chief executive told the New York Times. Additionally, Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit dedicated to ending gun violence, serving as its presenting sponsor, will serve as the websites main advertiser .

The Onion Purchases Alex Jones InfoWars in Bankruptcy Auction

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Satirical publication The Onion said it has bought Alex Jones' Infowars at a bankruptcy auction for an undisclosed price, with the backing of the Connecticut families of eight victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and one first responder.

Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments to the families for calling the massacre a hoax. In a statement from their attorneys, the families said the purchase is "putting an end to the misinformation machine that Jones used to defame the families and victims for years."

Sealed bids were opened Wednesday at the auction, which had been approved by a bankruptcy court earlier this year to allow the Sandy Hook families to receive payments from Jones. The conspiracy theorist and his company filed for bankruptcy in 2022 after losing defamation and emotional distress lawsuits by Sandy Hook families after he repeatedly called the Connecticut school shooting a hoax staged by "crisis actors."

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The purchase was confirmed by conspiracy theorist Jones, who posted a video on X saying that The Onion bought his company. "The Connecticut Democrats with the Onion newspaper bought us," he said in the post, describing the bidding as "competitive."

The statement from the Sandy Hook families said the purchase includes Infowars' intellectual property, which includes its website, customer lists and inventory, as well as some social media accounts and production equipment used by Jones to air his shows.

"The Connecticut families agreed to forgo a portion of their recovery to increase the overall value of The Onion's bid, enabling its success," according to the statement.

However, according to the Associated Press, late Thursday the federal judge in Jones' bankruptcy case ordered a hearing for next week on how the auction was conducted.

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Judge Christopher Lopez said that he had concerns about how the auction was conducted and ordered the hearing after complaints by lawyers for Jones and a company affiliated with Jones that put in a $3.5 million bid, the AP reported.

CBS News has reached out to The Onion for comment.

What will The Onion do with Infowars?

In a statement on the social media site BlueSky, The Onion CEO Ben Collins said his company has plans for Infowars.

"We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website. We have retained the services of some Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to pull this off. I can't wait to show you what we have cooked up," he wrote.

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The Onion said its "exclusive launch advertiser" will be the gun violence prevention organization Everytown for Gun Safety.

In a satirical article posted to The Onion, the supposed CEO of Global Tetrahedron, the parent company of The Onion, said "the decision to acquire InfoWars was an easy one for the Global Tetrahedron executive board."

"Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic 'panic' and growing steadily ever since, InfoWars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses," Global Tetrahedron CEO Bryce P. Tetraeder wrote. "No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds."

Were there other bidders for Infowars?

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The other bidders have not been disclosed, but both supporters and detractors of Jones had expressed interest in buying Infowars.

What are the Sandy Hook families saying?

The families and their attorneys said they were hopeful that the sale of Infowars would curtail Jones' ability to spread conspiracy theories.

The sale of Jones' assets and "the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for," Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.

"From day one, these families have fought against all odds to bring true accountability to Alex Jones and his corrupt business," Chris Mattei, attorney for the Connecticut plaintiffs and partner at Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, said in a statement. "Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones' ability to spread lies, pain and fear at scale. After surviving unimaginable loss with courage and integrity, they rejected Jones' hollow offers for allegedly more money if they would only let him stay on the air because doing so would have put other families in harm's way."

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The Onion buys Infowars out of bankruptcy in move backed by Sandy Hook families

Trump says he plans to announce Doug Burgum as Department of Interior head
The Onion, the satirical news company that repeatedly spoofed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, has won the bankruptcy auction for control over his media empire  most notably Infowars, the far-right, conspiracy-minded website that served as Jones primary online platform.

Jones announced the sale on X on Thursday morning.

I just got word 15 minutes ago that my lawyers and folks met with the U.S. trustee over our bankruptcy this morning and they said they are shutting us down even without a court order this morning, Jones said.

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I dont know whats going to happen, but Im going to be here until they come and turn the lights off, he added.

The Onion plans to shutter Jones Infowars and rebuild the website featuring well-known internet humor writers and content creators, according to a person with knowledge of the sale. About an hour and a half after the announcement of the sale, Infowars' website was shut down.

Attorneys for First United American Companies, which was named as a backup bidder in the auction, filed a request Thursday seeking an immediate court-ordered meeting about The Onion's win, claiming there were changing "procedures, lack of transparency, and inaccurate disclosures to interested bidders."

The group said there was urgency because "the value of the assets is in the process of being destroyed at this very minute."

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Jones, 50, one of the most-high profile and financially successful alternative media personalities, built a small empire off a radio show-turned-internet video operation centered around the Infowars brand that focused on false and often bizarre claims about grand conspiracies and government wrongdoing.

Details of Wednesdays auction, including how much was offered for Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars, and related assets, were not immediately known. Funds generated from the sale are meant to satisfy Jones estate creditors, largely families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to whom he must pay damages in defamation verdicts.

Sandy Hook families filed lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas claiming Jones defamed them on his show and inflicted emotional distress by repeatedly suggesting the shooting, in which a gunman killed 20 first grade children and six adults, was a hoax.

Juries found Jones liable for defamation and awarded the families nearly $1.5 billion in total in their lawsuits, but they have been unable to collect anything from Jones, who claimed he cant afford that massive a sum. He filed for bankruptcy in late 2022, and a judge in June allowed him to liquidate his personal assets to help pay off the verdicts.

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The sale had the backing of several of the Connecticut families of the Sandy Hook shooting who were part of the lawsuit.

Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones ability to spread lies, pain and fear at scale, Chris Mattei, attorney for the Connecticut families, said in a statement. By divesting Jones of Infowars assets, the families and the team at The Onion have done a public service and will meaningfully hinder Jones ability to do more harm.

The anti-violence organization Everytown for Gun Safety said it will be the exclusive advertiser in The Onions new venture as part of a multiyear agreement.

John Feinblatt, the groups president, said in a statement that he hopes to reach new audiences ready to hold the gun industry accountable for contributing to our nations gun violence epidemic.

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Since April, The Onion has been led by chief executive Ben Collins, who previously covered disinformation and conspiracy theories for NBC News, a beat that often meant covering Jones. Collins has introduced several changes meant to monetize the business, including subscriptions, organized live events, and bringing back physical copies of the paper and its television parody, the Onion News Network.

In June, Collins answered calls from followers online that The Onion purchase Infowars with a meme looking into it.

Those interested in acquiring Jones media company had submitted their final offers to federal court-appointed trustee Christopher Murray, who was tasked with picking a best bid, but not necessarily the highest.

The identities of potential buyers were secret as they had to agree to nondisclosure agreements in order to receive bid materials.

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The auction firms running the sale said that there are no restrictions on the use of any acquired property in the bankruptcy order, and that the winner has the choice of whether to continue Infowars operations.

On his show this week, amid pleas for listeners to buy subscriptions and the nutritional supplements he sells, Jones painted a picture of his potential buyers, describing one group of anonymous bidders as friendly backers who would allow his show to operate as normal. Others, he said, were bad guys who would shut Infowars down.

While he said he would continue to broadcast via an alternative channel if ordered to shutter by a new buyer, Jones noted he would be hampered by the loss of his brand, website and equipment, among other necessities.

All you leftists celebrating the end of Alex Jones and Infowars, youre fools, he said. Just watch.

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Up for grabs at the auction were Infowars production rights and materials, the Infowars store, domain names, production equipment and other assets  including a Terradyne armored truck and a Winnebago motor home  that can be purchased in their entirety or in parts, according to the firm, ThreeSixty Asset Advisors. Jones broadcasts from the Austin, Texas, area.

The auction is part of Murrays orderly wind-down process under the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, which has overseen the latest phase of the case against Jones, stemming from the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

In fitting form for the satirical website, The Onions news release announcing the sale was written in the voice of a CEO of Global Tetrahedron, a fictional evil company created by Onion staff. Former tech executive Jeff Lawson took on the name Global Tetrahedron for his real company that acquired The Onion from G/O Media in April.

Through it all, InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalizing the most vulnerable members of societyvalues that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron, the release said.

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Jones founded Infowars, which operates under Free Speech Systems, in 1999. The company itself held about $6 million in cash and $1.2 million in inventory, according to previous court filings from June.

The families in Texas and Connecticut have sparred in court over the liquidation process, with concerns over how the money will be distributed. Still, they have said, Jones loss of his company brings some accountability for his past words.

At his trial in Texas in 2022, Jones generally blamed corporate media for twisting his words and misportraying him, but didnt specify how.

While Jones also testified that he believes Sandy Hook was 100% real, he has used the ongoing litigation to galvanize his listeners as he faces the loss of Infowars.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Jo Mackiewicz testing out her new skills. (Courtesy photo)

Although I have a good gig as a full professor at Iowa State University, Ive daydreamed about learning a trade  something that required both my mind and my hands.

So in 2018, I started night courses in welding at Des Moines Area Community College. For three years, I studied different types of welding and during the day worked on a book about the communication between welding teachers and students. I wasnt the only woman who became interested in trades work during this time. Recognizing the good pay and job security, U.S. women have moved in greater numbers into skilled trades such as welding and fabrication within the past 10 years.

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From 2017 to 2022, the number of women in trades rose from about 241,000 to nearly 354,000. Thats an increase of about 47%. Even so, women still constitute just 5.3% of welders in the United States.

When I received my diploma in welding in May 2022, Id already found the place I wanted to work: Howes Welding and Metal Fabrication. Id met the owner, Jim Howe, when I visited his three-man shop in Ames, Iowa, in January 2022 for research on a second book about communication in skilled trades.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Howes shop focuses on repairs and one-off fabrication, not large-scale production of single items. Under Howes tutelage, Ive fabricated skis for the machines that make the rumble strips in the road, shepherds hooks for bird feeders, fence poles and stainless-steel lampshade frames. Ive repaired trailers, wheelchair ramps, office chairs and lawn mowers.

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Both my experience at Howes and my research at nine other fabrication facilities in Iowa have shown me that  at least for the time being  tradeswomen must find workarounds for commonly encountered challenges. Some of these challenges are physical. These could include being unable to easily reach or move necessary material and tools. Or they could be emotional, such as encountering sexism. As I explore in my forthcoming book, Learning Skilled Trades in the Workplace, this is true even in a welcoming environment like Howes shop, where I work with a supportive and helpful boss and co-workers.

Questions of competence

Being a tradeswoman means being scrutinized for competence. One of the tradeswomen I interviewed for the book told me this story about being tested by more experienced tradesmen:

I remember them tacking together a couple of pieces of metal for me and saying, Okay, I want you to weld a six millimeter weld here and an eight millimeter weld here, and I was so nervous because these are the guys that Im going to work with, and I just was so nervous and I laid down the welds and put my hood up and the guy goes, Well, goddamn, bitch can weld, and I was like, Oh my god, thank god.

Ive felt this same scrutiny from Howes customers. Once, two customers watched me as I used the ironworker to punch ovals in rectangular tubing. I had to step on the pedal to lower the punch, find the indentation of the spot to punch, hold a combination square against the metal to ensure the oblong shape was parallel to the tubings edge, step on the pedal and pull the stripper toward me.

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I could feel my legs turn to jelly as I performed the steps and  as I perceived it  represented the trade competence of all womankind. Im resentful of these silent evaluations, particularly when Im learning something new and trying to keep all my fingers.

Overcoming the environment

The standards established by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, dont necessarily account for all the physicality of trades work. On the day Jim told me to bend 20 pieces of -inch round stock, I had to use all my weight to pull the Hossfeld benders arm to make the S shapes.

The 20 S hooks would hang on a bar and hold the 18 come-alongs that Jim had accumulated. Tired after Id finished all the bending, I sighed as Jim told me to hang all the come-alongs on a mobile rack he had bought at auction for just this purpose.

I had to squat to pick each one up and use my legs and then arms to lift each to a newly made hook. But I didnt complain. Stoicism is a workaround to credibility.

Navigating sexist comments

My interactions with Howes customers have been peppered with low-grade sexism. Trying to determine the reason for my presence, one customer asked me, Are you the new secretary?

Tape measures have diamonds every 19 3/16 inches. The diamonds, called truss marks, indicate the correct spacing of engineered floor joists. (Photo courtesy of Jo Mackiewicz)

Another man commented on my appearance, comparing me to my co-worker: Youre better looking than the guy I talked to before. Such harassment remains common for tradeswomen and ranges from mild, to violent, to just plain creepy, as when one man, paying his bill at the front desk, whispered, Your hands are dirty.

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Women in trades have reported encounters with customers who doubted their competence and who refused to deal with them, seeking a man instead.

Some customers at Howes fit this pattern. Ive noticed that if Im at the front desk with a male co-worker, men will often look past me and address them, even though Im older and, as far as they know, more experienced. Other customers like to tell me how to do my job.

One man, watching me while I cut 8-foot lengths of tubing for him, told me that I could simply hook my tape measure over the saw blade and subtract -inch to find the correct length. Piqued after I explained why his method wouldnt work for a precise measurement, he responded by quizzing me on something I wasnt likely to know: the purpose of the black diamonds on my tape measure.

The man in the audience at the academic conference who wants to lecture rather than ask a question of the woman who is the speaker has become a trope. The pontificating metal-shop customer should be, too. Like other tradeswomen, Ive learned to work around unwanted comments, including uninvited conversations with men bent on signaling their expertise.

Toward greater expertise

My soon-to-be-published book doesnt focus solely or even mostly on my experiences as a woman in a welding and fabrication shop. Rather, it looks at the nonlinear process of learning skilled trades  a process that is, for tradeswomen, sometimes frustrated by scrutiny, physical challenges and sexism, which require workarounds.

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Nevertheless, along this journey, Ive leaned on the strength of the tradeswomen before me. Although these women have been alone in a crowd, theyve consistently worked around challenges toward broader and deeper expertise.

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Editors Note: Details in this story may be disturbing for some readers.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  Opening statements in the trial involving a 13-year-old girl who was found dead in a Portland-area park over two years ago began on Wednesday.

Daniel Gore, the suspect in the death of Milana Li, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, first-degree rape and first-degree sexual abuse. The now-18-year-old defendant pleaded not guilty.

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Duplex fire in SE Portland displaces 6 residents, 4 pets

Lis mother reported her missing on May 9, 2022. The next day, the Beaverton Police Department found the teens body in a stream while responding to a report of suspicious circumstances at Westside Linear Park  about a half-mile away from her apartment.

The Oregon State Medical Examiners Office later ruled Lis death a homicide.

Washington County announced that Gore had been charged with her murder nearly two weeks after the incident. Authorities reported that the suspect had already been on probation for unrelated, non-violent offenses including theft, arson and criminal mischief.

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Portland City Council asked to halt expansion of Clean and Safes contract

Although Gore was 16 years old at the time of Lis death, a judge determined in July 2023 the juvenile would be tried as an adult.

According to court documents, the suspect had been living alone in a tent in a wooded area near Beavertons Progress Ridge shopping complex. Washington County Senior Deputy District Attorney John Gerhard wrote that Gore attempted to elude law enforcement on foot the day of his arrest, but police found him hiding on the second-floor balcony of a nearby apartment complex.

The documents cited Gores obsession with rapper 7xvn, who wears a signature white mask with a hand-drawn smile and whose lyrics romanticize violent acts including murder and strangulation.

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September hit-and-run suspect turned himself into Portland police Tuesday

Additionally, Senior Deputy District Attorney Andy Pulver claimed police found violent themes in the defendants internet searches and journals. Court records also said Gores girlfriend told authorities he would threaten to harm himself if she upset him, and he essentially confessed to Lis death during a phone call.

KOIN 6 will continue to follow 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 KOIN.com.
ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. (WFLA)  Hurricane victims are running out of time if they need help covering their storm-damaged roofs.

The application window to apply for Operation Blue Roof ends on Thursday, Nov. 14.

Crooks target seniors during Medicare open enrollment

Unfortunately, a lot of people still have damage to their roofs, but this free program is a way to get a temporary fix.

If you look around Pinellas County, many peoples lives still sit on the curbs, from the bottom of a house to the roof, there is damage.

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It was raining on the inside of the walls, said Taren Harris, a resident. It was the strangest thing. Thats what we suffered. The shingles went all the way down to the neighbors house, you know?

To try and offer a temporary solution to help with roof damage, the Army Corps of Engineers has this program.

Blue Roof is not a tarp, but a fiber-reinforced sheeting that covers roof damage.

What this does is buy you a little bit more time where you have quality material installed by quality professionals to be able to give you that peace of mind that you need, said Maj. Matthew Westcott with U.S. Army Corp of Engineers.

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This program is for primary residences with less than 50% of roof framing damage. The roof must be standard shingles or a similar material, not slate or clay tile.

Vacation rentals do not qualify.

Metal roofs and mobile homes are being considered on a case-by-case basis.

Many homeowners told 8 On Your Side, back in October, that they will take any solution they can.

Im in dire need of it, so I dont know if it will start leaking or nothing, but its been stressful, said Susan Quarterman, who owns a home.

Thursday is the last day people can apply. If you need to fill out an application, click here, or by calling 888-ROOF-BLU.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
In the wake of Donald Trumps defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats are engaged in their usual post-election soul-searching. While most pundits and strategists have so far gravitated to broad themes and exit polls  citing everything from voter demographics to economic indicators  this loss highlighted a more functional failure that extends far beyond any single campaign.

The Democratic Partys approach to media engagement, or lack thereof, represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how modern voters consume and process information.

Outside of embracing meme culture, Democrats have increasingly shown an aversion to creative forms of media engagement, often defaulting to standard, passive approaches that dont cut through the noise  and evidence from this election would suggest that the candidates and the policies are not the problem.

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Consider Saginaw County, Mich., one of the nations most crucial battleground regions. Since 2008, this county has been a reliable predictor of presidential outcomes, though with increasingly narrow margins. Kamala Harris lost the county to Donald Trump, but Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin and first-time congressional candidate Kristen McDonald Rivet achieved impressive victories  the latter winning by a remarkable 6.7 percent.

Democrats, generally speaking, have broadly appealing policies. For instance, while many in the media were quick to criticize Harriss proposal to cap price increases on groceries, an August poll from The Economist/YouGov found 60 percent of voters supported it while only 27 percent were opposed. Its policies like these that simply arent being communicated in the way that modern audiences demand.

But they suffered from three critical blind spots. The first was earned media. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was a mainstay on cable TV, doing multiple interviews daily, before joining the ticket. He demonstrated such skill that it likely contributed to his selection. Yet afterward, his appearances virtually ceased.

Meanwhile, Pete Buttigiegs masterclass performances on Fox News Sunday and HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher during the summer showed exactly what Democrats were capable of  but these appearances remained exceptions rather than the rule.

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While Democrats avoided the media, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), sometimes took multiple interviews a day, hammering their messages home and creating an endless supply of clippable content.

Second, there was social media, where Democrats really havent found a home since Elon Musk bought Twitter. The conversion to X shattered the credibility of the verification system and ignited a wildfire of misinformation that still burns. Many prominent left-leaning voices abandoned the platform with the same intensity theyd shown during other significant political setbacks  but this time, they were surrendering vital communication infrastructure.

Alternatives like BlueSky never gained significant traction, but TikTok did emerge as an effective platform for reaching younger voters. For this, the Harris campaign deserves massive credit. They were quick to meme-ify Vice President Harris in a humanizing way that made her consumable to young people. They used the KamalaHQ account as a means to ruthlessly troll JD Vance, and they leveraged thousands of micro-influencers to carry their messages forward (a strategy they had perfected in the 2022 midterms).

Theres no doubt the success they found here will be a staple of the communication plan going forward, but relying on a Chinese-owned platform facing regulatory scrutiny from the same administration creates its own vulnerabilities. Twitter was different. It was fast and it was serious, and the once-powerful left-leaning social media machine has failed to find a like-for-like replacement.

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Finally and most concerning is the Democratic establishments dismissive attitude toward long-form podcasts. There exists an entire ecosystem of politically adjacent shows focusing on sports, culture and comedy that reach millions of listeners weekly.

There were some late attempts to dabble in this space: Harriss appearance on Alex Coopers Call Her Daddy podcast and her interview with Charlemagne Tha God, for instance. While important and effective, these appearances were too little, too late, and they were too infrequent to build meaningful momentum with lower propensity voters.

The much-discussed Joe Rogan podcast serves as a perfect case study in how not to approach these opportunities.

While its hard to glean ground truth on specifics, it appears both parties  Joe Rogan and the Harris campaign  actually wanted to make it work. But if Rogans explanation for the appearance falling apart is to be believed (and thats a big if from someone who regularly hosts conspiracy theorists), the Harris campaign only wanted to do it on its own terms. The Harris campaign even entertaining such an appearance is admirable, but the whole point of making these appearances is to show that youre comfortable going into foreign environments, carrying on regular conversations on topics that can at times be very difficult.

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Democrats need to get out of the headspace that opportunities like this compromise their values or their messaging  they must better understand that authentic engagement requires meeting voters where they are, not where we wish them to be. When politicians try to force traditional on-message campaign appearances into these formats, viewers see through it immediately. Viewed through that lens, Im glad the interview didnt happen (though Ive watched enough Harris interviews and debates to know she would have done brilliantly).

This isnt a call for complete campaign reinvention. Traditional campaign fundamentals  organizing, advertising and voter education  remain critical functions where Democrats still have a sizable expertise advantage. And they work; the final numbers showed Harris did better in states where there was a campaign presence by 2.3 percent. But these must be complemented by a modernized media strategy.

The party has promising communicators who could excel in these spaces and easily close the gap in less than four years. Figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer  and yes, absolutely, Kamala Harris herself  have demonstrated the ability to navigate conversations in adversarial environments while maintaining their authenticity and message discipline.

Even Gavin Newsoms willingness to engage in direct debate on Fox News, while perhaps not ideal, shows a recognition that reaching new audiences requires stepping outside traditional comfort zones.

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The solution isnt to throw Democrats into the deepest end of hostile media. Appearances on inflammatory shows that prioritize conflict over conversation arent the answer. Instead, the focus should be on the vast middle ground: politically adjacent platforms that offer fair environments for substantive discussions.

Consider the constellation of podcasts hosted by figures like Lex Fridman and Theo Von, or the Barstool network. While these shows tend to lean conservative, they typically offer guests a friendly environment for normal conversation. These arent explicitly political spaces, but they reach millions of potential voters who might never tune into a traditional political program.

The era of fearing a single gotcha moment is over. In a world where voters are bombarded with information from countless sources, no single media misstep carries the weight it once did. The real risk lies in not engaging at all.

Democrats must invest in progressive media while simultaneously being willing to venture outside their comfort zones. The mainstream media, while important, can no longer be relied upon as the primary conduit to voters. With trust in traditional institutions at historic lows, authentic engagement through diverse media channels isnt just an option  its a necessity.

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Andy Oare is the founder of the strategic communications firm BlueWing Impact. He has worked for the Democrats on the past five presidential campaigns.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Before the election, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said he had "little appetite" for further military aid to Ukraine. While the sentiment is somewhat understandable, it misses a critical point: the nature of warfare has fundamentally changed over the past year, and Ukraines aid no longer needs to be a one-way street. Ukraine can now offer its expertise and technology to the U.S. in return.

Ukraine possesses the worlds most advanced tactical unmanned and autonomous weaponry, along with the hard-won experience to deploy it in the worlds most sophisticated battle space. The technology and training Ukraine can offer far outweigh the value of the aid Johnson is hesitant to provide. He may be missing the deal of the century.

"The technology and training Ukraine can offer far outweigh the value of the aid Johnson is hesitant to provide. He may be missing the deal of the century."

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It is becoming increasingly clear to the American defense establishment just how dramatically unmanned and autonomous systems (UAS) warfare has shifted the battlefield  and how precarious the U.S. security posture is as a result.

Former U.S. General David Petraeus and former U.S. Army special-operations commander Andy Yakulis note that the pace of drone operations in Ukraine "highlights the urgency with which the U.S. must overhaul its defense system, from operational concepts, structures, and training to weapons systems, procurement, and manufacturing." Recognition of the problem is widespread, but systematic solutions to address the problem are slow in coming.

Read also: Opinion: Trump could actually be good for Europe

Matthew Rose and Kathryn Levantovscaia of the Atlantic Council say that "Despite the rapid evolution of drone technology over the last two decades, the United States military did not release its first Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Strategy until 2021, and its vastly insufficient to address the new security challenges afoot."

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Opinion on Capitol Hill is much the same  staffers warn that the U.S. has a serious problem on its hands and is way behind the curve in addressing the unmanned threat.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is leading the charge. By necessity, it has become the worlds preeminent developer in this new battle space, only whiskers ahead in a breakneck race with Russia. Both sides have adapted unmanned systems in ways thought inconceivable just a few short years ago.

Ukraine is on track to produce 1.2 million drones this year, with plans to grow toward 4 million annually. Although security restrictions make it difficult to say for certain, this likely surpasses U.S. Defense Department acquisitions by orders of magnitude. The number of drone manufacturers in Ukraine has increased from seven in 2022 to over 100 in 2024.

Ukraines rapid research and development cycle, built upon a decentralized levee en masse production system, allows it to lead the global UAS market and deliver innovative solutions to the battlefield at an astonishing rate.

Ukrainian reconnaissance drones are seen during test flights prior to being sent to the front line in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, on Aug. 2, 2022, amid Russia's war against Ukraine. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)

The pace of this development is only accelerating. Ukraine is rapidly advancing artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and sensor technologies, swarm technology, and the integration of computer vision and real-time data processing, as well as diversifying its UAS portfolio with specialized developments drones for carriers, targets, electronic warfare, and kamikaze attacks.

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In short, Ukraine has earned its fearsome reputation for multi-domain drone operations, and its time for the U.S. to fully embrace this fact. Ukrainian technical creativity has reshaped modern warfare, and the U.S. defense establishment should be eager to exchange some of its war materiel for the tactical lessons Ukraine has learned.

Other global actors have already recognized the strategic potential of partnering with Ukraines defense sector. Prominent players like U.S.-based Skydio, Germanys Quantum-Systems, and Turkeys Baykar have quickly set up offices or drone manufacturing plants in Ukraine. They understand, as American politicians do not, that Ukraine is the new global center for technical innovation.

Vast, well-funded military-industrial complexes like in the U.S. are predictably slow to adapt to new realities. Russia, China, and the U.S. must now reckon with the fact that their expensive, high-tech weapons systems  the result of decades of acquisition  are vulnerable to relatively inexpensive systems.

Ukraines naval drones, which cost just $200,000 each, have already destroyed two dozen Russian warships in the Black Sea, forcing Russia to retreat from the Crimean coast. Estimates suggest the Russian Army has lost approximately 9,000 tanks, 18,000 armored vehicles, 20,000 artillery systems, 369 aircraft, 329 helicopters, and over 700,000 personnel  many of these losses due to drone attacks. In October alone, Ukraines UAS "destroyed or damaged" over 52,000 Russian targets, including 129 artillery systems, 221 pieces of radio equipment, and more than 4,000 Russian troops.

Ukrainian drone strikes have also targeted over 30 oil refineries, reducing Russian crude processing capacity by as much as 14.5%. Ukrainian drone swarms have played key roles not only in standoff attacks on oil refineries and military bases but also in Ukraines successful incursion into the Kursk oblast. It has become a joke among Ukrainians that while Russia shoots down all incoming drones, the "falling debris" is bleeding its war machine dry.

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But if U.S. defense planners believe Russia will remain passive or static in its response, they are in for a rude awakening. Russia has been investing in domestic drone production since 2008 and announced plans this year to ramp up production by nearly tenfold to 1.4 million units.

While Russias reliance on foreign components and its failure to implement decentralized production models give Ukraine an advantage, it remains a formidable competitor in the drone space. Its partnerships with Iran, North Korea, and possibly China mean theres no time to waste for the U.S.

"While Russias reliance on foreign components and its failure to implement decentralized production models give Ukraine an advantage, it remains a formidable competitor in the drone space."

The pace of technological development on the Ukrainian battlefield is pushing both sides to innovate rapidly. Russians continue to try to replicate Ukraines drone technologies and tactics, motivating Ukrainians to develop even more sophisticated innovations. This accelerated arms race demands that the U.S. stay updated on developments such as "dragon drones" that release molten thermite on enemy positions and the Palianytsia, a hybrid rocket-drone with a long-range strike capability of 435 miles (700 km).

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Read also: Opinion: Trump holds all the cards in Ukraines peace gamble  will he use them?

Ukraine still desperately needs key investments in its defense sector and continued military aid, while the U.S. must learn to operate effectively in the newest battle domain. As Ukraine seeks foreign capital for its military-defense complex, Russias attacks persist, fueled by fresh transfers from North Korea and Iran. As these autocratic nations push the world toward potential conflict, its vital for the U.S. and Ukraine to work out bilateral defense arrangements that serve both countries' vital interests.

This two-way partnership would be relatively simple to establish: Ukraine can already supply tens of thousands of the most advanced First-Person-View (FPV) attack drones to the U.S. Defense Department, along with training from some of the worlds most skilled drone pilots. Many of these courses can be taught virtually, allowing Ukrainian instructors to continue fighting while sharing tactical and technical updates with their American counterparts.

The initiative has strong political backing. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks Replicator Initiative aims to equip operational units with "tens of thousands" of drones by next year. Outsourcing this monumental acquisition to Ukraine would be a straightforward proposition, provided red tape is eliminated in the national interest. After all, Ukraine is the best place to buy drones right now  not only are they the most advanced, but theyre also comparatively cheap.

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Allied weapons have given Ukraine the time to build its defense frameworks, and it is now developing new technologies and tactics at a rapid pace. Ukraine can now offer the U.S. a tremendous asset in exchange for the aid it has received: deep, relevant experience in the worlds most advanced battle space. Now that the election is over, sending Ukraine the weapons and funds it needs in exchange for cutting-edge technology, tactics, and training is a bargain Speaker Johnson would be foolish to ignore.

Editors Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.

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Despite the growing need for mental health services, Arizona faces a significant shortage of mental health professionals, only meeting 40% of its current workforce needs.

Ranking 47th in the nation in terms of access to care, residents struggle to get help.

To make matters worse, the demand for mental health services is only expected to grow, putting added pressure on an already stressed system.

Incidents of mental health issues are increasing. Rates of depression and anxiety, as well as drug overdoses and suicide, have risen over the last several years.

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Suicide reached a 12-year high in 2022. About 20% of the adult population is dealing with a mental health condition, and 42% of teens report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.

Arizona needs more behavioral health workers

Meanwhile, the vacancies in the behavioral health workforce continue to grow.

According to the Arizona Board of Regents, the state needs more than 2,400 behavioral health workers in the next six years. The U.S. Department of Labor projects Arizona will need approximately 4,700 social workers by 2030.

This gap is worsened by the trend of mental health care clinicians reportedly leaving the field, sometimes even to retail or food service, due to abysmal compensation and a growing cost of living.

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Solving Arizonas mental health crisis begins with addressing the mental health care workforce crisis.

This can only be done by removing obstacles to quality education, simplifying and accelerating the path to licensure, and retaining a workforce through sustainable and fair compensation.

Low pay, high education costs are barriers

Financial barriers are a major hurdle for many candidates seeking licensure in mental health fields.

The costs associated with acquiring a graduate degree, as well as accruing supervised clinical hours, licensing exams and test preparation materials are substantial.

It becomes incredibly difficult to draw people to the field when the costs of becoming a qualified clinician vastly outweigh the potential compensation.

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Opinion: Arizona's mental health care system is still failing

Some local organizations are working to make an impact. The Arizona Department of Education has used federal funds to fill unfunded counselor and social work positions in schools, as has the states Medicaid program.

Colleges like Rio Salado are offering associate degree and certificate options in areas like addictions and substance abuse to get more students in the field.

There also has been an increase in online programs available to help reduce the burden of access to education.

Programs help, but more investment is needed

Clinical supervision alone can cost more than $10,000, a cost often left to graduates.

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A recent study suggests that as many as 57% of eligible graduates do not acquire full licensure due to the steep costs. Arizona needs more programming to help relieve these financial burdens.

The mental health care field desperately needs qualified clinicians who can commit to the work for the long haul. If delivering high-quality mental health care is to be a lifelong career, then clinicians need to be adequately compensated and given affordable access to first-rate continuing education.

An investment in our clinicians is an investment in the mental health of our community.

Arizonas mental health workforce shortage is a large and pressing issue that requires multifaceted solutions. Initiatives by local schools to enroll more students in the field are vital steps toward addressing this crisis, but more must be done.

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Sizable, systemic investments must be made in the mental health care system if we hope to fill workforce vacancies and make an impact on the growing need for behavioral health care  ultimately, helping those who need it the most.

Nick Norman is a licensed independent clinical social worker and the business relationship manager at Mindful Therapy Group, a network of licensed, independent mental health clinicians serving several states, including Arizona. Reach the team at tempe@mindfultherapygroup.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Opinion: Mental health care lags in Arizona, even as the need grows
Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly hopes to exploit any effort by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to enforce a de facto capitulation of Ukraine. How might this plan unfold, and what should EU countries do now?

This is how an ideal scenario might look for Russia:

Step 1: Trump wants a deal, so Putin might agree if a ceasefire recognizes Russias legitimate interests: around one-fifth of Ukraines territory would fall under Russian control, including Crimea, and Western economic sanctions would ease partially. Russia would also secure a guarantee that Ukraine wont join NATO. Russia has less concern about Ukrainian EU membership, expecting that Western European states would block it for years due to commercial interests. Additionally, Ukraine would face limits on certain offensive weapons.

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Step 2: Putin has little reason to stop; victorious dictators rarely do. If Trump imposes any of these surrender demands on Ukraine, it would mean geostrategic disaster. Without U.S. support, Ukraines military struggle would become unsustainable, as European aid alone is insufficient. Any Ukrainian leader would be forced to accept these terms under U.S. pressure.

Read also: Opinion: Trump could actually be good for Europe

Step 3: Russia expects these conditions to fuel intense anti-Western sentiment in Ukraine, driven by a sense of betrayal after years of brave fighting and heavy losses in Europes defense.

Step 4: Ultimately, Russia hopes this would lead to Ukraines internal political collapse. Ukrainians and parts of the leadership would resist such terms, potentially ousting any leader forced to agree to them, or that leader might resign  much like Czechoslovak President Edvard Benes did after the 1938 Munich betrayal by France and Great Britain. Russia expects millions of Ukrainians to flee to the EU  particularly to Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic  out of fear of Russian reprisals.

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At that point, Russia would only need to rebuild its offensive forces, continue destabilizing Ukraine through hybrid tactics, and watch as a wave of Ukrainian refugees strains EU resources and fuels pro-Russian factions in Germany and beyond.

What can EU states do to prevent this worst-case scenario?

First, increase defense spending to 3% of GDP. Whether to prepare for a potential Russian attack on NATO or to defend Europe without U.S. support, its a critical step.

Second, provide Ukraine with all available weapons that Europe can supply, purchasing them from global sources as necessary.

Third, deploy EU troops  several divisions totaling tens of thousands  along the contact line between Ukrainian and Russian forces once any deal is reached to freeze the Russian assault. Without this presence, any border on a map would rely entirely on Russias will.

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Read also: Opinion: Trump holds all the cards in Ukraines peace gamble  will he use them?

Fourth, confiscate frozen Russian assets held under EU sanctions. Auction these assets and use the proceeds to fund critical defense measures, including support for Ukraine.

And fifth, offer Trump a compromise: If he refrains from throwing Ukraine overboard, the EU could allocate these funds from these assets to purchase American weapons for Ukraine and for European NATO states.

All of the above measures are technically and legally feasible. Their success depends on Europes political will to prevent a Russian strategic victory. The more we act, the stronger our efforts will be.

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Editors Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.

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We dont yet know the precise numbers, but it appears once again that four out of five white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the presidential election last week.

Evangelical support was by no means decisive; a similar percentage voted for Trump when he lost in 2020. But when a supermajority of a group that comprises approximately 25% of the population falls into your column, thats a pretty good foundation upon which to build a winning coalition.

Trump promised to be their protector against a range of supposed enemies, to advance white evangelical fever dreams of Christian nationalism. Until he realized that the recission of Roe vs. Wade was unpopular with a majority of Americans, Trump crowed about having appointed justices who did exactly that.

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Still, the anomaly of a movement that professes allegiance to family values supporting a thrice-married, self-confessed sexual predator, not to mention a convicted felon, cannot be ignored.

Read more: In 'The Exvangelicals,' Sarah McCammon tells the tale of losing her religion

But 2024, let alone 2016 or 2020, was not the first time white evangelicals shoved aside their putative values to support a presidential candidate.

In the late 1970s, divorce was considered taboo in evangelical circles, especially divorce and remarriage. Anyone in that category would very likely lose membership in his or her church. Nevertheless, evangelicals, led by Jerry Falwell and other leaders of the religious right, chose to anoint the divorced and remarried Ronald Reagan as their political messiah in 1980. Worse, as governor of California back in 1967, Reagan had signed the most liberal abortion bill in the country, adding to the puzzle.

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So why would evangelicals forsake one of their own, Jimmy Carter, a born-again Christian Sunday school teacher and family man, in favor of Reagan?

The answer is not pretty  and its the same reason that helps to explain white evangelical support for Trump: racism.

Contrary to the religious rights own narrative, white evangelicals did not organize politically in the 1970s in opposition to Roe vs. Wade. The Southern Baptist Convention, in fact, passed a resolution in 1971 calling for the legalization of abortion, a resolution they reaffirmed in 1974 and again in 1976. Evangelicals overwhelmingly considered abortion a Catholic issue throughout the 1970s, and the few evangelicals who commented on the Roe decision applauded it as marking an appropriate distinction between personal morality and public policy.

Read more: McCarthy and Johnson are both conservative Christians. Only one is on the 'front lines of the culture war'

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So what did mobilize evangelicals politically? The catalyst, according to historical records as well as the testimony of such conservative leaders as Paul Weyrich, cofounder of the Moral Majority; Richard Viguerie, Christian right direct-mail king; and Grover Norquist, antitax hound, was the defense of racial segregation at evangelical segregation academies and institutions, including Bob Jones University in South Carolina.

Falwell, who by his own admission did not preach his first antiabortion sermon until February 26, 1978, more than five years after the Roe decision, had founded his own segregation academy in 1967. Having famously decried the civil rights movement as civil wrongs, he was incensed that the Internal Revenue Service might rescind his tax exemption because of racial segregation and complained that in some places it was easier to open a massage parlor than a Christian school.

Reagan, like Trump decades later, was their man to stand up to the nefarious forces seeking to destroy what they were selling as evangelicalism.

Reagan had opposed the Rumford Fair Housing Act in California, which banned discrimination in the purchase and rental of housing. He was an outspoken opponent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. His campaigns were littered with racist dog whistles, especially law and order and welfare queens. He opened his 1980 general election campaign for the presidency in Neshoba County, Miss., declaring his support for states rights in the place where in 1964 three civil rights workers were abducted, tortured and murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan in collusion with the local sheriffs office.

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Read more: Op-Ed: White evangelicals think Trump is divinely ordained. He'll do almost anything to keep it that way

President Reagan would go on to sign the federal Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, but that didnt stop him from decimating the Civil Rights Commission or from maintaining his support  by opposing sanctions  for the apartheid government in South Africa, even as the regime was collapsing beneath its own weight.

White evangelicals did not shy away from Reagan and his racist rhetoric or policies. They lionized him.

And so too with Trump. The bigoted birther nonsense directed against President Obama, the nations first Black president, in itself should have prompted white evangelical leaders to sound the alarm against him, not to mention Trumps recognition of some very fine people at a white supremacist rally or the torrent of insults directed against African Americans, especially Black women, and immigrants. Instead, they have enthusiastically supported Trump in all three of his campaigns for the White House.

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Does that mean that every Bible-believing Christian who voted for Trump is racist? No, not at all. But theres a link between the origins of the religious right in defense of racial segregation and the overwhelming white evangelical support for a candidate who traffics in racialized rhetoric.

That link includes Reagan, but it also encompasses minor characters like Roy Moore, former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, who declared that America was great during slavery because families were united. It includes Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and his history of interactions with the Ku Klux Klan and the Council of Conservative Citizens, also known as the uptown Klan.

The racism infecting the religious right extends back to its formation in the late 1970s. And because unrepented racism tends to fester, the 2024 election demonstrated once again that white evangelicals have yet to acknowledge or repent of the persistent racism that animates their politics.

Randall Balmer, author of "Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right," teaches at Dartmouth College.



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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
I was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. During the Vietnam War, my father was recruited by the CIA. to support Americas efforts against communism. My parents fled the persecution of Hmong tribes by the communist regime in Laos, spending years hiding in the jungle before reaching a U.N. refugee camp in Thailand. They applied for asylum in the United States, and in 1987, when I was just 3, we were accepted.

I spent the first 13 years of my life without a nation to call my own. After a decade of living here, I finally became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1997. Since then, Ive felt an overwhelming sense of belonging, and Im proud to call Michigan my home. I want nothing more than to give back to the community that gave my family a fresh start.

Today, Im honored to represent Michigans 13th House District in our state Legislature. I work hard every day to expand opportunities for all my constituents, just as others created opportunities for my family. I was reelected because my community and I share a vision of a Michigan where everyone, no matter their background, has the chance to thrive.

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But after last weeks election, with President Donald Trump poised to return to the Oval Office and promising, on Day 1, the largest deportation effort in American history, Ill admit, the results of the election made me question the good in humanity.

Photo of Xiong's immigration ID stamped by the Intergovernmental Committee for Migration, now known as the International Organization for Migration, taken on January 22, 1987 prior to her family's departure from the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp and acceptance into the U.S.

When home doesn't feel safe

Trumps strategist, Stephen Miller  just named the president-elect's deputy chief of staff  has laid out the deportation plan: suspending refugee programs, barring visitors from so-called troubled countries, reassigning federal agents to support the plan, using the National Guard and local police for immigration enforcement and even constructing camps on open land to detain people while expanding expedited removal proceedings without hearings or appeals.

With his judicial appointments in federal appellate courts, and a conservative U.S. Supreme Court majority in place to support these plans, Trump and his team are sending a clear message to families like mine: Youre not welcome here.

Even though my family has always held legal status, the anti-immigrant rhetoric still leaves us feeling unsafe.

Human dignity, American values

This isnt about partisanship. Its about human dignity, and the values we say we uphold as Americans. For those of us who are here legally, working hard and contributing to our communities, this increasingly extreme agenda on immigration  fueled by the bigotry and xenophobic rhetoric we witnessed on the campaign trail  is truly devastating. These policies make me, and countless others, wonder if well ever truly belong.

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And it's not lost on me that broad policy changes could put my citizenship at risk.

Some Trump advisors have promised to turbocharge denaturalization, stripping Americans who were not born here of their citizenship.

As it stands, federal law allows for denaturalization in cases of certain crimes or fraud  measures meant to protect the integrity of our democracy. But Trumps sweeping plans aim to undermine entire communities of immigrants who, like me and my family, have sacrificed everything to be here and contribute every day. This approach chips away at the ideals that make America a place of hope and freedom. How can we call ourselves a country of opportunity, if were actively working to exclude those who risked everything to find a safe home here?

We need allies

We could have made history last week by electing Kamala Harris as president  not just a woman of color, but a first-generation child of immigrants who understands the sacrifices and dreams of families like mine. Instead, voters chose a return to a presidency that promises division and fear. I now feel the same fear and uncertainty I thought Id left behind as a child refugee.

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Immigrants, especially refugees, carry with them resilience and sacrifice. We help build the economy, create businesses and make our neighborhoods vibrant. Part of my role as a representative is to ensure that Michigan recognizes the value and contributions of its immigrant communities. But I cant do this alone. We need allies from every community, and every side of the political spectrum, to join us in opposing policies that unfairly target and penalize people based on their immigration status.

In Michigan, we are stronger because of our diversity. From our cities to our rural areas, immigrants play a central role in building a better future for everyone. I urge my fellow leaders, across party lines, to stand up for that future. Lets remember that everyone here, regardless of where they started, deserves a chance to live in security and peace.

To every family and community worrying about what lies ahead, please know you are not alone. Your voice matters, and people are fighting every day for your right to belong here. I promise to use my platform to advocate for the dignity, rights and protections you deserve. I want my children, and all Michigan children, to grow up in a country where they feel safe, where they dont have to question their place. I want them to believe that the American dream is real  for them, for you, and for every other family here.

Lets protect that dream.

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Lets choose empathy, understanding and compassion. Now is the time to fight for policies that truly reflect what we say this country stands for  with liberty and justice for all.

Mai Xiong represents Michigans 13th House District. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters and we may publish it online and in print.

Mai Xiong

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Opinion: Trump's mass deportation plans worry Hmong Michigan state rep
That didnt take long. Just a week after his presidential election victory, Donald Trump is already raiding Fox News stable of talking heads to fill out his administration.

Tom Homan, the reported intellectual father of family separation as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Trumps first administration, is leaving the network where he has served as a contributor to oversee mass deportations as the incoming presidents Border Czar. Mike Huckabee, the former Fox host and frequent network commentator, is Trumps pick as U.S. ambassador to Israel. And if Trump has his way, the Defense Departments nearly 3 million employees will be overseen by Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Pete Hegseth.

The Fox-fueled hiring spree represents a return to form for the former president. The network dominated wide swaths of federal decision-making during Trumps first presidency, as his administration effectively merged with the right-wing propaganda network that had propelled him to power. But as Trump returns to the White House, Fox is not as dominant within the right-wing media ecosystem as it was during the last Trump administration. The battle for the presidents attention within a larger and more fractured MAGA media will shape the contours of governance.

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Trump owed his 2016 political ascent to that right-wing media ecosystem. A longtime Fox regular, he was obsessed with the networks programming and channeled its demagoguery on the campaign trail, winning over its audience, as well as upstart alt-right organs like Steve Bannons Breitbart.com. He dominated Foxs airtime on the way to his primary campaign win, bending the network and the GOP to his will before garnering a narrow Electoral College majority.

Once Trump was in office, Fox News became a state TV outlet that lavished him with praise and denounced his foes, and in doing so it gained unprecedented influence over the U.S. government. The hours Trump spent each day consuming the networks content and speaking privately with its stars shaped his worldview and dictated his reaction to various events. His hyperaggressive, seemingly stream-of-consciousness tweets often came in response to what he was seeing on his television. I dubbed this phenomenon the Trump-Fox feedback loop and tracked it for years, ultimately tracing nearly 1,300 Trump tweets back to Fox News and its sister channel, Fox Business.

Foxs employees affected wildly important policy decisions on matters of war and peace, and they turned right-wing tantrums into matters of national importance because the president of the United States happened to be tuning in.

Its impossible to overstate how ridiculous  or dangerous  this Fox-Trump pipeline could be. Here are five things that really happened during Trumps first term:

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After a Fox contributor turned to the camera and urged Trump to renounce his support for a bill, the president appeared to do so on Twitter, causing chaos on Capitol Hill.

At the urging of Fox News personalities, Trump triggered the longest-ever partial government shutdown.

Trumps homeland security secretary resigned after losing a power struggle with a Fox Business host.

Trump put the full force of government behind a purported coronavirus miracle cure he had seen touted on Fox News. The drug was ineffective against the virus.

Trump led an administration-wide turn against diversity training after watching a negative Fox News segment on the subject.

Since Trump left office on the heels of a failed coup, the right-wing media ecosystem has become simultaneously more splintered  and even more pro-Trump.

Fox responded to a brief viewer exodus after Trumps defeat by desperately renewing its support for him. Its evening lineup of Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld is all in for the once and future president. MAGA stars like Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro maintained or increased their roles at Fox, while the network devastated its straight news ranks. Foxs work shielding viewers from damaging revelations about the former president or explaining them away played a crucial role in Trumps return to power.

But the ranks of Fox competitors have swelled, as well. Bannons War Room podcast is at the center of a sprawling field of MAGA media influencers, with other notables including Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiec. Podcasters like Joe Rogan, whose show is Trump-friendly but not wholly focused on politics, have huge audiences. And a diaspora of former Fox stars like Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro and Megyn Kelly now compete with their former employer at their own pro-Trump outlets (all three campaigned for him in 2024).

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Carlson in particular has both his own blood-and-soil political agenda and Trumps ear. The former Fox prime-time host reportedly played a key role in both Trumps decision to name Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.s endorsement of the former president.

Trump himself maintains a frequent presence on Foxs airwaves and regularly promotes its content on his social media platform. Its likely that hell pluck others from the network to staff his administration. But he wields a stick alongside the carrot, slamming the network any time he perceives its coverage as insufficiently hagiographic. And the fractured right-wing media environment gives him plenty of options if he seeks other voices to raise up and ask for advice.

A doom loop may be the result, as Fox hosts tack further and further right to hold on to their audiences  and pull a watching Trump along with them.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
Vice President Kamala Harriss loss to Donald Trump in last weeks presidential election may have surprised many people, including more than a few pollsters. But to anyone familiar with vice-presidential history, it was entirely predictable.

When George H. W. Bush became president in 1989, he was the first incumbent vice president to win his own term in 150 years. Richard M. Nixon (in 1960) came close but failed, as did Al Gore afterward. Other vice presidents who moved up typically did so when their presidents died (Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman, for example) or resigned (Gerald Ford), or they waited a few years before seeking higher office on their own (as Joe Biden did). Vice President Harris proved unable to escape this history.

Her race, in fact, bears an eerie similarity to the one then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey ran in 1968. In March of that year, beset by criticism of his handling of the Vietnam War, Lyndon B. Johnson announced he would not seek re-election (despite having won a landslide victory four years earlier). Although he had been hesitant about the war as a senator, Humphrey supported it loyally after becoming vice president. When Johnson withdrew, he faced the challenge of unifying his badly divided party and winning over the country while remaining faithful to the president he had served.

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Although Humphrey tried to emphasize his differences with the Johnson Administration over the Vietnam War, he did not fully succeed. Efforts to produce an October surprise  a peace treaty with the North Vietnamese  came to naught. (Democrats accused Republicans of interfering with the negotiations.) A halt in bombing the weekend before the election helped the Humphrey campaign, but not enough for him to win the election.

When the votes were counted, Humphrey lost to Richard Nixon by less than 1 percentage point, 43.4% to 42.7%. A third-party candidate, Alabama Gov. George Wallace, was also in the race, but seems to have taken votes equally from both major-party candidates. The Republican ticket finished with a comfortable lead in the Electoral College, 301 to 191.

Nixon was as detested in liberal quarters as Donald Trump is in progressive ones today. As a congressman, he had investigated Communist influence in the State Department, eventually producing a perjury charge against a much admired official, Alger Hiss. When he ran for the Senate, his campaign tactics earned him the nickname of Tricky Dicky, which he never lost.

As Dwight D. Eisenhowers running-mate in 1952, he had to defend himself against charges of accepting improper payments. After losing to John F. Kennedy (amid charges that Democrats had stolen votes) and a California gubernatorial race two years later, he told the press You wont have Nixon to kick around anymore . But like Donald Trump did this year, he returned from the political graveyard to win the presidency.

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While her Republican opponent may have had many problems, Vice President Harris had a big one she could not overcome: her unbreakable tie to an administration the public viewed unfavorably. (Nearly 70 percent of Americans told pollsters the country was on the wrong track.) To make matters worse, she repeatedly declined to say what she might have done differently if she had been in charge. Such loyalty may be admirable (and a good way of securing a partys nomination). But as most other vice presidents have discovered, it creates an impossibly heavy burden when the voters want a change in direction.

Since he will become the youngest vice president since Richard Nixon, it is a good bet that J.D. Vances ambition does not stop at being a heartbeat away from the presidency. But if he studies the history of his predecessors in that job, he might think twice before dreaming about how he would redecorate the Oval Office.

Leslie Lenkowsky is professor emeritus of public affairs and philanthropic studies at Indiana University.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Opinion: U.S. history of not electing vice presidents to White House
Its OK to have a difference of opinion and still agree on the fact that we want a better Wisconsin, according to George Brooks of Sussex.

Brooks was one of more than 400 Wisconsinites who participated in the La Follette School of Public Affairs Main Street Agenda Community Conversation project this fall in partnership with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He shared this sentiment with my colleague after our event in Pewaukee on Sept. 18.

Brooks succinctly captured the overarching idea that animated this sweeping project that took us to six Wisconsin communities and involved more than two dozen La Follette faculty members, staff, and students.

Recipe for civility? Breaking bread and sticking to the issues

Sandwiched between two engaging town halls in La Crosse and Milwaukee, the most ambitious part of our project involved four dinner conversations focused on practicing and promoting civil dialogue. Using K-12 education as the issue of concern, we brought people with diverse perspectives together in Pewaukee, Green Bay, Eau Claire, and Madison. Nearly 350 Wisconsinites joined us for these events, the first of their kind organized by the La Follette School.

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At tables of roughly eight, our trained facilitators walked the participants through a semi-structured conversation over dinner that encouraged openness and honesty, but also respect for differences. The conversations separated politics from policies and focused on the issues, a desire shared by more than three-in-four Americans according to the Pew Research Center.

Each table had a centerpiece with the rules for the evening:

First, listen: Give others the benefit of the doubt. Listen with curiosity first, rather than judgment.

Second, speak: Speak for yourself and share your experiences. Try to use I statements.

Third, respect: Lets chat respectfully. And approach these conversations with humilityafter all, none of us have all the answers.

Fourth, disagree agreeably: Our goal tonight is not to persuade each other of our ideas, but, instead, to see and be seen for our own views.

Fifth, be present: We invite your full attention. Please dont use your phones, cameras, or other technology because it may distract your tablemates.

The participants didnt know what to expect coming in. Many wondered if the environment would end up hostile and combative. We all had plenty of reasons to be skeptical of this effort. Some 84% of Americans say political debate has become less respectful over the last several years, according to a 2023 report by the Pew Research Center.

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The same survey found that more than six-in-ten Americans find having political conversations with people they disagree with stressful and frustrating. We knew we had our work cut out for us, but we also knew that these types of efforts are more necessary than ever.

Participants appreciated chance to discuss important topics

So, howd we do? This was the question I posed at the start of my closing comments at the end of each event. But to be honest, I didnt need to ask this question. Walking around the rooms in each of the communities, feeling the energy, listening in on the engaged conversations, hearing the laughter bouncing off the walls of our tightly packed conference halls, I knew.

I could not have been happier with how each of the four events played out. Conversations were constructive and geared toward finding common ground. Disagreements were acknowledged but respected. Many people wanted more. Several participants said that the two-hour event wasnt long enough. In that short amount of time, some tablemates became so close that they hugged at the end or even shared contact information. The feedback we received after the events through surveys and interviews was overwhelmingly positive.

More: Journal Sentinel's Main Street Agenda town hall meeting discusses inflation. Here's what we learned.

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In retrospect, it wasnt hard to see why it played out this way despite our uncertainty going into the project. As Joshua Aspenson from La Crosse said after our Eau Claire event, I think people are starved to give their input, you know. People feel, I think, that they dont have an outlet to do this outside of their own little circles, which these days are smaller than ever.

Whats next? Last year, I coauthored an op-ed with Curt Culver, who sits on our Board of Visitors. In the piece, we talked about the urgency of the La Follette School using its platform to promote civil discourse. We both feel strongly that this is critically important for our country and the democratic ideals that Americans aspire to. Most people agree that things have gotten ugly, and voters continue to become increasingly pessimistic about the level of political division in the country.

As a school focused on promoting evidence-based policymaking, we understand that our goal depends on good-faith, civil discourse on policy issues that matter to people. The public agrees, as 94% of voters believe that, respect for each other is the first step in having a government that works, according to Georgetown Universitys Institute of Politics and Public Service.

Our community conversations were the first major step toward what we view as our responsibility to be part of the solution. Next up, we hope to make civil discourse a centerpiece of the schools undergraduate major in public policy that we are currently developing. It would be the first of its kind for the Universities of Wisconsin and for American public policy schools. In addition to the data analytics and policy analysis methods we already teach, it would emphasize skills in political negotiation and compromise.

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Additionally, we hope some of the findings from the community conversations can yield important information for researchers studying polarization or seeking strategies to counter its harmful effects.

Despite the challenges of this project, I think its clear that this type of event must live on in some form. While we dont know what that would look like quite yet, the stakes of polarization are just too high to stop now.

As Marie Martini from Middleton said after the Madison event, I think that this is critically important. I think that people need to find a way to get along with one another. Im very, very worried about whats going to happen after the election regardless of which way it goes. And part of that is because we cant talk to each other anymore.

Lets talk.

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Susan Webb Yackee is a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Opinion: Polarization can be tamed over dinner and civil conversations
Two years ago, our now president-elect Donald Trump announced what he called his free speech policy initiative, the first lines of which read:

If we dont have FREE SPEECH, then we just dont have a FREE COUNTRY. Its as simple as that. If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple just like dominos one by one. Theyll go down.

Apparently, some of Trumps biggest backers in Arizona were absent that day from MAGA school. Or didnt receive the memo. Or didnt read it.

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Because they not only want to shut me up, theyre promising to spend millions to do so.

Bowyer turns a compliment into a dark promise

Tyler Bowyer, chief operating officer of Turning Point Action, speaks during a Turning Point Action rally at Pioneer Park in Mesa on Oct. 1, 2022.

Now, I wouldnt exactly say the ultimatum posted online was like putting a price on my head. But I would call it an attack on free speech, an attempt to silence a voice in the media that disagrees with them.

Heres how it started.

The founder and president of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, posted a clip on X, formerly Twitter, of my colleague, the columnist Laurie Roberts, praising Turning Points efforts to get out the MAGA vote for Trump in the recent election.

He tweeted, The AZ Republic just paid an actual compliment to Turning Point: You have to give credit to Turning Point and the Republicans this year, theyve had a really good ground game. People said that they wouldnt, but boy it did happen. When pigs fly  .

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Not long after that, Turning Point Actions Chief Operating Officer, Tyler Bowyer weighed in with a post of his own.

In the Turning Point world, Bowyer most often plays Robin to Kirks Batman. Bowyer also is one of the fake electors from the 2020 election being prosecuted by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.

Is free speech only for Trump supporters?

In his post he copied the clip of Roberts making the Turning Point comment but said: We will consider doing nothing if @azcentral fires @ejmontini and publicly apologizes for not having a pro-Trump opinion columnist on staff AND hires a pro-Trump opinion columnist before January 1st. Otherwise we are raising millions to eliminate their subs.

And he added, No amount of compliments from @LaurieRoberts is going to dissuade us from running our campaign to get people to unsubscribe from @azcentral.

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Opinion: What will Lake run for next? (Because she will)

Imagine that. Free speech, which Trump called our most fundamental right, apparently is only permitted for those who agree with Trump. Or so say his most ardent acolytes in Arizona.

I actually thought the MAGA dudes from Turning Point might have more belief in their supporters than that.

Turning Point has little faith in its followers

Are they worried that the members of their flock are such gullible sheep that a lowly column-writing shepherd from The Republic has the power to lead them astray?

And are those same gullible sheep the bleating hearts from whom Bowyer will attempt to shear the millions he spoke of collecting to get me fired?

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Press freedom groups have been warning for months of a potential attack on free speech if Trump were to be elected.

If diversity of opinion is eliminated, whats next? Diversity of religion? Diversity, period?

Heidi Kitrosser, a Northwestern University law professor, told The Guardian, My big-picture concern is that Trump is going to do exactly what he has been telling us that he wants to do, which is that he is going to punish his critics. He is going to punish people who dissent from his approach to things, people who criticize him  .

I guess were seeing the first instances of that come to fruition in Arizona, with a Trump sycophant threatening to raise millions to shut me up.

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It makes me sad for our Constitution.

It makes me sad for our country.

It also makes me wonder if I  should ask for a raise.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Opinion: Trump supporter vows 'millions' to shut down free speech
Donald Trump promised that, once reelected, he would conduct the largest deportation campaign in United States history. That pledge is already taking shape with his appointments. Stephen Miller will be deputy chief of staff and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem will head the Department of Homeland Security. Both are infamous anti-immigrant agitators. And then theres Tom Homan, whom Trump has named his border czar.

In a recent interview on "60 Minutes," correspondent Cecilia Vega asked Homan what such a campaign might look like:

Cecilia Vega: Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?

Tom Homan: Of course there is. Families can be deported together.

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Read more: With deportations at the top of Trump's list, California immigrants 'prepare for the worst'

This chilling response underscores an uncomfortable reality: Immigrants do not live in isolation. Many are part of mixed-status families, where some members are U.S. citizens and others are not. According to the California Immigrant Data Porta l, California alone is home to 2.44 million undocumented immigrants and 3.59 million U.S. citizens who live with undocumented family members. These numbers make clear the vast human impact of the kind of deportation policy the president-elect and Homan may put in place. The humanity of these families and the trauma deportation would inflict are of no apparent concern to the incoming administration.

And Homans interview isnt just rhetoric. Homan served in Trumps first administration as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement  ICE  overseeing the forcible separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents at the border. As we have seen in the stories of these families years later, his policies had devastating effects then, and they promise to again.

And these tactics are not new, as history tells us.

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Read more: The Trump presidency begins to take shape. Immigration is front and center

Im the thesis advisor of a student who is researching the policies of L.A. leader Gloria Molina (no relation) in the Huntington Librarys archives. She wanted help identifying a document shed found among Molinas papers  it was a fax; it might as well have been a stone tablet to her  from county archives. She asked about all the mumbo jumbo  the transmission information  at the top of the document; I was more interested in the content: records from the 1930s that detailed a shameful chapter in Los Angeles history  repatriation campaigns that targeted Mexican and Mexican American families.

According to George J. Sanchezs L.A. history Becoming Mexican American, Los Angeles lost a third of its Mexican and Mexican American population during these campaigns. Nationally, an estimated 1.8 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans were deported, and 60% of them were U.S. citizens. Although we think of these repatriation drives as federally driven, they were largely enacted by local officials, a stark reminder that local governments have tremendous power to harm  but also to resist. Grassroots activism can push back, lean in and go high when others go low.

Repatriation hit all levels of society, but the poorest were the most vulnerable. Mexican immigrant mothers and their American-born children  seeking basic healthcare at Los Angeles County General Hospital, for instance  were scapegoated as undesirable and deported directly from the hospital. Molina, then a member of the county Board of Supervisors, requested the repatriation records during her fight against Proposition 187 in the 1990s. That measure sought to deny public services to undocumented immigrants. Molina fought hard against the proposition, which was eventually stayed by the courts. Molina would have understood the parallels between the deportations and xenophobic policies of her times. By grounding her activism in history, she was ensuring that past injustices would not be repeated.

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Read more: Latinx Files: The economic consequences of mass deportation

My own familys story intersects with the 1930s repatriation. My mother and uncle, both born in Southern California, were 4 and 5 years old. They could have been deported simply for being Mexican American. But their mother, my grandmother, sick with tuberculosis, asked a friend to adopt them when she died. That kept them out of the oversight of city and county agencies whose officials were complicit in the deportations. Today, with family separation policies likely in the Trump administration, many families may find themselves hanging by a similarly fragile thread.

You probably didn't know L.A.'s repatriation story. In fact, a 2023 study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that 87% of key topics in Latino history are either underrepresented or omitted entirely from textbooks. Such erasure leaves everyone vulnerable to a repeat of past injustices.

Donald Trumps appointments are a stark reminder of how easily history can repeat itself when we fail to confront it. As we face yet another wave of anti-immigrant policies, we must remember: History is not just a tool for understanding the past; its a weapon for shaping the future.

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Natalia Molina is a professor of American studies and ethnicity at USC. Her latest book is "A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community."

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.
President-elect Donald Trump has been busy all week rolling out the members of his incoming administration. There are three names that stand out for how effective his choices are likely to be in their mission: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for secretary of homeland security, former Immigration and Customs Enforcement head Tom Homan for border czar and top Trump adviser Stephen Miller for White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser.

Even as the rest of the administration may bumble about and clash with one another, that might not be the case when it comes to enforcing Trumps dark immigration plan. Miller, Homan and Noem have the potential to be distressingly effective at working together. The only limit they will likely face is how much the public will allow to be carried out in its name.

In his new dual role, Miller will set the overall contours of American immigration policy. Homan will likely be charged with figuring out the operational details of Millers plans. And Noem will be tasked with implementing those policies and carrying out Trumps promised deportation of an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.

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One of the few holdovers from the early Trump days, Miller was a speechwriter and senior counselor under Trump in his first term. By the end of Trumps term, he held tremendous sway over immigration policy and had helped purge the ranks of officials he deemed not aggressive enough in deterring border crossings. He helped shape many of the harshest immigration policies Trump implemented, including the so-called Muslim travel ban and the use of Title 42 to shut down the border entirely.

His main skill has always been taking Trumps worst impulses about immigrants and making them almost palpable for moderate listeners. But given a title to match his ambitions and a direct line to Trump, hell have little to prevent him from being as extreme as hed always hoped. Among the plans that Miller is spearheading are mass deportation camps to hold those collected in ICE workplace sweeps while being processed for expulsion and reinstating Title 42 at the border.

Aside from cracking down on undocumented immigrants, he has his sights on limiting immigration, as well. Miller has supported an end to birthright citizenship and pledged to turbocharge his efforts to strip naturalized citizens of their legal status. He has also prepared to end parole programs for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua and let Temporary Protected Status protections expire for more than 800,000 people.

While Miller forms the plans, it will likely be Homan working to coordinate carrying them out. Trump has indicated hed like to see the military take part in the forced removal plans, which would require Pentagon buy-in and a likely transfer of money from defense programs to pay for a surge in detention facilities. There will be legal challenges that the Justice Department will have to defend against. Homan would be the point person making sure everyone is staying on the same page.

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Its worth noting that Homans job, such as it is, exists only as two words on paper right now, as there is no border czar job title in the federal system and no pool of resources for him to tap. Its also fun to remember that he was promised, but never granted, a similar role in the first Trump administration. But Homan has the experience needed to carry out Millers wishes. He was hired to head ICEs deportation arm before eventually becoming its director and implemented Trumps zero tolerance child separation policy.

Meanwhile, Noems ascension is testament to how much all politics is national now. Leading South Dakota has given her little contact with the immigration system. According to the Migration Policy Institute, as of 2022 only 3.5% of the states population was foreign-born, far less than many parts of the country. But Noem has been extremely vocal about the supposed invasion taking place at the southern border, enthusiastically embracing Trumps narrative and pulling stunts like deploying National Guard members to the Texas-Mexico border.

She would also be the only one of the three with any legal authority to carry out these deportation plans  or the money from Congress to do so. Immigration policy will be entirely top down with Noem in place, passing from Miller to Homan to Noems orders to ICE and Customs and Border Patrol to carry them out. It doesnt matter if she herself doesnt have any policy experience, not so long as shes willing to be a figurehead for the White House and Senate Republicans are willing to confirm her.

There are still logistical problems that would have to be overcome should Millers deportation plan come to fruition. Homan said this week that hed double the ICE presence in sanctuary cities like New York if needed, but ICE is already finding itself shorthanded. Theres also a shortage of immigration judges, whose courts face a massive backlog of cases. But that all supposes that theres any interest from the administration in being efficient or precise in the process of forcibly removing millions from their homes.

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Lets not forget that the family separation policy was a humanitarian disaster. The conditions that families were held in were terrible, surpassed in the lack of care shown only by the failure of recordkeeping by the administration. DHS said in a report this year that there are still 1,360 children without confirmed reunifications with their families. We could call it incompetent if the goal had been to provide humane shelter for migrants being detained or speed their processing through the immigration system. But that wasnt the goal. The goal was to make other migrants too afraid to cross the border.

Similarly, in this case, the goal isnt to be efficient or precise. Miller is likely unconcerned about how long people might have to wait in hastily built camps before being deported. The odds seem high that there will be citizens who are rounded up and forced to prove their right to stay in the country. Homan has suggested avoiding family separations by deporting whole families, problematically hinting that children born in America would be illegally expelled, as well.

There is no way to carry out the kind of operation that Miller and his associates have in mind ethically or humanely  and so they wont try to do so. In practice it will more likely be a deliberately cruel assault on human rights and dignity. But mass deportation doesnt have to be done well to make Trumps vision a reality. It just needs to be done.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
On Jan. 21, president-elect Donald Trump will be sworn into office for the second time. Trumps first administration was concerning, but for the most part his Cabinet picks were viewed as adults in the room. Trump appointed distinguished generals James Mattis and John Kelly as his homeland security secretary and secretary of state, respectively. There were a few billionaires sprinkled in, as well as a couple of peculiar choices, like Department of Housing and Urban Development head Ben Carson. But mostly Trumps appointments seemed qualified and confirmable.

Things are looking a lot different this time. Trumps picks this week include deeply unserious and unqualified candidates such as Matt Gaetz (prior to his abrupt resignation from Congress), Tulsi Gabbard and Fox News host Pete Hegseth. But that still does not mean that all of the president-elects picks are poor choices. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is likely to become the next secretary of state. And unlike others in his Cabinet cohort, Rubio is actually a pretty responsible and solid choice, even if he will make some MAGA Republicans unhappy.

From a political perspective, Rubios selection suggests Trump is willing to look past (at least some) previous political attacks. Few politicos have forgotten the lurid comment Rubio made about the size of Trumps hands during the 2016 Republican primary. Then again, Trump was relentless in calling him little Marco. Rubio eventually fell into line. But then again, so did nearly every other Republican.

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Rubio also, arguably, has at least some of the credentials and qualifications necessary for the position of secretary of state. He has been elected to the U.S. Senate three times, starting in 2010. He was also a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Currently, Rubio serves as vice chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and is a senior member of the Committee on Foreign Relations.

Rubio has worked with Democrats in the past, another good sign. In 2013, he was part of a group of four Democratic and four Republican senators known as the Gang of Eight that proposed comprehensive immigration legislation. The bipartisan legislation passed the Senate with a strong majority. But it failed to advance in the House of Representatives.

As vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, Rubio has also proven himself willing to take politics out of the equation when it comes to national security. He worked with committee Chairman Mark R. Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, to release a Bipartisan Report Detailing Foreign Intelligence Threats. The committee also successfully issued a joint statement on the "national security threat posed by China.

Theres also plenty of recent precedent for nominating senators for this role. President Barack Obama named two U.S. senators to head up his State Department: New Yorks Hillary Clinton in 2009 and Massachusetts John Kerry. Clinton, a former first lady, had fought a contentious primary against then-Sen. Obama during the 2008 presidential nomination primary. Kerry was first elected to Senate in 1984 and went on to serve as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was also the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, ultimately losing to George W. Bush.

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Trump, like all presidents before him, gets to pick his Cabinet. Thats his privilege as the duly elected chief executive. And, thanks to the GOPs new Senate majority, most of those Cabinet picks will likely sail through the confirmation process. Rubio should be one of them.

But given his track record, Trumps foreign policy is also likely to be controversial. It will be dissected by policymakers and pundits and, perhaps, legal scholars. We cannot control what new and improved ideas Trump tries to implement. But we can hope that Rubio will take inspiration from those same adults in the room who helped control some of Trumps darkest impulses in 2016.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
State employees represented by Service Employees International Union 503 rally at the Oregon Capitol on Thursday, June 8, 2023. The union is rejoining the AFL-CIO. (Ben Botkin/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

After nearly 20 years apart, two of Oregons largest labor groups will officially join forces again.

Service Employees International Union Local 503, which represents about 72,000 caregivers and other professionals, announced Wednesday that it will rejoin the Oregon AFL-CIO, a federation with more than 300,000 unionized Oregonians in industries including construction, education, health care and manufacturing.

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The partnership comes as the majority of SEIUs members prepare to bargain for new contracts and as the labor movement braces for anticipated attacks from the federal government under Republican president-elect Donald Trump, who in his first term appointed anti-union officials to the Department of Labor and National Labor Relations Board and limited overtime protections.

Mike Powers, the former president of SEIU 503, told reporters that officially joining forces would help the unions protect workers more than they could on their own.

Our members understand the threats we all face as workers, and that by re-affiliating we will strengthen Oregon labor against attacks on workers rights, attempts to roll back safety protections and efforts to weaken labor unions as a whole, he said.

Nationally, SEIU and the Teamsters union split from AFL-CIO in 2005, citing disagreements over how to stem the decline in union membership and the AFL-CIOs focus on national politics over labor organizing. The Oregon affiliate, SEIU 503, followed its national organization.

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SEIU members spent the past year, following 2023s summer of strikes, talking about what they wanted out of the labor movement, which has grown and seen workers emboldened by a tight labor market push for higher wages and better benefits. One key theme was that they wanted to be in solidarity with other workers, SEIU 503 Executive Director Melissa Unger said.

That doesnt mean just showing up, Unger said. It means being an organization together, because we know when we build organization, we build power.

Role in elections

The two groups have long worked together in Oregon, where union members contributed to electing and maintaining the states Democratic majorities in the Legislature, Congress and statewide offices, passing legislation at the ballot to limit legislative walkouts and defeating ballot measures that sought to weaken Oregons decades-old sanctuary state law and block public funding for abortions.

Oregons labor leaders dont yet know what to expect from the federal government, Unger said, and theyre focused on what they can do to protect Oregonians  including making sure workers, whether protected by union contracts or not, can afford to live in the communities where they work and that the state creates policies that protect workers and their families.

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Graham Trainor, president of Oregon AFL-CIO, said his federation and SEIU 503 are powerful, sophisticated organizations that will become stronger by joining together.

We know that attacks are coming through the Project 2025 agenda and beyond, and Oregon labor is more committed than ever today to resist these attacks on our unions, our communities and our fundamental freedoms, no matter how they show up in Oregon, he said. No one, not Donald Trump or J.D. Vance or Elon Musk or any boss or CEO or anti-union Congress can stop solidarity and the unwavering resilience of the Oregon labor movement.

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NEW ORLEANS (AP)  New Orleans marked the 64th anniversary of the day four Black 6-year-old girls integrated New Orleans schools with a parade  a celebration in stark contrast to the tensions and anger that roiled the city on Nov. 14, 1960.

Federal marshals were needed then to escort Tessie Prevost Williams, Leona Tate, Gail Etienne and Ruby Bridges to school while white mobs opposing desegregation shouted, cursed and threw rocks. Williams, who died in July, walked into McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School that day with Tate and Etienne. Bridges  perhaps the best known of the four, thanks to a Norman Rockwell painting of the scene  braved the abuse to integrate William Frantz Elementary.

The women now are often referred to as the New Orleans Four.

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I call them Americas little soldier girls, said Diedra Meredith of the New Orleans Legacy Project, the organization behind the event. "They were civil rights pioneers at 6 years old."

I was wondering why they were so angry with me," Etienne recalled Thursday. I was just going to school and I felt like if they could get to me theyd want to kill me  and I definitely didnt know why at 6 years old.

Marching bands in the city's Central Business District prompted workers and customers to walk out of one local restaurant to see what was going on. Tourists were caught by surprise, too.

We were thrilled to come upon it, said Sandy Waugh, a visitor from Chestertown, Maryland. Its so New Orleans.

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Rosie Bell, a social worker from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, said the parade was a cherry on top that she wasnt expecting Thursday morning.

I got so lucky to see this, Bell said.

For Etienne, the parade was her latest chance to celebrate an achievement she couldn't fully appreciate when she was a child.

What we did opened doors for other people, you know for other students, for other Black students," she said. I didnt realize it at the time but as I got older I realized that. ... They said that we rocked the nation for what we had done, you know? And I like hearing when they say that.

___

Associated Press reporter Kevin McGill contributed to this story.
PEARL RIVER COUNTY, Miss. (WHLT)  A New Orleans woman was arrested and charged with killing a man in Mississippi.

Pearl River County deputies responded to an address on Oscar Smith Road in Carriere on October 30 after they were notified that a body had been discovered.

Forrest County deputy charged in domestic violence case

The victim was identified as Clint Williams, of New Orleans. Deputies said he died from multiple gunshot wounds.

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Investigators were able to establish a timeline and identified the date Williams had been killed. Deputies said the suspect was identified as Showanda Carter, of New Orleans.

On November 6, Carter was arrested and charged with murder.

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Nov. 14ORWELL  The hiring of a new wastewater superintendent has relieved some of the immediate problems at the village, after manpower issues had become a major concern.

During an October meeting, there was discussion about one employee remaining at the village's water and wastewater treatment plants, which were normally staffed with three employees.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has detailed laws mandating licensed operators be present for at least 20 hours a week, which means the village had to take special measures to keep the plant operating properly.

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John Sency has been hired for the wastewater superintendent position, and is scheduled to start work Monday.

Orwell Village Manager Tami Pentek used her administrative authority to staff the plant with outside operators over the short term during the last several years. She asked the village to allow an hourly or weekly contract to make sure both departments are covered through the new year.

Pentek said the Leffingwell and Breezewood repaving projects are complete. "We feel very good that these roads will last a long time," she said.

Orwell Road Superintendent Shane Gregory was also excited about the roads. "It took us a while to get to this point, but now that it is completed it is a very solid road," he said.

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Pentek said she hopes to have a list of roads to repave for 2025. They discussed whether chip and seal is a good way to go for future road improvement projects.

"Let's sit back and see how it [the recent road improvements] hold up through the winter. You'll know by April," Orwell Council person David Hartz said.

Pentek reported 22 EPA violations have been fixed.

The village department heads have been working with Pentek and village treasurer Kim McKinley to create a 2025 budget.

"We sat down with each department head to discuss the capital plans," Pentek said.

McKinley said the department heads did a good job and will try and put the capital improvements into the budget.

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"I think we have a good plan for the future," Pentek said.

McKinley said she has 60-plus boxes of records to dispose of, after the records committee approves their destruction.

Orwell Village Zoning Inspector Nick Bellas said four or five zoning cases are in the court system.

"It is nice to see we are making some progress," he said.
OLIVE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD)  The Ottawa County Board of Commissioners has approved a settlement with a pastor who had accused the county of religious discrimination.

The motion passed Tuesday with a 9-2 vote, meeting minutes show. Commissioners had previously discussed the agreement in closed session.

Pastor sues Ottawa Co. for religious discrimination

The settlement calls for Ottawa County to pay $26,000 in attorney fees and then another $74,000, which is to be split between Childrens Advocacy Center, Kenzies Be Cafe in Grand Haven and the Momentum Center, the Holland Sentinel reports.

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The lawsuit was filed in October 2023 on behalf of Rev. Jared Cramer, the priest at St. Johns Episcopal Church in Grand Haven.

The complaint alleged that Cramer, who has advocated for the LGBTQ+ community, was not allowed to lead an invocation at a commission meeting because Board Chair Joe Moss personally disagreed with Cramers beliefs. Moss, the board and the county were accused of advancing one set of religious beliefs while excluding others.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP)  North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has commuted what have been lengthy sentences served by six criminal offenders in state prisons  five of whom were convicted of murder  and granted pardons to two others.

Those pardons of innocence that the outgoing governor also signed on Wednesday give the persons wrongly imprisoned for erroneous felony convictions the ability to seek monetary compensation from the North Carolina Industrial Commission.

One such pardon was issued to Mark Crotts, who was once convicted of murdering an elderly Alamance County couple in 1990. Crotts served two years in prison, but his convictions were set aside by a court, and he was ultimately acquitted in a retrial.

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The other pardon went to Darron Carmon, who was convicted in 1994 of robbery with a dangerous weapon at a Pitt County convenience store and served more than seven years in prison. Carmon, now a pastor, maintained his innocence. He was exonerated after a judge in 2022 vacated his conviction as new evidence surfaced.

Four of the commutations originated from recommendations by a special board that Cooper created during his second term to review petitions from people sentenced to prison for crimes committed while they were under the age of 18.

Cooper also granted commutations to two other offenders sentenced in the 1990s to life in prison without parole. During that time a law contained a process by which their sentences can be reviewed after 25 years by a trial judge in the county where the conviction happened and the state parole commission. While that review law has since been repealed, it still applies to such offenders convicted during that era, Cooper's office said.

Ensuring careful review of cases while taking executive clemency action is a responsibility I take seriously, Cooper said in a news release. All of these individuals are deserving of clemency and we will continue to work to protect our communities and improve the fairness of our criminal justice system.

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The commutations based on Juvenile Sentence Review Board recommendations went to George Lesane, 47, who has served over 30 years for the murder of Larry McCormick in Robeson County; Donte Santiago, 40, who has served more than 23 years for the murder of Frederick Howell in Onslow County; Kirston Angell, 35, who has served 17 years for the murder of Bobby Boles and assault of two other victims in Davie County; and Terence Smith, 42, who has served nearly 25 years for his involvement in a robbery where three people were injured in Forsyth County.

Lesane and Smith will be released Nov. 27, while Santiago becomes parole-eligible immediately and Angell parole-eligible in January 2027, according to Cooper's office.

The other two commutations following recommendations by judges and the parole board were granted to Penny Jarrett, 60, who has served 27 years of a life-without-parole sentence for the murder of Henry Draughn in Guilford County; and Jesse Graham, 71, who has served 26 years of a life-without-parole sentence for the murder of Jimmy Harris, also in Guilford County. Jarrett and Graham also become parole-eligible immediately.

Cooper's news release identified various activities and rehabilitative efforts that each of the six offenders receiving commutations have participated in while behind bars.
Nov. 13Alamo STEAM Academy, on its way to implementing project-based learning, got a visit from the New Tech Network and other districts to get a look at how the elementary campus is doing on its transition.

The school, which has 353 students, joined the New Tech Network this fall. It will be a feeder school to George H.W. Bush New Tech Odessa. New Tech will begin offering a middle school on the second floor of the building when the new career and technical education center is built.

"This will create a feeder pattern pre-K all the way to 12 for the New Tech Network. And it will be, my understanding is, the only one in the state, which is pretty exciting," Principal Elisha Sessions said.

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Sessions reviewed Alamo's progress and took questions from representatives of other districts who are working toward becoming New Tech schools as well.

Sessions noted that Ector County ISD has made a substantial investment in the campus becoming part of the New Tech Network, despite having a deficit budget this year due to lack of new state funding.

"I know that they believe in it and they support it. ...," she said. "I don't think that it's just one of those things that we're going to do it for a couple of years and then we're going to be out, because it does feed directly into the vision of the district, which is to have that feeder pattern. That's helped with staff as well, to get them on board and to get them to understand the importance of the work that we are doing."

The visitors also got to view classroom instruction and talk to teachers and students.

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Representatives were brought in from Lubbock, El Paso and Maynard. Top ECISD officials were also on hand.

Sessions said it feels good to showcase all the work that's been going on at Alamo.

"I just believe in what's happening here and I know that we are learning and so it's not going to be perfect right off, but I know that the teachers have embraced this work and I think that's going to be reflected" in their visits to classrooms, Sessions said.

The school choice window opens Dec. 1 so they should know soon how many new students they can expect.

Sessions said they had some interest at the district's school choice fair in October.

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"But it's always interesting to see when those applications start streaming in if there's a draw," she added.

She noted that Director of Partnerships and School Choice Mandy Hinojos, will be doing some more marketing to help Alamo out.

Six-year-old Khalea Torres is in Ariam Solis' first-grade class at Alamo. The students were told to pack a suitcase (in a manila file folder) with pictures of what they would need. But they didn't find out until after they had packed where they were going so they had to figure out if they had what they needed.

"It's fun and it good to learn what you need to pack ... it's good to learn and fun to learn," Torres said.

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Steffany Batik, director of growth and district success at the New Tech Network said this is the second time she has been to the campus. She had visited Alamo before they started the transition to New Tech and project-based learning.

"The fact that I wanted to bring a group of people here from outside tells you a lot about how they're doing. I knew when I met the leadership here and in the district that they were really going to invest time to make this a successful implementation. So to hear how they've changed their processes, their planning time, the whole school project thing that just really shows that they are very intentional with making sure that this is a success for them and for the students," Batik said.
SIOUX FALLS S.D. (KELO)  A motorist is behind bars for what police are calling a crash-spree near downtown Sioux Falls early Thursday morning.

Maximum price for new mens prison set at $825 million

Police say this is where it all began around 3 or 4 oclock this morning.

A Chevy Traverse basically struck another motorist on the exit ramp from 229 and Minnesota and then proceeded northbound on Minnesota to a cannabis shop, said Sgt. Travis Olsen.

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There, the SUV struck a digital sign and smashed through the businesss front door, before getting back on Minnesota Avenue.

Continued northbound, sideswiped to whats believed to be a blue Ford focus, said Olsen.

The driver still didnt stop.

It did manage to make it north all the way to six in Minnesota, where it struck a believed to be a Park County Sheriffs Patrol vehicle that was in the administration lot, said Olsen.

From there, the SUV headed to Falls Park where it got stuck. Police found 33-year-old Ashlyann Saathoff nearby and made an arrest.

They were so far charged with DWI, hit and run, and several counts of felony intentional damage to property.

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Since the crashes were so widespread, spanning more than 3 miles of city streets, police want to hear from anyone who may have been hit or has information that could help with the investigation.

Theyre still trying to piece together everything that was damaged and a total dollar amount for that matter, said Olsen.

Saathoff has no criminal history in South Dakota.

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A local borough council member said she has received several complaints from parents that their kids are getting sick because of the renovation project happening at the Slippery Rock Area High School. She took those concerns to the school board and wants them to take action.

I started to get very concerned because Im also a parent of a child in the school and I just want to make sure everything is okay, said Alexandra Franco-Tuten, Slippery Rock Borough Council Member.

Right now, there is a major construction project underway at the school. It started over the summer. The school is building a new library, cafeteria, administrative office and putting in an air conditioning unit.

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We are excited about the new construction but the number one priority is the health and safety of our students, our staff and teachers, said Franco-Tuten.

Franco-Tuten said at this weeks school board meeting that she has received complaints that 34 students are experiencing health symptoms.

You have all these parents saying my child has been dizzy, light-headed, nausea, particularly in the band room and English room that are in the area of all the construction, said Franco-Tuten.

She also said some teachers have had increased allergy symptoms and asthma attacks.

The districts superintendent Alfonso Angelucci said there has been no pattern of students going to the nurses office with symptoms related to the air quality and no reports to the high school principal.

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Angelucci said a parent reached out to the school a few weeks ago worried about the construction impacting the air quality. He said they are working on hiring a company to conduct air quality tests during construction including asbestos tests.

The school board did pass the money needed to do a five-day baseline testing and then have weekly reports, said Franco-Tuten.

Angelucci said those air quality tests will happen within the next few weeks. The construction is expected to be finished around this time next year. Angelucci told families the school is creating a special page on the schools website to provide weekly updates on the construction process.

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MANILA, Philippines (AP)  Typhoon Usagi swamped rural villages in floods, knocked down power and displaced thousands more people before blowing away on Friday from the northern Philippines, which has now been pounded by five major storms in less than a month.

A new storm in the Pacific could strengthen into a powerful typhoon before hitting the Philippine archipelago on Sunday, according to state forecasters.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the onslaught caused by Usagi, which was blowing toward southern Taiwan on Friday.

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In Cagayan province in the northernmost tip of the main Luzon region, a key concrete bridge connecting two towns partly collapsed Thursday after logs swept by rampaging river currents smashed into it. Several other bridges were engulfed in floodwaters and were unusable, provincial officials said.

Usagi made landfall in the northeastern Philippines on Thursday, just two days after the last typhoon, Toraji, exited after setting off floods and forcing more than 82,500 people to flee from their homes in northern provinces.

Many of the displaced were still in emergency shelters when Usagi hit, according to welfare officials, who have scrambled to transport large numbers of food packs and other aid to more than 300 evacuation centers as the back-to-back storms and typhoons lashed the region.

The government has struggled to deal with the impact of the multiple storms, which left at least 160 people dead, displaced more than 9 million others and devastated farmland and infrastructure, mostly in Luzon.

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President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.s administration has spent more than 1 billion pesos ($17 million) for food and other aid for hundreds of thousands of storm victims, Welfare Assistant Secretary Irene Dumlao said.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, who oversees disaster-response efforts, sought the help of neighboring countries, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, in providing additional aircraft to transport food, water and other aid to villages isolated by the storms. The United States, Manilas longtime treaty ally, deployed cargo aircraft with food and other assistance.

The U.N. Humanitarian Country Team in the Philippines said it was raising $32.9 million to help the government provide assistance to about 210,000 people in critical need of aid and protection, especially women, children and people with disabilities, in the next three months.

The Philippines is facing an exceptionally challenging tropical cyclone season, with successive cyclones reaching unprecedented locations and scales, the U.N. team said in its emergency plan. Local authorities, who are often impacted themselves, are overwhelmed as they simultaneously respond to the crisis and coordinate rescue efforts for affected families.

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The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year. It is often hit by earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the worlds most disaster-prone countries.

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages and caused ships to run aground and smash into houses in the central Philippines.
After more than a year of conflict with the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office, the owner of a local towing company has been arrested.

Vicente Vince Serrano, the owner of ASAP Towing, turned himself in Wednesday on charges of grand theft and fraud.

Police say he defrauded the state out of nearly $200,000 from 2020 to 2024 by not properly documenting and paying out for unclaimed towed vehicle sales.

Action News Jax has been following this investigation for more than a year.

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In July, JSO raided the business, believing Serrano was hiding evidence. JSO shared video from those raids on Wednesday.

Theft and Fraud arrest GRAND THEFT AND FRAUD ARREST ASAP Towing owner Vicente "Vince" Serrano was arrested Wednesday on charges of grand theft and organized fraud following a lengthy Jacksonville Sheriffs Office investigation. Detectives found that from 2020 to 2024, Serrano underreported vehicle sale proceeds and inflated fees, defrauding the State of Florida of $193,958.54 by withholding sale proceeds from the Clerk of Court, which is required by law. As shown in this video, JSO Auto Crimes detectives served search warrants at ASAPs four Jacksonville locations in July, leading to these charges. Serrano turned himself in Wednesday morning and was booked into the Duval County Jail. The State Attorneys Office will handle the prosecution of the case. Posted by Jacksonville Sheriff's Office on Wednesday, November 13, 2024

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We spoke with Serrano at the time, who said investigators wouldnt find anything.

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In 2023, JSO cut ties with ASAP Towing after they reportedly towed more than a dozen cars from apartment complexes without approval from the properties.

Vicente Vince Serrano, the owner of ASAP Towing, turned himself in Wednesday on charges of grand theft and fraud.

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The owner of a Cohasset home where police say Brian Walshe dismembered his wife, Ana, is suing Walshes mother, claiming the alleged grisly killing has led to a substantial loss in property value due to the psychological impact of the notorious murder.

Property owner Peter M. Capozzoli filed the lawsuit against Diana Walshe and the Massachusetts Property Insurance Underwriting Association in Dehams Norfolk Superior Court, court documents indicate.

Diana Walshe signed a six-month lease on the home at 516 Chief Justice Cushing Highway on March 9, 2022, and told Capozzoli that she intended to live there with her son Brian, daughter-in-law Ana, and their three children while she recuperated from an illness, according to the documents.

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In the lawsuit, Capozzoli alleges that the Walshe family damaged, defaced, misused, and abused the property in numerous ways, while also using the home for improper and unlawful purposes.

Defendant Walshs son Brian murdered and dismembered his wife Ana in the property. This caused blood and other human remains to contaminate the home, including the Walshes bedroom (where the murder apparently took place) and the basement (where apparently the dismemberment and disposal took place), the lawsuit stated.

Capozzoli said in the lawsuit that he was forced to hire a company that specialized in the decontamination of murder and other crime scenes at a substantial expense.

This decontamination process involved the full cleaning, treatment, and painting of the basement and the removal of the bedroom wood flooring and treatment of the underlying support structure, the lawsuit stated. This decontamination process also involved the thorough cleaning and decontamination of the bathrooms and other areas.

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Prosecutors said that Brian Walshe bought $400 worth of cleaning and hardware supplies from Home Depot after the alleged killing.

Ana Walshe, a real estate professional who worked in Washington D.C. vanished on New Years Day 2023, and was reported missing a few days later, authorities said. Prosecutors allege that Brian Walshe killed the 39-year-old and misled investigators about her disappearance.

Days after Ana Walshes disappearance, a hacksaw and a blood-soaked rug believed to contain biological evidence were recovered from their home by investigators. Police later searched trash bins, dumpsters, trash trucks, and trash facilities in the areas where Brian Walshe traveled following her disappearance.

The couples three young boys were reportedly home at the time and investigators said Brian Walsh used his sons iPad to make 21 incriminating Google searches on how to dismember and dispose of a body.

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The lawsuit is seeking $400,000 in damages. Diana Walshe denies ever living at the home and has filed a counter-lawsuit.

Brian Walshe has been held without bail since his arrest. Anas Walshes body has never been found.

A trial date has not been set.

Read Capozzolis lawsuit in its entirety below:

Owner of Cohasset home where police say Ana Walshe was dismembered suing Brian Walshes mom by Fox Boston Staff on Scribd

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(WKBN)  Filmmaking has changed geography over the years. California has seen multiple projects, series and films leave the Golden State to points north and east for production.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is enticing several producers to the Commonwealth with tax credits and incentives. Shapiro announced Thursday that the Pennsylvania Film Office is providing $9.2 million in film tax credits to 11 new projects, creating 2,200 jobs and generating over $32.7 million for the economy.

The Pennsylvania Film Production Tax Credit program offers a 25% tax credit to productions that spend at least 60 percent of their total budget in the Commonwealth. To be eligible, projects must be a feature film, a television film, a television talk or game show series, a television commercial, a television pilot, or each episode of a television series intended as programming for a national audience.

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Production companies of all sizes recognize the incredible locations, people and amenities we have in Pennsylvania, and our Film Production Tax Credit program makes us more competitive in attracting them, said Film Commissioner Gino Anthony Pesi.

The projects that recently received Film Production Tax Credits include:

Netflix series Tires (season two): The comedy starring Mechanicsburg native Shane Gillis is currently being produced in Philadelphia. Netflix received $5,521,612 in tax credits and will add an estimated $22 million into the Philadelphia region and create 886 jobs.

A Great Awakening: The Sight & Sound feature film, currently in production in the City of Philadelphia and Lancaster County, received $2,607,037 in tax credits. The Pennsylvania-based production company will inject an estimated $10,428,146 into the regional economies while creating and supporting 846 jobs.

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Pennsylvania Film Producer Reserve: The series of ten projects by small producers received a combined $1,076,889 in tax credits. The projects will create and support 443 jobs in 11 different counties, resulting in an estimated $4,307,560 for those regional economies. These projects include: Three feature films: Between Friends, Chalk Line and The Big Break Three feature documentaries by Pennsylvania-based production company FreshFly: Citizen George, N.C. Wyeth, and Jamie Wyeth and the Unflinching Eye Two documentary episodes by History Making Productions: In Pursuit: Philadelphias Story of American Democracy and Soul of the City, Philadelphias Musical Century (Episode 1) A documentary feature by Allegheny County native & Robert Morris College professor Steve Mancini: Fedelta A documentary feature by The Workshop Content Studios: The Ride of a Lifetime: The Smarty Jones Story



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Mothering Justice Executive Director Danielle Atkinson speaks at Mothering Justice's "Mama's March" on June 15, 2022. | Photo by Anna Gustafson

Advocates for a paid family and medical leave program in Michigan highlighted the economic and social benefits at a virtual press conference Wednesday and urged passage of legislation to make it a reality.

Held by the MI Paid Leave for All Coalition, the conference discussed results of two new reports on paid family and medical leave and the importance of passing the Michigan Family Leave Optimal Coverage (MI-FLOC) during the current lame duck session of the Michigan Legislature.

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The reports, released by the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO), outlined the potential benefits of a state paid leave program, including decreasing poverty and reliance on social welfare, while potentially improving employees future earnings and U.S. businesss profitability.

These studies highlight that paid family leave is a win-win for people and businesses. Companies with paid leave programs report higher employee retention, increased productivity and lower turnover costs. For workers, they will have the time and financial assurances that they can take care of themselves or a loved one, without sacrificing financial security, said state Sen. Erika Geiss (D-Taylor), one of the sponsors of the MI-FLOC package. Paid leave programs lead to healthier, more productive workers, which translates to a stronger workforce and a more resilient economy, for generations to come.

Geiss, along with state Rep. Helena Scott (D-Detroit) introduced the MI-FLOC package, consisting of Senate Bills 332 and 333 and House Bills 4574 and 4575, in May 2023. Together they would provide Michigan workers with up to 15 weeks of paid leave, funded through contributions by both employers and employees.

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But the bills have remained in their respective committees without any hearings, and with the end of Democrats control of the Michigan House coming in January, the pressure to push the bills forward is mounting.

Also speaking in favor of the legislation was Mothering Justice National Executive Director Danielle Atkinson, who said this is an issue that cuts across ideological lines.

We know that in this last election, people voted with their financial strengths and interests at heart, said Atkinson. We know this policy is overwhelmingly popular because its overwhelmingly needed. When we do polling or talk to people on their doors, they speak about this issue, about the ability to take time off when theyre sick, when they have to care for the people that depend on them, when they are welcoming a child, or saying goodbye to a loved one.

Atkinson called those concerns bread-and-butter issues that define the financial restraints many people face, adding they are overwhelmingly popular with Democrats, Republicans and independents.

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That is backed up by polling conducted in August by Progress Michigan which indicated that 71% of Michiganders support a 15-week paid family and medical leave program in Michigan.

The issue came to a head in July, when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in a lawsuit brought by Mothering Justice, that the Legislature subverted the rights of citizens in gutting a ballot initiative to guarantee workers paid sick leave by adopting and amending the policy.

The ruling means that by Feb. 21, 2025, the Earned Sick Time Act will require all Michigan employers to offer 72 hours of sick leave. While companies with fewer than 10 employees must offer up to 40 hours of paid sick leave, employers with 10 or more employees must offer a full 72 hours of paid sick leave.

While state Rep. Graham Filler (R-St. Johns) is working with businesses to finalize details on a bill that would moderate those changes, MI-FLOC supporters say moving toward a 15-week paid family leave policy benefits both workers and employers.

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We have a growing body of evidence from 13 states and the District of Columbia that have done programs like this, said H. Luke Shaefer, the director of the University of Michigans Poverty Solutions and a co-author of one of the reports.

Weve seen that each of these three types of leaves; paid parental leave, caregiving leave, and medical leave, combined in many state policies, as were discussing here, each individually and when combined, have demonstrated positive economic impacts for families as well as positive health impacts for employees and their families and can have long run positive impacts on labor force participation of the workforce, said Shaefer.

State Sen. Erika Geiss (D-Taylor) speaks at Mothering Justices Mamas March on June 15, 2022. | Photo by Anna Gustafson

He added that paid leave policies can also play an important role in addressing gender and racial inequities, particularly benefiting women and women of color who bear disproportionate shares of caregiving responsibilities.

Meanwhile, an actuarial analysis released in July by LEO indicated that if Michigan were to implement the most robust plan possible, a worker making the state median salary or $46,940 (at 40 hours per week) would pay $178.37 annually, which would work out to just over $3 per week in contributions. An individual earning the current minimum wage, meanwhile, ($21,486.40 at 40 hours per week) would pay $81.65 annually or about $1.50 per week.

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Paid leave will cost less than a pop or a cup of coffee each week for workers that make the minimum or median wage, said Monique Stanton, president and CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy.

The costs of not implementing paid leave include wage and job losses for workers and families, worse health outcomes, higher health care costs, talent losses for businesses, and a negative impact on the state economy, she said.

Stanton said the Legislature still has time to make a 15-week paid leave program a reality, but has to act quickly or waste an opportunity to help workers throughout the state.

We as the coalition are going to continue to make a final push to see this important policy priority make it to our governors desk for the sake of our states workers, families, small businesses, and the economy, she said.

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ISLAMABAD (AP)  A Pakistani court on Thursday rejected a plea for acquittal from former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has been held in prison for more than a year in a graft case, a defense lawyer said.

The court order was another blow to Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi, who were accused of retaining and selling state gifts in violation of government rules when he was in power.

The couple will be formally indicted in the case on Nov. 18 when the next court hearing is held. Khan and Bibi have denied the charges, saying they were not involved in any wrongdoing.

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Naeem Panjutha, a lawyer for Khan, who remains a popular opposition figure, confirmed that the court had turned down the acquittal plea from the former premier and his wife. He gave no further details.

Under Pakistan's laws, government officials and politicians are allowed to retain gifts given to them by foreign dignitaries, but they must correctly declare the market value of those gifts and declare any money they earned after selling those gifts. The couple is accused of buying state gifts including wrist watches and jewelry at reduced prices when Khan was in power.

Authorities have registered multiple cases against Khan since 2022 when he was ousted from power through a vote of no-confidence in the parliament. The former leader was convicted over corruption, unlawful marriage and revealing national secrets, and was given sentences ranging from three to 14 years to be served concurrently under Pakistani law.

His convictions were later overturned or suspended in appeals but he could not be freed due to other, pending cases against him.
The Southern California resort town of Palm Springs is set to approve a $27 million reparations agreement with Black and Latino families who were forced out of their homes in the 1960s, making it one of the first cities in the country to do so.

The tentative deal, which was announced Wednesday and had received the backing of Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif), will come before the city council for a final vote on Thursday. It follows a similar move in 2021 by Evanston, Illinois, and comes amid a statewide push for reparations in California that ran into pushback this year.

We are making history in Palm Springs, said Areva Martin, lead counsel for the Palm Springs group representing impacted families. This agreement demonstrates that it's never too late to acknowledge past wrongs and take meaningful steps toward justice.

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Hundreds of families in a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood known as Section 14 lost their homes in the 1960s after the city demolished the one-mile-square area to build commercial development. A group of survivors and their descendants have pushed the city for reparations since it issued an official apology in 2021.

Butler stepped in this past March, writing a letter to the mayor and city council arguing that despite the city issuing an apology, she was concerned there had yet to be reparation payments.

Palm Springs has the opportunity to set a historic, yet much needed, precedent not only for California but for the entire nation, by reaching a reasonable, fair resolution with the survivors and their families, Butler wrote.

The settlement figure is well below the $2 billion that the roughly 300 survivors and descendants had sought. But the group ultimately accepted the citys final cash offer of $5.9 million in direct compensation.

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The city would, in addition, contribute $10 million each to a first-time homebuyer assistance program and a community land trust for affordable housing. It would also put $1 million toward promoting diversity and inclusion in small business developments; rename a park; and create a monument to memorialize the survivors.

"The City Council is deeply gratified that the former residents of Section 14 have agreed to accept what we believe is a fair and just settlement offer, Palm Springs Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein said in a statement.

Earlier this year, Californias Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom approved an official apology for slavery, but rejected a proposal that would have compensated families who had their land unfairly seized through eminent domain. Newsom cited having no state agency to implement the policy, though some lawmakers accused him of seeking to water down a measure that would have created an agency for reparations.

Meanwhile, the city of Evanston, Illinois is now facing a legal challenge from a conservative legal group over its reparations deal, claiming that it discriminates against residents who are not Black.
EMMETSBURG, Iowa (KCAU)  A man from Palo Alto County originally arrested for attempted murder has pleaded guilty to intimidation with a weapon after firing a shotgun to threaten a victim.

According to court documents, Patrick Lynch, 70, of Ayshire, pleaded guilty on Nov. 7 to the class D felony of intimidation with a dangerous weapon  firearm as part of a plea agreement. The second charge of possession of marijuana, first offense, will be dismissed.

In the plea, Lynch admits to threatening another person by firing a gun in their presence to threaten them.

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If the judge accepts the plea, Lynch faces a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and a $10,245 fine.

Lynch was originally charged with attempted murder and possession of marijuana, but the attempted murder charge was lessened before his arraignment to intimidation with a dangerous weapon. Lynch initially pleaded not guilty to the charges on Aug. 23.

Former Plymouth County deputy sentenced again for pharmacy burglaries following retrial

On Oct. 30, it was amended again, this time to intimidation with a dangerous weapon  firearm to reflect the type of dangerous weapon used in the commission of the crime, court documents read.

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Lynch was arrested on Aug. 10. Documents state that a victim went to Lynchs residence to deliver medication. Lynch was allegedly loading a shotgun, and when asked what he was doing with the gun, Lynch told the victim that he was going to shoot him. The victim was turning to leave when Lynch fired the weapon.

When authorities spoke with Lynch over the phone, he allegedly said he had a 12-gauge shotgun and admitted to shooting at the victim. Officials entered the residence to find Lynch with a loaded Winchester 870 12-gauge shotgun and a spent shell on the ground. The documents specified that there was damage to the bedroom door trim from the shotgun pellets.

Law enforcement found a green, leafy substance that tested positive for marijuana after subsequent search warrants, documents state.

Ariel Pokett contributed to this report.

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The parents of a newborn who died at Ascension Columbia St. Mary's hospital a day after her birth have filed a medical malpractice suit against the hospital, medical staff members, insurance companies and the Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers, where the mother received prenatal care.

Justin Johnson and Karen Ramirez say their daughter, Amillianna Ramirez-Johnson failed to receive adequate care from the time of her her birth on Sept. 18, 2021, until her death roughly 24 hours later, according to the lawsuit filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court. The family is being represented by attorney Odalo J. Ohiku.

Amillianna died due to persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn, a treatable condition that affects a babys ability to breathe and circulate blood, according to the autopsy report. It occurs in 2 out of every 1,000 live births. Treatment has evolved to the point that roughly 90% of newborns, when given proper treatment, survive, according to studies published in the National Library of Medicine.

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In Amillianna's case, the condition was caused by inhaling too much meconium a thick, tar-like substance that makes up a healthy baby's first bowel movement.

"I can truly say it is a big relief to have a chance at justice in Amillianna's death," Johnson said. "One of the worst things is feeling you've been wronged and losing a child."

In February, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a series of articles highlighting Amillianna's death.

The Journal Sentinel investigation included a review of medical records by medical experts suggesting Ascension Columbia St. Mary's didn't provide Amillianna with the widely accepted standard of care for a baby with persistent pulmonary hypertension caused by meconium aspiration and did not transfer her to a more specialized hospital when it became apparent their treatment wasnt working.

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The investigation also found that while medical experts believed negligence contributed to the newborn's death Wisconsin's laws make it financially unfavorable for attorneys to accept medical malpractice cases because of low medical malpractice caps.

The cap for noneconomic damages is $750,000.

Justin Johnson sits by his daughter's grave at Graceland Cemetery earlier this year in Milwaukee. Amillianna Ramirez-Johnson was 1 day old when she died on Sept. 19, 2021, at Ascension Columbia St. Mary's hospital.

Amillianna's father said he had spoken with close to two dozen firms before attorney Odalo Ohiku, a former top deputy in the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office, accepted the case. Ohiku previously served as Milwaukee's deputy city attorney and earlier this year entered into a deferred prosecution agreement in a misdemeanor case. He remains in good standing with the bar association.

In response to the investigation, Ascension Columbia St, Mary's said in a February statement that a "thorough internal review found the standard of care provided to this patient was met by the clinical team."

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"The loss of any child is tragic and our hearts and prayers go out to this family," an Ascension Wisconsin spokesperson said in the February statement.

Officials with Ascension Columbia St. Mary's did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Sixteenth Street Clinic Network declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing laws governing patient privacy rights.

For decades, Ascension Columbia St. Mary's Hospital had served as the maternity hospital for Sixteenth Street midwives when their patients, including Amillianna's mother, were ready to deliver.

Amillianna Ramirez-Johnson was buried Nov. 4, 2021, at Graceland Cemetery in Milwaukee.

In October, Sixteenth Street's midwives and other medical professionals switched from Columbia St. Mary's on Milwaukee' east side to Aurora Sinai Medical Center in downtown Milwaukee to deliver babies.

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Dr. Julie Schuller, president and CEO of Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers, said in a statement Wednesday that the transition from Ascension and to Aurora had been several years in the making and Sixteenth Street "continues to remain good partners with Columbia St. Mary's Hospital."

Amillianna's parents told the Journal Sentinel they believed her life illustrates what experts and studies have said for years: Many infant deaths are preventable. And a disproportionate number of the babies affected are Hispanic, Black and Native American. Amillianna was all three.

I blame them for her death, Amillianna's mother said. They could have done better, they could have done more for her. Everybody elses babies got to go home except for mine.

Jessica Van Egeren is a general assignment reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She can be reached at jvanegeren@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Parents file lawsuit against Columbia St. Mary's, Sixteenth Street Clinic
Neil Parrott, the GOP nominee for Maryland's 6th Congressional District, speaks to supporters at an election night party in Hagerstown. Parrott conceded the race Thursday to Democrat April McClain Delaney. Photo by Danielle E. Gaines.

Turns out the third time was not the charm for Neil Parrott, the Republican nominee in the 6th District congressional race.

Parrott, who ran unsuccessfully for the same seat in 2020 and 2022, threw in the towel on the 2024 race Thursday, acknowledging that with the vast majority of votes counted it has become clear that April McClain Delaney will be elected to this Congressional seat.

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I wish Mrs. McClain-Delaney all the best as she executes her duties to serve the people of Marylands 6th Congressional District over the next two years, Parrott said in a statement posted to social media Thursday afternoon.

His concession comes almost a week after McClain Delaney, the Democrat, claimed victory in the race, and one day before local election boards are scheduled to complete their counting of ballots in the Nov. 5 election.

The Maryland State Board of Elections reported Thursday afternoon that McClain Delaney had 191,579 votes to Parrotts 172,795, a margin of 52.5% to 47.3%. It was unclear how many ballots remained to be counted, but Garrett County was still counting mail-in ballots Thursday and Montgomery County was still counting provisional ballots, according to the elections board.

The concession brings to a close the mostly closely watched House race in the state. The 6th District, stretching from northern Montgomery County to the western border of the state, is one of the most competitive in terms of voter registration. It got more Republican-friendly in a recent redistricting and Parrott, a former state delegate, began the race with high name recognition from his earlier campaigns.

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But McClain Delaney, a lawyer and former Commerce Department official, heavily outspent Parrott in the race, which drew significant attention from outside groups. Parrott reported raising $910,000 in his filing last month with the Federal Election Commission, compared to $4.3 million for McClain Delaney. More than $3 million of that was money she loaned to her campaign.

Parrott has been outspent before: His last two campaigns were against Rep. David Trone (D-6th), a wealthy businessman who put tens of millions of his own funds into a failed campaign for the Democratic nomination for Senate this year, leaving the House seat open.

McClain Delaney and Parrott presented voters with a starkly different choice, with campaign positions that hewed to their respective partys lines on most issues. McClain Delaney consistently said Parrott was too conservative for the district, citing his votes against abortion rights while in Annapolis, while Parrott called McClain Delaney  who lives outside the district  out of touch with Western Maryland.

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As expected, the conservative western counties in the district  Allegany, Garrett and Washington  went heavily for Parrott, but McClain Delaney built a solid lead Frederick County and dominated in Montgomery County to secure the win.

The win preserves Democrats dominance in Marylands congressional delegation, where the party holds both Senate seats and seven of eight House seats. But Democrats will still be in the minority in both chambers on Capitol Hill, and answering to a Republican president, after the 2024 elections.

While the results are still not official, McClain Delaney was in Washington this week for orientation meetings for incoming House freshmen. Her win follows 12 years of Democratic control of the 6th District seat: Trone held it for the last three elections and John Delaney, McClain Delaneys husband, held it for six years before that.

Parrott on Thursday thanked the enthusiastic, grassroots support of people from all walks of life who worked alongside us over the last several months, who helped run a positive campaign, focused on the issues that matter to Garrett, Allegany, Washington and Frederick Counties, as well as the northern part of Montgomery County.

Marylands 6th District is a wonderful place to live, and my wife and I will continue to serve and invest in our community, his statement said.
AUSTIN (KXAN)  The Austin Police Departments Office of Police Oversight (OPO) is holding its quarterly meeting Thursday evening to share updates with the public.

The quarterly meetings occur so the Police Oversight Implementation Workgroup can share complaints data and other updates with the community. This upholds the requirements set by City Council Resolution 99, according to a release from the OPO.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at the Cepeda Branch Library (651 N. Pleasant Valley Rd., Austin, TX 78702). Those interested in participating can register online to reserve a spot.

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The event will be presented in English, Spanish, and American Sign Language (ASL). Additional interpretation services and accessibility accommodations are available upon request.

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Nov. 13Two years in the making and already one failure under their belts, passing a $72 million bond was a "team effort," Cheney Public Schools Superintendent Ben Ferney said.

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In February, five school districts in the county asked voters to agree to decadeslong property taxes that would pay for major construction in these districts. Dreams of new schools, additions and renovations were crushed for bond-seeking districts Spokane, Cheney, West Valley, Deer Park and Riverside, leaving school leaders to wonder why.

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Perhaps the cost of living soured property owners on more expenses. Maybe voters weren't compelled to turn in their ballots in a special election. In a divisive political climate, how possible is it to get 60% of a population to agree on anything, especially taxes?

This month, Cheney Public Schools voters proved they could reach a consensus, at least enough to overcome the lofty supermajority approval needed to pass a bond.

"Folks showed up, and they showed up in a big way to support our school district, and just the positive impact we're going to have on our students in the coming years, I'm just thrilled about it," Ferney said.

Their $72 million proposal passed with flying colors, garnering over 62% "yes" votes, according to Wednesday night counts. That's nearly 8 points higher than their February attempt with the same projects and price tag on the bond.

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Soon, Cheney High School's stadium will see new bleachers and fencing, Salnave and Windsor elementaries will get designated bus lanes, and kitchens around the district will see renovations and updates, among other projects.

The biggest and most expensive undertaking funded through the bond, Airway Heights will soon see a new elementary school, with potentially a new high school or middle school years down the road. As the city sees a population surge, kids will soon have a second elementary school to attend, easing some of the pressure on Sunset Elementary already at 121% of its intended capacity.

The district doesn't have a concrete timeline as to when it will break ground on projects, Ferney said, but it will likely prioritize quicker work like the stadium and bus loop while nailing down the timeline for the construction of the new Airway Heights elementary school.

Acquiring land will also be a priority as Airway Heights is ballooning in population and showing no signs of slowing, increasing the demand for land.

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The district is searching for sites for an elementary school, secondary school and bus barn to be constructed with future funding mechanisms.

The district owns a site for the elementary school, 11 acres on Craig Road and First Avenue in northwestern Airway Heights purchased with levy dollars in 2020.

There are neighborhoods and playgrounds erected near the school, Ferney said, foreshadowing the busy community to come: kids walking to and from school, and residents renting the gym for music performances after hours.

"You have a community around that, you have access to the building for parents and guardians and folks to be able to go to school for school events, also then you have the fields that are available," Ferney said. "It really does help bring out the best in the community to have the school right there."

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The city of Airway Heights passed a resolution in support of the bond. Parent groups and volunteers flocked to campaign through sign waving, door knocking, trunk-or-treating, rodeo appearances, and other forms of "small town campaigning," said Zach Zorrozua, who mobilized a coalition of volunteers through his group West Plains Citizens for Excellent Education.

"We went to every community event we could get to, and we talked about the need for the bond, and we engaged the community much more, and it worked," Zorrozua said.

Volunteers worked to ensure residents of each of the three distinct communities encompassed by the 380-square-foot district understood what was in it for them. They spent deliberate energy in Airway Heights. The focused campaign appeared to have paid off, as these precincts showed a surge in support for the November bond compared to the same measure in February.

Schools in Airway Heights, Cheney proper and unincorporated West Plains would each see returns on their investments as kids grow up and become the new Cheney community, Zorrozua said.

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"Our ability to get good jobs and have a good wage and good quality of life really depends on the education we get, even if you don't go to college," he said.

A Cheney grad, Zorrozua is proud of the education he got there. His wife is a principal at Cheney Middle School, where one of his kids attends school. He rattles off the names of friends with whom he graduated who own thriving local businesses, crediting their Cheney education with fueling their success.

"I have a lot of hope for the future," he said.

He's looking decades away, and upon the bond's passage, said he is relieved future generations will enjoy the same education he wears with pride.

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"If my kids end up building a house in Airway Heights or in Cheney, I know that there's going to be a school for their kids to go to," Zorrozua said.

Elena Perry's work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.
A passengers fatal mid-air medical emergency caused chaos aboard a Ryanair flight earlier this week, prompting an emergency landing.

Flight RK8293 from Tirana, Albania to Manchester, England was forced to make an emergency landing in London on Sunday evening, The Manchester Evening News reported. One passenger told the outlet that another began having convulsions before passengers and airline crew members performed CPR in the aisle. Two crew members reportedly used a defibrillator on the victim for nearly a half hour before the plane made an emergency landing at Londons Stansted Airport.

The East of England Ambulance Service told The Independent that the flight was met at the airport by an ambulance, a Hazardous Area Response Team vehicle, a paramedic car, and an air ambulance. Sadly, despite the best efforts of all involved, the man had died at the scene, the service said.

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He stopped breathing and everything went into chaos, the unidentified witness said of the scene onboard. "Two air crew members and three passengers managed to keep doing CPR as instructed by the defibrillator for 25 minutes when we finally landed in London. The paramedics continued for another 30 minutes when we were all instructed to leave the plane, he explained.

"After about another hour, the ambulance was still there but we boarded again with a new air crew to continue the trip to Manchester, without the man and his friends. I asked and was told that, unfortunately, the man did not make it. I was devastated to learn the sad news."

The flight continued on to Manchester, where it arrived several hours after originally scheduled.
Women are stocking up on birth control and asking for long-term contraception methods following President Donald Trump being elected to a second term last week, doctors say.

Searches for "birth control" and "Plan B" doubled between Nov. 2 and the two days after the election, with a notable spike the day after the election, Google Search data shows.

Doctors told ABC News that patients are worried that access to birth control and contraception might be limited after Trump takes office due to efforts made during his first term and comments made on the campaign trail.

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MORE: What Trump has said about birth control, and what he could do as president

Dr. Brittany Cline, an OB-GYN at Northwestern Medicine, in Chicago, said she has seen an increase in the number of appointments being made for contraceptive or birth control counseling as well as appointments for long-acting contraceptives being either inserted or replaced or exchanged.

"We have, in clinic, seen many patients coming in for their [intrauterine device] replacements, even this week," she told ABC News. "On Monday, I used all of our intrauterine devices that the clinic had, and I think that this is going to continue over the next few months and even years down the line, as people try to take some control over their bodies."

Cline said she also received a message from a patient this week requesting four years of her birth control prescription be sent to a pharmacy.

PHOTO: Birth control pills are seen in this stock image. (STOCK PHOTO/Adobe Stock)

'That's something that I have not, you know, seen before. Usually, we supply, you know, 12 months, one year at a time," she said. "We do know that as many medications, there is a shelf life, and so it would not be safe for me to prescribe four years' worth of contraception to a patient because of the shelf life."

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Dr. Leslie Kantor, professor and chair of the Department of Urban Global Public Health at the Rutgers School of Public Health, in New Jersey, told ABC News that she has heard anecdotal reports of more traffic to websites that have information about birth control.

She said patients may be worried because of the federal contraceptive coverage guarantee. Under a provision of the Affordable Care Act, most private insurance plans must cover the full cost of most contraceptives, such as birth control, without making patients pay out-of-pocket costs.

If the incoming Trump administration allows employers and schools to use religious and moral exemptions to prevent coverage of contraceptives, as the White House did during Trump's first term, this may lead to out-of-pocket costs that make contraceptives unaffordable to some, experts previously told ABC News.

The experts say patients may be concerned due to comments Trump made on the campaign trail suggesting he's open to restricting contraceptives.

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During an interview with Pittsburgh TV station KDKA-TV, Trump was asked if he supports any restrictions on a person's right to contraceptives.

MORE: Despite concerns about ACA and reproductive rights, health care was not a voting issue: Experts

"Well, we're looking at that and we're going to have a policy on that very shortly," Trump responded. "And I think it's something you'll find interesting and it's another issue that's very interesting."

When asked to clarify if he was suggesting he was open to supporting some restrictions on contraceptives, "like the morning-after pill," Trump dodged, saying. "Things really do have a lot to do with the states -- and some states are going to have different policy than others."

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Some states have also taken it upon themselves to provide contraception access. In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer launched Take Control of Your Birth Control, a program to provide Michigan families access to free contraception including over-the-counter oral birth control pills, emergency contraception, condoms and family planning.

Both Cline and Kantor recommended that patients speak to their health care providers about the best birth control method for them as well as what options are available for them down the road.

"The advice that I would give to people right now is this is a great time to figure out the best birth control method for you, and you can do that in a variety of ways," Kantor said. "It's a terrific time to find an ongoing method of birth control that will work. There's no reason, however, to panic. Access to birth control is not going away tomorrow, and in fact, it's not going away on the day that Trump becomes president."

ABC News' Lalee Ibssa, Soo Rin Kim and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.

Patients are stockpiling birth control over fears Trump could limit access to contraception originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
"Today's comments by President Ilham Aliyev about French hypocrisy and neocolonialism, made at the summit with small island states, hit the bull's-eye: they struck French President Macron hard. Emmanuel Macron was offended, so much so that he ordered his Minister of Ecology, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, to cancel her trip to Baku for COP29.





This directive was revealed by Pannier-Runacher herself. "After discussions with the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister, it became clear that I would not be going to Baku next week," she said in parliament.





Are they offended? Poor things. Well, let them remember what Ilham Aliyev said at COP29 yesterday, right at the opening. If they called for a boycott and refused to comeso be it. COP29 in Baku has gathered more than 70,000 participants from 196 countries around the worldand we will surely manage without a few French delegates."





Recall that on November 13, during the Summit of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) within the framework of COP29, President Ilham Aliyev highlighted one of the key issues on the international agenda: neocolonialism and climate change.





"The so-called overseas territories of France and the Netherlands, especially in the Caribbean and the Pacific, are among the regions most affected by climate change. Rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and loss of biodiversity are serious threats to these territories. However, the voices of their inhabitants are often brutally suppressed by the regimes in their metropolitan centers. These include the peoples of the French colonies such as New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Mayotte, Wallis and Futuna, Corsica, Reunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Martin, Saint Barthelemy, as well as the Dutch colonies like Aruba, Curacao, Sint Maarten, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba. Let us applaud the residents of these territories. Even today, in the 21st century, they continue to suffer under colonial rule.





From 1946-1947, the United Nations recognized French Polynesia and New Caledonia as Non-Self-Governing Territories, yet the process of their decolonization is still delayed. Between 1966 and 1996, French Polynesia suffered severe environmental degradation due to 193 nuclear tests carried out by France. France is responsible for massive soil and water pollution, as well as radiation contamination in the region, with radiation levels exceeding 4,900 percent. If we also consider the 17 nuclear tests France conducted in Algeria during its colonial occupation, we begin to understand the extent of the damage this country has inflicted on the global ecosystem.





The list of France's crimes in its so-called overseas territories would be incomplete without mentioning the recent human rights violations committed by its regime. President Macron's government killed 13 and injured 169 people during a legitimate Kanak protest in New Caledonia this year. Another 1,700 people were arrested. In the protests in Martinique and Guadeloupe this year, 38 people were arrested. Despite all this, France has not been condemned by the European Commission, the European Parliament, or the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. This is political hypocrisy. The European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)two institutions that have become symbols of political corruptionshare responsibility with Macrons government for the murders of innocent people. All political prisoners in France should be released immediately," President Ilham Aliyev stated.
Out of the 10 biggest school districts across North Carolina, Cabarrus County Schools is the only one that currently does not have an English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum for its K-8 teachers.

That should soon change.

Chief Academic Officer Sarah Reeves presented a plan before the school board Tuesday night to use a fund balance appropriation totaling $2.8 million to purchase a comprehensive K-8 ELA curriculum. The district has previously leveraged free open-source online resources, many of which are now behind pay walls.

This has been a key priority for the district, Reeves said, as many teachers have voiced support for such an initiative.

We heard loud and clear from our educators, as well as our administrative staff in our elementary and middle schools, that they not only needed but they wanted to be able to have high-quality, rigorous curricular material available to them, Reeves told the school board.

To that end, Reeves and her team over the past several months have visited districts across the state to better understand which ELA curriculums are popular and effective.

As part of the selection process, which involved ensuring potential curriculums aligned with Science of Reading and the North Carolina Standard Course of Study and featured authentic and engaging textbooks, the districts Curriculum and Instruction department has narrowed down the possible options to three: Arts & Letters, ARC Core and Wit & Wisdom.

The district will hold a curriculum preview fair on Dec. 4 where ELA teachers can speak with representatives of the three curriculum vendors to learn more about each of them.

Following the fair, CCS will further solicit feedback from teachers and parents through online engagement surveys to make sure that we have as much data as possible, Reeves said.

The Curriculum and Instruction team will then select a recommended vendor on Dec. 20. The final recommendation will be presented to the new school board early next year.

We really want kids to love reading and writing, and so we wanted to promote that through curricular resources, said Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Tracey Hayes.

Based on a draft timeline, the new curriculum will take effect for second through fifth grades and sixth grade next fall and for K-1 grades and seventh and eighth grades the following year.

Reeves told the board that the new curriculum, once implemented, should not require any continual funding.

So this is an investment that can last almost a decade in most cases, she said.

Why its needed

Some members of the school board were uncomfortable allocating so much money for a curriculum that has not even been chosen yet.

Its a big amount, school board member Rob Walter said, noting he was uncomfortable voting on approving the funding without any prior feedback from the public. He suggested waiting another month until the new board members are sworn in.

Superintendent Dr. John Kopicki acknowledged it is expensive to purchase a comprehensive curriculum, but he underscored the urgency of the problem, noting there is no standard curriculum across the district, which makes it hard on the teachers.

That is a disservice for our teachers to ask them to walk in classrooms every day without a curriculum that they can lean into and use to make sure that we have consistent results, Kopicki said.

He added that it is not fair to ask teachers to pool disparate resources from all over the place and still expect high-quality results from students.

The district will not spend any funding until the board approves of a recommended vendor next year; the presentation Monday was to inform board members of the urgent need for a new curriculum and how much it would be expected to cost.

Board member Brian Floyd said he has repeatedly heard from many teachers about the importance of receiving a new curriculum. Its been the No. 1 need Ive heard from them, he said.

The ultimate goal, Kopicki said, is to help students succeed. But in order to do that, we have to help our teachers help our kids.

The board approved the fund balance appropriation of $2.8 million as presented.
Editors note: This story has been updated with revised paving plans from the city.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN)  Paving projects will close some roads in downtown Youngstown this weekend.

It will be going on Friday through Saturday.

There will be paving on Federal Street between Market and Champion, as well as Commerce Street between Market and Phelps.

The eastern half of the intersection of Federal and Market Street will be closed. North and southbound traffic will continue on the western half of the intersection.

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You will still be able to get to the DoubleTree hotel.

The city reminds drivers to be careful as they travel through work zones.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com.
ELMIRA, N.Y. (WETM)  Mark Longo, the owner of internet sensation PNut the Squirrel, is set to seek legal action against those accountable after the Oct. 30th seizure of the squirrel from Longos home in Pine City.

Longo sat down with 18 News Jim Turpin on Wednesday, Nov. 13, where he confirmed that a lawsuit is coming and talked about whats next for the sanctuary.

We are going tofile a lawsuit, and well move forward with that, and well let everyone know about that when the time is right, Longo said.

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The sanctuary is going to continue, despite losing PNut, with Longo saying he has a duty to all the other animals on his farm who are like PNut.

We want to stick to the mission that we have with our non-profit, Longo said. Its going to be hard for me to do this, but I have an obligation to the other animals here, I cant just give up, I cant just pack up and move, he said.

Longo brought awareness to Peanuts Law and hopes it will be passed to make sure the situation that he and his wife went through doesnt happen to anyone ever again.

Peanuts Law was devised by Assemblyman Jake Blumencranz of the 15th Assembly District in Long Island. The law would ensure humane treatment and due process for sanctuary animals in New York while strengthening animal rights, and animal sanctuary protections, and safeguarding public safety.

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Longos appearance on 18 News comes one day after Chemung County Executive Chris Moss held a news conference laying out a timetable of events leading up to the DEC raid and seizure of PNut and Fred the Raccoon.

At the conference, Moss confirmed what Longo and many others already suspected in that the rabies results for PNut and Fred the Raccoon came back negative.

Longo is still reeling from the raid on his home, saying there are things left from it that will be there for a long time.

Its tough, ya know, we have a stain in our bathroom caused by the DEC, and Im going to have to look at that one until I pull up the carpet, Longo said. Ya know, I walk in there and I cry every day, he said.

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To Longo, PNut wasnt just a squirrel, but his best friend, and a huge reason his sanctuary grew into what it is today. Longo explained that PNuts social media presence paid for much of the sanctuarys expenses. Taking care of more than 300 animals isnt cheap with Longo saying expenses reach around $25,000 to keep them safe and healthy.

Toward the end of the interview, Longo was asked if he believed in the investigation that was going on at the DEC into the incident and Longo said no.

The full interview with Mark Longo will air on Talk of the Tiers on Sunday, Nov. 17, on channel 18 with the VOD available next week.

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A 26-year-old man was charged with attempted murder in the second degree Tuesday after he allegedly attacked his 61-year-old father with a knife in Pearl City Sunday night.

Valentin John Rudy Bigornia was arrested by officers with the Honolulu Police Department at 1060 Kamehameha Highway at 6 :30 p.m. Sunday.

Bigornia allegedly assaulted his father with a knife, according to police, and made his initial court appearance this morning.

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Honolulu Emergency Medical Services responded and treated Bigornias father, Valentin Quario Bigornia, who suffered multiple serious injuries from an apparent assault and multiple lacerations  and transported him to an emergency room in serious condition.

The Elder Abuse Branch of the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney is handling the case. Because the victim is older than 60, the 26-year-old Bigornia may receive a longer prison sentence if convicted.

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HONOLULU POLICE DEPARTMENT Valentin J.R. Bigornia, 26.

HONOLULU POLICE DEPARTMENT Valentin J.R. Bigornia, 26.

A 61-year-old man allegedly stabbed by his 26-year-old son in Pearl City Sunday night told police his son suffers from schizophrenia and was off his medication at the time of the attack, according to state court documents.

Valentin John Rudy Bigornia was arrested by officers with the Honolulu Police Department at 1060 Kamehameha Highway at 6 :30 p.m. Sunday on suspicion of attempted murder in the second degree.

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His father, Valentin Quario Bigornia, suffered blunt injuries to the head and neck, multiple stab /penetrating wounds to the scalp, right forearm, and left elbow, including a penetration into the brain  and was taken into surgery for his injuries.

He was charged Tuesday and is being held in lieu of $100, 000 bail ahead of a preliminary hearing Friday.

Officers responding at 6 :20 p.m. Sunday to a call of a disturbance at an apartment in Pearl City found the 61-year-old Bigornia exiting the apartment covered in blood, with visible gashes and lacerations to his head and upper body,  according to court records.

The two lived together at the apartment located at 1060 Kamehameha Highway in Pearl City from 2002 until 2014, when the 26-year-old Bigornias behavior forced his father to move out.

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In 2014, Valentin J.R. Bigornia was diagnosed with schizophrenia and has not been taking his medication. His father visited him every day.

On Sunday at about 6 :00 p.m., the father went to visit the son to inform him that the replacement phone was being shipped and come in later.

The father allegedly told police that his son hit him with his hands and a guitar stand where he felt pain.

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He also allegedly told officers his son stabbed him and officers noted that Valentin Bigornia Sr. was covered in blood and had multiple stab wounds to his head and arms.

He suffered multiple serious injuries from an apparent assault and multiple lacerations  and city Emergency Medical Services technicians transported him to an emergency room in serious condition.

Officers found Valentin J.R. Bigornia lying naked, covered in blood, on the living room floor,  according to court documents. The 26-year-old Bigornia was responsive and complaining of pain in his ankle,  but no other significant injuries  were found.

During a search of the apartment officers allegedly found a kitchen knife with a silver blade approximately 7  in length with a white handle.

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In the living room, there was a broken guitar stand  made out of metal.

The Elder Abuse Branch of the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney is handling the case. Because the victim is older than 60, the 26-year-old Bigornia may receive a longer prison sentence if convicted.

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PECOS, Texas (KMID/KPEJ)  The Pecos Police Department is warning residents of an individual reportedly impersonating a third-party vendor of Texas-New Mexico Power.

The Pecos Police Department said it has received reports of suspicious activity involving an individual claiming to represent Texas-New Mexico Power as a third-party vendor. TNMP, however, has said there are currently no authorized vendors in the area and have expressed concern regarding the individuals interactions with residents.

ECSO warns of law enforcement impersonation scam

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Below is a photo of the reported incident. If you see this person in your area, you are encouraged to exercise caution and report their location to the Pecos Police Department immediately. You can call the police department at 432-445-4911.

The Pecos Police Department said if you encounter suspicious activity such as this incident, you should do the following:

Always request proper identification from anyone claiming to represent a utility company or other service provider. If in doubt, contact the company directly to confirm the individuals credentials.

Do not share personal or financial information with strangers or unsolicited visitors.

Do not let unknown individuals enter your home without verifying their identity or purpose.

If you observe any unusual behavior or have concerns about individuals in your area, please contact the local authorities.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo.  Kansas City police are investigating after a person was hit and killed while walking on Interstate 435 near Wornall Road.

Around 6 a.m. Thursday officers responded to eastbound I-435 and Wornall on a fatal crash where a pedestrian was hit, according to KCPD.

Jackson County Commission passes gun ordinance, still needs executive signature

According to police, for an unknown reason, a pedestrian was standing and/or walking in the southernmost lane of eastbound I-435. The pedestrian was hit by a Ford F-150 that was traveling eastbound on I-435.

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Police said the driver of the Ford was not hurt in the crash, stopped immediately and cooperated with the investigation.

The pedestrian was pronounced deceased at the scene. An investigation into the crash is ongoing.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
PEKIN, Ill.  The Pekin City Council voted 4-3 Tuesday to keep the 1% state-instituted grocery tax set to expire on Jan. 1, 2026.

Illinois was one of a handful of states that instituted the grocery tax with the Jan. 1, 2026, sunset that also allows cities to implement a replacement version of the tax either on groceries or a general sales tax without needing to do a referendum.

Pekin Mayor Mary Burress was one of the four people voting to keep the tax. She said it allows the city to still realize the $1.5 to $1.7 million in revenue and to share that more broadly to include those just passing through the citys grocery stores.

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If we werent to pass this, then we would have to be raising something to come up with the $1.7 million loss, Burress said.

Pekins finance director, Eric Dubrowski agrees with the mayor. He says losing out on that tax money would impact essential services to residents.

I think people acknowledged the fact that if the city lost this revenue stream, that it would make a sizable dent each year to the citys operations, Dubrowski said. Staff estimates were on that $1.5 million range, so over a ten year period, were looking at $15 million, which is sizable for both your operations, your roads, everything like that.

Illinois grocery tax to end in 2026

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Burress said an alternative funding replacement would like have to come in the form of property taxes and that only impacts the communitys homeowners.

Dubrowski says the city didnt want to have to explore other options.

Youre talking about notable cuts. So lets say if it was at $1.5 million a year, that could be operational, he said. Over a ten year span, it gets into $15 million worth of cuts and its going to be sizable. Thats not just reducing poppies or whatnot. It gets into public safety, public works, different projects that you would see.

Dubrowski says the money from the grocery tax goes to the citys general fund. Which means it goes to general corporate activities.

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These are probably some of the most valuable dollars that we see because theyre not earmarked for any particular function, he said.

Dubrowski also says Pekin residents are already paying that 1% grocery tax, so nothing changes.

Its just keeping the status quo. It was repealed at the state level. The state wasnt directly impacted. It was kind of shifting it to all the different communities, he said. So the communities, if they want to continue with their operations and their revenue flows, its a matter of reinstating the tax, and the city decided to go ahead and keep it the status quo.

The trio of councilmen who voted against the measure include Lloyd Orrick, Dave Nutter and Rick Hilst. Councilman Orrick said during the meeting that the council should wait on passing it.

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Pekin is the second central Illinois community to vote on keeping the grocery tax. The town of Normal approved to keep the tax in September.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM)  House Resolution 563 was adopted on Wednesday. It brings awareness to student homelessness and establishes a Red Shirt Day in Pennsylvania on Friday, Nov. 15.

Representatives from advocacy groups and school districts joined lawmakers in the State Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday. Theyre pushing for more funding to address student homelessness.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, more than 46,000 students statewide were homeless during the 2022-2023 school year. Dauphin, Lancaster and York counties account for more than 2,000 of those students.

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Advocates want lawmakers to identify a funding source to supplement the federal Education for Children & Youth Experiencing Homelessness by $10 million.

The Homeless Childrens Education Fund was able to help University of Pittsburgh Junior Jada Guiste who says she first experienced homelessness in the ninth grade. Guiste is a Hope through Learning Scholarship Award recipient.

We need to make sure that there are enough resources and that these resources are known.

Having the opportunity to get higher education was the most impactful thing in my life, Guiste says. It gave me hope for a better future.

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Our schools, our students need more social work and other professionals, says Rep. Ismail Smith-Wade-El (D)  Lancaster County.

Regional Coordinator Sonia Pitzi says its important that students know their rights under the McKinney-Vento Act.

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One of the most important rights is they get to stay in their school of origin, Pitzi says.

House Resolution 563 sponsor Rep. Gina Curry says bills addressing youth homelessness that did not make it through the House or the Senate will be re-introduced during the next legislative session.

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The results of a hotly contested Senate race in Pennsylvania are headed to an automatic recount after neither candidate won by a large enough margin, Pennsylvanias top elections official announced Wednesday.

The Associated Press declared Republican Dave McCormick, a former hedge fund manager, the winner over Sen. Bob Casey (D) on Nov. 7, two days after voting concluded. If officially certified, McCormicks win would grant Republicans, who have already retaken the Senate, a 53-seat majority in the upper legislative chamber.

But Casey has refused to accept the APs race call, citing the tens of thousands of provisional, mail-in and absentee ballots that have yet to be counted.

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Whats more, Pennsylvania law mandates a recount if an election is won by less than half of a percentage point. And on Wednesday, with more than 80,000 provisional, mail-in, and absentee ballots still outstanding, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt declared that the unofficial results mandated a recount, since McCormicks lead is still only 0.43%.

Senator-Elect McCormicks lead is insurmountable, which the AP made clear in calling the race, McCormick campaign spokesperson Elizabeth Gregory said in a statement responding to the recount announcement. A recount will be a waste of time and taxpayer money, but it is Senator Caseys prerogative. Senator-Elect McCormick knows what its like to lose an election and is sure Senator Casey will eventually reach the right conclusion.

Schmidt, the top elections official, estimated that the recount will cost the state a little over $1 million.

McCormick welcomed a recount in his 2022 Senate primary loss to Mehmet Oz  a recount that cost Pennsylvania more than $1 million.

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Caseys campaign has also noted that while Republicans are now suing to throw out absentee ballots that were received on time but that were missing a handwritten date, in 2022, McCormick sought to include such ballots in the official count.

David McCormicks hypocritical reversal on undated mail ballots is further proof of his determination to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters while counties continue to count votes in this razor-thin election, Casey campaign manager Tiernan Donohue said in a statement on Thursday. Senator Caseys priority continues to be making sure Pennsylvanians voices are heard as our democratic process unfolds.

The elections boards in each of Pennsylvanias 67 counties must begin their recounts by next Wednesday and complete it by Nov. 26. Once the recount has been completed, each county must submit the results to the state by noon on Nov. 27.

Pennsylvania requires counties to recount any ballots with overvotes, in which a voter selected more than the required number of candidates, by hand. A manual recount is likewise recommended for ballots with stray markings or undervotes, in which voters leave their ballots blank for a given contest.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) speaks to reporters after voting at Scranton High School on Tuesday. He cast himself as a more authentic tribune for working Pennsylvanians. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

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Republican David McCormick and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey are vying for Pennsylvanias U.S. Senate seat (Capital-Star composite from official/campaign photos)

Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said Wednesday that the unofficial vote count for the U.S. Senate race between Democrat Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick is within the 0.5% margin, which means the race will go to an automatic recount under state law.

The Associated Press called the race for McCormick on Nov. 7, but Casey has not conceded, citing the large number of uncounted ballots. The same day the AP called the race, the Pennsylvania Department of State said there were 100,000 ballots yet to be counted.

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McCormick has 48.93% of votes, and Casey has 48.5%, according to unofficial results, Schmidt said, a margin of 0.43%.

Schmidts office estimated that the recount will cost more than $1 million in taxpayer funds.

The states 67 counties must begin the recount by Nov. 20, and complete the recount by noon on Nov. 26, the Department of State said, and must report results to the secretary by noon on Nov. 27. Results of the recount will not be published until Nov. 27, Schmidts office said.

The recount marks the eighth time the states automatic recount provision has been triggered since the state passed Act 97 in 2004. Not all candidates opt in to participate in a recount, or concede so the recount ends or doesnt take place. But in all four cases where a recount was carried out, the initial results of the election were affirmed, meaning the results remained unchanged.

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According to Schmidts office, the four recounts that took place since 2004 were:

The 2022 GOP primary for U.S. Senate between McCormick and Mehmet Oz, which cost the state $1,052,609

The 2021 general election, between Democrat Lori Dumas and Republican Drew Crompton for Commonwealth Court, which cost $1,117,180

The 2011 Democratic primary for Commonwealth Court between Kathy Boockvar and Barbara Behrend Ernsberger which cost $525,006.70

And the 2009 general election for Superior Court between Anne Lazarus, Robert Colville and Temp Smith, which cost $541,698.56

A McCormick campaign spokesperson said Wednesday that a recount would be a waste of time and taxpayer money but added it was Caseys prerogative.

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Senator-Elect McCormicks lead is insurmountable, which the AP made clear, McCormick spokesperson Elizabeth Gregory said in a social media post McCormick knows what its like to lose an election & is sure Senator Casey will eventually reach the right conclusion.

The Casey campaign did not immediately reply to a request for comment following Schmidts announcement.

McCormick held a victory party in Pittsburgh on Friday, and on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumers office said McCormick and Senator-elect Ruben Gallego of Arizona had been invited to freshman Senator orientation.

In a statement Tuesday morning, Casey thanked election officials for continuing to count the ballots. Our county election officials will finish counting those votes, just like they do in every election, he said. The American democratic process was born in Pennsylvania and that process will play out.

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Before Schmidt determined whether a recount had been triggered, the campaigns and their supporters were accusing each other of failing to respect the will of voters. The Casey campaign pointed to a lawsuit that the GOP filed Tuesday seeking to reverse an Oct. 30 Commonwealth Court ruling that mail ballots with missing or incorrect dates must be counted.

David McCormick and his allies are trying to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters with litigation designed to throw out large tranches of votes that theyve admitted in legal filings could impact the outcome of the election, Casey campaign manager Tiernan Donohue said in a statement earlier Wednesday. Senator Casey wants all Pennsylvanians voices to be heard as local county election officials continue to count votes. This democratic process must be allowed to play out to determine the result of this election.

The argument McCormick is making in the latest case differs from the one he and his attorneys made in 2022, when the outcome of the GOP primary for U.S. Senate was decided by less than 1,000 votes, and went to a recount. McCormicks attorneys sought to have undated mail ballots counted in the 2022 race, which McCormick ultimately conceded to Mehmet Oz.

A new television ad paid for by the conservative outside spending group Fair Election Fund calls Casey and the Democrats sore losers and points out that Casey called for President-elect Donald Trump to concede in 2020 to respect the peaceful transfer of power.

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Trump famously did not concede and attempted to overturn the results of the election, which President Joe Biden won.

Recounts in Pennsylvania

The last time a statewide recount was triggered in Pennsylvania was McCormick-Oz in 2022.

At the local level, groups of at least three voters in a precinct can request a recount if they believe fraud or errors took place. That kind of recount only affects votes cast in the voters precincts, which is generally a small number of voters. There are a total of about 9,000 precincts across Pennsylvanias 67 counties.

Jill Stein, the 2016 Green Party presidential nominee, attempted to stage a recount of that years presidential election in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Her campaign filed requests challenging results in more than 100 precincts across Pennsylvania, alleging concerns about the integrity of electronic voting machines, but dropped the effort after a Pennsylvania court required a $1 million bond to cover the costs.

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Recounts are rare, and notoriously difficult to win, according to an October analysis by Fair Vote, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for ranked choice voting. It found that of the nearly 7,000 statewide general elections nationally between 2000 and 2023, there were 36 recounts. Of those, only three resulted in reversals, and happened in elections where the margin of victory was less than 0.06%. The last time a statewide recount led to a reversal was the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, which gave the win to Al Franken.

The Department of State said Wednesday that there were 60,366 uncounted provisional ballots and 20,155 uncounted mail and absentee ballots, for a total of 80,521 ballots that county boards of election have not yet made a final resolution regarding their validity or eligibility to be counted.

Most recounts shift only a small number of votes, Fair Vote found, and, usually widen the gap between the winner and the runner up rather than narrowing it.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and X.
A 79-year-old woman was escorted off a Jet2 plane by armed police following a row over a frozen tuna roll.

The pensioner, who only gave her name as Lily, was flying from Stansted Airport to Bodrum, Turkey, on Nov 3 when she became embroiled in a spat with the cabin crew.

She said it came after she refused to pay for the 9 food trolley tuna bap after discovering it was frozen in the middle.

However, Lily, from Hertfordshire, claimed airline staff insisted on payment because she had opened the wrapper.

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Upon landing, she said all passengers were instructed to remain in their seats while she and her daughter were approached by armed police.

The pensioner told The JVS Show on BBC Three Counties Radio: They called the police. Not one ... but four police at the end, at the door. I was in shock, I was saying to people: I think Ive been arrested over a sandwich.

The policemen were there with their guns.

The pair handed over their passports at the request of the police, but the officers said just go, she added.

Jet2 said Lily had displayed a catalogue of disruptive behaviour on board, including the unauthorised consumption of her own alcohol.

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The 79-year-old said she had slept for most of the flight but found the cabin crews persistent request for payment to be so stressful.

And then the end [with the police] was just awful, she said.

Lilys daughter later sent an email to Jet2 complaining about their upsetting experience.

Disruptive behaviour

A Jet2 spokesman told The Telegraph: We can confirm that [she] displayed a catalogue of disruptive behaviour on board flight LS1609 from London Stansted to Bodrum including the unauthorised consumption of her own alcohol that she had brought on board.

As a result, police met the aircraft on arrival at Bodrum to escort [her] and her daughter off the aircraft.

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As a family-friendly airline, we take a zero-tolerance approach to such behaviour, and we make it very clear that customers cannot consume their own alcohol on flights.

The spokesman added: We will always support our crew in instances when they are subjected to rude or unpleasant behaviour while prioritising the safety and comfort of all passengers and crew.

Lily rejected Jet2s comments as disgusting.

She said: I dont know what theyre talking about. I think theyre so embarrassed over this sandwich and the police and the way we were treated.

They are the ones that behaved disgustingly and disturbed me all the way through the flight.

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Lily initially denied taking her own alcohol on board but later admitted that the pair had brought on two wines each.

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The Louisiana House of Representatives approved the second part of a legislative combo that would provide make permanent a K-12 public school teacher pay raise.

House Bill 5 by Rep. Tony Bacala, R-Prairieville, advanced Thursday on a 99-0 vote. Together with House Bill 7 by Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, the legislation would use constitutionally protected funds to pay down approximately $2 billion dollars in state teacher retirement system debt. Local school districts would be required to use money they would have put toward that debt to make a $2,000 stipend the Legislature provided on a temporary basis for the past two years a permanent part of teachers salaries.

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A $1,000 stipend for school support workers would also be made permanent.

Emersons bill, which cleared the House on a 81-15 vote, is a constitutional amendment that requires voter approval and also contains several other constitutional changes required to make Republican Gov. Jeff Landrys tax package complete.

The two bills will next be discussed in Senate committees.

Tying in the teacher pay aspect, which has near-total bipartisan support, could play a crucial role in turning out voters to support the amendment. Landry has faced pushback from Democrats on portions of the proposal that could increase the tax burden of low- and middle-income individuals. Business interests object to the elimination of certain tax exemptions aimed at drawing jobs and investment to the state.

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If voters reject Emersons constitutional amendment, lawmakers would have the choice of either funding the teacher pay raise through the regular budget process or cutting teacher pay.

The three funds Emerson is seeking to use to pay down the debt  the Louisiana Quality Education Trust Fund, the Louisiana Education Quality Support Fund and the Education Excellence Fund  currently support various educational programs.

Rep. Barbara Freiberg, R-Baton Rouge, a former teacher, said using those funds will lead to the elimination of 1,500 seats in early childhood education programs. The money also pays for certain higher education needs, including research and matching endowments.

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Lawmakers also approved an amendment to the bill Thursday that would give school districts flexibility in how they use any excess funds that would have gone toward retirement debt payments. This could make up for some of the early childhood education seats that could be lost by raiding the funds that finance them, but not every school district would see extra savings.

In fact, some school districts would not see enough savings to make their teacher pay raises permanent, but Bacala said he believes it would cost the state less than $1 million to make up the difference, a small drop in the bucket of the entire state budget.

An analysis of the bill from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Office said the amount the state would need to provide for school districts that come up short could be anywhere between $70,000 and $6.2 million.

Bacalas bill does not explicitly address charter schools, whose teachers are largely not in the Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana. Orleans Parish, where nearly all schools operate under charters, would see the least benefit from the bill, but lawmakers are looking at alternatives to fund raises so charter teachers do not see a pay cut.

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Its my intention to treat everyone equally and make everyone whole, House Appropriations Chairman Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, said in an interview.

The retirement debt payment would also free up about $75 million annually currently paid toward the debt by Louisianas four higher education systems: University of Louisiana, LSU, Southern and the community and technical college system. Legislators, including McFarland, currently seem in favor of allowing higher education to retain that savings, but this would not be finalized until the Legislature crafts the 2025-26 budget in its spring legislative session.

Allowing higher education to retain these savings would make up for the approximately $20 million in support institutions will lose by dissolving the three state funds.

The total package is aimed at stabilizing the state budget after years of relying on a temporary 0.45% sales tax scheduled to expire June 30. If the plan passes in its entirety, analysts say it will result in a small, permanent increase in revenue for the state general fund, which pays for most state government services.

But it also will lead to an overall loss of state revenue, particularly money kept in reserve accounts, of a few hundred million dollars annually.

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Video: Initial coverage of the shooting.

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN)  A moment of kindness turned deadly at a convenience store, gas station combo in Dayton Thursday morning.

According to Montgomery County Regional Dispatch, officers were dispatched to Dayton RoadDog on N. James H. McGee Boulevard minutes after 2 a.m. on reports of a person shot.

Our 2 NEWS crew was at the scene and reported seeing forensics services and a detective investigating. The Montgomery County Coroner Office later confirmed that their office was called to the scene as well.

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Around 11 a.m. Thursday, during a press conference, Dayton Police Maj. Brian Johns said that a man died at the scene, labeling the incident a homicide.

Based on an initial investigation, a driver made a stop at Dayton RoadDog and saw an individual alleged to be loitering on the premises in the rain. The driver let the individual into their vehicle to get out of the rain.

A disagreement began when the person alleged of loitering asked for a ride and the driver declined. The individual reportedly began to assault the driver, which is when the driver shot the person. The person shot succumbed to the injury. The altercation occurred entirely inside of the vehicle.

No charges have been pressed and no arrests have been made as of 11:30 a.m. Thursday. The Montgomery County Prosecutors Office will review the case before any potential charges are made.

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Watch the full press conference in the player below.

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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO)  With the holiday seasons around the corner, the Sioux Falls Area Humane Society and Best Care Pet Hospital will host a special microchip clinic Thursday.

The Sioux Falls Area Humane Society is teaming up with Best Care Pet Hospital to microchip 50 pets for free, just ahead of the holidays.

What to know about Rock the Country

For one thing during the holidays you might have extra family members over and maybe they arent as good about keeping the doors shut to keep the pets inside or maybe youre even traveling with your pet and this is something thats good just not in our local area, but across the U.S., Interim Executive Director Michelle Hentschel said.

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With a microchip, pet owners can be better prepared in case of any accidental escapes, giving them an extra layer of security and peace of mind.

A microchip holds the contact information for the pet owner that way if the animal is picked up by Animal Control or a good samaritan, it can be scanned for that microchip and have that reunification, Community Outreach Director Dana Konzem said.

Each chip carries a unique identification number that can be quickly scanned, linking it to the owners contact information.

The Humane Society says nearly half of all animals brought here are strays, so if they are microchipped it helps get them back to their owners.

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To give you an idea of how important microchipping is, the Humane Society says they have found pets from as far away as Texas and Georgia and one story in particular is pretty amazing.

We once had a cat that came in and we scanned its microchip, it turned out that cat had been missing for two years, so we were very happy to call the owner and say Hey we have your cat and they immediately came and picked it up it was a wonderful reunification, Konzem said.

After the first 50 pets are chipped, microchips will be available at the low-cost rate of $20 (plus tax).

The free microchipping clinic is on Thursday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Sioux Falls Area Humane Society.

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Pete Hegseth served as a National Guardsman in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan, earning two Bronze stars. But after President Biden was elected, Hegseth left the military, complaining he was ordered to stand down from his duty guarding Bidens inauguration because top brass dubbed him a white nationalist and an extremist.

The military I loved, I fought for, I revered spit me out, Fox News co-host Hegseth wrote in a recent book. I separated from an Army that didnt want me anymore. The feeling was mutual  I didnt want this Army anymore either.

The man that didnt want this Army may soon control it.

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President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Hegseth as secretary of Defense, a move that would put a combat veteran who has complained about woke forces  and called for the firing of top generals  in charge of the Pentagon.

"Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First, Trump said Tuesday as he announced the nomination on Truth Social. With Pete at the helm, Americas enemies are on notice  our military will be great again, and America will never back down.

A 44-year-old Princeton graduate and staunch Trump supporter, Hegseth has since 2017 been a co-host of the weekend edition of morning program Fox & Friends, on which Trump has appeared. He joined the network as a contributor in 2014.

Trump's nomination of a TV host with no senior military or government experience has provoked incredulity among some veterans and defense experts. The Defense Department, with a budget of more than $800 billion, includes some 1.3 million active-duty troops and 1.4 million more in the National Guard, Reserves and civilian employees.

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If his nomination is approved by Congress, Hegseth is certain to bring sweeping changes to the military. He is also likely to put it in the public crosshairs of the culture wars as it confronts global crises including wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Read more: Trump picks Fox News host Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary

There is reason for concern that this is not a person who is a serious enough policymaker, serious enough policy implementer, to do a successful job, said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

Hegseth is undoubtedly the least qualified nominee for SecDef in American history, Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Independent Veterans of America, said on X. And the most overtly political. Brace yourself, America.

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Wow, former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger posted on X. Trump picking Pete Hegseth is the most hilariously predictably stupid thing.

Trumps former national security advisor John Bolton, who was ousted in 2019, said his former boss probably picked Hegseth because he saw him as compliant.

I do think this is a loyalty choice  really, the better word we should be using is fealty choice, Bolton said in a CNN interview.

Bolton said Hegseth had an admirable and super military record. But the question, he said, was what Hegseth would do if Trump ordered him to instruct the military to perform illegal acts.

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Give him a chance up to the point when Trump starts ordering the military to do illegal, immoral, unconstitutional things, Bolton said. That's where the real test of Pete Hegseths character will come.... What will Pete Hegseth do the first time Trump tells him to put the 82nd Airborne onto the streets of Portland, Oregon?

Hegseth has already advocated purging the military of top officials, such as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.  or anyone who has advocated for diversity and inclusion programs.

First of all, youve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Hegseth said on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast when asked how he would reform the military. Any general that was involved, any general, admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI-woke s has got to go.

Over the last few years, many conservatives have criticized the military under the Biden administration. Soon after taking office, Biden rescinded a Trump-era executive order restricting diversity training on systemic racism in federal government, including the military.

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Read more: Trump's choice for Defense secretary stuns the Pentagon, raises questions about the Fox News host's experience

Within months, two Republican combat veterans in Congress  Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas  launched an online whistleblower form that encouraged military personnel to report examples of woke ideology in the military. GOP lawmakers also held a House Armed Services Committee hearing and grilled senior military leaders, including Adm. Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, about his decision to add Ibram X. Kendis How to Be an Antiracist to soldiers' reading list.

On television and podcasts, Hegseth has repeatedly railed against military leaders. The so-called elites directing the military today believe power is bad, merit is unfair, ideology is more important that industriousness, white people are yesterday, and safety! is better than risk-taking, Hegseth writes in his book "The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free."

"Do we really want only the woke 'diverse' recruits that the Biden administration is curating to be the ones with the guns and guidons?" he asks.

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Hegseth writes in the book that he was removed from his duty guarding Biden's inauguration because soldiers scrolled through his social media and spotted a tattoo on his chest of a Jerusalem or Deus vult cross, a historic Christian symbol that in recent years has been appropriated by the far right.

Hegseth contends that the image  which appeared on flags waved by some who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6  is a religious symbol that represents Christs sacrifices and the mission to spread his gospel to the four corners of the world. He got the tattoo, he said, after he saw it on a church while walking in Jerusalem.

In his statement announcing Hegseth as his Defense secretary pick, the president-elect said the book reveals the leftwing betrayal of our Warriors, and how we must return out Military to meritocracy, lethality, accountability, and excellence.

Hegseth, who has questioned whether women should be allowed to serve in combat, rails in the book against diverse recruits, pumped full of vaccines and even more poisonous ideologies. When a real conflict breaks out, he writes, red-blooded American men will have to save their elite candy-asses.

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North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, whose chamber will vote on the nomination, called the nomination interesting. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Hegseth would be "reform-minded in the areas that need reform.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
President-elect Donald Trumps latest pick for Secretary of Defense, Fox News host Pete Hegseth, has already stirred widespread concern over his inflammatory views on women, transgender people, and diversity initiatives within the military . Known for his staunch opposition to what he calls the woke agenda, Hegseths nomination has sparked a heated debate over his fitness to lead the Department of Defense in Trumps new administration.

Hegseth, a U.S. Army veteran who has deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and transitioned into conservative media, has cemented his reputation as a divisive figure. Since joining Fox News in 2014, Hegseth has co-hosted Fox & Friends Weekend and other Fox Nation programming, positioning himself as a conservative voice critical of progressive military policies. He has also served as CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, a Koch brothers-funded organization that advocates for conservative veteran issues.

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Hegseth has built a brand on his rejection of modern inclusivity, focusing much of his rhetoric on what he claims is the degradation of the military by woke policies. His nomination, announced Tuesday, highlights Trumps ongoing effort to install loyalists in high-ranking positions, even as they court controversy.

In his Truth Social announcement, Trump praised Hegseth as a true believer in America First and as someone who will ensure that Americas enemies are on notice. Trumps statement emphasized Hegseths toughness and loyalty, qualities the former president values in his inner circle, despite Hegseths lack of experience in government leadership roles.

Among Hegseths most controversial positions is his opposition to women in combat roles, a stance he elaborated upon during a recent interview with former Navy SEAL and conservative podcast host Shawn Ryan. Hegseth questioned the militarys decision to integrate women into combat positions, suggesting on November 7 that their inclusion could weaken combat units. Men and women are different, Hegseth said, framing this difference as inherently disqualifying for women in combat scenarios.

I love women service members who contribute amazingly, he said, but everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated. And complication in combat means casualties are worse.

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He has called for a purge of military leaders who support DEI initiatives, saying, Generals and admirals involved in any of the DEI woke s--t have got to go. He also argued that DEI and critical race theory distract from the militarys core mission.

In the same interview, Hegseth also took aim at transgender military personnel, whom he argued create complications within the ranks.

The integration of the military racially was a huge success, and it was a huge success because Black men and Hispanic men and others can perform just as well as white guys in any capacity that theyre given, Hegseth said. So the reality of life reinforced that the bigotry we saw on the outside should not be tolerated inside the military. And the military did a great job doing that. But now were pushing boundaries and lots of different levels that are different than that because men and women are different because being transgendered in the military causes complications and differences.

His remarks against transgender service members illustrate his alignment with Trumps previous ban on transgender people in the militarya policy reversed by President Joe Biden early in his term that Trump is expected to bring back. Hegseth has pushed back on inclusive policies that he claims distract from the mission, equating a more diverse military with a less effective one.

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As if his recent comments werent enough to stoke controversy, an old clip of Hegseth resurfaced on social media following his nomination. In the 2019 clip, Hegseth told his Fox & Friends co-hosts, I dont really wash my hands ever. Germs arent real.

Watch Pete Hegseths bizarre appearance on the Shawn Ryan podcast below.
In his first few picks for Cabinet secretaries, President-elect Donald Trump has made it cleareven clearer than many had predictedthat his main criterion for selection is blind loyalty. Qualities such as competence or experience have no bearing whatsoever.

One of the nominees, a combat veteran and Fox News host named Pete Hegseth, is so blatantly unqualifieda caricature of MAGA fidelitythat some insiders say even the Senate sworn in this January, with its 53 Republicans, may vote not to confirm him as leader of the Defense Department.

The same might be true (one can always hope) of Trumps pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, the far-right Democrat turned MAGA Republican, who has no relevant experience except, perhaps, that she has avidly parroted Russian propaganda lines to explain a wide variety of international developments.

Only somewhat less jaw-dropping is Trumps choice of former Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe to be CIA director. An even slightly less lopsided Senate would likely reject Ratcliffe out of fear that hed politicize intelligenceas indeed he did during the brief spell, at the end of Trumps first term, when he was director of national intelligence, the office that oversees and coordinates the 18 U.S. intel agencies. But especially if enough Republicans feel they cant stomach Hegseth or Gabbard in high offices, theyll probably let Ratcliffe go through.

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Other beneficiaries of political payback include South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, nominated to be secretary of homeland security, and New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, who is slated to be United Nations ambassador. Neither has any experience remotely related to the job theyll be handling. Both, however, have been ardent supporters and defenders of Trump; Stefanik enjoys the special distinction of rising to become chair of the House Republican Conference after Rep. Liz Cheney was ousted for criticizing Trump over the Jan. 6 riots.

The oddball of them all, the nominee who emerged out of nowhere, is Hegseth, a complete unknown to anyone who doesnt watch Fox & Friends Weekend, which he has co-hosted for a decade. Of course, Trump is one of that shows regular viewers, and, to the surprise of his advisers, he picked Hegseth to run the Department of Defensethe countrys largest bureaucracy, with 2.8 million employees and a budget this year of $841 billionbecause he liked a lot of what the rugged-looking co-host was saying.

Hegseth fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, but his ranka major in the Army National Guardwasnt exactly a leadership slot. He has written some bestselling books, notably The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free. In it, as well as on several Fox broadcasts, he decried the introduction of diversity requirements in the military, saying that they brought on the rise of woke generals, who in turn weakened the Armys fighting spirit. He has also said that lowering admission requirements, in order to let women join combat units, has had the same deleterious effect. (Many Army officers say that critics such as Hegseth exaggerate the amount of time spent on diversity training and that the women serving in combatin some cases in elite units like the Rangers and Green Beretshave had to pass the same grueling tests as the men.)

The anti-woke attitude may be what appealed most to Trump, who wants to fire generals who display insufficient loyalty to him. Hegseth has said he would appoint a board of retired officers, no doubt of like mind, to draw up lists of active officers who should be dismissed.

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On his Fox show, Hegseth also vigorously protested the prosecutions of soldiers for war crimes, even to the point of persuading Trump, while he was president, to pardon two perpetrators of particularly heinous murders of civilians.

But when it comes to a defense secretarys main jobsforming budgets, assessing weapons systems, managing interservice rivalries, engaging in interagency policymaking, conducting diplomacy with foreign counterparts, and so forthHegseth has no apparent qualifications whatever.

Even some MAGA Republicans see the merits of having someone with at least a bit of political acumen and organizational talent run an enterprise as large, complex, and vital as the Defense Department. It would take four Republican senators to reject his nomination. Some on Capitol Hill think four could be rallied to vote their conscience. If not, and if Hegseth is sworn in, others doubt he would last more than six months on the job. The Pentagon bureaucracy is deeply entrenched; it can wear out far more agile players than Hegseth.

Before launching a political crusade against military officers, Trump might also want to review the biography of his own early business lawyer and mentor Roy Cohn, who began his career as the counsel for Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Cohn, who died in 1986, could have told Trump that McCarthywho rose to prominence by rooting out and prosecuting suspected Communists in governmentmade his big misstep when he went after Army officers. It was during the nationally televised ArmyMcCarthy hearings of 1954 that Joseph Welch, the lawyer for an accused officer, snapped back at the senator, Have you no sense of decency, sir? And that was the end not only of McCarthys witch hunts but also of his careerand, three years later, of his life, from excessive drinking.

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Hegseth probably read some history as an undergrad at Princeton and a masters student at Harvards John F. Kennedy School of Government, so he might want to ponder the takeaways from this tale: Is anti-woke the new anti-communism? Will Hegseth be its Cohn or McCarthy?

As for Gabbard, picked to oversee and coordinate the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies, not much need be said beyond Holy shit! If confirmed, she will replace Avril Haines, who had beenin contrast to Gabbards slim resumedeputy director of the CIA and deputy national security adviser before President Joe Biden nominated her for the job. Haines also has degrees in law and theoretical physics.

If the Senate doesnt dismiss Gabbards nomination as an insult to the enterprise of intelligence gathering and analysis, then we are in serious trouble as a nation. At the very least, one can expect hundreds of intelligence professionals to resignwhich may be Trumps intention. He wants to destroy the administrative state, as his erstwhile strategist Steve Bannon once put it. Putting Gabbard in charge of the intelligence apparatus is one way of doing that.

Ratcliffes nomination as CIA director is only slightly less egregious. In many ways, his and Gabbards selections are more appalling than even that of Hegseth. Although defense secretaries are expected to carry out the presidents policies, the chief of the main intelligence agency is supposed to be rigorously independentand Ratcliffe is anything but that.

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He first came to Trumps fond attention as the congressman who most virulently spoke out against the officials probing the then presidents various alleged improprieties, most notably the Mueller commission delving into tales of Trumps collusion with Russia. Trump wanted to nominate Ratcliffe as director of national intelligence until even Republican senators warned him that the Texas congressman was too partisan and inexperienced for the job. Trump nominated a more moderate congressman, Dan Coats, who filed too many honest reports that were at odds with Trumps own talking points about Iran, North Korea, and Russia. In his final year as president, Trump fired Coats and nominated Ratcliffe, this time sticking by his defender. The Republicans, riding Trumps coattails as the 2020 elections approached, relented. Ratcliffe was confirmed by a narrow margin, 4944.

In his 18 months on the job, Ratcliffe confirmed every fear about him, using his office to validate several conspiracy theories, many of them about Trumps political opponents. Among them was a claim that in the 2016 election, the Russians had backed Hillary Clinton more than they backed Trump, and that in the 2020 election, the Iranians had hacked into the servers of the pro-Trump Proud Boys militia group and sent emails to voters in three battleground states, warning them, You will vote for Trump on Election Day, or we will come after you. In fact, other intel agencies concluded that the Russians had backed Trump, not Clinton, in 2016. And even Ratcliffe had to admit, in the report on the battleground-state emails, that the evidence on Iranian involvement was inconclusive.

Just over a week into Trumps transition to the White House, the once and future president is making good on his most hair-raising threats. Those who dismissed his agenda as theatrics, telling us not to worry, that he doesnt mean them, or that institutional guardrails will keep them from happeningwell, we shall see. Its up to four Republican senators out of 53 to play hero, and as Liz Cheney learned, playing hero in defiance of Donald Trump can end your career. Be very nervous.
Global wireless communications provider Motorola Solutions is celebrating a milestone of 50 years in Singapore. Since opening a small office with six employees back in the early 70s, it's now a strong player in Singapore's public safety agenda.

Motorola is a well-known brand, with such innovations as the 16-bit 68000 microprocessor the StarTac mobile phone, and the classic Razr flip phone. Of course, Motorola itself is well over 50 years old, launching way back in 1928 in Chicago. The company's name was the play of "motor", for car, and "ola" for "hello" - giving new meaning to the famous phone startup chime, "Hello Moto."

Motorola did indeed say hello to motor vehicles, launching car radios, including car radio receivers, which it sold to police departments around Illinois. So, not only did Motorola start its long and successful journey in radio communications but also its mission of contributing to public safety way back then.

It's a strong tradition. Motorola has since split with the mobile phone arm - Motorola Mobility - now a subsidiary of Lenovo, other tech having gone to what is today Zebra Technologies, patents resting with Google, and the radio communications now known as Motorola Solutions.

Motorolans, as they like to be known, say this split was a good thing, helping the company focus again on its core principles and mission - the very radio tech and committment to public safety that it began life with and which was the basis for its strong growth into a household name.

The Singapore arm of the business launched in 1973 with six employees, before becoming a properly incorporated local business in 1974, half a century ago. And, in that 50 years, the business has been a major player in the essential safety and security technologies that Singapore's public safety agencies, critical infrastructure operators, and enterprises depend on every day.

From providing our emergency services with vital technologies, to helping protect vulnerable communities from cybercrime, Motorola Solutions and its employees have positively impacted security and prosperity for all Singaporeans, said National Crime Prevention Council vice chairman Mr Tan Puay Kern.

From its base in the heart of Singapores innovation district, Motorola Solutions provides the country and surrounding region with mission-critical communications, video security, access control and command centre solutions powered by artificial intelligence. These solutions enable more powerful collaboration between public safety agencies and enterprises, connecting those in need with those who can help.

Motorola Solutions has also been recognised for its strong workforce culture, reaching Singapores Best Employers list for the fourth consecutive year in 2024. Its commitment to corporate social responsibility is reflected through its employee volunteering efforts with organisations including National Crime Prevention Council, Yellow Ribbon Singapore and Plant A Tree Programme.

Singapore is renowned for its forward-thinking industries, rapid technology adoption and diverse, highly skilled workers, said Motorola Solutions VP APAC Middle East and Africa Rajat Gupta. Motorola Solutions success in Singapore is built upon common values and a shared commitment to safety and innovation. We look forward to building on our momentum to improve safety and security everywhere.

The safety and innovation component goes hand-in-hand with security by default. "In Singapore we pride ourselves as a highly-digitised smart nation," said NCPC board member Mr Yock Hua Dan, "As we rely more and more on these systems we need them to be secure from the start. It's not wise to introduce equipment and then try to secure it on top."

Products should be secure from start, he said, and explained this is a strong benefit Motorola provides. "We get access to secure systems that we can use safely from the start, and only have to worry about other elements of risk."

Meanwhile, Motorola Solutions and the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT) trains have announced a new 15 year long-term service contract to maintain and extend Motorola Solutions' scalable digital radio TETRA communications platform for daily rail operations.

SMRT has been working with Motorola Solutions for 25 years already, said SMRT Trains principle fellow signal and communications and head of cyber security Leow Wee Lee. "Railway systems don't usually use leading-edge tech but TETRA is so reliable we've signed for another 15 years, for a 40 year partnership," he said.

"Comms are essential for a railway," he explained. The train drivers, stations, and engineers need to continually communicate about power and signals and other items. Also, it's an essential service for commuters. "If a commuter needs to communicate with the control centre, it must reliable; it has to be reliable radio."

"Comms are essential," Mr Leow Wee Lee said, "and for SMRT, behind it is TETRA."

Motorola Solutions and its staff aspire to practically demonstrate its values, as prominently displayed in the Singapore office:

Specifically:

Inclusive

Innovative

Passionate

Driven

Accountable

Partners

Together, these values combine within the Motorolans to allow them to proudly declare, "We are Motorola Solutions."

These values are taken seriously, and while the Motorola Solutions teams enjoys its work, there's a sobering side too. "The US FEC has a stat that a minute shaved off 911 phone calls leads to 10,000 lives saved anually," Gupta said. "We're making sure we're neabling that, helping agencies around the world shave off minutes, and save lives."

In honour of Motorola Solution's 50th anniversary in Singapore check out our showcase below of tech highlights from Motorola. How many of these devices have you used, or seen in public?
Across hours of podcast and television interviews, Army veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth has articulated his plan for a "frontal assault" to reform the Department of Defense from the top down, including by purging "woke" generals, limiting women from some combat roles, eliminating diversity goals and utilizing the "real threat of violence" to reassert the United States as a global power.

As President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for the Secretary of Defense, Hegseth, 44, could have the chance to implement that vision, commanding the country's more than a million active duty soldiers.

An infantry officer in the U.S. Army National Guard, Hegseth deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan before leaving the service with the rank of major, according to military records. Hegseth has worked for Fox News since 2014, where he co-hosts "FOX & Friends Weekend." Once a critic of Trump's foreign policy and military stances during Trump's 2016 campaign, Hegseth grew to become one of Trump's fiercest on-air defenders.

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MORE: Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick for defense secretary, once slammed him for 'shallowness' on foreign policy

"Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First. With Pete at the helm, America's enemies are on notice - Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down," Trump said announcing the nomination.

A New York Times best-selling author, Hegseth has frequently commented on military policy and suggested one of his first orders of business would be firing any generals who supported the Pentagon's diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

"First of all, you got to fire the Chairman Joint of the Chiefs and obviously going to bring in a new Secretary of Defense, but any general that was involved -- general, admiral, whatever -- that was involved in, any of the DEI woke s---, has got to go," Hegseth said during a recent interview on the "Shawn Ryan Show" podcast. "Either you're in for warfighting, and that's it. That's the only litmus test we care about."

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Hegseth had preemptively defended the move, saying it would be a return to normalcy for soldiers rather than a "MAGA takeover."

PHOTO: In this May 27, 2022, file photo, host Pete Hegseth is shown during a taping of 'FOX & Friends' at Fox News Channel Studios in New York. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images, FILE)

While Hegseth has described countries like Russia and China as threats, he has framed the military's biggest threat as an internal one, arguing that "wokeness" divided the military internally and created an issue that adversaries can exploit.

"I think our biggest threat is internal. I think we're committing cultural suicide, and we've lost complete focus on the basics and building blocks of what made Western civilization in America exceptional, fruitful, prosperous, strong, free," Hegseth said on the podcast.

Hegseth has proposed a wholesale purge of military officials who have supported DEI policies, urging a "frontal assault right back at what's been done to this military from the top and to the bottom."

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"The dumbest phrase on planet Earth in the military is our diversity is our strength," Hegseth said on the podcast, arguing that uniformity between soldiers is a key to the military's strength.

"Every time I hear a military leader say [diversity is our strength], I throw up in my mouth a little bit more, because if they believe it, it shows you how sideways and how indoctrinated they are," Hegseth said on "The Right Take With Mark Tapson" podcast.

While 17.5% of active-duty military personnel are women, Hegseth has argued that military leaders should acknowledge that their main constituency is "strong, normal men," rebuffing efforts to diversify the ranks of the armed services.

MORE: Tracking who Trump has named to serve in his Cabinet, administration

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"There aren't enough lesbians in San Francisco to staff the 82nd Airborne like you need, you need the boys in Kentucky and Texas and North Carolina and Wisconsin," Hegseth said on Tapson's podcast earlier this year.

Hegseth was on the "Take It Outside with Jay Cutler and Sam Mackey" podcast and said that transgender soldiers are "not deployable" because they are "reliant on chemicals" and suggested that women should not serve in certain combat roles.

"Everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat means casualties are worse," Hegseth said on Ryan's podcast, arguing that men are "more capable" in combat roles because of biological factors.

An ardent defender of the president-elect, Hegseth has argued that the United States military under Trump was more effective by posing both "uncertainty" and the "real threat of violence."

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"At least under Trump, there were missiles falling on terrorists' heads," Hegseth said on the "Man of War" podcast with Rafa Conde. "They knew he meant business. Kim Jong Un, even though it didn't work, knew Trump meant business. Fire and fury was a real thing. Uncertainty is a real thing. The real threat of violence is a real thing, and none of that exists under these globalists who think they can sanction their way."

MORE: Trump's Gaetz pick as AG triggers audible gasp among some congressional Republicans

He has also criticized international institutions like the United Nations as a "farce" and "giant joke" while advocating a military policy that aims to end long-term conflicts through decisive action.

"We expect this clinically sanitized, you know, no civilian casualties. Everything's going to be perfect. No one's going to get hurt, everything. It's just not how war operates, and that's unfortunate," Hegseth said on "The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe" podcast. "But if we try to do it with kid gloves or with surgical gloves, we're never really going to get rid of, actually exterminate the enemies that we need to defeat to create a peace on the other side."

Pete Hegseth's plan to overhaul America's military: 'You need to fire a ton of generals' originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Hundreds of people say the infrastructure in Lancaster County hasnt kept up with all of the residential growth, and they want leaders to take a hard pause on development.

Being the third-fastest growing county in South Carolina means a lot of new homes and more business for locals like Patrick Lloyd.

We are growing sales, weve been busier than we were last year, so thats definitely a positive trend Id like to see continue, Lloyd, the owner of Sweetwaters Coffee and Tea, told Channel 9s Tina Terry.

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But this week, some in the county are pushing back against the growth. More than 300 people have signed an online petition demanding a 180-day housing development moratorium in Lancaster County.

During the moratorium, you will have a chance to build an infrastructure plan based off the newest growth projections, said Angela Davis, the creator of the petition.

ALSO READ >> Controversial proposal would make quickly-growing Indian Land an official city

Davis spoke to county leaders at a meeting this week and said the break from building will give leaders a chance to create a new plan to address growth.

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Derrick Durkee says its a good idea.

I think the last time I heard theres 8,000 houses approved to be built in Indian Land and theres no infrastructure for it, he told Terry.

More than 600 new home construction permits were issued from January to August of this year, according to records.

Lancaster County says theyre not currently considering a formal moratorium. In a statement, a spokesperson said the county has denied at least six development projects, including residential in the past two years, and that much of the current residential building activity throughout the county is related to developments that were approved over four years ago.

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The county administrator says the county is working on a comprehensive rewrite of the entire development ordinance. That should be completed in mid-2025.

SEE MORE >> It always looks dirty: Homeowners complain about windows in fairly new neighborhood

Supporters of that moratorium say they want to put a tax plan to pay for roads on the ballot next year as well.

(VIDEO: Controversial proposal would make quickly-growing Indian Land an official city)
MANILA (Reuters) -Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Thursday his government would not block the International Criminal Court (ICC) if former leader Rodrigo Duterte wants to be investigated for alleged crimes against humanity in his anti-drugs crackdown.

The Philippines will not cooperate with the ICC but it has obligations with Interpol, Marcos told reporters.

"If that's the wish of (Duterte), we will not block ICC. We will not just cooperate," Marcos said. "But if he agrees to be investigated, it is up to him."

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Marcos' remarks follow a marathon congressional hearing on Wednesday during which Duterte, president from 2016-2022, refused to apologise for his role in the bloodshed and urged the ICC to start its investigation.

Duterte remained defiant during Wednesday's hearing as he defended his drugs crackdown, which was a key plank of his election campaign, during which he had promised thousands of drug pushers and criminals would be killed.

"I have nothing to hide. What I did, I did it for my country and for the young people. No excuses. No apologies. If I go to hell, so be it," said the 79-year old Duterte during the hours-long hearing, which was also attended by families of drug war victims.

"I am already old, I might die soon. You might miss the pleasure of seeing me standing before the court hearing the judgment whatever it is," Duterte said, adding he assumed full responsibility for what happened.

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All testimony provided by Duterte will be assessed to see their legal consequences, Marcos said.

Duterte unilaterally withdrew the Philippines as a member of the ICC in 2019 after it announced it had started a preliminary examination into thousands of killings in his anti-narcotics campaign.

He questioned its authority to conduct an investigation, and insisted during Wednesday's hearing it no longer has no jurisdiction over the Philippines.

Marcos said the government was monitoring developments because responsibility for the extrajudicial killings had not been established.

"And we had the mothers of some of the victims that were there, and up to now, they have not seen the justice for the murders of their children," he added.

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Under Duterte, police said they killed 6,200 suspected dealers who had resisted arrest during their anti-drug operations.

But human rights groups believe the real toll to be far greater, with thousands more users and peddlers gunned down in mysterious circumstances by unknown assailants.

Authorities at the time said those were vigilante killings and drugs gangs eliminating rivals. Rights groups and some victims accuse police of systematic cover-ups and executions, which they deny.

(Reporting by Mikhail Flores; Editing by Martin Petty and Lincoln Feast.)
Phoenix Scholar House, an affordable housing development that will have dedicated rooms for people in need of affordable housing while continuing their education, began construction Wednesday.

The project is being built on the site of a former church that was razed for the redevelopment. Brinshore Development bought the 1.5-acre site from East Phoenix Church of God for $3.23 million in August according to real estate database Vizzda. The church is one of several metro Phoenix churches to be sold for redevelopment in the past few years.

The 56-unit complex will be directly north of Phoenix Childrens Hospital, on Thomas Road and 18th Place. At least 20 of the units will be dedicated to the Scholar House model, which is created for single parents who need affordable housing and other support while pursuing higher education, including community college, trade school, or university education. The program was created by Louisville, Kentucky-based Family Scholar House, and the Phoenix project will be the first Arizona project associated with the program.

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Save the Family, a Mesa-based nonprofit that helps families facing homelessness stay together, and Brinshore Development, which is also developing other Family Scholar House locations in other states, are the developers of the project.

Save the Family focuses on housing and other resources for people experiencing homelessness, Robyn Julien, CEO of Save the Family, said. In addition to housing, the organization provides other resources, like a staff therapist, job training, children and youth programs, budgeting assistance and other aid to families.

About 80% of the families that go through the organizations programs achieve self-sufficiency and find permanent housing after completing their program, Julien said.

This is a unique, two-generational approach, Julien said, adding that nationally, 90% of the people served by Family Scholar House are single mothers, and most are survivors of domestic violence. The Phoenix Scholar House will have supports for both the parents and their children while they are living in the apartment.

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Julien said many of the people who live in Family Scholar House developments around the country go into the healthcare field, so partnering with nearby healthcare organizations, like Phoenix Children's Hospital, will provide opportunities for residents as well.

At a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday morning, Maria Wilson, affiliate program director for Family Scholar House, spoke about her experience with the program when she was a young single mother. Wilson gave birth to her son when she was a young teen after experiencing housing instability and homelessness most of her life. After her baby was born, she googled how to go to college.

She enrolled in community college but struggled balancing her schoolwork with her other responsibilities. Then, she was connected with Family Scholar House, which provided her with support and resources to help her succeed in school. She has since graduated from the University of Louisville and completed postgraduate studies.

My son is now doing phenomenal. The generational curse has been broken in his life, she said.

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Construction is expected to take about a year, and the apartments are planned to open in late 2025.

Reach the reporter at cvanek@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter @CorinaVanek.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix church becomes affordable housing project for single parents
Councilwoman-elect Anna Hernandez said Phoenix would need to "step up" and fight for immigrants and refugees after voters reelected Donald Trump to the White House and passed a state law empowering police to arrest and deport undocumented migrants.

In response, Mayor Kate Gallego said the City Council stopped Phoenix police from taking part in mass deportations during Trump's first term and would do so again.

"I can say without equivocation that as long as Im mayor, Phoenix will not use its police department  or any city resources whatsoever  to assist in mass deportation efforts by the Trump administration. Our officers will focus their efforts on preventing and addressing crimes to keep Phoenix families safe," Gallego said.

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Councilwoman-elect Hernandez said, "Phoenix council must move immediately to protect immigrant and refugee residents in the city from the violence of Prop. 314 ... I am ready for this fight."

Viri Hernandez of AZ Poder, a group focused on policing, said the council needed to refuse to collaborate with Trump on mass deportations.

"The same way that abortion arrests were deprioritized," immigration-related calls to the Phoenix Police Department need to be deprioritized, Viri Hernandez said.

The comment, which came outside Phoenix City Hall on Wednesday as part of a news conference to celebrate the councilwoman-elect, was a reference to the Phoenix City Council's action after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling. The reversal overturned the constitutional right to abortion.

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The Phoenix City Council afterward directed the Police Department to deprioritize any calls to investigate reported violations of state abortion laws. The effort was in part led by Gallego.

Reached through a spokesperson on Wednesday, Gallego said she was looking into the subject more.

"Theres no question that cities have different challenges under a Trump administration. Eight years ago, when Donald Trump was first elected and I represented south Phoenix on the City Council, I helped lead efforts to affirm that our Police Department would not be used as a part of a federal mass deportation force. Were examining other areas this time around as well," Gallego said.

In April 2017, the Phoenix City Council voted to reject efforts by the Trump Administration to conscript Phoenix Police officers as part of a federal immigration deportation force," according to a news release.

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The council also directed the Police Department to modernize its policies to more clearly outline when officers can and cannot inquire about the immigration status of members of the public, particularly to protect crime victims, witnesses and juveniles on school campuses.

It came after then-Mayor Greg Stanton said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was pressuring local law enforcement to take part in mass deportation plans.

Councilwoman-elect Anna Hernandez (left) stands with Viri Hernandez, of AZ Poder, outside Phoenix City Hall on Nov. 13, 2024. The two said the Phoenix City Council needed to immediately pass protections for migrants amid President-elect Donald Trump's deportation plans.

What it means: Anna Hernandez's Phoenix City Council victory emboldens progressives

Taylor Seely covers Phoenix for The Arizona Republic / azcentral.com. Reach her at tseely@arizonarepublic.com or by phone at 480-476-6116.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix mayor: We won't help Trump's mass deportation efforts
Phoenix's Water Department mailed letters to residents this week notifying them of potential lead exposure in the pipes, but city officials said it was unlikely and residents shouldn't be alarmed.

The city investigated 98% of its water lines and found no lead pipes, but some were made of galvanized steel that "may have absorbed lead" and some were designated "unknown," according to the letters.

Lead exposure in drinking water "can cause serious health effects in all age groups," the letters say.

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The service line investigations were prompted by rule changes at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA revised its Lead and Copper Rule in 2021 to "significantly reduce exposure to lead through drinking water," according to the agency website. The revision required water providers to investigate their systems and submit replacement plans for lead pipes or pipes designated galvanized or unknown.

The rule revisions affect water systems nationwide. Residents of other Valley cities should be notified in the coming month. The EPA gave water providers a deadline to notify customers within 30 days of completing their inventory. Inventories were due Oct. 16.

One city whose residents wont be receiving a letter this week is Surprise.

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After analyzing more than 25,000 water service connections around the city for the last six months, water officials there said none of the lines were made of lead material.

The majority of Surprises water line system is made of PVC and ductile iron, Water Resource Management Director Mike Boule explained. Such pipeline materials, he said, dont pose health risks, like lead, that the EPA is targeting.

In Glendale, about 2,000 of the citys water customers will receive a letter explaining that the lead-material status of their service lines is categorized as unknown. That compares with 62,000 service lines that were found free of lead.

Roughly 7,500 Mesa residents will be notified of "unknown" pipe status.

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Scottsdale also found no lead pipes but had some designated unknown. Residents would receive letters by Nov. 14, officials there said.

Here's what you need to know.

Were you really exposed to lead? 'Extremely' unlikely, city says

Arizona banned lead pipes in 1988 and the EPA's Lead and Copper rule has been in effect since 1991, which means water providers should be maintaining low lead concentrations in compliance with the regulations.

Assistant Water Services Director Jim Swanson said the risk to Phoenix residents was "extremely low because we have not found lead service lines."

Galvanized pipes pose a risk to human health "because the zinc coating corrodes over time, potentially leaching lead particles into the galvanized service line," according to the city's website. But Swanson said Phoenix got rid of lead pipes long ago, so there would no source of lead to leach.

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"If there has been an exposure to lead, then that exposure has been below the federal requirements for that lead exposure. We have never exceeded the lead standard," Swanson said.

Getting more drinking water: Phoenix-area cities team up to kick-start advanced water purification plant

What happens if my service line was galvanized or unknown?

Phoenix's Water Services Department plans to replace galvanized pipes starting in early 2025, the letters say. Residents will not be charged for the replacements.

The city plans to immediately reach out to customers with status unknown to continue investigating. The EPA requires the city to keep sending annual letters to residents of lead, galvanized or status-unknown pipes until they are replaced, Swanson said.

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According to the letters, "It will take multiple years to complete this work."

New source: Phoenix spends $30 million to reopen Cave Creek water plant back for water with a twist

What are the health risks of lead?

The EPA lists:

Decreased IQ and attention span for infants and children.

New or exacerbated learning and behavior problems.

Increased risks of heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney or nervous system problems for adults.

"The children of women who are exposed to lead before or during pregnancy can have increased risk of these adverse health effects," the letter says.

Why were some pipes 'unknown'?

Pipes were designated "unknown" in cases where the Water Department couldn't access the service line to investigate, Swanson said. In some cases, it stemmed from private property complications; in other cases, vehicles or bulk trash may have prevented the city from investigating, he said.

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In Glendale, city officials said they may need to dig a roughly 12-inch-wide hole within 18 inches of the homes foundation, to confirm the "unknown" lines are free of lead.

How do I reduce my lead exposure?

Phoenix's water officials recommended:

Using a filter certified to remove lead.

Cleaning your aerator.

Using cold water for drinking.

Cooking and making baby formula.

Identifying and replacing plumbing fixtures containing lead.

More information

Residents in Phoenix can visit https://pipes.phoenix.gov/.

Scottsdale has more information at scottsdaleaz.gov/water/water-quality/drinking-water.

Glendale residents, click here.

'A thirsty operation': TSMC plant arrives amid water doubts, but Phoenix isn't worried

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Republic reporters Shawn Raymundo, Maritza Dominguez and Sam Kmack contributed to this article.

Taylor Seely covers Phoenix for The Arizona Republic / azcentral.com. Reach her at tseely@arizonarepublic.com or by phone at 480-476-6116.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix warns of potential lead exposure in water pipes. What to know
CARTER COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL)  Many are still without phone and internet service in the Butler areas of Elk Mills / Poga and Little Milligan after Hurricane Helene. However, Brightspeed reports restoration efforts are underway as a new fiber network is being installed.

Andy Ice is Brightspeeds Senior Manager of Engineering and Construction for Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia. He said the copper network that provided service to the Butler areas was extensively damaged.

We made a decision instead of going back with copper, were going to place fiber into these areas and give our customers better service, give them Internet speeds that theyve never had before because its been such a remote area, Ice said.

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Ice said assessments of the damage were delayed because of Department of Transportation (DOT) restrictions due to safety concerns.

One of the problems you ran into were bridges being out. DOT had to put in some temporary bridges to allow us to even access the area and get up into Poga because there were two different bridges that had been destroyed. So our assessment was delayed mainly due to the DOT problems and the issues of the road washouts.

A few weeks after Helene, Ice said they were able to start assessments. About a week ago, engineering was completed and now construction is underway. However, some spots are still not accessible due to road washouts.

But we have some side legs that are off that main route main Highway 321 road that were going to start our build on. Were going to try and address those and get those built so that when 321 opens up, well be able to complete our build there. Were also going to try and put some temporary fiber up along 321 all along the tree line to get down to the Elk Mills area so we can complete our build down that way as well.

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The former Little Milligan School building is a site where residents can go to access free Wi-Fi. The building is also serving as a donation site and community center.

Ice said the copper network came from the Hampton side, which received damage that affected customers up towards the Butler areas.

Daniel Smith, who lives on Whaley Town Rd, is still without phone service. His internet is restored though and came back online a few days after Helene hit.

We lost our phone and the power for here for about a week, Smith said. And then the power came back on. The phone came on, maybe a few hours went back off and weve never got it back.

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Smith said its been rough for him and other residents being without their phone landlines.

You couldnt get a hold of everybody, Smith said. So we would just have to drive to their houses and see if they [were] okay.

Its pretty hard because you know, my 80-year-old grandparents, they live right up the road. So sometimes I cant get in touch with them. They cant call out. They dont have a phone. Its just hard to talk to everybody, to stay in touch with everybody.

Smith is also concerned about emergencies, in case anyone is unable to call others or dial 911 for help.

He said he has not heard anything from Brightspeed yet.

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Ice said Brightspeed is trying to contact customers either through email or regular mail service because of the outage.

He said fiber will not be totally completed for another 60 to 90 days with some areas coming on sooner than others. Customers without service will be credited on future bills.

We have customers now who are paying for their phone service, their plain old telephone service, Ice said. And for those customers, were going to give them credits for the time that theyre out and not able to utilize that service. And then when we get the new service established, they can sign up for the new service and be able to have our internet service and our voice over IP service.

Smith said he is okay with getting credited as long as hes not paying for a service he doesnt have.

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Mines roughly around $100 a month phone and internet, so itll help if they credit it back, Smith said.

Areas in Mountain City and Trade in Johnson County will also get fiber network from Brightspeed.

Were spending approximately two and a half million dollars between Elk Mills, Poga and Mountain City area to do this effort, Ice said. And so its not a cheap effort. Its not something that we took lightly. We evaluated and determined it was the right thing to do. And thats on top of the roughly $4 million we spent on the rest of the area restoring service.

Ice said they are also working on restoring service in other areas in the region like Highway 107 along the Nolichucky and areas in Erwin and Greene County as well.

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BOSSIER PARISH, La. (KTAL/KMSS)  The Bossier Parish Sheriffs Office is warning residents that scams are on the rise in Bossier Parish.

Detectives say someone with a foreign accent, who claims to be a Sergeant Brian Collins with the Bossier Sheriffs Office Small Claims Division tells potential victims they owe the Sheriffs Office money.

The caller who uses the number (318) 935-9164 does not pronounce Bossier correctly.

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The Bossier Parish Sheriffs Office is not responsible for the calls and will not call someone by phone to ask for payment for a fine or to solicit money.

If you think you may have been victimized by this scam, call the Bossier Sheriffs Office at (318) 965-3418.

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Gov. Jim Pillen on Moday delivers keynote at International Cattle & Pig Event at EuroTier, an international trade fair for animal agriculture. (Courtesy of Governor's Office)

LINCOLN  Gov. Jim Pillen and a state delegation are to finish a weeklong trade and diplomatic mission to Central Europe Thursday, in part with visits to businesses in Germany that have ties to Nebraska.

While in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germanys most populous state, the Husker group is to meet with officials of Bayer, a global enterprise that operates crop science facilities across the Midwest, including a major research station in Beaver Crossing, Nebraska.

Gov. Jim Pillen highlights Nebraska at EuroTier, an international trade fair for animal agriculture. (Courtesy of Governors Office)

The group also scheduled a stop at Evonik, a global company that develops specialty chemicals for a variety of industries. It has produced lysine, an animal feed additive, in Blair, Nebraska, since 2000.

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Were showing our appreciation and discussing how each company can have a greater impact in our state, Pillen said in a media release. Two things are very clear from our time here. First, everyone weve met in Germany absolutely loves the people in Nebraska. Second, they cant talk enough about how much they love our melt-in-your-mouth Nebraska beef!

The groups time in Germany is the second phase of the mission and follows three days in the Czech Republic.

Pillen met Monday with Stephan Weil, minister president of Niedersachsen Government, to explore opportunities to grow trade. Niedersachsen, also known as Lower Saxony, is a federal state in northwestern Germany.

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While in Lower Saxony, the state delegation visited the headquarters of Continental (ContiTech), which has a major manufacturing plant in Lincoln. It makes belts for lawn mowers, snowblowers and combine headers, as well as other products. The business also has extensive operations in Norfolk, where it manufactures industrial and hydraulic hosing.

Delegates met Wednesday with leaders of CLAAS to discuss how the state can best support the German manufacturers continued growth in Nebraska. Since 2001, CLAAS has produced its LEXION combine harvesters in Omaha.

Matt Ristow, president of CLAAS Omaha Inc., participated in the meetings, as did Theo Freye, retired CEO of CLAAS KgaA, who now leads the Nebraska Department of Economic Development trade office in Germany.

This trade mission is a beneficial exchange, said DED Director K.C. Belitz. Weve been able to share some things from Nebraska, while also learning from our German counterparts. For example, German manufacturers excel at connecting young people to great careers through apprenticeships. Were going to bring this lesson home to make Nebraskas economy stronger.

Gov. Jim Pillen exchanges gifts with Stephan Weil, Minister President of Niedersachsen Government. (Courtesy of Governors Office)

The delegation also connected with Albers Beef, a leading German company specializing in the distribution of food products, including Nebraska beef.

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There is a bus load of people eager to come to Nebraska to see firsthand how we do things, said Jim Ramm, a cow-calf producer from Holt County and board member of the Nebraska Beef Council. Theyre deeply impressed by how we care for our cattle herds.

Germany is tied with Japan as the top source of foreign direct investment into Nebraska, accounting for 27% of FDI into the state, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

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PINE BLUFF, Ark.  The Pine Bluff School District is taking steps to make sure parents and students feel safe. The school board voted this week on making the safety improvements around the campuses after they were awarded state funding.

Foster Baker, director of Security and Emergency Services for the school district, said the district is planning on using around $400,000 from school safety grants from the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, a division of the state Department of Education.

With all the extra security measures it just makes it safer overall, Baker said. Theyre going to help us four different ways.

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Pine Bluff School District hopes new STEM program inspires students

He explained that the first will include buying a visitor management system for those coming into the schools.

It will let us know if theyre a sex offender and what level of sex offender they are or if they are clear, Baker said.

He said they will also be putting up fences around some schools, parking lots and buying more than 100 new digital radios for safety officers, which Baker noted was a much-needed change after dealing with some challenges.

If you were deep off in a building and youre trying to call for help your transmission wasnt being received by officers, Baker said.

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UAMS receives $1 million grant to reduce violent crime in Pine Bluff schools

Baker said that the fourth update is having a universal door-locking system at all of the schools.

If a school has 60 classrooms there are 60 keys, one for each room, Baker said. Now if theres trouble inside a room, administration or security will have one key.

James Matthews Elementary School principal Tameka Wright believes the changes could help with better barriers.

We have seen issues with the exterior door locks and we would call people out to fix it but its a band-aid, Wright said. Right now we have partial fencing now but its not protecting anything. If we want our students to stay on campus it will help us with that.

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Pine Bluff voters approve millage increase, new high school planned

With close to 3000 students in the district, safety is not an option but a priority. Baker said theyre wasting no time ordering all of the parts they need to make the upgrades because they want to prioritize students and staff safety first.

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COMPANY NEWS: Vectra AI, Inc. ,Vectra AI, Inc., the leader in AI-driven XDR (extended detection and response), today announced the extension of the Vectra AI Platform to include comprehensive coverage for customers Microsoft Azure environments. With the addition of over 40 unique attacker behaviour detections for Microsoft Azure, Vectra AI now delivers over 100 AI-driven attacker behaviour detections. Now, Microsoft customers achieve comprehensive hybrid and multi-cloud defence for their entire Microsoft environment - Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft M365, Microsoft Copilot for M365 and now Microsoft Azure.

According to the Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2024, Microsoft customers face more than 600 million cybercriminal and nation-state attacks every day, ranging from ransomware to phishing to identity attacks. The growing Microsoft attack surface, spanning on-premises data centres, network identities, cloud services, and various endpoints, presents increased vulnerabilities as more organisations adopt hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Migration to Microsoft Entra ID, expansion to Azure, and the adoption of Microsoft Copilot for M365 contribute to a wider range of entry points for attackers, as evidenced by the hybrid attacks executed by threat actor groups like Midnight Blizzard and Scattered Spider.

Vectra Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services report a sixfold increase in attacks on Microsoft E5 customers between June and October 2024, underscoring the need for robust security measures. To support security operations (SOC) teams, Vectra AIs detections monitor over 40 attacker behaviours unique to Azure, and over 100 attacker behaviours spanning Azure, Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft M365 and Microsoft Copilot for M365, delivering the most robust library of behaviour-based detection tools on the market.

We consistently hear from CISOs that they want AI to help them identify real threats, connect the dots in real-time, and deliver accurate, integrated attack signal to the SOC. This is especially true for CISOs securing rapidly sprawling Microsoft environments, says Hitesh Sheth CEO and founder of Vectra AI. No one is better than Vectra AI at delivering integrated attack signal in real-time.

The Vectra AI Platform provides the highest-fidelity signal using patented AI-driven Attack Signal Intelligence. Attack Signal Intelligence continuously learns customers Microsoft environments to automatically connect the dots on attacker behaviours spanning the organisations cloud and network environment. Armed with hybrid and multi-cloud Attack Signal Intelligence, Microsoft customers get the hybrid and multi-cloud attack coverage, signal clarity and intelligent control they need to reduce siloed tool complexity, remove operational latency, and maximise existing SOC time and talent.

"Vectra AI covers not only the basics, but with the detection models, it really looks at the identities traversing through Microsoft Azure and Office 365, and that gives us a complete picture, said Fabian Heiz, CISO of Coop. Vectra AI has been a good partner for the last eight years."

By expanding our coverage of the Microsoft ecosystem with AI detections for Azure and Copilot, we are demonstrating to SOC teams that our Attack Signal Intelligence is AI they can trust, providing a unique blend of advanced technology, contextual understanding, and automation that other threat detection tools cannot compete against, says Jeff Reed, Chief Product Officer of Vectra AI.

To learn more about Vectra AIs coverage of Microsoft Azure environments, please visit https://www.vectra.ai/platform/cloud/azure-coverage.

Learn more about how Vectra AI is setting the new agentless standard for extended detection and response (XDR) by visiting our blog and following along on LinkedIn and X.

About Vectra AI, Inc.

Vectra AI, Inc. is the leader in AI-driven extended detection and response (XDR). The Vectra AI Platform delivers integrated signal across public cloud, SaaS, identity, and data centre networks in a single platform. Vectra AIs patented Attack Signal Intelligence empowers security teams to rapidly detect, prioritise, investigate and stop the most advanced hybrid cyber-attacks. With 35 patents in AI-driven detection and the most vendor references in MITRE D3FEND, organisations worldwide rely on the Vectra AI Platform and MDR services to move at the speed and scale of hybrid attackers. For more information, visit www.vectra.ai.
Pioneer Elementary School is the recipient of a $35,000 donation from IGT Indiana that will go towards creating opportunities in STEM education for its students.

IGT, the integrated services provider to the Hoosier Lottery, made the donation through its After School Advantage program. The donation will go towards purchasing advanced materials that students can use to develop skills in robotics, coding and problem solving.

The donation was announced Tuesday afternoon in the elementary school gym with members of IGT and the Hoosier Lottery in attendance. State Representative Ethan Manning (R-District 23), Pioneer Regional School Corporation superintendent Charles Grable, Principal Pat Quillen, Cass County Community Foundation president and CEO Deanna Crispen and elementary school teacher Alesia Brown who was accompanied alongside several of her high ability students.

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One of things that our students need more of is hands-on real world opportunities, said Quillen following the presentation. Project based learning is something that really sparks their imagination and helps them make connections with things that they are learning in the classroom. It gets them more engaged.

Quillen said the funding will help the students expand their minds and put lessons learned in science and math classes to work.

The funding came about when Crispen reached out to Quillen and shared info about the opportunity.

Among the items Pioneer will be able to purchase with the funds are a MacBook Pro, an iPad, Knex and Legos, a Sphero Little Bits STEAM Coding Kit, software for CAD and coding and a variety of robotics equipment.

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After the presentation, high ability students and the Pioneer Elementary robotics team showed some of the materials they had to learn with.

One such item the students demonstrated was an Ozobot, a tiny circular robot that could follow drawn lines on a piece of paper. When the line changed color, the robot would detect the change and its lights would adapt to match the color.

We are giving our students opportunities to explore aspects of career fields that extend beyond a rural community, said Brown as she worked with three girls who were coding on an iPad. Even with agriculture. So much of agriculture now is technically advanced and our students have not had access to a lot of those components.

She said some of the kids had remarked that they had seen items purchased with the donation on Youtube and were amazed they now had access to such a thing in their school.

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Its cool to bring some of those aspects of the technological world into a small agricultural-based school, she said.

Brown, who oversees the Girls Leadership Club at Pioneer Elementary, said it was also great to see girls interacting with the learning tools and building robots and that there was still a stigma surrounding women not only in technological careers but also in leadership roles.

Theres that stigma that girls cant achieve what some of their male peers can, she said. If you look around this room right now there are girls in robotics. There are girls who are working with the high ability groups who are building robots and learning about STEM and engineering. Its showing [girls] that this generation may have a more equal playing field.
Pioneer Junior Senior High School celebrated Veterans Day Monday afternoon with a student led ceremony that featured veteran Senior Master Sgt. Chris Miller.

Keirsten Nies, a senior recently academically accepted into the West Point, the United States Military Academy, had the honor of introducing Miller.

To dedicate ones life to a cause so large and so vastly essential is the noblest choice a person can make, said Nies.

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Miller joined the Marine Corp after graduating high school in 1987. He said his father had served in Vietnam and his grandfather in WWII. He served as a member of the military police in San Diego and in Hawaii and, after joining the Air Force Reserves, he was stationed in England and then moved through Italy, South Korea, Germany and Ireland. Post 9/11, he volunteered to serve in Qatar and also served in Iraq in 2009.

It takes a strong person to strap on those boots and go to work like that every day, he said. We need people like that.

Miller told the students they were the next generation and get to benefit from the freedoms of the United States because of the veterans in attendance.

The men and women here, the men and women before them, they all sacrificed and some sacrificed all, he said. I guess what Im asking for is those of you who are not sure what you are going to do [after high school] is to step up, strap on those boots. We did it for you. You can do it for us.

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During the ceremony, senior Austin Brooke introduced the veterans in attendance and recognized others in the community who had served.

The program also included a poem read by junior Melia McIntire while junior Mia McKaig honored those who prisoners of war and those missing in action.

The Pioneer choir and band combined for a medley of patriotic songs to open the program.

Principal Jeff Brooke said he hoped his students took away the commitment and sacrifice that those who came before them gave.

The hard work and dedication that they put in to serve our country is commendable, he said. Our students need to look at that and do that as well for the next generation.

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Nies said a Veterans Day ceremony had to mean everything.

The sacrifice that it takes to [serve] is truly inspirational, she said, growing emotional as she spoke. It is certainly what inspired me. It takes someone really, really special to possibly lay down their life for their country.

Before the ceremony began, veterans and their families were treated to a dinner planned by the Pioneer student council. Senior Valerie Hinkle welcomed and led those in attendance in prayer.

Our student council did a great job putting this on, said Principal Brooke. It takes a lot of organization, a lot of time and effort. I really appreciate our student council.
A Marine Corps gunnery sergeant and Afghanistan war hero saw his drug conviction overturned this fall by the Navy and Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals.

Gunnery Sgt. Rory R. Hirsts conviction was based on a urine sample that tested positive for an illegal drug.

But during the course of the appeals process, the case against Hirst revealed troubling shortfalls in how at least one urinalysis lab handled samples of service members being tested for drugs.

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A positive drug test result is a career killer for service members, and can lead to a federal conviction, confinement and a dishonorable discharge.

Given the stakes, precision is a must in such settings, and Hirsts court records raise questions about how at least one such lab is being run.

The Sailors and Marines who face the devastating consequences of a criminal conviction while being afforded diminished constitutional protections should expect, and this Court will require, substantial compliance with the Department of the Navys urinalysis program, appeal judge Navy Capt. Brian Mizer wrote in the ruling overturning Hirsts conviction.

That did not happen here.

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The gunny pleaded not guilty at trial in April 2022 and was initially convicted, reduced in rank to sergeant and sentenced to 90 days in the brig.

Sailor charged with trying to set fire to his urine sample

That conviction was based on a purported positive test for the illegal drug MDMA that happened following the July 4th holiday in 2021.

A lab doctor testified that the drug level found in Hirsts urine was so low that he may not have felt the effects of the drug, and given that low level, the doctor was unable to say whether Hirsts alleged use of the drug was wrongful, according to the appeal court ruling.

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In the September appeal courts overturning of the conviction, Mizer recounted the recurring, widespread and shoddy practices of the Navy urinalysis lab at Great Lakes, Illinois, that handled Hirsts sample.

The Marine staff sergeant who oversaw the urine sample processing at the time, referred to in court records only as SSgt. D.W., conceded during trial testimony that paperwork discrepancies were sloppy and depended on how lazy I [was] that day.

Its been very frustrating from our perspective when a client says I did not do this, I would not do this, and then we start pulling the string and we see there are problems with the drug program, Hirsts civilian defense attorney, Bethany Payton-OBrien, told Military Times.

Evidence presented in court showed a pattern of negligence both on the part of the substance abuse control officer, SSgt. D.W., tasked with getting Hirsts urine sample to the testing lab, as well as the Navy Drug Screening Laboratory at Great Lakes, Illinois, that processed the sample.

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Discrepancies noted while SSgt. D.W. was in charge and during the time that Hirsts sample was processed totaled more than 31 pages, Judge Mizer wrote.

Some of the boxes sent to the [Great Lakes drug screening lab] were missing the urine samples listed on SSgt D.W.s paperwork, some contained the wrong Unit Identification Code, some had tamper-proof seals that were broken, other specimens had two seals, signatures and dates were missing, some of the paperwork was missing entirely, boxes were improperly packaged, the initials of some Marines didnt match those on the sample, there were insufficient samples, there were discrepancies in the initials of the purported observers, and there were discrepancies with the DoD identification numbers on the labels of some of the samples, the judge wrote.

In Hirsts case, his urine sample was sent to the lab on August 3, 2021, 28 days late by the standard of the Marine Corps Urinalysis Program Coordinators handbook. The handbook instructs those handling the urine to abide by a 48-hour window from collection to shipping the sample out.

The conduct of the lab also fell into question.

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One of the lab technicians handling urine samples was suspended for three days in July 2021, shortly before Hirsts sample arrived, for improperly pouring samples containing MDA, which led to false negative test results.

Navy finds fault in drug testing of sailors at Great Lakes, investigation underway

The drug at the core of the lab technicians suspension was MDA. MDA is a relative of the drug MDMA, for which Hirst was initially convicted of using.

Other employees at Navy Drug Screening Laboratory Great Lakes were found to have been careless with sensitive materials in the years leading up to Hirsts wrongful conviction.

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All told, 18 lab technicians at Great Lakes were decertified between April 2017 and August 2023, according to documents provided to Military Times by Payton-OBrien.

Technicians were decertified for a litany of reasons related to improper conduct, including:

-reporting false positive drug results.

-incorrectly labeling steroid batches.

-failure to conduct proper quality control.

-making critical errors during sample review.

-failure to follow review criteria.

-failure to understand review protocol.

-signing other employees names on important documents.

-deliberate destruction of important documents.

-demonstrating patterns of careless work.

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-mishandling samples.

Several of the technicians were decertified more than once, but appear to have continued working at the lab after their initial decertification, according to a list of decertified techs provided by Payton-OBrien.

Many of the military practitioners are oblivious, said Payton-OBrien. They dont know that the drug lab is having these issues. They dont know about these de-certifications.

It remains unclear just how widespread such urinalysis program failures are, or whether anyone at the Great Lakes lab has been held accountable for such errors.

Through the course of Hirsts appeal hearing, eight fellow Marines spoke of his high character - he rescued a Marine from heat exhaustion while evading Taliban fire - and described him as superman and as a Marine Corps rock star.

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Several also testified that they were with Hirst during the July 4, 2021, weekend before the urine sample was collected, and did not observe him taking any drugs or appear to be on any drugs.

One Marine lieutenant colonel described Hirsts courage under enemy fire during the 30-day battle for Marjah, Afghanistan in 2010, which resulted in the gunny receiving a Navy-Marine Corps Commendation Medal with a V device for valor.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. (WWLP)  A Pittsfield man was found guilty by a Berkshire Superior Court jury on Wednesday for rape and intimidation of a witness.

NY man pleads guilty in theft ring targeting Berkshire Bank

The conviction stems from an April 15, 2019 incident in which 50-year-old Cesar Lagunas, raped a victim and later threatened them with blackmail to prevent reporting the crime.

This survivor demonstrated immense strength and resilience throughout this process, Berkshire District Attorney Timothy Shugrue said in a statement. I am thankful for the jurys decision and appreciate their service.

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Despite going to Mexico on Monday, November 11, partway through the trial, the court allowed proceedings to continue. A warrant has been issued for Lagunas arrest, and efforts to locate him are ongoing.

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.

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PLAINFIELD, Conn. (WTNH)  Plainfield police are investigating a crash that left a man injured Thursday morning, police said.

Police said at around 9:53 a.m., they responded to Norwich Road for the report of a crash.

When they arrived at the scene, police said a gray Honda Civic was off the roadway and on a lawn.

Pedestrian crashes are on the rise in Connecticut

The 31-year-old man from Massachusetts was removed from the car and taken to an area hospital for a possible back injury, according to police.

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Witnesses told police they observed the car leave the parking lot of a roofing store and travel across the street into the lawn.

Additional information is not yet known.

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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE)  Planned Parenthoods Knoxville clinic has reopened nearly three years after it was destroyed in an arson.

The original clinic, located on N. Cherry Street, was burned down on New Years Eve in 2021. Earlier that year, shots were fired into the building. Mark Thomas Reno was later identified as the suspect in both crimes. He died seven months after the fire.

Now the clinic has a new building in its original location. The clinic reopened its doors to patients on October 14 and has seen 300 patients so far.

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The demand and surge in patients requests for visits that weve seen since being open, shows us that it was still a big need in Knoxville, said Ashley Coffield, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi.

The clinic held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday to celebrate its grand reopening and the return of affordable healthcare services in the area.

People are excited to have a place that they can come to get any form of birth control that they need, to talk about what their birth control options are, to get well-person care, to get their cervical cancer screenings, to get their STI testing and treatment, to get their gender-affirming care. All those types of patients have already been back at our health center, Coffield said.

Planned Parenthoods original Knoxville location saw 4,000 patients annually before it burned down. After the fire, the Asheville, North Carolina location became the closest to Knoxville.

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Under Tennessees state abortion ban, abortions will not be performed at the Knoxville Planned Parenthood clinic.

Supporter Susan Sgarlat is glad to see the womens healthcare resource back in town.

At my age, I can look back and say that its been under-cared for, for a long time, and an organization like Planned Parenthood has for a long time had its focus right on womens healthcare, she said.

Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon, State Rep. Gloria Johnson, and City Councilmembers Lauren Rider and Debbie Helsley all attended the ribbon cutting. With support from city and state leaders, Sgarlat hopes the clinic will stick around.

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I have a daughter and I have three granddaughters, the youngest of whom is five. And I want to see Planned Parenthood survive and be available for them. I want to see womens reproductive care be available to my granddaughters, she said.

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A project is underway that will connect the Schuylkill River Trail from Philadelphia, through Reading, to Hamburg and beyond.

The project, spearheaded the Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area, includes three major upgrades in the city, said Elaine Schaefer, executive director of the organization.

The aim, she said, is to close gaps, improve the quality of the multiuse trail and create a more vibrant gateway to Reading.

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We want to make sure that Reading is in the position to take advantage of this incredible new amenity and the (trail) traffic that will be coming to Reading, she said.

Schaefer; Kent Himelright, Greenways trail director; and Jacob Gardner, trails project manager, presented an overview of the plans at a City Council committee of the whole meeting.

The trail continues to the city, she noted, but hits another gap after crossing the Reading Gateway Bridge at Reading Area Community College.

Though sometimes erroneously called the RACC Bridge, it is owned by Berks County, she said, and the Greenways holds a trail easement for its use.

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The bridge is functional and well-maintained by the county, but ordinary, Schaefer said.

The organization envisions transforming it into a destination by incorporating public art or architectural elements for visual interest and appeal.

If youve ever been to London and gone on the Millennial Bridge or the High Line in New York, same idea, she said. These attractive, architecturally significant pedestrian bridges are huge draws.

Planned upgrades to the Schuylkill River Trail in Reading include reimagining the Gateway Bridge, sometimes called the RACC Bridge. The bridge is owned and maintained by Berks County, which granted trail use to the Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area. (COURTESY of SCHUYLKILL RIVER GREENWAYS NATIONAL HERITAGE AREA)

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The project team, which includes partners such as Berks County Parks and Recreation, RACC, local arts groups and representatives from the city, has applied for funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and other sources, Schaefer said. The team also will seek community input that will help shape the bridges final design, she noted.

Schaefer said additional funding will be sought for engineering and construction once a design is finalized.

The Greenways also plans to close the gap from RACC along Front Street to the existing trail on River Road with an on-road trail, separated from vehicle traffic by a safety buffer.

The engineering costs estimated at $75,000 to $80,000 will be paid for largely by private donations, Schaefer said, and the design phase is set to begin in November.

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Application for construction grant funding is planned for spring with groundbreaking in the fall of 2025.

The construction grant requires a 50% funding match, Schaefer noted.

So we will definitely be needing the city to work with us to see where we could find match money for that, she said.

The section of trail known as the Reading Riverview Trail also is slated for upgrades.

The section of the Schuylkill River Trail known as the Reading Riverview Trail beginning at the Buttonwood Street Bridge is slated for upgrades. The existing segment requires significant upgrades to meet the standards of the Schuylkill River Trail. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)

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The existing segment runs from Buttonwood Street Bridge to Schuylkill Avenue but requires significant upgrades to meet the standards of the Schuylkill River Trail and the Circuit Trail, a larger network of multiuse trails connecting communities, parks and waterways in the greater Philadelphia area.

Plans include widening and straightening the path and adding lighting to enhance safety and accessibility.

The organization has completed a trail study proposing a new alignment and a public meeting will be scheduled to gather community feedback, Schaefer said.

The Greenways will collaborate with Norfolk Southern, as parts of the trail will cross railroad-owned land. After the right-of-way issues are addressed, the engineering phase will begin. Application for construction funding is targeted for 2026, she said.

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Cooperation with the city is essential for the success of these projects, Schaefer said, noting the potential economic benefits to Reading as a destination and stop on the expanded trail system.

The local upgrades are part of the Greenways larger plans to complete and enhance the multiuse trail from Philadelphia to Frackville, Schuylkill County, for a total of 120 miles.

The Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area plans upgrades to three section of the Schuylkill River Trail in Reading. The project aims to close gaps, improve trail quality and create a more vibrant gateway to the city. (COURTESY of SCHUYLKILL RIVER GREENWAYS)

Currently, about 80 miles are complete, Schaefer said.

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A critical gap of about a mile in the Montgomery County segment is set to be finished by 2025, she said.

When that happens, there will be a an extraordinarily significant increase of trail traffic coming through Pottstown and up and to the edge of Reading, Schaefer said.

Councilman O. Christopher Miller asked if the planned reconstruction of the Route 422 bypass would have any impact on the trail.

West Shore Bypass Route 422 rebuild plans near finish after years of design work Video]

Schaefer said the trail will be disrupted by the bypass reconstruction project.

The Greenways is working with PennDOT, she said, and the states plans include rebuilding a section of trail southeast of Reading that will be destroyed by the road construction.
DERRY  Derry will look more into affordable housing options through additions and micro-houses that can be built by residents.

At its Nov. 6 meeting, Derrys Planning Board discussed new changes to state law that would make detached accessory dwelling units (ADUs) a possibility in town and what sort of regulations they might have to put in place.

Planning Director Elizabeth Robidoux explained that ADU is a fancy term for in-law apartments or granny flats.

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In 2017, the state passed a law that defines ADUs as residential living units that are within or attached to a single-family dwelling and provide independent living facilities for one or more people.

The boards chair, David Nelson, brought up concerns about detached ADUs, where in town they would be best suited, and what infrastructure they might need.

Nelson said it made more sense for detached ADUs to have the ability to have access to town water and sewer hookups, but that area of town tends to have smaller properties.

So the two things kind of work against each other, right? Nelson said. You solve the problem of subsurface waste disposal systems but those lots typically are smaller and may not physically fit a detached unit.

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Mark LHeureux, the towns engineering coordinator, said many of the ADUs he has seen were additions to garages.

Robidoux brought up ADUs originally, mentioning how a new regulation in New Hampshire says towns can update the language to say they only need to provide one on-street parking spot instead of four. She added the state was using ADUs as a way to combat the current housing issues.

Vice Chairman John OConnor said detached ADUs would be helpful in getting localized housing for traveler nurses, nurses who work on shorter contracts at Parkland Medical Center.

Nelson agreed that it was important to look more into ADUs, both attached and detached, but wanted to set up a time to do a more in-depth review.

Its a worthy goal but it sounds like the complexities of getting this right are such that maybe we should defer this to another round of changes, Nelson said.
A hearing hosted by two U.S. House subcommittees continued a string of inquiries about supposed UFO activity and included numerous claims from former government officials that evidence exists and is being shielded from the public by secret programs.

But, as has been the case over the past several years of hearings, investigations and testimony about incidents now classified by the government as unexplained aerial phenomena, or UAPs, no hard evidence was offered to back up the claims.

In written testimony submitted Wednesday, retired Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet said his belief in UAPs was confirmed nine years ago when he was still on active duty and following an incident off the U.S. East Coast involving Navy pilots aboard an F/A-18 fighter jet.

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Confirmation that UAPs are interacting with humanity came for me in January 2015 when I was serving as the commander of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, Gallaudet wrote. At the time, my personnel were participating in a pre-deployment naval exercise off the U.S. East Coast that included the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group.

Gallaudet said he received an email during the exercise with an alarming message to the effect, If any of you know what these are, tell me ASAP. We are having multiple near-midair collisions, and if we do not resolve it soon, we will have to shut down the exercise. The email included an attached video, since declassified and widely known as the Go Fast footage, that showed an unidentified object exhibiting flight and structural characteristics unlike anything in our arsenal.

Gaulladet said the email disappeared from his account, as well as accounts of other recipients, the following day and the incident was never discussed in follow-up meetings about the exercise involving the F/A-18 pilots who captured the unexplained footage.

I concluded that the UAP information must have been classified within a special access program managed by an intelligence agency  a compartmented program that even senior officials, including myself, were not read into, Gaulladet wrote in his testimony.

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Author and former Defense Department official Luis Elizondo also provided written testimony to the two House subcommittee chairs, claiming a government-led UAP coverup.

Let me be clear: UAP are real, Elizondo wrote. Advanced technologies not made by our government  or any other government  are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries. I believe we are in the midst of a multi-decade, secretive arms race  one funded by misallocated taxpayer dollars and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies.

Neither Gallaudet nor Elizondo provided evidence to support their claims.

Deep dive investigation comes up empty

Despite widespread and long-running conspiracy theories about secret government agencies concealing recovered alien spacecraft wreckage and possibly some actual alien remains as well, the results of an investigation ordered by Congress to look into classified operations going back to the 1940s, unequivocally discounted those claims and stated no such evidence exists and the stories are the result of rumormongering.

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But the Defense Departments All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Offices report on the historical record of U.S. government involvement with unidentified anomalous phenomena (the updated nomenclature for UFOs) released in March also highlighted an effort named Kona Blue that proposed to pick up where a previous government effort, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, canceled in 2012, had left off.

According to the report, those advocating for the Kona Blue program were convinced that the (U.S. government) was hiding (unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAP) technologies. They believed that creating this program under (the Department of Homeland Security) would allow all of the technology and knowledge of these alleged programs to be moved under the Kona Blue program.

The Kona Blue proposal was based on a presumption that the U.S. government was in covert possession of advanced aerospace technology and biological samples from extraterrestrial sources. The report says DHS rejected the Kona Blue proposal for lacking merit. And goes on to further discount the premise of those supporting the effort.

It is critical to note that no extraterrestrial craft or bodies were ever collected  this material was only assumed to exist by Kona Blue advocates and its anticipated contract performers, the report reads. This was the same assumption made by those same individuals involved with the ... (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.)

Claims of alien spacecraft wreckage

Numerous claims about extraterrestrial spacecraft and alien remains have been made by current and former government employees for decades, including in 2023 when a former U.S. Intelligence official alleged the government is in possession of intact and partially intact craft of nonhuman origin.

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David Grusch, an Air Force veteran and former member of both the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, made news in June 2023 when he went public with claims that he was privy to classified government secrets.

While working on the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, Grusch said several colleagues approached him about their involvement in a crash retrieval program that researches alien technology.

These are retrieving non-human origin technical vehicles, call it spacecraft if you will, nonhuman exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed, Grusch told NewsNation.

I thought it was totally nuts and I thought at first I was being deceived, it was a ruse, Grusch said. People started to confide in me. Approach me. I have plenty of senior, former intelligence officers that came to me, many of which I knew almost my whole career, that confided in me that they were part of a program.

No secret UAP programs

The Defense Department report released in March said investigators conducted dozens of interviews, including with those who claimed to have knowledge of secret programs studying recovered extraterrestrial materials, but found no credible evidence to support the claims, even though some of the documents and programs named by interviewees actually exist.

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... all of the named and described alleged hidden UAP reverse-engineering programs provided by interviewees either do not exist; are misidentified authentic, highly sensitive national security programs that are not related to extraterrestrial technology exploitation; or resolve to an unwarranted and disestablished program, the report reads.

Utahs infamous Skinwalker Ranch, long rumored to be an epicenter of unexplained paranormal activity and UAP sightings, gets a mention in the report as an area that was investigated at one time by the now-defunct Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, following up on reports of shadow figures and creatures, and claims of remote viewing and human consciousness anomalies on the property near Roosevelt, Utah.
Major Magdalena Kosinska, spokeswoman for Poland's 16th Pomeranian Mechanised Division, has announced that Poland has deployed South Korean-supplied K2 tanks manufactured by Hyundai Rotem a few kilometres from Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast.

Source: European Pravda, citing Polish news agency PAP

Details: The tanks were delivered to the unit in the city of Braniewo using tank transporters.

On Thursday, representatives of the Polish military and the South Korean side will complete the formalities necessary to accept the tanks.

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"The next step will be to equip the tanks with systems used in the Polish military, including communications equipment," said Kosinska.

The K2 Black Panther tanks are known for their advanced technological solutions, especially their active defence system, which effectively counters missiles and anti-tank fire.

They also feature high mobility, allowing them to perform rapid manoeuvres even in rugged terrain such as marshes or sands.

Equipped with precise guidance and fire control systems, they ensure effectiveness in diverse combat conditions.

"The 9th Brigade received seven tanks in the first batch. Another batch is expected at the end of this year. The unit currently has eight trained crews who have been prepared by instructors from the 20th Mechanised Brigade," said Major Kosinska.

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Background:

In August 2022, Poland and South Korea signed an executive contract for the purchase of the first 180 tanks worth almost US$3.4 billion. Deliveries from South Korea have already begun, though the Polish industry has minimal involvement in this phase of the contract, with communication systems being the only Polish-made equipment installed in the delivered K2 tanks.

This August, media reports indicated that Poland's plans to produce modern K2 tanks in cooperation with South Korea faced serious obstacles.

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The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is seeing a rise in SMS telco impersonation scams and is warning people to be on the lookout.

The ACMA has warned that scammers impersonate trusted brands like Optus, Vodafone, and Telstra and send messages with links to you and asks have you recently received a message on your phone from your telco that you weren't expecting? Be careful  it might be a scam!

These messages sometimes look like a (fake) bill or say you have a problem with your account. Other times, they may say you have a bonus, reward points or another prize to collect or redeem, explains ACMA.



The links in the messages take you to a scam website that requires your login or financial details, which the scammer will then steal. 

The ACMA explains what to look out for in relation to these scams:

Key signs that an SMS may be a telco impersonation scam are:

Sense of urgency  scammers try and create an urgent need to get you to click on a link. They might say your service is about to be affected.

Incorrect website address  the link leads to a web address that may contain the name of the telco being impersonated but is different from the real telco's website address. Look out for misspellings, unusual words or random letters and numbers.

Generic name  the messages will not use your name, but instead will be addressed to Dear customer or similar.

And, on how to protect yourself the ACMA recommends:

If you are unsure if a message or call is genuine  stop and check. Dont rush to act.

Do not click on any links in texts. These may contain malware or may be phishing scams designed to steal your personal or financial details.

Do not rely on contact information in texts. Check if a message is genuine by contacting the business using details you confirm yourself  for example, on an official website, a bill or a secure app.

Check in with family members or friends you trust and tell them about any online requests for money.

If you think youve been scammed, contact your bank immediately to stop any payments and tell your telco.



Scammers are criminals, and they target everyone, ACMA advises, adding that:

Help other Australians by reporting scams to Scamwatch

Scammers want you to hide or deny your experiences. Reporting scams and talking about them not only helps you to understand what happened but informs authorities about scammer activities so that they can make it harder for scams to occur.

The more we talk, the less power they have.

Get informed:

IDCARE can help if your identity has been compromised or stolen. Call 1800 595 160 or visit www.idcare.or

Use our phone scam educational materials, which include posters in English, 10 other languages and for First Nations Australians, and graphics for social media.

The ACMA supports the governments Fighting Scams initiative to address scams and online fraud and protect Australians from financial harm. We also support the work of the National Anti-Scam Centre, which coordinates government, law enforcement and the private sector to combat scams.
The Office of the Polish President (OP) has released an infographic showing that the country has allocated 4.91% of its GDP to help Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.

Source: the Office of the Polish President on X (Twitter), as reported by European Pravda

Details: The office stressed that Poland ranks first among the countries supporting Ukraine in terms of GDP per centage. It was the first to supply Ukraine with large-scale heavy weapons. In addition, the OP emphasises that Poland is among the countries that has received the most refugees from Ukraine.

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"Poland has earmarked 4.91% of its GDP for this assistance, with 0.71% of GDP allocated to support Ukraine and 4.2% of GDP dedicated to the cost of assisting Ukrainian refugees," one of the reports said.

Thus, approximately 85% of the aid allocated by Warsaw went to help Ukrainian refugees in Poland.

The office noted that Poland supplied Ukraine with the first batch of T-72 tanks in the first half of 2022. "We also gave more than 250 BWP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, 100 KTO Rosomak armoured personnel carriers, nine BRDM 2 reconnaissance vehicles, more than a hundred selfpropelled guns, more than 30 BM-21 Grad rocket launchers," the statement said.

In total, Poland has provided Ukraine with military assistance worth 3.23 billion euros, or more than 14 billion zlotys.

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"A total of 14 of our MiG29s and 12 Mi24 helicopters have been given to the Ukrainian Air Force to boost its strength (only the United States has donated more)," the Polish OP said.

The Polish Office of the President also noted that the vast majority of the Polish public was involved in helping refugees from Ukraine. According to a survey conducted by the Polish Economic Institute, 77% of Poles are involved.

It was also emphasised that Poland has the highest recorded percentage of Ukrainian refugees who have found employment  65%.

Earlier, the Polish foreign minister said that his country has done more for Ukraine than any other country.

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"Among the countries that help Ukraine, if we take into account military, financial, economic, humanitarian [assistance], and the assistance for Ukrainian refugees, Poland has done more for Ukraine in terms of GDP than any other nation," he said.

On 14 November, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that he touched upon the possibility of supplying Soviet MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine at a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

Later, Polish Defence Minister Wadysaw Kosiniak-Kamysz rejected calls from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to expedite the supply of MiG-29s to Ukraine, citing the same reason.

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ARLINGTON, Va. (DC News Now)  Police said three suspects were detained after they allegedly robbed a business in Arlington Thursday morning.

The Arlington County Police Department (ACPD) said that just before 6:45 a.m., officers were called to the 2100 block of 15th Street N for an armed robbery.

The preliminary investigation revealed that three people entered the business and one of the suspects took out a knife.

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Will porch pirates strike in the DMV during the busy holiday season?

Police said the suspects stole items from the store, before running into the Metro station, nearby.

ACPD said with the help of the Metro Transit Police, three people were detained at the Rosslyn Metro station.

The investigation is ongoing.

Arlington County police were on the scene of an armed robbery investigation in Arlington on Nov. 14. (Timothy Corley/DC News Now)

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Police across Europe arrested 43 people and seized 520 million euros in a European investigation into a criminal conspiracy to evade VAT through money laundering and mafia activity, the European public prosecutors office (EPPO) and Italian police said on Thursday.

They said the investigation concerns tax fraud in the trading of IT products and electronic devices within the EU and involves around 400 companies with 200 suspects, mainly in Italy and several European countries, but also in the United Arab Emirates.

According to European prosecutors, those arrested are also facing charges of facilitating the Naples-based mafia Camorra and the Sicilian Cosa Nostra by investing their profits in VAT fraud.

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Many investigations in Italy have shown in recent years how mobsters have moved aggressively into the low-risk, low-key world of white-collar crime.

It has been a while since we started to ring the alarm bell about dangerous organised crime groups heavy involvement in fraud to the EU budget, European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kavesi said in a statement.

We now shed light on a first such big case, she said, adding there was no division between the world of the really bad and dangerous criminals smuggling drugs, trafficking people on one side; and the world of white-collar criminals, merely corrupting and laundering money, on the other side.

Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti congratulated the police authorities and prosecutors in a statement on his X profile (LaPresse)

Of those arrested, 34 are being held in prison, nine under house arrest, while four others have been banned from working. Some of the arrests were made in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain and Bulgaria, EPPO said in a statement.

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Guardia di Finanza police said they found false invoices by the companies involved amounting to 1.3 billion euros from 2020 to 2023.

In addition to the money, the financial police said they also seized real estate complexes on the Sicilian and Ligurian Rivieras, on Lake Como and in Milan.

More than 160 searches were carried out throughout Italy and further searches and seizures were made in Spain, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and the Netherlands, as well as in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, Eppo said.
TOPEKA (KSNT)  Police in Topeka have arrested a local man in connection to a recent shooting that left one person dead.

The Topeka Police Department announced in a press release on Nov. 14 that DuJontez J. Owens, 24, of Topeka was arrested on murder in the first degree and other charges in connection to the death of 45-year-old Ricky R. Washington Jr. on Nov. 10. Owens charges include the following:

Conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree; intentional and premeditated.

Murder in the first degree; intentional and premeditated.

Attempted murder in the first degree; intentional and premeditated.

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Police were called around 9 a.m. on Nov. 10 to the 1200 block of Southwest Huntoon Street on reports of a shooting. Officers arriving at the scene found one person with life-threatening injuries and another, later identified as Washington, dead. Washingtons death is the 17th homicide of the year in Topeka.

Man killed in deadly Topeka fire identified by police

For more crime news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here.

Follow Matthew Self on X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MatthewLeoSelf

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News.
GAITHERSBURG, Md. (DC News Now)  The Montgomery County Department of Police (MCPD) announced a man was arrested after he was accused of raping and sexually abusing three young girls.

Detectives with the MCPDs Special Victims Investigation Division (SVID) said 28-year-old Irvin Ariel Portillo, of Damascus, was charged with multiple offenses related to rape and sexual abuse.

Man shot after fight breaks out on Metrobus in Capitol Heights

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This comes after detectives began investigating the rape of a teenage girl on Oct. 29. During the investigation, detectives identified two additional victims.

28-year-old Irvin Ariel Portillo, of Damascus (Photo Courtesy: MCPD)

On Nov. 8, police served Portillo an arrest warrant on charges including second-degree rape and third-degree sexual offenses.

He was taken into custody and was processed at the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit. Portillo is being held without bond.

Detectives believe there may be additional victims and encourage them to come forward.

Anyone with information and who may be a victim of Portillo should call SVID detectives at 240-773-5400.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC.
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN)  Reports said police Wednesday found a gun and took three juveniles into custody while investigating a stolen SUV.

Read next: Human Trafficking agents, deputies search Youngstown home

Osha Porch, 18, was booked into the Mahoning County Juvenile Justice Center on a warrant about 10:35 a.m. after police found a stolen SUV they had been alerted to look for through the citys Flock Camera system.

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Reports said an officer spotted the SUV in a yard on Willis Avenue and three males, Porch and the other two 17-year-olds, ran away. They were later found on a porch on Hillman Street, reports said.

Reports said police found a gun behind a detached garage at the Hillman Street home, reports said.

Reports said the two 17-year-olds had flathead screwdrivers on them, which are commonly used when vehicles are stolen.

The two 17-year-olds were handed over to their parents, reports said and the vehicle owner retrieved her SUV, reports said.

It is unclear if Porch will face any charges in adult 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 WKBN.com.
MILWAUKEE, Wis. (WFRV)  Police in southeastern Wisconsin are investigating an incident in which a 2-year-old ran into traffic and was hit by a vehicle, later dying from their injuries.

According to the Milwaukee Police Department, the incident occurred Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, shortly before 12:30 p.m. on the 6800 block of North 60th Street in Milwaukee.

Green Bay firefighters rescue individual from vehicle crash in East River

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A preliminary investigation revealed that the 2-year-old pedestrian ran into traffic and was struck by a vehicle. The child was transported to a nearby hospital, where they later died.

The driver of the vehicle, a 41-year-old man, remained on the scene and was taken into custody.

Man tied to 3 separate shots fired calls in western Wisconsin town charged with 2 felonies

The Milwaukee Police Department says criminal charges will be referred to the Milwaukee County District Attorneys Office.

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.
Police officers and detectives swarmed a home in Boston overnight after a shooting left a teenager injured.

Officers were called to a home at 718 Cummins Highway in the citys Mattapan section, not far from the Blue Hill Avenue MBTA stop, just before 2 a.m., according to the Boston Police Department.

Upon arrival, police said officers found a 19-year-old man suffering from a gunshot wound.

The victim, whose name hasnt been released, was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. He is said to be in stable condition.

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Video from the scene showed the area flooded with flashing police lights as officers scoured the home for evidence. Glass on the front door was also shattered.

Police said investigators recovered ballistic damage during the sweep of the home.

No arrests have been made in connection with the shooting.

An investigation is ongoing.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.

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Can you help police find two suspects?

[DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Huber Heights has asked for the publics help in identifying two suspects involved in a theft, according to a social media post.

TRENDING STORIES:

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The incident happened at the Kroger parking lot on Nov. 5 at 6 p.m.

A male suspect is accused of entering an unlocked vehicle and stealing a childs backpack.

A female accomplice was also observed leaving the scene in a red four-door Sedan, police said.

The department posted security images of the two suspects and the Sedan on its Facebook page.

Anyone with information can call Detective Larry Tyree at (937) 237-3576.

Photo contributed by Huber Heights Police (via Facebook)

Photo contributed by Huber Heights Police (via Facebook)

Photo contributed by Huber Heights Police (via Facebook)

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GUEST OPINION: Hours, days and even weeks can go into building the perfect website, but all that hard work won't pay off unless you get a good number of clicks on your website. Thats all well and good, but how do you drive traffic to a website?

That is where search engine optimisation, or SEO, comes in; optimising your online presence to take advantage of the algorithms search engines rely on.

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

SEO is all about making your website more visible on search engines like Google, which means more people can find it. Its the process of fine-tuning different aspects of your sitelike keywords, content, and structureto rank higher in search results. The goal is to drive organic traffic, in other words, non-paid visitors, to your site. The best way to do this necessitates a little understanding of how search engines rank sites so you can take advantage of the algorithms.

In simple terms, SEO is the way to get your site noticed without having to pay for ads, helping to attract the right audience and boost your business in a sustainable, long-term way.

A Guide to the Ranking Algorithms

Even if data analytics isnt your favourite activity, having a basic grasp of how those elusive algorithms work can be incredibly helpful. Since Google is the largest search engine, and they are actually very open about their ranking system, well focus on how it works.

Googles algorithms evaluate a few key factors. First, they assess the intent behind a search query to understand what the user is seeking. Then, they look at the relevance of the pages content by analysing keywords and topics. Content quality is crucial, measured by the E-E-A-T frameworkexpertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness.

Aside from content, site usability, including speed and mobile-friendliness, also matters, along with user context, like location and search history. Combining all these factors allows Google to deliver personalised results most likely to reflect what the searcher wants to see.

On-Page OptimisationsQuick Wins

Before you go further afield, optimising your site can be an easy fix. Your page titles and meta descriptions (the writing that comes up under the webpage title on a search) must accurately reflect your page content and entice users to click by sounding engaging and relevant.

Structuring your site headings properly helps search engines flag what is important; by using proper tags, like H1 for the main title and H2 or H3 for subheadings, your content is easier for users and search engines alike.

Optimise your images. Search engines cant see in the same way we can, but they can read alt text (the text description of photos) and file names. So, if you use descriptive, keyword-rich filenames and ensure your alt text also includes keywords where appropriate, this can be an easy win.

At the end of the day, content is kingif you have good content and formulate an SEO strategy, the chances of success will be high. Without good content to start off with, it will be hard to drive organic traffic, even with the best SEO. But even with the best SEO and content, your website itself is critical. A well-designed website will automatically help your business be SEO-ready, so investing in a WordPress website development agency can be an easy way to help you get on the right track.

Building Authority: SEO Everywhere

One thing psychology teaches us time and time again is that people respect authority, but how do you go about building a good reputation? A great place to start is social media; link your socials to your website to build a brand image and expand the audience. On the more SEO-oriented side, backlinks are a great way to drive traffic to your site. Having other reputable sites link to yours will bolster your reputation through association and grow organic traffic. A great way to do this is through guest posts on other people's blogs and websites, which expand your community through business partnerships.

They say consistency is key when it comes to building and maintaining authority. By regularly producing valuable, relevant content that meets user needs, you will help establish your site as a reliable source of information. At the same time, actively building relationships with other reputable websites and consistently acquiring backlinks will help to strengthen your domain authority in the long run.

Source: Reid Rushy

Tracking Sucess

Who doesn't like seeing how much of a difference their work is making? Aside from bad politicians, most of us like to track what sort of a difference our input is really making, and luckily, SEO is designed to do just that. Unfortunately, there are a few metrics to sort through. The most obvious is organic traffic, i.e., all non-paid clicks coming from a search engine, a metric that is easy enough to track with systems like Google Search Console.

Beyond organic traffic, other key metrics to monitor include keyword rankings, which show how well your pages are performing for target keywords, and bounce rates, which reveal how engaged users are with your content. Conversion rates, or the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action (like making a purchase or signing up), are crucial for measuring the real impact of your SEO strategy.

The Beauty of SEO

The good thing about SEO is its flexibility. Not a numbers person? You can visualise all the site data with an easy-to-read graph easily. Have you already tried one strategy to no avail? Check the data and try another. Are you overwhelmed by the variety of options to boost traffic? Just try a couple and see what happens.

SEO is a process that will certainly involve some trial and error at the beginning, but there is plenty of help out there, and with a little experimenting, your site could have thousands of clicks in no time.
The arrest of a police officer in Gloucestershire, on suspicion of providing support to Hamas, is sobering. While it is too early to say if an offence has been committed in this instance, this potential case is far from unique.

In June Mohammed Adil of Bradford was convicted of two terrorism offences, after sharing images in support of Hamas in October and November 2023. He was a serving police officer in West Yorkshire Police at the time of the offence, and was sentenced to an 18-month community order and 160 hours of unpaid work.

The second image, which he had shared on WhatsApp, stated: We will hold accountable all those who occupied our lands and Allah will hold accountable all those who remained silent against this occupation and oppression. This is believed to be a quote from Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades  the military wing of Hamas. The Al-Qassam Brigades have been proscribed in this country since March 2001  when Adil would still have been in short trousers.

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How many other police officers, and how many civilian staff with access to police stations and computer systems, hold similar views to Mohammed Adil? How many are willing to act on those views? These are not theoretical questions  the landscape of counter-extremism and counter-terrorism has been changed utterly by the 7/10 attacks and the subsequent war between Israel and Hamas.

Public concern is exacerbated by the perception the police are all too happy to indulge in politics. As Policy Exchange detailed in a 2023 report on police staff associations, a succession of representative bodies now exist in most forces, many representing different racial, religious or national heritage groups, with some lobbying repeatedly on highly contentious issues.

In May 2021 footage emerged of a WPC in London hugging a demonstrator on a pro-Palestine march to the Israel embassy. She then joined in, while in police uniform, with the crowds chants of Free free Palestine. Officers taking the knee and driving rainbow emblazoned police cars became core examples of the increased politicisation of the public square. Activists sat on police consultative forums, often with little or no public terms of reference or even a webpage listing the full membership of the group concerned.

A particular risk with such behaviour is not just that it damages concepts of impartiality, but that it encourages police officers to see certain political causes as good and therefore to be less questioning of the actions and materials of these campaigns and their allies. This forms part of the trap the police walked into when protestors were calling for jihad on the streets, and the Mets advisors were reportedly telling them this had multiple meanings and that those concerned should not be arrested.

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It is clear vetting poses a major challenge. In 2021, the Met sacked Benjamin Hannam, a police officer and member of the proscribed far-Right terror group National Action. Hannam had lied on his application and vetting forms, which prohibit membership of the BNP or similar organisations.

Nor are specialist police units exempt from issues. Last May a Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism officer, Saadane Mansouri, was sacked after being found guilty of passing confidential information about protestors to the Algerian Embassy. Vetting notably failed in the cases of police sex offenders David Carrick and Wayne Couzens. Is it up to the far more nuanced task of identifying either political extremists or officers who may be influenced by foreign governments?

Public acceptance of police neutrality rests not only on avoiding any association with politics, but on properly vetting officers to ensure that those who join the force do not bring political baggage with them. To police by consent requires both impartiality in applying the law, and the perception that impartiality matters. Can the police expect public support when they divide themselves up into sectarian groups within their own ranks, and become political campaigners themselves?

To get a grip, the police need to overhaul recruitment standards. There has been lots of talk in recent years on vetting standards but none on police recruitment which has got worse and worse in the drive to bring more diversity into forces.

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Police governance of staff associations needs to be addressed as Policy Exchange argued last year and His Majestys Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services reported earlier this year. Police chiefs should also use fast track misconduct processes to get bad officers out more quickly. Without this, the police will simply go on repeating the mistakes of recent years.

Dr Paul Stott is the Head of Security and Extremism at Policy Exchange

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TEXARKANA, Texas (KETK)  A Texarkana police officer was injured Thursday morning while working a I-30 crash when an intoxicated driver hit his patrol vehicle, the Texarkana Police Department said.

Longview woman known for Walmart of Drugs sentenced

Officer Kevin Burk was working at the scene of a westbound I-30 rollover crash and parked his vehicle across the highway to divert traffic, the police department said. According to Texarkana PD, Burk was inside the unit flashing his lights when 30-year-old Matthew Patterson crashed into the side of the vehicle.

Courtesy of the Texarkana Police Department.

Police said Patterson ignored all flashing lights and warning and was arrested for drinking while intoxicated. Burk was treated for minor injuries at a hospital and has since been released, the police department said.

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This serves as yet another reminder to never get behind the wheel of a vehicle if youve been drinking, the Texarkana Police Department said. Too many tragic things could happen in a heartbeat. Its simply not worth the risk.

The department said Patterson is sitting behind bars at the Bi-State Jail.

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LANSING, Mich. (WLNS)  The Jackson Police Department is informing residents about a phone scam. Wednesday, officers became aware of residents receiving phone calls from people claiming to be members of JPD and the Jackson County Sheriffs Office.

The callers say theyre a police officer who is looking for someone with pending legal matters and if a debt isnt paid, they will either issue a warrant or come arrest the person.

A callback number is also given during the call.

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Jackson officers want residents to know that JPD would never call someone and demand payment in any form.

If anyone in the community has questions about this phone scam, they should reach out to JPD at 517-788-4100.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WLNS 6 News.
HINESBURG, Vt. (myCV)  Police are searching for multiple suspects that backed a vehicle into Kinney Drugs in an attempt to steal their ATM early Wednesday morning.

Hinesburg officers went to the scene after receiving a report at 3:41 a.m.

Investigations revealed that an unidentified vehicle had parked on Vermont Route 116, backed over the sidewalk and into the front entrance of Kinney Drugs. The group reportedly tied a chain to the ATM in an attempt to pull it with their vehicle. All Suspects were unsuccessful in removing the ATM thanks to faulty equipment.

Courtesy: HPD

Courtesy: HPD

Anyone with information on the incident can contact HPD at 802-482-3397. This investigation is ongoing.

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ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO)  Winnebago County Sheriffs Deputies arrested Jeremy Townsend, 37, for possession of firearms among other charges.

On Nov. 12, around 7:20 a.m., police executed a search warrant in the 1800 block of Hutchins Avenue after investigations related to Townsend distributing drugs.

During the search, deputies found cannabis, crack cocaine, digital scales, a handgun, a revolver and cash, officials reported.

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The suspect told police he made around $400 a week selling crack cocaine.

Townsend is charged with possession of a firearm without a FOID, 2 counts of felon possession of a firearm and manufacturing and delivering cocaine.

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WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  Police are looking for two suspects and two cars after a shooting happened in Southeast D.C. on Saturday.

The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said that around 5:10 p.m., the two suspects got into a verbal argument in the 2500 block of Marion Barry Ave.

During this argument, both of the individuals took out guns and fired shots at each other before escaping.

No injuries were reported as of Wednesday.

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Report clears US Park Police officers in shooting of Bijan Ghaisar; father finds it unjustified

One suspect had a dark Chevrolet with Maryland tag 4EH6136.

(Images courtesy of the Metropolitan Police Department)

Another suspect was driving a red Nissan Ultima with D.C. tag GU6960.

(Images courtesy of the Metropolitan Police Department)

If anyone has any information about this shooting or these suspects, they are asked to contact police by calling 202-727-9099 or texting 50411.

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The West Melbourne Police Department is asking for the publics help with the death of a 75-year-old military veteran.

The Police Department said at 7:40 p.m., officers and fire rescue responded to the area of Wickham Road and Rodes Place, where Daniel George Grala was found injured and unresponsive in the roadway.

Read: Things to know about Sen. Marco Rubio, Trumps pick for secretary of state

Grala served in the United States Army for 22 years, including tours in Korea and Vietnam.

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Police urge anyone with information to contact the police department or THI Investigator Jason Wheeler at 321-723-9673 to help clarify the circumstances surrounding this incident.

Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.




(NEXSTAR)  The South African government has cut off supplies to an estimated 4,000 people participating in an illegal mining operation in the town of Stilfontein.

Officials are hoping the strategy will force the workers out of the mineshaft and to the surface, where they will be arrested.

We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, the Minister in the Presidency of South Africa, told reporters on Wednesday, per the Associated Press. Criminals are not to be helped. We didnt send them there.

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Florida police believe they caught an undetected serial killer

Over 1,000 people have already been arrested at South African mines this month as part of the police forces Close the Hole operations, according to reports.

Speaking with the Agence France-Presse, a police spokesperson said that several of the miners who surfaced this week were dehydrated and a bit hungry and weak.

They were then given to paramedics before they were arrested, the spokesperson said.

An aerial view of a mine shaft where an estimated 4000 illegal miners are trapped in a disused mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, Wednesday, Nov.13, 2024. (AP Photo)

Illegal miners in South Africas old mining towns  or zama-zama, as theyre called  are often said to come from neighboring countries. Its also common for them to spend months underground in harsh, hot conditions while working, a local doctor who sometimes treats the miners told The New Yorker in 2023.

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I think they all go through hell, the doctor told the outlet.

But police and locals say the miners also bring violent crime to the area and have been known to have armed clashes with rival mining operations, the Associated Press reported.

Still, some volunteers were seen providing water and food to the workers in the closed mine this week, urging them to regain enough strength to climb out, the AFP said.

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A 49-year-old man has been identified in a trio of attempted carjackings targeting women in several East Los Angeles neighborhoods, police announced Wednesday.

The terrifying Nov. 9 incidents, some of which were caught on surveillance cameras, show the suspect, now identified by police as Maurice Latorre, violently attacking the unsuspecting victims.

The first attempt, according to a Los Angeles Police Department news release, occurred at around 10:40 a.m. at a gas station in the 3200 block of North Broadway.

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The 49-year-old was seen approaching a woman as she gassed up her car. The victim was able to get into her car and close her door, but Latorre opened the door and forced his way into the vehicle, attempting to push the woman toward the backseat as he demanded her keys.

A brief struggle ensued, and the victim was able to get the suspect out of her vehicle, police said. The suspect then fled on foot.

A few hours later, just before 2 p.m. in the 2100 block of North Broadway in Lincoln Heights, the hooded 49-year-old is seen on surveillance cameras approaching the driver of a red-colored SUV as a woman on the passenger side was putting her children in the back of the vehicle.

Surveillance footage of Maurice Latorre, 49, attempting to carjack a victim on Nov. 9, 2024. (LAPD) Surveillance footage of Maurice Latorre, 49, attempting to carjack a victim on Nov. 9, 2024. (LAPD) Surveillance footage of Maurice Latorre, 49, attempting to carjack a victim on Nov. 9, 2024. (LAPD) Surveillance footage of Maurice Latorre, 49, attempting to carjack a victim on Nov. 9, 2024. (LAPD) Surveillance footage of Maurice Latorre, 49, attempting to carjack a victim on Nov. 9, 2024. (LAPD) Surveillance footage of Maurice Latorre, 49, attempting to carjack a victim on Nov. 9, 2024. (LAPD) Maurice Latorre, 49, is wanted in connection with a trio of attempted carjackings on Nov. 9, 2024 in East L.A. (LAPD)

Latorre, according to police, demanded the keys, but the woman was able to drive away as the 49-year-old casually strolled off.

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The suspect struck again three hours later, just before 5 p.m., at a gas station in the 2900 block of East Cesar E. Chavez Avenue in Boyle Heights.

Latorre tried to get the woman out of the driver seat, but she fought back even as she was pulled from the vehicle, and they went to the ground. Police said a passerby pulled the 49-year-old off the woman. The suspect then fled on a silver-colored bike.

Anything can happen. This world is changing every day, Boyle Heights resident Cecilia Castillo told KTLAs Carlos Saucedo.

Girl, 15, reportedly raped by Southern California Uber driver outside school

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Castillo comes to the Arco gas station where the third attempted carjacking occurred regularly and at night.

I pump gas at night, and I work nightshift, so yeah, scary, she said of the incidents.

Boyle Heights resident Danny Diaz told KTLA that if people see something like that, they should prevent it. The incidents hit close to home for him since he says something similar happened to his partner last month.

It happened to my fiancee not too long ago, too, he explained. Some guy tried to break in and take the car while she was pumping gas with my son inside. Thats scary for us because imagine they take the car with the kids inside and you go crazy.

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Police described Latorre as 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighing around 180 pounds with black hair and eyes.

The public is urged to practice caution if they spot Latorre as he is considered violent and dangerous, police said. Instead, they should call 911 immediately.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
First, we need some background as to why there are differences in the apparent size and position of the moon.

Orbital mechanics

The Moons orbit around Earth is not a circle  it has an eccentricity of approximately 0.055 (although this varies). Im not going to go into the maths, but we can determine the semi-major (greatest) axis  a in the image below and semi-minor (least) axis  b in the image from this and find that the greatest distance the Moon is from Earth is 405,400 km and the minimum is 362,600 km - a difference of around 12%. Further there is a 27% difference in brightness between the largest and smallest apparent moons. Note that the difference is greatly exaggerated here.

This next image is more accurate, distinguishing the actual orbit (in red) from a true circle.

Dual moon image by Tom Ruen via Wikipedia

The moon has sufficient mass that the barycentre (effectively the centre of mass of the two bodies) lies 4,670km from the Earths centre  approximately 73% of the distance from the centre to the surface.





https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=102773122

In this image, we see that the horizontal line (labelled Ecliptic Plane) represents the direction towards the sun, and thus it is obvious that a solar or lunar eclipse can only occur when all three bodies are on this line. We will discuss eclipses in another article.

When is a moon considered to be full? Most people cannot easily distinguish between full and almost full up to a day either side, so its easy to observe a moon and declare it to be full within that time-frame.

Harvest Moon

This is the full moon closest to the (Northern Hemispheres) autumnal equinox (typically September 21st). During either of the equinoxes, the Sun and Moon will rise due east and set due west, thus at this time, the Moon will rise straight up and reach heights above the horizon more quickly than any other time. Similarly a solstice moon (December 21st or March 21st) will rise at the greatest angle to the horizon.

Blue Moon

A blue moon refers either to the presence of a second full moon in a calendar month or to the third full moon in a season containing four.

The calendrical meaning of "blue moon" is unconnected to the other meanings. It is often referred to as traditional but since no occurrences are known prior to 1937 it is better described as an invented tradition or modern American folklore The practice of designating the second full moon in a month as "blue" originated with amateur astronomer James Hugh Pruett in 1946. Such occurrences are relatively rare, hence the expression once in a blue moon.

Similarly, the term black moon refers to the second new moon to occur in a calendar month.

In North America, there are quite unique names for all full moons in a year - theyre specifically related to local events.

Of course, whenever the moon is close to the horizon, it will appear redder due to dust and other impurities in the air  just the same as the sun does.

Super Moon

Any time that the full moon coincides with its semi-minor axis. Typically, these occur in a sequence of three or four in a row. A super moon is defined as a full moon occurring within 90% of its closest possible distance to Earth.

The exact timing of next super moon is at 8:29am ESDT on Saturday November 16th. Of course the moon will already have set by them, but as was noted earlier, it is quite difficult for anyone to be sure of the exact point of a full moon within a day or so.

The moon will rise on the evening before and after the exact full moon as follows (all in local times, sourced from Time and Date):

November 15th (evening):

November 16th (morning):

November 16th (evening):

Photographing the final super moon of 2024

If you want a dramatic image of the moon, its best to do so when its close to the horizon so that you can give it context  thats why weve provided sunrise and sunset times for all major locations around Australia for the morning of the full moon and the evenings either side.





Image by @nikkibings on Instagram provided by Nikon.

The image above was taken at Bondi Beach (in Sydney) and it clearly demonstrates how context works. Note that youll need a big lens to capture something like this. You also need to find a location that allows you to see the moon immediately after it rises (or before it sets  well come to that!).

Where would we suggest you go for a great image?

Lacking familiarity with Cairns (weve never been there), all we can suggest is to be close to the shoreline with something nice in the foreground  perhaps go north of the airport somewhere just off Highway 1. Alternately, you might find a good image with the moon above the yachts in the boat harbour.

In Brisbane, you might want to try the Redcliffe Peninsular with the moon rising over Bribie Island. Or, if youre really adventurous, try setting up at the south-west end of the main airport runway and try to capture the moon with a plane.

In Sydney, youre utterly spoilt for choices. Theres the Bondi shot (in the image above) but you could also set up on any of the peninsulas on the south side of the harbour and capture the moon over the Manly area. Also, just like Brisbane, you could set up along the Brighton-Le-Sands beach and try to get a plane in your shot.

Canberras best locations would be along the south side of Lake Burley Griffin, attempting a similar shot to Sydney Harbour. You might also attempt to set up somewhere near the Japanese Embassy and capture the moon above Parliament House.

For Melbourne, wed suggest going to Williamstown and capturing the moon over the city, or perhaps down to Geelong for a long-shot over the bay. However theres one other option that MIGHT work. If our calculations are correct, moonrise will be directly in line with the east-west streets of the Melbourne Square. You might be able to get a long shot down Burke St with the moon above State Parliament. Maybe!

Hobart is also spoilt for choices. Any shot across water would work well. Close-in, Sandy Bay would work well, but you might also venture further afield to Lauderdale or even Marion Bay.

For the rest of the locations, the options for an evening picture are relatively poor, so well suggest you get up very early for a view to the west.

In Adelaide you could get to any of the beaches for a useful shot or perhaps find a vantage point in the hills  Long Ridge Lookout might give you a nice shot of the moon over the city.

We know Darwin only slightly better than Cairns  we visited once in the early 90s! Glancing at the maps, you might get an interesting=ng shot from Saloo St where it turns around the storage tanks, alternately, youre probably best to try either the Cullen Bay harbour or a simple shot across the ocean from the Ski Club or anywhere along that stretch of coast.

For Perth, wed suggest, rather like Adelaide, to either find a useful spot on the shoreline or get up into the hills  perhaps Lions Lookout on Welshpool Rd East might work.

Finally Broome. Theres not a lot to use as a foreground  we doubt that there will be camels on the beach at 5am! Youre probably best with a simple ocean shot just before the moon sets.

We hope you find this information useful. Perhaps if you get some good shots, youll send them through for a wrap-up article in a few days.

Note that there wont be another super moon until October next year, but that doesnt mean you cant photograph the full moon on other cycles.

Enjoy.
Polish President Andrzej Duda has said that he touched upon the possibility of supplying Soviet MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine at a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

Source: Duda's statement as quoted by Polsat News; European Pravda reports

Details: In particular, Duda confirmed that Poland would be ready for such a transfer if NATO countries decided to relocate the fighters from the West to Polish bases.

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The Polish president said that they discussed the issue of the Polish MiG-29s, which are still in service. He stated there was only one squadron of MiGs left, and that decisions had to be made in this regard. Poland is currently using these aircraft, but if they are handed over to Ukraine, a fundamental condition must first be met: Polish airspace must be protected.

Duda noted that these Soviet aircraft are currently used by the Polish army to ensure airspace security.

He added that Poland provides assistance to Ukraine on a daily basis, as his country is a transit country and if there was no Polish infrastructure to support Ukraine, the latter country would be in an extremely difficult situation.

Background:

In July, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk mentioned that Poland might consider supplying additional Soviet-model fighter jets to Ukraine if it can find replacements for them in collaboration with its allies.

Later, Polish Defence Minister Wadysaw Kosiniak-Kamysz rejected calls from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to expedite the supply of MiG-29s to Ukraine, citing the same argument.

In September, Polish Foreign Minister Radosaw Sikorski stated that Warsaw could hand over additional MiG-29 aircraft to Ukraine, but this would depend on whether it has sufficient resources to protect its own airspace.

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With elections due in just over three months' time, Germany's conservative opposition is riding high in the opinion polls.

Fresh elections are to be held on February 23 following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition.

The opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), have a clear advantage in the polls, with 33% of voters signalling support for the centre-right bloc led by Friedrich Merz. This was a slight increase from the previous survey.

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Germans are set to go to the polls early, rather than in September, after Scholz dismissed his finance minister last week following months of wrangling over the 2025 budget.

After he was sacked, Christian Lindner's pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) withdrew from the coalition, leaving the chancellor without a majority in the Bundestag, or lower house.

Scholz has been criticized for dismissing Lindner, but insisted his decision was "correct and unavoidable" in a speech on Wednesday.

He called on lawmakers to pull together and pass crucial bills before the vote, in his first public comments since the new date was agreed.

"Let us act united. It would be good for our country," he said, adding: "The path of compromise remains the only right path."
Prediction betting market Polymarket and its founder and CEO Shayne Coplan have found themselves at the center of a debate about political betting after the FBI reportedly raided Coplans home on Wednesday.

The FBI seized a cellphone and other electronic devices in a raid of Coplans New York City apartment early Wednesday, multiple media outlets reported, citing unnamed sources. Coplan turned over his devices and was not arrested or charged, according to the reports.

It was not immediately clear if he or Polymarket are targets of an investigation. The Justice Department declined to comment, and the FBIs national and New York offices said they cannot confirm or deny the reports.

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The New York Times reported the raid was part of a probe by the FBI and the U.S. attorneys office for the Southern District of New York into whether Polymarket was run as an unlicensed commodities exchange that allowed users in the United States to illegally place bets on its platform.

Neither prosecutors with the attorneys office nor Polymarket responded to a request for comment.

Polymarket, founded by Coplan in 2020, has faced scrutiny for its election betting markets, which reportedly brought in more than $3.6 billion from bets on the presidential election, according to an NBC News analysis.

This included about $1.5 billion on President-elect Trump and $1 billion on Vice President Harris, the analysis stated, and concerns were raised over whether the odds and election betting markets may have played a role in his victory.

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Polymarket is among the most popular election betting markets but is prohibited from taking bets inside the U.S. following a 2022 settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). As part of the deal, Polymarket was ordered to pause trading and pay a $1.4 million fine for failing to register with the agency.

The platform received large trades in the lead-up to Nov. 5 from a French trader, prompting additional criticism of the platform. Bloomberg reported the user was expected to take home about $48 million as a result of Trumps victory.

Coplan has not spoken publicly on the incident, but he posted on the social platform X later Wednesday, new phone, who dis? seemingly referring to the seizure of his phone.

In a later post, Coplan slammed the Biden administration for what he believes is a targeted effort for his companys association with President-elect Trumps victory last week.

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Its discouraging that the current administration would seek a last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents, he wrote. We are deeply committed to being non-partisan, and today is no different, but the incumbents should do some self-reflecting and recognize that taking a more pro-business, pro-startup approach may be what would have changed their fate this election.

The Biden administration has faced criticism over its approach to some tech firms, including its crackdown on antitrust and cryptocurrency. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Tech billionaire and emerging Trump ally Elon Musk was among a series of pro-crypto figures to rally around Coplan in the wake of the reports.

Indeed, Musk said in a response to Coplan, while Brian Armstrong, the co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, originally posted that the raid will backfire and make Polymarket even more powerful.

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He later deleted the post, writing instead, Deleted my prior tweet until all the facts are in  but doesnt look good.

Musk responded to Armstrongs since-deleted post, This seems messed up.

The raid caught the attention of some on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.), who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, suggested the raid could be seen as overly aggressive depending on what probable cause authorities had before seizing Coplans devices.

Theyre claiming there may be some kind of betting thats going on overseas funneled through VPNs and other sources. But it does look a little overly aggressive, she told Fox Business Network Thursday. It kind of has that look of maybe somebody that looks like they might be supporting Trump has to be raid at 6 a.m. like Roger Stone and so many others.

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Investor Kevin OLeary noted the investigation should not take long to determine if Polymarket did something illegal.

Its all online. Its all on the blockchain, theyll be able to do this in a matter of a week or so to see if the company in fact broke the rules, OLeary told Fox Business Network

A federal appeals court decision officially deemed election betting in the U.S. legal just last month, siding against the CFTC, which asked the court to block prediction exchange platform Kalshi from offering Congressional Control Contracts.

Kalshi allowed users to bet on which political party would control the House and the Senate after the election.

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Updated at 4:18 pm EST.

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CLINTON TOWNSHIP, WYOMING COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU)  A popular restaurant in Wyoming County that was destroyed by fire is preparing to reopen.

Gins Tavern near Factoryville has been closed for 18 months while crews worked on rebuilding the business.

The fire happened back in May of last year.

A Little Love: Meet Dalton

The new and improved restaurant will offer a bar, game room, and covered patio.

The owners encourage guests to make reservations for the first few weeks, however, reservations are not required.

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Gins will hold a ribbon cutting on Saturday morning before opening for business at 12:00 p.m.

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WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  The delivery surge is coming ahead of the busy holiday season and a new study is examining the scale of the package theft problem both across the country and in the D.C. area.

According to the 2024 Package Theft Annual Report and Statistics, 14% of D.C. residents have had a package stolen in the last three months. Thats true for 4% of Marylanders, and 6% of Virginians.

Georgetowns newest one-stop charcuterie shop: Georgetown Pantry opens in Northwest DC

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Additionally, nine out of every 10 Americans are worried about stolen holiday packages.

To curb this problem, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) has installed package lockers at a precinct in each of the citys eight wards. Thats in addition to many package lockers at grocery stores and gas stations across the District.

Some of those who were utilizing the Amazon locker at a gas station on the corner of 13th & N St., NW on Wednesday said they were using it because one of their packages had been stolen before.

If a package is delivered to my building and Im not at home  someone may take it, said William Brown, who noted one time was enough.

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Some are hoping more can be done to curb the thieves.

I dont know what it takes to reduce theft of packages but right now there is essentially no consequence for anyone taking any packages from any door, Kyle Flynn said.

Seasons Greenings returns to US Botanical Garden Thanksgiving Day

Currently, D.C. law hands down a second-degree theft charge, which can occur if the items stolen are worth less than $1,000. It can result in a penalty of up to six months in jail and/or a fine.

In addition to utilizing public package lockers, other preventative measures include ordering packages when youre home and installing security cameras, according to the report.

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PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  For the first time in years, overdose deaths are trending down across the country, including Portland.

With emergency calls flooding in daily, the city is still in crisis mode. However, the CHAT program  a proactive intervention tool run in partnership with Portland Fire & Rescue  is making a real difference, responding to more than 750 overdose calls this year.

St. Helens High School educators accused of student sex abuse begin court proceedings

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Weve seen a decline in overdose calls and our call volume has decreased in the same trend line as the countys, as well as reported nationally, said Michelle Lavina, CHAT community health nurse case manager.

According to the CDC, there has been a 14% drop in opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. From 2022 to 2023. In Oregon, overdose deaths dropped 72%, with 392 reported so far this year, according to Oregon Health Authority.

Experts say the dip is due to better access to addiction treatment and naloxone, the life-saving overdose reversal drug.

Its now an extra tool for the community to use and for first responders to use to help more people, Lavina said.

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PF&Rs mobile medication program also gives overdose victims buprenorphine to ease withdrawal and boost recovery chances. They are hoping to expand the CHAT program this summer.

We hope it will expand county-wide to provide more medication for more community members in need, Lavina said.

As the crisis continues, Portlands efforts show promise, and the state as a whole is seeing real support. In the last decade, Oregon secured over $645 million from pharmaceutical settlements to combat the epidemic and boost education and recovery efforts.

I think its wonderful. Its a huge step in the right direction, Lavina said.

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Nov. 13A Portland man who was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend in Acadia National Park is appealing his conviction to Maine's high court.

Raymond Lester, 38, was convicted of knowing or intentional murder in the death of Nicole Mokeme following a weeklong trial last year. He was sentenced to 48 years in prison.

Lester's appeals attorney told the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday that the jury was not given a special instruction on whether Lester's intoxication at the time could have meant he was acting recklessly instead of intentionally (which would have merited a lesser manslaughter charge.)

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It was a noteworthy shift from Lester's defense at trial, in which his lawyers suggested the state couldn't even prove he was the one who hit Mokeme.

Mokeme was found dead early on the morning of June 19, 2022, at Acadia, according to trial testimony. They were attending a Black Excellence retreat that Mokeme organized for Black, brown and Indigenous people to relax with their friends and families at the park.

After hitting Mokeme, police said Lester immediately fled to Mexico. He showed up at a Red Cross station in Cancun a month later, saying he had been robbed and admitting that he was wanted for arrest in the United States.

At trial, Lester's attorneys argued the state couldn't prove it was definitely him who hit Mokeme. There were no eye witnesses to the collision and police were never able to find the car.

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But in filing his appeal, Lester accepts that he did hit Mokeme. His court-appointed appeals attorney, Rory McNamara, is now arguing that his trial was unfair because the judge didn't incorporate an "intoxication instruction."

People from the retreat testified at his trial that they saw Lester drinking vodka from the bottle while driving in the hours leading up to Mokeme's death.

"The evidence clearly established that Ray had been drinking all night," McNamara argued in court records. "There is not much evidence tending to establish that Ray intentionally or knowingly, rather than recklessly, struck Nicole with his vehicle. ... It is quite possible that the jury, properly instructed, would have been of the opinion that drunk driving  even 'chasing' Nicole to scare her (rather than hit her)  constitutes a conscious disregard of the risk that Ray could hit her."

McNamara also challenged the judge's instructions for proving Lester's state of mind, a point Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill challenged, saying that those same instructions "have been around for a really long time." He also questioned whether it was fair for Superior Justice Robert Murray, who oversaw the trial, to consider Lester's flight to Mexico after the murder at sentencing, since that occurred post-offense.

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Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin defended Murray's actions and the sentence. She noted Wednesday that Lester's defense at trial, and his objections now, are contradictory.

"This appears to be a case where trial counsel and appellate have different theories of the case," Robbin said in court. She also pointed out that Murray decided to let the jury also consider manslaughter, even though Lester never made that request himself.

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MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. (PIX11)  Commuters know how to find their way around. Most of the time the shortest path is the best but some neighbors in Mount Vernon are running into a possible roadblock.

People are stopping to talk along East Birch Street in Mount Vernon.

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Signs are posted in surrounding buildings to rally support and inform people of the possible redesign.

Some neighbors say theyve heard that the city is considering blocking a popular pedestrian path where Collins and Hayward Avenues intersect with Birch Street.

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Ive been walking through here since I was a kid. Blocking it off benefits who? asked Nick, a neighborhood resident.

Stone walls have been in place for decades, with a passageway to access the other part of the block.

The streets are classified as dead ends. Neighbors worry it could add 10 to 15 minutes to the walk. Some people say they heard it could be a trip hazard, while others suggest it was related to concerns about parking.

Its a city street. We have a right to park there and a right to pass through, said Barbara.

Neighbors say theyre taking their concerns to the next city council meeting Wednesday evening.

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Jennings Creek fire: Nearly 5,000 acres burned across NY, NJ

The Communications Director for the City of Mount Vernon said the mayor and city council members had no comment and they would be listening for the neighborhood comments.

During public testimony at Wednesday nights city council meeting, opponents of the idea addressed the council and said the wall would create division in the community.

Some other homeowners on the avenues said closing the passageway would create a cleaner and safer environment. Some complained about litter, suspicious activities, and owners who dont clean up after their dogs.

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No action was taken on the idea. The city will do additional research.

Neighbors say they will keep watch.

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SAN DIEGO (Border Report)  Three Americans are arrested on a weekly basis in Tijuana for smoking or carrying marijuana, according to police in that city.

Some are also detained at the border when trying to smuggle pot into Mexico, says Alejandro Robles Segura, head of Mexican Customs in Tijuana.

Weve had situations where average citizens, those not connected with organized crime or drug cartels are stopped with marijuana, said Robles Segura. They are young people who have double citizenship or can cross the border legally, and when they come back from the U.S., they have marijuana on them that they bought legally in California.

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Border agents on lookout for dirt bike smuggler

Robles Segura is warning people that its not just marijuana thats illegal, but vaping products with THC.

If they cross the border with marijuana products, pot cigarettes or a kilo of it, people will be issued 80,000 peso fines, ($4,200), its illegal to import this type of merchandise, theyre also subject to incarceration.

Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the U.S.-Mexico border

Recently, Mexicos Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to fine people with less than five grams of marijuana if its for personal use, but Robles Segura says it does not apply for importing cannabis.

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Apple pie in Hirosaki (Photo courtesy of Aomori Travel)

A trip to Aomori prefecture is not all about sightseeing, with the region home to many local dishes well-known across Japan  and we're not just talking apples. Seafood dominates Aomori's regional cuisine, thanks to its extensive coastline, but many more surprises lie in wait.

Read on to find out about Aomori's food.

Nokke-don

Nokke-don (Photo by Tom Roseveare)

Traveling through Aomori City, visitors will have the chance to try Nokke-don at Furukawa Fish Market. After buying your tickets and getting your rice, you can explore the fish market, get your preferred toppings and craft the perfect seafood rice bowl as you see fit.

Aomori Apples

Apple pie in Hirosaki (Photo courtesy of Aomori Travel)

Aomori is known for apples thanks to being the heartland of Japan's apple production. This is centered around Hirosaki, in the Tsugaru region, known for its Fuji variety. Come to Aomori to savour its apple juice or fame apple pies  or head to an apple farm for an apple-picking experience!

Kaiyaki Miso

Kaiyaki Miso (Photo by Tom Roseveare)

This local favourite, which is omelet with scallop served in the shell, mixed with green onions and miso, is native to Aomori City.

Matagi Meshi

Matagi Meshi (Photo by Tom Roseveare)

Try the traditional Tsugaru cuisine of Matagi-meshi (lit. hunter's meal), originally using wild mountain vegetables and game meats (bear, deer, rabbit) around the Mt Iwaki region. It is considered the earliest example of the kamameshi style of cooking  in a small pot. At Dake's Matagi-tei restaurant, you can try their own Matagi-meshi comprising chicken, maitake mushroom, bamboo, burdock root and much more.

Ooma Maguro

Ooma Maguro (Photo by Tom Roseveare)

Aomori's celebrated port town of Oma is the country's tuna capital, famed for its catches of fresh Pacific Bluefin tuna averaging a hefty 100 kilos. Oma itself has an abundance of fish restaurants dedicated to all-things tuna and other fish caught near the stunning Shimokita Peninsula.

Ichigo-ni

Ichigo-ni (Photo courtesy of Angaurits, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Try sea urchin and abalone simmered in dashi, and seasoned with salt and soy sauce.

Iga-menchi

Iga-menchi (Photo by Tom Roseveare)

Iga-menchi refers to minced squid fishcake, a local izakaya favourite in the Hirosaki region of Aomori.

Curry milk ramen

Curry milk ramen (Photo by Tom Roseveare)

Curry milk ramen has a popular following thanks to a local Aomori City shop  it's derived from the Hokkaido style over the water. It's hardly an Aomori classic but sneaks into this list for being something a little different.

Looking for somewhere local? Check out our collection of restaurants in Aomori or let us know in the comments which Aomori foods stand out for you.
A lawyer representing a woman accusing former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) of having sex with her when she was a minor is pressing the House Ethics Committee to release a report on their investigation into the allegations despite Gaetzs resignation from Congress.

On Wednesday, Gaetz tendered his resignation after President-elect Donald Trump tapped the Florida congressman to serve as his attorney general. The resignation came days before the Ethics Committee was scheduled to vote on the release of an investigative report into allegations that he had engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and public corruption.

Gaetzs exit from the House strips the Ethics Committee of the jurisdiction to punish the former representative, but lawmakers could still release the report via majority vote, or pass along their findings to federal prosecutors.

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House Ethics Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) so far is not entertaining suggestions that he move the committee to release the report despite Gaetzs resignation. What happens in Ethics is confidential. Were going to maintain that confidentiality, he told reporters on Thursday.

Before Gaetzs resignation on Wednesday, Guest said that once the investigation is complete, the Ethics Committee will meet as a committee. We will then return our findings. If Matt Gaetz is still a member of Congress, then that will occur. If Matt has resigned, then this ethics investigation, like many others in the past, will end again.

On Thursday, John Clune, an attorney representing Gaetzs alleged victim, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that Mr. Gaetzs likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.

Members of the Senate  both Democrats and Republicans - are already calling for the release of the report ahead of Gaetzs confirmation process. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Punchbowl News on Thursday that he cant understand any situation under which we would deny ourselves access to full and complete information.

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Part of this is not only to determine fitness for the nominee, its also to protect the president. Because there may be information that the investigation would find forthcoming that would ultimately be an embarrassment to the president. So this is for all of the above reasons, we need to get access to everything, he said.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who also serves on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement on Thursday that in light of Donald Trumps selection of former Congressman Matt Gaetz to be his Attorney General, I am calling on the House Ethics Committee to preserve and share their report and all relevant documentation on Mr. Gaetz with the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetzs resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report, Durbin added. Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetzs confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States and our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent.

In 2021, news broke that Gaetz was under federal investigation over an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, and accusations that he had violated sex trafficking laws by traveling with her across state lines. The investigation stemmed from a separate probe into Joel Greenberg, a long-time friend of Gaetzs who in 2021 pleaded guilty to charges of underage sex trafficking, falsification of documents, stalking, and wire fraud, among others. Greenberg, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation into Gaetz as part of his plea deal.

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In April of 2021, The Daily Beast obtained a letter from Greenberg to former Trump adviser Roger Stone in which he stated that Gaetz had paid for sex with a 17-year-old girl.

That same year, the House Ethics Committee opened its own investigation into the allegations against Gaetz. The committee temporarily stalled its work during the Justice Departments probe into the allegations. The DOJ ultimately declined to recommend charges against Gaetz, citing an unlikelihood of conviction, but the Ethics Committee reopened the investigation in July 2023, and requested testimony and documents from witnesses.

Others close to Gaetz are calling for any records related to the case to be stricken from the judicial record. Court records reviewed by Rolling Stone show that Christopher Dorworth, a self-described close friend of Gaetz, has filed a lawsuit requesting that records related to the DOJs investigation into Gaetz be kept from public view.

The public interest is not served in any way by releasing confidential information upon which the court has never relied to make any decision in this case, attorneys for Dorworth wrote in an Oct. 16 filing. Dorworth intends to request the exhibits be stricken from the judicial record entirely, his attorneys added.

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Gaetz is now slated to take over the Justice Department. The allegations against Gaetz could still tank his nomination if hes subjected to a confirmation vote, but given Trumps public demands that senators allow him to use recess appointments to confirm his nominees  Gaetz may manage to avoid the Senates scrutiny entirely.

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GREENBELT, Md. (DC News Now)  Residents in Prince Georges County were closely watching President-elect Donald Trumps return to D.C. this week to visit President Joe Biden and the White House.

The government proposed moving the FBI Headquarters to Greenbelt last year but Trump said this week that he wants the keep the headquarters in D.C.

Wes Moore presses President Biden for FBI headquarters in his state

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DC News Now spoke with some Greenbelt residents Wednesday night to get their thoughts on the brewing controversy.

I think D.C. has enough things going on already and we need something out here in Greenbelt, especially in Prince Georges County and I am from Virginia originally and Virginia doesnt need it and they have plenty there so it needs to be here in PG County, County resident Charles Zanders said.

Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) supports the FBI headquarters moving to Greenbelt and told DC News Now that it would help the local economy.

Its a multi-million dollar project and I think it will be good for jobs and construction and the building trades and having the FBI agents working there I think is going to be helpful to the economy, Ivey said. For the other satellite businesses that might pop up and I think its a good symbol to have the FBI headquarters in Prince Georges County.

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The FBI noted that it was outgrowing the D.C. building and Greenbelt was selected over Landover and Springfield in Virginia.

Maryland and Virginia leaders battle over new FBI headquarters location

Zanders said it was time to see some good things come to his city.

More opportunities for people and jobs and new businesses to come here. I just want to see opportunity and growth for Greenbelt and that would be very helpful to see it grow, he said.

While Trump was president, he tried to block the headquarters move.

In a recent post on social media, he argued that having the FBI headquarters in D.C. would help prevent crime.

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Conservatives have been critical of the bipartisan funding deal to pay for the new headquarters because it would put $200 million toward construction.

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Welcome to The Scoop  the ultimate back-to-the-office water cooler cheat sheet, your go-to source for all things everyone really wants to know! Get the latest on everything from the political swamp maneuvering in D.C. and Hollywood drama to jaw-dropping small-town shenanigans from Paula Froelich. Subscribe to her newsletter here.

While some in England (and America) scratch their heads at all the ill-informed and poor choices Harry has made since leaving the family, his old schoolmates from his days attending the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst arent that shocked.

He loved being ordered about and told what to do, one person who attended Sandhurst with Harry told me recently. He was quite good at being in the military and really liked it. He especially liked being told what to do.

Meghan Markle wearing the pants in relationship with Prince Harry: Ex-classmate

As for his personality in school, the former classmate said: He was a good guy actually. We all liked him. It was funny though  he did like to be the center of attention. If he wasnt getting enough he would do something wacky to get it until all eyes were back on him.

FILE  Britains Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, waves during the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race at Circuit of the Americas, on Oct. 22, 2023, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Nick Didlick, File) BOGOTA, COLOMBIA  AUGUST 15: Britains Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Britains Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, visit Delia Zapata Art Center in Bogota, Colombia on August 15, 2024. (Photo by Juancho Torres/Anadolu via Getty Images) LONDON, ENGLAND  JUNE 03: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Duke and Duchess of Sussex leave after a service of thanksgiving for the reign of Queen Elizabeth II at St Pauls Cathedral in London, Friday, June 3, 2022 on the second of four days of celebrations to mark the Platinum Jubilee. The events over a long holiday weekend in the U.K. are meant to celebrate the monarchs 70 years of service. (Photo by Matt Dunham  WPA Pool/Getty Images) Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry (R) and his wife, Meghan Markle embrace at The Invictus Games in The Hague on April 16, 2022. (Photo by REMKO DE WAAL/ANP/AFP via Getty Images) FILE  Britains Prince Harry leaves after attending an Invictus Games Foundation 10th Anniversary Service of Thanksgiving at St Pauls Cathedral in London, on May 8, 2024. Prince Harry, actor Matt Damon, and World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres are set to speak at the 2024 Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York on Sept. 23 and 24, the Clinton Foundation announced Thursday. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File) FILE  Prince Harry leaves the High Court after giving evidence in London, Tuesday, June 6, 2023. A judge ordered Prince Harry on Monday, Dec. 11, 2023, to pay nearly 50,000 pounds (over $60,000) in legal fees to the publisher of the Daily Mail tabloid for failing to knock out its defense in a libel lawsuit. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File) Prince Harry and Meghan visit children at the Lights Academy in Abuja, Nigeria, Friday, May 10, 2024. Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have arrived in Nigeria to champion the Invictus Games, which he founded to aid the rehabilitation of wounded and sick servicemembers and veterans. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) DUSSELDORF, GERMANY  SEPTEMBER 16: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex are seen during the closing ceremony of the Invictus Games Dusseldorf 2023 at Merkur Spiel-Arena on September 16, 2023 in Duesseldorf, Germany. (Photo by Joshua Sammer/Getty Images)

Post on actress Instagram claims shes not missing

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Its sad hes no longer talking to his family  but I cant say Im surprised. Again, he liked a firm hand and he found Meghan. Shes clearly wearing the pants in the family and is the driving force so, really, shes perfect for him.

The classmates assessment of Harry jibes with former Vanity Fair editor and friend of the Royals, Tina Brown told The Ankler last month: In England, theyre going to constantly make a career out of trashing Harry. But actually, the thing about Harry is hes very good at being Prince Harry. And thats the tragedy of all of this, is that he is the most talented member of the royal family, without doubt, in terms of being a prince, which is all he does know how to do  hes really sort of flawless at it hes so naive and really unschooled in the ways of the world. Being Prince Harry means that I doubt if he ever booked a table in a restaurant. The army was great for him, and he was extremely good and competent in there. That really helped turn him into a real person.

As for Markle, she added, I think hes pretty much in the thrall of Meghan. The trouble with Meghan is that she has the worst judgment of anyone in the entire world. Shes flawless about getting it all wrong. She really is.

With Markle, (Harrys) the lamb to the slaughter in this situation, Brown said. He was terribly impressed by Meghan. He thought that she knew all, she persuaded him that she was the savvy Hollywood wheeler-dealer who could come in and make them stars and all the rest of it. And he just sort of blindly followed her like a child, really.

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The Prince of Wales headed to Northern Ireland on Thursday, Nov. 14

Prince William is visiting Northern Ireland.

The royal father of three arrived early on Thursday, Nov. 14 for a day of events to promote his campaign for the unhoused and to highlight the creative industries in the region.

Williams Homewards movement, which he recently highlighted in an in-depth docu-series Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, focuses on several key areas around the U.K., including Northern Ireland.

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He kicked off the day at The Foyer, a temporary accommodation and support service for young people experiencing homelessness in Belfast. It is run by Simon Community, a homelessness charity in the area and one of the Homewards Northern Ireland local Coalition.

While there, William was shown how Simon Community delivers initiatives aimed at preventing and ending homelessness among young people leaving foster parents and other residential support.

The Prince was also introduced to young people to talk about their backgrounds and the support they have received.

Jason Cairnduff - Pool/Getty Prince William, Prince Of Wales during a visit to Simon Community on Nov. 14, 2024 in Belfast, Northern Ireland Prince William, Prince Of Wales during a visit to Simon Community on Nov. 14, 2024 in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Related: Here's How You Can Watch Prince William's Groundbreaking New Documentary in Both the U.K. and the U.S.

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Homewards, which is run by William and Princess Kates Royal Foundation, is helping to accelerate and build up initiatives like Simon Communitys Housing First For Youth service, which is working to both prevent homelessness and provide stable accommodation and support to vulnerable young people leaving fostering and residential homes.

Jason Cairnduff - Pool/Getty Prince William, Prince Of Wales during a visit to Simon Community on Nov. 14, 2024 in Belfast, Northern Ireland Prince William, Prince Of Wales during a visit to Simon Community on Nov. 14, 2024 in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Homewards Northern Ireland is also working to provide an innovative housing project focused on supporting young people who find themselves homeless after being in care home environments.

Like other locations where Homewards is being piloted around the U.K., new findings and successful projects are being shared across the other centers to increase knowledge of what works to help tackle issues facing the unhoused.

Jason Cairnduff - Pool/Getty Prince William, Prince Of Wales with Simon Community CEO Jim Dennison after a visit to the Simon Community on Nov. 14, 2024 in Belfast, Northern Ireland Prince William, Prince Of Wales with Simon Community CEO Jim Dennison after a visit to the Simon Community on Nov. 14, 2024 in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Related: Prince William Recalls Emotional Childhood Memory with Prince Harry in First Public Mention of Brother in Years

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William's visit came as he and wife Kate led tributes to King Charles on his 76th birthday.

In the recent documentary, the Prince reflected on how his late mother, Princess Diana, first introduced him to the issue of homelessness by taking him and his brother Prince Harry to The Passage, a U.K. charity supporting those experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

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"My mother took me to The Passage; she took Harry and I both there. I must have been 11 at the time, maybe 10. I had never been to anything like that before, and I was a bit anxious about what to expect," William says in the clip, which is believed to be his first public mention of Harry in several years.Later, William will continue his visit by highlighting the work of the creative industries.

William returned from Cape Town, South Africa on Nov. 8, after a week promoting another of his key projects, the environmental Earthshot Prize.
Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Ahead of President-elect Donald Trump moving back into the White House, Democratic Govs. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Jared Polis of Colorado on Wednesday announced the launch of a nonpartisan coalition of governors aimed at protecting state-level democratic institutions.

Chaired by Pritzker and Polis, the Governors Safeguarding Democracy seeks to fortify democratic institutions in states, the coalition said in a statement.

Through designing and implementing strategies, the coalition will seek to protect the rule of law, executive agencies, elections, state courts and other democratic bodies. It will also develop what it calls "playbooks" that governors can use "to anticipate and swiftly respond to emerging threats," it said.

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"At this critical moment in our history, we must unite to protect the foundations of our democracy and ensure our institutions withstand threats and persevere in their mission to improve the lives of our people," the pair of Democratic governors said.

"Governors Safeguarding Democracy will serve as a powerful force in state-level efforts to ensure that our democracy lives up to our ideals and thrives for generations to come."

Though labeled as "nonpartisan" and without mention of either party, it states that the coalition was founded as the United States faces increasing threats against democracy, "including the dangers of authoritarianism and the undermining of democratic institutions."

"In this moment, protecting democracy has never been more relevant or important, and doing so demands strong leadership at the state level," the governors said.

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The announcement came as Trump has been nominating loyalists to key Cabinet positions that have attracted criticism, as some of those he has named have been described as unqualified, including his pick for secretary of Defense, Fox News host Pete Hegseth.

"Last time, he didn't really know where the levers of government were. I think he probably does now. And so I think that the threat remains great," Pritzker told The New York Times.

Trump, who beat Vice President Kamala Harris in this month's presidential election, is to take office Jan. 20.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE)  Police across the state are utilizing automatic license plate readers to help combat crime. We recently had a custodial kidnapping that took place where we are able to utilize the system and resolve it without incident or injury to the parties involved, including the child. We also want to be able to utilize it in the distance for a cold case, said Major Hollie Anderson with the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office (BCSO).

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This type of tech is raising privacy concerns. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico (ACLU-NM) said that data is stored too long and is asking lawmakers for statewide regulations. As more of that data is accumulated, both because there are more cameras and because the data is stored for a longer amount of time, that picture of your life becomes clearer and clearer and clearer, said Daniel Williams with ACLU-NM. I think thats where we really have to tend very closely to the balance between privacy and public safety.

BCSO said it has policies in place to prevent misuse. Weve also already put in place some safeguards as to how we utilize the data, when we utilize the data, and how we would share that data with anyone else that makes a request. The current vendor that we have has a 30-day retention for the records, said Maj. Anderson.

Both BCSO and the ACLU said this technology can save lives. So I think the amber alerts are a great example of the sort of instantaneous scans that we really dont object to, said Williams.

They are hoping lawmakers can help them find a middle ground. We want to make sure that we dont violate anybodys privacy, but we want to make sure that we also have the option to provide the best service to the community that we can with the technology that were investing in, said Maj. Anderson.

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Lawmakers may bring this up at the next legislative session. Thats set to begin on January 21, 2025.

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New Jersey Policy Perspective calls for a new multimillionaires' tax, a broader sales tax, and new reporting requirements for businesses. (Illustration by Alex Cochran for New Jersey Monitor)

New Jersey should adopt a host of progressive tax changes to generate nearly $4 billion in revenue to bridge structural deficits over the coming years, including new tax brackets for millionaires, an expanded sales tax, and a revived estate tax, a new report from a left-leaning think tank urges.

The report from New Jersey Policy Perspective calls for the state to levy higher income taxes on multimillionaires, undo a Christie-era sales tax cut, and apply sales tax to a range of services excluded under current law to bridge a gap between state spending and state revenues that threaten to drain New Jerseys surplus over the coming years.

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New Jersey has to start raising more revenue, and its important to raise revenue in a fair way. We have to make sure that those who have wealth are paying more and those who are working and middle class are not facing as much fiscal burden to continue to live in New Jersey, said Peter Chen, the reports author and a senior policy analyst for the think tank.

New Jerseys current budget calls for the state to spend $2.1 billion more than it collects through taxes and other sources of revenue, and that gap is set to expand next year when revenue from a recently enacted surcharge on some highly profitable businesses will move from the general fund to NJ Transit.

Rowan Universitys Sweeney Center for Public Policy in June warned the deficits threaten to drain New Jerseys surplus in the coming years under most economic conditions, noting the states reserves would be significantly reduced even under their most optimistic forecast.

Its unclear whether New Jersey lawmakers will seek to raise taxes when they enact a new annual budget in June.

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Trentons Democratic caucuses launched an affordability kick and have resisted tax increases following legislative losses in 2021, and it remains to be seen whether they will reverse course with gubernatorial and Assembly elections on the ballot next year.

Sen. Tony Bucco said the Legislature should follow the GOPs recommendation to cut wasteful spending. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey

A spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex), who has championed his caucuss affordability push, declined to comment. Its unlikely the proposals will win support from Republican lawmakers.

This is just another report to justify the progressive Democrats tired playbook of increasing fees and taxes on New Jerseyans. At first glance, it suggests identifying new revenue streams that include raising the state sales tax that will undoubtedly leave New Jersey more unaffordable, said Sen. Tony Bucco (R-Morris), the Senates minority leader. Instead, we should be focusing on reforms that Republicans put forth to cut wasteful spending and give New Jerseyans the relief they deserve.

The think tanks report urges legislators to create new income tax brackets for the states highest earners  12% for those making over $2 million, 13% for those making more than $5 million, and 14% for those with more than $10 million in income  to boost collections.

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At present, New Jerseys highest marginal rate of 10.75% is applied to all residents with more than $1 million in income. The report estimates the new brackets would boost collections by $1.2 billion, though it urges expansions to the state child tax credit and earned income tax credit that would decrease income tax collections by $432 million.

Because the pool of taxpayers shrinks in higher income brackets, revenue from taxes on multimillionaires can be volatile year-to-year. Chen said enacting new brackets alongside other tax increases could defray volatility risks.

The idea here is if we can look at the revenue across the spectrum, we can limit the degree to which volatility in any one tax is going to be affected, Chen said.

The report says New Jersey should undo a cut enacted under Gov. Chris Christie that brought New Jerseys sales tax rate to 6.625%  it used to be 7%  and expand the tax to apply to a range of professional services like those provided by attorneys, accountants, and architects, among others.

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Raising the sales tax back to 7% would boost revenue by roughly $700 million, the report says, and expanding the tax to services could raise far more. The reports authors cautioned those gains would be difficult to predict and depend on which services were subject to taxation.

Including more services could make the states sales tax more progressive because a larger share of wealthy residents spending goes toward services than toward goods, said Nicole Rodriguez, the think tanks president.

For example, rather than buying a lawnmower, theyre hiring a landscaper to work on their lawn. Part of this is not only to ensure equity and fairness in how were raising revenue but also around being in line, in step with the economy that were growing into more and more, she said.

Applying sales tax to some services could boost bills for low-income workers, but Chen said that impact could be defrayed somewhat by enacting new exemptions or boosting other tax credits aimed at low- and middle-income residents.

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The think tanks other recommendations call for the state to raise a tax on sales of homes above $1 million from 1% to 3% and impose a 5% tax on homes worth at least $2 million.

Those taxes would generate $410 million annually  though collections could change drastically based on activity in the housing market  while impacting only 10% of home sales, the report says.

The report says the state should also require corporations to report income from foreign subsidiaries instead of only those based in the United States, arguing the states current business tax structure allows corporations to shield some income from taxation.

Mandatory worldwide combined reporting would generate $888 million in tax revenue each year, the report says.

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Business groups would oppose a shift to worldwide reporting. New Jersey Chamber of Commerce President Tom Bracken warned increasing corporations tax burden would harm the states economy.

Its just finding a different way to attack the business community. Its going to be money out of their pocket whether you do it with a corporate transit fee, whether you do it with taxing their international income, which they have every right to have in place. Its all money coming out of the same business community, he said.

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BAY COUNTY, Fla (WMBB)  As part of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement, BP gave Florida $30 billion to help fund economic development in eight Panhandle coastal counties.

The Triumph Gulf Coast board awards funding to governments, educational institutes, and non-profits based on their benefits to the local economy.

FSU announces new partnership with Astro America

That led to the development of Inspire, which is really a partnership between FSU and Astro America related to advanced manufacturing, as well as some advanced the wind tunnel for testing, defense, aerospace applications, Astro America Executive Director Jason Gorey said.

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Triumph awarded Florida State Universitys Panama City campus nearly $100 million last year to fund inSPIRE. FSU chose Astro America to help devise the proposal for Triumph and to help bring the plans to life.

Those plans call for the non-profit to build an aeronautical aviation center at the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport. It will be a 50,000-square-foot facility with state-of-the-art technology.

Astro America already signed a lease for the office space and started hiring local employees. It will create engineering opportunities for FSU students.

The number of classes and the real world experience for the students are going to be able to get on the infrastructure that will be developed by inspired are great transitions for moving into careers in engineering, in advanced manufacturing, tend to support the defense and aerospace community, Gorey said.

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Panama City officials take steps to improve Star Avenue

Astro America has partnerships with large aviation companies. The hope is some of those companies will build facilities here, potentially creating more jobs in aviation.

They can use this asset with FSU and Astro America to do research and development, R&D manufacturing, prototyping in a safe environment with engineers from Florida State University and be able to take that product to the market and then locate their businesses in Bay County, Bay Economic Development Alliance President Becca Hardin said.

Astro America is setting up infrastructure for the facility site. No word yet as to when construction will begin.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to mypanhandle.com.
(Photo by Elina Garone)

Before I share about the lobster ramen, heres a tip: When looking for lunch spots in Tokyo, its always a good sign to see a line of suited and lanyard-clad professionals at the restaurants door. When it comes to finding affordable, filling, and no-frills-delicious meals for busy lunch breaks, Japanese office workers dont mess around.

So naturally I was happy when I arrived at Jimbochos Ebimaru Ramen and saw a flock of them by the entrance, ready for a speedy meal before heading back to the grindstone.

The Appetizer

(Photo by Elina Garone)

As soon as I stepped inside, the rich aroma of lobster welcomed menot merely drifting in, but wrapping me in a warm, smothering hug. I sat at the counter and ordered the original Ebimaru ramen (1,255), and almost instantly a tiny bowl was placed in front of me. Far from ramen; it was an amuse-bouche of cold corn soup, sprinkled with smokey-sweet cajun spice.

Who says you have to choose either a big bowl of hot broth and greasy noodles or a delicately crafted French soup? Here, Japans fast food kingpin has its very own My Fair Lady moment, incorporating elements of French fine dining while keeping its accessibility and charm.

The Bowl

(Photo by Elina Garone)

True to the ramen-joint style of losing no time, my bowl was served right as I finished the appetizer. The soup was deep orange, cooked with lobster shells, brandy, wine, and vegetables. Generous slices of sous-vide pork sat on their bed of noodles, curiously accompanied by a slice of baguette with a slab of sour cream.

At the risk of outing myself as a culinary pervert, I must report on the mouthfeel of the first bite. It was luxury: the lobster bisque lined my tongue with a velvet carpet, inviting the noodles. The noodles, in turn, were thick and chewy enough to hold their own in this creamy soup.

A French Take on Japanese Food Theory

Having said that, as much as I love lobster, the richness of the broth did become overwhelming about midway. This is when that sour-creamed baguette came in handy. Tip 2: Its time for Ajihen. Ajihen is a concept in Japanese cuisine where you add a twist to your bowl of ramen halfway through. It helps cut through the fat when it becomes too heavy or changes the flavor to something new. The sour cream added a hint of acidity, while their house-made shrimp chili oil added a welcome kick.

Speaking of cutting through fat, I also want to mention their wine menu. This writer found herself craving a glass of sparkly which wouldve uplifted the heftiness of the broth. Although, for the record, @editors, I did not indulge, that would be my recommendation if youre here for dinner or dont have to work afterward.

Lobster RamenRisotto?

(Photo courtesy of Ebimaru Ramen)

But the lobster fest did not stop there. Even as my stomach was reaching near max capacity by this point, I could not resist ordering the house specialty: a make-your-own risotto (546). The waiter came with a screaming hot stone bowl of rice and grated a mountain of parmesan atop. Tip 3: Theyll grate until you tell them to stop, which I learned by watching the waiters face slowly turn to concern as I allowed the pile of cheese to grow into glory (Ive come this far, I thought, why deny myself now?) I mixed in some leftover ramen broth as I was told, and dove into the finale of this lobster fusion extravaganza.

If This is Heresy, Call Me The Antichrist

Chef Masa, Ebimaru Ramens owner, is a professionally trained French chef with no formal background in ramen. Some may call this heresyramen is an art that takes years to master. While I can appreciate this argument, I believe I speak for many when I say that as long as the food is good, purism be damned. French cuisine and ramen is an unconventional marriage, but once you try it you see that somehow it works. And why shouldnt it? Noodles have long thrived in deep, complex broth, and Tokyos ramen community is always hungry for exciting new bowls.

Chef Masa, Ebimaru Ramen owner (Photo courtesy of Ebimaru Ramen)

It wasnt just the scent of lobster wafting from the restaurant that brought the office workers to this establishment; its the fact that here, you can experience good quality, novel cuisine with convenience, at an accessible price.

This lobsterfest-in-a-bowl left me happily full and looking forward to more daring bowls being created in Tokyo. And I absolutely positively did not fall into a food coma at my desk afterward. Definitely not

metropolisjapan.com
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  St. Helens High School has closed its doors early Thursday and will remain closed through Monday after protesters gathered outside the campus following an investigation that led two teachers to be accused of sexual abuse.

St. Helens High School choir teacher Eric Stearns, 46, and former teacher Mark Collins, 64, were both accused of sexually abusing a total of nine students on the high school campus over several years.

Former Sharis employee sues company on behalf of workers impacted by abrupt closure

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The protest comes the morning after a heated board meeting Wednesday night where hundreds of parents showed up seeking answers as to why they werent informed sooner about the two-month-long investigation and what the district is doing to address these issues.

I just want to know whats being done. We seem to attract pedophiles in our school district, one parent said. Whats being done to prevent that and whats being done to the staff thats allowed that to happen?

In response, the school sent an email to families indicating classes would be cancelled after 11 a.m. Thursday and that the school will remain closed all day Friday.

Many students and staff have expressed feeling unsafe amid the demonstration, and our priority is to maintain a secure environment for everyone, the email read. Thank you for your patience and partnership as we work to ensure the well-being of our school community.

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The protest took place just hours before Collins pleaded not guilty to his charges in court accusing him of two counts of second-degree sexual abuse and one count of attempted second-degree sexual abuse. On Wednesday, current choir teacher Stearns also pleaded not guilty to eight counts of sex abuse.

We need to protect our students, and we need to fire the ones who hire, because no one should feel unsafe at school, high school junior Emily Chaney told KOIN 6 News. We already have to have guns to worry about, we should not have teachers to worry about wanting to touch us.

Understand the dangers: Video shows early king tide action on the Oregon Coast

During a heated board meeting on Wednesday, students also came forward to share their experiences.

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My freshman year was filled with fear as I was harassed and assaulted by another student. My only outlet was my choir class. As the bullying progressed. I found that my safe person was Mr. StearnsI didnt find that it was weird that he would hug me, kiss me on the head, and tell me that he loved me, said Maddie Filardo.

St. Helens School District Board Chair Ryan Scholl said Stearns was allowed to continue teaching after police notified them of the investigation because law enforcement had advised them not to place him on leave.

However, Chief Joseph Hogue said St. Helens police checked the body cam footage of when officers served the subpoena on Oct. 15, adding that at no point did the officers tell the school district or advise the school district in any way to not put the teacher on admin leave.

Oswego Lake restrictions lifted after judge determined public access ban was unlawful

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Following the arrests, a spokesperson for St. Helens School District shared the following statement on Wednesday:

We are deeply saddened by recent events involving allegations of sexual abuse concerning a current and former teacher at St. Helens High School. The safety, well-being, and trust of our students and families are our foremost priorities. We are fully committed to maintaining the highest standards of safety and accountability within our schools.

To assist our students and staff during this difficult time, we have brought in additional counseling staff to be available to provide emotional support, guidance, and resources for anyone who may need assistance.

As a district, our responsibility to protect students is paramount. We are working closely with law enforcement as they conduct their ongoing investigation, and the current teacher involved has been placed on administrative leave.

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According to St. Helens police, their investigation led them to more potential victims and they are encouraging anyone with information to contact law enforcement.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com.
Presidential pardons are usually vetted by the DOJ office of the pardon attorney.

The first Proud Boys leaders to seek Capitol riot pardons are instead asking Trump directly.

The DOJ vetting process can take years, but going to Trump directly could speed things along.

The first Proud Boys leaders to seek pardons for their Capitol riot sedition convictions are asking President-elect Donald Trump directly two months before he takes office, foregoing the more typical and longer process of applying to the Department of Justice.

First in seeking a pardon is Joseph Biggs, a Florida-based leader of the far-right extremist group and the first rioter to topple police barricades and breach the Capitol's perimeter on January 6, 2021. At least three of Biggs' Proud Boys co-defendants also plan to seek pardons directly from Trump.

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Federal pardons are typically vetted by the Justice Department, which Trump hopes will soon be headed by former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz.

While attending the Manhattan hush-money trial in support of Trump last May, Gaetz invoked the president-elect's controversial comment, during a 2020 presidential debate, that the Proud Boys should "stand back and stand by.

"Standing back and standing by, Mr. President," Gaetz tweeted from Trump's trial.

Standing back and standing by, Mr. President. pic.twitter.com/gGPeTLtWmv  Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) May 16, 2024

The DOJ vetting process can take years, according to the department's own guidelines. Meanwhile, the Proud Boys want out now, and presidents have the Constitutional power to grant immediate pardons, Biggs attorney Norm Pattis said in a 10-page letter sent to Trump on Wednesday.



Seeking a pardon directly from Trump would be far faster, even if the DOJ is no longer in the business of prosecuting January 6 cases, Pattis argued.

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"No matter how big the shake-up at Justice will be, come January 2025, the agency has gone all in on the theory that January 6, 2021, was a direct threat to democracy," and the DOJ will need time before learning "to hear the more subtle message that justice requires," Pattis wrote.

On the campaign trail, Trump had repeatedly promised to grant speedy pardons to Capitol rioters, including if they were convicted of assaulting police officers. However, in one instance, he added he would only do so "if they're innocent."

Pattis' letter on Biggs' behalf seeks a full pardon and restoration of his Army disability pension. Biggs, who received a Purple Heart after active duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, is serving a 17-year sentence for seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol riot.

His letter begs Trump to "close a painful chapter in American history."

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"An event that should have been a minor footnote in our national life has become a chapter we are still writing," Pattis wrote. "We urge you to close the book, to turn bitterness into reconciliation."

Two years ago, Biggs and his Proud Boys codefendants had struck a different tone regarding Trump, arguing at trial that he incited the Capitol riot and that the Proud Boys were only following his orders.

Pattis questioned during closing arguments why Trump himself was not charged with seditious conspiracy.

"If my president tells me my republic is being stolen, who do I listen to?" Pattis had said in closing arguments on Biggs' behalf before a federal judge in Washington, DC.

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Wednesday's letter now seeks common ground.

"Mr. President, you are no stranger to prosecutions warped by partisan vendetta," the Biggs pardon letter says.

Former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio will also "explore every possible avenue" toward early release, his lawyer, Nayib Hassan, said in a press statement last week. Tarrio is serving a 22-year sentence.

Additional pardon requests will be sent soon to Trump on behalf of seditious conspiracy codefendants Zachary Rehl, who chaired the group's Philadelphia chapter, and Dominic Pezzola, of Rochester, New York, according to Pattis, who said he is preparing those letters now.

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Rehl is serving a 15-year sentence. Pezzola, the first rioter to breach the Capitol itself, is serving a 10-year sentence.

Prosecutors said Pezzola wrestled a riot shield from the hands of a Capitol Police officer and used it to break a window on the building's west side, allowing the first of an estimated 2,000 rioters to enter. He later boasted that he would have killed then Vice-President Mike Pence if given the chance, prosecutors said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Newcomer Academy, located on Fricker Street in Providence, opened in 2023. Federal investigators found the school provided inadequate English language instruction to over 200 students at the school in violation of their civil rights. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)

The Providence Public School District (PPSD) and the U.S. Department of Justice have reached a settlement agreement that resolves an investigation into the districts language instruction services for new immigrant English learners.

Last May, federal investigators opened a probe to monitor compliance with a 2018 consent decree outlining steps to protect the civil rights of multilingual students across the district. The new settlement announced Wednesday focused on offerings at the Newcomer Academy, a high school that opened in 2023 as a standalone school inside the Providence Career & Technical Academy  with additional classrooms at Central High School.

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DOJ investigators found that newcomer students, who are over age 17 with at least two years of limited or interrupted formal education, were almost completely separated from their English-speaking peers.

Investigators found the district provided inadequate English language instruction to over 200 students at the school, which violates the federal Equal Educational Opportunities Act along with the terms of the consent decree that included hiring enough qualified teachers and offering two periods of English language development.

The Providence Public School Districts failure to meet its civil rights obligations to newcomer students is unacceptable, Rhode Island U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha said in a statement Wednesday. Providences woeful history of half measures and consistent failures to meet the critical needs of its most vulnerable students has necessitated todays action: a more closely targeted and stringent agreement focused on the newcomer program.

According to the investigation, Newcomer Academy staff rarely incorporated English language development into their classes.

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Some teachers provided instruction almost entirely in Spanish, while others instructed students to repeat or copy English phrases or language without ensuring students understood their meaning, the DOJs investigation report states.

The investigation report also referenced a petition signed by roughly 50 students, who asked  in Spanish  for more English-language classes. A copy of the petition was not made public.

Providences woeful history of half measures and consistent failures to meet the critical needs of its most vulnerable students has necessitated todays action.

 Rhode Island U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha

The new settlement mandates that PPSD must offer two periods of English language development per day taught by ESL-certified teachers, which was part of the initial 2018 agreement. The district must also staff the Newcomer Academy with a sufficient number of ESL-certified instructors by Jan. 1, 2025, but it did not specify the number needed.

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Additionally, instructors must be trained on teaching strategies that are specific for newcomers, including understanding students diverse experiences, cultures, values, beliefs, and worldviews.

PPSD must also provide translators to parents and guardians who are not fluent in English in order to learn about their childs education opportunities.

In a joint statement Wednesday afternoon, PPSD and Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) officials said over $5 million has been spent on supporting multilingual learners across the district over the past six years, including funds for staffing, certification, translation and interpretation services, and high-quality curriculum and professional development. The state took over control of the school district in 2019.

With the commitment and support of the state under the state Intervention, Providence Public Schools continues to make progress in addressing decades of underperformance and dysfunction, said Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green. Were pleased that the Department of Justice has recognized RIDE and PPSDs considerable progress in addressing systemic non-compliance issues that have hindered the success for multilingual learners for far too long.

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School officials pointed out they were ending federal monitoring Wednesday for the districts services for nearly 8,000 multilingual learners well ahead of Boston Public Schools, which has been under its own settlement agreement with the DOJ since 2010.

Monitoring at Newcomer Academy is set to end at the conclusion of the 2026-2027 academic year, according to the new agreement.

We believe in the promise of our multilingual learners and have invested significant time, resources, and supports, to rectify longstanding compliance issues, said PPSD Superintendent Javier Montanez.

The Newcomer Academy is separate from the school districts newcomer program, which covers grades 9-12 and follows a traditional in-person class model at Central High School.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI)  Nearly 900 current and former Providence Public School District students had personal information potentially exposed in a hack detected in mid-September.

District spokesperson Jay G. Wegimont said this includes information like immunizations or drivers license numbers, and that each impacted student would be contacted individually by mail this week and next.

The school community was updated in a letter on Nov. 8, which said an investigation revealed that the district identified files that contain student roster information for all students. (The files contain information like student names, grades, schools, program types and home addresses.)

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RELATED: Smiley says tax increases, layoffs are on the table amid school funding fight

We have also identified files containing some students special education status, including some documents regarding students Individualized Education Program (IEP) or meeting notes, Wegimont said.

The investigation did conclude, however, that the districts cloud-based student information system was not compromised.

Last month, the district said the hack may have also impacted 12,000 current and former employees.

We again apologize for the concern that this matter has caused for our families and staff, the letter from the district said. Please know that the protection of your personal information and the safety of our students and staff remain our top

priorities.

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Wegimont said amid an ongoing court battle over additional school funding, the district was providing services as required and those decisions are separate from the budget situation.

PPSD is reviewing our overall budget to determine areas where we can offset this unexpected cost, Wegimont said. The expense were not initially part of the budget.

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.

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At one point in her life, Supai roamed around the Havasupai Indian Reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Now, a decade later, the former Arizona pup has been crowned the Happiest Pet on Earth.

Supai has the canyon to thank for introducing her to her owner, Torey Mill.

On a trip to the canyon in 2014, Mill spotted the 6-month-old pup. Supai, at the time, was living among 30 to 40 wild dogs at the bottom of the canyon. She was dehydrated and her nose was severely sunburnt.

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The dogs milled freely as mules delivered mail and hikers passed through. Hiking the canyon herself, Mill said she often woke up with dogs waiting outside her tent in the morning for food.

They seemed like they were kind of reliant on the tourists, Mill said.

As she was leaving, Mill said she and Supai locked eyes and felt a special connection  one that she hadnt felt with any other dog she had come across during her vacation.

I just kind of had a feeling about this dog  just this look in her eyes, she said.

Mill, a college student, gave Supai a share of her beef jerky supply, and suddenly, the two were inseparable. They both hiked the 6-mile journey up and out of the canyon.

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She just instantly latched on and I could tell that we had this special connection, she said.

Once back at the reservation, Mill confirmed with a local that Supai was free to go. Soon they were on their way to California to start a life together.

I just could feel that she needed me, she said. I dont think that she was going to make it very much longer if I didnt take her.

It turned out Supai had health problems, but before long she was a typical, healthy young pup full of energy.

Do you agree? This is Arizona's favorite breed of dog, study shows

Mill eventually finished her time at college, and the pair spent the next 10 years living in various states across the West.

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From Arizona to California to Montana to Colorado to Oregon, Supais abundance of energy perfectly matched her life of traveling and running alongside Mill as she skateboarded, backcountry skied and much more.

We have had an amazing life together, Mill said.

And while shes developed a liking for snow, Mill said, Supai has still found ways to stay true to her desert beginnings with an affinity for lengthy sunbathing sessions, hiking and visiting the beach.

Since locking eyes and coming together all those years ago, Mill and Supai have developed their own way of communicating.

Shes just incredibly smart and has so much personality that I can tell all of her emotions, when shes happy and whatever she needs, Mill said.

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As a result of their first-place finish in the contest hosted by TrustedHousesitters, Supai and Mill won a vacation, with $5,000 in vouchers toward flights and accommodations.

The prize package includes a complimentary TrustedHousesitters membership, allowing them to continue their adventures with pet-loving house sitters. Supai will also enjoy a years worth of pet food, ensuring she stays fueled for her next adventures.

We are overjoyed to celebrate Supai as the 'Happiest Pet on Earth,' said Angela Laws, contest judge and head of community at TrustedHousesitters. Her story of transformation and adventure is a beautiful reminder of the unbreakable bond between pets and their owners.

She is just the sweetest girl ever, Mill said. Anyone who meets her is like, This is the most special dog Ive ever met.

Reach the reporter at zbradshaw@gannett.com or on X at @ZachBradshaw14.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How a stray Grand Canyon dog became the Earth's 'happiest pet'
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey and Qatar signed a series of agreements on Thursday ranging from trade facilitation to military and technical cooperation during Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani's visit to President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.

Erdogan and al Thani were co-chairing the Turkey-Qatar High Strategic Committee meeting.

Al Thani's visit, focused on investment and trade, comes after Doha said at the weekend it had told Hamas and Israel it will stall efforts to mediate a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal until they show willingness and seriousness.

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Turkey, which fiercely criticised Israel over its offensives in Gaza and in Lebanon, does not deem the Palestinian militant group Hamas a terrorist group, and some of its political officials regularly visit Turkey.

(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Alison Williams)
Appointing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary would fulfill a Donald Trump campaign promise to disrupt Washington  along with long-established policies that affect people across the country.

That may be the point.

Before the election, Trump had promised that if he won, Kennedy was going to go wild on health policy.

Now, he may get that chance. Trump said Thursday he would nominate Kennedy to lead the Health and Human Services Department as the latest in a series of controversial Cabinet choices that will require Senate confirmation.

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The prospect of Kennedy overseeing U.S. health policy was immediately met with celebration in some quarters, mostly from Republican lawmakers.

RFK Jr. has championed issues like healthy foods and the need for greater transparency in our public health infrastructure, said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician and the incoming chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. I look forward to learning more about his other policy positions and how they will support a conservative, pro-American agenda.

But health agency veterans were aghast.

I dont know of anyone who has expressed more contempt for the health agencies that keep our food safe, make sure our medicines work, prevent lethal outbreaks, and find new cures for devastating diseases, said Josh Sharfstein, a former senior FDA official during the Obama administration.

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Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said before that nomination announcement that she was concerned about what putting Kennedy in a place of authority could mean for trust in vaccines given his views.

"Any misinformation coming from places of influence, of power, are concerning," she told POLITICO.

Cohen, who has spent her tenure at the CDC working to regain public trust in the agency after the pandemic, noted that the U.S. has already seen vaccination rates fall among kindergartners and more people seeking exemptions from routine immunizations.

I don't want to go backwards and see children or adults suffer or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work."

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Kennedy has many supporters on Capitol Hill, where in just September he hosted a health policy roundtable with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and met about 10 GOP lawmakers for lunch from both the House and Senate. Those lawmakers were quick to celebrate Trumps latest Cabinet pick.

"I think Robert is another disruptor. We need a disruptor. I will be glad and Im looking forward to working with him, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who was at the lunch with Kennedy, said on Fox News. I've got great bills and a great agenda to work side by side.

But whether he can get confirmed in the GOP-controlled Senate is still an open question as Kennedys past advocacy against vaccine mandates and skepticism about the safety of all vaccines looms over his nomination.

Vaccines are the most powerful public health innovation in history, saving more lives than any other tool. Few people my age are able to remember a neighbor with polio or a child who lost hearing to measles, Kyle McGowan, former chief of staff at CDC during Trump's first term, told POLITICO. In public health, defending childhood vaccines is the hill to die on  no other single tool has saved more lives, prevented more disabilities, or delivered greater economic impact.

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Since becoming a Trump surrogate, Kennedy has steered away from conversations about vaccines. But he remains connected to a nonprofit organization that promotes skepticism about vaccine safety. Childrens Health Defense, where he served as board chair, paid Kennedy about $215,000 last year, according to a recent personal financial disclosure form filed when he was still an independent candidate.

"He's a bit of a quack," Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said. "He doesn't believe in vaccination."

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who serves on the HELP Committee, told POLITICO before Kennedy was chosen Thursday it was premature to say if shed vote to confirm Kennedy given he hadnt yet been nominated to a post.

Newly elected Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said its too early for him to weigh in on this nomination  or any other.

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I'm not going to make any judgments about any of these folks at this point, Thune said.  Like I said, there's a confirmation process that we have to adhere to. Constitutionally, there are committees that are going to be conducting hearings and there'll be plenty of scrutiny of these nominees' records when the time comes."

The American Public Health Association will oppose the nomination, said Executive Director Georges Benjamin.

"I'm disappointed. He isn't the right guy by training, experience or temperament, Benjamin said. His anti-vaccine views make him someone who doesn't respect the public health practice or even science, medicine to begin with. He's just the wrong guy. Not to mention this is a big complicated agency. He's never run anything like this."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said whether hell get confirmed is a question for the Senate.

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Is RFK Jr. the best qualified person in the United States of America to lead us forward as we grapple with an enormous amount of health challenges in this country? The answer is clearly he is not, Jeffries said.

Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who has been a target of much of Kennedys vaccine criticism over the years and was also the subject of one of Kennedys anti-health establishment books, said: Sorry, no comment.

Everyone in the Senate must ask themselves: Will having Robert F. Kennedy Jr as secretary of health and human services help the health of people in my state? If no, you must vote no, said Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting CDC director.

Ben Leonard, Daniel Payne and Chelsea Cirruzzo contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: A previous version gave an incorrect title for Anthony Fauci.
(WHTM)  Questions are brewing over a Protection from Abuse (PFA) order that was issued to a man hours before he engaged in a shooting and high-speed chase that left three people dead last week.

According to police, a 19-year-old woman served a PFA order to Ricky Shannon, 22, of Altoona around 1 a.m. last Friday. Shannon almost immediately left Blair County, headed toward Mount Joy.

Authorities say within hours, Shannon shot four people there and fled police in a high-speed chase that ended in Reed Township, Dauphin County.

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Three people, including Shannon and the 19-year-old woman who filed the PFA, died as a result of the incident.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE > PSP: 3 dead after Midstate chase, police-involved shooting

The PFA includes handwritten details by the woman about why she feared Shannon, however the order appears to indicate the presiding judge didnt require Shannon to relinquish his weapons, often commonplace in PFA orders.

abc27 News has reached out to the Judge who issued the PFA as to why he chose not to take Shannons weapons 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 ABC27.
Rachael Ray says she doesn't regret not having kids even though she was "bashed for it" over the years.

Instead, the celebrity chef said on her podcast that she prefers the company of her dog.

And it's not just her  millennials these days are choosing to raise pets over kids.

Rachael Ray, 56, doesn't regret her decision to not have kids.

On Tuesday's episode of her podcast, "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," the celebrity chef and TV host spoke to guest Bob Harper, a celebrity trainer from "The Biggest Loser," about dealing with the societal pressure to have children.

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When Harper said he chose not to have kids of his own, Ray shared the same sentiment: "Me too. And boy, did I get bashed for it over the decades."

Instead of having kids, both Ray and Harper said they preferred raising dogs.

"They never talk back, they always want to hug you," Ray said, adding that pets bring her "a ray of light."

"It's that unconditional love, but it really gets you through dark days. Like for me, if I have the absolute worst day, or I'm sick as a dog  as the expression goes  the thing that makes me feel best is to go home and literally climb into bed under a blanket with my dog," Ray said.

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The celebrity chef also spoke about dealing with the death of her dogs, Boo and Isaboo, whom she shared with her husband John Cusimano.

"They were everything to us, and they both lived a very long life. One was over 13, one was over 15," Ray said, adding that she and her husband then decided to adopt their current dog, Bella.

She said she believed that raising an animal can make a person "a better human."

"I don't understand folks that are not into having an animal in their lives, because it just makes you happier and better," Ray said. "And you have all this love in your life all the time, no matter what."

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During a 2009 interview on ABC's "Nightline," as reported by The Wall Street Journal, Ray said she doesn't feel like she's missing out just because she doesn't have kids.

"I think that I'm 40 years old, and I have an enormous amount of hours that have to be dedicated to work," Ray told ABC journalist Cynthia McFadden, who pressed her about her decision to be child-free. "For me personally, I would need more time to feel like I'd be a good mom to my own child. I feel like a borderline good mom to my dog. So I can't imagine if it was a human baby... I feel like it would be unfair, not only to the child but to the people I work with."

The decision to be child-free

A 2021 Pew Research study found that more and more Americans aren't interested in having children .

Part of that is due to rising childcare costs: According to Business Insider's estimates, parents could spend at least $25,714 caring for a child this year, up 41.5% from 2016.

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Instead, more millennials are choosing to raise pets instead of kids, pampering their furry companions with artisan treats, clothes, and even expensive overseas vacations.

Even in China, which is experiencing a shrinking population, the urban pet population is expected to surpass the number of toddlers by 2030 .

A representative for Ray did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.

Read the original article on Business Insider
When Republicans officially take control of the U.S. Senate in January, a longtime critic of the national security state and the federal government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic will helm a committee with the power to investigate both.

As the new chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, Sen. Rand Paul (RKy.) says he aims to do exactly that.

"I intend to restore our Committee's rightful place as the oversight body of the Senate," Paul wrote in a letter sent to his Senate colleagues on Thursday, shared with Reason.

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Paul, who has been the top Republican on the committee for the past two years, said he would continue the committee's investigations into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Secret Service's security failures surrounding the assassination attempts against Donald Trump. He also promised "new investigations into executive branch failures and abuses, as well as conducting oversight of every dollar spent by the government."

Paul says that the committee's first tasks under his leadership will be confirming South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, as the incoming Secretary of Homeland Security and examining the possible reinstatement of the "Remain in Mexico" policyan immigration rule implemented during the first Trump administration that required asylum-seekers to remain outside the country to await hearings in immigration courts. The Biden administration scrapped that rule after a lengthy legal battle.

But it seems likely that Paul will keep the committee's attention largely focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and the role that the federal government played in funding gain-of-function research at the lab in Wuhan, China, where the disease is believed to have originated. That's been a priority for Paul in recent years, and investigatory work led by his office helped to confirm the "lab leak" theory that public health authorities had initially dismissed.

In comments to the New York Post this week, Paul said the combination of his chairmanship on the committee and an incoming Republican administration would help secure more answers.

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"I think we're on the cusp of, really, the beginning of uncovering what happened with COVID," Paul told the Post.

Paul has also made a name for himself in the Senate as an advocate for cutting government spending and for reigning in the excessive spy powers enjoyed by America's intelligence community.

In the letter to his colleagues, Paul stressed both the need for fiscal restraint and for casting a critical eye on the immense powers of the federal government.

"I am gravely concerned about the fiscal health of our nation and the growing federal debt," he wrote. "Adding to that debt is irresponsible. We cannot continue to say yes to every new program and new spending proposal and expect to escape the consequences. We must also ensure every dollar the government spends is being spent properly and wisely."

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In the letter, he told colleagues that the committee's investigatory powers would be available to support any senator's request for oversight of the new administration, whether coming from Democrats or Republicans.

There's no doubt that Paul will continue his important work into the origins of the pandemic, but living up to the promises made in Thursday's letter will require that Paul casts a critical eye on the incoming Trump administration too. We'll get an early indication of how seriously he takes the new oversight role at Noem's confirmation hearing, where Paul and other Republican senators should press her on everything from abolishing the Transportation Security Administration to President-elect Donald Trump's promise to pardon Ross Ulbricht.

There may be few glimmers of hope for libertarians with the incoming Republican administrating enjoying full control of Congress too. Paul's spot atop this committee could be one.

"This Committee's mission of oversight and investigations is critical to Congress reasserting itself," Paul wrote. "For the health of our republic, Congress must stand up once again for its constitutional role."

The post Rand Paul Will Continue His COVID-19 Investigations From Atop the Senate Homeland Security Committee appeared first on Reason.com.
Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that he will lead the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where he intends to immediately take up President-elect Donald Trump's plan to reinstate a policy requiring asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.

Paul said he will be the committee's new chair after Republicans won control of the Senate in this month's elections. The new role will put Paul  a limited-government advocate and longtime skeptic of surveillance programs  in charge of a committee with broad jurisdiction over government operations, including the Department of Homeland Security. Paul has been the committee's ranking Republican during Democratic control of the Senate. His and other Senate committee chairmanships will become official at the start of the new Congress in early January.

I chose to chair this committee over another because I believe that, for the health of our republic, Congress must stand up once again for its constitutional role, Paul said in a statement. This committees mission of oversight and investigations is critical to Congress reasserting itself.

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Paul, in his third term, said he will immediately take up a key part of Trump's immigration policy  forcing asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for immigration court hearings in the United States.

Democratic President Joe Biden in 2022 scrapped the policy, which critics said was inhumane for exposing migrants to extreme violence in Mexico and making access to attorneys far more difficult.

Our first hearing will examine reinstating the successful Remain in Mexico policy from the first Trump administration, Paul said. We will also expeditiously move President Trumps critical nominees, including Governor Kristi Noem, in time for Inauguration Day.

Trump selected Noem, South Dakota's governor, to head the Department of Homeland Security, an agency that's integral to his vow to secure the border and carry out a massive deportation operation.

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Paul was first elected in 2010, when he rode a conservative tea party wave right past the GOP establishment in Kentucky, bringing his libertarian-leaning brand to the Senate. He ran for president in 2016 but was swamped by Trump's first successful run for the White House.

Paul consistently rails against federal spending as he warns about the nation's soaring debt. He signaled that his chairmanship will be guided by his views on spending as well as on government regulations that he often sees as burdensome on the economy.

Another goal, he said, is for the committee to carry out consequential bipartisan oversight and investigations. Paul didn't elaborate but during his 2022 reelection run he said he wanted to wage a vigorous review into the origins of COVID-19 if he gained a committee chairmanship. Paul, an ophthalmologist, opposed what he viewed as government overreach in response to the pandemic.

His new role as a committee chairman will give Paul considerably more clout, after years when he rejected and occasionally even shut down Washingtons normal workings to promote his vision of limited government and restraint in foreign policy.

Back in Kentucky, Paul remains popular but he suffered a policy setback this month when voters soundly rejected a ballot measure that was intended to allow state lawmakers to allocate public tax dollars to support students attending private or charter schools. Paul was a prominent supporter of the proposal. The opposition was led by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who said that tax dollars allocated for education should only go to public schools. Beshear is seen as a rising Democratic star as the national party looks to recover from its losses in this month's election.
A voter in Washington, D.C., brings her ballot to a drop box outside the Mt. Pleasant Library on Nov. 5. The citys voters delivered one of the few wins for ranked choice voting this election. (Noelle Straub/Stateline)

Voters in several states last week delivered a stinging rebuke to ranked choice voting, clouding the future of an idea that had seen strong momentum in recent years.

Ranked choice voting, which allows voters to rank political candidates by preference, is used statewide in Alaska and Maine and in major U.S. localities such as New York City and San Francisco.

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But voters in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon rejected ballot measures that would have adopted ranked choice voting for packed races. In Missouri, voters approved a ballot measure banning the approach statewide and locally, except for a grandfather clause for St. Louis municipal elections.

Results are still too close to call on a measure to scrap Alaskas existing use of ranked choice voting. With 94% of results reported, the measure was up by about 2,400 votes.

Voters this year were reluctant to make dramatic changes to the way they vote, said Chandler James, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Oregon. But I dont think that it spells the end for ranked choice voting in the future.

Overall, we see that ranked choice voting is still growing.

 Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote

In the system, voters rank candidates on their ballots by preference  first, second, third choice, and so on.

Advertisement Advertisement

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If no candidate gets the majority of first-preference votes, the rest of the rankings kick in. The candidate with the fewest first-preference votes gets eliminated, while those voters secondary choices are allocated to the rest of the field. The counting continues until one candidate gets majority support.

Critics often blast ranked choice voting as being complicated and undemocratic, saying it violates the one person, one vote principle of American elections. But proponents argue that it forces candidates to appeal to a wider audience, leading to less toxic campaigning, and saves money on costly runoff elections.

While it was a tough year for statewide ballot measures, the system had better success at the local level, including in the District of Columbia; Bloomington, Minnesota; Oak Park and Peoria, Illinois; and Richmond, California.

Overall, we see that ranked choice voting is still growing, said Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote, the nonpartisan organization leading the fight to adopt ranked choice voting. Im still really optimistic for how it will continue to grow.

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And though it lost in Oregon, she pointed out that the measure had majority support in jurisdictions that currently use ranked choice voting, such as Multnomah (home to Portland) and Benton counties.

In the District of Columbia, voters overwhelmingly supported a ballot measure to establish ranked choice voting for elections beginning in 2026 and to open the primary process to voters who are not affiliated with a party.

The local political party leadership campaigned against the measure, as was the case in other places where ranked choice voting was on the ballot. But district voters, familiar with packed Democratic primary ballots where winners often fail to get majority support, adopted the measure with more than 72% of the vote. The districts party affiliation overwhelmingly leans Democratic.

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It was a sign of grassroots work for the past five years, said Porter Bowman, volunteer communications director for the Yes on 83 Campaign.

People are not OK with the status quo, he said in an interview. Folks were looking to city leadership and the state of politics in D.C. and wanting voters to have more choice and to be more involved in the process.

The city council must still implement the voting system. But Republicans now control both chambers of Congress; that could put the system at risk, because Congress limits the districts autonomy.

Last year, U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, introduced legislation that would have prohibited the district from using ranked choice voting in local elections. He also introduced a separate bill that would have prohibited states from using the voting system in federal elections.

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As usual, DC is running toward something that others have overwhelmingly rejected, he wrote on Instagram over the weekend.

Lawler wrote he will continue to push his legislation to prevent the adoption of this convoluted voting system when Congress comes back to work this month. Hes previously pointed to delayed results in New York Citys elections using ranked choice voting and what he said was the confusion that came with it.

FairVotes Otis said Lawlers legislation would be shortsighted, and pointed to how Republicans have benefited from the system.

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She cited Virginia, where the state Republican Party used it to nominate Gov. Glenn Youngkin in a 2021 state convention. Youngkin had a plurality of votes among a crowded field after the first vote; he won the nomination after six rounds of counting with 55% of the vote. Even so, Youngkin vetoed ranked choice voting legislation in April.

Leaders in several Virginia localities said in the past week that theyre considering using ranked choice voting in the near future after Arlington County successfully implemented the method.

In 2024, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma enacted measures that banned the use of ranked choice voting  a burgeoning trend in Republican-led states, reacting to key GOP losses in Alaska and Maine in recent years.

Otis said her group is moving ahead with campaigns to bring ranked choice voting to local elections in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Boston and Denver in the coming years.

Editors note: This story has been updated to reflect that Republicans have won control of both chambers of Congress.

SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to rank political candidates by preference, is used statewide in Alaska and Maine and in major U.S. localities such as New York City and San Francisco (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images).

Voters in several states, including Missouri, last week delivered a stinging rebuke to ranked-choice voting, clouding the future of an idea that had seen strong momentum in recent years.

Ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to rank political candidates by preference, is used statewide in Alaska and Maine and in major U.S. localities such as New York City and San Francisco.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

But voters in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon rejected ballot measures that would have adopted ranked-choice voting for packed races.

In Missouri, voters approved a ballot measure banning the approach statewide and locally, except for a grandfather clause for St. Louis municipal elections. The ranked-choice voting ban, which appeared on the ballot as Amendment 7, was paired with a deceptive provision seeking to outlaw noncitizen voting  which was already illegal in Missouri.

Results are still too close to call on a measure to scrap Alaskas existing use of ranked-choice voting. With 94% of results reported, the measure was up by about 2,400 votes.

Voters this year were reluctant to make dramatic changes to the way they vote, said Chandler James, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Oregon. But I dont think that it spells the end for ranked-choice voting in the future.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

In the system, voters rank candidates on their ballots by preference  first, second, third choice, and so on.

If no candidate gets the majority of first-preference votes, the rest of the rankings kick in. The candidate with the fewest first-preference votes gets eliminated, while those voters secondary choices are allocated to the rest of the field. The counting continues until one candidate gets majority support.

Critics often blast ranked-choice voting as being complicated and undemocratic, saying it violates the one person, one vote principle of American elections. But proponents argue that it forces candidates to appeal to a wider audience, leading to less toxic campaigning, and saves money on costly runoff elections.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

While it was a tough year for statewide ballot measures, the system had better success at the local level, including in the District of Columbia; Bloomington, Minnesota; Oak Park and Peoria, Illinois; and Richmond, California.

Overall, we see that ranked-choice voting is still growing, said Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote, the nonpartisan organization leading the fight to adopt ranked-choice voting. Im still really optimistic for how it will continue to grow.

And though it lost in Oregon, she pointed out that the measure had majority support in jurisdictions that currently use ranked-choice voting, such as Multnomah (home to Portland) and Benton counties.

In the District of Columbia, voters overwhelmingly supported a ballot measure to establish ranked-choice voting for elections beginning in 2026 and to open the primary process to voters who are not affiliated with a party.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

The local political party leadership campaigned against the measure, as was the case in other places where ranked-choice voting was on the ballot. But district voters, familiar with packed Democratic primary ballots where winners often fail to get majority support, adopted the measure with more than 72% of the vote. The districts party affiliation overwhelmingly leans Democratic.

It was a sign of grassroots work for the past five years, said Porter Bowman, volunteer communications director for the Yes on 83 Campaign.

People are not OK with the status quo, he said in an interview. Folks were looking to city leadership and the state of politics in D.C. and wanting voters to have more choice and to be more involved in the process.

The city council must still implement the voting system. But if Republicans take control of Congress, it could put the system at risk, because Congress limits the districts autonomy.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

Last year, U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, introduced legislation that would have prohibited the district from using ranked-choice voting in local elections. He also introduced a separate bill that would have prohibited states from using the voting system in federal elections.

As usual, DC is running toward something that others have overwhelmingly rejected, he wrote on Instagram over the weekend.

Lawler wrote he will continue to push his legislation to prevent the adoption of this convoluted voting system when Congress comes back to work this month. Hes previously pointed to delayed results in New York Citys elections using ranked-choice voting and what he said was the confusion that came with it.

FairVotes Otis said Lawlers legislation would be shortsighted, and pointed to how Republicans have benefited from the system.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

She cited Virginia, where the state Republican Party used it to nominate Gov. Glenn Youngkin in a 2021 state convention. Youngkin had a plurality of votes among a crowded field after the first vote; he won the nomination after six rounds of counting with 55% of the vote. Even so, Youngkin vetoed ranked-choice voting legislation in April.

Leaders in several Virginia localities said in the past week that theyre considering using ranked-choice voting in the near future after Arlington County successfully implemented the method.

In 2024, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma enacted measures that banned the use of ranked-choice voting  a burgeoning trend in Republican-led states, reacting to key GOP losses in Alaska and Maine in recent years.

Otis said her group is moving ahead with campaigns to bring ranked-choice voting to local elections in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Boston and Denver in the coming years.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.
A voter in Washington, D.C., brings her ballot to a drop box outside the Mt. Pleasant Library on Nov. 5. The citys voters delivered one of the few wins for ranked choice voting this election. (Noelle Straub/Stateline)

This story originally appeared on Stateline.

Voters in several states last week delivered a stinging rebuke to ranked choice voting, clouding the future of an idea that had seen strong momentum in recent years.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

Ranked choice voting, which allows voters to rank political candidates by preference, is used statewide in Alaska and Maine and in major U.S. localities such as New York City and San Francisco.

But voters in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon rejected ballot measures that would have adopted ranked choice voting for packed races. In Missouri, voters approved a ballot measure banning the approach statewide and locally, except for a grandfather clause for St. Louis municipal elections.

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Results are still too close to call on a measure to scrap Alaskas existing use of ranked choice voting. With 94% of results reported, the measure was up by about 2,400 votes.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

Voters this year were reluctant to make dramatic changes to the way they vote, said Chandler James, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Oregon. But I dont think that it spells the end for ranked choice voting in the future.

Overall, we see that ranked choice voting is still growing.

 Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote

In the system, voters rank candidates on their ballots by preference  first, second, third choice, and so on.

If no candidate gets the majority of first-preference votes, the rest of the rankings kick in. The candidate with the fewest first-preference votes gets eliminated, while those voters secondary choices are allocated to the rest of the field. The counting continues until one candidate gets majority support.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

Critics often blast ranked choice voting as being complicated and undemocratic, saying it violates the one person, one vote principle of American elections. But proponents argue that it forces candidates to appeal to a wider audience, leading to less toxic campaigning, and saves money on costly runoff elections.

While it was a tough year for statewide ballot measures, the system had better success at the local level, including in the District of Columbia; Bloomington, Minnesota; Oak Park and Peoria, Illinois; and Richmond, California.

Overall, we see that ranked choice voting is still growing, said Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote, the nonpartisan organization leading the fight to adopt ranked choice voting. Im still really optimistic for how it will continue to grow.

And though it lost in Oregon, she pointed out that the measure had majority support in jurisdictions that currently use ranked choice voting, such as Multnomah (home to Portland) and Benton counties.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

In the District of Columbia, voters overwhelmingly supported a ballot measure to establish ranked choice voting for elections beginning in 2026 and to open the primary process to voters who are not affiliated with a party.

The local political party leadership campaigned against the measure, as was the case in other places where ranked choice voting was on the ballot. But district voters, familiar with packed Democratic primary ballots where winners often fail to get majority support, adopted the measure with more than 72% of the vote. The districts party affiliation overwhelmingly leans Democratic.

It was a sign of grassroots work for the past five years, said Porter Bowman, volunteer communications director for the Yes on 83 Campaign.

People are not OK with the status quo, he said in an interview. Folks were looking to city leadership and the state of politics in D.C. and wanting voters to have more choice and to be more involved in the process.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

The city council must still implement the voting system. But Republicans now control both chambers of Congress; that could put the system at risk, because Congress limits the districts autonomy.

Last year, U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, introduced legislation that would have prohibited the district from using ranked choice voting in local elections. He also introduced a separate bill that would have prohibited states from using the voting system in federal elections.

As usual, DC is running toward something that others have overwhelmingly rejected, he wrote on Instagram over the weekend.

Lawler wrote he will continue to push his legislation to prevent the adoption of this convoluted voting system when Congress comes back to work this month. Hes previously pointed to delayed results in New York Citys elections using ranked choice voting and what he said was the confusion that came with it.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

FairVotes Otis said Lawlers legislation would be shortsighted, and pointed to how Republicans have benefited from the system.

She cited Virginia, where the state Republican Party used it to nominate Gov. Glenn Youngkin in a 2021 state convention. Youngkin had a plurality of votes among a crowded field after the first vote; he won the nomination after six rounds of counting with 55% of the vote. Even so, Youngkin vetoed ranked choice voting legislation in April.

Leaders in several Virginia localities said in the past week that theyre considering using ranked choice voting in the near future after Arlington County successfully implemented the method.

In 2024, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma enacted measures that banned the use of ranked choice voting  a burgeoning trend in Republican-led states, reacting to key GOP losses in Alaska and Maine in recent years.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

Otis said her group is moving ahead with campaigns to bring ranked choice voting to local elections in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Boston and Denver in the coming years.

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.

SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Nov. 14Voters in several states last week delivered a stinging rebuke to ranked choice voting, clouding the future of an idea that had seen strong momentum in recent years.

Ranked choice voting, which allows voters to rank political candidates by preference, is used statewide in Alaska and Maine and in major U.S. localities such as New York City and San Francisco.

But voters in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon rejected ballot measures that would have adopted ranked choice voting for packed races. In Missouri, voters approved a ballot measure banning the approach statewide and locally, except for a grandfather clause for St. Louis municipal elections.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

Results are still too close to call on a measure to scrap Alaska's existing use of ranked choice voting. With 94% of results reported, the measure was up by about 2,400 votes.

"Voters this year were reluctant to make dramatic changes to the way they vote," said Chandler James, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Oregon. "But I don't think that it spells the end for ranked choice voting in the future."

Overall, we see that ranked choice voting is still growing.  Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote

In the system, voters rank candidates on their ballots by preference  first, second, third choice, and so on.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

If no candidate gets the majority of first-preference votes, the rest of the rankings kick in. The candidate with the fewest first-preference votes gets eliminated, while those voters' secondary choices are allocated to the rest of the field. The counting continues until one candidate gets majority support.

Critics often blast ranked choice voting as being complicated and undemocratic, saying it violates the "one person, one vote" principle of American elections. But proponents argue that it forces candidates to appeal to a wider audience, leading to less toxic campaigning, and saves money on costly runoff elections.

While it was a tough year for statewide ballot measures, the system had better success at the local level, including in the District of Columbia; Bloomington, Minnesota; Oak Park and Peoria, Illinois; and Richmond, California.

"Overall, we see that ranked choice voting is still growing," said Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote, the nonpartisan organization leading the fight to adopt ranked choice voting. "I'm still really optimistic for how it will continue to grow."

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

And though it lost in Oregon, she pointed out that the measure had majority support in jurisdictions that currently use ranked choice voting, such as Multnomah (home to Portland) and Benton counties.

In the District of Columbia, voters overwhelmingly supported a ballot measure to establish ranked choice voting for elections beginning in 2026 and to open the primary process to voters who are not affiliated with a party.

The local political party leadership campaigned against the measure, as was the case in other places where ranked choice voting was on the ballot. But district voters, familiar with packed Democratic primary ballots where winners often fail to get majority support, adopted the measure with more than 72% of the vote. The district's party affiliation overwhelmingly leans Democratic.

It was a sign of grassroots work for the past five years, said Porter Bowman, volunteer communications director for the Yes on 83 Campaign.

Advertisement Advertisement

Advertisement

"People are not OK with the status quo," he said in an interview. "Folks were looking to city leadership and the state of politics in D.C. and wanting voters to have more choice and to be more involved in the process."

The city council must still implement the voting system. But Republicans now control both chambers of Congress; that could put the system at risk, because Congress limits the district's autonomy.

Last year, U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, introduced legislation that would have prohibited the district from using ranked choice voting in local elections. He also introduced a separate bill that would have prohibited states from using the voting system in federal elections.

"As usual, DC is running toward something that others have overwhelmingly rejected," he wrote on Instagram over the weekend.

Advertisement Advertisement

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Lawler wrote he will continue to push his legislation to prevent the adoption of "this convoluted voting system" when Congress comes back to work this month. He's previously pointed to delayed results in New York City's elections using ranked choice voting and what he said was the confusion that came with it.

FairVote's Otis said Lawler's legislation would be "shortsighted," and pointed to how Republicans have benefited from the system.

She cited Virginia, where the state Republican Party used it to nominate Gov. Glenn Youngkin in a 2021 state convention. Youngkin had a plurality of votes among a crowded field after the first vote; he won the nomination after six rounds of counting with 55% of the vote. Even so, Youngkin vetoed ranked choice voting legislation in April.

Leaders in several Virginia localities said in the past week that they're considering using ranked choice voting in the near future after Arlington County successfully implemented the method.

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In 2024, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma enacted measures that banned the use of ranked choice voting  a burgeoning trend in Republican-led states, reacting to key GOP losses in Alaska and Maine in recent years.

Otis said her group is moving ahead with campaigns to bring ranked choice voting to local elections in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Boston and Denver in the coming years.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that Republicans have won control of both chambers of Congress.

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A voter in Washington, D.C., brings her ballot to a drop box outside the Mt. Pleasant Library on Nov. 5. The citys voters delivered one of the few wins for ranked choice voting this election. (Noelle Straub/Stateline)

Voters in several states last week delivered a stinging rebuke to ranked choice voting, clouding the future of an idea that had seen strong momentum in recent years.

Ranked choice voting, which allows voters to rank political candidates by preference, is used statewide in Alaska and Maine and in major U.S. localities such as New York City and San Francisco.

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But voters in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon rejected ballot measures that would have adopted ranked choice voting for packed races. In Missouri, voters approved a ballot measure banning the approach statewide and locally, except for a grandfather clause for St. Louis municipal elections.

Results are still too close to call on a measure to scrap Alaskas existing use of ranked choice voting. With 94% of results reported, the measure was up by about 2,400 votes.

Voters this year were reluctant to make dramatic changes to the way they vote, said Chandler James, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Oregon. But I dont think that it spells the end for ranked choice voting in the future.

Overall, we see that ranked choice voting is still growing.

 Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote

In the system, voters rank candidates on their ballots by preference  first, second, third choice, and so on.

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If no candidate gets the majority of first-preference votes, the rest of the rankings kick in. The candidate with the fewest first-preference votes gets eliminated, while those voters secondary choices are allocated to the rest of the field. The counting continues until one candidate gets majority support.

Critics often blast ranked choice voting as being complicated and undemocratic, saying it violates the one person, one vote principle of American elections. But proponents argue that it forces candidates to appeal to a wider audience, leading to less toxic campaigning, and saves money on costly runoff elections.

While it was a tough year for statewide ballot measures, the system had better success at the local level, including in the District of Columbia; Bloomington, Minnesota; Oak Park and Peoria, Illinois; and Richmond, California.

Overall, we see that ranked choice voting is still growing, said Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote, the nonpartisan organization leading the fight to adopt ranked choice voting. Im still really optimistic for how it will continue to grow.

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And though it lost in Oregon, she pointed out that the measure had majority support in jurisdictions that currently use ranked choice voting, such as Multnomah (home to Portland) and Benton counties.

In the District of Columbia, voters overwhelmingly supported a ballot measure to establish ranked choice voting for elections beginning in 2026 and to open the primary process to voters who are not affiliated with a party.

The local political party leadership campaigned against the measure, as was the case in other places where ranked choice voting was on the ballot. But district voters, familiar with packed Democratic primary ballots where winners often fail to get majority support, adopted the measure with more than 72% of the vote. The districts party affiliation overwhelmingly leans Democratic.

It was a sign of grassroots work for the past five years, said Porter Bowman, volunteer communications director for the Yes on 83 Campaign.

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People are not OK with the status quo, he said in an interview. Folks were looking to city leadership and the state of politics in D.C. and wanting voters to have more choice and to be more involved in the process.

The city council must still implement the voting system. But Republicans now control both chambers of Congress; that could put the system at risk, because Congress limits the districts autonomy.

Last year, U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, introduced legislation that would have prohibited the district from using ranked choice voting in local elections. He also introduced a separate bill that would have prohibited states from using the voting system in federal elections.

As usual, DC is running toward something that others have overwhelmingly rejected, he wrote on Instagram over the weekend.

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Lawler wrote he will continue to push his legislation to prevent the adoption of this convoluted voting system when Congress comes back to work this month. Hes previously pointed to delayed results in New York Citys elections using ranked choice voting and what he said was the confusion that came with it.

FairVotes Otis said Lawlers legislation would be shortsighted, and pointed to how Republicans have benefited from the system.

She cited Virginia, where the state Republican Party used it to nominate Gov. Glenn Youngkin in a 2021 state convention. Youngkin had a plurality of votes among a crowded field after the first vote; he won the nomination after six rounds of counting with 55% of the vote. Even so, Youngkin vetoed ranked choice voting legislation in April.

Leaders in several Virginia localities said in the past week that theyre considering using ranked choice voting in the near future after Arlington County successfully implemented the method.

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In 2024, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma enacted measures that banned the use of ranked choice voting  a burgeoning trend in Republican-led states, reacting to key GOP losses in Alaska and Maine in recent years.

Otis said her group is moving ahead with campaigns to bring ranked choice voting to local elections in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Boston and Denver in the coming years.

Stateline, like the 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. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.
Lineman Eric Weems was killed on the job earlier this week when crews suffered an equipment failure in downtown Griffin.

Back in October 2020, the City of Griffin posted a video on social media of Weems sharing why he loves being a lineman in his own words.

I really do love my job. I get to go out and do what I love, Weems told a cameraperson. And to be able to help others...you cant beat it.

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He goes on to describe what its like to be a lineman: hard days of dangerous work. But that he wouldnt change it.

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You couldnt buy that feeling, Weems says of the moment hes able to get the lights back on in someones home.

Georgia Cities Week Virtual Learning - Eric Weems Continuing our 2020 Georgia Cities Week celebration, we've created several virtual learning experiences geared towards helping citizens better understand how City Departments operate. View the brief video below to learn more about what it's like to be a lineman with Eric Weems. Posted by City of Griffin, GA - Government on Thursday, October 8, 2020

Weems even likened himself to a detective solving a murder.

Its like a detective trying to figure out the murder, and the murder is the electricity. [Youre] trying to figure out what it did to get to this point, he said.

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Because the work is so dangerous, he says that you have to remind yourself to take extra precautions every time you get in the bucket.

Thats probably the only way to keep injuries and deaths down, he said. I dont want to say death, but thats what it is.

A second lineman, Trent Granger, was also critically injured in the accident. There are no updates on his condition.

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SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU)  The reconstruction project on Highway 20 is is set to wrap up on Nov. 22, ending nearly two years of inconvenience for commuters.

We recognized the challenges folks had with getting their commutes every day or getting through that construction zone, Jessica Felix with the Iowa DOT said. A four-mile construction zone is a long time.

Reindeer ducks are now hidden around Norfolk for scavenger hunt

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Felix told KCAU 9 what drivers can expect once the highway interchange fully reopens.

There will be a traditional diamond, so theres no more winding under the bridge, she said. And coming up, be aware of the new signage. But you have the new traffic signals and youll be able to have access to all those crossroads for two miles.

Trissa Bottorff, the owner of Movillatte, said that shes looking forward to the end of construction.

Its been a lot, I would say its definitely slowed down the ability to get to Sioux City faster, Bottorff said. Its definitely affected my business in a way of when I go to get supplies for the business  coffee, milk, things like that. So that has been kind of a struggle, but all in all, Im happy its almost done.

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Another Moville resident said that the repairs and renovations needed to be done.

UNI-Dome renovation project finishes first phase

The conditions of the highway and some sections of it was getting pretty rough, pretty bumpy, resident Jeff Krejci said. Like on this side of Lawton, it was getting really rough and bumpy, and the grating that they did has leveled it out a little bit. We dont have a steep valley or as big as hills to go up and down the pavements and the roadway, and the improvements are well worth the wait.

Felix said crews will be working on replacing two small sections of asphalt. Weather permitting, Siouxland drivers will be able to experience the new interchange soon.

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The Paris prosecutor's office has requested that Marine Le Pen, the leader of the parliamentary faction of the far-right National Rally party, be sentenced to five years in prison (three of them suspended) in a case involving the misuse of European Parliament funds. The prosecution also demands that the party be fined two million euros. Earlier, Le Pen had already been ordered to pay 330,000 euros to the European Parliament.

According to DW, if the court agrees with the charges, 56-year-old Le Pen will not only face two years in prison but will also be banned from running in the 2027 French presidential election, as she will be prohibited from holding public office during her sentence. Moreover, the prosecutors office demands that the ban on holding public office be enforced immediately, even if her lawyers file an appeal.

Le Pen herself denies all charges and maintains her innocence.

The investigation into the embezzlement of European Parliament funds began in 2015. The prosecutors office launched an inquiry amid suspicions that representatives of the National Front (as Le Pens party was called at the time) had illegally hired 20 European Parliament employees. These individuals, who received salaries from the EP, worked for the National Front instead. In 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in a similar case and fined Le Pen and her associate Bruno Gollnisch 330,000 euros.

The trial involving Le Pens party began in late September. In addition to Le Pen herself, over 20 party representatives are accused of embezzling EU funds. They are alleged to have covertly financed the party by fictitiously hiring assistants for Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). The maximum penalty for this charge is up to 10 years in prison. The total damage is estimated at nearly 7 million euros. The scheme involved the National Front placing people in assistant roles for MEPs, but they did not work for the MEPs they were listed as assistants to. Instead, they worked directly for Le Pen. For instance, it was revealed that Thierry Legier, who had worked for nearly 20 years as an "assistant" to an MEP, was actually serving as Marine Le Pens bodyguard.

Interestingly, it seems that many individuals associated with the Armenian lobby or those who have supported Armenian interests in the past have been involved in scandals or criminal activities. Le Pen is not the first such figure, as defenders of the Armenian cause have frequently been linked to controversies. This is hardly surprising, as many of her supporters, particularly among the pro-Armenian factions, have been associated with far-right ideologies, including Nazism, racism, and xenophobia. When Armenian voices are needed, these figures often adopt positions that appeal to the Armenian community. For example, in 2022, Le Pen courted the Armenian diaspora during her presidential campaign, stating that she dreamed of seeing Nagorno-Karabakh rejoin Armenia. One could argue that such limited ambitions speak poorly of her imagination.

These statements did not benefit Le Pen, however. The French presidency was ultimately won by another figure with far-right tendencies  Emmanuel Macron, who some might argue shares similar ideologies. The French electorate, it seems, had little choice  if you don't vote for one, you end up with the other.

If the court convicts her, Madame Le Pen will have two full years to reflect on her actions in silence and solitude, perhaps dreaming of something "loftier."
The Rhode Island Board of Elections approved seven of nine requests for recounts in races in the Nov. 5 election at its meeting meeting on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (Screenshot)

Republican Christopher Paplauskas maintained his victory over Democrat Maria Bucci in Cranstons House District 15 race after a three-hour recount at the Rhode Island Board of Elections was completed Thursday around 1 p.m.

The recount was one of three involving tight legislative contests approved for further review by the state elections panel at its meeting Thursday morning.

Republican Chris Paplauskas, left, led Democrat Maria Bucci, right, by 26 votes in the open seat race in Cranston for House District 15 after a recount on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (Contributed photos)

Before the House recount, Bucci had trailed Paplauskas by 22 votes. After the recount, Paplauskas led by 26 votes; a total 4,343 votes were cast for Paplauskas and 3,317 for Bucci.

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Thats democracy, I enjoyed it, said Paplauskas, who was present with his attorney at the elections boards Cranston offices to observe the recount.

He has served five terms on the Cranston City Council, but could not seek reelection because of term limits. He said his first run for the General Assembly marked the first time he had ever experienced being in a race that went to a recount.

Bucci was also present with her attorney. She congratulated me after I thanked her for running a great race, Paplauskas said.

Bucci could not be reached for comment after the recount.

A recount for Warwicks Senate District 29 was still underway as of 4 p.m. Republican Sen. Anthony DeLuca trailed Democratic challenger Peter Appollonio Jr. by 65 votes as of Thursday morning.

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It wasnt clear if the board would get to the recount for Warwicks House District 21 race before Friday. Democrat James McElroy was trailing Republican Marie Hopkins by 85 votes as of Thursday morning for the open seat to replace outgoing Democrat Rep. Camille Vella-Wilkinson.

The recounts wont change the power balance of the 113-seat Rhode Island General Assembly, which remains solidly under Democratic control.

The elections panel approved seven of nine recount requests, rejecting a request for a recount from Republican Janine Wolf who trailed Democratic Rep. Jennifer Boylan by 2,459 votes in the race for House District 66, which covers Barrington and the Riverside part of East Providence. The margin was too wide to qualify for a recount under state elections law.

Barrington Town Council race is special case

State law allows the candidate who is trailing up to seven days after an election to request a recount. But a tight race for the Barrington Town Council has illuminated a legal gap involving recount requests in Rhode Island.

Democrat Jordan M. Jancosek went from trailing independent Brian D. Hughes by 10 votes to leading by nine votes in the Barrington Town Council race after military and overseas ballots were counted and flagged mail ballots were reviewed. (Courtesy of Jordan M. Jancosek)

The third and fourth highest vote-getters for the Barrington council race changed places after military and overseas ballots were tabulated Wednesday night, along with mail ballots that were verified after being flagged for signature checks. Three seats were open on the towns five-member council on which councilors serve four-year terms.

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A total of 2,048 military and overseas ballots were received statewide, said Board of Elections spokesperson Christopher Hunter.

Democratic candidate Jordan M. Jancosek rose from fourth highest vote-getter to third among six candidates while independent Brian D. Hughes dropped from third place to fourth place.

Jancosek had asked the state elections panel for a recount before Tuesdays deadline. At the time, she was the trailing candidate by 10 votes, 4427 to 4417, according to Barrington Town Clerk Meredith DeSisto.

In races where one candidate is elected and more than 20,000 votes are cast, state law allows a candidate who trails a winning candidate by 0.5% or 150 votes, whichever is less, to request a recount. Over 23,000 votes were cast in the race.

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But now that Jancosek leads Hughes by nine votes with a total of 4,447 votes to Hughes 4,438 votes, Hughes is the candidate with standing, not Jancosek. He just didnt know it until after the deadline to request a recount, he told the board Thursday.

The most prudent way for any candidate to handle this is if you are in a close election make the request and then withdraw it, but that wasnt done here. It was done by one candidate, not both, Board of Elections lawyer Raymond A. Marcoccio told the board.

Independent Brian D. Hughes, right, shown at the Rhode Island Board of Elections meeting on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024, did not ask for a recount in the Barrington Town Council race because he was the third highest vote-getter for three seats. He dropped to fourth after military and overseas ballots were counted and flagged mail ballots were reviewed. At left is independent Joanne Miller, who was trailing by 53 votes in the Ward 4 race for Warwick City Council. (Screenshot)

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I wish I could say theres an easy answer, Marcoccio added. I can say what the most fair answer would be, but Im having a little trouble finding the statutory underpinnings allowing someone to seek a request beyond the seven-day limit when they havent done so in that time frame.

BOE Executive Director Miguel Nunez told the board that he received an email from Jancosek before the boards 9:15 a.m. meeting began that she was not rescinding her recount request.

The board voted 5-0 to approve Jancoseks recount request, which was scheduled to take place Friday at 11 a.m. at its Cranston offices. Board members Marcela Betancur and Diane Mederos were absent.

Board Chairwoman Jennifer L. Johnson said the special case of the Barrington race is likely to be flagged when the board puts together its annual package of legislative requests to the General Assembly.

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Jancosek said she would be unable to attend the recount on Friday but that representatives from the Democratic Town Committee would be present to observe the proceedings.

I chose not to rescind my recount request because I believe in fair, free elections and elections with integrity, Jancosek told Rhode Island Current in an email. This applies to all candidates  not just myself. We  and the Town of Barrington  are entitled to an honest and honorable final tally.

Recounts are also scheduled in the Ward 4 race for Warwick City Council, Woonsocket City Council and Richmond Town Council.

Certification of all election results is scheduled to occur on Thursday, Nov. 21, at which time results will become official.

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WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL)  Workforce Solutions North Texas, the Texas Workforce Commission, and Texas Medical Center are partnering to help veterans return to civilian life with an upcoming job fair.

Jacksboro BBQ joint to soon close its doors after 60 years in business

The annual event is a chance for veterans to display the skills theyve learned in the service.

The 13th annual Red, White, and You hiring event will be held on Thursday, November 14, and will connect veterans, transitioning military members, and military spouses to employers across Texas.

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This event will take place at the Delta Hotel at 306 Travis Street in Wichita Falls with an opening ceremony beginning at 10:30 a.m. Veterans will have priority entry at 11 a.m., and general public entry will continue from 12 until 2 p.m.

To learn more about Red, White and You and the other hiring events put on by Workforce Solutions North Texas, visit its website.

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PLATTSBURGH  Members of the City of Plattsburghs redistricting committee presented councilors with their final proposal of changes to the citys ward district boundary lines last week.

With 19,917 people living in the city according to the 2020 census, the six proposed ward districts will have a population range of 3,237 to 3,402.

As required by New York state redistricting law, the commissions process of preparing their recommendations included making the new lines as close as possible to existing election district lines, not deviate no more than 5% of the average population value for each district, follow clearly identifiable geographic features, convenient and contiguous, and align with municipal boundaries.

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Of the six ward districts, Ward 6 is proposed to change the most, Shannon Thayer, Director of Planning for Clinton County, and one of the four redistricting members, said.

We ended up having to kind of grab the entire center of the city in order to get that to be up too far, in terms of where it needed to be for population, Thayer said.

She said they had to shift the boundary line direction after reviewing previous recommendations that were put forward.

COLLIN CONCERNS

As previously reported by the Press-Republican, early map proposals would have moved Amy Collin, who beat out incumbent Councilor Jeff Moore in the Ward 6 Democratic primary in June, into the Ward 3 district instead.

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Another member of the redistricting committee, James Calnon, also a former city mayor, assured the final proposal fixed that issue.

When last years committee put their recommendations together, a councilor-elect this year was not running, Calnon said.

So when we looked at that, we had to modify Ward 6 to be sure that we got West Court Street to remain in Ward 6 going forward so that Amy would not be moved out of her district in the next election.

OTHER ADJUSTMENTS

Wards 1 and 2 boundary lines also saw significant changes. Thayer said this was due to a lot of development in these wards since the last map was drawn.

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Thayer said Ward 1 shifted up north a bit, and down to the south of the city a little more than it was, while Ward 2 expanded out a bit to the northeast.

For example, Ward 1s boundary expanded to Green Street and the Plattsburgh Boat Basin area, previously Ward 6. Ward 2 stands to gain a larger geographical size with its lines proposed to include more of the Saranac River area below Broad Street.

Ward 3s proposed boundary will become more continuous. Thayer said they made it so SUNY Plattsburgh is now all in this ward.

In the past, part of the university was in Ward 2, so all the individuals that live on campus were going to a voting location that was off campus for them, rather than going to the Fieldhouse like half the people that live on campus, she said.

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So we thought in terms of preserving the neighborhood characteristics, it made more sense to create a continuous district that included all of the on-campus students for SUNY.

Wards 4 and 5 had minimal changes to account for slight changes in population.

Ward 4 was just a little bit under so there really didnt need to be a ton of change in there, and we were able to just borrow some people from Ward 5 essentially, Thayer said.

Ward 5 again, a little bit over ... so we had to shift down and ... grabbed some blocks on the other side of Oak Street to help bring them up within the range.

Mayor Chris Rosenquest said the next step for the new map is the introduction to a local law to adopt these ward boundaries.
TOPEKA (KSNT)  West Ridge Mall is welcoming in a new tenant this month that focuses on providing people with deals on a variety of home goods.

Casey Richardson, general manager at the mall, told 27 News that ReHome moved in on Nov. 1. The business can be found on the malls upper level next to Spencers and across from Boss Babes Boutique.

Were thrilled to welcome such a well-established local business to our tenant mix, Richardson said. ReHome has a great selection of items and a loyal customer base, so theyre a wonderful addition to our community.

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ReHome primarily offers items like holiday decorations, furniture and other miscellaneous goods. You can learn more about ReHome by following it on Facebook or by visiting this website.

When will Santa be at West Ridge Mall?

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.

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HUDSON COUNTY, NJ  While some people may want to put the covid pandemic in the rear view, others can't forget.

Besides the deaths in New Jersey that peaked in spring 2020, there were heated political battles throughout the year, including a local tiff involving New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and the man who is now President-Elect Trump's attorney general pick, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz. Murphy Calls Congressman 'Putz' For Attending Jersey City Event

Four years ago, in December of 2020, a member of a New York young Republicans group Tweeted an apparent taunt at then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, implying they were going to hold a fundraiser in the area. The Tweet challenged Cuomo to "come and get me" for possibly violating a limit on indoor gatherings.

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The New York Times wrote an article saying the group was hosting a "secret gala" in the area.



That's when a reporter revealed that the event was actually taking place across the river at Jersey City restaurant.



Murphy responded by zinging the event's special guest, Rep,. Matt Gaetz  who had recently worn a gas mask on the House of Representatives floor.

Murphy wrote, "It is also beyond the pale that Rep Matt Putz  I mean @RepMattGaetz  would participate in this. What a fool. Matt  You are not welcome in New Jersey, and frankly I dont ever want you back in this state."

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The restaurant responded that they had not violated covid protocol.



The president-elect said Wednesday that he supported Gaetz to become the attorney general. Gaetz promptly resigned from Congress later in the day.

He will have to be confirmed by the Senate to get the spot.



Walk down memory lane:











Remember When: NJ Gov. Murphy Called Matt Gaetz A 'Putz' originally appeared on the Jersey City Patch
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said President-elect Donald Trump told a good joke on Wednesday when he chose Matt Gaetz as his nominee for attorney general.

To the president, I say, No, seriously, who is your pick for attorney general? Swalwell said on CNNs OutFront Wednesday. Because this pick is a middle finger to Democrats and sane Republicans, and its not being panned only by Democrats.

Swalwell said Republicans in the House had been clowning this pick both publicly and privately.

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Donald Trump not known for having a sense of humor. Credit to you. Youve landed a good joke on the country, he said. But this is a position, considering what it oversees  counterterrorism, money laundering, public corruption, child trafficking  its worthy of being taken seriously.

That may have been a swipe at Gaetz, who was the subject of a sex trafficking investigation by the Justice Department for more than two years.

He was alleged to have had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and to have paid her to travel across state lines with him. Gaetz denies the allegations. He was not charged and the case was dropped last year, reportedly due to witness credibility concerns.

The House Ethics Committee was also investigating Gaetz, until the Florida Republican resigned from Congress Wednesday following Trumps announcement.

Thank you, Donald. We all needed a good laugh this week. But seriously, who is your AG nominee? pic.twitter.com/8xQ5FdmlFg  Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) November 14, 2024

Swalwell said he hoped that a handful of reasonable people in the Senate, which will be GOP-controlled in the new year, would prevent Gaetz from being confirmed.

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He name-dropped Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Bill Cassidy (La.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and suggested that Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) might also consider blocking the confirmation.

I just dont see this happening, he said of Gaetzs appointment.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) about Gaetzs nomination, Swalwell said, Thank you, Donald. We all needed a good laugh this week.

Related...
AUSTIN (KFDX/KJTL)  As prefiling begins for members of the Texas Legislature, one representative has two bills focused on the safety of residents in lieu of land ownership by foreign entities.

Texas State Representative David Spiller has announced new legislation that would prohibit foreign entities listed on the Annual Threat Assessment of the United States National Intelligence Community from purchasing or acquiring titles to real property in Texas.

Theres a great need: WFPD crisis response team responds to over 300 calls during testing phase, now officially in service

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Spiller has prioritized both House Bill 191 and House Bill 243 for the 89th Legislative Session. Certain foreign governments owning or leasing land in the state of Texas have raised concerns as they could pose a threat to our state and nation. These bills would address those concerns.

As a practicing attorney of 38 years handling contested real estate litigation, as the owner of the oldest family-owned title company in the State of Texas, and as someone who routinely forms and sets up entities with the Texas Secretary of States office and oversees their operation, I feel that I understand the issues and challenges very well, Representative Spiller said. Its complicated, but something must be done. I believe these bills properly address those threats.

House Bill 191 would likely prevent China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea from purchasing or acquiring real property in Texas. All four of these countries were identified in the Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Spillers bill does not target specific individuals, isnt limited to agricultural land, covers both purchasing and leasing land, and is not limited to the surface but also mineral rights.

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House Bill 243 would allow the Texas Attorney General to use eminent domain to mitigate vulnerabilities and consequences and also identify and stop threats from foreign landowners who use their ownership of Texas land in a threatening manner.

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Top officials at Amtrak and NJ Transit told Assembly lawmakers Thursday that infrastructure upgrades would require closing some tracks during service. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

NJ Transit and Amtrak are discussing reducing service overnight and on weekends to allow work crews more time to repair and upgrade infrastructure that officials blamed for service disruptions this summer, top agency officials told Assembly lawmakers Thursday.

The hearing before the Assemblys transportation committee came as officials seek to improve system reliability following the second worst summer of hell under Gov. Phil Murphy, one that saw on-time performance fall to near record lows for the administration and led to 1,820 canceled trains.

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To be clear, this is incredibly important work, and the stakes are high. Its almost impossible to overstate the importance of the Northeast Corridor, not only to the millions of commuters and intercity rail customers who rely on it every day, but to our national economy, said NJ Transit CEO Kevin Corbett. As one of the largest economic markets in the world, the northeast is key to our countrys international competitiveness.

According to Corbett, agencies boosted inspections and other maintenance work in response to summer disruptions, replacing more than 2,000 components in overhead lines that power NJ Transit trains and inspecting the 240 miles of track that run between Trenton and New York Penn Station.

But Corbett and Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner said other needed maintenance work would require closing portions of track along the Northeast Corridor during service hours, warning work crews had too little time to make needed upgrades or repairs with operations at full capacity.

Much of the work simply cant be done efficiently while the railroad is running at todays service levels, Gardner told the committee. In particular, Amtrak will require longer work periods overnight and on weekends, sometimes when no trains are operating, and extended periods when individual tracks will need to be out of service to get the work done.

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Officials were still working out the timing of track closures, Gardner said, but he acknowledged temporary closures would cause some pain in the short term.

Amtrak owns tracks and other infrastructure used by NJ Transit trains on the Northeast Corridor, the busiest commuter rail line on the continent, and the state transportation agency pays roughly $200 million a year to Amtrak to use tracks, overhead wires, and other parts of its network.

Much of that infrastructure is aged  in some cases more than a century old  and has grown increasingly unreliable over decades of disinvestment, Corbett and Gardner told the committee.

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I want to remind everyone that we are relying on ancient infrastructure thats grossly inadequate in capacity for the volume of trains that we operate on what is, in fact, the busiest mainline railroad in all of North America, Gardner said.

They urged lawmakers to continue investing in capital improvements, noting state matching funds are key to securing competitive federal grants that, at present, provide four federal dollars for every one spent by states.

State matching funds were key to securing billions in federal dollars made available under the infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed in 2021, they said.

In addition to New Jersey Transits regular investments, having this opportunity to take us as partners to put up 20% and get 80% back is whats allowing, literally, New Jersey to be experiencing whats going to be well over $10 billion in net federal investment here just in the next decade, Gardner said.

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WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  A new report from the Department of the Interior (DOI) said that two U.S. Park Police (USPP) officers were justified in the killing of Bijan Ghaisar in 2017.

The Inspector General said officers followed all but one policy at the time.

The officers were put on paid administrative duty after the shooting in 2017 and have been on paid leave since 2020.

OIG: Park Police officers who shot, killed unarmed man in 2017 did not violate USPP policy

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The department is facing a lawsuit from the officers because DOI still hasnt made a final decision on their firing.

Bijan Ghaisars father James Ghaisar said hes disappointed but not surprised by the report.

This Sunday, Nov. 17 marks seven years since Bijan Ghaisar was shot and killed by the officers.

The incident didnt kill him only. It killed me too. I am not the same person anymore, James Ghaisar said.

Bijan Ghaisar was rear-ended in 2017 but left the scene. He was stopped twice on the GW Parkway before driving off.

The third time he was stopped was when officers Lucas Vinyard and Alejandro Amaya fired multiple shots at him as he tried to drive away.

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They actually knew that he was a victim of the hit and run, James Ghaisar said.

Manslaughter charges dismissed against Park Police officers

This weeks Inspector General report concluded the officers pursuit and drawing their guns was consistent with department policy. However, the report said Amaya struck Bijan Ghaisars SUV window during the second stop with his gun, and that did violate the U.S. Park Polices firearms policy.

Investigation_U.S.ParkPoliceOfficersUseofDeadlyForceFollowingaPursuitontheGeorgeWashingtonMemorialParkwayDownload

This is not a democracy. The way this has happened. The direction that we are going, I mean, literally with a simple mistake, you can easily get killed without any consequences to anybody, James Ghaisar said.

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He said the reports release near the anniversary of his sons death is tough.

Though I have no hope of having real justice or real changes to save other peoples life. I hope at some point this would happen and we would be more kind, gentle toward each other, James Ghaisar said.

Amayas attorneys Edward Wenger and Jonathan Fahey released a statement regarding the release of the report.

After a thorough and independent investigation, the Inspector General confirmed what the United States District Judge found nearly three years ago, that Officers Amaya and Vineyards decision to use force was justified. We dont have any comment on the pending civil matter but hope that these findings will be considered in the pending administrative matter. Edward Wenger and Jonathan Fahey

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Family of man shot, killed by U.S. Park, Fairfax County Police speaks out

Vinyards attorney Dan Crowley also released a statement.

The Inspector General has completed its investigation and reached the same conclusion as everyone else who reviewed the evidenceOfficer Vinyard did nothing wrong. We wont comment on the pending civil case, but we hope this puts an end to the administrative action. Officials at the DOI bypassed Park Police leadership to try to fire Officer Vinyard, without conducting any internal investigation. With the Inspector Generals independent report confirming that Officer Vinyard followed his training and Department policy, we hope that the DOI will do the right thing. Dan Crowley

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Dylan Thomas, 24, has been accused of stabbing William Bush, 23, to death at their home in Wales on Dec. 24, 2023

Dylan Thomas, 24, has been accused of stabbing his friend William Bush, 23, to death in a "frenzied attack" on Dec. 24, 2023, a court in Wales has heard

The suspect is reportedly the heir to multi-million dollar company Peters Savoury Products

Thomas previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but denies murder

The reported heir to a $291 million fortune has been accused of killing his friend in a "frenzied attack."

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On Wednesday, Nov. 13, Dylan Thomas, 24, appeared before Cardiff Crown Court in the U.K. via video link from a psychiatric hospital. He has been accused of stabbing his friend William Bush, 23, to death on Dec. 24, 2023 at their Llandaff home, per the BBC and U.K. newspapers The Times and The Independent,

According to The Telegraph, the BBC and The Times, Thomas is the heir to the multi-million dollar pie company Peters Savoury Products. He is reportedly the grandson of the company's former co-owner, Sir Stanley Thomas, the latter reported.

Thomas had previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but denies murder, Sky News, the BBC and The Independent stated.

WALES NEWS SERVICE Dylan Thomas Dylan Thomas

Per The Times, Bush had been about to move out of the home he shared with Thomas to live with his girlfriend, Ella Jeffries, around the time of the attack.

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Prosecution lawyer Greg Bull described the victim as "a quiet and passive man who shied away from confrontation," the outlet stated.

Dylan Thomas was a loner and his only real friend was Will," Bull said of the suspect, per the publication. The pair reportedly met at school.

South Wales Police William Bush William Bush

The court heard that on Dec. 23, Thomas went to stay with his grandmother, Sharon Burton, in Rhoose, Vale of Glamorgan, while Bush was going to spend the evening with Jeffries before spending Christmas with his family in Brecon, mid-Wales the BBC reported.

Just after midnight on Christmas Eve, Bull said the suspect searched for the anatomy of the neck" on his computer, before texting Bush and saying he needed to see him ahead of the holidays, the BBC added.

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After he tried and failed to book an Uber at 3:31 a.m. local time, his grandmother drove him back to his home later that morning after he "said he wanted to walk the dog." She parked outside the house, while Thomas went in and reportedly stabbed Bush 37 times, the BBC reported.

Thomas had "armed himself with a large kitchen knife and a black lock knife or flick knife," The Independent stated of the attack, saying Bush tried to "flee for his life" when Thomas first stabbed him in the neck from behind.

Bull said, It is clear that Dylan Thomas used the kitchen knife to stab Mr Bush in the chest and cut his throat, severing the major artery in the neck, as a result of which Mr Bush bled to death, per the outlet.

The Times reported that 21 of the wounds Bush suffered were to the neck in seven minutes of horror.

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The trial heard Burton gave Bush CPR on the patio outside the property after Thomas banged "on her car window distressed," the BBC reported. Per the outlet, Thomas called 999 (the U.K. version of 911) and accused Bush of stabbing him.

Matthew Horwood/Getty A photo of Cardiff Crown Court A photo of Cardiff Crown Court

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Following the attack, Thomas told police he stabbed Bush in self-defense, stating the victim had been "having an episode," per The Independent.

The outlet added that the prosecution accepted that the suspect was "mentally unwell" and had been dealing with psychosis before the stabbing.

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"Following the killing, his condition worsened, as a result of which he has been receiving treatment for schizophrenia at the hospital," Bull said, according to the outlet, but argued that the suspect intended to carry out the "frenzied attack."

The court also heard that two months before the alleged attack, Bush had "barricaded himself in his bedroom" after Thomas reportedly mentioned killing him, The Times stated.

In October to November 2023, Mr. Bush told Ella that there had been an occasion when Mr Thomas said to Mr. Bush: I thought or wondered about killing you, " Bull told the court, per the outlet.

These remarks were taken seriously by Mr. Bush who told Ella that that night he had barricaded his bedroom door to prevent Mr. Thomas entering the bedroom whilst he was asleep. He was frightened, the prosecutor added.

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According to Sky News, the trial also heard that on Nov. 6, Thomas had been "arrested in London for trying to climb into Buckingham Palace" after attempting "to scale a 14 ft fence" outside the royal residence.

The trial continues. Cardiff Crown Court didn't immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE.
Nearly five months after a mass shooting in Madisonville left five people wounded, Cincinnati police have made an arrest, although it appears the suspect, or suspects, are still at large.

The shooting investigation led police on Monday to charge 28-year-old Myron Nichols, of Blue Ash, on numerous counts including weapons-related offenses, according to a post on the department's Facebook page.

While officials said they recovered weapons including an AR-style rifle and several handguns, court records show Nichols has not been accused of participating in the June 15 shooting.

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A complaint filed in Hamilton County Municipal Court says Nichols "reported being a victim" of the mass shooting at Bramble Park, however, police uncovered surveillance video showed Nichols fleeing the scene with a gun in hand.

Court records show Nichols has previous felony convictions for drug trafficking and burglary and is not legally allowed to own a firearm.

Four people sustained injuries not considered life-threatening while another suffered critical injuries in the shooting, which happened during a community gathering at Bramble Park.

When officers confronted Nichols on Sunday, he had a Glock handgun concealed in his jacket pocket, according to court filings.

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Separate criminal complaints say he was also seen operating a stolen vehicle and tried to run from police after being given multiple warnings to stop.

Nichols' attorney did not immediately respond to a message from The Enquirer seeking comment.

Jail records show Nichols is being held at the Hamilton County Justice Center pending trial. A grand jury is expected to hear Nichols' cases by Nov. 22.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Madisonville mass shooting victim arrested on gun charges, police say
By Bo Erickson

(Reuters) -Republican Dave McCormick won the U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania, Decision Desk HQ projected on Thursday, beating Democratic incumbent Bob Casey in an important win for Republicans hoping to capture a majority in the chamber.

Pennsylvania will conduct a legally required statewide recount of the ballots because McCormick's lead is within one-half of 1 percent of the total votes, Commonwealth Secretary Al Schmidt said on Wednesday.

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McCormick has 3,380,310 votes, or 48.93%, and Casey has 3,350,972, or 48.50%, Schmidt said.

The Associated Press called the race for McCormick a week ago.

A U.S. Army combat veteran, McCormick, 59, campaigned on his previous stints in national security roles during Republican former President George W. Bush's administration, as well as his years running Bridgewater Associates, one of the world's top hedge funds.

Using some of his own wealth to campaign, McCormick embraced Pennsylvanias electoral competitiveness and leaned into economic and foreign policy issues, effectively tying Casey to Democratic leaders including President Joe Biden, who McCormick blamed for inflated household costs and what he said was weakness against foreign adversaries.

This was McCormicks second time running for the U.S. Senate after losing the Republican primary in the 2022 midterm elections.

(Reporting by Bo Erickson; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)
The largest college in Texas is eliminating its minor in LGBTQ Studies over faculty objections, and the state legislator who spearheaded the programs demise told Inside Higher Ed its only the first of many similar programs to fall in the state.

I want to end all taxpayer-funded leftist propaganda in every single one of our public institutions of higher learning, State Representative Brian Harrison said after Texas A&M University revealed it was cutting the nascent LGBTQ Studies program. And if it takes extreme budget cuts to get their attention, so be it.

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This is an attack, of course, on academic freedom, but its also an attack on critical thinking, faculty member and sociology professor, Chaitanya Lakkimsetti, who helped create the LGBTQ minor, said of the decision.

Last week, the Texas A&M University School Board of Regents unanimously voted to eliminate 52 minors and certificates from its flagship College Station campus due to low enrollment and performance. Included on the list was a minor in LGBTQ Studies, which had drawn the ire of Harrison earlier this year.

Texas A&M is offering a MINOR in this?? Harrison, a former Trump political appointee and a Texas A&M graduate, tweeted in January.

 (@)

Faculty objected to the programs elimination despite its low enrollment numbers. While it had only three students enrolled in the Spring 2024 semester and only two currently enrolled in the Fall 2024 semester, the faculty noted the minor in LGBTQ Studies was only initiated in the Fall of 2022. They also objected to the inadequate consultation with the faculty, a deficiency that was noted in the report from the Board of Regents.

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Despite these objections, the program was eliminated.

Harrison declared victory in September before the Board of Regents voted on the matter, telling Inside Higher Ed Texas A&M System chancellor John Sharp assured him the program would be eliminated.

Proud to have helped deliver this victory for Texas taxpayers, who should never be forced to fund liberal indoctrination, Harrison celebrated at the time.

 (@)

When asked about faculty concerns about academic freedom being curtailed as a result of the move to eliminate the LGBTQ Studies program, Harrison showed little concern.

Once I get done laughing, I would remind them that it is the people of the state of Texas that fund our public universities, and they are overtaxed, and theyre sick and tired of having their tax dollars weaponized against them and their values, Harrison said.
Republicans maintained a slim House of Representatives majority in 2025, the Associated Press projected, thanks in part to California GOP incumbents holding onto their seats in close elections.

That means that when the 119th Congress convenes in January, Republicans will control of the presidency, Senate and House. President-elect Donald Trump and GOP leadership should have an easier time passing their agenda  barring GOP renegades. Republicans last had that kind of control during the first two years of Trumps presidency in 2017 and 2018.

House Republicans met the 218 threshold for taking the majority when the AP declared Rep. Juan Ciscomani the winner in Arizonas 6th Congressional District at 7:27 p.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday.

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Earlier Wednesday, the AP said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, held onto his Southern California seat. Tuesday night, Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, held his. California in 2022 also helped deliver Republicans a thin House majority.

Four uncalled 2024 California races might pad GOP and Democratic ranks. At the moment, the Republicans will control at least 218 seats when the next Congress convenes in January. Democrats will have at least 208.

That small majority, though, means that a handful of Republicans can sink leaderships legislation. That happened last year when several discontented rebels successfully led an effort to oust GOP Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and sparked three weeks of infighting over who would take the gavel.

Republicans chose their leadership in Washington on Wednesday. Californians didnt ascend to these upper ranks in the process, which might mean the states issues arent as prioritized as others.

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The biggest blow to California from a Republican-led House and Senate could come from tinkering with the federal budget. But theres probably no need to worry that severe cuts are coming, at least not for a while.

When Democrats controlled one chamber of Congress in the percent past, there was usually a powerful California member or two making sure there was money to support clean energy, criminal justice reforms and other state priorities.

Not only was San Franciscos Nancy Pelosi the speaker or minority leader from 2007 to 2023, but two California Democrats, Pete Aguilar and Ted Lieu, became numbers three and four in the House party leadership last year.

Even when Republicans controlled the House, Bakersfields McCarthy was part of the leadership until he was ousted as speaker in September 2023.

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Theres likely to be no California Republican in the House leadership in the upcoming Congress. Nor is there likely to be a California committee chairman.

Californians on subcommittees

But there are GOP Californians with key subcommittee slots, including panels that deal with water, natural resources and farming that govern issues important to the states Central Valley, a 450-mile stretch of fertile farmland.

Its likely that there will be shuffling on the committees as new members join and veterans move up.

As of now, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, is chairman of the forestry subcommittee of the Agriculture Committee.

Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, is the chairman of a House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration and border security. Trumps team has made mass deportations a Day 1 priority. McClintock is also on the House Budget Committee.

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McClintock, while a staunch conservative, has been known to break ranks. He was among three Republican defectors to vote against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas  twice  in February 2024 over the secretarys handling of the southern border.

The first vote failed while the GOPs second vote a week later succeeded. McClintock, along with Rep. John Duarte, R-Modesto, was among four Republicans who voted against a resolution in July to hold in contempt Attorney General Merrick Garland for his refusing to hand over audio recordings of President Joe Bidens interview with a special counsel that raised questions about age and mental fitness.

Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Roseville, is chairman of the subcommittee on workforce protections. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-San Diego, is chairman of a subcommittee on courts, intellectual property and the Internet. And Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Big Bear Lake, is chairman of a subcommittee on investigations and oversight of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Californias budget hopes

Californias best budget hope rests with two senior delegation members. Calvert has been chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee. Valadao was number two on the agriculture appropriations subcommittee.

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California lost Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, who is an appropriations committee member. Democrat George Whitesides ousted him in Californias 27th Congressional District, the AP projected.

Appropriations members are among the most powerful lawmakers in Congress, since they write the spending bills.

The good news: For years, Congress has been unable to adopt entire annual budgets before the federal fiscal year begins October 1. There are generally too many local interests vying for money and legislative rules that make easy approval difficult.

Every president since Bill Clinton in 1993 has taken office with his party controlling both the House and Senate. None have been able to get an entire annual budget passed on time in that first year.

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The state, though, has less clout on tax matters. Trump has said he would end the cap on state and local deductions from federal income tax. The 2017 tax law put a $10,000 lid on deductions.

Removing that cap would be a huge benefit to Californians. Most of the 2017 tax changes expire at the end of next year, and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, currently the top Republican on the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, told The Bee this fall that everything is negotiable.

Any such efforts would also involve legislation written in the Ways & Means Committee. In the last Congress, only one of the 25 Republicans, Rep. Michelle Steel, R-Seal Beach, was from California, and she was far down the list of senior  influential  members. Her Southern California race against Democrat Derek Tran is still too close to call.
Donald Trump listens to Speaker Mike Johnson during a press conference in Palm Beach, Fla., on April 12, 2024. Credit - Joe RaedleGetty Images

In yet another blow to Democrats, Donald Trump will begin his presidency with a trifecta of Republican control in Washington. The GOP not only regained control of the White House and the Senate but also managed to hold onto a narrow majority in the House, the Associated Press called late Wednesday, more than a week after voters headed to the polls.

The victory in the House will have significant ramifications for the start of Trumps second term, allowing the President-elect and his allies to push forward with their full legislative agenda now that both chambers of Congress are under Republican control until at least 2026. While their priorities are still being outlined, Republicans will be positioned to confirm Trumps appointees, pass tax reform, fund border security, overhaul the Affordable Care Act, and legislate other parts of their agenda.

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Read More: What Donald Trumps Win Means for the Economy

Republicans were able to maintain control of the House thanks to wins in key battleground races where they defended vulnerable seats and expanded their reach in Democratic-held districts. In Pennsylvania, Republicans flipped two competitive seats despite a tough campaign from Democrats seeking to capitalize on high-profile issues such as reproductive rights. Republicans also flipped a competitive seat in Colorado and an open seat in Michigan, the latter after Democratic incumbent Rep. Elissa Slotkin ran in the states Senate race, which she won. In Arizona, Iowa, and Nebraskawhich had some of the most competitive 2024 House racesGOP incumbents appear to have fended off strong challenges from Democrats. And Republicans look to buffer their margin in California, where votes continue to be counted in several close races, while the GOP could flip another seat in Alaska, where the ranked-choice race for the states only congressional district remains too early to call.

While Republicans are celebrating their victory, the partys razor-thin majorityeven thinner after multiple members vacate their seats to join the Trump administrationand internal divisions could create challenges in the years ahead. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who was with Trump on Election Night and ascended to the role after a tumultuous leadership battle last year, faces the difficult task of unifying the caucus as it prepares to tackle major legislative issues. One of the GOPs most pressing concerns will be the potential for political gridlock if the partys far-right members clash with moderates on key pieces of legislation, particularly on issues like government spending.

But now that Republicans control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, they have a historic opportunity to reshape key aspects of U.S. policy. Republican leaders will push for additional tax cuts, particularly for businesses and high-income earners, building on the tax cuts passed during Trumps first term and making them permanent. One of Trumps signature issues, immigration reform, is also expected to take center stage. Republicans are likely to seek additional funding for border security and enforcement measures, including the construction of a border wall and tighter restrictions on immigration.

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Read More: What Donald Trumps Win Means For Immigration

In March, Johnson said House Republicans would pursue aggressive and radical changes in the first 100 days of a Republican trifecta. He said on Oct. 28 that there would be massive health care changes in America. Health care reforms going to be a big part of the agenda. When I say were going to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda, we got a lot of things still on the table, he said.

Republicans could push to repeal or overhaul the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a central campaign promise for Trump and the GOP, potentially replacing it with a more market-driven system. Republicans could also press forward with conservative social policies, including measures limiting abortion access and enhancing religious freedom protectionssetting up a clash with Democrats in the coming months. (Trump has lately said that abortion policy should be set by the states.)

Still, the road ahead will not be smooth. Even with a Republican trifecta, the GOP will face intense scrutiny, particularly from Democrats and progressive groups, who will continue to fight for their policies in the courts, the Senate, and in state legislatures.

Write to Nik Popli at nik.popli@time.com.
Voters have given the once-fractured House GOP a second chance at leading by delivering Republicans another razor-thin House majority in the 2024 elections

Andrew Harnik/Getty House Speaker Mike Johnson applauds during a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony on Sept. 18, 2024 House Speaker Mike Johnson applauds during a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony on Sept. 18, 2024

Republicans will retain their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, overcoming the odds after a chaotic two years in power and securing a trifecta in government by seizing control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

On Wednesday, Nov. 13, Republicans passed the threshold to secure a majority of seats in the House for the upcoming 119th Congress, according to Associated Press projections.

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Heading into November, Republicans controlled the lower chamber by the narrowest of margins, with 220 members to Democrats' 212 and a few seats sitting vacant. The breakdown is likely to look similar after the remaining 2024 races are called.

Related: Republicans Take Control of Senate for the First Time in 4 Years

The new election results deal a major blow to Democrats, who were thought to have a strong chance of flipping the House blue this year and felt similarly hopeful about their chances of winning the presidency. The Democratic Party last controlled the House from 2019 to 2023 under Nancy Pelosi's leadership, ultimately losing their majority as a result of the 2022 midterms.

Pelosi resigned from leadership after the midterms and positioned New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, now 54, to lead the House Democratic Caucus in her place, helping him become the first Black party leader in Congress' history. Jeffries would have become the nation's first Black House speaker if the Democrats had won back the majority.

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Related: Nancy Pelosi Says Being Speaker of the House 'Is Not for the Faint of Heart' in Candid New Documentary

Francis Chung/E&E News/POLITICO via AP Images House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, on Nov. 17, 2022

The House GOP held a vote on Nov. 13 to determine who they wanted to steer their conference through the next two years, ultimately reelecting Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson as the Republican House leader.

Johnson is now on track to become speaker of the House again when all 435 House members convene on Jan. 3, so long as he can avoid another intra-party fight like former GOP leader Kevin McCarthy experienced during his 2023 speakership election, which required 15 rounds of voting.

Related: 2024 Election Day Recap: Donald Trump Wins His Second Term in Office, Defeating Kamala Harris

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In the 118th Congress, which began in January 2023 and ends in January 2025, Republicans' narrow House majority prevented them from governing effectively. The slim margin meant that the party needed almost every Republican on board in order to get things done.

In effect, that gave the furthest-right faction of Congress disproportionate negotiating power; if their concerns weren't reflected in legislation, they could simply vote against it and derail its chances of passing.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers is restrained after getting into an argument with Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz on Jan. 6, 2023 Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers is restrained after getting into an argument with Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz on Jan. 6, 2023

In 2023, Congress had its least productive year in modern history when the Republican infighting led to a rebellion that ousted Speaker McCarthy from his position and left the House without a leader for weeks, preventing business from getting conducted during a time that should have been dedicated to finalizing the 2024 budget.

After proposing several replacements for McCarthy, one candidate finally received enough GOP support to become speaker: the little-known Johnson, whose most notable achievement at the time was leading a congressional effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Donald Trump's favor, which earned the support of more than 100 House members.


Congressional Republicans reacted with disbelief after President-elect Donald Trump announced his nomination for Attorney General would go to Florida Rep. Matt Gaetzwhile the far-right congressmans allies in the House of Representatives took an early victory lap.

Gaetz, who was first elected in 2016, has spent his time in Congress infuriating his colleagues on both sides of the aisle by picking fights on the House floorincluding leading the effort to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Gaetz also found himself the target of a House ethics investigation for a series of allegations connected to a criminal probe into his friend, Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector of Seminole County, Floridaincluding accusations that he had sex with a minor introduced to him by Greenberg.

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Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told reporters he had no good comment on the nomination. Rep. John Duarte (R-CA) told Axios that the Florida representative would be a compromised AG.

Gaetz clashed with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and eventually led the efforts to remove him.

Some reacted in disbeliefRep. Mike Simpson asked a Punchbowl News reporter are you s---tin me? while a shocked Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville told a reporter for The Hill: holy cow.

But in a post on X later, Tuberville congratulated Gaetz on the nomination, calling him a true conservative warrior who will be a fearless Attorney General who will go to war for the constitution.

Gaetz, however, is sure to face a tough uphill battle to get confirmed in the Senate.

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Gaetz has a better shot at having dinner with Queen Elizabeth II than being confirmed by the Senate, Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) told Axios .

TAPPER: Are you gonna vote for Matt Gaetz?



SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN: I completely trust President Trump's decision making on this one pic.twitter.com/PAqj8upA1j  Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 13, 2024

Multiple Republican senators reached by the publication said they expected a tough confirmation processSen. Susan Collins (R-ME) predicted he will face a lot of questions, while Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said the Florida representative had his work cut out for him.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) expressed tepid support for the pick, but also noted he would face a gauntlet of questions about his conduct during the confirmation process. Mullin has publicly feuded with Gaetz over the last year, and even brought up the rumors of sexual misconduct that made the Florida congressman the subject of the ethics probe.

Theres no question that weve had our differences, the Oklahoma senator told CNN host Jake Tapper on Wednesday. I completely trust President Trumps decision making on this one, but at the same time, hes got to come to Congress and sell himself Theres a lot of questions that are going to be out there, hes got to answer those questions, and hopefully hes able to answer the questions right.

Congratulations to a true conservative warrior, @RepMattGaetz. He and his wife, Ginger, are great patriots and dear friends.



Now we will have a fearless Attorney General who will go to war for the Constitution. Another great pick by @realDonaldTrump.  Coach Tommy Tuberville (@SenTuberville) November 13, 2024

Earlier on Wednesday, Senate Republicans selected Sen. John Thune (R-SD) to replace Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, bucking MAGA worlds preferred choice of Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL). Thune will now have to preside over the confirmation hearings for the controversial congressman. Representatives for the incoming majority leader did not immediately return a request for comment from the Daily Beast.

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However, Gaetzs allies in the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus celebrated the appointment.

Weve stood together. Weve fought together, Weve won together. So proud of my friend and Americas next Attorney General, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) wrote in a post on X , sharing photos of herself with the Florida congressman.
WASHINGTON  Republicans will maintain control of the House of Representatives by the thinnest of margins, NBC News projected Wednesday, handing President-elect Donald Trump and his party all the levers of power in Washington.

A Republican-controlled Congress will allow Trump to quickly fill out his Cabinet and other top administration roles and advance his agenda for at least the next two years, though Democrats will have some sway with small majorities in the House and Senate.

House Republicans razor-thin victory was propelled by Trumps decisive win over Vice President Kamala Harris in both the Electoral College and the popular vote. It represents a stinging blow to Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats, who now will have virtually no check on Trump, a man they warned on the campaign trail is a threat to democracy, an extremist and a fascist.

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As of Wednesday afternoon, Republicans flipped seven seats, while Democrats flipped six seats, for a net GOP gain of just one seat. So far, Republicans have captured the 218 seats needed to secure the majority to Democrats 208 seats. Last week, Republicans flipped three Democratic Senate seats to win control of the upper chamber.

It is a beautiful morning in Washington. It is a new day in America, a celebratory Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said on the steps of the Capitol, flanked by his leadership team, as the House returned to Washington on Tuesday. The sun is shining, and that is a reflection about how we all feel.

How Republicans won

Democrats had believed they were in a good position to win back the majority they lost just two years ago. They needed a net gain of only four seats to flip control of the House given that Republicans now hold 220 seats to the Democrats 212  one of the smallest majorities in modern history.

But the two parties basically have fought to a draw in the House, preserving a status quo that favored Republicans.

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In New York, Democrats were able to knock off a trio of vulnerable freshman GOP incumbents: Rep. Brandon Williams in the Syracuse region, Rep. Anthony DEsposito on Long Island, and Rep. Marc Molinaro, whose district includes parts of the Hudson Valley and the Catskills. They were among the 18 GOP House districts that President Joe Biden carried in 2020.

Democratic challenger George Whitesides also ousted vulnerable GOP Rep. Mike Garcia in Southern California.

But Trumps triumph  including wins in battlegrounds like Pennsylvania and Michigan where there were key House races  helped buoy GOP incumbents and new candidates in the places that mattered.

Two of the biggest GOP prizes came in the Keystone State. Republicans unseated two vulnerable, veteran Democrats in neighboring districts in eastern Pennsylvania. GOP businessman Rob Bresnahan ousted six-term Rep. Matt Cartwright, a former member of leadership, in the 8th District, which Trump carried in 2020. In the neighboring 7th District based in Allentown, GOP state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie upset Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee.

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Meanwhile, In the capital of Harrisburg, Democrats believed they had a good chance to knock off former Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, a Trump ally who played a role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election. But the six-term incumbent beat back a strong challenge from former local TV anchor Janelle Stelson, who attacked Perry on everything from the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and abortion rights to his votes on veterans issues.

Republicans also captured a Michigan seat that had been held by Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who successfully ran for an open Senate seat. And GOP challenger Gabe Evans narrowly defeated freshman Rep. Yadira Caraveo, D-Colo., by less than 1 percentage point in a heavily Hispanic district north of Denver.

The task of governing

The tiny House victory is hugely consequential as Republicans turn to the task of governing. When Trump and his congressional allies take the reins in January, they will have another rare opportunity to push through major policy initiatives through reconciliation  an arcane process that would allow the GOP to fast-track legislation without Democratic support.

Discussions about what reforms to pursue began even before the election, with some Republicans pushing to use reconciliation to renew expiring Trump tax cuts and others like Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Trump ally, calling for Republicans to take up border security legislation. Its not yet clear what would be in that border bill, but Trump has said repeatedly that he will seal the southern border on day one as president and launch the largest deportation program in American history.

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In the closing days of the campaign, Johnson told supporters a massive reform of the Affordable Care Act would be part of the GOPs first 100-day agenda, though he has since denied that Republicans would try to repeal Obamacare as they failed to do in 2017.

With very little wiggle room, Republicans are sure to run into challenges. And Trump has already selected two members of the new majority to serve in his administration, Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Mike Waltz of Florida. Both are in solidly Republican districts the party will likely carry in special elections to replace them, but vacancies following their departures could be an issue for Johnson.

The GOP had a minuscule majority in this Congress, and it struggled to push its agenda forward. Instead, the past two years were defined by a successful conservative coup against Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, the expulsion of a New York Republican congressman and intraparty squabbling over GOP spending bills.

Johnson and Republicans will now have partners in a Senate majority and the White House, which they hope will allow them to rally behind Trump and put some of that infighting behind them. Johnson and his top lieutenants  Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a fellow Louisiana Republican, and Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn.  are all running unopposed for re-election in their top jobs on Wednesday.

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Johnson will still need to secure 218 votes on the House floor on the first day of the new Congress, in early January, to win his first full term as speaker.

If theres unified government  if we have a bicameral approach  Republicans in both chambers working together to develop that agenda and implement it, and President Trump is guiding the way  I think you will certainly have a lot less dissension in the ranks on our side, Johnson said in an interview with NBC News at a Pennsylvania campaign stop before the election.

I think everybodys going to want to be a part of that majority that is solving the problems of the country, the speaker added. And I think governing is going to be a whole lot easier come January.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com
Donald Trump has joked about running for a third term as president even though it would flout the rules of the US constitution.

Before meeting with president Joe Biden on Wednesday, Mr Trump spoke to Congressional Republicans at the Hyatt Regency in Washington DC.

I suspect I wont be running again unless you say Hes so good, we have to figure it out, he said, prompting laughter from some supporters.

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Mr Trump told members of the House of Representatives that he had just run his last campaign unless they do something.

The 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution limits presidents to two terms.

Afterwards, several Republican lawmakers suggested Mr Trump was not being serious.

Rep Tim Burchett said: That was a joke. It was clearly a joke.

The New York Times reported that representative Dan Goldman of New York, a Democrat, has plans to introduce a resolution on Thursday, affirming that the 22nd Amendment will bar Mr Trump from a third term.

He called on legislators from both parties to stand by the oath we all took to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and confirm the Congress commitment to this principle.

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The resolution would make clear that the 22nd Amendment applies to two terms in the aggregate, even if they are non-consecutive, such as Mr Trumps. Only one previous president, Grover Cleveland, has served two non-consecutive terms, beginning in 1884 and 1892.

However, it is thought unlikely that Goldmans resolution will make it to a vote in the Republican-dominated House.

Democrats almost powerless to counter GOP agenda

Meanwhile, Republicans have now won enough seats to control the US House, securing the partys hold on the government alongside the president-elect.

A House Republican victory in Arizona, alongside a win in slow-counting California on Wednesday, gave the GOP the 218 House victories that make up the majority. Republicans earlier gained control of the Senate from Democrats.

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With hard-fought yet thin majorities, Republican leaders are envisioning a mandate to upend the federal government and swiftly implement Mr Trumps vision for the country.

The incoming president has promised to carry out the countrys largest-ever deportation operation, extend tax breaks, punish his political enemies, seize control of the federal governments most powerful tools and reshape the US economy.

The GOP election victories ensure that Congress will be onboard for that agenda, and Democrats will be almost powerless to check it.

When Mr Trump was elected president in 2016, Republicans also swept Congress, but he still encountered Republican leaders resistant to his policy ideas, as well as a Supreme Court with a liberal majority.

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But when he returns to the White House, Mr Trump will be working with a Republican party that has been completely transformed by his Make America Great Again movement and a Supreme Court dominated by conservative justices, including three that he appointed.

Blowtorch to federal government

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who with Mr Trumps endorsement won the Republican Conferences nomination to stay on as speaker next year, has talked of taking a blowtorch to the federal government and its programs, eyeing ways to overhaul even popular programs championed by Democrats in recent years.

The Louisiana Republican, an ardent conservative, has pulled the House Republican Conference closer to Mr Trump during the campaign season as they prepare an ambitious 100-day agenda.

Republicans in the House and Senate have a mandate, Mr Johnson said earlier this week. The American people want us to implement and deliver that America First agenda.

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With a few races still uncalled, the Republicans may hold the majority by just a few seats as the new Congress begins.

But a highly functioning House is also far from guaranteed. The past two years of Republican House control were defined by infighting as hardline conservative factions sought to gain influence and power by openly defying their party leadership.

While Mr Johnson  at times with Mr Trumps help  largely tamed open rebellions against his leadership, the Right-wing of the party is ascendant and ambitious on the heels of Mr Trumps election victory.

The Republican majority also depends on a small group of lawmakers who won tough elections by running as moderates. It remains to be seen whether they will stay on board for some of the most extreme proposals championed by Mr Trump and his allies.

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House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, meanwhile, is trying to keep Democrats relevant to any legislation that passes Congress, an effort that will depend on Democratic leaders unifying over 200 members, even as the party undergoes a postmortem of its election losses.

In the Senate, GOP leaders, fresh off winning a convincing majority, are already working with Mr Trump to confirm his Cabinet picks.

The GOPs Senate majority of 53 seats also ensures that Republicans will have breathing room when it comes to confirming Cabinet posts, or Supreme Court justices if there is a vacancy.

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More than a week after winning the presidency and the Senate, Republicans have finally completed the so-called trifecta and secured the 218 seats required for control of the U.S. House of Representatives. The AP called the House for the GOP Wednesday night.

But just barely. A handful of races remain undecided, and when the dust settles in the days ahead, Republicans could end up with only the slimmest of majorities.

Heres what that will mean for Donald Trumps second term.

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First, Republicans will have at least 52 seats in the next Senate. (If the hedge-fund executive David McCormick wins in Pennsylvania  where he currently leads by half a percentage point  they will have 53.) With that majority, the GOP will be able to confirm all of Trumps judicial nominees, including younger Supreme Court justices who could ensure conservative control of the court for decades to come. Theyll be able to confirm Trumps Cabinet officials as well.

Second, without control of the House, Democrats wont be able to continue investigating the Trump administration the way they did from 2019 to 2023 (when they probed Trumps allies ties to Russian interference in the 2016 election and the scheme to overturn his 2020 loss). And they wont be able to impeach him again, either. Control of the House will now allow Republicans to chair committees and launch their own investigations.

The bigger question is how much legislation Republicans will pass, and how far that legislation will go. And that, in turn, depends on the size of their House majority, the composition of their leadership and the ambition of Trump himself.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump focused less on his congressional agenda than on things he could do on his own: imposing huge tariffs on foreign goods, deporting millions of immigrants, rethinking the United States commitment to NATO and allowing Russia to annex parts of Ukraine.

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He will probably have the power to implement those policies, regardless of whether the House and Senate agree with him.

To pass new laws, however, he will have to get votes in Congress.

The first bills Republicans will try to pass will probably be those that can squeak through without any Democratic support (i.e., the ones that qualify for the process called budget reconciliation, which requires only 51 Senate votes for measures related to taxes and spending). So expect an early push to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and slash taxes for corporations.

Republicans could possibly unravel the Affordable Care Act and crack down on the border through reconciliation as well, ideas that senators such as Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are already discussing. Trump also wants to eliminate the tax on tips, overtime and Social Security benefits for seniors.

Yet any policies that dont involve taxes and spending still need a filibuster-proof Senate majority of 60 votes to pass  and Republicans wont have 60 votes.

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One big factor, then, is whether Republicans will eventually push to end the legislative filibuster (after deciding in 2017 to end the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations). So far, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has said the filibuster is very secure. But South Dakota Sen. John Thune will replace McConnell when the new Senate is sworn in next year. Will Thune continue to uphold the filibuster under pressure from Trump and MAGA lawmakers who are eager for sweeping change?

If not, and if the filibuster falls, there would be little to stop a GOP trifecta from implementing Trumps most controversial plans  other than congressional Republicans themselves.

That isnt outside the realm of possibility. During Trumps first term, conservatives such as House Speaker Paul Ryan checked the presidents ambitions; recently, House Republicans have struggled to keep their narrow majority unified amid challenges from the hard-right Freedom Caucus.

When the margins are as slim as they are likely to be next year  two or three votes in the Senate; maybe four or five votes in the House  individual senators and members suddenly have a lot of leverage. A small number of defections can sink any bill. Moderates such as Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, not to mention the dozens of representatives from centrist swing districts, become pivotal. The same goes for right-wing House rebels.

With Trump back in the White House, will a Republican Congress be more emboldened  and more united  than before? Or will Trump push too hard and get some unexpected pushback from his own party?
Senate leadership seems all mixed up about giving Donald Trump the power to straight-up bypass Congress and appoint Matt Gaetz as his attorney general.

Ahead of Trumps recent Cabinet picks (a crew of loyalists so unqualified it feels more like trolling than anything else), the president-elect laid out his shady plan to get them appointed without Senate approval.

Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner, Trump wrote Sunday on X.

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Unlike typical official appointments, recess appointments dont require a Senate vote, and allow the president to unilaterally decide who will fill a role. The appointment wouldnt be permanent; it might only last until the end of that session, which is no more than two years. At the end of that time, the president could just renominate their pick and appoint them again.

This would be particularly useful in the case of Gaetz, an antagonistic MAGA acolyte currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for alleged sexual misconduct, among a slate of other charges.

CNN congressional correspondent Manu Raju asked several top Republicans whether they actually supported Trumps request for recess appointments.

Florida Senator Rick Scott, a staunch Trump ally, said that he supported Trumps request. Well I believe in recess appointments, so I was very clear, said Scott. And I think John Cornyn and John Thune are committed to recess appointments.

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That would have been all well and good if Scott had won his bid to become the Senate majority leader earlier this week. But he didnt, Thune did. And its not clear that Thune or Cornyn agree with Scott at all.

Well thats another whole issue; obviously I dont think we should be circumventing the Senates responsibilities, but I think its premature to be talking about recess appointments right now, Cornyn replied, when asked about possibly allowing recess appointments.

Scott claimed that he, Thune, and Cornyn had agreed on recess appointments ahead of the Senate GOP election Tuesday. Cornyn said that no such discussion had taken place.

Cornyn added that there should not be any limitation on the Senates investigation into Gaetz. Separately, he told ABCs Rachel Scott that he absolutely wanted to see the Ethics report on Gaetz.

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As for Thune, he claimed that whether he would allow Trump to make recess appointments hadnt even crossed his mind.

I havent given that any thought yet, Thune added. I just know that the nomination isnt formalized yet, but when it is, well process it in the way we typically do and provide our advise and consent.

On Wednesday, Thune signaled that he hoped to put nominees through standard confirmation hearings. Im willing to grind through it and do it the old-fashioned way, Thune told South Dakota reporters.

Another member of Republican Senate leadership, Oklahoma Senator James Lankford, who became vice chair of the Senate GOP Policy Committee Tuesday, also pushed back on Trumps request for recess appointments.

I think the Supreme Court would even step in on those roles, Lankford said, adding that he wouldnt favor recess appointments.


(MOSCA, Colo.)  The rescue and recovery efforts of a hunter who was found dead by his brother in October at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Mosca, Colorado, was recently detailed by Alamosa Volunteer Search and Rescue (AVSAR) on Thursday, Nov. 14.

Courtesy: Alamosa Volunteer Search and Rescue

According to AVSAR, on Oct. 31, its crews along with Saguache County Search and Rescue (SAGSAR) and Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve (GRSA), were called to assist in the search for an overdue hunter, who had not been seen since the evening of Oct. 30.

According to rescue crews, the hunters were in the area of Saguache County near Sand Creek, which is on the northern side of the national park, and when the man did not return to camp the next morning on Oct. 31, the hunting party triggered the SOS feature on their Garmin Satellite device.

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The mans brother also went out hiking to look for him and later contacted rescue crews that his brother, identified as Lance Walker of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was found dead in an area of rough terrain.

A unified command was created with SAGSAR, AVSAR, and the National Park Service (NPS), according to the Facebook post shared on Nov. 14. Over 20 team members from three teams (Saguache, Alamosa, and Chaffee South) responded to the incident.

Courtesy: Alamosa Volunteer Search and Rescue Courtesy: Alamosa Volunteer Search and Rescue Courtesy: Alamosa Volunteer Search and Rescue

Due to weather conditions on Oct. 31, helicopter assets were not available so crews hiked in to confirm the victims location. According to rescue crews, recovery efforts would not be successful until the next day because it was dark outside and the area was very technical terrain.

Courtesy: Alamosa Volunteer Search and Rescue

Early on Nov. 1, Reach Air Medical Helicopter (REACH71) was requested to get three more team members into the area along with assets from the Division of Fire Prevention and Control (DFPC) Montrose Helitack to recover the victims body. Due to the high winds in Montrose, however, its crews were unable to assist.

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After four lowers and two raises with technical rope rescue equipment, the seven team members carried the subject to an upper Landing Zone where DFPC Flat Iron Helitack flew the subject out to the incident command post, the post read.

Courtesy: Alamosa Volunteer Search and Rescue

Courtesy: Alamosa Volunteer Search and Rescue

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By 9 p.m. on Nov. 1, according to rescue crews, all seven team members were able to hike out of the area to safety.

Hunter's body recovered at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

Hunter's body recovered at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

Hunter's body recovered at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

The Unified Command of the incident (GRSA, AVSAR, Chaffee County Search and Rescue  South (CCSAR-S), and SAGSAR) would like to send our deepest condolences to the family of Lance Walker, crews wrote. We cannot thank enough all the responding teams and assets for their help in getting this man home to his family after such a tragic accident.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (WMBB)  Panama City Beach unveiled its collection of beach rescue tubes Wednesday.

The city and the beachs rotary clubs donated 10 rescue tube stations to be installed in Panama City Beach and 10 in unincorporated Bay County. Theyre easily accessible to the public to help save swimmers caught in rip currents.

Rescue tubes are an auxiliary. Theyre a help for beach safety. What happens frequently is if someone gets taken away, theres going to be a Good Samaritan that goes in after them. Now, sometimes, unfortunately, that Good Samaritan can get in trouble themselves to the rescue, this helps both make sure the Good Samaritan is safe and also makes the rescue more likely, Panama City Beach Mayor Stuart Tettemer said.

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The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, The Wall That Heals has arrived in Bay County

You can find the tubes in different locations, like beach accesses 4, 22, 23, 57,85, and 98. But before you jump in the water, beach safety officials say call for back-up.

We are strong advocates for people to call 911. Please get a trained professional en route to affect the rescue before you. We do not condone anyone to take any action or risk upon themselves. The best thing that you could do for somebody thats in distress is to maintain eye contact with them. Call 911, call them on dispatch, and get a lifeguard en route, Panama City Beach Safety Director Daryl Paul said.

Lung cancer screenings can save your life

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Panama City Beachs Rotary Club president says these rescue tubes are just the beginning.

Its kind of a pilot program to start this off and its a great honor to be a part of the Rotary Club and to be partnering with the city and the county officials to make this happen and just to know that we are doing good for our community, Panama City Beach Rotary Club president said.

Panama City Beach lifeguards performed 357 rescues last year, and 103 so far this year.

You can find the list of rescue tube locations 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 mypanhandle.com.
LIMESTONE COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT)  People living in the community of Belle Mina are hailing a small victory following a decision by a Limestone County circuit court judge to grant a temporary restraining order to stop the construction of a controversial rock quarry.

The rock quarry sparked uproar among the communitys people who cited multiple issues, but despite Wednesdays small win halting construction that began just a week ago, their battle is far from over.

Morgan County man accused of barricading 4 in home at gunpoint

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People like Larry Fletcher and his fellow community members have been fighting the construction for about a year, alluding to a string of health concerns and traffic congestion related to the quarrys presence.

We all have old historic homes and theyre not built for the blasting, Fletcher said.

The temporary restraining order is in place for 10 days and will prevent drilling, blasting and mining at the site of the rock quarry.

The community banded together with the help of Pastor Cody Gilliam who leads Belle Mina Methodist Church where many of the towns people attend services on Sundays.

Download the WHNT News 19 App to stay updated on the go.

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Hes led the charge filing multiple lawsuits against the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) and Grayson Carter and Son, the company ADEM granted a permit for the building of the quarry.

Its our livelihoods, its our health, its our childrens future and health its our grandparents and parents future and health those that are retired, and its the veterans that live here that tried to escape loud noises, Gilliam said.

For those living in Belle Mina like Fletcher and Ravin Stovall, the court ruling has them feeling hopeful, but both know they have a long road ahead.

We plan to try and hold out. Thats all we can do is keep fighting for as long as we can with everything that we have, Stovall said.

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Were grateful and were thankful for this temporary restraining order that they have imposed upon the quarry and were hopeful that this temporary restrain will be a permanent restrain, Fletcher told News 19.

An injunction hearing on November 21 will follow Wednesdays ruling which could determine the future of the communitys battle and the fate of that rock quarry.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Polish President Andrzej Duda has expressed confidence that US President-elect Donald Trump will not allow Russia to destroy Ukraine, as he respects the money of American taxpayers.

Source: Chancellery of the Polish president on X (Twitter), as quoted by European Pravda

Details: During a press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Duda called Trump a successful man and a born fighter who loves to fight and, above all, does not like to lose.

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Duda stressed that Trump respects the money of American taxpayers and had spoken about this many times.

Quote from Duda: "If you consider how much the US has already invested in helping Ukraine, what huge funds have been allocated to the defenders of Ukraine in the form of various military equipment, financial assistance so that Ukraine can survive and defend itself, then my conclusions are clear, I cannot imagine that President Donald Trump will allow Russia to destroy Ukraine."

More details: Duda emphasised that it is about respecting the money of American taxpayers, America's involvement, and not losing.

During the meeting with Rutte, Duda also raised the possibility of sending Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine.

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Background: Fox News reported, citing sources, that Trump might soon appoint a special representative to be responsible for negotiating an end to the war between Ukraine and Russia.

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CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY)  The wheels on the Delish-US WV Food Truck started going round and round in April of this year, and over the past seven months, its crew has attended festivals and events across north central West Virginia to serve some delicious goodness!

Most of the menu is inspired by Owner and Chef Robert Tianos Italian-American background, even using some of his older family recipes that he wanted to share with everyone else. Some of these recipes include:

Tomato Salad

Cajun Shrimp Alfredo

Vodka Rigatoni

Big Cat Steak Panini

Chicken Florentine Panini

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A fan favorite from the menu is the Big Cat Steak Panini, which has shaved steak, hot or sweet grilled peppers, American and provolone cheese and comes grilled on grilled Italian bread from DAnnunzios Bakery. Another favorite is the Cajun Shrimp Alfredo, which speaks for itself.

Restaurant Road Trip: Whistle Stop Bar and Grill

Everybody whos tried it has said its really good, everyones liked it and weve done pretty good so far this year, but were looking forward to 2025 doing bigger and better things and keeping busy. Just getting started, Tiano said.

The truck does different specials throughout the week and changes its menu periodically. With the winter months almost upon us, Tiano said that the truck will even be serving soups. When the menu changes, the owners usually post updates on the trucks Facebook page along with what locations they are at. Some of the common locations include the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center, the Clarksburg MVB Bank and the north central West Virginia Airport.

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Robert Tiano, a West Virginia native, graduated from Le Cordon Bleu Institute of Culinary Arts in Pittsburgh in 2006 and completed his internship at the Borgata Hotel Casino in Atlantic City before returning home to the Mountain State to open up his food truck.

12 News Makayla Schindler stopped by the truck to satisfy her Italian cravings. While there, she tried the Big Cat Steak Panini with sweet peppers which was very juicy and tender, as well as the 100-year-old family recipe for tomato salad, which she also enjoyed. To share with the rest of the crew, the 12 Newsroom got to dig into the Buffalo Mac and Cheese, Cajun Shrimp Pasta, and the Chicken Florentine Panini.

If youre interested in checking out the Delish-US Food Truck, its open six days a week from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. for dinner. Locations, times and days can always 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 WBOY.com.
President-elect Donald Trump will nominate the anti-vaccine activist and environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services.

If the Senate confirms Kennedy, it will presage the biggest rethinking of the U.S. public health system ever. HHS and its agencies oversee drug approvals, food safety and disease surveillance, in addition to Medicare and Medicaid.

A scion of one of Americas most famous Democratic families, Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement blame Americans poor health in part on a corrupt alliance among the food and drug industries and the regulators supposed to watch over them. They want to replace the bureaucrats and overhaul the systems for overseeing pesticides, food additives and vaccines.

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Many Republicans in Congress say theyre open to Kennedys ideas.

Heres what Kennedy and MAHA want to do:

Cut corporate influences out of regulation

Kennedy told MSNBC hed like to see entire departments at the Food and Drug Administration, particularly nutrition regulators, let go. The agencys work includes setting nutrition guidance, overseeing food labeling and safety, and combating food-related ailments, such as obesity and heart disease.

That, of course, is in keeping with Trumps promise to drain the swamp and subdue the deep state.

Jeff Hutt, spokesperson for the Make America Healthy Again PAC and former national field director for Kennedys presidential campaign, said people aligned with the MAHA movement are assisting the Trump campaign in vetting candidates for appointments, and Kennedy has shared a website to crowdsource potential nominees for government jobs. (The Trump team declined to confirm the involvement of Kennedys supporters in the transition.)

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When we talk about making America healthy, we really have to talk about corporate capture and the way that large corporations have captured our governmental agencies, Hutt said, adding a major goal of the movement is creating alternative research and political support to open a path for policymakers that isnt beholden to large industries.

That kind of overhaul could be difficult to pull off quickly, with agency employees possibly slowing plans for major changes. Companies and industry groups could take the administration to court, should they find a reason to argue the moves are unlawful. The full force of industry pushback has yet to spin up, several lobbyists said, instead waiting to see the extent to which Trump will actually incorporate MAHA ideas into his policy agenda.

But Republicans in Congress have also voiced interest in overhauling the agencies and distrust of the health system broadly.

Science has been corrupted, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Tuesday. What can we do to get legitimate science that actually tells these things and end the capture of these federal agencies by large corporate interests?



Ban pesticides and genetically modified organisms

While campaigning for Trump, Kennedy stood in front of the Agriculture Department headquarters in Washington and said he wants to overhaul U.S. food production, ridding it of pesticides and genetically modified crops  key inputs for American farmers  that he says are making Americans sick. During his legal career, Kennedy sued pesticide makers, including Monsanto, then the Missouri-based maker of RoundUp.

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MAHAs foes, lobbyists representing major food companies and commodity crops, are quietly meeting with key lawmakers to prevent Kennedy from getting the HHS post, according to an agriculture lobbyist with knowledge of the meetings.

Even before Trumps decisive victory, dozens of the countrys most prominent and influential farm groups sent a letter to the four leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture committees, urging them not to bow to pressure to curtail pesticide use or mitigate access to genetically modified organisms.

But industry groups are threading a needle: Their farmer constituents have consistently and overwhelmingly backed Trump.

On the other hand, during Trumps first term, his EPA loosened regulations for pesticides and other crop inputs.

Crack down on food chemicals and additives

Kennedy wants to crack down on food chemicals. But as with pesticides, he faces a well-resourced industry with long-term relationships on Capitol Hill.

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And just like the industrys defense of pesticides and herbicides, food companies argue that chemical and other food additives are already regulated and are safe.

Said one food industry lobbyist granted anonymity to discuss private conversations: Its a little bit of fearmongering and playing on those anxieties that consumers have that are not necessarily based in science.

At the same time, while some on the left have long said that the government should tighten regulation of food additives and chemicals, theyre skeptical that Kennedy's rhetoric will translate to policy changes.

Folks are right to be worried about toxic food chemicals, said Scott Faber, a lobbyist for the Environmental Working Group, which has advocated for new state laws banning certain food additives. They're wrong, based on his first term in office, to presume that President Trump will do anything about them.

Reexamine vaccine approvals

Kennedy is well known for touting the debunked claim that vaccines can cause autism. During the pandemic, he argued that Covid-19 shots were unsafe and has pointed to the governments system for approving vaccines as agency capture on steroids.

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He admits hes become one of the anti-vax movements most prominent voices, despite insisting hes not part of that movement and has had his own children vaccinated. He says he wants to examine government vaccine safety data and communicate it to the public.

The vast majority of health experts and doctors support vaccine use, pointing to the long history of safe and effective shots that have nearly wiped out many diseases in the U.S. And they say the safety data is already a matter of public record.



Lyn Redwood, a nurse and long-time vaccine safety skeptic, is assisting Kennedy in his transition work with the Trump team, Hutt said. Redwood is president emerita of Childrens Health Defense, a Kennedy-chaired nonprofit that promotes vaccine skepticism and stories of vaccine injury.

Kennedys unsubstantiated claims about vaccines have concerned some lawmakers.

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He could be in an advisory role, but he should not be in an official role, said Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.), a cardiothoracic surgeon. His views on, particularly, vaccinations are not mainstream and have not been.

Vaccine requirements for schoolchildren are decided at the state level, but guidance from federal agencies figures prominently in what shots are mandated.

Ban toxic chemicals

Kennedy has spent much of his career pushing for stricter regulation of hazardous chemicals.

Just days before the November election, he put an obscure topic  fluoride in drinking water  front and center when he said on X that the Trump administration would, on Inauguration Day, advise all U.S. drinking water systems to stop fluoridation.

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While the American Dental Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend small amounts of fluoride be added to drinking water to prevent cavities, recent research has raised concerns about possible impacts on babies and childrens brains.

Kennedys push for greater chemicals regulation is the direct inverse of what the first Trump administration did at EPA, where the president installed a former chemicals industry lobbyist, Nancy Beck, to oversee the agencys toxic chemicals office, and David Dunlap, a former policy official for Koch Industries, the Kansas-based industrial conglomerate, to oversee the agencys science office. The Trump EPA weakened the process for regulating toxic chemicals and finalized a regulation that would have limited the agencys ability to rely on studies looking at the effects of pollution on humans. The Biden administration rescinded it before it took effect.

As with other lobbyists for sectors Kennedy is targeting, those in the chemicals business declined to comment on the record.

I dont know how much impact RFK Jr. is going to have. Its really hard to reach into the bureaucracies and make change if you know what youre doing and he doesnt, said one chemicals industry lobbyist, granted anonymity to speak frankly about internal strategy.

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But the fluoride issue demonstrates how Kennedy is disrupting traditional political alliances.

While major environmental groups that have strongly opposed Trump have not weighed in on the fluoride debate, influential scientists and public health experts theyre aligned with have raised concerns about fluoridation similar to those raised by Kennedy. In September, a federal judge in California appointed by former President Barack Obama ruled in favor of progressive anti-fluoride activists and ordered the EPA to regulate the chemical under the nations primary toxic chemicals law.

Lauren Gardner contributed to this report.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI)  A 48-year-old man wanted for murder in Rhode Island is now one of the U.S. Marshals Services 15 Most Wanted Fugitives.

Olalekan Abimbola Olawusi was charged with murder and two counts of inflicting serious bodily injury to a child after police found his 3-month-old son bleeding at their Providence home back in April 2017.

The infant was rushed to the hospital in serious condition and needed to be resuscitated, officials said. Doctors found 18 injuries at different stages of healing, indicating a pattern of abuse.

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The child was placed on life support but died six months later, according to officials.

Olawusi was arrested on April 20, 2017. He was released that same day, but then fled the area.

Investigators later learned that Olawusi flew out of New York in June 2017 using his Nigerian passport. Its believed he is getting help from family members in Nigeria and could be a danger to other children.

The suspect, who also goes by Olekun Olawusi, stands 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs around 185 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes.

There is a $25,000 reward being offered for information leading to his arrest.

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Anyone with knowledge of his whereabouts is asked to call the U.S. Marshals Service at 1-877-WANTED2 (926-8332) or the USMS Tips App.

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A voter deposits a mail-in ballot at the drop box outside the Chester County Government Center on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Capital-Star/Peter Hall)

As the race for Pennsylvanias U.S. Senate seat headed to a recount, the Republican National Committee sued all 67 county boards of elections Thursday to enforce the requirement for voters to write the date on mail-in ballots.

The question of whether mail ballots should be thrown out if voters fail to write the date on the return envelope has been the subject of several court decisions this year alone, with the state Supreme Court heading off two lower court rulings that could have changed the status quo weeks before the presidential election.

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In a new filing in the Supreme Court on Thursday, the RNC claimed at least three counties have openly defied the high courts decisions by voting to count ballots that had been set aside because they had missing or incomplete dates.

By counting undated and misdated mail ballots for the 2024 General Election, they are disobeying this Courts commands many times over, the RNCs lawsuit said, asking the court to immediately issue an order to prevent undated ballots from being included in the counties final tallies.

The filing followed a similar lawsuit filed by Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick in Bucks County court that alleged the Democratic county commissioners, who comprise the majority of the board of elections, had voted Nov. 12, against the advice of the boards legal counsel, to count 405 undated and misdated mail ballots.

Dave McCormick won this election and is already participating in Senate orientation meetings. Meanwhile, Democrat officials and scam lawyers are aiding and abetting Bob Caseys shameful attempts to steal back a Senate seat which he lost decisively, RNC Chairperson Michael Whatley said in a statement.

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The Casey campaign noted Thursday that the RNCs case was the opposite of a position McCormick took in 2022 during a recount of the GOP primary results for U.S. Senate. Then, his attorneys sought to have undated ballots counted as part of the total. He ultimately lost that primary to Mehmet Oz.



David McCormicks hypocritical reversal on undated mail ballots is further proof of his determination to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters while counties continue to count votes in this razor-thin election, Casey campaign manager Tiernan Donohue said in a statement. Senator Caseys priority continues to be making sure Pennsylvanians voices are heard as our democratic process unfolds.

Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt announced Wednesday that the race between incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and McCormick was within the 0.5% margin that triggers an automatic recount under state law.

McCormick has 48.93% of votes, and Casey has 48.5%, according to unofficial results, Schmidt said, a margin of 0.43%. Schmidts office estimated that the recount will cost taxpayers more than $1 million.

The question surrounding the validity of mail ballots with missing or incorrect dates has been the subject of court cases in every election since 2020, when Pennsylvanias Act 77 made absentee voting without an excuse an option for the first time.

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A Commonwealth Court panel ruled in September that the dating requirement violates the Pennsylvania Constitution because it serves no compelling reason for the government to infringe upon the charters guarantee of the right to vote. The Supreme Court vacated that decision on a technicality because it named only Philadelphia and Allegheny counties elections boards as defendants without giving the other counties the opportunity to be heard.

The Supreme Court rejected a request by voting rights groups represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and the Public Interest Law Center to resolve the questions before the election. In an Oct. 5 ruling, the Supreme Court said the risk of confusing voters with a change in voting rules only a month before the election was too great.

A Commonwealth Court panel ruled again in late October that the date requirement was unconstitutional in a case stemming from ballots set aside in a pair of Philadelphia-only special elections for two state House seats. The Supreme Court granted a GOP request to block the ruling from applying in the Nov. 5 election, saying the lower courts decision was ill-timed.

Justice Kevin Brobson, in a forceful opinion, noted the court only weeks earlier had declined to make changes that would alter ballot counting procedures while the election was in progress: in declaring we would not countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election, we said what we meant and meant what we said.
SUMNER COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN)  A portion of South Tunnel Road was closed for hours Thursday after a man barricaded himself inside a home, officials said.

The Sumner County Sheriffs Office took to social media just after 10 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 14 to alert the public about the incident.

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South Tunnel Rd. near Wallace Road is currently shut down due to heavy police activity in the area, wrote the sheriffs office.

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Authorities initially reported that the incident began as a domestic call involving a woman, adding that she made it out of the home safely.

However, the man inside the home later identified as Erik Wright was believed to be armed, officials said.

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

Hours later, deputies announced that Wright was taken into custody and the roadway had reopened.

Wright was charged with aggravated assault and taken to the Sumner County Jail, deputies said.

No additional details were immediately released.

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 Find todays top stories on WKRN.com for Nashville, TN and all of Middle Tennessee.

This is a developing story. WKRN News 2 will continue to update this article as new information becomes available.

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A trial began Wednesday for Sidney Garrand, who faces a second-degree murder charge in the death of 8-year-old Cassidy Moreno during a road rage shooting in Phoenix two years ago.

Garrand, 50, faces seven counts in connection with the Oct. 27, 2022, road rage shooting that took place near 16th Street and Greenway Parkway. But he was absent from the court proceedings after absconding in March, despite surrendering his passport.

The trial judge opted to continue the trial in his absence while a bond company currently attempts to locate him in Mexico.

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Maricopa County Deputy Attorney Rick Nothwehr opened by recounting the altercation between Garrand and Cassidys parents, Carlos Moreno and Michelle Hernandez, on their way to a Dennys near 16th Street and Grovers Avenue.

Nothwehr said the road rage began when Carlos Moreno made a quick stop, prompting Garrand to honk.

Carlos Moreno honked back and when the family continued south on 16th street in their black Chevy Malibu, Garrand followed them in his green Jeep Wrangler.

Nothwehr said that Garrand escalated actions when both cars came to a stop and Garrand walked up to the car to look into the Malibu.

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Hernandez testified that Garrand looked at her and her children before slapping Carlos Moreno, who then got out of the car.

Nothwehr emphasized that Carlos Moreno was concerned with protecting his family when he noticed a bulge on Garrands waist and cut Garrand with a knife during a fight.

Carlos Moreno then jumped into the Malibu and began to drive off.

Garrand fired six shots as the family drove away, with one bullet striking Cassidy through the back windshield, Nothwehr said.

Photos of the Malibu completed Nothwehrs story, showing a large hole in the back windshield and blood-stained back passenger seats.

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When I turned back, I turned back to tell my kids to duck but it was too late, Hernandez said during her testimony. I screamed to stop the car. I said, stop the car. Cassidy had been shot.

Cassidy Moreno was taken to the hospital and died two days later from a gunshot wound to the head.

Prosecutors highlighted the concept of transferred intent, asserting that Garrands intent to harm Carlos extended to Cassidys death.

Nothwehr told the jury that either Garrand intended to kill Carlos and, in the process, killed Cassidy, or his actions were so reckless that he should be found guilty.

Garrands defense team postponed its opening statement.

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Witness testimony in the trial resumes Thursday in the Maricopa County Superior Court.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trial begins for missing suspect in Phoenix road rage killing of girl
AI is shaping aspects of public safety, from dispatching first responders to representing the accused. Image by Midjourney AI

One of the most fundamental roles of any government is ensuring the safety of its citizens, whether from others who would do them harm, from disasters like fire and floods or from injuries and sickness.

But with artificial intelligence rapidly advancing, what public safety jobs can look like is changing quickly, sometimes in a seriously sci-fi kind of way  picture a team of firefighters searching for survivors in a smoke-filled warehouse with up-to-the second information beamed directly onto their visors like in a first-person video game.

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I could see firefighters going through a building, having some type of visual display, being able to understand based on pre-planned information about where certain hazardous materials are stored in a facility, or seeing real-time temperature information in a fire that would help make them respond better, said John Chiaramonte, president of consulting services at Mission Critical Partners, a Pennsylvania-based consulting firm, during a recent joint meeting of the Georgia House and Senate committees on artificial intelligence.

AI can also be used for less flashy but equally vital tasks like helping police officers fill out paperwork more quickly and get back out on patrol or determining the best spots to place ambulances based on where emergencies are likely to happen.

I see AI as a tool that holds great promise for 911 and emergency responders, augmenting, enhancing their abilities, allowing them really to focus in on the most important tasks at hand, allowing them to make better and more informed decisions, Chiaramonte said.

In some places around the country, calling 911 could connect you with an AI operator whose job it is to weed out more frivolous calls like complaints about neighbors or questions for municipal agencies, piping those calls to the appropriate numbers while routing emergency calls to real humans.

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That can be a big help in areas dealing with a shortage of trained dispatchers and too many residents with quick 911 trigger fingers, said Brad Dispensa, a security specialist at Amazon Web Services, which provides AI services to emergency call centers, and that can mean faster response times.

I think most citizens can appreciate that calling in to call centers can be challenging, he said. In one case, in the county of Los Angeles, they were looking at a peak hold time of between 40 and 50 minutes, and thats something that they worked with AWS closely on and trying to reduce that burden to their citizenry.

Dispensa said implementing that technology and others helped reduce hold times to less than four minutes on average.

LA County went a step further, implementing a program within its public defenders office to use AI to help manage its caseload.

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Theyre getting case data from up to, I think its 99 different possible law enforcement agencies or folks that have the ability to run into crime, Dispensa said. And the challenge with that is that the public defenders have to basically take all of those different sources of data and they have to do manual data entry to take all those sources of information, combine them, search for information that could help provide their client with possibly significant capability to address a legal case against them.

The technology automatically pulls out data relevant to a particular client and compiles it into a file for the public defender to use, which allows them to focus on defending their client rather than spend time searching through multiple paper and PDF files, Dispensa said.

Dispensa said the system includes a failsafe allowing users to check the source of all the data it produces, which is meant to prevent the risk of a lawyer inadvertently presenting bogus material in court.

Georgia lawmakers could consider policies to encourage AI development in public safety and other realms during next years legislative session, set to begin Jan. 13. The House and Senate AI committees are scheduled to present recommendations on AI-based legislation early next month.

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Some worry about the entry of AI into life or death matters. One potential risk has to do with the computer science principle of GIGO  garbage in, garbage out. If the material fed into an AI system contains errors or bias, it will come up with errors or bias in its output.

In a worst-case scenario, that could mean a system does not recognize a 911 caller is in peril and fails to route the call properly, or, as a group of U.S. members of Congress expressed in a January letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, that systems designed to serve the public without bias could instead amplify that bias.

Predictive policing systems rely on historical data distorted by falsified crime reports and disproportionate arrests of people of color, the letter writers say. As a result, they are prone to over-predicting crime rates in Black and Latino neighborhoods while under-predicting crime in white neighborhoods. The continued use of such systems creates a dangerous feedback loop: biased predictions are used to justify disproportionate stops and arrests in minority neighborhoods, which further biases statistics on where crimes are happening.

Others argue that in sensitive areas like medical or legal advice or talking someone through an emergency situation, human touches like empathy, understanding and real human connection are immeasurably important, and overreliance on AI could cut those out of the equation, eroding public trust.

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The top priority for the policy must be ensuring that public trust is central to any AI development, Chiaramonte said. In most cases, this will mean that AI systems will support and not replace human decision-making.

We dont want to replace the human, he added. We want to ensure that AI can certainly flag these issues, they could identify, suggest solutions perhaps, but the human really needs to make that final decision. And, yeah, that probably might slow down some processes, but thats ultimately the best way to guarantee that the public is going to be protected from the risks of unchecked automation.

Speaking to the joint meeting of Georgias two legislative AI committees last week, Amazon lobbyist Maria Saab said in the absence of federal policies, states are taking the lead on AI-related regulations.

She said the technology should be used responsibly, but urged lawmakers to embrace AI.

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With anything, whether its artificial intelligence or machine learning, the best way to ensure better outcomes is to actually use the technology, she said. Like humans, practice makes perfect, and we need to enable the technology used for it to get smarter. And then with machine learning, it is really about the ability for using large data sets to create patterns. And so one thing in my work supporting policymakers and governments is helping them to embrace use, and even in small cases, to learn and progress on larger enablement.

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Nov. 13Looking to secure funds to help support community college students learning trade skills?

Enter Sandman.

The Community College System of New Hampshire (CCSNH) is the first institution in the Granite State to receive grant funding for the Metallica Scholars Initiative (MSI) through All Within My Hands (AWMH), a non-profit, philanthropic organization created by members and management of the rock band Metallica.

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CCSNH has been awarded $75,000 to support students developing trade skills at the state's seven community colleges. The 2024 grants represent the sixth year that MSI has provided this funding nationally.

Sad but true, the United States is facing a shortage of skilled workers in the trades due to a number of factors, including an aging workforce, an emphasis on other careers in colleges, and fewer high school students interested in these jobs.

Launched in 2019 by All Within My Hands in partnership with the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), MSI began with ten colleges and primarily manufacturing programs.

The initiative now offers workforce opportunities for students interested in gaining skills and training necessary to find careers in fields like construction, health care, and engineering.

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When it comes to helping connect students with a future in the trades, nothing else matters for James Hetfield, Metallica's lead vocalist and guitarist.

"When we launched the Metallica Scholars Initiative, it really spoke to me," Hetfield said in a statement. "A collective goal of breaking the stigma of trade skills. Trade skills are vital to society, and what's even more important is to support the many folks who are trying to create a career by learning and using these skills. I am so proud  we all are  to see how this program is changing lives by providing much-needed resources to empower students, and it's great that we're able to make our biggest grant yet to support these students and the future workforce."

In New Hampshire, The Foundation for New Hampshire Community Colleges administered the grant and awarded 224 students with $50,575 of financial assistance to date to offset the cost of specialized equipment, materials, protective gear, or other degree-specific equipment.

Students receiving assistance ranged in majors from health sciences and services to hospitality and culinary, industry and transportation and STEM/advanced manufacturing.

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"We are grateful to be receiving this funding to assist students with financial barriers and we hope to encourage more students to enter these fields, as well as highlight the major role and impact they have within all our communities and our nation," Shannon Reid, executive director of government affairs and communications for CCSNH said in a statement.

Reid said that the grant will help students pay for specialized equipment or materials in programs such as automotive technology, fire science, HVAC, nursing, and welding.
ROCK VALLEY, IA (KELO)  It has been a long road to recovery for Rock Valley, Iowa after floodwaters devastated the town in late June. Wednesday, the Rock Valley Chamber of Commerce recognized the businesses that overcame the destruction the flood caused.

It was a day of celebration in Rock Valley. While stores were holding holiday open houses throughout the day, the Rock Valley Chamber of Commerce held ribbon cuttings for over 20 businesses that were impacted by the flood waters.

I just feel its very important that our community members know the hard work that has gone on behind the scenes for them to get back up and running and to continue to make Rock Valley a thriving community, Rock Valley Chamber of Commerce director Ashley Feekes said.

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One of the stores that was recognized was First Impressions.

We were down to two by fours. There was absolutely nothing in here. Not one piece of furniture, not one forklift, not one sample. not one rack, not one wall. It was all gone, First Impressions owner Deb Kempema said.

Thune wins secret vote for Senate majority leader

But now, they are back on their feet.

Weve come so far in a few months, Kempema said.

It is amazing. We are so happy to be up and going again so that we can be here for the public, First Impressions long-time employee Barb VanderZwaag said.

And Rock Valleys retail community is healing because they helped each other rebuild.

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Were resilient. It was dark times the first week of July, and Im really excited that the stores are back. People are running their stores, and people are buying. Were excited to be back and be Rock Valley again, Rock Valley Verizon Wireless World owner Todd Van Tol said.

We are a very strong community, and it takes a lot to make us give up, VanderZwaag said.

The Chamber of Commerce started their ribbon cuttings at 9:15 Wednesday morning on the west side of town and ended their day downtown at 2 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 KELOLAND.com.
BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania's leftist Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu and the head of an opposition far-right party are in the lead ahead of a presidential election this month and so would face each other in the runoff second round, an opinion poll showed on Thursday.

Conducted by pollster INSCOP, the survey showed 56-year-old Social Democrat leader Ciolacu gaining 25.3% of the vote in the first round on Nov. 24, with George Simion, leader of the Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR) placed second with 19.1%.

The runoff takes place on Dec. 8, and there is a parliamentary election sandwiched between the two rounds, on Dec. 1.

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The president's powers include oversight of foreign policy, and the winner will play a critical role in determining how committed the country remains to supporting neighbouring Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Ciolacu strongly supports Ukraine and the country's EU and NATO membership. Simion opposes aid to Ukraine, particularly military.

The winner will also nominate the next prime minister, which complicates policymaking and the political outlook.

Elena Lasconi, a two-term mayor and leader of the centre-right opposition Save Romania Union (USR) would get 14.3% of the vote in the first round, the INSCOP poll showed.

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Former NATO deputy secretary general Mircea Geoana  running as an independent  would get 13.3% support, while Nicolae Ciuca, leader of the Liberals who govern in coalition with Ciolacu's Social Democrats, would get 9.1%.

The poll, conducted on behalf of daily Libertatea, surveyed 1,100 people between Nov. 7-12.

INSCOP Research director Remus Stefureac said the centre-right candidates, who include Ciuca, Lasconi and several others, were neutralizing each other by fragmenting their electorate.

Ciolacu is most likely to win the second round when facing off against Simion, the survey showed. A Social Democrat leader has not been president in Romania since 2004.

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However, analysts and sociologists said Ciuca could beat Simion for a spot in the runoff, with the help of the Liberal party infrastructure and large number of Liberal mayors.

"Objectively speaking, looking at several sets of data, the first battle is between Ciuca and Simion for the second place," said political commentator Radu Magdin. "So everything is on the table."

(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Frances Kerry)
By Michael Martina

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -With his nomination of China hardliner Marco Rubio for secretary of state, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has signaled his policy toward Beijing could go beyond tariffs and trade to a more hawkish stance on China as the United States' main strategic rival.

Rubio's selection on Wednesday came along with other cabinet picks that might upset China, such as Representative Mike Waltz as national security adviser and John Ratcliffe to lead the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

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The choices suggest Trump wants to upend the Biden administration's approach of "managing competition" with Beijing on issues ranging from support for Taiwan to China's role in the U.S. fentanyl crisis.

Republicans have criticized the Biden position as too conciliatory.

Rubio "believes in his heart that China is an enemy of the United States," said David Firestein, a former U.S. diplomat with expertise on China. "That's going to color everything he does with respect to China."

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te wrote on X on Thursday: "Deeply appreciate your staunch support for Taiwan & tireless efforts to defend freedom & human rights globally."

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Trump has pledged to end China's most-favored-nation trading status and impose tariffs on Chinese imports in excess of 60% - much higher than those imposed during his first term.

Rubio is almost certain to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, where he is a senior member of both the foreign relations and intelligence committees.

The staunchly anti-communist Cuban American's support for Hong Kong democracy protesters earned him Chinese sanctions in 2020.

It would be the first time China would have active travel restrictions on a U.S. secretary of state, presenting an early test of how Beijing might engage with the new Trump administration.

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For his part, Rubio has been an advocate for U.S. visa sanctions on Chinese officials, and pushed the State Department to bar Hong Kong's chief executive, John Lee, from traveling to San Francisco for the 2023 APEC summit.

China's embassy in Washington did not comment on the Rubio sanctions or his nomination, but spokesperson Liu Pengyu said Beijing looked forward to working with the new administration to promote ties "in a stable, healthy and sustainable direction".

FOCUS ON HUMAN RIGHTS

China's record on human rights, a contentious issue between the countries, has been a focus for Rubio.

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He co-sponsored the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, giving the U.S. government a tool to bar Chinese imports over concerns of rights abuses of Muslim minorities in China, claims that enrage Beijing.

Hong Kong activists see Rubio, who has sponsored legislation including the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019, as a champion of their cause.

"We're obviously really excited and look forward to working with him on these issues," said Frances Hui, an activist in Washington with the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation for whose arrest China has offered a bounty.

Rubio has also proposed a bill now being considered to let the secretary of state strip certification from Hong Kong's economic and trade offices in the United States.

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He has said the near-complete erosion of Hong Kong's autonomy from Beijing means it does not merit separate privileges.

It is unclear what leeway Trump, who has praised China's leader Xi Jinping at times, would give his new top diplomat to adopt restrictions on China, particularly those clashing with other goals of his administration.

"(Trump's foreign policy) lineup is conspicuously hawkish on China, but can be counted on to follow the leader if he shifts from confrontation with Beijing to the art of the deal," said Daniel Russel of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

During Trump's first term, the United States and China struck a trade deal after a series of tit-for-tat tariffs, but many analysts say China has not lived up to its terms.

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EXPORT CONTROLS AND TAIWAN SUPPORT

Rubio has also focused on China as a perceived threat to national security.

He has led calls to blacklist Chinese industrial battery company CATL, revoke capital gains tax rates for U.S. companies investing in China, tighten export restrictions on U.S. technology to China, and end tariff loopholes for small packages shipped from China, many used to carry fentanyl precursor chemicals.

Perhaps most grating to Beijing is Rubio's support for Taiwan, the democratically-governed island China claims as its own, including calls for a free trade deal and unfettered interaction between U.S. officials and Taiwan counterparts.

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Analysts are anticipating Taiwan will make large new arms purchases after Trump takes office.

During his first term, Trump approved more than $18 billion in arms sales for Taiwan, compared to Biden's $7.7 billion.

Some analysts believe Beijing may try to sidestep Rubio and seek engagement directly between Xi and Trump, or with other senior U.S. officials.

"If that doesn't work, then I think we're going to get into a much more regular escalation of a bad relationship," said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

(Reporting by Michael Martina, David Brunnstrom, and Patricia Zengerle in Washington, Karen Freifeld in New York, James Pomfret and Greg Torode in Hong Kong, and Antoni Slodkowski in Beijing; Editing by Don Durfee and Clarence Fernandez)
Rudy Giulianis attorneys are walking off the job.

The disgraced New York politicos lead counsel, Kenneth Caruso, and attorney, David Labkowski, dropped him as a client on Wednesday, declaring in a motion in federal court that they had reached a fundamental disagreement with Giuliani.

The legal duo argued that they were entitled to peel away from their client, citing a New York rule that grants attorneys the ability to withdraw when a client insists upon taking action with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement, when the client insists on presenting a claim or defense that is not warranted under existing law and cannot be supported by good faith argument, or when the client fails to cooperate in the representation or otherwise renders the representation unreasonably difficult for the lawyer to carry out employment effectively.

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Giulianis spokesperson, Ted Goodman, told The Independent that the Donald Trump ally had not been made aware of his legal representations recusal.

Surely Mr. Caruso would talk to the mayor, or at the very least inform him, of such a decision, Goodman told the publication.

Giuliani is still in court proceedings as he tries to worm his way out of paying up some $150 million in damages that he owes to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a pair of 2020 Georgia poll workers that he repeatedly defamed while pushing Trumps Georgia election conspiracy.

Last week, the former gang-busting federal prosecutor tried out a new legal defense, arguing in a Manhattan courthouse that he couldnt possibly hand over his assets to Freeman and Moss because he simply didnt know where they were. Some of those assets include his Manhattan penthouse, a famously immovable object, as well as his Mercedes convertible, which he was seen driving in Florida on Election Day.

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In response, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman said that the idea that neither Giuliani nor anyone else in the world has knowledge about the location of his assets was farcical, reported Reuters.

Amazingly, the $148 million debt is just the tip of the iceberg for Giulianis legal woes. Over the past year, the former Trump attorney unsuccessfully filed for bankruptcy, lost his accountant over his insurmountable debts, begged Trump for help settling his seven-figure legal fees (he refused), had his WABC radio show canceled for spewing 2020 election lies, and miserably started his own coffee brand, Rudy Coffee, in an effort to funnel in some extra cash. He ultimately lost his bankruptcy case due to his outlandish spending habits, with the presiding New York judge branding the former city mayor a recalcitrant debtor.

Giuliani is also under the gun for a lawsuit from his former legal representation, who accused him of failing to pay his bill and allegedly only dishing out $214,000 of nearly $1.6 million in legal expenses. Giuliani, meanwhile, claimed he was stiffed by his favorite client, Trump, to the tune of millions of dollars.

But wait, theres more: The MAGA henchman is also one of 19 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case and was named in April in an Arizona indictment charging another slew of Republican officials and Trump allies for their alleged involvement in a scheme to overturn the states 2020 presidential election results. In October, an Arizona judge torched a legal filing Giuliani made in the case, ruling that the exTrump aide had not one scintilla of evidence to question the legitimacy of a grand jury assigned to his lawsuit.

But if the exTrump attorney can drag out his legal woes for long enough to obtain a pardon from Trump during the MAGA leaders forthcoming second administration, he may not have to pay up at all.
Puff-Puff (or Khapochka, meaning a short drag from a joint or a cigarette) is a young, beautiful (insofar as I can tell behind her mask) woman in her mid-twenties and, in her own words, a drug courier from Russia, blogger and just an idol of millions. She entered the drug trade as a side hustle while completing her studies and now blogs about her lifestyle on her Telegram channel, Courier in a Skirt, where she chats with fans and answers their questions.

To be honest, the idea [to start a blog] was given to me by one person on Telegram, she told me. I thought and realized that I really have something to tell people, and its also more about talking openly about that part of my life that you cant discuss with family and friends. After all, its better to ask advice on how to best bake pot cookies in a chat of like-minded people, and not from your mother, right?

Her job begins by collecting wholesale consignments from her anonymous paymasters, which she then weighs into smaller packages and hides around the city for their customers.

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Two years ago I got a job in a new shop, she recalled. I was assigned a master stash, the product located somewhere in the forest not far from the main road. I calmly collected it and placed it inside a fake fire extinguisher, the type you can find on AliExpress. I was driving away as though nothing had happened when I saw a patrol car. They stopped me, checked my documents, then asked if I was carrying anything illegal. I said no, of course not, but they decided to inspect my car anyway. Naturally, they checked the boot, but didnt touch the fire extinguisher. They wished me a pleasant trip and let me be on my way.

Just like the United States, Russia has been waging a war on drugs. In certain prison camps, up to 80% of residents are confined under Article 228 of the Criminal Code  which bans certain narcotics  nicknamed the peoples statute, as more citizens are incarcerated for it than any other, many serving over ten year stints for first-time offenses. Prison conditions are tough; torture is rife. And yet, over 10,000 Russians keep dying from drug overdoses each year, a toll which has more than doubled since 2019.

This failure to cope lies partly with the changing nature of the drug market itself. A new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, for which I acted as a researcher, explores this new underworld, which may give us a clue for where the worldwide drug scene is headed next.

Buying dope in Russia was like anywhere else in the 90s and 2000s. Youd have to visit a certain area (Roma gypsy villages stood in for the hood with their open-air drug bazaars) to score, or ask a friend  who may or may not be working with the cops to get the law off their back. Like their American counterparts, Russian police operate on a system of quotas, and to meet those demands a common tactic was to catch a low-level seller or user, then put the squeeze on them till they turn in their buddies. They, in turn, sell out their supplier until, sooner or later, everyones working for The Man. You never knew if youre being set up for a sting.

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Now everythings gone digital. While selling drugs online is far from new  in fact, the very first thing bought and sold on the Internet was a bag of weed  no nation has so wholeheartedly embraced e-shopping for their preferred pick-me-ups as the Russians. The U.S. government estimates that in 2021, 80% of cryptocurrency transactions across the whole dark web took place through Hydra, Russias then-reigning cyber-cartel.

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Much of Hydras interface would have looked familiar to anyone whos used the dark web marketplace Silk Road or its myriad knock-off clones: you can glance through the forums and customer reviews to check which pills and powders will rock your socks off and which will leave you feeling worse than Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.

But what made Hydra unique was not only its monopoly but also its distribution system, which revolved around stashing gear in out-of-the-way hiding spots like a coke-dealing Easter Bunny  or Puff-Puff.

In other countries, illegal online drug markets employ the post to send drugs. In Russia, the post is extremely slow and unreliable, so local dealers came up with a new and more efficient way of distribution, explained sociologist Alex Knorre.

It is extremely easy, Knorre continued. You can order online anytime, chances are good you have many available drugs in your city, and you can pay for it using a credit card or QIWI [a common ATM-like way to send cash]. You receive the coordinates to pick up the package soon after the payment  and just collect it somewhere.

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The dark web thus removed the need to consort with Addidas-wearing gopniks (thugs.) Plug not picking up their phone? No problem  anyone with a laptop and a wi-fi connection could buy or sell. The anonymity of everyone involved was guaranteed by the encrypted TOR browser. Developed by the U.S. Navy to protect their comms, the browsers code was made public in the mid-2000s and TOR became a nonprofit aimed at helping activists in authoritarian regimes bypass the censors. It also enabled the darknet and all its hackers, pedophiles and drug dealers.

Russia is the second-largest country in the world by TOR usage, accounting for 15% of all traffic. While the Kremlin has tried blocking the service, results have been mixed at best  and nowadays TOR is less necessary, as there are plenty of mirrors on the clear web. Between dead drops and TOR, this meant unlike traditional drug rings, no one actually has to meet face-to-face, shielding the operation from undercovers, turncoats and stool pigeons.

Then theres changing tastes. Since the late 80s, the favorite forbidden stupefiant of Russians had long been heroin, which arrived from Afghanistan via the mountainous, impoverished Central Asian land of Tajikistan, a smuggling route overseen by organized crime and corrupt security chiefs. As the Taliban cracks down on the industry, this market threatens to be replaced by synthetics in Europe, risking a fentanyl crisis like the U.S. is currently straining under.

While opioids are still abundant for now, theyve been overtaken in popularity by synthetic stimulants; chiefly mephedrone, a speedy cathinone cooked in clandestine labs with raw materials sourced from China. Hydra played no small part in this trend, selling DIY drug-making kits.

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A similar phenomenon is unfolding in America as well. A recent Reuters investigation demonstrated how easy it is to purchase enough precursors  the chemicals used to make synthetics  to produce three million fentanyl tablets, sourced online from unscrupulous Chinese companies for a mere $3,600 worth of Bitcoin. The packages smoothly evaded customs and were delivered straight to mailboxes in New York, New Jersey and Mexico City. Although the Reuters reporters disposed of the fentanyl precursors, its not difficult to combine them using a simplified synthesis known as the Gupta method, which one Mexican narco described being as easy as making chicken soup.

This is just one of innumerous examples of how synthetics are the wave of the future: anyone cyber-savvy enough can acquire the equipment and ingredients, which are easier to hide and can better withstand the local weather than a coca crop or a poppy plantation, effectively democratizing the drug trade away from Mafia-esque syndicates.

The more a nation invests in border security, the more attractive it becomes to traffickers, because greater risks entail greater rewards. But small-time producers already situated within a countrys borders can saturate the market. Consider cocaine, which retailed on Hydra for nearly $100 a gram, versus mephedrone, costing a measly 13 bucks. If law enforcements goal is to discourage consumption by forcing dealers to raise their prices, theyre falling far behind.

Clamping down on precursors is a game of Whac-A-Mole. Should precursors be banned (already a tricky proposition since theyre commonly used for legit products like perfume), Chinese manufacturers will sell pre-precursors: even more obscure, unregulated chemicals. And if Beijing cleans up its chemical industry, the business may simply move to India, where corruption can be even more endemic, or perhaps another country.

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All the above isnt to say that there havent been (pyrrhic) victories. In April 2022, the German federal police, acting on information from their American colleagues, seized the servers hosting Hydra, replacing its banner with their logo and retrieving $25 million in Bitcoin. There was a momentary confusion. At first, buyers hoped the platform would be resurrected and reappear in some form. New platforms could be scammers or police stings. Hand-to-hand sales enjoyed a brief revival, but more so in small towns and rural areas. Customers missed the convenience and stability of Hydra.

Then, gradually, replacements began arising, with names like MEGA, WayAway, OMG!, Solaris, BlackSprut and Kraken  many of which were staffed by veterans of Hydra. A digital turf war erupted over Hydras displaced clientele. Unlike the drug war in Mexico, however, there were no headless corpses hanging off bridges. Instead, battles were fought with hackers, data breaches and server shutdowns.

So thats an improvement, at least. If only more teardrop-tattooed cartel enforcers knew how to code. But fundamentally, the crux of the problem persists. The Kremlin and the White House rarely see eye-to-eye, but for now, both uphold the status quo of the war on drugs.

[Legalization] will happen when people stop drinking vodka, Puff-Puff weighed in. "In the meantime, this is not financially profitable for those who manage everything. It would be enough to decriminalize marijuana or abolish laws that imprison people for ten years for six grams of buds. But these are political things that I try not to get involved in.
Russia increased the intensity of its long-range drone attacks on Ukrainian cities by around 44% in the week following President-elect Donald Trump's election victory, ABC News analysis shows.

The size and complexity of drone attacks by both Russia and Ukraine have been steadily increasing since the full-scale war began in February 2022. The past five weeks have seen around 4,500 UAVs cross the shared border in either direction.

But Trump's electoral victory -- confirmed in the early hours of Nov. 6 -- aligned with an uptick in Moscow's use of Iranian-produced Shahed strike drones to bombard Ukrainian targets nationwide.

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The week since Trump's win saw Russia launch 641 strike drones into Ukraine, per daily figures published by Ukraine's air force -- an average of more than 91 UAVs each day.

PHOTO: REUTERS/Gleb Garanich (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

Ukraine's air force recorded 2,286 launched into its territory in the period from Oct. 1 to Nov. 5, at a daily average of less than 64 UAVs.

The daily number of Russian drones surpassed 100 on three of the seven days since the U.S. presidential election, that threshold having been reached only five times in the five weeks previously. The record high of 145 drones was set on Nov. 10.

Russia often also launches ballistic missiles along with its drone barrages, though far fewer. Ukraine's air force reported 88 missiles fired into the country between Oct. 1 and Nov. 5, and 12 in the week after the election. That meant a daily average of just over 2 Russian missiles in the period before the election and just under 2 after.

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The rate of Ukrainian drone attacks has been stable since the start of October, per figures published in real time by the Russian Defense Ministry on its Telegram channels.

Moscow reported downing 1,277 between Oct. 1 and Nov. 5 -- an average of just over 35 UAVs each day. The week after the election saw Russian air defenses down 243 drones, the ministry said, for a daily average of just below 35 UAVs.

ABC News cannot independently verify the numbers provided by either defense ministry. The publicly available totals do not include short-range or reconnaissance drones used in front line areas. Both Russia and Ukraine may have reasons to inflate the figures and war conditions mean details can be hard to confirm.

PHOTO: Russian law enforcement officers inspect the wreckage of a drone following an attack in the village of Sofyino, Moscow region, on Nov. 10, 2024. (Tatyana Makeyeva/AFP via Getty Images)

Nonetheless, the general trend is toward larger and more regular drone barrages.

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"In the next few months up to Jan. 20, we are expecting a significantly increasing number of launches towards Ukraine," Ivan Stupak, a former officer in the Security Service of Ukraine, told ABC News.

Stupak said the number of Russian drone attacks has been steadily increasing in recent months. August saw 818 launches, September 1,410 and October 2,072, he said. Moscow's intention, Stupak suggested, is to cause as much damage to Ukraine as possible before the change in U.S. administration.

Russia's rising rate of long-range attacks comes alongside its increased intensity of ground assaults, with heavy fighting ongoing in eastern Ukraine, in Russia's western Kursk region -- parts of which Kyiv's forces have occupied since August -- and with Ukrainian commanders bracing for an expected offensive in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

Both sides have a two-month window in which to maneuver before Trump returns to the White House, having promised during the campaign to end the war "in 24 hours" by forcing Kyiv and Moscow to the negotiating table.

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Russia is upping the ante "because they want to put Ukraine in the most difficult situation before Trump is inaugurated," Oleg Ignatov -- the International Crisis Group think tank's senior Russia analyst -- told ABC News. "It's good for Russia to be as a strong as possible," he added, though noted that "events on the ground have their own logic" beyond the purely political.

Ukraine will want to continue its own long-range strikes, using its fast-developing and far-reaching drone arsenal. "Ukraine will continue conducting such types of strikes as long as it possible," Stupak said. "First of all, Ukraine is interested in destroying huge munition depots and oil refineries and facilities."

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia sees "positive signals" following Trump's victory, though added it is unclear "to what extent Trump will adhere to the statements made during his campaign."

PHOTO: Tracers and searchlights illuminate the night sky as Ukrainian forces fire at a drone during a Russian attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 3, 2024. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

Still, President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said any peace talks must be based on the "new territorial realities" of partial Russian occupation and claimed full sovereignty over four Ukrainian regions -- Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson -- as well as continued control of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014.

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The Kremlin has also signaled it will not begin negotiations with Ukraine on ending the war until Ukrainian troops are removed from Kursk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy set out a five-point "victory plan" in October, which included demands for full NATO membership and more long-range Western weapons -- plus permission to use them on Russian territory -- as key deterrence measures.

Zelenskyy's victory plan also included three "secret annexes" that were presented to foreign leaders but not made public.

PHOTO: Fire rises from a house damaged during a Russian drone strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 7, 2024. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)

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ABC News' Patrick Reevell and Natalia Popova contributed to this report.

Russia increases Ukraine drone attacks by 44% since Trump election originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Russian attacks across Ukraine killed at least two civilians and injured at least 28 others, regional authorities reported on Nov. 14.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 21 of the 59 drones launched by Russia overnight, while 38 drones were "lost" across Ukraine, the Air Force said.

Russian attacks against Donetsk Oblast killed two people and injured eight, Governor Vadym Filashkin reported.

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One person was killed and two wounded in the village of Novotroitske, and one civilian was killed and another injured in the Shevchenko village. Four residents were injured in the city of Kostiantynivka and one in Predtechyne, Filashkin said.

A Russian drone struck an apartment building in Kharkiv on Nov. 13, with two people suffering shrapnel wounds. A 67-year-old driver of a medical facility was also wounded in Kupiansk, Governor Oleh Syniehubov reported.

In Kherson Oblast, 15 people were injured in Russian attacks, according to Governor Oleksandr Prokudin. A utility company, a fire station, and residential buildings were damaged.

Two civilians were injured during Russian attacks against the Myropillia community in Sumy Oblast, the regional military administration reported.

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Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Poltava, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts were also attacked, but no casualties were reported.

Read also: 6th German IRIS-T to arrive in Ukraine by end of 2024, Zelensky says

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ZHUHAI- China (AP)  A top Russian defense official has attended Chinas premier military showcase in a show of unity between the countries as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine.

Sergei Shoigu, secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council, was in the southern city of Zhuhai to view Chinese and Russian aircraft and other military hardware on Thursday. They included Chinese J22 and J35A stealth fighters that China says are rivals to the latest U.S. jets in the same class.

Shoigu, a former defense minister, appeared to be on a mission to reaffirm ties between the countries as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has largely stalemated and Moscow has turned to North Korean soldiers to boost its troop numbers.

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China is not known to have directly provided military support to Russia, but has sold it dual-use technologies that could boost its ability to attack Ukrainian targets. China is also a major customer of Russian oil and gas amid international sanctions blocking Russia's access to global financial markets,

Weeks before Russia's February 2022 full-on invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing and the sides signed a lengthy cooperation agreement pledging an unlimited partnership. The countries have held several joint military exercises and aligned their foreign policies to challenge the U.S.-led liberal Western order.
KYIV (Reuters) -A Russian air attack struck a residential building and energy installations on Thursday evening in and near Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa, killing one person, injuring 10 and knocking out a boiler plant used for heating, officials said.

"A multi-storey residential building was destroyed in the centre of Odesa, apartments were set on fire, high-rise apartments were damaged, along with about 30 cars," Odesa Regional Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.

"Enemy fire also damaged the main central heating pipeline. The boiler plant has been temporarily shut down and repair work is under way."

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Odesa's mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov said the attack temporarily left over 40,000 people without heating. Heating infrastructure for one of the city's maternity hospitals was also damaged, he said.

Engineers finished the repairs by the morning and heating would resume for impacted consumers within the next few hours, Trukhanov added.

Ukraine's air force said that it shot down 25 out of 29 drones and one of two Kh-59/69 guided missiles launched by Russia during an overnight attack.

Odesa has been a frequent Russian target in the more than 2 1/2-year-old war, as have the port facilities located near the city.

(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Anastasiia Malenko; editing by Rod Nickel, Stephen Coates and Ros Russell)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that he was having difficulty with aircraft maintenance due to sanctions, and that "friendly" countries refused to refuel his plane.

Source: The Moscow Times

Details: Lavrov stated that "friendly" countries refuse to refuel a plane owned by him, thus it is preferable to fly onboard an Il-96.

According to the Russian minister, when he travelled to South Africa in 2023 to represent Russian leader Vladimir Putin at the BRICS conference in Johannesburg, getting back was "a whole story on its own".

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Quote Lavrov: "Because, as it turns out, practically all companies there that fill with aviation gasoline are not owned by the country."

He also mentioned that a similar incident developed during his visit to Brazil. Then Lavrov had to fly to meet President Lula da Silva aboard his Brazilian counterpart Mauro Vieira's plane.

He stated that "it was impossible to refuel" and that the situation was "annoying".

According to Lavrov, "friendly" countries would be "forced to fear" secondary sanctions for some time, particularly because "neocolonialism" is still prevalent in parts of these countries.

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Moscow's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov does not expect any change in US policy towards Russia or Ukraine under incoming president Donald Trump because all US governments have an interest in weakening Russia.

"They feel comfortable when they weaken Russia and its influence," Lavrov said in an interview with Russian state television. Russia has repeatedly accused the United States of supporting the war in Ukraine mainly to weaken Moscow.

"Ultimately, everything that happens can be traced back to the desire to eliminate Russia as a competitor," Lavrov said. He added that Washington will continue to strive to keep everything under its control. Lavrov is representing Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, where he will also meet US representatives.

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During the election campaign, Trump stated that he intended to end the Ukraine war through a deal with Russia, though he provided no details. Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory last week and expressed openness for dialogue. At the same time, he emphasized that Trump was unpredictable, adding that it remains to be seen what exactly the new Trump administration will do.

Lavrov Against Freezing the Conflict

Lavrov warned, however, against a resumption of the Minsk agreements to resolve the conflict. The agreements, brokered by Germany and France in 2014 and 2015, had among other things, envisaged autonomy for the Donbass region, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later rejected.

Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022, purportedly to pre-empt what Moscow claimed was an attempt by the Kiev military to reclaim the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
MOSCOW (AP)  A Russian man went on trial Thursday on charges of high treason for a video he had allegedly sent to Ukraine's security services, the latest in a growing series of espionage cases involving the conflict.

The Volgograd District Court began hearing a new case against Nikita Zhuravel, who is currently serving a 3 1/2-year sentence for burning a Quran in front of a mosque.

The new charges are based on allegations that Zhuravel filmed a trainload of military equipment and warplanes in 2023 and sent the video to a representative of Ukraines security agency. He could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.

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Rights activists say Zhuravel is a political prisoner who was beaten while in custody.

While in pretrial custody before his first sentence, Zhuravel was beaten by the 15-year-old son of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed strongman leader of the mostly Muslim region of Chechnya. The elder Kadyrov posted the video on social media and praised his son, causing public outrage. He later awarded his son with the medal of Hero of the Republic of Chechnya.

Federal authorities have refrained from any criticism of the Chechen strongman.

Separately, a military court on Thursday sentenced to 24 years in prison a man convicted of treason and terrorism for setting fire to a military recruitment office in Moscow. Prosecutors said Sergei Andreev committed the November 2023 attack on instructions from the Ukrainian special services that he received on a messaging app.

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Treason and espionage cases have skyrocketed after President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. The cases have targeted a wide range of suspects, from Kremlin critics and independent journalists to scientists, drawing attention from rights groups.

The legal definition of treason has been expanded to include providing vaguely defined assistance to foreign countries or organizations, effectively exposing to prosecution anyone in contact with foreigners.
Editor's Note: This is a developing story and is being updated.

Russia attacked the city of Odesa with drones and missiles late in the evening on Nov. 14, striking residential buildings and killing one civilian.

A "massive" Russian aerial attack targeted Odesa and the surrounding region, Governor Oleh Kiper reported.

One woman was killed, and at least 10 others were injured, according to the State Emergency Service. The victims include a 9-year-old boy, Kiper said. A 22-year-old man sustained serious injuries and has been hospitalized, while the others are being treated in medical facilities for moderate injuries.

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The attack destroyed an apartment building in the city center, Kiper said. Other residential buildings suffered fires and damage. The strike damaged a church, educational institutions, and vehicles.

The attack hit one of Odesa's main heating pipelines, forcing the city to shut down one of its boiler houses. According to Kiper, the system was responsible for heating 220 apartment buildings, seven kindergartens, and four schools.

The boiler house also provided heat to a maternity hospital, where there are currently 22 babies and 28 people giving birth, Kiper said. The hospital is able to heat itself with its generator, and repairs are underway at the boiler house.

Emergency services are at work at the sites of the attack.

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Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine's Presidential Office, called the strike on Odesa a "terrorist attack."

"(Russian President Vladimir) Putin just likes to fight civilians," he said.

Russia has ramped up its drone attacks across Ukraine, including in major cities like Odesa and the capital, Kyiv. Consecutive drone strikes targeted Odesa on Nov. 8 and 9, killing and injuring civilians.

Ukrainian officials have warned about the looming threat to the country's energy and heating systems ahead of the winter months. The interim head of Ukraine's state grid operator Ukrenergo said on Oct. 29 that the country may be facing its most challenging winter since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.

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Read also: We are exhausted  how Ukrainians cope with nightly Russian drone attacks

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Russian soldiers shot dead an unarmed woman walking on the street of the front-line village of Terny in Donetsk Oblast, the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office reported on Nov. 14.

Numerous cases of Russian troops murdering or abusing civilians have surfaced since the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022, underscoring the humanitarian disaster wrought by the war.

Pictures shared on the prosecutor's office's Telegram channel show a woman in a pink jacket walking on the outskirts of the village, with a subsequent picture showing her lying on the ground with her face in the mud.

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"Russian soldiers saw a local resident walking down the street along the houses destroyed by the enemy. The soldiers opened fire on the woman. A shot from small arms killed the civilian," the statement read.

According to the prosecutors, the killing took place on Nov. 10. Ukrainian authorities have launched a war crime investigation.

Terny is a front-line village in northern Donetsk Oblast, some 35 kilometers (20 miles) northeast of the city of Sloviansk.

Russia has committed 137,000 war crimes in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the United for Justice conference in Kyiv in September.

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The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced in June that it had issued arrest warrants for Sergei Shoigu, Russia's former defense minister, and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian army, for intentionally harming civilians and other charges related to Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

The court also issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2023 over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Russian troops killed a woman on the outskirts of the village of Terny in Donetsk Oblast.

Source: Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office; Ukraine's Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets on social media

Details: Operational data indicates that Russian soldiers committed yet another war crime in Donetsk Oblast on 10 November. Russian forces spotted a local resident walking along streets lined with houses destroyed by Russian attacks on the outskirts of Terny, near the city of Lyman.

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The Russians attacked the woman with small arms, claiming her life.

At present, law enforcement officers are conducting immediate investigative actions aimed at establishing all the circumstances of the incident and identifying the woman killed by the Russians.

The pre-trial investigation is being led by the Main Directorate of the Security Service of Ukraine in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, under the supervision of the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office.

Lubinets reported that he had sent letters to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding the crime.

Quote from Lubinets: "The international community should not only pay attention to it but also react!"

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Russia has sentenced Russian Volunteer Corps commander Denis Kapustin and four fighters to life imprisonment in absentia in the case of the invasion of Bryansk Oblast.

Source: Kremlin-aligned Russian news agency RIA Novosti; Latvia-based Russian media outlet Medusa

Details: The Second Western District Military Court has sentenced five members of the Russian Volunteer Corps, which fights on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, to life imprisonment in a criminal case over the invasion of Bryansk Oblast. The sentence was passed in absentia.

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Kapustin was fined 2.5 million roubles (approx. US$25,000). The other defendants in the case are Alexander Galanov, Anton Zyryanov, Kirill Kanakhin and Alexei Ogurtsov, who were also sentenced to life imprisonment and fined 2 million roubles (approx. US$20,000) each.

For Denis Kapustin and Kirill Kanakhin, this is their second life sentence in Russia. Before that, they were convicted in absentia in a treason case.

Background: On 22 May 2023, fighters of the Russian Volunteer Corps entered the territory of the settlements of Lyubimovka and Churovichi in Bryansk Oblast of the Russian Federation.

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The News

A suspected spy whale that died off Norway this year escaped from a Russian naval base, a scientist said. The beluga, nicknamed Hvaldimir  a portmanteau of Vladimir, as in Putin, and the Norwegian for whale  was widely assumed to be a Russian spy after it was first spotted in 2019 wearing a harness saying Equipment St Petersburg.

But a whale researcher, citing her former contacts in Russia, told the BBC that the beluga wasnt a spy, but a trained whale called Andruha who went missing from a military program after it began working in the open waters: He was smart [but]... kind of like a hooligan, she said, and went where he wanted to. Its death appears to have been natural.
LONDON (Reuters) - A military court in Moscow sentenced a 43-year-old woman to eight years in a penal colony on Thursday for posting anti-war comments online, including several calling for the assassination of President Vladimir Putin, Russian news agencies reported.

Anastasia Berezhinskaya, a Moscow-based theatre director and mother of two young children, was found guilty of two wartime censorship laws -- discrediting the Russian army and spreading false information about it -- as well as justifying terrorism.

More than 1,000 people have been criminally prosecuted in Russia for speaking out against the war in Ukraine, according to rights project OVD-Info, and over 20,000 have been detained for protesting.

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On Tuesday, a Moscow court sentenced a 68-year-old paediatrician to five-and-a-half years in prison after the mother of one of her patients publicly denounced her over comments about Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

In the first months following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Berezhinskaya published dozens of posts online against the conflict. The Russian army, the Interior Ministry and Putin himself, she said, were waging a "genocide" against the Ukrainian people.

On May 14, 2022, she posted over three dozen times on VKontakte, a social network, hurling insults at Putin and saying he bore personal responsibility for the deaths of men, women and children whose bodies were being pulled from under the rubble of Ukrainian apartment blocks.

Moscow denies deliberately attacking civilians in what it calls its "special military operation", although thousands have died in Russian attacks.

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As Berezhinskaya continued to post that day in May, she began to call for the death of Putin, who at 72 years old is on course to become Russia's longest-serving leader since Empress Catherine the Great in the 18th century.

"Shoot that stupid bastard Putin, how many more murders of civilians do we have to bear?" she wrote. "Wipe him off the face of the earth."

Berezhinskaya admitted guilt under the charges of spreading "fakes" and discrediting the army, independent news outlet Mediazona reported, but only partially admitted guilt under the justifying terrorism charge.

Reuters was not able to immediately contact her lawyer to ask if she would file an appeal.

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Berezhinskaya suffers from a mixed personality disorder, Mediazona said, citing the case materials. She has two children, aged eight and ten, and a husband who has epilepsy, the outlet reported.

In her final statement to the court, cited by Mediazona, Berezhinskaya said: "Your Honour, I have nothing to say, nothing to add. I will accept any decision you make."

(Reporting and writing by Lucy Papachristou, Editing by William Maclean)
Russian forces attacked the town of Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast, on the morning of 14 November, damaging high-rise buildings, administrative buildings of a pedagogical university and a kindergarten.

Source: Vadym Liakh, Head of Sloviansk City Military Administration

Quote: "The city was attacked again. There were two explosions in the Lisnyi district. High-rise buildings, administrative buildings of a pedagogical university, a kindergarten, a supermarket and private cars were damaged."

Details: Liakh said that there had been no casualties.

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The Ukrainian military insisted that Kyivs soldiers remained in control of Kupiansk and had successfully repelled all Russian attacks - Shutterstock

Russian soldiers wore Ukrainian army uniforms to fight their way into the frontline city of Kupiansk, Kyivs military has said.

Captain Andrii Kovaliov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, said that by disguising themselves as Ukrainian troops the Russian soldiers had committed a war crime.

Russian soldiers wore uniforms resembling those of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This violates the laws and rules of warfare and constitutes a war crime, he said.

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Kupiansk lies on the northern fringe of the front line and is considered a vital stronghold for Ukraine to control on the banks of the River Oskil, a natural defensive line.

The town had a pre-war population of around 26,000 people and served as an important railway hub. It has already changed hands twice since Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Analysts have said that if Russian forces capture Kupiansk, they could use it as a launchpad to push further west into the Kharkiv region which is already under attack from the north.

Captain Kovaliov insisted that Kyivs soldiers remained in control of the town and had successfully repelled all the Russian attacks even though several military bloggers reported that the Kremlins forces had breached its defences.

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The pro-Moscow Two Majors channel reported that two columns of Russian soldiers had entered the city at night marking the beginning of the battle for the city, an analysis backed up by the pro-Ukraine DeepState Telegram channel.

DeepState said: In parade formation, the enemy has broken into Kupiansk. This afternoon, two columns of enemy vehicles advanced from the Limanu Persho district.

It also said that Ukrainian forces had destroyed two Russian armoured personnel carriers as they advanced into the town.

Andrii Besedin, a city official, said Russian troops who entered Kupiansk on Wednesday failed to hold their positions.

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Asked if Russian soldiers who had hidden in local houses had been neutralised, Mr Besedin replied: They were eliminated.

Kupiansk is considered a vital stronghold for Ukrainian forces to control - Shutterstock

John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia programme at the US-based think tank the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, also said Russian forces had penetrated fairly deep into the eastern section of Kupiansk.

Russians attacked in four waves, using a total of 15 vehicles, including a UR-77 mine-clearing vehicle, tanks, and other armoured vehicles, he said.

The Kremlins forces have been grinding slowly forward over the past few months across the long Donbas frontline, accelerating their attacks in October and soaking up an enormous casualty rate.

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This has meant bearing down on Kupiansk where local Ukrainian officials have ordered a mandatory civilian evacuation.

Ukrainian forces destroyed two Russian armoured personnel carriers as they advanced into Kupiansk, according to military bloggers - Shutterstock

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Elsewhere on the frontline reports said that Russian forces were pressuring Ukrainian forces in Kurakhove in the south, a battle that the Two Majors Telegram channel described as vital for the defence of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The Russian Army continues to storm Kurakhove and deploy a wide pincer around the city, it said.

Fierce fighting was also continuing in Russias Kursk region, where the Kremlin had launched an attack against Ukraines salient.

There, Russian forces claimed to have destroyed a British Challenger tank used by Ukrainian forces.

Credit: Social media/Telegram

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On the accusations that its soldiers had dressed up in Ukrainian uniform, Russias military has not commented but warfare law states that any disguise needs to be limited to escape or infiltration. Soldiers are not allowed to fight in enemy uniforms.

Russian and Ukrainian soldiers wear combat uniforms with different patterns and different coloured masking tape around one arm or their helmets. These are usually blue or yellow for Ukrainian forces and white for Russian.

There are many examples of soldiers disguising themselves to fool enemy forces throughout history, from the Trojan Horse in Greek mythology at the siege of Troy, to the 1942 British commando raid on Saint Nazaire in France that knocked out German U-boat pens.

Nazi soldiers also dressed up in American uniforms during the Battle of the Bulge towards the end of World War II.

03:13 PM GMT

Todays live coverage has ended

Todays live coverage has ended. We will leave you with the latest from Europe editor James Crisp:

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European Union governments will jointly buy arms and weapons for the first time in the blocs history in a step towards a closer common defence policy.

Pooling defence procurement is part of the EUs response to Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine but has now been given greater impetus by the election of Donald Trump.

For the first two years of the war, individual member states have bought their weapons separately, as they attempt to deliver supplies to Kyiv while maintaining the strength of their own armed forces.

But 20 member states will now put money together to purchase military supplies from manufacturers within the bloc.

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According to the European Commission, the group including France, Poland, Belgium, and the Netherlands could buy defence products worth as much as 9bn.

That is made possible thanks to EU subsidies worth 250m which Brussels claims will encourage European defence manufacturers to ramp up production, boost the blocs defence readiness and help Ukraine.

By negotiating together as a bloc, governments would also be able to get a better deal and incentivise manufacturers to boost production of weapons in Europe, Brussels said.

The five projects announced so far involve joint procurement of air and missile defence systems, which protect against drones, aircraft and combat helicopters, modern armoured vehicles, and ammunition for artillery.

02:37 PM GMT

Russia open to negotiations with Trump, Moscow says

Russia will be open to negotiations with the US after Donald Trump returns to the White House in January, Moscows ambassador to the UN has said.

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Gennady Gatilov however warned that Mr Trumps repeated pledge to end the war within 24 hours of taking office was unrealistic.

Trump promised to settle the Ukrainian crisis overnight, Gatilov said.Okay, let him try. But we are realistic people of course we understand that this will never happen.

But if he starts or suggests something to start the political process, its welcome.

Mr Gatilov added that any negotiations would need to be based on the realities on the ground, describing Ukraine as being on the back foot after Russias recent frontline advances.

02:15 PM GMT

Russia charges soldier for surrendering

A Russian soldier faces up to 20 years in jail for voluntarily surrendering to Ukrainian forces, Russian newspaper Kommersant has reported.

Roman Ivanishin surrendered to Ukrainian forces in July 2023 near the village of Stepnoye, the newspaper said, citing a recording of a speech made by Mr Ivanishin.

Mr Ivanishin, a former miner from Russias far east, was said to have spoken out about the war in Ukraine in the same video, claiming his comrades did not want to fight and were fleeing their positions.

He spent six months in Ukrainian captivity before being returned to Russia in a prisoner exchange in January.

Ivanishin will be tried by the Moscow military court in what understood to be the first case of its kind brought against a Russian soldier during the war in Ukraine.

He also faces a charge of desertion, which carries a potential 15 year jail sentence.

01:29 PM GMT

Ukrainian bonds surge as markets bet on war ending under Trump

The price of Ukrainian sovereign bonds has surged by 12% since a month ago, in a sign that investors are betting Donald Trump will push for a quick end to the war when he takes office in January.

The investors hope that Mr Trumps election will lead to a ceasefire and boost Kyivs ability to repay creditors.

The main part of the trade has really been based on the war ending, or at least the possibility of Trump pushing through the start of negotiations, Thys Louw, portfolio manager at Ninety One, which owns some Ukrainian bonds, told the Financial Times.

During his election campaign, Mr Trump pledged to bring the war between Russia and Ukraine to an end within a day of taking office.

Two senior Ukrainian officials said that Kyiv would prioritise securing Western security guarantees over retaking Russian-occupied territory in future talks with the incoming US administration, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

12:43 PM GMT

Russian bloggers share footage of drone strike on British Challenger 2 tank

Credit: Social media/Telegram

Footage of a British Challenger 2 tank in Ukraine service being hit by a Russian drone has been shared by pro-Russian bloggers.

Russian marines from the 155th Guards Naval Infantry brigade destroyed the vehicle during fighting in Russias Kursk region, according to prominent pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Rybar.

In a grainy video released by the Russian marines, first-person camera footage shows a drone about to hit the tank underneath its turret.

Rybar said the fact that the tank was operating in Kursk suggested that Ukraine intended to hold the line in the region at all costs.

It did not specify when the tank was reportedly destroyed.

A Challenger 2 was reported to have been destroyed by Russian troops in Kursk earlier this year.

Pictures broadcast by Russian state media at the time showed the tanks turret blown off, lying in a wooded area as a twisted heap of charred metal.

12:15 PM GMT

Russians setting up defences to bring fleet back to Crimea, Ukrainian partisans say

Ukrainian partisans have photographed new Russian sea defences in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, Crimea, which they say suggests the Kremlin intends to bring its fleet back to the occupied peninsula.

The group, called Atesh, said was it was seeing the construction of structures designed to defend against Kamikaze drones.

These measures suggest the invaders desire to bring their warships back, the group added.

One photograph shows a solid barrier across a harbour, which Atesh said is designed to prevent naval drones attacking ships docked in port.

Russia withdrew its last naval patrol ship from Crimea in July after a Ukrainian missile and drone campaign inflicted heavy damage on the Russian fleet.

11:52 AM GMT

Russian attack hits nursery in Sloviansk

Russian forces damaged a nursery and several other building during an attack on the town of Sloviansk on Thursday, local authorities said.

The city was attacked again. There were two explosions in the Lisnyi district, said Vadym Liakh, the head of Sloviansks city military administration.

High-rise buildings, administrative buildings of a pedagogical university, a kindergarten, a supermarket and private cars were damaged, he added.

Sloviansk was at the epicentre of fighting during the early stages of the 2014 war in the Donbas, when pro-Russian separatists captured the town and held it for three months. It has been in Ukrainian hands ever since.

11:25 AM GMT

Pictured: Ukrainian soldiers shell Russian positions near Chasiv Yar

Ukrainian artillerymen fire a howitzer towards Russian positions near Chasiv Yar, 13 Nov - 24TH MECHANIZED BRIGADE OF UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES/Shutterstock

Ukrainian soldiers load shells into an artillery gun near Chasiv Yar, Nov 13 - 24TH MECHANIZED BRIGADE OF UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES/Shutterstock

Ukrainian soldiers around an artillery gun at a position near Chasiv Yar, Nov 13 - 24TH MECHANIZED BRIGADE OF UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES/Shutterstock

11:16 AM GMT

Russian fish factory imports Indian labour due to wartime manpower shortages

A Russian fish canning factory in Kaliningrad has started importing labour from India to plug manpower shortages caused by the Kremlins war in Ukraine.

Sergey Lyutarevich, chairman of the For the Motherland fishing and canning company, said that foreign workers were now vital for keeping the economy of Russia Baltic Sea exclave running.

If there were no foreigners, then the Kaliningrad region would have a very difficult time with the economy and taxes, he was quoted by the media as saying.

Russian industry has complained that manpower shortages triggered by the Kremlins military recruitment drive are causing major production problems.

10:37 AM GMT

Watch: Russian soldiers riot because of lack of medical care

Up to 30 Russian soldiers in Novosibirsk rioted earlier this week because of a lack of medical care, Russian Telegram channels have reported.

The Astra Telegram channel said that soldiers from military unit 57849 smashed windows in their barracks and destroyed furniture.

At least 10 soldiers also escaped. Video showed one of the soldiers smashing windows and a noticeboard with a crowbar.

The soldiers told Astra that they had been injured fighting in Ukraine and didnt want to be sent back to the frontline without receiving proper medical care.

The unit commander treated us badly, said one of the soldiers.

Credit: Telegram/Astra

10:18 AM GMT

Russia says it has seized another village as its forces close in on Kurakhove

Russia has said it has captured another village in east Ukraine as its forces close in on the fortress town of Kurakhove.

The Kremlins defence ministry said troops had captured Voznesenka, which is around 9 miles north of Kurakhove.

Russian forces are advancing to the north, south and east of Kurakhove, enveloping the town in a pincer movement.

The Institute for the Study of war reported on Wednesday that Russian troops had carried out a series of mechanised assaults on the town earlier this week.

09:48 AM GMT

Pictured: Russian rocket minefield fires towards Ukrainian positions

A Russian Zemledeliye rapid minelaying system is pictured firing at an undisclosed location in Ukraine on Thursday. The Russian defence ministry said it was firing towards Ukrainian positions.

The system fires rockets that can scatter mines over a specified area within a 3-9 mile radius.

Russian media said the weapon can also fire conventional explosive rockets.

A Russian Zemledeliye rapid minelaying vehicle fires towards Ukrainian positions at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, Nov 14 - Russian Defence Ministry Press Service

09:23 AM GMT

Biden sending aid so Ukraine can fight on next year

The Biden administration is determined to use its final months to send every dollar at its disposal to Ukraine so it can keep fighting next year, amid fears that incoming US president Donald Trump will cut off support for Kyiv.

President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20, secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.

Donald Trump is due to be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on January 20.

During his election campaign, Mr Trump pledged to bring the war between Russia and Ukraine to an end within a day of taking office.

08:53 AM GMT

Russians attempt to take Kupiansk dressed in Ukrainian uniforms

Russian forces on Wednesday attempted to capture the city of Kupiansk dressed in Ukrainian uniforms, Kyivs military said.

The Russian invaders launched an assault to break through our defenses in the Kupiansk sector. Enemy assault groups attacked the positions of the Ukrainian defenders in four waves, the Ukrainian general staff said.

It added that some Russian troops were dressed in uniforms similar to those of the Ukrainian armed forces, which it said violates the laws and customs of war and constitutes a war crime.

Pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar said that two columns of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles entered Kupiansk, while infantry occupied houses on the citys eastern edges.

Kupiansk is located in the northeastern sector of the Ukrainian frontline. Russian forces seized the city shortly after the 2022 invasion. Ukraine recaptured it eight months later.

08:33 AM GMT

Ukrainian air force shoots down 21 of 59 overnight Russian drones

Ukraines air force has said it shot down 21 out of 59 attack drones fired at the country overnight.

The enemy launched 59 Shahed attack UAVs and unidentified drones from Russias Kursk Oblast on the night of 13-14 November (starting from 19:00 on 13 November). As of 08:30 on 14 November, 21 UAVs were confirmed downed, the force said in a statement.

Explosions were reported in the eastern city of Kharkiv, its mayor said.

Be careful as the enemy is launching guided bombs at the city and surrounding areas, mayor Ihor Terekhov added.

No injuries or damage has so far been reported.

08:17 AM GMT

Russia expected to advance 20 miles west by December

Russian forces are expected to advance 20 miles further into Ukraine by December, according to Kyiv-based security think tank Centre for Defence Strategies.

The front line will probably shift 30-35 km west of its current position [by December], the centre told the Financial Times.

Moscows troops are advancing at a faster rate than at any time since 2022, having captured a reported 463 sq miles of territory since August.

Fighting is particularly intense in the southern sector of the frontline, where Russia is inching towards the key logistic hub of Pokrovsk and rapidly enveloping the fortress town of Kurakhove.

08:07 AM GMT

Welcome to our live coverage

Welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. Well be keeping you up to date with events as they happen.

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RUTHERFORD COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN)  As more families move to Rutherford County, area schools are seeing an increased need for English as a Second Language (ESL) resources.

Each year, area schools make room for more than 1,000 new students. Data from Rutherford County Schools (RCS) and Murfreesboro City Schools (MCS) showed a rise in students migrating from other countries and students who speak a language other than English at home.

RCS Board of Education Vice Chair Frances Rosales told News 2 that meeting the needs of these students is a cause close to her heart as she moved to the U.S. from Puerto Rico as a child.

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Its not fair: Murfreesboro family grieves loss after deadly wrong-way crash

Education is the key to that success and I believe it and I experienced it, Rosales said.

According to numbers shared at the RCS Board of Education work session on September 30, of the 11,600 students added in the last decade, half have been ESL students. Between August 7 and Sept. 30, the district added more than 350 student newcomers, or students who had moved to the country within the past two months.

Murfreesboro City Schools added 259 students who had immigrated to the area between May 2023 and Oct. 2024, which presents a 36% increase.

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We are about education and teaching all of our kids that walk through the doors, but we want to serve them where theyre at and not minimize their education, Rosales added.

The need for more ESL teachers is being felt across the state, according to JC Bowman, Executive Director & CEO of Professional Educators of Tennessee. At the end of September, RCS identified the need to add 21 additional ESL positions on top of the 25 positions added last year.

Rosales would like to one day see general education teachers also be trained in ESL. In addition, she said that she thought the district could benefit from translators for parents and more federal funding for ESL resources.

[We need to make sure] teachers who have a  quite significant  number of students who speak a second language, that they are qualified and certified to have the tools that are needed to teach them, Rosales added. The way the model is set up today for kids that are receiving these services  they are still integrated in the classroom and they still have to be taught the same standards, just like everyone else.

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Student injured after bus crash on Briley Parkway in West Nashville

Bowman added that he thought the state should incentivize teachers interested in going into the ESL specialty by offering scholarships to pay for their schooling.

If were going to have a child that enrolls in public school, were going to do everything in our power to make sure that theyre fully educated so they can become productive citizens in our country, and thats the bottom line, Bowman said. But if we dont have the teachers to do it, thats going to be a problem in our state.

Rosales said one challenge she sees, in particular, is older ESL students moving to the district. Late high schoolers, for example, may not able to get as much help as students who started receiving ESL services earlier on.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
GREEN LAKE  Authorities say a viral social media video of a guy who looks like Ryan Borgwardt likely isnt him.

Green Lake County Chief Deputy Sheriff Matthew Vande Kolk confirmed law enforcement has seen the TikTok post, but doesnt believe the missing kayaker, who's suspected of staging his own disappearance, is the same person in the video.

Vande Kolk revealed the sheriffs office has been in contact with content creator Baylee Boomhower, who posted the video with the Borgwardt lookalike, but theyre not treating it as a high-priority lead.

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Were not actively pursuing this as a lead in this case, but we have seen the video and we have contact info for the people involved, Vande Kolk told the Northwestern Nov. 14.

We do not believe it is Ryan, he added.

TitTok video is latest development in story of missing Watertown man

Ryan Borgwardt

The TikTok video, which has more than 4 million views, is the latest development in a story that captured a national audience after the Green Lake County Sheriffs Office revealed Borgwardt is suspected to have staged his death and fled to Europe.

Married with three children, Borgwardt, 44, was initially thought to be missing Aug. 12 when he failed to return to his Watertown home after kayaking on Green Lake.

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Law enforcement seemingly uncovered Borgwardts plot to stage his disappearance after an investigation revealed Borgwardt had a second passport, replaced his laptops hard drive, inquired about moving funds to foreign banks and took out a life insurance policy worth $375,000 earlier in the year.

A digital forensic analysis of that laptop also showed Borgwardt had communication with a woman from Uzbekistan  a point that piqued Boomhowers suspicions, according to a WBAY Action 2 news report.

Timeline: Key events in the case of Ryan Borgwardt, Wisconsin man who may have faked his death

In the TikTok video, shot in June at Pacific Beach in California, Boomhower is holding an ask me for free advice sign before a guy, who resembles Borgwardt, rides up on a bicycle and asks her if he should go to Uzbekistan to meet a woman.

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The Borgwardt lookalike tells Boomhower he is married but his kids are out of the house now.

In the Action 2 interview, Boomhower said she found it odd that Borgwardt was also linked to Uzbekistan.

Several other content creators and users on social media tried to make a similar connection, prompting the Green Lake County Sheriffs Office to debunk the theory on Facebook.

In a post Nov. 13, the office said, we have verified this is not Ryan by contacting people who know Ryan.

No further information was made available as the sheriff's office is still working with the FBI, Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigations and Mid-States Organized Crime Information Center to "continue to unravel the digital information available."

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Local authorities started to believe Borgwardt wasnt missing on Green Lake following an extensive 54-day search that included aerial and underwater drones, towable submersible sonar, divers and three K-9 cadaver teams.

With the assistance of Mid-States Organized Crime Information Center, authorities quickly determined that Borgwardt's name was checked by Canadian law enforcement Aug. 13  one day after he was reported missing.

This led to the discovery that Borgwardt obtained a second passport after he reported the initial one missing. His family easily located the first passport.

The subsequent analysis of his laptop then led authorities to believe Borgwardt staged his disappearance.

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Anyone with information is asked to contact Green Lake County Sheriffs Office at 920-294-4134, ext. 1162.

Contact Justin Marville at jmarville@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Fond du Lac Reporter: Ryan Borgwardt TikTok video: It's not him, sheriff says
Tamila Tasheva, Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, has reported that a memorandum of cooperation was signed with Ryanair last year regarding future operations in Crimea.

Source: Tasheva during an event entitled Ukraine 2050. Dialogues about the Future, as reported by Ukrainian news outlet NV

Details: "The Ryanair CEOs stated that after Crimea is liberated and security is ensured, they are ready to be the first to enter Crimea and resume flights. This is a question of tourism potential, so that it's not just budget tourism in Crimea, as we remember it, but major chains coming in," she said.

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Tasheva stressed, however, that without infrastructure development and the restoration of security, it is very difficult to talk about investments that might come to the peninsula.

For reference: Ryanair, founded in Ireland, is Europe's largest low-cost airline.

Background:

Flights to one of Ukraine's airports  Lviv or Boryspil (Kyiv)  could restart by the end of January 2025.

Civil aviation flights over Ukraine were fully suspended on 24 February 2022.

In April 2023, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (Eurocontrol) estimated in its 2023-2029 forecast that the restrictions on flights in Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian and Moldovan airspace would remain in place.

Boryspil International Airport announced in October 2023 that it would be ready to handle flights within one month of the war ending.

Andrii Yermak, Head of the Ukrainian President's Office, said in November 2023 that one of Ukraine's civilian airports will most likely resume operations even before the war ends.

Supernova Airlines was granted permission to operate Lviv-Prague and Kyiv-Prague flights with a frequency of seven flights per week for a regular international air service.

Ukraines Ministry for Communities and Territories Development, along with the directors of international airports, presented a roadmap for reopening Ukraine's airspace during wartime.

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Nov. 13The Salvation Army's multipurpose room was quiet Wednesday morning.

A handful of people sat at long tables in the center of the room. On a nearby cot, a guest took a nap. Snacks, coffee and hot meals, as well as coloring supplies and puzzles, were on hand.

The space, which has served as a once-weekly resource and warming center for homeless Santa Feans for nearly a year, was open for business for the first time on a Wednesday.

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The local Salvation Army and a group of determined volunteers have organized a resource center on Thursdays since February, said Ismael Gutierrez, an officer and pastor at organization's downtown facility, 525 W. Alameda Street. They now plan to maintain a two-day-a-week schedule throughout the winter, with resources available from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays.

If staff and volunteer capacity permits, Gutierrez said, they'll add Tuesdays to the calendar and bump the schedule to three days a week.

The expanded hours and renewed focus on offering a warm place for unsheltered people to spend the day come after Santa Fe was struck last week with an early season snowstorm and freezing temperatures that dipped down into the teens. The storm left two people dead, likely because of exposure.

Another round of winter weather  albeit less severe  is forecast to arrive late Sunday or early Monday.

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Foul weather doesn't always arrive on the warming center's schedule.

When the blast of snow and bitter cold temperatures hit Santa Fe last week, organizers made an exception to their usual schedule  opening up the warming center Friday.

That was a good idea. Gutierrez said a few people arrived in bad shape.

One man in particular arrived unresponsive, the pastor recalled. Beneath his soaked clothing, the man's skin was blue and purple.

If the man had spent another hour outside, Gutierrez said, "unfortunately, it would have been the worst."

The organization plans to prepare for dangerously cold winter days and will open as needed when the city of Santa Fe calls for a Code Blue  meaning its Alternative Response Unit heads out to distribute warm gear to those who are unsheltered and offer rides to local shelters.

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"Anytime there's a severe storm, we're going to go ahead and open up," Gutierrez said.

The warming center began through a partnership with the S3 Santa Fe Housing Initiative Community Volunteers.

Originally, the S3 volunteers envisioned a five-day-per-week operation. But the program doesn't yet have the personnel or funds for such an expansion.

"We're not there yet," Gutierrez said.

Those who come in out of the cold at The Salvation Army's warming center can also eat lunch, launder clothing, take showers and receive additional services from roving providers, like representatives from La Familia Health and volunteer hairdressers.

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For Gutierrez, a California native, his first winter in Santa Fe  the 2022-23 season  was a tough, uniquely cold one.

"People are out in the cold, right? On cold days, it just seems kind of inhumane," he said. "So, it was one of the things that I've been wanting to do, is have a place during the winter for them to come in and just stay warm."

The goal became a reality when Gutierrez connected with members of the S3 Santa Fe Housing Initiative Community Volunteers.

S3 volunteer Linda Regnier spearheaded the push for a warming center in Santa Fe. "Someplace needed to exist for people in the winter here," she said.

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She did the research, visiting warming centers in Albuquerque and Montana, and slowly recruited her fellow S3 volunteers, including Rachel Thompson, to staff a would-be center.

The team of volunteers brought the issue to Gutierrez, Thompson recalled, and the pastor agreed to a four-week trial run, which started in February.

"It was really very successful, and we all really wanted to keep going," Thompson said. "So we began to do it every Thursday."

Though the Salvation Army has in-house showers, the Interfaith Community Shelter at Pete's Place began sending its mobile hygiene unit to the day shelter in March.

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Gutierrez estimated it will cost about $60,000 to get the program through the winter, and it's not yet fully funded.

The city of Santa Fe provided $20,000 to help support the initiative, city spokesperson Regina Ruiz wrote in an email.

The resource and warming center is just one of many programs the local Salvation Army provides  meaning the organization's staff have to focus on other things, too.

"We're just trying to figure out ways to partner with people, leverage the resources we have  but, you know, that takes time," Gutierrez said.

More affordable housing, another homeless shelter, additional communities of small Pallet home units  all these are key to alleviating homelessness in Santa Fe, Regnier said.

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In the meantime, she and her fellow volunteers will remain focused on their piece of the puzzle: expanding the resource and warming center's services to two days per week. Then three.

"All those things would be wonderful," Regnier said. "But I think for us, we just continue doing what we're doing, make it successful three days a week."
WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL)  The Salvation Army of Wichita Falls temporarily closed on Wednesday evening following water main breaks around the city.

According to Major Joe Burton, a water main in front of the facility has ruptured, cutting off water services for the Armys shelter. The facility has not experienced any flooding.

Increased water main breaks cause frustration across Wichita Falls

The Salvation Army is redirecting its clients to other area shelters. The Faith Mission, located at 1300 Travis Street, is taking male clients, while female clients should make their way to Faith Refuge, located at 710 East Hatton Road.

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There is no timeframe for when the needed repairs for the water main will be completed, allowing the Salvation Army to reopen.

Residents around Wichita Falls have been frustrated by outages amid another round of water main breaks caused by the recent heavy rains.

The city has said it is working to repair the water mains and restore services to those who have lost them.

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A man who allegedly turned up outside the Houses of Parliament wearing armour and carrying samurai swords wanted to speak with Boris Johnson, a court has heard.

Lewis Allington, 34, was arrested after the incident outside Parliament on Tuesday afternoon, which led to the Carriage Gates entrance being temporarily closed.

Mr Allington, from March, Cambridgeshire, appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday charged with two counts of possession of bladed articles.

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Malachy Pakenham, prosecuting, told the court the defendant travelled to London from Cambridgeshire, put on body armour, and attended Parliament with two samurai swords, asking to see Boris Johnson.

Allingtons defence lawyer, Norman Cho, told the district judge, Briony Clarke, that Allington had no intention of harming someone with weapons.

District judge Clarke sent the case to Southwark Crown Court for a plea and trial preparation hearing on Dec 12.

She told Allington, who was dressed in a red sweatshirt and green trousers, that he would be granted bail on condition that he remains at a Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Trust facility, following a recent mental health assessment in Hammersmith.

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Allington is not to enter London and the area within the M25, she added.

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SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI)  Regional planners are revisiting a proposed connection between San Diego International Airport and public transit through a new San Diego Metropolitan Transit System Trolley alignment.

The renewed interest in a potential Trolley link comes after the regions planning agency, the San Diego Association of Governments, went back into the modeling process for the long-discussed project in February over discussions with federal transit regulators.

These talks, SANDAG staff said at the time, made it clear the planning agency had to go back and collect new data on travel behavior reflecting post-COVID trends before heading into the environmental review process.

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Three San Diego County cities passed sales tax increases. Where is the $54 million going?

This meant rethinking all alternatives, including a Trolley line extension and enhanced bus service, despite an earlier multi-year study concluding that an automated aerial people mover was the best and most financially feasible option on the table.

During a meeting of the agencys Mobility Working Group on Thursday, staff said they were still looking at all of the options, but wanted to put more time into developing a Trolley concept that had not really been explored in that earlier study.

We know how to do light-rail service in this region, we dont necessarily know how to do [automated people mover] service, so we really wanted to make sure we were giving full analysis of that light-rail option, said Jennifer Williamson, SANDAG deputy director for planning.

Map showing the proposed alignment for a MTS Trolley line to San Diego International Airport. (SANDAG)

This new option, which would run from Santa Fe Depot and divert at Little Italy, would require extending the existing trench running up to Hawthorne Street down to Ash Street, addressing one of the primary issues raised with prior discussions of the Trolley connection  timing.

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Williamson explained to the Working Group that this new concept could bump up frequency from the previous estimate of 20 minutes to about 10, as the rail line would not have to run through intersections.

The trench extension would also have added benefits for all of the other lines that run through this corridor of the MTS Trolley system, increasing reliability and reducing congestion for drivers.

When youre not stopping at all of those intersections and getting all of that delay from stopping at lights and gates and those things, you really do save some time and it allows us to optimize that time and use it better for frequency, Williamson said.

This would similarly be able to more easily incorporate into existing transit infrastructure unlike the automated people mover, which needs to be completely separated as its electrically-charged lines would be unsafe to be placed at-grade.

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However, Williamson noted SANDAG engineers are still fleshing out the practicality of each of the options with the goal of starting to pare down the options to around five by the time they enter the environmental review process in fall of 2025.

In the meantime, the agency will be conducting a widespread survey and outreach effort, including at least two public meetings next summer.

This outreach effort is really important, because before we took it back in February we hadnt done an extensive public outreach, Williamson said. A lot of people knew that they wanted Trolley to the airport  thats kind of the way we hear it, its Why doesnt the Trolley connect to the airport? But we havent gone back and told them what it looks like.

As youve seen, this is a pretty comprehensive project thats going to have a lot of impacts to a lot of folks. Its going to bring benefits, but its also going to be hard to construct, she continued.

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Full rail closure scheduled between Oceanside and San Diego this weekend

Whatever option the agency comes to, Williamson added SANDAG hopes to implement enhanced bus service to the airport in the interim, coinciding with the opening of the first phase of the airports new Terminal 1 at the end of next year.

If funding is available, she explained this could look like added service to along the MTS Flyer 992 route, or creation of transit-only lanes through Harbor Drive down the line.

If it takes us 10 years to construct these projects, Williamson said, we really want to recognize the amazing new facility at the airport with all that additional capacity and so we want to provide a higher level of bus service to get folks there using transit.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
SOCORRO COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE)  When you hear their call, you know its fall. The Sandhill cranes have made their way to New Mexico. Sandhill cranes are synonymous with the changing of seasons in New Mexico. At Bosque del Apache, the best time to see the cranes is during sunrise or sunset because during the day theyre foraging for food.

Otter population making comeback in New Mexico

A wildlife expert said an abundance of sandhill cranes indicates a healthy environment. Sandhill cranes are important to New Mexico for many reasons. They provide a lot of wildlife viewing opportunities. We see in New Mexico or in the middle Rio Grande Valley, about 80% of the rocky mountain population of Sandhill cranes overwinters here and thats up to 20,000 cranes, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Shayla March.

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Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuges annual Sandhill Crane Festival kicks off on December 12.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos.
Nov. 14Discussion about a planned expansion of Sanford's city government campus was on the agenda at a city council work session Tuesday.

Paul Weeks, utilities and engineering director, said that design of the expansion, which is needed for more utilities staff, is 50% complete.

He noted that a $158,000 contract for the "construction manager at risk" position will be on the council's consent agenda next week. After the meeting, Weeks said the recommended contractor is Edifice LLC of Charlotte.

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City staff also discussed some temporary modifications to the current city building at 225 E. Weatherspoon St.

"We're getting tight. We're trying to squeeze every bit of space we can," City Manager Hal Hegwer said, noting the city has added about 100 new employees, presumably most of which are related to the expansion of its water and wastewater services.

Councilman Mark Akinosho asked why the modifications are needed when a new building is coming.

"These are minor modifications so we don't have to do major modifications of the building while we're building a new building," Hegwer said.

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Assistant City Manager Beth Kelly estimates that the 30,000-square-foot building, which will be added onto the current one, will cost $20 million. The plan for that building is only a concept design at this point and funding has not yet been approved by council. Construction is projected to begin next year and finish by the end of 2026.

The modifications to the current building mainly pertain to human resources, according to Councilwoman Linda Rhodes.

"It's mainly to help mitigate confusion for the public when they come into city hall," said Fedd Walker, public works director.

It will involve adding or changing some signs inside the building to direct people to the right area.

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Mayor Rebecca Wyhof Salmon said the proposed changes "are probably the first of many tweaks" over the next two or 2.5 years.

Councilman Byron Buckels suggested that representatives of Broadway, Lee County and Sanford meet twice yearly instead of once through the interlocal meeting. He said that the recent one was good and helps combat misinformation and a lack of understanding amongst the parties.

Cashion Fishing Rods

Jimmy Randolph, CEO of the Sanford Area Growth Alliance, requested that the city agree to be a vehicle for a $90,000 North Carolina Department of Commerce Building Reuse Grant for a local business that plans to relocate into the city from the county.

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He said that Cashion Fishing Rods, which is located on Route 501 north of the city in the Jerry Pedley Business Park, is on line for a grant to improve a building at 3030 Lee Ave.

The 10-year-old business has been very successful, according to Randolph.

The business plans to invest almost $700,000 in an expansion that would add 16 new jobs that pay almost $75,000 a year, Randolph said.

The grant would be used for improvements to the Lee Avenue building.

"As he makes investments, he supplies receipts and is reimbursed," Randolph said of the business owner.

The city would act as a go-between or conduit for the grant, Randolph said.

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"We've done this multiple times many years ago," Hegwer said, referring to these types of grants.

He noted that the new jobs have to be retained for six months or a clawback provision goes into effect. The jobs would be created over an 18-to-24-month period, he said.

"It's going to make the old building useful for the next few decades," Akinosho said.

Council will hold a public hearing on the grant on Nov. 19.

Electronic signs?

During an update from various committees, Councilman Charles Taylor noted that the Joint Planning Commission is proposing three new ordinances, including at least one related to allowing electronic billboards in the city or county. One of the areas they could be allowed is along the bypass, he said.

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Airport expansion

Hegwer noted that the Raleigh Executive Airport is planning to expand from 750 acres with another 550 acres.

"It's probably going to be a reliever airport at some point in the future," he said.

He noted that the North Carolina General Assembly earmarked $20 million for the expansion project, which would protect the airport from encroachment.

Odds and ends

Councilwoman Jean Dabbs said that a Friendsgiving Friday will be held at the Stevens Center from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 15. Bring a dessert to share if attending.

Hegwer noted that a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Sanford Agricultural Marketplace is set for 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 21 at 157 Charlotte Ave.

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Rhodes noted that the annual tree lighting is scheduled for Nov. 24 and the Christmas Parade is set for Monday night, Dec. 2.

Councilman Walter Ferguson noted that Walter D. Goodson, interim director of the Sanford Housing Authority, is moving back to Florida. A new director will start Dec. 2, according to Ferguson.
Nov. 13Local law enforcement leaders appeared at the Roundhouse on Wednesday to decry what they see as the primary driver of crime in the state's capital city: repeat offenders.

Santa Fe police Chief Paul Joye and Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza spoke before the legislative Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee, requesting policy changes related to pretrial detention and heavier investments in behavioral health treatment statewide.

Public safety promises to be a focus for lawmakers and the governor during the upcoming 2025 legislative session as New Mexico residents become increasingly frustrated with what they see as rising levels of homelessness and some types of crime.

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Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, irked with lawmakers at the end of the 2024 regular legislative session over a lack of progress on public safety bills she supported, said she was considering convening a special session. She called a two-day special session in July with an ambitious package of public safety proposals; it ended quickly with little action by the Legislature.

Joye and Mendoza spoke about a pretrial detention system and a court risk assessment that fail to ensure habitual criminal offenders remain incarcerated.

"This is no longer a law enforcement problem, this is a state problem," Joye told lawmakers. "This is a problem with the courts. ... Our biggest driver of crime is repeat offenders."

He and Mendoza named people in their jurisdictions who have been arrested and charged over and over in recent years.

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Hector Rascon, 46, was picked up by deputies Oct. 1 with 3,900 fentanyl pills, Mendoza alleged, and on Oct. 30 he was arrested by police on suspicion of having 15,000 pills in his possession.

Sean Gallegos, 34, has been arrested by Santa Fe police 54 times since 2009, Joye said, while Billy Ray Spencer, 31, has been arrested 11 times since 2019.

Mendoza said statistics on repeat offenders indicate "a lack of consequences or accountability for criminals in the criminal justice system."

Joye also raised concerns about the "Arnold Tool," an assessment that offers guidance on the level of pretrial supervision necessary for each suspect by weighing factors such as prior convictions and prior failures to appear in court.

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He said the tool, also called a public safety risk assessment, is "not working" for communities where it has been implemented, including Santa Fe. "Repeat offenders," he said, were "not considered dangerous enough to be held under the current guidelines."

Joye has publicly opined about the public safety threat of repeat offenders in response to two high-profile shootings that rocked Santa Fe over the summer: a carjacking and fatal shooting in the parking lot of a busy Zafarano Drive shopping center and a near-fatal shooting at a Sonic Drive-in restaurant on Cerrillos Road.

Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, noted there was public outcry and demands for action from lawmakers when the suspect in the Zafarano shooting, Zachary Babitz, was accused of a violent crime spree across the state. Babitz had been released from prison just months before the incident in Santa Fe.

The Arnold Tool has come under scrutiny when people are released from jail after being charged with violent crimes, especially those involving firearms.

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Officials at the state Administrative Office of the Courts pushed back against criticism of the risk assessment, however, arguing the tool does not make a recommendation on whether someone is released or held in jail after an arrest. Such a decision is made by a judge in response to a prosecutor's request for a hearing to determine if a suspect accused of a violent crime should be jailed until their trial.

Wirth, who sits on the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee, questioned whether the public safety issues Joye and Mendoza described could be attributed to problems with the state's pretrial detention law.

He asked them both to report back with details on five repeat offender-related cases. He said they were focusing on pretrial detention as a core problem, while the issue could lie within another aspect of the criminal justice system.

Joye also called for state funding for mental health treatment treatment facilities, where he said many who are homeless and have regular interactions with police would be "better served" than behind bars.

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"We really need to work on building a robust behavioral health system," Joye said. "It does directly impact the work we do on our end."

For many of the people involved in situations that lead to a police response, Joye said, "the behavior they're exhibiting appears criminal, but the underlying factor is not."

He said a crisis of behavioral health seen by officers is "getting worse, not better."

Wirth said legislators would be working on a public safety package of bills during the coming session that would include a significant amount of recurring funding for behavioral health treatment as well as money for building facilities.

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He said he would consider increasing penalties for people convicted of dealing fentanyl, "but that's different from those who are addicted to fentanyl."

"We're not going to incarcerate our way out of the fentanyl crisis for those who are addicted," Wirth said. "We're not going to be able to lock those folks up and think that will solve the problem."
The satirical news publication The Onion was named the winning bidder for Alex Jones' Infowars at a bankruptcy auction Thursday, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.

The purchase would turn over Jones company, which for decades has peddled in conspiracy and misinformation, to a humor website that plans to relaunch the Infowars platform in January as a parody. But the judge in Jones bankruptcy case said Thursday that he had concerns about how the auction was conducted and ordered a hearing for next week after complaints by lawyers for Jones and a company affiliated with Jones that put in a $3.5 million bid.

Within hours of the announcement about The Onion's winning bid, Infowars website was down and Jones was broadcasting from what he said was a new studio location. Up for sale were Infowars website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; video archive; and other assets.

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The dissolution of Alex Jones assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for, Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.

The satirical outlet  which carries the banner of Americas Finest News Source on its masthead  was founded in the 1980s and for decades has skewered politics and pop culture, including making Jones a frequent target of mocking articles. Mass shootings in the U.S., such as the Sandy Hook attack, are often followed by The Onion publishing slightly updated versions of one of its most well-known recurring pieces: "'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.

On his live broadcast, Jones was angry and defiant, calling the sale a total attack on free speech. He later announced his show was being shut down. Jones then resumed his broadcast from a new studio nearby and carried it live on his accounts on X.

At a court hearing Thursday afternoon in Houston, the trustee who oversaw the auction, Christopher Murray, acknowledged that The Onion did not have the highest bid but said it was a better deal overall because some of the Sandy Hook families agreed to forgo a portion of the sale proceeds to pay Jones' other creditors. First United American Companies, a business affiliated with one of Jones product-selling websites, submitted the only other bid. The trustee said he could not put a dollar amount on The Onions bid.

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Walter Cicack, an attorney for First United American Companies, told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez that Murray changed the auction process only days before, deciding not to hold a round Wednesday where parties could outbid each other. Sealed bids were submitted last week, and the trustee chose only from those, Cicack said.

Murray said he followed the judge's auction rules laid out in a September order that made the overbidding round optional. But Lopez said he was surprised such a round of bidding was not held and that he had concerns about transparency.

Were all going to an evidentiary hearing and Im going to figure out exactly what happened, he said. No one should feel comfortable with the results of this auction.

An exact date of next weeks hearing was not immediately set.

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After the hearing, Jones said on his show that he thought the auction was unfairly rigged and expressed optimism that the judge would nullify the sale. He has repeatedly told his listeners that if his supporters won the bidding, he could stay on the Infowars platforms but that he had set up a new studio, websites and social media accounts in case they were needed.

This was a auction that didnt happen, with a bid that was lower, with money that wasnt real," he said.

Ben Collins, CEO of The Onions parent company, Global Tetrahedron, told The Associated Press in a video interview earlier Thursday that it planned to relaunch the Infowars website in January with satire aimed at conspiracy theorists and right-wing personalities, as well as educational information about gun violence prevention from the group Everytown for Gun Safety. Collins would not disclose the bid amount.

We thought it would be a very funny joke if we bought this thing, probably one of the better jokes weve ever told, Collins said. The (Sandy Hook) families decided they would effectively join our bid, back our bid, to try to get us over the finish line. Because by the end of the day, it was us or Alex Jones, who could either continue this website unabated, basically unpunished, for what hes done to these families over the years, or we could make a dumb, stupid website, and we decided to do the second thing.

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Jones did not lose his personal X account, which has more than 3 million followers, in the auction. But the bankruptcy judge is deciding whether his personal accounts can be sold off at the trustees request.

Sandy Hook families sued Jones and his company for repeatedly saying on his show that the shooting that killed 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control. Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones conspiracies and threats by his followers. Jones has since acknowledged the shooting was 100% real.

The Onion, based in Chicago, bills itself as the worlds leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events. Recent headlines have included, Trump Boys Have Slap Fight Over Who Gets To Run Foreign Policy Meetings, Oklahoma Law Requires Ten Commandments To Be Displayed In Every Womb and Man Forgetting Difference Between Meteoroid, Meteorite Struggles To Describe What Just Killed His Dog.

___

Associated Press writer Ken Miller contributed from Oklahoma City.
The Onion, a satirical news website, appeared to have won a bankruptcy auction to buy Alex Jones Infowars, potentially seizing control of the media platform that Jones used to peddle a menagerie of conspiracy theories, including falsehoods about victims of the Sandy Hook mass shooting.

Jones announced the news Thursday morning in a frantic video posted on X, saying that he just got word that Infowars would be shuttered following the sale. The Onion subsequently published a statement from its parent companys fictitious CEO, Bryce Tetraeder, calling Infowars an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses.

We thought it would be a very funny joke if we bought this thing, probably one of the better jokes weve ever told, Ben Collins, the real CEO of The Onions parent company (and former NBC News reporter), told The Associated Press.

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The Onion intends to relaunch Infowars as a website that will parody figures like Jones, The New York Times reported. The Onion declined to reveal how much it paid for Infowars to the Times.

The Onions purchase of Infowars was supported by families of the Sandy Hook victims, whom Jones owes nearly $1.5 billion in defamation judgments after tormenting them for years. Jones initially filed for bankruptcy protection to avoid paying the families, but he later agreed to liquidate his assets to help pay the sum. In September, a bankruptcy judge ruled that Infowars and its intellectual property would go up for auction, with proceeds going to the families.

Christopher Mattei, an attorney for a group of the victims families in Connecticut, said in a statement about The Onions winning bid on Thursday:

Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones ability to spread lies, pain and fear at scale. By divesting Jones of Infowars assets, the families and the team at The Onion have done a public service and will meaningfully hinder Jones ability to do more harm.

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Although the sale was initially announced on Thursday morning, First United American Companies (FUAC), a backup bidder associated with one of Jones online supplement stores, was granted a court-ordered meeting later that day to address what the group called apparent defects in the sale process.

FUACs lawyers said the company was in the dark about the winning bid, which included a credit bid from the Sandy Hook families. The judge said late Thursday that there would be another hearing next week to review the process.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
Sikorsky and Boeings medium-lift, high-speed, compound-coaxial helicopter that aimed to replace large numbers of Black Hawks has been donated to a museum. The SB>1 Defiants final resting place is at the Army Aviation Museum at Fort Novosel in Alabama.

Sikorsky tells The War Zone in a statement that Upon completion of SB>1 DEFIANTs contractual commitments to the Army on the FLRAA [Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft] program, the Sikorsky-Boeing team offered to donate the aircraft to the Army Aviation Museum at Fort Novosel where it is now scheduled to be proudly displayed alongside many other historical aircraft.

Video of the SB>1 being rolled onto the museum floor was posted last week:

Post Unavailable

The SB>1 Defiant lost the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft tender to a design based on Bells V-280 Valor next-generation tiltrotor nearly two years ago. It was a very high-stakes competition, our analysis of the results of which you can read here. A subsequent protest by the Sikorsky-Boeing team over the selection of the V-280 didnt change the outcome.

After the loss, it wasnt exactly clear what would come of the SB>1 demonstrator or the design overall, but at this point it is clear that the airframe will not continue to be used in any testing and will be put on permanent display.

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Thats not to say that the X2 technology that Sikorsky has developed over two decades will be put on the shelf, even though another blow to it came when the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program, which aimed to supply the Army with a high-speed new-generation scout and attack helicopter, was cancelled earlier this year. Sikorskys promising RaiderX, which was based on the companys S-97 Raider demonstrator, was seen by some as a potential frontrunner for that tender. The Raider used X2 technology, with the Defiant being an enlarged manifestation of the general concept.

Still, the S-97 continues on and there is interest in it for a number of roles internationally, as well as continued development domestically. Sikorsky laid out the continuing efforts related to its X2 technology to us as follows:

We are seeing a number of opportunities across the globe for X2 aircraft, which includes interest in Korea and Europe. With the NATO Next Generation Rotorcraft Capability (NGRC) Program, our X2 aircraft will bring to bear the strengths of Lockheed Martin along with input from our European Industry Group, such as digital thread, advanced manufacturing, sustainment, training, and weapon and mission system development, to provide NATO with an integrated rotorcraft system that combines speed, range, maneuverability, survivability and operational flexibility.

Also, we continue to reduce risk for Army Aviation through the maturation of technologies we developed for U.S. Army Future Vertical Lift programs, which are also applicable to the next-generation modernized Black Hawk  such as MOSA, Launched Effects and Autonomy. For example, we continue to partner with the government to provide data benefitting current and future Army Aviation development efforts. After full integration of the Armys ITE [Improved Turbine Engine] onto RAIDER X, we successfully lit off the engine this past April. This represents the first on wing operation of the ITE and the 4th evolution of X2 rotorcraft.

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U.S. Army funded X2 engineering risk reduction flights on S-97 RAIDER are scheduled through mid-2025.

A Raider variant depicted in the troop transport/multi-role configuration. Image courtesy Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company

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The Raiders speed  upwards of 220 knots  as well as its agility and hot and high performance, all packed in a relatively small footprint, really provide an unmatched capability. It has been flying for nearly a decade with a lot of risk reduction already baked into the system. It can carry up to six troops and two pilots, or weapons that pop out from its cabin area. So there are a lot of applications and flexibility for the type. It will be interesting to see if it can find a buyer. The optionally manned capability could be even more attractive and this is an area where Sikorsky is making major strides. There was also some talk about the S-97 being potentially adopted by U.S. Army Special Operations Command, possibly to replace at least part of the MH-6/AH-6 Little Bird fleet, but that chatter seems to have died down and discussions of what will replace the Little Birds have changed significantly in recent months.

Regardless, it is sad to see Defiant go. It was an impressive-looking machine. At least people will be able to check it out close-up for years to come at its new home at Fort Novosel.

Contact the author: Tyler@twz.com
Spartanburg area high school students learned Thursday, Nov. 14, that Meeting Street Scholarship Fund, a private scholarship program, was expanding to Spartanburg County offering qualifying students the opportunity for a free college education. (Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)

SPARTANBURG  James F. Byrnes High School senior Mariela Osorio received her acceptance letter from Anderson University to pursue her dreams of becoming an elementary school teacher.

Then it came time for her and her parents to start thinking about how they were going to pay for it.

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Its sinking in more now, Osorio said. Its progressing through the year and Im stressed out about money. You apply to a bunch of scholarships but you dont know if youll get them. So you dont know if you want to commit yet because of how much money it is.

Osorios mother isnt working, leaving the family to solely rely on her fathers income from his job at a car parts manufacturing plant. And Osorio still has a 14-year-old sister coming through school behind her.

But a $40 million donation to a privately-funded scholarship program means Osorio and other Spartanburg County students like her no longer need to worry.

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High-achieving students from lower-income households in the Upstate county will be able to go to college for free, the Meeting Street Scholarship announced Thursday to applause from an auditorium full of area politicians and seniors from the countys nine public high schools.

The fund started by Sherman Financial founder Ben Navarro of Charleston is now bridging financial gaps to cover the cost of college for eligible students. Donations pick up the tab for tuition, housing, food or other expenses not covered by other scholarships, enabling poor students to graduate from college  many the first in their family  debt free, depending on which college they choose.

How do students qualify?

Students must meet five criteria:

 Live in one of the covered counties, which grew to 13 with the announcement.

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 Graduate from a public school.

 Receive a state lottery-backed LIFE Scholarship or the more difficult Palmetto Fellows Scholarship. A LIFE Scholarship requires students to meet two of the following three: Rank in the top 30 percent of their class, graduate with a grade-point average of at least 3.0 and/or score 1100 or more on the SAT or the equivalent on the ACT college entry exam.

 Receive a federal Pell Grant, which means theyre poor.

 Enroll full-time in any of 17 colleges in South Carolina where at least 50 percent of their students receive a diploma  an indicator of students ability to succeed.

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The opportunity to be exposed to a good or great education ought not be adversely impacted by one zip code or place in life, said Bill Barnet, former mayor of Spartanburg.

The fund will pay each student up to $40,000 over four years. Applications open Jan. 6, 2025.

It gives them a chance

Businessman and former Republican state Rep. George Dean Johnson, Jr., along with his wife, Susu Johnson, made the donation that will cover costs for an estimated 200 Spartanburg County students annually over the next five years. The couple also was instrumental in bringing a branch of Meeting Street Schools, the Navarro-founded public charter school system, to Spartanburg in 2012.

My expectations were here, coming up from the floor. They should have been up here, Johnson said raising his hand over his head to signify the achievement of Meeting Street students. I got convinced that the poorest child with not a traditional family can achieve great things given the opportunity.

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We think if you provide this scholarship to proven scholars, it gives them a chance, Johnson added.

Colleges students can pick from to get a Meeting Street scholarship:

Anderson University

Bob Jones University

Claflin University

Clemson University

College of Charleston

Columbia College

Columbia International University

Converse University

Furman University

Newberry College

North Greenville University

Presbyterian College

Southern Wesleyan University

The Citadel

The University of South Carolina (Columbia campus)

Wofford College

Winthrop University

Source: Meeting Street Scholarship Fund

He said, if the scholarship is well received, he and his wife would consider continuing to fund it beyond the next five years.

Spartanburg area high school students learned Thursday, Nov. 14, that Meeting Street Scholarship Fund, a private scholarship program, was expanding to Spartanburg County offering qualifying students the opportunity for a free college education. (Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)

The promise of a debt free education is comforting to students such as Brianna Lowery, also a Byrnes High School senior, who hopes to attend the University of South Carolina and become a pediatric nurse. Her grandparents have been saving money for her education and said they would help pay for college with the expectation that she gets good grades and applies for scholarships.

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I think that they will think this is a gift from God, Lowery said. This is probably something that theyve been praying about.

How it started

The Navarro family started the fund in 2020 in Charleston County and has paid out $36.4 million in scholarships for 954 students so far. About 90 percent of students have kept their grades up and retained their scholarships for more than one year.

In July 2023, the fund announced efforts to find enough donors to eventually expand to all of South Carolinas 46 counties.

The expansion started with a donation from the foundation of Darla Moore, a Lake City native. Support from the former investment firm president-turned-philanthropist covered eight counties in the Pee Dee: Darlington, Dillon, Florence, Marion, Marlboro, Lee, Clarendon and Williamsburg.

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Retired businessman Dave Proctor, who was a principal at the global trading firm Jane Street, also donated to fund scholarships for students in Jasper County. Proctor, of New York, owns a business in Okatie, a community in Jasper County.

Anonymous donors allowed the program to expand to Barnwell County in 2022, aiding students such as Justin Joyner, now a college sophomore studying art at Converse College.

My life growing up in a small, rural county meant that opportunities were scarce, but there was always an expectation that I would excel academically, Joyner told the high school students. My parents prioritized school and insisted that I work hard to achieve my full potential.

At Converse, Joyner has held a 3.8 grade point average, enrolled in the honors program and earned awards for his artwork.

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Had I graduated from high school just a year earlier, I would not have been eligible for this life-changing opportunity, he said.

In November 2023, Jessica and Todd Aaron of Charleston made a donation to cover adjacent Allendale County.

Now, Spartanburg County makes 13.

Editors Note: This article has been changed to correctly attribute a quote to Bill Barnet, former mayor of Spartanburg.
For the third straight day, classes for all three North Shore district students will be canceled as the teachers union and city officials failed to reach a contract agreement.

District officials in all three towns sent an email home to parents around 6 p.m. that schools across the Gloucester, Marblehead, and Beverly districts will be closed on Thursday, November 14. After-school activities will also be canceled.

All canceled class days will be made up at the end of the school year, similar to that of a snow day.

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Please know that our mediation efforts are ongoing and are starting early every morning and continuing late into the night, Superintendent Lummis said. The School Committee is working tirelessly with the state mediator and the union to resolve this contract dispute with urgency so children can return to school as quickly as possible.

Not only are students missing school, but theyre also missing out on extracurricular activities, so now some parents are stepping in with legal action.

Its honestly its devastating like its heartbreaking, its been our lives for the past like 6, 7 months and that just is all gone if thats just wiped out like that, said Cole Wales, a senior who plays football at Marblehead High.

These high school seniors are worried about missing their big playoff game Friday, since its an opportunity theyll never have again.

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We worked hard to get to this point and that its being taken away from us by an unconscionable decision that we honestly have like no control over, so were just trying to control what we can control, said Crew Monaco, who plays football at Marblehead High.

Its not just football. Students could be missing big events from a performing art showcase this weekend to a track meet.

Theyre milestone events and we either participate as Marblehead athletes and performers or were not allowed to show up, forbidden to show up, said Jon Wales, a father whose two sons play football at the high school.

Wales not only spoke to the select board Wednesday, but also brought this issue to court to see if they could do anything to allow students to play.

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Were hoping that Judge Howe issues an emergency injunction that basically overturns this essentially arbitrary and capricious ruling by our superintendent and allows our kids to play, but the clock is ticking, said Wales.

The Gloucester Teachers Association (GTA) and Beverly Teachers Association (BTA) were fined $50,000, and The Gloucester Association of Educational Paraprofessionals (GAEP) was fined $15,000 after missing the 6 p.m. deadline to return to work, in accordance with an Essex Superior Court judges ruling.

Both the Gloucester Teachers Union and Beverly Teachers Union will be fined an additional $10,000 for every day the strike continues and the Gloucester Paraprofessionals Union will be fined an additional $5,000 for each day.

All three parties are pushing for better pay and other benefits.

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This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools leaders held a dedication ceremony Wednesday morning at Bruns Avenue Elementary School, which has a deep history in the Civil Rights Movement.

ALSO READ: CMS opens school to relieve overcrowding in south Charlotte

In 2017, voters approved a bond to build the $58 million, three-story school next to the existing one.

The demolished Bruns Avenue Elementary School sits next to its new building.

Channel 9s Jonathan Lowe spoke with Principal Dr. Nathan Currie earlier this week before demolition started on the original Bruns building built in 1969.

Were going to move into a bigger facility, a more modern facility for our kids coming up, Currie said.

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In 1964, Bruns Avenue Elementary was Seversville Elementary and was one of the few racially integrated schools in the city.

Darius Swann and his son, James Swann came here to enroll and were denied transportation that became litigation for the district as well as for the community, Currie said.

The NAACP sued the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education on behalf of the Swann family.

And in 1971, it was ruled that Charlotte-Mecklenburg (Schools) did do some integration with buses, so this is a historical moment, Currie said.

It was a landmark case for racial integration, and it started at Bruns.

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Its a bittersweet moment, Currie said. Im thinking about all the students that came through these hallways.

CMS superintendent Dr. Crystal Hill said the new school will help generations of children succeed.

Students just really have a clear pathway to just to do whatever they want and were all here cheering them on doing whatever we can to make sure that theyre successful, Hill said. And not just that theyre successful, but for generations to come over and over and over again.

The facility is designed to enhance learning features and features modern classrooms and upgraded technology for all students.

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Three of the projects funded from the 2017 bond have opened to students since August.

Its just so amazing, Hill said.

Facilities, including Bruns, are a direct message from the community to students, she said.

It just says to the students, Look, we believe in you. We believe that you need beautiful facilities, Hill said.

VIDEO: Parents share thoughts on new schools at CMS community sessions
POTTSVILLE  The old slaughterhouse and the former Martin Shirt Factory in Shenandoah are slated for demolition soon.

Schuylkill County commissioners on Wednesday approved cooperation agreements with Shenandoah, Girardville and Coaldale and contracts with other companies for demolition projects.

A combination of state and Community Development Block Grant funds will be used, said Ron Zimmerman, county grants manager.

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DAVID MCKEOWN/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR

The former Martin Shirt Factory building in Shenandoah is finally going to be razed.

Brdaric Excavating Inc. was awarded a $169,000 for demolition of the old slaughterhouse at 0 South White St.; and the former Martin Shirt factory at 0 E. Poplar St in Shenandoah.

Shenandoah borough recently purchased the properties, which were both vacant for more than 20 years, according to officials.

In other business, AMC Enterprises was awarded the $24,222 contract for the demolition of the houses at 138 and 140 Sixth streets, Coaldale.

Also, Trendsetters Investments LLC was awarded a $38,000contract for a project at 129 W. Main St. Girardville.

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Meanwhile, a bridge in Tremont could be replaced soon. Commissioners on Wednesday approved advertising for the replacement of county bridge 24, on Line Street which goes over Good Spring Creek.

This is the second time for the request for bids. In June, Commissioners rejected the $2.4 million sole bid for the project.

DAVID MCKEOWN/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR

Ivy grows on the former Martin Shirt Factory in Shenandoah, which is slated for demolition, Schuylkill County Commissioners decided Wednesday.

Lisa Mahall, county engineer, said if the project is awarded construction could start next year.

Money from a state Department of Community and Economic Development Multimodal Transportation Fund grant and county liquid fuels funds will pay for the work.

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The bridge, which was built in 1937 and is weight restricted, is a two-span bridge measuring 68 feet long and 24 feet wide. Weight restrictions were added in 2015, according to Mahall in an email.

Flooding in 2018 resulted in debris accumulating at the pier and damaging a sidewalk, she said.

The new bridge will be a single-span structure, eliminating the chance for debris accumulating at the pier.
Scientists say they have found the world's largest coral near the Pacific's Solomon Islands, announcing Thursday a major discovery "pulsing with life and color." The coral is so immense that researchers sailing the crystal waters of the Solomon archipelago initially thought they'd stumbled across a hulking shipwreck.



"Just when we think there is nothing left to discover on planet Earth, we find a massive coral made of nearly one billion little polyps, pulsing with life and color," marine ecologist Enric Sala said.



The standalone structure, formed from a "complex network" of tiny coral polyps, has likely been growing for 300 years or more, the researchers said.

A diver from National Geographic Pristine Seas measures the world's largest coral colony, in the Solomon Islands. / Credit: Manu San Felix/National Geographic Pristine Seas

At about 111 feet wide and 104 feet long, the team said the "mega coral" was three times bigger than the previous record holder  a coral dubbed "Big Momma" in American Samoa. The massive coral is not a coral reef, structures that can be far larger but are comprised of many distinct coral colonies, they explained.



"While Big Momma looked like a huge scoop of ice cream plopped down on the reef, this newly discovered coral is as if the ice cream started to melt, spreading forever along the seafloor," said lead scientist Molly Timmers.



It's longer than a blue whale and thought to be "so colossal" that it could be seen from space.

A diver from National Geographic Pristine Seas measures the world's largest coral colony, in the Solomon Islands. / Credit: ManuSan Felix/National Geographic Pristine Seas

The coral was discovered at the southeastern tip of the Solomon Islands, in an area known as the Three Sisters. It was spotted by a National Geographic team embarking on a scientific expedition in the region.



Hotter and more acidic oceans have drained the life from corals in many of the region's tropical waters, a process called bleaching, including Australia's famed Great Barrier Reef. But this latest discovery offered a small glimmer of hope, the research team said.

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"While the nearby shallow reefs were degraded due to warmer seas, witnessing this large healthy coral oasis in slightly deeper waters is a beacon of hope," said coral scientist Eric Brown.



The lush rainforests and pristine waters of the Solomon Islands have long been celebrated for their ecological diversity. Wildlife observations made in the area in the 1920s helped prove a key part of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.



"There is so much to learn about the richness of marine life and the ocean ecosystem, but this finding opens doors of knowledge," said top Solomon Islands official Collin Beck. "More scientific research is needed to better understand our rich biodiversity and our planet."

An aerial view of the world's largest coral colony, seen right behind the boat, in the Solomon Islands. / Credit: Steve Spence/National Geographic Pristine Seas

The discovery was announced as representatives from around the world meet in Baku, Azerbaijan for the COP29 United Nations summit on climate change.

The Solomon Islands national climate minister, Trevor Manemahaga, told CBS News' partner network BBC News at the summit that his nation was proud to be the home of the massive, newly discovered coral.

"We want the world to know, that this is a special place, and it needs to be protected," he told the BBC. "We rely mostly on marine resources for economic survival, so coral is very, very important."

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Small, low-lying island nations such as the Solomons are among the most vulnerable to the increasing effects of climate change and sea-level rise.

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Its more than 100 feet long, at least 300 years old and visible from space. The worlds largest coral has just been discovered in the southwest Pacific Ocean, scientists announced Wednesday.

The mega coral was spotted during a scientific expedition launched by the National Geographic Pristine Seas program in October to study ocean health in the Solomon Islands.

Its three times larger than the previous record-breaker in American Samoa, according to Pristine Seas, and longer than a blue whale, the planets biggest animal.

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Unlike a reef, which consists of many colonies, this coral is a single specimen that has grown continuously for centuries.

Just when we think there is nothing left to discover on planet Earth, we find a massive coral made of nearly 1 billion little polyps, pulsing with life, said Enric Sala, National Geographic explorer in residence and founder of Pristine Seas.

The coral looks like a huge, undulating brown rock from above. Some on the expedition even initially mistook it for a shipwreck.

Marine biologist and underwater cinematographer Manu San Felix dived down to look. In the first second I realized that I was looking at something unique, he said. Its close to the size of a cathedral.

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Scientists later checked satellite images and found the coral is so colossal, it was possible to see it from space.

An aerial view of the worlds largest coral, under the stern of a research boat, discovered in the Solomon Islands last month. - Steve Spence/National Geographic Pristine Seas

A diver swims alongside the mega coral, which is made up of nearly 1 billion polyps. - Manu San Felix, National Geographic Pristine Seas

Up close, the coral morphs into something spectacular, with its complex network of polyps  tiny individual creatures that have grown over centuries to form this enormous coral  and splashes of vivid purples, yellows, blues and reds breaking up its brown hue.

The coral shelters a host of marine life including fish, crabs and shrimp. Its also like a living encyclopedia, said San Feliz, containing information about ocean conditions going back hundreds of years.

Its sheer size caused some issues as the scientists measuring tapes were not long enough. They had to work in teams of two, stretching out the tape between them. When it ended, one person would stay in that spot while the other reeled up the tape, before swimming to them to continue the process.

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The discovery is rare good news in an ocean of bad.

Corals are vital for the marine creatures that rely on them for food and shelter, but also for humans. They are an indirect food source for an estimated 1 billion people, by helping support fisheries, and provide a buffer against storms and sea level rise.

For the scientists, its a career highlight. Making a discovery of this significance is the ultimate dream, said Paul Rose, a National Geographic Pristine Seas expedition leader.

For the Solomon Islands, the mega coral could attract researchers, tourists and boost conservation funding, said Dennis Marita, the countrys director of culture at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. This is something huge for our community, he said.

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But, there is also cause for alarm, Pristine Seas founder Sala said. Despite its remote location, this coral is not safe from global warming and other human threats.

Corals are at risk from a range of local factors, including overfishing, which can damage and disrupt the delicate balance of their ecosystems, industrial pollution and sewage.

The biggest threat, however, is a global one: the fossil-fuel driven climate crisis.

Last month, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed the global mass bleaching of coral reefs was the most extensive on record due to unprecedented ocean temperatures.

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More than 40% of warm-water reef-building coral species now face extinction, primarily because of climate change, according to the International Union for Conservation of Natures Red List of Threatened Species published Wednesday.

The ongoing survival of corals is in jeopardy, said Derek Manzello, coordinator of NOAAs Coral Reef Watch.

Yet while the mega coral remains vulnerable, he believes its health and longevity do provide a glimmer of hope. The survival of this coral, which is hundreds of years old, illustrates that all is not lost for coral reefs, Manzello told CNN. This is a really cool finding to hear about!, he added.

His sentiments were echoed by Emily Darling, director of coral reefs at the Wildlife Conservation Society, who called the discovery a bright spot for coral reef survival.

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This shows that there are still environmental conditions where corals can survive and thrive, even potentially through the accelerating impacts of climate change, she told CNN.

Scientists have found evidence that the Coral Triangle  an area of tropical ocean that includes the Solomon Islands, as well as parts of countries like Indonesia and the Philippines  may be more resilient to coral bleaching, Darling added.

The discovery was announced as global leaders gather in Baku, Azerbaijan, for COP29, the UN-backed climate summit, where the focus this year is on mobilizing funding to help poorer countries tackle and adapt to climate change.

Finding this new coral, which is already at risk, is yet one more strong reminder of the need for the rich counties to spend many more resources in reducing our carbon emissions, Sala said.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Just one enzyme manages the refilling of the cellular soda machine that replicates our genes.

PLK-1 initiates a process in two protein groups, leading to creation of new CENP-A proteins.

These CENP-A proteins ensure that divided genetic information is kept intact during mitosis.

Biologists in Europe and the U.S. have pinpointed a secret that powers the human bodys gene replicating ability. These areas, called centromeres, are responsible for billions and billions of perfect DNA matches made over the course of our lifetimes, ensuring that cells can divide successfully. And when they dontthats when conditions like cancer take hold. The centromere has a lot resting on its microcellular shoulders.

For decades, scientists have wondered what exactly is holding these complex reactions together.... literally. Now, a team of scientistsincluding corresponding author A. Arockia Jeyaprakash (also sometimes referred to as Jeyaprakash Arulanandam online) and more than a dozen othershas found that the enzyme PLK-1 is responsible for the centromeres incredibly high success rate in replicating our genes from cell to cell. The results of their study appear now in the peer-reviewed journal Science.

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Scientists have known that PLK-1 (short for polo-like kinase 1) is produced by a specific genetic code of its own. Study of it dates back at least 30 years, and its role in the cell is to help process the major cellular energy sources ATP and ADP. But it was the genes role in cancer that first got scientists attention, because PLK-1as a signature of its geneis found in tumors of cancers of the lung, colon, stomach, and esophagus, among others.

Cancer works by leveraging the bodys existing efficient processes into creating new, unrelated cells that are harmful. Its like taking the gas pump delivering fuel into your cars tank and pointing it toward a forest fire. The fuel pump is still doing its designated job, and it has no sense of the difference in outcomes, but the results will be disastrous nontheless. The fact that PLK-1 endures in the cells of tumors shows that it endures in general, and is involved in mitosis (the division of cells for replication) under even extreme body conditions like neoplastic (tumor) growth.

When a cell divides, the double helix of DNA is divided, as well. Centromeres coordinate the precise, nearly perfect matchmaking of the separated strands with their associated enzymes in each new cell. But whos watching the watcher, as they say? How is the centromere so persistent, despite being copied and copied and copied? Well, it turns out that PLK-1 restocks vital materials that indicate the centromere is ready to take action.

To do this, PLK-1 uses a reaction called phosphorylation, meaning that it adds a molecule called a phosphate to an existing protein. Phosphatesrepresented by the common version phosphoric acid (H 3 PO 4 ) or the simplest form PO 4 work like switched that turn a proteins behavior on or off from its previous position. By phosphorylating two specific protein groups involved in the centromere, PLK-1 functionally creates a queue of the protein that the centromere actually needs, known as CENP-A. These CENP-A proteins then line up to ensure that individual chromosomes are kept organized as theyre separated and migrated, like a camp counselor keeping tabs on children who split from their buddy pairs to use the restroom.

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Previous work showed the involvement of PLK-1 in this reaction (including work by the same team on one of the proteins that PLK-1 is phosphorylating), but scientists did not understand the chemical reactions themselves. In a University of Edinburgh statement, Jeyaprakash described the process as a relay race to ensure that enough CENP-A is present for a working centromere area. In that sense, Jeyaprakash said, the entire chain of events is essential to the creation and maintenance of life. Each piece plays a vital roleliterally.

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Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions and images some viewers may find disturbing.

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI)  The San Diego Police Department is facing an excessive force lawsuit after an incident last month where a man was repeatedly shot with non-lethal beanbag rounds and bit by a police K-9 while unarmed.

The incident occurred at a home in Valencia Park on Oct. 24. Police had responded to the home just before midnight after receiving a report of a man threatening a woman with a gun. The suspect had been described as wearing loose-fitting shorts, according to SDPD.

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Upon arrival, SDPD said officers called for the suspect, later identified as 31-year-old Marcus Evans, to come out of the home and he did a short time later. Police said he was repeatedly ordered to surrender but did not, prompting the use of the beanbag rounds and K-9.

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Video captured of the scene, however, raised questions about whether the use of this force was necessary. Lawyers for Evans argue it was not.

I dont know why they used this force and I think that is a burning question for the community to know. Why was this type of force used and applied on this person at this time, Evans lawyer, Dante Pride, told FOX 5/KUSI.

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In the video, Evans can be seen walking out of the house without shoes or a shirt, holding his hands in the air. He told officers I have no gun, then sat down on a ledge near the home with his hands still up. SDPD later confirmed he did not have a firearm.

Shortly after he sat on the ledge, the first of three beanbag rounds was fired, hitting him in the abdomen and causing him to fall on to several steps below in visible pain.

An officer can then be heard shouting We said hands as Evans is lying in a fetal position, to which he responds by trying to show his hands. He also can be heard asking officers Why you shoot me?

A few minutes later, Evans can be seen sitting up on a step outside the house, still with his arms up. That is when the second round is fired and the K-9 is released on him, the video shows. The dog appears to bite his arm as he can be heard saying, Stop please.

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Following more back and forth with officers from the step, the third round is fired and the police K-9 is released a second time, again biting his arm. Evans can be heard in the video crying out in pain as the dog thrashes with his arm and pulls him down the steps onto the ground.

As several officers surround him to place him in handcuffs, Evans can be heard pleading, I cant feel my hand, please stop.

SDPD said Evans was later transported to a hospital for treatment of the injuries sustained to his arm, stomach, chest, groin and shin. The charges he was initially taken into custody for  assault with a deadly weapon and resisting arrest  were later dropped.

Pride argues the incident caused needless, yet severe harm to Evans, forcing him to leave a job in construction he only recently obtained.

Lawyer Dante Pride speaks during a Nov. 13, 2024 press conference on a lawsuit he is filing on behalf of Marcus Evans. (FOX 5/KUSI)

His family also spoke out during a press conference Wednesday, expressing pain and desire for answers as to why this happened.

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Im hurt, Im devastated. Its deep, the wound is very deep, Evans mother said. I hope no other child, no other Black male  anybody, I dont care what their color is  I hope no one ever has to go through this type of injustice again.

Fourth arrest made in 2023 shooting death

In a statement released last week, SDPD said this video, as well as a formal complaint, prompted an internal investigation into whether force was used improperly in this incident.

As with many uses of force, videos of this nature are very difficult to view, Police Chief Scott Wahl said. We are already in the process of conducting a thorough review of the incident, and Im committed to exploring how the situation could have been handled differently.

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The San Diego Police Department welcomes conversations about our use of force procedures and regularly evaluates those practices to determine if improvements are needed, he continued.

As mandated by law, the citys independent Commission on Police Practices and U.S. Department of Justice will review the departments investigation. The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training will also monitor it, SDPD 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 5 San Diego & KUSI News.
This story contains details that may be disturbing for some readers.

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL)  Often emotional testimony from the mothers of three alleged child pornography production victims capped off the first day of former downtown Johnson Citian Sean Williams federal trial Wednesday.

Each woman cried when prosecutors showed explicit photos of their children, who were aged 9 months, 4 years and 7 years and were asleep or unconscious and possibly drugged when the photos alleged to show Williams abusing them in his apartment were taken. Each woman  all three are also alleged sexual assault victims of Williams  described meeting Williams at a time when they were regularly using drugs and alcohol.

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None of them knew the alleged abuse had occurred or been photographed until after Williams April 2023 arrest and the subsequent discovery of digital files that formed the basis of the states evidence.

Computer files show 52 Sean Williams alleged rapes

Williams, 53 faces up to 30 years in prison on each count of enticing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purposes of manufacturing child pornography.

Prosecutors rested their case shortly after the womens testimony and Williams defense attorney, Mark Brown, rested his without calling a single witness. Brown did make several efforts to cast doubt on the mothers credibility during cross examination.

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A trial U.S. District Judge Ronnie Greer thought would last three to five days is likely to be over in less than two as the jury will receive final instructions Thursday morning and retire to deliberate after closing arguments.

Williams has also been charged with child rape and child sexual assault in state court for the same three alleged crimes, which occurred when the children were 9 months, four years and seven years old. One allegedly occurred in June 2008 and the other two in May and December of 2020.

Before jurors broke for lunch they had heard a timeline of how photographic and video evidence against Williams was found after his April 29, 2023 arrest in Cullowhee, N.C. Most of the evidence used was in folders, often named and organized, that were on a USB drive found in the center console of the Subaru Baja Williams was discovered asleep in at a public parking area.

Jurors also heard technical explanations about how Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agent Paul Durant had then analyzed that evidence and discovered three child victims. Durant also described and showed photos and videos of what appear to be Williams sexually assaulting the three mothers while they were asleep or unconscious.

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Based on a matching of Williams distinctive scar and tattoo on his left hand, those images of children showed what Durant said was Williams body  but not his face  in clearly sexual behaviors directly acted upon the childrens bodies or faces.

Durant said the FBI didnt know who any of the victims were, but the files and folders offered some clues as some of them had peoples first names (including child victims) and explicit descriptions.

Durant said agents used social media accounts, facial recognition technology and interviews to find people they suspected were specific victims. Those women were then interviewed and shown the digital evidence, which they confirmed.

He was crying and I was stumbling trying to get up

All three mothers testified that until that time, they didnt know their children had been abused and photographed without their consent. Photos alleged to be from the same times the children were abused show the mothers asleep or passed out, with several photos of both mothers and children showing a hand pulling their eyelids open.

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Those were in a folder named all sleep that contained subfolders with specific names of individual alleged victims and asleep in the title.

The mother of the 9-month-old said she was introduced to Williams in the fall of 2020 when a friend went up to his apartment to charge her phone. She said Williams introduced himself and advised me his cleaning lady had quit and (he) was seeing if maybe I wanted to come and clean for him

The woman, who acknowledged she was abusing drugs at the time, said Williams soon told her she was too pretty to be cleaning and asked if I would just hang out with him.

She said Williams large apartment was the scene of numerous parties at which people would just show up at random as the night went on. She described those events as having lots of drugs and alcohol, much of it provided by Williams, and said she did spend the night on multiple occasions.

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The woman began crying as prosecutor Emily Swecker showed her photos and video of what appeared to be Williams assaulting her while she was asleep or passed out. She answered no when asked whether she consented or remembered the event.

She described having an abnormally hard time moving or waking up on more than one occasion at Williams apartment but said she chalked the sensation up to alcohol. But the woman denied that was the case the one time she brought her son to Williams apartment after Williams had asked her about bringing him over here to play.

I wouldnt have used around my child, the woman said. She said Williams told her hed childproof all the low areas and lock the doors. She said eventually she and her son went to sleep but that at one point in the night she heard him crying and began trying to get up  though she said she felt very groggy.

I was stumbling trying to get up with him and (Williams) said to me, no, I got it. Thats all I remember, she said.

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Swecker then showed the photos of the alleged abuse against the womans son, which the mother positively identified as she began crying again, this time nearly sobbing. She answered absolutely not when asked whether she was aware of any inappropriate photos of him prior to authorities alerting her, and gave the same answer when asked if she consented to any such photos.

Brown quickly went after the womans history of drug use in cross examination. She admitted to a substantial drug problem at the time of the incident, as well as acknowledging she had sex with Williams on at least a few occasions. The woman defined it as non-consensual, saying Williams was aggressive with her about his desires and that she felt pressure because there were things I owed him due to him giving her money and drugs at times.

She said she was terrified of Williams and didnt choose to call authorities. Brown then turned to the womans claim Williams had drugged her. He noted that Williams had a roommate who was often around, to which the woman replied that no one had been there on the December 2020 night of the incident.

Brown said with the roommate Alvie and another man named Samuel often around, you cant sit here today and say 100% Sean Williams drugged you, saying she was also often under the influence because you were a junkie.

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One juror gasped slightly at the volume and content of Browns effort to damage the womans credibility, while the witness herself responded tersely: I dont think thats a kind way to put it, but I had an addiction issue, yes.

She said she has been sober for nearly four years.

It was just a flood of emotions and thoughts

The second mother who took the stand was the only one with memory of potential abuse of her child, and the incident thats by far the furthest back in time.

She described being introduced to Williams in spring 2008 as she was trying to beat an addiction. She said she did some odd jobs for him during a period of several weeks, for cash, before eventually becoming more of a companion, simply spending a lot of time with him during the days, conversing at length.

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It felt more like emotional support, the woman said. She said she spent the night with Williams numerous times over a brief period and had consensual sex a few times.

She said Williams met her then 7-year-old daughter during the 2008 Blue Plum Festival, a downtown Johnson City weekend event the first weekend in June, on a Saturday. She said she and the girl, who had gotten a temporary face tattoo during the festival, went to sleep in Williams bed with Williams on the couch.

She said she couldnt recall whether Williams ever came to the bed in the night and that she didnt remember anything until she woke up around 7:30 a.m. At that point, she said she opened her eyes and noticed Williams in my direct line of vision with one hand tracing her still-sleeping daughters lips. She said she also noticed she where she and her daughter were on the bed had changed from when they went to sleep.

The woman said she then saw Williams hand on his private parts, but couldnt remember whether it was outside or under his pants. She said she was alarmed but Williams moved and she stayed still.

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I just laid there and it was just a flood of emotions and thoughts, the woman said. She said after about 30 minutes she woke her daughter and took her to the bathroom, where she tried not to disturb her while checking for any signs of abuse, which she did not find.

When prosecutor Meghan Gomez asked why she didnt call authorities with her suspicions, the woman said I had no proof and everybody trusted Sean  he had a lot of backing. She added that her own negative experiences with authorities had probably factored in as well.

Its something that Ive had to push back, because what I saw  I thought to myself, I really messed up here,' the woman said. She said she didnt learn about the photos and the alleged abuse until early this year after the investigation began.

Brown tried to bring her memory into question during a brief cross examination. He got her to admit she had a crack cocaine problem earlier in 2008, and then questioned her memory, which she admitted wasnt always great.

Brown pressed the woman on her uncertainty about where Williams hand that wasnt on her daughters face actually was as a way to call the entire memory into question.

Its a very shameful and embarrassing thing, the woman responded. Why would I make that up?

Brown offered one last question, rather loudly asking whether the woman could 100% remember what she saw that morning in 2008.

No I cannot, she answered.

Hang out, drink, do drugs, stay up really late

The third mother, like the others, made no effort to hide her substance use. She described meeting Williams through the downtown bar scene around 2014 and becoming friends with him pretty quickly.

She said Williams apartment was a center of partying where people gathered after bars would close.

Hang out, drink, do drugs, stay up really late, is how she described peoples usual activity when she was there. She said she spent the night a few times because of the amount of substances she used, but also said she never once had consensual sex with Williams.

The woman, who like the first witness said shes been sober for nearly four years and has just entered a masters in teaching program, described being in and out of odd jobs for work around the time she met Williams. She said she helped clean his apartment a few times for cash.

The friendship lasted years, through her daughters 2015 birth and well beyond. She said her daughter probably first met Williams in 2018 and that the girl spent the night at the apartment at least twice.

She was recovering from ankle surgery in the spring of 2020 when the photographed and videoed assaults allegedly occurred. The woman said she didnt consent to sex with Williams during the alleged incidents in May 2020, nor to being on video, nor to him photographing or abusing her daughter.

The woman specifically identified a sock she was wearing in a photo of her daughters abuse where she is also visible, and said she was sure the photos were in Williams apartment, pointing out specifics about rooms, a couch and a beanbag chair.

She said she remembers nothing about the night of the alleged abuse, but admitted she was on painkillers for the surgery and sure I was drinking alcohol.

Like the other women, she viewed photos and videos of evidence that include what a file folder called Rape Collage contained: a Photoshop-produced collage mixing innocuous photos of her and her child with other photos of the alleged abuse.

Also like the other women, this witness got cross-examined. Brown briefly asked her whether she had definitely not had a consensual relationship with Williams, to which she said she hadnt.

He then showed an apparent text message, which she said she didnt recognize, and asked her whether she had ever had an account on a sexually explicit website that would allow other people to view her. An objection by Gomez was overruled and the jury was excused while Judge Greer asked Brown where he planned to go with the topic.

He said he just wanted to ask the woman whether shed had consensual sex with Williams through that website. Greer allowed it, Brown asked, and the woman said no, after which Brown ended his cross examination.

Brown made one so-called Rule 29 effort to get Greer to acquit Williams without a jury deliberation. He said the second element of the crime  that something about the actions could be linked to interstate commerce, was something prosecutors hadnt offered a single piece of proof on.

That requirement is a broad one, though, and Gomez said the fact that the images and videos were made in Tennessee and recovered in North Carolina met it.

Greer said the governments evidence is slim as to the interstate commerce nexus, but ruled that it was still sufficient and denied Browns motion for acquittal.

Williams, who has sparred with four previous attorneys and often been called down in court during a previous trial and hearings, was quiet throughout the day. Greer asked him whether he had decided to take Browns advice and not testify, Williams answered simply that he had.

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Other than Texas, only eight states have a law mandating seat belts on school buses. Texas' 2017 law mandates that all newly purchased school buses built after 2018 have three-point safety restraints, but it allows districts to exempt themselves if they say they can't afford it.

In most cases, the passage of seat belt laws resulted from a school bus crash that resulted in death or injury to students.

Only one state  New York  addresses child safety restraints, which are five-point seat belts designed to protect smaller children.

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'They should know better:' Deadly Hays crash reveals Texas school buses lack seat belts

Arkansas

A 2017 law requires districts to put seat belts on newly purchased buses, but only if residents in a local community petition their school district to put the proposal on a ballot and voters pass the measure, which would create the appropriate tax rate to raise funds for the purchase of new buses.

California

The law requires buses that are manufactured after July 2005 and can carry more than 16 passengers to have three-point seat belts. Districts must prioritize elementary schools, when allocating buses with seat belts. A newer 2018 law requires all school buses to have seat belts by 2035.

Florida

Since 2001, schools must equip all newly purchased buses with seat belts and must prioritize elementary schools in distributing buses with restraints.

Iowa

As of 2019, all newly purchased buses must have lap-shoulder belts.

Louisiana

A law required all school buses used to transport students to have seat belts by July 2004, but the law was only mandatory if the state appropriated funding.

Nevada

Any school buses that districts purchase after July 2019 must be equiped with lap-shoulder belts.

New Jersey

A law requiring lap belts has been in place since 1992, but since 2018, all new buses have been required to have lap-shoulder belts.

New York

All buses built after 1987 must have seat belts, and children under 4 years old must wear five-point child safety restraints.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: What US states require seat belts on school buses? Here's the list
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD)  A second juvenile has been arrested in connection with a deadly Chestnut Street shooting.

The North Charleston Police Department said the juvenile is charged with murder, armed robbery, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime.

Officers responded to a reported shooting Sunday evening and found a 16-year-old lying in the street with a gunshot wound. The teen died at the Medical University of South Carolina.

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Another juvenile was initially arrested Tuesday on similar charges.

The investigation is ongoing.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCBD News 2.
Nov. 13Some secretly recorded conversations can be used in court proceedings, the state's highest court ruled in a decision released Wednesday.

By a 4-0 vote, the New Hampshire Supreme Court said a conversation recorded by a person allegedly being threatened, who taped the defendant making potentially incriminating statements, can be used at trial.

An attorney for defendant Matthew Clark, who is charged with a felony count of criminal threatening with a deadly weapon, said use of a conversation, which Clark didn't consent to having taped, would violate the state's Wiretapping and Eavesdropping Law, which requires all parties to agree to be recorded.

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A lower court judge hearing Clark's case had ruled that the alleged victim who was a party to the conversation committed only a misdemeanor by taping the conversation, so it is admissible. If the victim was found to have engaged in felony wiretapping, the recording would have been deemed inadmissible.

"In sum, we hold that suppression of a communication under RSA 570-A:6 is required only when the interception of the communication is a felony violation of the Wiretapping and Eavesdropping Law," the Supreme Court wrote in its decision remanding the case back to the lower court.

To be determined is whether the alleged victim turning over the tape to police constitutes a felony as Clark's attorney, Leif Becker, has argued.

"Given that the defendant did not raise this argument in the trial court and we have clarified that a one-party recording of a communication can be either a misdemeanor or a felony depending upon the person's mental state, we conclude that a remand is necessary to allow the trial court to address this issue in the first instance," the justices ruled.

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That means the lower court must decide whether the tape should be thrown out because it was turned over to police, according to the court.

Becker and Anthony Galdieri, the state's solicitor general, couldn't be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.
JOHNSTOWN, Pa.  Superintendent Amy Arcurio provided an update Tuesday about how security is being handled at Greater Johnstown School District during this first year with contracted police officers in the schools.

GJSD previously used school resource officers provided by the Johnstown Police Department.

However, with the JPD having staffing issues, the positions were not always filled. So the district decided to hire a four-person staff  a supervisor and one officer apiece for each of the three schools. The four officers currently have more than 114 years of combined law enforcement experience, according to Assistant to the Superintendent Michael Dadey.

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We have our positions solid with our individuals, Arcurio said during the school boards regular monthly meeting. I think its a great example of forward thinking.

She continued: We position (our students) to have real relationships with police officers, to see them as helpful individuals in the community and someone they can turn to.  Its all about building those relationships.

Those students know that theres a friendly person in this school district that supports me, supports my family, and I can turn to them in the community if theres ever a time where I need help and I need support.

An objection was raised during courtesy of the floor as to why it was necessary to have all the security personnel.

Later in the meeting, board member Randy Romesberg said, Theres no such thing as too much security in todays world.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN)  Tens of thousands of people flood Music City every weekend. However, according to crime statistics, there have been 92 violent offenses in and around downtown Nashville over the last six months.

Large crowds coupled with potential violence means getting first responders to patients quickly is of paramount importance.

There are multiple police and fire stations around the downtown quadrant, but nobody is closer to the action than the security teams that work in each of the honky tonks and other businesses on Lower Broad.

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There are now 35 more men and women who have new life-saving skills designed for real-life conditions and emergencies.

Nashville aims to eliminate traffic deaths with Vision Zero

For the last two days, Solaren Risk Management and a grant from the state of Tennessee have funded the rescue tactical care course, which Nashville Fire Department District Chief Matt Tidwell called a high-level stop the bleed course.

The course features classroom time and hands-on opportunities to learn how to apply pressure bandages and use tourniquets. However, the most intense part is the anxiety room where instructors use strobe lights and loud sounds, including screaming, to heighten the experience and make it more realistic.

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Charles Ervin, who works for Solaren Risk Management as a traffic control officer, has taken the class. When News 2 entered the room, Ervin was working on a pretend patient who was lying on the floor, supposedly with wounds to the leg and back.

An instructor knelt beside Ervin, who was nervous and breathing hard. The instructor asked him questions like what to look for in the patients ears, and told him to look for blood behind and around the patients head.

Ervin showed News 2 his equipment and told us what that intense experience was like.

The same names: Davidson County grand jury report highlights repeat retail theft offenders

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It was loud and the strobe lights going and my anxiety level went through the roof, he said.

They told me this was to simulate anxiety, News 2s Andy Cordan said. Sounds like-

They did a good job, Ervin jumped in, adding that he was still sweating and breathing hard following the experience.

Tidwell, who works with a special operations EMS division, told News 2 this course is exceedingly beneficial and the chaotic testing is by design.

Its 100% by design because if a situation arises, the first thing that happens is your stress level goes up, so we want to train them in a high-stress environment, Tidwell said.

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

According to the NFD district chief, this course is extremely valuable for security guards.

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They are down there in the middle of everything. If there is a situation that arises, those guys are already on those scenes, Tidwell explained. They turn into the first responders in these situations, so theyre our first line of defense until we can get there, so they can start treating these things, and with us teaching them the way we do things, we roll up and theyve already done the things that were gonna be doing, as well.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW)  The Sedgwick County District Attorneys Office is warning about a scam letter involving a life insurance policy.

A Wichita resident received a letter in the mail claiming to be from a law firm. The letter claimed they could get money from an insurance policy from a deceased person who shares their last name.

The letter claims they could add the potential victims name to the policy and then split the funds. The letter then urges the recipient to email them at a Gmail account.

A scam letter received by a Sedgwick County resident (courtesy Sedgwick Co. District Attorneys Office)

Wichitas airport hosts a snow rodeo

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The District Attorney wants to make it clear that the letter is a scam and that you should throw it away or shred it if you receive one. The sender is only after your money or personal information.

Scams like these can seem legitimate at first. In this case, the scammer has gone to the trouble of creating a fake website for their phony law firm.

However, if you visit that website and look closely, you will discover that the images it uses are all stock photos, including the section giving client testimonials. Another dead giveaway of a scam is if the email address doesnt have its domain name at the end and instead uses a free service like Gmail.

A Whois inquiry for the domain name of the fake law firms website shows that it was registered anonymously through a company called Privacy Protect in Burlington, Massachusetts. Privacy Protect has been notified of a scam associated with the website through its online reporting system.

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The district attorneys office says if you get one of these letters:

Dont respond. Never share your information with someone who contacts you

and says they need it. And never send anyone cash or pay with gift cards, wire

transfers, or cryptocurrency.

Share this information with a friend. You probably throw away these kinds of

letters. But you may know someone who could use a friendly reminder to help

them spot the scam.

Report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Your report makes a difference:

by telling your story to the FTC and others in your community, you help others

avoid the scam.



The Federal Bureau of Investigation offers tips on how to avoid being scammed.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV.
AKRON, Ohio (WJW)  City administrators, policymakers and firefighters gathered Wednesday to officially open a new $9.2 million fire station, replacing one that was built in 1952.

The new Station 12 on South Hawkins Avenue is the third new fire station built in the city in the past seven years, made possible by voters passing Issue 4 in 2018.

Sheriff reflects on Amber Alert that ended in deadly shooting: Every second counted

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Station 12 is expected to increase response time and efficiency for firefighters and medics, with the city moving personnel from the old Station 12 while adding a ladder truck from Station 9.

Based on our data that we have from our GIS study, Ladder 9 was better positioned here to respond to a better range geographically for this community  so we could do more with less, said Fire Chief Leon Henderson.

The department has been challenged in recent years after the private ambulance company American Medical Response shut its doors.

AMR had been transporting all non-emergency patients for the city. Its departure meant a dramatic increase in workload for fire department medics.

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When Akron Fire needed to transport everybody, that model would no longer hold true. We needed more people, so you could have an ambulance over here, standalone; a fire truck over here, standalone. Before, that wasnt the case. The staff would merge on both vehicles, said former fire chief Joseph Natko, now the assistant to the mayor for emergency management.

We actually have approximately 13,000 to 15,000 calls for services that we have to do our own transports now. Thats the reason we have the increase in staffing, said Henderson.

We are doing well because right now, Mayor [Shammas] Malik has allowed us to have a higher workforce than we have ever had in the history of our department. We are authorized right now to have 402 personnel. I am in the midst of actually hiring and interviewing a new cadet class, he added.

I-Team: 911 call shows alarm even before Tremont shooting

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Adding staff and equipment was among the appeals Natko made to city council while he was the fire chief.

Adding staff alone has helped the department tremendously, he said.

It allowed us to better use our resources. We didnt buy more trucks, we didnt put in more stations  you just use your resources better by putting people on, said Natko.

Moving the fire station to its new location did come with some concerns from residents of a high-rise senior residential building across the street.

Davis said the city has since, however, worked to make sure the residents of that building know what is there, but especially with the addition of the ladder truck, understand that the response time for any emergency in their building is better.

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The new fire station may also help Akrons police department work more efficiently with a police work room in the building that officers can use as a satellite office.

It also includes amenities expected to not only help improve safety for the residents but for the firefighters themselves.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Fox 8 Cleveland WJW.
Alexander Lukashenko, the self-proclaimed president of Belarus, has said that a woman cannot be the president of the Republic of Belarus.

Source: Belarusian state news agency BelTA, citing Alexander Lukashenko

Quote from Lukashenko: "God forbid a woman is elected president in Belarus. The US president has different powers; there are nuances. The Belarusian president is also the commander-in-chief.

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Besides, its a tough job. No need to give a woman so much work, its not a ceremonial position. Maybe thats the style we will adopt eventually. But for now its different. I bow down to women, I do not belittle their role at all. But they have to remain near [men]."

Background:

Alexander Lukashenko has been in power in Belarus for 30 years now.

After large-scale fraud in the 2020 presidential election, mass protests erupted in Belarus. The protesters demanded new and fair elections, the release of political prisoners, and accountability for the beating and torture of peaceful protesters.

Lukashenkos regime suppressed the protests, and thousands of Belarusians were persecuted, tortured, imprisoned, or forced to emigrate.

One of Lukashenkos opponents, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, is the head of the United Transitional Cabinet, a Belarusian democratic government in exile, and lives abroad.

Tsikhanouskayas associate, member of the Coordination Council of the Belarusian Opposition, and one of the most prominent participants in the 2020 protests in Belarus, Maria Kolesnikova, is serving a prison term in a general regime colony.

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) was not a serious candidate for U.S. attorney general, comparing his nomination to the elevation of disgraced former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.).

This one was not on my bingo card, Murkowski told reporters on Wednesday. I dont think this is a serious nomination for attorney general. We need to have a serious attorney general.

President-elect Donald Trump made the shocking announcement on Wednesday that he wants Gaetz, a longtime ally, to lead the Justice Department, calling him a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney. If he is confirmed, Gaetz will lead the department that once investigated him on sex trafficking allegations.

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Gaetz resigned from Congress soon after the announcement, ending a House Ethics Committee investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct, drug use and other improprieties.

Murkowski alluded to those accusations in comments to reporters on Wednesday.

If I wanted to make a joke, maybe I would say now Im waiting for George Santos to be named, the senator told The New York Times. Santos was expelled from Congress last year after investigators alleged he spent thousands of dollars in campaign funds on things like Botox and a website for sex workers.

"This one was not on my bingo card," Murkowski told reporters after Gaetz was nominated to become U.S. attorney general. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

She went on to say Trump had the right to name whomever he wanted to serve in his Cabinet. But the Senate, Murkoswki added, had a duty to determine whether these individuals have what it takes in these departments, and it is up to us to confirm them.

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Thats why I think it is really important that we dont roll over on that role of advise and consent and we move through the nomination process, she told the Times. If we get good candidates, we will be able to move through the nominations process, hopefully, really readily and thatll be good for the president, good for him to get his team.

But when you put forward picks that are really going to generate controversy, and not just controversy on one side of the aisle, it is going to take longer.

Murkowskis office did not immediately respond to a question about the senators plans regarding a confirmation vote.

Murkowski, a moderate Republican, is a key member of the partys coalition alongside fellow moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). The pair hold outsize influence over the GOPs plans in the chamber and have voted with Democrats in the past, although the partys margin  Republicans will hold 52 or 53 seats  will likely give the incoming Senate majority leader, John Thune (R-S.D.), a slim buffer.

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Trump has urged Thune and Republicans in the chamber to confirm his nominations with haste. The president-elect has also demanded he be allowed to make recess appointments that would take effect without Senate confirmation.

One thing is clear: We must act quickly and decisively to get the presidents cabinet and other nominees in place as soon as possible to start delivering on the mandate weve been sent to execute, and all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments, Thune tweeted on X after Trumps demand.

Related...
(Bloomberg) -- Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicted that President-elect Donald Trumps nomination of Matt Gaetz to be attorney general would be rejected by the Republican Senate next year.

Most Read from Bloomberg

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Gaetz wont get confirmed, everybody knows that, McCarthy said in an interview with Bloomberg Television at the Barclays Asia Forum in Singapore on Thursday.

Gaetz, a Florida congressman who resigned from the House hours after Trump announced that he would nominate him to run the Justice Department, orchestrated McCarthys ouster as speaker last year.

Doesnt matter, McCarthy said of the nominations prospects. Its a good deflection.

McCarthy praised Trumps other picks, especially Florida Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state. He said the president-elect had learned from his earlier experience in the White House and would hit the ground running in part thanks to the work of Howard Lutnick, the chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald, on the transition.

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He also praised Trump for tapping Elon Musk, a longtime friend of McCarthy and the worlds richest person, to help lead a new office to overhaul government.

Elon was texting me this morning. Think about having the brain of Elon Musk to sacrifice his time away from his businesses to help every single American make government more efficient, more accountable, McCarthy said.

Elon doesnt benefit from government, America has benefited from Elon, he added. Hes a Thomas Edison. He doesnt care about wealth.

The former speaker also predicted Trumps tariff threats could result in opening up markets for American goods and promote fairer trade with countries like China.

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Hes got a big agenda, McCarthy said, adding that Trump is better prepared to govern than he was eight years ago. I think youll be shocked by the first 100 days.

Earlier: Elon Musk Has a New Project to Run: Donald Trumps Government

McCarthy also said the president-elect could deal with the war in Ukraine, repeating a Trump argument that Russian President Vladimir Putin didnt invade during his first administration.

He added that foreign leaders had contacted him wanting to talk to President Trump.

--With assistance from Haslinda Amin.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

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Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicted that President-elect Donald Trumps nomination of Matt Gaetz to be attorney general would be rejected by the Republican Senate next year.

Gaetz wont get confirmed, everybody knows that, McCarthy said in an interview with Bloomberg Television at the Barclays Asia Forum in Singapore on Thursday.

Gaetz, a Florida congressman who resigned from the House hours after Trump announced that he would nominate him to run the Justice Department, orchestrated McCarthys ouster as speaker last year.

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Doesnt matter, McCarthy said of the nominations prospects. Its a good deflection.

Read more: MAGA loyalist Matt Gaetz is Trump's pick for attorney general. Will he be confirmed?

McCarthy, the former congressman from Bakersfield, praised Trumps other picks, especially Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of State. He said the president-elect had learned from his earlier experience in the White House and would hit the ground running in part thanks to the work of Howard Lutnick, the chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, on the transition.

He also praised Trump for tapping Elon Musk, a longtime friend of McCarthy and the worlds richest person, to help lead a new office to overhaul government.

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Elon was texting me this morning. Think about having the brain of Elon Musk to sacrifice his time away from his businesses to help every single American make government more efficient, more accountable, McCarthy said.

Elon doesnt benefit from government, America has benefited from Elon, he added. Hes a Thomas Edison. He doesnt care about wealth.

The former speaker also predicted Trumps tariff threats could result in opening markets for American goods and promote fairer trade with countries like China.

Read more: Column: Kevin McCarthy wants vengeance. Now he's free to pursue it

Hes got a big agenda, McCarthy said, adding that Trump is better prepared to govern than he was eight years ago. I think youll be shocked by the first 100 days.

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McCarthy also said the president-elect could deal with the war in Ukraine, repeating a Trump argument that Russian President Vladimir Putin didnt invade during his first administration.

He added that foreign leaders had contacted him wanting to talk to President Trump.

Dennis writes for Bloomberg News.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) sounded the alarm Wednesday after President-elect Trump tapped former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to serve as his attorney general, calling the move a red alert.

Listen, Matt Gaetz is dangerously unqualified. But thats not the worst of it, Murphy told CNNs Jake Tapper in an interview Wednesday. Gaetz has been Trumps chief defender when it comes to Trumps assault on democracy in his attempt to overthrow the government on January 6, and he has openly called for the abolition of law enforcement agencies if they dont get in line with conservative political priorities,

This is going to be a red alert moment for American democracy, he added.

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Trumps nomination of Gaetz sent shock waves through Capitol Hill on Wednesday. The former Florida lawmaker resigned from Congress directly after receiving the nomination.

The Florida Republican, a staunch Trump supporter, has also been the subject of a Justice Department investigation. Critics now worry the department could be a prime vehicle for the Trump administration to go after the president-elects political enemies, which he called for on the campaign trail.

Murphy argued on CNNs The Lead that Gaetz is being nominated for one reason only.

Because he will implement Donald Trumps transition of the Department of Justice from an agency that stands up for all of us to an agency that is simply an arm of the White House designed to persecute and prosecute Trumps political enemies, Murphy said.

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This is a stunning announcement in some ways, but not surprising in others, he added.

The senator noted the decision is unpopular, as lawmakers were audibly shocked to learn that Gaetz was nominated. Still, as Murphy noted, Republicans in the upper chamber will now be in a position to either stand up to Trump in a way they havent before or fall in line and nominate Gaetz.

Two centrist Republicans  Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)  expressed shock and surprise at Trumps choice.

I dont think its a serious nomination for attorney general. We need to have a serious attorney general, Murkowski told reporters after the announcement. Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious.

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This one was not on my bingo card, she said.

Gaetz wasnt the only Cabinet choice that raised eyebrows. Trumps pick of Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary and tapping of billionaire Elon Musk and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new government efficiency department have also drawn scrutiny.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  With a Republican trifecta on the horizon, Senate Democrats are working to confirm as many federal judges as they can in the final seven weeks of the session.

The Senate must try to confirm every one of these highly qualified diverse nominees before the sun sets on the 118th congress, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said. Theres no time to waste.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin chairs the Judiciary Committee. He says President Joe Bidens previous 214 nominees have been historic.

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Weve confirmed more Black women to the federal circuit courts than all the prior presidents of the United States combined, Durbin said.

Senate Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says theyre making progress, confirming Thursday a judge to the U.S. Tax Court and advancing a circuit court nomination.

We have a lot of work to do on several fronts. But I am encouraged, so far, by the cooperation on both sides, Schumer said.

About 30 judges picked by President Biden are still awaiting Senate confirmation but theyll face an uphill battle.

I hope we put up every roadblock and use every tool that we can to object and slow that process down, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said.

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Sen. Cramer says the Senate should instead focus on passing the annual defense policy bill and appropriations bills.

Theres way too much to do to spend the remaining hours of this session just dealing with partisan left-wing judges, Cramer said.

President-elect Donald Trump weighed in on Truth Social Sunday, writing that no judges should be approved during this period of time.

In Trumps first term, he made 234 judicial appointments, including three to the Supreme Court.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC.
While most eyes were fixed on who was bound for the White House this election, voters were also casting ballots for Congress.

Control of both chambers hung in the balance  with 34 seats in the Senate and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives up for grabs. Both are now firmly under Republican control.

Alignment between the executive and legislative branches empowers the incoming president to implement the agenda that got them elected. Division often means gridlock.

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The Senate is composed of 100 senators, two for each state. Directly elected since 1913, roughly a third of all seats are up for re-election every two years. Going into this years election, the Democrats narrowly controlled the Senate by 51 to 49.

But the Republicans were widely tipped to turn the tables, with their opponents and allied independents defending in 23 contests to the GOPs 11. The vacancy left by West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, a longtime Democrat who registered as an independent in May, is also likely to be filled by a Republican.

The balance of power ultimately shifted their way on the night itself. By the time all results were in, Trump's party had gained four seats, securing a 53-majority,

Control of the Senate is key: it alone has the power to confirm presidential appointments to the most senior leadership positions in the federal government, including Supreme Court justices, ambassadors, commissioners and executive branch officials.

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Designed to exert stabilising influence over the legislature  members being elected to 6-year terms rather than the two years for those serving in the House of Representatives  they also provide advice and ratify treaties.

Any new bills sent to the President for their signature must also be passed by majority vote.

The Republicans had a majority in the House of Representatives heading into the 2024 cycle, albeit by a slim 220 to 212 margin  equivalent to just 1.8 percentage points.

Divided among the 50 states of the union according to population, each congressman or woman speaks for some 550,000 Americans.

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While their primary function is lawmaking and scrutinising the work of government, they also enjoy exclusive powers to initiate revenue bills, impeach federal officials and even, in the event of an Electoral College tie, elect the president.

There are also six non-voting members of the House, representing the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the US Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands.

According to state-level polling by YouGov, the Democrats went into the election with a 58 per cent chance of wrestling a majority from the Republicans, albeit coming out with an even smaller lead of 219 to 216.

A week after election day, the opposite was confirmed to have come true: the Republicans winning the crucial 218 seats, with a further three up for grabs.

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Senior congressional reporter Andrew Desiderio joins Way Too Early to discuss Jon Thunes new role as GOP Senate leader and his challenge in balancing traditional conservatism with Trumps agenda. Desiderio notes that Thune faces tensions over Trumps controversial cabinet picks, such as Matt Gaetz for attorney general, with many Senate Republicans actively pushing Trump to reconsider the nomination.
Will he or wont he go along with Donald Trumps plan to jam down the Senates throat his controversial Cabinet and other picks for his administration?

Thats the question buzzing around the newly elected Senate majority leader, John Thune of South Dakota, who faces his first big test from the powerful president-elect in his top role when the new Congress convenes next month.

Trumps apparent favored candidate in the race for majority leader, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who lost, reportedly said all three senators who ran for majority leader agreed to go along with Trumps demand for recess appointments. If that happened, none of president-elects unpopular choices to fill key roles in his administrationincluding once-accused child sex trafficker, Matt Gaetz, and Tulsi Gabbard, alleged Russian propaganda pusherwould have to face confirmation hearings to examine their records.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, disagrees.



Did they get into supporting recesses appointments when there isnt Republican support for a nominee?



No, we did not. https://t.co/xdMSQ2PHUc  Riley Beggin (@rbeggin) November 14, 2024

Scott, MAGA worlds failed choice for Senate GOP leader, told USA Today that he, Thune and Cornyn, the third candidate, all agreed on Wednesday to allow recess appointments, as Trump had asked. Ceding their constitutional Senate obligations to vet a presidents executive branch nominees en masse would amount to an extraordinary reversal of the checks and balances between the three branches of government.

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Trump is essentially asking Congress to turn a blind eye and give him full authority to ram through his nominations when the Senate is not in session. Such appointments would last until the end of the next session of Congress, which, in this case, means Trumps newly chosen Cabinet secretaries and other officials who require Senate confirmation could stay in their roles until the end of 2026.

Even conservative legal scholars oppose giving Trump cart blanche power to install administration officials without proper scrutiny and deliberation by the Senate. They include Ed Whelan, who was instrumental in winning Senate confirmation of Trumps three conservative nominees for the Supreme Court in his first term.

To oppose blanket recess appointments of Cabinet officials at outset of presidency is not to oppose recess appointments in limited circumstances that warrant them. https://t.co/kaf6hWzTGY https://t.co/5uuh1AAZ66  Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) November 14, 2024

Senate Republicans are giving conflicting reports over whether theyll accept Trumps demand to circumvent Senate protocol and rush through his Cabinet and other selections, no questions asked. The cast includes Gaetz, the firebrand Florida lawmaker who formally resigned Thursday ahead of a House ethics report about this alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

Members of Gaetzs own party were aghast at the choice, imperiling his chances of being confirmed by a majority vote.

JUST NOW: Sen Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) says he knows of 5-to-10 Republicans who won't vote to confirm Matt Gaetz as Atty General  Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) November 14, 2024

Gabbard was causing a similar reaction from at least a few Senate Republicans, including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

Sen. Collins, a member of the Senate Intel Committee, says Tulsi Gabbard is a nominee that illustrates the importance of a full background check, a public hearing, and the constitutional role of the Senate on advice and consent, rather than doing some sort of recess appointment  Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) November 14, 2024

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Thune has said he would like to maintain standard confirmation hearings, but would need Democrats cooperation. If they dont help install some of Trumps nominees, he suggested, he might have to take more drastic measures.

Thune told reporters, Im willing to grind through it and do it the old-fashioned way, but posted on X that all options are on the table.

We must act quickly and decisively to get the presidents nominees in place as soon as possible, & all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments. We cannot let Schumer and Senate Dems block the will of the American people.https://t.co/h6gDmjhbqn  Senator John Thune (@SenJohnThune) November 10, 2024

Though Trump himself did not weigh in ahead of the leadership race, he insisted that whoever Republicans picked would need to support recess appointments, the process by which the president could appoint his nominees while the Senate is not in session.
(Bloomberg) -- Pressure is rising in the US Senate for details on the Houses sexual misconduct probe into Matt Gaetz, Donald Trumps controversial pick for attorney general, as even some members of the president-elects own party view the nomination warily.

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Lawmakers were stunned Wednesday when Trump tapped Gaetz, a polarizing and embattled House lawmaker, to be the nations top law enforcement officer. Several Republican senators have expressed concerns, and Trump can only afford to lose four GOP votes on any nominee.

We should gain access to all relevant information by whatever means necessary, Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn said on Wednesday.

Cornyn, who has previously sparred with Trump, suggested that the Senate needs to review the House ethics report during the confirmation process.

Theres various ways we can gain access to it, Cornyn told reporters. We can subpoena it.

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Gaetz, a Florida Republican who resigned his seat after Trumps announcement on Wednesday, has been the subject of a long-running ethics investigation, the results of which reportedly were set for release on Friday. Gaetz, 42, has denied wrongdoing.

House Ethics Committee members are scheduled to meet Friday, a person familiar said.

Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said he and his fellow Republicans will insist on seeing the report, even if it is only viewed privately and not released for the public. He signaled that the timing of Gaetzs resignation makes the report all the more important in his confirmation.

Senate Democrats plan to use their last weeks in the majority to try to make public a House sexual misconduct probe into Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trumps controversial pick for attorney general.

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I am calling on the House Ethics Committee to preserve and share their report and all relevant documentation on Mr. Gaetz with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chairman Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said in a statement Thursday.

Tom Rust, chief counsel and staff director of the House ethics panel, declined to comment Thursday on the status of the investigation or the panels response to Durbins request.

Durbin cannot individually compel the reports release and it was not immediately clear if he could use his chairmanship to subpoena it. That would likely require a majority vote on his committee.

The House, however, could ignore the subpoena.

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Speaker Mike Johnson said late Wednesday Gaetz submitted a resignation letter but Gaetzs office hasnt returned requests for comment on the matter.

The Ethics Committee said in June that its members were continuing to look into allegations that he engaged in sexual misconduct, took illicit drugs and accepted improper gifts. Gaetz said in September that he was no longer voluntarily cooperating with the probe.

Trumps decision to nominate Gaetz as the nations chief law enforcement officer surprised and baffled lawmakers in both parties. It will test Trumps sway over Senate Republicans, who will take control of the chamber in January and must confirm the president-elects nominees.

The GOP is expected to hold a 53-47 seat majority, so it would take just four Republican senators to block his confirmation, unless he could attract Democratic votes. Multiple Republican senators signaled their skepticism of the choice, laying bare the confirmation challenge ahead.

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Gaetz, a lightning rod within his own caucus, has been plagued by scandals, including an investigation by the Justice Department that he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl in exchange for money. He denied the allegations and was notified last year that he wouldnt face charges.

When asked Wednesday by reporters about the choice, Cornyn said: Im trying to absorb all this. Another Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, said the pick was completely unexpected, adding that an FBI background check is part of any confirmation process. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said she doesnt believe Gaetz is a serious candidate for the post.

We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people, Durbin said. Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetzs confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States and our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent.

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By Alimat Aliyeva

The U.S. Department of Defense has rejected claims made by a former employee regarding the presence of extraterrestrial technologies in the possession of the American government, Azernews reports.

"To date, the Department of Defense has not found any reliable evidence that the observation of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) has revealed extraterrestrial activity," a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

She added that the U.S. Department of Defense "has also found no reliable data to support claims that any programs related to the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or currently exist."

According to Gough, the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) "continues to review historical data" related to the U.S. government's UFO research programs.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he absolutely wants to see the House Ethics Committees report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) after his nomination for attorney general.

I think that there should not be any limitations on the Senate Judiciary Committees investigation including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.

ABCs Rachel Scott asked the senator if he wants to see the report created by the House Ethics Committee, which was investigating whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other allegations.

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Absolutely, Cornyn responded.

President-elect Trumps surprise announcement Wednesday left Capitol Hill reeling. Gaetz resigned from his position in Congress following the announcement.

Since the announcement, calls to see the report have been growing.

Although the committees investigation ended since Gaetz resigned from Congress, the panel could still vote to release its report. Before the announcement and Gaetzs resignation, the committee was set to meet Friday to vote on whether to release its findings.

Cornyn argued Thursday the Senate Judiciary Committee deserves to see the report.

Trumps pick of Gaetz sent shock waves through Washington, both for Republican and Democratic lawmakers. A source in the room where House Republicans were waiting to start leadership elections said there were audible gasps when the announcement was made, and a number of GOP senators expressed bewilderment.

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Some Republicans have said they will not support Gaetzs nomination, while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) urged Republicans to give Matt a chance.

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PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD)  A federal judge got a promotion from a magistrate to full district court judge on Wednesday.

U.S. Sens. Richard Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Democrats from Illinois, announced that Jonathan Hawleys nomination to be a U.S. District Judge for the Central District of Illinois was confirmed by their peers in the Senate.

President Joe Biden taps local judge to be a federal district judge

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Judge Hawley was highly regarded by our screening committee and brings strong qualifications and a wealth of experience that will strengthen our federal bench, they said in a joint statement. His experience and qualifications will strengthen our federal bench, and he will be ready to serve the Central District on day one.

In July, Jonathan Hawley, a magistrate judge, was tapped by Biden to replace U.S. District Judge James Shadid who is taking senior status, a form of semi-retirement in which a federal judge can have a reduced case load, but still remain on the bench.

According to the Central District of Illinois website, magistrate judges are handle most of the pre-trial matters in the cases referred to them by the district judges. Such things include detention hearings and preliminary issues in criminal cases and some motion hearings in civil matters.

Hawleys appointment for the rest of life meaning that he will not have to seek any type of future confirmation or approval from lawmakers.

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Hes been in the job as a magistrate since 2014. Before that, he was an attorney with the U.S. Federal Defenders office, first as a staff attorney and later, as the chief attorney in the office.

Hawley was one of four people recommended in April for the job by Durbin and Duckworth. Durbin, as the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, shepherded the nomination through the confirmation process.

So far, during the Biden administration, 215 judges have been confirmed to lifetime appointments on the federal bench.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (WKBN)  A bill is heading to Governor Mike DeWines desk that would change the name of some bridges and roads in the Valley.

State Senator Sandra Obrien, R-Ashtabula, announced Wednesday that House Bill 81 passed the Senate.

The bill honors fallen military, first responders and elected officials. It includes legislation that would name some roads and bridges (in addition to their current names), including the following:

Mahoning County

State Route 170 in New Middletown shall be known as Police Chief Ronnie Ricketts, Sr. Memorial Highway

The southbound lane of State Route 46, between Youngstown Drive and State Route 446 shall be known as Dispatcher T.J. DApolito Memorial Highway

The northbound lanes of State Route 11 between I-76 and State Route 62 shall be known as Army Lt. Col. Robert R. Melmick Memorial Highway

Trumbull County

Route 422 between Warren Burton Road and State Route 534 shall be known as Chief Radio Operator Walter Dawson Memorial Highway

The bridge spanning the Mahoning River on State Route 534 in Newton Falls shall be known as Veterans Memorial Bridge.

The bridge spanning Mud Run between Mock Street and East Park Avenue shall be known as Hubbard First Responders Bridge

The bridge over State Route 11 in Vienna shall be known as Vienna Township Veterans Bridge

The bridge over Walnut Creek in Corltand shall be known as Cortland Veterans Memorial Bridge

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We all owe our veterans and first responders a debt of gratitude for their service to our nation, and these designations will allow us to honor them for generations to come, OBrien said. I am thankful the bills I have worked on were included so we can recognize these heroes in our communities.

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The incredibly tight Pennsylvania race between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger Dave McCormick will head to a recount, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt announced Wednesday.

While provisional and mail ballots are still being counted, unofficial results show the race to be within the one-half of 1% margin to automatically trigger a recount under state law.

Currently, McCormick leads Casey by less than 30,000 votes, an advantage that has shrunk since election night. CNN has not made a projection in the race, although McCormick, a former hedge fund executive who lost a bid for the Senate GOP nomination in 2022, attended new senator orientation in Washington, DC, this week.

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CNN has projected that Republicans will win the US Senate majority and retain the House majority, which means that, with control of the White House, the GOP will complete a sweep of the federal government. While the Pennsylvania race is still to be declared, Republicans will have at least 52 seats in the Senate.

Pennsylvania counties will be required to start the recount by November 20. They must complete the recount by November 26 and report results to the state by the next day.

While McCormick claimed victory last week, Casey, a three-term incumbent, has not conceded and told reporters at the US Capitol on Wednesday that there are more votes to count in the race.

When the vote gets to a certain level, the state makes a determination, they made that determination, he said. So, a lot more votes to count.

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CNN previously ranked the Pennsylvania seat as one of the 10 most likely to flip in 2024. While Vice President Kamala Harris lost all seven swing states to President-elect Donald Trump, Democratic Senate candidates narrowly held Wisconsin and Nevada along with open seats in Michigan and Arizona. Meanwhile, the GOP has flipped three Senate seats, toppling Democratic incumbents Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio and winning retiring independent Sen. Joe Manchins West Virginia seat.

A victory for McCormick could make Pennsylvania, a pivotal battleground, one of the few states with senators from different parties  for at least four years. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman beat Mehmet Oz, the famed television doctor, in 2022, for his first six-year term.

During the campaign, Democrats tried to paint McCormick as an extremist on abortion and called out McCormicks trips back to Connecticut (where his school-age daughter lives) and business background. McCormick made an anti-incumbency argument against Casey, calling the senator a career politician and asking voters in one of his closing messages to make a change.

This story has been updated with additional details.

CNNs Morgan Rimmer, Simone Pathe and Gregory Krieg contributed to this report.

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Republicans in the U.S. Senate elected Sen. John Thune of South Dakota as their next majority leader in a 29-24 vote on Nov. 13.

The Republican party took back control of the 100-seat chamber in the U.S. elections on Nov. 5. Republicans claimed a sweeping victory, securing control of the Senate, House of Representatives, and the White House.

Thune represents the establishment wing of the conservative party, as opposed to those closely associated with President-elect Donald Trump. Trump allies including Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson advocated for Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a Trump loyalist, to win the majority leader role.

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Thune will officially become the majority leader when the new Senate is sworn in on Jan. 3, 2025.

"We are excited to reclaim the majority and to get to work with our colleagues in the House to enact President Trump's agenda," Thune told reporters after his election.

In previous statements, Thune has expressed support for Ukraine, including backing continued U.S. aid to Kyiv amid a Republican-led congressional obstruction campaign.

"America cannot retreat from the world stage," he said in March 2024.

"American leadership is desperately needed ... and we need to make sure that Ukraine has the weaponry and the resources that it needs to defeat the Russians."

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While Thune has criticized Trump in the past, he reportedly told senators that he was willing to cooperate with Trump, including on issues relating to Ukraine, according to the Washington Post.

Read also: Trumps administration picks  what do they mean for Russias war in Ukraine?

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MEMPHIS, Tenn.  Senator Brent Taylor is once again calling out Judge Bill Anderson after an 18-year-old charged with attempted second-degree murder was released from jail without bond.

Taylor wrote a letter to Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy requesting him to seek an emergency writ of certiorari in criminal court, which allows a higher court to review a case to fix an injustice. It also allows a Criminal Court judge to set a higher bond.

Taylor also notes that he has the highest regard for the system of justice but this is one case in which I do not respect the elected judge because of his history of gross leniency for defendants who are a threat to our community.

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The defendant, Tyreese Earnest, is accused of shooting a FedEx employee in the hubs parking lot last month. He was then released from jail without bond.

The letter says Judge Anderson allowed Earnest to be released on his own recognizance after he was found to be a threat to the community by a Shelby County Judicial Commissioner.

Mulroy said on Wednesday that the D.A.s office opposed lowering Earnests initial $200,000 bond which was set by a judicial commissioner, and also opposed his release without bond.

The details of the alleged crime, the fact the victim was ambushed, and the violent nature of it convinces us that this suspect is a threat to public safety. I respect the courts decision but disagree with it, Mulory said in a statement. Be sure if the defendant violates the terms of release, we will be ready to ask the court to reincarcerate him. As for the case, we will further investigate, build a strong case, and prosecute vigorously.

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Twins charged in FedEx employee shooting released without bond

A day after the letter was sent to Mulroy, two twin brothers also charged in the case were released from jail without bond.

18-year-olds JaMarion and JaMarcus Odell are both charged with criminal attempt facilitation of second-degree murder.

Back in August, Taylor wrote a letter to Mulroy and the Disciplinary Counsel Marshall Davidson addressing his concerns with the Railgarten shooting suspect being released from jail without paying bond.

Davidson serves as the Disciplinary Counsel for the Board of Judicial Conduct and investigates complaints made against judges.

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Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville has already fired warning shots at any Republicans who might vote against Matt Gaetz becoming Donald Trumps incoming attorney general.

Speaking to Fox Business on Wednesday after the president-elect announced his controversial decision, the Alabama senator threatened to boot party members from the upper chamber if they oppose the former Florida representatives nomination.

I dont know, youre finding all the swamp creatures coming out right now, Tuberville said of those sharing their disdain over Gaetzs prospective role.

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Ive already seen where a couple says, Im not voting for him.

Tuberville, 70, a staunch Trump supporter who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, continued: Wait a minute. You are not the United States of America. You have one vote in the US Senate. You did not get elected the president. Vote with President Trump.

This is the last chance were gonna have of saving this country. And if you wanna get in the way, fine.

He then warned: But were gonna try to get you out of the Senate, too if you try to do that.

Alarm bells rang for a swathe of congressional Republicans on Wednesday when Trump announced he had picked Gaetz to become the nations top law enforcement officer, and head up the Department of Justice.

Tommy Tuberville warns Republicans not to oppose Matt Gaetzs nomination (Fox Business/X)

The 42-year-old conservative firebrand has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice, the president-elect said in a statement on Truth Social.

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It will be an honor to serve as President Trumps Attorney General! Gaetz responded on X.

GOP Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were among the GOP members quick to speak out against his choice.

I was shocked by the announcement  that shows why the advise-and-consent process is so important, said Collins.

Im sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing.

Murkowski told reporters: We need a serious attorney general. Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.

Texas Senator John Cornyn said he is trying to absorb all this.

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I dont really know him, other than his public persona, he addded.

A simple majority vote in the Senate would need to ratify Gaetzs nomination, meaning it would take the opposition of just three GOP lawmakers to possibly deadlock the chamber.

Gaetz, who resigned from the House on Wednesday hours after the announcement, is among Trumps most prominent allies in Washington.

Gaetz speaks at a campaign rally for Trump in Henderson, Nevada, on October 31. He has been one of Trumps staunchest allies (REUTERS)

If appointed, Gaetz will follow current Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose Justice Department carried out a sex trafficking investigation into Gaetz and his associates.

Gaetz was ultimately never charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing.

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However, he remains the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation into sexual misconduct and drug use, among other allegations.

The committee was reportedly due to release the findings of its probe in just two days, and the findings are said to be highly damaging, according to reports.

Gaetzs resignation has effectively ended the probe as he is no longer under the House committees jurisdiction.
Like any other would-be autocrat, President-elect Donald Trump is selecting people for key positions overseeing the military and legal system based not on objective merits but their personal loyalty to one man: in this case, a 78-year-old Republican who felt betrayed in his first term when more-or-less qualified cabinet officials would balk at some of his more extreme demands. This time, hes saying with his early picks, there will be no one second guessing the leader or, in the words of his son, thinking they know better than a man with the nuclear codes.

The nomination of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who resigned from Congress on Wednesday, is the clearest sign yet that Trump intends to govern as an authoritarian who will use all the levers of the state to harass his critics and avowed opponents. Gaetz graduated from William & Mary Law School but otherwise has no experience that would suggest hes qualified to lead the Department of Justice.

"Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department," Trump proclaimed.

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There is no shortage of right-wing lawyers who would love to serve as attorney general and do just that. Ken Paxton, currently Texas attorney general, would have been a perfect MAGA pick: In 2020, he sued to disenfranchise those who voted for President Joe Biden in an effort to keep the loser of that years election in power; he has since sued the Biden administration no less than a hundred times and has used his office to go after groups that provide aid to immigrants; hes even ordered raids on the homes of his political opponents, including an 87-year-old member of a Latino civil rights group he baselessly accused of voter fraud.

Gaetz, however, is unsurpassed in his sycophancy. Elected in 2016, he has draped himself in the Trump flag perhaps more than any other member of Congress, past or present, even boasting that he met his wife at Mar-a-Lago, where hes a regular fixture. He is also compromised: Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., accused Gaetz of having sex with a 17-year-old and the department hes been nominated to lead investigated him for sex trafficking, with witnesses saying that the former lawmaker attended drug-fueled parties with underage girls (he was never charged with a crime).

The House Ethics Committee had also investigated the accusations against Gaetz and was due to release its findings this week. By nominating Gaetz, and him subsequently resigning from Congress, Trump helped a loyalist avoid potential embarrassment, if not worse: As Gaetz is no longer a member of the House, the House can no longer issue a report about him.

Having an attorney general with so much potentially compromising dirt on him could be an asset, it being hard to say no to someone would could arguably ruin you. Its also a test, intentional or not: Just how loyal is the rest of the GOP?

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Gaetz, as a man, appears to be widely detested by his former colleagues, given the number willing to publicly lambaste him. The guy is literally worse than the gum on the bottom of my shoe, Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, told CNN on Wednesday. Former Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., likewise called the pick absurd, saying the selection of Gaetz  along with the nomination of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, for director of national intelligence  suggests Trump is filling his cabinet with Putinists and pedophiles.

But House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., struck a different tone. Gaetz, he claimed, was an accomplished attorney, despite his thin legal resume, and a reformer in his mind and heart.

I think hell bring a lot to the table, the Louisiana Republican said.

But the Senate is where lawmakers opinion really matters. It is the upper chamber and its narrow Republican majority that will have to confirm Trumps cabinet picks (although Trump is also urging his allies there to just let him name people to his cabinet via recess appointments). The reception Wednesday was chilly.

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Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she was shocked by the nomination, saying it reaffirmed the need for the Senate to hold on to its constitutional duty of providing advice and consent. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, charged that Gaetz is simply not a serious candidate. Thats two votes that area already iffy; Trump can hardly afford to lose two more.

But there were also immediate signs that Republicans may be willing to put aside their misgivings and give their president-elect a win. Last year, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., accused Gaetz of showing his fellow lawmakers videos of girls he had slept with, saying he bragged about how he would crush ED medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night.

On Wednesday? Mullin said he was open to voting for someone he had previously described as a shameless pervert.

You know, Matt Gaetz and I, theres no question that weve had our differences, Mullin told CNN. However, I completely trust President Trumps decision-making on this one, he continued, saying only that Gaetz would have to address any concerns during his confirmation hearings.

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But would Republicans, who just saw their leader sweep every battleground state and narrowly win the popular vote, be willing to derail a second Trump presidency  and invite his rage  by actually denying him one of his most important cabinet picks? As Axios put it Thursday: President-elect Trump is daring Senate Republicans to defy him.

Those senators are likely to be familiar with how defying Trump worked out for Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who is now on his way to retirement. In 2024, skepticism that might have previously lasted a whole news cycle now evaporates the same day. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for example, wasnt sold on Gaetz as of Wednesday morning: Ill have to think about that one, he told CNN. By Wednesday evening, on Fox News, Graham was rallying the troops: To every Republican, give Matt a chance.

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Graham, who similarly criticized Trump before learning to love the MAGA movement, knows how important this pick is to his to partys leader. And Trump picked Gaetz for a reason, as one advisor to the president-elect explained to The Bulwarks Marc Caputo.

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None of the attorneys had what Trump wants, and they didnt talk like Gaetz, the adviser said of the competition for attorney general. Everyone else looked at AG as if they were applying for a judicial appointment. They talked about their vaunted legal theories and constitutional bulls**t. Gaetz was the only one who said, Yeah, Ill go over there and start cuttin f***in heads.

It is possible that the Republican-led Senate holds confirmation hearings and decides, at the end, to defy their president and reject his pick to take on the Deep State and his many enemies from within. Perhaps Gaetz, now out of a job, will have to settle for a position that doesnt require Senate confirmation  or a gig on Newsmax.

After nearly a decade of this, though, anyone who has bet good money on elected Republicans standing up to Trump has already gone broke.
A Church of England minister has been asked to step back from her duties after a review found that she was aware of child abuse by evangelical Christian John Smyth.

Rev Sue Colman is associate minister at St Leonards Church in Oakley, Hampshire. She is the first Church leader to step back from her role since the resignation of the Most Rev Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Her husband, Sir Jamie Colman  a Colmans mustard heir  has been asked to step back from volunteering, a statement from the Diocese of Winchester said.

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The statement said all failures in safeguarding should be treated with the utmost seriousness.

It said: The Diocese of Winchester is appalled by the findings of the Makin Review and the sheer extent of the horrific abuse perpetrated by John Smyth. It is a matter of deep regret and sorrow that John Smyth was able to have any association with our diocese while perpetrating such abhorrent abuse.

St Leonards Church in Oakley, Hampshire, where Rev Sue Colman is associate minister - Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy Stock Photo

The Diocese of Winchester has asked Rev Colman to step back from all ministerial duties while we reflect on the reviews findings and work with the national safeguarding team to take steps to manage any associated risk.

Mr Colman has no official ministerial position in our diocese but has also been asked to step back from volunteering.

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Mrs Colmans profile has been removed from St Mellitus College, where she has served as a Chaplain.

The Makin Review found Mrs Colman continued to provide financial support to Smyth in Zimbabwe, despite on the balance of probabilities having significant knowledge of the abuses in the UK and Africa.

Sir Jamie was also giving sermons at St Leonards as recently as July this year.

Asked whether he would be invited back following the publication of the Makin review, the St Leonards referred The Telegraph to the Diocese of Winchester.

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LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  A prison sentence for a former high school janitor arrested for having a sexual relationship with a North Las Vegas student is in limbo.

Devyn Hudsons sentencing hearing was scheduled for Oct. 10 in Clark County District Court, but it was postponed and no new date has been set, according to court records.

Court records stated Hudsons attorney wanted to delay sentencing because he wanted to subpoena school records.

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Hudson was 27 when he was arrested in March. He was arraigned June 20 after being indicted by a Clark County grand jury two weeks earlier.

He was working at Canyon Springs High School as a janitor and the teen he had sex with was a student there.

Detectives with the North Las Vegas Police Department said Hudson sexually assaulted the teen on Feb. 29. 8 News Now obtained several Instagram messages police obtained as part of their evidence in the case.

At 2:26 p.m., Hudson messaged the teen that he was in the 900, a section of the school, and said, meet you in the 500 [in] a few.

Nearly two hours later, he wrote the teen, Im glad you enjoyed it and so did I.

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According to North Las Vegas police, Hudson picked an area at Canyon Springs without cameras. The teen tried leaving several times but police said Hudson instead forced himself on her.

PREVIOUS STORY: Sexual assault of teen victim at North Las Vegas high school detailed in police documents

The Instagram messages also revealed Hudson tried to meet with the teen outside of school hours.

The teen eventually confided with a school counselor that shed been assaulted, who then contacted police, according to an arrest report.

Clark County prosecutors initially charged Hudson with sexual assault with a minor under 16 years of age; attempt sexual assault with a minor under 16 years of age; lewdness with a child under the age of 16; and statutory sexual seduction.

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Yet, Hudson pleaded guilty in Clark County District Court in July to a lesser charge.

Mr. Hudson today is going to plead guilty to sexual conduct between certain employees and volunteers between school and pupil, Robert Arroyo, Hudsons attorney, said on July 11. The state will make no recommendation at the rendition of sentence.

Hudson will have to register as a sex offender as part of the plea, according to court documents.

You understand that the range of punishment for this offense is somewhere between one and five years in the Nevada Department of Corrections and theres a fine of up to $10,000? Judge Erika Mendoza asked Hudson.

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Hudson responded, Yes, maam.

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Donald Trump's victory in the US election is prompting South Korea to reconsider the possibility of sending weapons directly to Ukraine; however, no decision has been made yet.

Source: Bloomberg

Details: An anonymous official reported that President Yoon Suk-yeol's administration is compelled to consider Donald Trumps stance when deciding whether to change its policy against providing lethal aid to Kyiv.

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Another government official added that Seoul is also evaluating how Trumps approach to the war might impact the level of support Ukraine receives from other nations.

Yoon's office stated that the government will examine possible scenarios of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea following Pyongyangs recent deployment of troops and will take appropriate countermeasures: "We will closely coordinate with our ally and partners in that process."

Providing lethal aid to Kyiv would demonstrate strong support for Ukraine and could benefit South Korean businesses if they play a role in Ukraine's post-war reconstruction.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is preparing to send an envoy to Seoul to request weapons and persuade South Korea to reconsider its stance in favour of Ukraine. South Korea possesses substantial reserves of 155mm artillery shells, which, in particular, Ukraine is currently using.

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Officials in Seoul noted they may consider direct arms supplies if North Korea acquires technology that strengthens its capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. Russian President Vladimir Putin has indicated he may supply Kim Jong Un with precision weaponry in response to Western military aid for Ukraine.

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SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU)  The Woodbury County Community Drug Court is a program facilitated by volunteer community panels for juvenile and adult substance abusers.

Will Meier is a juvenile probation officer. He said the program began in 1999 with a few people and a few ideas.

Check out previous editions of Serving Siouxland here

Different community partners have come together, Meier said. Juvenile court services with Gary Niles, adult corrections, department of corrections, Judge Ackerman was one of the players, the county.

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The goal is to treat offenders differently than what has been done in the past, and provide help, structure, and consistency.

Brittni Cooper is a juvenile probation officer for the drug court. During juvenile cases, authorities meet with the family, examine how frequently the kid uses drugs or alcohol, and consider the support services the young person might need. After that, they determine if theyre appropriate for drug court.

So, then they come down to drug court, Cooper said. Theyre assigned one Wednesday a month and so they come and meet with their community panel, and the panel members give them support and maybe ideas of things they can do to help their sobriety and further them in the recovery.

Authorities said the programs track record speaks for itself.

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Oftentimes, they want to be involved in drug court, Meier said.

Cooper said shes seen a great turnaround in kids shes worked with over the years.

I see kids all the time that Ive had in the past that are now deciding Hey, I want to come back and I want to go to meetings and get help and Im proud of my recovery. I see them now having families and good jobs, so the success may not seem immediate, but it is there, Cooper said.

Cooper said the drug court panel consists of community members, rather than a judge, and that makes a big difference.

Serving Siouxland: Poll workers help elections run smoothly

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Some of them have recovery backgrounds. Some dont, she said. Some are just, we have principals. We have mental health providers that just want to give back, and so for the kids to see that people want to help them and are there because theyre volunteering their time and really want to help, make a big impact.

Its a program powered by teamwork and people looking to help others.

I just want to mention how thankful we are for all the community members and our panel members, because this wouldnt be as successful without them, Cooper said.

If you want to volunteer to help with Woodbury Countys community drug court program, stop by at the office at 822 Douglas Street in Sioux City. You can ask to fill out an application and shadow a panel and see if youre interested.

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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD)  A metro Grand Rapids man convicted of human trafficking after a girl was found hiding in a car that crossed the Mackinac Bridge was sentenced Wednesday to federal prison.

Terrence Donte Clay, 39, has demonstrated no remorse for his actions, federal prosecutors said in asking for a lengthy sentence.

During an appearance in federal court in Lansing, Clay was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

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Clay took sexually explicit photos of a 16-year-old girl and directed her to take nude photos, court records show. He was also accused of sending child pornography from his iPhone.

A federal jury in May found him guilty of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of a child as well as distribution of child pornography.

Deputies: Teen said trafficking suspect pimped her

Clay has demonstrated no remorse for his actions, assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ross wrote in a sentencing memorandum. Instead, he obstructs and blames others, including his minor victim.

Clay, while on parole, found a homeless, underage, and vulnerable victim and won her trust through classic grooming techniques, federal prosecutors said.

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Then, he demanded that she prostitute herself for his financial benefit, Ross wrote. A release from federal attorneys said Clay had sex with the victim multiple times and told her to have sex with other men for money, having her make a sign and panhandle to offer specific acts at set prices. He also used the nude images to advertise her online, attorneys said.

Clay came under scrutiny in October of 2022 when investigators with the Kent County Sheriffs Office Human Trafficking Task Force got a tip about a 16-year-old girl that was being trafficked.

Authorities say they learned that a Comstock Park man befriended a 16-year-old Grand Rapids girl at a park in the city of Grand Rapids. Investigators say she was then trafficked using social media. Sheriffs deputies got information that the teen was in the Upper Peninsula, possibly with the man. They informed northern Michigan authorities.

While the man was driving across the Mackinac Bridge on Nov. 12, 2022, a toll worker saw a person hiding underneath a blanket in the backseat of the mans car.

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Trafficked teen found under blanket at Mackinac Bridge

The Mackinac Bridge Authority notified police, who stopped the vehicle after it crossed the bridge. Clay was arrested and booked into the Cheboygan County Jail.

The Kent County Prosecutors office filed state charges, including child sexually-abusive commercial activity. State charges were dismissed when the federal indictment was filed last year.

Clay has a lengthy criminal record dating back to his teen years. Convictions include drug trafficking, robbery, domestic assault, and assault for shooting a man in the leg.

He has repeatedly and consistently demonstrated that if he is not in custody, he will reoffend and endanger the people around him, Ross wrote in asking for a lengthy prison term.

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For his part, Clay asked for a sentence below the guideline range, noting that he and the 16-year-old both engaged in sex freely and voluntarily.

He also contends the 16-year-old did not engage in commercial sex.

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By Tim Kelly

ABOARD USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S., Japanese and South Korean naval forces exercised together in East Asian waters on Thursday in their most complex and final joint drills before President Joe Biden hands over one of his signature national security initiatives to Donald Trump.

Led by the USS George Washington carrier and its jet fighters, the Freedom Edge naval exercise in waters south of the Korean peninsula and west of Japan's main islands comes after a pact brokered by Biden in 2023 in which Seoul and Tokyo put aside years of mutual animosity and agreed to trilateral security cooperation with Washington.

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Further exercises are planned next year, although neither Trump or his pick for Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and China hawk, have yet to outline their national security plans in the sensitive East Asia region on Beijing's doorstep. Biden, who leaves the White House in January, also pushed to extend the three-way cooperation to technology, supply chain security and cyber defences.

"If trilateralism gets touted as a Biden achievement, I could imagine a scenario where Trump may therefore choose to ignore it," said Jeffrey Hornung, an expert in Japanese security policy at the Rand Corporation. "The value of trilateralism will need to be sold to him, not just grandfathered in," he added.

Trump's allies in June assured officials in Japan and South Korea that he would support deeper three-way ties, sources earlier told Reuters. In his first term Trump pressured Tokyo and Seoul to pay more for the U.S. forces they host, which in Japan include amphibious units and naval warships that Washington could deploy to defend neighbouring Taiwan from any attack from China.

In the latest meeting between senior officials from the three countries, their national security advisers, Jake Sullivan of the U.S., Shin Won-sik of South Korea and Takeo Akiba of Japan, expressed concern over deepening cooperation between Russia and North Korea, including troop deployments against Ukrainian forces by Pyongyang.

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With Biden's departure, only South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol will remain of the three leaders who agreed at a Camp David gathering in 2023 on closer cooperation in response to rising tensions in East Asia with China, Russia and North Korea.

The then Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida stepped down in September amid public anger about a funding scandal embroiling his government.

Visiting the carrier on Thursday, U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said the three-way pact and the resulting military cooperation sent a strong message to Beijing.

"Not only is our deterrence stronger, and not only are we witnessing how strong that deterrence is, the good news, is so is China," he said on the carrier. Emanuel, who may depart Japan before the end of the year, will be replaced by an envoy nominated by Trump.

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Japanese Rear Admiral Takashi Matsui and South Korean Rear Admiral Hur Sung-jae, who commanded their countries' forces in the naval exercise, stood beside him in the ship's hangar deck surrounded by F-18 and F-35 fighter jets.

For Seoul, said Hur, the exercise, which came after North Korea last month tested what it claims was an upgraded intercontinental ballistic missile, sent a message to its belligerent neighbour.

"It has a characteristic of responding to and deterring North Korean provocations," he said.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly and Tom Bateman, Editing by William Maclean)
Gov. Josh Shapiro and Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) Secretary Rick Siger visit Joseph Machine Company in Dillsburg Nov. 13, 2024 (Commonwealth Media Services photo)

During his first public appearance since the election, Gov. Josh Shapiro visited York County Wednesday and gave his thoughts on the outcome of several races in Pennsylvania.

Shapiro was in Dillsburg to announce a $2 million investment in local manufacturer Joseph Machine Company.

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Thankfully, lawmakers have agreed, Republican and Democrat alike, and now we have the tools necessary to be able to invest in a company like this, Shapiro said during a tour of the company with Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) Secretary Rick Siger. The funds were made available through Pennsylvanias Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP).

Why are we betting on Joseph? Because Joseph is betting on American manufacturing, and theyre betting on Pennsylvania, Shapiro said. Theyre going to create dozens of new jobs here and begin what hopefully will be a multi pronged expansion here, so that Dillsburg becomes the capital of the world when it comes to making this type of machinery thats powering our cars and making sure our homes are safe and secure and much, much more.

Anthony Pigliacampo, CEO of Joseph Machine Co., described the company created by his immigrant father decades ago as an American success story.

We really believe that a strong U.S. manufacturing sector is essential to a thriving economy, he said on Wednesday. Manufacturing innovation, most people dont think about this, but thats what drives the cost down on things.

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Pigliacampo emphasized the impact that the state funding will have on the company.

This RACP funding that we got is going to make a huge difference for us, he said. Were a family-owned business. Weve invested heavily in the last 20 years in our people, our processes and our technology, thats actually enabled us to grow at a 20% clip annually for almost 15 years in a row.

Pigliacampo added that with the funding, they will take this facility and were going to expand and build another facility next to it.

Shapiro pointed out that the materials that Joseph is using are from Pennsylvania companies and the investment not only helps their company, but others in the state, as well.

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Following prepared remarks, Shapiro told reporters that hes keeping his focus on addressing the issues facing Pennsylvanians after the latest election.

Were going to continue to focus on economic opportunity, schools, safety and things that bring people together. So my focus wont change, Shapiro said. And look, despite the fact that there was an election that saw some significant change at the national level, here at the state level, we continue to re-elect people who are focused on bringing more opportunity, who are willing to work together.

The Democrats retain their majority in the House, the Republicans maintain their majority in the Senate, and Im prepared to continue to work with both of them to advance the cause of real freedom and opportunity in Pennsylvania, he added.

Shapiro congratulated House Speaker Joanna McClinton, House Democratic Leader Matt Bradford, and House Appropriations Committee Chairperson Jordan Harris for maintaining Democrats one-seat majority in the state House.

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They faced some significant headwinds, and they won, Shapiro said.

In addition to Donald Trump winning the states 19 electoral votes, Republicans swept the statewide row offices.

Shapiro was asked a question about attorney-general elect Dave Sunday, a Republican.

Attorney General-elect Dave Sunday is a really quality guy, someone I worked closely with when I was AG and he was District Attorney, Shapiro said, referencing their relationship when he was serving as the states attorney general and Sunday was the district attorney in York County.

Hes someone who I know will enforce the law without fear or favor. Hell bring his own approach to the job as he should, he was chosen by the voters to lead that critically important office, Shapiro added. He and I have communicated. Were going to continue to communicate, and I know well work together to protect the good people of Pennsylvania.

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MEDINA COUNTY, Ohio (WJW)  In a scenario no child should ever have to experience, a tense standoff ended on Monday night, leaving all involved profoundly changed.

It was a day that would not only test the resilience of the officers present but also highlight the heartbreaking realities some families face.

Medina County Sheriff Terry Grice, reflecting on the incident, shared that cases like these are never just about a single event.

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Its not just one call. Its all the calls over multiple years that add up, he said.

Several license plates swapped in Lakewood, police investigating

The ordeal began Monday afternoon in Jefferson County, when law enforcement reported that a 7-year-old girl had been taken by her father, Charles Alexander.

Charles Alexander (Ohio Amber Alert)

Alexander, who did not have custody and was deemed a danger to the child, became the center of a multi-county search effort.

Hours later, officers in Medina Township spotted Alexander driving a stolen U-Haul with his daughter in the passenger seat. As the chase concluded in a parking lot, negotiations commenced, with dispatch and police trying to de-escalate the situation.

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The interaction between 911 dispatch and Alexander was captured on audio, providing a haunting glimpse into the challenges officers faced.

At one point, Alexanders daughter, sensing the seriousness of the situation, asked, Am I going to heaven today? I dont want to go to heaven today.

Medina County Sheriffs Office dispatcher Diane Boyes described her approach to keeping Alexander talking, aiming to calm him while shifting his focus away from the escalating tension.

Just kind of get his mind off the current situation, Boyes said, emphasizing how crucial it was to keep the conversation going and help the frightened girl feel as safe as possible under the circumstances.

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That tactic stalled for specialized shooters to reach the scene. As negotiations came to an end, a patrolman was able to neutralize the threat, ensuring the safety of the young girl. Alexander was pronounced dead on the scene, and his daughter was rescued from the U-Haul without injury.

The incident was particularly heart-wrenching, as Sheriff Grice revealed, because it happened on the girls birthday. Alexanders struggles with mental health were known, which added another layer of tragedy to the story.

Teenage suspect in robbery, multiple car break-ins arrested

Grice remarked on the difficult reality that, while the girl was safely returned to her family, the outcome still involved the loss of a life.

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None of us wants to do it. It changes multiple peoples lives, he said.

Despite the painful end, the storys silver lining is that a young girls life was preserved, and she will continue to dream and grow.

Every second counted. Every second counted for that young girl, Grice said.

Medina County Sheriffs Office has assured that the young girl, her family and the officers involved will receive appropriate mental health resources to process this traumatic event.

In a case where every decision mattered, its a reminder of the challenging, often heartbreaking work that law enforcement faces.

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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN)  Its almost that time of year and soon, the sound of ringing bells will be filling the air. The Salvation Army is looking for volunteers to help the organization through its busiest season.

Its looking for help for everything, from handing out meals to helping with its annual Red Kettle campaign.

This year, the Salvation Army is making it as easy as possible with a website dedicated to tracking volunteer locations and times that are available.

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Of course, you can still contact the Salvation Army directly if youre interested in lending a hand.

Maj. Paul Moore says every bit of help counts.

We depend upon them greatly and appreciate them greatly. Were short-staffed here. We have about six staff members so were running around like crazy. Anyone who can help us raise money and help us to help out the people of this community, its greatly appreciated.

The Salvation Armys Red Kettle campaign kicks off on Saturday.

This year, theyre hoping to raise $105,000 for local families and collect more than 15,000 toys for children in the tri-county area.

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LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy took to social media to address certain events that caused concerns among community members.

First, Sheriff Murphy addressed rumors circling on social media platforms regarding the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), sending semi-truck trailers to Livingston County.

Its been around long enough now that I would hope that we would realize that not everything you see on social media or trusted news sources are legit so, two issues real quick. One is that theres 350 semi trucks or trailers that FEMA has descended on Michigan and put them in various counties. Livingston County was specifically mentioned as one of those counties. Fake news? Not true. FEMA is not here. Not even one person, not even 1 trailer, said Murphy.

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Murphy says he hopes the community knows him well enough to know that he will always stay in communication with the community and not believe the fake news.

Sheriff Murphy then addresses community members who voiced their concerns after people waved Nazi flags in Howell and Fowlerville Saturday night. He says police have not identified the demonstrators because a crime wasnt committed.

People holding Nazi flags harass citizens in Mid-Michigan. (Pics on 6) People holding Nazi flags harass citizens in Mid-Michigan. (Pics on 6) Nazi demonstrators in Howell outside of an American Legion Post hosting a Diary of Anne Frank play (Bobby Brite)

Several people in Howell were seen waving Nazi flags outside of an American Legion Post that was hosting a theatre performance of The Diary of Anne Frank.

After the group left Howell, they made their way to downtown Fowlerville, where they gathered in one of the towns major intersections.

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Community responds to people waving Nazi flags in Howell, Fowlerville

No, we did not identify the folks, one because there was no crime, they came to the legion. The Legion asked them to leave. They left. They went across the street into the public right away, you know, spewed their spew, flew their flags. And then that was it.

Just a message to them if they happen to see this. Youre ball-less. Frankly, it cracks me up that you want to go spew your venom but yet youve got masks and sunglasses on. Show us your face, you guys. Tell us who you are. If youre proud of what youre doing, if you wanna make a stand, make a stand and stand behind it. Be a man, said Murphy.

Murphy continues by mentioning the history of Livingston County and its association with racism. The now-deceased Robert E. Miles, Michigan Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, was known to hold KKK gatherings that drew national attention from both fellow white supremacists and national media outlets on his nearby property.

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Dont give them the play, said Murphy. Dont beep at them, dont say nothing, dont encourage or discourage on social media thats exactly what theyre hoping for you guys. Please take the high road.

Earlier this week, Governor Gretchen Whitmer talked to 6 News and expressed how she felt about people waving Nazi flags this past weekend.

I think that some of the rhetoric that were already seeing is really corrosive and very concerning, said Whitmer.

Im at a loss honestly: People holding Nazi flags harass citizens in Mid-Michigan

Murphy ended the social media video by saying he would do his best to address the information online.

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SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS)  Three Shreveport men are formally indicted for their alleged roles in a murder on Kennedy Drive in July.

According to the Caddo Parish District Attorneys office, Everett Henderson, 23, faces a charge of second-degree murder in connection to the shooting death of Jaden Barnhill, 24, who was found dead inside a home the evening of July 17.

The Caddo Parish coroner said Barnhill had been shot twice.

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Man wanted for bouncing check to buy Jeep from Shreveport dealership

Authorities arrested Henderson on July 29, and he remains held at Caddo Correctional on the second-degree murder charge as well as a charge of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

Also charged with second-degree murder in Barnhills death are Lejerrion Lee, 22, and Peteria Seamster II, 21. Both are being held at Caddo Correctional and are awaiting their next court date.

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Nov. 13The state Fish and Wildlife Commission on Tuesday approved updated fishing regulations that include an expanded single-hook restriction on the Flathead River.

A regulation change in 2020 limited anglers to using only single-point hooks on the three forks of the Flathead River, upstream of the Teakettle Fishing Access Site. Commissioners approved extending the ban on treble and double hooks on the main stem of the Flathead River to Flathead Lake. The regulations do not apply to Hungry Horse Reservoir.

"Westslope cutthroat trout are very naive to flies and lures and are known to be caught multiple times in a season and throughout their lives, making them exceptionally vulnerable to hooking mortality," the state wildlife agency noted in its report on the regulation updates. "Single-pointed hooks make catch and release more effective while still allowing all types of fishing."

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The agency received four comments on the proposal that were generally positive.

"While there weren't a ton of comments about that today, it is still a pretty significant change," commented Dillon Tabish, regional communication and education program manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Also on Tuesday, Commission Vice Chair Pat Tabor carried a successful amendment to remove the lake whitefish exception from Flathead Lake, reverting the whitefish catch limits to the district standard of 20 fish per day and 40 in possession.

Tabor also proposed an amendment to change some aspects of spearfishing in the western district, which passed unanimously. All waters are now closed to spearing of game and non-game fish except for northern pike, either through the ice or by swimming in waters open to fishing.

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Mark Fuller, a fishing outfitter in the Flathead Valley, said during public comment that he supported all amendments that increase fishing on northern pike. Regarding spearfishing, however, he stated that he hopes there will be increased specificity in the regulation.

"This fishery is one of a kind," Fuller said of Northwest Montana. "It's time to take action and implement regulations to ensure that future generations can experience these fisheries like... so many of us have."

Commissioner K.C. Walsh moved to amend the daily and possession limits for combined trout in western and central district rivers and streams from five fish daily to three fish daily to alleviate issues as angling and environmental pressures increase.

Tabish pointed out that the amendment does not apply to cutthroat trout in the western district, so it does not affect many fisheries near the Flathead Valley.

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The amendment passed with Commissioners Brian Cebull and Susan Kirby Brooke in disagreement.

Tabor also moved to adjust regulations for bull trout on the Hungry Horse Reservoir. Anglers are allowed one fish per license year from the third Saturday in May through Aug. 15. Catch and release is allowed the rest of the year with a Hungry Horse or South Fork Flathead permit validation, and a catch card must be in possession when fishing for bull trout.

There is also no intentional angling for bull trout except catch and release for the month of July on the South Fork of the Flathead River upstream from Hungry Horse Reservoir. Angling is prohibited from Gordon Creek and Little Salmon Creek downstream 300 years from June 15 to Sept. 30.

TABOR ALSO updated the Commission on wildlife issues in Region 1, specifically referencing the recent finding of chronic wasting disease in the Flathead Valley's Hunting District 170. A symptomatic buck was seen in October at the Flathead County landfill and later euthanized. It marked the first case of the fatal disease in the hunting district.

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Following the discovery, Tabor OK'd the request to increase the number of 170-00 Deer B licenses in the district for individual hunters from one to two.

Tabor said officials reacted with "quick haste" in calling for an emergency increase in B tags to expand hunting opportunities.

He noted that game check stations in Region 1 are slightly outpacing last year's results.

The Commission also approved wolf trapping regulations that build on a federal court order that limits wolf trapping within an area that includes all of Regions 1, 2 and 3, along with the western portions of Regions 4 and 5 from Jan. 1 through Feb. 15.

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Starting Dec. 1, trappers in Region 1 who are trapping on the ground must obtain a free Supplemental Trapping Permit if they are targeting nongame species like racoons, badgers and red fox, or predatory animals like weasel, skunks and coyotes. Trappers using live cage traps are exempt from the requirement.

The regulations also outline requirements for trappers following the incidental capture of a grizzly bear.

"The reasons we're proposing these changes are fairly simple," said FWP spokesperson Greg Lemon in a media release this week. "We want a better understanding of the scope of coyote trapping on the landscape and we want to do what we can to provide trapping opportunities while limiting or preventing the chance of the incidental capture of a grizzly bear."

The proposals and amendments can be found on the Nov. 12 Commission meeting page on the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks' website at fwp.mt.gov/aboutfwp/commission/october-2024-meeting.

The Commission is set to meet again on Dec. 19.

Reporter Kate Heston can be reached at kheston@dailyinterlake.com or 758-4459.
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN)  A short street on Youngstowns South Side is in the process of being redeveloped with new housing.

On Mineral Springs Avenue  which is across from the Youngstown Playhouse off of Glenwood Avenue  six new houses will be built.

So far, three of the basements have been dug with one of the foundations in place. Its a joint project between the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation and the Mahoning County Land Bank.

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The houses will be three bedrooms and two and a half baths. Theyll be listed for no more than $180,000 each and will include 100 percent, 15-year tax abatements.

A groundbreaking will take place next Thursday morning.

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A total of at least 12 people were killed on Wednesday in southern Lebanon, including six Israeli soldiers and six people who died when Israeli jets hit a building, reports from both Israel and Lebanon showed.

Israel's armed forces announced that six of their soldiers were killed in fighting in south Lebanon, while eye witnesses reported at least six people died and 15 others were injured when Israeli jets struck a building south of Beirut.

The soldiers were killed in an exchange of fire with four Hezbollah members in a building, Israeli media reported, citing an initial army investigation. According to the reports, another soldier was injured in the incident.

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The Israeli military said five of those killed were between 20 and 22 years old. The army did not initially provide any information on the identity of the sixth soldier.

On an Israeli army memorial page, the total number of soldiers killed since the beginning of the conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon was given as 792.

The conflict between Israel and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah began more than a year ago following rocket attacks by the Lebanese militia in support of Gaza-based Hamas, which has been hit hard by Israel after carrying out a major terrorist attack on Israeli soil in October 2023.

Israeli airstrikes kill 6 south of Beirut

Images showed that several floors of the building in the Aley district, where the people were killed, were severely damaged in the pre-dawn bombing raid. There was no initial information as to the identity of those killed, including whether they had belonged to Hezbollah.

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Residents said they had spent the night outdoors for fear of further attacks. "These days, you have to know who your neighbours are," one resident told dpa in reference to members of the Hezbollah militia being targeted by Israeli forces.

Hezbollah members have been buying homes in the area in recent years.

The Israeli military reported attacks on Hezbollah arms depots and command centres in Dahiyeh in the south of Beirut. It called once more on residents of Beirut's southern suburbs to evacuate ahead of further attacks.

Hezbollah said that IDF ground troops had withdrawn across the border from most villages in the south of the country.

UN: Nearly 14,000 pregnant women caught in Lebanon conflict

Meanwhile, nearly 14,000 pregnant women in Lebanon have been affected by the war, according to a report published on Wednesday by the UN human rights office.

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The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that around 1,500 of them are due to give birth in the coming weeks, according to recent data.

In general, the risk of sexual exploitation and abuse of women is high in the overcrowded shelters in Lebanon, it said.

According to the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM), fighting in Lebanon has displaced some 880,000 people within the country. Another 470,000 have fled across the border into neighbouring Syria, where a civil war broke out in 2011.

OCHA has appealed to international donors for $426 million to provide essential support to those affected in Lebanon. To date, only about a quarter of this target has been raised.
Six Israeli soldiers have been killed after a three-hour gun battle with Hezbollah fighters who ambushed them in southern Lebanon.

The killings made Wednesday the second-deadliest day for Israel Defence Forces (IDF) since the ground invasion of Lebanon began last month.

The soldiers, part of the elite Golani Brigade, were named as Captain Itai Markowitz, 22, and sergeants Sharia Alboim, 21, Dror Chen, 20, Nir Gofar, 20, Yitzhak Segron, 21 and Yoav Daniel, 19.

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Their battalion was on a mission to clear the area of anti-tank missiles and launchers targeting northern Israel when they were ambushed in a village.

Initially confronted by four fighters around 10am, further Hezbollah reinforcements arrived during the three-hour gun battle.

The Hezbollah fighters were firing small arms, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The Kan public broadcaster reported that four of them were killed in the fighting.

The IDF has launched a military investigation in the aftermath of the incident questioning why there was no intelligence warning beforehand.

After Oct 2, when eight soldiers were killed, it was the second deadliest day for the IDF campaign in Lebanon.

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In total, Israel has lost 793 soldiers since the Hamas attacks of Oct 7, 2023.

We will not take our foot off the pedal

Israel Katz, Israels new defence minister, met with troops on Wednesday night and insisted that the war will continue at full pace.

He wrote on X: We will not take our foot off the pedal and will continue to hit Hezbollah in Beirut and the rest of Lebanon until the war goals are achieved.

The primary objective of Israels ground invasion of Lebanon is to enable 63,000 Israelis displaced from the countrys north to return home.

Ceasefire talks, mediated by the US, are continuing in the background, but experts do not expect a deal until after Donald Trump formally becomes president in January.

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Moty Cristal, a former Israeli negotiator, told The Telegraph: If before Mr Trump comes, there is a deal with Hezbollah, the hawkish approach towards Iran and its proxies wont be the same.

Its much harder to restart an aggressive approach if thats in place. If there is no ceasefire in Lebanon until January, that opens more military options for Israel and the US against Iran and Hezbollah.

These actions do not comply with laws of war

Meanwhile, advocacy group Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of crimes against humanity in its latest report on the war in Gaza.

Hamas claims more than 43,000 Palestinians have died in the war. Israel says more than 17,000 of those are militants.

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Human Rights Watch said on Thursday: Israeli authorities have caused the massive, deliberate forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since Oct 2023 and are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The report, called Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged: Israels Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, claims the war has led to the displacement of more than 90 per cent of the population of Gaza (1.9 million Palestinians) and the widespread destruction of much of the Strip over the last 13 months.

The report said: Israeli forces have carried out deliberate, controlled demolitions of homes and civilian infrastructure, including in areas where they have apparent aims of creating buffer zones and security corridors, from which Palestinians are likely to be permanently displaced. Contrary to claims by Israeli officials, their actions do not comply with the laws of war.

Israel denies the allegations and has repeatedly pointed out that its operations were sparked by the Iran-backed Hamas attacks of Oct 7 that killed over 1,100 people, the majority being civilians, in a single day.

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Israel has insisted its attacks are retaliatory and part of a mission to not only rid Gaza of the terror group but rescue those taken hostage in the initial attack, 101 of whom still remain in captivity.

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Donald Trump's cabinet choices suggest a skeptical direction of travel on Ukraine policy.

Many criticize the expense of US support for Ukraine, and some have directly insulted Kyiv.

Any decision would still rest with Trump, who could yet choose a more measured path.

President-elect Donald Trump has made bold claims that he can bring the invasion of Ukraine to a swift conclusion.

Though he hasn't said how he would do that, his choices in recent days for crucial cabinet roles will color his approach.

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Across roles like Secretary of State, national security advisor, and Secretary of Defense, Trump has favored figures broadly less sympathetic to Ukraine than their forebears.

Their comments often focused on the financial burden of helping Ukraine  and the sense that the war has gone on too long.

America out of patience

Marco Rubio, who Trump appointed Secretary of State on Wednesday, praised Ukrainian forces for their efforts in fighting off Russia in the early days of the war.

But in an interview with NBC News in September, the Florida senator said the US had misstepped.

President Joe Biden's administration, he said, was funding a "stalemate" war that needed to end.

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That aligns with Trump's repeated assertion that he would end the war quickly, even within a day of taking office.

Ukrainian officials tend to see that scenario as a losing one, where the conflict is frozen and Russia keeps the land it took.

President Vladimir Putin, they argue, would simply bide his time and attack again later.

Burning money?

Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon, the Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth, has argued a skeptical position.

In an episode of the " Shawn Ryan Show " podcast last week, he described Ukraine as a comparable policy failure to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The US "burned two decades of money" in those countries, he said, and was "tempted to do it again" in Ukraine.

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In the same interview, he questioned one of the main arguments for helping Ukraine  that if Russia is allowed to win there, it will keep going.

He dismissed that point and said Putin would probably stop at or near the Polish border. His implication appeared to be that a Ukrainian defeat would not, after all, be as bad as some feared.

A house is in flames after a Russian missile hit it in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Region, on November 11, 2024. Alfons Cabrera/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Trump's prospective national security advisor, Rep. Mike Waltz, has also argued the US is overcommitted.

In a 2023 op-ed for Fox News, he said that the US aid in Ukraine should be contingent on Europe doing more.

(European nations have collectively given more aid to Ukraine , but the US remains its single largest donor.)

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On the other hand, he has floated pro-Ukraine policies, including allowing it to strike a broader array of Russian targets with US weaponry, a step Biden has resisted.

Tulsi Gabbard, nominated as Director of National Intelligence, has taken by far the hardest line on Ukraine, in a 2023 video characterizing Ukraine as a "corrupt autocracy" undeserving of support.

'Losing your allowance'

The comments suggest that Trump would find little opposition if he moved to cut US aid to Ukraine.

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said that US aid being cut would lead to Ukraine losing the war.

Trump's son, Don Jr.  an influential figure albeit with no official role  seemed to relish the idea of Ukraine losing its funding.

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In an Instagram story posted after the election, he captioned an image of Zelenskyy with "POV: You're 38 days from losing your allowance."

The Biden administration seems to be taking that possibility seriously, moving since the election to rush aid to Ukraine while it still can.

Trump's call

It remains to be seen how influential any of Trump's picks would be in shaping policy. Trump could take their advice or leave it.

Alexander Libman, a professor of Russian and East European politics at the Free University of Berlin, said that "Trump is selecting members of his administration primarily based on their personal loyalty."

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This means that their own opinions "may not matter that much  it will be up to what Trump wants them to do," he said.

Some analysts have predicted a more measured approach that builds on Biden's.

Mark Cancian, a commentator and retired Marine Corps colonel, said that a more skeptical administration could pull back on some types of support while keeping up others.

For example, it could continue to send weapons but cut non-military support for Ukraine's economy.

Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics, wrote in an essay for The Economist that Trump may end up committed to Ukraine to avoid being blamed for losing the war.

"He cannot afford for Ukraine to become his Afghanistan," Mylovanov wrote.

Read the original article on Business Insider
SMITH COUNTY, Kan. (KSNW)  A Kansas man has been convicted and sentenced following a child sexual abuse case.

Colter J. Ducote was sentenced on Oct. 31, 2024, to seven presumptive life sentences after being convicted of seven counts of Jessicas Law child abuse charges. A jury found him guilty on Aug. 14, 2024.

On July 24, 2023, the Smith County Sheriffs Office requested assistance from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to investigate allegations that Ducote had committed the sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14.

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Murder charge dropped against woman in Garden City murder

Ducote was convicted of the seven counts of child sexual abuse, including rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, and aggravated indecent liberties with a child. The victim was 11 years old when she reported the sexual abuse by Ducote beginning at the age of 6.

Ducote was sentenced to a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years to life on each of the seven counts of conviction; two will be served consecutively for a mandatory term of 50 years to life.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP)  Smithfield Foods, one of the nations largest meat processors, has agreed to pay $2 million to resolve allegations of child labor violations at a plant in Minnesota, officials announced Thursday.

An investigation by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry found that the Smithfield Packaged Meats subsidiary employed at least 11 children at its plant in St. James ages 14 to 17 from April 2021 through April 2023, the agency said. Three of them began working for the company when they were 14, it said. Smithfield let nine of them work after allowable hours and had all 11 perform potentially dangerous work, the agency alleged.

As part of the settlement, Smithfield also agreed to steps to ensure future compliance with child labor laws. U.S. law prohibits companies from employing people younger than 18 to work in meat processing plants because of hazards.

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State Labor Commissioner Nicole Blissenbach said the agreement "sends a strong message to employers, including in the meat processing industry, that child labor violations will not be tolerated in Minnesota.

The Smithfield, Virginia-based company said in a statement that it denies knowingly hiring anyone under age 18 to work at the St. James plant, and that it did not admit liability under the settlement. The company said all 11 passed the federal E-Verify employment eligibility system by using false identification. Smithfield also said it takes a long list of proactive steps to enforce its policy prohibiting the employment of minors.

Smithfield is committed to maintaining a safe workplace and complying with all applicable employment laws and regulations, the company said. We wholeheartedly agree that individuals under the age of 18 have no place working in meatpacking or processing facilities.

The state agency said the $2 million administrative penalty is the largest it has recovered in a child labor enforcement action. It also ranks among the larger recent child labor settlements nationwide. It follows a $300,000 agreement that Minnesota reached last year with another meat processer, Tony Downs Food Co., after the agency's investigation found it employed children as young as 13 at its plant in Madelia.

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Also last year, the U.S. Department of Labor levied over $1.5 million in civil penalties against one of the countrys largest cleaning services for food processing companies, Packers Sanitation Services Inc., after finding it employed more than 100 children in dangerous jobs at 13 meatpacking plants across the country.

After that investigation, the Biden administration urged U.S. meat processors to make sure they aren't illegally hiring children for dangerous jobs. The call, in a letter by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to the 18 largest meat and poultry producers, was part of a broader crackdown on child labor. The Labor Department then reported a 69% increase since 2018 in the number of children being employed illegally in the U.S.

In other recent settlements, a Mississippi processing plant, Mar-Jac Poultry, agreed in August to a $165,000 settlement with the U.S. Department of Labor following the death of a 16-year-old boy. In May 2023, a Tennessee-based sanitation company, Fayette Janitorial Service LLC, agreed to pay nearly $650,000 in civil penalties after a federal investigation found it illegally hired at least two dozen children to clean dangerous meat processing facilities in Iowa and Virginia.

___

Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.
SMYRNA, Tenn. (WKRN)  Scammers will target anyone, but on Tuesday, they targeted Smyrna Mayor Mary Esther Reed.

As she was heading to the Town Council meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 12, Reed received a voicemail from a scammer who claimed to be a Smyrna police sergeant and threatened her with jail time if she didnt pay $1,500 over missed jury duty.

Someone saying that they were Sgt. Williams with the Smyrna Police Department, and that I had missed jury duty and that I had a warrant out for my arrest, Reed said. To be honest, at first, I thought it was a joke.

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Reed recognized the number as the police department, so she called the man back, but then he told her he would call her back. After that, the mayor called Smryna Police Chief Jason Irvin to see if it was real.

Every county surrounding Nashville has LPR cameras as Greenbrier installs 2 this week

I asked him what was going on. He said he didnt know, Reed said. I said, Okay, when he calls me back, do you want me to play along? And he said, Lets do that.'

When the scammer called Reed back, he told her she needed to go to the Smyrna Police Department. Thats when she had Irvin listen in on the call.

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Over at the police department, Irvin walked around the parking lot to see if the scammer was in a car. He didnt find anyone.

Once I told him I was there, they told me it would be $1,500, and they said, Im sure you dont have that in your pocket,' Reed recalled. And I said, Oh yes, Ive got it in my pocket, because I wanted to see what they would say, and he said, Well, we need to you go to one of our local supermarkets, and that there was a machine there that I would put that money into.

TBI confirms search of former Nashville police lieutenants home

According to Reed, she told the scammer she was just going to turn herself in at the police department. At that point, the scammer hung up.

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Reed doesnt know if the scammer was aware he had called the mayor of Smyrna, but shes glad shes able to warn her community about this incident.

Irvin stressed that scammers are able to spoof phone numbers like the police departments, but officers will never call someone to tell them they owe money.

Its used not only for police departments. They use it for other businesses and corporations where they spoof a number and then they call, pose as that company to try to extort money or scam people out of money, the police chief explained.

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

If youve been a victim of a phone scam, officials urge you to contact your local law enforcement agency or the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
ITHACA, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH)  As the winter weather quickly approaches, Tompkins County is looking to the public for assistance with snow removal for older adults.

The Tompkins County Office for the Aging maintains a list of individuals who would be willing to do snow shoveling or plowing for older adults in the community. Many older adults are not able to remove snow from their driveways and sidewalks without assistance. And deep snow and icy sidewalks are dangerous for everyone but especially for those who may have mobility difficulties

The office is currently updating its list of snow removers and is in dire need of more workers.

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The office says it is especially in need of people who are willing to work in places outside of the City of Ithaca and in rural areas.

Those interested in assisting older adults by shoveling or plowing, on either a paid or volunteer basis, can call the Tompkins County Office for the Aging at (607)274-5482 to put their name on the list.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WIVT - News 34.
Two Somali pirates, including one from Minnesota, have been sentenced 30 years in prison for holding an American journalist hostage for more than three years.

This week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Abdi Yusef Hassan, 56, of Minneapolis, and Mohamed Tahlil Mohamed, 43, of Somalia, were both sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Both men were convicted of hostage taking, terrorism and firearms offenses in February 2023 following a three-week trial. The two used their positions of power to play significant roles in the capture of American freelance journalist Michael Scott Moore, according to the Department of Justice.

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According to court documents, Moore traveled to Somalia to research piracy and the economy in January 2012.

On Jan. 21, 2012, Moore was driving in Galkayo, Somalia when a group of heavily armed men surrounded his vehicle. The men beat Moore before abducting him.

Abdi Yusef Hassan Sherburne County Jail

Moore was held for a total of 977 days in various locations, including on a hijacked ship with 28 other crew members.

Hassan, a naturalized U.S. citizen, served as minister of the interior, making him responsible for police and security forces in the province where Moore was held hostage. He served as an overall leader of the pirates and led efforts to extort a ransom from Moores mother.

Meanwhile, Mohamed, a serving officer in the Somali army, was a supervisor of the pirates guarding Moore during the early stages of the hostage taking. He also remained involved in Moores capture after he was moved to different locations.
The News

Votes are being counted in Somaliland after polls on Wednesday evening local time amid the growing possibility of the region being recognized as an independent state.

While it is considered part of Somalia by the United Nations, Somaliland is run independently and has sought international recognition since 1991. President Muse Bihi Abdi and main opposition candidate Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, a former parliament speaker, are the leading contenders.

Know More

The election comes amid changing regional dynamics.

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Somalia is vehemently opposed to a deal signed this year that would give landlocked Ethiopia access to Somalilands Red Sea port of Berbera in exchange for Ethiopias recognition of Somaliland.

Project 2025, a document by US conservative group Heritage Foundation that has been described by some as a blueprint for Donald Trumps incoming administration, proposes the US recognition of Somaliland as a hedge against Washingtons weakened position in nearby Djibouti.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD)  A family is mourning the loss of their mother, who was stabbed to death in Grand Rapids one week ago.

Lavonia Parham, 54, was stabbed on the morning of Nov. 6 along S. Division Avenue in the Heartside neighborhood. On the day of the killing, Chief Eric Winstrom with the Grand Rapids Police Department described it as a domestic situation. A witness told News 8 that a man and woman were seen arguing before the man stabbed her repeatedly and then turned the knife on himself.

Police: Woman stabbed to death in Grand Rapids

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Two of Parhams sons, Ricky and Anthony, told News 8 that Parham was a loving mother whose smile they miss dearly.

Anybody you talk to about her would let you know that shes the sweetest, loving, caring person that you know, Anthony Parham said. Its hard to see her without a smile, thats what I remember most. I dont remember the gruesome things that happen, I want to remember the love that she gave, everything she taught us.

An undated photo of Lavonia Parham. (Courtesy Anthony Parham)

An undated photo of Lavonia Parham. (Courtesy Anthony Parham)

Michael Rose, 60, has been charged with open murder and carrying a concealed weapon as a fourth-time habitual offender after police say he stabbed Lavonia Parham to death in downtown Grand Rapids last week.

Rose was taken to the hospital in critical condition after stabbing himself repeatedly, police said. He remained in the hospital Tuesday under the guard of Kent County sheriffs deputies.

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Even with the charges Anthony and Ricky Parham say nothing will ever bring closure now that their mother is gone.

It doesnt help the pain at all, its not bringing her back. Cant hear her love no more, her voice, Pumpkin, you know the words, nicknames, cant hear the nicknames she gave everybody no more, certain things we are going to miss, Ricky Parham said.

An undated photo of Lavonia Parham. (Courtesy Anthony Parham)

An undated photo of Lavonia Parham. (Courtesy Anthony Parham)

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The Parham brothers say theyll continue to spread their mothers message of love.

We wish we could have you back, you know how much we love you. Anything we can do to keep your name alive; we are going to keep being the strong boys, strong men that you raised and that you are in our lives, and we will continue share positivity and love and light on others, we miss you a lot, Anthony said. Its all about moving forward and just try to make sure we do the right thing. You know we cant bring them back but we can make them proud.

A GoFundMe was set up to help support Lavonias family.

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BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD)  The Louisiana State Police arrested a 30-year-old man who was accused of having child sexual abuse material.

According to LSP, starting in August 2024, the LSP Special Victims Unit, the Louisiana Attorney Generals Office, the Department of Homeland Security and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) started an investigation into the possession of child sexual abuse material.

During the investigation, on Nov. 12, detectives conducted a search warrant of a home belonging to Jesse M. Nigro, of Sorrento.

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Nigro was later arrested and booked into the Ascension Parish Jail on charges of distribution of child sexual abuse material under the age of 13 and two counts of possession of child sexual abuse material under the age of 13.

Police say this is an ongoing investigation.

Former Baton Rouge school employee accused of sexually assaulting student faces 2 years in prison

Latest News

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Johannesburg  More than 4,000 miners locked in a standoff with South African authorities over illegal mining were believed to be sick and increasingly weak inside an abandoned mine shaft Thursday. South African police confirm the partly decomposed body of one miner had been brought to the surface from inside the Stilfontein mine in the country's North West province Thursday morning.

Five of the unlicensed miners were pulled out alive Wednesday, all of them appearing frail and weak after apparently being underground for several months.

Illegal miners  known locally as Zama Zama  are often men from neighboring countries who come to South Africa without the paperwork necessary to find legal work. Many say they have no choice but to go underground and work in illegal mines to make a living.

Relatives of miners and community members wait near an opening to a mine shaft in Stilfontein, in South Africa's North West province, Nov. 13, 2024. / Credit: EMMANUEL CROSET/AFP/Getty

South Africa's abandoned gold mines are often targeted by illegal miners looking for gold and other minerals left behind by the previous commercial operations.

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Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, a senior government official who holds the role of Minister in the Presidency, told journalists on Wednesday that authorities would not help the Zama Zamas in the Stilfontein mine, but would instead "smoke them out."

"We will not send help to criminals. We are not sending help. We will smoke them out. They are not to be helped but persecuted. We didn't send them there and they didn't go down there for the good intentions of the country, so we cannot help them," she said. "When they come out, we will arrest them."

South African police and military forces leading the operation to detain the illegal miners and shut down the operation  dubbed Vala Umgodi (Close the Hole)  decided this week to block all entrances to the mine to prevent any more food being carried underground. More than 1,000 men have come to the surface and been arrested since the operation began several weeks ago.

Community members are searched by South African police before entering the mine shaft to negotiate with unlicensed miners underground in Stilfontein, in South Africa's North West province, Nov. 13, 2024. / Credit: EMMANUEL CROSET/AFP/Getty

Those who've resurfaced have said they were below ground for several months.

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David Van Wyk, a mining analyst and researcher at the Bench-Marks Foundation, said Thursday on a local radio show that he believed Ntshavheni "should read the constitution, and the right to life is sacrosanct, regardless of who you are."

"People have a right to a fair trial, and you can't say they are criminal without a fair trial," said Van Wyk.

Volunteers who have helped bring some of the weakened miners to the surface have also carried up letters up from those still underground. Many have said in the letters that they simply don't have the strength to come up.

Some of the volunteers have reported a strong smell of rotting flesh underground.

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Local community members have been protesting outside the mine, carrying placards reading: "Free our Brothers," and shouting that family members have been trapped underground for months.

Just outside the mine's entrance, several woman have been cooking food in large pots to offer to any miners who do come to the surface.

"I am working here, but I am not bothering any human," said one of the Zama Zama, who wouldn't give his name but said he was in the mine for several months. "I am just feeding my family."

Sneak peek: The Suspicious Death of Megan Parra

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By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea's Supreme Court upheld on Thursday the conviction of the former head of an advocacy group representing victims of Japan's wartime sexual abuse for embezzlement and sentenced her to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years.

Yoon Mee-hyang was indicted in 2020 on charges of fraud and embezzlement during her time as chief of the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, better known as Jungdaehyup.

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The group supports surviving "comfort women" - a Japanese euphemism for those forced to work in wartime brothels during Japan's colonisation of the Korean peninsula in 1910 to 1945.

A Seoul district court in February 2023 ruled that Yoon embezzled at least 17 million won ($12,000) of organisation funds raised through donations and fined her 15 million won, but cleared her of most other charges.

Seven months later, an appeal court convicted her of illegally receiving state subsidies and raising donations and embezzling more than 79 million won, handing her an 18-month suspended prison sentence.

The Supreme Court in a statement confirmed the higher court verdict.

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Yoon, who stepped down from Jungdaehyup before her 2020 indictment to run for parliament and was an opposition lawmaker until last May, issued a statement criticising the verdict as "unfair" and saying she was innocent. She has previously apologised for what she described as banking errors and causing controversy but denied the charges.

The group said in a statement it will return government subsidies in line with the ruling, but expressed regret that the court had accepted what it called the prosecutors' excessive accusations.

The case triggered a public outcry when it was initiated after Lee Yong-soo, an activist and one of the last living survivors forced into Japanese military brothels, accused Yoon of exploiting the women to amass government funds and public donations while spending little money on them.

Some lawmakers and activists criticised Yoon for seeking a seat in parliament as a member of the main opposition Democratic Party even as she faced trial.

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The party had initially accused prosecutors of orchestrating a "witch hunt" but expelled her in 2021 over allegations of real estate speculation.

President Yoon Suk Yeol's ruling People Power Party welcomed the top court decision, which would have stripped her of the lawmaker post, but regretted that the years-long legal process meant she was able to complete her four-year term.

A Supreme Court official said some cases require a lengthy review and it never intended to postpone the deliberations out of "political calculations". ($1 = 1,408.0500 won)

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Ed Davies and Kate Mayberry)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  South Koreas Supreme Court on Thursday handed a suspended prison sentence to a former lawmaker who was found guilty of embezzling funds while leading a group supporting Korean survivors of Japans wartime sexual slavery.

Yoon Meehyang, who was also convicted of fraudulently receiving government subsidies and unlawfully collecting donations, didnt attend the verdict, which confirmed a lower courts sentence of a year and six months in prison, suspended for three years.

In a statement on Facebook, Yoon described her conviction as unjust, saying she and her colleagues handled the groups funds properly and had not pursued private interests.

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Yoons group, the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, said it plans to return the government subsidies linked to the fraud charges but criticized the court for failing to see the substantive truth.

Despite our efforts over the past four years, we failed to achieve a not guilty result with the Supreme Court, but I want to use this opportunity to say once again  my colleagues and I are innocent, Yoon wrote.

Controversy surrounding Yoon and her group erupted in 2020 when one of the slavery victims, Lee Yong-soo, accused her of misusing donations and other funds and spending little on the victims.

Yoon, who had just begun her term as a lawmaker for the liberal opposition Democratic Party, denied allegations that she and the group used the funds for private gain and insisted that Lees claim was based on a misunderstanding.

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Historians say tens of thousands of women from around Asia, many of them Korean, were sent to front-line military brothels to provide sexual services for Japanese soldiers. Hundreds were registered with the South Korean government as victims but only eight of them are still alive.

Prosecutors indicted Yoon in September 2020 over embezzlement, fraud and other charges, months before the Democratic Party expelled her over separate suspicions of inappropriate real-estate investments. She finished her four-year term as a legislator last year as an independent.

The Supreme Court upheld a verdict by the Seoul High Court in September last year, which found Yoon guilty of fraudulently obtaining 65.2 million won ($46,300) in government subsidies from 2014 to 2020 by falsely reporting labor costs, and of embezzling 79 million won ($56,150) of the groups funds.

The court also ruled that Yoon violated laws by collecting donations through unregistered accounts as the group organized the funeral of Kim Bok-dong, a sexual slavery victim and activist who died in 2019.

The issues of sexual slavery, forced labor and other abuses during Japans brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula before the end of World War II have long been a source of tensions between Seoul and Tokyo.
After the flooding came fury. Many Valencians are angry at the handling of the disaster and the subsequent recovery operation  130,000 protested in the streets on Saturday, demanding that Carlos Mazon, the regional leader, should resign for his role in the tragedy. The death count from the flash flooding has risen to more than 200.

Mr Mazon and Pedro Sanchez, Spains socialist prime minister, are at the centre of a political blame game over the disaster. Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-Right Vox party, has accused Mr Sanchez of deliberately holding back assistance and concealing the number of dead.

While Spains government has promised 14.3 billion (11.9 billion) to compensate for losses in terms of livelihoods and property, anger remains  and fear too. More rainstorms are expected with debris still blocking some waterways and drains packed solid with clay mud. The far-Right seems determined to make gains from the chaos. After the flood, a new landscape may emerge.

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Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) said Wednesday she is appalled by President-elect Trumps choice of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) as the director of national intelligence (DNI).

In a series of posts on the social platform X, Spanberger raised concerns about Gabbards nomination and urged her Republican colleagues to speak out against it.

As a former CIA case officer, I saw the men and women of the U.S. intelligence community put their lives on the line every day for this country  and I am appalled at the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to lead DNI, Spanberger wrote.

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Spanberger called Gabbard ill-prepared and unqualified for the role, saying she traffics in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar-al Assad and Vladimir Putin.

As a Member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security, Spanberger added. My Republican colleagues with a backbone should speak out.

Spanberger joins a wave of lawmakers and former national security officials expressing concerns about Gabbard, who, as DNI, would oversee an agency that helps coordinate actions among all 18 of the U.S. intelligence agencies. The DNI is also responsible for putting together the Presidents Daily Brief, arming the executive branch with the information it needs to make key national security decisions.

Gabbard has expressed beliefs that counter the conclusions drawn by U.S. intelligence, particularly when it comes to Russia and Ukraine. She could face an uphill battle for confirmation to the role, particularly given criticism over being too aligned with Russian talking points.

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A four-term Democratic congresswoman who ran against President Biden in the 2020 primaries, Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022 and, this year, officially became a Republican.

Her past includes numerous statements and actions that have prompted accusations she is peddling disinformation or could even be a Russian asset.

Gabbard has shared content suggesting that the U.S. was involved in Ukraine developing biological weapons  pushing a Russian narrative. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said at the time that she was parroting Russian propaganda and that her treasonous lies may well cost lives.

Gabbard in 2017 met with Syrian leader Bashar Assad, who was accused of using chemical weapons on his own citizens during the countrys civil war. The meeting triggered outrage among her fellow members of Congress.

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During her 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, Gabbard argued Assad was not an enemy of the United States and declined to call him a war criminal.

Rebecca Beitsch contributed.

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SPARTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD)  The owner of the Sparta Township venue that hosted a JD Vance rally is facing permit violations for going over capacity.

Vance, now the vice president-elect, came to Apple Valley Events on 12 Mile Road on Sept. 17 in the heat of election season.

Its really cool for a small-time place like Sparta to have him come here, said Dale Bergman, the longtime Sparta Township supervisor.

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Trump wins Michigans electoral votes, AP reports

Chad Momber, the venue owner, has had a special land use permit since February 2023, according to township planning documents. Bergman said Momber originally went to the township and said the Vance rally would be an outdoor event, but was later told by the Secret Service it had to be moved inside. The rally came not long after an assassination attempt against President-elect Donald Trump.

What happened was beyond Chad Mombers control and anybodys control, Bergman said.

The rally did move indoors. Fresh Coast Planning, a Grand Haven group that provides zoning services to the township, sent a letter to the planning commission Oct. 31 noting several venue violations. The group said at least 500 people attended the Vance rally. Additionally, it said venues with at least 100 people inside need to have a fire suppression system and Apple Valley Events did not.

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Further, as part of the building inspection permit review and finalization of the special land use, Chad Momber provided a signed and notarized letter stating that the maximum occupancy load of the building would be limited to 99 persons, the letter states. During (the Vance event), more than 99 people occupied the building.

Apparent state House election winner sues to stop recount in Battle Creek

Emails and phone calls from News 8 to the venue seeking comment were not returned before this reports publication, but Momber posted on Facebook about the matter earlier this week.

Clearly this was a historic event for the Sparta community that day, he wrote. I feel many enjoyed the event. But it appears we have a board member or maybe a few that did not like the event and they are now violating our venue for a list of things.

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Bergman was at the rally. He said he felt it was very safe, noting that the local police and fire departments were on hand.

Everyones fired up and coming to Sparta, a small town, Bergman said. Having such a great thing for everybody in our community  I think it caught up in that somewhat. It was such a cool thing, but I think these other things were somewhat minor in looking at the big picture. I think the planning commission will look at that as well.

The memorandum from Fresh Coast Planning also acknowledged the presence of police and fire departments.

It appears that while there may have been violations of the special land use, the Zoning Ordinance, the Sparta Township Code, and other applicable codes and requirements, Mr. Momber may have taken measures to ensure that the event was held in a safe manner, the group wrote. The Planning Commission may want to seek feedback from the Fire Chief or other officials on existing safety measures for the venue before making a final decision.

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Residents filled the Sparta Civic Center Tuesday night as the planning commission held a public hearing over potentially revoking Mombers permit. The meeting ended without a decision. Bergman noted the township fire chief said during the meeting that there were good safety measures in place for the rally.

Poised to take control of state House, Republicans pick next speaker

Bergman expected the planning commission to meet again in the next month or two. He said he would be very surprised if it takes Mombers permit away.

I think it will be resolved, I really do, he said. And then maybe work with Chad in the future on future events to address some of the issues as far as capacity of the building.

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State Rep. Jaime Andrade said earlier this year in a Tribune interview he didnt know whether former House Speaker Michael Madigan had helped get his wife a job with the secretary of state in 2018.

On Thursday, however, the jury in Madigans corruption trial heard a wiretapped call in which Andrade, a Chicago Democrat, was told by Madigans longtime confidant in no uncertain terms who had pulled the strings.

The speaker jumped all over it, so thats good, Michael McClain told Andrade in the August 2018 call, which was played for the first time in court.

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Though there was nothing illegal about Madigans favor, the episode is being held up by prosecutors as more evidence of the power and influence wielded by Madigan and, by proxy, McClain, during the time frame of the alleged racketeering conspiracy.

Madigans lawyers had objected to the calls being presented to the jury, saying they could be prejudicial, but U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey ruled before the trial began that they were relevant.

Andrade could not immediately be reached for comment.

The recordings related to Andrade were an aberration in a week of testimony that was otherwise focused on one of the central accusations of the trial: an alleged scheme by ComEd to extend a stream of benefits to Madigan and his allies, mostly through requests relayed by McClain, in order to get the speakers support for legislation in Springfield.

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Earlier Thursday, former ComEd executive Fidel Marquez, one of two key undercover cooperators in the Madigan investigation, wrapped up a marathon six days on the witness stand, taking the jury through dozens of secret FBI audio and video recordings the formed the backbone of the ComEd allegations.

Marquez endured a grueling, two-day cross-examination by lawyers for both Madigan and McClain, who attacked his credibility on various fronts, including efforts to hide assets from his wife during their contentious divorce and misrepresentations about his felony conviction when attempting last year to buy a gun to shoot rattlesnakes.

The defense also questioned Marquezs motives for cooperating, insinuating that he only agreed to plead guilty to bribery conspiracy to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. In fact, in exchange for his truthful testimony, prosecutors have said theyll recommend no time behind bars at all.

That led to a memorable redirect questioning Thursday morning, when jurors heard for the first time that the alleged bribery scheme spread far beyond just Madigan and McClain.

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Marquez confirmed from the stand that several figures who have already prominently featured in the trial  ex-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, lobbyist John Hooker, consultant Jay Doherty and ComEd itself  had been criminally charged based, in part, on Marquezs extensive cooperation.

That information had been banned from trial, and during jury selection last month attorneys diligently weeded out many potential jurors who had knowledge of the prior ComEd Four case.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu argued Thursday he should be allowed to show that Marquezs cooperation was widespread, and his deal did not hinge entirely on the Madigan case.

The judge decided Marquez could testify that those entities were charged, but not mentioned that they were convicted.

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Once the jury returned, Bhachu got right to it, asking Marquez about covert calls and in-person meetings he secretly recorded with McClain, Doherty, Pramaggiore and Hooker.

You wore a wire on them, fair to say? Bahchu said. And they were all charged as a result?

Bhachu also pointed out Marquez has been cooperating for more than five and a half years so far with more still possibly to come.

Under the terms of your agreement, will you have to testify in any future proceedings if the government asks you to? he asked. Marquez answered, Yes.

Madigan, 82, of Chicago, who served for decades as speaker of the Illinois House and the head of the state Democratic Party, faces racketeering charges alleging he ran his state and political operations like a criminal enterprise.

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Among the allegations: Several Madigan allies got no-work subcontracts from ComEd; the utility reserved internships each year for young people referred from Madigans 13th Ward; and a law firm headed by Madigan fundraiser Victor Reyes was awarded a lucrative contract with ComEd, allegedly at Madigans request.

Both Madigan and McClain, 77, a former ComEd contract lobbyist from downstate Quincy, have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

The trial, which began Oct. 8, had been expected to last about 11 weeks, but on Thursday the judge confirmed to the parties that this estimate was wildly off. He said he now has calculated the trial to go until at least mid-January, with a weeklong break over the Christmas holiday. He asked attorneys for both sides to decide what to tell the jury.

Theres nothing wrong with the length of trial, we just have to let the jury know, Blakey said.

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Marquez testified for a total of almost 27 hours beginning last Tuesday. Once he was off the stand, prosecutors turned to a series of wiretapped calls, including the conversations involving Andrade.

On July 2, 2018, Madigan, the then-House speaker and head of the state Democratic Party, told McClain that Andrade came to me and same story, he needs money, and he had the thought that maybe I could help his wife on something.

Madigan explained that Andrades wife was a Spanish speaker and native of Peru, and that hed thought of placing her with Doherty, though not necessarily with ComEd.

I had the thought that I could actually put Jay Doherty on a retainer, Madigan said on the recording. And then hed have her and shed do whatever she would do. Wed tell Andrade to prepare some monthly reports on what shes doing. So hes got it on file.

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They wound up finding a position for Andrades wife doing research for the general counsel for then-Secretary of State Jesse White. The jury then heard another call in which Andrade thanked McClain for the effort.

I hope she really likes the job, McClain told Andrade on the Aug. 29, 2018, call. She can learn a lot in that role, and she can just keep it at least for three or four years, learn all the mumbo jumbo, all the magic words.  She has an opportunity to go elsewhere and make even more money.

Andrade told McClain he was happy with the outcome and thanked McClain profusely.

Ive got two kids in Catholic school, he said. Therell be enough to pay the tuition and aftercare and before-care while Im in session.

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I thought Id call you cause (Madigan) and I were talkin about cha so  I hope she really likes the job, McClain said.

Thank you again, Mr. McClain, Andrade said.

The Tribune first revealed earlier this year that Andrade, who represents parts of Chicagos Northwest Side, was the elected official mentioned in court papers as Public Official E.

At the time, Andrade told the newspaper Madigan was one of many people he reached out to regarding his wifes potential employment. I asked about 50 people, including Madigan, Andrade, who is not accused of wrongdoing, said in his remarks to a Tribune reporter.

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Andrade said at the time that a bout with COVID-19 had caused lapses in his memory, and he didnt know whether Madigan had anything to do with his wifes hiring. While Andrade remembered talking to McClain, he wasnt sure why he would have thanked him specifically.

Andrades wife currently makes about $62,000 a year in a law-related position with the secretary of state, records show. Neither she nor Andrade is expected to be called as a witness.

Prosecutors Thursday also played a series of wiretapped conversations between ComEd insiders that were sparked after Marquez, under the supervision of the FBI, asked what he should say to the utilitys new CEO, Joseph Dominguez, about the subcontracting deals with Madigans do-nothing allies.

In one call from February 2019, McClain relayed to Hooker what hed said to Marquez during lunch at Saputos restaurant in Springfield, a meeting that Marquez had surreptitiously video-recorded.

I just told (Marquez) to be transparent, McClain told Hooker. We had to hire these guys because Mike Madigan came to us. Thats how simple it is. So if you want to make it a federal court suit, OK, but thats how simple it is.

This was the best way to do it, Hooker said. This avenue is one of the best avenues.  Its clean for all of us.

McClain and Hooker congratulated each other for the elegant solution they came up with: Since the no-work subcontractors were under Jay Dohertys contract, if anyone asked whether they were legit, it was up to Doherty to prove they were actually working.

Thats why we set it up like this, John, McClain said.

Hooker responded by using the frequent nickname for Madigan: We came up with this plan and between him, our friend, and Tim (Mapes, Madigans then-chief of staff), and the alderman, they thought it was great, he said.

Well, you and I came up with it, McClain said. They didnt come up with it.

No, we came up with it, but they thought it was great once they heard it, Hooker said.

Dominguez was also top of mind later that month, when McClain discussed him in a wiretapped call with Hooker and Pramaggiore.

McClain said he was skeptical Dominguez would snap to and get something done quickly when Madigan requested it.

I dont think he really respects Madigan, he said. I wouldnt trust Joe. I would trust Joe to think that this is a quid pro quo and hes wired.

Later in the call, McClain said he would not be shy about giving Dominguez the real lay of the land.

My instinct is that I come up to Chicago and I sit down with Dominguez and say, Now, look it, (expletive), if you want to pass this bill, this is what it requires, McClain said.

Either you want to look like youre the leader, and be the leader, but that means youve got to authorize your people to do things. Or if you want to keep playing your silly games  thats fine, he continued. I dont mind having a daddy talk with this guy.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP)  People in Springfield got a chance to learn about an agreement that allows the police department access to cameras in the citys public schools.

Springfield to pay $3.3M to man imprisoned for a rape he claims he did not commit

The issue has been up for debate since September when the original contract was set to expire, but the school committee ultimately decided to extend the contract for another 120 days so they could hold a series of meetings to clear up any concerns. The first of those meetings happened Thursday night.

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The agreement allows civilians in the Springfield Police Departments Real-Time Crime Analysis Center live access to school surveillance cameras in the case of an emergency.

Theres no way in the world Im going to allow anyone in my police department to just turn on the cameras so we can look and see what youre doing for no reason, said Springfield Police Superintendent Lawrence Akers.

They can only see the live footage during something like an active shooter, fire, bomb threat, or other emergency. Springfield officers can not access the cameras without notifying Springfield Public Schools.

If we have access to the cameras and I can see someone chasing one of you down the hall and I can relay that to my officer, he knows exactly where to go or she knows exactly where to go to save your life, said Akers.

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In January, a vote will take place regarding the contract renewal, with many calling for transparency in the days ahead. The next public input session will be held at 5:30 p.m. on December 12th at Brightwood/Lincoln School.

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.

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SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP)  The Springfield Police Detective Bureau is seeking help to identify a suspect allegedly involved in a skimming device incident over the weekend.

Skimming devices found at Springfield convenience stores, suspects sought

Police are investigating four incidents that occurred over the weekend where a skimmer was found by an employee or retrieved by a suspect inside convenience stores. The person pictured allegedly removed a skimming device from a PO device inside a convenience store.

Springfield Police Department

If you have any information on this suspect, call the Detective Bureau at 413-787-6355 or anonymously by Text-A-Tip. Text CRIMES (2-7-4-6-3-7) type SOLVE and your tip.

What is a credit card skimmer?

Card skimmers are illegal devices installed at gas pumps, ATMs, and other locations that can steal credit and debit card information. When swiped, the skimmer scans your card information and uses Bluetooth to send card information to the thiefs computer or phone.

How to detect a card skimmer?

Before putting your card into a reader, the FBI says, there are some easy and effective ways to protect your information. Police also warned about other, harder-to-detect skimming devices. These newer devices cannot be detected from the outside.

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Inspect the reader and look for any loose parts or damage. Scratches or damage to adhesive tape can also be indicators of tampering.

Give the skimmer a light shake, and if it feels loose, tell an employee.

Cover the keypad with one hand to block any hidden cameras.

To be extra careful, pay with cash.

Checking card transactions regularly and setting up account alerts can also help you spot suspicious activity. If you notice something wrong, call your card issuer immediately so they can cancel the card and protect your information. You can also alert a staff member if you spot a card skimmer.

Tips from the Springfield Police Department

Be cautious of using non-bank ATMs.

Before using any machine, take a look to make sure it hasnt been tampered withred flags are loose, crooked, or damaged card readers.

If the numbers are hard to press or feel thick, it might have a false keypad installed and you should move on to the next machine.

If you need to enter a PIN, cover the keypad with your other hand in case a camera is recording your number.

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.

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ST. LANDRY PARISH, La. (KLFY)  St. Landry Parish Crime Stoppers is a tool used in the fight against crime. Soon it may also be used in the battle against litter.

Maj. Mark LeBlanc, of the St. Landry Parish Sheriffs Office, said the parish is experiencing a massive issue with littering and dumping.

Much of this ends up in the drainage canals that serve the drainage portion of this entire parish, LeBlanc said.

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Because there is a lack of surveillance cameras in rural parts of the parish, community tips can help law enforcement officers find who is clogging drainage paths and roadways.

With that idea in mind, LeBlanc has visited with the St. Landry Parish Council and municipalities like Eunice to share the idea of incorporating Crime Stoppers to offer a monetary reward for sending in those types of tips.

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Using the recognition and the success that St. Landry Crime Stoppers has had over the many years would certainly bring to light not only the issue but also provide a mechanism by which we can attack the issue. We will start issuing citations based on viable information that gets turned in to us, LeBlanc said.

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LeBlanc said the idea has already gained support from District Attorney Chad Pitre, who would prosecute violators, and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, who would assist in issuing citations.

Instead of bringing a few hundred law enforcement officers into this, I want to bring in nearly 90,000 citizens that live in Saint Landry Parish into this issue, allow them the ability and provide them the mechanism by which they can report it and possibly receive a tip reward when we take enforcement action against this, LeBlanc said.

LeBlanc hopes to see this initiative take effect in 2025.

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ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo.  The St. Louis County Police have issued an Endangered Silver Advisory Wednesday afternoon for 68-year-old David Bowen.

Bowen was last seen on Nov. 6, but his phone pinged in Earth City on Tuesday around 9 p.m.

According to a release, Bowen has dementia.

He lives in his vehicle, which is a black 1999 Ford F-150 with Missouri license plate 4KBN33.

Bowen is described as a white male, 6 feet tall, and weighs 185 pounds. He has gray hair and green eyes.

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Anyone with information is urged to call 911 or the St. Louis County Police Department at 636-529-8210.

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ST. LOUIS  Police are seeking the publics help in identifying a suspect connected to a string of car break-ins in the 700 blocks of North 1st and North 2nd Streets in St. Louis. The incidents occurred overnight between October 29 and 30, 2024.

The suspect was captured on surveillance footage and is described as changing clothes during the crimes. He is also believed to frequent Cahokia Heights, Illinois.

Authorities are urging anyone with information about the suspects identity or whereabouts to contact CrimeStoppers. Callers who wish to remain anonymous may be eligible for a reward.

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St Pauli Hamburg has decided to leave the social media platform X, citing as a reason that Elon Musk, the owner of the microblogging platform, has turned it into a "hate amplifier."

"Elon Musk has turned a space for debate into a hate amplifier that could also influence the Bundestag elections," the Bundesliga club said in a statement.

The collapse of the German three-party coalition after finance minister Christian Lindner was dismissed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz last week has paved the way for elections on February 23 instead of September 28 as regularly scheduled.

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"Since the takeover of Twitter, formerly the name of the platform, by Musk, he has transformed X into a hate machine. Racism and conspiracy theories are spreading unchecked or even being curated.

"Insults and threats are scarcely sanctioned and are being considered freedom of speech," St Pauli wrote.

The club pointed out that Musk has already "strongly supported" Donald Trump in his successful campaign in the United States elections and "it can be assumed that X will also promote authoritarian, misanthropic and right-wing extremist content in the federal election campaign, thereby manipulating public discourse."

St Pauli had been active on X since 2013 and currently have more than 250,000 followers. Their X account won't be deleted, but the club will now be active on BlueSky, a platform with similar features to X.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla (WFLA)  The city of St. Petersburg held a Hurricane Resource and Recovery meeting to update and inform the public on their efforts.

Florida Emergency Management Assistance representatives, code enforcement, and other city entities were made available to the dozens of people in attendance. More than 150 people joined the meeting virtually.

Some residents took this opportunity to voice their concerns regarding debris pickup, or the lack of it.

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Teresa Miller is the landlord of a property on 93rd Avenue North. She said she and her neighbors have been waiting on pick-up for long enough.

They seem to be picking up the debris and trash everywhere else. I dont know why this pocket gets left out, said Miller.

She got a violation notice from the city, dated Oct. 30th, addressing the debris and other problems at the apartment.

Instead of getting a notice for city violation I should get a notice about when they are going to pick it up, said Miller.

Her neighbors want the same thing. A few doors down, massive piles sit next to cars parked on the street.

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The Womack family said they see code enforcement representatives on their street every day, but no debris pickup trucks. They point out their dying grass underneath the debris.

Its going to be terrible. You can see can see right here where its browning. We own this so this is a yard were going to have to replace that, said April Womack.

8 On Your Side took these concerns to the city during a meeting Wednesday night.

A sanitation official dealing in storm debris cleanup told David Womack the city got permitting last week to store debris at the Toytown landfill, which is about 15 minutes north of their home, so they should start seeing progress in that area.

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Richard Lawrence waited patiently for the Q&A portion of the meeting to address city leaders directly, where he accused the city of being reactive instead of proactive.

I think the progress on the debris clean up has been appalling. In the Northeast there are piles and piles of debris for blocks and blocks, said Lawrence. When I evacuated I saw hundreds and hundreds of utility trucks coming down to Florida, god bless them, to help us out. Then we get back here and the debris, two months later, is piled up into the streets eight feet tall. Its unimaginable You need to step up and make this happen yesterday. You need to get that debris off the streets yesterday.

Mayor Ken Welch responded directly to this comment, first by acknowledging the problem on the Northeast is the run time is 90 minutes. Welch said its not that they dont have enough trucks, but its the transport time.

The hope is with Toytown opening, there will be more relief in that area. Welch said they have moved more debris in this amount of time than they ever have before, and are using the resources available to them.

I just disagree that we are reactive. We have been very innovative, proactive, and weve moved more debris than any other local government, said Welch.

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Lawrence asked the Mayor what would happen differently next time, based on an earlier presentation regarding rising sea levels, and he mentioned development in the tropics.

You have to get used to the fact that your debris is not going to be gone from your house in two weeks, said Welch.

Lawrence said its not about how much has already been removed, but the fact that this is a coastal community that should have plans for these kinds of storms.

The city told 8 On Your Side they would send a statement on the violation notice. Code enforcement was present at the meeting.

Once we get that information we will update this story.

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Today, Thursday, Nov. 14, is a big day for Starbucks lovers. It's Red Cup Day!

The Starbucks holiday menu has been available to enjoy at all of the coffee chain's locations in the U.S. for a week now, since Thursday, Nov. 7.

Here are some of the new seasonal coffees on the 2024 holiday menu and what to know about Starbucks' very popular annual Red Cup Day, which is today.

When is Starbucks Red Cup Day 2024?

If you don't know, Red Cup Day is a day when customers who order a seasonal beverage get a free, reusable red cup.

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This year's annual giveaway will be observed at participating Starbucks locations nationwide today, Thursday, Nov. 14. Holiday-themed beverages can be ordered in-store, at the drive-thru, on the Starbucks app or ordered for delivery.

What are the Starbucks holiday drinks in 2024?

Starbucks started serving its holiday menu in stores nationwide one week ago, on Thursday, Nov. 7.

But if you just cant wait in a drive thru line for your serving of Starbucks holiday flavors, some seasonal flavors are available in their pre-made coffees and creamers in stores.

This year, Starbucks is debuting the new Starbucks Vanilla and Chocolate Cold Brew Concentrate, Starbucks Non-dairy Sugar Cookie Latte Creamer and the Starbucks Peppermint Mocha Flavored Creamer, an Oct. 30 press release on the stores website said.

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To find Starbucks holiday flavors in a grocery store near you, visit athome.starbucks.com.

Will gingerbread be back at Starbucks? See new seasonal drinks for the Starbucks 2024 holiday menu

In an Oct. 28 press release, Starbucks announced that two new seasonal flavors will be added to its usual list of fan-favorites.

Heres the Starbucks holiday drink menu for 2024:

(New) Salted Pretzel Cocoa Oatmilk Latte: Captures the festive season with savory notes of salted pretzel harmoniously blended with signature Starbucks espresso, the creamy texture of oatmilk, and a generous drizzle of rich mocha sauce. Its topped with a dollop of whipped cream, and a sprinkle of crunchy pretzel and red cookie pieces, recreating the warmth and nostalgia of cherished festive moments. Available as a hot, iced, and blended handcrafted beverage.

(New) Salted Pretzel Cocoa Oatmilk Frappuccino Blended Beverage: ...Featuring the savory sweetness of baked salted pretzel complementing the nutty aroma of oatmilk. Finished with a swirl of mocha sauce, whipped cream, and a festive mixture of pretzel and red cookie pieces, its a taste of holiday joy in every sip. Available as a blended handcrafted beverage.

Toffee Nut Crunch Latte: Rich, buttery Toffee Nut flavors are delicately paired with subtle hints of toasted nuts in our signature espresso for a heartwarming holiday drink, bringing memories of days spent with loved ones. Available as a hot, iced, and blended handcrafted beverage.

Gingerbread Latte: Hints of spicy gingerbread blended with our signature espresso roast make this the perfect treat to cozy up with friends and family. Available as a hot, iced, and blended handcrafted beverage.

Peppermint Mocha: Inspired by iconic seasonal delicacies, the luxurious Peppermint Mocha, topped with fluffy whipped cream and eye-catching red and white candy bits, signals the start of the holiday season. Available as a hot, iced, and blended handcrafted beverage.

Toffee Nut Crunch Cold Brew: The Toffee Nut Crunch Cold Brew is a luscious blend of our signature Cold Brew with buttery Toffee Nut and cane sugar flavors, topped with an airy blanket of Toffee Nut flavored foam and crunchy Toffee Nuts. Available as an iced handcrafted beverage.

Toffee Nut Crunch Nitro Cold Brew: Served ice-cold and straight from the tap with a rich infusion of vanilla and cane sugar syrup, topped by a thick layer of Toffee Nut-flavored cold foam and a sprinkle of Toffee Nut, this beverage is a pick-me-up that is sure to brighten up your holidays. Available as a cold handcrafted beverage.

Does Starbucks have Refreshers year round? Limited-time holiday refreshers available

Yes, Starbucks always offers Refreshers, which are iced drinks with no coffee in them. The most popular refreshers are the strawberry acai and dragonfruit-flavored Refreshers.

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And this holiday season, Starbucks is releasing holiday-themed Refreshers for the first time ever and all three variations are cranberry-based.

Here are the three ways you can order Starbucks' new holiday Refresher:

Cran-Merry Orange Refresher: A refresher with flavors of sweet orange, tart cranberry and warm spices, shaken with ice, water and real cranberries

Cran-Merry Orange Lemonade Refresher: combines the Cran-Merry Orange Refresher with lemonade

Cran-Merry Drink: combines the Cran-Merry Refresher with creamy coconut milk

How many Starbucks are in Florida?

There are over 900 Starbucks locations across Florida. To locate one near you, check its website here.

Contributing: Natassia Paloma, El Paso Times, Catherine Messier, USA TODAY Network

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Starbucks Red Cup Day is today. How many Starbucks are in Florida?
Nov. 13Attorneys for the state say motions filed by the attorney representing indicted state Supreme Court Associate Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi to dismiss the indictments against her and disqualify Attorney General John Formella from the case are "unsupported by applicable law."

Hantz Marconi awaits arraignment later this month after being indicted by a Merrimack County grand jury on two felony charges: attempt to commit improper influence and criminal solicitation of improper influence after she allegedly interfered with a criminal investigation involving her husband, Geno Marconi, director of the Division of Ports and Harbors in the Pease Development Authority.

She was also charged with five misdemeanors: criminal solicitation of official oppression, official oppression, obstructing government administration, and two counts of criminal solicitation of misuse of position.

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Geno Marconi has also been indicted and suspended in connection with the case.

Last month, Hantz Marconi's lawyer, Richard Guerriero, filed a motion claiming Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald told his client that if she had concerns she had "the right to seek to address the Governor, just as any other citizen would have that right," court documents show.

"Formella's key witness in the criminal prosecution of Justice Hantz Marconi is his client, Governor Sununu," the motion reads. "Formella cannot be an impartial and fair prosecutor in these circumstances. When a prosecutor in a criminal case represents a key witness in other matters, the prosecutor has a conflict of interest. He cannot prosecute the criminal case on behalf of the People of the State because he is limited by his duties, such as the duties of loyalty and confidentiality, to his client the witness. And when the prosecutor is the chief prosecutor in an office, with statutorily mandated duties to direct and supervise his subordinate attorneys, the entire office must be disqualified."

In an objection to this motion filed Tuesday afternoon in Merrimack Superior Court, attorneys for the state cite a case  State v. Klattenhoff  where the Supreme Court of Hawaii was presented with an allegation by a criminal defendant that there was a conflict of interest where the attorney general was prosecuting a case against a state official who was also being represented by the attorney general in two unrelated civil suits.

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In that case, the court found a majority of states have permitted the AG to concurrently represent conflicting interests when it can ensure independent representation for the competing parties.

"We recognize, as do the majority of states, that due to the multiple duties statutorily imposed upon the AG's office, the ethical rules for private law firms are not necessarily applicable, in all cases, to the AG's office," the court found in State v. Klattenhoff. "The practical reality is that every employee, appointee or elected official in state government who may be advised by the AG, or receive some legal service from the AG is a potential client of the AG. Thus, there is a potential conflict whenever the AG exercises his statutory duty to investigate and prosecute violations of state law committed by people in state service.

"Carried to its logical end, appellant's argument would mean that every time a state employee, appointee or elected official became the subject of a criminal investigation, that party could disqualify the AG from prosecuting based upon an alleged conflict-of-interest  thus, the AG would constantly be prevented from performing his duties as the state's chief law enforcement officer."

In its objection to Guerriero's motion, the state argues in New Hampshire the logical end of the defendant's motion is "even more absurd than the one contemplated in Klattenhoff."

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"Carried to its logical conclusion, defendant asserts that no state official and no other individual where a state official was a witness could ever be prosecuted in the state of New Hampshire because of DOJ's civil representation of a state entity or state official," the state argues. "In essence, defendant argues that she should be immune from criminal prosecution because the governor and other state officials witnessed her alleged crimes."

In his motion to dismiss, Guerriero's also argues the case presents a "rare, if not unique, situation" where state officials may be witnesses, but attorneys for the state say it is anything but  citing prosecution of criminal cases related to the Youth Development Center while also representing the state in related civil litigation and cases of on-duty misconduct by law enforcement officers.

"According to defendant's argument, all criminal defendants in each of these cases (and any other case where a state official is a percipient witness) should be dismissed (or convictions set aside) with no prosecutor able to vindicate the state's interest in seeing that its criminal laws are enforced," attorneys for the state argue. "Such an absurd result is contrary to the common-law, constitutional, and statutory powers and duties of the Attorney General (and common sense)."

In July, the state Supreme Court placed Hantz Marconi on administrative leave with pay for 90 days but did not disclose why.

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Geno Marconi has been on administrative leave with pay since April. He was indicted on several charges, including two Class B felonies: witness tampering and falsifying physical evidence.

According to the indictments, Hantz Marconi told Sununu in June that the investigation of her husband was "the result of personal, petty, and/or political biases" and there was no merit to the allegations against him.

She is also accused of telling Sununu the investigation of her husband "needed to wrap up quickly because she was recused from important cases pending or imminently pending before the New Hampshire Supreme Court," according to the indictments.

The indictments claim Hantz Marconi solicited Sununu "to improperly influence a member and/or members of the New Hampshire Department of Justice regarding an investigation into Geno Marconi."

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Last week, Guerriero filed another motion to dismiss the indictments against his client, claiming her alleged actions are protected under the First Amendment.

If convicted, Hantz Marconi could face 3 1/2 to 7 years in state prison for each felony charge and up to a year for each misdemeanor, a spokesman for the Department of Justice said.

Hantz Marconi is scheduled to be arraigned in Merrimack County Superior Court on Nov. 21.
With less than 20 days to go until her swearing in, Democratic States Attorney-elect Eileen ONeill Burke has started tapping outsiders for her transition team.

For now, ONeill Burke announced in a Thursday morning release, it has just three members: former U.S. Secretary of Education and former CPS CEO Arne Duncan, 3rd Ward Ald. Pat Dowell and SEIU Illinois State Council Executive Director Anthony Driver.

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Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, speaks regarding a motion to extend the citys contract with SoundThinkings ShotSpotter service during a City Council meeting in City Hall in Chicago on Sept. 18, 2024. The council voted 33-14 to endorse an effort to overturn Mayor Brandon Johnsons decision to end its contract with the gunshot detection system. (Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune)

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That team will review current operations, engage with the community and stakeholders, and provide recommendations to increase public safety, ensure fairness, and strengthen operations within our criminal justice system, the release said.

Duncan is the managing director of Chicago CRED, a gun violence reduction organization. Driver is also the president of the citys Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, which helps oversee and develop policy for the Chicago Police Department.

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Dowell, whose ward covers much of the Bronzeville neighborhood, is also the City Council Finance Committee chair. She endorsed ONeill Burke early in the campaign, one of several local officials who broke with the Cook County Democratic Party, which backed ONeill Burkes primary opponent, Clayton Harris III.

ONeill Burke would go on to win the primary with a scant majority of votes, then handily defeat Republican Bob Fioretti in the general election with about 67% of the vote, according to unofficial totals. Her swearing-in  and outgoing States Attorney Kim Foxxs last day  is scheduled for Dec. 2.

As I said on Election Night, the best way to predict the future is to create it, ONeill Burke said in the release. Under the leadership of Alderman Pat Dowell, Anthony Driver, and Arne Duncan, we will begin to implement our commitment to victims and the law, a forward-thinking vision for criminal justice, and a promise to work together with all stakeholders for a stronger, safer future in every single community across Cook County.

The transition team will eventually include subcommittees on gun violence reduction, public corruption and conviction integrity.
The Great Seal of the State of Montana in the Supreme Court (Photo by Eric Seidle/ For the Daily Montanan).

While Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen has called the states top court ludicrous, and the incoming Montana Speaker of the House Brandon Ler, R-Savage, was elected, in part, by vowing to strike back against the radical overreach of the Montana judiciary, most of the people who use the courts have a decidedly different opinion.

Judges and attorneys who work everyday in the state courts took a biennial anonymous poll put out by the state court system, and the results showed than nearly 9-in-10 of the respondents approved of the job the Montana Supreme Court is doing.

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John Mudd, the executive director of the Montana Bar Association, said the survey was consistent with previous years and showed that the overwhelming majority of those who work with the courts most often see the states highest court as both efficient and largely consistent and clear in rulings. The survey is facilitated by the Montana Supreme Court and has been used since 2008.

Lawyers are used to winning and losing all the time, Mudd said. And what they want is a fair shot at making their argument to an impartial judiciary. They want a fair shake.

The survey, which had 10 questions, asks about the Montana Supreme Courts published opinions, how well it treats attorneys and clients, how well it explains its decisions and how timely those decisions happen. The questionnaire, which has been consistent since 2008, also asked how attorneys and judges feel about the procedures for attorney discipline, something that has been in front of the public as a historic hearing in which Knudsen faced 41 ethics charges and the states Commission on Practice recommended suspending his law license for 90 days.

Eighty-nine percent of the respondents said they felt that the sanctions imposed are proportionate to the attorneys misconduct.

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The state also published the results of the prior surveys and the results. During the 2024 survey, the number of respondents who agreed that the Montana Supreme Courts disciplinary process is fair set a record high of 90%.

He said that demonstrates that theres a buffer between the political aspect of the court and the actual functioning of the courts.

Theyve established a system where there is the maximum independence, and not going for a partisan tribunal, Mudd said. It creates a buffer away from politics and what weve seen with this survey has borne that out.

Mudd said the original process of surveying attorneys and judges started as a result of frustration and dissatisfaction over how long cases were taking to decide. Mudd said that the court has worked hard to improve its decision time, and also how it interacts, and the results show that the bar has largely responded positively to those changes. For example, in 2008, just 39% of the respondents said that the Montana Supreme Court issued responses in a timely manner, and since then that has risen to 85%.

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When we started this, there was a feeling that the court had become bogged down and speed was an issue, Mudd said. While you can look at the national statistics and see that Montana needs more judges, we still see that attorneys think that courts are efficient and well run.

The survey response rate was 35%, lower than during other years, and lower than the high of 47%.

bar-survey24
CENTRE COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ)  A sandwich shop is opening its doors in Centre County and theyre doing more than just making sandwiches.

Moxmoe Pictures Famous Sandwiches has officially opened its doors in Benner Pike after selling food in Huntingdon for two years. The family-owned shop said that while they moved locations theyre looking forward to seeing both new and familiar faces at their new location.

However, the shop isnt just making sandwiches and keeping the community fed. They also donate a portion of their profits to a fund to help offer single parents and their kids experiences they may not always have a chance to get. The Highlight Fund was created to help support single parents who may be struggling to provide highlight moments for their kids.

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Boalsburg Farmers Market finds a new winter home at fire hall

The ones that dont really have the means to, you know, create life experiences. (We) Give that family passes to a zoo. Give them a fuel gift card and just for them and make it a day and remember that whole event, Maurice Thompson, the owner of the shop said.

You can learn more about the Moxmoe Pictures Highlight Fund here.

The shop announced in September that their time in Huntingdon was coming to a close after they decided to open a store in State College. According to a post, they originally had hoped to keep both locations open but were unable to.

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We have loved getting to know so many of you and spending time chatting about more than just sandwiches. You all hold a very special place in our hearts and are now a part of our stories as well! We hope that youll continue to visit us when youre in State College so we can continue the relationships weve built over the past 2 years. It has been our goal to impact peoples lives with our current products, and we hope to continue that with what we plan to offer in the future. As our mission statement reads, we want to create cheerful hearts, refreshed minds, and awesome stories while honoring God, The shop said in a statement.

Get the latest news, weather forecasts and sports stories delivered straight to your inbox! Sign up for our newsletters.

The shop is located at 321C Benner Pike in State College and is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Nov. 13State Health Commissioner Dr. Lindsay Weaver visited the Decatur County Health Department on Friday, Nov. 8, to engage with local health officials and partners to discuss ongoing health initiatives aimed at improving community well-being.

The visit, part of Dr. Weaver's statewide tour, was an opportunity to assess the challenges facing rural health departments, promote public health programs, and strengthen the partnership between local and state health agencies utilizing funds from the Health First Indiana initiative.

Health First Indiana is an investment in prevention that will lead to healthier communities. HFI initiatives cover several public health core service areas, such as maternal and child health, trauma and injury and lead exposure. Local health departments share information every June and December on several measures to show the momentum underway as HFI grows across the state.

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These data provide vital information for local health departments to share ideas and establish partnerships for enhanced core public health service delivery. In addition, every member of the Indiana Hospital Association has taken a pledge to support HFI. Many Indiana businesses and organizations are also taking the pledge.

View https://www.in.gov/healthfirstindiana to see how Health First Indiana is improving core public health service delivery across the state or take the pledge to help Indiana communities thrive.

Dr. Weaver, who has served as Indiana's State Health Commissioner since 2021, was greeted by Decatur County Health Executive Director Sean Durbin and other staff members. Together, they discussed the health department's current efforts to address pressing health issues such as chronic disease management, mental health services, and the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Collaboration Is Key

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In a brief address to health department staff, Dr. Weaver emphasized the importance of collaboration between state and local health organizations to tackle health disparities and improve outcomes for all Hoosiers. She commended the Decatur County Health Department for its dedication to promoting health equity and for its innovative approach to addressing the unique needs of the rural community.

Rural Health Challenges

Decatur County faces many of the same challenges that rural areas across the state encounter: limited access to healthcare providers, economic barriers, and higher rates of chronic illnesses. Citing the statistics found on the Health First Indiana website, Weaver addressed the high rates of smoking during pregnancy and infant mortality in Decatur County. During her visit, Dr. Weaver toured the health department's facilities and met with staff members to learn about their strategies for reaching underserved populations.

During the meet and greet, Decatur County Health Department community partners highlighted some of the county's efforts to combat these issues, including outreach programs to increase vaccination rates, education programs, and nutrition and wellness initiatives aimed at improving lifestyle choices. Also highlighted were the department's collaboration with local schools, faith-based organizations, and community leaders to expand the reach of health services.

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Looking Ahead

As Dr. Weaver concluded her visit, she expressed optimism about the future of public health in Decatur County and beyond. She reiterated the state's commitment to addressing health disparities, improving access to care, and supporting local health departments.

The visit served as a reminder of the essential work being done on the ground to support the health and well-being of Indiana's rural communities, while also reinforcing the importance of continued investment in public health infrastructure and services.

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PIERRE, S.D. (KELO)  A state government panel that provides financial assistance incentives to private businesses and other organizations in South Dakota has okayed low-interest loans to two operations and a grant to a third.

The South Dakota Board of Economic Development met by teleconference on Wednesday and approved:

A $600,000 South Dakota Works loan to CNF Enterprises, doing business as I-90 Meats, for its operations in New Underwood.

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GOAC chair reveals a third probe of state corruption

A $500,000 South Dakota Works Loan to Mother of God Monastery in Watertown to renovate its Village Campus into a licensed childcare and educational center for up to 225 children.

A $101,591 South Dakota Jobs Program grant to Smack Pet Food Inc., a Canadian-based company establishing operations in Aberdeen; the grant however is limited to no more than 75% of the actual sales and use taxes paid on eligible project costs not to exceed $4,985,800.

Last month the board loaned Smack Pet Food a total of $2.5 million for the project. (See related story.) The company is renovating the former Banner Engineering building at 714 Corporation Street.

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Meanwhile the state Economic Development Finance Authority on Wednesday approved a $325,000 Beginning Farmer bond for Raymond and Madison Freeman of Britton to purchase 160 acres of agricultural land in Brown County.

The two panels share the same members.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen is revealing today that two years ago he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent a procedure to remove the tumor.

Thankfully, the filmmaker is now fully recovered and fully functional, he tells Deadline.

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The knight of the British realm is making a speech this afternoon to U.K. lawmakers at the House Of Commons to launch a new campaign for charity Prostate Cancer Research.

The surgery meant that the start of filming on his exceptional wartime feature Blitz was delayed for two weeks.

McQueen then returned to work without divulging to over two hundred cast and crew the reason for his absence. The director says that he kept his medical operation secret because he didnt want his health issues to be a distraction to those working on the movie.

Todays date, November 14, has a special significance for the filmmaker, because its two years exactly since doctors removed the cancerous tumor.

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Before McQueen addressed attendees today in the House of Commons Terrace Pavilion, he agreed to break the deeply personal news to Deadline in the hope that it will encourage others to take action as he did.

The 12 Years a Slave director explains that after his father, Philbert McQueen, died of prostate cancer in 2006, I knew there could be a hereditary situation whereby I could develop prostate cancer. So he began having regular MRI scans and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) checks, plus he was tested all the time, of course, for films and whatnot.

During one such examination in 2022, with Blitz in pre-production and with a start date set, his doctors discovered that I had developed this cancer, this tumor, a small tumor, and therefore obviously caught it very, very, early. I delayed the shoot by two weeks and then had the procedure.

McQueen was in hospital for two days and worked from his bed. Then he went home for twelve days. I was just doing stuff in bed on the computer, working, emailing and whatever, but I kept it private at that stage, because he didnt want cast and crew to be concerned.

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And then two weeks after the procedure I was on set shooting the movie, which is a Lammas Park, Working Title and New Regency production for Apple, with Saoirse Ronan, brilliant young newcomer Elliott Heffernan, Paul Weller, Harris Dickinson, Stephen Graham , Kathy Burke, Benjamin Clementine and many others.

Steve McQueen on set during Blitz shoot. Photo courtesy of Apple

The film, powerful popular art for the people, is now in cinemas and will be available on Apple TV+ from November 22.

Only his wife and close family were told about the health scare. And that was it. I really just wanted to get on with the job. And thats kind of like who I am. Im a get on with it kind of person, he says matter of factly.

Thinking how Blitz is set in wartime London when the city, particularly the East End Docklands district was being bombed nightly for eight months straight in 1940 by Hitlers Luftwaffe, the wartime Keep Calm And Carry On slogan seems apt in relation to his situation and directness in dealing with it.

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Oh, you could say that, McQueen says smiling. But its just a case of just getting on with it.

McQueen says that the early detection was the key. The cancers gone and thats down to early detection. Early detection means virtually a hundred percent success rate. Again, its a cancer that if you detect early, its totally survivable and curable.

Prostate cancer affects a lot of Black men, my own father died from it over three decades ago, but great medical strides in detection have been made since then.

One in eight men will get prostate cancer, says McQueen, quoting Prostate Cancer Research statistics. But one in four Black men will get prostate cancer, and one in twelve Black men will die of prostate cancer. So for me, it was about preempting it. The fact that I was preempting the situation for years was, again, my saviour in that way. So, just preempt it and get it early, he declares.

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He says that he took it upon himself to get tested annually because of his family history.

And hes fully behind Prostate Cancer Researchs Proactive For Your Prostate campaign, and its Everyman A Scan slogan, launched with the help of U.K parliamentary lawmakers and members of the prostate cancer community to raise awareness about the importance of nationwide regular screening.

Whats happening is that men are being left to their own devices to navigate this on their own, he says.

They shouldnt wait, he urges.

McQueen reflects on the tragedy of his father dying from prostate cancer and how that made him want to know everything about it, and how he wanted to be prepared, because I knew that if it did come my way, if I did get it, it could be dealt with in an extremely effective way, and thats the end of it.

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He went quiet for a moment as he tried to find words to express his debt to his father. In some ways, you could say, my dad saved my life because unfortunately he died of it.

Pausing again to gather his thoughts, McQueen adds: Just like your father isnt here because of it, because your father, like my father, is one of the one in 12 Black men who unfortunately will die of it, if not detected early.

Every year, more than 55,000 men in the U.K. are diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 12,000 men in the U.K. die from the disease, according to figures provided by Prostate Cancer research. Those with a family history of prostate cancer are also at a higher risk of developing it.

McQueens straightforwardness is refreshing in the sense that generally men, all men, not just Black men, can be fearful, for various reasons, in seeking medical advice.

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The filmmaker who made the no-holds barred 2011 movie Shame, starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, cuts through my British reserve, laughs and says that hes fully recovered and fully functional, and that includes downstairs.

McQueens candid comments, I imagine, will be most helpful to those men who fear the idea of being checked.

Saoirse Ronan, Elliott Heffernan and Paul Weller in Blitz. Photo courtesy of Apple

This reminds me of the short film McQueen made for the Male Cancer Awareness campaign in 2021 titled Embarrassed, created to help raise awareness of prostate cancer within the Black community.

The film, which urged regular screening, featured a short series of interviews with Idris Elba, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Micheal Ward and Morgan Freeman.

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McQueen says that he recently shot a new short film for the Proactive for Your Prostrate campaign featuring David Harewood. It will be launched towards the end of November.

I also think the very idea of an Oscar garlanded director, and a major prize-winning artist to boot, speaking in such personal terms, not just to Deadline, but more importantly, to lawmakers of all hues in the House of Commons, will be enormously impactful in the U.K., the United States, Europe, Africa, and around the world.

Its huge, in my view, that McQueen has spoken out. I feel sure lives will be saved.

And, again, Black men must pay attention, all men must pay attention.

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Those in attendance at todays parliamentary event gave weight to the seriousness of the topic. The gathering was co-hosted by David Lammy, the ruling Labour Partys Foreign Secretary; James Cleverly, the former Foreign and Home Secretary, and Josh Babarinde, the Liberal Democrats Justice Spokesperson. They, along with McQueen and Prostate Cancer Research CEO Oliver Kemp, all prepared remarks for the Terrace Pavilion event. Also in attendance were celebrities including Gary Lineker, Claudia Winkelman and James Corden.

The tragedy of this is no one has to die of it. Thats the tragedy, McQueen says, hammering home the importance of early screenings.

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SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN)  One woman has worked to turn a source of pain into a source of community.

Donovan Holt, 33, was arrested in San Antonio, Texas in connection to his wifes death more than a year after the 2023 incident. His wife, April Holt, was found unresponsive in the bathroom of the couples Antioch home with a plastic bag taped around her neck.

RELATED: Continued efforts from victims mother lead to breakthrough in Antioch case

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Aprils mother, Jamie Dickerson, advocated for justice for months following her death after it was originally listed as a suicide. However, Dickersons advocacy didnt stop there. She decided to help others who were struggling to move forward after loss.

I tell myself every day, Well, God still has purpose. Theres still purpose,' Dickerson said.

Dickerson invited News 2 inside her new grief center in Shelbyville. Inside there are clear signs of hope and joy. Those may not be the typical feelings in a grief center, but Dickerson said its an indication that her daughters presence is there.

Ive come to realize after losing April, that grief affects you physically, mentally, emotionally [and] in so many different ways, Dickerson said. I know by helping people heal, it builds a stronger community.

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Dickerson told News 2 that she hopes the grief center is a place where those in mourning can find others who understand.

You often feel like you just have this title of mother of murdered child above you, Dickerson added. The kids feel like it just says, My mom was murdered, and they walk around and they feel like theyre different from everybody else. When you walk in these doors, I want you to feel like, Hey, everyone in here is grieving. Everybody has this weight on their shoulders.'

PREVIOUS: Man awaiting return to Nashville after allegedly admitting to strangling wife to death in 2023

After learning new details about the circumstances surrounding Aprils death, Dickerson went to to Nashville police with the suspicion that her daughter was murdered. For months, even as Aprils case was closing, she said that she met with Metro police about evidence.

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After collecting a recorded confession from Donovan, her efforts paid off  the cause of death was changed to a homicide. On Wednesday, Donovan pleaded guilty to reckless homicide, tampering with evidence and false reporting. He is set to go before a judge for sentencing in January.

Making a difference is all that matters to me now, Dickerson added. I want to make a difference.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
DEWITT, N.Y. (WSYR-TV)  You ask, we answer!

Viewer Question: Whats being built at the former Ethan Allen furniture store , across from the DeWitt Wegmans?

From furniture to fine jewelry!

Reeds Jewelers is moving into the location off of E. Genesee Street, near the I-481 interchange. The actual address is 100 Dewey Avenue.

The fine jewelry store is relocating from its current location on Erie Blvd., near the old ShoppingTown Mall, to the old Ethan Allen.

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Reeds President and CEO, Jeffrey Zimmer, called the new location the best spot in Central New York, with prime access to to I-481, soon to be the new I-81. It will now be across the street from the largest Wegmans in the country.

He also said moving locations allows them to go from 2,000 sq. ft. to 8,000 sq. ft.

Zimmer said the remaining 18,000 sq. ft. of space will be leased to other luxury brands. Those stores are still being determined.

Work on the building started in the summer and the goal for the new Reeds Jewelers is to open next September.

A new Ethan Allen store opened in December of 2022 in the Marshalls Plaza in Dewitt.

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Storms in Spain have again brought heavy rain and strong winds, just a fortnight after the disastrous floods that killed at least 224 people.

The Andalusian province of Malaga in the south of the country has been badly hit, but so far there are no reports of major damage or any casualties.

In the Mediterranean region of Valencia in the east of the country, which was devastated two weeks ago, the effects of the new low-pressure system have so far been comparatively mild.

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The number of dead in the storms of two weeks ago has now risen to 224, 216 of them in the province of Valencia alone, the regional government said on X on Thursday. Sixteen people are still unaccounted for.

The authorities are keeping a particularly close eye on the levels of many rivers in the regions of Valencia and Andalusia, where orange and yellow warning levels currently apply in coastal areas.

In the Valencia region, private cars are not allowed to be used until the evening, and many schools will remain closed in the affected regions. Public transport is also paralysed in many places.
Stoughton Police Detectives assisted Homeland Security with their investigation of a Grandparent scam that targets the elderly. This comes after a Stoughton resident was a victim of this scam, losing $20,000 in March.

What exactly is a Grandparent scam? Its when scammers call someone and allege that a family member of theirs has either been arrested/detained in a different state or country or is currently in some kind of emergency. Oftentimes, people have reported that the scammers will claim to be the family members lawyer, with some even cloning the persons voice with A.I.

Earlier this month, two men were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for their involvement as couriers in numerous Grandparent scams throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

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I want to commend the work of our Stoughton Police detectives for their outstanding work in assisting Homeland Security Investigations to identify the suspects behind this crime, Stoughton Police Chief Donna McNamara said. These scams prey on the elderly, exploiting their trust and vulnerability to steal their hard-earned money, and it is vital that we take swift action to bring those responsible to justice.

Stoughton police have shared ways to avoid these scams:

Resist the urge to act immediately, no matter how dramatic the story is.

Verify the persons identity by asking questions that a stranger could not answer.

Call a phone number for your family member or friend that you know to be genuine.

Check the story out with someone else in your family or circle of friends, even if youve been told to keep it a secret.

Dont wire money or send a check or money order by overnight delivery or courier.

Report possible fraud at ftc.gov/complaint or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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NASA seems to be in the middle of another health debacle after one of its astronauts was forced to hit back against rumors that she'd lost too much weight in space.

As the New York Post reports, NASA is monitoring the health and medical privacy of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the astronauts who've been stranded on board the International Space Station for months after Boeing's cursed Starliner  the troubled spacecraft they flew up in  was deemed too risky for their return voyage.

In recent weeks, there's been ample tabloid speculation about the astronauts' health and appearances, particularly when it comes to Williams. During a teleconference earlier in the week, the female astronaut attempted to put to bed rumors that she had lost a lot of weight and appeared "gaunt," as one Earthbound doctor opined to the Post.

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"I'm the same weight that I was when I got up here," Williams said during the presser. She added that there could be a number of things affecting her appearance in photos, including the way microgravity changes water distribution in the body.

Still, NASA is apparently concerned not only with its astronauts' health and safety, but also about potentially sensitive medical information leaking to the press. According to an insider source who spoke to the NYP on condition of anonymity, anyone caught leaking astronaut health details could potentially be fired.

After this story was published, NASA reached out with an additional comment.

"All NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station are in good health," said NASA's chief health and medical officer JD Polk. "Its unfortunate that rumors persist otherwise. NASA and our partners have safely conducted long duration missions aboard the orbital laboratory for decades, studying the effects of space on the human body as we prepare for exploration farther into the solar system. Crew health is regularly monitored by dedicated flight surgeons on Earth, and they have an individual diet and fitness regime to ensure they remain healthy throughout their expeditions."

Muscle Gains

As Gizmodo noted in its own write-up of the debacle, Williams seemed compelled to point out some specific physical changes she'd experienced during her time on the ISS to dispel the rumors about her alleged weight loss.

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"I could definitely tell that weightlifting, which is not something that I do all the time, has definitely changed me," the astronaut said on the NASA live feed, referring to how astronauts undergo a vigorous fitness regimen in orbit to offset the health effects of space travel. "My thighs are a little bit bigger, my butt is a little bit bigger."

While space sexism is nothing new, it's a sorry return to the undue physical attention pioneering female astronauts like Sally Ride experienced, Gizmodo pointed out, which saw her and countless others in her wake being scrutinized over their weights and dress sizes while their male colleagues got no such attention.

Notably, this debacle comes just a few weeks after another group of NASA astronauts  which included another woman of color, Jeanette Epps  were hospitalized under mysterious circumstances upon returning back to Earth because one in their midst experienced a health issue.

In that case, at least, the woman hasn't been singled out  if only because NASA is remaining mum about what happened and who it happened to.

More on actual astronaut health problems: Space Tourist Alarmed When Vision Starts to Deteriorate
CLEVELAND (WJW)  A Northeast Ohio doctor pleaded guilty this week on charges related to tax fraud.

According to the Department of Justice, Dr. Suman Jana of Strongsville was involved in a fraudulent tax scheme that allowed him to claim millions in tax deductions for charitable contributions that were, in fact, fictitious.

Could NE Ohio dish out snow for Thanksgiving?

Court documents revealed that Dr. Jana was a client of now-convicted Michael Meyer, a fraudulent tax shelter promoter, and his associate Rao Garuda. Together, they marketed a plan called the Ultimate Tax Plan, which was designed to help high-income clients reduce their taxes by falsely claiming that they had donated valuable property to charitable organizations Meyer controlled.

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Prosecutors say Jana used funds from the so-called charities to pay for personal expenses.

From 2012 through 2015, Dr. Jana used Meyers scheme to fraudulently claim $764,350 in charitable contribution deductions, according to the justice department.

Among the personal expenses he funded with these donations were several car purchases for himself and his wife, according to a press release.

The case began to unravel in 2018 when the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil complaint against Meyer.

As part of the investigation, the Justice Department served Dr. Jana with a subpoena on May 24, 2018, requesting records related to his involvement in the Ultimate Tax Plan.

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In response, Dr. Jana fabricated documents to mislead the government, the justice department said in a press release.

VIDEO: Troopers look for semi involved in fatal hit-and-run

Jana pleaded guilty to corruptly endeavoring to obstruct the due administration of the internal revenue laws.

Dr. Jana is scheduled to be sentenced on March 7, 2025, and faces a maximum penalty of three years in prison.

Meyer was sentenced to 8 years in prison in the scheme.

Garuda, of Cleveland, has been sentenced to 20 months.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
STATESBORO, Ga. (WSAV)  Close to 100 local middle and high school students competed to see who was better at working with their hands in Wednesdays Associated General Contractors (AGC) Skills Challenge in Statesboro.

They come here with something to prove, said Josh Hall, the construction teacher at Statesboro High School. They want to prove that they do have the skills, and they do have what it takes to not only place or do well at a competition but to leave high school and to do something with their hands and be good at it and do really well at it.

Competitors played for real prizes, testing their skills in carpentry, electrical engineering, welding, plumbing, masonry, roofing and blueprint reading.

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I just feel nervous thats all Ive got to say but I hope I can make it top  third place, second or first, said competitor JR Benitez from West Laurens High School.

The CEO of AGC, Mike Dunham said, Our industry is really challenged right now that we need more men and women to enter our industry as carpenters, electricians and plumbers. This regions competition gives these students the opportunity to demonstrate what theyve learned.

Richmond Hill braces for potential flooding as Ogeechee River crest approaches

School leaders said that its about giving students choices beyond college. They said entering the industrial workforce means starting a career debt-free with good entry level pay.

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Ive seen multiple of my students that are former students now employed by a lot of these contractors that support this event, said Hall.



Benitez said, I want to do this for the rest of my life hopefully and get my license and everything for plumbing, but only god knows whats ahead of me.

Sponsors said that the event continues to grow every year with 50 new spots Wednesday.

There are eight stops for the Georgia Skills Challenge. Next week students in Augusta will wear hardhats for the next challenge.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
University students are at risk of suicide because of a culture of self-policing among their peers, a coroner has warned.

Alexander Rogers, a third-year materials science student at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, took his own life after a woman expressed discomfort over their sexual encounter, an inquest heard.

The inquest concluded this month that his suicide was probably influenced by the isolation he felt after being ostracised by his fellow students.

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Nicholas Graham, the area coroner for Oxfordshire, has now written to the Department for Education expressing his concern that the kind of exclusionary behaviour and cancel culture suffered by Alexander is becoming increasingly common at British universities.

Mr Graham warned there could be more deaths if ministers fail to take action to tackle the problem.

Alexander, 20, who was described at the inquest as an extremely able and popular young man, died after being seen entering the River Thames from Donnington Bridge in Oxford, on Jan 15.

Emergency services retrieved his body from the water and found he had suffered a head trauma.

Oxford University, where Alexander Rogers studied materials science. A spokesman said it would do more to improve student welfare - David Goddard/Alamy

The inquest heard that after the young man discussed the womans allegations with friends, they told him he had messed up, that they needed space from him and that they would check up on him a couple of weeks later.

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The two-day inquest was told that he had appeared distraught after this conversation and had died the next day.

In his Prevention of Future Deaths report, he stated: There is concern that social ostracism has become normalised within student communities, with individuals viewing it as an expected and accepted response to certain allegations or behaviours.

This normalisation hinders the development of healthy and supportive social environments.

The coroner, who was asked by Alexanders family to consider writing the report, added: Social ostracism can have severe and lasting negative impacts on mental health. It can lead to feelings of isolation, shame, guilt, and worthlessness, all of which are recognised risk factors for suicide.

Self-policing community

Mr Graham warned that students in universities across the country are self-policing their community when serious allegations are made and that this is being done without formal process or proper evidence.

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In his findings of fact after the inquest, Mr Graham had warned about the impact of cancel culture on students, writing: The evidence was that students could rush to judgment without knowledge of all the facts, could shun those accused, and [a] pile-on might occur, where a group would form a negative view about another individual.

Mr Graham said he could not find that this culture had materially contributed to Alexanders distress and his decision on the day he died.

But he said cancel culture would possibly have influenced his peers in forming the judgments that they did and that it was possible Alexander felt that because of this culture, there was no way of getting back into his social group.

A serious incident review after his death, commissioned by Corpus Christi College, identified a concerning culture of social ostracism within an element of the student body.

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Mr Graham noted that the university had already started acting with some diligence on the recommendations raised in the external review.

His report has also been sent to Alexanders family, as well as the university and college. The Department for Education is legally bound to respond within 56 days.

Oxford University commissioned an independent review into the death of a student with the aim of minimising the chance of such a tragic loss happening again - oversnap/iStock

A spokesman for the university said after the inquest: The college commissioned an independent review to identify all learning in this case with the aim of minimising the chance of such a tragic loss happening again.

A college working group has been set up to take forward all the recommendations, a number of which have already been implemented.

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The university is also working on recommendations made by the review as part of its ongoing work on student welfare.

Mental health support vital

A Department for Education spokesman said: This is a tragic case and our thoughts are with Alexanders loved ones.

It is essential that students have access to the mental health support they deserve and that universities take all necessary steps to prevent suicides.

We will be working closely with the coroner, the higher education sector and suicide experts, to ensure that lessons from this case inform our ongoing efforts to support student welfare.

Whitehall sources said the Office for Students has been asked to allocate 15 million of funding this year to enhance mental health services at universities, ensuring students have access to timely and effective support.

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The return of the sandhill crane to Wisconsin is a conservation success, but now the state needs to manage the population and the crop damage the birds can cause. (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

The Wisconsin Legislatures study committee on sandhill cranes held its second to last meeting Wednesday, taking a comb to the conclusions, findings of fact and legislative proposals that will be published when the body finishes its work next month.

The 12-member panel, made up of two legislators from each party and a group of advocates for agriculture, hunting, cranes and the environment, met for more than five hours, appearing to get close to consensus on an issue that has been raised a number of times in the state Legislature over the past decade with little progress.

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The resurgence of the sandhill crane in Wisconsin is a conservation success story, with the number of breeding pairs in the state reaching new highs after nearly being extirpated in the 1930s. But that success has increased conflicts with farmers  largely because the best land in the state for growing corn overlaps with the birds historical habitat in the wetlands of central Wisconsin. Sandhill cranes cause an estimated $900,000 of damage to corn grown in the state every year, a number that is almost certainly an undercount and doesnt include damage to other crops such as potatoes.

Recent attempts to pass crane-related legislation have failed after being injected into the partisan politics of the states divided government. A 2021 bill to allow the hunting of sandhill cranes died after Republicans invited controversial hunting advocate and rock star Ted Nugent to speak about the bill at a news conference. That bill was also supported by Hunter Nation, a non-profit that had played an instrumental role in the hotly debated wolf hunt that year.

Three years later, the work of the study committee has brought wildlife advocates and Democrats into the discussion.

Anne Lacy, director of eastern flyway programs at the Baraboo-based International Crane Foundation, said at the meeting that the science doesnt show a hunt will solve the crop damage problem and that theres still too many unknowns to determine if the current crane population in Wisconsin can support a hunt. But even without solving the crop damage issue, Wisconsinites might want to hold a crane hunt for social, cultural and recreational reasons and that may be possible if the state Department of Natural Resources can develop a plan that allows for a hunt while not harming the birds population in the state or surrounding region.

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Cranes are a powerful symbol of Wisconsins conservation efforts, an effort which all Wisconsin citizens have contributed to and have a vested interest in maintaining, certainly, she said. Science, she added, allows a hunt when and where it is biologically appropriate for the species, and there are data which indicate that even a modest level of harvest of sandhill cranes could lead to a decline  that could potentially jeopardize seasons throughout the flyway.

Finally, she added, given that hunting will have no impact on crop damage, a hunt is purely a social recreation issue.

The committee discussed three pieces of legislation that relate to hunting sandhill cranes and much of the debate Wednesday focused on the very fine details of these proposed bills, such as what fees should be charged to hunters, how permitting would work and what rules would guide the hunting season.

Any bill passed that allows the hunting of sandhill cranes in the state would need approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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The first two proposals are essentially the same, with one of the bills increasing the wildlife damage surcharge paid by hunters when they obtain their permit. The third proposal mimics the federal migratory bird depredation permit program, which allows farmers to obtain a permit to kill a bird that has been destroying crops. The committee has criticized the federal program because it requires the farmer to leave the carcass in the field so as to not encourage consumptive uses of the animal.

Hunters have a history of paying for opportunities, and so I like the bill with increased surcharges, and hunters have proven time and time again that were willing to pay, Paul Wait, editor of Delta Waterfowl Magazine, said. Were willing to pony up, were willing to put that money forward to help with the crop damage fund, provided we gain access and opportunity, and thats what were talking about here, from just a pure hunting standpoint, is, you know, providing a new opportunity for hunting in the state of Wisconsin.

The committee also spent much of the meeting discussing proposed legislation that would compensate farmers for the use of Avipel, a chemical that can be applied to corn seeds that makes the seeds unappetizing to the birds and protects the corn from being damaged.

The two proposals include one from the committees chair, Rep. Paul Tittl (R-Manitowoc), which would authorize the Department of Natural Resources to compensate farmers for the cost of treating their seeds with Avipel if they can demonstrate they had crop damage in a previous growing season. The other proposal, from committee member and farmer David Mickelson, creates a rebate program through the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP).

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The seed treatment bills gained more consensus support than the hunting bills, with much of the discussion focusing on how to structure the payment system, how the payments would be capped and how the programs success could be measured so future Legislatures can assess its effectiveness.

Rep. David Considine (D-Baraboo) said he was in favor of the proposal that puts the program in the hands of DATCP because farmers, some of them, tend to distrust the DNR and that might not be news to some of you, but they trust DATCP.

Tittl and Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) had several discussions about what the ultimate text of the legislation should look like so it can pass through the Legislature and have funds appropriated to the program by the Joint Finance Committee, including reducing cost by capping use of the program.

I could say, You know what, well do it a lot more, Tittl said. And then the chances of it passing through Joint Finance are almost zero. But Id rather be more realistic.

The committees next meeting, at which it will finalize its proposed legislation, is scheduled for Dec. 10.

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(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

An Arkansas legislative panel took steps Wednesday to allow the state Department of Human Services to continue administering food assistance for children next summer.

Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer, or Summer EBT, provided $120 in food benefits this past summer for each Arkansas child eligible for the National School Lunch Program, a U.S. Department of Agriculture service that provides free or reduced-price meals for low-income children.

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The Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review subcommittee of the Arkansas Legislative Council approved $2.9 million from the states restricted reserve fund to cover the states share of the jointly-funded program. The federal government will cover the remaining administrative cost, estimated to be about the same amount of money.

11.13.24 E. restricted_reserve

PEER also approved $8.9 million in spending authority for DHS as a separate agenda item. The department estimates that Summer EBT will require more than $50 million in spending authority, most of which will be funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to documents DHS provided lawmakers.

The subcommittee passed both measures with no debate or dissent, and the full Legislative Council will vote on both Friday.

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Summer EBT served more than 260,000 children statewide this past summer, according to DHS.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced in January that Arkansas would opt into the newly available Summer EBT program this year. Several other Republican governors, including in neighboring Oklahoma, declined to participate.

Students who qualified for the program received $120 on a pre-loaded card to use for groceries, similar to whats used for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Multiple children in one family can receive a card, though they each have to apply on their own basis.

Families did not receive their cards until July 10 this year due to the time it took DHS to launch the program, department spokesman Gavin Lesnick said in June.

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The Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance worked on outreach for the first year of the program and will continue to promote it, Patty Barker, the organizations No Kid Hungry Arkansas campaign director, said in an interview.

Barker added that she was very pleased with Arkansas lawmakers for starting DHS down the path of administering the program again.

I know that theyve already taken some steps in the new plan for summer 2025 to improve some of the process and data sharing that is utilized to identify those students who are automatically eligible for the program, Barker said.

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One upcoming change is that families will be able to apply for Summer EBT entirely online, which was not an option this year, she said.

Arkansas has the highest prevalence of food insecurity in the nation at nearly 19%, according to a September USDA report. Arkansas has also had a 22% child poverty rate for the past two years.

Sanders issued an executive order in October directing the heads of state agencies to examine whether their policies and procedures may be contributing to or exacerbating food insecurity in Arkansas.

On Wednesday, Solving Hunger Arkansas launched an awareness campaign regarding food insecurity and urging state leaders to expand students access to breakfast at school. The organization, which has worked alongside the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance, wrote in a press release that its efforts aligned with Sanders executive order.
BLOOMER  State Rep. Rob Summerfield, R-Bloomer, has been re-elected by his caucus to serve as Assembly Caucus chair for the upcoming legislative session.

I want to thank my colleagues for putting me in this leadership role, Summerfield told the Leader-Telegram. Its an awesome opportunity for me to serve. I think Ill be able to be an influence (in Madison) in serving my district.

Summerfield represents the 68th Assembly District, which now covers the northern half of Chippewa County and spreads through Rusk County and parts of Taylor and Price counties. He will be starting his fifth term in the Legislature.

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In the last legislative session, Republicans held a 64-35 majority in the Assembly. Largely due to redistricting, the GOP advantage has shrunk to a 54-45 advantage.

Rep. Karen Hurd, R-Thorp, nominated Summerfield for the role, and she noted it was a unanimous vote.

Hes organized, efficient, and an outstanding negotiator, which you have to have, Hurd said Wednesday. And hes very caring.

Hurd agreed its important to have the caucus leader coming from western Wisconsin.

Its incredibly important because there is a divide between the rural and urban, Hurd said. We have to shout a lot louder to be heard. And our needs are different up here. Having Rob in that role gives us more attention.

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When asked about top policies he wants to see the Assembly tackle this session, Summerfield said getting tax relief is the most important, and possibly obtaining tourism relief dollars.

Were looking at tax policy changes, long term, he said.

One of the chief measures Summerfield has worked on in his tenure has been getting broadband internet access to rural areas. He said hell be reaching out to federal agencies on obtaining money already allocated.

Weve made great gains, Summerfield said. Hopefully we can roll things out faster.

Summerfield also was part of a coalition to legalize marijuana for medical use only. He is not yet sure if that proposal will come back up next session.

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That once again is going to be a discussion, Summerfield said. Im fully supportive of medical marijuana, but we have to do it correctly.

Summerfield, 44, was first elected in 2016. In the past, Summerfield has helped operate and manage Two Acres Supper Club and Chippewa Valley Land Title. He is a lifelong county resident. Before redistricting, he represented the 67th Assembly District.
State Superintendent Jill Underly proposed a grant program to help support clean water in schools. Underly with Madison La Follette High School Principal Mathew Thompson and Madison Public School District Superintendent Joe Gothard in September. (Ruth Conniff | Wisconsin Examiner)

Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Jill Underly is proposing the creation of a grant program to support Wisconsin schools in upgrading water fountains to control for lead and other contaminants.

Underly made the announcement Thursday at Cooper Elementary in Superior, and its the latest in her growing budget proposal, which will be released in full later this month. She proposed other budget measures Monday that would dedicate over $3 billion to public education for an array of priorities, including increasing the state reimbursement to school districts for special education costs to 90%.

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It is critical that Wisconsin kids have access to clean drinking water, and schools are a big part of that, Underly said in a statement. Funding provided through my budget meets that need and allows schools to have the latest drinking water equipment available to their students.

Lead exposure can lead to lifelong damage to the brain and other bodily systems for anyone, but is particularly damaging for children under age 6. Wisconsin schools arent required to test for lead in their drinking water, but in recent years, some schools have found elevated levels of lead in water coming from fixtures in buildings during voluntary testing.

Under the proposal, the department would dedicate $2.5 million towards the grant program to help schools in modernize water fountains and ensure students have access to clean drinking water. Underly said her budget proposals, including the grant program, put Wisconsin kids first.

By investing in things like expanding access to healthy meals at no cost to families, increasing school mental health services, supporting districts in retaining high-quality teachers, and improving early literacy outcomes, we are moving Wisconsin forward, Underly said.

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State agencies proposals are just the first step in Wisconsins budget process. The agencies will deliver their budget requests to the Department of Administrations State Budget Office. The requests will then be delivered to Gov. Tony Evers, who will create his own budget proposal. Evers proposal will then be sent to the Wisconsin State Legislature, which will write the budget bill over the course of several months before voting on it and sending it to Evers to sign or veto.

With the states $4.6 budget surplus, Democrats are seeking to invest more money in an array of priorities, including public education.

Republican lawmakers, who hold majorities in the Senate and Assembly, appear to be opposed to the size of Underlys proposals. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said this week that it is not a serious proposal.

We have plenty of money to still invest in our priorities, but its going to be nowhere near what she proposed, Vos said.

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A California woman won't be allowed to sue the police officer who allegedly leaked a confidential abuse report to her violent boyfriend after the Supreme Court declined to review her case, ending her nearly decade-long legal battle to hold police officers responsible for abetting her abuse.

The Supreme Court declined this week to take up a petition for writ of certiorari filed in August by Desiree Martinez. Martinez filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2015 against several police officers in Clovis, California, who she accused of ignoring multiple attempts to report her abusive boyfriend. She says that's because her boyfriend, Kyle Pennington, was also a Clovis police officer.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that those officers, including one who tipped off her boyfriend, are immune from Martinez's lawsuit under qualified immunitya legal doctrine that shields state and local government officials from federal civil suits if their alleged misconduct was not "clearly established" by existing case law.

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Qualified immunity allows government officials to avoid liability even in cases where courts find that they violated the plaintiffs' constitutional rights. Defenders of qualified immunity say it protects police from frivolous lawsuits, but in practice it also short-circuits credible allegations of civil rights violations before they ever reach a jury.

Martinez was represented by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning public interest law firm.

"This is obviously hugely disappointing," Anya Bidwell, an Institute for Justice senior attorney, said in a press release. "Qualified immunity should not be a one-size-fits-all doctrine that protects on-the-beat cops and desk-bound bureaucrats alike. My heart breaks for Desiree. But one day, when we defeat qualified immunity, it will be because she and other heroes like her had the courage to stand up."

According to Martinez's Supreme Court petition, in one instance she filed a confidential abuse report against Pennington to the Clovis police. Later, during a late-night argument, Pennington called another Clovis officer, Channon High. Pennington put her on speakerphone and asked Martinez, "So you're telling the cops what I did to you?"

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Martinez denied it, but High interjected, "Yes, she did. I see a report right here."

Martinez claims Pennington hung up the phone and sexually and physically abused her. Pennington was later convicted of violating a restraining order, and prosecutors dropped more serious charges against him in exchange for a guilty plea to a single misdemeanor domestic abuse charge.

Martinez's 2015 lawsuit alleged High violated her substantive due process rights under the 14th Amendment by disclosing her confidential report to Pennington.

The long legal saga that followed shows how qualified immunity shuts the courthouse door on alleged victims of government abuse before their claims can ever be judged on the merits.

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A U.S. district court initially ruled that High wasn't entitled to qualified immunity from Martinez's suit, writing that "it was clearly established that an officer sharing a domestic violence victim's confidential information to the alleged abuser would be a violation of the victim's substantive due process rights."

High appealed to the 9th Circuit, which likewise concluded that "Officer High violated Ms. Martinez's due process rights by knowingly placing her in greater danger of Mr. Pennington's assaults." (When considering a motion to dismiss a civil lawsuit, courts are obligated to assume the plaintiff's factual allegations are true.)

From that sentence, a reader might assume that the 9th Circuit likewise found that High wasn't entitled to qualified immunitybut not so!

Although the 9th Circuit previously ruled in 2006 that police officers violated due process by disclosing complaints to their subjects, it decided that the facts of that case were not sufficiently similar to Martinez's. Therefore Martinez's right to file a domestic abuse complaint without having it disclosed to her abuser was not clearly established, and High couldn't have had fair notice that her conduct violated Martinez's rights.

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Whether or not an alleged victim of government abuse can sue the officials responsible often depends on whether they can find a case with a nearly identical background. The practical effect of this is that qualified immunity drags out lawsuits by years and permits constitutional violations as long as they are novel.

While the Supreme Court has overturned some individual qualified immunity cases that were particularly outrageouslike one where correctional officers locked a psychiatric inmate in a cell filled with feces and raw sewageit has continually declined to reconsider the doctrine as a whole.

Until it does, or until Congress gets its act together, plaintiffs like Martinez will have no recourse.

The post Supreme Court Won't Hear a Qualified Immunity Case Where a Cop Disclosed an Abuse Report to a Woman's Abuser appeared first on Reason.com.
Kenji Nonaka, 61, was attacked by a shark in Maui on Friday, Nov. 1

Hawaii News Now/YouTube Kenji Nonaka Kenji Nonaka

Kenji Nonaka lost his leg in a shark attack in Hawaii on Friday, Nov. 1

The avid surfer was released from the hospital on Nov. 7 and is "super motivated to begin the rehab and recovery process to get back into the ocean he loves," according to his GoFundMe campaign

The 61-year-old is taking a thoughtful approach to his attack, saying that the ocean is the shark's "property," which is why people have to share with the creatures

A 61-year-old surfer who lost his leg in a Hawaii shark attack earlier this month said he's already determined to return to the water.

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On Friday, Nov. 1, officials in Maui announced that a man was bitten on the leg while surfing at the "Sand Piles" on Waiehu Beach Park, before his leg was completely severed "just below the knee."

Now, Kenji Nonaka is reflecting on his shark encounter while speaking with local outlets KGMB/KHNL and KHON, revealing that he considers himself to be "lucky" and is looking forward to surfing again.

Im sitting on my surfboard, waiting for a wave and suddenly, a shark bites me, then shakes me," Nonaka told KGMB of the attack. "Maybe 20 to 30 seconds later, my leg [is] gone! Im screaming."

Related: Surfer Loses Leg in Hawaii Shark Attack After 'Extraordinary' Feat of Making It to Shore After Incident

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Per KHON, Nonaka said he started feeling nervous about sharks after one bit a board in the same area months back. Since then, he'd been hitting the waves with a shark band that used magnetic energy to deter the animals.

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But on Nov. 1, while surfing with friends, a shark indeed bit him. Nonaka's friend Gary Miyamoto, who was surfing with him at the time and ultimately fashioned a surfboard leash around his leg as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, described his friend's scream as a "big, different yell."

Then I see him, you know, splashing around," Miyamoto told the outlet. "All of a sudden, I see the water turn red."

As Myamoto explained, after his friend eventually caught a wave to bring himself closer to shore, the surfboard leash was the "only thing" they had at the time.

Thats why Im still alive, Nonaka said. Im lucky. Im so grateful because my friends, they helped me.

Getty Stock image of Waiehu Beach Park in Maui Stock image of Waiehu Beach Park in Maui

Related: I Survived a Shark Attack in Sydney Harbor and Lost My Leg and Hand  Now I'm on Shark Week (Exclusive)

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Nonaka, who has reportedly lived in Wailuku for 34 years, lost most of his right leg from the knee down in the shark attack, per KGMB. A GoFundMe page dedicated to the surfer has already raised over $100,000 toward his healing journey.

On Thursday, Nov. 7, a campaign update noted that he was released from the hospital and was "super motivated to begin the rehab and recovery process to get back into the ocean he loves."

According to KHON, Nonaka's doctor told him he could keep his knee because his leg was clean  as his friends took him to a concrete area on shore to avoid sand when they applied the leash.

They came to me and gave me power and aloha and I am happy thats why Im still alive, he said.

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The surfer also said that he believed someone was watching over him during the tragedy  his "hero" Tamayo Perry, who was killed in a shark attack at Oahus North Shore in June 2024.

Nonaka is already standing up again and doing dips on his walker two weeks after the shark attack, per KGMB. He's also waiting for his next time on the surfboard.

Tomorrow! he said when asked by the outlet when he intends to hit the waves again. Thats a joke. But hopefully couple more months.

I love surfing, I want to go back surfing, as for the shark its their property [the ocean], thats why we have to share," he added.


Robin Bolz, a survivor of human trafficking, testifies in a Michigan House Judiciary Committee meeting in Lansing, Michigan on Nov. 13, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

Too often, survivors of sex trafficking are branded with names like prostitute, reinforcing the power of abusers and taking away the voices of those who were abused, Robin Bolz, a survivor of human trafficking, told Michigan lawmakers Wednesday.

Members of the Michigan House Judiciary Committee examined bills that would alter legal language in Michigan that labels trafficking victims as prostitutes and considered bills that would allow survivors legal protections if they committed criminal acts while being trafficked.

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It was like drowning, Bolz recalled, years of sexual abuse starting at age 8 at the hands of her father chipped away at her sense of self, further deepening the control her traffickers held over her. Eventually, as is the case with many who have been sex trafficked, Bolz said she began to feel like her perpetrators were her breath of air, making it hard to seek out freedom.

Bolz said she is getting the chance to testify in support of bills that could have helped her heal and seek justice on what would have been her fathers birthday.

No one saved me, but I had to claw my way to this point through Gods grace and mercy, Bolz said. I will spend every last breath advocating for survivors so that they feel seen, heard and valued.

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There are a lot of misconceptions about trafficking and the stigma of blame for victims compounds on an already devastating system of abuse that is prevalent all over Michigan, Assistant Attorney General and Michigan Human Trafficking Commission Chair Melissa Palepu said.

Michigan is one of the top ten states for confirmed human trafficking cases, Palepu has said in the last year and she lamented that Shared Hope, a group that grades the policies of each state related to youth sex trafficking, ranks Michigan as one of the worst states in the nation at addressing sex trafficking.

Traffickers exert total control over victims and victims are often charged with prostitution offenses or are coerced to commit other crimes, including drug and theft-related crimes, Palepu remarked. In order to empower those who have been trafficked to hold their perpetrators to account in court and be able to rebuild their own lives, the state as a whole needs to reframe how it talks about trafficking and provide legal protections for those coming forward.

Lawmakers heard testimony Wednesday on more than 20 bills that would reframe policies on human trafficking.

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House Bills 5836 and 5838, would expand Michigans expungement rules to allow for survivors of human trafficking to have criminal convictions set aside if those convictions were a direct result of them being a victim of human trafficking. There are existing exemptions for offenses related to prostitution, but the bills expand expungements to all qualifying criminal acts committed while being trafficked.

Moving forward, Palepu said other bills being presented will provide survivors of human trafficking a chance at better interaction in the legal system. Namely HB 5837 would specify that survivors have an affirmative defense against prosecution for criminal conduct performed as a result of being actively trafficked.

This isnt an entirely new concept to Michigan courts, Palepu reasoned, as affirmative defenses such as self defense, entrapment and insanity already exist. The extension to trafficking victims would recognize the depth of control traffickers exert while providing avenues for survivors to reach out to authorities for help.

Survivors have little to no control over their actions while they are being trafficked, and often they are forced to commit other criminal acts and would suffer consequences for their failure to commit such acts, Palepu said.

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Law enforcement and local prosecutors want to help trafficking victims, but current criminal codes box in what they can do within the justice system, Brian Martin, an Investigator at Oakland County Prosecutors Office said.

Right now if a victim of human trafficking takes the stand against their perpetrator, theyre open to prosecution for their own criminal acts performed while being trafficked, Cindy Brown, section leader of the Oakland County Human Trafficking Unit said.

Brown said shes been adjusting witness immunity under the prostitution chapter of the Criminal Code that has existed since 1999 to try and protect victims of trafficking, but the rules are ill-fitting and fail to represent the difference between prostitution and human trafficking.

Human trafficking survivior Irene Faziani (right) testifies in a Michigan House Judiciary Committee meeting in Lansing, Michigan on Nov. 13, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

It made no sense to me, because human trafficking, by definition, is a crime that has force, fraud or coercion. Prostitution doesnt, Brown said.

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SB 517 would provide immunity protections for survivors of human trafficking who take the stand against perpetrators, even if they testify to having performed criminal activity.

When I meet with the human trafficking victim, thats their first concern. Am I going to be arrested? Am I being charged? Am I going to be in trouble for coming to talk to you today? And this would allow us to say, no.

Martin testified that as a member of law enforcement he particularly appreciates the thought that went into Senate Bill 515, which would allow hearsay exceptions to allow for statements from human trafficking victims to law enforcement officials to be used in court, without the victim having to testify.

One case of human trafficking he was assigned to, Martin said, upset him so much that he started working with Oakland county partners on how some of the court rules on human trafficking could be changed.

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The fact that I had to hold these victims of human trafficking, knowing the situation that they were rescued from, but we had to hold them in custody and then take them while they were still sick, and they should have been in the hospital and put them on the stand in front of their trafficker in order for us to get those statements in was heartbreaking, Martin said.

One of the victims involved in the case had told law enforcement that they had a domestic relationship with the trafficker, Martin said, so that victim was permitted to have their statements read in court without them having to be present under existing hearsay exceptions for domestic violence victims.

But human trafficking and domestic violence are not so dissimilar, Palepu noted in support of SB 515.

There is such a connection between human trafficking and domestic violence, the relationships are so similar between the abuser and the survivor or the victim, that it makes complete sense to allow for that hearsay exception thats already allowed for domestic violence to be allowed for human trafficking victims, as well, Palepu said.

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Victims should be receiving rehabilitative services and extensive medical attention, not being forced to take the witness stand within two weeks of their rescue, Martin said, calling the changes the bills outline game-changing.

The very people who are victimized by traffickers have the most power to take them down, human trafficking survivor Irene Faziani told lawmakers.

House Bill 5840 would expand existing allowances for expert testimony in criminal proceedings involving human trafficking to allow those with specialized knowledge on human trafficking to offer insight to a jury. Faziani, who now works at the safe house that helped her recover from her abuse, said survivors like her are experts.

Were not law enforcement or any of that, but weve actually lived through it, Faziani said. We know exactly whats going on.

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Juries can have a hard time understanding why survivors of human trafficking do what they do or why they didnt leave when a juror thinks they ought to have, Palepu said. By expanding the umbrella of eligible expert witnesses, prosecutors can utilize a more fitting approach to making courts understand the stigmatized issue of human trafficking.

The bulk of the bills the Michigan House Judiciary Committee heard about Wednesday amend the terminology in Michigans existing laws where a human trafficking victim would be navigating rules pertaining to prostitution, which label them prostitutes.

House Bills 5841 through 5854 and House Bill 5864 change the language of prostitution to commercial sex.

Michigan Assistant Attorney General Melissa Palepu (left) testifies in a Michigan House Judiciary Committee meeting in Lansing, Michigan on Nov. 13, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

That may not seem like a big change, Palepu said, but it can be the difference between someone going after their perpetrator or not.

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Because the word prostitute and prostitution [have] such a stigma in our society, victims and survivors of human trafficking are often referred to as prostitutes, and theyre demeaned as such, Palepu said. Changing the language to commercial sex gets rid of that stigma so that they can actually when we go through a criminal system. Were not saying prostitution.  Were not calling them prostitutes. Defense attorneys arent calling them prostitutes. Were talking about people who have engaged in commercial sex because they were forced to engage in commercial sex. It just allows for that stigma to be taken away and to let them go through the criminal system.

Because of trafficking, Bolz said she was robbed of an education that exceeded a seventh grade level. And as shes fought to reclaim her life, now earning a 4.0 grade point average as a senior at Western Michigan University, she said shes not accepting the label Michigan courts are offering.

This shift in language is not just about vocabulary. It is about seeing survivors for who they are, victims of abuse who deserve understanding and compassion. The words we choose matter. When our legal system uses terms like prostitution, it erases the reality of trafficking, of people taken, manipulated and trapped without choice, Bolz said, By changing this language, we recognize that survivors are not criminals, nor are they sex workers. Survivors have endured sex slavery, a term that reflects the lack of control and exploitation that they suffer, and if we want to offer a path to healing, we must first remove the language that keeps them chained to their trauma.

The packed committee room clapped for Bolz call to action and all of the bills passed the committee unanimously as bipartisan efforts.

As the Michigan Legislature approaches its last days of the 2023-24 session and leadership of the state House will transfer from Democrats to Republicans in January, committee Chair Kelly Breen (D-Novi) said that the bills represent the best of government, when party lines dont bind against helping those most in need.

I particularly want to thank my colleagues on the right and across the aisle, as it is a good thing when we can together, across the entire political spectrum, look at an issue squarely, denounce it, agree to work together, in this case to end this practice, hunt down the predators, put them away, and help survivors reclaim their lives, Breen said. So thank you to my colleagues, both to my left and to my right, for your cooperation in addressing this issue.

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PORTLAND, Conn (WTNH)  A suspect was arrested on a warrant by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Portland early Thursday morning, according to Portland police.

The area of Penfield Hill Road and Cox Road was shut down for around 15 minutes while the suspect was barricaded in the house and the FBIs SWAT team was called, officials said.

The reason for the investigation is not yet known.

Two businesses robbed on Route 5 in Wallingford

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The roads have since reopened, and the investigation has cleared, officials said.

No injuries have been reported.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTNH.com.
Zephyrhills police have arrested a suspect on a manslaughter charge in connection to a fatal shooting early Thursday.

Officers responded about 12:15 a.m. to a disturbance call at a home in the 7000 block of Steer Blade Drive in the Silverado subdivision and found a 40-year-old man with a gunshot wound, according to the Zephyrhills Police Department.

The man was taken to St. Josephs Medical Center and died there, police said.

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Investigators identified Mina Foad, 38, as the suspect in the shooting and arrested him later Thursday morning on a manslaughter charge.

Police have not released the name of the man who was shot and a police spokesperson said in an email to the Tampa Bay Times that the department was withholding that information due to Marsys Law. However, the Florida Supreme Court ruled last year that Marsys Law cannot be used to shield the identity of crime victims. Rather, the constitutional amendment approved by Florida voters in 2018 speaks about a victims right to prevent information from being disclosed that could be used to locate them.

Police said the shooting was an isolated incident. The department asked anyone with information to call 813-780-0050.

No other details have been released.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  A suspect was hospitalized late Wednesday night after being shot by a deputy in Camas, authorities said.

Just after 10 p.m., the Clark County Sheriffs Office said they received multiple calls about gunshots from residents in the 2300 block of Northeast Everett Street.

Units from multiple agencies responded to the scene and at around 10:37 p.m. a drone spotted the suspect outside of a home.

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St. Helens High School educators accused of student sex abuse begin court proceedings

Officials said they learned that the suspect was believed to be a person with a no-contact order barring him from being at the home or possessing a gun.

Eventually, the suspect entered a car at the home and authorities moved in to make contact, which is when a deputy ended up shooting the suspect.

The suspect was given first aid and taken to a nearby hospital, no other injuries were reported.

The deputy involved in the shooting was put on Critical Incident Leave and the incident is under investigation by the Washington State Patrol.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com.
A suspect was taken to the hospital after they were shot by a Clark County deputy in Camas Wednesday night.

At around 10 p.m., the Clark County Sheriffs Office received calls about gunshots coming from the area of Northeast Everett Street near Northeast 23rd Avenue, not far from Camas Montessori School.

Authorities from several agencies came to the scene and about 40 minutes later, the suspect was seen outside the home via drone, according to our news partner KOIN.

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When the suspect later got into a car and law enforcement moved in, a deputy ended up shooting them, KOIN reported.

The Southwest Washington Independent Investigative Response Team (SWWIIRT) responded and will be conducting an independent investigation.
Suspect wanted in College Area hit-and-run crash

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI)  A $1,000 reward is being offered to anyone with information that leads to the arrest of a driver involved in a hit-and-run crash earlier this month that left two women seriously hurt in the College Area.

The collision occurred on Nov. 2 around 12:29 a.m. in the 5000 block of College Avenue, the San Diego County Crime Stoppers said in news release Wednesday.

The two female pedestrians, a 19-year-old and 20-year-old, were hit by an unknown vehicle in the southbound lanes of the street that left the scene. Both were transported to a nearby hospital for treatment to major injuries that required surgery.

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Three people, including suspect, dead in Little Italy shooting; officer shot

You could still see some of their stuff was still there; the cops were still investigating, said Jacob Opatz, a San Diego State University student who witnessed the collision.

Katie Holsinger, another student who was nearby, recalled hearing the impact.

We heard a really loud sound. We didnt see it, but we heard it and saw a lot of people crowding in the street, Holsinger said, adding she found both lying in the street.

There were two girls on the ground, and they didnt seem to know a lot about what was going on, but one of them was kind of talking, she said.

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Surveillance video reviewed by investigators shows the suspect vehicle to be possibly a dark colored 2010-2017 BMW 5-Series. Other features of the vehicle to notice are the missing drivers side mirror and possible light to moderate damage to the front drivers side portion of the vehicle.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the SDPDs Traffic Division at 858-495-7861 or the Crime Stoppers anonymous tip line at 888-580-8477.

While authorities are still investigating, some who live nearby the scene of the crash consider the incident emblematic of a bigger issue with safety along College Avenue.

A nearby resident, who only identified himself as John, said speeding is common through the area and many students jaywalk, particularly those coming from parties at one of the three fraternities on the street,

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There are a lot of people drinking and then trying to get back home, so obviously thats a big challenge, he said.

Some students said the incident serves as a reminder of the importance of using crosswalks.

When stuff like this happens, you realize that safety is more important, Opatz 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 5 San Diego & KUSI News.
(Getty Images)

An analysis of Missouri election result maps shows a steady shift to Republicans, including smaller movement in urban Democratic strongholds.

At the same time, the suburbs where Democrats nationally have seen the biggest promise for growth offer a more mixed message.

In fact, the data show a steady shift toward the Republican Party in nearly every Missouri county since 2008 and narrower margins of support for passing minimum-wage increases.

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The Beacon has created election maps of how Missourians in every county voted this year and how it relates to election patterns over the past two decades. We looked at 26 races, including all presidential and gubernatorial races since 2008, the 2018 auditor race and 15 ballot issues.

Here are some takeaways.

Where Missouri voters are turning to the Republican Party

In 2008, John McCain defeated Barack Obama in Missouri by less than 4,000 votes. Since then, nearly every Missouri county has voted in larger numbers for the Republican candidate in each election.

The most dramatic shift came in Washington County, southwest of St. Louis, which narrowly voted for Obama in 2008 but voted 82% for Donald Trump in 2024.

The Democratic Party has lost ground in all four of Missouris biggest cities  Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield and Columbia.

Notably, Platte County and St. Louis County are the only two Missouri counties where the Democratic presidential nominee performed better in 2024 than in 2008. (Trump still won Platte County this year.)

Bellwethers

St. Charles, Clay and Platte counties  containing much of the suburban parts of Kansas City and St. Louis  voted the same way as the state in all 26 races.

St. Charles County is the most reliable political bellwether in Missouri. The county has voted within 10% of the statewide vote on all 26 candidates and ballot issues in our survey. The county vote was within 1.5% of the states margin more than half of the time.

St. Louis city is the least reliable bellwether. It aligned with the statewide choice in just 13 out of 26 races.

Minimum-wage support over time on election maps

Missouri voted to increase the minimum wage to $6.50 in 2006, to $12 in 2018 and to $15 in 2024. The 2006 measure passed 76% to 24%. The 2024 measure passed 58% to 42%.

The 2006 ballot measure was approved by the majority of voters in every county in the state.

Support for a minimum wage increase faded in 2018, but it was still higher than in 2024.

In 2024, the majority of voters in more than half of Missouris counties voted against an increase in the minimum wage.

The drop in support for a minimum wage increase was sharpest in the Ozark plateau, in Shannon and Reynolds counties. Those counties also saw a 50% drop in support for the Democratic presidential candidate between 2008 and 2024.

Despite fading support in most rural areas, the majority of voters in Bootheel counties in the far southeast corner of the state continue to support a minimum-wage increase, as well as voters in St. Joseph and other major cities including Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield and Columbia.

Amendment 3 election map

The abortion rights amendment passed with support in Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbia and St. Joseph.

Buchanan, Clay, St. Charles and Platte counties are the only Trump counties that voted in favor of Amendment 3.

The amendment had the lowest support in Wright, Bollinger, Osage and Barton counties.

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Correction (Nov. 15, 2024): This story has been corrected to reflect that St. Charles County voted for both Trump and Amendment 3, along with Clay, Platte and Buchanan counties.

This article first appeared on Beacon: Missouri and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Fairmont Century Plazas Swiss Chalet will return for a limited time with an apres-ski theme, whisking diners away from Los Angeles to the whimsical ski slopes of the Swiss Alps. In its third year, the event will cost $115 per person and run from Nov. 14 to Jan. 1.



The chalets prix-fixe menu will feature the return of old favorites and the debut of exciting new dishes. The beloved cheese fonduemade with Emmental, Gruyere, and white winewill return, accompanied by a new Duck Confit, slow cooked and served with roasted garlic potatoes and braised red cabbage. A new Wild Mushroom Risotto will top off the menu, made with creamy rice and seasonal wild mushrooms.

The chalet will offer a curated selection of winter cocktails and seasonal beverages, including a warm glass of Traditional Swedish Glogg. For dessert, diners can look forward to a delicious and immersive Make Your Own Hot Chocolate experience.



Guests will enjoy their meal in one of five luxurious outdoor wood Swiss chalets, able to accommodate groups of up to eight people. The festive decor and delicious food will provide couples, families and companies alike with a memorable culinary experience, just in time for the holidays.

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PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD)  As winter looms, unhoused individuals are not only feeling the cold, but also left behind.

Its rough, theyre scared, said Aaron Slaughter an outreach worker for Jolt Harm Reduction. They have no place to go. They dont have hardly no one to turn to.

Some central Illinois municipalities like Morton and Pekin have made it illegal to live outside.

Slaughter shared an idea of a solution, where everyone could work together.

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We need a transitional encampment, he said. We need a designated place for everybody where we can bridge all the networks together.

With the Dream Center reaching a record number of people served over the summer, the issue of housing people hasnt gone away.

I think that there is this myth that people can just go to a shelter, said Kshe Bernard co-founder of Lula, and program director of outreach services for JOLT Harm Reduction. Every single shelter in the area right now is over capacity.

Bernard said what she hopes Peoria officials consider when deciding unhoused legislation.

These are residents of Peoria, she said. Just because they dont have a home does not mean they are not residents. They should be seen and cared for as residents and supported, not stigmatized, not swept under the rug, and certainly not criminalized or punished.

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John Kittinger, who lives in an encampment in Peoria, expressed his want for solutions, and better opportunities for those who are unhoused.

More so the city is, to me, playing games with the homeless, he said. You talk about Peoria [being] great. You cant be great without dealing with the situations that are at hand.

Slaughter said that with Pekin recently passing a law making unhoused camping illegal, some people from there have moved to Peorias encampments.

He also said those who have moved to Peorias encampments are worried they will be kicked out, just as they were in Pekin.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CIProud.com.
By Yimou Lee

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan does not have a "concrete list" of new arms deals to put to the United States' incoming Trump administration but is keen to discuss how to boost the island's defence, senior Taiwan security officials said.

Democratically governed Taiwan, which is claimed by China, may place large new arms deals early in the life of the next U.S. administration to show it takes seriously a comment by President-elect Donald Trump that Taiwan should pay "protection" money, people familiar with government thinking previously told Reuters.

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The government in Taipei is considering buying a big package of weapons from the U.S. to demonstrate its commitment to the island's defence, the Financial Times reported this week.

"Currently we do not have any such concrete list but we welcome advice from all sides, with the most important thing being how to boost self-defence capacity," a senior Taiwan security official told reporters in Taipei, requesting anonymity to be able to speak more frankly.

"Taiwan is very willing to further discuss with all like-minded partners, especially the U.S., how to continue to reinforce Taiwan's defence capacity," said the official.

Taiwan, whose government rejects China's sovereignty claims, has faced repeated military pressure from Beijing, including a new round last month in a series of war games.

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The island's biggest arms supplier is the U.S. It has an order backlog worth some $20 billion and last month announced an almost $2 billion order for missile systems.

China opposes the sale, which includes radar and missile systems, and has urged the U.S. to "immediately stop arming Taiwan".

Taiwan's total defence spending has jumped to around 80% to date since the ruling Democratic Progressive Party entered office in 2016, the official said.

"Our commitment to self defence will only get stronger, not weaker," the official said.

Taiwan's government regularly holds discussions with major U.S. parties as well as think tanks on whether the island's current military hardware and software are effective enough to counter any Chinese attack, a second Taiwan security official said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

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Such discussions include whether Taiwan should greatly boost the size of its drone fleet capable of striking high-value Chinese military assets, the official said.

"Such reviews are a normality," the official said, adding Taiwan has not started a new round of arms talks with the U.S.

"There are a lot of discussions and recommendations. We welcome everything that's beneficial to boosting Taiwan's defence."

(Reporting by Yimou Lee; Editing by Ben Blanchard and Christopher Cushing)
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)  A Tampa doctor was taken into custody Wednesday after detectives said they were able to connect him to a deadly hit-and-run that happened in mid-October.

The crash was initially reported around 7:35 p.m. on Oct. 12, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office.

Clearwater man identified as suspect in 1978 Massachusetts double murder case

Multiple witnesses reported seeing a car hit a man in a wheelchair on East 124th Avenue. However, the driver, later identified as Dr. Gwyn Norman Crump, Jr., 62, never stopped, officials said.

Gwyn Norman Crump, Jr. (Credit: Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office)

The victim, Richard Taylor, 53, was taken to AdventHealth Fletcher, where authorities said he died from his injuries.

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As the investigation continued, detectives said surveillance cameras in the area helped them identify the vehicle and license plate. Investigators then went to Crumps home address, where he reportedly admitted to driving the car the night of the crash.

Crump was charged with leaving the scene of a crash with death, the sheriffs office said.

Crump made his first appearance in front of a Hillsborough County judge on Thursday.

He has a home on Davis Islands valued at more than two million dollars, but despite that, a public defender told the judge that Crumps income is limited.

He is self-employed; however, his income has been limited for several months, and he cannot afford a bond higher than $2,000 today, the public defender said.

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The Florida Department of Healths website shows Crump is licensed to practice occupational medicine in Florida. He began his practice in 1999 after earning his medical degree from the University of South Florida.

Records indicate Crump was previously charged with DUI in 1996 and again in 2003. The state health departments website did not show any disciplinary action had been taken against Crump as of Wednesday afternoon.

I want to offer my deepest condolences to the family of the victim during this incredibly difficult time, Sheriff Chad Chronister said in a statement following Crumps arrest. While nothing can undo this heartbreaking loss, we hope that this arrest brings some measure of closure to their loved ones.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.
PINETOPS, N.C. (WNCT)  A man has been arrested after law enforcement responded to an address on Bobtail Court in Pinetops in reference to shots fired into an occupied home.

Upon arrival, deputies with the Edgecombe County Sheriffs Office found shell casings and several bullet holes leading into the home. They said the home was occupied by an adult and five juveniles ranging from seven to 15 years old.

While on the scene, deputies heard several shots from another home in the neighborhood. An investigation led them to another home on Blackbird Ln that had been hit by bullets. That home was occupied by an adult and a 14-year-old.

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Dashon Trekwan Taylor Smith, of Tarboro, was identified as a suspect and charged with two counts of felony discharging a firearm into occupied property.

Smith was arrested Wednesday and jailed without bond. More charges are expected.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WNCT.
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents searched the Robertson County home of a former Metro Nashville Police officer who accused his department of misconduct and was later linked by court records to the Covenant shooting documents leak.

TBI spokesman Josh DeVine confirmed by email Wednesday that agents searched a home in the 9200 block of Shady Park Road in Portland on Sept. 17 "in connection to an ongoing investigation." Former Lt. Garet Davidson lives at a home in that block, according to state and county property records.

TBI spokeswoman Susan Niland on Thursday confirmed Davidson's address as the home that was searched.

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Davidson has not been charged with any crimes related to the leak of the Covenant documents. Efforts to reach Davidson were not immediately successful.

The former officer first came into the media spotlight in May when he filed a 61-page report detailing an alleged culture of mismanagement, failure to investigate misconduct and an overall lack of transparency. He also accused top brass of colluding with state legislators to gut the community oversight board's power.

Mayor Freddie O'Connell said the city would conduct an independent investigation led by former U.S. Attorney Edward L. Stanon III.

More: Second complaint, more allegations filed against Nashville police, review board says

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In a June 14 court filing, Davidson was linked to the Covenent documents leak. Lt. Alfredo Arevalo signed a statement saying Davidson had direct access, through his previous role in the department's Office of Professional Accountability, to the records leaked to a local new outlet, the Tennessee Star.

Davidson was tasked by Arevalo to put a hard drive of the investigative file in a safe that only the former officer "had the key and comination to," according to the court filing.

In early June, the Tennessee Star published dozens of articles with information from photographs of the shooters journal that it said it had obtained from a source. Days before, Davidson spoke with the outlet both about his whistelblower complaint and information contained in the Covenant investigative file.

Nine days later, Arevalo filed his statement with the courts.

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On Sept. 3, the Tennessee Star published what appeared to be full, unredacted copies of the Covenant shooter's journal as a lawsuit seeking the release of those documents remains in the Tennessee Court of Appeals. Two weeks later, TBI agents served their search warrant.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Police whistleblower's home searched after Covenant leak
CLEVELAND (WJW)  The FOX 8 I-Team has found Cleveland ambulance crews often get delayed trying to drop off patients at hospitals.

Records show this can even hold up medics from going to another call for a very long time. That could be your 911 call.

So, we did some digging to find out whats happening.

Sheriff reflects on Amber Alert that ended in deadly shooting: Every second counted

You see Cleveland EMS units rushing to the ER, but the I-Team investigated what happens next.

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EMS records show medics sometimes have long waits at hospitals dropping off patients. For instance: 52 minutes, an hour-and-a-half, and 2 hours and 14 minutes.

For years, the I-Team has exposed city EMS delays getting to calls, often due to short-staffing.

Here, we took a closer look at whats going on at the emergency rooms with delays handing off patients to hospital staff.

We wondered how that might affect responding to more calls.

The I-Team requested records of EMS crews spending 45 minutes or more dropping off a patient at any of five hospitals.

For example, we found it happening 18 days in August and 10 days in September. We noticed it even happening with six ambulances on one day.

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We noticed it most often at University Hospitals Main Campus.

University Hospitals issued a statement, saying:

As the only Level 1 trauma center on Clevelands east side, the emergency department at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center is usually busy. Weve seen a surge in demand for emergency services dating back to the pandemic. Our dedicated doctors, nurses and other staff work around the clock to deliver life-saving care as rapidly as possible. All emergency visits are triaged, so the most urgent cases always go to the front of the line. We work with our partners at Cleveland EMS, Fire and the suburban departments to care for their patients and get them back into service as quickly as possible. We have also opened dozens of urgent cares around the region because not every incident needs to go to the emergency room. We are proud of the compassionate, life-saving care we provide 365 days a year.

We found the second-most common spot to be Cleveland Clinics Fairview Hospital.

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Euclid police look for suspect who fired multiple shots, injuring a 17-year-old

Cleveland Clinic released a statement saying:

Healthcare is facing an increased demand for services. As with other hospitals nationwide, Cleveland Clinics Emergency Departments sometimes experience longer-than-expected wait times. We remain committed to meeting the needs of our patients and getting first responders back into service in their communities as quickly as possible. We are continuously looking at solutions to maintain the highest quality care and decrease wait times for patients, and EMS crews, including alerting emergency department leadership any time an ambulance crew at Cleveland Clinic Fairview has been waiting more than 30 minutes for a room for their patient. Its also important to note that crews sometimes remain on site after a patient transfer to complete reports or restock supplies, which can increase their total reported time at the hospital.

We also sent questions to Cleveland EMS.

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An EMS statement said, The time that an ambulance is at a hospital with the patient is documented on the patient care report by the paramedic. The transfer of care from the paramedic to appropriate hospital staff is dependent on the hospital. Periods of prolonged time are addressed with hospital administration. It is also the [divisions] expectation that what is documented is honest and accurate.

Weve learned multiple factors can affect how long it takes to drop off a patient. Those factors include staffing at the hospital, how busy the hospital is and even the medical issues of the patient.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP)  The tech consultant charged in Cash App founder Bob Lee 's stabbing death testified in his own defense Wednesday that he made a bad joke to try to put an end to a late night of drinking and doing drugs, and the famous entrepreneur suddenly attacked him.

In his first public statements about the events leading to Lee's death, Nima Momeni said that he joked to Lee that he might want to spend his final night in San Francisco with family rather than trying to find a strip club.

Momeni said Lee pulled out a knife and attacked him, forcing him to defend himself. He said Lee later walked away, showing no signs he was injured. Momeni said he called an attorney when he learned of Lee's death the following day.

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Hes a big famous guy, he said. "Im just an average joe, an immigrant.

Lee, 43, was found staggering on a deserted downtown San Francisco street, dripping a trail of blood and calling for help. He later died at a hospital.

Prosecutors say Momeni, 40, planned the April 4, 2023, attack after a dispute over his younger sister, Khazar Momeni, with whom Lee was friends. They say Momeni took a knife from a unique set in his sisters condo, drove Lee to a secluded area and stabbed him three times, then fled.

The defense says Lee was being erratic and aggressive, having slept only six hours over a four-day period of doing cocaine and ketamine and drinking.

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Momeni has pleaded not guilty. He faces 26 years to life in prison if convicted.

But Momeni, who took the witness stand Wednesday, said the two men were on friendly terms when his sister kicked them both out of her condo at 2 a.m., saying she wanted to sleep after hours of partying and ingesting drugs.

Momeni said they got into his BMW and he started driving while Lee checked his phone for places to go next. He pulled the car over after they went over a pothole, causing Lee to spill his beer. Lee got out of the car and Momeni followed, thinking Lee was about to puke.

That was when he said he made the bad joke about seeing family.

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He just went from zero to 100, Momeni said. You could see the anger.

Omid Talai, assistant district attorney, scoffed at the story on cross-examination Wednesday.

He wanted to kill you over a bad joke? said Talai, incredulous.

Im not sure why he pulled it out," Momeni said. I was in fear for my life.

Momeni pushed back Wednesday afternoon as Talai questioned him about text messages and testimony from others. The cross-examination continues Thursday.

Surveillance video of Lees final night shows him entering the posh Millennium Tower downtown, where Momenis sister lives with her husband, a prominent San Francisco plastic surgeon.

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Video also shows Lee and Momeni leaving the building after 2 a.m. and driving off together in Momenis car. Grainy video also shows the two men getting out of the car in a isolated spot by the Bay Bridge.

Prosecutors say that is where Momeni stabbed Lee, while the defense says that is where Lee attacked Momeni.

Police recovered a knife with a 4-inch (10-centimeter) blade in the secluded area where Lee was stabbed. Prosecutors said tests showed Momenis DNA on the weapons handle and Lees DNA on the bloody blade, but the defense presented an expert witness who said the police should have tested the handle for fingerprints, namely Lees.

Lees death stunned the tech community as fellow executives and engineers penned tributes to the charismatic entrepreneurs generosity and brilliance. Lee was chief product officer of cryptocurrency platform MobileCoin when he died. He was a father to two children.
Temperatures are warming today and will continue to do so through Friday. Then another storm system will move through the state over the weekend.

A high pressure system to the southeast of New Mexico brings the state clear skies and warm temperatures today. Many places across New Mexico will see highs today in the 60s. Southeast New Mexico will see temperatures return to the 70s.

A low pressure system will dip down into the Great Basin by Friday. A combination of the two pressure systems will bring strong southwesterly winds in New Mexico. This southwesterly winds will draw up warm air and raise the temperatures to be well above seasonable averages on Friday.

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The low pressure system over the Great Basin will also bring strong wind gusts to western New Mexico on Friday. 25-45 mph Gusts are expected throughout the day on Friday. These increased winds could bring blowing snow to the snowpacks in the north. The winds are also the cause of an increased fire danger in western New Mexico.

By Sunday, the low pressure will have moved into New Mexico. The low will bring widespread rain chances. The rain will last through Monday. There is also a chance for snowfall in the higher elevations. Currently snow is forecasted for the Sacramento and Sangre de Cristo Mountains. A few flurries are also possible for the Gila National Forest.

Another low pressure system will move into Arizona next Tuesday. However, where the low pressure moves after that is uncertain. One model has the low moving directly through New Mexico Wednesday. Whereas another model shows the low staying to the north of New Mexico. If the low tracks through New Mexico, more widespread rain can be expected next Wednesday. However, if the low tracks to the north then rain will be minimal for the state. Regardless of the direction the low tracks, much cooler air will move into New Mexico next week. This will bring a noticeable drop in temperatures by mid-week.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos.
Commissioner Frank Strada of the Tennessee Department of Correction says private prison contractor CoreCivic is a "great" partner, despite the company being under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.(Photo: John Partipilo)

The Tennessee Department of Correction wants to pay $6.8 million more to the states private-prison operator next year despite the cloud of a federal civil rights probe and the companys consistent failure to fulfill contract obligations.

The 3% increase, which officials are justifying to meet increased expenses, would push CoreCivics payout up to $244.5 million to operate four state prisons, 15% of the states $1.63 billion Correction Department budget request.

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Correction Commissioner Frank Strada stood by his previous support for CoreCivic and called the relationship between the state and company a great partnership.

Yet the publicly-traded company has paid more than $29.5 million in liquidated damages  fees paid for breach of contract  since 2022 for failing to meet state contractual requirements, mainly for staffing shortages. The company experienced a 146% turnover rate in 2023 because of difficult hiring correctional officers, which makes it more difficult to monitor prisoners and avert safety risks.

The states vacancy rate is 26.4% at nine prisons run by the Department of Correction, down from 47.5% when it opted to increase pay a few years ago.

The Department of Justice cited a record of assaults, murders and understaffing at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center since it opened in 2016 as justification for a civil rights investigation that started in August.

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The state monitors staffing guidelines for CoreCivic-run prisons and levies penalties if the company fails to meet them. But that is unrelated to the federal investigation into Trousdale Turner, Strada said this week after presenting his budget plan to Gov. Bill Lee.

Trousdale Turner had a 188% turnover rate for prison guards last year, according to a state comptroller report.

Strada said Tuesday the figures for officer turnover are inflated because the company brings in personnel temporarily from across the country to fill staffing gaps and monitor prisoners.

The commissioner said the Correction Department has adopted new policies, put more resources toward Trousdale Turner and visited the prison frequently to prevent contraband from being smuggled into the prison. Strada also acknowledged the state made adjustments to manage the prison population and deal with staffing shortages at Trousdale Turner.

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We work with them, meet with them and talk with them on a daily basis, he said.

Lee, the states top beneficiary for CoreCivic political contributions, has referred to the company as an important partner for the state. His main question for Strada during Tuesdays budget hearing dealt with the percentage of increase in the companys contracts, one of which is up for bids in the coming year.

Lawmakers, mainly Democrats, have criticized the states use of the private contractor with some saying it is wrong to profit from overseeing prisoners.

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GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (AP)  A Tennessee man who is accused in lawsuits of drugging and sexually assaulting dozens of women while police deliberately botched investigations into him was convicted Thursday of producing images of child sexual abuse.

Sean Williams, 53, faces a minimum mandatory term of 15 years in prison and up to 30 years in prison as to each of the three counts in the federal indictment. Sentencing is set for Feb. 24.

According to a police report, a Western Carolina University campus police officer found Williams asleep in his car last year. A search of his vehicle uncovered cocaine, methamphetamine, about $100,000 in cash and digital storage devices with more than 5,000 images of child sexual abuse. Williams was also in possession of photos and videos showing him sexually assaulting at least 52 women at his Johnson City apartment while they were in an obvious state of unconsciousness.

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Jurors in Greeneville federal court found Williams guilty Thursday of all three counts related to the images of a 9-month-old boy, a 4-year-old girl and a 7-year-old girl. Prosecutors said Williams also raped the childrens mothers while they were unconscious and that there were images and videos of them as well. Williams took the sexually explicit photos of one child in 2008 and the other two on separate occasions in 2020, all in his apartment, prosecutors said.

The mothers testified at trial but Williams did not. He has not yet been charged with sexually assaulting any of the dozens of women.

Williams also faces charges in Tennessee including child rape, aggravated sexual battery of someone under 13 and especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor. And in a North Carolina federal court, he is charged with possessing child sexual abuse images and illegal drugs.

In October 2023, Williams escaped from a van taking him from Kentuckys Laurel County Detention Center to the court in Greeneville for a hearing. Authorities caught him in Florida more than a month after the escape. A jury convicted him in July of the escape, for which he faces a maximum prison sentence of five years. Sentencing on that charge is scheduled for February.

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Separately, three federal lawsuits accuse the Johnson City Police Department of refusing to properly investigate evidence that Williams was drugging and raping women in their east Tennessee community for years. Those lawsuits, which do not name Williams as a defendant, were filed by a former federal prosecutor; nine women listed as Jane Does 1-9; and another woman individually. One of them alleges Williams paid police to obstruct investigations into sexual assault allegations against him.

The first of the trials in the federal lawsuits is scheduled to begin in August 2025.

The city has denied the allegations of corruption, as have the officers named in the lawsuits. The parties are expected to depose Williams in at least one of those lawsuits.

Williams told The Tennessean he was framed by law enforcement to cover up a broader public corruption scandal.

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The former prosecutors lawsuit claims police deliberately botched her effort to arrest Williams on a federal felon-possessing-ammunition charge in April 2021, enabling him to flee. He was on the run from that charge when he was arrested on the Western Carolina University campus two years later. The city countered that she took five months to obtain an indictment when police requested one in 2020.

At least half a dozen names on the folders of videos of women were consistent with first names on a list labeled Raped that Johnson City officers found in his apartment, a police affidavit says.

Facing public criticism, Johnson City ordered an outside investigation into how officers handled sexual assault investigations in the summer of 2022. That November, the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI opened a federal sex trafficking investigation.

The results of the citys outside investigation, released in 2023, found police conducted inconsistent, ineffective and incomplete investigations; relied on inadequate record management; had insufficient training and policies; and sometimes showed gender-based stereotypes and bias.

The city said it began improving the departments performance even before the findings were released, including following the district attorneys new sexual assault investigation protocol and creating a comfortable space for victim interviews.
On paper, Angela Ramirez is taking a path like the one that many Texas policymakers and community college leaders designed to help students like her.

With dreams of becoming a nurse, the high school graduate took an eight-week class to earn a nursing aide credential, which helped her land a job at a nursing home in New Braunfels. That job, she thought, would help her enter the health care field while she saved up to pay for her nursing degree.

Over the past decade, short-term certificates have become a popular way for students and workers to quickly learn skills that can lead to better wages. Schools have tried to design these programs as blocks that students can stack on top of one another: First, they get a certificate that only takes a few weeks or months to obtain; then, they use it to get an entry-level job. Those earnings help them shoulder the costs when they return to the classroom to earn their next credential, which in turn will help them get a better-paid job.

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The reality, however, is often more complicated.

For Ramirez, being a nurse aide was too physically demanding, too mentally exhausting and didnt leave any room for school. The low pay  $17.50 an hour  made it difficult to save money. After working at the nursing home for a year, she quit to focus on her studies.

This fall, the 22-year-old enrolled full-time at Austin Community College to pursue her nursing degree. Her journey will be longer than if she had just gone straight into nursing school because the classes she took for her nursing aide credential dont count as credits toward the degree. Overall, it will be another four years of school before she can work as a registered nurse.

I have friends around me who just graduated this year. It was as great as it was to go to their graduations. It also was a little painful to kind of see, that could have been me, she said. I feel like I'm behind.  I feel like a freshman again.

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Few students who earn certificates  especially certificates that do not yield any college credit  return to school full-time the way Ramirez did. Studies show students rarely move back and forth between the classroom and the workplace as policymakers had envisioned, especially non-traditional students who obtained one of these so-called stackable credentials as a way to gradually make more money. While its difficult to say exactly why, experts often point to financial pressures and other responsibilities. Students often cant afford to go back to school and lose out on steady income.

Yet earning that next credential is crucial to their economic mobility. If students dont pursue that next step in their education, they might get stuck in low-paying jobs or end up on a different career path.

They're getting into those jobs that the programs prepare them for and say, Well, gosh, this isn't what I expected. I need to make more money, and then they end up doing something completely different from what the program prepared them for, said Michelle Van Noy, director of the Education and Employment Research Center at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University. Then you have to wonder  why have colleges been spending all this time creating these pathways if [theyre] not being used as intended.

Not a straightforward road

The path Ramirez chose had its benefits.

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Before she earned her nursing aide credential, Ramirez spent nearly three years attending multiple universities pursuing a different career. She ultimately decided to switch gears and go back to her childhood dream of being a nurse  but this time she needed to make sure this was what she truly wanted. The short-term credential, she reasoned, would let her test the waters before fully committing.

Her experience at the nursing home, while tiring, confirmed to her that she wanted to work in health care.

I really enjoyed helping those people and just kind of like being involved in their lives and getting to know them, she said.

Now that shes back in the classroom, shes also finding that work experience valuable as she learns new areas of medicine, including health disorders and diseases.

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I'm able to relate back to them or I already know about them because my residents that I used to have experienced those things, Ramirez said.

Quick access to the workforce and real-world experience have often been part of the pitch for short-term credentials. Community colleges have long offered these programs to meet local workforce needs, connecting workers with jobs in high-demand fields.

Schools also recognized that a two or four-year degree might not be for everyone. Some people are pressed to enter the workforce right out of high school to start earning an income and support their families. Plus, college can be expensive and many students are hesitant to take out loans to cover the cost.

These programs come in various forms depending on the college, region and field of study. Students can earn a commercial drivers license and become a truck driver in four weeks. They can study for five months to work as a medical assistant.

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Historically, schools have operated short-term programs separately from those that lead toward a degree. Over the past decade, community colleges have started to connect these two sides so that more students can go from earning a short-term certificate to pursuing a more traditional two- or four-year degree.

Its blurring the lines a little bit between the two of those, said Lindsay Daugherty, whose research with the RAND Corporation is at the forefront of the stackable credential movement.

Experts say schools and the state must help Texans take their education beyond the high school level. Federal data shows people with a two-year degree make 18% more than someone with just a high school diploma, and individuals with a four-year degree earned nearly 60% more than someone with a high school diploma. In the next 20 years, most jobs will require some kind of postsecondary credential, according to the policy group Texas 2036.

Texas ramped up its efforts to bolster short-term credential programs during the pandemic. The state funneled millions in federal COVID relief funds to community colleges to help them build out these programs so displaced workers could learn new skills and reenter the workforce during the economic crisis.

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Federal data shows more young students have been pursuing certificate programs in recent years. Young people ages 18-22 earned more certificates in 2023 than in any other year in the last decade. State policymakers are also incentivizing shorter programs. Last legislative session, Texas lawmakers started to fund community colleges based in part on how many students earn short-term certificates.

Yet data on the effectiveness of these short-term programs is scarce. Many states, including Texas, havent required schools to track noncredit programs, leaving questions about exactly how much stacking credentials helps students advance in their studies and make more money.

What research does exist shows students often do not follow the path that schools envisioned. Few students ever transition from noncredit to for-credit programs. The chance students will stack certificates and degrees varies widely on which field of study they picked and whether the certificate program counts for college credit. Not all colleges offer credit for certificates, creating an uneven patchwork across schools and regions.

Other studies show modest gains in employment and salaries when students earn certificates and degrees, particularly in health care fields. Community colleges often emphasize the benefits of earning health care-related certificates that can build toward a degree, partly because of the large demand for nurses and other health care workers, including certified nursing aides, medical assistants and phlebotomists, who draw blood.

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But while these health care certificates can lead to jobs working alongside nurses or doctors, experts say that does not mean they will help students enter those professions.

There are no classes, really, from those [certified nursing assistant] or phlebotomy programs that transfer into a [registered nurse] program, Daugherty said. We just need to be transparent with the individuals who are going in: If you're entering a CNA program, you're entering a medical assistant route. This is the end of it.

Data shows few students who complete a certified nursing assistant program use it as a stepping stone to pursue a degree. A 2016 study of health training pathways at Californias community colleges found that just 20% of certified nurse aides went on to get a higher-level credential. Only 10% became registered nurses within six years.

People are trying to give people different pathways, but in doing so, they're oversimplifying the benefit of some of these credentials, said Iris Palmer, director for community colleges with the Education Policy program at New America.

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Stopping midway up the credential ladder can make a big difference in how much a person earns in the long run. In Texas, most certified nursing assistants earn $17 an hour or about $35,370 annually. Registered nurses, who have much more training and provide care directly, earn closer to $43 an hour, or $90,000 a year, according to federal data.

When Ramirez earned her certified nursing aide certificate, she understood that it would not count toward any future degree. But it helped with her goal of getting a job as soon as possible. It also let her get a taste of the health care industry before deciding whether she wanted to stay in the field.

By enrolling at ACC to pursue her nursing degree, Ramirez is already bucking the trend. She said not all of her colleagues at the nursing home have been able to do the same.

There were CNAs who were overworked and tired, she said.I feel like [they] were just trying to meet the demands of the job and trying to support their family and [they] really hoped that they would be able to someday go back to school.

Living up to the promise

Laura Marmolejo saw firsthand how rare it was for her students pursuing advanced manufacturing certificates at ACC to come back and earn a degree in the field. Either students enroll to quickly earn a certificate to get a job on the floor of a manufacturing company, or they go straight for an associate degree to become a technician, someone who makes sure industrial machines run properly.

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But Marmolejo, dean of the advanced manufacturing department at ACC, realized that the curriculum for both the certificate and degree programs often overlapped. A few years ago, she reorganized the program so students who earned the short-term credential would also earn some college credits that could be applied toward a two-year degree. Now, manufacturing students at ACC can earn up to 18 college credits before they ever enroll to pursue the associate's degree.

By infusing college credits into the certificate program, ACC hopes to increase the chances that students will come back to pursue a higher degree, Marmolejo said.

It allows more people access to education, she said. For a long time, students [getting a certificate would] think of it as, I just need a class to get a job. They don't see themselves as students.

Van Noy, who researches credentials at Rutgers University, said connecting noncredit and for-credit programs in this way is an ideal goal for schools designing pathways for students to follow.

Marmolejo also changed the course schedule so students could better fit classes around their work schedules if they decide to pursue a degree.

Since theyve combined the programs, Marmolejo said at least 50 students who enrolled for a certificate went on to earn an associates degree. Before, only a handful of students would make the jump, she said.

Students are starting to realize that this is not just a one-and-done class, but they step towards further career opportunities, she said.

Arden Kling is one of those students. The 22-year-old stopped attending community college in California after one semester and moved to Taylor, about 40 miles northeast of Austin.

When Samsung built a new semiconductor facility in her town, Kling decided to take a technical drafting class to learn how to draw or design products. She loved the course and decided to pursue a certificate.

I didn't think I was smart enough to go to college, she said. So once I got through that certificate, I was like, Well, wait a minute. I've been doing this. I can keep doing this!

Arden Kling in the Advanced Manufacturing Lab at the ACC Highland campus in Austin on Oct. 30, 2024. Credit: Lorianne Willett/The Texas Tribune

Van Noy said she often hears students say they chose a noncredit program because they had a prior negative experience with education and didnt want to immediately commit to a for-credit program.

It's a little testing the waters career-wise, but it's also a little bit of testing the waters educationally, she said.

Kling has two more semesters left before she earns a two-year associates degree. While her immediate goal is to work at Samsung, now she also dreams of eventually earning her bachelor's degree.

A lot of manufacturing is just trying things and trying things until you do find the thing that works, she said. And when you find that thing that works, it feels so good.

Ramirez also feels she tried many things before she found the right path.

As she works toward her nursing degree at ACC, Ramirez sometimes thinks about the winding path shes taken to get here and worries about the long road still ahead. She found a less demanding job as a nurse aide to cover the bills, but working while attending school means itll take longer to earn her degree.

But she reminds herself that she doesnt think shed be happy if she hadnt switched paths. And her journey has not been without lessons.

I really have learned how to be a college student and how to really feel about being successful in your classes and applying yourself, she said.

Ramirez said she can see a future in which she goes to earn a bachelors and even a masters degree. But for now, shes focused on finishing this next step.

I'm just really looking forward to the next four years, she said.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

This story was produced as part of the Higher Education Media Fellowship at the Institute for Citizens & Scholars. The fellowship supports new reporting into issues related to postsecondary career and technical education.

Disclosure: Texas 2036 has been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
(NewsNation)  A 28-year-old man was indicted for trying to provide material support to ISIS, the Department of Justice said Thursday.

The FBI in Houston announced the arrest on X, saying the suspect, Anas Said, by his own admission, was planning a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Said was arrested on Nov. 8 at the West Houston, Texas apartment complex where he lived.

Investigators with FBI Houstons Joint Terrorism Task Force said the 28-year-old was looking for ways to commit violent acts on ISIS behalf.

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Missing mom Suzanne Simpson told banker look for her in a lake: Affidavit

Authorities allege Said was researching how to conduct an attack on local military recruiting centers; offering his home as safe sanctuary to ISIS operatives; bragging he would commit a 9/11-style attack if he had the resources; and attempting to produce ISIS propaganda.

Specifically, Said allegedly created and edited at least five videos and two images, Alamdar S. Hamdani, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas said, according to the Houston Chronicle. Videos showed large groups of armed men, some of them participating in gun battles, as well as phrases glorifying ISIS, as well as pictures showing the number of people killed and wounded in the groups operations.

Said first came to the FBIs attention in 2017, when agents received a tip about him buying stickers with ISIS imagery, the Houston Chronicle reported. In one of at least four interviews he had since 2018, Said claimed he started started believing in ISISs ideology, The Houston Chronicle wrote.

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If convicted, Said could get a sentence of 20 years in federal prison and a possible $250,000 maximum fine.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board named Wynn Rosser as the states next commissioner of higher education at a special board meeting Thursday.

The appointment was announced after a unanimous vote of the board. The vote was taken without discussion.

Rosser did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott celebrated the appointment.

Dr. Wynn Rosser brings a wealth of experience and knowledge that will help Texas continue to ensure students have access to quality, affordable education so they can succeed in high-demand, good-paying jobs, he said. Texas economy and future workforce depend on strong higher education institutions. With Dr. Rosser at the helm, we will further empower young Texans, bolster our highly skilled workforce, and take our states continued success to even greater heights.

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Rosser is the president and CEO of the T.L.L. Temple Foundation, a family foundation focused on issues facing rural East Texas. He previously spent a decade running the Greater Texas Foundation. Before that, he worked at Texas A&M University in various teaching and administrative roles.

He holds an associate's degree from Kilgore College and bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from Texas A&M University.

Being selected to serve as Commissioner of Higher Education is an honor, and I look forward to working alongside higher education leaders to support and strengthen Texas higher education Rosser said in a statement Friday. Together, we will focus on ensuring that Texas students are prepared for a rapidly changing world, equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.

Rosser succeeds Harrison Keller who became commissioner in 2019. Keller oversaw an overhaul of the states 60x30 plan, which set a goal that by 2030, 60% of Texans ages 25-34 should have a degree or credential. The plan, now called Building a Talent Strong Texas, expanded the goal to include Texans ages 25-64.

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Keller also helped shepherd an overhaul of the states community college finance system through the Texas Legislature last year. He left the position in July to become president of the University of North Texas.

The higher ed commissioner serves as the chief executive officer of the Coordinating Board, the state agency with a $2.9 billion budget that oversees Texas financial aid programs and helps enact the states strategic vision for public higher education. The board, made up of 10 members who are appointed by the governor, helps the commissioner implement the states vision for higher education.

Sarah Keyton has served as interim higher education commissioner during the transition. She will remain at the Coordinating Board as deputy commissioner of administration.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: Greater Texas Foundation, Texas A&M University, T.L.L. Temple Foundation and University of North Texas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
(NewsNation)  Texas could become home to the nations largest school choice program by next year, and some believe it could be an indicator of whats to be expected with the Trump administration.

School choice, a plan to use public money to subsidize private school tuition, has been a hot-button issue dividing parents for decades. Texas state leadership said it would prioritize school choice among other legislative efforts.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who struck out the last legislative session, said he was going to push for school choice and even go as far as to name the measure, among others, as emergency items. This would allow lawmakers to work on these bills earlier than others.

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Who will be the next  and potentially last  secretary of Education?

To make sure his proposed bills werent shot down again this year, Abbott threw his support behind candidates this election cycle who would support school choice.

The governor said he believes his efforts were successful.

I made sure that we would elect Republicans to the House of Representatives in enough number to pass a school choice man like the senate has done many times, Abbott said.

Nationally, 28 states and the District of Columbia already have some form of school choice legislation, according to Education Week.

That number has grown exponentially in recent years, and opponents of school choice say theyre concerned that it will grow even faster under President-elect Donald Trumps second administration.

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What Trumps administration could mean for education

Trump has said repeatedly that he supports school choice, and with a Republican-controlled Congress, theres new optimism for advocates at the federal level.

However, voters in Colorado and Kentucky rejected separate school choice proposals last week.

Back in Texas, lawmakers can begin filing bills as soon as next week although the new session doesnt start until January.

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Recently, the story came out of a Texas man who brutally beat his child to death and was allegedly aided by his wife, who then abandoned the childs corpse to be left with his siblings. Now, the court has decided what her punishment will be for her part in the heinous crime.

A judge convicted 34-year-old Brian Coulter of capital murder back in April for the death of his 8-year-old stepson, Kendrick, in 2020. Kendricks siblings testified during Coulters bench trial they witnessed the man fatally beat the boy. Coulter then covered the body with a blanket and moved himself and his wife, 38-year-old Gloria Williams, to another apartment. Kendricks remains were left with his siblings, ages 7, 9 and 15, authorities said.

It wasnt until a year later that the 15-year-old called the police to alert them of the situation, per the Harris County District Attorneys Office. At that point, Kendricks remains were nothing more than a skeleton. Police said the apartment was in horrid condition with soiled carpet, no furniture and no bedding.

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Coulter was charged following the discovery of the children. However, he threw his wife under the bus too. Williams pleaded guilty to two charges of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury in connection to her sons death and the injury of another one of her kids. Coulter was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Wednesday, Williams was handed a sentence of 50 years in prison, being eligible for parole after serving half of her time. Part of her plea agreement was a request her children would not have to testify on their brothers death again, per the DAs office.

By pleading guilty and waiving the right to a jury trial, the defendant finally acted like a protective mother. For one day of her childrens lives, she was a good mother, said prosecutor Edward A. Appelbaum in a statement.

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Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar attended the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change, hosted by Azerbaijan and held in Baku. Emphasizing Turkey's key role in the net zero emission target, Bayraktar said, ''We believe that we will contribute to the net zero emission target by commissioning our 20,000 megawatts nuclear-installed power by 2050.''

Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar stated that Turkey's installed nuclear energy capacity reaching 20 thousand megawatts by 2050 will make a significant contribution to the net zero emission target.

Bayraktar, in a post on his X social media account, noted that nuclear energy plays a key role in the world's ability to reach net zero emissions in 2050 and limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees.

Bayraktar, who recalled that 25 countries, led by the US, signed the "Declaration on Triple Nuclear Energy" at the COP28 held in Dubai last year, said, "As Turkey, we also joined the countries that signed this declaration at the COP29 continuing in Baku. The total number of countries that approved the declaration has increased to 31. We believe that we will contribute to the net zero emission target by commissioning our 20 thousand megawatts nuclear-installed power by 2050."
A federal bankruptcy judge in Texas has blocked the Onions acquisition of Infowars, the website founded by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, citing concerns over transparency.

Im going to not approve the sale to the purchaser, Judge Christopher Lopez of the Southern District of Texas said in a late-night ruling Tuesday. I think theres a great lack of clarity here.

Jones was ordered to put the site up for auction to pay more than $1 billion he owes to the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims for falsely claiming that the 2012 massacre that killed 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn., was staged.

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Last month the owners of the satirical news publication announced that they had won the auction with financial backing of the families.

The Onions bid was valued at $7 million, including $1.75 million in cash along with a credit from the Connecticut families supporting their effort. A lone competing bid from First United American Companies, which is affiliated with Jones, offered $3.5 million in cash.

But Lopez ruled that the auction failed to maximize value for Joness creditors, including the Sandy Hook families, in part because bids during the two-day auction were submitted in secret.

Whats next in the case?

Lopez, the bankruptcy judge, told Christopher Murray, the court-appointed trustee overseeing the auction, to come up with an alternative resolution for maximizing the value of Infowars in the next 30 days.

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Collins said in a statement that the Onion will seek a path toward purchasing Infowars in the coming weeks," and seek a resolution that helps the Sandy Hook families receive a positive outcome for the horror they endured."

How did the Sandy Hook families react to the judges decision?

Christopher Mattei, an attorney for the Connecticut families, said in a statement that they were disappointed in the judges decision to block the sale.

These families, who have already persevered through countless delays and roadblocks, remain resilient and determined as ever to hold Alex Jones and his corrupt businesses accountable for the harm he has caused, Mattei said. This decision doesnt change the fact that soon Alex Jones will begin to pay his debt to these families and he will continue doing so for as long as it takes.

What did Jones say?

In a live video broadcast on X Tuesday, Jones said, We can celebrate the judge doing the right thing with the most ridiculous fraudulent auction known in human history.

What did the Onion plan to do with Infowars?

In a press release announcing the purchase, the Onion said its goal with the acquisition was to end Infowars relentless barrage of disinformation for the sake of selling supplements and replace it with The Onions relentless barrage of humor for good.

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Ben Collins, chief executive of Onion parent company Global Tetrahedron, had said that he planned to reintroduce Infowars as a parody of itself.

Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit gun violence prevention advocacy group, signed a multiyear agreement to advertise on the relaunched website.

How did we get here?

In 2018, the families of 10 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims sued Jones and his media company, Free Speech Systems, which operates the Infowars website, for defamation, saying they had been tormented and threatened by people who were convinced by Jones that the shooting was a hoax.

A subsequent trial in Connecticut in 2022 featured often-tearful testimony from victims relatives who said they were repeatedly harassed after Jones claimed that they were crisis actors. Jones showed no remorse when he took the witness stand, proclaiming that he was done saying Im sorry for his role in spreading lies about the massacre.

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In 2022, juries in Connecticut and Texas found Jones liable for $1.4 billion in damages to the families.

In September, a judge ruled that Infowars and other assets could be put up for auction to help pay them.
By Andrius Sytas

VILNIUS (Reuters) - More than 5,000 people protested next to the Lithuanian parliament on Thursday against election winners the Social Democrats entering into a parliamentary coalition with a party whose leader is on trial accused of antisemitic statements.

The Social Democrats took control of 86 seats in the 141-member parliament after forming a coalition with the Nemunas Dawn and For Lithuania parties. Members were sworn-in on Thursday.

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Nemunas Dawn party founder and head Remigijus Zemaitaitis resigned from parliament in April, ahead of an impeachment vote, after the Constitutional Court ruled he had broken his oath by stirring up hatred against Jews in social media posts last year.

Crowds gathered in freezing rain outside the parliament on Thursday applauded as the speakers called on the Social Democrats to end the coalition with Nemunas Dawn.

"I think it's important to everyone who is thinking about the future of Lithuania and its geopolitical situation, writer Justinas Zilinskas, the organiser, told Reuters.

Tauras, one of the protesters, said: "This is the day of national shame for Lithuania".

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Zemaitaitis, went on trial in September accused of "attempting to create hostility and provoking intolerance towards Jews", and with playing down the Holocaust in Lithuania.

He has said his posts were not antisemitic and has denied wrongdoing.

He was fourth in the presidential election in May, and his party is the third largest grouping in the parliament, with 20 seats.

Social Democrat deputy leader and its designated prime ministerial candidate Gintautas Paluckas said he believed the protesters are disputing the election result, not the coalition.

"The people have spoken... Please allow us to form a government and demonstrate with our deeds that the dissatisfaction is probably baseless," Paluckas told reporters in the parliament after the protest.

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The coalition agreement allows Nemunas Dawn to nominate the heads of three of the government's 14 ministries, among them the justice ministry.

Lithuanias semi-executive president, Gitanas Nauseda, told parliamentarians, without mentioning Nemunas Dawn, that incitements to hate threatened security of the country.

He has previously called the coalition a mistake, and pledged to not appoint anyone related to Nemunas Dawn to the cabinet.

Nearly all of Lithuania's Jewish community of about 200,000 people were shot by Nazi Germans during World War II and buried in mass graves. Former Lithuanian president Algirdas Brazauskas apologised in Israels parliament in 1995 for the fact that some Lithuanians contributed to the killings.

The new government is expected to be sworn into office in December.

(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; Editing by Alex Richardson)
BRAZIL, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV)  Wednesday afternoon Thrive West Central hosted a public meeting trying to gather public opinions on the potential bus service route in the city of Brazil.

The goal was to discuss with community members a route that would best fit the needs of the area. Thrives director of transportation Matthew Tribble said that Brazil has never had public transportation, and it is becoming more of a need every day.

We currently dont offer services here, but we get calls all the time from folks in Clay County wanting for us to come over and facilitate transportation for them, said Tribble. It was obvious to us just based on all of the calls that we get that there is a need here for us to be able to fulfill.

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Sullivan County Courthouse holding last blood drive of the year

Tribble said this feedback will give them a much better understanding of the key areas and neighborhoods to create stops. He said they want to fulfill as many needs as possible with this route.

We need to make sure that we have that feedback so that we can craft this service in a way that is most beneficial to everyone, and this helps us be able to get those touch points, said Tribble. What we think is needed and what is the best may not be what the citizens of the community really want.

Once a route is decided, Tribble said they plan to test it in a pilot program by the beginning of 2025.

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Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the newly appointed Senate majority leader, sought to quell any doubts among the GOP that he cant work with President-elect Trump in the hours before his colleagues narrowly voted for him to lead them, insisting there was no daylight between him and the president-elect.

Thunes biggest obstacle to succeeding Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) as Senate GOP leader had been concerns among a number of Republican senators about whether he could work closely with Trump.

Ahead of Wednesdays 29-24 final vote, Thune tried to put those doubts to rest by highlighting his role in crafting Trumps signature tax bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, in 2017, and his efforts to pass Trumps agenda through the Senate as GOP whip in 2019 and 2020.

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Sen. Thune emphasized repeatedly  repeatedly  that he was for President Trump, that he understood that we had won a majority now and had to deliver on it, that theres no daylight between him and Trump and that he will make the Senate work, said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

I hope thats accurate, he said.

The win sets up what will be a fascinating relationship between Trump and Thune.

Only hours after Thune locked down his votes, he immediately found himself in a tough spot after Trump nominated conservative Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (I-Hawaii) to serve as attorney general and director of national intelligence, respectively.

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The announcements sparked an immediate storm of controversy on Capitol Hill, with some Republican senators expressing surprise or outright opposition to the announcement.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, predicted Gaetz could face a tough path to confirmation, even though Senate Republicans will control 52 or 53 seats next year.

At the end of the day, Congressman Gaetz, hell have a hearing but Im all about counting votes and I would think that hes probably got some work cut out for him to get a good strong vote, he warned.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) bluntly told reporters that she didnt view Gaetz as a serious nominee.

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We need to have a serious attorney general, she said.

Thune vowed at a press conference earlier in the day that he would push hard to get Trumps nominees confirmed quickly.

We will do everything we can to process his noms quickly, get them installed in their positions so they can begin implementing his agenda, he said.

Thune on Sunday endorsed Trumps call for the power to make recess appointments, which would allow him to fill key executive and judiciary branch positions without having to steer nominees through the Senate confirmation process.

Asked Wednesday whether he would move forward with restoring Trumps ability to make recess appointments, Thune said, [what] were going to do is make sure that we are processing his nominees in a way that gets them into those positions so they can implement his agenda.

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How that happens remains to be seen, he said.

He made those statements before Trump made his bombshell announcements about Gaetz and Gabbard.

Gaetz is a controversial pick because he was investigated by the House Ethics Committee for alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

Gabbard is a polarizing nominee because she expressed skepticism about U.S. government claims that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people and once defended Russian President Vladimir Putins reasons for invading Ukraine.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who has jurisdiction over both nominees as a senior member of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees, appeared dumbfounded by Trumps choices to head the Justice Department and a key national security agency.

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Cornyn scrunched up his face and turned slightly pink when he was asked by reporters about Gaetz heading the Justice Department but managed to maintain message discipline.

Well do our job and vet the nominee, he said tersely.

He also appeared surprised by Trumps choice of Gabbard to serve as the nations top intelligence officer.

Has that happened? he asked reporters when informed of the development, raising his eyebrows.

Trumps allies in the Senate said Wednesday they expect Thune to stick to the promises he made during the Senate GOP leadership race to stick closely to Trump and carry out his political and policy agenda.

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One Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss Thunes relationship with Trump said theres a fair amount of skepticism about whether the new Senate majority leader can be counted on to back the president-elect without waffling.

Hes on a relatively short leash, the lawmaker said, noting that only three votes made the difference in the leadership race, which Thune won in a 29-24 vote on the second ballot.

After the 2020 election, Trump was furious with Thune when he vowed to oppose efforts by Trump-allied senators to block the certification of Biden electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania.

He blasted Thune as a RINO and Mitchs boy, referring to his close relationship with McConnell.

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Trump called for Thune to face a primary challenge in 2022, but the threat didnt amount to much, and the South Dakota senator easily won reelection.

Thune made an effort to mend fences with Trump by visiting him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in March.

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who has a good relationship with Trump, has acted as a liaison between the two men and helped persuade Trump not to intervene in the leadership race to derail Thunes chances of becoming majority leader, according to a source familiar with the behind-the-scenes maneuvers.

Trump had predicted to several Republican senators in recent days that Thune was likely to be elected majority leader, and the president-elect reportedly didnt have an interest in getting involved in the race.

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Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who publicly endorsed Thune early in the leadership race, said the new Senate GOP majority will work very closely with the president.

President Trump won a resounding election Nov. 5 and the American people want a different direction, he said. The Senate and the House has got to work closely with the president. The American people gave us that mandate.

He acknowledged there were some questions about that relationship between Trump and Thune but argued that the two men have made a lot of progress resolving their past differences.

John Thune has worked really hard at building that relationship, he said.

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At the same time, Gaetz would have to answer tough questions at his confirmation hearing to get through the Senate.

Theres a lot of questions that are going to be out there. Hes got to answer those questions, Mullin said.

A second Republican who requested anonymity predicted the GOP conference would rally behind Thune, even though it was almost evenly divided in the final leadership vote.

The conference will move on and John [Thune] will be a good unifier, the senator said.

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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO)  Its Wednesday, November 13. Take a look at our top stories in news and weather with KELOLAND On The GO First@4.

The race for the next U.S. Senate Majority Leader is over and the winner is a man who grew up in Murdo, South Dakota.

Thune wins secret vote for Senate majority leader

Authorities in Rapid City are investigating a shooting that left two people injured in Rapid City.

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2 injured in early morning Rapid City shooting

One driver is seriously injured after a two-vehicle crash involving a school bus Tuesday evening in Deuel County.

1 seriously injured in Deuel Co. school bus crash

Authorities have identified the two people killed in a crash eight miles northeast of Aberdeen.

2 people killed in Brown County crash identified

Dry skies for tonight as temperatures fall to the 20s and 30s.

Dry through the weekend

Download the KELOLAND News app to find the latest headlines while on the go.

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The University of Pittsburgh is studying ways to improve the lives of Type 2 diabetics, or people who just want to control their sugar levels. A new over-the-counter device is giving researchers insight like they never have had before.

Elaine Chiaramonte just found out shes pre-diabetic and insulin-resistant. Shes taking steps to control her sugar by using a new continuous glucose monitor, or CGM, that now is available without a prescription.

Its helped me learn which foods raise my sugar, Chiaramonte said. It was actually a real eye-opener because I didnt realize how high my sugar went sometimes.

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The device is the Dexcom Stelo glucose biosensor system.

You snap it on your arm for 15 days and in real-time, you learn how food, activities, exercise and sleep affect your blood sugar.

Dr. Ann-Marie Rosland is a professor of medicine at Pitt.

It gives you access to a lot more information thats easier to get than it has to prick your finger which youre doing at the most four times a day or so, Dr. Rosland explained. And it can be really empowering you know to see how you know changes that you make are affecting your personal sugar levels.

Its something Chiairmonte learned firsthand.

One of my favorite staples was chicken tenders and french fry basket in the cafeteria, she said. Well, that would send my sugars up in the 240s I found out after I ate it the first time when I had the monitor on.

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Dr. Rosland says information like that is life-changing.

Sometimes when people are able to make changes in their daily routine they can stop taking diabetes medicines that they needed before, Rosland said.

That is the focus of a study Pitt is conducting right now.

We have a minute-by-minute data on what your sugars were, how much if you were walking, how you were sleeping, we have people write their mood, Dr. Rosland said. We have all this and that in our computer and we can analyze all sorts of trends.

Dr. Rosland added the machines arent just for people with diabetes.

Anyone can wear one to get information about their bodies.

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SAN DIEGO (Border Report)  By the end of the month, Tijuana police and Mexican immigration officers are expected to be in place at the San Ysidro Port of Entry to conduct vehicle inspections, making sure people have proper documentation to enter the U.S.

Pedro Montejo Peterson, Secretary of Economic Development in Tijuana, said the goal is to cut down on long border waits. He says Tijuana police and personnel from Mexicos National Institute of Migration will set up inspection points, asking people to show proof they can legally cross into the country.

This work is currently done by Customs and Border Protection officers on U.S. soil, but just south of the actual inspection gates. Montejo Peterson says if the Mexican officers can take on this role, it would free up the CBP officers to have them moved to the actual inspection gates.

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Safety concerns, traffic congestion keeping tourists away from Baja, official says

Theyll be able to open more gates and cars can get across faster, but this is not automatic, we have to show results, said Montejo Peterson. If they can see what were doing is beneficial, theyll be prone to moving the CBP officers because right now only 17 out of 25 gates are open.

Border waits are typically 2-3 hours, especially during the morning commute as thousands of people head north to work, school, family visits, doctor appointments and other reasons.

A similar effort was attempted two years, but it was abandoned after a few days.

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Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the U.S.-Mexico border

CBP has not spoken specifically about this idea, but in the past it has said, CBPs San Ysidro Port of Entry (SYPO) is always in a continuous state of assessment, discussing and searching for the most effective ways to fully improve traffic flows and national security to the extent resources allow. This includes, when appropriate, leveraging the outstanding partnerships SYPO has with local governments in Mexico.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI)  On Wednesday, Rhode Islanders experiencing homelessness and advocates gathered outside the State House to demand urgent action from state leaders.

Dozens voiced frustration over the states response to the homelessness crisis, emphasizing unacceptable delays in opening the 45 new pallet shelters constructed in April. These units, known as ECHO Village, remain vacant due to regulatory holdups.

Protesters chanted, McKee, McKee, emergency, urging Gov. Dan McKee to declare a state of emergency. Signs with messages like Everybodys got a right to live, McKee. Remember your promise. Do your job, and Where will we go? Where will we sleep tonight? pleaded for dignified shelter.

Terri Wright holding sign protesting outside state house for action in homelessness crisis

Terri Wright, an organizer with Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), argued that homelessness constitutes a state of emergency, leaving people stripped of everyday essentials.

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Communities sit divided, and the unsheltered are left outside and voiceless, Wright said.

She emphasized that housing is both a harm reduction measure and a human right, explaining that without housing, peoples health and safety are constantly at risk.

Years of housing neglect and unfortunate circumstances put us here. Dont get mad at homelessness. Dont get mad at homeless people, Wright said. Lean hard on the city and state to provide a more serene balance.

Charles Bennett, who is currently experiencing homelessness, said he was released Tuesday afternoon following five days of hospitalization for pneumonia due to sleeping outside.

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Its time to listen. The problem is only getting worse, and if it gets this cold, people are going to start dying, Bennett said.

A long time coming: Attleboro opens year-round homeless shelter

Kevin Simon, who has been the Director of Outreach and Communications for Mathewson Street United Methodist Church for more than a decade, said he has noticed a significant increase in homelessness in the past year.

He said that last year, 53 people in the church community died while living outside  double the previous years toll.

That number should be zero, Simon told 12 News, stressing that many who sleep outside his church are forced out by law enforcement overnight.

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We are trying to provide a safe space throughout the day, but at night, there is nowhere else to go, he added. They cant be anywhere else but outside.

Simon claimed there is a policy in place where people are supposed to receive a 30-day notice and a 48-hour eviction notice, which is not happening.

No one in the state of Rhode Island should not have a place to rest their heads at night. The weather is turning. It was below freezing last night, Simon said. We dont need shelter and housing tomorrow. We need it right now, and we need it today.

Homeless advocates urge city of Providence to halt encampment raids

Providence Deputy Press Secretary Samara Pinto acknowledged the crisis, explaining that encampment responses are handled through a multidepartment approach, with Providence police playing a role only after assistance and proper notice have been offered.

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To be clear, there are no raids, Pinto clarified. The city always issues official vacate notices and only dispatches police to a public property site after individuals living in an encampment have been offered assistance and proper notice.

She said that once an encampment is identified or reported, the citys Housing Resource Coordinator communicates with outreach teams to explore alternative housing options for those affected before issuing any notices to vacate.

Part of our approach is to also engage specialized outreach teams focused on behavioral health and recovery that can offer harm reduction and recovery services as needed, Pinto explained. We work closely with the emergency medical service teams to ensure comprehensive support for individuals in need at all hours of the day.

Gov. McKee assured that the 70-square-foot pallet housing units will be opened once all safety issues are met.

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The pallet shelters are going to be up and running. Well listen to the advocates. Its their right to demonstrate, but Id hope theyd actually recognize the work that weve been doing over the last few years, McKee said. No one has invested more money or more resources on that issue than I have as governor.

Pinto reiterated that the ECHO Village is on track to be open by winter, detailing remaining tasks such as installing fire-retardant coatings, finalizing fire suppression systems and utility hookups, and paving ADA-accessible walkways.

We cant short-circuit the safety issues and the fire issues that are being addressed, McKee added. Its not a perfect scenario, and the complications delaying the opening show that its not an easy process.

RI housing report calls for broader focus on middle-income needs

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Millions of students are eagerly awaiting their PSAT scores after the first round of results were released in late October.

The PSAT, or Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test, is an important step in preparing for the SAT. Though slightly shorter and less challenging, a strong PSAT score can unlock major scholarship opportunities.

However, the competition is fierce  out of the more than 2 million students who took the PSAT in 2020-2021, only about 7,500 were awarded National Merit or corporate- or college-sponsored scholarships in 2022, according to US News & World Report.

When do PSAT scores come out in 2024?

The College Board, the organization responsible for administering the test, announced that scores from the October 2024 exams will be released in phases on three dates. The final phase is today, Nov. 14.

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The release of your scores depends on when you took the test and when your test was submitted, not on your scores, grade or location.

What time do scores come out?

The College Board has not specified if scores will be released at a particular time.

On a Reddit PSAT forum, one user mentioned an expected release at 7:30 a.m. CT, though others later confirmed that scores were not yet available. Another user, recalling last year's experience, suggested that scores might be released around 9 a.m. CT.

3 ways to check your PSAT scores

College Board indicates there are several ways to check your PSAT score.

School counselor: Your school counselor will receive a PDF version of your score, which they can share. Some college prep websites note your counselor may have test scores before they are released online.

BigFuture School mobile app : If you included your phone number on test day, you can check the app for scores.

College Board student account: Your score and insights will be available online.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: What time do PSAT scores come out? When students should expect results
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) called Thursday for the House Ethics Committee to release the results of its investigation into former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetzs conduct ahead of Senate considerations of President-elect Donald Trumps planned nomination of Gaetz as attorney general.

Durbin, the current Senate majority whip and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will assess Gaetzs nomination, cited Gaetzs resignation from the House on Wednesday following his selection as a key reason for the disclosure of the House Ethics Committees materials.

The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetzs resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report, Durbin told reporters. We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people. Make no mistake, this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetzs confirmation as the next attorney general of the United States, and our constitutional responsibility to advise and consent.

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By leaving Congress, Gaetz halted the committees probe into him ahead of a reportedly important meeting that might have set the stage for release of the committees report. The bipartisan ethics panel had been investigating Gaetz for alleged sexual misconduct, forbidden drug use, doling out special privileges to friends and obstructing efforts to investigate his conduct.

Cornyn, also a high-ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made a similar comment to reporters on Thursday.

The presidents role is to make the nomination, but we need to have a complete vetting of the nominees, not only so we know that the nominee is qualified, but also to protect the president, Cornyn said. Its not in his best interests to have any surprises.

Asked whether that included the House Ethics Committees report on Gaetz, he replied, I want to see everything.

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Most Senate Republicans have avoided saying outright whether they would support or oppose Gaetz in a floor vote, indicating theyd like for the Senates vetting process to play out. But its a safe bet plenty of Republicans would support him.

Matts a friend of mine. We came into the House together. Hes very talented, and anyone whos spent any time with him knows hes very smart and capable, Sen.-elect Jim Banks (R-Ind.) told reporters. Im going to vote to confirm him, if I get the chance to do so, but hes going to have to go through a process.

By the same token, its highly likely that all Democrats would oppose Gaetz. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who described Trumps choice as God-tier trolling and even chided his Democratic colleagues for their outrage, made it clear he would never vote for the guy.

Like, thats insulting, Fetterman said. Like, of course not.

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Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a staunch Trump ally and admirer of Gaetz, indicated he would like to get everything in the open, even as he spoke highly of Gaetz.

Well all look at everything, because well make sure we do the right thing, Tuberville told reporters when asked about the report.

Gaetz, he added, is a very good lawyer, well spoken, believes in the Constitution, and I think hed do a great job.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a moderate who expressed immediate concern about Gaetzs nomination, suggested Gaetzs personal peccadilloes would come up in confirmation hearings one way or another.

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I dont know what the House rules are. I really dont, Collins told reporters. But I cant imagine that the issues that are raised in that ethics report are not going to ... come up either through the [Judiciary] Committees extensive investigation or the FBIs screen for it or questions asked by committee members at Mr. Gaetzs hearings.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also suggested the FBIs background check would turn up any relevant information about Gaetz.

I dont know where the House ethics rules are, but I do know theres an FBI background check for all of these nominees, Hawley said. Listen, these confirmation processes, theyre thorough. Theres going to be hearings for everybody. So my view is that all of any relevant information on any nominee is going to be available to senators.
As the Trump transition team continues to hone in on possible plans for a mass deportation program, thousands of mixed citizenship Central Florida Families are having tough conversations about what this could mean for them.

According to the Center for American Progress, more than 900,000 Floridians have at least one family member who is undocumented.

Channel 9 spoke with a 24-year-old Central Floridian whose parents immigrated from Mexico more than 20 years ago.

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While the 24-year-old is a U.S. Citizen, he says his mixed status family is now feeling heightened anxiety.

On the campaign trail, President-Elect Trump promised to fulfill the largest mass deportation program in American history.

This week the President-Elect tapped Tom Homan to carry out the program as Border Czar.

Read: Things to know about Sen. Marco Rubio, Trumps pick for secretary of state

Homan served as the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during President-Elect Trumps first term in office.

In that role, he led the zero tolerance policy that separated parents from their children at the border.

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President-Elect Trump also announced immigration hardliner Stephen Miller will serve as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, all signaling a focus on immigration thats worrying some families.

I want to be positive think that nothings going to happen to my family but obviously we always have to think about worst-case scenario, said the 24-year-old whom Channel 9 is only identifying by his first name Siquem.

During a meeting at the Hope CommUnity Center in Apopka on Wednesday, some mixed-citizenship status families met for a community gathering focused on mental health and support.

Read: West Melborne race for fifth council seat still undecided

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The Executive Director said the center will be doubling down on education and know your rights sessions teaching the community about their protections in the case of ICE raids or police interactions.

We need to make sure that every single person is prepared. They have a plan and that theyre equipped and in power by knowing what the rights are, said Hope CommUnity Center Executive Director Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet.

Lazaballet said more than 20 percent of Orange Countys population was born outside the U.S. thus, deportation policies could have far-reaching local impacts.

People are having really hard conversations with their family. Could this be the last Christmas that they spent with their mom, with their dad? said Sousa-Lazaballet.

Read: Potential Cyclone 19 forms as it moves toward Central America

Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.




GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD)  Downtown Grand Rapids was lit up Wednesday night in memory of a tow truck driver who was killed a year ago near Caledonia.

Keagan Spencer was a tow truck driver who, in November 2023, was helping someone stuck on the side of M-6 near Kraft Avenue when he was hit and killed by a driver.

Wednesdays event, part of Project Night Lights, brought about 100 tow trucks together downtown to bring awareness to Spencers story and tow truck driver safety. Spencers father, Matt Spencer, is the executive director of Move Over Michigan, a movement that aims to bring awareness to the safety of roadside workers.

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Tow truck driver honored by community following deadly crash

The young man that struck and killed Keagan was speeding and distracted and we at Move Over Michigan know that we have a big problem with the driving public today, said Matt Spencer. We are just asking the public to be aware that we are out there, all sorts of weather. Its very dangerous working the white line, and that when you see emergency vehicles, any flashing lights, first thing: slow down. Just slow down.

Matt Spencer said the movement does not just aim to protect tow truck drivers but all roadside service workers, like mail carriers, police officers, firefighters and trash service providers.

Anybody thats working on the side of the road, we want (drivers) to give them a chance to survive out there, Matt Spencer said.

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Father of tow truck driver killed in crash: Move over

The lights from the trucks driving downtown during Project Night Lights are also something that kids in the nearby childrens hospitals enjoy.

It gives them something to look forward to and then just see all the flashing lights. And its just been a great event to be a part of for the last few years. Unfortunately, were here on the circumstances of Keagans death, that theyve kind of turned it into a memorial for him as well, said Andrew Heykoop, secretary of Move Over Michigan.

You can learn more about the organization on MoveOverMichigan.com.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
LONDONDERRY  In an effort to stem the tide of runaway development, the Planning Board is mulling whether to impose a temporary moratorium on new real estate projects.

Chairman Jake Butler said he wanted to make sure the town was going in the right direction, and wasnt growing too quickly.

I want to make sure were doing the right thing for the town of Londonderry and Im not sure we are right now, given the current situation that the town is in, experiencing growth and everything else, Butler said.

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The discussion came after a six-item agenda, five of which were for new developments, after four hours and 37 minutes of debate and testimony. The meeting did not end until almost midnight Wednesday.

Butler proposed a six-month hiatus for all new construction, saying that the past year has seen incredible growth. He said he was concerned about the ability for Londonderrys infrastructure to handle the explosive growth.

The board would have to approach the Town Council and have a more detailed conversation with the towns lawyer, Butler said.

Ive got over a thousand units we have either approved or are actively being worked on, inside of one year, Butler said We have heard a lot from the public, weve all acknowledged it, we have infrastructure issues that are becoming worse every single day that we need to be able to address.

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In 2023, Londonderry was ranked as the second fastest growing town in New Hampshire by the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs. The town added 1,708 people in 2023, according to the DBEA.

Building affordable housing were other concerns brought by Butler to the board. He said that he was proud of Londonderry for providing housing, but was concerned that it was happening too quickly.

Board members Ann Chiampa and Jason Knights both stressed that while the town is growing, Londonderry has done more than its fair share when it comes to housing.

I absolutely agree with the idea that we have done more than our fair share in terms of contributing to alleviating the housing crisis, Knights said. There are definitely a whole bunch of other towns that can step up and do their part.

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Member Jason Penta said he was frustrated that there are concerns over public safety, traffic and water infrastructures that the board does not have reports on.

We have to be very responsible for the town and do what we can, within our purview, to ensure Londonderrys prosperity, Penta said.
The Washington Post reports the House Ethics Committee will meet Friday with a confidential agenda that many on Capitol Hill believe to be about the investigation into former Florida Rep. and Trump attorney general pick Matt Gaetz. NBC News correspondent Julie Tsirkin, Washington Post reporter Marianna Sotomayor, and Michael Hardaway, former spokesman for House Leader Jeffries, share their thoughts on this and House Speaker Johnsons latest congressional conundrum.
The city where a lineman was killed while on duty says it will make grief counselors available to employees who need assistance. Another worker was seriously injured in the incident.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

People in the Griffin neighborhood say its sad someone lost their life while working.

Its a tragedy. Its really a tragedy. Ive been seeing them out here working, David Holcomb told Channel 2s Tom Jones.

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Holcomb says hes seen Eric Weems and Trent Granger working on power lines on Spalding Street and Little Street recently.

He was saddened that Weems lost his life working on the power project.

He came to work today. He was planning on going home, Holcomb said.

TRENDING STORIES:

Griffins City Manager Jessica OConnor says Granger suffered serious injuries and is at Grady Memorial Hospital.

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Critical but stable, OConnor said.

The city says an equipment malfunction led to Weems dying and Grangers injuries. Jones asked were the linemen in the bucket of the utility truck he saw at the scene.

Were not going to go through those details at this time, OConnor responded.

Jones could see the arm to the bucket on the truck disconnected. The bucket was on the ground.

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Carolyn Chastain says she was near the scene and one of the linemen was in the bucket.

I heard hollering and I thought they were fussing. But it was that cable thing. The thing they were in fell...the bucket. It fell and crushed the one guy and it killed the other guy, Chastain said.

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Jones asked OConnor how the city deals with employees who are having a difficult time with what happened.

We lost a police officer in the line of duty in 2014 before I started. So, we prayed together. We grieved together. Were family, OConnor explained.

That was Ofc. Kevin Jordan who was killed while working off duty. The police department named its public safety complex after him.

The city says grief counselors will be available for those who need it.

Consultants will determine exactly what caused the malfunction.
A somewhat rare November storm system gathering steam in the Caribbean Sea that formed into Tropical Storm Sara on Thursday will slowly gain more tropical ammunition in the abnormally warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico before making a sharp right turn and taking dead aim toward Florida.

What does all that mean for storm-weary Floridians? Forecasters say it remains more of a watch, and not a worry, situation.

As of Thursday afternoon, Sara had sustained winds of 40 mph and was located around 205 miles east-southeast of Isla Guanaja, Honduras, moving west, according to the National Hurricane Center. A tropical storm is labeled when wind speeds reach at least 39 mph. That mountainous region of Honduras and Nicaragua will significantly take some punch out of the wind circulation, something that wasn't evident Wednesday.

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"A storm that spends more time over land will lose its intensity," AccuWeather Senior Director of Forecast Operations Dan DePodwin said Thursday morning. "The big question is how much time will it spend over land that will limit its wind intensity."

The difference, DePodwin said, could be Sara "becoming a strong tropical storm or a major Category 3 hurricane that forms in the Gulf of Mexico this weekend."

What is the timeline for Tropical Storm Sara?

Tropical Depression 19 is expected to slowly move through the Yucatan Peninsula and Mexico this weekend and early next week.

Sara is expected to meander in the Western Caribbean Sea just north of Nicaragua this weekend before moving over Belize and Guatemala. Ultimately it will emerge Monday off the west coast of Guatemala in the Bay of Campeche before its trek north.

At that point, forecasters will have a better idea of the strength and path of the storm.

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Regardless, a high-pressure system from the continental United States is sinking fast and that, coupled with a strong jet stream, will slingshot the storm toward Florida, likely arriving sometime Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. This is where things are still murky.

Models have it headed anywhere from Florida's peninsula all the way south to the Florida Keys. It's also possible the storm could even dissipate and break apart in the Gulf because of the time it spends over land.

The last scenario, however, is not likely, DePodwin said.

A system forming in the Caribbean Sea is expected to strengthen and threaten Florida by the middle of next week.

"There are two factors that are going to continue to drive this storm," he said. "One is the fact that there is plenty of warm water  about 4 to 6 degrees warmer than average  in the Caribbean Sea with depths of about 300 to 400 feet. The second is the lack of wind shear present that would help break it up."

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DePodwin said the likely worst-case scenario for Floridians would be a weak Category 1 hurricane or a strong tropical system that could bring plenty of rain and some wind damage.

"The state of Florida does not need any more tropical storm impacts," he said. "It will just slow the recovery process of the previous storms."

The significant worry for this storm is in Central America, which DePodwin said could turn into a "true humanitarian crisis" because of potential widespread flooding.

The storm will bring "life-threatening" flooding rainfall up to 30 inches, the National Hurricane Center warned.

Tropical Depression #Nineteen is expected to produce heavy rainfall with life-threatening and potentially catastrophic flash flooding and mudslides over portions of Honduras through the weekend. Follow the latest at https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb https://t.co/BHchyK0NXK pic.twitter.com/SrJxoGhOVC  National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) November 14, 2024

He compared the potential threat of casualties to that of Hurricane Mitch, a late October 1998 storm that caused more than 11,000 fatalities in Honduras and Nicaragua because of cataclysmic flooding and the slow motion of the storm.

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Mitch, although a significantly stronger storm, followed a slightly similar path and ultimately made a sharp right turn and hit Florida as a strong tropical system.

Hurricane Mitch's path in 1998.

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A wild hurricane season is just getting wilder

As of November, four hurricanes  Debby, Beryl, Francine, Helene and Milton  have accounted for an estimated $500 billion in damages and economic loss in the United States.

There now have been 18 named storms with 11 hurricanes and of those five have been major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher). All three figures are above the historical averages.

HURRICANE SEASON HELP: Tips for starting a storm supply list

HURRICANE SEASON: EF3 tornado that hit Palm Beach County was a first, but there was another killer in 1958

HURRICANE SEASON: Hurricane Milton brought unusually fierce tornadoes to Florida with killer precision

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If Sara does make landfall in the United States as a hurricane, it could challenge the latest landfall record of Hurricane Kate, which hit Florida as a Category 2 storm on November 21, 1985.

Only three November hurricanes have hit Florida:

Yankee Hurricane (1935): A Category 2 hurricane that formed about 220 miles east of Bermuda before eventually making landfall near Bal Harbour in Miami-Dade County.

Hurricane Kate (1985): Kate formed northeast of Puerto Rico on Nov. 15, traveled east through the Keys and then curved north before hitting the Florida Panhandle as a Category 2 storm.

Hurricane Nicole (2022): Nicole was an early November storm that made landfall twice in Florida, south of Vero Beach and then off the Gulf Coast at Cedar Key. It crossed over the same region in Florida that had been devastated by Hurricane Ian six weeks earlier.

Hurricane season officially ends on Nov. 30, but named storms have formed in December in the past.

Ahead of storm threat, a cool front moves through

Ahead of the mid-week trepidation of Sara, two cool fronts will make their way through the Treasure Coast and Palm Beach County.

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The first one, the weaker of the two, arrived Wednesday with a minimal drop in temperatures. The second, however, is coming through Friday and Saturday and will bring a larger drop in temperatures.

High temperatures will be in the low 80s and low temperatures will be in the high 60s this weekend. Wind speeds will also be lower.

James Coleman is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at jcoleman@pbpost.com and follow him on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @JimColeman11. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Could a potential November Hurricane Sara hit South Florida?
I have found that many physicians are not happy. I wanted to share with them some ways to find amrita in life. Then we can face life with joyful countenance, ready to receive the Maker when we hear the knock, as described in Revelation 3:20. It is important to associate with virtuosity. La Chaim!

The excitement: Albert Camus said that the struggles that one encounters in life are by themselves the purpose of life at a time when Jean-Paul Sartre and others were promoting existentialist views of life and questioning the very purpose of life and why we shouldnt commit suicide.

The life of a neurosurgeon is full of struggles, and that is not to say that other professions are as easy as calling something duck soup. I want to share with the readers, particularly those who choose to become neurosurgeons, ways to find happiness and contentment despite the obstacles of reduced reimbursements, excessive record-keeping, governmental and bureaucratic oversight, and discontentment owing to subconscious lamentation for days gone by.

Dr. Anil Nanda, professor of neurosurgery at Louisiana State University, titled his talk Curiosity, Compassion, and Composure at the white coat ceremony of 2011. It was printed in World Neurosurgery in the July/August 2012 issue. He mentioned Dr. Lawrence Craven, the internist who observed that chewing aspirin-containing gum caused excessive bleeding during tonsillectomy and introduced aspirin to his cardiac patients to prevent myocardial infarction. He also talked about Drs. Marshall and Warrens perseverance in proving that Helicobacter was an important factor in causing peptic ulcer disease and the compassion and gratitude expressed by Dr. William Osler for his patients. I have injected myself with the courage of such people. Courage, I believe, is an absolute necessity to become a neurosurgeon. It is not something one develops, but rather an ingredient that leads to happiness through its power to impart helpfulness as it marinates with intelligence. Dr. Nanda mentioned the composure of President Teddy Roosevelt after he lost his mother and wife on the same day.

I believe that happiness arrives like a friend that knocks on the door of life softly, waiting for us to open the door and let it in.

We dont know what it is yet when it enters our cells, but it invades the body and works in every mitochondrion as a source of our energy. I believe that when we were asked during interviews, Why do you want to be a neurosurgeon? most of us said we were curious about the nervous system and wanted to be skillful surgeons to help people afflicted with maladies affecting this system. The discipline came naturally as I followed the rigorous lifestyle of sleeping about four hours, studying, examining patients, observing in the operating room, preparing for grand rounds, and writing papers. I dont believe there was a day in my life when I thought this was not what I had planned, although there were days when I fell asleep before finishing my dinner. Every day was exciting in what I saw and what I learned. Everything was an accomplishment. I still remember the first spinal tap, the first tracheostomy, the first chest tube, and the first craniotomy. It was the attainment of various skills that gave me the thrill.

Dr. Hunt, professor of neurosurgery at Ohio State University, said that intelligence cannot be imparted, only kindled to follow ones dreams to attain the goal one is destined to reach. A professor like Dr. Hunt is difficult to emulate because his bedside manners were impeccable, his temper always controlled, and his skill unmatched. There were times when we discussed philosophy and religion, and he knew that the Pharisees believed in predestination and the Sadducees believed in free will. We discussed the fact that compassion is not a parade of platitudinous gestures but arises from goodness inside. He demonstrated daily how to be loving, caring, and compassionate. He said it was important to behave as professionals in all our endeavors because, as physicians, we enjoyed certain privileges society allowed us because of our title. He wrote down on a piece of paper when I told him that the five wounds of Christ signify resurrection, redemption, forgiveness (introspection), salvation, and compassion. I said I needed a lot of introspection to avoid being judgmental in my opinions. He thought that taming the tongue was of utmost importance in life and that speaking the truth required tact and finesse so as not to promote ourselves while denigrating someone else.

I remembered reading that Dionysus told Euripides in the underground, My tongue spake but my mind was not prepared.

Professor J. A. Schumpeter, in The Theory of Economic Development, presciently stated that in capitalism, creative entrepreneurs will use new methods to generate new products that promise to generate higher revenue. Consequently or subsequently, less profitable enterprises will decrease and become extinct. At present, most surgeons are employees of large corporations and are often subtly reminded to perform procedures (if possible) that generate greater revenue to maintain their keep, so to speak. Medicine has become more procedure-oriented (it pays more) and less people-oriented. Aristotle said we are humans essentially and (our professionalism) accidentally. Therefore, when bundled payments for diagnosis-related groups became necessary, procedures filled the gap of deficient reimbursements. Just a few years ago, many performed three epidural injections routinely for treating back pain, despite the information suggesting its potential deleterious effects. But the procedures actually paid more than laminectomy. Im sure it wasnt intentional. I was told by one of the administrators that there were many coding opportunities that needed to be captured. I retired soon after that missive (verbal). Cest la vie!

My training and continuous effortsobserving infectious disease doctors and orthopedic surgeons in my spare time during residency, spending extra time in radiology, learning to catheterize blood vessels, and learning to embolize abnormal vessels and tumorshelped me become a physician. I noticed that my license to practice medicine was actually a license to be a physician. I learned medicine and the principles of surgery, which enabled me to pass the neurosurgical board examination.

I learned to perform stellate blocks, celiac blocks, inject alcohol or glycerol inside the spine or into the foramen ovale, perform percutaneous cordotomy, place spinal cord stimulators, and use lasers or microscopes where needed. I learned stereotactic surgery by attending different courses. This education gave me opportunities to fulfill my dream of becoming the kind of doctor I always dreamed of being. I enjoyed working in Louisville. I was able to perform the first phrenic stimulator in the state. I was able to embolize and resect difficult AVMs from the brain and spinal cord (once using cyanoacrylatecrazy gluewhen sterile bucrylate was not available).

I used stereotactic surgery for biopsies (navigation was not available), clipped aneurysms, and performed operations on carotid and vertebral arteries, the spine, spinal cord, and brain. But the most fulfilling experience for me has been being an international volunteer for the last twenty-five years.

My training and instinct taught me that he who makes the cut owns the problem. My compassion taught me that saying, The operation is successful and fusion looks great, when the patient is not doing better than pre-op, is not really effective or valuable to the patient. Mentioning the radiological evidence of satisfactory fusion might satiate my conscience, but it doesnt serve the patient.

I learned over the years that my instinct and intuition must draw strength from objective data and that the indications for an operation must be entwined with reasoning that could withstand the scrutiny of the most dispassionate critic. I made arrangements with St. Mary and Elizabeth Hospital that they would not charge patients I operated on for free. Many patients who needed help but were restrained by financial constraints did not feel isolated. Many paid me with live chickens or skinned squirrels in jars, or simply by mowing my yard or giving my wife a free massage during her visit to the salon, or doing her nails for free. We became bound by mutual love, which propelled us toward better seats in the arena of eternal life. I felt the love of my Maker. I could listen to Pavarotti sing or Don Giovanni repent with my eyes closed, without getting a bump from my wifes elbowshe might have assumed I was sleeping, bored.

I believe a competent surgeon knows not only which back needs an operation (and when) but, more importantly, can discern when to say no, even if a patient says, I heard youre the best. It is important not to step into the muck of self-adulation, enticed by sycophantic patients.

The pain game, as Dr. Fordyce (professor at the University of Washington, Seattle) described in the early seventies, is an eternal trap that has enticed many surgeons. Self-adulation is hard to overcome, particularly for surgeons. So I chose not to operate on every bizarre arm pain as thoracic outlet syndrome, on all adjacent asymptomatic disc degeneration as future burglars that would steal the juice from the nerves, or on every spondylolisthesis or spinal stenosis found after work injuries or car accidents by stating they were caused by the accidents in question.

Instead, I learned to accept my shortcomings. On one occasion, after I testified that a certain problem was not related to a car accident but it progressed after the case settled, I performed the necessary operation for free. Mr. Eric Lamb represented that person in the accident. I wrote a letter accepting my error in judgment. It takes courage to be a neurosurgeon!

Working in foreign lands is difficult. I had to be well-read, and more importantly, I had to learn to work with different personalities in varied cultures and live under unfamiliar conditions. But the advantage was that I usually did not have to operate at night, and I could drink beer. Drs. John Guarnaschelli, Richard Jelsma, and Robert Sexton covered for me while I was gone for months to distant lands. I am grateful to them for helping me.

Mr. Mark Webster, a prominent local attorney, traveled to Nicaragua to volunteer to build houses, and there he spoke to people who knew what kind of neurosurgery we were able to perform. A young medical student went to Ethiopia with me, and it transformed him. He is at Tulane to become a neurosurgeon. The joy of neurosurgery for me has been the ability to work in Nepal, Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Mongolia, and Siberia. Here, I have loved and felt the pain of those who dont have the benefits we enjoy at home. I have been able to work with younger doctors and physician colleagues who work daily under trying circumstances. One time in Arequipa, Peru, I performed operations on three different patients in one day. One had an anterior communicating aneurysm, the second needed a transsphenoidal approach for a pituitary tumor, and the third had an L5-S1 disc herniation. The last operation was performed in twenty-eight minutes under flashlight illumination because there was a seismo from nearby Misti, the volcano. It is in these circumstances that patients families have broken bread with me or served me Chinggis vodka as I tried to work as a disciple of my Lord. I have been fulfilled by the joy of giving and receiving and caramelized in the love of those I would never have known had I not been trained in America and gone out to help. I am grateful for all the opportunities.

Tolerance and the ability to improvise are essential to work effectively in different countries where fewer resources may be available. It brings great joy to perform an aneurysm operation using a Black & Decker drill, prepare a sandwich with pieces of a glove and gelfoam to place next to the brainstem instead of Teflon or Ivalon to stop the pain of trigeminal neuralgia or hemifacial spasm, or operate under minimal illumination on a Friday because the guy who changes the bulbs only works on Wednesdays!

As a young boy lying on a mat in the field in front of our house, I asked my grandfather, Where do the clouds go? He said the different clouds had different shapes and colors because those attributes provided the staying power to travel to different lands. In the penultimate chapter of my life, I realize the value of that story.

I think of Govinda (Siddhartha, Herman Hesse), who realized that the cloud, the mountain, and the river were all the same, only in different stages of life. The joy of neurosurgery is in understanding Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman), seeing the true beauty of life in ordinary things and everything in it. Life is most joyous when the mind is calm and in a state of Mahamudra, when one might hear the sound of one hand clapping while God holds the other to guide and subdue noise during the transition from matter to energy.

Timir Banerjee is a neurosurgeon.
Jeff Berardelli is WFLAs Chief Meteorologist and Climate Specialist

Tropical Storm Sara finally formed Thursday morning, and its future is becoming more clear. While it seems Sara is destined for the Gulf of Mexico next week, it looks like a weak storm at best by that time.

Sara is located near the coast of Honduras. It will meander for the next three days close to the coast, if not slightly inland. Due to the land interaction, Sara will have a hard time intensifying. But due to the very mountainous terrain, life-threatening flash flooding is likely as Sara stalls and batters the region.

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A widespread 10-20 inches of rain will fall, with isolated-elevated locations receiving over 30 inches. This will bring catastrophic flooding to the area.

While Saras extended stay over Honduras will be destructive for that nation, it also will keep Sara from becoming a major hurricane. If Sara was just 100 miles further north wed be dealing with a major hurricane due to record hot ocean heat content in the area.

Once Sara departs Honduras, it will move northwest, and once again strike land over the Yucatan. This will further weaken the storm, and Sara is likely to emerge over the Southern Gulf as either a depression or even a remnant low.

This is a far cry from what the models pictured just two days ago depicting a major hurricane sliding north from the Caribbean into the Gulf, uninteruppted by land, and bringing a hurricane landfall to Florida. This no longer seems likely.

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Instead, once Sara reaches the Gulf by Monday, it likely wont have a good enough structure to regenerate into a powerful system. That is due not only to the weakened core but also water temperatures in the northern half of the Gulf that are below the critical 80-degree threshold.

So the most likely scenario now is for the left over moisture, or a weak depression, to be pulled northeastward by a front in the northern Gulf. The impact on the Bay Area will be some heavy downpours, gusty winds and isolated tornadoes on Wednesday, but probably not much more.

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This still could change but for now it seems the worst case scenario is no longer viable.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Tropical Storm Sara formed Thursday afternoon in the western Caribbean.

As of the 4 p.m. advisory, Sara had winds of 40 mph and was moving west at 10 mph.

WATCH THE FORECAST | DOWNLOAD THE APPS

Sara is the 18th named storm of the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

Sara will bring 1-2 feet of rain to portions of Central America.

Flash flooding and mudslides look likely in Honduras through the weekend.

Sara will then move near Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

The more land interaction that occurs, the weaker the system will be.

The exact strength depends on the exact track, which is still to be determined.

Some forecast scenarios completely dissipate Sara in the Gulf of Mexico.

These scenarios would bring some rain and wind to the local area.

There is still a lot to work out, but at this time, Sara does not appear to be a big hit for Florida.

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LISTEN: Mike Buresh All the Weather, All the Time Podcast

First Alert Chief Meteorologist Mike Buresh said most of the models have trended faster with the tropical cyclone in the longer range possibly near or over Florida or the Gulf Coast by Wednesday of next week but very slow before that near or over Central America.

Its still early, but Buresh said the bottom line is anyone in the Western Caribbean, Yucatan Peninsula, Western Cuba, Gulf Coast & Florida needs to stay up to date on the latest forecasts. Exactly how this situation unfolds is still very much up in the air.

For the latest updates, read the latest Talking the Tropics With Mike.





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Mike Buresh | Garrett Bedenbaugh | Corey Simma | Trevor Gibbs

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Tropical Storm Sara formed in the Caribbean on Thursday, becoming the 18th named storm of the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season. The system, previously called Tropical Depression 19, developed in the western Caribbean earlier this week and intensified while traveling westward on a path toward Central America.

Sara had sustained winds of 45 mph and was located around 105 miles north-northwest of the Nicaragua-Honduras border and 105 miles east-southeast of the Honduras island of Guanaja, moving west at 10 mph, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said in a 10 p.m. ET update. A weather system is considered a tropical storm when its sustained wind speeds reach at least 39 mph.

The storm is expected to linger in the Caribbean through the weekend and slowly move into the Gulf of Mexico early next week. After that, its path is less clear. CBS News meteorologist Nikki Nolan said a lot of the models are now trending towards it dissipating either after it enters the Gulf of Mexico or over Mexico, but several still have it aiming towards Florida.

Map shows location of Tropical Storm Sara off the coast of Honduras on Nov. 14, 2024. / Credit: CBS News

"Florida residents should closely monitor the forecast updates as they come in," Nolan advised.

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The Atlantic Hurricane Season officially runs from June 1 until Nov. 30, with activity typically peaking between mid-August and mid-October. An average season brings 14 named storms, seven hurricanes, and three major hurricanes, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which did predict the 2024 season would produce "above average" numbers.

What is the projected path of Tropical Storm Sara?

Sara was forecast to move closer to the northern coast of Honduras through early Saturday and then approach Belize on Sunday, the Hurricane Center said.

Sara could potentially bring catastrophic rainfall to parts of Central America. Between 10 and 20 inches of heavy rainfall are possible in Honduras early next week, forecasters warned, with up to 30 inches accumulating in some places.

Map shows the forecast path for Tropical Storm Sara as of Nov. 14, 2024. / Credit: CBS News

Forecasters at the hurricane center said they expected "life-threatening and potentially catastrophic" flash floods to hit Honduras and persist through the weekend. The hurricane center also warned of potentially disastrous mudslides caused by the storm, especially in the mountainous area along and near Sierra La Esperanza on the country's northeastern coast. They estimated those conditions would persist through the weekend.

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The rest of Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala and western Nicaragua will likely receive between 5 and 10 inches of rainfall as the storm runs its course through that region, but up to 15 inches are possible.

Governments across Central America have issued various watches and warnings as people brace for Sara's effects. Honduras' northern coast and its Bay Islands were under a tropical storm warning Thursday night.

Will Tropical Storm Sara become a hurricane?

It remains to be seen whether Sara will grow into a hurricane. A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when its sustained winds reach at least 74 mph, making it a Category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

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Forecasters also cautioned residents of Belize and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to be ready for possible impacts of Sara early next week.

Will Tropical Storm Sara hit Florida?

After entering the Gulf of Mexico, some forecast models suggested the storm could make a right-hand turn and heading toward Florida by late next week, though Nolan noted that conditions can quickly change. Other models had the storm potentially heading into the central part of the Gulf and possibly dissipating.

Air Force hurricane hunters that flew into the area to investigate the strength and structure of the developing weather system located Sara Thursday night along Hondruras' northeastern coast, the hurricane center said.

Forecast models take in the current environmental factors along with historical data to compute "spaghetti plots" of where systems may track. Each model uses different computations, and the forecast track is an output of the consensus from those models.

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"It is too soon to determine what impacts the system could bring to portions of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, including Florida, the Florida Keys, and Cuba during the middle portion of next week," the hurricane center said Thursday. "Residents in these areas should regularly monitor updates to the forecast."

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Tropical Storm Sara is unleashing heavy rainfall in northeastern Honduras, with life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides anticipated through the weekend.

Nearly 20 inches of rain had already fallen in parts of Honduras as of Friday morning with more to come.

Earlier forecasts from the National Hurricane Center told residents along the eastern Gulf of Mexico to monitor the storm for its potential to reach the US, but the center now believes the storm might not survive its trek through Central America and Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula.

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Sara, which formed Thursday afternoon as it closed in on the Honduras-Nicaragua border, is the 18th named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. Its a season thats lived up to initial hyperactive forecasts and hasnt played by the rules.

Tropical activity should be winding down in November, but Sara is now the third named storm this month thanks to exceptionally warm water wrought by climate change.

The storm, which briefly made landfall Thursday night in northeastern Honduras, may make another brief landfall as it skirts the coast.

Saras ongoing heavy rainfall could trigger life-threatening flooding in parts of Honduras, the NHC warned. A few places in Honduras could measure around 30 inches of rain while double-digit rainfall totals may impact other parts of Central America. That could mean widespread areas of life-threatening and potentially catastrophic flash flooding and mudslides.

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After pushing away from Honduras later this weekend, Sara will threaten Belize with storm surge and gusty winds.

Tropical storm alerts were in effect from Honduras to Guatemala and Belize Thursday. Additional alerts for more of Belize and Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula are possible in the coming days.

Multiple scenarios for what could happen to Sara after its interaction with Honduras and the Yucatan Peninsula were possible earlier this week, but one appears to be winning out and its good news for a storm-weary US Gulf Coast thats been hit by five hurricanes this year.

Sara will likely undergo too much interaction with land in Central America and Mexico to survive into the Gulf of Mexico early next week as originally forecast, the NHC said Thursday afternoon.

CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam contributed to this report.

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Tropical Storm Sara continues to churn in the western Caribbean, and it looks unlikely the storm will make it to the Gulf of Mexico.

The 4 pm advisory from the National Hurricane Center had Sara with winds of 40 mph.

The storm will slow down and graze Honduras Friday into the weekend, producing significant flooding rains as a tropical storm.

From there, Sara will lift into the Yucatan Sunday into Monday, where significant weakening is now expected as the storm remains over land.

The updated forecast now has Sara dissipating as it moves into the Gulf of Mexico late Monday.

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Sara formed Thursday afternoon, making it the 18th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.

The remnants of Sara will likely merge with a frontal boundary in the Gulf and could bring enhanced rainfall to a portion of Florida during the middle of next week.

Florida residents should continue to monitor this system in the event of changes to the forecast.

Stay with Channel 9 for the latest on the tropics.

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HAMILTON TWP., MONROE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU)  The truck driver involved in a Monroe County crash that killed three people last year is facing homicide charges.

The five-car crash happened in March 2023 when a tractor-trailer crossed the median on Route 33 in Hamilton Township and hit oncoming traffic.

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State police stand-off in Monroe County ends with arrest

According to Monroe County District Attorneys Office, the truck driver, Mark Rideout, 36, of Philadelphia, has been arrested and charged with three counts of homicide by vehicle, driving under the influence, and other related offenses.

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Samantha Crich, 40, of Wilkes-Barre, a 14-year-old passenger in her car, and Bryan Franco, 25, of Hellertown, were killed in the crash.

While on the scene of the crash, Rideout denied using any alcohol or drugs but police said he appeared confused and was not able to keep his balance. Rideout failed a field sobriety test and he was arrested for DUI.

A toxicology report was done and the results showed Rideout had Delta-9 Carboxy THC and Delta-9 THC, which is an active ingredient in marijuana, in his system, as stated in the affidavit.

Investigators stated Rideout was driving between 70-79 mph and there were no roadway defects presented that would cause him to have vehicle issues before the crash.

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MONTROSE, Ill. (WCIA)  No one is hurt after a semi-truck partially overturned on Interstate 70 in Montrose overnight.

The crash happened at milepost 107, two miles west of the exit to Spring Creek Road. Officials from the Illinois State Police said the eastbound truck was rounding a curve when it went off the highway at 2:17 a.m.

Semi-truck hauling dishwashers in Montrose destroyed by fire

The Montrose Fire Protection District responded to the scene and found one trailer upright but the other overturned. The truck was also partially blocking one lane of traffic. Firefighters assisted with traffic control until the tow company could properly shut the lane down.

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No one was hurt and firefighters left the scene at 4 a.m.

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Stanley Jensen worked with firefighters to break open a melted safe amid the rubble of his family's home.

As Jensen used a window screen to sift the safe's ashen contents for diamonds and stones, his wife, Dawn DaMart, wandered the blackened foundation searching for tokens of the couple's life before the Mountain fire.

"Grammy, I made that for you," her granddaughter Violet called out, pointing in the ash. DaMart picked up a clay butterfly sculpture engraved with the 11-year-old's name.

Beverly Hills firefighter Missy Forrett hands Stanley Jensen a wall safe after it was recovered from the rubble of Jensen's home. (Al Seib / For The Times)

Meanwhile, DaMarts longtime friend Pamela OKane, who lives in Thousand Oaks, surveyed the scene in disbelief: Not more than a few hundred feet away, other homes stood virtually unscathed.

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How can it just stop? How, when there are sparks flying everywhere? OKane said. Random  thats the word Im looking for.  It is truly random.

It's a question many are now asking in Las Posas Estates and Camarillo Heights  two affluent communities nestled against the foothills of the Santa Susana mountains and dangerously close to a flammable, brush-dominated ecosystem.

Read more: Staggering devastation as fire levels Ventura County neighborhoods, destroying over 130 structures

Some houses, seemingly scattered at random, were reduced to rubble with only a lifeless moonscape left behind. Others, sometimes next door, were almost entirely unaffected  some still with lush green lawns.

A home burns in Camarillo during the Mountain fire. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Yet as urban and suburban sprawl continues to push communities further into fire-prone landscapes and climate change continues to worsen blazes, scientists and fire experts are fiercely debating what control homeowners really have over whether their home survives  or if it simply comes down to chance.

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Recently, neighbors gathered on the street for the first time since fire ravaged their homes. As firefighters patrolled the area for hot spots and helped grieving residents, neighbors retold their stories of the nightmarish day.

The night before the fire exploded, the eerie howl of the Santa Ana winds kept some awake. The next morning, the winds kicked up dust from nearby farms and orchards, obscuring the communitys panoramic views of Camarillo and the Pacific.

The winds were so strong that Ken and Pamella McWaid, who live a few homes down from Jensen, watched their large window bowing in and out.

By midmorning, news made it to the neighborhood that a fire had broken out about 11 miles away. Many  who have had several close calls with wildfire before  knew instantly that this could spell disaster.

The Mountain fire burns along a Santa Paula hillside near State Route 126. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Contrary to popular belief, the most destructive force in most Southern California wildfires isn't the flames  its the embers. As fires devour flammable brush and vegetation, the heat propels burning embers upward. Strong winds can carry them for miles.

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When they land, they risk igniting new spot fires, which can quickly devour homes.

The great majority of homes that burn in wildfires are already in flaming ruins by the time the fire reaches the town, said Chad Hanson, a wildfire scientist and the director and principal ecologist at the John Muir Project .

Within minutes, this worst-case scenario became a reality in Las Posas Estates.

The McWaids watched in horror as flames jumped up the canyon and into their backyard, without warning.

Read more: In a few terrifying hours, the Mountain fire exploded into SoCal's most destructive in years

Ravines  which line both sides of the winding roads in Las Posas Estates and Camarillo Heights  are particularly dangerous, said Kyle Ferris, fire behavior analyst with the Mountain Incident Command Team.

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Once an ember ignites vegetation near the bottom, the flames can quickly scale both sides and rising heat dries out the vegetation ahead, practically clearing a path for the fire to race through.

The sun sets on a burning home in Camarillo during the Mountain fire. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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The McWaids rushed to the garage, but as Ken McWaid opened the garage door, thick black smoke billowed in and hot embers singed his skin. As his wife, Pamella, started driving, he quickly yanked the garage door back down.

Ken McWaid raced out the front door to his work truck and followed his wife.

Another neighbor drove her car directly through Jensen's property to escape the inferno, which had already blocked off the sole escape route.

Camarillo sits in a chaparral ecosystem  one dominated by dry fire-loving brush that, as a natural part of the ecosystems life cycle, routinely burns.

Whether communities like Las Posas Estates and Camarillo Heights can truly beat fire in such an environment, though, remains a topic of fierce debate among scientists.

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Some fire researchers say taking simple steps to clear yards, roofs and gutters of flammable vegetation and ensuring there is absolutely no opening for embers to get inside  whether a dog door, a vent or an open window  can virtually fireproof a home.

A firefighter douses a hotspot in the eaves of a home on Old Coach Drive in Camarillo. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Its not 100% effective, but its pretty damn close, Hanson said. But to be effective, there cannot be any weak link in the defense.

As far as I know, theres always an explanation [for a house burning down] if people look closely enough, he said. Im not aware of exceptions.

Yet others say there is no way to guarantee safety  especially in extremely dry and windy conditions.

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In a case like the Mountain fire, It truly is random, said Ferris, the fire analyst, when you have the fires moving this fast and the amount of the embers it casts going everywhere and the size of the embers too.

Read more: Inside the battle to save Mountain High ski resort from a monster California wildfire

Alexandra Syphard  one of the first researchers to study the effectiveness of home hardening and defensible space in real wildfires in the early 2010s  said it's somewhere in the middle.

"It's neither" pure chance which homes burn nor completely determined by which home hardening measures were taken, she said. "Doing things to your house  in particular things like vent screens, or closing eaves on your roof or having double-pane windows  can significantly increase the chance that your house survives a fire, but contrary to what a lot of people like to say, this is not a guarantee."

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A 2019 study by Syphard attempted to quantify the degree to which home hardening measures actually protected homes against fire by analyzing more than 40,000 structures that faced wildfires from 2013 to 2018  a period that included the devastating Camp and Woolsey fires.

The results varied widely from region to region, but in Southern California, homes protected by a fire department were 19% less likely to burn  31% if a civilian helped defend it too. Multipaned windows reduced the risk of the home burning to the ground by 26%.

Other measures did little to save houses  such as clearing nearby flammable vegetation beyond 15 feet around the house, which, at best, reduced the risk by 3%.

The most destructive force in many wildfires is wind-driven embers. Strong winds can carry them for miles and when they land, they risk igniting new spot fires, which can quickly devour homes. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Another independent study found that both hardening the home and clearing nearby spaces of flammable brush cut the chance of destruction in half  from 40% chance to 20%.

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The Camarillo area has limited resources dedicated to home hardening and defensible space management education and home-specific consultation visits. Right now, the Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council bears most of the responsibility.

We are  I guess fortunately and unfortunately  the biggest player in the county, said Stephen Watson, the executive director of the council.

With only eight employees, they have yet to reach most residents.

Nevertheless, the McWaids had done their homework.

As urban sprawl continues to push communities further into fire-prone landscapes, scientists and fire experts are debating what control homeowners have over whether their home survives. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

They want you to have 100 feet from your house back.  We had all that cleared, Ken McWaid said.

We were always thinking fire, he said. You see these people and they go, Why do they live in the brush? Well, you know, all of that was dirt. It was all cleared.

Yet, by the time the McWaids were rushing away  with 20- to 25-foot flames in the rearview mirror, right up against the area that they had cleared  McWaid was already certain his home was doomed.

As I was backing out, then I could see it, McWaid said. With embers flying everywhere and hitting the house, I knew it was done.

Syphard worries that a perception that home hardening is meaningless could result in residents not taking key steps to prepare their homes. Meanwhile, a belief that home hardening is a silver bullet could incentivize cities and residents to keep building in dangerous, wildfire-prone regions.

"If you assume that all home modifications are effective, you're creating a false sense of security," she said. "Other studies I've done have found that the most important factor that explains why a structure is destroyed in a fire is the location of the house."

Both DaMart and the McWaids say they plan to rebuild.

Pamella McWaid, a real estate agent of 30 years, had sold many of her Las Posas Estates neighbors their homes, including many now reduced to ash. One couple had moved in just three weeks ago.

The view and sense of community are simply too hard to beat, they say.

Stanley Jensen assists firefighters as they try to locate valuables in the rubble of Jensen's home. (Al Seib / For The Times)

My wife  she found this house, but we bought it because of that, said Ken McWaid, gesturing at the view of Camarillo. We really enjoy this community.

But theres no guarantee a blaze like the Mountain fire wont happen again.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
(NewsNation)  Unlike his most recent predecessors, President-elect Donald Trump has not answered questions explaining his key and at times controversial appointments or explaining his priorities now that he has been elected.

Trump transition officials are not providing details about when he will have a general news conference. Trump has had two limited exchanges with reporters  one-on-ones with NBC and the New York Post.

President Trump was the most press-accessible candidate in the race, by far, Trump spokesman Steve Cheung told NewsNation. He will continue to engage with the press regularly and his team will remain committed to providing timely answers on a wide range of inquiries. Stay tuned!

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Trump, Biden meet to discuss peaceful transfer of power

Political analyst Chris Cillizza calls the decision not to hold forth before the cameras UnTrumpy.

In 1992, Bill Clinton held his first formal news conference eight days after being elected. In that event, Clinton announced some of his first appointments, but his Cabinet picks came later in a series of news conferences.

Clinton did answer some questions two days after the election as he was leaving the Arkansas State Capitol. And Clinton held a news conference three days after defeating Robert Dole in 1996, in which he announced a change in his chiefs of staff.

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FBI should probe Gabbard, Gaetz before confirmation: John Bolton

The election of 2000 was different because both Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush answered many media questions in various forums as the election outcome and the various court fights dragged on until Dec. 12. When he was reelected in 2004, Bush held a formal news conference with White House reporters two days later  Nov. 4.

Barack Obama was quicker to face the press after he won in 2008. He talked to reporters three days after the election and announced his chief of staff selection. After his reelection, Obama waited eight days later before holding a news conference to talk about his second term.

Joe Biden held his first news conference as president-elect a week after his 2020 election.

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While Trump held news conferences during the 2016 and 2020 campaigns and criticized both of his general election opponents for the lack of media accessibility, he also did not face reporters for six weeks (Dec. 19) after winning in 2016.

What Kristi Noems DHS appointment could mean for the border?

Since his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, all of Trumps personnel announcements have been made through prepared statements released in his name. Cillizza argues that providing statements is the not the same as taking questions at a press conference.

Also: the Trump transition team is not holding regular briefings to discuss appointments or what policies the new administration will pursue.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation.
Cathryn Miller-Wilson, executive director of HIAS Pennsylvania, speaks at a Pennsylvania House Democratic Policy Committee meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (Pa. House Democrats photo)

President-elect Donald Trumps plan to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants would lead to population loss, exacerbate workforce shortages and increase tax burdens for Pennsylvania residents and businesses, the Democratic state lawmakers heard Wednesday.

Advocates for the immigrant community testified before the state House Democratic Policy Committee that although the federal government maintains exclusive authority over immigration policy, which is expected to take a draconian shift under a second Trump administration, state lawmakers can make Pennsylvania a more welcoming place.

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Its been laid out very clearly. Unfortunately, its going to be immigrant detention and deportations on the horizon, Julio Rodriguez, political director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, said. So now its crucial that this legislature not only has welcoming policies to support immigrants, but to fight back against these proposals.

The hearing on the last day of the 2023-2024 legislative session was convened by state Rep. Danilo Burgos (D-Philadelphia), who serves as chairperson of the Pennsylvania Legislative Latino Caucus.

Pennsylvania ranks fourth in the nation in population loss, Rodriguez said. In 2021, the net decrease in population between births and deaths was more than 23,000.

We didnt see that impact, because net international migration, also known as immigrants moving here, was 25,721, Rodriguez said Had it not been for immigrants, we would have seen a drastic population decline.

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A states population determines its number of representatives in Congress. Rodriguez noted that Pennsylvania lost one congressional seat after the 2020 census and could lose another in 2030. It would also result in Pennsylvania receiving less federal funding.

But more immediately, the loss of a portion of the commonwealths 978,000 immigrant residents would worsen the labor shortage in the agricultural sector, driving up grocery store prices. Undocumented workers also contribute billions in taxes and in the states gross domestic product, Rodriguez said.

Cathryn Miller-Wilson, executive director of HIAS Pennsylvania, a nonprofit organization that provides aid to immigrants and advocates on their behalf, said history strongly suggests that the effects of an immigration crackdown will be severe.

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Miller-Wilson noted that the United States has gone through several cycles of liberal and conservative immigration policies. After Congress passed the National Origins Act in 1924, which severely limited immigration, the country entered a period of stagnation that resulted in the Great Depression.

Now that wasnt only because immigrants were kept out, but it certainly was in large part. We stopped creating patents, we stopped inventing, we stopped innovating, we stopped creating new businesses, we stopped hiring, we stopped increasing wages, and disaster ensued, she said.

People voted because they cant afford groceries. Thats fine. We can all understand that. We can all empathize with that, Miller-Wilson said. The problem is they dont understand that what they voted for will increase prices and plunge our country into an economic crisis such as we havent seen for 100 years.

House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D-Philadelphia) said the apprehension of what will come during the Trump administration is evident, and noted that her district office recently received a question about what can be done at the state level to protect immigrants.

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If you had to tell us your top three legislative goals for 2025 to 2026  no, we dont actually regulate immigration  but what do you think we can do? McClinton asked Rodriguez.

Rodriguez said state lawmakers should oppose any measure that requires state or local agencies to contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding residents who are suspected of being in the country without permission. The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania recently published a report that details unlawful tactics and civil rights violations by the agency against immigrants living in Pennsylvania, he noted.

...what they voted for will increase prices and plunge our country into an economic crisis such as we haven't seen for 100 years.

 Cathryn Miller-Wilson, executive director of HIAS Pennsylvania

Rodriguez also highlighted legislation sponsored by Rep. Joe Hohenstein (D-Philadelphia) that would clarify the process for an undocumented immigrant to apply for a U visa, which is available to victims who assist in the prosecution of a crime and creates a pathway to legal residence. House Bill 1371, which was awaiting final consideration in the House, would establish duties and procedures for law enforcement, prosecutors and judges in the application process.

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Julissa Morales, of the Movement of Immigrant Leaders in Pennsylvania, said her organization is focused on passing legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers licenses, to do so with a taxpayer identification number and to protect information in PennDOTs database from access by ICE. House Bill 769, sponsored by Burgos, was introduced in March 2023, but did not receive consideration.

Rep. Greg Scott (D-Montgomery) noted that in his previous office as a district judge, he had seen defendants who were stopped for driving without a license multiple times because there is no way for them to get one. That has an impact on county jails where undocumented immigrants are often held on ICE detainers before being transported to immigration detention centers.

Morales, who shared that both of her parents currently have no path to citizenship, said such policies affect people who are not just numbers, but family members.

My parents are business owners, and part of the system that we are calling an economic workforce, Morales said. These are the people who are being impacted day to day for not being able to access something as simple as mobility.
Renata Angerami

Nearly four years after he left office amid a violent burst, Donald Trump has been reelected and will become the next president of the United States. For many marginalized people, a second Trump administration, which begins in January, is a looming threat. During Trump's first stint in office, we watched as he rolled back LGBTQ+ protections, put Supreme Court justices in place who removed the federal right to abortion (which has resulted in deaths), enacted a Muslim ban that resulted in Islamophobic violence, and much more.

During Trump's campaign for a second term, he promised similarly draconian measures. He plans to deport millions of people starting on his first day in office, end gender-affirming care for trans youth, deeply change federal oversight agencies like the FDA, and much more.

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With the past and his promises for the future in mind, people are preparing for Trump's second term, attempting to guard themselves against a potential erosion of rights. Here's what people are doing, and steps you might consider taking if it feels helpful:

Get a passport

If you don't have a passport, get one; if yours is expiring, renew it now. This step is less about the ability to travel (though that's also handy) than it is about having accurate identification and avoiding hassles that may arise come January. For trans or nonbinary people, getting a passport that reflects your gender is particularly crucial. Trump has signaled that his administration will not be particularly friendly to trans people, so many are updating their identity documents now, in case the new Trump administration eliminates that option.

Update all of your identifying documents

Don't stop at your passport. Journalist Erin Reed advises trans people to update all documents with their accurate gender marker now, including state IDs and your social security gender marker. Having these documents can reduce the risk of violence for trans people and allows them access to public spaces that require identification. How and to what extent you can change your gender marker on documents varies by state; see a map of state laws here.

Beyond making sure your documents accurately reflect your identity, it's a good idea to make sure your documents are also up to date and in good standing. For non-citizen immigrants, that might mean renewing your DACA status, particularly if it expires in the next year.

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Beyond making sure your documents accurately reflect your identity, it's also a good idea to make sure your documents are also up-to-date and in good standing. For non-citizen immigrants, that might mean renewing your DACA status, particularly if it expires in the next year.

Get birth control

Trump has denied that he would sign a national abortion ban, but many experts fear his administration may effectively ban abortion in other ways. And Trump has flip-flopped on his stance toward birth control access, saying he's open to restricting it before walking his statements back. With all that in mind, people are searching for information on emergency contraceptives, getting an IUD, and taking other measures to ensure they have access to birth control for the next four years.

Depending on what kind of IUD you get, they can last as many as eight years, making them a safe and effective long-term birth control option. People have indicated on social media that they're also stockpiling the morning after pill, but it's worth noting that this option is not foolproof and can carry some risks. According to Planned Parenthood, levonorgestrel pills like Plan B that are available over the counter reduce the chance of pregnancy by 75 to 89% if taken within three days after unprotected sex. Also, these kinds of pills may not work if you weigh more than 165 pounds. The morning after pill Ella can work for people who weigh up to 195 pounds, but you need a prescription to access it. Click here for a Planned Parenthood guide to help you figure out what kind of morning after pill is best for you

Talk to your doctor

Before anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is allowed to go wild on health, it's a good time to go see your care providers for checkups or outstanding medical needs. According to the Washington Post, Kennedy is poised to have significant control over health and food safety in the Trump administration, and is being considered to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, according to CBS News (though he may face challenges in Congressional approval).

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It's not clear what influence Kennedy will have and how he will use it, but Kennedy has a long history of spreading anti-vaccine misinformation, and he and Trump have made conflicting statements about their stance on vaccine availability and approval. He's also indicated that he would clear out entire departments at agencies like the FDA, according to NBC News. While Kennedy has said he won't take vaccines away, Project 2025 calls for the end of vaccine recommendations from the CDC, and the Washington Post reported that Kennedy could influence how vaccines are approved and who is recommended to receive them.

But if you're one of the millions of Americans who is insured under the Affordable Care Act via American Rescue Act subsidies, none of that matters. According to NBC News, an estimated four million people will lose access to health insurance if Trump doesn't renew the act, which he's reportedly signaled he won't. Whether you stand to lose your insurance or not, it may be a good idea to talk to your doctor about your health care needs before another Trump presidency takes effect. While you're at it, consider brushing up on how to protect your privacy when seeking health care, particularly abortion.

Build community

In the face of any challenge, community is crucial. This will be particularly true in the coming years when resources like health care access may change or we experience an erosion of rights. If you don't have a robust community right now, don't worry  it's totally possible to build one. You can seek friends in third spaces, where you can foster social connections just for support and good vibes; you can find like-minded online communities; you can tap into mutual aid efforts; join volunteer efforts in your town or city, where you can meet others and help your community members. Building community doesn't mean you need to have a million friends you talk to every day, it simply means you know where to turn when you need to  whether that's a crisis hotline or the Ravelry message boards.

Brush up on your media literacy

Trump's first presidency delivered us a fractured relationship with the truth, offering space for conspiracy theories and mis- and disinformation to take hold. Ahead of his second stint in office, some have said misinformation handed Trump the presidency, and predicted that our access to reliable, evidence-based information will erode further over the next four years  particularly on social media platforms like X. That means it's more important than ever to be a savvy, discerning media consumer. Organizations like the News Literacy Project and Media Literacy Now offer resources that you can use to arm yourself against misinformation.

Do not panic

Given Trump's promises to make his next term more extreme than his last, it's easy to freak out and feel powerless. We have two months before Trump takes office, though, so rather than panic, now is the time to prepare. Take a deep breath, allow yourself to process your feelings, then get to work.

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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
(Bloomberg) -- An ally of Donald Trump in the US Senate has a plan for filling up the president-elects proposed strategic Bitcoin stockpile without adding to the government deficit: Sell off some of the Federal Reserves gold.

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Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming plans to push forward with a bill to do exactly that when the new Congress is seated next year. The bill calls for the US to acquire 1 million Bitcoin, representing nearly 5% of the outstanding tokens. The purchases would cost about $90 billion at current market prices, though the sum would likely increase if the bill passes and investors front-run the governments buying.

We already have the financial assets in the form of gold certificates to convert to Bitcoin, Lummis said in an interview with Bloomberg. So the effect on the US balance sheet is pretty neutral.

Lummis bill would greatly expand the scope of what Trump so far has indicated is his plan for a strategic Bitcoin reserve, which is for the government to maintain ownership of the roughly 200,000 tokens that the US already possesses following asset seizures. According to Lummis bill, the cryptocurrency would be held for a minimum of 20 years, and the presumed appreciation in value would help to reduce the national debt.

Yet despite the arrival of a Bitcoin believer in the White House and what the industry hopes will be the most crypto-friendly Congress ever, some market watchers believe Lummis bill, which currently has no co-sponsors, faces an uphill battle. Pricing on the cryptocurrency-based predictions platform Polymarket currently implies a 31% probability that Trump will create a Bitcoin reserve.

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Its still putting government money on the line, and Bitcoin has not shown itself to be a particularly stable asset, said Jennifer J. Schulp, director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institutes Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. The bill asks senators and members of Congress, who may not understand crypto that well, to make a much bigger leap of faith in terms of its long-term viability.

Michael Novogratz, the billionaire head of crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital, told Bloomberg Television that he believes there is a low likelihood that the US will set up a Bitcoin strategic reserve. If the US does create such a stockpile, Novogratz predicted that it would push the price of the largest digital token to $500,000 since other nations would feel compelled to create similar stockpiles.

In theory, at least, the Fed has more than enough gold to buy 1 million Bitcoin and still have a lot of the precious metal left over. The Feds balance sheet lists holdings of certificates representing gold held by the Treasury that are valued at about $11 billion. However, that value is based on a so-called statutory price that has been held constant at $42.2222 per ounce since 1973. Marked to market at current spot prices, the stash is worth about $675 billion, though liquidation of large amounts of government gold poses the risk of lowering the market price.

Lummis first unveiled her bill at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville in July, right after Trump addressed the gathering and announced his ambition to create a government Bitcoin reserve. In his description, the reserve would be based on the tokens already held by the government; he didnt mention buying 1 million Bitcoin to add to it, though his ally Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at the same conference that he understood that to be the plan.

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Since Trumps victory in the presidential election last week, the crypto market has surged. Bitcoins record-breaking rally took the digital asset above $93,000 on Wednesday, and the overall value of the crypto market is back above its pandemic-era peak.

Lummis is optimistic that her bill  called the BITCOIN Act, short for Boosting Innovation, Technology, and Competitiveness through Optimized Investment Nationwide  will gain support in the next Congress. For one thing, she says, Trump has already endorsed the idea of a reserve and his closest advisers include people who understand Bitcoin and its role in our future.

And the new GOP Senate majority includes crypto-friendly lawmakers such as Republican Bernie Moreno, who unseated the incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown in Ohios Senate race. Pro-crypto super-PAC Fairshake spent some $40 million to defeat Brown, an ally of Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, who led the agency in a crackdown on the crypto sector over the past few years. The crypto industry spent a total of about $135 million in the 2024 election cycle to back more than 50 favored candidates, including Democrats and Republicans.

New members are coming in, including Bernie Moreno from Ohio and Tim Sheehy from Montana, who understand digital assets, Lummis said. The cavalry is arriving in Washington.

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WASHINGTON  President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday that he will nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to be the 87th attorney general of the United States in a move that could fill the nation's top law enforcement position with an ardent supporter who was once criminally investigated by the department he would oversee.

No charges were filed in the case, which was investigated by the FBI and centered on allegations of sex trafficking. It ended last year. Afterward, Gaetz called for abolishing the bureau.

I dont care if it takes every second of our time and every ounce of our energy, we either get this government back on our side or we defund, get rid of, abolish the FBI, Gaetz said at last year's Conservative Political Action Conference.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Wednesday evening that Gaetz offered his resignation from the House. The letter has not yet gone into effect because it has not been announced on the House floor.

I think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately of Congress, Johnson told reporters. That caught us by surprise a little bit, but I asked him what the reasoning was, and he said, Well, you cant have too many absences."

There will eventually be a special election to fill Gaetzs seat, and Johnson said that "under Florida State law, theres about an eight-week period to select and fill a vacant seat.

Trump's announcement Wednesday comes at a critical juncture for the Justice Department and the FBI, which he has relentlessly attacked for years, particularly after Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith charged him with four federal felonies in connection with his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. That case, though, is already winding down.

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Trump revealed his pick for attorney general on Truth Social, saying Gaetz would "end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department."

Gaetz has a law degree but has never worked as a prosecutor. He briefly practiced law in Florida before entering politics. A longtime Trump loyalist, he has repeatedly attacked the Justice Department and the FBI, both of which he would oversee as attorney general if the Republican-led Senate confirms him.

The bipartisan House Ethics Committee has been looking into whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. But that probe would come to an end with Gaetz's resignation from Congress since the panel does not have jurisdiction over former House members.

Gaetz told the committee in September that he is done cooperating with the panel, which he said asked him for a list of adult sexual partners over the last seven years.

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In a letter to the committee and later to reporters, Gaetz blasted the investigation as not the business of Congress.

Theyre just nosy is what they are, and its none of their business, Gaetz told NBC News at the end of September.

Trump's pick to succeed Attorney General Merrick Garland unnerved prosecutors in the Justice Department, as well as former FBI officials.

Many have been waiting in recent days to see whom Trump would select. Gaetz was a surprise, and his name was not among those that widely circulated this week as potential nominees.

A former senior FBI official expressed astonishment that Gaetz, who accompanied Trump on his plane back to Florida after Wednesday's visit to Washington, may oversee the country's two most powerful federal law enforcement agencies. The official noted that the conspiracy theories that Gaetz has spread about the bureau are false.

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"I'm still in shock," the person said. "I honestly dont know what to say."

DOJ officials called the pick "insane" and argued that Gaetz was the least-qualified nominee in the history of the department.

Its laughable, said one senior Justice Department official, adding that Gaetz shouldnt be confirmable.

A former senior FBI official also said they hoped senators would not confirm Gaetz.

I just have to hope that there are three or four senators out there that wont confirm, said the former official.

If he is confirmed, the former FBI official predicted Gaetz will not find the conspiracies he claims exist in the bureau.

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Theyre going to realize that things aren't as bad as they thought they were," the person said.

The source went on to express concern for FBI agents, saying, "They're hard-working people who are trying to do the right thing."

Asked about the likelihood of Gaetzs making it through the Senate confirmation process, a source close to Trump predicted that voters would pressure their senators to vote for him.

The American people made clear that they want President Trump to remake Washington, and Rep. Gaetz is the perfect man to restore the DOJ to greatness, said the source, who was granted anonymity to share internal thinking. Senators will hear from their voters who support the congressman.

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Trump allies have called for the Justice Department to criminally investigate Smith and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Smith has led criminal prosecutions of Trump in two federal cases, while James won a $355 million civil verdict against Trumps companies.

As attorney general, Gaetz would be in a strong position to determine the course of Jan. 6 riot cases.

After the riot, Gaetz claimed without evidence that it was antifa, not a pro-Trump mob that believed Trumps lies about the 2020 election, that attacked the Capitol. One Jan. 6 rioter  one of the first men to breach the Capitol  even posted about Gaetzs plan to challenge Electoral College votes, which Gaetz had laid out at a Turning Points USA summit in late 2020.

Another Jan. 6 defendant, Brandon Straka, has said he was regularly in contact with Gaetz during a Twitter Space in early 2023, as Gaetz was steering the outcome of the House speakers race.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
[Source]

President-elect Donald Trump has appointed former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as the new director of national intelligence.

Gabbard, who was the first Hindu and first Samoan to serve in the U.S. Congress, also ran as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 before leaving the party in 2022 due to ideological differences. She later joined the Republican Party and endorsed Trumps campaign.

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Trump praised her fearless spirit and bipartisan appeal, asserting she will protect constitutional rights while promoting peace through strength. However, her appointment has drawn criticism due to her controversial foreign policy stances, particularly on Russia and Syria.

Gabbard, 43, brings over two decades of military service and previous work on the House Homeland Security Committee, but her lack of direct experience in intelligence has raised concerns. Thank you, @realDonaldTrump, for the opportunity to serve as a member of your cabinet to defend the safety, security and freedom of the American people, Gabbard wrote on X. I look forward to getting to work.

Trending on NextShark: Trump appoints Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence

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WASHINGTON  President-elect Donald Trump stunned Senate Republicans by announcing Wednesday that he will nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to be attorney general.

Gaetz, a Trump loyalist known for being a rabble-rouser in Congress, will need a majority of the Senate to be confirmed as the countrys top law enforcement officer. Republicans will have a majority of 52 or 53 seats beginning Jan. 3, depending on the outcome of the Pennsylvania Senate race. That means Gaetz won't have a large margin for error, assuming every Democrat opposes him.

Some Senate Republicans said the process wont be smooth sailing.

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said it will be a significant challenge for Gaetz to win enough votes to be confirmed.

I dont think its a serious nomination for the attorney general. Thats Lisa Murkowskis view, Murkowski said. We need to have a serious attorney general. And Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said, Hes got his work cut out for him.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who is on the Judiciary Committee, which oversees the nomination, said the Senate will have to consider any nominee by the president seriously, but we also have a constitutional responsibility.

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I dont know the man, other than sort of this public persona, Cornyn told reporters.

Asked about Gaetzs being investigated by the House Ethics Committee over allegations of sexual misconduct, Cornyn deadpanned: Well, that might come up.

I dont know whether theres any basis to it or not, he added. So yeah, Im sure well be asking a lot of questions.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who is also on the Judiciary Committee, said that the Senate will give Gaetz an honest look and that the investigations involving him will be part of the process.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, sounded a note of skepticism.

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Obviously, the president has the right to nominate whomever he wishes, but Im certain that there will be a lot of questions, she said.

Collins said the ethics probe will be one of the issues thats going to be raised, because, as I understand it, theres an active investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said Gaetz's confirmation prospects were "a long shot," adding that its very possible Trump is testing the limits of how far he can push the Senate.

Other Senate Republicans refused to comment on Trump's latest Cabinet selection.

I got nothin for you on that, said Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala.

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But some GOP senators sounded open to the possibility of Gaetz.

The president gets to pick his nominees, said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., without saying how he would vote.

Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., didnt directly comment on Gaetz, but he said he looks forward to getting President Trumps nominees after we hear their plans for the departments.

Asked whether that meant he'd vote yes, he said, Everybody has to go through committee hearings, but we want to work to confirm President Trumps nominees.

You can record me as speechless

Senate Democrats were also flummoxed.

You can record me as speechless, said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who is on the Judiciary Committee.

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That was in The Onion, right? said Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt.

Added outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va.: I just heard the news. I cant even believe it.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Gaetz lacks basic qualifications for the job.

He will have a lot of problems in the Senate, Blumenthal said. I think that this nomination will be the first major test of whether theyre willing to stand up to Donald Trump. And well soon know.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., laughed and called Gaetzs selection God-tier-level trolling to own the libs in perpetuity.

Obviously, its not serious, he said. No ones going to confirm him. And Im certainly not going to freak out.

House Republicans react to the pick

As Trumps social media post announcing the pick made the rounds, Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said the reaction in the room where House Republicans were meeting was: Oh, my God.

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Asked whether Gaetz has the character to be attorney general, Simpson replied, Are you sh---ing me?

No, he said, and he called on the House Ethics Committee to release its report on Gaetz now.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said hes worried that the already slim GOP majority is thinning further as a result of Trumps plucking several lawmakers for administration jobs.

We met with President Trump and said, Please, no more House members after Matt Gaetz, Scalise said.

Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, called the pick silly.

I believe that the president is probably rewarding him for being such a loyal soldier to the president, he said. But the president is smart enough and his team is smart enough to know that Mr. Gaetz will never get confirmed by the Senate whatsoever.





This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
President-elect Trumps decision to tap Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to become attorney general caught Senate Republicans completely flat-footed, and put the party on the defensive immediately over one of the most prominent  and polarizing  Cabinet selections.

Two key centrist members  Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)  expressed shock and surprise, with the Alaska Republican panning the choice for its lack of seriousness.

I dont think its a serious nomination for attorney general. We need to have a serious attorney general, Murkowski told reporters. Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious.

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This one was not on my bingo card, she added.

Ever since Trumps electoral romp last week, Republicans have been calling for a swift confirmation of his nominees to the Cabinet.

But some members slammed the brakes on that talk after the nomination of Gaetz, known as a prominent rabblerouser who orchestrated the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), to become the nations top cop.

Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), another potential swing vote, steadfastly refused to discuss Gaetzs nomination, instead deciding to focus on Sen. Marco Rubios (R-Fla.) nomination roughly an hour earlier to become secretary of State.

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Ill look at the others later. I dont know a lot about them, he said.

Among the main concerns for some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and senators writ large will be the Department of Justices years-long investigation into allegations that he had sex with an underage girl. The investigation was closed last year and Gaetz was not criminally charged. He has denied any wrongdoing, but a House Ethics Committee probe is still ongoing.

Members are already bracing for that subject to come up in their role in considering Gaetz.

Most certainly, it would be concerning because its part of his file, said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).

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We normally give the president the benefit of the doubt, but we still do our due diligence and advice and consent is still important, he also noted.

The news, coupled with the announcement only minutes earlier that he nominated former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) to become the Director of National Intelligence, jarred Republicans from across the spectrum. The news came toward the tail-end of what was already an action-filled day that included Trumps visit to Washington and a selection of a new Senate GOP leader.

[Trump] goes from the light hearted meeting with House Republicans to a love fest with Jill and Joe at the White House. Its this wonderful normal thing  and then he essentially gets on the plane and nukes Washington, one Senate Republican aide told The Hill, summing up the afternoon.

But it was the Gaetz development that really hit hard for some members.

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Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), fresh off his defeat in his run for leader, flashed a surprised expression across his face like he just bit into a sour lemon when reporters asked him to react to Gaetzs nomination. The senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee looked so flummoxed that it prompted a wave of laughter from the gaggle of reporters surrounding him.

But the veteran lawmaker maintained message discipline, telling reporters: Well do our job and vet the nominee.

Asked if Gaetz would be his pick to serve as attorney general, Cornyn replied: I dont get to choose, thats the prerogative of the president.

Our prerogative is to do our job under the Constitution of advice and consent, which we will certainly do, he said.

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Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another member of the Judiciary Committee, said just because Gaetz is nominated doesnt mean hell get the votes to be confirmed, predicting that not a single Democrat will vote for him.

Itll just be interesting to see what his organic base is, Tillis said of the nominee. At the end of the day, Congressman Gaetz, hell have a hearing but Im all about counting votes and I would think that hes probably got some work cut out for him to get a good strong vote.

Were not going to get a single Democrat vote, he said.

Trump and his allies can likely only afford to lose three votes on any nomination, assuming Republican David McCormick ends up winning his race in Pennsylvania against Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.). He leads by 28,000 votes, but the race is in the zone of an automatic recount.

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Despite the margin, it still may be difficult for some Trump nominees, especially Gaetz and Gabbard to get across the finish line.

When asked if Trump was testing members, Rounds responded in the affirmative.

It remains to be seen, Rounds said with a hearty laugh. But we have wondered whether that may be part of the discussion.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
One of the concerns that Democrats and other observers have raised about a potential second Trump administration is that it would be staffed by MAGA loyalists rather than the kinds of establishment conservativesJeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, even William Barrwho ignored or pushed back on some of the more unlawful and ludicrous orders the president-elect issued during his first term.

A kind of subconcern underneath th at was that these loyalists, unlike so many of the advisers Trump kept around him during that initial term, could be hardworking and knowledgeable about the operations of government, enabling him to actually, successfully carry out his most impulsive and punitive schemes: having enemies arrested, shutting down CNN because Jake Tapper made him mad, overthrowing the government because he doesnt like the outcome of an election, that sort of thing. Will those kinds of destabilizing gambits be on the table, or is Trump instead going to be stocking the administration with incompetent charlatans who, like him, are really more interested in posting on social media and seeing their faces on TV than in doing the nuts-and-bolts work of instituting authoritarianism in America?

Well, the early results are in, in the form of Trumps first Cabinet nominations, and they are  well, wow, the early results are a lot. Lets go through them in rough order of LOL/Oh God.

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 Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general. During the early years of the 42-year-old Gaetzs career in politics, he was pulled over on suspicion of DUI while driving his dads BMW out of a nightclub. He was also recently identified in court documents and investigated by federal prosecutors for having allegedly attended a sex party that involved cocaine, ecstasy, and a nude 17-year-old. (He was never charged in the DUI case or an investigation related to the latter allegations, which involved a former friend of his who was convicted of felony sex trafficking and is serving a decade in prison. Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing, although until he resigned from Congress on Wednesday night, he was still the subject of an open investigation being conducted by the House Ethics Committee into whether he committed sexual misconduct or used illegal drugs. This committee, it should be emphasized, is controlled by members of Gaetzs own party.) Gaetz, who led the group of right-wing Republicans who voted out House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023, also voted against awarding congressional medals to the police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. According to the watchdog group Media Matters, which tracks appearances by political figures on weekday broadcasts of Fox News, he has appeared at least 347 times on the network since 2017.

 Fox News host Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense. Hegseth, a Fox personality who served in Iraq with the Army National Guard, was involved in successfully lobbying Trump during his first term to intervene in the cases of three members of the armed services who had been convicted or accused of committing war crimes. In 2020, he has said, he was forbidden from serving with his National Guard unit during Joe Bidens inauguration because he has a tattoo of a symbol, the Jerusalem cross, used by white nationalist groups. (He denies that the cross, one of many tattoos he has of symbols and sayings that have been adopted by right-wing Christian groups, connotes white nationalism.) He has been married three times, shares a total of seven children and stepchildren with his third wife, and once said on television that he doesnt wash his hands because germs arent real. In 2015 he accidentally threw an axe over a wall during a Fox & Friends segment, striking a member of a nearby marching band.

 Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. Until 2021, Gabbard actually served as a Democratic member of Congress, and she ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. She, like Hegseth, served in the National Guard. After leaving Congress, she became a frequent guest on Tucker Carlsons Fox News show, where she was critical of U.S. support for Ukraine. In 2022 she posted a video in which she claimed that the Biden administration was attempting to cover up the dangers posed by pathogens at U.S.-funded biolabs in that countrya sort of mild version of claims about secret Ukrainian biological-weapons development that were being circulated at the time by Carlson, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and the Russian state. A 2019 New York magazine story outlined Gabbards longtime family connections to a Hinduism-derived group called Science of Identity, which one source described as a cult and others said is run by an individual who is attempting to use Gabbard to secure influence with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She has appeared on Fox News at least 282 times since 2018.

 South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for secretary of homeland security. Noem is a former member of Congress who was elected governor of South Dakota in 2018 and became a frequent Fox News subject during the COVID pandemic for generally declining to require that residents of her state take any precautions against the spread of the disease. (Her Fox appearance total, per Media Matters: 135 and counting.) She does not have any evident experience related to border and customs enforcement, which is one of DHSs main responsibilities, although as governor she has directed responses to natural disasters. (The Federal Emergency Management Agency is part of DHS.) In a book published earlier this year that seems to have been designed to raise her national profile and sort of succeeded, she claimed to have shot a 14-month-old dog in a gravel pit because he wouldnt behave, as well as to have stared down North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during a meeting that, it would later emerge, never took place, because she made it up.

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 New York Rep. Elise Stefanik for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik is a born opportunist, a onetime moderate who took a turn toward MAGA politics in the Trump years and started saying, for instance, that George Soros and other radicals were attempting to take over the country by (among other things) importing illegal immigrants to become Democratic voters. The antisemitic overtones of those statementsJews using immigrants to dilute white populations is the great replacement theorywere noted when she pivoted again, earlier this year, to becoming an anti-antisemitism crusader (because the ostensibly antisemitic behavior in question was anti-Israel activism by leftists on college campuses). Shes made at least 108 Fox appearances.

 Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state. By Trump standards, Rubio is massively overqualified, being an actual senator who has served on the foreign relations committee. He is, however, reportedly quite lazyhe had a 2.1 GPA in high schooland famously said, during the 2016 Republican primary, that Trump has a small penis.

Long story short here, television readiness appears to be priority No. 1 for these folksperhaps not surprising given that, according to Axios, Trumps Cabinet selection process involves watching clips of different candidates appearances on television. It is, so far, clown town rather than competence town. Stefanik and Rubio are conventionally credentialed and will probably have basic familiarity with the issues theyre working on, but theyre also being put in the jobs that have the least potential to turn the U.S. into a failed state, which is good, I guess.

This all doesnt, though, preclude the possibility that these secretaries will have effective deputies, or that Trump will have advisers or czars within the White House, like far-right anti-immigrant figures Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, who can conceive and carry out extreme plans. There could also be a constitutional crisis over the mere appointment of figures like Gaetz and Hegseth if Trump, as he has reportedly considered doing, tries to install them in the Cabinet during congressional recesses rather than through the traditional confirmation process. Lots to wait and see about here! Ha ha ha, oh boy.
Former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (left) is President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The latest frenzy in Washington is over President-elect Donald Trumps cabinet appointments.

The transition effort began with relatively orthodox choices, CNN reported, like campaign co-chair Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff.

Other choices  namely Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary and just-resigned Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general  have the political world scratching their heads.

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The Senate confirms nominees through a majority vote.

Heres how some members of Congress from North Carolina are reacting to the cabinet picks.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as Secretary of State

In the past decade, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has gone from a rival competing for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination to a potential 2024 running mate to Trumps selection for Secretary of State.

Rubio stumped for Trump in the president-elects final North Carolina rally, joining him on stage in Raleigh the day before the election.

Congratulations to my friend and Senate colleague, North Carolina Republican Sen. Ted Budd wrote on social media.

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The states senior senator, Republican Thom Tillis also took to social media to laud Rubio.

He is an outstanding choice to lead President Trumps peace through strength [sic] foreign policy, Tillis wrote.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as leads for the Department of Government Efficiency

Despite what the name suggests, the Department of Government Efficiency is not a government agency.

Only Congress has the power to create federal agencies, as designated by the Constitution.

President-elect Trump says the organization would aim to reduce government spending and cut costs. Its not clear how the department would operate, the Associated Press reported.

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Thank God we have Vivek and Elon coming on board, Republican Rep. Greg Murphy of eastern North Carolinas third congressional district shared on social media.

Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense

Pete Hegseth is a conservative media personality and military veteran.

His selection as defense secretary is an unexpected choice that deviates from most of Trumps staff picks for his White House, who largely descend from political roles in federal and state governments, NPR reported.

The position was tumultuous during Trumps first term, with five men leading the Pentagon during the four years.

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Rep. Richard Hudson of the ninth congressional district said Hegseth is a great choice for the position, citing his more than 20 years of service and two bronze stars.

He is an America First warrior who will ensure our military is focused on training the warfighter and U.S. readiness, not woke indoctrination, Hudson said.

Hegseth has questioned the role of women in combat.

Democratic Rep. Deborah Ross, who represents North Carolinas second congressional district, described Hegseth as clearly unfit for the defense secretary role.

Women serving in combat make our country stronger  not weaker, Ross wrote. This statement from someone who could be leading our Armed Forces dishonors the service of the brave women who fight for our country.

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as Attorney General

Known for leading the successful charge to oust Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz is a staunch Trump ally.

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His nomination as attorney general shocked Washington. If confirmed, he would lead the Justice Department, which spent years investigating allegations that Gaetz engaged in sex with underage girls and paid for their transportation, POLITICO reported.

Gaetz proceeded to resign from his House seat later on Wednesday, a move interpreted by some observers as a tactic to circumvent a House Ethics Committee report investigating several allegations against him.

Outgoing Republican Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolinas eighth congressional district kept it short: Congratulations, Matt. Fantastic.

The Washington Post reported that Tillis said hell give Gaetz an honest look and has work to do to get enough votes for a Senate confirmation. In a video interview posted to TikTok by Raleighs News & Observer, Tillis appeared agitated by questions about his views on Gaetz and said that while he had sparred with Gaetz on social media, the nomination would succeed if Gaetz produces a defensible resume and a really clean vetting.

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Outgoing Democratic Rep. Wiley Nickel, representing the 13th district, called out his congressional colleague.

Hoping you take an honest look in the mirror if you really think Matt Gaetz is qualified to be Attorney General, Nickel responded to Tillis.
Donald Trump's coming return to the White House hangs heavily over world leaders gathering this week in Peru for the APEC summit and then in Brazil for the G20  two of the first international summits to be held since the U.S election.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to leave for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima today before moving on to the G20 in Rio de Janeiro, which begins Nov. 18.

While the official agendas for these summits are set months in advance, there's no doubt that Trump's win will affect both the substance and the tone of the discussions.

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"Of course the election result changes what people are talking about," said a senior Canadian government official who is not authorized to speak publicly about the summits. "Especially on the margins, in the corridors. The talk will be the U.S. and leaders will compare notes."

The world now knows more about Trump, his views and his policy plans than it did the first time he was elected.

"This time, there's a lot more intelligence to be had. So as opposed to the first administration, there's more substance upon which to have discussions," said Carlo Dade, director of the trade infrastructure centre at the Canada West Foundation.

"I would expect there will be more context for conversations about how to respond."

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WATCH: Canada braces for Trump's return to the White House

APEC, made up of 21 member nations, is considered the leading economic forum in the Asia-Pacific region. Those countries cannot ignore president-elect Trump's promise to impose new global tariffs.

"A lot of the APEC countries are targets," said Dade, adding that all attendees will try to figure out where they rank on the U.S. "trade enemies list."

Canada's relatively new, ramped-up Indo-Pacific strategy makes APEC critical to its trade diversification plans. Experts say the summit offers an opportunity for nations to team up to protect their market share from a surge in American protectionism  but the temptation to break ranks will be great.

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"Some say when the U.S. becomes unreliable and unpredictable, that other democracies, middle powers like Japan, Australia, Canada and others, should be coming together and cooperating more closely," said Vina Nadjibulla, vice-president of research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

"But we also see a tendency that everybody just tries to manage their relationship with the U.S. bilaterally, like everybody is just trying to survive the chaos as opposed to coordinating."

Getting nations to cooperate at the G20  the assembly of the 20 largest economies in the world  is even more challenging. As the largest and most diverse gathering of states, the G20 brings together friends and rivals  and enemies.

"The G20 is the biggest table in international relations that includes such a diversity of the biggest players," said the unnamed senior government official. "They have in common that they are the world's largest economies, but it's such a diverse table that there are profound disagreements."

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Russia's President Vladimir Putin will again not attend the G20 this year  freeing the host country from the awkward prospect of acting on an international warrant for Putin's arrest.

US President Donald Trump (L) chats with Russia's President Vladimir Putin as they attend the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on November 11, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / SPUTNIK / Mikhail KLIMENTYEV (Photo credit should read MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AFP/Getty Images)

U.S. President Donald Trump chats with Russia's President Vladimir Putin as they attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on November 11, 2017. (Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP/Getty Images)

Two other countries with which Canada currently has chilly relations  China and India  will be represented at the G20. China's President Xi Jinping is slated to attend both APEC and the G20, while India's President Narendra Modi is going to the G20.

Neither Modi nor Xi are expected to have scheduled talks or any personal interactions with Trudeau at the summits.

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Trudeau could have what's known as a "pull-aside"  or even a formal bilateral meeting  with U.S. President Joe Biden, who is scheduled to be at both summits. That meeting might be more of a farewell than something forward-looking.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with China's President Xi Jinping at the G20 Leaders' Summit in Bali, Indonesia, November 16, 2022. Adam Scotti/Prime Minister's Office/Handout via REUTERS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with China's President Xi Jinping at the G20 Leaders' Summit in Bali, Indonesia on November 16, 2022. (Adam Scotti/PMO via Reuters)

Biden has supported the recent goals of the hosts of both APEC and the G20. He has committed to backing Brazil's hallmark G20 initiative to fight global hunger and poverty. Brazil also has pushed to reform global governance institutions such at the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the UN Security Council. It's not known whether Trump would honour Biden's commitments.

"Biden and most of his G20 colleagues will actually want to do even more to advance these goals because they know they've got the best-before date of only two months," said John Kirton, director of the G20 Research Group at the University of Toronto. "So they'll want to get as much of what they want to do before Donald Trump becomes president."

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Despite being primarily trade and economic summits, both the G20 and APEC meetings will see closed-doors discussions of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and their impacts on the global economy, supply chains and security.

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service on Nov. 13, 2024, rescue workers put out a fire in a building destroyed by a Russian strike in Brovary, outside Kyiv, Ukraine.

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service on Nov. 13, 2024, rescue workers put out a fire in a building destroyed by a Russian strike in Brovary, outside Kyiv, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via Associated Press)

Trump's disdain for global alliances and his demands for allies to pay more for their defence have many countries rattled. Some fear that China will interpret Trump's lack of concern for Taiwan's independence as permission to invade the island nation.

Experts say Canada could play a role in these discussions  within reason.

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"The reality is, we're mid-sized  we're certainly not in the first tier of countries. Canada is never going to be a military superpower," said retired lieutenant-general Guy Thibault, chair of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute and former vice-chief of the defence staff.

"But there's absolutely no reason why we ought not to be a development superpower and use our diplomatic capacity."

With just weeks to go until Trump takes office, many fear that anything accomplished at these summits could be overturned or abandoned by the incoming administration. Others say it's far too soon to panic.

'"This is the work. You sit down. You keep making progress. No one is thinking fatalistically," said the senior government official. "There will be a transition period  but the show always goes on."
When Elisa Smithers was deployed to Iraq in 2005, there was a ban on women serving in ground combat operations.

Smithers was a female searcher with the National Guard and was attached to an infantry unit to help with searching detained Iraqi women, among other tasks. But she returned home to find she wasnt offered the same support by the US Department of Veterans Affairs that male combat veterans were offered, Smithers said.

Now, the 48-year-old veteran fears the progress made for women in combat since then will be reversed after President-elect Donald Trump announced Pete Hegseth this week as his pick for secretary of defense  a Fox News host and Army veteran who has criticized efforts to allow women into combat roles.

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The ban on women serving in ground combat units was lifted in 2013 and, in 2016, all US military combat positions were opened to them, allowing women to fill about 220,000 jobs that were previously limited to men  including infantry, armor, reconnaissance and some special operations units. Women account for roughly 17.5% of the Defense Departments active-duty force, according to 2022 data from the agency.

Hegseth, who has a long record serving in the military in Afghanistan and Iraq, has not announced any plans to reinstate the ban if hes confirmed, but has previously accused the military of lowering standards to allow women into combat jobs.

Speaking about his book, The War on Warriors, published this year, Hegseth said in a recent podcast he was surprised there hasnt been more blowback on the book, because Im straight up just saying, we should not have women in combat roles.

It hasnt made us more effective, hasnt made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.  Weve all served with women, and theyre great, Hegseth said last week on The Shawn Ryan Show. But our institutions dont have to incentivize that in places where, traditionally  not traditionally, over human history  men in those positions are more capable.

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Even if a combat exclusion policy is reinstated, Smithers said women will still be pushed into such roles in an unofficial capacity like she was, just with less recognition and access to benefits like before.

They will still need these women in these roles, Smithers told CNN. So, well go back to this, like, pseudo attaching them to the unit. And then this perception by the men that, you know, the women are not in combat roles.

US Army veteran Elizabeth Beggs said women in military service have already proven theyre capable.

Lets not get it twisted. Women have been in combat since the beginning of history, Beggs said.

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But she does agree with Hegseth on one thing: Not all women are capable  just like not all men are capable, Beggs said.

Elisa Smithers recently retired after 21 years in the Army National Guard. - Courtesy Elisa Smithers

Vets say Hegseth is diminishing womens accomplishments

More than 2 million female veterans live in the US  and the number is expected to continue to grow, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The combat exclusion policy was lifted shortly before 27-year-old Beggs joined the US Army. She went on to hold several roles during her four years of service, including armor officer, tank commander and platoon leader.

I believe its incredibly divisive to water down and diminish the accomplishments that I and other women have made serving in these roles, not just to women, but to men whove gone through the same courses and hit the same standards, especially in a time where we should be unifying, Beggs said.

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Lory Manning, a 25-year Navy veteran, takes issue with Hegseth accusing the military of lowering standards to allow women into jobs with the Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Army Special Forces, Marine Special Operations, and jobs such as those in infantry, armor and artillery units.

Hegseth has specifically criticized having women in roles where strength is the differentiator, he said on the podcast last week.

Im not talking about pilots Im talking about physical, labor-intensive type jobs, Hegseth said. Seals, Rangers, Green Berets, MARSOC, infantry battalions, armor, artillery.

Manning, also the former director for the Service Womens Action Network, said Hegseths assertion the military lowered their standards to accommodate women is a false, yet repeated one.

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Sometimes, its said to protect women who dont need protecting, Manning said.

In a 2013 op-ed for the American Civil Liberties Union, Manning refuted the claim that tough combat training standards will be lowered by making them equal for both genders.

Women have already been integrated into air and sea combat duties with no lowering of standards, Manning wrote.

While the ban on women participating in ground combat operations wasnt lifted until 2013, women have been flying in combat operations and serving aboard US combatant ships since the early 90s.

Like Manning, veteran Smithers believes a woman should be allowed to serve if they qualify for the physical, labor-intensive type jobs that Hegseth has a problem with them taking on.

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At the end of the day, in order for us to be a dynamic and agile force and the great military that we are, weve got to have diversity. And that includes women in our force, Smithers said. Diversity always makes us better.

Brandy Cottrill-Cox was stationed on the border of Kuwait and Iraq in 2004. - Courtesy Brandy Cottrill-Cox

Concerns about culture of sexual assault

Another female veteran, who identifies as a military sexual assault survivor and asked not to share her name out of fear of retaliation, said she worries how Hegseths rhetoric as the leader of the military, if confirmed, would influence the culture in the armed services, which is already grappling with issues of sexual harassment and assault.

Whenever a man does not see a woman as an equal, thats where youre going to see that kind of culture continuously get worse, the 46-year-old disabled veteran told CNN. Its going to hurt the military force.

Roughly 20% of women serving in the military reported experiencing military sexual trauma during their service as of 2021, compared to about 1% of men, according to the National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics.

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The statistic, according to the Combat Female Veterans Families United, underscores the prevalence and impact of gender-specific challenges faced by female veterans during and after their time in service.

In August, findings from a Senate investigation into misconduct within the US Coast Guard were released, detailing systemic sexual assault and harassment, including a culture of silencing, retaliation, and failed accountability. And in 2023, a study by the US Army Special Operations Command showed how its women are facing significant discrimination including sexual harassment and sexism from their male counterparts, CNN reported.

Brandy Cottrill-Cox, a Purple Heart recipient who served in combat while stationed with the US National Guard on the border of Kuwait and Iraq in 2004, called Hegseths comments dangerous rhetoric to target women.

During her second tour in Iraq, Cottrill-Cox said she was given a rape whistle.

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There is a rape culture that is not being addressed, Cottrill-Cox said. Women across the country who have served in the military are accessing resources for their trauma from experiencing sexual harassment and assaults while in service  many of which go unreported, she said.

Thats basically telling a woman shes not good enough to serve

US Sen. Tammy Duckworth speaks during a news conference at the US Capitol on February 27, 2024 in Washington, DC. - Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/File

Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran, said Hegseth is dangerously unqualified.

Earlier this week, Duckworth wrote about her Alive Day anniversary on X, commemorating the day the Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

As a result, she lost both her legs and partial use of one of her arms, according to her biography page. She remains proud of her service.

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By choosing to put a TV personality with little experience running much of anything in charge of the Defense Departments almost 3 million troops and civilian employees, Donald Trump is once again proving he cares more about his MAGA base than keeping our nation safeand our troops, our military families and our national security will pay the price, she said in a statement.

Wendy Coop is a US Navy veteran. - Courtesy Wendy Coop

Wendy Coop, a 45-year-old US Navy veteran, called Hegseths comments on women serving in combat roles a very disturbing and potentially dangerous take.

Coop, who lives in St. Augustine, Florida, graduated from the US Naval Academy in 2001 before she went on active duty on a ship doing maintenance work which included painting and working with tools.

While Coop did not serve in combat while in the force, she said Hegseth shows a lack of understanding of the military complex, stressing the many other military jobs that support those who engage in combat  chaplains, nurses, logistics and doctors.

His comments open the floodgates to people who just say that women dont belong in the military at all, as though we are too weak, as though we dont have the personality to do the job, she said.

She also worries any course reversal on women serving in combat will have a sweeping impact on women serving in other government jobs.

We have to look at the individual and stop saying your gender determines your ability to serve in the military, Coop said. And then what happens is that people say, oh, well, they dont belong in the military? They also dont belong in the police force. They also dont belong as firefighters. They dont belong in the Secret Service.

The veteran who did not wish to share her name said the discourse around a potential rollback of women serving in combat roles is very disparaging.

Its a slap in the face for a lot of the women who have worked so hard to get to where theyre at, she told CNN. We served this country with pride, dignity and respect.

And when you have someone say that women are not good enough to be in combat, thats basically telling a woman that shes not good enough to serve.

CNNs Jeff Winter, Cindy Von Quednow and Jade Gordon contributed to this report.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
When the hotline at Lighthouse Immigrant Advocates rings, Sarah Yore-Van Oosterhout tries to stay calm but be honest.

The longtime immigration attorney based in Holland, Michigan, tells callers they can only control what they can control and panicking helps no one. She tries to quash rumors. It's very hard and rare for the government to revoke citizenship, she tells them. The callers need to be careful if they hear about an offer to gain legal status that sounds too good to be true  scams are real.

But before Donald Trump assumes the presidency in January, she's telling any of her organization's nearly 1,400 immigrant clients and businesses who employ migrants asking for help that they need to prepare: When Michigan immigrants leave their homes in the morning, they need to be ready in case they can't return that night.

Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally at Van Andel Arena on Nov. 5, 2024, in Grand Rapids. Trump campaigned for re-election in the battleground states of North Carolina and Pennsylvania before arriving for his last rally minutes after midnight in Michigan.

"No one wants to think about this stuff. It's really sad when we have to start doing this planning with people," Yore-Van Oosterhout said in a recent phone interview.

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"But it's just a good idea when we're taking about (families with mixed legal immigration status) and there's someone threatening mass deportations through police raids, which is something that could realistically happen again."

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to enact the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. To be clear, much remains unknown about how this will work. But in anticipation of this program, the Free Press spoke with immigration lawyers and advocates in Michigan to see how they are preparing.

What is clear is the system to both obtain or renew authorization to stay in the U.S. and the court process used to deport someone are both overloaded. Renewing documentation or getting deported already can take months or years  any huge push to remove people or cut down on authorizations will likely only bog down that system without a massive influx of funding, lawyers told the Free Press.

There are roughly 10 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States; a Pew analysis suggested anywhere from 75,000 to 175,000 are in Michigan. However, any number of the millions of immigrants not in this group who currently have the legal right to be in the U.S. but do not have citizenship may lose authorization if a new Trump administration ends or changes policies.

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"It's pretty scary. More information is going to come out as he takes office. But just looking at the people he is going to install in the important positions tells us that he is not joking, that we need to take it seriously," said Veronica Thronson, director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the Michigan State University College of Law.

What do Trump and his team say?

Trump and his supporters suggest mass deportations will have any number of positive impacts, ranging from increasing public safety to alleviating housing shortages.

Critics argue at best these ideas lack substantial evidence they would work as proposed and at worst amount to hate-based scaremongering.

Supporters take photos of a Trump display during Steve Bannon's nationwide tour stop named "We Build the Wall" in support Trump's wish for $7-billion expansion of border wall with Mexico, aimed at stopping illegal immigration on Thursday, March 14, 2019 at Cobo Center in downtown Detroit.

While the president-elect and his team say they will start deportations with "criminals" who do not have legal authorization to be in the country, it's unclear when or how that focus will shift.

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The vast majority of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. have not been charged with or convicted of a crime. Entering the country through legal methods, like a student visa, and then staying in the U.S. after that authorization expires is a civil offense. Entering the country outside of proper channels or in a manner that evades inspection is a misdemeanor, while returning to the U.S. without authorization after previously being deported is a felony.

Prosecutions for both unlawful offenses spiked during Trump's first tenure, exceeding 10,000 monthly for much of 2018, according to a government data clearinghouse run by Syracuse University.

In September, a senior official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a breakdown of the number of people on the agency's radar who are not citizens and have either been convicted of or charged with a crime. The list shows nearly 650,000 people accused of or convicted of a crime who are not in ICE detention  but some experts say that number is misleading.

Nearly 20% of those on the list either committed or have been charged with a traffic offense, according to ICE data. Another 92,000 were charged with or convicted of immigration law violations.

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While the list indicates there are tens of thousands of people accused of serious crimes like homicide or assault who are not in ICE detention, experts have noted many are in local jails and state prisons. Many others on the list have been there for decades. A 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling banned indefinitely detaining immigrants slated for deportation in the event no other country will accept them.

What changes should we expect?

How the administration approaches mass deportations remains to be seen. Tom Homan, tapped by Trump to be the "border czar," said in recent interviews he believes ICE enforcement officers will be able to handle the new plan. But others in Trump's orbit, including soon-to-be deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, have floated using anyone from local police to the national guard from Republican-led states to find people in states with Democratic governors, according to the Washington Post.

In this file photo taken on July 17, 2020 the Department of Homeland Security flag flies outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters in Washington, D.C.

And even the discussion of mass deportations could prompt a much larger and more problematic situation  neighbors calling police when they see people who they think may be undocumented immigrants.

"Do you need to carry a copy of all of your documentation to go for a walk around the block when some 'Karen' decides to call ICE on you because they don't like brown people?" said Julie Powers, executive director of Immigration Law & Justice Michigan, a nonprofit that provides legal services to low-income immigrants.

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"I don't know that that will happen. It's all hyperbole ... and I hope it doesn't happen, but it might."

Although anything could happen, the experts interviewed by the Free Press did not say door-to-door police activity was likely. Instead, most said they expect ICE to raid businesses searching for undocumented workers.

Any increase in efforts to detain and deport people will also likely require more places to detain them. Lawyers noted there are private companies already providing detention facilities around the country, but advocates routinely work to try and let those facing deportation remain out of custody, either with a tether or other tracking device.

What should immigrants do now?

If you have citizenship, Yore-Van Oosterhout stressed there is little any presidential administration can do. If you have other typical forms of legal authorization, like a green card, Sabrina Balgamwalla, director of the Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic at the Wayne State University Law School, said it's a good idea to start the process of renewing those documents.

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"Our clients may have relief, but have trouble maintaining a current work permit because it's taking so long to get it, or they apply to extend their VISA status and it's taking too long to get that extension," she said.

"I have a number of people who are waiting for a decision on their green card applications. These are really straight-forward applications, they don't even require an interview. And yet, it's just taking so long. And that's a problem."

People gather around during a prayer led by Sister Martha de la Torre for Daris Bartolon, center left, and her daughter Maddeline Lopez, 15, outside of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detroit Field Office in Detroit on Dec. 9, 2020. The Bartolon family came to the U.S. in 2016. Attorney Kevin Piecuch submitted a request for a one-year Stay of Deportation based on the medical needs of Maddeline Lopez, who has hypophosphatemic rickets. Maddeline has started to undergo treatment at Shriners Hospitals in Chicago, free of charge. The care available in the U.S. is not available to her in Guatemala. (Nic Antaya, Special to The Detroit Free Press)

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Balgamwalla said the Trump team could divert resources from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal organization that processes these status applications, and send it to ICE in an effort to increase the law enforcement entity's capacity to find and detain undocumented migrants.

Workplace raids were used under previous presidential administrations to find and detain undocumented immigrants, but largely eschewed by Biden. But in preparation, lawyers are telling migrants to bring proof of their legal status to work with them.

It's not a fool-proof plan: many jobs, like those in the construction or agricultural fields, do not offer an easy way for an employee to lug around multiple forms of documentation. There's also a chance that even migrants with proper authorization are swept up in a raid, a mistake that could prove devastating for their families, Powers explained.

"We're most worried that people who are lawful immigrants but may not have a great grasp of English ... but are working to provide for their families, those folks are going to get caught up in a sweep. When someone's yelling at you with a gun, you're not going to be able to grab the minimal command that you have of a new language immediately and handle that with eloquence," Powers said, noting some people might fare better in that situation than others.

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"We are concerned about people who are here lawfully in those raids, and there won't be any due process."

Each of the immigration attorneys and advocates said families should create a plan, especially those where family members have different types of authorizations to stay in the country. If possible, that includes obtaining a power of attorney, designating an adult who can care for children or a family's finances in the event one or both parents are detained.

Families should create a list of important contact information for their child's providers, like doctors and dentists, and any special instructions someone caring for them might need to know, like allergies or chronic medical conditions. While the process of separation is devastating, Yore-Van Oosterhout said she's found many clients find a sense of ease or reassurance once they've created this worst-case-scenario plan.

What should businesses do now?

Each of the immigration lawyers who spoke with the Free Press said they are creating "Know Your Rights" presentations and documents for immigrant communities and businesses.

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Specifically, Yore-Van Oosterhout said she's working on helping businesses understand their rights to refuse unreasonable search and seizures by the government. She said that's crucial if and when ICE agents come knock on the door.

Law enforcement may already have a warrant or other type of legal authorization to enter a private business. But in general, Yore-Van Oosterhout said they must obtain permission to enter private areas of a workplace. So, if a business has a public reception area that is separated from other portions of the building by doors, stairs or other similar impediments, Yore-Van Oosterhout suggested posting clear signage indicating those areas are private and only accessible for employees.

This plan could impact more than just undocumented immigrants?

In addition to the 10 to 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country, advocates say many others could suffer from sweeping deportations.

As of March 2024, a Pew analysis found approximately 1.2 million people in the country either have or are eligible to receive what's known as Temporary Protected Status. It's a roughly 18-month authorization typically reserved for people who fled a dangerous situation in a home country. More than 600,000 Venezuelans are in the U.S. under this status, as are more than 160,000 Haitians and 26,000 Ukrainians.

During his first term, Trump both tried to revoke this status for specific groups and relented when challenged in court. During this presidential campaign, Trump and his allies repeatedly shared false stories about Haitian immigrants in a small Ohio town eating pets. In September, Trump suggested his deportation efforts would start in the town, foreshadowing attempts to revoke this protected status.

People under any number of other authorizations are equally worried. There are about 4,200 people in Michigan who have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals legal status, according to ICE data from late 2023. That covers undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children and have remained. There are likely more in the state who are undocumented children of immigrants but haven't applied for or are ineligible to receive DACA status.

What about refugees?

In 2016, Michigan was the fourth-largest state for refugee resettlement, according to a 2017 study from the economic development organization Global Detroit. Most refugees lived outside Detroit in communities such as Warren, Sterling Heights, Southfield, Troy, Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, the report notes.

Kelli Dobner, chief growth officer at nonprofit Samaritas, said last week that although its difficult to predict the effects of a Trump presidency on the number of refugee arrivals, her organization is preparing to see a bulk of the more than 2,000 refugees it expects to help resettle between now and Jan. 20  Inauguration Day. She suspects the current administration will be expediting arrivals for new families and individuals.

DRN Co-Chair Samaritas Chief Advancement Officer Kelli Dobner speaks during a press conference at an apartment complex in Southeast Michigan on Wednesday, April 20, 2022.

During Trumps first term, Samaritas was down to skeleton staff and resettled few people, as the borders closed and travel bans were issued, Dobner said.

Many of our clients and staff members are concerned about their friends, their families, who are still in other countries, who are not yet here, who may not be able to come here, and there's just a lot of uncertainty and anxiety around what we can expect in this time of not knowing, Dobner said.

The nonprofit Samaritas recently estimated it will work with more than 2,000 refugees through next September  a roughly 14% increase from the 1,750 refugees the organization helped by the end of the last fiscal year.

Samaritas case manager Mariana Velhan, left, works to help Halyna Tanchyk, and her husband Ihor Pakuliak get enrolled into a program at the nonprofit in Warren on Thursday, Aug.29, 2024, as they sit with their son Daniel. Velhan, a single mother of two, fled Ukraine after the war broke out in 2022. She traveled through Poland, Germany and Mexico before landing in Michigan where she now works at Samaritas to help other refugees resettle.

Tawfik Alazem, director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants Detroit, said his Dearborn-based agency is waiting to see if refugee resettlement estimates will shift with the new administration.

The organization is preparing to resettle 700 refugees, including 100 special immigrant visas, a program for Afghan and Iraqi nationals for their service to the U.S. government, in the 2025 fiscal year, which began in October and ends next September.

This is on par with pre-2018 levels, Alazem previously told the Free Press. Starting in 2017, the ceiling for refugee admissions in the U.S. dropped to 50,000 and kept declining until 2021 when the threshold leapt back up, according to a Migration Policy Institute analysis of State Department data.

The Office of Global Michigan, part of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, said 3,775 refugees and special immigrant visa holders came to the state by the end of September 2024. As of July, 2,915 people had arrived from 39 countries, including Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan.

I don't run a business, and I'm not an immigrant or refugee, but I want to do something

Many of the agencies involved are creating plans of action for volunteers. Powers said she's received a huge influx of calls from people looking to help out after the election

The lawyers suggested reaching out to local nonprofits or other advocacy organizations to ask about opportunities to assist.

Staff writer Nushrat Rahman contributed to this report. Reach Dave Boucher at dboucher@freepress.com and on X @Dave_Boucher1

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump deportations in Michigan: How lawyers say immigrants should prepare
(Bloomberg Law) -- Matt Gaetzs selection for attorney general has veterans of the first Trump Justice Department reconsidering whether to reenlist.

Most Read from Bloomberg

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Numerous former DOJ officials said they were initially excited or at least open to resuming their service in senior roles at department headquarters or as US attorneys, according to interviews with a dozen of those alums. But some said they began backtracking Wednesday afternoon as soon as Trump tapped the Florida House member and recent subject of a child sex trafficking investigation.

This choice is putrid, said a former senior Trump DOJ official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to talk candidly about peers reactions. I cant imagine anybody with integrity would want to work for this guy as attorney general. Period. Full stop.

Even before the unexpected selection of Gaetz, a staunch Trump supporter whos never worked at DOJ, the president-elect signaled he would prioritize loyalty over experience to head a department that had twice indicted him in recent years. That made it all the more important to have more mainstream choices for deputy attorney general and other top posts to ensure Trumps agenda could be successfully implemented by people who know the building, several former DOJ lawyers said.

Giving Pause

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Other GOP department veterans are still considering whether to go back under Gaetzwhile also questioning how he could be confirmed in the Senate. Four of those officials said the selection of Gaetz, 42, immediately deflated the optimism theyd had that the next Trump DOJ would maintain more independence from the White House than campaign rhetoric had suggested.

Some people are thinking harder now, one of those ex-officials said. Top aides would be required to defend Gaetz and implement his policies, including if he does something crazy, the ex-official said, and as the attorney general hed heavily influence the hiring below him.

Retaliatory prosecutions of people like President Joe Biden, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, DOJ special counsel Jack Smith, and former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney were less of a concern to the former Trump officials, who downplayed those scenarios as campaign banter that was very difficult to actualize. But other Trump plans, such as drafting pardons for those convicted of violently attacking the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were more likely and still troubling, said one former Trump US attorney.

When informed that Gaetz was the pick, another former Senate-confirmed Trump DOJ political appointee asked if he was being pranked. He said the selection made him less certain about jockeying for a spot in the second term, and that hed have to do more homework on Gaetz before deciding.

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Desire to Serve

Seth DuCharme, DOJs principal associate deputy attorney general in the first Trump administration, said before the Gaetz announcement he was heartened to see alumni professionals in his network have a desire to come back. But DuCharme said how much influence theyd have compared to the bomb-thrower types who may also be installed at the department remains a critical question.

After the announcement, DuCharme said his sentiment holds, and that while some are now mulling it over, the desire to serve remains.

The challenge for them is you cant lead the department by force of will, said DuCharme, now a partner at Bracewell LLP. Youve got to get everybody from the line to the middle managers to the people who are leading the task forces comfortable.

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If you say things that are too outside the norm of how the department has typically functioned, they just wont do it, he added. If they take total outsiders to come in and run the department, its just not going to work.

Despite past promises from Trump and his allies to avoid appointing DOJ personnel whod thwart his wishlist, there are several prior Trump DOJ appointees working on the departments transition team. Their presence reassured fellow alums that the next administration wouldnt stray as far from department traditions as some had feared.

Those ex-officials said theyre now reassessing how they believe the department will be molded after Trump chose not to name one of the more conventional AG frontrunners, such as Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), or his former acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker.

Even a homecoming for the so-called normal GOP lawyers wouldnt inspire confidence in Kristy Parker, a former DOJ civil rights supervisor and counsel at Protect Democracy.

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What does it mean to be an institutionalist if someone accepts a DOJ position knowing that Trump has promised to use its law enforcement powers as a tool for retaliation and retribution? Parker said before the announcement.

After learning about Gaetz, who resigned his seat after the announcement, Parker added that those who enlist as his subordinates will not enjoy the same immunity Trump has and will therefore be placing themselves and their law licenses in jeopardy.

Multiple Personalities

Before Trump picked Gaetz, former officials predicted the DOJ would be populated by competing factions of department alumni and MAGA loyalists, who would end up battling for influence.

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Richard Donoghue, who as the acting deputy attorney general resisted Trumps attempt at using DOJ to overturn the 2020 election results, said earlier that worries about MAGA influence may be overblown.

I understand why the concerns arise given some of the rhetoric over the last year, but I have a lot of faith in the institutions. And I do think that the right people will do the right thing, given the opportunity, said Donoghue, now a partner with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, before Gaetz was tapped. Im not as concerned about it as other people, maybe, but time will tell.

After the announcement, Donoghue declined to comment about whether the Gaetz pick changed his analysis, but said Trumps choice is surprising, to say the least.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Penn in Washington at bpenn@bloomberglaw.com

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To contact the editors responsible for this story: Seth Stern at sstern@bloomberglaw.com; Keith Perine at kperine@bloomberglaw.com

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During the opening days of Donald Trumps first term as president, a source summoned me to a quiet cafe. There, he slipped me a copy of a draft Trump executive order that would ban people from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. Its crazy, he said. It doesnt make sense.

We all knew Trump had pledged to bar Muslims from U.S. shores. But the draft order was full of legal holes. I remember thinking it would never become a reality because, surely, the lawyers would stop it. But within days, the ban took effect, spawning chaos at airports, lawsuits and confusion among many U.S. officials who, although tasked with enforcing it, knew nothing about it.

The reason it happened that way? A few Trump acolytes had drafted the order in a secretive, haphazard way  skipping the usual policy process and the legal pressure-testing that comes with it.

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Trump backers tell me this will not happen in his second term, because his team will be more knowledgeable and disciplined. They are especially adamant that Trumps national security team will be a well-oiled machine. His nominees for multiple top positions this week include some flamethrowers, but they generally are people experienced in government, including lawmakers.

But I am still skeptical that even the best hires will make too much difference. Trumps aides may be more focused and more motivated than ever, but their boss has a history of struggling to follow an orderly process  especially on national security and foreign policy issues  having contradictory priorities and fixating on vengeance over policy. He also thrives on chaos, undermining even his most loyal underlings.

You may or may not think all this is a good thing, depending on if you want Trump to succeed. But the bottom line is that Trumps ability to accomplish what he wants in a second term will depend a good deal on whether he can avoid the errors of his first term.

Three of those mistakes in particular stand out:

He was better at destroying than building

Trump has made a number of second-term national security promises that arguably fall under the idea of creation, such as building a missile defense shield system and a turbocharged deportation apparatus that could include large detention camps.

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But his history, at least in politics, is more about destruction.

During his first term, Trump went about negating many policies Barack Obama had supported, from the diplomatic opening to Cuba to ergonomics programs.

Some of this was due to genuine ideological differences, but much of it seemed personal, especially when Trump couldnt point to clear legal or technical reasons for canceling an Obama act and offered no alternative.

One career federal employee mentioned to me how hard it was in 2018 to watch Trump abandon the Iran nuclear deal, which Obamas team had finished negotiating in 2015. People spent years of their lives working on that deal, the staffer said. And he just wiped it away in an instant.

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(That decision led Britains ambassador in Washington to reportedly tell his superiors that Trump was acting out of spite against Obama.)

Another U.S. official told me: All Trump and his team seem able to do is walk away from things, quit things, destroy things  and they count these as accomplishments. But they never build anything.



Ultimately, Trump could point to some constructive achievements, such as the Abraham Accords; an upgraded trade deal for the U.S., Mexico and Canada; several hundred miles of a border wall; and, if you stretch the definition of building, massive new sanctions and tariff structures aimed at other countries.

But overall, his first-term legacy was more about stops, reversals and abandonment, not building new things.

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This is an odd point to make about a guy who spent decades as a real estate mogul. That said, its also much easier to destroy things.

A former Trump administration national security official told me the dearth of constructive accomplishments in the first term was largely because many of his aides defied him.

I dont think it was a lack of vision or options for building, the former official said. It was a lack of continuity, a lack of senior officials who shared his vision, were willing to implement it, or were competent enough to implement it.

This time? Thats going to be fixed, the former official said. I granted this person, and others, anonymity to speak candidly and without authorization.

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When I asked the Trump transition team for comment on this and other issues raised in this column, I got this boilerplate response from spokesperson Karoline Leavitt: The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver.

Still, many of Trumps scattershot pledges for a second term are about eliminating things, from the Department of Education to protections for transgender people. And the president-elects No. 1 passion seems, again, to be about exacting revenge on his foes, including Obama.

He took a chaotic approach to making policy, and it burned him

Trump opponents worry that he and his aides have learned how to work the system. His supporters say thats true: the president-elect and his team figured out how to run a standard inter-agency policy process in the weeks and months after the messy travel ban rollout.

The reality was more complicated.

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It depended, in part, on who was the national security adviser at the time. John Bolton, for one, ran a less open process than H.R. McMaster; enough so that Cabinet members complained that they were out of the loop. Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller effectively took over processes he wasnt technically a part of to push through anti-immigration ideas.



But Trump himself, with his freewheeling style, would sometimes undermine the process via a single tweet or after talks with various people whod shown up in his office.

His abrupt decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria reportedly came during a conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Presidents have wide latitude in how to structure their policy-making process. If Trump wants to use a Magic 8 Ball to get to a decision, he can. But that decision may face congressional limits, judicial review and, of course, reaction from voters.

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Even if Trumps aides know more now about the importance of process, the question is whether they  and the president  can stick to it. Its also worth watching if Trump will listen to the resulting advice from that process, such as if a move is legal.

His obsession with cutting immigration hurt other goals

The president-elect has some far-reaching, somewhat vague plans on the global front for his second term, from ending the war in Ukraine to re-evaluating Americas role in NATO.

But if he follows his past patterns, his desire to curb immigration could undercut many of his promises on other fronts.

Take promoting religious freedom. This was a foreign policy priority during Trumps first term, in part because it appealed to evangelical supporters worried about Christian persecution abroad. It was also a rare human rights issue to which the Trump administration devoted significant amounts of resources.

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But Trump also wanted to scale up deportations of immigrants whod had run-ins with the law.

Thats how Trump wound up deporting Christians among dozens of immigrants sent back to Iraq, even though his own administration had declared that Christians faced genocide in that country.

Past U.S. presidents had given these Christian immigrants a pass on deportation as long as they checked in regularly with government officials. Trump was such an immigration hardliner that he sent to Iraq Christians whod never been there, spoke little Arabic or were even ill. At least one of the deportees died.

What Im hearing from people in Trumps orbit is that this approach  making curbing immigration the No. 1 goal  is not likely to change. If that means other policy goals are undercut or have to be set aside, then thats what will happen.

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I dont think we can even conceive of how hard hes going to fight on that one, a second former Trump administration official said.

Even within the broad goal of reducing immigration, there will have to be prioritization, such as which groups to target first and how fast, the first former Trump administration official said.

When I asked whether Afghans who had fled to the U.S. after the Taliban took over their country could be sent back, the first former official indicated that group would probably be lower on the priority list of people to deport. (Going after them would likely upset U.S. military veterans and draw ugly publicity.)

The first former official also predicted something else: After pursuing crackdowns on migrants, Trump could push through a comprehensive immigration reform package, a goal that has eluded many of his predecessors. Hes the only Republican who could ever do that, the former official said.

It was an intriguing idea. But getting there requires process. It requires focus. It requires building a plan and support for it.

Can Trump pull it off? Well, hes surprised us before.
For anyone who was worried that Donald Trumps decision to nominate Representative Matt Gaetz to be the next attorney general seemed a little half-baked, thats because it was: The plan came together within the span of only a few hours, Politico reported Thursday.

At the beginning of Wednesday, Gaetz wasnt even on Trumps short list for the position, but the president-elect wasnt quite feeling his spate of options, according to Politicos Playbook.

Then Gaetz boarded Trumps plane Wednesday morning, and Boris Epshteyn, the Trump teams top lawyer, went to work convincing Trump that the Florida Republican, whod previously been investigated by the Justice Department, should now be its leader. (Epshteyn is accused of assisting Rudy Giulianis fake electors scheme in Arizona and obstructing the certification of the 2020 election result. He pleaded not guilty, but the case is still ongoing.)

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One Trump adviser told The Bulwark that Trump liked Gaetz, who has no experience as a government attorney or judge, for his unorthodox, extrajudicial style.

None of the attorneys had what Trump wants, and they didnt talk like Gaetz, the adviser said. Everyone else looked at AG as if they were applying for a judicial appointment. They talked about their vaunted legal theories and constitutional bullshit. Gaetz was the only one who said, Yeah, Ill go over there and start cuttin fuckin heads.

It seems that Trump didnt actually want a lawyer; he wanted a loyal mercenary. Meanwhile, Gaetzs nomination, and subsequent resignation, has raised a considerable ruckus on the Hill.

The House Ethics Committee was planning to release a report on its multiyear investigation into Gaetz Friday. Gaetz is being investigated for alleged sexual misconduct and a spate of other alleged ethics violations.

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He was previously investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly having an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old girl and violating sex trafficking laws, but he was never formally chargedthough the probe still might explain his take-no-prisoners attitude toward the attorney general spot.

John Clune, the attorney representing the underage girl, on Thursday urged the House Ethics Committee to release its report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses, he wrote on X.

House Ethics Chair Michael Guests insisted he had no plans to release the report, though not all Republicans agree. Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin demanded that the report be shared with his committee, and Republican Senator John Cornyn also urged its release. Some GOP sources suggested that the report will be leaked as early as Thursday, per Pablo Manriquez.


WASHINGTON (AP)  Just hours after Republican Sen. John Thune was elected as the incoming Senate majority leader on Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump presented him with one of his first tests  an announcement that he intends to nominate controversial Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general.

The Florida Republican is one of the more universally disliked members of Congress, including among GOP lawmakers after he led the effort to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year. He has spent his congressional career agitating against the Justice Department and has been under a House Ethics investigation probing whether he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct. Gaetz denies the allegations.

Asked about the nomination as he left a Senate vote, Thune smiled and declined to answer. Thats probably a good question for the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he said.

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An hour earlier, the likely incoming chairman of the Judiciary panel, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, also deflected, saying he doesnt know Gaetz but will look at the nomination. Dont ask me any other questions, Grassley said.

Its a familiar posture for Republican senators who have lived through the last eight years dodging questions about Trump and defending him, even after he tried to overturn his election defeat in 2020 and his supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol. But the stakes are even higher now that he has been decisively elected to a second term. Congressional Republicans have rallied intensely around him, betting their political futures on his success.

Two months before Trump even takes office, he is already challenging those congressional Republicans to defy him as he nominates potentially controversial figures to his Cabinet  including Gaetz, former Democratic House Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence and conservative media personality Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense. On Sunday, Trump even said in a post on X that he wants the new Senate leader to allow him to make appointments when the chamber is on recess, bypassing confirmation votes altogether.

I think its a little bit of a test, said Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, who called the Gaetz nomination a Hail Mary pass from Trump. Cramer said he sees Gaetz as a disruptive force in the House and has concerns about the serious allegations against him, but stopped short of saying he wouldnt vote for his confirmation.

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It will take a lot of political capital to get him across, Cramer said, adding that there will forever be tension between the branches.

Whats unclear is how much political capital Trump will have to expend to get his picks through  or whether it will even be necessary. Republicans will have a 53-seat majority in the Senate next year, giving them room to lose a few votes.

Immediately after his election as the incoming GOP leader, Thune suggested that the Senate will not fully relinquish its power to vet nominations  but kept the door open to Trumps suggested changes.

The Senate has an advise and consent rule in the Constitution, Thune said, adding that Senate Republicans will do everything they can to get Trumps nominees quickly in place.

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How that happens remains to be seen, Thune said.

While Trumps announcement about Gaetz sent an immediate shock wave around Capitol Hill, many Republican senators who will be tasked with confirming him were reluctant to publicly criticize the pick.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary panel, said he didnt know Gaetz other than his public persona," and said he wont prejudge any of these nominations.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, elected Wednesday as the incoming No. 2 Republican in the Senate next year, would only say that Trump is going to continue to make his appointments. Were going to continue to look forward to them coming to the Senate and have hearings and get his Cabinet confirmed as quickly as possible.

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Ive got nothing for you, said Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican. Well see, said Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin when asked whether he would support Gaetzs confirmation.

A few GOP senators praised Gaetz, who resigned from the House shortly after the announcement, ending the House Ethics investigation and making way for a replacement to be elected before the new Congress is sworn in Jan. 3.

Ive known Matt for a very long time, were friends, said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who was nominated for secretary of state Wednesday, but was instead flooded with questions about Gaetz. I think he would do a very good job for the president.

Gaetz is a smart, clever guy, said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, though he said hell have to answer some tough questions in the hearing, and well see how he does.

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Other Republican senators, like Cramer, were skeptical while stopping short of saying they would oppose his nomination.

Gaetz will have his work cut out for him, said North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, adding that it should make for a popcorn-eating confirmation hearing.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins said she was shocked by Gaetzs nomination.

I recognize that the president-elect has the right to nominate whomever he wishes, but we in Congress have a responsibility under the Constitution and our advise and consent, which will lead to hearings, an FBI background check and an awful lot of questions being asked in this case, Collins said.

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Gaetz has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, and said last year that the Justice Departments investigation into sex trafficking allegations involving underage girls had ended with no federal charges against him.

Democrats were appalled.

This nomination is the first test of whether Republicans are willing to stand up to Donald Trump and go with conscience and conviction as opposed to just politics, said Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic member of the Judiciary panel.

New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., was even more blunt.

People voted for cheaper eggs, not whatever the f@# this is, he posted on X, referring to last weeks election.

___

Associated Press writers Stephen Groves, Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
Social media platform TikTok is hurtling toward a U.S. ban that could upend its business and frustrate more than 150 million American users -- unless President-elect Donald Trump finds a way to reverse the policy.

Trump, who boasts 14 million followers on TikTok, voiced opposition to the ban earlier this year. The policy, which orders TikTok to find a U.S. parent company or face a ban, is set to take effect on Jan. 19, a day before Trumps inauguration.

An effort to eliminate the ban may present formidable political challenges and legal hurdles, experts told ABC News. The outcome could depend on support from an array of major institutions ranging from Congress and the Supreme Court to tech giants like Google and Oracle, they added.

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The China-owned app has faced growing scrutiny from government officials over fears that user data could fall into the possession of the Chinese government and the app could be weaponized by China to spread misinformation.

There is little evidence that TikTok has shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government or that the Chinese government has asked the app to do so, cybersecurity experts previously told ABC News.

In response to ABC News' request for comment, Trump's transition team did not directly address the TikTok ban. But the transition team said Trump plans to following through on commitments made during the presidential race.

The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver," Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance Transition, told ABC News.

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TikTok did not immediately respond to ABC News request for comment.

The president is expected to try to stop the ban of TikTok after he takes office, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with his views on the matter.

Heres what to know about the different ways that Trump could try to stop the TikTok ban, according to experts:

Push Congress to repeal the TikTok ban

The most straightforward way to reverse the policy would be a repeal of the law that enacted the ban in the first place, experts told ABC News.

A repeal would require passage in both houses of Congress, landing the measure on Trumps desk for his signature.

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The easiest way is to ask Congress to reverse the ban, Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University, told ABC News. But, he added, it isnt as easy as it sounds.

Congress voted in favor of the ban only seven months ago. In the House of Representatives, the ban passed by an overwhelming margin of 352-65. In the Senate, 79 members voted in favor of the measure, while 18 opposed and 3 abstained.

A repeal effort carries political risks for Trump, since it could be perceived as conciliatory toward China, in contrast with the adversarial tone voiced by Trump on the campaign trail, James Lewis, a data security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told ABC News.

Its a political problem, Lewis said, noting that Trump could soften potential backlash by seeking a reform of the law rather than an outright repeal.

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Trump may not need Congress to repeal the ban. A lawsuit against the ban brought by TikTok on First Amendment grounds currently stands before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Experts who spoke to ABC News said they expect the court to rule against TikTok, but the company could then appeal, potentially sending the case to the Supreme Court before the ban takes effect. The Supreme Court may determine that the legal challenge holds sufficient merit to delay implementation of the ban, leading ultimately to a rejection of the law.

The Supreme Court may want a crack at this, Alan Rozenshtein, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who focuses on the First Amendment, told ABC News.

Refuse to enforce the TikTok ban

Instead of repealing the law or counting on court intervention, Trump could try to prevent the Justice Department from enforcing the measure, experts said.

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The law orders distributors like Apple and Google to stop offering the social media platform in their app stores, and it requires cloud service providers like Oracle to withhold the infrastructure necessary for TikTok to operate.

Companies that violate the law risk a penalty of $5,000 for each user who accesses TikTok. That adds up, Rozenshtein said.

PHOTO: The TikTok application is seen on an iPhone in this photo illustration in Warsaw, Poland on Sept. 30, 2020. (Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

In theory, Trumps Justice Department could opt against enforcement of the law, reassuring the likes of Apple and Oracle that the companies would not face prosecution in the event of a violation, experts said.

Along similar lines, the Trump administration could take up an interpretation of the ban that affords it wide latitude in finding that TikTok has complied with a requirement that it divest from parent company ByteDance, experts said.

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In other words, even if TikTok has made little effort to comply with the law, the Trump administration could attempt a reading of the measure that finds the company has met the threshold necessary to avoid a ban, Rozenshtein said.

If Trump opts against enforcement, the move could still prove insufficient. Companies like Apple and Oracle may decide to comply with the ban anyway, since they could face legal risk if the Trump administration reverses its approach, Rozenshtein added.

Trump is mercurial, Rozenshtein said. If you are Apples general counsel, do you really want this hanging over you?

Help TikTok find a U.S. buyer

Finally, Trump could try to find a U.S. buyer for TikTok, allowing the platform to avoid a ban. This approach may appeal to Trumps self-image as a business dealmaker, but time is running short for such a significant business transaction and TikTok has shown little appetite for it, experts said.

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The law allows for a 90-day extension of the deadline for a TikTok sale, as long as the company is advancing toward an agreement. Under such a scenario, the deadline would move back to April, providing Trump with additional time.

Its possible that hell try to force TikTok to come to some kind of deal with American buyers, Lewis said. Its not likely. TikTok will hold out as long as they can.

China has signaled opposition to the sale of TikTok to a U.S. company, The Wall Street Journal reported in March.

Alternatively, Trump could seek a compromise measure in Congress that affords him additional time and wider latitude to establish a U.S.-based operation for TikTok, experts said. Or the Trump administration could offer up an interpretation of the law that gives it space to strike a compromise with TikTok.

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TikTok previously proposed a solution called Project Texas, in which the company would keep all data on U.S. users within the country through a partnership with Oracle. When TikTok CEO Shou Chew testified before Congress last year, several members raised concern about a potential lack of third-party oversight in such an arrangement.

Trump could seek to assuage the concerns of members of Congress while reaching terms satisfactory to TikTok, Chander said.

Trump may be able to do things that reassure the American people that the app is safe, and that it is bringing a lot of the programming here to U.S. soil, Chander said.

Trump may try to reverse TikTok ban. Here's how he could. originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  The new Trump White House is taking shape and one of the president-elects picks is drawing some controversy. He nominated Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz to be attorney general.

Congressman Gaetz is known as a fiery conservative voice and a fierce Trump ally, but he has a history that will complicate his path to confirmation.

The idea of an attorney general Matt Gaetz has some of his House colleagues excited.

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You really couldnt pick anybody. Thats a bigger Agent of Change especially when it comes to DOJ and the FBI, said Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas.).

However, the Florida congressman has some enemies on Capitol Hill after he led last years effort to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Mr. Gaetz breaks things to break things. And then once he breaks it, he breaks it even more. And that is somebody who should not be the Attorney General of the United States., said Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio.).

Theres skepticism about whether Gaetz will be confirmed by the Senate. Hes unlikely to get any votes from Democrats.

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I mean this feels like a red alert moment for democracy, said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn,).

Republicans hold the Senate majority.

My presumption is to support all of the presidents nominees. I look forward to hearing from him about how hes going to straighten out the department, said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) says Congressman Gaetz resigned immediately after the nomination was announced.

That caught us by surprise a little bit, said Johnson.

Johnson says Gaetz did it so Republicans can try to quickly replace him because their majority in the House is slim and theyre losing at least two other members to the Trump administration.

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I have begged and pleaded with the new president enough already, because our numbers are small, said Johnson.

Congressman Gaetz was being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for allegations of sexual misconduct, but that probe ended with his resignation.

A former member of Congress, the House Ethics Committee would have no further jurisdiction over the that person, said Johnson.

The Ethics committee was previously scheduled to meet on Friday to vote on whether or not to release the report about Gaetz. Its unclear if they will still release 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 DC News Now | Washington, DC.
Two former staffers from Donald Trumps first presidential term are now vying to be his deputy national security adviser.

Politico reports that Sebastian Gorka and Michael Anton are top contenders for the post, which would not require Senate confirmation. On Monday, Trump asked Florida Republican Representative Mike Waltz to be his national security adviser.

Both Gorka and Anton would be controversial picks. Gorka reportedly believes that violence is inherently part of Islam, and vehemently supported Trumps Muslim ban. Born in London to Hungarian parents, Gorka lived in Hungary from 1992 to 2008, and at one point had an arrest warrant on gun charges in the country.



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In 2016, while also a consultant for Trumps first presidential campaign, Gorka worked for the FBI, but was fired for his anti-Muslim diatribes. Gorka also was accused of having ties to a Nazi-allied organization in Hungary, Vitzi Rend, a charge he denies, although he has been photographed wearing a medal from the antisemitic group.

From January 2017 until August of that year, Gorka worked in the Trump administration as a strategist and deputy assistant to the president and was supposed to work on national security issues. However, he was unable to obtain a security clearance, raising questions about what he was actually doing in the White House. Even Gorkas academic credentials have been called into question, as he claims to have a doctorate, which experts say was awarded on weak standards.

Anton worked as a speechwriter for conservative figures including Rudy Giuliani, Condoleezza Rice, and Rupert Murdoch before joining the Trump administration as a deputy assistant to the president for strategic communications in 2017. He has also espoused anti-Muslim views, criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, and even claimed in 2020 that George Soros was planning a coup with the help of the Democratic Party. He is arguably best known as the author of The Flight 93 Election, a 2016 manifesto that urged conservatives to support Trump.

Of the two, Anton is more likely to get the post, according to one of Politicos sources. But if either gets the job, they will have access to vital national security information, will craft policy, and will likely also target American citizens they disagree with. Thats a scary prospect, especially with a president who has repeatedly threatened to use the military against the enemy within.
President-elect Donald Trump is quickly building his Cabinet ahead of the 2025 inauguration.

Trump has given nods to some well-known names in conservative circles to help him lead the United States over the next four years in the White House, not all of them are politicians.

This week, the Republican president-elect added the names of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Matt Gaetz, Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth to the list of those he wants to lead departments during his administration.

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More names are sure to come as 2024 closes out and Trump's second and last term as president begins. Here's a look at who has been named and which seats will need to be filled.

Who else has Trump nominated for heads of government agencies?

All together, Trump has nominated eight people for roles in the highest positions that oversee multiple agencies in the United States government.

Here are the latest positions that Trump has named as of Thursday:

Who is Matt Gaetz? What does the Attorney General do?

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has been tapped by Trump for the role of U.S. Attorney General. Gaetz, a staunch MAGA supporter, resigned from his seat in the House of Representatives on Wednesday "effective immediately," after receiving the nod from Trump.

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The Florida lawyer has been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 2017 and won his re-election for his seat, but the seat now has to be refilled.

The resignation also put an end to the House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz.

The Ethics Committee has spent three years looking into a variety of claims that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illegal drug use, accepted improper gifts and gave out special favors. Gaetz denied the allegations. The panel was set to decide if their report on the issue would be made public on Friday, but the investigation was ended as soon as Gaetz resigned.

Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., a member of the House Judicial Committee, on Thursday demanded the Ethics Committee "come forward and transparently show us what they found, and then let the chips fall where they may."

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Other lawmakers have been vocal about the information being released, especially since Gaetz is tapped for this high position and could make a difference during Senate confirmation hearings.

If confirmed by the Senate as U.S. Attorney General, Gaetz would head of the Justice Department, which he has been critical of in the past. He would also represent the United States in legal matters and give advice and opinions to the president and the heads of the executive departments of the government when needed.

I dont think its a serious nomination for the attorney general," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, according to USA TODAY. "We need to have a serious attorney general and Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody who is serious."

Who is Tulsi Gabbard? What is DNI?

Former Hawaii GOP Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat who ran for the presidential nomination in 2020 turned Trump supporter, was named as Trump's choice for the Department of National Intelligence.

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"I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our intelligence community, championing our constitutional rights, and securing peace through strength," Trump said in a statement.

Gabbard, 43, is an American Samoan native who was a rising star in the Democratic Party before her departure in 2022. She was an Army officer who had deployed to the Middle East and later became a critic of the Iraq War which helped her gain credibility with progressives, according to reports from USA TODAY.

Gabbard's intelligence experience is nominal compared to the current director, Avril Haines, who was a deputy CIA director and deputy national security advisor before taking on the position. Besides her time in politics, Gabbard was in the National Guard and deployed during the Iraq War with a field medical unit and later returned to the Middle East as an officer to lead a military police platoon and as a trainer for the Kuwait National Guard's counterterrorism unit.

If she is confirmed by the Senate, Gabbard would be in charge of 18 agencies, including the National Security Agency, the FBI and CIA.

Who is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? What is HHS?

On Thursday, Trump announced his nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), the department oversees the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention among others.

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"The safety and health of all Americans is the most important role of any administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming health crisis in this country," Trump said in a statement on X.

Kennedy, 70, is the son of Robert F. Kennedy, brother to President John F, Kennedy and former Attorney General, whose run for president in 1968 was cut short when he was assassinated in Los Angeles, California.

An environmental lawyer, Kennedy also ran for president this year as a third-party candidate before withdrawing and throwing his support behind Trump. He rose to national prominence partly due to his opposition to vaccines  including vaccines for childhood measles, mumps and rubella  based on debunked claims that they were linked to autism, reported USA TODAY. He also opposed COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.

Kennedy has also opposed the Food and Drug Administration, warning on X last month that the organization's "war on public health is about to end." He called the FDA's decisions regarding psychedelics, raw milk, hydroxychloroquine, stem cells and ivermectin, among others, "aggressive suppression."

How many cabinet positions does Trump still need to fill?

There are still 16 positions that Trump has not announced nominations for. Here's what still needs to be filled:

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Department of the Treasury Secretary

Department of Interior Secretary

Department of Agriculture Secretary

Department of Commerce Secretary

Department of Labor Secretary

Department of Health and Human Service Secretary

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary

Department of Transportation Secretary

Department of Energy Secretary

Department of Education Secretary

Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary

United States Trade Representative

Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers

Administrator of the Small Business Affairs

Director of the Office of Management and Budget

Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy

USA TODAY contributed to this report

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Who is RFK Jr.? Who is Matt Gaetz? What's HHS? Trump's Cabinet picks
BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB)  President-elect Donald Trump surprised a lot of people on Wednesday when he announced his pick for U.S. attorney general. His choice is Panhandle Congressman Matt Gaetz.

Gaetz has served as the representative for Floridas first congressional district since 2017. Gaetz officially resigned his seat after he was nominated to the Attorney General post. He still needs to be confirmed by the Senate.

After Wednesdays announcement, two potential Senate swing votes Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, expressed their doubts about the pick. Both other members of the Florida congressional delegation say they think Trump knows what hes doing in selecting Gaetz.

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Bay County native named potential Florida Senate replacement

The facts will speak for themselves, if you think that he hasnt already been fully vetted by the presidents team, wed be wrong, he definitely has and so I look forward to him being confirmed, (R) Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said.

I know, Matt pretty well. Donald Trump is very intentional with this pick. Donald Trump told the American people what he wanted to do that was on the ballot elections have consequences, (D) Coral Springs Rep. Jared Moskowitz said.

Gaetzs resignation letter has not gone into effect yet, because it has not been officially announced on the house floor.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson says hes already been in contact with Governor Ron DeSantis about whats next for filling Gaetzs seat in Congress.

If we start the clock now and you do the math, we may be able to fill this seat as early as January 3rd, when we take the new oath of office for the new Congress. So Matt has done us a great service by making that decision as he did on the fly. And so were grateful for that, (R) Louisana/Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson said.

Gaetz is still under investigation by the Bipartisan House Ethics Committee, regarding sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

The committees chair says if Gaetz officially resigns, the investigation would officially end.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
The Democratic Partys hopes of stymieing the ambitions of Donald Trump during his second term in office were dashed Wednesday after Republicans secured a narrow majority in the House of Representatives.

Following victories in California and Arizona, Republicans attained the necessary 218 votes needed to hold a majority in the House. However, The New York Times reported Wednesday that though a few tight races remain to be called, Republicans are unlikely to enlarge the already razor thin majority they currently have.

The situations is complicated  slightly  by the surprise resignation of Rep. Matt Gaetz. The right wing Florida congressman isnt resigning because of the multiple accusations of sexual misconduct however, but because Trump intends to nominate him for Attorney General.

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But House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed that even if the party itself was surprised, Gaetz resigned so that his seat might be filled before Trump takes office. And Gaetz, who represents a deep red Florida district, is very likely to be replaced by a Republican.

I think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter immediately to accommodate us a little bit. That caught us by surprise a little bit. But I asked him what the reasoning was and he said, Well, you cant have too many absences,' referring to Florida state law that dictates that a vacant political office must be filled within eight weeks, Johnson said Wednesday.

But even if the majority remains slim, Republicans, for now at least, do not have the problem with disloyalty that plagued Democrats under Biden, whose agenda was often stymied by members like Senators Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin  who often acted with painfully obvious bad faith that Democratic leaders seemed curiously unwilling to punish.

As for Trump himself, so far his second-term Cabinet is set to include Stephen Miller as Deputy Chief of Staff, Kristi Noem as Head of Homeland Security, Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence and Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, to name a few.

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Additionally, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been named as co-leads of the still-to-come Department of Government Efficiency.

In short, its going to be a bleak few years at minimum for Trumps opponents, and likely a literal party for Team MAGA.

The post Trump to Take Office With Unified Government as GOP Secures Slim House Majority appeared first on TheWrap.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sees an opportunity to consolidate territorial gains in Ukraine and freeze the war in Moscows favor, with President-elect Donald Trump having vowed to end the war in 24 hours once he was elected  even if it means forcing the beleaguered democracy to cede land that has been occupied or illegally annexed.

American efforts to force Ukraine to capitulate to Russia could spur Kyiv to develop nuclear weapons, and spark a race by several erstwhile U.S. allies to acquire their own nuclear arsenals for self-defense and deterrence.

The Kremlin has begun a massive counteroffensive with nearly 50,000 Russian and North Korean soldiers in an effort to retake territory lost to Ukrainian forces in Kursk ahead of Trumps inauguration in January, military sources in Kyiv tell Rolling Stone. Meanwhile, Russian forces are making costly-but-steady progress in Ukraines east, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces are stretched to the breaking point.

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With Trump packing his prospective cabinet with MAGA loyalists and surrounding himself with radicals who parrot Russian talking points, how he hopes to end the war in Ukraine is unclear. Trumps policy decisions are often capricious, but he does have a history of making good on pledges to end American support for allies.

Trumps promise to end the war was a centerpiece of his foreign policy pitch during the 2024 election campaign.

Theyre dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And Ill have that done. Ill have that done in 24 hours, Trump told a town hall in May 2023, a stance he repeated often throughout the election cycle.

Despite his hyperbole  a U.S. president can hardly force either Ukraine to stop defending itself, or Russia to cease attacking it  Trump and his supporters say they can bring Putin to the negotiating table through economic and military coercion, warning that Ukraine may have to give up land to achieve peace.

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The barriers to starting meaningful negotiations are high. Putin is committed to disarming Ukraine and installing a Moscow-friendly puppet government in Kyiv, routinely thundering against the lies, deceit, and betrayal by the Western elites who have turned Ukraine into their colony, into a military outpost aimed at Russia.

The truth is on our side, Putin said in a video address on Sept. 30. All the goals we have set for ourselves will be achieved.

The U.S. and its allies have put in place wide-ranging economic sanctions against Russia, and the 54-country coalition supporting Kyiv has supplied more than $300 billion worth of aid to Ukraine since the war began in 2022, according to data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research organization. The vast bulk of direct military aid  weapons and munitions purchases or donations  comes from the United States.

Speculation that Trumps team could flood Ukraine with weapons to encourage Russia to reach a deal must reckon with the hard reality that even with expanded production, American arms factories are working at capacity, and Washington is already struggling to spend the funds allocated for aid before Joe Biden leaves office.

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Regardless of the shape of the promised diplomacy to come, Republicans are already signaling they have no appetite for continuing to support Ukraine with further military aid. With majorities in the House and Senate, it is increasingly unlikely that Congress will approve further funding for Ukraine.

The effects of a suspension of American aid are easy to predict. When Republicans in Congress blocked $61 billion earmarked for Ukraine earlier this year, Russia regained momentum as Ukrainian defenders ran short of ammunition, and drone and missile attacks proliferated against infrastructure and civilians as air defenses began to run dry.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, has vowed that his people are not ready to give our freedom to this fucking terrorist, Putin.

That public defiance, however, is tempered by the grim reality that Ukraines military is in some areas on the brink of collapse, its ranks depleted from savage attritional warfare against a numerically superior foe. While officials in France and Britain have mused about the possibility of sending ground troops to support the Ukrainians, there is at present no plan for any of Kyivs European allies to directly join the war.

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In an October meeting with Trump, Zelensky said he told the now president-elect that in the absence of a formal security alliance, his nations best option would be to develop its own nuclear arsenal. Although he later walked back the statement, saying Kyiv was not seeking nuclear weapons, Ukraine does possess a number of nuclear power plants capable of producing the materials necessary for a weapons program.

A report prepared for Ukraines Ministry of Defense leaked Thursday to the British newspaper The Times outlined how a rudimentary plutonium bomb similar to the one dropped on Nagasaki could be built within months.

You need to understand we face an existential challenge. If the Russians take Ukraine, millions of Ukrainians will be killed under occupation, Valentyn Badrak, director of the group that produced the paper, told The Times. There are millions of us who would rather face death than go to the gulags.

The policy turnaround in Ukraine between Biden and Trump is also being closely observed by other American allies. Hawks in some countries, like Poland, see a strategic imperative in the long-term acquisition of nukes, while others  like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia  are judged to be capable of acquiring nuclear weapons in a short timespan. All of these U.S. allies are signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty  which prevents the spread of nuclear weapons  and have previously felt no need to develop a weapons program for a variety of reasons, including the deterrent effect of Americas nuclear security umbrella.

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With America turning inward, that umbrella seems to offer less protection than it used to.

Mykola Bielieskov, a security researcher at Ukraines National Institute for Security Studies, asserts that allowing a nuclear power like Russia to seize the territory of a nonnuclear power like Ukraine with nuclear threats signals an end of nuclear nonproliferation. Period.

Since beginning its full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia has invaded and occupied nearly 20 percent of Ukraine, claiming the right to annex the oblasts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia  in addition to Crimea, which it seized in 2014. None of the annexations are recognized under international law.

This August, Ukraine conducted a surprise attack on the Russian border province of Kursk, seizing several towns and villages and eventually capturing an area of about 390 square miles  an expanse slightly smaller than the city of Los Angeles. Russia, meanwhile, holds about 45,000 square miles of Ukrainian territory.

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Although it is impossible to gather reliable data on the costs of the conflict while it is ongoing, independent estimates indicate the war may already have killed and wounded nearly 600,000 Russians and 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers  with casualties on both sides easily surpassing more than 1,000 a day across the line of contact. Ukrainian civilians have also paid a heavy price, with at least 30,000 killed or wounded and tens of thousands still missing in captured cities, or from incessant air attacks by Russian drones and missiles.

Russia says that it will spend $145 billion on defense spending  i.e., the Ukraine war  in 2025. Putin continues to throw hundreds of thousands of professional soldiers, volunteers, and conscripts into the fight, and steadily receives munitions and aid from Tehran and Pyongyang  including, most recently, about 10,000 North Korean soldiers now deployed to Kursk. If Moscow recaptures the Russian territory currently in Ukrainian hands, it will enhance Putins bargaining position, in the eventuality that he agrees to negotiations led by Trump.

That Trump himself intends to represent the U.S. in any summit is clear, and it is unlikely he will find voices advocating alternative strategies from within his own administration.

His choice for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, is a Fox News television personality and National Guard veteran  but has virtually no international or defense policy experience. While he has long been obsessed with the wokeness of the U.S. military, he has also criticized NATO as outdated and impotent, while saying the war in Ukraine feels like Putins gimme my shit back war.

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Maybe in a perfect world where he [Putin] had unlimited capabilities and he could crown himself king of Europe, he would, Hegseth said in a podcast released shortly before his nomination was announced. I think he probably knows enough to know hes probably not going much further than Ukraine. And I dont think hes a suicidal maniac whos hell-bent on bringing on Armageddon through nuclear warfare.

Hey, if Ukraine can defend itself against that, great, Hegseth said, adding that he didnt want American intervention driving deep into Europe and making Putin feel like he had to use nuclear weapons.

The appointment of Rep. Mike Waltz, a former Green Beret and staunch Trump supporter, as National Security Adviser offers added insight into the direction of Ukraine policy.

Waltz, with a reputation as an outspoken America First realist, was highly critical of Russias invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He has since become scathing about the Biden administrations support for Kyiv, saying Washington lacked clear strategy, and lambasting Biden and Harris too little, too late, incremental, slow-as-you-go strategy  with no end in sight, unlimited costs  that have backed us into a stalemate.

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Sen. Marco Rubio, Trumps pick for Secretary of State, is the closest nominee yet to a traditional GOP hawk. But he is also in alignment with ending support for Ukraine, saying earlier this month: At the end of the day, what we are funding here is a stalemate war, and it needs to be brought to a conclusion, or that country is going to be set back 100 years.

On the surface, criticisms about Bidens lack of strategy are indistinguishable from similar complaints by an angry coterie of Ukraine supporters, who have long lamented that the U.S. was slow-rolling aid and preventing Kyiv from striking targets inside Russia with American weapons.

Unlike those who disparage Biden for not being hawkish enough toward Russia, Trumps inner circle is filled with those who wish to cut off aid to Kyiv, and who feel no sympathy for Ukraines plight  with some exhibiting an almost pathological animosity toward the country as it fights for survival.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who was invited to join a call between Trump and Zelensky last week and is reportedly advising the former president on Cabinet picks, regularly shares memes and posts opinions that align with Russian propaganda.

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Last year, Musk mocked Zelenskys requests for military aid, sharing a photoshopped picture of the Ukrainian president with a throbbing vein in his forehead and the caption: When its been five minutes and you havent asked for a billion dollars in aid. The president-elects son, Donald Trump Jr., has also shared memes mocking Ukraine, last week reposting a video of an upset-looking Zelensky with the caption, POV: Youre 38 days from losing your allowance.

While it is tempting to write off such callous social media posts as trolling  easy enough for MAGA die-hards to be edgy when it isnt their brothers or sisters dying on the frontlines, or neighbors being killed by drones and missiles  such messages resonate with a wider audience that supports Trump.

Right-wing influencers like podcaster Joe Rogan and commentator David Sacks continue to rail about corruption and portray American support for Ukraine as not just a massive boondoggle, but an intentional deception by the deep state aimed at continuing war.

The idea that the American people have been suckered into supporting a misbegotten war is a potent force, particularly given U.S. misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Vietnam. The fundamental suspicion in the American character  as identified by the war correspondent Eric Sevareid in his 1946 memoir, Not So Wild a Dream  that involvement in foreign conflicts is a swindle has a long pedigree.

It was an American trait, not so much to avoid action, but to avoid the humiliation of being taken in, Sevareid wrote upon returning to a neutral, isolationist America in 1940, after covering the Fall of Paris and Battle of Britain. America was terribly afraid of losing its fancied status as the wise guy, of being a sucker.

Trumps most vocal supporters  and incoming members of his administration, like his pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard  take it as an article of faith that Russias invasion of Ukraine is Americas fault, and want nothing to do with aiding Ukraine. Whether this is out of partiality for Putin or hostility toward a war-mongering establishment responsible for decades of failed military interventions is immaterial.

The mandate is very specific  a desire to get out of stupid foreign wars, the libertarian commentator Dave Smith told Rogan in a podcast shortly after the election. Bring in the noninterventionists, man. No one wants to fight these stupid wars anymore.

That it is tens of thousands of Ukrainians, not American G.I.s, who are sacrificing their lives in the stupid defense of their country makes little difference to such skeptics. That billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine are primarily used to clear existing stocks of munitions and replenish them with new weapons produced by American arms factories merely reinforces the conspiratorial view: that the real purpose of all this activity is to engorge an insatiable military-industrial complex.

There are reasons why views like Smiths gain traction across swaths of the electorate both left and right, even as most Americans continue to support Ukraine. Americans are grappling with a cost-of-living crisis with a limited safety net, while the U.S. spends billions on military and foreign aid for reasons that are rarely clearly articulated outside wonkish policy circles. And in truth, it is difficult to identify resounding American foreign policy successes in the 21st century, whether under George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, or Joe Biden.

Certainly there are valid critiques to be made about the Biden administrations handling of the war and support for Ukraine. It closed the U.S. Embassy and evacuated American military forces training Ukrainians as Russian forces gathered on the border, and abandoned strategic ambiguity to openly declare the U.S. would not put boots on the ground to defend Ukraine, giving Putin a clear signal that the door was open on the eve of invasion.

But in the end, it was neither Biden, nor Zelensky, nor the deep state that chose to invade Ukraine. It was Putin.

And it is Putin with whom Trump must make a deal  all the while convincing Ukrainians that the dictator who has already broken multiple agreements will not do so again.

That Trump can be trusted to be an honest broker in negotiations will be undermined by the former presidents open admiration for the dictator. Trump admires Putin, as he does most autocrats, and regularly praises him  even as he disparages America, NATO, and Ukraine.

Trump has repeatedly shown enthusiasm for Putins decision to invade Ukraine, calling the dictators move smart.

They say, Trump said Putins smart. I mean, hes taking over a country for two dollars worth of sanctions. Id say thats pretty smart, Trump told a crowd at a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago the day after the invasion began. Hes taking over a country  really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, and just walking right in.

It is difficult to define a doctrine that can be attributed to the former president, but this reporter saw the impact of his decisions directly during the first Trump presidency, covering violent protests by Palestinians when Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017, spending months on the Korean Peninsula during the tense standoff that ended with Trump meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un at the DMZ in 2018, and standing on a hill watching Turkish artillery bombard the Syrian city of Ras al-Ayn when Trump pulled U.S. forces out of northern Syria, abandoning Americas Kurdish allies in 2019.

Mercurial, theatrical, and transactional are the words best used to describe Trumps foreign policy.

Years later, with Trump returning to the presidency, Israel is fighting a two-front war, in Gaza and Lebanon, while the U.S. provides cover against Iran, North Korean troops are in combat in Europe, and Russia is mired in a bloody war of conquest.

Outside America, friend and foe alike are awakening to the reality that America First  anti-interventionist, nationalist, nonaligned, and alliance-skeptical  policies will dominate the incoming Trump administration.

But history shows that whatever guideposts observers believe these principles offer will quickly be ignored amid conflicting priorities. Certainly it is difficult to make a case for military action against drug cartels in Mexico  as Trump has done  while claiming a mantle of noninterventionism. It is difficult to declare oneself anti-war while continuing to support Israel  as Trump says he will  as it bombards civilians in Gaza and Lebanon.

Still, every indication is that under Trump 2.0, Washington will forsake NATO, coddle Putin, and end American support for Ukraine  handing a significant victory to Moscow.

Americans want allies in Europe, not client states, and our generosity in Ukraine is coming to an end, Trumps vice president-elect, J.D. Vance, wrote in an opinion piece in the Financial Times, establishing himself as one of the more analytical voices in Trumps orbit  and one who is deeply skeptical about Ukraine. Europeans should regard the conclusion of the war there as an imperative. They must keep rebuilding their industrial and military capabilities. And Europe should consider how exactly it is going to live with Russia when the war in Ukraine is over.

Last Thursday, Trump is reported to have spoken to Putin  again with Musk listening over his shoulder  and issued a warning to Moscow not to escalate the war before he returned to office. The Kremlin denies that such a call ever happened. Certainly if it did, Putin did not take the warning to heart. In addition to the counter-offensive in Kursk, in the week since Trumps election there have been over 400 air alerts across Ukraine, with nearly 100 documented impacts.

One attack in Kryvyi Rih killed a mother, Olena Kulik, and her three children, the youngest of which was only two months old. Their names are added to the dozens of civilians who die every week in such strikes.

If the past is any indication, Trumps primary goal will be to host a grand summit to showcase himself as a dealmaker on the world stage. Ukraines defense, or concern for the wider consequences of allowing Putin to achieve victory there, will be an afterthought.

People are dying every day, one official in Kyiv, who asked to be identified only by Yulia as she has loved ones currently fighting on the frontlines, tells Rolling Stone. It seems like its all for nothing if Trump makes a deal without considering Ukraines interests.

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President-elect Donald Trumps pick for defense secretary Pete Hegseth has railed against women in combat, voiced support for troops accused and in some instances, convicted of war crimes, and advocated for the firing of the militarys most senior officers accused of supporting so-called woke policies.

Though he has pushed his positions primarily from a Fox News sofa and in best-selling books, Trumps decision to catapult Hegseth into the top Pentagon job means he is set to put his ideas into action and clash directly with current Pentagon leadership.

Among the generals that Hegseth has suggested should be fired: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. CQ Brown.

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The announcement of Hegseth  an Army National Guard veteran and Bronze Star recipient, and Fox News host  took many by surprise both inside the Pentagon and even among Trump allies. It was the first of several Cabinet picks made this week that Trump allies and adversaries alike described as shocking  all signs that the president-elect intends to rattle all branches of the federal government in his second term  including the military.

Hegseths unconventional background for such a pivotal national security role means he could face a difficult confirmation process in the Senate.

While Hegseth has commented on several hot-topic foreign policy issues, including competition with China and the war in Ukraine, he has largely fashioned himself as a crusader against what many on the right perceive as the politicization of the military.

A Princeton and Harvard grad, Hegseth was CEO of the conservative veterans advocacy organization, Concerned Veterans for America, beginning in 2006. He joined Fox News as a contributor in 2014 and was named co-host of Fox and Friends Weekend in 2017, according to the network.

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He has 20 years experience in the military, having served in the Army National Guard as an infantry officer from 2002 to 2021 and leaving service as a major, according to military service records. He served an 11-month combat tour in Iraq from September 2006 to July 2006 and an eight-month tour in Afghanistan that began in May 2011. He also worked as a guard at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from June 2004 to April 2005.

Hegseth has been awarded two Bronze Stars from his combat service.

But Trumps pick is also in for what could be a contentious confirmation fight as he faces criticism for lacking experience to lead a government department that includes millions of service members and civilians and a budget over $800 billion. Current and former defense officials, and several Republican senators, expressed surprise at Hegseths selection after he was announced on Tuesday.

He is the least qualified person in history of the job, said a former Pentagon official from the Trump administration.

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Many of Trumps Republican allies in Congress, however, have defended the president-elects pick, and some conservatives have argued that a defense secretary like Hegseth is needed to shake up the Defense Department.

There is a rot in the Pentagon that is deeply entrenched. It requires an unconventional pick, youthful energy, and a keen understanding of Congress and Washington to refocus itself back to the national defense of the United States, John Noonan, a former Armed Services Committee congressional aide, wrote in the conservative National Review.

Youve got to fire the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

In various podcasts and interviews, as well as his most recent book published earlier this year called, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, one of Hegseths biggest claims has been that senior leadership has allowed the politicization of an apolitical force.

Hegseth told radio host Hugh Hewitt in June that he believes roughly a third of the militarys most senior officers are actively complicit in the politicization of the US military. Speaking about his new book, Hegseth railed against what he described as woke, CRT, DEI things, gender stuff that has seeped into the military.

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I would say over a third are actively complicit, and then you have a lot of grumblers who are sort of going along, trying to resist the nonsense as much as they can, but theyre not fundamentally changing it, he said. As of 2023, there were roughly 800 general and flag officers in the US military.

Just last week, he echoed much of the same complaints in an interview on a podcast hosted by Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL, saying one of the first actions the Trump administration should take is to fire the Joint Chiefs chairman.

Well first of all youve got to fire the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and youve got to fire  I mean obviously youve got to bring in a new Secretary of Defense, but any general that was involved  general, admiral, whatever  that was involved in any of the DEI woke shit has got to go, Hegseth said.

Brown became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2023 after serving as the Air Force Chief of Staff  a position he was nominated for by then-President Trump. Brown, the first Black man to serve as the Air Force chief, has been a target of conservatives before due to perceptions that he is woke or political.

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Barring Trump taking any action against him, Brown is set to serve as the chairman until 2027.

Senior officers in the military, Hegseth also said in the podcast, are playing by all the wrong rules to cater to idealogues in Washington, DC.

And so theyll do any social justice, gender, climate, extremism crap because it gets them checked to the next level, he said.

Women shouldnt be in combat

On multiple occasions, Hegseth has lambasted the Obama-era decision to open up all combat jobs in the military to women, saying it has lowered the militarys standards, made units less effective, and overall made the military less lethal.

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Women shouldnt be in combat at all. Theyre life-givers, not life-takers. I know a lot of wonderful soldiers, female soldiers, who have served, who are great. But they shouldnt be in my infantry battalion, Hegseth said in an interview with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro in June.

Asked just last week if he doesnt like women in combat, Hegseth responded, No  because everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat means casualties or worse.

Women serve in combat jobs across the military services and have successfully completed some of the militarys most grueling training courses. More than 140 women have finished Army Ranger School, and in 2020, a woman joined the ranks of Army Special Forces for the first time after completing the Armys Special Forces Qualification Course. In 2021, a woman qualified to join Naval Special Warfare Command for the first time.

In a statement on Wednesday, the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Allison Jaslow  an Iraq War veteran herself  said that not only have women been in combat for some time, but many are tougher than many of their male counterparts.

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Need proof? Look at the women whove graduated from Ranger School, which is so grueling that around half of the men who enter it fail out, Jaslow said. Those women deserve a Secretary of Defense who is aware of that reality and also ensures that the culture in the military embraces that reality.

Hegseth has also railed against the Pentagons policies toward transgender troops. Trump in his first term sought to ban transgender service members  a move that was repealed by the Biden administration just days after taking office.

If youre medically dependent on drugs to maintain your gender or a particular balance of chemicals inside your body, youre by definition non-deployable  Something like that should be banned on day one in a Trump administration, he said on the Shawn Ryan Show last week.

A recovering neocon

Hegseth  who described himself as a recovering neocon after originally supporting the Iraq War  does not have a long record on policy questions like China and Ukraine, but hes disclosed some of his views through his Fox News show and other interviews.

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In one June interview on Fox, Hegseth bemoaned the state of the US militarys procurement system and the threat posed by Chinas growing military.

China is building a miliary built to defeat the United States. The United States right now has a military mostly focused on fighting the last war, Hegseth said on Fox and Friends. Our procurement system is antiquated, so we get weapons systems years after theyve already been surpassed by the next generation of technology.

Hegseth described Russias war in Ukraine as Russian President Vladimir Putins give me my sh*t back war in his interview with Ryan, saying that he thought the threat of a nuclear war was over-inflated. Hegseth cautioned against American intervention with Ukraine pushing Putin into nuclear war, but also expressed skepticism that Russias expansion aims would extend deeper into eastern Europe  something the current Pentagon and other foreign allies and partners have aggressively warned against since Russias 2022 invasion.

This idea that I hear all the time  if you dont stop him in Ukraine then hes going to go all the way to Poland, Hegseth said. I mean maybe in a perfect world where he had unlimited capabilities and he could crown himself King of Europe he would. I think he probably knows enough to know that  probably not going much further than Ukraine.

Campaign to pardon servicemen accused of warcrimes

CNN reported in 2019 that Hegseth, while working at Fox News, privately encouraged Trump to pardon some United States servicemen accused of war crimes. Trump went on to pardon two service members  Army Maj. Matthew Golsteyn and 1st Lt. Clint Lorance  and restore the rank of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who had been demoted.

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The controversial move went against the advice of then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and other senior military leaders, who had told Trump that a presidential pardon could potentially damage the integrity of the military judicial system. But defenders of Gallagher and other service members accused or convicted of war crimes have defended Trumps move as having the backs of military warfighters who are simply doing the dirty work others wont.

We sent them to do these really dangerous, dirty, difficult things that no one else would do, and then sort of like the line from A Few Good Men, and then we challenge the manner in which they do it, Hegseth said last week in the interview with Ryan, pointing specifically to the cases of Gallagher, Golsteyn, and Lorance.

Before Trumps pardons, Golsteyn was charged with the 2010 murder of an Afghan civilian, to which he pleaded not guilty, and Lorance was found guilty of second-degree murder for ordering his troops to fire on three men on a motorcycle in Afghanistan.

Jaslow harshly criticized Hegseths position on Wednesday, saying such advocacy on behalf of service members convicted of war crimes should be disqualifying.

The active lobbying to pardon convicted war criminals can and should disqualify Pete Hegseth from being Secretary of Defense over any other criticism that may be brought against him, and I hope the United States Senate understands that as they consider his nomination, she said.

In his conversation last week, Hegseth and Ryan discussed a Trump administration creating a team  of these guys that have been through what were talking about, that would know who to go after.

Hegseth seemed to agree, laughing and nodding as Ryan explained his idea, suggesting that the group also include Tim Parlatore, Gallaghers lawyer.

You have to start with people who can say, OK, I know who the political animals were in those places, because thats the challenge of a new administration, Hegseth said. Everyones going to jump up and down and say, I was this, or I was never really for that, because they want to preserve their careers. And you have to have somebody thats able to call balls and strikes.

CNNs Oren Liebermann contributed to this report.

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Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trumps pick for secretary of defense, has said that he believes women should not serve in combat and that he wants to see the military purged of woke officials who support diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Hegseth, 44, a Fox News host, has an extensive history of eyebrow-raising commentary, especially when it comes to military matters hed oversee should he be confirmed to join Trumps second Cabinet and become sixth in line to the presidency.

Hegseth has long maintained a close relationship with Trump. The pair have frequently appeared together in photographs on social media and on Foxs airwaves. Hegseth started at Fox News in 2014 as an on-air pundit, working his way up to co-hosting the weekend edition of Fox & Friends, the networks flagship morning show.

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Trump described Hegseth on Tuesday evening as tough, smart and a true believer in America First.

With Pete at the helm, Americas enemies are on notice  Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down, he said.

Neither Fox News nor Trumps transition team immediately responded to requests for comment about Hegseths on-air remarks about the military. Hegseth was an Army National Guard infantry officer, serving tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hegseth has already given clues about how hed like to remake the Defense Department, the largest and oldest U.S. government agency, with a budget of about $850 billion. Appearing last week on The Shawn Ryan Show podcast, Hegseth said that in Trumps second term, any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI, woke s--t has got to go.

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The first order of business, he said, would be to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr., who he said has pushed a woke agenda.

He also declared that female soldiers should not be allowed to fight on the front lines.

Im straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles, Hegseth said on the podcast. It hasnt made us more effective, hasnt made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.

The Pentagon first announced it would open all combat roles to women in 2015, a historic policy shift meant to reflect the changing attitudes of gender-based barriers within the military. Women are more than 17% of the militarys active duty force, according to the Defense Department, and they have proven themselves in training, excelled as fighter pilots in overseas combat and broken ground in top roles throughout the armed forces.

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Pentagon officials do not expect the next administration will change the policy and restrict women from serving in combat, but they are concerned that this could have a negative effect on women wanting to serve or those who are currently in uniform.

At a time when recruiting continues to be a challenge this will have a chilling effect on women wanting to join, one defense official said, in part because they will see that the most senior civilian in the Pentagon does not value their service.

Hegseth has also suggested the rules of war ought to be reworked to benefit the U.S. In early 2020, after Iran fired missiles at U.S. forces housed at Iraqi air bases in retaliation for the Trump-authorized strike killing top Iranian Gen. Qassam Soleimani, he said on the air that the U.S. military should be allowed to bomb Iranian historic sites.

I dont care about Iranian cultural sites, he said in one appearance. Two days later, he said, If were going to fight to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, this regime, then we need to rewrite the rules that are advantageous to us, adding, I dont want to hit cultural sites on purpose, but if youre using one to harbor your most dangerous weapons, then that should be on the target list, too.

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More to the point, Hegseth said last week on Ryans podcast, the rules of war are for winners.

Hegseth has also been vocal about defending members of the military in controversial cases.

He publicly lobbied Trump in 2019 to pardon three U.S. servicemen who were either convicted or accused of war crimes. Among them was Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL platoon leader who was acquitted by a military jury in the killing of a militant in Iraq in 2017 but was convicted on a related minor charge.

Theyre not war criminals; theyre warriors, Hegseth said on the air that year about the men he hoped Trump would pardon.

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Trump reversed the sentence against Gallagher that demoted his military rank, prompting the firing of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, who opposed the decision. Trump also pardoned two others in separate cases involving the killings of Afghans during war.

More recently, Hegseth defended Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran who is on trial in the chokehold death of a homeless Black man in a New York City subway last year, posting to X that Penny is an American hero and that the woke mob is trying to ruin him.

Early in his career at Fox, Hegseth went viral in 2015 for an on-air incident in which he overshot a target and struck a West Point drummer in the arm with an ax. The man, Master Sgt. Jeffrey Prosperie, sued Hegseth. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the case was discontinued in 2019 and that Prosperies lawyer wrote in a statement, The parties have resolved the matter and will make no further comment. Prosperie could not be reached for comment.

Hegseth is among a flurry of Cabinet-level picks by Trump, including longtime allies like Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to be attorney general, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida to be secretary of state and former House Democrat Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence.

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At least one of Hegseths cable news colleagues met his selection with some skepticism.

From silly diner interviews on Weekend Fox and Friends to Secretary of Defense? I never thought Id say Im stunned about any pick after the election but nominating Pete Hegseth for this incredibly important role? Yes hes a veteran  and? former Fox & Friends host Gretchen Carlson said Tuesday evening on X.

Hegseths Fox News colleagues, meanwhile, heaped praise upon him.

You dont realize how qualified he is until you really look at the resume, co-host Brian Kilmeade said Wednesday morning.

Hegseth, a decorated veteran, could face a challenging confirmation process. Republicans will hold a slim majority in the Senate, and his comments and status as a relative unknown may prove to be obstacles.

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Who? Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said on Capitol Hill when he was asked Tuesday evening about Trumps picking Hegseth. I dont know Pete. I just dont know anything about him.

Nevertheless, even skeptical Republican senators seem open to confirming him.

Im not going to be negative right now, because I want to learn more about his background and, you know, and his approach to this stuff, so hell go through the regular process, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Donald Trump has picked Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman with an anti-LGBTQ+ record, for director of national intelligence.

Trump announced his choice of Gabbard Wednesday. Her appointment is subject to Senate confirmation and is sure to set off a major confirmation fight, CNN notes. In the post, she would oversee all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies.

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I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength, said a statement from Trump. Tulsi will make us all proud! He claimed that she has broad support from both Republicans and Democrats, but its doubtful that she will have much Democratic backing.

Gabbard, a native of American Samoa, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2021, representing a Hawaii district. She was in the Hawaii House from 2002 to 2004 and on the Honolulu City Council from 2010 to 2012. She was a member of the Hawaii Army National Guard from 2003 to 2020 and is now in the Army Reserve, where she is a lieutenant colonel.

What is Gabbard's LGBTQ+ rights record?

In 2024, when she was a Hawaii state representative, she argued against a bill to establish civil unions for same-sex couples. To try to act as if there is a difference between civil unions and same-sex marriage is dishonest, cowardly and extremely disrespectful to the people of Hawaii, Gabbard testified. As Democrats, we should be representing the views of the people, not a small number of homosexual extremists.

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She also used the term homosexual extremists that year in describing opponents of her father, Mike Gabbard, who was running for Congress at the time. He did not win, but he has been a Hawaii state senator since 2006. He was once a Republican but switched to the Democratic Party in 2007. He has been a prominent anti-LGBTQ+ activist in Hawaii, at one point heading the Alliance for Traditional Marriage, which called homosexuality unhealthy, abnormal behavior that should not be promoted or accepted in society and endorsed conversion therapy. He worked with other anti-LGBTQ+ groups as well.

The Alliance for Traditional Marriage advocated for a 1998 Hawaii state constitutional amendment that gave the legislature power to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples. The amendment was adopted at a time when it looked like Hawaii would be the first state with marriage equality, as the result of a court case, but that didnt happen. The amendment didnt require the legislature to limit marriage rights, and in 2013 lawmakers passed a marriage equality bill. The amendment stayed on the books, however, until voters approved the repeal of it this year.

Tulsi Gabbard worked with her father in the Alliance for Traditional Marriage, but when she sought the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2020 election cycle, she tried to explain away her anti-LGBTQ+ past. I was raised in a very socially conservative home. My father is Catholic; he was a leading voice against gay marriage in Hawaii at that time, she said at a CNN town hall in 2019. Tulsi Gabbard is Hindu and was the first member of that faith to be elected to Congress.

At the time, she said her views had evolved, partly because of her experience in the military with LGBTQ+ colleagues in the Middle East, including when dont ask, dont tell was in force. I saw firsthand the negative impact of a government attempting to act as a moral arbiter for their people, dictating in the most personal ways how they must live their lives, she said at the CNN event. In 2019, she also posted a video to YouTube in which she said her anti-LGBTQ+ views were wrong and hurtful.

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In Congress, she had a pro-LGBTQ+ record, supporting the Equality Act and receiving high scores on the Human Rights Campaigns Congressional Scorecard, including a perfect 100 score in one term. In March 2020, she dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Joe Biden.

But in recent years, Gabbard has done another turnaround. In December 2020, as her tenure in Congress was winding down (she had not sought reelection), she introduced a bill to bar transgender girls from competing with cisgender ones in school sports. The bill went nowhere.

In April 2022, she posted a video message to social media saying Floridas recently approved dont say gay law, limiting school instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, didnt go far enough. I gotta tell you, I was shocked to learn that it only protects kids from kindergarten till third grade, she said. Third grade? What about 12th grade or not at all? She also decried educators who she claimed are indoctrinating woke sexual values in our schools. The law was eventually expanded to ban such instruction through 12th grade, but a legal settlement this year gutted it, establishing that certain discussions of the topics are permitted.

Why did Gabbard leave the Democratic Party?

In October 2022, she announced she was leaving the Democratic Party. The party is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoking anti-white racism, who actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, and who are hostile to people of faith and spirituality, she said in a video from her podcast, The Tulsi Gabbard Show.

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She said President Joe Bidens administration is targeting as terrorists parents who are vocally standing in opposition to radical curriculums and explicit sexual content being taught to their kids in public schools and is erasing women by supporting transgender people. She became a Republican this year, endorsed Trump for president, and helped prepare him for his only debate with Kamala Harris.

Also controversial is her coziness with some dictatorial foreign leaders. She criticized U.S. intervention in Syrias civil war and met with the nations despotic president, Bashar al-Assad, in 2017. She has further contended that Russias invasion of Ukraine could have been avoided in the U.S. and NATO had simply acknowledged Russias legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraines becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russias border, as she wrote on X in 2022.

The Democratic National Committee denounced her nomination as intelligence director. It is a danger to the American people to place a person who has coddled conspiracy theorists, defended Vladimir Putin, promoted Russian-backed disinformation campaigns, and cozied up to fringe hate groups in our nations top intelligence post, said a statement from DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd. Once again, Trumps cabinet picks are showing that when it comes to our national security and our leadership on the world stage, loyalty to him comes first  and America comes last.
President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday he will nominate Tulsi Gabbard, a former House Democrat who became a high-profile Trump supporter, to be director of national intelligence.

For over two decades, Tulsi has fought for our Country and Freedoms of all Americans, Trump said in a statement. I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength. Tulsi will make us all proud!

In her own statement Wednesday, Gabbard said she was grateful for the chance to "defend the safety, security and freedom of the American people" as a member of Trump's Cabinet.

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"I look forward to getting to work," she added.

Gabbard announced shortly before the 2022 midterm elections that she was leaving the Democratic Party, which she accused in a video on X of actively working to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution.

In August, she endorsed Trump, began working as a co-chair for his transition team and helped him prepare for his lone debate against Vice President Kamala Harris. Last month she formally announced she would join the Republican Party.

Gabbard ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential race and ended her campaign in March 2020 to endorse Joe Biden. She also served in the House from 2013 to 2021 and was vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 to 2016.

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Gabbard is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve who served in the Hawaii Army National Guard and was deployed to Iraq with a medical unit.

If she is confirmed, Gabbard will be the first person of color to be director of national intelligence, a position created by President George W. Bush. She would come to the job having never worked in the intelligence world or served on a congressional intelligence committee.

Gabbard has been widely criticized for her meeting in 2017 with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who had been accused of human rights violations and war crimes. She defended the meeting, telling MSNBC at the time, Weve got to be able to be willing to meet with whoever we need to if there is a possibility and a chance that that can help us take steps forward towards peace."

In 2019, Gabbard was one of the only House Democrats not to vote for Trump's first impeachment on charges that he abused power and obstructed Congress.

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Gabbard has also criticized the House Jan. 6 committee, arguing that the panel's first public hearing in June 2022 about its investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack was centered on achieving "political interests."

"They don't have their priorities straight. So much of this has been politicized. It's been sensationalized with very specific objectives that have nothing to do with upholding the Constitution," Gabbard said in an interview on Fox News in 2022.

After a New York jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts in his hush money trial this year, Gabbard said in video remarks posted online that the Biden-Harris administration was responsible for the "personal political persecution of Donald Trump."

In her public statements, Gabbard has often been at odds with the U.S. intelligence communitys assessments, including government analysts who see Russian President Vladimir Putin government as the primary purveyor of disinformation designed to sow divisions in the United States.

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Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer, said she was "appalled" by Gabbard's selection for the nation's top intelligence post.

"Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she traffics in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar-al Assad and Vladimir Putin," Spanberger, D-Va., wrote on X. "As a Member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security. My Republican colleagues with a backbone should speak out."

Spanberger appeared to be referring to accusations lodged against Gabbard in 2022 that she promoted Russian propaganda by repeating Moscows unfounded allegations that the United States had funded biological weapons labs across Ukraine.

Gabbard had posted a video on social media characterizing the purported labs as "undeniable fact." But Ukraines government, the U.S. government, news organizations and independent researchers have all said there is no evidence for the claim, which originated from Moscow.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Former President Donald Trump announced that hes planning to nominate ethically-embattled, far-right former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as his attorney general, tapping a figure with a checkered record on antisemitism for a role with key responsibilities in addressing discrimination and hate crimes.



The announcement that Trump sought to nominate Gaetz, a scandal-plagued figure widely disliked among his House Republican colleagues, was met with a skeptical reaction from some Senate Republicans  though Trump could try to force the confirmation through as a recess appointment without a Senate vote.



Gaetz, who resigned hours after the announcement, had been under investigation by the House Ethics committee for allegations including sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and corruption. An explosive final report was expected within days, according to news reports, but now may never see the light of day.



Earlier this year, Gaetz was one of the most vocal Republican critics of the House-passed Antisemitism Awareness Act, claiming that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliances working definition of antisemitism would label the Bible as antisemitic because, he said, the Bible is clear that Jews killed Jesus tapping into a long-recognized antisemitic trope.



This evening, I will vote AGAINST the ridiculous hate speech bill called the Antisemitism Awareness Act, Gaetz said before the vote. Antisemitism is wrong, but this legislation is written without regard for the Constitution, common sense, or even the common understanding of the meaning of words. The Gospel itself would meet the definition of antisemitism under the terms of this bill!



Gaetz faced condemnation in 2018 for inviting Holocaust denier and white nationalist Charles Johnson as his guest to the State of the Union address. He claimed to be unaware of Johnsons history. Even after being made aware of Johnsons past comments, Gaetz defended him, saying that Johnson is not a Holocaust denier, hes not a white supremacist.



In 2021, Gaetz defended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) for comments comparing COVID mitigation measures to the Holocaust.



[Greene] defends Israel and attacks Democrats. Media falsely slams [Greene] as antisemitic. Some Republicans take the bait, sadly, Gaetz said.



Gaetz described the Anti-Defamation League as racist in 2021 for calling for the firing of Fox News host Tucker Carlson for promoting the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. He further said that Carlson is CORRECT about Replacement Theory.



In 2019, Gaetz hired a former White House speechwriter who was fired from the White House for attending a conference popular among white nationalists. Another Gaetz staffer made comments online stating, if you dont defend child pornographers, we are only one step away from naziism and brushed off the doxxing of Jewish columnist Bethany Mandel by the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer. The staffer also said that slavery was voluntary and slaves owe us reparations.



Gaetz also suggested George Sorosmay be responsible for organizing migrant caravans to the United States. He got into a heated exchange with an expert on Jewish studies at a House hearing last year about whether such rhetoric is antisemitic.



And he echoed a slogan used by the far-right Proud Boys militia group earlier this year.



Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, in a post on X Wednesday, spoke out against Gaetzs expected nomination: Rep. Matt Gaetz has a long history of trafficking in antisemitism  from explaining his vote against the bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act by invoking the centuries-old trope that Jews killed Jesus to defending the Great Replacement Theory and inviting a Holocaust denier as his 2018 State of the Union guest. He should not be appointed to any high office, much less one overseeing the impartial execution of our nations laws.



The American Jewish Committee also urged Trump to withdraw the nomination, and said the Senate has a responsibility to reject it.



At a time of historic levels of antisemitism, we need someone at the helm of the Department of Justice who will tackle antisemitism  not peddle in it, the AJC said in a statement. Matt Gaetzs history of problematic remarks  including perpetuating antisemitic conspiracy theories  should be disqualifying for anyone seeking to be Americas top law enforcement officer. 



The nonpartisan AJC and ADL rarely weigh in on presidential nominations, especially in such strident terms.



Abe Foxman, the former national director of the ADL, said the pick doesnt bode well for democracy and constitutes an assault on rule of law.



Several Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Gaetz will undergo confirmation hearings, predicted that the Florida lawmaker would face a rough path to winning the Attorney General job.



Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said, I have very few skills, vote counting is one, and I think hes got a lot of work to get 50. We got 53 members, not a Democrat thats going to vote for him. Presumably the folks that have put them forward have gamed that out, but Im sure itll make for a popcorn eating confirmation.



Mr. Gaetz and I have jousted on certain issues between the House and the Senate. That happens. I havent looked at his full body of work and his credentials here, Ill give him an honest look, Tillis added. Everybodys going to jump to the headlines and the gaming out of the nominees. I think we owe it to them to let them go through the vetting process, let them get through the committee hearing and if the Trump transition folks have done their homework, theyve already addressed these concerns. Otherwise, well see it come out once we get through.



Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that senators will do our job here. We have a constitutional role. Hell be vetted and come before the Judiciary Committee, and I assume well have some questions for him.



Asked about the sexual misconduct claims against him being investigated by the House Ethics Committee, Cornyn replied: Well, that might come up.



Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that, The confirmation hearing will be important. Hell have some tough questions to answer. Im inclined to support presidential cabinet picks, Ive done it for both sides, and Ill let you know how it goes.



Other Senate Republicans said theyre skeptical of the nomination.



Asked if Gaetz was a serious candidate, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said, not as far as Im concerned.



Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said she was shocked at the nomination, adding that she expected Gaetz would be forced to answer the many, many questions lawmakers have about his record if, in fact, the nomination goes forward.



Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said that hes got his work cut out for him.



Some Republicans said they planned to support Gaetz, while others declined to reveal what they were thinking about the surprising nomination.



Were gonna walk through the process and everything, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), a co-chair of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, said when asked if he had any concerns about Gaetzs nomination.



Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), who has previously accused Gaetz of sleeping with an underage girl and showing pornographic material to other lawmakers on the House floor, defended Trumps decision to nominate the Florida lawmaker.



Theres no question that weve had our differences, theyve been very public about it. I completely trust President Trumps decision making on this one, but at the same time hes got to come to the Senate and sell himself, Mullin said during a CNN appearance. There are a lot of questions that are gonna be out there. Hes got to answer those questions, and hopefully hes able to answer the questions right. If he can, well go through the confirmation process.



Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), a Trump ally, said on Fox News that those Republicans considering opposing Gaetz would face retribution from Trump and his allies. Were gonna try to get you out of the Senate if you try to do that, the Alabama senator said.



Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) deflected when asked about Gaetz, only responding, I look forward to getting to President Trumps nominees after we hear their plans for the department.



Some of Gaetzs House Republican colleagues openlymocked the nomination.



The Florida congressman was also one of just a few dozen House Republicans who voted against supplemental aid to Israel and one of a small number of Republicans who was not an original cosponsor of a resolution standing with Israel after Oct. 7, though he joined as a co-sponsor after it was first introduced.



In Congress, Gaetz has also been a vocal opponent of diversity programs in the federal government.



Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the liberal-leaning Jewish Council for Public Affairs, also expressed concerns about Gaetzs record.



DOJ is responsible for protecting the fundamental rights of Americans, including prosecuting violent extremism and hate crimes. Its deeply concerning that Rep. Gaetz has repeatedly evoked and even defended such extremism, including the Great Replacement that fueled the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in U.S. history, Spitalnick told JI. If he is to serve as Attorney General, he should unequivocally make clear he rejects all forms of hate and bigotry.



This story was updated at 4:30 a.m. ET to include Matt Gaetzs resignation








On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump made his victorious return to the White House and shook hands with President Joe Biden.

A short time later, Trump nominated Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida as attorney general. No, thats not a headline from The Onion, though its bound to be fuel for ongoing skits on Saturday Night Live. Seriously. Who talked Trump out of nominating the late, great Hannibal Lecter? But wait, theres more: Former Democratic congresswoman (and 2020 presidential candidate) Tulsi Gabbard has been nominated as director of national intelligence  making her, perhaps, the biggest oxymoron of the many morons being nominated by Trump to fill out his new administration.

We are deep in darkness, before a four-year storm that, according to those Trump has already appointed to his staff, will be replete with violence against immigrants, overwhelming tariffs, profuse and criminal lies, the further fracturing of our country, a desecration of the Constitution and many other forms of villainy  all of which will be conveniently blamed on Joe Biden and the Democrats in an unending stream of calumnious statements backed up by Elon Musk on his de facto state media operation.

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Meanwhile, as the Republicans are talking about eating cats and dogs, the Democrats are eating their own.

Look at the withering commentary from Bernie Sanders: Its not just Kamala, he said. Its a Democratic Party which increasingly has become a party of identity politics, rather than understanding that the vast majority of people in this country are working class. This trend of workers leaving the Democratic Party started with whites, and it has accelerated to Latinos and Blacks.

Many Democrats now say their party went too far left and are declaring that woke is broke.

Jon Stewart called that crap, at least to some extent, arguing that Democrats by and large campaigned like old-style Republicans. They certainly brought out disaffected members of the GOP to campaign for Kamala Harris. In 2016, Hillary Clinton, while accepting the nomination in Philadelphia, told the Democratic convention that if you had supported the party of Reagan, you were with the Democrats. So Stewart has a point. So does Sanders.

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Meanwhile, the New York Times, in a news article  I use that term very lightly and broadly  gave us their opinion about a depressed and demoralized Democratic Party, which has begun a painful slog into a largely powerless future.

Theres nothing like opinion parading as facts to make you happy. Want a salient fact thats often overlooked? We dont vote. As important as this election was, about half of all registered voters didnt show up to the polls. A statistical minority of voters consistently elect our presidents.

Do we talk about that in the press? Not enough.

Instead, we talk out of our collective posteriors. Take, for example, Jeffrey Toobin of CNN. Trump announced the creation of something he called the Department of Government Efficiency on Tuesday, and said it would be run by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Let us put aside for a moment that Trump assigned two people to head up a department concentrating on efficiency.

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Toobin said live, on CNN, that the pair would have limited success because there is a very boring and very important law called the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs how the government moves along in terms of changing how it works. He predicted that Musk and Ramaswamy will become bored and quit their advisory roles because of the massive red tape involved in changing the government.

He might be right about that. But why am I listening to Toobin say anything? What he did on a video conference call should have been the end of his career. Hes an unserious man trying to comment on serious issues. Maybe hes perfect for the Trumpian times in which we live. But, more importantly, hes seriously mistaken about how bad things can get.

Musk responded to his new job by posting on X that the merch will be great. Yes, good government is all about the merch.

Understand, after the sound and fury, what were really seeing here: Trump placing people in power who will be subservient to him, even more so than in 2016. The reason is clear.

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The Supreme Court gave Trump the right to take any official action with impunity. If Trump decides to strike, and he will, SCOTUS will back him up. All Musk and Ramaswamy have to do is say, Hey boss, we think you should cut ... [fill in the blank]. Trump takes that official action and the Supreme Court backs him up. End of story. He has unlimited immunity for anything that falls under that enormous umbrella.

Of course, Toobin is part of a much bigger problem thats ongoing in the press. Until Ronald Reagan threw out the fairness doctrine and all restrictions on media ownership (which was followed by similar actions from every succeeding president), people mostly trusted their newspapers, along with radio and TV news.

Cause and effect.

We are long overdue for a reintroduction of the guidelines that offered some degree of trust in the fourth estate.

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Calling for that type of regulation would actually support free speech, destroy media monopolies and provide us with a fertile ground of vetted facts that could lead to cogent, meaningful discussion on issues of public debate. Allowing social media platforms to publish disinformation, often anonymously, promotes dishonesty and maximizes profits for those platforms at the expense of the audience they exploit. Worse yet, it poisons the well of information from which we all drink.

Going forward, if you want reliable information you have to reintroduce the regulations that stress facts over profits. These regulations must include social media. And no, that is not censorship.

Its a promotion of facts over dangerous propaganda. Once upon a time, we all understood this. There is a lot of nuance on this issue. You cant shout fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire. Libel and slander are not protected speech, but satire most certainly is. Courts of law decide the areas of disagreement. Anti-SLAPP laws protect small and independent publishers against corporate bullies. But please: Keep on tweeting out simplistic, misleading or downright false accusations in anonymity. Thats so helpful in solving difficult and important problems  by further dividing the electorate at public expense, while the rich keep getting richer.

But the way things are right now, do not expect the members of the press to stand up in great numbers against Trump. Their bread is buttered by publicly fellating him and his minions whenever possible.

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Those who do stand up to him have the deck stacked against them in this corporate environment. Some journalists have wondered whether our lives could be in danger if we push back against Trump.

Thats a complicated question too, and the answer demands nuance.

I covered the first Trump administration, all four years of it. I had to defeat him three times in federal court to keep my press pass, which his administration tried to take away. That was the greatest threat we faced from Trump, honestly: kicking us out of the White House.

He routinely called us fake news and insulted us. But I never feared for my life from Trump or his staff, some of whom were highly professional and tried against all odds to get information to the press corps  unlike the Biden administration, which routinely ignored us and paid a high price for doing so.

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It was Trumps supporters, often angry and stirred up by him, who were dangerous to our physical well-being. Some of us, through our news organizations, had to foot the bill for private security at various Trump rallies.

Going forward, I expect it to get a lot more strident this time around.

With the Supreme Court backing him, Trump will ban reporters the administration deems fake news or enemies of the people. He might yank press passes with impunity. He will manage the press personally, and try to make sure he gets exactly the reporting he wants.

I believe he will kneecap the White House Correspondents Association, by ignoring our recommendations and requests and possibly taking over assignment of seats in the Brady Briefing Room  traditionally the province of the WHCA.

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Interactions with the press will be tightly controlled and will give the appearance Trump wants to maintain  being the man of the people  while limiting his interactions with journalists to those of whom he approves. Thats what he did most recently on the campaign trail.

I can also envision that his antagonism toward reporters might extend to a variety of criminal, civil and financial investigations.

But honestly, no, I do not see physical risk from Trump in the offing. He wont need to do that.

If that happens, it will come from his supporters.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Trump has named Taylor Budowich as a deputy chief of staff in charge of communications and personnel. Budowich played a significant role in the campaign and in Trumps leadership PAC, Save America, and also served as CEO of the super PAC thats actually called MAGA Inc.

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Budowich has no formal training or experience in communications, but has effectively communicated and amplified Trumps frequent lies. In June 2022, as the House select committee on the Jan. 6 insurrection began holding public hearings, Budowich told Insider: The entire MAGA movement is united against this illegitimate committee and will work to ensure President Trump is defended against yet another Democrat show trial.

The next month, as the Center for Media and Democracy reports, when committee co-chair Liz Cheney announced that Trump had attempted to contact an unnamed witness who was set to testify, Budowich shot back by tweet: The media has become pawns of the Unselect Committee. Liz Cheney continues to traffic in innuendos and lies that go unchallenged, unconfirmed, but repeated as fact because the narrative is more important than the truth.

What a joy its going to be trying to decipher whatever is said by whoever becomes Trumps press secretary, with Budowich in charge behind the scenes. Dont expect any enlightenment from those of us in the press room. Budowich and his staff will act as blunt-force trauma, applied to reporters.

Meanwhile, Trumps choices just keep getting worse, and weirder. He picked Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host, for defense secretary. Thats going to go over great with the Joint Chiefs. It is already being reported that Hegseth is undoubtedly the least qualified nominee for SecDef in American history. Was Carrot Top not available?

Others were quoted as saying, literally, Who the f**k is this guy? Well, he looks like a poor mans Josh Brolin  with more makeup.

Indeed. Who the f**k is he  and who are we? And we are all together.

Remember this: Trump is a client of Elon Musk. Musk is a client of Vladimir Putin. One Putin ally has said publicly that Trump has obligations to those who brought him into power.

As the Democrats try to climb over a continually lower bar with no success, the rest of us should remember that.

Our democracy is dead.

Long live our democracy.
President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants to close the U.S. Department of Education  something hes repeated many times on the campaign trail, along with promises of school choice.

Im going to move education back to the states, and were going to do it fast, Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania in October.

What would that mean for the state of Florida?

The education department not only funds programs for the most vulnerable children in Florida, it also funds Pell grants (aid that helps students go to college) and manages state compliance with federal law, like Title IX.

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Critics of Trump's plan say leaving it to the states would push money into the states Family Empowerment Scholarships, one of Gov. Ron DeSantis major education initiatives, and allow for the discrimination of LGBTQ students.

But some of Floridas top leadership in Washington agree with Trump.

It should be disbanded. We dont need a federal Department of Education, Sen. Rick Scott said earlier this week.

And Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. hasn't weighed in on the idea specifically, but he's no fan of the department.

This week, he posted on X, in response to a proposed federal education data collection rule change, "I look forward to helping the @realDonaldTrump administration put an end to this bureaucratic and divisive nonsense."

I look forward to helping the @realdonaldtrump administration put an end to this bureaucratic and divisive nonsense. https://t.co/Hte357BE8h  Manny Diaz Jr. (@CommMannyDiazJr) November 13, 2024

About 1 of every 5 dollars for education is from federal funds

Florida schools receive funding from local, state and federal funds. Those federal funds make up about 18%, according to the Florida Policy Institute (FPI), a nonprofit think tank in the state. For this year, thats about $10.5 billion, according to Norin Dollard, a senior policy analyst with FPI.

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It takes all three levels of government to make sure that the maximum resources are available to students to support their learning, Dollard said.

While the department funnels much of the federal governments funds to the states, other agencies also directly fund state programs, like the U.S. Department of Labor, the Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

For example, Leon County Schools received $19.6 million federal funds for the National School Lunch program from the USDA.

Federal funds that flow through the department support populations of children most at-risk for not graduating high school in Florida, Dollard said.

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English language learners, Title I schools, which serve a higher concentration of students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and students with disabilities depend on federal funding to the state for programs.

This year, the feds gave Florida over $830 million for special education programs and over $1 billion was earmarked for Education for the Disadvantaged, according to data from the feds.

Critics worry money will be siphoned to pay for private school vouchers

In recent years, under the guidance of DeSantis, the legislature has expanded vouchers for school choice, a move that worries Andrew Spar, the head of Floridas teachers union, because he believes if left to state leadership, the most vulnerable children would be affected if Trump sent Education Department money directly to the states.

With no cap on family income, any student in Florida can qualify for an approximately $8,000 voucher to attend the private school of their choice on state dollars with the Family Empowerment Scholarship, providing the private school accepts them.

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Those are dollars coming out of public schools, said Spar, president of the Florida Education Association.

According to FPI, the price of these vouchers is growing: $2.8 billion was allocated to vouchers this year, compared to $2.1 billion in 2023-2024 and $1.4 in 2022-2023.

The U.S. Department of Education is really a gatekeeper, and leaving it up to DeSantis would put special needs students and students in poverty at risk, said Spar, who believes those buckets of money could be spent on other initiatives that align with what the governor wants.

Some of the funds the state receives, however, coincide with the governors educational agenda.

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The state receives over $82 million for career and technical education (CTE) state grants. In 2019, DeSantis set a goal to make Florida first in the country for workforce education by 2030, and since then has allocated billions of dollars for CTE.

In Florida, February is recognized as career and technical education month. This strategic commitment equips the next generation for success, fostering a thriving economy built on a highly skilled and educated workforce, Diaz said in a press release this year.

More than 100 people gathered in front of the Westcott Building on Florida State University's campus to protest the DeSantis administration's "attack" on the LGBTQ+ and Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023.

Will Title IX no longer include transgender students?

The department is also in charge of making sure states comply with federal law, like Title IX, a civil-rights law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity that receives federal funding.

Florida, however, has fought the federal government's new interpretation of the civil-rights law because of its expansion of protections based on gender identity. Some Florida lawmakers are worried that Trump will embolden DeSantis' attacked on the trans and LGBTQ community.

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In recent years, Florida Republicans have pushed for laws that criminalize trans people for using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity and have restricted health care for trans people.

In April, Diaz, at DeSantis' direction, warned superintendents and school districts to hold off on putting any changes to Title IX into practice. Florida joined other states, including Louisiana and Oklahoma, in opposing the feds' new regulations. In August, a judge granted the state an injunction against the new rules.

DeSantis called the new regulations a "radical rewrite" and said the rule would "impose gender ideology on K-12 schools all across the country."

In one of his earliest appearances on the campaign trail, Trump echoed DeSantis efforts and has vowed to roll back protections for transgender students.

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In Iowa in 2023, Trump said he would cut federal funding for schools teaching "critical race theory," "transgender insanity" or "any other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children."

"We're seeing a complete reinterpretation of these programs, not just to discriminate against LGBTQ-plus students, but also to take away protections against girls," said state Rep. Anna V. Eskamani, D-Orlando.

"At least the Biden administration had some guardrails, and I'm concerned those will be replaced with hostile individuals who will weaponize their position to discriminate against LGBTQ people across the country," she said.

Ana Goni-Lessan is the State Watchdog Reporter for USA TODAY - Florida and can be reached at AGoniLessan@tallahassee.com.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: If Trump closes the Department of Education, what happens in Florida?
A version of this story appeared in CNNs What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

President-elect Donald Trumps Cabinet picks keep getting more outlandish, which may be part of the point.

Attorney general? Rep. Matt Gaetz, the right-wing provocateur who is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for allegations of sexual misconduct.

Secretary of defense? Pete Hegseth, a weekend Fox News host who served in the Army National Guard.

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Director of national intelligence? Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman who has expressed sympathy for Russia.

Some of them are designed to shake up Washington, said Scott Jennings, a Republican and senior CNN political commentator who appeared on CNN after the surprising pick of Gaetz. Other Trump choices, like Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state, are more conventional.

Jennings said no one should underestimate Trumps ability to push some of these nominees through the Senate now that hes claiming a mandate after winning the presidential election.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat who served with Gaetz in both the Florida legislature and US House, said there should be no surprise that Trump would pick Gaetz, who has been one of Trumps most effective advocates in Congress.

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Gaetz is known for scorched-earth tactics in the House and was instrumental in ousting then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year for negotiating with Democrats. He might be controversial enough to challenge even Trumps ability to get an attorney general confirmed.

Matt Gaetz knows exactly what to do with the attorney generals office, Moskowitz said, noting that Gaetz is loyal to Trump and competent. He added that Gaetz will be the most powerful attorney general in American history.

Trump has previously expressed a desire to drastically change both the national security apparatus and the Department of Justice, which he still blames for the investigation into Russian election meddling in the 2016 election.

Rep. Matt Gaetz speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 17. - Alex Wong/Getty Images

Trump wants power to get around Senate confirmations

Trump already demanded a fast track around the Senate confirmation process when he encouraged Republicans to back the concept of recess appointments for his picks.

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It would be a major evolution for Republican senators to back such appointments, which can be made when the Senate is out of session. Ten years ago, Senate Republicans took the Obama administration to the US Supreme Court over this issue, winning a unanimous ruling and guaranteeing their constitutional ability to have input on who runs the US government.

Back then, Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who is now a major Trump ally, called President Barack Obamas attempt to use a recess appointment to make the National Labor Relations Board function an attempt to circumvent Congress and ignore the Constitution in order to achieve its controversial political agenda.

Now its a bit awkward that some Senate Republicans want to hand Trump the power to make recess appointments without their input after he demanded it over the weekend.

Recess appointments are temporary hirings that can last a year or two. The goal is speed since the clock is already ticking on Trumps coming presidency.

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We know that President Trump will only have four years to reshape our federal government, Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, told Fox Business.

Four years may be optimistic. Each of the last three presidents  Obama, Trump and Joe Biden  achieved their major legislative wins in the first two years of their presidency before losing control of the House as part of a now-normal backlash against presidents in power.

Some Republicans were surprised at Trumps defense pick

Republicans are poised to have a 53-47 seat majority in the Senate if they win the race in Pennsylvania, where the Republican candidate David McCormick holds a slim lead. That should give them enough votes to push through any Trump appointment, although some Republican senators were scratching their heads at the Hegseth pick.

Wow, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

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Who? asked Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, according to NBC.

Interesting, said Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Others were supportive. Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma praised Hegseth for not being politically correct.

The requirement is that President Trump gets to nominate the individual and the Senate gets to confirm them. I trust President Trumps decision, Mullin told CNNs Jake Tapper on Wednesday.

Mullin was less convinced by the Gaetz pick.

Hes got to come to the Senate and sell himself, Mullin said. Theres a lot of questions out there.

Grasping for power

If theres a theme to this new Trump administration in the making, its that the president-elect wants to quickly go big, rewriting some of the rules in Washington, seizing more power for the president to get around Congress and to mold the federal bureaucracy.

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Daniel Farber is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and author of a book on presidential power. He told me in an email that there has been a long-term trend of presidents trying to consolidate power in the executive branch.

One thing that has kept this from going to extremes is that most presidents understand that they need competent, experienced staff across the government to carry out their programs effectively. I dont think Trump has that view, he said.

Reports of a special committee to reassess the loyalty of generals is outside the norm and could place Trump-approved generals at the Pentagon.

Then theres the selection of Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, cross-branded with Musks favorite cryptocurrency, DOGE.

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Many are wondering where these two businessmen will find $2 trillion to cut from the sprawling federal government. Trump promised they would figure out how to dismantle the federal bureaucracy, but they dont currently have any official power or mandate from Congress. Musk said there would be a suggestion box online and they also could show how government money is wasted.

Elon Musk joins Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on October 5. - Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

There are ways that Trump could give Musk and Ramaswamy official power or even officially hire them without forcing Musk to divest from Tesla and SpaceX  but its telling that Trump does not appear to be pursuing those options, according to Norm Eisen, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution who also served as ethics czar in the Obama administration.

Its the beginning of the end for them, Eisen predicted of their relationship with Trump, pointing to the many recommendations of government commissions that have long since been forgotten without any action. Trump doesnt really want to share with strong personalities who might be rivals.

Meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine skeptic who endorsed Trump, wants broad latitude over US health policy but apparently may not be given a Cabinet role.

Now in power, Thune notes constitutional role

On recess appointments, there are some indications that top Senate Republicans wont want to so easily give away their power to have input on appointments.

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All of the candidates vying to be the Republican Senate majority leader when Republicans take the majority in January expressed some openness to the idea of recess appointments, including the ultimate winner, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.

But when he spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill after winning the position Wednesday, Thune pointed out that the Senate has an advise and consent role in the Constitution.

While Thune did not reject the idea of recess appointments, he was clear that senators arent giving anything up quite yet.

We want to make sure our committees have confirmation hearings like they typically do, he said, although he warned Democrats against gumming up the process too much, or Senate Republicans will explore all options.

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Thune also pledged that Republicans will respect the legislative filibuster, the custom by which a minority of senators can squash most legislation.

The Senate, as you know, is by the founders design, a place where the minority has a voice in our process, he said.

Anyone who can remember all the way back to 2017  the first year of Trumps first term, when Republicans held the House, Senate and White House like they will next year  will recall that Trump routinely groused about the filibuster back then as an impediment to getting legislation passed.

CNN projected Wednesday that Republicans will hold a majority in the House, but it is sure to be much smaller than the majority Republicans held the first time Trump governed. That means it will be more difficult to pass legislation with only Republicans.

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Elon Musk. Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

Donald Trump has tasked Elon Musk with co-leading a new Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk is known for his intense work ethic and willingness to make drastic cuts to save costs.

Musk has slept on Tesla's factory floor and told SpaceX workers to walk out of unnecessary meetings.

President-elect Donald Trump tapped Elon Musk to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency to reduce government spending along with the businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

At companies such as X, Tesla, and SpaceX, Musk is known for modeling an intense work ethic and making drastic workforce reductions to lower costs. One longtime Tesla executive who quit in August wrote on LinkedIn that working there was "extraordinary" but "not for the faint of heart."

Here's how Musk has managed efficiency in his own business ventures.

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Musk, X, Tesla, and SpaceX didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

When Musk took over Twitter in 2022, he ended the company's remote-work policy and free office lunches.

The X office in San Francisco. JULIE JAMMOT/AFP via Getty Images

Weeks after acquiring Twitter, which he later rebranded as X, Musk sent an email at about 2:30 a.m. in November 2022 announcing the end of remote work at the company, writing that "the road ahead is arduous and will require intense work to succeed."

Musk also required employees to start paying for office lunches that had previously been free, was reported to have told them to expect 80-hour workweeks, and urged them to approach their jobs with "a maniacal sense of urgency."

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Musk cut about 50% of Twitter's staff and set an expectation for those who remained to "work 24/7."

Musk rebranded Twitter as X. Matt Cardy/Getty Images

In November 2022, Musk laid off about half of Twitter's roughly 7,500 employees.

Business Insider previously reported that some laid-off employees were asked to return to work the day after the sweeping cuts, but some refused.

In a midnight email obtained by BI, Musk issued an ultimatum for those who remained: commit to an "extremely hardcore" work schedule with "long hours at a high intensity" or get fired and receive three months of severance.

When Twitter employees criticized Musk's leadership on the online platform and in internal Slack messages, Musk fired them.

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Representatives for Twitter didn't respond to a previous request for comment.

Tesla's employee handbook instructs workers to do whatever is necessary to maximize their performance, even contacting Musk directly.

Musk at a Tesla event. South China Morning Post

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Tesla's "Anti-Handbook Handbook" details the high bar the company sets for employees, instructing them to be self-reliant and do everything they can to solve problems, even if it means forgoing office protocol or reaching out to Musk directly.

"Your #1 job  everyone's #1 job  is making this company a success," the handbook says. "If you see opportunities to improve the way we do things, speak up even if these are outside your area of responsibility. You have a personal stake in Tesla's success so make suggestions and share your ideas. Your good ideas mean nothing if you keep them to yourself."

Musk also sent a memo in 2018 advising Tesla employees to "walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren't adding value," BI previously reported.

Musk has been known to sleep on Tesla's factory floor and said he once lived at Tesla's factories for "three years straight" to inspire his workers.

Musk at a Tesla factory. Patrick Pleul/POOL/AFP

In 2018, Musk said he spent nights sleeping on a couch and the floor at Tesla factories while the company ramped up production on the Model 3 sedan.

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"The reason I slept on the floor was not because I couldn't go across the road and be at a hotel," he told Bloomberg. "It was because I wanted my circumstances to be worse than anyone else at the company. Whenever they felt pain, I wanted mine to be worse."

At the 2022 Annual Baron Investment Conference, Musk said he lived at Tesla factories in California and Nevada "for three years straight" to inspire employees to "give it their all" and show them he was working just as hard.

In April, Tesla laid off 10% of its workforce as Musk said the company needed to be "absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction."

A Tesla showroom. VIEW Press/Corbis via Getty Images

In a late-night companywide email announcing the layoffs, Musk also called for the resignation of any Tesla executive with more than three direct reports who "don't obviously pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test."

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The staff reductions occurred after Tesla reported an 8.7% year-over-year revenue drop.

SpaceX's reusable Starship rocket aims to make rocket launches cheaper and more efficient.

SpaceX's Starship rocket. PATRICK T. FALLON/Getty Images

As part of Musk's future goal of colonizing Mars, SpaceX is working to build the first fully reusable rocket system, which could make rocket launches 10 times cheaper.

In October, during the Starship rocket's fifth test flight, the Super Heavy booster successfully flew back to the launch site, and the Starship vehicle made a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean  a huge step toward reducing the cost of space travel.

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Former SpaceX employees have also described a work environment where efficiency reigns supreme.

Musk encouraged employees to walk out of inefficient meetings. Photo by Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images

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In 2019, Musk laid off 10% of SpaceX employees in order to "become a leaner company," a SpaceX spokesperson previously told BI.

In an as-told-to essay for BI, Vincent Peters, a former SpaceX employee, described the work culture as "ruthlessly efficient," with people encouraged to walk out of meetings if they weren't adding anything or gaining value from them.

"In one instance, a government customer came in with a 50-slide deck," Peters said. "Six slides into the presentation, 75% of the room had walked out. I had to tell him that if he didn't get to the point, I'd be the only person left in the room  and only because I had to walk him out. He skipped ahead to his last five slides. That kind of environment makes you much more efficient."

Jim Cantrell, who worked as SpaceX's vice president of business development in the early 2000s, said Musk could be "vicious."

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"If you are aligned with his vision and immune to a very strong boss who's very demanding of your time and your thoughts, then it's going to be a very fun ride," Cantrell said in an essay for BI about working for Musk.

Read the original article on Business Insider
President-elect Donald Trump tapped firebrand former congressman Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general without telling his incoming chief of staff.

Trump was advised to make the shock decision by his longtime advisor Boris Epshteyn, who was indicted earlier this year in Arizona for his alleged participation in a fake electors scheme, according to a report in Politico.

Epshteyn and Gaetz were part of a MAGA entourage on Trumps plane yesterday flying to Washington, D.C. along with the president-elect.

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Trump picked Gaetzwho was not on the shortlist for the position earlier in the weekon the flight while his incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was one room over and blissfully unaware.

According to the Bulwark, the president-elect was apparently hooked by Gaetzs willingness to entertain Trumps stated desire to use the power of office to lash out against his perceived enemies.

None of the attorneys had what Trump wants, and they didnt talk like Gaetz, one anonymous Trump advisor told the news outlet. Everyone else looked at AG as if they were applying for a judicial appointment. They talked about their vaunted legal theories and constitutional bullst. Gaetz was the only one who said, yeah, Ill go over there and start cuttin fin heads.

Gaetz, a bombastic former Florida congressman, stepped down from the House of Representatives Wednesday, mere days before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on whether to release a report concerning sexual misconduct and drug allegations against him.

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By resigning, Gaetz ensured that the bipartisan committee must halt the investigation because it no longer has jurisdiction over him, according to congressional rules.

He nevertheless faces an uphill battle to secure enough votes in the Senate to be appointed AG.

Even plenty of D.C. Republicans expressed shock at Trumps decision to put him forward as the countrys highest law enforcement official. GOP Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) both indicated they will oppose his nomination.

Gaetz, 42, is better know for his solidly right-wing politics than for his very brief and unremarkable legal career before he entered Congress.

But political persuasions are arguably overshadowed by his alleged misdeeds, which include sleeping with a 17-year old and the use of illicit drugs.
After President-elect Donald Trump announced his nomination of Mike Huckabee for U.S. Ambassador to Israel on Tuesday, prominent Christian nationalists  who see unwavering support for Israel as key to hastening Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ  were thrilled.

There is no better person to represent the American people in Jerusalem at this time, Sandra Hagee Parker, chairwoman of the political arm of the nonprofit Christians United For Israel, said in a statement posted to X. @GovMikeHuckabee believes in Israels right to self-determination and defense, not because it is politically convenient to do so but because these are immutable tenets of his core beliefs.

CUFI is a far-right Christian Zionist organization that claims 8 million members in America and enjoys the support of many major Republican figures, including House Speaker Mike Johnson. Although CUFIs support for Israel, and more specifically far-right Israeli politicians and settlers, is expressed as a love for Jews, the organization is also driven by evangelical Christians interpretation of Biblical end-times prophecy.

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Pastor John Hagee, the groups founder and Parkers father, believes the return of Jews to Israel and the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands are necessary steps in bringing forth the end of the world, Jesus return to Earth, and the eventual rapture of Christians to Heaven. (There are different formulations about what happens to the Jews in Israel during this end-times scenario, but the prevailing theory is that they would have to mass-convert to Christianity to get to Heaven, or otherwise be doomed to Hell.)

This arguably antisemitic interpretation of scripture is widespread among American Christian evangelicals in America, including Huckabee. Now, as Israels assault on Gaza, made possible by U.S. money and weapons, continues at a frightening pace  killing over 41,000 Palestinians, according to the most conservative estimates  the country will soon enjoy the unwavering support of an evangelical Christian ambassador who has said that theres really no such thing as a Palestinian.

Huckabee in the West Bank in 2018. via Associated Press

Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas who ran twice for president, has more recently worked as the host of a talk show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Hes also known for leading Christian tours of Israel, and for his staunch support of illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.

There are certain words I refuse to use, he said during a 2017 trip to Maale Adumim, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank considered illegal under international law. There is no such thing as a West Bank  its Judea and Samaria. Theres no such thing as a settlement. Theyre communities. Theyre neighborhoods. Theyre cities. Theres no such thing as an occupation.

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Judea and Samaria are Biblical terms for the West Bank, and are frequently deployed by Christian and Jewish Zionists as a way of expressing their belief in Jews divine right to the Holy Land.

In 2008, Huckabee denied that Palestinians exist at all.

Speaking at a presidential campaign stop, according to a video unearthed by BuzzFeed, Huckabee said: Basically, there really is no such thing as  I need to be careful about saying this, because people will really get upset  theres really no such thing as a Palestinian. Theres not, before adding: You have Arabs and Persians, and theres such complexity in that. But theres really no such thing. Thats been a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.

Such anti-Palestinian rhetoric has made him a leading figure among Christian Zionists in America.

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Congrats to my friend @GovMikeHuckabee on his nomination to become US Ambassador to Israel, Sean Feucht, the prominent Christian nationalist and MAGA musician, wrote on X. I met Mike for first time on the streets of Jerusalem many years ago. He openly shared his love & dedication to the Holy Land. What an EXCELLENT choice @realDonaldTrump.

Tony Perkins, the anti-LGTBQ+ preacher who heads up the far-right Family Research Council, and who is a frequent traveler to Israel, also took time to congratulate his friend.

What a remarkable time to have such a staunch ally and defender of Israel in that key role, Perkins wrote on X. Thank you Donald Trump for such a wise pick. I told Governor Huckabee earlier today that I would be praying for him. Will you join me?

Extreme right-wing figures in Israel also hailed Huckabees nomination, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posting the words Mike Huckabee next to a heart emoji in between the Israeli and American flags.

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Huckabees staunch support for Israel, and his denial of Palestinians existence, has gone hand-in-hand with an abiding Islamophobia. In 2011, arguing that Christians should not rent spaces in their churches to Muslims, Huckabee said Muslim groups believe that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated.

In 2013, he called Islam a religion that promotes the most murderous mayhem on the planet in their so-called holiest days. He added that Muslims will go to the mosque, and they will have their day of prayer, and they come out of there like uncorked animals  throwing rocks and burning cars.

In 2017, Huckabee supported Trumps attempt to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

His nomination for ambassador was denounced by members of many religions this week.

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The mask is off, the liberal American Zionist group J Street said in a statement, arguing that Huckabees appointment is further proof that pro-Israel for Trump is totally disconnected from Jewish values, safety or self-determination.

Munther Isaac, a Christian Palestinian priest, expressed concern over Huckabees support of illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

Does he know that these settlements make the lives of Palestinians, including Palestinian Christians, a living hell?! Isaac wrote. Does he care about us to begin with?!

Related...
(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Donald Trump is tapping former regulator Jay Clayton to be US Attorney for Manhattan and two of his own criminal defense attorneys for powerful positions in the Justice Department, fleshing out his top picks to reshape American law enforcement.

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Trumps plans for the Justice Department have been for months a lightning rod and his choice of embattled lawmaker Matt Gaetz as attorney general sparked a political firestorm this week. Clayton, who led the Securities and Exchange Commission in Trumps first administration, as well as former federal prosecutor Todd Blanche for deputy attorney general and Emil Bove as principal associate attorney general, are far less controversial choices.

Trump has indicated that hell push for a radical transformation of the Justice Department, which has more than 115,000 employees. The department is central to what Trump will need to carry out his agenda from enforcing federal laws to litigating controversial matters. On the campaign trail, Trump also signaled his willingness to use the department to pursue perceived adversaries.

The incoming administrations priorities for law enforcement are likely to include immigration-related and violent crimes. The Manhattan US attorneys office is famous for tackling complex financial cases and appointees are historically veterans of the office.

Wall Street Sheriff

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For Clayton, the Manhattan US Attorney position would mark a shift to criminal law. Since leaving government at the end of Trumps administration, Clayton has served as Apollo Global Management Inc.s independent chair and returned to New York-based law firm Sullivan & Cromwell as a senior adviser.

Clayton has no experience as a federal prosecutor, a rarity for someone appointed to the position of US Attorney. If confirmed, the role, often dubbed the Sheriff of Wall Street, will put Clayton in charge of high-profile cases including the prosecution of New York Mayor Eric Adams.

As SEC chair under Trump, Clayton mostly succeeded in casting himself as an independent voice focused on protecting small-time investors from fraud and financial industry abuses rather than waging ideological fights. He cultivated relationships with Republicans and Democrats.

Jay is a highly respected business leader, counsel, and public servant, Trump said in a post on Truth Social, saying that Clayton did an incredible job as SEC Chair during his first term.

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A spokesman for the US Attorneys Office declined to comment.

The US Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York, often called the sovereign district for its independent streak, clashed with Trump officials during his first presidency as it led a series of investigations targeting members of his inner-circle. It will be the second time Clayton has been put forward for the job.

Leading SDNY

The Trump White House said in mid-2020 that it would tap Clayton to lead SDNY, but the then-US Attorney Geoff Berman refused to resign before strategically stepping down to ensure his deputy serve in the role instead.

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In the end, Clayton never advanced. Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer at the time called on Clayton to withdraw his nomination, labeling it a Trump attempt to interfere in SDNY investigations.

Clayton didnt immediately respond to a request for comment on the announcement. Trump also said he would put forward another lawyer, Dean John Sauer, who represented him in his presidential immunity case in the Supreme Court, to serve as solicitor general.

Clayton had been reported as being in contention for the Treasury Secretary position in the Trump Administration. When asked about his interest at a Practising Law Institute conference in New York this week, Clayton said: if asked for a role that I can be effective in, Ill say yes.

Blanche started his career at SDNY as a paralegal in 1999 before returning as a prosecutor in 2011. He was co-chief of the violent crimes unit. As a defense lawyer, he represented Trump at trial in his so-called hush-money case in New York and has represented others in his orbit.

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Bove previously served for about a decade as an assistant US attorney at SDNY with a focus on national security, including a two-year stint as co-chief of that unit.

In the past three years, SDNY brought several prominent cases including the prosecutions of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Archegos Capital Management founder Bill Hwang, both convicted of frauds following high-profile trials.

US attorneys prosecute civil and criminal cases for the federal government in 93 districts and generally serve at the behest of specific administrations and depart when a new president takes office. Damian Williams, who currently leads SDNY, hasnt announced his plans.

(Updates with details on additional DOJ nominations)

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By Gram Slattery, Andrew Goudsward, Patricia Zengerle and Sarah N. Lynch

(Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump chose loyalists with little experience for several key cabinet positions on Wednesday, stunning some allies and making clear that he is serious about reshaping - and in some cases testing - America's institutions.

Trump's choice of congressman Matt Gaetz, 42, for U.S. attorney general, America's top law enforcement officer, was a surprising pick. The former attorney has never worked in the Justice Department, or as a prosecutor, and was investigated by the Justice Department over sex trafficking allegations. His office said in 2023 that he had been told by prosecutors he would not face criminal charges.

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Trump tapped Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. The former Democratic congresswoman-turned-Trump-ally has in the past spoken out against military intervention in the civil war in Syria under former President Barack Obama and implied that Russian President Vladimir Putin had valid grounds for invading Ukraine, America's ally.

"I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our intelligence community, championing our constitutional rights and securing peace through strength," Trump said in a statement.

Gabbard has little direct experience with intelligence work and had not been widely expected to be tapped for the post, which oversees 18 spy agencies.

She was deployed in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 as a major in the Hawaii National Guard and is now a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves.

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On Tuesday, Trump chose Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and veteran, to be his secretary of defense. Hegseth has opposed women in combat roles and questioned whether the top American general was promoted to his position because of his skin color. He also lobbied Trump during his 2017-2021 term to pardon servicemembers who allegedly committed war crimes.

Sprinkled in with those personnel choices were more conventional selections. Trump said on Wednesday he would nominate Senator Marco Rubio, who is a hardliner on China, as his new secretary of state.

But on the whole, his selections signal a radical shift in the way the U.S. government conducts its business and in the role America will play in the world over the next four years.

Trump has said he wants to end the "weaponization" of the Justice Department, which he said brought politically motivated criminal cases against him to hurt his presidential candidacy. The department says it acts without political bias.

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LOYALTY

One common thread for Trump's picks: He chose unfailingly loyal people who are unlikely to push back against his most controversial orders, analysts said.

Trump pledged on the campaign trail to go after his political enemies, including Democratic President Joe Biden, a pledge that Gaetz, his attorney general-designate, is unlikely to stand in the way of.

"Gaetz will do exactly as Trump says, which is why he was picked I guess," said a source close to Trump, after Gaetz's selection as was announced.

A half dozen sources close to Trump world, including donors, consultants and fundraisers, said privately that they were shocked by the choice of Gaetz because of his limited qualifications and past DOJ investigation into him.

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"I was shocked that he has been nominated," Republican senator Susan Collins, a moderate from Maine, told reporters about the Gaetz selection. "The president obviously has the right to nominate whomever he wants. But I think this is an example of why it's so important that we have the advice and consent provisions in the Constitution."

Some of Trump's other nominees also lack any meaningful qualifications. Hegseth, while a decorated combat veteran, is best known in recent years as a media personality. He will now oversee the better part of 3 million employees and the world's largest fighting force.

"Being secretary of defense is a very serious job, and putting someone as dangerously unqualified as Pete Hegseth into that role is something that should scare all of us," said Tammy Duckworth, a Democratic senator from Illinois who sits on the armed services committee.

SENATE GUARDRAIL

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Not only are Trump's national security and foreign policy nominees universally skeptical of helping Ukraine fend off Russia's invasion, some of their statements have been outright hostile toward Kyiv.

Gabbard, who will oversee America's sprawling foreign and domestic intelligence apparatus, has portrayed Putin as a defender of his own nation's vital national security interests. Ukraine, she has said, is a corrupt kleptocracy.

One potential guardrail that Trump and his nominees still face: the Senate.

While Trump's Republicans control the Senate and most Republican lawmakers will support his nominees for top jobs, the slate the president-elect put forward will likely give the party's remaining moderates pause and test just how loyal elected Republicans are to him and his vision.

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The choice of Rubio as secretary of state could come as a relief to U.S. partners worried that the Trump administration could pull back from its global network of alliances, including NATO, given Trump's "America First" emphasis during his campaign to return to the White House.

"He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries," Trump said of Rubio in a statement.

In additional to being a China hawk, Rubio, 53, is an outspoken critic of Cuba's Communist government and strong backer of Israel.

He has in the past advocated for a more assertive U.S. foreign policy with respect to America's geopolitical foes, although recently his views have aligned more closely with those of Trump's approach to foreign policy.

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Some analysts questioned whether Rubio would stand up to Trump, noting the president-elect's inclination to make personal loyalty a central requirement for administration posts.

Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, said it is essential for any president's advisers to stand up to him when necessary, given the wide array of foreign policy challenges Trump will face.

"I'm trying to keep an open mind here," Miller said, noting that Rubio, because of his experience in Congress, has a better grasp of foreign policy than any of Trump's other appointees.

(This story has been refiled to correct the image)

(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Additional reporting by Helen Coster, Alexandra Ulmer, David Brunnstrom, Patricia Zengerle, Andrew Goudsward, Sarh N. Lynch and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Ross Colvin and Daniel Wallis)
The News

US President-elect Donald Trump nominated vaccine skeptic and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the countrys health and human services secretary.

For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health, Trump wrote on social media. Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!

Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer, has said he would remove fluoride from drinking water and roll back mandatory childhood vaccines if he were in office as part of a broader, radical overhaul of the US approach to medicine and health.

SIGNALS

Kennedys nomination draws conflicting partisan reaction in Washington

Sources: CNN Reliable Sources, Politico

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Kennedys nomination drew mixed reactions from Republicans and Democrats: Trumps former Vice President Mike Pence opposed Kennedys pro-abortion stance, while Colorados Democratic governor said he was excited for Kennedy to take on big pharma. The conflicting partisan reaction is because Kennedys beliefs are hard to parse given that he has said a whole lot about a whole lot, CNNs Brian Stelter wrote, in which kernels of truth are mixed with downright false information, neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta said. Trumps range of cabinet picks  from mainstream lawmakers to television news hosts  has also divided those abroad: One European lawmaker told Politico that Trumps choice of Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence was terrifying.

Health stocks tumble after Kennedy nomination

Sources: Financial Times, Bloomberg

Trumps choice of a vaccine skeptic for the top countrys top health job hit stocks of major US vaccine makers: Modernas dropped nearly 8% Friday, while Pfizer fell 4.5%. Share prices of the worlds two biggest vaccine makers by sales, GSK and Sanofi, also took a hit, Financial Times reported. Kennedys nomination impacted biotech and pharmaceutical stocks more broadly, Bloomberg reported, as shares of US-exposed European health companies, including Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk, dropped. Trumps choice exacerbated the already dim outlook for vaccine makers grappling with declining sales growth, a Jeffries analyst told the FT. RFK Jr has . . . been outspoken about downsizing FDA, so there is concern on agency resources, commentary on [weight loss drugs] and also vaccines, he said.

Kennedys promise to ban water fluoridation stirs debate

Sources: The Washington Post, The News York Times, NPR

While public health experts have condemned many of Kennedys proposals as being anti-science, his fight to remove fluoride from drinking water has sparked more debate. Its not an entirely crazy idea, The Washington Posts public health columnist argued, citing studies showing some risks of higher levels of fluoride, and pointing to several Western European countries that have ended public water fluoridation. While acknowledging that the US uses safe and beneficial levels of fluoride in water, economist Emily Oster argued in The New York Times that its a complex topic, which public health authorities shouldnt be dismissive of. Despite fluorides clear benefits in preventing dental problems, it is one of the original public health conspiracy theories in the US, a political historian told NPR.
On the same day that Benjamin Netanyahu fired Yoav Gallant, Israels wartime defense minister and an emerging political rival, the prime minister scored what he undoubtedly views as another win: Donald Trumps victory in the U.S. election. In the week since, the Israeli leaders luck has gone from good to better with the president-elects decision to name a series of Iran hawks and Israel supporters to fill key posts in his administration.

Going forward, both Netanyahus shakeup and a new Trump administration stand to reshape the direction of Israels war against Iran and its proxies across the Middle East.

If personnel is policy, then Israeli officials have reason to hope for a tougher U.S. approach to Tehran come January. Trump has reportedly appointed Brian Hook, who helped shape the Iran policy of the president-elects first term, to head the State Departments transition team. Hookwho, like Trump and Netanyahu, has been targeted for assassination by the Iranian regimeis likely to pursue a hard-line policy toward Iran.

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Another member of Trumps coalescing diplomatic team, GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New Yorkthe pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Nationshas been a leading critic of what she describes as the Biden administrations anemic approach to Tehran. For too long, our enemies have been emboldened by the weakness of the Biden-Harris Administration, she tweeted Saturday, announcing plans to resume the Trump-era maximum pressure sanctions regime on Iran.

Like so many in the world, the Iranians need to do their math on how they want to enter a Trump tenure. Assaf Orion

On Tuesday, the former president formally named Republican Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida, a Green Beret veteran whos pushed for greater U.S. pressure on Iran and its proxies, as his national security adviser. Trumps pick for the coveted secretary of state post, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, has criticized Iran as a terrorist regime and drawn attention to its sponsorship of regional terrorism. Without Iran, there is no Hamas. Without Iran, there is no Hezbollah, he said in an interview this month.

Trump announced Tuesday his intent to nominate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Israel. He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him, the president-elect said in a statement.

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Generally speaking, Israeli officials are tremendously contenton the verge of euphoriaover this Cabinet and the Trump nominations. This is better than they expected, and they feel this is in line with the American-Israeli alliance, Israeli political commentator Nadav Eyal told The Dispatch. Of course, people who dislike the Netanyahu governmentand thats at least half of the publicare not too overjoyed by the knowledge that the Trump administration is going to give Netanyahu backing and that some of these nominations are actually personal pals or people who have voiced support for Netanyahu before.

At the same time that the Israeli prime ministers support in Washington appears to be shoring up, he is attempting to eliminate opposition from within the ranks of his own government with the firing of Gallant. Netanyahu first tried to oust his fellow Likud party member in March 2023, after Gallant warned that domestic divisions over the governments controversial effort to reform Israels judicial system posed a clear, immediate, and tangible threat to the security of the state.

The prime minister reversed his decision to dismiss Gallant following a wave of mass protests that spring, but no such public opposition could spare his job this time around. As Americans cast their ballots last Tuesday, Netanyahu gave Gallant a letter of dismissal that went into effect 48 hours later. The move provoked swift and severe backlash from Israelis, many of whom accused the prime minister of prioritizing his own political fate over the countrys national interest amid a multifront war.

Many analysts see the decision as an ongoing debate in Israel over military service exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews coming to a head. Netanyahus governing coalition relies on support from two ultra-Orthodox parties, which have pushed for laws enshrining the Haredi communitys ability to avoid the mandatory conscription to which most Jewish Israelis and Druze Israeli men are subject. Gallant, on the other hand, reiterated the national security imperative of a large-scale draft of Haredim just one day before his firing.

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With the defense minister out of the way, Netanyahu may be able to strengthen his coalition by pushing through unpopular legal protections for the exemptions. But the prime minister has long had a fraught relationship with the Israeli defense establishment. Gallant is the fourth defense chief to be fired or resign after public rifts with Netanyahu. Hamas October 7, 2023, assault on Israel only exacerbated those divides, as the prime minister pointed the finger at the Israeli military for the security and intelligence lapse that allowed the attack to unfold.

Gallants departure can also be understood as an effort by Netanyahu to consolidate control over the future of the war, said David Daoud, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Gallants replacement, former Foreign Minister Israel Katz, is a close Netanyahu ally with little military background of his own.

But dont expect a Bibi-controlled defense ministry to pursue more aggressive war aims, particularly when it comes to Israels northern front. Katz on Sunday declared Hezbollah defeated as Jerusalem pursues an agreement to wind down the war in Lebanon. Gallant, in contrast, was a Hezbollah hawk from the wars start, advocating for a sweeping preemptive Israeli attack as early as October 2023.

When it comes to the war against Hamas in Gaza, Gallantlike the Biden administrationhad pushed the Israeli government to accept a ceasefire deal to secure the release of the terror groups hostages. This dynamic may have contributed to Netanyahus perception of the defense minister as an American surrogate, as Israeli journalist Amit Segal explained in the Call Me Back podcast. In Bibis eyes, he is the underdog, he told host Dan Senor, the one who is dealing with a hostile U.S. administration, with Gallant, who he sees as the U.S. ambassador to Tel Aviva politician that serves American interests.

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Netanyahu likely hopes Trumps victory will afford him a less adversarial relationship with the White House. The leaders have spoken on the phone three times recently, the Israeli prime minister said Sunday, and the two see eye to eye on the Iranian threat in all its components.

And indeed, Trumps first stint in the White House was marked by a punishing approach to Iran. In addition to pulling out of the Obama-era nuclear deal and implementing damaging sanctions against Iran and its proxies, the former president ordered the killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani. He also oversaw a series of pro-Israel maneuvers, including moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to its capital Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and brokering a series of diplomatic normalization treaties known as the Abraham Accords.

But if the Israeli right expects free rein to continue fighting Hezbollah and Hamas under a Trump presidency, its in serious danger of being disappointed, Chuck Freilich, Israels former deputy national security adviser, told The Dispatch. Even in the transition [Trump will] apply pressure to end the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, because he doesnt want to inherit the problem.

Trump has publicly and privately called on Israel to wrap up its war effort, including by telling Netanyahu to finish up and get it done quickly. On the campaign trail, the former president appeared alongside leaders of Michigans Muslim community, who described him as a leader who promises peace, not war. On Friday, Trump spoke to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas for the first time since the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017. Trump emphasized his commitment to ending the war in Gaza during the conversation, according to a PA read-out.

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On Iran, too, there may be cause for concern for Israel. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance recently reiterated his support for Israels right to defend itself but distanced the U.S. from a theoretical military operation. Sometimes were going to have overlapping interests, and sometimes were going to have distinct interests, he said last month. And our interest very much is in not going to war with Iran.

Such equivocations are particularly troublesome in light of Irans advances toward a nuclear weapona threat that may be difficult if not impossible for Israel to counter militarily without U.S. support. On the one hand, getting a green light is nice. But this is a green light that Israel doesnt really want, Freilich said. It doesnt want to be on its own.

Assaf Orion, a retired Israeli brigadier general who is now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, agreed: Trump has said, I wont be starting wars, Ill be ending them. What does that mean for issues that require force employment? When push comes to shove, what about Irans nuclear program? Is there an expectation that Israel will do what it needs to before January 20?

As Israel calculates its next move in light of new U.S. leadership, Iran is doing the same. While some analysts worry the regime might pursue a nuclear weapon during the transition period, others think Tehran may be cowed into de-escalating its war against Israel by the prospect of an incoming Trump administration.

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Iran is in a panic, Eyal Pinko, an expert on Iran and a former senior official in Israels intelligence services, told The Dispatch. Not only because of Trumps election, but also because of the people that Trump has appointed.

These early personnel choices will likely factor into Irans decision-making as it considers whether to use the transition to escalate its conflict with Israel or step down from the brink.

Iran is staring into a Trump period, Orion told The Dispatch. Like so many in the world, the Iranians need to do their math on how they want to enter a Trump tenure.

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Members of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's transition team are drawing up a list of potential military officers to fire at the Pentagon, Reuters reported on Nov. 13, citing unnamed sources familiar with the transition.

Trump takes office on Jan. 20, 2025, and has begun selecting nominees to top positions in his cabinet from among his loyal supporters.

The list of those to dismiss may include the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sources told Reuters, but the plans for the firings are still in the early stages of development.

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The Joint Chiefs of Staff comprise the highest-ranking officers in the U.S. military, including the heads of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, National Guard, and Space Force.

One source told Reuters that the Trump administration would look to get rid of any military officer connected to Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump and U.S. President Joe Biden.

"Every single person that was elevated and appointed by Milley will be gone," the source said.

Milley reportedly described Trump as "fascist to the core," according to the book "War" by journalist Bob Woodward, published in October.

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"There's a very detailed list of everybody that was affiliated with Milley. And they will all be gone," the source said.

Mass firings at the Pentagon and dismissal of the Joint Chiefs are unprecedented moves in a U.S. presidential transition. Reports of the potential firings come one day after Trump named Fox News host Pete Hegseth as his pick for U.S. Defense Secretary, stirring alarm among defense officials.

Read also: Trumps appointments stir optimism, worry in Ukraine

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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump wants to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table to end the war, Mike Waltz, Trump's pick for a national security advisor, told Voice of America (Voa) on Nov. 13.

Speaking to a VoA correspondent, the Florida Congressman said that Trump is interested in ending the war instead of continuing it. Waltz stressed that Washington's future policy does not depend on him but on Trump's decisions.

Trump has pledged to end Russia's war against Ukraine "within 24 hours" once reelected without explaining how he plans to achieve it. Multiple media reports indicated that this plan might entail freezing the war, suspending Ukraine's NATO accession, and establishing a demilitarized zone in the east of the country.

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Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the unsuccessful negotiations in Belarus and Turkey in early 2022. Publicly, there appears to be little room for compromise as Kyiv has repeatedly rejected territorial concessions, while Russia has little reason to negotiate as it currently holds the upper hand on the battlefield.

Waltz is set to replace Jake Sullivan in the senior White House advisory role. In this position, he will brief Trump on main security issues and have a chance to influence key policy decisions.

Trump's nominee has previously expressed reservations about continued extensive U.S. military aid to Ukraine, arguing that European nations should increase their support to ensure regional stability. His stance includes backing a peace plan aimed at drawing Ukraine closer to Western alliances while diplomatically isolating Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Read also: After Trumps Pete Hegseth appointment, Ukraine reacts cautiously to cabinet picks

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This view, while reflective of a significant portion of Republican thought, contrasts with positions held by many Senate Republicans and most Democrats who continue to advocate for sustained or increased aid to Ukraine.

Trump's cabinet picks have been met with mixed reactions in Ukraine. While some officials and observers reacted to Waltz and Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio with "moderate optimism," other choices sparked surprise and even concern.

The president-elect tapped military veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Defense Department, a move that stunned Pentagon officials.

Trump's nomination of openly Ukraine-skeptic ex-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard to the position of director of national intelligence is also not a positive signal for the besieged country.

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The former Congresswoman and Army National Guard veteran has echoed Putin's justification for the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, attributing the cause not to Moscow but to the Biden administration's failure to acknowledge "Russias legitimate security concerns."

Read also: What we know about Trumps plans for ending Russias war against Ukraine

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(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trumps election victory is prompting South Korea to rethink the possibility of sending weapons directly to Ukraine, a decision that could have a big impact on the direction of the war.

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President Yoon Suk Yeols government now has to consider the US president-elects stance as it looks at whether to change its long-standing policy of not sending lethal aid to Kyiv, according to an official who asked not to be identified as discussions are private and ongoing.

Seoul is also looking at how Trumps approach to the war will affect support for Ukraine among a range of countries, another government official said.

The comments suggest that South Korea is now less likely to send munitions to Ukraine unless Pyongyang takes further action or theres more clarity on how Trump will act on Ukraine when he completes the move from the campaign trail to the Oval Office.

It would be pretty awkward for South Korea, not even a member of NATO, to step in at this point if Trump moves in to the White House and wants to pull out from the conflict, said Kim Jung, a political science professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

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Yoons office said the government will examine possible scenarios from Russia-North Korea military cooperation following Pyongyangs deployment of troops, and implement countermeasures. We will closely coordinate with our ally and partners in that process, it said in a statement in response to Bloomberg questions on South Koreas latest thinking about sending arms to Ukraine.

Security Threat

Seoul has long resisted calls from Western allies to tap into its vast military stockpiles and directly send weapons or ammunition to Ukraine, choosing instead to help Kyiv through non-lethal aid. However, North Koreas deployment of up to 12,000 troops in Russia  according to US estimates  has shifted that stance, with Yoon saying Pyongyangs direct involvement in the conflict poses a threat to his countrys security.

We are not ruling out weapons support, Yoon said at a press conference last week as the US election outcome a few hours earlier was still sinking in. If we provide weapons support, defensive weapons will be the first under consideration.

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Exporting lethal aid to Kyiv would signal strong support for Ukraine. It might also benefit South Korean businesses if they participate in Ukraines post-war reconstruction. But the move would anger Moscow, risk escalating the conflict, and spur further provocations from Pyongyang.

Even if South Korea could not prevent all of North Koreas actions, it could perhaps affect North Koreas degree of participation, said Naoko Aoki, a political scientist with Rand Corp. in Washington. There is a lot more that North Korea could be doing, and South Korea wants to minimize North Korean activities.

Its a decision the Biden administration would likely welcome, but its less clear how Trump and his team would respond. The president-elect pledged on the campaign trail to end the war within 24 hours by getting Russia and Ukraine to negotiate, raising questions about the future of US aid for Kyiv.

Already European Union leaders are trying to figure out whether they can keep the Ukrainian effort going if Trump decides to shut off support from the US.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is preparing to send an envoy to Seoul, aiming to appeal for weapons and persuade South Korea to reconsider its stance in its favor. South Korea has vast stores of the 155 millimeter artillery shells that are the North Atlantic Treaty Organization standard used by Ukraine.

The US and South Korea have repeatedly accused Kim of sending munitions and ballistic missiles to aid Putins war in Ukraine, with South Korea estimating that as many as 8 million rounds have been sent.

Supplies of North Korean ammunition to Moscow are a bigger problem for Ukraine than help Russia is getting from other places, including Iran, Kyivs military intelligence chief Kyrlyo Budanov said in September.

Seouls cautious stance on providing weapons to Kyiv stems partly from its wariness of turning Russia into its own foe. Russias foreign ministry has threatened security consequences for South Korea if it sends weapons to Ukraine.

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The growing ties between Pyongyang and Moscow have emboldened Kim Jong Un to ramp up hostility toward South Korea, while raising fears about North Koreas ability to strengthen its military and sustain its regime with Russian backing.

Kim and Putin raised the stakes in June by reviving a Cold War-era pact, agreeing to support each other in case of an attack. Both countries recently ratified the deal.

Officials in Seoul have indicated that they may consider directly supplying arms if North Korea acquires technology that enhances its ability to make weapons of mass destruction. Putin has said he cant rule out giving Kim high-precision weapons in response to Western military assistance for Ukraine.

Russia has a clear way to retaliate by potentially supplying North Korea with dangerous military technologies, such as ballistic missiles, reconnaissance satellites, and perhaps even nuclear weapons technology, said Andrei Lankov, a professor who specializes in North Korea at Seoul-based Kookmin University.

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North Korean soldiers have already joined Moscows side in the fight against Ukraine, the US State Department said Tuesday, as Russia seeks to reclaim parts of its Kursk region that Ukrainian forces captured during a surprise incursion in August.

Another hurdle for Yoon is the lack of public support for direct arms shipments to Ukraine, especially with his approval rating at a record low of 17%, according to the latest Gallup poll.

Park Chan-dae, floor leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, which controls the parliament, urged the government to halt any plans to send arms to Ukraine. Following Trumps victory, the war is very likely to enter a new chapter, he said.

--With assistance from Maxim Edwards.

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Since he began taking over the Republican Party nearly a decade ago, President-elect Donald Trump has demanded increasing levels of loyalty from lawmakers who serve in Congress.

With few exceptions, they have gone along, refusing to convict him in two impeachment trials and, even after he was convicted of 34 felonies, helping him win a second term in the White House as he plowed through a Republican primary and general election after falsely denying his 2020 loss.

Now, members of the Senate will face another test: whether to cede their long-held independent authority under the Constitution to review an increasingly controversial group of Cabinet picks.

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Many senators in both parties have already expressed concerns about some of Trump's selections, but the president-elect has said he expects the body to test a controversial tactic that would let him bypass the confirmation process.

Read more: MAGA loyalist Matt Gaetz is Trump's pick for attorney general. Will he be confirmed?

In the last several days, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth, a Fox television host and veteran who has never held a leadership post, as his secretary of Defense; Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic House member accused of spreading Kremlin talking points, as his director of national intelligence; and Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who resigned his seat in the House on Wednesday while facing a congressional investigation into sex trafficking, as his attorney general.

Then on Thursday, Trump named Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vociferous vaccine skeptic who has promoted false conspiracy theories concerning healthcare, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

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Trump is known for defying tradition and going against the grain, but the recent appointments suggest a larger agenda, some political observers say.

"There is a difference between having a broader ideological mix and choosing [an accused] sex trafficker for attorney general of the United States," said Marc Short, who served as Trump's legislative affairs director during his first term and as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence.

"I think he's trying to disrupt, Short said of Trump. But I'm not convinced that it's clearly thought through.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the Bakersfield Republican whose career in Congress was upended when Gaetz led a rebellion against him, predicted that at least the Gaetz nomination would fail, telling Bloomberg Television on Thursday that he wont get confirmed, everybody knows that.

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McCarthy called the nomination "a good deflection," hinting at a popular Washington theory that Gaetz, even if defeated, could help Trump win approval of other controversial nominees by using up whatever willpower Republican senators have to take on the new president next year.

Read more: News Analysis: Trump's transition moves raise fears of a politicized military

At the center of it all is Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican who won an internal vote Wednesday to become Senate majority leader in the next Congress. He replaces Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longtime Senate GOP leader who occasionally clashed with Trump during his first term but prevented an all-out intraparty war by largely acquiescing to the president. The Senate under Thune will be even more Trump-friendly, with more members who come into office with Trump's support, while some of the more skeptical Republicans are no longer in office.

Trump had mixed results with his first-term nominations, even as he chose from an inexperienced talent pool. Several of his high-level nominees faced drawn-out battles  a few withdrew, but most were eventually approved.

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Before Thune defeated two of his colleagues to win the leadership post, Trump said on social media that he wanted the new Senate leaders to push his nominees through using recess appointments, in which the Senate would declare itself closed for business for 10 days so the president can appoint a Cabinet secretary for the remainder of the two-year session.

The tactic, conceived in the horse-and-buggy days when Congress met part time, would probably be challenged in court. Opponents argue against the routine use of recess appointments, and members of the Senate are historically protective of their role as a check on the executive branch.

Thune told South Dakota reporters Wednesday that he would prefer to avoid a recess appointment but did not rule it out.

"I'm willing to grind through it and do it the old-fashioned way," he said, according to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

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He reiterated that point to ABC News on Thursday, promising that "we expect our committees to do their jobs and provide the advice and consent that is required under the Constitution."

Lawmakers in both parties have already said they want to know more about the House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz, which was closed when he resigned his seat. The comments signal that they do not want to cede their right to review his record. One lawmaker who said he "absolutely" wants to see the House report was Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a high-ranking Republican member of the Judiciary Committee who ran against Thune for majority leader.

This is the way it works in dictatorships

Richard Painter, former White House ethics lawyer.

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The use of recess appointments to avoid the Senate is a concern to some who've worked in the federal government.

Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, said that immediately adjourning the Senate at the new president's direction would signal a dark day for the country.

This is the way it works in dictatorships, said Painter, who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in Minnesota in 2018 as a Democrat. To have a president sworn in and then immediately dissolve Congress? Absolutely nuts.

But the pressure to push Trump's preferred choices is mounting. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, one of Trump's most ardent allies, warned would-be dissenters during an appearance on Fox Business that if they stand in the way of Trump's agenda, "were gonna try to get you out of the Senate."

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Read more: What to know about Elon Musk's contracts with the federal government

The Senate has a long tradition of protecting its status, as one of two houses in Congress, as part of a coequal branch of government, even if the president is in the same party. The late Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada rankled some fellow Democrats in 2009 when he said in an interview: "I do not work for Barack Obama. I work with him.

But a former Reid advisor, James Manley, said he believes Trump is consciously trying to erode that boundary, and he's skeptical that Republican lawmakers have the stomach to stand up to him.

The House is broken. They'll do whatever he wants," Manley said. "Now, he's turned his attention to the Senate.

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Ben Olinsky, senior vice president of structural reform and governance at the liberal Center for American Progress, said that how the Senate handles this moment  where Trump is putting forward deeply questionable candidates while demanding the Senate allow them to sail through without vetting  will tell us a lot about what's going to happen in the next couple of years.

I absolutely think its a test of independence and also integrity for them, Olinsky said. It may be a direct loyalty test from the president.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Reaction among Republicans on Capitol Hill to President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general on Wednesday ranged from shock to support.

Several House Republicans meeting behind closed doors said there was an audible gasp in the room when they heard Trump had picked Gaetz.

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins was among those who said they were shocked, appearing to refer to Trump's demand that his nominees be done with recess appointments -- without Senate confirmation.

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MORE: John Thune elected as Senate Republican leader to succeed McConnell

This shows why the advice and consent process is so important, and I'm sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing, Collins told reporters. Obviously, the president has the right to nominate whomever he wishes, but I'm certain that there will be a lot of questions.

PHOTO: Rep. Matt Gaetz arrives during the second day of the Republican National Convention, July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee. (Evan Vucci/AP)

Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted to find Trump guilty at his second impeachment trial during his first term, said "I don't think this is a serious nomination for the attorney general."

"We need to have a serious attorney general and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious," she said. "This one was not on my bingo card.

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Gaetz faced a yearslong Justice Department investigation that began in 2019 into allegations related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice. He has long denied any wrongdoing, and the Justice Department informed Gaetz in 2023 that it was declining to bring charges against him after its investigation.

MORE: Tracking who Trump has named to serve in his Cabinet, administration

But the Florida congressman still faces an ongoing investigation by the House Ethics Committee regarding the same allegations.

House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Wednesday night that Gaetz had resigned from Congress effective immediately to "start the clock" on the process for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to call a special election to fill his vacancy. Gaetz's resignation will end the probe by the Ethics Committee, which does not investigate members after they have left Congress.

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Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, asked if the ethics investigation concerned him, said, Most certainly, it would be concerning because it would be a part of his file, Rounds said..Rounds told reporters that he had "no reaction yet" whether Gaetz would be confirmed. Asked if he would vote to confirm, he said, All I can really tell you right now is that we normally give the president the benefit of the doubt, but we still do our due diligence and advice and consent is still important."

GOP Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming was vague when asked for her opinion on Gaetz, telling reporters, I havent even had a chance to think about it yet, its too new to me.

Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho told ABC News that he didn't know Gaetz "so I'll have to dig into it." Asked if Gaetz could be confirmed, he said, "I have no idea, but I assume so."

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who, Trump had announced as his pick for secretary of state earlier in the day, had complimentary things to say about his fellow Floridian.

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MORE: Trump transition live updates: Trump picks Gaetz for AG, Gabbard for DNI

I've known him for a long time, and again, I think the president is entitled to his team, and he's made his appointments," he said. "And so, I like Matt a lot. I know him very well, and I'm confident that if the Senate confirms him, he would do a good job. And again, the presidents are entitled to have the people that they want in these key positions to carry out the mandate that's been delivered to him by the voters of the United States.

On the House side, Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., expressed support for Trump's pick. But Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, a former Trump aide who was particularly critical of Gaetz following his efforts to oust then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year, strongly disputed the choice, predicted Gaetz wouldn't be approved by the Senate.

I just think it's silly. I believe that the president is probably rewarding him for being such a loyal soldier to the president, but the president is smart enough, and his team is smart enough, to know that Mr. Gaetz will never get confirmed by the Senate. Whatsoever," he said. "And so this is just going to be a very long period of time for him that he's going to get excoriated by members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle, because he's never been a team player, and he's never helped out this conference.

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Miller said that "there's two different types of chaos -- saying Trump brings one that is positive but the one that Gaetz brings breaks things.

Trump's Gaetz pick as AG triggers audible gasp among some Republicans originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
This excerpt originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.

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President-elect Donald Trump is quickly fleshing out his cabinet, giving a sense of what his second administration will look like.

Trump's slew of picks announced in recent days share a common theme: loyalty . (You can find the running list of Trump administration staffers here .)

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With Republicans maintaining control of the House and winning the Senate, the president-elect will enter the White House this January with incredible power to shape the country to his vision.

Let's break down some of Trump's recent appointments and the impact they could have on the business world:

US Attorney General  Matt Gaetz : A surprising pick, to say the least, the representative from Florida caused havoc within his own party when he led the push to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership last year.

Gaetz was also the subject of sex-trafficking allegations that led to an investigation by the very agency he's being nominated to lead. (The Department of Justice declined to pursue charges, but he'd been facing a probe from the House Ethics Committee.) House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Wednesday that Gaetz had resigned from Congress.

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He's also clashed with the tech industry , suggesting Americans have an "obligation to use" their Second Amendment right when it comes to Silicon Valley companies censoring conservatives . Gaetz's appointment requires confirmation from the Senate, which is far from a shoo-in.

Secretary of State  Marco Rubio: The Florida senator is an outspoken critic of China and a supporter of Taiwan. In fact, China sanctioned him twice, and his ability to travel to the country is somewhat in question.

The appointment adds another wrinkle to the heightening tension between the US and China. Trump has said he wants aggressive tariffs against Chinese imports, and Rubio has raised the alarm on what he views as China's plan to harm the US economy.

Pete Hegseth is a veteran who became famous as a Fox News host. Now he's Trump's nominee for defense secretary. Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

Secretary of Defense  Pete Hegseth: The Army veteran and Fox News host has been outspoken about the US involvement in geopolitical conflicts. Hegseth is among the growing number of Republicans questioning the US support of Ukraine. He also said he doubted Russia would invade Poland if it successfully took over Ukraine.

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When it comes to Israel, Hegseth has been a staunch supporter. He's also pushed back against calls for a cease-fire and criticized pro-Palestinian protesters.

Hegseth's takes aren't limited to international affairs. He's been critical of women serving in combat roles and diversity and equity policies in the US military.

Treasury secretary  TBD: Trump's pick for his top economic advisor is being closely watched considering the key role the economy played in the election. The two front runners appear to be Scott Bessent, a hedge fund executive, and Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of Trump's transition team and the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald.

Bessent was initially viewed as the favorite, but Lutnick is reportedly making a last-ditch effort to be considered for the job.

The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Ella Hopkins, associate editor, in London. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York. Milan Sehmbi, fellow, in London.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Donald Trump's pick for the U.N. envoy, Elise Stefanik, dodged questions on her earlier support for Ukraine's NATO accession and on calling Russia's war in Ukraine "genocidal," with her office saying her views now fully align with Trump's, CNN reported on Nov. 13.

Shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion began in 2022, the Republican Congresswoman said that Ukraine needs "to be admitted into NATO and we need to do everything we can by providing them munitions and Javelins," reminding that the weaponry was first provided under the Trump administration.

When asked about the matter again by CNN after Trump tapped her for the U.N. job, Stefanik's office said the Congresswoman's views fully align with those of the president-elect, without going into details.

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"Chairwoman Stefanik fully supports President Trumps peace through strength policy agenda and will follow his lead as Commander in Chief on best practices to end the war in Ukraine," her communications director, Ali Black, was quoted as saying by CNN.

Stefanik was among the 400 members of the U.S. House of Representatives who were sanctioned by Russia, calling the sanctions a "badge of honor" at the time.

As public opinion in the U.S. regarding aid to Ukraine shifted and some Republicans became increasingly vocal in their opposition, she also voted against the $60 billion aid package that eventually passed in April 2024.

After Trump's victory in the presidential election on Nov. 5, she was appointed to lead U.S. representation at the United Nations.

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"Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America first fighter," President-elect Trump said.

Trumps support for Ukraine hangs in the air as analysts and politicians try to gauge his plans to bring peace, as he promised to end the war within "24 hours" after reelection without revealing details.

Predictions range from Trump keeping his word and ending the war as soon as possible in a "land-for-peace" scheme to more optimistic views that the incoming president would not leave Ukraine behind after so much American taxpayer money was spent on its security.

Read also: What do Trumps first team picks mean for Ukraine?

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The offshore wind industry in Massachusetts has spent the last several years trying to find its footing, aided by powerful Beacon Hill Democrats who have called the renewable energy necessary to state decarbonization mandates and a boon for the economy. Now, in the face of industry setbacks, a president hostile to the industry is about to step into the Oval Office.

At a rally in May, President-elect Donald Trump said he intends to target offshore wind power immediately upon taking office.

"We are going to make sure that that ends on Day 1, Trump said in his May speech, according to NBC. "Im going to write it out in an executive order. Its going to end on Day 1... They destroy everything, theyre horrible, the most expensive energy there is. They ruin the environment, they kill the birds, they kill the whales."

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Rep. Jeff Roy, who co-chairs the Legislature's Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy -- the chief clean energy and climate change committee in the state -- said he is "very concerned" about that threat.

His counterpart in the Senate, Chairman Mike Barrett, also said there's "lots of reason for concern" but feels "it's premature to write the obituary for offshore wind."

"In Massachusetts, offshore wind is key to our efforts here to reach our climate goals by 2050," Roy said. "An abrupt change in policy like that is going to interrupt that work, and it's going to compromise our ability not only to get the renewable energy that we need to achieve our goals, but it's going to interfere with our ability to gain energy independence, and it's going to interfere with our ability to jump start a new industry and all of the economic development that comes along with that."

Massachusetts needs to prepare to "once again lead the way despite resistance," Roy said, and stand ready to continue work on offshore wind against a president who he said wants to "stifle the progress we've made."

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During his first four years in office, the Trump administration forced a multi-year delay of the Vineyard Wind 1 project off of Martha's Vineyard which was originally supposed to be the first major offshore wind farm in the country.

That project is now being built but had only a handful of the 62 planned wind turbines generating 68 megawatts of power before it was shut down amid an investigation of a July blade failure. The full project is expected to generate 800 megawatts when completed.

There's also tension over the unknown price impacts of new offshore wind projects whose contract terms are being negotiated privately. And in addition to a backlash against wind projects due to debris that washed up on Nantucket from the summertime blade failure, the New Bedford Light reported that some blades built for Vineyard Wind have been shipped to France from New Bedford, "apparently due to a manufacturing defect that has resulted in layoffs and suspensions at the blade manufacturing plant in Gaspe, Quebec.

As for the threat of the executive order, Roy said he is not as concerned about projects currently under construction, that are fully permitted and subject to contractual agreements -- but rather for the 2,400 megawatts that have been authorized but not yet procured.

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"I am concerned about him muddying the waters and potentially dragging those projects down. We hit a few bumps in the road already. We do not need additional antagonism from a president who does not believe that climate change is real," Roy said.

Dan Dolan of the New England Power Generators Association, the trade association that represents over 90 percent of the electric generating capacity in the region, agreed with Roy in his concerns.

"This creates tremendous challenges for the offshore wind industry overall, and specifically for New England, where offshore wind is being planned for such a major component of all incremental new electricity production necessary as we further electrify the economy and expect to see electricity demand growth," Dolan said.

He also expressed concerns specifically for the 2,400 megawatts of wind in the current bid cycle.

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"This is where it gets really tricky," Dolan said. "For the projects that are under construction and under development, I'm fairly confident that those projects are going to get done. For those that are not yet permitted, or only have some permits, I think it's going to be a challenging road."

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Friday completed their review of the proposed SouthCoast Wind project, located 30 miles south of Martha's Vineyard. If approved, the project could generate 2.4 gigawatts of offshore wind energy, enough to power over 800,000 homes.

The feds' completion of the environmental review represents a major step towards getting the 147-turbine development closer to permitting ahead of the incoming Trump administration.

Dolan said developers are going to have to learn to "speak the language and priorities of the incoming administration."

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Barrett echoed a similar sentiment.

"If I were a large energy company, I would be pressing him. I would be nudging him towards an 'all of the above' strategy, which a lot of Republicans already support, and for good reason," Barrett said.

The Senate TUE chair said private developers, not Democrat-led state governments, will have to try to convince the Trump administration that there is money to be made in offshore wind.

The states that generate the most wind power in the U.S. are Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois, according to the Energy Information Administration.

"The companies doing onshore wind development are some of the same companies attempting to do offshore wind development. So if you've got some very red states invested in wind energy, and you've got a lot of jobs being created by Joe Biden's tax credits directed at battery factories and wind energy and solar. And if these companies have reason to want to work with Republicans -- this is one area where red states and blue states may find a common interest in nudging the president-elect toward an 'all of everything approach,'" Barrett said.

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He continued, "There are a lot of business people who want to make a buck off wind energy, and they probably can find a way to get Donald Trump's ear."

Brad Campbell, the president of the Conservation Law Foundation, anticipated that Trump may face legal challenges with a potential executive order to stop new offshore wind development, and said he felt the industry's momentum in New England would be hard to slow.

"The success of executive orders that attempt to make sweeping changes have had very limited success, and there's a certain irony in that many of the right-wing legal challenges to Biden's executive orders, most notably in the context of student debt, have sharply limited what any president can do by executive order," Campbell said.

He said Trump may have "some levers to interfere or slow down momentum, or at least attempt to" but he is skeptical over whether he'd be successful.

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"Ironically, the fossil fuel industry's success in winning both court decisions and legislation to make it harder for the federal government to deny permits to energy projects may help renewable energy as much as it will the fossil fuel industry," Campbell said.

Trump spent the weeks leading up to his recent election continuing to bash the industry, recently appearing on a three-hour podcast with Joe Rogan where he cited concerns he had about wind turbines affecting whales.

The president-elect said he wants to be a "whale psychiatrist," and said whales are washing up on shore linked to offshore wind turbines.

"The wind drives them crazy," Trump told Rogan. "It's a vibration. You know, those things are 50-story buildings, some of them. Fifty. And the wind is rushing, the things are blowing. It's a vibration. And it makes noise.... It drives the whales freaking crazy."

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The National Marine Fisheries Service, which is charged with protecting marine animals, says on their website: "There are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities."

There have been more humpback whale mortalities along the Atlantic coast -- where offshore wind farms have cropped up -- since 2016, NOAA has said, and they say they will continue to gather data to help determine the cause of those strandings and deaths, though they do not link the mortalities to the sites.

"Environmentalists, they don't talk about it," Trump said on Rogan's podcast.

Roy responded to Trump's comments, calling it a "thoroughly debunked myth."

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"The federal government has thoroughly studied that particular issue, and they say that it's the netting from fishing and other types of activity that's killing the whales, not wind turbines," Roy said. "I firmly believe that myth has been thoroughly debunked. But this is a president that doesn't necessarily care about facts. And the more he says it, the more people believe it, unfortunately."

On Rogan's podcast, Trump added that he thinks there's "nothing uglier" than wind farms.

"I see it in Scotland. I see it all over the world. You have this beautiful valley. It's been there for, you know, in civilization, thousands of years, but millions of years, and all of a sudden you have these ugly windmills," Trump said.

It was a sentiment echoed by his running mate, now-Vice President-elect J.D. Vance.

Vance, also on Rogan's podcast, recently said, "I think wind is the biggest scam out there. It's total bullshit. They're ugly."

The Cape Cod Times is providing this coverage for free as a public service. Please take a moment to support local journalism by subscribing.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Mass. offshore wind proponents consider Trump pledges
Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. election will do "little to alter" Washington's policy toward Moscow but might open up a chance for a dialogue, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva said on Nov. 14, Reuters reported.

Trump's imminent return to the White House has prompted anxiety in Ukraine and European allies over the president-elect's amiable views on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"The only shift (that) might be possible is (a) dialogue between our countries, something that has been lacking during the last several years," Ambassador Gennady Gatilov said, according to Reuters.

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At the same time, Gatilov does not expect any tectonic shift in future relations between the U.S. and Russia.

"Regardless of domestic political shifts, (Washington) consistently pursues a sense of containing Moscow...the change of administration does little to alter it," the ambassador added.

"Trump promised to settle the Ukrainian crisis overnight. OK, let him try. But we are realistic people; of course, we understand that this will never happen," Gatilov said, adding that Moscow would welcome Trump's initiative but stressed that any talks must reflect "realities on the ground."

In the past, Trump has called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "genius" and someone who "respects" him.

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Trump also claimed on Oct. 14 that he "(got) along very well with Putin" during his first presidential term in 2017-2021. He implied that the Russian leader told him about his ambitions to control Ukraine.

"It (Ukraine) was the apple of his eye; he used to talk about it. But I said, 'You're not going in,' and he wasn't going in," Trump said at a campaign event.

In a phone call shortly after his electoral victory, Trump allegedly warned Putin not to escalate the war, but the Kremlin later flat-out denied that the call took place.

U.S.-Russia relations sank over Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, rendering Putin a persona non grata in much of the Western countries.

Read also: Opinion: Trump could actually be good for Europe

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State officials on Thursday warned Tennessee State University is "out of money" even as it continues to pay out a $800,000 contract to former President Glenda Glover, an arrangment House Speaker Cameron Sexton sharply criticized following a scathing financial audit showing management failures during Glover's tenure.

"Why would you continue to pay her a lot of money to advise on a situation that we're dealing with because of her leadership when she was at the helm of the university?" Sexton, R-Crossville, said.

University officials said Glover signed a contract with the university for at least $800,000, though Sexton said he'd been informed the total is even higher. Interim leaders struggled to answer questions about the contract, which they said was organized under the previous TSU board.

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The Thursday meeting revealed TSU remains in critical financial condition.

Tennessee floated TSU over $30 million in cash in recent months to keep the institution financially viable, state officials said on Thursday at a meeting of the State Building Commission. TSU was nearly unable to make payroll this fall, and it was forced to lay off more than 100 employees in October.

"The point is, the university is out of money. That's very apparent," State Treasurer David Lillard said.

Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower said more layoffs are needed to stabilize Tennessee State University and suggested the school considering selling off its downtown Nashville campus to stanch critical financial issues. Mumpower did not mince words about the state of TSU's finances and the path ahead for the university.

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"You're here to take it down to the studs and rebuild it, I know you know that," Mumpower told interim TSU President Ronald Johnson and other interim school officials.

Johnson acknowledged a "troubling" lack of checks and balances in TSU management in recent years.

"It has essentially put the institution in a crippled position," Johnson, tapped to lead the university this summer, said. "The legacy of that poor decision making and lack of checks and balances is going to be with us for some time."

State leaders and GOP lawmakers this spring abruptly ousted TSU's board over concerns about mismanagement. Many in the TSU community argued the school had long been underfunded compared to historically white colleges in the state. A federal report last year estimated TSU was underfunded by some $2.1 billion throughout its history.

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Sexton pointed to an external financial audit presented Thursday as evidence that lawmakers made the right decision this spring.

"I appreciate you coming in and showing us exactly what was going on to reiterate that what we did was the right decision, in vacating the board and putting a new board in place," Sexton said.

State leaders on Thursday examined an enrollment boom the university allowed several years ago, in which a record number of students were offered scholarships to attend TSU. But there was little long-term planning for those scholarships, which were propped up by one-time federal dollars, and the campus was ill-equipped to house such a high number of students.

Enrollment has now cratered at the insitutition, as students who were promised four-year scholarships left when TSU couldn't fulfill the commitment.

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In October, TSU laid off 114 staff members to save $11 million in salary expenditures, and university officials said the state cash infusion relieved some financial pressure this fall. But Mumpower on Thursday argued TSU should not feel that way, saying the state "cannot continue on a month-to-month basis propping up" the university's finances and made suggestions like layoffs and reorganizing academic programs with low enrollment.

Mumpower pointed to the potential value of the downtown campus, which he said is in "decrepit" condition but in a valuable location for real estate potential.

"You cannot let up. There is no reason for you to feel like the pressure has been relieved," Mumpower said. "The pressure is still on. The previous administration and trustees have driven this university to a breaking point."

TSU officials are set to return to the commission next month to answer further questions about its 2025 plans and details regarding Glover's contract.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: TSU struggles to make payroll as Glenda Glover draws on $800K contract
President-elect Donald Trumps pick to be the director of national intelligence has stunned the intelligence community shes set to lead.

Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii until 2021 and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, has no formal intelligence experience and she has claimed that shes on a terror watchlist.

Gabbard announced at a Trump rally last month that she was joining the Republican Party and in September, she said in a video shared on X that she and her husband had been flagged as a domestic terror threat in July which she blamed on her rightward shift.

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Just before boarding a flight on July 23, my husband and I were pulled aside for additional TSA screening, Gabbard said. We were told by the TSA agent there that this was just a random selection. Now, that might have been believable if it had happened just once or twice. But five, six, seven, eight times in a row? Theres no way.

Federal air marshal whistleblowers came forward with very disturbing information, she claimed. They revealed that I had been added to a secret terror watchlist run by the TSA called Quiet Skies on July 23. This is the very same day my husband and I began to be subjected to those in-depth TSA searches.

Gabbard went on to claim that she had been targeted because of her criticism of Vice President Kamala Harris.

The TSA placed me on the Quiet Skies domestic terror watchlist in what I can only describe as the ultimate betrayal, she said.

Tulsi Gabbard takes the stage during a Trump campaign rally at Lancaster Airport on November 3, 2024, in Lititz, Pennsylvania. She has been nominated to serve as the Director of National Intelligence (Getty Images)

The Harris-Biden regime has now labeled me a domestic terror threat. Why? They see me as a threat to their power, she claimed.

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The former congresswoman has regularly criticized American wars and has faced scrutiny for her apparently favorable views of authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin of Russia and Bashar Al-Assad of Syria.

A former intelligence official told Politico that the choice was a left turn and off the bridge. But some were relieved that Trump didnt nominate his former Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, who also served as acting DNI during Trumps first stint in the White House.

Gabbard looks set to face difficult Senate confirmation hearings, particularly because from members of her former party, with her foreign policy views out of the mainstream of both parties.

Just after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, she shared a video on X in which she said the Russians, Ukrainians, and Americans should put geopolitics to the side. She subsequently argued that the war could have been avoided if the West had issued a guarantee that Ukraine would never be allowed to join NATO.

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Gabbard has dabbled in conspiracy theories about the US involvement in Ukraine, including saying that Ukraine wasnt worth protecting because it isnt actually a democracy and appearing to echo Russian claims that US-funded biolabs in the country might be developing chemical or biological weapons. She later clarified that she did not believe the labs were developing weapons but was concerned about dangerous pathogens being released from the labs during the war. In the meantime, Republican senator and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney accused her of spreading treasonous lies, something she angrily denied.

The claims about Ukraine had appeared similar to suggestions made in Russian propaganda efforts, which baselessly argued that the US was funding the labs in Ukraine to make illegal bio weapons for use against the Russians.

During her time in Congress in 2017, she went on a secret trip to see Al-Assad, later stating that hes not an enemy of the US.

After serving 17 years in the Hawaii National Guard, Gabbard joined an Army reserve unit. She has said that the experiences of deploying to the Horn of Africa, Kuwait, and Iraq made her skeptical of US interventions.

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A Western intelligence official shared their concern with the choice of Gabbard with Politico, saying that it may prompt US allies to decrease the amount of information they share with the US.

I imagine even Israel will have serious qualms  Americas main intelligence partner on terrorist threats, the official told the outlet. Worse still, what some allies share may now be shaped by political goals rather than professional intelligence sharing.

The office of the Director of National Intelligence was created after the 9/11 2001 terror attacks and is tasked with coordinating intelligence efforts across the US government and around the world.

In his statement announcing Gabbard as his pick for the role, Trump said that she has fought for our Country and the Freedoms of all Americans for over two decades.

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I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength. Tulsi will make us all proud! he added.

Gabbard, who was one of the only Democratic House members not to vote to impeach Trump in 2019 for abusing power and obstructing Congress, said on X that she was grateful to Trump for the opportunity to serve as a member of your cabinet to defend the safety, security and freedom of the American people.
On the day Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine, kickstarting two years of ongoing misery in the region, politicians in Washington were practically unanimous in their condemnation of Vladimir Putins aggression.

One notable exception was Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, and military veteran who had run a failed campaign for president in 2020, but has now been picked as Donald Trumps intelligence chief.

This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if [the Biden administration and] Nato had simply acknowledged Russias legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraines becoming a member of Nato, she tweeted.

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That statement was only the latest of a series of outlandish stances on foreign policy, including her scepticism about chemical weapons attacks in Syria that followed two controversial meetings with Bashar al-Assad.

Donald Trump embraces Tulsi Gabbard at a campaign rally at the Greensboro Coliseum - ERIK S LESSER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

After leaving the Democratic Party in October 2022, Ms Gabbard has undergone a remarkable conversion to become one of Mr Trumps most loyal allies.

Her nomination as the next director of national intelligence on Wednesday could bring about the biggest shake-up of the American spying community in decades.

Military industrial complex

Since joining the Republican Party earlier this year, Ms Gabbard has accused the government of being complicit in a military industrial complex and has railed against the foreign policy establishment in Washington.

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Soon after Jan 20, if her nomination is confirmed by the Senate, she is set to join that establishment as its leader.

The DNI oversees the USs 18 intelligence agencies, from the leviathan FBI and NSA to the more obscure National Reconnaissance Office.

Tulsi Gabbard speaks during a campaign rally for former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump - PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

The position was created in the aftermath of 9/11, and has never been held by a politician with such contempt for the intelligence activities they oversee.

In 2015, Ms Gabbard raised eyebrows at the CIA, when she tried to introduce legislation to block the agencys activities in Syria. The plan was blocked by congressional committees.

Four years later, she called on the US government to drop charges against Julian Assange, the Australian journalist and Wikileaks founder who published thousands of classified intelligence documents on the internet. She then called for the pardoning of Edward Snowdon, an NSA employee who supplied much of the material

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She has also pushed a Kremlin-backed conspiracy theory that Ukraine was developing US-backed biological weapons laboratories.

These positions will not make her popular in the US intelligence community, and her appointment is likely to face significant opposition in the Senate before Mr Trump takes office next year.

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ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The Istanbul chief prosecutor's office has opened a probe into allegations of illicit expenditures at some public events organised by the Istanbul municipality, marking the latest legal challenge to opposition-run districts in Turkey.

The office said late on Wednesday it would investigate "irregular spendings" to determine whether the public experienced financial harm, without elaborating.

The Ankara chief prosecutor's office has also launched an investigation into two concerts organised by the Ankara municipality on Republic Day celebrations on Oct. 29.

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The municipalities, which are Turkey's two largest cities and both run by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), deny the allegations.

Speaking at a career fair on Thursday, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu - who is seen as a potential future challenger to President Tayyip Erdogan - said the probes amounted to "reputation assassination". The Istanbul municipality did not comment further on the probe when contacted by Reuters.

Late last month the CHP mayor of Istanbul's Esenyurt district was arrested and accused of belonging to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), charges he and his party reject.

Since then, the interior ministry dismissed and replaced elected mayors from the pro-Kurdish DEM party in some southeastern cities for alleged ties to militants, charges they and their party also deny.

(Reporting by Burcu Karakas, Can Sezer and Birsen Altayli; Editing by Jonathan Spicer)
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF)  Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks, and give back  and the Richmond County Marshals Office plans to do just that.

The Richmond County Marshals Office is holding its annual turkey drive, again, this year. They are currently accepting turkey donations, which will be distributed to prequalified families through Augusta Partnership for Children and the Richmond County School Board before Thanksgiving. The last day to donate a turkey is Nov. 23 at the Richmond County Substation at 3050 Deans Bridge Road.

Mary Morrison sat down with Marshal Ramone Lamkin to discuss the drive during todays WJBF NewsChannel 6 at noon.

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TUSCALOOSA, Ala (WIAT)  Tuscaloosa City Schools announced cuts in the Summer Learning program in light of the Ad Valorem Tax failing to pass in September.

Despite its successes, the system will have to drastically cut back on the program, TCS said.

Summer learning required $3.3 million dollars of funding last year. COVID funding covered 40% of that budget TCS said, but that money is gone and the city schools cant afford to support the 3,000 students in the program like they did last year.

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Gaetz once faced sex trafficking investigation by Justice Dept. he could now lead

It means that next summer there will be at least nine schools that have no funding for a summer learning program on their campus, TCS said.

Verner Elementary School

Rock Quarry Elementary School

Tuscaloosa Magnet Elementary & Middle School

Woodland Forrest Elementary School

Northridge Middle & High School.

Just this morning, I told my kids on the way to school that summer learning might not be an option for them this year and they were pretty upset by that, Randi Hamm said.

Hamms two children attended Rock Quarry Elementary. Both her 3rd and 5th grader went to TCS Summer Learning the past three summers.

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My kids absolutely love summer learning, Hamm said.

The program reinforced what students like Hamms children learned in previous semesters.

That felt like they were going into the next year without two or three months loss of information, Hamm said.

Third graders who do not meet the standards of Alabamas Literacy and Numeracy Act will have access to summer learning.

However, TCS has just enough funding for 1,200 students and the program is 22 days  instead of 24.

Were just now seeing the first consequences of this referendum not being passed in our community, and its devastating, Rock Quarry Elementary parent Liz Kindred said.

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Kindreds daughter is in first grade at RQE, while summer learning was able to be used as needed with her child, she recognized how it can be a bigger, more consistent need for other families in the school system.

For a majority of our parents  when you have two working parents, summer learning is essential, Kindred said.

Some parents like the Hamms work full-time, but do have the ability to find alternative childcare, but the question now is if they can find the proper educational supplement during the summer as well?

Our worries are a little less, what are we going to do with the kids, and a little more of what is the impact going to have on them, Hamm said.

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Both Hamm and Kindred understood if the vote to raise property taxes failed cuts would come. However, they are both disappointed that both of those things came to fruition.

Its devastating that it didnt pass, It didnt have to be this way, Kindred said.

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Nov. 13FORT TOTTEN, N.D.  A two-day, community-led search is scheduled for Friday and Saturday in Fort Totten, North Dakota, with hopes of finding any sign of two Indigenous people who disappeared from the area 10 and eight months ago.

Jemini Madeline Posey, 22, disappeared from Fort Totten in January. Isaac James Hunt, 27, went missing two months later.

Jewel Azure, Spirit Lake Tribe victim assistance employee, has been a key figure in organizing searches for Hunt and Posey. Throughout the search efforts, she says the biggest need is "actual boots on the ground."

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"We just need more people to be involved," Azure said. "It doesn't matter if you are from the reservation, or you're not. If you feel a call to come help, we welcome anyone who is able and ready."

The search is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 15, and Saturday, Nov. 16. Participants will meet at the Fort Totten Wellness Center at 9 a.m. Search efforts are expected to last until around 7 p.m. both nights. A crew of horses and their riders will be coming from Standing Rock, and Spirit Lake horse riders will also be involved.

Searchers are advised to come prepared, dressed for potentially cold and windy conditions, though the forecast looks warmer than initially expected, with highs in the upper 40s, according to a Facebook post on the Spirit Lake Missing Persons Page.

People are encouraged to search in groups. Anyone who cannot physically search but would still like to assist can do so at the Wellness Center  considered headquarters for the search efforts  where they can help with cooking, fielding calls and other organizing.

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Because the search falls in hunting season, it's highly encouraged for participants to wear the blaze orange commonly worn by hunters. Any donations, or even loans of these high-visibility garments, will be incredibly helpful, Azure said.

Other requested donations, which can be dropped off at the Wellness Center, include drinks such as water or Powerade, grab-and-go snacks, to-go boxes, bowls, cutlery, napkins, coffee cups, gloves, hats, sticks, broomsticks and items for the horses that will be assisting in the search.

Meal times are scheduled for approximately 9:30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., so anyone who would like to provide a dish can drop it off around then.

So far, the search is a wholly community-led effort, with no law enforcement involvement  but Azure hopes to get assistance from the local police and fire departments, or other public entities.

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The Spirit Lake Tribal Council has granted administrative leave for Friday, so Azure hopes this will allow tribal employees to take time off and help search.

"It's been a really huge effort to get people involved," she said. "So we just said, 'Let's go ahead with it. Whoever comes, comes. And if people don't show, we'll still be there. We know that we'll still have a handful of people who will be able to help the family."

That's the most important thing, Azure said  showing Hunt and Posey's families that they have support, and their loved ones have not been forgotten.

"Even if nothing comes about, we just want to be here to let them know that we want to help, and we're trying, and this is what we can do," she said.

Any questions can be directed to Azure at (701) 350-0288 or jazure@spiritlakenation.com. Tips can be reported to the Fort Totten Police Department at (701) 766-4231.
Donald Trumps prospective nomination of former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general has seemingly already run up against two obstacles: Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.

The moderate duo, who have also resisted Trumps demand for Republican senators to stop considering judicial nominees until Trump takes office, both said they were surprised by the incoming presidents announcement and signaled that they may vote against Gaetz when the time comes.

I dont think it is a serious nomination for the attorney general, Murkowski told reporters Wednesday. We need to have a serious attorney general, and Im looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.

Murkowski: I don't think it is a serious nomination for the attorney general. We need to have a serious attorney general and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card. pic.twitter.com/CAzLQFGHKb  Acyn (@Acyn) November 14, 2024

The reaction from Collins, who also did not vote for Trump in the last election, was similar.

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I was shocked that he has been nominated, she said. If the nomination proceeds, Im sure there will be an extensive background check by the FBI, and public hearings, and a lot of questions asked.

Neither senator has definitively said that they would not vote to confirm Gaetz, whose nomination also drew criticism from other Republicans on Capitol Hill.

No good comment, Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told reporters, while Rep. John Duarte (R-CA) said Gaetz would be a compromised AG.

Even supporters of Gaetzs nomination seem to acknowledge that his confirmation hearing wont go smoothly.

I completely trust President Trumps decision-making on this one, but at the same time, hes got to come to Congress and sell himself, Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin told CNN. Theres a lot of questions that are going to be out there, hes got to answer those questions, and hopefully hes able to answer the questions right.
KINSTON, N.C. (WNCT)  Law enforcement officers with the Kinston Police Department arrested two men in connection with the murder of Melvin Lofton.

Jeramiah Golphin, 21 years old and from Snow Hill. was arrested on November 12 by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections and the Greene County Sheriffs Office. Golphin was charged with first degree murder and felony conspiracy. He was taken to the Lenoir County Jail and given a secured bond.

Kobe Sheppard, 26 years old and from Kinston, was arrested on Thursday by the Kinston Police Departments SWAT team and the NC SBI. Sheppard was charged with first degree murder and felony conspiracy. He was taken to the Lenoir County Jail and given a secured bond.

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A fire official said two people were very fortunate to walk away from a crash landing when their plane went down in a field near the 405 Freeway shortly after taking off from Van Nuys Airport Thursday morning.

The two occupants, identified only as a man and a woman, safely exited the aircraft after the 1968 Cessna crashed near the 15300 block of West Burbank Boulevard around 7 a.m., the Los Angeles Fire Department stated in a news alert.

We found it upside down in this dirt patch. Fortunately, no fire, no extrication required, LAFD Capt. Erik Scott said. Those occupants are very fortunate today to have walked away.

The man and woman got out of the plane on their own and suffered only minor lacerations to their faces, Scott said. Both declined transport to a local hospital.

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The plane went down in the Sepulveda Basin about three miles south of Van Nuys Airport after losing communication with the tower.

The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the cause of the crash.

Meanwhile, a fire broke out just a few blocks away as the investigation was underway around 8 a.m.

A large plume of smoke could be seen by commuters traveling on the already slow 405 Freeway.

That was a reported rubbish fire in a homeless encampment, Scott said.

The fire was knocked down and no injuries were reported.

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UPDATE 11/15:

MPD says a 14-year-old boy was arrested and charged with Robbery and Attempted Robbery.

*****

MEMPHIS, Tenn.  Police are looking for a man they say robbed a grandmother and threatened to shoot her grandchildren at the Hickory Hill Community Center, then targeted another woman the next day.

The first robbery happened at 2:35 Monday afternoon at the center at 3910 Ridgeway Road. A woman and her grandchildren were at the playground behind the center when a man in dark clothing approached.

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The man tried to sell a bike to the woman, police said. When she refused, he reached into his waistband, implying he had a weapon, and threatened to shoot the children if the woman didnt give him her keys.

She gave the man her keys and fled with her grandchildren.

Memphis Police released these photos of the suspect.

 See more breaking news, local news and weather from WREG.com for Memphis and the Mid-South.

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Tuesday morning around 10:30, another woman told police she was walking on a trail behind the community center when the same suspect came up to her with both hands in his waistband, demanding her property.

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She gave the man her phone. The suspect got away.

If you have any information that could help police, call CrimeStoppers at 901-528-CASH.

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ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC)  Every day, about 35,000 people commit to a daily commute down Buffalo Gap Road. With such a high concentration of people on or around a single roadway, there are bound to be periodic accidents. While it can be easy to lose focus during ones daily routine, the added construction in the area plays a factor in the potential hazards of driving in this area.

Because of this, TxDOT has accompanied the reconstruction of this section of Buffalo Gap Road with some additional accommodations to help drivers navigate this area as safely as possible. Alaisha Montanez, the Public Information Officer for TxDOTs Abilene District, outlined the specifics of these improvements.

Construction shifts sides on Buffalo Gap Road, bringing relief to some businesses, stress to others

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Weve gone in, and we have done some updates to that particular area of FM 89. Those include some additional intersections, some dedicated turn lanes, some sidewalks, and updated drainage, Montanez shared.

Montanez went on to discuss the frequency of construction zones in the state of Texas and how a few simple adjustments to ones driving habits around these areas can prevent accidents.

Right now, at any given time throughout the state, there are about 1,900 active work zones. If youre traveling on a state roadway, at some point during your day, youre going to run across a work zone. So we just ask folks to really pay attention. It is so important that they do those three things: slow down, pay attention, and really watch when they are changing lanes in work zones, Montanez explained.

TxDOT: Buffalo Gap Road construction project scheduled to be completed fall 2024, could be pushed back again

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With the construction process going on for years on Buffalo Gap Road, KTAB/KRBC sought the opinions of those who live and work in the area to get their perspectives on the construction process and the improvements theyve seen thus far. Ashleigh Ortega works at Prime Lending just off Buffalo Gap Road and gave kudos to the new stop light in front of Market Street, which allows commuters safer access when entering and exiting this area.

Its been pretty chaotic going and coming from work. I think its actually great. I think that putting that light in was the best thing ever. Ive lived here my whole life, and Ive seen lots of accidents where people pull into places. So, I think implementing that light and all that is great, Ortega said.

Buffalo Gap Road construction affects residents & local business

Cassie Derrico is an Abilene native who has lived alongside Buffalo Gap Road for over a year. She spoke about the dangers of traffic in this area and her thoughts regarding the construction.

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Its been kind of crazy. Theres been a lot of accidents. I witnessed an accident. I was front row seat to it probably three weeks ago, and a lady just ran a red light and got the lady next to me. I feel like its better for traffic flow, but its worse if youre living off of this road, Derrico shared.

TxDOT has provided updated timelines for the projects completion. They stated that the concrete work is expected to be finished by the end of December this year, with the entire project slated for completion in March 2025.

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In a blistering critique, the top U.S. diplomat in Mexico said the country is not safe and that its leaders should stop denying widespread violence, invest more in security and increase cooperation with the United States.

To say there is no problem is to deny reality, U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar told reporters this week. And the reality is that there is a very big problem in Mexico.

At her daily news conference Thursday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum shot back, saying her country was open to coordination with its northern neighbor, but not subordination.

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She pointed out that the ambassador  a political appointee who will probably be replaced by the incoming Trump administration  has also praised Mexican cooperation. First he says one thing, then he says something else, she said.

Sheinbaum, who took office Oct. 1, has adopted a security strategy that closely hews to that of her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who eschewed confrontation with criminal gangs in favor of providing greater economic opportunities to at-risk youth in the hope of steering them away from crime  a policy he called hugs, not bullets.

As president, he regularly accused his adversaries of exaggerating the scope of killings and other crimes. He relied on the military, rather than police, to fight organized crime groups, which are among Mexicos largest employers .

Salazar was once close with Lopez Obrador. But the relationship cooled in the latters final months in office as the ambassador assailed plans to overhaul the judiciary that critics saw as a ruling-party power play.

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Salazars comments this week were his most critical assessment yet of Mexicos approach to drug trafficking and other crime. He asserted that U.S.-Mexico security coordination has failed in the last year, in great part because the previous president did not want to receive help from the United States.

He also echoed critics in Mexico who have assailed Sheinbaum for failing to earmark more funds to professionalize Mexicos criminal justice system  especially the police, who make so little money that officers often wind up on gang payrolls.

You cannot pay a policeman practically nothing and expect him to do his job, Salazar said.

Mexico sent a diplomatic note to Washington expressing displeasure with the admonitions from Salazar.

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The dustup comes at a sensitive moment in Mexico, where there is deep concern about President-elect Donald Trumps threats to impose tariffs, deploy U.S. troops to go after cartels, conduct mass deportations and further militarize the border.

Mexico has seen gang wars , massacres and assassinations continue since Sheinbaum took office.

There was no immediate response from Lopez Obrador, a longtime mentor to Sheinbaum and founder of the party for which she is now the standard-bearer.

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OWASSO, Okla. (KFOR)  Nine months after the death of Owasso student Nex Benedict, the U.S. Department of Education has reached a resolution in their Owasso Public Schools investigation.

FILE  In this image provided Malia Pila, Nex Benedict poses outside the familys home in Owasso, Okla., in December 2023. The death of Nex Benedict, a nonbinary student the day after a fight inside an Oklahoma high school restroom, has been ruled a suicide, the state medical examiners office said Wednesday, March 13, 2024. (Sue Benedict via AP, File)

Lance Preston, Founder of the Rainbow Youth Project, tells News 4 hes hoping the investigation will serve as a wake-up call.

RELATED: Full autopsy report for Nex Benedict released

We definitely felt like there was a need for an investigation and thats why we signed on with over 350 other organizations, said Preston.

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Nex Benedict identified as nonbinary, and their family said they were a target of bullying.

Medical examiners determined they died by suicide.

RELATED: A nonbinary students death after a high school fight has been ruled a suicide. Heres what to know

A release on Wednesday from the U.S. Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights indicates problems within the Owasso School District years before Benedicts death.

The agency found the district had a pattern of inconsistent responses to reports of sexual harassment, and it rose to the level of deliberately being indifferent to students civil rights.

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As a result, the Owasso School District has agreed to a number of changes outlined here:

Contact the parents of students affected by sexual harassment in the district to inform them of the process for filing a Title IX complaint and the availability of supportive measures; Issue a public anti-harassment statement and nondiscrimination statement to the district community; Review and, if necessary, revise its Title IX policies to ensure compliance with Title IXs requirements about sex discrimination, including sexual harassment; Provide training on Title IX to district staff and students, including the full scope of its sexual harassment coverage; Conduct a climate survey on sexual harassment in the district; Review all complaints of sexual harassment received in the past three school years and an audit of all complaints received in the next two school years to ensure that the district processes all complaints consistent with Title IX; and Develop and implement a recordkeeping system that adequately and accurately documents and preserves all records required by Title IX.

After Benedicts death, the Rainbow Youth Projects call numbers soared.

Our crisis numbers from Oklahoma increased over 500%, and they have remained that high ever since. We did have outpouring from Owasso High School, said Preston

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Preston said the fight isnt over, but he hopes this investigation will serve as an eye-opener to all schools.

Were hoping that many of the schools in Oklahoma will start paying attention and understand that every kid is entitled to a safe learning environment, said Preston.

I reached out to Owasso Public Schools for their response regarding the resolution.

They forwarded a statement that was shared to Owasso parents:

Owasso Parents & Guardians, I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to inform you that the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has completed its investigation of Owasso Public Schools following a complaint last spring. OCR did not find a violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act or Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. However, as part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring a safe and inclusive environment for all students, the district will enter into a voluntary agreement with OCR to resolve a Title IX complaint made against the district. While we continue to believe the original complaint made to OCR was based on inaccurate information, OPS understands the importance for the district to remain in compliance with Title IX regulations in regard to policies, procedures, training, and documentation. This voluntary resolution agreement reaffirms our dedication to fostering a non-discriminatory and harassment-free environment for all students and ensures the district will continue to receive federal funding which is critical in supporting and serving our students with disabilities, English Language learners, and economically disadvantaged students. The voluntary resolution agreement outlines several important steps that we will be taking throughout the remainder of the 2024-25 school year. These steps include, individual remedies, updating and revising policies, processes, and procedures, updating parts of our website, as well as additional training for staff and students. The complete resolution agreement may be accessed here. OPS is committed to fulfilling these requirements with the utmost seriousness and care, as we believe every student has the right to learn in an environment free from discrimination and harassment. We are confident that these steps will enhance the safety and inclusivity of our school community. Should you have any questions or concerns regarding these measures, or if you would like more information about our Title IX policies and procedures, please do not hesitate to contact our Title IX Coordinator  Mark Officer, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching & Learning  at mark.officer@owassops.org or 918-272-8182. Thank you for your continued support as we work together to make our schools a place where every student feels safe, respected, and valued. Dr. Margaret Coates, Owasso Public Schools Superintendent

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By Riham Alkousaa and Emilie Madi

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The United Nations intends to bolster its peacekeeping mission in Lebanon to better support the Lebanese army once a truce is agreed but would not directly enforce a ceasefire, U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said on Thursday.

The peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL is deployed in southern Lebanon to monitor the demarcation line with Israel, an area that has seen more than a year of hostilities between Israeli troops and Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters.

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Diplomatic efforts to end the fighting have centred on U.N. resolution 1701, which ended the last round of conflict between the two heavily-armed foes in 2006 and requires Hezbollah to remove fighters and weapons from areas between the border and the Litani River, which runs about 30 km (around 20 miles) from Lebanon's southern border.

Israel has for years accused UNIFIL of failing to implement the resolution, and now says peacekeepers must get out of the way as Israeli troops fight Hezbollah. UNIFIL troops have refused to leave their posts, despite repeated Israeli attacks that have wounded peacekeepers.

"I think that has to be very clear. Implementing the 1701 is the responsibility of the parties," said Lacroix, speaking to reporters on a three-day visit to Lebanon. "UNIFIL has a supportive role, and there is a lot of substance in that supporting role."

Lacroix said the peacekeeping mission would work with the Lebanese army to "support the implementation of a settlement" and was already in discussions with contributing nations to assess UNIFIL's needs, including with advanced technology, without necessarily increasing troop numbers.

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Following a truce, UNIFIL's capacities could be expanded to include clearing explosive devices and reopening roads.

"We don't necessarily think in terms of numbers, we think in terms of what would be the needs and how could they be fulfilled," he said.

Lacroix said the U.N. and several member states have repeatedly called on all parties to ensure the safety of peacekeepers and that while incidents had not stopped, they had not increased following international condemnation.

(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa and Emilie Madi; Editing by Maya Gebeily and Alex Richardson)
U.S. News & World Report today released its annual ranking for the Best Elementary and Middle Schools in Ohio, and the results for this year are in.

Traditionally, U.S. News & World Report releases a list of the best high schools and colleges in the country. The outlet first began publishing elementary and middle school rankings in 2021. Last year, Miller City Elementary School led the pack for Ohio's top elementary and middle schools.

Here are the top 25 elementary and middle schools in Ohio.

Top 25 elementary and middle schools in Ohio

Here are the 25 best elementary and middle schools in Ohio, according to U.S. News & World Report's ranking.

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Miller City Elementary School: Serves kindergarten through fifth grade; student enrollment is 243. Emerson Elementary School: Serves grades one through five; enrollment is 208. Wells Academy: Has pre-K through fourth grade students; enrollment is 329. Hilltop Elementary School: Kindergarten through fourth grade; student enrollment is 307. Parkside Elementary School: Serves kindergarten through grade four; enrollment is 509. Pugliese Elementary West: Has pre-K through fourth grade; student enrollment is 480. Grace L. Roxbury Elementary School: Serves kindergarten through grade four; enrollment is 541. Chestnut Ridge Elementary School: Students in kindergarten through grade eight; enrollment is 212. McKinley Stem Academy: Serves pre-K through grade four; student population is 167. Dorothy E. Lewis Elementary School: Kindergarten through grade four; student enrollment is 553. Whitehouse Primary School: Students in kindergarten through fourth grade; student population is 539. School of Innovation: Grades three through eight; enrollment is 434. Kalida Elementary School: Kindergarten through grade four; student enrollment is 234. Mariemont Elementary School: Serves kindergarten through sixth grade; enrollment is 505. Harman Elementary School: Grades one through six; student enrollment is 413. Terrace Park Elementary School: Kindergarten through grade six; student population is 333. Robert C. Lindsey Elementary School: Grades three through six; student enrollment is 461. Wyandot Elementary School: Serves kindergarten through fifth grade; enrollment is 503. Herberich Primary Elementary School: Students in kindergarten through grade four; enrollment is 249. Scioto Ridge Elementary School: Serves pre-K through fifth grade; student population is 515. Kensington Intermediate Elementary School: Grades three through five; student enrollment is 596. Montgomery Elementary School: Kindergarten through fourth grade; student enrollment is 517. Tyler Run Elementary School: Serves pre-K through grade five; student population is 645. Westerly Elementary School: Third and fourth grade; student population and enrollment is 376. Hinckley Elementary School: Kindergarten through fifth grade; student enrollment is 388.

How U.S. News & World Reported came up with their rankings

The methodology for the rankings analyzed mathematics and reading performance of schools at the state and district level, according to U.S. News & World Report. Out of 105,093 pre-K, elementary and middle schools, the outlet examined state assessments and looked at students who were proficient or above proficient in these academic subjects, among other factors.

"The 2025 Best Elementary and Middle Schools rankings offer parents a way to evaluate how schools are providing a high-quality education and preparing students for future success," U.S. News managing editor for education Dr. LaMont Jones said in a news release. "Research continues to indicate that how students perform academically at these early grade levels is a big factor in their success in high school and beyond."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: See the list of the top 25 best elementary and middle schools in Ohio
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT)  President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to close the U.S. Department of Education, and Sen. Tommy Tuberville said he strongly supports the presidents plan.

Tuberville said he wants to hand power back to the states.

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We need to take a sledgehammer to it, Tuberville said. The states can handle their kids and their curriculum a lot better than Washington D.C.

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Tuberville said the state of education in the U.S. has gotten worse since the involvement of the federal government.

It goes back to people. It goes back to the unions, the teachers unions that have really, really hurt whats going on in the Department of Education and our education system, Tuberville said. Not just elementary, not just secondary, but also higher educations. Weve lost sight of whats important and if we dont have well-educated kids, were not going to have a great future for this country.

The U.S. Department of Education is responsible for distributing funding to the states, and those numbers go up during national emergencies like the pandemic. In 2023, the Department of Education handed over more than two and a half billion dollars of school relief funding to the State of Alabama, as a part of the American Rescue Plan.

Madison Co. Commission Chairman gives State of County Address

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With federal approval, the state then takes that money and decides how it should be spent.

The Department of Education also works to ensure that all students, including those with learning disabilities, have equal access to the resources they need to learn. Part of its job is providing funding for special education programs and developing federal policy that protects the students in those programs.

A vote to dismantle the Department of Education would likely go through the Senate and require a supermajority of 60 votes to pass. Republicans will hold 53 seats in the Senate.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHNT.com.
A US House committee held a hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), commonly known as UFOs, on Wednesday in Washington, DC.

The hearing, titled "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth," has brought attention back to UFOs. It included testimony from important witnesses who asked for more government transparency about UFOs.

Former US counterintelligence officer Luis Elizondo, retired Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, and former NASA Associate Administrator Michael Gold were among those who spoke.

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They shared claims about advanced technologies and possible non-human intelligence. They urged for less stigma around discussing UFOs and more public access to UAP data.

We are not alone

Elizondo, a former Department of Defense official, commented, Let me be clear: UAP are real and advanced technologies not made by our Government or any other governmentare monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe.

Over the last decade and a half, I learned that certain UAP programs were, and are, operating without a watchful Congress; a responsive Executive Branch; and an informed public.

He added, Although much of my [US] Government work on the UAP subject still remains classified, excessive secrecy has led to grave misdeeds against loyal civil servants, military personnel, and the public  all to hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos.

US Navy F/A-18 tracked UFO

Gallaudet said in his written testimony, "Confirmation that UAPs are interacting with humanity came for me in January 2015."

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He described being part of a pre-deployment naval exercise off the US. East Coast that culminated in the famous "Go Fast" video, in which a Navy F/A-18 jet's sensors recorded an unidentified object exhibiting flight and structural characteristics unlike anything in our arsenal.

He wrote, I concluded that the UAP information must have been classified within a special access program managed by an intelligence agency  a compartmented program that even senior officials, including myself, were not read into.

US UFO secrets

Michael Shellenberger, founder of Public, a news outlet on the Substack platform, said, "UAP transparency is bi-partisan and critical to our national security."

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1856773415983820802?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1856773415983820802%7Ctwgr%5E11ba7f9fe829940af22461b7fd7fc3db44c10dec%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.livemint.com%2Fnews%2Fufos-are-real-interacting-with-humanity-whistleblowers-unravel-us-govts-secrets-share-first-hand-encounters-11731589747158.html

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He said, The US military and intelligence community are sitting on a HUGE amount of  still [high-resolution] photos, video, other sensor information on UAPs/UFOs.

Gold, former NASA associate administrator of space policy and partnerships, stressed the need for government agencies and academics to "overcome the pernicious stigma that continues to impede scientific dialogue and open discussions" about unexplained phenomena.

"As the saying goes, the truth is out there," Gold said, we just need to be bold enough and brave enough to face it.

Military officials testimony

Last year, military veterans David Grusch, Ryan Graves, and David Fravor shared their experiences with UAPs.

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Graves, a former F-18 pilot, described a 2014 incident off Virginia Beach in which a dark object resembling a cube within a sphere came within 50 feet of his aircraft. He stated that UAP sightings are routine and severely underreported.

Grusch, a retired Major and intelligence officer, revealed to the House Oversight Committee that he was denied access to UAP crash retrieval programs.

He claimed the US government possesses UAPs based on interviews with over 40 witnesses. He said he knows their exact locations.

Fravor, a retired Navy commander, recounted a 2004 encounter with a white "Tic Tac"-shaped UAP off the San Diego coast. The UAP exhibited remarkable acceleration and lacked traditional flight features.

He noted that the technology displayed by the UAP was far superior to known capabilities, representing a potential threat to national security. Fravor emphasized that what they witnessed was unlike anything else, describing it as incredible technology.
About nine months since the University of Georgia was approved to create the states second public medical s school, it has received approval from the University System of Georgias Board of Regents to provide Doctor of Medical degrees to its students.

The new medical school was announced in February after a vote by the Regents and in April, the university broke ground on the new College of Medicine.

On Thursday, the university announced the Board had approved their request to provide students in the new medical school with MDs.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

The vote itself came on Nov. 12, putting a cap on a months-long process with the states university system.

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The University Council at UGA approved the degree and curriculum for the medical program on Sept. 18, according to the university, and the vote on Tuesday finalizes the schools new degree program.

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I am very grateful to the Board of Regents for their continued support of the UGA School of Medicine, UGA President Jere W. Morehead said in a statement. I recognize all the hard work that our faculty, staff and so many others have contributed to get us to this point, and I am excited for us to continue making progress on this vitally important endeavor.

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Construction on the universitys medical school is expected to begin in spring 2025 and be completed in December 2026.

A consulting firm estimates that the UGA School of Medicine could generate between $1.8 to $2.3 billion in cumulative economic impact over the next 15 years.

This is a historic day for both the School of Medicine and our state, said Founding Dean Shelley Nuss. This milestone gets us one step closer to putting more doctors in Georgia to help alleviate the physician shortage. I want to humbly thank everyone who has supported our campus and our mission to make a healthier Georgia.

According to UGA, the university now has to submit an application to the Liasion Committee on Medical Education by Dec. 1 to request that their medical program to be accredited.

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Arvid Tuerkners first winter in charge of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Ukraine comes with a daunting task: swiftly mobilize investment into energy companies crippled by two years of Russian attacks.

Russia began targeting Ukraines energy infrastructure in late 2022 and has since then pounded the energy system with drones and missiles, knocking out half of the countrys power generation capacity by late 2024.

Officials have warned this winter could be the worst yet since Russia began its campaign against the energy system.

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The EBRD has plowed nearly a quarter of its 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in investments into the countrys state-owned energy companies since late 2022. Back then, the London-based lender focused on financing repairs and defensive structures. Its now supporting electricity generation after attacks earlier this year decimated Ukraines thermal and hydroelectric plants.

We need to be very fast and focused to make sure (energy generation) is online as soon as possible, Tuerkner, who also heads the bank's efforts in Moldova, told the Kyiv Independent at the end of a two-week visit to Ukraine on Oct. 31.

The bank  Kyivs largest institutional lender  has been a lifeline for Ukrainian private and state companies, agreeing to a 4-billion-euro capital increase in December 2023 to allow it to double its lending to the war-torn nation.

So far this year, it has injected more than 1.3 billion euros across 46 projects, backing schemes in energy and food security, trade, and vital infrastructure, with a focus on private sector resilience.

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Tuerkner says that given the current situation, however, energy has been the priority since his appointment five months ago.

A worker walks through a burned-out control room at a power plant of energy provider DTEK, destroyed after an attack, in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on April 19, 2024. (Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images)

Electricity transmission system operator Ukrenergo, oil and gas giant Naftogaz, and hydropower company Hyrdoenergo have received the lions share of the bank's investments, receiving at least 1 billion euros ($1.053 billion) since 2022.

Naftogaz told the Kyiv Independent the bank is a steadfast and invaluable partner that is instrumental in Ukraines energy security. The state-owned company has received EBRD loans totaling 500 million euros ($527 million) since the start of the full-scale invasion.

Energy rationing necessary to mitigate the impact of Russian attacks is expected to leave Ukrainians without power for large parts of the day. Executive Director of DTEK  Ukraines largest private energy company that the EBRD has so far stayed away from due to its ownership by Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov  told the Kyiv Independent in June that in a worst-case scenario, Ukrainians could face up to 20 hours of blackouts a day.

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The country has moved to decentralize its energy system as quickly as possible by replacing some of the power generated by coal-powered thermal plants destroyed or heavily damaged by Russia with gas-powered turbines, solar panels, and mini thermal plants, among other quick solutions.

To bolster government efforts, the bank has extended loans for equipment like generators through a 700-million-euro shared risk program.

While the EBRD is working with Europes green energy transition to move away from fossil fuels, Ukraines urgent energy needs take priority, Tuerkner said. The bank asked shareholders for an exemption for Ukraines gas generation construction.

Tuerkner believes short-term solutions, like gas engines, will help balance power for intermittent renewables in the long run. The EBRD is continuing to invest in Ukraines clean energy sector this year to support the transition, including a 62-million-euro loan to the fuel-retail company Galnaftogaz for a 147-megawatt (MW) wind farm.

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The bank is additionally financing new players entering the energy generation market, such as state railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia, which announced plans in June to build dozens of gas-generating plants with a total capacity of up to 250 MW across the country.



Ukrnafta, a state-owned oil and gas extraction company that is a subsidiary of Naftogaz, is also constructing gas-burning electricity and heat generation facilities covering 70 MW with support from the EBRD. The Ukrnafta and Ukrzaliznytsia projects wont be up and running until 2025, Tuerkner said.



The (energy) situation will not be so different in six months' time. It's still very much needed because there is a gap in generation, he said.



In addition to a ticking clock as winter settles in, the largest wartime government reshuffle in September has disrupted EBRD projects with the public sector, according to Tuerkner.



With ministers being fired and hired, including the sacking of Ukrenergo CEO Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, decision-making has been slow but is still on a good track, he said.

Cars drive on a dark street after a Russian missile strike caused city-wide blackouts in Kharkiv, Ukraine. April 11, 2024. (Yevhenii Vasyliev/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

Private-sector support

Despite breaking with the EBRDs long-standing mandating of focusing primarily on the private sector by investing in Ukraines state-owned companies, the bank has also been one of the few investors to continue backing big-ticket investments.



In the largest foreign direct investment since the start of the full-scale invasion, the EBRD provided a $435 million loan alongside the International Finance Corporation for a $600 million merger.



French billionaire Xavier Niels company NJJ Capital purchased Ukraines third-largest mobile operator Lifecell and service provider Datagroup-Volia earlier this year, merging the companies under a new entity, Lifecell-Datagroup-Volia.



That (investment) shows everything is possible, Tuerkner said.



Kyiv-based private equity firm Horizon Capital, an equity partner on the NJJ capital merger, told the Kyiv Independent that the EBRD serves as a powerful anchor to private investors as the bank looks to encourage more money into Ukraine.

Attracting investment has been lackluster as Russias war rages into its third year. Tuerkner doesnt expect a lot of investment during the war  the uncertainty and hazards amid the invasion are too high and local banks have seen a plunge in lending, despite record-high profits.



There's a war environment which makes it riskier to lend, so there's a certain hesitation, Tuerkner said.

Ukrainian first responders work at the site of a Russian missile attack on a publishing factory in Kharkiv, Ukraine on May 23, 2024. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

The EBRD is encouraging local banks to lend through portfolio risk-sharing programs focusing on energy needs, veteran-run businesses, and small and medium-sized businesses impacted by the war. By the year's end, the EBRD will have facilitated lending in the banking market of 1.1 billion euros.



To mold an attractive investment climate in the long run, Tuerkner said Ukraine must strengthen anti-corruption measures and combat the harassment of businesses by tax authorities.



Leaders in Ukraines business sector have raised the alarm over the past year over heavy-handed pressure and intimidation on businesses. The government earlier this year implemented a set of reforms of the Bureau of Economic Security, the agency widely seen as responsible for the pressure.



The bank also backs projects with a focus on anti-corruption trainings with institutions like the Restoration Agency, where Tuerkner said Ukraine is making steps in the right direction. The biggest driver for change is the EU integration process as well as conditions set by donors, he added.



Businesses see the EU integration process and that might make investors change their minds, he said.

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Read also: Worlds largest business organization cuts arbitration costs to boost foreign investment in Ukraines reconstruction

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The New York Times writes that Ukrainian officials have been saying for months that they would not give up territory occupied by Russia in any peace settlement. However, with the US President-elect Donald Trump now pushing for an "accelerated timetable for negotiations", it is placing as much importance on obtaining security guarantees as it does on where the line of contact might be drawn.

Source: NYT

Details: As Ukrainian troops steadily lose ground in the east, two senior Ukrainian officials said that protecting Ukraine's interests in potential talks would depend not on borders, which are likely to be determined by fighting, but on what guarantees exist to ensure that the ceasefire is respected.

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Quoted from Roman Kostenko, Chairman of the Defence and Intelligence Committee of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament): "Talks should be based on guarantees. For Ukraine, nothing is more important."

Details: Another senior Ukrainian official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to be more frank on sensitive topics: "The territorial question is extremely important, but its still the second question. The first question is security guarantees."

Kostenko also noted that Ukraine establishes its borders based on its 1991 declaration of independence. Since then, Russia has gained control of about 20% of Ukrainian land, but Kyiv will not officially give up its claims to any territory under Russian occupation.

Quote: "That appears to be the approach Ukraine is taking to justify any possible deal in which Russia would retain control of Ukrainian land. In October, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, discussing a cease-fire, said Everyone understands that no matter what path we take, legally no one will recognise the occupied territories as belonging to other countries."

Background:

US President-elect Donald Trump may soon appoint a special envoy "to lead negotiations" on ending the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal claimed that Trump's plan to honour his pledge to "end the war in Ukraine quickly" includes the proposal of freezing the front lines along the current war zone, establishing a demilitarised zone, and implementing a 20-year moratorium on Ukraine's NATO membership.

Trump is known to have already spoken with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, urging him not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminding him of the substantial US military presence in Europe.

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Ukrainian forces successfully repelled Russian attempts to break into the city of Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukrinfrom reported on Nov. 14, citing the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces.

"All Russian attacks in this direction were successfully repelled. Russian invaders failed to enter Kupiansk. The city is under the control of Ukraine's Armed Forces," General Staff spokesperson Andrii Kovalev told Ukrinform.

The statement comes after the crowd-sourced monitoring website DeepState claimed late on Nov. 13 that some Russian units, including armored vehicles and a tank, managed to enter Kupiansk but soon suffered heavy losses.

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Kupiansk is a key logistics and railway hub in the eastern part of Kharkiv Oblast. With several highways and five railway lines running through it, the town was briefly occupied by Russian forces before it was liberated during a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in the autumn of 2022.

An estimated Russian advance (red) near Kupiansk as of Nov. 13, 2024, according to DeepState. (DeepState/OpenStreetMaps)

According to Kovalev, Russian forces attempted to break through Ukrainian defenses in the area at around 2:30 p.m. local time on Nov. 13, attacking in four waves. They employed 15 vehicles, including tanks and armored fighting vehicles.

The spokesperson said that Russian troops wore Ukrainian uniforms, which violates international rules of warfare. Ukrainian defenders destroyed "all Russian armored vehicles" and a "significant part of manpower," he added.

Russian troops ramped up their efforts near Kupiansk in early September and are now only 2 to 3 kilometers from the citys industrial outskirts in the northeast. Moscow's forces are attempting to find a footing for a final push to reach the Oskil River, dividing the city into two, before winter sets in.

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During his evening address, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the soldiers defending the front line and spoke of Russia's "attempts to expand their offensive, especially in the Kupiansk direction."

"I am grateful to all our units for their resilience," he said.

Even if Russian units have not yet entered the town, regular shelling of the city creates increasingly hard conditions for the locals to continue with their lives, with no gas, water, or electricity in the citys eastern bank.

Capturing the city would widen the north-to-south supply route from Russias Belgorod Oblast, fuelling their attempt to take the entire Donbas region.

Read also: Ukraine liberates Kharkiv Oblast village key for defense of Kupiansk, military intelligence says

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By Yuliia Dysa and Tom Balmforth

KYIV (Reuters) -A small Russian assault group briefly broke through to the outskirts of Ukraine's northeastern city of Kupiansk for the first time since Moscow's forces fled in September 2022, officials said, in a sign of mounting pressure on the outpost.

Moscow's forces, including soldiers disguised as Ukrainian troops, attacked in four waves on Wednesday, but were repelled from the city, an important railway hub with a pre-war population of 26,000, Ukraine's general staff said.

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"They partially entered the suburbs, the industrial zone, and were destroyed by our troops... There were assault actions using heavy armoured vehicles, there were attempts to bring in infantry," the city's military administration chief said.

The city, now just 2.5 km (1.5 miles) from the front line, was under constant shelling and the population has dwindled to 3,000 people who were being urged to evacuate, the official, Andriy Besedin, told Reuters by phone.

Kupiansk was captured by Russian forces in the early days of Moscow's February 2022 invasion and then retaken by Ukraine in a counteroffensive months later.

Russia's military has not commented on the Kupiansk front, but Vitaly Ganchev, a Russian official, said Moscow's forces were gaining a foothold on the city's outskirts.

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Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.

Ukraine's outnumbered troops have been losing ground in the east for months, while trying to hold the line in Russia's Kursk region against what Ukrainian authorities say is a 50,000-strong Russian force there. Ukraine says Russia also plans to launch a push in the southeast soon.

The Kupiansk thrust, involving 15 pieces of hardware such as tanks and armoured combat vehicles, according to Ukraine's general staff, was an attempt to expand offensive operations on a front that sprawls over more than 1,000 km (620 miles), President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

The Russian attack looked opportunistic and Kyiv appeared to have isolated and destroyed most of the Russian forces that penetrated the outskirts of Kupiansk, Pasi Paroinen, a military analyst with the Black Bird Group, said.

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"However, a penetration like that certainly signals confusion and weakness in Ukrainian defences in that area, which could prompt the local Russian commanders to increase their efforts to squeeze or cut off the Ukrainian salient," he added.

He said the coming days would likely indicate whether the Kremlin was going to react to this by ramping up Russian attacks there.

POSITIONING FOR ANY TALKS

Ukrainian forces, some of whom have been fighting since before the full-scale invasion in 2022, are outnumbered by Russia's troops, which Kyiv says have been taking heavy losses while making advances.

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Oleksandr Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military analyst, said Russia was likely hoping to eject Ukraine from the swathe of land it carved out in the Kursk region in time for the Jan. 20 inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

Trump, a Republican, has vowed to quickly end the war, without saying how. This has created speculation about looming negotiations, in turn giving Ukraine and Russia an incentive to try to improve their battlefield positions as much as they can.

With that in mind, Kovalenko said he believed Russia could step up operations on the southeast front which has for months seen much less combat than other places, though he said it lacked the resources to threaten the city of Zaporizhzhia.

Ukraine's military says Russia has in recent days transferred some assault groups to forward positions in the Zaporizhzhia region after conducting active reconnaissance there. Moscow's troops have also stepped up attacks in the area where the southeastern Zaporizhzhia and eastern Donetsk regions meet, it says.

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"They have the resources to become more active on the front line and seize a certain amount of square kilometres and imitate future advances to compel their antagonists to agree to Moscow's conditions," Kovalenko said.

(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa and Anastasiia MalenkoWriting by Tom BalmforthEditing by Alison Williams, Christina Fincher, Alex Richardson and Frances Kerry)
Donald Trump's election has already triggered intense discussion about how his presidency might impact the war in Ukraine, with all sides now preparing for potential negotiations once he takes office.

In Ukraine, Trump's victory has been met with mixed reactions. But while his threats to cut U.S. aid and his suggestions he could force Kyiv to give up territory have provoked obvious anxiety, many Ukrainians have -- perhaps surprisingly -- welcomed Trump's win.

Some Ukrainian officials, commanders, soldiers and public commentators have told other media and ABC News they had hoped Trump would win the election, seeing it as a chance to end the war that they feel is not going in Ukraine's favor, even if it's an opportunity also fraught with risks.

PHOTO: This handout photograph taken and released by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine on November 13, 2024, shows firefighters extinguishing fire following a Russian strike in Brovary, near Kyiv, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Emergency Service of Ukraine via AFP via Getty Images)

MORE: Russia prepares counteroffensive with 50,000 troops, potentially including North Koreans, sources say

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That sentiment reflects the deep disillusionment with the Biden administration widespread in recent months among Ukrainians, many of whom view its policy as giving Ukraine enough to barely survive but not to achieve victory or even force fair negotiations. Though grateful for the huge support provided early in the war, many Ukrainians express frustration at what is termed Biden's "self-deterrence," imposing restrictions on some weapons and sometimes slow-rolling aid over what they see as overblown fears Russia will further escalate the war.

"Trump's rise to power gave Ukraine hope," a commander of a drone unit fighting in eastern Ukraine told ABC News.

"He is too straightforward a person who will not pretend to help us, as the Democrats did. He is stronger than Biden and is ready to make strong decisions, said the commander, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, right, and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shake hands during their meeting at Trump Tower, on Sept. 27, 2024, in New York. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP)

While campaigning, Trump repeatedly vowed to end the war in "24 hours" by forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine to negotiate. He and members of his campaign have previously suggested that might be required to accept territorial losses.

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While many Ukrainians worry Trump may still cut aid, some are ready to gamble on him, believing it's better than continuing on a path that is bleeding the country and which, many think, is unlikely to regain them territory in any case.

MORE: Trump says he wants 'fair deal' between Ukraine and Russia

Russia is slowly advancing at multiple places on the front line in eastern Ukraine, with Ukrainian troops stretched thin, reporting dangerous shortages of manpower.

"The only way left is the diplomatic path," the commander in eastern Ukraine told ABC News.

Other Ukrainians are much more fearful, worried worried that Putin will succeed in imposing his terms in negotiations. One senior military official told ABC News he feared negotiating now could be a fatal mistake" that could see Ukraine lose territory permanently while receiving little future protection.

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You understand why Russia is agreeing to negotiations, the official said. Theyre also run into the ground and tired. They want a breather and to regroup.

Putin would use any cease-fire now to rearm and then reinvade Ukraine, the official warned, saying instead the U.S. should strengthen Ukraine and negotiate once Russias military further cracked.

Others believe that Trump, who prizes a strongman image, is unlikely to simply capitulate to Putin. Instead, they hope that if Putin refuses to negotiate, Trump might supply Ukraine with more weapons with fewer restrictions to force Russia to the table.

"Do you think Trump will agree to be brought to his knees by Putin? I doubt it," said Oleksandr Chalyi, Ukraine's former ambassador to Washington. "Donald Trump, who says, 'Let's make America great and strong again, America first,' is not ready for a dialogue where he will be humiliated."

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Trump's selection of Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida as his national security adviser and pick of Sen. Marco Rubio for his secretary of state offered some potential encouragement to those who hope a Trump administration might take a tough line on Russia during negotiations.

Both Waltz and Rubio have been strong supporters of Ukraine during the war, while vehemently criticizing the Biden administration's strategy and insisting NATO countries should do more.

Waltz, a former Green Beret with a reputation as a China hawk, wrote in an op-ed for The Economist magazine this month that a Trump administration should use economic pressure, in particular through reinforced sanctions on Russia's oil exports, to force Putin to negotiate. If Putin refuses, the U.S. should increase weapon supplies to Ukraine, he wrote. He also told NPR that the U.S. could lift restrictions on Ukraine using Western long-range weapons to hit deep inside Russia, to pressure Putin to a deal.

The current Biden approach would still end in a stalemate with Russia occupying some Ukrainian territory, Waltz wrote in The Economist, saying that it "will just take more time, blood, and treasure to get there."

PHOTO: In this photo taken from a video released by Russian Defense Ministry press service on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, the Russian army's multiple rocket launcher Solntsepyok fires towards Ukrainian positions in the border area of Kursk region, Russia (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has spoken to Trump by phone since his election, so far has publicly rejected giving up any territories and last week warned that a quick peace deal would likely end badly for Ukraine.

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"We all want to end this war, but a fair ending," Zelenskyy told journalists during a European summit in Budapest. "If it is very fast, it's going to be a loss for Ukraine."

The head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's parliamentary party, David Arakhamia, told ABC News last week it was too soon to discuss specific plans. But he warned Ukraine could only accept freezing the war if the U.S. provided "real security guarantees" that would prevent Russia from simply using a cease-fire to rearm.

"We have to find the solution that guarantees people that once the war is over, it's not going to be repeated again," said Arakhamia, saying real security guarantees were Ukraine's "No. 1" priority. But, he said, it was "good" that the U.S. is thinking seriously about the resolution to the war.

In Ukraine, Trump election met with anxiety but also hope he might end the war originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Key developments on Nov. 14:

Ukraine repels Russian attempt to enter Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast, military says

Defense Ministry pledges to draft bill on demobilization by Dec. 18, official says

European officials opening up to 'land-for-security' deal in Ukraine, WP reports

Trump's nominee for UN envoy dodges question on earlier support for Ukraine's NATO accession

Ukrainian forces successfully repelled Russian attempts to break into the city of Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukrinfrom reported on Nov. 14, citing the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces.

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"All Russian attacks in this direction were successfully repelled. Russian invaders failed to enter Kupiansk. The city is under the control of Ukraine's Armed Forces," General Staff spokesperson Andrii Kovalev told Ukrinform.

The statement came after the crowd-sourced monitoring website DeepState had claimed late on Nov. 13 that some Russian units, including armored vehicles and a tank, managed to enter Kupiansk but soon suffered heavy losses.

An estimated Russian advance (red) near Kupiansk as of Nov. 13, 2024, according to DeepState. (DeepState/OpenStreetMaps)

Kupiansk is a key logistics and railway hub in the eastern part of Kharkiv Oblast. With several highways and five railway lines running through it, the town was briefly occupied by Russian forces before it was liberated during a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in the autumn of 2022.

According to Kovalev, Russian forces attempted to break through Ukrainian defenses in the area at around 2:30 p.m. local time on Nov. 13, attacking in four waves. They employed 15 vehicles, including tanks and armored fighting vehicles.

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The spokesperson said that Russian troops wore Ukrainian uniforms, which violates international rules of warfare. Ukrainian defenders destroyed "all Russian armored vehicles" and a "significant part of manpower," he added.

Russian troops ramped up their efforts near Kupiansk in early September and are now only 2 3 kilometers from the city's industrial outskirts in the northeast. Moscow's forces are attempting to find a footing for a final push to reach the Oskil River, dividing the city into two, before winter sets in.

During his evening address, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the soldiers defending the front line and spoke of Russia's "attempts to expand their offensive, especially in the Kupiansk direction."

"I am grateful to all our units for their resilience," he said.

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Even if Russian units have not yet entered the town, regular shelling of the city creates increasingly hard conditions for the locals to continue with their lives, with no gas, water, or electricity in the city's eastern bank.

Capturing the city would widen the north-to-south supply route from Russia's Belgorod Oblast, fuelling their attempt to take the entire Donbas region.

Defense Ministry pledges to draft bill on demobilization by Dec. 18, official says

The Defense Ministry plans to finalize a bill defining the procedure and conditions for discharging military personnel from service by Dec. 18 this year, secretary of the parliamentary defense committee Roman Kostenko told Ukrainska Pravda on Nov. 14.

Due to the lack of a regulatory framework, Ukrainian military personnel cannot be demobilized at will, even after long service. The reasons for demobilization may include injury or the need to care for a family member with a disability.

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Many Ukrainian soldiers have been serving non-stop since the first day of the full-scale invasion in late February 2022.

"The committee addressed the Defense Ministry with an official request to develop a draft law on the procedure and conditions for the dismissal of certain categories of military personnel during martial law," Kostenko said.

"Recently, we received a response saying that, according to the ministry's plan, the draft will be ready by Dec. 18, 2024, within the timeframe set by the parliament."

It is not yet clear what conditions the Defense Ministry will propose for discharging military personnel from service, Kostenko added.

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Ukraine's parliament adopted an updated mobilization law in mid-April to ramp up mobilization amid Russia's ongoing war. The new law simplifies the process for identifying eligible conscripts and includes additional penalties for those dodging the draft.

The parliament voted to remove provisions on demobilization, which previously foresaw soldiers having the right to leave the military after 36 months of service, from the bill so that they could be considered separately.

The parliament obliged the Defense Ministry to develop a relevant draft law within eight months.

Read also: As Russian losses in Ukraine pass 700,000, Putin runs low on non-mobilization options

European officials opening up to 'land-for-security' deal in Ukraine, WP reports

Kyiv's European partners are increasingly preparing for a deal that could include Ukraine giving up on some of its territories in return for security guarantees, the Washington Post reported on Nov. 13, citing interviews with 10 current and former Western officials.

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The news comes amid Ukraine's mounting setbacks on the battlefield and uncertainties about U.S. support under incoming President Donald Trump. The U.S. president-elect has pledged to end the war "within 24 hours," sparking concerns he might push Ukraine toward painful concessions.

While publicly declaring full support for Ukraine, the idea of ceding territory is quietly gaining more traction among Western officials, even though the details of such an agreement remain unclear, the Washington Post wrote.

"I think everybody has more or less reached this conclusion. It's hard to say it publicly because it would be a way of saying we are going to reward aggression," Gerard Araud, a former French ambassador to the U.S., told the news outlet.

The proposal is being allegedly reframed from "land-for-peace" to "security-for-peace" to stress the necessity for security guarantees that would prevent further Russian aggression.

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Russia currently occupies roughly one-fifth of Ukraine's territory in the south and the east.

Read also: Opinion: How EU nations can prevent the worst-case outcome for Ukraine

Kyiv has repeatedly said that entry to NATO is the most secure way to avert future wars, but the proposal has met cold responses from a number of allies. Quick accession seems even more unlikely now as one proposal from Trump's team reportedly includes delaying Ukraine's entry by at least 20 years and instead supplying it with sufficient arms to repel Russia on its own.

Ukraine and Russia held unsuccessful negotiations in early 2022. The initial version of Russia's peace proposal issued shortly after the start of the full-scale invasion and leaked to the media this year was described as an effective surrender of Ukraine.

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The terms became more moderate later on and included reducing Ukraine's military size, prohibiting NATO entry but allowing EU accession, and postponing the matter of occupied territories to a later date. The treaty would be backed by international guarantors like the U.K., the U.S., China, and France.

The negotiations eventually failed, and no direct talks have been held between Ukraine and Russia since then. Kyiv has insisted that a peace settlement should be based on President Volodymyr Zelensky's 10-point peace formula, which includes the restoration of full territorial integrity.

Some Ukrainian officials acknowledged, however, that some territory would have to be liberated by diplomatic means as the country's manpower and resources dwindle in the face of unrelenting Russian attacks.

There seems to be little readiness for compromise in Moscow as its forces continue steadily advancing in Donetsk Oblast. Russia's economy has largely weathered Western sanctions and managed to offset its heavy battlefield casualties better than Ukraine.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin said in October that his country is not planning any concessions and that a peace deal must favor Moscow.

Read also: Opinion: Trump could actually be good for Europe

Trump's nominee for UN envoy dodges question on earlier support for Ukraine's NATO accession

Donald Trump's pick for the U.N. envoy, Elise Stefanik, dodged questions on her earlier support for Ukraine's NATO accession and on calling Russia's war in Ukraine "genocidal," with her office saying her views now fully align with Trump's, CNN reported on Nov. 13.

Shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion began in 2022, the Republican Congresswoman said that Ukraine needs "to be admitted into NATO and we need to do everything we can by providing them munitions and Javelins," reminding that the weaponry was first provided under the first Trump administration.

When asked about the matter again by CNN after Trump tapped her for the U.N. job, Stefanik's office said the Congresswoman's views fully align with those of the president-elect, without going into details.

"Chairwoman Stefanik fully supports President Trump's peace through strength policy agenda and will follow his lead as Commander in Chief on best practices to end the war in Ukraine," her communications director, Ali Black, was quoted as saying by CNN.

Stefanik was among the 400 members of the U.S. House of Representatives who were sanctioned by Russia, calling the sanctions a "badge of honor" at the time.

As public opinion in the U.S. regarding aid to Ukraine shifted and some Republicans became increasingly vocal in their opposition, she also voted against the $60 billion aid package that eventually passed in April 2024.

After Trump's victory in the presidential election on Nov. 5, she was appointed to lead U.S. representation at the United Nations.

"Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America first fighter," President-elect Trump said.

Trump's support for Ukraine hangs in the air as analysts and politicians try to gauge his plans to bring peace, as he promised to end the war within "24 hours" after reelection without revealing details.

Predictions range from Trump keeping his word and ending the war as soon as possible in a "land-for-peace" scheme to more optimistic views that the incoming president would not leave Ukraine behind after so much American taxpayer money was spent on its security.

Read also: What do Trumps first team picks mean for Ukraine?

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Ukraine's Ministry of Defence intends to conclude work on a bill establishing the conditions and criteria for dismissing military members by 18 December of this year.

Source: Roman Kostenko, a member of the Voice faction and Secretary of the Security and Defence Committee of the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament), in a comment Ukrainska Pravda

Quote: "The Committee made an official request to the Ministry of Defence to draft a bill outlining the procedure and conditions for dismissing certain types of military personnel during martial law.

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An answer was received the other day, stating that, in accordance with the Ukrainian Defence Ministry's plan, the project will be completed by the deadline set by the parliament  18 December 2024."

Details: According to Kostenko, it is unclear what processes the Ministry of Defence will use to dismiss personnel from service.

Background:

On 11 April, the Verkhovna Rada passed a law on mobilisation.

The section on military discharge from duty was removed from the agreement at the initiative of Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi.

The Verkhovna Rada has instructed the Ministry of Defence to submit a bill within eight months.

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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has welcomed the nomination of Senator Marco Rubio as the next US secretary of state.

Source: European Pravda with reference to Sybiha on X (Twitter)

Details: Sybiha noted that Rubio has been nominated as the 72nd US secretary of state.

Quote: "I look forward to working together, deepening the mutually beneficial Ukraine-US strategic partnership, and advancing peace through strength in Ukraine and around the world."

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The new secretary of state must be confirmed by Congress next year, but with the Republicans holding a majority in the US Senate, the confirmation is not expected to face hurdles.

Background:

Historically, Marco Rubio has emphasised the importance of supporting Ukraine and even publicly criticised party colleagues for questioning the need to assist Ukraine.

However, his stance has recently become more cautious; in April, he voted against the US$61 billion aid package for Kyiv. He has also recently changed his rhetoric on how to end the war.

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The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has said that Russian occupation forces were not able to enter the city of Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast and that the Ukrainian defence forces still control the city.

Source: Andrii Kovalov, spokesman for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in a comment for Ukrinform; Centre for Strategic Communications

Quote from Kovalov: "All of the Russian occupiers attacks on this front have been successfully repelled. Russian invaders were not able to enter Kupiansk. The city remains under the Ukrainian Armed Forces control."

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Details: Kovalov said that Russian occupation forces made an attempt to break through the Ukrainian forces defences on the Kupiansk front around 14:30 on 13 November. Russian assault groups carried out four waves of attack on Ukrainian positions, deploying around 15 units of military equipment, including infantry fighting vehicles and a UR-77 demining system.

"I should note that some of the Russian soldiers were dressed in the uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This violates the laws and customs of war and is a war crime," he added.

According to Kovalov, Ukrainian defence forces bold and skilled response put an end to the Russians advance, destroying all the armoured vehicles deployed in the attack and killing many Russian soldiers.

Quote from Kovalov: "All enemy attacks on this front have been successfully repelled. Russian invaders made no attempts to restart assault operations neither later on 13 November nor in the morning of 14 November following earlier unsuccessful attacks and personnel losses. We ask you to only trust official and verified sources, such as the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine."

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Details: Meanwhile, the Centre for Strategic Communications of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has said that information that the village of Illinka has been occupied by Russian forces is not accurate.

Background:On the night of 13-14 November, the DeepState military analysts updated their map, reporting new successful advances by the Russians in Ukraines east, with Russian troops reportedly capturing Illinka and entering Kupiansk.

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Ukraine is developing a 10-point "internal resilience plan" that will be presented next week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address on Nov. 14.

In late October, Zelensky instructed the National Security and Defense Council to prepare a plan to strengthen Ukraine, covering the front line, the military-industrial complex, economy and finance, regional development, and other strategic sectors.

The government's latest plan will focus on internal solutions and is not an alternative to a victory plan oriented toward Kyiv's partners.

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"There are 10 points in total, which will be presented next week, and for each point, together with Ukrainian civil society, together with everyone who is ready to add rational ideas, with business, we will prepare a basic, doctrinal document for Ukraine, for our sustainability," Zelensky said.

"With clear applications. Step by step."

The Ukrainian government on Nov. 14 focused on drafting a plan for internal plan security that would include every community in the country, according to Zelensky.

"The Interior Ministry and the Security Service of Ukraine have good practices. We will implement everything," he said.

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"We have already worked out points, in particular, on energy  everything is prepared in detail  and on weapons: our production, our cooperation with partners."

The government has also developed a clause on cultural sovereignty, Ukraine's cultural heritage, cultural diplomacy, and the production of Ukrainian content.

"There are things that neither politicians, nor public figures, nor the information space can convey to others. But emotions do it, art does it," Zelensky said.

Facing Russian military advances and increasingly uncertain Western support, Zelensky previously pitched to Ukraine and its allies a five-step victory plan, containing steps that should supposedly end the war by 2025.

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Some points of the plan met with a lukewarm response from partners, with the White House still refusing to permit long-range strikes on Russian territory and several countries resisting a NATO invitation for Ukraine.



The New York Times reported on Oct. 29 that, according to undisclosed U.S. officials, the request for Tomahawk missiles with a range of 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles) was part of the secretive "non-nuclear deterrence package" included in Ukraine's victory plan.

Read also: What do Trumps first team picks mean for Ukraine?

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Russian forces bombarded Ukraine with 59 attack drones on the night of 13-14 November, 21 of which were shot down and 38 others disappeared from radar.

Source: Ukraines Air Force on Telegram

Quote from the Air Force: "The enemy launched 59 Shahed attack UAVs and unidentified drones from Russias Kursk Oblast on the night of 13-14 November (starting from 19:00 on 13 November). As of 08:30 on 14 November, 21 UAVs were confirmed downed."

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Details: The drones were shot down in Sumy, Kharkiv, Poltava and Kyiv oblasts.

Another 38 Russian attack drones disappeared from radar.

Background: The Russians launched attack drones at Ukraine on the late evening of 13 November.

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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, who met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday (13 November), has said he is "cautiously optimistic" after discussing the possibility of long-range strikes against Russia.

Source: a statement by Sybiha; Reuters; European Pravda

Details: Ukraine has long called on its allies to allow long-range strikes against Russia with Western-supplied weapons.

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Allies, including the United States, do not allow the use of the weapons provided to strike deep into Russia for fear of further escalation.

"We discussed issues of long-range strikes and Euro-Atlantic integration. And here we also are cautiously optimistic," Sybiha said.

Sybiha also added that his talks in Brussels also concerned military aid for Ukraine.

Quote from Sybiha: "We have a clear picture - a clear timeframe, clear volumes  of what will be delivered to Ukraine by the end of the year. This helps us strategically to plan our actions on the battlefield."

More details: Sybiha noted that the military aid would include weapons and funds for arms production agreements.

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Background:

Media outlets previously reported that the US Intelligence Committee and the Department of Defense believe that allowing Ukraine to launch long-range strikes into Russian territory will bring Kyiv more problems than benefits, and they recommended that the policy not be changed.

In September, US President Joe Biden hinted at the possibility of providing Ukraine with authorisation to use long-range weapons to strike Russia, saying that his administration was "working that out now".

Nonetheless, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin defended the US restrictions on long-range strikes with Western weapons for Ukraine and insisted that it could defeat Russia even without such a capability.

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The marines of the Mykolaiv-based 36th Marine Brigade have repelled an assault by Russian marines and airborne troops on the Kursk front.

Source: a video by the 36th Brigade; Ukrainska Pravda sources in the brigade

Details: Recently, Russian units from the 155th Separate Marine Brigade and the 56th Air Assault Regiment, having a personnel advantage, tried to break through the positions of Ukrainian marines in the vicinity of Zelenyi Shlyakh-Novoivanovka (Sudzha district, Russias Kursk Oblast).

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However, the units of the 36th Brigade fought back. A Russian infantry fighting vehicle that carried troops was destroyed. After that, a Ukrainian bomber UAVs killed the Russian soldiers who managed to bail out of the vehicle and disperse across the territory.

Ukrainska Pravda obtains information that the Russians lost five soldiers killed and eight wounded.

Due to the coordinated and professional actions of the Ukrainian marines, another Russian attack was repelled, and the Ukrainian defenders held their positions.

Details of the effective combat effort can be found in the video.

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JOHNSON CITY, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH)  A local non-profit is using the sound of music to raise awareness for those affected by war.

Together for Ukraine is hosting a special charity concert tomorrow at Two Rivers Church in Johnson City.

The show will raise money for needed medical equipment in Ukraine. It will feature two popular Ukrainian artists, Tery and Olivan.

Tery and Olivan will present pop, hip-hop, and rap sets that feature music depicting love, life, and the war in Ukraine.

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Before beginning his music career, Olivan was an Army Chaplin. He says he decided to pursue music to help his nation cope with the trauma of war.

I want to share whats in my heart and its nice to complete both like sharing something from my heart and helping people who really need it right now, said Olivan.

Olivan says the United States has acted like an older brother during the war, supporting the nation like a family would.

The concert will take place at 6 p.m. tomorrow. It is free to attend and open to all.

Donations will be accepted to directly benefit humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

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Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WIVT - News 34.
KHARKIV REGION, Ukraine (AP)  The four drones were designed to carry bombs, but instead the men of Ukraine's Khartia brigade pack them with food, water and handwarmers and launch them in darkness toward the front line, a 15-minute flight away.

The unit commander who goes by the callsign Kit, or cat, pilots the tiny uncrewed aircraft from a basement room he jokingly calls their Airbnb. Guided by the drone's night-vision camera, he drops the 10-kilogram (22-pound) packages one by one as close as he can to the position where as many as five infantrymen battle Russian forces in the late autumn chill. The delivery will hold them for two or three days.

That's about as far as Kit dares look into the future. He knows that the reelection of Donald Trump will change something in his life, but as far as he and other Ukrainian soldiers on the front are concerned, trying to figure out how is a game for politicians. For him, all that matters is the distance he measures in the meters (yards) that Russian forces advance or retreat in the front-line sector that is his responsibility.

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We are trying with all our might to destroy them and win back our territories, so that it does not go any further, so that there are no more destroyed cities and destroyed lives, Kit said. We need to focus on the present in our work and try to do it effectively in the here and now.

But he cannot escape the sense of a gathering storm.

Russia is increasingly hitting the Kharkiv region with unstoppable, building-leveling glide bombs and swarms of drones and chipping away at territory there. Its troops are advancing in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. Up to 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia's Kursk border region to help beat back Ukrainian forces there, according to U.S., South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence assessments.

Trump, who has called President Vladimir Putin pretty smart for invading Ukraine, has repeatedly criticized American backing of Ukraine. He characterized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the greatest salesman on Earth for winning U.S. aid.

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Zelenskyy was among the first world leaders to publicly congratulate Trump, and said the two discussed how to end Russian aggression against Ukraine when they met in September.

Between now and Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration, the Biden administration has said it will send as much aid to Ukraine as possible to help hold back Russian forces and possess a strong hand in any potential peace negotiations. But Russia is pressing just as hard for an advantage in what most believe are crucial weeks to come.

Aviator, a Khartia soldier launching the supply drones, said he can only do his job and hope for the best. His attention is fixed on how many hours remain before the coming dawn, when Russian forces will be able to spot the uncrewed aircraft and shoot them down. If his mission fails, he knows that the men he calls brothers will suffer.

You feel youre useful, that you are in the right place, that the lives and health of our brothers depend on your work," said Aviator, who returned to Ukraine from a job in Poland to join the army. "Were just doing our job, we dont have time to worry about the election.

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Tolstiy, who runs a drone repair workshop not far away, knows firsthand what happens to territory captured by Russia. A former infantryman, he fought in Bakhmut and watched the city fall to Russian forces who bombed it to rubble. He confessed that sometimes, reading the news makes him want to give up. But that's simply unthinkable.

Its like were in another world here, he said. When you see that your comrades are injured or killed, it motivates you.

___

Lori Hinnant contributed from Kyiv.
QUITO (Reuters) - United Nations special rapporteur for torture Alice Edwards said on Thursday she is alarmed over allegations that Ecuador's former Vice President Jorge Glas was suffering torture while detained at the Andean country's La Roca prison.

"I am disturbed by medical and other reports which suggest that Mr. Glas was subjected to torture, including dislocated thumbs, lacerations on his wrists from the over-use of handcuffs, and contusions and bruising on his arms, thighs and thorax, indicative of physical beatings," she said in a statement.

Glas was detained in April this year after Ecuadorean security forces stormed Mexico's embassy in Quito, where he was holed up after seeking asylum. While Glas' supporters say the arrest is politically motivated, the ex-vice president has been convicted for corruption on two other occasions. Glas' lawyer said on X it was urgent his rights and well-being were protected.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Writing by Oliver Griffin)
Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is in Tehran on Thursday to continue negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme.

According to the state-run Iranian news agency IRNA, the first talks will be with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Grossi is also scheduled to meet the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Eslami, and for the first time hold talks with President Masoud Pezeshkian, who is considered a moderate.

Grossi recently expressed concern about the increase in highly enriched uranium in Iran.

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He complained that Tehran is not allowing experienced IAEA inspectors into the country and is not willing to talk about open questions regarding secret nuclear activities.

According to Grossi, the negotiations in Tehran should help to implement previous agreements and ensure transparency.

Under the 2015 international nuclear deal, Iran had agreed to curtail its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of Western sanctions. However, after the US unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and imposed new sanctions, Iran started ignoring the terms of the agreement.

The country increased its uranium enrichment level to 60% and has a total stockpile of over 6,000 kilograms of enriched uranium.

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Tehran also significantly restricted its cooperation with the IAEA.

During his election campaign, Pezeshkian emphasized that he wanted to resume nuclear negotiations with the West in order to lift international sanctions.

The sanctions have plunged the country into a massive economic crisis.

However, due to the complex political situation, observers consider early negotiations with the four Western parties to the Vienna nuclear deal - Germany, France, Britain and the US  to be unlikely.

US President-elect Donald Trump is against the nuclear deal and withdrew from the deal during his first term in office.

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There is also currently a diplomatic freeze of sorts between Germany and Iran due to the recent execution of a German-Iranian citizen.

Paris and London have also shown little interest in rekindling negotiations.
By John Kruzel and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump's return to the presidency is expected to precipitate a shift in the U.S. government's legal stance in major cases pending at the Supreme Court, including a closely watched dispute involving Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.

After Trump succeeds Democrat Joe Biden on Jan. 20, other big cases in which the new administration could change positions include ones involving the largely untraceable firearms called "ghost guns," nuclear waste storage, flavored vape products and securities fraud, according to legal experts.

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Trump on Wednesday tapped Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as his nominee for attorney general. Trump has not yet announced his nominee for U.S. solicitor general, the Justice Department official who represents the government in Supreme Court cases.

"I expect that the Trump solicitor general will change positions in major cases before the Supreme Court," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley Law School.

"It happened in 2016 and it happened in 2020," Chemerinsky added, referring to transfers of power with a president of one party succeeding a president of the other.

The expected changes in positions by the new incoming administration may be a closer ideological fit for the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority, which includes three justices appointed by Trump.

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"I don't think that Trump administration switches will trouble this court too much. My guess is that most or all of the administration's switches will align with positions of a majority on the court, and that they'll be happy to have a solicitor general who puts those positions before them," University of Illinois Chicago law professor Steve Schwinn said.

The Supreme Court on Dec. 4 is scheduled to hear arguments in the Biden administration's appeal of a lower court's decision upholding Tennessee's Republican-backed state law banning medical treatments including puberty blockers and hormones for minors experiencing gender dysphoria. That is the clinical diagnosis for significant distress resulting from an incongruence between a person's gender identity and sex assigned at birth.

The Biden administration, which sued in an attempt to block the law, has argued that the ban discriminates against these adolescents based on their sex and transgender status, violating the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment equal protection guarantee.

"One would not see a Trump administration seeking to advance arguments that would protect the interests of trans individuals and trans children," Georgetown University law professor Michele Goodwin said. "That seems very inconsistent with the line of discourse that's come from Trump during his time of running as a candidate and also inconsistent with his prior service in office."

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Trump's solicitor general also could reverse course on the Biden administration's positions in two cases defending regulatory agencies - appeals involving the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's authority to license nuclear waste storage facilities and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's denials of various applications to sell flavored vape products.

A U-turn also could come in the Biden administration's support for shareholders in cases involving separate private securities fraud lawsuits against chipmaker Nvidia and Meta's Facebook social media platform.

"I think the Trump administration will be like other Republican administrations, in that they're going to be less regulatory than a typical Democratic administration, and that could mean changing positions in cases in which they are on the other side from some regulated industry," Cornell Law School professor Michael Dorf said.

'NATURE OF DEMOCRACY'

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Such policy reversals at the Supreme Court are not uncommon when a Republican president succeeds a Democrat, and vice versa.

"The nature of democracy is that differences in political opinions can be expressed in this way," said Deborah Widiss, an Indiana University law professor who has written about this dynamic.

"As far as how the justices respond, I don't think that the mere fact of a switch should necessarily discredit the government's position. These are contested legal issues where there are arguments on both sides," Widiss added.

After Trump took office for the first time in 2017, his administration departed from legal positions advanced at the Supreme Court under his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama on issues from labor unions to in-house judges at the Securities and Exchange Commission to election law, Widiss noted.

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Trump's first administration also rescinded a federal directive telling public schools to let transgender students use bathrooms matching their gender identity, prompting the Supreme Court to scrap plans to hear a case involving a transgender public school student in Virginia.

After Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election, his administration reversed course on some of his predecessor's actions, especially concerning immigration. This prompted the Supreme Court in 2021 to scrap scheduled arguments in Trump's appeals defending his restrictive asylum policy and his plan to shift military funds to pay for the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

At the Biden administration's urging, the Supreme Court dismissed in 2021 litigation over another immigration measure devised under Trump that barred people deemed likely to need government benefits from legal permanent U.S. residency. Biden's administration issued a new rule in 2022.

TRANSGENDER ARGUMENTS

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It remains to be seen how the Supreme Court would react to a Trump decision to reverse course in the Tennessee case.

A group of transgender adolescents and their parents sued to challenge the law before the Justice Department did so. While the Supreme Court opted to hear only the administration's appeal, it allowed the lawyer for these original plaintiffs to join in the arguments.

"Because of this, even if the incoming Trump administration announced a change in position, it seems unlikely that the case would be dismissed as moot," said David Gans, an attorney at the Constitutional Accountability Center liberal legal group.

The justices on Oct. 8 heard the Biden administration's appeal defending its 2022 regulation targeting parts and kits for ghost guns in a challenge by manufacturers, gun owners and gun rights groups. During arguments, a majority of the justices seemed willing to uphold the regulation.

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If the Trump administration wants to "rescind the regulation, or they want to drop the appeal, they could decide that," Dorf said, "assuming the Supreme Court doesn't hand down a decision before the change in administration."

(Reporting by John Kruzel in Washington and Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT)  According to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture (KDA), an amount of nearly $750,000 was recently awarded to nine Kentucky county fairs boards for new construction and renovation projects, and Union County is among the recipients.

County fairs lie at the core of our agricultural communities, Agriculture Commissioner Jonathan Shell said. Im thrilled to announce a record-setting year for grant awards and to provide funding to nine local county fair boards for vital infrastructure improvements. These grants will allow county fair boards to enrich the fair experience for both their communities and agricultural partners.

Union County officials unhappy with renovation project

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Officials say Union County was awarded $100,000 for bleachers, concrete and installation. Officials note grants may be used for infrastructure or facility improvements, capital construction or purchase of non-permanent tangible items such as bleachers or restaurant equipment.

Yes, people can farm deer. Heres how

The KDA explains any incorporated fair board in Kentucky may apply with the State Aid to Local Agricultural Fairs Program for grants in the amount of $10,000 through $100,000. Each grant will fund 75 percent of the total cost of the project, with the local fair board matching the other 25 percent. Each project must be started within 90 days of the date the project was awarded and must be completed within nine months.

According to the KDA, applications must be submitted to the KDAs Shows and Fairs Division and postmarked no later than October 1 of each year. The Kentucky County Fair Council reviews the applications and selects the winning proposals.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW).
Dry conditions in the Northeast are worsening, creating a scenario for fire danger in the region to persist, an updated map from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows.

The worst of the drought conditions are located in a large swath of West Virginia, several counties in South New Jersey and three counties in southwest Pennsylvania -- all of which are in extreme drought, according to the Drought Monitor.

Most of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and West Virginia are in severe drought, the map shows.

PHOTO: North East US drought levels (Google Earth, U.S. Drought Monitor)

The drought situation the Northeast is currently facing was strongly propelled by the lack of precipitation in October, Samantha Borisoff, a climatologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University, told ABC News.

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Major cities like Philadelphia, Newark and Washington, D.C., are among the regions experiencing long periods without measurable precipitation, Borisoff said.

"October was the all-time driest month on record for a handful of states," Borisoff said. "The I-95 corridor in particular was exceptionally dry."

MORE: Almost half of the US is experiencing drought. How that can affect the food industry.

Some rain was expected to fall in Pennsylvania and South Jersey on Thursday, but no precipitation made it to the rest of New Jersey, New York City and most of New England -- all regions in desperate need of moisture following an extremely dry fall.

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Since the start of September, an area from about Baltimore up to Boston is lacking anywhere from 6 to 9 inches of rain, Borisoff said.

"It's going to take multiple slow, soaking rain storms to really dig out of these deficits," Borisoff said. "Right now, the next seven days [don't] look too conducive to getting much precipitation."

PHOTO: A firefighter sets a backburn while tackling the Jennings Creek Wildfire impacting Passaic County, NJ and Orange County, NY near Jennings Creek, N.J., Nov. 9, 2024. (New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection via Reuters)

The dry conditions will lead to continued elevated wildfire risk in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Vermont as relative humidity drops to 15% in some of the regions. Fire danger will increase even more in the Northeast starting on Friday due to continued low humidity, warmer temperatures and higher winds, forecasts show.

The Jennings Creek Fire, a massive fire burning in both New Jersey and New York, is the largest fire in New York state since the Roosa Gap Fire in 2008. In the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan, the Fire Department of New York was battling an extensive brush fire that broke out on Wednesday afternoon.

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MORE: Brazil experiencing record-breaking wildfires as persistent drought affects the Amazon rainforest

The New Jersey Forest Fire Service has experienced a 1,300% increase in firefighter response, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told reporters during a news conference on Wednesday. Since early October, the state's fire service has responded to 500 more fires than in the same period last year, Murphy said.

In New Jersey, the Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI) is currently 748 out of 800 -- the highest they've seen in the 118-year history of the forest fire service, Greg McLaughlin, chief of the New Jersey Forest Fire Service, told reporters on Wednesday.

PHOTO: Firefighters take a break from battling a series of brush fires, Nov. 9, 2024, outside of Pompton Lakes, N.J. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Mandatory water restrictions could continue to roll out as the lack of precipitation continues. The restrictions will be a short-term solution to the problem, Eran Friedler, head of the Grand Water Research Institute at the Technion  Israel Institute of Technology, told ABC News.

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On Wednesday, New Jersey American Water, the largest water utility in the state, issued a statewide mandatory conservation notice. All customers across the state are requested to limit all nonessential water usage by pausing all outdoor watering until spring and to conserve as much as possible indoors.

The state of New Jersey raised its drought level on Wednesday from a drought watch to a drought warning, with Murphy asking residents to take water conservation seriously. He warned that mandatory restrictions could be imposed if people didn't do the right thing.

MORE: Why extreme rain pouring into Southwest US hasn't fully eliminated the region's megadrought

Regions that rely on the replenishment of reservoirs by precipitation could start to issue more mandatory conservation measures as the drought persists, Borisoff said.

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Advocating to the public can be an effective way to ease drought conditions in the region, Friedler said.

"Actually telling the people the situation is harsh and they have to take harsh measures could be very, very effective," he said.

PHOTO: An area burns from the Jennings Creek Wildfire, Nov. 13, 2024, in Greenwood Lake, N.Y. (Kena Betancur/Getty Images)

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Climate change may be playing a role in the extreme dry conditions, Murphy said.

A new study by UCLA found that human-amplified climate change and higher temperatures are turning some ordinary droughts into exceptional ones.

MORE: North America experienced an unprecedented 'hot drought' in the last century, new research shows

While the overall long-term trend in the Northeast points to wetter conditions, warmer-than-normal temperatures, which the region has experienced so far this fall, could lead to extreme periods of dryness, Borisoff said. The warmer temperatures can increase evaporation rates, leading to conditions drying out faster, she said.

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"We had a handful of sites across the I-95 corridor that recorded their highest maximum temperature for the month of November," she said.

ABC News' Matthew Glasser, Max Golembo and Dan Peck contributed to this report.

Updated drought map shows worsening conditions in Northeast as fire danger persists originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
DES MOINES, Iowa  The jurys verdict in the Safris vs. Urbandale Schools lawsuit has been published, with both the family and Urbandale Schools releasing statements.

The Safris family filed a lawsuit claiming that failure to follow policy and negligence in the classroom led to their daughter being assaulted by a classmate, eventually causing her to become suicidal. The incidents began in 2018 after she shared nude photos with a male classmate, who then began sharing those photos with others and assaulting her in class after she refused to go out with him.

After nine days of evidence and testimonies the jury was released to deliberate at the end of court on Thursday the 7th and reconvened at 9 a.m. on Friday morning. According to court documents, they reached a decision around 3:59 p.m., just over five hours after deliberation began.

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The jury found the Urbandale School District guilty of negligence, but did not rule that they were a proximate cause of the damages done to the victim. This means that Urbandale Schools will not have to pay damages to the victim or the Safris family.

Iowa man accused of placing GPS device on victims vehicle

WHO 13 reached out to Urbandale Schools regarding the lawsuit and their reaction to the verdict, we received this statement from the superintendent.

The Urbandale Community School District is pleased with the outcome of the trial and the jurys determination Urbandale Community School District was not the proximate cause of any damages to (the victim). Dr. Rosalie Daca, Superintendent of Urbandale Schools

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The Safris family also commented on the verdict saying that it was never about the money for them, and they are satisfied with the verdict.

Its going to help her heal, she still has a long way to go, she does in fact have a lifetime that shell be dealing with this, said Jodi Safris, the mother of the victim. But to be believed, to have this jury say they were negligent, you were not safe in that room means everything to her and so it means everything to me.

The family says the victim was happy to hear that the jury believes her and held the school accountable, but that she wants to keep fighting so that this never happens to another student again.

What we have is a young woman who wants to fight, and she wants to hold her perpetrator accountable, said Safris, Shes asked us to work with the Board of Education Examiners on it, which we are doing.

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(Bloomberg) -- Chinese state-sponsored hackers perpetrated a broad and significant cyber-espionage campaign in which they breached multiple telecommunications companies, US officials said in a statement on Wednesday, confirming additional details about cyberattacks with major national security implications.

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The hackers infiltrated the networks of multiple telecommunications companies to steal customer call records and compromise the communications belonging to a limited number of people in government and politics, officials said. In addition, the attackers copied certain information that was subject to US law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders, the officials said.

We expect our understanding of these compromises to grow as the investigation continues, according to the officials. The statement didnt identify the affected telecommunications companies.

The FBI and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are providing technical assistance on the matter and working with potential victims, according to the US.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said Thursday that his nation had no interest in interfering in other countries internal affairs through cyberspace.

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We also oppose spreading China-related disinformation due to political agenda, he added at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are among those breached, and the hackers potentially accessed systems the federal government uses for court-authorized network wiretapping requests, the Wall Street Journal reported in early October. US intelligence officials think the Chinese hacking group that Microsoft Corp. dubbed Salt Typhoon may have been inside US telecommunications companies for months and found a route into an access point for legally authorized wiretapping, according to a person familiar with their views.

Through those intrusions, the hackers are believed to have targeted the phones of former President Donald Trump, running mate JD Vance and Trump family members, as well as members of Vice President Kamala Harris campaign staff and others, the New York Times has reported.

A person familiar with the matter said US investigators are still grappling with the attacks and dont yet have the full picture. Its going to take time to determine how many people were targeted, the person said, and to be confident that the US has uncovered all the relevant angles.

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Those efforts are still in the investigation phase and building out the picture continues, the person said.

US authorities have notified dozens of organizations, including telecommunications companies, that they were targeted in the Salt Typhoon hacks, according to another person familiar with the matter.

Alongside large telecommunications companies, smaller regional internet service providers have also been breached, said a third person familiar with the matter.

It is possible that Salt Typhoon is getting audio through the wiretap system by choosing what numbers to surveil through that system, bypassing safeguards, that person added.

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Last week, Congressional staffers received classified briefings from US intelligence agencies on the Salt Typhoon breach, according to an aide familiar with the matter. The briefings were previously reported by CyberScoop.

This is as concerning to me as anything Ive seen since coming here, Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said.

A State Department official said theyve know of the Salt Typhoon attacks for weeks, adding they were informed through the interagency process.

The concerning element is that the hacks are occurring on US soil and in a place where US officials thought that they had secured telecommunications against adversaries, according to the US official, adding the hacks look to to be scary because it is such a broad attack that could influence so many different sectors.

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--With assistance from Lucille Liu and Philip Glamann.

(Updates with response from Chinas Foreign Ministry.)

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BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD)  US Marshals arrested a Summerville man Thursday wanted for an October shooting in Ladson.

Kelsey Unique Washington was arrested and charged with attempted murder, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime.

28-year-old Washington was found while working at New Realm Brewing Co. on Daniel Island and taken into custody by US Marshals. He was transported to the Hill Finklea Detention Center for booking.

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Berkeley County deputies responded to a firearm disturbance on Winthrop Street on Oct. 3 right before 10 p.m., the Berkeley County Sheriffs Office said.

When they arrived, they made contact with the victim, who said he heard gunshots outside his home. He went outside to see what was happening and saw Washington outside his house.

The victim said Washington then fired several shots before fleeing in a vehicle, according to the sheriffs office.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCBD News 2.
MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG)  USA Health Providence Hospital is seeing a leadership change, according to a recent announcement.

Mobile police report details crash involving officer Monday

The hospital said in a news release that Rick Metzger, MMHC, BSN has been named the CEO.

(USA Providence Hospital)

Hospital officials said that Metzger, who most recently served as the interim CEO, was named following a national search given his success record at the facility.

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Rick is a true servant leader who has already demonstrated success at Providence through devotion to his associates, which goes hand in hand with a deep commitment to patient care and safety, said Owen Bailey, MSHA, FACHE, USA Health CEO and senior associate vice president for medical affairs. It was clear Rick was the right person to lead the hospital into a new era.

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According to the news release, Metzger brings experience in many roles within the healthcare business, ranging from positions including chief operating officer, vice president of operations and surgical services, and assistant administrator.

A steady force during the acquisition from Ascension Healthcare, Rick has extensive experience working with teams that focus on patient-centered, compassionate care, said John V. Marymont, M.D., MBA, vice president for medical affairs and dean of the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine at the University of South Alabama, the flagship of the Gulf Coast. The excitement and pride on the campus has been palpable since Providence became a part of USA Health, and much of the credit for that goes to Rick and his leadership team.

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The Huntsville native who has also been recognized for his successful leadership and has certifications and masteries in a variety of techniques, said he is excited to take on the new role.

Quite simply, I was asked many times to step into bigger roles, and I always said yes. I love challenges, solving problems, and collaborating with others to improve processes, Metzger said.

American Idol finalist from McIntosh now married with baby on the way

For more information on the hospital, visit the USA Health Providence website.

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PALESTINE, Texas (KETK)  As work to fill the gap in rural medical health care continue, the UT Tyler School of Medicine took students to a local ranch Wednesday morning. They were met with open doors and two peoples hopes of inspiring future doctors.

Scottish discovery reunites Texas man with class ring 56 years later

John and Marie Reed of Palestine and their dog Wayland are used to peaceful mornings on the ranch, but on Wednesday things looked a little different as they welcomed UT health medical students onto their homestead.

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Having the students here is very much like having our older grandchildren here, Marie, a retired nurse said.

John and Marie taught the students about the rural community they could one day serve.

They did a few different scenarios for us where they like threw bags into the machines and it was kind of scary, Sarah Stokke, a second year medical student said.

They focused on hazards East Texans may be exposed to in the workplace as well the larger distance between farms and ranches to hospitals.

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Its things that we people who live in the cities dont really think about, Stokke said. Were out in the middle of nowhere I cant think of how you could stabilize a patient and get them to safety.

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It is the Reeds goal of guiding students on how to provide care for locals in hopes of keeping doctors and nurses in the area.

I personally think that a patient admires and respects a doctor who has taken the time to learn about what its like in their patients life, Marie said. Im hopeful that the students will take that away from here.

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People wait in lines to vote at the Main Library in Salt Lake City on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

A wave of independent candidates this year wanted to make history and maybe even reshape the states political landscape by winning several seats in Utahs long Republican-dominated Legislature.

Those were their hopes, at least, in a news release issued the morning of Election Day.

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Turns out, though, 2024 wasnt their year.

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Not a single unaffiliated or third-party candidate gained enough traction to succeed over their Republican opponents this election cycle. Utah remains a solidly red stronghold, with the GOP maintaining its ironclad, supermajority control in the Legislature. Democrats flipped one seat in the House, but are on track to lose another, offsetting that gain. Republicans still have 23 seats in the Senate to Democrats six. In the House, the GOP has 61 seats to Democrats 14.

But of the 13 unaffiliated candidates on the ballot this year for congressional, statewide, legislative and school board races, several waged competitive bids in the House and Senate  though ultimately they all fell short. These three turned out to be among the closer runs, according to unofficial results as of Wednesday:

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House District 3: Unaffiliated candidate Patrick Belmont got 46.34% of the vote to Republican Jason Thompsons 53.66%.

House District 39: Unaffiliated candidate Jessica Wignall got 44.62% of the vote to Republican incumbent Rep. Ken Ivorys 55.38%.

Senate District 16: Unaffiliated candidate Monnica Manuel got about 42.56% of the vote to Republican incumbent Sen. Wayne Harpers 57.44%

This election, in many ways, was a test. Never before had Utah seen more than a dozen independent names on the ballot. While most independents launched their campaigns organically, several were recruited by Matt Lyon, managing partner of the firm Blueprint Public Affairs.

Lyon used to be a campaign manager for Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, and is a former director of the Utah Democratic Party who has been involved with multiple progressive causes and candidates. In 2022, Lyon was a consultant for Evan McMullin, an independent who unsuccessfully challenged Republican Sen. Mike Lee. This year, Lyons firm used election data from McMullins Senate run to target legislative districts as potentially competitive for independents.

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After unofficial election results showed all independent candidates trailing further behind than theyd hoped, Lyon told Utah News Dispatch hes waiting for final election results to dive deeper into the precinct-level data to find out more about how and why independents fell short. But overall, he said voters nationally and locally seemed to stick to the two-party system.

In general, this seemed to be a very partisan year and people mostly stuck to their camps, Lyon said.

Why independents struggled

Republicans, in particular, benefitted from a strongly engaged voter base, Lyon said. And people that were engaged were pretty strongly partisan. Thats perhaps not surprising in a presidential election year when the two-party system was as entrenched as ever on the national stage, and a year when Republicans were particularly fired up.

Thats disappointing to independent candidates like Belmont, a water scientist, energy expert and Utah State University professor from Logan. Along the campaign trail, he said it was clear there are plenty of Utah voters wanting something different from the two-party system  but they werent driven to the polls, and those who showed up largely stuck to their parties.

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There was a lot of tribalism, he said. And I think a big part of it, especially in my district, was young people just did not show up again.

Election workers process ballots at the Salt Lake County Government Center in Salt Lake City on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

Belmont predicted that voter turnout among 18- to 30-year-olds will be low this year, at least in his district, home to Utah State University. That could have also hurt other independents performances, like Lori Spruance, a professor at Brigham Young University, who relied on young voter engagement in otherwise highly conservative areas like Provo. She got 34.3% of the vote to Republican incumbent Rep. Keven Strattons 65.68%.

Young voters already have a tendency not to turn up to the polls like their older counterparts, but Belmont said his campaign did a lot of outreach to young Utahns in hopes to get them involved in an independent movement. But talking politics with them can be a challenge.

I see it on their faces every day. They are worn out. They are exhausted. They are grossed out by politics and all the toxic discourse that has become so pervasive in politics, Belmont said. And I was really trying to show them Im a different candidate. A scientist, somebody whos been doing lots of work to promote civil discourse.  And, for whatever reason, they still did not show up at the polls. And that hurts.

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In 2022, Belmont ran as a Democrat against the then-Republican incumbent, Sen. Dan Johnson. That year, Belmont got slightly less support (43.4% of the vote) as a Democrat than he did this year as an unaffiliate.

Its hard to know how much to attribute that to the fact I was running as an independent, Belmont said, though he added this year there were more people who really seemed open to hearing my message.

In my last campaign, I knocked 6,000 doors, and I just heard it a lot, that people liked the things I was working on, the expertise I would bring, but they could never vote for a Democrat.

Let us know what you think...

Belmont said hes considered himself an independent almost my entire voting life, but he ran as a Democrat two years ago because certainly my platform is better aligned with a lot of the things the Democratic Party is working on relating to environmental efforts. Meanwhile, the Republican Party, to a large degree, has abandoned science, he said. On the other hand, though, Belmont said he aligns in some ways with conservatives in that he believes in limited government.

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But, you know, I am an independent, and it felt good for me to run as an independent, Belmont said. Its much more true to who I am.

However, this year, even though more unaffiliated candidates jumped into Utah races than ever before, Belmont said national politics definitely overshadowed a lot of what happened here in Utah, and he predicted thats largely why independents struggled to gain enough of a foothold.

Where do Utahs independent candidates go from here?

For him, Belmont said its too early to think about another campaign in the future. But hes also worried that if something doesnt change, politics will continue to be driven by party politics rather than solving problems.

Im somebody who is much more interested in problem solving than I am in sitting in one party, he said. And Im very concerned as a country that were not talking to each other in ways that are going to move us forward. And I think we can only do that if we can start ditching some of the party politics and that whole mentality.

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Belmont said running as an independent also came with unique challenges, from both sides.

I mean, there were Democrats who were furious with me, who tried to put up roadblocks in front of me because I ran as an independent, he said. And there were certainly a lot of Republicans who were not happy either.

People arrive to vote at the Salt Lake County Government Center in Salt Lake City on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

Though he doesnt know exactly yet what hell do next, Belmont said hell try to keep the independent mentality alive in some way.

Moving forward, everything that Im going to be doing, however I do it, is going to be about bringing people together to have real conversations, hard conversations, building community and trying to pull this country together, he said. Because I just dont feel like we can move forward as divided as we are.

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While hell be unpacking the data to learn more about what happened this year  was there a Republican wave, a Democratic drop off, a lack of young voter turnout, or maybe all of the above  Lyon said the future of any independent movement in Utah will largely depend on grassroots involvement and interest.

The question of whether the independent movement continues will be based upon if there is still interest that moves forward and will continue to be organic, and if we can help support that movement, we will, Lyon said.

Nonetheless, Lyon applauded Utahs unaffiliated candidates this year, saying they did a great job being innovative and carving out some new ground and some new territory, he said. They certainly did tap into a growing group of people who are frustrated with our political process and our lack of political choices.

Movements, though, take time, he said. He pointed to young voters and their frustrations with the two-party system as a population that may slowly fuel a growing number of independents.

It may take some time, but a movement is led by lots of little things happening by lots of little people, Lyon said. Its rarely by one, big fell swoop.

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States across the country, from New York to California, shifted right in last Tuesdays historic general election; the Beehive State was no exception.

Utah voters delivered President-elect Donald Trump his highest vote share ever in the state on Election Day. Republican success extended down the ballot: statewide candidates glided to victory and the Legislatures GOP supermajority maintained its same margin of dominance.

It was a tough, tough night around the country to be a Democrat on the ballot, said Gabi Finlayson, co-founder of a Utah-based Democratic consulting firm, Elevate Strategies. I think we need to do some reflection on how we talk about issues and which candidates were recruiting to run, especially in these competitive districts.

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The red wave that moved across the country on Trumps coattails was often most pronounced at the county level. For example, the GOP nominee for president improved his margins by 22 percentage points in the minority-majority Bronx County, New York, compared to 2020; and by 21 percentage points in the 97%-Latino Starr County, Texas  flipping the district for the first time in 128 years.

Graphics showing an overwhelming shift toward Trump since his previous presidential bid went viral following his Nov. 5 political comeback. In the days following the election, CNN calculated that the ratio of counties swinging toward Trump relative to Vice President Kamala Harris was greater than 9:1, and the New York Times estimated that more than 90% of counties shifted in Trumps favor since 2020.

However, Utah, along with some of its western neighbors, was an outlier in this trend.

Did Trumps vote share increase in Utah?

Trump increased his winning margin in Utah by just under 1 percentage point in 2024, beating Harris 59.3% to 37.9%, with more than 90% of votes counted, compared to his Utah victory of 58.1% to 37.7% against President Joe Biden in 2020.

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While Trumps margin of victory in Utah increased from around 20.5 in 2020 to 21.5 in 2024, this was the smallest increase for Trump of any state in the country except for Washington state.

Utah stands out even more at the county level. Less than 40% of Utah counties shifted toward Trump in 2024. Of these 11 counties, San Juan County saw the largest increase in Trumps winning margin, increasing by 9.5 percentage points compared to 2020, followed by Tooele County, which saw a 2.5 point-boost for Trump.

Trump also saw an increase in support relative to his Democratic opponent in Washington County, of .6 percentage points, and Utahs three blue counties: Salt Lake, Summit and Grand. Positive shifts for Trump in these rapidly growing areas may have contributed to his overall increase across the state compared to 2020.

But 18 Utah counties bucked national trends, shifting in the opposite direction away from Trump.

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The largest decreases in Trumps margin of victory occurred in Morgan County  where his winning margin fell by 2.9 percentage points compared to 2020  and Davis County  where his margin fell by 2.7 points. Utah County saw its relative support of Trump fall by 1.2 points compared to four years before.

While most of Utahs sparsely populated rural counties also saw Trump win by slightly smaller margins in 2024, he still reached or exceeded 80% of the vote total in most of those counties.

I think that Utah Republicans have always had a complicated relationship with Trump, said state Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, who won reelection this year.

But despite Utah at times showing unique resistance to Trump, Weiler said  pointing to independent presidential candidate Evan McMullins 21.5% in 2016  the Beehive State still seemed to follow the national trend in 2024, even if it was at a smaller scale than nearly any other state in the country.

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I think Utah is very similar to the country where as more time goes by, more and more Republicans, and it appears some independents, are embracing Trump, Weiler said. And maybe its not because they love Trump, but maybe its because, you know, its a binary choice, and they dont like what the other side is offering.

How did GOP perform down ballot?

Republicans across Utah easily defeated their Democratic opponents last Tuesday  but did so by a smaller margin than previous election cycles.

Sen.-elect John Curtis outperformed Trump statewide by 3.3 percentage points but beat his Democratic opponent by slightly less than Sen. Mitt Romney did in Utahs last open-Senate-seat election in 2018.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox underperformed Trump by 3.7 percentage points statewide, with GOP candidate Phil Lyman running as a write-in. Coxs winning margin in 2020 was also several percentage points smaller than GOP candidates in past election cycles. Likewise, candidates for Utahs 1st, 2nd and 3rd congressional districts won by 2-4 points less in 2024 than in 2022.

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Republicans successful night was seen more in the positive trajectory at the state legislative level. Despite unprecedented levels of Democratic fundraising and campaign coordination, the Utah GOPs control of the 29-seat Senate and 75-seat House remained exactly the same.

Although Democrats were able to flip House District 30, where Democratic West Valley City city council member Jake Fitisemanu won the previously red open seat, Republicans ousted Democratic incumbent Rep. Rosemary Lesser in House District 10 in Weber County, where Republican business owner Jill Koford won by a few hundred votes.

In addition to isolating Democratic lawmakers to just representing areas in Salt Lake County, Utah GOP Chair Rob Axson says Republican candidates were also able hold onto former swing seats, like House districts 26 and 27, by larger margins than in 2020, and loosen Democrats hold on major seats like the Salt Lake County council at-large seat.

Not only is there not a leftward movement in Utah, theres a rightward movement, Axson said. It is clear that Utahs supermajority is representative of, and reflective of, Utah and Utahns.

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Axson pushed back against claims that Republicans command of the state Legislature is the result of partisan gerrymandering. If other political parties hope to make inroads among Utah voters, as Trump did with a diverse set of voters across the country, they will need to shift their message to represent a broader demographic than the one they currently reach, Axson said.
(This story was updated to add new information.)

Top executives at the University of Vermont Health Network announced cuts to staff and services saying it was a response to orders from the Green Mountain Care Board that require them to reduce the budgets of UVM Medical Center and Central Vermont Medical Center, during a virtual press conference Thursday morning.

The GMCB quickly issued a response Thursday, saying it had not been consulted on and did not approve the reductions, and that it is "reaching out" to UVMMC to better understand its rationale for the cuts and how it evaluated alternatives, "such as those identified in the GMCB's budget and enforcement orders."

Staff care for a new arrival to the University of Vermont Medical Center Intensive Care Unit (ICU) on Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021.

"The GMCB approved a $1.9 billion budget for UVMMC for FY25, an increase of $64 million over UVMMC's FY24 budget," the statement said. "As set forth in its budget order, the GMCB found that compared to other hospitals UVMMC has significant opportunity to improve its expense management and control the excessively high prices it charges commercially insured Vermonters."

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The Green Mountain Care Board is Vermont's independent health care regulator, responsible for approving hospital budgets and tasked with reducing the cost of health care in the state while also increasing access.

The GMCB caps the amount of "net patient revenue" each hospital can receive each year, and penalized UVMMC for exceeding that cap by $80 million in 2023.

What is UVM Health Network cutting and what medical services will the hospital stop providing

The UVM Health Network executives announced the following actions:

200 jobs will be cut: 150 at UVMMC and 50 at CVMC. About half of the jobs lost will be so-called travel nurses, who are hired on a contractual basis to fill gaps in permanent staff. Dr. Sunil Eappen, president and chief executive officer of UVM Health Network, hopes the 100 permanent staff who are cut can be placed in other hospitals, either in or out of the UVM Health Network.

UVMMC will no longer manage the dialysis units at clinics in St. Albans, Rutland and Newport , and will look for "alternative providers" to operate the sites. Dr. Stephen Leffler, president and chief operating officer of UVMMC, said the hospital loses about $3 million every year on the dialysis units, which serve about 115 patients. Leffler stressed the transition will take months and there will be no immediate change. The goal is to keep the service local and not move it out of state.

UVMMC will reduce its "census," essentially the number of beds for overnight patients it has available, from about 450 to about 400, reducing the number of transfers smaller hospitals can make to the hospital, according to Leffler. The reduction will happen "slowly and deliberately" over the next year. Leffler said UVMMC took in 500 transfers of patients in September, the highest number ever, but will have to turn patients away. Bob Ortmyer, president of Porter Medical Center in Middlebury said limiting transfers to the state's "only high acuity care center is serious and will have a negative impact on our patients."

UVMMC will stop doing kidney transplants and has begun discussions with Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, to take over those transplants. UVMMC would continue to provide care for its patients on waiting lists to receive a kidney transplant, with the actual transplant taking place at Dartmouth. UVMMC does 12 to 15 transplants each year, according to Eappen.

CVMC will merge its primary care practices on its main campus and in the Mad River Valley, as well as merging its Mad River and Barre Rehab clinics.

The inpatient psychiatric unit at CVMC will be closed and the hospital will explore options for its eight patients, including placing mental health clinicians in all primary care clinics.

The UVM Health Network is cutting more than $18 million in administrative costs this year because of the GMCB's budget orders, according to a news release, by scaling back initiatives to reduce wait times, and delaying facility maintenance and technology upgrades.

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"When you reduce net patient revenue, there's no path there other than reducing care," Eappen said.

What are the hospital unions saying

The hospital unions issued a statement Thursday denouncing the cuts.

"The plan for the closure of CMVC's Inpatient Psychiatric unit will devastate mental health care in our community and throughout our organization," said Sue Becker, a nurse at CVMC. "It's an unacceptable decision. UVM Health Network and CVMC management are blaming the Green Mountain Care Board, however, this is the fault of executives and leaders who have failed to plan their budgets accordingly. We are not going to stand by and let this happen."

Deb Snell, president of the nurse and tech union at UVMMC, added the union is concerned the UVM Health Network "is a net drain on providing the quality patient care that Vermonters deserve."

Budget orders from Green Mountain Care Board create a $122 million hole for UVM Health Network to address

The GMCB rejected a request by UVMMC for a 3.4% increase in the rates commercial payers such as Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont pay the hospital, and instead reduced the rate by 1%. Eappen said Thursday it marks the first time in his career he has seen a commercial rate go down.

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Eappen said the net result of the GMCB's actions requires UVMMC and CVMC to cut a combined $122 million from their budgets, most of it coming from UVMMC.

"That's the challenge we're being asked to face, to come up with that $122 million," he said. "We're doing this in the context of an additional 25,000 new patients over the past five years, 8,000 in the past year alone. On top of that, patients are getting older and sicker. We have to deliver higher acuity care and more frequently at all hospitals."

Green Mountain Care Board questions why a New York hospital in the health network owes $60 million to UVM Medical Center

In its statement, the GMCB raised another revenue question, saying it found that UVMMC was owed $87 million as of Sept. 30, 2023, from other UVM Health Network hospitals, including its New York-based hospitals.

Green Mountain Care Board Chair Owen Foster.

"This included $60 million from Champlain Valley Physician's Hospital in Plattsburgh, NY," the statement said. "These funds included $30 million in pharmacy expenses, $20 million in physician salaries and fringe benefits, and $10 million in shared services. The GMCB has inquired as to the status of repayment of these amounts and is awaiting further information related to this issue."

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Asked in the morning press conference about the debt owed UVMMC by CVPH in New York, Eappen said the "movement of dollars across the network has zero bearing on the budgets of Vermont hospitals."

"We clearly explained that to the Green Mountain Care Board," he said.

Contact Dan DAmbrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanDambrosioVT.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: UVM Health Network budget cuts: What services will be eliminated
The University of Vermont Health Network says it is planning to reduce clinical services at two Vermont hospitals by millions of dollars to comply with budget cuts ordered by the Green Mountain Care Board.

Hospital administrators say they must reduce revenues from patient care by about $122 million after the GMCB cut the budgets of Central Vermont Medical Center and University of Vermont Medical Center.

In health care, revenue is patient care, UVMMC said in a release announcing its plans, which means both hospitals will need to reduce the care they provide to Vermonters at a time when demand is increasing.

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Administrators have announced five steps it will take in the next year to bring its 2025 budget in line with the GMCB orders:

Reduce the number of beds available for overnight hospital stays from 450 to 400 and limit non-emergency transfers from other hospitals;

Merge the Family Medicine clinics operated through Central Vermont Medical Center;

Close the inpatient psychiatric unit at Central Vermont Medical Center;

Close the kidney transplant unit at UVM Medical Center in Burlington;

End staffing of dialysis clinics in St. Albans, Rutland and Newport.

UVM says it is exploring a collaboration with Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center to care for patients who need kidney transplant surgery. And it says it will look for other providers to operate the dialysis sites, which treat about 115 patients.

UVM Medical Center pauses work on outpatient surgery center

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These decisions we are being forced to make are painful because there are patients connected to each one of them. I apologize to our patients and to our employee colleagues who will be impacted, said Sunny Eappen, president and CEO of University of Vermont Health Network. As a nonprofit academic health system rooted in the rural communities we serve, we know these cuts will affect our friends, our families and our neighbors who need the lifesaving care we provide.

UVM Health said the cuts were identified based on factors including low patient volume, high cost and whether the services operate at a loss. Administrators said they will be forced to reduce the hospitals workforce by as many as 200 positions, including both employed staff and temporary/travel staff.

In October, UVM Health announced it would halt construction on an outpatient surgical center planned for South Burlington. The hospital said pausing the project is necessary to lower costs, which will impact our ability to deliver the care patients need.

UVM Medical Center has appealed the Green Mountain Care Boards decision, calling it an illegal exercise of the boards authority. Last month, the hospital filed a motion to allow the hospital to postpone some of the service cuts while the appeal is pending.

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We filed this motion because it is our responsibility to take every possible step to limit the impact of the boards decisions on our patients, communities and staff and we want to have the opportunity to present our case about why this decision is wrong, said Stephen Leffler, MD, president and chief operating officer of UVM Medical Center.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Committee Chair Del. Marcia Price, D-Newsport News, flanked by House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria (left) and Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, D-Alexandria, at a news conference in Richmond on Nov. 13, 2024. (Markus Schmidt/Virginia Mercury)

A Democratic-led House of Delegates panel on Wednesday advanced three proposed constitutional amendments, including a revised measure seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the states highest law. The new proposal would also require third-trimester abortions to be approved by one doctor instead of three, as the law currently mandates.

The 22-member House Privileges and Elections Committee further backed amendments to extend constitutional protections to marriage equality and the automatic restoration of voting rights for felons who have served their time.

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The right to love, the right to vote, the right to bodily autonomy and privacy, these are the very rights and freedoms that are crucial to the foundation of this commonwealth and this nation, committee chair Del. Marcia Price, D-Newport News, said in a brief news conference Wednesday afternoon. We showed up today to do our jobs and to do everything within our power to protect these rights and freedoms for all Virginians.

The revised abortion amendment language in HJ1 shocked the committees Republican members, who only saw the changes after the meeting was already underway. Price called a five-minute recess to allow lawmakers to review the new language before deliberations and voting proceeded.

I think were still trying to figure out what happened today, a visibly frustrated House Minority Leader Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, said after the three-hour hearing. Something this important and impactful  literally life-and-death decisions  I dont think Ive ever seen anything pushed through this fast where we didnt get a chance to see it.

Gilbert warned that Prices decision to not allow the committee more time to review the revised legislation would set a precedent for the way the House conducts its business in the future.

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We were literally given five minutes to huddle and look at it before we had to decide what we were grappling with, and I think we still dont know, other than its pretty clear that this is a pretty extreme version of efforts to protect abortion that goes well beyond what has been done in other states, Gilbert said.

Price, however, defended her decision to move forward with taking a vote on the proposal.

We have an entire legislative process just like any other committee, and [the resolution] will go to the floor where (Republicans) will also have a chance to either put forward amendments or have their voice heard as well, she said at the news conference.

Amending the state Constitution takes several years in Virginia. The proposed amendment must be approved by the legislature in two separate years, with a General Assembly election occurring in between. Only then can the amendment proceed to a statewide referendum for voters to decide.

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Because the next election in Virginia is in November 2025, the earliest the three amendments that the committee advanced Wednesday could be put on the ballot is November 2026  if the measures pass in the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions.

The abortion rights amendment

Under current Virginia law, third-trimester abortions require approval from three doctors. The new amendment would reduce this requirement to just one doctor when a late-term abortion is deemed necessary to protect the life of the pregnant individual, or their physical or mental health, or when a physician determines the fetus is not viable.

At Wednesdays hearing, dozens of abortion opponents lined up to speak against the proposal.

Among them was Olivia Turner, president of the Virginia Society for Human Life, who told the panel that her group opposed both the original amendment and its substitute.

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We dont know whats going on with this new version, and how it will impact our ability as the people of Virginia to pass rational and reasonable protective laws in the future, Turner said.

And Gilbert, the House Minority Leader, said that the amendment capsized Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that established abortion as a constitutional right and that was repealed in 2022.

Roe v. Wade has within it a compelling state interest in protecting the life of the unborn at a certain point in the pregnancy. This amendment doesnt contain that protection at all, it leans in the other direction, Gilbert said.

The legislation we just saw, which was dropped on us literally today without any ability to look at it, reflect on it, think about it, compare notes, talk to experts, only leans into the protection of the patient, which is the mother. And so there is no more protection for the unborn, which was envisioned and embodied in Roe (v.) Wade.

House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, talks to reporters after the House Privileges and Elections Committee meeting on Nov. 13, 2024. (Markus Schmidt/Virginia Mercury)

But House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, the sponsor of HJ1, said that in her amendment both the state interest in protecting the unborn and life of the mother are considered.

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The parameters are set out so if there is a live fetus, there are protections. But if there is a miscarriage, then the physician and the mother will be able to make a decision to abort and to complete a miscarriage. So they do coexist, Herring said.

Abortion rights advocates urged the committee to vote in favor of the amendment.

This amendment will protect Virginians rights to make their own reproductive health care decisions, including access to abortion, contraception, fertility treatment and miscarriage care, said Jamie Lockhart, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia.

Right now, with no state or federal protections in place, Virginians face the constant risk that anti-abortion politicians could restrict or ban essential care. No one is more qualified than an individual and their health care provider to make these complex personal decisions.

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After defeating a Republican motion to kill the proposed amendment, the committee moved to advance the measure by a 12-9 party-line vote.

Restoration of rights amendment

HJ2, sponsored by Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, D-Alexandria, seeks to automate the process of restoring voting rights to people convicted of felony crimes who have served their sentences. The proposal comes in response to a 2023 policy change implemented by Gov. Glenn Youngkin that requires people with felony convictions to proactively apply to regain their voting rights upon release from prison and is not automatically restoring rights for any group of offenders  a shift from Virginias three previous governors.

Bennett-Parker told reporters Wednesday that her amendment proposes automatic restoration of voting rights for individuals who have been released from incarceration, which she said would foster a more just and bare society.

The disenfranchisement of people with all convictions is a relic of Virginias Jim Crow past and was intentionally inserted into the 1902 Virginia Constitution to disenfranchise as many Black voters as possible, Bennett-Parker said.

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She added that the right to vote is fundamental and the amendment ensures that if a person has served their time they deserve to have their rights to participate in democracy restored.

Virginia is the only state to permanently disenfranchise all individuals with felony convictions unless they individually petition the governor for rights restoration. The current system has no transparency and changes every four years, so no one knows what steps to take to get their rights restored. This amendment creates a process that is bound by transparent rules and criteria that will apply equally to everybody.

The committee backed HJ2 with a 12-9 party-line vote.

Marriage equality amendment

Although the U.S. Supreme Court granted same-sex couples the right to marry in the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in 2014, the state Constitution still includes the 2006 Marshall-Newman Amendment, which defines marriage as solely between one man and one woman and bans recognition of any legal status that approximates the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage.

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Because it could become law again should the Supreme Court overturn its 2014 ruling one day, Del. Mark Sickles, D-Arlington, sponsored HJ9 in an effort to repeal the current constitutional provision and enshrine marriage as a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of persons, unrestricted by factors like sex, gender or race.

Jeff Caruso, executive director of the Virginia Catholic Conference, told the committee that his group has opposed efforts to repeal the Marshall-Newman Amendment for more than 16 years.

We affirm the dignity of every person, we also affirm that marriage has an original design and purpose, which predates any nation, any religion and any law, and we urge you to uphold that principle today.

Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia, pushed back against that notion and reminded the panel that today there are more than 20,000 same-sex couples in Virginia who have more similarities than differences with couples in traditional marriages.

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Here in Virginia we have seen how a state has evolved in its thinking about same-sex couples, and LGTBQ people overall. Now its time for our state to fully complete our evolution and finish the job in protecting marriage equality for all, Rahaman said.

The committee advanced the amendment on a bipartisan 16-5 vote, with four Republicans joining Democrats.

I think our straightforward amendment will be welcomed by Virginia citizens and Im really appreciative of the vote today in the committee, Sickles said.

All three amendments are now set to be voted on by the General Assembly during its 2025 session, which begins in January.

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U.S. Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, is declaring victory in his race against Democratic challenger Rudy Salas, who has yet to concede the election.

"With the vote count across California's Twenty Second Congressional District nearly complete, it is clear voters have spoken and Congressman David G. Valadao will be reelected to continue serving the Central Valley in Congress," Valadao's campaign said in a news release Wednesday.

The Associated Press called the race for Valadao Tuesday evening.

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"The Central Valley is my home, and I am once again humbled by the Central Valley's support and faith in me," Valadao said Wednesday.

"I will continue reaching across the aisle to find solutions to increase the valley's water supply, make energy more affordable, ensure our law enforcement are well-funded to keep communities safe, create good-paying jobs, and improve our healthcare system," he said.

The Salas campaign did not immediately return request for comment Wednesday, but previously told The Californian they were waiting on all results to come in.

Latest results show Valadao claiming 53.2%, or 81,608 votes, and Salas 46.8%, or 71,816 votes.

Additional election results from the Kern County Elections Division are expected Friday afternoon.
WACO, Texas (FOX 44)  Vaping in schools has become a common problem across the country, but here in Central Texas the Waco Independent School District is tackling this problem head on.

University High School and Waco High School are partnering with V.O.I.C.E. (Viable Options In Community Endeavors). The organization has donated vape device collection boxes to Waco ISD. They will be installing these boxes on both campuses Thursday morning. The boxes will be used to help crack down on vaping in the district.

Its very important. Its been an epidemic. Its becoming bigger and bigger with our vaping, and the students bringing them into schools is not making it very safe. So those boxes would be beneficial in a number of ways, says V.O.I.C.E. Community Coalition Coordinator Gena Stier.

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Students in the two schools will be able to voluntarily put them in the boxes before they come through the metal detectors. Vapes are not allowed on school campuses, per House Bill 114..

If a student is caught on campus with a vape, they will be sent to the dicsiplinary alternative education program for 30 days.

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The UN has been forced to step in after a row about a lack of vegan options erupted at the Cop29 climate summit in Baku.

The food court at the Azerbaijan conference centre features just one vegan and vegetarian outlet, prompting complaints from delegates who said plant-based food should be prioritised for its green credentials.

Previous Cop summits have made a point of featuring a variety of vegan options.

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The Cop26 summit in Glasgow displayed the carbon footprint of all food items and offered more environmentally-friendly meat options, such as venison.

Logistics for the summit are organised by hosts Azerbaijan, but the UN said it was responding to several complaints about a lack of available vegan food in a message on Thursday.

In response to queries received by the UNFCCC secretariat, we herewith wish to highlight the vegan and vegetarian food options available at the conference venue, the message said.

As part of its commitment to promoting sustainable practices, the host country has made available a variety of vegetarian and vegan food options.

Meat has a much, much higher carbon footprint

Dr Lambert Schneider, a Belgian researcher at the Oko-Institut, who was waiting in line at the only vegan food stand on Thursday, said the lack of options was a dereliction of duty by the hosts.

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He said: They sent this message to all delegates that all the food options have a very low carbon impact but thats just not true.

Dr Schneider added: If you look to the studies, the science is very clear that eating meat has a much, much higher carbon footprint than eating vegetarian or vegan.

The conference centre offers dozens of food stalls ranging from local Azerbaijani food to Dominos pizza, with the majority of options including meat.

The lone vegan stall was busy on Thursday but offered a relatively limited selection of dahl, pumpkin soup and spinach stew.

Vegan campaigners have been handing out free sandwiches at the entrance to the summit, which started on Monday.

Vegan campaigners have been handing out free sandwiches at the entrance to the summit - Konul Sahin/X

Other complaints about the summits environmental credentials have included the temperature of the conference centre, which is heated to 30C in some places, despite the temperate climate in Baku at this time of year.

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Delegates have also complained about the cost of food, with some outlets charging higher prices than in Baku city.

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BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP)  The man charged with shooting and wounding three college students of Palestinian descent in Vermont last year has been declared fit to stand trial, according to the judge presiding over the case.

The findings from a psychological evaluation of 49-year-old Jason Eaton were discussed during the hearing Tuesday, and the judge also gave defense attorneys more time to collect depositions.

Authorities say Eaton shot and seriously wounded Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad in Burlington on the evening of Nov. 25, 2023, as they were walking in his neighborhood near the University of Vermont.

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The students, all age 20 at the time, were conversing in a mix of English and Arabic and two of them were also wearing black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh scarves when they were shot, police said. The students say the shooter approached them and fired without saying a word.

Threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities have increased across the U.S. since the Israel-Hamas war began.

Eaton pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder, and has been held without bail since he was arrested last year at his Burlington apartment. The three students' families say the shooting should be treated as a hate crime, but prosecutors say they dont have enough evidence to support that.

On Tuesday, Eatons attorney Peggy Jansch asked the court to push the deadline for depositions to June 2025, saying she wouldn't be able to finish by the original Dec. 16 deadline.

Judge John Pacht set a May 31 deadline to conduct depositions. A status hearing was scheduled for early March.
VERNON, CT  Public schools in Vernon have again exceeded the state average and are ranked No. 1 among the 36 K-through-12 Alliance Districts in the latest Next Generation Accountability System results.

Vernon earned 73.3 points, compared to the state average of 70.8 points. The results were released last week by the state Department of Education.

Three Vernon schools  Northeast School, Skinner Road School and Lake Street School  were recognized as "Schools of Distinction" because students showed significant growth and achievement year over year. School system administrators said student growth provides a more accurate measure of how schools contribute to student learning by demonstrating achievement over time. Students start each year with different levels of knowledge.

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Growth shows how well a school is helping students learn, they added.

"This is a tremendous accomplishment for our students, families, teachers, staff and administrators, and demonstrate the Vernon Public Schools high standards and expectations, Vernon Superintendent of Schools Joseph P. Macary said. "These results are even more remarkable considering the past five years of school disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic and school shutdowns."

The Next Generation Accountability System evaluates schools on:

Academic achievement,

Academic growth

Assessment participation rate

Chronic absenteeism

College and career readiness

Being on track for graduation in ninth grade

Graduation in four years

Graduation in six years for high-need students,

Post-secondary entrance rate

Physical fitness

Arts access

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The criteria break down into 23 metrics that provide school leaders with details about school and district performance, school system officials said. Schools in Vernon beat the state average in 18 of those 23 metrics, and showed improvement in 17 of the 23, Assistant Superintendent Robert Testa said.

"We always want to do better, but these numbers are full of good news about our success in reaching our students and guiding them to reach their full potential," Testa said.

Northeast School achieved School of Distinction designation for high growth for all students and high needs students in math. Lake Street School was designated a School of Distinction for high growth among high needs students in math. Skinner Road School was deemed a School of Distinction for the high performance and high growth of all students in math, high growth by high needs students in English Language Arts and math, and for being ranked in the top 10 percent of all schools in Connecticut.

This year is the is the fifth straight that Northeast School has achieved School of Distinction status. Principal Dr. Brenda Greene said the key is making sure every student has what they need to continually do their best.

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"That intense focus creates an environment in which students meet their academic goals and achieve at an extremely high level," Greene said.

Lake Street School Principal Tracy Duenzl said the teamwork between families and teachers is essential.

"All of our teachers worked really hard together to support student learning, Duenzl said. "Families made sure students were at school, which enabled our teachers to make a sustained and focused effort on helping students move forward. Were very proud of our students' growth and achievement."

Skinner Road School Principal Bryan Kerachsky said teachers and staff are dedicated and work hard to ensure Skinner Road is a school where students can do their best work and flourish.

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"The students are the heart of the school and our staff is willing to do whatever it takes to meet the needs of each and every child," Kerachsky said. "Our teachers forge tremendous relationships with our kids, allowing the kids to feel safe and secure. That allows us to focus on learning and getting better every day."





Vernon Schools Again Ahead Of State With Next Generation Results originally appeared on the Vernon Patch
Its very rare: Metro attorney weighs in on accused child killer declining plea deal

ANADARKO, Okla. (KFOR)  A metro attorney says pressure may have been behind Alysia Adams decision to turn down a plea deal Wednesday tied to a first-degree murder case.

Adams is the caregiver accused in the murder of 4-year-old Athena Brownfield. The little girls remains were discovered in a field in Rush Springs in January 2023 after she went missing.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Caregiver accused in murder of 4-year-old Cyril girl declines plea deal

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The deal, set to be considered at a Wednesday hearing was taken off of the table by Adams herself, who decided not to enter a plea minutes before the hearing was set to begin. The state said making that call leaves the death penalty on the table as a potential punishment if shes found guilty.

I would say its very rare, said Oklahoma City Criminal Defense Attorney, Robert Gifford, when asked to weigh in on how unusual a move like Adams was.

Gifford says there are a number of reasons Adams may have changed her mind, ranging from if she believes shes innocent, to the enormity of the decision itself.

This is a decision that few people really ever, ever have to realize what theyre doing and the ramifications of such, said Gifford. Somebody wants to come forward and say, this is not how it happened, this is not what I did, or I didnt do this at all.

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Gifford says while Adams attorneys could have made a recommendation, she accepted the plea that was ultimately her decision to make. He says this opens the door for a very lengthy and taxing process leading to trial.

In this case, theres a famous phrase called death is different when it comes to criminal death penalty cases, said Gifford. And this is very different. You dont go into a death penalty case like you would any other case. You have to have enough resources. You have to have investigators. You have to have a mitigation specialist.

Gifford says thats in addition to co-counsel and a number of witnesses, that would be like comparing apples and oranges when it comes to normal criminal cases.

Gifford also touched on the level of media exposure the case has already seen, and how it could make an unbiased jury pool more difficult to obtain.

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Any case that is subject to the death penalty usually receives some media exposure, said Gifford. The community itself is well awareof the accusations that are being placed out there. So a defendant and his or her attorney has a long way to go to overcome that and to remind the jurors of what their job is. That they have to hold the state or the government to their burden of proof. That being proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the highest standard under the law.

Gifford says he doubts the case will go to trial soon, and could take a little over a year to reach that point. He added that the emotional toll a guilty verdict and a death penalty judgment would have on all family involved wouldnt end with the trials conclusion.

Its still not over because theres going to be several layers of appeal thats going to go on for many years; the family never really gets its closure, said Gifford.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI)  It was an emotional evening as veterans shared memories from their military service.

The Providence Clemente Veterans Initiative hosted its annual Veteran Voices Wednesday night.

Veterans spent the evening expressing their feelings through stories, poetry and song.

In many cases, people bottle up challenging experiences  things that have kind of bruised them inside and out, said Mark Santow, director of the Providence Clemente Veterans Initiative.

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Santow was inspired to devote his time to helping veterans because his father served in the military. The Providence Clemente Veterans Initiative, along with Trinity Rep, has been hosting this event for the past four years.

For Santow, its all about creating a safe space.

Its always nice to be seen and heard, he said. It makes you feel less alone.

Kasim Yarn, director of Rhode Islands Office of Veteran Services, told 12 News that events like this one allow him to identify what resources are most needed.

Everyones service matters, Yarn said. To bring some of those issues off the battlefield home  this gives them strategies to cope with those things and their families, too.

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NEW ALBANY, Ohio (WCMH)  Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) is set to become vice president for Donald Trumps second term in January. Where does he stand on the CHIPS Act?

The CHIPS and Science Act is slotted to provide around $52 billion in incentives for U.S. semiconductor chip makers, including Intel, which was promised billions in funds. Intel planned to use the funding in part to support construction of a new computer chip facility near New Albany, a highly-anticipated project transforming parts of Licking County and central Ohio.

However, Intel still has not received the funding amid layoffs, restructuring and diminishing stock value. The delay is increasingly difficult for Intel as Trumps presidential term nears, with Trump calling the act so bad and indicating he will impose tariffs to encourage American production instead of continuing the legislation. On Nov. 1, Speaker Mike Johnson said we probably will repeal the act that was expected to add $2.8 billion to Ohios annual gross state product, according to Gov. Mike DeWine. Johnson later walked the statement back.

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Central Ohio billionaire tapped to join Trumps cabinet

Vance, 40, was selected as Trumps running mate two years into his first term as a Senator, a position that DeWine is currently considering replacements for. A former venture capitalist executive, Vance expressed support for Intels plant and the CHIPS act before becoming Trumps vice presidential pick. According to a release from Columbus Region, Vance celebrated in March 2024 when Biden announced billions in funding to Intel.

Todays CHIPS announcement isnt just great news for Intel. Its a well-deserved victory for Ohio and Ohio workers, Vance said of the announcement, per the release. Our state is playing a central role in revitalizing the critical industries that were developed here in America but lost to decades of offshoring.

Amid delays in July 2022, Vance told Axios that the death of the CHIPS Act is a terrible indictment of our do-nothing leadership. He blamed Democrats for tanking the act and said the stalled legislation may have cost Ohio thousands of jobs.

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Anti-trans bathroom bill passes in Ohio Senate, heads to DeWines desk

On the campaign trail, Vance responded to a CHIPS Act question from reporters and said Trump believes in returning manufacturing to America, specifying that includes semiconductors like those made by Intel. He did not specifically say if he was for or against continuing the Act, accusing Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden of politicizing funding for manufacturers under the program.

Vance has said this before. In October 2023, Vance spoke on the CHIPS Act at a Senate Commerce Committee meeting where he raised concerns about mandated diversity hiring policies in the act. The Act has over a dozen sections aimed at supporting minority groups, including requirements for companies seeking CHIPS funding to present plans for combating discrimination and diversifying recruitment.

Amid questions of the Acts survival, businesses in Ohio and three other states wrote to Biden requesting his administration make the federal funding under the CHIPS Act available in the next 30 days. Of the 18 organizations behind the letter, 11 were Ohioan organizations, including the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

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(Bloomberg) --

Most Read from Bloomberg

Vietnam President Luong Cuong forcefully warned of the dangers of a world with higher tariffs, one of the strongest criticisms so far of US President-elect Donald Trumps approach to trade as world leaders gather this week in Peru.

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Isolationists, protectionism and trade wars lead only to recession, conflict and poverty, Cuong told government and business leaders gathered at the APEC CEO Summit in Lima, Peru, on Thursday.

Now more than ever its critical to transcend the zero-sum game mindset and guard against nationalism skewing policy decisions, said Cuong, who was named last month as Vietnams president. Every country, regardless of its size, must adhere to international law and act responsibly, acknowledging that each decision carries significant, far-reaching consequences, he said.

Trumps threat of a universal tariff is one of the biggest uncertainties facing Vietnams government. Exports account for about 85% of the Southeast Asian nations economy, and the US is its largest market. Vietnam had a surplus of around $100 billion with the US last year, making it a target for Trumps policies to rebalance trade.

Imposing new trade and investment standards without scientific rationale or objective assessment, while overlooking the unique development levels and circumstances of each country, unfairly deprives millions of job opportunities, stifles innovation and hampers business growth, Cuong warned.

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International trade and investments must comply with regulations set by the WTO to ensure balanced interests and promote fair competition, Cuong added, referring to the World Trade Organization, which faced criticism from Trumps administration during his first term.

The Southeast Asian nation has set an economic growth target of 6.5% to 7% for 2025, building on an expansion of at least 7% this year as it continues to power ahead as one of the worlds fastest-growing economies.

Trumps election win spells weaker growth prospects for most of Southeast Asia in 2025, Tamara Mast Henderson of Bloomberg Economics wrote in a report this month. Within the region, Vietnam is most vulnerable to stalling foreign direct investment  its economy is more trade-reliant and its bilateral trade surplus with the US soared during Trumps first term and over the course of the Biden administration.

Key concerns for Vietnam include a campaign to be to be officially designated as a market economy by the US, as well as whether the incoming administration will prioritize finalizing a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership announced when President Joe Biden visited the nation last year.

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Cuong, 67, was named president last month, the fourth official to fill the role in less than two years. His appointment took place after two previous presidents resigned for violations linked to the countrys sweeping anti-corruption crackdown. His predecessor To Lam, the former minister of public security, was elected Communist Party general secretary in August after the death of longtime leader Nguyen Phu Trong.

The yearslong anti-corruption campaign, which has ensnared hundreds of government officials and business executives, has been portrayed as part of Vietnams attempts to bolster its appeal as a destination for foreign investment in the midst of heated competition between the US and China, and to ensure the partys legitimacy in the face of wide-ranging scandals. Its also led to claims of bureaucratic paralysis, with officials wary of signing off on projects for fear they could be next in line.

Despite this, the economy has shown resilience this year as investment pours in. Vietnam saw growth unexpectedly accelerate last quarter, boosted by manufacturing and exports before Super Typhoon Yagi in September caused widespread flooding, leaving hundreds of people dead and creating around $3.3 billion in economic damage.

To spur growth, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has vowed to cut logistical costs, improve infrastructure and speed up public spending. The government has sought to pull in capital from foreign tech giants such as Samsung Electronics Co. and Intel Corp. as the country emerges as a viable alternative to China in the production of electronics such as smartphones to basic semiconductors.

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Those of us whove played the board game Monopoly understand the most expensive piece of real estate is Boardwalk and second is Park Place.

Ashland had to condemn the Park Place office building at 17th and Central. Unfortunately, the building has fallen into disrepair and officials rightfully feared it may attract those seeking shelter to break in the building, and to start a fire for heat that could lead to a disaster.

The large office building was constructed in the 1970s by Kentucky Power to be its corporate headquarters. At the time of construction, it was a showpiece for Ashland  tens of thousands of square feet under roof with plenty of parking adjacent to Central Park.

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As is too often the case, absentee property owners just abandon their property rather than come into the citys building code compliance. That doesnt seem to be the case here. The owner is a California doctor who buys properties by watching real estate that is sold due to tax liens.

At one point during the discussion of building the new $4.3 million police station, city leaders considered buying the Park Place building and consolidating the police department and the city building under one location of the Park Place building.

The last thing the city needs is an empty building with so much potential. Ashland Economic Development Director Chris Pullem is right in his assessment that the building is not energy-efficient. Obviously, any new buyer would factor that into consideration prior to purchasing the building.

We think this building and adjacent properties have good potential. We hope a full-court press by local leaders to market this building is essential.

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If necessary, the owner will construct a fence around the property to keep vagrants away. Good. However, it may present an additional marketing challenge for any potential buyer. Were hopeful a strong marketing strategy by the Chamber of Commerce, the city and the current owner with a quality video presentation will result in the building not being vacant for long.

Park Place is too big to ignore. Ashland doesnt have a Boardwalk, but it has a Park Place that offers potential to a likely buyer at a reasonable price.
Flock Safety cameras capture license plates. (Courtesy of Flock Safety)

State lawmakers are debating whether to regulate law enforcement departments use of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR). They heard constituents perspectives on the technology and reviewed studies from the Virginia State Crime Commission at a meeting in Richmond on Thursday.

ALPRs are typically mounted cameras (but can also be dashboard cameras) that capture a photograph or video clip of a vehicle and its license plate along with the location, date and time of the capture. The technology has grown in popularity across the country in both public and private sector use  from homeowner associations and businesses to law enforcement agencies.

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In Thursdays presentation, the commissions deputy director Colin Drabert outlined a study and feedback from unnamed stakeholders. Their responses, he said, reflected that there are numerous benefits as well as concerns surrounding law enforcement using the technology.

Few rigorous studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of ALPR, he said. However, the studies that have been conducted have shown that ALPR is particularly effective in assisting law enforcement with locating stolen vehicles and investigating other offenses.

He also noted the stakeholders concern that camera placement in minority communities would result in disparate impacts to the residents of those communities.

The Department of Criminal Justice Services is in the process of determining how many Virginia law enforcement agencies are already using ALPR  information that will be available in the near future, Drabert said.

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At least 18 states currently regulate the use of ALPRs and 17 of them also regulate the length of time that law enforcement can retain data. For instance, New Hampshire allows for three minutes while Alabama allows for up to five years. Several states range from a few weeks to a few months.

Though law enforcement agencies can share data with other public and private entities that use ALPR, Drabert stressed multiple times that ALPR alone does not reveal peoples identities. He said that law enforcement has to access separate databases to determine who owns a vehicle that was flagged by the technology.

Drabert explained that law enforcement that uses ALPR receives alerts for hot list features like stolen vehicles or license plates, vehicles associated with people known to be potentially engaged in criminal activity and vehicles associated with missing people.

Charlottesville police chief Michael Kochis made a case for using ALPRs during public comment and said that some community members in his community had been asking for them.

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He said that people whose homes were being shot up on a weekly basis kept asking when are we going to get it?

In September, Charlottesvilles city council approved the installation of Flock Safety Cameras  a leading ALPR company in America  following a series of community meetings that garnered mixed feedback from residents.

But common concerns that have emerged in Virginia and nationwide amid the rise in ALPR use have been privacy and prevention of unreasonable searches and seizures by governments.

Norfolk residents recently filed a federal lawsuit challenging the use of Flock cameras, alleging that they violate peoples Fourth Amendment rights  which protect against unreasonable searches and seizures.

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Drabert noted cases where ALPR use resulted in erroneous searches, such as when a mother and children in Colorado were held at gunpoint after being wrongly suspected of being in a stolen car.

Legal Aid Justice Center attorney Ruby Cherian asked lawmakers to consider guardrails for law enforcements use of the technology.

Officers should be required to get a warrant to search the database to protect privacy rights and prevent misuse and abuse, she said.

Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick, asked if a 30-day limit on data storage would be reasonable. Cherian agreed, though she said shed like to see a shorter cutoff.

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The crime commission will meet again on Dec. 16, when Del. Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, said some decisions can be made on how to move forward with potential regulations. After Thursdays meeting, Herring said that she wants to read through documents stemming from the presentation and analyze other information and cases regarding ALPR use.

I think something needs to be in place, she said.

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Vivek Ramaswamy, who was picked to lead the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency, proposed defunding federal programs that no longer have congressional authorization - which includes money for veterans health care, NASA and early education.

The new office, nicknamed DOGE after co-leader Elon Musks favorite meme, will operate outside of government and will aim to cut wasteful expenditures and restructure Federal Agencies. Two days after being nominated, Ramaswamy suggested deep cuts to federal funding, starting with a list of expired authorizations of appropriations.

Some congressional funding was approved with a set time before authorization expired. However, they continue to receive funding. A recent report by the Congressional Budget Office found more than 1,200 programs at more than $516 billion a year. When an authorization expires, Congress can extend the program through new legislation or by providing new appropriations, according to CBO.

Ramaswamy took to X earlier this week to write about his first steps.

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We shouldnt let the government spend money on programs that have expired. Yet thats exactly what happens today: half a *trillion* dollars of taxpayer funds ($516 B+) goes each year to programs which Congress has allowed to expire. There are 1,200+ programs that are no longer authorized but still receive appropriations, he wrote.

This is totally nuts. We can & should save hundreds of billions each year by defunding government programs that Congress no longer authorizes. Well challenge any politician who disagrees to defend the other side.

Social media users were quick to point out some of the programs that received funding despite lacking current Congressional authorization. One is the Veterans Health Care Eligibility Reform Act of 1996, which helps provide funding for veterans medical care. The authorization expired in 1998, but still receives about $120 billion in funding.

Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the fourth Republican presidential primary debate. Days after being tapped to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, he proposed cutting unauthorized federal programs, which includes veteran healthcare (AFP via Getty Images)

It was hardly the only notable agency that could see a funding stream tried up. Others included a bill that helped NASA and the International Space Station. Another area was tied to Head Start, which helps provide early childhood education to low-income students.

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Its unclear if Ramaswamy knew the specific programs that he could potentially cut or if he would exempt any.

He later doubled down on his thoughts.

If it doesnt advance the interests of American citizens, were putting it on the chopping block. Amazingly, there are a number of programs whose authorization from Congress has *already expired* yet $$$ still flows out the door. That needs to end next year, the one-time presidential candidate wrote.

Both Ramaswamy and Musk have been tasked to lead the Trump-created agency that will look to curb government spending. Musk has estimated that $2 trillion can be axed from the federal payroll.

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We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE, the agency wrote on X on Thursday. We dont need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting. If thats you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.

Musk admitted that the working conditions at DOGE arent exactly typical.

This will be tedious work, make lots of enemies & compensation is zero, he wrote on X. What a great deal!

This story has been amended to clarify the amount the veterans medical care program receives.
DERRY  Nobody does civic duty quite like New Hampshire, and when it comes to voting, the state shows up in force.

This year was no exception.

In 11 New Hampshire communities covered by The Derry News, voter turnout was as high as 99% in Windham and as low as 78% in Atkinson. In those 11 towns in Southern New Hampshire, 94.7% of voters came out to cast their ballot.

New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan predicted 824,000 voters for the 2024 presidential election on Nov. 5. In fact, 833,023 of the states 895,387 registered voters cast ballots this year, or approximately 93% of registered voters.

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In Derry, voters took to social media, writing about how the traffic in town had led them to believe that the lines would be long, but commended Town Clerk Tina Guilford and the election workers for being able to expedite the process.

Just want to thank all the poll workers and volunteers for such efficiency in voting today, wrote resident Jason Weeden.

Huge turnout. Thought I was going to wait forever. Thirty-five minutes in and out. Awesome job today!

In Londonderry, the town had to reassure people that they would get a chance to submit their ballot.

The towns website, Facebook page, and other social media platforms posted messages saying that residents in line when polls closed at 8 p.m. would still get a chance to vote.

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There were reports of the wait being longer than an hour, and photos of the line wrapping around the Londonderry High School gyms parking lot.

A total of 90,493 voters, out of 95,488 registered voters, went to the polls in Atkinson, Danville, Derry, East Kingston, Hampstead, Kingston, Londonderry, Newton, Plaistow, Salem, and Windham, which is 94.7%.

Despite the high turnout this cycle, in comparison to the presidential election, the numbers did not change much, and in many cases were actually lower than in 2020.

Between Atkinson, Derry, Hampstead, Plaistow, and Windham, total voter turnout was 96.5% in 2020, which is 3.5% lower than in 2024.

Atkinson has had the most drastic drop in the last four years, going from 92% of registered voters in town casting a ballot to 78.5% in 2024.
The Temple of Justice, home of the Washington Supreme Court, in Olympia, Washington. (Getty Images)

Supporters and opponents of a proposal to slash public defender caseloads in Washington made their closing arguments to the state Supreme Court on Wednesday.

For two hours, justices listened to speakers weigh in 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.

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This was the second and final public hearing on changes first put forth by the Washington State Bar Association. Justices will consider the testimony and trove of public comments submitted in recent weeks before deciding what, if any action to take. They next meet Dec. 4.

I dont know if well be taking action or not in that time frame, Chief Justice Steven Gonzalez said at the close of the hearing. But youll hear more from us as we decide on the process from here.

Theres a shortage of public defenders in Washington. Supporters contend that large caseloads and low pay are driving people out of public defense and deterring new lawyers from entering the profession. The proposed standards address one part of the equation.

When we issued standards last time, it helped us retain people. These standards will help us recruit, said Jason Schwarz, director of the Snohomish County Office of Public Defense and chair of the Washington State Bar Associations Council on Public Defense.

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In counties where the lack of public defenders is most pronounced, those accused of crimes, but unable to afford a lawyer, wait long periods before receiving counsel they are constitutionally guaranteed.

In October, the ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit against Yakima County and other parties on behalf of individuals who had waited weeks before getting an attorney assigned to their case.

Peoples rights should not be violated. There is anxiety. The people are being traumatized by sitting in jail for long times, said Dominique Davis, founder and chief executive officer of Community Passageways, a Seattle nonprofit focused on felony diversion and prevention.

Prosecutors have been concerned that reducing defenders workloads will lead to the filing of fewer cases to ensure no ones rights to counsel are violated. That will result in less justice for crime victims and could spark an increase in vigilantism by those who feel the system isnt working for them, they said.

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Okanogan County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Teddy Chow implored the justices to discard the proposal which he called an unnecessary, short-sighted, unreasonable and corrosive rule.

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.

To cover the tab, local government leaders said Wednesday that they will be forced to divert dollars from other important programs.

Ryan Mello, chair of the Pierce County Council, addresses the Washington State Supreme Court on a proposal to revise the caseload standards for public defenders on Nov. 13, 2024. (Jerry Cornfield / Washington State Standard)

Ryan Mello, Pierce County Council chair and the county executive-elect, warned imposing the standard will cause real harm to the criminal justice services and other critical services.

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He urged the justices to help lobby lawmakers and the governor for funding to stabilize the public defense system and to adopt a realistic phased implementation of the standards.

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.

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Judge Kristin Ferrera of Chelan County, president of the Superior Court Judges Association, said the crisis is real but the timeline for caseload changes is too short and will create hardships in some counties. The association recommends carrying out the first phase of reduction but delaying the later phases to assess if the situation changes.

Justices 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.

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BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB)  Dozens of people came to the Callaway Recreational Complex on Thursday morning for the opening ceremony for The Wall that Heals.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall arrived in Bay County on Tuesday.

Prepare your feathers for the 5K Turkey Trot

The traveling exhibit is a 3/4-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.

Not only is there the wall with more than 58,000 names of U.S. troops killed in Vietnam but theres also a mobile education center.

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Bay County School Superintendent Mark McQueen was Thursdays guest speaker. McQueen is a retired major general from the U.S. Army who served in Iraq.

His father also served two tours in Vietnam and was wounded in battle.

This is an opportunity to see what was the ultimate sacrifice and to gain a better appreciation for why we have a free nation. Its because of their sacrifice that were able to stand here today and in fact, be able to go to school today, McQueen said.

Hiland Park Elementary teacher establishes lifelong bonds

There are the names of 23 Bay County and four Port St. Joe residents on the Florida section of the wall.

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The exhibit is free to enter. It will be open 24 hours a day until the closing ceremony this Sunday, November 17th, at 1:45 pm.

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DOTHAN, Ala (WDHN)  Wallace Community College has announced the launch of a new initiative to help students from three colleges with cyber-security training and career development opportunities.

According to WCCD, the Alabama Cyber Security Fellowship Program will address the workforce needs in the cybersecurity field.

Ten students from Wallace Community College, Enterprise Community College, and Trenholm State Community College will be selected to participate in the program, which is expected to begin in the Spring semester of 2025.

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Students will enroll in a 16-week course with hands-on labs and paid on-the-job training.

This fellowship is a testament to ACCSs commitment to developing innovative programs that align education with the needs of Alabamas workforce, said Dr. Abigail Carter, Associate Director of Computer/Information Technology Instructional Programs at Alabama Community College System . The Alabama Cyber Security Fellowship Program is a model for collaboration between education and industry to create a skilled workforce ready to meet the challenges of the future.

Each college will offer the course to the students as a co-op, practicum, or internship for 3 credits

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Nov. 14ROCHESTER  Election results for the Ward 4 seat on the Rochester City Council are being challenged.

Incumbent council member Kelly Rae Kirkpatrick and three other Ward 4 residents  Andrew Knauff, Rachel LaForge and Kendra Ryan  filed a civil complaint in Olmsted County District Court on Wednesday, ahead of the city's canvassing of election results .

The complaint centers around the residency status of Andy Friederichs, who defeated Kirkpatrick in the Nov. 5 election.

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"(Friederichs') Ward 4 residency claims are false and related solely to his business real estate holdings in Rochester," the civil complaint states. "There is no credible evidence that he intends to establish a home in Ward 4 and remain there with his family."

It points out Friederichs owns a Marion Township home with his wife, but he filed for candidacy by claiming residency in an apartment building he owns in the city.

The canvassing confirmed Friederichs received 3,297 votes, while Kirkpatrick saw 3,107 votes.

The canvassing opened a legal path for the results to be contested. City Clerk Kelly Geistler told the council Wednesday the administrative canvassing of the results is required before any official objection to the election results can be considered.

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"That is the order of things according to state statute," she said, noting the canvassing merely confirms the count.

Friederichs confirmed Thursday that he received the paperwork Wednesday notifying him that the election is being contested, but he raised questions about the intent.

"I don't know why they just don't come talk to me," he said. "Why don't they come over to my place. Why don't they come over and hang out in my apartment. I told them they could."

The notice of the civil action was delivered to Friederichs' East Center Street apartment.

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While Friederichs and his wife own a home at 4350 20th St. SE, which sits outside Rochester, he has said he moved into one of his rental units in the city's Ward 4 in January 2024, months before filing for the City Council election.

He said the move away from his family was made for personal reasons, which he didn't want to outline.

The court petition filed Wednesday follows an Olmsted County Sheriff's Office investigation into an anonymous complaint received in August by the Rochester City Clerk's Office. The complaint questioned Friederichs' status as a candidate based on his residency.

In following up on the complaint, Detective Brad Green reviewed Friederichs' candidate paperwork and spoke with him.

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Friederichs initially filed paperwork in May, stating he lived at 1600 Marion Road SE, which is The Marion Apartments owned by Friederichs. He told Green that he later moved to The Parker, 101 E. Center St., after a paying tenant sought the room he was occupying at The Marion. Friederichs also owns and operates The Parker.

Green's report states Friederichs planned to live at The Parker apartment indefinitely. The report quotes Friederichs as saying: "To be frank with you, I plan on living there as long as I have to, to be frank with you. ... Some of this stuff is a personal issue. ... Obviously if I win the election (I'll) stay there for the whole term."

According to the report, Friederichs said he would consider moving back to the Marion Township home if he lost the election or if his personal situation changed. Though, he added the plan could change.

"I would stay there (The Parker) because it (the election) isn't the only factor," Green wrote in his report, quoting Friederichs after he was asked about his plans if he lost the election.

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Green confirmed Friederichs' driver's license identifies The Parker as his home, and reported Friederichs stated he is registered to vote in Ward 4 and receives mail at his Rochester address, which are requirements for establishing the legal residency needed to be a candidate.

The investigation report was submitted to the Olmsted County Attorney's Office, and County Attorney Mark Ostrem said he saw no evidence of actions that would lead to charges.

The Ward 4 residents challenging the election results state more investigation is needed.

"The review of (Friederichs') residency by Olmsted County officials, based upon an anonymous citizen's complaint before the election, was superficial, cursory, delayed, and failed to consider statutory factors meaningfully," they wrote in the complaint seeking a court review.
Warmer weather returns to New Mexico through the end of this week. A storm will bring rain and snow chances back to the state this weekend.

Its a cooler afternoon across New Mexico Wednesday behind a cold front that swept across the state yesterday. The biggest drop in temperatures has been in southern New Mexico where its as much as 15 cooler compared to yesterday afternoon. Tonight, its going to be an even colder night, but a warming trend begins Thursday afternoon. This warming trend continues through Friday as southwest winds pick up. Gusts up to 45 mph will be possible in western New Mexico, where we will see an elevated fire danger develop.

Fridays winds are in response to an approaching storm system. This storm will begin moving into the state Saturday night, bringing the highest chances for rain and mountain snow Sunday into early Monday morning. Precipitation chances have trended downward though with this storm, with the highest chances of rain and mountain snow in southern and eastern New Mexico. Snow levels will stay fairly high, mainly above 8,500 to 9,000. Temperatures will start cooling off again Saturday from west to east as another cold front moves through the state. A few light snow showers will also be possible in the northern mountains, with an isolated rain chance as far north as Albuquerque.

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Another quick-hitting storm system may bring in some light snow to the northern mountains. The main impact from this one though will be the blast of colder air. High temperatures will fall to much cooler than average by the middle of next week.

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ST. LOUIS  A groundbreaking treatment has been announced for women with an extremely aggressive form of breast cancer.

Siteman Cancer Center just released the results of a clinical trial showing a new vaccine that is preventing cancer from returning. FOX 2s Mandy Murphey talked with the doctor in charge of the study and a patient who was part of the trial.

St. Louisan Julie Kauffmann and 17 other women took part in a small clinical trial in 2018. All had been through chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery for triple-negative breast cancer. Their chances of their cancer recurring were high.

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Triple-negative breast cancer gets its name because it lacks the three hormones that fuel most types of breast cancer, making it one of the hardest to treat. It is most common in African American women.

52,000 Illinois residents to get medical debt forgiveness letters

Julie decided to give it a try, and now, seven years later, she is still cancer-free.

The vaccine is unique to each patient. It is designed to attack the womans individual tumor and activate her own immune system in addition to the traditional standard of care, which includes chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery.

Personalized treatment vaccines are the wave of the future. The Wash U vaccine is the first of its kind for breast cancer.

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Dr. William Gillanders says the study is very exciting because patients do not have side effects from the treatment. It also found only 10 percent of the women in the study saw the cancer recur, compared to 30 to 50 percent of patients who normally have a recurrence without the vaccine.

Phase two of the vaccine trial is now underway at institutions across the country where they are enrolling women with triple-negative breast cancer.

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This week on The Daily Beast Podcast, co-hosts Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee welcomed Adam Grant, organizational psychologist and Wharton professor whos racked up 80 million TED Talk views, to discuss the current brace for impact moment in America, as Bee described it. In the aftermath of the presidential election, and amid other looming cultural shifts, Grant says people feel stuck in uncertainty, gripped by threat rigidity. His advice? Focus on meaningful work. The best antidote to helplessness is a sense of helpfulness, he advised.

Grants approach to leadership is similarly thoughtful: Be a giver, not a taker; a learner, not a knower, he told Coles and Bee. Political leadership isnt about being a super genius, he continued, but relationship and coalition-buildingskills he says Elon Musk and Donald Trump lack. Instead, Grant advocates for internal disruptors who understand public service, adding, Lets not bet on Iron Man.

The Daily Beasts executive editorand Mar-a-Lago patio correspondent, as Coles deemed himHugh Dougherty also joins the podcast to discuss the patio power games currently playing out at Trumps Palm Beach headquarters. Musical chairs this is not.

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As he assembles his new administration, Trump is working from a fake situation room, Dougherty explained, filled with TV screens on which the president-elect scrutinizes candidates' on-air appeal. And the big judgment for Trump, we are told, is how do they perform defending him? Dougherty said.

This focus on loyalists with cable TV credentials is perhaps also pushing more outlandish names to the top of Trumps wish list. The president-elect picks thus far include Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard , Kristi Noem and Elon Muskwith RFK Jr. likely still to come.

As Dougherty noted, Trumps team has normalizedencouraged, evenextreme discourse to the point of smashing the Overton window, in an attempt to make Trump look tame by comparison.

So with the rules of leadership shifting and Trumps power-drunk suitors swarming, Mar-a-Lagos political fly trap awaits its next catch. Listen to the full episode to find out why that wont be a regular bug.

New episodes of The Daily Beast Podcast drop every Thursday. Like and download on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. And click here for email updates as each episode debuts.
Republican Senators Rand Paul and Thom Tillis got into a heated exchange Thursday over aid for hurricane victims in Virginia and North Carolina.

Tillis asked for an aid bill to be passed by unanimous consent during a floor speech, but Paul had other ideas, pushing for an amendment that the relief be paid for with green energy funds and complaining about unrelated funds to Ukraine. In effect, Pauls amendment would block the aid bill, which drew Tilliss ire. The North Carolina senator then asked the Kentucky senator to yield his time for questions, setting off an argument.

Look, our state motto is Esse quam videri, Tillis, who represents North Carolina, said. It says to be rather than to seem. This is a disingenuous offer to amend my bill.

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Tillis suggested that Paul was grandstanding and perhaps planning to use his rant, which attacked the Green New Deal, in a fundraising email. This bill, if it got amended, has no prayer, Tillis said. I came to the Senate to make a difference, not to make a point.

I assume that Senator Paul knows how to count votes, Tillis added. He has to know that he doesnt have the votes to get this bill done if its amended. To be rather than to seem. Im focused on trying to get North Carolina back on track and not playing a game on the Senate floor.

Paul stuck to his guns, insisting that the funds werent available thanks to the accumulation of $35 trillion worth of debt, prompting a response from Tillis that Paul was playing a game of being disingenuous. The North Carolina senator noted that the House, which is controlled by Republicans, would find a way to pay for the aid relief and that Paul was putting a poison pill that would prevent the bill from passing in the Senate.

Paul used debate over the bill to expound upon a favorite Republican punching bag, the Green New Deal, missing the irony that the environmental plan seeks to reduce the greenhouse emissions that are a major factor in increasingly severe hurricanes. Tillis has a pointpeople who have suffered because of Hurricane Helene care more about immediate relief than funding technicalities.

Its only been a week since Republicans had a successful election in which they won the presidency as well as Congress, and they are already having trouble passing a simple aid relief bill for hurricane victims that even had Democratic support. If this is how Congress is going to function when the GOP takes full control next year, we can expect more gridlock and hardly any bills being passed.
Credit: X/@Maori_Party

New Zealands parliament descended into chaos as Maori members staged a haka in protest against a bill that would reinterpret the countrys founding treaty.

The Treaty of Waitangi, first signed in 1840 between the British Crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs, was a guarantee of Maori rights and autonomy and resulted in the creation of New Zealand.

While clauses in the document still guide laws and policy, members of Christopher Luxons centre-Right ruling coalition have pushed for a narrower interpretation of the treaty in the face of fierce opposition.

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As MPs gathered for a parliamentary vote on the bill on Thursday, footage showed Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, a Maori MP, tearing up her copy of the proposed legislation and starting a piercing haka.

Other MPs from Te Pati Maori (the Maori Party) and spectators in the gallery soon joined the war dance, made famous by New Zealands rugby team.

Gerry Brownlee, the Speaker, was unable to silence the opposition politicians as they left their seats. As chaos ensued, the live TV broadcast was cut and parliament briefly suspended. Two Maori MPs were subsequently removed from the chamber.

New Zealands parliament was briefly suspended after the protest

The legislation  which has dominated debate in New Zealand for months  later passed its first reading, but is highly unlikely to garner enough support on a second reading to pass into law.

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It is seen by many Maori and their supporters as undermining the rights of the countrys indigenous people, who make up around 20 per cent of the population of 5.3 million. The move, they argue, threatens to promote racial discord and constitutional upheaval.

Thousands of New Zealanders are travelling the length of the country this week to protest against it.

The Treaty of Waitangi has long been a source of contention because key distinctions exist in its English and Maori forms.

Rulings by the courts and a separate Maori tribunal have progressively expanded Maori rights and privileges over the decades. However, critics of the pact argue that this has discriminated against non-indigenous citizens.

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The ACT New Zealand party, a junior partner in the ruling coalition government, last week unveiled the bill to enshrine a narrower interpretation of the Waitangi treaty in law.

David Seymour, the leader of ACT and the author of the bill, argued on Thursday that, for two centuries, the treaty has afforded Maori different rights from other New Zealanders.

However, those who champion the treaty argue that is the point because it has helped them win billion-dollar land settlements, guaranteed representation in national and local governments, and had the Maori language more widely embraced.

The speaker was unable to stop other MPs from joining in the protest

But Mr Seymour  who is Maori  said that no law or court had actually settled for good a definition of the treatys principles, and that had caused division. His bill filled a silence this parliament has left for five decades, he added

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Shame! Shame! Shame on you, David Seymour, shouted Willie Jackson, a veteran Maori MP, in parliament. Shame on you for what youre trying to do to this nation. She was then thrown out for calling Mr Seymour a liar.

Ms Maipi-Clarke, who began the haka, was also suspended from parliament for a day.

Hundreds of protesters against the legislation have set out on a nine-day march, or hikoi, from New Zealands north to the capital, Wellington, staging rallies in towns and cities as they move south.

They will arrive in Wellington next Tuesday, when tens of thousands are to gather for what is expected to be one of the largest race relations marches in the countrys history.

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Coalition partners the National Party and New Zealand First are only supporting the legislation through the first of three readings as part of the coalition agreement with Mr Seymours ACT. Both parties have said they will not support it to become legislation, meaning it will almost certainly fail.

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Rachel Reeves is being urged to water down her inheritance tax raid on farms by the environment ministry.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has reportedly suggested farmers currently aged 80 or over should be exempt from the rules, which impose a tax rate of 20 per cent on inheriting land worth more than 1 million.

However, Treasury sources told BBC Newsnight, who first reported the story, that there were no plans to change course.

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The disclosure suggests there is a rift between Ms Reeves, the Chancellor, and Defra, which is led by Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary.

The report comes amid a fierce public backlash over the plans, which farmers, experts and rural MPs fear will lead to the breaking up of hundreds of family estates when their owners die.

A growing number of Labour MPs are also opposing the policy amid pressure from constituents in rural communities, Newsnight reported.

It said some MPs were concerned the policy could have damaging political consequences for the party.

Analysis by the National Farmers Union (NFU) has suggested three quarters of food produced by British farmers would be hit by the raid.

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Despite this, the Government has previously pushed back on criticism of its policy decisions, saying its commitment to our farmers remains steadfast.

Restore stability

The Metropolitan Police has imposed a tractor ban on farmers ahead of a planned protest over the Chancellors inheritance tax raid.

The rally has been organised to coincide with lobbying by the NFU, whose representatives will meet MPs to make a case for reversing the tax raid.

Police are in discussions with organisers over the protests and have warned those taking part that they have the power to prevent roads being blocked.

This could include the Highways Act 1980, which makes it an offence for a person, without lawful authority, to wilfully obstruct a highway.

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Organisers have urged supporters not to risk alienating the public by using the disruptive tactics adopted by European farmers, such as barricading roads, burning tyres and blockading city centres.

The raid comes as part of Reevess 40bn Budget of tax rises alongside promises to restore stability to the British economy.

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Wauwatosa's municipal court judge says her court is understaffed, and for the second year in a row, she's asking the city for more help.

Judge Krista LaFave has written letters and spoken at meetings over the last month, asking city officials to amend the $78 million executive budget to accommodate her request for a part-time employee. She says the municipal court needs the staff member to bring her team back up to two individuals dedicated solely to the court.

City administrators and the mayor have said during public meetings the court's part-time position can be filled by current city employees sharing the work as offered in the 2024 budget. They say the court hasnt used the help of three office assistant employees suggested as a solution to LaFave's previous request.

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LaFave, however, says she's tried to comply with the city's staffing model over the last year "and it's not working."

Wauwatosa's municipal court handles citations for ordinance violations, which have increased in the last year, LaFave said.

In addition, the judge's full-time court administrator has notified LaFave that she plans to retire in the new year.

"My biggest fear is that there's a vacant position and I don't have the staff to keep courts running every week," LaFave told the Journal Sentinel.

The situation has also caused some alders to question during public meetings how much the executive branch should dictate the judicial branchs decision making.

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The Common Council will vote to adopt the executive budget at its 6:30 p.m. meeting November 19.

What's the staffing challenge in Wauwatosa's municipal court, according to the judge?

LaFave was elected as Wauwatosa's municipal court judge in 2022, following her predecessor who held the title for 28 years. When she was first elected, staff included one full-time court administrator and one part-time employee, she said.

After the part-time employee left in August 2023, LaFave requested through the 2024 executive budget to fill the opening with one person. Instead, city officials decided to fill the position with three people from other departments who would each work about 10 hours a week in the court.

About a year later, LaFave says having multiple people in the part-time position isn't working. Only one of the staff members, an office assistant from the clerk's office, has worked with the court over the last year, LaFave told the Journal Sentinel.

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Over the last month, LaFave has sent letters and spoke at public meetings, imploring city staff and officials to grant her request for a staff member who would solely work for the court.

"We've been keeping court moving," LaFave told the Journal Sentinel. "But I have real concerns about the ability to do that in the future without having those two main people (the court administrator and a part-time clerk)."

In an Oct. 17 letter to the mayor and administrators, LaFave wrote that having multiple people share the part-time position would not allow for adequate staffing to cover weekly court hours and keep the current full-time employee from being able to take sick days and vacation time. Having multiple employees with access to court files also poses a security risk, she wrote.

LaFave also believes splitting up employees amongst more departments can burden workers, resulting in them being pulled in different directions.

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I don't think it's fair to them, either, LaFave told the Journal Sentinel. They should be able to focus on the work that they probably interviewed for and were hired to do."

City administrators and mayor say staffing need should be filled with current city staff time

City leaders say its best to continue to split the work with the office assistants already working within the city.

Mayor Dennis McBride and city administrator Jim Archambo wrote in the 2025 executive budget that a part-time municipal court staff member can't be justified, "especially in a year when the city is eliminating three police officer positions and not funding a firefighter position."

When LaFave made her request for a part-time employee at an Oct. 15 Financial Affairs Committee meeting, McBride and city administrators said the court hasn't adequately used the staff the city offered.

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If the council were to approve this request it would send a message to all department directors, McBride said at the committee meeting. The message would be: dont cooperate with the city administration.

Officials also said the court has failed to train the office assistant, which LaFave said was not true during a Nov. 6 public hearing on the budget.

Part-time staff member would organize staffing, help find youth diversion program

The part-time person would organize the staffing schedule, get dockets ready, process judge orders and, like the court administrator, talk with people on the phone to sort out things like parking ticket appeals, LaFave said.

The part-time staff member could also help the judge find a replacement for the counseling services the Social Development Commission had provided the court for free before it shuttered in April.

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SDC abruptly closed its doors and laid off its entire staff in April after it came to light it had misallocated more than $100,000 in taxpayer funds.

That agency's closure left the Wauwatosa Municipal Court without alternatives to detention to recommend for juveniles.

Staffing challenge highlights mixing of judicial and executive branches of government, one alder says

According to Wisconsin statute, the hiring, firing, hours of employment and work responsibilities of the court personnel when working during hours assigned to the court fall under the judges authority.

Municipal courts can differ greatly from each other on how they're staffed and how often court is held, according to Morgan Young, the director of Wisconsin's Office of Judicial Education.

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The statute also states the court shall be maintained at the expense of the municipality. LaFave said during public comment at a public hearing Nov. 6 she believes the city administration's plan for staffing does not fulfill that statutory requirement.

Ald. Joe Makhlouf said in the Financial Affairs Committee meeting Oct. 15 while there may have been missteps made on both the city's and the court's side, the judicial and executive branch should be separate in local government. He said the judge should have her own jurisdiction under how the court operates.

At a later Financial Affairs Committee meeting Oct. 29, Makhlouf proposed an amendment to fund the requested staff position with $38,000 that would mainly come out of funds for employee professional development. The motion failed in a tied 4-4 vote.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wauwatosa, municipal court judge at odds over staffing
WASHINGTON COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL)  A Johnson City man has been arrested after a woman allegedly woke up to find him in her home at 4 a.m. on Thursday.

According to a news release from the Washington County, Tennessee Sheriffs Office (WCSO), deputies were called to the 300 block of Cedar Valley Boulevard.

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A woman told deputies that she had been asleep when she heard someone cough at the end of her bed.

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The woman said she screamed after realizing the man, later identified by the WCSO as Danny Dwayne Davis, was not a family member.

Two of the victims family members were alerted and reportedly chased Davis out of the home. Deputies report he left a backpack at the home that contained pieces of mail addressed to him.

The WCSO found Davis, 56, shortly after at his home in the 200 block of Cedar Valley Boulevard.

According to the sheriffs office, Davis said he had gone to the home to visit his fiance, whose last name and address he did not know.

The victims identified Davis as the person who had broken in and said none of them knew him or his supposed fiance.

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Davis was arrested and charged with aggravated burglary.

Davis was transported to the Washington County Detention Center and was being held without bond as of 9:45 a.m. He is set to appear in court Friday.

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LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY)  Wednesdays morning storm brought heavy flooding in many parts of Lafayette especially down Ambassador Caffery Parkway.

Every morning, I come down here, I have never seen anything like this, said 18-year-old Kaden Deville, who was unable to get to work because of the flooded road.

Other motorists said the road was blocked off or their car stalled out after trying to make it through the high water.

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Kathy Handy was driving to work but her car got stuck in the water.

I stalled out. I was trying to follow behind a truck. That turned off and the cars were coming by and the water just kind of rushed in. My challenger just stopped. Then I couldnt move, she said.

Lafayette Parish School System gets final recommendations for school closures

The flooding lasted all morning. Lafayette police issued a statement saying Ambassador Caffery was impassable from Kaliste Saloom to Eraste Landry.

Handy said there are similarities between this weather event and the 2016 flooding. She said even though this wasnt as long, this experience was worse.

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This is more. Im not sure what the problem is, if its the drainage system. But we definitely need some work, Hamdy said.

The flooding receded quickly once the rain stopped. The road was re-opened right at noon.

If you have any damages to your property, visit https://damage.la.gov/ .

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NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. (FOX 56)  West Jessamine High School (WJHS) was recognized on Wednesday for supporting students from military families as it joined Kentuckys Purple Heart Schools.

The state-sponsored recognition was for the high school staffs dedication and support of military-connected children.

Pulaski County superintendent responds after school choirs song Trump It! faces controversy

West Jessamine High School was recognized as a Purple Heart School on Wednesday. (FOX 56)

I think its important because we have a diverse group of students, and sometimes, said Brady Thornton, WJHS Principal. Even though its not a huge number of our students, sometimes those kids fall through the cracks because theyre not out there saying, Hey, look at me, Im part of a military family, but we want to make sure that we recognize them and support them at the same time.

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Whether military family members are active duty or veterans, West Jessamine staff said their school is dedicated to helping students gain the educational, social, and emotional skills necessary to be ready to face lifes challenges.

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DES MOINES, Iowa  Its one of the age-old standoffs: developer vs. neighbors.

I just dont think its appropriate, says Channing Swanson, who lives in the Westwood neighborhood on Des Moines west side.

This is what the city wants, says developer Adam Sieren of Premier Construction.

They could both be right.

Sieren found the neglected lot at 5702 Grand Avenue, and envisioned a group of new townhomes. Its what he does.

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Any of these major corridors, he explains, Im looking for a half-acre or more that I can put five to 15 units on and gently impact the neighborhood and make it blend while creating more housing and more density that the city wants.

Neighbors say it wont blend, and wont fit.

Its proposed for 15 townhomes on a single lot right next to single-family homes, says Bill Ludwig, another Westwood neighbor, and adjoining other single-family homes and backing into single-family homes.

Urbandale Schools, Safris family release statements following jury verdict

While it may not seem to fit the neighborhood, Sieren says the development does fit the citys needs. Hes asking for the property to be rezoned to medium-density.

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Theres a nine-year tax abatement for a reason, he says, Were going to be 50,000 housing units short over the next 20 years, and the city wants all-electric, medium density, in-fill missing middle.

The Westwood Neighborhood includes architects Bill Ludwig and Channing Swanson. They say they know this business and know Sierens plan is wrong for the area.

You can tell from looking at the drawings, Swanson says. These are not expensive buildings.

As a developer, Ludwig says, Id say if you proposed a house or two you might get some reaction that might be acceptable.

Sieren says hes willing to compromise on size, but disagrees with those who want to draw comparisons to his other developments  like the recently completed row of townhomes just west of 63rd street on Hickman Road. He says this will fit Westwood.

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Ive let it be clear to the city and clear to the residents that I want it to be right for the character of the neighborhood.

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP)  A program that incentivizes West Virginia families to pull their children out of K-12 public schools by offering them government-funded scholarships to pay for private school or homeschooling is expanding to cover military families that temporarily relocate out of state.

The Hope Scholarship Board voted Wednesday to approve a policy to allow children of military service members who are required to temporarily relocate to another state remain Hope Scholarship eligible when they return to West Virginia, said State Treasurer Riley Moore, the board's chairman.

A temporary relocation pursuant to military orders should not jeopardize a childs ability to participate in the Hope Scholarship Program, Moore said in a statement.

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Moore, a Republican who was elected to the U.S. House representing West Virginia's 2nd Congressional District this month, said he is thrilled to offer greater access and flexibility for military families. The change takes effect immediately, he said.

Passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2021, the law that created the Hope Scholarship Program allows families to apply for state funding to support private school tuition, homeschooling fees and a wide range of other expenses.

As of now, families cant receive the money if their children were already homeschooled or attending private school. To qualify, students must be slated to begin kindergarten in the current school year or have been enrolled in a West Virginia public school during the previous school year.

However, the law expands eligibility in 2026 to all school-age children in West Virginia, regardless of where they attend school.

Going into the 2023-2024 school year, the Hope board received almost 7,000 applications and awarded the scholarship to more than 6,000 students. The award for this school year was just under $5,000 per student, meaning more than $30 million in public funds went toward the non-public schooling.
DENVER (KDVR)  The Westminster Police Department is searching for the suspect, or suspects, connected to a deadly assault from October.

On Oct. 20 between 7:27 p.m. and 7:35 p.m., the Westminster Police Department said a 34-year-old man was assaulted near 121st Avenue and Huron Street in north Westminster.

Police said the man was taken to a local hospital with serious injuries  he died a few weeks later. The official cause of death and identity will be determined and released by the Adams County Coroners Office.

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Westminster police said the investigation is ongoing but officers are still looking for those responsible. It is currently unclear how many people were involved in the assault, and Westminster police did not provide information on who they may be looking for.

However, officers want anyone who may have witnessed the incident or has information to contact the Westminster Police Department at 303-658-4360. Tipsters can remain anonymous and still be eligible for a cash reward of up to $2,000 by contacting the Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867.

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(Bloomberg) -- COP29 Daily Reports: Sign up for the Green Daily newsletter for comprehensive coverage of the climate summit right in your inbox.

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The COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, has been dubbed the finance COP because its primary objective is to come up with a new and ambitious agreement for climate-related transfers from rich countries to poor countries.

But that moniker could have been given to almost any of the other recent United Nations gatherings of world leaders: the COP26 confab in Glasgow in 2021 focused on enlisting institutional investors in the fight against global warming; the crowning achievement of the gathering in Sharm El-Sheikh the following year was a fund to help developing nations face the devastation of climate change; and at last years COP28 event, the United Arab Emirates announced a $30 billion venture to fund emissions reductions projects in partnership with BlackRock Inc., TPG Inc. and Brookfield Asset Management Ltd.

Whether its Azerbaijans manat, or dirhams, pounds or dollars, every climate conversation circles back to how much it will cost  and whos going to pay.

In Baku, that means fighting over a so-called collective and quantified goal for climate finance. Thats the new post-2025 ambition thats supposed to replace a target set in 2009 for developed countries to provide $100 billion annually by 2020. The earlier goal has proven controversial since it wasnt met until 2022, and represents just a fraction of the money needed.

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Even if the new target were to be set at as much as $1 trillion a year, as some of the most climate-vulnerable states have proposed, that would barely scratch the surface. New research published this week by law firm A&O Shearman details an annual $6 trillion investment gap through 2030 to decarbonize the global economy at a pace required by the Paris climate agreement, to say nothing of the cost of adapting to a warmer, more volatile world.

Moving from the billions to the trillions will only be possible by involving the private sector. Yet while COP28 in Dubai drew many of Wall Streets top leaders, from hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio to BlackRock Inc. CEO Larry Fink, COP29 is set to be a much more low-key affair.

This year, banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Deutsche Bank AG and Barclays Plc have sent delegations to Azerbaijan, though these typically include members of their sustainability teams as opposed to senior executives. And that might be the appropriate choice given the more technical nature of this years discussion, said Adair Turner, who previously ran Britains financial regulator and is now chair of the Energy Transitions Commission.

Financiers in attendance will be those who want to interface with people actually building the new energy system, rather than people making grand statements, he said.

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The biggest opportunities for Baku may not be on these grand political statements, Turner said. Were not going to get a tightening of the transitioning beyond fossil fuels statement, but what we could get is some very concrete things about technologies, such as commitments to scale up battery storage and grid interconnections, he said.

Daniel Hanna, group head of sustainable and transition finance at Barclays, who has traveled to Baku, said he was looking forward to talking about the progress thats been made on climate finance, while recognizing that we need to collaborate to move faster and smarter on scaling the next wave of climate technologies, investing in adaptation and finding new public-private models to scale capital into the Global South.

For Turner, who spoke with Bloomberg Green on the first day of COP29, the single most important thing to secure at Baku is a bigger role for development banks. And right on cue, on Tuesday, the worlds largest multilateral development banks (MDB) announced a new goal to raise $120 billion in annual climate finance for developing nations by the end of the decade, a significant increase on the $75 billion gathered in 2023.

MDBs can use their balance sheets to reduce the risks for private investors from allocating funds to nascent technologies and countries, where high credit risks to corruption typically result in a punitive cost of capital.

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Many institutional investors are fiduciaries of retirement assets with a duty to focus on returns, and a lot of climate projects just dont fit that profile without some risk-sharing or guarantees, said Cara Williams, global head of ESG, climate and sustainability at Mercer. We hope to see agreements on more public private partnerships announced at COP29 to de-risk investments and make it easier for private capital to be allocated to sustainable-finance projects.

And with many developed governments under pressure fiscally,making a modest contribution toward beefing up the MDBs ought to be the easy win, Turner said.The amount of money thats required to increase the capital resources of the World Bank are really relatively small compared with other things, so it ought to be the win-win here, he said.

Of course, there are very few easy wins in climate. And thats especially so with Donald Trump, who has repeatedly downplayed climate change while promoting fossil fuels, returning to the White House.

Sustainable finance in brief

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Speaking of which, one of the main drivers behind the right-wing campaign against environmental, social and governance strategies  other than Big Oil and its lobbyists  has been Trump himself. Now that hes on the way back to the White House, experts expect him to try and finish off ESG. That would mean blocking Securities and Exchange Commission rules for corporate and fund disclosures, and Labor Department requirements on pension funds, according to Rob Du Boff, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. The new administration also is expected to put limits on ESG-related shareholder proposals filed during proxy season, he said. The bottom line is the Trump administration is anxious to undermine these ESG-related initiatives, Du Boff said.

ESG fund managers are being urged to keep their lawyers very close, as Trumps return threatens to turbocharge the years-long GOP assault.

Few asset classes suffered as painful a blow in the hours after Trumps election victory as those associated with ESG. But the selloff may be a bit too deep.

Hedge funds clinging on to bets against Tesla lost billions of dollars as they feel the fallout of the special relationship between Trump and his richest fan, Elon Musk.

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Minneapolis  More than 1,200 people died in the U.S. during interactions with police last year  the deadliest in the last decade, according to Mapping Police Violence, a nonprofit that tracks data from law enforcement agencies nationwide.

And no civilian death put a city's police department under more intense scrutiny in that time than the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Since then, the Minneapolis Police Department has spent at least $2.5 million on training and recruitment, but some community members say that has not translated to trust.

"I don't know that it's going to get better, and I don't really think that it will in my lifetime," said Sayge Caroll. She runs a pottery workshop using funds that were shifted from the city's police budget to expand artist-led community healing, among other services and programs.

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Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara says repairing what's been broken requires a paradigm shift.

"I naively thought that this was a place ready for change, and it just wasn't," O'Hara said. "...Slowly, we began to make changes incrementally to address, you know, kind of getting the culture of the agency in line with the values of the community."

He's made a point of hitting the streets himself, showing up on scene, going on ride-alongs and meeting community leaders where they are.

"There's no way law enforcement can bring crime down and keep it down if we're also not trying to build trust," O'Hara said. "...That's why the biggest thing for me is not to just change policy here. It's to change what cops actually do on the street."

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Months after O'Hara took the job in 2022, Minneapolis police entered into an agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights to address a pattern and practice of abuse. Prior to that, in June 2020, the city banned chokeholds and restraining techniques like the ones used on Floyd.

At a training facility, O'Hara literally changes out posters like one that shows an officer being held hostage.

When asked if such imagery reinforces fear, O'Hara said, "Certainly. Sort of that 'us against them,' that very, very militaristic approach to policing."

Michelle Phelps, an author and sociology professor at the University of Minnesota, says Minneapolis represents "both the promise of liberal police reform, but also its persistent failures." Still, she has also seen positive strides.

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"There have been a number of innovations about, how do we think about reducing that contact between police and community members? And you're seeing other kinds of responders that can come into those situations that aren't armed with a gun and that aren't trained in how to deploy violence," Phelps said.

Muhammad Abdul-Ahad, executive director of Touch Outreach, is one of those responders.

"Our work is more preventative. [Police are] more responsive," Abdul-Ahad said.

Six nights a week, Abdul-Ahad leads a team of volunteers de-escalating conflicts before police are even called. Trust between his organization and the police is "much better" since O'Hara became the chief, he said.

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Four years after Floyd's death, Caroll says, "We're going to get through whether or not the systems start to work for us."

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The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has picked Wynn Rosser to serve as the agency's next commissioner, members announced at a special meeting Thursday.

Rosser most recently served as president of the Temple Foundation, an organization that works with rural communities in East Texas to create more access to education and opportunities to help address poverty. Before that, he was a senior administrator at Texas A&M University. He has also worked in the Rio Grande Valley to help boost access to secondary education, and he served as president and CEO of the Greater Texas Foundation, which works to connect underserved populations to educational opportunities.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is the highest authority on higher education matters in the state. It distributes the state's financial aid to schools and sets its vision for meeting workforce needs. The commissioner, who is also the acting CEO of the agency, is appointed by the board, whose members are appointed by the governor.

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More: Senate higher education panel to weigh faculty senates, DEI in Texas universities. Here's what to know.

Board Chairman Fred Farias chaired the search committee for the new leader, a group that was also advised by University of Texas President Jay Hartzell, El Paso Community College President William Serrata and Texas A&M University System Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs James Hallmark. Farias previously told the American-Statesman that the committee aimed to have a new leader in place before the legislative session starts in January.

Harrison Keller stepped down as commissioner effective Aug. 1 to become president of the University of North Texas, a campus with about 46,000 students in Denton about 40 miles northeast of Dallas. Sarah Keyton, who is the deputy commissioner for administration, has been serving as interim commissioner since Keller's departure about three months ago. Keller launched the agency's new strategic plan, "Building a Talent Strong Texas," which aims to provide affordable education to meet the state's growing job needs by having 60% of Texans ages 25-64 graduate with a credential of value by 2030.

Farias thanked Keyton for her service, highlighting her work as "invaluable." She will continue serving in her prior role.

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More: Why Texas A&M may cut LGBTQ+ studies minor, and what GOP lawmakers are targeting next

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Wynn Rosser picked to lead Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
In the past decade, Californias incarceration rate has dropped about 30%. The hundreds of millions of dollars the state saved by incarcerating fewer people was reallocated into community programs for at-risk kids, mental health, drug treatment and victim services. Locking up fewer people had a minimal impact on crime, the Public Policy Institute of California found earlier this year.

These changes were made possible by Proposition 47, a ballot measure passed in 2014 that recategorized certain drug offenses and thefts below $950 as misdemeanors, rather than felonies. It was passed in the aftermath of severe cuts to social welfare programs and a scathing state Supreme Court ruling demanding the state reduce its prison population in order to alleviate violence and the spread of infectious diseases within its prison system.

Despite those successes, California voters chose to overturn Prop 47s reforms earlier this month.

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Prop 36, which effectively undid Prop 47, passed by nearly 40 points this month  a stunning reversal from even a few years ago, when a similar effort failed. At the same time, voters in Los Angeles County and Alameda County, home to the cities of Oakland and Berkeley, voted their progressive district attorneys out of office. Even a ballot measure to end the use of forced prison labor in California  a seemingly modest reform effort that has passed easily in more conservative states  failed.

In the rush to make sense of those results, several headlineshaveposited that California is backing away from criminal justice reform and returning to the tough-on-crime policies of the 1990s.

But the advocates who have spent decades pushing for criminal justice reform caution against viewing the election results as a sign the public has changed its mind.

We need to be careful not to overgeneralize and not to presume that this is somehow a death sentence vis a vis criminal justice reform, Miriam Krinsky, a former federal prosecutor and the founder of advocacy group Fair and Just Prosecution, said in an interview.

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These issues are cyclical and often progress is made in spurts with two steps forward, one step back.  We find ourselves at a moment in time where theres a lot of anger and discontent with the status quo, and where a fear narrative was used to propel that anger.

One Step Back

The failed 2020 effort to overturn Prop 47 lost by 23 points. But in the four years since, the political landscape has shifted. After promising sweeping changes to the criminal legal system in response to the racial justice protests of 2020, Democrats have largely abandoned that platform in favor of a tougher-on-crime posture.

The anti-reform side shifted its rhetoric during that time, too. Misleadingly described as The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act, Prop 36 was deliberately sold to voters as an effort to treat, rather than criminalize, addiction. The Yes on 36 website claims it incentivizes drug and mental health treatment, when, in fact, it is likely to gut funding for drug treatment and mental health care.

The other side co-opted reform messaging, said Anne Irwin, the director of Smart Justice California, a progressive criminal justice reform group. In Proposition 36, they started off their campaign using really traditional tough-on-crime rhetoric, and several months in, they took a big shift and began using a treatment framing, referring to this as a mass treatment initiative, not a mass incarceration initiative. They did that because their polling was showing that as much as voters in California want something to be done about what theyre seeing and feeling, they do not want that thing to be mass incarceration.

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Prop 36 leaned heavily on the publics perception that crime was out of control, a notion not backed by crime data but reinforced by breathless media coverage of viral videos of organized theft rings.

Those are an anomaly, they happen, they are part of the public consciousness, but going forward those arent necessarily the people who are going to be impacted by the changes in the law, said Cyn Yamashiro, a former Los Angeles County public defender who now works at the Wren Collective, a criminal justice research and policy group.

He noted that prosecutors already had the power to prosecute organized retail theft rings and secure felony convictions for their members.

The changes in the law [under Prop 36] are going to impact the most poor  people who will be prosecuted for stealing baby formula or toiletries, Yamashiro said.

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With millions of dollars in funding from retail giants  Walmart alone contributed $4 million  the Yes on 36 campaign had vastly more resources to get its message to voters. That message capitalized on voters sense that things arent working and claimed Prop 36 was an easy solution, couching it in rhetoric that made it seem like something other than a betrayal of criminal justice reform.

Thats important for those of us who embrace the need for change, to understand and meet voters where they are, Krinksy said. Whether people are safe is just as important as whether people feel safe. While data tells us that many of the crime markers are more favorable than they were a decade or two decades ago, people dont feel that improvement. We need to do a better job of making clear that many of the changes that have come about are making communities safer.

The other criminal justice measure on the ballot was Prop 6, which would have eliminated a provision in Californias constitution that allows involuntary servitude as a punishment for people in prison. If Prop 6 had passed, incarcerated people could still choose to work for little or no pay, but would not be required to do so. This would allow them to pursue educational or rehabilitative programming, which is often required to be granted parole, instead of being disciplined for refusing work  something that can, in turn, damage a persons prospects for release.

California is one of only 16 states that has yet to close the so-called slavery exemption loophole. In recent years, red states like Alabama, Nebraska and Tennessee have passed measures similar to Prop 6. There was no meaningful organized opposition campaign to Prop 6, and yet, as of Wednesday, it was down by 7 points. (That gap could narrow, but it does not stand a chance of passing.)

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The formerly incarcerated organizers who ran the Yes on 6 campaign suspect that it suffered from being lumped in with Prop 36 at a time when voter appetite for reform had waned. With limited funding, the Yes on 6 campaign also struggled to correct incorrect assumptions about Prop 6, including that it would mark the end of prison labor entirely when, in fact, most prisoners would likely choose to continue working. They also point to the fact that the official summary in the voter guide used the phrase involuntary servitude rather than slavery, which may have been less resonant with voters.

Progressive Prosecutors Ousted

The impact of Prop 36s passage will come down to how aggressively individual prosecutors choose to enforce it.

As the measure goes into effect, California is losing two progressive prosecutors elected on promises to reduce incarceration. In Los Angeles, the states most populous county, District Attorney George Gascon lost his reelection campaign to Nathan Hochman, a former GOP state attorney general candidate who has pledged to reverse his predecessors reforms. In Alameda County, voters opted to recall District Attorney Pamela Price just two years into her first term.

Gascon, a former cop who has since become the godfather of the progressive prosecutor movement, spent eight years as San Franciscos district attorney before moving to Los Angeles to mount a successful challenge against longtime incumbent Jackie Lacey. During his first week in office, Gascon unveiled a series of sweeping policy changes for the district attorneys office: They would no longer seek the death penalty, charge kids as adults, seek life sentences without parole or use sentencing enhancements.

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Gascon had the data to back up his decisions. Those policies did not reduce recidivism, they resulted in disproportionately harsh penalties for Black and brown defendants, and they failed to account for an individuals capacity for rehabilitation, particularly among children. But he faced immediate pushback, and even litigation, from the prosecutors in his office. He survived two failed recall attempts before losing his reelection campaign.

When Price, who ran on similar reforms to Gascon, entered office in 2023, the anti-reform movement had recently notched a major victory in recalling San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. The playbook had been set. A handful of wealthy people in real estate, tech and finance bankrolled recalls and challenges to progressive prosecutors throughout the state.

Even some of Gascons supporters say it was a strategic misstep to impose blanket policies on his first day on the job, many of which he ended up walking back in response to the internal revolt in his office. But its also unclear whether he would have been able to implement many of the reforms he ran on without the buy-in of his staff.

I dont think those in the office who were unhappy with his victory and unhappy with him having defeated a longtime incumbent were willing to be won over. I think that there were many who just didnt align with his vision and were going to do everything within their power to try to derail that vision, Krinsky said.

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I think its a mistake to conclude that theres something wrong with policies that try to guide the office with clear, bright lines, Krinksy continued. Its wholly within prosecutorial discretions exercise to say that certain things are not going to be prosecuted because its not a wise use of resources, or the use of the death penalty does not align with the values that we should perpetuate, or that young people, whose brains arent fully developed, should not be put in the adult system.

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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WTVO)  U.S. and state flags in Illinois are flying at half-staff from Thursday through Monday in honor of a fallen Chicago Police Officer.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker issued an order for flags to be flown at half-staff in honor of Chicago Police Officer Enrique Martinez, 26, who was killed in the line of duty on November 4th, 2024.

Martinez was killed during a traffic stop. He was shot to death by a man wielding a fully automatic handgun with an extended magazine, the Sun-Times reported.

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On Monday night, our department and our city lost a hero when Officer Enrique Martinez was shot and killed protecting the city of Chicago, Police Supt. Larry Snelling said two days after the death.

Darion McMillian, 23, is charged with first-degree murder for his role in the incident.

Martinez was appointed to the Chicago Police Department in December 2021 and served for nearly three years.

Flags have been ordered to fly at half-staff from sunrise on Thursday, November 14th, until sunset on Monday, November 18th.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to MyStateline | WTVO News, Weather and Sports.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC)  For this GRE WHY ROC segment we are celebrating the winners of the 6th annual Grow-NY business competition.

$3 million was awarded to food, beverage, and agriculture startups including the $1 million grand prize for Unibaio.

Two teams near us also won. UdderWays from Albion got $500,000. Zordi of Oakfield won $250,000.

Of note, each winning team must commit to operating in the region for at least one year while also providing a modest equity stake to Cornell that will fund future food and Ag entrepreneurship programming.

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Learn more about the winners by watching the interview in the player on this page.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
When Susan Lorincz was found guilty of killing her neighbor, Ajike Owens, we thought it would be the end of this tragic story. But now, Lorincz is back after filing a motion requesting a reduced sentence.

The Root previously reported in August, an all-white Florida jury took hours to deliberate in the trial where Lorincz was charged with manslaughter. Lorincz reportedly shot Owens, a mother of four, from behind her door during a 2023 dispute. She has yet to be sentenced for the crime, but now shes pleading for a lighter or downward departure of the sentence.

According to Fox 35, Lorinczs attorney is arguing she needs mental health treatments, which is why theyre asking for a lighter sentence. They also claim the 60-year-old woman acted under extreme duress during the fatal shooting. Lorincz is facing up to 30 years behind bars for the crime.

The Fatal Incident of June 2, 2023

When Owens children told their mother Lorincz, their neighbor, threw roller skates at them while yelling racial slurs as they played in a field area near her home, the mother went to Lorinczs house to confront her. According to the Marion County Sheriffs Office, the two women had previous altercations, much of those concerning Owens children.

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Owens began knocking on Lorincz door, and thats when the 60-year-old pulled out a gun and shot the mother through the door. Owens was pronounced dead at the scene.

The older woman called the police. And when authorities arrives, Lorincz claimed self defense, saying she feared for her life, however witnesses to the crime in addition to other damning evidence told a different story in court. She was originally charged with second-degree murder, but her charges were dropped to manslaughter, The Root reported.

Months after her guilty verdict, the motion for a reduced sentence claims Owens was an initiator, willing participant, aggressor, or provoker of the incident that led to her killing, reports Fox 35. The motion also states Lorinczs capacity to appreciate the criminal nature of the conduct or to conform that conduct to the requirements of the law was substantially impaired.

She is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 25.

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Donald Trumps increasingly provocative Cabinet picks have left some Republican senators aghast and Washington in shock.

But they really shouldnt. Because the outrage is the point.

The president-elect reached a new level on Wednesday, announcing Florida Republican Matt Gaetz  one of his most zealous agents of disruption, who, like him, was once investigated by the Justice Department  as his pick for attorney general.

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Tulsi Gabbard, the one-time Democratic presidential candidate, who now shares Trumps belief that the intelligence community has been weaponized against him, will be Americas new top spy, if confirmed as director of national intelligence.

The latest selections for Trumps MAGA dream team caused such a stir that they almost overshadowed the pick of Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth to serve as defense secretary on Tuesday night.

But they are perfectly in tune with Trumps campaign trail promises and political project. The dismay engulfing establishment elites contrasted with the euphoria rocketing through conservative networks and social media among Trump fans. The president-elect draws political strength from his position as an outsider scourge of the establishment, and if his picks are confirmed by the Senate  a huge if in the case of Gaetz  they will be tasked with his mission of defenestrating government and driving out those Trump sees as enemies.

Trump won the election and has a mandate for change. And these and other picks are proof of a president-elect who is increasingly powerful and cares little for the critics who warn his second term poses a threat to the rule of law.

God-tier trolling

Trumps short-lived former first-term communications director Anthony Scaramucci told CNNs Jake Tapper that the president-elects personnel selections were purposely meant to own the liberals. Paraphrasing Trumps intent, he added: Lets pick some triggering people. And those are the triggering people.

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Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman agreed, telling CNNs Manu Raju of the Gaetz selection: Its just kind of like a god-tier, kind of trolling, just to trigger a meltdown.

Gaetz  who had been under a House Ethics Committee investigation  resigned from Congress on Wednesday in the wake of Trumps announcement. The committee, which had been probing allegations that he 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  was due to meet this week to vote on releasing a report, potentially as soon as Friday, CNN reported. But with Gaetz leaving, its unclear if the information will ever become public. The Florida Republican has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, including ever having sex with a minor or paying for sex. The Justice Department, which had pursued a yearslong sex-crimes investigation into him, ultimately decided last year not to pursue criminal charges against Gaetz.

Millions of the president-elects voters agree that his own legal troubles are not the result of criminal wrongdoing but of years of victimization by the Justice Department. They think the Russia investigation in his first term was hatched by the intelligence agencies to destroy him. Trump voters want entire layers of government bureaucrats fired, think regulations contribute to their own economic problems, worry about millions of border crossings by undocumented migrants and oppose Pentagon diversity programs. Trump is their agent of change. And his lightning bolt picks for top government jobs are his lieutenants in that effort.

Hegseth, Gaetz and Gabbard pose questions about Trumps motivations and the direction of his second administration that begins on January 20, not least because of their professional, ethical or experiential qualities, or lack of them.

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Is Trump looking for an attorney general to ensure the administering of fair justice? If so, would he have chosen Gaetz, who had been under investigation? But the president-elects intentions were clear in his announcement of his intent to nominate him: Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Trumps statement seems to play into his long-term aspiration to find an attorney general who defends him and targets his enemies.

Gaetz was a leading proponent of Trumps attempts to steal the 2020 election and has called for the abolition of the FBI, the DOJ and other agencies unless they come to heel. In this light, the Gaetz pick seems most like a gesture of contempt for the Justice Department, the prosecutors who work there and the rule of law.

This is an outrageous pick. There is no way around it, CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, a former assistant US attorney, said on CNN International.

News that Hegseth had been picked to lead the Pentagon rocked Washington the night before the Gaetz pick and sparked similar questions about Trumps motives. The Fox News star has a military record marked by valor after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he has little of the deep experience in high-level strategy, international diplomacy and national security that is normally required of those in charge of the planets most powerful military. He, therefore, risks being outmatched on a call with a grizzled Russian or Chinese defense minister if he was called upon to defuse a sudden crisis. But Hegseths years on Fox demonstrate that hes highly qualified to lead a culture war inside the Defense Department given his condemnation of diversity programs, women serving in combat and advocacy for Trump to free service personnel accused of war crimes.

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Gabbard also has a distinguished military record. But she appears to have been picked to lead the DNI because of her suspicions of the covert community as Trump seeks to clean out what he calls corrupt actors he views as disloyal. Among the former Hawaii congresswomans many clashes with the US intelligence community are her doubts that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was guilty of war crimes after a chemical weapons attack. And she was accused of parroting false propaganda from Americas premier espionage adversary, Russia, by no less than Utah GOP Sen. Mitt Romney.

Not all Trumps picks are contentious. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, his selection for secretary of state, has drawn skepticism over his conversion to Trumps America Firstism, but many of his fellow senators regard him as a serious thinker on foreign affairs, especially on China. And the president-elect has earned the right to choose who he wants to help him fulfill his mandate.

But like most of Trumps other staff picks, Gabbard, Hegseth and Gaetz share several things in common. They are unfailingly loyal to the president-elect. They are all avid proponents of the stunt politics that he pioneered as a social media provocateur. And if the 45th and 47th president is intent, as he says, on a second term of retribution  they look like they may be willing to honor his orders.

The next shoes to drop?

There was a growing sense in Washington on Wednesday night that with the Gaetz pick at least, Trump may have overreached for the first time as president-elect, even with normally supportive Republicans.

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One of his few GOP critics, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski called the Florida Republican an unserious candidate when asked by CNN about his chances for confirmation. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, another rare Republican Trump critic, said she was shocked to hear the news and noted there would be an extensive background check by the FBI over the impending nomination. Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst said that Gaetz is going to have a lot of work to do.

The Gaetz selection created an immediate crisis for South Dakota Sen. John Thune, hours after he won the leadership of the incoming Republican majority. Thune is certain to come under severe pressure from the president-elect to ensure that Gaetz is seated at the Justice Department.

The former and future presidents allies were already rallying around Gaetz and warning of consequences should he be blocked by the Senate conducting its constitutional role of advise and consent. I love Matt Gaetz, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville said, warning that it would be risky for senators to vote against him. He added, We got all 53 Republicans  youre going to tell me that one Republican is going to vote against one of Trumps team? If that happens, it ought to blow us all up. Its crazy, Tuberville said. (CNN has not yet projected the Pennsylvania Senate race, which is headed to a recount, leaving the GOP at 52 seats.)

A president-elect who feels liberated from constraints after his election victory may not yet be finished rocking the boat with positions yet to be announced, including secretaries of the Treasury and Health and Human Services. It is no wonder Trump started this week demanding GOP senators acquiesce to his demands for recess appointments for nominees if they cannot win swift confirmation.

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Trump has set up the first test of whether there will be any pushback from a new Republican Senate majority against a president who believes he will be all powerful once hes sworn in.

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WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW)  A Wichita airman who was shot down and killed during World War II has finally been positively identified.

U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Ralph L. Mourer (Courtesy Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)

On Thursday, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced that U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Ralph L. Mourer, 23, of Wichita, Kansas, was accounted for on June 20. His family had to be found and briefed before the news was made public.

The DPAA also provided two pictures of him but did not have the name of the woman pictured with him.

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Mourer was a radio operator onboard a B-24H Liberator named Little Joe. On April 8, 1944, the plane was on a bombing mission to Brunswick, Germany, when enemy aircraft shot it down.

Airmen on other aircraft that had been flying in formation with Little Joe did not see any crewmembers exit the plane before it crashed near Salzwedel. Allied forces could not find the crash site during the war, and the remains of all ten crewmembers, including Mourer, were unaccounted for after the war.

Highly decorated Wichita veteran served in the army for 26 years, became a deputy

Since then, others have tried to find the site. In 2015, the Missing Allied Air Crew Research Team contacted DPAA historians with new information on a possible crash site near Wistedt, Germany. Elderly residents remembered two crash sites but said American forces only recovered one after the war.

U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Ralph L. Mourer (Courtesy Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)

Investigators began to look for the second crash site and found it, including pieces of wreckage and bones. Researchers tested the remains but could not match them with any unknown airmen.

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Between 2021 and 2023, DPAA investigators returned to the site, this time conducting excavations. By the end of 2023, all evidence and potential remains had been found and sent to the DPAA laboratory.

Scientists used new technologies, such as mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA, and identified Mourer.

His name was and is still on the Walls of the Missing at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate that he has been accounted for.



Mourer will be buried in Adrian, Michigan, in the spring of 2025. His primary next of kin, a granddaughter, lives there.

To learn more about the Defense Departments mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving the country, visit the DPAA website.

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Nov. 14MOSES LAKE  The Moses Lake City Council approved a 1% increase in its property tax assessment Tuesday, but not without a wide-ranging conversation about taxes, revenue and city projects.

The vote was 5-2 with council members Deanna Martinez and Don Myers voting no.

City Finance Director Madeline Prentice estimated the increase would add an average of $68 per year to the tax bill for property worth $300,000. Along with the 1% increase, that includes an estimated increase in assessed property value in the city and what Prentice called "banked capacity."

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Mayor Dustin Swartz said in a later interview that Washington cities have the right to collect up to 1%, the maximum allowable. Moses Lake has collected less than that in some past years. The city then has the right to collect some of the money it didn't collect in previous years; that's banked capacity, according to the Washington Department of Revenue.

Prentice said the city would use about $422,000 of banked capacity. Swartz said the city utilized some of its banked capacity in 2024.

The total amount collected by the city in 2025 was projected to be about $10.2 million with the tax.

Swartz said the need for revenue is a sign of the rising cost of running a city or county in Washington. There is discussion at the state level of raising the 1% maximum increase allowed to 3%, he said.

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"A number of counties and municipalities are arguing 1% doesn't do it anymore," he said.

During the council meeting, Swartz said the discussion about raising the property tax limitation is an indication Moses Lake isn't alone.

"It's obvious we're not the only people in this situation, where you're seeing the expenses outweigh the revenues," Swartz said.

Moses Lake will have to address some big  and expensive  challenges, Swartz said, from city growth to finding adequate water to transportation. City officials have to figure out how to pay to fix those problems, he said.

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"This is the big question we've been having," he said. "Where do we get it? We have a number of other things going on. These are the questions we really need to be asking: how do we pay for that, and how do the citizens contribute to all of that? It will take all of us, I believe, at this point. Regardless of what we do with this vote tonight, we know there's still work to do."

Prentice said city officials are looking for additional revenue and Myers said he would prefer to take advantage of other options first.

Myers said Moses Lake has property owners on fixed incomes and the increase will have an impact on tight budgets.

"I would like to look at other funding sources rather than property taxes," Myers said.

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He said he would prefer an exploration of sales tax.

"If we're going to look at other funding sources, I think we can explore the various forms of sales tax and how it may apply to whatever it is we're trying to accomplish," Myers said. "I know we did that with the criminal justice sales tax. What other options are there versus property tax?"

Martinez said she agreed with Myers.

"I'm concerned that once again, we're going to the property owners when it's not just the property owners that are utilizing our streets and our water and everything the city provides," she said. "I feel like everybody who comes to our city and utilizes its services should help bear the cost and not just property owners."

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The city isn't the only entity to levy property taxes, she said, and it all adds up.

Council member Mark Fancher said growth and the arrival of new industries will change how property taxes are assessed, which will change how much is paid by each group of taxpayers.

Fancher said council members  and city residents  have to look beyond 2025.

"At the end of the day, it's going to take monies that we don't have or can generate by ourselves to move the community forward," Fancher said. "I do believe we've got some heavy, heavy lifting. We have to get our hands around the revenue side."

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Council Member Victor Lombardi said the council should be able to explain to, and show, people what the city is doing with their money and Fancher said he agreed with that.

"We need to do a better job of telling people where all that money's going," Fancher said.
WINTER HAVEN, Fla. (WFLA)  The Winter Haven City Commission voted Tuesday to stop adding fluoride to drinking water after a lengthy public comment period where residents shared health concerns.

Commissioners voted 3-2 to remove the fluoride by January 1, or on a date as soon as reasonably practical thereafter.

Lakeland man dies after trying to climb moving dump truck

The resolution cited a federal court decision that expressed concerns regarding the effects of fluoride in public water supply. The court ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to research the effects of fluoridated water and crack down on regulating it.

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For many commission members and audience members, the issue at hand was government overreach.

The government really should not be involved in healthcare, or what goes into the bodies of citizens, Mayor Pro Tem Brian Yates said, after hinting that fluoride in the water supply and his hyperthyroidism may be correlated. Those really should be left up to the patient and the (healthcare) provider.

Yates later denied that a reported 9,000 children face significant barriers to accessing fluoride because of existing public health services. Commissioner Brad Dantzler suggested giving some of the estimated $48,000 saved by adopting the resolution to charities that can provide dental health products.

Commissioner Clifton E. Dollison, who was one of the two dissenting votes, along with Mayor Nathaniel J. Birdsong, Jr., said he may be the poster child for the benefits of fluoridated water.

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My mother had nine children. We grew up poor, lived in a project. I never saw a dentist until I was an adult, Dollison said. I went to the dentist, got my first checkup  he said, You do not have a cavity in your head. You must have lived in a place where there was fluoride.

Removing fluoride would be doing away with something beneficial to those less fortunate in the community, according to Dollison.

Dantzler said, in response to correspondence with dental professionals, that city commissioners acknowledge that fluoride is beneficial for dental health, but they have concerns about what may happen when it gets in the gut.

The commissioner cited concerns posed by 2024 Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and falsely stated that President-Elect Donald Trump named him to a high-ranking health policy position. Multiple residents repeated this during public comment.

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Ill tell you that after the recent election, President Trump has named Mr. Kennedy to be his H-something-something director, and Mr. Kennedy has made it well known and has publicly said that he wants fluoride out of the water around the entire country, Dantzler said. So this issue, we may be at the front of it, but this issue is coming just based upon current events and whats going on in Washington D.C.

As pointed out by Dantzler and some public commenters, the discussion echoed those during meetings in the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is reminiscent of what happened with COVID, Dantzler said. All four of us, with exception of Commissioner Dollison, were here during COVID and asked to make medical decisions on things that were very complicated, and we dont completely understand.

Winter Haven resident Hannah Bush described purchasing a reverse-osmosis filter to remove perceived toxins from her familys drinking water, but said it wasnt enough to get rid of the fluoride. She also took issue with the chemical being used in dental health products.

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I can get false teeth if needed. I only have one brain, Bush said.

In September, a federal judge in California ruled the environmental protection agency must strengthen regulations on fluoride in drinking water, saying levels that are too high could pose a risk to the intellectual development of children.



Now if the EPA comes out and says its all fine, we will add it back in, but as it stands right now, I think we made the right decision to protect children, Dantzler said.

Is fluoride a toxic chemical? Why is it added to drinking water?

In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later. Though fluoride can come from a number of sources, drinking water is the main source for Americans, researchers say.

Officials lowered their recommendation for drinking water fluoride levels in 2015 to address a tooth condition called fluorosis, that can cause splotches on teeth and was becoming more common in U.S. kids.

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In August, 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.

A federal judge later cited that study in ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water. 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.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has called on alliance members and other Western partners to provide more support for Ukraine as cold weather looms.

Speaking after a meeting with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics at the Adazi military base on Thursday, Rutte warned that Russian president Vladimir Putin "will use winter as a weapon."

Rutte said Russia would try to destroy Ukraine's energy supply system: "That is why we must all increase our support for Ukraine, including air defence to protect critical infrastructure."

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In order to strengthen their own defence capabilities, NATO members would have to increase their defence spending and boost arms production, Rutte said. Rinkevics also called on NATO partners to spend more on defence, specifically advocating a figure of 2.5 or 3% of gross domestic product (GDP). The official NATO target for military spending is currently 2%.

Rutte and Rinkevics watched a manoeuvre of the multinational NATO brigade stationed in Latvia, which was training together at full strength for the first time. Some 3,500 soldiers from 13 NATO countries took part in the Resolute Warrior exercise. Latvia shares a border with Russia and its close ally Belarus to the east.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has called on alliance members and other Western partners to provide more support for Ukraine as cold weather looms.

Speaking after a meeting with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics at the Adazi military base on Thursday, Rutte warned that Russian president Vladimir Putin "will use winter as a weapon."

Rutte said Russia would try to destroy Ukraine's energy supply system: "That is why we must all increase our support for Ukraine, including air defence to protect critical infrastructure."

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In order to strengthen their own defence capabilities, NATO members would have to increase their defence spending and boost arms production, Rutte said. Rinkevics also called on NATO partners to spend more on defence, specifically advocating a figure of 2.5 or 3% of gross domestic product (GDP). The official NATO target for military spending is currently 2%.

Rutte and Rinkevics watched a manoeuvre of the multinational NATO brigade stationed in Latvia, which was training together at full strength for the first time. Some 3,500 soldiers from 13 NATO countries took part in the Resolute Warrior exercise. Latvia shares a border with Russia and its close ally Belarus to the east.

Former governor admits Russian troops looted border region

The former governor of the Russian border region of Kursk on Thursday admitted that soldiers sent by Moscow to defend the region have looted homes.

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"There is evidence of looting by both civilians and the military," said Roman Starovoit, who has since become Russia's transport minister, at a meeting with residents of the Glushkovo district, which borders Ukraine.

A video clip from a local news portal on Telegram showed that the admission - rare among the Moscow leadership - was met with applause from the audience. Residents of the region had repeatedly complained about break-ins at their abandoned homes.

In their surprise counteroffensive this summer, Ukrainian troops captured part of the Kursk region. Russian troops are now trying to push the Ukrainian army back out of the country.

The Russian state news agency TASS has accused Ukrainian soldiers of looting in the villages they had conquered, citing the village of Glushkovo as an example. But this village was never under Ukrainian control.

Two elderly women killed in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine

Two women have been killed in attacks by Ukrainian forces in the Russian-held eastern region of Luhansk, according to the occupation authorities.

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On a road near the city of Lysychansk, Ukrainian forces attacked a car carrying civilians with a drone, the local administration wrote on Telegram. An elderly woman was killed and a man was injured.

In Lysychansk itself, two houses were destroyed by shelling from the Ukrainian armed forces, the authority added, killing another elderly woman.

The claims could not be immediately independently verified. Ukraine has emphasized in the past that it does not target civilians.

Before the war, Lysychansk was a large city with around 100,000 inhabitants. It was taken by Russian troops in the summer of 2022 after heavy fighting.

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According to the occupation administration, at least 13 people were injured by shelling in the centre of the city of Horlivka in the neighbouring Donetsk region.

Ukraine has been defending itself against the Russian war of aggression for almost 1,000 days and is attempting to recapture its occupied territories.
HEADLAND, Ala (WDHN)  Wiregrass farmers took advantage of a free program to get rid of old farming chemicals and processes that could cost them thousands of dollars.

Trucks lined up in Headland Wednesday morning for the annual pesticide clean-up day.

The event took place in communities across the state for over 30 years and returned to Wiregrass to collect 52,000 pounds of chemicals, which they surpassed in just a few hours in the event hosted by the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries.

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This creates a way to make sure the chemicals dont end up being disposed of incorrectly.

It helps keep all these chemicals from getting in our groundwater and in our watershed. Our contractor will help take this out of state and it will be incinerated, said Daniel Sheffield, Biologist with the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries. Were just here to provide a good way to get that stuff out of here.

The program is federally funded, and Sheffield said they did another collection in the Huntsville area yesterday, where they collected over 30,000 pounds of chemicals.

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MADISON - The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources approved the state permits needed for a Canadian oil company to move forward with a controversial pipeline through a portion of Wisconsin's Northwoods, the agency announced Thursday.

The permits for Enbridge Energy will allow the company to reroute Line 5 around the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa's land in a far northern area of Wisconsin. The permit will allow Enbridge to cross waterways and permanently and temporarily fill in wetlands as needed during pipeline construction.

"The wetland and waterway permit authorizes Enbridge to conduct specific construction-related activities that impact navigable waterways and wetlands as specifically described in the permit application, associated plans and permit conditions," a release from the agency said. The permit contains more than 200 conditions to ensure compliance with the state's wetlands and waterways standards."

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The DNR permits are not the final hurdle for the project. The company still needs Army Corps of Engineers permits to begin the project and a tribal lawsuit is ongoing.

Enbridge proposed to reroute about 12 miles of the active pipeline that passes through the Bad River reservation. Easements on the line expired years ago, and since then, the company has faced scrutiny for wanting to reroute the pipe instead of decommissioning the line.

The tribe filed a lawsuit in 2019 to have the pipeline removed. The tribe and environmental groups argued for shutting down Line 5 entirely, citing the risks to land, water and quality of life if the pipeline were to rupture or leak.

Following the decision, tribal leaders expressed dismay.

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"Im angry that the DNR has signed off on a half-baked plan that spells disaster for our homeland and our way of life, Bad River Band Chairman Robert Blanchard said in a statement. We will continue sounding the alarm to prevent yet another Enbridge pipeline from endangering our watershed.

A leak wouldn't be unprecedented. In addition to issues in Michigan on another pipeline, during construction of the Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota, Enbridge breached four aquifers while building the pipeline. It also paid more than $11 million to address environmental damage during construction and faced a criminal misdemeanor charge for using state waters without permission.

In Wisconsin, the company proposed a new 41.2-mile section that would bypass the reservation. Construction for the new line would take place in Ashland and Iron counties, although the pipeline also crosses Douglas and Bayfield counties.

More: Controversy, legal fights over Line 5 pipeline keep it in the news. We break the issues down.

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The relocated pipeline would cross 186 waterways and require the conversion of some wetlands, plus the permanent and temporary filling of other wetlands.

Other routes were also considered, according to a DNR document showcasing findings of fact. The approved route caused the least amount of disruption, according to the docment.

The 645-mile-long pipeline transports 545,000 barrels a day of light crude oil, light synthetic crude oil and natural gas liquids from western Canada through Wisconsin and Michigan and into eastern Canada. The products Line 5 carries are used to make transportation fuels and fuel used to heat homes and businesses.

The underground pipe is 30 inches in diameter and has been in operation since 1953.

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The reroute of the line is expected to cost about $450 million.

More: DNR releases long-awaited environmental impact document for Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline

Earlier this year, the DNR released its environmental impact statement, reflecting research the agency conducted and tens of thousands of comments submitted by organizations, businesses and the public. While not a decision document, the statement was used in the decision-making process for the permit.

The impact statement considered harm to trees, water and wildlife, in addition to cultural and socioeconomic impacts, DNR employees said.

In one section, the DNR outlines how the impacts of rerouting the line could be short-lived, during construction, for example, as well as those with longer-lasting implications.

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All of the direct impacts from the project would result from the installation of the pipeline and the construction-related activities, the document said, including clearing trees, trenching, blasting and horizontal drilling.

The department estimated that secondary impacts could include changes in the pattern of land use, population density or growth rate, increased noise in the construction area, forest fragmentation, and the anticipated impacts of pipeline spills, as well as the introduction of invasive species.

Greg Pils, the director of the Bureau of Environmental Analysis and Sustainability, said the DNR heavily considered the comments and concerns shared with them by the public, and did not simply rubber stamp the permits.

"I would direct anybody who wants to better understand the basis of our decision to review the findings of fact that are recorded in the water and wetland permit document itself," he said.

Industry celebrates approval while environmental groups push back

Industry groups called Thursday's permits decision a win for the Wisconsin economy. The company has already contracted with Michaels Construction for the project, which is expected to employ Wisconsin workers.

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The Line 5 relocation project is a win for Wisconsin workers, Wisconsin families, and the Wisconsin economy. In addition to creating over 700 union construction jobs, this project will ensure the energy our states families and economy need to survive continues to flow," said Wisconsin Building Trades Council Executive Director Emily Pritzkow. "Our members are committed to executing this project with the utmost craftsmanship and professionalism, and prioritizing safety every step of the way."

More: Along Wisconsin's northern shores, Line 5 continues to pit tribal culture against Big Oil

Agricultural industry groups also applauded the DNR's approval.

"Wisconsin farmers simply can't do their jobs without the propane, disel and gas made possible by pipelines like Line 5," Wisconsin Farm Bureau President Brad Olson said in a release. "The issuance of DNR's Line 5 permits is a huge step forward for our state's farmers and the hundreds of thousands of people that depend on our agricultural industry to feed their families."

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But not all are satisfied with the decision.

In granting these permits, DNR officials chose to serve Enbridges interests at the cost of the Bad River Bands treaty rights and the states future clean water supply, Earthjustice Senior Attorney Stefanie Tsosie, who is representing the Bad River Band, said in a press release. It's sad that they are willing to gamble the regions irreplaceable wetlands, the wild rice beds, and even Lake Superior to secure Enbridges cash flow.

Clean Wisconsin, an environmental advocacy organization, alluded to a potential challenge in court against the approval.

Wisconsin law makes it clear that projects causing harm to our waters must meet a high bar to move forward, Clean Wisconsin attorney Evan Feinauer said. Given the enormous impacts that construction of this pipeline would cause, we are skeptical that the proposed project meets these legal standards.

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Attorneys at Midwest Environmental Advocates said the decision ignored the pleas from residents who asked the DNR to turn down the permits.

Enbridges proposed plan represents a clear threat to the health and safety of Wisconsin communities and the natural resources on which they rely," MEA staff attorney Rob Lee. "DNRs decision to issue permits for the project ignores the serious concerns of thousands of people who have urged the DNR to reject Enbridges permit application.

Enbridge awaits U.S. Army Corps permit, while court case could halt the line altogether

The Canadian oil company is awaiting another key permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is undergoing its own environmental review of the reroute project.

The Army Corps is in charge of permitting discharge that could occur in waters of the U.S. It will also review the impact to federally listed endangered species and the effects on historic properties in consultation with the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer and the State Historic Preservation Office.

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The Army Corps released a draft of its environmental assessment in May, which drew hours of contentious testimony at a public hearing in June.

According to environmental groups, more than 150,000 comments were submitted in opposition to the reroute project.

But the approvals issued by the DNR could be moot, as a court case filed by the Bad River Band continues to play out. In the case, filed in 2019, tribal officials said they no longer wanted Enbridge to operate on their land, due to the risk of significant environmental damage if there was a rupture.

The case has dragged on for years.

In 2023, a federal judge ruled that Enbridge must remove the pipeline from the reservation within three years. Both the Bad River Band and Enbridge appealed the decision. In February of 2024, a federal appeals court heard oral arguments on whether the company can continue transporting oil on the reservation with an expired easement.

The federal government, after remaining silent for years, weighed in, taking a mixed position and sending some of the key issues back to district courts for further review.

Both parties are awaiting a decision.

(This story was updated with additional information.)

Laura Schulte can be reached at leschulte@jrn.com and on X at @SchulteLaura.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: DNR approves permits for Enbridge's Line 5 reroute
Whether youre looking to save on weekly groceries or preparing for Thanksgiving, some stores own-brand products may give you the biggest bang for your buck, according to a new study from Coupons4Real.com.

Researchers used grocery price data from Instacart for 173 stores across five popular chains  Aldi Costco, Kroger, Target and Walmart  in the 49 most populated cities across the U.S., including Milwaukee.

What are the cheapest grocery stores for own-brand products?

Here is how the chains Coupons4Real.com looked at stacked up in terms of affordability:

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Walmart Aldi Costco Target Kroger

What are the cheapest store brands?

Here are the top 10 cheapest store brands, according to Coupons4Real.com:

Happy FarmsAldi Seasons ChoiceAldi Great ValueWalmart Friendly FarmsAldi Breakfast BestAldi KirkwoodAldi LOven FreshAldi Market PantryTarget KrogerKroger Kirkland SignatureCostco

Where can I get Thanksgiving staples the cheapest?

Here are the cheapest options for ingredients for some popular Thanksgiving dishes, according to Coupons4Real.com:

Turkey Aldi

Green beans Walmart

Corn Walmart

Broccoli Walmart

Chicken Walmart

Butter Walmart

Cheese blends Walmart

Cheesecake (fresh and frozen) Walmart

Onions Kroger

Pork cuts Walmart

GarlicKroger

More: Wisconsinites have the lowest weekly grocery bill of any state, Census data says

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More: How grocery prices compare in Milwaukee and suburbs at stores like Woodman's, Walmart and Pick n' Save

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Where to get best Thanksgiving 2024 deals at Aldi, Target and more
MADISON, Wis. (WFRV)  Authorities in Wisconsin are on alert after it was reported early on Wednesday morning that multiple vehicles were broken into overnight.

According to the release, the incident was reported around 5:53 a.m. on Wednesday, and Madison police officers were dispatched to the area of 6741 Schroeder Road to the report of vehicle break-ins.

Man arrested in Wisconsin after allegedly pushing bartender, refusing to pay tab

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About 25 vehicles were broken into with many of them missing a variety of items.

No victims have been publicly identified, and no suspect(s) have been deemed yet.

No more details are 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 WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton.
Eric Hovde, the Wisconsin Republican who nearly unseated Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, acknowledged this week that he lost the election but also raised questions about the legitimacy of the result as he mulls requesting a recount.

Even as they celebrate President-elect Donald Trumps victory, right-wing figures such as tech billionaire Elon Musk, as well as some prominent 2020 election deniers, have seized on Hovdes refusal to concede. They have embraced his baseless claims on social media that there were statistically improbable results and inconsistencies with the vote count.

CNN projected last week that Baldwin would win a third term, and the latest unofficial results show Hovde losing by less than a percentage point. He fell short even while Trump narrowly carried the state: Baldwin and Vice President Kamala Harris finished with very similar vote totals, but Hovde lagged behind Trump by about 56,000 votes.

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Despite delegitimizing the result and saying he was giving careful consideration to a recount, Hovde also did something Trump did not do in 2020: acknowledge that he lost.

Ive been blessed with a lot of energy and very thick skin, and Im a very resilient person, Hovde said Tuesday on a conservative talk radio show. I will definitely pick myself up and move on and continue fight for our wonderful country and state, which is why I got into this whole thing. Its the most painful loss Ive ever experienced.

Election officials swiftly rebutted Hovdes theories about supposed irregularities. Voting experts such as David Becker, who runs the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said theres nothing inappropriate about waiting to concede until the result is final, but any potential postelection lawsuits would need to be backed up by facts.

If (Hovde) intends to pursue a legal challenge, they will need more than speculation and conspiracy theories spread on social media, Becker said. They will need to bring evidence to court that will stand up to scrutiny, sufficient to overcome their deficit.

Election officials rebut Hovdes claims

In a four-minute video posted to X, the Musk-owned platform formerly called Twitter, Hovde promoted several unfounded claims to question the legitimacy of Baldwins win.

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The wealthy businessman and CEO of Sunwest Bank said he was shocked by the late-night ballot reporting from Milwaukee, which erased his lead and cemented Baldwins victory. He said, statistically, this outcome seems improbable, because he said Baldwin won an inexplicably high share of the new votes.

But others didnt share Hovdes surprise, including conservative pundits who predicted Baldwins strong showing in real time. That batch of roughly 109,000 new votes came from the city of Milwaukee, which is a Democratic stronghold. Further, the ballots in that batch were mail-in and early votes, which disproportionately favor Democrats. The Milwaukee Election Commission had also been clear that late-night results were normal.

It is both expected and routine that absentee ballots  over 100,000 in this case  are counted and reported in the late hours of Election Night, the commission said Tuesday in a statement, which also explained that state law doesnt allow the pre-processing of mail ballots, leading to the reporting of large numbers of absentee ballots late at night.

In the video, Hovde also claimed there were voting inconsistencies in Milwaukee because some precincts saw turnout of over 150% of registered voters, or higher.

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But this doesnt necessarily mean that more people voted than were eligible. These seemingly bizarre numbers can be attributed to same-day voter registration, which is allowed in Wisconsin.

The Milwaukee Election Commission said that many newly registered voters exercised their right to support their preferred candidates by registering to vote on Election Day and that it was fully confident that Mr. Hovdes accusations lack any merit.

Baldwin responded to Hovdes video by calling on her rival to accept the election result.

On Election Day, I called on all Republicans and Democrats to accept the results of a free and fair election and process, and thats what I did, Baldwin told CNN on Tuesday afternoon. I recognized my victory and Donald Trumps in the state of Wisconsin, and he needs to do the same.

Role of third-party candidates

Hovde further accused Democrats of trying to deceive voters and siphon votes from me by propping up an independent pro-Trump candidate and a Libertarian candidate.

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While Hovde currently trails Baldwin by just over 27,000 votes, Libertarian nominee Phil Anderson got about 42,000 votes and Thomas Leager from the upstart America First Party received about 28,000 votes. News reports indicate that Democrats sent mailers promoting Anderson and that Leagers campaign has ties to Democratic donors and consultants.

Obviously, the claims about the unfair third-party candidates  thats perfectly legal, and will have no effect on a recount or election contest, said Ben Ginsberg, a veteran GOP election law attorney and CNN contributor. He has every right to bring a recount under Wisconsin law. But its not a margin that historically gets turned around by a recount.

Hovde said in his video that he is still reviewing all options, including requesting a recount, and plans to announce a decision once the result is finalized. Counties must submit their final vote counts to the state by November 19, and the deadline for statewide certification is December 1.

His video was promoted by Musk, who said the result sure does look improbable, Kari Lake, the Republican whom CNN projects to lose this years Senate race in Arizona and falsely claimed there was mass fraud in her losing 2022 race for governor, and conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who was on Trumps infamous call with Georgia officials in which he tried to overturn the 2020 result.

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Under Wisconsin law, Hovde would pay for a recount. The Trump campaign paid for a partial recount of the 2020 election in Wisconsin, which he lost by about 20,000 votes to Biden. There was also a statewide recount in 2016 initiated by the Green Party candidate, when Trump won by nearly 23,000 votes,

Hes raising some initial questions  and there are things he says that look strange. But in most cases, these are just things you dont like because you lost, Ginsberg said. Margins of 30,000 dont get turned around in recounts. But its not crazy to ask for one.

CNNs Ali Main, Casey Tolan, Matt Holt, Manu Raju, Haley Talbot and Ethan Cohen contributed to this report.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
MADISON, Wis. (WLAX/WEUX)  Wisconsin State Senate Democrats held their first caucus today, emphasizing a range of issues from reproductive rights to education to workforce development as top priorities this session. Despite the nationwide red wave, the Wisconsin Senate Democrats are celebrating a 4-seat gain. Senate Minority leader, Dianne Hesselbein explains, I was absolutely devastated with the election of Donald Trump as our president, and especially the fact that he won the state of Wisconsin. But I am here to show you, right behind me, we were at 11 people last time I was at this podium, and now we are at 15.

With 15 Democrats and 18 Republicans in the state Senate, if Democrats flip two more seats in 2026, theyll have the majority.

Meanwhile, Wisconsins Assembly Republicans also held their first caucus this afternoon. Republican Representative Robin Vos will continue to serve as the Speaker of Wisconsins Assembly. Vos says one of their biggest priorities is handling the states projected $3.5 billion budget surplus, At least for Assembly Republicans we are not in a rush to spend that, we are in a rush to return it to the people of Wisconsin. The best way to help the people of Wisconsin is to put the money they overpaid back in their wallets.

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Vos says there was a challenge to his leadership, but he prevailed in being elected again. Vos is the longest serving Speaker in Wisconsin history.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX2548 & WIProud.
Where is Roshanak Molaei? The hashtag is circulating in Iran after the 25-year-old woman disappeared in Tehran after being taken into custody by police, raising concerns about her treatment as the country continues to crack down on women who defy mandatory hijab laws.

The events that led to Roshanak Molaei's arrest did not start as a protest.

A surveillance video shows the woman walking along a Tehran sidewalk on Nov. 1, before a man dressed in a military uniform approaches her from behind on a motorcycle.

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It is not clear from the angle of the footage whether the man verbally or physically accosted her, but according to the nearly 2-minute video that Molaei later posted to her X account, she reacted by grabbing the motorcyclist in a heated exchange that drew several bystanders. The man then drove off.

Molaei captioned the video: A scene from being a woman in Iran.

An image of Roshanak Molaei, verified and released by the Norwegian human rights group Hengaw.

Her account was swiftly taken down.

Hengaw, a Norway-based human rights organization that monitors violations in Kurdistan and Iran, also reposted a version of the video on X.

According to a statement by the organization, Molaei had previously argued on social media with a government official over mandatory hijab laws. The incident captured by the surveillance camera shows Molaei without a hijab.

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Iranian police confirmed in a statement that there was a confrontation between a young woman and a motorcyclist on Nov. 1, adding that initial investigations indicate that the motorcyclist harassed the young woman.

Both parties have been referred to judicial authorities," the police statement said. "The motorcyclist will face investigation for both harassment and traffic violations. The woman is being prosecuted for not observing mandatory hijab laws.

According to Hengaw, on Nov. 2 Molaei was "summoned by FATA," the Iranian cyberpolice, about her post, and was arrested the following day.

"It remains unclear in which prison she is currently being held," a representative from Hengaw told NBC News.

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"Since her detention, there has been limited information regarding her health and conditions of imprisonment. The lack of transparent information about the situation of political prisoners in Iran remains a widespread concern," the Hengaw representative said.

This is not the first time Molaei is arrested for opposing Irans mandatory hijab laws, according to Hengaw. In 2022, she was arrested during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests, a series of peaceful demonstrations triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

Amini had been arrested in part for not wearing a hijab correctly, with the U.N. asserting that she was killed as a result of beatings by Iranian authorities. Iran has denied the charges, saying she died of pre-existing medical conditions.

An image released by the Center for Human Rights in Iran appears to show Roshanak Molaei in a physical confrontation with a man on a motorcycle.

Following her arrest in September 2022, Molaei was sentenced to over six years in prison but released in February 2023 after being granted amnesty, according to Hengaw.

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Molaei's new arrest is yet another incident fueling alarm from international human rights organizations. In a 2024 report on the situation of human rights in Iran the U.N. "raised pressing concerns" about the "deteriorating human rights situation for women and girls" across the country.

"Roshanaks case exemplifies the systematic oppression faced by women when they seek to claim their basic rights and personal freedoms," Hengaw said in a statement.

"Women in Iran who publicly oppose mandatory hijab and other discriminatory laws face immense risks, including imprisonment, intimidation, and mistreatment."

A day before Molaei's arrest, a young woman was detained after stripping to her underwear in an apparent protest at the Olum Tahghighat branch of the Islamic Azad University in Tehran, state media reported. The woman was transferred to a psychiatric hospital, raising concerns for her safety. There is no specific information on the womans condition, but Amnesty International has found evidence that people detained in psychiatric wards have been subject to torture, beatings and other mistreatment.

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The security agents who enforce hijab laws, informally called morality police, have recently started easing public confrontations with women over the headscarves, following the election of reformist president Masoud Pezeshkian who campaigned on opposing these police patrols.

However, locals say the agents continue to be present in the streets but have been instructed to issue warnings rather than take immediate enforcement actions. Bystanders are discouraged or prevented from recording, restricting the how many of these interactions appear on social media.

In addition, the government has set up new centers called anti-unveiling clinics, where women who choose not to wear the hijab may be referred to for a program described as therapy, to encourage compliance of hijab laws.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  Police in D.C. arrested a woman on Wednesday who they say stabbed two people in September.

Shortly before 3 p.m. on Sept. 1, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) responded to the stabbing in the 900 block of Division Avenue NE.

There, they found a woman suffering from stab wounds. She was taken to a hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Man dies, woman injured after stabbing in Northeast, DC police investigating

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Before police arrived, however, a second victim  23-year-old Gray Hall of Northeast D.C.  went to the Sixth District police station for help. He was taken to a hospital where he later died.

Authorities arrested 40-year-old Shameka Jackson of Northeast D.C. She was charged with second-degree murder while armed.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC.
The above footage is of previous coverage of Lance Rosss death.

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (WTAJ)  Charges have been filed against a Pennsylvania woman who is accused of killing Lance Ross, the former owner of The Freight Station bar in Johnstown.

Tami Shafer, 53, of Latrobe, is facing homicide charges for allegedly killing Ross, 65, in February of 2023. According to police, on Monday, Feb. 20 they responded to a call shortly before 11 a.m. that Ross had fallen along 20 Matthews Street and needed medical treatment.

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Ross was taken to Conemaugh Hospital in Johnstown where he later died from his injuries. An autopsy showed that Ross could not have died from falling and that his injuries were consistent with those of an assault, according to Cambria County Coroner Jeff Lees.

Lees would not announce how many injuries Ross suffered, but called it a violent assault.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Violent assault homicide investigation underway in Johnstown

Shafer is in the Cambria County Prison with bail denied, according to court documents. Shes facing felony charges of criminal homicide, aggravated assault and misdemeanor charges of recklessly endangering another person and tampering with evidence.

Photo of Lance Ross via Brittany Wolfhope Photo of Lance Ross via Brittany Wolfhope Photo of Lance Ross via Brittany Wolfhope Photo of Lance Ross via Brittany Wolfhope

The Freight Station said in a Facebook post that this was the best news and the Cambria County District Attorney Greg Neugebauer added that he hopes to bring closure to the family.

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Law Enforcement is pleased to be at the point where charges were able to be filed in the homicide of Lance Ross. His family has been in constant contact with us, and we look forward to giving them some form of closure. This case is another reminder that law enforcement works tirelessly to solve crimes and bring those responsible to justice. While the filing of charges today is the beginning of the formal process, JPD and supporting agencies have put in a lot of hours and used their tremendous expertise to investigate this matter. Cambria County DA Greg Neugebauer said in a statement to WTAJ

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The investigation into the case is still ongoing and anyone with information is asked to contact the Johnstown Police Department.

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A woman is in critical condition at the University of Vermont Medical Center after being pulled from a burning home in Middlebury.

Police, firefighters and EMTs were dispatched to 46 Washington Street just after 1 a.m. Thursday. They found the house engulfed in flames and a group of people standing outside.

Occupants told police that as they were evacuating the burning building, they saw an injured woman on the floor. They told police they were able to drag the woman to safety.

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No other injuries were reported.

Authorities are working to determine the cause and origin of the fire.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC22 & FOX44.
This is a developing story. ABC4 will update this post as new information becomes available.

SOUTH SALT LAKE, Utah (ABC4)  Early Wednesday, a woman in her 40s was killed while riding a motorcycle in South Salt Lake.

According to South Salt Lake Police, the crash happened at the Main St. and Truman Ave. intersection on Nov. 13 around noon. The woman was taken to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries, and she later died at the hospital due to the injuries she sustained.

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SSLPD said the woman was in her early 40s. The intersection where the crash occurred is expected to be closed until about 3:30 this afternoon.

There is no further information available at this time.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah.
KIPS BAY, Manhattan (PIX11)  A woman was raped in a car during an encounter with a stranger in Manhattan last month, police said.

The woman, 30, and the suspect met up near East 29th Street and Second Avenue in Kips Bay just before 4 a.m. on Oct. 27, according to the NYPD. Authorities said the suspect then raped the woman in his car before driving off in a white Chevy Malibu with tinted windows. It was unclear how the woman escaped from the vehicle.

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Investigators believe the victim and the man may have met at a bar and left together before the incident, according to police. Investigators suspect the woman may have been drugged.

The woman was taken to the hospital for treatment.

The area is patrolled by the 13th Precinct, where rapes are up 72% this year compared to 2023, according to NYPD data.

Submit tips to police by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), visiting crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, downloading the NYPD Crime Stoppers mobile app, or texting 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. Spanish-speaking callers are asked to dial 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).

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Mira Wassef is a digital reporter who has covered news and sports in the NYC area for more than a decade. She has been with PIX11 News for two years. See more of her work here.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11.
HARLEM, Manhattan (PIX11)  A woman was shoved onto the subway tracks at a station in Harlem, according to the NYPD.

The incident happened around 10:50 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 5, at the W 125 St and St Nicholas Avenue station, police say.

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An unknown man approached the 37-year-old victim as she was waiting inside the station, police say. The man grabbed the victims hair, slashed her in the face multiple times with a sharp object, and pushed her onto the tracks before fleeing.

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The victim was taken to Mount Sinai Morningside in stable condition.

Police are searching for Michael Blount, 29, in connection to the incident. Blount is described as 59 and around 185 pounds.

The NYPD released the following photo of Blount.

Michael Blount is wanted in connection to a subway station attack (Credit: NYPD)

Submit tips to police by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), visiting crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, downloading the NYPD Crime Stoppers mobile app, or texting 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. Spanish-speaking callers are asked to dial 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).

Ben Mitchell is a digital content producer from Vermont who has covered both local and international news since 2021. He joined PIX11 in 2024. See more of his work here.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA)  A woman was taken to a hospital Wednesday after being injured in a boat engine explosion in Pinellas County.

The explosion happened Wednesday morning at a boat repair shop near the Bay Pines Marina.

Tampa doctor accused of hitting, killing man in wheelchair, then driving off

Firefighters with St. Petersburg Fire Rescue and Seminole Fire Rescue responded to the scene, where they found the injured woman.

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She was then taken to Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital. As of Wednesday afternoon, there was no word on her condition.

No other injuries were reported, and no further information was immediately available.

This is a developing story. Stay up to date on the latest from News Channel 8 on-air and on the go with the free WFLA News Channel 8 mobile app.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.
The woman who was at the center of a yearslong Justice Department investigation into sex trafficking allegations surrounding Rep. Matt Gaetz testified to the House Ethics Committee that the now-former Florida congressman had sex with her when she was 17 years old, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.

President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that Gaetz had been tapped to serve as attorney general, overseeing the very branch of government that previously conducted its own investigation of him, which ended last year without charges being brought.

Gaetz resigned from office following Trump's announcement. This came as the House Ethics Committee was in the final stages of its investigation, said sources, who added that the committee was preparing to meet this week to deliberate over whether to release a final report on the matter.

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MORE: Growing calls for House Ethics Committee to share report on Matt Gaetz

Over the summer, the House Ethics Committee subpoenaed the woman at the center of the probe -- who is now in her 20s -- and she sat for multiple days of testimony where she testified to the committee that Gaetz had sex with her when she was a minor in high school, sources close to the investigation said.

"These allegations are invented and would constitute false testimony to Congress," Gaetz said in response to ABC News' reporting. "This false smear following a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism."

The Justice Department spent years probing the allegations against Gaetz, including allegations of obstruction of justice, before informing Gaetz last year that it would not bring charges.

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Gaetz has long denied any wrongdoing related to the Justice Department probe. In September, he released a detailed response to questions sent to him by the House Ethics Committee, which has been investigating allegations of alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, reiterating his denial of the allegations.

PHOTO: Rep. Matt Gaetz speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md., Feb. 23, 2024. (Alex Brandon/AP)

"Your correspondence of September 4 asks whether I have engaged in sexual activity with any individual under 18. The answer to this question is unequivocally NO. You can apply this response to every version of this question, in every forum," Gaetz said in a statement posted to his social media account.

"The Committees star witness, Joel Greenberg, is a felonious liar who involves others in his lies ... Greenberg was initially indicted for attempting to falsely smear a teacher at a local high school as a pedophile," Gaetz added regarding former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, who pleaded guilty to falsely accusing a teacher, who was running for office against him, of a sex crime.

The woman's allegation regarding Gaetz became part of the investigation following claims by Greenberg, a former friend of Gaetz who is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence after reaching a deal with investigators in May 2021 in which he pleaded guilty to multiple federal crimes, including sex trafficking of the woman when she was a minor and introducing her to other "adult men" who also had sex with her when she was underage.

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According to Greenberg's plea deal, the woman, who ABC News is not identifying, met Greenberg online in 2017 and began meeting him in hotels and houses in the Middle District of Florida, where he "introduced the Minor to other adult men, who engaged in commercial sex acts with the Minor in the Middle District of Florida," court documents said.

At the time, the minor "represented that she was an adult" on the website where she met Greenberg -- and according to his plea agreement, he acknowledges that he "acted in reckless disregard of the fact that the Minor was less than 18 years old when he engaged in commercial sex acts" and had a "reasonable opportunity to observe" that she was underage.

Over the course of its investigation, the House Ethics Committee conducted interviews with at least half a dozen women who allegedly attended parties where the Florida congressman was also present, and who were paid by Greenberg, Gaetz's one-time close friend, sources told ABC News. Some of the witnesses had been subpoenaed by the committee, while others agreed to cooperate, according to the sources.

MORE: Trump's Gaetz pick as AG triggers audible gasp among some Republicans

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The House Ethics Committee also subpoenaed Gaetz's former girlfriend for testimony, and said she sat for an interview earlier in the year, sources said. The former girlfriend previously testified to a grand jury in the sex trafficking probe, as ABC News previously reported.

The committee has also obtained a sworn written statement by Gaetzs ex-girlfriend where she lists the Florida congressman as one of the attendees at a party in July 2017 where drugs were present and which was attended by the woman who Gaetz allegedly had sex with when she was a minor, sources said.

ABC News previously reported that the committee obtained written testimony from a separate woman who said that in July 2017, when she was 20 years old, she attended a party in Florida that Gaetz also attended, and which was attended by the woman who was a minor at the time and where drugs including cocaine were present.

Greenberg, a key witness in the Justice Department probe, has been cooperating with the House Ethics investigation, according to sources. Earlier this year, while serving time in a Florida federal prison, he provided written testimony to the committee, the sources said.

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Some witnesses were shown Venmo payments they allegedly received from Gaetz, sources said.

MORE: House Ethics Committee subpoenas documents from lawsuit brought by Gaetz's friend: Sources

As ABC News previously reported, one woman who said she attended a party with the Gaetz in 2017, who ABC News is not identifying, told the committee that a payment from Gaetz was for sex, multiple sources told ABC News. Others have said they were paid to attend parties they said Gaetz also attended, and that those parties included drugs and sex, the sources said.

Gaetz has long denied all of the allegations, including paying for sex, and previously dismissed them by claiming "someone is trying to recategorize my generosity to ex-girlfriends as something more untoward."

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Earlier in the year the committee subpoenaed the Justice Department for records related to its probe into the Florida congressman, sources said. It is unclear if those records were turned over.

However, the committee had obtained some Venmo records from Gaetz after issuing the company a subpoena, sources told ABC News. During the Justice Department's investigation into Gaetz, public reporting, including by The Daily Beast, largely focused on Venmo records from Greenberg, who, according to his plea agreement, used his account to "pay for commercial sex acts" with women he also introduced to others.

Woman testified to House Ethics Committee that Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17: Sources originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
A woman told lawmakers that Matt Gaetz, Donald Trumpspick for Attorney General, had sex with her when she was 17 years-old, according to a new report.

The woman, now in her 20s, is said to have testified over multiple days before the House Ethics Committee after they subpoenaed her this summer, according to ABC News, citing unnamed sources familiar with the investigation.

Her reported testimony came amid a House Ethics investigation into allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. However, that investigation ended on Wednesday when Gaetz resigned from his seat in the House of Representatives as news of his nomination to Trumps cabinet went live.

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John Clune, an attorney representing the woman, condemned Gaetzs nomination to Trumps cabinet and called for the committee to release their report on the investigation.

Mr. Gaetzs likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events, Clune wrote on X. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.

Matt Gaetz has strongly denied the claims against him (AFP via Getty Images)

Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing and branded the allegations invented in a statement to The Independent.

These allegations are invented and would constitute false testimony to Congress, Gaetz said. This false smear following a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism.

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In September, he also told the Ethics Committee that the answer to whether he engaged in sexual activity with a minor is unequivocally NO.

You can apply this response to every version of this question, in every forum, Gaetz said in a statement.

The committee also subpoenaed and interviewed Gaetzs ex-girlfriend, ABC News reports.

Gaetzs resignation this week came two days before the House Ethics committee was set to release a highly damaging report regarding their investigation, according to Punchbowl News and other national outlets.

Texas Senator John Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called for the committee to still release the report despite his resignation.

Gaetz, a long-time Trump ally, resigned from the House of Representatives on Wednesday (REUTERS)

I cant understand any situation under which we would deny ourselves access to full and complete information, Cornyn said, according to Punchbowl News. Part of this is not only to determine fitness for the nominee, its also to protect the president.

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Because there may be information that the investigation would find forthcoming that would ultimately be an embarrassment to the president, he added. So this is for all of the above reasons, we need to get access to everything.

Gaetz and his associates were also at the center of a sex trafficking investigation carried out by current Attorney General Merrick Garland last year. The former Florida lawmaker was ultimately never charged with a crime and has denied all wrongdoing.

Tom Rust, Chief Counsel and Staff Director for the House Ethics Committee, declined to comment when contacted by The Independent.

Allegations that Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old have even been repeated by his former fellow lawmakers.

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Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy made such a claim earlier this year when he was ousted from his position.

Ill give you the truth as to why Im not Speaker, McCarthy said in April. Because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old, an ethics complaint that started before I ever became Speaker...Did he do it or not? I dont know.

Gaetz played a key role in outsing McCarthy last year, which paved the way for current speaker Mike Johnson to take power. The MAGA loyalist has previously said he ousted McCarthy because of concerns he violated the fundamental commitments he made to become Speaker, not because of the ethics probe.
WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  Over the weekend in D.C., a woman in a wheelchair was hit and killed by a car that police say drove away.

Man shot after fight breaks out on Metrobus in Capitol Heights

The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said that around 5:45 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 10, the woman was crossing the intersection of 8th Street and Florida Avenue NW. Police said she was not in a designated crosswalk.

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Meanwhile, a black sedan was driving east along Florida Avenue NW. The car hit the woman before driving away.

Responders took the woman, 40-year-old Brianna Anderson, to the hospital, where she died.

Anyone with any information should call 202-727-9099 or text 50411.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC.
When will a woman be president? Its a question thats become Americas Waiting for Godotan endless, frustrating vigil for a milestone that, like Samuel Becketts titular character, seems perpetually out of reach. When Kamala Harris joined Hillary Clinton in the pantheon of almost-firsts, the inquiry resurfaced with a vengeance, echoing through newsrooms like a Greek chorus of missed opportunities.



As one of the few public-facing female presidential historians, Ive long been the reluctant Pythia of this political oracle, forever doomed to answer a question that shouldnt need asking. When asked, I tend to trot out the usual suspectsanecdotes about Shirley Chisholm, Geraldine Ferraro, Gerald Fordalong with the most recent gender analysis. But it wasnt until last week, while sharing a split screen with yet another male president and male president-elect, that a realization hit me. When we allow the moment a woman will shatter the highest, hardest glass ceiling to be treated like a plot twist in a political thriller, we ask the wrong question. The real question: Who guards its threshold?

In 1989, Ford predicted that the first female U.S. president would likely ascend to the role after serving as vice president, following the death of a sitting president. His theory seemed somewhat prophetic with Harris, but its more than just another story. Globally, its uncommon for women to be elected president without powerful family connections or male predecessor support, as seen with Laura Chinchilla, president of Costa Rica, or Dilma Rousseff, president of Brazil. Men seemingly need to be active participants in the processlong past simply staffing women.

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The rooms presidents move in are dominated by, and sometimes exclusive to, white men. Most presidents appoint 26 members to the cabinetwhich is their principal advising bodyand for more than half of American history, they have appointed only men. Since the 1920s, only 12 presidents (five Democrats, seven Republicans) out of 18 have appointed women to cabinet or cabinet-level positions.

Certain positions remain elusive for women, notably secretary of defense and Veterans Affairs. These realms, like the presidency itself, are often stereotyped as masculine domains in a nuclear-armed military powerhouse.

This underscores how recent and still limited womens inclusion at the highest levels of government has been. Joe Bidens historic appointment of five women to his cabinet was a step forward on a road still measured in inches. In Barack Obamas administration, one of the most diverse in history, women were met with challenges beyond representation; strategizing just to be heard, they often adopted amplification tactics in meetings, such as repeating key points made by female colleagues and crediting them by name.

Presidential history, with its reverence for white-male leadership, reinforces our collective memory, which reads less like a chronicle and more like a carefully curated exhibit. With the exception of Obama, as I wrote in my 2020 biography of George Washington, its a narrative populated by white men, written by white men, for white men. Women, mostly white, are relegated to the margins. I occupy that liminal space: I myself am often the lone youngish white woman on panels, in meetings, on the shelf.

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The path to the Oval Office, it should now be clear, is paved with more than just votes. For women, its less like a race and more like a labyrinth, a narrow path that perpetuates existing power structures by exerting control over who enters the room, who gets heard, and who shapes the narrative of presidential power and history. In this political Wonderland, female candidates are expected to be simultaneously revolutionary and traditional, to break barriers without ruffling feathers. They must navigate a landscape where their qualifications are scrutinized under an electron microscope while their male counterparts seem to waltz through on charisma and well-tailored suits. So does she? Elect the one with a tie!

When will a woman be president? Perhaps when we stop treating the idea as a novelty and start seeing it as an inevitability. Or maybe when we finally see the highest office in the land is a male dynasty masquerading as a meritocracy. And in a nation that prides itself on disrupting monarchies, this royal charade is long overdue for a revolution.

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Gwinnett County police say a mother and her teenage daughter were arrested after the mother repeatedly assaulted a Department of Family and Childrens Services worker during a court-mandated visitation.

The incident happened Saturday at a trampoline park at Sugar Loaf Mills Mall in Duluth. Police say the mother, Starlita Moore went there to see her two children, ages 5 and 8, who were in DFACS custody because of Moores previous multiple encounters with law enforcement.

During the court-mandated visitation, there was an argument between the DFCS employee and Ms. Moore, which resulted in Ms. Moore striking the DFCS employee, then grabbing the two children and try to escort the children out, as another female there tried to stop her from taking the kids, Gwinnett County Police Sgt. Colin Flynn told Channel 2s Tom Regan.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Flynn said Moores 19-year-old daughter, Teisha Schulters, participated in the kidnapping plot.

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The DFCS employee followed them out to the parking lot. She again tried to stop her from taking the two children, and thats when they attacked the DFCS employee again in the parking lot and thats where she received multiple injuries to her face, said Sgt. Flynn.

Police say Moore and her older daughter loaded the children into a car and took off. They were stopped after driving out of Georgia.

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The Alabama State Patrol was able to pull the vehicle over and get the children back unharmed.

Both Moore and her 19-year-old daughter are charged with kidnapping. Moore faces additional charges of battery and cruelty to children.

They remain in the Gwinnett County Jail awaiting a bond hearing.

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In case you need a reminder: Donald Trump  who was found liable for sexual abuse  has repeatedly taken credit for the overturn of Roe v. Wade and insists that reproductive rights should be decided by the states. In 2016, he even said that "there has to be some form of punishment" for women who would get abortions if they were prohibited.

And JD Vance isn't any better  he previously supported national abortion restrictions but flip-flopped on his position (as he often does) to better align with Trump's during the campaign. Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images

We've already seen pregnant women die because doctors cannot provide lifesaving care in fear of breaking the law. Earlier this month, the tragic story of a teenager in Texas made national news because she died due to the impact of the abortion ban in Texas (where I live and where doctors face $100,000 fines and life in prison if they provide abortions).

Many women across the country have declared they would not have children in response to Trump winning the election. So, we asked these women in the BuzzFeed Community to share their reasons. Here's what they said:

Jacob Wackerhausen / Getty Images

1."Ive always wanted to be a mom. Im with a man I love and deeply want to start a family with. But I live in Texas, where access to abortion services is among the most restrictive. Our state recently made news for letting a pregnant teen die rather than providing her with lifesaving care that could end her pregnancy for fear of legal repercussions. Those physicians' lives matter enough to defend their self-preservation. But that teenager's life didnt matter enough. We child bearers arent considered humans worthy of the right to life anymore."

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"The simple answer is that I dont want to die. Childbearing has become a life-or-death decision where I live. I am also high-risk, being of 'advanced maternal age' and having both an autoimmune disease and a connective tissue disease. I am absolutely devastated by the choice, but Im considering a hysterectomy rather than risk being forced to endure an agonizing death."

Anonymous

2."Nobody realizes this, and I learned from firsthand experience: Many situations that do not result in a live birth are medically diagnosed and billed to your insurance as an abortion. After two long years of trying, my husband and I finally had a pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage at 14 weeks when there was no longer a heartbeat. My grief was compounded a month later by my insurance statement when I was billed for a 'spontaneous abortion.' Now, we are absolutely terrified to try again to have a child, only for it to end the same way."

"It is within the realm of possibility that we could become pregnant again  and god forbid a national abortion ban could go into effect during the pregnancy  but this time around, I wouldnt be able to get the same lifesaving healthcare that I need because of how it is medically billed. Im not sure I am willing to take the risk with my life."

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bougiesealion302

3."Im a mom to twins (a boy and a girl). While I want to have another baby, I dont think its going to happen as long as Donald Trump is president. I lost my sister due to pregnancy complications when our state didn't let her have an abortion. Both she and the baby ended up dying, and all my sister wanted to do was be a mother and raise the baby with her husband. Im scared of that happening to me, as I dont want to leave my children motherless, my own parents childless (Im their last living child since my sister died), and my husband a widow. Under Donald Trump, my rights as a human being will be at risk."

"I am a woman. My daughter is a strong girl who will grow into a strong woman. I dont care what your beliefs are  an innocent woman died. So did her baby. If she had been allowed an abortion, shed still be here today. She also wouldve tried for another baby (I know that for a fact). I personally cant risk bringing another baby girl into this world, knowing that she wont have the same rights and freedoms that she deserves. Thank you, judges and politicians who overturned Roe v. Wade, for (indirectly) killing my sister."

Anonymous

Globalmoments / Getty Images

4."Before the convicted felon won the second time, I was leaning toward never having children. After he won, I am 100% never having children. I will never bring a child into this world. I believe it would be a selfish thing for me to do at this point. Schools arent safe, the Department of Education will most likely be abolished, the climate crisis is about to get even worse, guns have more rights than women, and LGBTQ+ people are not safe. Im planning on getting a big dog for protection, and thats about all the children Ill have."

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Anonymous

5."I already have two children, but Donald Trump being elected to a second term has solidified for me that I will not be having any more. I work in healthcare, so I know a lot more than the average person about everything that can go wrong during a pregnancy and how risky it really is. I dont ever want to be in the position where I need to have an abortion/terminate the pregnancy for medical reasons, or need assistance to remove products of conception after a pregnancy loss, and not be able to."

"In addition to the undue mental, emotional, and physical anguish that would cause, I could lose my life and leave my children without a mother and my spouse without a partner. Im not willing to risk that."

ashlin

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6."1) With the upcoming tariffs, I wont be able to afford it. 2) As a Black woman, we already have a higher maternal mortality rate as it is (no matter who is in office), so with the newly overturned Roe v. Wade, I will be even more at risk. 3) Why would I want to bring a child into this mess of a world?"

Anonymous

Delmaine Donson / Getty Images

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7."My partner and I have been trying for about five months to get pregnant. We'd talked about if it didnt happen naturally, we'd have considered IVF or been happy to foster and adopt children. We currently live in a state that is consistently blue. Now that the convicted felon has been elected, my partner and I are not going to explore ways to help us get pregnant. I am at the older end of being able to get pregnant, and four years from now would be above the recommended age for pregnancy. The likelihood Id have a miscarriage, stillbirth, or require a D&C is higher. It would be a terrifying prospect to be pregnant and have Trump put a federal abortion ban in place."

"Am I willing to die to be pregnant and give birth to my future child? Do I want it that bad? These were questions I had already considered but now are even more dire and more likely. And I can say my answers to those questions have changed due to recent events.

Honestly, more than anything, it makes me really sad. I had never been the type of woman who dreamed of being a mother. But when I met my partner, he was exactly the man I knew I could go through that experience with. That through pregnancy, childbirth, and raising a child, he would be by my side, helping and supporting me, and a fantastic father. When we foster and adopt, well be able to experience raising children together. But I have accepted that I probably wont ever have a biological child."

AC42d4788ee5

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8."I told my partner the night after the election that I refused to have children under a Trump administration. I won't even begin to consider it again until whatever damage he ultimately does starts to be undone in the following administration. I will not bring a child into a world where it is literally considered a crime for them to be themself and have full autonomy of their body. It hurts because I do really want kids, and I want a family with my partner, but I am not going to risk my life for it."

Anonymous

9."I got married this year, and I am in my older reproductive years. I was very intentional about waiting as I am now very financially secure and truthfully did not want to have a child outside of marriage. I have several health issues that would make me a high-risk pregnancy, and I have been working with a doctor to help me manage my health to make it feasible. Nonetheless, I am not 100% sure if I could sustain a pregnancy. After the election, my husband and I tearfully agreed that we could not lose each other (as a life-sustaining abortion for myself may not be available)."

"Our closest birthing hospitals are in a red state. Even if we got pregnant today, we don't know what the laws will be like nine months from now. I am heartbroken."

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Anonymous

Maria Korneeva / Getty Images

10."I miscarried a few weeks ago. I didn't even know I was pregnant. Apparently, I was about six weeks along. I thought my wonky period was because I had been working out so much; it wasn't. The only reason I didn't go into sepsis was because I live in a state where I have access to reproductive care (Hawaii). If I had been in one of Trump's abortion ban states, not only would I be denied care, but a possibility of going to jail because my body failed me. Failed us. Can you imagine that? So no, my husband and I will not be having children. He's already scheduled his vasectomy."

Anonymous

11."Im going in for an IUD consultation tomorrow. There are so many reasons I could name. I am about to move in with my boyfriend, and we are sexually active, but we both agree that theres no way we feel comfortable (financially or mentally) having a child any time soon. Because we live in a red state, we know I wont have access to an abortion or medical intervention (in the event that the pregnancy isnt viable). Everything is preventative right now, but ultimately, the biggest reason is that I feel guilty at the very thought of bringing a child into this world that is so hateful, divisive, dangerous, and bigoted."

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"They dont deserve that  the same way my generation shouldnt bear the burden of fixing everything. I refuse to bring a child into the world during a Trump presidency or while the future looks so scary. I cant do that."

Anonymous

12."My husband and I were planning to start opening up the possibility of pregnancy in 2025. However, now that Trump won, I'm second-guessing whether we should do that. The women in my family have a history of miscarriages, and I learned that miscarriages are coded as abortions for insurance purposes. I'm so scared that I might have a miscarriage and get prosecuted for it. I want a baby, but these new developments have me concerned about what might happen if we try."

Anonymous

Fizkes / Getty Images

13."My husband and I have a son who we love and adore. We have been considering a second kid; however, I had a tough pregnancy and childbirth, so we've been on the fence. We made an agreement that if Trump was elected again, though, we'd be one and done. We always wanted a girl, but bringing a girl into this country led by a misogynist and sexual assaulter seems so cruel. And even if we had a boy, I can't imagine bringing another sweet, innocent child into a world where over half of the country would rather have the convicted felon in charge rather than a Democrat or a woman."

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"Our son will be 7 when this hell term is over, and I don't know how we're going to explain the prejudiced and violent language used by the president of the United States. I fear for our son and his future, where bigots and misogynists are emboldened to shout violent obscenities and dehumanize entire groups of people. It's disgusting, and we don't even know yet what fresh horrors the next four years will bring. We may not even live in a democracy by the time it's over, and women's rights might go back to the dark ages. It's terrifying, and I don't want to subject another child to that future."

Anonymous

14."I live in Idaho. I had preeclampsia with my first child, and there were some minor complications, but I had a great team of doctors who were able to help me have a supportive birth. I fear if something were to go wrong in my next pregnancy, knowing that many OB-GYNs have left the state, I wouldn't be given the proper care needed to save my life. I can't risk it."

Anonymous

15."I had my tubes tied 10 years ago because we thought we were done having kids (we have three). But life changed, and now we are much more stable than 10 years ago. We had everything planned and tested to get my tubal reversal to have another child. That wont happen now with Trump and his assault on womens rights because my risk of an ectopic pregnancy is much higher, and I cant let something like that take me away from the kids I already have. They always say that abortions are legal 'if the mothers life is in danger,' but thats not how its playing out. Doctors are afraid to do these abortions even when its clear-cut, and I dont blame them."

Anonymous

Serrnovik / Getty Images

16."My boyfriend and I were already on the fence. But I dont feel confident about getting pregnant in this country in the next few years in case the laws change, and the system will just let me die if I have a complication. By the time the term is up, I will be a little too old for having a kid. Also, I just dont really think I want the stress of sending my precious child Id adore to school where they could be shot at any moment."

coolporcupine39

17."Simply put, it is too risky for my personal and medical safety and that of a child. Not only for myself due to complications and access to care but also for any potential child I bring into the world. Rolling back Affordable Care Act policies is horrific and immoral. Insurance companies routinely deny care now. Just imagine what it would be like without those policies and with government oversight reduced. Add on the possibility of women-initiated divorces being dissolved and the general statistics for domestic violence and partner/spousal homicides (especially pregnant women)..."

"Honestly I am not even sure they could pay me to have a child or to get married at this point. Maybe in four years, but I will be that much older, and it will be that much harder pregnancy-wise."

Anonymous

18."I already have one son, and my husband and I have been debating if/when to have another child. For me, I always knew the outcome of this election would be a big factor in that decision. My first pregnancy went smoothly, but you never know what can happen. I will not jeopardize my son not having his mother just because Im not deemed to be close enough to dying to get medical intervention if something goes wrong. Thats just not an option for me; I will not risk not being here for him."

"My husband said we cant let the government dictate what we do with our lives when it comes to kids. Its different for him because as a straight, white man  hes never had this feeling of freedom being taken away. Welcome to the club, babe; it sucks. After we talked and came to an agreement, I set up my appointment for an IUD later this week. "

Anonymous

Nortonrsx / Getty Images/iStockphoto

19."I do worry about my daughters future, but I believe I can raise her to be an empowered agent of change in whatever kind of country well have after the next four years. The reason I am rethinking having a second child is the rapidly declining state of reproductive healthcare. I know that these cases of women dying unnecessarily because they couldnt receive a lifesaving abortion are rare, but its not just my life on the line anymore. I have to weigh my desire to have more children against the heightened possibility that Ill leave my daughter without a mother."

Anonymous

20.And finally, "I am 32 years old, and Trump winning this election solidified my choice not to have children. I watched my sister not only have a difficult time becoming pregnant but also suffer multiple miscarriages, an ectopic pregnancy, and two complicated births. Thankfully, I have two healthy and beautiful nephews that I love with all my heart, but this election has brought to the forefront the reality that us women live in today: If she had lived in a state that had banned abortion or had stricter limitations, she may not be alive. My mother also had complications during my birth. Im terrified that I would potentially face similar issues if I were to get pregnant, but I refuse to take that risk in a country that has proven they do not care about women."

"In a country that is complicit in the many deaths of women in states like Texas, where lack of proper care directly resulted in the death of a mother whose fetus was no longer viable. In a country where spewing hate such as 'your body, my choice' has become the norm on social media. I fear for the future of our children and what the world will look like for them if Trump stands by his promises of reducing climate regulations and dismantling the Department of Education.

Most of all, I refuse to bring a child into a place that I have lost all faith in, where human decency is hard to find, where power and greed run rampant, and where basic human rights are so blatantly trampled on."

Anonymous

Franckreporter / Getty Images

Now that we've heard from women, I'm also interested in what our male readers have to say. Men, what are your fears and worries for Trump's upcoming presidency? Let me know in the comments below or in this anonymous Google form.

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN)  Your Thanksgiving meal budget might not be budging very much this year.

A new report from Wells Fargo found that, depending on what you buy, you could be paying a little more for your Thanksgiving meal. Some shoppers in the Miami Valley say theyre remaining budget-conscious this year.

Im still waiting on it to go down. I spend a lot of money on groceries, said Cindy Tainatonogo, a Washington Township resident.

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How to combat the 33% increase in food waste during the holidays

Shoppers say theyre still feeling the impact of high food prices at the grocery store.

Everythings getting higher and higher it seems like. So its just like dont buy as much, but I get less, said Mary Ann Barcinas, a Dayton resident.

In the final weeks before Thanksgiving, shoppers are already planning ahead.

Im getting ready as we speak. So Ill probably be back out here tomorrow. Ill try to get some things, said Dekisha Heard, a Dayton resident.

The Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute found that name-brand Thanksgiving dinner staples will cost about the same as last year  about $90 to feed 10 people.

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A store-brand meal is up nearly 3 percent, feeding 10 people for about $73. Buying all store-brands can save you around $17.

What Ive been doing this year is Ive been buying things a little bit earlier, so I buy a little bit at a time every time I go to the store. So Im not buying it all at once, said Barcinas.

According to the report, the biggest savings buying store-brands are on the stuffing and the dinner rolls. Meanwhile, you might save on buying name-brand cranberries. Areas where there was little price difference include the turkey and the pumpkin pie.

Target says its $20 Thanksgiving bundle can feed 4 people: Whats in it?

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Shoppers say they have some other ways to save on their Thanksgiving meal.

We just got to pay attention to the sales. The best time to really come out here if youre not at work in the morning time when they open up and theyre all stocked up, and then just always look on apps because they always have deals on apps, said Heard.

According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, last year, the average cost to serve a family of 10 on Thanksgiving was $61.17. The bureau has not yet released its estimates for this year.

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At 111 feet wide, 104 feet long, 18 feet high, and 600 feet around this stunning organism in the southwest Pacific Ocean is the worlds largest known coral that was discovered by accident. It is a conglomerate of individual creatures called coral polyps that have grown over 300 years. Instead of a coral reef like the Great Barrier Reef in Australia that is a network of several colonies, this is a standalone coral that has grown uninterrupted for hundreds of years.



Cinematographer Manu San Felix dives over a massive coral. CREDIT: Photograph by Manu San Felix, National Geographic Pristine Seas.

Inigo San Felix

The mega coral is mostly brown, but has some splashes of bright reds, yellows, and blues. The rippling waves mirror the oceans surface. It is a Pavona clavus and provides crustaceans and fish with shelter and a place to breed and live

Divers from National Geographic Pristine Seas measure the worlds largest coral colony in the Solomon Islands. CREDIT: Photograph by Manu San Felix, National Geographic Pristine Seas.

Manu_San_Felix

The coral was discovered in the Three Sisters island group in Solomon Islands by team members from the National Geographic Pristine Seas team. Solomon Islands hosts the second highest coral diversity on Earth, with over 490 known hard and soft coral species.



A group of scientists working aboard a research vessel in the southwest Pacific Ocean has discovered the worlds largest coral in the Solomon Islands, thirty four meters wide and thirty two meters long, the gigantic organism is a complex network of coral polyps tiny individual creatures that have grown over a span of three centuries. CREDIT: Photograph by Manu San Felix, National Geographic Pristine Seas.



Inigo San Felix

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Just when we think there is nothing left to discover on planet earth, we find a massive coral made of nearly one billion little polyps, pulsing with life and color, National Geographic Explorer in Residence and founder of Pristine Seas Enric Sala said in a statement. This is a significant scientific discovery, like finding the worlds tallest tree. But there is cause for alarm. Despite its remote location, this coral is not safe from global warming and other human threats.



Corals provide reefs with a shelter, habitats, and place to breed. CREDIT: Photograph by Manu San Felix, National Geographic Pristine Seas.



Manu San Felix

It is so colossal that it is longer than the largest animal on Earththe blue whaleand can be seen from space. However, team members initially thought that it might be a shipwreck due to its large size. When underwater cinematographer Manu San Felix dove down for a closer look, he realized it was a particularly big Pavona clavus. Despite the gargantuan size, the coral has never been documented.



An aerial view of the worlds largest coral colony in the Solomon Islands. CREDIT: Photograph by Steve Spence, National Geographic Pristine Seas.







Steve Spence

The ocean provides for our livelihoods and has contributed so much to our national economy and communities, said Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele. Our survival depends on healthy coral reefs, so this exciting discovery underlines the importance of protecting and sustaining them for future generations.


China has achieved a milestone in renewable energy with the connection of its first 1-gigawatt offshore photovoltaic (PV) project to the power grid.

This development signals a significant advancement in solar technology and sets a precedent for the global expansion of offshore solar power.

Situated in the open sea region off the coast of Dongying, Shandong Province, this project is claimed to be the largest of its kind in the world.

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The project, being the first and largest of its kind in the world, was developed by CHN Energys Guohua Energy Investment Co., Ltd. and will serve as a model for the development of large-scale offshore PV projects in the industry, said the state-owned company in a press release.

The project covers an area of approximately 1,223 hectares with a total installed capacity of 1 gigawatt.

Use of large-scale steel truss platform piling technology

This undertaking is notable for its incorporation of advanced technologies. It is the first in the world to employ large-scale steel truss platform piling technology for offshore installations.

This globally pioneering initiative features 2,934 PV platforms installed using large-scale offshore steel truss platform fixed pile foundations, added the press release.

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Each platform measures 60 meters in length and 35 meters in width.

In another first for China's PV industry, the project utilizes 66-kilovolt offshore and onshore long-distance transmission lines.

This approach facilitates greater transmission capacity while reducing costs, contributing to the project's overall efficiency.

Energy generation with an integrated approach

Once fully operational, the project is expected to generate 1.78 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.

This output is sufficient to meet the power needs of an estimated 2.67 million urban residents in China.

Moreover, the project tries to support China's commitment to reducing its reliance on fossil fuels and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

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This is equivalent to saving an estimated 503,800 tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 1.3447 million tons, remarked the company.

Interestingly, CHN Energy aims to make the project comprehensive and inclusive.

The project utilizes an integrated fishing and PV development model, combining fish farming with PV power generation to enhance the comprehensive utilization of the marine area, concluded the company.

China seeks clean energy

This project reflects China's strategic emphasis on the development of offshore PV systems as a key element of its clean energy strategy.

A few months ago, the country had inaugurated the worlds largest single-capacity offshore wind turbine. The turbine can generate 80 million kWh annually at an average wind speed of 8.5 m/s.

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Meanwhile, industry analysts predict substantial growth in China's offshore PV sector. China Forward Industry Research Institute Co estimates that the country's offshore PV installed capacity will exceed 60 gigawatts by 2027, highlighting the sector's potential for expansion.

The successful connection of this 1-gigawatt offshore PV project marks a pivotal step in China's transition towards renewable energy sources.
WORTHINGTON, Ohio (WCMH)  Just one month after the Westerville school board voted to end its religious release time policy, another district is having discussions on the constitutionality of the same policy.

The Worthington City School Board held a regularly scheduled meeting Wednesday where the policy took center stage.

Some say its about parental choice while others say there should be a clear separation of church and state.

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Worthington residents packed the room, listening to the discussion about the policy that allows students to attend religious instruction during break times throughout the school day like lunch or recess.

LifeWise, which offers Bible teachings to students, has a chapter in Worthington. Program advocate Jennifer Jury believes this is about keeping programs like this as an option.

LifeWise is a choice, just like all release time programs, she said. Its parents choice, so students are only attending if its something their parents want them to do, and so classes like LifeWise are certainly not mandatory.

Jury remains steadfast about the future of the policy because of the work LifeWise has been able to do in the community.

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LifeWise has enjoyed working with the Worthington community for the last year, and there have been dozens of students that have already been coming to classes, Jury said. Were hopeful that the Worthington school board will continue to allow LifeWise classes to go on here.

Many opponents of the policy asked how it will impact the safety of students being off campus during school hours; there are also concerns about kids or program leaders recruiting other students.

Jeanne Melvin has grandchildren in the school district and feels there are some things that blur the line of church and state.

I have elementary grandchildren, and they love prizes and if someone is coming, if someone is leaving during the school day and coming back with candy and saying, Hey, we had a pizza party, we had a lot of fun, you really missed out on this, theyre going to be very upset, Melvin said. I know theyre going to ask their parents if they can join in. Religion should never be a tool. I sing in a church choir, I dont believe that religion should be used that way.

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Members of the school board shared their thoughts on this topic and on how best to move forward. For board president Nikki Hudson, she feels there are many that would hang over their heads if they were to make a definite decision like House Bill 445 which would require school districts to adopt a religious release policy.

We all have concerns with the policy, Hudson said. We all have concerns with the pending legislation at the statehouse and that as a next step, you would like the policy committee to get together.

Board member Amber Epling- Skinner also noted that even with that pending legislation, it would be tough to table a decision given the public calls for action.

I dont know that we can just ignore the concerns that are being brought to us right now that seem very real concerning safety and disruption, Epling- Skinner said. You know, Id love to hear from some, you know, teachers in the classroom.

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The board ultimately decided not to make a decision, instead waiting for the outcome of House Bill 445 at the statehouse.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN)  Ohio veterans now have new resources to help turn their business ideas into reality.

Today, the Economic and Community Development Institute officially opened the states first-ever Veterans Business Outreach Center at Wright State University.

The center was funded by a $1 million grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). The aim is to provide essential training and counseling services to veteran and military-connected small business owners.

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The Greene gaining 2 new stores in 2025

Its a really big deal. Its a really big honor, Seth Gordon, director of the Veteran and Military Center at Wright State University.

A venture that took two years to actualize is finally here and Gordon says it couldnt have happened in a better place.

The environment in the Dayton area and the Dayton region in general is very supportive of veterans, said Gordon.

This support means helping veterans and their families achieve their dreams.

Starting a business is jumping off into the unknown. You know, you hope it will be successful, but the more prepared you are and the more experience you have and the more access to information and other people, the better, said Gordon.

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The new Veteran Business Outreach Center will offer everything from business planning to marketing assistance and helping active service members transition out of the military into entrepreneurship.

We want to make sure that they have access to capital, the funding needed to start and scale their business. Part of that is were also offering counseling for borrower readiness. Under Administrator Guzman, we are leaning, into at the SBA, making sure they have the financial readiness to not only access their capital, but also manage that capital with our free counseling resources, said Geri Aglipay, U.S. SBA Great Lakes regional administrator.

The U.S. SBA says theyve seen great success across the country with this outreach center.

When business owners wrap themselves around with these networks, free trainings and resources, the capital connections, the contracting connections, doing business with the federal government, all those resources really enhance small businesses ability to be sustainable and compete, said Isabel Guzman, administrator of the U.S. SBA.

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Guzman encourages veterans and their families to take advantage of these resources.

4-year-old injured after discharge of firearm in Clark County

Our veterans have the grit and determination and the resilience. Not only that, but the mission focus and the teamwork that is necessary to really grow a business. And more than anyone, they know that, you know, having a team around you is really what can help further advance the mission. And so we are your team, said Guzman.

Guzman says there are over 2 million veteran-owned small businesses around the country that provide over 5 million jobs.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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DENVER (KDVR)  Metro Denver towing company Wyatts Towing has shuttered its operation after the company was found to have regularly engaged in deceptive business practices and was ordered to send thousands of restitution checks.

However, calling the companys phone number funnels customers to Denver Elite Towing Company, another Colorado business. The companys website leads to an unclaimed domain, and the Google listing shows the business as permanently closed.

Wyatts Towing to send thousands of checks to Colorado consumers as part of settlement

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A search of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission permit database shows one transportation permit associated with Wyatts Towing is inactive and two others were revoked in 2013. However, a lack of permits was part of the case Colorado officials argued against the Denver tow giant, and the U.S. Department of Transportation still shows an active carrier number for the company, but that it is not authorized to operate.

The Colorado Attorney Generals Office reached a $1 million settlement with Wyatts Towing late last year. The settlement led to a judge ordering the company to send over 5,000 restitution checks to vehicle owners who had been harmed by illegal towing practices. The states investigation found that the towing company illegally collected fees and executed unlicensed towing and towed vehicles with no valid permits, among other deceptive and predatory business tactics.

Wyatts Towing was investigated for months by the Colorado Attorney Generals Office, showing the company completed unpermitted and unauthorized tows, had illegal fees and illegally kept motorists funds. The company was owned by Towing Holdings, which had several tow companies. The attorney generals office alleged that workers were told to monitor private parking lots to tow improperly parked vehicles and had a pay structure to incentivize the workers to tow as many vehicles as possible.

This business ownership model gives the company significant power over vulnerable consumers who might not be able to pay steep fees to retrieve their vehicle. This arrangement also led to the companys numerous violations of state laws, the Colorado Attorney Generals Office said in a December announcement of the settlement with Wyatts Towing.

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Wyatts Towings apparent exit from the Colorado towing industry comes on the heels of a new law that added new regulations to the Towing Bill of Rights, which was passed in 2022 and regulates nonconsensual tows.

The law bans automatic or preapproved tows and requires the towing company to have documented permission for each tow at least 24 hours before the action is taken. The law also bans property owners from earning income from using a specific towing company.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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NEW YORK  New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, praised Elon Musks inclusion in the incoming cabinet of President-elect Donald Trump.

Adams, who has taken a notably soft stance on Trump of late, characterized Musks new perch atop the Department of Government Efficiency as a kindred effort to his bid to streamline City Hall.

One of the people I think it was important to bring on board, some people may argue, is Elon Musk, Adams said during an interview on PIX 11. Were dealing with an antiquated government filled with bureaucracy unwilling to make any changes.

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Adams said modernizing government could be as simple as instituting drones  incidentally something the big-city mayor talked about at length earlier in the day.

At a press briefing near Central Park, Adams discussed a new initiative that will pair drone teams with several NYPD precincts. Officers will deploy the devices as soon as emergency calls are received and use them for routine neighborhood patrols.

Adams has also spoken approvingly of a robotic dog used to guard Trumps Florida residence. The mayor unveiled a machine made by the same manufacturer at a Times Square press conference in 2023 and has brushed off criticism of the cybernetic canines being deployed by emergency workers in New York City.

"I'm a big believer in technology. I don't know if many of you noticed that the incoming president is using Digidog, one of the technologies that we use here, Adams said. He's using it in Florida now to protect his grounds. It just shows that we have been leading from the front."

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During Wednesday evenings interview, Adams declined to weigh in on the nomination of firebrand Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as Trumps nomination for attorney general.

You got to pick the right people that understand your vision and are willing to move with that vision, he said. And [Trumps] choosing those who believe.

Adams has urged cooperation with Trumps team at the same time he is facing criminal charges in federal court.

The president-elect has trashed the case as politically motivated, casting himself and Adams  who has welcomed the support  as victims of a similar retribution scheme. Once in office, Trump would have multiple ways to assist Adams with his case and could even grant him a pardon if hes convicted.
Not everyone who watches fictional television dramas or documentaries are inspired to go out and commit a crime to see if they can get away with it. But 37-year-old Cory Martin was on that type of time, and a federal judge just handed him his punishment for his grisly crime.

Police say back in 2017, he pimped out a 26-year-old sex worker, Brandy Odom, who also lived with him in his Queens apartment. U.S. Attorney Breon Peace accused Martin of seeing Odom as an opportunity to make money by trafficking her for commercial sex, per the Department of Justice.

Prosecutors say Martin, along with an accomplice,conspired a plot to make even more from Odom by killing her. The pair fraudulently took out two life insurance policies in Odoms name in March and December of 2017. They then made premium payments to the life insurance policies by Western Union money orders as well with a debit card in Odoms name.

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Following the life insurance scheme, they allegedly began watching shows with Martin including Dexter and The First 48. The goal, prosecutors said, was to find information on how to avoid being caught by the police and looking for ways to commit the crime to take Odoms life.

In April 2018, Martin strangled Odom to death in her bedroom and had his accomplice clean up the murder scene with supplies they purchased prior. Martin then searched on Home Depots website for a power saw, which he used to dismember Odoms body in his bathtub, prosecutors said. Odoms remains were discarded in Canarsie Park.

For nearly two years, Martin got away with the murder. However, in 2020, the two were apprehended by police after multiple attempts to claim the life insurance benefits from the policies they took out on Odom.

A jury found Martin guilty of murder-for-hire, murder-for-hire conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, aggravated identity theft and fraudulent use of identification. He was sentenced last week to life in prison.

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It is fitting that Martin faces a mandatory sentence to spend the rest of his life in prison for this ghastly, cold-blooded crime that was motivated by greed and executed after extensive planning, said Peace.

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Donald Trump has branded New Yorks congestion charge the most regressive tax known to womankind on the day the states female governor reignited plans to bring it back.

The President-elect said businesses will flee New York City, and that he strongly disagreed with Kathy Hochuls U-turn.

Gov Hochul has been accused of screwing the middle class with her revived plans for a congestion charge in Manhattan.

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The governor was branded completely out of touch by New Yorkers Against Congestion Pricing Tax, a group of residents who are against the $9 per car fee.

The groups President Susan Lee told the Telegraph that Gov Hochul was jamming it through before Donald Trump takes office in January, amid fears the president-elect could quash the plan.

If the announcement comes Thursday, as expected, it means the mandatory 60-day public consultation period ends on Jan 13, just eight days before Mr Trump is inaugurated.

After that, the congestion charge is going to be much harder for Mr Trump to unwind, experts suggest.

$15 was too much

The governor had originally proposed a $15 charge for cars but scrapped it indefinitely in June, amid concern the extra cost was too much and would worsen the cost of living crisis.

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In a statement posted online, Mr Trump said he had great respect for Gov. Hochul but strongly disagrees with the decision on the congestion tax.

He said: It has never worked, but especially so with a city, town, or village that is trying to come back from very rough times, which can certainly be said of New York City. It will put New York City at a disadvantage over competing cities and states, and businesses will flee.

Not only is this a massive tax to people coming in, it is extremely inconvenient from both driving and personal book-keeping standards. It will be virtually impossible for New York City to come back as long as the congestion tax is in effect.

It will hurt workers, families, and businesses, but in particular, anything to do with jobs. It is the most regressive tax known to womankind (man!)

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Janno Lieber, the head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said that New Yorks congestion was insane and epidemical.

Mr Liber said that the basics of human existence are at stake here like ambulances getting to hospitals and police cars getting to crime scenes quickly.

In April a Siena College survey found that 64 percent of New Yorkers opposed a $15 toll to drive below 60th St in Manhattan, which is how the original plan was laid out.

Ms Lee said: The governor is completely out of touch. I think the governor is tone deaf.

She needs to read the room. We have grocery prices that are out of reach. I volunteer at a food pantry and thats the number one concern for everyone. People cant afford to put food on their table.

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How is this $9 fee going to help?

Timing is everything

According to Ms Lee, it was a political move to bring back the charge after the Presidential election saw Mr Trump take the White House.

Ms Lee said: The timing is everything and thats why theres an urgency to get this through.

People who support this are saying its going to start at $9 and then go up to $15. Its screwing the middle class, and the working class.

Ms Lee cited the congestion charge in London which went from 5 to 15 in the space of 17 years.

But New Yorks would finish at 9pm instead of 6pm in the UK, and would be in place on holidays and weekends, Ms Lee said.

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The new plan will likely be fast-tracked and will go for approval before the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees transit in New York, next week.

Earlier this year Mr Trump said on social media he planned to TERMINATE Congestion Pricing in my FIRST WEEK back in Office!!

But that wont be so easy once the programme is up and running, said Rachael Fauss, a Senior Policy Advisor at nonprofit Reinvent Albany.

She was unaware of approval for a toll by the Federal Highway Administration ever being rescinded.

She said: If that were to happen there would be lawsuits. If theres an approval for a programme theres a legal, regulatory basis for doing so.

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Rescinding it is much less likely to happen, especially if courts uphold it before Mr Trump comes into office.

So, why now?

That explains why Gov Hochul is bringing congestion charging back now, Ms Fauss said.

The timeline is extremely tight and thats why were seeing it happen the week after the election, she said.

And Mr Trump himself would not be exempt from the charge, even as president.

The MTA did not respond to a request for comment.

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LEBANON COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM)  Pennsylvania State Police on Thursday confirmed the identity of a young female who was found dead more than 50 years ago as missing 14-year-old Ruth Elizabeth Brenneman of York County.

Officials say Brenneman left home for school in the fall of 1973 and never returned. The circumstances regarding her death remain unknown at this time, but investigators consider her death suspicious.

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State Police in Jonestown say on October 10, 1973, two Game Wardens discovered decomposed remains in a wooded area off Moonshine Road near Ridge and Tomstown Roads in Union Township, Lebanon County. The remains were found under a plastic tarp and brush approximately 47 miles away from Brennemans York County home.

Officials say various investigative efforts have now led to Brenneman being identified. In May 2016 Brennemans remains were exhumed from Mount Lebanon Cemetary with the hope of locating evidence to identify her.

She was positively identified in October 2024 with the help of good old genealogy research that included interviews and public records research, according to investigators.

The family of Ruth Brenneman, who also called her Ruthie, provided a public statement expressing gratitude toward investigators who worked on the case.

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Their work has provided us with some closure on questions that have lingered for the past 51 years, the family expressed. Brenneman wouldve turned 66 on November 26, 2024.

A $5,000 reward is being offered for information that solves this case.

Anyone with information regarding this case should call PSP Jonestown at 717-865-2194 or PSP Tips Toll Free at 1-800-4PA-TIPS (8477).

This is a developing story. Stay with abc27 News as more information becomes available

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.
PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY)  Gov. Glenn Youngkin was in Portsmouth on Thursday to present an award to a locally based organization.

He and his wife, Suzanne, handed out the latest Spirit of Virginia Award to Mercy Chefs. The faith-based nonprofit provides professionally prepared meals to victims, volunteers and first responders during natural disasters and emergencies.

Mercy Chefs has become a beacon of hope across Virginia and beyond, delivering high-quality meals to communities in crisis and combating food insecurity through its community kitchens and outreach programs.

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WAVY-TV 10 teamed up with them to collect and send donations to victims of Hurricane Helene a few months ago.

This is the sixth Spirit of Virginia Award thus far this year.

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.
By Renju Jose and Lewis Jackson

SYDNEY (Reuters) -New Zealand's parliament was briefly suspended on Thursday after Maori members staged a haka to disrupt the vote on a contentious bill that would reinterpret a 184-year-old treaty between the British and Indigenous Maori.

First signed in 1840 between the British Crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs, the Treaty of Waitangi lays down how the two parties agreed to govern. The interpretation of clauses in the document still guides legislation and policy today.

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Rulings by the courts and a separate Maori tribunal have progressively expanded Maori rights and privileges over the decades. However, some argue this has discriminated against non-Indigenous citizens.

The ACT New Zealand party, a junior partner in the ruling centre-right coalition government, last week unveiled a bill to enshrine a narrower interpretation of the Waitangi treaty in law.

As parliamentarians gathered for a preliminary vote on the bill on Thursday, Te Pati Maori MPs stood and began a haka, a traditional Maori dance made famous by New Zealand's rugby team.

Parliament was briefly suspended as people in the gallery joined in, and shouting drowned out others in the chamber.

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ACT New Zealand leader David Seymour said people who oppose the bill want to "stir up" fear and division. "My mission is to empower every person," he added.

The controversial legislation, however, is seen by many Maori and their supporters as undermining the rights of the country's Indigenous people, who make up around 20% of the population of 5.3 million.

Hundreds have set out on a nine-day march, or hikoi, from New Zealand's north to the national capital of Wellington in protest over the legislation, staging rallies in towns and cities as they move south.

They will arrive in Wellington next Tuesday where tens of thousands are expected to gather for a big rally.

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While the bill has passed its first reading, it is unlikely to garner enough support to pass into law.

Coalition partners the National Party and New Zealand First are only supporting the legislation through the first of three readings as part of the coalition agreement. Both parties have said they will not support it to become legislation, meaning it will almost certainly fail.

(Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Writing by Lewis Jackson; Editing by Nicholas Yong)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky intends to present a 10-point plan next week addressing the energy supply and weapons production among other topics to ensure the internal security of the embattled country.

Zelensky, in his nightly video address on Thursday, did not provide other details.

He did speak about the front and praised what he said was the efficiency of Ukrainian defenders in the Kupiansk area. Earlier, there had been reports claiming that armoured Russian vehicles had entered the strategically important small town in the north-eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv. The General Staff in Kiev later declared the attack repelled. The information cannot be independently verified.

Russian troops occupied Kupiansk from February to September 2022 before the city was retaken by the Ukrainians.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced that Ukraines internal Resilience Plan, which is currently under development, will consist of ten points and is set to be unveiled next week.

Source: Zelenskyys address

Quote: "There are ten points [of the internal Resilience Plan  ed.] in total, which will be presented next week, and for each point, together with Ukrainian civil society, together with everyone ready to contribute rational ideas, together with business, we will prepare a foundational, doctrinal document for Ukraine and for our resilience. With specific annexes. Step by step."

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Details: Zelenskyy explained that the plan focuses on harnessing a country's internal capacities for victory, "so that we may rightly claim that word  victory".

"Each one of us  every Ukrainian. Millions who dream of ending this war in a way that is just for Ukraine and who work and fight toward that goal," the president stated.

Zelenskyy noted that the security point of the internal Resilience Plan was discussed on 14 November, covering safety measures across the entire country, in every oblast and every hromada. [A hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories  ed.]

"This is fundamental. A safe space that every person needs. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine have developed some good solutions. We will definitely implement everything. We have already addressed points related to energy  everything has been prepared in detail  as well as armaments, including our own production and cooperation with allies," Zelenskyy added.

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Also, the participants discussed cultural sovereignty, the cultural heritage of Ukraine, contemporary culture, cultural diplomacy, and the production of Ukrainian content. "And, to that end, fostering real and effective unity within Ukraines cultural community. This is part of our strength and an element of guaranteeing Ukraine's ties with the global world," the president said.



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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has highlighted the effective actions of Ukraines defence forces on the Kupiansk front in his evening address.

Source: Zelenskyys address

Quote: "Today, Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi delivered a report. As always, this is how the day begins. Not only Donetsk Oblast, but also the Kupiansk front, where our warriors performed very effectively. Im grateful to everyone for their resilience."

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Details: Regarding the southern fronts and the Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast, Russia, Zelenskyy expressed pride in "all our people, every unit holding their positions and giving Ukraine the opportunity to convince the world that people must prevail. This is exactly what Ukraine is fighting for," the president stated.

Background:

The DeepState analytical project updated its map on the night of 13-14 November, reporting new successful advances by the Russians in Ukraine's east, with Russian troops reportedly capturing Illinka and entering Kupiansk.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stated that Russian occupation forces were not able to enter the city of Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast and that the Ukrainian defence forces still control the city..

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A compound found in a parasitic fungus that commonly paralyzes and kills caterpillars has been shown to block pathways critical for the growth of some cancers.

Researchers from the University of Nottingham in the UK built on previous research into the cancer-fighting capabilities of cordycepin, a chemical produced by 'zombifying' Cordyceps and Ophiocordyceps species to assist their infection of a living host's body, often affecting the insect's behavior before killing them.

Advances in scientific techniques enabled researchers to study gene expression, cell signaling pathways, and protein production across a vast number of cells in order to figure out what cordycepin is doing.

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"It has become easier and less expensive to do these very large experiments, so we were able to examine thousands of genes at the same time," says RNA biologist Cornelia de Moor.

Through lab experiments on human tissue cultures and a genetic analysis of how cordycepin worked on these cells, the team found the chemical was converted into a more active compound called cordycepin triphosphate, which is responsible for inhibiting cell activity.

The effects of cordycepin were shown to be fast acting. (Lawrence et al., FEBS Letters, 2024)

The researchers found cordycepin triphosphate blocks two separate signaling pathways often hijacked by cancer cells to assist their spread throughout the human body. Although it's not clear yet which molecules cordycepin triphosphate is targeting the team did find that the chemical appeared to be working quickly.

Further research is required to turn the findings into new cancer treatments, yet understanding how the molecule affects cell growth could set the foundations for new types of cancer drug. Importantly, the precision with which cordycepin triphosphate operates means that it could overcome the challenge faced by many current treatments: trying to take our cancer cells without causing too much damage to healthy tissue.

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"We have been researching the effects of cordycepin on a range of diseases for a number of years and with each step we get closer to understanding how it could be used as an effective treatment," says de Moor.

The Cordyceps species C. militaris has long been used in a variety of ways in traditional Chinese medicine, and can be found in many modern medicines too, due to their various anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties. From obesity to blood clots, compounds found in the natural world are inspiring a whole host of treatments.

"Our data confirms that cordycepin is a good starting point for novel cancer medicines and explains its beneficial effects," says de Moor.

The research has been published in FEBS Letters.

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The FBI has confirmed that Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached multiple telecommunication firms to steal data on US politicians.

The FBI issued its statement today following a report that a Chinese hacking group, dubbed Salt Typhoon, may have spied on phones belonging to incoming US President Donald Trump and VP JD Vance. The agency joined the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in describing the Chinese hacking activities as "a broad and significant cyber espionage campaign."

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In a statement, the agencies said: Specifically, we have identified that PRC-affiliated actors have compromised networks at multiple telecommunications companies to enable the theft of customer call records data, the compromise of private communications of a limited number of individuals who are primarily involved in government or political activity, and the copying of certain information that was subject to US law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders.

The effort to copy law enforcement requests alludes to how the Chinese hackers reportedly tried to access the network infrastructure that ISPs such as AT&T and Verizon use to answer court-authorized wiretapping requests. As a result, the hacking campaign may have given China a foothold into the USs own surveillance network to intercept internet-based communications.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal also reported that the Chinese hackers successfully compromised cell phone lines belonging to a number of senior national security and policy officials. The hackers appeared to have had the ability to access the phone data of virtually any American who is a customer of a compromised carrier," the Journal added, although only several dozen political and national security figures were ultimately targeted.

The FBI didnt elaborate on its investigation, but theres evidence that Chinese hackers have exploited software flaws to break into the telecom firms. For now, the agency only said: We expect our understanding of these compromises to grow as the investigation continues.
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Credit: Jay Bonggolto / Android Central

What you need to know

In the European Union, the European Copyright Directive (EUCD) regulates how search engines and news aggregators can use, license, and preview news content.

To measure the impact of news stories from EU publishers on Google services, the company will remove those stories from results in a limited test.

Google says the test will affect 1% of users in Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain.

To find out how much news stories appearing in Google News, Search, and Discover encourage readers to use Google products and services, the company will remove them altogether in an extremely limited test. One percent of users in Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain won't see news content from EU-based publishers as Google collects data, the company announced today.

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The changes come in response to a request from regulators and publishers, and is related to Article 15 of the European Copyright Directive (EUCD). This law dictates how search engines and news aggregators can use news content from publishers in the EU. As part of Google's compliance with the EUCD, it started an Extended News Previews (ENP) program. Essentially, the company pays publishers to show previews or snippets of news content under license.

Google says it has agreements with over 4,000 publications in 20 countries, and the deals are rooted in how much news content affects search and advertising. "These agreements are based on consistent criteria which respect the law and existing copyright guidance, including how often a news website is displayed and how much ad revenue is generated on pages that also display previews of news content," the company explains.

However, the EU's regulators and publishers now want "additional data about the effect of news content in Search on peoples use of our products." To get the data, Google is removing the news content from EU publishers in Google News, Google Search, and Google Discover for 1% of users in the previously-listed EU countries. Presumably, it will compare the usage of Google products and services with and without news content present.

This is a very minor test that only affects a small portion of EU users for a limited time. Results will still appear from publishers outside of the EU, and the removal of EU-based news is temporary. Google says that when the test ends, everything will go back to normal.

"We intend to use this test to assess how results from EU news publishers impact the search experience for our users and traffic to publishers," Google said in the blog post.
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If you want a Z50 II, you'd better order one quick. | Credit: Nikon / Digital Camera World

Nikon's latest Z50 II crop-sensor mirrorless camera became available for pre-order in Japan at 10:00 on November 12, with orders shipping from November 13. However, all the stock was snapped up in a matter of minutes, leading to shipping delays as soon as it went on sale.

Nikon Japan's own Nikon Direct website  the equivalent to the Nikon Store in territories such as the US, UK and Australia  says it is already experiencing a shortage of all kits, including the body-only version.

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In addition, Nikon Direct is offering a 10% discount coupon to keep customers sweet while they await the delayed arrival of their new cameras. For example, those ordering the body-only version are met with the message: The Z50 II has received many more orders than expected, so it may take some time to deliver. Thank you for your understanding. We are distributing a 10% off coupon (worth 14,520 yen) that can be used when purchasing the Z50 II."

The 10% discount of 14,520 works out at around $95 / 75 / AU$145, so it's certainly not to be sniffed at. Other Japanese retailers have reported similar supply problems.

Vlogger using Nikon Z50II

Stock shortages have been a common theme with many recent camera launches, and with the Z50 II essentially offering the same image processor and incredible autofocus performance as in its top-of-the-range Nikon Z9, it's not really surprising to see demand outstripping supply. The moral of the story is: if you want a Z50 II, it's best to order early.

The camera is due to start shipping on November 21 outside Japan in countries including the US, UK and Australia. It's a safe bet that if supplies are tight in Japan, they will be equally tight in other territories. So if you're keen to be one of the first to get your hands on a shiny new Nikon Z50 II, you need to pre-order as soon as possible, as retailers tend to work on a first-come first-served stock allocation system.

Wondering whether the new camera is for you? Don't miss our exhaustive report on the Nikon Z50 II, and this interesting tidbit on how Nikon quietly rebranded the entire Z-series line without telling anyone when it launched the Z50 II.
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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company evacuated one of its new chip factory construction sites in Kaohsiung, Taiwan after an unexploded bomb was found, according to news outlets and a statement from the chip maker.

The bomb has corroded, signifying it may be quite old, and weighs roughly 500 pounds. A contractor reportedly discovered the bomb Nov. 11 at TSMC's Nanzih Technology Industrial Park, which was previously the Kaohsiung Refinery. The oil refinery was closed back in 2015 and sat on about 674 acres of land.

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The police were contacted and the military's bomb disposal team was brought in to address the issue. Now, the unexploded bomb is reportedly sitting in a warehouse at a different location.

"Regarding the suspected unexploded ordnance discovered during excavation at TSMC's Kaohsiung site in the morning of Nov. 11, the relevant authorities have examined it and determined there are no safety concerns. The object has been removed, and construction at the site is ongoing and remains on schedule," TSMC tells The Register on Thursday.

But the unexploded bomb wasn't the first strange object uncovered in the area, according to a Taiwanese news site. 1,000 pounds of rusted World War II-era explosives were previously found back in August, so it's possible the latest bomb found may be a relic of that era. The bomb found this month didn't have a serial number, either, making its origins more difficult to discern.

This hurdle comes after TSMC predicted the existing AI chip shortage will already continue for at least the next year or so.

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TSMC is one of the biggest semiconductor manufacturers in the world, making chips for firms like Apple and Nvidia. It has factories in Taiwan, but increased tensions with China have spurred the US to fund TSMC's US expansion to increase corporate stability in case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. President Biden granted TSMC $11.6 billion in funding earlier this year to expand its chip manufacturing business in Arizona, which one Chinese tabloid called "a dark turn" when the Arizona plans were first unveiled in 2022.

TSMC has also found itself in the crosshairs of a US investigation over US chip export rules, as a TSMC chip was recently found in a Chinese Huawei product.
The fresh newsletter for the International Community in Hungary - described by readers as a "Great read each week" - is now available for your interest and use via the link below.
Audi Q7 Facelift Bookings Open: Audi India commenced the bookings for the new Audi Q7 facelift ahead of its launch On November 28, 2024. The new model can be booked with an initial booking amount of Rs 2 lakh via the Audi India website or on the myAudi connect application.

Locally assembled at the SAVWIPL plant in Aurangabad, will be available in five exterior colours: Sakhir Gold, Waitomo Blue, Mythos Black, Samurai Grey and Glacier White. The interior will be offered in two colour options: Cedar Brown and Saiga Beige.

According to the details provided by the company in an official release, with a powerful 3.0l V6 TFSI engine that generates 340 hp and 500 Nm of torque, the new Audi Q7 can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in just 5.6 seconds and has a top speed of 250 km/h. It will also get Quattro all-wheel drive.

Commenting on the new Audi Q7, Balbir Singh Dhillon, head of Audi India, said, The Audi Q7 has always been our most iconic product and has been loved by all target groups including celebrities. With the new Audi Q7, we are offering enhanced features, a refreshed exterior design and new fascinating lights."

"We have begun local assembly of the new Audi Q7 at our group plant in Aurangabad and are gearing to launch on November 28, 2024, he added.

Highlights:

-- Launch on November 28, 2024.

-- Locally assembled in Aurangabad.

-- The new Audi Q7 is powered by a 3.0L V6 TFSI engine delivering 340 hp and 500 Nm of torque.

-- Equipped with quattro all-wheel drive.

-- Online bookings via the Audi India website (www.audi.in) and myAudi connect App.

-- Initial booking amount of Rs 2 lakh.
Uber App New Features For Drivers: Ride-hailing app Uber on Thursday announced a host of new features such as SOS integration, helmet selfie and women rider preference for female drivers - all aimed at making experience for million-plus drivers on its platform "safer, easier and fairer".

Further, in support of the government's Code on Social Security (CoSS), which seeks to provide a safety net for gig workers, Uber announced the promotion of registrations on the e-Shram portal, which is a unified database for gig workers and unorganised workers.

To encourage participation and accelerate such registrations, Uber is offering cash incentives to the first 10,000 drivers who register on the portal.

Key enhancements for drivers include SOS integration, helmet selfie, women rider preference for female drivers, and audio recording, as also upfront tipping, instant payments, and mentorship program.

As part of fairer processes, Uber has lined up revamped earnings hub and Deactivation review centre, as well.

Prabhjeet Singh, President, Uber India and South Asia, said the latest updates empower drivers, enhance their safety, and offer greater convenience with more transparency in their everyday operations.

Uber has more than 1 million monthly active drivers in India who use the platform for flexible earning opportunities.
New Delhi: As the highly anticipated film The Sabarmati Report prepares for its theatrical release in just two days, excitement is reaching a fever pitch among fans. The gripping trailer has already sparked intense curiosity about the real-life incident that shook the nation, and now, the film has passed the Censor Boards scrutiny, receiving a UA certificate ahead of its debut.

In a significant endorsement, the Censor Board has praised The Sabarmati Report for its hard-hitting content and direct portrayal of sensitive themes. The films authenticity and powerful narrative have earned it the coveted "MUST WATCH" label, underscoring its intense emotional and social impact.

Industry insiders have been quick to highlight the films timely relevance, with one source commenting, "The Sabarmati Report brilliantly captures a pivotal moment in recent Indian history. Vikrant Masseys performance is nothing short of exceptionalpossibly the finest of his career. With buzz building around the film, its quickly becoming one of the most anticipated releases of the year."

Directed by Dheeraj Sarna and produced by Shobha Kapoor, Ektaa R. Kapoor, Amul V. Mohan, and Anshul Mohan, the film is backed by Balaji Motion Pictures and Vikir Films, with a global distribution deal through Zee Studios. Featuring a stellar cast that includes Vikrant Massey, Raashii Khanna, and Ridhi Dogra, The Sabarmati Report promises to be a gripping cinematic experience that offers both emotional depth and social commentary.

The film will be released in theaters nationwide on November 15, 2024, with early reviews already positioning it as a must-watch for audiences eager to witness its hard-hitting narrative and compelling performances.
Dev Deepawali, or the Diwali of the Gods, is an important Hindu festival celebrated fifteen days after Diwali on the full moon night (Purnima) of the Kartika month, according to the Hindu calendar. In 2024, Dev Deepawali will be celebrated on November 15. This festival holds a special place, particularly in Varanasi, where it is celebrated with grand festivities along the ghats of the River Ganges.

Significance of Dev Deepawali

Dev Deepawali is celebrated to honor the gods and goddesses. It is believed that on this day, the gods descend to Earth and bathe in the sacred waters of the Ganges, blessing devotees and purifying their souls. The day is marked by lighting millions of diyas (oil lamps) along the ghats of Varanasi, illuminating the entire riverbank and creating a mesmerizing view. Devotees also perform rituals to honor their ancestors, pray for prosperity, and seek blessings from deities.

The festival is closely associated with the worship of Lord Shiva. According to mythological stories, Lord Shiva destroyed the demon Tripurasura on this day, liberating the world from his tyranny. This event is known as Tripurari Purnima and is commemorated during Dev Deepawali, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil.

Dev Deepawali Celebrations in Varanasi

Varanasi, one of Indias holiest cities, hosts the grandest Dev Deepawali celebrations. Heres how the day unfolds:

Lighting of Diyas: The evening of Dev Deepawali in Varanasi is marked by the lighting of countless diyas along the riverbanks, including famous ghats like Dashashwamedh, Assi, and Rajendra Prasad. The beautiful sight of the diyas reflecting on the Ganges creates a spiritual ambiance, attracting visitors from all over the world.

Ganga Aarti: Devotees perform an elaborate Ganga Aarti in the evening at Dashashwamedh Ghat. Priests dressed in traditional attire conduct this ritual with fire lamps, incense, and conch shells, accompanied by hymns and music. This ceremony is an offering to the river goddess Ganga and is believed to bring blessings and prosperity.

Processions and Cultural Programs: During Dev Deepawali, various temples organize processions, folk music, and dance performances. Devotees gather to participate in these cultural activities, connecting deeply with their faith and traditions.

Boat Rides on the Ganges: Visitors and devotees take boat rides on the Ganges during the evening of Dev Deepawali to experience the unique beauty of the riverbanks adorned with countless oil lamps. The sight of the illuminated ghats and the echo of prayers create an enchanting atmosphere.

Rituals and Customs of Dev Deepawali

Tripura Purnima Vrat: Many devotees observe a fast known as Tripura Purnima Vrat, dedicated to Lord Shiva. This fast is believed to purify ones mind and soul, bringing peace and prosperity.

Charity and Offerings: Dev Deepawali is also a time for charity. Devotees distribute food, clothes, and other essentials to the needy, embodying the spirit of compassion and gratitude.

Daan and Snan (Donation and Holy Bath): It is believed that bathing in the holy Ganges on this day purifies the soul. Many devotees also donate essentials to the less fortunate, which is considered highly auspicious.

How to Celebrate Dev Deepawali at Home

For those unable to travel to Varanasi, Dev Deepawali can be celebrated at home by:

Lighting Diyas and Lamps: Decorate your home with oil lamps, candles, and flowers to create a festive ambiance.

Offering Prayers: Perform puja with family members, offering prayers to Lord Shiva and other deities. Reciting hymns like the Shiv Chalisa and Kartik Purnima prayers is considered auspicious.

Engaging in Charity: Donate to local charities or serve food to the needy. Sharing with others on this day spreads positivity and blessings.

Dev Deepawali is a unique festival that showcases the essence of devotion, tradition, and community. Celebrated with grandeur in Varanasi, it provides a divine experience that attracts countless pilgrims and visitors. For those who cherish spiritual connection, Dev Deepawali serves as a reminder of the virtues of light over darkness and the blessings that devotion brings.

(This article is intended for your general information only. Zee News does not vouch for its accuracy or reliability.)
New Delhi: Amidst rental vs owning property debate, a tweet by woman in Bengaluru has left the internet divided. The woman, that goes by the name Harnidh Kaur posted on X (formerly twitter), regarding the high deposit charges and rentals for apartments in Bengaluru.

Kaur wrote, "5 lakh deposit for a flat with 40k rent. Im so tired", sharing that the high advance payments sought by landlords in the silicon valley of India does not leave much scope for those who seek houses on rental basis.

Internet was quick to respond to her post, though some supported her on her plight, others said that it could have been negotiated. Some even ended up defending the landlord, stating that those high prices were nothing as compared to the amenities that are being offered along with the house.

An average Bangalore home has more amenities, woodwork, lights and furniture than Rs. 500,000 deposit money. Why shouldn't the landlord protect their property??

Wardrobes, hob, chimney, geysers, tv units, wall units, fans, furnitures, lights, gym, clubhouse, park n lot more_  Candid_Shweta (@CandidShweta) November 12, 2024

~$10B is stuck in rent deposits across India.



Wait for a year, some's going to start a fintech around lending / securitising this _ November 11, 2024

Learn Kannada brigade will now tell you that had you known Kannada, you would have got it reduced to 4.85L _  Alan (@cbe_sam) November 11, 2024

Buy and understand urself what it takes to own a house or stop crying over rules set by a owner of a private owned property  Sid (@siddusaik) November 11, 2024

I hope you will get back half of the deposit, landlord a NRI?  Veloster (@prawnstaff) November 11, 2024

Deposits are largely inflated so you can negotiate easily than rent.  TD (@v_forvindicator) November 11, 2024

Worst part they never return deposit and give absurd bill of ronnovation in name of fix.  Kuldeep Lather (@Kullthegreat) November 12, 2024

No one asks so much deposit unless there's an agreement between owner and tenant on compensating lower rent by higher deposit.  Zinc (@Rahul60394868) November 13, 2024

Why? Why is this a thing?! That extortionate amount has got to be illegal. _  thaari maia (@septicskepticz) November 12, 2024

That's insane and doesn't even make sense. That's like a whole year's rent.  Mahima Jalan | Personal Brand Builder (@MahimaJalan2) November 11, 2024

owner needs security in case u damage anything  Mohit Bansal (@Mohit12425) November 11, 2024

Meanwhile, according to a Knight Frank report last week, Gen Z lean towards renting a place, contrary to Baby Boomers, Gen X and millennials who prefer to buy homes in India.

Baby boomers favour investments but millennials prefer to upgrade their property and the reasons for purchasing a home show distinct generational difference, the report said.

About 79 per cent of Baby Boomers, 80 per cent of Gen X and 82 per cent of Millennials favour homeownership, while among Gen Z, only 71 per cent prefer to own a home and a high 27 per cent leaning towards renting.

Millennials (39 per cent) and Gen Z (36 per cent) are leading the trend of upgrading and purchasing for end-use, while Baby Boomers display a stronger interest in investments (29 per cent) and retirement plans (15 per cent).

Overall, 37 per cent of respondents are upgrading to a better home, reflecting a growing shift towards mid-range and luxury housing which was traditionally concentrated in select cities but is now expanding to Tier 1 cities in India.

The remaining 32 per cent are first-time homebuyers for end-use, 25 per cent are investing and 7 per cent cite other reasons, such as retirement or acquiring a second home or vacation home, the report mentioned.

Location stands out as a priority and is the determining factor for 50 per cent of respondents, affirming its timeless importance in real estate.



With IANS Inputs
New Delhi: Competition, competitors, rivals are part and parcel of business, but when the same compatriots cheer for you on your big day, it is bound to make buzz. Zomato's tweet on Swiggy's stock market debut seems to be one such instance that has won several hearts on the social media.

Swiggy made its much anticipated stock market debut on Wednesday (November 13). Zomato shared a heart warming tweet captioning it as 'You And I In This Beautiful World' --one of the most popular and memorable advertisements of all time by Hutch --cheering Swiggy on its market listing.

Here Are Some Tweet Reactions

Swiggy and Zomato together on road as well :) pic.twitter.com/A8eZYPmN77  Manas Muduli (@manas_muduli) November 13, 2024

We're all in for the best kind of deposit- Friendship! __ November 13, 2024

wholesome  Naina (@Naina_2728) November 13, 2024

That's a great gesture, showing how competition should be treated ___



Thanks @Zomato and congrats @Swiggy on a 7% return at your IPO listing _  Babu Mani __ (@Babu_Mani16) November 13, 2024

Friendship index hitting all-time highs __  StockGro (@stockgro) November 13, 2024

Picture of the day _ pic.twitter.com/0gPgClYhnm  Mahima Jalan | Personal Brand Builder (@MahimaJalan2) November 13, 2024

bhai bhai trying to serve India __  Dilbag Koundal ______ _____ __ (@dilbag_koundal) November 13, 2024

world kindness day at it's finest _  Shubham Chaturvedi (@Shubham_Chat) November 13, 2024

They both won in life __  Aryannn_ (@oyearyannn) November 13, 2024

Swiggy shares listed at Rs 412, reflecting a jump of 5.64 per cent from the issue price on the BSE. During the day, it surged 19.30 per cent to Rs 465.30. Shares of the firm ended at Rs 455.95, up 16.91 per cent. At the NSE, shares of the firm made the market debut at Rs 420, a jump of 7.69 per cent. The stock ended at Rs 456, higher by 16.92 per cent.

Zomato shares got listed on BSE, NSE on 23 July 2021, with the company's stocks soaring over 53 per cent in its first day of trading. On the BSE, the stock debuted at Rs 115, representing a massive gain of 51.31 per cent above the issue price. It subsequently soared to a high of Rs 138, or an 81.57 per cent increase. It was floated for Rs 116 on the NSE, representing a 52.63 per cent premium.

Swiggy's market cap crossed Rs 1 lakh crore on the day of listing of shares on the stock exchanges. The company's market valuation stood at Rs 1,02,062.01 crore. Rival Zomato has a market valuation of Rs 2,28,463.62 crore.
Maharashtra Polls 2024: With Maharashtra Assembly elections around the corner, the political battlefield is heating with each passing day. The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance and Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi are engaging in a war of words and trading blames amid the race to the Chief Ministers chair.

Now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi fired a fresh salvo at Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction) and dared former Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray to get the "shehzada of Congress" (Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi) to praise Balasaheb Thackeray.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday ridiculed Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray for "handing over the remote control" of his party to the Congress. Addressing his last rally for the November 20 Maharashtra assembly elections in Shivaji Park in Mumbai, PM Modi said that the entire state is blessing BJP-led Mahayuti. "This is my last public meeting in Maharashtra for this election. I have visited the entire Maharashtra during this time... The blessings of the entire Maharashtra are with Mahayuti," he said.

Stating that Mumbai is a city of "self-respect," the Prime Minister stated that there is a party in the Aghadi that has handed over its "remote control" to the grand old party that insulted Balasaheb. "Mumbai is a city of self-respect, but a party in Maha Vikas Aghadi has handed over its 'remote control' to those who insulted Balasaheb Thackeray," he said.

"That is why I challenged them to get the Congress to praise Balasaheb Thackeray. To date, these people have not been able to get the Congress and the 'shehzada' of Congress to praise Balasaheb," he further stated. PM Modi said that the "shaahi parivaar" will snatch away reservations if Congress comes to power in Maharashtra.

"Mumbai is a city that believes in connecting people. Unfortunately, the Congress and the Maha Aghadi seem focused on dividing them instead. People from all communities live in harmony in Mumbai, but the Maha Aghadi is busy inciting tensions between different castes.

The Congress's Shahi parivaar harbours animosity towards Dalits, backward classes, and Scheduled Tribes (STs). They seem desperate for power, much like a fish out of water," the PM said. The campaigning has intensified for the 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra, with both the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) making efforts to woo the electorate.

The Maharashtra assembly elections are scheduled for November 20 and counting will be held on November 23.

In the 2019 Maharashtra assembly polls, the BJP won 105 seats, undivided Shiv Sena secured 56, and Congress 44. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, MVA posed a strong performance, winning 30 of 48 seats, while the Mahayuti could only win 17.

(With ANI Inputs)
Centre to deploy 20 more CAPF companies to violence-hit Manipur Imphal, Nov 13 (IANS) Amid the escalating violence, the Centre has decided to provide an additional 20 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to deal with the prevailing law and order situation, an Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) official said.

A top Manipur Home Department official said that the 20 companies of CAPF (around 1,700 to 1,800 personnel) would soon arrive in the state and they would be deployed in militancy-infested districts. According to the MHA statement, accessed by IANS, to Manipur Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, and Director General of Police, informed that of the 20 companies of CAPF, 15 will be CRPF and five of the BSF.

"The CRPF would rush to Manipur from Assam while BSF would go to Manipur from Tripura," the MHA said in a statement. It requested the state government to work out the detailed deployment plan, in consultation with the respective CAPFs. It also added that with the deployment of an additional 20 companies of CAPFs, a total of 218 companies of CAPFs, comprising CRPF, RAF, BSF, ITBP, and SSB would be available with the Manipur government.

The Manipur Home Department official said that the MHA's decision to deploy additional CAPF in Manipur comes within three days after an encounter on Monday between suspected Kuki militants and the CRPF in the Jiribam district. Police said that after Monday's incident, 10 people were either kidnapped or missing.

The Inspector General of Police (Operations), Manipur, I.K. Muivah, said that during the search operations after the incident in Jakuradhor village, where several houses were also burnt down by the armed militants, two bodies of elderly civilians -- Maibam Kesho Singh (75) and Laishram Barel (61) -- were found. The victims and the missing persons are inmates of a relief camp set up in the village for the violence-hit people.

The IGP said another person was found alive and rescued and another civilian came back on his own to the police station. At present, three women and three children are missing and search operations are underway to find them. Muivah said that on Monday (November 11), 10 militants were killed in the encounter with the CRPF.

However, police officials earlier had put the toll at 11. All tribal organisations in Manipur, including the Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum (ITLF), Kuki-Zo Council, and Hmar Students' Association have been claiming that all the 11 are Hmar village volunteers. Meanwhile, after the ethnic violence broke out in Manipur in May last year, the Central government deployed around 60,000 forces comprising the Army, the Assam Rifles, and various CAPF.
Delhi Chief Minister Atishi on Thursday made a big announcement saying that all government and private schools in the nation capital will go online for up to Class five. With Delhi's AQI crossing the 400-mark, the Aam Aadmi Party government has swung into action to keep schools childrens safe. "Due to rising pollution levels, all primary schools in Delhi will be shifting to online classes, until further directions," said CM Atishi on X.

The Directorate of Education (DoE) has asked the heads of all government, private, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) schools to discontinue offline classes for children up to Class 5. "All the heads of government, aided and unaided private recognised schools of the DoE, MCD, NDMC in Delhi are hereby directed to discontinue physical classes in schools for children up to Class 5," it said in a statement.

The DoE has additionally directed school heads to continue online classes for these students until further notice.

As pollution levels reached critical heights, the central pollution authority, CAQM, implemented GRAP Stage III restrictions in Delhi-NCR on Thursday. The capital's air quality remained in the 'severe' category for a second consecutive day, leading authorities to enforce strict anti-pollution measures.

Under the third stage of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), announced by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), measures include moving classes up to Grade 5 to an online format.
The Supreme Court of India on Thursday said that it's not inclined to entertain a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking intervention against hate speeches or inflammatory speeches by public figures. The PIL alleged that such speeches endanger national unity, and security and promote divisive ideologies. A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar observed that there is a difference between hate speeches and wrong assertions.

"We are not inclined to entertain the present writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, which in fact refers to alleged references. Further, there is a difference between hate speech and wrong assertionsIn case the petitioner has any grievance, they may raise the same in accordance with law, the bench said.

The bench said it was not making observations on the merits of the case. The PIL was filed by Hindu Sena Samiti'. The PIL requested that the court issue directives for establishing guidelines to prevent provocative rhetoric and to require penal action against individuals making statements that could threaten public order or the nation's sovereignty.

Advocates Kunwar Aditya Singh and Swatantra Rai, representing the petitioner, argued that remarks made by political leaders often cross into incitement, risking public unrest. They referenced recent statements by political figures, including former Madhya Pradesh Minister Sajjan Singh Verma and Bharatiya Kisan Union spokesperson Rakesh Tikait, as examples where rhetoric allegedly posed a threat to public order.

In his remarks, Verma had allegedly warned of a potential popular uprising, drawing comparisons to the protests in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, while Tikait allegedly referenced the farmers' protests in a manner that suggested the possibility of violent insurrection, reported PTI.

The petition said the government has been inconsistent in enforcing legal restrictions on inflammatory speech.

The court, in its directives, mandated swift action against speech inciting unrest under certain provisions of the IPC. The 'Hindu Sena Samiti' had requested several forms of relief, including the creation of guidelines to regulate provocative speeches, penal action against offenders, and an order for mandatory training programs for politicians.
In one of its biggest raids so far, the Enforcement Directorate undertook operations at 23 locations across Maharashtra and Gujarat on Thursday in a money laundering probe exceeding over Rs 100 crore. On its part, ED has searched in Malegaon, Nashik, and Mumbai in Maharashtra, along with Ahmedabad and Surat in Gujarat based on the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The probe was initiated after an FIR was filed by Malegaon Police last week against Siraj Ahmed Harun Meman, local trader and owner of a tea and cold drinks agency along with a few associates. According to officials, Meman was accused of misusing several bank accounts for illicit transactions which then raised suspicions over electoral fund misuse given the fact that Maharashtra was gearing up for a single-phase assembly election on November 20.

As a man, he has lodged the complaint wherein his bank account is being allegedly exploited in these suspicious transactions. Investigations have revealed that Meman obtained KYC documents from some two-dozen people, promising to start a corn business. Meman is accused of opening 14 bank accounts in the Nashik Merchant Cooperative Bank, some using the KYC documents of friends, between September and October.

According to ED sources, the accounts have recorded debit and credit entries of more than Rs 100 crore each. This is now being investigated as the agency suspects involvement of hawala operators and misuse through mule accounts made with the banking credentials of common people. While officials are also looking at the electoral malpractice angle, they maintained no conclusive inputs have been found yet.
India-Canada Row: The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday called on Canada to extradite Arsh Dalla, a Khalistani terrorist, to "face justice in India." According to a report in local Canadian television outlet CTV, designated Khalistani terrorist Arshdeep Singh Gill, alias Arsh Dalla, was arrested by Canadian authorities following a violent shooting incident in Milton, Ontario.

Responding to media queries pertaining to the arrest of Arsh Dalla in Canada, MEA Official Spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said, "In view of the recent arrest, our agencies will be following up on an extradition request. Given Arsh Dalla's criminal record in India and his involvement in similar illegal activities in Canada, it is expected that he will be extradited or deported to face justice in India."

Dalla has been charged in a case related to the shooting in Ontario on October 28, as per a report by Adrian Ghobrial on CTV.

In a press release, the MEA said, "We have seen media reports circulating since November 10 on the arrest in Canada of proclaimed offender Arsh Singh Gill, alias Arsh Dalla, the de facto chief of the Khalistan Tiger Force. Canadian print and visual media have widely reported on the arrest. We understand that the Ontario Court has listed the case for hearing."

A proclaimed offender, Arsh Dalla, has 50 cases of murder, attempt to murder, extortion, and terrorist acts, including terror financing against him. A Red Corner Notice was issued against him in May 2022.

"He was designated in India as an individual terrorist in 2023. In July 2023, India requested the Canadian government for his provisional arrest. This was declined. Additional information was provided in this case," the release further stated.

Dalla is a close aide of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was killed outside a Gurudwara in Surrey in June 2023. In January 2023, the Union Home Ministry declared him a "terrorist" under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. He is among the most wanted terrorists in the country and has been charged in various cases of targeted killings and extortion.

A separate request was also sent to Canada under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to verify Arsh Dalla's suspected residential address, his financial transactions to India, moveable/immovable properties, details of mobile numbers, etc., all of which were provided to Canadian authorities in January 2023. In December 2023, the Department of Justice of Canada sought additional information on the case. A reply to these queries was sent in March this year.

Dalla arrived in Canada from Punjab in 2018 and lived in Surrey as per a report in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper, which said he is the reported head of the Dalla Lakhbir gang, accused of using Canada as a base for a violent extortion ring in Punjab. The extradition request from the MEA comes amid tensions between India and Canada, with New Delhi denying allegations of involvement in the killing of Nijjar.
J&K News: The drug peddlers in Jammu and Kashmirs Srinagar turned hi-tech after they made use of drones and encrypted apps to sell drugs. This is the first such case cracked by the police in Jammu and Kashmir.

Earlier, there have been multiple incidents that have surfaced when Pakistan was seen making use of drones for droppings of narcotics from across the border on the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir. But now the drug peddlers are using technology like high-end drones and encrypted apps to deliver drugs in Srinagar City.

The arrest of a teen drug paddler has sounded alarm bells for security forces in the region. Jammu and Kashmir Police solved a very unique case in Srinagar's downtown area of Safakadal.

Kashmir Police arrested a teenager/technocrat drugpeddler along with his high-tech drone and narcotics. According to Jammu and Kashmir Police, the teenager used the drone to keep a vigil of the area where he used to sell drugs. He would generally call the buyers to a spot and make them walk for over a kilometer while keeping an aerial view of their movement to be sure that they were not accomplices of the police or any other person.

Based on an input pertaining to his involvement in the drug peddling, police kept vigil on his movement. Following his arrest with narcotic consignment, Modus operandi left police surprised.

Speaking on the matter, Showkat Ahmad Dar, SP, North, Srinagar City, said, Few days ago, Police Station Safa Kadal arrested three drug peddlers from the same area who used to sell narcotics. We have also recovered a drone from the drug peddler, which they used to keep a vigil on the customers and save themselves from police. This is for the first time that a drone has been recovered from a drug peddler in Kashmir. It's a big success.

Besides the arrest of the teenager, Jammu and Kashmir Police also arrested two more youngsters who had been helping the main accused for supplying and selling the drugs.

The youngsters are from the Athwajan area in south Kashmir, while the other one is from the same Safa Kadal area in Srinagar. All of them have been booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS).

During the investigation, police discovered some links with people from outside Jammu and Kashmir also. The consignments and payments have been done via UPI, whose numbers are showing outside Kashmir Valley.

Showkat Ahmad Dar, SP, North, Srinagar City, said, For abusers, the treatment is a must, but we are keeping a watch on the peddlers. Wherever we are recovering drugs from their possession, we are making the arrests. Like in this case, around 150 bottles of codeine were recovered, and an FIR has been registered against three drug peddlers. The drone and phones have been seized. Now we are also investigating the linkages that these people had so that we can reach the bottom of the case''.
Kerala Lottery Results Thursday 14-11-2024 LIVE: The Kerala Lottery Department, on behalf of the Keralan government, announces the "Karunya KN-547" Lucky Draw Result today Karunya KN-547, November 14, 2024. The draw will be held at Gorky Bhavan near Bakery Junction in Thiruvananthapuram. The Kerala Lottery Result 2024 for "Karunya KN-547" 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 Karunya KN-547 results right here to see if youre the first-place winner of 80 Lakhs. Stay tuned to this website for the live update of Kerala Lottery Karunya KN-547 results today.

Kerala Lottery Result 14-11-2024 Nov: FULL LIST OF WINNING NUMBERS FOR KARUNYA PLUS KN-547 Draw

LUCKY TICKET NUMBER FOR 1ST PRIZE OF RS 80 LAKHS IS: PY 872247

LUCKY TICKET NUMBER FOR 2ND PRIZE OF RS 10 LAKHS IS:PO 305248

LUCKY TICKET NUMBERS FOR 3RD PRIZE OF RS 1 LAKHS ARE:

LUCKY TICKET NUMBERS FOR CONSOLATION PRIZE OF RS 8,000 ARE: PN 872247

PO 872247

PP 872247

PR 872247

PS 872247

PT872247

PU 872247

PV 872247

PW 872247

PX 872247

PZ 872247

(For The Tickets Ending with The Following Numbers below)

LUCKY TICKET NUMBERS FOR 4TH PRIZE OF RS 5,000 ARE: 1713 2483 3543 3744 3957 5312 5396 5401 5629 6835 7129 7770 7808 7880 9169 9283 9597 9713

LUCKY TICKET NUMBERS FOR 5TH PRIZE OF RS 1,000 ARE: 0045 0177 0618 0708 1912 1954 2398 2970 2972 3039 3087 3187 3280 3306 3456 3691 3797 4125 4126 4380 4659 5145 5272 5616 6252 6756 7278 7387 7759 8732 8806 9530 9662 9884

LUCKY TICKET NUMBERS FOR 6TH PRIZE OF RS 500 ARE: 0072 0170 0192 0310 0419 0460 0547 0599 0606 0879 0966 1074 1108 1174 1366 1370 1562 1829 2029 2261 2447 2448 2478 2491 2529 2539 2812 2905 3104 3344 3408 3572 3628 3669 3815 3881 3952 4040 4131 4329 4427 4509 4828 4857 5148 5168 5186 5188 5203 5243 5452 5750 5773 5993 6064 6387 6452 6490 6568 6848 6933 6986 7019 7400 7439 7925 7955 8519 8606 8660 8800 9006 9072 9168 9171 9307 9632 9862 9900 9948

LUCKY TICKET NUMBERS FOR 7TH PRIZE OF RS 100 ARE: 0148 0366 0370 0373 0411 0811 0820 0837 0888 0904 1132 1322 1349 1623 1757 1931 1965 2046 2048 2246 2279 2463 2587 2635 2677 2778 2984 3067 3225 3227 3257 3422 3423 3449 3615 3657 3662 3729 3752 3767 3816 3876 3892 3926 3955 3962 4053 4101 4249 4292 4314 4372 4455 4466 4525 4716 4834 4843 4972 5128 5178 5217 5220 5224 5226 5397 5427 5451 5681 5704 5720 5769 5798 5882 5931 5987 6039 6239 6451 6496 6514 6544 6666 6678 6830 6844 6847 6905 7007 7080 7091 7211 7231 7313 7355 7365 7372 7592 7617 7848 7911 8075 8087 8113 8126 8169 8393 8432 8562 8575 8656 8995 9077 9114 9159 9246 9505 9572 9575 9658 9776 9863 9944 9951 9955 9956

KERALA LOTTERY RESULT TODAY 14-11-2024 Oct: KARUNYA PLUS KN-547 LOTTERY PRIZE DETAILS

1st Prize: Rs 80 Lakhs

2nd Prize: Rs. 10 lakhs

3rd Prize: Rs. 1 Lakh

4th Prize: Rs. 5,000

5th Prize: Rs. 1,000

6th Prize: Rs. 500

7th 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 upcoming November 20 Assembly elections in Maharashtra and the second phase of the Jharkhand elections are drawing high energy and anticipation. In the first phase of voting in Jharkhand, held on Wednesday, a solid voter turnout of 64.86% was recorded across 43 constituencies. The second phase will follow on November 20, with results expected on November 23.

Maharashtra's 288-seat Assembly has seen considerable political shifts. Eknath Shinde emerged as chief minister after breaking from Uddhav Thackerays Shiv Sena to align with the BJP. The BJP initially held 122 seats after the 2014 elections, but over time, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, comprising the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, Congress, and Sharad Pawars NCP, gained power until Shindes rise in 2022.

In Jharkhand, the JMM-led coalition seeks to retain power, emphasizing its welfare programs like the Maiyan Samman Yojna. Meanwhile, the BJP has taken a strong Hindutva stance, critiquing the JMM on alleged corruption and infiltration issues.

Top BJP leaders, including PM Modi and Amit Shah, held rallies targeting the JMM on these grounds. INDIA bloc leaders, such as Congresss Rahul Gandhi and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, countered by highlighting welfare programs and accusing the BJP-led Centre of misusing agencies like the ED and CBI against opposition leaders.
Jharkhand Assembly Elections: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has put the last nail in the coffin of terrorism and the government is also set to eliminate Maoists. Adityanath said this while addressing election rallies in Jharkhand, pockets of which are Maoist affected.

Accusing the JMM-led coalition government of "aiding" Bangladeshi infiltrators and Rohingyas to settle in the state, he asserted that the BJP, under Modi, was the only solution to stop this. "The worlds most powerful leadership is with you, no one who provokes India will be spared. PM Modi put the last nail in the coffin of terrorism and the government is set to eliminate the Maoists," he said while addressing a rally at Bermo in Bokaro.

He also credited the BJP government for providing security to the nations 140 crore citizens and emphasised the government's strong stance on terrorism. "Under Modi, the Ayodhya issue was resolved in two years. The country has become so powerful under his leadership that neighbouring countries like Pakistan have stopped provoking us," Adityanath said. He claimed the country's borders are safe under Prime Minister Narendra Modi with "Pakistan shivering as new India spares none".

Adityanath also alleged that the Congress-led INDIA bloc has designs to divide communities by pitting them against each other. "Batenge toh katenge; Ek rahenge to safe rahenge (If divided we will be wiped out; if together, we will be safe)," he added and appealed to the people to vote for the BJP.

The UP CM charged the JMM, Congress and the RJD - the three parties of the ruling coalition - with helping Rohingyas and Bangladeshi infiltrators enter Jharkhand. "They are grabbing land here by marrying tribal women. The BJP under PM Modi is the only solution to this problem," he said.

Addressing another rally in Dhanbad, he claimed that the first phase of polling held on Wednesday indicated that the BJP would form the government in Jharkhand with an absolute majority. Adityanath also alleged that the JMM-led coalition was trying to make the state a hub of Naxals. Attacking the ruling JMM-led coalition, he alleged that it has turned Jharkhand into a den of "love jihad and land jihad".

Ensure a double-engine government in Jharkhand to wipe those out "just like it has been done in Uttar Pradesh", the UP chief minister said. He also attacked the Congress for "promising" subsidised gas cylinders to infiltrators in Jharkhand, and asserted that the BJP would never allow it to happen. He was referring to the Congress in charge of Jharkhand Ghulam Ahmad Mir's statement that if his party is voted to power, gas cylinders will be given to people at Rs 450 to all, even if they were infiltrators.

At present, domestic LPG cylinders are available for Rs 860 in major cities of the state. "The Congress in charge has promised to give cylinders to Hindus, Muslims and infiltrators. BJP will not allow handing over of tribals rights to infiltrators," Adityanath said. The 'beti, maati, roti' (daughter, land and bread) of Jharkhand are under grave threat due to infiltrators, he alleged.
Independent candidate Naresh Meena, who slapped the SDM during the by-election voting in Deoli Uniara, Rajasthan, was arrested on Thursday afternoon. Following the incident, tensions escalated in the village of Samrawata, leading to a violent atmosphere. The police had been trying to arrest Naresh Meena since Wednesday night, but he had gone into hiding. On Thursday afternoon, the police achieved a major breakthrough and successfully arrested him.

The violent clash erupted in the Deoli-Uniara assembly constituency of Rajasthans Tonk district on Wednesday, following an assault on the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), Amit Chaudhary, by Independent candidate Naresh Meena at a polling station.

The ensuing chaos led to stone pelting, vehicle arson, and clashes between Meenas supporters and law enforcement officers. At least 60 people have been arrested, and the situation remains tense.

The violence broke out in Samravata village, a part of the Deoli-Uniara constituency, during the bypolls. According to police officials, the incident occurred when Naresh Meena reportedly slapped SDM Amit Chaudhary, who was stationed at the polling booth overseeing the elections.

The situation quickly escalated as Meena's supporters clashed with the police, leading to widespread unrest. Vehicles, including police cars, were set on fire, and multiple instances of stone pelting were reported.

Over 30 vehicles, including eight four-wheelers and two dozen two-wheelers, were damaged or destroyed during the disturbance.

VIDEO | Rajasthan: Violence erupted outside a polling booth in #Tonk district - where bypolls were being held - when alleged supporters of Independent candidate Naresh Meena pelted stones at police and set ablaze vehicles on Wednesday night.



This happened after the police force pic.twitter.com/QudylTwKlZ  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 14, 2024

Police Response and Arrests

Following the violent outburst, the police intervened and arrested 60 individuals in connection with the unrest. Om Prakash, the Inspector-General of Police for Ajmer range, confirmed that arrests had been made in connection with the violent incidents.

He also highlighted the extent of the damage caused by the arson and vandalism in the area.

The situation was brought under control after additional police forces were deployed. Vehicles were set on fire, and there was extensive stone pelting, Om Prakash said.

Tonk district police officers, including Additional Superintendent of Police Brijendra Singh Bhati, are currently assessing the extent of the damage and continue to monitor the situation. We are assessing the damage and have made a few arrests, Bhati said. Naresh Meena is still on the run, and we are working on tracking him down.

Meenas Defiant Response

In the aftermath of the incident, Naresh Meena took to social media to address the situation, stating that he was unharmed and unafraid. On the platform X (formerly Twitter), he posted: Main theek hu... na dare the na darenge, aage ki ranniti bata di jayegi (I am fine... I am not scared and will never be, will inform about further plans).

Background of the Incident

The tension in Samravata village had been building up even before the alleged assault. According to Tonk SP Vikas Sangwan, some villagers had boycotted the election, prompting the presence of local officials including the SDM, Tehsildar, Additional SP, and others to mediate the situation.

It was during this time that Naresh Meena allegedly entered the polling booth and physically assaulted the SDM.

After the incident, the Additional SP removed Meena from the polling station, and voting resumed peacefully in the area. However, the violence broke out soon after, as Meenas supporters clashed with police forces.

Police Assurance of Legal Action

In the wake of the violence, Tonk district authorities have vowed to take legal action against Naresh Meena. SP Vikas Sangwan confirmed that the police were investigating the matter thoroughly, and Meena would face charges in accordance with the law.

We are committed to taking strict action against those responsible for the violence, Sangwan said. After speaking with local villagers, we were able to restore peace, and voting resumed without further incident.



As of now, the situation in Tonk remains tense, with heightened police presence in the area to prevent any further unrest. Local authorities are closely monitoring developments and have urged citizens to remain calm. The violent incident has cast a shadow over the bypolls, but efforts are underway to ensure that elections proceed smoothly in the coming days.

The authorities have assured that they will take swift action to maintain law and order in the region and prevent any further outbreaks of violence.
PUNE: The Maharashtra government is implementing schemes like Ladki Bahin Yojana but is doing nothing about the continuous rise in crimes against women, NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar said here on Thursday.

Addressing a poll rally In Hadapsar for his party candidate Prashant Jagtap, Pawar said 67,381 complaints have been registered by women in the past two years alleging harassment. "This is happening in Maharashtra, the land of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Mahatma Phule, Savitribai Phule and Jijamata.

Under the BJP-led government, five complaints are being filed every hour related to crimes against women. The Maharashtra government has reported that 64,000 women and girls are currently missing," he said. "Is this situation befitting a state like Maharashtra? But those in power do not seem to be concerned. In Nagpur, some 13,000 girls are missing," he added. Nagpur is the home district of deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who also holds the home portfolio in the Eknath Shinde government.

"If 13,000 girls are missing in the home minister's own city, can we entrust them with the reins of the state? They introduce schemes for 'ladki bahin' (sisters and daughters), but on the other, atrocities against women are increasing. Such a situation is unacceptable for Maharashtra," Pawar asserted. He also said farmers were distressed in Maharashtra. "Some 20,000 farmers have committed suicides in the tenure of this government. In last six months, 1267 farmers have committed suicide. Farmers suicide take place across the country but Maharashtra tops the chart," he said.
New Delhi: Star couple Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary with heartfelt exchanges. Deepika shared an adorable Instagram story for her hubby, posting, "Me immediately crawling to my husbands side of the bed as soon as he leaves for work to get the best sleep ever since it's warmer, more comfortable, and smells like him," setting major couple goals. Fans, lovingly known as DeepVeer fans, couldn't stop gushing over it.

Earlier, Ranveer posted a series of unseen pictures of Deepika, celebrating their journey together.

Have A Look At The Post:

The post read, "Every day is Wife Appreciation Day, but today is the main day #HappyAnniversary @deepikapadukone I love you." This sweet exchange has been winning hearts online, reminding everyone why they're ultimate couple goals.

Known for publicly expressing their love, Deepika and Ranveer welcomed their first child, Dua Padukone Singh, in September.

DeepVeer's Love Story

Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh first met at an award show in 2012, and their chemistry grew while filming 'Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela', where they starred as Ram and Leela. They began dating that year and announced their engagement in October 2018. Later that month, they tied the knot in Italy, celebrating both Konkani Hindu and Sikh Anand Karaj traditions. In February 2024, they shared the news on Instagram that they were expecting their first child, welcoming their daughter on September 8, 2024.
Mumbai: Reliance Retail's luxury beauty brand, Tira, unveiled its flagship store at Jio World Plaza in Mumbai on Wednesday, with the event attended by several B-town celebrities.

Among the many stars present were Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kiara Advani, and Suhana Khan.

Kareena looked stunning in a black off-shoulder dress, keeping her makeup and accessories minimal yet elegant. Suhana Khan, daughter of Shah Rukh Khan, opted for a navy blue cord set, while Kiara Advani shone in a red outfit. The trio posed for the cameras together with bright smiles.

Shahid Kapoor and his wife Mira Kapoor also attended the event, both making stylish appearances. Shahid looked sharp in an all-white outfit, while Mira dazzled in a beautiful green shimmery bodycon dress.

RajKummar Rao also graced the event hand in hand with wife Patralekha

Arjun Kapoor looked dapper as he posed for shutterbugs.

Nita Ambani, Founder-Chairperson of Reliance Foundation, along with Isha Ambani, Executive Director of Reliance Retail Ventures Limited, were present for the unveiling of the store.

Other celebrities who graced the event included Sonali Bendre, Arjun Kapoor, Maheep Kapoor, Seema Khan, and Neelam, among others.

The Tira luxury store spans 6,200 square feet and features exclusive services such as Dior's five-step beauty ritual and personalized makeup sessions at the YSL boutique.

Tira also offers India's first exclusive skincare facials, including the 'Signature Glow.'
New Delhi: One of the most-loved couples in Bollywood - Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone - marks their sixth wedding anniversary today making it a special day not just for the superstars but also their fans. Ranveer Singh took to Instagram to celebrate his love for Deepika Padukone with a heartfelt post with a caption as he shared some unseen pictures of Deepika. He writes, Every day is Wife Appreciation Day, but today is the main day #HappyAnniversary @deepikapadukone I love you "

RANVEER-DEEPIKA LOVE STORY

Their love story, which started on the sets of Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela which also completes 11 years since its release this year, quickly blossomed to become one of the most cherished romances in Indian cinema, both on and off-screen.

Over the years, Ranveer and Deepika have not only charmed audiences with their chemistry in films but have also shown fans a glimpse of their bond, respect, and admiration for each other in their real life. This year is even more special as the couple celebrate a new addition to their Padukone-Singh household, with little blessing Dua.

RANVEER-DEEPIKA WEDDING

They had a grand Italian wedding at Lake Como in 2018 followed by them embarking on a new chapter of parenthood in 2024. The power couple welcomed their daughter Dua on September 8, making it one of the most special moments of the year not just for the families but also the audience across the world.

This year the couple gave their fans a treat by appearing in Rohit Shettys Singham Again as Lady Singham and Simmba.

Over the past six years, the duo has stood by each other through thick and thin, embracing both personal and professional challenges. Their relationship has not only inspired fans but has also become an example of love, patience, and support in the ever-demanding world of showbiz. As they celebrate this milestone, fans around the world join in to wish Ranveer and Deepika a lifetime of happiness, love, and success. Heres to many more years of Bollywoods favorite power couple, who continue to redefine love with their own unique style and passion.
The saree, a quintessential garment of India, has been captivating hearts and minds for centuries. This elegant drape, often six yards of pure magic, has transcended generations, evolving into a timeless fashion statement. From the royal courts of ancient India to modern-day runways, the saree continues to mesmerize with its grace, versatility, and cultural significance. Its ability to adapt to changing trends while retaining its traditional charm makes it a truly iconic piece of clothing.

1. Kasee Embellished Beads and Stones Saree

Image Source- Myntra.com



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The beautiful Kalamkari Printed Block Print Saree in classic black and beige tones, which showcases intricate and traditional designs characteristic of Kalamkari art. The sarees patterns feature detailed block printing, adding elegance and a hand-crafted aesthetic.

Key Features

Traditional Kalamkari Design: Showcases beautiful Kalamkari-inspired block prints that add a rich, artistic appeal.

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3. Tikhi Imli Sequined Organza Saree

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The Tikhi Imli Sequined Organza Saree is a blend of glamour and elegance, designed to make a statement at any special occasion. This saree features a delicate organza fabric adorned with shimmering sequins that catch the light beautifully, creating a captivating and ethereal look.

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Ideal for Celebrations: Perfect for weddings, parties, and festive gatherings where you want to make a stylish impact.

4. Kalista Sequined Organza Saree

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The Kalista Sequined Organza Saree brings elegance and sophistication to your wardrobe with its luxurious organza fabric and tasteful sequin detailing. This saree is designed for those who appreciate a subtle yet impactful style.

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The Sangria Floral Embroidered Net Saree is a beautiful blend of elegance and charm, perfect for occasions that call for a touch of femininity and grace. This saree features intricate floral embroidery on a soft net fabric, adding a delicate and romantic vibe to your look.

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A timeless masterpiece, the saree never fails to enchant and inspire. The saree has shown its adaptability and timeless appeal in everything from the royal splendor of royal courts to contemporary runways. It is certain that the saree will continue to be a symbol of India's cultural legacy and a source of inspiration for future generations as we honor its rich history and changing fashions.

Disclaimer: The above mentioned article is a sponsored feature. This article is a paid publication and does not have journalistic/editorial involvement of IDPL, and IDPL claims no responsibility whatsoever.
KARACHI: Twelve terrorists have been killed in two separate operations by security forces in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, the army said on Thursday. Eight Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists were killed and six others injured in a clean-up operation in Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on the intervening night between Nov 12-13, the army's media wing ISPR said in a statement.

In another operation at Balgatar area in Balochistan's Kech district at around the same time, four terrorists, including a high value target, were killed in a gun battle with security forces, the military said in another statement. The operation in Balochistan was launched following two recent suicide bomb attacks -- one near the Karachi airport, and another at the Quetta Railway station.

The ISPR said the high value militant commander identified as Sana alias Baru was a focal recruitment agent for suicide bombers for the Majeed Brigade of the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) which has claimed responsibility for the Karachi and Quetta attacks.

While two Chinese engineers were killed in the Karachi airport attack, 27 people, including members of security and law enforcement agencies, died and dozens injured in the Quetta railway station suicide blast.
DUBAI: The ties between India and the UAE have reached new heights, with increasing levels of trade and investment, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday, highlighting collaborations in sectors like fintech, infrastructure, and defence. Speaking at the inauguration of the Symbiosis International (Deemed University) campus in Dubai, Jaishankar emphasised how Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first visit to the UAE in 2015, which was the first visit by an Indian prime minister in 34 years to the emirate state, marked the new beginning of bilateral ties between the two countries.

"India-UAE ties are today truly in an era of new milestones and many firsts. Indeed, Prime Minister Modi's historic visit in 2015 is certainly a first in this Century. So too is our Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which was negotiated in record time. The trade and investment levels between our countries are at new levels and increasing with each passing year," Jaishankar said.

He said the fintech linkages like RuPay-Jaywan or UPI-AANE are also the firsts in their domain. The collaborations that the two sides are constantly expanding - be it in renewable energy, infrastructure, digital technology, defence or security - are all pathbreaking in their way, he added. He said the Symbiosis campus in Dubai is part of a larger trend that has seen India and the UAE come close in an unprecedented way.

"Today's youth has extraordinary opportunities and along with it, formidable challenges. You have access to technology and an exposure to the world that we could not have conceived of, even a decade ago," he said. "India today needs to prepare for the global workplace. Equally, it has to be ready for the era of AI, chips, electric mobility, clean and green technologies, renewable energy, space and drones.

"It also has to manage the growth of these possibilities by making them employment-centric and market-viable. And while doing so, it has to continuously communicate - amongst ourselves and to the world - the benefits of our contemporary direction to society. Your education can ready you for all these tasks; in fact, they are different dimensions of an integral whole," the minister said.

He said the exposure to quality education would give a special ability to deal with the world and advance national prospects, exuding confidence that Symbiosis would replicate its outstanding quality of teaching to prepare students for 21st-century skills. "Today's ceremony is not just an inauguration of a new campus; it is a celebration of the growing educational cooperation between our two countries," he added.

"Pleased to join Minister @uaetolerance Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak in inaugurating the Dubai Campus of Symbiosis International University. Spoke about how a rising India is internationalising its education system and preparing for a global workplace. Confident that today's inauguration will foster greater collaboration & linkages between India and UAE," he later posted on X.

Jaishankar said he was delighted to virtually interact with students of Symbiosis International University in Dubai. "Glad to note their interest in foreign policy and India's prominence in the global order. Underlined greater opportunities for Indian students in a changing world," he said in another post.

He also launched his book titled 'Why Bharat Matters' at the iconic Mohammed Bin Rashid Library in Dubai, where he participated in an interactive session and spoke about grasping the global transformation underway and understanding the rise of Bharat. Speaking at the event, he highlighted the changing global landscape, characterised by technological advancements, the impact of artificial intelligence, shifts brought by green technologies, and changes in lifestyle due to electric mobility.

He also visited the Bharat Mart site in Jebel Ali, Dubai along with Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO of DP World. "Once operationalised, this innovative logistics initiative will enhance India-UAE trade, deepen supply chains and bolster access for our MSMEs to global markets," he said.

Later, Jaishankar visited the BAPS Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi. "Received blessings at the BAPS Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi today. A true symbol of India-UAE friendship and of peace, harmony and goodwill around the world," he wrote on X. Jaishankar had earlier visited the UAE in June. India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) established diplomatic relations in 1972.
LAHORE: Over 2,550 Sikh pilgrims from India arrived here on Thursday to participate in festivities marking the 555th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev. Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) Secretary Fareed Iqbal, Additional Secretary Shrines Saifullah Khokhar, and Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (PSGPC) president Ramesh Singh Arora -- also a minority minister in Maryam Nawaz's cabinet in Punjab -- welcomed the pilgrims at the Wagah border.

Khokhar said masks will be provided to all pilgrims to protect them from heavy smog. He said extraordinary security arrangements have been made to ensure the pilgrims' safety. "As many as 2,559 Indian Sikhs arrived in Lahore today via special trains. They were transported to Nankana Sahib on special buses," ETPB spokesperson Ghulam Mohayuddin told PTI.

The main event celebrating Baba Guru Nanak's birth anniversary will be held on Friday at Gurdwara Janamasthan in Nankana Sahib, approximately 80 km from Lahore. Sikhs from other countries will also attend, alongside local attendees, federal and provincial ministers, and officials from ETPB and PSGPC, Mohayuddin said.

During their stay, pilgrims will be provided with accommodation, food, transportation, and medical facilities, he said. Pakistan has issued a total of 3,000 visas to Indian Sikhs for the event. Speaking to the media at the Wagah Border, Delhi Gurdwara Management Committee leader Harjeet Singh Pappa expressed his gratitude to the Pakistani authorities for the warm reception.

"We feel immense joy being here," he said. Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee leader Gurnam Singh Jassal said: "We are thankful for the love and respect we receive here." PSGPC president Arora said the welcome extended to the pilgrims reflects Pakistan's respect and affection for its minorities.

"The Sikh pilgrims from India will carry cherished memories back to their homeland," he said.

During their 10-day stay, the Indian Sikhs will also visit several holy sites, including Gurdwara Sacha Sauda in Farooqabad, Gurdwara Panja Sahib in Hassan Abdal, Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Narowal, Gurdwara Rohri Sahib in Eminabad via Gujranwala, and Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore. The pilgrims will return to India on November 23 via the Wagah Border.
President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) under his administration. Gabbard has a unique political and military career, combined with her outspoken views on U.S. foreign policy.

Who Is Tulsi Gabbard?

Tulsi Gabbard was a member of the U.S. Army National Guard for more than two decades. She served in both Iraq and Kuwait, gaining firsthand experience in military operations. on the House Homeland Security Committee.Notably, She served for two years on the House Committee on Homeland Security.

From 2013 to 2021, Gabbard represented Hawaiis 2nd Congressional District as a Democrat. During her time in Congress, she earned recognition for her commitment to national security and civil liberties, serving two years on the House Homeland Security Committee.

Despite her relative inexperience in intelligence matters, her background in military affairs and her direct involvement in policy-making on defense and homeland security were key aspects of her appointment to the DNI role by Donald Trump.

The First Hindu Congresswoman

Tulsi Gabbard is the first Hindu ever to serve in the U.S. Congress. Although Gabbard has no direct ties to India, she was raised in a multicultural environment. She was born to an American Samoan father and a mother who converted to Hinduism.

Gabbard has been open about her Hindu faith, and in 2013, she made history by swearing into office with her hand on the Bhagavad Gita.

Although her first name and Hindu identity often lead to misconceptions about her ethnic background, Gabbard is of American Samoan descent.



Political Evolution: From Democrat to Republican

While Gabbard began her political career as a member of the Democratic Party, she became increasingly disillusioned with its direction over the years.

In 2020, she made a run for the Democratic presidential nomination, challenging figures like Kamala Harris on issues related to U.S. foreign policy, particularly in regard to military interventionism. Gabbard criticized the party for being too focused on war and for its failure to address the needs of ordinary Americans.

By 2022, Gabbard had officially left the Democratic Party. She switched allegiances to the Republican Party and became an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump.

Gabbards Role in the Trump Administration

While appointing Tusli Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, Donald Trump praised Gabbard as a 'proud Republican' and lauded her 'fearless spirit' that she would bring to the intelligence community.

Trump emphasized that Gabbard's leadership would help safeguard 'Constitutional rights' while strengthening national security and promoting peace.


The Australian government recently announced plans to ban the use of social media by children under the age of 16.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, Social media is doing harm to our kids. He added that now is the time for the government to intervene.

The countrys Parliament will introduce a new bill during the final two weeks of its meeting starting on November 18. The bill will set an age limit of 16 for children to use social media and make the services responsible for enforcement.

Albanese told reporters that the age limit would take effect 12 months after the bill is passed. And social media services, including X, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, would need to use the year to work out how to put age controls in place.

Ive spoken to thousands of parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles. They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online, Albanese said.

The proposal comes at a time when governments around the world are considering ways to control how young people use smartphones and social media.

Under the Australian proposal, social media companies would face penalties for violating the age limit. However, under-age children and their parents would not face penalties.

Antigone Davis is the head of safety at Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Davis said the company would respect any age limits the government wants to put in place. She added that officials need to discuss the ways social media can make the age limit happen. She suggested that stronger tools in app stores and computer systems for parents could be a simple and effective solution.

X did not immediately answer a request from The Associated Press (AP) for comment. TikTok said it would not offer a comment to the AP.

Some groups oppose the age limit

More than 140 experts in fields related to technology and children signed an open letter to Albanese last month opposing a social media age limit. The letter said a ban would not be an effective way to deal with the risks of social media use.

Sunita Bose is a director at the Digital Industry Group in Australia. Bose said in a statement, Rather than blocking access through bans, we need to take a balanced approach to create age-appropriate spaces, build digital literacy and protect young people from online harm.

Jackie Hallan is a director at the youth mental health service ReachOut. She also opposed the ban. She noted that 73 percent of young people across Australia seeking mental health support get it through social media. She added that young people are likely to find ways to use social media even with a ban in place.

Child psychologist Philip Tam said it would have been easier to enforce the ban for children under the age of 12 or 13. Tam said, My real fear honestly is that the problem of social media will simply be driven underground.

Prime Minister Albanese said there would be rules to permit social media use in some situations, such as a need to connect with educational services.

Earlier this year, the government began testing age-restriction technologies among a group of users. Officials will use the test results to guide what reasonable steps social media services can take.

Lawmaker Paul Fletcher said the services already have the technology to enforce such an age ban. He added that if the law for controlling social media use is well written, Australia can get the results it wants.

I'm Jill Robbins. And I'm Andrew Smith.

Rod McGuirk wrote this story for The Associated Press. Andrew Smith adapted it for VOA Learning English.

Quiz - Australia Plans Social Media Ban for Children under 16 Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

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Words in This Story

penalty n. a punishment for a violation of a rule or law

access n. the ability to get to persons, places, or things you want

appropriate n. correct or suitable in relation to a person or situation.

literacy n. the ability to read and write; having knowledge of a particular subject
23:25 Liquor ban means big money for Bihar officials: Patna HC The Patna high court has lambasted Bihar government officials over the total liquor ban in the state, observing that they love the legislation since it means 'big money' for them.The court also said that the police are working in tandem with liquor smugglers and the poor are bearing the brunt of... Read more >

23:01 Man suffers 'heart attack' on Delhi-Mumbai flight A man who suffered suspected heart attack onboard a Delhi-Mumbai flight on Friday was saved due to the timely intervention of a doctor, sources said. The incident took place when IndiGo flight 6E 6814 was in the air and about 45 minutes short of landing in Mumbai.An IndiGo airline... Read more >

22:04 Italian tourist detained near border in J-K A 41-year-old Italian tourist was detained for questioning after he was found moving on a bicycle near the International Border in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday, security officials said.The foreigner, identified as Sciacca Marco from Torino in Italy, had arrived in India from... Read more >

21:55 3 dead as 3000-tonne silo storing corn collapses at Maha factory At least three workers died and three sustained injuries after a silo storing corn collapsed in an ethanol manufacturing factory in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar's Shendre MIDC on Friday, officials said.The bodies of three workers have been recovered, while one worker is missing, he added.At around... Read more >

21:07 UP: Dalit man killed in clashes between 2 groups A Dalit man died of wounds sustained in stone pelting between two groups in Greater Noida's Bhikhampur village on Friday, police said.According to Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Shivhari Meena, the clash had broken out over the passage of a tractor through the village in the... Read more >

21:02 Howrah Bridge to shut on Saturday night for maintenance Three Lions/Getty Images/Redidff archives The iconic Howrah Bridge will remain fully closed to vehicular movement from Saturday midnight until the early hours of Sunday for a comprehensive health check-up, its first such critical examination in 36 years. The inspection is part of an ongoing study being undertaken by Syama Prasad... Read more >

20:35 Railway Board asks zones to book reel creators if... The Railway Board has asked all its zones to lodge first information report (FIR) against reel creators if they pose threat to safe rail operations or cause inconvenience to the passengers in the coaches or on the railway premises. The Railway Board's instruction follows recent cases wherein... Read more >

20:15 Chirag Paswan gets back bungalow that went to uncle Union minister Chirag Paswan on Friday took possession of the government bungalow in Patna which had served as the office of his late father Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party till it split up within a few months of his death. Paswan's entry into 1, Wheeler Road, situated a few hundred... Read more >

19:05 Their dog barked at him, man molests 2 women Angry over his neighbour's pet dog barking at him, a man allegedly molested a woman by tearing her dress and also thrashed her along with her elderly mother in Thane city of Maharashtra, police said.The incident took place on Wednesday around 4.30 pm at Takarda in Kasarvadavli locality... Read more >

18:09 Raj Thackeray cancels rally plan at Mumbai's Shivaji Park Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray said on Friday that he won't hold his November 17 rally at Mumbai's Shivaji Park as the Election Commission (EC) is yet to grant his party permission for the event.Instead, Thackeray said, he would visit assembly segments in Mumbai and Thane to... Read more >

18:01 Delhi pollution: 'Respiratory disease cases doubled' The Air Quality Index (AQI) remains severe to hazardous in Delhi NCR which is a leading cause of the rise in respiratory and chest infection cases in hospitals.According to Dr Sudhir Gupta, senior consultant, Chest physician and Bronchoscopist medicine, Kailash Hospital, Noida, Patients suffering... Read more >

17:56 Modi stranded for 2 hours at Deoghar airport Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was stranded in Jharkhand's Deoghar airport for nearly two hours on Friday after his special Indian Air Force aircraft developed a snag, flew back to Delhi in another plane, officials said. Modi was supposed to return to New Delhi on the IAF plane after... Read more >

16:36 Praise Savarkar, Bal Thackeray: Shah dares Rahul Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday launched a scathing attack on Congress leader and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, challenging him to praise Veer Savarkar and Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray.Aghadi is an army of liars. Rahul Baba, please praise your friend Uddhav Thackeray's... Read more >

16:24 Amit Shah: EC inspected my chopper Video grab of the check of Amit Shah's bags and chopper The bag check controversy refuses to die down. Union HM Amit Shah tweets, Today, during my election campaign in Hingoli Assembly constituency of Maharashtra, my helicopter was inspected by Election Commission officials. BJP believes in fair elections and a healthy election system and follows all... Read more >

15:59 PM plane hit by snag, J'khand-Delhi return delayed PM Modi's aircraft hit by technical snag in Jharkhand, unable to take off. The aircraft has to remain at Deoghar airport causing some delay in his return to Delhi. Read more >

15:35 Sharad Pawar: Why give Yogi importance, he's... Senior opposition leader Sharad Pawar on Friday accused Narendra Modi of dividing the society as he slammed the prime minister's campaign speeches and stressed that he will have no association with those allied with the BJP, when asked about the possibility of a post-poll reunion with his... Read more >

15:09 Moody's says economy in sweet spot, growth is... Indian economy is in a sweet spot, with a mix of solid growth and moderating inflation, Moody's Ratings said, forecasting a 7.2 per cent GDP growth in the 2024 calendar year and 6.6 per cent in the next. In its Global Macro Outlook 2025-26, the rating agency said the global economy has... Read more >

14:37 No EC nod yet, MNS cancels its Shivaji Park rally Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray said on Friday that he won't hold his November 17 rally at Mumbai's Shivaji Park as the Election Commission (EC) is yet to grant his party permission for the event. Instead, Thackeray said, he would visit assembly segments in Mumbai and... Read more >

14:22 Car-truck collision leaves 6 partying friends dead The mangled remains of the car Six youngsters died a horrific death in a car accident in Uttarakhand's Dehradun earlier this week while returning from a party. According to reports the incident took place around 1.30 am at the ONGC Chowk on November 12. The car, which was speeding, smashed into a truck, leaving the... Read more >

14:11 Fire at BKC station on Mumbai Metro 3 File pic Passenger services at BKC station on Mumbai Metro 3 are temporarily closed due to a fire outside Entry/Exit A4, which caused smoke to enter the station, say officials. For passenger safety, we have paused services. Please proceed to Bandra Colony station for alternative boarding. Read more >

13:42 China very cautious about Trump 2.0 As world leaders gather for two major summits -- G20 and APEC -- in South America in the coming days, the uncertainty surrounding US President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House is creating apprehension, with many focused on what Trump's America First agenda could mean for the global... Read more >

12:45 Because Ajit Pawar was in anti-Hindu camp: Fadnavis UP CM Yogi Adityanath's clarion call for unity among Hindus with the slogan 'Katenge toh Batenge' has sparked a divide with the Mahayuti Alliance in Maharashtra. NCP Chief and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar has publicly spoken against this slogan while his compatriot Devendra Fadnavis has defended... Read more >

12:23 Voting from home takes off in Maharashtra Pic: Sahil Salvi Padma Shri awardee, 82-year-old Kalyan Sundaram from Matunga cast his vote at his residence for the upcoming Maharashtra polls.A total of 746 persons above the age of 85 as well as those with disabilities have already cast their vote from their homes in Maharashtra's Thane district. In all, 933... Read more >

12:22 Don't agree with 'batenge toh katenge': Ajit Pawar As the 'Batenge toh Katenge' slogan has taken centre stage in the Maharashtra assembly polls, Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar said that he does not endorse the slogan and backed PM Modi's 'Ek hai toh Safe hai slogan.The slogan has been widely condemned by... Read more >

12:13 EXCLUSIVE! The Aaditya Thackeray Interview Two-and-a-half years after the Shiv Sena split into two, with one faction joining hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party to form the government in Maharashtra, the other group led by Uddhav Thackeray faces its biggest challenge to reclaim its legacy and status as the party of founder Balasaheb... Read more >

11:54 Pt Ajoy Chakrabarty's brother held for molestation Pt Ajoy Chakrabarty with Amit Shah. File pic Kolkata Police arrested a renowned musician from Mumbai for allegedly molesting a student at his institute here, an officer said on Friday. Renowned singer and composer Sanjay Chakrabarty, brother of Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, was arrested by a Charu Market police team from a location in Mumbai... Read more >

11:33 Congress' troll army attacked my wife: Fadnavis Maharashtra's Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' wife Amruta, the BJP leader said that his opponents had started personal attacks against him and his wife as they realised they would not be able to defeat him. The Prime Minister is not wrong when he says that there should be a... Read more >

11:29 Sri Lanka President's NPP secures parliamentary majority Sri Lanka's National People's Power of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Thursday secured a majority in parliament, according to official results announced by the elections commission. The NPP contesting under the Malimawa (compass) symbol secured 113 seats in the 225 member... Read more >

11:07 There will be no Mahayuti after Nov 23: Raut Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Friday said that there will be no Mahayuti after November 23 and added that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will form the government in Maharashtra.Raut also asserted that the MVA alliance is strong and united in the state. Speaking to reporters, Raut said,... Read more >

11:02 The Lady With 11 Driving Licenses! Radhamani Amma, 74, widely known as Mani Amma, can be described as a trendsetter, legend and an inspirational figure for many young women in Kerala.She is perhaps the only woman in India with 11 driver's licenses including a license to drive a JCB and crane, and also a certification to drive... Read more >

10:34 Pollution chokes Delhi, new rules in place now Delhi woke up to GRAP Stage III restrictions on Friday, as the city's air quality remained in the severe category for the third consecutive day, prompting strict measures to curb pollution levels. According to the Sameer app , the Air Quality Index at 9 am was recorded in the severe'... Read more >

10:24 Freedom at Midnight Review Freedom At Midnight is a bold attempt to revisit the whole discourse about Partition, its causes, and the predicament under which the Congress leaders accepted it.It perfectly captures the extremely confused and complicated situation to which it seemed the only viable solution, observes... Read more >

10:20 Gladiator 2 Review: Worthy Follow-Up Gladiator 2 delivers an epic experience that may not replace the original in viewers' hearts but certainly earns its place beside it, notes Sonil Dedhia. Read the review here. Read more >

10:17 A book on the 'feared 11' Journalist and Rediff.com contributor, Neeta Kolhatkar, will soon be out with her new book. Called 'The Feared', it's a compilation of interviews with 11 political prisoners and sometimes, their loved ones. Will keep you posted on more dates soon. Read more >

10:10 Nothing wrong with 'batenge toh katenge': Fadnavis As the Maharashtra election inches closer there has been a huge debate on UP CM Yogi Adityanath's slogan of 'Batenge to Katenge' calling for Hindu unity. While some members of the BJP led Mahayuti alliance have voiced their reservations, state Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said... Read more >

09:47 Musk begins work, meets Iran's UN envoy Tech billionaire Elon Musk met with Iran's UN ambassador and discussed ways to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States, the New York Times reported on Friday. The meeting between Musk and Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani held in a secret location in New York and lasted over an... Read more >

09:21 Trump vows to end Russia-Ukraine war US President-elect Donald Trump has said his administration will focus on ending the Russia-Ukraine war, as he lamented the killing of people in the conflict. He also said his administration will also work on bringing peace to West Asia. We're going to work on the Middle East, and we're... Read more >

09:11 Kim Jong-un is mass producing suicide attack drones North Korean leader Kim Jong-un oversaw the performance test of suicide attack drones, stressing the need for prompt full-scale mass production, Yonhap News Agency reported citing North's state media reported on Friday. As per the reports, these drones, with varying ranges, are designed to... Read more >

08:55 'Trump will pick up where he left off with India' US president-elect Donald Trump, who enjoys very good relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is expected to build on the progress made during his first term and continue strengthening ties with India, his South Asia point-person at the White House during his first term has... Read more >

08:39 Trump picks anti-vaccine activist as health secy United States President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday announced his decision to nominate former Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr. as his Secretary of Health and Human Services. The nomination for this top Cabinet position is subject to confirmation by the US... Read more >
China held sea and air combat drills yesterday at disputed Scarborough Shoal, an uninhabited area of reefs and rocks it had seized from the Philippines in the South China Sea.

China on Sunday published new baselines for the shoal including geographic coordinates. A nations territorial waters and exclusive economic zone are typically defined as the distance from the baselines.

Tensions between China and the Philippines have been building over their competing claims to Scarborough Shoal and other outcrops in the South China Sea. Clashes have occurred including the Chinese coast guard firing water cannons at Filipino ships.

This is a patrol and guard activity carried out by the theater troops in accordance with the law, the Peoples Liberation Armys southern command said in a short statement.

China seized the shoal, which lies west of the main Philippine island of Luzon, in 2012, and has since restricted access to Filipino fishermen there. A 2016 ruling by an international arbitration court found that most Chinese claims in the South China Sea were invalid but Beijing refuses to abide by it.

There was no immediate comment from the Philippine government to Chinas drills, but it has repeatedly asserted its sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal, which it says lies within its internationally recognized exclusive economic zone, a 200-nautical-mile (370-kilometer) stretch of waters where it has an exclusive right to tap resources.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed two laws last week reaffirming the extent of his countrys maritime territories and right to resources, including in the South China Sea, in a move that angered China.

Chinas claims to almost the entire sea overlap with claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and other governments. MDT/AP
Lawmakers and local leaders proposed solutions, including incorporating flood control measures into the light rails western line, using offshore reclamation projects, and drawing inspiration from the Inner Harbour flood control strategies. The Macau General Union of Neighbourhood Associations (UGAMM) has held a symposium to address persistent flooding at the Inner Harbour. Merchants and businesses expressed concerns about the rainwater pumping station and sewer project, emphasizing the urgent need to complete the work and find a solution to the flooding issue.

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In recognition of World Diabetes Day on Nov. 14, the Health Bureau (SSM) is calling on residents to take proactive steps in managing their health.

Established by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1991, this years World Diabetes Day is focused on Diabetes and Well-Being, emphasizing the need for comprehensive care that supports both physical and mental health for those living with diabetes.

Globally, diabetes affects about 537 million people, with projections estimating this number will rise to 783 million by 2045.

Nearly 20% of residents aged 65 and older have been diagnosed with diabetes, a statistic that highlights the growing concern as the population ages.

The SSM announced yesterday it has been promoting a range of initiatives aimed at chronic disease management, including standardized diagnostic protocols and treatment guidelines.

Residents are encouraged to undergo regular health screenings. Those over 18 should check their blood pressure and body mass index annually, while individuals over 40 should monitor blood sugar and lipids every three years. NS
The Macao Foundation (FM) has announced significant reforms to its funding system aimed at improving social welfare and enhancing resource allocation for citizens.

During yesterdays episode of TDM Macao Forum, chairman Wu Zhiliang emphasized the foundations commitment to promoting social harmony through a more centralized management approach.

In recent years, the FM has made substantial changes to its funding model, collaborating closely with government departments to streamline operations.

This shift addresses previous inefficiencies caused by overlapping funding initiatives that often resulted in wasted public resources.

In 2023, the foundations total funding reached MOP933 million (approximately USD116.55 million), a remarkable increase of about 66% from MOP572 million in 2022.

This surge is attributed to adjustments in the grant application timeline, with 2,162 projects applying for funding this yearan increase of 235 projects compared to the previous year.

In addition to financial support, the FM said it is dedicated to nurturing talent and promoting cultural development.

A notable initiative is the creation of Macao Memory, an online interactive multimedia database that preserves the regions history and culture. This project received commendation from UNESCO in 2024, underscoring its significance.

Wu said the foundation conducts annual reviews to assess the effectiveness of its initiatives and continuously seeks improvements.

King Wong, head of the Sponsorship and Cooperation Department of FM, said a robust monitoring system is in place to oversee grant management.

This year alone, personnel conducted follow-ups on 544 occasions, issuing 280 warnings for late reports and implementing financial penalties for non-compliance. Such measures reflect the foundations commitment to accountability and transparency.

However, some listeners expressed concerns regarding smaller organizations facing challenges in securing grants.

Wong clarified during the program that all projects are evaluated against uniform standards, which consider factors such as social benefits, budget rationality and execution capability.

Larger organizations that align closely with government policies may receive more substantial funding due to their ability to enhance public services.

With increased funding, the FM pledged that it aims to ensure that resources are effectively used to benefit residents.

The foundation, which operates directly under the Chief Executive, approved over MOP507 million for the first three quarters of 2024, accounting for about 88.6% of its total funding for the year. Nadia Shaw
A 38-year-old Malaysian tourist has been arrested in Macau on suspicion of smuggling methamphetamine, police reported yesterday. The arrest occurred after the Judiciary Police analyzed a flight from Kuala Lumpur. Upon arrival around 2 p.m. Tuesday, police noticed the unemployed man appeared panicked while retrieving a large checked bag. After intercepting him, officers discovered two bags containing approximately 2.25 grams of methamphetamine, valued at MOP7,500, along with drug paraphernalia hidden in a compartment of the suitcase. Although the man tested negative for drugs, he faces charges of drug trafficking and possession of drug paraphernalia.

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Foreign investment pledges surged 434 percent in the third quarter of 2024 to P146.75 billion from P27.46 billion in the same period last year.

The Philippine Statistics Authority compiled the data from the 13 investment promotion agencies (IPAs). Six of them reported foreign investment pledges in the quarter, including the Board of Investments (BOI), BOI-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BOI-BARMM), Clark Development Corp. (CDC), Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA), Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) and Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA).

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Of the total approved FI for the third quarter of 2024, South Korea posted the highest investment commitment amounting to P53.72 billion or 36.6 percent. It was followed by Switzerland at P51.84 billion [35.3 percent] and Japan at P15.96 billion [10.9 percent], the PSA said in a statement.

The manufacturing industry received the largest amount of approved FI at P70.57 billion or 48.1 percent of the total.

This was followed by electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply with P51.92 billion and real estate activities with P13.13 billion.

Among the regions in the country, CALABARZON received the largest share of pledged investment amounting to P58.86 billion or 40.1 percent of the total for the third quarter.

This was followed by Bicol Region with P51.84 billion and Central Luzon with P15.20 billion. These accounted for 35.3 percent and 10.4 percent of the total FI, respectively.

Meanwhile, the total approved investments of foreign and Filipino nationals reached P541.29 billion in the third quarter, up by 542.1 percent from P84.29 billion in the same quarter of 2023.

Filipino nationals contributed P394.54 billion or 72.9 percent to the total approved investments in the third quarter.

The approved investments of foreign and Filipino nationals in the third quarter of 2024 were expected to generate 33,727 jobs.

This represents an increase of 49.4 percent from the 22,571 expected employment in the same quarter of the previous year, the PSA said.

It said of the total generated employment, 19,265 would be absorbed by foreign investment projects.
When Russian troops entered Ukraine in February 2022, a chorus of righteous fury went up from politicians and pundits in the West. A united front of democratic countries offered up their arsenals and opened their cheque books to punish Russian war crimes and resist the invasion of a sovereign nation. Fast forward two years and our enlightened democratic rulers are again offering their arsenals and opening their cheque books to assist Israels barbaric war crimes and invasion of a sovereign nation.

Even before Israels latest rampage, the hypocrisy of the ladies and gentlemen in Washington, London, Brussels, et al. was staggering. Consider the concluding remarks of US President Joe Bidens first speech following Russias invasion of Ukraine:

Liberty, democracy, human dignity  these are the forces far more powerful than fear and oppression. They cannot be extinguished by tyrants like Putin and his armies And in the contest between democracy and autocracy, between sovereignty and subjugation, make no mistake: Freedom will prevail.

Fine words. But how do they square with history? From the end of the Second World War to the present day, there have been over 250 armed conflicts in 150 regions of the world. More than three-quarters of these were initiated by the United States. The utter hypocrisy of US policy was encapsulated by the Council of Foreign Relations, which wrote that Russia shows little respect for the territorial integrity and political autonomy of states in its near abroad. The people of Cuba would likely have some choice words for the CFR regarding Washingtons behaviour in its near abroad!

Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and the rest all fell over themselves to pledge support for Ukraines right to self-determination / Image: Number 10, Flickr

Facts are stubborn things. The fact is, between direct invasions; support for murderous military coups against democratically elected governments; and fomenting conflicts via proxies; US imperialism has been the single greatest threat to liberty, dignity and sovereignty on the world stage.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and the rest all fell over themselves to pledge support for Ukraines right to self-determination: never mind their own nations legacies of invading, robbing and subjugating weaker countries. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg accused Putin of ordering atrocious acts of aggression against a sovereign and independent country, and innocent people. Where were these scruples when NATO forces were carpet bombing and invading Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq?

The Wests support for Ukraine has precisely nothing to do with defending national sovereignty. In 2014, Washington supported a coup that installed a clique of oligarchs favourable to its interests. It then pushed Ukraine into a conflict it could not win to strike blows against Russia, and reassert American dominance after humiliating retreats in Syria and Afghanistan. Concern for poor little Ukraine was a figleaf to conceal this naked self-interest. The ruling classes of Europe trotted obediently behind their American masters into this bloody morass.

This is nothing new. As Lenin explained during the First World War, the imperialists will always seek some democratic cover for their predatory interests, and to rally their own workers behind their war effort. The British, French, German and Russian regimes in WWI all used the excuse of defending small nations: poor little Serbia on one side, and poor little Belgium on the other.

The British, French, German and Russian regimes in WWI all used the excuse of defending small nations / Image: public domain

Neither group of belligerents is inferior to the other in spoliation, atrocities and the boundless brutality of war; however, to hoodwink the proletariat and distract its attention from the only genuine war of liberation, namely, a civil war against the bourgeoisie both of its own and of foreign countries the bourgeoisie of each country is trying, with the help of false phrases about patriotism, to extol the significance of its own national war, asserting that it is out to defeat the enemy, not for plunder and the seizure of territory, but for the liberation of all other peoples except its own.

Despite paying lip service to the universal democratic right of national self-determination, the big imperialist powers have always treated small nations as disposable assets: to be exploited, traded and disposed of as needed. Slavery and colonialism in Africa, Asia and the Middle East were justified as civilising missions. The imperialist robber barons raced to carve up the world into markets and spheres of influence, plunging humanity into the chaos of war time and again as they strove for dominance.

The current nightmare in Palestine is a direct product of imperialist meddling. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 saw the British sign away Palestinian territory with the aim of forming for England a little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism, to quote Ronald Storrs, Military Governor of Jerusalem. Palestinian sovereignty was thus revoked at the stroke of a pen in Westminster. The UN partition plan of 1947 was the starting gun for the first Nakba: the mass violent expulsion of Palestinian Arabs to facilitate the state of Israel.

Today, Israels genocidal war that has killed and maimed at least 150,000 is justified in terms of the Jews right to national self-determination. But who is defending the Palestinians right to self-determination? As the Israeli war machine rolls over Gaza; as more and more of historic Palestine is annexed; as far-right cabinet ministers in the Israeli government like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich pledge a second Nakba; what do our democratic western leaders have to say?

Only that Israel has a right to defend herself. It has this right, backed up with a functionally limitless supply of arms and aid, for no other reason than it is the Wests only reliable ally in the Middle East. Therefore, niceties like international law and respect for national sovereignty do not apply where Israel is concerned.

The current nightmare in Palestine is a direct product of imperialist meddling / Image: WAFA, Wikimedia Commons

With Israels invasion of Lebanon (against the wishes of its imperialist benefactors), western double standards have become embarrassingly stark. Since February 2022, Russia has been hit with more than 16,500 sanctions by the West, while Ukraine has received more than $380 billion in aid, including nearly $118 billion in direct military aid. Zelensky has been invited to address the UN and parliaments around the globe, receiving rapturous applause. Ukraine was even gifted a win at the Eurovision Song Contest.

By contrast, an international aid conference held in Paris promised to scrape together around 1 billion in humanitarian support for Lebanon. Not only is this sum orders of magnitude less than what has been sent to Ukraine, it is a mere fraction of what the imperialists have sent to support Israel in its war effort, which is the reason aid is needed to begin with!

Moreover, the US and Britain have both moved military assets in preparation to support Israel should war break out with Iran. This is precisely Netanyahus objective: to start a wider war and drag the West into the fray, thus keeping the fighting going and holding onto his political position.

Iran responded to Israel bombing embassies and assassinating Hamas main negotiator on its soil by launching a fleet of drones that were intercepted by the Iron Dome. It met the assassination of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and the invasion of Lebanon with a barrage of rockets. These actions have caused few casualties. Meanwhile, Israel has already killed more people in Lebanon than died in the entire 2006 war, on top of its butchery in Gaza. And how have the imperialists responded? By condemning Iran for escalation!

Doesnt Iran have a right to self-defence and territorial integrity? Doesnt Lebanon have this right? Dont the Palestinians? It seems so-called universal democratic rights are in fact entirely contingent on the needs and interests of the great powers. The imperialists and their mouthpieces cannot even call things by their real name. The American comedian George Carlin once said that governments and the rich invent a special language to conceal their sins:

The CIA doesn't kill anybody anymore, they neutralise people The government doesn't lie, it engages in disinformation... Israeli murderers are called commandos, Arab commandos are called terrorists.

When Putin described the invasion of Ukraine as merely a special military operation, his sophistry was condemned in the West. But the Israeli euphemism of a limited ground offensive was eagerly taken up by the majority of western politicians and press outlets, even as thousands of IDF troops entered Lebanon.

Unlike the imperialists and their murderous proxies, we communists have no problem telling the truth. Israel is conducting a genocidal war in Gaza; and now it has invaded a sovereign nation, in an attempt to provoke a disastrous war with Iran, which our own ruling classes in the West are facilitating.

Comparing the response of our enlightened, democratic leaders to Russias invasion of Ukraine and Israels bloody campaign in the Middle East exposes what a farce is made of the principles of national sovereignty and self-determination under capitalism. These high-minded ideals are jettisoned the second they interfere with the capitalists pursuit of profits and political objectives. Far from defending the democratic rights of small nations, western imperialism is the single greatest obstacle to the liberty of poor and oppressed people worldwide. The capitalist system these gangsters enforce must be brought down if humanity is to live in peace, freedom and security.
On Wednesday, November 13, 2024, 1.2 million voters in Somaliland head to the polls, marking the fourth time that residents of this self-proclaimed Republic directly elects their leader since breaking away from Somalia in 1991. Three candidates are vying for the Presidency.

Since its separation, Somaliland has built its case for international recognition on democratic stability and legitimacy. However, this election occurs in a climate of heightened tension. Outgoing President Muse Bihi Abdi faces a challenging re-election campaign, with a controversial track record that includes delaying the election by two years, citing logistical issues. His decision led to violent crackdowns on protests, and his government has grappled with an escalating secessionist conflict since 2023. Bihis army was forced to retreat from the Sool province in the southeast, where an armed rebellion is calling for the regions annexation to Somalia. The campaign has also seen continued unrest and violence in southeastern areas.

Bihis main campaign focus is a memorandum of understanding announced earlier in the year, which proposes granting Ethiopia access to the sea in exchange for Somalilands recognition. However, this agreement has further stoked tensions in the region and remains largely unfulfilled.

Running against him are two other candidates: Faysal Ali Warabe of the Social Justice Party and, notably, Abdirahman Irro of the Waddani Party, a key opposition leader. Irros campaign is built on a promise to preserve Somalilands unity, accusing President Bihi of deepening clan divisions. Irro received a boost on Sunday when the outgoing vice president endorsed his candidacy. Irro also has a personal stake in this electionhaving narrowly lost to Bihi in 2017, he disputed the results for a week before conceding, choosing to preserve the unity and peace of Somaliland at that time.
The ruling party in Ghanas Parliament has retained its majorityat least according to a decision issued by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, November 12. The court deemed unconstitutional a previous move by Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin, nearly a month ago, which had shifted the balance in favor of the opposition, the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

However, with just three weeks left until the presidential election, its unclear if this decision will resolve the ongoing political deadlock.

The Supreme Courts decision marks a victory for the rule of law, declared Alexander Afenyo-Markin, leader of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) group in Parliament, who had challenged Speaker Bagbins decision to declare four parliamentary seats vacant. Bagbin, a member of the NDC, had cited Article 97 of the Constitution to justify this decision, which then swung the majority to the NDC, sparking weeks of turmoil and repeated adjournments in Parliament.

While the Supreme Court has yet to publish the detailed reasoning behind its judgment, Speaker Bagbin has not issued a response as of Wednesday, November 12. The question now is whether he will reconvene Parliament, which remains adjourned, with the December 7 general elections fast approaching.
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a financing of 415 million dollars under Moroccos Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF).

The loan brings to 747 million dollars the total IMF loans to Morocco under the same facility.

Morocco continues to make progress in bolstering its resilience against climate change and seizing the opportunities from decarbonization, under the RSF arrangement, the IMF said in a statement.

It noted the impact of drought on unemployment and the governments efforts to cut the fiscal deficit thanks to higher revenue.

Significant investments in water infrastructure aim at addressing water scarcity and will need to be complemented by demand management reform, the IMF said, adding that Morocco invests heavily to renewable energies to achieve its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) targets, reduce its reliance on imported fuels, improve firms competitiveness, and help create jobs.

Moroccos efforts should focus on further liberalizing the electricity sector, greening the tax system, addressing the risks that climate change pose to the stability of the fiscal and financial systems, and protecting the countrys diminishing groundwater resources. The recently published Climate Finance Development Strategy 2030 has an important role in mobilizing private climate finance
Several candidates from the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS)the party of former Chadian President Idriss Deby, now a key supporter of his son and successor, Mahamat Idriss Debyhave been disqualified by the electoral Agency overseeing the legislative and local elections set for December 29, 2024.

Among the rejected candidates is the MPS Secretary General, Mahamat Zen Bada. In total, at least six MPS candidates were disqualified, five of whom were previously convicted and sentenced to prison in Chad, with four of these convictions relating to the embezzlement of public funds, as confirmed by official rejection letters on November 12.

Mahamat Zen Bada, the partys Secretary General, faced rejection due to a 2012 conviction for forgery, use of forged documents, and embezzlement of public funds. While Zen Bada received a presidential pardon, Chadian law still records his conviction in the criminal record, unlike an amnesty that would expunge it.

According to the National Agency for the Management of Elections (ANGE), the clean record submitted by Zen Bada was invalid.

The MPS is currently verifying these cases, said spokesperson Issa Doubragne, and will support the disqualified candidates in potential appeals that must be filed with the Constitutional Council within five days.
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

Over the past three decades, there has been a startling increase in the prevalence of obesity across the U.S., at least doubling in adult men and women (aged 25 and older) and older female and male adolescents (aged 1524 years) since 1990, with the number of people living with overweight and obesity reaching over 208 million in 2021a trend set to continue in the coming decades without significant reform, according to a major new analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study Collaborator Network, published in The Lancet.

Especially high levels of overweight and obesity have already been reached in several US states, with over half (52%) of older adolescent males (aged 1524 years) in Texas and nearly two-thirds (63%) of older adolescent females in Mississippi living with overweight or obesity in 2021. Similarly, in adults (aged 25 or older), around 80% of men in North Dakota and women in Mississippi were estimated to have overweight or obesity in 2021.

The study predicts devastating trends at the population level. The total number of US children and adolescents with overweight and obesity is expected to reach 43.1 million by 2050 (an additional 6.74 million from 2021), and the number of adults 213 million (an additional 41.4 million), underscoring the urgent need for concerted population-wide action to reverse these trends and the stark geographical and sex disparities.

"Our analysis lays bare the decades-long failure to tackle the growing overweight and obesity epidemic in the U.S. The catastrophic consequences of the surge in overweight and obesity among children are already evident in the rising prevalence of childhood hypertension and type 2 diabetes," said lead author Professor Emmanuela Gakidou from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington, U.S.

"Overweight and obesity can trigger serious health conditionsmany of which are now occurring at younger ages, including diabetes, heart attacks, stroke, cancer, mental health disorders, and even premature death.

"The soaring health system and economic costs will be equally pervasive, with over 260 million people in the U.S., including over half of all children and adolescents, expected to be living with overweight or obesity by 2050. United efforts and urgent investments are needed to alter these troubling trajectories and ensure a healthier future for current and upcoming generations."

The new analysis estimated the prevalence of overweight and obesity for children and young adolescents (aged 514 years), older adolescents (aged 1524 years), and adults (aged 25 and older) from 1990 to 2021 with forecasts to 2050 (assuming continuation of past trends and patterns) using 134 unique data sources, including all major national surveillance survey data.

The new analysis provides in-depth forecasts, broken down at the state level, as well as by age and sex. Adjustments were made to correct for self-reporting bias.

For individuals older than 18 years, overweight was defined as having a BMI of 25 kg/m2 to less than 30 kg/m2 and obesity was defined as a BMI of 30 kg/m2 or higher. For individuals younger than 18 years, definitions were based on International Obesity Task Force criteria.

213 million American adults predicted to have overweight or obesity in 2050

Almost three-quarters of the adult population (172 million adults aged 25 or older) in the U.S. were estimated to be living with overweight or obesity in 2021. The prevalence of obesity rose especially rapidly, doubling between 1990 and 2021 in both adult men (from 18.6% to 41.5%) and women (from 22.8% to 45.6%).

The estimated prevalence of adult overweight and obesity was high across all states in 2021. In men, levels ranged from 80.6% in North Dakota to 65.3% in Washington DC; while in women, levels ranged from 79.9% in Mississippi to 63.7% in Hawaii.

Continuation of these trends would see overweight and obesity prevalence among adults (age-standardized to allow comparisons between states and over time) rise from an estimated 75.9% in 2021 to around 81.1% for men and from 72.6% to 82.1% for women. This would mean an estimated 41.4 million additional adults living with overweight or obesity by 2050 (raising the total to 213 million, of whom 146 million will have obesity).

Concerningly, the prevalence of obesity is projected to increase at a more rapid rate than overweight, and faster among adult men than women. Between 2021 and 2050, the highest rise in obesity prevalence among men is expected in Colorado (up 44.2%) and New Mexico (up 41.2%), and among adult women in Kansas and Colorado (both up 34.9%).

However, the highest levels of obesity are expected to remain in the southern states, with around two-thirds of adult men in West Virginia and Kentucky forecast to be living with obesity by 2050, as well as two-thirds of adult women in 12 states, with especially high rates of obesity predicted in Mississippi, West Virginia, and Arkansas and Alabama (both around 69%).

Interestingly, the onset of obesity has become earlier over subsequent generations. For example, approximately two out of five women born in the 1960s were living with obesity at the age of 45, however the same proportion were living with obesity by the age of 30 for women born in the 1980s, and by the age of 20 for women born in 2000.

"Obesity is at a crisis point throughout the U.S., with every state challenged to some degree," said co-author Affiliate Associate Professor Marie Ng from IHME, University of Washington, U.S.

"Over the past three decades, the country has experienced extensive economic, demographic, and technological transitions that have triggered profound changes to food and agricultural systems, urbanization, and wealth and educational inequalities together with underlying structural racism that all interact to drive population-wide obesitywhether it be the marketing of unhealthy food products to children, the proliferation of sedentary online activities, or food deserts (neighborhoods that lack healthy, affordable food options) that are more common in racial and ethnic minority neighborhoods."

Unprecedented epidemic of childhood and adolescent obesity

The new analysis estimates that older adolescent obesity prevalence rose substantially in the U.S. between 1990 and 2021, more than doubling in both males (from 8.8% to 22.7%) and females (from 10.1% to 28.8%).

In 2021, an estimated 15.1 million children and young adolescents and 21.4 million older adolescents were living with overweight or obesity.

However, they impact segments of the American population differently, with older adolescent females (50.8%) experiencing higher prevalence in 2021 than older adolescent males (46.7%), with especially high rates among older adolescent females in Mississippi, Alabama, and Oklahoma (where levels exceeded 59%), and among older adolescent males in Texas and West Virginia (where levels exceeded 52%).

The new study predicts that an additional 3.3 million children and young adolescents and 3.41 million older adolescents will be living with overweight or obesity by 2050 (raising the total to 43.1 million, of whom 24 million will have obesity).

With the increase in obesity projected to outpace the increase in overweight, around one in five children and at least one in three adolescents are expected to be living with obesity in 2050.

The rising tide of adolescent obesity is projected to reach the highest levels among older adolescent males in Oklahoma (43%), Mississippi (39.8%) and West Virginia (37.7%) in 2050, and affect at least half of older adolescent females living in Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Alabama.

However, the largest numbers of older adolescents with obesity will continue to be in California (1.53 million) and Texas (1.49 million) in 2050.

Associate Professor Ng said, "The mechanisms behind the rising obesity prevalence are much more complex than just a matter of excessive energy intake and physical inactivity. Existing interventions which focus on lifestyle-based behavioral changes do not produce sufficient and sustainable reductions in overweight and obesity, especially among children and adolescents.

"Addressing the structural drivers of population obesity and emphasizing prevention must be central to any future strategies. Future interventions also need to account for societal shifts in acceptance of obesity, alongside tailoring solutions by sex and for states with high obesity rates."

Population-level prevention and a cross-government strategy key to tackling obesity crisis

The analysis notes that while anti-obesity medications like glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) have a place in obesity management, they alone will not be enough to solve the obesity epidemic.

As Associate Professor Ng explains, "Given the predicted surge in overweight and obesity, demand for anti-obesity medication will definitely increase, but it is not a silver bullet. With concern surrounding prohibitive costs and equitable access, together with varying effectiveness and potentially serious side-effects, prevention will remain a primary strategy."

The authors stress that prevention needs to become a much more dominant focus of obesity control and that any policies aiming to tackle the obesity crisis must be a priority at federal and state governments and backed by high-level political commitment.

They should also be comprehensive, reaching individuals across the life course and targeting inequalities. For example, given that obesity is intergenerational, the authors say that intervention needs to begin with pregnant women and early feeding practices.

"Rather than relying on individual agencies, stronger governance is needed to support and implement a multifaceted whole-system approach to radically disrupt the structural drivers of overweight and obesity at both national and community levels, as well as within households and schools," said Professor Gakidou.

"Federal policymakers must look beyond short-term political goals to target policy interventions not just within the health sector, for example, ensuring all children have access to nutritious primary school meals and that there is greater regulation of junk food marketing."

She added, "Above all, reversing the US obesity epidemic will rely on the government supporting programs that increase levels of physical activity, such as investing in safe and walkable neighborhoods, guaranteeing the availability of healthy food to children and adolescents, regulating the food and marketing industries, and achieving environmentally sustainable food systems."

The authors note some important limitations, including that while the study uses the best available data, predictions are constrained by the quality and availability of data, and for that reason, they were unable to estimate the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity at the state level.

They also note that the definition of overweight and obesity is based on BMI, which might not account for variations in body structure across the population, and that they did not examine racial and ethnic disparities in obesity.

Finally, past trends are not always predictive of what will happen in the future, and some factors, like the recent surge in the use of GLP-1 anti-obesity medications could alter the longer-term forecasting trends of overweight and obesity.

Writing in a linked Comment, Professor Syvain Sebert from the University of Oulu in Finland (who was not involved with the study) said, "A multifaceted, whole-system approach is needed to address the overweight and obesity crisis, with the challenge that it has now surpassed every known level of epidemic progression.

"Extensive collaboration is needed across all health sectors, and both public and personalized health approaches need to be combined to confront and address the challenge together. There is great hope in new therapeutic approaches, such as GLP-1 analogs, for more effective and well tolerated treatments for overweight and obesity; however, these treatments should not be seen as a reason to abandon prevention efforts.

"Health-care systems cannot manage the epidemic solely through life-long secondary prevention policies  Hopefully this excellent new report will find its way onto the global policy agenda to aid in prevention efforts for all causes identified and all potential consequences of the obesity crisis."

More information: National-level and state-level prevalence of overweight and obesity among children, adolescents, and adults in the USA, 19902021, and forecasts up to 2050, The Lancet (2024). DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01548-4 , www.thelancet.com/journals/lan  (24)01548-4/fulltext Journal information: The Lancet
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The American Heart Association and the American Red Cross have released the "2024 Guidelines for First Aid," which provide critical updates that equip first aid responders with the latest evidence-based practices to effectively respond to mild, moderate and life-threatening emergencies. The guidelines are published in Circulation.

"Providing first aid care is about recognizing that an emergency has occurred  that someone is ill or injured  and assessing them and then prioritizing their needs. First aid training is essential to apply the appropriate knowledge and skills for saving lives and reducing harm," said Elizabeth Hewett Brumberg, M.D., co-chair of the guidelines writing group and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and member of the Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council.

"These updates reflect the changing landscape of public health challenges and aim to equip trained professionals and the public with lifesaving skills that are more critical than ever."

These are the first major comprehensive updates to the first aid guidelines since 2010 and address shifts in how the public manages common and critical first aid emergencies.

The updated guidelines reaffirm essential strategies for emergency responders that have become common in recent years but have not been formally documented. For bystanders, the guidelines offer instruction on how to recognize when professional help is needed and when to use available tools and medications effectively for conditions.

The most significant changes between the 2010 and 2024 guidelines are the expanded scope of emergency care conditions. The 2010 version focuses on basic first aid topics like chest pain, stroke recognition and bleeding.

The 2024 version provides greater specificity for these conditions and includes detailed guidance on several scenarios, including managing an opioid overdose, addressing a feeling of fainting and treating a tick bite. In addition, the 2024 guidelines expand recommendations on emergency situations previously covered in addition to a broader range of situations, as well. Guidance is also enhanced for emergency care involving children.

Emergency situations covered in the 2024 guidelines include:

Opioid overdose management

External bleeding control

First aid for open chest wounds

Administration of oxygen and use of pulse oximetry

Spinal motion restriction

Chest pain in adults

Stroke recognition in adults and children

First aid for seizures

Heatstroke and hypothermia

First aid for tick bites

Assistance with administration of prescribed medications

Matthew J. Douma, Ph.D. (c), M.N., co-chair of the writing group, professor of critical care medicine at the University of Alberta in Canada and American Heart Association volunteer, emphasizes that bystanders should act within their abilities and respect the person receiving care. He noted, "We encourage everyone to take a first aid class to learn the skills and techniques to provide emergency care. We know first aid saves lives, so training, maintaining these skills and having a first aid kit on hand are essential."

The American Heart Association and the American Red Cross have rich histories of delivering lifesaving first aid and CPR training. The 2024 first aid guidelines recommendations reflect alignment with the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR), of which the Association is a founding member, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society, a collaborating member.

The joint guidelines provide the official clinical practice recommendations for first aid, including emergency cardiovascular care for adults and children. The American Heart Association and the Red Cross support the development and publication of clinical practice guidelines without commercial support, and members volunteer their time to the writing and review efforts.

These guidelines were prepared by the volunteer writing group on behalf of the American Heart Association and the Red Cross. The guidelines writing group includes experts from nursing, emergency medicine, pediatrics, trauma, emergency medical services, wilderness medicine, education and research.

Members conducted evidence review and syntheses approved by the Association's Emergency Cardiovascular Care Science Subcommittee and the Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council.

More information: Elizabeth K. Hewett Brumberg, et al. 2024 American Heart Association and American Red Cross Guidelines for First Aid. Circulation (2024). DOI: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001281 Journal information: Circulation
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The Bay State is again receiving positive news in its fight against the drug overdose crisis, as new data shows that OD deaths significantly dropped in a recent 12-month period.

Massachusetts had about 2,032 drug overdose deaths in the 12-month period that ended June 30, according to provisional CDC data. That was a major 23% decline from the 2,630 overdose deaths over the previous year.

The Bay State's estimated drop of 22.74% in deaths outpaces the nationwide decrease of 14.45%.

This promising data for Massachusetts comes in the wake of the Department of Public Health reporting that opioid-related overdose deaths decreased by 10% in 2023the largest single-year decline since 20092010.

"We're cautiously optimistic," Deirdre Calvert, director of DPH's Bureau of Substance Addiction Services, told the Herald about the new CDC data on Wednesday.

"We're going to keep plugging away, and we won't take our foot off the gas," Calvert added.

Overall, in the U.S., there were an estimated 96,801 drug overdose deaths in the 12-month period that ended June 30. That was a 14.5% decrease from the 113,154 deaths in the previous year.

In addition to Massachusetts, overdose deaths dropped across New England and in 45 states overall. The states with death increases were Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah and Alaska.

Calvert cited several strategies that have helped lead to the recent drop in Massachusetts, including expanding access to Narcan to help reverse overdoses. In June, DPH had reported that the agency since 2023 had distributed more than 196,500 naloxone kits, resulting in at least 10,206 overdose reversals.

The Bay State is continuing to invest in evidence-based harm reduction interventions, such as fentanyl test strips. In June, DPH reported that the agency had distributed more than 504,000 fentanyl test strip kits at no cost to providers and community organizations.

It's important to keep "letting people know that there's a tainted drug supply," Calvert said, noting that the chances of even cocaine and methamphetamine "being contaminated are great."

The state's opioid overdose prevention efforts include initiatives to address the disproportionate impacts of fatal opioid overdoses on communities of color and in the most rural areas.

"We really need to double down on our efforts to engage communities of color, reaching out to our community partners and ensuring this equity happens," Calvert said.

In the future, supervised injection sites could help prevent fatal overdoses in the Bay State, according to officials. DPH has found that overdose prevention centers are an "evidence-based, life-saving tool." Overdose prevention centers, which have operated for decades in other countries like Canada and Australia, are sites where people can use drugs under the supervision of trained staffwho can administer Narcan.

2024 MediaNews Group, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Examples of Clinical and Art Imagery Used in the Preintervention and Postintervention Tests. Credit: Neurology Education (2024). DOI: 10.1212/NE9.0000000000200170

Art and neurology have long been intertwined. Renaissance artwork depicted the nuances of human anatomy and pathology with remarkable accuracy, while Impressionism, Cubism, and other artistic movements utilized the unique features of human vision and perception to achieve artistic impact. Just as artists relied on an intuitive understanding of neuroscience, neuroscientists have long documented their findings with artistic renderings of the brain, giving rise to key scientific observations.

Multiple studies have shown that visual arts training improves observational skills, communication and empathy among both medical students and residents in ophthalmology, nuclear medicine, radiology, and dermatology. However, studies examining the benefits of visual arts training for neurology residents remain scarce.

In a new study, researchers from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center (BMC) have found teaching artistic observation to neurology residents contributed to the development of well-rounded physicians with the capacity to be both skilled clinicians and compassionate healers. These findings appear online in the journal Neurology: Education.

"The art of neurologic diagnosis requires meticulous observation, with careful attention paid to a patient's history, physical examination and neuroimaging. However, resident physicians face heavy workloads, burnout and emotional exhaustion due to the challenging nature of their training. These stressors have the potential to hinder residents' observational skills," explained first and corresponding author Tatiana Greige, MD, a former neurology resident at BMC.

Currently a vascular neurology fellow at Mass General Brigham, Greige created the Museum Art in Neurology Education Training project to introduce BMC neurology residents to the world of visual arts, improve their observational skills, foster their empathic skills, develop their tolerance for uncertainty encountered in clinical practice and provide them with a unique space for self-expression and personal growth through museum-based sessions.

Examples of Artwork Presented During the Sessions at the Fogg Museum. Credit: Neurology Education (2024). DOI: 10.1212/NE9.0000000000200170

The study participants were resident physicians undergoing training in both adult and pediatric neurology in the Boston University Neurology Residency Program. They received three custom-designed art observation training sessions between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023.

Each session was four hours long and led by professional art educators. The residents completed pre- and post-intervention tests to assess for change in their observational skills. The tests included a combination of MRI images, clinical videos and artworks.

Following the art training, the researchers found observational skills improved significantly for the residents between the pre- and post-intervention tests. The majority of residents noted a subjective improvement in their communication and observational skills as well as an increase in their empathy skills.

All of the residents noted feeling more comfortable with the notion of uncertainty in a clinical setting after attending the museum sessions and all of the residents agreed that this project should be repeated for future years.

According to the researchers, humanities can enrich and complement residency curriculum, but beyond any potential educational benefit, they offer a unique and safe space for self-reflection and personal growth.

"Art allows for the expression of emotions that may be difficult to convey with words alone. Because art has the potential to capture an expansive breadth of human experience, it may also help medical trainees better grapple with suffering, inequity, and other limitations of the health care system," explained senior author Pria Anand, MD, assistant professor of neurology at the school and director of neurology residency.

More information: Tatiana Greige et al, Education Research: The MANET Project, Neurology Education (2024). DOI: 10.1212/NE9.0000000000200170
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Cue- and reward-evoked NAc dopamine release events during food PR responding. Credit: Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adq5652

With the increased legalization of recreational cannabis, as many as 1 in 5 pregnant women in the U.S. are now using the drug to help with morning sickness, lower back pain or anxiety. Evidence has been growing, however, to suggest that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, poses risks to the developing fetus by impacting brain development. Now a new study finds that this could increase the risk of addiction to opioids later in life.

The preclinical animal study, led by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, was published in the journal Science Advances. It found that prenatal exposure to THC causes a rewiring of the fetal brain.

THC caused certain brain cells, called dopamine neurons, to respond in a hyperactive way, causing a heightened increase in dopamine release. This was accompanied by heightened neuronal responsiveness to cues associated with rewards like a light turning on to indicate that food or an opioid drug was available.

"Doctors are contending with an explosion of cannabis use, and the THC content has quadrupled from what it was a generation ago," said study corresponding author Joseph Cheer, Ph.D., a Professor of Neurobiology and Psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

"It demonstrates the enduring consequences that prenatal cannabis exposure exerts on the brain's reward system, which ultimately results in a neurobiological vulnerability to opioid drugs."

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that doctors counsel patients on concerns about potential adverse health consequences of continued use of cannabis during pregnancy. Dr. Cheer and others doing research on THC exposure during pregnancy are racing to learn more about the health consequences on developing fetuses to help doctors better counsel their patients on the drug's effects.

To conduct this new study, he and his colleagues found that fetuses exposed to a moderately low dose of THC (equivalent to their mothers smoking one to two joints per day) developed changes in how their reward system functioned, causing them to develop an at-risk phenotype for opioid seeking.

Animals previously exposed to THC in utero display a dramatically increased motivation to press a lever that would deliver a dose of opioid drugs compared to those that were not previously exposed to THC.

When THC-exposed animals reached early adulthood, they were more likely to show enhanced opioid-seeking and were more likely to relapse upon opioid-associated environmental cues compared to those animals who were not exposed to THC in the womb. They were also more likely to develop persistent addiction-like behaviors.

In a follow-up experiment, the researchers implanted tiny sensors in the animals' brains and measured heightened dopamine release, accompanied by activity in neurons that over-represented opioid-related cues, in the rats exhibiting strong addiction-like behaviors.

"These observations support the hypothesis of a hypersensitized 'wanting' system that develops in the brain after exposure to THC during prenatal development," said Dr. Cheer.

"Interestingly, we found that this opioid-seeking phenotype occurs significantly more in males compared to females, and we are currently performing research with our colleagues at UMSOM, to determine why this is the case."

Dr. Cheer's previous work, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, found prenatal exposure to THC makes the brain's dopamine neurons hyperactive, which may contribute to an increased risk of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia. His work has been independently verified by three independent laboratories throughout the world.

Along with his colleague Mary Kay Lobo, Ph.D., Professor of Neurobiology at UMSOM, Dr. Cheer serves as the co-director of the Center for Substance Use in Pregnancy, which is part of UMSOM's Kahlert Institute for Addiction Medicine. The two are working with a team of researchers to investigate the enduring effects of drug and alcohol exposure in the womb.

"We need to more fully understand the enduring effects of THC exposure in the womb and whether we can reverse some of the deleterious effects through CRISPR-based gene therapies or repurposed drugs," said UMSOM Dean Mark T. Gladwin, MD, who is the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and vice president for medical affairs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

"We also need to provide better advice to pregnant patients, many of whom are using cannabis to help control anxiety because they think this drug is safer for their baby than traditional anti-anxiety medications."

More information: Miguel A. Lujan et al, Dynamic overrepresentation of accumbal cues in food- and opioid-seeking rats after prenatal THC exposure, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adq5652 Journal information: Nature Neuroscience , Science Advances
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Frequent hospital visits during pregnancy could be a sign that a pregnant person will encounter life-threatening complications during or after pregnancy, according to a new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) and Cityblock Health.

Published in JAMA Network Open, the study found that among nearly 775,000 pregnant people in Massachusetts, 31% of these individuals had at least one unscheduled emergency visit to the hospital, and 3.3% had four or more unscheduled hospital visits. The latter group was nearly 50% more likely to experience severe maternal morbidity (SMM), which encompasses a range of complications during labor or childbirth that can lead to poor maternal outcomes such as aneurysms, eclampsia, kidney and heart failure, and sepsis.

Importantly, the findings also revealed that nearly half of the pregnant people who sought emergency care four or more times during their pregnancy visited multiple hospitals for evaluation. The resulting lack of consistent treatment for patients from any given hospital makes it difficult for hospital-based pregnancy programs to capture the true burden of prenatal and postpartum challenges that these patients experience.

The analysis is the first US-based assessment of an association between four or more emergency-care visits during pregnancy and the risk of SMM. It builds upon a prior study by the researchers, which found that 70% of people who had a pregnancy-associated death during postpartum also visited a hospital between the time they gave birth and the time they were hospitalized at death. As both SMM and maternal morbidity rates in the US remain the highest among wealthy countries, identifying these high-risk pregnant patients and understanding the extent of their prenatal health challenges can spur efforts to connect this population to other preventive care within their communities.

"When there is a poor maternal health outcome, there is a tendency to say, 'If we only knew earlier,'" says study lead author Dr. Eugene Declercq, professor of community health sciences at BUSPH. "Those in our study with repeated prenatal emergency visits are showing us clearly they're at risk. Avoiding severe maternal morbidity isn't something that only happens at the time of birthit must start with the early identification of high-risk cases like these, followed by community-based support to avoid catastrophic outcomes for mothers and infants."

For the study, Dr. Declercq and colleagues utilized data from a statewide database that linked unscheduled hospital visitsincluding trips to the emergency department as well as observational hospital staysby 774,092 pregnant patients to births and fetal deaths in Massachusetts between October 2002 and March 2020.

About 18% of patients had one emergency visit to the hospital, nearly 7% had two visits, 3% had three visits, and 3.3% had four or more visits. About 44% of patients who sought emergency care four or more times during pregnancy visited more than one hospital. This group was 46% more likely to experience SMM than patients who sought less emergency care and visited fewer hospitals during their pregnancy. Patients were also more likely to seek emergency care during the first eight weeks and last eight weeks of their pregnancy.

The researchers also observed several racial, economic, and age-related disparities among the patients who used emergency care multiple times during their pregnancy. High utilization of unscheduled hospital care was most associated with women under 25 years old, Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black patients, and those who were born in the US, unmarried, or who had an additional health condition or opioid-related hospitalization in the year prior to their pregnancy. Some of these individuals have visited up to six different Massachusetts hospitals for emergency care, the researchers say.

"Our study shows for the first time that those who use the emergency room more during pregnancy are more likely to be people of color who are at significantly higher risk of experiencing a potentially life-altering morbidity event around the time of childbirth," says study senior author Dr. Pooja Mehta, adjunct assistant professor of obstetrics & gynecology at BU's Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and vice president of population health at Cityblock Health.

"We need to do much more than provide these individuals with a follow-up prenatal visit; our actions have to be timely and address root causes and fragmentation in the system to impact the layers of structural racism that we already know contribute to maternal morbidity."

The team hopes these findings bring attention to the high rates of emergency care visits driven by unmet needsa public health issue that is not well documentedand encourage researchers, health care providers, policymakers, and reproductive health advocates to envision ways to strengthen or compensate for traditional prenatal care that falls short of meeting pregnant patients' health needs.

More information: Eugene R. Declercq et al, Emergency Care Use During Pregnancy and Severe Maternal Morbidity, JAMA Network Open (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.39939 Journal information: JAMA Network Open
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Periodontal (gum) disease and diabetes are locked in a grim partnership aimed at undermining your health, experts warn.

"Recent research has shown that diabetes is not only a major risk factor for periodontitis but that the relationship between the two conditions is bidirectional, meaning they both influence and exacerbate one another," said Dr. Anton Sculean, chair of periodontology at the University of Berne in Switzerland.

The relationship might even become deadly over time: Moderate or severe cases of gum disease have long been linked to heightened odds of death from heart disease or death from any cause, said Sculean. He's also chairman of EuroPerio11, the annual meeting of the European Federation of Periodontology (EFP).

Diabetes is now thought to affect more than 800 million people worldwide, and it occurs when the body either fails to produce enough insulin (the hormone that regulates blood sugar) or the body's cells become less sensitive to the hormone.

Besides its many other complications, diabetes triples the odds for severe gum disease, the EFP said in a news release.

In fact, as a diabetic person loses control of blood sugar levels, gum disease severity rises.

Why is that so? As Sculean and colleagues explained, poorly controlled blood sugar levels can weaken your immune system, which then finds it tougher to fight periodontal infections.

Diabetes can also put the body into a pro-inflammatory state, further exacerbating the damage to gum tissues.

These ill effects also work in the opposite direction: As periodontal disease worsens, it triggers a systemic inflammatory response that makes it even tougher for cells to remain sensitive to insulin, the EFP explained.

Severe gum disease can even be a kind of "tipping point," pushing people into a diabetic state, the experts said.

All of this sets up a "vicious cycle" where gum disease and diabetes work on each other to wreak havoc on blood sugar levels.

On the flip side, treating gum disease could help bring diabetes under control.

According to the EFP statement, "This finding reinforces the need for dental professionals to work closely with other health care providers, ensuring that patients receive comprehensive care that addresses both their oral health and diabetes management."

Right now, it's estimated that more than 1 billion people worldwide have severe periodontal disease, the EFP said.

"The EFP places great importance on addressing the link between diabetes and gum disease, as it affects not only oral health but the overall well-being of millions of people worldwide," said Dr. Eduardo Montero, an expert in dental surgery at the University of Madrid in Spain.

"Raising awareness among the public, health professionals and policymakers is essential. We need to move towards more holistic health systems that recognize the bidirectional relationship between diabetes and periodontitis and integrate oral health into global health strategies."

More information: For more on gum disease, head to the Cleveland Clinic.

Copyright  2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
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Thousands of kidney disease patients' lives could be saved around the world each year if countries adopted the UK's rules on organ donation, new research has revealed.

In most countries, organ donation from donors without a heartbeat can only take place if the donor dies within one hour of organ removal. In the United Kingdom, kidneys can still be donated up to three hours after withdrawing this support.

Now, in a study published in JAMA Network Open, scientists at Newcastle University, UK, have shown that the quality of donor kidneys is unaffected by the time between withdrawing life support and the donor dying.

Experts are now calling on international organ donation organizations to consider changing their policies to help increase the number of organs available.

Time to death rules

Most countries have strict time-to-death rules, and if the donor has not died within one hour after their life support is removed, the donation team leaves, and the organs are not used for transplant.

However, in the UK, teams wait a minimum of three hours, and scientists have found that waiting a few extra hours is beneficial to helping save as many lives as possible.

Based on current trends in the United States, if this country alone adopted the three-hour rule, this could mean an extra 1,000 kidney transplants in America per year, and many more across the globe.

Samuel Tingle, Clinical Research Fellow at Newcastle University, who led the study, said, "Our study debunks the idea that a one hour time-to-death is crucial for maintaining the health of organs. What we show is that a longer time to death does not impact the quality or success of kidneys, but it does increase the number of kidneys donated. This offers benefits for patients on the waiting list, potential organ donors and donor families.

"Increasing the number of kidneys internationally could have a huge impact on transplant waiting lists, saving many more lives. Getting patients off dialysis also massively improves their quality of life. Raising the number of kidneys which are successfully donated from consented donors also makes sure we are respecting the wishes of donors and their families wherever possible."

The research is a statistical analysis of data from the UK Transplant Registry. Researchers used anonymized information from 7,183 kidney transplant recipients between 2013 and 2021.

It is the largest study ever to focus specifically on time to death policies for kidney donation. Previous research, led by the same Newcastle team, has shown that longer time to death waiting times did not damage livers or pancreases.

'Wonderfully simple change'

Mr. Tingle, also an Honorary Clinical Research Fellow at The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said, "We believe that organ donation organizations internationally should implement the UK policy of waiting a minimum of three hours after removing life support from potential donors. This is a wonderfully simple change that could be made worldwide to safely increase the number of kidneys available for transplant."

The study was led by Newcastle University and involved Cambridge University, University of Wisconsin, Guy's Hospital and NHS Blood and Transplant.

Further research, in collaboration with NHS Blood and Transplant, will look at whether the time to death wait can be increased to more than three hours and still maintain the quality of the organ.

Dale Gardiner, associate medical director for deceased organ donation at NHS Blood and Transplant, said, "The UK has been a world-leader in this type of organ donation for over a decade. It is a privilege to share this expertise with the world so that more lives can be saved through the gift of organ donation."

More information: Samuel J. Tingle et al, Donor Time to Death and Kidney Transplant Outcomes in the Setting of a 3-Hour Minimum Wait Policy, JAMA Network Open (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.43353 Journal information: JAMA Network Open
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A groundbreaking new study conducted by the University of South Florida will track young people through 2050 to learn more about the long-term impacts of smartphones, social media and other digital media on individual well-being.

Though the long-term research will be conducted over the next 25 years, data collected every six months will give ongoing insight to parents, teachers, researchers, health providers and others on the impact of digital media use on children and as they age into adults.

"We have research from other fields that tracks people across decades, looking at cardiovascular health or work-life balance across the lifespan. We don't have that yet for digital media use and wellness," said Justin Martin, the Eleanor Poynter Jamison Chair in Media Ethics & Press Policy at USF St. Petersburg and lead researcher of the study.

"We know that digital media affect people, especially children, in meaningful and often adverse ways, so it's important to study the same individuals across the lifespan."

The Life in Media Survey will collect insights and experiences from thousands of 11 to 13-year-olds as they pertain to digital media use. Researchers will then track the same participants over decades, to determine how digital media impacts and changes attitudes, behaviors and health throughout their lives.

The survey will cover topics such as social media use and addiction, cyberbullying, news consumption, streaming services, parental controls, media literacy, artificial intelligence and more. Examining responses and patterns over time, researchers will discover possible connections between device ownership and time spent on social media with the prevalence of sleep deprivation, anxiety, depression and other critical wellness indicators.

"Experiences during childhood and adolescence can influence health outcomes later in life. This study will help us understand the impact of digital media use on sleep quality and mental health in adolescents, ultimately informing interventions to mitigate any harmful effects," said Chighaf Bakour, a USF associate professor of epidemiology.

The USF study differs from previous research on children's media use and wellness.

Prior work has mostly focused on smartphone use, social media use and gaming. The USF study measures these things, but also assesses binge-watching, podcast listening, music streaming and other digital habits. A prior study on streaming that Martin coauthored found that binge-watching, an activity often done with others, was correlated with spending more time in-person with friends and familynot with social isolation.

Also, many studies of media use among children focus on the 13-to-17-year-old age range. The USF researchers began with early adolescents at age 11, when nearly half of children in the U.S. do not yet own a smartphone.

Some 1,500 Florida youth will take the survey in November to provide researchers with baseline data. The Harris Poll, a global market research firm that collaborated with the USF team in constructing the questionnaire, is collecting the data and will obtain parental permission before children complete the online survey. Findings and insights from this cohort will be published in a report in the spring of 2025.

Informed by the pilot survey, the research team will then start a nationwide, long-term survey for up to 9,000 children in early adolescence. Researchers will survey these children twice a year, once during the school year and again in the summer.

"The 11 to 13-year-old range is typically, for now, when children acquire their own personal smartphone but are still pretty new to the world of digital media," said Stephen Song, USF assistant professor in the Department of Journalism & Digital Communication. "This is a good age to begin to track behavior changes that occur over time."

Past snapshot research has studied the effects of digital media on everything from political discourse to social development, but no long-term study has tracked digital media use and well-being from childhood into adulthood. There are a lot of data, but few conclusive findings, since media and devices can be used in so many different ways, said Wendy Rote, a USF psychology professor and expert on adolescent development.

"Let's say kids who spend more time on social media and devices have higher rates of depression, which is what some of the data is telling us. Is it because of the device and media itself, or is it because time spent with digital media means kids have less time for sports, clubs and other socialization activities?" Rote asked.

"What you can get from a long-term study is broad patterns and trends of media use by individuals and examine those at different times in their life to pick apart and answer such questions."

The research team comprises experts across various disciplines, including journalism, psychology, public health, political science, sociology and communications.

USF is also collaborating with the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and its MediaWise initiative, which empowers young people with media literacy skills, including digital and AI literacy. Sean Marcus, the interactive learning designer for MediaWise, worked with the team to ensure survey questions were relevant and understandable for the audience.

Since the Life in Media Survey will be conducted twice a year over decades, the scope of change that researchers measure could be vast.

"Media and media literacy move at lightning speed, and this study will allow us to move with it," Marcus said.

"We are in the midst of a major technological revolution with tools like AI. This research will provide us a frame of reference to understand how young people are living their lives with technology and how changes in technology are impacting them."
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Tottori University researchers in Japan have linked maternal psychological distress during pregnancy to an increased risk of epilepsy in children.

Epilepsy affects 65 million people globally and is one of the most prevalent neurological disorders. Individuals with epilepsy often face discrimination and social stigma, enduring stress from living with a chronic, unpredictable disease.

Early onset of epilepsy before the age of three is associated with high rates of drug resistance and developmental delays. Previous studies have identified potential factors like placental abruption, eclampsia, infection during pregnancy, low birth weight, and artificial milk as risk factors for early childhood epilepsy.

In a research article, "The impact of maternal prenatal psychological distress on the development of epilepsy in offspring: The Japan Environment and Children's Study," published in PLOS ONE, researchers used a dataset obtained from the Japan Environment and Children's Study, a nationwide birth cohort involving nearly 100,000 participants, to evaluate the association between six-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6) scores of mothers and epilepsy among 1 to 3-year-olds.

Self-reported data on 97,484 children were retrospectively analyzed for connections between the stress scores of expecting mothers and epilepsy outcomes in their children.

Maternal psychological distress was assessed using the six-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6), administered twice during pregnancy: once in the first half (median 15.1 weeks) and again in the second half (median 27.4 weeks). Participants were categorized into six groups based on K6 scores, classified as either low (4 or less) or moderate (5 or 6) distress at each time point.

Children diagnosed with epilepsy at ages 1, 2, and 3 numbered 89 (0.1%), 129 (0.2%), and 149 (0.2%), respectively. Findings indicated that a maternal K6 score of 5 or higher at both time points was associated with 70% higher epilepsy diagnosis ratios among children aged 1 to 3 years. Multivariate analysis confirmed this association, even after adjusting for potential confounding factors like low birth weight and chromosomal abnormalities.

The study concludes that "...environmental adjustments to promote relaxation in pregnant women are needed," which makes a tremendous amount of good sense, though they continue "...to prevent the development of epilepsy in their offspring," which might be a little more than what the study is actually telling us.

The 70% increase is significant, though even with high maternal stress, epilepsy remains an extremely rare condition, and other factors seemed more prominent in the study analyses. Low birth weight was associated with a 180% increased risk by age 1, introduction to artificial milk in the first month showed a 203% increased risk by age 2, and having any chromosome abnormalities increased the risk by 2100% at age 1, 1567% at age 2, and 1000% at age 3.

More information: Yuto Arai et al, The impact of maternal prenatal psychological distress on the development of epilepsy in offspring: The Japan Environment and Children's Study, PLOS ONE (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0311666 Journal information: PLoS ONE

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IU School of Medicine's Spyridon Bakas said the new recommendations are a much-needed update to the current standard of care in which individual radiologists measure tumor size, which dictates treatment options. Credit: Liz Kaye, Indiana University

An international, multidisciplinary team of leading neuro-oncology researchers and clinicians has released new recommendations for good clinical practicea set of guidelines that helps ensure clinical trial results are reliable, and patients are protectedregarding the use of artificial intelligence methods to more accurately diagnose, monitor and treat brain cancer patients.

The team recently published two companion policy reviews in The Lancet Oncology, on behalf of the clinically authoritative Response Assessment in Neuro-Oncology cooperative group, which is a collaboration of international experts who develop standardized criteria for evaluating treatment response in clinical trials for brain cancer.

Indiana University School of Medicine's Spyridon Bakas is the lead author on the second policy review, which establishes guidelines for standardization, validation and good clinical practice of AI for neuro-oncology.

He said the new recommendations are a much-needed update to the current standard of care in which individual radiologists measure tumor size, which dictates treatment options. This is not ideal, Bakas said, because the assessment is often subjective. Each radiologist can interpret imaging scans differently, leading to treatment strategies that fluctuate based on who views the scan.

"We can use AI to look at images of the tumors more objectively," said Bakas, the Joshua Edwards Associate Professor in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the director of the Division of Computational Pathology at the IU School of Medicine, as well as a researcher in the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center. "AI programs can help determine quickly what type of disease it is, what subtype of tumor and what particular grade it is, in addition to helping track the progress of a lesion during treatment."

According to the team, there are predictive, prognostic and diagnostic AI models and solutions that are becoming available for health care practitioners, but how they are used varies widely at different institutions.

"Thanks to new technology, there are ways to use AI to help assess whether a tumor is progressing or is stable," said Raymond Y. Huang, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and neuroradiology division chief at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. "However, there needs to be a standardized way to use AI to accurately diagnose and treat patients."

The team reviewed existing research articles and publications related to current advancements of AI in the field to develop the guidelines, which were presented at this year's American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, Illinois, and the annual meeting of the European Association for Neuro-Oncology in Glasgow, Scotland. The guidelines will also be presented at the Society for Neuro-Oncology meeting in November in Houston, Texas.

Some of the authors' guidelines include:

Using software that has been developed using large and importantly diverse cohorts of patient data.

Ensuring the AI models for defining a tumor follow World Health Organization criteria.

Considering how the tumor images are obtained, processed and segmented before analyzing them.

"These guidelines are critical for ensuring that AI tools developed in the U.K. and beyond meet rigorous standards and improve patient outcomes," said Thomas Booth, a co-author from King's College London. "With these recommendations, we can move towards more accurate, standardized AI applications that benefit both clinicians and patients across the U.K. and internationally."

Because AI is still new, these recommendations are among the first in the world regarding its proper use in cancer care. However, further study is necessary.

"It is important that we continue our study of these AI models on large, diverse patient populations to continue extending our understanding of disease and improving the way we use them," Bakas said.

More information: Javier E Villanueva-Meyer et al, Artificial Intelligence for Response Assessment in Neuro Oncology (AI-RANO), part 1: review of current advancements, The Lancet Oncology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(24)00316-4 Spyridon Bakas et al, Artificial Intelligence for Response Assessment in Neuro Oncology (AI-RANO), part 2: recommendations for standardisation, validation, and good clinical practice, The Lancet Oncology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(24)00315-2 Journal information: Lancet Oncology
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Worldwide per capita expenditure on dental care (2019) in US-Dollar Credit: WHO

Caries, periodontitis and tooth loss cost billions of dollars worldwide every year. This is the result of a recent study at Heidelberg University Hospital and the Medical Faculty Heidelberg of Heidelberg University. Treatment costs for oral, dental and jaw diseases rank third in the EU, behind cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

The results of the study have just been published in the Journal of Dental Research. The importance of the study data is underlined by the fact that they were included in the World Health Organization's (WHO) first Global Oral Health Status Report and a corresponding WHO Global Oral Health Action Plan 20232030.

For the current study, Professor Dr. Dr. Stefan Listl, Head of the Oral Health Section at Heidelberg Institute of Global Health and professor of translational health economics at the Medical Faculty Heidelberg of Heidelberg University, and his team evaluated data from 194 countries.

The study took into account the costs of dental care (direct costs) and productivity losses due to dental diseases (indirect costs) resulting from caries in milk teeth and permanent teeth, chronic periodontitis, total tooth loss and other oral diseases.

The total costs determined for 2019 amount to about 710 billion US dollars or around 640 billion euros worldwide. The total costs consist of direct costs (care costs) of around 387 billion US dollars (around 341 billion euros) and indirect costs (productivity losses) due to dental diseases of almost 323 billion US dollars (around 299 billion euros).

Most of the indirect costs worldwide were caused by tooth loss and periodontitis. Around three-quarters of the total productivity losses were attributable to these two diseases alone.

In Germany, direct expenditure in 2019 totaled about 30.9 billion US dollars (around 27.8 billion euros), or around 372 US dollars (334 euros) per capita. Productivity losses there amounted to 232 US dollars (208 euros) per capita. Overall, indirect costs in Germany amounted to 19.4 billion US dollars (17.5 billion euros).

In 2019, low-income countries spent an average of around US$0.52 (0.47) per capita per year on dental care (treatment and prevention), while high-income countries spent around US$260 (233). In Germany, the figure was around US$372 (334) per capita.

"Nevertheless," says Listl, "there are challenges for dental care in Germany too. For example, there is a growing lack of dental practices in rural areas. There are also certain vulnerable groups of the population, such as people in need of help and care, for whom continuous dental care has not always been guaranteed."

Data incorporated in the WHO Oral Health Action Plan

The figures show the significant economic relevance of oral, dental and jaw diseases and demonstrate the enormous economic burden on individuals and society. "As the recent WHO Resolution on Oral Health, the WHO Global Oral Health Status Report and the WHO Oral Health Action Plan 20232030 show, this work [by Listl and his team] on the global economic impact of oral diseases has been crucial in raising awareness of the importance of oral health and in better prioritizing cost-effective and socially equitable oral health policies," says Dr. Benoit Varenne, Officer of the WHO Oral Health Program.

More than 3.5 billion people worldwide are affected by oral diseases and complaints. According to the WHO, dental diseases are among the most common chronic diseases worldwideand the majority of these diseases could be avoided through prevention or treated at an early stage. WHO and Listl therefore stress that practical concepts are needed for an even more prevention-oriented oral health system.

This requires both cost-effective oral health interventions for the entire population (e.g., through stricter regulation of sugar consumption and improved access to affordable oral health care for all) and needs-based personnel planning for oral health care. The study by Listl's team underscores the relevance of regularly updated, transparent information on the economic impact of oral diseases as a decision-making aid for achieving universal oral health coverage for all.

The first WHO global oral health meeting will take place in Bangkok (Thailand) from November 26 to 29. The study results presented here are also likely to be of significance there. Prof. Listl will also be present at the congress as co-coordinator of a side event entitled "Investing More, Investing Better: Using Economics to Help Shape Oral Health Policy."

More information: M. Jevdjevic et al, Global, Regional, and Country-Level Economic Impacts of Oral Conditions in 2019, Journal of Dental Research (2024). DOI: 10.1177/00220345241281698 Journal information: Journal of Dental Research

Provided by Universitatsklinikum Heidelberg
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Credit: Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

The effects of war on those who fight and witness it firsthand can linger long after peace has been made and the troops have come home. In Canada, it is estimated that 10% of war-zone veterans will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) while others will exhibit at least some of its symptoms.

Because PTSD comes in many forms and affects each person differently, treating it can be a challenge. Some patients benefit more from residential, in-treatment programs, while others are more suited for outpatient care. Others may thrive best in a system that mixes elements of both.

This is the topic of a new paper appearing in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma by a team of researchers led by Concordia's Walter Marcantoni.

In the paper, they write that they found intensive outpatient programs (IOPs), in which a patient consults with a health professional daily while staying at home in their community, are as effective as inpatient treatment. In the latter case, patients are isolated to focus solely on recovery, usually for 6 to 12 weeks at a time, depending on the level of care needed. Both types of programs have better completion rates than standard outpatient treatment programs, where the dropout level can be as high as 50%.

"For patients, this means that there are options when it comes to receiving care," says Marcantoni, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and the paper's lead author.

Differences between veterans and serving members

Marcantoni and his team at the CIUSSS du l'Ouest-de-l'Ile-de-Montreal looked at 32 studies of PTSD treatment in active military personnel and veterans in residential programs and IOPs. The majority took place in the United States, with the others located in the United Kingdom, Australia and Israel.

All the subjects in these studies met the criteria of PTSD and were often diagnosed with comorbidities like depression, anxiety and substance and alcohol abuse.

The inpatient and IOPs both offered various forms of psychotherapy, including cognitive processing therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, usually in group settings. Both programs also offered complementary therapies such as psychoeducation, anger management, medication management and art therapy, among others.

"We found that the average changes that took place from intake to discharge in residential clinics and IOPs in improvement scores were basically the same. There was really no difference," says Marcantoni, who is the head of the Health Technology Assessment Unit for the CIUSSS.

The researchers did note a striking difference in results between patients who were treated at privately run IOP clinics and those that were run by the US Department of Defense. They note that the privately operated clinics generally treat veterans, while the government-run ones only accept active military service members.

"At this point we can only speculate, but it seems that IOPs seem better suited to veterans than to active service members," Marcantoni says. "There can be several reasons for this: There is still a stigma attached to having to undergo treatment, and for active members, treatment is usually not voluntary but ordered. For veterans, enrolling in these programs is entirely voluntarythey are doing it because they want to."

Marcantoni says this is the very first paper comparing the efficacy of residential clinics and IOPs for PTSD. He hopes that future studies will examine the discrepancy in results from private and government clinics and see if approaches to treatment programs need to be adjusted based on the populations they are serving.

Ionela Gheorghiu, Hinatea Lai, Maggy Wassef, Adrian Mares and Sebastien Barbat-Artigas of the CIUSSS du l'Ouest-de-l'Ile-de-Montreal contributed to this paper.

More information: Walter S. Marcantoni et al, Effectiveness of Residential and Intensive Outpatient Programs for the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Active Military Personnel and Veterans: A Meta-Analytical Review, Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma (2024). DOI: 10.1080/10926771.2024.2403997
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Conceptual framework showing how the global economic surplus for PCV is calculated. 1. Note: Green boxes indicate benefits and orange boxes indicate costs. 2. Abbreviations: LICs, low-income countries; LMICs, lower-middle-income countries; UMICs, upper-middle-income countries; HICs, high-income countries; DALYs, disability-adjusted life years. Credit: Vaccines (2024). DOI: 10.3390/vaccines12070767

The pneumococcal conjugate vaccineknown as PCVprevents around 30 percent of pneumonia, the most common cause of childhood deaths worldwide.

But our new research has uncovered inequalities in how the net economic benefits of the vaccine are distributed around the world. What we found was that any net economic benefits go mostly to pharmaceutical companies (in the form of profits) and high-income countries (if we look at prevented mortality and morbidity).

This is despite the fact that most of the world's disease burden is concentrated in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Vaccines save lives and safeguard economies

Vaccines are often considered one of the most successful and cost-effective public health interventions. In fact, childhood vaccines prevent two and a half million deaths each year from diseases like polio and measles, at less than a few dollars per dosemaking them incredibly good value for money.

Over the last few decades, newer vaccines like rotavirus and PCV have been protecting children from two of the leading causes of childhood mortalitydiarrhea and pneumonia. PCVs have successfully reduced serious diseases like pneumococcal meningitis, sepsis and pneumonia in children.

But, the benefits of vaccines extend beyond their lifesaving abilities to their broader protective impact on health systems, economies and societies.

A healthy population is likely to have improved educational outcomes, live longer and contribute to better economic growth. During the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines meant nations like Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Island Countries, could reopen their economies and schoolspreventing further economic and societal devastation.

Access to lifesaving vaccines is unequal

Despite their potential to reduce health outcomes gaps, there remain inequalities when it comes to accessing vaccines.

The COVID-19 vaccine rollout revealed these inequalities in access starkly: high-income countries vaccinated and protected their populations early, while LMICs faced delays and other challenges in accessing vaccines. This led to vaccine wastage, greater disease and death, more restrictions and economic strain.

Even in non-pandemic situations, unequal access to vaccines persists. Newer vaccines are often more expensive than traditional childhood vaccines, reflecting higher research and development costs, and patent protections.

All of this means that vaccine uptake can be slower in LMICssometimes up to 20 years, with devastating consequences. If we look beyond the COVID vaccine, recent research has shown that delays in the PCV rollout globally has cost many lives.

Why do vaccine inequalities exist?

A combination of factors contribute to existing inequalities.

The hoarding of vaccines in high-income countries during the pandemic led to wastage and scarcity in other countries. The high costs of vaccine doses while countries deal with strained budgets mean that vaccines, even when available, are often unaffordable.

But there are other factors.

Countries have different budgets and purchasing power. Intellectual property protections and the multinational monopoly on vaccine production by companies based in richer countries means firms can push up the price. This is especially problematic in middle-income countries (MICs) which lack support from organizations like Gavi, the vaccine alliance, and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Our region has been the slowest in the world to adopt new vaccines. Small Island Developing Countries in the Pacific, despite access to pooled vaccine procurement through UNICEF, can end up paying even higher prices for vaccines than high income countries.

For countries transitioning away from Gavi support, a recent review found that Gavi's gross national income-based eligibility model does not adequately reflect a country's ability to pay. This suggests serious challenges with Gavi's current eligibility criteria.

Rich countries and vaccine manufacturers benefit most

Our recent study, featured in the World Health Organization launch of a Special Issue in Vaccines, investigated the distribution of economic benefits of PCV across 194 countries and vaccine manufacturers. And we found significant disparities between high and low-income countries.

Together, high income countries and manufacturers received the majorityaround 76 percentof net economic benefits.

Specifically, net economic benefits gained per vaccinated child were highest in high income countries, which received six times, 12 times, and 24 times the PCV economic surplus of upper-middle, lower-middle and low-income countries respectively.

What needs to happen to address this inequality?

Our research, conducted in collaboration with Murdoch Children's Research Institute and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, with funding from the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence for Pneumococcal Disease Control in the Asia-Pacific and a Melbourne Research Scholarship outlines potential solutions to this inequity.

A multifaceted approach requires global collaboration, better infrastructure and fairer pricing. It would help to ensure affordability and accessibility for all countriesleading to more equitable vaccine distribution and improved social welfare.

We need global partnerships to lower the intellectual property, technological and financial barriers in LMICs. This can allow for better technology transfer and knowledge sharing, and may help to enable local production to lower vaccine prices.

The unprecedented industry collaborations during COVID-19, like AstraZeneca with Serum Institute of India or Johnson & Johnson with Biological E, boosted vaccine access in LMICs. If these partnerships were sustained, it could help close vaccine coverage gaps.

Pricing policy reform, including more steeply tiered pricing, restructuring of Gavi's eligibility criteria, and innovative, inclusive pooled procurement mechanismsespecially for Small Island Developing Countries, can also reduce vaccine costs for LMICs and promote equitable access to vaccines.

Vaccine prices could be set based on the expected economic benefits they provide at a country level. Cross subsidization can be strengthened by charging higher prices to wealthy countries to encourage them to "pay their share."

In the meantime, large investments have been made in research into reduced dose schedules (that is, working out whether a lower number of doses of the vaccine would be as effective as current three doses), as this can also offer an opportunity to lessen the financial strain and ensure the sustainability of immunization programs.

Australia's role in health equity

In 2015, the charity, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), launched a call for action against PCV manufacturers for fair PCV prices. In 2023, the World Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases collected 500 signatories from 59 countries calling for fairer vaccine prices, which included nearly all the leading global child health and immunization NGOs and professional societies.

We need to do more to ensure Small Island Developing Countries and the poorest middle-income countries in our region have access to affordable vaccines. Development partners are also needed to provide support to introduce new vaccines.

In 2024, vaccine inequality remains a significant barrier to global health and this is likely to only get worse as more products reach licensure. As Australia announces a universal RSV vaccine for all Australian babies, we need to do more to prevent another 20 years passing by before children in poorer circumstances also get access.

The world can do more to ensure that, regardless of where they live, everyone has access to life-saving vaccines.

Australia is important in the vaccine development and access chain, and can play a key role in working towards global cooperation and investment in health equity. It's time to renew our efforts towards reducing vaccine-related inequalities.

More information: Fulgence Niyibitegeka et al, Inequitable Distribution of Global Economic Benefits from Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccination, Vaccines (2024). DOI: 10.3390/vaccines12070767
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Legionella sp. colonies growing on an agar plate and illuminated using ultraviolet light to increase contrast. Obtained from the CDC Public Health Image Library. Credit: CDC/James Gathany (PHIL #: 7925)

A discovery of legionella bacteria last week prompted the brief closure of three Maryland state office buildings in Baltimore, forcing employees to work from home, according to a spokesperson for the Maryland Department of General Services.

State officials said they did not know the origin of the bacteria, which was discovered after periodic environmental testing. No employees have reported any illnesses because of exposure to the bacteria, the spokesperson said.

On Friday, periodic environmental testing at 201 Preston St. at the State Center Complex showed a slight elevation of legionella bacteria, which can cause Legionnaires' disease, a serious type of pneumonia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That building was closed over the holiday weekend, and workers are back in the office.

"We got an outside contractor to start work over the holiday weekend," Director of Communications Eric Solomon told The Baltimore Sun. "They did a water flush. They sanitized the pipes and did a retest."

At 300 W. Preston St., the numbers for the existence of legionella bacteria were in the Environmental Protection Agency's normal range, but that building was closed on Wednesday for the flushing and sanitation of pipes. Employees can return Thursday.

In addition, the state's building at 301 Preston St. was tested in September and was normal. As a precaution, however, that building is closed to staff on Wednesday because contractors are doing the flush-and-sanitation to the pipes. Workers can return Thursday.

"It's not closed because of any threats of bacteria. It's closed because the water is being shut down," Solomon said.

The only other building in that State Center Complex, 1100 N. Eutaw St., will be tested Monday.

The Maryland Department of Health advised workers not to drink the water until the Department of General Services gets the results back from the retest.

The Department of Health also recommended that workers routinely wash their hands with warm water and soap, and sanitize. The state provided water bottles for any staff in the building.

2024 The Baltimore Sun. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Mutations in malarial parasites linked to artemisinin-resistance in Southeast Asia have now been found in African children hospitalized for complicated malaria, according to a new study presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (ASTMH).

It provides the first evidence that resistance to the lifesaving antimalarial drug may be emerging in the group of patients that account for most of the world's deaths from malaria: young children in Africa with serious infections.

The study is published in JAMA and led by researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine, Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda the University of Pennsylvania and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

The team found partial resistance to the malaria drug artemisinin in 11 of 100 children, aged 6 months to 12 years, treated in Uganda for a complicated case of infection by the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. The term "complicated" malaria is used to define cases where the disease is at risk of causing potentially life-threatening complications, like severe anemia or brain-related problems known as cerebral malaria.

The children in the study received what is considered to be the gold standard for treating complicated malaria infections: an intravenous infusion of artesunate, an artemisinin derivative, followed by an oral combination of artemether, another derivative of artemisinin, with a malaria drug called lumefantrine.

The introduction of artemisinin therapies 20 years ago was a major advance in malaria therapy due to their ability to treat cases quickly and came at a time when resistance was already being observed to other available treatments.

The first evidence of partial resistance to artemisinin was reported in 2008 in Cambodia and by 2013, studies suggested the antimalarial was failing to treat some cases. Over the last few years, there has been increasing evidence that artemisinin-resistance may have spread into East Africa.

Parasitologic and Clinical Outcomes in Study Participants. Credit: JAMA (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jama.2024.22343

While all of the children in the study eventually recovered, 10 patients who were thought to have been cured also suffered a repeat malaria attack within 28 days from the same strain of malaria that caused the original infection, suggesting that the initial treatment did not fully kill the infecting parasites. Two children required longer than the standard maximum of three days of therapy because they failed to clear their parasites.

Colin Sutherland, Professor of Parasitology at LSHTM, and co-author of the study, said, "The WHO African region continues to shoulder the highest burden of malaria, with 95% of the total deaths recorded there in 2022.

"While studying the outcomes of children who experience episodes of severe malaria, we noticed that some children were slower to respond to treatment, which led us to look into resistance. Given that in Southeast Asia, evidence of partial resistance to artemisinin led to broadly resistant malaria parasites, our major concern is that this pattern will now be repeated in Africa.

"Children under the age of five make up the majority of fatal cases of malaria. We can't afford to let resistance to vital antimalarials continue unchecked, without having effective replacements ready."

Chandy John, Professor and Director of the Indiana University School of Medicine Ryan White Center for Infectious Diseases and Global Health, and one of the study's lead authors, said, "This is the first study from Africa showing that children with malaria and clear signs of severe disease are experiencing at least partial resistance to artemisinin.

"It's also the first study showing a high rate of African children with severe malaria experiencing a subsequent malaria episode with the same strain within 28 days of standard treatment with artesunate, a derivative of artemisinin, and an artemisinin combination therapy (ACT).

"The fact that we started seeing evidence of drug resistance before we even started specifically looking for it is a troubling sign."

In the study, the team classified patients as suffering from partial resistance based on the World Health Organization's defined half-life cutoff for parasite clearance, whereby it takes more than five hours to reduce a patient's parasite burden by 50%.
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Despite deep partisan divides on issues like abortion and contraceptive access, lawmakers from both parties appear to have forged a cautious consensus on another women's issue: menopause.

The agreement became evident earlier this year, when a bipartisan group of female senators introduced legislation that would increase federal research on menopause and coordinate the federal government's existing programs related to menopause and midlife women's health for the first time.

At a press conference with actress Halle Berry in May, Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Patty Murray, D-Wash.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Susan Collins, R-Maine; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., touted the bill outside of the Capitol.

On Wednesday, Murray joined Denise Pines and Tamsen Fadal, national advocates for improving menopause care and executive producers of the documentary "The M Factor: Shredding the Silence on Menopause" to highlight the bill at a panel on Capitol Hillthe first time, according to Murray, that such a discussion about menopause took place in the U.S. Capitol

"As one of my Republican colleagues said, that if men were experiencing this, it would already be funded (at NIH), but it's not," she said.

Kathryn Schubert, the CEO of the Society for Women's Health Research, said the issue is one drawing consensus during a time of divisiveness on other women's issues.

"We're seeing this as an issue where people can sort of coalesce around in the women's health space," she said.

Schubert said a key issue hindering research on menopause is the inability to track it to begin with. Unlike other chronic or debilitating health conditions, menopause lacks Research, Condition and Disease Categorization codes at the National Institutes of Health.

The codes are the system that sort NIH-funded projects into scientific categories for reporting to the public. The Senate bill would, among other provisions, establish new codes for chronic or debilitating conditions among women related to menopause and midlife women's health.

Another reason advocates say there's been a lack of research on menopause is the fallout from the Women's Health Initiative, a series of clinical trials from the NIH that began in 1991 and focused on strategies for preventing heart disease, breast and colorectal cancer and osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.

The findings of a portion of the Women's Health Initiative, which have since been found to be flawed, found that there was an increased risk of developing breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke and pulmonary embolisms in those who took hormones.

Since then, further research has demonstrated that hormone replacement therapy does not necessarily lead to an increased risk of breast cancer and that the benefits of hormones can outweigh the risks. But the findings linking hormone therapy and breast cancer led to a drop-off in treatment for some of the more disruptive side effects of menopause, Schubert said.

"We're pretty behind when it comes to menopause in particular, and I think now we're having a much more open and public dialogue about that time in a person's life and coming to the realization that we really do need to know more, but we also need to know more about the other health risks associated with healthy aging," Schubert said.

Schubert said support for federal research on menopause spans both sides of the aisle, and other women's health issues, like research on conditions such as endometriosis, are emerging in a similar way.

In April, California Sen. Laphonza Butler, a Democrat, and Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, a Republican, introduced a bill that would fund maternal mortality research annually for seven years as well as approve research that would target disparities associated with maternal mortality and reduce preventable causes of deaths, among the bill's other provisions. The House has its own version of the bill.

"I do think when people hear the words 'women's health,' they may think that they are politically charged," Schubert said. "I think we have to shift the thinking on that and make sure that we all understand that we're really thinking about health across the lifespan in a variety of different ways. It's really not a matter of one specific disease, condition or organ, it really is all connected together."

The focus on menopause has united members of Congress who might not typically work together. Unlike abortion, lawmakers have been able to come together on the issue without controversy and the partisan divides that often plague their work.

"It hasn't had the same divide within the pro-choice and what others would call the pro-life community," said Samara Daly, the co-founder and board chair at Let's Talk Menopause, a national nonprofit focused on menopause. "It's a different medical issue that sort of crosses literally all political, social, economic lines. It's a natural part of one's life  as a result, you know, we've really been able to have people from both sides of the aisle join forces."

Underrepresented

Women have been underrepresented in medical research for decadeswith it even being the policy at one point.

In 1977, the Food and Drug Administration created a policy to exclude women who could biologically have children from Phase I and II clinical trials unless they had a life-threatening medical condition.

After pregnant women who took the drug thalidomide gave birth to babies with limb deformities, researchers adopted a cautious approach to female participation in clinical trials. Thalidomide was a sedative that was never approved for use in the U.S. but was used widely in Europe and Canada.

The resulting FDA policy recommended excluding even women who used contraception, were single or whose husbands had had vasectomies.

The NIH did not establish a policy encouraging researchers to include women in studies until 1986, and it wasn't until 1993 that Congress passed a law that required women to be included in clinical research.

"There are other health issues that may only affect some women. This is one that's universal. Over the last couple of decades, we've seen more and more stigmas drop around women's health issues of different sorts," said Cindy Hall, president of the Women's Congressional Policy Institute.

A 2022 study by Harvard Medical School found that as recently as 2019, women made up roughly 40% of participants in clinical trials for the three diseases affecting women the most: cancer, cardiovascular disease and psychiatric disorders, despite women being 51% of the U.S. population.

Only roughly 30% of U.S. residency programs offer a formal menopause curriculum, according to a survey from The Menopause Society.

"We're just actually at the very beginning of trying to figure out what we need in terms of what happens during the menopause transition, which hormone therapies work, which don't," said Stephanie Faubion, the medical director of The Menopause Society and the director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Women's Health.

Another bipartisan bill would require the NIH to evaluate the results and status of completed and ongoing research related to menopause, perimenopause or midlife women's health, as well as support that research.

"It's really significant because it would actually mandate the NIH to review existing research, but also invest dedicated funding for additional research around not only treatments and health outcomes but also really correcting the (Women's Health Initiative) study," Daly said.

White House involvement

In addition to bipartisan bills in Congress, the departing Biden administration has backed increased research funding for menopause as part of President Joe Biden's investment in women's health. It's unclear, however, whether the incoming Trump administration will follow up on that work.

In November 2023, Biden announced the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research, led by first lady Jill Biden and the White House Gender Policy Council.

On Oct. 23, the Biden administration announced $110 million in awards from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to accelerate research and development for women's health across 23 research teams.

Two of those awards focused on menopause: one aiming to construct a novel ovarian therapy to prevent disease in menopause and another aiming to develop a drug that would eliminate the adverse effects of menopause.

One award, which received $3.5 million, would fund a study to test the development of a drug to extend ovarian function and lifespan. The other, which received $10 million, would fund research on a cell therapy implant that would replace deficient ovarian function, restore normal hormonal processes, manage menopause-associated symptoms and minimize the adverse health outcomes related to menopause.

Jill Biden launched ARPA-H's Sprint for Women's Health in February, making it the first major deliverable of the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research.

The nature of the awards means the projects have the potential to be commercialized and widely used sooner, rather than decades down the road, according to the White House.

Advocates say they hope the shared understanding among female lawmakers of what it's like to go through menopause will continue movement on the issue.

"It's a universal experience. Obviously, each woman has a different individual experience of menopause, but the symptoms and the experience of embarrassing hot flashes and different symptoms that make it a tough thing to go through is kind of a uniter," Hall said.

2024 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) has asked a Nairobi court to grant an order allowing the continued detention of a senior employee at NCBA Group, following a fraudulent loss of at least Kes. 47 million.

Philip Kiprono Rotich, who worked for NCBA for 10 years, is suspected of committing fraud between November 2023 and October 2024. At the time, he was serving as the assistant operations manager at the banks Kisii branch. The fraud allegedly took place through the misappropriation of customer funds.

The banks head of security, Noah Cheptumo reported the crime to the police on October 14, 2024. According to the report, the fraud was carried out on customer accounts.

Rotich is facing multiple investigations, including possession of the proceeds of crime, in violation of Section 4(C) in conjunction with Section 16.1(A) of the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act, Cap 59B, Laws of Kenya. He is also under investigation for conspiracy to commit a felony, forgery, uttering false documents, and theft, all of which contravene various sections of the Penal Code.

According to court documents, Rotich would receive instructions from clients to transfer funds through internal bank transfers. However, instead of executing the transfers, he would divert the funds and channel them into bank accounts belonging to his accomplices.

In a notice of motion filed by the ODPP, the office has requested that the court remand Rotich at Kileleshwa Police Station for 10 more days to allow investigators to complete their work. The extra time will enable them to gather documents, record statements, verify the identities of those involved, and present charges against the suspect.

Court papers reveal that several clients were defrauded of large sums. Among others, Neel Gudkas lost Kes. 14.7 million, a Catholic Diocese was defrauded of Kes. 9 million, and a bishop also lost Kes. 9 million.

The ODPP argues that additional time in detention is necessary for investigators to gather specimen signatures from the transaction slips of the affected bank accounts during the period the fraud occurred. These signatures will undergo forensic analysis to help piece together the extent of the crime.

Cheptumo, the banks head of security, informed investigators that Rotich had taken advantage of the trust placed in him by large clients and his colleagues to carry out the fraud. According to the DPP, Rotich would receive the stolen funds in several ways, including through his personal account at Kenya Commercial Bank, his salary account at NCBA, and mobile banking platforms.

Investigators are also looking into how Rotich allegedly used his friends details to open additional bank accounts, into which he funneled stolen funds. One such account allegedly received Kes. 4 million, which was later transferred to the accounts of Rotichs accomplices. However, one of the friends named in the investigation has denied ever opening the account in question.

Despite his suspension, the ODPP claims that Rotich continues to defraud unsuspecting clients. The bank has reportedly received additional complaints from customers at the Kisii branch.

There is fear that the amount might go higher as the investigations continue. The respondent while on suspension continues to fraud customers, taking the advantage that the customer still knows he is on duty, the ODPP alleges.

NCBA Bank has expressed concern about the damage to its reputation and the potential impact on its customer base. The bank has urged the court to keep Rotich in detention while further evidence is gathered to build a solid case against him.
A new amendment Bill could soon allow Kenyans to obtain birth certificates at their constituency level, easing access to these essential documents, especially for those in rural and marginalized areas.

The Births and Deaths Registration (Amendment) Bill, 2024, was introduced by Gilgil MP Martha Wangari and seeks to establish at least one registration office in each constituency across the country. If approved, this would significantly reduce the time and effort Kenyans need to secure birth and death certificates, which are critical for accessing education, healthcare, employment, and other vital services.

Currently, only 143 officers handle birth and death registrations nationwide, making it difficult for many Kenyans to obtain these documents.

Wangari noted that by increasing the number of registration offices, the government aims to make it easier for citizens to exercise their right to identity and access key services that require proof of identity.

Under the proposed Bill, the relevant Cabinet Secretary would be required to set up a registration office in every constituency, amending the current Births and Deaths Registration Act (Cap 149).

In a recent committee session chaired by Homa Bay Town MP Peter Kaluma, Wangari assured members of the Bills accuracy. The Committee on Administration and Internal Security has already shown support for the proposal, advancing it to the Second Reading stage.

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) also weighed in, highlighting that Article 6(3) of the Constitution requires national and state organs to ensure reasonable access to services across all regions. With additional registration offices, collecting data on births and deaths would become easier, enabling more accurate records. This improvement in data collection would support more effective resource allocation and inform policy development.

This amendment is expected to enhance the accuracy and completeness of birth and death records, which are essential for planning and development, Wangari said.
Governor Moses Ndirangu Badilisha could be the next county boss on the chopping board after Nyandarua County Assembly member, MCA Samuel Wainaina, filed a petition seeking his ouster.

In the petition, Wainaina accuses Governor Badilisha of repeatedly violating the law and showing disdain for county regulations. He describes the governor as unethical, deplorable, and reprehensible, arguing that his actions are incompatible with the high calling and dignified status of the Office of the Governor of Nyandarua County.

Wainaina claims that on or around September 5, 2024, Governor Badilisha, through the County Executive Member for Finance, Economic Planning, and ICT, authorized the deployment of the Governors Service Delivery Unit (GSDU) officers to oversee seven revenue stations in the county, which he asserts was illegal.

The petition states, This can only be ill plans to defraud and misappropriate revenues at source, thereby negatively affecting service delivery to the public of Nyandarua County.

Wainaina also accuses the governor of unlawfully hiring county staff who continue to draw salaries from the countys coffers despite not fulfilling their duties.

In addition, Wainaina charges Governor Badilisha with violating Section 47A of the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act by engaging in corrupt practices. He claims the governor has demanded money from county service providers and failed to ensure timely payments, leading to a backlog of unpaid bills.

The MCA further criticizes the governor for introducing a pyrethrum program in the county budget, where seedlings were procured at exorbitant prices but ultimately failed to grow. Wainaina describes the program as a scam designed to siphon public funds for personal enrichment.

Wainaina also accuses the governor of breaching the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act by awarding a construction contract to his own company. He claims the company delivered substandard work, failing to meet Kenyas building codes and standards, as the county public works department did not certify the project.

The petition also alleges that Governor Badilisha unlawfully awarded catering services to a hotel with connections to him and allowed unchecked procurement deals to go through the county funds office.

Wainaina is urging the County Assembly to support his motion for the governors removal, calling Badilisha a ticking time bomb with the potential to plunge the county into economic turmoil and halt its development.
Press Release

November 14, 2024 Dela Rosa questions NAPOLCOM memo affecting PNP promotion system Senator Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa on Wednesday questioned a memorandum circular issued by the National Police Commission (NAPOLCOM) which affects the career advancement of the officers of the Philippine National Police. During the Senate plenary deliberations on the Department of the Interior and Local Government's (DILG) proposed budget for 2025, Dela Rosa raised the concerns of PNP officers about the memorandum circular which provided that all mandatory and specialized training of police officers will not be counted to accumulate the prescribed time in grade requirement in a particular rank. Dela Rosa, a former PNP chief, said this is the first time that he heard of such a policy, which he believes, discourages police officers from taking advanced classes for their promotions. "Ni-re-require pa natin ang ating mga tao na mag-schooling as a requirement for promotion. Ngayon, hindi na natin ika-count 'yung kanilang schooling sa time in grade," Dela Rosa quipped. "Mahirap intindihin ng ordinaryong pulis dahil first time ito nangyari...Ibig sabihin pag nag-schooling ka ng mandatory schooling or specialized schooling, parang wala kang ranggo noon kasi hindi counted 'yung panahon na 'yun," he explained. For Dela Rosa, this new memorandum from the NAPOLCOM affects the morale and welfare of the PNP officers. "Nakaka-demoralize talaga ito...Lahat naman tayo gustong happy ang ating kapulisan because they are serving this country and they're offering their lives in the service of this country. So, marapat lamang na dapat happy sila, hindi sila malungkot," the Mindanaoan lawmaker stressed. Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino, who defended the budget of the DILG, admitted that the NAPOLCOM had a mistake in the wordings of the memorandum circular that Dela Rosa questioned. "Dapat po yun ay time and position at ang nangyari po dito ay binabago, nire-reorganize 'yung NAPOLCOM and nakakasigurado po kayo, your honor, na once na ma-reorganize ang NAPOLCOM, mag-i-isyu ng bagong circular rectifying all these errors which your honor just mentioned. So itatama po ito," Tolentino, who was speaking on behalf of the DILG, said. Dela Rosa welcomed the DILG's response, saying it would be better for the policemen's promotion if the "time in grade" term in the memorandum circular was replaced with "time in position." "That is beneficial to the policeman kasi [if it is] time in position, nag-schooling ka for six months, tapos 'yung position na 'yan requires na at least one year ka lang d'yan, nabawasan ka na ng six months sa position na 'yan dahil nag-schooling ka na," the former top cop-turned-senator explained. Dela Rosa's position was also supported by incumbent PNP Chief Pol. Gen. Rommel Marbil who was seen nodding his head while Dela Rosa explained the need for the NAPOLCOM memorandum circular to be amended. "I'm sure that we are in agreement as far as our position in this particular policy [is concerned]," Dela Rosa said.
National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichungwah has unveiled a comprehensive package of legislative reforms aimed at stimulating economic growth and improving the business climate in Kenya.

Ichungwah highlighted the significance of six key bills currently under consideration, which include amendments to public finance, tax procedures, and business and procurement laws. He called these reforms critical for the continuity and resilience of the Kenyan economy.

The proposed reforms consist of The Public Finance Management (Amendment) Bills No. 3 and No. 4, The Tax Procedures (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, The Tax Laws (Amendment) Bill, The Public Procurement and Asset Disposal (Amendment) Bill, and The Business Laws (Amendment) Bill. These bills have emerged from extensive public consultations led by the Ministries of Finance and Trade.

Ichungwah explained that feedback from citizens and business stakeholders was instrumental in shaping the final drafts of the bills. These reforms now aim to address long-standing challenges faced by local industries, with a particular focus on the manufacturing sector. He emphasized that the reforms are designed to improve tax management and protect local businesses from unfair competition.

From improvements in tax management to safeguarding local businesses from external threats, these bills reflect the voices and interests of Kenyans, Ichungwah said. The goal is to create a tax system that is efficient, fair, and reduces unnecessary burdens on enterprises that are critical to our nations economic growth.

Ichungwah also stressed that the reforms would help alleviate the strain caused by punitive tax arrears and penalties, which have proven to be a significant hurdle for many businesses. The proposed tax changes would allow businesses to operate without the constant fear of accumulating fines, creating a more conducive environment for economic growth.

The Majority Leader also addressed the ongoing influx of cheap imports, which has undermined the competitiveness of local manufacturers. We have a duty to protect our industries from unfair competition and ensure that our manufacturing sector can grow sustainably, he stated.

The legislative package introduces several incentives aimed at keeping manufacturers in Kenya. There are concerns that some companies are considering relocating to neighboring countries, which have created more favorable operating environments.

Ichungwah emphasized that the Business Laws Amendment Bill includes essential incentives to retain manufacturers in Kenya, warning that failure to act could lead to the loss of businesses and significant economic setbacks.

Another crucial element of the proposed reforms is the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal (Amendment) Bill. Ichungwah urged legislators to carefully review the bill, stressing its potential to streamline public procurement processes, reduce inefficiency, and combat misuse of funds.

To ensure Parliament is prepared for a thorough and informed debate, Ichungwah announced plans for an internal briefing, or Kamukunji, once the substantive Speaker returns. This meeting will allow legislators to explore the bills in detail and understand the potential impacts of these reforms on the Kenyan economy.

We want every member to be fully informed so they can participate in a thoughtful and robust debate on these critical issues, Ichungwah said.
Police have arrested an officer in Samburu County for illegally trafficking nine Ethiopian nationals into Kenya.

While conducting a routine patrol, officers in Samburu County received a tip-off about a vehicle transporting illegal immigrants from the Logorate area toward the known smuggling route, Kwa Lenges Panya. As the vehicle approached the main road junction, the officers identified it and attempted to intercept it.

The driver ignored police orders and tried to flee, driving erratically toward the main road. In response, officers fired warning shots to disable the vehicle. One of the shots hit the right rear wheel, deflating it and forcing the driver to stop.

Police ordered the driver to surrender the ignition key, but instead, the driver exited the vehicle holding a machete and threatened to harm the officers. This prompted the officers to call for reinforcements.

The Officer Commanding Station (OCS), accompanied by his deputy, quickly arrived at the scene to provide backup. Upon arrival, they found the driver still holding the machete and leaning against the vehicle. After a tense standoff, the officers successfully disarmed and arrested the driver.

A search revealed the driver was carrying a police ID card, two mobile phones, a bundle of assorted keys, and items believed to be Kuber (nicotine pouches). The officer was taken into custody, and the vehicle was secured by the police.

Police later determined that the vehicle had been transporting illegal immigrants and had likely dropped them off before attempting to flee. The officers then returned to Logorate Hill, where they suspected the immigrants had been abandoned.

Upon reaching the hill, the officers turned off their vehicles lights and sounded the horn. Believing the vehicle had returned to pick them up, the group emerged from the thicket and approached the officers.

The officers quickly apprehended the group of nine, consisting of eight males, one female, and two minors.

During questioning, the Ethiopian nationals revealed that the driver had dropped them off and left them stranded on the hill. Further investigation showed that none of the group members had valid documentation.

The nine individuals were arrested for being unlawfully in Kenya and will face charges related to immigration violations and illegal entry into the country.
TikTok has suspended 60,465 Kenyan accounts for breaching its community guidelines, with the platform flagging these accounts for policy violations. The move is part of TikToks ongoing efforts to maintain a safe online environment.

According to TikToks second-quarter Community Guidelines Enforcement Report for Kenya, the platform also removed 57,262 accounts suspected to be operated by users under the age of 13. This action reflects the companys commitment to ensuring that its platform is safe and appropriate for all users, particularly minors.

Globally, TikTok reported removing 178.8 million accounts, with 144.4 million of those flagged by automated systems. The platform also restored 5.4 million videos after review.

In Kenya, TikTok removed at least 360,000 videos, representing 0.3% of the total videos uploaded on the platform during the latest reporting period. Impressively, 99.1% of these videos were proactively taken down before any user complaints, with 95% of them removed within 24 hours.

The platforms investments in content moderation technology have paid off. These advancements help predict potential risks, enabling faster action on harmful content. TikToks automated systems now handle 80% of violative videos, up from 62% last year, reducing the need for manual review.

The removed content was categorized into various areas: 31% involved sensitive and mature themes, 27.9% related to regulated goods and commercial activities, 19.1% dealt with mental and behavioral health, and 15.1% focused on safety and civility. Smaller portions of content were removed for privacy and security violations (4.7%) and integrity concerns (2.1%).
Bato Dela Rosa seeks removal of P1-B cap in BFP's use of revenues from Fire Code

Senator Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa on Wednesday appealed to remove the P1-billion cap in the Bureau of Fire Protection's (BFP) utilization of revenues from the Fire Code of the Philippines.

During the Senate plenary deliberations on the 2025 national budget, Dela Rosa said that the special provision on the P1-billion cap was deleted in the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA).

However, the special provision was included again in the 2025 National Expenditure Program (NEP) that was submitted by the Executive Department and was adopted in the 2025 General Appropriations Bill.

"The cap of P1 billion is again present in the Special provision under the BFP budget. This cap limits the BFP to utilize their available funds. Ibig sabihin po kahit meron naman silang pambili ng additional fire trucks or personal protective equipment, hindi po sila makakabili dahil sa cap na ito," Dela Rosa explained.

According to Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino, who sponsored the BFP's proposed 2025 budget, the deletion of the cap in the 2024 GAA was vetoed by President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.

"It was part of a veto message for conditional implementation," Tolentino said.

But Dela Rosa still asked for the deletion of the special provision, to give "a chance for the BFP to use their available funds."

"At least natanggal pa rin natin 'yung cap. Bahala na sila sa Malacanang kung ipa-veto nila," the Mindanaoan lawmaker said.

Tolentino agreed with Dela Rosa's proposal to remove the special provision limiting the BFP to fully utilize the revenues collected from the Fire Code.

Under Republic Act 9514 or the revised Fire Code of the Philippines, 80 percent of the taxes, fees, and fines collected by the BFP shall be remitted to the National Treasury under a trust fund assigned for the modernization of the bureau.

Dela Rosa shepherded the approval of Republic Act 11589 or the BFP Modernization Act in the Senate in 2021.
Press Release

November 14, 2024 Ejercito pushes to restore P10-B budget cut for AFP modernization, backs SBMA as naval base site Senate Senior Deputy Majority Leader Joseph Victor "JV" Ejercito has called for the restoration of the P10-billion slashed from the Department of National Defense (DND) budget, highlighting the funding's crucial role in advancing the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Modernization Program. During the deliberation on the DND's proposed 2025 budget, Ejercito stressed that the budget cut undermines the intent of the Revised AFP Modernization Act, which mandates an annual minimum appropriation of P75 billion in the General Appropriations Act to support the AFP's modernization needs. "Mahigpit isang dekada na mula noong naipasa natin ang Revised AFP Modernization Law ngunit hindi pa natin minsan na kompleto ang itinakda ng batas na P75 billion para sa modernisasyon ng ating Sandatahang Lakas," said Ejercito. Senator Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa, sponsor of the DND budget, noted that the budget cut in the AFP Modernization Funds will impact seven projects. These include cyber systems, forward-support equipment, aviation-engineering equipment, additional aircraft, joint tactical combat vehicles, and radar-basing support systems. Ejercito highlighted that without consistent investment, the AFP will struggle to meet Horizon 3 of the modernization program, a phase designed to achieve a minimum credible defense posture capable of territorial defense. "This investment in our national security is an investment to our future, our sovereignty, and most importantly to our men in uniform," the lawmaker said. "We need to catch up and properly position our external defense, especially given the precarious situation in the West Philippine Sea," he pointed out. Ejercito also raised concerns about where newly acquired naval vessels would be based, particularly questioning the suitability of the AFP's current rented facility. "I was shocked to see the AFP is renting a location at P1 billion per year, but the site lacks adequate support for our naval fleet," he said, noting that the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), a former naval base, could be a more viable alternative with its existing infrastructure. Ejercito, as the budget sponsor for SBMA's 2025 budget, pledged to help facilitate discussions between the SBMA and the AFP, describing the potential use of Subic as a "win-win" solution for all stakeholders. He reiterated his strong support for the DND budget, its attached agencies, and particularly the AFP Modernization Program. He also expressed his intent to advocate for additional budget increases to the armed forces during the Senate's amendment period.
SIU selects new School of Education dean

by Christi Mathis

CARBONDALE, Ill.  Victoria Groves-Scott, dean of the College of Education at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), has been chosen as the dean of the School of Education at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She will begin her duties at SIU on March 15, pending approval by the Board of Trustees.

She has been at UCA in Conway for nine years, overseeing more than 60 faculty members, along with department chairs and more than 25 staff members with a budget of more than $6 million. During her time there, she has led a number of innovative and transformational teacher education initiatives that earned numerous national accolades. The awards include the Apple Distinguished School designation in 2018, 2021 and 2024 and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Educations Best Practices Award in 2019 in recognition of groundbreaking use of technology for its iPad mobile initiative. In addition, with Groves-Scott at the helm, UCA received the 2021 Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) Frank Murray Award for Continuous Improvement.

I am delighted to welcome Dr. Vicki Groves-Scott to the Saluki family as the new dean of the School of Education, said Sheryl Tucker, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. Dr. Groves-Scotts near decade of experience as a dean and work in a provosts office provides her with the background and experience to hit the ground running. I thank the search committee, chaired by Dean Joddy Murray, and the campus and local communities for their active participation in the search process. Everyones time and effort ensured we were able to recruit an outstanding individual who will move the school forward.

Building on tradition, pursuing new opportunities

Groves-Scott said shes looking forward to working with Tuckers leadership team and the exceptional faculty as we imagine new possibilities for the School of Education. With a strong commitment to supporting faculty and prioritizing student success, I am excited to build on our tradition of excellence.

She said she was drawn to the position by its focus on equity and inclusion and the ability to make a difference in the region and state. SIUs dynamic momentum and the School of Educations potential for growth and innovation are truly inspiring. I aim to strengthen collaboration with the P-12 community and pursue new opportunities to further a shared vision.

Extensive administrative and teaching experience

Groves-Scott brings more than three decades of higher education experience to SIU, combined with substantial experience as an administrator and teacher. Prior to serving as UCA dean, she was at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where she held a variety of key positions, including assistant dean for the School of Education, assistant provost, director of university assessment, department chair and professor.

Her experience also includes serving as chair of the department of education at the Associated Colleges of Central Kansas and as a special education teacher for Meadowbrook Elementary in the North Kansas City School District.

Groves-Scott earned her doctorate in special education from the University of Kansas in Lawrence. She also holds a masters degree in special education: learning disabilities from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and a bachelors degree in elementary education with a minor in special education from Drury University in Springfield, Missouri.

She was named an Apple Distinguished Educator in 2017 and has won numerous other individual honors. She is the author of three textbooks as well as numerous articles, and her research interests, which have garnered millions of dollars in grant funding, include assistive technology, assessment, teaching instruction and phonemic awareness, which is the ability to recognize and work with individual sounds.
UC Santa Cruz Humanities Professor Gina Athena Ulysse has traveled to Senegal to transform the facade of a sprawling Brutalist building into an enchanted portal adorned with cowry shells, woven tails of twine, and hundreds of calabashes painted in vibrant colors.

She was invited to participate as a featured artist for the prestigious Dakar Biennale (Dak'Art), which the New York Times called "Africas hottest art event and Africas most prominent cultural gathering."

Ulysse, who was selected as the 57th Faculty Research Lecturer, is a prolific Haitian-American scholar and artist. She refers to her practice as rasanblaj that is, the gathering of ideas, things, people and spirits. She is known for her written works as well as her performance lectures that incorporate history, narratives and statistics laced with Vodou chants and popular songs.

In the past, an estimated 250,000 people have attended this festival in Africas western tip. Ulysse was determined to create something immersive, memorable and beautiful that explores Haiti and Senegals shared colonial history.

This 15th Edition of the Biennale, under the artistic direction of Salimata Diop, is titled "The Wake," Leveil and Xall wi in Wolof. The Biennale runs from Nov. 7 to Dec. 7. Its 58 featured artists from Africa and across the African Diaspora will explore the relationship between art, society, climate, and history in particular. Ulysse is one of only three artists from the United States to be selected for this art event.

In another career milestone, Ulysse was also chosen to deliver the Biennales opening keynote address at the New Museum of Black Civilization in Dakar on November 8th. The previous Biennale keynote was delivered by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, a highly influential Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic.

Ulysse was also thrilled to learn that the Biennale committee saw that her installation was "in conversation" with the work of renowned Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu, who is participating this year as the Grand Temoin. Mutus multimedia installation is in the main courtroom of the palace.

An enchanting installation: layers of color, texture, and meaning

Ulysses installation is textural and rich in dark indigos, oranges and reds. Calabashes, many in their natural form, spill open to reveal tight clusters of cowried twine. Part of the installation features calabashes attached to a wall and climbing almost to the rooftop of the Ancien Palais de Justice in Dakar, with skeins of strings hanging down from the gourds.

To achieve this effect, Ulysse had her materials sourced and different components fabricated ahead of time.

Ulysse hired Bay Area artist Evan Bissell as a senior consultant of practice to manage the project. During Ulysses initial site visit in February, an assistant in Dakar oversaw the making of over one thousand strings with 110 kilos of cowries by artisans and a collective.

Ulysse has exhibited her work internationally, including a site-specific installation at the 2020 Biennale of Sydney, Australia. However, her current installation, For Those Among Us Who Inherited Sacrifice, Rasanblaj, is her most ambitious to date.

She first envisioned this project during a Bogliasco Foundation residency in Italy. While there, in conversation with Salimata Diop, she mentioned wanting to create a "cascade of calabashes, with cowries as the water."

Months later, she learned that her submitted proposal was selected by the Biennale Committee to be presented on the facade, a first for DakArt.

"I was so supported there that my imagination went wild in terms of scale," Ulysse said, speaking from Senegal.

In this installation, using materials sourced in Senegal including the much loved Kenkeliba tea, Ulysse pays homage to Senegals connection to her native Haiti.

The work also includes reprints of archival ledgers that reference a dark part of Haitian history: when France in 1825, after the Haitian Revolution, forced the First Black Republic to pay enormous "indemnity" payments to former slave owners for "property loss," a massive debt that hindered Haitis economy for decades.

Her installation is a powerful expression of creative resistance and determination in the face of oppression. It extends her scholarly work, exploring the intersections of ethnography, performance, physical and textual materials, and colonial history.

Despite these themes, Ulysse cautions against interpreting the work in a single, finite way. "This piece is for everyone," she said. "I believe people can engage with it on a purely aesthetic level."

A transformative experience in Dakar

The installation also reflects her deep connection to Senegal, a country with much in common with Haiti. "Both are former French colonies," she noted. "Everywhere I go here, people are surprised that Im Anglophone and speak French. I tell them, I grew up in Haiti!'"

Unable to return to Haiti due to ongoing crises, Ulysse has found a new connection to Senegal, an overwhelmingly Muslim country. "Theres a calm here," she observed. "I also feel really safe here."

Her installation celebrates the enchantment of the natural world, treating calabashessacred in many African culturesas living beings. "The enchantment lies in deep listening, arranging the objects in ways that feel right, thinking about form and composition, but not confined by strict meaning and remaining open to interpretation," she said.

The installations creation was a deeply communal process. "Because of the large scale, I traveled earlier than the other artists so I had the opportunity to work with a group of eight students from the Ecole Nationale des Arts," Ulysse said. "For several days, we did rasanblaj workshops, which began with braiding and conversations about their generational concerns and aspirations as folks on the African continent. I incorporated our culminating piece titled 'La Queue (The Tail or the Youth)' on the facade."

"Our work together involved countless hours of preparing and re-assembling different components of the piece," she said. "Additionally, the Biennale team of workers including fabricators and technicians of all kinds were instrumental to the installation phase."

A labor of devotion and love

The high-profile nature of the event and the large audience it will draw make every effort worthwhile. "This is a labor of devotion and love," Ulysse said.

When selected for this years 15th Biennale, Ulysse found the project's scale exhiliarating and daunting. "I knew I had to show up, to research and learn about land-based practices," she recalled.

Back in February, when she first saw the Biennale main site, she realized her work had to be monumental. "The ceiling is nearly 40 high," she said. "They told me, Were giving you a stage. Take it over."

Political instability forced the postponement of the event, which was originally scheduled to run from May through June.

"I was there in Dakar when I got the official news, Ulysse said. "I had folks who traveled just to work with me. We ended up using the time like a residency. The calabashes were sourced through an organic network."

When Ulysse returned in the fall, she found renewed strength and joy with her team of assistants, who brought a sense of celebration. Even the palace security guards at the entrance played a part and offered helpful feedback, leading her to call one of them the works "guardian angel."

Ever the ethnographer, she places the building of relationships with people and her intuitive connection with materials at the heart of her rasanblaj practice.

"The material tells me what to do," Ulysse explained. "Sometimes, inspiration comes in a dream, then an idea forms, and the composition comes later. Often, I start with a title; it lures or directs me. This happens with my performances, articles, and essays."

"Like Zora Neale Hurston and Katherine Dunham, my foremothers, I have been pushing the boundaries of anthropology into the arts," she continued. "I insist on it."

This Biennale has been transformative for Ulysse.

"Being here is making me so happy," she said. "I cant wait to teach a course at UC Santa Cruz based on my experience in Dakar, and I cant wait to see what I produce next. I am no longer afraid of scale."

The work was funded in part by The Humanities Institute, the Humanities Division, and the Art Research Institute.
HT Syndication New Delhi [India], November 14: Kaapi Machines, a pioneer in premium coffee brewing solutions in India and the exclusive distributor for the Italian brand La Carimali, proudly announced the launch of the Carimali GLOW. This event marked a significant milestone as Kaapi Machines introduced groundbreaking coffee technology to the Indian market. The unveiling happened at a business meet-and-greet with dealers, consultants, and key cafe chains in New Delhi. The Carimali GLOW is crafted to serve the needs of small to medium-sized coffee shops, kiosks, and speciality cafes. This machine combines robust Italian craftsmanship with advanced technological features such as digital temperature control, electronic pre-infusion, customisable LED lights, and easy maintenance options. The Carimali GLOW stands out for its sturdiness, affordability, and superior performance, making it an ideal choice for businesses that value quality and consistency in coffee brewing. Empowering Indian Cafes with Italian Precision and Expertise For over a century, Carimali has set the benchmark in manufacturing professional coffee machines. With a product lineup that includes fully automatic and traditional machines, grinders, and accessories, Carimali has brought the art of Italian coffee-making to global markets. With headquarters in Bergamo, Italy, Carimali has cultivated a legacy in coffee technology that blends high precision and localized service. Kaapi Machines, through its exclusive partnership with Carimali, is proud to bring this Italian heritage to Indian cafes and speciality coffee outlets. The Carimali GLOW, in particular, embodies Italian precision tailored for the dynamic needs of Indian coffee entrepreneurs. Beyond providing equipment, Kaapi Machines extends its support through training programs, technical services, and insights into global coffee trends, helping Indian cafe owners elevate their offerings. "Setting New Standards in Coffee Excellence" "We are thrilled to bring the Carimali GLOW to India and integrate world-class coffee brewing technology with local cafe culture," said Abhinav Mathur, MD of Kaapi Machines. "This launch was not just about a new product; it's about setting new standards in coffee excellence and supporting cafe owners with equipment, but also the training and insights needed to thrive in the global coffee scene." The launch event featured live demonstrations by skilled baristas, giving attendees a first-hand look at the capabilities of the GLOW machine. These interactive sessions were designed to educate and inspire cafe owners on how to leverage this technology to enhance their coffee offerings. Kaapi Machines continues to lead the way in the coffee industry by partnering with global brands like Carimali to deliver superior coffee experiences. Their commitment to quality, innovation, and service has made them a trusted name among coffee professionals across India. About Kaapi Machines Kaapi Machines is India's premier supplier of state-of-the-art coffee equipment, partnering with global brands to bring advanced coffee technology to Indian markets. With a commitment to quality and innovation, Kaapi Machines serves a diverse clientele ranging from local cafes to large corporate offices across the country. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by HT Syndication. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
PRNewswire New Delhi [India], November 14: Mach Conferences & Events (BSE: MCEL) (BSE: 544248), a leading provider of MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions) services, today announced its unaudited financial results for the first half of the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024. The company reported strong revenue growth, driven by an expanded client portfolio and increased demand across its MICE and event management services. - Company Delivers Robust Financial Results for the First Half of Fiscal Year 2025 - Revenue from operations has surged by 68% HoH; indicating significant growth in the company's core business activities - Profit After Tax (PAT) has witnessed a remarkable 96% HoH growth; showcasing impressive profitability and financial strength View investor presentation in a printer-friendly PDF . H1 FY2025 Financial Highlights (Consolidated): * Revenue from Operations: INR 11,930.45 lakhs, reflecting significant as the company expanded its reach in the events sector. * Total Income: INR 12,047.96 lakhs, boosted by higher operational revenues and additional income streams. * Net Profit After Tax: INR 853.26 lakhs, representing a robust profit growth trajectory. * Earnings Per Share (EPS): INR 4.48 (basic and diluted), compared to INR 2.31 in the prior corresponding period (H1FY24), underscoring improved profitability for shareholders. H1 FY2025 Financial Highlights (Consolidated): Operational Highlights and Strategic Initiatives Mach Conferences & Events Ltd. has maintained its momentum in the MICE sector by focusing on high-quality, customized event services, and implementing innovative strategies to cater to evolving market needs. The company's continued investment in Human Resource has enhanced service delivery, resulting in seamless experiences for clients across India and internationally. "Our strong first-half results reflect the efficacy of our growth strategy and our commitment to excellence in the MICE industry," said Amit Bhatia, Chairman and Managing Director of Mach Conferences & Events Ltd. "We are excited about the opportunities ahead as we continue to deliver premium experiences for our clients, driven by our expertise in event management and dedication to innovation." Outlook Looking ahead, Mach Conferences & Events Ltd. aims to leverage its established market position and extensive service portfolio to capture additional market share in the MICE industry. The company's strategic focus remains on expanding its client base, enhancing service capabilities, and maintaining strong financial performance. EARNINGS CALL INFORMATION Mach Conferences & Events Limited, invites you to join its half-year Earnings Conference Call on Friday 15, 2024 at 04:30 P.M. IST. The management will be represented by: * Amit Bhatia - Chairman & Managing Director * Ravi Kumar Mishra - Chief Financial Officer * Yashashvi Srivastava - Company Secretary & Compliance Officer Earnings Conference Call on Friday, November 15, 2024 at 4:30 P.M.(IST) DIAMOND PASS: Click Here to Register for an Event Please register in advance for this earnings conference call using the above diamond pass link to ensure that you are connected on time. About Mach Conferences & Events Ltd. (BSE: 544248) Mach Conferences & Events Ltd., founded in 2004, provides a full range of services for the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions) and events sector. Specializing in conference and exhibition management, the company delivers end-to-end event solutions, including venue selection, accommodation, transportation logistics, and on-site coordination. Mach Conferences has built a reputation for quality, customer satisfaction, and continuous innovation, making it a leader in the MICE industry. For more information, please visit www.machconferences.com. Safe Harbour Statement This release contains forward-looking statements regarding strategic initiatives and expected future outcomes. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ, including market conditions, economic factors, regulatory changes, and competitive pressures. Mach Conferences & Events Ltd. undertakes no obligation to publicly revise any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances. Media Contact: Compliance@machconferences.com Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2532334/4971398/Mach_Conferences_Logo.jpg (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
PNN Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], November 14: Refex Industries Limited (NSE: REFEX | BSE: 532884) is committed to promoting sustainability in India with a diverse portfolio encompassing Ash & Coal Handling, Refrigerant Gases, Power Trading, and Green Mobility, announced its Unaudited Financial Results for Q2 & H1 FY25. Key Standalone Financial Highlights: Q2 FY25 * Total Income of Rs 527.64 Cr, YoY growth of 48.58% * EBITDA of Rs 47.69 Cr, YoY growth of 36.16% * Net Profit of Rs 37.32 Cr, YoY growth of 59.44% * Diluted EPS of Rs 3.10, YoY growth of 47.62% H1 FY25 * Total Income of Rs 1,119.69 Cr, YoY growth of 51.64% * EBITDA of Rs 99.94 Cr, YoY growth of 39.58% * Net Profit of Rs 73.28 Cr, YoY growth of 61.35% * Diluted EPS of Rs 6.17, YoY growth of 51.23% Key Consolidated Financial Highlights: Q2 FY25 * Total Income of Rs 534.73 Cr, YoY growth of 49.61% * EBITDA of Rs 46.44 Cr, YoY growth of 35.93% * Net Profit of Rs 31.06 Cr, YoY growth of 44.88% * Diluted EPS of Rs 2.58 YoY growth of 33.68% H1 FY25 * Total Income of Rs 1,131.94 Cr, YoY growth of 52.63% * EBITDA of Rs 94.87 Cr, YoY growth of 34.44% * Net Profit of Rs 60.41 Cr, YoY growth of 41.79% * Diluted EPS of Rs 5.09 YoY growth of 32.55% Other Key Highlights: Consolidated Revenue Composition for Q2 FY25: * Ash & Coal Handling: Rs407.81 crore * Refrigerant Gas: Rs13.63 crore * Power Trading: Rs91.81 crore * Green Mobility: Rs7.85 crore * Solar Power & Others: Rs6.55 crore Commenting on the performance, Anil Jain, Chairman & Managing Director said, "I am delighted to share strong performance in Q2 & H1 of FY25, reflecting our strategic focus on growth and operational efficiency. Our financial performance underscores the strength of Refex's diversified business model, as demonstrated by a notable year-over-year rise in total income and the resulting net profit growth. EBITDA has also witnessed impressive growth, underlining the solid execution across our key verticals and a continued emphasis on operational efficiency. The recent credit rating upgrade recognizes our strong business fundamentals across sectors like ash & coal handling, eco-friendly refrigerants, power trading, and green mobility. Also, our recent preferential issue of equity shares and warrants will enhance our capital base, supporting our ambitious expansion plans. Looking forward, we aspire to drive value creation by capitalizing on the growing demand for eco-friendly solutions across energy, logistics & mobility sectors while continuing to invest in technology and operational enhancements to position Refex at the forefront of India's green transformation." Recent Highlights of Refex Industries Limited (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)
SMPL Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], November 14: SIP Academy India successfully organized the prestigious SIP International Prodigy 2024 on Sunday, 10th November, at BISWA BANGLA MELA PRANGAN, Kolkata. The event brought together participants from 11 different countries, providing them with an opportunity to demonstrate their outstanding mental math skills. More than 5800 students from across India and around the globe participated in the competition, where they were challenged to solve 300 advanced mathematical problems in just 11 minutes. Their abilities in abacus, multiplication, division, and visual arithmetic were put to the test in this high-energy competition. The event was graced by the esteemed Chief Guest, Dr Saibal Chattopadhyay, Director-in-Charge of the Indian Institute of Management Kolkata. Dr Chattopadhyay, a distinguished academic in Operations Management and an influential leader in educational transformation, commended the young participants for their dedication and discipline. He highlighted the value of nurturing analytical skills and resilience from an early age, encouraging students to continue honing their talents to meet the demands of a competitive world. This marks the 21st edition of the SIP International Prodigy Competition, an event with a rich legacy that has earned recognition from the LIMCA Book of Records on four occasions. The gathering of over 12,000 attendees, including students, parents, and SIP Abacus instructors, made for an inspiring and celebratory atmosphere. Reflecting on the event, Dinesh Victor, Managing Director of SIP Academy India & International, emphasized that every child who took part was a winner, regardless of whether they took home a trophy, as long as they committed to practicing diligently. He reiterated that success is about personal growth and progress, not about comparison with others. SIP Academy India Pvt Ltd: Since 2003, SIP Academy India has been at the forefront of children's skill development programs. Headquartered in Chennai, SIP Academy has a presence in 23 states, spanning over 350 cities and 950 centres across India. With more than 1 million students trained, the organization has made a significant impact on enhancing the mental potential of children. SIP Academy is dedicated to 'Keeping the Child in Mind,' preparing them with essential skills that go beyond academics, fostering success in all walks of life. The SIP Abacus program has expanded to 11 countries globally, furthering its influence worldwide. SIP Academy India is an ISO 9001:2015 certified organization, continuing its commitment to excellence. For more information, please visit- https://sipacademyindia.com/ (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by SMPL. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
New Delhi [India], November 14: Rajalakshmi Institute of Technology (RIT) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the School of Design Thinking. The agreement unites both institutions in their mission to train a new generation of thinkers and problem-solvers equipped with skills in design thinking and technology.

The MoU was signed by Dr. Haree Shankar Meganathan, Vice Chairman at Rajalakshmi Institutions, and Dr. Anbu Rathinavel, Head of the School of Design Thinking and Chief Design Officer of Intellect.

Dr. Haree Shankar Meganathan commented, ""We're excited about the future of Indian product companies on the global stage, and we believe design thinking empowers our graduates to create world-class, user-focused solutions. We also believe Design Thinking will significantly increase employability and help in their entrepreneurial journey. Our collaboration with School of Design Thinking is a step in this direction"

(ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
PNN New Delhi [India], November 14: Nikhil Palli, Managing Partner of Palli Law Firm, was awarded the prestigious Avicenna Medal by Prince Philipp of Liechtenstein at a distinguished ceremony at Westminster Palace's House of Lords. Princess Isabel joined in honoring Palli's exceptional contributions to international law, dispute resolution, and debt recovery. The Avicenna Medal honors individuals who significantly advance humanity. Named after the Persian polymath Avicenna, it was founded by the late Tony Buzan and celebrates intellectual curiosity and dedication. Prince Philipp, a prominent member of the Princely House of Liechtenstein, one of Europe's oldest noble families dating back to 1136, honored Palli's impact. Known for promoting excellence and innovation, Prince Philipp's involvement underscored the importance of international collaboration and the recognition of leaders advancing global justice. In his citation, he stated: "In recognition of his global legal expertise in international dispute resolution and debt recovery, Nikhil Palli is awarded the Avicenna Medal. His exceptional skills have resolved complex international legal challenges, promoting justice and stability across borders. Nikhil's commitment to excellence and his profound understanding of international law have advanced the legal profession and facilitated fair and equitable outcomes on a global scale. His achievements embody the highest standards of legal practice and scholarship." In his acceptance speech, Palli expressed gratitude, " I am deeply honored to receive the Avicenna Medal. This recognition reflects my team's dedication and the unwavering support of clients worldwide. International law transcends dispute resolution; it fosters justice and understanding on a global scale." The ceremony in the House of Lords, attended by notable guests from law, royalty, and global innovation, highlighted the impact of Palli's work in advancing international justice and legal scholarship. Educated globally, Palli holds an LLM in Comparative and International Dispute Resolution from Queen Mary University of London and has done his schooling at the prestigious Delhi Public School, RK Puram, Delhi, India. His fluency in English, German, Hindi, and Punjabi enables seamless communication across cultural and linguistic barriers. In addition to his professional achievements, Palli is a dedicated social advocate, providing pro bono legal support to marginalized communities, including defending families against unlawful demolitions and aiding women students in legal battles for educational access. As an active member of the Young Indians Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), he engages in initiatives aimed at poverty alleviation, road safety, and entrepreneurship. (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)
According to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the event, which runs from November 14 to 27, celebrates India's diverse culture, trade, and innovation, and provides a global platform for business and collaboration.

During the opening ceremony, Goyal announced that the government aims to develop the India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) into a world-class agency, showcasing India's industry and value chain as a single entity.

The goal, he said, is to establish India as a premier MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) destination. Planned expansions for trade facilities are under consideration in cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Lucknow, Varanasi, and Noida.

Reflecting on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of "Viksit Bharat," Goyal applauded IITF's theme, "Viksit Bharat @2047," which envisions a prosperous, self-reliant India by 2047. He emphasized promoting digital transactions at trade events and mentioned plans for kiosk installations to facilitate smooth transactions.

Goyal also highlighted the need for international partnerships, encouraging global exhibitors to participate in Indian trade fairs to broaden consumer choices. He urged ITPO to explore virtual trade fairs for cases where physical displays aren't essential.

This year's IITF spans a massive 107,000 square meters, featuring over 3,500 exhibitors from India and abroad. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are Partner States, while Jharkhand is the Focus State, showcasing their culture, trade potential, and products.

Participants include representatives from 33 states and union territories, 49 central ministries, and major private firms like Titan, Jindal Steel & Power, JSW Steel, Relaxo, and Hawkins.

International exhibitors from countries such as China, Egypt, Iran, South Korea, and the UAE add a global dimension to the fair.

With an expected footfall of nearly one lakh visitors daily, IITF stands as one of South Asia's largest trade events, fostering both business-to-business and business-to-consumer interactions.

Visitors can attend the fair from November 14 to 18 on business days and from November 19 to 27 on general days. Tickets can be purchased via designated metro stations, mobile apps, or official websites, with free entry for senior citizens and differently-abled visitors.

The Bharat Mandapam mobile app offers a user-friendly guide for navigating the fair, with entry points located on Bhairon Road and Mathura Road. (ANI)
PNN New Delhi [India], November 14: Jasmine Mehta, Executive Director and Head of ESG & Climate Sales for Corporate & Advisors EMEA at MSCI, was recognized as an "Emerging Business Leader in Sustainability" at the ET Young Industry Leaders Awards held at the Hyatt Regency in New Delhi. The ceremony, attended by notable figures, including Bollywood actor Sonu Sood, celebrated the achievements of trailblazing entrepreneurs and professionals across various sectors. With over a decade of experience in sustainability and climate change, Mehta has played a pivotal role in bridging financing gaps for sustainability initiatives among governments, corporations, and investors. Her leadership at MSCI has led to significant advancements in ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) integration within corporate structures, enabling decision-makers from corporate boards to financial officers across India, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Since starting the corporate centre at MSCI, Mehta has focused on educating organizations about sustainability risks and opportunities, successfully engaging with both blue-chip companies and SMEs. Her innovative approach has resulted in rapid business growth and the development of new sustainability solutions tailored for corporate clients and advisors. As a key member of MSCI's team, Mehta has actively participated in major global climate events, including the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention's COP 26-28, where she represented MSCI and advocated for sustainable practices. Her speaking engagements and educational initiatives have further enhanced brand awareness and fostered stronger connections within the corporate community. In addition to her professional accomplishments, Mehta is committed to empowering the next generation of leaders. She has mentored over 300 professionals worldwide, sharing her insights on climate diplomacy and sustainable finance through GPODS, a global think tank. Recognized for her impactful contributions, Mehta was also acknowledged as an influential leader in sustainability by various international and Indian news outlets on International Women's Day in March 2023. Jasmine Mehta's dedication to sustainability and her ability to drive change within the corporate landscape position her as a prominent leader in the ongoing global dialogue on climate action and responsible business practices. If you have any objection to this press release content, kindly contact pr.error.rectification@gmail.com to notify us. We will respond and rectify the situation in the next 24 hours. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
PNN New Delhi [India] November 14: As Germany continues to be a popular destination for Indian students, neighboring Austria is quickly emerging as a top choice, offering the same key benefits; affordable tuition, world-class education, and strong career prospects - while providing a superior quality of life, breath-taking alpine scenery, and a safer environment. Nestled between Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, Austria offers students an attractive proposition: low living costs, opportunities to work up to 20 hours per week, and the chance to gain valuable practical experience through internships or part-time jobs to help cover living expenses. FH Joanneum: A leading institution in Austria for Indian Students FH Joanneum, one of Austria's premier Universities of Applied Sciences, is at the forefront of attracting Indian students, particularly for its advanced STEM programs. With offerings in fields such as Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, Electronics Engineering, and Aviation, FH Joanneum is making its mark as an ideal destination for students seeking high-quality education in emerging sectors. The institution will be showcasing these opportunities at the Education Worldwide India Fair in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore, running from November 24th to November 30th. www.eduworldwideindia.com Martin Payer, Director of FH Joanneum, invites Indian students to experience Graz, Austria's vibrant student city. "Graz is one of the largest student hubs in the German-speaking world, with a truly diverse and international community," says Payer. A Launchpad for Global Careers: With strong connections to leading industries, FH Joanneum ensures that its graduates are not only equipped with academic knowledge but also hands-on experience, making them highly competitive in the global job market. Graz, with its blend of academic excellence and practical application, offers a unique environment for students to thrive. Indian students interested in studying in Austria are encouraged to explore the growing appeal of this destination at the Education Worldwide India Fair and discover the numerous opportunities available at FH Joanneum. For more information about FH Joanneum's programs please visit: https://fh-joanneum.at/india About FH Joanneum FH Joanneum is one of Austria's leading Universities of Applied Sciences, offering innovative programs in a range of fields, including STEM, business, and the arts. The institution is dedicated to providing students with cutting-edge knowledge and practical skills for success in international careers. This release positions Austria as a compelling alternative to Germany and highlights FH Joanneum's role in providing excellent educational opportunities for Indian students. For Media Inquiries: FH JoanneumWolfgang Bergthaler (Mr.)info@fh-joanneum.at (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
PRNewswire Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], November 14: Entigrity, a global leader in outsourcing solutions, and MYCPE, a renowned provider of Continuing Professional Education (CPE) services, announced their merger to create MYCPE ONE. This strategic merger goes beyond simply combining the services; it's aimed at building an integrated ecosystem that delivers a comprehensive suite of solutions to CPAs and accounting firms. The unified suite of services will include Staffing, CPE, Learning & Development, Digital Marketing -- all in one place. This will significantly enhance career opportunities for Indian accounting professionals, by providing them with access to the global accounting industry and state-of-the-art learning resources. With this mission, MYCPE ONE is also committed to growing its presence in India. With the recent opening of offices in Udaipur and GIFT City, Gandhinagar, MYCPE ONE plans to scale operations across various delivery centres in India. Today, MYCPE ONE has a team of 40+ delivery centres across 17 cities in India and one in Philippines. MYCPE ONE has partnered with state governments to establish delivery centres in Tier 2 and 3 cities. These initiatives are designed to provide Indian professionals with the opportunities they need to pave their career pathways, spanning from entry-level roles to senior positions. "This merger positions MYCPE ONE as a pivotal force in the industry, evolving from an outsourcing provider to a comprehensive tech and services leader for the accounting sector," said Shawn Parikh, CEO and Co-founder of MYCPE ONE. "Through this merger, we are thrilled to provide Indian professionals with unmatched opportunities to advance their careers and gain valuable international exposure," he added. "Our aim is to build a resilient business model that adapts to market dynamics and reinforces our standing in the global accounting space. By leveraging our deep expertise, we remain committed to serving the accounting sector," said Valay Parikh, COO and Co-Founder of MYCPE ONE. About Entigrity Entigrity is a trusted provider of outsourcing solutions, partnering with over 1,000 CPAs and accounting firms & businesses across the U.S. and Canada. With delivery centres in 17 cities across India and one in the Philippines, we are further expanding our presence into additional Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India, as well as exploring growth opportunities in the Philippines, South Africa, and South America. About MYCPE ONE MYCPE ONE is a comprehensive ecosystem designed to empower accounting firms and professionals with a unified suite of essential services. As a strategic platform, MYCPE ONE offers integrated solutions in outsourcing, education, training, marketing, advisory, and industry insights -- all in one place. Contact Information Patrick Ross Content and Media Manager MYCPE ONE Patrick@my-cpe.com6468274348 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2557901/MYCPE_ONE_Logo.jpg (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
The excitement reached a fever pitch as fans eagerly awaited the film's arrival in theatres on November 14, showcasing their undying love and admiration for their favourite actor.

Outside the iconic Rohini Theatre, people were seen dancing, hooting, and chanting in anticipation of Suriya's on-screen presence.

The atmosphere was electric, with fans expressing their excitement for the star's latest cinematic venture.

The makers of 'Kanguva' dropped the much-awaited second trailer of the film just days before its release, fueling fan enthusiasm.

https://x.com/Suriya_offl/status/1855634703249793528?

In the trailer, Suriya can be seen in dual roles: one as a modern-day character with flashy outfits and a trendy haircut, and another as a fierce, warrior-like figure in an ancient setting, which had already been teased in earlier posters.

Adding to the buzz, the trailer also featured a glimpse of Bollywood actor Bobby Deol, who plays the antagonist in the film.

Deol's intense portrayal promises an epic showdown between him and Suriya, further intensifying the anticipation surrounding the film.

The recent release of the film's powerful track, 'Naayak,' added to the excitement.

The music video opens with Suriya in an intense avatar, showcasing a dramatic fight sequence set in the rain, further emphasizing the high-octane action that fans can expect from the movie.

Directed by Siva and produced by Studio Green, 'Kanguva' features epic battle sequences and grand visuals, with the story spanning 1,500 years into the past.

The movie stars an ensemble cast, including Disha Patani, Bobby Deol, Natarajan Subramaniam, Jagapathi Babu, and Yogi Babu.

Shot in multiple countries and locations across India, the film boasts an estimated budget of over Rs 350 crore, making it one of the most expensive Tamil films in recent history. (ANI)
The iconic Kutch Rann Utsav has officially begun, and as always, it promises to be a spectacular display of Gujarat''s rich culture, arts, and hospitality. The annual festival, which draws lakhs of visitors from around the world, will run until February 28, 2025. This year''s celebration brings an exciting blend of art, culture, adventure, and sustainability, further cementing its status as one of India''s premier cultural festivals. Over the last two decades, Gujarat''s tourism sector has flourished, with the Kutch Rann Utsav playing a pivotal role in its rise. The White Rann of Kutch, once devastated by natural disasters such as the 2001 earthquake, is now a thriving destination, largely thanks to the visionary leadership of PM Narendra Modi. As Gujarat''s Chief Minister at the time, Modi championed the revival of Kutch, and in 2005, the Rann Utsav was born. The festival was conceived as a way to showcase the resilient spirit of the region and promote its unique culture and handicrafts to a global audience. Originally a three-day event in the Dhordo region, the festival has now evolved into the world''s longest desert celebration. Running for four months each year, the Rann Utsav has become an unmissable cultural gathering, drawing millions of visitors to the White Desert. The 2024-25 edition of the Rann Utsav places a strong emphasis on sustainable tourism. Organizers have introduced several eco-friendly initiatives, such as reducing plastic usage, promoting bicycle rides for desert exploration, and ensuring waste segregation and disposal systems within the Tent City. Additionally, visitors will be able to explore other attractions in the Kutch region, making the festival a gateway to a broader understanding of the area''s diverse tourism offerings. As part of the sustainability efforts, the Tent City will continue to offer a blend of luxury and environmental consciousness. With around 400 tents equipped with 3-star amenities, visitors will be able to enjoy both comfort and nature''s raw beauty. The resort-style accommodations provide an ideal base for exploring the surrounding desert and its culture. One of the major draws of the Rann Utsav is its immersive cultural experience. The Tent City is a hub for local artisans, where visitors can purchase unique handicrafts, watch live demonstrations, and engage in cultural shows. In addition, the festival features over 20 adventure activities, including paramotoring, ATV rides, and camel rides across the vast desert landscape. This year, an exciting new Adventure Zone will offer an even wider variety of activities for thrill-seekers. For families and younger visitors, a dedicated Children''s Activity Zone has been created. The zone features a Fun/Knowledge Park, which includes interactive educational games and a VR gaming experience. The Rann Utsav also boasts a newly inaugurated Light and Sound Show, which was launched in December 2023. Set atop the watchtower, this captivating show highlights the historical and cultural significance of the region while offering a visually stunning experience against the backdrop of the desert. Beyond the tourism and cultural offerings, the Rann Utsav has a significant economic impact on the region, particularly for local artisans. The festival has become a vital marketplace for Kutch''s handicrafts, with artisans specializing in traditional crafts such as Rogan art, Bandhani, Meenakari, and Zardosi. These crafts have gained international recognition through the festival, helping to support local communities and preserve traditional skills. In the 2023-24 season, craft stall owners earned Rs 6.65 crore from sales during the festival, while food stall vendors generated around Rs 1.36 crore in revenue. The festival has thus become a critical driver of income for thousands of families in the region. Additionally, the Tent City has become an important venue for these artisans, with many stalls offering live demonstrations of their craftsmanship, giving visitors a firsthand look at their art. The Rann Utsav''s impact extends far beyond local and national tourism. In 2023-24, the festival attracted 7.42 lakh visitors, including 852 international tourists. The annual event has put Kutch on the global tourism map, with its unique desert landscape, vibrant culture, and rich history attracting attention from around the world. This year''s theme, ''Rann Ke Rang'' (Colors of the Desert), celebrates the stunning transformation of the White Rann, where the desert''s stark white salt plains are complemented by the vibrant colours of local culture, crafts, and festivities. The festival is also in line with the UN World Tourism Organization''s recognition of Dhordo village as one of the "Best Tourism Villages," reflecting its success in sustainable development and cultural preservation. Looking forward, the Rann Utsav is poised for even greater growth. The tourism infrastructure in Kutch is constantly being developed, with new resorts and attractions being added to enhance the visitor experience. This year, a new 44-room resort in Dholavira was developed through a public-private partnership model, further expanding accommodation options for travellers. The economic benefits of the festival are clear, with local businesses thriving due to the influx of tourists. The Rann Utsav has not only boosted the region''s tourism industry but also created significant opportunities for artisans, entrepreneurs, and service providers. Under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, the Kutch Rann Utsav has transformed from a small, local celebration into a world-renowned event, shining a spotlight on Gujarat''s rich cultural heritage while driving economic growth and sustainable tourism. As the 2024-25 edition of the festival unfolds, tourists from across India and around the world will continue to flock to the White Rann, eager to witness the magic of the desert and immerse themselves in the vibrant traditions of Kutch. Whether for the spectacular adventure activities, the mesmerizing cultural performances, or the chance to support local artisans, the Rann Utsav remains a must-visit destination for those seeking an unforgettable cultural experience. (ANI)
Fans of the thrilling spy series 'The Night Agent' can finally mark their calendars, as the much-anticipated second season will debut on Netflix on January 23, 2025. The announcement was made by Netflix alongside an action-packed teaser featuring Gabriel Basso's character, Peter Sutherland, once again at the centre of high-stakes danger. https://www.instagram.com/p/DCUo5V9SB2S/ The series, which became an instant sensation when it premiered in March 2023, follows the story of Peter Sutherland, a low-level FBI agent thrust into a world of espionage and peril after a mysterious phone call from the White House. Season one was a breakout success for Netflix, reigning at the top of the global streaming charts for four consecutive weeks and quickly becoming one of the most-watched original shows of 2023 in the US, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It currently ranks as the seventh most-watched English-language series in Netflix's history, as per The Hollywood Reporter. In season two, Peter Sutherland returns to action as a newly appointed "Night Agent" -- a covert operative working for a top-secret government program. His journey takes him deeper into a shadowy world filled with betrayal, danger, and shifting allegiances. As the stakes get higher, Peter's ability to navigate this treacherous landscape will be tested like never before. The announcement also revealed a teaser trailer that shows Sutherland back in action, answering the very same White House number that introduced him to the world of covert operations in season one. The teaser promises an even more intense and gripping storyline that will keep fans on the edge of their seats. 'The Night Agent' was praised for its fast-paced plot and well-developed characters, particularly Basso's portrayal of the reluctant hero who rises to meet extraordinary challenges. The show's success led to an immediate season two renewal just days after its premiere, followed by a season three order in September 2023. Although fans were hoping for an earlier return, the delay in season two's release is partly due to the 2023 Hollywood strikes, which temporarily halted production. However, as per The Hollywood Reporter, filming for the new season is now set to take place in Istanbul and New York, beginning late in 2024. Shawn Ryan, the creator, showrunner, and executive producer behind 'The Night Agent', has expressed his love for writing stories centred on underdogs -- characters who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances despite being out of their depth. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Ryan explained his fascination with ordinary people forced to confront life-threatening situations, "I like the idea of an underdog, someone who is the least important person in a very important place, in this case, a low-level FBI agent who works in a windowless room in the basement of the White House. Everyone around him is more important than him. He stumbles onto this thing and he's suddenly, like in classic Hitchcock movies, somebody who is an ordinary person thrust into an extraordinary situation." With production underway for future seasons, 'The Night Agent' season two will arrive on Netflix on January 23, 2025. Season two will once again be executive produced by Shawn Ryan, Marney Hochman, Seth Gordon, Julia Gunn, Jamie Vanderbilt, William Sherak, Paul Neinstein, Nicole Tossou, David Beaubaire, Paul Bernard, Munis Rashid, and Guy Ferland. The production team includes MiddKid Productions, Exhibit A, Project X, and Sunset Lane Media. (ANI)
Actress Zendaya has recently opened up about her working relationship with longtime partner and fellow actor Tom Holland, revealing that collaborating with him feels completely natural. The two first met on the set of 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' in 2017, and their professional and personal chemistry has only strengthened over the years. When asked about the experience of acting opposite Holland, Zendaya shared, "Not really. It's actually strangely comfortable. It's like second nature if anything. You feel extra safe with the person you're acting beside. I love working with him," as per Deadline. Zendaya also praised Holland's dedication to his craft, noting his intense passion and unwavering commitment to his work. "He's so talented and so passionate about what he does. He always gives things one thousand per cent, even if he's absolutely worn down. I really appreciate that about him," she said in a recent interview, as per Deadline. Their connection isn't just personal; it's also professional. Zendaya continued, "It feels pretty normal. That's how we met. Literally, at a chemistry read." Their shared history in the 'Spider-Man' franchise including their appearances in 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' (2017), 'Spider-Man: Far From Home' (2019), and 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' (2021) has clearly contributed to their comfort level on set. Zendaya and Holland are set to reprise their roles as MJ and Peter Parker in the upcoming 'Spider-Man 4'. Holland recently shared an exciting update about the script during an appearance on a podcast show as per Deadline. "Zendaya and I sat down and read it together, and we at times were like bouncing around the living room. This is a real movie worthy of the fans' respect, but there [are] a few things we need to figure out before we can get that really going. But it's exciting and I'm really, really excited about it," he revealed, as per Deadline. As the pair prepares to bring their beloved characters back to the big screen, fans are eagerly anticipating what's in store for the next chapter of the 'Spider-Man' saga. In addition to 'Spider-Man 4', Zendaya and Holland are joining forces on another high-profile project, as per Deadline. The couple will star together in an upcoming film directed by acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan. Set to be released in 2026, the movie is expected to be a major event, with Zendaya and Holland sharing the screen alongside an all-star cast that includes Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Lupita Nyong'o. (ANI)
Every year, on the occasion of Kartik Purnima, people in Odisha celebrate the traditional maritime and naval festival, 'Boita Bandana, ' also known as 'Danga Bhasa.' On the full moon day in the holy month of Kartik, the air is filled with the spirit of Boita Bandana, celebrated by setting afloat miniature boats to mark the day. Boita Bandana usually falls in October or November. The festival commemorates the ancient maritime activities and trade relations of Odisha with Southeast Asian countries. As the auspicious day is around the corner, locals eagerly gear up for the upcoming festival. At the forefront of their cultural preparations are the beautifully crafted miniature boats. For the celebration artisans in Bhadrak have made beautifully decorated miniature boats. One of them spoke to ANI and said, "I make these boats every year and this time also have made these miniature boats for the festival. However, there is less demand as compared to previous years and the buyers need to purchase these handmade local boats rather than going for fancy Chinese products." This historical event is commemorated by the symbolic act of floating miniature boats made of banana stems, paper, and coloured cloth in water bodies like rivers, ponds, and the sea. The ritual pays homage to the rich maritime history of the region and the brave sailors who ventured into the sea for trade. The festival is rooted in the historical significance of Odisha as a major maritime power in ancient times. On the auspicious day of Kartik Purnima, the decorated miniature boats are set afloat with offerings of lamps, flowers, and prasad (sacred food) as a gesture of remembrance and gratitude to the sea god Varuna. The act is not just a ritual but a reflection of the resilience and adventurous spirit of Odisha's ancestors who ventured into the unknown waters for commerce and cultural exchange. It is believed that merchants used to set sail on Boitas to trade with countries like Java, Sumatra, Bali, and Indonesia. Boita Bandana is a way for the present generation to connect with and honour this seafaring legacy. The atmosphere is filled with a sense of nostalgia and reverence for the ancestors who contributed to the maritime heritage of Odisha. In addition to the traditional aspect, Boita Bandana has taken on a cultural and social dimension, with various cultural events, fairs, and processions being organized to mark the occasion. The festival serves as a reminder of Odisha's historical ties with other maritime civilizations and promotes a sense of cultural pride and unity among the people. (ANI)
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday slammed the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government over 'police action' against protesting UPPSC aspirants and accused it of "playing with their future." The Samajwadi Party chief also supported the demands of the aspirants and called it justified. "They are lathi-charging the youth who came to Prayagraj to ask for jobs. They are protesting for their studies. They are not even worried that the government is playing with their future. The demands of the candidates are justified," he said. On Wednesday, students preparing for the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) held a candlelight march, marking the third consecutive day of protests outside the UPPSC building in Prayagraj. The candidates are demanding that the UPPSC exams, specifically the Provincial Civil Services (PCS) and Review Officer/Assistant Review Officer (RO/ARO) exams, be conducted in a single shift. Akhilesh Yadav welcomed the Supreme Court's verdict on the bulldozer action, stating that after this decision, the use of bulldozers must stop. "It's a matter of happiness that the Supreme Court has also said that the officials, those who were involved - action must be taken against them as well. A fine has been imposed against the govt as well because they are unconstitutional people. After this decision, the bulldozer must stop," he said. Notably, the UP government's frequent use of bulldozer action against people accused of heinous crimes had earned Chief Minister Adityanath the 'bulldozer baba' tag. The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed that no demolition should be carried out without a prior 15-day show cause notice to the owner of the property and without following the statutory guidelines. The top court also said that the executive cannot become a judge and decide that a person accused is guilty and, therefore, punish him by demolishing his property. "The executive cannot become a judge and decide that a person accused is guilty and, therefore, punish him by demolishing his residential/commercial property/properties. Such an act of the executive would be transgressing its limits," said a judgement delivered by a bench of justices BR Gavai and KV Vishwanathan. (ANI)
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CB) has arrested a Railway official in Gonda Uttar Pradesh for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 50,000, the agency said in a release on Wednesday. As per the release, the CB arrested an accused SSE, P.Way, Truck Depot, Indian Railways, Gonda (Uttar Pradesh) for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 50,000 from the complainant. The CBI said that a case was registered on November 13, against the accused SSE, P. Way, Gonda (U.P.) based on complaint dated November 11. It was alleged that the accused Officer demanded a bribe of Rs 50,000 at the rate of Rs 100 per ton for loading materials from the Railway Material Depot. It was further alleged that over the last two months, approximately 500 tons of Railway materials have been loaded and accused was threatening to obstruct the complainant's work and to cancel the ongoing tender if the bribe was not paid. "CBI laid a trap and caught said accused red-handed on November 13, while accepting a bribe amount of Rs 50,000 from the complainant. The accused will be produced before the Court of Learned Special Judge, Anti Corruption, CBI Court No 6, Lucknow on November 14," the CBI said in its release. Searches are being conducted at the premises of the accused. Further investigation is underway, it added. (ANI)
Uttarakhand Director General of Police (DGP) Abhinav Kumar has given a representation to the state's Home Secretary Shailesh Bagauli for a transparent and independent DGP appointment process in the state. In his representation, he has drawn the attention of the government by referring to Section-20 of the State Police Act-2007, which states that the state government will appoint the Director General of Police through the Appointment Committee for the overall control, direction and supervision of the police force. The DGP has said in his representation that since the police system is a state subject in List-2 of Schedule-7 of the Indian Constitution, it is important that the state of Uttarakhand also considers implementing similar rules, so that transparency and autonomy along with the decisive role of the state government can be ensured in the appointment of the Director General of Police. DGP Abhinav Kumar has said in the representation sent to the state's Home Secretary that at present, in the appointment of the Director General of Police, the state government is adopting a process in accordance with the decision given by the Supreme Court in Prakash Singh vs Others case, in this system, the Union Public Service Commission and the Home Ministry have a decisive role. The DGP has said in his representation that in his opinion this is not appropriate from constitutional and practical point of view. In his representation, he has drawn attention towards the Uttarakhand Police Act-2007 and said that it would be necessary to consider the provisions regarding the appointment of the Director General of Police. Director General of Police Abhinav Kumar has said in his representation that the Uttar Pradesh government has recently implemented new rules for the appointment of DGP as per the Supreme Court's instructions, so that the state government's decisive role in the appointment of the head of the police force remains in view of the constitutional system and the Supreme Court's decision. DGP Abhinav Kumar has requested the Uttarakhand government in the representation sent to the Home Secretary that inspired by the progressive steps taken by Uttar Pradesh, to maintain the independence and integrity of the police force, the appointment rules should be notified as soon as possible for the state of Uttarakhand as per the law. Earlier, DGP Abhinav Kumar held a meeting with concernced officials and discussed issues related to crime, law and order, and traffic management in the state. According to an official release from Police Headquarters, the meeting was held through video conferencing with Zone and District Incharges, Superintendents of Police, and officials from the STF and Railways. (ANI)
Chief Engineer of Project Himank, Brigadier Vishal Srivastava has said that the country's highest airfield located at Mudh-Nyoma in Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China will be completed by year end. Speaking to ANI, Brigadier Srivastava said that the airfield has been constructed at a height of 13,700 feet. "We are standing at the airfield at Mud Nyoma and as far as the runway is concerned it is almost complete. Final finishing touches are going on and very shortly we will have a joint inspection with the Air Force. We are hopeful that by this year's end, the entire Runway will be complete and we'll have a trial landing on it...The airfield has been constructed at a height of 13,700 feet. On this runway, the heaviest military aircraft, fixed wing, rotary wing, fighter aircraft and transport aircraft will be able to land here. This will help us a lot," he said. He also mentioned that the construction of the runway will also boost the socio-economic development of Hanley, Loma and Nyoma. "Here the temperatures dip down to minus 30 to minus 35 degrees centigrade during peak winters. So the working season window that is available to us is just a period of five to six odd months from May till November," he said. The Brigadier also recalled that this particular Runway, the foundation stone was laid by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on August 23. "We have constructed this Runway in a record time frame. This will be the highest Runway in India...We have used modern technology, modern machines, cold setting compounds, various kinds of additives to ensure that quality construction is carried out and quality is not compromised because of speed," Brigadier Srivastava said. Recently, India and China reached the agreement for disengagement from Depsang and Demchok in Eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control after multiple rounds of talks at political, diplomatic and military levels. (ANI)
The encounter took place in the Rohini area of the capital city of Delhi on Wednesday night.

According to the police, the arrested accused was involved in the recent Mundka murder case where a man was shot dead by assailants in the city's outer area.

More details are awaited.

On November 10, a 22-year-old man was shot dead in Delhi's Mundka area in the late evening, police said.

According to Delhi police, bike-borne miscreants fired six rounds of bullets at the victim and fled the site. The deceased was identified as Amit. The victim held in a robbery case was out on bail, the police said.

The victim's association with criminal gang is being investigated, they added. (ANI)
Chief Minister Atishi wrote to the Lieutenant Governor (LG) VK Saxena requesting a scheme for the bus marshals. The CM mentioned in the letter that the Additional Chief Secretary of Transport made amply clear that the issue of the bus marshals fell under the LG's purview as it pertained to 'Services' and 'Public Order.' Further, in the letter, Atishi mentioned that the issue of bus marshals and the safety of women on buses was extensively discussed in an All-Ministers meeting held on November 10. The CM mentioned "As mentioned in the note of ACS, Transport that the creation of a scheme for the bus marshals is a 'Service' as well as 'Law and Order' matter. LG is requested to create a scheme for bus marshals. The government of NCT of Delhi is committed to providing whatever budgetary support is needed." Additionally, CM also requested for bus marshals to be reinstated immediately in the same way as it was before October 31, 2023. "LG may give a one-time relaxation for the utilization of Civil Defence volunteers as bus marshals till the new scheme gets implemented and finalized," the letter read. Earlier, on November 12, the Delhi government passed a proposal to reinstate 10,000 bus marshals to ensure the safety of women and the elderly. In a press conference along with the Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj, the CM said that in the absence of bus marshals , the women and elderly people felt unsafe and hence the proposal to reinstate the bus marshals was made in the Cabinet meeting held on Monday. She further highlighted that the Delhi government has done a lot for women's safety, from installing CCTV cameras to appointing bus marshals. "Under the leadership of Arvind Kejriwal, the Delhi government has continuously worked for the welfare of women. Women who live in Delhi are aware of the challenges of travelling on DTC buses. To prevent incidents of misbehaviour on these buses, marshals were deployed in Delhi's buses. This scheme started in 2015, with marshals present in two shifts to ensure women's safety. However, since 2023, the BJP has been trying to obstruct this scheme through its officials. Since April 2023, the salaries of these marshals have been withheld. Finally, in October 2023, all bus marshals were removed," she said. In October, the bus marshals held a protest to get reinstated after Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena terminated their services in October last year. (ANI)
In a post on X, PM Modi said, "On the occasion of his birth anniversary, I pay homage to our former Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru."

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi also paid tribute to former PM Nehru at Shanti Van in Delhi. Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and the Congress President posted on X and paid tribute.

Children's Day is celebrated on November 14 every year as a mark of respect to the first Prime Minister of independent India.

Nehru was fondly called 'Chacha Nehru' and was known for emphasising the importance of giving love and affection to children.

After the death of Nehru, it was unanimously decided to celebrate his birthday as 'Bal Diwas' or Children's Day in India.

Nehru was born on November 14, 1889, in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj. He breathed his last on May 27, 1964.He became the prime minister on August 15, 1947, following an active role in the freedom struggle of the country.

On this day, a number of activities are organised for students in schools nationwide such as games, competitions, and so on, while government bodies pay tributes to the late prime minister and organise commemorative events on this day.

In 1954, the United Nations declared November 20 as Universal Children's Day and India used to celebrate Children's Day on that day before 1956 but after the death of Prime Minister Nehru in 1964, a resolution was passed in the Parliament unanimously declaring the day of Pt. Nehru's birth anniversary as National Children's Day. (ANI)
Karnataka Rural Development Minister Priyank Kharge on Wednesday came down heavily on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over the latter's remarks against Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge who accused the senior leader of "vote bank politics." He said that the UP CM should try to win elections on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's achievements instead of trying to "sow seeds of hatred" for political gains. "Try winning the elections on PM Narendra Modi's 'achievements' instead of trying to sow seeds of hatred in the society for political gains," the Congress leader said on X. While speaking at an election rally in Maharashtra's Achalpur, Adityanath cited an incident where Kharge's family was a victim of the violence carried out by the Razakars of Hyderabad's Nizam, allegedly burning the family members of the Congress chief. Adityanath's response against Kharge came after the latter criticised his "batenge to katenge" remark ahead of the upcoming Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly elections. Earlier, Kharge had also taken a dig at Adityanath without naming him, saying that many of the leaders live in the guise of sadhus and have now become politicians and some have even become chief ministers. Reacting to this, Congress leader Priyank Kharge argued that it was the Razakars who committed the act of violence and not the entire Muslim community. He (Kharge senior) never exploited it (the tragedy) for political gain and never played the victim card, letting hatred define him, Kharge added. "In 1948, the Razakars (paramilitary wing of Hyderabad's Nizam), burned down Shri Mallikarjun Kharge's house where his mother and sister lost their lives. He narrowly escaped, he survived and rose to become a 9-time MLA... Despite the tragedy, he never exploited it for political gain, never played the victim card and never let hatred define him. It was the Razakars who committed this act - not the entire Muslim community. Every community has bad apples and individuals who do wrong," Kharge said on X. While hinting at the caste system practised in the society, the Karnataka Minister further lashed out at CM Adityanath saying that his ideology fails to see Kharge as an equal. Priyank Kharge argued that Yogi's hate can't "bulldoze" the principles or ideology of Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge. "So, tell me CM saab, your ideology fails to see Kharge ji as an equal, discriminated between human beings, does that make all of you bad or those who are practising it? Who labelled him as an "untouchable" or a Dalit? The existence of a discriminatory ideology does not make everyone within a community wrong. Does it?... So, Yogi Ji, take your hate elsewhere. You cannot bulldoze his principles or his ideology," the Congress leader said. (ANI)
Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other party leaders paid tribute to former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at Shanti Van on Thursday on the occasion of his 135th birth anniversary. She called him the creator of modern India. In post on X, she said, "Fear is the root of all evil in the world. When we achieved independence after decades of struggle and innumerable sacrifices, even then there were people who used to play politics of scaring and misleading the innocent public. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru ji strongly opposed them and told the common people - "Do not be afraid!"" She further wrote that people who spread fear cannot be true representatives of the public. "Public servants stand in the forefront with their heads held high so that people can live without fear. Pandit Nehru always taught the public to be fearless and serve selflessly, while on the other hand he kept the public supreme at every stage of nation-building. Respectful salute to the creator of modern India," she added. The Congress candidate for Wayanad Lok Sabha by-elections, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has exuded confidence in winning and expects that the people will give her a chance to be their representative. Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to former PM Jawaharlal Nehru. In a post on X, PM Modi said, "On the occasion of his birth anniversary, I pay homage to our former Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru." Children's Day is celebrated on November 14 every year as a mark of respect to Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India. Fondly called 'Chacha Nehru', he was known for emphasising the importance of giving love and affection to children. After his demise, it was unanimously decided to celebrate his birthday as 'Bal Diwas' or Children's Day in India. Nehru was born on November 14, 1889, in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj. He breathed his last on May 27, 1964. He became the prime minister on August 15, 1947, following an active role in the freedom struggle of the country. On this day, a number of activities are organised for students in schools nationwide such as games, competitions, and so on, while government bodies pay tributes to the late prime minister and organise commemorative events on this day. In 1954, the United Nations declared November 20 as Universal Children's Day and India used to celebrate Children's Day on that day before 1956 but after the death of Prime Minister Nehru in 1964, a resolution was passed in the Parliament unanimously declaring the day of Pt. Nehru's birth anniversary as National Children's Day. (ANI)
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami inspected the development works going on in Vidhan Sabha, Bhararisain on Thursday morning during his two-day Gairsain tour. The CM instructed the officials to expedite the work and pay special attention to quality work. The Chief Minister said that in Vidhan Sabha, Bhararisain (Gairsain), the government is continuously working for the development of this entire area through road and air connectivity. The CM also met the local people and took feedback and suggestions for the development work being done by the administration. Earlier, a meeting was held in Vidhan Sabha Bhawan located in Bharadisen on Wednesday under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister regarding the implementation of land law in the state. CM Dhami discussed the draft of the land law with the committee formed for the land law, and other former officials and intellectuals regarding strict land law in Uttarakhand. On this occasion, the Chief Minister said that the state government is very serious about the land law and following public sentiments. CM Dhami said that during the discussion many good suggestions had come up that would be included in the land law. He said that suggestions wouklf also be taken from the public regarding the land law at the SDM and Tehsildar level, out of which good suggestions will be included. The Chief Minister said that the draft of a strong land law is being prepared keeping in mind the needs of the local people and the aspects of development. (ANI)
MP Police, Crime branch rescued a telecom engineer from a six-hour digital arrest in Madhya Pradesh's capital Bhopal on Wednesday, a police officer said. The cyber criminals were demanding Rs 3.5 lakh for the victim, who resides under the jurisdiction of Bajaria police station in the city. On getting the information about the matter, the crime branch police swung into action and rescued the victim. Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Addl. DCP) of Bhopal Crime Branch, Shailendra Singh Chauhan told ANI, "On November 13, we received information that a man was being digitally arrested and money was being demanded from him. Acting on it, the crime branch immediately swift into action mode and reached the spot. The team inquired about the matter and resolved the issue." Giving further details about the incident, the officer says that the victim is an engineer in a private telecom company and living here in Bhopal for around two and half years. On November 12, he received a call and was told that there was a new number, which was linked to his Aadhar card and a fraud was committed through that number. Following which, an FIR was registered in this regard against the victim in Andheri, Mumbai. Action could be taken against him in this regard and he might be jailed and penalised. On hearing these things, the victim got scared, Addl DCP Chouhan said. He further added, "Later, the victim received another call in which some police officers, some other agency officers, lawyers and others were seen in the video and interrogated the victim for about 6 hours by asking him to keep the door locked. The cyber criminal demanded Rs 3.5 lakh to settle the matter, otherwise he was threatened to come to Mumbai and face police action." On November 13 morning, the victim again received a call. He was not in contact with his friends for two consecutive days, as a result of which his friends went to his house to enquire about him. Upon reaching there, they came to know about the matter and informed the police, the officer said. "Acting on the information, the crime branch police immediately reached the spot and took further action. An FIR has been registered in the matter and efforts are being made to nab the accused," Additional DCP Chauhan added. Meanwhile, victim Pramod Goswami told ANI, "I received a call at around 6:30 pm on November 12, I was threatened that they were calling from Mumbai Crime Police and my number was used illegally. I can be arrested for it and demand Rs 3.5 lakhs. They were continuously on the call and were not letting me talk to anyone and were threatening me. I was on the call for about 5-6 hours." The victim further said that he was not able to contact anyone and they even forced his wife to switch her mobile off. Recently, on November 11, a businessman Vivek Oberoi, a resident of Arera Colony, Bhopal,was digitally arrested for about six hours at his home and the police had rescued him. (ANI)
AIMIM Chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday exuded confidence that his candidates will win both the seats in Aurangabad Central and East and they will demand Maratha reservation in the Assembly. Speaking to ANI, Owaisi said that as per their strategy, they are contesting on 16 seats. "Our candidates will win both the seats in Aurangabad. Drinking water is the biggest issue for the people here. Poor people do not have houses, there is problem of roads and drainage. There is also Maratha reservation. If both of them win, they will go to Maharashtra Assembly and demand Maratha reservation," Owaisi said. Notably, former AIMIM MP Imtiaz Jaleel is in the electoral fray from Aurangabad East seat while Naseer Siddiqui is contesting from Aurangabad Central. On Sunday, Asaduddin Owaisi campaigned for Jaleel in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar (Earlier known as Aurangabad). The party won Malegaon Central and Dhule seats in 2019 Assembly polls after contesting on 44 seats. This time, the AIMIM is contesting on 16 seats only. Earlier, after Waris Pathan filed his nomination as All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) candidate from Bhiwandi West seat, the former said that they were interested in contesting the Assembly polls with the Maha Vikas Aghadi but after several efforts, the alliance did not contact them. Speaking to the media on Maha Vikas Aghadi, Waris Pathan said, "We had told them, our Maharashtra President had also written a letter that we should come together to defeat the BJP but perhaps they were not interested. They did not contact us. We have a political party and contesting elections strengthens democracy." Campaigning has intensified for the 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra with both the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) making efforts to woo the electorate. The polls are scheduled for November 20 and counting will be held on November 23. (ANI)
Kerala Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) or Kerala NCP SP president PC Chacko on Thursday labelled Ajit Pawar's faction as "backstabbers" saying that they used Sharad Pawar's photograph in the previous elections also. He said that using Sharad Pawar's photo only shows the popularity of the senior leader. "This is a very interesting situation in Maharashtra. In the last election also, Ajit Pawar faction was using Sharad Pawar's photograph. Sharad Pawar is their political enemy and his photo is being used by them. It only shows how popular is Sharad Pawar ji in Maharashtra. Unfortunately, the backstabbers are using Sharad Pawar's photo, then and even now," said Chacko. The Kerala NCP SP chief took a dig at Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party saying that they were in desperation and that's why they were using Sharad Pawar's photo since people have sympathy for the senior leader of Maharashtra. "This is the second time that the SC is giving such directions to Ajit Pawat to not use (Sharad Pawar's photo). This shows they are losing day by day and NCP-SP is gaining. More than that, this election has only one leader in Maharashtra... People have sympathy for Sharad Pawar...It is in desperation that Ajit Pawar faction is using his photo. They should follow the SC order otherwise the consequences will be severe," Chacko told ANI. This comes after the Supreme Court asked Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Ajit Pawar to refrain from using Sharad Pawar's photograph ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in Maharashtra. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan asked Ajit Pawar faction of NCP that they have to fight the elections based on their separate identity and should not depend on Sharad Pawar's name in the election fight. It asked Ajit Pawar to instruct the members of his party to not use the pictures and videos of Sharad Pawar. The bench also said that voters are wise enough to see through any confusion. "You try to stand up on your legs, now that you have ideological difference with Sharad Pawar," it said. (ANI)
Prayagraj Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Abhishek Bharti on Thursday said that some 'anti-social elements' were provoking the UPPSC students and becoming part of the demonstrations being held over demands to hold 'single shift' exams in the state. The official said that students holding the protests were being requested to continue with their protest constitutionally, adding that some anti-social elements provoking the students were being identified and interrogated. "Students are protesting against the state PSC. The students are being requested to continue with their protest constitutionally and their demands will be taken to the authorities. Yesterday, public property was vandalised by anti-social elements and cases have been registered against them. They are not students but anti-social elements, with history of criminal cases. Two have already been arrested. Such anti-social elements are being part of the protests and provoking the students. More of them are being identified and interrogated," said the DCP. Meanwhile, student aspirants protesting over 'single shift' UPPSC examinations for the fourth consecutive day broke barricades to reach the Gate no 2 of UPPSC office and continue their protest. Abhishek Shukla, a student in the protest, spoke to ANI and said, "The Commission is playing with the lives of the students. The students have only one demand, that is to conduct the examinations in the former pattern. Today, we came here to demonstrate the protest at 6-7 am. We were divided by the police administration. If 5-6 students were seen together, the police officials were threatening that they would be taken into custody. Students were frightened, but now all the students have come together and united. We are not 'Andolkaari,' we are just simply pressing our demands." Another student, Priya Singh said that, "There is a huge crowd of students that have gathered here for their demand into the UPPSC exams. Why can't our demand be fulfilled, is the Uttar Pradesh government unable to fulfill this small demand of the students? After students broke barricades and entered the area near Gate no. 2 of the UPPSC office, Abhishek Shukla said, "We have been here since 6-30 am in the morning. We students are only pressing for our demand to conduct the UPPSC exam in 'one shift.' The only thing we are asking of the government is to conduct the exams in the former pattern and not to hold the papers in two shifts. This is because in PCS, it is not easy to guess the syllabus, which shift is tough and which shift is easy." "This is a completely wrong decision. We broke the barricades because we were not being allowed to enter. Police officials were threating us not to form groups. They should think that if an aspirant has to come down and press for their demands through a protest, then who is lacking in it, the administration or the education department," said Shukla. "We are not 'roadchaap,' we have got exams a month later. We need to prepare for it but we have to come down and demonstrate protests here. We are being treated very poorly here," the student added. Abhishek Singh, another student from the protest said, "The police is trying to destablise the protests from the students. The papers should be conducted according to the students, because this is for the students. We are not doing politics here, this is all for the demands for the students." Pravesh Kumar, another student also spoke to ANI and said, "We were lathicharged here, even a disabled girl was manhandled by the police here. This is how the administration is treating the students here, even the students with disabilities." Aspirants demanding that Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) exams be held in a single shift continued their protest for the fourth consecutive day outside the commission's office in Prayagraj on Thursday morning. Students were seen sloganeering outside Prayagraj Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission office. (ANI)
A meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024 will be conducted on November 21, 2024. The meeting will be conducted in the Parliament House Annexe building in New Delhi. Since its formation, the committee has held 25 meetings in Delhi and this meeting on November 21 will be its 26th meeting in a row. In this meeting, the Ministry of Minority Affairs will give a presentation before the committee. The last meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) meeting on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, was held on November 11 in Bhubaneshwar. Meanwhile, on November 12, JPC Chairperson Jagadambika Pal said that the committee's tour to Kolkata, Patna and Lucknow has been postponed after the request of several MPs who are engaged in assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, as well as by-elections in other states. "Elections are being held in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. By-elections are also being held in many states. Many MPs have requested me to pause the study tour owing to their busyness during the elections. Our remaining study tour of Kolkata, Patna and Lucknow has been postponed. We will reschedule it for later," he said. A meeting was chaired by JPC chairman Jagatambika Pal in Assam's Guwahati on November 9 and in Odisha's Bhubaneswar on November 11. Earlier the meeting was also held in Maharashtra's Mumbai, Gujarat's Ahmedabad, Telangana's Hyderabad, Tamilnadu's Chennai and Karnataka's Bengaluru from September 26 to October 1. It is pertinent to note that The Waqf Act, 1995, which was created to regulate waqf properties, 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. The JPC is holding a series of meetings to gather input from government officials, legal experts, Waqf Board members and community representatives from different states and Union Territories, aiming for the most comprehensive reform possible. (ANI)
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge stressed that no one can remove the reservation and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he himself is the one to protect the reservation. He was reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's allegation that the Congress had "dangerous intentions" regarding reservations. Mallikarjun Kharge said, "No one can remove the reservation. It is not PM Modi who brought the reservation. It was brought by Baba Saheb Ambedkar. We will never let it end. PM Modi says that he himself is the one to protect the reservation." This comes after PM Modi lashed out at the Congress on Wednesday for what he called "dangerous intentions" regarding reservations for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC) during a campaign rally in Sarath, Jharkhand. PM Modi accused the party of consistently opposing reservation policies and alleged that Congress has the aim to weaken the rights of these groups. His comments were part of a larger appeal to the voters in Jharkhand amid the ongoing assembly elections. In his address, the Prime Minister said, "The prince of Congress has made it clear that he wants to end SC/ST/OBC reservation. When his father (Rajiv Gandhi) was the supreme leader of Congress, he had announced the abolition of reservation. But due to the unity of SC/ST/OBC, he lost the elections badly. Since then till today, Congress has never had an absolute majority in the Central Government. Even today, in the states where the SC/ST/OBC population is high, Congress has been wiped out." Modi added that Congress is attempting to divide SC, ST, and OBC communities in order to weaken their collective influence. "That is why Congress has hatched a new conspiracy. Congress has played a new game to throw dust in your eyes. These people want to break the collective power of SC/ST/OBC, want to tear it into pieces," he stated. Elections on the remaining 38 seats will be conducted on November 20. The counting of the votes will take place on November 23. (ANI)
Exuding confidence in winning Maharahstra Assembly polls, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal on Thursday said that the Maha Vikas Aghadi allaince has a clear-cut chance in the State and preparations are going well. Speaking to mediapersons, Venugopal said, "Preparation is going on well. Our entire leadership is there for elections and campaign preparations. Certainly, Maha Vikas Aghadi has a clear-cut chance in Maharashtra." Maharashtra polls are scheduled for November 20 and counting will be held on November 23. In the 2019 assembly elections, the BJP won 105 seats, the undivided Shiv Sena 56, and the Congress 44. In 2014, the BJP secured 122 seats, the Shiv Sena 63, and the Congress 42. Further, the Congress leader, while responding to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's "Batenge to Katenge" remarks, said that the Congress party believes in love and affection. "Congress party believes in love and affection. Its ideologies and policies are very clear. We are not here to spread violence and hatred. BJP and Yogi Aditynath have only one agenda to divide the people and create hate among them...They don't believe in governance and policies for poor people. They only believe in dividing the people," Venugopal said. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had given the slogan 'batenge to katenge' while speaking at a campaign rally in Maharashtra. After that, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the slogan 'ek hai toh safe hai'. Adityanath highlighted how the authorities were dealing strictly in the state of Uttar Pradesh with those who were allegedly grabbing government land. Addressing a public meeting in Achalpur city of Amravati, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister said, "If we are divided, then Ganapati pooja would be attacked, lands would be grabbed under Land Jihad, safety of daughters would be in danger... There is no Love Jihad or Land Jihad in UP today. It was already announced that if anyone hampers the security of our daughters, grabbed the land of government and the poor, then 'Yamraj' would be ready to cut their ticket..." (ANI)
In a major blow against illegal arms trafficking, Ferozepur police seized a significant cache of weapons, including 11 pistols and 21 magazines on Thursday. While the suspects managed to flee Police teams are using local intelligence to track them, DGP Punjab Police said. In a post on X, DGP Punjab Police Gaurav Yadav said, "In a major blow against illegal arms trafficking, Ferozepur police intercepted two suspects carrying a significant cache of weapons, including 11 pistols and 21 magazines. When stopped, the persons abandoned their motorcycle and fled, but swift coordination led to major leads." DGP Punjab Police further said that through diligent investigation, police teams traced the motorcycle to Faridkot, where the registered owner was destined and identified the primary suspect. "Police teams are working around the clock, using local intelligence and advanced tracking to close in on these individuals," DGP further added. He further said that the Punjab Police remains committed to a stringent crackdown on organized crime and illegal weapons trafficking, aiming to uncover all forward and backward linkages within these networks to ensure public safety. Recently the Punjab police has apprehended two key operatives of Canada-based Arshdeep Singh Dalla for their alleged involvement in the murder case of Sikh activist Gurpreet Singh Hari Nau in the state's Faridkot district last month, said an official on Sunday. As per investigations a man identified as Jasawant Singh Gill (45) was also shot dead in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior district by the two arrested on the direction of the Canada-based gangster Dall. Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab, Gaurav Yadav posted on X, "State Special Operation Cell of Mohali in a joint operation with the Anti-Gangster Task Force and Faridkot Police apprehended two key operatives of Canada-based designated terrorist Arsh Dalla involved in the murder of Gurpreet Singh Hari Nau in Faridkot." (ANI)
According to officials, the fire tenders reached the site of the incident and successfully doused the fire. No casualty was reported.

"We received information in Fire Station Vaishali that a school bus behind Shri Residency under Kaushambi Police Station is on fire. Immediately, our two vehicles left for the spot. There were 14-15 children on the bus. All of them have been rescued. No casualty has been reported in the case," said Chief Fire Officer Rahul Kumar.

Meanwhile, in another incident, a fire broke out at a factory in the Vikas Nagar area near Uttam Nagar in the national capital on Wednesday, fire officials said. According to the Delhi Fire Service, seven fire tenders reached the spot to douse the fire. (ANI)
Union Minister Pralhad Joshi on Thursday said that a chintan shivir had been organized in Odisha to prepare a blueprint to understand and develop strategies to achieve the renewable energy target of the government. Speaking to the media, Joshi said "In the last 10 years, we have produced our renewable energy in large numbers. Today, our dependence on fossil fuels has reduced to 10 per cent, almost 212 GW. Our solar energy has increased 130 times and this has been possible under the guidance of Narendra Modi. In the next six years, the country has to achieve their set target of 500 GW, for which we will be investing RS 42 crore. For the same, we have organized the 'chintan shivir' to make a blueprint to understand and develop strategies to achieve the target." On November 4, Joshi at the International Solar Alliance held at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi said that India had reache 90 gigawatts of solar capacity and was moving towards the broader goal of 500 gigawatts. Joshi, said, "Last month, India reached an impressive 90 gigawatts of installed solar capacity, moving steadily forward towards its broader goal of 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030. India is also setting up its size on New Horizon, with a target to produce 5 million metric tons of the green hydrogen by 2030." He added, "We have approved 50 solar parks with a total capacity of nearly 37.5 gigawatts and identified potential offshore wind energy sites to reach our 30 gigawatts worldwide" The International Solar Alliance "1000 Strategy" was a focal point of Joshi's address. Joshi said India's solar rooftop initiatives is one of the best schemes to encourage renewable energy usage."India's one of the best schemes, globally, for the solar roof stock installation, we are empowering communities to generate their own renewable energy." He said, "The ISA is guided towards 1000 strategy, which aims to mobilize 1000 billion dollars of investments in the solar energy solution by 2030 This is our strategy to deliver energy access to 1000 million people, installation of 1000 gigawatt solar energy capacity, mitigate the emission of 1000 metric ton carbon dioxide every year." Joshi also emphasized the historic importance of solar energy in cultures worldwide. He said, "As we look to the future, I serve all of us, governments, international organizations, private sectors and civil society to continue working hand in hand to accelerate the solar revolution." India's commitment to renewable energy aligns with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision for sustainable growth, positioning the nation as a global leader in renewable energy innovation. (ANI)
After the Rajasthan Police on Thursday arrested accused Naresh Meena for allegedly slapping the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), his supporters came out in huge numbers to protest against the same. Tonk Superintendent of Police (SP) Vikas Sangwan said that the supporters of Naresh Meena set fire to the state highway outside Samravata village following the arrest. "He was asked to not take the law into his hands and surrender. Initially, he was not in the mood but seeing the police force, he agreed. He will be charged under the relevant sections. Older records will be opened and arrests will be made accordingly. 50-60 people have been detained in this case," the SP told ANI. Meena is an Independent candidate contesting from the Deoli Uniara assembly constituency. A huge ruckus was reported after he allegedly slapped SDM Amit Chaudhary at a polling booth in Samravata village. Around eight four-wheelers, including police vehicles, and over two dozen two-wheelers were vandalized and set on fire during a clash between a group of unidentified individuals and police in Tonk district on Wednesday night, officials said. After heavy deployment of the police force, the police were able to arrest Naresh Meena on Thursday. Meanwhile, his supporters set fire to the highway outside the Samravata village to protest against Meena's arrest. As this happened, the police arrived at the spot to disperse the crowd. Meanwhile, Congress leader Ashok Gehlot on Thursday took a hit at the ruling BJP government over the law and order situation in the state following the assault on a Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) at a polling station in Deoli-Uniara assembly constituency. Former Chief Minister and Congress leader Ashok Gehlot while talking to media said that the "Credibility of police in Rajasthan has ended and that the law and order has collapsed in the state." Speaking to the media over the Tonk SDM assault case, "The credibility of police in Rajasthan has ended. Law and order has collapsed. Why did a situation arise where an SDM was slapped? How did he (Independent MLA Naresh Meena) have the courage to do such a thing? This incident was not a minor incident. The BJP has no tolerance towards suggestions from the Opposition. What has the state government done in this year? When there is no fear among people, they take the law into their own hands, this is the situation in the entire state today."(ANI)
Hitting back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his attack on Rahul Gandhi for flaunting a 'blank constitution', the Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition said the Constitution seems blank to the Prime Minister because he has never read it in his life. Addressing a public gathering in poll-bound Maharashtra today, Rahul said that the Prime Minister says that I show the Constitution in public meetings that is empty. "Sanvidhan unke liye khali hai kyuki unhone ise zindagi mein pada nahi hai (The Constitution seems empty to him because he's never read it in his life)," Rahul Gandhi said in a public gathering in poll-bound Maharashtra's Nandurbar. Attacking the Prime Minister further, the Congress leader said that the Constitution is not blank, but carries thoughts and ideas of thousand years. "He has no idea what's written inside this book; that's why he says it's empty. He says Rahul Gandhi shows a red book. It doesn't matter to us what colour the book is; what matters is what's written inside it. We are ready to give our lives for what it represents," Rahul Gandhi said. "I want to explain to the Prime Minister that this Constitution is not hollow. It is filled with thousands of years of thought. When you call it hollow, you disrespect Birsa Munda, Mahatma Gandhi, Ambedkar, and others. This fight is about protecting it," he added. Earlier, Prime Minister Modi attacked Rahul Gandhi saying the "Laal Kitab" of the Constitution which the Congress was flaunting contained "nothing". "In 'farziwada', Congress has broken its own record. The 'Laal Kitab' of the Constitution which the Congress party was flaunting and distributing contained 'nothing'. It was an empty book. This is nothing but a testament to Congress' disregard and hate for Baba Saheb Ambedkar. The entire country is in shock over this foolish and unfortunate political play of Congress," PM Modi said. Further in his address, the Lok Sabha LoP slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party over tribal population, and alleged that the Prime Minister and the BJP-RSS call indigenous people "Vanvasi" (forest dwellers) and carry out deforestation across the country. "Congress introduced the Land Acquisition Bill to protect your land. The Tribal Rights Act granted you rights to the forest, land, and water. But as soon as the BJP government comes to power, they take your land and hand it over to billionaires. The term "Vanvasi" implies that your children should not become doctors or engineers, should not get jobs, and should not do business. "Adivasi," on the other hand, means that your children can achieve anything. That is the difference between "Adivasi" and "Vanvasi," Rahul said. He further pointed out that in India, the Adivasi population is eight per cent, and their participation should match this percentage. "I investigated the representation of Adivasis in the Indian government. There are 90 officials who run the government. If the government spends 100 rupees, how many Adivasi officials make decisions about it? Adivasi officials make decisions over just 10 paise of that amount. Out of 90, there is only one Adivasi official, who is side-lined. We need to change this, and the way to do it is through a caste census," the Congress leader said. The Lok Sabha LoP asserted that the Congress party has decided that as much money the Prime Minister waives off for billionaires, they will give to the common people. Highlighting his guarantees, the Congress MP said that under the Mahalaxmi Yojana, on the first day of every month, women will receive Rs 3,000 directly in their accounts. "After that, we will provide free bus travel for women. Farmers will have up to three lakh rupees of debt waived. When farmers sell paddy, cotton, or soybeans, our government will provide MSP (Minimum Support Price). We will conduct the caste census," Rahul Gandhi said. "In Maharashtra, everyone will be provided with health insurance up to 25 lakh rupees. For any illness, you can go to the hospital and get treatment up to 25 lakh rupees free of charge. Unemployed youth will receive 4,000 rupees per month until they secure employment," he added. The Congress leader also alleged that the BJP has moved 5 lakh jobs from Maharashtra to other states. "If we look at employment collectively, BJP has moved 5 lakh jobs from Maharashtra to other states. The INDIA bloc government will not do this. The projects of Maharashtra will remain here. We do not want projects from here to be shifted to other states, forcing Adivasis here to work as labourers there," Rahul added. The campaigning has intensified for the 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra with both the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) making efforts to woo the electorate. The polls are scheduled for November 20 and counting will be held on November 23. In the 2019 Maharashtra assembly elections, the BJP won 105 seats, Shiv Sena secured 56, and Congress 44. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, MVA posed a strong performance winning 30 of 48 seats, while the Mahayuti could only win 17. (ANI)
Amid the ongoing assembly elections in Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday said that the ruling parties in the state including Congress, Rashtriya Janata Party (RJD) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) were looting and misleading people. He alleged that they were promoting leftists to turn Jharkhand into a den of Naxals. "Jharkhand witnessed the first phase of voting for the Assembly election and the trends tell us that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will form the government with absolute majority. Jharkhand has decided to oust Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) from power. When Jharkhand was being developed, I was an MP from Gorakhpur. They (Congress and RJD) were opposing Jharkhand and now they along with JMM are trying to mislead the people," said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath while addressing a gathering in Dhanbad. "On one hand, they are looting Jharkhand. On the other hand, this (corrupt) government is trying to promote leftists to turn Jharkhand into a den of Naxals. I have come to appeal to you all to not let them flourish," Yogi said. Chief Minister Adityanath further said that today's India doesn't believe in provoking (others) but would not spare those who provoke. He said that there were no riots or curfews in Uttar Pradesh after the BJP-led government came to power. "This is new India. There is an environment of safety in the nation. Whether it is Congress, RJD or JMM, all of them are here to loot you. They are letting Bangladeshis and Rohingyas in Jharkhand and causing land and love jihad. We have to stop this infiltration. You might have seen what happened in Uttar Pradesh before our government was formed in 2017. After the double-engine government was formed, there are no more riots or curfews in Uttar Pradesh," CM Adityanath said while addressing the gathering in the Nirsa assembly constituency. Meanwhile, Karnataka Rural Development Minister Priyank Kharge on Wednesday came down heavily on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister over the latter's remarks against Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge who accused the senior leader of "vote bank politics." He said that the UP CM should try to win elections on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's achievements instead of trying to "sow seeds of hatred" for political gains. "Try winning the elections on PM Narendra Modi's 'achievements' instead of trying to sow seeds of hatred in the society for political gains," the Congress leader said on X. (ANI)
As Jharkhand braces for the second phase of polling on November 20, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said that it has been decided in the first phase of elections that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would form the government in the state and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) would be turfed out. Taking a dig at Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Union Minister Shah said that Soren's time was coming to an end now. "The first phase of elections in Jharkhand has made it clear that JMM will be turfed and BJP will form the government in the state. I want to say to Hemant Soren that his time was coming to an end. Has anyone of you ever seen Rs 350 crores? This amount has been seized from the residence of a Congress leader. Another of Soren's ministers Alam Gir Alam, his personal assistant (PA) had Rs 35 crores at his residence. Whose money is it? Does it belong to Hemant or Kalpana Soren? It belongs to you," said Amit Shah while addressing a rally in Gandey assembly constituency. The Union Home Minister further accused Congress of opposing the formation of Jharkhand and Soren for joining hands with them for "greed of power". "A lot of people sacrificed their lives and dedicated their whole lives to the state of Jharkhand. Ultimately, Jharkhand was formed under the government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Congress wanted to stop that. Yet, CM Hemant Soren is standing with that same Congress party as he is greedy for power," Shah said. Amit Shah promised to set up factories in Jharkhand to resolve the issue of unemployment in the state, blaming the Bangladeshi "infiltrators" for taking away employment opportunities. He said that the BJP government would bring a law against infiltrators. "Jharkhand is the most prosperous state in the country. Jharkhand has so much of minerals that make it the most prosperous state of the country. But the youth here go to different places like Delhi and Mumbai for employment. I will set up enough factories here to generate employment opportunities here...Your employment opportunities have been decreased by the infiltrators from Bangladesh...We will bring a law against infiltrators. They will have to return the land they have taken from tribals," the Union Minister said. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday said that the ruling parties in the state including Congress, Rashtriya Janata Party (RJD) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) were looting and misleading people. He alleged that they were promoting leftists to turn Jharkhand into a den of Naxals.Elections on the remaining 38 seats will be conducted on November 20. The counting of the votes will take place on November 23. (ANI)
A day after the first phase of polling, BJP MP Anurag Thakur attacked the ruling INDIA bloc in Jharkhand and said Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has promised gas cylinders to the "illegal immigrants" launched a scathing attack on the ruling INDIA bloc in Jharkhand, accusing Congress MP Rahul Gandhi of promising gas cylinders to "illegal immigrants." He claimed that illegal immigrants are living in Jharkhand under the protection of Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morch (JMM), and have been given rights to grab land and jungles, altering the state's demographics. "... Rahul Gandhi has promised gas cylinders to illegal immigrants. This means they are living here under the protection of Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morch (JMM). The two parties have also given the rights to (illegal immigrants) grab lands and jungles, and given the right to change the demographics of the state...," Thakur told ANI. The BJP MP said that the Lotus (BJP's poll symbol) will bloom in Jharkhand on November 23. "The people of Jharkhand have proved that the Lotus will bloom here after voting in favour of the party in the first phase of the polling. (They have proved that) time has come to change the fate of the Jharkhand," Thakur told ANI. It was the BJP who had created the state of Jharkhand, he mentioned. "It is the BJP who will take over the affairs of the Jharkhand". Earlier in the day, Anurag Thakur also addressed a press conference in Ranchi and said, "...If you look at the last 5 years of RJD-Congress-JMM government, the people of Jharkhand have got only 'love-jihad' and 'land jihad'...Instead of public welfare, 'jihad-kalyan' is going on here. Several examples of this are present here in front of you and if you'll see, you will get to know how 'love jihad', 'land jihad' are going on here to unbalance the land properties and demography of the state. Tribal are being lured and their rights are being snatched away...The people of Jharkhand feel cheated. RJD-JMM-Congress has cheated the public not just on one front, but on every front." Elections on the remaining 38 seats will be conducted on November 20. The counting of the votes will take place on November 23. (ANI)
Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Waqf Amendment Bill, Jagdambika Pal on Thursday said that the JPC on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024 will meet in Delhi on November 21 and then the report will be presented in the winter session. "The Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024 will meet in Delhi on November 21...Then the report will be presented in the winter session...Even after meeting with all the stakeholders, Maulanas like Tauqeer Raza Khan are saying that we will not let the Waqf (Amendment) Act be passed," Jagdambika Pal told ANI. He further suggested the leader stop doing appeasement politics and dividing the country. "Instead of doing appeasement politics and dividing the country, religious leaders like Tauqeer Raza should appear before our committee," he added. On October 31, the Lok Sabha Secretariat announced that the Joint Committee on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, would conduct a study tour across five Indian cities. The committee was scheduled to visit Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Patna, and Lucknow from November 9 to November 14 as part of its examination of the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024. According to an official communication from Joint Secretary JM Baisakh, the study visit program is designed to assist committee members in their review of the proposed bill. "The Joint Committee on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024 will undertake a Study Visit to Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Patna, and Lucknow from 09.11.2024 to 14.11.2024 in connection with the examination of the 'Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024,'" the letter read. The study visit is part of the legislative review process and reflects the Joint Committee's commitment to understanding the implications of the proposed amendments in the Waqf Bill, which relate to managing and regulating Waqf properties across India. Meanwhile, the JPC committee is expected to present its report on the bill to the House by the end of the first week of the Winter Session of Parliament, which runs from November 25 to December 20. The JPC's efforts are part of a larger national initiative to reform the Waqf Act and ensure that waqf properties are used for the greater good of the community. Since August 22 of this year, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Waqf Amendment Bill, 2024, has held 25 meetings. The JPC reviewed the work of six ministries and heard from 123 stakeholders, including representatives from six states, eight Waqf boards and four minority commissions. (ANI)
A Chinese song competition for Cambodian youth was held here in the capital of Cambodia on Wednesday to promote Chinese-language education and cultural exchanges between the two countries.

Cambodian Minister of Education, Youth and Sport Hang Chuon Naron and Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Wang Wenbin presided over the final contest, which was convened at the Royal Academy of Cambodia.

Speaking at the event, Chuon Naron said the Chinese song contest was part of joint activities to celebrate the Cambodia-China people-to-people exchange year 2024 and to promote Chinese-language education in the Southeast Asian country.

"The competition's purpose is to nurture the best young talents," he said. "I firmly believe that this Chinese song contest is an important catalyst to promote Chinese-language education in Cambodia and to deepen cultural exchanges between our two countries."

Meanwhile, Chuon Naron, who is also a Cambodian deputy prime minister, said the relationship between Cambodia and China has deep historical roots. "This long-standing traditional bond of friendship has not only become an invaluable treasure for our both countries, but also set a good example of mutually beneficial cooperation, peaceful coexistence, shared prosperity and common development."

A total of 16 Cambodian candidates, who had been shortlisted from dozens of contestants across the kingdom, showed their abilities and talents in the final stage.

Encouraging Cambodian people to learn the Chinese language and Chinese people to learn the Cambodian language, Wang said that people-to-people exchanges are crucial to promoting mutual understanding, as language is a bridge to connect the two peoples and is a catalyst for China-Cambodia cooperation.

"I hope everyone will firmly serve as the messengers of China-Cambodia friendship, make friends through music, build a bridge for cultural exchanges between China and Cambodia, and continue to write a new chapter of friendly cooperation between our two countries," the Chinese ambassador said.

As 2024 marks the 66th anniversary of China-Cambodia diplomatic relations, Wang said over the past 66 years, China and Cambodia have always provided mutual support and that the ironclad friendship between the two countries is "unbreakable."

At the end of the contest, Mar Linna, an 11th-grade student at the Duan Hua Chinese School in Phnom Penh, was awarded the top prize.

"I feel thrilled with and elated at this result," Linna told Xinhua.

"This contest is very good for the learners of the Chinese language because it helps us understand better about Chinese culture and increase our Chinese proficiency," the 18-year-old student said.

Linna said she has learned the Chinese language since she was young because of her love of Chinese culture.

Contestant Koem Keamheang, a second-year student in the major of e-commerce at the Cambodia-China University of Technology and Science in Phnom Penh, said the competition was a good opportunity for talented candidates to show abilities.

"It is good for the learners of the Chinese language because it helps increase their knowledge and Chinese proficiency," she told Xinhua.

"I love the Chinese language because studying Chinese will provide a good opportunity in the future to find a job, to communicate with Chinese people, and to visit China conveniently," the 20-year-old student said.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has said that the state government is going to observe the birth anniversary of tribal leader Birsa Munda across the state tomorrow, November 15, adding that two grand events will also be held in Dhar and Shahdol districts on the occasion. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement to celebrate Bhagwan Birsa Munda Jayanti on November 15 draws attention to history, in which Birsa Munda stood up from Bihar-Jharkhand and established a strong resistance of our society against the British. The movement that he started from the tribal area ultimately forced the British to leave India. The Madhya Pradesh government is also going to observe the birth anniversary of Bhagwan Birsa Munda, who attained the status of God due to his struggles," CM Yadav told ANI. The CM further highlighted the programs being held to mark the occasion and urged the public to join hands in making the program successful. He also requested to bring forward all the aspects of Bhagwan Birsa Munda that strengthened the freedom movement. "We are organising two big programs in the state, although we have expected to organise programs at all places across the state. The big events are being organised in Dhar and Shahdol districts. Let's join hands and make these programs successful. We should also bring forward all the aspects of Bhagwan Birsa Munda, which strengthened our freedom movement," CM Yadav added. The hero of the Indian tribal freedom struggle, Birsa Munda played a pivotal role in inspiring the tribal community of the Chotanagpur region to fight for their independence. He led the armed revolution known as "Ulgulan" (the rebellion) against British rule. He belonged to the Munda tribe in the Chhotanagpur Plateau area. He spearheaded an Indian tribal mass movement that arose in the Bihar and Jharkhand belts in the early 19th century under British colonisation. Munda rallied the tribals to fight against the forceful land grabbing carried out by the British government, which would turn the tribals into bonded labourers and force them to abject poverty. He influenced his people to realise the importance of owning their land and asserting their rights over it. He founded the faith of Birsait, a blend of animism and indigenous beliefs, which emphasized the worship of a single god. He became their leader and was given the nickname, 'Dharti Aba' or the father of the earth. He died on June 9, 1900, at age 25. November 15, the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, was declared 'Janjatiya Gaurav Divas by the Central Government in 2021. (ANI)
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday approached the Delhi High Court, challenging the trial court's decision to release Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan on bail in the Delhi Waqf Board money laundering case. This case involves alleged money laundering related to the purchase of a property worth Rs 36 crore connected to "irregularities" in the Delhi Waqf Board. The matter was mentioned before the HC bench headed by Justice Vibhu Bakhru also comprising Justice Swarna Kanta Sharma, for urgent hearing. The court agreed to list the case for Monday but declined to hear it immediately. Advocate Zoheb Hossain represented the Enforcement Directorate and mentioned the matter. Earlier in the day, directing that Khan be released on a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh, Special Judge Jitendra Singh of Rouse Avenue Court said that there was "sufficient evidence" to proceed against him but "no prosecution sanction had been obtained." The court also declined to take cognizance of the chargesheet filed against him and ordered his release on a bond of Rs 1 lakh, with a like amount for surety. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had filed a supplementary chargesheet on October 29, naming Amanatullah Khan and Mariam Siddiqui. Khan was arrested on September 2, while Siddiqui was charged without arrest. The court acknowledged the presence of sufficient evidence against Khan but ruled that, without the required sanction for prosecution, it could not proceed with the case. In contrast, the court found no evidence against Mariam Siddiqui and discharged her from the case. On Wednesday, the Rouse Avenue Court reserved its order on whether to take cognizance of the ED's supplementary chargesheet in the Delhi Waqf Board money laundering case. The chargesheet names Amanatullah Khan and Mariam Siddiqui. The Judge Jitendra Singh set November 14 to announce his decision regarding cognizance. During the hearing, the ED informed the court that proceeds of crime were used to purchase a Rs 36 crore property in Okhla, allegedly under Khan's direction, with Rs 27 crore paid in cash. The ED linked the transaction to Khan through a diary and WhatsApp messages that mention his involvement, including a message saying, "Netaji ko paisa pahuncha diya," which matched the timing of the financial transaction. The ED also claimed that Khan, who served as Chairman of the Delhi Waqf Board from 2016 to 2023, tampered with his mobile phone during a search on October 10, 2023, deleting critical data from the device. Amanatullah Khan was arrested in connection with alleged irregularities in appointments made during his tenure at the Delhi Waqf Board. The ED's 110-page supplementary chargesheet also named Mariam Siddiqui as an accused, although she was not arrested. (ANI)
The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a petition seeking to direct the Centre to ban the operations of WhatsApp alleging that it does not function in conformity with the new Information Technology Rules (IT Rules). A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and Aravind Kumar dismissed the plea filed by petitioner Omanakuttan KG, a software engineer. Earlier, the petitioner had moved the Kerala High Court seeking directions to the central government to ban WhatsApp if it does not comply with the orders issued by government authorities. In June 2021, the Kerala High Court had dismissed the PIL for being 'premature'. Thereafter, the petitioner moved the top court. The petitioner claimed that there was a wide scope of manipulation at the user end and that it was not viable to trace the origin of a message being circulated on the application. It was alleged that updated privacy policy openly mentions that the application will store, access and use the personal data of its users, including the battery remaining on their devices, which are grave violation of the right to privacy. The petition alleged that WhatsApp had implemented a separate privacy policy in Europe in compliance with their laws and it refuses to comply with the laws in India, which is a glaring incongruity. (ANI)
A day after the first phase of polling, Union Home Minister Amit Shah alleged on Thursday that Rs 350 crore was recovered in the Enforcement Directorate raids from the home of a Congress MP which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had sent for the daughters and youth of Jharkhand. Addressing a poll rally here, Home Minister Amit Shah said, "...They (Congress) gave only Rs 84,000 crores to Jharkhand in 10 years, whereas PM Modi has given 3,90,000 crore in 10 years... In ED raids, Rs 350 crore was found from the residence of Congress MP - it's the money that PM Modi has sent for the daughters and youth of Jharkhand..." The Home Minister accused the incumbent government of being steeped in corruption. "The money sent by Modi Ji for the daughters and youth of Jharkhand was eaten up by the governments of JMM, Congress and RJD. So much money came out from the houses of their leaders that the machines stopped working, but the bundles of notes did not end. All those who have embezzled the money meant for Jharkhand will be selected and sent behind prison bars," Amit Shah said. "Hemant Soren had promised the youth during the elections that 'we will give you unemployment allowance', but Hemant Soren did not fulfill his promise. We will give unemployment allowance of Rs 2,000 per month to every youth. 2 lakh 87 thousand vacant posts will be filled in a transparent manner. Neither bribe will have to be given for a job nor will you have to write a letter," he added. The senior BJP leader also addressed a rally earlier on Thursday in Giridih, Jharkhand, where he attacked the Jharkhand government headed by Hemant Soren. "Hemant Soren government has not allowed to implement schemes of PM Modi as it is mired in corruption. We will ensure industries in Jharkhand so that the labourers do not have to go to other states for work. Hemant Soren is not bothered to build industries in Jharkhand or create electricity. There are mines of aluminium and iron ore but Hemant Soren is not bothered that they are manufactured here. He is only concerned about allowing the infiltrators to enter Jharkhand." He further alleged that these infiltrators marry innocent locals and encroach on their lands. "These infiltrators enter Jharkhand and marry innocent local girls for the second time, third time, and encroach on their lands. These infiltrators who have encroached on the lands of innocent tribal women would be thrown out of the state. We will bring a law that these encroached lands would have to be returned back to tribals," he further said. Elections on the remaining 38 seats will be conducted on November 20. The counting of the votes will take place on November 23. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to inaugurate the first edition of Bodoland Mohotsov on Friday evening here in the national capital's KD Jadhav Wrestling Stadium, a vibrant cultural festival celebrating the rich heritage of Bodoland. The mega event is organised by the All-Bodo Students' Union (ABSU), Bodo Sahitya Sabha (BSS), Dularai Bodo Harimu Afad, and the Gandhi Hindustani Sahitya Sabha (GHSS). The inaugural ceremony tomorrow will also witness the presence of Governor of Assam Lakshman Prasad Acharya, and CEM of Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) Pramod Boro, the organisers said in a statement today. Upon his arrival, PM Modi will pay floral tribute to the bust of Bodofa Upendra Nath Brahma and is expected to attend the live Bodo dance performances such as "Bagurumba" and "Rwnswndri" and other Indigenous dance troupes. He is also expected to visit the exhibition stalls of the newly recognised Bodo GI-tagged items, Bodo cultural instruments and food items. The Prime Minister will then inaugurate the "Bodoland Jaiklong" - the Souvenir published in connection to the Bodoland Mohotsov 2024. He will also be attending the inaugural session titled - The Rich Bodo Culture, Tradition, and Literature Contributing towards Indian Heritage, the organisers said in the statement. The two-day festival will be attended by over five thousand cultural, linguistic and art enthusiasts from the Bodoland region, Assam, West Bengal, Tripura, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, other parts of India, and also from the neighbouring states of Nepal and Bhutan. "Bodoland Mohotsov marks a historic milestone where the richness of cultural and linguistic heritage, ecological biodiversity and touristic potential of Bodoland takes centre stage. This grand celebration in the national capital will showcase our story to the world. I request one and all to be part of the mega event," said Dipen Boro, President, ABSU. The theme for this Mohotsov is 'Peace and Harmony for a Prosperous Bharat' with a focus on the rich culture, language and education of the Bodo community along with other communities from Assam's Bodoland region. Significantly, the Mohotsov is also about celebrating the remarkable journey of recovery and resilience ever since the signing of the Bodo Peace Accord in 2020 which was facilitated under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi. Apart from the focus on Bodo tradition and culture, there will be a mosaic of cultural extravaganza comprising presentations by the Santalis, Bengalis, Rajbongshis, ethnic Assamese, Garos, Rabhas, Gorkhas (Nepali), Odiyas, and multiple other communities from the Bodoland Territorial Region. Coincidentally, November 16 also marks the 73rd Foundation Day Celebration of the Bodo Sahitya Sabha. In this regard, a series of thematic discussions and deliberations on the achievements of the Bodo language and literature are being planned. A special thematic discussion on National Education Policy 2020 aims to harness the potential of mother-tongue-based education in the making of a Vikshit Bharat. There will also be a mega cultural rally for peace and harmony on that day to demonstrate the Bodo Sahitya Sabha's rich contributions. Another thematic session titled "Discussion on building 'Vibrant Bodoland' Region through culture and tourism" aims to accelerate the economic and employment opportunities for youth in the region. It is hoped that this discussion will attract national and international tourists to witness and experience the rich bio-diversity of Manas National Park, Raimona National Park, Sikhna Jwhwlao National Park and the pristine natural beauty of the tourist hotspots all along the Indo-Bhutan Border. On the concluding day, there will be an evening of cultural extravaganza, which will be inaugurated by Jual Oram, Union Minister for Tribal Affairs. Bodoland, once infamous for violence and insurgency, is now an island of peace as all the insurgents have returned to the mainstream, after having signed the 2020 accord with the central government. Now there is a complete co-existence of various indigenous communities living in the five districts of Assam's Bodoland region. Bodos are one of the aboriginal and indigenous communities living in Assam for thousands of years, and they are the largest tribal community in the state. Bodo as a language is listed in the 8th Schedule of India's Constitution and also is recognized as the Associate Official Language of Assam and medium of instruction up to Class XII. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday received a special welcome from ISKCON volunteers at Panvel in Maharashtra's Raigad district. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister addressed public rallies at various places in Maharashtra. During a rally in Raigad's Panvel, PM Modi launched a scathing attack against the Congress party, claiming that they have always worked on the agenda of keeping the poor, poor. PM Modi further added that Congress has looted the poor people in the name of poverty elimination. "Congress always worked on the agenda of keeping the poor, poor. Generation by generation, they have given the false slogan of 'gareebi hatao'. Congress looted the poor in the name of poverty elimination," said PM Modi while addressing a public rally at Panvel in Maharashtra's Raigad. "In most of the states, Congress' existence is in danger. To protect their existence and to come to power, Congress will do anything. Their (Congress) one leader is openly declaring that they will give infiltrators, Rohingyas, and Bangladeshi - gas cylinders at cheaper rates. It's the example of how they are playing with the future of your children's future for the sake of votes," he added. Addressing another rally in Maharashtra's Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, the Prime Minister said that the MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi) has done nothing but increase the problems of the State. "There has been a water crisis in Marathwada for a long time, but the Congress and the Aghadi people always remained sitting idle. For the first time in our government, concrete efforts began to fight drought," he said. Notably, the campaigning has intensified for the 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra with both the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) making efforts to woo the electorate. The Maharashtra assembly elections are scheduled for November 20 and counting will be held on November 23. In the 2019 Maharashtra assembly polls, the BJP won 105 seats, Shiv Sena secured 56, and Congress 44. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, MVA posed a strong performance winning 30 of 48 seats, while the Mahayuti could only win 17. (ANI)
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has said that the School Education Department of the state is going to organise 'Gita Mahotsav' in collaboration with ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness). He further added that a value-based education competition will also be organised in the last week of November so that the knowledge of the Holy Gita reaches the children and society. "Gita Mahotsav is being organised by the School Education Department in collaboration with ISKCON in the state. To introduce ancient Indian knowledge and science to the children, a value-based education competition is going to be organised in the last week of November so that the knowledge of the Holy Gita reaches the children and society. I hope that all our children will participate in this event," CM Yadav told ANI. He hoped that there was a need to bring the various aspects of the life of Lord Ram and Lord Krishna in the society. "In these changing times, there is a need to bring the various aspects of the life of Lord Ram and Lord Krishna in front of the society. There are various topics of their lives which bring patience, bravery, seriousness and also bring opportunities to build courage among the children," the CM said. The chief minister also emphasised that in the new education policy also, they tried to bring the glorious pages of the past before everyone. Additionally, CM Yadav said, "Through the Gita Mahotsav, I appeal to everyone to get their children prepared and make them participate in the competition to be held in the last week of November". (ANI)
Jalandhar Rural Police dismantled two separate criminal gangs, including a UK-based extortion syndicate, and arrested 10 hardcore criminals after recovering seven pistols along with 18 live cartridges and 10 magazines from their possession, said Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav here on Thursday. Police teams have also impounded a car, a scooter, a motorcycle and a scooter being used by the arrested persons to carry out criminal activities. DGP Gaurav Yadav said that preliminary investigations have revealed the syndicate's complex cross-border operations, with key figures in the UK, Greece and Manila directing extortion and shootings in Punjab. Additionally, Jalandhar Rural has also uncovered a weapons procurement network operating from Madhya Pradesh, he said. "With busting of two modules, Punjab Police has successfully traced at least 14 cases of extortion and shootings, significantly disrupting foreign-backed crime in the state," he said. The DGP said that further investigations are going on to establish backwards and forward linkages in this case. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Jalandhar Rural Harkamal Preet Singh Khakh, while addressing the press conference, said that the first breakthrough came when a police team led by SHO Police Station Lohian Yadwinder Singh intercepted a car near Giddarpindi Toll Plaza and arrested three suspects after recovering two .32 bore pistols along with six live rounds, and five magazines during the search of their car. Those arrested have been identified as Amandeep Singh alias Aman of Billi Baraich, Jagwinder Singh alias Shani of Mulewal Khaira, and Jaskaran Singh alias Sara of Sidhwa Dona. The SSP said that during interrogation, the accused revealed that their operations were being orchestrated by UK-based kingpin Jagdeep Singh alias Jagga, with financial support from Greece-based Paramjit Singh alias Pamma and logistical coordination by Manila-based Manjinder Singh alias Mani. "The gang had recently procured pistols from Khargon city in Madhya Pradesh on directions of their foreign-based handlers," he added. In a follow-up operation, the police team arrested three more gang members identified as Ajay Kumar alias Billa of Shahjahanpur, Vishal of Seinpura in Kapurthala and one juvenile of Donewal, he said, while adding that the team recovered one more .32 bore pistol along with three live cartridges from their possession and seized scooter on which they were travelling. He said that this notorious gang was found involved in three major criminal incidents, including a shooting incident to target a Bholath-based businessman on the directions of Jagdeep alias Jagga, recovery of weapons and procuring weapons from Madhya Pradesh. "This operation has dealt a significant blow to the international crime syndicate operating in our region," said SSP Khakh. In another parallel operation, the SSP said that CIA Staff Jalandhar Rural led by Inspector Pushap Bali apprehended four members of another dreaded gang identified as Harvinder Singh alias Raju of Ahmedpur, Dalwinder Singh alias Guri of Dhaliwal Dona, Sarabjit Singh alias Punjab alias Kaka of Athola, and Harpreet Singh alias Shera of Katni Gate. Police teams have recovered two .32-bore pistols with six live rounds and three magazines and one .315-bore pistol with two live rounds, besides, impeding their motorcycle and scooter. SSP Khakh said that during interrogation, this gang confessed to having committed multiple crimes including a shooting and extortion at Blair Khanpur, an armed assault and shooting at a grocery shop owner, armed robbery near Leather Complex, extortion of Rs 25,000 from migrant labourers, and multiple motorcycle thefts. They also revealed connections to a local drug trafficking network, he added. he police have registered two separate cases including FIR no. 102 dated 09.11.2024 under section 25 of the Arms Act at Police Station Lohian, and FIR No. 95 dated 13.11.2024 under sections 308(2), 310(4), 310(5) and 111 of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and section 25(1)(6)(7)(8) of the Arms Act at Police Station Maqusdan. (ANI)
Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday promised to provide Rs 3,000 to every woman of Maharashtra if the Maha Vikas Aghadi forms the government in the state. "Nehru ji was imprisoned in Ahmednagar fort for 963 days and wrote the book 'Discovery of India' here...Nehru ji and Babasaheb Ambedkar ji gave the Constitution to the country, which gave people the right to vote...75 years ago, only the rich people used to vote during the rule of British...Today even women have the right to vote...Those who believed in Manusmriti, who used to say that women should not get rights, are today folding their hands in front of women. Under the 'Ladli Behen' scheme, they are giving Rs 1500 to every woman. I promise that after the formation of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra, we will give Rs 3,000 to every woman," Kharge said addressing a rally in Igatpuri. In another rally in Pune, the Congress National President said that the Congress party is the followers of Babasaheb Ambedkar, Lord Buddha. "We are the followers of Babasaheb Ambedkar, Lord Buddha, Nehru Ji, Gandhi Ji. These people have built the nation whereas they (BJP) are people who ruined the country. Why are they saying 'Batenge to Katenge'? They want to divide the nation in the name of religion. Former PM Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi sacrificed their lives for the unity of the nation," Kharge added. Earlier today, Kharge said that the Congress and MVA are going to win elections in the state. "The environment in Maharashtra is good. Congress and MVA are going to win. We will give a better government to Maharashtra... When Rahul Gandhi comes, another nearby 2-4 constituencies also get benefited," Kharge said. He further slammed the current Mahayuti government, saying that this government is not formed on the basis of ideology, rather it is formed after ploying the situation. Campaigning has intensified for the 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra with both the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) making efforts to woo the electorate. The Maharashtra polls are scheduled for November 20 and counting will be held on November 23. (ANI)
Stating that Mumbai is a city of "self-respect," Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday ridiculed Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray for "handing over the remote control" of his party to the Congress and dared him to get the "shehzada of Congress" to praise Balasaheb Thackeray. Addressing his last rally for the November 20 Maharashtra assembly elections in Shivaji Park in Mumbai, PM Modi said that the entire state is blessing BJP-led Mahayuti. "This is my last public meeting in Maharashtra for this election. I have visited the entire Maharashtra during this time...The blessings of the entire Maharashtra are with Mahayuti," PM Modi said. He said there is a party in the Aghadi which has handed over its "remote control" to the Congress which insulted Balasaheb. "Mumbai is a city of self-respect, but a party in Maha Vikas Aghadi has handed over its 'remote control' to those who insulted Balasaheb Thackeray," "That is why I challenged them to get the Congress to praise Balasaheb Thackeray. To date, these people have not been able to get the Congress and the 'shehzada' of Congress to praise Balasaheb," he added. PM Modi said that the "shaahi parivaar" will snatch away reservations if Congress comes to power in Maharashtra. "Mumbai is a city that believes in connecting people. Unfortunately, the Congress and the Maha Aghadi seem focused on dividing them instead. People from all communities live in harmony in Mumbai, but the Maha Aghadi is busy inciting tensions between different castes. The Congress's Shahi parivaar harbours animosity towards Dalits, backward classes, and Scheduled Tribes (STs). They seem desperate for power, much like a fish out of water," the PM said. He further said that Mumbai is a city that believes in connecting people, but unfortunately, the Congress and the Maha Aghadi seem focused on dividing them instead. "After independence, the Congress government was in power at the centre for decades and here too for decades. But they did not bother to make any future plans for Mumbai. The result was that Mumbai continued to lag behind. The character of Congress is exactly opposite to the character of Mumbai. The character of Mumbai is honesty and hard work. The character of Mumbai is the urge to move ahead. But the character of Congress is corruption. The character of Congress is to push the country backwards. The character of Congress is to create obstacles in development," he said. The Prime Minister alleged that the leaders of Maha Vikas Aghadi have become slaves to appeasement. "The leaders of Maha Vikas Aghadi opposed the construction of Ram Temple. For the sake of votes, they used the words like 'Bhagwa aatankwad'. They disrespect Veer Savarkar. They passed a resolution in J-K for the restoration of Article 370...Maha Vikas Aghadi always keeps party above the nation and they have problems with India's progress...They never gave the status of classical language to Marathi language," PM Modi said. He further mentioned that a large number of women of Mumbai have also benefited from the Majhi Ladki Behan scheme of the Mahayuti government. "Most of the houses received under the PM Awas Yojana are also in the name of female members. This has accelerated the social and economic empowerment of women," he said. PM Modi further said that the people of Haryana "shattered all the plans" of Congress and asked the people to again give a befitting reply to Congress and Maha Aghadi in Jharkhand and Maharashtra. "This time I have seen the elections of Jharkhand and also the elections of Maharashtra. And I was also watching the Haryana elections a few days ago. Haryana in a way shattered all the plans of Congress and destroyed all their dreams. Whatever issues he raised, the people of Haryana gave a befitting reply to every issue. I can say that the Congress and Maha Aghadi are going to get a tougher reply in Jharkhand and Maharashtra than in Haryana," he said. PM Modi urged the voters to vote for Mahayuti and also invited everyone to come to the Mahayuti oath ceremony. "I appeal to everyone to vote for Mahayuti also invite everyone to come to our Mahayuti oath ceremony because in Maharashtra today is my last election public rally. I appeal to everyone once again to give me a chance to serve Maharashtra with Mahayuti," he said, exuding confidence in winning the Maharashtra Assembly Polls. The campaigning has intensified for the 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra with both the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) making efforts to woo the electorate. The Maharashtra assembly elections are scheduled for November 20 and counting will be held on November 23. In the 2019 Maharashtra assembly polls, the BJP won 105 seats, undivided Shiv Sena secured 56, and Congress 44. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, MVA posed a strong performance winning 30 of 48 seats, while the Mahayuti could only win 17. (ANI)
The second Fishing Fortress Science Fiction Awards awarded 1 million yuan ($138,250) in prize money across 42 categories to honor the nation's leading sci-fi writers, professionals and masters, including Han Song and Francesco Verso.

A sci-fi performance is staged by students of Taishan College of Science and Technology during the Fishing Fortress Science Fiction Awards ceremony held in Tai'an, Shandong province, Nov. 9, 2024. [Photo courtesy of Taishan College of Science and Technology]

This year's Fishing Fortress Science Fiction Awards were sponsored by Taishan College of Science and Technology and organized by Penglai Science Fiction College, which was established in July 2021, along with Chongqing College of Mobile Communication's Fishing Fortress Science Fiction College. This nonprofit initiative recognizes outstanding contributions in sci-fi writing, translation, publishing, education, media and art.

The Fishing Fortress Science Fiction Awards were initiated by the China New Business School Group, a private education investment company. Its chairman, Peng Hongbin, stated that his goal is to cultivate well-rounded young people who not only excel in their specialties but also develop imagination, discovery and creativity.

Zhang Fan, founder of the Fishing Fortress Science Fiction Awards and the Science Fiction Academy, emphasized that science fiction offers humanity a new framework for the future and imagination.

Han Song receives the sci-fi master achievement award on stage during the Fishing Fortress Science Fiction Awards ceremony held in Tai'an, Shandong province, Nov. 9, 2024. [Photo courtesy of Taishan College of Science and Technology]

At the award ceremony on Nov. 9, prominent Chinese sci-fi writer Han Song received the prestigious sci-fi master achievement award, the highest honor, along with a prize of 600,000 yuan. His contemporary, Liu Cixin, won the same award in Chongqing last year.

The awards committee praised Han as a writer with a strong sense of humanism and a belief in the limitless possibilities of the future. He has been creating since the 1980s, and his works, marked by a distinctive style and a deep understanding of China's social changes, have shaped a unique Chinese sci-fi landscape. In addition to his writing, he has made significant contributions to the development of China's sci-fi community by mentoring younger generations and participating in various industry organizations.

Other notable awards included the best novel award, which went to Tianrui Shuofu for "Once Upon a Time in Nanjing." Jiang Bo's "The Cyber Peach Blossom Spring" won best novella, while Chi Hui's "The Stars That Do Not Dream" took home the award for best short story. The best new star award was presented to Lu Hang.

In the international category, R. F. Kuang's "Babel" won best novel, Arkady Martine's "Rose/House" took home the best novella award, and Naomi Kritzer's "The Year Without Sunshine" was recognized as the best novelette. Kritzer also won the best short story award for "Better Living Through Algorithm." Gabriela Damian Miravete received the best new international star award.

Additionally, the ceremony recognized publishers, translators, editors, teachers, artists, and media professionals with various awards. Teachers and students also showcased specially created stories, dramas, and impressive performances during the event.

Sci-fi artist Zhao Enzhe (center) and cosplayers pose for a photo on the red carpet before the Fishing Fortress Science Fiction Awards ceremony held in Tai'an, Shandong province, Nov. 9, 2024. [Photo courtesy of Taishan College of Science and Technology]

The winners of the achievement awards category received the highest tribute from attendees. Yang Feng, founder and CEO of the Chinese sci-fi brand Eight Light Minutes Culture, was honored with the sci-fi publisher achievement award. Li Guangyi, a professor at Chongqing University, received the sci-fi educator achievement award. Zhao Enzhe won the sci-fi artist achievement award, while San Feng was recognized with the sci-fi promoter achievement award. Li Keqin was awarded the sci-fi translator achievement award, and Yan Feng, a professor at Fudan University, received the academy award. Italian sci-fi writer and publisher Francesco Verso was honored with the Marco Polo Award for his extensive efforts in promoting Chinese sci-fi globally.

Xie Chenghong, executive vice president of Taishan College of Science and Technology, stated that the development of sci-fi initiatives reflects national progress. He pledged that the institution would continue to offer students new growth opportunities and unique educational value, further advancing sci-fi education.

Organizers and winners of the second Fishing Fortress Science Fiction Awards pose for a photo on stage after the award ceremony in Tai'an, Shandong province, on Nov. 9, 2024. [Photo courtesy of Taishan College of Science and Technology]

More than 100 sci-fi insiders and over 800 teachers and students participated in the award show and other affiliated activities, which spanned nearly a week and included forums, book signings, a sci-fi art exhibition, film screenings, a cosplay event, and even a barbecue.

Dong Renwei, a respected sci-fi and popular science writer, activist, and co-founder of the Chinese Nebula Awards, emphasized that the development of China's sci-fi industry must focus on cultivating top Chinese sci-fi writers and original works. He advocated for using Eastern culture as a foundation to create uniquely Chinese sci-fi that serves all of humanity and enhances China's cultural soft power.

Next year's Fishing Fortress Science Fiction Awards will be held at Jinzhong College of Information, according to Zhang Ran, dean of the Taiko Science Fiction Academy, which was also established by the China New Business School Group.

"Today's sci-fi education is precisely meant to innovate traditional education. Therefore, sci-fi-themed schools and academies should persist," said Wu Yan, a sci-fi scholar, writer, and professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology. He also suggested that the development of the sci-fi industry should balance model-driven and content-driven approaches, promote "Elon Musk-style" innovations, and engage with mainstream literature. For global audiences, he emphasized that Chinese sci-fi should convey more messages that provide a sense of peace and stability to people worldwide.
The Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) has bowed to pressure from protesters, announcing that its preliminary examinations will now be held in a single day and single shift. This decision comes after hundreds of aspirants staged a protest outside the UPPSC office in Prayagraj, demanding changes to the exam format. The protesters claimed that the previous format, which spanned multiple days and shifts, was unfair and prone to discrepancies. The Opposition, led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, has supported the protesters, criticizing the UP government's initial response as "insensitive." Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party praised UP CM Yogi Adityanath after the state government decided to hold the recruitment exam in a single shift, whereas the opposition leaders extended their support to the protest of the UPPSC aspirants and said that their demands were right. Amid a growing political row over the students' protest in Prayagraj, the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission today decided to hold a key recruitment exam in a single shift. "In view of the speciality of the Combined State/Senior Subordinate Service Examination, it has been decided in principle by the Commission to conduct it in one day as before," UPPSC stated. The UPPSC said that a committee has been constituted by the Commission to conduct integrated research and analysis of all the facts. "It is hereby informed that in view of the number of 10,76,004 candidates in respect of Review Officer / Assistant Review Officer etc. (Pre.) Examination-2023, a committee has been constituted by the Commission to conduct integrated research and analysis of all the facts with the aim of conducting the selection process in a transparent, qualitative and fair manner, which will submit its detailed report at the earliest after considering all the aspects," UPPSC stated in a notice. Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak said that the state government is ensuring the interests of the students. "The problem has been resolved. The state government is ensuring the interests of the students. The demands of the students have been met and the state government will ensure that the students don't face any problems," Pathak said. BJP MP Dinesh Sharma said that a big step is being taken by the Chief Minister in the student's interest "This is a big step taken by the CM in the student's interest...Opposition always finds issues to do politics... A committee has been formed by the Commission for RO/ARO (Pre.) Examination-2023. The committee will consider all aspects and submit its detailed report soon," Sharma said. UP Minister Jaiveer Singh said that the CM took the cognisance of the students' issues and has taken this decision. "Be it any subject, if the demands are justified, the CM takes quick decisions in all such matters. He took the cognisance of the students' issues and has taken this decision," Singh said. Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya appealed to all the aspirants to be focused on their preparations. "The aspirants were protesting demanding that the PCS exams be conducted in one day and one shift. The government has accepted the demands of the aspirants. I appeal to all the aspirants to be focused on their preparations...I extend my best wishes to them...We were always with them and will remain with them...During Akhilesh Yadav's regime, the students protesting were beaten and FIRs were lodged against them...Samajwadi party tried to influence the protest, we condemn that," Maurya said. Meanwhile, UP Congress president Ajay Rai congratulated the students and said that the commission that the government are running has failed. "It is the failure of the government and the commission that they are running are failed. They have to take back this decision because of their own shortcomings. I congratulate the students," Rai said. Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav said that whenever the government has to make any decision, it always keeps quiet. "We support the protest of the (UPPSC) aspirants because their demands are right...Whenever the government has to make any decision, it always keeps quiet," Dimple Yadav said. The decision came after several aspirants in Prayagraj protested outside the UPPSC office, demanding that the PCS and RO/ARO exams be conducted in one day and one shift. Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath took cognizance of the demand of students in Prayagraj and asked the Commission to make necessary decisions by communicating and coordinating with the students regarding the PCS Preliminary Examination 2024 in one day. Meanwhile, a committee has been formed by the Commission for RO/ARO (Pre.) Examination-2023. According to the committee will consider all aspects and submit its detailed report soon. One of the aspirants protesting said that the PCS exam will be conducted as it used to be conducted. "The RO/ARO exam has been cancelled...But our demand is we want notice of that also and till there will be no notice on the website, we will continue to protest," protesting aspirants said. Prayagraj DM, Ravindra Kumar said that the date of the exam (PCS) will be issued by the commission (UPPSC) soon. Earlier, Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission secretary Ashok Kumar met the protesting students. The student aspirants have been protesting over 'single shift' UPPSC examinations for the fourth consecutive day broke barricades to reach Gate no 2 of the UPPSC office and continue their protest. Students were seen sloganeering outside Prayagraj Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission office. The students expressed their frustration over the UPPSC's failure to conduct exams on time for the past two years. Earlier this year, in January 2024, the commission issued a notification for the Uttar Pradesh Civil Services exam, which was originally scheduled for March but was postponed to October. Notably the Review Officer and Assistant Review Officer exams, planned for February, were cancelled due to a paper leak. The exam was later rescheduled for October, only to be announced for December. Later the government decided to conduct the exam in two shifts after which this decision faced strong opposition from candidates. Aspirants demanding that Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) exams be held in a single shift continued their protest for the fourth consecutive day outside the commission's office in Prayagraj. (ANI)
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tried to destabilise the government by offering Rs 50 crores to 50 Congress MLAs. While speaking to ANI, Siddaramaiah claimed that the BJP's efforts to destabilise the government were unsuccessful. He reiterated that the BJP tried to destabilize the government by offering Rs 50 crores, but they couldn't succeed. The Chief Minister also mentioned that not a single MLA from the ruling Congress will switch sides. "I said what they did previously. I said they tried to destabilise the government by offering Rs 50 crores, in which they couldn't succeed," he said. Earlier today, Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar also commented on the issue and said, "We will speak with the Chief Minister and then come back to you (media) on this." Meanwhile, State Minister Ramalinga Reddy said, "They (BJP) have been trying for the last 6 months, but they have failed. No MLA is ready to go with those people. Since they have failed, they are making allegations against the Congress party and Siddaramaiah. They will never succeed. They will be in opposition for the next 3-5 years. They (BJP) are dreaming of becoming ministers." State Minister KN Rajanna said, "They are always after us all the time. Whatever the Chief Minister has stated is correct." The other ministers also accused the BJP of attempting to poach Congress legislators and destabilize the government. State Minister Dr M C Sudhakar said, "See, poaching MLAs from other parties is not new to BJP. From the day Congress came to power in Karnataka, time and again BJP started saying that this govt was not going to last long. Their great ally HD Kumaraswamy and former PM Deve Gowda is also saying the same. This indicates that they (BJP) are trying all means. They (BJP) would have tried. Without proper information, the CM would not have spoken." State Minister Dr. Sharan Prakash Patil said, " The BJP has done it earlier. They have a history of doing it. Earlier also they had purchased MLAs and tried to topple the government and now also they are attempting it." (ANI)
Speaking to the media after his election, Ravinder Bhardwaj expressed his gratitude to all members of the Delhi Municipal Corporation (MCD) across party lines for electing him unopposed.

Further, congratulating Bhardwaj on his win AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal said, "Many congratulations to Ravindra Bhardwaj ji on being elected as the Deputy Mayor in the Municipal Corporation. Take forward the public welfare works being done in the corporation with strength."

Meanwhile, AAP candidate Mahesh Kumar Khichi was elected as Delhi's new mayor and said the cleanliness of the national capital will be his priority.

Khichi, the AAP councillor from Karol Bagh's Dev Nagar ward, secured 133 votes out of a total of 265, defeating BJP's Kishan Lal from Shakurpur ward, who received 130 votes. Two votes were declared invalid.

Khichi succeeded AAP's Shelly Oberoi who assumed the office in 2023. "The challenge is to work in the service of the people of Delhi - the way Arvind Kejriwal has done the work for the people of Delhi. My priority will be to work for the cleanliness of the city," Khinchi told media after his win.

Voting took place to elect a new mayor on Thursday afternoon. Earlier, BJP councillor and former East Delhi mayor Satya Sharma was reappointed as the presiding officer by Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena on Wednesday.

Security was tightened at the Civic Centre building ahead of the polls. The AAP took control of the MCD in December 2022, ending the BJP's 15-year rule. (ANI)
Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel highlighted the power of cultural events in showcasing India's and Gujarat's rich art and heritage, encouraging the youth to transcend a mentality rooted in past constraints at the inauguration of the Bhav, Raag, and Taal, 'BharatKool' festival at Gujarat University in Ahmedabad on Thursday. CM urged collective efforts to fulfil Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of Viksit Bharat, embracing 'Amrit Kaal' as 'Kartavya Kaal' (a period of responsibility). At the beginning of the 'BharatKool' program organized by the Gujarat Media Club, the Chief Minister extended New Year greetings to all and reflected on the concept of 'Bhav,' an essential part of our cultural identity with the capacity to shape personalities, according to a press release. The CM emphasized that the event, a confluence of Bhav, Raag, and Taal, represents an important cultural revival. Chief Minister reiterated Prime Minister's vision for India to become Viksit Bharat by 2047. He noted that this period, seen as 'Kartavya Kaal,' should inspire a unified commitment to this vision. Through dedicated efforts, the goal of a 'Viksit Bharat' becomes achievable. Focusing on cultural preservation, the Chief Minister stressed the need to keep history and heritage alive, with programs like these fostering cultural continuity among the younger generation. He emphasized that just as a tree's strength depends on deep roots, the preservation of culture requires a vibrant connection with youth, who carry forward our ancient values and heritage. CM Patel also acknowledged the role of the media, noting that the media's 'Bhav' should align with societal betterment, embracing constructive criticism and public welfare as shared goals with the government. Minister of State for Home Affairs, Youth Services, and Cultural Activities, Harsh Sanghavi, congratulated the organizers for creating a platform to deepen the youth's appreciation of Indian culture and values through the 'Bharatkool' program. He commended the state's dedication to promoting culture, art, and music, encouraging youth participation in the four-day event, which addresses a range of topics, including spirituality, social unity, and nation-building. At the event, Gujarat Media Club President Nirnay Kapoor provided an overview of the club's initiatives, presenting 'Bharatkool' as a celebration of Indian culture. The Chief Minister and the Home Minister also visited an exhibition featuring a 'Shiv Katha' storytelling session and a photography display by local photojournalists. The four-day Bharatkool festival includes a diverse program lineup covering Bhav, Raag, and Taal, such as religious discussions, classical music performances, cultural journalism, film, theatre, art, sculpture, folk traditions, photography, Gujarati language celebrations, Indian scientific heritage, health, business, sports, tourism, and nation-building. (ANI)
Union Minister of Communication Jyotiraditya M Scindia on Thursday in his four-day north-east region visit, lauded the development of the Northeast region under PM Modi's leadership. In Mizoram, Union DoNER Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that the North East Region has witnessed significant development in the last decade under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Speaking to media persons in Aizawl today, DoNER Minister said that the focus of the NDA government is to transform the North East as a growth engine of the Indian economy. "Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there has been an immense transformation in the development of the Northeast region in the last ten years. Northeast is the vantage point and the entry point for all of South East Asia countries into the Indian subcontinent and much play a very important role in the dynamics of India's growth," the Union Minister said. Speaking on the infrastructure as well as for human resource development of Northeast he said that the region has received Government funding of close to Rs 27,000 crore per annum and 10 per cent of the gross budgetary support of the 55 line Ministries which receives over Rs One lakh five thousand crores in terms of the annual capital expenditure from the Government of India. Highlighting the overall infrastructural development of the region he mentioned that highways close to over 4500 km of road have been constructed under PMGSY covering close to Rs 50,000 crore. "National highways have drawn from 10,000 km to close to 16, 000 km. In the Northeast, there are only 9 airports and two states without a single airport, today have 17 airports in the 8 states of Northeast. As far as railways are concerned only one state was connected by railways but today three states are connected and soon all the states will be connected by the railways. He said that 19 railway projects are undertaken in the region with an estimated amount of Rs 82000 crore for the development of railways specific to Mizoram," he said. He said that from the period of 2004 - 2014 over 10 years Mizoram received only Rs 4734 crore which means an average of less than Rs 500 crore per year but today Mizoram have received close to Rs 33,178 crore. "In the areas of road 910 km of national highways and close to 600 km of National highways corridors has been sanctioned with capital close to Rs 11465 crore and Mizoram has been connected with broad-gauge of Indian railways at Bairabi in May 2016 and now work is ongoing from Bairabi to Sairang rail line projects 52 km at the cost of Rs 8213 crore which is close to 93 per cent complete with 43 tunnels and 142 bridges," the Union Minister said. He further highlighted the potential of Mizoram in the civil aviation sector, telecommunication, tourism, horticulture and agriculture. The meeting was held to review various schemes of the Ministry of DoNER in the state of Mizoram. He held a meeting with Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma and his teams in the Conference Hall of the Planning and Implementation Department, Govt. of Mizoram in Aizawl and also met the school students on the eve of Children Day.(ANI)
The event on Wednesday was attended by senior officers from the three Services, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the Department of Defence Production (DDP), and industry.

According to the Ministry of Defence, the meeting was held under the chairmanship of Air Marshal Jeetendra Mishra, Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (Operations).

The meeting covered multiple agenda items on joint operations and integration in areas such as Electronic Warfare, Signature Management, Emerging Technologies, EMI/EMC, Spectrum Management and Human Resource Management.

The event featured the launch of the AI-enabled e-Tarang System, which will enable automated, efficient planning and management of Defence Spectrum, as well as support the development of newer technologies in higher frequency bands.

This unique software, developed in collaboration with Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG-N), will improve planning for the interference-free operation of defence equipment during both wartime and peacetime.

The Technical News Letter (TNL) 2024, published by JCES/HQ IDS, was also released during the event.

This important document outlines future technologies with the potential to revolutionise modern warfare.

All three Services made significant professional contributions to the development of this document, the ministry stated.

The gathering also sought to identify technology development and training priorities for the future.

Air Marshal Jeetendra Mishra delivered a Special Address, emphasising the need for integrating EW assets across the Services for effective operations.

He also lauded the successful conduct of the first joint EW exercise, held in September 2024, which underscored the principle of "Victory through Jointness". (ANI)
Union Minister Annapurna Devi alleged that the Jharkhand government headed by Chief Minister Hemant Soren is a "government of loot and therefore people are upset". The latest attack came a day after the first phase of polling for 43 assembly seats in Jharkhand was held on November 13. The Union Minister also hit out at the Jharklhand government headed by Hemant Soren. "There is a lot of enthusiasm among the people and the people of the state have taken this election in their own hands. The government running in the state is a government of loot and lies. People are upset. The public is excited about this election and the people want an NDA-BJP government to be formed in the state...our government will be formed with an absolute majority...," Devi told ANI. Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Amit Shah attacked Congress during his rally in Jharkhand's Giridh. Amit Shah said, "Hemant Soren government has not allowed to implement schemes of PM Modi as it is mired in corruption. We will ensure industries in Jharkhand so that the labourers do not have to go to other states for work. Hemant Soren is not bothered to build industries in Jharkhand or create electricity. There are mines of aluminium and iron ore but Hemant Soren is not bothered that they are manufactured here. He is only concerned about allowing the infiltrators to enter Jharkhand." Amit Shah said that it has been decided in the first phase of elections that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would form the government in the state and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) would be turfed out. "The first phase of elections in Jharkhand has made it clear that JMM will be turfed and BJP will form the government in the state. I want to say to Hemant Soren that his time was coming to an end. Has anyone of you ever seen Rs 350 crores? This amount has been seized from the residence of a Congress leader. Another of Soren's ministers Alam Gir Alam, his personal assistant (PA) had Rs 35 crores at his residence. Whose money is it? Does it belong to Hemant or Kalpana Soren? It belongs to you," said Amit Shah while addressing a rally in Gandey assembly constituency. Elections on the remaining 38 seats will be conducted on November 20. The counting of the votes will take place on November 23. (ANI)
Punjab BJP chief Sunil Jakhar on Thursday opposed the Centre's move to allot 10 acres in the Union Territory of Chandigarh to Haryana for building its own Vidhan Sabha complex and sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention to cancel the decision. "Chandigarh as the capital of Punjab is not only a land area, but the deep feelings of the people of Punjab are connected with it. In an attempt to heal the wounds inflicted on Punjab in the past, the steps taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the social and religious upliftment of Punjabis, by giving 10 acres of land to Haryana for a separate assembly in Chandigarh, with these efforts, Punjab Intimacy will be hurt. I believe that this decision should be reconsidered in order to maintain strong relations between Punjab and the Center and I appeal to the Prime Minister to personally intervene and cancel this decision," Jakhar posted on X. He said it is an issue on which all parties of Punjab are unanimous but due to the misunderstanding of chief minister Bhagwant Mann of the Aam Aadmi Party, the claim of Punjab has been weakened. "In Jaipur, when in the meeting of the North Zonal Council, Haryana asked for this land for its Vidhan Sabha before Union home minister Amit Shah, instead of opposing it, the chief minister of Punjab, Bhagwant Mann, gave his stamp of approval to the demand of Haryana by asking for land for the legislative assembly of Punjab as well," Jakhar said. Jakhar asked why should people of Punjab pay for the stand taken by the state's "novice chief minister. "Ultimately, Punjab is important," he added. He further said that this decision is in contradiction to the spirit with which the PM has worked for Punjab. "This is about causing hurt to the heart of Punjab-Chandigarh. It is not just a piece of land or capital, but the heart of Punjab. It causes deep injury if a portion of the land of Chandigarh is given to Haryana on some pretext. This is the reason I had written to the PM. This decision is in contradiction to the spirit with which the PM has worked for Punjab," he said addressing a press conference. The Punjab BJP President also requested BJP chief JP Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to relieve him from the position of state BJP President. "I have requested JP Nadda sahib and HM sahib also to relieve me from my responsibilities (as state BJP President) as we could not get any seats in Punjab in Lok Sabha elections," Jakhar said. (ANI)
Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal led a forum of MPs to review the projects and developmental activities undertaken by the Northeast Frontier Railways of Indian Railways under its Tinsukia division on Thursday, said a press statement. Sonowal, along with the other members of the forum, called for sustainable development with minimum or no impact on the ecology including application of modern AI technology to safeguard elephants during the railway line crossing. Sonowal asked Railways for speedy implementation of 'One Station One Product' programme which is going to help the local entrepreneurs as well as expand the market for local produce. Speaking on the occasion, Sonowal said, "It was a fruitful meeting where the senior officials of Indian Railway briefed all the MPs about the developmental work currently being undertaken under Tinsukia division. Under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, application of modern technology, including that of Artificial Intelligence, is being increasingly used to solve problems. I would like to appreciate that NF Railways has implemented AI based Intrusion Detection System (IDS) which will help safeguard lives of elephants while they cross the railway lines. Innovative techniques like building canopy bridges for safe transit of arboreal species is a step towards sustainable development. While development is important, it is equally important, if not more, that we safeguard our flora and fauna. Such innovative solutions help development without causing any damage to the environment." Highlighting the need for swift implementation of 'One Station, One Product' programme of the railways, Sonowal said, "Northeast is rich with potential. Our products are one of the finest in the world and we must market them. Railways, with its unique and huge network, the One Station, One Product will help our local entrepreneur find a huge market for our equally fascinating products. I have asked the officials to take all necessary measures for its speedy implementation as it will bolster the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi about achieving Atmanirbhar Bharat." The meeting was also attended by the MP of Rajya Sabha, Rameswar Teli, the MP of Kaziranga, Kamakhya Prasad Tasa & the MP of Nagaland, S Supongmeren Jamir. The General Manager of Northeast Frontier Railway, Chetan Kumar Srivastava along with Divisional Railway Manager of Tinsukia, Uttam Prakash presented the works and projects of the division in front of the MPs. The General Manager of N. F. Railway while welcoming all MPs gave a brief overview of the activities and achievements in recent times. He highlighted the operations of festival special trains and special trains that were operated for the examinees of the recent ADRE Exam and infrastructure works going on over NFR. GM mentioned about introduction of QR code machines at the ticket counters at 588 stations over NFR, to enable cashless transactions, in line with the vision of 'Digital India'. He further informed the MP's regarding opening of "One Station One Product" stalls at various stations over NFR to help the local entrepreneur to showcase and sell the products and crafts of local area to boost socio economic growth. MPs were also briefed about the status of on-going electrification, doubling and new line projects of Northeast. The doubling work from Lumding to Dibrugarh via Simaluguri and Tinsukia work is also under process. He also mentioned about the Pradhan Mantri Jan Ausadhi Kendra being opened railway stations. The General Manager mentioned the New Tinsukia Railway station is being redeveloped under Amrit Bharat Station Scheme (ABSS). He also informed the MPs about the provision of artificial canopy bridges inside the Hollongapar Wildlife Sanctuary located in Tinsukia division to enable the arboreal species to cross the railway tracks safely. The General Manager also informed the members present of ensuring the safety of elephants crossing railway tracks through advanced, AI-based Intrusion Detection System (IDS), which allows for precise detection of elephant movement near the tracks, and timely alerts to loco pilots and station masters for preventive action. The MPs were requested to extend help in removing illegal encroachments, closure of unauthorised crossing, closure of level crossing gates, etc. to further improve safety and undertake various development works. Deliberations in this meeting would immensely help the Railways in finalizing the Railway developmental plans for the people of this region. The suggestions and views expressed by the Members would be given due consideration while formulating the proposals, said the GM. (ANI)
President Droupadi Murmu extended her greetings on the eve of the 150th birth anniversary of Birsa Munda and paid homage to his "sacred memory". In a series of posts on X, President Murmu announced the commencement of year-long celebration of the 150th birth anniversary of Birsa Munda. "I convey my greetings to the people of India on the occasion of 'Janjatiya Gaurav Divas'. We are commencing the year-long celebration of the 150th birth anniversary of 'Dharti Aaba' Bhagwan Birsa Munda. On behalf of all the fellow citizens, I pay my respectful homage to the sacred memory of Bhagwan Birsa Munda," President Murmu said. "I observe a new consciousness being spread across the country for tribal pride and the ideals of the Constitution. This consciousness is being transformed into action. This spirit will become the foundation of the bright future of the entire country, including the tribal society," the post mentioned. Recalling Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Ulihatu, President Murmu said, "Last year, on the occasion of 'Janjatiya Gaurav Divas', Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji also visited Ulihatu and sought the blessings of Bhagwan Birsa Munda. That was the first visit of any Prime Minister to Ulihatu. This made the people of the tribal society very happy. On the same day, 'PM Janjati Adivasi Nyay Maha-Abhiyan' i.e. PM-JANMAN was launched from Jharkhand." On including 'Santhali' in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, "I am happy to share that I also contributed to the efforts to include the tribal language 'Santhali' in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. This was made possible during the tenure of respected Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ji." "During my visits to different states and Union Territories, I participate in programs focused on the tribal communities there, and I interact with them. I give special priority to meeting our tribal sisters. I am happy to see that a large number of our tribal sisters are achieving economic self-reliance through self-help groups and other means of growth. More and more opportunities for development are opening up for them," the post read. Highlighting the government's commitment to supporting the tribal community, she said, "The immense love that I get from all the fellow citizens, including the people of the tribal communities, makes me emotional at times. Behind this feeling of mine is also the pleasant truth that today, sky is the limit for the development of the people belonging to the tribal communities." "No matter how high they aspire to fly, the society and the government are fully committed to supporting them," she added. (ANI)
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An aerial drone photo taken on March 20, 2024 shows a container ship berthing at the Tianjin Port in Tianjin, north China. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's trade with other APEC economies reached a record high of 21.27 trillion yuan (about $2.95 trillion) in the first 10 months of 2024, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Wednesday.



The figure marked a 5.7 percent increase from a year earlier, outpacing the country's total trade growth by 0.5 percentage points during the period, according to the administration.

Between January and October, intermediate goods accounted for over 45 percent of China's exports to other APEC economies. Notably, exports of electronic components, auto parts, components for automated data processing devices, and flat-panel display modules saw rapid growth.

In terms of imports, intermediate goods made up over 80 percent of China's total imports from other APEC economies, with machinery, energy products and metal ores being among the fastest-growing categories, data from the administration showed.

Established in 1989, APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) has become the highest-level, most extensive and most influential economic cooperation mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region.

China officially joined APEC in 1991, marking its first participation in a regional economic cooperation organization.
Karnataka government ordered to form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the alleged mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic by the previous BJP government in the state. Addressing a press conference in Bengaluru on Thursday, Karnataka Law Minister HK Patil said that the SIT will be led by an officer of the rank of Inspector General of Police (IGP). Minister Patil hit out at the BJP and alleged that the previous government "behaved inhumanely." He said that the people of Karnataka faced the "biggest disaster" with the BJP "mismanaging" the COVID-19 pandemic in the state. "We (the people of Karnataka) faced the biggest disaster, the (BJP-led) government, behaved very inhumanely when they needed to save the people. Previous govt was indulging in cheating people, corruption, documents were missing, misleading accounts, didn't allow PSI committee to work, they barred committees meet too," Minister Patil said. He further alleged that the BJP-led government purchased Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) at an inflated rate, and purchased expired medicines. "They tried all possible ways to hide their corruption, from PPE kit which was available Rs 334, they purchased for Rs 2117, purchased outdated medicines," the minister said. "They purchased from blacklisted companies and they also mislead saying all of its donated, then paid them. All this information has came out," he added. The minister further highlighted the formation of a committee to investigate the irregularities in the procurement of PPE kits. "Complaints also wrote to human rights commision, lokayuktha, so in this background a committee was formed in the chairmanship of justice Michael D Cunnah, around 50 thousand documents, files observed by the committee and submitted an interim report. The report pointed out that there was huge corruption during COVID. Some information was also shared in cabinet sub committee," he said. "Main issue which came out was huge corruption in covid management, Inhuman things came out. They made the administration collapse on the direction of some politicians by the officials, these are shocking subjects and facts," he said. The Justice John Michael D'Cunha Commission report recommended prosecution of former Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa and former Minister for Health and Family Welfare B Sriramulu over the purchase of 3 lakh PPE kits from Chinese firms, the minister said. Minister Patil said that FIRs would be filed against those accused of covid pandemic mismanagement, corruption. (ANI)
In a post on X, PM Modi said, "Param Pujya Babhulgaonkar Maharaj is widely respected for his noble thoughts and writing. He has authored several books and has also been conferred with various awards for that. Met him at Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar earlier today."

PM Modi received a special welcome from ISKCON volunteers at Panvel in Maharashtra's Raigad district earlier in the day.

The Prime Minister addressed public rallies at various places in the run-up to the state assembly elections.

The campaigning has been intensified for the assembly polls scheduled to be held in November 20 and counting will be held on November 23.

In the 2019 Maharashtra assembly polls, the BJP won 105 seats, Shiv Sena secured 56, and Congress 44. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, MVA posed a strong performance winning 30 of 48 seats, while the Mahayuti could only win 17. (ANI)
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Thursday said the central government's goal is to manage Waqf property with transparency and accountability, ensuring justice for the needy in the Muslim community. He also expressed happiness that intellectuals and positive-minded individuals from the community support the amendment. Speaking on occasion of the launch of the book, "Waqf Bill 2024: Respect to Islam and Gift for Muslims" at an event held at his residence on Thursday, Rijiju said, "I am very happy that Muslim Rashtriya Manch gave me a book titled 'Waqf Bill 2024'. Muslim Rashtriya Manch has looked into all the provisions of the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024." "Everyone should read this book. Many stakeholders from the Muslim community have also given me suggestions," he said. He stated that this effort by the Muslim Rashtriya Manch would open a new chapter in minority welfare "Our intention is to manage the Waqf property with accountability and transparency. Our intention is not political, our intention is to provide justice to the needy people of the Muslim community. We prefer to have discussions and a JPC has been formed and many stakeholders have been heard. I am very happy that intellectuals and positive-minded people from the Muslim community are coming forward and they feel that the government should go ahead with this amendment," he said. According to an official release, the book is a significant step toward reforms in the Waqf system and the holistic development of the Muslim community. Contributors to the book include Shahid Akhtar, Shalini Ali, lawyer Shiraz Qureshi, and Shahid Sayeed, who have conducted in-depth research on this vital subject. "Kiren Rijiju praised the authors at the launch, describing their work as crucial. He mentioned that the book would not only guide better management of Waqf properties but also serve as a gift for the welfare and empowerment of the Muslim community," the release read. He appreciated the role of Muslim Rashtriya Manch (MRM) in raising awareness about Waqf issues and said that this organization significantly contributes to linking the Muslim community with justice, equality, and development. "Shahid Akhtar, a respected scholar in Waqf and minority affairs, has presented a detailed history of the Waqf system in this book and stressed the need for its reform. He believes that transparency, accountability, and efficient administration are essential for advancing Waqf in a way that benefits the marginalized," the release read. Shalini Ali, a prominent social activist and political analyst, highlighted the need to increase women's participation in Waqf boards. She argues that active involvement of women will bring more fairness and inclusivity to Waqf decision-making and management. "Shiraz Qureshi, a renowned lawyer, discussed the legal aspects of Waqf properties and judicial processes in depth. He advocates for transparent and independent audits, along with stricter legal provisions to ensure the proper use of Waqf properties," the release mentioned. The release stated that Shahid Sayeed, an experienced social worker and media personality, has presented a comprehensive perspective on Waqf reforms. He emphasized transparency and participation from all sections of society in managing Waqf properties. Shahid illustrated this with examples, noting that although Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, and BR Ambedkar did not directly address Waqf issues, their ideals and principles are deeply connected with the spirit of Waqf reforms. Gandhi's principle of "Sarvodaya" (welfare of all), Patel's emphasis on unity and transparency, and Ambedkar's vision of economic justice and upliftment of marginalized communities underline the need to utilize Waqf properties for social welfare, education, and healthcare. "The book highlights the challenges within the Waqf system and advocates for the reforms outlined in the Waqf Bill 2024. Through the "UMMEED Act" (United Waqf Act for Management, Empowerment, Efficiency, Development), it proposes efficient management of Waqf properties, digital record-keeping, and third-party audits. These changes aim to bring transparency to Waqf boards, maximize the use of Waqf properties, and benefit the most vulnerable sections of society" the release read. During the launch, Kiren Rijiju described the book as a milestone for Waqf reform, stating that it promotes justice, equality, and comprehensive development. He appreciated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah's policies, emphasizing that the use of Waqf properties for education, healthcare, and social welfare is a critical step toward empowering the Muslim community. "The book emphasizes that Waqf is not merely a religious trust but can serve as a national asset that fosters inclusive and just development. Rijiju added that the book would increase awareness of Waqf issues and the necessary steps for reform" the release read. He praised the efforts of the Muslim Rashtriya Manch, which is spreading awareness among the Muslim community to foster unity and harmony in society. (ANI)
The third edition of the India-Australia joint military exercise, AustraHind, currently underway at the Foreign Training Node in Aundh, Pune in Maharashtra from November 8 to 21. According to a Defence Ministry release, this two-week training program is designed to enhance cooperation and interoperability between the armed forces of the two nations. "The 3rd edition of the India-Australia joint military exercise, AustraHind, is currently underway at the Foreign Training Node in Aundh, Pune. The exercise, which commenced on November 8, will continue until November 21, featuring a comprehensive two-week training program designed to enhance cooperation and interoperability between the armed forces of the two nations," the release mentioned. The first phase of AustraHind 2024 has already seen troops from both countries actively engaging in a variety of training activities, including physical fitness, martial arts, joint tactical planning, special arms skills etc. "Participants have also been practising combat scenarios such as raiding a hostile target and administering combat first aid to injured soldiers. These drills aim to improve coordination and build mutual understanding between the Indian and Australian forces," the release read. As part of the exercise's social and cultural activities, both contingents participated in an excursion to the historic Sinhagad Fort near Pune, providing a cultural and historical experience. The Australian contingent also had the opportunity to visit the prestigious National Defence Academy (NDA) at Khadakwasla, Pune, on November 12. "During the visit, the participants were familiarised with the NDA's state-of-the-art training facilities and had the chance to interact with instructor staff, gaining insights into the academy's rigorous training environment and its legacy of discipline and excellence in shaping future military leaders," the release read. Looking ahead, Phase II of the exercise will focus on joint combat drills and tactical exercises aimed at further enhancing the operational readiness and interoperability between the two forces. The exercise will culminate with a 48-hour validation exercise, scheduled from November 19-20, which will test the skills and coordination achieved during the preceding training phases. AustraHind 2024 underscores the strong and growing defence ties between India and Australia, as both nations continue to work together to strengthen regional security and foster closer military collaboration, the release added. (ANI)
Secretary of Economic Relations, Dammu Ravi, while addressing a press briefing about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's upcoming visit to Nigeria on November 16-17, said that the visit is happening after a gap of 17 years. PM Modi is visiting Nigeria at the invitation of Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. "Prime Minister will be making a state visit to Nigeria from November 16-17. It will be at the invitation of the President of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. This visit is happening after a gap of 17 years. The first visit of the Prime Minister to the West African region. The last visit, took place in October 2007 by Manmohan Singh, and that was the time when both sides established strategic partnership," he said. Ravi said that PM Modi will be accorded a ceremonial welcome in Nigeria and the Nigerian President AND pm Modi will have one-on-one meeting. The leaders will then hold delegation-level talks and will sign five MoUs thereafter. "As you all know, the Nigerian President Tinubu visited India last year, September, for the G20 summit. at the invitation of the Prime Minister as the guest country, and that has paved the way for Nigeria to participate in Brazil also as an invited country for the G20 summit. The program of the Prime Minister includes a ceremonial welcome on the November 17 at the President Villa. He will have a one-on-one meeting with President Tinubu thereafter. And then the delegation-level talks will review bilateral relations, the entire gamut of it, and thereafter will also explore avenues to further expand and enhance the relationship. During the delegation talks, there will be exchange of memorandum of understandings, about five of them. Some of them are still work in progress, but broadly covering areas of culture, geological survey, the digital public infrastructure, customs, traditional medicine, audiovisual cooperation, so on and so forth. Prime Minister will interact with the Indian diaspora at the community event later that afternoon before he will move on to Rio that evening," he said. Talking about India-Nigeria relations, Ravi said that the two countries enjoyed cordial relations since 1960s. "I'd like to bring the relationship into context just to say briefly, Nigeria is a very large economy within Africa. second or third in terms of the GDP. The population is about 220 million, which is the largest country in Africa. Both India and Nigeria enjoy strong cordial relationship for a very long time, since 1960, ever since it won independence. Relationship are underpinned by shared values of democracy, respect for pluralism, rule of law on diversity. Both the countries are multi-religious, multi-ethnic, and multi-linguistic countries. And most importantly, in the recent times, Nigeria's active involvement in the African Union has increased, and we see there is a strong partnership between our two countries in the context of India-Africa Forum Summit. Nigeria also has become a partner country of BRICS, and it is currently holding the chairship of the ECOWAS region, that is West African region. As you all know that India's involvement in Africa has been very long. Indian teaching and teachers have been there in that country for several decades. Our teachers have helped to teach the students of several generations in Nigeria," he said. He added that the defence and diaspora relations between the two countries is strong. "Our defense cooperation is very active. Our military officers have helped to establish defense institutions, particularly the National Defense Academy, the National War College in Nigeria. The Indian diaspora is very strong, about 60,000, and it is the largest diaspora in West Africa. People-to-people contacts have been very strong and enduring. The bilateral trade has been very strong also, about USD 15 billion close to it, and a significant part of it is oil imports from Nigeria into India. We also have a strong presence of the Indian companies in Nigeria. About USD 27 billion in cumulative terms has been invested by Indian companies in Nigeria, 200 Indian companies involved in a variety of sectors, and Indian companies are the second largest employment provider in that country," he said. Ravi said that India has sent USD 400 million for developmental assistance. "In terms of development assistance, we have a strong partnership with Nigeria. India sent USD 400 million of assistance, but Nigeria has used only USD 100 million assistance so far for various projects, particularly in the power sector. And USD 290 million of dollars is being repurposed for their own initiatives and their own areas of interest," he said. The cooperation between both the countries in terms of education is also extensive, as India offers 500 scholarships to Nigeria every year. "The ITEC scholarships that India has offered is also quite extensive. We offer to Nigeria about 500 scholarships a year. 250 for civilian experts, and 250 for defense experts who come to India for training. Since 1960s, since the ITEC scholarship were offered to them, we have trained about 27,500 Nigerian experts in India," he added. (ANI)
United States President Joe Biden will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the 2024 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Lima, Peru, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a White House briefing on Wednesday. Sullivan said, "Tomorrow, he (Biden) travels to South America. His first stop will be Peru for the APEC Summit -- the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit -- and then he'll go on to Brazil for the first-ever presidential trip to the Amazon and then to the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro." "While in Lima, President Biden will also meet with China President Xi Jinping This will be the third in-person meeting between the two leaders since President Biden came into office and their final meeting as presidents," he added. Biden and Xi previously met in Bali in 2022 during the G20 Summit and again in Woodside, California, near San Francisco in 2023 on the margins of the APEC Summit. Sullivan also outlined President Biden's strategy toward China, emphasizing investments in American strength, alliance-building, and national security. "And throughout his time in office, President Biden and his team have worked to effectively and responsibly manage the competition between the United States and the PRC. The president's approach to China has prioritized investments in sources of American strength at home, including growing the middle class and ensuring that America maintains its industrial capacity and its innovation edge in fields such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence," Sullivan said. "He has strengthened our alliances around the world and especially in the Indo-Pacific, he has boosted American deterrence, and he's ensured that America remains the partner of choice for countries both in the region and across the world. The president has also taken commonsense measures to advance our national -- national security and protect our most sensitive technologies to prevent them from being exploited or used against us by the PRC, including through significant new export control measures," he added. During the briefing, highlighted Biden's efforts to manage US-China relations and affirmed, "At the same time, the president has demonstrated that the US and China can manage our differences and prevent competition from veering into conflict or confrontation, and he has done that by ensuring the maintenance of open lines of communication at the leader level, at the military-to-military level, and at every level of our respective governments." "And this meeting between President Biden and President Xi will be an opportunity to ensure a smooth transition and also to continue to keep those channels of communication open, including those especially critical military-to-military channels of communication," he added noting the importance of Biden's meet with Xi Jinping. President Joe Biden will travel to Peru from November 14-16 for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, then head to Manaus and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from November 17-19, to attend the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro. (ANI)
Taiwan MND further added that nine of the aircraft crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's northern and southwestern Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ).

https://x.com/MoNDefense/status/1856864631836610911

"5 PLA aircraft, 9 PLAN vessels and 1 official ship operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 9 of the aircraft crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's northern and southwestern ADIZ. We have monitored the situation and responded accordingly," Taiwan MND said on X.

On Wednesday, the Taiwanese MND detected 24 Chinese aircraft and 6 vessels around it.

https://x.com/MoNDefense/status/1856502245287723080

"24 PLA aircraft and 6 PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 15 of the aircraft crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's northern, central southwestern and eastern ADIZ. We have monitored the situation and responded accordingly," Taiwan MND said on X.

Notably, China has increased its military activities around Taiwan by deploying aircraft and naval vessels since September 2020. It is using grey zone tactics to achieve its security objective.

Earlier, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te convened a high-level national security conference in which he assured the public about the government's commitment to neutralising any threat to Taiwan's democracy and security after China staged a large-scale military drill around the island.

He made his remarks in response to the Chinese People's Liberation Army's (PLA) announcement of military drills, named "Joint Sword-2024B," in the Taiwan Strait and surrounding areas, which were described as a "stern warning" to advocates of Taiwan independence, according to the Taipei Times.

In an attempt to modernise Taiwan, on November 4, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te attended the keel-laying ceremony for the Taiwanese Navy, also known as the Republic of China Navy (ROCN) new light frigate prototype at Kaohsiung shipyard. (ANI)
India's Ambassador to the US, Vinay Mohan Kwatra met several top US leaders, and discussed the further strengthening of Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership between the two nations. Kwatra met Congresswoman Deborah Ross, Congressmen Andy Barr and Rick McCormick as well as Indian-origin Congressmen Ami Bera, Ro Khanna, Shri Thanedar and Raja Krishnamoorthi on Wednesday (local time). In his discussions with Ami Bera, Kwatra discussed the deepening of India-US partnership across various sectors and global developments of mutual interest. Bera has been one of the longest-serving Indian American members of the US Congress. "Pleasure to meet Congressman @RepBera Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on the Indo-Pacific today. Discussed deepening of India-US partnership across various sectors and global developments of mutual interest. Value his long standing contribution to the India-U.S. partnership. https://x.com/AmbVMKwatra/status/1856870368947900644 The Ambassador met Ro Khanna, the Co-Chair of the House India Caucus, and held "enriching discussions" on further strengthening the Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership between the two nations. "Delighted to meet Rep@RoKhannaCo-Chair of the House India Caucus. Enriching discussions on working together to further strengthen the Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership. Appreciate his role and support in building the India-U.S friendship!" he stated. https://x.com/AmbVMKwatra/status/1856867592193151239 Kwatra met Andy Barr, the vice-chair of the India Caucus and appreciated his continued support for the India-US partnership. "Pleasure to meet @RepAndyBarr earlier today. Productive discussion on further strengthening bilateral relations. Appreciate his continued support for a stronger partnership!" he said. https://x.com/AmbVMKwatra/status/1856853169600393434 Notably, Khanna had introduced a stand-alone bill in the US House of Representatives to give India specific waivers from the punitive CAATSA sanctions for signing the S-400 air defence missile systems deal with Russia. Additionally, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi along with Ro Khanna, Andy Barr and Mike Waltz -- slated to the US National Security Advisor under Trump 2.0 -- introduced a bipartisan legislation to allow weapon sales to India from the United States to be fast-tracked. The Indian envoy further met Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi and discussed bilateral ties. Congressman Krishnamoorthi also appreciated meeting with Ambassador Kwatra. "It was a pleasure to meet with Indian Ambassador Vinay Mohan Kwatra this morning in my office to discuss strengthening cooperation and partnerships between the United States and India," Krishnamoorthi stated in a post on X. Kwatra thanked him and in response to the post stated, "Thank you Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi @CongressmanRaja for sparing your time. Insightful discussion on deepening US-India bilateral ties and strategic issues of mutual interest." https://x.com/AmbVMKwatra/status/1856823366851641648 Indian-origin Congressman Shri Thanedar welcomed Ambassador Kwatra, and said he looks forward to working with him. The Indian envoy also thanked him for the gesture. "Happy to welcome @AmbVMKwatra @ @IndianEmbassyUS as he begins his stint in U.S.A. Looking forward to working with him to strengthen US- India relations," Shri Thanedar stated. Thanking the Congressman, Kwatra said, "Thank you @ShriThanedar for your strong and steadfast support for the India-US partnership! Looking forward to working together to take our Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership to greater heights." https://x.com/AmbVMKwatra/status/1856510378982682790 Vinay Kwatra held discussions with Congresswoman Deborah Ross. He also met Congressman Rich McCormick, and appreciated his continued support and commitment to expand and deepen the India-US partnership. "Delighted to meet @RepDeborahRoss today. Discussed ways of taking India-US partnership to greater heights in the days to come," Kwatra said in a post. https://x.com/AmbVMKwatra/status/1856872331106279763 "Delighted to meet with Congressman @RichforGA today. Appreciate his continuing support and commitment to expand and deepen India-US Strategic and Defence Partnership!" he stated in a subsequent post. https://x.com/AmbVMKwatra/status/1856888326193606978 Notably, McCormick has time and again praised the contributions of the Indian American community for bringing prosperity to the United States. Recently in an interview with ANI, he had discussed the prospects of India-US relations under Donald Trump and expressed confidence in the dynamics of Modi and Trump. He noted that two leaders can grow the world economy together. "India is a great ally, a strategic ally in the region," he said. Top diplomat Vinay Mohan Kwatra was appointed as the Ambassador of India to the United States of America in July this year, after serving as India's Foreign Secretary. Kwatra has served in different positions in many of India's missions abroad and in India. Kwatra holds an experience of nearly 32 years in a range of assignments. He also served at the Ministry of External Affairs, and Prime Minister's Office as Joint Secretary. (ANI)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced that he will request a vote of confidence on December 16, which could lead to early parliamentary elections in February, as reported by Al Jazeera on Wednesday. Scholz made the announcement during a speech in parliament on Wednesday, a week after his three-party coalition government collapsed. "The date at the end of February has now been set and I am very grateful for that," Scholz said, expressing his intention to pass key legislation before that, including financial support for children from low-income families and constitutional amendments to strengthen the independence of the country's highest court from political interference, Al Jazeera reported. Scholz plans to formally submit his request for a vote of confidence on December 11, allowing the Bundestag to vote on it five days later, on December 16. Initially, Scholz had hoped to schedule early elections by late March, ahead of the regular September 2025 vote. However, the centre-right Christian opposition pushed for a faster timeline, leading to an agreement among party leaders on the two dates in December for the vote of confidence and February 23 for the elections, Al Jazeera reported. During the session, both Scholz and opposition leader Friedrich Merz, head of the Christian Democrats, began to shift into campaign mode, even though full-scale campaigning typically begins only six weeks before an election in Germany. Merz, speaking after Scholz, criticised the chancellor, claiming that the collapse of the coalition was a positive development for Germany. "There is a great sense of relief in our country. For a week now, the so-called progressive coalition... has been history. And that is continuing good news for Germany," Merz stated, drawing applause from his party members. "You are dividing the country, Mr Chancellor. You are the one responsible for these controversies and for this division in Germany...You simply cannot govern a country like this," Merz added. He accused Scholz of delaying the call for the vote of confidence rather than calling for it immediately. (ANI)
US President-elect Donald Trump plans to appoint a special envoy to hold talks on a peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine according to US TV channel Fox News which cited multiple sources. "You're going to see a very senior special envoy, someone with a lot of credibility, who will be given a task to find a resolution, to get to a peace settlement," one of the sources said in the report on Wednesday. "You're going to see that in short order," it said. According to Fox News, the job is not expected to be a salaried role; Kurt Volker served as a special representative to Ukrainian negotiations on a volunteer basis in 2017-19. Previously, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, ahead of the US presidential election, said that it makes no difference for Russia what the election outcome will be, given the two-party consensus that emerged in the United States regarding the confrontation toward the country. "If anything changes in the US policy and any proposals to us appear, we will be ready to examine them in terms of matching Russia's interests. In any case Russia will resolutely defend its interests, particularly where national security is concerned," she had said. According to the New York Times, Trump has been openly skeptical about continuing American aid to Ukraine, and has said he can bring about an end to the war in one day -- without saying how. In an interview with Fox News in July this year, Trump said, "I would tell Zelensky, no more -- you got to make a deal," "I would tell Putin, If you don't make a deal, we're going to give him a lot." Trump and. Zelensky spoke last week, but neither side made public what was discussed as per the NYT. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Brussels on November 13 said the Joe Biden administration would make sure every dollar at its disposal would be "pushed out the door" before Donald Trump takes office. According to a report in the Kyiv Independent, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Brussels yesterday for bilateral talks. "The Secretary underscored the United States' support for Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia's aggression and continues on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership," according to a statement by the US State Department. President Joe Biden on Wednesday welcomed President-elect Donald Trump back to the White House as part of the transition process in a meeting at the Oval Office. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the meeting "substantive," and said they discussed important national security and domestic policy issues facing the nation and the world. Biden and Trump were joined by White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and incoming Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. President-elect Trump told The New York Post that he and President Biden "both really enjoyed seeing each other" "You know, it's been a long, it's been a long slog," the 78-year-old said during a phone interview as he left Washington. "It's been a lot of work on both sides and he did a very good job with respect to campaigning and everything else. We really had a really good meeting." Trump told the publication that he and Biden discussed the war in Ukraine. The president-elect added that he and Biden did discuss two issues on which they have differed in the past: the war in Ukraine, which Trump has promised to end almost immediately upon taking office; and the ongoing war in West Asia. "I wanted -- I asked for his views and he gave them to me," Trump told The Post. "Also, we talked very much about the Middle East, likewise. I wanted to know his views on where we are and what he thinks. And he gave them to me, he was very gracious." Trump was cited as saying. (ANI)
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Staff members sort packages at a logistic center of Zaozhuang branch of China Post in Zaozhuang City, east China's Shandong Province, Nov. 11, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's courier sector posted fast expansion in October, with a significant acceleration in business growth rate, according to an industry index released by the State Post Bureau on Wednesday.



The express delivery development index was 464.4 last month, an increase of 21.1 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the bureau.

China's express delivery volume remained high throughout October as the sector entered one of its busiest periods. On Oct. 22, the sector handled 729 million parcels, marking a 74 percent year-on-year increase and setting a new record for single-day business volume.

Express companies continued to enhance their cross-border service solutions in October, aiming to provide more convenient delivery services to consumers abroad, the bureau said.

The index is compiled based on data from major logistics firms operating delivery services. It reflects the overall business activities and trends in the country's courier sector.
The Attorney General of Bangladesh, Mohammad Asaduzzaman called for substantial amendments to the Constitution of Bangladesh and suggested the removal of key terms from it, United News of Bangladesh (UNB) reported. Asaduzzaman suggested the removal of key provisions such as socialism, Bengali nationalism, secularism, and the designation of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as "Father of the Nation", according to UNB. The remarks were made during the fifth day of hearings at the High Court on the legality of Bangladesh's 15th Constitutional Amendment. Addressing Article 8 of the Constitution, Asaduzzaman argued that socialism and secularism do not reflect the realities of a nation where 90% of the population is Muslim. He advocated for reinstating the original phrasing, which emphasised unwavering faith in Allah. He also questioned the relevance of Bengali nationalism in Article 9, calling it inconsistent with modern democratic principles, UNB reported. As per the Dhaka Tribune, the 15th Amendment, which was passed in Bangladesh's Parliament on June 30, 2011, recognized Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the Father of the Nation abolished the caretaker government system, and increased the reserved seats for women in Parliament from 45 to 50. Asaduzzaman argued that these changes would align the constitution with the country's democratic and historical ethos. He also made a call to reinstate provisions for a referendum, which was abolished under the 15th Amendment. As per UNB, after the hearing, Asaduzzaman spoke to the media and said that retaining the 15th Amendment undermines the spirit of the Liberation War, the 1990 mass uprising, and the 2024 July revolution. "The amendment betrays the sacrifices of martyrs like Abu Sayed and Mugdho," he said. Abu Sayed and Migdho were student activists who were involved in the July 2024 protests that took place in Bangladesh. He accused the amendment of prolonging authoritarian rule and violating constitutional supremacy. "It's a direct assault on democracy and the rule of law," he said, adding that the amendment perpetuates division among citizens and disrupts the country's political stability. As per UNB, the Attorney General also criticised Article 6, which defines national identity through language, claiming it has fostered unnecessary divisions among citizens. He argued that no other country uses language as a basis for national identity, making this provision unique and problematic. Speaking about other parts of the constitution, he also took issue with Articles 7(ka) and 7(kha), claiming they undermine democracy and serve authoritarian purposes. Calling for their repeal, he asserted these articles were enacted with ill intent to stifle democratic institutions, UNB reported. The Attorney General vehemently opposed the abolition of the caretaker government system, calling it a "stab in the heart of democracy". Asaduzzaman urged the reinstatement of referendum provisions under Article 142, arguing it was essential for restoring democratic accountability. He criticised the amendment for enabling MPs elected through "election engineering" to unilaterally eliminate this critical democratic mechanism. (ANI)
According to the preliminary reports, the attacker blew up himself close to the police vehicle, but the van and officers on duty were unharmed, ARY News reported. No civilians were also harmed, as there was no crowd in the vicinity at the time of the explosion. Police stated that the bomber set off the blast shortly after the police vehicle had passed.

The explosion, which was heard over a large area, prompted a significant police response to the scene for further investigation, ARY News reported.

This attack follows a rise in terrorism in Pakistan since the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan in 2021.

Earlier, on October 26, a suicide bombing in North Waziristan's Mir Ali Tehsil killed at least eight people, including four policemen.

The attack targeted a police post in the Eidak area of Mir Ali. Following the explosion, a rescue operation was launched, and the injured were transported to a nearby hospital for treatment. Security forces cordoned off the area to secure the site. (ANI)
Tashi Wangchuk, a prominent advocate for Tibetan language rights, was held in detention for 15 days on accusations of "disrupting social order" and allegedly spreading false information online. He is now reportedly under tight surveillance. Wangchuk's detention comes amid China's escalating efforts to suppress or even eliminate Tibetan and other ethnic languages and cultures, replacing them with Mandarin and Han Chinese traditions, as reported by Radio Free Asia. A release notice from the Yulshul (or Yushu in Chinese) City Detention Center, obtained by RFA, reveals that Wangchuk, 39, was arrested by the Internet Police Unit in Qinghai province on October 20. Following an investigation, he was held for 15 days in the Yulshul Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and was released on November 4. According to the report, the document, dated November 4, states that Wangchuk, a former political prisoner, was accused of sharing "false information" on social media since June. He was charged with "repeatedly insulting and mocking government departments" and "negatively affecting the online environment and public order" by allegedly misrepresenting and rejecting government policies. Despite his release, Wangchuk remains under intense surveillance. He continues to face frequent interrogations, according to a source familiar with his situation, who spoke to RFA on the condition of anonymity due to concerns of retaliation. The report further stated that a shopkeeper from the Yulshul township of Jyekundo, also known as Gyegu, mentioned that Wangchuk had been released in January 2021 after serving a five-year sentence for speaking with Western media about language restrictions. However, human rights organizations have continued to raise concerns about his health and safety due to the ongoing restrictions on his freedom. Maya Wang, the Associate China Director at Human Rights Watch in New York, stated that Wangchuk's case highlights the Chinese government's broader efforts at cultural assimilation. "Tibetans who have pushed back for Tibetan language rights, notably Tashi Wangchuk, and for their rights to express themselves, practice religion, and maintain their culture, have been imprisoned and harassed for doing so," Wang told RFA. "This is all part of the Chinese government's efforts to forcibly assimilate what they consider to be 'ethnic minorities' and subsume them into what [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] considers to be a rising Han Chinese nation," she said. Wang pointed out that the Chinese government has systematically replaced Tibetan with Mandarin as the language of instruction in primary, middle, and secondary schools, except for Tibetan language classes, which are treated as foreign language courses. Although China asserts that it supports the rights of all minority groups to access "bilingual education," Tibetan-language schools have been shut down, and young children in kindergartens often receive instruction exclusively in Mandarin Chinese. Observers argue that these policies are designed to wipe out the next generation of Tibetan speakers and are part of a larger strategy by the government to erode Tibetan cultural identity. Similar measures are also being implemented against Mongolians in Inner Mongolia and Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Since 2015, Wangchuk has been campaigning against China's policies that threaten the Tibetan language, advocating for the protection of the language as outlined in the laws of the country's autonomous regions. (ANI)
The Commonwealth of Dominica will bestow its highest national award, the Dominica Award of Honour, upon PM Narendra Modi, in recognition of his contributions to Dominica during the COVID-19 pandemic and his dedication to strengthening the partnership between India and Dominica. Sylvanie Burton, President of the Commonwealth of Dominica, will confer the award during the upcoming India-CARICOM Summit, scheduled to take place in Georgetown, Guyana from November 19 to 21, 2024. In February 2021, India supplied Dominica with 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine-a generous gift which enabled Dominica to extend support to its Caribbean neighbours. The award also recognizes India's support for Dominica in healthcare, education and information technology under Prime Minister Modi's leadership, as well as his role in promoting climate resilience-building initiatives and sustainable development on a global level. Prime Minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit says the award is an expression of Dominica's gratitude for Prime Minister Modi's solidarity with Dominica and the wider region. "Prime Minister Modi has been a true partner to Dominica, particularly during our time of need amid a global health crisis. It is an honour to present him with Dominica's highest national accolade as a symbol of our gratitude for his support and as a reflection of the strong ties between our countries. We look forward to building on this partnership and advancing our shared vision of progress and resilience," he said In accepting the offer of the award, Prime Minister Modi emphasized the importance of collaboration in tackling global challenges such as climate change and geopolitical conflicts, and affirmed India's commitment to working alongside Dominica and the Caribbean in addressing these issues. Sylvanie Burton, President of the Commonwealth of Dominica and Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit will attend the India-CARICOM Summit, a forum to discuss shared priorities and new avenues for cooperation between India and CARICOM member states. (ANI)
Pakistan is relying on assurances from Saudi Arabia and China to address a USD 5 billion external financing gap, with hopes of securing a debt rescheduling agreement with China and deferred oil payments from Saudi Arabia, despite initial delays, the Express Tribune reported on Thursday. These efforts are part of Pakistan's broader strategy to meet external funding requirements and fulfil conditions under a USD 7 billion bailout package with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Pakistani government has reassured the IMF that it remains optimistic about receiving support from China's Exim Bank, which has committed to rolling over USD 3.4 billion in project debt, and from Saudi Arabia, which has agreed to provide a USD 1.2 billion oil facility, as reported by the Express Tribune. These assurances were given by the executive directors of China and Saudi Arabia when the IMF board approved the bailout package. Pakistan has also requested the IMF delegation to reconsider its requirement for significant changes to the Pakistan Sovereign Wealth Fund (PSWF) law by the end of December. While the IMF has yet to respond, the government has hired Alvarez & Marsal Sovereign Advisory Services, led by former central bank governor Dr. Reza Baqir, to advocate for its position. In a briefing to the IMF on Wednesday, Pakistan reiterated its commitment to securing the necessary external financing, which will fill the USD 5 billion gap between 2024 and 2027, the Express Tribune reported, citing sources. Out of this, USD 2.5 billion is needed for the current fiscal year. Pakistan had initially planned to raise USD 3.2 billion, including the USD 1.2 billion Saudi oil facility. However, each month of delay in finalising this facility reduces available funds by USD 100 million in the fiscal year. On the Chinese front, Pakistan is seeking the rescheduling of approximately USD 3.4 billion in debt, with USD 750 million due within the next year. A significant portion of the Chinese debt, around USD 2.7 billion, is scheduled to mature between October 2025 and September 2027, as reported by the Express Tribune. Pakistan Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, currently attending COP 29 meetings, will join the IMF discussions on Friday. During the IMF meeting, Pakistani authorities and Alvarez & Marsal briefed the IMF on the need for adjustments to the PSWF Act. The government has committed to amending the law by December to align it with IMF requirements, but it has also proposed that the IMF should not push for drastic changes. Specifically, Pakistan suggests that the sovereign wealth fund should not be treated as a state-owned enterprise, as originally envisioned by the IMF. In response to IMF concerns, Pakistan has agreed to make several changes to the PSWF Act, including the omission of Section 50, which would have allowed for the sale of state-owned entities to foreign buyers. The law now requires amendments in several areas related to governance, revenue management, public asset management, and the handling of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the Express Tribune reported. The government has agreed to bring the fund in line with international standards, including prohibiting the direct sale of assets to foreign countries. Pakistan is also committed to removing special privileges for the sovereign wealth fund that would have allowed it to acquire state-owned enterprises or participate in their privatisation. If the IMF's proposed amendments are passed by parliament, all such privileges will be rescinded. (ANI)
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and China have signed an agreement on the establishment of an intermodal cargo terminal in the Port of Baku in Alat on the sidelines of the 29th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), Astana News reported. The agreement was signed on November 12. According to the press release issued by Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, which is the national railway company of Kazakhstan, the new terminal will include a multi-purpose cargo yard, a 5,000-square-meter indoor warehouse complex, and a container yard with a capacity of over 1,000 containers. As per Astana Times, this initiative was made possible through Azerbaijan's provision of a land plot, operating berths, and terminal capacities at the Port of Baku in Alat. The Port of Baku plays a significant role in connecting Europe and Asia and is a prime transport and logistics hub of Eurasia. According to the official website of the Port of Baku, it is noted that being an important segment of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, the Port of Baku with its modern operating system provides prompt cargo services, and has facilities designed for all types of cargo. In 2019, for the first time among the countries of the Caspian region, the Port of Baku was awarded the "Eco Ports" (Green Port) certificate of the European Sea Ports Organization, and in 2021 it successfully passed re-certification. In addition, in 2022, it joined the UN Global Compact. Thus, the strategic activity of the port is aimed to contribute to 11 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, the official website of the Port of Baku noted. The project aims to boost container train traffic on the China-Europe-China route via the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, helping to cut delivery times, lower transportation costs, and reduce trans-shipment time, Astana Times observed. (ANI)
On the occasion of World Diabetes Day on Thursday, Saima Wazed, the World Health Organisation Regional Director for Southeast Asia, highlighted the urgent need to address the growing burden of diabetes in the region. In a statement, Wazed said that this year the theme for the day is "Breaking Barriers, Bridging Gaps," calling for collective efforts to overcome the challenges people face in accessing diabetes prevention and management services. According to recent estimates, diabetes affects approximately 246 million people in the WHO Southeast Asia Region and uncontrolled diabetes can lead to severe complications such as heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, blindness, and amputations. "These complications not only impose an emotional and financial burden on individuals and families but also significant financial strain on healthcare systems," Wazed said in her statement. The WHO Regional Director said that over 60 per cent of people living with diabetes in the region were unaware of their condition, making awareness campaigns on prevention, detection, and management essential. "The public needs to be made aware of the prevention, detection, and management of diabetes through awareness campaigns integrated with campaigns aimed at healthy lifestyles and those targeted at maternal, child and adolescent health, considering the life course approach," the statement read. She stated that the prevention of diabetes requires a multisectoral approach and an enabling environment and countries in the region were already implementing various policy measures to address risk factors such as tobacco use, obesity, trans fatty acids, and physical inactivity. However, she noted that access to diabetes care remains a significant challenge and in many countries, fewer than one in three adults with diabetes is receiving treatment, and less than 15 per cent of people with the disease have their condition under control. "In our region, less than one in three adults with diabetes is on treatment and less than 15 per cent of people living with diabetes have the disease status under control. The lack of readiness of our primary healthcare systems in terms of standard management protocol availability of essential medicines, issues related to availability and affordability of quality diagnostics, and trained healthcare professionals need to be remedied immediately," the statement read. She stated that there was an immediate need to strengthen primary healthcare systems by ensuring the availability of essential medicines, diagnostic tools, and standard management protocols and training healthcare professionals to address this issue. Wazed noted that progress was being made in the region and that by mid-2024, over 23 million people with diabetes are expected to be receiving protocol-based management. "The countries in the WHO Southeast Asia Region are making steady progress in the provision of services for the management of diabetes. More than 23 million people with diabetes have been placed on protocol-based management by mid-2024, aiming to reach the SEAHEARTS target of 100 million with diabetes and hypertension to be placed on standard treatment by 2025," the statement read. The WHO Southeast Asia Director said that there was a need to integrate diabetes services into primary healthcare systems, which includes implementing the WHO HEARTS D technical package, which provides essential medicines and diagnostics, and improving systems for monitoring diabetes outcomes. Additionally, integrating diabetes care with programs addressing infectious diseases such as tuberculosis can provide mutual benefits for both tuberculosis and non-communicable disease programs, the statement added. Wazed on the occasion further called for collective action to ensure that equitable, affordable, and high-quality diabetes care becomes a reality for all. (ANI)
Over 50 legislators from various countries have urged the United Nations to ensure the safety of 48 Uyghurs who have been held in detention in Thailand for over ten years, Radio Free Asia reported. Since 2014, four dozen Uyghur men have been confined at Thailand's Immigration Detention Centre (Suan Phlu) after attempting to flee persecution in China by passing through Thailand. According to Thai authorities and humanitarian organisations, they are part of a group of over 500 Uyghurs who fled China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to Southeast Asia. Hoping to be resettled in Turkey via Malaysia, the Uyghurs faced significant bureaucratic hurdles, with only around 100 managing to navigate the obstacles posed by officials, as reported by Radio Free Asia. During the exodus from late 2013 to 2014, Thai immigration authorities detained over 350 Uyghurs, arresting them in March 2014, according to official records. Of those detained, at least 172 women and children were sent to Turkey, while 109 or more were forcibly deported back to China, where their current condition remains unknown. The remaining Uyghurs have been detained as illegal immigrants, not refugees, in harsh conditions, with limited contact with the outside world, according to human rights organisations. These groups have raised concerns that the Uyghurs could face significant risks if sent back to China. Since Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, it does not grant refugee status or protection. According to the report, in a letter dated November 10 to Filippo Grandi, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), members of the Interparliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) described the conditions at the detention center as "life-threatening," highlighting that five detainees, including two children, have already died while in custody. IPAC expressed concern that, since Thailand has not yet adopted the principle of non-refoulement, the Uyghurs face the threat of deportation to China, where they are "highly likely to face persecution, imprisonment, or worse." In the letter, 55 lawmakers from 26 different parliaments stated, "This must not be allowed to happen." They further noted, "We understand that some foreign governments may be willing to offer resettlement for this group of Uyghur men... We urge you to intervene in this matter to ensure their safety." IPAC's letter followed the publication of a detailed account in The New York Times Magazine about Hasan Imam, a young Uyghur man who was once detained at Suan Phlu before escaping to Turkey in 2018. The article revealed that Uyghurs held at the facility are "regularly denied visits and legal assistance," suffer from poor health, and are confined to overcrowded cells around the clock. The article also examines how the Uyghurs have become pawns in global diplomacy, with Thailand unwilling to upset China, its growing trade partner, by releasing the detainees, nor willing to confront the West, which holds countries to stricter human rights standards. The article suggested that the UN may also be constrained, as assisting Uyghur asylum seekers could jeopardise its operations in China, risking retaliation from Beijing. In response to the letter, RFA Uyghur contacted the UNHCR and was told by a representative that the agency is "deeply concerned" about the prolonged detention of the Uyghurs and the lack of resolution. The representative stated that the UNHCR is actively engaging with Thai authorities, "continuously advocating for an end" to the situation, but declined to provide further details, citing "confidentiality constraints" and the need to "avoid undermining efforts to resolve this highly sensitive issue." (ANI)
Lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first visit to the UAE in 2015, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar highlighted the growing strength of India-UAE relations, stating that both countries are now in an "era of new milestones". Speaking at the launch of Symbiosis International University's campus in Dubai on Thursday, Jaishankar noted that the ties between India and the UAE have reached new heights, driven by key collaborations in sectors like fintech, renewable energy, infrastructure, and defence. Jaishankar pointed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's historic visit to the UAE in 2015, which was the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in over a century to the emirate state, marking a significant turning point in bilateral relations. "India-UAE ties are today truly in an era of new milestones. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's historic visit in 2015 was the first in the century, and so are our Comprehensive Economic Partnerships for negotiating on record time," Jaishankar said. "Fintech linkages like Rupay, UPI...are also the first in the domain. The activity and collaborations that we are constantly expanding, be it renewable energy, infrastructure, digital tech, defence or security. They are all path-breaking in their own way," he added. He emphasised that the launch of the Symbiosis campus in Dubai is part of a broader trend that reflects the growing educational and cultural exchanges between the two countries. "This campus and your education are part of a larger trend that has seen India and the UAE come close in an unprecedented way," he said. Jaishankar also addressed the youth, acknowledging that they face both extraordinary opportunities and formidable challenges. India and the UAE established diplomatic relations in 1972. While the UAE opened its Embassy in India in 1972, India opened its Embassy in the UAE in 1973. The traditionally strong bilateral relations between India and the UAE gained new momentum when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the UAE in 2015, the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in 34 years. This marked the beginning of a new Comprehensive and Strategic Partnership between the two nations. In 2022, India and the UAE signed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) during a virtual summit between PM Modi and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. From the UAE, there have been multiple visits by President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed. In 2016 and 2017, he visited as Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. In September 2023, he visited India as the President of the UAE to attend the G20 Leaders' Summit. In November 2023, he participated in the 2nd Virtual Global South Summit. In January 2024, he visited Gujarat to attend the 10th Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit as the Chief Guest. On the matter of educational ties between the two nations, more than 100 international Indian schools are there in the UAE following the CBSE and Kerala Board curricula, with mostly children of Indian expatriates settled in the UAE. A tripartite MoU was signed on 15 July 2023 between the Ministry of Education of India, IIT Delhi and the Abu Dhabi Department of Education & Knowledge (ADEK) to establish an overseas campus of IIT Delhi in Abu Dhabi. Other leading Indian institutions like Manipal, BITS Pilani and Amity University also have set up their campuses in the UAE. (ANI)
A social movement of British Hindus and Indians in the UK, INSIGHT UK, on Thursday, sent a formal letter to the Oxford Union Society to express concerns about its decision to host a debate titled "This House Believes in the Independent State of Kashmir," raising questions about the inclusion of speakers with alleged links to terrorism and citing potential risks to the integrity of the debate. In their letter, the social movement that works on issues that impact the British Hindu and Indian community in the UK stated that the two invited speakers, Muzzammil Ayyub Thakur and Zafar Khan, in support of the motion had been criticised for their alleged associations with groups linked to violent extremism and terrorism. They stated that Muzzammil Ayyub Thakur had been accused of incitement and hate speech, with links to organisations under investigation for connections to terrorism. INSIGHT UK further emphasised the background of Thakur and his organisation, "World Kashmir Freedom Movement," where he is the president and also "Mercy Universal," which he co-founded with his father. Both entities have reportedly been investigated by the UK's Scotland Yard, the Charity Commission, and the FBI for their suspected connections to terrorist activities. "Muzzammil Ayyub has often engaged in hate speech. A case has been registered against him. for creating fear and alarm among the masses using social media and inclining them to commit offences likely to disturb public order. Muzammil has been charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act," the letter stated. "Muzammil is the president of the "World Kashmir Freedom Movement," which, along with another organisation called "Mercy Universal," was founded by his father and investigated by Scotland Yard, the Charity Commission and the FBI for ties with terrorists," the letter further read. Meanwhile, Zafar Khan, the Chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was associated with a group known for violent activities that targeted the Kashmiri Hindu community. The JKLF had also been involved in acts such as the kidnapping and killing of Indian diplomat Ravindra Mhatre in the UK back in 1984, they said in the letter. "Zafar Khan is the Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Diplomatic Bureau. Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) is a terrorist organisation spawned in Birmingham, UK, on 29th May 1997," the letter stated. "The JKLF has established branches in several towns and cities of the United Kingdom. In 1984, an Indian diplomat, Ravindra Mhatre, was kidnapped and murdered in Birmingham. He was abducted while on an errand. After a few days of being held in captivity, his lifeless body was discovered sprawled on a Birmingham street. This terrorist crime that took place in a major UK city was executed by British Kashmiri 'militants' linked to the latterly named Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front," the letter read. INSIGHT UK stated that the Oxford Union's decision to host a debate on the topic has raised concerns, arguing that the debate undermines the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity with a tacit endorsement of violence and terrorism. The organisation further stated that academic platforms like the Oxford Union should serve as spaces for constructive and informed dialogue, not provide a platform for those with potential links to violent groups. "The decision by the Oxford Union to host a debate on the issue of Kashmir's independence and to invite members of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) as speakers is deeply troubling and warrants serious scrutiny. This debate not only undermines the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity but also is tantamount to endorsing violence and terrorism," the letter stated. "While academic institutions should remain neutral and provide a forum for diverse viewpoints, it is essential that such platforms are not used to propagate extremist ideologies or undermine the sovereignty of nations. This is a dangerous precedent to set, especially in an institution of higher learning that should be committed to promoting peace, understanding, and constructive dialogue. We call on the Oxford Union to reconsider this debate and speakers," it further stated. (ANI)
This photo shows the Tianwan Nuclear Power Station Unit 8 under construction in Lianyungang, east China's Jiangsu Province, June 19, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's total nuclear power generation capacity, including units in operation, under construction and officially approved, ranks first in the world, according to the China Energy Research Society (CERS).



China has 58.08 million kilowatts of nuclear power units in operation, and 55.05 million kilowatts officially approved or under construction, making its total capacity the highest in the world, said CERS President Shi Yubo during the Third China Nuclear Energy High-Quality Development Conference in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, which ran from Monday to Wednesday this week.

Shi added that it is imperative to focus on forging new quality productive forces and promoting high-quality development in the nuclear energy sector.

According to Huang Xuenong, a senior official of the National Energy Administration, China's nuclear power generation had reached 430 billion kilowatt-hours in 2023 -- accounting for more than 13 percent of its total clean energy generation, which stood at about 3.1 trillion kilowatt-hours.

The conference, hosted by the CERS and the China General Nuclear Power Group, attracted over 1,200 representatives from government departments, research institutions, industry associations and enterprises in the nuclear energy sector, who engaged in discussions on nuclear power development prospects, nuclear medicine, nuclear fusion, nuclear energy development strategy, and the digitalization of nuclear energy.

The Shenzhen International Nuclear Energy Industry Innovation Expo was also held along with the conference this week.
During the last day, the Air Force attacked more than 100 terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

The IDF said fighters of its 226th Paratroopers Brigade Combat Team, under the command of the 146th Reserve Division, began to operate in southern Lebanon against the terrorist organization Hezbollah

Forces of the Kfir Infantry Brigade's combat team eliminated in the last day a terrorist squad that launched anti-tank missiles and fired at the troops.

In addition, the fighters of the Nahal Infantry Brigade's combat team, under the command of the Hamas Gaza Division (143), directed an aircraft that attacked in Rafah (southern Gaza) a munitions warehouse and eliminated a terrorist while he was transferring ammunition to the warehouse.

The targets attacked included weapons warehouses, launchers aimed at the rear of the State of Israel, terror headquarters, terrorist squads and other military infrastructures. (ANI/TPS)
Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia has announced that it will no longer publish tweets directly on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, and will suspend its accounts. In a statement on its official website on Thursday, the Spanish newspaper said, "La Vanguardia will stop publishing tweets directly on social network X and will suspend its accounts. This social network has become a platform for conspiracy theories and misinformation, ideas that have a way of multiplying their reach in what was once Twitter, which they would not have if it had effective and reasonable moderation." "This newspaper notes that ideas that violate human rights, such as hatred of ethnic minorities, misogyny and racism, are part of the viral content distributed on X, where they become viral and capture more user time in order to earn more money from advertising inserts," the statement added. In addition to the decision to stop publishing on X, this newspaper said that it will continue to monitor people, entities, companies and institutions on this network to promptly inform its readers of messages and debates that may occur on it. Notably, the newspaper said that its decision comes as Donald Trump announced he would name Elon Musk and former Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) aimed at cutting back on US government spending. The decision by the Spanish newspaper comes after British news publisher The Guardian on Wednesday said that it is quitting the X, citing billionaire owner Elon Musk's influence during the US presidential election process. The Guardian in a statement said that the publication said it will no longer post from any official Guardian accounts on the site. Further, it said that the recent US election underlined its view that X is a "toxic" platform and that Musk uses it to influence politics. Last year, the US media organisation National Public Radio [NPR], stopped posting on X after the social media platform labelled it as "state-affiliated media." PBS, a US public TV broadcaster, also suspended its posts for the same reason. Meanwhile, after the 2024 United States Presidential election that confirmed Trump's victory, social media platform X witnessed its largest user exodus since Elon Musk acquired it in 2022, with users migrating to alternatives like Bluesky, CNN reported. More than 1,15,000 US users deactivated their X accounts the day after the election, and this figure only includes those who deactivated through the website, excluding mobile app users, CNN reported citing a report from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. This shift follows Musk's influential role in the US presidential election. Bluesky's user base has doubled in 90 days, reaching 15 million after gaining 1 million new sign-ups in a single week (ANI)
Barrister Muhammad Ali Khan Saif, the Information and Public Relations Adviser to the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has confirmed that all preparations for the highly anticipated "final round" march to Islamabad are now complete, according to a report by The Express Tribune. "Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur is personally overseeing the arrangements to ensure the success of the movement," he said. Barrister Saif stated that the forthcoming protests will begin in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with significant involvement expected from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders, party members, and the general public, as reported by Express Tribune. "This protest is expected to be a powerful display of public discontent, reaching a level that could prompt Maryam Nawaz and her father to consider staying abroad for their safety," he asserted. He expressed that the recent arrests of PTI leaders reflect the current government's desperation, which is increasingly being revealed as a "fake" regime. According to him, they are unable to address the real concerns of the people. During the last march to the capital by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), numerous prominent leaders and workers were arrested, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House was surrounded, and Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur was unaccounted for around 24 hours. Early reports indicated that he had been arrested at the K-P House on accusations of assaulting the state and abusing government resources. His detention followed a raid at the site, during which officials carried out his arrest based on issued warrants. According to sources, the PTI leader faced serious allegations, including the destruction of government property and the illegal use of state resources. The Islamabad Inspector General (IG) was reportedly leading the efforts to arrest Gandapur. However, conflicting reports soon emerged, with some sources claiming that he had not been detained. The following day, the Chief Minister appeared in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly to a hero's welcome. In the first cabinet meeting after the incident in Islamabad, Gandapur strongly condemned the events, claiming that uniformed K-P police officers had been assaulted and some officials, including rescue workers, had been unlawfully detained. Gandapur cautioned that if any evidence emerged of violence against K-P personnel by Islamabad's police and administration, the harshest possible measures would be taken. He also mentioned that rescue equipment had been seized unlawfully. The Chief Minister explained that, as the head of the provincial government, he always travels with necessary personnel, ambulances, and machinery. He condemned the events at the K-P House in Islamabad, calling them an act of fascism and citing unlawful property damage. Gandapur assured that discussions were ongoing for potential legal action against the law enforcement authorities in the federal capital. At the same time, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) began sealing the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House in Islamabad, citing violations of building regulations. Several blocks of the facility had already been shut down as part of the enforcement measures. CDA sources stated that the decision to seal the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House was due to the administration's failure to adhere to building codes. However, many observers noted that the timing of this action, coming just days after the political unrest, seemed far from coincidental. (ANI)
The UAE is gearing up to celebrate Diwali on Saturday, with a spectacular event that will be held in Dubai. The event will be attended by guests including Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, and Sunjay Sudhir, India's Ambassador to the UAE, alongside a host of diplomats and dignitaries from the Indian community. Organised by "Emirates Love India," with support from the UAE Government Media Office and the participation of Dubai Police, the upcoming Diwali celebration showcases the harmony and diversity of Indian folklore, culture, and art, the media office of the UAE government said in a press release. "This event, reflecting the close historical ties between the UAE and India, features a variety of activities highlighting India's rich heritage and the Indian community's contributions to the UAE's sustainable development," the media office said. The Diwali celebration in Zabeel Park is anticipated to attract 40,000 people and will showcase the diversity of Indian culture through a vibrant array of cultural, artistic, musical, and folkloric activities, including a special segment honouring the outstanding achievements of Indians in the UAE. Notably, the UAE-India ties are rooted in a long history of close collaboration, exemplified by the bilateral cultural agreement signed during the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan's historical visit to India in January 1975. UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan's visit to India in January 2017 marked a turning point in bilateral relations, culminating in a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement and 13 other agreements and MoUs. Additionally, a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement signed between the two nations is expected to boost investments and trade flow, paving the way to increasing bilateral non-oil trade exchange to USD 100 billion by 2030. The UAE and India have maintained these strong ties through 14 meetings of the CEPA Joint Committee and three strategic dialogues. The large Indian community in the UAE thrives as a harmonious part of its diverse society, contributing significantly to the deepening of economic, social, and cultural ties between both nations. (ANI)
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday called on Canada to extradite Arsh Dalla, a Khalistani terrorist to "face justice in India." Canadian authorities have arrested designated Khalistani terrorist Arshdeep Singh Gill, alias Arsh Dalla, following a violent shooting incident in Milton, Ontario, according to a report in local Canadian television outlet CTV. In response to media queries regarding the arrest of a designated terrorist Arsh Dalla in Canada, MEA Official Spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal said, "In view of the recent arrest, our agencies will be following up on an extradition request. Given Arsh Dalla's criminal record in India and his involvement in similar illegal activities in Canada, it is expected that he will be extradited or deported to face justice in India." Dalla, has been charged in a case related to the shooting in Ontario on October 28, as per a report by Adrian Ghobrial on CTV. "We have seen media reports circulating since November 10 on the arrest in Canada of proclaimed offender Arsh Singh Gill alias Arsh Dalla, the de facto chief of the Khalistan Tiger Force. Canadian print and visual media have widely reported on the arrest. We understand that the Ontario Court has listed the case for hearing," read the press release of the MEA. Arsh Dalla is a proclaimed offender in over 50 cases of murder, attempt to murder, extortion and terrorist acts including terror financing. In May 2022, a Red Corner Notice was issued against him. "He was designated in India as an individual terrorist in 2023. In July 2023, India requested the Canadian government for his provisional arrest. This was declined. Additional information was provided in this case," added the release. Dala is a close aide of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was killed outside a Gurudwara in Surrey in June 2023. In January 2023, the Union Home Ministry had declared him a "terrorist" under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. He is among the most wanted terrorists in the country and has been charged in various cases of targeted killings and extortion. A separate request was also sent to Canada under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to verify Arsh Dalla's suspected residential address, his financial transactions to India, moveable/immovable properties, details of mobile numbers etc- all of which were provided to Canadian authorities in January 2023. In December 2023, the Department of Justice of Canada sought additional information on the case. A reply to these queries was sent in March this year. Dalla had come to Canada from Punjab in 2018 and lived in Surrey as per a report in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper, which said he is the reported head of the Dalla Lakhbir gang, accused of using Canada as a base for a violent extortion ring in Punjab. The MEA's request comes amid tensions between India and Canada, with India denying allegations of involvement in the killing of Nijjar. (ANI)
Abdullah Al-Buaijan, a preacher at Prophet Muhammad's Mosque, was a Guest of Honour in a peace conference themed "Islam is the religion of humanity and peace" in Kozhikode, Saudi Gazette reported. Buaijan said on Tuesday that Islam is a religion of peace and security, as per Saudi Gazette. Abdullah Al-Buaijan, imam and khateeb of the Prophet's Mosque, said in his address that Islam is a religion of security and peace, Saudi Gazette reported. Buaijan cautioned against divisions among Muslims, stating that such discord threatens national unity, leads to chaos, and can incite wars. "Divisions and disunity tend to destroy nations and civilizations, threaten the entity of the nation and undermine its cohesion. This will lead to chaos and fuel for sedition and wars," he said, adding that God forbade differences and disagreements and made them among the causes of failure and weakness. Kerala's Minister for Waqf and Hajj V Abdurahiman hailed Saudi Arabia in his address for its significant efforts in promoting Islam, spreading peace, and fostering moderation, as per Saudi Gazette. The conference, organized by Kerala Nadvatul Mujahideen, was attended by over 50,000 Muslims and broadcast on several media platforms that garnered more than four million views. Sheikh Al-Buaijan led the Maghrib and Isha prayers for the worshipers who attended the conference, as per Saudi Gazette. As per the Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen (KNM) website, it is a socio- religious organisation registered under Society Registration act. The organisation aims at the development and reformist activities of the society with focus on the upliftment of weaker sections of the society. KNM has various wings and department for the achievement of its mission. Main activities include the public awareness on social reforms and humanitarian activities. (ANI)
The Red House is presenting the second edition of the Red-House Indie Film Festival (RIFF), a three-day celebration of independent filmmaking. From November 15-17, RIFF will showcase a diverse range of films from emerging and established independent filmmakers across the country, from all over the country with distinct voices and bold new ideas to showcase their films. On the second day of the festival, November 16, a documentary named Un-titled, will be shown. Directed by Syed Ahmad Rufai and filmed in McLeod Ganj, the documentary explores the displacement of Tibetans from their homeland and their establishment of a government-in-exile in India, highlighting their resilience and resistance through poetry. Notably, Tibet's struggle for autonomy remains a complex issue. Since China invaded Tibet in 1950 and its subsequent incorporation into the People's Republic of China, the region has faced sweeping changes in governance and society. Tibetan leaders, including the Dalai Lama, have consistently called for greater autonomy, citing threats of cultural erosion, religious restrictions, and human rights violations. Earlier on November 8, Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the political leader of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), urged Tibetans in exile to deepen their historical understanding of Tibet and its current challenges in order to strengthen their connection to the Tibetan cause. He addressed people at the Kalimpong Tibetan settlement during his ongoing tour to engage with Tibetan communities and emphasised the importance of recognising Tibet's geopolitical significance, particularly its vital river systems and environmental challenges. During his visit, Sikyong addressed students and highlighted the critical role of Tibet's history in shaping the community's struggle for autonomy. He noted the need for Tibetans to cultivate a stronger bond with their heritage and culture to preserve their identity amid mounting challenges. Sikyong also visited key Tibetan institutions, including the Tibetan Mentseekhang, the Tibetan Old Age Home, and the Kalimpong Tibetan Opera Association. At a gathering of approximately 200 Tibetan residents, he reflected on the community's journey into exile, honouring the sacrifices of past generations and acknowledging the role of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in establishing Tibetan settlements and schools in India. (ANI)
Foreign Affairs expert Robinder Sachdev has praised Tulsi Gabbard's appointment as Director of National Intelligence, calling her "clear-headed" and highlighting her strong understanding of India-related matters. He noted that Trump's trust in Gabbard is evident, and her appointment, along with other senior female appointees, indicated a shift in Trump's approach and added that her appointment is very 'interesting'. "It was expected that Tulsi Gabbard would get some senior post but being the Director of National Intelligence is something very interesting, especially with regards to India. This time around Trump is under no pressure from conservative traditional Republicans to bow to their wishes. He's speaking and choosing the players he wants, so he's putting together a band of brothers and sisters. There are two women senior appointees so far. I think the NSA, Chief of Staff also and Tulsi Gabbard, there may be more. This is an indication of the trust that Trump has in Tulsi Gabbard. Ronald Reagan once said, 'Personnel is policy'. So, if Tulsi is appointed, we can see her background and we can be reasonably sure that that's how she will conduct the policy. And if we look at the background, we will find that she has been a very clear-headed person with regards to many matters especially with matters regarding India. So it is a very strong positive development for India," Sachdev said. After his victory over Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 US presidential election, President-elect Donal Trump on Wednesday nominated Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Speaking about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three-nation tour from November 16 to 21, to Brazil for the G20 Summit, and strengthening bilateral ties with Nigeria and Guyana, Sachdev suggested that PM Modi must take a short detour to the US on completion of his trip and visit Florida and interact with Trump, congratulate him and discuss the Russia-Ukraine issue with him. "On the way back after completing his visit PM Modi can take a short hop to Florida, which is hardly four or five hours away. Go and congratulate and greet his friend and President-elect Trump. And also discuss Russia-Ukraine because Trump has made it clear, that stopping the war is his top priority. So Trump and his team must be right now actively working on that. All of these appointees, be it Gabbard, the NSA, the Secretary of State, their first immediate task would be to look at the Ukraine-Russia war," he said. Sachdev also suggested that Prime Minister Modi should meet with Trump to discuss the Russia-Ukraine issue, citing shared interests in ending the war. This meeting would be beneficial for peace, humanitarian reasons, and India's interests. "A meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Trump at this juncture immediately would be extremely beneficial for the peace, which is a one-point plan of Prime Minister Modi. That is, to stop the war. And secondly, it'll be good for the world, humanity-wise. And thirdly, the sooner this war stops, the better it is for India because Russia will have to tilt less and depend upon China. So I think this is a very opportune moment for PM Modi. He can take a short detour, stop over, meet and greet and have discussions on the Russia-Ukraine issue and be back in India," he said. Sachdev criticized Oxford University's upcoming debate session on "This House Believes in the Independent State of Kashmir," and urged the university to ensure speakers have no ties to terrorist organizations. He noted that Oxford's student union often leans towards leftist and socialist agendas, and this debate may be another example. "A university administration is different than what a student union normally does. Student unions in some universities are known for their particular views. Oxford Union is known often to veer towards or to lean towards leftist and socialist agendas. They lean towards matters related to India and India's sovereignty, particularly about Kashmir. So I think what we are seeing is again a repeat of the tendencies of the student union in Oxford. As far as the diaspora are being irked, and upset I think we all would be as far as calling upon the university to take action. I think yes, we can call upon the university. The university can at least see that some of the speakers do not have a very tempted past, though we understand the university may not want to interfere in such matters. But still, I think since the matter pertains to Oxford's ecology and ecosystem. Overall, the university must at least check the speakers," he said. (ANI)
Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, the President of the Sindh Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Chairman of the Sindh Assembly's Public Accounts Committee, has stated unequivocally that the party will not accept any project aimed at constructing additional canals on the River Indus. Speaking at a press conference at the Bilawal House Media Cell on Wednesday, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro stressed that the PPP would continue to oppose controversial water reservoir projects in the country. He also highlighted that the Sindh Assembly had already passed a resolution opposing any such initiatives as reported by The News International. The PPP leader pointed out that the proposal to build new canals on the Indus River had sparked a critical situation in the country. He explained that two of the six proposed canals were planned to be constructed within Sindh. He reiterated that the PPP's position on the matter was clear: if there was no surplus water in the river, there was no reason to construct additional canals. He cautioned that building these canals, despite the existing water scarcity, would lead to diverting water from the river, worsening the water shortage for Sindh. According to the report The Sindh PPP president also noted that under previous caretaker governments, a plan was introduced to implement corporate farming as part of the Green Pakistan initiative, which required large amounts of land and water. Additionally, the caretaker administration attempted to amend the Irsa Act, but the move was halted due to strong public opposition. Khuhro stated that similar attempts to move forward with the project persisted even after the current government took office. He added that Sindh had expressed its concerns and objections to the canal project during a recent meeting of the Capital Development Working Party (CDWP). He asserted that, according to an agreement between the PPP and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the PPP was supposed to be consulted on projects related to the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP). Reflecting on history, Khuhro mentioned that during the tenures of Nawaz Sharif and General Pervez Musharraf, controversial projects such as the Kalabagh Dam and canal constructions were proposed but ultimately stopped due to strong public opposition from Sindh. He also recalled a significant protest led by the late Benazir Bhutto, along with other political parties, on the Sindh-Punjab border during Nawaz Sharif's second term. Khuhro urged the federal government to take action against the over 150 illegal water-lifting pumps installed between the Punjnad and Guddu Barrage. (ANI)
Brazil's Ambassador to India, Kenneth Felix Haczynski da Nobrega praised India's presidency of the G20, highlighting the African Union's admission as a permanent member as one of the top three incredible achievements. He further said that the move has significantly enhanced the group's legitimacy, as the African Union represents 55 countries. On the African Union becoming a member of G-20 under India's presidency, Nobrega told ANI, "I would list it as one of the top three incredible results of your (India's) presidency. You have boosted the group's legitimacy because when you add 55 countries to a group, makes a lot of difference and Brazil on top of that, has invited Angola, Nigeria and Egypt to the summit. We are boosting even more the presence of Africa in this summit." Ambassador Nobrega's praise for India's presidency highlights the significance of this achievement. Brazil, which currently holds the G20 presidency, has expressed its commitment to continuing India's legacy and working closely with the African Union. It is pertinent to note that the African Union became the 21st member of the G20 during the New Delhi Summit in 2023. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had advocated for the African Union's inclusion in the grouping. Elaborating more on the G20, Nobrega said, "We have already had some very good outcome documents. We have managed to negotiate 12 ministerial declarations and among the more concrete results - this idea of connecting the so-called Sherpa track and financial track of the G20 structure has led to the launching of these two task forces I mentioned. The aim of connecting these two tracks is to transform political decisions into implementation of tangible results on the ground." The African Union's inclusion in the G20 is expected to have far-reaching implications, especially in addressing global challenges that disproportionately affect the continent. Climate change, poverty, and inequality are just a few of the pressing issues that the AU will now have a greater say in addressing. The Brazilian Ambassador to India also spoke on PM Narendra Modi's visit, Nobrega said that 46 missions from Brazil have visited India in 15 months. "This will be the third visit of the Prime Minister to Brazil. At this time, the visit will take place in times of booming bilateral relations between Brazil and India. Just to give you one figure, in 15 months, we had 46 missions from Brazil coming to India. Business missions, science and technology missions, and most of them are led by high-level officials. So I think the numbers speak for themselves...," Nobrega said. He further said that during the visit, PM Modi will have a bilateral meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He further stressed that the G20 Summit will prioritise combating hunger and poverty, fighting climate change and reforming global governance institutions. Speaking with ANI, Nobrega said, "There's going to be bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Lula at the sidelines of the G-20summit. But our priorities are three - the first is to focus on combating hunger and poverty. The second priority is fighting climate change. We also have launched a task force to fight climate change to mobilize financing, for example, to fight climate change. And the third is the reform of global governance institutions. So these three priorities, they build on the really stunning results of your (India's) G20 presidency." PM Modi will visit Nigeria on November 16,17 and will travel to Rio De Janeiro during November 18-19 to attend the G20 Summit. He will undertake a state visit to Guyana from November 19 to 21. (ANI)
You are here: China

A China's J-35A stealth fighter jet takes part in a performance during Airshow China in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, Nov. 12, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's new J-35A stealth fighter, which made its debut at the ongoing Airshow China, is equipped with a homegrown engine and a human-machine interaction design that help it fully exert its combat effectiveness, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force said on Wednesday.



At a press conference on the sidelines of the airshow, Xie Peng, spokesperson of the PLA Air Force, said that the J-35A, with its domestically developed engine, represents an important addition to the PLA Air Force's stable of fighter aircraft.

Air Force officer Li Lanxing, meanwhile, said that during test flights, pilots found the J-35A highly maneuverable, with excellent handling and user-friendly human-machine interaction, enabling full combat effectiveness.

The J-35A test flights are increasingly focused on real combat scenarios, with more emphasis on combat effectiveness, Li added.

A China's J-35A stealth fighter jet takes part in a performance during Airshow China in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, Nov. 12, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]

The fighter jet has robust joint combat capabilities, said Wang Yongqing, chief expert at the Shenyang Aircraft Design and Research Institute of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC). The AVIC is the primary contractor for the development of China's aviation weapons and equipment.



The J-35A's information and system architecture was designed for seamless interoperability, providing strong standalone combat capabilities and enabling coordination with other battlefield equipment, which will open up new possibilities for future missions, said Wang.

Unlike the J-20, a heavy stealth fighter designed mainly for air superiority, the J-35A is a medium-sized multi-role stealth fighter capable of both air superiority and strike missions against ground and maritime targets.

China's J-20 stealth fighter jets perform in formation during Airshow China in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, Nov. 12, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]

The combination of the J-20 and J-35A features both air superiority and multi-role capabilities, greatly enhancing the Air Force's ability to conduct offensive operations in high-threat and contested environments, said military expert Wang Mingzhi in a separate interview with Xinhua.



"The successful development of the J-35A has enabled China to possess two types of stealth fighter jets, providing the Air Force with enhanced capabilities to safeguard the country's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity," Wang added.

Officially known as the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, the airshow is scheduled for Nov. 12-17 in the southern coastal city of Zhuhai.
Rahul Shrivastava of the IFS batch 1999 was appointed as the next High Commissioner of India to Namibia on Thursday, the Ministry of External Affairs said. Shrivastava is expected to take up the assignment shortly, the statement added. He said that he looked forward to serving Indians in the 'Land of the Brave'. In a post on X, he said, "From South America (Venezuela 2015-18) to Asia (India 2018-20) to Europe (Romania, Albania, Moldova 2020-24) to Africa. Honoured to be appointed High Commissioner of India to Namibia. Looking forward to serving the people of India in 'Land of the Brave.'" https://x.com/AmbShrivastava/status/1857081033797091352 He signed off from Bucharest on October 8. He said, "Signing off from Bucharest today. Spent more than four years as Ambassador of India to Romania, Albania and Moldova - my longest tenure in any country." https://x.com/AmbShrivastava/status/1843594444001722579 Shrivastava earlier served as the Ambassador of India to Romania, Moldova and Albania. He was earlier the Ambassador to Venezuela (2015-18). He also served in India, Russia, the UK and Kazakhstan. Notably, India and Namibia enjoy warm and cordial relations. The Namibian people and leadership view India as a dependable and trusted friend. Indian support during their liberation struggle is warmly recalled by Namibian leaders. We have reciprocated fully, endeavouring to strengthen relations further, the Ministry of External Affairs said. On September 17, India stepped up to support Namibia to boost their food security. A shipment of 1000 metric tons of rice has departed from Maharashtra's Nhava Sheva Port, headed for Namibia. Sharing a post on X, Randhir Jaiswal, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, wrote, "Humanitarian support to Namibia: In solidarity with the Global South. As a credible HADR (Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief) provider and a reliable friend, India is extending food grain assistance to the people of Namibia, to strengthen their food security in the wake of recent spells of drought." (ANI)
Cameron expressed her enthusiasm about meeting Reddy, highlighting India's potential for partnerships with the United Kingdom in areas like healthcare, education, and infrastructure.

Sharing a post on X, the Telangana Chief Minister's Office wrote, "The British High Commissioner to India, Mrs. @Lindy_Cameron, paid a courtesy call on the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Telangana, Shri @revanth_anumula, at his residence in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad."

Meanwhile, Cameron also shared a post on X and wrote, "Great to meet Telangana Chief Minister @revanth_anumula and to hear his ambitions for this dynamic and fast-growing state, including the exciting Musi River project. Great potential for India-UK partnerships in health, education, infrastructure and tech, and glad he enjoyed his visit to London so much!"

https://x.com/Lindy_Cameron/status/1857007356493607207

A day before, Cameron met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and highlighed the Chief Minister's "valuable insights" into the state's development and vision for India's future.

Sharing a post on X, Cameron wrote, "Delighted to meet dynamic and tech-savvy Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister @ncbn to hear his valuable insights into AP's development and his ideas for India's future. So many opportunities to strengthen the UK-India partnership for mutual benefit in areas such as university partnerships, deep technology, green energy and healthcare."

https://x.com/Lindy_Cameron/status/1856716229177717099

Naidu also shared a post on X and said, "Delighted to meet with Ms. @Lindy_Cameron, British High Commissioner to India, to discuss the immense potential of Andhra Pradesh and explore opportunities for enhanced collaboration in key sectors to strengthen the Inda-UK partnership." (ANI)
The European Commission on Thursday slapped Meta with a hefty fine of approximately Euro 800 million for violating EU antitrust rules through its Facebook Marketplace platform. In a statement, it said, "The European Commission has fined Meta Euro 797.72 million for breaching EU antitrust rules by tying its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and by imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers." The European Commission said that Meta tied its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook. "This means that all Facebook users automatically have access and get regularly exposed to Facebook Marketplace whether they want it or not. The Commission found that competitors of Facebook Marketplace may be foreclosed as the tie gives Facebook Marketplace a substantial distribution advantage which competitors cannot match," the European Commission said. In a statement, Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy in the European Commission said that the European Commission fined Meta Euro 797.72 million for abusing its dominant positions in the markets for personal social network services and for online display advertising on social media platforms. "Meta tied its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and imposed unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers. It did so to benefit its own service Facebook Marketplace, thereby giving it advantages that other online classified ads service providers could not match. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules. Meta must now stop this behaviour," Vestager said. Following the European Commission's fine, Meta said that they have built a Marketplace in response to consumer demand. In a statement, Meta said, "This decision ignores the market realities, and will only serve to protect incumbent marketplaces from competition. The European Commission's decision provides no evidence of competitive harm to rivals or any harm to consumers." The Meta further said that they will appeal this decision to promote better outcomes for the European consumers. (ANI)
A recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report highlighted the "alarming actions" of Israeli authorities and said that the authorities carried out "deliberate forced displacement" of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 2023 and are responsible for "war crimes and crimes against humanity." These demolitions, which include the destruction of homes and infrastructure in areas marked for "buffer zones" and security "corridors," are likely to result in the permanent displacement of Palestinians, the HRW said in its report published on Thursday. The 154-page report, 'Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged: Israel's Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza,' examines how Israeli authorities' conduct has led to the displacement of over 90 per cent of the population of Gaza--1.9 million Palestinians--and the widespread destruction of much of Gaza over the last 13 months. The report said that the Israeli forces have carried out deliberate, controlled demolitions of homes and civilian infrastructure, including in areas where they have apparent aims of creating "buffer zones" and security "corridors," from which Palestinians are likely to be permanently displaced and added that contrary to claims by Israeli officials, their actions do not comply with the laws of war. The report also said that there is no plausible imperative military reason to justify Israel's "mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza's population, often multiple times." Rather than ensuring civilians' security, military "evacuation orders" have caused grave harm. The HRW further said, "Governments should adopt targeted sanctions and other measures, and halt weapons sales to Israel. The International Criminal Court prosecutor should investigate Israel's forced displacement and prevention of the right to return as a crime against humanity." Nadia Hardman, a refugee and migrant rights researcher at HRW strongly condemned the Israeli government's actions, stating that they cannot claim to be protecting Palestinians when they are killing them along escape routes, bombing safe zones, and cutting off essential services. "The Israeli government cannot claim to be keeping Palestinians safe when it kills them along escape routes, bombs so-called safe zones, and cuts off food, water, and sanitation. Israel has blatantly violated its obligation to ensure Palestinians can return home, razing virtually everything in large areas," Hardman said. Notably, the HRW interviewed 39 displaced Palestinians in Gaza, analysed Israel's evacuation system, including 184 evacuation orders and satellite imagery confirming the widespread destruction, and verified videos and photographs of attacks on designated safe zones and evacuation routes. Earlier on November 9, World Health Organisation's Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that Northern Gaza is on the brink of facing an imminent famine if interventions regarding humanitarian aid are not made within days in the area. Sharing a post on X, he wrote, "Deeply alarming- @theIPCinfo warns there is a strong likelihood that famine in northern #Gaza is imminent." He gave a call for an immediate scale-up and safe access for humanitarian aid, primarily food and medicines to tackle severe malnutrition. Sharing the IPC Report by the Famine Review Committee (FRC), the Director-General of WHO gave a call for collective global action. The report, which was published on November 8 expressed concern about an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip. Various observations were made by the report. It noted that according to OCHA data, the number of aid shipments being let into the Gaza Strip is lower now than at any time since October 2023. (ANI)
Jaishankar said that the temple was a sign of friendship between India and UAE.

In a post on X, he said, "Received blessings at the BAPS Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi today. A true symbol of India-UAE friendship and of peace, harmony and goodwill around the world."

https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1857087132587659676

Earlier in the day, Jaishankar visited the Bharat Mart site in Dubai.

In a post on X, he said, "Visited Bharat Mart site in Jebel Ali, Dubai today along with Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO of DP World. Once operationalised, this innovative logistics initiative will enhance India-UAE trade, deepen supply chains and bolster access for our MSMEs to global markets."

https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1857083425670185270

The EAM also launched his book, 'Why Bharat Matters' at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library in Dubai.

In a post on X, he said, "Participated in an interactive session at Mohammed Bin Rashid Library, Dubai for the book launch of Why Bharat Matters. Spoke about grasping the global transformation underway and understanding the rise of Bharat."

https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1857080285600350602

Earlier in the day, Jaishankar interacted with the students of Symbiosis International University in Dubai and underlined opportunities for them in today's world.

In a post on X, he said, "Delighted to virtually interact with students of Symbiosis International University in Dubai today. Glad to note their interest in foreign policy and India's prominence in the global order. Underlined greater opportunities for Indian students in a changing world."

https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1857008610666029411

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar arrived in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday for an official visit.

https://x.com/cgidubai/status/1856872946268029326

Taking to social media platform X, the Consulate General of India in Dubai said that the EAM's visit aims to further strengthen bilateral ties and enhance cooperation between the two countries. (ANI)
In Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan, large group of students from Degree College Chilas staged a protest, demanding the immediate recruitment of qualified faculty members, Markhor Times reported. The protest on Wednesday has highlighted the ongoing issue of inadequate staffing, which has been negatively impacting students' education for several months, as reported by Markhor Times. One of the protesters stated, "The reason we are protesting today is the lack of proper faculty. There should be 26 professors and teachers, but there are only six. It is shameful that our people are preventing us from receiving an education. Our college is in poor condition, and most of the time, students are on the streets protesting. It is disgraceful that degree college students are begging for the education they deserve." Students pointed out that several departments, including science, commerce, and humanities, have been severely affected by the shortage of faculty. In some cases, entire subjects have been left without instructors, leaving students without the necessary guidance to complete their studies effectively, Markhor Times reported. Another student added, "This is my third year at this degree college, and this is not new. The students protesting today are first-year students, and even under previous administrations, there were no teachers. Despite repeated complaints, the college administration has done nothing. We are warning them: if they don't take this issue seriously, it will become a major problem for them." Despite global efforts to advance education, the region, which is under Pakistan's illegal control, faces numerous obstacles, including budget cuts for higher education and irregular funding from the Higher Education Commission for degree colleges, Markhor Times reported. These students, who come from remote areas with hopes of pursuing higher education, are now encountering unexpected challenges. There seems to be a deliberate effort to undermine education in PoGB, suggesting that Pakistan may be wary of an educated populace challenging its illegitimate authority. The region also faces numerous challenges, such as economic underdevelopment, political and administrative issues, social and cultural diversity, environmental concerns, and human rights violations. (ANI)
In a post on X, EAM Jaishankar shared a picture with Abdullah and outlined the meeting as a "productive day with a great meeting."

https://x.com/drsjaishankar/status/1857114967884873790?s=46

The EAM said that they discussed opportunities for advancing wide-ranging cooperation between both the countries.

"Completed a productive day with a great meeting with DPM & FM @ABZayed in Abu Dhabi. Discussed opportunities for advancing our wide-ranging cooperation. Also exchanged views on global developments," Jaishankar said in his post.

Earlier in the day, Jaishankar visited the BAPS Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi.

https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1857087132587659676

Jaishankar said that the temple was a sign of friendship between India and UAE.

In a post on X, he said, "Received blessings at the BAPS Hindu Mandir in Abu Dhabi today. A true symbol of India-UAE friendship and of peace, harmony and goodwill around the world."

https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1857083425670185270

Jaishankar also visited the Bharat Mart site in Dubai earlier in the day.

In a post on X, he said, "Visited Bharat Mart site in Jebel Ali, Dubai today along with Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO of DP World. Once operationalised, this innovative logistics initiative will enhance India-UAE trade, deepen supply chains and bolster access for our MSMEs to global markets."

https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1857080285600350602

The EAM also launched his book, 'Why Bharat Matters' at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library in Dubai.

In a post on X, he said, "Participated in an interactive session at Mohammed Bin Rashid Library, Dubai for the book launch of Why Bharat Matters. Spoke about grasping the global transformation underway and understanding the rise of Bharat."

Jaishankar arrived in the United Arab Emirates on November 14 for an official visit.

India and the UAE established diplomatic relations in 1972. While the UAE opened its Embassy in India in 1972, India opened its Embassy in the UAE in 1973.

India and the UAE enjoy strong cooperation with the United Nations. Both countries are also part of several plurilateral platforms such as BRICS, I2U2 (India-Israel-UAE-USA), and the UAE-France-India (UFI) Trilateral, among others. The UAE was invited as a guest country to the G20 Summit held under India's presidency. (ANI)
Tibetan Women's Association kicked off an appealing tour from Dharamshala on Thursday to highlight 'alarming situation for Tibetan children and the environment in Tibet.' The female activists from the Tibetan Women's Association (TWA) gathered in the north Indian hill town of Dharamshala on Thursday for the tour. Tibetan women activists are going to Delhi on three bikes and the six-day journey started on Indian Children's Day and will end on November 20, World Children's Day. These women activists will make the people aware of the 'alarming situation for Tibetan children and the environment in Tibet'. "We are organising this appeal tour from Dharamshala to Delhi and it is a six-day tour. We are starting it today on Indian Children's Day and will end in Delhi on the 20th of November, on World Children's Day. We are appealing to all Indians to help us to stop colonial boarding schools in China," an activist told ANI. Tenzin Yingsel, project officer of TWA said, "Today we have gathered here to start an appeal tour which starts today on November 14 which is Children's Day across India to November 20 which is celebrated as universal Children's Day to highlight the alarming situation for Tibetan children and environment of Tibet." "Nuns and monks under the age of 14 are forcibly sent to Chinese government-run colonial boarding schools and even the Tibetan children under the age of four years are not spared, they are sent to these schools without their consent," Yingsel added. Further, Yingsel highlighted the issue of Tibetan children being forced to learn Chinese Mandarin Nearly now one million Tibetan children come under these government-run colonial boarding schools where they are only taught Chinese Mandarin and they are deprived of their primary language. When we talk about children we talk about Tibet's environment also. Tibet is the highest and the largest plateau of Asia and it's the roof of the world it is the origin of seven major rivers of Asia and the situation regarding the environment is a matter of great concern for all the downstream countries including India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan." Yingsel said. "Due to the large number of damming and illegal mining, it is causing harm to ecological balance. So we are organizing this event to make the people aware of the situation, " Yingsel added. (ANI)
Officials arrested four people in California this week after state investigators said they committed insurance fraud by claiming a animal damaged their vehicles, when in reality it was someone wearing a bear costume.

Los Angeles-area residents Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, are each charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy in connection to the reported scam, the state Department of Insurance announced.

The state agency's investigation began after an insurance company suspected fraud earlier this year, according to a news release.

Bear costume used in reported January 2024 car insurance scam.

The suspects told their insurance company a bear entered their 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost and caused interior damage to the vehicle on Jan. 28 in Lake Arrowhead, an unincorporated community in the San Bernardino Mountains, the release said.

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Cold case arrest: Florida man being held in decades-old Massachusetts double murder

'The alleged bear' in the vehicle

The suspects also provided video footage to the insurance company, which showed "the alleged bear" in the vehicle, according to the news release.

Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume, the department wrote.

State biologist determined it was 'clearly a human in a bear suit'

Detectives found two more insurance claims with two different insurance companies, from the suspects with the same date of loss and the same location, the release continues. Each claim involved two vehicles, a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350, and the suspects also allegedly used a bear costume to make it look like a bear also entered and damaged those vehicles.

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They also reportedly provided video footage to the other insurance companies in connection to their claims.

One of the four suspects arrested in connection to a January 2024 car insurance scam, who investigators said dressed in a bear costume and claimed the animal damaged three vehicles in Southern California.

To prove it was not actually a bear in the video, the state agency had a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife review three "bear videos." The biologist, investigators reported, determined it was "clearly a human in a bear suit."

Detectives then obtained a search warrant, and during a search of suspects home, found a costume bear suit.

Officials arrested all four suspects on Wednesday, according to the release.

One of the four suspects arrested in connection to a January 2024 car insurance scam, who investigators said dressed in a bear costume and claimed the animal damaged three vehicles in Southern California.

The insurance companies lost nearly $142,000 due to fraud allegedly committed by the suspects.

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The Glendale Police Department and the California Highway Patrol assisted the state Department of Insurance in the case, officials said.

The San Bernardino County District Attorneys Office is prosecuting this case.

San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office jail records did not have the suspects listed online Thursday. Their pending court dates were not yet listed online for San Bernardino County.

It was not immediately known whether the suspects had obtained attorneys.

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: Person used bear costume to fake car damage, California officials say
By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden will meet Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for likely the final time on Saturday, senior administration officials said, as Beijing prepares for a potentially more confrontational period with Washington under Donald Trump.

The two leaders are expected to hold talks spanning a range of global hot spots, including heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Lima, Peru, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters. He did not confirm the date of the meeting.

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It will be Biden and Xi's first known interaction since an April phone call.

The two leaders have tried to keep tensions at bay over issues ranging from Taiwan to the South China Sea and Russia, and American demands for more Chinese help to stem the flow of the ingredients for fentanyl, the leading cause of U.S. drug overdoses.

Biden will raise concerns over a Chinese-linked group that recently hacked into private telecommunications of prominent U.S. officials, Sullivan said.

"The president has demonstrated that the U.S. and (the People's Republic of China) can manage our differences and prevent competition from veering into conflict or confrontation, and he's done that by ensuring the maintenance of open lines of communication," he said.

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Officials said he would also raise Chinese support for Russia's war in Ukraine and the presence of over 10,000 North Korean soldiers in Russia.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden and Xi restored leader-level talks last November that produced more cooperation on counter-narcotics efforts but little movement on bigger issues like a potential conflict over Taiwan, the democratically governed island that China claims as its own territory.

The Democratic administration finalized rules last month restricting U.S. investment in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductors in China that are set to take effect in January. That followed Biden raising tariffs on more goods from China.

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Both steps were rejected by China as counterproductive.

Trump, a Republican, has vowed to adopt blanket 60% tariffs on U.S. imports of Chinese goods as part of a package of "America First" trade measures. Beijing opposes those steps.

"Transitions are uniquely consequential moments in geopolitics; They're a time when competitors and adversaries can see possibly opportunity because you have this change in government here," Sullivan said.

"Part of what President Biden will communicate is that we need to maintain stability, clarity, predictability through this transition between the United States and China."

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Trump's early personnel choices have included several hawkish voices on China in senior positions, such as U.S. Representative Mike Waltz as national security adviser.

Xi reportedly called Trump last week to congratulate him on his Nov. 5 election victory. Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Jeff Mason; Editing by Jamie Freed, Susan Heavey and Jonathan Oatis)
Li Ziqi resumed posting online on Tuesday with a new video featuring how she transformed a shed into a woodland cloakroom. [Screen grab of Li Ziqi's Sina Weibo post]



Li Ziqi, one of China's most popular influencers, made a surprising comeback on Tuesday afternoon after a three-year hiatus, capturing widespread attention from home and abroad.

Li resumed posting online with two new videos showing how she transformed a shed into a woodland cloakroom and made wardrobe doors using Chinese lacquerware techniques  an intangible cultural heritage  on several Chinese social media platforms, including Sina Weibo and Douyin.

Her return quickly became a top trending topic on various platforms. As of 10 am Wednesday, her lacquerware video had garnered 120 million views on Sina Weibo and more than 1.94 million interactions, including shares, comments and likes.

The last time she posted new content was July 14, 2021, but during her absence, she continued to receive requests for new videos and saw the number of her followers increase. Many wondered where she was or whether she had retired from posting.

After her new videos were posted, the number of her followers quickly shot up to more than 26.77 million on Sina Weibo and 50.51 million on Douyin by noon on Wednesday. Many people have flooded her comment sections with messages of support, saying it was such a surprise to see her posting updates again. She replied saying she also missed her viewers and followers.

"There is no time for me to write a small essay today. I will make it up to you when I am not that busy. Miss you!" she wrote.

Li, who is also a popular influencer on overseas social media platforms, also uploaded the two videos on YouTube on Tuesday. In 2020, she set a Guinness World Record for having the most subscribers on a Chinese-language YouTube channel, with 11.4 million followers at the time. Currently, her YouTube account has more than 20 million followers.

Li Ziqi resumed posting online on Tuesday with a new video featuring how she made wardrobe doors using Chinese lacquerware techniques. [Screen grab of Li Ziqi's Sina Weibo post]



Li's overseas followers have praised her videos for showing the amazingly picturesque, simple and elegant side of China's rural life.

"Li Ziqi posting two new videos after three long, hard years is the equivalent of the sun breaking through and warming a frigid desolate frozen wasteland. And I feel like I'm being enveloped in a warm comforting hug," one enthusiastic viewer wrote via social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Li started posting short videos on Sina Weibo in 2016, featuring poetic portrayals of rural life with her grandmother in the rural parts of Sichuan province. In the videos, Li, often dressed in graceful traditional garments, rises at sunrise, rests at sunset, plants seeds and harvests flowers, cooks Chinese dishes and crafts bamboo furniture.

Her return follows a legal dispute with her former multi-channel network partner company, Weinian Brand Management Company.

Although the dispute was resolved in December 2022, she didn't resume video production until Tuesday.

In an interview with Xinhua published on Wednesday, Li said she mainly relaxed and spent time with her grandmother over the past three years.

She also visited more than 100 intangible cultural heritage inheritors in 20 provinces to get inspiration for new videos in the future, she said.
President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet is starting to take shape, and one of its members has a connection to Massachusetts.

On Monday, Trump named Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., to be the next ambassador to the United Nations.

Stefanik was first elected to House in 2014, at the time making her the youngest woman elected to Congress. She is chair of the House Republican Conference, making her the fourth-ranking House Republican. Before her political career, she was a college student here in Massachusetts.

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I am honored to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter, Trump said in a statement to USA TODAY.

Trump's nomination of Stefanik was the first in a slew of picks for his administration Monday. He also tapped former Rep. Lee Zeldin as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Stephen Miller was named deputy chief of staff for policy.

Former President Donald Trump and U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, campaign in Concord, N.H., on Jan. 19, 2024.

Who is Elise Stefanik?

Elise Stefanik is a U.S. representative for New York's 21st congressional district. She was first elected to the role in 2014.

Stefanik was reportedly considered for President-elect Donald Trump's running mate. She became a close Trump ally after defending him during 2019 House impeachment hearings.

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In July, she spoke in support of Trump's campaign during a speech at the Republican National Convention.

Before running for Congress, Stefanik worked for President George W. Bush as a staff member on the U.S. Domestic Policy Council.

Rep. Elise Stefanik went to Harvard

Before being elected to Congress, Rep. Elise Stefanik went to college in Cambridge. She graduated with a degree in government from Harvard University in 2006.

While at Harvard, Stefanik was given an honorable mention for the Women's Leadership Award, according to the Harvard Gazette.

She also ran a weekly study group for Ted Sorensen, President John F. Kennedys former speechwriter at the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics.

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That to me was just an amazing experience. After that, I was hooked, she said in a 2016 article for The Harvard Gazette.

Stefanik was elected vice president of the IOP in 2004, according to an article in the Harvard Crimson. Stefanik later joined the IOP's Senior Advisory Committee, but was removed from the position in 2021 due to allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Most recently, Stefanik made headlines for her questioning of several university presidents, including former Harvard President Claudine Gay, during a Congressional hearing about antisemitism on college campuses.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Who is Elise Stefanik? Trump's UN ambassador cabinet pick has MA ties
Amid rising costs, Saudi Arabia is scaling back Neom plans to focus on sports venues.

Neom's plans include a stadium for the 2034 World Cup and a winter sports resort.

The new city faces financial challenges, leadership changes, and scrutiny over human rights issues.

Saudi Arabia is changing plans for mega-city Neom to cut costs and prioritize building for international sporting events.

The Middle Eastern country will focus on completing a 1.5-mile stretch of development, including a stadium expected to host soccer's 2034 World Cup, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the project.

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Plans for Neom were changed in September and October to integrate the World Cup stadium, a source told the news outlet. Another priority is completing a mountain resort slated to host the Asian Winter Games in 2029.

The report comes two days after Neom said, without giving a reason, that its longtime CEO abruptly left the project.

Reuters reported that Neom officials close to the ex-CEO might also leave the company soon.

Earlier this month, Neom hosted a professional triathlon and men's 33 basketball.

Neom did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Neom has hosted a professional triathlon for the last three years. Francois Nel/Getty Images for NEOM Beach Games 2023

Scaling back a big vision

The $500 billion mega-project was slated to house 9 million people  about the same population as New York City. It includes several regions, including The Line , a proposed 106-mile horizontal structure clad in mirrors.

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Neom was planned to accommodate some 1.5 million people by 2030, but that number is thought to have been scaled back considerably as costs for the project have ballooned. Estimates for Neom have swelled to as much as $1.5 trillion.

The city is a key part of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 project that aims to diversify the kingdom's economy away from oil by launching new industries and attracting more tourists.

The megacity has faced a series of issues since its inception, including financial problems and construction delays. Last month, a Neom official said that Saudi Arabia is using one-fifth of all the steel produced in the world, a statement Business Insider could not independently verify.

Governments and human rights groups have also scrutinized alleged human rights abuses, including of migrant workers building Neom. In July, Saudi Arabia rejected allegations that three men were sentenced to death because they criticized evictions to make way for the Neom project. It said that the men were connected to two terrorist organizations.

Read the original article on Business Insider
U.S. Senate Republicans chose South Dakota Sen. John Thune to succeed Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader.

Thune was selected after two rounds of a secret ballot election that took place behind closed doors Wednesday morning, where both incumbent and newly-elected senators cast their votes.

McConnell said in a press release that Thune's election "is a clear endorsement of a consummate leader."

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"The confidence our colleagues have placed in Johns legislative experience and political skill is well deserved," McConnell said. The American people elected Republicans to restore stability and order after four years of Washington Democrats failure. John Thune will take the reins with a tremendous opportunity to lead this transformation, and Senate Republicans stand behind him, ready to get to work.

Thune is currently the Republican whip and was first elected to the Senate in 2004. While he initially endorsed South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, he later endorsed President-elect Donald Trump and has worked on repairing his relationship with Trump.

The other candidates who ran were Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who has also served as whip, and Florida Sen. Rick Scott. While Cornyn has a longstanding relationship with McConnell, Scott is a longtime McConnell critic who was backed by some of Trump's allies, including Elon Musk and some senators who are close to Trump.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul announced his support for Rick Scott on X, formerly known as Twitter, a few days before the Wednesday election.

I will be supporting Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader.



The status quo of $2 Trillion annual deficits is unsustainable. @realDonaldTrump @elonmusk @TuckerCarlson @BasedMikeLee  Rand Paul (@RandPaul) November 9, 2024

McConnell announced earlier this year that he would step down from his leadership position, but he will remain in office and serve out his term that ends in January 2027. His decision ended his run as the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history. He had served as Republican leader since 2007.

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Moving forward, McConnell has said multiple times that he will focus on pushing back against isolationism. McConnell, who is 82 years old, is also the longest-serving senator and has not said whether he plans to seek reelection to the Senate.

This story has been updated with a statement from McConnell.

Reach reporter Hannah Pinski at @hpinski@courier-journal.com or follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @hannahpinski.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Mitch McConnell reacts to election of next Senate majority leader
A truck delivers corn to the Tharaldson Ethanol plant near Casselton, North Dakota, on May 15, 2024. (Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor)

The North Dakota Public Service Commission will meet Friday to vote on the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline project that aims to permanently store carbon emissions underground west of Bismarck.

The commission will meet at 10 a.m. in the Pioneer Room on the ground floor in the Judicial Wing of the Capitol Building.

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The PSC denied Summit a permit in 2023, but the company made changes to its route in North Dakota and appealed the decision.

The three-person commission has held multiple public hearings on the $8 billion pipeline network that would gather carbon emissions from ethanol plants in five states, including Tharaldson Ethanol at Casselton, North Dakota.

Supporters view the project as vital to helping the ethanol industry compete in low-carbon fuel markets. Ethanol is a key market for corn growers.

Opponents cite safety concerns, damage to farmland and property values and an infringement on property rights. Some landowners also have complained about Summits business practices.

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Iowa has granted Summit a permit, and the company says it plans to try again for a permit in South Dakota. Minnesotas Public Utilities Commission is expected to vote Dec. 12 on a 28-mile segment near the North Dakota state line.

The project also includes Nebraska, which has no state agency in charge of issuing permits for CO2 pipelines.

Summit would benefit from federal tax credits of $85 per ton of CO2 that it plans to put underground in North Dakota, and would sequester 18 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Iowa-based Summit will need a separate storage permit from the North Dakota Industrial Commission.
A man employed by the U.S. government abroad was charged with leaking what appears to be Israels plans to retaliate against Iran, according to sources familiar with the matter and charging documents unsealed Wednesday.

Asif William Rahman is charged with willful transmission of national defense information, according to a court documents.

The documents are vague about what exactly he allegedly shared, but sources have confirmed that the charges are related to the leak reported widely last month -- although its not immediately clear whether Rahman is believed to be the primary source of the leak.

PHOTO: The U.S. Department of Justice seal is seen on a podium, Aug. 5, 2021, in Washington. (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

MORE: Purported leaked US intelligence docs appear to show Israel's plans for attack on Iran

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On Tuesday, Rahman was arrested in Cambodia and brought to Guam, according to the charging documents.

In October, documents purporting to be Israels retaliation plans were leaked on the internet, possibly exposing plans for the American ally  a deep breach of national security.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in October that they are taking the situation very seriously.

The New York Times was first to report on Rahmans arrest.

US government employee charged with leaking apparent Israeli plans to retaliate against Iran originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
You are here: China

Chinese police have stepped up efforts to patrol public areas and deal with social conflicts and disputes, in a bid to prevent the occurrence of extreme cases.

The Ministry of Public Security held a meeting on Wednesday, urging efforts to prevent relevant cases at the source.

The call came after a serious car ramming incident killed dozens in the city of Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, on Monday.

The ministry required swift investigation of the case to find out the facts, comprehensive collection of evidence, and severe punishment for the criminal in accordance with law.

It also asked the police authorities to work with other relevant departments to ensure the proper treatment of the injured and appropriate handling of follow-up affairs.

The ministry called for efforts to further enhance patrols and monitoring of densely populated areas and other key locations to effectively deter potential crimes and deal with violations.
TOKYO, Nov 14 (News On Japan) - Rakuten Group reported an operating profit of 500 million yen for the quarter from July to September, marking a sharp turnaround from last years 54.4 billion yen loss and achieving its first quarterly profit in nearly four years.

The robust growth in its e-commerce and financial services businesses offset the losses in the mobile division, where heavy infrastructure investments continue.

Rakutens President Mikitani expressed confidence in bringing the mobile business to profitability in the not-too-distant future.

Additionally, on November 13th, Rakuten announced that its subsidiary Rakuten Card had entered a capital and business alliance with Mizuho Financial Group. A joint press conference is scheduled for November 14th to outline specific future initiatives.

Source: ANN
YAMAGATA, Nov 15 (News On Japan) - Zaos iconic snow monsters, the frost-covered trees known as 'juhyo,' face an existential threat. These towering, snow-laden trees have long been a winter highlight in the region, famously resembling monstrous figures covered in snow. However, their survival is now under severe threat.

A specialist in juhyo, Yamagata University Professor Emeritus Fumitaka Yanagisawa, warns of the impending risk: "If things continue this way, the snow monsters will eventually cease to form."

Comparing the same period in 2012 and 2023, recent juhyo formations appear noticeably thinner. Contrary to what one might expect, the cause is not a lack of snowfall.

Yanagisawa explains, "What were seeing is a complete die-off. When the leaves disappear, only the branches are left. Then, as the branches snap off, all that remains is the trunk."

The branches, essential for collecting and retaining snow, have been dying off, rendering them incapable of forming juhyo.

Photographs comparing the same trees from 13 years ago reveal that many of the branches have vanished, leaving only the tree trunks. The culprit behind the die-off appears to be a pest infestation, influenced by climate change.

Yanagisawa notes, "With rising temperatures, insects find it easier to survive and reproduce, likely contributing to what were seeing now."

As global warming allows pest populations to thrive, the trees that form juhyo are more vulnerable than ever. Still, Yanagisawa believes that there may be solutions to revive these snow monsters, such as replanting young trees on the mountainside and cultivating seeds to encourage future growth.

Source: ANN
Nov 14 (News On Japan) - The number of single-person households in Japan is expected to surpass 40% by 2050, according to recent projections.

The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, based on the 2020 national census, estimates that the percentage of single-person households, which stood at 38% in 2020, will increase to 44.3% by 2050.

In the Kansai region, Osaka Prefecture has the highest proportion at 47.4%. Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura emphasized the need for measures to address the rising number of elderly living alone in the future.

Osaka Prefecture Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura: The increasing social security costs are naturally connected to the growing burden on the working generation and younger people. We need to have discussions at the national level about what kind of social security system will be in place for future generations.
Yahaya Bello

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri, Abuja

 .as court shifts trial to Nov. 27, orders service of fresh hearing notice

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has released on bail two persons who were listed as defendants in the fresh 16-count charge it filed against the immediate past Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello.

The Commission, which confirmed the development when the case came up before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, at Maitama, on Thursday, however, decried its inability to serve a copy of the charge on the former governor.

When the matter was called up, neither ex-Gov Bello nor any of his lawyers were in court.

EFCC lawyer, Mr. Jamiu Agoro, told the court that Bellos co-defendantsUmar Oricha and Abdulsalami Huduwere released from detention, pending their proposed arraignment.

He said the anti-graft agency had, on October 18, complied with an order the court made after it issued a public summons for the 1st defendant (Bello) to appear before it to enter his plea to the charge.

Agoro noted that the public summons on Bello, which has a 30-day lifespan, was still extant and would expire by November 17.

In that wise, we feel it will not be appropriate to take proceedings in this matter while the 30 days is still running, he submitted.

He, therefore, applied for an adjournment to enable the ex-governor to honour the summons.

If after the 30 days he is still not before the court, we will make the necessary applications.

Meanwhile, in view of the situation, we apply for an extension of time within which the 1st defendant ought to appear before this court to honour the summons.

We also apply for the court to order that a hearing notice be pasted at the last known address of the 1st defendant, which is No. 9 Benghazi Street, Wuse Zone 5, Abuja, EFCCs lawyer added.

On their part, counsel to the 2nd and 3rd defendants, Mr. Aliyu Saiki, SAN, and Z. E. Abbas, respectively, while confirming that their clients have been granted administrative bail by the EFCC, said they were not opposed to the application for the case to be adjourned till a later date.

My Lord, I want to confirm that my client has been released on bail. We are thankful to the prosecution for this gesture, but we only hope and pray that they will be allowed to continue to enjoy the administrative bail, Saiki, SAN, added.

After she had listened to all the parties, trial Justice Maryann Anenih adjourned the matter till November 27.

Justice Anenih ordered that a fresh hearing notice should be served on ex-governor Bello by pasting same at his Abuja residence and at a conspicuous place within the court premises.

It will be recalled that Bello was charged alongside his co-defendants over their alleged complicity in a N110.4 billion fraud.

The charge against the defendants, marked CR/7781, bordered on conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, and possession of unlawfully obtained property.

Specifically, the EFCC alleged that the former governor misused state funds to acquire properties, including No. 35 Danube Street, Maitama District, Abuja (N950 million), No. 1160 Cadastral Zone C03, Gwarimpa II District, Abuja (N100 million), and No. 2 Justice Chukwudifu Oputa Street, Asokoro, Abuja (N920 million).

Other properties the defendants allegedly acquired with funds stolen from the Kogi state treasury included Block D Manzini Street, Wuse Zone 4, Abuja (N170 million), Hotel Apartment Community: Burj Khalifa, Dubai (Five Million, Six Hundred and Ninety-Eight Thousand, Eight Hundred and Eighty-Eight Dirhams), Block 18, Gwelo Street, Wuse Zone 4, Abuja (N60 million), and No. 9 Benghazi Street, Wuse Zone 4, Abuja (N310.4 million).

More so, the defendants were accused of transferring $570,330 and $556,265 to TD Bank, USA, and possessing unlawfully obtained property, including N677.8 million from Bespoque Business Solution Limited.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved $415 million to support Moroccos efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change on its economic growth.

Morocco continues to make progress in bolstering its resilience against climate change and seizing the opportunities from decarbonization, under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), said the Fund in a press release.

The significant investments made by Morocco in water infrastructure to address water scarcity need to be complemented by management reforms, said the IMF, stressing the need to continue progress toward liberalizing the electricity markets in order to boost private sector participation in renewable energies

This will not only help Morocco achieve its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) targets but would also reduce its reliance on imported fuels, improve firms competitiveness, and help create jobs, said the IMF, affirming that Morocco remains committed to green transition.
Moroccos booming EV battery industry positions the country to become an export hub to the EU and the US by 2030, said a report commissioned by the UK government under its Manufacturing Africa program.

Morocco could competitively produce and export LFP batteries to Europe by 2030 at USD 68-72/kWh. This could generate USD 10-15 billion annually and create 22,000-25,000 jobs, rivaling global manufacturers like China, Indonesia, Europe, and the US, said the report dubbed Africas Competitiveness in Global Battery Supply Chains.

The report, presented by foreign secretary David Lammy, highlights the attractive investment climate in Morocco to global EV battery makers thanks to its expanding automotive industry and availability of raw minerals and refining industry of lithium, cobalt, phosphorus, and copper.

Morocco will also be home to Africas first gigafactory thanks to the countrys cathode production capacity, the report said.

The FTA with the US and proximity to Europe have also increased the attractiveness of Morocco to foreign investors in the EV battery industry.

In Africa, only Morocco would produce cathode materials (i.e., cathode) required for battery manufacturing by 2030, thus any plant would need to either import from Morocco (only cathodes) or from other active materials-producing countries (e.g., China), it said.

Stable political economy, geographical proximity, duty-free exports to the EU/US and raw material reserves position Morocco as a hub for battery manufacturing in Africa, the report adds, citing multiple Chinese investments.

Morocco, with its automotive manufacturing industry, is a prime location for manufacturing, it said.

Despite higher production costs compared to China, Morocco and Tanzania would remain more competitive than the US, Europe, and Indonesia, the report said.

In June, Gotion High Tech said it was building a $1.3 billion gigafactory in Morocco, with production planned in 2026.

The plant will be located in Kenitra and will start with a capacity of 20 gigawatts per hour and eventual capacity of 120 gwh.

In May, Chinese auto battery manufacturers Hailiang and Shinzoom announced two separate plans to produce copper and anodes respectively for a combined total nearing 1 billion dollars in Tanger Tech.

In April, BTR New Material Group signed a deal with the Moroccan government to set up a cathodes plant, critical to EV battery manufacturing.

In September last year, CNGR Advanced Materials partnered with Moroccan private investment fund Al Mada to build an electric vehicle battery plant in Jorf Lasfar worth 2 billion dollars.
Nigers military junta has invited Russian firms to invest in the countrys uranium and other natural resource production after French nuclear group Orano halted uranium output there last month, part of an ongoing dispute between Niamey and its former colonial master, France.

We have already met with Russian companies that are interested in coming to explore and exploit Nigers natural resources not only uranium, Nigers minister of mines, Usman Abarchi, said. It comes as Nigers junta-led government is disputing Oranos decision to halt uranium production on 31 October, owing to what the French nuclear firm described as highly deteriorated situation and increasingly difficult operating conditions under military junta in the country and financial issues. Orano, which holds a majority stake in Somair, the last site that the French group was still operating in the country prior to 31 October, had earlier lamented the withdrawal by the junta in June of a permit for one of the largest uranium deposits in the world, Imouraren.

Nigers junta, which seized power in a July 2023 coup, had previously made clear it would revamp rules regulating the mining of raw materials by foreign companies. Nigerian authorities are unlikely to allow French companies to continue mining uranium on their territory owing to the fact that Paris has not recognized the new leadership of the state, according to Usman Abarchi. The French state, through its head, stated that it does not recognize the current authorities of Niger. More than a year has passed, this has not changed. Do you think it is possible for us  to allow French companies to continue mining our natural resources?, Abarchi said.
Cote dIvoire will set up a $500 million green financing fund to support sustainable growth initiatives and enhance climate action, the IMF said.

This new facility will be part of the African Green Banks Initiative, aiming to create a $1.5 billion ecosystem of green investment facilities across the continent by 2030.

The facility will be capitalized by public sources such as the Ivorian government, the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility, multilateral development banks, development finance institutions, and potential private sources.

Africa has been disproportionately affected by climate change, exacerbating droughts, floods, and cyclones across the continent in recent years. African countries contribute by only 1% to global warming.

The objectives set out in Cote dIvoires Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) would require an estimated $22 billion by 2030.

In March, the IMFs board approved a $1.3 billion, 30-month loan agreement for Cote dIvoire under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility.
Ryanair will connect the city of Dakhla in the Moroccan Sahara to Spanish Capital Madrid, and Lanzarote in the Canary Island.

The direct route will be opened in January 2025, under an agreement between the low-cost airline and Moroccos tourism promotion office ONMT.

Nestled along the sun-kissed Atlantic coastline, this enchanting city has swiftly risen to fame among tourists, thanks to its pristine beaches that offer perfect waves for surfing enthusiasts.

The allure of its mild, laid-back lifestyle further enhances its charm, inviting visitors to unwind and soak in the serene ambiance. With its vibrant surf culture and welcoming community, the city has become a haven for those seeking both adventure and tranquility, making it a must-visit destination for travelers from around the globe.

Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson said these two routes are expected to boost tourist flows into the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab region, expressing hope that these flights will serve as a prelude to more direct flights to Dakhla

He also noted that Ryanair has made significant investments since 2006, emphasizing close cooperation with Moroccan authorities to improve air connectivity in Morocco.

These new air routes will double the current international capacity of the Dakhla airport.

The agreement between ONMT and Ryanair also provides for the launch of new air routes connecting major European cities to Dakhla airport, thus facilitating access for European tourists to this attractive destination and contributing to its development.
A Sudanese delegation, led by Minister of Energy and Oil, Mohi-Eddin Naeem Mohamed Saeed, is currently paying a several-day visit to Moscow to discuss with Russian officials key areas of cooperation such as oil exploration and production, pipeline infrastructure, and the operations of oil companies.

This visit, started on Wednesday, is part of Sudans ongoing efforts to strengthen bilateral ties with Russia, particularly in the energy sector.

One of the highlights of the visit will be a meeting with Russias Minister of Energy, Sergey Tsivlev, scheduled for Friday November 15. The two ministers will explore potential areas for cooperation and discuss strategies for expanding energy partnerships between the two nations.

The Sudanese delegation is expected to meet with representatives from some of Russias leading oil and gas companies. These discussions will focus on leveraging Russias expertise in oil exploration, production technologies, and infrastructure development, with the aim of advancing Sudans energy sector and boosting its oil output.

This visit underscores Sudans commitment to enhancing its relationship with Russia, aiming to foster mutually beneficial collaborations in the energy industry.

Sudan is looking to capitalize on global expertise to improve its energy infrastructure, and this trip marks a significant step in further developing strategic partnerships with the international oil and gas community.
The appeal trial of former Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz opened Wednesday in Nouakchott. He is accused of abusing his power to amass a huge fortune.

The former Head of State, who ruled this largely desert country of 4.5 million people from 2008 to 2019, was sentenced at first instance to 5 years in prison for illicit enrichment in December 2023. His lawyers had appealed the decision.

He is appearing alongside a dozen senior officials and relatives, including two former Prime ministers and two former ministers and directors of large companies, for illicit enrichment, abuse of office, influence peddling or money laundering.

In detention since the start of his trial at first instance in January 2023, the former President appeared in good health at the hearing.

The appeal trial opened under high security surveillance. Supporters of the former Mauritanian Head of State, who tried to approach the courthouse, were kept away by the police.

At the time of his indictment in March 2021, investigators estimated that Ould Abdel Aziz, the son of a merchant, had accumulated assets and capital in more than ten years as Head of State at 67 million.

He is one of the few former African leaders convicted of illicit enrichment while in power.

He had been excluded from the June 29 presidential election, won by his successor Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, one of his most loyal companions in the past, due to a lack of necessary sponsorships.
Libya and Chad have formalized this week a Memorandum of understanding to regulate the movement and employment of Chadian workers in Libya.

The MoU represents a key step in improving labor relations and legal frameworks for workforce movement between the two countries.

According to the media office of Libyas Ministry of Labor, the MoU is designed to enhance joint cooperation in managing labor movement and ensuring organized, lawful employment practices. It covers protection for both workers and employers, when it comes to addressing labor rights, establishes fair employment conditions, and supports legal compliance across sectors.

Libyas Minister of Labor and Rehabilitation, Ali Al-Abed, one of the signatories of the MoU, highlighted the importance of this collaboration with Chad, emphasizing that the agreement aligns with Libyas commitment to reinforcing bilateral relations and creating a more structured environment for foreign labor in Libya.

Chads Minister of Public Service and Social Dialogue, Abdallah Amidou Mbabi, on his part expressed his appreciation to the Libyan government for advancing this agreement, noting that it will play a significant role in protecting Chadian workers rights and encouraging lawful employment practices. He also underscored the deep-rooted ties between Chad and Libya in labor cooperation, stating that this MoU strengthens an already solid foundation for mutual support and coordination.

This MoU follows Chads recent request for the resumption of flights with Libya and improved management of operations at their shared border. These developments reflect both nations efforts to streamline cross-border labor movement and trade, which could foster economic growth and employment opportunities in both countries.
Is this what John Thune bargained for? Photo: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

When Republican members of the Senate gathered in Washington this week to name their leadership to run the chamber next year, there were some preliminary rumblings about the need to get rid of establishment types and hire some fiery MAGA figures. The prime candidate was Florida senator Rick Scott, who challenged front-runners John Thune and John Cornyn for the position being vacated by longtime Trump frenemy Mitch McConnell.

When the voting began on Wednesday morning, it became quickly apparent that the Scott insurgency, backed by a constellation of online MAGA stars including Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson, didnt have the juice to win. In the first round of voting, Scott finished third with 13 votes behind Thune with 23 and Cornyn with 15. Then in the second round, Thune won the gig by a 29-23 vote. He may want to demand a recount.

Even as Thune was winning his leadership election, the president-elect was naming an increasingly alarming list of unqualified and/or extremist nominees for Senate-confirmed positions. The first big howler was Fox News personality Pete Hegseth for secretary of Defense. Then came the proposed director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat and fierce opponent of the bipartisan national-security establishment. But the piece de resistance was Trumps announcement of Florida representative Matt Gaetz, the man who personally defenestrated Kevin McCarthy as House speaker, to become Americas chief law-enforcement officer as attorney general. Aside from his reputation as a bomb-thrower in the House, Gaetz was for a good while under investigation by the same Justice Department (and more recently by the House Committee on Ethics) for possible sex-trafficking charges, as ABC News observed in announcing this startling nomination:

The investigation into Gaetz stemmed from a probe into the Florida congressmans onetime friend, former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, who was sentenced in 2022 to 11 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to multiple charges, including sex trafficking a minor and introducing the minor to other adult men.

Since the Justice Department declined to charge Gaetz following its investigation, the Florida congressman has faced an ongoing probe by the House Ethics Committee regarding the same allegations.

While Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing, he remains under a cloud, and is widely regarded as one of the baddest of the bad boys of the MAGA movement. Aside from his longstanding alliance with Trump himself (and with other ultra-MAGA types like his colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene), Gaetz is also friends with Susie Wiles, the former Trump-campaign honcho and incoming White House chief of staff.

So with the majority of Cabinet and other Senate-confirmed positions yet to be filled (and with RFK Jr. among others still impatiently waiting for their rewards), Trump is already sending a clown car of problematic nominations toward Thunes caucus. Will he bend the knee out of gratitude for the president-elects decision not to displace him in favor of Scott? Will he pick one or two of the worst nominees to block and hope the boss will be satisfied with half a loaf of crazy? Or will he stand up for the independence of the Senate against a newly elected chief executive who has dominated his party like a medieval warlord? This last possibility seems unlikely.

In this febrile atmosphere, theres even a rumor circulating that Trump has a scheme for bypassing the Senate altogether:

Hope it's wrong, but I'm hearing through the grapevine about this bonkers plan: Trump would adjourn both Houses of Congress under Article II, section 3, and then recess-appoint his Cabinet.  Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) November 13, 2024

As unlikely as it seems, this scenario would help explain why Trump suddenly started demanding recess appointment powers from majority leader aspirants over the weekend.

In any event, this probably isnt what Thune bargained for during his long-planned rise to the top position in the Senate. He may now have to hope that his new powers dont turn out to be roadkill on Trumps race toward the day-one dictatorship the once and future president once jokingly promised.

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Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

In the week since his second presidential election, Donald Trump has rewarded those who have been loyal to him with promises of top positions in his second administration, a dynamic that reached a new level on Wednesday when the president-elect announced that Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz would be his nominee for Attorney General.

Most candidates to lead the Justice Department spend years practicing law or serving as a federal prosecutor or federal judge before their appointment. But Gaetz, 42, was a practicing lawyer for just two years before becoming a lawmaker. More unprecedented than that, however, is the ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz. In June, the committee confirmed that it is still investigating allegations that Gaetz 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. Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing in that probe. He also denied wrongdoing related to the Justice Department inquiry into allegations that he trafficked a minor across state lines, a probe that concluded in 2022 without any charges against him  in part because of credibility issues with two core witnesses.

In his announcement, Trump vowed that his nominee will help secure his second-term agenda, while thanking Gaetz for his staunch support during his first. Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department, Trump wrote on Truth Social. Matt played a key role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and exposing alarming and systemic Government Corruption and Weaponization. He is a Champion for the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

There is a question of Gaetz actually getting into Main Justice, however. Senate Republicans  already concerned with the nominations of Fox News host Pete Hegseth and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence  may not be keen to appoint a representative known for being extremely disliked among his colleagues. Hes got his work cut out for him, Republican senator Thom Tillis told reporters.
The Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House awaits Hulk Hogans arrival. Photo: Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

The week after his historic win, the Donald Trump presidency began taking shape with a series of Cabinet and other high-level announcements, and the media, which has chronicled his every troll, tweet, and leak  not to mention substantive policy decisions  for a decade, looked on with trepidation. Four years ago, everyone was saying, Im never going to do this again, says one veteran political reporter. Everyone got fat and wrinkles and gray hair and no one saw their kids. Everyone was like, never again, particularly after January 6.

Yesterday morning, Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett posted what looked like an official announcement from the Trump-Vance transition team announcing Tucker Carlson as White House press secretary. She promptly deleted it; turns out it was fake news. But it wasnt so hard to believe. Trump a day earlier had picked Pete Hegseth, the square-jawed Fox News host and self-certified anti-woke crusader, to run the Pentagon.

In fact, Trump has yet to name a press secretary, the most public-facing role in the shop. The press secretary typically holds a daily briefing with the White House press corps, though that practice became not so daily in Trumps first term, when his press secretaries went weeks and then months without taking questions from reporters. (It came back on a regular basis under President Biden, even if the big guy himself was a bit averse to meeting the press.) Trump in his first administration went through four press secretaries: Sean Spicer (now a podcaster), Sarah Huckabee Sanders (now the governor of Arkansas), Stephanie Grisham (now a frequent anti-Trump voice on TV panels and beyond  she spoke at the DNC), and Kayleigh McEnany (now a Fox News co-host).

In the previous four years, he often benefited from press secretaries who had a good working relationship with the press and knew how to manage a story, one reporter on the Trump beat said, noting his coverage was probably slightly better when Sanders was behind the podium, even though she acknowledged misleading the press and broke and rebroke the record for not briefing them throughout her nearly two years in the job (until Grisham, who in her six months in the job held zero briefings). But behind the scenes, the reporter noted, Sanders could be helpful.

Several reporters think Karoline Leavitt, who served as the campaigns national press secretary and now serves as transition spokeswoman, is the current front-runner. The 27-year-old, who served as an assistant press secretary and presidential writer during the first Trump administration, was described as sharp, aggressive, and  as is important to Trump  telegenic, sparring with CNN and, more recently, previewing Trumps day one on Fox News. Leavitt has gone on the adversarial networks and done pretty well, and he loves that, said one Trump reporter. One thing he and his team are doing is watching all of these cable news appearances. The downside, reporters noted, is that she hasnt actually managed a ton of people before.

Other names that reporters raise for the press secretary or communications director gigs include the often-withering campaign spokesman Steven Cheung; campaign advisers Danielle Alvarez and Brian Hughes (both Florida natives, both brought in by recently appointed chief of staff Susie Wiles); Tim Murtaugh, a former 2020 Trump campaign comms director who led Trump 2024s comms in the final month before the election; and, perhaps, Scott Jennings, the Establishment-handsome political strategist who has become CNNs go-to Republican pundit. Jennings does have a background working for pre-MAGA machers like Mitch McConnell, which could ding his loyalty credentials, but I hear that members of Trumpworld have been impressed by his performances on CNN. And Trump does love TV.

Even as Trump ranted against the enemy media, often threatening them, from the rally stage, off-stage, his team was, Im told, helpful and responsive. Which gives the reporters some hope that they will be able to do their jobs. In fact, many journalists found the Trump team easier to work with  often much less nitpicky  than the Biden campaign. Depending, perhaps, whom you work for; just last week, the Trump campaign finished the election by barring multiple reporters from its watch party. They have different relationships with different news outlets. Theyve blackballed people and can be vindictive, but overall Ive found them to be professional, said one political reporter from a mainstream news organization. Part of the reason the campaign was effective was that it was run like a family business  very small, all close to Susie. But the stakes will be a lot higher once they get to the government, the reporter said, and thats when they could lose their shit. Trump staffer Alex Pfeiffer previewed what that might look like on X last week, writing, in response to a since-deleted Politico tweet, that he was looking forward to Breitbart Washington bureau chief Matthew Boyle in the front row of the WH briefing room next year and that Politicos days are numbered.

The 2024 Trump campaigns media strategy largely circumvented mainstream publications, opting instead for interviews with personalities like Joe Rogan and Adin Ross. Whether that strategy carries over, too, is a question. Are we going to see Theo Von interviewing Trump in the Oval Office instead of CNN? one reporter asked. Perhaps itll just be more of a balance between mainstream and independent outlets in this White House. Despite railing against the fake news media onstage (and even musing that he wouldnt mind if journalists got shot), Trump still cares about traditional press coverage, and he also likes having reporters as foils. I understand that his campaign has very effectively used podcasts and non-mainstream media to sell his message, the New York Times Maggie Haberman recently told CNN. But Trump is still an almost 80-year-old man who does care about legacy media and headlines he sees and cable coverage he sees. Well see how he reacts to it as he goes in because thats what happened last time.

Theres no telling how the White House could upend the traditions of the briefing room, or what authority the White House Correspondents Association  an independent organization representing the various journalists (print, digital, television, radio, etc.) who cover the White House  would have to stop it. The WHCA doesnt have control over credentials, though it does  at least for now  have authority over seating in the briefing room. It has authority through a social contract, but I dont know what the WHCA would do if Trump said were changing the seats in the briefing room, a Trump reporter noted. I think itd be a fight, but I dont know if its one the WHCA would win.

Whoever sits in the briefing room in the end, or where, there has been endless hand-wringing inside news organizations about how to approach covering another Trump White House, whether they need to do things differently this time around and, if so, how. Reporters and editors Ive spoken to have stressed the need to go deeper, prioritizing investigations over quick hits and not dropping everything to cover the latest proclamation or announcement with likely little lasting news value. Trying to sort out which are things that are legitimate and going to happen, and which are just bluster, as one political reporter described the takeaway from a recent meeting about coverage. These conversations will remain vague, though, until publications figure out who the actual reporters and editors on the team are. Politicos White House team is in flux, as is The Wall Street Journals and Washington Post, and it might take until January to see what this reassessment  if it even is one  looks like in practice. News organizations have certainly gotten better about what speeches they carry and what developments warrant a write-up. But its also the president of the United States, which has inherent news value. Even if it often feels like so much Sturm und Drang that it doesnt mean anything for long.

Covering a Trump administration just requires a pretty robust strong team that is going to be available all the time, a political reporter noted. The problem is this: Who has the money to hire? Basically everyone is laying folks off. Theres just not a lot of resources out there, said another. A handful of places will be on the hunt, and everyone else will be trying to keep their current talent from bailing.

The Washington Post seems to fall into both categories. Top Trump reporters Josh Dawsey and Ashley Parker have told people theyre unsure of their next moves and have yet to make a decision. Meanwhile, the Post is down journalists who are not traditional Trump reporters but experts on beats that will have an outsize importance in Trumps White House: intelligence and national security reporter Shane Harris joined The Atlantic in August, while Department of Justice reporter Devlin Barrett joined the Times a month after. The paper currently has open job listings for both roles.

The Times is, as with most things these days, particularly well positioned for another Trump term, with its powerhouse duo, Haberman and Jonathan Swan, signed on to cover him again and plenty of resources to go around. The broader White House team is still coming into view, and there may be openings: Veteran journalist Peter Baker declined to say whether or not hed cover this White House  everybody is in discussions right now, talking about what makes the most sense, and Im among them, he told me  and White House correspondent Michael Shear is sitting this one out, as hes taken a job at the Times London bureau. The papers Washington bureau will also have new leadership by the time Trump is in office, as bureau chief Elisabeth Bumiller told staff on a call last week that shed be stepping down from the job in January. Dick Stevenson, her No. 2, is high on the list to replace her.

While theres a ton of people  many new to the beat this cycle and not yet entirely beaten down by it  who have covered the election, those already with experience will be valuable. Which is why some journalists speculate that someone like Jennifer Jacobs  the Bloomberg reporter who got lots of access covering the first Trump administration but departed after an embargo-breaking scoop this summer  might get scooped up in the hiring frenzy. Perfect time for people to rehabilitate themselves, one mused.

Theres actually only a small group of people who covered him through 2015 to now and are sourced in that world, one veteran Trump reporter noted. For the actual sourced reporters who have an institutional memory  its not really more than a dozen people. But not all of them want to go back for another tour. Many of those reporters are exhausted and have already written their books.

The irony is, despite all of the anticipated cutbacks and financial anxiety, its hard for news outlets to resist not throwing what resources they do have into chasing the story. Just look at how many reporters are down on Palm Beach, waiting for something to happen.
Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Ever since Trump Media & Technology Group went public earlier this year, the conversation around it has mostly focused on how big of a joke it is. Truth Socials parent company barely made more than $1 million last quarter  during the election. It is the memeiest of meme stocks. Its founders and auditors have been accused of fraud. It was just a get-rich-quick scheme. But, obviously, the memestock traders got it right. The case for DJT, as its known on the stock exchange, was basically the same as buying Amazon, Uber, Google, or whatever other tech giant before it got into monopoly territory: One day, it would be too big and powerful to ignore. Now that day is upon us: Trump won the election and Republicans control Congress. These should be the exact conditions that would make Trumps social-media company thrive.

So why is Trump Media getting absolutely hosed on Wall Street?

DJT, which was briefly worth more than the New York Times Co., has lost about half its value since late October  with most of that slide coming since Election Day  falling to $27.74 a share and cutting Trumps personal fortune by more than $300 million. (He owns a majority of the equity.) Three of its insiders, including the chief financial officer, recently sold $16 million in stock. And Patrick Orlando, the former CEO, sold nearly his entire 5 percent stake. There is no single reason for the sell-off, but it looks like the company had set up the conditions for its own market walloping by flooding the market with shares and, well, just being a very risky stock when pretty much everything else on Wall Street is popping off.

Youd think the opposite would be happening. Trump has been using Truth Social to announce every cabinet appointment he intends to make, like Matt Gaetz for attorney general. Its also where he appears to be looser, more combative.

There are fake, untrue, and probably illegal rumors and/or statements made by, perhaps, market manipulators or short sellers, that I am interested in selling shares of Truth, he wrote, adding that he would investigate anyone insinuating he would sell his shares. (Trump has said he wont sell, but he would be entitled to a tax-free windfall if he sold his stake and swapped the money for Treasury bonds.) All this clearly shows that the company has some value: Its the wire service of the most powerful world leader. And perhaps thats reflected in the fact that the price has more than doubled since hitting a low of $12.15 on September 23.

On Truth Social, the question is: What happened? Some users are in disbelief that shares are just falling on their own and believe that various bad actors are behind it, such as shadowy short sellers and big institutions like billionaire Ken Griffins Citadel Securities. (Griffin and Citadel Securities were bogeymen during the 2021 memestock wildness and were wrongly blamed for shares falling. Griffin has given millions to Republicans, though not Trump directly. After Trump Medias CEO, Devin Nunes, once accused Citadel of shorting the stock, Griffin called him a proverbial loser.)

How hard is it for the SEC to make a phone call to these bad actors, or maybe stop by their office unannounced. Why is this allowed I guess?? wrote one.

Wow - DJT continuously dropping. Where are you @DevinNunes??, wrote another.

I feel pretty retarded ATMguess I thought winning the Presidency would have more of a long-term effect, not just one day in the pre-market, wrote a third.

The answer is probably more prosaic. Traders bought up DJT to make short-term gains ahead of the election, then dumped the shares when the demand started to peter out. And ever since November 5, the price of bitcoin has gone past $90,000, and broad indexes like the S&P 500 have reached new highs. There are simply not enough people out there who would want to take the risk and buy Trumps company when other things could more immediately make them money. And on a fundamental level, its a company that isnt much of a business. Truth Social is not a site many people spend time on  it sees about 200,000 on any given day. When you log on, youre likely to be bombarded with ads for ivermectin, the quack treatment for COVID, which means that it is still not bringing in high-paying advertisers.

Of course, DJT is a certified memestock, so those drawbacks dont necessarily apply. On Friday, shares rose about 3.8 percent, DJTs first up day all week, though its hard to really suss out why. The company could go up to a zillion dollars tomorrow and there wouldnt have to be a reason why.

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128 items in this article 126 items on sale! Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photos: Retailers

Cyber Monday is here. To find the best deals in every category, follow all of our Cyber Monday coverage.

While many of this years Cyber Monday mattress sales are about the same as youd see during any sales holiday, there are still some great, better-than-usual deals to be had. Layla, Nolah, and Bears sales are particularly noteworthy thanks to an extra discount just for Strategist readers. And Parachutes rarely on-sale innerspring mattress is discounted more deeply this year than Ive seen in the past. Below, Ive rounded up the best mattress deals Ive found so far; Ill also be updating this story as new ones appear, so keep checking back if theres a specific bed youre eyeing.

The deals I personally think are best The best deal right now is Parachutes Eco Comfort mattress  it only goes on sale a few times a year, which is already unusual for a mattress, and never for this low. If youre interested in a modern version of a classic innerspring mattress  a bed with no foams of any kind  nows the moment to buy. But if youre looking for something with more cushion and less bounce, Zinuss ultrabasic Original Green Tea, an all-foam mattress, is well discounted. Its a simple mattress but surprisingly comfortable for the price. Our favorite latex mattress  a category that is notoriously expensive  is also nearly 40 percent off.

Amazon Amazon has noteworthy Cyber Monday deals on several mattress brands. I found the Tuft & Needle Original mattress for cheaper than it is at Tuft & Needle. The older version of the Nectar mattress is on sale for cheaper than the new version, as is the Casper Original mattress, which is currently being phased out. The Kin by Tuft & Needle, the Casper Element, and the Sealy Dreamlife  which are all lower-priced versions of the respective brands mattresses that they sell through third-party retailers  are well discounted. Theres also a memory-foam mattress from already-affordable Sweetnight, now under $200, and a latex hybrid from Awara for 20 percent off. I even spotted deals on a few of my favorite mattress toppers from Tempur-Pedic and ViscoSoft.

Amerisleep Amerisleep sells three fairly standard mattresses, but what sets it apart is the companys Bio-Pur foam, a memory-foam alternative made from plant-based materials and significantly less petrochemicals than true polyurethane foam. The brand says Bio-Pur foam is also bouncier and more breathable than traditional memory foam. Right now it is offering $500 off any mattress with the code BF500, as well as 30 percent off adjustable bed bundles (and Amerisleep just so happens to make our favorite adjustable bed base).

Aviya The Aviya is our favorite hybrid mattress. It comes in three firmness levels (plush soft, luxury firm, and firm), making it versatile for a wide range of people. New York deputy editor Alexis Swerdloff tested the luxury-firm model and says it was both supportive and relieved the aches and pains shes been feeling from previously sleeping on a too-soft mattress. For Cyber Monday, its discounted more than usual; use the code FRIDAY250 to take $250 off any size mattress.

Avocado Avocado is offering discounts on all of its mattresses, no code needed. Most mattresses are only 10 percent off, which is Avocados go-to sale; the standout discount right now is 20 percent off the Luxury Organic mattress (the brands most expensive and luxurious option). Avocado mattresses are a bit more expensive than average because of the natural and nontoxic materials used to make them  Avocado generally uses latex foam (instead of polyfoams) as well as cotton or wool finishings.

Bear Bear is offering 40 percent off sitewide with the code STRAT40  thats an extra 5 percent off its standard deal, just for Strategist readers. Plus, they will throw in two free pillows with each mattress purchase. The brands mattresses range from the ultrabasic Bear Original to the luxe Bear Elite Hybrid, but all include the option to add a cover made from Celliant performance fabric, which is intended to promote muscle recovery.

Beautyrest This legacy mattress brand is offering discounts across the Beautyrest Black and Harmony mattress models, up to $600 off, depending which line and size you choose. And for mattress and adjustable-base bundles, the savings are up to $1,000 off.

Bedgear Bedgear sells a few different mattresses, including a modular one that you can customize to your preferences by swapping out comfort layers. You can also customize each side of the bed to have a different firmness level  ideal for those who have a partner with opposite preferences. For Cyber Week, the brand is taking up to $500 off any Bedgear Performance mattress.

Birch Use the code STRAT27 for 27 percent off at Birch, and with each mattress purchase, youll get two free Eco-Rest pillows  plush down alternatives filled with recycled PET (a.k.a. plastic bottles). Birch makes two adult mattresses, the Birch Natural and a Luxe version, as well as a childs mattress. Strategist senior writer Liza Corsillo has been sleeping on the Birch Natural for a couple years now and reports it has a solidly medium-firm feel, which works well for both her (a back-to-side combination sleeper) and her stomach-sleeper husband.

Brentwood Home Brentwood Home manufactures the majority of its products in California with a bent toward natural materials and ecofriendly processes. Its mattress discount is small  just 10 percent off all mattresses  but it is offering a hefty 60 percent off adjustable bases as well as discounts on bedding and pillows.

Brooklyn Bedding This Arizona-based mattress-maker is offering 30 percent off sitewide with the code STRAT30. In addition to nice hybrid beds like the Brooklyn Bedding Aurora Luxe and the Signature Hybrid, Brooklyn Bedding also makes the ultrafirm Plank, which is one of our favorite firm mattresses, and the Titan Plus, which offers additional support for heavier folks.

Casper Casper is offering up to 40 percent off all mattresses, so its a good time to buy a bed from its new lineup of mattresses that launched earlier this year. Strategist contributor Kiki Aranita is a big fan of the brands flagship model, the Casper One, and says it has an ideal middle-of-the-road firmness. The highest discounts are on the priciest models, the Dream Max and Snow Max.

Chilipad by sleep.me This summer I tested the Chilipad Dock Pro, a water-powered temperature-regulating system for your mattress, which I found super effective for keeping me cool. Its currently on sale for 15 percent off.

DreamCloud DreamCloud makes three mattresses  the Original, the Premier, and the Premier Rest  which are all available as either an all-foam or hybrid model (the difference is in the height and number of layers). For its Cyber Monday sale, the brand is taking up to 60 percent off all mattresses.

Eco Terra If youre shopping for a latex pillow, mattress, or mattress topper, Eco Terra is a good brand to check out. Its taking $400 off its latex mattresses and up to 40 percent off toppers.

Eight Sleep The Eight Sleep is another water-powered temperature-regulating system for your mattress. I tested it over the summer, and while spendy, its pretty effective  and much sleeker than the Chilipad Dock Pro above. Eight Sleep is offering $250 off the Pod for Cyber Monday. Its a small discount, but slightly more than what Eight Sleep normally offers.

Emma This German brand is offering up to 60 percent off mattresses for Cyber Weekend  higher than its usual sale.

Helix Helix is offering up to 27 percent off sitewide with the code STRAT27 and throwing in two free pillows with any mattress purchase, or a bedding bundle of pillows, sheets, and a mattress protector with any mattress purchase from the higher-end Luxe and Elite lines. The brands mattresses are sorted into three lines  Core, Luxe, and Elite  which each contain six mattresses ranging from ultrasoft to ultrafirm. The Core mattresses are the cheapest and most minimal; the Elite are the most expensive and extravagant (seriously, they are some of the most luxurious mattresses Ive seen).

Latex for Less This purveyor of all things latex is offering up to $600 off mattresses, as well as up to 40 percent off latex toppers.

Layla Layla is offering up to $200 off mattresses and giving you two free pillows with every purchase. Additionally, all accessories you buy along with a mattress (bedding, toppers, etc.) will be discounted by up to 76 percent. And, finally, Layla is offering an extra discount just for Strategist readers  take another $150 off the sale prices with the code STRAT150. Both of the brands mattresses are twofers because they are flippable with a soft and a firm side. Strategist writer Tembe Denton-Hurst tested the Layla Hybrid and says that both sides were supportive, but she appreciated the option to flip the mattress because she ultimately preferred the softer side. You can also get Laylas topper for $100 off.

Leesa For its early Cyber Week sale, Leesa is taking 30 percent off mattresses. Each mattress purchase will also come with two free pillows and a microfiber sheet set. Leesa sells a wide selection of mattresses, including our favorite all-foam mattress, the Leesa Original.

Molecule Molecule is offering up to 50 percent off select mattresses with the code BF2024. Weve tested the Molecule 1, which writer Karen Iorio Adelson found soft and sink-in-able. But the brand sells a fairly wide selection of beds beyond that, all targeted at sleeping cool and enhancing athletic recovery.

Naturepedic Naturepedic makes a wide selection of natural mattresses and bedding items, primarily with latex foam. Ive tested the brands mattress topper and one of its pillows, and Strategist writer Kitty Guo is currently sleeping on the Serenade Organic Hybrid mattress and finds it perfectly balanced and fully supportive of her body weight whether shes sleeping on her back or her side. Naturepedics products are expensive, but I think they are good quality. You can take 20 percent off sitewide with the code BLACKFRIDAY.

Nectar The Nectar Original is one of the most popular memory-foam mattresses on the market  its currently our top pick for memory foam. Nectar is offering at least 50 percent off the Nectar Original and the rest of its mattresses, and for any purchase totaling over $1,000, Nectar will knock an extra $100 off the price.

Nest Bedding Nest makes a solid variety of mattresses, including two kids mattresses (both of which weve tested!). Something unique that Nest offers is internal split king and California king mattresses, which allows couples to customize the firmness of each side of the mattress. But unlike traditional split kings  which are basically two twin XL mattresses pushed together  its all within the same mattress. Nest is offering up to 50 percent off mattresses, though most are discounted by about 20 percent.

Nolah Nolah sells a variety of mattresses at different price points, including hybrids, all-foam mattresses, and even a natural latex-hybrid option. Right now, the brand is taking 35 percent off sitewide. In addition to discounts on the mattresses themselves, Nolah will include two free pillows with select mattress purchases. It is also offering the option to bundle bedding and accessories with a mattress purchase for an additional discount; one of those accessories is the BedJet 3, a climate-control system that solved writer Claire Zulkeys night sweats.

Parachute Parachute  known mostly for its bedding and bath items, including some of our favorite sheets and bathrobes  makes just one mattress: the Parachute Eco. And it just so happens to be one of our favorite innerspring models. This bed is made with simple materials: steel pocketed coils, wool padding, and a cotton cover, with no foam in sight. For Cyber Monday, its 30 percent off  higher than Labor Days 25 percent off discount. This mattress is rarely on sale, so its an especially good deal. Parachutes down and down-alternative toppers  both featured in my guide to the best plush mattress toppers  are also 30 percent off, though some sizes are selling quick. [Editors note: The queen, king, and California king sizes of the down topper are now sold out. The queen size of the down-alternative topper is also sold out.]

Perfectly Snug This air-powered temperature control topper, which I recently tested for our roundup of cooling toppers, is discounted almost 20 percent for Cyber Monday.

PlushBeds The maker of our favorite latex mattress, PlushBeds, is taking up to 50 percent off all mattresses and throwing in a free bedding bundle with every mattress purchase, so youll also get two pillows, a sheet set, and a mattress protector to refresh your whole bed.

Purple Purple  the brand known for its squishy, flexible grid layer  has several mattresses on sale for Cyber Monday. Save up to $300 on the Essential collection, up to $500 on the Restore Hybrid collection, and up to $700 on the Rejuvenate Luxe collection. Senior editor Crystal Martin recently tested and reviewed the Purple Restore Premier Hybrid mattress, which we named the best hybrid mattress for combination sleepers. She says its firm but flexible, giving her the right support for sleeping in all different positions.

Saatva Saatva makes our favorite mattress overall, the Saatva Classic, and right now the brand is offering up to $600 off mattress purchases. You can also save $100 on adjustable bases and frames when purchased with a mattress. Ive tested several Saatva mattresses and found them to be really high quality  Im actually currently retesting the Saatva Classic and I continue to be impressed with it. The company also provides free white-glove delivery, meaning it will deliver your new mattress, set it up in your room of choice, and take away your old mattress, too.

Sealy Sealys current sale follows its typical holiday sales offerings: Save $450 on the Posturepedic Hybrid with the code PPHYBRID, or get 25 percent off the Posturepedic Spring mattress with the code PPSPRING. Additionally, the budget-friendly Cocoon by Sealy mattress is 35 percent off, and each purchase comes with a free bundle of pillows, sheets, and a mattress protector.

Stearns & Foster Take $200 off Stearns & Fosters Studio and Estate models, $400 off the Lux Estate and Lux Hybrid, and $600 off the Reserve. Ive tested a Lux Estate model and can confirm it is quite luxe  like what youd expect to sleep on in a high-end hotel.

Tempur-Pedic Im a big fan of Tempur-Pedics mattresses  they offer the classic hugging feel of memory foam in a way many other beds cant compete with. But they are expensive, so sales are always welcome. Use the code CLOUD30 for 30 percent off the affordable bed-in-a-box Tempur-Cloud mattress. Other models are discounted by up to $300 off  or $500 when bundled with an adjustable base. The Tempur-Cloud mattress topper is also 40 percent off with the code TOPPERS40.

Tuft & Needle Tuft & Needle is taking up to 30 percent off mattresses, as well as some bedding, pillows, and other accessories. The brand has a variety of bed-in-a-box options, including our favorite cooling mattress, the Tuft & Needle Mint.

Vaya Vaya is a small brand that makes just two mattresses  one all-foam and one hybrid. You can get either one for $300 off with the code VAYA300. The brand is also taking 15 percent off platform beds with the code BF15.

Walmart Walmart has a few noteworthy deals: I found the Sealy Cocoon mattress for cheaper than its going at Sealy, a good deal on a Serta Perfect Sleeper, and one of my favorite mattress toppers for more than 30 percent off.

West Elm I spotted the Leesa Original mattress going for a bit cheaper at West Elm than at Leesa and other third-party retailers. The latex hybrid Leesa, created in collaboration with West Elm, is also discounted by 30 percent. West Elm has some discounts on Stearns & Foster, Beautyrest, and Tempur-Pedic mattresses that match what those respective retailers are offering.

WinkBeds Take $300 off all mattresses, of any size, at WinkBeds. The WinkBed is our top pick for the all-around best mattress for back pain, in part because it comes in four firmness levels (including a Plus option for heavier folks). Its a versatile and sturdy mattress  New York features editor Katy Schneider has been sleeping on one for six years and still loves it.

Zinus Zinus makes very budget-friendly mattresses, including two of our favorite inexpensive picks. For Cyber Monday, the brand is offering up to 50 percent off select mattresses.

Zoma Zoma sells three different mattresses  one all-foam option and two hybrids. It also sells a few pillows, bedding items, and frames. For Cyber Monday, Zoma is taking 25 percent off any mattress with the code SLEEP25 and 20 percent off pillows with the code BFPILLOWS, as well as discounting mattress-and-adjustable-base bundles.

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The Strategist is designed to surface useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Every product is independently selected by our team of editors, whom you can read about here. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.
A former Chinese foreign exchange student at Auburn University has been found guilty of repeatedly stabbing a man and his wife in their Auburn home in October 2020 after an apparent 'landlord-tenant dispute," according to court testimony.

Zhuobin Wang, 21, was found guilty of capital murder in the presence of a child, capital murder of two or more persons, capital murder burglary first physical injury, capital murder presence of a child and capital murder burglary first physical injury.

Wang will remain in the Lee County Jail until his sentencing hearing, which is set for Nov. 15.

Wang killed couple after apparent 'landlord-tenant dispute'

The trial began on Monday, three years after the grand jury indicted the former Auburn student on six capital murder charges after the stabbings of a husband and wife on Oct. 22, 2020.

Wang was initially charged with two counts of capital murder and one count of attempted murder in the stabbings of Lijun Zuan and Zhengzheng Wu in The Oaks Neighborhood In Auburn of Richland Road.

Law enforcement from the Auburn Police Department and the Auburn Fire Department testified, describing to the jury what went down the night of Oct. 22, 2020.

Lijun Zuan and Zhengzheng Wus two children testified during Mondays trial, confirming that the stabbings happened while they were also home that night.

Dr. Stephen Zeiman, a neurologist who had given Wang examinations, testified during Thursdays court proceedings.

On Thursday, Dr. Zeiman testified that he examined Wang and noticed that something could be off with him.

Early on, there were observations that there was something off with him and inconsistent with the general population, Dr. Zeiman said.

Dr. Zeiman mentioned that Wang described Mr. Xuan and Mrs. Wu as evil, over conflicts that had happened during the time Wang was living with them as a student.

Dr. Zeiman said that Wang didnt think that his charges should be consistent with homicide.

He reported that he was on the side of justice, and he only acts in self-defense or protection of other people, he said. Again, this idea of being above other people, because hes aligned with the side of good. He believed his landlords were on the evil side.

After the stabbings, Wang confessed on a 911 call

Seth Eason was an AU student communications officer when he received a call from the defendant following the stabbing. The 911 call was played for the grand jury, and in the call, Wang tells Eason, He kill people.

In the call, the defendant tells Eason that he killed a mother and a father and that he put the knives he used in the garbage can. Eason asked Wang how he killed them, and he replied, I killed two.. Um, a wife and husband.

At first, Eason thought that it may have been a car accident and asked Wang again how he killed them.

How did you do it again, sir? Tell me how you did it, Im confused. What happened? Eason asked Wang. Was it a car accident?

Wang replied, No, I not accident. I killed them by myself. I mean, I just I want to kill them.

When Eason asked Wang where he stabbed the victims, Wang responded I think everywhere.

Eason then asked Wang to describe what he was wearing and told him that officers were on the way to come talk to him and that it was going to be okay. Afterward, Eason asked for Wangs name and asked him to name and spell the victims he said that he killed.

Wang gave the names Lijun Zuan and Zhengzheng Wu.

Wang was standing outside the front of the house during the phone call. Eason advised him to put his hands up so the officers could see him. He complied.

Police arrested Wang at the crime scene

Auburn Police Sgt. Scott Webster testified that he was working the night shift the night of the incident. When Webster received the call, he recalled that he was patrolling by himself around East University.

According to communications, they received a 911 call from a subject stating that he had just murdered a family, Webster said.

Webster told the court that APD officer Stephen Bass initially responded to the scene, and he arrived later as backup. Bass arrived a minute or so before Webster, so Webster pulled up behind him and they met at the back of their patrol cars.

Webster told Bass that he wanted to wait for another more seasoned officer to arrive on the scene, because at the time Bass had only a couple years of experience. Webster said he was relatively an inexperienced officer, so they waited until Lt. Downey arrived on the scene.

When Downey arrived, Webster said that he immediately grabbed his rifle from his patrol unit and started running towards the house.

As this was happening, they advised communications to tell the defendant to come outside, stand on the sidewalk and put his hands up in the air and wait for them to get there.

In the body cam footage, Webster ordered the defendant at gunpoint to lay down on the ground, to spread his legs out and then told him to place his hands behind his back, which he complied.

Children were in the home at the time of the stabbing

Webster said that the doorway was open and that he could see that a female was lying on the ground in the open doorway.

Just as I saw her and realized that Lt. Downey and Officer Bass had the situation under control, Lieutenant Downey looked at me and said, Go to the house and check on her.

When Webster checked on the woman, he testified that she was still alive and appeared to be in critical condition.

I could see what appeared to be multiple stab wounds all over her abdomen area, and I could see a large amount of blood, he said.

The wife spoke four words to Webster as he was attempting to help her, My children. My husband.

Webster didnt have a med kit, but he immediately sent someone to the vehicle to get something. He said that he then called for EMS and told them to send the medics in immediately, which they did.

Webster held his position until more help came on the scene to tend to the wife. He started searching for more potential suspects or victims in the residence along with Officer Shallot and Bass.

When they were searching, thats when Webster saw two small children and an adult standing in the open rear doorway that led into the kitchen from the backyard.

In the body cam footage, Webster immediately told Bass to get those kids out of here. Bass went out to the backyard with them.

Webster continued to walk into the kitchen and saw that Shallot found a man unresponsive on the floor behind the kitchen island. He was lying on the floor covered in blood with multiple stab wounds.

Couple suffered from more than 20 stab wounds

AFD Battalion Chief John Peeks testified that on the night of Oct. 22, 2020, dispatch reported that there was a potential assault, possibly two victims, and it was potentially some sort of penetrating injuries to the patients.

Typical protocol, we wait until PD says that theres no more active threats, at which point we proceed down to treat any patients when they find them, Peeks said.

When Peeks arrived on the scene, APD was there momentarily before them and they had already started to proceed towards the front door up a small hill.

When I first arrived and stepped foot in, I noticed a female victim laying in the threshold of the door, Peeks said. She was on her right side.

Peeks said that he started to access her and render any aid that he could at the time.

Its common for us to remove the patients clothes to get a better, you know, blood staining the clothes hides a lot of injuries, he said. ... And in doing that, I found a significant amount of these injuries all over the patient and more areas than I could count.

Peeks said he started to count, but quit counting when he got over 20 so he could start focusing on certain areas.

He testified that the most significant areas would be the chest, back, upper abdomen and neck region.

The reason for that being my concern is thats whats going to house your most vital organs, being your lungs, your heart and some major vessels, arteries and veins in the neck area, Peeks said.

Once the wife was treated, he found the husband in the kitchen area and performed a very rapid assessment on him from head to toe. Peeks remembered hearing that there were potentially two knives and they could possibly be in a trash can somewhere.

He looked down, and there was a trash can next to him. One of the police officers was right beside him, so he opened the lid and saw two knives in there covered in blood.

Peeks reached inside the trash can, pulled the knives out and evaluated their size. Under Auburn polices command, Peeks places the knives on the kitchen counter right in front of him and the officer.

Peeks testified that the male patient was very critical and since he was not stable, they decided to transport him to the closest facility, East Alabama Medical Center. The wife was stable enough to be air-transported to Piedmont Columbus Regional. They later died.

Closing statements

In her closing statement on Friday, prosecutor Jessica Venterie told the jury that she wouldnt spend much time talking about the facts of the case, because she doesnt think either side disagrees with what happened.

The disagreement that we have is whether the defendant was criminally insane or whether he was not, Venterie said.

She told the jury that they had three options: guilty, not guilty, or not guilty by mental disease or defect.

Now, like I said, the facts are not in dispute. However, we still have to prove to you, beyond the reasonable doubt, every single charge and every element of the other charge.

Defense attorney Andrew Stanley said that the stabbings seemingly started over a landlord-tenant dispute.

Of all the lawyers in here, Im the one that probably has more experience in landlord-tenant matters than anyone, Stanley said. ... Nothing, no dispute ever results in what happened.

Stanley argued that Wang may have a delusional disorder, supported by an underlying, undiagnosed schizophrenic.

He tells the jury how Wang complied with law enforcement and didnt fight or run.

He doesnt do any of the normal things that you would see someone who has committed a crime of this nature, Stanley said.

Stanley said he probably handled more murder cases than any defense lawyer in Lee County over the past decade.

I have had clients that have tried to minimize conduct... Tried to assert some form of self-defense, he said. I have had clients that have done all kinds of things. Blame it on somebody else, it was an accident each in their own individual way.

Stanley told the jury that he had never been in a scenario where a client did what Wang did that night.

I have never done the scenario that a client just checks all the boxes of call 911, admission, stays at the scene, tells the police where the murder weapon is, comes in, gives a statement, and almost immediately without any probing or prompting by law enforcement, just says it all, Stanley said.

In the rebuttal, Ventiere brought up the decisions Wang made about not killing the children.

If there is anything that shows that you understand the impact of your actions and the wrongfulness of it, it is the fact that he decided to waive the lives of the children in his decision, Ventiere said. It is worth nobodys blood but his own He knew if he killed the children nobody would forgive him for that. That is the definition of understanding what youre doing, the consequences of it and the wrongfulness of it.

Ventiere said on the outside looking in, it seems like a man who got mad and cant regulate his emotions very well, which is not a severe mental disease or defect but that he has anger issues.
Crude oil prices moved higher today after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported an inventory build of 2.1 million barrels for the week to November 8. In fuels, however, inventories fell.

At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $72.75 per barrel, with WTI at $68.89 per barrel, both up from opening.

The crude oil inventory change compared with a build of the same size for the previous week, which pressured oil prices at the time.

A day earlier, the American Petroleum Institute had reported an unexpected but modest draw in crude oil inventories, at 777,000 barrels, for the week to November 8. The API also estimated a draw in gasoline inventories and a build in middle distillates.

Gasoline inventories, however, shed 4.4 million barrels in the week to November 8, with production averaging 10.3 million barrels daily.

This compared with an inventory increase of a modest 400,000 barrels for the previous week, when production stood at an average 9.7 million barrels daily.

In middle distillates, the authority estimated an inventory fall of 1.4 million barrels for the week to November 8, with production averaging 5 million barrels daily.

This compared with a build of 2.9 million barrels for the previous week, and output at 5.1 million bpd.

Prices, meanwhile, rose on Wednesday but today reversed their gains under the weight of lower demand expectations coupled with ample supply indications. Both OPEC and IEA signaled they expected a well supplied market this year and next.

Oil is tackling the (earlier) weaker demand forecast narrative by OPEC, who deferred rolling back additional production for yet another month, fearing the adverse effect on prices, Priyanka Sachdeva from Phillip Nova told Reuters.

OPEC revised down its oil demand forecast for this year, to 1.82 million barrels daily from 1.93 million barrels daily in the previous edition of the Monthly Oil Market Report. Total world oil demand is anticipated to reach 104.0 million bpd in 2024, bolstered by strong transportation fuel demand and ongoing healthy economic growth, particularly in a number of non-OECD countries, OPEC said on Tuesday.

The IEA meanwhile revised its demand outlook higher for this year but warned of an expected supply surplus in 2025.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Earlier in the year, we reported that the offshore oil and gas sector has been witnessing robust growth across the board, with full-year 2023 data points released by Clarksons Research painting a picture of a sector in the pink of health. Global offshore oil and gas markets posted impressive growth in 2023, with the proprietary Clarksons Offshore Index that tracks rig count as well as offshore support vessels (OSV) and subsea day rates climbing 27% to a multi-year high of 106 points. Even better for the bulls, the Clarksons Offshore Index is projected to reach an all-time high in 2024. Rig, OSV and Subsea markets are particularly robust, with oil and gas vessel rates now higher than 2014 levels in the majority of sectors/regions.

Activity remains particularly strong in the Middle East, Brazil and West Africa. Offshore drillers endured a tough decade as many outfits filed for bankruptcy between 2014 and 2016 with oil prices collapsing as U.S. shale production boomed.

Unfortunately, the overwhelmingly bearish sentiment that has ruled oil markets in 2024 has taken a toll on the offshore sector as traders worry whether oil prices will remain high enough to support offshore drilling. Stocks of deepwater drilling specialists have seen mixed fortunes in the current year, with TechnipFMC Plc. (NYSE:FTI), Oceaneering International Inc. (NYSE:OII) and Norways Odfjell Drilling (OTCPK:ODFJF) outperforming the market with year-to-date gains of 41.7% , 33.2% and 39.5%, respectively. However, the sectors other big names are deeply in the red: Transocean Ltd. (NYSE:RIG) -32.4%, Seadrill Ltd. (NYSE:SDRL) -17.0%, Noble Corporation Plc (NYSE:NE) -27.6% and Valaris Ltd (NYSE:VAL) -28.3%. Meanwhile, offshore shallow-water drilling contractor Borr Drilling Ltd (NYSE:BORR) has tanked -45.1%. From some perspective, the energy sectors favorite benchmark, the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE), is up 12.4% in the year-to-date, trailing the 25.8% return by the broad market S&P 500. Related: Russia Considers Lifting Gasoline Export Ban



Contrarian investors might, however, consider buying these beaten-down stocks with the growing backlog by offshore drillers suggesting that boom time is not far off. According to Offshore Energy, Transocean, Noble Corporation, Valaris, Borr Drilling and Odfjell Drilling ended Q3 2024 with a combined total backlog of $23.22 billion, up from $22.7 billion in Q3 2023. All five companies have issued bullish outlooks.

According to Precedence Research, the offshore drilling market will hit $80.64 billion by 2033 from $36.60 billion in 2023, good for a healthy CAGR of 8.22%. The Asia Pacific offshore drilling market size is estimated to be worth around $35.08 billion by 2033 from $15.74 billion in 2023, thanks in large part to spending boost by the regions oil giant, China and India.

Source: Offshore Energy

Deepwater Boom

One notable trend in the ongoing offshore revolution is a large increase in deepwater and ultra-deepwater drilling. Deepwater oil and gas production is set to increase by 60% by 2030, to contribute 8% of overall upstream production, according to a new report from Wood Mackenzie, as cited by Rig Zone. Ultra-deepwater production is set to continue growing at breakneck speed to account for half of all deepwater production by 2030. Deepwater production remains the fastest-growing upstream oil and gas segment with production expected to hit 10.4 million boe/d in 2022 from just 300,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) in 1990. Wood Mackenzie has predicted that by the end of the decade, that figure will pass 17 million boe/d.

In the oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) industry, deepwater is defined as water depth greater than 1,000 feet while ultra-deepwater is defined as depths greater than 5,000 feet.

Last year, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the government-owned parent company of PetroChina, and Cnooc (OTCPK: CEOHF), kicked off ultra-deepwater exploratory drilling for oil and gas as the country looks to wean itself off foreign oil. According to Chinese news agency Xinhua Global Service, CNPC will drill a test borehole of up to 11,000 meters (36,089 feet), the countrys deepest ever, which will help it better understand the Earths internal structure better, as well as to test underground drilling techniques.

CNPCs borehole depth is not far from Qatars world record of 12,289 meters (40,318 feet) for a petroleum well depth that was drilled in the Al Shaheen Oil Field in 2008 or Russias Kola Superdeep well that reached a depth of 12,262 meters (40,230 feet).

But China is not the only country willing to drill to ridiculous depths in the pursuit of energy security. 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 neighboring 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.

Norway's Aker BP (NYSE:BP) (OTCQX:AKRBF) is the latest oil major to make an ultra-deepwater discovery. At a total depth of 8,168 m, Aker BP says the well is the longest exploration well drilled in offshore Norway. The much bigger than expected oil discovery was made in the Yggdrasil area of the North Sea.

Preliminary estimates indicate a gross recoverable volume of 40 million-90 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe), much higher than the companys earlier projection of between 18 million and 45 million boe. The discovery will significantly enhance the companys resource base for the Yggdrasil development, which previously was estimated at 650M gross boe. The oil discovery is located within production licenses 873 and 442: In license 873, with Equinor ASA (NYSE:EQNR) and PGNiG Upstream Norway as partners. The plan for development and operations (PDO) for this project was submitted to Norwegian authorities in December 2022, with production scheduled to start in 2027.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

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Global oil demand will rise by 920,000 barrels per day (bpd) this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday, lifting its growth estimate from a month ago, but warned that weak demand growth will lead to a supply overhang next year.

In its monthly oil market report today, the IEA raised its 2024 oil demand growth estimate to 920,000 bpd, up from 862,000 bpd in the October report.

The demand growth projection for 2025 was revised slightly down to 990,000 bpd from 998,000 bpd, as the agency warned that demand growth this year and next will be much lower than in previous years, also because of weak Chinese demand.

The IEAs estimate is still a mile away from OPECs. Despite cutting its estimate of global oil demand growth for the fourth consecutive month, OPEC sees demand growth of 1.82 million bpd in 2024 and 1.54 million bpd next year.

The slowdown in growth from recent years reflects the end of the post-pandemic release of pent-up demand and below-par underlying global economic conditions, as well as clean energy technology deployment, the IEA said in its Oil Market Report (OMR) today.

With only six weeks left of the year, global oil demand is on track to expand by just 920,000 bpd to an average 102.8 million bpd in 2024. This would compare with growth close to 2 million bpd last year and 1.2 million bpd per year on average over the period 2000 to 2019, the agency said.

Chinas marked slowdown has been the main drag on demand, with its growth this year expected to average just a tenth of the 1.4 mb/d increase in 2023, the IEA said.

Chinese oil demand contracted for a sixth straight month in September. In the third quarter of 2024, average demand in the worlds top crude oil importer was 270,000 bpd below the average for the same period last year, per the IEAs estimates.

While demand is sluggish, global oil supply is rising at a healthy clip, the agency said. The United States will continue to lead non-OPEC+ supply growth of 1.5 million bpd in both 2024 and 2025, along with higher output from Canada, Guyana, and Argentina.

Our current balances suggest that even if the OPEC+ cuts remain in place, global supply exceeds demand by more than 1 mb/d next year, the IEA said.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Automakers are racing to produce electric vehicles (EVs) with off-road capabilities, equipped with the power and range needed to meet consumer expectations. EVs have come a long way in recent years, as car manufacturers produce faster, longer-range vehicles with better battery life. However, developing competitive electric off-road vehicles has been more complicated. Now, several well-known automakers, as well as some ambitious start-ups, have announced plans to launch innovative electric off-road models in the coming years.

In November, Mercedes-AMG announced its first wholly in-house developed electric SUV. The high-performance off-road vehicle, which uses AMGs proprietary AMG.EA electric platform, will undergo testing near the end of the year. Michael Schiebe, the Chairman of Mercedes-AMG, stated, With the Born in Affalterbach SUV, we are responding to this trend by offering our customers a truly captivating high-performance off-roader based on the AMG.EA platform. Our new high-performance architecture follows a clear philosophy: AMG First, EV Second.

The Korean auto giant Kia is also looking to launch a new off-road EV, demonstrating its EV9 "ADVNTR" Concept SUV and PV5 "WKNDR" Concept EV Van at this year's SEMA show in Las Vegas. Kia showcased the PV5 WKNDRs energy generation system with hydro turbine wheels that operate independently from the off-road tyres to generate electricity from air or water. The van is also fitted with a solar roof.

Kia has methodically considered how to use the compact space in its off-roaders, with bench seats tucked in the van's walls, a pop-out platform to put a refrigerator, an extension for a small kitchen, a pop-out rear window, and a roof-mounted camper for sleeping.

In addition to some of the worlds biggest automakers, several lesser-known companies are investing heavily in EV development. Scout, a former American vehicle brand from 1961 to 1980, is now being backed by Volkswagen to develop a new range of EVs. Scout once dominated the all-terrain vehicle space in the U.S., before its four-decade hiatus. VW acquired Scout following the companys $3.7 billion 2021 acquisition of Navistar, which was a successor of Scouts original owner International Harvester. The company is back with a vengeance with plans to launch its Scout Traveler SUV and Scout Terra Pickup. Scout aims to combine classic design with modern electric performance, with both models expected to launch in 2027.

The vehicles are expected to be able to go through water of up to 35 inches deep and both models are expected to be capable of reaching 60 mph in just 3.5 seconds, despite their robust size. They are also designed to have at least 350 miles of range on a single charge, as well as be equipped with a gasoline generator capable of extending the range to 500 miles. The Traveler will be able to tow trailers of up to 7,000 lbs, while the Terra Pickup will be able to pull 10,000 lbs trailers, according to Scout. Both the Traveler and Terra are expected to start between $50,000 and $60,000 with available incentives. Scout expects its Traveler SUV to contribute around two-thirds of the firms initial sales.

Startups are becoming increasingly competitive in the U.S. EV market. California-based Alpha Motor Corporation, unveiled its first EV, the ACE Coupe shortly after its founding in 2020, with three versions of the vehicle available to suit different consumer needs. This year, Alpha is showcasing its off-road SUPERREX. The 4-door vehicle is built on Alphas advanced Modular Vehicle Platform, which is also used in its WOLF Truck Series.

Alpha expects the SUPERREX to set new standards for electric SUVs, with extensive all-terrain capabilities and a large range of customisation available. Edward Lee, the founder and CEO of Alpha, said that the SUPERREX was designed with consumer feedback in mind. Lee explained, This new version of the REX provides the additional space and versatility consumers want while maintaining the adventure-seeking spirit of Alpha vehicles.

Then, of course, theres Teslas Cybertruck, the famous EV companys stainless-steel electric pickup. The truck can tow up to 11,000 pounds, boasts 834 horsepower from a trio of electric motors, and can reach 60 mph in just 2.6 seconds, according to Tesla. The company claims it can travel up to 325 miles on a single charge, as well as recover up to 136 miles of range with just 15 minutes of Supercharging. It also has 67 cubic feet of lockable storage. However, it comes with a hefty price tag of $82,235 to $102,235.

Several EV makers are venturing into the world of electric off-road vehicles in a bid to appeal to a broader market. While many automakers are focusing on extending the range, power, and battery life of their conventional EVs, others are looking to build large SUVs with equally impressive specs as well as off-road capabilities. While some companies, such as Tesla, have already launched their first SUV models, most are still in the design stage, meaning they could take several years to hit the market.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

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Egypt is a key country to which Europe turned to provide gas supplies to help compensate for those lost from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The continents efforts to increase such output from the North African nation were aided by significant corollary investments from the U.S. A major new gas field has just been opened for bidding by Egypt, but it may come with strings attached.

The Satis gas field in the northern Mediterranean is part of the giant North El-Burg site and was previously operated in a joint venture between BP and the state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS). The British supermajor announced in February that it planned to invest up to $3.5 billion to develop its gas presence in Egypt in the coming three to four years. Around the same time it announced a joint venture (JV) with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)  with BP holding the dominant 51 percent stake  in which it would focus on three developments out of the four covered under the JV. The North El-Burg site holding the Satis field was one, North Damietta containing the Atoll field was another, and Shorouk featuring the huge Zohr gas field was the final one (although Italys ENI would continue to take the lead operational role on this site). All these deals would be subject to individual regulatory approvals, according to BP, which in conjunction with various partners is responsible for about 70 percent of Egypts gas production in the West and East Nile Delta. The new bidding for Satis opened after BP exited the project after the contractual development period expired without production beginning, according to the firm.

Related: Iran Prepares for Potential Oil Export Cuts Under Trump

Although no further specific details were given by BP, perhaps a reason for its reluctance to press ahead with its usual gusto on such a project was the prospect of Egypt considering a policy of linking its payment arrears to international energy firms to increase production by them in the future. Ironically, it was the enormous wave of development of primarily Egypts gas reserves that helped exacerbate an already serious currency problem in the country in the past couple of years. Specifically, for example, Egypt owes Eni over US$1.25 billion for costs related to its energy developments, according to industry sources. However, the countrys ability to pay it off has been hit by the ongoing devaluation in of the Egyptian pound that began in earnest after Russia invaded Ukraine. Not only did this dramatically increase prices for wheat in the country (one of the worlds biggest importers of the foodstuff) but it also led to the removal of billions of dollars worth of foreign investment from the country as well. That said, on 6 March, Egypt was allowed by the IMF to expand its US$8 billion financial support package and there remain further offers of financial aid open from the World Bank and from the European Union. Given these assurances, 19 September saw Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announce that the country aims to restore normal production at its natural gas fields by next summer.

In this vein, its Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi said last week that he had undertaken reviews of several foreign companies ongoing projects in the country with a view to their expanding output. The review of British supermajor Shells operations focused on it acquiring a new exploration area in the Mediterranean and its plans to bring the first wells in the West Mediterraneans North Cleopatra and North Marina fields into production by the end of 2025 at the latest. Badawi also met with senior executives from Eni to discuss its development plan for the Western Deserts Meleiha field, as well as the Nargis field where it is collaborating with U.S. giant Chevron. Further increases in output were discussed from Enis fields in Sinai and the Gulf of Suez and the huge Zohr gas field, following comments in July that it is planning to drill two new wells in the Zohr site in the second half of 2025, with investments estimated at US$160 million. These conversations also continued developing the idea of connecting gas output from Enis Eastern Mediterranean fields to Egypts liquefaction facilities for re-export to Europe. In February, Eni announced the completion of the Cronos-2 well in the Eastern Mediterranean, which it now estimates to have a production capacity of over 150 million standard cubic feet per day. This was the fourth well drilled by the Italian firm in Block 6, which it operates alongside Frances TotalEnergies. Eni also operates Blocks 2, 3, 8, and 9, and has active interests in Blocks 7 and 11 operated by TotalEnergies. For its part, the French supermajors CEO Patrick Pouyanne recently discussed with Badawi the firms progress on the Cronos field and strategies to link its production to Egypts facilities.

Given the scale and scope of such plans, the Satis field  with official estimated gas reserves of over 1 trillion cubic feet of high-quality gas -- is unlikely to struggle to find new bidders. It will form part of Europes ongoing search to dramatically increase its reliable supplies of gas, both through pipelines and in liquefied natural gas (LNG) form. Over and above Egypts conservatively estimated gas reserves of around 1.8 trillion cubic metres, it is also the only country in the Eastern Mediterranean gas hotspot region with operational LNG export capacity and is consequently ideally placed to become the top regional export hub for the gas. Crucially as well is that its geographic positioning means that it controls the major global shipping chokepoint of the Suez Canal, through which around 10 percent of the worlds oil and LNG is moved. It also controls the vital Suez-Mediterranean Pipeline, which runs from the Ain Sokhna terminal in the Gulf of Suez, near the Red Sea, to Sidi Kerir port, west of Alexandria in the Mediterranean Sea. This is a crucial alternative to the Suez Canal for transporting oil from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. The Suez Canal importance to the global energy sector is further boosted by the fact that it is one of the very few major transit points that is not controlled by China. Specifically, Beijing already has effective control over the Strait of Hormuz through the all-encompassing Iran-China 25-Year Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement, as first revealed anywhere in the world in my 3 September 2019 article on the subject and analysed in my latest book on the new global oil market order. The same deal also gives China a hold over the Bab al-Mandab Strait, through which commodities are shipped upwards through the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal before moving into the Mediterranean and then westwards. This has been achieved as it lies between Yemen (the Houthis having long been supported by Iran) and Djibouti (over which China has also established a stranglehold through debts connected to its multi-generational power-grab project - the Belt and Road Initiative).

Finally, from the Wests geopolitical perspective, Egypt has long been regarded as at least as much of a leader in the Arab world as Saudi Arabia has ever been. It was a leading proponent of the Pan-Arab ideology that posited that enduring strength can only be found in the political, cultural, and socioeconomic unity of Arabs that emerged after the two World Wars. The idea found one of its two key champions in Egypts president from 1954 to 1970, Gamal Nasser. Among the most palpable signs of this movement at the time was the formation of the United Arab Republic union formed between Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961, the formation of OPEC in 1960, the series of conflicts with neighbouring Israel over the period, and then the 1973/74 oil embargo, as also analysed in full in my latest book. By bringing this leader of the Arab world on side, the U.S. and its allies hope to offset the negative geopolitical impact of long-term ally Saudi Arabia having been lost to the China-Russia bloc.

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

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Despite past setbacks and geopolitical challenges, China's renewed interest in Kyrgyzstan signals its commitment to expanding its influence in Central Asia.

These projects aim to position Kyrgyzstan as a key player in China's Belt and Road Initiative and enhance trade connectivity between China and Europe.

A Swedish consultancy group made international headlines in 2007 when it declared that Santa Claus should be based in Kyrgyzstan, as it was the best place for him to reach every household in the world during his fabled Christmas-night journey.

For those restricted to ground travel, however, landlocked Kyrgyzstan still looks like a logistics nightmare with its soaring mountain peaks and poor roads.

Yet China is undeterred and seems to be pulling out all the stops to turn Central Asia's second-poorest country into its next big project in terms of trans-Eurasian trade.

In a world reshaped by geopolitical turbulence -- and having suffered false starts with China in the past -- Kyrgyzstan will be hoping that this commitment is here to stay.

A $4 Billion Logistics Hub?

October came and went without promised construction work beginning on the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway: a long-promised, multibillion-dollar megaproject that optimists say could transform East-West trade, cutting delivery times between China and Europe by up to one week.

But there were other significant groundbreakings in Kyrgyzstan last month, and many of them involved China in one way or another.

The most eye-catching and perhaps mysterious was the construction kick start of the Manas Trade and Logistics City in Leninskoye village, not far from the capital, Bishkek.

The trade-hub project will be built by the Hunan Construction Investment Group (HCIG), with its first phase alone costing $700 million and the overall cost potentially reaching $4 billion.

Set on 700 hectares, the project will have dedicated zones for storage, logistics, sales, and bonded trade zones.

Does this project have a special connection to the future railway?

Yes indeed, say Kyrgyz officials.

Except none have yet really explained how, and the track agreed to by the three participating countries is not expected to skirt anywhere near Leninskoye, taking instead the shortest route through deeply mountainous territory. In fact, Leninskoye is on the border with Kazakhstan, close to Kyrgyzstan's existent north-pointing railway.

If Beijing knows more, it's keeping its cards close to its chest.

Speaking at the ceremony on October 17, Chinese Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Du Dewen praised Kyrgyzstan as "a connecting country" that is "not only important to Central Asia, but also to Asia and Europe as a whole."

Du said that, since the long-stalled railway project was going ahead, Kyrgyzstan would also need "good markets, warehouses, and logistics centers," and hailed the logistics hub as a project in line with China's Belt and Road Initiative, but gave no indication of how it might interact with the track further south.

Planning for the future hub began on December 8, 2023, when Kyrgyzstans government signed an agreement with the Kyrgyz-Chinese Investment Holding (KCIH) company to build a "Eurasian trade and logistics complex."

Despite the rebranding -- Manas is a mythical Kyrgyz hero -- Kyrgyzstans cabinet will only have a 49 percent share in the project, with KCIH taking the remainder.

A little-known entity founded by Chinese nationals but including Kyrgyz directors, KCIH will be responsible for $482 million of the $700 million investment.

Never Mind The Competition

Making his own speech at the groundbreaking, Kyrgyz Prime Minister Akylbek Japarov (no relation to President Sadyr Japarov) said the logistics center "can be compared to a major seaport."

"Everyone in the world wants to trade with China, because if you look at the volume of global GDP, China produces up to 26 percent of it. We hope this will give us access to maritime routes and enable us to trade with any country in the world," Japarov said.

"This will create excellent conditions for our agriculture, manufacturing, mining industry, and for the arrival of new technologies."

For the moment, Central Asia's largest and most advanced "dry port" is Khorgos on the Chinese-Kazakh border.

Khorgos is a vital node in East-West train freight, with goods still overwhelmingly reaching Europe via Russia.

The Ukraine war and pursuant sanctions have, however, made some shippers leery of the Russian route.

That has provided a giant shot in the arm for the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), also via Kazakhstan, with the oil-rich country's Caspian Sea ports providing the jump-off points for goods traveling to Europe via the Caucasus.

If the TITR would exclude Russia, the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway would potentially exclude Kazakhstan, too, joining up with existing tracks in Turkmenistan and Iran to reach markets in the Middle East as well as Europe via Turkey.

Supporters claim it would be a much faster route to Europe than both, although it is not clear to what extent their calculations take in the greater number of border crossings that this southern middle route would have to contend with.

Russia has previously been viewed as something of a roadblock for the project.

But as a Foreign Policy Research Institute paper published earlier this year argued, Moscow's ability to push back against initiatives like these has been constrained by its need for China's support amid fallout from the Ukraine war.

This "has given Beijing a freer hand to reshape Central Asian trade flows," author Felix K. Chang wrote.

For all that, the three-country railway would be arguably more ambitious than anything China has done in the region, including the 1,800-kilometer Central Asia-China gas pipeline reaching Turkmenistan, whose first spur took just two years to build.

And with the 260-kilometer Kyrgyz section of the track requiring a series of high-altitude bridges and tunnels, very few people will share Prime Minister Japarovs optimism that it will be finished in four to five years.

Special Economic Zones, Unite!

Given that China is currently responsible for more than half of the minimum $5 billion financial commitment for the track -- $8 billion is the Kyrgyz government's latest estimate -- might Beijing walk away if geopolitical trends shift again?

For the moment, that looks unlikely.

In his latest update on the railway, Prime Minister Japarov said President Japarov had held discussions with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the project on the sidelines of the BRICS summit, an event that was held in the Russian city of Kazan on October 22-24.

He added that construction was now expected to begin in November -- a month later than the Kyrgyz president predicted in May.

Fittingly, Kyrgyzstan's prime minister was making those comments during a work trip that was full of Chinese activity.

One of his appearances was for the groundbreaking ceremony for a residential complex that a Chinese company is building in the city of Naryn.

At another he turned a shovel for the construction of four Chinese-built plants in an industrial park that he said will create more than 1,000 jobs.

The industrial park is benefiting from long-term but intensifying cooperation between the Naryn Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and the much larger SEZ in the Chinese city of Kashgar, in Xinjiang.

Prime Minister Japarov visited the Kashgar SEZ in March, some three months after the two entities agreed to deals that included the shared use of warehouses in each country.

Of the four plants being built in Naryn, a car-assembly plant will provide the bulk of the jobs, while three others will produce LED lamps, toilet paper, and agricultural technology, respectively.

Nearly five years ago, Naryn Province, which the railway would traverse, was the scene of a major Chinese investment failure, as local unrest scuttled plans as local unrest scuttled plans for a logistics center that would have been more modest than one that is being built in the neighboring Chui Province.

At that time, China's BRI looked to have hit a bump in Beijing's unrest-prone neighbor. Now it is back on track.

By RFE/RL

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He maintains a hardline stance on Iran, advocating for sanctions and supporting Israel's right to defend itself.

Rubio criticizes European allies for insufficient defense spending and calls for a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine.

Marco Rubio, President-elect Trump's pick for Secretary of State, prioritizes confronting China and advocates for a more pragmatic approach to American foreign policy.

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Senator Marco Rubio to be his top diplomat as the incoming administration prepares to navigate an increasingly perilous world, with wars raging in Europe and the Middle East and competition heating up with China in the Asia-Pacific.

In choosing Rubio -- a senator known for taking a tough line on many foreign policy issues -- the president-elect is seeking someone who largely shares his views on the most pressing international topics, says Behnam Ben Taleblu, an analyst at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"Rubio is someone who has ideological and political alignment with Trump on several key national-security issues like great-power competition, countering China, countering the Islamic [Republic of] Iran, and reinstating the maximum-pressure campaign," Taleblu told RFE/RL.

In a wide-ranging interview last week with media before being tapped as secretary of state, Rubio said the decades-long period of unchallenged U.S. global dominance following the collapse of the Soviet Union had ended, replaced by a new Cold War-like era. He warned that the United States can't stretch itself too thin with global commitments, saying Washington must be "pragmatic" in its pursuits abroad.

"We're the most powerful [country], but we too have limited resourcesso we have to invest both our time and our money on things that serve our core national interest," Rubio said in a November 7 interview with EWTN, a U.S.-based cable network.

Rubio, a Cuban-American, played an influential role in shaping Trump's policy on Venezuela during the latter's first term as president from 2017 to 2021. The New York Times described Rubio at the time as Trump's "virtual secretary of state for Latin America."

The three-time Florida senator, who challenged Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, comes to the job with ample foreign policy experience, having served on both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee.

If ultimately confirmed by the Senate, Rubio, 53, would be the first Latino to serve as secretary of state.

And while Latin America will certainly be an important focus for Rubio, it will take a back seat to more pressing U.S. foreign policy concerns, namely China's global rise, Iran's threat to the Middle East, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Priority No. 1: China

When it comes to demands on U.S. military, political, and financial resources, Rubio wants the focus to be on China.

"I think the future of the 21st century is going to largely be defined by what happens in the Indo-Pacific. And I think China would love for us to be bogged down in Europe in a conflict and not focused on what's happening in the Indo-Pacific," Rubio said on November 7.

Rubio, who served as a co-chairman of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, has consistently advocated taking a hard line on China.

He led efforts to arm Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing. He called for direct shipments of U.S. munitions and advanced military technologies in hopes of deterring China from attacking the island.

Rubio has also been vocal about Beijing's human rights record, pushed for a U.S. industrial policy to better compete with China, and backed tariffs on Chinese goods.

He sought to ban imports of Chinese goods made with forced labor by Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in western China and prevent China from circumventing Trump-era tariffs by relocating production to Mexico.

NATO And Ukraine

Rubio has repeatedly supported Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in its defensive war against Russia and described Ukrainians as "incredibly brave and strong."

In February 2022, immediately following Russia's full-scale invasion, he co-sponsored the NYET Act in the Senate, which aimed to "bolster Ukraine's defense capabilities" and impose sanctions on Russia.

However, Rubio has also said Russia's war against Ukraine has reached a "stalemate" and "needs to be brought to a conclusion."

He was among a minority of senators who, earlier this year, opposed a foreign-assistance bill that included $60 billion in aid for Ukraine. The bill eventually passed in April, bringing total U.S. aid to Ukraine since February 2022 to almost $175 billion -- about as much given by all of Europe combined.

Rubio has highlighted that imbalance, emphasizing that Washington should push Europe to take a larger role in handling its own security issues in order to allow the United States to prioritize challenging China in the Indo-Pacific.

In last week's interview with EWTN, Rubio said it was "unrealistic" to expect the United States to approve tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine every 10 months. He said European members of NATO need to step up their contributions to the alliance.

"Every day in our own country, [we are] grappling with [the question of] how do we provide assistance to Americans, even as we have these defense requirements that we're spending a lot of money on, and these [European NATO] countries are not making that choice," he said.

While Rubio sees Russia as a threat to U.S. security and backs Ukraine's sovereignty and independence, he said Kyiv will have to negotiate an end to the war. Rubio said Russia has just too many resources at its disposal, including weapons and men, to allow it to continue the fighting despite suffering extraordinary losses.

Iran: 'No Appeasement'

In the Middle East, Rubio has long taken a tough stand on Iran, describing its theocratic government as a "terrorist regime" for financing groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated terrorist organizations by the United States.

As a senator, he was a fierce critic of U.S. President Barack Obama's 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), which restricted Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions.

Critics of the deal argued it empowered Iran, offering too much relief from sanctions without guarantees it wouldn't someday produce a nuclear bomb. In 2018, Trump, who was then president, pulled the United States out of the deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran.

More recently, Rubio co-authored three bills punishing Iran that were signed into law this year. The bills authorize placing sanctions on Iranian oil exports and top Iranian leaders for human rights abuses, as well as foreign entities and governments supporting Hamas. An Iranian client, Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, triggering a regional war that threatens to engulf more states.

Rubio in September criticized the Biden administration for dragging its feet on enforcing the Iranian oil sanctions, which are aimed at crippling the government's finances. It has also failed to move forward on the human rights sanctions.

Depending on what the incoming administration is faced with in Iran when it takes office, analyst Taleblu says -- noting the volatile situation in the Middle East -- he would expect a Rubio-led State Department to make good on enforcement of the sanction bills.

A vocal supporter of Israel, Rubio has backed the country's right to defend itself from Iranian threats. Following Tehran's missile strikes on Israel on October 1, Rubio publicly backed an asymmetrical response.

Afghanistan

Rubio has also taken a hard line on the Taliban, arguing the militant Islamist group should be described as a "terrorist organization" by Washington. In March, the Florida senator introduced a bill in the Senate calling for an end to an end to U.S. aid to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, arguing that some of that money could end up with "terrorist groups."

In remarks to the Senate, Rubio said, "A Taliban-controlled Afghanistan poses a direct threat to U.S. national-security interests and to our allies in the Middle East and Central Asia."

By RFE/RL

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The long-term ecological consequences of Russia's military presence in the Caspian Sea remain uncertain.

Local residents report increased pollution, dead fish, and a decline in the overall health of the Caspian Sea.

Russia's use of the Caspian Sea for missile strikes against Ukraine and military exercises is raising concerns about environmental damage.

Russian military forces in and around the Caspian Sea appear to be firing at Ukraine -- with as-yet-unmeasured impacts on the local environment, as well as untold death and destruction on hitting their targets.

Ukrainian officials reported Russian jets firing missiles from the sea in the first days of Moscows full-scale invasion in 2022 and have done so repeatedly since.

People living by the Caspian have also reported missile launches, in one case this year posting a video apparently showing a Kalibr cruise-missile launch.

Some locals have said military activity is causing pollution, while some journalists have suggested a link between the launches and die-offs of Caspian seals.

Russia has not confirmed its use of the Caspian for attacks on Ukraine, but it was not always so coy. In October 2015, official media quoted then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu as saying that the Caspian Sea Fleet had hit targets in Syria using Kalibr missiles. There was another such report the following year.

Reported attacks since 2022 have mostly come from the bombers cruising above the Caspian, firing X-55 cruise missiles.

It's possible the Caspian Fleet has fired Kalibr missiles, but the Ukrainian armed forces have said there's no clear evidence.

A video posted by local fishermen in June shows two missiles. The behavior of the tail unit is more like that of a Kalibr than an air-launched cruise missile.

But local concerns about the environmental impact of Russias Caspian Fleet predate the full-scale invasion. Moscow was already building a new base for the fleet at Kaspiisk, in Daghestan, and in June 2020 held a parade of ships there.

A local man told RFE/RL that the event, which has been held annually ever since, leaves the sea covered with oil and is followed by dead fish piling up on the shore.

"About 30 years ago, the sea was full of life. Not anymore. I swam out to the ships in the summer and saw what was going on. The Caspian Fleet is one of the factors," he said.

'A Terrible Atmosphere'

RFE/RL has been declared an "undesirable organization" by Moscow, so the mans name cannot be revealed. Doing so could land him in jail.

A local woman, who must also remain anonymous, said she moved to Kaspiisk from the regional capital, Makhachkala, nine years ago, hoping the water would be cleaner.

She said the situation had "changed a lot" in that time and described the impact of the annual naval parades.

[The ships] are not in port, theyre moored offshore. They burn fuel around the clock, theres a constant roar of engines, and of course all the emissions go into the sea," she said.

"Then the ships start firing. There's a terrible atmosphere. The smell of burning comes in, even through closed windows...its impossible to breathe."

The fleet also holds exercises every September. This year, more than 30 vessels were involved.

The drills take place further out to sea, but our sources told us that fuel deposits and dead fish accumulate on the shore.

Journalists have linked both drills and actual combat activity with pollution and possibly mass seal deaths.

Both Kalibr and X-55 cruise missiles use toxic rocket fuel that may spill into the sea.

But no independent scientific data has been gathered in the Caspian to assess the impact of Russia's military activities on the environment there.

By RFE/RL

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Trump's pro-Armenia stance and his past relationship with Mikheil Saakashvili add further complexity to the geopolitical landscape in the region.

The potential appointment of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State raises concerns for Azerbaijan due to his criticism of the country's human rights record.

Trump's second term may lead to a less predictable US foreign policy in the Caucasus region.

Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev got what he wished for in the US presidential election: Donald Trump will return to the White House. But Trumps early moves in assembling his foreign policy team suggest his second term may end up being a bumpier ride for Azerbaijan than Aliyev anticipated.

Broadly speaking, the incoming Trump administration is expected to de-emphasize adherence to democratic standards and respect for individual rights as guideposts for US foreign policy. That is welcome news for authoritarian-minded leaders, such as Aliyev, as well as Georgias ruling Georgian Dream Party, which has embraced illiberal policies in recent years.

Prior to the November 5 US presidential vote, Aliyev praised Trumps first term as a time of very fruitful cooperation between the United States and Azerbaijan. His implied assumption was that the warm and fuzzy feelings would carry over into a second Trump term, representing for Baku a welcome respite from four years of verbal jousting with the Biden administration over Azerbaijans rights record.

At this time, the more experienced and stronger Trump will rule the United States. This will allow him to realize the slogan Make America Great Again, the pro-government news agency Report.az cheered in an editorial.

But some aspects of Trumps worldview, as well as his personnel choices, could create complications for Baku and Tbilisi. To start, experts widely believe geopolitical developments in the Caucasus are unlikely to captivate Trump, thus he will be inclined to leave US policymaking in the hands of subordinates. In that case, the widely reported news that Trump intends to nominate Florida senator Marco Rubio to be secretary of state is a cause for concern in Baku.

Rubio, known for his interventionist views on foreign policy, has been outspoken about Azerbaijans human rights record and treatment of Karabakh Armenians. In June 2023, he co-authored a bill to condemn Azerbaijans blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh and impose sanctions on the country. He has also been a vocal critic of the Aliyev administrations crackdown on political opponents and dissenters.

Rubios appointment could fan fears in Baku that US foreign policy might follow up on a pledge Trump made in October on social media, providing strong backing for Armenia in the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process: When I am President, I will protect persecuted Christians, I will work to stop the violence and ethnic cleansing, and we will restore PEACE between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Trump wrote.

Some Azerbaijani pundits are having a rethink about the next four years.

At this point, it is hard to say what the Trump administration will practically mean for the South Caucasus, as many uncertainties remain. Much will depend on how the Trump administration prioritizes this region, but so far, it has never been among its top 10 priorities, Baku-based analyst Shujaat Ahmadzade wroteon X.

Given Trumps fondness for strongman-style governance, as practiced by HungarysViktorOrban, Georgian Dream leaders in Tbilisi are likely hoping Trumps return will ease Western pressure for democratic reforms on Tbilisi, given that their policy course has received Orbans endorsement. But some regional experts note that Trumps return may have a major economic downside for Georgian Dream and other governments in the region.

While Trump aligns ideologically with Georgian Dream, that commonality is likely to be overshadowed by his general lack of attention to the region, said Julie George, professor of comparative politics at the City University of New York.

My expectation is that a Trump administration would be quite inactive about the Caucasus, especially in the realm of democracy promotion and economic aid, George said. Georgia is one of the largest recipients of US aid in the region, receiving more than $150 million in 2023, according to US government data. Trump has hinted at slashing funding for programs that dont present a clear and obvious benefit to US interests.

The election of Trump comes from many components of the American mood, one of which is more isolationist and less interested in international development spending, George explained. The new generation of leadership is not wedded to Cold War alliances and hierarchies and does not view Russian imperialism with the same urgency as previous generations did.

The Trump presidency could also deliver a different sort of surprise for Georgian Dream. Specifically, Trump has a long-standing relationship with Georgian opposition figure and former president Mikheil Saakashvili, stretching back to Trumps pre-presidential days when he explored building a Trump-banded tower in the Black Sea city of Batumi. Saakashvili promoted the project heavily and even brought Trump to Georgia for a PR tour. Trump reciprocated by calling Saakashvili his new friend and lauding the Georgian leaders business acumen.

We are going to have [a] lot of fun and lots of success together, Trump said in 2011.

Although the Batumi tower project fizzled, the two appeared to remain on good terms: Saakashvili publicly backed Trump during the latters first term in office. Given the high value that Trump places on personal relationships, its possible Saakashvili, now imprisoned, could revive a channel of communication with Trump that has vexing implications for Georgian Dream officials.

The open questions surrounding US policy during Trumps second term are already scrambling the geopolitical calculus in the Caucasus, said Ahmadzade, the Baku-based expert.

Smaller countries like Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia will likely need to accelerate efforts to recalibrate their relationships with other major powers, including Russia and China, he wrote.

By Eurasianet.org

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Europes benchmark natural gas prices surged on Thursday to the highest since November 2023 as Austrias OMV warned of a potential halt to Russian pipeline gas supply and as colder weather drives stronger demand for heating and electricity.

Dutch TTF Natural Gas Futures, the benchmark for Europes gas trading, jumped early on Thursday in Amsterdam by 5%. As of 1:50 p.m. Amsterdam time, prices had given up some of the gain, but they were still up by 4% on the day, at $47.83 (45.40 euros) per megawatt-hour (MWh).

Late on Wednesday, Austrian energy firm OMV said that it had received an arbitral award under the rules of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in relation to Gazprom Exports irregular German gas supplies, which had eventually ended in September 2022.

OMV was awarded $242 million (230 million euros) plus interest and costs, and takes the necessary next steps to enforce the arbitral award with immediate effect.

In light of the arbitration award, OMV warned that It is expected that there may be a deterioration of the contractual relationship under the Austrian supply contract of OGMT with Gazprom Export, including a potential halt of gas supply.

At the same time, OMV confirmed that it can deliver the full contracted volumes of gas to its customers in case of a potential supply disruption by Gazprom Export. In addition, OMVs gas storage in Austria is currently at over 90% full.

Apart from a potential halt to some of the remaining Russian pipeline gas deliveries, European natural gas prices were also pushed up by colder weather in Europe, which boosted demand for heating and gas-fired power generation. Gas demand and gas-powered electricity demand have jumped in recent days amid the so-called Dunkelflaute, German for dark wind lull, which resulted in low wind speeds and low levels of wind power generation.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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Germanys economy ministry has warned the operators of its LNG import terminals to refuse acceptance of cargoes from Russia until further notice, as the import of Russian LNG undermines the very concept of rushing to set up LNG ports in the first placecutting off dependence on Russian gas supply.

The German Ministry of Economy sent last week a letter to Deutsche Energy Terminal, advising it not to accept any deliveries of Russian LNG, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, quoting the letter it had seen.

The ministry was informed by Deutsche Energy Terminal that the LNG import facility was scheduled to receive a cargo of LNG from Russia.

So, the economy ministry said in the letter seen by FT that by allowing this shipment to be accepted, the import facility would undermine the reason for Germany installing several such import terminals since 2022to make Europes biggest economy independent of Russian gas.

Germanys now four operational LNG import terminals  started up between December 2022 and December 2023  imported 7% of all natural gas imports into the country last year.

While Germany is looking to have its ports refuse Russian LNG cargoes, the EU as a whole has become more reliant on Russias LNG in recent months.

Russian LNG accounted for 20% of the EUs liquefied natural gas imports in the first nine months of 2024, compared to 14% for the same period last year, amid markedly lower EU imports of the super-chilled fuel, a new report by the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) showed last month.

While the Russian LNG share of the EUs total LNG imports grew, it was a share of a smaller pie.

Despite the lower overall LNG imports into the EU so far this year, the rising share of Russias LNG in EU supply is a concern for several EU member states that have been pushing for ways to curb Europes reliance on Russian LNG cargoes.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Protesters shut down oil distribution valves in response to the kidnapping of a senior intelligence officer, for which they blame the government in Tripoli.

The valves connect the Sharara field, Libyas largest, and the El Feel field, to a refinery in Zawya, media reported. The facility has a processing capacity of 350,000 barrels daily or roughly a third of Libyas oil production.

Brigadier General Mustafa al-Whayshi, director of Libyas Central Security Department, a unit of the intelligence services, was kidnapped earlier this week. The kidnappers have not declared themselves and the government, according to the protesters, is not responding appropriately to the officials disappearance.

Intelligence officers, however, issued a statement, saying that AL-Whayshis kidnapping was likely related to ongoing investigations into cases impacting Libyan national security. The North Africa Post noted in a report that kidnappings of government officials were a frequent occurrence in Libya during investigations into corruption that involved members of the numerous militias in the country.

The new oil production disruption comes a month after output recovered following yet another outage caused by a field blockade. The blockade was imposed by the Libyan National Army, a militia affiliated with the eastern government in Tobruk, which had a disagreement with the Tripoli government about the new central bank governor.

After the dispute was settled by the two rival governments, the blockade was lifted and production ramped up to 1.3 million bpd in mid-October. In further good news for the countrys oil industry, Eni and BP returned there after years of absence amid the unstable political environment.

Two other Western energy majors are also returning to Libya, according to the National Oil Corporation. Repsol, the Spanish operator, was preparing to start drilling in the Murzuq Basin in the coming weeks, and Austrias OMV was also preparing for drilling in the Sirte Basin, the Libyan state energy company reported in late October.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Nigeria, long the wildcard of OPEC, has cranked up its oil production to a respectable 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd), claiming on Thursday that it could hit 2 million bpd by year-endnot even two months away.

Thats a bold promise, especially for a country that barely scraped together 1.3 million bpd just last month, according to the direct communication figure in OPECs October Monthly Oil Market Report.

Of course, Nigeria could very well be sneaking in hundreds of thousands of barrels of condensate when throwing around that 2 million bpd number.

So, how has this production miracle happened? The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is patting itself on the back for "collaborative efforts" with joint ventures and production-sharing partners. That collaboration extends to security forces as well because Nigeria has found it difficult to pump oil when its pipelines have served as playgrounds for crude thieves and saboteurs.

NNPC CEO Mele Kyari praised his teams work, which involved not just recovering production but apparently turning what has been a disjointed mess into something with which shareholders might even be semi-satisfied. The war room strategy launched in June brought together oil companies, private security, and government officials to tackle crude theft head-on. Vessels were destroyed, illegal refiners arrested, and pipelines closely monitoredbecause desperate times call for explosive measures.

Nigerias rebound is part of a broader OPEC storyline. In October, the cartel saw a 466,000 bpd increase in total output, driven by Libyas triumphant return to full capacity after resolving a political crisis that nearly halved its production. To the surprise of just a few, fresh unrest has once again wreaked havoc in Libya, with protestors shutting down the oil distribution valves connecting Libyas largest oilfield to the Zawya refinery.

Whether Nigeria's ambitions stick or slip depends on how well the war room holds up against its greatest nemesischaos.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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The seven largest US LNG export plants are receiving high volumes of gas, new data from LSEG revealed on Thursday, with gas flows expected to reach a nine-month high.

The data shows that US LNG feedgas is set to rise from 14 billion cubic feet per day yesterday to 14.4 billion cubic feet per day today.

Chenieres Sabine Pass export plant in Louisianathe largest LNG export plant in the United Stateswas on track to receive 4.9 bcfd todaya three-week high.

And flows could continue to climb as the new Plaquemines has been pulling gas in test mode for two months now, LSEG data shows. Federal regulators gave Venture Global LNG permission to begin starting up its LNG equipment at Plaquemines in early September. At the time, Venture said the first phase of the plant would begin exports later this year, with full operations resulting in 10 million tons per annum, making it the second largest single LNG facility in the U.S., behind Sabine Pass.

The share prices of LNG exporters in the United States have seen a jump following Donald Trumps election victory, with many seeing the industry as one of the main beneficiaries of an upcoming new trade deal between Washington and Brussels.

Trump has spoken about the trade deficit that the U.S. has been running with the European Union for years and wants to change that by imposing tariffs on European imports. The European Commissions president, Ursula von der Leyen, responded to that threat by suggesting the EU could boost the amount of U.S. LNG it buys.

We still get a whole lot of LNG via Russia, from Russia. And why not replace it with American LNG, which is cheaper, and brings down our energy prices, Von der Leyen said earlier this month.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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AfroBasket 2025 Draw Set For April 19 In Angola

Webby - March 12, 2025

The FIBA Regional Office for Africa has announced that the official draw for the FIBA AfroBasket 2025 will take place
Here is a list of the winners in key categories for the 71st Emmy Awards, which were handed out in Los Angeles on Sunday.

Game of Thrones wrapped up its run with an Emmy for best drama series  and 12 total for its final season.

Fleabag pulled one of the biggest surprises of the night, scooping up the prizes for best comedy, best actress in a comedy, as well as best writing and directing  a major disappointment for perennial winner Veep in its last season.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES: Game of Thrones (HBO)

OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES: Fleabag (Amazon)

LEAD ACTOR, DRAMA: Billy Porter, Pose

LEAD ACTRESS, DRAMA: Jodie Comer, Killing Eve

LEAD ACTOR, COMEDY: Bill Hader, Barry

LEAD ACTRESS, COMEDY: Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag

SUPPORTING ACTOR, DRAMA: Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones

SUPPORTING ACTRESS, DRAMA: Julia Garner, Ozark

SUPPORTING ACTOR, COMEDY: Tony Shalhoub, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

SUPPORTING ACTRESS, COMEDY: Alex Borstein, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

OUTSTANDING LIMITED SERIES: Chernobyl (HBO)

OUTSTANDING TELEVISION MOVIE: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (Netflix)

LEAD ACTOR, LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE: Jharrel Jerome, When They See Us

LEAD ACTRESS, LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE: Michelle Williams, Fosse/Verdon

SUPPORTING ACTOR, LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE: Ben Whishaw, A Very English Scandal

SUPPORTING ACTRESS, LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE Patricia Arquette, The Act

COMPETITION PROGRAM: RuPauls Drag Race

VARIETY SKETCH SERIES: Saturday Night Live

Top five programs with most overall wins:

Game of Thrones  12

Chernobyl  10

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel  8

Free Solo  7

Fleabag  6

Top five platforms with most overall wins:

HBO: 34

Netflix: 27

Amazon Prime Video: 15

National Geographic: 8

NBC: 7

(AFP)
Container cranes and rail-mounted gantry cranes shipped from China arrive on June 27 at the Chancay Port in Peru. [Photo/Xinhua]

The port of Chancay is located about 80 kilometers north of Lima, the capital of Peru, and borders the Pacific Ocean. The gigantic project, which began in 2021, is scheduled to begin trial operations later this month. The positive impact of the port on the global maritime transportation industry, its contribution to Peru and other South American countries, and the promotion of China's relations with Latin America cannot be underestimated.

First of all, Chancay Port is expected to become an important hub for global shipping. Some international media have referred to Chancay as the "Port of Singapore in Latin America" and "Latin America's Gateway Port to Asia."

These comments are not false. Many international shipping experts, geographers and economists believe that Chancay Port will change the existing pattern of freight logistics in Latin America with its advantages in fast turnaround, large throughput and high degree of modernization.

They also predict that the port will optimize the import and export trade channels of Latin America into Asian and global markets, and allow for goods from Peru and other countries in South America to leave the continent faster and more conveniently. It can be seen that it is not only China that will benefit, but also other Asian countries.

Second, Chancay Port is another landmark project created by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Latin America. Economic and trade relations are considered the "anchor" and "ballast stone" of China-Latin America relations.

As we all know, Latin America is a natural extension of the BRI. Before the completion of Chancay Port, the BRI had taken root and blossomed on the continent and yielded many successes. As a result, China's investment and trade in Latin America have increased significantly in recent years, with trade between the two sides on the verge of reaching an unprecedented $500 billion.

There is no doubt that the opening of Chancay Port will contribute significantly to the promotion of trade between China and Latin America, as goods from many South American countries will not have to be loaded from more distant Atlantic ports and then detoured through the Panama Canal or other shipping routes into the Pacific, nor will they have to be transported by road to Pacific ports. Such convenience is undoubtedly a real win-win.

Third, the port of Chancay has further strengthened relations between South America and Asia. The geographical location of the port determines its unique advantage in terms of its position facing the Pacific Ocean. As such, Chancay Port not only opens up a new channel between China and Latin America, but also serves the export trade of other South American countries.

Many goods from South America will be able to enter the Chinese market and the markets of other Asian countries more quickly in the future, thus making an important contribution to further promoting bilateral trade between Latin America and Asian countries.

Therefore, the port of Chancay is undoubtedly another miracle created by the BRI for Latin America. It is expected that Peru and other South American countries will see significant increases in exports to Japan, South Korea and ASEAN in the coming years.

Finally, the development of Chancay Port can also benefit the United States. In recent years, the U.S. has expressed growing concern over the rapid progress of Sino-Latin American relations. Illegal immigration and drug trafficking have historically been sources of tension between the U.S. and Latin American nations, often linked to the region's economic underdevelopment and poverty. However, China's multifaceted economic and trade cooperation with Latin American countries has yielded significant positive outcomes in terms of economic growth and poverty reduction.

Many studies by the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and think tanks in Latin America have shown that without economic and trade relations between China and Latin America, the latter's economies would lose multiple percentage points in their growth rate. As people's living standards improve in Latin American nations, it is anticipated that illegal immigration and drug trafficking will decline, thereby mitigating some of the longstanding challenges between the U.S. and the region.

As such, rather than viewing China's economic presence in Latin America with apprehension, the U.S. should consider collaborating with China to jointly develop the Latin American market to foster a truly win-win scenario for all parties involved.

The author is a PhD candidate at the Center for Latin American Studies, Shanghai University.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
By Olanrewaju Adesanya

The Speaker of Lagos State House of Assembly,Rt.Hon. Mudashiru Obasa has prevailed on Nigerians not to misconstrue the Amotekun corps idea as an outfit set to stoke warfare amongst ethnic nationalities but purely to ensure security.

Obasa made the assertion at a day public hearing organised by the state legislature, to herald the legal incorporation of the Lagos State Amotekun Corps with enough information garnered from the stakeholders.

We recall the rapping,arson,kidnapping,cattle rustling is now a recurring decimal and in the wisdom of our Governors they come together to form Amotekun.

There are peculiarities of each state we are going to look at it,Amotekun has come to stay and we must give it deserve recognition and support.

An idea of 40million race is beyond tribal connotation,so it must be accorded deserved recognition.

I want to give a note of warning here from what people are saying that we need to be very careful while talking about Amotekun,we should not be seen as encouraging warfare or an agenda to try to wage war against any other interest or tribes in Nigeria.

We should be particular about security, protection of lives and properties all around Southwest and we are going to work in conjunction with other states.

I think on Wednesday all the Speakers of the Southwest will be meeting in Ibadan to see how we can fashion out a law at the end of the day,a law that will be similar in nature.

The most important thing is that we just have to be very careful,this is not an agenda to set one tribe against another but to work together and protect everybody.

In this part of the nation,weve been clamouring for restructuring,this is going to be a test case for us.

If we can manage this successfully without instigating anything that relates to war and fuel insecurity, I am sure we are getting close to restructuring. Obasa said.

Earlier in his welcome address, Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Publicity, Strategy and Security, Hon. Tunde Braimoh said that Section 14 (B) of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria stated that security is the number one job of the government.

Braimoh stressed that ciitizens enjoy all the amenities provided by the government only if they have life.

I welcome you all to the Lagos State House of Assembly, where we emphasise your interest.

What is being done is an amendment of Lagos State Neighbourhood Safety Corps (LNSC) Law of 2016, Lagos State. The law came from the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Ajayi Obasa.

The public hearing is meant to stimulate discussions on the law. We want to establish a complimentary security network as provided for by the 1999 Constitution of the country, he said.

The Chairman of Agbekoyas in Lagos State, Alhaji Davis said that they had the ability to fight crimes without using arms or weapons.

Let us employ those who know the job rather than using enemies. We should not use just anybody. Agbekoyas have the power to cope and fight criminals, he said.

According to Yoruba Youth Council, banditry, raping, illegal fire arms and trespassing should be tagged a criminal act. Members of the state house of Assembly should be involved in the removal of the commanders.

We should also note the issue of training and recruitment.

Another stakeholder, Mr. Adio Abiola stated that the CDA and CDC should be inculcated in the board.

Babatunde Odunlami explained that hirng and removal of the head of Amotekun should not be left in the hand of the Governors alone, and that members of the Lagos State chapter of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and those of the civil societies should be on the board.

The Majority Leader Hon Sanai Agunbiade while reviewing the bill notes that it was not the first amendment to the LNSC law.

Agunbiade said that the law was made in 2016 and that it was amended in 2019.

He said that Lagos State is not in isolation, and that it is working with other states that have experienced kidnapping, killings, raping, armed robbery, cattle rustling, terrorism and others.

He emphasized that the Governors in the South West states decided to come up with Amotekun and that they incorporated it into the LNSC Law.

It seeks to amend 39 Sections of the LNSC of 2019. The Bill has nine sections with threes incidental sections and six on critical amendments.

The purpose of the amendment is to energise what we already have in the state and make it more impactful.

Amotekun is an animal that is brave, bold and vicious and that could operate on land and water. Amotekun Corps would be vicious and operate on land, water and even in the forest.

Members of the Amotekun Corps would bear arms that would be licensed by the police to make it legal, he said.

He said that they wanted to ensure that the state had the impact of the people on whom the law would be enforced.

LNSC Law is good for us, but we want to have something better.

Amotekun Corps would make use of the powers given to us by our forefathers. The police itself is short-staffed, so members of Amotekun Corps will add value to the force, he said.

The Aare Onakakanfo of Yoruba Land,Aare Gani Adams allayed the fears of people from other nationalities,citing the fact that it is not a group out to whip sentiment or cause disparity.

This is a good procedure,the people threatened by Amotekun establishment should have their minds disabused,the various ethnic nationalities here realized that their interest will be taken care of.

Amotekun is a concept that will represent every interest in Nigeria. I can assure them that it is not a group that will be more sentimental against other ethnic nationalities.

The only people that will be sentimental are professional criminals within our midst. Gani said.

The religious flank were well represented at the parley,the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) represented by Reverend Stephen Adegbite commend the initiative.

The Church is solidly behind Amotekun,we are patrons of Amotekun,enough is enough,we will continually pray for the corps to succeed.

The Arewa group was represented by the Secretary General of Alimosho,Ibrahim Abubarka,who warn the stakeholders to be mindful of making provocative statements less of aggression.

We need to have sense of belonging,we want the committee to consider us,bring us on board.

The vigilante group and neighbourhood watch group all made a case for inclusion in the Amotekun outfit,citing the fact that they have track records which the state is yet to commend so this should be considered an avenue to give them respite.

The All Progressives Congress (APC), Lagos Chairman, Mr Tunde Balogun described the Amotekun project as fantastic.

What we are doing is right and proper,the major obstacle we had earlier is that Amotekun is perceived a regional creation.

Amotekun is a fantastic project,it is a good concept,its roles are mainly to protect the jurisdiction of the state.

It will be collaborative rather than combative.

Amotekun can provide basic information for the police in the state,whatever is done to incorporate this in LSNC is a welcome idea.

Cardinal James Odumbaku an APC leader note that the neighbourhood watch personnel who were previously eased out for no just cause should be integrated in the new creation.

The APC Publicity Secretary Mr Seye Oladejo canvassed the need to pay serious attention on mode of recruitment.

De-emphasize academic qualification,local ability and native intelligence should also be considered,as regards riverine area the ability to swim should be considered,there should be proper security check to avoid populating the outfit with criminals.

Also supporting the project, a Security Consultant and Analyst, Mr. Dickson Osagie urged the government to emphasise proper training of the personnel of Amotekun, adding that insufficient parenting has been contributing to the high rate of insecurity in Lagos State.

In his comment, the Chairman of the Chairmen of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Chief Sunday Olaifa, who spoke on behalf of the partys chairman in the state, Engineer Adedeji Doherty said that the party is in support of Amotekun.

He however said that the party would want the state government not to employ personnel on party, religious or ethnic basis.

He said that qualified people should be employed and that there are enough charms in Yoruba land to ensure the success of Amotekun.

In his contributions, a security expert, Mr. Gboyega Alowonle said that the state assembly should look at the recruitment of personnel and training.

Let us ensure that the personnel go through due diligence. You cannot rule out Nigerian Police in the area of security, and Community Policing is also important, he said.

Also contributing, Mr. Lekan Otukoya advised that the government should give consideration to those who started neighbourhood watch in the state then.

Otukoya said that members of the neighbourhood watch were laid off in 2016 without compensations, but that they had been doing good jobs since 1996, when they started.

Hon. Babatunde Adetunji, in his view suggested that irrespective of the qualification of the personnel, they should be people who understand the terrain, and that there should be penalty for erring officers.

General Secretary of Coalition of Oodua Group Razak Olokoba enjoined the legislature to work out modalities to open and close some windows,he cited the fact that during the state creation the federal government ought to have been cautioned.

Define Amotekun role clearly, Federal and state roles should be stated the strength of the federal police should be whittled at the state,the state police should guide Speaker and the Assembly not the federal police.

Comrade Gbenga Ekundayo from the Trade Union Congress (TUC) said that there could not be economic growth without security.

Ekundayo said that there was need for creativity to ensure security in the state.

He said that there should be a system to make an average adult parts of the security system.

We can make use of volunteers for our security system. We need technology such as data gathering and record of the people in the state, he said.
Lagos State Police Command has arrested a 50-year-old father of four, Matthew Tokeme, who had been using his Sienna bus for one-chance robbery operation in the state.

Tokeme, who hails from Bayelsa State, was arrested on February 2, 2020, following social media outcry about the criminal activities being perpetrated by the suspect and three of his gang members who rob commuters with a sienna bus with registration number APP488FH.

Investigation into the modus operandi of the gang revealed that they always stationed their bus at different bus-stops around Abule-Egba, Ijaiye, Agege and Ikeja, where they pick unsuspecting commuters between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., after which they would drive to a lonely path, and rob the passengers of their valuables.

While being paraded on Wednesday, Tokeme told reporters that he was lured into the crime by his friends who were currently at large. He claimed that he only obtained a phone and laptop from commuters which he sold N5,000 and N20,000 respectively.

I live in number 2 Olawoye street, at Sango. My friend, who is based in Germany, bought the car for me to be using for commercial purposes. He bought the car for me because he realised that my business was not going on well. But I started using the car for one chance. We are three in number who usually go for operations. We ply Abule egba Ifako Ijaye route between five to six in the morning when workers and traders are going to their place of work. We pick passengers at the bus stop. For instance passengers who are going to Victoria Island board our vehicle when we get to a particular location we stop and disposes of the victims their valuables. We dont use guns, if the victims are very stubborn we threaten them till they part with their phones and laptops. We carry only one passenger at a time while my gang members sit like passengers. I havent made much from the operations. When we went for the first operation it was successful and then we went for another. The second operation I got a labtop and phone. We didnt collect money from anyone because she was having just N700. I sold the phone N5, 000 while the laptop was sold N20, 000. We are three who usually go for the operation. I dont know where my gang members stay. I communicate with them through the phone. I have given the police their phone numbers but they cant get them. We dont know each others house we only meet at the bus stop. The Police arrested me after they tracked the vehicle plate number. I was in the house when police arrested me. I am from Bayelsa.

Confirming the arrest, the police spokesperson, DSP Bala Elkana said RRS operatives were on the lookout of the vehicle following series of complaints on the social media. He said:

The suspect Matthew Tokeme was arrested after the police received information from members of the public that some armed robbers were sighted along Agidingbi road operating in a Toyota sienna bus attacking and robbing unsuspecting victims of their valuables. Sequel to the receipt of the information operatives from the Rapid Response Squad swung into action, the vehicle was intercepted and the suspect arrested. Investigation is ongoing to apprehend other gang members at large.

Meanwhile, KanyiDaily had reported that a young lady identified as Ifeoma Nwaoma narrated a near-death experience in the hands of dreaded one chance operators in Lagos State.
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The Bahrain International Airshow (BIAS) 2024 kicked off Wednesday at the Bahrain International Circuit in the Bahraini city of Sakhir, the official Bahrain News Agency reported.

Inaugurating the event, Bahraini Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa highlighted the continued success of the BIAS over the past 14 years, hailing it as a key platform for the global aviation industry.

The three-day show is expected to showcase more than 125 different types of aircraft.

"We expect BIAS 2024 to be the biggest airshow in terms of participants who have already arrived from all over the world," said Yousif Mahmoud, director general of BIAS.

Mahmoud expressed optimism about potential deals during the event, noting that the previous show held in 2022 saw a total of 1.82 billion U.S. dollars worth of deals.

The airshow, launched in 2010, has been serving as a platform for showcasing aerospace technologies and fostering cooperation among aerospace firms worldwide.
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Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi arrived in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Wednesday evening for talks with the country's high-ranking officials, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

Grossi was welcomed by Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), upon arrival at Mehrabad International Airport, the report said.

The IAEA chief is scheduled to hold talks with AEOI President Mohammad Eslami on Thursday morning and attend a joint press conference with him following their meeting, according to Tasnim.

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi said on the social media platform X on Monday that Grossi would also meet with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi during his two-day visit.

The trip is part of ongoing interactions between Iran and the IAEA, following a joint statement issued last year aimed at strengthening cooperation, Gharibabadi said.

Iran signed a nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with world powers in July 2015, accepting restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

However, the United States withdrew from the agreement in May 2018, reinstating sanctions and prompting Iran to scale back some of its nuclear commitments.

Efforts to revive the JCPOA commenced in April 2021 in Vienna, Austria, but despite multiple rounds of negotiations, no substantial progress has been reported since the last talks in August 2022.
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

New research from the Sutton Trust, including work by Dr. Mark Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Methods in the School of Education, highlights the disparity within creative jobs and related higher education courses. Those who attended private schools also fared better within the creative sector.

The report found that creative courses at universities typically had a larger proportion of students from upper-middle-class backgrounds and that a higher-than-average proportion of the workforce in creative industries held university degrees.

Key findings from the report found:

Across television, film and music, high-profile figures in the creative industries are much more likely to have attended private school than the UK population (31% compared to 7%).

BAFTA-nominated actors are five times more likely to have attended a private school, at 35% compared to the national average of just 7%.

There are low proportions of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds on a range of creative degrees, mirroring trends seen across higher education generally.

Up to 69% of those working in core creative occupations (such as actors, dancers, artists and writers) have degrees, compared to 26% of the entire workforce.

Nick Harrison, CEO of the Sutton Trust, said, "It's a tragedy that young people from working-class backgrounds are the least likely to study creative arts degrees or break into the creative professions. These sectors bear the hallmarks of being elitistthose from upper-middle-class backgrounds, and the privately educated are significantly over-represented.

"Britain's creative sector is admired around the world, but no child should be held back from reaching their full potential, or from pursuing their interests and dream career, due to their socio-economic background. It's essential that action is taken to ensure access to high-quality creative education in schools, and to tackle financial barriers to accessing creative courses and workplace opportunities."

More information: Social mobility and the creative industries. www.suttontrust.com/wp-content  4/11/A-Class-Act.pdf
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Researchers at OISE and the Umingmak Centre have released a report that provides insights into the experiences of caregivers of children involved in Family Services in Iqaluit, Nunavut. Credit: Saffron Blaze

Researchers at the Umingmak Centre, a child advocacy center in Nunavut, and the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) have released a study that identifies systemic challenges in Nunavut's child welfare systemand recommends strategies to strengthen caregiver support.

Available in Inuktitut and English, the study is one of the first to directly engage caregivers in Nunavut and emphasizes the importance of understanding of Inuit culture. It found that difficulties in information sharing, resource insecurities, caregiver exploitation and institutional harm are critical issues impacting caregivers' experiences within Family Services.

The study noted that respondents talked about these challenges differently depending on their backgrounds, including race and socioeconomic status. Unlike their settler counterparts, few Inuit caregivers said they felt burnt out or expressed a need for psychological supporta phenomenon researchers attributed to a profound and deeply personal sense of exhaustion that has cut across generations.

The report's authors say the findings underscore a critical need for significant reforms in child welfare, including culturally safe support mechanisms for caregivers following disclosures of child maltreatment and abuse.

"Improving caregiver relationships with services could lead to more community members offering to become caregivers, reducing the number of children leaving the territory into the foster care system," says study co-lead Romani Makkik, a senior researcher at the Umingmak Center who is Inuk.

The researchers also highlight the importance of respectful engagement with Inuit communities and the equitable provision of resources that acknowledge and address historical and ongoing systemic injustices.

"Families thrive when they receive meaningful information in a culturally safe, timely, and respectful manner," says Jeffrey Ansloos, an associate professor of Indigenous health and social policy at OISE who is Cree and English, and a citizen of Fisher River Cree Nation. "Achieving this requires a fundamental shift in power dynamics and a focus on relational accountability in service delivery, leadership, and research.

"While much work remains to improve child advocacy in Nunavut, Inuit leadership and strong support for Inuit families must be central. This is why Umingmak's work is so important."

Caregivers involved in Family Services have long faced unique challenges and a lack of support while navigating child protection processes in Nunavut. For Inuit caregivers, this is exacerbated by the experience of intergenerational trauma, anti-Inuit racism, and the complex history of Family Services and law enforcement complicity in settler colonization across Inuit Nunangat (the Inuit homeland).

In response, the Umingmak Center opened in Iqaluit in 2019 to provide trauma-informed, culturally safe care for children and families involved in Family Services due to abuse. A critical gap soon emerged: while caregivers sought services for children, they rarely sought support for themselves, despite the distress that child welfare processes may causeespecially for those facing intergenerational trauma, racism or a lack of cultural safety.

To better understand the needs of caregivers and enhance child advocacy, the Umingmak Center partnered with the Critical Health and Social Action Lab (CHSA Lab) at OISE, an Indigenous-led research center led by Ansloos that focuses on advancing health justice through community partnerships.

Between October 2022 and July 2023, the research team conducted 30 interviews with Inuit and settler caregivers who had interacted with the Umingmak Center, as well as Inuit and settler service providers.

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Challenging power dynamics in research

One challenging aspect of the project was ensuring the researchers did not replicate the institutional harms they were studying through their own methods, says Cara Samuel, a doctoral candidate at OISE who acted as project co-ordinator for the study.

The team used a collaborative story analysis method for interpreting the interviews. Guided by the principles of Unikkaaqatigiinniq (storytelling) and Iqqaumaqatigiinniq (all knowledge coming into one), the team analyzed interviews in their entirety to preserve the integrity of each individual's story.

"Often, how we approach research inadvertently reinforces inequitable power dynamics that prioritize Western or Southern knowledge," says Samuel. "We wanted to elevate Inuit Qauijimajatuqangit (Inuit knowledge) and cultural resources in our research paradigm and center lived experience."

Community leadership and partnership

The CHSA Lab's emphasis on community partnership ensured genuine collaboration and shared decision-making at every stage of the project.

"We were partners, which means equity in leadership and shared responsibilities for the work and its outcomes," says Samuel.

"Research is only powerful when led by the community it serves, and we were fortunate to work with dedicated partners in Nunavut committed to justice for Inuit families," adds Ansloos, who is the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Studies in Health, Suicide Studies, and Environmental Justice. "Our team worked hard to engage a wide range of people, but Umingmak's research leadership, Romani Makkik, and her long-standing relationships and trusted work in the community made our deeper engagement with Inuit caregivers possible."

Makkik says that the report will play a crucial role in improving Umingmak's services and shaping future programsand that the Umingmak Center hopes to strengthen its partnerships with government services and community organizations to improve services for children and caregivers across Nunavut more broadly.
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Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Understanding complex climate science can be tricky enough, even in your own language. So what happens when none of the mainstream climate information is published in your native tongue?

Most people are excluded from conversations and decisions about how to tackle the biggest threat to humanity because they can't easily access accurate reporting.

Almost 90% of scientific publications are in English, explains Marco Saraceni, a professor of linguistics at the University of Portsmouth. "This is a staggering dominance of just one language. But English, often called a global language, is only spoken by a minority of the world's population."

Between 1 and 2 billion people speak Englishso, as Saraceni highlights: "At least three-quarters of the world's population do not speak the language in which the science about climate change is disseminated globally. At the same time, languages other than English are marginalized and struggle to find space in the global communication of science."

You're reading the Imagine newslettera weekly synthesis of academic insight on solutions to climate change, brought to you by The Conversation. I'm Anna Turns, senior environment editor, covering for Jack Marley, who is working out how to distinguish between an umlaut and an accent circonflexe. This week, we decipher what's being done to improve climate literacy around the world.

Languages are a significant barrier to the global transfer of scientific knowledge, according to a 2016 study. Out of the 100 most prestigious scientific journals, 91 are published in the UK and US. Yet, the biggest effects of the climate crisis are being felt in the developing world.

This widespread language bias leads to inequalities, argues Saraceni. One way to break the barrier of English monolingualism involves using AI to promote multilingualism, he explains.

A noteworthy example is the work of Climate Cardinals, a US-based youth enterprise with a mission to "make the climate movement more accessible to those who don't speak English." Its network of thousands of young volunteers is translating climate information into more than 100 languages. Now, specialist Google tools are also being used to accelerate the translation of these resources.

Climate in the classroom

Even within English-speaking classrooms, not everyone engages equally with climate education, as UCL climate education researchers recently discovered when they surveyed more than 2,400 school pupils aged 1114 in England.

Their study revealed that many disadvantaged pupils did not engage emotionally with the climate crisis. In contrast, pupils from more advantaged backgrounds tended to want to learn more, and were more inclined to take positive steps to help the environment.

The researchers found this variation in climate literacy and educational opportunities "highly concerning"primarily because children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. "But these children's limited capacity to engage with climate issues is also understandable," they added, "considering the state of child poverty in the UK and the more immediate challenges they are probably facing."

Thankfully, there is hope. By bringing creative activities and crafting into climate lessons, students can more easily connect with nature through art, reflect on their emotions, and experiment with storytelling. This, the study suggests, supports their sense of agency and empowerment. So, climate literacy is about way more than knowing the facts or learning the science.

Innovative storytelling can empower the deaf community too. This week, in a first for The Conversation's UK edition, Audrey Cameron published an article in video form using British sign language, with the written translation beneath. Cameron, part of the sign development team at the University of Edinburgh's Scottish Sensory Center, explains how new signs for environmental concepts are designed to make it easier for deaf people to discuss climate issues:

"The sign for 'carbon footprint' doesn't attempt to combine signs for carbon and footprint. Instead, it shows carbon emissions being released into the atmosphere, with the speed of movement indicating emission levels. This approach makes complex concepts immediately understandable, eliminating the need for time-consuming finger-spelling."

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Even scientists are excluded

Research published last year reveals the enormity of the language barrier faced by scientists who are non-native English speakers. The Australian translatE project was launched in 2019 to investigate the consequences of exactly this.

Tatsuya Amano, a lecturer in biological sciences at the University of Queensland, Australia, is part of the translatE project team. He notes that AI is useful, but is not being adopted by all academic publishers: "The British Ecological Society recently integrated an AI language editing tool into its journals' submission system. However, some journals have banned the use of such tools."

Henry Arenas-Castro, an evolutionary biologist also at the University of Queensland, goes as far as to describe academic publishers as "the gatekeepers of scientific knowledge." His team reviewed the policies of 736 biological science journals, and found that most made only minimal efforts to overcome language barriers in academic publishing. Changing this could, he says, encourage the participation of a multilingual scientific community.

Amano encourages the scientific community to embrace diversity and reframe non-English speakers as an asset. "By transferring information across language barriers," he explains, "non-native English speakers provide diverse views that can't otherwise be accessed. They have an indispensable role in contributing to humanity's knowledge base."

Diverse discussions

The University of Oxford's Josh Ettinger studies how to promote successful climate discussions among diverse groups of people. By posing more questions about the issues and really listening to the responses, he says people can inspire more engagement with climate change.

Ettinger has designed an interactive online map that anyone can use to track the climate conversations they havein any languagewith others around the world. "By speaking with our family, friends and communities about it, we can help maintain the attention this crucial issue deserves, and widen the pool of people engaged in climate action," he writes.

Miki Mori, a linguistics researcher based on Mayotte Island, off the coast of Madagascar, studies the language that local communities use to describe climate change. "Local fishers on Mayotte struggle to talk about the phenomenon because there is no established terminology for it," she says.

"What my colleagues and I have learned offers some insight into the difficulties people in many cultures have with understanding climate change. In the grand scheme of climate change education and sustainability efforts, this seemingly minor problem of translation is in fact symptomatic of a larger, underlying issue regarding the relationship between humans and their environment."

Strong spiritual and religious beliefs can inform people's interpretation too. Mori explains: "The Maore fishers we interviewed, many of whom were of a deep Islamic faith, often responded with "Inshallah," or God willing, when questioned about efforts the community could make in the future to address the problem. They saw these climate change-related events as out of their handsas something only God could interfere with."

So, Mori notes, translators such as the volunteers at Climate Cardinals should always consider the context of their work. "In their efforts to translate this research and related phenomena, they need to think carefully about how important words are translated and understood."

Mori concludes that, because the need for climate change awareness will only rise, "care needs to be taken about how these concepts are lived, understood and talked about in non-western settings. Language is part and parcel of these efforts, and deserves to be considered more carefully."

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Ribeiro (with hat) and a volunteer collecting cigarette butts on Pereque Beach. Each cigarette butt contains thousands of toxic substances. Credit: Italo Braga Castro

A study conducted by researchers at the Federal University of Sao Paulo (UNIFESP) found high levels of contamination on Pereque Beach in Guaruja, a city on the coast of Sao Paulo state, Brazil, with plastic litter and cigarette butts predominating. The detailed survey, one of only a few of the kind conducted worldwide, will contribute to the implementation of public policies to mitigate the problem.

An article reporting the results is published in Marine Pollution Bulletin.

The project was a partnership between UNIFESP's Marine Research Institute (IMAR) in Santos and the City of Guaruja's Department of the Environment. It set out to understand the sources of contamination of the beach, which is part of an Environmental Protection Area (Area de Protecao Ambiental) called APA Marinha do Litoral Centro, is heavily used by tourists, and is home to one of the largest and oldest communities of fishers in the Baixada Santista metropolitan area, which comprises nine municipalities including Guaruja and Santos.

On the beach, the researchers collected all the litter and waste from ten sites of 100 square meters each, every day in summer and winter including Saturdays and Sundays.

"The analysis showed that litter on this beach results mainly from tourism. It's worst in summer, suggesting that visitors are the principal source, although residents may be responsible for some of it," said Italo Braga de Castro, last author of the article and a professor at IMAR-UNIFESP.

Levels of contamination by plastics and cigarette butts were considered high according to an internationally recognized beach litter index. In 12 studies conducted worldwide using the same method, Pereque ranked as the dirtiest beach.

"Cigarette butts are the type of waste most frequently found on beaches in studies conducted not just here but worldwide. This is alarming because they contain many toxic substancesover 7,000 in some cases. At least 150 are dangerous to human health and biota. They're known as 'chemical bombs,'" said Victor Vasques Ribeiro, first author of the article and a Ph.D. candidate at IMAR-UNIFESP.

From plastic to concrete

To arrive at the results, the group picked ten sites on Pereque Beachfive each in the wet and dry parts, delimiting in each site an area of 100 square meters from which all waste with more than 3 centimeters was removed and stored. Some 20 volunteers collected the material with the scientists, in the winter and summer of 2022 and 2023, at weekends and on weekdays.

The waste was later sorted into plastic, metal, glass, paper, cardboard, clothes, textiles and processed wood (used in furniture and buildings). Owing to high incidence and potential impact, cigarette butts were given a separate category. Material that did not fit into any of the categories was considered "Other."

The group collected 2,579 items in an area of 4,000 sq. m., ranking Pereque Beach as "dirty" on the Clean-Coast Index (CCI) scale. The CCI was published in 2007 and has been used in many comparable studies.

The volume of litter increased in summer compared with winter, when it was considered "moderate." This difference was expected in view of the increase in numbers of visitors during the summer tourist season. The results were similar to those found in other studies for Brazilian and Latin American beaches generally.

In both seasons, the volume of waste was larger in the dry part of the beach than in the part that receives the impact of waves. This was also foreseeable since lighter material is normally blown to the dry part by the wind and people use the dry part for picnics and to smoke, throwing away packaging and cigarette butts there.

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On the other hand, heavier items such as ceramic and concrete shards were more frequently found in the wet part of the beach, given that they could not be moved by wind or tides.

A total of 603 cigarette butts were collected. According to a scientifically recognized estimate of the contaminants that can leak from cigarette butts, affecting humans and other living beings, this amounted to "severe pollution," the highest level found in the 12 studies of beaches and urban areas conducted to date on the basis of this method.

Another beach with almost as high a level of pollution is also in a marine protected area (MPA) around Saint Martin Island in Bangladesh. Comparable, albeit lower, levels were found in Colombia and Iran as well as urban areas in the Brazilian cities of Santos (Sao Paulo state) and Niteroi (Rio de Janeiro state).

"We didn't find a significant difference between the amount of litter on weekdays and weekends, probably because the city sweeps the beach with a tractor on Fridays. But this operation misses the cigarette butts because they're too small to be caught by the chain harrow," Ribeiro said.

Another measure of the amount of waste, in this case comprising material that can injure bathers and fishers, such as ceramics, concrete and metal, as well as potentially infectious medical objects and personal hygiene items, was class 3, meaning "a considerable amount of hazardous litter is seen."

The levels are similar to those found in coastal environments in Chile, Colombia, Morocco and Nigeria, but higher than in most countries surveyed on the same basis, such as Bangladesh, China, Italy and Qatar, among others.

"The results provide a very clear picture of the situation and the need for intervention. Education to raise awareness, installation of ash trays and litter bins, fines, even banning smoking on the beach, as has been done in Barcelona, Spain, are some of the options available to lawmakers and city managers to mitigate the problem," Castro said.

More information: Victor Vasques Ribeiro et al, Marine macrolitter and cigarette butts hazard multiple-use marine protected area and fishing community at Brazil, Marine Pollution Bulletin (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2024.117031 Journal information: Marine Pollution Bulletin

Provided by FAPESP
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(a) Frequency of initial behaviors under all pALAN treatments and control, displayed in a mosaic plot, where the width of the column indicates the number of repeats. (b) Latency (log-transformed) of moths' responses under the different treatments. The lines in the box plots represent the medians; the box represents the interquartile range (IQR), the upper (Q3) and lower (Q1) quartiles; the whiskers show the range of the data (minimum and maximum value excluding outliers, respectively, with dots showing outliers). The letters above the plots indicate the following: A indicates the spectrum differences between phosphor-coated LEDs and RGB LEDs, with p = 0.003; B indicates the statistical comparison (Bonferroni post-hoc test) between cool and warm phosphor-coated LEDs, with p = 0.001, and C indicates the statistical comparison between cool and warm RGB LEDs, with p = 0.392. Credit: Biology Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2024.0403

"Cool" white lightssuch as those in modern car headlightsendanger moths by causing them to fly erratically, new research shows. The findings are published in the journal Biology Letters.

University of Exeter scientists exposed moths to shorts bursts of light, simulating car headlights, then observed their flight patterns. They found that the "cool" white phosphor-coated LEDs used in modern car headlights dazzled moths and affected their flight.

Moths exposed to this light were 80% more likely to fly erratically or towards the light, compared to those exposed to other lightsand 25 times more likely to fly in these abnormal ways compared to a control group not exposed to any light.

Moths are important pollinators, pests, and prey. In the UK alone there are over 2,500 species, many of which are showing rapid population declines, with similar trends worldwide.

Light pollution is implicated in their declines and most studies have focused on the effect of streetlights. However, vehicle headlights create intense pulses of light along road networks that extend deep into rural and "dark sky" areas.

"Vehicle headlights are becoming ever brighter and bluer," said Dr. Jolyon Troscianko, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall. "In humans, our pupils can change size in less than a second in response to dazzling glare, but in insects the process can take tens of minutes, potentially making them highly vulnerable.

"Moths that fly towards car headlights may be killed in a collision, while erratic flight also wastes energy and may increase the risk from predators such as bats. Many moths are only active for a very short time at night, so this disruption could interfere with their ability to feed and find mates."

The research team caught and released 428 moths from 64 species on the Penryn Campus, exposing each moth to one of the following for 10 seconds immediately before release:

"Cool" (blue-shifted) white phosphor-coated LEDs.

"Warm" (amber-shifted) white phosphor-coated LEDs.

"Cool" RGB (Red-Green-Blue) LEDslight from three LEDs of different colors.

"Warm" RGB LEDs.

No light (control group).

On release, moths from the light-free control group typically flew either up or down.

Those exposed to the cool phosphor-coated LEDs were more likely to fly towards the light, or in tight circles (something rarely seen in moths when night-lighting is not present).

"Simply by switching to warmer-colored LEDs or different LED technology, we can dramatically reduce their impact on moths," said Madeleine Fabusova, who collected the data as part of her MSci in Conservation Biology and Ecology at the University of Exeter.

"The phosphor-coated cool LEDs were more harmful than RGB LEDs that have an identical white color to human vision. Our results were remarkably consistent across different moth species. Reducing the blue spectrum in headlights may therefore benefit moths, the flowers they pollinate, and the animals that feed on them."

Commenting on the trend for brighter, bluer headlights, Professor Kevin Gaston, of the Environment and Sustainability Institute at the University of Exeter, said, "There's no safety benefit to humans from these blue lights compared to lights with more red and greenthe current trends appear to come from car manufacturers.

"Car manufacturers, consumers and policymakers could all play a role in making a fairly simple change to reduce our impact on the natural world."

More information: Madeleine Fabusova et al, Pulsed artificial light at night alters moth flight behaviour, Biology Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2024.0403 Journal information: Biology Letters
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Conventional silk textiles: (A) plain woven dyed fabric, PW-D; (B) noil woven dyed fabric, NW-D; (C) dyed single Jersey knit fabric, JK-D; (D) dyed Satin (Charmeuse) woven fabric, CW-D; and (E) dyed Shantung (Duponi) woven fabric, SW-D. (F) SEM image of electrospun fiber mat; (G) FTIR spectra depicting amide bands I, II, III for silk dope or silk fibroin solutions, SFS; natural silk fiber, SF; silk particles, SPs; and PW fabric. FTIR sub spectra of (H) SF, (I) SFS, (J) PW, (K) SP, and (L) ES and SEM images of (M) treated PW fabric, PW-T, and (N) SP. Credit: Fibers (2024). DOI: 10.3390/fib12110099

Cornell researchers have developed an elegant and sustainable way to clean up waterways: reusing one waste product to remove another.

Led by Larissa Shepherd, assistant professor in the Department of Human Centered Design, in the College of Human Ecology, the team has proposed using discarded silk yarn for the removal of dye and oil from water. Studies on several different forms of silk: fabrics, yarns, and fibers revealed that yarn unraveled from silk fabric, soaked up methylene blue (MB), a common textile dye, from water at a substantially higher rate than other forms of silk they tested.

What's more, the silk yarn can be cleaned and reused. Shepherd's group found that the textile can withstand at least 10 cycles, with minimal loss of functionality.

Shepherd is the corresponding author of "Waste Bombyx Mori Silk Textiles as Efficient and Reuseable Bio-Adsorbents for Methylene Blue Dye Removal and Oil-Water Separation," published Nov. 14 in the journal Fibers. Co-authors are Hansadi Jayamaha, doctoral candidate in the field of fiber science, and Isabel Schorn, a fiber science undergraduate.

Jayamaha had been studying properties of silk as part of her doctoral thesis work and developed hollow sphere silk particles in order to test their potential for adsorptionthe adhesion of molecules from a gas or liquid to a surface. In doing so, they also tested other forms of silk, including unraveled silk yarn from a textile item.

"Structure is really important in my lab, so we start from the nano scale and work up to that finished textile," Shepherd said.

"We were looking for a structure that was optimum for this adsorption, and we initially thought that the silk fabrics coated with particles were going to work best, but we found that just disassembling the fabric itself to the yarn stage actually showed, for the same weight, even faster adsorption."

Jayamaha found that 12 milligrams of silk filament yarn has 90% MB dye removal efficiency within 10 minutes of exposure, for concentrations up to 100 parts per million, substantially greater than the efficiency of other formseven electrospun fiber mats or fabrics treated with the hollow silk microparticle spheres, which was a surprise, the researchers said.

"By creating the spheres," Jayamaha said, "we were creating a more hydrophilic surface compared to the silk fabric, which is more hydrophobic. But by disassembling the fabric to the yarn stage, we are creating higher surface area, and that improves the adsorption."

The group also tested silk textile adsorption capacity with oil, and found that Noil fabric (a textile that contains silk yarns composed of short fibers, rather than filament) displays oil adsorption capacities three times the initial weight of the fabric for corn oil, and close to twice the weight for gasoline.

Tests on both materials showed that, following a diminishment of function after the first cleaning-reuse cycle, the material maintained its functionality for the subsequent nine cycles.

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This intrinsic property of silk as a dye adsorbent, the group found, can be achieved without chemical or other alteration of the materialjust deconstructing the textile product.

"When you regenerate silk, you have to use very harsh chemicals," Shepherd said. "In our case, we're just using the fabrics themselves. Yes, we may have to unravel them to get the benefit, but that's much better than putting these harsh chemicals out into the environment."

Shepherd envisions "pillows" containing the silk yarn unraveled from discarded textiles and remnants from the cut and sew operations of the textiles industry as being an effective means of cleaning up spills and waste materials, including MB dye, which is detrimental to agricultural land and waterways when it is accidentally released from textile plants.

"We realized that we can kill two birds with one stone: We can get rid of waste textiles, which is a big issue in the textile industry in general," Shepherd said. "And then we found that it's actually really good at adsorbing, just because of its natural, structural properties."

This work made use of the Cornell Center for Materials Research Shared Facilities, as well as the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility, a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, which is supported by the National Science Foundation.

More information: Hansadi Jayamaha et al. Waste Bombyx Mori Silk Textiles as Efficient and Reuseable Bio-Adsorbents for Methylene Blue Dye Removal and OilWater Separation, Fibers (2024). DOI: 10.3390/fib12110099. www.mdpi.com/2079-6439/12/11/99
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Chinese President Xi Jinping's Special Representative Ding Xuexiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese vice premier, attends and addresses the International Zero-Carbon Island Cooperation Initiative Launching Conference held by China during the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 13, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang on Wednesday called for strengthening international cooperation on climate change adaptation for islands, exploring the creation of an international zero-carbon island cooperation organization, and promoting resource sharing, technology exchange, and experience sharing to help small island nations better address the challenges of climate change.

Ding, Chinese President Xi Jinping's special representative and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks when addressing the International Zero-Carbon Island Cooperation Initiative Launching Conference held by China during the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Ding said that China attaches great importance to addressing climate change and fully understands the unique challenges and concerns that small island nations face in this regard.

In recent years, China has collaborated with small island nations to establish low-carbon demonstration zones, develop and implement mitigation and adaptation projects, and set up the China-Pacific Island Countries Climate Change Cooperation Center, actively supporting small island nations in addressing climate change and improving people's livelihoods and well-being, he added.

Noting that addressing the survival crisis of islands is a shared responsibility of all humanity, Ding called on all parties to work together to enhance islands' capacity to adapt to climate change, strengthen island infrastructure, and advance scientific research and technological innovation in disaster prevention and mitigation.

He called for promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of islands, developing clean energy systems suited to local conditions, fostering green industries, protecting island resources, and preserving marine ecosystems.

Ding said that China is willing to work closely with all parties to push for an early achievement of the goal of zero-carbon islands and build islands that are green, beautiful, safe, and prosperous.

The conference was held at the China Pavilion of the UN Climate Change Conference. Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu, Sao Tome and Principe's Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada, Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell, and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat Simon Stiell attended the conference and delivered speeches.
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Credit: Yan Krukau from Pexels

Many employees know all too well the feeling of frustration that comes with a chatty customer or coworker who just won't leave you alone at work. But new research from Temple University takes a closer look at the real-world effects of wasting an employee's time while they're on the clock.

"Don't Waste My Time! The Development and Validation of the Wasted Time Perceptions Scale" is the latest scholarly research article authored by Brian Holtz, associate professor of management from Temple's Fox School of Business; Crystal Harold, professor of management and associate dean for master's programs at Fox; and Harshad Puranik from the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Recently published online in the Journal of Management, the research explores what it means to have your time wasted at work, and it finds that employees feel a sense of frustration and engage in counterproductive work behaviors when they perceive that their time is being wasted.

"Intuitively, I think we understand that time is important to people, and we really don't like it when our time's wasted," said Holtz, whose research often focuses on fairness in the workplace, and more recently, the ways people experience time in the workplace. "But in the academic literature, it's not really been well-defined what that means, and, from a scientific perspective, how we might study people's perceptions of wasted time."

The researchers defined wasted time as anything that interferes with an employee's ability to obtain their goals.

"We viewed goals really broadly in terms of any desired outcome or any desired state," Holtz said. "Your goal may be to have fun and be happy, or to get your work done. If someone is intruding on your time in a way that prevents you from accomplishing whatever your goal may be in that moment, that is going to be deemed as a waste of time."

They then administered surveys to several hundred participants, posing questions about how they perceived wasted time at work, and the emotions and behaviors that resulted from their time being wasted.

"We found, probably not surprisingly, that when a person perceives that their time is wasted by others in the workplacewhether those are one's boss, one's coworkers, even one's customersthat is a frustrating experience," Harold noted. "They feel a greater frustration, and in turn, they act out accordingly."

The study found that if an employee feels frustrated with their boss, they act in ways that are counterproductive towards that boss. Or if it's a coworker wasting their time, they try to get back at their coworker. The same is true with customers, the study found.

These behaviors are often entity-specific, meaning that if one is frustrated with their coworker, they generally don't lash out rudely at customers, or vice versa.

They identified a multitude of counterproductive work behaviors that employees engage in when their time is wasted by a coworker or customer, including

Criticizing that individual's opinion or suggestion.

Trying to avoid interacting with that individual.

Excluding that individual from conversations.

Speaking poorly about that individual.

Being blunt with a customer.

Intentionally slowing service to a customer.

Making gestures (e.g., sighing, eye rolling) to express impatience with a customer.

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The study also found that employees will engage in counterproductive work behaviors targeted at their organization when they perceive their time is being wasted. These behaviors include

Not working to the best of their ability.

Spending time on tasks unrelated to work.

Taking unnecessary breaks.

Speaking poorly about their organization to others.

While some of these outcomes may seem obvious, Holtz doesn't think the effects of wasted time are appropriately understood by bosses and managers.

"I think a lot of bosses in the workplace don't appreciate that paying attention to whether or not employees feel their time is wasted is quite important," Holtz said.

The researchers discuss that lack of appreciation in relation to the commodified view of time concept, which suggests that time is a commodity, and organizations essentially pay for their employees' time. Holtz believes that many managers subscribe to that viewpoint and lose sight of how it affects employees.

"Our paper surfaces this idea that even though people are compensated for their time, they still care about whether or not their time is used in valuable ways," he said. "It's a frustrating experience to have one's time wasted, even if you're getting paid."

The paper also offers some real-world suggestions based on the findings. First and foremost, it is important for managers to be aware that employees are concerned about having their time used in what they perceive to be useful, goal-oriented manners.

And beyond just being aware of that, bosses should work to ensure that everyone's time is used in valuable ways, and they're not assigning busywork or nonsensical tasks. They should also work to remove barriers to people's goal accomplishments.

So, the next time a chatty coworker steals 15 minutes of your valuable time on the clock, consider telling your boss about it.

"If you have someone who's constantly buzzing around the office, taking up peoples' time in unproductive ways, maybe the boss needs to step in and intervene," Holtz said.

More information: Brian C. Holtz et al, Don't Waste My Time! The Development and Validation of the Wasted Time Perceptions Scale, Journal of Management (2024). DOI: 10.1177/01492063241258726 Journal information: Journal of Management
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Credit: Kawe Rodrigues from Pexels

Self-employment can provide an alternative career transition to retirement, but only for those in good health and in high-paying careers, research from Trinity Business School reveals.

People in unstable, low-paying careers, however, opt to just retire, according to the study published in the Cambridge Journal of Economics.

The study examined whether self-employment helps bridge the gap to retirement among those aged over 50. It drew on interviews with 123,000 people aged 50 plus in 21 European countries including Ireland, France, U.K., and Sweden (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe [SHARE] project).

The study comes as pressure continues to mount on policymakers to address the challenges posed by longer-living populations and insufficient older-age employment levels. Self-employment has been touted as a viable option to encourage people to continue to work into older ages.

Key findings

Over-50s who switched from wage-employment to self-employment were in good health and had good job prospects.

Over-50s in unstable, low-earning careers, meanwhile, were found to be significantly less likely to switch to self-employment.

Switches to self-employment were only associated with positive circumstances.

The study by Associate Professor Martha O'Hagan and Senior Research Fellow Dr. Andre van Stel from Trinity Business School, was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Brigitte Hoogendoorn and Sanaz Ramezani from Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Prof O'Hagan explained, "Our research finds that many of those who switched from wage-employment to self-employment could have chosen to continue in employment or switch to another wage-paying job. In other words, those who switched to self-employment could probably reach a high retirement age in wage-employment as well.

"As life expectancy continues to rise across the EU, pension systems are facing increasing pressure, prompting a greater focus on extending active employment into older ages. In this context, self-employment among older workers has gained attention as a potential solution to extend working lives and offer opportunities to those facing age-related discrimination.

"Our findings also indicate that while self-employment can serve as a bridge to retirement, this pathway is far less accessible for precarious wage workers compared to those in higher-paying, more secure positions. Consequently, any government support aimed at promoting senior entrepreneurship may not reach the individuals it was designed to help.

"The research indicates that, while people with precarious careers will actively try to improve their employment situation, they will only consider switching to another wage job as a realistic option to achieve this goal, not switching to self-employment.

"One possible reason for the reluctance of older wage workers in precarious job conditions to voluntarily switch to self-employment is that they don't want to give up their right to unemployment benefits in case their business fails. In many countries, the self-employed are not allowed to take part in collective unemployment insurance systems, while private unemployment insurance is often too expensive."

More information: Brigitte Hoogendoorn et al, Does self-employment provide a bridge to retirement?, Cambridge Journal of Economics (2024). DOI: 10.1093/cje/beae016
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Predicted support for selected EU Climate Change Mitigation (ECCM) packages. Note: Bars depict outcomes of high-estimate support derived from Support versus Oppose ECCM (1 = somewhat or strongly in favor of EURS; 0 = somewhat or strongly against; missing = neutral). Horizontal lines indicate low-estimate support based on Support ECCM (binary) (1 = somewhat or strongly in favor; 0 = neutral or somewhat or strongly against). Estimations are derived from Models 23 in Online Appendix Table 2. Credit: Journal of European Public Policy (2024). DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2024.2304609

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time, and the European Union has set itself ambitious targets to become climate-neutral by 2050. A new policy paper from the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality" at the University of Konstanz now shows that acceptance of EU climate policy strongly depends on the inclusion of social policy measures.

"In general, the study indicates a broad basis for climate policy measures," explains Baute. About 95% of the roughly 6,000 respondents agree that climate change is at least partly man-made, and a majority anticipate negative consequences for humanity. However, public approval of EU climate change mitigation policies heavily depends on their design features.

"Support for EU climate policy can be significantly increased when social policy measures are included," concludes Baute. "Both low-income and high-income groups prefer policy packages with social components: For example, measures that invest in human capitalsuch as (re)training employeesor programs that provide subsidies for low-income households."

The study, published in the Journal of European Public Policy, also reveals that German citizens prefer EU funds to be distributed according to the population size of EU member states rather than their greenhouse gas emissions, for example.

Overall, the results of the survey can provide important information for the successful implementation of climate policy measures. For example, they are also relevant in the context of the Building Energy Act (GEG), which took effect in January 2024. The initial draft, which overlooked key social considerations, faced considerable resistance. Only after significant revisions was the law eventually passed.

More information: Sharon Baute, The distributive politics of the green transition: a conjoint experiment on EU climate change mitigation policy, Journal of European Public Policy (2024). DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2024.2304609
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The expression pattern and subcellular localization of SlCDPK27. Credit: Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08186-2

A team of horticulturists, bio-breeders and agriculture specialists affiliated with a host of institutions across China has produced sweeter tomatoes without sacrificing size, weight or yield by altering two of their genes. In their study, published in the journal Nature, the group modified the genes of a tomato variant that coded for proteins that lowered levels of enzymes related to sugar production.

Amy Lanctot and Patrick Shih with the University of California, Berkeley, have published a News and Views piece in the same journal issue outlining the work done by the team in China.

Over the past several centuries, farmers around the world have crossbred tomato plants with the aim of improving yields and increasing fruit size. The result has been a massive growth in both. Unfortunately, making tomatoes bigger has also made them less sweet. Past efforts to make large modern tomatoes sweeter have resulted in smaller yields.

For this new study, the research team took a new approach. They began by looking into the reason for the loss of sweetness in tomatoes and partially corrected crossbreeding effects on the tomato genome.

The research team discovered two genes in multiple tomato variants that were more active in larger varieties. Called SlCDPK26 and SlCDPK27, the two genes were found to code for proteins that lowered the levels of enzymes that produce sugar. The researchers next genetically modified the genome of a variety of large tomato called Money Maker to disable the two genes they had identified.

Plants grown with the modification produced tomatoes with a 30% increase in fructose and glucose levels with no reduction in size or weight. The team further confirmed that the tomatoes were sweeter by tasting them. The gene alterations did not diminish yieldsthe only other difference they found was that the tomatoes produced fewer seeds, which were also smaller. They suggest consumers would probably like this added feature.

The research team acknowledges that their modified tomatoes are not as sweet as cherry varieties, but suggest further work might lead to more gene changes that could make the biggest tomatoes as sweet as the smallest.

More information: Jinzhe Zhang et al, Releasing a sugar brake generates sweeter tomato without yield penalty, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08186-2 Amy Lanctot et al, Tomato engineering hits the sweet spot to make big sugar-rich fruit, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/d41586-024-03302-8 Journal information: Nature

 2024 Science X Network
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Population structure of Biobank Japan. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54052-0

New research exploring the roots of modern Japanese populations has linked the genetic signature of Jomon hunter-gatherers to a higher body mass index (BMI) among individuals, underlining that ancient human ancestors can leave a genetic legacy with impacts on health in modern day populations.

The researchjust published in the journal Nature Communicationsalso found broad support for the "tripartite ancestry model." This effectively means variations in modern day Japanese genetic patterns can be explained by the historical influence of ancient Jomon hunter-gatherers and two continental groups from Northeast and East Asia that collectively left their genetic imprint on the people of today.

The research analyzed genetic data from Biobank Japan (including over 170,000 individuals), along with ancient Japanese and Eurasian genomes, as well as those from East Asian individuals from the UK Biobank. In total, the analyses used genetic data of ancient and modern genomes that involved over 250,000 participants.

BMI links

The researchers tested associations of Jomon ancestry with 80 different complex traits (from height to BMI) by making robust adjustments for genetic and geographic subpopulations.

They found that the Jomon genetic signature, which on average accounts for 12.5% of a person's genetic make-up, was associated with an increased BMI. And that held true when they expanded their analyses to include East Asian individuals in the UK Biobankunderlining the robustness of this trait that echoes from a largely forgotten time.

Functional and genomic characterization of Jomon-related marker SNPs. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54052-0

Shigeki Nakagome, Assistant Professor in Trinity College Dublin's School of Medicine is a senior author of the research. He said, "Overall, these results suggest that the genetic legacy of the ancient hunter-gatherer Jomon significantly influences BMI across populations today, regardless of geographic differences, and it may consequently contribute to an increased risk of obesity.

"It is a really important discovery that ancient hunter-gatherer ancestry is likely to play a key role in the health of modern day populations. The link to an increased BMI could also help to explain some of the disparities in obesity prevalence among Asian populations residing in Western countries.

"By emphasizing the importance of incorporating Jomon ancestry as a factor in BMI, this analysis essentially provides a proof-of-concept for research that bridges our human past with current health challenges."

The tripartite model

A long-standing model of Japanese origins is a dual-ancestral structure comprising the Jomon, who were hunter-gatherer-fishers who inhabited the archipelago as far back as 16,500 years ago, and immigrant farmers from Northeast Asia. This was recently refined by the tripartite model, which also incorporates East Asian ancestry linked to the state formation phase, the Kofun period, which began around 1,700 years ago.

And the new research found strong support for that tripartite model.

Prof. Nakagome added, "Our analysis, which presents the first in-depth characterization of the tripartite structure across the entire Japanese archipelago, widely and consistently fits better than the dual structure hypothesis. It also unveils substantial variation in the proportion of Jomon ancestry, mirroring the genetic ancestry continuum observed in present-day populations.

"The field of ancient genomics is rapidly evolving, and future research that encompasses a diverse range of ancient humans across various time periods and geographic locations will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the extent to which the human past has shaped genomic and phenotypic variation in contemporary populations. I am sure there is much left to discover, both in Japanese populations, and in others across the globe."

More information: Kenichi Yamamoto et al, Genetic legacy of ancient hunter-gatherer Jomon in Japanese populations, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54052-0 Journal information: Nature Communications
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Donald Trump is expected to retreat from international efforts to limit global warming.

US president-elect Donald Trump's expected climate rollbacks will likely have a "small" impact on global warming, as long as other countries resist the temptation to slacken their own carbon-cutting efforts, new research found Thursday.

Trump, who will return to the White House in January, has pledged to reverse the green policies of President Joe Biden and could pull the United States out of international efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times.

This year is almost certain to be the hottest on record, with rising temperatures unleashing a deadly torrent of floods, heat waves and storms across the world.

In a new analysis of countries' climate plans, the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) project said Trump's potential retreat from the green transition could increase global temperatures by around 0.04C by the end of the century.

Bill Hare of Climate Analytics, one of the groups behind the tracker, said the effect could be "really quite small".

"The damage it would do emission-wise to global climate action, if just confined to the United States and over four to five years, is probably recoverable," he said.

But he said the impact could be significantly greater if other countries use shrinking ambitions from the US, the world's second biggest emitter, as an excuse to slow walk their own climate actions.

That will become clear in the coming weeks and months, with nations expected to submit new and improved emissions-reduction commitments to the United Nations by February.

Hare said that a "fundamental" question will be the reaction of China, the biggest greenhouse gas emitter.

Fossil CO 2 emissions from major countries.

'Flat-lined'

The CAT project calculated that the current crop of climate promises would see the world warm 2.6C by century's end, with very little change in the outlook in the past three years suggesting that government action has "flat-lined".

In a separate report released Thursday, CAT looked at the plans of the biggest greenhouse gas polluters.

The US, which accounts for the largest share of historical greenhouse gas pollution, has said it will cut emissions from all sectors in half by 2030 from 2005 levels.

CAT said US emissions would need to drop 65 percent this decade and 80 percent by 2035 to align with the 1.5C limit.

China, which has yet to outline a pledge covering emissions from all sectors, would need to slash carbon pollution 66 percent by 2030 from 2023 levels and 78 percent by 2035.

"If one looks at the rapid drop in emissions needed, it is reasonable to ask: How could this be possible?" Hare said of the China projections.

"The short answer is it's mainly because we can decarbonize the power sector nearly everywhere, quite quickly. And the first thing to do is to get out of coal."

The report comes after research published on Wednesday found that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels rose again this year to a new record, meaning the cuts needed in the future are even sharper if the world is to meet its warming target.

Emissions of CO 2 from coal, which account for 41 percent of the global total from fossil fuels, ticked up 0.2 percent this year, according to the projections by the Global Carbon Project, with decreases in the US and European Union and increases in China, India and the rest of the world.

 2024 AFP
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A new study uses data collected by the South Pole Telescope, above, to deepen our understanding of how the universe was born and evolved. Credit: Aman Chokshi

Roughly 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe cooled just enough to allow photons to escape from the primordial cosmological soup. Over the next 14 billion years, these ancient photonsthe universe's first lightcontinued traveling. This relic light is known as the Cosmic Microwave Background.

In a new study, scientists used observational data of this first lightcollected from the South Pole Telescope located at the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarcticato explore the theoretical underpinnings of the standard cosmological model that describes the history of the universe over the past 14 billion years.

The study was conducted by UC Davis researchers and colleagues in the South Pole Telescope collaboration, which is led by the University of Chicago, and has been submitted to the journal Physical Review D. It is currently available on the arXiv preprint server.

The study, based on high-precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background and its polarized light, adds further support to the veracity of the standard cosmological model. It also makes a calculation of the Hubble constanthow fast the universe is expandingwith a new method, offering new insight on an ongoing scientific puzzle known as "the Hubble tension."

"We have a largely coherent, detailed, and successful model describing these 14 billion years of evolution," said Lloyd Knox, the Michael and Ester Vaida Endowed Chair in Cosmology and Astrophysics at UC Davis and one of the study's co-authors. "But we don't know what actually generated the initial departures from complete homogeneity that eventually led to all the structures in the universe including ourselves."

"This result is especially exciting, because it represents the first competitive constraints on cosmology using only the polarization of the CMB, making it almost 100% independent of previous results that relied mostly on the total intensity," said study co-author and University of Chicago research professor Tom Crawford.

A polarizing and winding journey across the universe

In the study, the researchers analyzed two years of polarized light data collected by the South Pole Telescope in 2019 and 2020. The study's observations cover 1,500 square degrees of sky and the collected data enabled the researchers to create a large-scale map of the mass in the universe.

Most natural light is unpolarized, composed of a random collection of light waves, each oscillating (waving up and down) with no preferred direction. But when light is reflected it can become polarizedmeaning the light oscillates in a preferred direction.

This happens when sunlight reflects off water, or the ground, and is the reason polarized sunglasses can be so helpful for reducing glare. It also happened as the cosmic microwave background photons underwent their final scattering events in the primordial plasma as it began to disappear 14 billion years ago.

"The light from the cosmic microwave background is partially polarized," Knox said. "We're measuring at each location in our sky map the degree to which it's polarized and the orientation of the polarization."

Researchers used the telescope data to create maps of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background lightwhich can be used to tease out clues about what happened in the very earliest years of the universe. The colors represent the amount of polarization in the cosmic microwave background. Credit: Ge et al

After that last scattering, the slightly polarized light streamed across open space. Gravitational forces distort the paths of these light rays. Light from different regions is also distorted differently, resulting in a warped imagean effect called gravitational lensing.

To discover both what the polarized image would look like in the absence of gravitational lensing and also the map of the mass causing the gravitational lensing, the team used computers at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) in Berkeley.

"What we essentially do at a really high level is we have this data and we send it over to this supercomputer at NERSC," said Marius Millea, a project scientist with Knox's research group and the study's second author. "And the computers are testing this idea, "If this were how the real universe looked, would it produce a map that looks like what we saw?'"

"We have the data, but we also need to have a model that produces or predicts these kind of observables," added Fei Ge, a graduate student with Knox's research group and the study's first author.

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The Hubble tension

The team's research directly addresses a conundrum in the cosmological community known as "the Hubble tension." In essence, scientists can't come to an agreement on the rate of the expansion of the universe, which varies depending on the methodology used to measure it.

In one method, astronomers use the standard cosmological model, combined with observations of the cosmic microwave background, to predict how rapidly the universe is expanding today.

In another method, they use observations of stars, and stellar explosions called supernovae, to measure the expansion rate more directly. Measurements from this method have generally come in higherthat is, a faster rate of expansionthan the standard model predictions. This is one of the major puzzles in contemporary cosmology; the origin of the discrepancy is unknown.

The team used their polarization data, combined with the standard cosmological model, to make a new prediction for the rate of expansion. Their prediction is consistent with the prediction made using the cosmic microwave background intensity maps measured by the Planck satellite, a European Space Agency mission.

The team's new prediction is precise enough to be discrepant with the supernovae measurements at very high statistical significance. It aligns more with the rate of expansion predicted by the standard cosmological model and cosmic microwave background intensity method, and represents one more hoop that any solution to the Hubble tension will have to jump through.
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Illustrations of the solutions of equation (10) for the Zernike order parameters. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-53596-5

Researchers at New York University have devised a mathematical approach to predict the structures of crystalsa critical step in developing many medicines and electronic devicesin a matter of hours using only a laptop, a process that previously took a supercomputer weeks or months. Their novel framework is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Organic molecular crystals are an important class of materials in many industries, from pharmaceuticals and agriculture to electronics and explosives. Crystals are the building blocks that make up many over-the-counter and prescription drugs, insecticides to fight mosquitoes, explosives such as TNT, semiconductors, and light-emitting technologies used in television screens and cell phones.

Despite the ubiquity of molecular crystals in many everyday products, the ability to predict their three-dimensional structures remains a challenge, especially if a compound can crystallize into multiple forms. In one dramatic example of the necessity of predicting crystal structures, scientists in the late 1990s discovered that capsules of the HIV drug ritonavir later transformed from the known crystal form into an unknown but more stable form. This change in crystal structure rendered the drug ineffective and forced it off the market until a new formulation was created.

Most current approaches for predicting crystal structures use physics-based methods that have limitations, including introducing bias and errors or predicting too many crystal forms than actually occur in experiments. Moreover, the methods require significant computing power and can take weeks to months, depending on the complexity of the constituent molecules.

"These physics-based approacheswhich are costly and time-consumingproduce predictions that are only as accurate as the physics you put into them, which is why there has been a push toward computational methods that can address this shortcoming," said Mark Tuckerman, professor of chemistry and mathematics at NYU and the study's senior author.

To overcome this challenge, Tuckerman and Nikolaos Galanakis, an NYU postdoctoral researcher, developed a new mathematical approach that they've named "Crystal Math" to predict crystal structures based on purely mathematical rules governing how molecules pack into crystals and a few simple physical descriptors of the crystal's environment.

Crystal Math then solves for 13 basic parameters related to the arrangement of molecules in the crystalincluding molecular location and orientation and the geometry of the crystal's basic building blocksplus other geometric factors that define the shape of each molecule in the crystal.

Tuckerman and Galanakis verified the rules of Crystal Math using the Cambridge Crystal Data Centre, a database of hundreds of thousands of known organic molecular crystal structures. Specifically, the researchers tested whether their hypothesized mathematical rules were obeyed by the structures in the database, which guided them toward principles that known structures were highly likely to follow.

They then built these principles into a set of equations whose solutions can now be used to predict molecular crystal structures not found in the database. Common pharmaceuticals such as aspirin and paracetamol, whose structures are already known, were used as simple test cases.

Illustrating the steps of Crystal Math for aspirin: The procedure starts with a simple molecular diagram of the compound, information from this diagram is fed into the equations of Crystal Math, and the output is the three-dimensional structures and a topological ranking of experimentally realizable crystalline forms, of which there are three for aspirin. Credit: Tuckerman Research Group

Next, using the equations of Crystal Math, the researchers applied their procedure to more complex molecular crystals, including highly flexible molecules, whose structures are not in the database and obtained structure predictions that matched those generated in experiments with high accuracy.

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"Our equations appear, so far, to give us only experimentally realizable crystal structures, which addresses the problem of physics-based methods that tend to 'overpredict' the number of possible structures, meaning that some of the predicted structures may never be found experimentally," said Tuckerman.

Importantly, the solutions can be achieved in just a few hours on a standard laptop, rather than requiring the long time scales and high-performance computers required of physics-based methods.

"The time to solution is no longer weeks to monthswe can get a solution overnight because solving the equations is relatively quick," added Tuckerman.

Crystal Math represents the culmination of seven years of work by Tuckerman and Galanakis to devise a mathematical solution to this grand-challenge problem. Tuckerman was particularly inspired by a 1967 paper by Swiss mathematician and crystallographer Johann Jakob Burckhardt, who suggested that it should be possible to use math to predict crystal structures, yet didn't put forward a solution of his own.

More than 55 years later, Tuckerman and Galanakis's math-based protocol has drawn interest from the pharmaceutical industry and holds promise for investigating yet-to-be discovered compounds and predicting their crystal structures.

"The very ability to develop new products relies on knowing if the compounds that constitute them will crystallize, how many crystal forms are possible, and the stability of these various forms," said Tuckerman. "With our mathematical approach, it is possible to test the ability of many compounds to crystallize and determine if these structures are suitable for ultimate deployment on the market."

More information: Nikolaos Galanakis et al, Rapid prediction of molecular crystal structures using simple topological and physical descriptors, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-53596-5 Journal information: Nature Communications
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Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Since May this year, the aurora borealis (northern lights), has at times been visible further south than usual over Britain, sparking amazement and fascination. Social media has been alive with images of the skies glowing with green, pink and red light.

Today, we know these lights happen during geomagnetic storms. This is when charged subatomic particles, primarily electrons, collide with Earth's atmosphere. These particles are constantly released by the sun. But the frequency and intensity of auroras increase during periods of heightened solar activity.

The spectacle itself has long inspired cultural and spiritual interpretation. Centuries ago, people often regarded the aurora as a mysterious and ominous phenomenon.

Between the 14th and 19th centuries, a period known as the "Little Ice Age", weather and climate were generally cooler in the north Atlantic than today. Historical and literary sources from Wales reveal a lot about climate variability during this period. And these poems, songs, religious texts and personal diaries also tell us a lot about attitudes towards natural phenomena like the northern lights.

In an era when the night sky was largely free of artificial light, the aurora was an extraordinary sight. For many, it appeared as a divine sign.

Poet Robert Owen captured the sense of awe in 1749. He described the northern lights as a "rhyfeddod hynod" (strange wonder) and "arwyddion cryfion Crist" (Christ's strong signs). His words echo the reverence with which these lights were regarded, symbolizing mystery and divine power.

People often projected spiritual or political significance onto natural events, especially during periods of upheaval or uncertainty. In 1745, for instance, auroral displays coincided with the Jacobite rebellion. This was a period of political tension between the Protestant monarchy and supporters of the deposed Catholic Stuart line. Owen's writings reflect the belief that the lights were a warning to uphold the Protestant faith.

The balladeer Hugh Jones interpreted the aurora seen during the American war of independence (177583) as a divine reminder that Britain should uphold the Protestant faith and make peace with America.

As the 18th century progressed, scientific ideas began challenging traditional interpretations of natural phenomena like the northern lights. The religious leader and writer William Williams of Pantycelynbest known for his hymn "Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer"captured both theological and scientific perspectives in his 1774 treatise on the northern lights.

It was published following spectacular auroral displays in 1770 which were seen across the globe from Japan to Spain. Williams presented the lights as evidence of the Gospel's success. He also connected them to the legitimacy of the second wave of Methodist evangelical reformation in Wales from 1762 onwards.

In his treatise, Williams also acknowledged some contemporary theories, speculating that the aurora might be related to "the new art" of electricity.

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Almanacs

Wales's 18th-century almanacs were annual publications combining calendars, weather lore and astrological predictions. Despite being ridiculed by 18th-century literary figures, Wales's popular almanacs were an important platform for bringing scientific knowledge to public attention.

They included explanations of astronomy, the ideas of Isaac Newton, and the discovery of Uranus in 1781. Almanacs also included explanations of natural phenomena like the northern lights.

In 1717, John Jones, a Welsh almanac compiler, described the aurora as a "tarth" (vapor) rising from the earth. This echoed the broader scientific discourse of the time. His explanatory essays also represent a shift towards a scientific understanding of the natural world and the emergence of a new science of meteorology.

Historical records provide a bridge between the past and present. They demonstrate ways in which natural phenomena were understood and valued centuries ago. They help chart the history of science and reconstruct patterns of past solar activity. In the range of traditional and scientific explanations that they cover, Welsh historical records demonstrate an enduring fascination with the aurora borealis.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Between 2005 and 2022, Maryland reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by a greater percentage than any other state, according to a national study.

The study, which evaluated the federal Environmental Protection Agency's database of state greenhouse gas inventories, determined that Maryland reduced its globe-warming emissions 36% in the 18-year span. Washington, D.C., took second place, with Maine and New Hampshire close behind.

Per capita, Maryland had the third-most reductions42%behind Washington, D.C., and Georgia.

In Maryland and several other states, many of the reductions have come thanks to the retirement of coal-fired power plants. To achieve further reductions in their carbon footprints, states will have to turn away from fossil fuels in other sectors, such as transportation and building heating and cooling, according to the report, which was released by the Environment America Research & Policy Center, the Public Interest Research Group and Frontier Group.

"It's time to look towards the next phase of emissions reductions, which will come from powering our homes and buildings with clean, efficient energy, using electric vehicles and making it easier for people to get around by bike and on foot," said Johanna Neumann, senior director of Environment America Research & Policy Center's Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy, in a news release.

According to the study, 44 states and the District saw emissions reductions in the study period, whereas six saw increases, with the largest jumps coming in North Dakota (23%), Idaho (20%) and South Dakota (15%). Much of the increases were attributed to oil and gas production, and the agricultural sector, according to the study. Overall, the United States reduced emissions 15% during the time frame.

Maryland has some of the most ambitious climate goals in the nation. The Climate Solutions Now Act, which was passed by the legislature in 2022, requires the state to reduce its emissions 60% by 2031, based on a 2006 baseline. The law also requires that the state reach net-zero status, offsetting its greenhouse gas emissions with reductions, by 2045.

Study signals Maryland's progress

Last December, the Maryland Department of the Environment released a climate plan, produced in collaboration with climate researchers at the University of Maryland, charting out actions the state could take to meet its deadline. Because the General Assembly's mandate did not attribute a specific funding source to the plan, MDE suggested potential funding mechanisms to account for a roughly $1 billion shortfall amid a budget crunch, including fees on emission-generating industries.

By curtailing its usage of fossil fuels, and fueling the energy grid increasingly with renewable energy, such as wind and solar, Maryland aims to reduce its output of carbon dioxide and other emissions, which trap heat in the atmosphere, causing the planet to warm.

The state achieved a previous goal ahead of schedule, which required Maryland to cut its emissions 30% by 2020, also based on 2006 levels. According to the MDE analysis, policies already in place in Maryland will reduce emissions 51%, based on 2006 levels, by 2031.

Emily Scarr, senior adviser at the Maryland PIRG Foundation, said the study signaled Maryland's progress, but also highlighted potential places for improvement.

"Maryland has achieved a lot through the generation sector. There will be a couple more (retirements)," Scarr said. "The key will be looking at what's next, but also making sure we don't backslide."

That backsliding could occur if the state approves new non-renewable power generation, such as natural gas-burning power plants, Scarr said. Maryland has two remaining coal-burning plants, Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner, both of which have announced planned retirement dates.

But the energy grid operator that includes Maryland, PJM Interconnection, has compelled the plants to continue operating longer than anticipated because of concerns that the grid could be less reliable without their power. Retirements have included the C.P. Crane plant in Baltimore County, in addition to numerous others.

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Building on energy standards

Scarr said Maryland can make improvements, particularly in the commercial buildings sector, which saw a 23% increase during the study period, according to a news release from Maryland PIRG.

Maryland is in the process of implementing Building Energy Performance Standards, mandated by the 2022 climate bill. MDE proposed the regulation earlier this year, which will require buildings 35,000 square feet and larger to efficiently achieve net-zero direct greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.

At hearings, some impacted building owners have continued to voice opposition to some of the requirements, Scarr said. Building owners should prepare to submit initial emissions data to the state next year, according to MDE's website.

"That is a promising policy that could turn the tide on some of this growth we've seen," Scarr said.

As of 2022, Maryland had seen a 4% decrease in the residential sector, according to PIRG's release.

This summer, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, signed an executive order requiring his administration to promulgate a regulation that all newly installed heating and cooling equipment eventually be electric.

One area for improvement will be encouraging Marylanders to embrace heat pumps by providing additional financing when it comes time to replace heating and air conditioning systems, Scarr said.

With former President Donald Trump's reelection, many in the environmental community are bracing for a rollback of the nation's climate commitments. Scarr said that Wednesday's study is evidence that individual state policies can drive change.

"Whatever the national goal is, the states are the ones that have the power to deliver," Scarr said. "That will become, likely, even more important."

2024 Baltimore Sun. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.